Wednesday 20 January 2010

Battle Report.


Tuesday night battle report.

Went to the local gamesworkshop this evening to try to get a little more practice in with my tau before the tournament at the end of this month. With my 1500 point army just about finalized. I arrived at the shop to find they have started a table booking system. Meaning I wouldn't be able to get a game till 8.

When I did finally get a game it was a 3000 point a side match up with two players a side. I ended up playing alongside a space marine army against a necron and chaos marine army. Here are the army lists from what I remember.
Chaos:
Daemon prince.
Dreadnought
10 man assault squad
5 terminators
Terminator lord
Tooled out chosen x 9
Two small chaos marine squads

Necrons:
Nightbringer
Necron lord
2 scarab swarms
3 heavy destroyers
At least 2 large squads of necrons (they were all piled together behind a building
Monolith

Marines (allied)
Landraider
Dreadnought
Ironclad
Sternguard
Terminators
Chapter master
Drop pod
Landspeeder typhoon
Razorback
2 squads of tactical marines.
(not even sure this list is legal)

Tau (me)
Shas'el
2 crisis suits PG + MP
3 Crisis suits F +TLMP
Drones for above.
3 squads of 7 firewarriors
2 squads of 5 pathfinders 1 rail rifle in each.
Devilfish x 2
Hammerhead x 2
1 broadside

Pitched battle game type anniliation.

Turn 1:
We won the roll for setup and opted to set up first. However they managed to steal thr initiative and get first turn.

C&N: The prince and chaos jumpackers shot forward. The mainstay of the necron army remained hidden behind the building. While the heavy destroyers started taking potshots at my devil fish.
The only shooting from the chaos marines killed one sternguard while the necrons blew the burst cannon off one of my devilfish. (I think its important to note here that i didnt make a single one of my 6 disruption pod saves in this game).

T&M: Massed fire from the marines and tau killed of the assualt marines. While the broadside and hammerhead failed to damage monolith the other hammerhead missed a heavy destroyer. Missile pods from one of the crisis teams manages to shake the dreadnought. While the only disembarked firewarior squad shot up 3 chaos marines from one of the smaller squads.

Turn2:
C&N:
The daemon prince moved in position to charge my deathrains and a tactical squad the ctan shot at and stunned a dreadnought. The heavy destroyers continued to shoot at my two devilfish with no effect. Other then that there was no shooting on the chaos or necron part.
The prince charged my deathrains which I foolishly forgot to pull back last turn, along with the marine tactical squad. Slaughtering 5 marines causing my suits to flee off the table. Not before they caused 2 wounds back though, got to love strength 5.

T&M:
The space marines and tau arranged themselves to take full advantage of the chaos marines they could see. The terminator squad prepared to join the fray against the Deamon prince. Shooting.g wise the chapter masters orbital bombardment destroyed the monolith. (being as the heaviest ground based guns failed miserably last turn). The only real shooting was the two hammerhead failing to hit the heavy destroyers the broadside failing to hit the destroyers. The firewarriors failing to wound the destroyers, the missile pods on the other crisis squad doing the same. (although this want helped b the necron player saying they were T6 when I think the are 5, unintentional though I think) and the landspeeder typhoon took out the chaos dreadnought.
In the assault phase the terminators finished of the prince losing one of their number.

Turn 3:
C&N: The chaos chosen and terminators managed to turn up this turn. The chosen outflanked behind one of my firewarriors squads. The terminators deep striked near one of my devilfish. The heavy destroyers fired at my fish again taking the burst cannon of one and shaking the other. The newly arrived terminators unleashed hell from their combi bolters including melta gun at my pathfinders. Killing a total of one. :-P.
The chosen decimated the firewarriors shockingly enough. And consolidated towards my crisis suits.

T&M:
The marine army started to swing round to face the newly arrived chaos forces. While the crisis suits moved forward to rapid fire on the terminators. Feeling sneaky. I rotated the fish and tankshocked the chosen. To my delighted they broke. At this point I forgot about the trapped rule meaning that the chosen would have been destroyed. However as it was they spent the rest of the game running. The pathfinders opened fire marking the terminators for the plasma guns of the crisis suits which killed 3 of them. The commanders missile pod killing off another. After the space marines killed the final terminator and took a wound of the lord. The broadside opened fire killing the lord outright. The hammerhead fired submunitions at the Necrons that were visible. Knocking 5 off their feet (3 didn't get back up again) the other railhead missed the heavy destroyers again.

Turn4:
C&N: The necron player finally decided to start getting his hands dirty with the ctan destroying a razorback then the embarked squad in assault. The heavy destroyers finally cracked one of the fish. The resulting explosion. Wounding each of my 3 remaining suits.

Due to time constraints that was all we got to play. So despite an extra turn the C&M players could not pull anywhere near our kill points. Tau for the win.

Units of note.
Hammerheads for repeatedly missing.
Broadside for splatting the chaos lord
The devilfish that shocked the chosen.
The fireknifes for their kills.
The railrifles for their complete inability to hit anything.

Any thoughts?



8 comments:

  1. No his list isn't legal, 4 Elite choices unless he took the Chapter Master as Pedro Kantor, or you're mistaken and he took Master of the Forge. Terminators, Sternguard, Ironclad, and a Dreadnought. The Sternguard can be Troops with Kanor, and the Dread could be Heavy Support with MoTF.

    Anyway I'll get back to reading the report!

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  2. Didn't the guy have a Codex to clarify the Destroyers toughness? For the record a Destroyer is indeed T5. The Spyder is T6 and the C'Tan dudes are T8.

    You had quite an unusual army list there. What's your reasoning behing twin linking the missile pods? Is that the done thing?

    How did you find the Pathfinders worked with the rail rifles? In my army designs I like to have one or two maxed out squads of them with no rail rifles, just the markerlights.

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  3. Yeah he had his codex there. I checked the rulebook when I got home. I do think it was an honest mistake on his part though.
    The guy that I was allied with didn't have a MoTF or Kantor, rather a generic chapter master. Whats the toughness of a Chaos lord with mark of nurgle? I'm thinking 5.

    The reason behind the twin linked missile pods is the BS 3. I'm using them for light anti tank duty. The more hits the better.

    The rail rifles hit a total 0 times in the game. So probably a poor judge of their performance.

    Why do you think my army list is unusual?

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  4. Yeah the Lord with MoN is T5, but you use his base T of 4 when calculating instant death.

    Seems your ally had an illegal list then ;)

    You just had unusual numbers for your squads, 7 firewarriors, 1 broadside, and 5 pathfinders per squad. This isn't a criticism, it's good to see something different! I'm wondering what influenced those choices.

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  5. Seems I was the only 1 playing a legal list that knew their army then. (He claimed 6 for his lords toughness). Oh dear.

    Reason for my list: 21 firewarriors available, 10 pathfinders and 1 broadside :oP

    Seemed to work pretty well though.

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  6. I just double checked my CSM codex, and yeah, only T5 with MoN. A Prince is T5 base, so with MoN he becomes T6, but not a Lord.

    I don't get why people feel the need to cheat like that. Surely people can't be that stupid that they can't read their codex properly. 3 other players and all 3 do something drastically wrong? Shennanigans!

    One change I'd make to your list, it might work it might not. But drop the rail rifle's and consolidate your pathfinders into one squad. Then, give one of your firewarrior squads the DFish. That way you can keep it in reserve, so that they can make a late game objective grab/contest and won't be under threat so much. It could even save you two kill points. Also the spare points from the RR's would enable you to tool up your commander a little more.

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  7. cheaters is why i dont play at GW. i know if you take the rules as a guide then you can free up for more character in your army but not blatent cheating and giving noone a heads up. your list is a little unusual, i always give my Battlesits the +1 BS for 10pts it easily earns it back and means you can still have 2 diff weapons i take MP and Plasma so good long range and good anti armour. i stopped taking the rail rifles as a 50/50 to hit isnt good enough as they cant benefit from their own markerlights and takng them on anything else is sooo expensive, 30pts for marker drone thats BS 3 is ridiculous. i didnt like the smaller squads of FW as they have low BS but i only have 1 unit of pathfinders so you have the advantage there. i love hammerheads they have single handedly won me games due to their awesomeness. am looking forward to playing youthough i have not much anti tank

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  8. Given the flamer as the secondary weapon system for the crisis suits. A targeting array costs 4 points more then twinlinking the missilepods and is actually less effective.
    The rail rifles are there to help destroy light vehicles more then anything. The strength 6 isn't too bad against AV10 and still has a chance against AV11. albeit a slim one. As for having 2 squads of pathfinders. While I admit this does give an extra kill point. it also allows me too engage 4 targets. Remember the target locks on the rail rifles. while needing to kill off 2 models to force a morale check on each squad compared to 3 in a ten man squad. On average the markerlights will score 2 hits on a target, in my opinion. 2 marker light hits on 2 different units will be more effective then 5 on a single unit.

    Marker light drones are really overpriced. 30 points for something that won't reliably hit, then when it does, only helps other stuff.

    What is really weird though is the shield drone. for half the points of the marker drone it takes on the Toughness, Save (and 4++) of the unit its attached too. Despite this it costs the same whether it's on a squad of FWs, crisis suits or Broadside.

    ReplyDelete