Khanzhar cursed Anna for not being her meat shield. The Incubus was a duelist, not a brawler. A precision blade in the stage play of battle. 'Now I start to sound like a Harlequin." she thought to herself bringing her Klaive up to take the attack from the Plagueberer and return blows of her own.
Determination:[_3d6]=(2+5+2)=9
Got one success and thus why I did not want to get into melee with Plaguebearers in the first place.
Poisoned 7
With the muscular female now all but out of the fight from her wounds and the virulent infection seeping into it, that left Khanzhar in a rather bad position. While Talshi certainly could surge forward and join in the melee with his blades, his eyes were keen enough to see how the swarming flies were buzzing at the drukhari's face to otherwise hamper her strikes. She had a helmet, he did not. The sslyth was not keen to have those things buzzing his nostrils, eyes, or mouth and just, in general, found these daemons disgusting enough that he certainly didn't want to get any closer to them than he needed to.
Instead he took a breath and focused, watching the flow of the battle and timing his efforts so that he wouldn't accidentally hit his ally. When the time was right he pulled the trigger on his heavy flamer, loosing the twin stream of burning liquid in hopes of dousing both of the remaining daemons at once and finally finishing this mess of an unnecessary encounter in his opinion. Unfortunately the efforts he took to ensure he did not hit Khanzhar seemed to be just enough to foil his aim.
Spend Move Action to Aim
Ranged attack against the far Plaguebearer with the hopes of catching the closer one in the line (+1 Short Range, using Aim to remove the risk of friendly fire): [_7d6s4]=(3, 6, 3, 4, 3, 2, 4)=3=3
4 Icons isn't enough. (Enemy Defense 3 + 2 DN from Fear)
With Khanzhar's klaive going wide and Talshi's flames washing against the building instead of the daemon's, the heroes luck seemed to just be at a standstill. Flagg took careful aim and pulled the trigger, unloading her entire power pack into the two daemons in two quick bursts that shot either side of Khanzhar. Unfortunately both barrages only struck the church and left the daemons utterly unharmed, still able to menace and engage the group. One of which even seemed to feel like its work with the Drukhari was done and with a wide smile and chuckle, shambled forward towards Talshi, pulling out of a window to crawl towards him.
The group of scion's massed firepower did manage to strike the one remaining daemon that fought the Drukhari, but their weapons just weren't strong enough to deal with these Nurgle daemons, doing little more than distract it. That itself might have proved useful as it swung wide of Khanzhar and found empty air where the nimble Drukhari once was. This fight continued to drag on.
Khanzhar parried the plagued sword of the servant of Nurgle away with a precision flourish. She felt the toxins and disease of the plaguebearer working within her already. This sort of agony was not what she considered fun. Cursing in her Aeldari tongue, the Incubus returned a fateful cleaving strike against the creature.
Unfortunately for Khanzhar the daemon was just as proficient in parrying her as she was as parrying it. Though slow, brutish and cumbersome, the daemon had a surprising grace, unnatural given its grotesque form. The battle continued to stretch on, a stalemate as these things proved incredibly hard to kill. Average soldiers would likely be slaughtered already if the Scion's performance was anything to go by.
Unfortunately for Talshi, he was now in melee range of one of the creatures. The buzzing flies and foul stench assaulted his senses and, for as beneficial as his flamer generally was, he now couldn't bring it to bear. With little choice he had to fight this thing in melee and suffer through this problematic situation rather than give it a free swing by trying to pull back. Still, the sslyth was no stranger to battle and while his skill might not be quite to the same degree as the drukhari that spent her life mastering the blade he still believed he could bring this one low.
His two power swords crackled with lightning as he twisted his torso and flew into motion. Sacrificing his focus from his defense, Talshi did everything he could to try and end this abomination quickly. He swung both blades from different directions, trying to minimize any chance of his opponent to parry or avoid both of them so that at least one would strike true.
Despite Talshi's efforts the Plaguebearer managed to do something unexpected, bringing the sword up against the first blade and as it parried, shoving the larger serpent back. It wasn't enough to really push Talshi away, but it knocked him off balance for a few seconds, enough that second blade didn't come close to hitting and just cut through the swarm of flies between him and the plaguebearer. The cyclopian daemon grinned and lunged forward, thrusting its blade at Talshi, even as a barrage of fire from Flagg struck into its back, yet it seemed to ignore her as it lunged forward. Fortunately, even as the blade grazed against the Sslyth's scales, the beast seemed to lose its grip and the rotten blade tumbled free from its hands.
Flagg was cursing, having final zeroed in on where to shoot among the swarm of flies, she unloaded a heavy volley directly into the back of the beast that dueled Talshi. It should have been enough, it should have finished it... it did not and the freshly locked in powerpack suddenly flashed red and showed itself to be empty. "Throne damn it!" The woman cursing as she started reaching for her pistol.
The other scions did no better, their shots from less powerful guns unable to make a dent in the wounded daemons. Things seemed desperate right now, perhaps a little hopeless. That's when the whine of gravunits and the roar of an engine would start to echo through the destroyed gate and into the courtyard.
Theodora Tessa, radical Inquisitor and self crystalized savior of the Gilead system, had multiple cards in play. A single strike team, loud, obvious and backed up by infantry and light armor support, a reasonable approach to storm the palace. But there was no subtly and if the enemy had overwhelming defenses, well it'd turn her assets into corpses, not the ideal scenario when she wanted to interrogate the rebel lord. But an unsubtle move was a brilliant mask for a more subtle move, a flashy assault to the face while a knife was slipped in from behind. That was assuming there was a gap in the armor to slip the metaphorical knife in. That was what the second team was for.
She'd met with these, one of the Kin, an abhuman just about tolerated around these parts and a psyker-woman, untrained, bound for death before she intervened. Both were ideal scouts, and so, she gave them their mission, sent them out on a second craft bound for the besieged city. While the first team were rumbling up through to the main gate, the second team was ordered around, exploring the walls of the palace, searching for other points to enter the palace. Worst case scenario, the first team failed and this second team could slip in and extract the target quietly. Well no, worse case scenaro would be the whole palace was leveled by artillery, such a waste. Best case scenario? Well they'd meet up inside and work together from there.
That didn't pan out though, no matter what old blueprints said, the palace had been fully fortified and if there was an escape passage, there seemed to be no sign of it where the scout team could find. So the order had come down from the Inquisitor, her slightly husky voice sighing softly. "Well it would be a waste not to employ your skills still. Redirect to the front gate, you will be joining the assault team." Perhaps the pair learning for the first time, that there even was an assault team.
Cruising through the fleshy remains of the mutated gate, sliding past the disabled body of the inquisitors Rhino. Vak and Augie would witness the aftermath of a battle, corpses of heretics and traitors strewn about bunkers and trenches in a wide courtyard. They'd also spot a battle in progress, a team of scions firing into a pair of teams while a pair of xenos, a nimble drukhai and a towering Ssylth engaged them in melee combat. It was certainly a mess and it looked like the pair of scouts had their chance to make a difference to the fight.
Rolling complication just kept giving me things that didn't really make sense or else were non-applicable, so going with my own. Talshi will be staggered till the end of his next turn(1/2 speed, can't run or sprint), I don't want to stack any more meaningful penalties here.
Flagg tries to gun down Plaguebearer 3, taking a simple action to reload and movement to aim. [_12d6]=(1+1+2+3+2+1+5+3+6+4+5+2)=5 vs DN8, miss and complicate, going to use her last Wrath to reroll that(minus the wrath dice of course) [_7d6]=(1+1+1+5+3+6+3)=3 okay hits at fucking last.
Spending 1 Glory on ED to trigger her Elite Soldier Ability to add Rank to damage
Damage: 11 + [_2d6]=(4+5)=2 = 13 damage at AP -2.
Complication: [_2d6]=(1+3)=13 out of ammo. Well that's her Volleygun finished with until she can steal some ammo from the Scions
Plaguebearer 3 will swing at Talshi [_9d6]=(1+2+1+4+1+6+4+5+5)=6 vs DN 3, hit and complicate
Damage: 11 + [_2d6]=(1+1)=0 = 11 damage and inflict Posion 7(if you actually take any wounds from it)
For its complication I'm just going to have it drop its Plaguesword, losing Parry for the turn until I can pick it back up again.
Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)
