The Battle of Brenmark

Long eons ago, the planet of Lrac was one of many Eldar outposts. Abandoned long before the fall of the Eldar, ancient webway portals were left there; for many thousands of years the portals waited, dormant and hidden. 
The human imperials settled the world, until 20 of their years ago, the Orks kicked them off. Imperial Mechanicus remained behind, however, hidden in an underground base. The base is full of mysterious technology that the Adeptus Mechanicus were unwilling to leave behind.

Recently forced to flee the complex when the Orks discovered it, the Mechanicus adepts transmitted a distress call. Many forces intercepted the call, including the Eldar of the Ulthwe craftworld, a Chaos expeditionary force from the Phoenix Horde, and the human Imperium’s Space Marines.

Always seeking technology to give them an edge over the other kabals in the Dark Eldar webway city of Comorragh, the Kabal of the Midnight Sun had dispatched probes through many portals known to them through the webway. When one such probe picked up the Mechanicus distress call, Archon Umbra quickly assembled and led a force to quickly loot the Mechanicus complex.

Sweeping out from the hidden webway portal, the Dark Eldar force zipped through the city. Seeing the Chaos forces ahead, the Archon knew that he would have to eliminate them before he would have any hope of ransacking the base.

The Chaos Lord and his retinue of Thousand Sons Chaos marines hid under a landing pad. A large group of possessed marines waited in the connected terminal building, while a squad of marines took cover in the enclosed walkway between the landing pad and the terminal. The Chaos Lord had sent a massive mob of cultists ahead. 
The Archon’s raiding force was designed to successfully snipe the heavy vehicles and heavy guns that are the undoing of a Dark Eldar vehicle mounted force, but the Chaos Lord had previous experience in this city, and had brought none. Instead, he had planned on massed troops to fill the many buildings of the city, instead of tanks that would be bogged down in its streets or heavy support troops that would have no line of fire through the crowded-together buildings. In addition to his many marines and cultists, he would summon packs of daemons to add to his already numerous troops. The only heavy support the Chaos Lord planned on bringing was a greater daemon!

The Archon’s raiders dropped their small, dark lance “super sniper” squads in buildings facing the chaos force, prepared to obliterate any available targets. Warrior squads on foot moved to reinforce them, splinter cannons and blasters (assault versions of the dark lance, but with a limited range) ready. Mandrakes, with their hidden set up, lurked in several possible locations. Wyches in their raiders moved forward to engage the lord and his retinue. Scourges took up position on a building top where their splinter cannons could spatter the cultists.

Moving forward, the Dark Eldar soon discovered that the dark matter beams and bursts from their dark lances and disintegrators, which should have quickly killed the Chaos Marines, instead impacted harmlessly on the buildings in which they hid (durn Cityfight building 4+ cover save!).

Directing a huge amount of fire and a wyche squad into the retinue succeeded in destroying it, but again cover helped tremendously. The wyches, crazed on combat drugs, had forgotten their plasma grenades, and were cut down. The Archon’s shadow field was no match for the massed fire of the tactical squad. If he had reached them, he could have destroyed them. More wyches, and their disintegrator laden raider, broke themselves against the possessed, although they managed to kill a few.

The scourges had some success against the nearly 40 cultists until they got into a building. There was just no way to kill them fast enough. 

Then the daemon packs were summoned, and the warriors were forced to flee the buildings they held or be cut down. 

Seeing the Archon cut down through his remote puppet automaton, the Kabal’s chief haemonculous ordered the raiding force to withdraw. 

In sum, the DE managed to keep the Greater Daemon off the board by destroying the Lord and his retinue, who were the prime means of summoning him on a 4+ every turn. The cover saves in Cityfight made the usually effective disintegrators and splinter cannon nearly worthless. There were just too many Chaos troops to kill! The key in a cityfight is more troops. Troops that excel at shooting and assault, like all the Chaos marines and the daemon packs, have a distinct advantage in a Cityfight. My DE lacked their usual heavy support and vehicular targets, greatly reducing the value of my dark lances. 
 

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Copyright 2000 by Doug Wolfe	Last Updated Monday, July 2, 2001
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