Hylas: No sign of victory

Na'Porkleon's reaction to the loss of Berkeley by Da Verminator's forces was petulance and sulking. However after he had recovered, the ork warlord made plans to recapture the city, though the mighty fortress built to honour Uzfang had been reduced to ashes. Instead of attacking from the south where the imperial force was still strong, Na'Porkleon launched yet another offensive from the west, charging across the open plains with his boyz and headlong into the imperial guard regiments defending the flanks of the imperial advance.

General Van Dorn knew holding on to Berkeley would be a challenge, but he hoped the plains of West Coast would allow him time to respond to any attack from this direction. On 2011.013M42 Na'Porkleon's forces attacked along a one hundred mile front, penetrating Van Dorn's pickets and focusing their attacks against relatively inexperienced Guard units. The orks attack mainly on foot, but only once they had set up heavy weapons positions covering their advance. The orks would then charge their enemy while a murderous hail of Loota Fire pummelled the imperial positions. Leading the attack Mega Armoured Nobz and warbikers attempted outflanking manouevres, adding to the imperial guardsmens' difficulties.

Van Dorn's men were further hampered by the general imperial response. Local HQ in the west was unusually slow to respond to the threat posed by the new attac, and reinforcements were sent in piecemeal, arriving in an uncoordinated fashion at the front. Valkyries and Vendettas, arriving on their own and without support, were easily shot down by Na'Porkleon's numerous Loota Boyz, and the storm troopers dropped behind enemy lines were quickly mobbed by the ork infantry.

As the battle continued it became obvious the imperial guard positions in the west could not be held, and Van Dorn pulled back from Berkeley a few hundred miles, to the shortest line between Baldwin Bay and the Hylas Plateau. Here the retreat stopped and both sides considered their next move in the war which had now ground on for 450 days, showing no signs of coming to a resolution.