Zytrex released steady bursts of fire from his staff, and launched several spikes of plasma from the palm of his hand. He was standing atop one the repaired walls so he had exponentially good view on the current events. The Tau were coming in a force to be reckoned with. At this pace the Necron base would be surrounded. As Lord Ythak had ordered, Zytrex directed the warriors and immortals beside him to disable the large battlesuits by focusing their fire on their joint points thus making them harmless and unable to move without extensive repairs. One hammerhead gunship strayed too close to the wall after its descent and was burned to ash in a massive column of gauss energies. Zytrex closed his hand and the column disappeared. He looked to his right and saw several holes in the wall: many of their warriors had disappeared too. The Tau were indeed trying to eradicate them from this world. But this planet was theirs! It had been theirs for millions of years and it would be theirs for another million years, and no interloper - no matter how advanced or wise - would change that. He fired hundreds of target-seeking projectiles and listened closely for their victims' death cries. They came.
"Ignore the losses, keep deploying! We will outnumber them and systematically destroy them one after another!" The Commander ordered as he deployed with the main force, 20km north of the Necron fortress, fully deployed with around fifty thousand Fire Warriors, hundreds of Pathfinders, several thousand Kroot Warriors, dozen Hammerheads and Sky-Rays among with at least a hundred Broadsides and 30 XV-8 Crisis Suits. "We conquered this planet and we will conquer it again if we need to!" The troops hailed behind him. The most other secondary deployments were shredded during landing phase or directly after deployment, but they kept the enemy busy and destroyed some of their defense which would grant access for the main army. The fleet can somewhat endure after taking some of the Necron Bombers out with sending most of their Barracudas and Mantas after them, costing a lot of ships, but they can be replaced once the world belongs to the Tau again. The Etherreal guiding this army was not foolish enough to be deployed on ground, he remained with the Admiral on the Flagship, which was protected by 4 Lar'Shi Cruisers and even then for evacuation purposes was an Il'Porrui ready at any time. as the main army on the ground marched, the second biggest force deployed 10km east of the Necron fortress, having a third of the main force, but enough devastating force to bring serious damage upon the Necrons. The Tau would not let themselves get beaten as easily as the ones who defended in the first place against the resurrected Ythak and his awaken army.
One of the deathmarks reported capturing a senior stealth suit operator and his team with a group of Wraiths. The group had been ambushed by the phasing necrons and during the battle attracted the attention of the snipers, who systemically picked off the stealth suits until only the commanding suit remained. Before it self destructed the pilot had shouted a series of curses at the necrons, but also accidentally revealing the fact that their etherreal was in orbit during this assault (Something to the point of "You will not defeat us so easily this time unbelievers, with our etherreal in orbit, we are an unstoppable force!" *explodes). The information, though not quite comprehended by the deathmarks, was nevertheless transferred to Ovaius, who understood the significance of this discovery immediately. The leading deathmark shoots a message concerning this fact to Lord Ythak immediately, as he shot and taken down another heavy crisis suit by aiming his weapon at the joints.
Vitokh looked over the area. Hundreds of these ''Tau'' had invaded. Infantry, tanks, battlesuits. Could this force be a match for Lord Ythaks forces? Vitokh dismissed this thought as impossible, Nothing could beat the necrons. Not even these new creatures with their high tech weapons. The tau would soon be upon them, and Vitokh was ready to cut them down. Nothing would prevent their victory.
OOC: sorry for the delay! The Lord nodded and clenched one of his fists, these creatures seem to be naive at first and a bit primitive.... But still they are not stupid. They wouldn't fall for the same tactic twice the Lord noted down in his database. The Eastern Tau Forces draw very close, triggering the defense network setup by Vitokh, the bundled Gauss Fire taking out the closest Infiltration team that was revealed by a Wraith, they had almost reached the Lychguard Vitokh, but they failed to go beyond the eyes of the Wraiths. And so the eastern front had started it's battle. "Vitokh.... Their leader is not among them..... obliterate them all.... no prisoners..." Ythak ordered as he went back into his fortress, overseeing the battlefield and calculating all input, trying to see how he can break the army of the Tau, then an Idea struck him. "Ovaius.... Their Religious leader is not among them.... But their military leader.... I believe he is with the main force which is approaching us from north.... Take the Monolith Phalanx, 45% of our Necron Warriors.... And 50% of Our Immortals.... Obliterate his army, but let the leader live.... Show him.... The horrors of the Necrons and make sure.... He remembers us in his dreams....." Ythak smirked on this plan, knowing how valuable psychological warfare is to... Living objects. And he would abuse that very strong so. His Ships were on course back into the atmosphere, coming like out of nowhere, providing fire support against Armored tanks and heavy battlesuits of the Tau Invasion forces, supporting Vitokh, as the fleet of the Tau is no priority for now, they deployed their forces.... Nothing was there to be intercepted anymore and it was too hard to guess on which ship their leader would be, so the Necron Lord went with the next best strategy: Obliterate any enemy who was foolish enough to engage him.
Ovaius shot another fire warrior as the orders came through. Immediately the control of a vast amount of forces was diverted to him. He surveys the tools at hand and the situation then quickly issues orders. In order to reach the Necron main encampment, the tau northern forces will have to either scale or go around the northern mountain ranges covering the Northern Flank. The forces under the deathmark's command were already on the move when he phased out. And phased back in near the summit of the tallest mountain of the Northern Range. Ovaius noted that half of his forces were in position: Flayed ones buried themselves in the valleys in the pathways between the mountains, Wraiths stationed at the bases to wreak havoc in the enemy lines once the battle starts. A little above them laid the warriors, covering the Immortals that were even higher up on the mountain. Stationed at the highest points were the deathmarks, ready to eliminate all the enemy field commanders except for the chief. Arks have been hidden among the side of the mountains for rapid redeployment in case something should go awry. Then something showed on the sensors that surprised Ovaius, which is a feat in and of itself. Lord Ythak had given command of some Tomb Stalkers, which are currently drilling into the mountain to provide access for his troops to reach different fortified positions at ease. With that the deathmark waited. As Ovaius predicted, the tau needed to either go around or over the mountain. To their demise they chose to do both. The combat suits that were about jetpack on to the mountain were gunned down as they were about to land/or actually landing, the immortals and warriors bringing the defenseless suits down as they were mostly still in the air. Their pathfinders brought down a hail of missiles down fortifications by fortifications, didn't really destroy the troops so much as to force them to move through the tunnels to join their machine comrades at the next one, which the pathfinders themselves attracted the attention of the deathmarks and the wraiths. The floating tanks moved too slow to cover the combat suits, so most of them were with the ground convoy while their infantry got feed into the gauss meat grinder. When the convoy below rolled into the narrow valleys, the flay ones bid their time. Only when an entire convoy was in the ambush zone itself did they appear. Cases after cases followed as this: The first and the last vehicles would be destroyed first, trapping all the troops and tanks in between. Then the flayed ones emerged, and amiss that chaos the wraiths would waive in and out of the enemy ranks, killing as they wish. The warriors would provide fire support and the deathmarks eliminate any stragglers. Ovaius would take a clean shot here and there but as the carnage unfolded in front of him and the charred corpses and vehicles sends columns of smoke into the sky the deathmark sends a live feed back to Lord Ythak. Several Wraiths approached, carrying a wounded but still struggling XV-22 battlesuit. Ovaius gives the live feed of the capture back to his necron lord and waited on what to do next with the prisoner and the northern front.
OOC; People are getting less and less active by the hour. There were thousands of them coming toward their emplacements, firing their weaponry at the Necron units, mainly at the immortals and some unfortunate wraiths who had discloaked. Their ranks were disciplined and determined on their destruction. Their forces marched forward under the protection of large sleekly crafted hovering tanks. Zytrex would have even seen this display of destructive power beautiful if he had not been in danger. His left arm hung limply against his side, unable to be healed because his phylactery had taken several direct hits and broken down. His upper-torso was slowly being repaired by the natural regenerative capabilities of the Necrodermis. He raised his staff and sent forth several balls of ionized plasma, destroying two of the Tau's vehicles. Beside him warriors fell and tried to rise up, only to shut-down because of the grievous damage sustained. For the first time since transforming into a Necron'tyr encased within the Necrodermis body, Zytrex felt a flicker of fear deep inside him. He should not have felt fear. It was beneath him to feel fear. This battle would cost them much if something was not done. "Require.. Aid.." He sent to nobody in particular.
OOC: @Ing I know, I just want to give the option for others to post so I waited until you replied, will update either today or tomorrow
Vitokh cut through the weak flesh of the tau with ease. As he was cutting, he picked up a distress signal. It was necron. He directed his lychguard to cut a path to its source and signalled a ghost ark to follow. As the lychguard cut through the fire warriors, Vitokh could see the badly damaged form of Zytrex. He drove harder through the lines of tau until they were cleared. He reached Zytrex just in time to save him. The ghost ark came forward, releasing small scarabs to fix him and the warriors around.
With his body slowly recovering from its ordeals the plasmancer gave his thanks to Vitokh, who had arrived just in time to his aid, and steadied himself against the powerful staff. It would take a while for his body to recover, he mused, and in that time he would have had time to assess his chances of survival - and if necessary use whatever means available to enhance them. He gripped the staff, taking in the comforting aura of it. The Necron would emerge victorious. Zytrex would emerge victorious, as he had always done before.
