Battle Report: War in the Marshes

Imperial Guard vs. Eldar

It was a grey and wet day. The reeds and trees looked lush, but the mud bubbled and stank as Sergeant Grise and his tracking dogs made their way through the marsh. Damn, he thought to himself, I've seen some bad bush in my time, but this takes the cake. In his ear, his tac-radio crackled.
"Hey Grise," said the radio, "this is Stack. Just finished my sweep of grid five. Everything looks clear."
Grise keyed his radio. "Things is lookin' pretty quiet out here in six too, I think we can?" Grise trailed off as Blitz, the massive German Shepard, stopped dead in his tracks. A second later the dog began to bark loudly, and in another second the sleek form of the wolf-husky Bowser joined him. Grise keyed his radio again.
"Stack, Grise here. My boys 've got wind 'a somethin' they don't like. Stand by."
The grey bearded tracker let his hand fall away from the radio and move to the medicine bag around his neck. He closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, and slowly rotated his head from left to right. A moment later, he switched his radio to the command frequency.
"Lieutenant, this is Grise. Someone nasty 's on their way here."
Nearly a kilometre southwest, Lieutenant Stallone was supervising the fortification of the region's methane refinery, the only patch of ground that made the swamp work keeping. At the sound of Grise's call, he grabbed the handset from his comlink and responded. "What can you see?"
"Nothing yet el-tee, but me and the boys can feel'em."
Stallone turned to his platoon sergeant, Ventura. "Whadday think?"
Ventura stared back. "Sir, if he says they're coming, they're coming!"
Stallone nodded. "Copy that Grise. Double-time it back here."
The radio crackled a quick "understood," and fell silent. Stallone switched his comlink to broadcast mode. His words resounded in the ears of nearly 30 men.
"Rally-rally-rally."
The command sent every trooper scurrying to a prepared ambush position. Weapons were rechecked, backpacks cached and camouflage pulled into place. Stallone and his retinue had just gotten their mortar deployed on the far side of the river as a runner approached.
"Everyone's in place sir. Squad A has deployed in the refinery, Squad B just to the south, and the engineers to the east. They say they've got both roads to the refinery mined and trapped."
"Good," said Stallone with a nod, "get the snipers set up on this side of the river with us, and get the mortar set up here ASAP."
"Yessir"

***

The troops had been on station for less than 10 minutes when the Eldar struck. A squad's sergeant had barely heard the suspicious sound, almost like rustling cloth, coming from the skies and looked up before a metallic net, spinning and scithing with a grinning skull at each corner, cut him down. The net continued to spin and slice and kill for nearly a minute, seeking out troop after troop before finally returning to the sky and landing in a mailed fist. The Swooping Hawk exarch, clad in shimmering armour with his wings spread to slow his decent, caught the net and fell upon the squad, nearly a dozen of his fellows at his side. A squad was no match for the razor sharp bayonets of the Hawks, and in seconds not a single trooper was left standing. B squad did not fair much better. The squad had barely turned to come to the aid of their fellows, when a collection of tall, broad shouldered figures materialized in bayou in front of them: Warp Spiders. With blinding speed, the red and black figures blinked in and out of existence, leaping forward coming to grips with the squad before they could react. B squad fought valiantly with the weapons they had: knives, machetes, entrenching tools, even rifle butts; one especially brave soldier even managed to fell a Spider. However, when the newly victorious Swooping Hawks took to the air and joined the fight, the tide quickly turned. Once more, not a single soldier survived.
The engineers, hidden in a bog to the East, watched the scene with horror. "Stay calm men, our chance will come", whispered sergeant Edison. The Hawks and Spiders stepped over the bodies of the fallen guardsmen and began exploring the rest of the area, the Spiders moving towards the river and the Hawks taking up positions in the refinery. Deep in a thicket on the far side of the river, Lieutenant Stallone keyed his tac-radio, paused for one second, and whispered, "Now".
The engineers burst from their hiding place and stormed towards the refinery, firing shotguns, lasguns, storm bolters and heavy flamers along the way. The Hawks were cut down en masse by the whithering fire, until only the Exarch stood. Seeing the hopelessness of his position, he took to the air once more and fled. In the same instant, all three snipers and the mortar opened fire on the Spiders. High explosive rounds began falling into the lake and river nearby, and bullets ricocheted off the thick armour of the Spiders. None of them fell, but the squad quickly retreated towards the refinery. In their haste, they didn't see the engineers crouched behind a perimeter wall.
"We've got them, let's finish them off", screamed Edison, leading his men towards the treed swamp where the Spiders had materialized. Another fusillade of weapons fire cut down half of the Spiders before they could even bring their weapons to bear. One quick witted Eldar brought his spinner-rifle to bear, sending a web of monofilament line towards an engineer that sliced through his skin with incredible ease, but he was only one man. A second fusillade from the engineers cut down all but three of the spiders, and the wise Eldar realized they were beaten. The remaining Spiders vanished, reappeared for a final time some distance away, then vanished entirely.
The ears of the remaining guardsmen roared in the sudden silence as they surveyed the battlefield. One of the younger engineers fought back tears as he stared at the score of dead or dying guardsmen. He felt a hand on his back a second later and turned to see Lieutenant Stallone standing behind him.
" 'S okay kid, dey'll pay. Dey'll pay."

Eldar vs. Imperial Guard

In the swamps south of Phelemon, grey clouds obscured the sky, promising to bring rain for the next few days. The creatures in the swamp were on edge, sensing the brewing storm. A pack of lizards, hunting for prey, were startled by the sudden appearance of large armoured creatures in their midst. The lizards quickly scattered and observed the intruders from a distance. The red and black clad intruders looked back their way with glowing green eyes, before they faded out of view and simply vanished. The lizards quickly closed in to were the intruders were standing, tasting the air with their forked tongues, trying to determine if the intruders had been predators, or prey.
High above the swamp, a lone blue-and-yellow-winged figure was flying south. Hirushin, the leader of the Doomwings, scanned the swamp below for hidden prey, and for the refinery which he had been ordered to take. Above him, he could hear the humming multicoloured wings of the other five Swooping Hawks, hidden in the clouds. His visor was showing him the position of the Shadowspinners far below in the swamp. He watched as they blinked seemingly out of existance, only to re-appear further south, their warp generators allowing them to cross through the swamp just as quickly as Hirushin could fly over it. Hirushin disliked the impression that it gave him, as if his Doomwings were slowing the Shadowspinners down.
Up ahead, Hirushin spotted the old methane refinery, an ugly decrepid human construct, but the only thing of value in the swampy region, and more importantly, situated on the only road that the imperial guard could use to traverse the swamp. Hirushin relayed the refinery's position to the leader of the Shadowspinners, Bok'tu. On his visor, he noted that the Warp Spiders had altered their course, and were taking a wide circle around the refinery in order to approach it from the south. Hirushin flew higher into the clouds, and would remain there until he was directly above the refinery.
Moments later, Hirushin decended just out of the clouds. His visor zoomed in on the refinery below, revealing some movement in the refinery's yard. He watched his prey for a minute as the Shadowspinners made they way around the refinery, and he slowly unsheathed his web of skull. As the spiders began to approach the refinery, he threw the web down at the humans in the refinery's yard. The web picked up a great amount of speed as it decended, beginning to shriek as it spun faster. When it reached the yard below, it flew about wildly, cutting through the guards and throwing them in a panick. As the mon-keigh were trying to avoid the deadly spinning web, Hirushin and the Doomwings dived down out of the clouds at the refinery. The added fire of the Doomwings lasblasters was deadly as they opened fire upon the confused squad below. Hirushin flow down towards the spinning web and gracefully caught it in his armoured fist. He then led the charge on the remaining prey, wielding the web of skulls as a mace. The crystaline skulls crushed bone and carapace armour with ease as Hirushin darted through the remaining human, killing every last one of them.
As the last prey died, Hirushin glanced to the Warp Spider's position, and saw that they had enguaged another squad that was hidden nearby in the swamp. Hirushin and the Doomwings quickly charged into the rear of the humans, who were annihilated between the them and the Shadowspinners. Amidst the dead bodies of the humans, a Warp Spider was slowly sinking into the swamp, a large metal knife impaled through his left eye. Bok'tu quickly took the spider's spirit stone from his chest, and placed it in his pouch, leaving the warrior's corpse to dissappear in the murky swamp.
"Bok'tu", Hirushin voiced over the psy-transmitter, "Search the perimeter for any other hidden squads. I will check the refinery."
Bok'tu nodded his head, and the spiders turned and warped towards the nearby lake. Hirushin wondered if only the two squads had been stationed to defend the refinery. Him and his hawks took to the air, and landed on an elevated platform in the refinery, where they would be able to see the entire surrounding area.
As soon as the hawks had settled on the ground, a hail of las and bolter fire hit them from the swamp below. A hawk had already fallen in the first few seconds, and another badly-injured hawk took off straight up into the air, fleeing. The rest of the Doomwings took cover behind crates and metal beams, and prepared to return fire. At that moment, flame erupted all around them. Hirushin watched in horror as the weaker armour of his squad blistered from the heat, and their tortured bodies flailed wildy about. The cooling systems integrated in Hirushin's own armour were fighting a loosing battle against the searing heat. Hirushin quickly leaped into the air and dived into the swamp, dousing the flames on his armour. Behind him, the last living Hawk tried to follow, but his wings being fused together, he fell to his death in the refinery yard.
Hirushin looked up and saw the mon-keigh that had fired upon his hawks, but they disreguarded him and were focusing on the rapidly approaching Warp Spiders. Hirushin remembered their faces and vowed to return and avenge his squad. He quickly left the swamp and headed north to Phelemon.

+++

Bok'tu cursed as one of the Warp Spiders was attacked by an enourmous snake which was startled by their sudden appearance. The Shadowspinners quickly brough their deathspinners to bear on the snake, and killed it with a hail of monofilament. The snake however had managed to penetrate the armour of the Spider, and apparently it's venom was quite deadly. Bok'tu took the spirit stone from the Spider's armour, and placed it in the same pouch as the one from the battle with the guard. Apparently, the commotion they caused had been spotted by some hidden guard. A mortar shell landed nearby in the lake, sending a ton of water raining down on the spiders. Also, some sniper shots ricocheyed off of nearby trees and one off the thick armour of a spider. In the midst of this, Bok'tu psy-transmitter was suddenly emmiting the screams of dying hawks back at the refinery. Bok'tu ordered the Shadowspinners to fall back to the refinery and to aid the Doomwings.
As the Shadowspinners jumped back to the refinery, an explosion from a land mine almost killed one of them as they re-appeared at one of the entrances to the refinery. In a hurry, they warped again, and landed at the other entrance of the refinery, where more mines detonated. Luckily, the spiders armour was extremely durable, protecting them from serious injury.
A unit of mon-keigh immediately opened fire on them, and they were also being hit by sniper fire from the west. Between the two, the Shadowspiners were taking heavy loses. A few broke off from the battle after taking serious wounds, and another one was killed outright. Bok'tu saw the burning bodies of Hirushin's hawks, and knew he was too late to help them. He grabbed the spirit stone from the armour of the third dead Spider, and the rest of the Shadowspinners were already warping out of the refinery. Bok'tu made his own warp, and reappeared in a clearing be the refinery. Another dead Spider lay there, having been hit by the shooting of the now distant imperial guard. Bok'tu collected this final spirit stone before warping out of the range of the humans.

+++

The surviving Doomwings and Shadowspinners returned to the city of Phelemon. From the city, Bok'tu and Hirushin contacted Fuegan with their psy-transmitters, and recounted what had happened in the swamp.
"You've done well to bring me this information", responded Fuegan, "You will have another chance to hunt your prey soon, very soon."