Adrastapol - Second Ork War: With a fury typical for their species, the Orks fell upon Adrastapol. Their ships were so numerous that the Bastion Fleet, a powerful warfleet in its own right, had no choice but to retreat, leaving Adrastapol's orbit undefended. As soon as the ramshackle vessels of the Orks reached orbit, the ground-based Lance-batteries and missile silos opened up. Conservative estimates place the initial losses of the Orks at one hundred ships, but so large was the WAAAGH! that those losses were barley noticed by the Greenskins. Nothing could prevent the Orks from landing on Adrastapol.The first craft to reach Adrastapol's atmosphere were the hulking shapes of Roks, captured asteroids turned into rudimentary vessels by outfitting them with engines, Weapon Batteries, and controls. Hundreds of these crude vessels plummeted from the skies, several burning up in Adrastapol's atmosphere, their angle of descent too steep or too shallow to survive the entry. Yet more crashed into the surface at too great a velocity, their occupants instantly killed upon impact with the Knight World's surface. Yet even these casualties were but a drop of water on a hot stone.Where the Roks landed in the wilderness, they instantly formed new fortresses from which the Orks could sally forth. Any settlement the Greenskins targeted were annihilated. The Umberan agriplex was destroyed in this fashion and even the towering Mount Imperius lost its Void Shields when one Rok collided with the mountain, the resultant shock wave killing half of the astropathic choir. Several other settlements and locations were hit in this fashion, snuffed from existence like candles in the wind.Yet Adrastapol had some natural defences of its own. Where the Orks landed in the dense jungles of Adrastapol's polar regions, they were immediately beset by the local super-fauna which welcomed them with teeth and claw. No Orks ever emerged from those jungles to threaten Adrastapol's main continent, but in truth they had little impact upon the green tide.The Orks that survived the landing wasted no time in attacking whatever location happened to lie closest to their Rok. Soon, reports began flooding the Draconspire's strategium, describing the enemy. The Orks assailing Adrastapol were from a mixture of different klans, but the overwhelming majority wore vivid, blue battle-paint and banners denoting them as the looters of the Death Skulls. Where High King Danial's father and indeed some of the Knights Danial was now commanding had once fought the savage Snakebites klan, the defenders of Adrastapol would now face a far more technologically advanced host of Greenskins.Vast hordes of infantry marched out of the Ork landing vessels, chanting their Warboss' name, Gorgrok Killfist, as Fighta-Bommerz and Dakkajetz roared in the sky above them. Here and there, great plumes of dust kicked up by mechanised companies denoted the presence of the horde's fastest elements. But most impressive were the towering superstructures of Ork Stompaz and Gargantz which dwarfed the steeds of the Adrastapolian Nobles.Thus did the conflict of the Second Ork War begin. For the second time in living memory, the Greenskins had come to Adrastapol and even the mighty battles of the ancient Ork Wars paled before the carnage that was unleashed. Thanks to the tenacity of its defenders and the fortuitous return of the Freeblade known as the Knight of Ashes, the Orks were ultimately vanquished and the destruction of Adrastapol once more averted.