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Fall of Bromoch

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Fall of Bromoch
Date 765.M41
Location Bromoch
Outcome Imperial victory
Combatants
Imperium Necrons
Commanders
Iron Father Kardan Stronos
Iron Captain Grolvoch
Master of the Forge Feirros
Chief Librarian Lyrdriik
Iron Father Shulgaar
Unknown Necron Lord
Strength
Clan Raukaan
PDF
Unknown
Casualties
Unknown, heavy civilian losses Unknown

The Fall of Bromoch was a battle waged by the Iron Hands on the Hive World of Bromoch in 765.M41.[1]

Overview

A hive world that had once boasted vast oceans teeming with life, Bromoch had been torn asunder when a vast mechanized tomb complex awoke beneath its surface, draining trillions of gallons of water draining away in a matter of days to leave a stinking quagmire of saltmud and rotting biomatter that covered half the world. From this awful wasteland rose legions of mechanised warriors. It would be over a century before the Imperium officially recognised and put a name to these terrible beings. They marched upon the hive cities in ranks many hundreds of thousands strong, and the outmatched Planetary Defense Force levies rushed to oppose them. Only weeks later, the ships of Iron Hands Clan Company Raukaan made orbit over Bromoch, accompanied by Kardan Stronos himself. Lydriik and Shulgaar still led the clan company, their command now shared with Iron Captain Grolvoch and the Master of the Forge Feirros. As these five inspected a holomap of Bromoch on the bridge of the Strike Cruiser Solemn Silence, it became clear that the planet was already lost. The PDF regiments had fought bravely, but they were outnumbered and hopelessly outclassed by their deathless foes. One hive city after another had fallen, their streets swarming with metallic horrors, until only the Hive Primus remained. There the defenders still held out against impossible odds, fighting tooth and nail to hold their barricades while bulk lifters.[1]

Once, the Iron Hands might have dismissed the people of Bromoch as weak and unworthy of their aid, but no more in the aftermath of the Gaudinian Heresy. However instead of saving as many citizens as possible, Tactical Squad Taloch were dispatched in a Stormraven Gunship, accompanied by Iron Chaplain Shulgaar to assist the evacuation. Meanwhile, the rest of Clan Raukaan prepared for an immediate combat drop. Telltale energy signatures had been detected emanating from one of the great oceanic rifts, signatures that matched those given off by the machines seized centuries earlier on Dawnbreak. The Iron Hands did not recognise these monstrous mechanical aliens, yet they knew their works. This time, however, Kardan Stronos led Raukaan not to claim the engines of the past but to destroy them. The great trench ran almost eighty miles end to end, gaping over one hundred metres wide and surrounded by hard-baked mud and teetering, desiccated drifts of what had once been thriving coral. From its depths leaked a leprous green glow, and it was into this shimmering corona that the warriors of Clan Raukaan plunged by Drop Pod into the waters below. A good three thousand feet below the planet’s crust, the cave was enormous in scale, dominated by immense ziggurats of glassy black stone that swarmed with robotic alien workers and warriors. The Drop Pods crashed down in a tight grouping between these mighty edifices, Iron Hands and Dreadnoughts bursting free to engage the foe that surrounded them.[1]

Stronos led the charge at the head of Squad Kuurvan, while a trio of Dreadnoughts led by Venerable Furnous began to carve a path through the machines. The strange, deathless creatures were reacting now, slowly but surely bringing waves of floating metal constructs to bear against the invading Iron Hands, and Clan Raukaan’s Techmarines stalked in the Dreadnoughts’ wake, ready to tend to their ancient charges should they fall to enemy fire. Suddenly, the foes ranks were torn by fresh blasts as a wing of Stormraven Gunships roared overhead, flanking the mighty form of the Thunderhawk Forgestar, delivering Centurions and Thunderfire Cannons to the fight. Though the foe’s numbers were vast, most of their leaders were far above, coordinating the final battle against Hive Primus – soulless machines, they could not compete with the vital, crushing force of Clan Raukaan’s offensive.[1]

Finally, at the base of the largest ziggurat, Feirros summoned a pair of servitors bearing a heavy iron chest covered in panels and dials. As the device was slammed down into the dirt, Feirros busied himself with its activation while the warriors of Clan Raukaan formed an impenetrable wall around him. All the while, Kardan Stronos remained vox-linked to Iron Captain Grolvoch, ignoring his subconscious protocols as they balked at the rising casualty rate. Finally, Iron Captain Grolvoch voxed through – the chance of recovering further refugees from Hive Primus now stood at less than 20%, the Iron Hands’ agreed cut-off point. With a curt command, Stronos ordered Clan Raukaan’s aircraft down, Iron Father Lydriik directing furious covering fire from the Devastator Squads as the battle-brothers scrambled back aboard their craft In their wake they left the iron chest, and even as the airborne Clan Raukaan burst from the rift and into the open sky, their ordnance detonated. Servo-bonded chains of crystalline prisms shattered, releasing howling swarms of insane machine spirits bent only on destruction. The spirits flowed outward in a tide, corroding and devouring every mechanical system in their path. Nothing was safe, the bodies and weapons of the xenos burned along with the weapons and systems of those few defenders who remained. Behind them – as the various craft of the Iron Hands pushed hard for the upper atmosphere and their waiting cruisers – Bromoch plunged helplessly into a new dark age, the planet’s orbital silos detonating spontaneously and filling the skies with drifting, radioactive clouds. In orbit, a ragged flotilla of refugee ships gathered to watch the planet die. The Iron Hands, inscrutable as ever, denied the existence of any mechanical foe in the wake of the disaster, carefully discrediting those wild tales told by the refugees. Though the Chapter might still keep their secrets, millions of Imperial lives had been saved thanks to the strength and determination of Clan Company Raukaan.[1]

Sources