Bad Me

So I've been a bad blogger this past couple weeks.  My work schedule has changed, and it's been a bit chaotic so I've got nothing done on the hobby front unfortunately.  I did make it this past Saturday night up to Johnson City for Gamapalooza which was discussed HERE.  It was nice seeing not only so many gamers out but also so many different gaming systems getting played.

For my own game that evening, I had an 1850 point match against Cheef's GF's Fem Fa Tau who've been cutting a rough trail of wins over a number of different opponents including Neverness who had asked me to avenge his poor boys in blue.  (Now I'm not an Ultrasmurf fan, but a marine's gotta defend even the smurfs against the threat of xenos.)  So I decided to take a list like I've never fielded before just to really mix things up and to not be expected.  Thus the "Ancients and Initiates" list was born.

My list was
Master of the Forge w/ combi-flamer in case someone got too close
3x 10 Scouts with Camo Cloaks and Shotguns
1x  6 Scouts with Camo Cloaks and Sniper Rifles
3x  Ironclad Dreadnoughts with Meltaguns and Heavy Flamers as Elites
3x  Venerable Dreadnoughts with Twinlinked Lascannons and Missile Launchers as Heavies
3x  2 Landspeeders with 2 Heavy Bolters each

It turned out to be a fairly fun list to play as a one off, though not one I'd want to take often.  The Tau were fielding a commander with all the bells and whistles, 2 small units of fire warriors, 2 small units of pathfinders with rail rifles (one had the upgrade character and outflanked), 6 stealth suits with 1 fusion blaster, 2 Hammerheads with railguns, 1 Piranha with fusion, 1 C'tan with writhing worldscape and a short range gun effect, and then a necron lord with 10 immortals.  It was her first time using the tin robots so they gave her a bit of trouble on rules and such, and since I rarely play against the tin boys I wasn't much help there either.

We played long table edge deployment and Big Guns mission with 4 objectives.  We played on what she dubbed the Pretty Table.  This was still a 6th Edition game as she hasn't had a chance to delve into 7th yet.  Unfortunately I was still a bad blogger and no pictures were to be taken.

So she deployed first with her commander, both fire warrior teams and a pathfinder team in a large ruin in the middle of her deployment zone.  She put a hammerhead in each corner of her side of the table and the Necron contingent went behind her big ruin in the middle.  Her Piranha was going to deep strike and the stealths and second pathfinder team were outflanking.

I put my speeders behind terrain, Venerables in terrain for cover saves, the Master of Forge went in a building to hide as he was only in the list for the dread slots and bolster, the Ironclads used ruins to block LOS to the hammerheads to be ready to advance up board, and the scouts all infiltrated.  The snipers went into a building that I bolstered with the Master of the Forge.  The Scouts with shotguns all went in to be ready to grab objectives.

Her first turn wasn't too eventful due to lack of good shots.  I made most all the cover saves and lost only 1 sniper and 2 shotguns from the middle squad and a shotgun from my left flank squad.  My first turn the speeders came out to play and everyone else advanced except for the Venerables which stayed where they were.  Heavy bolter fire racked up the kills and one fire warrior team died, one lost 4 warriors (other two couldn't be seen and thus couldn't die) and broke and ran, and the pathfinders lost everything but a drone which broke and ran.  The middle scout squad managed a charge on the Immortals which moved up and thus got them tied up in combat.

Her second turn saw the piranha come in inside my deployment area and the other pathfinders showed up but on a flank with no good deployment options on my right.  They went into some trees in front of her hammerhead but didn't have real range to anything much less LoS.  Her other hammerhead took a hull point off a speeder and then her commander finished it and his buddy off with missile pod fire.  I lost a few more scouts and the Piranha missed the side armor shot on a Venerable but it's drones got a hull point from a shot in it's back.  My turn saw the drones die and the Piranha lost a hull point.  Her commander took a lot of fire and was down to one wound.  Immortals still were tied up in combat while the Ironclads continued to advance.  One just made it into the Immortal combat and I now had a 3 scouts squads holding objectives (snipers and the other two shotgun squads).

Third turn saw still no stealth suits, her commander drop 2 more speeders, her piranha connected to kill the wounded venerable, her hammerheads continued to be denied with cover saves, and the Immortal combat keep dragging on with tied combats.  My turn saw the Piranha die, her commander went down, a glance get through for a hull point on a Hammerhead, and the 2 remaining speeders took out all the pathfinders but the special character who had one wound left.  Her Immortals lost combat by one and broke and ran.

Turn four the stealths are in .... and on the side of the board she doesn't want them.  They try and get a dread and don't have range to hit the closest scout squad.  Immortals rallied and C'tan took out the lasts two scouts from that fight.  My turn four saw an Ironclad almost to a hammerhead, the pathfinder character get BBQ'd by an Ironclad, and that's it.

Turn five I lost a couple scouts to burst cannons from advancing stealths and the C'tan charges an Ironclad which put 2 wounds on it from overwatch and then they mutually killed each other.  I charged a hammerhead and only shook it for a hull point.  At that point it was over with me holding 3 objectives and having scored all 3 secondaries and she had a point from killing a Heavy Support.  The Imperium is avenged and the Tau are held in check.

I think the only thing that held her back in the game was that I think like a lot of Tau players she was trying more to kill me with firepower rather than playing the mission such as trying to railgun dreads in cover rather than placing pie plates on my scouts (which worried me which is why I was being aggressive with the Ironclads to try and keep her attention on them since if they died as Elites, no VPs for them).  She was also real unfamiliar with the Necron rules and that hampered her from using them effectively as well.

All in all it was a fun game and hopefully I'll get some hobby stuff rolling again now.