A squadron of Devilfish transports speed across a battlefield on the continent of Ger’ta’on.

“It burns so briefly, the light of my children, so briefly. But, by the Greater Good, it burns so bright!“—Aun’Va, Master of the Undying Spirit 

Continued from Part 1 . . .

Invasion of Continent Ger’ta’on

The next continent targeted for attack was the largest of the remaining enemy-held landmasses—one with a larger, more technologically savvy ork population and led by the notorious Skutax Greenclaw, an ork warlord who years earlier had threatened to destroy the Tau army in a massive battle in 735.M41.

This time, the 4th Hunter Cadre spearheaded the attack, landing on a narrow peninsula on the northern tip of the continent.

This invasion faced strong resistance even before troops landed. More than 150 Dakkajets and 70 Fighta-Bommers attempted to intercept the waves of Orca dropships and Manta Missile Destroyers that approached Ger’ta’on with their holds filled with troops.

The loss of these transports would have severely hampered the Tau offensive, but, thankfully, Commander Bloodsword and Admiral Lightning, commander of the Imperial Navy, had foreseen the threat. The transports were escorted by more than 400 Barracuda air-superiority fighters, Razorshark strike fighters, and Remora drone stealth fighters.

An immense exchange of missile and cannon fire ensued, followed by a 90-minute dogfight amongst the combatants, while the Orcas and Mantas plowed forward to the invasion site, defying the xeno fighters swarming around them.

By the time the fighting ended, all but 25 of the ork aircraft were destroyed, surviving only because they fled the battle. But two Orca dropships and three Manta aircraft were shot down, each with 50 Fire Warriors lost as these aircraft crashed into the ocean.

An ork “Mek Town” lies demolished by aerial bombardment. The loss of such strategic industrial capacity greatly hindered ork opposition in the latter parts of the campaign on Ger’ta’on.

Avoiding attrition warfare

With air superiority ensured, Tau aircraft quickly switched to bombing missions—particularly missions targeting roads, bridges, and supply depoys. The result was that it took several days for the orks to depoy a sizable number of troops to the Tau landing site.

By then, the 4th Hunter Cadre had been reinforced by the 7th Cadre, and with temporary air superiority, our Fire Warriors were able to repulse the early ork attacks and launch a counteroffensive.

Over the past years, Commander Bloodsword had come to expect that any Tau advance would be beset by isolated, disorganized attacks—a failure of tactics that slowed but did not halt an offensive.

But the presence of Greenclaw changed the equation in this campaign. As more Tau cadres entered the battle, the ork tactics shifted to ambushes and the holding of fortified positions.

This was worrying to Bloodsword—not only because it limited ork casualaties at the expense of greater Tau casualties, but because it was so atypical of the ork aggressive approach to war.

But an explanation was soon to arrive in the form of vid-picts taken by a Remora drone equipped with reconnaissance sensors. Flying far behind ork lines, the drone broadcast back to high command vid-picts of thousands of orks building entrenchments about 300 kilometers behind the existing battle lines.

The orks were preparing a defensive line across a narrow stretch of the continent, where the front would narrow to only a few hundred kilometers—far easier to defend against a highly mobile force.  Clearly, the orks were seeking to force the Tau into a battle of attrition.

Ships of the Tau Navy fire ion cannons at key ork positions on the continent of Ger’ta’on.

Greenclaw overlooks Tau technology

By the fourth month of the campaign, the Tau fores had pushed the orks back to their fortified positions. Looking across “no man’s land,” Bloodsword saw that a direct attack would be suicidal: The entrenchments were well-constructed in depth and used the terrain to maximize the challenges of an attack.

What Greenclaw had overlooked, however, were two factors. First, as shown in the campaign for the planet’s main continent, Bloodsword was more than willing to devastate entire regions of the planet with orbital bombardments on concentrated enemy forces.

Secondly, the ork warlord, who no doubt was aware of Tau’s anti-grav skimmers, appeared to not have considered that such technology allowed Tau Devilfish transports; Hammerhead tanks, and Piranha gun platforms to simply maneuver around the defenses by skimming over the ocean.

Greenclaw realized his mistake when, after careful preparation, the Tau Navy appeared over the ork’s extensive fortifications and opened fire with rail guns, ion cannons, and nuclear-tipped missiles. At least 200,000 greenskins were vaporized by the initial attack.

Moments after the orbital bombardment ended, the 1st and 3rd Hunter Cadres conducted a double envelopment of the ork position by flying over the adjacent ocean and bypassing the fortifications. What’s more, dozens of Tiger Shark fighter-bombers and Razor Shark fighters sped ahead of this mechanized attack, pummeling supply depots, destroying bridges and roads, and essentially cutting off the demolished fortifications from reinforcement.

Click here to read the conclusion of this battle.

Click here to return to Part 1.

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