[Second battle report from the set of Shrine World Planetary Invasion games that I’m playing with some friends. For part one, see here: https://orksesneverdefeated.com/2022/05/27/world-of-teef-1-da-tellyporta-attack/ ]

After blunting the initial teleporter-based Ork strikes, the Imperial forces moved to consolidate gains across the planet–hoping to whittle down the remaining pockets of Ork resistance. In one sector, the red-daubed forces of one Warband mingled with the mustard yellow of another, the survival situation of being pressed on all sides meaning more than clan affiliations. Their backs were against a literal wall, a big intractable section of collapsed cathedrals meant their only way out was to push back against the forces of Space Wolves and Sisters of Battle that had been hemming them in. And like any cornered beast, this made the Orks more dangerous.

As it was a Shrine world under assault, and the most dire of emergencies, it is no surprise that another incarnation of Saint Celestine awakened amongst the faithful. A figure born and reborn in times of strife, she appeared amongst the Sisters lines and encouraged the Space Wolves to unleash themselves in pure pursuit of the Ork forces. Squads of Space Wolves primaris stalked through the ruined streets, closing the gap on the Ork menace.

The Adeptus Sororitas was also helping close the net, with squads of Battle Sisters and their deadly Paragon Warsuits taking the more defensive posture with firepower. They finished a set of vows that the holy shrines celebrating their most valiant martyrs and heroes would not fall to the Ork predations on their watch: burning incense, lighting candles, and general other offerings to the Emperor. As the husks from the burnt offerings drifted on the wind, they marched forward toward the Ork line.

The Space Wolves were joined by a Knight, Canis Rex, a freeblade Knight piloted by Hekhtur Cereberan. Hekhtur had been working with the Space Wolves to find an enclave of Iron Warriors heretic marines and extinguish them, when the call to defend the Shrine world came. He gladly accompanied the Wolf lords to the surface to lend his Knight’s might against the Ork menace.

It was Canis Rex that led the core of the charge into the Ork lines, and while his massive las-impulsor blew the Orks’ massive Battle Fortress apart right away, it was smaller threats that started to take their toll on the mighty war machine. Squads of Tankbusta boyz loosed their rokkits into the mighty war machine, followed by a bomb squig laden with explosives that damaged the Knight’s right shinguard.

Elsewhere the spearhead of warsuits hitting the Ork lines were making progress. The Bad Moonz had to call their Warboss to the fore to help take out the marauding warsuits, only to eventually be grievously injured by the Wulfen dreadnaught’s scything axe blade.

Canis Rex shattered a Trukk and started turning its sights on the boyz that piled out, only to find a gang of Meganobz with Killsaws come rumbling toward it. With brutal efficiency their saws began carving pieces of the mighty war machine, and it had to cede the field to seek repairs lest it be overwhelmed and demolished. The Meganobz howled with frustrated triumph in its wake.

By choosing to attack headlong, the Imperial forces left their back lines open to the squads of Orks that were escaping the press of the cordon. A mob of Trukk boyz managed to get to grips with Saint Celestine, killing her attendants and gravely pressuring her own defenses. While she cut them down, they had pinned her in place long enough that the tide of Meganobz that followed the Trukk ran her into the ground with their devastating attacks.

The Space Wolves’ Librarian had taken some incidental fire during the battle, and was relocating back to the strategic objective spot to support the Battle Sisters’ lines. A marauding Trukk scored a hit on him with its Big Shoota, and in turning to face the vehicle he dropped his guard for just a second… when a lone surviving grot from a squad of Gretchin tossed a cluster of stikkbombz his way. The shrapnel from the explosions caught him right where his battle plate was already damaged, and a lethal shard of metal carved through both hearts striking him dead.

With the forces that led the attack on the Ork lines broken, the waves of Orks remaining spread out to the reserve spots where Space Wolves and Sisters of Battle squads of the line were holding key objectives. The firefights were valiant, but when the Orks reached their lines the savagery of their assaults finished off the stalwart defenders.

While the Orks had been hard-pressed during the tellyporta attack due to being spread out, they proved that when they could work in concert they were a force to be reckoned with. The third and final phase of the war for the Shrine World was about to commence: the protracted fight where each side tried its best to grind the opponents into dust and ashes. Too much of the world had been already trampled for the Imperials to call it a clean victory, but the Ork Waaagh was still not in firm control of the planet either. The fate of all hung in the balance as both sides raced toward the final confrontation.

Painting Progress

Got a fair amount done this phase. Finished a classic Rogue Trader era Weirdboy (with his Minderz firing him like a gun). I liked the idea of looting another Clan’s weirdboy, so my red and black Orks stole a Bad Moonz weirdboy to use for their forces. Really pleased with how it turned out.

The karma of finishing up units paid off in the game, as the Grot with the stikkbomb was clutch in the battle. Glad to get these done so I can have them to round out the Battalion.

And I did up a second unit of Gretchin just to keep that flow going. Good to get some of the horde aspects of the army painted up.

Painting Challenge 2022 Progress

Warhammer 40k Orks Power Level Painted: 72/365

[This is a battle report from game one of our Shrine World Planetary Invasion set of linked games that I and a few friends are running]

It was a near dawn, and quiet in the courtyard of memorials honoring those who sacrificed their lives during the fifth Donarian Gulf expedition. The Shrine World of Suldon Tertius was covered in such collections–pilgrims who wanted to pay proper respects could expect to spend sixteen months of dedication to visit each and every site on the planet. However, most of the current pilgrims were currently held in large hab defense structures, hastily armed with what firearms they could be provided as rough masses of conscript infantry. As the Orks had arrived at Suldon.

The center of the park, with its entry-ways to the the underground catacombs of the penitent fallen and carefully manicured hedges and park-lets of trees, had fallen under the shadow of the Roks that had appeared in the system. The space battle had been short and quick, as even with the Space Wolves Battle Barge present to support the system defenses the Orks were just too numerous and the Astartes transport had to retreat to a safe distance on the far side of the system’s sun after considerable damage. The fact that it had destroyed six of the Ork Roks and still had to retreat was a testament to the multitudes of force that the Orks had brought: a full sixteen Roks remained operational, with countless Kroozas and escort craft circling around them.

The Sisters of Battle and the Space Wolves who had landed had begun fanning out across the surface of the Shrine World, but with Ork assaults there was always some uncertainty. Different pods of defense started forming, gravitating toward the various shrines of fallen warriors almost subconsciously. When the Orks could strike anywhere, being close to the statue immortalizing a fallen comrade or martyr had just just seemed… natural.

The delay in the Ork landings was worrying all the Imperial commanders. There were clearly bulk landers all through the Ork forces, but the normal uncoordinated stream of them toward the ground was not happening. They were delaying for some reason. That may have calmed some of the Ministorum leadership, but the Space Wolves were wary–as any time Orks acted oddly there was something bigger at stake. What command were they waiting for?

Turned out it wasn’t a command so much as a strategy, as with a sudden shuddering corona of energy in the sky huge discharges started firing on each one of the Roks. There were huge engines in them with enormous whirling gyros, presumed to be part of the crude vessels’ propulsion systems. And maybe they still were. But the bursts of electric blue sparks across each of them were answered by huge bursts of electric blue on the surface of the Shrine world. Millions of glass candle holders exploded in unison across all the shrines as wave after wave of strange electrical discharge were focused on the ground all across the planet. And soon enough, what had seemed to be some sort of planetary-sized energy weapon at first revealed its true nature: they were bursts of crude teleportation energy. The Orks were teleporting their vanguard forces to the surface all over, and raiding groups charged even while they were starting to materialize. From bands of whole Meganobz striking in spearhead formation to sets of trukks, wagons, and even larger vehicles of destruction, whole Ork warbands were materializing in haphazard fashion all over the surface of the planet. Only then did the bulk haulers start to descend on the planet, seeming to use the teleport strike as the window to land the rest.

The initial onslaught of the Orks was sudden and came from every direction. Materializing trukks took off at breakneck speed, disgorging their Trukk Mobz right into the lines of the Adeptus Sororitas. While flamers took their toll, the raw force of the Orks’ savagery dropped Battle Sisters left and right.

At the heart of the Sororitas’ forces were some Paragon Warsuits and an Immolator tank. The flames and raw firepower from both started clearing Orks as fast as they could arrive. A desperate group of Kommandos tried to unleash a Bomb Squig to detonate on the tank, but sadly the wiring or explosives must have been a dud as the beast was merely crushed under the steel tracks of the Sororitas tank.

The Space Wolves unleashed their elite Wulfen infantry to bolster the Sororitas lines, answering Ork fury with their own. The sheer numbers of Orks and the deadly Power Claw of their Nob slowly whittled down the savage warriors–their contemptuous armor only able to stop most blows but not all, and the sheer volume of Orks they faced seemed innumerable.

On another front of the battlefield, one of the Ork Warbosses charged past his lines with a frenzy to reach a Space Wolves dreadnaught. With a mighty howl he braved the guns, the bullets bouncing off of his armor and flames charring his skin. Reaching the dreadnaught, his power claw tore into it, disabling cables and pistons before finally sheering the central column of the metal giant itself. The suit tumbled to the ground as he howled in triumph.

Not every Warboss fared as well: the Bad Moonz Warboss found himself facing a Wulfen Dreadnaught. Even with his shiny armor he could not withstand the frenzy of the Space Wolves’ ancient, and he was forced to retreat with a huge set of gashes and one of his arms hanging by just a string of tendons (he was already thinking about which Mad Dok would be best to staple it back on for him so he could get back into the fight).

Subsequent waves of Orks kept appearing as the tellyportas flared on the Roks in the sky. Ancient battlewagons that have seen hundreds of battles (and hundreds of repairs) emerged from the shimmering energy, all laden with more and more Orks. A valiant Castigator crew started firing their multitude of heavy bolters and turret cannon into the hordes, cutting them down as fast as they were arriving. Because the Orks were showing up piecemeal, the Space Wolves and Sisters both got chances to reload, recover, and recoup ground in the face of the onslaught.

A band of Meganobz surged forward to try and loot the shrine they presumed was at the foot of a great hero statue, only to be answered by an intense counter-charge from the Space Wolves. While the ordinary chain swords did little to the armored behemoths–literally each almost a tank or dreadnaught themselves–the merciless Thunder Hammer of the Sergeant of the squad laid considerable waste to them. The Orks were finally cut down, leaving the shrine intact and that side of the battlefield safe from Ork aggression.

Sustaining the tellyporta attack seemed to be starting to cause problems. One of the remaining Roks in the sky suddenly exploded with blue energy as the engines used to power the transporters must have overcome whatever non-existent safety procedures the Orks didn’t put in place. A set of cruel battlewagons with drill-like nosecones started to shimmer into the battlefield but instead disappeared into the void with the explosion. The Orks were finally bringing some bigger units, but it was proving to be too little and too late to give them a foothold on the center of the Shrine city. Even a mighty Skullhamma battle fortress was brought to a standstill thanks to the resilience and might of the Paragon Warsuits.

One band of Shoota Boyz was able to close on the entrance to the catacombs, even while the rest of the forces were repelled. A squad of Sisters of Battle stood resolute, pouring bolter fire and flamer promethium into the advancing Orks to keep them at bay. Not a single Ork survived to fight them, and the entrance to the catacombs–where the real prize of tens of thousands of martyr’s skulls, and the teeth inside them, waited.

The Orks had been beaten due to their piecemeal arrival, and their tellyporta sneak attack effetively blunted. With the shock and awe of the strike passed, the reinvigorated forces of the Imperium intended to push the advantage: finding pockets of Orks from the various landing craft, surrounding them, and eliminating them. Meanwhile the Warbosses were desperately trying to organize all the disparate bands of Orks and materiel into proper krumpin’ shape to push back against the humans’ advances. The next battle for the Shrine world loomed on the horizon.

Painting Showcase

Painted up a few units for this battle, including a Warboss that I’m particularly pleased with. I’ve been swapping around which Clan I’ve wanted to play, and tried a few in the game. So I wanted one who could reasonably be most any clan: Goffs, Snakebites, or Evil Sunz could all work for this, and certainly Blood Axes (no uniform camo but uniformity in armor) and a Freebootaz clan would work too. I’m especially liking the yellow squigs with all the red (and I want to paint up a unit of Squighog Boyz soon to see if that continues to look good on the larger models.

I finished the highlighting on the first of the units of Meganobz. I’ve got two other trios almost there (just need the final bright highlights on the armor). Pretty pleased with them, and my plans of doing a “Deffwing” style army seem to be well-placed. It’s silly, probably not very good, but a lot of fun to run!

Finally, the battlewagon that never showed up for the battle (my reserve rolls were horrendous in this game… literally 15 PL of models never were placed on the table until it was far too late for them to make a difference). This is a slight mod and repaint of a Death Guard assault drill I modded up (from a Mantic Games cyber-rats driller kit): added some Ork plates and glyphs and a single big shoota, and behold: a Bonebreaka Battlewagon. It turned out pretty slick, and just kinda silly to imagine the Big Mek who decided that drilling their way into a fight made sense.

That’s all on the painting front: for the next update I’ll certainly have more Meganobz done, and perhaps a fun bigger surprise!

Painting Challenge 2022 Progress

Warhammer 40k Orks Power Level Painted: 27/365

+++++Excerpted Account of Lanto Tokastio, Lexmechanic of the Adeptus Mechanicus, appended to Ministorum world Suldon Tertius, Segmentum Obscuris+++++

It’s difficult to trace the movement of idea, you realize. Quite difficult. And I’m a specialist. My main task has been monitoring the spread of language amongst the faithful for sixteen cycles now on our glorious Shrine World of Suldon. The way that one parishioner’s slight variation in phrasing a blessing to the Emperor can not only spread but become dogma. To illuminate to your Ministorum superiors just how faith… flows… from pilgrim to pilgrim as they arrive on our great world and depart carrying faith to all the planets in the Imperium.

And I’m certainly not a xenobiologis, but the core root of the Orkoid language structures are still Low Gothic. So while they do have some degree of differences, we presume that ideas might spread from Ork form to Ork form using similar structures of spoken language, mimic behaviors, and more. That is excepting the strong evidence of imprinted notions in their species or collective psychic potential, of course.

This is predicated on the presumption that the Orks indeed do want what their hideous broadcasts from those massive landing vehicles demanded. I think the exact broadcast was “World of Teef. We iz here for da Teef!” As such the root of our question is: why did this Waaagh migration go out of their way to reach Suldon Tertius? They skipped many more resource-laden and other defended systems to get here. And given that Orks seek scrap and a fight most of all, those would have come to the Waaagh easier elsewhere.

There’s a bigger plan in place, and the best I can figure is that some notion made its way through the race to their leaders. In the course of their predations, they did hit another Shrine World prior to heading here–Karasan VII–which was pre-emptively subjected to Exterminatus when it was found that the holy tombs of heroes were being pillaged. At least some Orks returned to their ships from the initial assaults and before the planet was destroyed. And my best hunch is that some one of the Orks found their way into the crypts there.

For good Imperial citizens, the crypts are places of solemn contemplation on Shrine Worlds–as we pass by the stacks of skeletal remains we’re reminded of all who sacrificed their lives for conquests in the great Emperor’s name. But what would an Ork see? What would they see?

Teeth. “Teef”. Rows and rows of skulls, all of which hold the prospect of the teeth amidst them. All it would take is a single Ork who saw the catacombs making it back to its ship. Then when relating tales to each other in transit–as Orks are known to converse socially, mostly as a prelude to violence, but still–that single Ork could have remarked that it was a shame that Karasan VII was destroyed as underground it was full of teeth. I’m sure it would have been much more crude. [At this point Lexmechanic Tokastio adopts a low loud voice to impersonate an Orkoid]. “Pity wut da planet gone. Dem tunnels wuz full of teef, I tellz ya.”

Again, I’m no xenobiologis, but if ideas can spread through rumor, idle comment, and more amongst Imperial Gothic, is there a reason that speech in the Orks’ crude Low Gothic could not be the same? We see it amongst our own Low Gothic speakers. Why would the Orks be different? The story of vault after vault of teeth could spread, and not just spread but grow. Certain points of re-telling one is inclined to exaggeration. And goodness knows the Orks are stupid in their way. Stupid enough to believe it? To believe that an Imperial Shrine world is a haven of teeth waiting to be simply plucked from the skulls of the dead?

Never mind the fact that yes, with our massive population on Suldon plus the contents of our own crypts, that there are technically more teeth on this world than perhaps all but the densest of hive worlds. And yes, to the extent that a Waaagh of Orks could hyper-fixate on the commodity that passes for wealth in their system, it would make them see this world as particularly valuable. And the Orks are certainly cruel enough to torture some captives from prior Imperial worlds they’ve demolished to learn of the nearest other Shrine World.

That’s my guess of why they’re here. Memetic language actions transforming pure happenstance into aggressive focus. My only hope is that the Sisters of Battle who were first dispatched, and the company of Space Wolves that are en-route to support with counter-planetfall, will arrived in time. Sources say that the general Ministorum troops and pilgrim-conscripts are not stopping the Ork forces spreading from their landing zones. May the both the Sisters and Sons of Russ save us from this mad Greenskin attack on our planet.

++++++ End Excerpt +++++