Following the lightning advances during operation Neptune, the Tau were not about to provide the Imperial forces with a much needed rest. On 0411.009M42 Strongspear's hunter cadres neatly leapfrogged the worn out forces of Shadowstrike and Ol Cha in a well planned operation. Then the Tau launched yet another offensive, driving deep into the Imperial lines and quickly reaching the coast. By the 7th the North Tuva mining complex was under Tau control.
Cunningham knew a counter attack was desperately needed and called on the elite formations of the Corellian Storm Guard. An entire mechanised and armoured army group, much of Cunningham's strategic reserve, supported by PDF units on the flanks, attempted to drive into Strongspear's flanks to cut off the Tau in the Hook peninsular.
Strongspear however was not fooled. As the armoured units rolled across the north Tuva plain, his forces withdrew, picking off the tanks and chimeras of the Corellian Guard while conducting a careful withdrawal. Gradually the Imperial advance slowed as stealth suited Tau wreaked havoc in the Imperial rear areas. Deep striking crisis suits finished the job, devastating the lighter armoured chimera troop transports and decimating the veteran guard units in them. Realising they were cut off without support the armoured columns of Cunningham's advance were forced to abandon the attack, and the Hook peninsular was surrendered to the Tau. Cunningham wondered how long this kind of retreat could go on.
The Claws of Lorek already had other targets in mind when they decided to quit the fighting on Bothorion. A larger force of traitor marines, supported by loyal cultists and enforced slave labour had arrived via the warp conduit into the Perseus Deeps some weeks before. Now, on 3110.009M42 the force entered orbit around the minor world of Yaasha, an uninhabited Imperial world which had been used by the Imperium to garrison new regiments as a stopover before reaching the Zadoc subsector. On the day chaos arrived it was a luckless regiment of Porphyrian guard which soon found itself under attack from chaos forces. Before the appeals for aid could be acted upon by the Imperial fleet, the Claws of Lorek had annihilated the regiment, enslaving many for their own uses. Realising the waystation had been destroyed, General Thaddeus Roover coldly decided against sending any forces to rescue the remaining loyal guardsmen, still fighting a reargaurd action in the badlands of the planet, casually striking the regiment from the Imperial manifest without a second thought.
Meanwhile Imperial surveillance of the newely revealed exodite worlds revealed evidence of brutal and bloody close quarter fighting as eldar poured out of the web way portals on Mael Kithlann and began a merciless process of genocidal cleansing against the ork invaders. Several recently constructed ork settlements were raised to the ground and the exodites themselves hunted down any orks careless enough to wander away from the main concentrations.
Following their landing on the world of Sparcos on 1710.009M42 the Blood Angels had noted with concern the mounting ork presence on the world. The greenskins were not approaching the fort as yet, where the eldar gave no sign as to whether they were still in possession of the Imperial fortress, but it would only be a matter of time. The Blood Angels decided they would need support. Fortunately they were contacted by the Reaper Angels chapter of space marines, who sent a company to the planet, noting the presence of ever more Ork Roks in the system. At the same time, working on intelligence gathered in secret, a small party of Blood Angels successfully raided a Necron tomb in the Perseus Deeps, apparently waking the slumbering aliens but successfully retreiving the item they were after.
It is not known what this artefact was, or why the Blood Angels decided to retreive the item and bring it to Sparcos, but before they had chance to use it, if that was there intent, and while the Reapers began their reconaisance into the fort proper, an enormous horde of orks attacked. The Blood Angels held their ground as best they could, but the tide of orks was overwhelming and the space marines were forced to trade land for time, edging back from the rocky valleys they had secured upon landing and fighting vicious battles all the way back to their final perimeter, where the impetus of the ork attack finally began to peter out. The orks dug in, readying themselves for yet another assault.
At the same time, on 0211.009M42 the Reaper Angels ventured into the ruins of Fort Sparcod itself. Initially they found nothing but tangled ruins, but eventually the eldar gave away their presence, ambushing the space marines apparently at random, probably whenever the marines approached the secret webway portals which had allowed them to take the fort so easily in the first place. Brisk fighting continued for more than two days, but the Reapers managed to secure half the facility in the name of the Emperor of Mankind, and prepared themselves for the next mission to retake the rest of the fort. Time would tell if the Dark Angels on the outside would give them enough time to complete their mission.
After suffering dreadful reverses in previous weeks, an operation to retake the initiative on Alphe was carefully prepared by General Percival and his retinue. He managed to get the agreement of the Ultramarines who proved vital to the first real Imperial success in several months on Alphe. The plan was deceptively simple. Percival recognised that the Chaos forces in the north were the weakest of the three enemies on the planet, holding a long front with few elite troops and nowhere near the number of indentured cultists the Catechism could call upon.
Cerberex Guard regiments began advancing on the Chaos defenders from the west of Westlake on 2711.009M42. They found the going exceptionally tough, with the Chaos Marine forces holding on tenaciously to every one of the Imperial objectives, Progress was slow, but the Imperial regiments from Cerberex had plenty of experience fighting the forces of Chaos, and eventually managed to force their enemy to give ground. After 5 days they had surrounded the city of Westlake.
Rather than storming the city themselves the honour was left to the Ultramarines chapter, with their superior street fighting ability. The battle for the city was equally fierce, and it came down in the end to sheer numbers. The attritional, bitter, marine on marine fighting had more than a hint of hatred to it, and the forces of Chaos fought for every street corner, every ruined house and every bombed out grain store with maniacal stubbornness. However by 0611.009M42 the ultramarines had wiped them out, taking heavy casualties themselves. Westlake however had been liberated, and the Imperium once again held the initiative on the agri world.
As 10.009M42 drew to a close, the Imperium found itself increasingly stretched on Tarsis Major. The recent failure of the Silverbrook offensive and the ongion war against Chaos elsewhere in the sector had sapped the strength of Cunnigham's army, as reinforcements reduced to a trickle. Much of Cunningham's reserves had been used up in the attack on Silverbrook and the Tau had regained the initiative, smashing the Porphyrians and reaching the capital.
Now, Shadowstrike took over, moving Strongspear to protect the eastern flank, and bringing up Ol Cha to his right. Operation Neptune began shortly after. Shadowstrike's main thrust drove straight at the ruins of Tarsis Prime, a city ravaged twice by orks. The battles raged for three days as General Cunningham deployed his experienced Librian 101st and 4th Armoured regiments, but during fierce street battles the Imperial forces faired badly, despite initial success with their dug in anti-tank batteries against Shadowstrike's hammerheads.
Bitter hand to hand fighting developed, with Shadowstrike personally leading the assaults, demonstrating that this time, territory mattered and the city would fall to the Tau. Many of the Librians, despondent at apparently losing their third war to the Tau, began falling back in the face of massed rail gun fire. Only the tank support remained steadfast, but even that faltered, the wrecks of Demolishers littering the Square of Faith. Worse was to follow on the 29th when several Leman Russ battle tanks were lost in a failed flanking manouevre, their heavy weight sinking into the soft ground of Tuva after it had been churned by weapons fire and then subjected to heavy rain. Tarsis Prime was officially abandonned on 0311.009M42, and the government moved to Coldside.
Ol Cha was even more successful, fighting a series of actions on the right flank of Shadowstrike's advance. The PDF units stationed there fled almost immediately, and only two small companies of space marines - Reaper Angels and Dark Angels - stood in the way of Ol Cha's mechanised cadres. Using experience learned painfully against the Astartes foes, the Tau almost annihilated the Reaper Angel company before outflanking and decimating the Dark Angels. Seeing the superhuman defenders falter the Imperial Guard and PDF retreat turned into a full scale panic, and several thousand surrendered on the spot. Ol Cha never paused, hounding the Imperial forces all the way across the Tuvan plain and the central forest, before finally running out of steam at the shores of the Merrin Strait. A swathe of Tuva the size of Sartano had fallen in just seven days and the capital had been lost. Cunningham was hard pressed to shore up his collapsing defences.
Imperial HQ was moved to Coldside, and serious consideration was given to an armistice. If the Tau could be pursuaded to allow the remaining Imperial forces to leave the system, some 2 million troops, not to mention the Adeptus Astartes units, would be free to fight other, more pressing wars elsewhere. Tarsis could be retaken at a later date once the resurgent Chaos threat had been dealt with. This sentiment, close to heresy, was soon stamped out with a combined warning from the Inquisition, Commissariat and at least two Space Marine chapters. No. This time there would be no armistice, no peace deals, no retreat. It may take years but Tarsis would be retaken and the Tau made to regret their invasion. Besides, pointed out the Imperial Tacticae, retreating here would allow the Tau to pursue their other aims elsewhere, which may involve more Imperial worlds. The war on Tarsis would go on.
Following the Battle of Bothorion the situation on the world was not settled. The orks made the first move. On 2810.009M42 ork forces led by Da Verminator began the assault on the Claws of Lorek base. The fighting lasted for more than a day and it was some of the most bitter and brutal fighting yet over the small, but strategically significant world.
Appalled by the losses his forces were taking, and in the face of overwhelming numerical superiority, the master of the traitor legion eventually conceded that Bothorion was not the place to make a stand. In an amazing turn of events he called a truce which, to everyone's surprise, the orks accepted. To the jeers of the Greenskins the Claws of Lorek quietly abandonned the world, resisting the temptation for some wanton destruction from their strike cruiser and heading out of the Mabb Nebula for the last time. They would have to build their base elsewhere.
No sooner had the Orks celebrated the reconquest of Bothorion, for the third time, the Dark Angels arrived. Protestations from the commander of Battlegroup Alexander where ignored and a company of Dark Angels, supported by their own loyal Guard units (something else General Alexander was appalled by) landed on Bothorion two days after the Claws of Lorek left, blasting several ork roks stationed to guard the entry to the system. Landing near the ruined Imperial settlement which had by now seen all four major powers fighting over it in the last year, the Dark Angels set about their Emperor divined task with gusto, assaulting the orks in a set of lightning raids and securing a significant perimeter around their bridgehead. By 0511.009M42 the Imperium once again had a presence on Bothorion. Meanwhile the Imperial high command, quesioning the value of continues fighting in the Mabb nebula while wars were being fought elsewehere, decided the activities of the Dark Angels needed looking into.
The Tyranids, while suffering at the hands of the Eldar on Saim Lann, renewed their offensive on Betor on 1710.009M42, bursting from the earth and attacking from the sea and sky on the Island chains of south west Betor, Taken by surprise General Dempsey's poorly equipped PDF forces were slaughtered, soon losing Marsenberg to the aliens. Appealling for aid the defenders of Betor were relieved when a company of Reaper Angels arrived, but their counter assault against the Tyranid menace went horribly wrong, as half their force was destroyed in only a few minutes. The marines disengaged, leaving the defenders dispondent. Three days later Eigenfeld was overrun. With panic spreading in Lindesberg and small villages on the Sonnige Insel, it appeared the Tyranid menace was far from contained on Betor.
Menwhile the battles in the Shadow Worlds, while overshadowed by events on Bothorion, continued as 10.009M42 progressed. Chaos forces on an uninhabited world suffered badly when their expedition to recover something of great value on the barren world met unexpected resistance from Necron forces. Had they bothered to do their research they would have realised the world had been classified by the Imperium as off limits, and saved themselves the losses incurred. Fortunately for the rest of the sector, the waking of the Necrons did not appear to lead to a wider campaign by the strange aliens.
The forces of Chaos also suffered a reverse on Fort Sparcos, when their raiding force, attempting to loot the battered settlements clustering around the ruined fortress on Sparcos, ran into a full blown Ork Invasion force, led by Warboss Nazghat. The great Ork had become aware of the Fort's destruction by the Eldar and arrived in force, intending to add the planet to his possessions. If Nazghat could control both forts of the Mabb nebula, he would also control the main warp lanes to Kallack, the source of his armies. The battle was one sided and ended with the Chaos raiding force withdrawing from the planet, leaving Nazghat to pursue his war to overrun Fort Sparcos.
The Imperium did not have much time to enjoy their conquest of Bothorion. Nazghat, upon hearing the news of the loss of their base on the world, immediately sent a massive force to retake the system, which arrived on 1910.009M42, overwhelming the small policing fleet and landing over one hundred thousand Orks on the planet. The Dark Angels, leading three Guard regiments of some 30,000 men put up a determined fight, but were forced to abandon their new possession after only two days of fighting. By 2210.009M42 Bothorion was back in Ork hands.
The Orks however were not the only force to have its sights on Bothorion. Ever since they had been forced off the planet by the Imperium and Orks, the Claws of Lorek had not left the system, and on 2410.009M42 they returned with a significant raiding force. At the same time, a small fleet of Tau vessels entered the system, with Elan Ro apparently "coming to the aid" of the citizens of Bothorion. Since the planet had less than 4,000 actual inhabitants and was nothing more than a mining operation and military base, few believed the Tau motives.
Battlegroup Alexander, its naval force superior to any of the small enemy fleets in the Bothorion system (which numbered only five capital ships added together), was still supporting the colonists on Tyndareous, and unable to respond to the rapidly escalating war on the minor planet (although many observers also had the distinct impression General Alexander had no wish to embroil his forces in a confused four way battle). The Reaper Angels chapter however were able to send a strike cruiser to the system, and on 2610.009M42 the four forces met around the central spaceport and massive planetary generators.
Not surprisingly the Orks were not best pleased to see no less than three enemy forces arriving on their newly acquired (or re-acquired) territory, and a violent and confused battle soon erupted, with the Orks throwing themselves headlong at their enemies. The Claws of Lorek raiding force gleefully accepted, teleporting a huge number of Obliterators into the action. Meanwhile, while taking speculative pot shots at each other, the Tau and Marine forces preferred to sit back, awaiting events.
The marines however soon faced the fury of their traitor enemies, and took heavy casualties. Elan Ro too realised the battle was too violent, and too unpredictable to be worth continuing. Now was not the time to try to colonise Bothorion and, with their ships' holds full of more supplies, the Tau made a strategic withdrawal. The Imperial presence on Bothorion was also forced to withdraw, and the Reaper Angels strike cruiser abandonned the system on 3010,009M42, leaving the planet a raging war between Chaos and Ork forces.
By 2010.009M4 General Percival had heard about the disasterous fleet action in the Alphe system. Fortunately for the Imperium the Space Wolves chapter of the Adeptus Astartes had managed to slip a company past the Chaos blockade of the system, and their presence made an immediate difference, as Catechism forces were once again removed from the region of Pryford Meadows, with the marines reaching Barren Bay after only two days of fighting. It seemed the Catechism had reduced their forces in the south, which could only mean one thing, a new offensive.
The new offensive began swiftly on 1910.009M42 with the employment of the Catechism's most elite astartes formations. These forces crashed into the poorly equipped Alphean PDF units defending Erishore, but Percival realised he was unable to send Librian or Astartes units to their aid, as these were all tied up on other areas of the front, and the Corellian Storm Guard were still recovering from their mauling at the hands of the Night Lords. In the end, the Porphyrian 17th regiment was thrown into the breach, but lacking in the experience of fighting the Catechism they were handled badly, and soon it became clear Erishore could not be rescued. On 2310.009M42 the whole of Oldmere Island was abandonned, and the Catechism arrived on Hulme Island soon after, joining up with their Chaos allies in the north. By now the Imperium had lost control of more than half of the planet's major settlement, and tacticae calculated the planet would fall under Chaos control in less than six months.
With the front line secured following Shadowstrike's victory over the Venorators, the Tau planned an immediate offensive on Tuva to regain the initiative and exploit the fact that following recent activity, Cunningham's forces were depleted and understrength. This indeed was true. The overall commander of Imperial forces on Tarsis Major had been forced to withdraw a number of units for refit and general rest. This meant that underequipped PDF and Porphyrian units had to be put into the front line.
Realising this Cunningham deployed two Porphyrian regiments, some 20,000 men, in the centre of the line defending the approach to Tarsis Prime, with strong Librian regiments on both flanks. He knew this was a risk, but hoped the densely wooded rolling hills of the Central Forest would prevent a major breakthrough by the Tau, at least until the Porphyrians could be supported.
Tau intelligence, helped by several deserters, also knew of Cunningham's dispositions, and invited Commander Strongspear, his troops fresh and ready to fight, to take the opportunity. Stronspear accepted and his forces drove deep into the Central forest before meeting any meaningful resistance, but eventually the Imperial Guard began to put up stiffer resistance some 150 miles south of Tarsis. Infantry units, supported by a few Leman Russ battle tanks, Griffon mortar carriers and som heavy weapons squads, tried to halt the highly mechanised Tau attakcks, but massed Hammerhead fire made short work of what armour the Porphyrians had and singled out their anti-tank guns for special attention. Within minutes of each encounter the Porphyrians often found themselves with little more than a few missile launchers with which to combat Hammerheads, crisis suits and devilgish.
Seeing the front cracking, the Porphyrian Guard commander ordered in a massed drop of his storm troopers behind the enemy advance. This suicidal mission he hoped would deflect the Tau and stall their forward momentum. The mission however went terribly wrong, and the Stormtroopers were dropped miles off course, most landing directly on Tau formations where they were cut to ribbons. Meanwhile at the front line many Porphyrian units chose to flee or surrender rather than face an overwhelming foe. Only sporadic attacks from Chimera borne veteran units made any real impression, and by 2410.009M42 Strongspear had come to within 40 miles of the Tarsis capital. While the government prepared to move to Coldside, Cunninghame moved his best units back to defend the city.
Following the establishment of the Federacy and their alliance with the Tau Empire Craftworld Kel Sandros had shifted its operations away to other sectors. Events were now in motion, the Imperium in the Aleph sector was critically weakened and the comming years saw planet after planet fall to the Tau Empire and other Xenos. Although Kel Sandros continued to monitor the situation closely through its covert intelligence cells no further direct intervention was needed.
The fall of Saim Lann came as a rude shock to the usually omnipotent Eldar. Cloaked by a shadow in the warp, the senister seers of Kel Sandros had completely failed to detect the progress of a Nemesis splinter fleet into the Shadow Worlds, bypassing the Imperial blockade at Betor. They had also failed to forsee the violation of Mael Kithlann by marauding Orks, an event which probably came as much of a surprise to the random and unpredictable Ork warbands as the Eldar.
The wholesale slaughter of the Exodite colonists on Mael Kithlann and the widespread rape of Saim Lann's ecosystem by Nemesis sent shockwaves through Kel Sandros. Enraged beyond reason the response was immediate. The Avatar of Keila Mensha Khaine was once more awoken within the Craftworlds core and warriors summoned from all corners of the galaxy as Kel Sandros prepared for war!
The Invasion of Saim Lann
With Kel Sandros long dormant within the Aleph sector its warriors were spread throughout the galaxy fighting in numerous covert and overt wars. The Tyranid violation of Saim Lann required an immediate response before the planets ecosystem was irreperably damaged. In desperation Kel Sandros sent what warriors it could, even pressganging the rangers and civilians of its local intelligence cells into the military effort. Bursting forth from the webway, their rage made manifest in the form of the Avatar of Khaine itself, the Eldar struck at the tyranids as they fed upon the planets biosphere. Initially things went poorly for the Eldar, massively outnumbered as they were by hordes of ravening biokillers. Through the carnage the Avatar of War strode, an invincible vision of death and destruction, single handedly turning the tide back in Kel Sandros' favour. When the clamour of war faded the Eldar had secured the webway portal, exterminated hordes of tyranid creatures and destroyed numerous tyranid reclamation pools, but at a catastrophic cost in Eldar lives.
+++Transmitted: Captain Pelham
+++Date: 1010.009.M41
+++Monitoring Station: Gamma tertius, MabbXVII
+++Astropath: Quintus Arians
+++Security Clearance: Cruxius
+++Ref: SCTR.RPTS.034801/B
+++Received: Imperial Naval Base: Caitlen Station
+++Subject: Chaos fleet battle
+++Thought for the day: Loyalty is its own reward
+++START TRANSMISSION
+++TO CAITLEN STN. FRAGMENTARY REPORT INTERCEPTED OF FLEET ACTION IN PERSEUS DEEPS. ENCOUNTER BETWEEN CHAOS FLEET KNOWN AS SHAIDAR HARAN AND IMPERIAL ADEPTUS MECHANICUS FLEET IN PROXIMITY OF TYNDAREOUS SYSTEM. DETAILS UNKNOWN. TWO SLAUGHTER CLASS CRUISERS OF ENEMY BELIEVED BADLY DAMAGED. ORDIETH AND MORDEITH SUSPECTED. AT LEAST ONE LIGHT CRUSIER KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN LOST BY MECHANICUS FLEET. OTHER CAPITAL VESSELS BELIEVED BADLY DAMAGED. MECHANICUS FLEET WITHDREW. CONSIDER ENCOUNTER IMPERIAL DEFEAT. MECHANICUS FLEET REFUSING TO PROVIDE DETAILS OF DAMAGE OR LOSS. EXPECT FLEET BACK CAITLEN WITHIN DAYS. SUSPECT ALL REPAIR FACILITIES WILL BE REQUISITIONED. REGARDS CAPTAIN PELHAM.
END TRANSMISSION+++
While Bothorion was liberated, the Blood Angels also agreed to lend a hand to the fighting in the Mabb nebula. For a month the Eldar sacking of Fort Sparcos had gone unanswered. Then on 1710.009M42 the Imperium struck back with a lightning landing by the space marines. the fighting was tough, but utilising a great weight of mechanised assets, including land speeders, the Blood Angels were able to drive off the Eldar from the settlemets, now ruined, which surrounded the fort itself. From the shadow of the broken bastions of the Imperial fort, the Blood Angels considered their next move to eradicate the xenos taint from the fortress world.
Elan Ro continued his fight to establish colonies in the Mabb Nebula, with the full blessings of the ethereals. For the greater good his hunter cadres travelled into the Rim Worlds, raided the small Chaos world of Typhon and returned with much needed raw materials for the new colony on Memnon. His losses were minimal, but Typhon, falling under the jurisdiction of Raziel's Night Lords, reported the raid to their liege lord. While these interdictions were profitable, the Tau now worried that Elan Ro may provoke a sleeping giant.
At the same time the Praetorian regiments in Task Force Alexander, stationed on Tyndareous in order to protect the colonists, felt that they were not being utilised enough to smote the emperor's enemies. However the accidental uncovering of yet another Necron tomb on the world and the subsequent outbreak of slaughter and destruction gave them their chance. They held the Necrons, just, but Imperial high command tried desparately to ignore the increasing clamour from their advisors that the Necron presence in the Mabb Nebula, for now dormant, may have been massively underestimated.
Following the successful founding of Coronus by the refugees of Cerberex, there was more good news for the Imperium later in the month, with the founding of the Tyndareous colony and the capture of Bothorion.
Tyndareous saw ship after ship of would be colonists flooding in during 10.009M42, as the planet was declared ready for colonisation, and settlements, bare and prefabricated at first, began to take shape. The Dark Angels were there as well, and were much needed when a raiding party of the Claws of Lorek arrived unexpectedly. The Chaos forces were quickly dealt with as soon as they were detected.
The reason that the Claws of Lorek were raiding was that their base on Bothorion had been destroyed. Simultaneously a company of Space Wolves, a force of space marines known as "the Castaways" and a regiment of Corellian Storm Guard landed on the planet. Task Force Alexander had arrived and was determined to see off the Ork and Chaos armies on the minor world.
The result was a resounding success. Nazghat's Orks were defeated in short order by the aggressive Space Marine attacks, while a two pronged assault by the Space Marines and Imperial Guard soon overran the Claws of Lorek Base. In ten days the planet was rid of the Imperium's enemies, and the Storm Guard regiment was tasked with the hunting down and destroying of the remaining enemies who had fled to remote parts of the planet.
Not all the Claws were eliminated. Despite the presence of an Imperial fleet, a fast moving traitor strike cruiser was able to evacuate a portion of the Claws of Lorek, and its mere presence, detected as it headed for the system jump point, indicated that these traitor marines were more than a raiding warband. For now however, General Alexander looked on with satisfaction as the recent Imperial campaign yielded the third planet in the Mabb Nebula, putting the Imperium in overall control of the Shadow Worlds.
Finally in 10.009M42 a full naval battlegroup led by Illustrious under Commodore McManners arrived in the Alphe system. He knew his force, which included three cruisers as well as his flagship should be superior to the known forces of the Night Lords, which were orbiting the planet.
However, two days after his arrival hos astropaths reported a new force in the system. A patrol group of Swords sent to investigate reported that Admiral Thok had come to the invading powers’ aid, sending four cruisers, Jormungandr, Rheingeld, Naglfar and Skoll. This was terrible news. The Chaos ships were closing and McManners had no option but to give battle. The Night Lords fleet, and general Percival would have to wait.
The Chaos cruisers attacked head on, rapidly closing with the Imperial fleet and not keeping together, fearful of the Imperial fleet’s powerful Nova Cannon. McManners was pleased at this and gave the order to fire the Imperium’s most powerful fleet weapon. Sadly both Illustrious and Repulse were woefully inaccurate in their shooting, and failed to do any damage.
Even so the Chaos fleet was spilt up, with the carnage class Rheingeld far ahead of its consorts on the starboard bow, while Naglfar and Skoll skirted round to the port flank of the Imperial fleet. Meanwhile the grand cruiser Jormandandr approached sedately in the centre.
McManners deployed his two gothic class vessels, Hogue and Cressy on the port wing of his formation with Illustrious and Repulse deployed further back, screened by the Sword squadron. McManners planned a torpedo and lance strike on Rheingeld followed up by broadsides from his other vessels, before turning his attention to the grand cruiser. By then the other two Chaos vessels would be to the rear, but the Imperial fleet would have ample time to turn and deal with them, as they would be outnumbered and outgunned. The Imperial fleet had yet another battle with Thok sewn up.
Then disaster struck. With almost the first long range salvoes of the battle, Rheingeld got a lucky hit on Hogue. To the disbelief and horror of Imperial onlookers the gothic class vessel’s engine signature stuttered and died and the vessel was left dead in space. Almost immediately Thok had regained the initiative in the most unlikely of fashion.
McManners was sure however that Rheingeld, isolated and alone, would pay the price, but luck was not on his side. The torpedo salvo from his other gothic was confused by radiation and debris from Hogue and all six failed to acquire their targets. The carnage class escaped with minor damage.
Jormungandr was less lucky, and the combined broadsides of Illustrious, Repulse added to the firepower of the Sword squadron caused severe damage. Somehow despite the attention of bombers launched from the Imperial carrier she still manages to disengage and limp home.
25 minutes into the battle McManners had evened the odds, but Rhiengeld once again managed to evade certain death from the broadside of Repulse and the firepower of his battlecruiser, and she circled round to the rear of the Imperial fleet. Her escorting Idolators were less fortunate and were obliterated. McManners however was about to suffer the ultimate disaster.
Naglfar and Skoll had seen the damage wrought on Jormungandr, and together with Rheingeld they poured all their fire onto the Imperial carrier. Illustrious was hit again and again. Desperately she tried to disengage but with her bridge smashed and her thrusters damaged, she was unable to conduct evasive manoeuvres. With an eerie similarity to the destruction of her sister ship Ark Royal, Illustrious exploded, killing her entire crew and the commander of the Imperial taskgroup.
By now it appeared the Imperium had lost the battle, and Repulse and her escorting frigates rapidly fled the scene of destruction. The battle was almost over.
Cressy however distinguished herself well. Turning to port she saw the Skoll and Naglfar in the distance, well out of range. Rheingeld however, her crew inexperienced and impetuous, was inviting the Imperial cruiser into a one on one duel, despite being damaged. Cressy accepted, locked on to the Chaos vessel and then engaged in a twenty minute duel with Rheingeld. Very soon the Chaos captain regretted his rash action, as concentrated lance fire ripped into the starboard side of his vessel. He didn’t regret it for long however as a well placed salvo of superheated plasma ripped off the vessel’s conning tower.
With her command gone and her fire flagging the Rheingeld was doomed, at the mercy of the Imperial cruiser who showed her enemy none. Naglfar tried to help, sending in a wave of bombers against the Cressy, but these only inflicted minor damage. Only once the Rheingeld had exploded in a shower of flaming debris did Cressy disengage. The battle of Alphe system was over.
The battle was a material victory for chaos and a devastating loss for Admiral Jellicoe. He had lost both his heavy carrier cruisers and meant he would have to request a new mars class vessel from Kar Duniash. Fortunately Glorious was available and arrived several weeks later.
Thok had his victory, but largely due to luck. His fleet had approached spread out, and McManners’ plan, had he been able to enact it, may well have delivered another famous victory to the Imperium. The loss of the Hogue to a lucky shot and the fortunate escape of the Jormungandr were only two events of many which ensured a Chaos victory.
The failure of the Imperial nova cannons and torpedoes and the inability of Illustrious to disengage meant the Imperium could not have realistically achieved victory. Even so the victory remained minor thanks to the petulant behaviour and subsequent loss of Rheingeld. Given the sway of events, Thok’s fleet may well have been disappointed that the opportunity for an annihilating victory was passed up.
Although the Imperial Navy tacticians were satisfied with the way McManners conducted the battle, none of this meant anything to the beleaguered defenders of Alphe. The fleet had been sent packing, Thok had won and the defenders of Alphe now wondered if they could hold off the tide of Chaos for much longer.
Imperial Losses
Illustrious exploded
Hogue hulked
Chaos Losses
Jormungandr crippled
Rheingeld exploded
3 Idolators destroyed
Following the lightning advances during operation Neptune, the Tau were not about to provide the Imperial forces with a much needed rest. On 0411.009M42 Strongspear's hunter cadres neatly leapfrogged the worn out forces of Shadowstrike and Ol Cha in a well planned operation. Then the Tau launched yet another offensive, driving deep into the Imperial lines and quickly reaching the coast. By the 7th the North Tuva mining complex was under Tau control.
