The Alliance of the Retrievers and the Grey Faction

[manacycler]

I like having backstories for my armies, it's fun. So here's how my tau and chaos forces began to work together (WIP) Feel free to critizise, that's why it's up here.

Prior Info (stuff I don’t feel like writing an entire chapter about):

Chaos Retrievers: Force of Chaos army that is centered on gathering up the left behind troops of other chaos cults and legions to file their army. As such, their colors vary, but so do their talents, allowing them to adapt to many situations. Folreec is their founder and high leader and is also the first retriever, a title given to the chosen marines that sport servitor arms to help ‘requisition’ new troops.

Grey Faction: A division of Tau forces that is mainly colored black with grey flourish, ideal for city and nighttime fights. Their commander is Commander Icetone. Ethereal has a name, but it won’t matter in awhile.

Fall of The Grey Faction Ethereal
Excerpt from Commander Icetone’s Log.


“They’ve taken the left tunnel! Barrage them!” I commanded the tau forces. Surrounded within the very tunnels that we had made our stronghold in, it showed its true weakness. The three access tunnels that led to the main chamber were all assaulted at one time, cutting off any escape route. From the three tunnels, the main chamber sloped up like a hill, and that is where I along with my elite crisis suit force and several skyray gunships defended our location beacon and our ethereal. Our only chance was to protect the beacon and our ethereal long enough for other tau forces to pick us up and reinforce us. So far, that hope seemed lost.

Our enemy was the rag-tag, yet powerful Chaos Retrievers. Not yet big enough to be called a legion, but their mesmerizing mix of colors made their numbers indiscernible. Patched together from left behind troops from other cults and legions, the Retrievers had enough units to be very versatile. Originally dispatched to this planet to prepare for colonization, I was ill-prepared for a full out assault from these forces of Chaos. They had come so fast and sudden. We had seemed to be the only ones on the planet, save for a few primitive beasts. Then drop pods descended and chaos dropships came down and bullets and demonic fire alike rained down on us. As the we were forced into retreating within our tunnel base, hoping the long passage ways would make great ranges for which our pulse rifles to fire, the chaos swarmed the tunnels with lesser daemons and spawn, as they set up base outside to keep the us from coming out.

Several days of firefights within the tunnels followed, the chaos using their spawn and daemons to tire out our fire warriors, but the fire caste carried on. Then the chaos brought vehicles in, defilers and vindicator tanks, plowing through the tunnels as the pulse fire bounced off of them. But that was just a diversion, a means of keeping the our forces spread out amongst the tunnels. Now the true plan was revealed, while the center and right tunnels were untaken, that was because they weren’t supposed to be. While those two tunnels were being assaulted with one maybe two vehicles, the left tunnel had forces flooding from it. Defilers, berserkers, spawn, possessed marines, heavy weapons teams, all came down upon the left barricade and broke through within a matter of hours, most of the our forces being concentrated on the other two tunnels, which had more chaos troops earlier.

I pleaded to the ethereal to allow us to pull troops from the other tunnels to reinforce the left passage. He refused and ordered that they just work harder. I was beginning to have my doubts of him. I had observed him during the time we were on this planet. He seemed fine as usual when we first started. Then he began to become more secluded, retreating into the inner most parts of the chambers alone, not even his body guards. He seemed…weak now, crazed even. Something was affecting his judgment, rattling his frame, something was-

A sudden explosion racked me back to the battle at hand. Chaos forces were now swarming into the chamber. My crisis suits’ jetpacks revved and prepared to engage them when some ball of unknown energy shot past…and blasted the ethereal in the chest. I later discovered it was called a bolt of change, fired by Ju-kom, one of the Retriever’s chaos sorcerers. Our ethereal crumpled to the ground, I never though I’d see him so weak. Our resolve dropped, even my crisis suit teams were dumbstruck on what to do next. Then the forces of chaos ceased fire. A sound came in, I though maybe someone tapped into our transmission frequencies, but it was just a speaker that the chaos had brought with them.

“Valiant forces of Tau, you have fought bravely.” The voice shouted. “You have held your place for this long against our force. Your ethereal is now dead, you are no longer under the command of such a corrupted individual.”

“Corruption has nothing to do with the ethereals.” I replied back. “They are the peacemakers and our leaders!”

“Ahh, but your leader is dead now, is he not?” The chaos forces snickered, I despised that. “Yet you are not. That must mean you are stronger!”

“It means nothing!” I lifted up my plasma rifles. “And we will continue to fight for the greater good!”

“I know that. Stand down men.” I watched as all chaos marines lowered their weapons and stood idly. In the other tunnels, the chaos forces did the same, the silence made everything seem eerie. “You say you fight in the name of the greater good. You do fight in the name of the greater good, but can you say that your ethereal did the same? Crazed was he not? Why bother fighting for someone like him? He even died because of how he was. Yet you, you can still fight for the greater good…or, you can follow to folly of fighting to the last breath in the name of the greater good. Lay down your…lower your weapons (it was heard for a battle suit to lay down his weapons) and we’ll have a little talk, if the former is your decision.”

I was silent for awhile. I looked to the other crisis suits, who were all looking at me, seeing as how I was the next in charge. I looked to our dead ethereal leader, his chest shredded from the bolt of change…

I looked to the one of the chaos marines (I could not tell their rank). “I will speak with your leader…”

End excerpt.


Aftermath
Excerpt from Ju-kom’s debriefing report.

The tau have surrendered, Folreec’s plan has gone smoothly. We have taken an acceptable amount of losses, although the loss of many of the tau’s fire warriors is a shame. Several of our men have begun excavating the chaos artifact that lies buried from somewhere within the chamber where the tau were entrenched. I had observed the ethereal for a bit just before executing him. He seemed weakened, almost crippled. Perhaps these ethereal have more vulnerability to the artifact’s influence. This piques my interest.

The tau’s commander, Commander Icetone I believe, has agreed to meet with Folreec, and has gone aboard one our craft along with his crisis suit teams to meet him. The rest of the tau forces have been divided to be taken out on different ships to make sure any thoughts of revolt are discouraged. Folreec has informed me that they will be executed if negotiations with the tau commander do not go well. I am looking forward to torturing a few of them.

I must now board the ship with the crisis suits. I wished to stay to supervise the extraction of the artifact, but Folreec had his orders and Rezdeck said he could handle it. I don’t know if I could truly trust a follower of Slaneesh though.

End Excerpt.



The Negotiation, documented by an unknown source.

Commander Icetone stepped off the dropship ramp onto the floor of the Scrapyard Barge, Folreec’s flagship. The name was derived from how much junk was hauled onto the ship from battle fields. Two terminators were standing to escort Icetone to Folreec, their power weapons humming as their power coursed through them. Ju-kom also stepped out to go with them to the conference room. Icetone was very uncomfortable about all this. These humans, if they still were human, were exactly what they were supposed to kill off in the name of the greater good. How would allying themselves with the chaos allow them to continue to fight for the greater good?

Ju-kom and the terminators led Icetone along the halls of the Scrapyard Barge, Icetone looking around and noticing how much the different parts of the ship differed, giving the impression that all the parts had been taken from separate wrecks and put together. Icetone also watched Ju-kom. He could recognize him from all the other chaos soldiers with his brightly painted blue and gold armor and the eye marking (mark of Tzeentch) but also because of the strange mechanical limbs that came out from his back, around the area behind his shoulders. They moved mechanically. Normally retracted, but extending every once in awhile to activate a panel or a door switch (Ju-kom was keeping his hands behind his back).

“We’re here.” Ju-kom said after they reached a pair of steel doors. His claw servitor arm moved and entered a code on a panel nearby and the doors slid back, revealing the conference room. Unlike the rest of the ship, which had an array of metals and markings and mix-ups, this room was plain steel on all four walls of the rectangular room. A lone rectangular table was in the middle, one end nearest to Icetone and Ju-Kom, the other nearest to the other end, which also had a pair of doors. Seated already at that end, was Folreec, the first retriever. His appearance was…grotesque to say the least. He wore no helmet, so his bald head was showing, with a mechanical left eye. He wore only regular power armor, colored a rusty brown with sparse scratches of metal here and there. But the most striking feature of him, was the seven servitor arms he sported. Several coming out his back, one replacing his whole right arm, he almost seemed to have a necron tomb spyder trying to grow out of him.

Icetone entered along with the escorts and the doors sealed shut. Now only through good negotiations would he be able to get through this.

Folreec seemed to give him a smile. “Ah, you must be Commander Icetone. A Shas’O I presume? Highest army rank?”

“Correct…” Icetone muttered. This guy sure liked to be seen as well-informed.

Folreec made a gesture to the on of the seats circling the table. “Please, have a seat…or maybe not, if it is uncomfortable to you.”

“I’m fine thanks.” Icetone answered. It would be uncomfortable to sit down in the suit, but more importantly, sitting would put him at a less defensible position. He didn’t fully understand why the chaos had allowed him to come this close to their leader, let alone in his battlesuit.

Icetone watched as Ju-kom walked and took up position on one side of Folreec. He also looked to other side of him, where a second chaos marine stood, this one sporting dark green and grey armor of Nurgle. He also noticed that the marine was making some weird smacking noises from beneath his helmet and that some indiscernible substance was dripping down from the bottom of the helmet.

“NOW! To business.” Folreec spoke suddenly. “Very simple terms I think. You and the remaining survivors of your force ally with us, and we’ll let you live, and we’ll fight in the name of the greater good together.”

Icetone frowned from beneath his helmet. Simple? Simple!? What this man talked about was pure blasphemy and nonsense! Chaos and Tau together in the name of the greater good?! “Stop disgracing our cause!” Icetone yelled, slamming his fist on the table. “The greater good is not something for you chaos to use as a simple alliance term, you believe in none of the greater goods ideals! Your people kill for pleasure, burn whole worlds, have killed off any that get in your way!”

“And you do the same, well the latter anyway.” Folreec replied calmly, his left hand fingering his right servitor arm. “I have no doubt that you’ve come across your fair share of other chaos armies, but I assure you that we have a few different…beliefs around this army.”

Icetone relaxed his hand a bit, but that was all he relaxed. “What kind of beliefs?” He asked, trying not to sound too angered now.

Folreec didn’t seem to care about the recent outburst; in fact he didn’t seem to think Icetone was a threat at all! Both Ju-kom and the Nurgle marine stood with their hands behind their backs, and the terminators behind him had shut off their power weapons. “Well for one, we’re a bit…less destructive than the other Chaos armies.”

‘Probably because you’re weaker…’ Icetone thought, but only thought.

“And we believe in…not leaving our comrades behind. If you have seen our forces, you see that they are all pulled from various other cults and legions. This is because they were left behind, and we brought them in. Sound good so far?”

Icetone took awhile to process this. Ok, so this Chaos army was slightly less
destructive, and they apparently take care of their soldiers. Folreec was good, he had put the army in a good light, but Icetone still questioned this. “What do we get out of this?”

Folreec touched his still human hand to his forehead for awhile and then
answered, “Several of our members are good with machines. I’m sure quite a few of your vehicles and weapons have been damaged. Oh, and since we destroyed your spaceships during the attack, we’ll lend you of ours (Ju-kom, go tell Captain Larry he’s fired!). You will also be given some of our troops during combat, we help each other out in this deal, it’s not all for us. Oh, and of course, if there is any enemy you want help in crushing in the name of the greater good, feel free to ask.”

Icetone was silent, trying to find the problem with all this. This seemed a bit suspicious…of course it’s suspicious, it’s chaos! They’re the embodiment of suspicious! Still, they needed a ship, they needed troops, and Icetone did not feel like ending his service to the greater good in an all steel room in the middle of some chaos ship while the rest of his men were gunned down.
---

Icetone walked out of the room with Ju-kom next to him. Folreec and the Nurgle marine had gone to Folreec’s chambers to discuss something else.

“There is one more thing we’ll need to do to finalize the deal.” Ju-kom spoke. “Your armor…”

--to be continued. With pictures!--

[wolfpack]

ok I like the enthusiasm...but am not quite getting the whole idea behind the Retrievers doctrine and dogma...why would a Chaos SM force...(especially a chaos one with their whole mightier than thou attitude) wanna ally with Tau in the first place...I always thought they shoot first then ask for names for the book of the damned...LMAO

[manacycler]

yeah, I can never seem to write too much length or detail ^^;; it would just take me too long and I don't have that much motivation.

Just to answer your question, the Retrievers are a small chaos force (as commented by Icetone) since they replenish their numbers by picking up the scraps of others. I know chaos usually get their troops from the warp and chaos gods, I haven't come up with a reason as to why these guys are different (maybe Folreec isn't in good favor yet). Anyway, that's why Folreec wants to ally themselves with Tau.

I wasn't really trying for mightier than thou attitude, I was just trying to make Folreec seem like a really calm and controlled guy, in contrast to most other chaos leaders.