The Preferred Enemy: An Evening Of Bolter Fire (long post)

So Liam's 40k night Sat was a blast and came together really well. I think everyone had fun and got at least two games, while a few of us stuck around for a third. All told seven people in attendance with one late comer to make the second round. With the way the games ended it worked out well with not much down time between games or people sitting out.

Here is my final Tau force that showed up Sat. The kroot hounds (as predicted) did not get finished, and when I sat down to make the army in Army Builder I realized I had made some noob mistakes with my Crisis suits so the revised army is below.

HQ: Shas'El, Missile/Plasma, HWMT
Elite: 2 x Crisis, Missile/Plasa, HWMT
Elite: 3 x Crisis, Missile/Plasa, HWMT
Troop: 11 Firewarriors, 1 Shas'ui, Bonding Knife
Troop: 11 Firewarriors, 1 Shas'ui, Bonding Knife
Troop: 10 Kroot, 8 hounds
Fast: 2 x Piranha w/ Target Arrays, Fusion Blaster, 1 Target Lock
Fast: 5 Pathfinders, Devilfish, Disruption Pods, Smart Missile System, Flecchette Dischargers, Target Array, Multitracker
Fast: 5 Pathfinders, Devilfish, Disruption Pods, Smart Missile System, Flecchette Dischargers, Target Array, Multitracker
Heavy: 2x Broadsides, A.S.S., 1 Team Leader w/ Drone Controller, Target Lock, Bonding Knife, 2x Shield Drones
Heavy: Hammerhead, Railgun, Disruption Pods, Multitracker, Burst Cannons
Heavy: Hammerhead, Railgun, Disruption Pods, Multitracker, Burst Cannons

As always I'll give some synopsis of the games and what the opponents list looked like. My memory is not the greatest, so this lists and reports are invariably inaccurate, but it should be close enough to get the idea (feel free to update me with any corrections you want to see made).

Game 1: John B.'s Marines, Capture and Control (3 Objectives), Long table edge
This is my first game against John B. who has a really nicely painted Salamander army, but no Vulcan in this list so they were running as standard marines.
HQ: Captain, Terminator Armor
Elite: 7 Terminators all Thunder Hammer & Storm Shields, Land Raider Crusader
Troop: 10 marines, Multimelta, Flamer, Rhino
Troop: 10 marines, Plasma, Melta, Rhino
Troop: 6 marines, Razorback, Twin Las
Troop: 6 Scouts, 3 sniper rifles, Heavy bolter
Heavy: Vindicator
Heavy: Land Raider

So it was a heavy mech marine list, which is probably just what Tau want to line up against. I went first and the shooting went well.
I think in turn 1 I popped his LRC and stunned his vindicator, had his razorback shaken, and also popped one Las off his LR. His return fire popped a railgun off a hammerhead, and slogging termies and rhinos moved forward.

Turn 2 I popped his LR and popped the gun on the Vindi, and started trying to whittle down on his slogging termies.

John moving his marines bottom of turn 2.

From then on it was uphill for John. The kroot did come on to start shooting marines and eventually move there way over to an objective, and he made a great attempt to hold on to two objectives. I had whittled his terminators down to just his captain, but the captain was able to close in on a crisis squad and wipe them in one turn (and took a railgun in the face the next turn). In the end my kroot managed to hold an objective, and I think we called it at the bottom of 6 since there was not much left he could do with his sniper and wounded rhino, and I had scoring guys that could close on the other objectives.

Never mind the two kroot in the middle, they are casualties.

Game 2: John S's Orks, Capture and Control (5 objectives), Dawn of War
I asked to play John because while I play orks, I've never played against the new orks. Plus he had a nice nob biker squad w/ speed freaks build and I wanted to see how I could do against them.

HQ: Warboss on bike, PK
HQ: Big Mek, Kustom Force Field
Elite: 5 burna Boyz, 1 Mek w/ Kustom Mega Blasta
Troop: 6 Nob bikers, all different wargear configs, Cybork, 1 PK, Painboy
Troop: 11 boys, big shoota, 1 nob PK/bosspole, Trukk
Troop: 11 boys, big shoota, 1 nob PK/ bosspole, Trukk
Troop: 11 boys, big shoota, 1 nob PK/bosspole, Trukk
Troop: 18 boys, big shoota, 1 nob PK/bosspole
Fast: Deffcopta, Twin Linked Rokkits
Fast: Deffcopta, Twin Linked Rokkits
Heavy: Battlewagin, Grot riggers, 2 Big shootas, Zzap, Extra Armor (for Burnas)
Heavy: Battlewagin, Grot riggers, 2 Big shootas, Zzap, Extra Armor (for KFF and 19 man squad)
Heavy: 2x Killa Kans, rokkits

John was going first so he set up his nob bikers and warboss pretty much in the middle of the table. I chose to leave everything to come in turn 1 and outflank with the kroot.
Turn 1 he blasts up the nob bikers to be pretty square in the middle of what would be my deployment zone so they get their 3+ cover save. Everything else comes on the board.
I roll in with just about everything I can hoping to shoot at his nob bikers. I've got my piranha right in front, so if they live I'm hoping they take the brunt of the assault. He could make it to crisis/HQ easy, but everything else requires some terrain checks. I lay in with everything, but some failed short range night fighting hurts and I kill outright only 1 and wound 3-4 others. A nice attempt but not enough for the LD check I was hoping to get.

At this point I say that I think I've lost. He's on me with the nob bikers and he's got like 4 other troop choices to sit on objectives. Fast forward to after the game: John tells/reminds me its really annoying when people say this 'oh i lost now' stuff, especially because there is no given in 40k and he is absolutely right. It's a horrible bad habit and bad game etiquette. I'm going to work on keeping those thoughts to myself (unless I'm playing Anthony were we both flog ourselves all game) and just pull through the battles.

Now rewind back to the game and John decides to take some terrain checks and wedge his bikers between my crisis and piranha so he can work on my FWs and eliminate one of my few precious troops. He figures to soften them up with shooting, then charge them, the crisis and the Firewarriors. The problem is he shoots the hell out of the Firewarriors and they route right of the board and now he can't assault. I don't know how many times this has happened to my orks, where some shooting ends up ruining assault where orks would be well better served.

Now I unload again and am able to kill off all the nobz and finish the Warboss again with a railgun to the face.

The rest of the game can basically be summed up by some things I had read about on forums but now really got to see unwind on the table.
1) Trukks of boyz are great at assault, but lousy at holding objectives
2) Hammerhead subunition shots (large blast) are indeed great at killing hoards (when they hit).
3) Tau can really put the hurt on most mech armies. Railguns that can get through the armor of ork vehicles (and KFF) are getting +2 on the damage table (open topped and AP1).

By the time we called the game (at end of 5 I think) I had kroot and piranha contesting one objective with one of his trukk squads, an empty devilfish contesting another squad from a now dead trukk, and fiewarriors screened by a devilfish claiming one objective. Objective wise it close, but I've got a lot of other firepower running around (crisis, Hammerheads, broadsides) and he doesn't have a whole lot left to fight back. It was well fought, and great for both of us to try out some new strategies.

Game 3: Dave's Chaos, Annihilation, Long table edge

HQ: Demon Prince, Lash
HQ: Chaos Lord
Troop: Khrone in Rhino (with Lord)
Troop: Noise Marines in Rhino, Aspiring Champ
Troop: Noise Marines in Rhino, Aspiring Champ
Troop: Marines with Lascannon
Heavy: Defiler
Heavy: Vindicator, demonic possession
Heavy: 3 x Oblits

We lined up across from each other and I was going first.
Turn 1 I decided to ignore the defiler which we said would be screened from the rhinos and focus more on his rhinos of troops. I ended up immobilizing his krone rhino, stunning one noise marine's rhino, popping the other rhino with noise marines, and immobilizing his vindi.
His noise marines blown out of the rhino shot and popped a piranha (which made the gun drones deploy), and I think his defiler scatters. His prince comes out but rolls double 6s to fail his lash.

Turn 2 my kroot come on and start shooting at some noise marines assisted by Crisis and pathfinders. They kill them down to the Aspiring champ. The remaining piranha blows the gun off the vindi. The crisis w/ HQ shoot the prince and the two devilfish assist to kill him. I think I pop his khrone's rhino also this turn.

His remaining noise marine rhino moves forward and smokes. His slogging champ goes and kills the drones for an easy KP. The khrone start slogging for the piranha which he also shot and immobilized. His defiler kills my HQ/Crisis team and a pathfinder (poor cover saves on my part).

Turn 3 I can't get through his smoked rhino, I shoot the big gun off his defiler, and the piranha pops the vindi. The remaining crisis team kill his slogging aspiring champ. The kroot for the rest of the game shoot at oblits but never wound them.
His remaining noise marines in rhino moves forward and they get out to shoot at the broadsides and kill one shield drone. His khrone come up and pop the immobilized piranha. The defiler starts charging forward.

Turn 4 I try to unload on his noise marines but fail to kill more than 2-3. I pop the defiler.
In turn he charges the broadsides and the Aspiring champ is able to fist them all to death by himself. His oblits change targets to the kroot in a building but kill not enough for a morale check.

Turn 5 I unload again on the noise marines and this time wipe them out. His rhino is dancing around my backfield but I can't kill it.
His oblits again kill kroot and they pass a morale check.

Turn 6 and I still can't kill that rhino, the rest of the shooting is ineffective. His oblits shoot the kroot who again pass a morale check. I think he gets a good las cannon (finally) and pops a devilfish. Game ends (or we call it, can't remember).

In the end I've killed: Defiler, Vindicator, Noise Marines, Noise Marines, Rhino, Rhino, Demon Prince= 7 Kp
He's killed: Broadsides, Piranha, Gun Drones, Devilfish, Crisis, HQ= 6 kp

All the games were fun and it was a late night (fun to drive home exhausted at 2 am). I'll give another Report Card for my Tau sometime later to look at how each unit and the army performed overall.

Here are some other pics from the night. Most of them are from earlier and then I just sort of forgot about pictures (as is typical).