Battle Report: Tau vs Space Marines (Raven Guard) - 2000pts

On Saturday night we left our lives watching soppy films and played out a 2,000pt game. I'm still testing out my Tau list for Jolly Toys, despite having already submitted it in time for the deadline! I knew I'd struggle against lots of troops, especially if those troops happened to be Space Marines with jump packs and fleet of foot!

I ended up submitting my first version of the tau list with a couple of minor tweaks. This was largely down to not having the models to do much else and with limited time to paint it all up anyway. Jamie's list comprised of Shrike and Korvydae (just for the fun), 2 jump pack assault squads, a tactical squad, 2 large scout squads, a speeder, a dreadnought and two thunderfire cannons. The scout squads and tactical squad split into combat squads.

Deployment
We rolled Seize Ground (3 objectives) on a Pitched Battle deployment. To make things even harder Jamie won the roll off. He spread his forces across his lines with Shrike and his squad infiltrating and a couple of scout squads Outflanking. I deployed in my usual way with my Shas'o and bodyguard deep striking and the kroot outflanking. To Jamie's "delight" I managed to Seize the Initiative.

Turn 1
As usual I blasted my speeders forward and opened up with the rest of my army. I managed to blow up one of the thunderfire cannons and only failed to kill the other thanks to Jamie making it's cover save. The broadsides on my right moved up to get an angle on the landspeeder blowing it up with ease. My hope was that if I could deal with the threats to my vehicles I could make it hard for Jamie to get at my troops.

Jamie responded by sending tons of fire in the direction of one of my piranhas. I managed to make all of it's cover saves much to Jamie's frustration. The piranha in the middle was not so lucky as an assault squad ripped it apart with Korvydae's melta bombs. Shrike's squad only managed a 1" fleet which put them out of charge range to my relief.

Turn 2
With Shrike stood right in front of my lines I had to try and hammer him with the Shas'o and bodyguard. I dropped them in in front of them but scattered 7" in their direction and found myself with a mishap roll. As ever in these situations I rolled a 2 and suffered a "terrible accident" destroying the unit! From here on it would be even more of an uphill struggle. The broadsides fired at the dread and managed to immobilise it. The piranha on the left easily instant killed the techmarine who'd lost his thunderfire. The squads that'd killed my piranha was nicely bunched up so I hit them with the submunition, AFP, missile pods and a couple of devilfish. The combat squad lost a couple of models as did Korvydae's squad but neither failed their pinning or leadership tests. Shrike and his squad were double flamed by a crisis team and hit with some fire from a devilfish but only lost a single model and passed their pinning test. The remaining thunderfire made it's cover saves and the piranha on the right killed a scout only to have them pass their pinning and leadership tests.

Shrike split of from his squad to take on the broadsides alone whilst the squad attacked some crisis suits. The broadsides did well in combat with the shield drone wounding Shrike! Sadly they failed their Ld test and were swept away. His squad easily dealt with the crisis team whilst another assault squad killed the crisis team in the middle including the Shas'o who'd joined them. The combat squad in the middle managed to wreck a devilfish with their krak grenades. The thunderfire cannon killed the piranha who'd vapourised the techmarine and the scouts killed the remaining piranha with a missile shot.

Turn 3
My army was quickly falling apart and the arrival of the Kroot on the wrong side of the board didn't help much. They found themselves out of range of anything so just ran into some cover on the left. The broadsides finished off the dreadnought. With Shrike out in the open and alone I had my best chance of killing him. I turned the turret on the hammerhead in his direction and.... missed! The fire warriors who'd lost their transport rapid fired the squad and killed all but their sergeant. A nearby devilfish and crisis team hit him with some more fire but couldn't kill him off.

The sergeant returned the favour by charging into the fire warriors and easily mullering them in combat. Melta guns in the assault squad blew up the fish and then swept up the occupants in combat. Shrike and his squad charged in on the hammerhead and ripped off it's railgun and stopped it moving, permanently. The thunderfire cannon took shots at the kroot and finished 4 of them off but they held their nerve. The other assault squad wrecked the remaining 'fish.

Turn 4
With very little left to play with I managed to kill a couple of marines in the squad and the kroot charged in on the techmarine and finished him off.

The scouts came in from reserve right next to my crisis suits and broadsides and easily killed the crisis team in combat. Shrike and co. killed the hammerhead. A nearby combat squad charged into the single remaining kroot after killing his friends with their pistols. Somehow they fluffed all their attacks but so did the Kroot! Korvydae's squad finished off the only remaining fire warriors.

Turn 5
I only had my broadsides left and the end was in sight. I decided to have a pot shot at the lone sergeant who'd refused to die and sure enough he passed his cover saves as a final insult. The kroot died in combat too.

Jamie charged two scout squads and some assault marines in on the broadsides and you can imagine the result!

The game ended with Jamie controlling all 3 objectives not that it mattered with my tabled!

Conclusion
This was never going to be pretty. The Shas'o mishapping didn't help things but I doubt they'd have really affected the result. If I hadn't Seized then things would've been even worse. The scouts not arriving until turn 4 probably just postponed the inevitable. Now I'm pretty sure I'll not be facing Raven Guard at Jolly Toys but they're pretty similar to Blood Angels in their jumping. It'd be very difficult to create a Tau army to beat this kind of force and as I've said before it was playing against BA that put me off using Tau in the first place!

I can't pretend there wasn't a bit of bad luck on my part in this game but I don't think things would've been different if not. This hasn't stopped me wanting to use Tau at Jolly Toys though. I wish I could change my list up a bit as I've got an idea for a better list which I'll post up tomorrow.