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I had a battle today with a new list and wrote it up with vassal pictures for the blog. Enjoy!

My army list was:
Wolf Lord [Thunderwolf, Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer, Runic Armor, Saga of the Bear] 240
3 Wolf Guard [2 with Powerfist and Combi-melta, 1 Powerfist] 124
9 Hunters [Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Rhino] 185
9 Hunters [Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Rhino] 185
9 Hunters [Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Rhino] 185
4 Thunderwolf Cavalry [Storm Shield] 260
2 Speeders [Multi-Melta] 120
5 Long Fangs [4 Missile Launchers] 115
5 Long Fangs [4 Missile Launchers] 115

His was (from memory)
Shas'el [TLMP, Positional Relay]
3 Crisis Suits [TLMP, Targetting Array]
2 Crisis Suits [TLFB, Flamer]
12 Firewarriors [Devilfish with Disruption Pod and SMS]
12 Firewarriors [Devilfish with Disruption Pod]
12 Firewarriors [Devilfish with Disruption Pod]
6 Pathfinders [Devilfish with Disruption Pod and SMS]
Hammerhead [Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod]
Hammerhead [Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod]

We each had mobile armies with three troops so it looked to be an interesting game.

The mission was Seize Ground with Spearhead Deployment.


We rolled and determined 4 objectives and decided mutually to place a 5th objective that would be worth 2 on top of the central building. I'm not much of a fluff writer but immediately the idea of my Army trying to recapture a command post with vital information springs to mind.

He won the roll-off and decided to go first. Deployment looked like this:


His Turn 1:
Movement: He moved the pathfinders devilfish up to the command post and moved two firewarrior’s dfish up to the central and top right objectives.
The crisis suits hopped up on the hill

Shooting: Both the left hammerhead targeted my leftmost rhino and the right hammerhead targeted my Thunderwolf Cavalry, both tanks thankfully missed.
The firewarriors on the central objective and their dfish fired on the thunderwolf cavalry and put three wounds across the squad.
The pathfinder’s dfish fired its SMS at the long fangs below the hill but failed to penetrate their battle-hardened armor.

The crisis suits and Shas’el hopped back down behind the hill to end the turn.

My Turn 1:

Movement: I moved the right-most rhino to take the central objective and I spilled the hunters out at the command post. The left-most rhino sped towards the bottom left objective but the hunters stayed inside for protection.
The thunderwolf cavalry moved towards the firewarriors on the central objective.

Shooting: The long fangs on the hill fired at the pathfinders with krak missiles, killing 3. The long fangs below them fired at the left hammerhead blowing its dangerous railgun off its mount. The grey hunters fired into the firewarriors but with little success, only two or three of the xenos infantry fell.

Assault: The thunderwolf cavalry slammed into the firewarriors massacring all of them by the time the lord’s thunderhammer was done swinging.



His Turn 2:

Movement: He swept the central dfish up to fire on my rhino’s side armor. The dfish to its right disembarked the firewarrior squad and moved forward slightly to try to block a charge from the thunderwolves. Both hammerheads swept up and to the right. The suits hopped up on the hill (they did this every turn so I will stop mentioning it haha). The Shas’el’s positional relay kicked into action and brought the two fusion suits out of reserves. They deepstruck right behind the cavalry but scattered into the grey hunter’s rhino where they crashed, sending up two plumes of fire. (He rolled a 2 on the mishap table)

Shooting: With the aid of a markerlight, the hammerhead’s railgun’s solid slug tore a clean hole through the tank’s front armor and hit the engine, tearing the tank apart in a violent explosion. Thankfully all the passengers staggered out of the wreckage unharmed. The suits, firewarriors, and a dfish all fired on the cavalry which after the dust settled left a thunderwolf dead and the lord wounded twice.



My Turn 2:

Movement: The lord broke off from the cavalry squad to assault the dfish and the cavalry squad maneuvered to charge the firewarriors behind it. The grey hunters at the central objective shifted around to put the meltagun and combi-melta within 6 inches of the dfish’s side armor.

Shooting: The two melta shots reduced the dfish’s side armor to melted slag and one hit the main power drive sending the whole transport up in flames. The long fangs on the hill failed to even scratch the paint of the dfish by the woods while the other long fangs finished off the pathfinders with well placed krak missiles.

Assault: The lord was distracted by the explosion behind him as he only landed one hit on the dfish with his thunderhammer and proceeded to stun the crew. The thunderwolf cavalry mimicked their lord’s underwhelming performance by only killing three firewarriors on the charge while taking no wounds in return (this actually was to my benefit as the firewarriors did not break and kept me from the tau guns bristling all around the combat).



His Turn 3:

Movement: Once again he moved both hammerheads up. The last dfish with a squad inside zoomed straight up to disembark the squad just in range of my lord.

Shooting: A submunition exploded over the hunters (after scattering 2 inches) but unspectacularly left one dead. The dead pathfinder’s dfish failed for a third turn to kill a long fang. Everything that was left fired at the lord because he made an amazing number of saves before finally succumbing to pulse rifle fire from the firewarriors (the last thing he had left to shoot with).

Assault: The cavalry got their act together and killed 5 firewarriors, breaking them. (The cavalry somehow failed to catch the fleeing firewarriors). This is not shown on the picture, sorry!!!



My Turn 3:

Movement: My two speeders came out of reserves and deepstruck right on target behind his suits. I moved the cavalry into position to avenge the lord’s death by charging the full strength firewarriors. Lastly, the central grey hunters shuffled once more to put the meltagun within 6 inches of the shaken dfish’s front armor.

Shooting: The grey hunter’s meltagun melted an engine, immobilizing the dfish. The long fangs (all 10) focused their fire on the pathfinder’s dfish and achieved disappointing immobilized and weapon destroyed results. The speeders performed much more satisfactorily by wrecking the hammerhead after a penetrating shot on side armor.

Assault: The cavalry had their finest moment. They charged the firewarriors, killing 6 and breaking them. They then ran down the survivors, leaving none standing. They consolidated behind the devilfish for a cover save next turn. (The only remaining firewarriors continued to fall back)



At this point my opponent conceded since he had one scoring unit left (that was fleeing and under half-strength) while I had three full strength scoring units in control of 3(4) objectives.

It was definitely great to achieve victory my first time playing space wolves but I know I didn’t play perfectly. I forgot to ever use my wolf-standards, my long fangs were poorly deployed and didn’t have target rich lines of sight and I didn’t allocate wounds very well on the cavalry. Those are just the things I identified as mistakes, I’m sure I made more! I would love input on how I could play better next time I field my wolves.

I hope you enjoyed the report and criticism of my play really would be appreciated, I want to get better!

Until next time,
~Scyth3

I think you played in pretty well. Honestly, I don't think your going to get a lot of great feadback about this game, because of a number of things

This matchup Purely Codex v Codex favored you at least slightly, if not more so.

Large pieces of blocking terrain in the middle of the battlefield are a dealbreaker for Tau. This makes it much harder for Tau to do the required damage in the early rounds to prevent people from closing. Also Spearhead is the worst set up for tau and converesly the best for assaulting armies as it places the two armies the closest together.



That said, you won your game skillfully, and the above statements should not be taken in offense, just pointing some things out.



With that out of the way, your opponent needs to exit 4th edition.

He need to deploy the pathfinders in cover and start using them on turn 1

He probably should have put at least 2 DF in reserve so they can last the full game and use the PosRel to bring them on. Failing that, he should have deployed FW in cover and used their 30" range to try and kill rhinos or torrent TWC

He needs to use more efficient Suit configurations like PR/MP or TL MP and begin to hammer TWC on the first turn. You played that completely right by moving up into the blocking terrain in the middle and then charging the DF, if anything you probably could have multi assaulted the DF

Your opponent should never have advanced from his starting position toward you. If he had held for a turn and then moved laterally to the left, he would have delayed the TWC assault by a turn and forced your Long Fangs to reposition.

Tau should never try to take and hold objectives in the early game. Only by staying mobile and blasting people off objectives at the last minute can they safely hold them.


All in All, a great bat rep. If you want to continue to get help keep posting the vassal pics as they give us the best idea of what has gone on. Keep working with the SW

Razor

The List and the First two turns leaves me with questions as to, "Was this a novice Tau player?". Not trying to be mean or rude, there are a lot of things I noticed/have questions about that make me ask this.

1)His list, it looks like something quickly copied off of the Internet. He has all of those vehicles for mobility, but not a single multi-tracker that will allow him to use it.

2)His deployment. I am aggressive and I still would never stick my FW out like that.

3)Deployment. Against your army, I would have opted to go second. If not second then all FW would have started the game outside and 26"-30" away from your army or all loaded and ready to run.
He had tons of firepower but didn't use it when he could and failed to make use of his mobility. He should have done one or the other, not half of both. Also, why were his pathfinders moving first turn? They have a scout move. If you meant that he took a scout move then I have a question about this in the shooting section.

4)Movement. Why is he not hiding his Devilfish? He is using SMS so there is no need to stick them way out in front and in the open.

5)First turn Shooting and Firing priority. He was all over the place instead of focusing on his biggest threat. BTW, What did his crisis suit shoot? Did He forget? He should have been dumping missiles into the Rhinos while the Hammerheads both dumped pie plates on the Cavaly.(Diagram looks like he was using Ion cannons as opposed to Rails, could you confirm the railguns?)
Also, What did his Pathfinders mark with their markerlights? Did he not fire because of a Scout move?

At least, five deadly mistake before turn one was half over.

6)We will skip to second turn and Reserves. He got them killed? Did he use his re-roll for deep strike from the PF Devifish? I ask because of no mention of him scattering bad twice. Another thing that leaves me wondering if the player was new. Not trying to be rude, just a lot of fumble on his part if you haven't left anything out.

Actually I will leave off here, there is more that I could point out but am unsure of whether there are ommissions in the narrative or did your opponent relly miss that many things.

Glad you had a fun time and the battle is very nicely illustrated.

focusedfire wrote:The List and the First two turns leaves me with questions as to, "Was this a novice Tau player?". Not trying to be mean or rude, there are a lot of things I noticed/have questions about that make me asking this.

1)His list, it looks like something quickly copied off of the Internet. He has all of those vehicles for mobility, but not a single multi-tracker that will allow him to use it.

2)His deployment. I am aggressive and I still would never stick my FW out like that.

3)Deployment. Against your army, I would have opted to go second or all FW would have started the game outside and 26"-30" away from your army or all loaded and ready to run.
He had tons of firepower but didn't use it when he could and failed to make use of his mobility. He should have done one or the other, not half of both. Also, why were his pathfinders moving first turn? They have a scout move. If you meant that he took a scout move then I have a question about this in the shooting section.

4)Movement. Why is he not hiding his Devilfish? He is using SMS so there is no need to stick them way out in front and in the open.

5)First turn Shooting and Firing priority. He was all over the place instead of focusing on his biggest threat. BTW, What did his crisis suit shoot? Did He forget? He should have been dumping missiles into the Rhinos while the Hammerheads both dumped pie plates on the Cavaly.(Also, Diagram looks like he was using Ion cannons as opposed to Rails, could you confirm the railguns?)
Also, What did his Pathfinders mark with their markerlights? Did he not fire because of a Scout move?

At least, five deadly mistake before turn one was half over.

6)We will skip to second turn and Reserves. He got them killed? Did he use his re-roll for deep strike from the PF Devifish? I ask because of no mention of him scattering bad twice. Another thing that leaves me wondering if the player was new. Not trying to be rude, just a lot of fumble on his part if you haven't left anything out.

Actually I will leave off here, there is more that I could point out but am unsure of whether there are ommissions in the narrative or did your opponent relly miss that many things.

Glad you had a fun time and the battle is very nicely illustrated.

It looks like my victory was less a result of great play by me, and more of very poor play by my opponent. I don't know the tau play well but with the oversights that you pointed out I also would assume he was just beginning or, at the very least, was very unfamiliar with 5th ed.

I am facing another tau player later today who I know is more experienced and should give me more of a challenge and I will illustrate and narrate that battle with vassal too. Thankyou for the feedback on my opponent's play, if I see him again at my LGS I will try to point out some of the things you brought up nicely as suggestions for improvement in the future.

Until next time,
Scyth3

@Scyth3-Do not diminish your play because of your opponents failures. You took advantage of every mistake that the Tau player made and very much had a victory through superior play.
You played as well as any numcer of experienced SW players andI hope that the next Tau player gives you a better game.

Things to be prepared for againt the next Tau Player:

1)He most likely will not give you something to first turn assault(Last thing a Tau player wants to do is to give an assault army extra movement.)

2)List- Expect to see a tricksy maneuvering army or an ungodly amount of Fire power. You might see Pirahna and broadsides in the list also. I suggest being prepared fight against a hybrid list that has a Broadside pathfinder castle/firebase and the rest of the army mechanized or a pure mech list that has a lot more maneuverability.

3)Focused/Overwhelming fire on your transports first(Miss Pods), thunder Wolves Second(VoF from Pulse Refles or vehicles). He is going to try to put your army on fott as fast as possible.

4)Kauyon-The baited trap. Sort of what your opponent tried to do, but without squandering the lives of the bait unit. In effect it is where the Player sticks a target out for his opponent to go after but in the process of closing on the bait he enters a killzone of overwhelming fire.