Battle report: Deathguard

El’Savon watched as his forces deployed around the ruined building, O’Kunas had advised of a small Chaos detachment heading this way and had ordered El’savon to intercept and destroy them. The Starships scans had detected a Landraider leading the Chaos forces, with this behemoth of a Gue’la vehicle on the way El’Savon positioned the Hammerheads and XV88 under his command in a position to get a shot of it before it had chance to disgorge its passengers amongst his forces. The pathfinders attached to his Cadre also took up positions in the building to mark targets for destruction. With His forces prepared. El’Savon awaited the enemy.

Mission: Objectives. (5 objectives nominated as the building on the board one in each quarter and one in the middle)

Deployment: Spearhead.

The photograph shows how the forces were set-up. With the broadside plus shield drones in the building along with a squad of firewarriors and two squads of pathfinders. The hammerheads were deployed to the side of the building. With the battlesuits hidden behind them. The other two squads of firewarriors were deployed with the devilfish with the intention of boarding them to claim objectives.

Turn 1:

Tau: I probably should have elected to take the second turn in this mission. However I was hoping that by taking the first turn I could disable the landraider and force the plague marines to come at me on foot. So I could cut them down with plasma guns on my crisis suits. However, no plan survives contact with the enemy, or in this case my rolling.

I embarked the firewarriors onto the devilfish and started to move them up to the unoccupied table quarter building to claim this objective.  The Hammerheads moved apart to allow my suits to target whatever fell out of the landraider. With That I opened up with my shooting. The 2 pathfinder squads got 3 markerlight hits on the landraider. The Broadside hit, Penetrated then rolled a 1. Due to being possessed, this was ignored. One hammerhead missed, the other hit but didn’t do anything. With the landraider still intact, the crisis suits rained missiles on the plaguemarines hiding in the far building, causing no casualties (Damn Feel no pain).

So with no casualties caused I ended my turn.

Plague Marines: The Landraider and Rhino moved forward, Rhino popped its smoke launchers. Short turn.

Turn 2:

Tau: The Hammerheads Space themselves apart to provide 2 targets for the Plague marines. The Crisis suits separate, one going for the rhino. The other hoping that I could crack the landraider and target the enclosed terminators. The Devilfish moved in front of the other building. The Pathfinders targeted the landraider again, getting a total of 2 hits (out of 8). The broadside hit and did nothing, hammerhead 1, hit, penetrated and rolled a 1. The second hammerhead missed. The crisis suits fired on the rhino with twinlinked missiles. Scoring 2 penetrating hits, which stunned it.

Plague marines: The 3 obliterators turned up and slagged my first hammerhead. The Landraider moved up for the terminators to assault next turn. The plague marine squad in the rhino stepped out into the central objective.

Turn 3:

Tau: The Fireknife suits and the Shas’el moved into position to rapid fire at the Obliterators, killing 1 and causing a wound on another. The Firewarriors in the building opened up on them as well, but all armour saves were passed. The surviving crisis suits opened fire on the rhino scoring 3 penetrating hits. Immobilising it, blowing the bolter off it and shaking it

Plague Marines: Typhus and terminator friends stepped out of the Landraider.. Typhus separated from the terminators in the movement phase to charge my fireknifes. Killing them and my commander but taking a wound. Terminators heavy flamed my firewarrior squad in the building them finished off the rest in combat. Lost one of their number in the fight though. (Thankgod for the bonding knife :oP, must have pierced one of their armour as they stomped them into the ground).

  

Turn 4:

Tau: The pathfinders fired their pulse carbines at the terminators doing nothing. The rail rifles fired at the Rhino doing nothing. The broadside targeted Typhus hitting with his railgun and two plasma gun shots, rolled a 1 for wounding with the railgun, and double 2 for plasma guns (this is why I never collected a shooting army previously). The firewarriors disembarked to run into the building, they made it 1 inch before getting hopelessly confused. The burst cannons and drones on the fish opened fire on the plague marines. Doing nothing (I’m sensing a theme here) The missile pods from the crisis suits finished off the rhino.

Plague Marines: Typhus charged the broadside killing it. The terminators flamed the lower of the 2 pathfinder squads leaving 1 alive, which they subsequently forgot to charge. The landraider stunned my remaining hammerhead. The plaguemarines in the central objective moved forward and fired their melta guns unsuccessfully at the devilfish. The obliterators fired lascannons at the devilfish but didn’t have any effect.

  

Turn 5:

Tau: Knowing that I had to contest his two objectives, I moved my devilfish up to them to and detached the drones. I didn’t expect them to survive but if there was a 6^th turn I could get the fish close enough to contest. The remaining pathfinders scooted up the building hoping to draw typhus up there, the only real target of opportunity for the hammerhead was the landraider, which it blew one of the twinlinked lascannons off., and the lone pathfinder managed to kill one of the terminators that forgot to charge last turn. The other firewarriors disembarked from their devilfish and rapid fired at the nurgle marines on the central objective, along with the other remaining firewarrior squad killed two plague marines. The remaining crisis suits rained missiles on the obliterators, who made all their saves.

Plague Marines: The Terminators had their vengeance on the remaining pathfinder. Typhus attempted his psychic power against the other pathfinder squad, only to get injured by a daemon. So he charged the squad only to get injured by his deamon weapon., in return the pathfinders scored two wounds I watched as my opponent rolled the dice knowing that a single 1  would kill typhus, much to my dismay, he passed both of them though. They passed their morale check, but didn’t have a bright future. The plague marines on the central objective tried to shoot at the devilfish again doing nothing. The obliterators Fired plasma cannons at the disembarked fire warriors killing 3 of them.  His two Squads on the objectives finished off the drones with no problems.

Game ended,

Chaos 2 objectives

Tau 1 Objective.

Although to make it clearer how much I got killed. A quick compare of casualties

Tau; Hammerhead, Broadside +2 shield drones, 2 x Fireknife, Commander + 2 shield drones, 2 squads of pathfinders (5 man), 1 squad of fire warriors (7 man), 3 firewarriors from another squad, drones from both devilfish.

Chaos; 1 obliterator, 1 rhino, 2 terminators, 2 plague marines. (wow!)

I think my primary mistake in this game was my set-up, again, I should have deployed the hammerheads In front of where the devilfish where. This would have meant he would have to hide his rhino behind the landraider, meaning he would be further away from the central objective. He would have also have had to come further before being in combat. The Broadside should have been along the back edge of the building. The Firewarriors should have been outside the building to the back. Meaning they could move forward at the end of the game to claim/contest.

Thoughts?