Honoured Council,
This past week, as planned, I began our expansion onto nearby moons, starting with the moon to the galactic North of Mien Zatar.
Upon exiting the webway in orbit around this moon, named Hewl Grewv we detected signs of recent occupation by the forces of the Wolf Mother, the “Canis Aureus”. A small force of these renegades were established upon the moon’s surface.
Autarch Ethaniel led a squad of Swooping Hawks from the Eagle’s Cry shrine, a unit of Dire Avengers from the Whispering Star and six Rangers who had recently returned from scouting a nearby planet for possible ingress points.
Our fleet positioned itself over the battle, remaining hidden from the Wolf Mother’s own fleet by grace of our Holo-fields. As we observed a warp-storm of unprecedented ferocity gathered above the site of the battle, leading me to believe it was no freak occurrence, but was by design, either of our enemies or for the sport of the denizens of warp space.
Communications via mind-link were fragmented thanks to the interference of the warp-storm, the Captain of the Nightwind received a request for orbital bombardment at a specified location and so I ordered our batteries to fire, praying that the instructions had been accurate. Moments later Ethaniel expressed his gratitude and so I knew our strike had been successful.
What follows is Ethaniel’s report of the battle.
Farseer Miranel,
After your orbital bombardment which heavily damaged an enemy transport, I bade the Whispering Star to hold their position, protecting our tenuous hold on the moon’s surface, our Ranger compatriots opened fire upon a squad of vile cultists approaching our position, eliminating three of their number outright, seconds later the Enemy’s answer came in a blinding flash of energy and the Rangers were erased from existence.
The forces of the Wolf Mother advanced and opened fire upon the Dire Avengers, seeing their predicament I called the Eagle’s Cry to action and landed to the rear of their lines, hoping to break their hold before it had been reinforced, we opened fire upon the daemons holding this position but our firepower was repelled by whatever warp-spawned sorcery protects them, in return two of the Swooping Hawks were torn apart by a corrupted Dreadnought and so once again we took to the skies, seeking to cut the head from the snake.
The Dire Avengers destroyed the enemy Transport and as I rushed toward the ground I saw the resulting explosion kill at least one of the occupants. The Eagle’s Cry and I landed close to the enemy commander and opened fire, our weapons failing to punch through his armour, and seeing the Whispering Star beginning to fragment, I called the retreat, but not before six more of our kin were felled by the enemy’s fire.
We led the Canis Aureus to a location of our choosing where my reinforcements were waiting to turn a retreat into the elimination of our foes.
Reinforcements from the Eagle’s Cry joined us as did a group of Warp Spiders from the Skein’s Resurgence shrine as well as a squadron of Windriders who had only just arrived in system, escorting a unit of hallowed Wraithguard.
As I arrived on the scene, the leader of the Windriders informed me that the Wraithguard were unresponsive and had been since the arrival of the warp-storm over our previous battle.
I directed the Windriders to attack the daemons who once again accompanied the Canis Aureus and were dangerously close to the immobile Wraithguard, their shuriken catapults tore into the diminutive flame daemons while the Warp Spiders engaged more of the foul cultists on our right flank.
The Combat was swift and brutal and saw most of the Warp Spiders destroyed, the Wraithguard remained unresponsive, though they defended themselves against the daemon pack, and the Windriders were eliminated to a man. The Swooping Hawks and I escaped mostly unharmed and victory was awarded to the foul worshippers of the Warp.
As you can see from Ethaniel’s report, these foul beings are not to be underestimated, perhaps if I attempt to direct them in some subtle way rather than meet them head on, even when I have the seeming advantage of surprise.