catalyst2 | Battle #8

2000 pt. game against Jared's Tau tonight at PAGS. You know that feeling when a plan comes together? Well, I had that tonight. I had decided that I would have a 5-man assault squad accompany the Thunderfire cannon and, rather than use the cannon centrally as I have done every time so far, I would put it on one wing. The centre would be loaded up - Dreadnought, Predator Annihilator, two tactical teams and two Razorbacks, with the other wing being scout squad with Tellion, the other Dreadnought and third tactical squad. The Vanguard I bought on Saturday would Deep Strike.

The tactic was good old fashioned Schwerpunkt right down the centre. Sure enough, it was all Broadsides and Crisis Suits etc etc in each corner. The only unit in the centre was Kroot - and the Thunderfire got 14 of the twenty in the first round. I brought both the Razorbacks up, dumped the squads and then planted myself right in front with both Razorbacks blocking almost all LOS to the second Tactical squad who were following up.

It was all over, bar the shouting once the Kroot evaporated in the center in round two. The two halves of my battle line swung around and attacked each wing with both Thunderfire and Annihilator providing heavy support. The Predator barely hit a thing all night except in Turn 5 when it hit a Fire Warrior team just at the right moment. The Thunderfire made up for it, doing significant damage to another Fire Warrior team, took out a Broadside and generally kept everything on the right wing under cover. Its accompanying assault squad died on turn 3 but they had protected it from all his reserves so the cannon survived right to the end of the game.

There were four objectives on the table - I took one with my scouts, one with a combat squad from the second tactical squad that had hurtled up the centre in the Razorbacks and held a third until the very last man got shot off it on the last shot of Turn 5. Result: 2-0 to me. WOOHOO! I really enjoyed this, partly because I discovered that Jared and I share an equally warped sense of humour and partly because I felt like I was using the units the way they were meant to be used.

Discoveries:
(other than learning about the rules generally of course)
- use the Techmarine to reinforce ruins and then stick scouts in with camo cloaks and Tellion means 2+ cover saves, 36" range and Tellion's ability to allocate wounds makes for one bloody irritating unit for my opponent even if it doesn't actually do much damage. The sheer frustration of the repeated 2+ cover saves meant that a whole pile of unnecessary and excessive fire poured in on them, firepower which would probably have been devastating if it had been re-directed elsewhere on my army
- I really don't know how to use bikes. I have them because I like the idea and their look (shallow, I know!) but reality is that I'm very ineffective with them.
- the HB Razorback/combat squad combination really changes what a tactical squad can achieve. It also means the my Predator never got fired on all night , mainly because it was just so far back that it got forgotten about because the Razorbacks were attracting all the attention upfront.
- The Vanguard didn't seem to do much - arrived in Turn 4 and were dead by Turn 5 - but they held an entire wing up, immobilised the last remaining mobile transport and generally caused mayhem way beyond their actual impact. I get why MathHammer doesn't get the full picture because I used the Vanguard in a rash and unsuccessful way mathematically but almost half his army ran for cover when they arrived.

Jared, thanks for the game and, as always, I learned a great deal from you and had a very enjoyable evening. Cheers!