Wednesday 15 September 2010

Escalation 2010: Army list

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Next month I shall be attending escalation at Braknell Forest Gamers. This one day tournament has four games with a twist compared to a normal tournament. Basically the first game is combat patrol, 500 points. The combat patrol rules prevent anything with more then two wounds, anything with a 2+ save or anything with a combined armour value greater then 33. After the first round each subsequent round adds 500 points to your army. Although these points can only be used to buy new units not add to existing ones.
My proposed army list is the following:
Round 1
-3x fireknife crisis suits. Team leader, bonded, hard wired black sun filter, 2x gun drones.
-3x firestorm crisis suits. Team leader, bonded, HWBSF, 2x gun drones.
-8 firewarriors. Team leader bonded. EMP grenade on leader.

In my previous combat patrol games, the missile pods were amazing, plenty of light armour to target. In order to balance this against armies that will consist of lots of infantry I have taken firestorm configured suits rather then deathrain. In further rounds, I will have pathfinders to compensate for the loss of twinlinked. The firewarriors make my one compulsory troops. The EMP grenades and filters are there mainly to fill up the points. Although given BFGs love of nightfighting (as shown at winds of war) they will probably come in handy.

Round 2.
For round 2 a standard force organisation chart has to be filled in and the combat patrol restrictions are dropped.
-10 firewarriors, leader with bonding knife.
-shas'el, fireknife, hard wired Target lock.
- 3x broadside. 1 SMS and target lock, 1 plasma and multitracker, leader with plasma multitracker 2 shield drones target lock BSF.

The broadsides help to give this list a lot of extra punch. I'm expecting quite a few marines players with rhino spam. So the target locks enable me to threaten three vehicles a turn. The shas'el can either join the firewarriors to help them hold or go with the other fireknifes. The target lock allowing full use of firepower in either scenario. The firewarriors are my second troop choice. Although they yet a lot of hate on the internets, I quite like firewarriors.

Round 3:
- railhead, burst cannons, dpod, multitracker, flechettes, target lock.
-2 x fireknife, leader bonded, 2 gun drones.
- 5 pathfinders, rail rifle, devilfish, dpod, flechettes.

Perhaps a little too much kit on the railhead, but once again, to fill up the points. A couple more fireknife suits mainly as an escort for my shas el. And pathfinders. If you only get once chance to hit the enemy, make sure it counts.

Round 4:
-railhead, as round 3
-pathfinders as round 3 devilfish, dpod SMS.
-6 x firewarriors devilfish dpod.
Railhead to fill up the last heavy slot. Another troops choice, just to have a fast(ish) moving unit with the potential to score one objective while contesting another.
More pathfinders just for fun.

Any thoughts on the list?

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Battle Report: Tau Vs Blood Angels

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Battle report: Tau Vs Blood angels (rematch)

Playing against the same Blood Angel army as my previous battles, I’m actually getting quite bored of playing this guy. I think nobody else really wants to play him, so by the time I get there everyone else already has games. Nothing personal, but a bit of variety in opponents would be nice.

BA List:

Dante
Sanguinor
5 Sanguinary Guard
5 Sanguinary Guard
1 Priest with jump pack.
10 deathcompany in a landraider
Librarian dreadnought
Baal Predator TLAC

My list:
Farsight 3x fireknife retinue
3 x Fireknifes
7 Firewarriors
7 Firewarriors
7 Firewarriors in devilfish
8 pathfinders in devilfish
3 XV9 with 2x Phased Ion Guns each
3 broadsides
Railhead

Mission was kill points (my 13 to his 9)
Set-up was pitched battle type.

The board was limited to a 4’ x 4’ as is normal for my local GW. However the middle of the board was bisected with a fortress of Redemption severely limiting my shooting into his deployment area and giving him a safe route to advance into my table half. There was another building in the centre of my deployment area and a little bit of cover in the far back right hand corner. Another building was along the left hand side of the battlefield in line with the fortress of Redemption limiting the width of the space left to just big enough to drive a land raider through.

I won the roll for table sides and first turn. I picked the side which the fortress was furthest from giving me a nice open killing field for any assault marines that decided to jump over the building. I choose to go first.
Looking at the terrain set-up his army would be pretty safe from my first shooting phase as the fortress blocked all line of sight. Once they were past the fortress I would have one shooting phase to cripple his army before they would be in combat. To this end I deployed my entire army as a shooting gallery at the back of my deployment area. Leaving me little manoeuvring capability but the chance to bring my maximum guns on my enemy on the second turn. From left to right my deployment was, Pathfinder fish, empty, XV9s behind, hammerhead hiding crisis suits, firewarriors in front of the center building, pathfinders in the top of the building, farsight and guard ready to go left or right, broadsides with a skirmish line of firewarriors to grant them a cover save, finally the other firewarriors loaded into their devilfish on the far right flank.
My opponent, as expected, deployed his landraider near the gap on the left (my left) his assault squads behind the fortress of redemption. With the librarian dread and predator on the far right, strangely enough out in the open in front of my broadsides, all of his units were as far forward as possible.

My opponent tried to seize the initiative and failed.

Turn 1
Tau:
I moved the devilfish on the left forward, ready to plug the hole the landraider was going to come through in turn 2. my suits on the left shuffled forward trying to get missile pod shots on dantes unit next to the landraider. Farsights squad shuffled forward to get in a position to rapid fire any assault marines that crossed the fortress and intercept the dread if need be.
The pathfinders on the building lit up the landraider with a staggering 6 markerlights. The hammerhead targeted the landraider using a markerlight and missed, the broadsides split their fire between the three vehicles, got to love target locks, I missed the baal predator, failed to penetrate the librarian dreadnought, however in an epic display of shooting prowess my third broadside used the remaining makerlights to up the BS by 2 and -3 from the raiders cover save, the heavy armour proved no match for the railgun and the tank exploded killing one of the embarked deathcompany.
Minor shuffling of suits in the assault phase in preparation for the make or break turn.

Blood Angels:
The dreadnought failed wings of sanguineous, so moved normally his assault marines jumped over the fortress and ran forward into my killing ground making sure they would be in assault range next turn. The deathcompany started the long march towards m left flank.
The baal predator shot at farsights squad putting a wound on one of my suits

Tau 1KP / BA 0

Turn 2
Tau: This would be it, make or break for my army, either I blasted his army to shreds or it would rip me apart next turn.
My suits positioned themselves into rapid fire range of his 2 sanguinary guard squads, Hopefully I could expose Dante to the tender mercy of my railheads railgun. The sanguinor would have to wait till the following turn. I markerlight dantes squad getting 4 hits. I applied 2 of these to the XV9s whose fire reduced the sanguinary guard to cinders (8 rending hits, ouch). The railhead took aim at Dante, missing him, but putting a wound on him with it’s burst cannons. My firewarrior squad in the building rapid fired their pulse rifles at him, stripping him of another wound. Using my last 2 markerlight hits I open fire with the fireknifes, getting 6 plasma wounds and 5 missile pod wounds on him. My opponent passed all his invulnerable saves yet failed two armour saves, killing Dante.
Towards the centre on the field farsight and friends opened fire on the remaining sanguinary guard squad, felling four of them with rapid fire plasma guns. The remaining guard and priest were killed by the devilfish and firewarriors in front of the broadsides.
The broadsides split their fire between the dread and the predator failing to damage either.
My fireknifes shuffled behind the XV9s who formed a line in front of them, to try and bait the sanguinor into charging them instead.

Blood Angels:
Everything (left) continued its advance forward the dread getting wings and landing next to Farsight the baal advance at combat speed trailing behind the dread. The sanguinor positioned to charge my XV9, as I wanted. The death company continued their advance towards my lines. Slowly.
Shooting consisted of the baal firing on the broadsides who lost two drones and narrowly passed their morale check.
The dread charged farsight, killing a shield drone, however farsight fluffed his attacks, failed his moral check and got run down for his trouble. The sanguinor charged the XV9s killing 2 shield drones but taking a wound, I passed my morale check and sacrificed the remaining drones to pass hit and run. Leaving the sanguinor on his own facing a wall of fire next turn.

Tau 5 KP / BA 1 KP

Turn3
Tau:
With a large portion of the dead, I concentrated on the remaining units, the firewarriors moved round the back of the dreadnought the hammerhead positioned to fire at whatever all units depending on what survived. The devilfish on the right moved to the side of baal predator.
I makerlighted the sanguinor giving 2 hits. The firewarriors in the centre fired on him causing no wounds, the fireknifes stripped him of two wounds and he was finished off by the XV9 suits, the Devilfish on the right fired at the predator causing no damage, the firewarriors on the right fired into the back of the dreadnought, wrecking it. With no other targets the broadsides wrecked the baal predator. The hammerhead fired submunitions at the deathcompany. Killing 2.
I forgo to move my devilfish on the left in this round virtually guaranteeing its destruction by the death company.

Blood angels:
The death company charged the devilfish losing one of their number to flechettes but wrecking the fish.
Tau 8 KP / BA 2

Tau:
Markerlighted the death company, killed them with rapid fire plasma guns.

Game.Set.Match

Tau 9 PK / BA 2 KP (tabled)

Thoughts: I don’t think I could have done much better in this game, I only made a few minor mistakes, forgetting to move the devilfish on turn 3, wound allocation on the broadsides would have prevented them having to take a moral check. Most of the mistakes were made by my opponent. Given the terrain set-up he could have spent the first turn moving right up to the fortress and then jumped over it in turn 2, this would have allowed him to fire his guns without needing to run. Or with the baal predator surviving the first turn, moved that flatout to create cover for the guard when they jumped over the building. Also his army list includes some of the hardest hitting units from the BA codex, but not many bodies. Plasma rifles kill Sanguinary Guard as readily as normal marines, making my weapons far more effective in kill / points ratio. A fact I took full advantage of.

Wednesday 1 September 2010

Recent activity

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Unfortunately due to ongoing stuff at work my recent activity has been fairly limited. Mainly due to lots of overtime. Which is nice because I want a new TV soon. :P
I have managed to make a start on painting Farsight, but given the speed of my painting, slow, I wouldn't expect to have him finished before the end of the month. I did manage to get two games in against my friends imperial guard the other week. Suffice to say I lost both games. Partially due to bad planning on my part, concentrated more on trying to kill his hidden hydras rather then achieve he mission objectives. Poor rolling for morale and fall back didn't help much. Also marbo was a royal pain in the broadside.
Generally though I was outplayed by Ginge. I just couldn't get past his cover, even with pathfinder support. Although I did make about 80% of my disruption pod saves.
Highlight of the games include the following:
-Farsights bodyguard taking 3 wounds rolling triple 2. Third time I've managed this feat.
-XV9 suits losing 3 shield drones to rapid fire lasguns! Failing their morale check and falling back 16" off the table by 1" grr.
-Broadsides being wiped to a single man and a drone by marbo.
-broadside firing plasma gun at marbo who passes his gone to ground save, broadside follows up by charging marbo (stupid stupid). Who kills a drone, broadside is then swept leaving marbo no longer pinned (stupid).
I think a rematch might be in order. This time with me actually concentrating on the game.