Blog Wars Game 1

Capture and Control, Spearhead deployment.

My first game was against Siph Horridus of weemen blog and his pretty awesome looking Relictors space marine chapter.

His army can be found here although consisted of the following:

Terminator chaplain
Tigurius
5 x Sternguard veterans in drop pod
5 x Terminator assault sqauad
Rifleman Dreadnought
10 Tactical marines (missile, plasma)
10 Tactical marines (heavy bolter, meltagun) Rhino APC
5 x Assualt marines (Sergeant, Powerfist)
Attack Bike multimelta
Landraider Redeemer

Deployment:
I won the roll off for deployment and elected to go first, I wanted the opportunity to pop his landraider before the terminators got too close.
I set up in the corner that would give my railguns maximum fire arcs into his deployment area, pathfinders deployed into the building to make maximum use of their marker lights. The Devilfish deployed to the far left of my deployment area so I could make a push for his objective with the fire knife battlesuits late game.

Siph deployed the majority of his army behind the trees, landraider at the front, his tactical squad with missile combat squading one half taking the objective the other sitting on the hill with the missile launcher. His dreadnought sat in the trees.

Siph failed to seize the initiative.

Turn 1:
I mainly shuffled my forces round a bit to try and get better fire arcs on his army, a small squad of firewarriors embarked the devilfish and started moving slowly towards his objective but enough. My Shas’El started to move towards the ruins forward of my deployment to intercept the landraider with his meltagun if need be. My broadsides took advantage of their ASS to line up and shoot the landraider.

Shooting saw the pathfinders markerlight the landraider which combined with the broadsides to remove that threat, his assault terminators would now be foot slogging it across the board. On my left flank my squad of fire knifes immobilised the dreadnought in the trees. Hammerhead missed the Rhino. Everything else was out of range. My assault move was just moving battlesuits back into cover.

In Siphs’ turn his drop pod landed in my deployment area disgorging it’s cargo of sternguard with Tigurius. His terminators started the long march towards my lines. The assault squad moved behind the ruins my shas el was moving towards, closely followed by the rhino.
His shooting didn’t cause me any problems, with the sternguard turning one squad of firewarriors into fish pasta bake. The dreadnought, missile and attack bike failing to do any damage to my vehicles.

Turn 2:
I brought Farsight and co to bear on the sternguard, and doubled my shas el back to help. The large squad of firewarriors sitting on the objective moved round to fire on them as did the broadsides. The devilfish continued moving towards his objective followed by the fireknifes. The hammer head moved to bring its guns on the attack bike.
In the shooting phase Tigirius and co disappeared in a hail of pulse, plasma, missiles, and supersonic projectiles. In an epic display of shooting ineptitude the fireknifes and hammerhead failed to take care of the attack bike.

The Relictors continued their advance with the terminators running forward, his assault squad moved around the ruins ready for a charge into my lines next turn. His terminators ended in a position to charge next turn as well. The attack bike drove behind some ruins and shot at my hammerhead, failing to hit. His missile launcher bounced off of my devilfish.

Turn 3:
My spare squad of firewarriors and battlesuits turned up. The battlesuits landed near his dreadnought, with the intention of pouring fire into his combat squad on the objective, the additional firewarriors came on behind my objective just reinforce it. Movement wise, I placed the pretty much everything I had available in range of the terminators.
After pouring pretty much my entire armies worth of fire into the termintors they died. The newly arrived battle suits killed off two marines in the combat squad. In the assault phase I moved my shas’el into the open, closing the charge from the assault squad into the firewarriors. (meant sacrificing my Shas’el, but worth it to hold the objective). The fireknifes continued on to his objective behind the advancing devilfish.

Siph moved his assault squad to charge my Shas’El, closely followed by his rhino full of tacticals, his attack bike moved around to try for my hammer head again. Shooting saw his immobilised dreadnought fire at my deep striked battlesuits. His missile launcher once more proved ineffective against my devilfish, as did his attack bike against my hammerhead. His combat squad fired at my battlesuits stripping them of their drone protection.
In the assault phase the assault squad killed off the Shas’El for no loss.

Turn 4:
Farsight and the two squads of firewarriors surrounded the assault squad, while the devilfish, fireknifes and firestorm battlesuits moved to kill the combat squad on his objective.
Once the shooting had ended the assault squad was down to their sergeant and the combat squad was no more. Farsight charged the assault squad sergeant, killing him then consolidated so that the squad in the rhino couldn’t reach the objective. 

Siph was down to precious few options now, he had half a tactical squad on a hill facing off against my squad of fireknifes, firestorms and devilfish and a full tactical squad in a Rhino which couldn’t reach the objective. He drove forwards and rotated his rhino, disembarking the tactical marines. He turbo boosted his attack bike behind the ruin where the rhino and assault squad had previously been. His shooting caused no casualties (that I remember).

Turn 5:
Farsight and my firewarriors moved to fire on the disembarked tactical marines, while the hammerhead and broadsides aimed to take out the rhino. On the far side of the field the devilfish moved to claim the objective with the fireknifes and firestorms running to surround it.
I fired the sub munitions round at the back of the rhino catching all ten marines in the blast, slaying four of them. Rapid fire plasma and pulse rounds killed all but 2 of the others. The broadsides wrecked the rhino preventing it from contesting the objective. Farsight finished off the remaining tacticals in combat. (kill tally of three marines thus far), consolidating so that the bike couldn’t turbo boost onto my objective.

I think Siph realised at this point that the game was more or less over. After measuring a few times his remaining combat squad couldn’t reach my guys on his objective, nor his attack bike my objective. He gave up at this point.

Conclusion:
Honestly, I think winning first turn and nailing his landraider was the deciding point in this game, with his terminators and chaplain left to foot slog it across a killing field, it made his hardest hitting unit ineffective and I was able to ignore them to concentrate on more immediate concerns (drop podding sternguard).

Siph was a fantastic person to play against and I would happily play him again at the next blog wars. I hope he had as much fun in the game as I did.

ASMOH practice game

Due to my ongoing commitments I haven't had any opportunity to get some practice games in with my ASMOH list. So I headed out to my local GW to try and get a game in with my 1750 point list. I ended up playing a Demon army.

Deployment: Spearhead

Mission: Multiple objectives (5)

I won the roll for first turn and let him go first, giving me chance to rush objectives at the end.

My opponents list (from memory)
(non-preferred wave)
Keeper of secrets

Nurgle Deamon prince

Tzeentch Deamon prince

15 Deamonettes

(Preferred wave)

Bloodthrister
15 Bloodletters
5 Flamers
large unit of horrors

I castled up my army towards the back of my deployment area, keeping my small squads of firewarriors next to the devilfish for claiming objectives, but wanting to keep my pulse rifles handy for deepstriking deamons. My opponent rolled and got his non-preferred wave.

Turn 1:
He placed his nurgle deamon prince in cover next to the building on my right flank containing my broadsides and pathfinders. coming in on target, His keeper of secrets did likewise in an adjacent building, also landing on target. On the other end of my deployment area his Tzeentch deamon prince landed on target in another building. The only unit to scatter was his deamonettes who scattered towards the centre of the table, in the open, in front of most of my fire lines (oh goodie :-P). He ran his large deamons further into cover to try and keep them out of line of sight the daemonettes only managed to run an inch though so they scattered as far as possible.

My shooting saw mainly shuffling of units to try and get better fire arcs on his units (if I can see a bit of it i can shoot it, discounting weapons of course) One squad of firewarriors moved up to rapid fire at his tzeentch deamon prince (looked like he had wings=had to die). with the aid of four markerlights, a squad of broadsides and a devilfish I managed to kill him off. The deamonettes ate the majority of the rest of my units and perished, leaving 2 squads of battle suits to fire on his keeper of secrets dropping him to one wound.

Turn 2:
Rolling for reserves my opponent got his bloodthrister in near the building on my right flank (broadsides pathfinders) once again not scattering. His nurgle prince targeted my broadsides with some kind of toughness test which I passed. His keeper of secrets fleet of footed towards the same building. In the assault phase his keeper of secrets assaulted up 2 floors and across a couple of inches into my broadsides in the top of the building into a space where I had to move my broadsides to make space for the his greater deamon. His nurgle prince charged the pathfinders on the lower floor wiping them out. His keeper of secrets fluffed his attacks on my broadsides causing no wounds.

My army continued shuffling around to face the main thrust of princes and greater deamons. a squadron of fireknifes and drones taking a wound off the blood thrister.the rest of my army that could see his nurgle prince cast it back into the warp. In combat his keeper of secrets killed a broadside and put a wound on the others killing one of them off. With my return attacks my broadsides didn't get a chance to hit as my shield drone heroically flew into the deamons nether regions stripping it of its final wound (go drone :-P) now who sucks in combat?

Turn 3:
His flamers turned up in the middle of a group of battlesuits and the table edge, once again not scattering. his bloodthrister lept over the building landing in front of a hammerhead. His flamers shot at my battlesuits causing 7 wounds that I apparently don't get saves from (not sure how flamers mange this but apparently they don't allow armour saves) and 1 normal wound. A bit of wound allocation later and I had two battlesuits remaining on one wound each. His greater demon was left standing over the smouldering wreck of a hammerhead.
My turn saw me embarking firewarriors onto devilfish and racing forward to claim objectives. My fire killed of his flamers and bloodthirster, eventually. My rolling had dropped to atrocious an this point. around. Even with markerlight support my suits couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, from inside the barn. But even so I had more  then sufficient firepower to kill his current forces 3x over meaning I scrapped the last wound off his bloodthrister with precious little else left to fire.

Turn 4:
Given that the store manager was telling people to start ending games, this would be the last turn. My opponent landed his bloodletters (scattering 4") and horrors (on target) on two objectives. that were quite close to me.

My turn pretty much consisted of me moving up claiming the objective closest to me and swinging my devilfish forward past his horros disembaking my firewarriors to shot them. My other fish charged towards the bloodletters camping on an objective detaching it's drones to contest that objective. (a brief debate was had with my opponent here saying that I couldn't disembark drones cos it had moved, them saying that they had to disembark from the drone holders, despite me pointing out that they act as a open-topped transport for the drones, finally settling the debate when I said that it doesn't matter either way as they are going to be able to contest the objective with their assault move in any case)

End of game

My opponent seemed quite surprised when I stated that I had won. with 2 objectives contested and the other firmly in my hands. Even with another turn. I had plenty of forces left to carry on contesting the two contested objectives while holding my own. Had I even bothered with my 4th shooting phase His horrors would have been wiped out.

So my practice game went alright, the army worked quite well on the restricted table size with probably too much terrain most of it line of sight blocking, ideal for his highly accurate deepstriking units.

Breaking in the Nids

As I finally got my Tyranids for the first round of tale of eight gamers put together and have pretty much got no hope of getting them finished in time for the due date. I took the opportunity to play a couple of games of combat patrol against one of my mates. This worked out quite nicely as he wanted to try out some of my other armies as well. 

My army for the first 500 points consists of the following:

3 x Zoanthropes

10 x Termagants

13 x Hormagaunts (with toxin and adrenal glands)

10 x Genestealers

We played on a 4ft x (just short of) 4ft table as it seemed reasonable for a 500 point per side game.

Game 1:

Vs My Tau, annihilation, Spearhead deployment. Tyranids going first.

Tau army, 3x fireknifes (with 2 drones and bonding knife), 3 x Firestorms (with 2 drones and bonding knife), 6x Firewarriors.

The game started off with my tyranids running across the open ground in the centre, the termagants heading into the comfort of a building and the Hormagants sticking behind zoanthropes for a cover save. The Tau fire removed a few hormagaunts from the back of the pack but not causing any significant damage. Then the genestealers came on directly behind his battlesuits, this pretty much put the game in the tyranids hands. Once the battle suits were engaged with the genestealers and then the hormagaunts piled in, the Tau were swept from the board.

Tyranids win!

Tactical Notes: This proved to be quite a good game for the Tyranids, the outflanking genestealers proving my opponents undoing, tying up the large majority of his firebase from turn 2 onwards. If I was playing my Tau I would have deployed slightly differently to minimize the effect of the genestealers outflanking at least get myself a turn of shooting before they would be in combat. 

This was also a good opportunity to show my opponent just how bad Tau were for an apparent elite shooting army. Doesn't matter how good your guns are if you can't hit the broadside of a barn.

Game 2:

Vs my space wolf army from winds of war 2011, Night fight, multiple objectives (4)

5x long fangs 4 missiles, 5 x grey hunter MoTW meltagun, razoback TLHB, 5 x grey hunter MoTW meltagun, razoback L+TLPG, 3x wolf guard, MoTW 2 x storm bolter.

I deployed my Hormagaunts and infiltrated my genestealers after winning first turn. Paul, deployed a razorback, with an embarked squad in it exactly 18" away from my hormagunts. By some miracle I was able to roll a 6 for the difficult terrain test for my gaunts and a 6 for their fleet move enabling the gaunts to reach the  razorback. Which they miraculously destroyed :-P. The genestealers just edged forward in the building to get nearer the enemies deployment zone. My termagants and zoanthropes came on centre back of the board and ran forwards to try and get the hormagaunts into synapse range quickly. My opponents army came on, the wolf guard and second razorback squad engaging the genestealers, the long fangs running into position and, squad from the destroyed razorback engaging my hormagaunts. 

I managed to warp blast the long fangs back off the table, and the genestealers killed the wolf guard but were in turn killed by the second squad of grey hunters. Game ended up with a single grey hunter in combat with a zoanthrope over an objective. Zoanthrope had passed 7 invulnerable saves on his last wound. Ending the game in a draw.

Tactical Notes: Hormagaunts outside of synapse will normally run away after taking a couple of casualties. Also Termagants in combat with wolves will lose, made far worse by being fearless. I was losing models at twice the rate he was killing them and doing precious bugger all back. Not much else I could really have accomplished here. I could have held the genestealers in reserve to try outflanking again, then gone to ground with my army on the two objectives in my deployment zone. Trying to use the Genestealers to tie up on of his objectives. Not very Tyranid like though. 

Game 3:

Vs Chaos Space marines. Capture and Control, pitched battle.

5 x Nurgle Marines (2 x flamers, champion with combi flamer), 5 x Plague Marines (2 x Plasma gun champion), 5 x Havocs (3x heavy bolters, 1 x missile, mark of Nurgle)

After taking a round of shooting while in cover, I ran forward managing to tie up his closest squad (plasma) with my hormagaunts, the genestealers outflanked again coming in on the right side to engage the havocs. He charged his flamer squad into combat with the genestealers. At the end of these combats he had 2 blokes left from the plasma squad, facing down four genestealers, 10 termagants, and Zoanthropes. He gave up at this point.

Tactical Notes: Think I did pretty well here, holding back from his flamer range till I was i a position to get the charge off despite going through cover. While the genestealers mopped up most of his firebase. Hopefully a greater learning curve for my opponent here though. keeping away from the edge if your opponent is outflanking and not moving too far forward with your troops against Tyranids. He knew his marines could beat my Hormaguants in combat, that wasn't my intention though. I just wanted to stop them shooting for a few turns. Complete success.

(Picture By Adrian Smith, taken from GW website, used without permission)

Winds of War 11

After 3 weeks hard slog at the painting table/desk the Halo marines got their outing at Winds of War, their intended debut. This is the third event I have been to that has been hosted by Bracknell Forest gamers, Winds of War 10 and Escalation 10 being the first 2. Both having been fun events that were well run and were full of great opponents.
This was the first time me and Ginge had seen are armies side by side, apart from a brief look at Ginges warthog and his low quality photos on his blog (Seriously, Ginge, would you like a camera with a macro function for your birthday?) and living 120 miles apart meant that we took our own directions with our armies. Ginge was playing his Spartan/marines as Blood Angels, I was playing mine as Space wolfs. Final results are available here.

One of the more disappointing, (although expected) things of the day was the number of Imperial Guard players there with racks of auto cannons and chimeras and Hydras. As you'll see below we faced 3 guard players. I think this is because the Guard excel quite well in these games, no other codex has access to such useful vehicles as the Hydra, or Chimeras. While still being able to cram in loads of troops and autocannons which dice up the vehicles allowed in combat patrol.

Round 1:

Vs (Chaos) Space Wolves and Imperial Guard (Thunderwolf cavalry, with 5man squad in Rhino/Guard with Chimera Spam and an artillery piece with armoured sentinel for added fun)
Capture Your Objective from the centre of the enemies deployment zone.

We lost the roll for first turn, but being an objective based game, this wasn't too much of a loss. The Space wolfs thundered forward, heading towards their objective in our deployment zone. As the game progressed Ginge repulsed the thunderwolf cavalry

and the squad in the Rhino, with a little support from my long fangs. My two razorbacks advanced towards our objective, trying to survive the hail of fire from the Imperial guard. The razorbacks were eventually destroyed. With 6 marines left in two squads of 3, moving through difficult terrain attempting to charge the 2 squads of guardsmen between them and the objective. One squad failed to reach to reach the guardsmen. Leaving 3 spacewolfs to try and carry the day against 18 guardsmen. After killing 3 or 4 on the charge the guardsmen attacked back, causing a phenomenal 7 wounds on the wolves. Of which I failed 4 armour saves. (Damn my inability to make armour saves). Ending the game in a draw.

Round 2:

Vs Combined Tyranid Force (2x2 Zoanthropes, 3x Hive guard, 26ish Hormaguants, Genestealers and Y-Genestealers)
Killpoints

This started off badly being a killpoint missions, as we had twice as many as our opponents and quite a few easy kill points in the razorbacks and landspeeders. Made even more difficult by the copious amount of line of sight blocking terrain on the table. Great for the Hive guard, not so great for our ability to tackle the hive guard though. Unfortunately for us the game started rather badly, despite putting six wounds on a squad of zoanthropes with missile launchers they just wouldn't die. Where as Ginge pouring heavy bolter fire into the hive guard also resulted in no wounds. (in total over the course of the game I put about 10 wounds on them from missiles which they failed one of). Although one of the highlights of the game had to be the Longfangs decimating about 23 of the Hormagants after they all grouped up tightly on the approach :oP. After claiming the easy killpoints of the 3 razorbacks and two landspeeders, the tyranids were left with two hive guard a zoanthrope on a single wound and a few genestealers getting beaten up by a squad of grey hunters.

With the majority of our army intact, it was annoying to have time called on us at the end of turn 5. At the end of the game we lost 5 kill points to 3, but got the majority of the victory points, an extra turn would have seen us drawing with the Tyranids I think.







Round 3:

Vs Imperial Guard and Tau combined.
Objectives (3 in our case, dawn of war deployment)

After a quick confab, our opponents decided to give us the first turn, hoping for a last turn objective grab. Ginge deployed his razorback, with combat squad and chaplain as far forward as possible. The rest of our army came on from the back first turn. The Imperial Guard player came on slowly rolling two chimeras down the road towards the middle of the table. Ginge promptly blocked these with his razorback and proceeded to play merry hell amongst the imperial guard lines. Meanwhile my two razorbacks advanced with supporting fire from the long fangs, destroying one Chimera and immobilising another. A squad of Tau suits attempted to deepstrike next to my long fangs but scattered 6" away, leaving them to rely on their burst cannons for effect.

Unfortunately for them every shot missed (that's even worse then my average shooting), and they ate missiles next turn. In a long shot to try to draw the game, our opponents attempted the move onto the centre objective, next to my squad in razorback, and tank shock through the building onto another objective. Although  this would still have lost them the game as we still had the 3rd objective. Anticipating this move, ginge had turbo boosted his speeder directly in front of the Chimera blocking his path. At this point our opponents gave up. Sensing that they would be tabled next turn, and wanted to save face. Netting us our first victory and 1000VPs.

Round 4: (The little sentinel that kept on going and the long fangs that forgot how missiles worked)
Vs Imperial guard and Space wolves (Armoured sentinels with plasma cannons and Chimera with veterans, Long fangs, skyclaws, wolf priest and grey hunters in razorback)
Kill points.

For this game, we were set-up in opposite table quarters to our team mates. We won the first turn Ginge headed towards the imperial guard player with most of his force, leaving a combat squad with missile launcher in his deployment. I sent one squad in a razorback towards The guard player, leaving the longfangs and other grey hunter squadron in razorback to try and harass the space wolf player. The Long fangs enjoyed some success early on when they hit the squadron of 3 armoured sentinels with plasma cannons. killing two off and stripping the cannon from the third. Ginge lost his speeder (Lost one, one immobilized) to the guard firepower, but proceeded to kill off the rest of the guard force in short order. Meanwhile the space wolfs had wrecked my razorback and killed off the squad inside with the skyclaws. From this point on my longfangs failed to hit anything, rolling a seemingly never ending stream of 1s'. Regardless, we had managed to kill off the enemy long fangs and razorback, leaving a grey hunter squad cowering out of sight, and the sky claws with wolf priest. Who were caught in combat with my grey hunters. I was losing combat slowly, although Ginges squad with chaplain in was nearby, ready to lend a hand. However they were stuck in combat with a shaken, stunned, weaponless, immobilized sentinel that refused to die. Totalling up kill points we came out just in the lead.

Overall we positioned 6th, with a good number of victory points for our position and not too far off the leaders.
Another enjoyable day out in BFG, thanks to the guys there for running the event. As they said at the time, this is the last time WoW is being run in it's current format, so have to wait and see what they have planned for next year.

Escalation 2010

I took my Tau to escalation 2010. Their first competitive outing. I didn't do quite as well as I hoped, but not as bad as I feared. coming 11th out of 24th with 1 win, 2 draws and a 1 loss in four games. Some of the missions were a little odd. With strange deployments and/or reserve units, certainly wasn't friendly for armies relying on firepower.

Game 1:

This was fought using the night fighting mission from the battle missions book. With the table split into four triangles diagonally across the table. Rolling for random deployment of units within the triangles. Mission was objectives with three objectives positioned towards the center of the battlefield, night fighting rules all the time.

My opponent for this mission was using a plague zombie army, I watched as horror as he positioned 83 zombies around the objectives in the middle of the table. For those that don't know, the zombies are toughness 3 feel no pain, S4 and fearless. So they can take a beating and not go anywhere. 

Over the course of 6 turns I managed to drop about 50 of the zombies without losing a single model. However he held two of the objectives with his larger remaining horde of zombies. On turn 6 with a well positioned charge into his larger group of zombies I managed to drag them off the objective ending the game in a draw. 

My opponent in this round was the same opponent I faced in the first round of the winds of war tournament earlier on in the year. This was an enjoyable game against a great opponent. However I didn't lose a single model in this round which was nice.

Game 2:

This was a spearhead deployment, kill point mission. My army was designed for fighting marines. So I was delighted to be fighting a space marine army. 

This mission went quiet well for me, I made a few mistakes which cost me my Shas'O to a melta gun totting biker. The game ended on turn 7 with me wiping out the last remaining marines on my opponents side. 

This game ended in a victory and 1000 VPs for the Tau. My opponent was a little new to his army and could probably have done with being a little more forceful in approaching my army. However he was a great person to play against.

Game 3: 

Spearhead deployment again. with a slight twist, you are only allowed to deploy fast attack choices. Leaving me with a squad of pathfinders and their devilfish. When I found out my assigned table I noticed it was largely open. Which I thought would be nice, until I realised I drew an imperial guard player. uh uh. The game was 3 objectives, one in the center of the table and 1 in the center of the unoccupied table quarters.

My opponent deployed a vendetta against my pathfinders. With the rest of my army held in reserve and the guard player having the -1 to my reserves roll, I didn't hold much hope of winning or evening drawing this mission. The game went quite quickly, with most of my reserves turning up then being taken out by the guard player, or failing a morale check and running off the table. Worst of all, I took a wound on each of my broadsides and managed to failed 2 of 3 armour saves and both invulnerable saves on my shield drones. Leaving most of my army at the mercy of the guard battle tanks. My remaining railguns failed to penetrate any of the guard armour, although I managed to cripple enough of his chimeras to prevent him reaching the center objective, and had four firewarriors hiding on mine.

Game resulted in a draw, but I was grateful the game ended on turn 6. 

Game 4:

I ended up playing against Ginge in this game, on the same table I played on game 3. It was a kill point mission against orks. A nice open battlefield and a good deployment for me.

Unfortunately I messed up on some of the tactics of this game, a few small changes could have won me this game. moving my firewarriors up towards his bikes to restrict his movement and get off a round of rapid fire at his bikes. I also could have moved around a little more effectively to keep out of the orks reach. Unfortunately I was tripping over my own deployment. Strung out across the back of the battlefield with limited space to move around. The dice also abandoned me on this game as well, Making up for the good luck in games 1 and 2 with bad luck in 3 and 4. With 3 penetrating hits on his battle wagons with railguns (open topped) I consecutively rolled 3 ones. Ginge had some quite good luck with his lootas as well, destroying 2 of my tanks in short order. However, not one to blame luck, Ginge played well and deserved the win in this round.

Result, Loss. 10 kill points to 9.

Things I would change:

Most of the missions are assault army friendly rather then firepower friendly. Be nice to have a better mix. Some of the deployment types were awful. In Ginges first game, his opponent conceded after Ginge won the roll to seize the initiative. He had deployed his boyz, literally surrounding his opponents rhinos and his opponent thought that there was no point playing beyond this point.

I would have changed my tactics in the last game, I should have won that one, and am now spoiling for a rematch :-P. 

I would have made slight changes to my army list. A piranha squadron or 2 would have been quite useful.

All in all an entertaining day playing warhammer though. Thanks to the people at Bracknell Forest Gamers for an entertaining day though.

Battle Report: Tau Vs Blood Angels

Battle report: Tau Vs Blood angels (rematch)

Playing against the same Blood Angel army as my previous battles, I’m actually getting quite bored of playing this guy. I think nobody else really wants to play him, so by the time I get there everyone else already has games. Nothing personal, but a bit of variety in opponents would be nice.

BA List:

Dante

Sanguinor

5 Sanguinary Guard

5 Sanguinary Guard

1 Priest with jump pack.

10 deathcompany in a landraider

Librarian dreadnought

Baal Predator TLAC

My list:

Farsight 3x fireknife retinue

3 x Fireknifes

7 Firewarriors

7 Firewarriors

7 Firewarriors in devilfish

8 pathfinders in devilfish

3 XV9 with 2x Phased Ion Guns each

3 broadsides

Railhead

Mission was kill points (my 13 to his 9)

Set-up was pitched battle type.

The board was limited to a 4’ x 4’ as is normal for my local GW. However the middle of the board was bisected with a fortress of Redemption severely limiting my shooting into his deployment area and giving him a safe route to advance into my table half. There was another building in the centre of my deployment area and a little bit of cover in the far back right hand corner. Another building was along the left hand side of the battlefield in line with the fortress of Redemption limiting the width of the space left to just big enough to drive a land raider through.

I won the roll for table sides and first turn. I picked the side which the fortress was furthest from giving me a nice open killing field for any assault marines that decided to jump over the building. I choose to go first.

Looking at the terrain set-up his army would be pretty safe from my first shooting phase as the fortress blocked all line of sight. Once they were past the fortress I would have one shooting phase to cripple his army before they would be in combat. To this end I deployed my entire army as a shooting gallery at the back of my deployment area. Leaving me little manoeuvring capability but the chance to bring my maximum guns on my enemy on the second turn. From left to right my deployment was, Pathfinder fish, empty, XV9s behind, hammerhead hiding crisis suits, firewarriors in front of the center building, pathfinders in the top of the building, farsight and guard ready to go left or right, broadsides with a skirmish line of firewarriors to grant them a cover save, finally the other firewarriors loaded into their devilfish on the far right flank.

My opponent, as expected, deployed his landraider near the gap on the left (my left) his assault squads behind the fortress of redemption. With the librarian dread and predator on the far right, strangely enough out in the open in front of my broadsides, all of his units were as far forward as possible.

My opponent tried to seize the initiative and failed.

Turn 1

Tau:

I moved the devilfish on the left forward, ready to plug the hole the landraider was going to come through in turn 2. my suits on the left shuffled forward trying to get missile pod shots on dantes unit next to the landraider. Farsights squad shuffled forward to get in a position to rapid fire any assault marines that crossed the fortress and intercept the dread if need be.

The pathfinders on the building lit up the landraider with a staggering 6 markerlights. The hammerhead targeted the landraider using a markerlight and missed, the broadsides split their fire between the three vehicles, got to love target locks, I missed the baal predator, failed to penetrate the librarian dreadnought, however in an epic display of shooting prowess my third broadside used the remaining makerlights to up the BS by 2 and -3 from the raiders cover save, the heavy armour proved no match for the railgun and the tank exploded killing one of the embarked deathcompany.

Minor shuffling of suits in the assault phase in preparation for the make or break turn.

Blood Angels:

The dreadnought failed wings of sanguineous, so moved normally his assault marines jumped over the fortress and ran forward into my killing ground making sure they would be in assault range next turn. The deathcompany started the long march towards m left flank.

The baal predator shot at farsights squad putting a wound on one of my suits

Tau 1KP / BA 0

Turn 2

Tau: This would be it, make or break for my army, either I blasted his army to shreds or it would rip me apart next turn.

My suits positioned themselves into rapid fire range of his 2 sanguinary guard squads, Hopefully I could expose Dante to the tender mercy of my railheads railgun. The sanguinor would have to wait till the following turn. I markerlight dantes squad getting 4 hits. I applied 2 of these to the XV9s whose fire reduced the sanguinary guard to cinders (8 rending hits, ouch). The railhead took aim at Dante, missing him, but putting a wound on him with it’s burst cannons. My firewarrior squad in the building rapid fired their pulse rifles at him, stripping him of another wound. Using my last 2 markerlight hits I open fire with the fireknifes, getting 6 plasma wounds and 5 missile pod wounds on him. My opponent passed all his invulnerable saves yet failed two armour saves, killing Dante.

Towards the centre on the field farsight and friends opened fire on the remaining sanguinary guard squad, felling four of them with rapid fire plasma guns. The remaining guard and priest were killed by the devilfish and firewarriors in front of the broadsides.

The broadsides split their fire between the dread and the predator failing to damage either.

My fireknifes shuffled behind the XV9s who formed a line in front of them, to try and bait the sanguinor into charging them instead.

Blood Angels:

Everything (left) continued its advance forward the dread getting wings and landing next to Farsight the baal advance at combat speed trailing behind the dread. The sanguinor positioned to charge my XV9, as I wanted. The death company continued their advance towards my lines. Slowly.

Shooting consisted of the baal firing on the broadsides who lost two drones and narrowly passed their morale check.

The dread charged farsight, killing a shield drone, however farsight fluffed his attacks, failed his moral check and got run down for his trouble. The sanguinor charged the XV9s killing 2 shield drones but taking a wound, I passed my morale check and sacrificed the remaining drones to pass hit and run. Leaving the sanguinor on his own facing a wall of fire next turn.

Tau 5 KP / BA 1 KP

Turn3

Tau:

With a large portion of the dead, I concentrated on the remaining units, the firewarriors moved round the back of the dreadnought the hammerhead positioned to fire at whatever all units depending on what survived. The devilfish on the right moved to the side of baal predator.

I makerlighted the sanguinor giving 2 hits. The firewarriors in the centre fired on him causing no wounds, the fireknifes stripped him of two wounds and he was finished off by the XV9 suits, the Devilfish on the right fired at the predator causing no damage, the firewarriors on the right fired into the back of the dreadnought, wrecking it. With no other targets the broadsides wrecked the baal predator. The hammerhead fired submunitions at the deathcompany. Killing 2.

I forgo to move my devilfish on the left in this round virtually guaranteeing its destruction by the death company.

Blood angels:

The death company charged the devilfish losing one of their number to flechettes but wrecking the fish.

Tau 8 KP / BA 2

Tau:

Markerlighted the death company, killed them with rapid fire plasma guns.

Game.Set.Match

Tau 9 PK / BA 2 KP (tabled)

Thoughts: I don’t think I could have done much better in this game, I only made a few minor mistakes, forgetting to move the devilfish on turn 3, wound allocation on the broadsides would have prevented them having to take a moral check. Most of the mistakes were made by my opponent. Given the terrain set-up he could have spent the first turn moving right up to the fortress and then jumped over it in turn 2, this would have allowed him to fire his guns without needing to run. Or with the baal predator surviving the first turn, moved that flatout to create cover for the guard when they jumped over the building. Also his army list includes some of the hardest hitting units from the BA codex, but not many bodies. Plasma rifles kill Sanguinary Guard as readily as normal marines, making my weapons far more effective in kill / points ratio. A fact I took full advantage of.

Battle report: Tau Vs Blood angels

I finally got the opportunity to head to my local GW last night for a quick game of 40K. I ended up arriving just after 20:00 meaning there was only one table left and one opponent who wasn’t matched up to anyone. This was the same Blood Angels player I played last time. He was determined to get me back for the last time we played, game ended in a draw but was heavily one sided in my favour an extra turn would have seen is army wiped out.

Note, this post my contain a few rants about my opponents conduct throughout the game. You’ll understand why as you read it.

My army list was written towards 1500 points (actually 1511 as written), Given that my opponent wanted to play 2000 points, I upped my list to just over 1900 by adding some rail rifles to the pathfinders and putting in a squad of basic XV9 battlesuits plus 4 shield drones. This isn’t really fluffy in a Farsight list but what the hey. So it’s my 1900 points Vs his 2000.

My List:

Farsight

Bodyguard: 3x XV8, 3xPlasma, 3x targeting array, HW Drone controller 2x shield drones

3 x XV8, 3x TL missile pods, 3x Burst cannons, Team leader with HW Drone controller 2x Gun drones

7 firewarriors, Shas’ui (Squad x 3)

5 pathfinders, rail rifle (squad x 2)

Devilfish (flechettes, Dis pod)

3x XV9 (3 x DC, 4 x shield drone)

2x Broadside, team leader, 2 x plasma, 2 x multitracker, HWDC 2 x shield drones.

Hammerhead, Railgun, burst cannons, MT, DP, Flechette

His List:

(From memory)

Dante

Sanguinor

6x Sanguinary guard, banner, melta pistols (squad x2)

Priest with jump pack

Death company x10, 2x power weapons 2x thunder hammers.

Baal Predator TLAC, heavy bolter sponsons

Landraider

Deployment and Mission:

We rolled for deployment and mission type. I won the roll for deployment; mission was spearhead one objective in each deployment zone.

Rant 1: During deployment I was getting my army out of my case, despite the fact that I got first turn he wanted to deploy first (getting first turn) while I placed my army. He got annoyed when I said no.

Rant 2: At my local GW the standard table size is 4’x4’, he started arguing that this enabled him to deploy within 6” of the centre rather then 12” in the rulebook. Obviously being as this meant he would be able to get into combat much quicker I refused. Obvious advantage to his army. To end the argument after about 5 minutes I relented and let him deploy 9” from the centre.

Rant 3: Before deploying his army he rolled for and got steal the initiative. I couldn’t even be bothered to argue at this point. Told him it wouldn’t matter because I was going to table him anyway :-P.

Shockingly, he deployed as close to as feasibly possible.

Turn 1:

The blood angels took to the skies and landed 12” closer to me. The landraider started moving between two buildings. All the sanguinary guard were within 12” of the priest for the feel no pain. The baal predator advanced slowly peppering my normal battlesuits with assault cannon and heavy bolter fire killing the two drones and causing a wound on one of the battlesuits. The storm bolter on the libby dreadnought killed two pathfinders in one squad. The guard and associated characters ran forward. The landraider shot at my hammerhead but failed to penetrate.

I moved the devilfish to block off his landraiders advance between two buildings, mwhahaha. This would hopefully hold up his death company for a couple of turns allowing me to deal with his army in two parts. Farsight and friends jumped out from behind the building with the intention of hitting Dante and co with plasma death.

My return firing wasn’t as effective as I would have liked. The 2+ save combined with the priests feel no pain mean that the sanguinary guard and Dante survived 12 wounds from the XV9s burst cannons, the firewarriors shooting at them (I left two units in reserve), two shots from the rail rifles. Gun drones, burst cannons. All without taking taking a single casualty. Farsight and friends opened up killing 3 of the sanguinary guard with their plasma rifles, broadsides followed up by taking out the last two guard and putting a wound on Dante. My deathrains (kinda) shot at the dreadnought shaking it.

Rant 4: After taking 3 wounds on the remaining 3 models in Dantes squad my opponent went to put 2 wounds on Dante without taking a wound on one of the guard. I pointed out that he had to take a wound on each model before putting a second wound on Dante. After I explained it to him calmly, then pointed out the rule in the rulebook, then got the store manager to reiterated it to him. He spent a few minutes complaining about it and saying how he has always played it like that before finally grumbling and accepting it.

Turn 2 Onwards:
The blood angels moved onwards towards my lines taking heavy casualties from my plasma rifles. The other squad of sanguinary guard and the sanguinor died quickly enough. Dante fell to mass pulse rifle fire. However his vehicles survived lots of penetrating hits with nothing more then being stunned. 


Eventually the Librarian dreadnought took out the broadsides hiding in the building, but was taken out by a charge by farsight. The death company carried on eating through my units, which I fed to them to prevent them hitting my main line at the same time as the rest of his army. 


I was able to prevent his characters from charging into farsights unit by blocking his move with a squad of firewarriors. They were killed by the sanguinor though. Farsight managed to take out the sanguinor with plasma rifle fire, while dante was taken out by another squad of firewarriors rapid firing at him. 


On the last turn of the game all my opponent had left was his landraider, which blasted my squad of firewarriors holding my objective. Who failed all their cover saves, they did however roll high enough to fail their morale check and run far enough to fall back of the table. So at least I was rolling about average :-P. With my last scoring squad gone, I had to take out His landraider to table him and win the game with no broadsides and no fusion blasters....


Farsight leaped onto the building, the strange looking dreadnought was discarding the remains of his Broadside like a kid throwing away an unwanted toy. The dreadnought looked at Farsight, a strange energy playing across its weapons. It charged forward with surprising speed for such a clumsy looking Gue'la machine. Farsight was ready for it though. With a quick coded command to one of his guards, a shield drone flew forward to meet the dreadnoughts heavy combat fist. There was a burst of energy as the two energy fields collided the feedback wrecked the drone but was enough to deflect the dreadnoughts blow. Farsight ignited his thrusters in a controlled burst landing his suit expertly on top of the dreadnoughts sarcophagus. With two quick blows he disarmed the dreadnought the dawnblade cutting effortlessly through the machines thick armour a third blow went straight down into the machines main body killing the occupant. Farsight jumped from the top of the falling machine, a short burst from his suits jetpack bringing him to the ground the recoil compensator's in his legs absorbing the impact without difficultly. On his left his suits sensors detected a squad of black armoured marines butchering a squad of firewarriors, the plasma rifle on his shoulder combined with those of his squad making short work of them.
He looked ahead, sprinting towards the last of the Gue'la forces. The behemoth bearing down on the remains of his forces, a landraider. Farsight jinked to the side as the sponson mounted lascannons opened fire, the heavy beams of coherent light missing him by mere inches the heat scorching the paint from his armour. Feeding power to his jetpack he launched himself into the air, the landraiders heavy bolter stitching a line through the air behind him. Farsight landed behind the landraider swinging the dawnblade to the hilt in the machines power plant his suits servo motors straining, Farsight started to draw the blade down into the landraiders vital parts. The landraider exploded, the force blowing Farsight back 15 meters. 
Picking himself up from the ground, he scanned the surroundings no more Gue'la forces were nearby. The day belonged to the Tau.