[Fallen Angel]

Went to Yorkshire Open tournament yesterday, thought i'd give a bat rep of it. The list i took was tau:

Shas'el with PR/FB/TA/HWMT - 97
Shas'el with PR/MP/TA/HWMT/HWDC/2 Shield Drones - 127

6 Stealths - 180
3 Fireknives incl. team leader with targetting array and two shield drones - 231

8 FWs in a warfish - 200
10 Kroot - 70
10 Kroot - 70

Broadside team - 195
Railhead - 180
Ionhead - 145

Due to a some what different rules pack, in that scoring units had to either be 6 models or 6 wounds strong, my list was a bit different to the norm but everyone had that problem.

First game was alpha recon. I was playing against a very nice Legion of the Damned army, featurin a chaplain with a command squad in a rhino, two dreads, a few walking tactical squads, one tornado, a vindicator, heavy bolter dev squad and a whirlwind. So a pretty balanced list. In the centre of the board was a big building, on the left it was empty in the middle and on the right there was quite a lot of level 2. Both our deployments were fairly spread, my railguns, HQs and stealths were on the left facing his armour, fireknives, FWs and ionhead went down the right. He mainly stacked on the left, there was only the dev squad, one tac squad and the whirlie on the right. The plan was to hold the left and sweep round from the right.

Turn 1 he didnt do much, bar killing a shield drone from the whirlie. My turn, i went a bit too agressive. Ionhead failed to hurt the whirlie, as did the railhead to the vindie. Luckily the rhino got immobolized by the broadsides, having soaked my other shooting. not that good.
Promptly the two lascannons he had in his tac squads kill my railhead and devilfish. Woops. I also fail a few more 2+ saves and am left with one broadside. Hmm bye bye left flank.
When in need of help, crisis suits to the rescue!! The HQs hold their own on the left, downing the speeder, command squad and knocking the other tac squad below scoring. On the right the fireknives and ionhead swept all before them and took out everything else. In the end i score with my ionhead, fireknives and stealths, him nothing.

I'll update more later.

 

[Fallen Angel]

Right, FINALLY, i get some free time to put the rest up.

So fresh from a victory in the first game, its onwards and upwards. This time its an eldar army in gamma secure and control. Well, in reality its seek and destroy with just 50VPs for each of the 5 loot counters you hold - go figure. Anyways my opponent had 3 fire prisms with holofields (no spirit stones which would cost him the game), 2 squads of 8 pathfinders, 2 squads of 9 warp spiders with an exarch with withdraw, and a very angry looking avatar.

The terrain was a bit sparse but there was enough to hide behind. Well there would be against a static army but unfortunately for me i ended up with the terrain that was at 45 degrees to the board edge and not horizontal to it. So of course the prisms went on the flanks and exploited this.

I spread my deployment, railguns on either flanks, crisis split as well. He had a prism and a spider squad on either flank and the other prism and avatar in the middle. He'd placed three of the counters right in the middle of the table and i expected his avatar to go forward and sit there for the entire game to stop me getting any. Infiltrate was interesting, he won that roll and placed his first pathfinders 12.1" from my broadsides behind cover. Hmm. I then placed my stealths there as well to provide some CC cover :lol: The other pathfinders went in the middle to shoot my kroot, which are hiding behind the middle. Oh almost forgot, i elected to deepstrike my HQ with fuision.

Predictably he gets first turn, and somewhat surprisingly charges my stealths and broadsides in an effot to tie their railguns up. Personally i'd have just infiltrated them and shot the broadsides but....Elsewhere one prism managed to hit one of my suits and get two drone partials - so thats two drones and one suit in the dead pile The other prisms achieve nothing. One kroot squad gets snipered and death spinnered down to one model, who legs it. Sensible. So onto combat. He kills one stealth, i kill three pathfinders but he holds despite being outnumbered. Would have been a tad embarassing to die like that.

Anyway my first turn and its time to shoot things! Fireknife took their revenge and downed one fire prism, one more got shaken by the railhead and a couple of spiders died. Bah. At least the pathfinders in combat got squished good and proper!

One warp spider bounded down the left, promptly shooting my devilfish out of the sky. D'oh. The prism that could shoot did so and left my broadsides with one suit left. Sigh, i completely lost the ability to pass saves in this game. I think most of my kroot died at this point as well. Not looking good at all.

When in times of crisis, you need crisis suits :roll: yeah ok bad. Anyway my HQ arrived dead on behind the prism on the left and stunned it. Broadsides were running at this point but doing it slowly. The spider squad on the right got some loving, leaving 3 left (non-scoring woo), the prism getting shaken as well.

The eldar didnt have much to do at this point, the avatar charged the kroot and killed them, pathfinders ran towards the objective, other spiders hid or something. Oh and hte rihgt spider squad took out my drones and put a wound on my commander. From 4 armour saves

Fusion commander did the business and put a round straight through the prism cockpit and downed it. The other commander had less luck against the other prism, not doing anything. My two tanks were in the middle now, where all the objectives and avatar were. Their SMS made the remaining pathfinders run and a solid shot took the right warp spiders down to two.

His turn, left spiders took out my fusion HQ (Should have jumped behind a dead tank to hide but forgot - d'oh!). Other two spiders shoot my other HQ, pass both saves though! The prism then shoots him point blank in the face but fails to wound - oh thats going to hurt as i now have rear armour. At that point the spiders charge him in cover, he swings three times, two dead spiders Oh and the pathfinders carry on running.

At this point, we're running out of time but just enough is left to squeeze in my turn. And what a turn it is. The mighty shas'el on the right, leaps behind the prism and shoots it out of the sky. :twisted: And thats about all i accomplished then.

At the end of the game, he has a warp spider squad left and some pathfinders running, whereas i have my two tanks in the centre scoring two objectives, half my crisis and firewarrior squads left and a hard as nails Shas'el. So a 13-7 to me.

 

[Warboss Dakka]

Can't believe that eldar player charged you with pathfinders. I would love to have watched these games though it seems like you weren't exactly facing off against tactical juggernaughts. I like the marine army you faced, sounds a lot like my force. I like your force as well, I think kroot are one of the most efficient units in the game. What happened to the eldar wraithlord though?

 

[Prophaniti]

I'm quite impressed to see Fallen Angel's battlesuits actually taking out enemy tanks, rather than themselves! :lol:

(For those of you not in the know I faced Mr Angel at the GT Heat1 in October. He was Eldar I was Tau (the irony). He won convincingly, but our game did provide two top comedy moments: 1, A pathfinder railrifle downing a falcon; a feat unmatched by any other opponent of his all weekend. 2, One of my crisis suits killing himself, instead of the wave serpent he was shooting at. Bloody scatter weapons :evil: )

 

[jigplums]

bet those bum rushing pathfinders had you worried

 

[Fallen Angel]

I could see what he was doing with the pathfinders but thought he could have done it much easier with his warp spiders, that were deployed opposite, on the second turn, shooting me then assaulting, staying in during my phase, then hit and running in my assault phase.

Anyway on to my 3rd and final game. I was hoping he would say something in this thread but he hasn't, so I'm going to shame Longbeard by writing it and making him look like a chump. :wink: Tough luck Matt.

Matt was running his beard angels, though not quite in a pure GT list (i actually think it was worse for the tau with so many assault marines).

He had chaplain with death company, two 8 man las/plas/fist squads, two assault squads with plasma/fist, a tornado and then three preds with twin las/heavy bolters - wonder where he got that idea.

The mission was seek and destroy, which is good for me as i can ignore his firebase and just concentrate on his marines coming at me. The BA firebase went on the left flank, i started on that flank but ended with more of my stuff in the middle to take on his assault marines there. Death company and one assault squad went in the middle, the other on the right with a speeder. I then put both kroot on the right, looking to speed bump his marines and force his hand. Stealths hung back behind them.

Typically he gets first turn and all the assault units move forward, mostly behind a large ziggurut in the middle. Nothing else can see so its just the assault units that ding a few kroot, making them run. Good start chicken men.

At least the chumps recover. i can only see a couple of death company with most of my army but its worth. In an awesome display of how not to shoot them, i only kill two with the railgun sub shot. Nice. At least the other chicken men on the right kill an assault marine. Oh and then the ionhead kills three assault marines with three shots.

So with a plan as cunning as baldrick on a particularly cunning day, my plan to deny his static firebase shots fails completely as the ionhead is out in the open. Oh well its only 5 lascannons. Well it only takes two. Woops. Death company, in a rare moment of sense, charge both my warfish and the kroot, but only kill the kroot getting a nice sweeping advance move. Huh. Woops. At least the other kroot squad have the decency to run from the assault squad's shooting and be out of charge range. Well the one that lived is.

And now its time for the rather unsubtle plan of "shoot the death company repeatedly til they all have the common decency to die". And the tau listen and the suits and FWs kill all, leaving hte chaplain on one wound. At this point all i have left is the railhead, who gets a bit too excited and rolls a 1 to wound. Easy tiger.

A quick recap sees a really p'od chaplain in charge range of my FWs and stealths, an assault squad on the right not in charge range of anything but having lost a few bodies, an assault squad in the middle inching through terrain and a static firebase not rly doing much. Game plan is working.

And it works even better when the chaplain charges the stealths, killing two, but with all the power of a space marine, the stealths trip up the chaplain and hit him repeatedly with their burst cannons. Go stealth field. The right assault squad is out of charge range as it turns out, or charges the devilfish and does nothing. Either way, they do nothing.

FWs get a tad too ambituous, run up to the right assault marines and shoot them repeatedly. Of course they miss a lot and get butchered in assault - serves them right. The other assault squad in the middle ( i can't remember why its still there at this minute but its still there) meets the short end of the plasma rifle and dies heroically. Not. And the broadsides get off their asses (see what i did there?) and put a few hot slugs through a predator. And don't get shot back.

Suddenly it looks like the tau can advance - wow who'd have thought it. In the last couple of turns they kill one tac squad and knock the other below scoring as Matt proves that he can't roll well at all.

In the end it turns into a 17-3 victory (broadsides and crisis suit unit just get a bit of dirt on them) and i get 3rd place -woo.

 

[LongBeard]

Didn't want to Jump on your own thread, that'd be far too rude! :wink:
As you mentioned I should have really gone balls out with all of my assault elements turn 2/3 giving you too many options then hopefully Jumping on your castle of suits may have swung It as It was I got greedy and tried to pick off anything that came my way. Still a good tourney after all the bitching and moaning and happy to get most sporting (with BA's! :shock: )
Well played sir!