Editing The Great Sowing (section)

===Green Men vs Ciban Chasseurs===
<blockquote>''"I see Diallo sent his lapdogs to fight his battles for him! The coward is clearly too scared to face me again. Very well, my children, let us show him that his fears were not ungrounded."''</blockquote>
-Nikephoros Galen, after landing on Walsall.

Ciban Chasseurs were the first of the Imperial forces to arrive in Durnovarian subsector. After some deliberation, they chose the Forge World Walsall, also known as the Black Globe, as their arena for facing off against the Green Men. Nobody was quite sure was how this world got its nickname: some said it was because of the dark skin colour of its inhabitants, some would argue the black robes of local techpriests were the cause. Most, however, would agree that it referred to the endless night the planet was shrouded in, all because the light of its sun had long since been unable to penetrate the thick layer of exhaust fumes Walsall's troposphere turned into. The Montagnards, however, cared little for the semantics. They quickly evacuated the world's entire population and started preparing for battle with their hated foe. Unfortunately, they didn't get much time for preparations, as the Green Men arrived almost as soon as the last shuttle carrying refugees left the planet.

Initially, the Green Men didn't take their opponents seriously. However, first skirmishes showed them that the Ciban Chasseurs were not an opponent to be underestimated. With their constant manoeuvring and change of tactics, they often left their opponents befuddled, trying to figure out where the enemy fire came from. General Raphael de Rais, commander of the 88th Regiment, understood perfectly well that Space Marines were not an enemy his men could go toe-to-toe with. To get the most out of his advantage in mobility, he employed hit-and-run tactics that allowed his men to pick the enemy soldiers out one by one. To his credit, it wasn't long before [[Tribulus Bercilak|Bercilak]] figured out the enemy strategy and asked [[Vertumnus Alraun|Alraun]] to counteract it by turning the battlefield into difficult terrain. The warband's druids quickly assembled a stone circle and performed a ritual that made thickets of cacti sprout all across the great wasteland where the principal battle took place. This sudden development slowed the Montagnards down enough for the Green Men to be able to catch up with them and destroy most of their small mobile squads. 

Seeing the spectacular failure of his strategy, de Rais ordered retreat. A number of smaller battles between the two forces took place on Walsall, in each one of which the general tried out a new strategy against the Green Men, yet none of them proved very effective. Eventually, he decided to pit his regiment's priceless Baneblade superheavy tank against the enemy in a last ditch effort to turn the tables on them. Initially, his decision paid out, with the tank slaughtering scores of Space Marines who had nothing to counter its awesome power with. It took Bercilak's personal interference to lure the tank onto a cleverly placed seed mine. The tank's tracks cracked open the compartment containing several extremely valuable turboseeds, which on their contact with the soil took root and grew to full-sized trees with startling speed right under the Baneblade, flipping it over in process. With their nemesis weapon neutralised, general de Rais attempted to retreat once again and evacuate his forces from the planet, yet this time he was too slow. The Green Men managed to encircle the Guardsmen and slaughtered them to a man. The general, feeling personal responsibility for this crushing defeat, put a bullet through his head before the vile plantmen got to him.