Weekly Hobby: Battle Report

Here's a rundown of my first game in our tourney.

I was playing my Tau (naturally) against an Imperial Guard army. I can post up our lists if there is some interest.

We set up the table together, rolled our secret objectives (I got annihilate! This meant I got extra points if I killed off half of my opponent's army point value by the end of the game), rolled for deployment type and who went first.
The game was capture and control, with the dawn of war deployment type (I hate dawn of war).
I won the roll off, but decided to let my opponent go first.

- Table Setup

Turn 1
My opponent chose the side of the table with the large ruin and deployed all of his foot troops in it. The objective was placed at the rear of the ruin. Inside the ruin was a heavy weapons squad with missile launchers up top, two 10 man guard squads and his two command squads. He chose to hold his chimera with vets in reserve and outflank his scout sentinel. I chose to make the game aggressive and placed my objectives in the woods across from the ruin. I figured Kroot going to ground in forest with a 2+ save would soak up a lot of fire. Aggressive, but I had fun with it.

Turn 1 was fairly uneventful, my opponent's Leman Russ and Heavy mortar rolled in from the table edge. My Kroot were shot at, but went to ground and made their saves. In retaliation my Commander jumped out of cover and shot up his heavy weapons squad, killing one of them and causing them to flee. My Devilfish moved up and deployed my pathfinders, the fire warriors moved onto the table and took up firing positions while my Hammerhead found a good field of fire. I moved flat out with my Pirahna up the right flank to target enemy armour the following turn.

- The table at the end of Turn 1

Turn 2
My opponent's heavy weapon squad rallied, albiet a level lower than where they started. Unfortunately the ruins proved to help my opponent in this regard as they had to run down through the floors, giving them more time to regroup before leaving the table. The scout sentinel came in on my far flank, while his chimera came in from reserves ready to drive up my right flank. The guard's shooting phase was unimpressive other than a lucky shot on my Pirahna. The Kroot weathered another salvo, and his big guns were off the mark. However, a single krak grenade from a guard grenade launcher blew up my Pirahna. An impressive shot! My opponent needed to roll a 6 to penetrate, on a single die and I had to fail a 4+ cover save. Both of which happened. During my turn my pathfinders stripped the cover from the guard while my Commander and Firewarriors shot up the ruin with my Devilfish moving up to support. I caused casualties, but the guard didn't break this time. My Monat Firestorm played cat and mouse with the scout walker, but rolled poorly on penetration with its missile pods. Similarly, my Hammerhead connected with my opponent's mortar, but rolled a 1 to penetrate vs. armour 12.
Poor luck, but things are still looking very good for me.

R.I.P. brave Pirahna

The view at the end of Turn 2

Perspective from my side of the table

Turn 3
Things started going sour for me in turn 3. The guard shuffled around in the ruin, their chimera moved up and popped smoke, and a squad of guardsmen began advancing on my forest. Only the Kroot took casualties in the shooting phase, failing an impressive 4 out of 6 saving throws. (Which meant I threw 4 ones on the dice). They failed their morale check and fled the table. During my turn I retaliated. No marker lights found their mark and I once again rolled 1's on my penetration with both my Railgun and the missile pods. My other guns thinned out yet more guardsmen.

Table mid turn 3.

The trees on the chimera represent smoke I don't seem to have a picture of the end of turn 3, but I moved up my Devilfish to deal with the advancing troops. Risky, but I'm running out of options.

Turn 4
The guardsmen in the ruin move to hold their objective, while their forces advance. The lone heavy weapons squadsmen take down my devilfish with a single missile, and the mortar wipes out all but one of the Firewarriors inside, who promptly breaks and runs. The Leman Russ' battle cannon takes a pathfinder out as well as my Monat Firestorm, who fails his cover save. My remaining squad of Fire Warriors takes 3 casualties, but hold the line. On my turn I move my drones up to harass his advancing squad, while my Hammerhead fires its submunition template into the guard squad holding the objective while having the pathfinders strip their cover. They fail their moral test and retreat. My remaining fire warriors move up and thin out his advancing guard squad. It's still anyone's game, though I've taken a tremendous hit in the past two turns.

End of Turn 4.

I'm still having fun

Turn 5

My opponent's fleeing squad rallies. He moves his chimera up and the flamer takes care of the rest of my Fire Warriors, his three guard squad assault my drones, finishing them off while his other weapons pepper my Commander and Pathfinders to little effect. On my turn my commander finishes off the guard squad in the open and returns to the objective to at least contest it. My Pathfinders and Hammerhead hit his troop holding his objective once more, but they fail to break again.
We roll to see if the game ends and it does, at turn 5. A victory for my opponent.

A close game! One of the best I played. Tactically, the only thing I did poorly in my estimation was give him first turn, but I had little experience with ruins and didn't think it would give him such a large advantage. I think luck played a large part as well. Having rolled poorly on my Kroot's "terminator" saves, failing every morale check I took, having my Railgun be ineffective and losing the Pirahna were all unexpected. Curse the dice gods!
If I'd change anything, it would be the way I deployed. It would have been safer to put my objective in the other table corner and use my superior range to my advantage. Still, I enjoyed the slugfest.

Turn 5 - End Game