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Imperial Artisans ... The Painters, Crafters & Writers Guilds => The Imperial Office => Topic started by: Carcharoth on September 16, 2011, 03:27:05 PM
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This is essentially some post battle storytelling from last nights battle against 2500 points of Lizardmen. I did in fact only lose two men as Life wizards brought back up and Steam Tanks are completely disgusting against everything.
Victory never felt so hollow....
Anyways:
The return to Grunberg was one of jubilation, the air thick with the sound of cheery conversation.
The lizardfolk had been repelled with only two casualties inflicted upon the Reiklanders; young Klaus Schweiser and big Tholgen Schmeid, both burnt beyond recognition. The loss was almost forgotten amidst the celebrations.
The great steam tank Atonement rumbled behind the ranks of marching Swordsmen trailing one of the great cannons behind it. The engineers were all perched upon its hull or tarrying within congratulating Master Brauen on his masterful demonstration of the Engineering Colleges’ greatest and most coveted invention.
At the head rode General von Einsanbaum alongside the Warrior Priest Father Kellner, Magister Embertongue of the Bright College and Jorg Oakenbrow of the Jade College. They spent the journey recapping the battle and, most importantly, how it had happened.
The lizardfolk had appeared two days earlier from thin air it seemed and had began terrorising farms and hamlets around the foot of the Hagercrybs, leaving nary a soul alive.
The first report that trickled in was dismissed as peasants delirium for the lizardfolk were only ever seen in far of Lustria and even then they were mostly regarded as rumours from fever stricken explorers by most folk.
However, when more and more tales came from the few survivors and details became much clearer it was decided that a force would march before the invaders could advance across the River Teufel and set upon an unwary Grunberg.
When the Imperial force had arrived at a hamlet three miles west of the Teufel they had encountered a tide of lizards waiting for them, amongst them a great scaled beast with horns the size of a fully grown man and an altar of some foreign craftsmanship upon it’s back.
The Engineers immediately began a barrage of artillery including an experimental Helstorm Rocket Battery which swiftly thinned out the enemy numbers thanks to Master Engineer von Fauchel’s keen eye for accuracy.
The steam tank Atonement wasted no time in charging through the village and grinding the larger lizards under it’s great steel bulk and inflicting much strife and death upon the enemy, naturally they broke and fled at such a grand display of human craft and with them they brought their terror with them down their line, scattering and breaking the foe.
The great horned beast was brought low by a fine shot courtesy of the great cannon ‘Fury Belcher’.
The rout became a massacre as von Einsanbaum set his troops to round up any enemy survivors and they caught a great many of the smaller breed including one with a great cloak of feathers who proved to be a bother to catch with his ability to glide above the troops heads - a shot from a rifle ended that however.
A great surprise manifested itself in the bloated and seemingly rotten toad like form who hovered over the battlefield casting a venerable gaze upon the human army and clearly seeing the day was lost it vanished into thin air.
Well into the chilly autumn evening the army arrived back at the town, what few cold blooded survivors they had spared carried through the streets in chains as a grand display.
After the soldiers had been dismissed they sank into the taverns and inns that lined the Heldenstrasse, one had smuggled one of the small lizards with him and it proved to be a source of much curiosity for the patrons of The Cracked Shield who tried to make it answer their questions, find out how it reacted to Bugman’s XXXX and, naturally, if it could fight.
The next day the creature was found in the alley beside the tavern, bloodied and near death, it’s use past and now forgotten by its inquisitive tormenters who waylaid it at some bleary point in the early hours of the morning.
They never did find out from it why the Lizardfolk attacked.