Just as the Krieg soldiers tore through the first defensive line and began advancing on the second, the roar of engines rose from the ground.
In the distance, a densely packed armored force came charging toward them.
The Krieg soldiers who had just taken the positions stared at the approaching armor in surprise. They had brought few anti-armor weapons.
But their surprise quickly vanished, and they charged without hesitation.
The roar of machine guns rang across the fields, tracer-laced torrents of bullets lashing the Krieg soldiers like the whip of a fire god.
But the soldiers of Krieg did not fear death.
Each sweep of a Leman Russ's machine gun only had time to kill a dozen or so Krieg soldiers before those sheltering behind their comrades' bodies resolutely pulled their detonator cords, clutching melta charges as they took the armored vehicles bearing down on them to the grave.
Shells exploded among them, fired not by the Leman Russ tanks, but by the Death Korps of Krieg's own artillery.
But the blood-crazed Dawn Army did not halt its advance. They rolled over trenches, gunned down the charging Krieg soldiers, shoved aside the wrecks of their comrades' vehicles, and then exchanged fire with the Knight Houses of the second echelon.
The noble Knights piloted their war machines like giants, slaughtering the massed armor.
But their Ion Shields slowly began to buckle under the tremendous firepower, until they finally collapsed.
The noble Knights were destroyed in the bombardment.
But they had bought enough time.
Gunships emblazoned with large U's reached the battlefield and poured a rain of death from high above, abruptly blunting the unsuspecting armored force's advance.
And close behind them came...
"Face me, heretical scum!"
An enormous freezer dropped from the sky, crushing a Leman Russ Battle Tank beneath its