Kinebrach-Knobbling Xeno Interrogator
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Originally I bought the Skitarii army for 40k use, but with SWA I didn't see them seeing a lot of use, so I figured I'd try them out here rather than use them for dust colonies.
My Kill-Team consisted of:
-1 Skitarii Alpha W/ Omnispex and Galvanic Rifle
-2 Rangers W/ Galvanic rifles
-1 Ranger W/ Radium Carbine
-1 Specialist W/ Arc Rifle
-1 Specialist W/ Transuranic Arquebus and Photo-visor
His Tau Team was
1 - Shas'ui w/ Carbine
4 - Pathfinders w/ Carbines
1 - Recon Drone
1 - Accelerator Drone
1 - Specialist W/ Railrifle
We used a relatively small combat zone, around 40x40 inches, we decided to go for a more urban environment, the map was setup to be a bombed out city, with a few catwalks and ladders to move across the buildings.
For the sake of simplicity in our first time playing Shadow Wars, we went with a Straight forward "Kill anything that moves" mission, on the left side of the map, there was a series of catwalks and buildings that circled, making a pretty nice courtyard (or a perfect killbox), Naturally he put his railgun on one of the catwalks and his shas'ui in the courtyard by some full cover. The rest of his squad came in from the other side of the map, where cover was very generous, however any one seeking higher ground would be exposed for at least a turn whilst moving to cover. With the number of guns I'd be facing I quickly ruled out any direct approaches on that direction. I left a man hiding and watching them (much to my relief, this seemed to stall their advance to a crawl).
During our time playing 40k, I had come to understand that generally speaking, Tau are supposed to be good at shooting things, so I decided, a good approach would be to target his singled out sniper and leader to hopefully knock them out early to force a retreat. How perfectly that plan went.
I decided to put my sniper on a catwalk opposite to his railgun, the cover sucked, but it gave him a very good line of sight over the battlefield (It would be a gamble, but if it payed off, a certainly worthwhile one), aside from the two guys watching the patrol, everyone else was stacked up with my alpha behind a wall that stared down the courtyard and the Shas'ui watching over it.(My plan at this point was to paint him and any other target with the omnispex and direct everyone's fire towards it, Striking each xeno with surgical precision.)
His shooting phase began, Every. Shot. Missed. It was magical it threw a dice at a wall! He immediately noted my sniper as a primary threat (With S7, d3 damage and a -3 save modifier, how could you not?) and hoped to counter-snipe him, luckily an ammo roll and critical 1 To Wound isn't a good way of going about it. I returned the favor and barely pulled off the snipe, was not able to knock him out for good, but so long as the railgun was silenced, I would maintain the edge. As a follow up, my alpha painted and my 3 rangers secured the effectual end of his shas'ui (I was amazed with how good this guy was at soaking up damage!).
It became immediately apparent that I had a very favorable range advantage, My Galvanic rifles reaching a beautiful 30", the Pulse carbine's range being a mere 18 (They hugged the accelerator drone hard). I could essentially control much of the field with this advantage.
On the next turn, my sniper was inevitably focused on heavily by his men. He was sadly left bleedout out on that catwalk for the remainder of the game. The hidden spy was also found and pretty quickly shot down, though not before dropping a man out of the game (However, this did not come without a silver lining, one of the pathfinder's carbines had run dry and he was left with nothing but a trusty combat knife).
With that sad loss of brave tin-men, my soldiers stole their resolve and began to set up in the walkways and rooftops overlooking the courtyard, I would force the Tau to go on the attack, painting those who came and robbing them of their precious -2 fullcover saves. I had about 2 turns to do this before the Tau would get close enough.
It was mostly a game of cat and mouse at this point, he would split his men and try and advance from all sides. While the majority of his squad besieged my men, the Tau without a gun was actually running around trying to stab the bleeding out fighters (The dishonor!). With enough combined fire, I managed to pop his recon drone (though not before it had flanked and hosed a man down). The rest of his men still feeling cautious, not wanting to expose themselves to omnispex fire.
Around this point, the Shas'ui after crying in his cover finally recovered and stood up in the middle of the courtyard, now killzone. much to my surprise, he did indeed manage to get a shot of at my alpha, though largely ineffectual thanks to it's TWO wounds. Feeling somewhat vindictive at being shot, my Alpha directed all fire upon the Brave Blueberry.
And as if destined by the dark gods.
Every. Shot. Missed. The entire squad. Even with the +2 of an Arc, rifle, the Xeno filth remained resilient to it all! With every shot being wasted on this demi-godlike creature, the remaining men had set to task on returning fire, dropping one of my precious soldiers, but just when the situation was looking dire for our brave tin-men.
The bottle-out test came. In the peak of their advance, the Tau were forced to retreat like the cowards they are!
To add further insult to injury, During our injury rolling, all three of my casualties had rolled a 6, 2 men gained new skills while the 3rd (and my Alpha) advanced their BS to 5. The Tau took a far heavier beating than I, the sniper took a head wound (Gained Frenzy) and was forced to sit the next mission out, another gained hatred and was also sitting the next fight out, while his third gained the scavenger skill.
The next fight was over much quicker, he willfully surrendered after an embarrassing fight with a Ruststalker (he used his promethium cache to acquire a Fireblade). Keeping it in hiding for most of the game, I finally charged it into his recruits and accelerator drone. It gutted one recruit with ease, putting him out for good, the drone however WON THE FIGHT! and the two became locked in combat. His 2nd recruit (replacing his fallen sniper) fired into the mass of robot melee and actually stray fired into the drone, knocking it out entirely. Out of pity my Ruststalker also put him out of his misery. At this point, 3 of his fighters had just been knocked out, 1 by his own hand. His fireblade had taken up a shooting nest in a roof top directly above the ruststalker, he decided the only thing logical to do, Jump on it. The fireblade used his charge to lead down from the roof and land square on the 'stalker's head, causing 2 wounds and almost killing the thing. With his fireblade now locked in a fairly one-sided fight and most of his team dead, he opted to admit bitter defeat in the face of his betters and surrendered.
And there you have it! Thanks for slogging through this, I just wanted to share :|
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