Puma IFV between Railroad and Storm center, Great Forest

Felix Jäger had seen his companion and friend Grotek in many moods and knew them well. He had seen the Dwarf enraged, in misery, depressed, overjoyed and lustful. But despite being at his side for many many years, having endured hardship on the road, wonderful evenings at Inns, having slain Demaons and dragons he had never seen the Dwarf thoughtful and in awe. Until now.
They both had witnessed the massacre of beastmen which masqueraded as a battle a few hours before and the impact of that was still with them. They had faces armies of this size and bigger before, the siege of Praag came into mind, but never ever had they seen the enemy killed so quickly and ruthlessly.

The speed and violence by which this battle was conducted and the totally one-sided result drove the point home that this was a new age. They had worked with the Germans before and they had pegged them as nice but soft-until the treads of their tanks ground the beastmen corpses into ground meal as they were in the only good way into the forest. Both were excellent fighters and had proven this by everybody's measure-but now Felix felt like a new-born babe in the face of such destruction.
Still in thoughts he realized that his companions face had lit up as much as it was possible for the Dwarf.

"What is it Grotek-seen any Ale?"
"No Felix, but a good fight-the best. You have seen what these Germans can do if they put their mind to it?"
"Aye, could not help it"
"And they amass this kind of army and still take us with them? Whatever awaits us at the end of this trip must be powerful indeed. I think I have found my Doom at last"
He had uttered this hope so often that the proclamation had worn off considerably by now. But sitting in an utterly alien vehicle which brought them along and after seeing the battle Felix could not help but to wonder if this time the Slayer finally was right.

Leopard 2 A8 Tank, Great Forest, 2 hours later

"Boom" the report of the 120 mm gun did not surprise Uli Stoiber-the effect at its target did. The farther the 183rd Panzer Battalion had penetrated the woods the shorter the engagement ranges became as visibility was reduced by trees and undergrowth.
This had made the tanks change their ammo from HE to canister which was preferred for ranges under 500 meters. He had never seen the effects of this ammo before, now it was reveled in all its bloody glory. In a triangle beginning about 50 meters before his tank the single shot had burst into the beastmen which had tried to ambush his tanks with spears and clubs. 1400 Steel balls had cut a swathe through them which left few survivors out to about 500 meters distance. Seeing movement at the edge of the area "cleared" by the main round he pressed the trigger for his remote machine gun, ending whatever happened there for good. The Canister and HE rounds removed enough of the brushwood to expose more beastmen-to Uli the were just moving targets to him at this stage.

Luckily the drones carried by the tanks had allowed the tanks to recon the ground in front of them despite the woods-the drones could quite literally fly between the trees and have a look. What they revealed was not to everybody's liking.
Uli Stoiber was part of the most potent fighting force currently prowling the Warhammer world-and they were forced to stop. They were not stopped by superior enemy forces or lack of supplies – they had to halt because of trees. So far the trees they had encountered had not been too big to be driven over or at least the big ones had been spaced far enough from each other to let the AFV`s pass-now this was over.

From here to the Target the Forest was primeval Forest – meter thick Trees older than dirt interspersed with fallen trunks would stop any tank ever build-and flying over it was out of the question for now. The only remaining option was to fight through it on foot and then tackle what was at the end-and all that through the chosen domain of the Beastmen.
Led by Colonel Stein a group of mechanized infantry formed up from both battalions which had accompanied Uli`s 183rd Panzers. They went together with the mages and the tunnel specialists which were already wishing they were back in the cramped train.

The latest addition was from the Empire and had made the last kilometers through the forest on trucks. The Empire had logistic problems since its inception, but a long history of warfare and a more "magical" mindset had kept them from a mechanical answer. Still they had worked on that problem and since many many years had bred horses and donkeys for getting especially strong "war mules". They would never show up in a regimental history or would make a nice tin miniature, but few battles would be fought without their services.
Now several scores of them were offloaded from German trucks, because now they were needed more than ever.
So Ulrich Stoiber watched the "Kampfgruppe" (combat group) Stein being swallowed by the Great Forest accompanied by mule's brays and a dwarf's grumblings.

Train Hammer, Great Forest, same Time

"You look greatly frustrated Major Gerber. What is up?"
"I have asked Operational Command again to be released so we can go after the Quarry. I was told that the Quarry holds up fine and that I am to guard the railhead until relieved. We have enough soldiers here, I could take the train and still protect this place."
"I can understand your frustration Major, nobody likes leaving his comrades in a fight alone. But please also understand how very important our mission here is. If we fail here reliving the siege at the Forest may be irrelevant before long"
"Is it that bad?"
"The longer I look at it the worse it seems. There is so much energy in this ritual that I have no idea how it is handled-and no idea how our reality stands it for so long at all."
"Wow, this is not the kind of mission I want to be part of, Meister Flammbach"
"From what I have seen I want you very much on this mission Major. Let`s hope whatever is the cause of this goes soon, then we can do different things"

Great Forest, 10 Kilometers inside from the tanks stopping point

Bashok thought he had chosen his point well. The Gor had already heard that the Germans had weapons with which you could kill at long distances. He had no problem with members of his warherd being killed or even himself being in danger-as long as it was a glorious battle in which he could fight back, not being slaughtered with no chance to get his claws red.
He was sure to have devised a way to present that. Currently his warherd was distributed in a part of the forest that had much more brushwork than most. A fire had removed most of the huge trees a couple of years before and low brushes had a chance to grow the first time in many years as there was enough sunlight to do so. The well fertilized ground had made sure that the brushes were so dense that there were few places were you could see for more than 5 meters or so.
A swamp of one side and the broken hill on the other would make sure that the Germans would come to him.

Bashok had no illusions that he could control the battle after it was joined, but also had no inclination to do so-this way he could enjoy hand-to-hand combat and had no compulsion to babysit his herd like Garek Brightfur seemed so eager to do. In this place his Children of Chaos could fight at their best, bloody close combat, chaotic and no quarter given or asked for.
He did not think that this would be to the Germans liking.
The waiting for the enemy was the hard part-he could not see them coming, could not check his troops except for the nearest ones, and could not do anything else to improve his chances. Needless to say this was making him fidgety-which he was not allowed to show as not to affect morale the wrong way, he had to seem like stone.

Still something was making him more nervous than all these things allowed and he did not know why. Not given to great self-inspection he tried to look for what irritated him. In the end he found it was not something-but the lack of something.
Once his warherd had settled down the birds in the forest had taken up their singing again-and now that had stopped. He could not hear the humans approaching-so that was not it. Looking around in the strange light provided by the storm he finally spotted them-whatever they were. Small black rectangles hung in the air above his troops. They were doing nothing but move erratically and give off a small whine which was lost in the storms cracklings. He could not see what held these rectangles up-did it have something to do with the spinning disks at their ends?

20 Kilometers away from Bashok the 12 Self Propelled Guns the 131st Artillery Battalion had brought to play with got their orders for a fire mission. Three of these guns had been enough to lay waste to a Druchii city-here 12 of them were willing and able to shoot several tons of hate per minute. Centrally controlled they applied the azimuth and elevation automatically.
After the short pause to make sure everything was shipshape the guns fired 5 rounds each rapidly with ever decreasing elevation-the rounds would arrive at their targets nearly simultaneously. When the rounds passed through the clouds they were viciously attacked by the black lightning-many of them. The solidly constructed shells were not catastrophically damaged by the lightning, but the electronic fuses in some of them failed which meant their mechanical back-ups cut in on impact.
The main purpose of the barrage was not to kill as many beastmen as possible-even if this was a desired result-but to allow the passage of the real barrage as the 155 mm rounds were currently the sideshow.

The real killers had waited in readiness until the fate of the 155mm artillery rounds could be determined. When the first impacts were reported by "Kampfgruppe Stein" the 8 MRLS launchers of the 132nd Battalion let loose. Each of the launchers disgorged 12 missiles carrying 644 bomblets each. As there was no more GPS to be had for a while and area targets were not uncommon in the new world the Germans had reinstituted the "Bomblet" missiles, changing their shaped charges warhead against a purely fragment one. The missiles passed through the storm without taking too much damage and distributed their cargo into an area of 800 x 600 meters.
Bashok ears were still ringing from the violent explosions which had devastated the area to his left when a rain of small drum-like canisters dropped from the sky. He looked at the seemingly innocent 8 cm long cylinder which had dropped in front of him. He was still trying to make sense of the rattling small explosions all around him when the submunition detonated. As it was already on the ground the fragments went mostly into his legs, genitals and guts, shredding everything in there. As the fragments missed all really vital organs the Gor spend far too much time dying in great pain from blood loss.
The bomblet which killed him was one of more than 64000 that had been dropped on the unsuspecting beastmen, each with a 5 meters lethal radius. Together with the ongoing 155mm bombardment they killed nearly 90% of the Chaos Children as they were unprotected in the open and had no concept of "taking cover"

Felix Jäger was trying to cope with the battle in front of him. It was unlike any battle he had experienced before and he rightfully considered himself a connoisseur of battles having participated in so many of them. It looked like most of the fighting was done before he would see the first enemy.
When the Beastmen in waiting were discovered he had his work cut out keeping the slayer from charging into the fray. He only managed it by pointing out that these Children of Chaos were unlikely to serve as the doom the Slayer still sought so much.
That the Germans had warned the members of the "special" party against pressing forward on their own had been more a motivation to the Dwarf than a hindrance but the wisdom of keeping back was exposed brutally when the German barrage hit the brushwork in front of them. Even Grotek paled at the sight to the artillery-mutilated beastmen. "Could have been me-and no chance to fight back-what an end-that is no worthy doom"

The "special" group clustered around the back of the fight for protection-it would not do to have the mages killed by some stupid beast before he ever could do his work in the tunnels. Traversing the battlefield was hard work even without the enemy. A lot of the brushwork was gone or denuded of leaves so the sightlines were much better and the ground was littered with dead beastmen who had died without ever seeing an enemy. Felix was sure that the battle would have been hard-fought at least if the Germans had not brought up their artillery-which he also never saw in action.
Tracking with the mages and mules through rough terrain and navigating between or over beastmen corpses was hard work and one had to concentrate a lot on where one put ones feet.

This proved to be distracting enough that a Bundeswehr soldier saw the shifting pile of corpses far too late. He was able to bring his rifle up in time to put a 3 round burst into the first Beastmen who attacked him before a Gor with missing left ear and horn punched two sets of copper-clad claws through the chest of the German. At the same time other "corpses" were getting up from the ground and assaulted the few Germans who protected the mages and tunnel troops-they had managed to bypass the German mechanized infantry by playing possum.
As the distances were now down to a few meters and surprisingly many Beasts had managed to hide the fight was much more even and too few beastmen were cut down before they could close for hand-to-hand combat. If they were not stopped soon they would wreak havoc among the mages.
The hoarse battle cry of a dwarf showed that this was at least to somebodies satisfaction-Grotek could be seen attacking the beastmen full-hilt. Despite only reaching to chest height of most beastmen and having no armor he went after them with what seemed like no thought about defense at all. He just was not where the strikes of the beastmen fell-or the limbs about to strike were loped off. He was a whirlwind of destruction killing beastmen to the left and right faster than armed with an axe should be able to.

Felix Jäger was no slouch himself, nobody could accompany the dwarf for so long and survive otherwise, but he was not in the same class. While he was weaker than even a lowly Ungor he was faster, more agile and had better reach with his sword. He had slashed the throat of one Ungor already and had put his sword into the belly of another when he had to fight two Beasts at the same time. Threatening one with a dagger he managed to piece the lower jaw of the other when his sword struck in the head of his latest victim. Releasing it so he could move better he found himself confronting several Chaos Children with just an overgrown knife.
Before things could go really downhill one of the German "assault rifles" roared off with several rapid shots which went by his side and killed or wounded the beastmen. Turning around he saw one of the imperial mule handlers who had taken up the weapon dropped by the killed German soldier. He seemed to know what he was doing and together the 3 managed to keep the beastmen of the mages. A fireball which consumed a small cluster of Gors shows that the mages were willing and able to carry their own weight and soon after that the skirmish was over.
Felix and a happy dwarf watched a German Sergeant take the rifle from the mule driver`s hands. "Where did you learn to shoot?"
"I was in selection for 1st Landwehr-shot the sandbox after unloading during safety training, Ser"
"I see. You have made up for that I think. If you survive this I will try to get you another slot. Until them, keep the rifle-you earned that much. Your mules will have to transport some wounded after unloading ammo I am afraid-guard them well."
"With my life, Ser"
"Carry on then"

The skirmish had been over as quickly as it came-but it was not the last by far. The Germans learned that putting a round through any likely looking corpse was a necessity-a Bayonet was not yet issued to everybody.
The trip from here was a nightmare-there were no big concentrations of Beastmen anymore, and the few times where more than a few aggregated a quick salvo from the artillery ended that nonsense.
Instead now the Kampfgruppe was attacked by single beastmen or small groups, mostly by stumbling on the panicked survivors of the last battle or being attacked from hiding. No matter which way-the Children of Chaos always fought with the ferocity of cornered animals. Now that the humans were under the canopy of the "old" forest again the sightlines became longer and an alter soldier could shoot his assailant before he was in range-mostly.
Sometimes the distance was too short or the soldiers too exhausted by the long march and no longer vigilant enough. For every wounded or fallen human many beastmen lay bleeding in the Forest, but still the Kampfgruppe was paying for every kilometer in pain and blood.
Whether enough warm bodies would be left when they reached the cave system was anybody's guess, but this deterred neither German nor Imperials. Everybody had their doubts-and everybody was afraid to show them first, so under a sky from a nightmare and a Forest fit to scare Children and adults alike the humans pressed on.

Faculty of Magic, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany

Günter Koch, while still being an advisor for the government, had a new main task - becoming a Wizard. His birth city of Kaiserslautern had a magical faculty, so did many other university cities, but since his dual occupation needed his presence in Berlin often, he immatriculated at Humboldt-University.
With the teaching personal being all Imperial, the way of teaching was distinctly different. At first, there were a lot of jokes about "The Force", but even the greatest jokers among the students soon stopped that. Learning about the business end of Tzeench´s Curse tended to be a convincing incentive.
Unlike in the fictional Star Wars, where the Force-sensitives had to and could open themselves fully to the Force for their greatest feats, mastery over the Winds of Magic meant nearly the opposite. The Winds blew strongly over the Warhammer world, so power collection was only a problem for undertakings which would make the greatest Jedi look like amateurs. No, on Warhammer channeling the right dose of magic without losing control was the knack to be learned. Calling on the Winds of Magic was easy for the truly gifted, savely forming them was mastery.

That was a stony road for the new Wizards in training, a cantrip like making an object glow like a lantern was a big success if cast correctly. It simply took time to learn, but the time could stretch like chewing gum for the young (and sometimes older) new magicans.

It was a learning experience for the imperial teachers too. The ideal of celibacy some orders held high, especially the Light and Amethyst Orders, was simply not enforce able in Germany. The standard methods the german professors and teachers had shown them, helped the Orders enormously in their neverending quest for more and reliable magical knowledge.

So enormously in fact, that unknown to both Empire and Germany, among the Farseers of Ulthuan a discussion broke loose, if the High Elves should not plan some actions to hinder and stop a further magical advance in the Old World. Seers like Teclis might be idealistic, but not all Elves were like that. There were a lot who thought that a certain level of magical knowledge should rest forever in the hands of responsible Elves, not some short-lived "mammals" like the humans.
While no human could ever hope to reach the magical level of true High Elf magicans, an advance of them over a certain broderline combined with other advantages like fire weapons, could become a threat for Ulthuan. And such threats had to be contained or eliminated...

Quarry, Great Forest, several hours later

The Weltensprung was not the first change of Geography that the Slann had wrought, even if it wore the biggest change of landscape and the one with arguably the most consequences.
Before that several other "improvements" by the Slann had led to cataclysmic earthquakes which had changed far more landscape than the old mages had ever intended. These earthquakes had collapsed many of the tunnel networks of the Dwarves and the Skaven as well as those networks who`s creators were better not speculated about too much.

When this happened all too often the tunnels and the cave systems connected by them had not been restored but were condemned and all but forgotten even by their makers. Some of these were under the quarry, most of them collapsed, disconnected or filled with rubble.
Some caves had been blasted open during the mining and had been used immediately by the Quarrymen who were always looking for more storage and living room. By now these were not only used for storing ammo and foodstuff, but were also used as a makeshift hospital and a refugee for the civilians who had fled the beastmen onslaught.

Not being ventilated too well, badly lit and damp the civilians still valued the safety offered by them. Even in the middle of such a battle children would still be children and play when there was no direct threat-and their parents not around. Currently a group of them were had found an amendable adult who was willing to play the horse for them and carried several of them around in a wild ride where the joyfully screeching children were barely clinging on.
"Faster Valten, faster". The hulking blonde tried his best to make the ride even more fun for the kids. The happy smile of a young widow looking on was just more motivation for the warrior to spend his rest in such an undignified manner.

Other caves and tunnels which were even deeper and under the surface of the cast already mined by the quarrymen had never been detected by the humans-but they were very well known to other beings. And now they were taking advantage of them.

German-Empire Border, Transall AC-160 5000 meters AGL

"Think about Elena, the one with the nice tits in the Cantina"
"Very funny"
Captain Harold Bartels had missed the captive basket of the refueling system the second time. Given the ponderous nature of his prototype plane and the fact that refueling was an evolution that he had rarely done before and only once with this plane before did not make things any better.
Falling back behind the A330 Tanker he took a deep breath, tried to relax and pushed the throttles forward again. Whether it was the third time lucky or any thoughts about Elena who really had nice tits nobody could say but this time he managed to put the refueling probe into the basket.
Now he "just" had to keep the distance to the tanker very even for a few minutes while thousands of liters of Kerosene were transferred into the big tanks of his plane. He had a long flight to make and just hoped there would be a place to land and refuel where he was going.

Close to Castle Wolfenfels, same time

"Cruntch" The slave that had just helped pushing another round into the muzzle needed a second to realize that his right forearm had been chewed off by the cannon he was serving and started to scream. Hellbringer Cannons were not just dead metal weapons-they were a piece of Chaos-blessed metal which bound a denizen of the warp into it to make it more powerful. Currently it was sitting in the bunker the Chaos warriors had dug at the end of the zig-zag trench. There it was secured by heavy chains that kept the maniac demon inside the cannon to rip the cannon out of the enclosure. That had not kept the gun from using its muzzle like a set of jaws and removing the slave`s limb cleanly.

The blood that spurted out of the arm before the vasospasm set in was absorbed by the red bronze of the gun as if it never existed.
The Chaos Dwarf used his axe to smash the Slaves head before he could disturb the loading cycle any further. The few shots they had so far managed to get off at the castle had not brought the required results-the wall above the hits they had managed had a cracked outer shell but so far nothing had broken. An any shell that hit the earthen embankment was lost. So he needed a few more good hits to the same spot to open a breech in the Castles walls.
A little back a group of Khorne-worshippers were already chewing at the bit to storm the breech and seal the castles fate. So he needed these hits-and soon as Asul Hellebore was getting more and more frantic with each passing hour so a wailing slave did not help things.

He was about to draw breath to spur the rest of the gun crew through the loading and firing cycle when something strange on the opposite wall of the bunker caught his eye. A spot on the bare earthen wall started to turn and then a clump of earth dropped to the floor. He caught a glimpse of a huge drill which disappeared quickly just to be replaced by a coconut-sized cylinder. It was the last sight he ever had as the cylinder detonated when it hit the ground.
The fury of the explosion was enhanced by the small, well enclosed space of the bunker which made the shockwave rebound inside and converted the occupants of the bunker into paste. The force was strong enough to damage the gun itself sufficiently to free the demon bound within it, adding to the destructive force.

Still the living weapon had not forgotten at what it had been aimed at. So in order to get back to its choses realm it concentrated its essence into the shell which had been loaded and fired itself to a destructive end at the wall of the castle with a force the weapon could never have used while in one piece.
The shell hit the castles wall with tremendous force and the resulting explosion finally destroyed the outer shell. Rumbling to the ground like an avalanche it exposed the core of the wall-lots of overburden which now followed the outer shell and drew the inner shell with it.
The debris from the collapse formed a near-perfect ramp into the castle; the missing parapet reduced the amount of shooters which could stem the assault. Now the defenders who had denied the eight-folded path would die-if they were lucky.

"Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for his Throne, all hail Khorne"
This was about the most complicated prayer that the warriors of Khorne could well memorize-and now they screamed it for all to hear. They came from a people who valued physical strength and aggression already and the long connection with the power they worshipped had changed their bodies above that. Muscles which exceeded the human norm by far, resilience against pain and morale loss, the ability to fight on when lesser beings would crawl away from the battle.-such were the gifts they had received. In exchange they had given large parts of their humanity, compassion and the capability for rational thought-they could have cared less.
Clad in red armor which often was already as much a part of their bodies as their skin and accompanied by dogs the size of lions they stormed towards the castle.

Compared to earlier assaults the fire of the defenders was much less as they had fewer meters of wall facing the attackers-and surely the breach must have affected their morale. Still for each meters forward more than one warrior fell but there were more than enough to continue the attack. And blood was spilled-this was pleasant to Khorne.
Running ever forward the warriors managed to keep up the speed despite the losses, despite the broken ground littered by the corpses left from earlier failures-the battle to end all this beckoned.
When they got in range of the ramp the fire of the defenders intensified and got more accurate. Who cared-as long as one in ten warriors would reach the defenders he could gloriously put his axe into their blood-Blood for the Bloodgod. When the survivors of the assault reached the foot of the rubble ramp they saw some defenders who hastily tipped some vats on the ramp before withdrawing.
Scrambling up the ramp the Warriors soon learned what had been spread on the ramp-every bit of oil, fat and grease that the castle possessed. It made the way upwards immeasurably harder and converted the run upwards in an almost comical run-forward-slide back spectacle that slowed the attackers down-while they were under fire from both sides.

After what seemed to be an eternity the first Aspiring Champion reached the end of the ramp and jumped off the edge to storm the castle. The triumphant scream he issued turned into one of frustration when he was confronted by another wall. Very roughly constructed from material scavenged from non-essential parts of the castle it followed a semicircle which enclosed the breech. On its top the defenders who had to vacate the original castle`s wall above the breech combined their firepower with the Uzi-wielding Reiksguard knights and a machine gun manned by some Germans. They reduced the status of the proud Chaos warriors to fish in a barrel. Especially the Knight who so far had only a small role to play in the fight were expending their ammo like it were going out of fashion tomorrow-and the packed space in the enclosure meant that there were few misses.
When more Khornates pushed into the enclosure hand grenades dropped into the enclosure made their Fragments and shockwaves bound from wall to wall, adding insult to injury.
The next wave of Chaos Warriors who had arrived at the foot of the breech found a small stream of fluid trickle down the stones. When they found it to be blood it did marvels for their morale-not.

Quarry, Great Forrest, two hours later

It would have been good to say that Major Brenneke looked better, but that would have been a lie. While the siege of the quarry had taken away some paperwork it had left him with plenty to worry about-have an overview of the fight, husbanding his resources and trying to give confidence to citizens playing soldiers.
The only thing he did not do was fighting himself and he was sure that things would be very much down the drain when he had to do that. He sat in the dispatchers office which overlooked the small switchyard which took a part of the quarry`s cast and who`s view and comprehensive set of communications made it into a good command post.
He had endured another harangue by Uli Hemnir who asked him for more shells for his guns-that he had been told about 20 times already that he had to make do with the 30 shells per gun still left but still tried and seemed to take the lack as an personal affront. If the dwarf had not dispatched the giants so ably the Major would have told the artillerydwarf to fuck off but so he endured it took it like all the other unending tasks he had to tackle.

He was looking outside into the yard to get his concentration back so he was the first to spot it: The floor of the quarry suddenly broke down in a circle of at least 5 meters in a cloud of dust. He was still taking the sight in when for-clad figures emerged screaming from the hole and started to run in all directions, just to be followed by more of them-they had a breach inside the perimeter.
Hammering his hand on the switch for the klaxons he picked up the microphone to contact the various ready forces he had held back for such a case, even if he had not expected it in this place.
His first priority had to be getting that hole filled-but fortunately he had just the tool for that.

Uli Hemnir could feel that the Universe did not like him-sometimes he was more convinced than usual. The sight of a group of Clanrats and Beastmen advancing on his position did a very good convincing indeed.
"Stonebreakers-get this gun turned right now. Loader load …. LOADER…Uli looked disgusted at the figure running towards the gun with his fly open. Pulling the breech of the gun open he pushed the shell inside with a flourish. Jumping out of the recoil path he pulled the lanyard and the gun went into action. When the unlucky loader had reached the gun they were already down to shooting canister-a round they still had comparatively plenty of.
The round converted the 105 mm gun into a giant shotgun and the approaching enemies into hamburger. A couple of rounds like that stopped the enemy who lacked the will to advance but were not yet retreating. By that time a unit of riflemen had reached the artillerymen and were pouring their fire into the approaching beasts . Currently they could hold the enemy but they should not become more.

Lurgle led his unit of Clanrats to the surface at the heels of another units comprised mostly of Gors. The stupid beastmen seemed to be happy to get to the surface again-did they not know that this was the place where danger was?
When he emerged into the light he had to look around to get his bearings and to adjust his eyes to the bright light. He was to lead his unit to places where the humans stored their marvelous machines-not so much to fight the humans, the stupid Children of Chaos could die doing that-but to secure these machines.
The new humans had mighty machines-how powerful could they be when they were properly reconstructed with warpstone?
His eyes had finally adjusted to the light when he saw something he could not understand. The humans had something like a small fortress on the floor of the quarry-many meters high and broad it featured several fighting posts from which humans shot at everything in sight. It was made from orange metal and seemed impervious to the arrows and few Jezzail shots which connected with it. What Lurgle could not get his mind around was that the fortress was moving-and moving bloody fast. How could that be, especially when he could see nothing that moved the giant wheels that pushed the fortress in his direction.
He was not even aware of the panic scent that he sprayed all over his rats or the fact that they ran back into the hole as fast as they could, just to be killed as cowards. He knew nothing but the sight of the wheels which went bigger and bigger till they blocked the light and then there was nothing to be seen by him ever again.

The driver of the Liebherr 264 Truck was grinning like a madmen while he tried to drive his truck over as many Skaven and beastmen as he could while closing with his target. His truck was nearly empty save for some riflemen, some armor plate jury-welded round his cabin and the firing posts and some rifles plus a machine gun.
So his truck "just" weighted 270 tons and the nearly 4000 horsepower engine could accelerate the truck with a better rate than usual. The wheels of the truck were double the height of the biggest beastman he so far encountered and their robust construction had no problems with rolling over armor, weapons and limbs.
Now this was life-this was fun-at least while it lasted.
To the right of his cabin was normally a walkway which connected his cabin to a flight of stairs which led from the ground to his cockpit 6 meters above ground. Now the walkway was a parapet which housed a machine gun and some riflemen who shot everything in front of his truck enthusiastically.
He stopped in front of the tunnel exit which had so suddenly opened up in the quarry so that the machine gun besides the drivers cabin could shoot directly into the milling mass of nonhumans. Behind him some bulldozer followed-they would stop this nonsense soon.

The figures did not run over the battlefield-they flowed with such effortless elegance that he seemed to fly very close to the ground. Magic, experience and training made the attention of his enemies slip off him like rain never struck on his greased fur. Holding poisoned daggers in their right hands and a ball of glass filled with sickly green contents in the other they moved unnoticed towards their targets.
The small wooden tower in the middle was an obvious target. The two guards at the besides the door saw the Skaven too late-one of them died immediately with a dagger to his chest, the other one punched the buttstock of his rifle into the snout of the nearest assailant. The pick of the dagger in his neck was the last thing he ever felt. Both Skaven went up the stairs inside the tower, one of them bleeding profusely through its ruined fangs.
They went into an empty room with glass to all sides. Still searching for an enemy their legs were pulled out from under them by an impossibly fast series of shots coming from under a desk, a directing they would have not expected danger to come from. Lying on the ground they could only wait for a middle-aged tired looking human get up behind the desk which he had hidden behind walking to them. He dispatched both with a headshot but then had to run like hell when green mists filled the dispatcher's office.

The small building was at the wall of the quarry and close to the gates. Sliding along the wall without making any sound he finally got into range of the lone human watching the entrance. As the stupid human was far more interested in the battle around the tunnel he never saw the Skaven assassin that pulled his dagger through his throat.
Supremely uninterested in the dying spasms he managed to jimmy the lock to the small building. He was just inside when he saw a flash and a burning of his chest. Throwing his dagger into the humans face he drove forward and ripped his claws into the enemy`s eyes. Feeling his life running out with each pulse of his heart he looked around for a last thing to do.
With shaking hands he polled all the levers he could see and pushed all the buttons without avail-he could see nothing happening. He slipped into a short coconsciousness from which he would never awake when his paw slipped a lever he had already tried a second time.
He never heard the claxon nor saw the gigantic gate slowly open. He managed to burst the glass bowl so that poisonous fumes filled the gate house, denying any attempt to close the gate in time.