It begins: Initial battle with the Black Legion Log

[blacklegion]

Who: The Black Legion, any PC who wants to participate
What: The first assault of the Black Legion
When: 5 August, late morning, throughout the day
Where: All over dagaria


Across Dagaria, as Summer court ends, the morning light does not come. Only darkness, seemingly seeping out of the Rift, can be seen, and hundreds of warriors in battle plate with strange, mad symbols cut into them storm out of it, slaying, burning, and taking slaves. They have come for Zeon, for Amestris, for all the countries of Dagaria. Cities, towns, cathedrals, castles, any structure that stands is being struck at by raving cultists, or the grim, cold precision of corrupt Astartes. They are the Fallen, the traitors, pouring forth from the mouth of hell to howl this phrase with one voice, as their bolters roar, and chainswords grind, "DEATH TO LIFE! DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR."

Dagaria, the Black Legion has come for you, respond as you will.

(Ooc This is all initial attacks, and if you want to individually thread or group thread thats just fine, just let me know in your initial tag so I know how many people I'll be tagging. Feel free to group up or solo fight, but be aware these foes are DEADLY. Mind, this is the initial attack, they haven't engulfed the land. You can fight or escape as you will, and the warbands are fairly small and can be engaged by equal or superior numbers of local troops in any place you choose to fight. Please indicate in your tags to this entry as well WHERE you are fighting, as that will dictate what kind of foes come after you.)

Comments

At Rome's southern border

[no_heroism]

Gaius stood out in front of his army, chewing on a piece of journey bread as he watched the swarm of madmen charge on, whipped on from behind by the massive, armored figures. His men were nervous, but they seemed to take comfort in the fact that their senior centurion didn't seem worried in the slightest.

He WAS worried a bit, there were an awful damn lot of them, but he wasn't going to let that show. He finished his snack, wiped his hand off, and then turned to his troops. His deep bellow cut through the cries of the cultists with little difficulty. They were still a distance off, after all. "Alright men, this isn't anything we haven't trained for. There's a lot of the bastards, sure, but most of them are disorganized, poorly equipped, and short on brains. Even more important than that though, they're going to lose because they're not legionaires, and if any legionaire dies without permission, I am going to march down to the underworld myself, pull your head off, and piss in the stump!"

The men laughed, if a bit nervously. Gaius stuffed his helmet back on his head, his crimson horsehair plume making him seems taller than he was, and shook his sword in the air, "Let's show these bastards what happens when you mess with the best troops in Dagaria!"

THAT got a cheer. Gaius took his position behind the front rank, from where he could better keep an eye on the battlefield and order troops around or respond to a breach in the line himself if he needed to. The enemy line was getting close. "Pilum at the ready, men!"

Over a thousand iron spears appeared as they were prepared to throw, waiting for the order, showing no fear of the army of madmen came closer and closer.

Re: At Rome's southern border

[blacklegion]

The lost and the damned stagger, their rusted armor punctured by pilum, some of them taken through the chest or neck and slain outright, where they are trampled beneath their mad kin. Behind the line of the fodder, the black-armored warriors advance, smashing into their mad companions if they move so slowly, killing about half as many as the intial volley of the centurions. The charge continues, leaking fetid blood, stinking ichor, and the ragged, arhytmic chanting of many ragged throats can be heard.

[no_heroism]

Relieved of their spears, the legionaires pulled out short stabbing swords and went to work. Wild strikes slid off of tall, semi-cylindrical shields only to be countered by quick short jabs that left men reeling. Anywhere the madmen looked like they might break through, the Roman line was quickly reinforced by more eight-man squads until the pressure was lower. The legionaires bent, but would not break, and the all the while, the madmen suffered horrible casualties, their crazed zeal facing up against the deadly science of war.

Gaius himself was only drawn into the fighting twice, once when a band of madmen literally hurled themselves onto the legionaires to bear them down to the ground so the ones behind them them could pour through, and again when his orders weren't relayed because a sub-officer was hit by a thrown rock. As great a master of the roman fencing style as there was, Gaius quickly dispatched any that got through to him to go back to issuing orders. He wasn't especially worried about these ones. It was the men in black at the back of the army who made him nervous. They looked like they meant business, and they were getting close to the front lines all to quickly.

[blacklegion]

And the line breaks at last, as one of the black-armored, eye-burning rune covered warriors smashes through the line, cleaving a Legion trooper's head from his shoulders, whilst pulping another one with a single shot from his bolter. It clanks empty as he turns on the Centurion, and he casts it aside, closing on him with a brutal two-handed stroke of a blade that resembles that of the Tyrant of Rome, in some ways.

[no_heroism]

Gaius ordered two squads to move in to cover the breach from either side as the huge warrior closed on him, then brought up his tower shield just in time to block the chainsword. He felt the shock of it up through his arm, but the multiple layers of metal, wood, and leather were enough that his shield would not be cut through in a single blow. Gaius did not try to match the man blow for blow, settling for playing on the defensive, striking out with a sword like an adder's tongue whenever he felt he could get away with it. He just had to stay alive until sixteen men closed in on his foe from every direction as they moved in the repair the roman line.

[blacklegion]

The defensive and surround strategy pays off, as the 16 men Gaius designated close on the warrior, spiking him full of blades through the softer joints of his armor. 4 of them fall, cloven, smashed, or crushed under his bulk, but the tainted Astartes is slain. Up and down the line, the men with Gaius are being smashed back and killed by the Black Legion, but the dark warriors are falling as well to the discipline and grit of the Legions. It will be a bloody day, it seems.

[no_heroism]

Gaius shook the sweat from his eyes. "Why do all the madmen get to fight like demigods? They're too much fornicating work to fight. Minucius! Move your squad to back of Marcus'!"

And so the bloody day went on.