The summoning of this “chaos spawn” had a significant impact on the boarding action. The heretical beast managed to punch a hole in the power armor of Veteran Sergeant Durand and cause an injury that led to the fall of this mighty warrior.

“Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking.”—General Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne, M2

* * *

Continued from Part 1 . . .

Not far away, Durand also saw the fight go out of his opponents.

But before he could exploit his enemies’ weakness, an unpleasant discomfort came over him. He recognized it: witchcraft.

Scanning the cargo bay, he saw a group of men in the distance, surrounding a gaunt figure who was gesturing with his arms and glowing a sickly green.

“Psyker on far end of cargo bay. Target is top priority.”

The chaos spawn charges into Veteran Sergeant Durand.

The warning came too late. The air in front of the psyker erupted in a greenish fire that revealed a sickly black opening. Leaping out of the darkness was a massive mound of flesh, all arms and legs and tentacles—a blasphemy of body parts melded together into a monstrosity.

This creature of the Warp fixed its eyes on Durand, and it charged directly at him.

The Astartes countercharged, at the same time firing the single-use flamer attached to his left gauntlet. The warp beast was engulfed in the holy flames of burning promethium.

The creature howled but came coming. Its tentacles struck out at Durand, one slamming into a weak polymer joint at his waist and penetrating his lower abdomen. Durand ignored the pain and severed a second tentacle swinging for his head.

Less than a second later, the two slammed into each other, their momentum and weight leaving both to stagger in the aftermath.

Durand was faster to recover. He slammed his left fist into the creature’s sole eye, while the lightning claw on his right gauntlet buried itself deep into the beast’s chest. Durand twisted the claw sideways and swept it outwards to tear a huge chunk of meat completely from the monstrosity’s chest.

Brother Gerard appeared at Durand’s side. He raised his bolt pistol and fired three shots into the creature’s head, and the sickly excuse of a body folded in on itself and dissipated in a ghostly mist.

* * *

As they drive the Slavers out of the cargo bay, the Space Marines give chase.

A boltgun round quickly eliminated the psyker’s threat, and Durand was eager to exploit the Slavers’ retreat. He ordered his men to follow him, and he led them into a room where several of the Savers had fled.

As he entered the room, he saw the trap. Standing only four meters away was an armored foe. It was a sad excuse for power armor, cobbled together of welded metal sheeting, bits of plasteel, and other salvaged parts.

But what caught the attention of Durand was the heavy flamer held by this armored man—a flamer pointed directly at him

There was no time to react. The flamer opened up, and Durand was engulfed in flame. So were four other Space Marines who had followed their commander.

For a moment, Durand believed his armor would protect him. But the flames found the punctured joint at his waist, and he grunted as the flames began to burn away parts of his abdomen.

* * *;

The Space Marines run into an ambush. Although the Slavers were in retreat, the ship captain, equipped with primitive power armor, was waiting with a heavy flamer.

“Talon,” Durand grunted over the comm-net. “I am no longer combat effective. Take command.”

The news dismayed the sergeant, but his actions revealed nothing but concern over the mission. Aware of the armored foe, he stopped outside the room where Durand lay and tossed a frag grenade deep into the room where he assumed the threat stood.

The grenade should prove no danger to Durand in his terminator armor.

A moment after the grenade exploded, Talon raced forward, counting on the armored man to be disoriented. He crossed the space to the man in the blink of an eye, raised his power sword, and slammed it into the man’s chest.

“Threat eliminated,” Talon reported. “Astartes on me. We are only meters away from the ship’s bridge.”

He ran forward, but he was assessing the threat. Four of the 10 Space Marines in the boarding party were down, one of them dead and the rest needing assistance. But he knew he had to press forward and not allow the enemy to regroup.

* * *

Sergeant Talon and his men reach the ship’s bridge. Victory is in the air, but as more reinforcements arrived, the Astartes decide the risk of further battle is too high. They withdraw.

Up ahead, Talon could see the hatch to the bridge. Men were still retreating through it. He picked up his pace, as he didn’t want the Slavers to close the door and buy a respite.

He shot a slaver who was reaching for a control panel on the far side of the hatch. The entrance stayed open, and Talon entered the room, finding himself the target of more than 20 gunmen. He fired off shot after shot, killing with each, and the rest of his Marines were through the door a moment later and opening fire.

A plasma beam lit up the chamber, and Brother Dayn fell. Talon cursed. They were so close to taking the ship, but he could hear the running footsteps of a large number of men coming down a corridor on the far side of the room. At least 20 more men.

Meanwhile, the biometrics of Durand were unsteady, and Talon was concerned that some Slavers would work their down another corridor and reach the wounded. He could not abide the idea of his brothers falling victim to this scum.

“Withdraw,” Durand ordered. “This scum is not worth the risk to our brothers. We’ll fall back to the Emperor’s Fury and blast this wretched ship to dust.”

* * *

TheGM: This battle, fought by attendees at the Shorehammer 2024 convention, ended in victory for the Balar Slavers. It was a Pyrrhic victory, as with the Slaver ship’s propulsion system inoperable, it was short work for the Emperor’s Fury to blast the freighter into oblivion.

Still, the Slavers stopped the seemingly unstoppable Astartes and denied them valuable intelligence on, for example, the existence of any Slaver bases in the area.

Until late in the game, it appeared the Space Marines were unstoppable. They swept through the cargo bay without a single casualty, which after multiple play-tests I didn’t think was possible.

It was only when the Astartes ran into the ramshackle armor of the ship captain, whose flamer did far more damage than statistically likely, that the Space Marines found their momentum slowing. A couple lucky shots by the standard-human crew took down a few more Astartes. After that, the Marines had to make a morale check every turn to keep fighting.

Statistically, they should have wiped the crew out even with their depleted forces. They had a 92% likelihood of rolling a 10 or less for morale, but on his very first roll, the Astartes commander rolled an 11. Ah, well.

Click here to return to Part 1.

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