Tales of the 13th Necromunda- Thumper

 

“Thumper’s Last Shell”

A field report from the Battle of Ash Hollow Ridge

They said the ridge couldn’t be held.

The traitor forces had dug in hard — trenches, minefields, auto-turrets powered by stolen Mechanicus tech. Chaos artillery had the high ground, pounding the 13th Necromunda’s positions like a forge hammer. Every forward push had ended in blood and retreat.

Maus was pinned.
Ma Bell was dry.
Long Tom had taken a direct hit to its optics.

The advance was stalled. The Major was wounded. Ghost Alley had lost two shooters. The Commander stared at the ridge through his magnoculars, teeth grinding, one word on his lips:

“We need a miracle.”

Down in a sunken position behind the line, wedged between a collapsed hab-stack and a crater full of bones, was Thumper.

An old artillery tank — no fancy targeting gear, no augmetic relays. Just an armored frame, a manually cranked loader, and a main gun that rang like a cathedral bell when it fired.

Most of the 13th called it a relic.

Its crew called it “home.”

The Setup

The ridge had a weak point — a munitions cache exposed on a small ledge, barely visible even on auspex. Hitting it would ignite the Chaos supply line and collapse half the enemy’s entrenchments.

There was just one problem: it was five kilometers away and obscured by fog, terrain, and enemy jamming.

“We need pinpoint accuracy,” said Bison.
“We have Thumper,” replied the Commander.

The crew — led by Artillery Sergeant Casso, a wiry man with hearing loss in both ears and a collection of cigars he never actually lit — nodded grimly.

“Range is long, angle’s bad, and if we miss, we’re dry,” Casso muttered.
“So don’t miss,” the Commander said.

The Shot

They had one shell left.

Just one.

Casso ran the numbers by hand — range tables carved into the inside of the hull. His spotter, Vigs, clambered up a nearby rusted promethium tower, voxed in the coordinates, and took a breath.

Thumper fired.

The ground bucked.

The tank shuddered.

Casso bit through his unlit cigar.

The Result

There was silence for a full minute.

Then, like a second sunrise, the top of the ridge detonated.

The Chaos supply line went up in a fireball that cracked the ridge in two. Half of the entrenched position slid into the valley, taking heavy weapons, ammo, and traitor officers with it.

The 13th charged.

Old Smokey led the way. Kelly and Lucky 13 followed, ferrying in fresh squads. Even Maus joined in, its main gun roaring back to life.

Victory was bloody… but complete.

The Aftermath

Thumper didn’t fire again that day. It couldn’t. The recoil cracked one of the support plates, and Casso’s loader dislocated his shoulder trying to ram the shell home.

But no one cared.

They painted a new message on the barrel the next morning:

“One was enough.”

Tales of the 13th Necromunda- Old Smokey

 

“Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em”

A tale from the Kravox Slum Offensive

No one really knows how Old Smokey came to be part of the 13th Necromunda. Some say it was fished out of a sump canal beneath Hive Primus, others whisper it just rolled up one day during a firestorm with its engine growling and its crew demanding hot food and a case of lho-sticks.

By the time of the Kravox Slum Offensive, Smokey was a legend—held together by spit, prayer, and a deep-seated hatred of stillness.

The 13th were bogged down in a decaying manufactorum district, facing off against a splinter group of traitor Guard dug into a series of collapsed transit platforms and fortified upper levels. Attempts to punch through had failed three times.

Then, over vox, came the grating, soot-caked voice of Smokey’s commander:

“Give us five minutes. And a clear lane.”

The line cut.

The ruins began to tremble.

Out of a collapsed alley thundered Old Smokey, belching thick clouds of black exhaust like a caffeinated hive-dragon. It didn’t creep or crawl—it charged, treads grinding over rubble, skulls, and a downed streetlamp like they weren’t even there.

First came the lascannon, mounted low and proud on the tank’s soot-streaked front. A piercing red beam lanced out, punching clean through an enemy heavy stubber nest, turning a would-be hero into glowing ash and slag.

Then the main cannon roared—a shot so loud it cracked windows in the buildings behind the 13th’s lines. The shell exploded inside a reinforced bunker, turning three traitor's into charred mist.

The sponson-mounted heavy bolters spun up like hive-fans in overdrive. Brass casings poured onto the street as they tore into gunlines along the upper balconies, carving fire lanes that allowed the 13th’s infantry to surge forward behind the mobile wrecking ball.

The enemy tried to return fire—but the traitor Guard had made a fatal mistake. They were used to newer tanks, newer crews. Old Smokey was old-school. And like many veterans, he didn’t go down easy.

Even after taking a direct missile hit to its left track (which it shrugged off with a shudder and a blast of smoke), Smokey kept rolling. By the time it reached the enemy’s command point, the lascannon was still spitting death, the bolters glowing red, and the cannon barrel looked more like a branding iron than a weapon.

The traitor commander made a break for it—ran through an archway, hoping to escape down a stairwell.

He didn’t make it.

The last shot fired by Smokey that day didn’t come from the cannon, or the bolters. It came from the commander’s laspistol, fired from the cupola hatch, right into the back of the traitor’s skull.

“Told you,” the crewman muttered, “Five minutes. Give or take.”

Aftermath

                                

With the enemy in disarray, the 13th swept in and secured the slums. The Kravox Offensive turned in their favor that day—and the name “Smokey” was spray-painted in bright white on a dozen walls by grateful troopers.

One green-haired Goliath from Squad 3 was overheard saying:

“Emperor help me, I think that tank was smiling.”

The commander of the 13th, watching from a command post, simply said:

“There goes Smokey. Ugly as hell. But I’d take a dozen of him over a regiment of parade tanks.”

Postscript:

The only casualty on Smokey’s crew that day was a pot of recaf that boiled over when they hit a bump.

“Bloody crater,” one gunner swore, “We just got that pot working again!”

The crew spent the next night cleaning the soot off the lascannon’s barrel—well, most of it. “The rest is luck,” they said. “Let it bake in.”