Space causalities

When word eventually reached Terra that an advanced xenos race had usurped several worlds long claimed by Mankind, the Imperium reacted as it always did - with overwhelming force. Using Warp travel as their invasion vector, a battlegroup of Adeptus Astartes and Astra Militarum routed the Tau settlers from worlds they had claimed, then took the fight directly to the heartlands of the xenos Empire. The Tau reeled, for their defences had been bypassed and their kor'vattra - their navy - hopelessly outmatched. The juggernaut of the Imperial battlegroup smashed through orbital stations and colonies alike, reducing efficient and prosperous worlds to smoking ruin.

On Dal'yth, the Damocles Crusade was finally brought to a violent halt. The Ethereal caste, supreme masters of the Tau race, had sent their finest military inds to lead the war effort there, for Dal'yth was a sept world - a jewel in the crown of the Tau Empire. Months of unbridled desruction followed as the Space Marines of the Imperium matched their aggression and strength against the might of a true Tau stronghold. In the end, it was another force entirely that brought the conflict to an end. The Tyranids, encroaching from beyond the edge of the Eastern Fringe, forced the Imperial battlegroup to disengage in order to defend the borders of their own empire.

The Tau, sorely wounded by the conflict, were content to look to their own recovery. An unofficial truce was established, and after two hundred and fifty years, the Damocles Crusade had been all but forgotten by the lords of the Imperium.

Damocles: Kauyon