Black Knight has offered those daring
enough to wage war in the grim darkness of the far future a new
opportunity to test their mettle; Escalation in Alpha Prime, a
six-week league event. The league starts at 750 points, and adds 250
points each week, ultimately ending up at a full 2000 points. The
main scoring determinant seems to be win-lose-or-draw, of course, but
the league also provides a small, standardized list of milestones to
reach over the course of the series. Some of them are easy (play 4
games, roll a 6 when you need to), and some of them require a little
more persistence (kill a model with 4 wounds, kill two HQs twice).
They haven't actually announced what impact the sheets will have on
the overall score, but since it seems unlikely they'll have none, a
smart general would do what he could not just to win, but to win in a
way the meets the demands of the sheets.
For the first week, I took what I
thought was a pretty basic Tau cadre, with the caveat of course that
I still don't care for Kroot. At 750 there's not really any room to
get fancy; no Fortifications, no Allies, nothing but the basic
options in the codex, and not nearly as many of those as usual,
either.
Shas'El w/Twin-Linked Missile Pod,
Airbursting Fragmentation Projector, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker,
Hard-Wired Blacksun Filter
2 x XV8 w/2 x Plasma Rifle, 2 x Missile
Pod, 2 x Multi-Tracker
2 x XV8 w/2 x Plasma Rifle, 2 x Missile
Pod, 2 x Multi-Tracker
8 x Fire Warriors
8 x Fire Warriors
XV88 w/Advanced Stabilization System
Hammerhead w/Railgun, 2 x Burst
Cannons, Multi-Tracker, Blacksun Filter
This was actually the first game I'd
played at this particular points level, so I went into it with a
certain amount of concern. In the past I've had trouble getting my
cadre to perform in the 1000 points range; would they have what it
takes to get the job done with even fewer tools at their disposal?
Well, there was only one way to find
out.
Opponent: Aaron Plate (Orks)
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Old Zogwort
Weirdboy
19 Boyz w/Nob, Power Klaw
19 Boyz w/Nob, Power Klaw
Dakkajet
Dakkajet
Usually, Aaron goes for the Nob bikerz,
but I suppose if he couldn't rationalize cramming them into this
points level. Instead, I found myself facing off against an Ork foot
list, with a couple of flyers for support, something I haven't seen
in quite some time. Usually the Orks in my neck of the galaxy are
backed up by Killa Kans, Deff Dreads and Battlewagons, and nowadays
looted Imperial Guard hulls and grots with lasguns and flak vests.
The chance to test my guns against nothing but hardy Ork
constitutions made me cautiously optimistic, as did my successfully
defeating Aaron in the roll-off to go first. We rolled up four
objectives, with each of us basically depositing them in our
deployment zones, and got down to the business of murder.
I deployed in my customary spread-out
fashion. The lone XV88 and a unit of Fire Warriors claimed the top
floor of a ruined building, and the objective I'd placed there for
them, while the other Fire Warriors took up position on a hilltop
beside the Hammerhead, near the centre of my zone. My commander
joined one of the units of suits on the far right edge, while the
other two suits took the far left wing, deploying well up from the
edge of the table. Hemmed in, Aaaron deployed his two mobs, one with
the Weirdboy and one with Zogwort, towards the rear-centre of his
zone, trying to get as much cover as possible. He attempted to
seize, and failed, he checked for Night Fight, and succeeded, and the
game commenced.
And almost immediately ended.
Manoeuvring for advantage, I managed to align the Hammerhead and the
commander's squad with the Weirdboy's squad, getting both units nice,
clear shots through gaps in the terrain. With Blacksun Filters on
each the cover of darkness did nothing to protect the Orks, and
between six missile pods, two plasma rifle shots and a submunition
that landed dead-centre in the middle of the mob, those twenty Orks
very quickly disappeared. Throw in a bit of supporting fire from the
central Fire Warriors on the hill and the other Fireknife squad, both
managing a few kills even with the Night Fight saves, and there was
no chance of Mob Rule carrying those Orks through the end of my
shooting phase. Reduced to their own lousy leadership, which is not
unlike my own lousy leadership, the few ragged survivors promptly
struck up their heels and bolted for the table edge, giving me First
Blood. Turn one, and half of Aaaron's ground forces were dead before
they'd had a chance to move. Not that they actually accomplished
anything once they were given the chance, though, with Aaron sending
them shambling forwards, though not nearly as quickly as he'd hoped
given a lousy Run roll. With Night Fight no longer an issue, and the
Orks even closer to even more guns, there was a very real chance that
I could win the game on Turn 2, by simply killing everything on the
board.
Thankfully, I didn't quite manage that
feat. I did, however, kill a heck of a lot of boyz, once more
pouring firepower into the Orks and watching as body after body was
lifted away. The new 'cover on an individual basis' is frankly
brutal for armies like Orks, and makes the Kustom Force Field
virtually mandatory if you plan to have a foot list survive to reach
the enemy's lines. Old Zogwort survived the fusillade, as did a
handful of boyz, and with his slightly better leadership the
survivors managed to hold on until the arrival of one of the
Dakkajets. Unfortunately, that wouldn't turn out to help much, as
the Dakkajet managed to put all of one wound on one of the Fireknives
accompanying my commander. Zogwort himself attempted to use his
Curse on my commander, only to fail his psychic test. An attempt to
charge my Hammerhead also came up short, even with the re-roll,
leaving the Orks nothing to do. With the dice having failed him, at
this point Aaron could frankly do little but await the end.
Turn three, I managed to put down the
Dakkajet with my XV88, giving it its first kill of the game; turn one
there'd been trouble with line of sight, and turn two the railgun had
whiffed the to-wound roll. It made up for those failures with the
jet, however, blasting it clear out of the sky in a single hit, and
thankfully not scattering the flaming wreckage onto my own units. I
sent the rest of my army to deal with the remnants of Zogwort's mob,
save for my second Fireknife squad, who were tasked with making dead
certain they were in Aaron's deployment zone at the end of the game,
which at this point could come at any second, for the Linebreaker
secondary. Rolling up the remnants of Aaron's Orks wasn't difficult,
just a little time-consuming, though the appearance of his second
Dakkajet did cost me my commander, the sole casualty of the match.
At the end of turn 4, however, I'd shot the second Dakkajet from the
skies and hunted down the last of the Orks, including Zogwort who
provided me with the Slay the Warlord secondary, and ensuring total
victory for the forces of the Tau Empire.
Opponent: Jamie Goddard (Tau Empire)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Purge the Alien
Shas'O w/Missile Pod, Fusion Blaster,
Stimulant Injector, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker, Hard-Wired Blacksun
Filter, Bonding Knife, Hard-Wired Drone Controller, 2 x Gun Drones
2 x XV8 Bodyguard w/2 x Missile Pod, 2
x Fusion Blaster, 2 x Targeting Array, Hard-Wired Drone Controller,
Shield Drone
2 x XV8 w/2 x Twin-Linked Burst Cannon,
2 x Plasma Rifle, Multi-Tracker
10 x Fire Warriors w/Shas'ui, Blacksun
Filter
10 x Fire Warriors w/Shas'ui, Blacksun
Filter
8 x Fire Warriors w/Shas'ui, Blacksun
Filter
As a bonus for finishing off Aaron so
quickly, I was offered the chance to help out a late arrival, who was
otherwise opponent-less. Jamie usually gives me no end of fits with
his Imperial Guard, but when I saw him fetching out battlesuits I
must admit, I was intrigued; I'd never faced other Tau before. Of
course, since neither of us were Farsight Enclave, clearly this was
just a particularly realistic training simulation. So we rolled up
the mission and the deployment, one of the few times I was content to
see Kill Points as an objective, and got down to business, with Jamie
winning the roll-off and Night Fight once more kicking in.
I'm not going to go into as much
detail, this time around, because it was mostly just me chasing Jamie
around the board. My Hammerhead accounted for two of his three Fire
Warrior squads, while my commander and his squad duelled with the two
XV8s, and the other Fireknives and y two Fire Warrior squads did
their best to take down his commander and bodyguard suits, and
finished off the third Fire Warrior team. My only casualty of the
game was my XV88, who surprisingly died not to missile pods, plasma
rifles or fusion blasters, but just to a few too many pulse rifle
rounds to the face. Still, with all three of his infantry squads
down, and me having only lost my XV88, it was a pretty convincing
victory, and if the game hadn't ended it just would've grown moreso
as my numerically superior force finished off the remaining few
models he had on the board. A solid training exercise, and one that
clearly indicates a certain shas'el needs to spend a little more time
reading the tactical output of the shas'ar'tol.
