Tau Crisis Suits, equipped with strong armor and powerful weapons, proved highly effective in outflanking ork forces, particularly against poorly equipped orks on the smaller continents of Al’gel II.

“The year 744.M41 finally saw the total subjugation of Al’gel II, a bloody and savage campaign that took nearly a decade to finish—and took twice  as long as originally intended.

But all was not well. The years of bloodshed had attracted the attention of a number of small fleets of ork pirates—known as Freebooterz—that increasing challenged the Tau Navy supporting the Tau ground campaign. With the fall of Al’gel II, the next campaign would be in the Void—and the orks were waiting.” —”The Complete History of the Al’gel Campaign” by Aun’el Mor’kan Tal’is’ta, Ethereal caste, Dal’yth Sept.

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Excerpt of “The Complete History of the Al’gel Campaign,” the conquest of Al’gel II (741-744).M41)

[Dates converted to Imperial  calendar for ease of reading.]

Ethereal Oversight Heightened

Commander Bloodsword

By the latter half of 741.M41, the conquest of the main continent of Al’gel II was complete, and the most powerful ork warlords of the planet were dead or had fled to the other continents.

Yet the Tau ground commander, Commander Bloodsword, was in no position to rest on his laurels. Four smaller continents still were controlled by the greenskins, and these needed to fall before the total subjugation of the planet was complete.

The weight of command became all the heavier with the arrival of Aun’Ui’ Tsu’Yr, an Ethereal known as a stern, if not unkind, leader who was tasked with monitoring future military campaigns and determining if Bloodsword’s slow conquest of the Al’gel System was a fault of generalship or the Tau leadership’s failure to accurately assess the strength of ork resistance before beginning the campaign.

Little is known of the long conversations that occurred between Bloodsword and Aun’Ui, but the rest of 741.M41 was devoted to resupplying, resting, and reorganizing Tau forces—with the intention of moving to the second stage of the planet’s conquest: the seizure of the four small continents still under greenskin rule.

Preparations for battle

The first of the small continents to be targeted by Bloodsword was code-named Kal’Tak [“Next to Fall”).

This target was selected out of simple convenience. Wiping out the last orks on the Great Continent had left most Tau forces in the northwest corner of the landmass, and  Kal’Tak was the closest next target.

Aun’Ui had arrived with more than 750,000 Fire Warriors to replace Bloodsword’s casualties, as well as ample supplies to replace expended ammunition and the losses in tanks and transports over the years of fighting.

Half of these reinforcements were organized into a new 7th Hunter Cadre, while the rest were allocated to the existing Cadres to bring them up to full strength. The 5th Hunter Cadre was not reinforced. Instead, it was assigned to the garrisoning of the Great Continent and hunting down new ork infestations created by xeno spores that permeated the planet’s atmosphere.

The Pulse Rifle, the standby of Tau infantry forces, provided devastating fire against the resilient ork warriors.

Invasion of Continent Kal’Tak

The battle for Kal’Tak began on 6 300 742 M41 with an orbital bombardment of the southeast coast of the landmass, a target closest geographically to the Great Continent.

The initial landing was made by the 3rd and 4th Contingents of the 1st Hunter Cadre, transported by 50 Manta dropships that crossed the ocean in the dead of night and disembarked the troops on a deserted stretch of beach far removed from any notable ork settlement.

Over the next few days, as more troops arrived, Tau began to advance out of their beachhead and move inland. Ork resistance was minimal, limited mostly to small warbands of greenskins who lived in the vicinity. It was almost 20 days before significant ork forces arrived to provide serious resistance.

As it turned out, however, the technology and manufacturing capacity of orks on this island were not as advanced as that of the main continent. There were limited numbers of walkers (Death Dreads or Killa Kans), very few Battlewagons, no aircraft, and no larger weapon systems such as Gargants or Stompas.

With an opponent largely limited to infantry,  Tau troops were able to outmaneuver their greenskin opponents for much of the campaign, as well as bring overwhelming firepower against large troop concentrations.

What’s more, air superiority allowed Tau forces to conduct Deep-Strike attacks behind ork defensive positions, catching the greenskins in a crossfire that inevitably ended in massive ork casualties.

It took only six months to shatter ork resistance on the continent, so one-sided was the fighting. Indeed, the 11th Armored Cadre reached the far side of the landmass in less than three months. Much of the remaining fighting of the campaign was simply a culling of isolated warbands that withdrew into difficult-to-reach forest and mountain regions.

Click here to read Part 2 of this article.

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Click here to see more of the great artwork ofthomaswievegg.

Alas, the website of Juan Diego Dianderas is no longer available. The Corvus Cluster will keep an eye out for his talented work.

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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our gaming adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.