Bothorion bridgehead annihilated, alliance withdraws

For almost a Terran year the forces of the alliance had kept watch on the orks from their bridgehead on Bothorion. For the most part the orks ignored them, as the eldar forces usually sent out to patrol would simply refuse to fight if challenged by the greenskins. The alliance was content to watch the orks and monitor any change in activity, but during 08_014M42 the ork warlords Na'Porkleon and Kogh seemed to come to an agreement, and had begun building up their forces on Bothorion dramatically.

Alliance intelligence suggested similar build up in ork activity across the sector, and the banners of Waagh Kogh and Na'Porkleon were being held aloft in the same locations, a clear sign that the two ork warlords had decided to work together. This was particularly alarming to the tau. All their experience with orks had suggested they were a brutal race with low intelligence. Nothing had prepared them for Na'Porkleon's "kunnin" and the Blood Axe way of being orky. They knew that if a Waagh! swept through the Mabb nebula and they lost their colonies of Tyndareous and Va'Doran, their entire position in the Zadoc subsector would be compromised. The Zadoc and Librian campaigns would have to be scaled back, and relations with the Federacy could be permanently damaged. Even the alliance with the eldar might cease to be of value to their more ancient comrades...

The tau decided to act, sending a large force to Bothorion in 08.014M42. Unfortunately the alliance had underestimated the strength of the orks, and soon the forces of Skyfall were hard pressed to contain a spirited and boistrous counter attack from the greenskins. The tau had sent what they thought was enough of a force to consolidate a defensible bridgehead as a base to launch further attacks, and at first the counter attack was held, until an ork Stompa arrived.

Surprised that sarch a large war engine even existed on such a small and unimportant world, the tau had no answer to the new threat. The massive clanking mechanical idol of the ork Gods careened through the tau lines, rocket fire pinging off its steel hull and raining sparks down on friend and foe alike. Scorched and blackened, the Stompa could however not be halted, and soon the entire tau perimeter was compromised. Few made it back to the orca dropships as the ork boyz followed their talisman of war into battle with frenzied confidence.

The alliance did not go back to Bothorion. Monitoring of the orks was now left to remote monitoring stations and drone arrays, while the tau leadership pondered what to do about their withering supply lines across the Zadoc subsector.