Eldar stir up hornet's nest

During 06.011M42 the Eldar became more and more active in the Aleph sector, appearing from time to time and in a number of places, attacking and raiding all sides apparently at random. Inquisitor Huron began to take an acute interest in the appearance of the Eldar, and he had already identified that it was the same group attacking forces across the sector. Now he had to find out why.

The latest attacks all occurred on Valboris, a chaos world now infested by Tyranids. Concentrating on Betor, the Tyranids had considered Valboris somewhat of a second front, and progress had been slow, but steady. Now the extra-galactic xenos found themselves under attack from the Eldar. Nemesis was caught off guard by the surprise attack, and the fast moving Eldar were able to inflict considerable damage on the aliens before withdrawing to the webway.

The hive mind was clearly angered by this attack, and began offensive moves once again, potentially to uncover and block of the webway portals and defend itself against this new avenue of attack. As they moved towards Main Crossing however, the chaos defenders summoned a horde of daemons to block their progress. In a bloody battle, the daemons carved through the Tyranid menace, allowing other chaos forces to exploit the breach and take back Silston from the alien creatures.

It appeared the Eldar were interested in stoking up the fires of war on Valboris, but the daemonic success may have been unexpected, as the Eldar found themselves with daemonic forces between them and the webway as they prepared to depart. Faced with no other choice the Eldar, led by their harlequin troupes, launched themselves at the forces of chaos. The fighting was bloody, but neither side could force the other to withdraw. The daemons however could not maintain their existence in the material world indefinately, and the Eldar were able to wait their enemy out, leaving Valboris a much hotter warzone than when they arrived.

Meanwhile Nemesis' tendrils began fanning out across the Zadoc subsector. With Betor apparently consumed the location of the hive fleet remained unknown, but xenos vanguard creatures began to appear on various planets in the Mabb Nebula. A particularly large force of Tyranids manifested itself on Hylas, the smallest Tau colony in the region. Fortunately for the Tau their forces, led by a protege of Shadowstrike, were prepared for the attack, and defeated the scouting Tyranid forces. The Tau high command decided to fortify all its bases in the sector, identifying Hylas as a priority.