Armed forced Command Center, Geltow near Potsdam

General Fritz listened to the mangled recording of a wireless call again, but it made no more sense than before.
"Train Hammer, unless ….quarry immediately …danger ….destroyed. ….sufficient forces….railhead"
"Can you improve on that?"
"Sorry, but no sir. So close to the storm all wireless communication can be badly disturbed. It seems they are under attack"
"Yes, that is obvious. What is that buzzing noise that mangles commo so much?"
"No Idea Sir"
"Did you have any further calls from the Train?"
"None, Sir"

"Scheisse"

Quarry, same time

Heinz Albers mouth was dry, the rest of his body felt numb. He had already been alarmed by the furred nightmare which so suddenly emerged in the middle of the Quarry, but this had been far away. The big Liebherr Truck had it in hand well enough-until the klaxons sounded, the Gate moved and his world came to an end.
After having killed so many beastmen it came as a rude surprise that there were still so many of them left. The covered the ground between the forest and the gate with a brown, furry screaming and advancing carpet of hate. All of these abominations wanted to kill him and every human inside the quarry and a cruel fate had taken away their protection.
Like a lot of "citizen soldiers" – aka militia, Landwehr or however you call them are quite good at manning fixed defenses-but take them away and change the tactical situation suddenly and they shatter like glass dropped on a granite floor.

Heinz Albers saw a screaming mass of beastmen coming his way and he was absolutely helpless to formulate an adequate tactic against that. That so many men depended on him just made the fugue which had overcome him all the more horrible.
His men were still shooting the beastmen for all they were worth , but this time the beastmen did not run at the walls to storm them but at the Gates which shielded them from at least some of the Germans wrath. The screamers also had made an appearance so that the quadmounts could not be employed against them but had to shield his men from aerial attack.
He was sure that they would kill another big load of beastmen-and their survivors would attack their rear along the big earthen ramparts that lead to the redoubts. And he had precisely zero idea how to prevent this-and that kept him from doing anything sensible.
On top of all the madness and screaming the Sigmarite priest was making the rounds, brandishing his hammer for all to see and asking for Sigmar`s aid I the coming battle-very helpful for sure.

The Liebherr Truck driver had missed the buzzing of his wireless twice because of the fighting, but when the red light caught his eye he picked up the micro.
"Tiny Toy here-what can I do"
"Tiny Toy, here is the skipper-how is the situation at the hole?"
"Wait one Skipper" He watched with interest when a bulldozer pushed a big box over the rim of the tunnels exit. The explosion which followed a few seconds later threw soil, bodies and less identifiable pieces in a column out of the hole-and when it settled the tunnel ceased to be.
"Situation satisfactory Skipper"
"Very well. Pick me and some people up at the dispatcher`s tower-and be quick about it."
"Understood Skipper"
Putting the pedal to the metal the driver accelerated the huge truck for all what it was worth-in this situation it seemed as slow as a sloth.
Still it was not difficult to meet Major Brennecke at the base of the tower. He was inside his not-too-big cabin in a flash.

" Drive to the entrance-we have to get the gate closed before those beasties are in"
"I`ll do my best Major"
"Just do it"
The trucks huge diesel engine transmitted its power to the 4 electro motors in the trucks wheels and emitted a black cloud from the exhaust from the strain. Still the truck barely made 60 kilometers per hour and took an eternity too reach even this much. Bumbling along the quarry`s ground the crew could only hope they would reach the open Gate in time to do something about it.
They were about 700 meters when the first Beastmen went through the open Gates. They were just the precursors of a brown flood that threatened to kill everything they held dear. The driver was not sure what to do-holding course seemed like suicide but he had no order for anything else.
"Fuck this – we will never be able to shoot our way inside the gatehouse. Driver-right turn. Make for the rear rampart to the redoubts"
"Yes Sir. Sir-what will we do there?"
"The best we can-the best we can"

Heinz Albers found that he watched the movements of the Sigmarites Warhammer like a hypnotized rabbit, following its up and down movements and the chanting with incomprehension. He had nearly accepted that he would not be able to stem the tide-who could do better-and die. He was so far gone that he did not eve wonder why the hammers head began to glow-and why the light around him changed.
What he did realize was that an icy calm went through his head and that he started screaming orders like he should have been doing for some time.
He could not prevent the Beastmen gaining the floor of the Quarry and the railroad depot-but he could defend the redoubts for all that it would be worth.
"Lieutenant Teut, take your men to the rampart, form a line and shoot all beasties that want to come up. Take one troop and help the rummskoeppe up here. Wireless-give me Captain Leibnitz, we have to coordinate-any try to get Major Brennecke on the horn-pronto"
He watched the lieutenant take is platoon against the ramp and form a line definitely not out of the Bundeswehr manual-two men deep, shoulder to shoulder with two machine guns at their flanks they maximized firepower but would be slaughtered by any ranged the beastmen had nothing like that it was a workable tactic. Shooting at a terrible clip they managed to slow the beastmen long enough for the 4 guns to reach the top of the redoubts. The first of them was pushed by a dwarven crew led by an angry Lt. Hemnir. "Thanks for nothing human. If you would have been quicker we might have some more rounds left"
Heinz Albers was busy with pulling his men together and talking to his Major to take nay not of that, but he could hardy not see the mass of beastmen that filled the floor of the quarry and the depot. Sigmar help anybody still cought there.
His breath caught when he remembered the refugees and the wounded in the cave-they were defenseless before the Chaos Children's wrath-and he could do huge Gor was as ugly as any of his kind could be. With 3 Horns of different sizes and styles, limbs that would look in place on a goat if they would not be so huge and covered with muscle and clad in rusty bits of armor over his fur. He was at the point of a group of beastmen who shirked the heat of the main battle and were looking for easier pickings elsewhere.
When they probed the entrance of the cave their sensitive noses told them a tale of sweaty panic, bloody injury and desperation-just what they were looking the Gor rounded the next bend he saw a blonde human stepped in his way. His brain was still processing the information when the humans hammer connected with his ribcage. Armor or no-in less than a heartbeat the ribs from the right side of his chest were about 10 cm distant from those of the left and all the organs between them were reduced to mush.

Luthor Hus had regaled Valten often enough about Sigmars battles, most of them in the company of worthy heroes of noble lineage and renown who fought battles which were about earth-shattering causes.
Currently he was fighting besides a German railroad dispatcher with a paunch and no lower legs who was lying prone at his feet and was banging away with a rifle at his targets. An Imperial carpenter with no right hand was pulling him back when necessary. The shooter left a trail of blood whenever that happened but never stopped shooting.
Another Carpenter that had visited his colleague in his off-duty hours was swinging a fire axe at beastmen 3 times his weight as he had never shown that he could handle a rifle safely.
Two nurses were bringing ammunition forward and tried to pull back the wounded before the beastmen got them. They had no armor, no weapons, white clothes that made them stand out and more bravery than any man Valten had ever met.

The Tunnel into the cavern they defended was so tight for the next 50 meters or so that two or three fighters could fight at the same time-not more.
There were others but the fight was far too hot for Valten ever to notice them. He was fighting with the sons of men of no account who never wanted to be great warriors.
He fought to give refugees that no government he knew gave any thought about one or two hours of additional fear filled life.
He was sure to die fighting the endless wave of beasts that attacked whenever they managed to scale the heaps of the dead in their way-and he did not care.
He could not imagine fighting and dying in better company or for a better cause.

Lager Middenheim, same time

Lieutenant Alpers had seen the landing of the Transall with a mixture of relief and foreboding. He was highly relieved that somebody else would take the mantle of leadership-he had borne it without adequate training and experience for too long already.
He was dreading that whoever took the lead of the Lager would not find it necessary to give Castle Wolfenfels the same support he had tried to give-and then what?
The Transall that rolled from the landing field to the hangar was strange. Both sides sported a black-and-white checkerboard pattern and the front under the cockpit sported painted flames.
There was a cartoonish dragon painted behind the cockpit and the name "Drache 1" painted under it. He saluted the Captain who stepped off the plane. "Lieutenant Alpers at your service Sir. Welcome to Lager Middenheim, such as it is. How can I be of assistance?"
"Good afternoon Lieutenant Alpers, I am Captain Bartels. Currently I need the fuel for this beasty here and an update about the situation. After that I need you as a spotter-lead the way Lieutenant"
Lieutenant Alpers was more confused than before but did his best to hide it.

Cave in the Great Forest, same time

The entrance into the caves that so much of the fighting and dying were all about did not look like much to Oberst Stein through the binox-just an opening in a hillside with most of it hidden by vines which clung tenaciously to the otherwise sheer cliffs. The rocky ground around the hill prevented any huge trees from rooting too close so an open space allowed the officer to gather information.
Between him and that cliff were about 400 meters and far too many Children of Chaos. For once not hidden from sight until the last moment they seemed unaware of the human combat group that had assembled at the forest edge.
The infantry was already setting up fields of fire and planned the assault but were still waiting for the hate. The hate-this was the name given by the veterans of the First World War given to the endless barrages of artillery which maimed and killed so many of them.
Unlike them the beastmen did not have the wisdom to dig shelters or to seek cover when the noise like a freight train pierced even this tortured sky. They just looked up in wonder when dozens of 50+ kilogram Shells detonated barely above them and beat bloody circles with fragments and overpressure.
They did not do anything until the thousands upon thousands of lethal bomblets of another MLRS salvo had finished it`s sadistic firecracker sound and killed untold numbers.
The few survivors started to run in many directions at once in full panic when the machine guns opened fire and cut them down like wheat.
The Infantry advanced carefully still- For all its fury, the artillery never gets them all. And the ones it does not get are the ones to look out for.

A company went forward in leaps and bounds, always making sure that they went under overwatch by unmoving shooters. They only found death and injury. Dispatching the few mobile wounded the most dangerous thing they encountered were a few unexploded bomblets.
Having settled this matter the humans began setting up a perimeter around the tunnels entrance so the tunnel fighters would only have to worry about the enemy in front of them.
Oberst Stein watched the Tunnels preparing themselves. They were quite a mixed bunch, with members being drawn from German armed forces, the Landwehr and the Magicians Academy. The Kaiserlich-deutsche Landwehr had their fair share of Dwarves who worked for the railroad. These were a natural pick for the Tunnelers and so the German officer saw Dwarves and humans armed with a mixture of shotguns, Assault rifles and even MG21 machine guns getting ready to fight underground. There were even more exotic pieces of hardware unloaded from the mules, among other things a number of drones.

He knew better, but as the perimeter seemed to be setting itself up well he found the time to kibitz over the shoulders of a drone operator. The tracked drone wasn`t much bigger than a children`s bobby car but was comparatively well armored and sported a MP7 for armament.
The small monitor showed the pictures gained by the unmanned vehicle as it went through the mouth of the cave. The first meters were unassuming tunnel in a straight line but then it widened into a natural cave. The drone showed numerous beastmen at the walls of the cave when two huge legs appeared in front of the camera. The camera did not have the angle to show the huge primitive axe which dashed its sensor head in so that the monitor only showed haze.
This was obviously not going to work-the Colonel had no choice to send the living fighters where the remote controlled ones had failed.

The Warp, same time…probably…possibly…who cares

The being had, of course all changed since (?) the last time this story had a glimpse at it and yet it was still the same. It sported totally new colors-and yet humans still lacked the words to describe them. He had new shapes, and still humans could only describe them in terms of wings and beaks and far too many eyes.
It had totally new plans and ideas-and still they were too complicated for any mortal to comprehend them.

Tzeench had indeed moved pebbles to see the shape the avalanche would take. Some pebbles had made nice landslides already; others were now useless objects at rest. It had followed many of the paths the future might take with interest-but now he concentrated only on one.
Before the desperate Shaman tried his quest for more knowledge and power no mage had been so much willing to give everything up-even himself-to get his goals met. His sacrifices unleashed more magical energy than anything else that had been done in this world for a long long time-and yet the energy he expended was the equivalent of a child which controlled a faucet-it just needed to turn the power to open or close the valve, the water brought its own vastly greater energy.

The power of the storm was given by the Changer of Ways-and he certainly did not provide it so that the Beastmen would not be threatened by German planes.
A new Chaos Gate in the Great Forest controlled by him-such interesting possibilities might be gotten from such a thing. All what needed to happen was that the Child needed to open the faucet a little further-but it would not.
The great Tzeench decided it was time to do something it usually abhorred-taking a more direct control. So inch by inch and second by second the Chaos God sent mental feelers into the remains of the hapless shaman.

Castle Wolfenfels, same time

Asul Hellebore, Blessed of Tzeench, Champion of Chaos looked at the remains of his last assault and despaired. This had been his last and best chance. The rare Hellbringer Cannon had been successfully employed in the face of the best the Germans and their imperial lackeys could do and had indeed cut a breech into the fortress walls.

He had released his best assault troops to take advantage of such a breech and by rights it should have brought victory. Bloody victory, victory at great cost and bought with casualties-but victory at last. Instead the assault had brought the casualties; it had brought the blood-but no victory but broken troops and a drop in morale and confidence. He would have to order another assault on the castle-there was no choice with the orders by Archaron himself-but whether they would be followed or would result in his death only was a very open question.
Still, it were better to get things going instead of leaving things to foster…..
Without any warning he found himself on the burning plain again, facing the same darkly armored figure that he so rightfully feared.

"Master Archaron, I…."
"Hush Asul, do not speak in the face of your betters"
The plain was the same, the figure was the same-the voice was not. Soft as velvet and smooth like oil on water it carried a menace that screaming never could.
"I see that despite all your promises you are still unable to fulfill my orders Asul"
"I…"
"Did I not say do not speak Asul-yes I did"
Asuls avatar in the warp no longer had a mouth to scream-but ears to hear and a mind to fear.
"Asul, it is obvious that in your present state you are no use to me no matter how hard you try. Yet such arduous effort should be rewarded. Accept my gift, so that you can serve me better-or at all…"
If Asul would still have a mouth he would have screamed in protest and whined in frustration and fear. Like all Chaos mages the connection to the warp was a tenuous affair which eroded his sanity in leaps and bounds- if it were not kept in check with ever vigilant willower.
Getting gifts too soon or too big a gift would upset the carefully crafted balance and make him a gibbering fool at best-or an indescribable Chaos Spawn at worst.

Asul felt additional energies and capabilities thrust at him whether he wanted or not. Unable to block them he felt his mental reserves dwindle at uncanny speed-and then they were gone.
Then he did not only gain – but he also lost. He no longer had no mouth-he had far too many. He could move his limbs again-but there were more of them now and some of them he did not have a name for.
His eyes-his many many eyes could see everything now, in all directions at once and in many spectra-but his flayed mind could no longer consciously comprehend what he saw.

But most of all he gained mass-he grew and grew and with the growth came hunger-an insatiable hunger. A small corner of his mind realized that he was no longer in a small corner of the warp but what he once saw as the real world-but he could no longer make anything out of that knowledge.
The only reality he could parse now was the hunger and everything he did had to serve it.

The Cave, a little later

Felix Jäger had heard that the cavern in front of them was full of enemies and made himself ready for them as good as he could. Gripping his sword tighter and making sure that the armor he had was where it was supposed to be he tried to get his mind to the place where he would willingly run towards enemies who wanted to kill him and match skill, strength speed and luck with them for the right to live. It left him enough time to watch two Germans walk in front of the connecting tunnel. Both lifted strange tubes to their shoulders. In front of the tubes were conical objects he could not place at all. Before he could ask both soldiers fired their weapons. The report of them was muffled and quiet compared to some other weapons Felix had witnessed the last days. From the back end the tubes emitted a black cloud of strange flakes which settled quickly on the ground. From the cavern loud explosions could be heard which seemed to last longer than those he was used to.

After another small self-powered cart went forward in the cave and this time the Germans seemed more satisfied by its fate. Following other soldiers into the cavern he was amazed at the amount of dead beastmen-and the fact that most of them seemed physically unhurt but were very dead.
"What the hell happened here"
"Thermobaric warhead"
"What"
"Err, sorry" The Sergeant which was now accompanying the mages and other specials did not look genuinely sorry, not that Felix cared too much. "The two weapons we just shot in the cave, they contained a special metal powder. It was sprayed in a special pattern into the air before being ignited-it makes something like a cross between a slow explosion and a fast conflagration. It kills by shockwave mostly-and those where you cannot see any injury have no more lungs to speak of."
"Nasty-better them than us. But if this is so great-why do you need us?"
"Works best under special circumstances. It will not…"

Whatever the German wanted to say was silenced by the screaming of more Children of Chaos who emerged from several side tunnels. Swirling blue tattoos and ritual scars showed them to be special-especially immune to pain and injury, especially willing to die if they could just kill one enemy….
Like so often the fight was too intense to gain any cohesive picture of it. Felix would later recall two dwarves who carried rifles which seemed to fire without any stop standing side by side and pouring endless rounds into the approaching beastmen. He remembered seeing a German being ripped to pieces by 3 huge Gors who were then consumed by a fireball from one of the imperial mages. He was at Groteks back hacking, stabbing and slashing at half-seen Ungors until a German inserted an assault rifle between them and shooting a full magazine into the beasts. He saw another dwarf hammer his empty shotgun into the snout of another beast while the beast pushed its claw deeper and deeper into the dwarf's guts. He saw so much, could remember so few-and then it was over.

The tunnelers organized themselves-sending their few wounded back to the surface-spending a second over the far too many dead-and then pressed on.

Quarry, same time

Heinz Albers watched the next wave of beastmen run up the ramp to his redoubt. While the angle of the ramp made running up much easier it was a lot longer than the outer slopes-and the beasts were paying for every meter with blood and lives. The rifle fire of two companies plus the making gun salvoes from a heavy weapons platoon made sure that only a few beasts reached the flagellants who were the final barriers between the beastmen and the redoubts. Carefully placed marksmen shot the surviving beasts mostly before they could kill the flagellants.

Being shot at from the front and a side cost the beastmen ferocious casualties-but getting past the gates had given the Children of Chaos hope again and that hope made them hurl themselves against the defenders last lines with mindless abandon.
On the other ramp the Liebherr Truck was parked backwards and like a small fort made sure that the beasts had an even harder time getting up there.
"Last 10 rounds Captain"
"I am aware of that Lt. Hemnir, like the last 5 times you told me that. You have to make do"
"Yes"…."Sir"
So far the defenders could keep the assault at bay, but cut off from the ammo reserves in the caves it was just a question of time when the defenders would all have to fight hand-to-hand, and that could only have one ending.

The Captain was still looking for something to improve before the next wave when he heard the scream. Louder than practically anything he had heard before it was shrill, dissonant and unlike anything issued by a living being it told of bloody tidings. It took the German a few seconds to identify it-and a few more to believe his own senses.
The grin he started to sport would have frightened off any beastmen close enough to see it.

Castle Wolfenfels, same time

"What the hell is that thing"
Sergeant Blascoviks needed no binoculars to see the thing that had emerged from the Chaos camp. Having more colors than an oil spill on water and shifting shapes it had only one constant feature-it grew in size – rapidly.
When they had first spotted it, it was about the size of a large elephant but now it had to be compared to the largest dinosaurs that had roamed the Old Earth millions of years before. But where the largest of these animals had been peaceful vegetarians the numbers of claws, tentacles and fanged mouths left no doubt about this beast´s diet.
The fleeing cursing members of the Chaos army showed where that …something..was getting the mass for its growth. The few Chaos Warriors that fled in the castles direction were not a real threat; even so they were shot before they ever came close enough to surrender.

"That might be a Chaos Spawn Lieutenant Hermann. But if it were so, it would easily be the biggest Chaos Spawn that I have ever heard of."
"Aha. And what can it do?"
"They are mindless beasts and will generally attack everything in their range. They mostly attack physically even if some of them disgorge acid vomit or poisons. If it were to come in our direction it would be very dangerous as these spawns are very tough and hard to kill. And one this big will surely be more so. It will also be very powerful-it might be able to tear down the very walls of this castle"
"Thank you Master Hark. Can you do anything about it as I fear it indeed comes our way?"
"I can try my best, but this is likely beyond me"
"How very wonderful."

It was then that the Storch made his appearance. Pulling up to several hundred meters it started to circle the battlefield.
"Our esteemed flier decided to join the party I see, but did you not say he was unarmed"
"Yes Count Heinrich, I have no…oh looks like he brought a friend. But please do not ask me what this is. It looks like a transport plane-but it does not act like one"

Inside the much-modified Transall Captain Bartels went through the procedures he had developed together with his crew during the last two months:
"Open gun ports" 6 patches of hull moved minutely into the plane and them aside
"Gun ports open"
"Charge guns" Hydraulic rammers pulled back breaches twice, ammunition belts gave rounds the size of soft-drink bottles into the breeches.
"Guns charged and ready"
The Captain followed the pointers given by the spotter in his Storch and pulled his ponderous plane in a curve around its port wing. Using an camera and monitor setup he aimed the side of his plane at the Chaos Camp which milled with enemies.
"Likedeelers-we give them a broadside"

Pushing the trigger in his control yoke the Captain unleashed hell. Meter long flames erupted from the 6 gunports, showing where the 30 mm RMK autocannons were. A Laser measured the distance to the ground with great accuracy and fed the info into a computer. The 30 mm shells which were propelled down the barrels at 750 meters/second were inductively programmed when they passed the muzzle of their gun and started to count the time. When they were some 10 meters from their targets small detonations ripped the shells apart and released 160 steel pellets which beat a circle of more than 3 meters into the ground and killed every living being in that circle.
The broadside that the Captain had released contained a thousand rounds per gun and minute. When he released the trigger a camp full of Chaos Warriors was a mass grave waiting for the diggers.
The only thing still standing, screaming its rage and fury was the Chaos Spawn which clawed into the sky in helpless fury.

"Tough bugger that one. Change ammo"
On 6 guns the double feeds switched the ammo from one drum to another-this time explosive and armor piercing ammo was pushed into the waiting breech mouths.
The Transall this time flew a far tighter curve, with the wing always pointing at the same spot of the ground-the Chaos Spawn who by now moved towards the castle with speed.
Again the flames went out from the gunports and tracers connected the plane with the hulking beast. This time the round did not explode before impact-their fuses waited until they had contact with the tough skin of the Spawn or even penetrated some distance before exploding.
Shockwaves raced through the beast on the heels of swiftly moving fragments which sliced through all it encountered. Muscles and sinews were torn, Organs rendered useless and nerves sundered before they could report the pain to whatever brain still resided inside the body.
Dropping to the ground like a puppet with cut strings its impact alone could have done damage to the castle if it had been closer.

Both on the castles walls and in the two orbiting planes cheers turned into groans when some parts of the beast started to move again, grievous wounds closed themselves and cut connections knit themselves together.
"Ok, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Lieutenant Alpers, please paint this pile of offal-this ends now."
"With pleasure Sir." Soon enough Captain Bartels flew a much longer orbit and approached the beast head on. A symbol on his monitor as well as well as a warbling sound in his earphones told him that his final trump had acquired a target.
Under the wing of the plane two hardpoints held 4 small bombs each. Releasing one of them when prompted to do so by his computer Captain Bartels could only hope for the best-he had zero experience with this kind of target.
Dropping from its shackles the tip of the 125 kg bomb always oriented itself to the laser dot it had been shown even before its release. The fins mounted on the laser seeker made the bomb follow the seeker head and steered the weapon into a direct hit on the Chaos spawn.
The fuse did not react at once when it penetrated the tough skin of the magical beast but went off only when it encountered one of the sternums. Nearly 30 kilogram of modern explosives finally did the job right and distributed the beasts remains over a wide circle.

"That should be it Likedeelers – with respect to our spotter we should get back to base."
"Storch Alfa 3 to Drache 1-target destroyed. If the question is allowed: What is this thing about Likedeelers?"
"Drache 1-thanks for the assist. And for the Likendeelers. This crate handles slowly like a ship and fires broadsides-so we decided to name ourselves for Klaus Störtebeker´s crew"
"See you at Middenheim old pirate"
"Avast ye hearties"