Battle of St. Jamal's Shrine part2

Seeing the Knights of the Sacred Flame approaching the Alpha Legion task force began maneuvering for battle.  On the left flank and right flank they made tentative moves to encircle the loyalist space marines.  On the left flank the Defiler moved up and opened fire on the loyalist rhino.  The Imperial apc came apart in a flurry of autocannon and battlecannon fire that left it a blazing wreck and left it's marine passengers pinned down by the wreckage.

The possessed vindicator on the left flank opened up on the squadron of dreadnaughts advancing in the center.  It's massive shell tearing off the arm of one in a massive detonation.  Meanwhile the possessed vindicator on the right flank added it's weight of fire on the advancing dreadnaughts as well.  it hit another of the machines dead on and it vanished temporarily in a blinding flash of detonation.  When the initial smoke cleared the mighty war machine still stood streaming smoke with the gears to move it's legs broken and fused together.

The remaining Alpha Legion Rhino's popped smoke grenades in an effort to obscure their movements and avoid Imperial fire.  Across the battlefield black burning smoke mingled with white generated smoke slightly obscuring the battlefield.

Commander Xerxes of the space marine chapter The Knights of the Sacred Flame surveyed the battlefield and began voxing orders.  He knew terminators would soon be teleporting in to assist his force and so ordered a headlong advance into the enemy.  On the Imperial right flank with two combat squads pinned down by the burning wreckage the second rhino darted forward an unloaded one of it's combat squads into the ruins.  Sgt. Vibius ordered his meltagunner to fire into the smoke at the rhino before firing his own combi melta into the smoke.  Then gunner missed but Sgt. Vibius heard his shot slam home followed by darker smoke mixing with the white smoke from the smoke grenades.  He could hear the enemy rhino's engine still running and cursed as he realized he had only scored a glancing hit on the obscured target.

Meanwhile in the center two of the revered Dreadnaughts advanced leaving behind the third immobilized dreadnaught to provide covering fire.  Two of them opened up on the possessed vindicator but failed to penetrate it's thick frontal armor.  The third opened up on the smoke covered rhino.  It's shot punching through the smoke to hit the flank of the rhino shaking the crew and leaving it belching black smoke.

On the Imperial left flank Xerxes ordered his landraider to drive towards the rhino attempting to outflank the Imperial line.  The tank lumbered forward and dropped it's ramps and Xerxes along with his retinue of terminators and the Librarian Tiberius raced towards the rhino under the covering fire of the land raiders assault cannons.  Xerxes added his own heavy flamer to the mass of fire at the traitor rhino and the infernal machine wilted in the face of the onslaught.  It quickly began to burn and it's traitor marines forced to bail out of the stricken transport.  Xerxes ordered the advance to continue confident in his reserves teleporting into battle in a timely order.

special thanks go out to John Ondich-Batson (pictured below) for his help in this battle report.