Event · M41

Arkunasha War

The Arkunasha War was a campaign of about the 700s.M41 in which T’au forces under Commander Farsight fought an Ork invasion of the colony world of Arkunasha. Arkunasha was a desert colony of the T’au Empire whose population lived in bio-dome cities; its oxide deserts were swept by rust storms that appeared to seek out living targets. Waaagh! Dok, an Ork crusade led by the Warboss Toofjaw, arrived without warning after a solar storm and crashed asteroid fortresses into the planet. By the time Farsight, then called Commander Shoh, reached orbit, the world was overrun and its civilians were besieged in their bio-domes. Accounts differ on the date of the war: one places it in the aftermath of the Damocles Crusade of 742–745.M41, when Arkunasha was a newly established colony, and another presents it as his first command, fought before that crusade. Accounts also differ on its course. One describes a defence in which Fire Warriors, the soldiers of the T’au warrior caste, held off many times their number by using the canyons and gullies of the desert to isolate and destroy Ork groups. A fuller account describes a longer campaign. In the period called the Great Thinning, stealth battlesuit teams killed the largest Orks and set the warbands against one another, and Shoh’s apparent ability to foresee Ork movements earned him the name Farsight. He recorded his study of Ork behaviour in the Book of the Beast, and his forces destroyed a large Ork vehicle column at the equator. At Ghoul’s Gorge, Ork force fields defeated T’au firepower and drew his warriors into close combat, and he ordered a retreat. The Ethereal Aun’shi then informed him that the Ethereals, the T’au ruling caste, had decided to evacuate the planet, and Farsight fought a defensive campaign until the evacuation was complete. The T’au returned a year later, when infighting had reduced the Waaagh! to a fraction of its size, and cleared the remaining Orks. Both accounts credit the war with establishing Farsight’s reputation and giving him his name. An advanced battlesuit that he later used was developed during the campaign.

See where Arkunasha War occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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