Geratomran Reconquest - To Slay a God-Engine: The first signs of the impending battle came as a slow, metronomic beat which at first was indistinguishable from the rumble of Imperial artillery still firing at the city. Only when a faint tremor was felt did Bannick's crew realize that they were hearing the footsteps of advancing god-engines: the Traitor Titans had taken the bait!As the men inside Lux Imperator readied themselves, Princeps Gonzar of War's Gift began relaying his findings through an open Vox-channel, with all three Shadowswords listening in. A maniple of three Traitor Titans was closing rapidly with the advancing army. The first two were identified as enemy Reaver-class Battle Titans, but the last was a corrupted enemy Warlord-class Titan. Hopelessly outgunned, Princeps Yolandesh and Gonzar nevertheless primed their warmachines for battle, still communicating on an open Vox so that the ambushing Shadowswords knew what was happening.As Ultimate Sanction primed its weapons, many of the medium tanks detached from the main army, rushing to reinforce War's Messenger against the two enemy Reavers. The two medium Battle Titans had split, trying to catch the more nimble Warhound between them, the Warhound’s agility having kept it out of their arcs of fire.Hundreds of Battle Cannons let loose, hammering at the southern-most Reaver, stripping away some of its Void Shields. Ultimate Sanction also directed its fire at this target, its carapace-mounted Apocalypse Missile Launcher and arm-mounted Volcano Cannon further weakening its target.While the lighter Titans duelled, the enemy Warlord was closing on the Imperial army. Still the Shadowswords did not reveal themselves. Ultimate Sanction’s timing had to be impeccable if its crew wanted to disable the far heavier enemy Battle Titan and claim victory. Revealing their intentions too soon would only see the ambushing super-heavy tanks destroyed, shortly followed by Ultimate Sanction and the rest of the Imperial army.As hoped, the enemy Warlord emerged from the outlying hab-blocks of Magor's Seat and fixed its attention on the smaller Imperial Reaver. Ultimate Sanction sounded its warhorns, directing all of its firepower at its far-larger opponent. The Warlord answered in kind, both Titans' weapons now hammering at their adversary's Void Shields.One after the other, Ultimate Sanction’s protective shields collapsed until the last failed and the shots began to hammer against its thick armour. By the time the Reaver’s crew had redirected power to the Void Shield generators, Ultimate Sanction had lost its Apocalypse Missile Launcher. Its shields back online, Princeps Yolandesh gave the Imperial Navy the order to begin orbital bombardment on the Traitor Warlord.Three columns of blinding light, each one as wide as an entire city-block, punched through the dark clouds and onto the battlefield. Where they hit the ground, they sent up geysers of super-heated steam, burrowing deep into the earth. But orbital bombardment was notoriously imprecise and unfit to hit anything smaller than a city. All three Lance strikes missed their intended target, but in truth none had expected them to hit it in the first place.The tremendous amount of energy expended overloaded the Augurs of both sides' war engines. For a few moments the enemy Warlord was blind and deaf. "Charge now!" Lieutenant Askelios ordered as the three Shadowswords finally revealed their position, the capacitors of their hull-mounted Volcano Cannons now fully charged. A second volley of Lance strikes rained down from the sky, blinding the Chaos Titans for a few more precious seconds as one after the other Indominus, World Burner and Lux Imperator prepared to fire.A final volley of Lance strikes rained down from the heavens, this time scoring a glancing hit on the Warlord’s Void Shields, causing several to collapse. Seizing the opportunity, Princeps Yolandesh ordered Ultimate Sanction to fire everything it possessed at the Traitor Titan, stripping it of its final layer of protection.The Warlord angrily blared its warhorns, just before a trio of Lance beams hit its left knee. Molten metal coursed down its leg as the towering engine of war staggered and stumbled to one side. The Warlord’s gigantic frame swayed but did not fall. With its wrecked right knee locked in place the great armoured beast was immobilised, but still had all its teeth.The Warlord turned its head in the direction of the three Titan-killers, its blood-red eye-lenses glaring menacingly. The Chaos Titan's head had been fashioned to look like a human skull still clad in remnants of shrunken, pallid flesh beneath an antique helmet. While its carapace-mounted weaponry and right arm still tracked Ultimate Sanction, the Warlord pointed the enormous cannon of its right arm at Ultra's position. A blast of coherent light streamed from the enormous muzzle and engulfed the three Shadowswords.The blast annihilated both Indominus and World Burner, the death cries of their crews mercifully cut short on the Vox as the equipment failed. The strength of the blast was such that Lux Imperator’s bulk was practically lifted up, the tank's hull coming to rest half-buried in its former earthworks. All of the Shadowsword's primary systems had shorted out, killed by the electromagnetic pulse of the Titan's weapon. Luckily, the fail-safes had engaged and Lux Imperator would be operational again in only a short time. Miraculously, the entire crew had survived.As soon as Bannick returned to consciousness he roused his remaining crew to battle. Lux Imperator could still fight and would do so according to the original plan. Bannick's first order was for his comms crewman to send an encrypted data-blurt to Princeps Yolandesh confirming their active status. If Ultimate Sanction and War's Messenger could occupy the enemy Warlord long enough, the Shadowsword would try yet again to take out the god-engine's damaged right knee.As Lux Imperator struggled to free itself from the bottom of the crater it had sled into, its crew quickly ran diagnostics to assess the damages done to the super heavy vehicle. First Gunner Meggen declared the Volcano Cannon to be operational but reported the targeting sensors caked in mud, effectually rendering Lux Imperator blind. Someone would need to get out and manually clean them. Just as Honoured Lieutenant Lo Bannick was about to order a crewman to do so, Honoured Lieutenant Lo Parrigar of Righteous Vengeance contacted him over the Vox: his own sensors had picked up Chaos Space Marines rapidly approaching their position.While Lux Imperator went on with its efforts to rejoin the fight, in the dugout surrounding Ultra's position, Lieutenant Jonas Vor Artem Lo Bannick nervously scanned his surroundings. While almost at full strength, his platoon was ill-equipped to face the Heretic Astartes. He feared the terrible gifts their dark pantheon had granted those superhuman warriors.As he had done with the special weapons, the lieutenant had concentrated all his heavy weapons into a single Heavy Weapons Squad, its two Heavy Bolters and single Autocannon the heaviest firearms he could muster. Of course, Righteous Vengeance would support them, its Vulcan Mega Bolter more than a match for the enemy's armour, but in this terrain its effectiveness was limited.The Titans' battle and orbital barrage had broken the landscape even further, creating ridges of low hills and craters which the torrential rain was turning into so many little ponds and lakes. Just below the vast crater where they had established their defensive position, a sizeable and deep pond had formed, an obstacle that would slow mortals but might have little affect upon the Emperor's Children.Still unable to see the enemy, the lieutenant's gaze drifted over to the Titans. War's Gift had abandoned its supporting elements to come to the aid of Ultimate Sanction, leaving the standard tanks to deal with the enemy Reavers. The remaining Imperial super-heavy tanks, Formation Epsilon, now advanced to engage that same target. Unable to move due to its crippled right knee, the Warlord was tracking the Imperial Reaver with only its carapace weapons and left arm, as Princeps Yolandesh had discovered a location beyond its enemy's firing arc. A flash of brilliant light suddenly illuminated the scene of battle, heralding the death of one of the enemy Reavers.While the rest of the Imperial army cheered at the sight, Lieutenant Jonas and his men froze, the blast having revealed large, armoured shapes moving towards them in the rain. Their Bolters mag-locked to their chest, the Chaos Space Marines came running at them. With inhuman speed, the first reached the little lake and crossed it in a single jump.Like a hideous beetle, the transhuman warrior ascended the steep slope, punching the earth with his fists to get a better hold. The Imperial Guardsmen opened up with their Lasguns. Some of the Traitor Marines stopped at the other side of the pond, laying down covering fire with their own Bolters, their triple staccato bursts answering the hail of the Imperials' lasbolts.Lux Imperator slowly climbed the slope of the crater it had slid into. The enemy charge hit home just as it passed the broken shell of Indomitus. Righteous Vengeance advanced too, coming to rest where the fight was thickest. Honoured Lieutenant Colaron Vor Artem Lo Bannick did not spare the battle a second glance, because his true target remained the Traitor Warlord.War's Gift was to the Chaos Warlord’s rear, repeatedly hitting it with its Vulcan Mega Bolter and its Plasma Blastgun, but even these mighty weapons did little harm to the towering monstrosity before it. Conscious that the Warhound posed little threat to it, the enemy Princeps only unleashed his right arm's weaponry at it, the swifter Warhound nimbly dancing beyond the Warlord’s blasts.All of the Chaos Titan's other weapons were trained on Ultimate Sanction, the Reaver desperately trying to exit the other Titan's frontal firing arc. If it got behind the Warlord it would be able to destroy it at leisure, but the distance was too vast. Ultimate Sanction was simply playing for time.As soon as the Shadowsword reached the crater's ridge, Lux Imperator slightly corrected its position before disengaging its drive unit. As the Volcano Cannon charged, the bloody red burst of an enemy Lascannon directly impacted on the Shadowsword's hull. The crew fired back with the tank's secondary weaponry, forcing the enemy infantry back into cover.As the Volcano Canon reached 54% charge, the crew of Lux Imperator witnessed the death of Ultimate Sanction. The Reaver’s last Void Shield flickered out just as the Chaos Warlord’s left arm unleashed its fiery might. A shaft of bright lightning sheared into Ultimate Sanction, annihilating the Reaver’s left arm.The Reaver started to topple to the right, but Princeps Yolandesh compensated, regaining his Titan's equilibrium by doing three quick-paced footsteps to the right. This was to be his doom, for Ultimate Sanction had re-entered the Warlord’s firing arc. Tilting its right arm at maximum traverse, the Traitor Warlord delivered the killing shot. The Reaver’s plasma reactor went critical, annihilating Princeps Yolandesh and its entire crew in a titanic explosion that left a mushroom-shaped cloud in its wake.For the second time, Lux Imperator’s sensors were blinded. As the capacitors hit 100% charge, Honoured Lieutenant Lo Bannick climbed into the tank's cupola, opened the top hatch and used visual observation. Unsure if the enemy Titan's Void Shields had been overloaded by the explosive blast of Ultimate Sanction’s destruction, Bannick held his shot.War's Gift still darted about, evading the larger Titan's blasts. Defiantly, the Warhound fired its Mega Bolter, the hundreds of shells embedding themselves in the Warlord’s leg armour. With the Chaos Titan's shields thus confirmed as down, Bannick gave the order to fire. With pin-point accuracy, the blast of the Volcano Cannon hit the Titan's wounded knee, shearing through it.For a moment, the enemy Warlord stood tall and Bannick feared they had wasted their last shot, but then the towering god-engine came crashing down. The Warlord fell to the right, crushing its weapon-arm under its own weight.War's Gift moved to the front, careful not to enter the downed god-engine's remaining arks of fire. The smaller Titan leveled the multi-barrelled body of its Vulcan Mega Bolter at the fallen Titan's head before unleashing a long volley of shells.The Warlord’s command deck disintegrated under the repeated impacts of the shells, the sound of shredding metal drowned by the triumphant howling of War's Gift’s warhorns. The execution done, the Warhound turned and headed to where the Imperial tanks still battled the remaining enemy Reaver.