His list was something like this:

Special character that deepstrikes, makes a bodyguard unit larger and doesn't scatter on deepstrike
A body guard of 4 or 5 suits with all sorts of nasty weapons
2 more deepstriking body guard suit units with all sorts of nasty weapons

2 large units of firewarriors
2 units of marker drones
1 unit of some type of suit... not body guards, but looked like they had all sorts of nasty weapons on them
2 riptides


So I would get more specific about what he had, but frankly some of it didn't matter and everyone who is reading this knows that all xenos look the same so who cares what they were.

He put his ADL in the center of the field. I was ok with that.

I ended up setting up first and parked the plasma + inquistor and the dominion on the line off of the center of the board because there was some crazy building with a bridge in the center. Oh, before I forget. The mission was the relic but I as I was testing killyness I didn't much care about that either

He set up his force behind the ADL with the non-bodyguard suits in the center of the field.

Coteaz rolled perfect timeing and presence (which is what I got every round of this tourney... I'm ok with aggressive but a 4++ is sometimes nice... ah well)

He failed to steal initiative so first turn sisters!

I scouted everything forward, then moved them forward jumping all the dominion squads out. There was one unit that I couldn't get in range of the suits, but everything had a target. Shooting saw the suit squad vaporized by melta and an exorcist, one fire warrior squad was decimated by plasma cannons from coteaz's squad, one riptide took 2 wounds (nothing better to shoot at with the one dom squad), and the plasma in the chimera (and the chimera) ripped through the other firewarrior squad killing something like 7 of them through awful armor/cover rolls. Also ended up using an exorcist to shoot up a marker drone squad. He rolled for panic and both fire warrior squads and the marker drones ran for it. Only 1 fire warrior squad was left on the field after the running.

His turn took out a single immolator and a couple dominion sisters.

Turn 2 I targeted the fire warriors first, then the riptides. The fire warriors went down to a space-fish and the Riptides couldn't take the massed melta/exorcist fire. I was rolling pretty well for the random shots on it, averaged 4.5 through the game. The amount of S8 AP1 sisters get is amazing. also, S8 AP1 eats Riptides and makes a VERY hard choice for the tau players of either being agressive with them and taking more wounds without the 3++, or being defensive (which means I win).

He droped his drop troops down near Coteaz, but out of his expecting you range. He opened up with his crazy weapons and took out 2 immolators dropping the BSS squads with heavy flamers near his suits. He also 'stunned' an exorcist on the far right of the field and killed a psyker, the crusader and the DCA from Coteaz's unit.

In my turn the only thing on his side of the field was the last unit of marker drones, so the dominion melta'ed them do artificer hell. Frankly I didn't have anything better to do with them. The exorcists, what was left of Coteaz's unit and every flamer I could bring to bear opened fire on the command unit. Did you know that Tau are generally T4 when they are in suits? Turns out tau armor isn't so good against S8 AP1... He conceded after his commander died to massed firepower

After the game he bought a 3rd riptide... not sure if that would have helped him in this game, but I did sorta feel sorry for him. He didn't do anything wrong, but it was a terrible matchup for him.

So this was an interesting game. The player was the guy that typically runs the tourneys and I know that he is good from reputation and also from watching him play other people. Gotta say I was looking forward to playing this game.

His list:

2 farseers, lvl 3 psykers with stuff on them that I probably should care about more than I do.
Each of the farseers were in blobs of 20 guardians, both squads had 2xbrightlances and waveserpents hovering nearby.
3 warwalkers with brightlances and scatter lasers (I think)
a big unit of warp spiders
2 units of 3 bikes in reserve
1 wraithknight without a shield, and likely all sorts of weapons. He told me, but I don't remember what they were.

Now his trick with the guardians was to get a re-rollable 4++ through his heretical witchcraft psykers, but the emperor twarted his general because one of the psykers did not get the 4++ from divination.

He got to set up first and it was on the long table. This part was key in this game

He decided to set up his force hugging the back of the table. the warp spiders were the closest to the line, but out of line of sight to anything.

I decided that I could out-range him with my exorcists. He had the 2 serpent shields to my 3 exorcists... works for me. I outflanked everything I could and lined up on my back line and behind as much cover as possible.

oh, mission was 3 strategic points... but again the lists were so killy that didn't matter much.

I tried to steal init, but failed. Coteaz wasn't eating his Wheaties that morning i guess (or he was, which made him late)

His first turn he moved his warp spiders up the one side of the field and his wraith knight a bit foward. His warwalkers also shifted up a bit towards the line, but most everything was far out of range. His shooting from his serpents took 2 HP from my one exorcist. (yikes, that was close)

My turn 1
I pushed my force a bit forward, but not all that much. I just wanted to make sure the exorcists were in range.
Launched as many exorcist rockets at the warwalkers as was available and only managed to immobilize one. Rats, lucky for me the other exorcist had a blessed SINGLE missle that managed to fire, hit, pen and blow a wave serpent back to whatever warp the eldar come from.

So far, so good. That was first blood.

Coteaz and his troop were in range of the warp spiders, but they were pretty spread out. Killed a bunch of them anyway, he was down to maybe 5 or 6? hard to remember exactly.

His turn 2
He really wanted revenge for the wave serpent... so he wrecked the exorcist that had 2 HP removed the last round, and ripped the MM off of an immolator. Not much else really happend because he was still out of range of most everything and his bikes didn't show up yet.

My turn 2
Everything that had outflanked came in.

I clustered 2 of the dominion squads near his wraithknight, while the lone dominion on the other side of the field was very near the war walkers. A shooting round later saw the wraithknight and the warwalkers as scrap. Took a big chunk out of his warlord's guardian squad as well, but failed to wound the farseer.
Also, bailed a BSS squad near the warp spiders and combined firepowered them to dust.

His turn 3
His bikes came on the field and tore up the far side's dominion squad. one single melta sister was left along with her immolator. He also shreaded the chimera and everything inside of it. That squad barely hit the field before they were plastered.

My turn 3
Started off by tank shocking the bikes. I find that this is almost always a good idea because you get to run a tank over infantry! Anyway, one of the bike squads failed the leadership test and ran off the field. He conceded at this point because he couldn't take the objectives without the mobility of the bikes.

In the end I was going to control 2 of the objectives and likely be able to contest the 3rd... idk about that last part, but it may have happened with all the dom squads on that side of the field. Still had an awful lot of firepower on both sides, but I was defiantly trading figs to my benefit.

We talked quite a bit after the game and He said that he basically lost in the settup. He should have placed his blobs on the line and challenged the center of the field. I'm not sure if this would have worked for him, but i think he's at least partially right. Again, the long range trades favored me and my outflankers were going to hit HARD. I'd be tempted to scout if he had done that, but I didn't have the flamers to effectively immolate large squads. If he had gotten all of the psyker powers he wanted it would have helped him a lot. 4++ rerollable 20 guardian squads make for a very nice bodyguard and i don't think I had an answer to that outside of massed, focused firepower.

So round 3 and I find myself playing against another very good player. He brought a foot-dar list that when I saw it I was a bit worried. I wasn't really set up for anti-hord so it was going to be a challenge if things started going against me. Anyway, here's what I remember of his list:

2 farseers, His general was aggressively built with stuff to be aggressive (not sure what, we'll get to that). The other one was defensively built and included something that caused his unit to be fearless. the defensive one got the 4++ divination power, invisibility and the Fear power.

2 units of 8 warp spiders

2 blobs of 20 guardians with 2 starcannons each

a unit of 3 vibro-cannons

10 or so death reapers

1 unit of rangers

So I got the roll to set up first.

He put his ADL in the center of the field. Its nice to know what the enemy is doing before the game starts.

Anyway, I put my scouts on the front line ready to charge across the field and melt whatever they are able to. I figured he would put nasty stuff behind the ADL or in the building next to it. They were kinda obvious places to put stuff... not that I really had the tools to deal with blobs... but whatever. I scattered everything else around and put the servitor skulls towards the center of the field. Didn't want him to infiltrate and mess up my scouting.

He set up his blobs behind the ADL with the 2 farseers in the same squad. the ruined building next to the ADL was filled with his heavies and warp spiders.

Scouted everything up the field

Turn 1.

Took my scouts up to the ADL and everything that was able to opened fire on the unit that had his characters in it. Managed to kill the 'agressive' farseer and reduced the unit down to 4 guardians. The bright side to this was I got first blood and removed a very nasty figure from the field. The down side was that it left the rest of his army untouched. It worried me, but I needed to start somewhere. I flat-outed the BSS squads figuring that the cover wasn't going to go anywhere any time soon.

His turn 1 was pretty much what I expected. He smashed up some vehicles and killed a bunch of domion sisters. One dominion ran from the fear spell, one was reduced to 1 melta sister and the 3rd had 2 sisters killed. Night fighting helped me out this round because my scouts had headlights, but he didn't have that advantage across his army. He also butchered the plasma squad and blew up the chimera. Left the inquisitor cowering in a crater... i'll have to speak with her after the battle.

Turn 2.
So he took his remaining farseer into his 2nd guardian unit so that was my next target. The 'invisibility' spell on them was going to be a problem though. Lucky for me, my BSS were coming into range and they had my flamers and heavy flamers. That said, they wern't ideally spaced. He had spread them out to avoid the flamers and the plasma cannons. Lucky for me, I had immolators (use what you have available, not what you wish you had). So tank shock time! took the 2 immolators and tank shocked both ends of his units with hopes of clustering the entire unit of guardians between the 2 tanks. Unfortunatly, the one on the far side got hung up on the ADL... ah well, best laid plans...

Still, jumped the sisters squads out and torched lots of guardians. The plasma cannons went after the dark reapers and killed all but 2. He left a unit of warp spiders in the open so I torched them with the de-meched BSS squad nearby, and also some exorcist shots. Also managed to remove the remaining guardians from round 1's shooting phase.

His turn 2
His 2 bike units showed up and unloaded on my troops. 1 went against the remaining melta dominion sister from one squad, the other went against a BSS squad. Both charged but the one against the BSS had a very bad overwatch round and lost 2 of them to fire. The remaining warp spider squad shot and charged the BSS that removed their warp spider buddies and lost a couple to overwatch as well (causing them to fail their charge)

At this point he decided that he had enough. I do not believe that his situation was dire at this point, but he was physically exhausted and I had field position on him. The mission was 'big guns never tire' and it would have been interesting if I could keep my exorcists alive to secure the objectives. My guess is Coteaz's squad would have started to eat through the vibro cannons securing his objective next turn and I was still convinced I could clear up the rest of his troops so long as the combat didn't go tragically wrong. The Dominion girl was going to die, but at least that means I could shoot his bikes.