Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Cleanse in word and photo's

Ok I understand: it is a long story. But as far as I'm concerned it's worth a read. The pictures will make the story look huge, but I hope they will make the story a bit more vivid.

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It was a sunny sunday somewhere on Attic 1 (is that even a planet? yes of course you fuckwad!). A marine force was awaiting the arrival of a large horde of a tendril fleet of Kraken, Hyve fleet Adamantium.

The terrain had been scouted in advance and arial observations had been made:
View from the side

Length view


Scouts also saw the silence before the storm in the uncoming horde and saw how the Tyrants and other synapse creatures had directed their minors.

Birds eye view 1

Birds eye view 2
An overview pic was send before the attack sign was given:

Deployment



Before the grizly horde knew what was happening the first lascannon beams were shot at the walking tyrant, it would have been wounded severely if not for his bodyguards who jumped in the beams. One got fried catching the shots. The building where the warriors were waiting for the right moment to jump out shuddered as massive heavy fire hit it.

Some of the devestator marines cheered when they saw the huge smoke columns rise up in the air.
Dev sq cheering
"Something must have hit home, darn those synapse creatures. They've got to be killed before it is even remotely usefull to shoot at the little buggers."

"Yeah", replied the sarge. "But don't cheer to soon, those buildings are from the time when they build decent ones..not those cottages that we saw on the last planet we were on."

When the smoke cleared a flying servo skull managed to take a quick snapshot of the awakened horde before being smashed out the air.

Picture taken from servo skull gamma before signal was lost


"Damnit!!!" the sarge screamed. "What were we thinking, waiting in these ruins, the shadow in the warp must have clouded our judgement." "Those shots we fired only took out 2 warriors, there are still plenty left to keep those cursed hormagaunts in check." "May the emperor be with us!"

"Sarge." One of the marines spoke "we'd better get our swords out."

"Sounds about right brother, sounds about right." "But maybe scout sq alpha can hold them off long enough for us to get some fire on them before things get too bloody."

As the sarge spoke these words the sound of screams and hisses overstemmed his voice.
:
Faith in the emperor?


No less then 37 hormagaunts hit home.
The scout sarge bellowed a last word of faith in the emperor before his troops were overcome by the horde.
"Sarge...they are with too many, we can't hold them off!"
"Sarge??? SARGE!!!!!!" In front of him one of the scouts saw Johnson as his head got sliced in two by a gaunt. "Johnson!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo!" (*)

On the other flank the tyranids just marched up towards some cover advancing slowly.
The mighty walking tyrant fired his venom cannon towards the landspeeders.

"Watch out!" "The Tyrant seems to be shooting at us, evasive manouver Delta."
They felt a shock when their speeders got hit by a spray of acids.
"Sir, our weapons seem to be jammed."

"Try to fix it!!!"
"Already at it, sir."

Over at the location of tactical sq Alpha the marines were talking about the oncoming battle and chanted their battle hymns..untill one of them saw something floating in the air.
"Sir, what's that?" "Aren't those the things they talk about on the warningposters for civilians??"
"Yup, the only thing we can do is hope our powerarmour will filter out the poison when those blobs hit us."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!" Screams were heard, the sarge looked behind him and three of his once proud warriors were crawling on their knees with their hands around their throats.
"Can't do nothing for them (double denial..how gangsta is that), I'm sorry brothers." "We'll just have to make them pay!"

The Lasscannons on the predator zoomed again and now the tyrant was wounded severely.
Morale rose as the news spread.
Pic of the Predator
"It looks like he's wounded severely!"
All over the ranks cheers were heard. "That'll teach em to mess with us!"

But the horde was still running up:
Audiorecords send in mid battle described the oncoming horde in a chaos of moving claws coming at the marine ranks:

artist impression
after which a quick snapshot by a servo skull was taken:
snapshot


Even more eye witness reports came in screaming in an unmarinish fashion about a Red Terror that came slithering out a building.
Such a beast hadn't been seen in a while, but earlier encounters brought images to mind of fierce commanders being swallowed hole after attempts to put the creature down failed. The troops stood fast.

Before they knew it the horde was upon them. Assault marines flew forward to burn away the rippers that ran infront.
"Sarge...they're dying to slow!" (..sounds more logical, than in-game the rippers dying to fast") "The other beasts will be at us if we don't do anything quick!"
"Brace for impact!!!!"
One of the assault marines mumbled words recorded by a transmitter: "We might need more than faith." The next moment the moving masses slammed into their sq.

Eye witness 2

The real deal 2

Red Terror coming

Up close and personal

Elsewhere a couple of Thropes suddenly shined with an alien illumination. A loud ripple like sound was heard. The Dreadnought caught a quick glance before he felt the impact of a mighty blow to his right arm.
"Damnit!" "Brother Joël to Dance Commander, I've lost my assaultcannon." "Make those thropies pay!"

Homey half-dead

"Understood, cleanse the other aliens with fire!"
A tactical sq engaged the thropes. In the meanwhile the Dance Commander saw a target with a higher priority, even though Joël was right about the thropes.
He turned his lightning claws one and slashed his claws up in the head of the mighty tyrant, with a swing of his claws the tyrant managed to knock him out of the air. He was wounded, but the Tyrant was dead. "That's all that matters!"

Tactical sq Alpha managed to make the horde pay for taking out three of their brethren, killing a thrope and ran directly up towards the second one.
"Hah! take that you floater!"
"GNARLLLL" (as if I know what kind of sounds thropes make when they give a headbash!)
Suddenly the thrope bashed his huge head straight into their lines hitting O'Johnson in the face. That was more than even his enhanced body could take and his bloody headless corpse was thrown more than 20 yards away.

In the meanwhile one of the hormagaunt formations was thinned down to just a couple of gaunts, but they kept coming.
Brother Joël heeded Dance's word and cleansed with fire.
The tactical sq was hold up by the unexpected agressiveness of the Thrope and when they looked to the side it was too late to react.
A couple of leaping warriors were already on top of them ripping their guts out.
Even Dance couldn't make the difference. He fought fiercely taking down a warrior.
"For the emperor!" Those were his last words before he got dragged down.

In the back to lictors sneaked out of a building towards the back of the Predator. Before the rear camera's spotted them, one of them already slammed his talon against the weapon chips.
Meat in a can

Showing off
***didn't have a pic of the lictor standing behind the tank***

"What was that!!!" "A lictor, damnatus!" "Drive!!!, DRIVE!!!" The engines roared as the predator sped forward throwing up dust. The lictor didn't flinch but sprinted after it. "Something that large, shouldn't be able to move that fast!" "Sir, he's coming at us!!!!"

A quick horrible camera shot, the lictor held a gory torso of a marine in his claw, was sent just before the lictor slammed his talons in the predator again causing a huge explosion. After the smoke cleared the lictor stepped away unscathed, somehow unaffected by the explosion and seeing a fresh target already began it's sprint towards a lone marine trying to fall back towards home base. The fight was unfair, the athletic beast ripped the marine apart before it could lend a blow.

Brother Joël looked to the side, on the horizon he saw what he already feared. A flying tyrant was coming towards him, and it was coming up fast!
In front of him he purged some more aliens from Attic 1 and ran up throwing them aside, but somehow they kept coming at him.

Finally the terminators arrived. They had problems with their beacons. The thick atmosphere interfered with the sensors. A moment of clear sky was enough for them to land. They opened fire upon the biovores which were soon dealt with. As soon as they were gone, they targeted a giant carnifex.
"Shoot at it brothers before it can cause any more damage." "For the emperor!"
The shots hit home and the carnifex crippled away. "That will have to be enough."
Two shots coming from out of nowhere hit their ranks and even their terminator armour failed. Only four of six were unharmed and would have to be beamed away from the battlefield.

Dreadnought brother Joël's thoughts drifted away while smashing another spinegaunt.
"Well, it's not like they are gonna hurt me, but if I don't get out of here soon that monster will be on me soon."
He cheered silently when he saw that the Red Terror was killed. At least that's one less monster to worry about.
The moment he finished that thought the flying tyrant he saw earlier was upon him. This tyrant was unusually fast. "Scout sq Beta, Watch out!!" "A fierce CC flying tyrant will be coming your way."
"Acknowledged." Fight him Brother for we will die for the emperor before we leave our ground.

Those were the last things heard from Joël. The landspeeders watched Joël getting slammed in the ground by the tyrant. It was a lost battle.

The Tyranids were still on the march:

Oh when the Saints..oh when the Saints..

Scout sq Alpha would be the last ones to hold the line and what would they be able to do.
Last ones standing

"Come on, we're gonna give that tyrant one last spray of fire, after that..we will have to fly home." "We're out of ammo and out of fuel."
The bullets bounced of the warped field that surrounded him.

*speeder alpha to speeder beta*:
"It's a black day for the imperium." "Let's report in and order exterminatus, that's the only thing that can save the day".

*END*


(*) Off topic..just had to ;)
Also check the 'alts'(hold the cursor above the pic...I took trouble to make stupid remarks!)
---
I wrote from the marines perspective cause that's easier to write and the pictures are easier to explain :D

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Xenology (xenos = aliens...translated freely)

Like I said..this warhammer 40k background book might be worth a post.
I bought the book yesterday (ordered it about a month ago) after it had been held up by customs. Well...a book about Xenos being held at customs kinda makes sense ;)
I paid 25€ for it and it's well worth every euro. It's very readable and has beautiful pics of all kinds of xenos stuff.

Xenology is a book which is actually a report of Inquisitor Sasham who is send to investigate Biegel 9. It turns out to be a research facility for Xenos. Inquisitor Ralei and his helpers have captured or have paid for the capture of at least a dozen different xenos. Among which an ork, tau etherial, kroot, Hrud, a squiddie (thyrrus warrior), an eldar, some nids (warrior, ripper, lictor) and some others. And finally there's something in cell 1 which isn't mentioned untill late in the book, but I won't spoil.
The book reads like a collection of written notes, letters and audio recorded notes from Sasham, Ralei and his helper Darvus. There are also some other letters of correspondence.

A great read..I don't think I'll be able to finish it before the week ends.
All in all: the best 40k book I've got. It gives good background info, even upto biological info which sounds all very realistic (they didn't make up implausible stuff).

Monday, June 19, 2006

SOCCER BABY!!

So what has my life been about these days.
Well..I've got to improve a darn report (damnit..summer work).
Haven't seen the grade for my first test (dyslexia & language development disturbnesses (sp) ). Tomorrow it's the test for Experimental Languageknowledge (to translate very freely).
So I've been learning for that one. Haven't done any 40K except for buying flesh wash that was dried up (the pot I had at home that is!). And a WD which looked worthwhile for the first time in well like a long time.

Back to other stuff.
I filled up the non-studying time with soccer. The first day of the WC I saw almost the entire game of Germany cause the people at work decided they need to get home early (gotta love it!). Saw some other matches after that. On sunday: went to a pub saw Netherlands - Servia Montenegro: 1-0 for us. We had a difficult match but Robben came through! Fantastic goal!!
Robben's goal
REFRESH (f5) if it doesn't work the first time.

Had some beers starting at 3pm :) BBQ'ed at home. The next day I had a BBQ at a friends house with people from my study 'society' (studievereniging)..just for detail..not a fraternity, but a club of people who organise stuff for the people who do communications in Groningen. It's called SVOB atm but it's going to change it's name (http://www.svob-online.nl). Anyway it was fun had lots of beers. Tuesday: watched some more soccer. Had to work at 4. A friend of mine told me we could watch soccer at his place in the shared living room..if his female roommates weren't home. He messaged me during work that they weren't and he had pizza in the fridge, couldn't refuse of course :D Watched both matches that night.

Wednesday: studied (won't mention that again). Watched soccer..went to training and directly after that I ran for an election as a member for the 'board/management' of the SVOB. And I got in!! w00t. Got the post of secretary. A bunch of nice people will have to cooperate with me so that's also good news.

Thursday: soccer (well..starting at 3pm). But had to work because...I SHIFTED my work from fryday (NL matchday) to today. Watched some more soccer. Went out that night, didn't make it too late, but had a good time.

Fryday: soccer. Went to town. Ate at the Mc and went..to the same pub as before to watch ...you guessed it SOCCER. *ey Chris..are you already hating me here..for talking about soccer like....the entire post :P* We won again: 2-1! What a heart attack giving 45 minutes that 2nd halve was! But we won. Next round!
Van Persie's goal

Van Nistelrooy's goal

And no I don't understand what the guy is saying either ;) But it's the goals that matter. And I'm to lazy to figure out the embedded thingie.
Had a birthday party that night. Not too many people, but it was good. Oosterpaaaaaark (Erwin will know what I mean )

Saturday: stayed in Groningen. Watched soccer (surprise surprise).
Sunday: oooh soccer.
Monday: soccer.

Oh and in the meanwhile I watched : The Wire. And: The wire in the blood. Both darn good series.

Tomorrow: test. Soccer, work, soccer.
Might check my stacked up to-do list. Ooh and I might do another run. Ran 1,5 km last sunday to get my running condition started again for a bit.
I might want to try and build it upto the 3,4 km (and more) for the ATFP test (check the internet...it's an army test) for ninjitsu.

Haven't decided what to do with the rest of the week if I don't get any more work than atm (although I can pull a bit more from my normal job). But I will finally get my car theory around and start driving. Have been postponing that one for god knows why. Have been to busy I guess.

Next weekend there will be 40K again. Erwin..are you up for a 2250 game? I probably won't do too well cause that will be all I've got to run on the table, not a tried out list. But I just want to see every freaking nid I've got (except for OOE...not enough choices) running across the table or shooting.

How's that for an update!!