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 linesI 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 ^^
20:14
Gredus
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