While Stahl had commanders on three fronts on Hexis, and the Emerald Serpent nominally controlled the sprawling Eastern Front, Zorisch's southern front saw the largest concentration of piratical and mercenary ork formations infront of the chaos fortified lines. Seen as a secondary theatre, the orks had been employed mostly as a distraction, so the forces of chaos could concentrate on the important Praxis sector of the battlezone. Over time these ork forces had seen reinforcements arrive, or crash down on makeshift spacecraft and roks, the dull thuds in the wilderness now becoming almost routine for the imperial forces in Menthoteph.
Zorisch had been unwilling and likely unable to monitor exactly what the ork forces were up to or even fathom out their bizarre yet utterly simplistic command structure. The forces of chaos recognised that using the orks as allies is much like using a virus to do your work, just rather large, green, loud and violent viruses wielding oversized melee weapons and firing ramshackle yet brutal "gunz".
On 0501.019M42 some of these orks, of unknown origin, began an "offenziv" of their own. True to ork logic this assault had no real objective other than to cause mayhem, bloodshed and explosions, and it wasn't particularly aimed at any particular side. The ork warbands spread out to the south of Menthoteph, first encountering Stahl's own allies, a force of Thousand Sons not part of the Emerald Serpent. Unaware of the plans of Zorisch to allow the orks free reign in front of Hexis' second city, the Thousand Sons were simply in the wrong place, and soon found themselves overwhelmed by the green tide. Stahl wasn't even informed.
Later on the same day, the orks began to wheel round to the east, and the Sisters of Quartz harlequins realised there was a real risk of them finding a secret entrance to the catacombs. If the orks got below in strength, alliance plans to take back the device room against hordes of greenskins would become impossible, requiring the tau and eldar forces to conduct overland assaults against prepared enemy positions. This meant that when the harlequins, testing their new skyweavers on a patrol near Menthoteph, stumbled across the orks in open country, they did not withdraw.
The harlequins took terrible punishment from the orks as the horde turned gleefully to meet this new challenge. the eldar lost priceless lives and equipment and were forced away out into the deserts, leaving the orks in control of the southern slopes of Menthoteph. However, the barbarous xenos had not found or didnt' care about entrances to the catacombs, so alliance fears were not realised. Now Zorisch had to wonder if his ork "help" would remain more of a help than a hindrance.
No comments:
Post a Comment