Dominar
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2,000 points to a side, my heavily mechanized Guard with gunline support versus Rob’s anti-MEQ shooty Tau.
IG:
Drop Troops, Close Order Drill, Iron Discipline, Vets
JSO w/honorifica and ID, company flag
JSO w/plasma pistol and ID, 4 flamers in chimera (multi & HB)
JSO w/plasma pistol and ID, 4 flamers in chimera (multi & HB)
5x10 guardsmen with lascannon
2x LRBT w/ las & bolters
LR Demolisher w/ las & plasma
3x HellHounds
2x min. Hardened Vets, 3 plasma guns
min. Hardened Vets, 3 meltaguns
2 Mars-pattern sentinels in HQ support squad
7 vehicles, 50 line troops, 5 suicide units
Tau (I’m a little hazy on the specifics of his list):
Battle Suit HQ w/2 shield drones
4x10 Fire Warriors
3x10 Vespid
1 Hammerhead, Rail gun & missiles, disruption pods
1 Skyray, missiles & disruption pods
1 Broadside squad w/3 suits, 2 marker drones
2x 4 Stealth Suits, meltagun
The Mission: This was the first 5th ed game Rob had played, although he’s long been a 4th ed Tau vet. Our mission was objective grab with Dawn of War deployment. The table was decently set up with a good mix of terrain; Rob had a hill with trees in the left corner, a building surrounded by forest in the middle on his side, a hill on his rear edge and a bunker toward the right. I had a large high-walled structure across from his bunker, a large hill just off of my rear edge, and some forest in the middle left. With four markers, I placed one in my section of forest and the high walled structure, Rob placed one in his section of forest and in the bunker. This gave us each one very near our deployment and one that we’d have to walk to.
Deployment: I won the rolloff and decided to go second so that I’d have something to shoot at. Rob placed his crisis suit HQ in the corner behind his hilly woods with a fire warrior team and another fire warrior team just behind the bunker with the objective.
I put my Honorifica JSO behind the hills with a lascannon team nosing around the corner (since his vehicles had disruption pods I was more concerned with getting cover saves than providing them) and my second squad just behind the high walled ruin with the objective.
His first turn: he leaves his stealth suits in reserve to Outflank and moves onto the board. His Vespid teams all take the right corner. I think he’s setting up for a fast assault into the ruins to grab the objective. A third fire warrior team, Broadsides, and Hammerhead move into the middle. A fourth fire warrior team walks onto the right side corner with the Vespid. His original fire warrior team moves into the bunker and claims the objective. The railhead fires a submunition at my squad nosing around the hills, hitting 5 models. I save 3 of the wounds.
My first turn: I run my second squad into the high walled ruins and claim the objective there. I let a lascannon nose around the corner with a line of sight on the objective bunker. The walls are so high that my entire squad is out of line of sight from over 90% of the board. Anticipating the Vespid rush, I move 3 hellhounds and a LRBT onto my far corner and 12” them forward into range of the bunker. I park a LRBT next to what I’ve dubbed my Command Hill. My foot squads I move evenly up the board so that I cover all fire lanes while still being out of range from everything but the rail guns. The chimeras with flamer squads and Demolisher I advance up the left side towards the woods hiding his delicious HQ and fire warrior team. He’s got very few troops so I’m hoping to wipe out his scoring units and win with 1+ objectives. I leave the sentinels and plasma vets in reserves for outflank, and the meltagunners are going to deepstrike in. My shooting is inconsequential, missing with the only lascannon and scattering off target with the only LRBT that can fire.
His second: He gets in one stealth squad from the left edge with my Demolisher and 2 chimeras. His meltagun pops one of the chimeras and my squad disembarks. Seeing the promethium-laden death cavalry bearing down on his Vespid, he panics and packs them all in behind his bunker to get them out of LOS (or at least that’s how I interpret it). I begin drooling at the prospect of burnt grasshoppers. He runs a fire warrior team towards the middle woods with his second objective. Some stuff happens with marker lights and two Broadsides blow the LRBT parked next to the command hill. The subsequent explosion kills 2 more guardsmen from my lascannon squad. The Railhead blows my leading Hellhound (damn) and the Broadside sergeant independently potshots at my second LRBT but fails to penetrate.
My second: The melta squad drops in next to the railhead and scatters “badly” so that instead of being 3” from rear armor, I’m 2” from front armor. One squad of plasma vets walks onto the wrong table edge, and 5 guys are staring at 30 Vespid and 20 fire warriors. I move up the Demolisher and surviving Chimera towards the forested hill hiding fire warriors and HQ suit, and the disembarked flamers trot towards the stealth suits. My second Hellhound crushes the ruins of its squad mate under iron treads, then promptly becomes immobilized on a 1. Gah. The third hellhound moves up and my LRBT chugs forward. Shooting phase. Anticipating a corpsified railhead, my meltagunners roll 1, 2, 1 to hit and I pitch my dice off the table. It’s like I took candy out of my mouth, rubbed it in sand, and then stabbed myself in both eyes with ice picks. The Hellhounds have more success. The immobilized one is within range of the bunker and toasts 7/10 fire warriors. Love the inferno cannon. The second lobs a shot that roasts 6 Vespid. Burn, baby, burn. I don’t fire my plasma gunners, reserving them for the assault phase. My chimera and flamer JSO squad toasts three of the suits and my JSO pops the last one with his plas pistol. The Demolisher cannon chucks a shell at the wooded fire warriors and gets 2. My remaining LRBT gets the marker drones on the Broadsides and lascannons glance the Hammerhead. My unfired plasma gunners wade into the assault with 10 fire warriors and win the combat but they make their leadership test.
His third: He rolls for his final stealth suits and gets them in. They come in off the edge and go after rear armor on the demolisher with the melta gun. The shaken hammerhead sidles out of lascannon sight and stares at the Hellhounds from the right corner. The Vespid rush is effectively cut off as long as I’ve got Hellhounds alive, they cower behind the bunker out of LoS as well. The Skyray comes up over the ruins and lands in terrain. It’s wasted its seeker missiles on ineffective shots thus far. The 3 fire warriors in the bunker hang tight, I think the sergeant tries to do something with a marker light but fails. The broadsides plod forward a bit. That’s it for his moving. The fire warriors headed toward the middle forest objective kill my melta vets. Wooded hill fire warriors burn down the JSO squad that bailed out of the wrecked chimera. The Hammerhead can’t fire but not much threatens it this turn. Broadsides blast the remaining LRBT. The stealthsuit with a meltagun rolls snake eyes for the penetration and he’s about to roll glancing on rear armor when I tell him that Demolishers have 11 back. Heh, saved by rear armor. He fires his small guns and manages to glance it with one ‘6’ and shakes my tank. In the assault phase his suits jump into the wrecked chimera and the fire warriors being assaulted by vets draw the combat out another turn.
My third: Sentinels come in off the edge and I place them behind the Hammerhead facing rear armor with their multis. My other hardened vets walk off the edge into the midst of his forested fire warriors and HQ suit on the left side. I tank shock the stealth suits out of the wrecked chimera with the Demolisher, and drop off my flamer squad, moving them within flame range of the suits. I run one of my hilltop lascannon squads towards the forest as well, bringing my lasguns within 24”. The Hellhound scoots up a bit, giving me more LoS on the Vespid swarm. Multilasers fire into the Hellhound, hitting 3 times and glancing once. Worthless dice. Shaken again. Likewise my rapid firing plasma gunners overheat three times and only one survives, the entire squad having dealt enough wounds to take down shield drones but leave the HQ himself untouched. My Hellhound torches another half dozen Vespid, and the immobilized one fries the last of the warriors. I now have one objective, and he has none but is close to claiming the midfield forest. His stealth suits now no longer in cover, my flamers torch 3 and the JSO pops the last one with plasma. I assault rear armor on the Hammerhead with sentinels and glance it again, shaking it again….and my hardened vets run off the fire warriors, the sergeant and 1 plasma gunner surviving. I figure they’ll die next turn.
His fourth: He moves the fire warriors onto the objective in middle forest. He now has one, I have one, he’s contesting one and can’t score, and I’ve pretty much forgotten about the one I placed in the left forest. I can contest, but my squads are too far away to score, poor planning on my part but running without actual cover within range of the wooded fire warrior team would have wasted my units anyways. His Shakenhead cruises flat out back towards the hills in his backfield, away from my sentinels. The Vespid line up for pot shots on my sentinels, and I’ve pretty much written that unit off as “largely ineffective”. That’s about all the moving he’s capable of. His HQ kills my plasma vets and Vespid shooting blasts away my Sentinels. Almost. There’s one left standing immobilized and stunned when the smoke clears. The remnants of one of his burnt Vespid kill the hardened vets. Tank shocking the stealth suits has exposed rear armor to the wooded hills fire warrior team and they shake the Demolisher again. Broadsides, twin-linked railguns at BS4, miss the mobile Hellhound completely. I think the middle hills are an ancient Indian burial ground and its restless inhabitants curse the guns of anyone who stands on them. My meltagunners agree. I completely forget what his Skyray did this turn, but it wasn’t effective. In the assault phase his Vespid rush forward and beat the sentinel into destruction.
My fourth: My Hellhound trundles forward and gets line of sight on lots and lots of Vespid. My flamer squad with the JSO load into the last chimera and move 12” toward the middle woods objective. My Demolisher chugs towards the woods. Everything else sits tight. A lascannon blows the railgun off of his hammerhead, finally neutralizing a threat that should have been destroyed on turn 2. Hellhounds torch the remaining Vespid, there’s only 1 left on the board. My lascannon squad in the open shoots into his scoring fire warrior squad and reduces them by 4.
His fifth: Vespid moves around to get side armor on mobile Hellhound. It’s irrelevant, because his Broadsides vaporize it. Skyray shoots at Demolisher, does nothing. His fire warriors shoot at my line squad in the open but they’re more than 2” into cover and I save all the wounds.
My fifth: Chimera trucks forward further, Demolisher trundles forward. I’m sweating a bit because if the game ends here, he has an objective and we’ll tie. My Demolisher glances the Skyray, shaking it. My remaining lascannons open up on the broadsides, but horrible rolling doesn’t accomplish anything. I fire lasguns at his scoring squad, and reduce them further. My immobilized Hellhound fries the last Vespid. We roll for next turn and end up playing a 6th.
His sixth: his railguns destroy my chimera. My occupants pile out to the side, and are safely out of LoS of any of his other guns. He knows he’s lost.
My sixth: My JSO flamers walk around the corner of the chimera and torch the squad on the objective. The game ends here.
I have: 1 objective held, 1 objective contested.
He has: Burnt vespid wings.
All in all it was an entertaining game and poor dice rolling hurt us both pretty badly. He wasn’t able to knock down my Hellhounds quickly enough and opting to go second let me take a terrible toll on his Vespid. Rear armor 11 does pay off.
Thanks for reading this far.
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