Tau Vs. Orks 1850  - A rematch

Bottom of Turn 2 after thrust moves

For the second weak in a row I played Zac and his Orks Friday at Battle Front Games Friday Game night.  He ran the same list as last week, while I was testing out a Farsight Enclave + Tau allies list based off my usual Tau + SM build.. We got the kill point mission with hammer and anvil deployment.

I ran Farsight plus bodyguard all with dual FB + target locks w/ 11 gun drones and one Shield warscaper drone and the Amulet, 4 3 man crisis teams with dual MP all as troops, as allies I had a commander with the Puretide chip, cnc node and multi phasic sensor and 2 10 man kroot teams.

I'm on the fence about losing my SM Librarian ally.  I don't like putting 1200 pts in reserve and hoping they show up on turn 2.. I've lost a game before because my reserves didn't come in and was tabled at the top of turn 4..  But coming in on turn 2 it isn't bad.. I miss the mobility of the 24" GOI every turn, but with farsight not scattering when he arrives you can get his bomb where it needs to be pretty readily.  I killed something like 17 shoota boys, and exploded 2 battle wagons and took a hull point of a third with just the command team the turn they came in.  Also the 4 scoring crisis teams managed to kill a looted wagon on turn one for first blood.  I'm not sold on the dual MP suits either.. It's nice to have range, but when his mega-nobz came out to play, I'd rather have had dual Plasma to throw at them..  I'm considering actually running (and it makes me cringe to say so) Fireknives as troops instead.. 

The game only ended up running through turn 4?.. maybe we called it after turn 3.. Don't recall.. Zac was left with his warlord and a squad of boyz by that point while he had killed 4 crisis suits (2 from 2 different teams) and a squad of kroot..  I'd wiped out his 2nd squad of boyz after they assaulted my command team and got swept, and I then killed the remains of both teams of mega-nobz and the third wagon..

From now on I'll have to make sure to bring enough Tau to run 2 lists.. While I'd like to be able to test my tournament list some more before the Michigan GT, it doesn't make for a very fun friendly game for anyone..

Just another view of my team after turn 2.  The kroot were in the ruin to the right off screen to the left having outflanked.

Tau Vs. Orks 1850 = Victory for the other green horde!

So it's been a while since I posted anything to my blog but I got a game in Friday against Zac's Orks and remembered to take a few pictures so I thought I'd throw them up here.  Our game was played at Battle Front Games in Grand Rapids where we are trying to get a regular Friday night Games night started.  This was the second week and we had 40K, Warma/hordes and XWing players all gaming.  Hopefully this catches on and we'll finally have a regular game night in Grand Rapids again.


Zac and I were both running new lists for this battle.  He was trying out 3 battlewagons and 2 teams of mega-armored nobs plus a couple warbosses to make the nobs scorring, a looted wagon and a 3 squads of boys. 

I put away the farsight bomb and ran an infantry heavy list with 3x12 firewarriors, and 3x20 kroot (the missing kroot team outflanked to briefly contest his center objective by the looted wagon before being wiped out).  I also had 2 teams of pathfinders of 6 and 7 models.  I knew I'd be facing the battle wagons in advance but had hoped the piranha, Riptide, and two teams of 4x stealth suits with a fusion blaster in each would be enough to take them out.    It didn't work out that way, but even after 7 turns and with two wagons still on the board I managed to pull out a win by contesting the center objective and having first blood.  We both controlled the 2 objectives in our respective deployment zones.


Don't really have time for a proper write up, but I'll just mention that the Riptide continues to disappoint me.  Nova Charge Failure turn one, got hot turn 2, and got assaulted and wiped out top of turn 4.. I don't think it killed a single model all game.. For 220 points I'd rather put 5 crisis suits on the board with weapons that actually fire every turn.  SOOoo glad I cancelled my order for 3 of them and only bought the one.  He'll look nice sitting on my shelf with the other models I don't bother running.

Forgot to mention the two Skyrays also failed to do anything useful (as did the piranha) lacking any flyers in Zac's list.  The str 8 seekers were worthless vs AV14, and the two marker lights each had could have been replaced for 28 pts of added pathfinders in the pathfinder teams.  The only use I got out of them was that Zac actually bothered to waste a turn to assault and kill one of them saving my other units from suffering said fate for a turn..   The skyrays and piranha will be rejoining the Riptide on the shelf of shame.

At the end of the game despite my riptide/skyrays/piranha sucking arse, I have to say it was still a fun game.  We went 7 turns and it was a tight game up till the end.  If I hadn't rolled a 6 for my Kroots run roll, I would have failed to contest the center and he'd have won 9-7..