Post battle review

Well... oh my god are Tau terrible when you get locked in close combat! My first 2 real battles were an eye opener and a real baptism of fire.

Battle 1 - 1500 points Annihilation match, table quarter set up. Against an Ork 4 truck rush. This was a cool match as I knew from reading one of Adam's battle reports on Warhammer Tau what I'd roughly need to do. My opponent was really cool at introducing me to the game but I made quite a few silly mistakes. (Novice mistakes more than anything)

Battle 2 - 1500 points Annihilation match, standard set up. Against Iggy from Sword of Vaul using a slightly modified Saim Hann Jet Bike army. Iggy follows every one's favorite tactician Fritz on Fritz40k/Way of Saim Hann so i knew it would be another tough match.

Match one I set up the Pathfinders, Broadsides and Railhead in my corner and tried to shoot the crap out of what I could. I won first turn and the Railhead was able to pop one of the transports straight away. That was about the only good thing that happened after for me! My Pathfinders either boosted the Railhead or Broadsides for then to fail to damage, or my opponent was able to keep making his cover saves. It was sooo frustrating but fun at the same time. On Turn 2, deepstriking Deathrains were able to smack the Mek's truck with 4 penetrating hits from behind and he saved all of them!
I learned a hard lesson in turn 3 when all the Orks piled out their open top vehicles and then WAAAAA'd. suddenly my Railhead, Broadsides, Deathrains, and Heatwave-Forge Crisis Suits were locked in close combat. That didn't end well.
The Firestorm suits were very versatile being able to focus both the Burst Cannons and Missile Pods into groups of Orks, or support with longer ranged Missile Pod shots on vehicles or open targets. I really like this unit and think I'll be going ahead with the Heavy Arms colour scheme as a tribute.

Match 2 was really awesome, even in 3rd Edition when I last played, I never got to go toe to toe with an Jetbike Army. I made a bit of a mistake by putting my Broadsides and Hammerhead on a flank, with everything else in reserve (except the Pathfinders and their Devilfishes - really awesome for rerolling scattered deepstrikes) Using the cover on that flank Iggy was able to sent his Farseer squad up and then tie up my Broadsides and Deathrain squad in CC for pretty much the entire game (the Deathrains scattered to right beside the Broadsides)
The match was tied for quite a while but in turn 5 I lost every close combat we had going and the army was cut down as they fled. The Heatwave Forges were useless this match as I brought then down on my side instead of trying to harass Iggy's Fireprism. The Broadsides held up the Farseer for the whole game and only died when the Deathrains lost a guy and lost combat, both units fled and were sweep up.
My command squad bagged themselves a Waveserpent with their Missile Pods which was cool.
Iggy was a really cool opponent and I look forward to more matches against his Elder.


Post match thoughts
Well, I'm not totally sold on the Railhead just yet, sure the template when able to be used is awesome but that single roll with no re-roll chance really makes me cringe (even with markerlight help) I'll be keeping it in the army for now though. The Pathfinders are a fun unit, on average I'm getting 3-4 hits which is great fun for boosting BS on units and reducing cover saves. My Heatwave Forges might get reviewed, they had 0 impact in the 1st game (dam pesky Ork trucks and their cover saves) and were useless in the 2nd match too.

Mistakes I made (some of these are awesome)
Forgetting the Tanks had Multi-trackers and not moving the Railhead in the 1st game.
Forgetting SMS don't need line of sight so I didn't need to move my fishes into dangerous positions
Forgetting to move units again in the assault phase back into cover
Forgetting how Disruption Pods work as anything shooting at them from more than 12" counts my tanks as an Obscured Target
Forgetting to keep my distance from Orks.. (read enough battle reports to know better!)
Forgetting to focus fire, spreading out shots is too risky and to tempting with multiple targets.

Hehe, a fair few stuff. At least I know next match I'll have a cheat sheet with me details each wargear on the units like "Fire both weapons!" for the Firestorm units, or "Move 12 and shoot!" for the Railhead.

Although I was beaten in both matches I'm looking forward to next week already and the prospect of some more sacrifices for the greater good!

Posted in Army List , Battle Report , Tau , thoughts