The 310th Cadian Regiment, supported by the Omu-13 Macroclade and Imperial Knights of House Fenring, advances south toward a Tau research facility that interests the Mechanicus leadership.

“See before you men! In the distance, the wretched xenos known as Tau await our attack. Their weapons are powerful, but not as powerful as our determination to serve the God-Emperor and wipe this entire species out of existence. Forward to victory. Death to the xenos!“—Colonel Willem Vance, commander of the 310th Cadian Regiment

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Imperial Voxcast (6 924 745.M41)—The Damocles Gulf Crusade  continues to face strong resistance from Tau forces on the world of Dal’yth.

“After securing a foothold on the Tau planet, Imperial ground forces launched a campaign to seize the closest major xeno city, Gel’Bryn,” Captain Jamol Wythe, public liaison for the Imperial Navy, announced at a news conference this morning. “But our troops almost immediately ran into stiff resistance.”

Click on map for larger view.

Some of the toughest fighting involved the 310th Cadian Regiment, which many citizens will recall played a significant role in the battle to create the Imperial foothold on Dal’yth.

Asked about the 310th, Wythe said that, based on reports from a newly arrived courier ship and occasional astropathic messages, the Cadians were tasked to assist a macroclade of Skitarii that wished to overrun a xeno research center along the coastal road leading to Gel’Bryn.

“It appears that the Tau deployed in force along the highway to the research center, and the 310th and the Omu-13 Macroclade were forced to cross relatively open ground under intense long-range enemy fire,” Wythe said.

An Onager combat walker is targeted by several heavy-weapons systems belonging to the Tau. The walker is an early casualty of the fighting.

Initial advance

After initial bickering with Mechanicus senior officers over the deployment of their separately commanded forces, the 310’s commander, Col. Willem Vance, managed to reach agreement that the main Imperial weight of attack would focus on the Tau’s east flank

“He made a good argument that this flank was the easier to turn,” Wythe said.

Click on map for larger view.

The vanguard of the attack was organized into a tightly packed column, he added, as a sizable force of Tau aircraft circled in the distance, and Vance worried about Tau Crisis Suits and gun drones landing behind his armor and attacking its vulnerable rear.

“Placing sizable infantry behind the advancing tanks served as a deterrent to a Tau aerial assault, but it did leave our troops moving slowly and susceptible to enemy fire for an uncomfortable and regrettable period of time,” Wythe said.

First blood went to the Tau when one of their enemy tanks [Classification: Hammerhead] fired its rail gun at an Onager Dunecrawler that was clambering over a small sand dune. The railgun’s high-velocity projectile penetrated the walker’s front armor, damaged the vehicle’s reactor, and caused a critical failure that led to a massive explosion.

The commander of the 18th Armored Company, Captain Gryf Pask, attempted to avenge his Mechanicus allies by targeting the offending Hammerhead tank. Alas, the tank was “hull down” along the bank of a dried riverbed, leaving its front armor protected by tons of sand.

Nevertheless, the entire company’s roster of tanks opened fire on the Hammerhead’s position, but its small visible profile made it difficult to target. Only Pask’s tank managed to strike the enemy vehicle, but the anti-tank shell bounced off the Hammerhead turret’s curved armor and failed to detonate.

A squad of Skitarii come under fire by gun drones that drop from the sky. Intense enemy fire forces the Skitarii back.

Aerial threat averted

Although the dense attack column on the east flank would be a suicidal formation against an enemy with sizable artillery assets, the deployment chosen by Vance served its purpose in this tactical situation: Realizing their aerial assets could not drop directly behind the Imperial tanks, the Tau High Command ordered their airborne troops to switch to secondary targets.

One of those was the west flank of the Imperial attack. Teams of Crisis Suits and a sizable formation of gun drones descended behind the cover of a series of stone mesas, and almost immediately engaged a contingent of Skitarii rangers, Wythe said.

“The Skitarii suddenly found themselves outnumbered and outgunned,” the Imperial officer said. “Yet, the Mechanicus troops did not waiver. They withdrew slowly, killing as many of the enemy as they could and limiting the xeno advance so that reserves could be moved to the scene.”

A second “aerial drop” actually was made behind Tau lines. More Crisis Suits dropped into the xeno town that was the initial target of the Imperial advance on the east flank.

“Although the enemy defenses there were significant, the 310th was throwing everything at the town, and clearly the xenos felt it necessary to reinforce that position immediately.,” Wythe said.

The arrival of these xenos was not welcomed, he added, but by committing their aerial reserves, the xenos did free Imperial officers to order their infantry to pick up the pace.

“The troops were told to stop looking to the sky and, instead, focus solely on the advance,” Wythe said. “The infantry element of the attack began to overtake our slow-but-steady heavy tanks and make a run toward the town.”

Click here to read Part 2 of this battle report.

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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.