Orks threaten Tau supremacy in Hadron Expanse

Although the Tau advance in the Hadron Expanse was now gaining some momentum, the expansionist xenos did not have things all their own way as 020M42 progressed. While they were concentrating on taking the fight to the Imperium, less well defended systems soon found themselves under attack from a rejuvenated greenskin menace.

 

The first the tau knew of the ork threat was when an ork rok, along with a host of smaller craft, entered the Echo Reach system, at the heart of the Hadron Expansion sphere. The orks then fell upon the less heavily populated outer worlds causing chaos and destruction wherever they went. The orks seemed to be intent on looting and raiding, before taking back their spoils to their ramshackle fleet, but this was enough of a threat for the tau to send in an elite hunter cadre against the greenskins, in the hope of driving them out of the Echo Reach system.

 

Unfortunately the orks, supported by grot tanks and a gigantic squiggoth, were more than happy to engage in a fight, and the arrival of the tau military force only seemed to make them all the more enthusiastic. The battle on the outer worlds dragged on for days, before the squiggoth was finally put down. The tau meanwhile took heavy casualties, losing a tau'nar battlesuit, and the tau were forced to evacuate their cadre and watch helplessly as the orks ransacked their outer bases. By the time the tau sent in their fleet and several more heavily armed battlegroups, the greenskins were long gone, leaving destruction and devastation in their wake.