Hussaria III invaded

The initial invasion attempt of Hussaria III had ended in failure, as it had become clear that the imperium were not prepared to give up their hold on the planet easily. However, having defeated the imperial fleet, the Alliance prepared a new invasion, with significantly enhanced forces.

Malkaor led the alliance expedition, which included large numbers of fire warriors backed by the larger tau suits and drones. A full Kavaal - or commune was employed in the attack, totalling somewhere in the region of 10,000 troops, while the Federacy supplied a combined Librian/Tallaxian Super Heavy tank regiment. The tau needed to establish air superiority and the bridgehead, then the Federacy would sweep across the remaining Imperial controlled bases - nestling in a single valley near the equator of the cold world.

Malkaor was able to assess that in addition to the Novgorod forces, the imperium had been reinforced by a phalanx of Knights from House Corvus, as well as Super Heavy tanks from the Last of Sycorax. The tau commander decided to attack the knights first, and allow the Librians to deal with the heavy tanks.

The Tau insertion force deployed by night, unopposed by the imperial navy which had been smashed in previous weeks. The next morning the tau moved towards their main objective, the imperial artillery defences which needed to be neutralised before the Super heavy tanks could be unleashed.

The tau encountered the Knights in the industrial complex near to the imperial base. The tau scored the first success, taking down a Helverin skulking in the ruins, but the Castellan responded by obliterating the tau armoured support with overwhelming firepower.

During the engagement the tau were forced to close with their enemy, as the knights kept their distance from the tau, rendering their shorter range firepower ineffective. However, House Corvus, inexperienced in fighting tau, has massively overestimated the amount of firepower they needed to apply to a target to neutralise it. Poor target selection and inefficient use of firepower would ultimate cause their downfall. While House Corvus obliterate individual tau assets or units, Malkaor’s forces methodically took down knight after knight. Eventually the two larger knights were taken down, putting beyond doubt the tau victory, and by the end of the day the knights had been defeated for only moderate tau losses. Now the fate of Hussaria III rested on the outcome of the two Super heavy tank companies rushing towards each other along the valley floor.