Event · M41

Battle of Mu’gulath Bay

The Battle of Mu’gulath Bay, known to the Imperium as the Battle of Agrellan, was fought in 999.M41, recorded in Imperial dating as 757999.M41, upon the Imperial hive world of Agrellan, the gateway to the Dovar System. It was the first major engagement between the Imperium and the T’au Empire during the Third Sphere of Expansion, the largest battle of that campaign and one of the greatest T’au victories over the Imperium. The Imperial Guard garrison was heavily dug in, supported by Leman Russ battle tanks, and the hives of Agrellan were ringed by walls topped with bunkers overlooking mined wasteland. The White Scars Space Marine Chapter, under Kor’sarro Khan, arrived in support of the defence. Commander Shadowsun, judging that the world could not be bypassed on the T’au Empire’s path of advance, undertook its conquest; the Ethereal Supreme Aun’va, a senior member of the T’au ruling caste, came to the warzone in person to hearten the troops. Shadowsun planned and led the assault. Twenty Hunter Cadres, formations drawn from the Fire caste, the T’au warrior caste, struck key hive nodes simultaneously, each led by an XV104 Riptide, a heavy battlesuit, meaning a large piloted suit of powered armour, deployed here for the first time in combat. The Riptides breached the hive walls with their jets and heavy weapons, their Nova reactors shielding them even against a Deathstrike missile strike, and Fire Warriors exploited the breaches thus opened. A mass assault by Hammerhead tanks, Manta gunships and Sun Shark bombers followed. Although outnumbered six to one in tanks, the T’au prevailed through planning, manoeuvre and long-range fire; the tank commander Longstrike destroyed numerous Leman Russ tanks and led the grav-tanks into the capital hive. The White Scars conducted effective raids but could not turn the battle, and Kor’sarro Khan inflicted heavy casualties upon Shadowsun’s command staff. Her counterattack became a rout remembered as the Path of Blood. The Raven Guard 6th Company, under Chapter Master Corvin Severax, fought delaying actions alongside Cadian troops and the Knights of House Terryn to cover an evacuation; Riptides brought down the Knights, and Shadowsun’s flanking manoeuvre trapped the Raven Guard and Cadians, until the Freeblade known as the Obsidian Knight, a Knight pilot owing no allegiance to any House, prevented the encirclement and allowed the Imperial forces to evacuate. Twelve advanced weapon prototypes were deployed during the battle, and the only failure was a fusion reactor meltdown, which destroyed Agrellan’s moon. Agrellan became the T’au sept of Mu’gulath Bay, a sept being a T’au world and its associated population, and most nearby Imperial worlds soon fell. Shadowsun’s subsequent pursuit of the retreating Imperial forces led to her defeat at Voltoris, and the Imperium later destroyed Mu’gulath Bay in a second battle. Kor’sarro Khan swore a blood oath during the battle to take Shadowsun’s head, and the losses he inflicted on her command staff are recorded as having replaced her customary composure with anger.

See where Battle of Mu’gulath Bay occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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