Never Despair - Raven Guard 3rd Company

It's been a year since the Orks came to the Forge World of Hephestia Alpha. The planet was strongly fortified with the greatest orbital and surface weaponry the Adeptus Mechanicus could provide including dozens of regiments of Skitarii troopers and several Titans of the Legio Crucius. But the Orks were a force of nature. Their fleet closed through the system like a battering ram until they reached their target and made planetfall with their Rok fortresses. They never attempted to remove the worlds defences in advance, but their numbers meant that even with the bloody toll taken from them, those that reached the surface were still more than enough for the task at hand.

The first days of the ground war were a slaughter. In an attempt to claim the initiative the Skitarii Generals ordered an all out counter-assault on the Roks, expecting the find the Orks disorganised as they attempted to establish a foothold. Instead they found the Orks ready and pre-pared, backed by gargantuan Stompas and looted Guard Superheavy tanks. The Skitarii's assault broke against the unbridled fire power they faced and the Orks flooded from they holds, crashing upon the beleaguered soldiers like a green tsunami.

The Imperial forces never truly recovered. Though the fighting was fierce for eight long months, true Imperial victories were sparse. Street by street, city by city and forge by forge the humans were pushed back. When the Skitarii won a battle the Orks would flee into the dense areas of woodland not yet claimed for resources, only to return days later in even greater numbers.

Now the worlds defenders were scattered, reduced to isolated cells of resistance fighters, still fighting only out of sheer stubbornness.

General Cyrax, now the de-facto leader of the planets remaining forces was as much machine as man. A once powerful young body was now carried by a pair of bionic legs. The right side of his face had been replaced by a dull chrome plate and the eye with a bulky cybernetic. His hands and forearms bore spider webs of silvery inlay, tiny augmentics that assisted him working consoles and displays for strategic planning and hid a plethora of digital weapons to boot.

He stood now in a small clearing in the woods accompanied by a ten man team Skitarii troopers. They all wore the same drab green fatigues, the General long since doing away with the ornamented uniform he was paraded in. The only sign of his rank were the burnished golden pins at his collar. The sun was starting to set. The clearing was a makeshift LZ, only big enough for a single ship. Cyrax had expected a shipment of supplies from another cell but, like so many before it, the Valkyrie was late and the General feared the worst.

He was about to give up when something caught his eye. Tiny shapes falling through the ever darkening sky. Black tear drop shaped things, as if the world itself was now mourning it's own demise.

“What the....” Cyrax started muttering in disbelief. “It can't be.”

I dull monotone robotic voice spoke from behind him. Tech-priest Arka, a hunched little creature in hooded red robes, even less human than the General stepped up from behind him. “It seems the Emperor has answered your prayers.” he hissed through a large voice box where his mouth had once been.

“Astartes?” Cyrac asked.

“No, not Astartes. Ravens...”

The Tech-priest turned away and the group started to make for the safety of the treeline. Cyrax softly breathed just one more word.

“Shrike...”

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Welcome to my new Project Log, chronically my work building a force for Kayvaan Shrike's famous 3rd Company of the Raven Guard.

A little about me to begin with. I first started playing Warhammer 40k when I was 12 with an army I quite laughingly referred to as the Iron Hands 2nd Founding Chapter, the Red Talons. I've always been a big Astartes fan. Since that first army I dabbled in Eldar, Daemonhunters, a DIY Marine Chapter I dubbed the Luna Hawks and a little fantasy with High Elves.

I'm now 26 and I've been meaning to start a new army since the release of the 5th Edition codex. I don't know if anyone else has ever had the same issue but I personally found choosing a Chapter to be one of the toughest decisions ever. I was determined to do something unusual, a Chapter people won't have seen often but without doing another DIY. My breakthrough came when I decided to stuff being original and just do an army that inspired me, which is how I came to the Raven Guard 3rd.

This isn't going to be a fast moving log because I'm working on a budget but I'll be doing as much as I can.

I finally got some models finished and I'm not ashamed to say they're the best I've ever done. I'm disappointed in the pictures. I feel they make the models look much more blotchy then they do in my hand but hey, what can you do?

Of course there's always room for improvement so C+C is welcome.

Without further ado, the first four members of Tactical Squad Corvinax.











Thanks for looking.