Taros Campaign - De Stael’s Plan for the Ground War: Once the Imperial Guard forces had established a secure landing zone, they did not move immediately. Instead, they set up a strong defensive perimeter around the landing zone and began to reinforce and stockpile supplies. This process lasted two weeks. In the meantime, the Tallarn regiments launched Sentinels and long-range infantry patrols into the desert to reconnoitre along expected routes of advance. The patrols encountered very little, the enemy continued to husband their strength and refused to commit to battle. Sightings of the enemy were zero. Where were the Tau?The second week’s build-up saw other lmperial Guard regiments and more Departmento Munitorum units land. Airbases were rapidly constructed by the labour corps, simple strips of flattened earth, before Imperial Navy aircraft deployed from their carriers in orbit. The 23rd Elysian Drop Troop regiment arrived and started the long process of transferring their three thousand men and one hundred and eight aircraft to the surface. Only once everything was in order, X Corp was in place, and the supply stockpiles were large enough, would Lord Marshal De Stael move from his defensive posture to an offensive one. The agreed objective of the ground offensive was to capture Tarokeen and the starport, secondary objectives were to find and kill the Planetary Governor, and destroy all Tau forces on Taros.The city of Tarokeen was situated on the Iracunda Isthmus, a strip of land between Taros' two major seas. Its location gave De Stael's planners a problem. The city was only approachable by ground forces from the west or east. The eastern end of the Iracunda Isthmus was very narrow (less than 15 kilometres) and represented a dangerous bottleneck for the Imperial Guard. Tau forces could easily block this route of advance and force a stalemate. With no room to manoeuvre, only costly direct assaults would break through to the city beyond, and De Stael did not believe he had the men required for such brutal, attritional warfare. He decided to concentrate his forces on the western end of the Isthmus, which was wider and should allow the Imperial Guard's numbers and firepower to tell.Before the offensive could begin there was a High Command staff meeting on board the Righteous Power. Lord Commander Gustavus arrived in person. He was concerned that not threatening the eastern end of the Isthmus would allow the defenders to mass their forces at the western end and make any breakthrough far harder to achieve. Gustavus believed a diversion was required to draw any enemy forces away from the Isthmus and put them down, if not by action, then at least by the threat of imminent action. After a long discussion it was agreed that a second attack was needed, and De Stael adjusted his plans accordingly. For this new task the Lord Marshal requested Captain Orelius attend his next planning council. Orelius’ Raptors would be required again, this time to launch a powerful armoured strike from the landzone eastwards, circling around the south of the southern sea. The Space Marines' objective would be to draw Tau forces to themselves, and defend the eastern end of the Iracunda Isthmus. The Space Marines needed not seek to engage the enemy in a decisive battle, but the threat of the Space Marines' presence, if only for a little while, would help the main northwards advance by drawing away resistance.Captain Orelius and his fellow officers strongly disagreed. His battle brothers were not being usefully employed if they were to act as a mere diversion force! Unhappy with the plan for his forces, Captain Orelius declined the mission, but did offer to include his forces alongside the main advance, even to form the spearhead of the first armoured thrust, rather than be “underemployed in a sideshow to the main campaign”, as he called it. Irritated by Captain Orelius’ refusal to sanction De Stael’s plan, but unwilling to risk the complete loss of his valuable Space Marine allies, Gustavus insisted De Stael revise his offensive plan.Instead of the Space Marines making the diversionary eastward thrust, it would fall to the raw 331st Tallarn regiment, their first action since being founded. As unblooded troops, the 331st were best given an easier introduction to war against a cunning alien foe than be thrown into the crucible on the front line. The objective would remain the same as for the Space Marines, but the advance, being mostly on foot, would be somewhat slower. Still, the whole of the regiment’s men and tanks marching through the desert should draw Tau forces to them and out of the path of the main advance. Colonel Usfal Hamid, the commanding officer of the 331st, was summoned and given his orders by De Stael. Advance eastwards for thirty days and then establish a new defensive blocking position anchored against the south coast of the Em-sai. The 331st regiment’s advance would begin on the same day as the main offensive and should be pushed forwards with vigour and aggression; the diversion had to look like the real thing.With the issue of the diversionary spearhead out of the way, De Stael turned to planning his main northward offensive across. It would advance on a wide front, driving north across the desert and then swinging east onto the lracunda Isthmus. Rather than concentrate all his combat power, De Stael elected to spread it out. This would seem to go against the teachings of the Tactica lmperialis, but so far all De Stael’s intelligence reports suggested the Tau forces would not be numerous enough to stop him everywhere. If one sector of the advance was halted by Tau action, then another would be advancing unimpeded. Overall, the offensive would keep moving forwards. A broad advance with the Tallarn regiments side-by-side would make for steady gains. De Stael’s offensive timetable called tor the Tallarn regiments to make an ambitious twenty kilometres a day, but he expected that in some sectors along the front the Tau would stand and fight, and movement in those sectors would naturally be slowed down or halted by combat. If the Tau committed their forces to battle in one sector, then others would be able to move faster. De Stael's staff believed an average of twenty kilometres a day should be sustainable, especially as the Tallarn units would be operating in a familiar environment. At this rate, it would take sixty days of advancing to reach the outskirts of Tarokeen.With his offensive timetable complete De Stael turned to his supply officers. He ordered that sixty days of supplies would be required. Enough ammunition, food and, most importantly, water must be stockpiled. Reports showed that available stockpiles were currently at approximately half this, enough for thirty days, but supplies continued to flow from orbit unimpeded. De Stael decided that thirty days of supplies was enough to begin his offensive, the rest would follow as the offensive progressed. It was a fateful moment.De Stael’s offensive strategy would see X Corp of the 4621st Army take the lead role. It would involve the Tallarn infantry regiments advancing, using their own Armoured companies and artillery to support the lead infantry platoons. The 12th Tallarn Armoured regiment would be on the right flank and the 3rd Armoured regiment would be kept behind the front line as Corp reserves, for deployment only if the offensive started to stall. Arrayed from west to east, the X Corp formation would be: 17th Tallarn regiment on the left, 89th Tallarn regiment in the centre, 12th Armoured regiment on the right. Behind would follow the 3rd Armoured regiment. Striking eastwards would be the 331st Tallarn regiment. The other Imperial Guard regiments of the XI Corp, once they had been landed, would be held as the strategic reserve. Should this offensive fail to reach Tarokeen, then De Stael would turn to these units and a new plan.The difficult attack on the eastern end of the Iracunda Isthmus would be spearheaded by the Raptors Space Marines, with the Warhound Titans of Legion Ignatum (when they arrived) and Tallarn tanks as support. The weight of this attack should carry the offensive through the bottleneck and onto the outskirts of Tarokeen itself. Once in position around the city, De Stael would besiege the enemy, cutting off water supplies before the final assault with the fresh regiments form XI Corp. The detailed planning of the assault on Tarokeen would have to wait until the offensive got well under way.For the thousands of men from Tallarn, it would be a long, hard march in hot, harsh conditions, but they would have tank support, and their artillery would constantly move up to keep the front lines in range. The Imperial Navy would be flying combat air patrols and bombing raids from their newly established airbases. The Tau might slow them down and even gain local successes, but the offensive would press on, grinding ever forward by its weight of numbers.