Narrative Tactical Review: The Tau of War

Shas’O Tau’N Mal’Caor Run’Al surveyed the battlefield, a pall of smoke drifted across the ruins, the smell of death filling his nostrils and the tang of ionised air from pulse gun and las rifle made his skin tingle. The sudden silence was deafening, making his ears ring. He contemplated the loss of lives. This had been a costly victory as he had known it would be.

 As previously, the Tau air caste had bombarded the area, reducing a sizable part of the city to ruins, but unlike before the “Gue La” had dug in, their sizable infantry squads supported by elite assault troops and a multitude of specialist weapons. This was not the way he preferred the hunt but he had understood the need for consolidation.

He thought back to key moments of the conflict; An imperial troop carrier had dropped off a squad of assault troops that had nearly destroyed his own HQ and had then had made short work of a Hammerhead Gunship. The fearsome kroot that had been totally wiped out only accounting for a single enemy veteran squad and worst, their leader had survived the encounter. One of his Shas’la dying horribly, pierced by a dozen lasgun bolts. Although both Shas’ui from the fire warrior teams had shown themselves to be heroically courageous - either one would make a suitable replacement - his eyes stung from the personal loss he felt.

It had been necessary to use his infantry as a distraction, using them as little more than bait in a trap. The plan had been to surprise the humans with his reserves, who would surround and confound them, pinning them with massed fire. The plan had nearly backfired; partly due to the slight delay of his reinforcements and the resistance to superior Tau weaponry afforded by the cover the Humans had utilised; not to mention the unexpected arrival of so many Gue La by means of their sudden aerial attack. Had it not been for the stoicism of his fire warriors who refused to break even though their losses were considerable, the Tau initiative would have suffered a major setback if not total failure.

“The Hidden Spider” cast his mind back to the moment when victory (and defeat) had been decided.

He had been forced to abandon his stand-and-shoot stance when he realised that both his Shas' La had fallen to concentrated fire from two larger than usual enemy infantry squads and their Headquarters team. His own Battlesuit would not have withstood another salvo, so he had assaulted the snipers who had been targeting him, shooting as he went in.

One of the Human squads had broken cover, presumably aiming to overwhelm him with numbers. From the corner of his eye he had seen the veteran squad leader who had survived the Kroot attack charging though the ruins toward him, but the man levelled a powerful-looking hand gun and promptly disappeared in a ball of plasma energy. Luck had played its hand, so it was in this as it had been in many previous battles, and so it would always be “for the greater good”

The Humans had clearly learned from their comrades mistakes and had largely ignored the Broadsides, which having had no tanks to target had made little impact in the battle. Although savages, the Gue La were clearly not fools.

Mal’Caor Run’Al signalled to the Shas’ui for the force to move on to the next rendezvous point. He felt grief and anger over the heavy Tau losses, fuelling his desire to destroy all Gue La resistance. His mind was already formulating plans for the next and final conflict, this time it was not just for Tau, not just for “The Greater Good.”

This time it was personal.

The Tau of War

Tau vs Valorax Guard | Peter v Tim | 40k | 55 | 109.997.M41 

The Tau had struck a hammer blow in the heart of the Chalice against the loyalist forces of Valorac, but they hadn't reckoned on the massed infantry of the Valorax Guard.

  

As the Tau war machine glided into occupied territory, vaporising resistance,  the call finally got through to Valorax High Command, still reeling from the death of the Planetary Governor. The threat assessment was made and orders came straight back down the pipe, mobilising reinforcements. Victor Tensk, High Marshall of the Tridents, took direct command, manoeuvring hundreds of infantrymen to get into position to defend their land. 

Where before the men of the Guard had run angrily across open ground to meet their attackers, only to be gunned down, now they took up well-defended positions amongst the rocks and craters and in the ruins of a Temple of the Divine Emperor.

The Tau closed in, taking cover in craters themselves but the guardsmen moved forward unleashing devastating salvoes of lasfire. At their initial encounter, the energies of the officers had been wasted ordering their men to run as fast as they could toward the enemy. 

Now they demanded only coordinated and focused volleys of fire. 

And the Tau fell.

The anti-tank weaponry of the xenos was all but useless against such massed infantry and their numbers began to whittle down, despite the cover they maintained. Meanwhile, their own pulse rifle fire was insufficient to pull down enough of the Valorax Guard numbers.

Then the Tau reserves arrived: Crisis Suits dropping from the skies and Piranhas zooming in from the horizon. Immediately the battle swayed back in the Tau's favour as an entire infantry platoon was devastated by flame and pulse fire, the remnants fleeing.

The Guard commander called for his reinforcements, hoping to direct them to deal with this new threat, but only static answered the comm. The Tau were blocking his communication. No reinforcements were coming! 

Then howling from the clouds came Mack Tempest and his squad of elite Stormtroopers on grav-chutes, carefully aiming their landing zone into the thick of the fighting. It was likely a suicide mission but the enemy priority targets needed eliminating. 

They let fly with three meltagun blasts on the squadron of Piranhas but fate was against them. Even with their perfect positioning, minimal damage was accrued and the Piranhas immediately fired back, cutting them down. 

Simultaneously, the Hammerhead at the other side of the battlefield burst into flames as a Vendetta gunship appeared, letting fly with three twin-linked Lascannons. The Tau signal jamming had evidently been more than inefficient.

But the battle was still going badly.

A vicious assault had broken out on one flank and no matter how many guardsmen ran to give aid, the Crisis Suit Commander smashed them aside. 

The Guard Commander looked out across the swirling battlefield, signalling the general fallback. 

The conflict was escalating. Reserves were being funnelled in from both sides. They were losing here - that was doubtless - but the war was only beginning. 

The next exchange was going to be overwhelming in its bloodshed and brutality.

Scenery Workshop: Landing Pad

Take a look at my latest 40k building!

Now let's get a bit of ancient history.

Many many years ago, when building terrain for Mordheim was my overriding passion and my son, wife and I spent all our time doing it, I got a hairbrained idea to build a mayor's house that way raised up on my pillars. It was going to have a balcony all round it and a thatched roof.

I built the platform and started on the house, but needless to say, the house remained unfinished. The teddy bear fur I was using for the thatch looked terrible and the hosue itself was too squat. I lost the impetous and left the project unfinished for about ten years.

Until this weekend just gone that is.

I got it down from the shelf because I'd got me an idea.

I'd been using the piece all these years in games but it never made much sense to me - there's not even a way to get up to the top. But I figured I could build onto it without damaging the original structure and bring it to life in a more realistic and useful way that I could use in games of 40k and Necropolis.

Using foamboard, I build flat upper surface to go over the platform and scored squares into it. Then using parts from an old wooden dish drainer I added a skirt that would disguise the top edge of the original platform.

I'd made a helipad years ago out of foamboard circles. I never used it and this seemed the ideal time to get it back into circulation. Raised up on a little box my wife gave me, it would look cool and the differing heights would make the piece look more interesting.

But how were characters to get to the top? A ladder would preclude taking any luggage or equipment so a lift seemed the way to go. I built one from foamboard, adding cardboard stips for a bit of sci-fi detailing and some 40k building doors top and bottom. The base of the lift is an extension to the original footprint that I kept in line to make sure it would still work in my town. Again, with a ramp going from the lift to the landing pad I felt the walkway would add another level of visual appeal.

Et voila!

It's unpainted obviously but when it's done I think it may just look quietly cool.

A Trip to the Big City!

I am cooking with gas when it comes to 40k right now.

Inspired by my recent game with my wife the other day, I decided to build a whole bunch of new buildings for my war board.

I've had quite a lot of 40k buildings for years but not enough to cover my eight foot board and have had to make do with a bunch of homemade medieval buildings that didn't allow models inside them. As this was bugging me I decided to push it a little further:

Now I can get a little single minded so one building wasn't enough for me.

I decided to do TWELVE new buildings. 

Here's the first one.

It's a temple using the old GW ruins that came with 3rd edition 40k. Now I count this as four of my twelve because although it makes a nice big building it can also be split  up into four smaller ones.

I added cake pillars to the base to make it look more like a ruined church and painted the rocks on the base to match in. The trick with the The statue and aquilla from the Honoured Imperium set add a little something but they can be removed if they bug me. 

Now this building is good but its weakness is that it's a little too striking. I wonder if it'll bug me long term having it in every game. I like my buildings to be slightly more generic where possible.

My next big four part building was this one:

Again, I built it to be split-downable, using Ork obstacles to suggest walls, especially for when they're split up into separate buildings. You'll notice the aim of the game here was to maximise the surface area of the buildings to fill the war board, rather than building tall, but smaller buildings. I'll be focusing on that next.

The main lesson I've learned with my buildings is to build them all on the same sized footprint, each one having a little edge round it to suggest a pavement. This way, the buildings fit together to form roads VERY easily in any direction but also look good standing alone.

The next part of my project was to get my bastions to look good in a town setting. They already look good in a countryside game but without a base they look wrong in a town. So I built flat foamboard bases for each one that I could add a bastion and obstacles to to make it look like it's a proper building - maybe a little guardhouse or something...?

I'm not entirely happy with how they've come together but I'm planning to add a streetlight or two which should make a big difference. I tell you what would add something, thinking now: how about a vehicle parked off-road? That would be cool.

Man, this is a long blog.

(Deep breath).

Next I produced the Shrine of the Aquila. This is a lovely big building that adds some much needed height. Height is something my town doesn't have enough of yet. To make it look interesting it has to go in all three dimensions. I'm planning to rectify that soon but in the meantime this helps.

Now I was originally planning to include this kit in the temple above but I realised it was going to get too big. Wanting to keep my buildings on the same size footprint I was forced to build it in this conventional way. I'm still pretty happy though. It is cool.

And here, finally is my third "building" that I wanted to transplant into the town: a homemade bunker that I constructed from foamboard and balsa wood. Again, it's a nice piece but looked odd in my town. Now though it fits in a lot better and can still be removed for a more rustic setting. I'll add a streetlight to this as well when I get round to it to make it look more real.

The gun on the top, by the way, is the Forge World gun emplacement thingy that no longer seems to be available.

Annoyingly, the practically free quad gun in Planetstrike is ironically better than this expensive model because it's twin-linked. This one looks a lot better though. 



Narrative Tactical Review: The Tau Go To War

Hello readers. Peter here.


When Tim asked me to submit a tactical summary of our latest “Conflict Valorax” battle - and what a delight this campaign is to be involved in. I decided that as my tactical acumen has historically been shocking, and having had a little success writing narrative for my Chaos Marines Sorcerer, Erasmus Bachmann (which Tim kindly added to his battle reports) it would be fun to share with you the thoughts of my forces leader, Shas’O Tau’N Mal’Caor Run’Al


And so over to “The Hidden Spider”

Shas’o Mal’Caor surveyed the battlefield and shook his head sadly. The Gue La had fought courageously, and had even managed to badly damage his own Battlesuit. However, the fight had been a surprisingly easy victory, especially considering the losses suffered by his Brother-in-arms Shas’O Shi in a previous engagement with the Humans.

The Guardsmen had employed a rather unusual strategy, which may or not have been in response to the immediate loss of two of their Tanks to his Broadsides’ accurate and devastating fire.

They would certainly have been hard to shift from cover, especially considering the amount of small arms fire those large units of Guardsmen could dish out, but for some reason they had been forced forwards by their leaders into the range of his gun-line. One squad had faltered and retreated after suffering particularly heavy losses and had then been targeted by their own side - Truly these were savages who would benefit from the “Greater Good” as did his people.

Mal’Coar had had no option but to subject the Gue La to concentrated and deadly fire and had deliberately targeted the command units and guardsmen who were closing on his lines. The combination of two Devilfish, two squads of Firewarriors with Pulse Carbines and Rifles, supported by a squad of Battlesuits and his own command squad (using experimental weapons) took a terrible toll on the poorly armoured humans.

Tau losses had been minimal, four Battlesuits, including his own, were heavily damaged or destroyed mainly by Orbital fire from an Imperial Navy Battleship which was being directed by the Master of Ordinance, who had annoyingly fought to the bitter end. One of the Devilfish transports had been destroyed after flying within range of a Melta weapon; the Firewarrior squads suffered no more than superficial wounds, thanks mainly to taking advantage of the large craters and debris formed during previous battles.

Mal’Coar reflected that the Gue La had been foolish to exclusively target his Broadsides, who had set up at each flank in the hope of creating a deadly crossfire, until most of their forces lay dead or dying - the ruined Battlesuits lay testament to that.

Tau support in the form of a squad of Piranha, had arrived late due to the humans’ air superiority, but once behind enemy lines the use of Seeker missiles directed by “Markerlight” hits from the Firewarriors had easily destroyed the third enemy Tank, and then the fourth and last “big gun” was terminated by the Piranhas’ own weapons.

With the tanks out of the fight the Broadsides’ had made very short work of the heavy weapons squad which had been targeting them, the first team being vaporised resulting in a total rout.

The Tau forces had discovered an unusually high ratio of flame weapons among the Human dead; this may be part of the new tactic and certainly a development to keep a watch out for in the future.

The Tau leader mused that had the Imperial Guard targeted his infantry with their Ordnance and close-assaulted his Broadsides, things may have turned out differently. As it was, the “Greater Good” had been preserved – for now.

The Tau Go To War

Tau vs Valorax Guard | Peter v Tim | 40k | 54 | 109.997.M41

Up to now, the Tau Shas Sha'is Contingent had made probing attacks, undermining the industrial/military infrastructure. Actions taken had been met with some success but nowhere had appreciable gains been made. Aun'Ko, Ethereal leader of the expedition knew that it was time for a new direction.

It was time for the full force of the Shas Sha'is Contingent to go to war.

In the eastern regions of the Chalice, the scorchmost habitable region of Valorax, a sizable force of Tridents were on manoeuvres when the call came down the pipe about the strike on Qualitat by the forces of the Inquisition: the Grey Knights and Adepta Sororitas. The news of the disastrous assassination of Ivan Chord, the Planetary Governor, was like a hammer blow.

The men had been in the midst of an attack training mission but the timeline was broken as the news decimated on an open channel. Every tank ground to stillness. Every trooper stopped running and lowered their arms, disbelieving.

It simply wasn't possible. They were devastated; all of them; looking from man to man, trying to make sense of the impact this would have; what it would mean for the future of their entire planetary system in this impossibly dangerous time.

All motivation was gone; the training exercise forgotten. The soldiers wandered out of rank, murmuring to one another or simply staring into the middle distance.

And that was when the Tau struck.

A deluge of aerial barrage pummelled the battlefield, sending up huge clouds of debris and turning the plane into a crater-riddled wasteland, annihilating swathes of infantrymen and ripping apart tanks.

Manta heavy transport craft flew out of the sun and touched down, disgorging hordes of Tau troops, Devilfish transports and Battlesuits. Immediately pulse fire shot out across the dusty ground, taking down guardsmen as they ran to take up positions.

There were vast numbers of Tau making landfall in the middle distance - hostilities were clearly about to escalate immeasurably - but the Chalice Tridents were angry. They had been struck a wound by the assassination of their leader and it didn't matter whether the Tau were responsible. It would be them that would pay!

The Guardsmen roared in rage and charged across the scrubland, haring toward close combat as Basilisks fired shell after shell in arching trajectories down into the Tau lines. Leman Russ Battle tanks lumbered forward, pumping shells at the enemy.

But though attacking, the Tau dug in, luring the Guardsmen forward onto their guns and with little though to strategy the Tridents kept going, being cut down in viscous numbers, far before they could reach their enemies.

Hoping to protect themselves, the tanks fired on the Broadside Battlesuits, but the xenos armour was two strong for anything shy of anti-tank fire and held as the twin-linked Railguns knocked out tank after tank after tank.

It was turning into a massacre!

One combined platoon, terrified by the horrific casualties they were taking, turned and fled; but the Morale Squad behind them let loose a string of krak missiles into their ranks to force them to reconsider. With several men torn apart by the explosions, the rest of the squad, caught between frying pan and fire, turned back to face the Tau ranks, seconds before being torn open my pulse cannon fire from a hovering Devilfish.

The battalion commander called through his vox, trying to bring order to his men, focus fire on key targets; but it was too little and too late. The Tau gave out an unrelenting level of fire and as Piranhas dropped from the skies behind their lines, the last of the battle tanks in that part of the field was blown to smithereens.

The Tau beachhead was all but secure. The last remaining guardsmen gave return fire as the comms officer called in to Regional Command. They needed more men! Now!

Seconds later he was incinerated.

And seconds after that the last of the men in the Tau drop zone was eliminated.

Building a Diorama: Forge World Death Korps of Krieg - Before the Push

I've already written an article about my intentions when building my Before the Push Diorama, but I thought it might be interesting to look at the process I went through... with pictures.  

My original concept of the commissar giving last instructions to his men had been intended to be delivered from a low stage but my mind quickly jumped to doing something in a trench. But how to do that without forcing the viewer to look down on the tops of the heads of the miniatures???

I decided to go with a cross-section of a trench and hope to God that viewers knew what it was supposed to be.

I needed a base, which caused me a lot of trouble as I couldn't find one of the fancy display bases you see in Golden Demon anywhere! In the end I found a handy cake stand which fit the bill perfectly.

I made the wall of the trench using a block of cheese insulation foam which I cut to match the edge of the cake stand. At this point I laid out the men to see how it would look (very important).

Now it looked far too rigid obviously so I cut away at the foam to blend it down into a more natural trench-top. I wanted to have a look-out post so he needed a shelf to stand on high enough to give him a view.

To give an impression of depth I thought it would be nice to have a bunker entrance. I built the entrance from balsa wood then hollowed out deep enough so that, painted black, it would look like it went somewhere.

 To give the earthy texture, I add %£&"^ loads of multi-purpose filler mixed with gravel and PVA glue. I stuck razor wire in so that it went under the surface of the mud.

 Then dried it under a table lamp with Wilma keeping watch.

At this stage I worked towards making it a bit more "trenchy." The walls were made from fabric that I planned to paint with metallic colours. I cut them into small enough sections to make them look like sheets of metal. I had the "mud" overlap the tops of the barriers.

Now how to suggest the opposite wall of the trench without it actually being there...?

I went with piling up some barrels. It isn't perfect. But seeing the models clearly was a higher priority than perfectly representing a trench.

 And after adding a little rat amongst the barrels that was about it. It was time for painting!

 The mud was done in greys and browns and I also added some water effect for puddles. I did the metals in boltgun metal with the now unavailable Flesh Wash for rust.

Finally came the trickiness. I'd painted the Death Korps of Krieg separately with Adeptus Battle Grey, black wash, then up through the greys with bestial brown webbing, inked dark then highlighted up.

My friend Joao gave me some tough love, telling me my previous Death Korps weren't as well painted as I thought they were (bastard). But he was right and I went the extra mile on these guys.

The trickiness was positioning all the men so they were realistically listening to the commissar or getting on with making preparations. This took a while and I had to flatten a couple of spots on the ground to give some of them a good support where before there had been potholes. I used sand and glue for this.

Last of all I added a stub gun to the look-out position to look like it is off its stand, ready to be clipped into position.



It seemed rather criminal to me to "waste" expensive Forge World Death Korps models on a diorama and for a while I toyed with placing them on it on bases.. or maybe dismantling it after the competition.

Now I'm glad that never happened. this is probably the best piece I've ever done. My Tyrannosaurus Rex and Alpha Level Psykers, Goliath and Golgotha come close but I think they probably lose.

Comments and feedback will be gratefully received.

Please.

A Dark Light in the Sky

Inquisition vs Valorax Guard | Gill v Tim | 40k | 53 | 109.997.M41

Planetary Governor Ivan Chord felt his feet leave the ground as the explosion hit, tossing him up and back at sixty degrees.

Where he’d been standing, the floor cracked and flame licked through but he was still being hurled backwards. The backs of his legs struck something – one of his aides – and he tumbled, revolving: head going down; legs going up. Until a secondary explosion hit and he flew suddenly sideways, changing direction in mid blast. Except this time he caught a twirling glimpse of his secretary, screaming as she caught the brunt of the blast instead of him.

This must have been what it was like for the normal people, he thought, when I ordered the Immolation.

... the all-encompassing planetary bombardment that had ended the Manticore War against the Tyranids at a terrible terrible cost in lives.

He hit the wall, cracking the plaster and that thought was gone in a pinpoint of agony. Momentary weightlessness; and then he hit the buckled floor on his shoulders, barely avoiding a broken neck.

He lay there, sprawled across something some uneven bulk, gasping; winded. The internal lights were out. Smoke was everywhere. Burning wood; scorched metal; blistering flesh. And wind. He bent at the waist, twisting his body so he could get to hands and knees.

The wall was gone. Fully one third of the building was gone, ripped away in the detonation of whatever had struck. And then he saw what had saved him: his secretary’s body, broken and torn on the floor beneath him.

She used to chatter about her son; a toddler. She used to smile and laugh. But damn him, he couldn’t remember the name of that son now. His mind was a whirlwind of tactical responses and assessments of threat level. However he still didn’t even know what he was up against.

Until he looked out across the cityscape of Qualitat, Valorax’s capital city, and saw what was coming.

White armoured transports and tanks and in the shadows of the ruined and smoking buildings all around: white armoured figures, lithe but stalwart. Red cloaks; bolters and dark bobbed hair. The Adepta Sororitas. Sisters of Battle.

Ivan Chord cursed and got to his feet as the remains of his bodyguard kicked open the burning door and ran to give him aid.

There, don below, striding through the ruins on pistoned legs, supported in the lumbering but entirely potent Throne of Judgment, was Inquisitor Lord Karamazov.

They hadn’t even announced their secession from the Imperium – they’d done precious little to work toward it in the midst of re-escalating conflict with the invading xenos – but the Inquisition had known and here they were to deal with it.

“Well it had to happen sometime,” he murmured, smiling grimly.

“Sir we have to get you out of here!”

Chord focused on the officer. “What’s the evac route?”

“We have a Vendetta gunship on the landing pad at the rear of the building that didn’t get hit in the preliminary bombardment.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!?”

As Ivan Chord and his escorts ran for the faltering staircase, Valorax Guardsmen ran to take position in the ruins below and in flanking buildings. The bulk of their number had been wounded or killed in the Inquisition’s firestorm but there were enough at least to mount a delaying action.

Lasguns, grenade launchers, plasmaguns and meltaguns let rip against the approaching forces as two Leman Russ Battle Tanks rolled up to support them, taking out the lead transport of the Sisters of Battle. Arco Flagellants, boiling with holy rage, bounded down the street toward the line of guardsmen positioned to face them but, impervious as they were, they got whittle down to nothing before they could strike.

Ivan Chord and his bodyguard were down to the ground floor. The devastation was even worse there. This room had been a conference room for lower level officers. Now it was as if a broom had swept everything; furniture and people; into the corner in a grisly mass of broken flesh bone and metal. The sound of lasgun fire was deafening but they kept their heads down and kept running. All of these men here would die – there was absolutely no doubt about that – but the sacrifice had to be made, no matter how horrifying. Without him to lead them, the weakened planet would surely collapse before its myriad enemies. The war would be lost and all survivors would be purged.

But that didn’t mean Chord had to like it.

They ran out the back of the building, even as the Adepta Sororitas closed to bolter range at the front, unleashing torrents of explosive shells into the faltering guardsmen. They hadto get on board the Vendetta! Now!

They ran to the foot of the landing pad and Ivan Chord slammed his palm against the control panel to close the crenulations of the protective shield to protect the craft as they boarded. The machinery clicked and then whirred as it started to move.

Then no more than fifteen yards away, the air ruptured, whining as unnatural tears began to split it, and Ivan Chord’s throat clenched. There was a brief flicker, then a bright flash and out of the tiny warp explosion strode five grey knights, raising their arms and letting fly with Storm Bolter fire that ripped into Chord’s guardsmen, taking three of them down instantly.

His mind flicked to the report he’d read of what they’d named the Valorax Schism, the battle in the heavens with a Grey Knight battle cruiser to secure more troops to bring home. He had known they would come one day, but the combined assault with the Ordo Hereticus he had not anticipated and he had not prepared for.

There was only seconds left now to make his escape: climb up the ladder; get into the transport craft; fly away and hope not to get shot down.

But then the shield guard of the landing pad snapped into place, revealing sky above his head and there was a sudden cooling of the air.

Ivan Chord looked to the man beside him. He was shouting; screaming as more Storm Bolter fire ripped him in half; but no sound reached Chord’s ears. The din of approaching battle was completely blanked out.

The Grey Knights strode towards them, raking left and right with their fire but the shots made no sound.

There was light everywhere suddenly; all around him; centered on the spot where he stood.

All around him, his bodyguard were lying dead or wounded. But the Grey Knights were no longer approaching. They were lowering their gun arms. They were only watching as the light grew brighter and then brighter still.

Ivan Chord’s brow furrowed. The light was growing in intensity. For a moment he didn’t know what it meant.

And then he understood, and his thoughts went again to the Immolation, his order to wipe out the Tyranid threat from space, even at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives.

What had he said before he gave the order? What sound bite of trivial nonsense had he given to both immortalise and trivialise that horrific but necessary loss?

Oh yes.

“I ask you once again to give your lives so that others may survive; to die alongside the foul xenos filth that corrupts our world so that we can at last be free of it.”

He whispered those words now, appreciating the irony, as the ship-to-ship lance on the Inquisition’s gunship speared down and incinerated him in white fire.

The impact burst out across the watching Grey Knights but they did not move.

The Planetary Governor was dead.

The impact of this would be far reaching and devastating.

But the war was still only just beginning...