Librian Forces withdraw from Hexis

By 0312.018M42 General Kuwalski knew that the position of her Federal armies on Hexis had become untenable. With no forces to spare in the Hadron Expanse the Federacy would either have to wait possibly months for reinforcements from Libria, or request a large force to be sent from the Federacy itself. This was unlikely to get past the Federal Council, who were already cool on the idea of sending more forces to the Expanse, and even the federal fleet was only on loan from much needed duties in the Echo Cluster. If the alliance wanted now to take the Lysis system, it would need to be the eldar and tau that conquered it. 

Of Kuwalski’s original command of 50,000 troops, she was down to under half strength. Worse, the Librians had lost more than 75% of their armour and artillery, and her remaining forces consisted mostly of engineers and non combatant forces. The Federacy was spent. So what had gone wrong?

Kuwalski was not held accountable for the losses on Hexis. Firstly the forces the alliance had encountered were far larger than expected. The imperium’s assault in the first days of their major invasion had devastated the Librian armour, and privately the general held the eldar responsible for the strategic decisions in those early engagements. Following these events the sudden arrival of Warsmith Stahl had been the second major blow. The loss of the Federal base to the Iron Warriors was an unwinnable encounter where overwhelming chaos forces had simply overrun her positions. 

By mid 11.028M42 it had also become clear that the Tau were not prepared to send in more troops to reinforce the single cadre they had deployed to the planet. With the eldar also only able to send in rapid strike forces this left Kuwalski with the job of defending the entire alliance perimeter, with the imperium on one side and the chaos pact on the other. 

The final nail was the deployment of the Sycorax heavy tank divisions against the Librians. Although the federal army had faced issues with its ammunition and aiming equipment, even with more favourable firepower, victory against the super heavy vehicles was always going to be a struggle. The only brief glimmer of hope had been the elite forces sent into the centre of Hexis, which had managed a creditable record of victories against the imperial astartes squads. 

And so Kuwalski formally notified the alliance council that her federal armies would be withdrawing from Hexis. It came as no real surprise to the tau or eldar forces, but they were disappointed to learn that the federal fleet would also be leaving orbit, leaving the imperium in control of the system. Command of the remaining alliance territory was handed over to the eldar of Kel Sandros, and the ancient race now had to decide on their next move on Hexis, before either the imperium or chaos discovered a way to activate the necron device.