Round 9 - Planning
Elranel the Relentless. Or at least the ones who decided to blindly follow him called win that, others rather used the name Elranel the Insane. Seer council belonged to the second group like most of the craftworld and denied him any support of further actions. That however did not stop Elranel to gather his followers and make an insane planetfall to the planet of the name Gavaron. And not just anywhere, the destination was in the middle of war between various factions that were also gathering information about Gavaron. And what was worse, right next to daemons of Her (who thirsts) and it appeared that the clumsy planetfall to the one of the sectors on the planet might have awakened the local sleeping necron city. It was clear this would be another pointless bloodbath of aeldari lives.
There are necron vanguards on our southern borders my liege, said one of the dire avengers of Elranel's personal guard. Little he knew that this very sentence numbered his days for he would not see the dusk of tomorrow. Right, let's show them that we have not forgotten our struggle after the millenia, replied Elranel to him. He anticipated that this would be a pointless skirsmish for no obvious strategical goals. But what the heck, let's rock'n'roll.
Countless necron warriors were amassing in the distance. Or at least seemingly countless if you had problems counting past 20 like Elranel. The horrors of last campaigns lacerated deep into his mind and he was no longer the man he used to be. He was not even sure what „man“ meant for the sake of it. Elranel was calmly chewing on a banana and his look was completely blank. He throwed the banana peel over his shoulder turning to his lieutenants and ordering to deploy the war machines leaving the infantry on the flanks prepared to jump into the heat of the battle.
Necrons were much faster than the tales of old times suggested. It was not long and even their rifles started spraying Wraithlord. The wraith construct was taking heavy damage and the necrons seemed to shake off even the Falcon's pulse laser designed to deal with heavy armor. An ordinary necron trooper would simply stand up after a blast that punctured through its torso and deep into ground behind it. Aeldari foot soldiers joined the fight in vanity as their weapons did not cause any harm to their enemies and their were obliterated to the last man in the return fire and fists in close combat.
The necron leader decided to put an end to the Wraithlord and to any remaining aeldari hope of reverting this complete disaster. In his furious charge he however stepped into something yellow and slipped in the most clumsy matter. He ended impaling himself at wraithlord's ghostglaive. The construct just turned at him in unapprehensive amazement and then continued at his flamer grill party accompanied by stomping necron warrirors one by one. If you could sense its emotions it would be like a child in a candyshop. Elranel swinged his witchstaff at necron noble that was just bothering him for just too long and the rest of necrons fell appart by sheer amount of misfortune that happened to their leaders.
Elranel was gazing into the sunset. Another eldar stepped closer. “Our warriors in the east were successful. Without your miraculous leadership, sire”. Elranel turned to face him and so it became apparent that Elranel is picking his nose vigorously. As he pulled his finger – in not so white glove now – from his nose a long booger stretched in its path. “Not in the mount, please, not...”, thought for himself the reporting eldar, but it was just meant to be. He swallowed the little puke of the humble food that was rationed to him earlier this evening as Elranel enhanced his diet with pleasured grin on his face that could have easily belonged to a five-year-old child.
When Elranel was finished his show the other eldar managed to dismiss any thoughts of immediate desertion and continued his report: “Apart from the successes to the east, other borders are also looking good. The necrons are regrouping from the damage that you have caused them. And the Blood Angels to the west are showing no hostilities, probably busy fighting elsewhere.” Elranel did not take long thought to respond: “That is where we strike next”.
The mon-keighs in red armors were spotted in the distance. As the aeldari approached, the sight became much clearer. The individuals were snorting some kind of white powdery substance followed by deafening screams. It seemed as if there was almost invisible red aura around them. What was worse, they also seemed to pour some strange substance into their war machine which lead to large burst of flame out of its exhaust. The enemy sure was ready.
But that only encouraged Elranel to approach them faster. He wanted a bit of that goodies too. Falcon soon opened fire at the war machine, but its pilot only looked up with his eyes completely red and next thing was huge “VROOOOOOM” as the machine slammed into the falcon. That amazed the aeldari as the distance covered was about the range of their heavy weapons, but they one more trick up their sleeve. The Warp Spiders arrived just in time to lay ungodly amount of fire on the mon-keighs operating the beacon. Also the Wraithlord pointed his flamers at them and Dire Avengers shot at them, but the blooded foe was pretty pumped. Looking like some twisted shuriken hedgehog they finished operating the beacon and turned to face Dire Avengers. Only the next line of covering fire brought them down. The Wraithlord charged the war machine, but that seemed invincible too. Elranel saw their leader and thought for himself: “This one must have the most of the powder” and dashed to steal some. The mon-keigh just slammed his elbow to Elranel's face.
When Elranel regained consciousness the battle was over. Even though the aeldari were the ones standing at the end, the loses were severe. What was worse, their enemy managed to send the message about their attack, so this was far from the success Elranel pictured. No powder was acquired.
Elranel was consulting the runes. It was quite some time already and the runes were losing their patience. Finally a message went through and got processed in Elranel's skull: “Yo dummy, them daemons your pals were pissing in the east finally got it, duh. They in yo face, dumbass.” Elranel scratched his head and ordered his battlegroup to transport to the east border.
Just as they arrived they got surrounded by Slaanesh daemons. Elranel ordered deceptive maneuver that would seem that the aeldari were split into two groups, but in reality the battlegroup was at single spot in tight formation. “Boot the Wraithlord, we are going to needed.” shouted Elranel, but he was not happy with the answer: “Working on updates, 20% complete, Don't turn off your Wraithlord”. The daemons quickly adapted to the situation and were in aeldari faces in den Augenblick. Huge rat slammed into the Falcon, wrecking it and couple of Slaanesh abominations started licking Wraithlord. “Restarting” sounded like for the fifth time before the wraith construct came to action. It flamed the daemons surrounding it to deaths and then killed the Rat prince with a couple of slashes. Suddenly the daemons were gone, none standing, all slain or returned to Warp.
The lessons were learned. The disgusting enemy of Slaanesh was clearly the number one priority in the upcoming struggle for the planet's controls. A group of Elranel's lieutenants have formed a shadow command structure called the Court of the Mad King and started organizing the aeldari forces to avoid own death. One main accomplishment was preparation of second Wraithlord, the court was sure he would not even notice.
Elranel sure did not have the best of days. He woke up with a hangover ringing in his head. But the battlegroup was ready. “Hey, I thought we had one one Wraithlord” muttered Elranel, but he was not heard or noone cared to answer. Luckily the Slaanesh daemons probably had the same kind of party yesterday. They walked right into perfectly prepared aeldari force (with the exception of a single Spiritseer). The whole battle was short and gruesome. The daemonettes have materialized right in front of a Wraithlord and were immediately grilled back into immaterium by the dual wielded flamers. The rest of daemons soon followed the same fate, the Rat God was shot from the Falcon and Warps Spiders.
The Court of the Mad King was far from pleased by the turn of events. Sure, the victory against the Slaanesh daemons was glorious and well-prepared, but it has grown Elranel's ego over his incompetence. The results came shortly. Elranel has sent a messenger to Slaneesh territory offering a ceasefire and his attention turned to the west. The Court knew immediately that the conquest of the north must be finalised and that the Blood Angels to the west were better as allies, though the alliance was very fragile and only fuelled by the lack of time to turn the weapons at each other.
The air was not right that day. Runes were showing impeding disaster and Elranel was in a good mood. In his mind this attack would be crowned by glorious push to the west, because the element of surprise would surely play to his cards. The Blood Angels were ready and accustomed to the current condition on the battlefield that was disrupting even the aeldari machines. Elranel's decision to bring the pair of War Walkers armed with antitank weapons was such a terrible idea. Blood Angels have shown their resilience when the whole battlegroups' shooting could not take out a 5 interceptors. Things went from bad to worse as more and more servants of the Emperor were coming to the battlefield in waves and the aeldari loses were piling up. Only thing that saved them from devastating defeat was bravery of couple remaining Dire Avengers and Warp Spiders defending crucial objective.
“It is outrageous.” shouted Elranel in front of his units. “This whole planet is a mess”. The Slaanesh forces betrayed the ceasefire as soon as the messenger returned from them with an agreement. The villagers picked their pitchforks and chaos – mostly Slaanesh – symbols and started revolting. The Black legion decided to pepper the already scarred surface of the planet with drop pod rain. “Who could have foreseen this?” asked Elranel and it took his subordinates a lot of remaining mental power to resist saying “You, idiot.”. Yet the outcome was not so bad for the aeldari, all crucial regions were held, only some of lesser importance collapsed to the villagers uprising. The north was a mess from the undefended Slaanesh counterattack, but at least Elranel got pissed enough to not trust the daemons again and to wipe them from any reachable spot.
The daemons were a lot better prepared this time. The rat psedogod was trembling with anger as it rushed straight to chew through the Wraithlords that obliterated its forces in the prior engagements. It was Elranel himself heroically holding numerous Fiends' attacks and the new secret weapon, the squad of Shining spears who were able to turn the tide of the battle and score glorious victory over the foul daemons.
It was brilliant morning, the sky was spotless and though it was little chilly, there was a long-desired tranquility in Elranel's mind. The whole northern continent was conquered, surely thanks to his last glorious deeds. It seemed impossible, but fragile ceasefire was agreed on with the mon-keigh in red armor, whose power seemed matching or exceeding the one of the aeldari. The orks, dumb vicious creatures, seemed to be afraid of water and did not cross the northern bridge to threaten the important western region of the northern continent. It seemed that only plausible threat would the desperate action from the slaanesh daemons trying to reconquer territories that Elranel took from them. Aeldari ruled over land well protected, not bound to ongoing struggle with any other factions. What was even better, the other factions were all fighting over the main continent killing each other, ork slamming into necron warrior taking a shot at mon-keigh marine just slicing through a horrific daemon. The perfect aeldari way. Not that Elranel would forget the lives of his followers that were paid for this stance.
Elranel lead quick task force that was supposed discover the power of the black Alpha legion. This faction was one of the weaker ones, but the foretelling abilities that got a lot stronger as Elranel eased his mind were suggesting that there was a large threat coming from them. The battle suggested nothing of such. The chaos forces were gravely unprepared to the swift aeldari attack, they desperately hid behind large hill and did not screen for their warlord. The chaos sorcerer was protected by only a handful of loyal chaos space marines. Elranel's followers opened fire and got rid of the sorcerer in the first volley. That enraged the rest of the forces, but the tactics met indecisiveness as all of the heavy guns of the enemy targeted the Shining Spears, who were trained exactly for this and evaded all the shots in brilliant display of jetbike acrobatics. At least from close there were some partial successes from the chaos, but they paid very high price for every aeldari life they took – and there were not many taken. Once they left their hiding, Wraithlord made steaming bloodied iron mess of them.
The celebrations did not take long. The night was yet to get ripe, but suddenly the dark sky bursted with light of the Abaddon's landing fleet engines. All was over before the dawn. “Reports?” inquired Elranel.
“We have lost it all.” Dire Avenger exarch replied
“What do you mean all?” Elranel looked desperately
“All. Only this region managed to repel the attack thanks to the headquater power shield. ”
Elranel giggled. The aeldari have lost it all, the control over the two continents, all the infrastructure, the ability to reinforce and any hope of accomplish the objectives.
Elranel finally lost his sanity.
The giggle, burst of laughter and then sudden pauses of silence would change in random cycle. Elranel would not listen to his lieutenants, not to the weeping desperate gibberish of some nor actually reasonable advices presented by others. His head now functioned on another level and the command structure was hardly held by the authority of his most respected aspect warriors. Those were able to organize swift attack to at least try to reconquer the most needed territory with mine.
Elranel was dreaming. He was no longer able to actively consult the runes and estimate the probability of threads of time. He was never able to do it on Farseer level, but he was not too shabby either. This dreaming was a very clear vision that showed him where he needed to be and that allies are absolutely necessary there. It was his bright moment when he requested messengers to be sent to Ork camp and Blood Angels fortification. Two best pathfinders were selected to this and they never returned. Elranel was ready to enter the warp. Or at least as ready as he could be.
The whole place was woefully hollow, only with a warp vortex well in the middle. One of the messengers successful! The Blood Angel librarian shortly nodded in Elranel's direction to confirm the short temporary alliance that just needed to be. Soon after in a flash of green light materialized huge Ork in massive armor and started charging towards Elranel. Alliances with orks were never easy. Elranel remained calm in the dire situation and started meditating to channel his warp powers and to discover the secrets hidden in the well. Ignoring the huge charging ork and more over the warp itself. The librarian did likewise. Material beings do not have it easy in the warp. For Elranel his muscles felt like fabric soaked in sand and twisted to the point were individual threads started to tear. His bones burned like molten lava. Worst of all was the skin, the skin felt like the surface of his eyes was inverted inside to the whole inners of his body and dipped in crystalic salt over and over in endless agony. No ork of any size charging at him to crush him in matter of seconds compared to that. Elranel knew from his visions that would never happen. Because as hollow as the place was, they were not alone. And focusing on the meditation would only quicken the process of the hunt. A chaos daemon popped right in front of the orks feet and was crushed in the next step. It was just enough for the ork to stop his charge in utter confusion. That would be soon replaced by endless joy as more of the lesser daemons started popping all around the ork, some of them in direct reach of his battle claw. Elranel turned and smote with unexpected ease another of the lesser daemons. But the warp took its take on Elranel's mind clarity which worked surprisingly too well up to now. His mind went dark. When he woke up, he was back in the aeldari headquaters with another terrible dent to his consciousness.
„My lord, it is clear that if we bring more that a five man personal guard, the orks will not hold back at the opportunity of a good fight.“ said the Shining Spears exarch. He might not have been on the planet as long as the other lieutenants, but his reputation was spotless. His squad fulfilled every task given to them and were responsible for the crushing defeat the aeldari delivered to the black legion in the recent fight. „I want large sized warband“ was Elranel's answer. The alliance in the terms was a necessity and even the orks must have understood that, but the offer of a good fight was over any alliance that needed forming. Last ork which was able to break this rule was the famous Ghazkull Thraka and the havoc that caused that was immense.
The fight was close and personal. The orkish way. After a few shots fired at distance (and casually wrecking orkish vehicle) by the dubious aeldari the orks' Waaagh was omnipresent and they started charging at distances shadowing even the aeldari mobility. The tides of battle were back and forth with both sides taking heavy casualties until a trick up in ork sleeve (if they even have something like that) which was meant to dominate the battlefield slammed into a wall and never managed to get even close to an aeldari warrior. Wraithlord turned its eyeless gaze at it and soon followed it with a precise strike of its enourmous ghostglaive that already took the pride of so many contestants of this planet rule. As the dust of the battle was settling all aeldari still standing saw disgraceful sight of Elranel wandering mindlessly around. Suddenly at large speed a balck imperial transport vehicle came, bunch of black mon-keigh ironclad warriors jumped up and opened all firepower at Elranel. He went down in a bright light coming from his overloaded rune armor that just could not cope with this amount of shooting. Elranel's mind condition was now obvious to even most blind follower and Elranel suffered from huge loss of reputation.
The Court of the Mad King held another secret meeting. It was not possible to ignore the truth, their commander has lost the ability to lead the aeldari forces on the continent. Previously there would be a lot reinforcements coming from the webway, new followers of Elranel, but this has stopped. Already there was call for support citizens to wield their shuriken weapons and fight a battle that was not meant for them. It was not an easy decision, it meant to leave a lot of their fellow warriors and often friend to die on this dreaded planet. Whoever would not evacuate with them would be left here with Elranel.
*All aspect warriors lose their experience and are reset as the aspect warrior leaders evacuate the planet.*