Showing posts with label Battle Report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battle Report. Show all posts
1 Feb 2011
[Tau] Monday night anger
03:33
Gredus
16 Nov 2010
[Tau] Monday Night Batrep
03:39
Gredus
Tau vs Blood Angels, 1750. Seize Ground using Dawn of War. 5 Objectives placed.
I turned up late at the club as I was waiting on my Broadside glue to dry. There was already Nids vs Eldar going on, Empire taking on High Elves, and Circle of Orboros taking on Protectorate of Menoth. The Eldar put up a good fights, but Pat's Nids are dam difficult if you don't take down the Gaunt pooping Tervigons early on and sadly then went down. Keith brought his Blood Angels so people at the club can see what a Descent of Angels list can do, my initial thoughts is I hate FNP!
9 Nov 2010
[Tau] Monday night batrep
05:05
Gredus
1500 points Tau Vs 1500 Chaos Space Marines.
Capture and Control mission with pitched deployment.
19 Oct 2010
Match 10 - Well that's unusual for my Tau Army.
04:55
Gredus
10 Oct 2010
9th game goes bad against Space Wolves
19:08
Gredus
1750 points, 5 objectives.
I was up against the main Space Wolf player of our club today. It was a quickly organised match to help him get practise for the upcoming Gaelcon event. Due to time constraints we only got to do 3 full turns as we were using a local gaming store as the match location.
Posted in
Battle Report
28 Sept 2010
Monday night batrep
03:48
Gredus
Ok this isn't actually the battle report for tonight's game, mainly because I need to chill out and think about all the stuff that happened! It will be added later. I played Iggy from Sword of Vaul tonight, stepping my army up to 1750 (1705 actually) so that he could get practice in for Gaelcon. We agreed on Seize Ground (rolling for 4 loot counters/objectives) to let me see how a game like that works and to let him work out tactics. Deployment was standard set up, I won the roll and made Iggy set up first/go first... Surprise surprise he sat everything in reserve.
Match highlights and result to follow after the break!
21 Sept 2010
So how did my 7th game go?
03:41
Gredus
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| Target located.. |
I turned up a bit late to the club tonight and got to watch Pat's 1750 Nid Army and Keith's 1750 Ork army tear the crap out of each other in a mid table battle royal mosh pit.
When they were done I got to play one of Keith ready made 1500 Ork lists, It was Kan-tastic! From what I can remember it included:
1 Deff Dred - 2 CC weapons, Rokkit Launcher and Scorcha
3 Killa Kans - Rokkit Launchers and CC weapon
3 Killa Kans - Rokkit Launchers and CC weapon
3 Killa Kans - Grotzookas and CC weapon
30 Ork boyz
Mek with kustom forcefield
30 Ork boyz
10 Lootas
Mek with Shokk Attak gun
10 Lootas
I was using my 1500 point list that got double smacked 2 weeks ago. We rolled table quarter set up and the scenario is Capture and Control (yeah no annihilation!)
I won the roll off and got Keith to set up first (mainly as I was fed up being forced to set up first!) In hindsight I would have preferred taking his chosen quarter as it provided better cover.
I tried to set up in as much cover I could, the Firestorm Unit were set up front at the end of my quarter to try and make as much use of their large volume of shots. The Helios Unit was their back up as they needed to be close to be effective. My Devilfish hid behind some buildings and the Command Team used a building on my flank to make pop out attacks along the middle of the board.
Keith's tactic was for one unit of his boyz to come diagonally across the middle supported by 2 squads of his Kans and his Dred came up behind then. His other boys advanced diagonally to flank along my long board edge and his 2nd unit of Rokkit Kans supported them.
Target Prio for me was the boys coming at me with the double can squad. The only people shooting something different would be the Broadsides shooting at the Kans behind them. Once the 1st squad was down I then would focus on the other group using my Broadsides and Command Squad to shoot the Kans coming through the middle.
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| Orders received, taking up new position now. |
By turn 5 all I had lost was the Firestorms, the Deathrains and 2 Helios. Everything else was still pummeling shots into the Orks and playing hide and seek or keep away. We accepted it was going to end after turn 5 due to the time so I was determined not to loose my 7th game.
In movement Keith ran his whittled down Boyz squad back to his objective to secure a chance of a win (aiming for 1 contested and 1 claimed) all that was left of his advance party was a unit of 3 Kans with Grotzooka which walk up to my objective. I moved my Devilfishes out of their hiding places and emptied a squad of Firewarriors onto my objective. The Pathfinders scored 2 hits on the Kans and boosted the WS of the lone Helios and the Hammerhead. (If I fire that single slug I want to make sure it hits!) The Command team, Broadsides, Lone Helios and Hammerhead then all shot in that order.
With 2 Squad mates gone, the pesky lone immobilised and weaponless Kan Pilot started to yell a praise to Gork and Mork for his good fortune.
At the same time the Hammerhead Gunner acknowledged the target details from the Pathfinders and sighted the stationary smoking Ork Wreck.
"Target located, taking the shot"
*ZWOOM*
Looks like that Kan Pilot would finish that praise to his gods in person.
"Target destroyed, objective is secure"
1 objective Tau, 1 objective Ork. - Match is a DRAW!
Post match thought:
Keith was aggressive from the start and tried to push me off my objective whilst keeping his within reach. I backed off mine for a bit to be able to keep shooting and then pushed back to secure it. The Hammerhead was awesome dropping submunition rounds all game and the Pathfinders did great reducing cover saves or boosting BS of units all game. I kept my firepower focused and made a truckload of armour and coversaves. Lady Luck also was on my side tonight as Keith's unit's both rolled 1 for their WAAAAA movement.
It's funny to take so much joy in a draw but after loosing my first 6 games it feels like I'm finally getting to grips with the army and how to use it. I'm really looking forward to that 1750 list and plan to re-shuffle my 1500 list to use the same suit set up. Looks like Pay Day Friday will be Tau Shopping Day Friday.
7 Sept 2010
Kroot reinforcements inbound..
18:39
Gredus
For all the Kauyon and Mont'ka debate that's been flying about recently I've realised that screening is essential. Why? Well it's simply really...
Tau shoot, that's all they can do and it's all you will do. Sure you might move around a bit, but that's not going to win you battles. The job of a Tau army is too shoot as much as it can for as long it can, making sure to re-position for maximum and focused firepower. Don't rely on 1 unit to get a job done, with BS 3 Tau need all the support they can get and it's important not to spread your fire and hope to get a lucky shot.
Pretty much every opponent will do the same thing to you; Tankshock and get into CC as quick as possible. For some people this makes Tau unattractive to play, for others this means you fight a more interesting and tactical battle. As you know how the enemy is going to ram their army down your throat, it's important to be able to mess their plans up. Here is 2 perfect examples:
Last nights wave of 30 Gaunts flowing across the board was a pain in the ass but my opponent Pat is an awesome and helpful guy. He pointed out that if I had 2 Piranha's I could have just zoomed over in front of the Gaunts and Melta'd something. Then in his turn he has to wheel around the unit since the wave can't move through it.(They also can't hurt it in cc at Strength 3) 1 turn extra of shooting bought for the Tau and a wave re-directed or held up.
The outflanking Stealers could have been re-directed with a Kroot line along my board edge. 2 units of 10 spaced max apart stops the pesky Stealers from coming on my edge as like the Gaunts with the Piranha's, they can't move through my unit. When the Stealers do come on I probably loose a Kroot unit but then have Stealers out in the open and not with charge range of my suits.
Here is the list I was using. Looking back on the Nid game I wasn't even thinking about fire support and who helps who out. I just plonked them all down and though "This ought to be able to kill lots of Nids!" When you look at the below list, consider this painful fact - The pathfinders missed all their shots in turn 1 (was hoping to remove coversaves for the Firestorm team to unload their 15 shots). Everything except the Devilfish shot at the Gaunts and when I say lady luck was a bitch last night I don't joke.They only killed 7 Gaunts in 1 turn....
HQ
1 x Shas’el - 117
Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi Tracker, Hard Wired Drone Controller with 2 Shield Drones
2x Shas’vre Bodyguard - 164
2x Plasma Rifle, 2x Missile Pod, 2x Targeting Array, 2 x Hard Wired Multi Tracker
ELITES
3 man Crisis Suit team, 159
3 x Twin Linked Missile Pods, 3 x Targeting Arrays
3 man Crisis Suit team, 150
3 x Missile Pods, 3 x Burst Cannons, 3 x Multi Tracker
3 man Crisis Suit team, 186
3 x Plasma Rifles, 3 x Fusion Blasters, 3x Multi Trackers
TROOPS
6 man Firewarrior team, 60
6 man Firewarrior team, 60
Devilfish Transport, 95
Disruption Pods, Multi Tracker
FAST ATTACK
5 Man Pathfinder team, 60
Devilfish Transport, 95
Marker Beacon, Disruption Pods, Multi Tracker
HEAVY SUPPORT
1 Hammerhead, 165
Railgun, Burst Cannons, Multi Tracker, Disruption pods
2 x Broadside Battlesuits 180
1x Team Leader 5, 1 x Drone Controller with 2 Shield Drones 30
1x Target Lock
1491 points
31 Aug 2010
Dam you Drop Pods!!
04:10
Gredus
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| Image courtesy of Darcad - http://darcad.deviantart.com |
Ahhh every battle is a new lesson learned and holy crap am I struggling with deployment! My last 2 games I've deployed badly and paid the price. My opponent tonight was kind enough to say he built the list specifically to go against Tau. (even although he hadn't played against them before) I was a little bit grumpy at this because my list I'm using now, I'm going to keep on using for the foreseeable future and learning it inside out.
We played Annihilation (4 of these in a row now for my Tau) It ended on turn 7 with me giving up as I simply wasn't able to tie the game. He won 7 points to 5, here's the breakdown of units:
I took out:
10 man tactical squad
10 man tactical squad
10 man assault squad
2 drop pods
He took out:
2 man Broadside Unit - (Lost a shield drone in close combat, ran right onto my table edge and couldn't regroup because of the consolidated unit that was fighting them)
Hammerhead
Devilfish (as I typed "Devilfish" I suddenly remember that I didn't roll my Disruption Pod save, we were too hyped that the Crusader's Multi Melta finally damaged something after 6 turns of shooting, 3 of which were at that the poor Devilfish!)
Pathfinder squad (They were deployed really badly in the middle, I was hoping to get a crossfire markerlight hit on units, they never shot all game and were shot to pieces by the Assault Squad)
Fireknife Command Squad (Shas'el and his 2 Bodyguard)
Firewarrior Squad
Firewarrior Squad - Both squads came in from reserve on turn 2 and instead of mounting up I was using their Pulse Rifles to try and take down the Tactical Squad that dropped right in my lines. Credit to 1 squad who lost 3 guys then beat up the lone Tactical Squad Sergeant. Hindsight they would have been better hiding in a Devilfish!
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| Last known pictures from Field Reporter Donny Vermillion as the Hammerhead locked on to his position... |
Left on the board for my opponent was:
3 Thunderhammer/Stormshield Terminators with a wounded Chaplain
1 immobilised Dreadnought (he popped out a Drop Pod on the 1st turn and Multi Melta'd the Hammerhead in the face)
1 active Drop Pod that I couldn't glance or penetrate to save myself (constantly rolled 4's to damage with Missile Pods.
I was left with my Firestorm team (who survived being shot at from a Landraider Crusader for 2 turns) and a lone Deathrain guy.
From about turn 4 onwards the best I could hope for was a draw, Space Marines can take a hell of a punishment and praise be to the Tau'va, a Helios and Fireknife unit are happy to pump shot after shot into them. It's a refreshing change to save "That many dead" instead of "That many saves"
I'll be totally honest here, once these Drops Pods planted down right inside my lines I just though "Shit... I've really messed up this deployment" Basically I had tried to set up a refused flank with the idea of wheeling around my long board edge or the short one, shooting all the time as I was moving. The Drop Pods totally screwed that idea up and forced me to concentrate on what was in front of me. I chose to deepstrike the Helios team, (luckily all my reserves came on turn 2) but could really have done with them at the start to clear up that Tactical Squad or take out the Dreadnought. I I had got them down in turn 1, I could have easily managed the other squads when they arrived. The game was a shooting tug of war with Crisis Suits playing hide and seek, trying to most guns to bear on the marines in the middle of them.
At least this time I remembered all my wargear and didn't once forget to take my assault phase move.
Lessons learned from tonight's match
1) Don't bunch your army in a corner when facing Drop Pods. You'll be like a boxer stuck in the corner of a ring and it will trigger a crazy short ranged firefight as you try to look for a way to break out.
2) It's annihilation. You want as much firepower on that board to start with. Sure if you're not deployed you can't be targeted but at the same time you also can't do your own shooting.
3) I'm inexperienced, take the defeat like a man and learn from it. This is match 4 out of the 10 I said you expected to loose learning 5th Edition and the Tau. Next week will be another enemy to face and another "Oooh right, I didn't know they do that" type scenario.
Now 12 people are nice enough to follow my blog and a heck of a lot more visit it. If you're reading this then please, how the heck do you deal with Drop Pod armies with your Tau!?
16 Aug 2010
Monday night battle report
23:38
Gredus
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 ^^
10 Aug 2010
Post battle review
13:04
Gredus
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!
