Oewldwarld

The planet

The planet Oewldwarld had been long abandoned, its only current sentient life being a few stray mutated things, and "sentient" was describing them generously.

Many people in the Imperium and beyond had visited Oewldwarld in its glory days.  A tourism "hunting" style world, travellers from far and wide traversed its green fields and fought skirmishes among its grey buildings. The opportunity of war was endless - anyone who wanted to fight there, could. Anyone, of course, that could afford the landing fees. Now days it is a barren place, and almost none walk its surface. People still often talk about how great Oewldwarld was, and how they wish they could go back there. Nothing prevented this, of course. The landing fees were long gone, and it was reasonably easy to reach with existing star maps that people had. No defences stopping them landing. Not even anyone governing it right now to say they could not approach. Yet it remained one of those places people seemed to only want to talk about how good it was. Even though there was nothing stopping them going there, they never did.

It was these sorts of sparsely populated worlds with rich histories that Inquisitor Librarian liked to seek out, often finding alien treasures hidden upon them.

On Oewldwarld Inquisitor Librarian had found a small, dense generator of some sort. Located in what appeared to be a primitive gaol house within a medieval-level of tech castle, positioned defensively up against a sheer cliff.

Initial tests had suggested that the crate sized object could potentially power an entire cruiser, including warp drive. It was quite exciting, and he gathered his retinue to pack it up for shipping off world. Putting his orbital transport on autodrive he and his crew beamed down to the castle. A twelve hour course around the planet would bring the cruiser back into teleport range without remaining stationary in case of interstellar attack.

So no one told you life was gonna be this way

Inquisitor Librarian had only brought a small entourage. He'd met his oldest friends at a cafe overlooking a local biodome on a boring Administratum world many years back. They were a techmarine affectionately known as Barry the Bastard, and Elli Tenn the power armoured warrior. Inquisitor Librarian had just hired Elli but was explaining to him that his cruiser was failing to get into warp space, it was like riding a power bike that was always stuck in second gear. Barry had partially overheard, and the mention of the bike piqued his interest. He did not realise until he was at that cruiser that he had misheard, but he was able to fix the warp drive regardless (it was a simple slipped cable that his regular servitor drones somehow missed). Librarian was exhilarated and in a flush of enthusiasm invited him onto his crew, never expecting he would take him up on it. Barry's current job was a joke, he was broke, and his love life was D.O.A., so he had nothing to lose, really.

Librarian and Barry both later suspected Elli may have once been an Adeptus Astartes, but due to the sorrow that visibly rose to Elli's face whenever those soldiers of the Emperor were mentioned neither Librarian nor Barry had never pried into it.

Barry was not actually a Bastard, but they all enjoyed the nickname for the irony. He was never far from his bike, Black Betty, and had recently acquired a new toy: a dual lascannon Tarantula weapons platform.

Elli Tenn lead a squad of hardened ex mercenaries, now pledged to Inquisitor Librarian where they get to kill a bunch of people under a seal of approval.

Most recently joined was a small squad of space marines, loaned out from their chapter as a favour to pay back some barely recalled debt from years past. Librarian tried to keep them and Elli separate, just in case.

Strangey things

As the ex-mercs began preparing the generator for transport, Barry's bioscanner let out a soft beep. Checking the HUD Barry could see it was just a few of the local mutant spawn, creeping around the outside of the castle in the night. Nothing to worry about really, the walls were plenty thick and they were not making too much noise to attract them.

The castle was surrounded by some old wooden buildings out from the right side of the gate, and some ruined stone circles of some heretic religion on the left. Straight out from the gate a few hundred metres was a small watchtower. A flash from the sky and the sound of an aggressive spurt of descending engines came over from across the ruins. A dropship had just landed and ten more blips appeared on the bioscanner at the edge of the range.

Barry had a quick word to Librarian about what he was picking up. "Shit" Librarian muttered under his breath, and quickly directed Barry to put his Tarantula in the left corner castle tower.

Inquisitor Librarian's orbiting transport was on autopilot and out of range of his comms. It would not be drifting back to overhead for another seven hours; near dawn. He would need to hunker down and hold tight until then. He was pretty sure he knew who was in that dropship, and things were going to get violent if he was right.

Keys to the kingdom

Captain Aldi cursed as the dropship clipped an outcrop of some weird mineral that had not shown up on the scanners. They were flying in the darkness, lights off, relying on just sensor arrays to try and stay hidden for as long as possible. The back was torn out of the cargo bay and he watched his Predator support tank get dropped unceremoniously in front of the castle's watchtower. At least it landed upright and seemed undamaged.

Unfortunately the dropship's engines needed to flare to right itself, losing them all stealth. They burned to slow the dropship down, and they did not make a landing until a bit further out. This would need to be a fast deployment to get to the tank before anyone else did, and before Inquisitor Librarian could prepare for their arrival.

Aldi looked at his squads. His own squad of marines clad in tactical dreadnought armour, and his support squad of power armoured marines lead by Chaplain Marauder.
"Who's got the Predator ignition sigil?" he asked the men. The blank faces of the marine's helmets stared back at him. He wished sometimes he could see through the helmets into their eyes. The eyes would have told him. He stared for a few moments, knowing every second counted. The dropship's bioscanner made a soft beep. There was something nearby. Something... mutated. Just then he recalled where the ignition sigil was. He pictured it in his mind, his hand reaching out after the interior inspection, putting it down.... right there, on the Predator's driver seat dashboard.
"Fuck" he muttered quietly.
"What was that, sir?" Chaplain Marauder asked.
"A...mutant, nearby. We need to deploy, now!" Hopefully none of them noticed him change the topic.

Arrival of the fittest

A flash and sizzle and the traitors were on the ground near a small old village. Larry was glad. Their own ship was in orbit, limping to this backwater shithole from a battle further out near the eight stars of the black hole Ketosis. An Inquisitor's fleet had done significant damage, but some old archaeotech star treasure maps he had stashed under the front seat lead them here, and he was pretty sure he had not been followed. Although his ship's scanners were rather battered so he could not be sure.

According to the maps there was a generator or something they might be able to use, if they could get it back to the ship and hook it up to their engines. At least their crude teleport system was still working, even if it did bounce them off the warp on the way. He could still taste the immaterium in his nose.

His escort were five traitor marines in ancient terminator armour, ready to go knock some walls down and dig this generator thing up. The squad was called the Death Grip, and they revered Larry as their channel to the ruinous powers. As such, he was often called The Bishop, or even just Bishop. No one really called him Larry anymore. Not after the first few deaths. He counted his crew to make sure they had all came through. "One, two, three, four, five, six...". He paused. The sixth thing looked at him through a maw of drooling teeth. Why were its eyes inside its mouth? Oh, wait, they were outside as well. Claws and legs and things sprouted from all over it, and spines oozed acidic poison of some sort steaming onto the ground. "Ghhhh" it said, unmoving.

"OK guys, if that thing doesn't mind, maybe we can just move off....?". He cautiously took a few steps backwards. The spawn just continued to stare. He checked the scanner set into his bionic arm. He loved the tech built into himself, and was not apologetic about it. He also had a bionic leg, and his other hand was a lightning claw that he pretty much never took off. Humans were weak. Cyborgs were strong. He was strong.

"This way" he said, and pointed around the nearest quaint ancient building.

Suddenly there was a burst of light and a tearing, flaming sound, and a Predator tank seemed to fall out of the sky like a gift from Horus and land with a soft "whump". They watched it for a few seconds but it showed no sign of moving. The beast behind them was still staring upwards where the burst of light had been. Then it ran off into the darkness with a yip yip yip sound.

"New plan" said The Bishop. "You guys go get that tank, I'll scope out the source of the signal of that generator from the top of this ...house...thing? I assume these primitive materials will hold while I traverse its inner rooms".

The Bishop entered the building and looked out the windows on the far side. In the direction of the signal was a castle, its vast stone walls soaring up into the sky. From the far corner tower there was a beam of intense light, and a small explosion in the stone ruins off to one side. In the moment of light The Bishop could make out multiple forms, dressed in the blue and red armour of Novamarines with their silly little starburst chapter badges. What were they doing here, and what was shooting at them?

The Death Grip marched out from behind the building into a muddy field, the soft loam dragging on their boots as they walked. The Bishop saw the tower send out another beam, this time towards his men! The squad leader gently knelt and then flopped forward, a fist size molten hole punched clean through his chest.

"Shit!" exclaimed almost everyone else in the squad simultaneously. That was a lascannon. Someone with actual tech was on this primitive rock ball and seemed to have hold of that generator. The terminators sprinted for the tank as fast as the ground would let them. The Bishop saw some return fire from the Novamarines up into the tower. Hopefully they could keep each other occupied while his crew grabbed that tank.

Suppressing fire!

Barry's mind-link with the Tarantula's targeters always gave him a funny spidery feel to the edges of his consciousness. He wondered if that was part of why they were named "Tarantulas", as well as their legged appearance.

Looking towards the buildings through the weapon platform's sights he could see some heavy armoured forms. They did not look quite like the Novamarines that Inquisitor Librarian had said would be coming, but they could have been. With a "blap" he fired one lascannon in their direction, and a body fell. The rest scuttled off out from behind the building, heading across the field for something. "Well, they aren't coming this way at least", he thought, and turned the targeters back to the nearby ruins. Being closer, the system vision enhancement allowed him to identify them definitively as Novamarines, and he let loose. The Novamarine terminators were trudging across the ruins towards the castle, which made them a priority.

The ex-mercs were lined up along the wall below him, and their lasguns made feeble lines of energy down to the ground.

"Suppressing fire!" Elli Tenn yelled to encourage his troops. They mostly seemed to hit dirt, or their energy bounced off terminator armour like a water bomb thrown by a child. Barry knew he needed to keep everyone away until the transport ship came back overhead to teleport them out, and other than Elli the ex-mercs were not really good for much other than packing boxes.

"Blap" went a Tarantula lascannon, and another terminator fell. "Blap, blap", two more Novamarines dead with smoking holes in them. The remaining ones were returning fire at the Tarantula, wisely ignoring the ex-mercs. Barry was safe, back from the battlements as he was, but the Tarantula itself was not. Storm bolter fire ripped into its barrels and housing, and eventually toppled the gun. Metal shrieked as the lascannon power packs ruptured and vaporised the chassis in an instant. Well, it will be sad to see the old girl go. She had a good run. He would miss her, but right now the best way to honour her would be to avenge her. The Libations of Machine Mourning would have to wait until after the battle.

Barry the Bastard ran down the tower stairs and into the courtyard. His bike, Black Betty, was standing there waiting for him. He smiled. It was time to get up close and personal with those Novamarine pricks.

I know something you don't know

Inquisitor Librarian was assessing the battle. The Novamarine terminators were no longer a pressing threat, the Tarantula casualties sending them fleeing. But the Novamarine power armoured troops were headed for the Predator tank, which could go badly. In addition, a freaky cyborg guy was running towards the castle gate, and it looked like his machinery enhancements could do some damage to the fortifications if he got too close.

First things first, though. Pulling his will into himself he followed through and pulled his entire being into itself, disappearing into the warp briefly, and exiting inside the Predator. He reached his arm up and looked at the array of hacking tools Barry had retrofit onto his armour. One of these should be able to interface with the standard Imperial control console and allow him to.... over his arm he noticed an ignition sigil sitting on the dashboard. "Surely not?" he thought, picking it up and aligning it with the ignition slot. The Predator's engines growled to life and the panels began illuminating. He could not believe his luck. Suddenly there was a loud thump from the rear of the tank and the weeping of crushed metal. The other adversaries were here, and they seem to have power fists! He threw the throttle forward and the Predator lumbered ahead, slowly gaining speed. He should easily be able to outpace those ground troops.

He turned the levers and aimed the tank towards the main target, the Novamarines, who had now climbed a small derelict building. As the tank picked up speed he considered manning the turret. But it had been a while since he had duelled, and the Novamarine Chaplain was armed with a chainsword in his left hand. He smiled and willed himself into the warp again, appearing in the midst of the Novamarines gathering on a rocky outcrop.

Drawing his powersword with his left hand, it took only a quick slash and he had downed one marine. The Chaplain turned and struck with his chainsword, tearing into Librarian's armour and reaching some flesh. They dodged and parried for a while, a third marine even trying to contribute, but weighed down by his heavy bolter he was more hindrance than help. After a few minutes the Inquisitor saw the mechanical heretic lumbering towards the castle, and sent a mental request to Barry. He decided he needed to end this soon, and smiled. His open faced helmet let the Chaplain see his smile, and the Chaplain's metallic enhanced voice asked "Why do you smile, we are equally matched!?"

"That's because I know something you don't know."

"What is that?" Chaplain Marauder asked, lunging low with his blade. Librarian parried easily.
"I am not left handed!" Librarian laughed, and switched from attacking with his powersword to slashing with the lightning claw on his right hand. The sudden thrust pushed Chaplain back, and he fell off the tower to the soft dirt below. Librarian turned to the heavy bolter marine with a wicked grin. The marine split in several pieces, electroscarred armour opened by the lightning claw as if it was nothing more than a paper bag.

"Ha-ha!" Chaplain Marauder responded from below. "Well I know something you don't know!" he boasted, standing back up and raising the bolt pistol in his right hand. "I also am not...gargh!"
His bolt pistol, and hand, and parts of his arm, fell to the ground as Librarian dropped on him from above, lightning claw first. A backwards slash of Librarian's lightning claw opened Marauder from groin to neck, and the battle was over. Two more marines ran out from inside the bottom of the tower, towards the castle, one hefting a plasma gun. Librarian easily caught up to them, and shredded them from behind.

The joust

Barry swung his leg over the bike and sat himself securely in the saddle in one smooth movement, pleased with his own elegance. The other members of the retinue had seen this display many times, dubbing it "The Biker Manoeuvre" while quietly chuckling behind Barry the Bastard's back. Grabbing the faring initiated Barry's communion with Black Betty's machine spirit. He heard Librarian's voice in his head "Get that android guy first, we don't want him at the gates!"

Just by willing to go forward the pistons roared and the bike launched from the drawbridge, a jousting knight leaping down a list field. The Bishop was dead ahead in Barry's sights, and once he had cleared this threat he would go after those Novamarine pricks that ruined his Tarantula.

Grass and mud kicked up from the tyres of the rapidly approaching bike, and The Bishop licked his lips. The techmarine fool seemed to be headed straight for him, rather than arcing around to strafe. A few clods were flung into the air about The Bishop as the bike's twin bolters shot wide.

"Right, guess he needs to head straight if he wants to hit with those guns" The Bishop thought, as he hefted his power claw in anticipation.

"Although the poor bugger seems to have a jock rash the way he's scratching around down there".

Barry's mind impulses were enough to trigger the twin linked bolt guns, but getting a bead on a single enemy while speeding across uneven earth was a stretch even for his sensor array assisted targeting. The guns were not really the point though, as he reached down to his belt and subtly flicked a crack grenade off it into his palm. He narrowed his eyes as he closed in. "I just need to dodge that bionic arm he's packing and drop this in. Then those Novamarines will be next!".

The bike hurtled past The Bishop in deafening thunder, but The Bishop's eye was true and his claw cleaved the techmarine asunder. Barry's eyes were wide with shock, he had not even noticed the lightning claw and was too focussed on the bionic arm. His eyes would stay open well past the cessation of his heartbeat. The bike sped on for another hundred metres before careening over in a dirty wreck. Over that cacophony The Bishop did not hear, but he felt it: a metallic "plink" of something magnetic sticking to his bionic leg.

"Is that a..?" was as far as his thoughts got before the crack grenade detonated and removed his entire lower body.

His life blood poured out as his torso sat in the bottom of the small crater the grenade had caused, mixing with the spurts of milky white fluids from his ravaged android parts. The Bishop managed to wave his hands around in futility for a few moments as his consciousness started to fade. "Not bad, for a human..." he uttered as his circuits failed, and his organs with them.

Crab meat for dinner

Captain Aldi ran back behind the ruins with his last squad mate, the gunner carrying the assault cannon. He was pretty sure the Tarantula had been taken out, but it would not hurt to get back here for a moment to confirm. They caught their breath and regrouped, peering over some walls back towards the castle. He could see smoke and a green energy fire from the tower top. Looks like he was right, the thing was smoked.

"What the fuck is that?!" the other Novamarine suddenly yelled, and the assault cannon whirled to life. A hundred slugs flew from its barrels in an instant, and a crab-shaped mutant flew back from it and across the ground in a red smear.

Captain Aldi saw the bioscanner blip on his HUD fade out. He had not even noticed it was there in the first place, focused as he was on the white hot death from above that was punching holes in his marines.

"Mutant, lad. I told you about that back in the dropship. Did you take your eye off it?" Always better to fling attention back away from himself in these situations. He winced inside his armour as he recalled the Predator ignition sigil.

"Anyway, back into it, lad" Aldi grunted, and they headed back towards the castle. "Marauder and his guys will grab the tank and meet us at the front door".

"How?" the other marine asked. "I thought we didn't have the sigil?"

"I...I am pretty sure Marauder has it".

There was a rumble of engines and some headlights lit up in the distance. "See?"
Aldi winced inside his armour again. On his scanners he could see Marauder and his squad had not reached the Predator yet.

Never mind that, he thought, let's just get that Inquisitor Librarian and get out of here. His anger flared. He hated thinking about what Librarian had done last time they had met. But he would remind him this time when they met again.

Tis but a flesh wound

Aldi and his gunner raced across the open ground towards the castle. From the other direction Death Grip also approached, their armour moving more swiftly than their bulk would imply. Aldi looked at their sergeant, and nodded. They had an understanding. Castle first, then deal with each other. He indicated to his gunner to head around the side of the castle. He turned to follow and his helmet lit up with fire. Death Grip had taken the opportunity to shoot as his back was turned and the multiple storm bolters shredded the rear of his armour. Crumpling to the ground he cursed their traitorous nature. He should have known better.

Open sesame

Hearing the hail of shots, the gunner turned back and peeked around the castle wall. He could see the assailants running for the gate, a large monstrous thing in among them flicking its claws around. He opened fire on the terminators, seeking vengeance for his captain. He hit several, but only one fell. The spawn shrieked and lashed about. Gunner turned back to the wall; let's leave that mess to itself.

He took a few steps back and braced himself, his assault cannon whirling up to full speed. Round after round ripped into the stone of the castle wall, slowly shredding him a passage.

Hot stuff, coming through

Death Grip turned to the spawn among them, preparing for battle. All of a sudden the beast turned and fled, sprinting across the field and attacking the abandoned Predator.

They blinked, bemused, but were happy enough with the unexpected result. The continued their charge to the castle, lashing the entrance way with a gout of chemfire from the heavy flamer. A few shrieks suggested they had found some targets.

They passed the open drawbridge into the inner section. They could not open the inner portcullis, but there were stairs beside them leading to the ramparts. They scurried up and took a vantage spot above the courtyard. The central gaol house cast a shadow over the troops below; marines and mercs both.

From the top of the gaol came a strange energy glow. Probably that generator Bishop had told them about. Poor guy was never going to see it light up their ship.

Bolts and flames poured down on the sitting ducks, and the mercs fled to the other side of the courtyard, lining up to face a rapidly crumbling wall. The Death Grip worked out that the assault cannon terminator must be knocking and taking half their fun away.

A bit of the ol' in and out

A short energy spike registered on their sensor arrays, and in an instant Librarian was amongst them, stabbing into their armour with his lightning claw.

One after another they fell. The flame bearer turned and ran through the tower out onto the other wall; he knew he did not stand a chance.

His adrenaline settled and he looked out across to the gaol. A few mercs had taken up position on top, guarding the generator. The assault cannon gunner was about to open the lower door. The Inquisitor was right behind him. He did the first thing that came to mind: burn. A spurt of terrible flames lashed the gaol tower.

The mercs ducked and covered, just like they had been taught before they washed out of the Imperial Army boot camp. The generator had no such dexterity, and the flames melted control panels and ruptured cells. It self immolated, melting through the roof into the rooms below. With a crackle the flamer traitor was gone, teleported back to his ship, rescued by his crew. The assault cannon gunner fled across the field back to his dropship, not willing to take on the Inquisitor alone.

Inquisitor Librarian let out a sigh. He did not have the psychic energy required to continue this fight and had to let the enemies go.

No one won today. Many lives were lost, but the Imperium still stood, impassive as ever at the minor skirmishes on its lesser worlds.

Notes from the narrator

We were playing at my house and I was the Novamarine player. I was just putting out my miniatures on the side of the table next to me while we chatted about the game. The others then interpreted this as my deployment. They at least let me turn them around to face the actual castle!

Christian was the Inquisitor player. He'd brought the gaol terrain with him down from Sydney which nicely matched the rest of my fantasy terrain, so we set him up with it inside my castle.

Papafakis was the traitor player. He'd kindly offered to do up stats sheets for us all so we wouldn't be flipping pages all night, and brought them up with him from Melbourne for his Cancon visit. They were very handy. A small misunderstanding though with Christian thinking his leader was an Inquisitor and Papafakis thinking it was a Librarian leading to me just calling him Inquisitor Librarian.

The lads tease me about loving Kings of War and affectionately refer to it as Aldi Warhammer, and so with Papafakis naming my squads one mysteriously ended up being called Squad Aldi. I'm also not much of a fan of the original Marauder miniatures, and have been a bit vocal about it a few times (I much prefer Trish and Aly's work before and after the Marauder period), so of course my second squad got called Squad Marauder.

The chaos spawn Papafakis brought along and we randomly assigned them a starting position. They just happened to land near me and Papafakis. The one near him had an Int of 2 though so failed every Stupidity test he rolled for it (never getting a 2). It was only through random luck it actually went near anything.

I'd just come off a 2-day Kings of War tournament at 5pm that day, and then we started around 6pm and played for 7 hours through to 1am, with some pizza in the middle there somewhere. I was rather tired but still had a great time. My apologies to Papafakis and Christian for my occasional (?) rules nitpickery instead of just leaning into the casual nature of the game. :D

The missions were basically Christian defend the generator, and Papafakis and myself both try and steal it (semi-cooperative, but only one gets out with it - so there may be an exchange of fire). For the purposes of this blog narrative, I retconned the Novamarine mission to be to kill Inquisitor Librarian. I genuinely did think Papafakis and I had an understanding as we both raced towards the castle, and the shower of storm bolter fire was unexpected!

Inquisitor Librarian got to do some hidden movement while inside the Predator, so we didn't know if he was moving to a gun position or not. We didn't expect him to teleport out again though! That was fun. He had run out of psi points by the end of the battle so I decided everyone who was left alive got to live and we agreed it was a 3-way draw since no one got away with the generator.

For me, my only survivor was gunner.

For Christian he had a few mercs and the Inquisitor....maybe some marines even? Papafakis just had flamer guy left.

Big spiney spawn was merrily hacking away at the Predator. Who knows if he ever got inside?!?