New 1000pt Tau List, quick battle report

Last saturday saw a 1000pt quasi-pickup game between Myself (Tau) and Matt (Space Marines) versus Aaron (Eldar) and Russell (Tyranids), played at Chaos Games (our FLGS) on what is without doubt the most amazing and awe-inspiring terrain board I have ever played a game of warhammer on. This thing was an epic, hilly skimmer/jump pack paradise, although as I learned, really obscured line of sight. The entire thing was a snowy painted landscape, and seeing how my models looked on it, I'm thinking about doing the bases as dark rocks with scattered snow - the contrast is appealing without looking absurd.

Anyway, moving on to the nitty gritty. Being as it was a 1000pt battle, I quickly switched around my "standard" 1000pt list to include another Broadside in place of the slow, useless, and utterly ignorable Kroot. Here's the result:

1000pt Tau Empire List
HQ:
-Shas'El Commander w/ Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi-tracker, Hard-Wired (HW) Drone Controller and 2 shield Drones
--> 2 Shas'vre Bodyguards, w/ Plasma Rifles, Missile Pods, Targeting Arrays, and HW Multi-trackers.

Troops:
- 7 Fire Warriors
--> Devilfish transport w/ Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod
- 7 Fire Warriors
--> Devilfish transport w/ Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod

Heavy Support:
- Hammerhead Gunship w/ Railgun, Smart Missile System, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod
- 2 Broadside Battlesuits, advanced stabilization System


Much the same as the last list, but I like having 2 broadsides rather than 12 kroot - with most of my army dependant on mobility and long range, having 1 lone unit of slow short range squishies isn't as effective as I thought, and at times is actually a detriment (12 kroot are __ points of stuff that the enemy doesn't have to worry about with most of his/her army, given that the little twerps aren't fleet and I always forget to make sure there's a good forest on the table.)

Since it was getting late and I'd already played 2 games of Warhammer Fantasy that day (my Lizardmen figured out that High Elves also taste just like chicken, and my Dwarf Army was brought out of retirement to remind me that, while they won't often win combats decisively, they're damn hard to kill, even against swordmasters -- a win and a draw/very minor victory, in total), I was pretty tired and not paying as much attention to the game as I should have been.


Tau (me) and Space Marines (Matt) vs. Tyranids (Russell) and Eldar (Aaron)

Game: Modified Capture and Control (I think...)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Allies: Matt (Space Marines)
Opponents: Aaron (Eldar), Russell (Tyranids)

The single objective was this truly massive and detailed Eldar custom-built Eldar tower (sitting on 2 hill levels in the middle) with rules on gettin infantry from the door to the shooting platform on top. Anything with 12" range was going to have a hard time shooting stuff directly below them, it was that high up (we used 'top down' sighting, we weren't that rules-crazy).

Given the massive amount of dangerous terrain cliff faces and obstacles (no 'slopping' hills here - dangerous terrain slopes were everything here) and the fact he hadn't played anything else for a while, Matt brought out a very standard and well rounded Space Marine Army, consisting of standard Marines (or sternguard?) in Rhinos, a Predator, some CC terminators, and another tank-busting-tank of some sort or another. I was getting pretty out of it by this time, it was after 8:00pm when we started, and I'd been wfb-ing since 11:00am. Russell's list was his standard with a few tweeks (the Genestealers had extended carapace - ohhhh man that hurt), and Aarons was.... some wierd Eldar thing with non-mounted/transported infantry and a big ol' forgeworld Wave-serpent thingy.

They went first, and Turn 1 saw very minimal deployment, given Dawn of War rules, and almost no shooting - except from my commander's battlesuits and the Hammerhead that rolled on during our 1st turn, both of which rolled EXTREMELY NICE night fight sighting rolls, taking out almost 1/3rd of a Guardian Squad, forcing him to go to ground and take a panic check. Matt took the middle/right, going for the objective, while I took the left edge, thinking to swing around and pump enough raw firepower into their flank to send even the synapsed Warriors running for the hills (if, you know, they actually were allowed to fail automaticly passed leadership tests).

Turn 2 - I continue to underestimate Russell, as a squad of incoming Genestealers obliterated my Battlesuits that jumped back to just too near the board edge rather than towards the middle. D'oh. Lots of fighting between Matt's Space Marines and the bulk of Russell/Aaron's infantry started up around the objective, and escalated with each turn. The waveserpent moved up to begin threatening my battlesuits/Hammerhead from behind cover, and recieved a few solid Railgun hits for its presumption, shaking the crew so they couldn't shoot the next turn.

Turn 3 - despite 3 solid Railgun hits, I failed to pen/he rolled good cover on his wave serpent that was progressing on my battlesuits, but 2 full rapid-firing squads of fire warriors finished off the Genestealers - as the 2nd squad came further towards my board edge. Oi. Fighting in the center started to get to a fevered pitch.

Turn 4 - Their turn saw the 2nd squad of Genestealers advance towards my Hammerhead, the waveserpent move from behind cover to point blank range, and the carnifex/warriors/gaunts moving around the middle objective hill to flank Matt's marines, and my hammerhead railgun getting busted off by the genestealers. Shooting was utterly worthless for me, as a lot of shots at the Serpent just ended up "can't move or shoot"-ing it, and another devilfish losing its weaponry to a Fex. The fighting in the center reached its climax, as Matt, desperate to hold the position at any cost, actually blew up the objective building, creating some cover for him to sit in and messing up the Tyranid advance.

Turn 5 - I didn't pay much attention here, with most of my fire warriors, the 2 broadsides, and the hammerhead being destroyed at the onset. Matt somehow managed to pass enough dangerous terrain tests to being his rhinos to the top of the hill to serve as a wall, and I followed closely (and more easily) with the weaponless Devilfish (which was promply blown up at the start of the next turn). A roll of 5 kept us in the game for another turn.

I left at the onset, having only 2 devilfish left, one of them without weaponry and quickly destroyed, the other doing a quick out-of-order but allowed shooting at the genestealers and getting packed up. It was well after 2:00am by this point, so I packed up and got a ride home from the 2 friends who had kindly stayed around another 20 minutes after their game of WFB ended to wait for me to get to a place to bow out.

What I've learned: My usual tactics and army builds works extremely well against tank and transport dependant enemies and MEQs, but not so much against infantry lists - I need to rethink a few things, possibly adding in a few more anti-infantry weapons on the Battlesuits in place of the Plasma rifles, or knocking off a devilfish in exchange for a few stealth suits and a static fire warrior shroud around the Broadsides. Despite some bad rolls this game, I never normally have trouble eliminating enemy tanks, and despite my mobility a lot of the hilly terrain really messed me up at first, allowing the more experienced Eldar player (whose board this was) to bottleneck me and keep me away from the main fight on the other hill. Of everyone, this board was really built for an infantry army, and both Matt and I had trouble with that.

This game also really hammered in the fact that I have to be more mindful of Genestealers/outflankers, especially when playing (Russell's) 'Nids. Overall, the game was fun but exhausting, and I'd rather not play with quite that much terrain and obstacles again, even if it does look just so gosh darn pretty.

Coming up - 3k and 4k Apocalypse lists and tactics for the game on Memorial Day. I'm not going to be there, but I'm letting them borrow my Tau to make the sides even if they can't find a 6th player (hopefully on the condition that they take pictures and let me live vicariously through their blog posts).

Battle Report #2 - Clusterf***ed

The title says much about how this game went (I really don't want to use offensive languge in this blog, but there's really no better description of this game, even after 20 minutes of trying). Matt, Russell and I got to the game store on time, with Max close behind (and my roommate almost beating us the 6-7 miles there on BIKE through downtown Minneapolis... yeeesh). Another friend was there that wanted to join in, and we thought 'hey, why not?' so he made a 1000pt list and Matt bumped his up to 2500pts to compensate.

This proved to be a terrible idea. Its not the fault of the friend of ours who wanted to play - he's a good guy, and fun to play against (also - Space Wolves!! Yip-yip!) - its more our collective fault for not really realizing that, while a 3000pt per side (1500pt per army) 2v2 is fairly streamlined and takes roughly 2-3 hours to play (depending on casualty rate), a 4000pt per SIDE, 2v3 game, with list corrections, time to setup, and general confusion, turns into a stressful 4 hours plus change, counting delays. It didn't help that we rolled Annihalation//Pitched Battle as the setup, meaning that we'd be going at least 5 turns, and starting 24" away from each other.

Combined with the massive amount of terrain we put down, Max's 2 Masters of the Fleet neutering Matt and Russell's HEAVY reserves (causing some very-justifiable animosity), and even the cramped nature of the tables, this game turned fairly stress-filled pretty quick.

Since explaining the full, confusing battle in detail would be long and nearly impossible, here's a quick Synopsis of how MY units did, in order of what I remember:

1). TL Flamer Battlesuits - turned out being the Tau MVP of the match. I left them in reserve, but they came on 2nd turn - right next to the broodlord and retinue that had taken up residence in a forest on our board edge after massacreing the previous inhabitants (iGuard command squad). After scorching the broodlord out of existence, they were caught in the woods a few turns (using missile pods to knock down some bikers), before deciding not to assault a biker command squad, and doing an emergency jump out (losing the Shas'vre) to help wrack up another kill point from the deep-striking space marine squad (Sternguard?). The setup proved fairly effective (the TL REALLY helps), and the gun drones especially made more standard armor saves than any shield drone ever does for me.

2). Hammerheads - the burst cannons proved to be a great addition, as although lack of line of sight was an issue for 1 or 2 turns, the 2 extra shots made up for this, doing some serious damage against 'Nids.

2.5). The Ion Cannon - worth it. So worth it. Its a 3 shot space marine killer, and is powerful enough to deny armor saves to most Tyranid units. Because it's cheaper/doesn't have a railgun, I felt confident wadeing it into the thick stuff, blasting bikes at point blank and (if I could manage to only move 6") throwing 6 burst cannon shots on top of that. It was actually largely ignored to focus on the broadsides, which was fine.

3). Pathfinders - they performed alright, though I'm still on the fence about them. My main issue was that, with all the crowding, I ended up not using some markerlight hits simply because I didn't have enough other units nearby to shoot with! They averaged 2 or more markerlights a turn, which was great, and I was lucky enough to scout them right into an AV13 bunker before turn 1, which left them essentially unmolested. I'm going to keep them, for now, because this game wasn't really the best testing grounds for them. They did end up helping a hammerhead pie-plate, 6 rapid-firing fire warriors, and a devilfish in annihalating 3 Tyranid Warriors, so I'm pretty happy with that, if nothing else.

4). Devilfish - I only managed to lose 1 devilfish, and 1 squad of fire warriors (from a different one), but they proved effective at putting out a heck of a lot of firepower at exactly where it was needed.

5). 2 Masters of the Fleet - not actually my unit, but DANG! They kept the enemy Lictors, rhinos, and the terrifying terminator-bearing Land Raider out for most of the game, helping us hold off enough of their units to scrape out a victory by the skin of our teeth. They caused some havoc for enemy tactics, and got yelled at quite a bit by the other side, but did their job. I even threw my Commander's battlesuit squad between one of them and a biker squad at one point, although the bikers headed for a different squad in the end.

Despite rolling a truly ludicrous amount of 1's in the early part of the game (it was a tough 1st and 2nd turn for out side, but we got some licks in later on), the Space Wolves/iGuard/Tau aliance won by a single Kill Point. In victory points, it was almost certainly a draw.

I'm not going to say it was a fun game (what with all the stress and hastle), but it wasn't exactly "un-fun" either. I do know that games this big are now reserved solely for the weekend, so at least I learned something out of this.

Battle Report #1 - Tyranids

Well, the Tau fought their first battle against an offshoot of the vast Tyranid swarm, and it was decisive. Seeing as I'm not terribly that good at battle reports yet, I'll try to keep it brief.

My list: as seen below, no changes.

Russell's List: (from what I can remember)

3 Tyranid Warriors, shooty upgrades (but lacking Carapace Armor upgrade)
3 Tyranid Warriors, shooty upgrades
squad of Gaunts
squad of Hormagaunts
squad of Termagaunts
2x squads of Genestealers
Sniper-Carnifex
Devil-Carnifex

Caleb's Tau (1000pts) vs. Russell's Tyranids (1000pts)
Mission: Annihilation
Setup: Dawn of War

Turn 1 - I fail to sieze the iniciative. Russell's main force comes on, but everything is out of range thanks to night-fight rules.

My army rolls onto the board as well, and thanks to some lucky night-fight rolls, I manage to clip a few termagaunts with a smart missile system, and take out a few more with plasma rifles and missile pods before jumping the battlesuits back over a wall and into a nice cozy kroot blanket.

Turn 2 - the Kroot blanket proves essential, as a squad of Genestealers pop up right next to them on the left flank. The Termagaunts make a break for the broadside in the rear-center of my deployment zone, and various shooting sees a bunch of lucky saves from my Tanks. In combat, the Genestealers manage to slaughter the Kroot to a ...man?... but leave my battlesuits unscathed. The warriors and Gaunts in the back-mid-right (it works in my head, dangit!) move up a little and fire on the 'fish, but fail to do much, and proceed to move back and hide there for most of the game, denying me kill points.

Disheartened by this, the 3 Battlesuits + Shield drones decide to take their chances with the Carnifex's in the back left, and jump over the impassable barrier again to peg some Hormagaunts with rapid-fire plasma rifles and missile pods. The devilfish move up from the lower right edge to drop 2 squads of fire warriors almost right in front of the termagaunts, and the fiesty little buggers are finally killed off by ehe combined smart-missile and rapid-fire pulse rifle barrage. Fiesty little buggers. The Gaunts in the back take a pie-plate to the face, but 4 survive and the Hive Mind says 'Stay!'.

Turn 3 - The sniper 'Fex starts pouring fire into the Shas'El command squad, knocking out a shield drone, while the devilfex advances to within horrible-mangled-death-for-tau range. The warriors and hormagaunts in the middle pour fire at one of the fire warrior squads, killing 4, but they make their leadership and stay. The Genestealers pour forward (yiike!), and the other 'stealers fail to come on the board.

Shooting sees a massive amount of combined fire fail to kill the Genestealers - 10 pulse rifles, 12 smart missiles, and the Hammerhead Submunition - while almost the entirety of the Tau army turtles up in the back middle of my deployment zone, save the devilfish, who move in front of the fire warriors to provide some cover. The battlesuits take amost all of the wounds off of one Devilfex, but it lives.

Turn 4 - the 2nd squad of Genestealers comes on, but at almost the same place as the 1st did - they've got a looong run ahead of them. The warriors and hormagaunts in the middle throw caution to the wind and move in on the battlesuits, with the sniperfex steadily moving forward as well. The Devilfex gives them up for dead and moves through the woods, preparing to kill the Tau Turtle formation the next turn. Shooting sees all but the Shas'el Commander die screaming, and he manages to survive unscathed. The Hormagaunts and warriors pile into combat, but only manage one wound, which the Commander happily returns, tieing combat. The back-mid-right warriors and gaunts move forward to salvage some kill points, shooting the smart missiles off of a devilfish and leaving the crew shaken.

Tau shooting proves MUCH more effective, and the Devilfex is laid low by a lucky shot from a lowly fire warrior, while remaining Genestealers from the first batch are killed by the Broadside's smart missile fire. The Hammerhead's submunition scatters off the field, proving ineffectual. The commander remains in combat, nothing particularly intersting happening over there.

Turn 5 - The warriors and gaunts in the back-mid-right move forward and immbobilize the devilfish they'd shot last turn, the genestealers continue charging towards relevance, and the combat with the Commander and the Tyranid Warriors continues a-pace, neither scoring a wound.

Tau shooting fails to do much, and isn't really worth noting. The Commander STILL won't accept defeat, and keeps fighting without taking any wounds.

Russel rolled a 1 on the dawn of war 'continue the fight' thingy, and the game ended. I won by 3 kill points (Genestealers, Termagaunts and Devil-fex) to 1 (Kroot), but it was a tough fight, and 1 more turn would have likely tied it up without much trouble.

A good game - we both made (in hindsight) tactical no-no's, managed both lucky and unlucky dice rolls, and generally had a good time. For my part, I've learned that the Kroot are still essentially useless, and luckly remembered early on that staying near the board edges with Genestealers lurking around was tantamount to suicide. Turtling worked alright, but I chock my win mainly to the fact that Russell wasn't able to bring any sort of mass-rush or combined shooting at me, the 'Fexs being distracted by the Battlesuits and the stealers being too far away when they came on.