I had the opportunity this evening to get in my last, or next to last game of 5th edition prior to 6th hitting Saturday against Eric of http://thewildriderhost.blogspot.com/ 's Eldar army. The game was 2000 points and we rolled seize ground 3 objectives, and capture and control as our missions. The deployment was dawn of war and I won the roll off to go first, and Eric failed to seize the initiative.
My phone died after turn 1 deployment, so I have no pictures, sorry.
Army list wise, I ran a Farsight enclave with a 955 point farsight and bodyguard squad, with 7 helios (fusion blaster, plasma rifle, shield generator) body guards, 4 with target locks, one with failsafe detonator, and one with stimulant injector. I mixed up the other options enough to have 7 unique suits for wound allocation, plus 6 shield drones. I also had 2 6 man firewarrior teams with Shas'ui with EMP grenades (just the shas'ui), 2 Broadsides with Plasma team leader with 2 shield drones, shield generator HWMT, HWTL, and the 2nd broadside running a multi-tracker. One shas'vre Crisis suit (mandatory) with MP, Flamer and Pos Relay and a shield drone. 1x 3man stealth suit team, teamleader with markerlight. Skyray. Eight Pathfinders including Shas'ui, DFish with DPod and drones. Lastly I had an IonHead with DPod and Bust Cannons.
Eric ran 2 9man jetbike squads with Warlock and attached farseer's with Fortune and Guide. 2 Wave serpants with holo fields carrying 5 man Fire Dragon teams including Exarchs with flamer, 2 Dire Avengers troops of 7+1 Exarch and a night spinner.
I deployed Farsight and friends strung out along the center of the board, with the firewarriors at either flank in terrain 12" from the edge or so, and in cover to force him to deploy in the 6" band on his edge. All but my 3 stealth suits (deepstriking) walked on on turn 1. Eric deployed one jetbike squad with attached farseer in the far right corner. The rest of his forces came on on turn one.
Since I don't have pictures, I'll save the play by play.. Due to some amazing roles by my pathfinders, skyray and stealth teams markerlights, I managed to wipe out both Jetbike teams and their Farseers'. I wrecked 2 Wave Serpents, depleted a Firedragon team down to just the Exarch and wiped out most of a Dire Avenger team and removed the twin linked wpn from another wave serpant. I also got my first ever glancing hit with an EMP grenade on turn one from a Shas'ui which charged into a Wave Serpant along with his team. It took a Dire Avenger squad and a Fire Dragon team 4+ assault phases to finally wipe them out. Unfortuneately, the Shas'Vre that was contesting his Capture and Control Objective Died while Jumping into Difficult Terrain in the Top of Turn 6, leaving his 3 remaining Dire Avengers in that area to Cap the point. All the other points were contested, and so Eric won One to nothing.
All in all, it was an amazing battle, and as always Eric was a great opponent and we had a great time. I plan to get in one more 5th edition Game at Big Kidz Games tomorrow before 6th hits on Saturday. Hopefully I can redeem my Farsight list which is now something like 5 wins 1 loss in the last month or so..
Or, I think tomorrow, I'm going to try to run a Shadowsun list, that has at least 1 of every unit possible ( I don't own a space pope model, and can't run Farsight, but I will run my Ethereal with honor Guard).. I will probably leave the Skyray at home so I can run 3 sniper Drone teams, I'll skip the gun drone squadron, but will make a gun drone team by detaching them from my Piranha squadron, and will otherwise make the army as stealthy as possible.. 2 6 man stealth teams, 2 16 Kroot Kroot Teams infiltrating, Pathfinders outflanking and Tankshocking on turn 2 if possible. It's not a winning strategy, but when the Vespid hit the board, oh look out.. no ones gonna know what to do then..
On another thought all together, I bought 3 more Mark I Rhino's from Eric today bringing my Total up too 8 Mark I rhino chassis for my sisters of battle army. 3 will get converted to Exorsists, 3 into imolators for my Dominion squads, and 2 as Rhino's as transports for Jacobus and the Battle Conclave, and 1 for my Sisters Repentia.. Assuming 6th doesn't have some rules that make that a horrid build.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Tau versus Tau 2000 pts
I was invited to play a 2000pt game versus Dan, another Tau player from Cobblestone games at the Battle Barns final evening of gaming (a sad day indeed, the battle barn is no more). I gladly accepted and set about devising a way to beat the Tau, as the Tau.The Pregame planning:
Given my notoriously bad dice, I decided that if we both brought standard Tau lists, and it came down to a long range shooting match/dice fest that I would surely lose. I needed something nonconventional. I also couldn't think of a reason for Tau to fight Tau (acting like a bunch of humans) unless one of the teams was a Farsight enclave. Since Farsight lists are universally considered to be uncompetitive, I didn't expect Dan to bring one, and since I've played a few games with Farsight lists lately I decided that Farsight would be my solution.
After waffling with some standard style lists with pathfinders, broadsid team, multiple crisis suit teams etc.. I realized that almost every game I've played lately has been determined by kill points. Each list I made contained no fewer than 13 kill points. Inspired by Eric's excellent Eldar Jetbike list that has minimal kill points, I decided that minimizing kill points would be the second component to making my Farsight list competitive against a standard Tau list. I stripped out everything I could, took my 4 mandatory unit choices (Farsight, Crisis Suit Team, Two Firewarrior squads) then after waffling back and forth about a squadron of 4 piranha, settled on a Broadside team, and an IonHead.
Conceptually, I planned to split the Farsight Team into 2 groups, 4 suits with Fusion Blasters would either split fire and target vehicles, broadsides, or nearby Crisis teams (causing instant death for any wound applied to a broadside or a suit), while Farsight and the 3 fireknives would focus on mid range targets starting with Crisis and Stealth Suits. If any crisis team was in assault range, I'd declare them to be the squads target before splitting fire, and minimizing my shooting at them so they'd still be around to assault and hopefully keep me from being shot during his turn (this never happened).
My final list contained 6 SIX Killpoints at 2000 points, and looked something like this (please excuse extra notation in unit entries, it was intended to help remember who had what) :
2000 Pts - Tau Empire Roster - Tau 2000pts Farsight of DOOM!
Total Roster Cost: 2000
HQ Farsight Bomb - Fire Both Wpns!!! (16#, 982 pts) (CBg = Crisis Bodyguard)
1 Cmdr Farsight PR DawnBlade SG HWTL, 170 pts
1 CBg FB MP SG BsF - ForgeFire, 92 pts = (base cost 35 + Fusion Blaster 12 + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter 3 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 CBg FB MP SG - ForgeFire, 89 pts = (base cost 35 + Fusion Blaster 12 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 CBg PR MP SG - FireKnife, 97 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Plasma Rifle 20 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 CBg PR MP SG BsF - FireKnife, 100 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter 3 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Plasma Rifle 20 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 CBg TLFB SG - Sunforge , 83 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Twin Linked Fusion Blaster 18 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 CBg PR MP SG - FireKnife, 127 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Iridium Armour 20 + Stimulant Injector 10 + Missile Pod 12 + Plasma Rifle 20 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 CBg FB PR SG FSD - ForgeFire, 104 pts = (base cost 35 + Failsafe Detonator 15 + Fusion Blaster 12 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
Elite: Crisis Shas'vre (5#, 202 pts)
1 Crisis Shas'vre, 82 pts = (base cost 25 + Airbursting Fragmentation Projector 20 + Missile Pod 12 + Positional Relay 15 + Team Leader 5 + Shas'vre Upgrade 5)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 Crisis Battlesuit, 43 pts = (base cost 25 + Missile Pod 12 + Twin Linked Flamer 6)
1 Crisis Battlesuit, 47 pts = (base cost 25 + Flamer 4 + Twin Linked Missile Pod 18)
Troops: Fire Warrior (12#, 163 pts)
10 Fire Warrior, 100 pts = 10 * 10
1 Shas'ui, 33 pts = (base cost 20 + Markerlight 10 + EMP Grenade 3)
1 Marker Drone, 30 pts
Troops: Fire Warrior (12#, 163 pts)
10 Fire Warrior, 100 pts = 10 * 10
1 Shas'ui, 33 pts = (base cost 20 + Markerlight 10 + EMP Grenade 3)
1 Marker Drone, 30 pts
Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit (5#, 325 pts)
1 Broadside Battlesuit, 105 pts = (base cost 70 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Shield Generator 20 + Team Leader 5)
1 Broadside Battlesuit, 90 pts = (base cost 70 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Broadside Battlesuit, 100 pts = (base cost 70 + Twin Linked Plasma Rifle 10 + Shield Generator 20)
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
Heavy Support: Hammerhead Gunship (1#, 165 pts)
1 Hammerhead Gunship, 165 pts = (base cost 90 + Ion Cannon 15 + Two Burst Cannons 10 + Disruption Pod 5 + Multi-Tracker 10 + Seeker Missile x2 20) + Sensor Spines 10 + Target Lock 5
Game Day:
An hour before I should have left, while trying to pre-assemble my suits with appropriate wargear I discovered that none of my shield generators were magnatized, and that 4 or 5 suits were lacking magnets in at least 1 hard-point. By the time I got it all straightened out I was 25 minutes late getting to the Barn and in a wicked bad mood. Fortunately Dan my opponent had troubles of his own and ended up being even later than me, so it wasn't an issue anyway. I'd never met Dan, but it turns out I had seen him playing the one time I'd been out to Cobblestone.Dan brought a pretty standard Tau list as expected other than having a team of Stealth Suits and no shield drones to speak of. I don't recall all his wargear choices but it looked something like this:
HQ:
Shas'O - Fireknife + SG
Shas'El - AFP, Flamer
Bodyguard - TLFB
Elite:
3x Crisis Suit - Fireknives
3x Crisis Suits - (not sure on the loadouts, they had some proxies)
6x Steath Suits with burst cannons (loved this unit, all XV15's)
Troops:
12x Firewarriors (I think it was 3 teams of 12, my photos are too blurry to count)
12x Firewarriors
12x Firewarriors
14x Kroot Carnivors including a shaper
Fast:
8x Pathfinders + Devilfish gun drone + Dpod
Heavy Support:
2x Broadside Suits with SMS
2x Broadside Suits with SMS
Hammer Head Gunship with Railgun and 2 burst cannons, DPod.
The Game:
Dan rolled the dice for missions and deployment. We got Annihilation as the primary with Seize Ground and 3 objectives as a secondary, with Dawn of War as the Deployment.
I won the roll to place objectives first, and placed my objective in the open on Dans side of the board, he placed his objective on my side, diagonally opposite of mine and with a Bastion in the center of the table blocking LOS from one to the other. I placed the last objective on Dans side as well, mirroring the placement of his placement. The plan was to give him a reason to stay on his side of the board, and to draw him out into the open with his troops if possible.
Deployment:
We rolled to deploy first and I won, I chose my side of the table as I already had my army out of the bag near this side, and because I'd placed objectives with this side in mind. Since it was Dawn of War, I got to place up to 1 HQ and 2 troops. Normally I don't deploy anything on the board in Dawn of War, but normally I don't go first, and I don't usually have markerlights (heavy wpns) in my firewarrior teams. However since I was running Farsight, it was an easy call to Place him on the board running across the center to force Dan into the 6" along his board edge. For some reason I placed my HQ ringing around the Bastion instead of just placing some suits on it, this would hurt me later. Then I placed the firewarriors (whom I usually reserve) so I'd have access to my markerlights from round 1. I put them in terrain in either corner, with one team stretched out to the center line to increase the area of denial for his deployment. Everything else would walk on on turn 1.Dan apparently hadn't played a Dawn of War mission in some time and initially deployed the majority of his army on the board. After some clarification on what was allowed to deploy, he settled with placing his firewarriors in either corner, in or behind terrain, and a monat HQ also behind the hill to my right. He reserved the Shas'el team, the proxied crisis team both deepstriking, and outflanked his Kroot.
After deployment Dan rolled to sieze the initiative and succeeded. This made me cringe a bit, but I was confident that between the nightfighting rules, and the size of my HQ that it wouldn't hurt me to much.
Game Summary:
I was going to write a play by play on the game, but here it is 2 days later and I can't recall all the specifics, and my phone failed to take almost any worth while images. So instead of rambling on and guessing at what happened here are a few pictures, and a summary of the end of the game.My HQ wiped out a broadside team, the fireknives, the proxy crisis team, 2 firewarrior teams, and put some hits on the Shas'el team. In the end, my HQ was almost wiped out but Farsight managed to hold on as an IC taking cover behind the Ionhead. The Ionhead killed 1 of the Proxy suits, finished off the Shas'el, and killed a few firewarroirs and 3 stealth suits. My firewarriors on the left were wiped out by Kroot outflanking except for my Shas'ui and the markerdrone which were escorted of the board by the kroot consolidating near them. My broadside team blew the railgun off his Hammerhead, killed his pathfinder devilfish and killed his Shas'O on turn 5. My crisis team failed to have any effect and got wiped out my massed fire from his whole army on my right side. My firewarriors to the right were also wiped out all but one firewarrior who failed leadership and fell off the board. His pathfinders worked far better than mine providing him with alot of markerlight hits through out the game. My getto pathfinder/firewarrior team managed to call in the 2 seeker missles with their markerlights, both of which failed to have any effect.
In the end, neither of us controlled any objectives markers, so no points there, and I had 3 out of 6 kill points still on the board, while he had lost 8 kill points. My plan to minimize kill points in my list paid off, and I won the game.
And here are the least lousy of the bad pictures I remembered to take:
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| After Dan's army arrives top of turn 1 |
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| Same timing as above |
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| Looks like the end of the bottom of turn 2. |
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| End of Top of 3, Dans Kroot, Shas'EL and Proxie Crisis team arrived. |
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| End of Top of 4. Dan's Sunforge "tripped" after failing to even glance my IonHead at 1" Range. |
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| End of Bottom of 4. Dans' Shas'el falls back from shooting but I can't get within 6". |
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| Other Side bottom of 4. Broadsides fail to do much. |
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| End of game? THought I'd killed that Shas'el, but there he is? Maybe this was after top of 5? Not sure. |
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
I played Josh's IG at 1500 pts yesterday. We got a late start so we only made it through 3 rounds (barely) but I thought I'd throw a few images up anyway. He was trying out some new units in his list, but the models hadn't arrived yet, or had just been assembled. I ran a farsight list. I went first in a spearhead annihilation match with a capture and control secondary element. My son took over the camera for a while so there are some less than informative "artistic" shots here :)
Just for kicks I photoshop'd in some lascannon models to replace the cups on the image above.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Tau vs Necron 1850
Got in an 1850 game versus Chads Necron tonight at the Barn.
Unfortunately my phone was taking lousy pictures, and I got distracted
and again forgot to take any for a few turns. We just played pitched
battle and annihilation, with 2 objectives thrown in for the heck of
it. I have a huge headache this evening so this really will be brief.
Second round I deep struck in my farsight bomb and hit his command barge
with 2 fusion blasters causing it to explode. He assaulted into me on
his turn. Eventually I won that combat but he had assaulted in some
scarabs at that point which stuck around till the bottom of turn 5 when I
finally finished them. By that point my other units had done enough
damage that we called the game as I was up 8 to 5 or something like
that. Here are the few semi decent picture I got:
Tau Vs IG 1500
So another brief write up because it's late and I don't have time for a full write up, nor did I get pictures of every round yet again.
Josh and I played a 1500 pt battle at Big Kidz Games tonight.
He ran something like 2 identical HQ's with camo cloaks, masters of ordanance, medics, autocanon team, and a generic guardsman, 3 chimeras with veteran squads, one stormtrooper squad, a Valkrie, an Executioner, and a leman russ proxied as a variant with an assault canon turret I don't know the name of.
I ran a farsight enclave list with Farsight and 7 bodyguards with 7 shield drones all with MP and twin linked flamer, a crisis suit shas'el with twin linked MP Pos Relay and shield drone, 3 Sniper Drone teams, 8 man pathfinder team DFish with DPod and drones, 2 broadsides with 2 shield drones, 2 6 man firewarrior teams.
The game was Dawn of war deployment with Capture and Control Primary and Annihilation Secondary.
Josh went first and deployed 2 chimeras with vets, and a command team. I deployed nothing, but walked on everyone but the Farsight Bomb on my turn one. This really sucked for me as it demonstrated one of the key weakness's of the Tau Codex. On my turn 1 though I had 11 markerlights available, none of them could fire because they are all heavy wpns attached to non-relentless units. This is why I hate markerlights. It makes no sense to have a fast troop choice equiped with a primary equipment that they can't move and fire. How is that a fast unit?
Moving on, Neither of us accomplished much on turn one obviously. Turn two both Josh's Leman Russ variants came on from reserve along with his stormtroopers and his second HQ walked on then ran into the cover of the ruins, he moved up and fired his two chimeras wiping out most of my pathfinders, shot at my shas'el attached to my broadsides with the exterminator and his stormtroopers and failed to get any kills but put a wound on my shas'el.
On my turn 2 Farsight bomb hit on a 2+ thanks to the Pos Relay, though they scattered from my intended position behind a chimera over closer to the command squad, I chose to go with it. I could have rerolled due to the pathfinder DFish, but decided that the command team was a good target and that put me closer to his tanks anyway. I fired 2 sniper drone teams at a chimera failing to glance, and the 3rd at the stormtroopers killing one model. Shas'el fired misslepods at stormtroopers then assaulted. One Broadside had LOS to the executioner but failed to even glance the 14 front armor. The farsight bomb fired 14 MP shots at the executioner and managed one glancing hit immobilizing it.
Turn 3, Josh's Valkarie failed to arrive again. The chimeras wiped out a Sniper Drone Team both leman russ' and his command squad fired on my Farsight Bomb killing 6 out of 7 shield drones, and the storm troopers remained locked in assault with my Shas'el.
My Turn 3 I rolled for both firewarrior teams but only got one. Farsights team moved up into position setting up to fire their twin linked flamers at the first HQ while also setting up a multi-assault later on into the HQ and one Leman Russ. Here is where I bitch about FNP for a moment. After hitting the HQ for 14 wounds, with my flamers, I failed to kill a single model due to FNP from the Medic. Now they had Carapace armor on so they had a 4+ armor save. but 5 models 14 wounds, all saved? That is just ridiculous. Anyway, my broadsides moved up on the hill and wrecked the executioner, I managed to immobilize a chimera and destroy both its guns, and in the later assault Farsight exploded the other Leman Russ while his body guards did nothing to the HQ on Init 1 due to assaulting into ruins.
Turn 4 Josh's Valarie still didn't come in but his last chimera did. He moved it 12 and popped smoke. He killed 2 sniper drones and all but 3 firewarriors in the first team. Both units made their leadership. I ended up winning both the ongoing assaults, catching his storm troopers and the HQ and wiping both out unfortunately for him as this allowed me to consolidate farsights team toward the second HQ.
My turn 4 I brought on the last of the firewarrior teams who shot up some veterans, destroyed a chimera with the broadsides, fired inefectively with everyone else other than farsights team who caused 21 wounds with flamers on the second HQ which due too FNP took 1 wound on the autocannon base.. again. Ridiculous. I then assaulted them but failed to do much in the way of wounds, the combat was a draw, or he lost one but made his leadership.
Turn 5, his Valkarie came on which he moved 24" and couldn't fire. He got a vet squad out of their chimera and fired at my firewarrior team. His other vets moved and fired at the other team. I don't think he killed anything this turn. Farsight and friends wiped out the other HQ and consolidated towards my objective.
My turn 5 we were in a rush at this point as it was after 11 and BKG closes at 11. They kindly let us finish up. I moved farsight towards my objective again. I fired the broadsides into the immobilized weaponless Chimera assuming any result on the damage table would destroy it, I rolled a wreck anyway. I unloaded 6 firewarriors and 4 sniper drones into one vet squad killing it. I unloaded 14 misslepod shots from farsights team on the other vet squad, then finished it off with fire from the DFish.
We called the game at this point in part due to the time, and in part because Josh had 2 units left on the board and I was winning 8 kill points to 2 and there was just no way for him to catch up.
My thoughts on the game and our lists: While the sniper drones were very effective last time against Erics jetbikes, the dawn of war deployment and Josh keeping his troops locked away in the chimeras pretty much neutralized them. The pathfinders are still worthless in my opinion. They added very little to my game considering the 181 pts they cost to field. Tactically they just suck. Farsight and his bodyguard. The whole reason I brought the pathfinders was for the rerolled deepstrike, and because having a unit with 8 models 7 with missle pods meant I'd finally have a unit worth giving markerlight hits too.. Only they never really got to use them. That said, they were very effective, wiping out 2 HQ's, a tank, and most of a unit of veterans. I doubt they paid for themselves points wise.. but by tying up those HQ's in assault the whole game, I minimized the effectiveness of his Masters of Ordnance. I really don't see why people say Farsight breaks the army. There are enough options in the codex you don't need to bring more than one of any given unit anyway. Though I do miss the kroot, vespid and ethereals in the farsight list.
I think Josh would have been better off bringing all his units on on turn 1 except the stormtroopers. As it was he was simply denied the shooting from all those units for most of the game and allowed me to focus my fire on the units he did have on the board. Deployment wise, he brought on his Second HQ in the corner behind the first, even though I had Farsight still in reserve and planning to deepstrike. I think he should have brought them on on the far end of the board to limit the units farsight could get to given any particular deep-strike position. I'm also less and less in favor of bottling up troops in transports. yes they are more maneuverable, but you are denied half your firepower and with capture and control being the primary objective, I'd have been inclined to mass all my fire to guard my objective in his position. Either way it was a fun game.
Josh and I played a 1500 pt battle at Big Kidz Games tonight.
He ran something like 2 identical HQ's with camo cloaks, masters of ordanance, medics, autocanon team, and a generic guardsman, 3 chimeras with veteran squads, one stormtrooper squad, a Valkrie, an Executioner, and a leman russ proxied as a variant with an assault canon turret I don't know the name of.
I ran a farsight enclave list with Farsight and 7 bodyguards with 7 shield drones all with MP and twin linked flamer, a crisis suit shas'el with twin linked MP Pos Relay and shield drone, 3 Sniper Drone teams, 8 man pathfinder team DFish with DPod and drones, 2 broadsides with 2 shield drones, 2 6 man firewarrior teams.
The game was Dawn of war deployment with Capture and Control Primary and Annihilation Secondary.
Josh went first and deployed 2 chimeras with vets, and a command team. I deployed nothing, but walked on everyone but the Farsight Bomb on my turn one. This really sucked for me as it demonstrated one of the key weakness's of the Tau Codex. On my turn 1 though I had 11 markerlights available, none of them could fire because they are all heavy wpns attached to non-relentless units. This is why I hate markerlights. It makes no sense to have a fast troop choice equiped with a primary equipment that they can't move and fire. How is that a fast unit?
Moving on, Neither of us accomplished much on turn one obviously. Turn two both Josh's Leman Russ variants came on from reserve along with his stormtroopers and his second HQ walked on then ran into the cover of the ruins, he moved up and fired his two chimeras wiping out most of my pathfinders, shot at my shas'el attached to my broadsides with the exterminator and his stormtroopers and failed to get any kills but put a wound on my shas'el.
On my turn 2 Farsight bomb hit on a 2+ thanks to the Pos Relay, though they scattered from my intended position behind a chimera over closer to the command squad, I chose to go with it. I could have rerolled due to the pathfinder DFish, but decided that the command team was a good target and that put me closer to his tanks anyway. I fired 2 sniper drone teams at a chimera failing to glance, and the 3rd at the stormtroopers killing one model. Shas'el fired misslepods at stormtroopers then assaulted. One Broadside had LOS to the executioner but failed to even glance the 14 front armor. The farsight bomb fired 14 MP shots at the executioner and managed one glancing hit immobilizing it.
Turn 3, Josh's Valkarie failed to arrive again. The chimeras wiped out a Sniper Drone Team both leman russ' and his command squad fired on my Farsight Bomb killing 6 out of 7 shield drones, and the storm troopers remained locked in assault with my Shas'el.
My Turn 3 I rolled for both firewarrior teams but only got one. Farsights team moved up into position setting up to fire their twin linked flamers at the first HQ while also setting up a multi-assault later on into the HQ and one Leman Russ. Here is where I bitch about FNP for a moment. After hitting the HQ for 14 wounds, with my flamers, I failed to kill a single model due to FNP from the Medic. Now they had Carapace armor on so they had a 4+ armor save. but 5 models 14 wounds, all saved? That is just ridiculous. Anyway, my broadsides moved up on the hill and wrecked the executioner, I managed to immobilize a chimera and destroy both its guns, and in the later assault Farsight exploded the other Leman Russ while his body guards did nothing to the HQ on Init 1 due to assaulting into ruins. 
Turn 4 Josh's Valarie still didn't come in but his last chimera did. He moved it 12 and popped smoke. He killed 2 sniper drones and all but 3 firewarriors in the first team. Both units made their leadership. I ended up winning both the ongoing assaults, catching his storm troopers and the HQ and wiping both out unfortunately for him as this allowed me to consolidate farsights team toward the second HQ.
My turn 4 I brought on the last of the firewarrior teams who shot up some veterans, destroyed a chimera with the broadsides, fired inefectively with everyone else other than farsights team who caused 21 wounds with flamers on the second HQ which due too FNP took 1 wound on the autocannon base.. again. Ridiculous. I then assaulted them but failed to do much in the way of wounds, the combat was a draw, or he lost one but made his leadership.
Turn 5, his Valkarie came on which he moved 24" and couldn't fire. He got a vet squad out of their chimera and fired at my firewarrior team. His other vets moved and fired at the other team. I don't think he killed anything this turn. Farsight and friends wiped out the other HQ and consolidated towards my objective.
My turn 5 we were in a rush at this point as it was after 11 and BKG closes at 11. They kindly let us finish up. I moved farsight towards my objective again. I fired the broadsides into the immobilized weaponless Chimera assuming any result on the damage table would destroy it, I rolled a wreck anyway. I unloaded 6 firewarriors and 4 sniper drones into one vet squad killing it. I unloaded 14 misslepod shots from farsights team on the other vet squad, then finished it off with fire from the DFish.
We called the game at this point in part due to the time, and in part because Josh had 2 units left on the board and I was winning 8 kill points to 2 and there was just no way for him to catch up.
My thoughts on the game and our lists: While the sniper drones were very effective last time against Erics jetbikes, the dawn of war deployment and Josh keeping his troops locked away in the chimeras pretty much neutralized them. The pathfinders are still worthless in my opinion. They added very little to my game considering the 181 pts they cost to field. Tactically they just suck. Farsight and his bodyguard. The whole reason I brought the pathfinders was for the rerolled deepstrike, and because having a unit with 8 models 7 with missle pods meant I'd finally have a unit worth giving markerlight hits too.. Only they never really got to use them. That said, they were very effective, wiping out 2 HQ's, a tank, and most of a unit of veterans. I doubt they paid for themselves points wise.. but by tying up those HQ's in assault the whole game, I minimized the effectiveness of his Masters of Ordnance. I really don't see why people say Farsight breaks the army. There are enough options in the codex you don't need to bring more than one of any given unit anyway. Though I do miss the kroot, vespid and ethereals in the farsight list.
I think Josh would have been better off bringing all his units on on turn 1 except the stormtroopers. As it was he was simply denied the shooting from all those units for most of the game and allowed me to focus my fire on the units he did have on the board. Deployment wise, he brought on his Second HQ in the corner behind the first, even though I had Farsight still in reserve and planning to deepstrike. I think he should have brought them on on the far end of the board to limit the units farsight could get to given any particular deep-strike position. I'm also less and less in favor of bottling up troops in transports. yes they are more maneuverable, but you are denied half your firepower and with capture and control being the primary objective, I'd have been inclined to mass all my fire to guard my objective in his position. Either way it was a fun game.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Tau vs Eldar, then Tau vs IG
This is an Edit to my original post. After checking my armylist, I accidentally ran 3 piranha in both games, when there is only one in this list. Stupid Army builders printed list said "Piranha 3" and I didn't read further to see that that was the model count including gun drones.. Either way, some interesting shots and interesting results from individual units. Sorry to Eric and Josh for the mistake.
I got in 2 games Friday at Big Kidz Games. I don't have time for a proper battle report for them as I also forgot to take pictures during a few turns of both games. So I'll make a brief summation then just dump some photos to show some of the action.
First game Tau Vs. Eldar 1500pt
This was a close game vs Eric's Eldar. We rolled pitched battle, with Seize Ground and Annihilation as objectives. Eric won the roll and chose to go first, I failed to seize the initiative. He was running his standard list as far as I could tell, I had a Shadowsun list I'd made as a possible list for the team battle. Notable unit choices in it were the 3 Sniper Drone Teams, 2 10 man firewarrior teams, and of course Commander Shadowsun herself. I have to apologize to Eric, I assumed everyone was familiar with the Tau Sniper Drones so I didn't bother pointing out there Str 6 AP3 shooting.. As a result, he parked a squad of jetbikes directly in front of them and ended up losing a fair number of them on one of my turns. The game ended with out a roll to continue as it was after 11pm and he had to work the next day.. as such, I squeaked out a victory by snagging one objective and contesting the one he was sitting on by running my broadsides over to within 3" on my final turn, thus securing the Primary Objective. I also won on kill points by 1 or 2..
Either way, it was a good game, and I learned that despite the internet wisdom that sniper drones suck (and they do have their weaknesses) having 9 models with 36" Str 6 AP3 shots with pinning doesn't suck, and due to their stealth fields, they make a great bait unit, as you have to get close to even target them, and you really can't ignore that sort of firepower. This was the second time I'd ever fielded them, and I also learned that putting them in cover is a must, and really adds significantly to their durability as you might expect. Without further ado, here are the pics for game one:
Game Two was vs Josh's Imperial guard using the same list I ran against Eric.
We rolled pitched battle, capture and control, and annihilation as objectives.
I won the roll off and chose to go first. Josh deployed part of his force's, and held some in reserve. This may have been his downfall as it allowed me to focus fire on the few units on the board destroying his Leman Russ on my turn one, pinning a squad of troops, and killing part of a command squad. The pictures I remembered to shoot will tell the tale up too where I forgot to take anymore.. The highlite of the game for me was after assaulting a chimera that came on at his board edge, he in turn tank shocked my crisis suits, and to his chagrin into Commander Shadowsun who stood her ground, death or gloried him and exploded his empty chirmera.. The crisis suit team made their leadership due to Shadowsun's drone, but fell back after his shooting caused them to lose a model (thank god as they would have been assaulted and wiped out by his veteran squad. His best unit was probably his Leman Russ Executioner with its plasma blasts. Also at the end game he killed a crisis suit out of a team of 2 (the ones he'd tank shocked) that were camping on his marker, forcing a leadership roll which I failed allowing him to control his objective. I forced his storm troopers to fall back from near mine after unleashing 12 smart missles, 6 sniper drones, and 8 firewarriors at them.. He still had two models left in the unit after all that..
The game also had to end after 5 turns due too time. Who knows what would have happened if it had continued. As it was, we tied on the primary, as is always the case with both of us controlling our own objective. I managed a slight win on kill points assuming all the vehicles in a squadron just count as one KP.. if not then it would have been a slighter win by 1.. As is usually the case, his transports gave me a lot of free kill points.
I didn't get many shots of this game, and I'm not 100% sure these are in order, I'm not really fond of Blogspots editor when it comes to placing photos.
I got in 2 games Friday at Big Kidz Games. I don't have time for a proper battle report for them as I also forgot to take pictures during a few turns of both games. So I'll make a brief summation then just dump some photos to show some of the action.
First game Tau Vs. Eldar 1500pt
This was a close game vs Eric's Eldar. We rolled pitched battle, with Seize Ground and Annihilation as objectives. Eric won the roll and chose to go first, I failed to seize the initiative. He was running his standard list as far as I could tell, I had a Shadowsun list I'd made as a possible list for the team battle. Notable unit choices in it were the 3 Sniper Drone Teams, 2 10 man firewarrior teams, and of course Commander Shadowsun herself. I have to apologize to Eric, I assumed everyone was familiar with the Tau Sniper Drones so I didn't bother pointing out there Str 6 AP3 shooting.. As a result, he parked a squad of jetbikes directly in front of them and ended up losing a fair number of them on one of my turns. The game ended with out a roll to continue as it was after 11pm and he had to work the next day.. as such, I squeaked out a victory by snagging one objective and contesting the one he was sitting on by running my broadsides over to within 3" on my final turn, thus securing the Primary Objective. I also won on kill points by 1 or 2..
Either way, it was a good game, and I learned that despite the internet wisdom that sniper drones suck (and they do have their weaknesses) having 9 models with 36" Str 6 AP3 shots with pinning doesn't suck, and due to their stealth fields, they make a great bait unit, as you have to get close to even target them, and you really can't ignore that sort of firepower. This was the second time I'd ever fielded them, and I also learned that putting them in cover is a must, and really adds significantly to their durability as you might expect. Without further ado, here are the pics for game one:
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Game Two was vs Josh's Imperial guard using the same list I ran against Eric.
We rolled pitched battle, capture and control, and annihilation as objectives.
I won the roll off and chose to go first. Josh deployed part of his force's, and held some in reserve. This may have been his downfall as it allowed me to focus fire on the few units on the board destroying his Leman Russ on my turn one, pinning a squad of troops, and killing part of a command squad. The pictures I remembered to shoot will tell the tale up too where I forgot to take anymore.. The highlite of the game for me was after assaulting a chimera that came on at his board edge, he in turn tank shocked my crisis suits, and to his chagrin into Commander Shadowsun who stood her ground, death or gloried him and exploded his empty chirmera.. The crisis suit team made their leadership due to Shadowsun's drone, but fell back after his shooting caused them to lose a model (thank god as they would have been assaulted and wiped out by his veteran squad. His best unit was probably his Leman Russ Executioner with its plasma blasts. Also at the end game he killed a crisis suit out of a team of 2 (the ones he'd tank shocked) that were camping on his marker, forcing a leadership roll which I failed allowing him to control his objective. I forced his storm troopers to fall back from near mine after unleashing 12 smart missles, 6 sniper drones, and 8 firewarriors at them.. He still had two models left in the unit after all that..
The game also had to end after 5 turns due too time. Who knows what would have happened if it had continued. As it was, we tied on the primary, as is always the case with both of us controlling our own objective. I managed a slight win on kill points assuming all the vehicles in a squadron just count as one KP.. if not then it would have been a slighter win by 1.. As is usually the case, his transports gave me a lot of free kill points.
I didn't get many shots of this game, and I'm not 100% sure these are in order, I'm not really fond of Blogspots editor when it comes to placing photos.
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