Iyanden - The Battle for Antellas Begins: Easily outmanoeuvring the Ork fleet, Yriel launched a series of daring attacks on the ramshackle shipyards and battle stations orbiting Antellas Prime. The planetary defences thus neutralised, Iyanna Arienal took her own forces down to the surface, not to fight a conventional war, but to throw the Orks into chaos. Most of those she took with were wraith-constructs, but she also led warriors who knew the skills of the silent stalker; Crimson Hunters, Warp Spiders, Striking Scorpions and Rangers. They struck the gloom-laden forest of Antellas Prime, wielding terror and shadow as weapons. Ork patrols were ambushed and eliminated, Warbosses despatched from afar by Ranger long rifles, or up close with the slash of power blade. Quickly, these attacks spread disquiet amongst the Orks. Rekfist's lads loved a fight as much as any of their kind, but no Ork yet had seen an Eldar and lived to speak of it, and so rumours of a supernatural enemy quickly spread. Rekkfist himself didn't believe the hearsay, but he was also a pragmatist and so ordered that the forests be set alight. Over the next week, every Skorcha and Burna on Antellas was brought to bear, and soon, the ancient woodland was ablaze. Iyanna's forces now had no choice but to stand and fight.Meanwhile, in the outer darkness of the Antellas System, Iyanden had troubles of its own. Yriel's hit and run attacks had crippled or destroyed many of the Ork starships, and those that remained were too distant to offer threat to either Iyanden or the Eldar forces of Antellas. Unfortunately, it was then that a massive craft emerged from the Warp almost directly on top of Iyanden. This was no mere kroozer, but a vast Space Hulk, a twisted conglomerate of ships, asteroids and wreckage melded together by its time in the immaterium, all repurposed to Orkoid design. At first, Taec Silvereye feared that Iyanden had been deliberately ambushed, but then quickly deemed that the Orks would have been unable to guide their monstrous vessel with sufficient precision. This was not a greenskin plan, just the most damnable ill fortune. Likely, the craft had intended to join with Rekkfist's forces, or was a much-belated arrival of the same WAAAGH! that had swept across Antellas. Between the inherent unpredictability of Ork behaviour and the unstable eddies of the Warp, it was little wonder that the runes had given no warning.For a moment, both Craftworld and hulk were silently in mutual shock at the other's presence; then, as if at some prearranged signal, weapons batteries on both vessels lit up and missiles flared across the void. A heartbeat later, Yriel's fleet screamed back towards Iyanden. It had been the plan that he would lead his forces to Iyanna's aid once the Ork starships had been driven back, but the Ork hulk's arrival had changed everything. Ordinarily, even a space-going fortress like a hulk would have stood little chance against a Craftworld, but Iyanden was but a shadow of its former might. Fortunately, the prince had left fully half of his space-worthy vessels to screen the Craftworld from any unseen threats. Unfortunately, such was the sheer brutish size of the Ork craft, and so crammed was it with redundancies and backup systems, that it absorbed the combined firepower of Iyanden and its escort fleet without so much as a shudder. Boarding torpedoes slammed home into Iyanden, spilling thousands of Orks into the Craftworld's domes. Taec Silvereye mustered the defence, directing the efforts of those ghost warriors that remained aboard the Craftworld whilst the Spiritseers laboured to awaken others from the Infinity Circuit. It was not enough. The Orks were everywhere, and the overwhelming numbers swept aside what their brute force could not crush.Meanwhile, on Antellas Prime, Iyanna Arienal had a surprise of her own to unleash upon WAAAGH! Rekkfist. As the Orks advanced through the ashen remains of the forest and charged home against her army, she sent a telepathic signal high into the mountains that summoned her Hemlock Wraithfighters to the fray. These sleek craft had been hidden since Iyanna had first made planetfall on Antellas Prime. She had intended to use them, and their soul-severing weapons, as the capstone to a carefully built strategy of terror, but now they came to rout Rekkfist's horde. Eighty Wraithfighters screamed low over the charging Orks, the whine of their distortion scythes easily audible over the greenskins' bellowing. Then, all at once, the bellowing stopped. Orks tumbled lifeless to the ground, their brutish souls cast into the hungry Warp. Battlewagons and Warbikes slowed to a halt, their crews slumped dead at the controls. Rokkits and flakk shells split the skies as the surviving Orks sought to bring down the sinister Eldar craft, but the damage had been done; Rekkfist's horde had been thrown into disorder by the Wraithfighter's attack, and Iyanna now threw her ground forces forwards to capitalise on the disarray. Bloodied but unbreaten, Rekkfist roared for reinforcements and, all across Antellas Prime, Mek tellyportas burst into life as they flooded fresh troops into the battle zone. As the Ork reinforcements began to arrive, Iyanna looked upon the forces now arrayed against her and knew that she could not prevail. Where was Yriel, she wondered, silently cursing the prince for his abandonment of her warhost.