Ok so I got in a game against the infamous Tau. I have played a few games against the new Codex, but they were small and against inexperienced players with limited lists. This was my first against fairly optimized list and an experienced opponent. Apologize for lack of pictures, forgot to take them till the end. As you can see not much survived till the end, the buildings across the board hide two fire warrior squads and though you can't see them there are remnants of my mortars and command squad below the icarus, as well as scattered guardsmen.
He got the first turn, I didn't seize. We played hammer and anvil, mission the scouring, no night fighting. So he deployed across the way, the missile sides with his Commander in the center. He had an Ion Head behind them, the rail head was on top of the blast marker in the back. Pathfinders deployed in the left and right buildings. Riptide was in the open area in the left building, with a crisis team on the left board edge. He had piranhas behind the right building. And had Kroot w/hound in reserve, Crisis team deep striking, and a firewarrior squad.
See my 1850 list post for what I have. I had my infantry in a line behind the Aegis. Mortars behind that. Creed was on top of the ruins, my second was in that little corner ruin on the bottom of the pic. Blob platoon deployed on my left by the crates. Vendetta's in reserve with marbo. Going second against Tau sucks I want to add, though I know my opponents feel the same against my army.
I didn't seize but I had deployed just far enough back that he was forced to move forward to shoot, but he had used his scout move to get his pathfinders in range to get their markerlights. First casualties was a big one, creed and his command squad were overwhelmed in a torrent of missiles. So first blood and warlord to the Tau empire, creed's broken form being carried off to receive emergency care. But the Cadian 438th would fight on with out him. This really hurt though as I lost my astropath and one of my MoO, as well as creed and all his orders.
Time for revenge. Mortars did great, pretty much annihilating one of his pathfinder squads and driving them off the board. The second was dropped to 3 survivors but they managed to hold firm. Killed 2 crisis suits and a few missile drones. Other than that, thats all I did, lascannons kinda failed as usual, pretty sure I rolled a few ones in there.
Turn two he continued to pour fire and his crisis team deep striked right into my rear, killed my mortar squad and took to the ruins. He wiped out my Vet squad manning the icarus and managed to whittle my blob squad down to 7 guys with the sarges and commissar. More wounds on a few other infantry but that was the main damage. His piranhas moved up and disembarked the drones, they buzzed about and were an annoyance.
My turn turned out to be useful, vendetta's came on as well as marbo. My plan was to drive his rear firewarrior squad off the objective, but even though he killed half of them, they held firm. He died to missiles that don't need LoS and ignore cover because Tau. Vendetta's though did their job and knocked out a missile side and 2 drones, plus the commander took 2 wounds. He tried to intercept but only got one six and didn't do a thing. I Grav Chute inserted one of my vet squads into my rear to help my crumbling flank out. They shot at the Crisis team and got one, then my commander and MoO killed the last two. My MoO was very accurate this game and even though he had few 3+ targets, still killed plenty to be worth it. Of the 6 drones, I killed 3 and they did not break. Mortars killed off the last pathfinders. At this point he had no markerlights, the commander's drones were gone and all pathfinders were dead. Since this was the scouring, I had made up my early losses as fast attack were worth a VP, so we were tied at this point, though he had two objectives on his side worth 3 total and I had one worth two, but a couple more were within quick reach. My blob actually did something and killed a crisis suit, it succumbed to its final wound from them.
So turn three came and his Kroot came on on my left flank behind my aegis by my mortars and the second squad that was now manning the icarus. He move his commander and riptide up, his hammereads moved up, and piranhas kept moving. His kroot shot a bunch at my guys but after all said and done, only two died. Rest of his shooting was good, the Ion Head kill 6 of the same squad and left only a grenade launcher, vox, and squad leader left. He killed a bunch of veterans from all squads, whittling them all down a few more guys in each squad. But he failed to concentrate fire so all were still in the game.
I finished off the missile sides, killed the piranhas and kill all but one of the drones and he fails his morale and drive him off. I try to chase down the commander with my blob but he is just to far away and my shooting is ineffective. Take the riptide down to three wounds, he was hot with his armor and invul saves, it just did not want to die. I pretty much ignored the kroot for bigger threats, I was hoping for more effective shooting against the riptide, but he would not fail his saves. Now my right is secure by it seems the kroot are going to overrun my left, at this point I see little hope of victory, my last remaining vet squad had hopped out of the vendetta's and helped kill off the piranhas but the hammerhead had clear LoS so I wasn't expecting much more from them, the rest of my troops were at half strength or less.
But his turn saw the tide turn, he did little with his shooting, killed a few from my command squad and his hammerhead killed 7 of my vets, but they held their leadership. The Kroot did not fire and charged, overwatch did nothing. But he multi charged and attacked my mortars and the last three vets that were manning the icarus. And my Mortars killled three kroot, he only caused one wounds, failed morale, and my mortars swept 20 kroot. OMG!! Fuck yes I am back in the fight, that was amazing. Just imagining the kroot getting beat to death by mortar tubes. My flanks are secure and his only heavy hitters left are the Riptide and two hammerheads.
Turn 4 for me saw my vendettas go into hover, I couldn't maneuver them to get a shot so took a chance going into hover. It paid off and I killed the Ion Head, the remaining missile drones took a wound, failed morale and fled. His last drone from the piranhas jumped into terrain and failed its dangerous terrain test and died, giving me a killpoint for his last fast attack dying. I tried shooting and charging the damn riptide but I only got one wound and failed combat but luckily stayed on the board. That was the end of my turn.
Turn 5 for him saw one of my vendetta's go down to his remaining fire but the last survived with jink saves. He thankfully failed to do anything with his onager gauntlet with his commander. His riptide killed two guardsmen, he was trying to drive me off my center objective, but I made a lot of saves and stayed in the fight.
My turn. My last survivors of my blob took the objective by the crates worth 3 points, my surviving veterans took the center one worth 4, I had one on my aegis line worth 2. I'll be honest at this point I was hoping for the game to end after this. My vendetta went back into zoom zoom mode and shot at the damn riptide but only did one wound on him, bringing him down to his last but that would be the best I could do, the rest of my shooting failed to wound him or he made his invuls. Like I said, he was hot with his saves. The riptide prob survived 14 lascannon shots throughout the game. And then I rolled, and it was a one!!!! The game ended. I had three objectives worth 9 VPs, pkus I had 4 for the fast attacks that I had killed. He had First blood and Warlord, but only two objectives worth 3 points total. So 13 to 5 and the IG pull a victory! Here is a pile of dead:
This was a brutal game and I really enjoyed the brutal back and forth. My mortars slaughtering the Kroot were my Heroes of the game. What I will say is play to the objectives, I should have stopped trying to chase his commander around earlier and should have just gone for the objective and tried to draw him to me. I had the advantage as my entire army minus my command squads and marbo could score. He only had two firewarrior squads and a kroot. I could take the hits and keep scoring. He had his two in his deployment, but he also had the least valuable ones, instead of moving up aggressively, he moved up piecemeal, and got too greedy trying the double envelopment with the kroot on one side and the piranhas on the other. When they both failed and were destroyed, he lost the game there, I held on and he only had a few units and they absolutely could not fail. So when they didn't do enough I had a good chance. Now I was completely lucky as well and was praying for that roll to end the game. One more turn would have seen the game swung a little, the guys out forward would have def died. The blob survivors may have been killed by the commander, didn't check LoS but if he could have seen them they would have died. The riptide would have died unless he made every save possible. It could have gone either way, if he got enough off, he may have swung it back to him or tied it. I am glad it ended at 5.
Now some thoughts after facing Tau. One those missiles that hit anything even if they can't see it and ignore cover are BS, esp since they are a free upgrade. Big thing is though that once the markerlights are gone, the tau are a regular shooty army like guard. Missilesides with missile drones and a Commander batman are brutal, fucking murder them with anything you have as early as possible. Trust me they will do far more damage as they really don't need markerlight support as the one missiles can hit anything they want to and the other fire enough that it doesn't matter. Main weakness with this army though it lack of troops, unless you are playing purge the alien, play the objectives. Stay away, you actually can out range them as this army had few things that can shoot beyond 36". It is sad though how important getting first can be though. But that being said, if you do go second, deploy back and force him to move forward. I forgot about his pathfinders scout move, had I remembered that Creed probably would have survived. Pinning and barrage are very effective. This army cannot win if it has to make leadership checks over and over, make them take it and remember to keep them away from the ethereal by drawing their army away with your units. Place objectives is critical, don't worry so much about placing them in spots where you can hide as you really can't against this army. Put it in the middle ish and in the open, get them out there and kill them in the open.
Tau is brutal to face, there is so much they can bring. Yeah guard can too, but its just guardsmen. The closest thing IG can bring is the MoO, but you can still get cover in area terrain and it scatters. But Barrage makes a huge difference. I stand my my mortars, my heroes killing pathfinders and kroot alike. Def promoting these guys. All in all this was a great game, most brutal and close game I have fought in a while. I have a few ideas and can't wait for the rematch.
Anyways I hope you enjoy and hope you all had good games this weekend.
GG
''Just imagining the kroot getting beat to death by mortar tubes''
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