Grey Knights face off against Harlequins

The loss of the Federal base on Hexis put the alliance at a significant disadvantage against the forces of chaos and Imperium. Alliance forces were still present on the world, but the eldar had lost access to their main webway portal in the mountains, and the forces were split. The Council for Hexis now met to discuss the way forward. The federal forces were mostly contained in Hakhor section of the city, while the tau had encamped to the east of the city of Praxis. The eldar remained mostly scattered into small bands, with the harlequins of the Sisters of Quartz isolated in the Menthoteph city.

 

The Sisters made several attempts to break out of the labarynthine ruins of Menthoteph, but always found themselves opposed by imperial forces, most notably the Grey Knights. At first the eldar - especially the Amethyst division of the Sisters of Quartz, who found themselves the victim of withering crossfire from the astartes. The Rose Division however managed a successful breakout, abandoning their positions in Menthoteph and successfully returning to alliance held territory. Their return was timely, as the Kel Sandros eldar had just appeared through a webway portal not even the Harlequins were aware of. The eldar, federacy and tau now began to decide their next steps, though the Kel Sandros were keen to highlight their disappointment with the performance of alliance forces, particularly Kuwalski's federal troops.

 

Kuwalski however was critical of the eldar's lack of coordinated direction, and was keen to point out the arrival of the Hartak Mountain rangers. The eldar regarded the squats with contempt, and overall the alliance forces were still inferior in strength to the Imperium and Chaos armies now entrenched on Hexis. The entire federal and tau forces numbered less than 50,000, while estimates of the chaos forces alone were of the order of half a million troops, albeit of variable quality.