One of the fun things about the Goonhammer Open is doing it in the bar of the SU. This means as EO I get a DJ booth and a PA system we can use to do announcements.
When I started off, I only used it for PSAs, rules clarifications and ‘you have 1 hour left of round 1,’ but the power of the stage went to my head and I started using the mic for lore drops, announcements of cool shit I heard about during the games, and explanations of the next mission.
My ‘real job’ apart from Goonhammer is running a roleplaying game company called SoulMuppet Publishing, and my tragic backstory includes a lot of theatre, so I have a lot of fun with these. Here are the five announcements I did over the course of the campaign, telling the story of our Sack of Tallarn.
Campaign Intro and Mission 1
Terra has a thousand lost languages. On the polar ice caps there were a people called the Inuit, and it is said by the Archeo-Linguists their language has a thousand words for snow.
Ten thousand years from now in the many Cants of this planet, still classified as a “garden world” by the Adeptus Administratum, they know a thousand words for “sand,” for “dust,” for “post biological sludge.”
They have only one name for their planet of sand, dust and post-biological sludge, and it is called Tallarn.
It has been a long and terrible war, and Perturarbo has decided to win this one by planet-eating viruses, shell and tread. Hiding in their bunkers, the Loyalists curse the Lysatra and their allies of the Ordo Reductor who concocted this foul, world killing weapon.
Even now, waves of terrible death roll across the planet, eating biological matter as it goes. It greedily steals life and leaves nothing behind. The Loyalists have learnt it is a waste of energy to burn or bury their corpses. The virus is a great equaliser, after all; a Conscript or a Veteran or a Marine or even a Custodian look the same once their flesh and armour is toxic puddle.
But this is still a war, and the Traitors must be repelled.
Round 1 Summary and Round 2 Intro
Pertruarbo roared with rage as the Traitor assault faltered across the planet. The Loyalist armoured forces had been buried for weeks underground, but their tactician sand servo cogitators had a perfect understanding of terrain, allowing them to prepare ambushes, pincer movements and enfilading fire into the advancing Traitors. Perturarbo expected better of his sons, throwing particular scorn at his failures: Little Peturarbo, Warsmith Noxidus, Atius Tharn, who failed vital spearhead strikes assigned to key battlefronts.
Fighting in Sapphire City ground to a standstill, no side clearly favoured, despite the overwhelming force sent by the Traitors.
In the Northern Desolation, the region most ravaged by the virus, the Loyalist firmly held their ground. Upon the Grand Processional of Crescent City, Warhound Titans CHILD OF HOPE and XXX mauled each other an explosive death.
Meanwhile in the Scented Flats deep in the southern hemisphere, where living biological matter still remained thanks to stilled atmospheric movement, the Traitors clawed into an early lead, advancing behind the fumes of the melting biosphere into the Loyalist gunline. Unapparelled expenditure of ammunition, venting of exhaust fumes and energy weapon discharge have kicked up atmospheric storms across the entire planet, filling engine blocks with dust, blocking targeting arrays and rendering communication useless. This armoured conflict now becomes even more frantic than before, with the very orders given to commanders seeming to change by the minute. Now, the Traitors must advance and ensure that Tallarn burns.
Round 2 Wrap Up and Round 3 Intro
In the opening engagements, the perfectly laid plans of the Loyalists allowed them to set ambushes against the advancing Traitor, but the atmospheric degradation and resulting storms more than equaled the playing field in this regard, rending the these best laid plans useless. And Perturarbo is the master of controlled chaos. Furthermore, in this time of impossible uncertainty, the best technique is to simply apply overwhelming force to every possible avenue, and the Lord of Iron possesses nothing if not endless waves of flesh and iron.
Upon the Fields of Dust, the Traitors were victorious, and the defenders driven back to Crescent City. A swelling Traitor host gathered on its outskirts, and pushed in with a tidal wave of steel. Spearheading this assault were the engines of Legio Mortis, with a carefully chosen cadre of Legio Ignatum standing guard over the Forge Thanes of Crescent City. The Titan weapons reaped great tolls on both sides, and destroyed a number of the Ignatum God-Engines. However, in single combat with the honourable Firewasp’s Discraemen Vitae, the mighty Princeps Senioris of the hated Death Head’s Breath of Thunder was brought low, and the death cry of this fetid engine of bone and iron was felt in the depths of the warp.
As its reactor screamed into overload, a sinister warp reagent added onto the existing after-effects of the virus bombardment. Even Perturarbo, possessing a mind containing much appetite for destruction, could not imagine the potency of this new effect. This man of science looking down onto the warp-tainted trickery of the pantheon, even the eyes of this genius were blind to the potential of the chaotically infused virus.
Chaos reigns throughout the vox planetwide, on both sides. Shouted warnings, orders interrupted, the screaming of the dying occluding even the most urgent of transmissions. “GET OUT,” “hide in the bunkers,” “seal your armour, toxinus maximus.” The acid form of the newly mutated virus eating its way through void armour, Astartes undersuits and rebreathers and worming its way to naked flesh, swiftly rendered to post-flesh, wet bone pulp, ex-biological detritus. But even now, orders remains. Areas of the battlefield too valuable to be abandoned in the face of this front of creeping death must be claimed. They give it a name, they call it THE NECROPHAGE.
Round 3 Wrap Up and Round 4 Intro
Thousands died. The grim arithmetic of the Necrophage continued for days, as the death count climbed into the hundreds of thousands.
The world of Tallarn begin to change. The virus bombardment left behind biological sludge, but it soon hardened into a dried and crusty layer, beneath which the putrid ooze still pulsed like waves of an ocean. The skies of Tallarn became a toxin-filled fog of clouds, which hailed solid steel.
A glorious victory on this horrid battlefield was obtained by the Loyalists, with fourteen of the twenty three key battlefields held by the defenders. The biological weapons of the Traitors were turned against their own ranks, and spurred on by the overconfidence and poor discipline with gas masks.
Amidst the madness and filth, feats of single combat reigned supreme. The Warhound Titan Astral Wolf was brought low by the Thunderhammer of the traitorous Ultramarine Praetor Malleo Tempestas, surviving stomps and the subsequent reactor breach with his Prides’ Dark Power Warlord Trait. His hammer was christening his weapon Lupus Unmade, anointed in the Titan’s oil.
Arioch Tabris of the Blood Angels stabbed a filthy Predator through the vision slit with his Paragon blade, Astrael, while Captain Escalus of the Sons of Horus killed his third Warlord in three successive battles. Preator Astraleus of the 7th used the Best Defence to charge into the bodyguard of the 8th Legion’s Mashuga the Devourer, Mistress of the Bloodred Throne, protecting a vulnerable squad of Templar Brethren. Meanwhile a squad of Huscarls deep strikes nearly felled the Titan Child of Hope with chainfists and fury.
In this final battle for the fate of Tallarn, scavenged archeotech has been deployed to reinforce the key vehicles, to form the TIP OF SPEAR.
Round Four and Finale
The swiftly-mustered Auxilia of the Hive World registered DI73254 PDF won a noble victory, as heroic Demolisher “Bullethell” broke past the Dusk Raider lines, avoiding a trio of ramming Auroxes and Leman Russ fire, managing to breach the enemy line despite featuring 100% losses of their infantry forces.
In the warzone around Sapphire City, an Imperial Fists Thunderhawk “Flavum Antium” moved dangerously close to the Iron Warriors defenders while disgorging its cargo of Terminators, and was promptly punched to ruin by the angry hands of the wronged sons of Perturarbo.
In the adjacent warzone, a Triaros with the initialisation Delta-Phi-110100100 trundled into its warzone behind a cloud of radiation, pushing its way through a dozen tanks from both the Fists and the Spartan, claiming a fierce victory for the Mechanicum against their foes. In this action, it earned the name “Sacred Locomotion.”
In the ruins of Crescent City, the Ultramarine Tank Invictus Ultima, following the footstops of Astral Wolf, smashing its way through the Iron Warriors line. A few kilometres away, a lone Salamanders Praetor punched through the bodyguard of the Militia Commander named “Napoleon,” taking four entire turns to vanquish his foes, as the stubbornness of the Francian regiment held true even in death.
In Sapphire City, Captain Escalus slew his fourth warlord of the campaign in single combat, murdering another nameless commander of the Solar Auxilia. Despite this valourous melee, the enemy “Ferrus Dux” breached his enemy lines and the day was lost. The Fellblade Angels Wrath of the Blood Angels, turned mad as they succumbed to the Red Thirst and tore apart their horrified Imperial Fist allies.
While facing the Imperial Fists and Militia, the Word Bearer Commander Arcanis Malek was humilitatingly gunned down by a pair of plasma gun armed Grenadiers from the 3rd Line Hounds. Did he survive? The surviving Word Bearers still boasted of murder of the Imperial Fists Marshall Eteria Corr at the hands of their battle tanks.
The Iron Hands Kratos “Rubrun, The Red Handed” survived a withering hail of fire from the Sons of Horus and despite terrifying odds breached the enemy deployment zone.
In the first turn of a battle between the Salamanders and the Iron Warriors, the Spartan Command Tank “Vulkan Lives” was destroyed in the opening volley, but its valuable cargo of Fire Drakes survived several entire turns of the Iron Warriors hammering shell after shell into it. This was still not enough to claim the day.
In the shadow of the artillery that defended Sapphire City, the Emperor’s Children Sicarian Master of Armour crawled into the deployment on a single hullpoint and only one weapon remaining. The tank “Invicta” was honoured with the epithet Destroyer of Chogoris, surviving sustained fire from a Deredeo and a Cerberus before surviving.
In this final round, the Loyalists claimed their victory, eventually losing the Sapphire City and the Crescent City to Traitor forces but demanding such a damaging toll on the Traitor forces that the armoured forces of the Warmaster would be greatly diminished for the Solar War. For the Glory of the Emperor!
We Horus Heretics will be back soon with another artile talking about how we designed the event, from track and tread mastermind @smogblack. We’ll talk about the rules changes, scenario design and much much more, as well as sharing the scenarios with you.
If this all sounds or looks like fun (gosh those photos are kickass, well done Scott) then grab yourself a ticket for our BIGGEST EVENT YET, the Second Sphere Defence. We’re plotting a huge solar war campaign for May 10th/11th with 48 tables, megagames, Zone Mortalis and optional Primarch duels. It’s going to be a ton of fun and we still have a couple of tickets left for both sides.
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