[QUOTE="greendoor, convMessage: 1486466, member: 394"]

"Contact, hostile Longbowmen!"

[/QUOTE]

"For the-Wait, Hostile what?"

[QUOTE="greendoor, convMessage: 1486466, member: 394"]

The warning is not quite shouted, but everyone hears it all the same. You are left puzzling what a 'Longbow' is as everyone goes for cover. There is no thunderous sound of stubfire, no the cracks of hostile lasguns, but you are answered nonetheless.



A whistling sound, suddenly wooden shafts with tails like birds are falling amongst the demiplatoon in their dozens. One bounces off your cap to barely any effect, another strikes Rike dead on in her flak jacket and falls to the ground uselessly. Others who lance into the command squad have a similar effect.



You are left wondering for a moment if this was an attack at all, until you see a member of the foremost squad, collapsed against a tree. He is clutching the wooden shaft embedded in his neck, blood pouring down from the wound. "Medicae!" Someone yells, loud for the first time, and the command squad medicae is rushing over.

[/QUOTE]

For a moment, Varus is taken back to his days in the trenches of his homeworld. The shriek of falling shells and the whistle of heretic witch-weapons slicing through the air for that last fatal moment before they strike home.



Then the projectile thwacks off his hat harmlessly, exploding into a hail of splinters that carves through the grass behind the Commissar. Varus turns, one hand on his cap to make sure its still in place, and stares at the broken remains of the weapon that'd struck him as more projectiles whistle past him.



"The Emperor..."



It wasn't an explosive, nor some wyrd-work. It was...



It was...



A pointy stick?



"...Protects...?"



It almost made him freeze up, the ridiculousness of it. It was like someone had taken the sacred bolts of the witch-hunters, stripped away all the actually important stuff like the sanctified metals and holy runes, and thought they'd make up for that by just making it longer. It was a pointy stick.  Not even a proper crossbow bolt, so it wasn't just a ridiculous farce, but it was a ridiculous farce that was also some inane kind of tech-heresy.



The cry of Medicae brings Varus back to reality. However weak the foes weapons were, they remained weapons. He knew that the attack would need to be crushed, and the heretics brought to heel! As the curious long-bolts slam into the ground around him, snap off armor and whip through the underbrush, he raises his chainsword into the air, pressing the action. The engine gutters to life with a furious roar that drowns out the feeble sound of the enemy's weapons. He looks for the lieutenant's counter-attack, ready to send these whelps scurrying back to their holes.

[QUOTE="greendoor, convMessage: 1486466, member: 394"]

"Return fire, and stick to cover!" Fritz says, somewhere between a shout and a particularly loud yell. Lasbolts begin cracking off in search of the foe, relatively few. A few bangs of solid weapons joins them, probing the forest for the enemy.



It doesn't take long to locate them. Perhaps a hundred meters distant, a cloud of skirmishers much like your charges. Wearing coats and tunics much like the style you've seen of the locals, though of darker and more dull colors. Each man carries what at first appears to you to be a wooden stave, but they raise them one handed in your direction as if to shoot them, and in the other hand they clutch more of the bolts they have cast unto your formation.



Even at this range you can make out the eight pointed stars sewn into their tunics, and the broken chain links hanging from what you take to be the necks of sergeants or champions.



As you observe this, you also note that Fritz hasn't called the general advance yet-the foe is within charge range, seeing them off with bayonet would be quite easy and much faster than taking potshots from cover-especially with how pathetic their weaponry seems. The men too seem to easily accept this lack of aggression. The Lt. only scans the trees ahead, as if looking for an unnecessary tactical advantage...



(OOC: No damage on you. Combat start! Fritz is the one giving the orders, but you're free to make suggestions (or demands))

[/QUOTE]

Varus stares at the enemy, furrowing his brow, then glances back at the lieutenant. He glances back at the row of pitiful, barely worth calling armed cultists, then back at the Guardsmen scrambling for cover. Part of him considers pointing his bolt pistol at a few people. Part of him considers charging at the foe to be an example. Most of him is just confused.



"What on Terra..." He mutters. Then his brow lifts. "Ah."



He peers into the distance for a long moment, heedless of the foe's clumsy fire. His eyes narrow at the glint of rough-shodden armor plate and rusted weapon steel. Then he turns on his heel, strolling over to the lieutenant. He moves with no particular haste nor concern for the enemy, every purposeful step a statement of invincibility. "Luitenant Fritz! We have four hostiles on the right flank between one hundred and a hundred and twenty meters! Two las-locks, and what looks like two of the Unchained filth in some sort improvised armor. I see a Heavy stubber and some sort rotary cannon. The former is behind the crook of those tree roots. The cannon's set into that cavity in the bushes beside the scarred tree if you can see it." He says, careful not to point and possibly reveal they've spotted the foes.



"Lieutenant, I suggest dealing with those cowards before we scatter the main host. Let us make an example of these wretches! In the Emperor's name, let none survive!"