The forces of Libria were still recorded on the imperial order of battle, although since the loss of the system to the Tau alliance, the remaining Librian regiments were viewed with some distrust by imperial generals, particularly those from Novgorod, whose forces were now the most numerous of the emperor’s faithful deployed in the Aleph sector.
Rather than waste manpower and equipment however, the Librians were kept in service, any losses gradually being replaced with levies from local systems. Eventually the regiments would be entirely non Librian, and would receive their new designations, but for now existing Librian formations were mostly held in reserve, or given duties away from the front line, and were never fielded against alliance armies, for fear of defection.
General Konev received three Librian regiments in 04.019M42, and although he was grateful for the fresh troops, he kept these forces on duties in the rear areas of the imperial sector on Hexis. One such mission was to escort nuclear ammunition from the scratch built space port to the front lines, a journey of several hundred kilometres through barren wastelands and old ruins north of Praxis.
On 1204.019M42 the first of these Librian escorted convoys was travelling this route, when scouts observed unusual readings from a ruined settlement that sat astride the main highway to the front lines. They had not expected any friendlies in the area, so moved forward with caution, concerned that irregular traitor forces may have infiltrated behind Konev’s front lines.
As the imperial mechanised convoy rolled into the ruins, they received a nasty shock, as Tyranid xenos of an unusual phenotype revealed themselves with a hail of biological ordnance, fired from beasts in the shattered buildings. This was not the usual pattern for the xenos either, a foe the Librians had faced in the Nemesis wars on Alphe and Betor. Expecting to be rushed by a swarm of swift footed man sized creatures, the imperial convoy lost valuable time as the Tyranids refused to play to an outdated rulebook. This Tyranid force was different, fielding massive bio weapons mounted in tank like creatures, including one (subsequently code named “Frank”) that was larger than any Leman Russ.
The Librian convoy recovered from the shock of the xenos ambush well, using their flame tanks to root out and destroy the smaller creatures, while the heavy tanks fired volley after volley into the larger creatures. The infantry accompanying the tanks suffered a horrendous fate, as they were scythed apart by living shrapnel or melted by biological ejecta, but despite the poor performance of the Librian Executioner pattern battle tanks, the Tyranids were having severe issues inflicted damage on the Librian armour.
The fighting became brutal in the close confines of the ruined settlement, but the Librian commander managed to order his vehicles to break off to the south, running the gauntlet of the xenos, gunning their engines to escape into open ground. Many vehicles made it, but the imperial convoy lost almost half of their vehicles. Crucially however, enough of the Librian tanks remained to protect the armament convoy, and the heavy beast “Frank” was eventually taken down by massed fire from the Librian lines. The imperial commander died fighting in vain to protect his remaining infantry, as he watched the heavy armour escape towards Praxis. The losses had been heavy, but the xenos ambush was prevented from cutting the imperial supply lines.
Analysis of the xenos by the inquisition designated the Tyranids “Hive Fleet R’lyeh”, and raised the threat level to Cerulean. A few Genestealers was understandable on Hexis, but this new information including reports of large xenos creatures indicated an infestation level far in excess of what should be expected. With no hive fleet detected in the region, the imperium now faced a conundrum. Where was the rest of Hive Fleet R’lyeh?
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