Battle Report

I wanted to do a battle report of our 40k goodness from Saturday. However, I forgot to take pictures, and because we played a rather odd game it's hard to remember what happened when. So consider this a disclaimer, some of the information presented here may not be chronological, accurate, or even factual.

BT, Zach, Josh, and I got together at Zach's to play some 40k. What we all forgot is that BT is a bitch and didn't show up until way late. So we decided to do a three way battle, a Menage A Tau if you will. We each picked an objective in our deployment zone and then another in the middle. The one in the middle would be worth 2 points and the ones in our deployment zone would be worth 1. This turned out to be a little meaningless since when you only have 1000 points, most of us only had 2 scoring units (I only had 1) so the thought of being able to control multiple objectives was laughable.

Zach rolled to go first, he deployed the following, 1 unit of shooty bugs, 1 carnifex, 1 biovore, 1 hive tyrant, 1 warrior brood, and 1 zoanthrope. He also choose to infiltrate his huge unit of genestealers on the other side of the board near Josh. This idea seemed great at the time, it proved to be a poor choice.

Josh castled up in a corner, devilfish, hammerhead (I still don't know which is which), 1 unit of broadsides, a unit of crisis suits, some kroot, some pathfinders, some firewarriors and a few drones.

I picked to deep strike my assault marines with sanguinary priest, I had a death company dreadnought, 1 vindicator, and a unit of death company with reclusiarch in a Rhino. So at the start of the battle I only had 1 rhino, a vindicator, and a dreadnought on the board. In addition I was probably the furthest from anyone. I thought my lack of troops and distance from the other two would be my undoing, in truth it allowed me to avoid a round or two of hard core shooting.

Right off the bat, Josh seizes the initiative. What happened next is a blur of dice and gore. Having never faced the Tau, Zach and I watched in utter horror as Josh opened fire. Since we both play assault armies, usually the shooting phase is just a quick couple of dice rolls. This was an intense salvo of pain! Everything in the Tau army has some horrific name, pulse rifle, twin-linked rail gun, air bursting flechette discharger, soul disruptor, fusion generated marine liquidizer, etc. Zach's genestealers took some hits, as did his Hive Tyrant and I think some warriors and shooty bugs.

On Zach's turn he assaulted the kroot with his genestealers and quickly wiped them out. His other bugs also did some shooting, but nothing of note. My first turn involved me moving everything forward and firing my vindicator, I think I wounded something...maybe don't remember.

Josh continued to pour it on in turn 2. Zach's genestealers were now in the middle of the Tau force. Josh dumped nearly everything onto those bugs and they were turned to meat quickly. With the genestealers gone Josh focused on the rest of Zach's army. Again, I'm not sure but I think he got a few more shooty bugs.

In Zach's turn 2, he blew up my rhino and forced my death company out. He also used his biovore to kill some firewarriors and forced them to fall back.

My turn 2 saw my assault marines deep strike close to Josh's force, but behind a building. My vindicator shot at the tyranid warriors and killed 1 or 2 (I was able to double them out because of the guns 10 strength). My death company and dreadnought assaulted his carnifex and ripped it apart, and waited for the pain of the Hive Tyrant charge next turn.

Josh positioned his devilfish and crisis suits with commander near my assault marines for some shooting. Fortunately for me Josh didn't roll as well and against most of his guns I got my armor saves, plus my guys had feel no pain thanks to the priest. I believe I lost 1 or 2 marines to the Tau shooting. Josh also destroyed Zach's shooty bugs this round.

By round 3 Zach had 1 hive tyrant, 1 warrior, 1 zoanthrope and a biovore left. The tyrant charged my death company and killed a few, I believe I caused 1 wound to the giant bug. By my turn 3 it was obvious that I needed to kill some Tau, or at least get in their face. My vindicator left the bugs and went for the Tau. My assault marines jumped into the fray and attacked Josh's crisis suits and commander. Thankfully, the Tau are much less intimidating up close. I was able to win the combat by 6 and force the Tau to flee, but I caught them with sweeping advance and wiped them out. My death company held against the Tyrant and my dreadnought charged into that battle, the dreadnought did his job and finished off the giant bug.

Josh continued to shoot at Zach in round 4, the biovore was destroyed leaving Zach with 1 warrior and 1 Zoanthrope. Josh shot at my assault troops, killing 1. He then tank shocked the same unit with the devilfish. I attempted death or glory and picked death. I broke the guns of the devilfish, but that's it.

Zach backed his warrior away and shot at me with it and his Zoanthrope. At the start of my round 4 my death company was down to my reclusiarch and 3 other models. My dreadnought was going strong and the Assault squad was at around 7 or 8 guys. I assaulted his zoanthrope with my dreadnought, and did nothing against the huge 3+ inv save it had. My death company were tied up or unable to assault. My assault squad jumped away from the devilfish and made for the cover they came in near. I also think my vindicator stunned his devilfish this turn.

At the start of turn 5 we rolled and it was determined that it would be the final turn. I now realized that the roll should be made at the end of the turn, which probably would of changed everyone's tactics. Josh moved his remaining troops towards his objective. His shooting was focused on me, but didn't do anything of note. Zach charged me with his remaining warrior and it quickly died.

On my turn 5 Josh had 1 point and Zach and I had zero. I went for the central objective with my assault marines. I also charged the zoanthrope with my death company. My vindicator got close enough to the Tau by this point to take a shot. I hit dead on and turned the pathfinders to paste, eliminating Josh's control on the victory point. My assault marines ran on their shooting phase and managed to get within 2.5 inches of the central objective to claim 2 victory points. We decided to not finish off the fight with the Zoanthrope since I won with 2 victory points.

If the game had gone on another turn or 2 things would of been very different. Josh still had some big guns left and I was pretty far from him. Zach's, Zoey would of died, leaving my dreadnought and death company in the open and at least 3 turns away from anything. I don't think it's outrageous to say that Josh would of crushed them with 1 round of shooting from his rail guns. Also, now that I had the objective my assault squad was in the open...not sure how they would of fared against a round or so of shooting. Josh may not have been able to win by objectives but if he could of got another round or 2 of shooting he may have been able to win by annihilation. All in all a good showing for the Tau, once Josh gets down what guns to use and the rules a little more they are going to be ugly. I lucked out by going last and having everything hidden in vehicles, or deep striking. Plus, since I was so far from Josh it meant the first 2 turns were nothing more then a Tau vs. Tyranids battle while I drove around doing squat. It's also worth noting that the 3 for all we played wasn't the best test of how these armies actually perform, but it was a good way to get familiar with the rules.

I built my list around trying out a few of my new toys. The vindicator performed fairly well, the dreadnought did great, and the Rhino blew up almost immediately. A mixed bag, but each of those vehicles will find their way into the main rotation in my army.