Rifts of Hecate activity

While the Imperium pulled back to the Hecate Gap, the other factions fighting in the Rifts continued to fight amongst themselves. The tyranids continued to move through space towards the Gap, while the necrons, furious at the sudden invasion by lesser races, decided to focus their efforts against the new chaos enclave that had been set up on the three worlds of Mendesum, Calthingum and Pyrrho Zeta. Seeing the latter as the most vulnerable system, the necrons launched their attack in late 07.022M42, taking the forces of chaos by surprise as they emerged from tomb complexes the worshippers of the dark gods had no awareness of.

The battle was brutal, and the chaos space marine force rapidly mustered to deal with the threat was woefully ill equipped to deal with the emerging necron army. Although they did manage to slay a high ranking necron noble, the battle was a defeat for chaos, and the necrons reclaimed several of their tomb complexes on the world, establishing a foothold to conceivably rid the Rifts of chaos forces.

Meanwhile, the eldar race were extremely concerned with events in the Rifts. Their overall goal, though concealed from the other races, was to ensure that the tyranids, necrons and orks that infested the region, did not find their way into the Hadron Expanse, and more specifically, the eldar were concerned if any one of these forces found their way into vulnerable webway nodes the eldar were aware of being in close proximity to the Hecate Gap. Should the fighting lead to any of the other races becoming aware of these effective "back doors" into the webway, the consequences would be dire for the eldar race.

Consequently, the dark eldar were also motivated to prevent this from happening, and willingly aided the Ynnari who orchestrated the campaign against their mutual enemies in the Rifts of Hecate. In late 07.022M42 eldar raids increased in intensity, as the Drukhari fell upon the forces of chaos at Mendesum, and the Ynnari attacked the orks at the critical system of Lodax.

The fighting at Lodax ended favourably for the Aedlari, as the superior Ynnari forces obliterated the orks on Lodax secundus, allowing the eldar force to occupy several critical areas of the planet and secure key webway nodes. On Mendesum however, things did not go according to plan, as the Drukhari were unaware of a recently refitted and heavily equipped phallanx of chaos knights on the planet. Heavy firepower and hard hitting close combat capability nullified the Drukhari speed and agility, and the dark eldar raiding force was severely mauled before escaping back to Commoragh.