An artist’s rendering of the death of Nuzsnik Grimspitta by the company champion, Verelus Alco, of the Knights of Altair.

Knights of Altair assassinate ork warlord

A contingent of the Knights of Altair Space Marine Chapter has targeted and killed a dangerous ork warlord challenging the Imperium’s tenuous hold of the mining moon of Hegira.

On 3 079 745.M41, two Assault Squads of the 4th Company of Knights, supported by two Stormtalon gunships, descended upon the encampment of the ork warlord Nuzsnik Grimspitta, self-proclaimed “Savage Mecha-Butcha of Zyphonar Two.”

This warlord, more than three meters tall and weighing 455 kilograms (approximately 1,200 pounds), has dominated most of the ork warbands to the west of Susa City, the besieged capital of Hegira. For this reason, High Command marked him as high-priority target for Imperial troops.

(Headquarters is a generous term, as orks “lead” by threat of violence rather than tactical planning.)

The discovery of Grimspitta’s location was determined by Captain Marius Nevarre, commander of the 4th Company, who spent a week reviewing military intelligence reports before announcing where he would mount an attack.

Nevarre’s command of 20 Assault Marines launched their assassination mission just before dawn, catching many of the greenskin xenos asleep or sluggish. According to a military bulletin, the Space Marines didn’t ignite their jetpacks until only 200 meters from the moon’s surface.

Surprise was total, General Tiberius Vectrix, supreme commander of Hegira forces, said in a news briefing soon after the attack.

“The Knights of Altair landed and, before a single ork had fired, were charging toward the hut where Grimspitta was thought to sleep.,” he said. “He wasn’t there, but the warlord made his presence known by gathering a group of orks on the other side of the encampment and charging directly at the Space Marines.”

Grimspitta was a prominent target, as he stood head and shoulders above the other orks, Vectrix said. The majority of Space Marines rose on their jetpacks and brought the ork warlord under fire—until the Company Champion, Brother Verelus Alco, used his jetpack to leap across the battlefield and land on the shoulders of the warlord.

“As Brother Alco landed, he buried his chainsword into Grimspitta’s skull and ended the warlord’s threat to Susa City.”

With Grimspitta’s death, Captain Nevarre determined that, given the sizable ork force in the area, further military options would be a poor use of the chapter’s resources—and he ordered his command to withdraw, Vectrix said. The Marines suffered no casualties.

Dark Harbor is aptly named, as weather conditions routinely leave the port town veiled in fog and gray skies.

Authorities on Myrna chase serial killer

Nearly four years ago, rumors spread of a serial killer targeting the seaport shanty town of Dark Harbor on the ocean world of Myrna.

Stories told were that, for a period of 75 days, a single resident was brutally slain in the middle of the night. Increased street patrols by the Adeptus Arbites apparently intimidated the culprit, as the rate of nighttime murders later slowed to one every 15 days.

Although certainly an improvement, two murders a month has terrified the community. Fishing trawlers leaving port either return earlier in the day, so that fishermen can lock themselves in their homes before nightfall, or late-returning trawlers choose to anchor hundreds of meters off shore, sleep at sea, and only dock after dawn.

“The situation is not tolerable, as four years of this ongoing violence has added 100 more victims to the killer’s body count,” said Investigator Konrad Geth of the Dark Harbor Arbites Precinct.

Recently, after several two-man patrols of Enforcers were attacked and killed, nighttime patrols have been expanded to five Enforcers who are armed with shotguns and a flamer, he said.

“We will not surrender the streets to the dark but patrol with such strength to intimidate the most insane of killers.”

An additional two squads of Enforcers have been deployed to the port town in an attempt to stop the killings permanently, Geth said.

“We will not rest until we end this terrible threat to public safety.”

Gazing too long at the sky around the Warp phenomenon has been known to drive men insane.

Warp phenomenon expanding on Hegira

On Hegira, a massive and mysterious aerial phenomenon is expanding near the ork-held Barad Mine, and rumors are spreading that an ongoing series of strange lightning, glowing clouds, and eerie sounds are a consequence of warp energies leaking from a tear in reality that threatens the entire moon.

A number of citizens have been arrested for speaking of the rumors, and the Commissariat has whipped several PDF soldiers for the offense of “undermining morale with malicious rumors.”

Despite official denials, rumors continue to spread about the disturbing activity to the west of Susa City. It is said that lightning bolts in a variety of unnatural colors fill the sky at night, and thousands of orks gather beneath the spectacle in a silence that is disturbing given the greenskins’ boisterous nature.

It is also said that an Imperial patrol was sent to investigate the phenomena six years ago, and none of the members of the patrol survived their exposure to whatever is happening.

More worrisome, the phenomena was limited to only two kilometers in diameter at that time. Since then, it has grown to almost 20 kilometers in diameter today, as evidenced by orbital sensors.

Through the smoke of the devastated area, you can barely make out the heretical Warp portal in the top right-hand corner of this vid-pict.

Heretical ritual goes terribly wrong

On the war-torn world of Dozaria, where a massive invasion by the Death Guard has laid waste to much of the planet, the apparent attempt by the traitors to conduct a heretical ritual has ended in a violent explosion of warp energy.

The Death Guard warriors suffer great bodily degradation because of their worship of the Ruinous Powers.

“In recent years, the traitor Astartes and their heretical cultists have attempted a number of foul rituals in an attempt to summon creatures of the Warp to aid the Death Guard’s military conquest of Dozaria,” High Marshal Mikhail Botha said in a news briefing. He added that a recent ritual is believed to have ended in disaster.

“On 6 099 745.M41, the sensors of an Imperial destroyer in orbit recorded a sizable explosion about 100 kilometers southeast of the enemy-held city of Inaspolis,” he said. “Sensors revealed that, unlike most explosions in this war, this event consisted of Warp energies.”

The most logical explanation, he added, was that Death Guard sorcerers attempted a heretical ritual to open a portal into the Warp, but they were unable to contain the energies that spilled out of the opening they created.

“If our suspicions are correct, the explosion closed the portal before it stabilized and killed dangerous, heretical sorcerers who were a threat to our world,” Botha concluded. “I consider that a great victory for the Imperium, even though nearly 50 square kilometers of the planet is Warp-tainted and likely unusable for all time.”

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Some character names were inspired by the Realm of Plastic’s 40K name generator. Click here to visit the site.

Alas, the webpage of Jedi-Art-Trick is not available.

Click here for more artwork by Sharpwriter.

Click here for more artwork by RadoJavor.

Click here for more artwork by Vukasin Ivkovic (Vookasheen).

Credit for the lightning is unavailable, and the warp portal is a poor Photoshop attempt by TheGM.

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