Opponent: Owen (Space
Marines)
Deploymenet: Vanguard Strike
Deploymenet: Vanguard Strike
Mission: Crusade
Point Level: 1500
Chapter Master w/Jump Pack, Digital
Lasers, Hellfire Rounds, Combi-Melta, Relic Blade
Captain w/Artificier Armour, Digital
Lasers, Hellfire Rounds, Combi-Melta
10 x Tacticals w/Flamer, Missile
Launcher
10 x Tacticals w/2 x Flamer
Venerable Dreadnought w/Multi-Melta,
Powerfist, Drop Pod
Venerable Dreadnought w/Twin-Linked
Lascannon, Missile Launcher
Venerable Dreadnought w/Twin-Linked
Lascannon, Missile Launcher
Vanquisher w/Hunter-Killer
Oh, come on, Vanguard Strike again?
Why is a one-in-three chance turning up so regularly!
Owen was a bit of a kid, which a
strange little hodge-podge of an army, much of it clearly still in
the process of being built and painted. Which I think goes some way
towards explaining what happened this game. I don't condone clubbing
seals, but nobody learns except through trial and error in the game.
Trial and disastrous, disastrous error.
I won the roll-off, and deployed the
following:
Shas'El w/Twin-Linked Missile Pods,
Airbursting Fragmentation Projector, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker,
Hard-Wired Blacksun Filter
3 x XV8 w/3 x Plasma Rifle, 3 x Missile
Pod, 3 x Multi-Tracker
2 x XV8 w/2 x Plasma Rifle, 2 x Missile
Pod, 2 x Multi-Tracker
3 x XV8 w/3 x Twin-Linked Missile Pods,
3 x Flamer
8 x Fire Warriors
8 x Fire Warriors
8 x Fire Warriors
5 x Pathfinders w/Devilfish, Disruption
Pod
2 x XV88 w/2 x Advanced Stabilization
System, Team Leader, Target Lock
2 x XV88 w/2 x Advanced Stabilization
System, Team Leader, Target Lock
Hammerhead w/Railgun, 2 x Burst
Cannons, Multi-Tracker, Blacksun Filter, Disruption Pod
Aegis Defence Line
The disruption pods were the post-FAQ
ones, a change Coulton, who happened to be passing by, was
unspeakably grateful he hadn't had to face the previous week. On the
other hand, the new rulebook FAQ had nixed the idea of spreading the
Aegis out, which meant I didn't have quite the scope for my defences,
anymore. That wasn't too much of a problem, though. I put it in the
centre-right, stretched out to cover most of my army in its
traditional three-point configuration, with the third group,
consisting of a squad of XV88s, the stronger Fireknives and a Fire
Warrior team, sheltering behind a bit of natural terrain and the
Devilfish. I placed my objective there, and handed off to Owen for
his deployment. He put one of his dreadnoughts in a tower-top, with
the other on the ground behind the double-flamer squad and the
artificier captain off to one side, while the third waited for its
drop pod to touch down. The jump pack captain and the other tactical
squad took up a central position, and the Vanquisher deployed on the
left corner of his zone. Again, night fight and seize rolls failed
to kick in, and the game was afoot!
Amusingly, despite directing four
twin-linked railguns at it, the Vanquisher ultimately succumbed to
nothing more than the missile pods stripping off its hull points with
glances. Well, the important thing was that it died; who killed it
was a decidedly secondary concern. With the only really heavy
artillery gone, I hunkered down to weather the fusillade of
dreadnought return fire, my forces spread out as widely as possible
to limit the drop pod's landing options. Happily, said drop pod
managed to scatter clear off the table, which isn't something its
inertial guidance systems protect against. Like Typhus the week
before, the dreadnought with the multi-melta found himself landing
smack in the back corner of the board, as far from the fighting as it
was possible to get.
Owen didn't have much better luck with
the rest of his turn. The save-enhancing disruption pods proved far
too much to get through with just a handful of shots, and both the
dual-flamer squad and the missile launcher squad were too far out of
range to contribute, save for the missile launcher, which missed.
Without scoring a single kill, Owen ended his turn.
The game was brutally lopsided, far
more so than even the previous weeks, not least because of Owen's
poor strategy. Rather than combat squad the tacticals, which
would've given him two squads to hold the objective, he kept them
together, meaning they were easy picking for a concentrated torrent
of fire. My XV88s trained their railguns on the dreadnoughts, though
a combination of poor shooting and good cover saves meant only the
multi-melta dreadnought ever went down, while everything else that
could simply obliterated the squad on the objective. Hesitating,
Owen started his second squad back, which was probably the worst
thing he could've done; if they'd pushed on they might've survived
long enough to hit my lines, at which point even just a handful of
Marines are a serious problem, but by pulling back they just gave me
that much longer to shoot at them outside their own optimal
engagement area. By turn 4, both Tactical squads were gone, leaving
Owen incapable of holding the objective and in possession of just two
dreadnoughts, against which the vast majority of my cadre's striking
power remained available. With no way to win and several consecutive
miracles needed even just to tie, Owen offered to surrender. And of
course, being the enlightened Tau commander I am, I was perfectly
content to accept my opponent's withdrawal from the field, even with
such precious items as a pair of Space Marine dreadnoughts, to
preserve Tau lives.
Running Total: 3-1-1
No comments:
Post a Comment