Hexis: Skareth Dynasty push towards tomb complex

On Hexis in 09.022M42 the necrons had come under pressure from the Imperium pushing onto the Haknur Plateau from the north, and had faced stubborn resistance from the forces of chaos still occupying much of the ruined city of Praxis. The war on Hexis had become a tired struggle between many factions, as the ground had been turned into a nuclear wasteland and the original value of the world had been diminished with the loss of the main necron artefact or "device" and the collapse of the Foramen Ignotum - a passageway through the raging warp storm that now bisected the galaxy.

Still, there was inherent value to the world and the system of Lysis in which it existed. The system was still strategically placed at the gateway to the rifts of Hecate, a largely unexplored region believed to be rich in ancient artefacts and resources, and the planet itself was still home to a vast underground necron tomb complex, which the Imperium and chaos forces continued to skirmish within, deep in the tunnels under the city of Praxis. General Konev, starved of resources, was still nonetheless tasked with taking the world for the Imperium, while chaos forces mined the world in their pursuit of creating the Daemonworld Fecus Major.

Additionally, the eldar were concerned with retaking and securing their two webway portals, while the orks, once allied to chaos, were simply looking for a fight. In the north, the tyranids of hive fleet R'lyeh, unable to leave the world due to their lack of hive fleet, were intent on converting the planet and its meagre resources to the construction of a fleet, or a way off the barren world.

Against this backdrop of opposing factions, the necrons, now lead by the Skareth dynasty, were mostly concerned with the securing of their own artefacts, and removing the inferior life forms that now infested their tomb complex, crawling over their ancient territory and stealing things that did not belong to them. To pursue this end, the necrons first dealt a swift blow to the forces around the imperial positions on the Haknur Plateau, swarming over the imperial defences and forcing the Hammers of the Emperor to attempt a counter attack. The astartes launched a precision attack against the core of the necron army, but were unable to prevent the Skareth forces from overrunning the easternmost imperial line, and the forces of the emperor withdrew to the west.

Their left flank secure, the lords of the Skareth dynasty now pushed into their main goal, the tomb complex of Praxis. To do this, they launched a direct assault on a narrow front against the Death Guard faction known as the "House of Eschar". the nurgle worshipping astartes proved difficult to shift, but the necrons had weight of numbers and a resilience even the Death Guard could not match. The Skareth dynasty, using their superior speed, took vital objectives and inivited the House of Eschar to try to remove them. Despite unleashing their full firepower into the necron warriors in the centre, the traitor astartes could not quite shift the necron warriors, as the regenerative abilities of the ancient aliens ensured that no matter how many warriors were felled, many would reanimate themselves.

On the necron right flank, necron flayed ones caused havoc, and despite overreaching themselves and being wiped out by the intervention of the Blightlord terminators late on in the battle, by this point there was no way the Death Guard could remove the necrons from their entrenched positions. The House of Eschar retreated, and the Skareth dynasty now had a foothold in Praxis itself, in the region of Hakhor. Now the necrons planned their assault on the tomb complex itself.