The Battle for Zadoc: Chaos Strikes Back – 03.025M42

Following the strategic breakthrough by Commander Malkaor on Zadoc in 02.025M42, the Tau Empire appeared poised to push Chaos forces from the region entirely. Malkaor's lightning assault had shattered cultist defences and driven a wedge deep into enemy lines, allowing Tau forces to capture the cities of Antolovi and Guion, pressing southwards from their bridgehead near Chettalo. However, such success could not go unanswered.

By 03.025M42, the fractured forces of Chaos had regrouped, and launched a savage two-pronged counter-offensive, exploiting the fact that Malkaor's elite cadres were too few in number to consolidate all gains simultaneously.

To the south, the Death Guard, infamous for their relentless and attritional warfare, spearheaded an assault on the vital city of Chettalo. Their corrupted war engines and plague-ridden infantry surged into the streets, turning every thoroughfare into a fetid meat grinder. Though the Tau Fire Caste resisted with characteristic discipline and advanced technology, the xenos forces were worn down, suffering grievous casualties in the grinding urban conflict.

Meanwhile, to the north, across the open plains between the city belt and the Pera Sea, Chaos cultists enacted vile rituals to summon a horde of daemons dedicated to Khorne. The blood-maddened warp-spawn erupted from the immaterium in a tide of rage and brass, carving a path of destruction across Tau forward positions. The Tau hunter cadres, swift to respond, were ultimately able to eliminate the daemon incursion, but not before entire units were slaughtered, and much of their territory in the northern plains was lost.

By the end of 03.025M42, the northern continent of Zadoc had once again become a battleground of shifting fronts. Though the cities of Antolovi and Guion remained under Tau control, much of the surrounding terrain—particularly the plains north of Chettalo and the approaches to the Pera Sea—had fallen back into the hands of Chaos cults and daemonic forces.

Malkaor’s strategic brilliance had granted the Tau a moment of ascendancy, but the realities of the war in the Zadoc Subsector had reasserted themselves. The forces of Chaos, unpredictable and malign, remained a persistent blight, and now the Tau-Federal alliance would have to pay dearly to hold what they had claimed. The war for Zadoc was far from over, and every gain would have to be fought for again—in blood, fire, and suffering.