The Steel-Walker War

The Steel-Walker War was a conflict between Necron invaders and the Imperial defenders of Karka's Sun. The war began in 11 post VCM.M41 and ended with the destruction of the forge planet Oxidia in 12.1 post VCM.M41.

Forces of the Imperium
Overall command of the Imperial alliance during the war was held by Lord Militant General Levastin Buell. Owing to the highly-mobile, multi-planetary nature of the war, Buell's command more often than not resided on the Lunar-class cruiser Fury's Lamentation. In addition to the vast assemblage of local military forces, the Imperials also had access to a banner of Imperial Knights of House Vulker under the command of Baron Hector Voltaris III, and the Vostroyan Firstborn Army Group A under Lord-General Lukas Mezzana, and later under Colonel Culpan Toschenko of the 616th Mechanized.

Forces of the Necron Dynastic Alliance
Information about the Necron command structure during the Steel-Walker War is sparse. Inquisitorial observation suggests that the territorial rights of Karka's Sun--and in particular, the secrets held beneath Oxidia's sands--was not clearly delineated in what passes for law in the Necron hierarchy. So it seems that command of the endeavor became been an equal responsibility between four principal dynastic overlords.


 * Minmoshet, He who listens not to Unworthy Prattlings, Herald of Frostgrave's Demise: Overlord of the dynastic forces of Sautekh.
 * Pawumaka, Butcher of 500 worlds: Overlord of the dynastic forces of Thokt.
 * Drokh, the Hunter, Scourge of the Sslyth, Uncorroded Slayer of Empires, Wrathful Lord of the Crystal Empires, Sentinel of the Eternal Gate: Overlord of the dynastic forces of Szarek.

The Cairn Fleet's Arrival
Defensive sensor sweeps did not detect the Necrons' initial arrival in-system, largely due to the cairn fleet's employment of xenos hyperspace technology, which allowed them to bypass the cumbersome Mandeville point arrival scheme favored by the warp-faring vessels of more gallant--or primitive, from the Necron point of view--species. The fleet split across the primary worlds of Karka's Sun, engaging in battles around Oxidia, Frostgrave, Karkason, and Karkason's agri-moon, Gunderson.

The Imperial void response was slow, steaming in-system from the outer reaches as fast as possible. For the majority of the first stage of the war, the Imperial Navy focused on hit and run attacks against the larger Necron fleet, often running interference operations for the elite Astra Militarum and Mechanicus forces which needed to be ferried between the besieged worlds.

The War for Oxidia
Necron planetstrike operations on Oxidia were limited during the first phase of the war, largely due to the forge world's complex orbital defense networks and its tidally-locked orbital path. For the Imperial defenders, it was an easy matter to concentrate their defenses on the Scarlet Sash region--the only livable space on the planet--and abandon its inhospitable cold and hot halves to the Necron menace.

The Battle of Null-Field Manufactorum XVI-Beta
A kill-phalanx of the Thokt Dynasty launched an attack on XVI-Beta during the first stages of the war for Oxidia. The manufactorum's defenders--two cohorts of Oxidian Skitarii--were obliterated by the implacable attackers. In response, Imperial command scrambled the Vostroyan 616th Mechanized under Colonel Culpan Toschenko. The Skunkheads, as they were known, used armor support and cross-cutting infantry tactics to force Thokt forces back from the manufactorum, fighting through tectonic upheaval to do so.

The Quake-tread Rout
Baron Voltaris III's knight banner intercepted Thokt forces in rout from Manufactorum XVI-Beta and engaged them in battle, cutting off the Necrons' attempt to delay an Imperial resupply drop. The battle was fierce, with Voltaris himself slaughtering his way through a phalanx of warriors, though in the end, his knights were unable to fully destroy the retreating Necrons.

Death on Frostgrave
The war for Frostgrave was characterized by sudden disputes in inhospitable conditions. This might come as an initial surprise, considering that the planet had no native resources worth fighting for. What it lacked in natural bounty, however, it made up for in imported Blackstone. The noctilith, mined from Karkason and Oxidia deeper in-system, was shipped to Frostgrave for easy relocation to the holds of supply ships which routinely docked at its high campaniles. Due to this feature, Frostgrave was replete with noctlith storage depots across its icy surface, and, therefore, a target for both sides during the war.

The Battle of Hanshan Valley
On Inquisitorial orders, the Vostroyan 616th was relocated to Frostgrave to recover vital data from the remnants of the Port Hanshan listening post on the planet's northern hemisphere. The port was assumed destroyed by an orbital strike from Necron fleet elements, but what the Vostroyans found upon arrival was something quite different--a full Sautekh harvest-phalanx under the direct command of Overlord Minmoshet.

In the ensuing battle, Colonel Toschenko was forced to relinquish the Inquisitorial data he had come to secure, but still formed his men into a defensive bulwark against the encroaching phalanx--buying time with his men's lives and preventing the phalanx from spilling further across the region until conscripted irregulars could arrive to apply pressure.

According to Inquisitorial records, the Vostroyans' failure to acquire this data directly led to Sautekh forces making their way into Argohive, and the subsequent Massacre of Spire Primaris, including the death of Lord-General Lukas Mezzana.

The Battle of Icecrag Station
A multi-phalanx force of the Thokt dynasty pushed towards Port Wintergale from the west, intent on raiding the city and destroying its strategic significance in the ground war for Frostgrave. The full brunt of the Vostroyan defense forces on Frostgrave, including 616th Mechanized, 68th Armored, and 300th Shock Infantry met the invaders in battle. The lynchpin engagement occured at Icecrag Station, a noctlith depo housing thousands of tons of the precious substance within its deep vaults.

While the rest of the Vostroyan forces fought delaying actions along the line of advance, the 616th pushed deep into Icecrag and destroyed the noctlith vaults with timed charges. Once the deposits were destroyed, the regiment rallied, forming a defensive strongpoint from which the advance was broken.

With no clear benefit to continue the fighting, Overlord Pawumaka withdrew, his forces vanishing with naught but a faint green flare to mark their phasing out. Wintergale was safe for now--conscription pogroms in the civilian sectors could continue unabated.

Pawumaka’s Vengeance
After the failed assault on Icecrag Station, Overlord Pawumaka turned his sights toward the tundra escarpments that lined the eastern approaches to Port Wintergale. The escarpments were far more treacherous for Imperial armor than other approaches, and so the duty of holding them fell to the Knights of House Vulker. Eager to redress what had been very much a draw in their battle on Oxidia, the two forces met with no quarter taken or given.

By day’s end, the escarpments were aflame with burning Knight hulls, spend ammunition, and the incandescent green fire of wasted Necron scrap. Amidst the carnage, Pawumaka had forced the Vulker nobility into full retreat, and established a Dolmen gate on the eastern approach to the port. Within days, the port would be overrun by Thokt reinforcements, its loading spars and habitation docks turned into embattled hellholes as the port’s defenders struggled—and ultimately failed—to turn back the tide.

The Arm of the Silent King
Szarekh Dynasty forces spent the opening movements of the war in counter-fleet operations, their tomb ships ultimately responsible for the razing of the Karkan merchant-militia fleet at Lagrange points Aleph and Beta. When Overlord Drokh finally committed his troops to the surface of the Karkan worlds, he did so at Frostgrave. Recognizing that the planet's salvation or ruination rested on a knife's edge, Drokh set to intercept a vital supply drop from a low-anchor naval flyby. His ships were out of position and unable to stop the drop, but his ground forces, arriving by way of hyperspace portals, could intercept the supplies on the ground. Drokh's forces were opposed by the quick response formation of Colonel Toschenko, and though the Colonel himself was not known to the Necron warlord, his force of Vostroyans had grown in reputation among the xenos invaders.

During the battle, Drokh used his technomantic knowledge to open a permanent Dolmen gate on the planet's surface, and though he was not able to wrest the supply drop from the tenacious grip of its Vostroyan defenders, he did strike down Colonel Toschenko in single combat, slicing off the Colonel's augmetic leg and leaving him crippled in the permafrost--an insult, to be sure.

War on Karkason
During the second phase of the war, Necron forces fell upon the hive world Karkason. Due to the prevalence of defensive void shielding around the Karkan hives, the first leg of the war for Karkason was focused in the inter-hive swamps, the flames of battle raging around noctilith deposits and long-ruined, waterlogged cities.

By now, direct command of Vostroyan Army Group A had fallen to Colonel Culpan Toschenko, who continued to lead from the front, using his personal regiment as a rapid response force while he coordinated planetary defense from his command Chimera.

Planetfall
The Szarekh Dynasty made a landing south of Sunderhive, and within an hour was able to open a Dolmen gate. This gate was to prove valuable throughout the remainder of the war, as it allowed Drokh the ability to move Necron forces of all dynasties, including two of his four Harvest-pattern decurion formations, into operation on the planet's surface.

Still, the battle was not without cost: spurred on by the fires of insult suffered on distant Frostgrave, Colonel Toschenko moved his forces in to oppose Drokh. In the ensuing combat, Toschenko disabled Drokh's combat form, his archeotech command rod smashing in the overlord's chest casing and causing him to phase out. An eye for an eye.

The First and Second Battles of Frakkdown Swamp
Two reclamation legions of the Sautekh Dynasty met House Vulker on the killing fields outside Sunderhive, in an area known as Frakkdown Swamp. Frakkdown, an area known for its tectonic instability due to years of noctilith strip-mining, proved a difficult battlefield for both sides. In the initial engagement, Sautekh and Vulker forces fought each other to a standstill. In a last ditch attemp to break the stale mate, Baron Voltaris broke through the necron lines and charged Overlord Minmoshet. Minmoshet's warrior phalanxes did little to stop the advancing Knight and he was forced into melee with the noble lord. The damaged sustained to Pherrus Indominate during the fighting proved too great and Minmoshet was able to Force Voltaris to retreat.

The second battle of Frakkdown Swamp, fought three days later, saw Szarekhan forces pushing into the same region, seeking to unseat Voltaris's banner in a single, great push. The push was unsuccessful. House Vulker pushed back the undying tide and prevented the opening of a second Dolmen gate.

The Kil-Moor Offensive
The Kil-Moor region swept between Sunderhive and its cousin, Uvanhive, and contained vital supply routes to ferry defenders and ordnance between the colossal structures. Seeing this, the invading Szarekhan forces deployed a full half of their invading forces to nullify this logistical advantage. They were opposed by upwards of five planetary defense force regimentos and a rapid-response force from Vostroyan Army Group A. Over the course of several running battles, the Szarekhan forces were rebuffed, with a lynchpin loss at Berm-22B, where a significant armored push unseated the center of a Harvest decurion, thus destabilizing the advance.

The Battle of Rorke's Levee
Rorke's Levee was an industrial run-off basin at the southern edge of Sunderhive. The high concentration of alkaline chemicals in its flooded ruins made it an untenable defensive location for the Imperial defenders, and a prime target for the invaders. If Rorke's Levee broke, it would provide an easy inlet into the greater capital hive.

A full Thokt decurion pushed against Rorke's Levee, slaughtering five regimentos of Karkason Swampers before the intervention of the 616th Vostroyan Mechanized, which established a defensive strongpoint complete with armored support and pushed the legions back.

The Siege of Sunderhive
Dynastic forces of Thokt, having distracted the planetary defenders by the feint at Rorke's Levee, blew through into Sunderhive's central districts through a concentrated strike on the hive's northern ramparts. Their forces were intercepted first by Baron Voltaris III, who made best speed with his banner into the inner city to fight off the invaders. His strike, however, proved too swift and unbalanced, and the Thokt invaders were able to unman his momentum and cut his knights off from doing any significant damage.

Off the back of this triumph, Pawumaka was able to open yet another Dolmen gate, and provide allied forces in the Sautekh Dynasty a free route into the inner city, and a strike at the seat of Karkan power itself.

Battle in the Inner City
Warned by Baron Voltaris, Colonel Toshenko rallied his regiment and made haste along the city's arterial highways to intercept the Sautekh strike. The two forces came to a head amid the spires of the vast Commercia ser Ibram. The ensuing battle saw the destruction of the majority of the commercia's ancient accounting houses, trade bazaars, and cathedra. When the smoke cleared, the Sautekh advance had been thoroughly repelled, the remainder of its forces phasing out through the city's weakened void shields.

The war for Karkason was complete.

The Apocalypse of Oxidia
As the fighting continued into early 12.1 post, necron forces began to focus their efforts on Oxidia. Through inquisitorial analysis, it became obvious that the forge world Oxidia was, in fact, a latent Necron tomb world. Colonel Toschenko argued for the planet's destruction via exterminatus--an outcome supported by the remnants of Oxidia's commanding priesthood. The action was opposed by Lord Militant General Buell, and was carried out with no Astra Militarum support beyond the Vostroyans. Still, the deep-bored nature of the tomb complexes and the unique geologic structure of the planet made a traditional orbital bombardment untenable. Thus, Toschenko and Baron Voltaris joined forces to lead a colossal ground assault on Necron forces. During this action, the two commanders helped triangulate subterranean "planet cracker" strikes from the fleet in orbit.

They were opposed by a full monolith phalanx and thousands of newly-awakened necron kill-forms, their minds freshly slaved to the command codes of the trifecta of invading lords. Thousands died, knights fell, and fully half of Vostroyan Army Group A was sacrificed in the meantime, but Oxidia was, at last, destroyed. With their prize denied, the cairn fleet departed, its lords phasing out into hyperspace.

Aftermath
With Oxidia gone, the system lost a primary source of noctlith resources and a major manufacturing base. Damage to the export facilities on Frostgrave and the loss of life in the ice-hives made the planet even more of a derelict world than before, a truth that, sadly, reflected the fate of the rest of the system. Karka's Sun would never again be the jewel of mercantile possibility that it had once been--a fate that was strangely attractive to the Karkan nobility. With the Mechanicus influence in the system drastically reduced, the Karkan lords were able to consolidate their control over the remaining noctlith deposits on Karkason itself. So it was that while the system plummeted into relative poverty, the Karkan lords grew richer.

Toschenko's efforts to save Karka's Sun became the stuff of local legend, but the destruction of Oxidia led to a military tribunal in which Toschenko was lucky to escape with his life, much less his rank. Stuck at colonel rank, the Vostroyan army group was placed under a fresh command and shipped out-system.