p24-25 — A Sickness in Dontoria

Dontoria Hivesprawl was the largest of all the planet Vigilus' inhabited regions. It was noted for one thing above all else - its overpopulation. As a result, when one of Mankind's darkest and most ancient enemies decided to make Dontoria its playground, the consequences were devastating.

The bustle and mayhem of Dontoria's streets was bewildering, even before the coming of the Cicatrix Maledictum. The black market barons and czars in control of that hivesprawl knew well enough that building tall was a waste of resources. Unlike many of their peers, who were too hidebound, unimaginative or afraid of bucking the rules to stop building upward, they had instead opted to spread as wide as possible - even if that meant narrowing the streets to the point that entire regions became one vast contiguous hab-block.

As a result of this land grab, the buildings were packed in close together, every available space capitalised upon so much so that people had to rub shoulders and share humid air if they wished to proceed above ground. To enter the subterranean levels brought its own risks. Down there, power cuts were common, and those stranded in the darkness did not always come back out.

Such a rich, teeming source of life attracted predators and other baleful influences, just as shoals of vexenkrill attract the leviathans of the ocean deeps. The Drukhari of Kaelac's Bane had raided the hivesprawl more than once, taking a rich haul of slaves back to their base. The Cult of the Pauper Princes, seeing in the sprawl a great many converts-to-be, spread from Megaborealis to infest its lower levels and began the slow, insidious life cycle of their Patriarch all over again. But the false continent's doom was to come from another source entirely.

In the year 2.230 post, Dontoria's principal spaceport - Litmus Dock - received reports of an unknown vessel inbound. It was a pattern of vessel that even the Tech-Adepts seconded from Megaborealis considered ancient, encrusted with the filth of millennia and some manner of strange caulk that made its shape seem as much organic as mechanical. A rain of filth drizzled from its hatchways and airlocks as it came down, its crew ignoring the increasingly insistent calls for its animus codes. When the dock's garrison opened fire upon the vessel with their Icarus autocannon emplacements, some manner of shield repelled the shots. Even lascannons proved unable to pierce the unaccountably strong barrier. The ship docked, by now surrounded by Arbitrators and garrison troops. Its hatches clunked open, and stumbling out came a crowd of distended, bloated mutants - the ambulatory corpses known as Gellerpox Infected. Their assault on the garrison was easily put down by disciplined lasfire, but that which followed was all but impervious - a detachment of Death Guard. Their bulbous and horned silhouettes identified them as the same Heretic Astartes that had assailed Ultramar not long before. A fierce close-range firefight broke out, but the Death Guard shrugged off all but the most dire injuries. They used the Infected as fleshy shields, quickly going to ground via the underway dry docks of Litmus' lower levels.

With coordination at an all-time low due to the Noctis Aeterna and the myriad other threats upon Vigilus, the hunt for the invaders was not reinforced. No armed force was keen on rooting out entrenched Heretic Astartes, but many of the elite Guardsmen and those Arbitrators with a keen sense of duty braced themselves and went into the depths. Most found nothing. Others found painful death. When Tempestor Naiod ordered the lower levels firebombed within a two-mile radius, the Imperial forces considered the matter closed. Naiod withdrew the 98th Lamdic Oxen from the operation, and the hunt slowly ground to a halt. Only when a strange plague started to manifest across the district did it become clear that the scions of Nurgle had been diligent indeed.

The magnitude of this infection cannot be underestimated. This is no natural plague, no malady that the human body can fight and overcome. This is the Gellerpox. It is fully capable of causing flesh to run like wax, to swell and burst, even to blend with augmetics, wargear and those machineries close at hand whilst the sufferer sleeps. The resultant hybrids are as tough as Ogryns and singularly focused on bringing their blight to as many uninfected as they can find. In the name of the Astra Cartographica, I implore you - quarantine Dontoria, effective immediately, or lose your planet to an enemy you cannot fight.
— Delarique du Languille

p24 — The Gellerpox Infection

Sickness and disease in Dontoria was commonplace, a natural by-product of having such a high population density. By and large the hivesprawl had become inured to it; even when hundreds of thousands of lives were claimed by affluenza, dry lung or red smog fever. However, rumours of a strange supernatural plague were emanating from the districts around Litmus Dock, a disease that melded flesh with metal to form hideous blends of man, machine and daemonic anatomy.

With each day the reports became more prevalent until the entire area was on the verge of panic. Only the Rogue Trader Delarique du Languille, operating out of Litmus' highest spire on her quest to chart the Nachmund Gauntlet, recognised the disease for what it was - the Gellerpox. It was a sickness contracted on long warp journeys where the ship's Geller field had glitched long enough for baleful empyric energies to enter the vessel, and it mingled the paranormal maladies of the Plaguefather Nurgle with the flesh and metal hybridisation so common to the ranks of the Imperium - especially those of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Du Languille theorised that the disease had been deliberately carried to the hivesprawl by the Death Guard, who then released it amongst the population before going to ground. It spread like wildfire. Already the citizenry were up in arms, burning the infected wherever they were uncovered - but in doing so, driving the rest into hiding. In the slums and shanty towns of the Pravdus and Grodholev Subsprawls, the creatures known as Twisted Lords rose to prominence, each the monarch of his own ever-growing band of mutants and nightmarish, hulking terrors. The streets thronged with giant vermin, twisted beyond biological limits into monstrosities, gutters were thick with sludge-grubs, and eyestinger swarms flitted through the skies in search of fresh prey. The blessings of Father Nurgle were well and truly upon Dontoria, and it would take a herculean effort to banish them.

Using her own ship and high status to travel from Litmus Dock to Saint's Haven, du Languille requested extensive quarantine measures of the Aquilarian Council - though privately, she feared her revelation was already too late.

p33 — The Vigilus Senate

The reorganisation of the Imperial war machine was by no means confined to its commanders. In order to keep the new Senate focused on the wider war, Calgar gathered an elite band of Ultramarines chosen from across the battle companies at his disposal, their duty to bar the path of any who would try for a decapitating strike upon Imperial High Command. This force Calgar called the Extremis Guard, led by Lieutenant Eothrus - a rising hero who had proven himself in the long and baleful wars against Mortarion's Death Guard.

Eothrus was one of the finest minds in the 2nd Company, and had a statesman's wisdom that echoed that of the Primarch himself. The appointment proved wise; within days of the Extremis Guard's formation, they engaged, stalled and ultimately saw off an Aeldari attack that could have crippled the entire Vigilus command structure.

p34 — Legacy of Plague

Calgar demanded the matter of Dontoria be addressed as a higher priority than the Ork assaults and Genestealer Cult uprisings. The Ultramarines had been critical in the war against Mortarion and his Death Guard, and he knew well that to allow the faithful of Nurgle a foothold was to see unnatural disease spread rapidly soon after. Ultimately, the barrier between reality and the warp would thin to the point that the spawn of Chaos could manifest in realspace. That nightmare could not be allowed to be made real.

p34 — Dontoria Firewall

When it became known that two entire subsprawls and a city-sized spaceport had been lost to the Gellerpox Infected, the Space Marines quickly established a quarantine zone and a military cordon.

The Aquilarian Council had been slow to respond to du Languille's missive; to them Dontoria was of secondary importance. The Vigilus Senate instead summoned the Rogue Trader to hear what she had to say. Within scant minutes of her testimony, the lords of the senate arrived at a consensus. Chapter Master Raquilon Zandtus would lead his Primaris Chapter, the Necropolis Hawks, against the Gellerpox Infected, for his companies were expert in the arts of city-fighting. Meanwhile, the Crimson Fists of Brother-Captain Jhermandes would work with the calculating minds of the Iron Hands to effect the most rigorous cordon imaginable to contain the spread of the plague.

What the Necropolis Hawks found in the decommissioned Litmus Dock was horrific. Peg-legged mutants with skulls distended and melded with steel lurched from alleyways and choke points, vermin leapt from windows to stab at armour joints with proboscis and forelimb, and lumbering flesh-hulks belched flame from their mouths. At close confines, the powerful claws and improvised weapons of these monsters made them lethal opponents, and many a Necropolis Hawk was lain low in ambush. But the warriors of that Chapter were used to employing their guns to full effect even when their targets were but a hand's breadth away. Their Intercessors blasted their foes back in overlapping fields of bolt fire, whilst Hellblasters incinerated the larger mutants. With fury, discipline and self-sacrifice, they corralled the milling Gellerpox mutants, hunting down their leaders as the Crimson Fists drew the cordon tight.

By mustering the Land Raider Redeemers of the Crimson Fists with the Hellhounds of the Vigilant Guard, and setting fire to selected sections of the hivesprawl's promethium pipelines, a literal firewall was established around the infected zone. Calgar and his Senate could see no other choice. Though it meant consigning hundreds of thousands of healthy civilians to a hideous death, the quarantine was established and the area brought largely under control. Yet that too was not to last. For the scions of Nurgle are tenacious foes...

p35 — Race for the Mandeville Point

Upon her return to Dontoria Hivesprawl, Delarique du Languille met with her contacts in the Vigilant Guard. Her psyker adjutant, the talented Morghalian, had experienced harrowing nightmares of a doom spilling out from Dontoria towards Terra itself. It came in the form of a flesh-plague that turned men into cyborg Daemons.

Du Languille knew better than to dismiss this notion as mere imagination or paranoia, for she took her psyker's advice very seriously. Convincing her Tech-Priest Enginseer contacts of the urgency of her request, the Rogue Trader communicated with the scribes of Neo-vellum via a tight-beam noospheric data tether. She requested the shipping manifests for Litmus Dock with high clearance, and in response received a message tube back. Her worst fears were confirmed. The quarantine had been breached.

The export of goods from the hivesprawl had ceased as soon as the Space Marines had put their quarantine into practice. Few, if any, civilian refugees had managed to flee the area by circumventing the Adeptus Arbites' control of the planet's egress routes. Unfortunately, the blanket prohibition on space travel from the docks had been too late to stop the bulk freighter Illustrious Cargo from leaving. It had left the planet three days hence, after the Gellerpox had been detected but before the quarantine had been put in place. If it carried Infected, it was a biological time bomb. Already, it was bound for the planet's Mandeville Point, that zone where a craft could slide into the warp without the gravity of either the planet or its star influencing its navigation calculations. Should the Cargo safely translate into the empyrean, it would be out of their reach forever. With interstellar communication all but impossible, the craft would likely make haste for the Dharrovar System unhindered. From there, it could make the journey all the way across the Nachmund Gauntlet and into the Imperium Sanctus. If there were infected mutants inside, and they carried their hideous warp affliction towards Terra, it could consign an entire swathe of space to damnation.

This was a fate that du Languille could not allow. When she consulted with the war council of Saint's Haven, it became clear that their warships, built for raw might instead of speed, could not catch the freighter before it made warp translation. The only ship fast enough to catch the Cargo was in her personal fleet, a sleek corvette she had named simply the Messenger. Unfortunately, the craft was for pleasure only, and had next to nothing in the way of guns - certainly nothing that could trouble a bulk freighter.

The Rogue Trader did not shirk. Within the hour, the Messenger was streaking through space towards the coordinates supplied by the Neo-vellum augurators. Within sixty hours the green-grey dot of the Illustrious Cargo grew larger on the ship's bridge triptych until its lumpen, ungainly form filled the screens. With grim efficiency, du Languille mustered her team, taking a handful of her finest agents with her in the craft's single transition pod, and boarded the suspect vessel.

What the team found in that hellish interior will remain the burden of du Languille and the Lord Macragge alone. Only she made it back to the surface of Vigilus, and she did not speak a word about it after her quarantine and subsequent debrief with Calgar. What is known is that the Illustrious Cargo was destroyed just before it could translate into the warp, the energy signature of the explosion indicating that its engine decks had been sabotaged from the inside.

Only at the conclusion of Calgar's debrief did Dontoria reveal its last, awful secret. The scribes of Neo-vellum had despatched a second message tube, handed over in cordial ceremony to du Languille and the Lord Macragge. It spoke of three other bulk freighters that had left the same Dontorian dock, a day earlier than the Illustrious Cargo, but with the same shipping idents and the same destination.

Du Languille had likely saved an entire system from becoming a plague site by destroying the Cargo. Yet for all her efforts, for all the sacrifice of those that had fought their way to the heart of the infected craft, the Gellerpox Infection was crossing the stars towards Terra.

p36 — Hope Yet

Since the fall of the Oteck Hollows, water was becoming ever scarcer upon Vigilus, and the convoys for its transference less and less common. With Grodholev Subsprawl falling to the Gellerpox, Dontoria was in danger of losing its own main source of water - Lake Dontor, which was now under daily vigil in case of disease. The Vigilus Senate had still not located the Death Guard forces that had brought the Gellerpox to the planet, and suspected that if the traitors found a way through the firewall they would move against the lake with yet more contaminants.

p45 — 14.010 Post - The Infection Spreads

As promethium fires blazed around Dontoria, the Iron Hands enforcing the quarantine allowed frustration and repugnance to overwhelm their nobler natures. Ruthless efficiency became sheer brutality, and desperation turned to terror amongst the trapped populace. Preferring to brave fire and pox than face the merciless Iron Hands, bands of resourceful Dontorians broke out of the restricted area and fled. Efficient as strategic cogitators, the Iron Hands deployed kill teams to contain these breakouts. However, their forces came under sudden heavy attack from the Death Guard still lurking in the city. Reports circulated of daemonic entities manifesting alongside Mortarion's sons.

p47 — The Rise of Chaos

The rulers of Mortwald, thrown into a state of high anxiety by the rumours of a Gellerpox outbreak on the northern borders of their coveted landmass, shut themselves in their strongholds - but not before issuing the order that all sterilised food and water available be seized and locked in there with them. Over the course of the next few months they bled the workers of Mortwald white, claiming far more sustenance than they could ever consume even if each of their number lived to be a thousand years old. Word of this reprehensible behaviour reached the demagogues and preachers of the worker populace, and within the week, an insurrection seethed on the continent's outskirts that had nothing to do with xenos cults or Chaos demagoguery.

p87 — Necropolis Hawks

The sword and halo was a device worn by those in Dontoria Hivesprawl who slew a heretic from the infamous Death Guard legion.

Trained extensively in close-quarters warfare and veterans of a dozen city fights, the Necropolis Hawks are stoic and efficient in their warfare. They bear their battlefield role insignia upon their backpacks as well as their pauldrons so their comrades can identify them even in the smoke and dust of urban war.

On Vigilus, the Necropolis Hawks turned the tide against the xenos insurrection and Gellerpox infection that rocked Dontoria to its foundations. Taking control of the city building by building, they established several safe zones that were expertly defended - and pitilessly demolished those that they considered lost causes.

p121 — First Phase of the War of Beasts

Round 5

2.230 Post: A Sickness in Dontoria

In Dontoria Hivesprawl, a vessel makes an unauthorised docking. Emerging from within, the Death Guard fight their way deep into the hivesprawl. Within the week, the deadly Gellerpox has spread through the hive.

Special Rules

In this campaign round the following special rules apply:

[...]

Deadly Contagion: At the start of the first battle round, but before the first turn begins, each player rolls a D6 for each of their Infantry units that is on the battlefield. On a 1, subtract 1 from that unit's Toughness characteristic. Nurgle units are not affected.

p123 — Second Phase of the War of Beasts

Round 4

7.699 Post: The Dontoria Firewall

The Iron Hands, Necropolis Hawks and Crimson Fists purge the infected Gellerpox mutants that plague Dontoria Hivesprawl and establish a cordon around the area. However, spacecraft bearing infected mutants have already departed from Dontoria's prime spaceport, heading to other war zones in the system.

[...]

Special Rules

In this campaign round the following special rules apply:

Deadly Contagion: At the start of the first battle round, but before the first turn begins, each player rolls a D6 for each of their Infantry units that is on the battlefield. On a 1, subtract 1 from that unit's Toughness characteristic. Nurgle units are not affected.

[...]

Round 5

8.923 Post: Race for the Mandeville Point

The Rogue Trader, Delarique du Languille, races to catch and destroy the Illustrious Cargo, a ship carrying Gellerpox Infected. However, she later learns that it was only one of seven infected ships to have left that day.

p124 — Third Phase of the War of Beasts

Round 3

14.010 Post: The Infection Spreads

The Iron Hands struggle to secure their Dontoria quarantine and their heavy-handed enforcement causes the populace to panic and break out. As the plague spreads to Megaborealis and Mortwald, the Death Guard launch an ambush against the Iron Hands, with reports of daemonic entities accompanying them.

Special Rules

In this campaign round the following special rules apply:

[...]

Deadly Contagion: At the start of the first battle round, but before the first turn begins, each player rolls a D6 for each of their Infantry units that is on the battlefield. On a 1, subtract 1 from that unit's Toughness characteristic. Nurgle units are not affected.

p150-151 — Echoes of War: Breach of Quarantine

The quarantine set up in Dontoria by the Iron Hands to contain the Gellerpox outbreak was not to last. The civilians trapped inside attempted to force their way out, prompting the Space Marines to respond aggressively. Meanwhile, the veil of realspace began to erode, allowing Nurgle Daemons to burst through.

The Armies

Each player must first muster an army from their collection. The Defender commands the Iron Hands quarantine force. The Attacker commands the poxriddled populace, the contingent of Death Guard and the warp-born Daemons of Nurgle. A player can include any models in their army, but if their army is Battleforged they will also be able to use the appropriate Stratagems included with this mission (see below).

The Battlefield

The Defender creates the battlefield. Each of their deployment zones should be heavily fortified to mark the perimeter of the quarantined zone, whilst the centre is left clear save for a few barricades, obstacles and craters.

Deployment

After terrain has been set up, the Attacker sets up their units wholly within their deployment zone. The Defender then sets up their units wholly within their deployment zones.

First Turn

The Attacker has the first turn.

Escape Route

Any unit in the Attacker's army can move off a battlefield edge labelled 'Escape Route' so long as all of the models in that unit are able to make it off the board by that edge in the same phase. Any models that do so are said to have escaped, and are removed from the battlefield and take no further part in the battle.

Battle Length

Use the Random Battle Length rules (pg 128) to determine how long the battle lasts.

Victory Conditions

At the end of the battle, add up the Power Ratings of all the Attacker's escaped units (see Escape Route) and compare this to the Power Level of their army (count the entire unit's Power Rating, even if some of its models were destroyed before the unit escaped). If the combined Power Rating of the escaped units is one third or more of the army's Power Level, the Attacker wins a major victory. Any other result is a major victory for the Defender.

Stratagems

In this mission, the players can use Command Points (CPs) to use the following bonus Stratagems:

Reality Tears — 2CP

Attacker Stratagem

The veil between realspace and the warp tears wide like agaping wound and out pour the Daemons of Nurgle.

Use this Stratagem at the end of your Movement phase. Pick a Nurgle Daemon unit from your army that was destroyed earlier in the battle. Set up this unit anywhere on the battlefield more than 9" from any enemy models.

Repulsive Deluge — 1CP

Attacker Stratagem

The servants of Nurgle explode with vile fluids that corrode armour and sear the flesh of any caught in the entropic downpour.

Use this Stratagem after a unit from your army has been destroyed, before removing the last model from the battlefield. Roll a D6 for each enemy unit within 7" of that model. For each roll of 3+ the unit being rolled for suffers D3 mortal wounds. Once this Stratagem has been resolved remove the last model from the destroyed unit as normal.

The Frenzied Populace — 1CP

Attacker Stratagem

Driven mad by the foul plague that has infected them, the common people are driven to attack those they once called comrades with unnatural vigour.

Use this Stratagem at the start of the Fight phase. Pick a unit of Poxwalkers from your army. Add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of that unit until the end of the phase.

We Give Our Lives for the Emperor — 1CP

Defender Stratagem

With righteous zeal and reckless abandon, these warriors hurl themselves into the enemy lines without thought for their own safety.

Use this Stratagem at the start of the Fight phase. Pick a unit from your army. Add 1 to hit rolls and wound rolls for attacks made by that unit until the end of that phase. However, your opponent can add 1 to hit rolls and wounds rolls for attacks that target the unit you picked.

Purge the Unclean — 1CP

Defender Stratagem

Flamer in hand, this Space Marine steps forward to unleash a righteous inferno upon the enemy.

Use this Stratagem before a unit from your army attacks in the Shooting phase. Add 1 to wound rolls made for that unit's flame weapons. For the purposes of this Stratagem, a flame weapon is any weapon profile whose name includes the word 'flame' (e.g. flamer, heavy flamer, flamestorm cannon, flamestorm gauntlet.)

Thunderhawk Strafing Run — 3CP

Defender Stratagem

A sound of thunder roars from above before the battlefield ignites in a series of devastating detonations.

Use this Stratagem in your Shooting phase. Pick up to three enemy units within 12" of each other and roll a D6 for each. Add 1 to the result for every 10 models in the unit being rolled for. On a 5, the unit being rolled for suffers D3 mortal wounds. On a 6+ the unit being rolled for suffers D6 mortal wounds.

Mission Veterans

In this mission, each player can upgrade one of the units in their army to be a mission veteran. If one player takes a mission veteran but the other does not have a suitable model, the player without the mission veteran gains 1 additional Command Point at the start of the battle.

The Putrid Brotherhood

Attacker Mission Veteran Stratagem

Veterans of the Long War, and members of the Seven Pillared warrior lodge, the Putrid Brotherhood were spreading the vile diseases of Grandfather Nurgle for over ten millennia before they set foot on Vigilus.

Pick a unit of Plague Marines from your army to be the Putrid Brotherhood. Add 1 to wound rolls for shooting attacks made by this unit that target enemy Vehicles.

Scout Squad Sicaron

Defender Mission Veteran Stratagem

Under the leadership of Sergeant Idonis, the unflinching aim of Scout Squad Sicaron neutralised half a dozen critical enemy targets without loss of civilian life.

Pick a unit of Adeptus Astartes Scouts from your army to be Scout Squad Sicaron. You can re-roll hit rolls for shooting attacks made with sniper rifles by this unit that target enemy Characters.