Comic: Campaign for Umbral Void The Siege on Canis Gap

We join our hero's on Umbral Void, were Belial and Capt. Ranuk are deep in conversation on their strategy regarding the war effort...

Having concluded his buisness with the Captain of the Deathmarines, Belial invites his strike team to the ready room and briefs his sergents and their teams on the mission...

The void shield collapses and Ovessa and two other riptides take one wound each.

Well couldn't start much worse. All charges fail and two squads including the librarian and command squad both mishap and die. this might be tough.

The forces of the the tau blast away at belial's squad and the rest of the force. Ovessa, and the riptides lob ion blasts while, the broad sides and the lone crisis suit and whittle down the the assault squad. Farsight turns the table on typical tau tactics and blasts away first and assaults second. But cant kill off the last thunder hammer in combat.

With a sudden surge of martial prowess both Ovessa and Farsight fall to the thunderhammers of the deathwing. While the the counter attack is about to come with ruthless effiency.

The weight of Kroot attacks is telling and deathwing knight brother Virgilus falls, while the supporting fire of the riptides brings down the charging terminator. Can Belial pull off a miraculous victory against terrible odds?

With a sharp hunting knife finding a chink in the armor Belial falls to the weight of attacks of the Kroot. The deathwing are just running out of bodies...

With only one terminator remianing the Deathwing concede the field.

Epilouge

Belial knew something was dreadfully wrong when he awoke in the medical wing of the Penitence, the Dark Angels Gladius class destroyer orbiting the Planet Umbral. Then his memories came flooding backback, the mountain stronghold, the Towering riptides, and the legions of Kroot. As he glanced around the his regen chamber in the large open medical bay. He took note of Brother Gideon the apothecary, his retinue of servitors, and at least a dozen servo skulls. The Void glass overhead was not directed at the planet but instead held a view of the planets dead moon Iago. He gingerly looked about shaking out the combwebs of his mind and he tried to count the number of times he had awoken in one of these things...

The battle had gone terribly wrong. The teleport calibration had been off and the librarian Agrippus, had never arrived with the command squad, and a similar fate had befallen the squad of Sgt Nikolitian. What had come after was a massacre. There were simply too few members of the deathwing after sustaining such telling losses. The one survivor of the battle, Brother Nits, had grabbed Belial, the Standard of Fortitude and had been teleported back to the Penitence.

The Deathwing could be pleased at least that they had mortally wounded the Tau commanders and caused them to flee from the field. The Riptide leader called O'vessa he had personally run from the field, while the commander known as Farsight had been struck by a thunder hammer in close combat. Belial smiled inwardly at this.

The Coordinated assault had not been a complete failure though. After typing his encryption key, he read the debriefing from the telecom board within his biorepair pod. The deathmarines had been successful in their assault on the Ork fortress, but the Dark Angels had failed to take the mine site at Canis Gap. As the decompression of the pod, began and the biorepair fluid began to drain away, Belial prepared himself mentally as the corridor echoed with approaching footsteps. He knew what was coming. The servitor broke the stasis field that surrounded the biorepair chamber, and a battered Azreal entered the medical bay. It was going to be long day...

Well i took out the commanders but the victory proved a bridge to far. Losing almost 600 points without any return was a tough pill to swallow but fair play to the tau player. We were using planetstrike rules which allows a fire storm for the attacking team and fortifications for the defender. Planet strike rules allow deepstrikers to attack the turn they drop. My opponent set up the field, and used a void shield generator and sky shield represented by the elevated roads.

Rethinking the game it would have been better after collapsing the void shield i should have tried to eliminate the kroot to attempt to give belial a landing site on the the Skyshield and been less risky in my deepstrikes. I could have used a strategem to bring in the command squad on turn 2. Ah well...