Kabal of the Blacksun Dawn

Ill just preface this by saying this is my first attempt at writing any kind of backstory for any army. I took a look at some of the amazing threads on this board and got a bit discouraged. But I spent some time on this so I figured I'd post it anyway.

Archon Krailex awoke suddenly in a dark room with several figures around him. He instantly recognized one as the haemonculus, Quilizen. His mutated form was floating around the room twisting dials and adjusting levers.
“Welcome back to the realm of the living, Krailex,” he muttered. Krailex looked down and saw that his body was studded with tubes and wires all over.
“So I must’ve died...,” Krailex thought to himself. “Why don’t I remember anything?”
“The memories of the distant past should be there, but you promised me your memories from a full week before your death as part of the payment for your resurrection.” The haemonculus chuckled for a moment, “Your men here can fill you in on what’s happened since then.” Krailex looked to the two figures in the dark. They stepped forward, removed their helmets and bowed to him.
“Lord Krailex, welcome back. I assume you remember us; I am-”
“Of course I recognize my son, Yrailon and my nephew, Selirex. I simply did not recognize your armor. Why do you not wear the colors of the Splintered Mind?”
Yrailon spoke first, “Lord, the Kabal of the Splintered Mind is dead…” Krailex stared at them in stunned silence.
“How? What happened? Were we betrayed?” his eyes narrowed, “Are you two here to finish me off now?”
“No, we are not here to kill you. We actually arranged for you to be resurrected.”
“But I already had an arrangement with Quilizen.”
“Yes, but he was paid off to ignore that arrangement. We were only just recently able to buy his allegiance back.” Krailex looked to Quilizen,
“You traitorous slime...” Krailex seethed, “I never would have thought you of all people would betray me.”
Quilizen jumped in before he could say any more, “I was not responsible for your Kabal’s demise, only a pawn. You were betrayed by just about every ally you had, except for me. I would have stayed loyal, but my coven and Vect commanded otherwise.”
“…Someone needs to start explaining things…now!” Krailex bellowed.
Yrailon stood, “We were raiding an imperial world. Everything was going well until another human fleet arrived right next to ours. They somehow caught our fleet off guard and crippled a few ships before we could react. The battle in orbit went downhill from there. You, Selirex, and I were on the surface with the majority of our forces when a large group of gene bred humans teleported down. These were unlike any gene bred humans we had fought before. Their armor was colored like steel, each carried a glowing blue blade and we could sense that they were all psykers.  The initial waves of them crippled our vehicles and then the second wave of them teleported in. These were much more heavily armed and armored. Most of these just shrugged off our splinter fire and many were able to withstand darklight weaponry. There were even several mechanical walkers that blew our craft out of the sky with little effort. I used my emergency portal to give our troops an exit. Selirex and I were aboard one of the few craft that made it back into the webway. Yours was shot down near the portal, and you were cut down before you could make it. Luckily, Selirex and I had some of your hair and one of your fingers to regrow you from.”
Selirex jumped in, “We returned to commoragh in shame and tried to recover from the massive losses we’d taken. But our rivals pounced on us in our weakened state. Even Vect joined in. The worst came when our own forces turned on the most loyal members. Baron Sathonyx and Duke Sliscus fled and neither has been heard from since, so those alliances are dead. Our wych allies rejoined their cult and turned on us. Our coven allies were forced to rejoin the coven and turned on us. All of our mercenaries except the incubi abandoned us immediately. The incubi stayed loyal for a while. But even they fled when they knew it was pointless to continue. In the end, the most loyal of us had to scatter to avoid being killed. Over the next few years, we contacted our old members, scavenged what we could and formed a very small kabal called the Blacksun Dawn. Yrailon is currently the archon and I am second in command.” Krailex nodded and listened through all of this.
“So why resurrect me, Yrailon? You’ve survived the collapse of a kabal and formed another. Why would you want me alive as competition?”
“Because you hold far more respect than I with the other kabals, cults, and covens. I have been unable to secure any meaningful alliances and unable to convince many mercenaries to fight for us. You commanded respect and recognition as one of the more powerful archons in commoragh. If news of your resurrection was known-”
“-Vect would just have me killed again; completely this time,” Krailex interrupted, “And he’d have you killed, and Selirex, and probably Quilizen too. He’s not one to leave a job undone.”
“Vect cannot afford to kill off any potential allies right now. Lady Malys has gained enough power to challenge him. If we offer ourselves as allies to Vect, he would surely support us and ensure our safety while we gather our own allies. We have to remember that Vect was not the one who chose to destroy us. He only joined in because he saw us falling and wanted the lion’s share of the plunder.”
“Well then, it seems you have this all figured out. All you need me for is my reputation,” Krailex sneered.
“Yes, that is most of it. But I also value your abilities on the battlefield and you leadership abilities. I brought you back only because you were of use. I’ll step down while you can lead the Kabal more effectively than I can. But the moment I feel I can do better, you will no longer be of any use to me. Do not forget that, father.”
Krailex thought to himself, “I could easily have him killed. Why would the fool announce his plans to betray me? No, he organized the Kabal’s reformation and my rebirth, so he’s not an idiot. There’s a purpose behind that threat, I just can’t figure out what it is. It seems my son would be quite capable as an archon after all.”
“Very well. Quilizen, what does you resurrecting me mean for you within your coven?”
“I suppose I will be killed if they find out before you announce your allegiance to Vect. But if they were to find out after, they would probably renew their alliance with you, with me as their liaison. So I think it would benefit both of us to keep my aid a secret until the right time.”
“I have a raider outside waiting for us whenever you’re ready to go, Lord Krailex,” said Selirex.

4 Months later

With Krailex’s resurrection and allegiance to Vect public knowledge, they had regained the allegiance of Quilizen’s coven, The Hex. They had established a contract with an Incubus temple, and formed allegiances with the Cult of the Seventh Woe, a group of scourges, and the Kabal of the Iron Thorn.
This last allegiance was very important for building up an armory and fleet of vehicles. But the Iron Thorn claimed to have run into problems lately. One such issue was a crippling shortage of the materials to make haywire grenades. They were also having serious issues with the production of ravager engines and guidance fins, phantasm grenades, hellglaives, and wych weapons. Those being made now were nowhere near the quality Krailex remembered them to be.  And one of the more interesting issues was the murder of the lead scientist working on the improvement of flickerfields and nightshields. His student had killed him, but had been unable to replicate his method of applying a flickerfield to a raider hull or jetfighter chassis. He had also lost the designs for nightshields entirely. The student had managed to make his own version of a nightshield, and it seemed to be adequate. This was probably the only reason the Iron Thorn had not killed him for the murder of his master.
But despite supply and equipment quality problems, the Kabal of the Blacksun Dawn has been growing steadily.


Thats about it for now. I decided to have a little fun and add some stuff that reflects real life. I took a break partly because I was sick of fighting grey knights (seriously, I was lucky if even 25% of my games at the LGS was against anything else) in late 5th edition. Then when I came back recently, I found the codex had been updated and a lot of things had been nerfed for what seemed like no reason. And they'd taken out the baron and the duke for some reason as well (particularly upset about that as I made conversions for both).

I'll probably be adding a painting log and maybe some narrative battle reports once I start getting things painted.