Sky Lords in action on Hexis

While the forces of chaos made gains on the ground around the city of Praxis, the central areas were still held by the Imperium. Despite being besieged, the Imperial forces were still regularly supplied from the air, and from teleportation drops after astartes forces had deployed teleport homers within the imperial perimeter. Although the imperium could not deliver heavy equipment to the enclave, the defenders had no need of it anyway, the rubble and ruins making large scale use of tanks and titans impractical.

 

The Sky Lords had replaced the Carcharadons as the astartes "on watch" in Praxis, using Thunderhawks to deliver small squads of Space Marine forces to the city centre. Among the almost hive like structures the Sky Lords now stood amongst guard and fanatical zealots, prepared to defend the Device chamber to the last. The Iron Warriors however were beginning to make moves on the centre of Praxis. Gradually their infiltrations became more aggressive and the Sky Lords were sent to track down the traitors. This they did and on 2912.018M42 a bitter firefight between the loyalist astartes and their fallen brethren erupted in the centre of the ruined city. The Sky Lords came off worse in the engagement, but were able to capture an Iron Warrior marine. The loyalists too had a marine captured, but it was the Iron Warrior marine who let slip (under severe duress) that Stahl planned a major infiltration against the location of the device room. The axis of advance was immediately bombarded from Imperial lines, informing the Iron Warriors that they had lost all element of surprise. The advance on the device room was cancelled.

 

Further west, the Sky Lords attempted to track down an element of the tau force which had been plaguing the imperial forces on the Haknur Plateau. The area was contested, but any move by the Imperium to assault Akrash pass was always intercepted and driven back by unseen enemies, with missiles and railgun fire streaking out of the desert dust seemingly from nowhere. Realising that Stealth Suits must be active in the region, General Konev directed tha Sky Lords to send in a "kill team", to hunt down and kill the covert units the alliance were using to spy on them. The Sky Lords did this, but found the Stealth Suits of "Shadowstrike" extremely difficult to locate, hit and then actually kill. Even when engaged in close combat the stealth suits would simply use their jet packs to disengage. The astartes Kill Teams were withdrawn, allowing the Alliance to gain the upper hand in the Haknur Plateau region.