Biel-Tan - The Battle of Vaul's Gate: Mauryon's war had progressed well. With an army of Ghost Warriors taken from the Exodite Barrows, the Raven Guard utterly defeated and now the Phoenix Lord Karandras at his side, the Autarch’s victories were great, but he nonetheless remained powerless to tackle the human colonists in their heavily fortified cities. Without his vehicles and Titans, which had so far been unable to traverse any of the wraithgates opened by Mauryon’s forward forces, his efforts would all be in vain. As far as his Rangers could ascertain, only one substantial wraithgate survived on Baran -- Vaul's Gate, some several leagues away over the great plain which formed the centre of Baran's primary continent. Mauryon led his army on a swift overland march, the Aeldari's swift feet covering the distance in mere solar hours. Despite their fleet-footedness, such a large scale movement could never go unnoticed, and Snaggasnagga soon assembled a great horde to meet them at the edge of the great plain, where the land breaks into shallow bluffs and hard, earthy ground. Upon the highest of these bluffs stood Vaul's Gate itself, a towering Aeldari monolith, fully twenty times the height of a man.The Orks themselves clearly possessed no idea of the true value of Vaul's Gate, though its meaning to the Aeldari was not lost on them, and out on the left flank the Orks clustered all about the ancient monument for no other reason than wanting to deprive their enemy of it. The Ork line was immense, stretched out for several miles across the plain. At its centre stood Snaggasnagga's twin Gargants, Bigga and Bigga. At the far right of the field, a few scattered ruins concealed the handful of Rangers who had joined the army, but apart from this Mauryon could simply not afford to face the Orks in a pitched battle. A single decisive attack was the Aeldari's only hope, and accordingly Mauryon clustered his own forces near the Gate. Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders formed a thin, broken line down the field, for Mauryon feared the Orks might surround him if he allowed his front to become too narrow. Against such vast numbers of Orks, however, those Aeldari in the centre would stand little chance.Great clouds of dust and smoke arose in the distance as the Orks began to bully their engines to life. Their raucous whoops and shouts rose to a cacophony as the shambling mass prepared itself for battle, but Mauryon and his army, however, were already on the move. Flocks of Swooping Hawks took to the skies, rushing headlong at the greenskins, drawing the centre of the Ork line forward, luring them away from the lumbering gargants behind. At the last possible moment the Hawks turned and soared away as one, and Mauryon unleashed his only gambit. Nightwing fighters and Phoenix bombers burst from the clouds and streaked around the Ork army, homing in on the now isolated Gargants. Many of the Orks turned back to defend the great war machines, racing backwards to turn their fire on the Aeldari flyers, but they were too slow. The Hawks swooped back towards them again, as effortlessly as they had turned away in the first place and unleashed a withering hale of short-range fire into the back of the Orks. Bigga fell to the first Aeldari attack run. Atop the other Gargant, Wurzbag beamed with perverse pride, gloating as his rival's machine went up in smoke.Seeing the fight take shape in the centre, Orks from both flanks rushed towards the embattled gargants. On the right, the Ork advance stalled as the Rangers opened fire from their unseen positions amongst the ruins. Several mobs floundered and broke, even before reaching the battle, but as screeching hordes of trukks and wagons arrived to aid the surviving Gargant, a Phoenix crashed earthwards, then a second, then a third and the Aeldari flyers were at last forced to speed away from the battlefield. They had already done more than enough. With the Orks' attention drawn to the centre of the field, Mauryon saw his chance to attack the Gate directly. The Autarch, the Phoenix Lord Karandras and hundreds of Aspect Warriors surged forwards over the shallow bluff betweem them and Vaul’s Gate. At last the Orks found themselves able to get to grips with the enemy up close and proper, and Mauryon's first attack was blunted by the sheer number of greenskins. Karandras and the Aspects close by him, however, battled on and quickly fought their way through to the Gate. Mauryon pushed forwards again and this time broke through the Orks, joining Karandras and the other Aspect Warriors atop the hill, at the foot of Vaul's Gate itself.With the Aeldari flyers gone, the Orks had won the battle in the centre ground and were quickly regrouping. The hulking figure of Da Biggest (as the Orks had hastily dubbed the surviving Gargant) rumbled towards Mauryon’s position, surrounded by a rampant mob of wagons and boyz. Mauryon himself rushed to the foot of the gate and stood guard over the small crowd of Seers gathered there as they frantically began the rituals necessary to re-open the long sealed gate. Even as they did so, the first thunderous blasts from the Orks' soopa guns slammed into the gate, shaking it to its very foundations and crushing two unfortunate Seers beneath the falling rubble. At the Gate’s centre, the portal blinked slowly into life, a streak of glowing energy running from base to peak. The portal flickered and struggled to open wider as more and more Ork fire flew about the heads of Mauryon and his Seers. On the slope below, the fastest of the Ork mobs were already deep in hand-to-hand fighting with the Scorpions and Banshees Mauryon had ordered to guard the approach.Now Da Biggest itself arrived. Mauryon spun about as he felt the huge shadow loom over him and looked on in horror as all about him Aspect Warriors fell to the blaze of fire from the towering Gargant. At the machine's feet, Mauryon spotted Snagga-snagga himself, and rushed forwards towards him, fearing now that the only way to victory might be to slay the Ork warlord himself. There would be no such need. Barely had Mauryon taken a step before he felt a surging rush of energy behind him. The Gate was open and Mauryon knew victory was his. Raising his head skyward to look back towards it, Mauryon watched the shimmering portal roll and break apart as the figures of three great Phantom Titans stepped forth onto the field of battle.Da Biggest lasted scant moments as the three Titans unleashed a co-ordinated burst of pulsar fire. Wurzbag was launched skywards as his gargant's head blew off and the machine came to a halt as a smoking wreck. Under the shadow of the burning gargant, Mauryon and Snagga-snagga met in hand-to-hand combat, though only one outcome was now possible. With the Orks fleeing all around him, and buoyed utterly by the capture of Vaul's Gate, Mauryon was undefeatable and drove his Burning Spear through Snagga-snagga's stomach. The Autarch cast Snagga-snagga's body over his shoulder and swiftly scampered up the creaking frame of the motionless gargant above. From atop this smoking wreck, Mauryon launched the warlord's body earthward in a rampant celebration of victory. As the slain Ork's corpse crashed to the ground, his army broke and fled, utterly defeated.