catalyst2 | Battle #19

Tonight was 2000 points vs Ben's Tau with Capture and Control mission with Dawn of War deployment. Ben usually takes a highly mobile force with lots of Kroot, Devilfishes aplenty and a squadron of Piranhas. Having prepared for that, Ben took a completely static gunline force that didn't move an inch! Still, I had decided to go with an assault based army and intended to get to him as fast as I could.

Turn 1 could have been a disaster with the deployment type because I had to put the terminators plus Librarian (my HQ choice) right in front of his gunline so that they could hope to get over via Gate of Infinity this turn. His entire army blasted away and I lost just one terminator. Whew, crisis over! My very favourite Drop Pod Dread landed and immobilised his Hammerhead, the terminators gated in next to it and destroyed a unit of stealth suits. The Whirlwind and Thundrefire wreaked havoc amongst his fire warriors whilst the Predator took two wounds off his crisis suit Shas'o commander. The Razorbacks hurtled up the centre, fired smoke and then acted as a wall as my 10-man assault squad dropped down just behind them.

Turn 2 and sniper drones picked away at my numbers, but LOS issues meant a fair part of my army couldn't be seen. The Broadsides hit the Razorbacks, taking one weapon (the TL HB, obviously) and stunning the other one. For reasons I am not sure of, he left his commander out in front at the end of the turn so my assault squad dived over the top of the Razorback and shot/assaulted him into little pieces. Unfortunately, this was a major blunder because this now left my assault squad out in the open in front of 3 full fire warrior squads. I had intended to assault the commander and catch the two fire warrior squad in the same assault but having shot first, now couldn't do that. Damn! The terminators continued the havoc over on the right, taking out another stealth suit squad whilct the Dethwind ML took out the sniper drones next to it.

Turn 3 and the sniper drones continued their damage, two combat squads going down to two men only. One Razorback (the stunned one) was blown up (damned broadsides!) but the other was untouched. He fired the Hammerhead at my objective, hoping to get the sniper scouts and combat squad in there but the techmarine-reinforced 3+ save for the combat squad and the 2+ save for the camo-cloak sniper scouts meant just one marine died whilst the scouts were untouched. The look on his face was priceless - that was the biggest gun (literally and metaphorically) that he could fire at me and I just shrugged it off. He seemed to lose hope then. If he could get my assault squad, there was some hope that he could at least salvage a draw. The three full squads of fire warriors blazed away and 5 marines died but that still meant another five were going to assault him right about now. The terminators took out his broadsides so at least my Razorback could move a little more safely - and it did, dropping off a combat squad which then proceeded to kill 5 fire warriors, the assault squad's shooting (with just five pistols) killed another five in the squad over the objective and the Thunderfire/Whirlwind combination hit the third squad very heavily. The assault squad finally got into CC and killed the entire fire warrior squad off. One objective now contested.

Turn 4 - if this went right for Ben, he could get a draw but it was going to be close. With the remnants of all 3 fire warrior squad blazing away, he only managed to kill 1 more assault marine. His Kroot turned up, only to to annihilated by a combination of Predator/Whirlwind/Thunderfire with the final three Kroot hounds being mown down by plain old rapid-firing boltguns. The terminators killed off another squad of stealth suits and the final broadside. The assault squad assaulted the second fire warrior squad and killed it off whilst last few of the third one got picked off by the sniper scouts - I think this one broke Ben's heart because Tau are not used to being picked off at 36", further than their own 30" range! My shotgun scouts finally rocked up and promptly annihilated the last squad of sniper drones. Ben surrendered at this point, he only having his immobilised Hammerhead and a handful of non-troops choices left on the table.

Result: Victory to me by one objective to nil. I really enjoyed tonight's game - Ben plays an entertaining game and is always funny to talk to. Thanks for a great game, Ben!

What I learned tonight:
1) If I can get terminators into CC on the first turn against Tau, they are pretty much stuffed. Those terminators munched their way through the entire right wing, shooting and assaulting their way through a whole pile of units. Good job lads!
2) I really love that drop Pod Dread - the horror in Ben's eyes as he leapt for the Deep Strike mishap table, only for me to point out that Drop Pods weren't affected the same way was a sight to behold.
3) I can't remember where I saw it but the idea of using the Razorbacks as a mobile wall for the assault squad to get in range was great - I can't remember where I read about it but it worked a charm. They only had to use it for one turn because they got into range so fast but they could have done it again if needed.
4) I really need to remember to look at what unit I am shooting at before assaulting. I could have blown the entire thing with the assault squad in the centre when I shot at his commander and then had to assault him (and him only). Not only did I have to endure a whole turn of fire (killing 50% of the assault squad) but I also had to wait another turn before I could assault his squad. Done properly, I should have assaulted without shooting and then I could have got the Commander and two Fire warrior squads tied up, no exposure next turn and I could probably have taken both objectives by the end of Turn 4.
5) Thunderfire canons against Tau and Kroot are just awesome.
6) Ditto to the above for Whirlwinds!

My W-L-D record is now 14-5-0.