Chaplain Alessandro was furious.

The xenos knows of the Flaw. The thought burned in his genhanced mind. It offended him that the secret burden of the Angel’s Sons would be so easily revealed. It also astonished him. How did the xenos accomplish it?

Alessandro was a Space Marine, one of the Emperor’s Angels of Death. He had fought for the Golden Throne for two centuries. He had faced untold foes, both abominable aliens and despicable heretics. Across hundreds of battles, Alessandro had learned every trick of war. Rare was the alien that could slip by him unnoticed; only the devious Eldar had ever escaped his posthuman senses. Yet this xenos had somehow passed by him like a whisper in a hurricane.

These were the thoughts which plagued the Chaplain as he strode through the gore-splattered alleyway, back to his brothers and the war they now waged.

Behind him marched Brothers Marco and Arman, the latter of whom Alessandro had mentally marked for censure once the battle was ended. He cared not for the Tactical marine’s excuses; it was shameful to betray the secrets of the Chapter to a xenos, almost blasphemous. Aye, Arman would be punished for his failing. But, it would be no great sentence; the winged psykers of this world seemed to possess some unknown power that could compel even the Space Marines to…

Alessandro refused to recall that.

“Holy Chaplain, when do we march?” the veteran sergeant Dabriel greeted Alessandro as he exited the alleyway.

Alessandro quickly surveyed the battlefield. He smiled beneath his skull-helm. Though the cultists had already been broken when he had chased after lost Jagus, but it still warmed his hearts to know his brothers were able to so swiftly destroy the enemies of the Emperor.

Not a cultist remained alive on those streets. The heretic humans who had dared to attack the Emperor’s Proud Sons had paid dearly for their foolishness, and were now to a man scattered or dead.

Less impressive to the Chaplain were the xenos. It seemed the leather-wing xenos he had seen in Luna’s company back in Canterlot had joined Shining Armor’s column. Shining’s forces themselves seemed to be in poor shape. His psykers were slowly filtering out of the buildings they had taken cover in during the battle. Despite their alien features, Alessandro found he could recognize their weariness with almost disturbing ease. The xenos' fur was matted with sweat, and their breathing was heavy. Their expressions, so eerily human in aspect, were long, exhausted and worn by both the exertion and the fight of battle. Interestingly, those with armour in the style of Shining Armor seemed to be in better condition than those in other uniforms, save for the leather-wings currently flocking around Luna. The Chaplain filed away this information for later consideration.

“As soon as we are able, sergeant,” Alessandro replied. He gestured Arman and Marco forward. “Dabriel, I return your soldiers. Brother Marco is to be commended. Brother Arman will require discipline when this battle is won.”

Dabriel nodded, both in assent and respect. “As you will. Brothers, come, the Rhino awaits.”

Marco and Arman marched quickly towards their transport. Dabriel turned to follow them, only for Alessandro to lay his hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. The Chaplain leaned close and whispered into Dabriel’s ear.

“The black xenos knows of the Flaw,” he hissed. “Arman cracked, spoke of it when the xenos found Jagus. We must tread carefully.”

“And we may not simply smite the xenos, given its power on this world,” Dabriel said with a sigh. He shook his head sadly. “Rodri, why did you have to die? The Wrath of Angels would be of great help now.”

“Let it not trouble your heart, Dabriel,” Alessandro said. “The Emperor Protects, and never would he bestow on us a challenge we could not overcome. Now, to your squad. We must resume the march.”

As those words left his mouth, a sound began to echo down the streets. It was a click-clack rumble, a clattering of alien hooves against the tarmac. Alessandro and Dabriel both readied their pistols, their gene-forged eyes watching the end of the street.

Around the corner came a deluge of equine xenos in all manners of attire. Many hewed to the strange xenos custom of nudity, but just as many seemed to have taken the more sensible option of clothing. Alessandro saw in the horde various kinds of civilian garb, from the tattered remains of fine suits to once-white aprons stained brown with dust and dried blood. Some among the alien horde wore what seemed to be some sort of blue uniform, while others bore suits of their pathetic army’s armour.

The alien mob smashed into the marching column Shining Armor had slowly been reforming, throwing the army into chaos and anarchy. Alessandro watched as the xenos trampled over each other. Even without years of experience having honed his intuition and senses to the height of human possibility, he could have recognized the expressions of all-too-human fear on their alien faces. Something had terrified these xenos, thrown them into a panic and sent them scurrying.

Not that he particularly cared; these thoughts were simply automatic processes, tactical assessments that all Space Marines instinctively made in response to every piece of sense perception. He similarly did not care when it became apparent that the xenos were trampling each other to death, crushing their fellows underfoot or smashing them against the mighty chasses of the Predators and Rhinos. As the mob tried to push through Shining’s army, various xenos tried to restore order.

“Everypony, calm down! That is an order! Sturdy, get this crowd organized, and somepony tell me what in Tartarus is going on here!” Shining Armor bellowed as what few officers and sergeants it could still communicate with desperately tried to stem the madness.

Alessandro turned his gaze away; the internal affairs of aliens meant nothing to him, and more pressing matters were coming now around the corner anyways. First was a sight which raised the ever-present ire of the Flaw in his blood. There, standing tall amidst the equine xenos, was an abomination, a perversion of the Holy Human Form. Standing as tall as a man, the bull-headed alien waded through the xenos, shouting strange, rhyming phrases that seemed to do nothing but stir the frenzy of its fellows. To Alessandro’s disgust, the creature was carrying a chainsword in its hand.

“How did such a thing capture a chainsword?” Dabriel asked. “Holy Chaplain, could it be some manner of Ork?”

“Mayhaps,” Alessandro responded. “Time will shortly tell. But until then, keep a close watch on it. Whatever it is, its very existence offends the Emperor.”

“Enough!” the voice of the xenos Luna boomed across the street. Alessandro felt the weakening of his knees, but such was a secondary concern to the almost tangible force of the xenos’ voice. It struck his armour like a crashing wave, almost causing him to flinch.

The mob halted dead in its tracks, every xenos turning at once to gaze at the winged psyker.

“Citizens of Manehatten, We command you to remain calm, and move in an orderly fashion!” Luna bellowed. The xenos obeyed.

“But we’re all gonna die!” one of the xenos mass shouted. “He said so! That monster’s coming, and we’ve gotta get outta here now!”

But a moment later, Alessandro saw the flying psyker Renato called ‘Twilight’ soar through the air, accompanied by a cohort of the winged xenos. Following closely behind, wading through the now relatively calm, though still quite agitated, xenos, were Alessandro’s missing battle-brothers, with Orlando and Renato at their head.

Alessandro gestured Dabriel away, dispatching him back to Squad Murata with the flick of his wrist. For himself, the Chaplain strode through the xenos, heading straight for Renato. The Librarian similarly marched towards Alessandro, a look of grim worry etched on his posthuman features.

“Aless, we have to keep moving,” Renato said as soon as they were close enough. “The heretics had fielded a Land Raider, and we must escape before it catches up.”

“Why must we retreat?” Alessandro asked, almost incredulous. “We are the Emperor’s Chosen. Let them bring their Land Raider. They shall not find us wanting.”

“No, they will find us dead,” Renato said as he strode up to Alessandro. “Aless, you are my oldest, dearest friend, and I beg of you, heed my counsel! We are not equipped to fight this thing! It will strike us down before we can even reach it, and even if we survive that long, what will we accomplish? That armour is all but invulnerable!”

“Renato, brother, where is your faith?” Alessandro replied. “The Emperor is with us. Should we be marked as cowards beneath his gaze?”

“Better cowards that might win another day than dead fools,” Renato snapped. “Chaos is rallying around the Raider. With every second we tarry here, more cultists and Traitor Astartes join the horde. They will soon be enough to drown us in numbers alone!”

Alessandro laid a reproachful hand on Renato’s shoulder. “Careful, old friend. Such words veer dangerously close to heresy. Spread the word, we shall make our stand here.”

Renato grumbled his assent and turned to carry out his orders. The two winged psykers landed near the Librarian and the Chaplain.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but are you insane?” Twilight demanded, its wings flaring in what Alessandro assumed was supposed to be an intimidating gesture.

“Pray tell, what is this ‘Land Raider’ of which so many ponies speak?” Luna asked.

Renato turned and snapped out a response. “A Land Raider is the most powerful tank in the arsenal of the Astartes. Its armour is all but invincible, and its firepower can destroy whole continents if left unchecked. Your soldiers will be utterly unable to even scratch its paint, and even we will be able to do little more.”

Luna wheeled on Alessandro. “And you would have us battle such a thing?”

“By the Golden Throne of Terra, aye,” Alessandro answered. “There is no retreat from evil, only victory bought with the blood of the faithful. We stand here, and give not one step to the enemy.”

Luna stared at Alessandro for a moment, its xenos lips pursed as though in deep thought. “Very well. Twilight, join your brother, and ready our forces.”

“I’m so glad we… wait, what?” Twilight’s jaw fell slack. “Luna, you, you can’t be serious! Have you seen this thing? It’s bigger than a house!”

“These invaders have murdered unnumbered ponies this day, Twilight,” Luna said, its alien tone as cold as a Fenrisian night and its eyes almost glowing with a fury Alessandro almost found familiar. “We cannot let this go unpunished.”

“But, Luna, we can’t beat this thing!” Twilight protested. Renato, in a move that both shocked and rather disgusted Alessandro, placed a hand on the xenos’ back.

“Enough, Twilight,” the Codicier said with a heavy sigh. “The decision is made, and our time is spent. If we will not flee, we must rally now. Go to your friends and make ready the line. Aless and I will tend to our brothers.”

“But, but…” Twilight stammered, looked up at Renato with large, pleading eyes. The display sickened Alessandro to his core. The xenos sighed. “Luna, you’re absolutely sure we should fight?”

Luna nodded, and Twilight sighed again.

“Alright, I’ll go get Starlight and the Element Bearers, see what we can do,” Twilight said. It turned its alien gaze to Alessandro. “I really hope you’re right about this.”

“The Emperor Protects, xenos,” Alessandro responded.

With that Twilight and Luna flew off. Renato took one last look at Alessandro.

“I hope you have a plan. Land Raider’s don’t exactly die easily.”

Alessandro hefted his Crozius onto his shoulder. “Of course. Bring to me every battle-brother with a weapon that might harm the Land Raider. We shall make a glorious charge, and ends its unholy existence.”

Renato groaned. “Why did I ever expect anything else? Very well, I’ll go get Paolo. He should be gathering your squad as we speak. You know how he is.”

“Always anticipating what I’m planning,” Alessandro said, a slight laugh in his tone. “Some days I barely have to issue orders, so prescient is he. You’re sure he’s not a witchmind?”

Renato shared a brief chuckle which faded into a sad sigh. “No, he is not. And none of us are immortal, Aless, despite what you seem to think.”

“We will win, Renato,” Alessandro said. “You’ll see.”

Renato simply hung his head, sighed, and strode off to gather Alessandro’s strike team.

For a brief moment of respite, Alessandro stood alone amidst the throng, a pillar of ebony stoicism in a sea of pastel-coloured xenos.

Then, the pounding of feet and the grinding of Warp-twisted treads on alien tarmac brought an end to the flurry of activity. The xenos had formed up as best they could given the time constraints, which is to say they had managed to stop crushing each other. The Blood Angels were in significantly better condition, as was only right given their clear superiority. Dabriel had set up a firing line amidst the Rhinos, while Priam had joined Flavio, Placido, and Orlando to form an impromptu Assault Squad. The Predators had formed up, with the Assault Cannon and Annihilator variants sitting at range while the Flamestorm had driven up closer, ready to charge into the oncoming horde. Most importantly, Renato was now approaching with the strike force Alessandro had ordered.

The Chaplain smiled beneath his bone-white helm. Marching with Renato was every Blood Angel who stood a change of harming the Land Raider: Severo, Severin, and Fausto, each with their meltaguns; Durnate with his power fist; Paolo with the Thunder Hammer; and mighty Castello, the Dreadnought, armed with Blood Talons and a meltagun. Against any other foe, it was a force that would be all but unstoppable. Against a Land Raider, it was all he could muster.

For all his faith and courage, Alessandro was still an experienced warrior. He knew full well that Land Raiders were brutally difficult to destroy. The ceramite infused in their armour left them immune to the armour-piercing power of melta, and only the mightiest of weapons could hope to break so thick a layer of adamantium. It would take every weapon they could muster. But by the Emperor’s Grace, they would accomplish it.

Not a word was exchanged among the Astartes; there was neither time nor need in that moment. The rumble of the Chaos horde was just around the corner, and Alessandro intended to inspire his men by deeds this day.

The first warning came in the incoherent screams of the cultists, who came screaming around the corner in a wild mob, waving crude weapons and autoguns in the air while a handful of them tried to fire on the xenos and Blood Angels.

Word came up from the xenos’ ranks, orders issued by Shining Armor and echoed by the xenos sergeants and the perversion of the human form.

“Open fire!”

As the first volleys of autogun bullets ripped into the xenos, the equine aliens responded in kind. It was like watching the brave regiments of the Imperial Guard take to battle, though with far less humanity and far more diversity of colour in the beams. Alessandro saw every colour he could imagine scream through the air, slamming into the cultists like lasrifle shots. Xenos and cultists died alike, their armour too shoddy to do little more than stave off the inevitable for but a volley or two.

Alessandro left the xenos to their little lightshow. The cultists were nothing but cannon fodder, distractions meant to absorb ammunition. Had he been fighting at the side of the Imperial Guard or much-beleaguered Sisters of Battle he might well have willingly fallen for the trap, if only to spare the human lives he was sworn to protect.

For a force of xenos, he had no such compassion. His guns would remain silent until the true enemy revealed itself.

Such occurred but a moment later. Though cultists still poured down the street like a wave of sewage, into their ranks mixed an increasing number of Chaos Marines. Alessandro saw all manner of heretics numbered among the Chaotic horde. Most common were the Word Bearers, their chanting line slowly marching towards the xenos and Blood Angels. Joining them were octets of Khorne Berzerkers, and wild bands of Noise Marines. In the distance, Alessandro made out a contingent of Plague Marines slopping down the street. Even a couple squads of Chaos Terminators could be seen marching amidst the horde.

He activated his short-range vox. “Dabriel, strike these heretics from the Emperor’s galaxy.”

Thus began the true fusillade, the vengeful roar of the Blood Angels.

Boltshells flew through the air, blowing apart unlucky cultists and blasting back the Chaos Marines. Boltguns, storm bolters, and heavy bolters alike tore into the Chaotic horde, sending blood and guts splattering through the air. The sounds of autoguns, psyker-beams, and even bolt-weapons were all but drowned out by the whirring roar of the assault cannons. Hundreds, thousands of rounds ripped through the air. The cultist lines quickly turned into a crimson mist, and even the tough armour of the Chaos Marines soon began to buckle.

Fire was soon returned in kind as the true strength of the Chaos horde rounded the corner.

It occurred to Alessandro at that moment that, aside from the wrecks of Chaos Rhinos, he had seen not a shred of evidence of any Chaos armour in this city. Perhaps they had simply been deployed elsewhere when he arrived, or they had only just landed. The exacts of where they had been were rather irrelevant at the moment, however. What mattered was that a very large force of armour was bearing down on them.

A trio of Chaos Predators returned fire, spitting autocannon shells, lascannon beams, and plasma bursts into the xenos lines. Chaos Rhinos sped towards them, combi-bolters and Havoc launchers sowing death and confusion into xenos ranks. Helbrutes and Obliterators stormed forward, sending waves of melta, plasma, and boltshells flying at the xenos. Iron Warriors Havoc squads set up their weapons on the alien rooftops, pumping autocannon shells and frag missiles into the xenos lines.

And in the midst of it all rumbled the Land Raider, its heavy bolters and lascannons tearing whole squads apart, its armour simply ignoring the barrages which met it.

The xenos crumbled under the pressure. Screaming in terror, their line broke and scattered. Pastel-coloured equines scrambled away, desperately fleeing down alleyways or back towards the bridge.

“Hold the line! Faust blast you, hold the bloody line!” Shining Armor shouted, his voice all but lost amidst the resound of the guns and the screaming of the injured and cowardly.

“To your posts!” Luna boomed. For a brief moment, even the foul servants of Chaos froze, their barrage for these precious seconds silenced. Alessandro watched as the winged psyker soared above the xenos lines, wreathed in an almost tangible aura of authority. Luna hefted a massive spear in its psychic grasp. “Let us show these murderers the folly of invading Equestria!”

As the forces of Chaos regained their senses and resumed their assault, the xenos, to Alessandro’s great surprise, turned to face them. Desperate and fearful, the equines nonetheless restored their line, mere seconds before the first wave of Chaos struck.

Alessandro smiled beneath his helm.

“Battle-Brothers!” he cried, raising his Crozius Arcanum to the sky. “Today we kill a Land Raider! Charge, for Sanguinius…”

“And the Emperor!” the cry went up from every Blood Angel who could hear the Chaplain’s words.

Alessandro led the charge, his Crozius high in the air and his inferno pistol spewing beams of vermillion death. Paolo and Renato were at his side, their Terminator Armour a blaze with the sparks of enemy fire, striking down cultists and Chaos Marines with blasts of psychic power and the Thunder Hammer. Howling with characteristic enjoyment, Durante slew the servants of Chaos with boltshells and his power fist. The mighty Castello thundered behind them, smiting his foes with roaring flame and searing melta, the crackling blue of his Blood Talons sweeping through the air as he culled the heretic ranks. Brothers Severo and Severin joined Castello in spewing melta beams, while Fausto calmly selected his targets with the precision of a Vindicare. They tore through the Chaos horde, wedging the heretics apart with fire and melta and the Emperor’s Wrath.

Around them anarchy ruled the day. The xenos lines, though reformed, were now impossible to disentangle from the enemy. Xenos fought heretics beneath the dying evening sun, alien hooves clattering furiously, hopelessly, against tainted ceramite. Yet still they fought, their frayed courage held together by the willpower of their commanders.

Caring not for the fate of his xenos allies, Alessandro pushed on, driving his force ever closer to the Land Raider. Whether by fortune or the Emperor’s Design, they faced no great resistance; boltshells, combat knives, and chainswords opposed them in abundance, but even mere power swords were few in number. The Berzerkers who bore most of them seemed to have ignored the Blood Angels for now, seeking easier prey in the defenseless xenos.

Sonic carronades rained down on the battlefield, the Noise Marines wailing away on their blasters and Blastmasters with drug-addled abandon. Weaponized sound waves crushed alien bones and sowed discord among the xenos ranks.

Ordinance tore through the air. Shells, metal slugs, missiles, and lascannon beams streaked across the street, drowning out almost all other noise amidst their torrent of sound. The Chaos Land Raider rumbled forward, its invulnerable armour deflecting every shot that dared strike its mighty carapace.

Thus, it was to Alessandro’s great surprise that he found Luna at his side. Taking a quick glance to his left, from whence the xenos had come, he realized that, somehow, Luna had carved a path of its own through the heretics, leading a much-battered force of xenos warriors to support Alessandro’s assault. Xenos both winged and unadorned led the charge, accompanied on the ground by a small cadre of psykers and in the air by the strange leather-winged xenos Luna counted among its personal guard.

“If the Land Raider is slain,” Luna said as it flew not even a foot from Alessandro, its words eerily clear, even through the cacophony of the battle. “Then the battle will be ours?”

“Of course,” Alessandro answered.

Luna smiled. “Then we shall delay no longer!”

And so they charged, Blood Angel and xenos alike. Luna and the xenos force took to the front, sowing confusion in the ranks of Chaos and giving the Blood Angels some breathing room. The xenos fought and they died, struck down by boltshells, autocannon blasts, chainswords, and all other manners of heretic weaponry. But still they surged forward, knowing victory would make their sacrifices worth every drop of blood.

Then it came, the moment they had awaited. The Land Raider was but a stone’s throw from them. But a few more desperate seconds, and victory would be in their grasp.

The last opposition was quickly cleared. Melta beams and roaring flame scattered the soldiers of the Word Bearers. Pink and viridian beams from the last surviving xenos psykers pounded in ceramite and flesh. Alien hooves from the winged and unadorned xenos slammed and clattered as they fended off the servants of Chaos. Whole squads broke and died beneath Castello’s mighty Talons. The lightning-blue blasts of Paolo’s Thunder Hammer shattered all who stood before him. Durante punched out the chest of an Aspiring Champion. Alessandro crushed in the head of an approaching Plague Marine, the heft of his Crozius combining with the gene-bred fury of the Blood Angels to overwhelm even that abomination’s unholy constitution.

Renato paused a moment between the sweeping swings of his ornate sword to summon up the power of the Warp. His eyes aglow with sparks of crimson power, the Codicier channeled the extradimensional energy of the Immaterium. He began to blur, his movements becoming unnaturally quick even by the superhuman standards of the Astartes. Then, as he once more summoned up the power of psykery, seeking to set his sword ablaze with Warpflame, he froze. Psychic power overflowed in him, tearing at his flesh and his mind. He roared and screamed in the same breath, a pain unimaginable coursing through his very veins. It threatened to consume him, to break his bones and throw his soul before the Golden Throne.

But Renato had not come so far, not advanced so high in the hierarchy of the Librarius, to be destroyed so simply. With a will forged across two centuries of war, the Codicier harnessed the psychic peril. Still he roared, but no longer in pain. A golden aura wreathed about him and his armament. Concentrating with all his might, Renato forced the Warp-strength into a honed edge, focusing the aura into a singularly devastating weapon. His force sword, already alight with the mortal edge such weapons were famed for, became a pillar of golden flame, a bane to the Materium itself; neither flesh nor armour would be proof against its edge, and by the strength in both Renato’s arm and the sword itself, no armour would stand against him.

Then, an opening; first, of the path, with no challenge left between them and the Land Raider, and second, of the Land Raider itself, as it disgorged a force of Chaos Marines.

They were clad in armour of iron and brass, with the black-and-yellow emblem of the Iron Warriors emblazoned upon their pauldrons. All manner of close combat weapons could be found among their ranks; power fists and lightning claws, power swords, axes, and maces, chainswords and combat knives alike were found in their grips. Most carried boltpistols, though one took aim with a deadly plasma pistol. They rushed towards Alessandro’s strike force with a frigid fury, a seething hatred of everything everywhere.

Alessandro recognized them at once as Chosen, the elite of the Chaos Legions. Veterans of uncounted wars, they were among the mightiest of the Chaos soldiery. However, they were still no more than Traitor Astartes, weakened, corrupted imitations of the Emperor’s Angels of Death.

Mixed into their number, however, was a true danger: a Warpsmith, a heretek, a fallen Techmarine. In his two natural arms he carried a boltpistol and a hefty power axe. From his back sprouted the deadly mecha-tendrils, abominations created when the technology of Mars was exposed to the depredations of the Warp. Alessandro saw in the grip of those tendrils a flamer and a meltagun, both quite fixedly aimed at the strike force.

“Brace yourselves!” Alessandro roared. His cry gave but a second of warning.

A fusillade of boltshells blasted the strike force, accompanied by the roar of flame and both melta and plasma beams. The xenos died, their bodies seared and blown apart by the barrage. Yet Alessandro noticed a discrepancy; by his count, there were too many boltshells for the Chosen to have fired, and he was sure he had seen shells too strong to be bolter-fire. He snapped his gaze to the side.

“No!” he heard Paolo cry out.

A squad of Chaos Terminators was rushing towards them, blazing away with their combi-bolters and autocannon.

Alessandro grit his teeth. His faith was strong, but he was unsure if his force could survive the onslaught of both heretic squads.

“Chaplain, seize our victory!” mighty Castello boomed. “I will hold our flank!”

With that, the Furioso Dreadnought turned aside, and met the Terminators head-on.

The Terminators struck with the unholy zeal the Word Bearers were infamous for. In the first half-second of combat, two of their number swung at Castello’s battered and cracked chassis with their power swords, sheering off paint and deepening the cracks. Yet the Dreadnought endured, and in that same half-second ripped those same sword-bearing Terminators in half. Castello roared in fury and triumph.

The whirring of a chainfist brought an end to such a cry. One of the Chaos Terminators dodged underneath Castello’s unyielding Talons, and struck upwards at the Dreadnought’s heavily damaged chassis. The chainfist did its work, the power-field and chain-teeth ripping through Castello’s mighty armour. The Dreadnought roared in agony as the chainfist tore apart critical systems and destroyed his control. He fell backwards and struck the tarmac with a heavy, metallic thud immobilized and, for all tactical purposes, slain.

Yet Alessandro had no time to consider Castello’s sudden defeat, for in that same moment, the Chosen struck the remains of the strike force. Alessandro, imbued with the fury of his gene-father, leveled his Crozius at the Warpsmith and let loose a furious cry.

“Heretic! Kneel, for today you face the Emperor’s Wrath,” Alessandro roared. “And I am his vengeful arm!”

The Warpsmith snarled and barked his response. “Such arrogance! It’s like listening to blasted Harodon! Come then, corpse-worshipper, and die!”

The two masters of war met in a thunderous crash, their weapons tearing through the hot evening air. Their warriors battled around them, giving the duel as wide a berth as they dared. Swords and fists and all manner of weapons met and clashed, but none dared yet even aim a blow at the two challenged warriors.

Alessandro was the swifter, his Crozius a more agile tool of death. He battered at the Warpsmith’s iron-grey armour, denting the ceramite with every blow. Again and again the Chaplain struck, his arm strengthened by the hunger of the Flaw. The Warpsmith stumbled beneath the mighty strikes, but for all the cracks in his armour, only once did he cry out, as the Crozius punched through the ceramite and drew unholy blood.

But the Warpsmith, though bloodied, did not yield. The cold fury of his Primarch burning in his twisted eyes, he hefted his massive power axe. It was a cumbersome weapon, its edge sufficient to pierce even Terminator armour, but its weight unwieldy even for an Astartes. In the time it took the Warpsmith to raise his blade, Alessandro had already cracked his armour.

The Warpsmith soon took his revenge.

The first blow was like a thunderbolt, crashing against the Chaplain with the fury of a hurricane. Alessandro stumbled beneath its weight, only the golden light of his Rosarius staving off the blow. The Chaplain was an Astartes, capable of recovering far faster than mere humans. A blow like this, which would have slain a mortal man at but a glance, stunned him for no more than a moment.

A moment was all the Warpsmith required.

With a roar of rage, the Iron Warrior brought the axe back up. Throwing the full power of his genhanced strength behind it, he struck again at the Rosarius. This time, the protective field did not hold. Alessandro cried out in sudden pain as the axe buried deep in his side, rending through posthuman bone and tissue. For a brief, instinctive moment, Alessandro’s eyes shot towards the warm, red tint of the sky, towards the echo of the setting sun. Remastering himself, the Chaplain turned his gaze and his attention back to his foe. But it was too late.

A mecha-tendril surged forward like a viper, punching through his armour and biting deep into his primary heart.

Alessandro roared again in pain as his body first flared with the heat of posthuman healing, and then turned cold. The screams and clatter of battle faded like whispers in the night.

Darkness rose up around him, and the Chaplain knew no more.

Author's Notes:

Bet you didn’t see that one coming!

And for reference, the entire sequence with the failed assault on the Land Raider was rolled, with a couple exceptions. Those exceptions, whoever, were not me fudging rolls to get a specific end, but rather me realizing after the fact that I’d forgotten about certain factors in the fight. Renato going Super Saiyan, Castello being felled, etc. all resulted from actual rolls.

As an aside, I kid you not, according to Lexicanum, assault cannons fire multiple hundreds of rounds every second.

As an unrelated side note, we finally have Blood Angels Decurion! It’s just that it sucks. Well, not entirely. The main one can be made passable if you know what you’re doing (and it’s better than just having the Baal Strike Force, depending on the circumstances). Though we do have the most awesome list ever now: The Lost Brotherhood Strike Force. 3-5 Death Company, a Death Company Dreadnought, and a Death Company Chaplain (a Chaplain with a Jump Pack and Inferno Pistol at a 5-point discount, who gives Death Company To-Wound re-rolls), plus any combination of Lemartes (the Chaplain who is in the Death Company), Astorath (who executes Death Company as a hobby), and/or more Death Company Chaplains, plus the various Auxiliary formations. And it gives you a non-Scout 6” post-deployment free move. So you can move 6” before the game starts, then move normally, then charge Turn 1. And Terminators charging out of Deep Strike.

We’re finally playable again!