The Boarding of the Rakshah, Horus Heresy AAR

[Pictors Studio]

The entire fleet was focused on what was going on below.  Few knew that the planet was about to become inhospitable to life and many wondered why their squads had not been sent to the planet with squads they had fought alongside for years.  Almost all of them trusted the Warmaster thoroughly.  There were those that were expecting what was going to happen next and among them was Captain Gervoth of the Sons of Horus, in command of the Rakshah. He gazed out from his command throne and could see the missiles launch, their warheads tipped with distilled death.

He settled back into the seat.  He was one of few in the know that was pleased with what was about to happen.  Most viewed it as an unfortunate necessity.  That about a third of the Legion was about to be destroyed, a fighting force that could be used to better ends than just being exterminated.  It was necessary to continue with the plan, but not desirable, they thought.  Gervoth was not of that mindset.  He saw two open seats in the Mournival. He knew it wouldn't be him filling them, yet,  but it meant that other positions would open.  When the alarm buzzed at one of the crew stations it drew him from his reverie.

He lifted his head, a proximity alert.

"What is that?"

The crewman whose station it was looked back, "A Stormbird sir.  It looks like a World Eater Stormbird."

"Should  . . . should .  . . we fire?"

The question was almost absurd, although it brought to Gervoth that the secret of what was about to happen may not have been as well kept as he thought, obviously there was some disquiet among the mortals. 

"Where did it come from?"

"The pattern shows it leaving from planet side."

"Hail it!"

"We did, sir, no response."

The situation was unprecedented.  In any normal circumstances it would be assumed that the lander had malfunctioning coms, but that was not the most obvious answer here.  Gervoth's mind reeled, why is a Stormbird coming up this late and why not head to a World Eater ship.

"Do not let it land."

"Closing hangar doors 7, 8 and 9"

In moments another alarm sounded to indicate that hangar door 8 had been blown open.



Suddenly the bridge was flooded with communications coming from hangar 8 and indicating that a boarding party was storming the ship.

Gervoth had moved to look down at the station, his bulk hanging over the railing to stare down at the screen in the pit around the stage of the bridge.  As the first few words came through he was moving towards the door, his lightning claws were making a musical tingling as each digit moved against the next in his motion. All the mortals on the bridge stood to watch him go.

The Captain barked orders over the vox for the Astartes aboard to move to the flight deck and prepare to repel boarders.  The instructions seemed ridiculous. 



As the lift opened and he emerged into a long corridor accompanied by one squad of Astartes he saw a Reaver squad emerge from a passage to his left.  He ordered them to move in the other direction down the corridor and they ran.  He followed the squad trying to make it to the hangar before the enemy got further into the ship. 



"Lock down Hangar 8 doors 2, 3 and 6," he ordered, "that will force them down to the two port-to-starboard main runs."

Being part of a legion known for its aggression he had underestimated the World Eaters. Gervoth realized this as the squad ahead of him stopped moving as a door flew open to their right and a warcries of Angron's legion echoed down the corridor. 



Despite the inherent belligerence of the two legions they felt no deep hatred for each other, and it was difficult for them to regard each other as enemies initially.  The fighting was desultory and the World Eaters charged into the Sons of Horus after only a short burst of bolter fire.  Most of the Astartes on both sides battered at their opponents with the butts of their bolters rather than pulling chainswords and other combat blades.  They weren't pulling their blows but even with the full weight of their attack the weapons were not designed to kill a man wearing power armour, much less a space marine.

Gervoth stood behind the sea green mass trying to jam its way forward.  The scrum was a mass of ceramite armour that would not be breached.  He looked to the tactical situation and started barking orders to the other groups moving towards the combat zone. 



The Reavers he had seen earlier were struggling with a squad of assault marines.  They were wearing jump packs and must have been deployed to the planet below, the cumbersome packs would be of little use to the World Eaters in the confines of ship corridors, even ones designed with Astartes in mind.  The fighting quickly turned ferocious and the Reavers were not afraid to murder recent allies.  Despite that the realm of close combat belonged more to the 12th legion than any other.  The enhanced aggression of the World Eaters eventually won out and soon the last of the Reavers were cut down in a running battle to get back to their supports.



A small gang of voidsmen had answered the summons to try to stop the breach.  They bravely stood as they saw the last of the Reavers be battered to the deck by howling assault marines with chain axes.  Holding their fire to not hit their masters was a mistake and before a single voidsman could pull a trigger on his lasgun, the World Eaters were firing bolt pistols as they ran towards the mortal ship crew.

The hall was instantly splashed red with blood and the view was obscured by a thin red mist that hung lazily in the air.  The only two who had survived the brief fusillade ran away from the transhuman warriors. 



Gervoth got reports from other sections of the ship, it seems that the World Eaters were intent on destroying the ship's life support systems.  The first wave had shattered on the breakwater of his marines, but those marines had been critically damaged in the effort.  He called his men back.  It would allow the World Eaters to regroup but it would also mean that he could redeploy to guard the strategic areas of the ship. 

[Pictors Studio]

This was the first of three games we played today in a mini-campaign for the Horus Heresy.  I got the scenarios and campaign rules from Horus Heresy Book III: Extermination. 

It was a lot of fun and the scenarios went really smoothly.  We were doing demo games and none of the players had played Horus Heresy before although all but one of the five players had played GW games before and those had all played some version of 40K at least once before. 

Everyone had fun and most of them stuck around all day playing.  We managed the three games, terrain rearrangement and clean up in just over 7 hours so not bad. 

[Pictors Studio]

The time between starting the cut and there being a big enough hole for a marine to fit through seemed interminable to Barsk.  When they were aboard ships he sometimes wished that when they designed Astartes they had halted the growth of the candidate instead of accelerating and enhancing it.  Twenty seconds is all it took for the lascutter to burn a marine sized hole through the bulkhead but 20 seconds is a long time for transhuman combat and they could hear the counter-boarding parties moving towards them.



The Skran kicked the newly cut metal as Barsk cut through the last section and the sound of the enemy was obscured by the loud clang of the metal sheet hitting the deck on the other side of the wall. 

"Get to level 12 now, we are taking out the air-purifiers.  We'll see how they operate this ship without a mortal crew," came Keth's orders over the vox. 

Barsk grunted, they were on level 12 and right in front of a re-concentrator. 


"Well, well, well," he said as he moved forward towards the long metal pipe.  In moments a burst of flame gushed out of the machinery covering the wall in thin layer of carbon before alarm lights started blaring down the breadth of the room they were in. 

There was another one further down the room.  Sergeant Lorm was on it before Barsk could get there and he smashed into it with his power fist.  The machine belched form flame in a dying exhalation. 


They could hear gunfire and the sounds of fighting over the vox.  It sounded as though Squad Maag had emerged into the thick of the enemy and were paying the price.  They could hear the sounds of gun fire through the vox and through the bulk head now and could see the wall shuddering from the impact of bolt rounds. 


"Into the next room, the main generator for the circulation system is in there," said Lorm.

There was no door to the next room so Barsk got to work on making one.  But just as they started cutting the hammering against the bulkhead beside them increased.  The wall bulged out at one point suddenly and then a moment later a powerfist sent fragments of plasteel towards the World Eater squad.  The Reavers were coming for them.

Lorm pushed Barsk aside and punched the almost completed portal and the the metal fracture under the blow, one more punch at the area not yet cut through and their new door fell into the room. The squad scrambled through just as the Reavers burst through the wall behind them. There was a massive piece of pumping equipment that took up most of the room and the pistons for it were moving up and down furiously.  It would take a few moments to shut this down. 



They might not have it, as the smoke from the lascutter cleared a massive figure was revealed in the doorway.  Twin lightning claws gleamed in the gloom illuminating the form of a marine wearing Cataphractii pattern tactical dreadnought armour. 



"Gervoth," came a scream over the vox and from behind the Terminator.  The massive warrior turned to face Keth as the Sergeant's lightning claw raked down the back of the traitor captain's armour, shredding his cloak. 

Barsk and Lorm did not need an invitation and were quickly wrecking the pumps and other machinery in the room. 

Bolter fire rattled behind them as the other members of their squad pinned down the Reavers.  Barsk made way to the wall and started cutting through the bulk head in the side of the room away from both Gervoth and the Reavers.  They had done enough damage now, they needed to make it back to the Stormbird to take the fight to another ship.

Just as his squad was disappearing through the breach he saw Keth reeling as twin lightning claws shredded his armour.  Not for the first time, blood poured down the white ceramite armour but never had so much of it been from the man wearing it.

[Pictors Studio]

Now Keth told the boarding men,
"you have to get to the drop.
The air processors down the gantry way
has been smashed and now its stopped.
Barsk used his lascutter,
he went a cutting up the pipes.
The Sons of Horus are all riled up
and we have to flee these traitor types."



Horus don't like it.
We're fleeing the Rakshah
Flee the Rakshah
Angron don't like it.
We're fleeing the Rakshah.
Flee the Rakshah.



By order of the Warmaster,
they burned that planet down,
killing all the faithful,
with a crazy Slaanesh sound. 
The loyalists survived it,
hiding under ground,
we made it off planet
and are bringing this ship down,
as soon as Gervoth heard us,
he sent his Reavers in,
that's when the ship's systems began to fail.



Fulgrim don't like it.
Fleeing the Rakshah
Flee the Rakshah
Morty don't like it.
Fleeing the Rakshah
Flee the Rakshah



Running down a passage,
Oh, we need to flee the ship,
the air has stopped working,
ahead of us, many little blips,
they move to block us,
fighting soon breaks out,
we've created quite a ruckus,
we've smashed this ship without a doubt. 



Tarvitz really likes it!
Fleeing the Rakshah,
Flee the Rahshah.
Garo also likes it!
Fleeing the Rakshah,
Flee the Raksha. 

[Michi]

Cool report!
That is a really nice layout too. Are those fantasy ark corridors still available somwhere?

[FreakyFenton]

Lovely Heresy era stuff! I like it!

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Nice job.

[Pictors Studio]

Thanks.  As far as I know they are not available anywhere anymore.  I just put an ad up on TMP for some and a guy is selling me a whole starter set that will more than double what I have.  I'm going to need some more tubs soon.

I love the Heresy stuff too.  It is most of the sci-fi stuff I do now between Adeptus Titanicus and Horus Heresy.   The story is so good and the simple marine-on-marine action is so great because you can get rid of almost all the special rules. 

[Dr Mathias]

Looks great, I like the layout you have- very cool.