March 22nd, 2010 -- Tau
This was the first game that my fellow 40k gamer Eric ever played with his new Tau army. I could see he was itching to play with them for the past few weeks, so I offered to give him a chance to play around with them and learn how they performed as opposed to his Orc army. He accepted the challenge, and we played at 1000 points. Unfortunately, his list was basically the battleforce box with a broadside and hammerhead added to it. Even still, I wanted him to use what he had to see how they worked before he went off and bought a crap ton of models he wouldn't ever use. That was a mistake I made with my Black Templars, so I wanted to save him some money if possible. I took my Emperor's Champion with 'Accept', three crusader squads of 6 in rhinos, one 5-man terminator squad with assault cannons, and a dakka Predator Destructor.
We also played using the new Battle Mission book. The mission selected came about after rolling to see what mission would be played (normal Rulebook missions, themed mission, or totally random). Eric rolled and we got a random mission. After one more roll, we found out that we'd be playing an Orc mission called "WAAGH!" on page 60. We had an outside player set up the board in terrain to keep it fair. We got a total of 3 objectives; Eric placed two in the middle and I placed one near a ruin about 14" from a board edge. He won the roll to be the attacker, picked his side (opposite the side with the objective near the board edge), and deployed. Eric deployed the majority of his forces to my right side behind some cover which still provided LOS to pretty much everything on my side. The other 1/3rd of his army was on the far other side of his deployment zone and consisted of his broadside, his battlesuit commander, and a fire warrior squad with devilfish. Seeing his deployment, I decided that it would be a very bad thing to deploy on the board as he would get a direct first turn shot at everything I had. I knew that I would probably lose a turn or two with my predator doing this, but it was a risk I was willing to make. So, I reserved my entire army.
Eric made a critical mistake here. When he was in excellent position, with fire lanes to nearly everything in my deployment zone, he moved forward to capture one of the objectives. Everything moved. Ack! This was huge for me, as it saved me a turn of moving to reach his lines that I would have normally lost because I had reserved in. He did this for two turns and locked up two of the three objectives. On my 2nd turn, I made my reserve rolls for everything except my predator and the EC's crusader squad. I decided to play a risky game and deep striked in my terminators behind his mini-force on his left flank. I nearly scattered off the board and only had an inch to spare! Thanking the dice gods, I finished moving my other units onto the board. I chose to bring up my two rhinos on my extreme right flank behind a tall ruined building that blocked LOS to his left flanked units. An excellent refused flank maneuver. During my turn, the terminators shot everything they had into the broadside suit. I got one rending roll, but Eric made the other 8 saves required! Not a good start.
His turn consisted of firing at my front Rhino which obscured my back one and did nothing of consequence. He also pumped out a billion shots at my terminators with his fire warriors, commander, and battlesuit. He missed on the big shots, but the fire warriors pinged down 2 of the terminators on limited save rolling. Ouch! My turn came around and made my other two reserve rolls, brought them on the board behind the other rhinos. Unfortunately, he still had use of his dangerous guns so I had to make sure they didn't get blown away in his turn. This prevented me from using my predator, so I just moved everything up max distance and blew smokes on the front two rhinos. My terminators shot again at the battlesuit and he miraculously made all of his saves...AGAIN. Getting frustrated, I moved into position to charge with the terminators and managed to get both his commander AND the battlesuit in multiple combat. Ereka! If all went well, I'd instant death both of these! Unfortunately, all did not go as planned as the Shas'o did just enough to kill the one terminator in combat with him. Sadface. The battle suit didn't do anything to the other two terminators, so they struck back and raped him.
Turn four consisted of him shooting and killing the rest of the terminators, stunning my front rhino where it blocked movement for my other rhinos, and advanced a bit more to secure the objectives. Despite my rhino blocking the predator and one of the other rhinos, I saw an opportunity with my last rhino. He had a stealth suit squad sitting right in front of an objective so I tank shocked it. He failed the test and it fell back quite a ways. It ended up never regrouping and fell off the board the next turn. That turned out way better than I thought! This was the turning point of the battle, as my rhinos started unloading their troops over the next two turns which made quick work of the Kroot (sweeping advance) and the fire warriors (destroyed their devilfish). My EC crusader squad ended up turning around and claiming the last uncontested objective. The game ended after turn 7 and he only had his commander and the hammerhead left. I lost my terminators, 4 of 6 marines in one squad, and 2 died from another squad. I won with 2 objectives claimed and 1 contested.
Final thoughts: As I thought early on in the game, reserving my predator and deploying it where I did limited its use during the game dramatically. It only made four AC shots all game (although, one did destroy a devilfish with a lucky roll). My EC's crusader squad also had very limited impact on the game and only ended up claiming an objective. However, my all-star unit was the rhino who tank shocked the stealth suits off the board, then its squad jumped out of the and killed the kroot later. Eric made a couple of huge tactical errors early on that essentially gave me the game. First was his deployment. He split his forces and basically allowed me to refuse flank a good chunk of his army. I also thought he made a mistake in advancing forward so soon in the battle to capture objectives. His far side force could have made a late game grab of the objective near them, all the while shooting at me the entire game as I would have been forced to move slowly to him. Fortunately for him, stunning my front rhino blocked most of my forces and bought him a turn of respite, sorta. Ultimately, it was an inconvenience for me but not game changing.
Thinking over my side of the battle, I should have probably made better use of my terminators and used them on the right side instead of the left. However, doing what I did forced him to address them and use his fire in their direction instead of at my rhinos. In all seriousness, I should have had no problems killing both his Shas'o, the broadside suit, and maybe some of fire warriors in the devilfish if they stuck around. I also lamented the lack of use of my EC's squad and Predator. Looking back, because of the distraction posed by my terminators, I probably would have been ok to move it out in more spacious areas. Overall, I think Eric learned that the Tau are not happy in close combat and that continual shooting is key.
We also played using the new Battle Mission book. The mission selected came about after rolling to see what mission would be played (normal Rulebook missions, themed mission, or totally random). Eric rolled and we got a random mission. After one more roll, we found out that we'd be playing an Orc mission called "WAAGH!" on page 60. We had an outside player set up the board in terrain to keep it fair. We got a total of 3 objectives; Eric placed two in the middle and I placed one near a ruin about 14" from a board edge. He won the roll to be the attacker, picked his side (opposite the side with the objective near the board edge), and deployed. Eric deployed the majority of his forces to my right side behind some cover which still provided LOS to pretty much everything on my side. The other 1/3rd of his army was on the far other side of his deployment zone and consisted of his broadside, his battlesuit commander, and a fire warrior squad with devilfish. Seeing his deployment, I decided that it would be a very bad thing to deploy on the board as he would get a direct first turn shot at everything I had. I knew that I would probably lose a turn or two with my predator doing this, but it was a risk I was willing to make. So, I reserved my entire army.
Eric made a critical mistake here. When he was in excellent position, with fire lanes to nearly everything in my deployment zone, he moved forward to capture one of the objectives. Everything moved. Ack! This was huge for me, as it saved me a turn of moving to reach his lines that I would have normally lost because I had reserved in. He did this for two turns and locked up two of the three objectives. On my 2nd turn, I made my reserve rolls for everything except my predator and the EC's crusader squad. I decided to play a risky game and deep striked in my terminators behind his mini-force on his left flank. I nearly scattered off the board and only had an inch to spare! Thanking the dice gods, I finished moving my other units onto the board. I chose to bring up my two rhinos on my extreme right flank behind a tall ruined building that blocked LOS to his left flanked units. An excellent refused flank maneuver. During my turn, the terminators shot everything they had into the broadside suit. I got one rending roll, but Eric made the other 8 saves required! Not a good start.
His turn consisted of firing at my front Rhino which obscured my back one and did nothing of consequence. He also pumped out a billion shots at my terminators with his fire warriors, commander, and battlesuit. He missed on the big shots, but the fire warriors pinged down 2 of the terminators on limited save rolling. Ouch! My turn came around and made my other two reserve rolls, brought them on the board behind the other rhinos. Unfortunately, he still had use of his dangerous guns so I had to make sure they didn't get blown away in his turn. This prevented me from using my predator, so I just moved everything up max distance and blew smokes on the front two rhinos. My terminators shot again at the battlesuit and he miraculously made all of his saves...AGAIN. Getting frustrated, I moved into position to charge with the terminators and managed to get both his commander AND the battlesuit in multiple combat. Ereka! If all went well, I'd instant death both of these! Unfortunately, all did not go as planned as the Shas'o did just enough to kill the one terminator in combat with him. Sadface. The battle suit didn't do anything to the other two terminators, so they struck back and raped him.
Turn four consisted of him shooting and killing the rest of the terminators, stunning my front rhino where it blocked movement for my other rhinos, and advanced a bit more to secure the objectives. Despite my rhino blocking the predator and one of the other rhinos, I saw an opportunity with my last rhino. He had a stealth suit squad sitting right in front of an objective so I tank shocked it. He failed the test and it fell back quite a ways. It ended up never regrouping and fell off the board the next turn. That turned out way better than I thought! This was the turning point of the battle, as my rhinos started unloading their troops over the next two turns which made quick work of the Kroot (sweeping advance) and the fire warriors (destroyed their devilfish). My EC crusader squad ended up turning around and claiming the last uncontested objective. The game ended after turn 7 and he only had his commander and the hammerhead left. I lost my terminators, 4 of 6 marines in one squad, and 2 died from another squad. I won with 2 objectives claimed and 1 contested.
Final thoughts: As I thought early on in the game, reserving my predator and deploying it where I did limited its use during the game dramatically. It only made four AC shots all game (although, one did destroy a devilfish with a lucky roll). My EC's crusader squad also had very limited impact on the game and only ended up claiming an objective. However, my all-star unit was the rhino who tank shocked the stealth suits off the board, then its squad jumped out of the and killed the kroot later. Eric made a couple of huge tactical errors early on that essentially gave me the game. First was his deployment. He split his forces and basically allowed me to refuse flank a good chunk of his army. I also thought he made a mistake in advancing forward so soon in the battle to capture objectives. His far side force could have made a late game grab of the objective near them, all the while shooting at me the entire game as I would have been forced to move slowly to him. Fortunately for him, stunning my front rhino blocked most of my forces and bought him a turn of respite, sorta. Ultimately, it was an inconvenience for me but not game changing.
Thinking over my side of the battle, I should have probably made better use of my terminators and used them on the right side instead of the left. However, doing what I did forced him to address them and use his fire in their direction instead of at my rhinos. In all seriousness, I should have had no problems killing both his Shas'o, the broadside suit, and maybe some of fire warriors in the devilfish if they stuck around. I also lamented the lack of use of my EC's squad and Predator. Looking back, because of the distraction posed by my terminators, I probably would have been ok to move it out in more spacious areas. Overall, I think Eric learned that the Tau are not happy in close combat and that continual shooting is key.
