Loyalists overrun Dnatha system

With the ongoing raids and the appearance of the Imperail fleet ad Dnatha, the alliance knew full well that a full scale invasion of Dnatha Prime could not be long in coming. Since their arrival the Federacy had not been able to construct meaningful defences on the world, and the entire planet was little more than a home for a few million nomadic goat-herders. 

The Federacy had seen Dnatha as ripe for Federal colonisation, and made it plain to the Tau Empire that they wanted the base to themselves. This had been agreed, but with the loss of the eldar webway portal and the Tau fleet defending Echo Reach itself, the Federal fleet now had to make a difficult decision. Fight Admiral Barham's vessels and potentially lose the entire expeditionary force, or flee and hope that reinforcing the troops on the ground would be enough to prevent the invasion.

The Federacy chose the later, withdrawing their fleet to New Titania in the Mimir system, where it was badly needed to protect their main base from the forces of chaos. On the ground, expecting a mainly imperial guard landing, the Librian defenders were reinforced with Baneblade support and a handful of Tallaxian air corps fighters and observation aircraft. This was expected to be sufficient to see off even a Lycaon Guard assault on the planet.

The Imperium however did not intend to merely land Guard units and face the Federacy in an equal battle. The Knights of House Eagleclaw alredy had a debt to settle with the Federal forces over the loss of one of their pilots, and now the Imperial battlegroup prepared to send in their most powerful war engines to smash the Librian defenders, allowing the Lycaon guard to mop up and pacify the rest of the planet. The alliance forces were clustered around their main base awaiting the invasion, making the task of meeting and destroying the enemy all the more simple.

House Eagleclaw landed and immediately pushed into the Librian lines led by their Knight Gallant. This was a semi-suicidal tactic, but the close combat knight once again weathered the storm of enemy fire long enough to distract much of the Librian firepower, which took an awfully long time to finally bring down the marauding knight. Meanwhile, the remaining knights used their awesome mid range weaponry to simply pick off the Librian armour, making short work of even the baneblade support sent to reinforce the federal positions. The Lycaon guard mostly watched and waited, although some of their elite armoured units supported the assault by Eagleclaw from range.

By 2708.018M42 it was clear to the federal commander that the planet could not be held. House Eagleclaw had broken through their lines and were swarming all over the populated settlements and the planet's only base capable of supporting bulk landers was coming under threat. Realising their defensive strategy had been wrong the Librians withdrew, abandoning the planet and rescuing what troops and equipment they could.

The fall of Dnatha Prime had been a salutary lesson for the Federacy. Although the Librian Guard had been improved and were now a credible fighting force, the appearance of knight houses in the Hadron Expanse required their military planners to think more strategically about their military plans. Simply pushing icons round a map would not suffice, and each battlegroup needed to be reorganised in order to ensure that every one had the capability of dealing with multiple threats. The Librians defending Dnatha Prime had virtually no chance once the Imperium decided to employ House Eagleclaw in the vanguard strike, a mistake the federal strategists had paid for with the loss an important strategic system.