More raids on Achreom

During the first half of 03.015M42 the raids on Aethor by the dark eldar continued, increasing in ferocity. The imperial forces, now reinforced with Vannaheim units and regiments of Novgorod Guard, were forced to put the planet into lock down, and normal life on the world ceased as the imperial colony adopted a siege mentality against the alien interlopers. Using the webway, the xenos raiding forces appeared from nowhere and struck hard and fast, with little chance for the slow and cumbersome imperial guard to react and counter attack.

In the space of a week the dark eldar struck two outposts far apart from each othere, seemingly at random. In the north the Atterine oile fields were raided, but the strategic assets were protected by mobile Vannaheim Guard units assisted by the Adeptus Sororitas, and the attacks were soon brought under control with heavy casualties inflicted on the raiders. In the agricultural south however, the less mechanised Novgorod Guard found themselves up against the Shattered Silence's elite warriors, and a series of bloody and attritional skirmishes saw the dark eldar able to take control of several districts, massacring or enslaving whole towns before disappearing in the face of imperial reinforcements.

On 1303.015M42 the Minotaurs chapter of space marines intervened, launching a ferocious assault against the Shattered Silence Kabal as they were moving back to their webway portal. Fearful of being cut off or their means of entry discovered, the dark eldar put up a stoic defence, at the cost of the lives of their warriors. The battle itself was inconclusive, and the Minotaurs were unable to prevent the dark eldar from escaping into the webway, nor locate the exact whereabouts of the portal in the south.