March/April Madness-NEW TAU VS DAEMONNSSS

Brandon Blizzard here, with my Derhmunzzz. Representing the Lanchashire Wargamers.

Today I played my Good Friend Dan;s Tau. Veteran Player for years...He really knows his Tau. Giving him a new codex was like Melting Down and Reforging his Favorite Blade into exactly the Same weapon as be for, cept this time the Blade is twice as Sharp.

With BSA4 on the Horizon, and Fantasy every other week, I had challenge Dan to Play a Larger Game of 40k. Its been only 1k lists for the last two Months to Prepare for BSA4...Tiring...Burning out. I havent even Played a Regular Game with my Daemons, So I have no grasp on What the Codex is Actually Capable of. This is where Dan comes in. Extremely Good Player, lots of Skills, Good to test New Ideas out on. Much like Jon sullenburger in our personal games lol.

Today was his first Game with the New Tau...But they the same as old Tau...Cept Everything is cheaper, and Faster, and for the most part, hits Harder. New Tau are no Joke. Etherials are a force multiplyer to be Greatly Reckoned with...Im putting him on Almost the Same Devastating level as the Doom of Malintai. It was an Extremely Hard Fought Battle, between two new Codex;s.

My list Revolves around the Telepathy Tzeentch FMC's Flying Circles around units and Leadership Testing them to Death. Crushers/Bloodthirster proves turn 2 Terrifying combat, while Deamonettes guard my objectives/PlagueBearers sitting on them.

My list:
Lord of Change(he Got Feel no Pain)
--level 3
--Medium gift
BloodThirster
8 BloodCrushers
--Champion with Lesser gift(EtherBlade)
18 Daemonettes
10 PlagueBearers
10 PlagueBearers
Tzeentch Prince x 3
-Telepathy(I took Primaris on All Three....I like having small HellDrakes)
-Iron Hide
-Wings

Dans List is a Balance of all that is good. LOTS OF DAKKA. Lots of Armor to provide Pain where it needs to be Provided. Tetras for Broken Marker Light goodness, and Baracuda because Its Better than the New flyers :D Etherial cause he is cheap and makes everything go PEWWWW PEEWWW PEw.

Dans List:
Etherial(Hellow Im Broken Cheeze :D...Jk )
10 Fire Warriors
10 fire Warriors
10 Fire Warriors
Devil fish
devil Fish
4 Pathfinders(I think this is right, Marker lights and Large rail gun)
18 Sniper Kroot(Also Terrifying)
Ion head
Ion head
Rail head
Tetra
Tetra
Baracuda
6 Stealthsuits with 6 gun Drones(This is an Estimate on the Squad)
13ish mixed and Matched Gun drone Squad

Mission:
-the Relic
Deployment:
-Vanguard

Daemon Deployment:
-All 4 Tzeentch FMC started deployed in Ruins on my Left Flank. All Troops deployed in the Center to Take Relic as fast as possible, Right flank consisted of Bloodthirster/Crushers for Flank Charging.

Tau deployment:
Castle in his corner, with ions/rail Heads Behind all Firewarriors/Kroot/Stealth team with Drones/Drone Teams all Arranged in phalanxes with etherial in dead center to boost shots way above what they normaly Are. Baracuda in Reserve. tetras Behind his Phalanx. Devil fish on his Left Flank To Block my crushers/Thirster.

Turn 1:
-FMC's all enter Swooping and Moved with Assualt Range on Both Flanks. Crushers moved close to 18 inches away from his left flank devilfish, troops move Closer to Relic. All Tzeentch FMC's attempted to Psychic Shriek his Stealth unit off the table(38 str5 shots Coming at me if I didnt)..Thanks to Etherial giving all units LD10, I only Killed like 3 drones and 3 stealth from LOC and Tzeentch Princes.
-Tau Hardly Moved. Etherial buffs all units within 12 inches an addition shot to their pulse Weapons. His Left Flank and ion Heads Removed my bloodthirster, and his Right Flank Removed one Tzeentch Prince. some of my Daemonettes died to Railhead.

turn 2:
-All my Tzeentch FMC vector Strike Directly into the Center of his Army, surrounded on all Flanks by str5 shots lol. Vector Strikes Finish off Stealth Suits. Tzeentch FMC's attempt three Psychic Shrieks into the Etherials Fire Warrior Squad in Attempt to Remove entire unit...Fail again. LD10 blocks all but 5 Wounds. Sigh*. My Troops Grab the Reliv and Play Bloodbowl with it a littl bit back to my Board Edge. Crushers Move To roughly 6-7 inches of his Left Flank Devilfish. Crushers Multi Assualt Devil Fish and fire Squad beside it, fire warrior Squads gains Overwatch from two other fire Warrior Squads, PathFinders, and Mixed Drone Squad. Amazingly only 1ish Crusher Died, out of roughly 60 shots. I destroy devil fish and Fire Warrior Squad, Now I consoldate out Directly into the Front of his entire Phalanx, but dont Worry, I have three FMC's behind it.
-Tau Really Did not move much at all again. Couple of re-adjustments here and there. Baracuda failed to show up. His Left Flank made all my Crushers Dissapear cept for one lone Baddazz. His Drones killed some More Deamonettes. His right Flank Attempted to hurt my Princes, Nothing.

Turn 3:
-Princes went to Ground to Engage Sniper kroot and The Etherials fire Warrior Squad. Crusher moves closer to Etherial Squad to Soak up overwatch so Daemon Prince can do his Magic. Lord of Change Flew over closer to my Crusher. Lord of Change Erases a Board Edge Fire Warrior Squad. Daemon Princes Psychic Shriek are blocked again because of LD10. Troops take Relic back a Little closer, and Daemonntes Daisy chain around Bearers for 3+Cover. Deamon Princes Assualt Kroot and Etherial with Warriors. Both are Wiped off Board. Princes consoladate closer to Tanks.
-Baracuda Comes in. Drones Move Closer to my Troops. Tanks/Baracuda Remove my Deamon Princes from the Game. Devil Fish moves closer to my Troops. Daemonetes are killed from Drones/DevilFish.

Turn4:
- Lord of Change Vector Strikes baracuda, nothing. troops Move back to Ruins, not Close Enough yet for 2+ Cover. Lord of Change Shoots Flickering Fire at Baracuda, out of 5d6 Str5 Shots I get a Penetrating hit for a 2. Locked Velocity, Im okay that saves my Troops for a turn.
-Drones/Devil fish Move Closer to shoot at Troops. some More Troops Die. Baracuda has Locked velocity, it moves forward and does nothing, even with shooting. Rail Heads put out of some with Blast. Ion Heads do some Pew Pew and Kill More Troops. Its Getting Scarse.

Turn5:
-Lord of Change Drops to Ground so he Can Turn out to Shoot Baracuda. Troops Start hugging Cover, but Run away from Ruins because Drones and Devil Fish are there to Intercept me. my Daemonttes assualt the Devil Fish in an Attempt to stop its advance. Lord of Change Fails to Hurt Barcuda again with 5d6 str5. Deamonettes put a Glance on Devill Fish.
-Tau shoots Tanks/Drones/Baracuda at PlagueBearers. All but 5-6 are gone. Drones move behind ruins so No Chance of ruins at all for Daemons

Turn6:
-Lord of Change Goes into Flying Mode, and Flys behind Baracuda. troops Run Behind cover out of siight from Everything Except Devilfish and Drones, they are Safe for one more turn :D. Lord of Change Uses Puppet Master on Baracuda, and I erase his Drone Squad from the Game. My Troops are now even Safer, But, my Lord of change Perils on his Flickering fire, and He Dies, Removes Last Wound. My Flickering Fire However achieves another Penetrating Hit, and it suffers some More Locked Velocity. Deamonettes Finish off the Devil Fish...NOW IM CERTAIN TO WIN HAHAHA
-Baracuda Moves forward 18 inches, Right beside my troops hiding behind Terrain. 360*line of sight Burst Guns kill another PlagueBearer.

Turn7:
-troops Run away and Attemp to angle their selves up against cover so that they can Shround and maybe become super Lucky.
-Baracuda pivots 90* and moves beyond Objective holding PlaugeBearers. Kills Just enough to Deny me the Relic. Game is Over.

Tau Points:
-first Blood, Warlord, LineBreaker

Daemon Points:
-Warlord, extra point from Killing Etherial, Almost Relic....but not Quite...Sadface

New codex Synopsis:
-Tau are Nearly impossible to Gun Fight. Assault is going to be the Only Way to Erase His Army in Droves. Multi Charges, Follwed up by Multi Charges after the first Multi Charge soaks up all the overwatch to Ensure more than one or two units are being Wiped. No Joke...the amount of Damage he Put out puts even the best Guard gunline to Shame. These are Dark Days ahead of us. Etherials are Super good...50 points to Bomb his Army to LD10 and hand out Extra shots for all units within 12...not models, units. UnGodly amounts of shots. Sniper Kroots are Awesome...4+to Wound, 18 shots with Rending, infiltrate. Tau are no joke.

Things I could have done better:
-I should not have Spread my Fast moving units out. Crushers/Bloodthirster on one Flank with Tzeentch FMC's on Other was a Bad idea. should have put the Crushers into my Centerline, and Bloodthirser with the FMC's, If this Would have Happened I think the Game Would have Went Differently. All my Fast Moving Hard Hitters as one giant Deathstar Crashing into his right Flank Would have collapsed his entire Phalanx. Since I split up, it allowed him Tactical Freedom to move about and shift what he needed to. Next time I will go for the Throat, and instead of Trying to Scream his Units to Death I will Have turn two Charges Wrecking his Lines. Tzeentch Daemon Princes can take a massive Pounding, and I will use that to Soak up his Small Fire Mass overwatch.



New Tau are cheaper, hit Twice as Hard, Shread Armor Faster, and have the Best anti air yet. Not a single Nerf to the entire Codex.

What a Good Game. Thanks Dan. Next month we will have a better Battle Report. With Pictures.

2500 point Fantasy Battle Report - Lizardmen Vs. Orks + Goblins

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Report - 2500 points

Lizardmen vs. Orks + Goblins

Deployment. 12" from edge. Victory points.

New year, resolution…. Put up more blog posts.. including… battle reports. First one of the new year.. is a fantasy report. 2500 points my lizardmen vs. Warbringa's O+G. 

Lizardmen list (approx.)

Slaan - lore of life
3x 25 man saurus blocks
2x 10  man skink skirmishers
2x 3 terradons
2x 2 salamander units
2x 5 man chameleon skinks
scar vet on cold one with burning blade of coptec
7 man cold one calvary unit

O+G (approx.)

Choppy warboss on warboar
lvl 4 savage ork shaman
lvl 1 goblin shaman
spider
big block of night goblins with 2x fanatics
big block of savage orks
rock lobba
3 man river troll unit
block of black orks
chariot

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John ended up deploying his forces very distributed throughout the board, because of which, I ended up throwing down my skirmishing chaff to see where I could take an advantage, I decided to sorta castle up in a corner. It looks pretty bad on deployment, but  the terradons will vanguard, and the skirmishers will march 12" out of the way of the blocks.

Gonna give you guys a bulleted timeline of events…

Chameleons appear, one squad on each flank,  goal is to hit the chariot, rock lobba and trolls. Terradons vanguard up behind the two towers, ready to drop rocks on turn 1.

Orks just move up. Nothing in range. 

Lizards move up, drop rocks from terradons. Kill one and wound another troll with chameleon and rocks, move out of charge range of the trolls. Saurus all move up (mistake) deal  two wounds to the chariot, but he is still up (makes a ton of saves, not good for the right flank). Scrolls a dwellers.

--

Ork chariot kills chameleon squad with impact hits, ouch. Trolls pivot to charge, spider charges into saurus block. Black orks charge skirmishers, they flee, charge the salamanders, they flee. Spider wins combat, steadfast and hold.

More shots into trolls and rock lobba, plinking wounds off. Kill the chariot with combined blow pipe shooting. Saurus flank charge spider, scar vet pushes forward to start hitting flank and come from behind. Calvary wheel around. Slaan irresistibly casts dwellers on the savages, takes down a third of them, warboss and shaman are fine. I roll a power drain and he loses 2 levels. Ouch. I lose shield of thorns and dwellers.  Spider eats lots of saurus, steadfast and hold. Can't penetrate that high toughness.

--

Savages flank charge saurus block (was really hoping to pop the spider that turn) and spider continues to eat more and more saurus. Everything else wheels around.

I forget to charge my scar vet at the river trolls, bad bad bad, tower blocked my view of him and forgot all about him. Salamanders and terradons keep plinking away orks here and there.

--

First saurus block breaks and flees off table. Skirmishers flee off table. Savages and orks keep grinding down saurus, but saurus are holding. 

Calvary charge into flank of spider, trolls go down, rock lobba goes down. Salamanders throw flames into black orks but its not enough. Being immune to panic checks really hurting as I have terradons ready to sweep them in the backfield. Spider is still up despite the calvary charge and continued saurus grinding. Flesh to stone is keeping them alive.

--

Savages run through a saurus block and turn around to face next assault. Spider finishes off the knights.  Black orks slowly making their way around. 

Saurus finish off the spider, finally. But savages finish them in the next round. Continuing to plink away with salmanders, but not enough damage.  

Scar vet finally gets in combat with savage ork block. Challenges shaman and chops him up.

Next round warboss challenges and scar vet is chopping him up. 

Skirmishers do not charge in, as they would just be free points. Scar vet chops again at warboss, has one wound left when game ends. 

Close game, I would have had to take down at least the block of savages or the block of black orks to pull out the victory. Lots of blood and dead bodies.. but..

Victory - Orks and Goblins.

Great game against a great opponent. I made some major mistakes. Forgetting about the scar vet for 2 rounds was HUGE. Once he was in combat, he was just shredding orks. Should not have deployed the calvary unit in the corner, they should have stayed more central and threatened flank charges.  The irresistible power drain really hurt the slaan. He had a tough time trying to cast spells the rest of the game, even with the extra slaan dice. I am still very very happy with the list, and I am still planning to run the list at our Fundraising tourney in February.

Good game Mr. Warbringa, next time my friend.. next time.

Dusting Off An Old Army

My name is Rob and I am so excited to be a guest blogger for Brother C. I recently had a hobby epiphany and wanted to share some thoughts.

My Local FLGS Adventure’s Guild of Harrisburg has decided to get back into hosting tournaments.  The first one is set for 01/19/12 and is a 1K affair.  I currently have 3 armies to choose from to play in this event: Orks, space marines (who doesn’t) and  Sisters of Battle. Now my Orks are my  most competitive army and I have won with them, placing high in several local tournaments. My drop pod Marines are my fluffy, fun list and have played them pretty regularly over the past year. That leaves my Sisters.

My Sisters were my favorite army when I first started playing ten years ago, before they were tragically White Dwarfed. It was overall a solid army and was the scourge of the table tops, with the ability to table opponents while being fluffy doing it. I tried playing the White Dwarf codex in fifth edition once or twice and just didn’t like it. The codex did not have enough tools to deal with the power builds, therefore making my army non-competitive. I made the difficult decision to shelve my sisters, but no one likes to see an army collecting dust. Although I am not a WAAC player, nobody wants to go and loose every game. So with these reservations fresh in mind I prepared for battle.

The first thing one does when preparing for a tournament is write an army list, considering the local meta or what kind of lists you could see.  My typical goals for constructing an army list in 6th edition is as follows: 

Excel in one phase of the game and be competitive in the other two.

Have an ability to deal with flyers. 

Have a unit that can get into my opponents deployment zone.

Have several durable scoring units.   

Using this template let’s  take a look at how My Sisters can meet my goals.  

 

 

Sisters excel best in the shooting phase at mid range,  have mobility in the movement phase and can tar pit with the best of them in the assault phase. They, as with  most armies, have a limited answer to flyers with the addition of an Aegis defense line with a quad gun (which is a bargain at 100 points). 

Sisters have a couple of options in regards to getting to the other side of the table. They have scouting Immolators (think Razorbacks with limited weapons options) with a suicide squad inside and Rhinos and Seraphim (jump pack, storm troopers stats, dual hand flamers and several special rules). 

The base stats of a Sister of Battle is ws 3, bs 4,  s/t 3 with 3+ and a 6i save. They  come in squad sizes of  10-20, have accesses to a good mix of special and heavy weapons, and cost 12 points. I think they define what it means to be a durable troop choice. In addition, they can man the quad gun and receive a 2+i save if behind the Aegis. 

So, in looking at my collection of models, I now have the following list in mind. St. Celestine, 2 twelve man Battle Sister Squads with flamer/multi-melta  and combi-flamer or power maul, two exorcists, an Aegis defense line, and seven seraphim with two sets of hand flamers and a power axe.

The second thing I do to prepare for a tourney is play test my army.  I have now played six games with my Sisters out of retirement and I am happy to report that it has eased most of my reservations. I have found that it is such a unique army to play, and have enjoyed playing the army as I first did so many years ago. I am still a getting to the tipping point of the battle and not having enough force to topple my opponent, but it has been surprising the amount of wounds my seraphim can cause. 

In regards to being competitive, if you play the mission, you always have a shot to win. Most 6th edition missions are predicated on things the army does well, like holding objectives and midrange shooting. It is all trial and error. I am hoping they fair well

So, in closing, don’t be afraid to take a second look at that old unit, army, or model lurking in the back of your hobby stash.  For you might find that they are able to be used with unexpected positive results, at least I have.