Ok, so let’s talk battle report.  Friday I had the good fortune to have Folken over for a battle with his geekymike painted Tau army.  Mike did a great job on these guys.  They look really good on the table.  So I was reluctant to put down a non-painted army against these Tau, but it had been way too long since the Crimson Fist 5^th Company hit the table.  Now before the "why in the hell did you even think to build that list" comes up.  You must know that I am a sucker for point sinks.  I love my Deathstars and will play them whenever possible.  Not the most efficient but I play what I like...period.

My List

Korssaro Khan

Command Squad x5 on bikes

Chaplain with Termie Armor

2…..10 man Tact Squads with Las and melta guns

1…..5 man Scout unit

5 TH/SS Terminators

5 Vanguard Vetereans w/ JP’s and stuff

1 Storm Talon with Typhoon and Ass Cannon.

I reserve Khan, Command Squad, Talon, Termies, Chaplain and Vanguard.  In checking the rule book I think I did this wrong.  If I understand it right I think I reserved too much.

Any who…we role and get Purge the Alien with the crazy short board edge deployment.

This was a great game.   I thought Folkens deployment was great.  He set up with his broadsides way in the back making it hard to even think about going after them.  The rest he kept together toward the middle of the board.  This made it hard to isolate a unit and allowed him to concentrate a lot of powerful firepower.  It made taking out the 3 units of crisis suits with an HQ choice a painful proposition.   The center was also supported by 3 squads of fire warriors, 2 of which were in Devilfish.

My plan was deploy the scouts forward and let the Termies drop in front of his middle off of their beacon.  An outflanking Khan and command squad with attached Talon would hit from one side and the Vanguard would drop on the other in a classic pincer.  Luckily this actually worked for the most part.  As the old maxim goes, the best laid plans don’t survive the first shot.  Mine don’t survive the first armor save.  He kills my Termies in one small salvo of shooting.  I roll two 1’s and three 2’s for armor saves.  To make matters worse my cool Vanguard unit dies to man against 7 Grey Hunters.

 

But he has nothing for Khan.  Khan and the command squad crush the center.  Feel No Pain rules.  His divided shooting allows Khan and the Talon to wreak havoc.  Bikes are crazy good now.  Once the Command Unit starting taking losses I wisely fell back knowing that I was firmly in control of Victory points.  The Talon stayed up to cover the retreat and keep him honest. 

Some thoughts on this game.  I need more practice with fliers so I think I am gonna do some more with this list for awhile.   I may even try to add a second Storm Talon.  An all flier list will hurt so I have go to implement some contingencies.  Outflanking units with this deployment option can be brutal.  I have not read a lot about it at all but it is clear you can get in on someone fast coming in from the long edges.

Units that did me wrong…well we will start with the Vanguard Unit.  This unit exists purely because of the fluff involving my Captain.  They are built using all Vet models and converted extensively in most cases.  They are way expensive and should do considerable damage when in HTH.  Except that never happens.  My dice leave these guys hanging out to dry.  If I can’t hit then I can’t wound, if I can’t wound then I can’t make an invul save.  It is always something.  I usually attach a character (Shrike) to them but then they lose Heroic Intervention which I think is very useful in this edition.  I would hate to lose them because I like them but man are they a failure at this point.  All about the fluff but I hate losing as well.

The Termies died to man from one Crisis Suit unit shooting them to pieces.  Now I know Bryant Dice played a big part of this but come on.  Need to try and increase their numbers so as to increase survivability. 

The Scouts died to poor deployment.  I just did not give them a chance.  Totally my fault.  Just because I can infiltrate does not mean I should.  Poor move on my part.

Other than that this was a great learning game and one to remember.  Plenty of “yes do that again” and “no forget that this ever crossed your mind”.