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Tau vs Chaos Space Marines - 1000 points
Game: Maelstrom of War - Cloak and Shadows

Tau Army

HQ:
Commander, MSSS, C&C Node, Puretide Chip, Drone Controller
Warlord Trait: Forward Planning

Troops:
9x Fire warriors
9x Fire warriors
12x kroot + kroot hound

Elite:
Crisis suit, 2x fusion blasters
Riptide Battlesuit, Ion Accelerator, EWO, VT, TL Fusion Blaster

Fast Attack:
5x Pathfinders
5x Pathfinders

Heavy Support
3x Broadside Battlesuits, HYMP, SMS, EWO, 4x Missile Drone



Chaos Army

HQ:
Huron

Troops:
10x Cultists
10x Marines, 2x plasma guns, Rhino
10x Marines, 2x melta guns, Rhino
10x Marines, 2x melta guns, Rhino
9x Marines, 1x flamer, Rhino, Mark of Nurgle
Warlord Trait (sarge was warlord): Well Prepared



Tau Deployment
Kroot are in reserves


Chaos Deployment
Rhinos from image left to right are Huron+flamer – Melta – Melta - Plasma


Tau Turn 1
First hand of cards is discarded by warlord trait, new hand drawn

Movement Phase
Fire warriors advance to get a line on the rightmost rhino, fusion crisis suit scoots up behind terrain


Shooting Phase
One Rhino is destroyed by tank-hunting High-Yield Missile Pod fire


Chaos Turn 1
Movement Phase
The three remaining rhinos advance, and all but the plasma squad jump out and move up


Shooting Phase
Huron's Haemorrhage and his marines' bolters kill most of a pathfinder unit, the last pathfinder then flees


The rhino with plasma marines drives flat out towards the fire warriors


END OF TURN 1
Tau: 1 - First Blood
Chaos: 1 – Harness the Warp

Tau Turn 2
Movement Phase
The Tau army holds their ground

Shooting phase
Fire warriors wreck the rhino bearing down on them, but now there are 10 angry marines in their face


The Tau gunline kills half of Huron's marines, and a few from the red melta-toting squad.


Assault Phase
The crisis suit “does the hoot, scoot and boogie, and jumpasaurus” into cover behind the central ruin


Chaos Turn 2
Movement Phase
Huron and friends jump back in their rhino, and drive up some more, as do the red melta-marines. green marines footslog up the middle. The plasma marines close in on the fire warriors


Shooting Phase
Plasma marines nearly wipe the fire warriors in front of them, the rhinos pop smoke


END OF TURN 2
Score
Tau: 1
Chaos: 2 – Objective 1 (in the central ruin, rhino holding it)

Tau Turn 3
Movement Phase
Fusion suit moves up to try destroy the rhino on the central objective.


Shooting Phase
The last fire warrior on the right flank holds his ground and kills one marine


Left side fire warriors shoot at the approaching chaos marines, the broadsides having destroyed huron's rhino.


Due to additional damage from the riptide, the plasma marines fall back


Chaos Turn 3
Movement Phase
Plasma marines regroup and advance again


All marines are on foot again, advancing towards the tau


Shooting Phase
Several squads of marines unleash their bolter rounds into the fire warriors, causing many casualties, and routing the survivors. Plasma marines finish off the last fire warrior on the right.


END OF TURN 3
Score
Tau: 1
Chaos 3: - No Prisoners

Tau Turn 4
Movement Phase
Kroot auxiliaries arrive in the far end of the battlefield, near cultists


Shooting Phase
The Broadsides open up on the red marines


The kroot kill several cultists, and the remaining ones flee off the board


Chaos Turn 4
Movement Phase
The remaining marines continue their advance, lining up shots on the crisis suit


Plasma marines turn back to deal with the kroot


Shooting Phase
The crisis suit is killed by fire from the two left marines units. The kroot suffer many casualties but to not break.


END OF TURN 4
Score
Tau: 1
Chaos: 5 – Overwhelming firepower, objective 1

Tau Turn 5
Movement Phase
The kroot move towards a much-needed objective


Shooting Phase
Two marines from Huron's squad go down to Tau fire


The kroot run up to the objective, the last rhino is destroyed by broadsides


Chaos Turn 5
Movement Phase
Huron leaves the warlord-sarge to take cover behind the rhino and advances with the two nearest marines squads


The plasma marines chase the kroot around the hill


Shooting Phase
The plasma marines kill all but one kroot, who does not break.
The rest of the marines run for the tau deployment zone, but come up short.

END OF TURN 5
Score
Tau: 4 – objectives 2, 2, Big Game Hunters
Chaos 5

Tau Turn 6
Red squad marines are killed, but huron and Green Squad survive


The last kroot desperately tries to kill the chaos warlord behind the rhino, but misses


Chaos turn 6
The last kroot is killed, Huron and Friends make it into the Tau deployment zone

END OF TURN 6
Score
Tau: 6 – objective 5, Hold the Line
Chaos: 7 – Behind Enemy Lines, Linebreaker

CHAOS WINS 7-6

Nice game good tactics about getting out of the rhinos to fire at the tau

Good job! Nice batrep style

Surprised the chaos player did n't use hurons built in infiltration warlord trait, that's the main reason I've seen people take him.

Yet anouther glorious triumph for the dark gods!! Khorne be praised!!!

Congrats on a fine victory!

Just curiious... Why did you not use Huron as the warlord? Seems to me that infiltrating d3 units (= d3 marine filled rhinos) would be ace for this army!

Cheers! Dark for the Dark Gods and all that.

I'm the CSM player in question here.

Firstly, aren't nwabudikemorgan's Tau painted up prettily? He deserves props. He's put a lot of effort into getting them painted up and did it in record time too.

Secondly, sorry 'bout the state of my "Chaos Space Marines" which were obviously mostly proxies. I'll be getting my hands on some proper models in two days' time.

Thirdly, tactics. I decided to use the Sarge as Warlord for several reasons.
-Because we're still new to the maelstrom missions I wanted to roll on Tactical Traits while still running Huron, who is a total badarse even without infiltration. And that extra tactical objective card drawn with Well Prepared basically won me the game, since I had an extra opportunity to score a VP and only won by 1.
-Because I haven't ever tried running anything other than an HQ as warlord in 7th yet so gave that a try.
-Knowing how devastating Tau shooting can be if they get range early on I wanted to work it on my terms instead of starting in fire warrior rapid fire, even though I obviously messed that up some as is.
Which leads to why I disembarked instead of going flat-out and up into his face. I wanted to nab the objectives midfield, and I also wanted to put as much dakka into his pathfinders as possible before he could take advantage of markerlights to mash my face in. With bolters and Huron's power I feel I managed to keep myself from getting tabled that much longer.

Thoughts on the Tau player's strategy? Or mine?
Good moves, bad moves, targeting priority, allocation of resources, deployment?

Well, you won didn't you?

I was just surprised of how the game played out. After reading the lists I would have expected a Rhino rush and a lot of close quarter action. After all your army have virtually no firepower outside of 24", but would beat the Tau to pulp in cc.

I'm not one for playing what ifs. Your game plan was rational and as you say it won you the day.