HQ
• Commander w/ plasma rifle, missile pod, drone controller, vectored retro-thrusters, peretide engram chip & 2 marker drones --167 pts (modeled using my existing Commander model which is a converted Shadowsun...WAY to small compared to what the new Commander model is supposed to be! His marker drones were proxied using some random Ork boys I had laying around since I ran out of shield drones to proxy.)
• Ethereal --50 pts (proxied using a SoB Confessor model).

TROOPS
• 12 Firewarriors w/ Shas'ui & 2 marker drones --142 pts (marker drones proxied using shield drones)
• 12 Firewarriors w/ Shas'ui & 2 marker drones --142 pts (marker drones proxied using shield drones)
• 20 Kroot w/ 2 Kroot Hounds --130 pts (Kroot Hounds proxied using Ork squig hounds)
• 20 Kroot w/ 2 Kroot Hounds --130 pts (Kroot Hounds proxied using Ork squig hounds)

ELITES
• 3 Crisis Suits w/ plasma rifle, missile pod & 5 total Gun Drones --216 pts (gun drones proxied using shield drones)

FAST ATTACK
• 6 Pathfinders w/ Shas'ui & blacksun filter --77 pts (shas'ui model proxied using a Firewarrior)
• 6 Pathfinders w/ Shas'ui & blacksun filter --77 pts (shas'ui model proxied using a Firewarrior)

HEAVY SUPPORT
• 2 Broadsides w/ velocity trackers, 4 missile drones, bonding ritual --220 pts (missile drones proxied using shield drones)
• Hammerhead w/ submunition rounds, twin-linked smart missile system, disruption pod --145 pts

TOTAL: 1,497 PTS

HQ
• Techmarine w/ Power Field Generator, Servo Arm
• Librarian (level 2) w/ Combi-Melta, Force Sword, Infravisor, Power Field Generator, Bike

ELITES
• 5 Deathwing Knights w/ Knight Master (Flail of the Unforgiven), mounted in a Land Raider Crusader

TROOPS
• 5 Man Tactical Squad w/ Meltagun & Rhino
• 10 Man Tactical Squad w/ Meltagun, Sgt w/ Combi-Melta, mounted in a Drop Pod

FAST ATTACK
• 7 Ravenwing Black Knights w/ Ravenwing Huntmaster, Power Maul

HEAVY SUPPORT
• Vindicator (125pts)


Just to give everyone an idea of why I picked some of the units I did. First neither of us knew who we were going to play ahead of time, so I had no idea I would be facing the new Tau Codex nor he for DA. I do not consider myself to be an extremely competitive player, but I do like to win and avoid units I do not play well with. The most frequent opponent I face is a CSM player, which has had a pretty large effect on what units I value. There is nothing more disheartening then picking up a whole squad of space marines or bikes because of a single Heldrake attack. So I normally build tougher and fewer units than "normal" list because I have more fun when I get to make a save than when I don't. I brought the Librarian on a bike and rolled both power on Telepathy in hopes of getting invisibility thus making my jink save a 2+ (this would not have been nearly as good against Tau anyways as he can remove cover saves). Sadly I didn't get the power but got other decent ones. I find that the landraider with the 4++ save and option to make them reroll the penetration roll is normally to tough of a nut to crack for most armies. most armies have only one or two things that can deal with it so as long as I focus those down early I have a pretty good chance of it doing as it pleases for the rest of the game. I like the Knights partly because that aren't bad, but mostly because I love the model and I think their rules are fun.

Well, I really don't like this mission...Kill Points against really tough DA units (including a nigh-indestructible Land Raider) are not going to be easy when I have several units that are really easy to kill. I did get the roll to go first, so hopefully that will help.

The Bikes are going to clearly try to threaten me immediately, so I have to go for them first and wipe them out before I can focus on much else...although the Hammerhead naturally has to try to shoot the Land Raider every turn it can as it is the only thing that can really stop it and if I can't, I have a hard time picturing a victory.

My first thought when I saw my Yakface’s list was worry. Like most of you have pointed out he had over double the troops I had. A lot of these were Kroot which I have little respect for, but still mass fire ought to be worrying.

My next thought was “I wish I hadn’t dumped so many points in these bikes.” All that str 5 shooting and the ability to shake what I was hoping to be a 2+ cover save made Tau not the ideal army to be running these bikes. My goal was to try and get them in close combat as soon as possible in hopes that they could avoid being shoot that way, but I didn’t expect too much out of them.

I really wanted to use my vindicator on his crisis suit team, but I remembered that they had jump packs so they were most likely going to be able to stay out of range of its blast for most of the game. Yakface had mentioned that his broadsides couldn’t move and shoot on the same turn, so I decided the vindicator and landraider would make them their focus target since I was sure they wouldn’t be able to kite me around.

Finally I knew I needed to blow up that hammerhead as soon as possible. I was planning on using my drop pod meltas to try and kill it if I was able to land them close enough.

1) The Commander. This guy now seems like an amazing force multiplier for a unit of Crisis suits. His Puretide chip gives him a selection of different USRs, each turn, with the obvious standouts being Tank Hunter and Monster Hunter...Crisis Suits with Tank Hunter should be really nasty! Vectored Retro-Thrusters allows me to hit-and-run out of combat should I accidentally end up there and using the highest Initiative in the unit (the Drones I4), I've got a decent shot each round to get out, which is not bad for 5 points. I also took a Drone Controller which seems AMAZING with the Commander as it gives his BS5 to all the Drones in the unit...so there's a reason I've taken so many Gun Drones in my Crisis Suit unit (along with 2 Marker Drones with the Commander), I think busting out so many BS5 shots for relatively few points seems potentially really potent.

And then of course I just plan to use the Commander as normal sitting in the front of the unit soaking up damage and passing off any S8 wounds onto Drones via Look Out Sir. That means in general my formation in the Crisis Suit unit will be with the Commander in front, then a few Drones around him, followed by the other Crisis Suits further away.


2) The Ethereal. These guys now seem mandatory (finally). Super-cheap and super-effective. They give their Ld 10 to everything within 12", including the Kroot (hooray) and they get to pick one special ability to pass onto every unit within 12" each turn, with the most noteable being the ability for every pulse weapon (including Kroot Rifles) to fire an extra shot when firing at half range...the great thing about this ability is that it applies to Overwatch firing as well! The other standout ability is Stubborn, which can be used to turn one of your Kroot units (for example) into a pretty good tarpit.

This guy will sit in with a unit of Firewarriors and anchor my firebase.


3) Lots of spread out markerlights. I have two squads of 6 Pathfinders, each Firewarrior squad has 2 marker drones and my Commander has 2 more marker drones as well. The reason behind this is the fact that now markerlight BS improvements now benefit other markerlights firing. So by putting markerlights in a bunch of different units I can use the markerlight BS increase from one unit to increase the chance of getting more markerlights hitting from my next unit's shooting, etc, etc, etc.

I'm calling this 'markerlight rippling', and basically it just means that as long as you're focusing on wiping one or two units in the enemy army, your markerlight hits help create more markerlight hits and so on. So it is mutually beneficial to have your markerlights spread out throughout different units. This can be especially useful when firing overwatch, as now that Tau can fire multiple units at the same charging target, if you manage to get lucky and roll a '6' to hit with your markerlight, all of a sudden your next units overwatch shooting can benefit from that markerlight!

I normally play using FW Tetras, as they are the premier markerlight delivery system, but I don't think they accurately reflect the new rules properly yet, so I'm going to retire them for a bit hoping that FW gets around to putting out an update fairly soon (although they still haven't fixed the Chaos issues caused by the new CSM and CD codexes, so I don't know how hopeful I should be).


4) Firewarriors...these guys are going to sit in a firebase position and benefit from the Ethereal's ability to fire an extra shot when at half range. And they will also help overwatch when the Kroot in front of them get charged.


5) Kroot. When I first read the codex changes I thought they had totally nerfed these guys. But then I realized that they now benefit from the Ethereal's Ld boost and they benefit from markerlights and the Ethereal's ability to allow them to fire an extra shot at half range.

When you consider that markerlight hits, for example, are a finite resource and each hit you burn to boost BS affects a squad the same whether the firing unit has 5 models or 50 models in it, all of a sudden you realize the genius of Kroot: Because they are only 6 pts a piece, it is incredibly cheap to get a squad of 20 of them and each markerlight hit you spend increasing their BS, it netting you a TREMENDOUS amount of more hits compared to other units in your arsenal.

Yeah, Kroot lost all of their potentcy in close combat, but who cares? They are now a huge meat shield that you can stretch out across your front lines that, when charged, allows your entire army to overwatch as well!


6) Crisis Suits. Taking Gun Drones, which I never did before, because of how the Drone Controller boosts them up. Since I can get all the toys I want for the unit just on the Commander model, I think moving forward I'm probably going to twin-link one of their weapons...so either a twin-linked MIssile Pod with a single Plasma Rifle or the opposite (twin-linked Plasma Rifles w/ a single Missile Pod)...but for this game I'm playing them as-is and just taking what they have on the model (one of each weapon).


7) Pathfinders...nothing special here. Just lots of markerlights. I'd probably take more, but its all the Pathfinder models I own. I'm strongly considering buying the new plastic set to add more models onto these units, but I probably should wait to see what FW does with the Tetras first.


8) Broadsides. I had to take the Skyfire ability just in case I faced some fliers and I had to try out the Missile Drones as they seemed too good to pass up.


9) Hammerhead. I hate taking a single vehicle, but I don't own any models with Fusion Blasters as I've always relied on Railguns (Broadsides) to take out AV14. Now that Broadsides have been nerfed, I had to take a Hammerhead just in case I faced something like a Land Raider, and with the Disruption Pod they are getting a 4+ cover save every turn as long as they keep moving, so it seems like they should be fairly durable.

First things first, The Commander chooses 'Tank Hunter' for his Puretide chip and my Ethereal picks Stubborn (because at this point I wasn't really considering how the +1 shot ability would benefit overwatch fire as well, and I thought the bikes might charge the Kroot in the next turn and I wanted them to be stubborn for that combat).

I move the Hammerhead 6" towards the river (not pictured)

But as for the main section of the battle (this is the deployment pic, but it gives you a good idea of what is going to happen), I just moved the Crisis Team to the right to get within range of the bikes and spread the Kroot on the left out a bit:


For shooting, I started by firing my Hammerhead at the Land Raider. I manage to hit (yay), roll a '5' for penetration (woo) but he then promptly rolls a 4+ for the Powerfield Generator invulnerable save (boo). So much for my first shot to take control of the game!

As for the rest of my army...my goal was to save the Broadsides to fire at the Vindicator, so I'm holding them off for last. I'd love to also fire the Crisis Suits with their Tank Hunter at the Vindicator, but I need to kill some of those bikes or they'll be one me in no time.

I start firing with the Pathfinders, and score 4 markerlight hits on the bikes. From there, my 'markerlight ripple' plan works brilliantly...with each units shooting, I add more markerlight hits onto the unit (which in turn help to increase the BS of the next unit's markerlights, as well). I fire the Kroot, the Crisis team (although their Gun Drones are out of range) and 2 Firewarrior squads and despite racking up probably 20+ wounds, he only fails a handful of saves.

So begrudgingly, I fire the Broadsides at the Bike unit as well (including all their missile drones) and again, he rolls saves amazingly well. When all is said and done practically my entire army's shooting only manages to kill 4 bikers:


Yikes. Not so good...but he was a out of my double-tap (or rather triple-tap) range, so I figure once he moves up, my shooting should get much more potent.

Here's a pic of the board, after my shooting is finished, but before I jump my Crisis Suits back:

My opponent starts out by casting Hallucination on my Broadsides. They are auto-pinned (could have been worse):


The Drop Pod then arrives and lands over by my Hammerhead, disgorging its melta and combi-melta within 6" of the Hammerhead as expected:


His Land Raider moves 12" forward, blocking LOS to his Vindicator from my Crisis Suits next turn, while the Vindicator moves 6" forward to fire its gun. The Bikers move straight forward and plan to charge.

For the shooting phase, he fires his meltas at my hammerhead. One misses, the other hits and penetrates, and for my 4+ cover save...I fail, of course and he promptly rolls a natural '6'and blows it up. First blood to my opponent and a huge blow as now I literally have nothing that can penetrate his Land Raider (and with only 2 S8 guns its unlikely I'll be glancing it to death either). Yikes.


His Land Raider kills a few Kroot and his Vindicator is only within range of the Kroot (and one Broadside). It scatter and causes 2 wounds on the Broadsides (which I save both of), and kills a few Kroot.


But now for the cool part (for me, at least). My opponent, not really understanding the potency of the new Supporting Fire rule declares a charge with his bikes on my Kroot. Given that the Kroot are stretched out in a long line, the following units are within 6" of them and therefore also get to overwatch:

• Pathfinders
• Broadsides
• 2 Firewarrior squads
• Crisis Suits

The Pathfinders overwatch first and manage to score one markerlight hit, which I then use to boost the Crisis Suit's Overwatch to BS2...in the end I manage to cause another incredible amount of wounds, but he still saves amazingly well, so I only end up killing one more biker and putting one wound onto his Librarian. And to add insult to injury, he fails his charge roll anyway (he was a pretty far distance away, to be fair)!

Seeing the entire Tau army get to overwatch if the Kroot are charged puts a pretty big scare into my opponent and has taught me just how potent a big screening Kroot unit can be to allow so many units to fire their overwatch.

I choose 'Stubborn' for my Commander's ability (as the Vindicator is completely obscured anyway, so Tank Hunters would be worthless this turn). I choose +1 Pulse shots for my Ethereal's ability so I can hopefully wipe out his bikers (or at least increase my overwatch potency should he charge next turn).

I don't think my Pathfinders in the forest can escape his Drop Pod squad, so they sit put and decide to hope they can get luck and pin the marines with their Carbines. My Kroot on the right and my Crisis suits move to the left to get some shots on the Drop Pod squad, but the Crisis are positioned so that they can still fire at the bikers should the rest of my army fail to kill the remaining 3 of them:


The Kroot reform their battleline, but besides that there is not much movement on this flank:


My Broadsides are sadly pinned (so can only snap fire), but they try to go after the Vindicator knowing that it can cause some serious damage if it isn't taken out soon, but sadly they fail to do anything.

My Pathfinders markerlight up the bikes and my Kroot and 2 Firewarrior squads open up on the bikes and again despite wounding tons of times I still can't finish off the bikers! So sadly that means I can't fire my Crisis suits at the Drop Pod unit and instead have to turn around and unload on the bikers.

With the last two remaining wounds, he finally fails his Librarians save and the biker unit is wiped out. That's 3 VP for me (bike squad, Librarian & Slay the Warlord):


So just to put things into perspective, basically my entire army fired everything they had at one unit of bikes for two full rounds (plus a round of overwatch) and it took all of that to kill them. It was quite amazing. I'm not familiar with Dark Angels at all, but looking at the codex afterwards trying to figure out why these guys were so tough...Edit: my opponent has sine clarified that he had a 2nd powerfield generator on his Librarian Biker as well, so he was getting 4+ saves against my Plasma shots and just rolling saves like a mad-man made this unit SUPER tough for me to get rid of.

Anyway, on the left flank, my Kroot firing across the river manage to kill one Drop Pod marine with their shooting.

In the assault phase, with my Crisis Thrust move, I'm torn between heading to the left to score the easy points of the Drop Pod unit and the Drop Pod itself or staying back in the center to try to take down the Vindicator (and potentially the Deathwing Knights, should they disembark from the Land Raider). I eventually decide to Thrust them back towards the center to try to take down the Vindicator.

He rolls for reserve and his Rhino does not arrive this turn.

The Drop Pod marines move into the forest to shoot and charge the Pathfinders. He manages to kill all but 2 with his shooting:


The Land Raider Crusader crosses in front of the Vindicator. The Crusader fires everything at the Broadsides, and through sheer weight of wounds (plus one rending wound), I fail two saves and a Broadside dies. The Vindicator fires into some Firewarriors, but it scatters and only kills a few:


The cold-hard reality is that I have nothing that can stop his Land Raider and by killing my Hammerhead+first blood+the VP he'll get for the Drop Pod unit killing my Pathfinders means he's already up in the game. He's going to get Linebreaker as well. So realistically he could simply drive his Land Raider around Tank Shocking my units and/or shooting them up and likely win.

Yes, I got 3 points for killing his bikers (the bikers+Librarian+Slay the Warlord), but the only other two relatively easy VPs for me are the Drop Pod and its cargo...he can keep his Rhino way back out of LOS when it arrives and just use the Land Raider to clean things up.

However, my opponent decides he's not going to play that way and instead decides to at least keep pushing forward and attacking me just to keep things relatively fun.

In the Assault phase, his Drop Pod unit slaughters the remaining 2 Pathfinders:


and then consolidates back towards the Drop Pod:

This turn I pick Tank Hunters for my Commander and +1 shots for my Pulse weapons (for overwatch in case his Deathwing Knights get out of the Land Raider and assault me).

My movement is pretty basic this turn. The Kroot on the left start to cross the river and we find out that it is a Fireblood River, which is basically just Dangerous Terrain. I didn't realize until later in the game that Kroot have Move Through Cover now (they used to just move freely through forests) and since Move Through Cover makes you auto-pass Dangerous Terrain tests, my Kroot on the left should have been all over his Marines much, much quicker (but oh well). I even lost 2 or 3 Kroot to Dangerous Terrain tests before I realized later in the game that they had Move Through Cover...

On my right flank there wasn't much to do except hold pat and try to damage the Vindicator, which wasn't going to be easy through its front AV13, especially now that I only have one Broadside left. But at least I have Tank Hunters on my Crisis Suits, right?


Well, I only manage to take off a single HP from the Vindicator. I totally forgot to re-roll my Armor Penetration rolls for my Crisis Suits due to Tank Hunter. Whoops again. This is definitely a learning process, as I'm completely unused to having special abilities to apply onto my units each turn!

On the left flank (not pictured), the Kroot and the Firewarriors that are in range of his Drop Pod Marines manage to shoot and kill 3 more (leaving 6 remaining).

He rolls for reserves, and his Rhino Tac squad arrives. Again, not wanting to be a player who just sits in a corner and rides out a win, he decides to bring the Rhino up my right flank (in the corner near where his Land Raider and Vindicator are). You can see it in the background in the pic below (after it has moved flat-out as well).

Hist Vindicator 'turns the corner' to try to get a shot at my sweet-bunched up Crisis Suit unit, while the Land Raider does its best attempt to protect the side shot of the Vindicator from my Broadside (and missile drones) and my S5 Pulse rounds. He decides to hold off for one more turn with assaulting his Deathwing Knights until he can set up the perfect charge without much Supporting Fire.


To give you an idea of what my Crisis Suits look like, here's a picture of them from my previous turn *before* they thrusted back...they're still pretty much in a bunch like that, just with some of the order of the models changed within the bunch (drones move back to being closest to the Commander after the thrust):


His Vindicator shot scatters badly (seemed to be a theme all game) and ended up only doing 1 wound on the Crisis team (which the Commander passed off onto a gun drone using Look out Sir) and a few Firewarriors. His Land Raider again focuses on my Broadsides and again through sheer weight of fire takes out my last Broadside (just leaving the 4 missile drones).


I really wasn't sure during the game if I should move my Missile Drones up in front of the Broadsides to take the shots first...my Broadsides do have the 2+ armor save and a 4+ cover save from being behind ruins, whereas the missile drones don't have the 2+ save, so it seems prudent to keep the Broadsides in front in most cases, but it definitely kind of bit me in the butt because he was firing so many shots that I was just getting plinked to death and losing Broadsides (which were much more valuable to me with their S8 against the Vindicator and Land Raider) instead of missile drones. I'll definitely have to think more about how I should play that unit in the future in terms of model placement.

On my left flank, his Drop Pod marines flee in terror...I mean, tactfully redeploy behind the hill to get away from my approaching Kroot and out of range of my Firewarriors.

This turn I again choose Tank Hunter for my Commander (and vow not to forget it) as I really want to take down his Vindicator or Drop Pod with my Crisis Suits and I choose +1 1/2 range Pulse shots so my Firewarriors can hopefully glance his Vindicator to death from their side shots.

I don't have any pictures really of my movement except the Kroot on the left continue to try to chase down the Drop Pod marines. I think they manage to kill 1 or 2 of the Pod Marines with their shooting:


In the center flank, I'm hoping to save my Crisis Suit firing to destroy the Drop Pod, but for that to happen I need to kill or Stun the Vindicator with side shots from the Firewarriors and the remaining Broadside missile drones (and he is still getting powerfield saves against everything). I do have a few Firewarriors within half range getting an extra shot at the Vindicator, but even so, I cannot destroy it as the BS2 of the Missile Drones definitely lets me down (or rather performs about how you'd expect).

So I have to use the Crisis Suit's firing to shoot at the Vindicator from the front, but this time I remember I have Tank Hunter, so the results are a little better:

This is the turn my opponent has been waiting for. Time to do some CC damage! His Rhino continues to drive (flat-out) up the board edge on my right flank. His Drop Pod Marines actually move up onto the hill a little bit to take some pot shots at the Kroot (they kill a few, but nothing crazy).

But the main event is of course his Land Raider driving up on the hill tank shocking the Kroot (who pass thanks to the Ethereal's Ld 10), and then the Deathwing Knights drop out ready to charge.


The Land Raider fires at the 4 Missile Drones from the Broadside unit and wipes them out.

But now for the assault phase. The Deathwing Knights charge (through terrain). Although the Kroot are within 6" of the Pathfinders and both Firewarrior squads (the Crisis Suits were not within range), there is a lot of terrain in the way this time and because he's coming in from an extreme flank, I have very little that is within half range getting triple shots. This is DEFINITELY the way to charge Tau if possible (set it up so you're coming in from an extreme flank). None of my overwatch firing kills any of the Deathwing Knights (not surprising) and they complete their charge.


Their Hammer of Wrath attacks kill the two Kroot within engagement range (we did this a little wrong this first round of combat, as Hammer of Wrath only applies to charging models that get into base contact, but it really wouldn't have mattered anyway). My two Kroot Hounds at I5 are more than 3" away, and so cannot get within range to attack, so he follows up with his normal I4 step, moving back into base contact and again killing everything within range (also did this wrong in hindsight, as CC attacks can kill everything in the unit, but it doesn't matter as the result is the same). My Kroot can't get back into base contact on their I3 step, and so do no strikes back in return.

My Kroot take their Ld test at -6 (but it should have been even more) and therefore fail despite being Ld10 and run off the table. I could have given the Kroot Stubborn on my turn in anticipation of this, but I figured I didn't have enough Kroot left so if I did that they would only end up tying up his Deathwing Knights for MY shooting phase (as he'd probably wipe out the Kroot with combat attacks in the assault phase on my turn), which wouldn't really help me at all.

The victorious Deathwing Knights consolidate away from my Firewarriors:


At the end of turn 4, I have 4 VPs (Bikers, Librarian, Vindicator & slay the warlord) and he effectively has 6 VPs (Hammerhead, Pathfinders, Broadsides, Kroot, first blood & linebreaker). It is not looking good for the Tau!

We roll for night fight and sadly it does not arrive. All my awesome Night Fighting abilities are going to waste here!

This turn is tough decision time for the Tau. I obviously choose Tank Hunter for my Commander as I'm either going after the Drop Pod or the Rhino across the table. I did not consider (but should have) splitting off my Commander from the unit and using him (and his Tank Hunter) to go for the Rhino while the rest of the unit went after the Drop Pod. That would have left the Commander exposed to the Land Raider's firing, but he still had his two marker drones, so would still be protected via Look Out Sir against the Multi-Melta shot.

As for the Ethereals ability, I spend a bunch of time thinking about this. My first instinct is to go with the +1 Pulse shot ability, and just move my two Firewarrior squads up and try to take out as many of the Deathwing Knights as I can, as I still do have the 6 Pathfinders there as well (who also benefit from the +1 Pulse shot if I decide to fire their Carbines instead of their markerlights. But if I go this route, I know it is impossible for me to wipe out his Deathwing Knights squad (some of them are hidden behind the Land Raider even if he rolled enough failed saves to kill them), so that would leave them free to charge one of my units (and likely kill it) while the Land Raider would also be able to Tank Shock and then shoot another one of my units as well.

So I made a decision instead to go with the ability that allows my units to fire snap shots after running and I decide I'm going to run away from his Deathwing Knights and Land Raider towards the river. In hindsight I think this was definitely a poor decision as I'll talk about a bit later.

On the left flank across the river, my Kroot continue to push towards his Drop Pod Marines and the entire unit is now within range (some within half range even). After they finish firing (and some snap shots by the running Firewarriors too there are only 3 Drop Pod Marines remaining (they pass their Morale check):


In the Center, my Crisis Suits decide to target his Rhino, and not surprisingly obliterate it with their Tank Hunting Missile Pods and the resulting explosion kills two Marines (I believe), but they pass their Pinning and Morale checks:


Not surprisingly, my snap shots at the Deathwing Knights do nothing and my Pathfinders and still easily within their charge range (boo).

My Crisis Suits thrust into the river away from the Land Raider and towards the Drop Pod.

Well, on my turn I picked up only 1 VP, and he's likely to at least match that in his turn.

All my opponent has to do is get at least 1 VP this turn to keep his commanding lead and he knows it.

His Land Raider moves towards my Crisis Team a bit, but I think he wants to leave it close enough to give him the option of picking up the Deathwing Knights again on Turn 6 should he choose:


The Land Raiders firing on the Crisis Team doesn't do anything meaningful.

The Deathwing Knights however get ready to charge the Pathfinders:


And this is where my decision to run last turn really hits me as to how bad a move it was. If I had used my +1 Shot ability on my turn and moved both my Firewarrior units up, their firing, along with the Pathfinders (all at +1 shot) probably would have killed at least one or two of the Deathwing Knights (although judging from my opponent's saving throws, that's probably not a good conclusion to make, but still). But more importantly on top of that when he charged my pathfinders on his turn I again would have gotten to shoot with all 3 units all within that magic +1 shot range and maybe I could have taken out one more DW Knight if I was lucky.

But by running away like I did, not only did I have completely ineffective shooting on my turn, but I also made sure that my overwatch would do nothing as well (as I had gotten the Firewarrior units more than 6" away from the Pathfinders by the time they were charged).

Needless to say my Pathfinder overwatch does nothing and the Deathwing Knights tear them apart and consolidate:


On the left flank his Drop Pod Marines hide behind the hill to avoid being shot to death if there is a Turn 6. His Rhino Marines just move up behind the forest they're next to.

And with that, its time for the all important variable game length roll...

He rolls a '2' and the game is over. He wins 7 VPs (both Pathfinder units, Broadsides, 1 Kroot unit, Hammerhead, first blood & linebreaker) to 5 VPs (bikers, Librarian, slay the warlord, vindicator & rhino).

VICTORY TO THE DARK ANGELS!