Narrative Tactical Review: The Tau of War

Shas’O Tau’N Mal’Caor Run’Al surveyed the battlefield, a pall of smoke drifted across the ruins, the smell of death filling his nostrils and the tang of ionised air from pulse gun and las rifle made his skin tingle. The sudden silence was deafening, making his ears ring. He contemplated the loss of lives. This had been a costly victory as he had known it would be.

 As previously, the Tau air caste had bombarded the area, reducing a sizable part of the city to ruins, but unlike before the “Gue La” had dug in, their sizable infantry squads supported by elite assault troops and a multitude of specialist weapons. This was not the way he preferred the hunt but he had understood the need for consolidation.

He thought back to key moments of the conflict; An imperial troop carrier had dropped off a squad of assault troops that had nearly destroyed his own HQ and had then had made short work of a Hammerhead Gunship. The fearsome kroot that had been totally wiped out only accounting for a single enemy veteran squad and worst, their leader had survived the encounter. One of his Shas’la dying horribly, pierced by a dozen lasgun bolts. Although both Shas’ui from the fire warrior teams had shown themselves to be heroically courageous - either one would make a suitable replacement - his eyes stung from the personal loss he felt.

It had been necessary to use his infantry as a distraction, using them as little more than bait in a trap. The plan had been to surprise the humans with his reserves, who would surround and confound them, pinning them with massed fire. The plan had nearly backfired; partly due to the slight delay of his reinforcements and the resistance to superior Tau weaponry afforded by the cover the Humans had utilised; not to mention the unexpected arrival of so many Gue La by means of their sudden aerial attack. Had it not been for the stoicism of his fire warriors who refused to break even though their losses were considerable, the Tau initiative would have suffered a major setback if not total failure.

“The Hidden Spider” cast his mind back to the moment when victory (and defeat) had been decided.

He had been forced to abandon his stand-and-shoot stance when he realised that both his Shas' La had fallen to concentrated fire from two larger than usual enemy infantry squads and their Headquarters team. His own Battlesuit would not have withstood another salvo, so he had assaulted the snipers who had been targeting him, shooting as he went in.

One of the Human squads had broken cover, presumably aiming to overwhelm him with numbers. From the corner of his eye he had seen the veteran squad leader who had survived the Kroot attack charging though the ruins toward him, but the man levelled a powerful-looking hand gun and promptly disappeared in a ball of plasma energy. Luck had played its hand, so it was in this as it had been in many previous battles, and so it would always be “for the greater good”

The Humans had clearly learned from their comrades mistakes and had largely ignored the Broadsides, which having had no tanks to target had made little impact in the battle. Although savages, the Gue La were clearly not fools.

Mal’Caor Run’Al signalled to the Shas’ui for the force to move on to the next rendezvous point. He felt grief and anger over the heavy Tau losses, fuelling his desire to destroy all Gue La resistance. His mind was already formulating plans for the next and final conflict, this time it was not just for Tau, not just for “The Greater Good.”

This time it was personal.

The Tau of War

Tau vs Valorax Guard | Peter v Tim | 40k | 55 | 109.997.M41 

The Tau had struck a hammer blow in the heart of the Chalice against the loyalist forces of Valorac, but they hadn't reckoned on the massed infantry of the Valorax Guard.

  

As the Tau war machine glided into occupied territory, vaporising resistance,  the call finally got through to Valorax High Command, still reeling from the death of the Planetary Governor. The threat assessment was made and orders came straight back down the pipe, mobilising reinforcements. Victor Tensk, High Marshall of the Tridents, took direct command, manoeuvring hundreds of infantrymen to get into position to defend their land. 

Where before the men of the Guard had run angrily across open ground to meet their attackers, only to be gunned down, now they took up well-defended positions amongst the rocks and craters and in the ruins of a Temple of the Divine Emperor.

The Tau closed in, taking cover in craters themselves but the guardsmen moved forward unleashing devastating salvoes of lasfire. At their initial encounter, the energies of the officers had been wasted ordering their men to run as fast as they could toward the enemy. 

Now they demanded only coordinated and focused volleys of fire. 

And the Tau fell.

The anti-tank weaponry of the xenos was all but useless against such massed infantry and their numbers began to whittle down, despite the cover they maintained. Meanwhile, their own pulse rifle fire was insufficient to pull down enough of the Valorax Guard numbers.

Then the Tau reserves arrived: Crisis Suits dropping from the skies and Piranhas zooming in from the horizon. Immediately the battle swayed back in the Tau's favour as an entire infantry platoon was devastated by flame and pulse fire, the remnants fleeing.

The Guard commander called for his reinforcements, hoping to direct them to deal with this new threat, but only static answered the comm. The Tau were blocking his communication. No reinforcements were coming! 

Then howling from the clouds came Mack Tempest and his squad of elite Stormtroopers on grav-chutes, carefully aiming their landing zone into the thick of the fighting. It was likely a suicide mission but the enemy priority targets needed eliminating. 

They let fly with three meltagun blasts on the squadron of Piranhas but fate was against them. Even with their perfect positioning, minimal damage was accrued and the Piranhas immediately fired back, cutting them down. 

Simultaneously, the Hammerhead at the other side of the battlefield burst into flames as a Vendetta gunship appeared, letting fly with three twin-linked Lascannons. The Tau signal jamming had evidently been more than inefficient.

But the battle was still going badly.

A vicious assault had broken out on one flank and no matter how many guardsmen ran to give aid, the Crisis Suit Commander smashed them aside. 

The Guard Commander looked out across the swirling battlefield, signalling the general fallback. 

The conflict was escalating. Reserves were being funnelled in from both sides. They were losing here - that was doubtless - but the war was only beginning. 

The next exchange was going to be overwhelming in its bloodshed and brutality.

The Tau Go To War

Tau vs Valorax Guard | Peter v Tim | 40k | 54 | 109.997.M41

Up to now, the Tau Shas Sha'is Contingent had made probing attacks, undermining the industrial/military infrastructure. Actions taken had been met with some success but nowhere had appreciable gains been made. Aun'Ko, Ethereal leader of the expedition knew that it was time for a new direction.

It was time for the full force of the Shas Sha'is Contingent to go to war.

In the eastern regions of the Chalice, the scorchmost habitable region of Valorax, a sizable force of Tridents were on manoeuvres when the call came down the pipe about the strike on Qualitat by the forces of the Inquisition: the Grey Knights and Adepta Sororitas. The news of the disastrous assassination of Ivan Chord, the Planetary Governor, was like a hammer blow.

The men had been in the midst of an attack training mission but the timeline was broken as the news decimated on an open channel. Every tank ground to stillness. Every trooper stopped running and lowered their arms, disbelieving.

It simply wasn't possible. They were devastated; all of them; looking from man to man, trying to make sense of the impact this would have; what it would mean for the future of their entire planetary system in this impossibly dangerous time.

All motivation was gone; the training exercise forgotten. The soldiers wandered out of rank, murmuring to one another or simply staring into the middle distance.

And that was when the Tau struck.

A deluge of aerial barrage pummelled the battlefield, sending up huge clouds of debris and turning the plane into a crater-riddled wasteland, annihilating swathes of infantrymen and ripping apart tanks.

Manta heavy transport craft flew out of the sun and touched down, disgorging hordes of Tau troops, Devilfish transports and Battlesuits. Immediately pulse fire shot out across the dusty ground, taking down guardsmen as they ran to take up positions.

There were vast numbers of Tau making landfall in the middle distance - hostilities were clearly about to escalate immeasurably - but the Chalice Tridents were angry. They had been struck a wound by the assassination of their leader and it didn't matter whether the Tau were responsible. It would be them that would pay!

The Guardsmen roared in rage and charged across the scrubland, haring toward close combat as Basilisks fired shell after shell in arching trajectories down into the Tau lines. Leman Russ Battle tanks lumbered forward, pumping shells at the enemy.

But though attacking, the Tau dug in, luring the Guardsmen forward onto their guns and with little though to strategy the Tridents kept going, being cut down in viscous numbers, far before they could reach their enemies.

Hoping to protect themselves, the tanks fired on the Broadside Battlesuits, but the xenos armour was two strong for anything shy of anti-tank fire and held as the twin-linked Railguns knocked out tank after tank after tank.

It was turning into a massacre!

One combined platoon, terrified by the horrific casualties they were taking, turned and fled; but the Morale Squad behind them let loose a string of krak missiles into their ranks to force them to reconsider. With several men torn apart by the explosions, the rest of the squad, caught between frying pan and fire, turned back to face the Tau ranks, seconds before being torn open my pulse cannon fire from a hovering Devilfish.

The battalion commander called through his vox, trying to bring order to his men, focus fire on key targets; but it was too little and too late. The Tau gave out an unrelenting level of fire and as Piranhas dropped from the skies behind their lines, the last of the battle tanks in that part of the field was blown to smithereens.

The Tau beachhead was all but secure. The last remaining guardsmen gave return fire as the comms officer called in to Regional Command. They needed more men! Now!

Seconds later he was incinerated.

And seconds after that the last of the men in the Tau drop zone was eliminated.

A Dark Light in the Sky

Inquisition vs Valorax Guard | Gill v Tim | 40k | 53 | 109.997.M41

Planetary Governor Ivan Chord felt his feet leave the ground as the explosion hit, tossing him up and back at sixty degrees.

Where he’d been standing, the floor cracked and flame licked through but he was still being hurled backwards. The backs of his legs struck something – one of his aides – and he tumbled, revolving: head going down; legs going up. Until a secondary explosion hit and he flew suddenly sideways, changing direction in mid blast. Except this time he caught a twirling glimpse of his secretary, screaming as she caught the brunt of the blast instead of him.

This must have been what it was like for the normal people, he thought, when I ordered the Immolation.

... the all-encompassing planetary bombardment that had ended the Manticore War against the Tyranids at a terrible terrible cost in lives.

He hit the wall, cracking the plaster and that thought was gone in a pinpoint of agony. Momentary weightlessness; and then he hit the buckled floor on his shoulders, barely avoiding a broken neck.

He lay there, sprawled across something some uneven bulk, gasping; winded. The internal lights were out. Smoke was everywhere. Burning wood; scorched metal; blistering flesh. And wind. He bent at the waist, twisting his body so he could get to hands and knees.

The wall was gone. Fully one third of the building was gone, ripped away in the detonation of whatever had struck. And then he saw what had saved him: his secretary’s body, broken and torn on the floor beneath him.

She used to chatter about her son; a toddler. She used to smile and laugh. But damn him, he couldn’t remember the name of that son now. His mind was a whirlwind of tactical responses and assessments of threat level. However he still didn’t even know what he was up against.

Until he looked out across the cityscape of Qualitat, Valorax’s capital city, and saw what was coming.

White armoured transports and tanks and in the shadows of the ruined and smoking buildings all around: white armoured figures, lithe but stalwart. Red cloaks; bolters and dark bobbed hair. The Adepta Sororitas. Sisters of Battle.

Ivan Chord cursed and got to his feet as the remains of his bodyguard kicked open the burning door and ran to give him aid.

There, don below, striding through the ruins on pistoned legs, supported in the lumbering but entirely potent Throne of Judgment, was Inquisitor Lord Karamazov.

They hadn’t even announced their secession from the Imperium – they’d done precious little to work toward it in the midst of re-escalating conflict with the invading xenos – but the Inquisition had known and here they were to deal with it.

“Well it had to happen sometime,” he murmured, smiling grimly.

“Sir we have to get you out of here!”

Chord focused on the officer. “What’s the evac route?”

“We have a Vendetta gunship on the landing pad at the rear of the building that didn’t get hit in the preliminary bombardment.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!?”

As Ivan Chord and his escorts ran for the faltering staircase, Valorax Guardsmen ran to take position in the ruins below and in flanking buildings. The bulk of their number had been wounded or killed in the Inquisition’s firestorm but there were enough at least to mount a delaying action.

Lasguns, grenade launchers, plasmaguns and meltaguns let rip against the approaching forces as two Leman Russ Battle Tanks rolled up to support them, taking out the lead transport of the Sisters of Battle. Arco Flagellants, boiling with holy rage, bounded down the street toward the line of guardsmen positioned to face them but, impervious as they were, they got whittle down to nothing before they could strike.

Ivan Chord and his bodyguard were down to the ground floor. The devastation was even worse there. This room had been a conference room for lower level officers. Now it was as if a broom had swept everything; furniture and people; into the corner in a grisly mass of broken flesh bone and metal. The sound of lasgun fire was deafening but they kept their heads down and kept running. All of these men here would die – there was absolutely no doubt about that – but the sacrifice had to be made, no matter how horrifying. Without him to lead them, the weakened planet would surely collapse before its myriad enemies. The war would be lost and all survivors would be purged.

But that didn’t mean Chord had to like it.

They ran out the back of the building, even as the Adepta Sororitas closed to bolter range at the front, unleashing torrents of explosive shells into the faltering guardsmen. They hadto get on board the Vendetta! Now!

They ran to the foot of the landing pad and Ivan Chord slammed his palm against the control panel to close the crenulations of the protective shield to protect the craft as they boarded. The machinery clicked and then whirred as it started to move.

Then no more than fifteen yards away, the air ruptured, whining as unnatural tears began to split it, and Ivan Chord’s throat clenched. There was a brief flicker, then a bright flash and out of the tiny warp explosion strode five grey knights, raising their arms and letting fly with Storm Bolter fire that ripped into Chord’s guardsmen, taking three of them down instantly.

His mind flicked to the report he’d read of what they’d named the Valorax Schism, the battle in the heavens with a Grey Knight battle cruiser to secure more troops to bring home. He had known they would come one day, but the combined assault with the Ordo Hereticus he had not anticipated and he had not prepared for.

There was only seconds left now to make his escape: climb up the ladder; get into the transport craft; fly away and hope not to get shot down.

But then the shield guard of the landing pad snapped into place, revealing sky above his head and there was a sudden cooling of the air.

Ivan Chord looked to the man beside him. He was shouting; screaming as more Storm Bolter fire ripped him in half; but no sound reached Chord’s ears. The din of approaching battle was completely blanked out.

The Grey Knights strode towards them, raking left and right with their fire but the shots made no sound.

There was light everywhere suddenly; all around him; centered on the spot where he stood.

All around him, his bodyguard were lying dead or wounded. But the Grey Knights were no longer approaching. They were lowering their gun arms. They were only watching as the light grew brighter and then brighter still.

Ivan Chord’s brow furrowed. The light was growing in intensity. For a moment he didn’t know what it meant.

And then he understood, and his thoughts went again to the Immolation, his order to wipe out the Tyranid threat from space, even at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives.

What had he said before he gave the order? What sound bite of trivial nonsense had he given to both immortalise and trivialise that horrific but necessary loss?

Oh yes.

“I ask you once again to give your lives so that others may survive; to die alongside the foul xenos filth that corrupts our world so that we can at last be free of it.”

He whispered those words now, appreciating the irony, as the ship-to-ship lance on the Inquisition’s gunship speared down and incinerated him in white fire.

The impact burst out across the watching Grey Knights but they did not move.

The Planetary Governor was dead.

The impact of this would be far reaching and devastating.

But the war was still only just beginning...

Covert Arms Build-up

Adeptus Mechanicus vs Tau | Tim v Peter | 40k | 52 | 109.997.M41

The call came through over the comm to Shas’o Shi, commander of the Tau Montyr’nan Contingent, from a clearly terrified Earth Caste demolition engineer. They had grossly miscalculated when they decided to send only a small group of warriors in to the apparently abandoned manufactorum complex to destroy it.

The complex was very much active.

There were signs that a covert arms build-up was taking place on an enormous scale. The Adeptus Mechanicus were building an army!

Shas’o Shi narrowed his eyes, gazing at the view screen, instantly assessing the situation. He gave the order to send in reinforcements immediately, knowing that they wouldn’t be fast enough to win the day but knowing too that it had to be done to affect a fighting withdrawal.

What he was seeing wasn’t right. The Adeptus Mechanicus clearly weren’t hiding from the xenos invaders. They were hiding from the Valorax government and military. What the Tau had stumbled upon was a massive preparation for war, not against the aliens but as a coup to take possession of the planet from their erstwhile allies!

In the outskirts of the complex, the engineer’s Firewarrior bodyguard hunkered down behind the ruins of some ancient machinery as shots came down from above. An entire battery of Thunderfire cannons was arrayed deeper into the manufactorum, crewed by Skitarii. The warriors had never seen such concentrated fire coming from such a small and mobile unit, but the Cult Mechanicus had access to weapons of war that the rest of the Imperium could not lay claim to.

Their reserves were nowhere to be seen and already a squad of bio-engineered Skitarii were moving forward, letting fly with their hellguns. The Shas’la pinged his comm. Pushing for rapid support, and striding in from his flank came a pair of Broadsides. Immediately the Broadsides were deluged with fire from the Thunderfire cannons.

Kroot warriors pushed through the ruins, trading fire with the Skitarii but walkers moved up to combat them and their lack of armour started to prove their downfall. Further back the Tau devilfish was atomised and its firewarriors hunkered down in the crater left behind, trying to give return fire from their pulse rifles but challenged by their restricted lines of sight.

The Mechanicus Tech Magos viewed the battles progress calmly, calculating probabilities and manoeuvring their forces with an architect’s precision. Everything was controllable. Everything was programmable – even reality… with the correct application of lethal force.

They made only one mistake, but it was a big one.

Fearful of the power of the Tau Broadsides, the Mechanicus deployed their two most powerful units out of their line of fire: the Neutraliser and the Hammer Collider. In a poor position they were immediately searching in vain for targets in the dense ruins. The Tau suddenly had a chance!

From his Orca dropship, Shas’o Shi snapped out orders both verbally and using ping code to coordinate his troops. He hesitated to send in a second valuable Crisis suit squad but if the Mechanicus could be overthrown then their technology might be salvageable, adding to the Ta powerbase. It was worth the risk.

And that was his final mistake.

The Crisis Team dropped in on their jet packs next to the Hammer Collider and immediately , the turret-mounted Plasma Accelerator targeted them, vaporising one after another.

The Tau lines were shattering. All Shas’o Shi could do was to withdraw. They had inflicted painful losses to the Mechanicus but not sufficiently to gain sufficient ground. He pinged the full retreat command, giving covering fire from his hovering Orca.

The Mechanicus had won the day but the Tau had discovered something they had not wanted found out. Furthermore, the Mechanicum were clearly sitting on enormous stockpiles of weaponry that could make all the difference in the war to take Valorax for the Tau Empire.

The question now, was what would the Tau do with this information…?