Since their arrival at Hexis the Tau had slowly been building up their forces. Swiftstar's fleet had delivered several Hunter Cadres and the Tau forces by the end of 018M42 were as large as the Federal forces had been prior to their disengagement. With more Tau forces on their way to the system, and with the Imperium also sending a naval task force to Lysis, the forces of chaos felt they needed to act quickly to gain an advantage, as their own supply lines were in no way capabile of matching those of the Alliance or Imperium, at least not yet.
The Iron Warriors, still in command at Hexis since the arrival of Stahl, launched their own assault against the newer tau forces in the north of Praxis, finding the going difficult at first in the more open ruins in the north of the sector. The weather was cold and a frost had hardened the ground, and the battle largely took place amongst the ruins of an earlier battle, the crashed remnants of a Thunderhawk gunship reminding both sides that Hexis was a three way war.
The forces of Chaos under Lycurgus Stahl did not want to contend with the Alliance as a serious threat in the system once more, not least because of the rumours of Roboute Guilliman dispatching elements of the Indomnitus Crusade from Ultramar to heavily reinforce overstretched Imperial forces and guarantee a stable warp route for the Imperium.
The key engagement took place as the Tau attempted to resupply their by now beseiged forces by air. The xenos had air superiority, but the Iron Warriors' ground forces encircled the Tau and as the airdrop was delivered, tightened the noose.
Lord Bezhok, Nicator and Eznath were dispatched to ensure the supplies did not reach their intended destination. From the outset the Iron Warriors were at a disadvantage, the supplies were being dropped in from high orbit by the Air Caste with the Tau being far more suited for the task of retrieval. Bezhok, decided to approach the problem with brute force, bringing his best trained Thorakitai and Daemonic War-engines refitted by Warpsmith Tkalčec.
The Tau, reacted immediately to the threat of the Iron Warriors, catching them off guard. The Tau Ghost Keel outflanked the Iron Warrior line while the Tau forces collectively took aim. Marker lights made a mockery of the hasty defences and foxholes that the Traitor force made, targetting the armour of the Iron Warriors as plasma, Pulse and Ion charges pulsed across the battlefield. When the dust cleared the resilient Defiler was only wounded and like quicksilver those wounds closed. The wind was with the Iron Warriors as the supplies began to drift away from the Tau, the Thorakitai took aim and obliterated the pathfinder forward positions, the squad disappearing in a deafening hail of autogun fire. Both Nicator and Eznath, along with the Defiler, intercepted the Ghost Keel, psychic scrapcode shorting out the shield drones and personal defence field as the Defiler charged, the Ghost Keel darted away and just survived. The damaged jets worked best they could to escape the Defiler, not enough though just enough to dodge the worst of the Defilers Battlecannon and Autocannon fire. Finally having enough of the Defiler failing in its “one job”, Nicator drew his Bolt pistol and put a round through the cockpit of the Ghost Keel blowing the pilots head clean off.
In the main battle line, the Tau were forced back and boxed in against the ferocious charge of the Iron Warriors, the relentless autogun fire pushing back lighter units while the threat of the rampaging Maulerfiend threatened the more heavily armoured battle suits. Things went from bad to worse as Obliterator reinforcements tore into reality, and decimated the Crisis Team, worse was to come, as the Maulerfiend managed to catch the enemy commander off guard, pinning the Shas 'O with its claws and ripping him to pieces. For the remaining Tau, they knew they had not hope at recovering the supplies and so, rather than waste further lives, the remaining forces retreated, leaving Northern Praxis and the supplies to the Iron Warriors.
Unable to prevent the chaos forces from intercepting the drop, the Tau had no alternative but to abandon their positions in Valkaim. Now the alliance had no territory inside the city proper, and the imperium found themselves cut off by chaos forces, who were gradually encircling the city centre.
Further south the major push was conducted by the Emerald Serpent, fielding an all Tzeentch worshipping force dominated by daemon princes, Thousand Sons and a shard of Magnus. Magnus did not last long however, the tau of commander Skyfall picking off the daemon primarch with sustained and frightening amounts of concentrated firepower. The tau had their own problems however, as necron forces had been found apparently wandering aimlessly in the region, their systems not fully functional in terms of command and control. Nevertheless the "defenders" of Praxis were an awkward problem which both sides needed to deal with, the necrons even delaying the Emerald Serpent advance for some hours.
The chaos advance appeared to have stalled, but gradually despite the overwhelming firepower advantage enjyoyed by the tau, the city ruins gave the marine forces much needed protection from the worst of the tau weaponry, and their daemon princes force the tau to retreat ever further. Some tau were even forced into close combat situations, and by 0101.019M42 the tau were withdrawing across southern Praxis. Once again the original federal base was taken by chaos, and the southern gate of Hakhor was secured by the traitors. The chaos forces were advancing strongly and now controlled more almost half the important objectives on Hexis, but they still remained without the device chamber, or the means to activate it.
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