Commander Farsight - Arrival of the Swarm: As 997.M41 drew to a close, long-range reports of a strange galactic cloud reached the fringes of the Enclaves. It fit no recognised energy patterns until Commander Arra'kon, who had been a wise military leader to the Enclaves for many years, correlated it with recent data fed to him from his hidden allies in the core Septs. Silence fell over the Fire Caste high command when they saw what the anomalous readings represented -- the tendrils of a Tyranid hive fleet heading right at them. The T'au had learned much from their two year war against Hive Fleet Gorgon earlier that century. The Tyranids were a foe like no other, able to adapt and spawn at an appalling rate. It was imperative that the splinter fleet snaking towards them be taken apart before it made planetfall on any of the Enclave worlds, or their swarms might spell death for every living thing dwelling there.The Air Caste fleets from each of the Enclaves were mobilised to intercept the hive fleet, and led into space by Admiral Kor'O'Kai of Tinek'la. Learning from the mistakes made against Hive Fleet Gorgon, Kor'O'Kai's fleets isolated and destroyed the leading elements of each bio-fleet, carving helical attack patterns around each tendril and reducing it to spattered ruin over the course of a punishing six-week space battle. In the end, the sheer number of the Tyranid ships proved insurmountable, even with the Air Caste's masterful efforts. Three out of four of the bio-ship clusters were set upon and destroyed, but as the Air caste were fully engaged, the fourth cluster entered colony world space above Vior'los with relatively little opposition. As the skies grew sick with the Tyranids' pre-invasion corruptions, and desert vegetation swelled and bloated, a hail of Mycetic Spores began to rain down from the splinter fleet above.Longer-lived than any Fire Caste warrior before him, the hermit O'Shovah watched the skies turn purple-grey above his desert refuge. The cacti and creepers that had provided him with water grew, out of control, into horrible new shapes. Something was attacking his world, something that was changing the substance of his home to better suit its purposes. O'Shovah could only think of one reason why an invading entity would boost the amount of biological matter on a planet before it attacked, fattening it like a grox-calf intended for the feast. The invaders were coming to feed and he knew that his people needed him more than ever.Amidst the terror and desperation that erupted across the enclaves, a note of joy rang out on Vior'los. An old dark-skinned warrior had walked into the Great Vior'los Museum claiming to be Farsight, the famous hero of old, and demanded his revered Battlesuit be returned to him, submitting to the required genetic tests with dignity and determination. Sure enough, O'Shovah had returned to them in the hour of their greatest need. The Fire Caste took great heart as a living legend emerged from the desert to guide them. They had soon redoubled their efforts to hold back the Tyranid swarms infesting the Vior'los plains.Studying every scrap of information his commanders could supply about the Tyranid race, O'Shovah coordinated a new war effort that hinged upon aerial supremacy. A massed spearhead of eighty Crisis teams engaged every winged Tyranid they could find to the exclusion of all else, tearing them out of the skies with long-range missile fire whilst staying well away from the swarms below. Once they were sure of their aerial success, the Fire Warriors of Vior'los boarded the anti-grav docking pontoons that Farsight had requisitioned from the planet's orbital stations and used them to skim across the seething plains. Wherever larger Tyranids were found, they were engaged and destroyed by volley after volley of Pulse Rifle fire from the anti-grav pontoons. In this manner, O'Shovah intended to break the Tyranids' leadership structure in a worldwide killing blow strategy that destroyed the mind-links co-ordinating each brood into a coherent invasion force.