Blog Wars 6 - My Battle Reports

As promised (what seems like ages ago), here's a rundown of my battles from Blog Wars 6. I wrote about the Tau army that I took in a previous post so take a look there for my list. As a reminder, Blog Wars runs slightly customised missions which are based on the rulebook ones but with slight variations to fit in with the special character theme.

Game One - Tau vs. Dark Eldar/Eldar
My first opponent was Daniel Russell who I was actually quite concerned about since he really didn't seem well! Anyway, Daniel's list was a Dark Eldar/Eldar "Planes and Bikes" list. He'd got 2 razorwings, a voidraven and a crimson hunter for the planes and 3 squads of reavers and two sets of windriders for the bikes bit. Elsewhere he'd got a farseer, haemonculus, 3 small squads of wracks, a support weapon team and Duke Sliscus as his special character. We'd be playing the Blog Wars version of Purge the Alien which is based on old school VPs with a bonus 150pts for killing the special character.

Most of Dan's army would be in reserve, the planes obviously had to be and the guardians and wracks would also be kept in reserve to minimise casualties. I won the roll off and in my first turn I decided to target the weapons batteries which would be a threat to my riptides. I probably should've targeted the reavers though since they'd be a threat to my pathfinders and it would've been wise to hit them before they got their 3+ cover saves. It was pretty irrelevant mind you
because one riptide overheated and the other scattered wildly giving me a less than devastating opening salvo.

As expected the three reaver units went straight for my three squads of pathfinders with their bladevanes and caltrops. When the dust cleared I was left with 2 out of 18 pathfinders! The support weapons also did a number on my crisis team killing two and wounding a third.

Shadowsun arrived as did one of my kroot units. The kroot went after one squad of reavers killing them off with help from some fire warriors who'd disembarked from their devilfish. The other fire warriors, remaining crisis team, shadowsun and one of the riptides all combined their firepower to kill off the haemonculus, farseer and support weapons leaving just Duke Sliscus in the crater in the middle of the board with a single wound left after failing his Shadowfield roll. The other riptide went into combat with another squad of reavers hoping to kill off a couple and make them run. He fluffed his rolls and only killed one biker with the rest just passing their morale check.

With one riptide locked in combat I was frustrated to see all four flyers and most of the other reserves arrive at the same time. The free riptide took some pot shots at a razorwing but could only strip a hull point. The voidraven used its void mine to great effect killing off Shadowsun's bodyguard. The razorwings used their missiles to kill swathes of fire warriors with one squad losing its nerve even with Ld10 from the Ethereal. Duke Sliscus was frustrated by Shadowsun's drones in the first round of combat but soon dealt with her.

The riptide finally finished with the reavers and now I needed to focus on the flyers for my best chance of scoring some points. One squad of kroot arrived on the right flank but fluffed most of their rolls and could only kill two out of three wracks for a measly 15pts. Sliscus, the remaining wrack and another squad of 3 charged into the kroot but only killed a handful. In response a single kroot managed to hit and wound with his one attack which was enough to kill Sliscus despite FNP. Another kroot killed the solitary wrack scoring yet more points. Not bad for a 60pt throwaway unit!

I had further disgusting luck against the flyers. The remaining fire warriors were able to take down the crimson hunter, some jammy shots from my three pairs of drones killed a razorwing and a riptide killed other. The voidraven fell to the crisis suit I think. From that point it was difficult for Dan to score many more points and I was able to clear up a few more of the bikes to give me a 20-15 win with two secondaries each.

Game Two - Tau vs. Necrons

I'd played Peter Barrett at the last Blog Wars with my old gunline Tau. He was less than pleased to be facing my new list but this time he was fielding Necrons instead of marines. Not the usual Necrons though, Peter had taken a destroyer lord with two units of destroyers, some scarabs, two triarch stalkers, three squads of 10 warriors, 10 immortals, a royal court (split between the troops) and Trazyn the Infinite for his special character. The mission was the Emperor's Relic which had one fixed central objective and one objective each in our deployment zones. The central objective was worth 10pts and your own objective was worth 5pts to you but 10pts to your opponent, again giving a maximum of 25pts. The nominated special character on each side would be scoring.

Apologies to Peter because with all the chaos surrounding the tabling issue I didn't take many photos. Not only that but my report will probably be sketchy (feel free to correct me on the details Peter). Anyway, with that aside I won the roll off but Peter seized the initiative (I think). This allowed me to get my fire warriors into range straight away. The riptides nova'd for the Ordnance blast. Combined with the fire warriors they were able to decimate one of the units of warriors whilst destroying one of the stalkers. The crisis team didn't manage to roll enough sixes to destroy the other stalker.

The scarabs ate one of the devilfish but were eventually gunned down by the fire warriors. A squad of destroyers arrived on the right flank and I should've targetted them with the riptide but I was too distracted to notice them arriving. The fire warriors and riptides slowly chipped away at the troops. Shadowsun arrived from deep strike and blew up one of the stalkers. The rest of her squad with help from fire warriors killed off most of the nearby warriors. Shadowsun made her way over to the Necron objective. A unit of kroot had arrived and attempted to hit the Necron objective but had failed to kill any warriors and soon fell victim to Trazyn and his unit. The warriors then used Veil to move over to my objective but when Shadowsun killed Trazyn the veil cryptek was taken over by him. Great for keeping Trazyn alive but it pretty much gave Shadowsun their objective.

In the centre of the board the drones from the devilfishes were being annoying little gets and screening the Necron warriors so they couldn't advance into rapid fire range of the fire warriors and nor could they move onto the central objective. Towards the end Peter got frustrated and was forced to charge them to try and clear them out of the way. Sadly this eventually proved to be the death of the unit as my fire warriors moved up to claim the objective and gunned down the remaining Necrons. Meanwhile I'd failed to keep one of the riptides far enough away from the destroyer lord so he fell victim to the "stop hitting yourself" effects of the lord's mindshackle scarabs. The other riptide took revenge and killed the lord with his fusion blaster. With the destroyers in combat with the suits the riptide was free to kill off the warriors on my objective and take Trazyn with them. This gave me a 20-0 win with 3 secondaries to 1. Had I managed to get another turn in I could probably have killed off the destroyers by charging the riptide in but it wouldn't have changed the result since I would've tabled without being on all three objective.....

Game Three - Tau vs. DA/BA

For my final game of the day I was astonished to find myself on the top table. I'd scored well in the first two games but was certain there'd be more than a few people who'd scored better. My opponent Chris Cowburn was a single VP ahead of me so I expected this game to be pretty close. However, sadly for Chris this game was a bit of a mis-match. Chris was running DA/BA with Belial, a terminator librarian, 10 deathwing, 5 deathwing, dreadnought in a pod, reclusiarch, sanguinary priest, 10 assault marines (jump packs) and a dakka predator. With my large amount of AP2 and high volumes of S5 fire I was confident I could deal with the relatively low model count in Chris' army.

The mission was Crusade with 5 objectives (worth 5 VPs each) and Dawn of War deployment. Special Characters were scoring again. Chris went first I think with the dreadnought coming down and targetting one of my devilfish. This allowed him to flame some pathfinders whilst still getting a melta shot off against the tank. Sadly he was only able to Stun the devilfish but a handful of pathfinders were vaporised. Elsewhere the Blood Angels leapt ahead of their slower Dark Angel cousins.

The devilfish disgorged their cargo and combined with the riptides they were able to kill off all but one of the assault marines with the reclusiarch and priest falling victim to the weight of Tau fire. The crisis team attempted to down the predator by stripping hull points but could only score 1. The terminators advanced again and wrecked the previously damaged devilfish eventually gunning down the occupants with assault cannon and storm bolter fire.

Shadowsun and her squad landed with the commander splitting her shots between a predator and the nearby terminator squad. Her melta shot was enough to destroy the tank and combined with the bodyguard she was able to kill most of the terminators. The remaining marines were killed by weight of fire from the crisis team. Some kroot also arrived and headed towards one of the objectives away from the fighting on the right flank. The riptides combined to kill off the dreadnought leaving Chris with Belial, the librarian and the squad of 10 terminators.

Shadowsun stayed to claim an objective on the right whilst her bodyguard, along with the rest of the army, focussed on taking down the remaining terminators who'd still be able to claim two objectives if left alone. The kroot arrived on the left flank and got into position to claim the objective. The drones were used to screen the terminators and prevent them advancing on the objective but it didn't stop them from killing enough kroot to force them to run and deny me the nearby objective. Fire from the kroot, riptides and fire warriors reduced Belial's unit to himself, the librarian and two terminators. In a bold move Chris decided his best chance was to charge the drones and attempt to stay locked in combat during my turn.

The pair of terminators charged a pair of drones with the drones being lucky (actually unlucky in this case) enough to kill a terminator. The remaining terminator fluffed two of his attacks and therefore only killed a single drone tieing the combat. Belial and the librarian had similar "success" killing two drones and the survivors passed their leadership test!

There was nothing for it but to charge in with the riptides. The single remaining terminator won his combat but was eventually gunned down, however, I'd not be able to claim that objective with anything as the kroot continued to run. Belial and the Librarian survived for a couple of rounds on combat with one riptide but once the other was in range (after it had destroyed the drop pod) their smash attacks were enough to seal their fate and complete the tabling. This game me a 20-0 victory with all 3 secondaries. If I'd missed one more objective then I wouldn't have done enough to win the event!

Conclusion
Well I can hardly complain at taking 20/25 points in all three of my games. It was, however, massively embarassing to have won my own tournament. Despite not taking the conventional "power" lists from the Tau book (e.g. Broadside spam, Farsight bomb or Taudar) the codex is still incredibly strong and there's no doubt I met the right armies on the day to flatter my list. There were several armies that I'd have really struggled against but then I suppose luck is always a major factor in any tournament victory.

There were several times during the day where I was incredibly lucky. Killing so many planes in my first game with flukey shots from drones and suits was a fine example. The drones were generally pretty good. Incidentally I'll write a full rundown of how my list performed in the next post. Suffice to say I've been using Tau a lot recently so I think the time has come to bench them for a little while.

I've only got one more tournament arranged before the baby arrives (assuming he/she doesn't arrive early!) which is a 1,750pt single day at the Outpost. The venue doesn't insist on painted models so it might be chance to finally take my Dark Eldar to a tournament. That or I might proxy my Dark Angels as White Scars and throw in some allied Space Wolves. At some point I'll have to start thinking about what I want to take to Blog Wars 7. This partly depends on when the Ork codex arrives but I might play around with my SW, DE and DA and see which appeals the most if I don't bring Orks. Details of Blog Wars 7 should be up soon(ish).

Finally, thanks to all three of my opponents for putting up with me and apologies for posting this so late, it's been a busy couple of weeks.