Biel Tan assault Glossop V

Following the uncovering of Hive Fleet Medusa by the Biel Tan, the Corsair princess Kusanagi had been less than gracious to her kin. She barely acknowledged them on what she considered her world, and in any case there was no love lost between the two factions. The Biel Tan hadn't arrived to save the corsairs, but to prevent Medusa from gaining a foothold in the Cerrack Nebula from where it would be in easy range of attacking the Biel Tan's own target, Glossop V.

The Biel Tan farseer had long decided that Glossop V, along with several other worlds on the eastern rim, should once again belong to the eldar race, and that the time to rebuild the ancient empire had come. It would take a long time, but the eldar have patience in abundance. Now the imperium was showing weakness, the conquest of Glossop V would be all the easier.

Activating long thought dormant webway portals the Biel Tan began amassing forces on the surface of the imperial outpost. Knowing the planet was far too large and sparsely populated for the imperium to cover all of it with reconaissance, and trusting in their own stealth technology, the Biel Tan believed they would be able to amass overwhleming force before striking the planet's capital in a surprise attack. However, the imperium already knew they were coming.

Using her contacts, the princess of Gabriel's World gave word of the Biel Tan attack to Inquisitor Carmillas of the Ordo Xenos, a human she had had dealings with before. Though her relationship with the inquisitor was shrouded in secrecy, she none the less tipped of the imperium to her kin's plans. When Biel Tan arrived, Inquisitor Carmillas was waiting.

A furious action erupted around Carmillas' small task force, which suffered heavy casualties before withdrawing. By attacking forcefully the eldar had managed to gain a foothold, but now time was of the essence as the inquisitor had alerted the imperial defenders. With as much haste as they dared the Biel Tan craftworld rapidly deployed as many fast moving units as they could, while watching all the time for the imperial approach. Some hours later the first imperial column arrived in the wilderness, searching for their enemy and first contact was made.

Unfortunately for the imperium, despite the warning from Carmillas, it takes time for a co-ordinated response to be mounted, and with Vastrid such a backwater, Titus Luthor had generally deployed he least well equipped and least experienced forces to the region. As such the imperial guard sent to search for the invading xenos squarely blundered into an eldar ambush, and the Biel Tan made light work of them. The imperial governor appealled for off world intervention as the Biel Tan systematically took out the listening posts dotted around the small imperial colony. By 1310.014M42 all contact with outlying settlements had been lost, and only the capital and spaceport remained in imperial hands.