Games Workshop 99120113060" Tau Empire Commander Plastic Kit, Black,Medium

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Over and over again, the Tyranid leader-beasts were hunted and destroyed by the pinpoint application of firepower, and over and over again, they were reinforced by fat-bodied Mycetic Spores that rained out of the skies. Thousands of citizens died every day as the insidious invaders probed at every defence and settlement, exploiting the least weakness to break through in a tide of chitinous bodies to slaughter those inside. Each time Farsight adapted his strategy, optimising military protocol to better slay the foe, the Tyranids would reinforce and adapt in turn. Though it burned him to admit it, O'Shovah's plan to cut off the head of his monstrous foe was not working. In their preliminary investigations, during the earliest expeditions to Arkunasha's surface, the Earth Caste had made a disturbing discovery. Whilst determining the source of the oxide deserts that covered the world, they found a great variance in the metallic composition and even origin of the various particulates.

Commander Farsight was a former Tau Commander during the Tau's Second Sphere Expansion campaign. During that time, he served as the overall commander of Fire Caste forces across the entire Tau Empire. Now, Farsight leads his own break-away faction of Tau in an area beyond the bounds of Tau space that are known as the Farsight Enclaves. The reasons for his desertion are unclear, except that it occurred after the loss of all the Ethereals who had been present in his expeditionary force. After his counter invasion fleet made it to Arkunasha's surface entirely unmolested, Commander Shoh was extensively briefed on the situation by the T'au trapped in Arkunasha's bio-domes. The planet's dust storms could be avoided with careful monitoring of the Earth Caste's sub-orbital drone network, but according to the Air Caste's aerial observations, there appeared to be even more of the violent alien warbands roaming the desert than in the first few weeks of the invasion. Learn to shorten your reach! If your foe can come close enough to negate your striking power, all stratagem is lost, and when all stratagem is lost, the battle is lost." Devilfish • Drone Harbinger • Hammerhead • Sky Ray • Swordfish • TX-4 Piranha • TX-42 Piranha • Tetra An XV8 Crisis Bodyguard Team comprised of up to two Fire Warriors in XV8 Crisis Battlesuits may accompany a Shas’o or a Shas’el at all times. Like a Tau Commander, Bodyguard Team members also have access to special issue items from the Battlesuit Armoury for use in combat. Together with the Tau Commander they protect, a Bodyguard Team forms an inspirational command unit and a powerful fighting force on the battlefield.Despite being several standard years younger than most other T'au in the battle dome, Shoh's eidetic memory and fierce determination earned him a string of perfect scores in the academy's simulations. Four Terran years and one vertiginous Trial by Fire later, Shoh earned his wish. Because he had served long enough and with enough distinction to earn the rank of shas'vre, he was entrusted the command of a cutting-edge XV8 Crisis Battlesuit. By the time Commander Shoh and his fleet reached Arkunasha's orbit, the planet had been all but overrun. With the exception of a few highly mobile strike forces abroad in the desert, the T'au military presence planetside had been destroyed in a series of disastrously one-sided engagements.

It was possible that the vastness of space or some strange interference prevented the messages from reaching their recipient, but after many Terran years with no reply, it was eventually deemed that the expedition was lost and assumed that their never-defeated commander had, at long last, been vanquished -- dying on a distant planet, far from the stars that lit the T'au Empire. All castes on every sept bowed their heads low when the loss of this revered and illustrious hero was broadcast across the empire.Upon the return of Farsight's expedition, the tragedy that had unfolded on Arthas Moloch rippled throughout the Enclaves. Though the T'au had known doubt before, the death of all three of the expedition's Ethereals cast billions of souls into confusion and angst. Word had spread of the strange entities that Farsight's cadres had fought on the artefact world, but in the minds of the T'au citizenry, the "Molochites" were a dangerous new race of aliens and little else. O'Shovah, for his part, held suspicions closer to the truth -- that the grotesque creatures were not of the physical dimension at all. For there to be another reality that ran parallel to the material universe explained so many things; the rift-creatures appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye on Arthas Moloch, the blazing storms of light that had spat out the human fleet during the Damocles Gulf Crusade, the strange deities of humans and Orks and the seemingly sentient rust-devils of Arkunasha. Furthermore, if it were possible to somehow travel in this alternate realm, an empire need not know the limitations of time or space. With the benefit of hindsight, it was clear that the expedition's Ethereals already knew something of the existence of such things. Yet they had long hidden this truth from their people, choosing to keep them in obedient ignorance. Shas'O Tsua'Malor'Aloh'shas Elan'nan is a young and promising Tau Commander born of the Velk'Han Sept's capital world. He is currently leading Tau forces in the D'Shas'Ka System of the Jericho Reach. Within solar days, it became obvious to his tutors that they had more than a simple Fire Warrior on their hands. Even in his youth, Shovah was fiercely independent. Within his first tau'cyr of basic tutelage, and several "fact-finding" raids into the enrolment centres of the Mont'yr training academies later, Shovah was accepted for training a full three Terran years before standard enrollment was due. The fully-armoured humans first, then the heraldic vehicles, then the common tanks. Then, and only then, may you engage the common infantry." Commander Shadowsun in an experimental XV22 Stealthsuit flanked by a Shield Drone and a Command-Link Drone