Backstory

The final day of our marathon started with more Orks, but this time we won. That's not to say we didn't die like frogs in a blender, but we damn well won. We pushed them out of their barricades and hounded them across the plains when they routed. I played a gunner in a salamander during the chase and mowed down greenskins like ugly blades of grass. We partied like champs in the tiny redneck town we liberated, then settled in for a few months of boring garrison duty before we got redeployed. Then we fought some Tyranids.

It was only a splinter fleet so we actually had a chance, but it was hell. Our regiment was defending an evac point on some grassy agri-world and it was trench work again. We burned off the grass to clear lines of fire, dug ourselves into the rich soil, set up the heavy weapons ,and watched the edge of the burn area like hawks. Trigger-happy hawks as it turned out, we wound up failing a spot-check and killing the first few retreating PDF to come through the grass.

When the Tyranids came it was ridiculous. We mowed down wave after wave of gaunts, but unlike Orks Tyranids don't lose morale and break, they just keep coming as fast as you can kill them. We stopped using actual dice for a while, just so we could roll combat faster.

The bastards in command had decided to do a "Collapsing Defence", which meant we fought until the front trench was collapsing, then they shelled the bejeezus out of us while we retreated. We lost something like 20 PCs to our own gorram shells, but it really did work pretty well, at least until we ran out of ground to give. All the civvies were out, it was just a few regiments of guard crammed into a spaceport completely surrounded by the swarm. We were killing them off as fast as possible and hoping that either reinforcements or evac would come down before ammo ran out.

Things started to get bad when the higher forms of Tyranid started appearing. Gaunts and gargoyles are bad enough, but it was when the warriors showed up that we started taking serious casualties. The evac shuttles had started to ferry men up and we had some actual air support, unfortunately our regiment was going to be the rear guard. The end was in sight and morale was holding up well, right up until we encountered a Lictor brood, then things started to fall apart.

I hate Lictors, I bloody hate them. We played three backline squads in a row and each one was torn to bloody shreds by those sneaky bastards, all without us landing a kill. We started to rout, but our Commissar and his guards went into the breach, killed one of them, and shouted the regiment back into position.

Our evac finally came and what was left of our regiment started the final retreat. There were a few valiant last stands, but most of us managed to get to the shuttles. Our final squad had just boarded and was taking off when the air interdiction broke down and Tyranid air units started attacking the shuttles.

We were equal parts pissed and terrified as our DM described shuttle after shuttle being destroyed. The Regimental Commander's bird was nailed early, so were the bigger shuttles with the vehicles. He didn't say who was in most of the other shuttles, just rolled his dice and removed them from the board as they fell. It was heartbreaking.

Finally there was only one shuttle left. Even though the Tyranid fliers swarmed it, none of their shots seemed to hit and it started to climb out of the atmosphere. Then it was away, the fliers broke off and that one shuttle was headed for its fleet transport, free and clear.

Inside the shuttle our last set of characters was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. There were about fifty guardsmen crammed into a twenty man shuttle and no one was telling us anything. We had all heard the Tyranid fliers attacking and everyone felt it when we hit space. The guardsmen close to the cockpit relayed what they could overhear from the pilot's radio, so everyone knew that the other shuttles had been attacked but no one was sure exactly what happened. In any case we were all happy to be alive and were looking forward to getting off the crowded shuttle, then the shuttle stopped. The guardsmen near the cockpit told us we were being redirected to a different transport and the pilots did not look happy.

When the shuttle docked everyone piled out and we found ourselves in a completely empty loading bay. An order came via the speaker system to form up by rank for inspection, at this point our GM gave us a list of the guardsmen who were on the shuttle. Every single character who had survived a battle had been on the shuttle along with a few other grunts. All 37 of our beloved guardsmen had lived! (With the exception of the artillery crew we played, but screw those guys, teamkilling jerks)

We formed up, and after a bit of waiting the doors opened then a few squads of storm troopers marched in and instructed us to drop our weapons. There was a bit of argument on this point, until the captain of the stormtroopers pulled out an Inquisitorial Rosette and told us we were currently "guests" of the Ordos Xenos.

After we were done pissing ourselves and disarming, an acolyte and a team of medicae entered. We were informed that our regiment had been disbanded, we were officially dead, and we would all be subject to a scan for genestealer infection.

At this point our DM ended the session. We were each handed copies of the Dark Heresy core book, a list of our surviving guardsmen with all the filler grunts crossed off, and were told to pick our characters for the next game.

Yea, so that's how our DM does backstories.