The Oricas' Attack

The Oricas attacked Bermuda at the end of Turn 3.

## Intro

You are Octavia Tesla and this day you along with the rest of Bermuda awaken to a psychic scream that can be heard even in the isolated underground mines . Luckily other than destroying many glass objects and probably deafening a few people it doesn’t appear to cause much damage.

H.owever you are alarmed when Zerxes rushes into your office showing uncharacteristic fear and nervousness. He quickly tells that this is a scream that emitted by Oricas to stun their prey before going for the kill . He has never heard a scream this powerful before which could only mean a truly phenomenal horde is on its ways.

This is quickly confirmed by cam-servitors and your scouts who tell that a giant Orica horde is on its way to Bermuda and they estimate its number at anywhere between hundreds of millions to the low billions . The only small mercy is that the army appears to poorly equipped with very little of its numbers armed with captured human weapons.

You are stunned at the sheer numbers and can only wonder how the Xenos managed to hide so many combatants .

Worse judging by the requests for support you have been getting Bermuda is not the only city under attack .

That doesn’t matter now you and Armcus have to command the defenses and forces at your disposal . Already civilians are being evacuated to the cavarens from which you mine your resources while your forces prepare.

## Surprise!

After a lot of pondering and arguing with Armcus you decide to amass the vast majority of your forces outside the walls to meet the Oricas head on and rely on the city defenses to reduce the number advantage of the Xenos .

You send out various surveillance servitors to monitor and report to you the movement of the Orica. Despite many of them being noticed and attacked they manage to relay the information relatively intact.

Using the information obtained you order your rough rider regiments , the sole land raider armoured regiment and the lone band of Phylgen warriors under your command to harass and skirmish with the Orica hoard to slow them down and allow your forces time to build up trenches and defenses outside the walls .

The Phlygians despite being underequipped compared to your forces prove to be able to hold their ground against Orica skirmishers but have been unable to inflict any meaningful losses and are losing a great percentage of their own troops.

Your Rough Riders have fared much better in comparison, they and their mounts practically instinctive knowledge of the land combined with the mounts ferocity have made it so that they were able to inflict massive casualties on the attacking Orica while taking little losses themselves. It helps that the Bucalequins seem to scare the Orica into fleeing.

Your land raider regiment meanwhile used the confusion caused to launch itself behind enemy lines and disrupt their logistics as much as possible to slow down the incoming hordes . The Orica have apparently not expected this at all and the element of surprise has allowed your forces almost unchallenged supremacy destroying plenty of supply wagons and caravans that supplied the main horde. This is is a stunning success as the horde is disorganised and has to waste time organising itself giving your forces more time to prepare. Your regiment has suffered no casualties.

Your submarines unfortunately haven’t had much luck as though there aren’t any Orica forces at sea there doesn’t seem to be any settlements, bases or any sort of gathering for your submarines to level or at least any that your forces were able to detect.

You are pleased about how well your forces are doing in these skirmishes though you are still worried , even with the damage inflicted you are still fighting at odds of at least 10 to 1 at best and more worryingly none of the Alphas have been sighted . To add to the list of worries it appears the other 3 settlements on Olympia are suffering attacks from similarly sized hordes.

No matter you must focus on the horde you are currently facing . The defenses around the walls are complete thanks to the time bought by your forces . A death field of crude mines, camflouaged pits and similarly unpleasant traps . It’s amazing what millions of men can do in a short time.

Now you have divided your battle lines so that the veteran portions of your forces face the full brunt of the assault at the primary lines with the rest less experienced parts of your army acting as reserves and support in the second line.

And finally you have your light infantry in position to flank the attacking xenos should the opportunity arise .

From the information you got from Zerxes you have placed many snipers and other marksman in position with orders to focus on taking out any Oricas with the district albino traits of Alphas.

All that remains is for you to wait for the enemy to arrive .

After three hours of playing the waiting game , your forces report the first sightings of the massive Orica force . No less than 500 million Oricas are now at your gates.

With a sinister scream that probably passes for a battle cry for the xenos you watch as the death field does its job admirably cutting down on the massive Orica charge . All the while your defenses and artillery does massive damage to the horde to the point that barely any reach your battle lines.

Your armies sheer at the carnage but you are worried so far you haven’t seen any of the alphas and neither have any of your snipers. Then to your surprise you hear another roar , this one more blood cruddling and terrifyingly. Then to your horror another charge of Oricas attacks only you feast your eyes on a new variant of the amphibious xenos.

hundreds of thousands of Oricas that stand at 9 feet tall much bulkier and stronger than any Orica you have seen at their head is an Orica with the expected white skin of an alpha but with several glowing golden veins shining through its skin. This must be the leader you think and then you look around and see more alphas appearing at their back are Oricas equipped with captured lasguns and autoguns though in most cases they still wield spears and bows.

You realise the previous charge was merely canon fodder to remove any traps in the way. The real battle now begins.

## Victory So Fast?

After the emergence of the before unknown Orica titans as well as a massive wave of elite orica forces , you quickly relay orders to your snipers that in addition to your previous orders of taking down Alphas they are to focus on eliminating titans especially the mysterious Orica leader if the opportunity arises . You maintain your previous defence plan otherwise except for ordering the rest of your armoured regiments to support the light infantry in any flanking maneuvers

As the Oricas stampede to where your forces are arrayed your city defenses open fire with the lascannons killing a great deal of them and quite a number of Titans though not as many as you hoped as for every one that falls it seems two immediately take its place

The first of your armies to face the vanguard are your skitarii elite who once again prove to be worth carrying the banner of the omnissah as the xenos ferocity proves to be no match to the cybernetic warrior’ cold discipline and superior weaponry. Millions of Oricas die while you take minimal losses .

However most amazingly is that the Skittari manage to hold their own against the Orica leader himself which was definitely helped by a lucky sniper bullet injuring it while it duelled the magos militant who was commanding the troops at the frontlines. Heavily beaten the leader unleashes a psychic scream that enrages the nearby titans and draws them to his position distracting your forces enough that it was able to command other Oricas to carry it to safety. Unfortunately the psychically empowered titans manage to kill the heroic magos and slaughter hundreds of skittari before being put down.

The apparent psychic blackash of their leader’s injury combined with its flight from battle causes the Alphas and the rest to stop advancing and sound a retreat despite the horde being relatively intact and most haven’t even tasted battle . The Oricas retreat in surprisingly good order despite being caught between your forces and the land raiders.

As the last Orica melt back into the wilderness your forces sheer at the victory and thank the emperor (maybe ) for this apparent miracle. You however cannot help but feel something isn’t right.

## Aftermath

You allow yourself to relax a bit as you watched the celebrations in the city. The returned civilians rejoiced at finding their homes intact. The Skittari now regarded with as much respect as fear are given a respectful berth as they carry their casualties to be recycled. You cannot help but feel these brave cyborgs deserve their own monument .

Still you push these thoughts away as the day continues in a mostly festive mode . Its almost surreal , psykers and pariahs celebrating alongside normal humans . Even Baharius and his phlygians seem at ease. Teresa at least seemed joyous enough showing her charistic innocence . You never thought such a thing was possible , perhaps in the grimdarkness of the future hope remains.

Honours and medals are bestowed on members of the rough riders reigments who were now christened as the “Bucaphelan skirmishers “ and the land raider regiment who are now similary known as the (Write in since i can’t come up with a good name ) .

As midnight comes and the city quiets down you receive an urgent message from inquistor Talios requesting that you meet him immediatly . You arrive at the meeting hall and you are surprised to find the others here, Teresa, Armcus, zerxes and even Baharius .

Talios then brings the grave news, the hive city of Nassau has fallen to an attack of half a billion oricas. Its Arch-magos deciding not to waste his forces defending “menials and baselines” abandoned the city upon seeing the hordes and he took all the skittari with him to the forge city of Havana , leaving the inexperienced PDF to be predictably slaughtered by the bloodthirsty xenos. It was a total rout with the city being breached and its 4 billion inhabitants being left to the mercies of the orica. Few escaped the carnage.

Worse your informants have discovered what how the oricas reproduce and it is every bit as terrible as you imagined . Apparently the amphibians xenos capture warm blooded prey (in this case humans ) and have the pregnant females implant them with hundreds of embryos that quickly grow by ravenously devouring the host. Within hours nearly a hundred young emerge from their devoured host and mature at a monstrous rate by their feasting the protein rich bodies. Sickeningly the host seems to survive most of the incubation slowly being aware of being eaten alive.

You almost feel yourself faint if not for your implants stopping you. Not only is this sickening but combined with the number of potential hosts the orica have surely acquired means the Orica could reach numbers that would be absolutely atrocious.

As you scan the room , you see Teresa vomiting, Baharius looks as if he had seen a daemon and even the mechanical faces of Zerxes and Armcus show hints of terror.

You have won but a battle it seems . Now the actual war begins.