When You Hear the Air Attack Warning – KILL THEM ALL
Our forward base on Prebaca Secundus was subjected to surprise attack by Dark Eldar marauders who had sabotaged the planet’s primary sensor array. As a result all three Doom Scythes operating from the base were caught on the ground when the enemy appeared, flying in low from the south.
Anrakyr the Traveller was visiting at the time with a squad of his immortals and a cryptek. Overlord Everak had two squads of warriors and a unit of deathmarks; he led the larger warrior group of ten and assigned his two crypteks to the other two squads.
Also under his command: Two heavy destroyers and the Annihilation Barge NNV Obstinate plus of course the three grounded Doom Scythes: The NNV Decisive Purpose; NNV Flashing Blade and NNV Crescendo Of Doom.
Only alerted with seconds to spare, the squad of nine warriors were deployed to the North West adjacent to the Decisive Purpose, the heavy destroyers guarded the northern perimeter, the deathmarks centrally on the north side, close to the Flashing Blade, the Traveller in the south east quadrant with the Crescendo on the North East landing pad. The Obstinate took the western perimeter and Overlord Everak was positioned centrally, slightly South West.
The Dark Eldar appeared in force in the south east quadrant with a Talos pain engine, Venom, Raider and Ravager, a unit of Hellions jet bikes deep struck against the northern side quickly eliminating one of the heavy destroyers. It was Anrakyr and his immortals that took the main fury of the attack losing nearly a third of its troops and the survivors broke and fell back northwards, as did the remaining destroyer in an ominously poor show of morale.
The techs were doing good work however and the Flashing blade and Crescendo both lifted off, their fuelling being cut short, the Blade heading north, the Crescendo south. Our fleeing units at least now rallied and we began to return fire in the south east. Anrakyr took control of one enemy skimmer causing it to attack its own Venom.
The Crescendo inflicted devastating damage whilst deathmarks and destroyer wiped out the hellions with little difficulty. The Obstinate and western warriors began to move to defend the southern perimeter. Overlord Everak’s unit added its gauss fire against the main enemy thrust which had already lost a skimmer.
A Razorwing then screamed in low across the western perimeter firing on and damaging the Crescendo and the enemy consolidated in the south east but luckily failed to assault though they began inflicting casualties on Everlak’s unit, now holding the central southern high ground.
The deathmarks moved to support the southern lines as the two doom scythes moved out of range. Meanwhile a fusillade of wild shooting from our western warriors missed the razorwing as it screamed out of range at impressive speed. The Talos pain engine was destroyed by the deathmarks rending fire along with another skimmer, the immortals cut the enemy troops around their HQ to pieces.
The immortals, flushed with success assaulted the lone enemy HQ only to witness the slaying of Anrakyr who unwisely accepted a challenge. The wyches, disembarked from their venom closed on the immortals who had joined combat with the enemy commander.
Now the enemy sent in another raider and ravager from the south west, inflicting losses on our western warriors including their cryptek. The venom was destroyed and the Decisive Purpose was at last airborne playing its part. The other two Doom Scythes also returned and the fire from our warriors, the Flashing Blade and Obstinate destroying the two newly arrived enemy skimmers whilst the Crescendo, destroyer and our deathmarks could find no target.
The immortals remained in combat but were reduced to just one plus the cryptek as the combat ended with the Dark Eldar retreating ignominiously. We had destroyed eight or nine enemy units and inflicted heavy losses on another. In return we had lost Anrakyr and suffered losses to four other units including over 40% of warriors and nearly 90% of our warriors, only the deathmarks escaping unscathed. One of our three crypteks was gone. Our vehicles had fared better, the Crescendo had taken a couple of hits but that was all.
When rallied the post action assessment showed that we had suffered approximately 28% casualties with a strength of 1241 remaining. With only a few wyches escaping plus the HQ and their flier, the Dark Eldar losses are estimated at 80-90%.
Our forces had been able to beat off the Dark Eldar whose attack was fragmented and unable to decisively break through any part of our lines, though they came closest in the south east. Our heavy weaponry, in particular that of the doom scythes was brought to bear early; had the first two lift offs not been immediate it could have been different.
3.11.12
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