Orkland Campaign- Part 6

This was the final week of the campaign. We were fighting 3-player Seek and Destroy missions at 750 points each. Combat patrol rules were in place, with the following exceptions:
-3-wound characters are allowed (but no 2+ saves)
-must have at least 2 troops choices
-vehicles may have a total AV of 34

Here’s the list I used:

Rethyk- Haemonculous w. destructor & scissor hand
Squad Jarazhi- 15 Warriors w. 2 blasters, 2 splinter cannons, Sybarite w. agonizer
Squad Rukifellith- 15 Warriors 2 blasters, 2 splinter cannons, Sybartie w. agonizer
Squad Dralekh- 10 Warriors w. 2 dark lances
Squad Nethyr- 10 Warriors w. 2 dark lances
Talos


EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF RETHYK, HAEMONCULOUS OF THE KABAL OF THE DARKENED SOUL:

We have made progress in uncovering the obelisk’s secrets. After days of trying to pierce its shell with las-cutters and molecule disintegrators (without success), we have finally found a section of the wall covered in all sorts of runes. It has become clear to me that this must mark out an entrance of some sort. The runes are definitely Eldar in origin -- if my knowledge is correct, then they date back before the time of the Fall.
However, my attempts to activate the entrance were cut short by news from our scouts. Apparently, the other races were all on the move -- each had massed in strength, and were all converging on one another. It appeared that the final battles for this planet were about to take place.
Knowing full well that these marauding warbands could find our base-camp if we didn’t act (our night fields wouldn’t keep us hidden forever), I quickly mustered our forces to engage in battle. However, I didn’t necessarily mobilize all of our troops -- the Raiders, Ravagers and Wyches were left behind, as we will truly have lost if we lose them. (Well, alright, I also wanted to annoy Karath be not letting her come).
I left Qelyr behind at the base to continue attempting to unlock the obelisk. In my experience, battle can tend to delay one’s return, and I want this artefact uncovered in time to be presented to Lord Scyrex.


My opponents:

Space Marines (Night Gyrs):
Master of Sanctity- jump pack, bolt pistol, crozius arcanum, rosarius, Terminator honours
5 Space Marines- lascannon
5 Space Marines- lascannon
5 Scouts- bolters
Dreadnought- assault cannon
Dreadnought- assault cannon
Dreadnought- assault cannon

Emperor’s Children:
Daemon Prince (forgot what it had)
6 Noise Marines (forgot what they had)
6 Noise Marines (forgot what they had)
6 Noise Marines (forgot what they had)

Tyranids:
(forgot what was in the army, except those elements that attacked me)

After a long advance, our forces approached a hill with a series of old ruins at the top. Our scouts had previously informed us that other war bands were approaching this area as well, and we had deliberately come here to engage and destroy our enemies. Already, we could see our enemies approaching -- from the northeast we could see the purple-armoured warriors of the Emperor’s Children, and opposite them approached a horde of scuttling, clawed creatures. Rukifellith -- who had fought the beasts before -- quickly informed me that they were the hive-mind race whom the mon-keigh called the “Tyranids.” I have heard of the Tyranids before, and, I must admit, I eagerly anticipated capturing one of these creatures and practising my art upon it.
Such matters would have to wait, however -- opposite us approached the black-armoured Space Marines of the Night Gyrs chapter. They were accompanied by three of their lumbering Dreadnoughts, and were led by a skull-helmed warrior equipped with a crude jet pack. Of course, I was unconcerned with the presence of the Dreadnoughts -- they would be humbled by our deadly weapons soon enough.
Without wasting time, I led Squads Rukifellith and Jarazhi forwards along with the Talos, while behind us, Squads Dralekh and Nethyr took aim with their dark lances. The Tyranids, thankfully, ignored is and charged headlong towards the Emperor’s Children opposite them.Beams of dark energy struck the Dreadnoughts, causing explosions to rip across their armoured hides. Two of the Dreadnoughts roared in rage as their legs were disabled, leaving them immobilized. With two of the Dreadnoughts already crippled, our forward squads opened fire with their splinter cannons (and the Talos’ sting) at the Night Gyrs squads. One squad lost half of its original number as high-calibre splinter rounds slammed into them, and they fell back. Another Marine from another squad also fell to a wild shot from the Talos’ stinger.
In reply, the Space Marines levelled their lascannons at the Talos and managed to damage it. The Dreadnoughts, meanwhile, opened fire with their crude multi-barrelled cannons, scything down a few warriors from our squads and causing additional damage to the Talos.
It was then that Squad Rukifellith noticed the enemy leader fly behind the hill next to them. Before I could order them to stay put, they edged closer to the hill and opened fire with their blasters, only to watch as the Space Marine casually flew out of the way. Squad Rukifellith then realized (far too late) that they had been lured into charge range -- with a roar, the only mobile Dreadnought charged forwards and slammed into them, crushing one warrior with its massive fist. Under Rukifellith’s watchful eye, however, the warriors held their ground.
With a roar of jet exhaust, the human leader flew over the hill and landed right in front of me. I barely had time to defend myself before the human swung out with his ornate eagle-headed weapon and hit me in the head with it. I was instantly knocked out by the blow, and remained unconscious for the rest of the battle.
The rest of this report comes from the testimony of Jarazhi:

After the human leader knocked out Rethyk, I leapt into the fray with my warriors, attacking fiercely. The human put up a good fight, smashing down my warriors even after suffering a score of wounds from my agonizer and my warriors’ rifle-blades. Finally, however, I disarmed him with a quick blow from my agonizer, and inflicted a deep wound that left him paralysed with pain. Gleefully, my warriors stabbed into him until he finally stopped moving. Elated with victory, we swept on towards the main mon-keigh battle line.
Meanwhile, the Tyranids had been all but wiped out by the Emperor’s Children, and the remnants of their forces turned their attention to us. A squad of scuttling creatures (“Termagants,” as Rukifellith called them), a trio of larger Tyranid Warriors, and a mantis-like Lictor advanced on Squads Nethyr and Dralekh. Since it couldn’t advance any further without being shot down by the mon-keigh, and since Squad Rukifellith was too tightly thronged around the enemy Dreadnought to for it to join the fray, the Talos moved back to aid Squads Nethyr and Dralekh against the Tyranid menace. The Talos and the two squads levelled their firepower at the oncoming insects, killing half of them and atomizing the Lictor. Despite this, however, the Termagants charged onwards into Squad Dralekh. A fierce melee broke out as our Warriors stabbed down the Termagants with their rifle-blades, while the Termagants, in turn, brought down their opponents with their claws and fangs.
Seeing that the situation had grown desperate, I led my squad forwards in a charge against a nearby squad of Space Marines. The mon-keigh were to surprised to react as all but one of them fell beneath our blades. Seeing that he was outnumbered, the last mon-keigh fell back, barely escaping us. Howling with victory, we swept on into the enemy Scouts. Another fierce melee broke out -- the Scouts, ironically enough, put up a more stout resistance than their more heavily-armoured brethren, killing two of our warriors for the loss of two of their own.
Meanwhile, Rukifellith and his warriors had been doing an admirable job of keeping the enemy Dreadnought tied up -- their quick dodging meant that few of the machine’s strikes hit home. Rukifellith, however, could not find any weak points in the thing’s armour with his agonizer. Eventually, the Dreadnought killed more than half of his squad. After several minutes of continuous fighting, Rukifellith finally led the remnants of his squad in a retreat from the battlefield, seeing that they could not best the machine.
Meanwhile, Squad Dralekh was fighting admirably against the Termagants, cutting them down for few losses of their own. The Talos would have aided them, but, unfortunately, one of the reduced mon-keigh squads brought it down with a blast from their lascannon. As Squad Dralekh fought on, the approaching Tyranid Warriors levelled their own bio-weapons at Squad Nethyr. Half of the warriors were gunned down, and the rest lost their nerve and fled.
Meanwhile, My warriors and I finally broke the Scouts. The mon-keigh fled, barely escaping us. As we swept on, however, we discovered that immobilized Dreadnoughts can still pivot . . .
The remaining Space Marines and the Dreadnoughts opened fire at close range. A hail of bolter shells ripped through my squad, cutting us down like wheat before a scythe. I myself took a bolter round in the abdomen and passed out.
From what I am told, Squad Dralekh eventually cut down the remaining Termagants, while the mon-keigh guns ripped apart the Tyranid Warriors. In a final act of defiance, Squad Dralekh turned their dark lances on one of the immobilized Dreadnoughts and blew in apart. However, they were, in turn, mowed down by the Space Marine guns.
With our remaining forces defeated, and the Tyranids dead, the Emperor’s Children and the Night Gyrs turned their attentions to each other. While the two forces battled it out, Raiders quickly moved in to extract our wounded from the battlefield. When I woke up (I’m thankful that Qelyr was merely content to heal me rather than practise on me), I was told by one of my surviving squad-members that the remaining Night Gyrs had been wiped out by the Emperor’s Children. Though it pleases me to hear that those b***ards are dead, it burns me to think that we have been beaten -- once again -- by mere mon-keigh.

RESULT: LOSS

Well, that sucked. I have now officially lost the campaign. That was a tense game: at first, I was doing well, but then things went wrong: I foolishly advanced Squad Rukifellith forwards, and wound up getting charged by a Dreadnought. In retrospect, I should have kept all of my forces back, pounded the Dreads with dark lance fire, and advanced only when all of the Dreadnoughts were dead. On the plus side, though, I really damaged the Night Gyr army -- though I died, I left him with two Dreadnoughts (one of which was crippled) and only six Space Marines. Because of this, he lost the battle to the Emperor’s Children. So, at least I managed to contribute to his defeat.
All in all, this campaign was fun. It really forced me to play my Dark Eldar differently -- I used no raiders, and, because of the combat patrol rules, I had to use Haemonculi instead of my Archon (without shadow fields, they’re dead).



The sun slowly set on the desert plains of Orkland, bathing the landscape in a dim red glow. Rethyk was glad that this blasted sun was setting -- he wasn’t used this glaring sunlight (Commoraugh was hardly a bright place, after all). The fading sunlight caused the obelisk to shine red against the violet sky.
Rethyk peered at the smooth surface of the obelisk. A few hours ago, Qelyr had found a hole in the surface of the monument -- a hexagonal indentation, no bigger than my palm, surrounded by runes. Rethyk was certain that this had to be a keyhole of some sort -- an artefact of matching shape would be needed to insert into the slot. Unfortunately, however, no such keystone was to be found.
As Rethyk stared intently at the keyhole area, Jarazhi and Rukifellith walked up to him. Both had recently had their wounds healed, and neither looked rather happy at the moment.
“The battles in the desert have ended, Rethyk,” Rukifellith said.
Rethyk sighed. “Oh really?” he muttered. He didn’t really care about the other races at the moment.
Jarazhi nodded. “The other races have been scoured from the surface by the warriors of Chaos,” she said. “They are now sweeping across the planet’s surface.”
Irritated, Rethyk turned to the two Sybarites. “And I should care why?” he said.
“Because,” Jarazhi hissed, “Eventually, the Chaos forces will reach our position. We have lost too many warriors to fight them off, Rethyk.”
“If worse comes to worse, we’ll have to abandon the camp,” Rukifellith said.
The Haemonculous’ mad eyes widened with anger. “We can’t leave the obelisk!” he snarled. “To leave its secrets to the mon-keigh would be intolerable!”
“Either we abandon the camp, or we all die,” Jarazhi hissed.
Rethyk flexed his scissor hand impatiently. “Then die if you need to,” he said, “just as long as you keep those barbarians away from the obelisk.”
The two Sybarites slowly fingered their sheathed agonizers, while continuing to glare at Rethyk. Because of him, scores of their warriors had been lost. They had had enough of being bossed around by him.
Before the confrontation could erupt into violence, however, shouting broke out at the back. Rethyk turned around, and his eyes widened as he saw the webway portal by the mouth of the cave opening up . . .
A lone figure walked out of the swirling, dark portal. Rethyk recognized this figure easily: a thin, sickly pale figure wearing a dark smock that was stained with dried blood. The figure’s head was misshapen, and its face was terrifying to look at -- one eye was missing, leaving only an empty socket, while the other eye was swollen and large, and brimmed with madness. Rethyk felt a chill run down his spine as he beheld Vakkan, the master of the Kabal’s Haemonculi coven.
The Master Haemonculous walked towards Rethyk and the two Sybarites. Almost immediately, Jarazhi and Rukifellith knelt down in the presence of the intimidating figure. Not wanting to seem out of place (or suffer unnecessary pain), Rethyk knelt as well.
“What is the current situation?” Vakkan asked, his voice thin yet venomous.
“The the other races have destroyed one another,” Rukifellith replied. “The Ork population was scoured in the process. In the end, the servants of Chaos, the Tau, and the Craftworld fools of Lauthelias strove against one another in a final battle. The warriors of Chaos triumphed, and are now sweeping across the planet’s surface, destroying all they can find.”
Vakkan gave a wide grin and nodded. “I understand our forces suffered considerable losses,” he said, flexing his scissorhand . “Nearly fifty dead warriors, three destroyed Ravagers, and three destroyed Talos -- which, by the way, I worked long and hard to create.”
Both Rukifellith and Jarazhi looked up at Vakkan in fear. It seemed like they were about to plead for their lives when the Haemonculous gave a dismissive gesture with his scissorhand.
“You two are not to blame,” he said. “Guilt must fall upon those who lead.” With that, he turned his frightening gaze on Vakkan.
The Hamonculous began to sweat uncontrollably. “Master, I can explain,” he stammered.
“Explanations are unnecessary,” Vakkan said. “Our losses speak for themselves. However, you have done well in securing this obelisk. This is exactly what Lord Scyrex wanted you to find. He is pleased with you, Rethyk.”
At these words, Rethyk stopped sweating and allowed himself a small grin.
“There is just one problem, Master,” he said. “There is a slot in the surface that requires a keystone object to be placed in it. We have found no such keystone, and without it, we cannot open the -- “
He stopped when Vakkan suddenly into his smock and pulled out a small, black, hexagonal object covered with Eldar runes. As Rethyk watched, Vakkan walked over to the slot in the obelisk and calmly places the keystone inside . . .
A hexagonal pattern of light suddenly seared around the surface of the obelisk. With incredible smoothness, the wall of the obelisk suddenly slid open, revealing a small chamber inside. In this chamber, sitting on a pedestal, was a small gem that looked vaguely like a Craftworld spirit stone.
Chuckling, Vakkan reached into the chamber, pulled out the stone, and put it in his smock. With that, he turned to the three kneeling Dark Eldar and grinned.
“Our mission has been achieved,” he said. “Assemble our forces to leave -- we shall head back to the Dark City as soon as possible.”
The three of the nodded and stood up. Rukifellith and Jarazhi went off to marshal the warhost, while Rethyk turned to Vakkan.
“Master,” he whispered, “about the stone you just took . . . What is it?”
Vakkan chuckled and shook the bladed finger of his scissorhand at his disciple. “You shall find out in time, Rethyk,” he said. “In time, all shall be revealed.”
With that, Vakkan walked off towards the webway portal, with Rethyk following close behind.