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The subject line sums it up pretty nicely.  Played a regular opponent of mine who always gives my Tau a tough fight with his IG.  He recently, however, had purchased some DH troops from a friend who was selling them on the cheap, and was toying around with a DH list with inducted guard.  He had been very pleased with their performance against other players in the area, and was looking forward to giving them a run against my Tau.

Needless to say, I was pleased to see the basilisk stay in its case.  I had yet to see a DH list heavy on guard or AT weapons, so I hoped my Hammerheads would have free run of the field.  We'll see.

 

Lists were something like this:

Tau

Shas'el    TL Plasma, Fusion, HW Multi

Shas'el    TL Plasma, Fusion, HW Multi                                                                                      

   Bodyguard with same

4 Stealth Suits

4 Stealth Suits

2 Deathrain Suits

6 Firewarriors

14 Kroot

14 Kroot

14 Kroot

3 Hammerheads with Railgun, Burst Cannons, Decoy, Multi and Disruption

 

Demon Hunters (Approximate...not an expert on justicars and such)

Cheap inquisitor with BP and CCW

Leader in terminator armor with 4 buddies

7 GKs with leader and teleport homer

5 GKs

2x IG Platoons

   HQ with lascannon

   2 squads with ML and GL

6 Storm Troopers with plasma gunner

2 Sentinels with autocannon

1 Leman Russ with 3 HBs

 

(For the following diagrams, use your imagination a bit please.  Not quite to scale, and turning units is a bit of a pain, so be prepared for units to jump around a bit and such.)

Battlefield:

Pretty standard.  For some reason, the tables always seem to get setup around here with terrain around the edges and a big empty spot in the middle.

 

Setup:

The first of my mistakes.  I even saw the eversor assassin, but didn't really plan deployment around him.  Should have kept my troops hidden within my tanks....oh well.

 

He wins the roll, and decides to go first.

 

DH Turn1:

Pretty much what I figured.  The eversor got to infiltrate first, so he deployed 13" away from my death rains, and they didn't take the charge well.  My kroot took a pounding, but overall losses weren't too bad.  They broke, of course, but the terrain slowed them down.  Sentinels took their shots and failed to hurt the hammerhead.

 

Tau Turn 1:

Not a bad round of shooting.  Took out a pair of squads, a killed a few troops here and there.  Kroot couldn't shoot the eversor as he had ducked behind the building after slaughtering the suits, so we had to assault him.  He killed a pair in fighting and two more when he melted, but in the end the kroot got him.

 

DH Turn 2:

The smaller GK squad teleports in, and two kroot squads end up taking a bit of a beating.  Hammerheads take some hits, too, but nothing serious so far.  Both kroot squads break.

 

Tau Turn 2:

Now the GK squads are close enough for my HQs to jump out and rapid fire, and they get hurt.  The only active hammerhead continues the primary mission of removing AT weapons from the field by nuking an IG HQ with lascannon.  My stealth suits on the left flank shoot some more IG, but roll snake-eyes for the charge, so they're stuck in the building.  Other squad fails to hurt the remaining sentinel.

 

DH Turn 3:

Now the 5 GK terminators drop in.  Missile launcher in the ruins penetrates my hammerhead and immobilizes it.  Could have been worse, I suppose.  The kroot on the right flank take another hail of shots, and are finished off by the charging GKs.  The kroot on the left, however, avoid incoming fire and kill the assaulting GKs from cover before they get a chance to strike back.

 

Tau Turn 3:

Another error on my part.  I moved my right-most hammerhead up along the edge, hoping to shoot the squad in the ruins.  Of course, the two destroyed sentinels were blocking LOS....not sure what I was thinking.  The stealth team runs to the corner to avoid the GKs coming around the corner.  Few shots at the terminators do nothing...wait for the inevitable and hope my HQs can hurt 'em.

 

DH Turn 4:

And, the inevitable happens, with the termies charging the poor FWs and cutting them down.  GKs round the corner, but fail to see the stealths.  The inquisitor and stormtroopers charge, and in the nasty fight that follows, all the storm troopers and 4 kroot die.

 

Tau Turn 4:

The Hammerhead that been pounded the last few turns gets some measure of revenge with a glancing (cover) immobilization against the Leman Russ.  The two HQ teams do some damage to the terminators, killing 3 off.  Good, but not enough.  The Hammerhead finishes off the remaining GKs after the stealths fail to kill either.

 

DH Turn 5:

It's getting desperate for the DH.  Lots of ineffective shooting, but the assault pans out, killing the bodyguard.  The shas'el doesn't break, and the terminators close in.

 

Tau Turn 5:

The free shes'el runs behind the downed hammerhead while watching his buddy get horribly butchered.  The IG squad in the open gets easily cut down.

 

DH Turn 6:

Once again, shooting fails to finish off the crippled Hammerhead.  The angry termies, however, are more than happy to charge its rear armor and blast it.

 

Tau Turn 6:

The shas'el regains his courage and jumps out to blast the final terminator, leaving the leader (whatever he's called) left.  The hammerheads fail to do much.

 

I didn't get the final point total from him, but I'm sure I killed over 1250 points of stuff.  Adding in the two corners, and I had a pretty solid win.  Think I lost about 750 points.  Game went pretty much according to plan: use tanks to kill AT units quickly, then roam the field shooting whatever threats remained.  The HQs worked out well, helping finish of the power/terminator armored foes much more quickly than otherwise would have been possible.  The kroot managed to stick around and soak up several rounds of fire, and in some cases did some pretty decent damage in return.

Congrats on the win! Despite your words, your diagrams were quite easy to follow, so thanks for taking the time to make them. Looks like your plan was well played, as your Hammerheads had pretty decent free reign over the battlefield. Did your opponent give you any post game thoughts to add for posterity?

Not too many comments. He was pretty disappointed by his inability to kill my tanks with what AT weapons he had...he DID put a lot of hits on tanks (his Leman Russ hit every time, for example), but did terrible on penetration and damage rolls. He probably won't take the sentinels again...he loves the models, and wants them to work, but in the end they never perform. He was pleased with his assassin, however, saying it was the first time it had made its points back.

Overall he seemed to think his army works better than his pure IG, and chalked up much of this loss to some poor rolling...mostly on the AT side.

Nice report.

As a long time DH player I feel sorry for your friend.. His list was really bad and the way he deesptriked his GK to meet sure death was terrible.

I want to help your friend getting a better list and thus more challenge for you!

HQ: 254pts

1 Brother captain, psycannon 91pts

3 GKtermies retinue, psycannon

 

Troops 490pts

10 armored fist, lascannon 85pts

1 Chimera, autocannon, hb 90pts (from imp armor)

10 armored fist, lascannon 85pts

1 Chimera, autocannon, hb 90pts (from imp armor)

5 stormies, 2 plasmas 70pts

5 stormies, 2 plasmas 70pts

 

Heavy 295pts

1 GK Dread, tl lascannon 130pts

1 Leman Russ, battlecannon, hull las, 2 hb 165pts

 

Fast 281pts

1 Sentinel, lascannon, searchlight 56pts

8 Grey Knights 225 pts

 

Elites 190pts

1 Callidus 120pts

1 Inquisitor, psycannon, termie armor 70pts

 

1500pts.

Ask him to try that and he will do much better!! Ask him to look for me or Centurion on this forum (he plays DH aswell)..

happy hunting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cool Report. Thanks!

Glad you liked it Rygoth. On an interesting sidenote, I played a different player this week at the shop (tyranids), and the player from last week said something about how my cheesed Tau list would have an easy time against the tyranids. While it's not the most fluffy list out there, I still have a decent amount spent on troops...he didn't buy it, though, saying the 6 man firewarrior squad did me in.

I'd take more if they didn't suck.....but that's for another post, I guess =)

Incredible how many people will cry cheese after losing. There's no such thing. From the looks of things it was a fairly tight competitive game. No good reason to be upset about losing one like that. Too bad the player didn't have the attitude. So, got a batrep for the nid game?

It wasn't a big complaint or anything...more an observation that he thought my Tau would whoop the tyranids. He's never hesitated to play me with his armies (orcs, IG). He's a good guy, so don't get the wrong impression. Like I said at the beginning, his IG have given me some very rough games, so him losing a game isn't a big deal for him (heck, he's a dedicated orc player, so losing can't be that big a deal for him!).

It turned out to be an alpha level seek and destroy against a godzilla list. Very painful. Turned out to be a tie, although it was anyone's game at the end. The only real pieces of note:

- He had a creature called a "Trygon"...apparently forgeworld? Really, really nasty. It can fleet and charges 12" (which caught me off guard, my fault for not paying enough attention....caught my crisis commander and bodyguard). It took over half my army's fire one round and suffered no wounds (mass point, ugh).

- Could have won the game by inflicting two wounds on a T6 +3 save carnifex at the end. 21 burst cannons and 2 railguns later, I inflicted 1 wound on it (last turn)

- He could have won by charging some stealth suits with his remaining tyranid warriors, but I assault-moved my commander in the way and he charged him instead (last turn).

- Kroot did well. Got into combat with an elite carnifex. 14 kroot charging get enough attacks to hurt the thing, and it doesn't get many attacks back. He threw in a ripper swarm to assist, but that only hurt him, as it gave my kroot a source of easy wounds to reliably win combat.

Other than that, I learned Tau will have a heck of a time against a shooty godzilla army on alpha level. That's a LOT of high strength shots to stun skimmers, and you can get an impressive number of big creatures wandering the field. Of course, escalation screws this kind of list.

Railguns should do a d6 wounds