1500 Tau using my twin pathfinder unit list against 1500 points of Space Wolfs.
Going off the top of my head for the Space Wolf army.
3 Rhinos with 8 Grey Hunters in each. I think there was 2 Librarians in there and a banner that does something fancy. Sergent's with Powerfists and a few Melta Guns.
2 Units of three Thunderpuppys, Powerfist guy, normal guy and Stormshield guy
1 unit of Longfangs with Missile Launchers
1 Lone Wolf (crazy old man)
Match was annihilation and table quarters.
As I used to play Imperial Fist in 3rd edition I was more confident with this one than Orks and Eldar last week. I knew roughly what each unit could do and knew from watching other battles I knew to stay away from the Thunderpuppys. I also kept saying in my head "focus fire and pop the vehicles, focus fire and pop the vehicles" haha!
I won set up and first turn, Pathfinders set up in cover, Broadsides steadied themselves, Hammerhead took position and the Devilfish sat ready for the troops to embark from reserves. My Crisis Suits would deepstrike with varied results (yeah I'm looking at you Heatwave boys...shmucks..)
As I didn't take notes I can't really do a turn by turn review but I'll do my best to recall the highlights.
I had a solid start popping 2 tanks by turn 2 (mmm Broadsides and Markerlights) struggling after that to then take down the wandering marine squads. Despite some concentrated firepower they were able to take what I threw at them. I almost took out a unit of thunderpuppys but the bog standard guy survived the storm and charged the Broadsides, tying them up for 2 turns. I lead for most of the match but on turn 4 I took a fair whack of damage loosing my Broadside unit to closecombat, my Firestorm to gunfire and combat, my Hammerhead to an crazy old man and my Fireknive Command squad to the longfangs. By the end of turn 5 I had only left my Deathrain squad stuck in combat with the Lone Wolf, my 2 Devilfishes and the troops within. My opponent had 3 Grey Hunters unit still on the board, (fairly thinned down to be fair, 1 unit with only 2 guys left) full squad of Longfangs, a full unit of Thunderpuppys, 1 lone Thunderpuppy and the crazy old man... Crazy old man btw is so crazy he can charge a Hammerhead moving 12 inches and roll 3 sixes to hit it and then get a 6 on the penetrating roll....Yup that's how he rolls, you don't fuck with crazy old man! 
The Thunderpuppy cavalry charging at my lines
I don't think I could really have done much different (except leave the Heatwave- Forge suits in my case) My command squad was deployed on my far right to try and make use of Missle Pod shots as a crossfire. All it did though was give the Longfangs a nice target to shoot at. Strength 8 against toughness 4 with no shield drones does not look nice when 4 krak missiles hit home. I forgot to move them into cover in my assault and payed the price dearly. My Firestorms should have got 2 turns worth of shooting but instead they didn't come on till turn 4, did mediocre shooting and got slapped around like a pinyata by the fully strength Thunderpups squad.
End result it was a victory for the Space Wolfs ending on Turn five with 6 points to 4.
Lessons learned.
1) Heatwave Forge suits are useless when they have no tanks to pop, no big unit of squishy troops to flame and scatter 10 inches backwards from their target drop zone, out of range from everything. I'm glad they got torn to shreds by the Thunderpuppys tbh :)
2) REMEMBER YOUR ASSAULT MOVE - Less said the better about that one.
3) This army needs screening, or it needs a bit more anti Meq (Marine equivalent) killing power to help take down troops out of transport. Marine armies are the most popular so I need to think about how to deal with them and still keep a balanced list for other stuff.
4) Don't goad a crazy old lone wolf about how he's not worth shooting as you want him alive. He'll run across the board and knock your Hammerhead into next week.
Iggy was playing a 1750 point army against the Ork Mech army I played last week. I had to leave early so never got to see the final result but it looked like it was going to the wire. Turn 4 was him leading 6 points to 5 from what I can remember. He took some pictures of both games so once they're up I'll add them here so you can see a half painted Tau failing to deal with some stray dogs ^^
16 Aug 2010
Monday night battle report
23:38
Gredus
Posted in
3 comments:
I'd ditch the heatwaves and leave heavy tank killing to railguns and/or piranhas with fusion guns. I also agree that you need some blocking unit. As always it's a question how to get a blocking unit, more plasma to help against MEQ and an extra railgun to compensate for the lose of the fusion guns.
The only I way I can suggest getting all is to change the troops and fast attack. You could risk combining the pathfinders into one unit of 8 and dropping one devilfish and one fire warrior unit. This should give you the points for 2 units of kroot and more Ap1/2 firepower in either more plasma/missile crisis suits or an extra broadside. However I appreciate it'd be a pain to make such a change, especially if you haven't got any kroot models and you've painted up the devilfish and fire warriors.
Normally marine armies have loads of easy kill points that die to the Tau's good anti tank (eg. rhinos, dreads, land speeders etc.) but that wolf list only had the 3 rhinos, which meant you had an uphill struggle from the start.
Rathstar
Pics are up!
http://swordofvaul.blogspot.com/2010/08/monday-night-gaming.html
In the past, I've managed to wipe out 4 Thunderwolves and grievously wound Canis by two rounds of shooting from Warwalkers with Scatter lasers. Mass str 5+ firepower should really help deal with them, not to mention some str 10 - which can instantly kill our T5 Thunderpuppies!
Rathstar - Cheers for the feedback as always! I tried to write in Piranha's in my new list but with the extra wargear they're coming in at 160 for the pair, and I just can't justify their price for that. I guess I need to read up more of Old Shatter Hand's battle reports as he uses them so well. I had 2 Rhino's down by turn 2, my 4 points were basically for the 3 transport and keeping his Lone Wolf alive (had I killed him it would have probably been a draw as the Hammerhead would have still be up and able to shoot!) I've got my revised list up, that should give me plenty of stuff to shoot ^^ In all honestly I'm expecting to loose my first 2-3 battles of each scenario until I get a hang of the missions.
Iggy - Cheers for the picture. I think that was the Space Wolf turn 1, the Black Rhino had already been popped! Glad to see you neutralised the Wrecking Ball, Tau need Star Engines!
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