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This was also my first game against Tau, incidentally. A long string of coincidences is my only excuse for having never played against them, and not having read Tau Empires didn't help.

1750 PTS:

I was fielding a jump Chapper with an extra weapon, in a five man assault squad w/vet w/pwr fist. - furious assault
10 man tac squad armed with assault weapons (divergence) - furious assault too
another 10 man tac squad armed with assault weapons (divergence) - furious assault
10 Man tac squad with bolters, a missile launcher and plasmagun. Led by captain with combi-plasma and vet with storm bolter.
10 man scout squad with 4 rifles, missile launcher, bolter
6 man vet squad with 2 power weapons - furious assault
Predator Annihilator
Rhino for one of the foot assault squads,
Razorback for vets,
Dreddie with multi-melta.

Tau had three big fire warrior squads with commander farsight on one,
two 3 crisis suit teams, one full of missile pods and one full of plasma
2 broadsides with you know what
5 stealth suits
hammerhead...
and too many bloody markerlights. Shield drones on the broadsides too.

I survived the first two turns of shooting fairly well, only getting a shaken rhino and having my infiltrated scouts flee off the table. My tanks did a lot of damage, but my assault-oriented army temporarily forgot about the possibility of S5 rapid-fire... The assault marines didn't make it. I've added five more. One squad of marines made it into combat with five models left, but farsight and his power weapon made sure they didn't get far. The rhino squad took nine casualties in one turn, but the last marine survived until the last turn, dodging two turns of shooting and lasting two assault phases with the broadsides. I let my ranged marine squad drag up the rear, and they didn't get in any good shooting phases..

Tau, of course, sat in the corner in cover and rolled shooting dice, made lots of cover saves. My razorback, despite doing a bit of damage and sitting in front of their firing line for the last two turns, survived intact. I took smoke on everything except the dread, and it always pays off. You don't smoke? You should.

Can't waste wounds in 5th... templates are nice though. Taking the 60 pts. of furious assault off my foot marines (it was for countering plaguemarines anyway), filling up my jumppack squad. Might take the dread out of this list too. I hear rumours that Rites of Battle won't be in the new Marines codex, so my commander in the rear might learn to read and become a librarian...

Umm... So who won?

Farsight made it over to my captain and just managed to best him. At the end of 5th I had a rzorback, an immoblised dreadnought with 1 arm, half a dozen marines. Still twenty or so fire warriors crowded around objective.

I lost.

Solid tau list vs. choppy marines on foot = Tau win

I'm going to have another crack at it; he was a bit worried after his second turn's shooting. I'm going to add another rhino and I've filled up the assault squad for wounds. Took the dread out of the list.

I've always used my transports for cover, and it's absolutely necessary for me to survive into my assault. The extra rhino will make a world of difference. It is technically easier to get a vehicle explodes result in 5th, and it's kill points against me... But this tau army doesn't have any mobility, and I just have to learn how to pin it down. My scouts would have made a lot of difference if they hadn't run off first turn. As long as my assault squad gets in, they're going to be in trouble. With the chaplain, furious assault, power fist and frags there's not many ways around it.

how did your scouts run off first turn? dont you bring them in as reserves on turn 2+, that would of been better.

I elected to infiltrate because there was a good position. Unfortunately, my opponent infiltrated his stealth suits pretty much right in that spot, so my scouts ended up a little close to my edge than I wanted. Crisis w/pods tooks out three, and they ran like girls, only just making it off table.

Used to be a Space Wolves player, so I know all to well about reserving in behind the enemy.

My Tau army got pwned by vanilla marines :( :(