F I R S T B L O O D
Kol’s gauntlet tightened on the haft of his chainaxe as he stared through the magnoculars at the Mechanicum outpost. The sandy black heraldry was visible even at this distance, smeared across bastions that jutted from the rocky plateau like broken teeth. “Xana colors,” he grated, the words coming hard past the screaming in his skull.
The Nails bit deeper with each passing moment, turning thought into agony and agony into the promise of release. Beside him, Praetor Skane stood with arms crossed, his breathing a controlled rasp through his helm’s vox-grille. “Maybe,” Skane said, the word clipped. “Or loyalists. Wearing captured colors. Bait.” His jaw clenched, visible even through his helmet. “Don’t care. Need to know. Now.”
The wind across Epsilon-Garmon II’s barren surface carried dust and the distant rumble of macro-cannons from the main assault three hundred kilometers north. They’d dropped here as outriders, scouts for the main World Eaters fleet still burning in-system. The outpost squatted in their path like a tumor, and the Nails sang that it needed cutting out.
Kol lowered the magnoculars, his hand shaking. Not from fear - the Nails had carved fear out of him years ago on the sands of Nuceria. From the need. The awful, glorious need to close distance, to feel bone part beneath his axe, to paint the world red until the screaming stopped. “Vox them,” he forced out. “Demand… identification. If they answer… wrong…” He couldn’t finish. Skane understood anyway. The Praetor was already moving toward the vox-operator, his movements precise despite the tremor in his limbs.
Control was a lie the Nails allowed them to tell themselves, a thin veneer over the truth.
They were weapons now, nothing more. But these weapons could still choose their own targets.
“And if they give no answer?” Skane asked, already knowing. His hand rested on the haft of his Thunder Hammer, thumb tracing a devotional script scored into its housing - old words from long before the Nails, from when they’d been the War Hounds. From before the Warmaster and his heresy.
Kol bared his teeth in something that might have been a smile once. “Then paint their walls.” The vox-operator looked up at them both. He seemed young in some way, though his face already crisscrossed with the self-inflicted scars that came when the Nails demanded blood and no enemy was near.
Skane nodded once, sharp as an axe falling. “Hail them. Demand compliance in the Warmaster’s name. Ten seconds to respond.” He glanced at Kol, and in that look was an understanding born of shared damnation.
They were damned men doing damned work, but they would do it with precision.
The Nails screamed for slaughter, but Praetors didn’t lead by surrendering to the scream. They led by riding it, by choosing when to let the red tide loose. Today, maybe. If the vox stayed silent. If the guns on those walls turned toward them instead of welcoming them. The operator began the transmission, and Skane counted heartbeats, each one an eternity of fire in his brain, each one bringing him closer to the beautiful, terrible moment when counting would stop and only the killing would remain.
Today was Heresy Day! In Komma, in Esslingen at least. I mean honestly every day is Heresy Day for me but today it was the beginning of The Long March, the Esslinger Heresy-Hauerei campaign for 2026. Johannes had organised and filled five tables with great terrain and even provided a couple of his armies for loan to new players.
I arrived after lunch and after saying hello to the folks I knew got straight into a 1000 point game with Mario, a new face for me. His beautifully painted Mechanicum army was sat behind some walls on an awesome diagonally opposed board with a big building in the middle. Didn’t take long to get set up, and we could get straight into it. Both of us were a bit rusty on the rules but we had a load of fun for the two turns we managed. Ending in a draw as I had to head home, my highlights were:
- Actually scoring some points pretty quickly by disgorging my Despoilers onto an objective
- My Esoterist being pretty great - I need to get him some Daemon brutes painted but man Void Darts seem great, as do Force weapons
- Seeing an entire Assault squad deleted in a single round of shots by Thallaxi Photon Thrusters!! 300 points for 9 of these cyborg horrors is a bargain and I want some 🤣
- Reaction-charging a Triaros that shot at Praetor Skane, and landing RIGHT on the top of it
Had some nice chats with a couple of folks too, and in all I’m looking forward to some more games this year for sure.
Next up to build and paint for the World Eaters:
TANKS 👊