Battle report: Tau vs Death Guard (Reloaded)

I managed to get a quick 1500 point game in against my friends plague marine army last night. Last time I played against this army with my tau I lost loads of models and the game, while barely making a dent in his forces. This time I made a few modifications to my list. One of my main mistakes in the last game was to try and play like a space marine army. With my previous army for the last few years being Black Templars I was trying to play the Tau  like I played them.
It wasn't pretty.
This time, with a few more games under my belt, I was hoping the result would turn out differently.

My List:
Crisis Shas'El with Missile pod, plasma gun, Multitracker, Hard wired drone controller and 2 shield drones bonding knife.
2 x Crisis Suits with missile pod, plasma gun and multitracker
3 x Crisis Suits with Missile pod, plasma gun and multitracker, leader with bonding knife HWDC and 2 gun drones
Pathfinders x 4, Devilfish with flechettes and disruption pod
Pathfinders x 5, Devilfish with flechettes and disruption pod

Hammerhead, railgun, burst cannons, disruption pod, flechettes, multitracker
Hammerhead, railgun, burst cannons, disruption pod, flechettes, multitracker

Broadside Vre, Plasma guns, HW targetting array, HW MT, DC and 2 shield drones, bonding knife

7 Firewarriors, Shas'ui with bonding knife
7 Firewarriors, Shas'ui with bonding knife
7 Firewarriors

Plague Marines

5 plague marines, 2x plasma gun, champion with power weapon, rhino transport
10 plague marines, 2x Flamer, Champion with power weapon and combi flamer, Rhino transport
10 plague marines, 2x Meltagun, Champion with power fist, Rhino transport

6 Terminator Champions heavy flamer nurgle icon
1 Terminator lord

3 obliterators

Mission: Capture and Control, His objective is in the building to the left of his rhinos. Mine is opposite with a squad of firewarriors sitting on it
Deployment: Pitched Battle, Plague marines win first turn, I fail to seize the initiative.

Plague Marines 1
The Plague marines deployed as above. The rhinos were laden from left to right as follows: Plasma, flamer, melta. This was a short turn for the plague marine player as his rhinos charged forward 12" and popped smoke.

Tau 1
I started by trying to get a chance glancing hit with the objective holding firewarriors, I manage two but both are turned aside by the smoke. The Pathfinders open up on the rhinos, the first squad try to mark the melta gun one only to miss 5 of 5 marker light shots. The other squad manage to get 4 hits though. The Battlesuits with my commander manage to destroy the rhino killing a single plague marine in the process. The rest of the army try to take out the flamer units rhino but they are either turned aside by the smoke or ignored because of possession (grrrr).

 Plague Marines 2
The obliterators turned up and destroyed one of the devilfish. The firewarriors escaped unscathed though. The other two rhinos moved up and killed one of my firewarriors holding the objective, however one of the plasmagunners killed themselves (two down 23 to go)

Tau 2

The firewarriors on the objective fired on the rhino again with no effect. The pathfinders put a total of 7 markerlights on the obliterators. The firewarriors from the destroyed devilfish, shuffled around to get a shot off at the obliterators.

Although it took most of my army to kill the obliterators they eventually fell over. The Rest of my army managed to immobilize one rhino. It was essential that these were killed as I was planning on sweeping my devilfish diagonally across the field to grab their objective.


Plague Marines 3

The plasma gun squad dismounted from their rhino and shot at the firewarriors on the objective, leaving one alive. The Flamer squad dismounted their immobile rhino and managed to shot one of the nearer pathfinder squads who promptly ran off the table. The meltagun totting plague marines killed 2 of the firewarriors by the destroyed devilfish.

Tau 3

The Tau redirected their fir at the meltagun totting plague marines leaving 2 alive. The sole survivor from the fire warrior squad on the objective forgot to fire his gun this turn. Obviously daunted by the approach of the plague marines out of the setting sun.
The drones from the downed devilfish moved up to the two surviving plague marines to prevent them closing too quickly.





Plague Marines 4

The flamer bearing plague marine squad advanced on the other pathfinder squad in the crater, felling all four of them. The plague marines from the other squad killed the two drones in front of them. The still mobile rhino moved up towards my castle.

Tau 4
The Tau divided their fire between the two plague marine squads, wiping out the last to marines from the meltagun squad and knocking the flamer squad down to 6.

Plague Marines 5
The terminators finally arrived, deep striking within 6" of the flamer bearing plague marines. They opened up with their combi bolters at the crisis suits moving towards the plague marine objective. Their heavy armour protected them from the light shells though. The flamer squad fired on the firewarriors near the wrecked devilfish killing 3 of them. The 2 remaining firewarriors legged it from the field.




Tau 5

The Massed firepower from the tau killed off 3 terminators and most of the plague marines from the flamer squad. The Firewarriors embarked on the devilfish continued their advance on the enemy objective. With nothing able to stop them.



We rolled the dice it came up a 6. So we would have carried on into the sixth turn.
However because my friend had to go and collect his wife we ended the game at this point calling it a draw.

Had the turns continued, the plague marines wouldn't have been able to reach my forces, and would have been subject to massed fire from the tau forces.

From the position that we were in at the end of turn 5. I think I would have continued to dominate the nurgle forces. He couldn't catch up with my forces, and couldn't match my maneuverability or firepower. If it wasn't for his uncanny ability to make 5/6 normal armour saves and 3/4 feel no pain saves. His forces would have been almost exhausted by the end of the game.
I was quite pleased with my performance in this game. I lost a combined total of 14 firewarriors, 9 pathfinders and a devilfish (plus drones) this was 6 kill points of 15. The plague marine player lost 3 of 8. So I am quite pleased with this performance especially when compared to my last game.