AGP- Metal Spider

The situation started to go bad very quickly. The thing that had risen out of the floor was some sort of big metal spider-worm with scythes for arms; it positively screamed “close quarters combat specialist” and it was behind our main firing line.

Now a proper guardsman can handle just about anything, but we prefer to fight our enemies from the maximum effective range of our current weapon or, better yet, the maximum effective range of the nearest artillery battery. The spider-worm was far too close for comfort, and it tore three trainees apart before it ran into one who could put up a real fight in melee. Even after its killing spree had been interrupted though, the thing’s mere presence played hell with our defense of the crater entrance: the fire keeping back the tide of metal bugs began to fade as recruits scrambled to safety or switched targets to focus on the new threat.

We managed to hold, but only just barely. Sarge barked the recruits back into position as our squad worked to personally deal with the spider-worm. Cutter led the attack with the commissar and agent-instructor backing him up in melee, while the rest of us fanned out and hit the thing with our heavier las-guns. It was not an easy fight. The enemy was tough, fast, and attacks had a disturbing tendency to pass through it; half the battle was just trying to line up attacks so they didn’t hit an ally on the other side if the thing phased out. To be honest Cutter didn’t really bother with that, he just depended on everyone else getting out of the way.

Whatever the spider-worm’s claws were made of, it was a nightmare to defend against. The metallic creature’s attacks sliced through armor like wet paper and just phased through any attempts at parrying. Only some incredible dodges kept Cutter and our close-quarters fighters alive long enough for us to figure out how to reliably hit the damned thing. It turned out that the trick was to wait for the exact moment it struck, and then hit it with everything we had while it was temporarily solid. Unfortunately, this strategy required someone to very nearly take a hit for us to launch our attack, but Cutter was more than willing. A few well timed volleys and a couple near death experiences later, the spider-worm collapsed in a sparking heap.