Siege of Vraks - Gorgon Assault: The assault would be led by Gorgons, with two companies fully equipped to ride into battle inside 30 Gorgon transports, supported by Leman Russ, Baneblade and Macharius heavy tanks. Once at the breach the Gorgons would disgorge a tidal wave of infantry to overrun the defenders. Behind them would follow more infantry on foot and grenadiers in Centaur carriers. The artillery was already firing overhead, to box-off the battlefield from reinforcements and the aircraft would join the attack, striking at reinforcements before they could reach the breach and help stop-up the gap.The curtain wall itself was an imposing structure. Completely encircling the citadel, it was six stories high, 30 meters thick at its base and topped by a reinforced parapet. There were hundreds of towers, each armed or providing firing slits for heavy weapons that had clear lines of fire and plunging fire down onto any enemy below. Within the walls were many bunkers, armouries, shelters and corridors. It also mounted automated sentry guns as well as the heavy weapons positioned along the parapet. If this wasn’t enough, the defences were supplemented by more trenches, pillboxes and defence lines in front, with mines, razorwire, tank traps and anti-tank ditches ringing them. The one compensation for the attackers faced with the daunting prospect of breaching it, was that it lacked the depth of the other defensive rings. It was a single line of reinforced ferrocrete that once destroyed could be quickly swamped.Before the dust from the great mine had settled, the Gorgons’ engines roared into life and their drivers released the brakes. The massive transports began to grind forwards, slowly at first but gathering pace as the air turned blue with thick exhaust fumes. Like a flotilla of boats on a stormy sea, the Gorgon formations set out across the pitted and cratered landscape towards no-man’s land. Within, crowded shoulder-to- shoulder, stood ranks of Krieg guardsmen, jostled and shaken by the Gorgons’ rough passage towards the objective. The guardsmen could see nothing of events beyond the armoured walls, they could only hear the shriek of out-going shells as they awaited the critical moment when the ramps fell and the order to charge was given. All was proceeding as planned, each Gorgon’s huge plough carving a path across the rough ground, steadily closing on the breach.For the watching defenders it seemed like a the wall of heavy armour was grinding towards them. Many were still dazed or injured from the huge explosion that had just annihilated this section of the wall. The groggy survivors roused themselves and manned their pillboxes and trenches.As the Gorgons advanced, counter-fire from the renegade’s artillery started to land, just a few mortar shells at first, bursting amongst the Gorgon formations, lashing them with dirt and shrapnel but doing little harm. Heavier shells followed as more batteries received the co-ordinates and orders to open fire. Soon the intensity of the bombardment was growing, mortar bombs and Earthshaker shells mingling with the deep booming detonations of massive Bombard impacts. Through the thunderous explosions the Gorgons rode onwards. One unlucky vehicle took a direct hit, a shell falling directly into the open troop compartment. Trapped within its confines the explosion wrought carnage amongst the densely loaded guardsmen and the Gorgon slued to a smoking halt, its deck a scene of horror, awash with blood.From the curtain wall the enemy gunners opened fire. Lascannon blasts scorched the air as they smashed into the first assault wave. Impacts whined and ricocheted off the Gorgons’ heavy frontal armour, designed to absorb just such punishment. The supporting Leman Russes returned fire, their battle cannons firing and recoiling, their shells smashing into the wall and sending masonry tumbling as each shell gouged rends in the thick defences. As the two sides traded blows, a second Gorgon was hit and burst into flames, its fuel igniting. The guardsmen within tumbled out, many already on fire, human torches stumbling in the mud until they fell and lay still. A third Gorgon was immobilised. A fourth exploded in a fireball.The leading assault transports were close now. The order was given to fix bayonets and inside each Gorgon 50 gleaming blades flashed from their scabbards as one and snapped into place. The first ramps began to fall, smashing down into the mud as the Gorgons crawled to a halt. Within, the watchmasters and officers issued the order to charge. The Krieg squads surged forward, hob-nailed boots ringing over the metal ramps as they plunged out into the thickening maelstrom of fire.The first officer out of his transport, leading 15th platoon, 7th company, died before he cleared the ramp. Shot through the head he fell dead as his men leapt over his body. More were cut down by streams of heavy stubber and heavy bolter rounds as eager gunners clamped down hard on their triggers. All along the sector the defenders hurled fire into the attackers. As platoon after platoon charged forward they were met with accurate grazing fire, cutting down whole squads as they scrambled to get to grips with the enemy.At the crater’s rim the Krieg guardsmen found themselves scrambling over a wall of earth and rock. Huge chunks of masonry, all that remained of the wall and its foundations, lay scattered about, providing cover but preventing the tanks and Gorgons from advancing any further. The Gorgons’ job complete, the drivers snatched them into reverse and began to back away, their own weapons blazing a stream of suppressing fire over the heads of the infantry in front. From hereon in, deeper into the breach, it would be an infantry battle, man against man. More artillery fire was landing, adjusting its target to the point of the attack. The Krieg infantry were pushing forwards through the dense rubble under plunging fire from the walls and towers. The 19th company commander, Captain Naler, was already on the ground, urging his men onwards when a mortar bomb impacted at his feet, lacerating him with shrapnel wounds and severing his left leg below the knee. Critically wounded, the Captain fell. Closeby, Commissar Moroth saw the Captain fall and immediately took command. Powersword in hand, he ordered the squads in his vicinity to follow him over the rim and down into the deep crater below. Charging through plunging fire, his peaked cap plucked from his head by a passing bullet, the Commissar reached the far embankment, dropping prone as the squads around caught up and followed his example. They were now the furthest forward of any of the attacking platoons. The breached wall’s ruined ends towered above them, swept clear of defenders by withering fire from the tanks. The Commissar started to climb the steep rise, the rocks below him still steaming from the heat of the explosion. He had almost reached the top when the enemy counter-attacked.Knowing the attack against the breach must come, the enemy had raced to bring up any forces it could to block the breach, dragging in troops from neighbouring sectors through the hail of artillery now descending upon them. Awaiting at the top of the crater lip, hidden amongst the masonry rumble, were the Ogryns. Waiting until the last moment before being spurred into action by their surgically fitted chemical injectors, the brutish creatures rushed down to meet the Krieg guardsmen as they climbed upwards. The Ogryns’ momentum carried them through the first squads, hacking indiscriminately as they went. Krieg guardsmen, caught by surprise and already at a disadvantage due to the slope, stood little chance. Each Ogryn was a ten foot monster, psychopathically insane due to the combat drugs coursing through its blood. Hacking and slashing, roaring in drug-induced pain, the Ogryns bludgeoned their way into the depths of the crater. Commissar Moroth was thrown aside by the first charge, wounded and loosing his powersword from his grip. He emptied his laspistol into one beast, which shrugged off the wounds as if they were no more than insect stings. As he reloaded, a second Ogryn rushed him, wielding a huge rock cutting drill. Unable to defend himself, the blade’s spinning teeth chopped into the Commissar, dissecting his torso from his legs in a spray of blood and entrails. Still more Krieg squads were climbing down into the crater and a swirling mêlée had formed in the bottom as the Ogryns fought with a reckless fury. It was a bloodbath. Ogryns fell, each taking ten or more Guardsmen until the crater floor was carpeted with the dead and dying of both sides.More artillery was landing, directly hitting the crater itself, mangling and flipping bodies and killing both sides indiscriminately.As the guardsmen fought hand-to-hand in the breach, the Krieg tanks were unable to push on, the way forward was too heavily blocked by rubble. Without them in close support the Krieg guardsmen struggled to fight their way forward in the face of fanatical enemy resistance.Behind the fighting a second wave of attackers was now on the move, Centaur carriers loaded down with heavily armoured grenadiers leading the way as more infantry platoons joined the attack. The enemy fought with a zeal and divinely inspired courage that belied their numbers. Losses from both sides had been heavy. Of the first two Krieg companies into the breach, most had become casualties. Many platoons had been wiped out altogether. The second wave fared no better as the fighting lasted on into darkness. The breach could not be captured and held, time and again the infantry scrambled on into the killing zone of the mine crater, only to be cut down as the enemy re¬positioned guns to sweep it clear, or counter-charged. In darkness the attackers withdrew, back to their own trenches, most dragging wounded comrades with them. The dead lay thick, in places piled on top of each other, three or four deep. The hulks of tanks and Gorgon hulls littered the sector. Under cover of darkness, the Quartermaster and their servitor aides emerged to count the cost and scoured the battlefield, like carrion birds stripping the dead.The 308th regiment’s commanders conceded that the first attempt to capture the breach had failed. Colonel Tolan agreed to a second attempt, given time to properly prepare for another set piece attack. Next time he would lead it personally and face death rather than a second defeat.