Standard Imperial Time: 000.M31. Northern Hemisphere of Planet Dal, East Coast of the Main Continent.
The first wave of drop pods tore through the atmosphere like a swarm of shooting stars.
They didn't bear the elegant, purple-and-gold livery of the Emperor's Children.
Instead, they were painted a uniform dark red, emblazoned with the sleek, clean emblem of Crimson Dawn...
A rising sun breaking over the horizon, resting atop ears of wheat, gears, and stars.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!!!
Across the Dal defense lines, anti-air batteries flared into clusters of sickly green light on the ground below.
Their indigenously developed energy flak cannons emitted piercing shrieks.
Thick, dense streams of high-energy plasma lashed skyward, desperately trying to intercept this wave of death raining down from orbit.
"Evasive maneuvers! We've got crossfire along the predicted entry vector!"
Tax Bro's voice roared through the comms channel of the First Crimson Dawn Drop Formation.
His drop pod was screaming downward at a near-vertical dive.
Inside the capsule, ten Astartes players clad in Imperial Fists livery gripped their bolters, the servos of their power armor humming with a low, tense growl.
Through the viewport, the surface of Dal closed in at a terrifying speed.
It was a sprawling concrete jungle, hastily thrown together with crude masonry and rusted steel.
The streets formed a chaotic, maze-like grid. Towering smokestacks belched plumes of grey-black exhaust, choking the air with a rancid stench of sulfur and decaying flesh.
Dominating the cityscape was a brutalist, five-hundred-meter-tall step-pyramid looming in the center of the metropolis.
Its surface was wrapped in a murky green energy shield, and at its apex fluttered a massive war banner...
...snapping violently in the gale, displaying the severed, split-jawed simian head.
"That's the Dal Royal Court," White Scars' voice crackled over the vox from a nearby Thunderhawk. "Scans confirm the heaviest concentration of life signs and peak power readings are right there."
"Cut off the head and the body dies," Tax Bro grinned, activating his power fist as its disruptor field hummed to life. "First wave! Drive a boot right through their teeth!"
Touchdown.
The initial wave of seventy-two drop pods slammed into the plaza outside the Royal Court like iron hammers.
The doors blew outward, and the roar of bolters instantly mingled with the shrieking revs of chainswords to rip through the air.
"For the Dawn!!!"
Tax Bro was the first out of the pod. His massive, two-point-seven-two-meter Imperial Fists power armor pulverized the ribcages of three Dal guards the second his boots hit the pavement.
The simian-headed, humanoid xenos wore crude metal breastplates, clutching blocky energy rifles that glowed with charging green light.
"Left flank! Focus fire!"
Tax Bro raised his heavy bolter, unleashing a three-round burst in a fraction of a second.
The first shot slammed into an elite Dal warrior's energy shield; the pale yellow deflector field flickered for zero point two seconds before shattering.
The second bullet punched clean through its breastplate, detonating inside its chest cavity.
The third shell tore straight through, plowing down a whole row of rank-and-file infantry behind it.
Yet the Dal counterattack came faster than he anticipated.
"SCREECH-GAAAH!"
Piercing screeches erupted from the honeycomb-like structures flanking the street as over a hundred Dal warriors poured out of windows, rooftops, and cellars.
They came in two distinct variants:
Standard infantry... clad in rough iron plating, wielding kinetic rifles or crude energy pistols, leaping and bounding between buildings with simian agility.
Elite warriors... larger, averaging two point five meters in height, covered in thick alloy carapaces, wielding long-barreled energy rifles that hummed with a dangerous, dark-green glow.
Crucially, every single one of them was wrapped in a pale yellow energy shield.
"Energy weapons! Prioritize the shielded units!" White Scars' roar thundered through the vox.
His White Scars squad swept into the side streets like a whirlwind, their jump packs carving sharp arcs through the air.
A wall of bolter fire swept out, shredding seven or eight standard Dal troopers into a spray of black blood and gore against the walls.
However, an elite Dal trooper dropped to one knee, the muzzle of its energy rifle fully charged...
HUM!
A beam of green energy as thick as a log erupted, striking a Salamander-clad Astartes right in the pauldron.
The ceramite layer of the power armor slagged and vaporized under the extreme heat, exposing the plasteel lining beneath.
"Holy shit!" the player shouted in the regional chat. "These damn guns can punch through power armor in two hits!"
"Don't tank it! Use evasive maneuvers!" Tax Bro roared back, using his power fist to crush the head of a Dal soldier leaping at him.
The xenos' skull exploded like a melon under the immense force, splattering him in black-red brain matter.
Within thirty seconds of landing, the battle escalated into an absolute bloodbath.
On the eastern side of the Royal Court Plaza, five Contemptor Dreadnoughts lumbered out from their oversized drop pods.
Four formed a diamond perimeter, while the central unit, armed with twin assault cannons, served as the fire support core.
"For Crimson Dawn! For Aurelian!" [I Wanna Be a Steel Behemoth] roared over the open channel as the barrels of his twin assault cannons spun up into a blur.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!!!
A storm of 20mm armor-piercing rounds swept across the Dal lines.
Concrete walls were turned to dust, metal barricades were shredded, and dozens of Dal soldiers were reduced to red mist in the first barrage.
Yet the command structure of the Dal displayed surprising resilience.
"SCREECH-GAAAH!"
An even higher, sharper shriek echoed from the apex of the Royal Court pyramid.
Immediately, the heavy artillery platforms perched atop the six clock towers surrounding the plaza opened fire simultaneously...
Their barrels were as thick as tree trunks, launching projectiles crafted from a biomechanical hybrid material that trailed murky green trails through the sky.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three explosive shells detonated near the Dreadnought formation.
The shockwave caused the atomantic shield of the outermost Dreadnought to flicker violently, shrapnel leaving dense pockmarks on its heavy plating.
"Heavy artillery! Target locked! Priority destruction!" Tech-Priest player [The Last Scourge Mechanicus] led thirty fellow Tech-Priests to establish a quick firing position in the rear.
Their shoulder-mounted meltaguns began to hum with power as multi-spectral scanners locked onto the clock tower artillery platforms.
"Melta barrage! Fire!"
Five blinding beams of white-hot heat surged forward, slamming into three of the towers.
The extreme thermal energy instantly slagged the platform bases, melting the cannons along with their gunners into liquid metal and slag that cascaded down from fifty meters up.
Yet the Dal counteroffensive showed no sign of stopping.
"Watch the ground!" a Raven Guard-painted player yelled.
The moment the warning left his mouth, the stone pavement of the plaza violently exploded outward as six massive Dal warriors bursted out from beneath the earth.
These xenos towered even higher than the elite troopers, standing nearly three meters tall, their bodies wrapped in thick, chitinous bio-armor.
One arm wielded a massive energy greataxe, while the other carried an alloy tower shield.
Heavy assault units.
"For King Charles!!!" The lead Dal heavy shock-trooper roared, swinging its energy axe straight at a Dreadnought's knee joint.
The disruptor field on the blade slammed into the Dreadnought's atomantic shield, discharging blinding arcs of electricity.
CRUNCH!
The shield was sheared open, leaving a deep twenty-centimeter gouge across the Dreadnought's leg armor.
"You piece of trash!" the Dreadnought pilot roared, sweeping his power claw around in a vicious arc.
The Dal heavy shock-trooper raised his tower shield to absorb the blow. Though sent airborne by the impact, he adjusted mid-air, executed a roll upon landing, and popped right back onto his feet.
"These bastards... they're pretty tough," Tax Bro spat over the vox channel.
He had just revved his chainsword clean through an elite Dal soldier's deflector shield and breastplate, taking a spray of viscous green blood straight to the faceplate.
Scanning the battlefield, the initial wave of three hundred Astartes players had already engaged over five thousand Dal infantry.
Though the Astartes held a crushing advantage in firepower and armor, their advance was three times slower than projected.
The Dal were using sheer numbers, complex urban terrain, and suicidal, fanatical charges to forcefully bog down the transhuman super-soldiers.