The Siege of Helsreach

 Hellfall

Wazrokk's Evil Suns coalition braves the wall guns in the Siege of Helsreach.
@johannusminiatures

Bleak Sunbreak

3/307/942.M41 – Ork columns reach the outskirts of both Hades and Helsreach hive clusters. Hive gangs are conscripted and formed into polyglot armies that are hurled into the front line. An Ork assault on Helsreach, aided by a psychic storm created by Ork Weirdboyz, smashes its defences and the hive falls. 

So the Siege of Helsreach is recorded; but it tells nothing of the fear and terror suffered by the men and women of the defenders, let alone the population of the Hive. The strategic map below shows the impossible odds faced by Helsreach, with hundreds of thousands of orks and their fighting machines inexorably advancing across the Helsreach River.

A single Wasteland province separated Helsreach Hive from the river, and this would prove little challenge to Warboss Wazrokk's forces. Barely breaking pace to swoop upon isolated settlements, ork outriders were swiftly under the Hive's guns, nipping at the heels of the shattered and retreating defenders under General Rannstrum,

***

Defending Hive Helsreach

To a greater or lesser extent, any Hive is a sprawling urbanised mass, with all the difficulty that poses to both attacker and defender. Helsreach was no exception, although the geography meant that it was prevented from sprawling too far in any direction save eastwards. As result, it had a canted, lop-sided appearance, with bristling towers on the western and southern reaches overlooking its famed docks and refinery districts.

Rannstrum was all too aware, however, that the greenskins had no intention of capturing the Hive intact. To their rapacious alien minds, raw destruction was the key marker of victory, and with two-score Gargant  primary War Engines on the horizon alongside roughly half a million orks infantry and armour units, the General was under no illusions that he and his forces could realistically hope to do any more than spit defiance.

While a pall of gloom and fear fell over the Hive, defiance and anger were also present. Rannsturm and the 6th Army Group veterans of the Firesweep did all they could to stoke the latter as they led the efforts in making the Hive as ready as it could.

Token efforts at fortification had been in place since the start of the invasion – despite, rather than because of the Hive Governor – but these had been almost entirely concentrated on the central Hive, leaving the mass of Helsreach's industrial districts largely unaltered. With just days to prepare, Rannsturm did at least have the good news that the principal districts and likely routes of assault had been identified. It was here that the scant resources were directed; and orders given to abandon the remainder. 

For reasons as varied as imagination itself, not everyone eligible to evacuate left Helsreach. The vast majority of inhabitants would never have left the Hive, and there were plenty who determined to stay and die where they lived.
@johannusminiatures

***

With the blessing of a chastened and fearful Hive Governor Osirus, the General made the brutal decision to abandon more than eighty-five percent of the Hive – including the crucial docks, making escape for the defenders impossible. 

'The arithmetic of logistics means that only two possibilities await us. Victory... or death. And thus prepared, I charge to to bring woe to the enemy. For every alley you fortify and every hab-cell you hold, you inflict delay and injury upon the enemy. And it is this, and only this, that will truly turn death's eye away from you and upon the ork. I charge you, then, to bring every weapon you have at your disposal to bear upon them; and to make death your ally.'

–Address to the Defenders of Helsreach. General Rannsturm

Static emplacements were hurriedly raised in outlying areas, with orders simply to 'degrade the enemy infantry'.
@mind_your_models

For all the General's defiance, Helsreach was far too large and his influence too small to truly alter the character of the Hive. 

Even as destruction loomed large, it remained abstract to many hive dwellers. Accustomed to mistrust of the authorities, many in the outlying regions rejected the news of oncoming invaders. Rumours spread about the news being an excuse for another slum clearance; but many simply refused to believe the news at all. 

In any case, for those in the outer regions or even in the nearby settlements distinct from Helsreach proper, existence was already hand-to-mouth, and they simply had no wherewithal (or desire) to evacuate. Here, Imperial influence was thin – but the orks would still face toughened homesteaders and resourceful individuals accustomed to fighting bandits and predatory neighbours.

 The marketplaces of Counting Court see many off-duty freighter pilots stretching their legs while the next shipment of ore is loaded into their hangars, eager for hot food, cold drink, and – depending on the pilot – the negotiable company.
@johannusminiatures

***

Martial Law

Helsreach was placed under martial law, and all remaining inhabitants of fighting age were ordered to report to local defence offices. These were understandably highly varied, ranging from the effective –(retired Enforcers, Hive-spire Honour Guard private forces, ex-military mercenaries etc.) to the promising (including the relatively organised and markedly well-equipped North Dive Canal Firearm Enthusiasts Club that volunteered en masse) to those more doubtful, such as the hundreds of Munitorum docket-scribes who emerged from their sedentary lives, blinking in the dim light of the Helsreach skylights, to be armed and sent to the front.

Many of these were scratch militias of the sort so recently routed on the Palidus line, though here at least they had some form of home field advantage. As an example of this sort of force, below is detailed an extract from the official records of one of the commercial Eastside districts:

MUNITORUM DRAFT, GAMMA-84. 100 people; inmates, mining crews, citizens, even militarum deserters [...] are hereby impressed into the service of the great God-Emperor and the Defence of Kilntech Principia.

'Organised' into squads of 10, and led by a Corporal from the 4th line PDF Reserves, Gamma-84 were issued with basic equipment, weapons and training by the Munitorum. 
@mind_your_models

In truth, groups of such draftees were expected to do little more than spite the attackers, but while they were largely eliminated in short order by the triumphant Evil Suns rampaging through the winding streets of Greater Helsreach, there were some exceptions. Too few, alas, to do more than delay defeat by a few hours, at most.

'The imperium has forgotten us. It’s been a long, brutal war, down here in the underbelly of the hive.

We started out as a Munitarum Draft, Draft designation Gamma-84. Something else that doesn’t seem to make much sense any more. We are a rag tag bunch, no real uniform or anything to demonstrate our draft status. Not all that different now from the gangers that some of us used to be.

I suppose our job seemed to be simple enough, meat for the grinder in defence of this place… Kilntech Principia Hive!

We’ve not had orders for days now, maybe even weeks. There’s no re-supply either, just what we can scrounge from the dead and the dying. All of the supply depots have been destroyed, over run or already cleansed of anything of use.

The enemy has the hive now, this isn’t our city any more, we are just surviving… The Imperium has forgotten us.'

***

Not all met their fate with stoicism, of course. Fear was widespread, and erupting panic led to a number of substantial riots, but these were brutally suppressed by the local Enforcers who were otherwise occupied herding the vast majority of the populace to the north-eastern Reaches, where they could – in theory – be evacuated from the Hive's colossal docks.

The evacuation was notable for involving the personal intervention of the Salamanders Chapter. Sergeant Nehr Ur'Venn was deployed alongside just three of his brethren to assist and advise General Rannstrum of Helsreach Hive Command. 
@death_of_a_rubricist

Recruitment was traded for conscription, and the warehouses were raided for any useable equipment as the Hive Defence Forces were activated in toto. In just two week, nearly two hundred hundred thousand Helsreach inhabitants were handed second-line small arms, swelling the defenders to just shy of half a million, all told. 

It would not be nearly enough.

***

Legionnaire J.Kekełrr. 39th Levy Reserves, Activated 942. Helsreach Hive Defence Force. Pict captured here performing rearguard action at ‘Grendel’s Lock’ Confirmed KIA during the defence, remains unrecoverable.
@imperialis.munns

The crack of las-bolts split the almost serene, dusty air of the semi-collapsed factorum bloc.

Three hulking, muscled greenskins fell flat, crumpling into the makeshift barricade straddling the narrow street connecting the complex. Bestial roars returned, with heavy slug rounds ripping into the rockcrete walls.

‘Hold lads, don’t let ‘em throw you off. They can’t shoot for sh*t,’ Janiš barked into his vox bead.

‘Conserve your las, pick your targets, aim for their weak points.

More orks poured down the passage, bottlenecking the creatures into a single mass.

‘Listen up, fighters. I want lasrifles on them until they get within bayonet range, then we’ll hit ‘em with the flamethrower.’

‘You know what to do after that. Hold the damned line, and remember that He is with us.’

Crackled shouts from the rest of ‘Activated 942’ filled the airwaves.

‘The Emperor protects! For Helsreach!’

***

Identity uncertain – but the rad-shielded overalls suggested a group of enlisted office workers in the rad-haunted 'Atomic Alley' of the Southern Hive. Such paramilitary sights were common, with deputised forces moving from street to street to hand out weaponry and equipment to anyone that could fight.
@johannusminiatures

For the Imperial defenders, the proportion of trained soldiers was perhaps one in ten; the remainder a great mob of uncertain and untested abilities. They faced a number of orks perhaps two or three times the size, and these xenos were infamous for their martial culture and way of life. 

The events since the invasion had put paid to the exaggeration of the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Manual, and those few surviving veterans of the 6th and their allies made what use they could of their experience in setting traps and creating fire channels in the short hours available to them.

Commissar Murphy Randall, pictured alongside his 'Rat Pack'. Note the multiple bionics; and his trademark power sword – looted from an Evil Suns Nob during the Siege of Helsreach.
@krugsix6six

Commissar Murphy Randall was one of the many unsung heroes of the Armageddon War.

At the outbreak of the war, the young Commissar had been attached to the 197th Steel Legion – part of the First Army Group. During the fighting in the early weeks, he quickly proved himself as enthusiastic and belligerent as the invaders, and gained the nickname 'Rowdy Randall' on account of his personal demeanour.

As the First were broken in the fight for Hive Infernus, Randall chose to remain behind, attaching himself to the shattered Regiments of the 6th Firebreak as they shepherded civilians fleeing southwards down Hell's Highway towards Helsreach.

Randall gained such a reputation for war-hunger during the retreat from Helsreach River (and during the following Siege of Helsreach itself) that many soldiers, gangers and warriors – whether Steel Legion or not – chose to fight under his command. 'Murphy's Madmen', as the group became known,  gained a reputation for inventiveness, and insane courage. Most died willingly, their honour and duty served through revenge.

***

Wazrokk's assault

Evil Suns orks swarm across the Peninsula wastes towards Helsreach Hive.
@johannusminiatures

For their part, the Evil Suns were more than enjoying themselves. Having forced a crossing over the River Helreach, the last significant natural obstacles between the orks and the hive, there were now no meaningful defensive features between the Evil Suns and their prize. 

'Fighting, glory and loot – and so wot if dey've got big guns? We'z got bigga – and if any git's daft enough to slow down and get krumped, dat just means more fighting, glory and loot fer da rest of us!'

–Attr. Warboss Wazrokk

What little resistance the orks met in their travel across the wastes was provided largely by small groups of homesteaders, farmers or other outsiders who refused to evacuate. Their advance was barely slowed by the various dew-mine workings, subsid farms and isolated settlements on the Peninsula, but the orks revelled in their victory and toyed with these minor points of resistance. 

There were, however, scattered bands of military resistance in the wastes, too. Whether unable to make the journey owing to injury or materiel breakdown, or perhaps reasoning that every minute they could delay the orks from reaching Helsreach was a worthwhile sacrifice, figures like Commissar Randall and his guerilla troops did what little they could to disrupt or delay the ork advance.

***

The skirl of squigpipes accompanied the orks of Wazrokk's tribe; their terrible dirge striking.fear into the hearts of the defenders.
@johannusminiatures

Wazrokk assembled a war-council, in which he and a number of other Warbosses in the region collaborated – though in truth this amounted to little more than mutual threats and boasts for each to stay out of the way of the others. An understanding was reached between Vroomfang, Bighedd, Wazrokk, and even Ugulmek that they would collaborate to strike – as far as possible – in a single devastating blow; minimising the amount of time and targets that the defenders' long-range guns would  have to target them.

Early reconnaissance was provided by Da Lucky Aces, an ork aircraft Wing attached to Waa-Bighedd. The Aces would become infamous later in the war for being the first to claim casualties in Hive Tartarus.
@graham_s_gilchrist

***

3/328/942.M41: First wave

Evil suns of Waa-Wazrokk
@johannusminiatures

Waa-Bighedd braved the guns at high noon. Whether through coincidence or intercepted comms is unclear, but this happened to be the exact time when the largest number of Imperial gun crews were changing shifts – the theory being that no attacker would brave the guns in clear daylight – and so the response was late and thin. A combination of poor ranging and ill-experienced crews meant that the guns fired slowly and to less effect than might have been hoped.

Part of Waa-Bighedd – a typically motley and varied ork force.
@graham_s_gilchrist

Key to the ork's success was their speed. Even as Bighedd managed to reach the walls, the remaining Shreddaz of Zag and Blacktoof's Speed Freeks made good on their comrades' advance and used the craters and wreckage as cover. While many of their vehicles were destroyed, the greater proportion successfully ran the gauntlet and disappeared into the sprawling Eastern Reaches of the vast conurbation.

Air superiority was later identified as the other major contributor to the orks' success. With Imperial air support virtually non-existent, and the anti-air gun crews inexperienced and slow, the Evil Suns' fighta-bommas and deffkoptas were able to wreak havoc on the static emplacements.

 Deffkopta of Blacktoof's Speed Freeks
@tains_miniature_painting

Finally, the walls were far from secure. Helsreach had not had time to sufficiently fortify the walls, and so while the main trunk highways were guarded, there were hundred of branch routes that made the hive porous to the ork advance.

A portion of the 6th Army – the Skeletal 696th Regiment – sallied out, hoping to buy the defenders time; but were swiftly bracketed and destroyed by fire from the still-distant Gargants of the Red Skull Tramplaz.

6th Army Group soldiers
@death_of_a_rubricist

As the sun sank, painting the hive and ork hordes alike in an ominous red, Wazdakk and the remaining Evil Suns alliance continued to fill the plains around the Eastern Reaches. Having found their range,  and guided by reports from advance elelements, Ugulmek ordered his Gargants to bring down the walls guns – further degrading the Imperials' faltering defence.

As the Sorefoot Sloggaz and other unmechanised warbands arrived on the battlefield, it became clear to all that the hive was inevitably lost. All that remained was defiance – and making the invaders bleed as much as they could.

***

Da Shreddaz of Zag may have been lost as an Imperial strategic consideration as they braved fording the River Helsreach under heavy fire, but the twin Warbosses and hundreds – perhaps thousands – of their loyal warband survived, and would go on to take part in the assault on the Hive.
@notmorelittlemen

***

Defence in detail

General Rannsturm was sanguine about the fact that the walls had been so swiftly overrun – less resigned as realistic. He moved swiftly to make the best of a bad situation, delivering a general order of 'Defence in detail' – or in short, giving the various hastily-gathered militias carte blanche to use their initiative.

While later hysterically decried as 'dereliction of duty' by Von Strab's loyalists, in truth this was perhaps the best of the limited options available to Rannsturm. Most of the militias were isolated anyway; and their intimate knowledge of their home turf gave them the best chance of hurting the orks.

The Siege of Helsreach therefore is best characterised as twelve gruelling weeks of small-scale conflicts; more akin to ten thousand turf wars than anything approaching a coherent plan. For the orks, it was nirvana – a nation-sized city full to the brim of angry enemies attacking from every angle.

Evil Suns heavy weapons mob – the short-ranged multi-melta and heavy stubber equivalents proved highly effective, even in the close confines of Helsreach hive.
@giokahnni

***

Resistance of the 6th

In 3/108/940.M41, the Statue of the Emperor in Hive Helsreach wept bloody tears. With hindsight, this coincides almost exactly with the time period of Ghazghkull's Waa-Ork truly coalescing. This warning, if such it was, was not connected to an impending greenskin invasion. 

–Armageddon in Retrospect – A Later History of the Ork-Imperial conflict

What remained of the 6th Army Group in the region was more ordered. Rannsturm himself took command of the 36,000 or so soldiers remaining – close to five formal Regiments in numbers, but in fact made up of nearly seventeen partial Regiments.

These reliable soldiers were stationed to defend key areas, around which the fiercest fighting ebbed and flowed.

A mortar team of the 68th Regiment moves up to enfilade a main route claimed by the Sorefoot Sloggaz.
@the_steel_legion

The Temple of the Emperor Ascendant lies close to Point Zero in absolute terms, though the tangled nature of the hive street-levels makes a pilgrimage by foot difficult. The Temple was first raised circa M33, to better commemorate humanity's dominance of the planet and mark the growing protohive's position as then-capital. By M36 rival hives had usurped its political importance, but Helsreach remained a cultural touchstone, and one seen as both spiritually and strategically significant. Rannstrum knew that it must be defended in order to shore up morale.

He was assisted here by a Sanctorum of the Argent Shroud – an Adeptus Sororitas order, who maintained a number of relics carried by the settlers. While few in number, the Sisters of Battle provided a linchpin to the defence of the area.

In addition to being well-fortified, the Temple had also become a lodestar for displaced residents, so it was well-stocked with defenders. Warbands of orks – at first few in number, but increasing every day until the Temple's loss in the third week – were ambushed at every turn; the citizenry using improvised weaponry to arm themselves. 

***

Legionnaire A.Cħinniķ, 39th Levy Reserves, Activated 942. Helsreach Hive Defence Force. Pictured here guarding the maglev rail bridge under ‘Sov Lock 189’, shortly before oceanic supertankers began arriving at Grendel’s Dockyard to ferry away non-combatants.
@imperialis.munns

Legionnaire Cħinniķ wears camouflaged M37 ablative flak plate, typically worn by the northern PDF elements stationed along the more temperate banks of the Stygies watercourse. He is equipped with an M35 ‘Galaxy’ Short pattern lasrifle, in the same scheme. This is opposed to the usual Voss pattern issued to Legionnaire fireteams.

Another worthy notation: Cħinniķ had utilised a dock worker’s makeshift chemshroud, for added protection against the strong coastal winds that whip through the more exposed dockland areas.

+Confirmed KIA during the first hours of the siege of Helsreach Hive+

***

The docks were another key strategic area. As a major industrial world within the Imperium of Man, Helsreach's prodigious number of Manufactora and Mechanicus facilities included those producing the workhorse Rhino transport used by the Adeptus Astartes and Adeptus Sororitas. Officers within the Planetary Defence Force were frequently equipped with overstock and non-exportable vehicles. It was judged vital that as many of these be evacuated – as much to shore up the flagging defenders elsewhere as to keep them out of the orks' hands.

6th Army Group troops fend off another advance from the Shreddaz of Zag.
@mind_your_models

Alas, the Sloggaz, alongside warbands from Bighedd's own bigmob, quickly overran the Ironside Shipyards on the south coast – halving the number of transport ships that the Imperial forces had available to them in a stroke. On Rannsturm's orders, the supertankers that had arrived in the port were converted to transport non-combatants away, although they were forced to take more and more citizens when it was clear that there was insufficient space on the tankers for everyone in the Hive.

Every moment that the 6th could hold meant more survivors and equipment could be evacuated – but the orks were advancing fast, perhaps sensing that 'good lootin', and more to the point, 'good fightin' were both abundant in this area of the hive. 

A Sorefoot Sloggaz Kommando roves through the docks of Helsreach, taking stock during a lull in the dreadful fighting.
@225thsteellegion

It was here that the Sorefoot Sloggaz made their presence known, their mostly unmounted infantry adapting better than the other Evil Suns forces to the urban conflict. A huge dock called Grendel's Reach was overrun by the Sloggaz in the second week of fighting, as they attempted to establish a foothold to assault the Valdez Alpha Offshore Oil Platform, a few kilometres southeast. The Oil Platform provided vital resources to the factories of Armageddon, and would likewise be vital to the Evil Suns' ability to keep their forces fuelled and in the field. 

The platform itself was defended by elements of the 62nd Regiment alongside 351st Squadron – the 'Sparrowhawks' – which had been using the Valdez Oil Platform as its base. Until it was overrun, the Sparrowhawks and 62nd put up a stubborn defence. Even as they were forced to evacuate, they laced the platform with det-charges, and rendered it unusable – part of the spiteful scorched earth policy adopted by General Kurov.

'Marchetti's Menace' – Valkyrie of the 351st Armageddon Air Squadron.
@shotgun_miniatures

Elsewhere in the hive, away from these critical positions, any surviving Steel Legion troops who found themselves cut off were ordered to degrade the orks' ability to coordinate. Brutal decapitation tactics were left to the initiative of individual Company or Platoon commanders, with many choosing ambush or sniper tactics.

These proved only partially effective, as the nature of urban warfare meant that the orks' natural advantage up-close was magnified. Nevertheless, the survivors of the 6th Army Group gave a good account of themselves.

Callsign Octavius. Veteran Sgt Kaiber and Corporal Detènt pause in the cover of a ruined chimera as they scan ahead of Company Primus’ advance. They had made a number of kills already today, vehicle commanders and vox operators mostly. Their fortunes, however, were to change abruptly. Having detected the presence of a squad of Nobz taking up position around an old, red brick, courthouse, Octavius determined that an enemy officer of some rank was within. The last record of the fireteam was a servo-skull vid-capture of them pulling their camouflaged cloaks around them and disappearing almost entirely within the heat of the wrecked vehicle. Whether they were able to deliver the Emperors' justice to the enemy officer is unclear.
@mind_your_models

***

Hivefall

Once the last ship had sailed from the Docks, each member of the new Hive Defence swore an oath to sell their lives as dearly as possibly. Suicide bombers would leap into the fray and destroy an entire patrol for the loss of one life. Those who worked in the harbour welded themselves into their cranes and attacked Gargants for as long as they could. 

Eventually even the orks began to wonder whether it was worth continuing the attack, as so many orks had died already. The defenders of Hades Hive took solace and comfort from the unwavering defense of Hive Helsreach.

– Official history of the War for Armageddon

Mekboy Gargant Snazgrub's Snarla from the Red Skull Tramplaz
@argaastes

As the tenth week dawned, the fighting had ebbed away as the defenders numbers and morale had been eroded. Resistance was isolated in pockets, and communication with the outside virtually lost. The orks, meanwhile, were also now finding the siege had entered a duller, more static phase, and numbers began to drift away north and westwards in search of better fighting.

Weirdboy
Jono from Grotz Hobby Hole

Helsreach was deemed officially lost when a large group of ork Weirdboyz unleashed a huge psychic storm which exploded the minds of many and drove the remainder insane. After a further fortnight of fighting, no official resistance remained; and the surviving orks once more moved out. 

Part of the oddboy conclave that tolled the death knell of resistance on Siege of Helsreach.
@johannusminiatures

***

Even depleted, evacuated and wrecked, of course, an Imperial Hive is so colossal that fighting is reported to have continued sporadically for the remainder of the Battle for Armageddon – and was the first Hive to be reclaimed and rebuilt. The scant few veterans and survivors of the war were forever changed by the experience.

@imperialis.munns