So, time is shorter than I anticipated on vacation (my GF is sitting here staring at me, willing me to type faster, haha) and I will only be able to write about the first game of the tournament. Against, Israel and his Tau!
My list and rundown on how it works here!
Hey everyone! So, the above painted miniature is indeed Israel’s, he is a fantastic painter.
Israel’s army not only looks amazing, but it is brutal on the table, too! He won the day 2 RTT!
So here’s Israel’s list from memory, if he drops by he can give the actual list.
HQ:
Commander: Puretide, Ignore Cover, other crazy Tau goodies.
Shadowsun & Drones
Jetseer
Elites:
Riptide: Ion, Fusion, Interceptor, Skyfire
Riptide: Ion, Fusion, Interceptor, Skyfire, Shielded Missile Drones x 2
Fast:
Tetras x 2
Tetras x 2
Troops:
Firewarriors x 10: Sarge
Firewarriors x 10: Sarge
Firewarriors x 10: Sarge
Jetbikes x 3
Heavy:
Broadsides x 3: Skyfire, Interceptor, Missile Drones, Seeker Missiles (these guys didn’t have skyfire, I apologize for the confusion, I wrote this super fast from memory while on vacation and got some of the exact list details wrong).
Broadsides x 3: Skyfire, Interceptor, Missile Drones, Seeker Missiles (these guys didn’t have skyfire, I apologize for the confusion, I wrote this super fast from memory while on vacation and got some of the exact list details wrong).
Skyray: SMS
Mission: Vanguard Strike, Crusade (3 Objectives)
So, right out of the gates a really, really tough match up. Not only are Tau murder on any reserving army, but Israel is a great player that writes brutal lists. Also, the table had three large buildings in 3 corners and 1 corner was essentially bare of terrain. Israel won the roll to go first and gave me the flat, open corner as he should have. It was also Night Fight, which Tau largely ignore, and Israel won the roll to go first. He had a full house going into the game and I was really flustered and was complaining about the bad set up more than I should have, which I apologized to Israel about after the fact. I was just really frustrated as nothing upsets me more in a tournament than feeling that the game is super lopsided before a die has been rolled just due to things like terrain and set up. I like things to be fair so that the game is about a contest of skill and luck, not just who got the better deployment zone.
Another important point to note here is that I took forever with deployment, like 40 minutes which was lame. I 100% didn’t do it on purpose, I was absolutely not trying to slow play, I was just super flustered as to what to do as there was literally nothing higher than a half inch off of the table in my entire deployment zone. I had to set up going second against a brutal Tau gunline and just take it square to the nuts. I was at a loss as to what to do. This became important later as we didn’t finish the game to a natural conclusion.
So, after a lot of head scratching and belly aching about the crummy starting conditions, I finally decided to only deploy my Land Raider with the Termies, Libby and Lysander with one unit of Scouts behind it, out of LoS to hit the minimum amount of units on the board as I assumed anything that started on the table was dead. I really dislike not having full reserves anymore as it was such a good tactic.
Anyway, the game opened up with Israel getting a punch on the LRC with his crazy combo of Nova charged, Tank Hunting Ion Cannon that ignores cover and Night Fight that was also BS 8! WTF?! That means it is almost 100% certain to hit and get a punch on any target in the game as you ignore cover (only need to see a tiny sliver of the target vehicle) ignores Night Fight, almost always hits with the blast and only a sliver of the marker needs to touch the vehicle, and rolls 4 dice for penetration (tank hunter and ordnance). I really don’t think anything should be that close to a sure thing in a game like 40K but hey, that’s Tau for you.
Luckily, he only blew off a weapon and the rest of the suits were packing strength 7 and as such, couldn’t hurt them. The Missilesides moved forward and blasted some of the Scouts, whom broke and ran backwards.
My reserves came in and Israel blew up the Ironclad and his Drop Pod with the same crazy combo on overwatch, although he didn’t have the BS8 due to marker lights. he rolled a hit though, so it was a moot point. Bummer, my cool combo unit gets smoked first game!
The Rune Priest came down, survived the hail of crazy interceptor fire (again, 5pt interceptor available on half the army…WTF?!) and then proceeded to roll an 11 on the psychic check, failing a chance to take out both Riptides. #*(!@^*&%!@!!!!
The LRC moved forward, Scouts rallied and went for an objective.
I was then pummeled in the subsequent Tau shooting phase, Firewarriors moved onto objectives. It was looking grim.
My Sternguard came down, and combat squaded one half blasted Firewarriors on a back objective and killed….1! Doh! hahaha, the dice, they were not hot. The other half blasted the 3 Jetbikes and killed 2, the survivor broke. My Libby jumped out of the LRC and charged a unit of Firewarriors solo. He survived over watch only to die in combat…hahaha, wow, they will sing songs of his valor, no doubt. My Grey Hunters in the Razorback stayed off board. On a brighter note, the Termies charged out of the LRC and killed a unit of Broadsides and Firewarriors in a multi charge, which was nice. Lysander stayed inside hoping the LRC would survive another round of shooting and deliver him into the guts of the enemy.
Israel blasted the LRC but the old girl was too tough and soldiered on with a single HP left! He also wiped out all but 2 of the Sternguard with most of his army. My Grey Hunters in the Razorback came on and went for an objective, the reserved Scouts went after another. Lysander went gloriously into a Riptide and beat it’s bottom while the Termies went after the last unit of Boradisdes, losing only 2 to counter fire.
The game was winding down on time, which sucked as we were only on turn 4. For some reason, Israel thought we would have time to play to 5, the TO said we were in the last 15 minutes, and I even mentioned it was the last turn to Israel, but for some reason he just brain farted and instead of flying his last Jetbike onto an objective, he came back to finish off the last Sternguard. At this point, he only had 1 objective as the single Firewarrior the Sternguard had killed, had been the only one within 3″ of the back objective and the rest of the squad had gone to ground, meaning they couldn’t move back onto the objective. He had killed all of my troops apart from the Grey Hunters in the Razorback and so it seemed like it was a wrap despite him not moving the Jetbikes onto his objective. Israel did manage to blast the Razorback though, but it had gotten my last 5 troops to where they needed to be. The highly improbable was about to go down.
Lysander and the Termies joined up and smashed the last Broadsides in the middle out of spite! haha, didn’t actually do anything but I hate those jerks so it had to be done! More importantly, the last 5 Grey Hunters with a Flamer had passed their pinning check getting out of the wrecked Razorback and then went after the Firewarriors on the only held objective. They couldn’t assault as they had been in the vehicle but I could shoot. The blasted the Firewarriors with their Flamer and Bolters and I guess they were highly motivated after having seen those Firewarriors kill the Librarian and a unit of Scouts as they really pummeled the Space Commies, killing 4 of them and causing a break test….which the Tau failed! Holy crap! They then ran off of the table leaving my with only a handful of models left alive, 5 of which were my last troops on the only held objective! Miraculously, by hanging in their and playing to objectives, the marines pulled it off.
I did feel really badly about taking so long to deploy as had we gone another turn, Israel was in the better position. I told him I thought it would be fare to give me a thumbs down on sports as the game not going 5 turns was definitely my fault, although totally unintentional (there was no way for me to know at deployment I would need the game to go short, and actually, as combat was where I’d win the game if I won, I wanted MORE turns to get there). That was a bummer on what was otherwise a great game.
So, the LRC saved my bacon. Had I not had it, and it surviving to deliver the heavy hitters, I would have gotten 100% owned. It means Israel only had two units that could actually hurt what he could see on turn 1 with a literal open field to fire into that was my deployment zone. I got lucky, straight up, with him failing that last morale check. He had me dead to rights and lady luck smiled on me.
So, good game to Israel and sorry I was being negative in the beginning as it was bad form. It’s ok to point out that things are not fair, but the game is what it is, after that you just have to be an adult and deal with it.