The orks senda  significant armored force into a clearing in the Hobru Jungle of Iconia. The xenos were met by a sizable force of Imperial mechanized troops, leading to an immense battle.

“Battlewagons on our right flank! They’re getting behind us. We need reinforcements immediately. Look out! They’re firing . . . .“—Transcript, interrupted vox transmission from 3rd PDF Armored Company, Iconia

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Ork Looted Wagon

IMPERIAL VOXCAST (6 290 743.M41)—Invading orks launched a massive armored assault through the equatorial jungles of Iconia three weeks ago, shattering the planet’s central defensive position and allowing the greenskins to seize a wide swath of territory.

The heaviest fighting lasted five days, with three Planetary Defense Force (PDF) regiments being destroyed, and four more suffering serious casualties.

“A large formation of ork Battlewagons, looted Imperial vehicles, xeno walkers, and two Titan-sized walkers—frequently called “Gargants”—attacked through the Hobru Jungle beginning on 6 241.743.M41,” Captain Jamol Wythe, public liaison officer for the Nguyen Naval Base above Belliose III, announced today in a press briefing.

“What followed was a series of fierce frontal assaults by the orks, leading to severe xeno casualties, but the greenskin numbers were so great that they overwhelmed our valiant troops.”

Imperial Warnings

Wythe emphasized that Imperial forces were not taken by surprise.

“Although the Iconia High Command did not believe that large military operations were possible in the Hobru Jungle, a dense tropical forest along the planet’s equator, the orks’ deployment of a sizable number of troops, armor, and two 25-meter-tall walkers was impossible to hide from Imperial aerial and orbital sensors,” he said.

It took the xenos nearly two weeks to push their sizable armored force through the jungle and deploy for their attack, allowing the PDF to strafe and bomb the orks repeatedly. The High Command also rushed half  a dozen regiments to the region to reinforce the thin Imperial defenses on hand.

On the first day of battle, ork Warbuggies suffered heavy casualties as the lightly armored vehicles charged straight into a gun line of Lemon Russ tanks.

Initial Assault

There was no subtlety in the ork attack, Wythe noted. 

“There was no preliminary artillery bombardment, only a scattering of aerial bombing runs, and no apparent organization to the forces involved. They just advanced, severely hampered by the dense jungle, on a broad front, walkers mixed with tanks, Battlewagons charging alongside Warbuggies.”

Local imperial commanders chose not to sit back on the defensive, but instead sent their own armor forward  to contest the ork advance.

“The decision was made to blunt the ability of the orks to hit the main Imperial defenses with the full force of their mechanized forces,”  Wythe said. “If the greenskins still made it to the Imperial’s infantry line, it was hoped the early casualties would leave the xenos without the power to break through.”

As a result, the first two days of the fighting was chaotic, with Imperial and xeno forces engaging frontally and, at occasionally, intermixing and firing into units’ flanks or rear.

“In this initial exchange, the 3rd PDF Armored Company did sterling service,” Wythe said. “They caused significant casualties to a sizable force of Looted Wagons.”

Looted Wagons, military officers explained, essentially are wrecked Imperial vehicles that greenskins scavenge for usable chassis, engines, and weapons, and then use the parts to build ramshackle vehicles for their own use.

The 3rd Armored received a commendation after the battle for destroying nearly 30 xeno vehicles that were classified as “the equivalent of a medium-weight armored vehicle.”

Over the course of the multi-day battle, hundreds of vehicles and walkers were destroyed.

Fierce Fighting

On the left flank of the Imperial lines, the 25th Mechanized PDF Regiment engaged the equivalent of two battalions’ worth of Looted Wagons and repulsed the ork attack on their front.

For a time, it was hoped the regiment would be able to turn the greenskin flank. Alas, a counterattack by ork Warbuggies, armed with a variety of heavy guns and scorchas (powerful flamers) forced the 25th Mechanized to go on the defensive.

In the center, the Imperials had early success on the third day of fighting, wiping out a formation of Warbuggies, but then found themselves facing a counterattack by another regimental-sized force of Looted Wagons.

Casualties mounted on both sides. The 11th Armored PDF Battalion lost 30 percent of its Lemon Russ tanks and 40 percent of its Armored Sentinels before breaking the attacking looted wagons and, after advancing, they destroyed three “Big Trakks,” a greenskin version of motorized artillery or anti-tank gun platforms.

A Chimera of the 3rd PDF Armored Company confronts an ork Big Trakk.

Threatened Flank

The ferocity of fighting on the left and center of the Imperial defensive position only barely held, leaving little opportunity to shift troops to the Imperial right flank, where the heaviest concentration of ork armored vehicles forced their way forward.

At least 60,000 ork warriors; 500 ork tanks, walkers, and battlewagon; and the two Gargants slammed into the 2nd PDF Mechanized Regiment and 1st PDF Armored Regiment on a 13-kilometer front.

“The fighting was intense—and vehicles in some locations were practically side by side—in the most crowded areas of fighting,” Wythe said.

A cry of triumph arose early in this fighting, when sustained long-range Imperial fire immobilized one of the Gargants before it could reach Imperial troops, he added. “But then scores of Battlewagons, Deff Dreads, and Killa Kans swept into the Imperial defenders.”

Click here to read the battle’s conclusion.

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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our gaming adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.