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Greetings,

Recently Lorek and I have been meeting up to gloriously do battle. I understand Lorek only does this because he intensely admires me and my mighty manliness, but I might be making that part up. In any case, this is a batrep of the second meeting between our two forces. I hadn’t brought a camera to do a batrep the first time and Lorek had seemed sad, and that made me sad, so I made sure I was ready for this game. I feel honor bound to also note that Lorek soundly thrashed me the first time out, it was my goal to return the favor, and more importantly do it with photo evidence. I’ll apologize ahead of time for a bit of uncertainty on exact details as I wasn’t taking any notes during the battle.

This is Lorek. I'm going to use my Mod Powers for evil and insert my commentary directly into the post. I'm also going to make it sounds like Thor talks like a little girl sometimes (he, in fact, does not). All italicized comments are mine (except the comments on the photos themselves; those are Thor's).

One thing to clarify in our last game was that Thor was playing under the misconception that a Wrecked roll on a transport moving flat-out resulted in an automatically dead squad inside. We cleared that up after the game, so he felt safer moving his Raiders 24" a turn this game. Being able to keep him artificially penned in last game was really what won the game for me.

The Cerulean Storm
Archon on Reaver Jetbike w. Tormentor Helm, Punisher, Shadowfield, and Combat Drugs
3 man RJB Squad w. 2 Blasters

Wych Dracite w. Tormentor Helm, Punisher, and Combat Drugs
5 Wych Retinue w. Succubus w. Agoniser
Raider

2x 6 man Wych squad w. Succubus w. Agoniser
Raider

2x 5 man Raider squad w. Dark Lance

4x 6 man Raider squad w. Splinter Cannon and Blaster

2x Ravager w. 3 Dissies

Ravager w. 3 Lances


Thor’s thoughts on his list
This is actually the same list I took that Lorek beat the snot out of a week before. However, in the post game I noted a couple of things I’d done wrong (not being manful enough to just bum rush my RJB Archon straight at him being a major one) So I really wanted to reuse the same list to prove to myself it was capable of stomping this Tau list flat. My main tactic (shock) will be to lance down his transports and vehicles and then assault in with my Wyches. My other strategy is to understand that despite the points the RJB Lord is a *distraction* unit and I’ll remember to be more aggressive in order to draw more fire.

The I'orek First Expeditionary Force
HQ: Shas'el w/ Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Airbursting Fragmentation Projector, HW MultiTracker, HW Drone Controller, 2x Shield Drones

Elite: 3 Fireknife Crisis Suits w/ Team Leader (Bonding Knife, Flamer, HW MultiTracker)

3 Deathrain Crisis Suits w/ Team Leader (Bonding Knife, Flamer, HW Multitracker, HW Drone Controller), 2x Shield Drones

Troops: 6 Firewarriors in a Warfish w/ Flechette Dischargers

6 Firewarriors to jack the Pathfinder's ride

10 Firewarriors with Shas'ui (Bonding Knife)

15 Kroot w/ 4 Kroot Hounds

Fast Attack: 8 Pathfinders w/ Shas'ui (Bonding Knife), Warfish w/ Flechette Dischargers

Piranha w/ Fusion Blaster, Disruption Pod and Targeting Array

Piranha w/ Fusion Blaster, Disruption Pod and Targeting Array

Heavy: IonHead w/ Disruption Pod, Burst Cannons, MultiTracker, Target Lock and Flechette Dischargers

3x Broadside w/ Team Leader (Bonding Knife, Target Lock)


Lorek's Thoughts on his list
This is also the same list that Thor saw last week. I wanted to make sure that I was able to reduce his mobility again this week, and thought that this list had the tools to do it. I was operating with a false sense of security on this front, however. I have a problem quickly estimating distances in the diagonal nature of the Spearhead deployment, and he was offering me tickets to gladatorial matches in Commorragh before I knew it (I found out later that my dudes were to end up in the pits and not the stands).


Mission – Seize Ground (4 points)
Deployment – Spearhead


The Icy Battlefield

The DE win the roll and, oddly enough for an objective mission, I decide to go first. This is an awareness of my paper air force army and the type of damage I suffered from Lorek’s Tau last week when he dropped roughly 6 vehicles in round one – I wished no part of that mess.

My deployment is simple enough, I realize the usefulness of the wall/tower structure in splitting the map in two and thus muscle up all my Wych Raiders on one side. The Ravagers and RJBs keep hidden behind cover and the Raiders all align themselves along the edge of the deployment zone to ready themselves for the onslaught.

I was also trying to split his army around the fortification in the middle (the table was mostly set up like this when we showed up, so we used it). I figured with my units being slightly more resilient to shooting, I'd do better with the split. I'm also a bit of an agressive player, which doesn't always suit the Tau, so my 10 man Firewarrior squad was way forward. I should have flanked to the long left a bit more and kept my foot units further back.



Crouching Tiger, Hidden Ravager

Lorek’s Tau take to the field, with only a large unit of Kroot being held in reserve. The hammerhead is deployed in the middle of the line, two Crisis Suit squads basically flanking it along with the Devilfish. One side gets the two Piranha and the other gets the redoubtable Broadside team that had been so devastating last week – I promptly put a large mental target on them.

Should've started the Kroot on the table. Most of the interesting stuff in the game happened in the first two turns, and the Kroot missed it.





DE Turn 1
All three Wych Raiders move flat out straight along the wall, the RJB squad moves along with them as they engage turboboosters and edge up behind a nearby ridge. Lorek mumbles something darkly about too many high priority targets. My Dissie Ravagers drop their templates on the two Piranhas. One of them is wrecked in short order and the other remains untouched. Some other lance fire on that side of the wall accomplishes not much. On the other side I fire the lance Ravager and four other Raiders plus a mini-sniper into the Broadside team to reasonable results as I gun down all but two. They pass their leadership though and I realize two Raiders are probably toast in a moment.


End of DE Move Phase



Broadsides are tough



Tau Turn 1

The Tau return fire. The Pathfinders light up my RJBs with marker lights to deny them cover from the Hammerhead who promptly incinerates two of them. The remaining Pirahana sweeps up to finish the job but manages to whiff its attack, as do the deployed Drones. The Firewarriors retreat from the Wych Raiders as the Crisis Suits blast open one Wych Raider and drop the Wyches into the open. A Devilfish fires at them but only manages to kill one.

On the other side of the wall the Broadsides split fire, blowing up the tri-lance Ravager and blasting the lance off another Raider. The Commander and his Crisis Suits unleash a torrent of fire and blast that Raider from the sky.






DE Turn 2

My Ravagers are out of position, so they spend this turn moving in towards the center wall and unleashing low power Dissies into the Drones. Brizelya splits off from the RJB squad and heads over to support the Wyches. The other Biker fires his Blaster and assaults the Piranha to no effect. Shi’iira the Dracite and her Wych squad leap out of their Raider and sally forth into the cowering Crisis suits, meanwhile the Wych squad who was shot out of the air hoofs it through the trees to ready an assault on the Fire Warriors. Lance fire shakes and stuns the Hammerhead crew and also weapon destroys the ion cannon. More Firepower is tossed at the Broadsides, who remain calmly stoic as one dies and the other holds fast.

In the assault both squad of Wyches do their duty and wipe out the opposition with ease.




Shas'ui, we have a crisis here...



Tau Turn 2

“Is it still just turn 2?” Lorek’s Kroot decide they shall not be showing up just yet.

Both Wyche squads are promptly punished for being outside their Raiders as the Pathfinders blast apart one unit and a Devilfish kills everything in the Dracite’s unit save the Dracite herself. Probably some more damage was done to various Raiders as well but I forget the particulars of this turn. I do know via the pictures that the lone RJB is blown away and that it looks like the Piranha failed to injure either the Archon or maybe a Raider.




Didn't I have a retinue here a second ago?


DE Turn 3

The Dracite hotfoots it towards the Pathfinders. The Last Broadside is finally dropped via a dark lance to the face. Lots of firepower is unleashed on the Tau Commander and his Crisis Suits, but by dint of wound allocation and good cover save checks only a few wounds are received. The Pirahana is blasted apart by Lance Fire and a squad of Wyches stuns and shakes the Devilfish that fired on the Draacite.





In the Assault the RJB Lord assaults the Hammerhead and shreds it apart via a Punisher and a lot of drug use. The Dracite ODs slightly and takes a wound, but this doesn’t stop her from easily wiping out the Pathfinder squad and dragging some off as slave fodder.

Unfortunately the flachette launchers couldn't seem to effect the Archon

Really I was just trying to kill all of Lorek's stuff because his paintjobs are better then mine



You talkin' to me? I don't see anyone else around here...because i whipped the hell outta your wimpy Pathfinders already.

Tau Turn 3

The Kroot storm onto the board and promptly fire upon the Dracite, blasting her out of her boots. The Firewarrios disembark from the stunned Devilfish and rapid fire down the last loaded Wych Raider. The other Devilfish tries to pull itself back into position to help as it fires upon another Raider. The Crisis Suits and Commander blast apart another Raider. They’ve been doing this a lot, but it seems there’s always another Raider to take its place.


The Kroot are here!


DE Turn 4

The disembarked Gunboat squad advances on and fires at the nearby Devilfish to little effect. The Dracite’s Raider however sneaks up and punches a lance shot through the side armor to drop the Tau vehicle. More firepower is tossed at the Commander and Crisis suits and the DE manage to kill 1 shield drone (they Commander has now absorbed roughly 6 Plasma Cannoon shots, and 6-7 Lance rounds…I officially hate this guy now)


Firewarriors showcasing the bravery inherent in their race


In the assault the Wyches meet the Firewarriors in a wuss slap match, and only kill two. The Tau make leadership and hold fast (much to Lorek’s chagrin I imagine, as now my Wyches can’t be shot, huzzah!) The Archon continues her violence towards stunned vehicles and shreds the Devilfish, removing the last mech element the Tau had.



Tau Turn 4

The Tau commander splits from the Crisis Suits. He obliterates the disembarked Gunboat Raider unit and the Suits fire upon and stun and weapon destroy another Raider. The disembarked Firewarriors move up and fire upon the Gunboat Raider in front of them to no effect. The Kroot start trying to circle towards a nearby objective as they try to maneuver away from the locked up corner they are in.

In assault the Wyches finish off the one group of Firewarriors and consolidate towards the other one, with their 12” assault they are now in position to end them.






DE Turn 5

The Dracite’s Raider moves to cut off the Kroot as the Archon zooms her jetbike forward, looking forward to assaulting the bestial warriors. At about this point Lorek concedes the game as the DE currently hold 2 objectives to his 0 and he only has one troop option likely to survive this turn and no way to contest anything.


Thor’s Game Post Mortem

I’m actually not sure what Lorek was thinking with his Broadsides – as they ranked up there as the unit I really feared on the board, and he clearly was using it as a fire magnet unit (then again, it did absorb a lot of fire and still manage to split fire at my vehicles, so maybe he knew exactly what he was doing). The wall terrain was really a great advantage to me, as it shielded my advancing Wyches from half of his army so he had limited tools available to try and blast down the Raiders. I also lucked into (well, I’ll claim credit for this, but it really was probably just happy coincidence) an effective splitting of his forces. The Commander, Broadsides, and one Devilfish really ended up in a prolonged shooting war with about one third of my army on one side of the wall while my assault elements tore into the other half of his army along with ample fire support. This allowed my favorite situation, that of not fighting fair and ganging up on units, which enabled me to really roll up his line while suffering relatively minor casualties in return.

Lorek's Game Post Mortem

Heh, the Broadsides. I goofed a bit with them. I'm used to using them as a bait unit in games where I have lots of other tools to pop enemy light vehicles. I didn't take into account the fact that Thor has a dozen of them. The Broadsides did soak a fair amount of firepower that wasn't focused on my transports though. And the Kroot should have started on the table and soaked a charge or two. I still don't have a good handle on when to Outflank, when to infiltrate and when to just deploy with them.

My biggest problem is that I started out clumped up in the corner and Thor was fast enough to really corral me on the right side of my deployment zone. Then he just started munching on things. I knew the Archon on the Reaver for what it was: a distraction. With her 2+ Invulnerable save, shooting her would be a waste. I was a bit more worried about the Reaver squad (multicharge), but when the Wyches moved 24" the first turn I knew I was going to have serious problems. I really hope that this ends up as a cautionary tale as to why Tau should not castle up.

Nice report. Thank you very much.

Thank you, vagorin.

Also, we now have Lorek's thoughts edited into the post. He was probably correct in just leaving the RJB Archon alone, as she is an optimal fire soaking unit and it's not like she was all that devastating despite crunching two vehicles.

I've also been told he's now shifting up his list some with Target Locks on his Commander. Egads, I do not like the sound of that.

No doubt the tau player was a little bitter that he could only field one skimmer for every two or three of yours. Poor tau and their over costed dex.
DE seems like Tau's worst enemy; lightning fast assault elements, immense target saturation, and blistering AT firepower.
Still, excellent report and good game to both of you.

Nice report. How do you like your Ion cannon Hammerhead? It always looks good on paper to me, but I've never had it out perform the railgun option.

Tortoiseer wrote:No doubt the tau player was a little bitter that he could only field one skimmer for every two or three of yours.

Ha! Not really. I could field a few more (at the cost of Battlesuits), but I have other stuff. Ask Thor what my Disruption Pods did for me in our last game; I've got nothing to whine about (aside from how I played this game).

Kroot Loops wrote:Nice report. How do you like your Ion cannon Hammerhead? It always looks good on paper to me, but I've never had it out perform the railgun option.

I love the Ionhead (and run a second one at 2000 points). I've found that three Broadsides and two Fusion Blaster Piranha can handle heavy armor pretty well (with the exception of three Land Raider lists), and having more S7 shots fits my playstyle. The points savings over the Railhead is nice too. Of course, I'm also running only two Heavy Support slots in 1850 points; I felt that I needed more Troops for holding objectives.

Lorek wrote:Ha! Not really. I could field a few more (at the cost of Battlesuits), but I have other stuff. Ask Thor what my Disruption Pods did for me in our last game

I'm pretty sure my Dark Lances killed something in that game...nothing immediately springs to mind, but I feel I probably killed something.

They did, but I also made a boatload of cover saves versus them as well.

woot to the dark eldar
badtimes for the tau
this report makes me want to do both!!!!!

Excellent report, although I wonder, Lorek, if holding your whole army in reserve at the beginning would have been a decent choice. Reece did that many times to great effect at Adepticon.

Also, Thor, you could have given Lorek the first turn and held your stuff in reserve as well. Those fast raiders would still be all over him when they showed up.

whitedragon wrote:Also, Thor, you could have given Lorek the first turn and held your stuff in reserve as well. Those fast raiders would still be all over him when they showed up.

I don't like to use reserves much because I feel that Lances need weight of fire to be effective and Raiders need target over saturation in order to have defense. I know lots of DE players who really love reserves, but I'm not one of them.

If he had held everything in reserve I would have hid parts of my army behind that wonderful wall and turboboosted the rest my army forward at the top of turn 2 so he would be coming in versus a swarm of Raiders to which he would have no LoS or with them having cover saves. With only half of his army showing up I would have felt comfortable surviving his opening salvo and punishing him in kind on my next turn. I will agree that at least it would have helped him escape the single corner he was wedged in and allow him to spread out his line into two firebases to obligate me to split my assault units, which could have been beneficial.

Yeah, what Thor said.

Also, putting the entire army in reserve only really works against lumbering armies; Dark Eldar can redeploy quickly enough to mock my efforts of maneuvering.

Thor665 wrote:
[i]The I'orek First Expeditionary Force
HQ: Shas'el w/ Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Airbursting Fragmentation Projector, HW MultiTracker, HW Drone Controller, 2x Shield Drones

I've been thinking about 3-weapon commander. How's that working out?

Tremendous batrep - great narrative, good photos and well painted armies + terrain.

I especially liked having both commanders posting their thoughts and answering questions.

I look forward to the next one!

Nice Batrep. I would like to second the post that having both players comment was great.

DE is the only army I have yet to face with my Tau. If only I could find someone who plays them.

Backfire wrote:I've been thinking about 3-weapon commander. How's that working out?

Well, for the most part. The Airbursting Fragmentation Projector is a nice addition to my particular layout, if a bit pricey (it adds some anti-horde to a unit that otherwise has little in that respect). I also run Flamers on all my Team Leaders, just in case (came up once, but was worth it).

I don't think I've ever seen a Tau vs DE game before. Great report. I'm a big fan of the clear pics with great looking models and terrain. Thanks for posting.

Tau vs. DE is always an interesting matchup in my mind because each army can use so many similar aspects of the other army's strategy. Lorek actually puts an odd twist on this because he intentionally plays his Tau fairly shortboard aggressive (though it's not really apparent in this Batrep due to how quickly I bum rushed him).

Thanks for the kind words.

Inspirational slaughter there!

This was an exiting match! I'll stick this up in my "examples to follow" folder

Sarigar wrote:I don't think I've ever seen a Tau vs DE game before. Great report. I'm a big fan of the clear pics with great looking models and terrain. Thanks for posting.

<<This+>

I just started DE and my regular playing partner plays Tau. Not had a game yet but really looking forward to it now!

Thanks for the cool Batrep guys!

This was a good batrep but I always have a hard time concentrating whenever I am in the presence of Minis painted by Iorek.

..Iorek is an amazing painter.

Mr-_-Flidd wrote:I just started DE and my regular playing partner plays Tau. Not had a game yet but really looking forward to it now!

Thanks for the cool Batrep guys!

Now you'll have to do a batrep too. I nominate Crisis Suits and Broadsides as high priority targets. Hammerheads are scary looking (and should be targeted, make no mistake) but recognize that one big shot is far less deadly to DE then a unit that can generate 5-6 mid strength shots.

Glaive Company CO wrote:This was a good batrep but I always have a hard time concentrating whenever I am in the presence of Minis painted by Iorek.

..Iorek is an amazing painter.

Ugh, yes. How do you think I feel actually sitting on the table with him. It's just rows and rows of beautiful, rich, smooth, neat color on his minis while my blue blob slithers about the field. Plus his magnets are awesome too.

Great batrep!

So how effective would you say the splinter cannon / blaster warriors were?

Are you ready to switch over to Dl / Blaster boats?

The S.Cannons and Blasters work out fine in bringing some pain to Tau. Where they really shine is bringing pain to horde armies where they can saw up Ork mobs or Nid swarms so that my Wyches or Lord can safely eat the rest.

I do use two Lance Boats now, which is different from what I used to do, and that is mostly traced back to conversations with you.

Fab report! Why don't you give the hammerhead a railgun though Lorek and replace your Shas' el's Plasma Rifle with a shield generator.

Cool REP! BTW I LOVE your colour sceme especially on the battle suits and hammerhead.

TRISKELION7 wrote:Fab report! Why don't you give the hammerhead a railgun though Lorek and replace your Shas' el's Plasma Rifle with a shield generator.

The answer to your first question can be found here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/289921.page

As for the Shield Generator, I'd rather have another Plasma Rifle. The Shield Drones keep my Shas'els plenty safe.

gurgle wrote:Cool REP! BTW I LOVE your colour sceme especially on the battle suits and hammerhead.

Thank you! I picked it because for some reason, blue is easy for me to paint.

Very nice BR and pictures

Sweet report guys! I agree with GCO, Lorek is an amazing painter.