TEXT: IV • THE BARAN WAR
  58 • SWORDWIND
  THE BARAN WAR • IV
  SWORDWIND • 59
  THE BARAN WAR
  PROLOGUE
  WAAAGH! ARBUTTZ 
  Amongst the Orks, it is inevitable that from time to
  time a great and fearsome leader will arise to sweep
  aside all rivals and unite countless warring tribes under
  his brutal leadership. Arbuttz the Incredible was one
  such Ork who, in 914.M40, emerged from the wild and
  primitive worlds of the galaxy’s south-western rim.
  Here, Ork battled Ork, just as they had done for
  centuries on a dozen worlds infested by Greenskins
  since an age no one could remember. 
  Arbuttz at first swept over his own world and others in
  the same system, sweeping aside rival warlords and
  taking their followers for his own. The Orks revelled in
  the uproar caused by this ambitious warlord and his
  ceaseless invasion of other tribal territories. For
  months tribe gleefully battled tribe, eagerly hurling
  themselves into the tumult of battle with the kind of
  abandon only Greenskins are capable of. With each
  new battle formed, Arbuttz proved his dominance
  anew, effortlessly defeating all comers. 
  Now the tide changed. Where once each new warlord
  had battled and resisted Arbuttz, now they each in turn
  fell in behind him, joining his warband and bringing
  with them their own greenskin tribe, keen and hungry
  for war. Ork battled Ork no more. Tribe after tribe
  flocked to the ascendant Arbuttz, until at last they
  formed a great unruly mass, barrelling along to the
  sound of a single monotonous chant.
  Waaagh!
  Waaagh!
  Waaagh!
  Now Arbuttz was unleashed upon the galaxy at large.
  In such an ancient and distant corner of the galaxy,
  Arbuttz was first forced to cross thousands of light
  years of wilderness, rampaging across one uninhabited
  planet after another, his boyz chasing and hunting any
  large predators or ‘uge beasties they could find,
  desperate to get to the proper scrappin’. They would
  not have to wait long.
  In the Zypher sub-sector, Arbuttz and his Waaagh!
  swept across several ancient worlds of the Eldar. Here
  survivors of the long-ago fallen race lived in their so-
  called Exodite communities, the last sorrowful
  remnants of the once great Eldar empire. As the
  greenskins poured across the system, the Eldar rode to
  war, mounted atop great beastly lizards, armed with
  weapons far beyond the technology available to the
  Orks and moving with a graceful ease that the
  lumbering greenskins simply could not hope to match.
  But for all this, Waaagh! Arbuttz was vast, and in its size
  unassailable, and the ancient Eldar were swept away in
  the few short months it took the Orks to cross the
  system. 
  Arbuttz and his boys marched on, and here, on the
  most distant boundary of the Imperium, the Orks
  crashed into a dozen worlds of man as violently as the
  largest and most unstoppable of waves might smash
  asunder the shore. Arbuttz’s boys cut a bloody swathe
  through the Imperial defenders until finally running
  out of steam on the Imperial Deathworld of Gorang,
  where they were brought low fighting the indigenous
  life-forms as much as they were by the Imperial
  defenders. By the end of the fighting the entire Zypher
  sub-sector had be overrun and conquered by the Orks.
  EAGLES & RAVENS
  For almost 300 years this new Ork empire was left
  unmolested, until a campaign of re-conquest was
  finally begun in M41.204. The re-conquest was led by
  troops of the Marauders, Eagle Warriors, Raven Guard
  and Revilers Space Marine Chapters, supported by over
  two-dozen Imperial Guard regiments. In a long, hard
  fought campaign these troops battled to reclaim the
  planets lost to Warlord Arbuttz, until finally in M41.224
  the Zypher sub-sector was declared free of the taint of
  alien infection.
  But the Imperium pushed on. Not content merely with
  reclaiming those worlds lost to Arbuttz three centuries
  prior, the Imperial war machine raged across the
  dozens of other worlds which the Ork Waaagh! had
  claimed, conquering worlds never before touched by
  the boot of man. An Imperial Guard regiment was
  assigned to each of these planets and ordered to
  cleanse the planet of Ork infestation. Troops from the
  127th Death Korps of Krieg regiment, commanded by
  General Himmel von Paulus, were assigned to cleanse
  a backwater planet named simply Baran. In return the
  Death Korps veterans were granted rights of settlement
  on the planet.
  Baran was a wild and uncultivated planet, covered by
  dense forests, rolling steppes, and craggy mountain
  ranges. Little could these valiant frontiersmen have
  realised that the soil upon which they now stood was
  that same ancient soil onto which the brave Eldar
  Exodites had bled as Waaagh! Arbuttz stole their world
  from them…
  The now Feral Ork tribes that inhabited Baran were
  quickly driven from the open steppe-lands by the initial
  Death Korp assault. The surviving Orks scattered and
  hid in the forests and mountainous areas of the planet,
  where they proved extremely difficult to eradicate.
  Lacking the huge numbers of troops needed to destroy
  the Orks by weight of numbers, von Paulus decided to
  contain the Ork threat instead, building a series of
  interconnected fortified positions to hem the Orks into
  their wilderness retreats. These fortified positions
  quickly grew into the first major Imperial settlements
  and cities on the planet. 
  With the Orks still a major threat, the colonists were
  under a state of constant siege on a dangerous frontier
  planet. New cities were built as a curious amalgam of
  military and civilian structures, where the Imperial
  Guard’s trenches, bunkers and other defences were
  slowly pushed out to incredible distances so that
  whole cities could be built amidst them, civilian
  buildings replacing the old fortifications as these cities
  snaked outwards. 
  OLD ENEMIES, NEW
  BEGINNINGS
  Over the course of the ensuing generations, these
  colonies grew, and although never populous, and under
  constant threat of Ork assault, Baran thrived. Once the
  colonies were large enough new Imperial Guard
  regiments were raised to replace the Death Korps
  veterans who had long since aged and died. These new
  recruits were to become the first and foremost of
  Baran’s defenders – the Baran Siegemasters. 
  Alongside them, the Raven Guard remained, though in
  precious few numbers, and concerned themselves
  mostly with hunting down those cunning Ork warlords
  believed to be in possession of Imperial technology
  stolen during the initial Waaagh! On one of Baran’s
  moons, the black rock known as Coron, the Raven
  Guard established a fortress monastery from where
  little more than a hundred of their brethren could
  continue the struggle against remaining Ork elements.
  The men of Baran and the aloof Raven Guard shared
  little contact, though the Raven Guard watched their
  human charges closely, for they realised that such a
  harsh world as Baran would breed hardy stock – stock
  from which the Raven Guard might one day draw
  initiates fit for their own superhuman ranks.
  For decades the Siegemasters and the Raven Guard
  stood guard over Baran and the handful of valuable
  nearby worlds required for the mining of metal ores,
  minerals and other precious resources. The Orks
  remained a threat, and from time to time claimed great
  successes of their own, though the resolute
  Siegemasters and the grimly determined Raven Guard
  time and again proved themselves equal to any threat.
  Equal, that is, to any threat the increasingly feral Orks
  could throw at them…  
  THE ELDAR EXODITES
  During the Fall the degeneration of the Eldar did not
  go wholly without resistance. Some, the more far-
  sighted, began to openly criticise the laxity of their
  fellow citizens, and to warn against the effect of Chaos
  cults. These people were mostly ignored or else treated
  as narrow-minded fools and fanatics. Soon the general
  collapse of society convinced even the most resolute
  amongst them that there would be no end to the reign
  of death and depravity. Some decided to leave the Eldar
  worlds, and settle new planets free of the creeping
  corruption. They were the ones still untainted by the
  touch of Chaos, and by now they were few.
  These Eldar are known as the Exodites. Of all the Eldar
  race they were uniquely far-sighted. Amongst a race
  naturally indulgent and hedonistic they were reviled as
  dour fanatics obsessed with misery and self-denial. 
  In an assortment of spacecraft the Exodites abandoned
  the Eldar homeworlds and upon the fringes of the
  galaxy the Exodites made new homes. The worlds they
  settled were savage and life was often hard for a people
  unused to physical work and self-denial. 
  When the final cataclysm erupted most of the Exodite
  worlds were far from the psychic epicentre and
  survived. The resultant psychic implosion wiped out
  the rest of the Eldar, but out on the fringes of the galaxy
  the Exodites were safe. 
  Since they were first settled the Exodite worlds have
  not changed a great deal. The Craftworld Eldar regard
  the Exodites as rustic and rather simple folk, vigorous
  and wild in a way that is quite unlike their own
  introverted societies. Craftworlders and Exodites
  travel within each other’s realms, but their
  different mental outlook and way of life
  means that they have their own concerns.
  
  SWORDWIND • 61
  THE BARAN WAR • IV
  IV • THE BARAN WAR
  60 • SWORDWIND
  THE TALONS OF BIEL-TAN
  The Craftworld of Biel-tan does not journey aimlessly
  as it glides through space. It does not wander as a
  lonely and frightened exile might, fleeing constantly
  from danger, finding itself ever battered, bullied and
  cast out. This is not the way of Biel-tan. Biel-tan is
  guardian and conqueror to its people, ceaselessly
  patrolling all those worlds that lie within the bounds of
  its ancient route, the same route it has ploughed ever
  since the Fall of the Eldar ten thousand years ago. This
  is the Kingdom of Biel-tan, or so they would have it
  known. Not an empire unto itself, but a great and
  powerful bastion of the larger Eldar Empire as the
  proud and warlike ruling Court of Biel-tan see it.
  As it journeys silently through the void, Rangers still
  loyal to their former craftworld roam far ahead,
  scouting the way to those worlds which lie next upon
  Biel-tan’s route. Alongside their craftworld, the
  warfleets of Biel-tan streak through the stars,
  overwhelming any resistance which might endanger or
  impede the gargantuan craftworld as it sails on
  inexorably. 
  Many worlds lie upon this ancient route – worlds
  populated by men, overrun by Orks, infested by crude
  and primitive usurpers or else barren, uninhabited and
  forgotten. But no matter their fate, to the Eldar of Biel-
  tan these are Eldar worlds once and former, present
  and future. In the eyes of Biel-tan, the young races who
  now populate the galaxy are not the natural successors
  some would claim them to be, springing up to fill the
  void left by an Empire which long ago betrayed,
  defeated and destroyed itself, but rather they are
  greedy and savage usurpers with no right to take these
  worlds from the Eldar. So it is that as Biel-tan soars
  effortlessly through the stars its talons fall hungrily
  upon the Eldar’s foes, crushing their primitive colonies
  and dragging their filthy carcasses away from the
  beautiful, verdant worlds of the Eldar. No matter that
  Familiar landscapes remained, though the forests ran
  wild and uncultivated, ragged and imperfect. Rivers ran
  dirty, littered with ugly black rocks, while choking
  grasses covered the hills which Mauryon had
  remembered as lush, green and fair. Mauryon’s rage
  was unleashed and he plunged his Burning Spear into
  the green savages that swarmed about him. The fire
  with which the Burning Spear raged was Mauryon’s
  own, the fire of rage immolating the Orks all about
  him, but he and his Aspect Warriors were few and even
  in his fury Mauryon realised little good would come of
  remaining amidst the slaughter. Mauryon departed via
  the newly opened gate. Upon his shoulders he bore
  the body of the largest Ork, all the proof he would
  need that the Eldar had been done a great injustice.
  On Biel-tan, Mauryon cast the Ork’s stinking carcass to
  the floor as the Court of the Young King gathered in a
  circle about him. Few words were spoken, none were
  needed. With a single nod of derision at the corpse
  beneath him, Mauryon declared his Autarchy and
  thoughts turned to preparation for the coming war. As
  had happened a thousand times before, the entire
  craftworld was suddenly alive with a single
  monotonous chant…
  Khaine!
  Khaine!
  Khaine!
  handful of his most faithful acolytes. Mauryon felt his
  numbers too few to risk journeying the Baran directly,
  and instead Ilethryr was hidden in orbit around the
  silver moon of Ephos. The gate to the silver moon had
  long been barred, but Mauryon hoped that the gate
  between Ephos and the planet below might remain
  open, and fortune was with him.
  As predicted, the gate was closed (for none had been
  able to reach it from Biel-tan), but it’s structure still
  stood. All about it were carved runes of doom, frantic
  testimonies speaking of the last desperate Eldar
  defenders swept away by the greenskinned menace.
  These same runes barred the gate tight, sealed by those
  last brave Eldar so that the ancient webway might not
  be tainted by the Ork filth. Mauryon ordered that
  Elasthith, a seer, a steersman, be brought up and
  unfasten the magics which bound the gate shut. As he
  did so, he found many of the roads from the gate
  crumbled and impassable, so that there was still no
  direct way to Biel-tan. Yet one path remained open –
  the path to Baran itself, albeit by only the smallest and
  humblest of gates. 
  A GATE UNBARRED, A FURY
  UNLEASHED
  On Baran, Mauryon’s rage was given a face, a shape
  and a name. Hordes of wild Orks, naked or clothed
  only in the skins of animals rampaged about him.
  these societies have dwelled for centuries upon these
  worlds, no matter that the last flame of Eldar life on
  these worlds burned out millennia ago, no matter that
  many of these so-called usurpers have taken nothing
  which they did not find unused. None of this matters
  to the proud Eldar of Biel-tan. The mere presence of
  these young races brings only one outcome – war. War
  with the Swordwind of Biel-tan. 
  And so it was that as Biel-tan drew silently through the
  Zypher sub-sector after long centuries of absence, its
  scouts ranged far ahead, abroad in all the worlds once
  held dear by the Eldar, and one by one their sorry
  accounts returned to the ears of Biel-tan. World after
  world lay ruined, its people, its culture and its ancient
  Eldar heritage swept away into nothing. Such tales are
  ones that the Eldar of Biel-tan have had to endure
  often in the millennia of their Long Winter, returning
  to worlds unseen in lifetimes to find them morbid and
  desolate. Yet for all the familiarity of these tidings of
  sorrow and despair, the Eldar resented them no less,
  and the fire of war burned brightly in the hearts of Biel-
  tan people as all the Craftworld talk turned to
  vengeance and reclamation.
  Of the worlds still known to them, the Rangers
  reported that no living Eldar now survived. Yet they
  spoke also of some gates within the webway barred so
  firmly that they had been unable to pass, and that
  beyond these might lie worlds yet untouched, or
  perhaps embattled worlds where the valiant Eldar still
  fought on. The Exarch Mauryon, Burning Spear of the
  Fire Dragons, met this news with both fury and
  determination, and travelled at once to a world he had
  known as a child to see if it still endured. Taking it
  upon himself to unearth the fate of his people,
  Mauryon travelled at once to the world of Baran.
  Just as the rangers had attested, no gate now remained
  open and Mauryon took instead to the Dragonship
  Ilethryr, Chariot of Khaine, accompanied by only a
  
  SWORDWIND • 63
  THE BARAN WAR • IV
  IV • THE BARAN WAR
  62 • SWORDWIND
  THE SWORDWIND
  DESCENDS…
  Finding himself without the means to transport
  anything larger than a man via the single wraithgate
  open to him, and not yet willing to reveal himself in an
  all-out assault from space, Mauryon was left with no
  choice but to begin his war with his Aspect Warriors
  alone. His entire army on foot, Mauryon and several
  dozen Aspect Warriors journeyed to Baran and the
  Swordwind was begun.
  THE GATE OF DEATH
  The Gate by which Mauryon first journeyed to Baran
  was known as the Gate of the Dead, the Banshee Gate
  or the Hag Gate, for it was this ancient gate to which
  the Exodites of this and other worlds had journeyed in
  order to convey their dead to sacred barrows which lay
  near by.
  Emerging from the Gate of the Dead, Mauryon found
  the barrows broken and defiled. Their great structures
  lay hidden beneath the ground, yet they contained
  much wealth and Orks have a keen scent for plunder.
  The great sweeping hills which formed the surface of
  these barrows had been cracked open by the Orks who
  now infested them, littering this sacred place with their
  own filthy greenskin mess, disturbing the spirits of the
  resting and causing much damage to the delicate
  wraithbone fronds of the world spirit which formed
  the barrows’ architecture. A whole tribe had made its
  home within the barrows, just as simple creatures
  might populate caves and tunnels for shelter. The
  greatest and most magnificent of the barrows, the
  resting place of the ancient Exodite Kings of Baran, had
  been claimed by the tribe’s own Warlord, the bloated
  Bogga-Bogga.
  WORLD SPIRITS OF THE EXODITES
  The wraithbone core of each Craftworld acts as a
  repository and conductor of psychic power. It is also
  the ultimate refuge for the spirits of its people in
  death. Every Exodite world has its own equivalent to
  the infinity circuit which is called the world spirit.
  This is an immense store of psychic energy where
  the minds of dead Eldar are preserved forever.
  Exodites too wear a spirit stone and when they die
  they are taken beneath the earth into one of the
  great tribal barrows. They are laid to rest there and
  their spirit stones are broken upon the altars of the
  worlds spirit.
  The world spirit extends over the entire planet,
  stretching between the tribal barrows, stone circles
  and standing stones. These important places are
  where the spirit world and the material world can
  interact, where they spirits of the dead can
  flow together and where the living can talk
  to the dead if they have the power.
  These bodiless spirits surged and rushed around the
  barrows and cairns, their formless voices ringing out
  from the walls and pillars of their ancient tombs, calling
  in voices of thunder and terror, startling the Orks as the
  battle raged all about. Their deathly wails stopped the
  Orks dead with fright and the Aspect Warriors found
  their blows striking home effortlessly as all fight
  drained from the terrified greenskins. In the Great
  Cairn of Kings, Bogga-bogga’s Wyrdboy, Zoombanga,
  began his own invocation to the spirits, casting his head
  upwards, shaking his primitive fetishes and totems in a
  savage dance before a single, barking howl from the
  dead shattered the Waaagh! energy building up around
  him and dropped the Shaman lifeless to the floor.
  As he watched Zoombanga assailed by the screaming
  Eldar spirits, Bogga-bogga himself fled from the
  barrow, surrounded by his Nobz and Grot attendants.
  Striking Scorpions of the Grieving Shrine surrounded
  the Warlord at the entrance to the Great Cairn and cut
  him down in an instant. With Bogga-bogga slain, the
  surviving Feral Orks broke and fled, seeking refuge in
  the great forest which lay in a circle all about the
  barrows. Mauryon had come for more than simple
  slaughter though, and with his objective in his grasp
  the Autarch ordered no pursuit. The Eldar abated their
  attack and a silent, deathly calm once more fell over
  this ancient resting place.
  But Mauryon had not arrived as some reverential
  liberator, returned to lay his people to rest – his war
  demanded greater sacrifice than that. Mauryon called
  forth the Spiritseers and Bonesingers which he had
  ordered accompany him from the craftworld. With them
  they carried the humble beginnings of wraithbone, a
  few component psycho-plastics, nothing in and of
  themselves, but it was all that the powerful Seers would
  need to begin fashioning their intricate constructs. 
  From the broken tombs, from the scattered bodies and
  the partly buried wraithbone cores which lined the
  barrows the Seers plucked all the spirit stones they
  could find. The Seers muttered words of comfort and
  forgiveness as they went about their task, for this was
  sacrilege to them, an affront to the peace of death – an
  atrocity, some might say – but such was Mauryon’s
  command. 
  Alongside them, the Singers’ voices boomed out as the
  wraithbone shells of great walking machines sprung
  upwards and were one by one assembled into silent,
  motionless ranks in front of the gloating Mauryon.
  Here and there the line was broken by the outline of a
  true giant, twice the size of a man, towering over the
  rest of these automatons. 
  Into these same husks were placed the spirit stones
  taken from the barrows, and as the deathly Banshees
  danced and wailed about them, these tired and
  reluctant spirits were slowly coaxed from their slumber
  and brought once more to life inside their new
  wraithbone bodies.
  Larger than anything Mauryon could have hoped to get
  out of the solitary gate available to him, now before
  him stood Wraithguard and Wraithlords. As Mauryon
  and his army emerged once more from the barrows, an
  army of the dead now walked alongside them…
  The Eldar were far outnumbered by the Orks, but came
  upon them unawares, moving swiftly up to the barrows
  themselves. Each barrow was guarded by the same Ork
  mob who had taken it for their den, and even with the
  advantage of surprise the Eldar found resistance fierce.
  Orks are always ready for a fight, and bare moments
  after the Eldar revealed themselves a great shout,
  accompanied by a bellowing roar of Waaagh! energy
  swept over the landscape, rousing the Orks to battle.
  The Orks rushed from the barrows, but the Aspect
  Warriors moved swiftly and hemmed them in, charging
  right up to the entrance of the barrows so that the Orks
  could not pass cleanly, cutting down the greenskins as
  they filtered into the narrow tunnels and archways
  which led up from below ground. By means of clever
  feints and faked retreats, the Eldar cleverly drew the
  Orks to push against themselves, or else drew them to
  one side so that Eldar themselves could advance a little
  further into the barrows. Each and every one of the
  Aspect Warriors knew full well that their ultimate goal
  lay deep within these cairns, and that no time could be
  wasted in reaching it.
  As the Aspect Warriors hacked a way through to the
  Barrows, the handful of Seers who had been willing to
  accompany Mauryon broke through and took their
  place within one of the newly recaptured barrows.
  Here they paused for some moments to read of the
  fame and repute of those spirits which rested here, so
  that they might know them by both name and
  character, before solemnly turning their minds to
  commune with the dead. As the Seers spoke, the spirits
  awoke, drawing forth from the deep and hidden
  refuges to which they had fled when first the
  greenskins came. 
  
  SWORDWIND • 65
  THE BARAN WAR • IV
  IV • THE BARAN WAR
  64 • SWORDWIND
  THE WAR GOES ON…
  With a swift and decisive victory under his belt,
  Mauryon wasted no time in persecuting his war
  further. More Aspect Warriors were brought forth from
  Biel-tan, though as yet Mauryon still lacked any means
  of deploying larger vehicles to aid his cause.
  Nonetheless, taking the ancient barrows as their camp,
  Mauryon divided his forces and began a program of
  cleansing in battles across much of Baran.
  The Barrows had been the resting place of Eldar from
  all over Baran, and from other nearby worlds. Many
  wraithgates surrounded the barrows – avenues leading
  to dozens of ancient Exodite colonies across the
  planet. Mauryon’s seers unbarred these gates and
  dispatched forces through each of them. 
  Invariably, the Eldar emerged to find yet more Feral
  Ork tribes encamped around ancient Eldar colony’s,
  monuments and sacred places, knowing nothing of
  The Orks, as ever, proved themselves eager for a fight
  and rushed forwards in great numbers as soon as they
  caught the sent of the Space Marines. Moradius,
  however, saw little benefit in sending yet more Orks
  fleeing across Baran and, after a cursory skirmish,
  withdrew his men, leaving the Orks to bludgeon their
  way across the plains as ever they had. His scouts
  remained close however, hoping that whatever fate had
  befallen the Ork settlements would soon reveal itself in
  pursuit of these nomads.
  Some days later, Moradius was once more proved
  shrewd. His scouts returned to report the Orks under
  attack and Moradius at once led his Raven Guard to
  their position. Six Thunderhawk gunships skimmed
  rapidly over the plain, following the signal sent by the
  remaining scouts, though even in the short time it took
  them to arrive, the Orks were overwhelmed and slain.
  Instead of Orks, as Moradius and his Raven Guard
  emerged from his gunships they were confronted by
  the Swordwind of Biel-tan.
  Recognising the Eldar for the elusive opponent they
  truly are, Captain Moradius ordered an immediate
  assault lest the Eldar simply vanish before he return.
  The Eldar, perhaps, had not intended to engage the
  Imperium so soon, let alone the Space Marines
  themselves, and the Raven Guard’s first strikes took
  heavy tolls.
  Relying on their favoured hit-and-run tactics, the Eldar
  rapidly fell back, though not nearly so swiftly as they
  could. Not so swiftly, more importantly, that the Raven
  A FOE REVEALED
  Arriving on Baran, the Raven Guard chose to make
  only cursory contact with the Men of Baran and their
  Commander Asaberra, choosing instead to move
  virtually unknown amongst the deepest and wildest
  reaches of Baran, rooting out the Orks in their own
  lairs, searching for the source of their sudden ferocity.
  They would not wait long to find it.
  At a dozen sites across Baran the Raven Guard found
  the remains of Ork camps, littered with burned-out
  huts and dozens of Ork carcasses. Indeed, Moradius
  could find no Ork settlement standing at all.
  Something, it would seem, had driven every wretched
  greenskin from their lair and sent them hurtling
  against the fortress cities of Baran. It was quite possible
  that the Orks themselves had wrought such
  destruction, but to have done so spontaneously across
  the entire planet seemed too organised for them.
  Moradius feared that something more deadly lay at its
  root. 
  Reconvening the scattered scouting parties, Moradius
  led his hundred or so men across the Voltus Plains – a
  great, windbeaten steppe where even the Orks did not
  settle, but instead prowled in nomadic, predatory
  packs atop boars, squiggoths and other fungal
  monstrousities. After a week’s hard march, the Raven
  Guard at last encountered Orks – a curious kind of
  relief to Moradius. It would seem that the nomadic
  Orks had proven more elusive than their encamped
  counterparts, and so here had yet evaded attack. 
  their value, but drawn to their riches nonetheless.
  Without hesitation Mauryon’s armies fell vengefully
  upon the Orks, butchering them in devastating hit-and-
  run raids before vanishing once more through the
  ancient wraithgates. Ocassionally, however, the Eldar
  would emerge to find themselves greeted by the
  colonies of Man, rather than Ork, and here under
  Mauryon’s specific orders the Eldar retreated, slipping
  away without ever their presence being made known
  to the men of Baran.
  Mauryon’s attacks caused much upheaval amongst the
  Orks, and whole tribes fled away from their tribal
  homelands, migrating hundreds of miles across Baran
  before again finding refuge amongst the wild and
  forgotten places of the world where their simple feral
  minds felt comfortable. Some tribes survived in such
  numbers that even as they fled they invaded the
  territory of rival warlords, taking land from their rivals
  as their own land was taken from them. In their
  hurried migrations, other Orks were flung against the
  cities of the Imperium, putting a great strain on Baran’s
  beleaguered defenders. So it was, that even as the
  Eldar remained unseen, war still came soon enough to
  the Baran Siegemasters…
  The Orks cared not who they fought and, driven from
  their own lands, many fell more hungrily than ever
  upon the cities of Baran. Great tides of Feral Orks
  swept down out of the wild places of Baran and
  smashed against the fortress-cities of the Imperium. In
  each of these cities, the Baran Siegemasters struggled
  to repel the attackers, though the greenskins surged in
  numbers never before witnessed, great massed tribes
  where once they had been scattered warbands. Three
  colonies 
  were 
  overwhelmed 
  completely 
  and
  Commander Asaberra, Governor of Baran, faced the
  greatest test of his time. From his capital at Enderra,
  Asaberra dispatched extra regiments of Siegemasters,
  including the few Baran Cavalry regiments available to
  him to reinforce the most distant and beleaguered
  cities. Some time was bought by this action, but with
  Asaberra’s forces barely able to defend their own
  colonies, little could be done in attempting to discover
  the cause of this great and unexpected Ork assault. All
  across Baran, in a dozen fortress cities, the
  Siegemasters were as prisoners, trapped in defence,
  able only to hold tight and attempt to repel each new
  wave of Orks with no hope of surging forwards and
  striking out for themselves.
  Such tactics, as Asaberra well knew, rarely suffice for
  long, and so it was with some urgency that Asaberra
  dispatched a plea for aid to his black-armoued allies on
  the dark moon of Coron…
  UPON DARK WINGS
  Purposeful, if not truly callous, the Raven Guard
  showed little haste in their response. With their own
  numbers so few, their own Captain Moradius saw little
  reward in seeking to defend the cities of Baran. More
  troubling to Moradius was the sudden onslaught of the
  Orks, and it was to this which he turned his attention,
  lest the danger grow and come to pose a threat to the
  wider Imperium. Intent on discovering the source of
  this greenskin assault, Moradius and his Raven Guard
  ventured once more to Baran.
  
  SWORDWIND • 67
  THE BARAN WAR • IV
  IV • THE BARAN WAR
  66 • SWORDWIND
  Guard would not be able to follow. A running battle
  raged for hours as the Raven Guard, now heavily
  outnumbering the Eldar harried them from all sides.
  At last, as the Eldar’s numbers dwindled ever more,
  they fell back finally into the midst of a great ring of
  standing stones, ancient monuments left from a time
  when the planet had been under the Eldar’s rule. Here
  the Raven Guard resolved to wipe out the Eldar army
  utterly, rushing against them with their full strength. As
  with so many things, it proved to be just as the Eldar
  had intended.
  Amidst the standing stones, Wraithgates opened. Small
  gates by the Eldar’s standards, but more than large
  enough for the Aspect Warriors of Biel-tan to pass.
  Mauryon’s armies who had been marauding all across
  Baran now reconvened amidst the standing stones,
  Mauryon himself arriving to take command moments
  later. 
  Where the Raven Guard had thought they might
  surround and annihilate the Eldar, they now found
  themselves surrounded by a foe many times their own
  number. Even for the sturdy resistance they could
  offer, the Raven Guard survived precious few hours in
  the midst of the Eldar’s circle of stone.  
  The Raven Guard were gone, though the Men of Baran
  would know nothing of their passing, for their minds
  remained utterly occupied by the ever-growing hordes
  of Orks which hurled themselves at the Imperial
  colonies.
  THE HORDES GATHER
  Elswhere, the savage displacement of the Orks had
  created a near uncontrollable migration amongst the
  Greenskins. 
  While 
  some 
  battled 
  the 
  Baran
  Siegemasters, others still warred amongst themselves.
  Ork fell upon Ork as tribes were driven from their
  homelands and sought to conquer the lands of others,
  or else were butchered as they fled through the
  territories of neighbouring tribes. Amidst the carnage,
  one wily and ambitious Ork saw his destiny awaiting
  him. Snagga of the Big Teef tribe spread his own horde
  far and wide, using brutal displays of power to
  intimidate all the newcomers, all the rampaging,
  migrating hordes, before offering sanctuary to any who
  would fight alongside him. 
  Many of the first to cross Snagga’s land rebuked his
  offer, and sought instead to take his realm from him by
  force, but Snagga was cunning and defeated his rivals
  with ease. Soon those that came upon his borders
  recognised his might and Snagga’s horde was swelled
  by the new arrivals. What’s more, word of his
  burgeoning Waaagh! spread across Baran, carried far
  on the tribal drums, Suiggoth calls and Grot tellygraffz
  of the Orks. Word spread of this emerging Warlord, and
  dozens more tribes flocked to his banner. Many had
  felt the wrath of the Eldar first hand, and joined with
  others of their kind only too gladly. Now a full-blown
  Waaagh! surrounded Snagga-Snagga (his name
  lengthened in honour of his victories) and the Eldar
  and Imperium alike had a unified foe to fear. 
  This unity brought no calm to the Orks, however, it
  merely galvanised their thirst for war and now an ever
  more fearsome opponent descended upon the poor,
  beleaguered Baran Siegemasters.
  Snagga-snagga unleashed his horde first against the city
  of Enderra, one of the oldest and largest cities on
  Baran, occupying one of the original landing sites of
  the Imperium’s conquest of the planet. The Feral Ork
  Horde descended upon the city and bludgeoned it
  with a weltering mass of fire, but the walls stood firm.
  Snagga’s horde was vast, and easily surrounded the
  city, easily overwhelming any who attempted to break
  out, but he yet lacked the punch to topple the walled
  fortresses for which the Siegemasters were rightly
  famed. Frustated, but not yet thwarted, Snagga-snagga
  retired to plot his next move. 
  AN ENEMY MADE
  The Eldar’s war, however, went on, and with his forces
  now gathered on the plains of Baran, Mauryon
  unleashed his largest attack yet upon the Orks. In his
  rage, however, he had not reckoned upon the sheer
  number of tribes now under Snagga-snagga’s
  command, and as the Swordwind fell upon the
  encamped Orks, Mauryon felt his first taste of defeat.
  Hundreds of thousands of Orks rushed to battle as the
  Eldar sprung their surprise assault. Falcons and Wave
  Serpents scythed down wave after wave of Orks with
  their opening pop-up attacks, but nothing could halt
  such a mass of Orks. The Greenskins smashed into the
  Eldar army and slaughtered hundreds – a bitter loss
  Mauryon could little afford. Realising his trap was too
  soon sprung, Mauryon reluctantly ordered the retreat.
  As the Eldar fled, Snagga-snagga sat and gloated.
  Things were going very well indeed.
  BIGGA & BIGGA
  Like all powerful Warlords, Snagga-snagga found
  himself surrounded by a whole host of would be
  advisors (or ‘Elperz) and sycophants, all vying for his
  affection. Amongst these were the boilerboyz Wurzbag
  and Durrboz. Wurzbag was a traditional boilerboy, a
  proven master of steam technology, while Durrboz was
  once a pigdok, and so sought fame for his legenday
  ‘grot-engine’ with which he claimed to have once
  powered a gargant by the medium of dozens of
  unfortunate Grots frantically leggin’ it inside great
  caged wheels whose motion powered the Gargant. 
  Snagga-snagga ordered that a machine be built that
  would allow him to topple the Siegemaster’s
  fortifications, and set Wurzbag and Durrboz to the task.
  But the pair were rivalrous, and simply would not
  work together. Instead the pair conspired to hold a
  great contest – each would build a machine, and
  Snagga-snagga and the tribe would choose which was
  the greatest and would hence win the honour of
  leading the assault on Enderra.
  For days the pair slaved away on their creations until
  both were unveiled to the startled gasps of the tribes.
  Alas, however, in typical Ork fashion no one could
  quite decide which was the winning Gargant – no one
  could quite decide which was the biggest (as is the
  Orkish way of deciding all things). The suggestion was
  raised that the gargants simply be named Bigga and
  Bigga, a suggestion loved by Snagga-snagga and
  loathed by the competitive boilerboyz. Still, two
  Gargants are better than one, and with his new
  machines at the head of his army, Snagga-snagga’s
  Horde set off once more for the city of Enderra.  
  FORGOTTEN PLACES
  As Mauryon’s army fled their defeat at the hands of
  Snagga-snagga, not all had managed to follow their
  leader. Smaller bands, cut off and forced to retreat
  away from the main Eldar army lest they be
  surrounded now dashed across Baran, desperately
  seeking to find a wraithgate by which they might
  reunite with the main Eldar army.
  
  SWORDWIND • 69
  THE BARAN WAR • IV
  IV • THE BARAN WAR
  68 • SWORDWIND
  Mauryon was forced to wait some days as these
  scattered elements gathered at the Barrows. Last of all
  came the Striking Scorpions of the Grieving Shrine.
  Driven far to the south in their humiliating rout, the
  Scorpions, led by their Exarch Suerymane, had
  journeyed to an ancient Aspect Shrine, long ago
  hidden by the savage, cloying vegetation of Baran, but
  known to the Eldar by some unbreakable empathy.
  Here though, disaster was found and their doom
  nearly met. The temple’s wraithgate was barred with a
  force that the Scorpions simply could not break, and as
  pursuing Orks descended upon them, hope looked
  lost. As the Orks attacked, the Striking Scorpions hid
  themselves about the shrine, lurking deep within its
  ruins where they stealth might aid them and their lack
  of numbers not so utterly undo them.
  Suerymane himself crouched within the deepest and
  darkest of the shrine’s ancient rooms, and here he
  found a sorry totem indeed. Scattered about the place
  were the broken forms and scattered spirit stones of
  his own kind. Still and perfect, they had lain in this
  lonely place of dying since Baran had first fallen to the
  Orks centuries ago. Just as Suerymane now intended,
  this place must once have been the site of his own
  people’s last stand.
  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
  Eldar’s swift feet covering the distance in mere hours.
  Despite their fleet footedness, such a large scale
  movement could never go unnoticed, and Snagga-
  snagga 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 Eldar 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
  Eldar 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 Snagga-
  snagga’s twin Gargants, Bigga and Bigga. At the far
  right of the field, a few scattered ruins concealed the
  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 corpses crashed to the
  ground, his army broke and fled, utterly defeated.
  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. 
  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
  Eldar’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 Eldar 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
  Eldar 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 Eldar 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 Eldar 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 Eldar 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
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Warhammer/40k/UNSORTED (help requested)/Warhammer Epic Games/Epic 4th Edition/Epic 40k - 4 Editon - Swordwind 3 - The Baran War.pdf