Tau Triumph
A force 996 strong attempted to hold a Tau incursion in after several Tau divisions forced the bridgehead at Caglaran. Lord Amitri of Xarla led a force to meet the attack. He had a force of warriors on the left whilst Crypteks led more warriors in the centre including one unit aboard the Ghost Ark NNV Stormbringer. Two small units of warriors moved to hold objectives in the centre and on the right, Lord Amitri’s own unit looked to an objective on the left with another beyond it.
A few scarabs were available to provide a weak screen centre right and the Doom Scythe NNV Storm Surge was available for air support. The Tau deployed battle suits on our right, heavy weapons on our extreme left with two missile carriers centre rear. Two units of fire warriors provided their troops across a broad front.
One unit of fire warriors broke under fire early but quickly rallied and in general neither side was achieved much damage at range early on. The scarabs attempting to close the Tau right, two units of three battle suits, inflicted only token damage before being wiped out, but the Doom Scythe’s arrival did knock out a pair of suits.
Tau infiltrators attempted to outflank us on the right, resisting our assault with grenades before being cut to pieces by our two right hand units of warriors. The Stormbringer did good work reducing the number of fire warriors with broadsides and doing valuable repair work to our units before exploding under battlesuit fire. The Storm Surge was also brought down by the skyfiring enemy vessels after failing to damage the two missile carriers with its death ray; ironically it did crash onto one of them causing minor damage.
Although our warriors had been regenerating well, as the units were depleted and multiple Tau squads were able to use their long range weaponry effectively we began to struggle. Our two central units of warriors including the survivors of the Stormbringer lost their cryptek leader to the battlesuits and failed to assault, leading to their destruction.
With fewer targets to spread enemy fire, Lord Amitri and his unit was picked off next, leaving just our two units on the right holding one objective when the battle ended. The Tau held only one objective too on their right, tenuously, with only a few survivors of one of their fire warrior squads, but they held it. They also had scored first blood with the scarabs and killed our warlord.
Tau forces remained approx 45% intact though the battlesuits and warriors had probably lost two thirds of their number and their infiltrators were destroyed. In contrast, our extracted forces amounted to about 20% of those deployed including one Cryptek and the survivors of two warrior squads.
1.9.12
Home 