Jornath: Assault on Gate S-2 (Morning)

Fortress Behras, has been besieged by three roughly regiment strength Ork assets since late last year, earlier in the Summer, one of these groups under the control of an Ork Warboss named Bazbrag, pushed through Imperial defenses to the East of the Fortress and fought their way through Saine Yeltsville, and attained positions within a kilometer of the curtain wall. The main eastern gatehouse was immediately fortified with veterans to stymie the aliens before they affect a major breakthrough. While sections of the warband did throw themselves at the East Gate, it was nowhere near the majority. Bazbrag was known for a particular level of guile, not common amongst others of his ilk, and employed a large number of specialist mercenaries called "Kommandos" that act as infiltrators, special operators and force reconnaissance experts for an Ork Warband. These infiltrators used a network of wine cellars and tunnels from Saine Yeltsville that stretch out into foundations of the fortress. They fed information on weak points in the Imperial defenses back to Bazbrag, who let loose a tide of war machines and infantry.

                          

Gate S-2, was defended by members of Bastion Cohort Behras, specifically II Company-East Div. These men had engaged in defensive actions on the northern wall sections, acting as a reserve to the North Division companies there. When Saine Yeltsville fell the company was immediately re-deployed back to its home position. The gate itself is a tertiary entrance used for small vehicle traffic, it is not large enough to fit heavy armored vehicles such as the Chimera APC or Leman Russ through, which means that 11KCC vehicle assets defending the entrance had to be parked beyond the safety of the wall, along with the necessary infantry support.

When the Orks finally came, it was an overwhelming wave of bodies and machinery. Indeed such was the number of Bazbrag's first wave that the men of the 2nd company were outnumbered nearly three to one by the greenskins. Commander Souza voxed immediately for reinforcement and set to giving the considerable population of vineyard workers and facility maintenance personnel any firearm to hand.  Chattering weapons fire and the crack-fizz of las weaponry issued forth from the walls scything down into the body of the Ork advance. The alien's reply was quick to come and horrifyingly efficient, a knight-class Ork war-walker stomped into view from behind the lines of rowhouses beyond the wall, a comically oversized assault cannon gave a sheet of cover to the approaching greenskin warriors. 

Commander Souza and Commissars attached to the Fortress' Bastion Cohorts marshaled the conscripted workers into rough firing lines blocking the gate. A motley assortment of autoguns, laslocks, and antiquated rifles held in shakey hands would be II companies last line in defending their position.  

As carriage mounted earth shakers pounded away into the approaching aliens, Bazbrag's Kommando's made their bid to silence the guns,  bursting out of a magazine casement linked to the fort's old wine cellars. The brutes charged toward the gun crews and were met by the conscripts who laid into the alien with knives, and close range fire. Of course, dozens of the militia were cut to ribbons by the Xenos special forces, but faith and superior numbers saw the threat subdued quickly enough.

With the threat within the walls taken care of, the battle had begun in earnest outside. 11KCC assets and sappers from II Company engaged the vanguard of the Ork attack force, made up of a mixture of lightly armored gun trucks and various classifications of war-walkers. 

Where the Orks had a weight of fire the Imperium had greater accuracy. Though the Kula Tankers were blasting fuming holes into the armored hide of a great number of the enemy vehicles, it was far from enough to stem the tide completely. It was a matter of softening the enemy enough to allow the infantry precious additional moments to lose shots into the foes before they hammered into the gate proper. 

Ork infantry began to engage the Sapper teams, and it was then that from the north the blessed Angels of Death arrived, storming across a roadway from the cover of a line of rowhouses firing bolters and superheated plasma into the flank of the alien's advance. The Sons of Medusa, had given no warning of their impending arrival to the garrison, many men sat in awe of the demigods as they came into view. Discipline was soon properly restored when the next volley of Ork autogun fire snapped overhead.

Though the Astartes had arrived, the battle was far from concluded, the Sappers found their positions massively overwhelmed, and began collapsing back towards the gateway as the aliens closed in for the kill. 

The battle reached its climax as the Astartes assaulted the area around the feet of the Ork Knight, the roadway was bustling with pounding hydraulic feet, the aliens had deployed a fully mechanized formation of dreadnaughts and heavy walkers to tear down the wall of the fortress known as a "Dread-Mob", an apt name indeed. At the gate the last of the sappers was slain, the handful of grenade-wielding guardsmen withstood nearly a hundred slavering greenskins before their end came.

Ork infantry dismounted their transports and swarmed into the buildings the Sons of Medusa were attempting to occupy resulting in frenetic close quarters fire-fights breaking out, as the Marines pushed through room after room of barbaric warriors in their quest to gain advantageous positions on the dread mob.

At the gate Commander Souza met the Orks head-on with the aid of the conscripts, it was here that he would join the honored dead in martyrdom. The volley of close-range shots and a well-timed charge proved enough to break the orks from the wall, the majority of the non-mechanized orks began withdrawing into the city. 

Shortly after Commander Souza's death at the gate Astartes Hellblasters attained good positions in the city to gain plunging fire down upon the vehicles of the Ork dread mob reducing a great many of the alien war machines to molten slag in moments. It was at this moment that the Ork attack broke apart, the Knight and several other machines began a withdraw in good order with the remainder of the infantry. Some walkers charged blindly into the row-housing, smashing apart structures in great billowing clouds of rubble smoke. Melta and well-placed grenades were able to see these off, but they had done well enough in providing a distraction for the remainder of their species to vacate the field for a time. 

With the gate secured for the moment, II Company picked up the pieces, regrouping what they could. and re-establishing defenses further behind the wall. The tankers from 11KCC sped north along with a group of messengers to make use of the Eastern Gatehouse to get the vehicles within the wall and plead for long-term reinforcement. The Sons of Medusa had taken a mauling, Captain Corporis had deployed the strike force, after having only just executed a multi-day long combat operation within the Ork Exclusion zone alongside the forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Astartes left the field with one brother in need of emergency medical attention and twenty more in need of triage. The entire strike force was nearly depleted in terms of ammunition, particularly the Hellblasters. With the situation contained for the moment, the Sons of Medusa withdrew to their firebase to regroup and rearm. 

Bastion Command received the messengers with a weary acknowledgment. The Fortress could barely afford to pull of forces to other sections at this juncture, but an attack on this scale needed to be stoppered, and with the Astartes out of the fight, when Bazbrag's troops regroup it would fall to the men of the Cohorts to hold the line. 

Thanks for Reading!  This is the first of two battles at Gate S-2.

If you'd like to read more about the Forces, Lore, and Engagements from the "Battle for Jornath" campaign then you can click on the tab on the top of the page and view posts presented in chronological order in accordance with the setting, from anyone who's contributed!

-Your Favorite Madman-