Hunt for artefacts continues on Hexis

On the far side of Hexis the search for ancient archeotech continued. With alliance and imperial teams battered in recent weeks, it was the forces of chaos who made progress, their kill teams penetrating deep into the warren of ancient Xenos ruins covered by dust. The chaos factions, united under Stahl in the main theatre, began to show their own fractious nature far from the battlezone however. In particular, the Majnun Medjai, a faction of the Thousand Sons, showed no inclination to work with the Emerald Serpent. This angered the preeminent Tzeentch faction of chaos, and the Emerald Serpent turned their weapons on their brethren, opening fire on them in the shadow of an alien pyramid.

The Medjai were driven off, allowing the Emerald Serpent to progress further towards the energy source, but the Medjai's problems were not over. Escaping the first chaos warband, they ran headlong into another, a force known as "the Host of Eschar" attacked the thousand sons and their accompanying Tzangor forces, sending waves of poxwalkers ahead of the plasma armed traitor astartes. Caught between the infected and the horrific weaponry of the Death Guard, the thousand sons stood no chance, and several were cut down before once again the chaos warband was forced to flee.

Whether the Host were working with the Emerald Serpent remained unknown, but even so, despite the conflict between the chaos warbands, it was now the traitors who were making progress in the ruins, controlling much of the territory in the region in which the energy signal was detectable.

Meanwhile on the Praxis side of Hexis the war had entered a period of stalemate. Once again the Imperium unleashed their devastating nuclear weaponry, destroying one chaos base, only to find Stahl had constructed another, this time in the already irradiated wasteland. Many began to question - at least privately - Konev's strategy for the prosecution of the war.