The last tournament I
attended was a mandatory-Allies event, which hardly presents a
problem at the specified 2000 point level. Who isn't bringing at
least some sort of Allied unit along at that level? Certainly my Tau
no longer venture out to seize Imperial planets or cleanse Ork and
Tyranid infestations without the support of their experimental
battlesuits, which just so happen to have the same statlines, points
costs and weapons options as Blood Angels. Funny thing, that. And
added to them this round were some Fire Warriors toting a bit of
experimental gear around, Fire Warriors who just so happened to synch
up perfectly well with a squad of Space Marine Scouts with a missile
launcher and sniper rifles. Because unlike the shas'ar'tol, my Tau
understand the worth of integrated weapon loadouts in their infantry
squads.
Anyway, enough of my
fluffy justifications. I took the following list:
Shas'El w/AFP, Twin-Linked
Missile Pod, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker, Hard-Wired Blacksun Filter
3 x XV8 w/2 x Plasma
Rifle, 2 x Missile Pod, 2 x Multi-Tracker, Team Leader, Twin-Linked
Fusion Blaster, Missile Pod, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
3 x XV8 w/2 x Plasma
Rifle, 2 x Missile Pod, 2 x Multi-Tracker, Team Leader, Twin-Linked
Fusion Blaster, Missile Pod, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
3 x XV8 w/3 x Twin-Linked
Missile Pods, 3 x Flamer
9 x Fire Warriors
9 x Fire Warriors
9 x Fire Warriors
5 x Pathfinders
w/Devilfish, Disruption Pod
2 x XV88 Battlesuit w/2 x
Advanced Stabilization System, Team Leader, Hard-Wired Blacksun
Filter, Hard-Wired Target Lock
2 x XV88 Battlesuit w/2 x
Advanced Stabilization System, Team Leader, Hard-Wired Blacksun
Filter, Hard-Wired Target Lock
Hammerhead Gunship
w/Railgun, 2 x Burst Cannons, Multi-Tracker, Blacksun Filter,
Disruption Pod
Blood
Angels Captain w/Jump Pack, Power Sword, Plasma Pistol
6 x Assault Marines w/2 x
Plasma Pistol
5 x Scouts w/Missile
Launcher, 4 x Sniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks
Aegis Defence Line
It's not actually what I'd originally intended, but unfortunately I
managed to forget my scratch-built Tau quad gun on the shelf at home,
and had to scramble to fill in those fifty points with other little
odds and ends I had on hand. And I was pleased enough with the
results, though I admit I was more than a little nervous about flyers
without that quad gun along. Yes, four twin-linked S7 shots aren't
that impressive, but when it's the only Skyfire you're going to get
in a 2000 point game, its absence leads to a certain trepidation.
Still, I could hardly pop home and pick it up, what with my ride
having already left and the store being a good half-hour bus ride
distant from the house, one-way. So there was nothing for it, then,
but to bite the bullet and get down to it.
Round 1: Andrew Swanson (Necrons/Dark
Angels)
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Mission: The Relic
Secondaries: Slay the Warlord (got),
First Blood, Divide and Conquer
Warlord Trait: Legendary Fighter
Destroyer Lord
3 x Wraiths w/Particle Whips
20 x Warriors
5 x Immortals w/Night Scythe
6 x Immortals w/Night Scythe
2 x Annihilation Barge
Belial
5 x Terminators w/3 x TH/SS, Assault
Cannon
5 x Terminators w/Lightning Claws, 2 x
TH/SS, Apothecary, Banner
Land Raider Crusader
Oh, Land Raiders. My ancient enemy.
The store-made secondary in this game, Divide and Conquer, was good
for a VP if you could destroy either the entire primary or Allied
detachments. And the presence of that Land Raider, even more than
Belial and the Terminators it was full of, made me more than a little
certain I wasn't going to be pulling that particularly objective off.
Andrew won the roll-off, and opted to
take the side of the table with a single large ruin, rather than the
one with several smaller pieces. This wasn't a bad strategy for him,
as it allowed him to deploy his Annihilation Barges out of LOS,
protecting them from my railguns in the event that I managed to
seize. He also stuck his Destroyer Lord, with Wraiths, in the ruin
for cover, with his huge Warrior squad pushing up towards the edge of
his deployment zone in the centre and the Land Raider, with Belial
and the special Terminator squad, on the right. The Night Scythes
and their units remained in reserve, of course, as did the Assault
Cannon-wielding Terminators. Satisfied, he passed it over to me, and
I established my beachhead. The scouts dug in to a forest a few
inches in front of my Aegis line, which stretched through the middle
of the board. It's a pity; Hammer and Anvil is a great 'sit at the
back and shoot' mission for Tau, but to really pull this out I'd have
to deploy aggressively to keep my scoring units close to the Relic.
With my captain and assault squad in reserve, I spread everything
else out across the board, with one of my XV88 squads hiding on top
of a bastion being used as terrain. For once I managed to seize,
which would turn out to do me exactly zero good.
There was really only one thing to
shoot at turn one; the Land Raider. My scout's missile launcher, all
four XV88s and my Hammerhead opened up on that thing, and not one of
them managed to so much as glance it. I loaded one of my squads into
the Devilfish and had it scoot forwards, just about on the Relic
already, but dangerously close to the Warrior blob. Despite the best
efforts of my non-AV14-affecting weapons, I only managed to keep a
handful of Warriors down, nowhere near enough to really impede their
efficiency. In his turn Andrew sent the Land Raider cruising
forwards, close enough that Belial and company could pile out the
front and, with some good luck on their charge range, make it clear
into contact with my scouts. Unsurprisingly, my scouts proved
unequal to the task of taking on a superior number of better-armed
and -armoured models led by a special character, and were promptly
killed to the last man. That gave Andrew First Blood, and put those
Terminators worryingly close to my lines.
Turn 2, my captain and assault squad
arrived promptly from reserves. While the Fire Warriors reluctantly
disembarked from the Devilfish, which had shifted forwards to let
them grab the Relic by coming out the back, the rest of my army lined
up their shots. Again, all available weaponry railed to so much as
scratch the Land Raider, and this time I couldn't even content myself
by shooting at the Warriors, as most were blocked from view by my
Devilfish's rather ample backside. I turned my firepower on Belial
instead, but while he did fail a Look Out, Sir! and the subsequent
armour save, nothing else got through. My Tau shooting was downright
fantastic, however, compared to my Marines; the sergeant and captain
both managed to have their plasma pistols overheat, killing the
former and wounding the latter, and leaving the one functioning
weapon to accomplish precisely nothing against the rear armour of an
Annihilation Barge. I hadn't realized how much I took safe Tau
plasma weapons for granted until I tried to use someone else's! In
response, Andrew gaussed my Devilfish to death with his Warriors,
killed half the Marines with the Annihilation Barges, and deep struck
his second Terminator squad in behind my lines, the assault cannon
ripping clean through both XV88s. Belial and his squad got hung up
on terrain in the forest, leaving them well out of position to
actually accomplish anything, but they were still pushing forwards to
catch me in a pincer.
The rest of the game unfolded as my
poor luck and terrible tactics ensured it would. Amazingly, I
actually did manage to destroy the Land Raider, thanks to the XV88s
in the bastion, while the rest of my army dealt with the assault
cannon-bearing Terminators with relatively few losses. Belial went
down in a hilariously unlucky manner; he failed exactly enough Look
Out, Sir! rolls, and their subsequent armour saves, to die from the
fire. Amazingly, Belial's tactical dreadnought armour provided
exactly no protection. And my remaining Marines even managed to
assault one of the Annihilation Barges to death (thank you, lucky Red
Thirst rolls!) before sole survivor had to withdraw to protect
himself. I'd rather not give up the Divide and Conquer secondary,
thank you!
Unfortunately, while I was pretty
handily winning the shooting war across the board, Andrew had picked
his targets better. His Overlord remained out of sight pretty much
the entire game, denying me the Slay the Warlord point for myself,
and between his possession of that and First Blood he finally beat me
out. I just couldn't get another scoring squad up to the Relic in
time, though admittedly I didn't prioritize advancing after the first
team to put their hands on that thing were brutally disintegrated by
Warrior-toted gauss rifles. I fell an inch short of an attempt to
move through difficult terrain to claim it last turn, which was
annoying, but I shouldn't have let it come down to a single dice roll
anyway. And my target priority was off last turn, too; I focused on
killing the Warriors, who were unlikely to make it to the Relic,
rather than dealing with the handful of surviving Terminators. If
I'd poured everything into them, Andrew's luck that game dictated
they'd likely have died, giving me the Divide and Conquer point and a
draw. Oh well; this is how one learns, I suppose.
Result: 2-1 loss on secondaries, no
primary points
Round 2: Tim Little (Necrons/Blood
Angels
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Mission: The Scouring
Secondaries: First Blood, Linebreaker,
Battlefield Superiority
Warlord Trait: Immovable Object
Overlord w/Resurrection Orb, Staff of
Light
Royal Court w/2 x Harbinger of
Destruction, Eldritch Staff, Harbinger of Storm, Voltaic Staff,
Lightning Field
10 x Warriors
10 x Warriors
10 x Warriors
10 x Warriors
6 x Scarabs
Monolith
Reclusiarch
8 x Death Company w/Drop Pod
Death Company Dreadnought w/Drop Pod,
Blood Talons, Melta, Heavy Flamer
Furioso Dreadnought w/Drop Pod, Blood
Fists, Melta, Heavy Flamer
This one was going to be nasty, I knew
that much just from looking at Tim's list. Two Dreads with melta and
a Reclusiarch and unit of Death Company, all in Drop Pods? I was
actually less worried about the Necrons; yes, there was a Monolith,
but no aircraft, no Annihiliation Barges and no Doomsday Arks, not
even any of those so-troublesome Wraiths to deal with. Gun to gun, I
felt pretty confident in my chances going up against a Necron
shooting list. But those Blood Angels...
I won the roll-off for sides, and opted
for the one with the greater amount of stuffed cluttered around it.
The less room there was for those drop pods, the better.
Unfortunately, there was a high-sided bridge running diagonally
through the centre of the table which badly hampered my starting
sightlines, and sort of made my Aegis redundant. I placed it as best
I could, along with my army; the scouts hugging the edge of the
bridge on the left, with one of the XV88 units beside them, then the
Fire Warriors spread out through the middle to try and block
deployment options, the Hammerhead and the Devilfish trying to cover
each other's backsides, and the other XV88 unit on the right flank.
My commander and the Deathrains hung around the middle-rear, while
the Marine-suits once again went into reserve, this time along side
my two Fireknife teams. I was trying to maximise early striking
power and minimize early vulnerabilities, a difficult task. In
response, Tim spread his Warrior squads out across the board, with
his Monolith on the right and his Overlord in one of the units
towards the back, and the Scarabs hanging out as far forward as they
could get. Someone wanted a turn one charge opportunity. From the
start I had good proximity to most of the objectives, though
unfortunately it turned out the 4-point one was hanging out towards
the back of Tim's deployment zone, meaning I'd have to push in there
anyway. Good thing those Marines were in reserve. Now, to survive
Tim's long enough for it to matter.
Unfortunately for me, Tim won the
roll-off for first turn. Before I'd had a chance to fire, or
generate any cover saves for my skimmers beyond their disruption
pods, the two Dreadnoughts crashed into my rear area. The Death
Company Dread landed with a depressingly good angle on my
Hammerhead's rear armour, while the Furioso planted itself on a small
ridge near my right flank. Amazingly enough, while the heavy flamers
did make something of a mess out of my poor Fire Warriors, those
so-scary meltas managed to fail to hit the Hammerhead, and to wound
the XV88s. That could definitely have gone worse. The rest of Tim's
firing amounted to little, with his movement seeing his Warriors
spread out towards the objectives in mid-field and his backfield, and
the Monolith rumbling towards my lines. In response, one of my XV88s
exploded the Death Company dread, while the others immobilized the
Furioso; given that everything had already backed out of melta/flamer
range, this meant it was basically a non-issue. The rest of my army
peppered the Necrons with long-range fire, but while a few went down,
most of them got back up again. Most annoying.
Turn two started off poorly for me,
with the Scarabs making an absurdly long charge to get into combat
with my left flank XV88s. And because they were coming from around
the edge of the bridge, there was even a limit to the amount of
Overwatch damage I could have done. You know, assuming I hadn't
whiffed every roll. While the Scarabs and the XV88s clashed, I
manoeuvred my Hammerhead for a good shot on one of the Warrior
squads, angled my commander and the Deathrains to set up some decent
Focus Fire lines to really make the most of their AP4 weapons, and
generally did my best to get nice lines of fire on everything.
Unfortunately, while the commander and his accompanying squad did do
some serious damage to the closest Warrior squad, my unengaged XV88s
failed to put a round through the Monolith, while the Hammerhead's
submunition scattered well off the mark.
Turn three saw the Death Company squad,
with attached Reclusiarch, land pretty much smack-dab in the middle
of my surviving Fire Warrior lines. Tim could not have gotten
luckier with the scatter dice. Knowing the resilience of FNP Marines
to standard arms, and having none of my plasma weapons available, I
knew that was going to be a problem. The rest of Tim's turn was
actually rather low-key, save for the enraging one-shot one of his
Crypteks managed on my Hammerhead. I really needed that AP4 large
blast weapon! In the combat phase, the XV88s, who had managed not to
fail any of their saves last turn, continued to stand strong,
managing to inflict a wound on the Scarabs, who of course hung into
the fight. This combat would eventually conclude with the death of
the Scarabs, after they'd eaten my XV88s' armour off, with the
assistance of the Scout squad. By that time, however, it wouldn't
matter, as they'd be locked until the last turn.
The rest of the game continued to slide
sideways out of my grasp, despite a few promising demi-rallies. One
of my reserve suit squads dropped within melta range of the Monolith
and took care of it with a single shot, while another squad moved to
deal with a particularly tenacious Warrior squad. My captain and
assault squad dropped towards the back objective, but after some
particularly effective Overwatch and some really lousy rolling by the
captain and his power sword, they just could not take out the
Warriors guarding it. The Death Company, meanwhile, wiped out pretty
much every infantry unit near their initial drop point, with the
assistance of their pod's weapons. I just could not deal with those
guys without plasma, and all my plasma was busy trying to deal with
other, objective-holding problems.
We actually ran out of time, but since
I had the bottom turn Tim offered to let me do any quick last-minute
contestations. A pair of gun drones flitted over to crowd up one of
the objectives, but it didn't make any difference, sadly. I had the
1 and 3 objectives, but Tim had the 2 and 4 objectives sewn up
neatly, his superior number of more resilient Troops units serving to
tip the balance. It wasn't all one-sided, though, as I did get First
Blood and Linebreaker, serving to save me from the pity-points of
'lost' and 'played the game'. You take your victories where you can,
sometimes.
Result: 6-4 loss on primaries, 2-1
secondaries in my favour
Round 3: Micheal Plowman (Dark
Angels/Blood Angels)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Purge the Alien
Secondaries: First Blood, Linebreaker,
Cut off the Head
Warlord Trait: Legendary Fighter
Ezekiel
10 x Tacticals w/Plasma Gun, Plasma
Cannon, Power Sword
10 x Tacticals w/Plasma Gun, Plasma
Cannon, Power Sword
10 x Scouts w/Missile Launcher, 9 x
Sniper Rifles
Predator w/Autocannon, 2 x Lascannons,
Dozer Blade
Aegis w/Quad Gun
Mephiston
8 x Death Company w/Land Raider,
Twin-Linked Lascannon sponsons
Chaplain
Stormraven w/4 x Bloodstrike Missiles,
Twin-Linked Lascannon, Twin-Linked Multimelta
The amount of plasma and missile
launchers, not to mention yet another Land Raider, really had me
worried going into this game. Thankfully, Dawn of War ameliorates
those worries somewhat; there's not a lot you can do when you just
deploy in a line across from each other, with plenty of room to
spread out for best angles. I deployed first, holding my captain and
assault squad in reserve as usual, with everything else going down
behind terrain, or at least another squad or unit behind terrain.
Michael followed suit, spreading out in a gun line opposite mine, a
particularly welcome sight; gunline to gunline, Tau usually have an
edge over Marines. They just don't have the specialized long-range
firepower that Tau armies fear. I won the roll-off for first turn,
and proceeded to set the tone.
This game was pretty much a slaughter,
start to finish. Michael had deployed with too much of his army
within range of my force, which admittedly is hard not to do when
you're talking about Tau, and turn one my shooting just ripped
through him. He never really recovered from that rather withering
fusillade of firepower, particularly when I managed to wreck his Land
Raider halfway across the table, stranding his Death Company in no
man's land. Caught between a flanking squad of Fireknives and a Fire
Warrior team on that side of my lines, they were simply slaughtered
without causing a single casualty. The main force of my army,
meanwhile, continued to hammer away at Micheal's army, cutting Marine
after Marine down in a hail of pulse fire. When my assault squad and
captain dropped near to his lines, but safely out of line of sight of
anything first turn, they just added to my advantage, cutting down a
squad of tactical marines hiding in a building which meant the entire
right half of the table was now under my control. The only real
threat emerged on turn four, when Mephiston arrived in the Storm
Raven. Shot out of the air, he landed right in front of my lines,
and proceeded to make a mess out of a unit of Fire Warriors and one
of my XV88s. Honestly, he was a beast, and if he'd made it into the
fight even a turn or two earlier, he might have presented a serious
challenge. As it was, though, time was called after just a single
turn with him on the board, while the Marine gunline was down to a
handful of Marines and Ezekiel.
In addition to the primary, I picked up
First Blood and Linebreaker, though Mephiston's toughness meant I
couldn't claim Cut Off the Head. Still, a pretty nice way to end a
day that, otherwise, had been maddeningly full of 'close but no
cigar' moments. Sometimes it's nice just to mop the floor with
someone, y'know?
Results: 7-2 win on primaries, 2-0 on
secondaries
Overall Results: 6th of 12
