# Mont'ka Lore; The Fate of the Damocles Gulf



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Found a copy of Mont'ka and perused the information within. While most of the story isn't anything truly shocking, the ending definitely IS.




First, the Imperium pulls out of the Damocles Gulf. The mission to retake Agrellan from the Tau is deemed a failure. Prior to this however the High Lords dispatch an Execution Force to kill the leaders of the Tau invasion; Shadowsun, Aun'va and Farsight. Each Assassin attempts to take the life of one of the Commanders, the Vindicare and Eversor going for Farsight, the Callidus for Shadowsun and the Culexes for Aun'va.

The Vindicare fails when he is caught by El'Myamoto, Darkstrider, and killed although not without taking out six Pathfinders before Darkstrider riddles him with plasma fire. The Eversor fails when 9-Oblotai, one of the Eight, is able to distract him long enough for another Battlesuit to clip him with plasma fire, which Farsight then follows up by bisecting the assassin with the Dawn Blade. The Callidus fails when Shadowsun is just barely able to empty her Fusion Blaster into the assassin's chest although Shas'ui Starshroud, a Pathfinder leader and aide to Shadowsun, is killed by a poison cut. The Culexes... does not fail.

Aun'va is hunted down and killed quite horribly by the psyker-killer. His death is kept secret from the Tau Empire with only the Ethereals, Shadowsun and Farsight knowing the truth. They plan to use holograms and body-doubles to keep the illusion of Aun'va alive for as long as possible.

In response to their failure the Imperial Guard, under orders from the Mechanicus, deploy an archeotech missile called the Worldflame and fire it at the nebula clouds in the Damocles Gulf that make it both a wonder of space and a massive travel hazard. The missile destroys Agrellan through Exterminatus, but also sets the entire Damocles Gulf alight, the nebula all across the Damocles Gulf burn, making travel through them practically impossible again. The destruction of Agrellan and the burning of the Damocles Gulf kill millions of Tau and force them to retreat back to the Second Phase Expansion Worlds while Farsight returns to the Enclaves.



Thoughts?


LotN


----------



## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Wow.

I like it a lot.

Killing off Aun'va is pretty ballsy, gotta say! The system-burning missile is kind of silly, but sounds like something the Imperium would do so I can forgive it. I think we all knew the random anonymous assassins weren't going to succeed in killing important, established Tau characters but Aun'va, dayum.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

MidnightSun said:


> Wow.
> 
> I like it a lot.
> 
> Killing off Aun'va is pretty ballsy, gotta say! The system-burning missile is kind of silly, but sounds like something the Imperium would do so I can forgive it. I think we all knew the random anonymous assassins weren't going to succeed in killing important, established Tau characters but Aun'va, dayum.


In fairness the Worldflame would not have worked like that anywhere outside the Damocles Gulf. It was all the nebulae and other celestial phenomina that chain-reacted with the destruction of Agrellan to cause a system-wide firestorm.


LotN


----------



## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Ah, okay. It still feels a little deus ex machina, but far from the worst I've ever seen.

Interesting how the Tau cover it all up. I've always liked the extremely shady 'Tau are the good guys' with a lot of evidence to the contrary angle that writers take, like in this instance. It paves the way for the continuation of the storyline of GW wants to; Tau shadow wars as Farsight's enclave tries to expose the truth and show the rest of the Tau that they're being manipulated and controlled, with the Ethereal Council using specialist Fire Caste or maybe Water Caste counter-intelligence operatives against them. Or the Imperium taking the place of Farsight in that scenario, trying to destabilise the Tau Empire by smashing up their hologram machines or whatever they plan to do (more deviously, hacking into them to control the puppet of Aun'va to control the Tau themselves?). Lots of potential for new fluff, which can only be a good thing


----------



## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Huh. So the Tau actually lose, quite spectacularly it would seem. Would have to read myself, but the failed assassins still sound annoying, though obviously they couldn't all succeed, and I'm shocked one actually did. Aun'va too. Go Imperium!


----------



## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

GW said someone was gunna die from those assassins and since the RW dude died in the last book I assumed it would be the Tau character that came from the last campaign book as well (instead of one of the more established characters, as others have pointed out). No big surprises here but I am glad to see you that GW is advancing the storyline somewhat for 40k.


----------



## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

The way Pask got taken out of the fight was a bit stupid though. Wasn't a fan of the Vindicares fail.

He ran into Darkstriders perfect ambush, with his perfectly places pathfinders and his perfectly times photon grenade. Sigh.

The biggest problem I have across both books, is how the author just does not seem to grasp how monumental the losses inflicted on the Space Marines are. In the final attack, the Space Marines deploy upwards of half a dozen companies maybe? HALF are killed in the initial ambushes, just the initial ones, then Farsight seems to be hunting more down with relative ease. Almost half a chapter gone, in one battle. Combine this with the earlier losses in Mont'ka and the hideous losses in Kauyon, and whole chapters worth of Astartes have been killed and over half the Raven Guard chapter, including their chapter master. At the end of this though, the Raven Guard are just like, 'well, we're needed elsewhere, see ya', where as they should be retreating to homebase to desperately try and recover what's left of their chapter.


----------



## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Angel of Blood said:


> At the end of this though, the Raven Guard are just like, 'well, we're needed elsewhere, see ya', where as they should be retreating to homebase to desperately try and recover what's left of their chapter.


Once stung, twice shy...


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Lord of the Night said:


> Found a copy of Mont'ka and perused the information within. While most of the story isn't anything truly shocking, the ending definitely IS.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sounds good...but a Tau called "Myamoto"...I mean really?


----------



## Mellow_ (Aug 5, 2012)

Angel of Blood said:


> The way Pask got taken out of the fight was a bit stupid though. Wasn't a fan of the Vindicares fail.
> 
> He ran into Darkstriders perfect ambush, with his perfectly places pathfinders and his perfectly times photon grenade. Sigh.
> 
> The biggest problem I have across both books, is how the author just does not seem to grasp how monumental the losses inflicted on the Space Marines are. In the final attack, the Space Marines deploy upwards of half a dozen companies maybe? HALF are killed in the initial ambushes, just the initial ones, then Farsight seems to be hunting more down with relative ease. Almost half a chapter gone, in one battle. Combine this with the earlier losses in Mont'ka and the hideous losses in Kauyon, and whole chapters worth of Astartes have been killed and over half the Raven Guard chapter, including their chapter master. At the end of this though, the Raven Guard are just like, 'well, we're needed elsewhere, see ya', where as they should be retreating to homebase to desperately try and recover what's left of their chapter.


It's quite frustrating that the Astartes are beaten so easily in so many novels. Only the Guard should suffer this kind of loss in numbers as the SM's (especially the Raven Guard) are meant to be brilliant stealth tacticians.


----------



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

I wouldn't have been surprised if they killed off Aun Shi, but Space Popemobile himself? Cool!


----------



## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Mellow_ said:


> It's quite frustrating that the Astartes are beaten so easily in so many novels. Only the Guard should suffer this kind of loss in numbers as the SM's (especially the Raven Guard) are meant to be brilliant stealth tacticians.


Yeah, reading about Fire Warriors out stealthing the Raven Guard is frustrating to say at the very least.


----------



## Brobaddon (Jul 14, 2012)

Slight Necro, but I don't care. 

It seems that Assassins always get the short end of a straw, which is annoying as fuck. They're supposed to be Imperium's finest killers, yet they're always somehow beaten or plot-ed to the core. It was bad enough that Shadowsun was able to stand toe to toe with Kor'sarro in melee but a fucking Callidus that can outrace and outspeed an astartes fairly easily? Come the fuck on. 

Eversor is even worse, considering these fuckers can tank enough firepower that can outright destroy an Ogryn *facepalm * or essentially rip apart an astartes when frenzied. 

Though im glad Culexus succeeded, it seems fluff favours them over the other assassins just as well as tabletop for some reason, or at least it seems to be Games Workshop's favorite assassin. I haven't read this collection just yet but from what I hear it sounds infuriating, especially Raven Guard part.


----------

