Planet: Scorchwood
System: Nerien
Sector: Ilutonia
Forces Involved: Sector Regnum II Army Corps, comprising the 12th Cadian Airborne Regiment, the 85th Cadian Armoured Regiment, the 6th Cadian Light Infantry Regiment, and the 127th Cadian Infantry Regiment.
Opposition: Hive Fleet Gamarus
Starting Position: 127.638°W, 37.896°N, Tertius High-Security District, Penal Block 137. Saint-Somien Island, Paraphalos Archipelago.
Objectives: Defender. Secure the Penal Block and the adjacent waterways.
Since the Varya Minor Incident, Imperial fleets have been ferrying reinforcements from neighboring sectors, pulling entire Astra Militarum divisions away from the war zones of the Ghost Stars. The first formations to arrive would eventually be organized into a II Army Corps tasked with the defense of the sector. The immediate priority was to monitor Votann and Aeldari movements, but above all to contain the first incursions of Hive Fleet Gamarus. Every battle won by the Tyranids would grant them fresh biomass from the fallen, allowing them to swell their numbers. The threat had to be struck hard from the outset if it was to be contained.
The first bioships were detected on the fringes of the Nerien System, setting off alarms throughout the Imperial fleet. Their probable destination was quickly identified as the penal world of Scorchwood, prompting the rapid deployment of substantial reinforcements.
Warning sirens wailed through the fortress-blocks defending Scorchwood's prison colonies. Across the planet's scattered islands, defensive positions had already been established. The world itself was little more than a vast chain of wind-swept archipelagos, covered in towering cypress forests and crisscrossed by streams inhabited by massive crocodilian predators. Millions of prisoners were confined on the penal world, watched over by tens of thousands of Adeptus Arbites. Yet those forces were primarily tasked with maintaining order, for riots were never far away. While the Deathwatch pushed back Votann reconnaissance forces in the Eyclades Archipelago, the planet's principal island chain, responsibility for defending the outlying prison blocks fell to the II Army Corps.
The 12th Airborne Regiment and the 85th Armoured Regiment, supporting the 6th Light Infantry, established defensive positions around the compounds housing the quadrant's most dangerous criminals. Barricades were erected in haste, while abandoned structures beyond the perimeter were converted into command posts and ammunition depots. For already the skies were filling with the descending mycetic spores of Gamarus, their chitinous shells gleaming in shades of orange, yellow, and blue. The first creatures to resist the invasion were the native beasts of the marshes and waterways, which sold their lives dearly against the screeching alien tide.
The Astra Militarum stood ready.
Colonel Patrek of the 6th Light Infantry commanded the western sector of the defensive line, his troops deployed alongside the airborne infantry and armored forces of the corps. The men were focused, their morale high. They had recently returned from victorious campaigns against heretics from the Eye of Pirates, many light-years away. These veterans knew their duty.
So when the first Tyranid waves burst from cover and poured into the open ground, while the warning sirens continued their relentless howl, the non-commissioned officers shouted for weapons to be unlocked and brought to bear.
The targets closed rapidly.
Shrieking their war cries.
The Cadians formed two perfectly disciplined firing lines.
Then, at the launch of a single red flare, hell was unleashed.
Hundreds of lasguns and automatic weapons cut down the leading Tyranid organisms as they charged across the open ground. Yet the Poison of Gamarus continued its advance, and, astonishingly, suffered only minimal losses. The tanks of the 85th Armoured Regiment roared into action, while batteries of artillery hurled explosive shells that carved bloody furrows of chitin, shrapnel, and torn flesh through the Tyranid ranks.
Even under the added weight of mortar fire and grenade launchers, the enemy closed the distance.
The situation escalated further when the Tyranid bio-artillery unleashed its payloads of corrosive acids and living explosives upon the Imperial Guard. Cadian positions were battered by waves of spore mines, preventing the defenders from securing better firing angles or conducting orderly redeployments. Men wounded by biological acids and volatile toxins were dragged to the rear by their comrades, while the regiment's automatic weapons laid down furious covering fire with little visible effect. The creatures' armored carapaces seemed to shrug off most Imperial weaponry.
On the right flank, the airborne troops were overwhelmed by fresh reinforcements from the hive fleet.
A Screamer-Killer burst forward with an ear-splitting roar, drawing and absorbing a tremendous volume of return fire. Behind it came the Genestealers, bounding into the attack with terrifying speed. Their shrieks—hungry, predatory, inhuman—sent a momentary tremor through the Imperial line.
The Imperial firing line shattered beneath the assault, torn apart by claws and fangs. Men were swept aside by the Screamer-Killer's colossal scything talons, while others were ripped open, dismembered, and eviscerated by the Genestealers. Point-blank volleys failed to halt the monsters as they plunged deeper into the defenders' ranks, feasting upon the slaughter they created.
The reserve armored formations were finally committed, making a counterattack conceivable. Yet it came too late. The surviving defensive positions had already been relentlessly battered by Tyranid bio-artillery, their defenders pinned beneath a storm of corrosive and explosive organisms.
Bold reinforcements launched a flanking assault against the advancing elements of Hive Fleet Gamarus. Though ultimately driven back, they succeeded in reaching the enemy's bio-artillery batteries, inflicting significant losses before being overwhelmed.
The Cadians were steadily forced backward as wave after wave of monstrous creatures descended upon them, engulfing and devouring every remaining pocket of resistance. Discipline alone kept the line from collapsing entirely.
Colonel Patrek himself became the rallying point. Gathering survivors from the 12th Airborne Regiment around him, he led a desperate effort to clear the last Tyranid Termagants from the plains in brutal close combat.
The airborne troopers charged forward, roaring a single cry:
They impaled the xenos upon their bayonets, smashed them aside with rifle butts, and fought tooth and nail for possession of the final objective.
But in the end, the ground could not be held.
The Imperial forces were compelled to withdraw, yielding space so that the Deathwatch could launch its own counteroffensive and ultimately drive the enemy back.
Territorial Loss: -3.2 km²
Casualty Level: Heavy infantry losses.
Report B: Defensive positions compromised, several overrun. Flanking counterattacks proved moderately effective.
Astra Militarum: 25 / 50
Tyranids: 50 / 50
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