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AlchemicObsession (Tauclaves) vs. Brometheus (Ahriman's forces)

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Commander Farsight stared at the view screen with Honour-Shas'vre O'vesa.

"Commander", said O'vesa, "Our reports are confirmed. The Exile is conducting dark ritual sacrifice of our kind upon Dal'yru. To what end, I know not."

Farsight clasped his hands behind his back and scowled. "This is a distraction from our pursuit of the Orks in this sector and likely a trap, but this Tau Empire world is very close to the Enclave. We must intervene. Prepare our forces for a fight against a most cunning foe, and mount your most-honoured battle suit."

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The Mission: Purge the Alien

Deployment: Dawn of War



Ahriman's Forces:
Ahriman (Warlord): Doombolt, Iron Arm, Endurance, Enfeeble
Astraeos- Invisibility, Endurance
Rubric Terminator Squad- Mark of Tzeentch, Veterans of the Long War, Power Axes
Rubric Squad Hathor- Rhino, Force Staff, Doombolt
Rubric Squad Akhor'menet- Rhino, Force Axe, Doombolt
Rubric Squad Elba- Rhino, Force Staff, Boon of Mutation
5 Spawn- Mark of Nurgle
Predator- Lascannon Sponsons
Maulerfiend
5 Havocs- Plasma Gun x4, Rhino
Herald of Tzeentch- Prescience, Forwarning, Flickering Fire, Grimoire, Disc of Tzeentch
6 Flamers of Tzeentch
10 Pink Horrors- Flickering Fire
9 Screamers



Farsight's Forces: (Rough- will update soon, sorry)
Farsight and crisis suit escorts
O'vesa
Crisis Suit Commander
Cadre Fireblade
Riptide
Firewarriors
Firewarriors
Pathfinders
Pathfinders
Skyray
Hammerhead- Longstrike
Hammerhead
Devilfish
Crisis Suits
ADL- Quadgun





Deployment:

-CSM roll a 3 to Tau's 1 and choose to deploy first.

-Ahriman rolls a 6 for Master of Deception, so gets to give three Infantry units the Infiltrate rule. He chooses to Infiltrate with the Havocs, let's the Level 2 Sorcerer Infiltrate with the 4 Terminators, and gives Infiltrate to Squad Hathor.

-Ahriman instructs his forces to deploy strong in center. He Infiltrates on the left flank with his plasma havocs, and orders Squad Hathor to follow suit. Sorcerer Astraeos Infiltrates with his Rubric Terminators on the right flank.






-Farsight Chooses the Tau Codex Warlord trait 'Through Boldness, Victory' as the usual preffered Mont'ka tactic.



-Farsight commands his unit of battlesuits to hold back and wait for the enemy to move first (Deep Strike). Pathfinders re-position to have LOS on the Ahriman's armored vehicles.



Turn 1:

-Tau attempt to sieze and roll a 4.

-Sorcerer on the right flank attempts Endurance on his unit, but rolls double 6's! Ahriman moves up on the left flank and blows up a Hammerhead, killing one Pathfinder. Squad Hathor on the left flank shoots three pathfinders who manage to get a cover save. The entire army moves up. The Screamers have Forwarning and +2 Invul from the Grimoire.





-Pathfinders hold ground and markerlight incoming Screamers. Longstrike fires a slug into the Vindicator but loses the kill to cover save. Both Fire Warrior squads and Cadre Fireblade pelt shots into Screamers taking one down. Riptide (O'vesa) Nova Charges and kills half a squad of Marines. Other Riptide Nova Charges thrusters and flies over Screamers, taking one out on the jump. Devilfish bolts forward and kills a spawn. Crisis Team Focuses more fire into Screamers but fails to kill. ...Farsight smokes a cigar and watches angrily at the massacre.



Turn 2:

-Ahriman gets Toughness 6 and moves up, combining his fire with the Plasma Gun havoc who remains, and the Predator in the back in order to destroy the Skyray. Spawn and Screamers move up to assault, while three Thousand Sons squads slaughter Pathfinders and Firewarriors. Terminators charge a Riptide, while the Spawn charge another. Flamers move up and erase a unit of Firewarriors in cover.



-Devilfish cruises and fires on Flamers. Farsight deepstrikes behind the Predator with his team and blows up the tank. Fire Warriors take down four Marines while Fireblade nicks a rhino. Riptides are locked in combat and squish one enemy each. Crisis team kills five screamers and stays locked in combat. Longstrike uses the submunitions and kills some Marines. Crisis suits jet pack away from spawn.



Turn 3:

-Ahriman mounts up after Enfeebling a unit of Firewarriors behind the Aegis Line (who go to ground from bolter fire) making himself Toughness 6 and orders the Maulerfiend and two Rubricae squads to turn around and assault Farsight's unit. The Ap3 bolters bounce of the shields of Farsight. The Horrors attempt to charge, but the Overwatch that Farsight puts out makes them fail the charge because of losing three Horrors. Astraeos the Sorcerer kills the right Riptide while the two Spawn continue to hold O'vesa in combat. The screamers continue to distract the large battle suit unit in the backfield.

-Farsight and his squad pelt into Horrors and kill all but one. Longstrike takes down Mauler Fiend. Devilfish shoots one Terminator down. Fire Warriors hold steady under Fireblade and finish four more Marines for a Victory Point. O'vessa squishes one more Spawn. Crisis team and Commander slowly pick off Screamers in close combat. Second Fire Warrior team picks a few flamers off. Farsight jet packs behind the remaining Horror.



Turn 4:

-Ahriman moves back towards his army'd deployment zone, blasting Doombolt and killing one of Farsight's suit escort. The last remaining Horror tries to destroy the Devilfish by shooting Flickering Fire at it's rear armor, but fails to penetrate. The Flamers are destroyed in close combat by Firewarriors even with their re-rollable 2++. The Herald and the Screamers are destroyed by the suits, and the suits move away to engage other targets..

-Farsight fires into Ahriman but fails to do damage because of Ahriman's invulnerable saves, then jetpacks behind cover. Devilfish turns and takes out the last horror. Longstrike fails to hit a rhino. Fire Warriors in combat take four casualties but hold ground. Crisis team takes out the Spawn annoying O'vessa. Commander detaches from Crisis unit and kills one Terminator causing Astraeos to flee.



Turn 5:

-Ahriman attempts to shoot Doombolt at Farsight again. He puts Endurance on Astraeos and Astraeos puts Invisibility on himself since he only has one wound remaining. The unengaged Thousand Sons rapid fire and then assault the Tau commander. Elba (the sorcerer in that Thousand Sons squad challenges the Tau character and defeats him and activates his force weapon. Tzeentch is pleased, and he rewards his champion with "Instant Death" for all his Melee attacks. The sorcerer turns his attention to the Riptide. Can he catch it? The Thousand Sons in the Aegis line can't quite kill the last Firewarrior with the Cadre Fireblade, and so sit in combat. The Plasma Gun havoc hides in a Rhino.

-Longstrike fails yet again to kill a rhino. Farsight barely misses Ahriman. Fire warriors have their fire dink off of a rhino. Crisis team charges to help Fire Warrors and takes a Marine. Devilfish does a wound to Astraeos. Riptide Hits a Rhino for two hull points. Farsight jetpacks away into cover.



We rolled a 5 to continue!

Turn 6:

-Ahriman attempts to charge Farsight and his suits, but needs an 11 (he rolled a 7). Squad Elba on the right flank tries to charge (after casting Doombolt which is denied) Longstrike, but fails. Astraeos charges the Devilfish but rolls four 2's and the Devilfish laughs. The firewarriors in the Aegis Line take fire from some Rhinos and the Plasma Havoc, but go to ground. Ahriman sits in the open at Toughness 5 with Endurance and awaits shooting....

-Devilfish killed Astraeos. Longstrike killed Marines and Elba, in revenge for Elba killing the crisis suit commander. Farsight did a wound to Ahriman but Ahriman passed a feel no pain. Crisis team, Cadre Fireblade, Shas'ui warrior, and now four fire warriors take on one marine. O'vesa takes out a Rhino.




Turn 7? Yep! Turn 7. Wow.

Turn 7:

-Ahriman gets Toughness 7 and Endurance, then tries to charge Farsight (again), but failing with a 7. Needed a 12! Damn. The single Rubric Marine in his backfield holds up three separate units again by making all his saves.

-Longstrike finally takes out a rhino as O'vesa kills her second. Farsight fails to kill Ahriman again. Devilfish kills one Marine. The gangbang of a close combat continues as Fireblade, his Shas'ui, four Fire Warriors, and two Crisis members all fail to wound or lose to an armour save. The last Crisis suit finally hits one, wounds one, and kills the last Marine.

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What's the verdict?

Tauclaves:
-14 KPs
-Linebreaker (Farsight and company)

Ahriman's Forces:
-7 KPs
-Linebreaker (2 Rubric Marines, Plasma Gun Havoc)
-First Blood (Hammerhead)

MVP:
Tauclaves: Farsight
Ahriman's Forces: Ahriman

Brief After Action Report:

Ahriman: I absolutely thought I had it at turn 2. In fact, I was over confident and thought I could table the Tau forces by turn three or even four, but I couldn't do enough damage with the Screamers or Spawn and the Tau started picking on my Rhinos and weaker units from a distance. Thankfully, Ahriman survived without so much as a scratch thanks to Iron Arm and Endurance (even though he took severe ap2 fire each turn). This game convinced me that he should always roll Biomancy vs. armies that can kill his escort unit (in this case, the Plasma Gun-toting Havocs) and leave him stranded in the open. 3 Rolls on Biomancy is nice. I previously only felt that he should be using 3x Witchfires.

This is my first list without Heldrakes in a long time. I like it because everything can start on the board. I will probably keep making lists like this because they make me happier. Lately, my Heldrakes practically win the games I play and I want to test my skill a little more. Playing without the Drakes is very noticable, because I can't just erase whole units from the board. I had Enfeeble. Imagine if I had drakes? Anyway, I felt like they were a crutch.

All according to plan.... Farsight prevented the large demonic incursion by destroying all of the Chaos Sorcerer's forces, but Ahriman will just move on to another world and start the process over again.

An excellent game against a worthy opponent. I got my ass kicked. At first, the durability of my army was frustrating my opponent, but he eventually pulled out an incredible win. I feel like Purge the Alien puts me at my weakest because I have a loooot of single units like the Maulerfiend and Rhinos. Everything else is pretty durable.

So what did you think?







Automatically Appended Next Post:
Updated with pictures. I think I may have gotten the sync wrong. Apologies. At least you have some pictures to look at! : D

Thanks for looking.

Nice armies. How did the flamers managed to fail their 2++ saves and die in close combat to firewarriors of all things?

Well, I think it was only two Flamers, one of which had a single Wound remaining. I think they were actually removed because of Demonic Instability, instead of being actually killed. They did take a wound while their 2++ was up, but I rolled a 7 for their test I think.

Very nice armies! Love seeing underrated tzeentch in play, i know they can still hold their own.

Thanks, man. I gotta say that I made some critical errors, like trying to spread out and shoot lots of things at once when I should have been using two or three units when I wanted one thing dead. I got outplayed bigtime.

Tzeentch/Thousand Sons are still good.

Great battle report. Great table, great looking models, great narration. Not a good day for Tzeentch, but that's okay.

Were you forgetting that the 2++ saves were rerollable?

Nah, but sometimes I either didnt have forwarning up, failed grimoire or just decided to pass out forwarning to a tsons unit

This is Joe, the Tauclaves player from this game. I just wanted to say thanks for the great game and that I had two less Fire Warrior teams on that first list. My army was Tau allied with Farsight Enclaves (Ironically with Farsight on the Tau list and Darkstrider on the Enclave list) just in case anyone was wondering about the four HQ choices. The other thing was just two Crisis Teams in the Enclaves instead of a bodyguard team on there. I'll post my whole list in a little bit once I'm off work.
I think Darkstrider in very unnecessary in this list because he always seems to get roasted by flamers early game.
Our Commanders were just too durable this time. Farsight with his mobility and team of Crisis Suits to back him up. Then Ahriman was just one tough nut to crack with all that psyker stuff.
SOO many Deny the Witch rolls that game. Was really unbelievable.
Also Overwatch played a significant plus this time with those snapshotting fire warriors. I really like benefiting from markerlights on snapshot too.

Great report !!!

Unfortunately, the Tau player's list is illegal via the Farsight Enclaves Supplemental rule book.

"When choosing a Farsight Enclaves army with Commander Farsight as its warlord, you may take Farsight's Commander Team instead of Farsight's XV8 Crisis Bodyguard Team." pp. 211 of the digital book.

Ergo, you cannot take O'Vesa unless the Farsight Enclaves list is the primary detachment and Farsight is the warlord.

IMO, just switch Farsight over to the FE detachment and Darkstrider to your allied detachment.

I think that's what he did- I'm the one who wrote up the list, so I may have displayed it incorrectly. Farsight was certainly the warlord but he was making his list using Army Builder just for speed (I dont have the Enclaves on AB, so he was winging it. He has the Enclaves book.)

Beautiful table and terrain. Very nice armies especially the CSM. It was a fun to read batrep, though losing flamers cc to fw was bah . Just kidding. Its nice to see people doing such a fine work through their game. Better luck for ahriman next time!

Thank you gentlemen.

Great report. Very concise. Thanks for posting.

Yeah, kinda forgot about this. Got sidetracked with work. Anyways the list had Farsight in the Tau codex with no bodyguards, just a normal crisis team, darkstrider was in the Enclaves. There was no O'vesa, just a separate character name to heighten the fluff, and just run his features without the drones. I run Tau with Farsight Enclaves as allies to straighten that out, it minimizes the bonding knife requirement.