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My last report for the day finds my Blood Angels facing off against Tau again; this time a player with a lot of tau and a lot of experience, but hasn't played in a few months. Hopefully I can stand up to the deadly barrages!

Blood Angels 2000
HQ
-----
Mephiston
Librarian - sword, rage

Elites
-------
5x Assault Terms - 4x TH/SS
1x Priest - PW
Furioso - Talons, SB, melta

Troops
----------
10x Assault Marines - 2x melta, pf
10x Assault Marines - 2x melta, pf

Fast Attack
-----------------
Baal Pred - TLAC
Baal Pred - TLAC

Heavy
---------
Stormraven - TLAC/TLMM, EA
Stormraven - TLAC/TLMM, EA

vs

Tau 2000
HQ
------
Shas'o - fusion blaster, 2+ save, invun, bunch of other bells and whistles

Elites
-------
3x Crisis suits - plasma guns, missile pods, 2x gun drones, bunch of other stuffs

Troops
----------
12x Firewarriors - Devilfish
12x Firewarriors - Devilfish
12x Firewarriors - Devilfish
20x Kroot w/ shaper

Fast Attack
-----------------
Pirahna - fusion blaster
Pirahna - fusion blaster
Pirahna - fusion blaster

Heavy
---------
3x Broadsides - missiles, he didn't take whatever makes them relentless tho (big mistake!)
Hammerhead - some upgrades
Hammerhead - some upgrades

Mission: Capture and Control (5 objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War

So, a pretty typical mech-tau list, minus all the crisis suits I typically face and min-firewarrior squads... will I be able to tackle his 8 vehicles and bring him down or will my lowly angels get mowed down?

Edit: I did have 1 more game today I was going to write on, it was Orks/Tau vs Blood Angels/Space Wolves (4k vs 4k). Well... the game took forever because we had 2 new players, but, in the end it ended with me and the wolves holding 3 to 0 for our opponents. Highlights: Meph sweeping advancing ghaz and his nobz, my partners 10 TH/SS termi deathstar with ragnar and njal killing: 20 kroot, warbikers, some koptas, stealth suits, and pathfinders over 5 turns and STILL having Arjac, Njal, Ragnar, both ragnars wolves, and 4 termis left (he took 5 turns of shooting from pretty much the whole tau army too!), the tau guy charging my partners retreating fenrisian wolves with his kroot, losing, and the wolves sweeped the kroot >.> Was a very amusing game lol.

We roll off and I win the roll to go first!

Deployment
Well due to dawn of war I deploy... 1 10 man squad combat squadded, half on my right, half on my left in a ruin.

He deploys his crisis command team behind a forest on my right and his kroot hunkered down in the forest there. He also deploys his devilfish (I allowed it, but told him in a normal game the transport/unit count as 2 for deploying DOW)

He tries to steal and fails :(

Blood Angels Turn 1
Both baals come in on my left. My 5 man unit moves up. Both ravens boost in, one on the right toward his suits, and one on my left. My 5 man unit on my right runs away 12" to get away from his large kroot unit for now. My other 10 man squad comes in right down the middle.

I run my marines and wreck his devilfish; firewarriors get pinned!





Blood Angels 1 - Tau 0

Tau Turn 1
His entire army pretty much comes in off his left corner. The broadsides don't have stabilizers so won't be able to shoot! His kroot in the trees shuffle, nothing to attack yet. His suit team hops up ready to blast my raven! Both his other pirahanas come in off the right and hide behind a building there.

In shooting heres how it goes down:
- Hammerhead 1 rolls a 3 for nightfighting... can't see
- His other hammerhead... 3 for nightfighting
- His pirahna... 3 for nightfighting, but hes up in my face and barely within range. He hits with his blaster, pens, I fail cover, and he blows it up! Mephy and the dread get out fine.
- His suits open up on mephiston throwing down 5 AP 2 wounds! I pick up the dice and throw em down (raven crater = cover) and pass 4! Mephy is now even more angry GRRFACE!

His suits jump back and he ends his turn.

Blood Angels 1 - Tau 1

End of turn thoughts
Pretty good! I think if I just keep the pressure up this game will be over shortly

Blood Angels Turn 2
My remaining raven boosts 24" toward his lines. Both baals shuffle for position to shoot his pirahnas. My 10 man squad keeps it coming. My comb at squads stay where they're at. Meph jumps outta his crater hell bent on revennnngeee! My furioso moves over 6" toward his kroot. NOMNOMNOM!

In shooting I wreck one pirahna... and run some dudes. Oh and my raven takes out another devilfish!

In assault meph touches his suits in their no-no places and they go down. My furioso makes a blood shake with his blender arms, taking all the kroot with em. Meph consolidates behind the hills for cover and thje furioso strikes a pose in the forest (I rolled a 1 for his consolidation lol)




Blood Angels 6 - Tau 1

Tau turn 2
His pirahna that wrecked my raven jumps over behind my dread. His other pirahna hops over to shoot my assault marines (dunno why). I don't think he moves too much more.

Shooting he fails to kill my furioso, actually I think he mighta killed 1 marine >.> He puts 2 more wounds on mephy. His firewarriors cower in cover!

No assaults.



Blood Angels 5 - Tau 1

Blood Angels turn 3
Mephy jumps over to charge his warriors who were pinned. My baals can't do much so move quick. My 10 man unit (now 9 men) move to blast his pirahna there. My raven shuffles up a little and my terms get out. My 5 man assault squad moves up to assist my furioso in pummeling the pirahna there.

In shooting I do a lot of damage! Not... I think I wrecked his left pirahna here.

In assault meph kills his firewarriors, termis wreck his hammerhead (ones behind the raven still), I kill a broadside with my MM. My Furioso and 5 assault marines manage to wreck his pirahna.




At this point its all but over; I have 9 KP's to his 1. But we played it out til the end and heres what happened:
- His firewarriors manage to wound meph 5 times and I fail 2 saves, there goes beastman :(
- He explodes my last raven
- I then go on a killing spree; I wipe out both firewarrior squads, his remaining hammerhead, and his broadsides. I also kill off all his drones that popped off leaving him with 1 devilfish against almost my entire army.


This is the face of Tau players everywhere; have a heart GW!

End of game thoughts
Sadly without Pathfinders on the field and with angels getting the first turn this is how most games with ravens against tau go; go quick, tau shoot, and then things die. Pathfinders would be awesome and I always recommend them... stupid compulsory devilfish though.

Hope ya'll enjoyed the game! Feel free to comment

Completed!

"This is the face of Tau players everywhere; have a heart GW!"

hardly, Tau can usually have a great game against Mech, I just see them as expensive shiny targets. This guy hardly gave a good representation of Tau military might, or strategy. That was clear just looking at the list. You said he was new though right? He seemed to have learned at least a little from the last game, he list was legal this time

My god that was ugly! I didn't expect the Tau to go down quite so easily, even though they're, well, Tau. Nice pictures by the way.

I believe he could have done a little more with a few more broadsides...Thrown some more Rail Guns and lasted a little longer...But they are Tau afterall

Your opponent could use some help with Tau tactics and list building. Just by looking at his list, I can tell he has a lot to learn. You should direct him online onto these sites.

Honestly, a well-crafted Tau army run by a savvy Tau general could be a really a difficult challenge for many marine players. While BA does have an advantage due to their speed, many other armies are not as lucky.

Tau players' worst nightmares is 10 Assault Marines w/ Power Fist, 2 meltaguns and a Sanguinary Priest.

Congratulations on your victory.

jy2 wrote:Your opponent could use some help with Tau tactics and list building. Just by looking at his list, I can tell he has a lot to learn. You should direct him online onto these sites.

Honestly, a well-crafted Tau army run by a savvy Tau general could be a really a difficult challenge for many marine players. While BA does have an advantage due to their speed, many other armies are not as lucky.

Issue is; even if he'd played well, bad rolls aside (he rolled horribly for nightfighting) EVERY match against Tau using this list normally goes the same. If I get first turn, I get up on them. They drop 1 or both ravens, normally expending most if not all their broadsides/hammerheads in the process. Next turn, Mephiston starts a rampage, normally going for broadsides or suits first. My termis normally go for the softer targets because they're slow and easy to take out, and the furioso provides a distraction.

Yeah, I agree, this opponent needs help with his tactics/lists (he frequents here now), however, even against the best Tau players I know they have issues with Raven lists. The problem is if the railguns don't get the job done, their f***ed for the most part. They just can't outrun the angels!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/346986.page last game of a tourney Savvy Tau guy; game ended basically the same as this (but he conceded by T4)