Using the banks of a dried riverbed to protect itself from Imperial fire, a Tau Hammerhead tank finally meets its death from a medium-range shot from an Imperial Knight.

“No weapon draws our wrath as does the Tau railgun. It does not simply kill our battle-brothers upon impact but it often destroys the progenoid glands that our Apothecaries normally harvest from the fallen. Without their recovery on the battlefield, we cannot replenish our numbers. It is a threat to our entire Chapter.” —Captain Kor’sarro Khan of the White Scars’ 3rd Company

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Continued from Part 1 . . . 

Fighting intensifies

For the Imperial infantry, this opportunity to advance quickly had its downside. Enemy long-range fire was intense, and guardsmen were advancing across rather open ground. The effectiveness of enemy fire was highlighted by one post-battle report noting that, in one instance, a Riptide walker, hiding behind a sand dune, rose into view, fired its heavy burst cannon, and then disappeared again behind the dune.

“In that one burst,” Wythe said, “the enemy killed eight guardsmen out of a 10-man squad.”

Click on map for larger view.

Much of the heavy-weapons fire on this flank focused on the Hammerhead half-hidden in the dried river bed. Imperial anti-tank fire repeatedly failed to have an impact. Yet, the xenos’ fate eventually was sealed once an Imperial Knight closed to within 500 meters. One shot of its Thermal Cannon was enough to set the enemy tank ablaze.

Not far away, the small xeno town erupted in a storm of fire and smoke. It had been targeted by a battery of Basilisk artillery pieces, whose earthshaker cannon leveled almost every building in town within the first hour of opening fire. With reports that the xenos stubbornly refused to flee the ruins, the battery continued to pound away.

On the west flank, the battle was more limited, but no less daunting for the Mechanicus troops fighting there. A steady advance by Crisis Suits  and gun drones proved impossible to stop by the single Skitarii unit on that flank.

An Imperial Knight, supported by two Amiger combat walkers, begin the conquest of a xeno town defended by a Tau Riptide and a handful of Crisis Suits.

Enemy counterstrike

The later hours of the battle saw the Tau make their greatest push to stop Imperial forces. As Imperial tanks approached the now-demolished town, Pask’s person tank, a 6,000-year-old Vanquisher known as Heavy Hitter, was struck multiple  times by railguns, ion accelerators, and heavy burst cannon that rattled the 60-ton behemoth and deafened two of its crew.

Yet all was a distraction, as the shooting suddenly stopped and out of the smoking ruins of the town appeaered several teams of Crisis Suits. Armed with fusion blasters (essentially melta guns), the Crisis Suits destroyed several battle tanks. The Heavy HItter managed to survive two direct hits during this attack, but a heavy burst cannon round finally managed to find a weaker, half-melted crater in the armor—and penetrated into the main power train.

The tank shuddered to a halt, immobilized and unable to turn its gun turret.

“Having read a post-battle interview with Captain Pask, I can say he was, um, quite agitated by the turn of events, and he offered a colorful opinion of the failure of the infantry to properly shield him from the Crisis Suits,” Wythe said.

During this part of the fighting, the attack column also suffered a strafing run by Barracuda fighter aircraft, whose AI-controlled burst cannons played a role in isolating the armored column from its infantry support.

Far to the west, Imperial commanders struggled to stabilize the still-advancing flank attack by Crisis Suits and gun drones. The original Skitarii defenders have given their lives to slow the enemy advance, and although more troops finally had made it to the scene, their piecemeal arrival had given the xenos an opportunity to continue to push forward and threaten the Imperial rear.

Click here to read the conclusion  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.