Thendarr Reclamation War

The Thendarr system was captured by the xenos Tau Empire in the “Third Sphere Expansion” in the year 998.M41 by the xenos commander known as “Shadowsun” after putting up a stiff defense against the overwhelmingly large xenos forces. Thendarr III was an Industrial Hiveworld with several Mechanicus-authorized Manufactoria in constant production on its surface. When it fell, several important STCs not possessed by Forge World Ferunus were lost in the chaos of the final days of the xenos conquest. Forge World Ferunus would learn of these by 080.M42 and managed to dispatch a fleet nearly two decades later after a detailed strategic assessment. The STCs desired by the Forge World included the STCs for the Taurox transport, Vulture Gunship, the potent Thunderstorm-pattern Marauder Bomber, and, the primary target for the Ferunum Explorator fleet: an STC for the Aether-pattern Displacer Field. Whispers abounded among the Magi and Artificers, however, that an Ordo Xenos Radical Inquistor had identified a prominent Earth Caste research group as having settled onto the world since to analyze the Imperial shield technology after it had become re-settled as the “Vior’yth” Sept.

Macroclade Psi under Arch-Magos Dominus Nike Galanos was dispatched to recover the STCs, neutralize the Earth Caste investigation, and destroy as much of the Tau infrastructure and populace as possible on the stolen Imperial world. Within 4 years of departing, the Explorator fleet consisting of the Ark Mechanicus Annihilating Gaze and a support fleet of 4 battlecruisers, 8 medium cruisers, and 18 frigate and destroyer escorts arrived in the Thendarr/Vior’yth Sept system. The fleet approached from a lightly defended side of the planet and quickly decimated the world’s orbital defense fleet stationed overhead in an overwhelming surprise attack due to the close proximity of the system’s primary Mandeville point and use of unique Ferunus electronic warfare anti-augur subsystems (themselves a design improvement of uncommon Imperial patterns created at the hands of Galanos himself). Realizing speed was of the essence in a way most Skitarii Legions were unused to fighting with, the commanding Arch-Magos Domius Galanos dispatched his hundreds of thousands of troops into three primary locations spread across the planet as the fleet burned most of the Tau settlements and fortifications on the ground with massive Aurent-pattern plasma macrocannonades, fission torpedoes, and radiation-storm bombs - rendering much of the world’s surface uninhabitable in the process and achieving a strategic distraction for his forces to split into cohort-sized units to begin the search.