Opponent: Brad
Deployment: Spearhead
Objective: Seize Ground
Darnath Lysander
Vulkan He'Stan
10 x Sternguard Veterans w/Drop Pod
10 x Scouts w/Sniper Rifles, Camo
Cloaks
10 x Tactical Squad w/Combi-Melta,
Meltagun, Drop Pod
Land Raider w/Multi-Melta
5 x Terminators
Ironclad Dreadnought w/Heavy Flamer,
Drop Pod
For the last game of the series, a
Space Marine player decided to drop on my head, in several senses of
the word. The player, Brad, had ceded his territory earlier, leaving
his single token to deploy 'from space'', dropping down onto any
space on the board. Having decided to take a run at me, he then
opted to drop with his pods, aiming to start as aggressively as any
drop pod-based Marine army ever does.
Brad won the roll-off and opted to go
first, deploying his scouts on their objective in a ruin to really
maximize their invulnerability to my shooting; ten models with a 2+
invulnerable against all but four weapons in my army (only the AFP
and my Deathrain's flamers will ignore cover saves) are pretty much
as safe as houses against Tau. His Land Raider, on the other hand,
deployed right up on the 12" boundary from the centre of the
table, filled with the Terminators and Vulkan. In return, I went
with my usual drop pod-denial deployment, Hammerhead and Devilfish
along the outside, then the Firewarriors and XV8s spread out inside
that ring, as wide apart as possible to blunt the damage of flamers
and maximize 'shooting through squad' cover saves. The only
exceptions to this were my Pathfinders, who deployed in a nearby wood
just outside the circle, and my second Firewarrior squad, which went
into reserve just in case. I set my own objective down, stupidly
outside my drop pod-denial circle, failed to seize the initiative,
and we were off.
And off I was, right from the start.
Because when I didn't put my objective inside my circle, Brad seized
on the mistake, and put his two drop pods down around it, immediately
contesting it. His Ironclad trundled out, melta'd one of my
Devilfish and flamed a couple of Firewarriors to death, while the
Tacticals split into two coming out of the pod, the melta gunner and
combi-melta-wielding sergeant taking the Hammerhead to pieces on
their first round of shooting. The Land Raider raced forwards and
popped smoke, while the Scouts, not wanting to be left out, took a
shot at the Pathfinders. Sadly, the Pathfinders promptly broke and
ran off the edge, a bad start on the very first turn given how good
my shooting had to be. And unfortunately, it was just the start of
my trouble. While I did blast both halves of the Tactical squad to
pieces with my two Fireknife squads, it wasn't until Turn 2 that I
actually wiped them out, with two of the survivors of the first round
of shooting going to ground against more plasma fire and,
astoundingly, making two of three 6+ cover saves. The Ironclad
shrugged off my Deathrains' fire, while the XV88s only managed to
stun the Land Raider, which at least didn't have extra armour.
Of course, Power of the Machine Spirit
still left that pesky multi-melta free to fire, so in Turn 2 Brad
microwaved one of my Fireknives to death, while his Dreadnought did
the same to one of my Deathrains with its meltagun. Astoundingly,
both squads actually broke and ran clear off the table, a crippling
blow to my force that, frankly, it was impossible to recover from.
Shoddy Tau leadership strikes again!
After that, it was mostly a delaying
action. My second Fireknife and my commander managed to put down the
Ironclad and one of the Drop Pods, but once the Terminators trundled
out of the Land Raider and both units clobbered my XV88s, well, that
was that. The Land Raider was now invincible, given that my
strongest weapon left was S7, and capable of just driving onto my
objective and sitting there, immovably contesting it. But while
there was no way to aim for a win, I hadn't lost track of the
objective. My second Firewarriors had piled into the surviving
Devilfish and raced across the board, hanging out on the edges until,
on Turn 5, they cruised up, disgorged the drones who ran and
assault-moved clear onto Brad's objective, contesting it in turn. A
1 one the die at the end of my turn meant the end of the game,
leaving us in a draw, not bad considering what a ferocious beating
his army had given mine all game long.
Oh, and Lysander and his Sternguard?
You might have noticed they didn't rate a mention. That's because
the drop pod scattered clear off the table when Brad tried to drop it
in behind my shattered cadre's lines, and while I would've been
happier with them being destroyed for it, I was still satisfied with
placing the pod in the far corner of the board, taking the squad
completely out of the game even with some reliably high run rolls.
So, the last of the six-game series
ended up in a tie, putting my series results at three losses, two
draws and just a single win. I never held more than two tiles, and
with the draw lost one of those (both attacker and defender 'bounce
out' of a tile on a draw), leaving me with just a single tile left on
the board flying my cadre's colours. My series points total was
32.5, good enough to put me in 9th place. Breaking into
the top ten was quite the pleasant surprise, though the spread
between me and first place was over twenty points, so there was still
some ground to make up. Still, for a Tau player, one of just two in
the thirty-four player series, to manage to squeeze into the top ten
is no mean feat, and I'm entirely happy to celebrate it for what it
is, even while I aim for the top five next time around.
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