Tau Golden Throne Day 1

Last weekend was the Golden Throne and I brought the Tau out for the their first tournament in several years.  I few new models, some cleaning up of the old guys, and a new display board and I was ready to give it my best shot.

Ethereal: Warlord
Commander- Cyclic Ion Blaster, Blacksun Filter, Multi-Tracker, Target Lock, Drone Controller, Stimulant Injector, Onager Gauntlet, Puretip Neurochip, Iridium Armor, 2x Marker Drones
Riptide- Ion Accelerator, Early Warning Override, Velocity Tracker
3x Crisis- Twin Linked Plasma, Fusion Gun
3x Crisis- 2 x Missile Pods, Early Warning Override
10 Kroot, 1 Hound
10 Kroot, 1 Hound
8 Firewarriors
8 Firewarriors
7 Firewarriors
7 Firewarriors
4 Marker Drones
5 Pathfinders
5 Pathfinders
2 Missilesides w/ Velocity Tracker, 2x Missile Drones
Hammerhead, Raillgun w/ Subunition, Disruption Pod, Longstrike
Skyray, Disruption Pod, Blacksun Filter
Aegis w/ Quad Gun

Terrible Picture, I dont even have the top of one Broadside here!

 So basically a full single Force Org minus allies.  It looks pretty nice, and scored 9 out of 15 on painting.  That seemed about right looking over the paint chart, knowing that very few would get max and the very best are probably getting 12-13.

Game 1: Nick's Blood Angels
Libby PA
5 TH/SS Termies in LRR
5 TH/SS Termies in LRR
10 Tac Marines, Melta/Lascannon
5 Assault Marines no jetpacks, Las/Plas Razorback
5 Assault Marines no jetpacks, Las/Plas Razorback
5 Assault Marines no jetpacks, Las/Plas Razorback
2 Hyperios Platfroms
2 Hyperios Platfroms
2 Hyperios Platfroms

Vangaurd Deployment, Crusade 3 Ojectives

Essentially Nick's army is meant to smash the termies down the opponents throat followed up by long range fire support with enough marines to hopefully go out and grab objectives.  This game was always going to come down to if I could stop the LRR and kill the termies.  When I had to go second I thought that might not happen.  However I killed one bottom of one, then cleaned up those termies and the 2nd LRR turn 2 (go CC riptide!).  That left me two more turns to just kill off all his troops, but his warlord was scoring on one objective, my Firwarriors had held my rear objective and I had taken the central objective with my Kroot led by my Commander who was shurgging off shots.  I think I might have had first blood on this one but it was pretty much win/loss and I captured my first win while going second with Tau and the game ended on 5.

Somepoint Midgame before we Scramble for the center Objective

Game 2: Doc's Necron Scarab Farm w/ GK Allies
Imotekh
5 Immortals
5 Immortals
5 Immortals
10 Scarabs
10 Scarabs
9 Scarabs
2 Canoptek Spyders
2 Canoptek Spyders
2 Canoptek Spyders
Aegis
Coteaz
3 Warrior Acolytes
3 Warrior Acolytes
10 Interceptor Squad w/ Gear
Dreadknight w/ Shunt

Hammer and Anvil, Purge the Alien

So Doc I've met numerous times and have never had the pleasure of playing.  I know he's very experienced and this list looks like it is going to just crush me.  The only thing I have going for me is going first and the deployment puts me as far away as I can possibly get from his lines.

I shoot at him turn 1 trying to pick up first blood but can't kill much.  His turn one and the Imotek storm pops my hammerhead, kills a broadside, and a few firewarriors.  That damn storm would go 5 turns and did 90% of the killing power for him.  Thankfully my turn 2 and 3 I was able to lay into the scarabs and wipe them mostly out  before they could reach my lines.  A few made it to the Skyray to pop it before getting killed off.  The kroot outflanked to kill the accolytes but only killed one so not sure that was a fair trade, though the second squad lived when the game was called.  He shunted his Interceptors to kill my troops and the firwarriors were very depleted but they all held thanks to the Ethereal LD.   The Dreadknight had shuted over to kill pathfinders the turn before they had also worn him down as well. 

Bottom of 2

In the end he had killed the Hammerhead, a Pathfinders, and one Kroot Squad.  I had killed 3 Scarebs, one Spyder squad (I think), 1 Henchmen squad, the Interceptor squad and the Dreadknight to steal away a solid win.  It took just about everything I had and just the right circumstances to get the win though the final points don't really reflect that.

Game 3: Liz's Daemons
Fateweaver
Tzeentch Hearald
Slaaneesh Herald
Blob of Fiends
Blob of Screamers
Blog of Pink Horrors
Blob of Dameonettes
Blob of Daemeonettes
Flying Tzeentch DP
Flying Tzeentch DP

Dawn of War, Scouring

The list is from memory as she needed the list back the next day.  I'm sure it will get posted online soon and I can slap it up here.  In the fun and heat of the battle I totally blanked on taking a picture, and after this just gave up trying to get pics of the battles.  I suck I know.

I've met Liz a few times over the years and she won this year's BAO so she is a real pro.  I'm looking at her list and the mission and thinking there is no way I can win, and she is saying the same thing looking at mine.  When she wins the side/go first roll I do everything I can to give it a go but in the end I could just never kill enough.  Sadly we had a lot of fun (!) and that ate a lot of clock time so we really only got through four rounds.  I don't think an extra round would have helped me but I could have made a go of it still.  She had Iron arm and Endurance on both her DP (so lucky!) and they were both T8 the first two turns, so I tried to whittle down the screamers and Daemonettes.  She did fail some farily easy charges turn 2 so I thought I might have a chance, but it wasn't until turn 3 that I could even get rid of the DPs.  Still by 4 she had plenty of troops on 3 objectives and I had been overrun on one and was basically fighting over another when we called it for her knowing we couldn't get a full turn 5.

I did make a few tactical mistakes in deployment and target priority so I deserved to lose this game in the end.  Had I gone first I think I could have won this but hey that's 40k!

So knocked from advancing to the top 8 meant I got to shuffle my ass back the next day for the 3 game Rogue Trader event with a clean slate!