The Tau in the north of the city continued their attack on the Palace Grounds from the Mercantile and Pleasure district. Both sides were cautious after the previous losses they had suffered fighting over the palace grounds. Warlord Captain Thamuz, leading the defense of the staging area on the palace grounds, had learned valuable lessons already. Now he was much more effective in dealing with the infiltrating Kroot squads, isolating and destroying them with minor losses.
The Tau broadsides were again effective in damaging and destroying the Chaos tanks, but Captain Thamuz had a plan for them as well. He called down reinforcements, in the form of a squad of Obliterators teleporting down from orbiting ships. They arrived on the battlefield right where they were needed, and were very effective in destroying the Tau broadsides. They even managed to destroy the battlesuit-wearing Tau commander.
As the Chaos forces closed in, the remaining Tau fire warriors made a courageous stand on a hill overlooking the battlefield. A couple of frantically charging chaos warriors managed to reach part way up the hill in their attempt to reach the fire warriors, but were blasted apart by the devastating onslaught of pulse rifle fire. Captain Thamuz pulled the rest of his forces back, allowing the last of the Tau to retreat from the battlefield. Being a cautious commander, Captain Thamuz did not wish to waste any of his men pointlessly capturing the hill when the battle was already won.
During their retreat, the remainder of the Tau force happened upon a scrambled Ork camp, the refuge of some Orks that has survived the invasion and awaited their chance to resume their attack. When the Tau encountered them, they were apparently getting motivated to start a waaagh march towards the areas in the skies that were most colored with the smoke of war. Hearing those giant explosions must have got them riled. But the Tau army already had reinforcements moving up from the Mercantile and Pleasure district to support the attack on the palace grounds.
With the meeting up and support of 2 whole squads of fire warriors, The Orks were mowed down. With the advantage of fighting on these grounds for what seems months, the Tau dug themselves in good picking key locations to whittle the Orks away. That was until a unit of Nobs nearing the Tau line called for a push and got the charge they needed to breech the Tau line. It was a massacre and the 2 new fire warrior teams were cut down. It was up to the last two fire warriors to hold their ground and keep the murderous unit of Nobs at bay while the rest of the Tau army adjusted and repositioned them self for the next wave of fire.
They did just that, not breaking and running they stood up to the nobs, repeatedly smashing their faces with their rifles, they were cut down but got the job done. As this was happening, the forest to the far was literally torn in half by a squad of ten massive Orks in Mega armor. The appearance was enough and after taking a test shot at them with the last surviving Broadside, the decision to avoid them at all costs was made. The Tau were able to position themselves in the right spots of the field to eventually defeat the Ork war party and send them scrambling with very few numbers left.
Elsewhere, the other wing of the Tau army, in the Eastern area of the city, used took advantage of the Tau’s legendary mobility to perform a surprise maneuver. They pulled back from their attack on Angel Square, and were almost immediately able to redeploy a large force for an attack on Building 235, where Chaos Marine forces had set up power generators to power their staging area on the palace grounds.
The rapid redeployment of the Tau forces caught the Chaos Marines off guard. They had only a small contingent of marines stationed around Building 235, since they did not have the numbers to fully defend all of the territory they had managed to capture in the city. The meager forces in the area would not be able to withstand a full scale attack from the Tau, and reinforcements were not able to arrive before the Tau sprung their attack.
Commander Mesme of the Tau managed to redeploy his forces masterfully, and in no time had all but surrounded the Chaos Marine defenders of the area around Building 235. Commander Mesme skillfully used the combined strengths of each of the variety of units he had at his disposal to annihilate a unit of Khorne Berzerkers, including markerlights, seeker missiles, sniper drone fire, and even an ambush by a unit of flying Vespid, culminating in a surprise assault to finish off the last berserker at point blank range.
Another unit of Chaos Marines was cut down by a massive horde of Kroot, and things were not looking well for the defenders. But reinforcements were on their way. Responding to a call for support from the beleaguered defenders, a squad of Raptors first swooped down to do some reconnaissance for the rest of the forthcoming reinforcements. Unfortunately, the landing in the building they were aiming for proved trickier than expected, and two were taken out of the fight immediately, badly injured while trying to amongst the jutting steel and shifting rubble of the building.
The rest of the squad then immediately came under a hail of fire, and took cover in the rubble around them. They would be little help to the rest of the reinforcements, and their mission to relay vital information about the situation on the battlefield could only be considered a complete failure.
So the terminator units aboard Lord Agramon’s flagship would be forced to teleport into the middle of a battle blind, with little information about the layout or situation. But their defense forces could not hold much longer and were completely boxed in and unable to inflict any casualties on the enemy Tau. It was a risk that Warlord Captain Adriel and his terminators would have to take.
Three squads of terminators teleported down to the battlefield, but only two arrived. The third had been teleported way off course in a crucial miscalculation. But such were the risks of trying to teleport into the middle of a battlefield without proper reconnaissance being done.
The two squads of Chaos Terminators, one led by Captain Adriel himself, appeared suddenly right in the midst of the Tau army, and wasted no time in causing havoc in the Tau line. A heavy flamer laid waste to two units of the vile xenos, while Lord Adriel personally slaughtered his way through several more units with his howling daemon weapon.
The Tau were clearly disrupted by the sudden onslaught in a battle that only moments before looked completely in their grasp. The remainder of the Tau force fled from the rampaging terminators, and scattered through the surrounding buildings. The reinforcements had been enough to turn the tide, but only just. The Tau were forced to fall back in order to regroup, but they had managed to kill or wound all of the Chaos Marines stationed in the area to defend building 235. The area around the building was no longer completely under their control, nor had the Tau managed to capture it outright. Captain Adriel and his terminators would return to the orbiting flagship, forced by other pressing matters to leave the area contested.
If the Tau had succeeded in their pincer attack on the Chaos Marine forces, they might have been able to punch through and connect both wings of their army. But the Chaos marine line managed to hold, and keep the Tau forces from joining together. The desperate Tau plan to turn the war around had been a complete failure.
Chaos: 48.5
Tau: 14
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