In The Lore Explainer, we take a deep look at the lore behind our favorite games, movies, and books, and talk about the story behind them and sum up what you need to know and how you can find out more. In this article series, we’re looking at the lore behind the Damocles Gulf campaign in Warhammer 40,000.
We’re now four parts into this series and it’s worth putting a little recap table of contents here. If you missed any other parts of the Warzone: Damocles series up to now, here’s your chance to go back and catch the previous three:
We’ve been jumping around quite a bit up to this point, but now we’re settling in for the real meat of this story, at least as far as mainline 40k is concerned. Just over one year after the release of Apocalypse War Zone: Damocles, Games Workshop would go back to that particular War Zone with its mainline campaign books, starting in October 2015 with Operation Shadowtalon and Burning Dawn.Â
Operation Shadowtalon and Burning Dawn
Operation Shadowtalon and Burning Dawn were small campaign booklets released with the Shadow Force Solaq and Infiltration Cadre boxed sets, respectively. The booklets packaged with each box have different titles – Operation Shadowtalon and Burning Dawn – and different faction rules, but are otherwise identical in terms of lore and the presented campaign. This represented a major departure from the prior two campaign boxes – Stormclaw and Deathstorm, which packaged two armies together in a box with a small rulebook that could more or less act as an alternate starter box for Warhammer 40,000.Â
Each of these boxed sets came with one new character model. In the case of the Space Marines box, that was a Space Marine Captain. This model is used to represent Captain Solaq in the Raven Guard campaign but is just a generic captain model and actually made for a pretty sick Ultramarine given his aquila mask being similar to those on the Honour Guard.
As captain of the fifth company, Kyrin Solaq was the Master of the Marches, and known for his mastery of guerilla warfare and tracking. Solaq is the leader of the strike force representing the space marines’ side of the Prefectia Campaign. It’s his Thunderhawk that shot down Aun’Va’s Orca. We aren’t sure what happened to Solaq after Damocles, but we know he’s been replaced as fifth company captain.
On the other side of things was Etheral Aun’Do, represented by the then-new in plastic Ethereal model. Aun’Do is the Ethereal working with Shadowsun in the Prefectia campaign, and that whole mess begins when his Orca is shot down, leading to a desperate race between the Raven Guard and T’au to find the stranded Ethereal and return him to safety. Aun’Do will evade capture, but is eventually compromised to a permanent end by a Sister of Battle.
The Dovar System
Following her decisive victory over Imperial forces at Mu’gulath Bay (and her ignoble defeat at Voltoris), Commander Shadowsun began planning a new offensive, aimed at capturing the Dovar System. It’s an important system, both strategically and for its wealth of mineral resources – they’re called the Gilded Worlds for this reason. This campaign kicks off when the T’au strike from the void, invading the fortress world Prefectia. This naturally led to retaliation from the Imperium, and at the vanguard of those retaliatory forces were space marines of the White Scars and Raven Guard chapters. They shot down Aun’Do’s Orca transport craft, stranding him in hostile territory. By this point the Imperium had long understood the importance of Ethereals to the T’au cause and Space Marine forces were intent on hunting down and killing Aun’Do before T’au forces could rescue him.
Hoping for rescue before Imperial forces could find him, Aun’Do activated his emergency distress beacon. T’au forces arrived just in time to help him evade capture by the Raven Guard and his forces attempted to make their way back to their own lines before Shadow Captain Solaq could run them down. They were pursued across Prefectia by Solaq’s strike force as they made it to the extraction point, where a final battle broke out. There, despite Solaq’s best efforts, Aun’Do was able to make it onto his dropship and escape to rendezvous with Shadowsun – the same outcome in either book.
The Missions
There are three missions in these books, which follow the same pattern as the other boxed set pamphlets, letting you use pieces of the forces in their attached box sets in rounds 1 and 2 before using the entire box for each side in the final mission. The first of these has players hunting for Aun’Do amidst the ruins and shaking off holographic decoys. When Aun’Do’s pod ejected, it was accompanied by a series of decoy pods, designed to make it more difficult to find him.
In the second mission, T’au forces make their way back toward their own lines as quickly as possible in a night fight mission. Solaq has blocked off the T’au escape routes, forcing them to break through marine lines to escape. And in the final mission it’s winner-take-all between the two forces, with the marines player tasked with killing Aun’Do to achieve victory.
Canonically speaking, Aun’Do makes it to his drop ship, evading capture and execution by Solaq. This event more or less kicks off the war for Prefectia, and Aun’Do’s return is important in part because he’s got the dirt on Prefectia Shadowsun has been waiting for. While the Imperium thinks the T’au are here for the minterals, Shadowsun has bigger ideas in mind. Prefectia, if properly captured and managed, will become the vital foothold the T’au empire needs to expand its efforts. The Gilded worlds are just a distraction – for Shadowsun, Prefectia is the real target.
Final Thoughts
These booklets tend to be nice table-setting or side stories, but they’re seldom giving you crucial information for a campaign setting. This booklet would set the stage for the Prefectia campaign proper, in which there would be much more lore, rules, and missions to fight over.Â
Next time around we’ll finally jump into the meat of the Damocles campaign, with the first book in the two-part campaign series released in 7th edition. Stay tuned next week for week for War Zone Damocles, Part 5: Kauyon.
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