greetings everyone. I'm new to the forum and wanted to start out with a little tale of a guardsmen named zael murdok. don't worry its just the first instalment so things get a little more interesting along the way.

The shotgun kicked and kicked again, the recoil reverberating through his body like small tremors. He fired again blowing another greenskin’s chest open his guts spilling onto the trodden dirt. Behind him the outpost’s heavy guns were pounding into the ork mass. Mini explosions popped from their mass.
They had lost, they just didn’t know it.
“Orks are a stupid lot” he thought to himself as he shot a particularly stubborn ork 5 times before he fell, not much more than a pile of dark red guts, blood, and broken bones. He was ducking ork axes and fists for at least a half hour now. Longer than the last few attacks. He drew his knife and plunged it deep into and ork’s throat pulling it out as it flailed its arms clinging to life.
He glanced over at the inquisitor, which was a new arrival, was fairing well, dismembering orks 2 at a time with his glittering power sword. His retinue assisted as much as they could, but they seemed out of place. “probably new to this job” he thought to himself as yet another ork charged him. He ducked under its predictable first blow and sent a shotgun blast into his chest. When the ork only winced he fired twice more and sent his knife into its eye. It fell to the ground spasming uncontrollably still trying to find him with its arms.
And then, nothing. The outpost weapons fell silent, the orks stopped coming, and sergeants stopped screaming (if only for a little bit).
He looked all around, but the enemy was gone, there will broken. He let out a deep sigh, and trotted back to his squad. His squad mates had faired fairly bad. He noticed after a quick count there were 4 missing and those still alive, including the sergeant, were injured in some way. Another look around and he saw guardsmen bodies beneath the hundreds of ork corpses.
Wreckage of mostly ork vehicles, mostly, sat lifeless, most trailing smoke into the sky. “how could they have taken such a chunk of our forces?” he asked. The sergeant only gave a shrug, “guess not everyone has what it takes.” He gave the sergeant a curt nod as the sergeant appeared to be the only one of his squad not whining of some trivial injury.
Then he noticed the inquisitor walking in his noble stride, though his retinue didn’t do him much justice, acting little like an inquisitorial retinue, and more like a group of scared conscripts. He walked from squad to squad, assessing the damage, before he finally made it his squad.
“Damage report.” He said to his sergeant.
“We lost four, the rest wounded,” then seeing me corrected himself “except one.” Though that was also incorrect as he realized the pain in his wrists. They must have sprained from all the shotgun’s recoil.
The inquisitor raised an eyebrow to him. “Impressive,” then turned back “have your more critically wounded sent to the medicea building,” “the rest will have to wait for field medics to assist them.”
The sergeant nodded and told his men.
He began walking towards his squad when the inquisitor lifted his arm in front of him and said “you come, walk with me.” Not that he wanted to, but he wasn’t about to say no to an inquisitor.
They walked a little, his twitchy retinue following suit. He took a disgusted look at them and looked back at him. “its so hard to find good troops on this planet,” “I’ve had to make replacements…fairly short notice,” “I need a hardened veteran in my retinue, one that can hold his own in combat.”
This was an enormous shock! He thought he would be scolded for not showing proper battle formation, as he so often was, but to be invited to an inquisitorial retinue? How could he say anything but yes?
“if your asking what I think you are sir,” he said trying to hide his enthusiasm “the answer is yes.”
He gave a slight smile. “Good, then I will file with your superiors.” “You may report back to your squad now.”
He couldn’t believe it. He knew his sergeant would be disappointed to lose him, but he would understand. He turned back when he heard the inquisitor say “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, “what was your name?”
“Zael” the guardsmen said “Zael Murdok,” and he sprinted back to his squad with the news.