Libria IV: Dark Eldar strike

For many months the eldar had attended the alliance council meetings with their Federacy and Tau allies. Often a single hooded alien advisor would turn up, say nothing then leave, and mistrust of the motives of the eldar had been growing, especially amongst the human and squat members of the coucil. When they did speak, the eldar delegates' responses were often vague and condtradictory, but it was clear that on the battlefields of Libria very few actual eldar were fighting and dying for the alliance cause.

Instead the eldar arranged that their dark kin, the dark eldar, were at the forefront of the offensives. Quite what arrangement the eldar had come to with their kin was concealed from the council, and only later did it become apparent that the dark eldar were being paid in blood, the blood of the civilians on the many worlds of Libria. Something the eldar knew would be abhorrent to the Federacy, but they showed little if any regard for the suffering of the human population.

In mid 10.015M42 the dark eldar of a number of kabals were active on Libria IV. Their impact was immediate, as the fighting in the sprawling city of Porthaven had started to degenerate in vicious hand to hand streetfighting, something the tau at least were keen to avoid. As the loyalists were beginning to stabilise the front lines, three separate dark eldar kabals suddenly appeared, conducting lightning strikes against the imperial defenders. In the factorum disctict the Kabal of the Venom Drake overran the Volscian lines and their Ultramarine allies, while further north the kabal of the Guilded Blade, new to the sector, massacred a detachment of space wolves. Between these two assaults another kabal smashed the newly arrived Volscian regiments, opening a whole several miles wide in the imperial lines, allowing the tau and federal forces to once again begin sweeping offensives into the heart of the city.

Some eldar forces were also present, but they took little in the way of casualties and looked on impassively as the slaughter and capture of thousands of civilians began following the initial advances. The tau simply shrugged, recognising the military aid the dark eldar were providing, but the federal and rebel librian forces were aghast, demanding something be done about the excesses of their bloodthirsty allies