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Me and my friend Stuart got most of a 2000pt game in today. We were playing on a board at least 1/3 covered by imperial ruins which made it rather interesting. The board was the left quarter (my view) clear with a hill at each table corner, next quarter wath rather imposing 2 storey walls followed by ruins, centre my side was a landing pad and midboard on my right was a ruined defense formation (bunkers and the like). Lists are done from memory so may not be accurate.

My list

Farsight
2 MP, FB, PR, MT, TL Bodyguards (1 with failsafe) with 2 Gun and 2 Shield Drones

Shasel with CIB, BC, PR, MT, TL 2 Shield Drones
2 PR, BC, TA, MT Bodygauds with 2 Gun Drones

Shas'vre with TL MP, AFP, MT, TL and 2 Gun Drones
Deathrain 4 and Heatwave 7 Shas'Ui

6 man rifle squad
Warfish with flechettes

6 man rifle squad
Warfish with flechettes

6 man carbine squad
Warfish with flechettes

2 Fusion Piranhas with TA's, DP's, TL's and Flechettes

Vre with ASS, TL PR, MT, TL and 2 Shield Drones
2 Ui with ASS and TL PR

His List

Dual Bonesword Prime with regen

Deathleaper

2 Zoanthropes in a Spore

17 termagants

12 termagants

Around 20 poisoned hormagaunts

13 Genestealers and a Broodlord

5 warriors with 1 having a venom cannon

3 Shrikes

10 gargoyles

Carnifex with regen, heavy venom cannon, bio plama and devourer with brainleech worms

Carnifex with regen, heavy venom cannon and bio plama

Trygon Prime with regen

The Game

The game ended up being annihalation with dawn of war deployment and me going first. I deployed farsight centre and devilfish with rifle squads at around 18" to either side of him reducing their deployment considerably. Everything but the second HQ squad was coming on turn one with the HQ squad deepstriking.
His deployment was the 17 gaunt unit to the side along an alleyway beside farsight near the wall. The warriors and prime were on the wall itself. He failed to sieze the initiative (shame) and the game started.

Turn 1 Tau
My reserves came on with the broadsides on my corner hill, the elite squad in front of them the phiranhas hugging the wall after a turbo boost and the carbine devilfish moving up 12". Movement consisted of the right devilfish shuffling a bit, farsight and co shuffling forwards a bit and to the side opening LOS to the gaunts. In shooting SMS wounded a normal warrior amd the gaunts took 4 or 5 casualty's resulting in them fleeing off the board due to being out of synapse . Broadsides and deathrain/flaming squad ran and the the elites jumped resulting in a cordon of suits around the broadsides. Farsight jumped back out of his deployment zone.

Turn 1 Nids
More termagants AND hormagaunts replace the old ones to the left both carnifexes hide behind a building from farsight (why I don't know), further left the shrikes and gargoyles move up and then further along we have the stealers. He starts shooting by declaring the VC against my suits but is rather annoyed when he realises that night fight stopped him. He forgot all run/fleet rolls.

Turn 2 Tau
The HQ squad arrives and deepstrikes exactly where farsight started (actually they were slightly further fowards which came back to bite me in the ass later). Right side warfish moved onto the landing pad for no particullar reason (waiting for some enemies). Left rifle DF moves up a bit and the carbine one moves up next to it. Piranhas move up to fusion the warriors (they failed).
In shooting it wasn't very spectacullar but was still effective. SMS and burst cannon fire killed the wounded warrior followed up by another eating a railgun to the face. Farsight wied 6 or 7 hormagaunts out and the other HQ squad managed to spot a carnifex through a window but both wounds were saved by cover.
In the assault phase I realized a slight problem in the fact that my HQ squad had a 50/50 chance of being charged or not by the hormagaunts. Because of this Farsights squad had to jump in front to stop that from happening.

Turn 2 Nids
No reserves turn up.
Everything but the fexs move up. The fexs shuffle a bit so both can see through the previously mentioned window.
Hormagaunts get a 5 on fleet, genestealers a 6 and termagants a 4. Shrikes jump down after realising they had LOS from railguns. Venom Cannon shoots at the piranhas but fails, the prime then gets 2 glances for a destroyed fusion blaster and the operational one being stopped from shooting. 2 carnifex heavy venom cannon shots result in farsight losing his gun drones.
Assault sees the gaunts charging Farsight. at the end I'd won killing 4 after fearless saves (bad rolling/good saves) for the cost of a drone and one of farsights wounds.

Turn 3 Tau
All DF move at most 6" and bring all weaponry to bear. HQ squad moves join the assault.
Shooting is quite effective resulting in SMS and pulse fire killing a 3rd warrior. SMS and pulse fire killing 3 genestealers. Railgun fire killing the remaining warriors (including the VC). Missile Pod and piranha drone fire fails to deal any failed saves to the Prime.
HQ squad joins in the fight and after the dust settles its down to 1 gaunt.

Turn 3 Nids
Thropes and Deathleaper turn up. Thropes scatter so they get side arc rather than rear arc. Deathleaper apears behind the right Warfish. Shrikes move to beside the combat with the gargoyles behind them. Termagants move up to wait till the combat finishes. Carnies shuffle behind the gaunts. Prime moves off the wall. Genestealers move towards the right Warfish.
Shooting consists of Deathleaper shaking the Warfish and the Thropes wrecking theirs (on a glance) spilling out the carbiners. Prime ran down to ground level and the Stealers fleeted into assault range of the fish.
The Shrikes charged into the HQ squad and the stealers into the fish. The stealers blow up the fish and kill two FW's but after flechettes and the explosion they've lost 6 and a wound on the broodlord (5 left including the broodlord). Over in the other combat Farsight (not in B2B with anything) dedicates his attacks into the Shrikes killing one. Hormie kills nothing and is killed by drones and theres another wound dealt to the shrikes by suits. The Shrikes kill a Drone and wound the Shas'el and lose another wound to fearless. Farsight splits out of the combat (not involved in b2b vs the Shrikes)

Turn 4 Tau
Farsight and Co move up to just in front of the Termagants, the FW's on the right move onto the landing pad, the carbine FW's move towards the thropes, the elite team got out of the way of the XV-88's and the piranhas jetted to the top of the wall.
In shooting the broadsides fail to do anything and the suits and FW's deal 1 wound to a thrope. The remaining warfish deals a wound to the spore. Farsights team splits fire dealing 3 wounds to a fex and claiming two gaunts. I forget to fire the phiranhas at the fex. Over on the right the FW's deal 2wounds to Deathleaper (made me regret sugesting he went to ground). The remaining Warfish claims a wound off the mycetic spore.
Farsight assaults the gaunts and they only kill 2 or 3 after fearless for a wound on farsight. Oh well, the gaunts block charges from the prime and fex's aswell as stopping shooting :crafty: . In the other assault the command team kicks in the heads of the remaining Shrikes.

Turn 4 Nids
Trygon Prime comes in next to deathleaper. Fex regens a wound.
Genestealers can't find a clear path to the landing pad where they can fit . Gargoyles surround the command team. Prime can't find a way to Farsight and co past the gaunts. Deathleaper fades away to reserves (didn't know it wasn't allowed at the time).
In shooting 2 FW's are killed but nothing else happens.
Gargoyles assault the command team getting 8 killed (after fearless) for no damage. FW's and Thropes throw insults at each other. Farsight cuts out of the Gaunt squad.

At this point we didn't have enough time for another turn so simply worked out the Phiranhas, Farsight, Prime and 2 Fex's. Unsurprisingly after using TL's on the team and the piranhas shots followed by farsight assaulting there wasn't anything left. Shame it didn't count .

Ended at 4-2 on killpoints in my favour (would have got 4-5 next turn for 1 or maybe 2 but that's the way it goes).

Unit Analysis

Farsights Team - They killed anything they touched and after 4 turns had given a lot more than they took even though they were the main fire magnet in my force.

Shas'El's Team - Not a good game for them. Only one round of fire with PR at long range and then in assault. Even with this they did well and dealt a good deal of damage along with absorbing shots.

Elite Team - Even though they never killed anything all game they kept units away and stopped the stealers from infiltrating behind me (if they had they'd have died turn 1). Though they killed nothing they really influenced his plans.

Rifle Warrior Teams - For the little time they spent on the board they did well crippling deathleaper and drawing a trygon away from my firebase.

Carbine Warrior Teams - Nice mobile firepower and they held up a critical enemy unit in assault allowing me to pick of other units indiscriminately.

Piranha Squadron - Drew fire as if they were hammerheads and barely cared. I could have used them better (blocking the hormgaunts) but I'd say they were worth their points.

Broadside Team - Worth their weight in gold. The nids spent the game hiding from it leaving them little time to do anything else. Always a very powerfull psycological weapon (I laughed when the Prime actually climbed down the wall due to a lack of steps to escape from them).

Correct spellings include:

Piranha
Termagant
Hormagaunt

Otherwise, a good report despite the lack of pictures.

Edited for mis-spelling 'piranha'; never said it was easy!

No, Deathleaper is not able to go back into reserves if he has gone to ground as that's a voluntary action, which he is not allowed take.

What is a war fish?

Warfish: Devilfish with Multi-tracker, dpod, Smart Missile System, targeting array, and probably (but not always) Flechette discharger. Tau have nicknames for almost everything (See: Scorefish, Smartfish, dumbfish, deathrain, fireknife, etc)

Nice game =)

O'shovah wrote:Broadside Team - Worth their weight in gold. The nids spent the game hiding from it leaving them little time to do anything else. Always a very powerfull psycological weapon (I laughed when the Prime actually climbed down the wall due to a lack of steps to escape from them).

Funny thing though, they weigh allot and would propably be expensive if they were in gold Wining chances goes up with Broadsides =3