The Battle of Kashyyyk was one of the largest
and most important battles of the Clone Wars, fought over the homeworld of the Wookiees. It
commanded the attention of military figures as important as Yoda and General Grievous, and it
would have had the potential to change the course of the entire war if it wasn’t right at the end
of it. But despite the extreme importance and eventual scale of this battle, it started off
pretty small. Just four clone commandos kicked off the Battle of Kashyyyk, and in this video,
we’re going to be telling the story of how. Let’s start by introducing our
heroes: the commandos of Delta Squad. The team was led by Delta-38, nicknamed Boss,
and included the demolitions expert Delta-62, the slicer Delta-40, and the sniper Delta-07,
nicknamed Scorch, Fixer, and Sev, respectively. These guys were the best of the best, some
of the top clones of the Republic Special Operations Brigade, having served from Geonosis
up until the war’s final year without a single casualty. They were who the Republic called
in for truly important commando missions. In one such mission a year into the Clone Wars,
Delta Squad discovered that the Trandoshans, the Wookiees’ planetary neighbors, had made an
alliance with the Confederacy of Independent Systems. This revelation was a part of what
led Kashyyyk to formally declare support for the Republic, and it also led to greater Republic
scrutiny of Trandoshan activities. As a result, in 19 BBY, as the Outer Rim Sieges kicked into
high gear, Republic Intelligence discovered that Trandoshan slavers had begun moving against the
Wookiees in Kashyyyk’s jungles. The slavers had become bolder than they'dbeen in centuries, coming
close to the Wookiee city of Kachirho and daring to kidnap a powerful Wookiee chieftain, Tarrful.
The Republic feared there was more to this than it seemed, and suspected Separatist involvement.
Thus, Delta Squad was dispatched to investigate. Delta Squad was tasked with infiltrating the
camp where Tarrful was being held and freeing the Wookiee leader. They landed on the forest
floor near Kachirho, where the Shadowlands weren’t nearly as dangerous as they were elsewhere on
the planet, and infiltrated the camp without much difficulty. But as the commandos fought
their way through Trandoshan mercs and slavers, their advisor in orbit detected an unidentified
craft coming in for a landing at the slaver base. Boss was able to get a visual on the
craft, and the advisor recognized the ship immediately - it was the Soulless
One, General Grievous’s ship. Now certain the Trandoshans’ operations were
far more than just their usual slaver hijinks, the commandos fought their way to the camp’s
detention center and rescued Tarrful and a few other Wookiees. But they weren’t allowed
to leave the slaver base just yet, as their advisor wanted them to scope out the pad where the
Soulless One had landed. The commandos complied, and they got visual confirmation that it was
indeed General Grievous who was paying the Trandoshans a visit. Delta Squad raced down to
the landing pad, but they were unable to stop the CIS Supreme Commander from taking off again.
At length, they defeated the MagnaGuards Grievous had left them as a parting gift, with difficulty,
and managed to get Tarrful out of the base. But this wasn’t the end of their mission. The
revelation that Grievous was involved with the Trandoshans opened up a whole new can of worms,
and Delta Squad was about to dive right in. Boss and the gang moved on to
another Trandoshan compound nearby, one that was considerably larger. Once
they got inside the compound, however, it became clear that the base
was more than it appeared to be. After breaching the perimeter, Delta Squad
encountered battle droids guarding the compound, and Fixer and Scorch noted that the whole base
seemed to be full of Separatist supply crates. As the commandos started to encounter droidekas,
spider droids, and other elite Separatist units, they concluded that this wasn’t a slaver base at
all - it was a full-blown Separatist staging area. Delta Squad blew up the base’s supply caches and
landing pads to neutralize it for the time being, but by that point, it had become apparent
that the Confederacy was planning a full-blown invasion of Kashyyyk. After the supply
base was neutralized, a gunship picked up the commandos and shuttled them off to Kachirho,
where the real battle was about to begin. As Delta Squad touched down in the city of
Kachirho, the Confederacy had already begun landing an invasion force on the far side of the
city. In a surprise attack, several warships had slipped past Wookiee defenses and deployed before
Kachirho could muster up an effective counter. By the time the Wookiees were able to rally,
half of Kachirho had fallen to the droids, and Trandoshan raiders were pouring into the other
half. The Wookiees were spread thin, but there was still hope to push the Confederacy back. The two
halves of Kachirho were linked by a single bridge, and if that bridge were to be severed, it
would be enough to stop the Separatist advance, at least for a time. Delta Squad
was sent out to do the job. Delta Squad cut through the Wookiees’ side of
Kachirho, battling Trandoshans as they went, and easing up the pressure on the city’s
defenders. Quick thinking on the part of Boss, Scorch, Sev, and Fixer sealed up several breaches
in Kachirho’s defenses that the Trandoshans were using as entrances. By the time Delta Squad
reached the center span, their Wookiee allies were well on their way to securing their side
of the city. When the commandos arrived at the bridge, the Droid Army was in the middle of
paving the way for a bigger assault force, and the commandos had to fight through swarms
of battle droids to secure the bridge. Their problems multiplied when the charge they
planted on the bridge misfired, forcing them to find a rocket launcher and do things
the old-fashioned way. Despite these hiccups, however, Delta Squad successfully destroyed
the bridge. The Separatist and Wookiee sides of Kachirho had been cut off from each other - and
our brave commandos were on the Separatist side. But they weren’t alone. Tarrful and a number of
Wookiees had been cut off on the Separatists’ side of Kachirho as well, and now Delta Squad
was tasked with helping them mount an effective resistance. Using maintenance tunnels to
get around the droids’ major staging areas, Delta Squad managed to find Tarrful and several
of his Wookiees, and together, they began to take back the far side of Kachirho. As Wookiee
resistance fighters joined them at every turn, the commandos made for a pair of munitions
dumps, where the Wookiees hoped to arm up. The droids planted charges
on the munitions crates, but Delta Squad arrived in time to
disarm the bombs and save the ammo. As the commandos fought across Kachirho, they
encountered even more of the Confederacy’s elite units. Advanced spider droids, droidekas,
and MagnaGuards were all deployed to stop the Wookiees’ advance, and the Seps even deployed
Geonosian elites to stop Delta Squad from saving the munitions bays. As Sev noted, this was
a lot more than the Confederacy would deploy for a smaller operation, an indication that they
were serious about taking Kashyyyk. Despite this fierce resistance, Delta Squad managed to link
Tarrful up with the rest of his Wookiee warriors and arm the lot of them, allowing the fearsome
chieftain to advance the reconquest of Kachirho. As Tarrful got set up in Kachirho’s war room,
Delta Squad pushed higher into the city, climbing up through the Wroshyr tree that contained the
Seps’ staging area. A Commerce Guild destroyer was docked at the top of this tree, and if Kachirho
was to be retaken, it had to be destroyed. That part of the city had defensive turrets
capable of doing the job, but they were inoperable at the time, as the destroyer had hooked up into
Karchirho’s power grid and prevented the turrets from coming online. Tarrful informed Delta
Squad that there were backup generators which could provide power to the turrets, however.
The commandos advanced up through the tree, clearing out hangars and Wroshyr nurseries alike
and meeting heavy resistance the whole way up. Delta Squad was able to power up two backup
generators, allowing Kachirho’s defensive grid to come online. All that was needed was a team to
actually man those turrets - and naturally, Delta Squad was chosen for the job. The clone commandos
had to fight through so many droids on the way up that Sev ended up losing count of his kills, a
first in his three years of frontline service. After battling a full army’s worth of
battle droids, Trandoshans, and Geonosians, Delta Squad finally made it up to
the highest levels of Kachirho, where members of the squad started peeling off. Sev was tasked with manning the first turret
the commandos encountered, while Fixer took the second, Scorch took the third, and Boss took the
fourth and last. With the Separatist destroyer in range, the commandos opened fire, pummeling the
warship with rockets. The ship’s shields buckled, and after a sustained bombardment, its skeletal
frame gave way. The destroyer exploded, blunting the Confederacy’s assault on Kashyyyk and
allowing the Wookiees to liberate Kachirho. Delta Squad had finally completed their mission.
There was no time for celebration, however. Even as the smoke from the destroyer’s destruction
cleared, Sev was ambushed by multiple hostiles, and his comm signal was lost. Fixer and Scorch
regrouped with Boss and prepared to go after their missing brother, only for command to order
them to evacuate from Kachirho immediately. Reluctantly, the commandos were
forced to abandon their brother. It was only as a gunship carried them away from
Kachirho that Delta Squad learned why they had been recalled. The Confederacy wasn’t ready
to abandon its assault on Kashyyyk quite yet, and the fight was about to be joined.
As the commandos learned, their mission had itself been cover - cover for a full-scale
Republic invasion of Kashyyyk. As Delta Squad’s gunship took them above the treeline, dozens of
Republic assault ships descended on Kashyyyk, disgorging landing craft and swarms of
starfighters. As the stunned commandos watched the invasion unfold, Grand Master Yoda sent out a
message to all incoming Republic forces, ordering them to head to Kachirho and rendezvous with
Delta Squad. The Battle of Kashyyyk had begun. So, that’s how four clone commandos
kickstarted the Battle of Kashyyyk. But what do you think? Would you like to hear
more about the misadventures of Delta Squad? Feel free to post your
thoughts in the comments below.
