With the defeat of Federal forces on Bree, the Hammers of the Emperor decided to go on the offensive in the Palantir system, despite the lack of strategic assets available to the imperium in the Hadron Expanse. Their target was Dale, and extremely sparsely populated world of farmers with little in the way of natural resources, but strategically significant in controlling the system. Palantir’s jewel was Hobbiton, but the imperium lacked the strength to retake a world of a hundred million. The astartes however feigned an invasion of the major world, and this display of strength forced the alliance to concentrate on its defence, leaving Dale wide open.
The Hammers easily took control of the critical locations on the world, but the alliance reacted quickly, sending in the highly mobile tau to remove the invaders. There was no front line as such, instead the two sides fought a series of running mobile battles across the rolling landscape of Dale in the first week of 10.019M42, but the astartes refused to play into their enemies hands, maintaining a defensive posture around the planet’s key locations.
Eventually the tau were forced to conduct a frontal assault on the Hammers’ positions, and this suited the space marines force. Lacking their own fleet support, the alliance were unable to bring to bear overwhelming force, as they were still unsure whether the invasion of Dale was the main invasion or a diversion. The tau were defeated at a small settlement which passed as the capital of the world. The alliance made no immediate move to reinforce this difficult position, and continued to fortify Hobbiton until they could establish the strength of imperial assets in the Palantir system.
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