The mission was firesweep (clear and claim buildings) and we took two strategems each. I went for medical (gives feel no pain) on one of my home ruins and ammo dump (reroll misses) on the other where the pathfinders would go. OSH took power generator (reroll wounds) on his home and medical on the central ruin
My list (tau) was:
- Helios (plas/fusion) Shas-El + 2 gun drones
- 3 Stealths
- 3 Deathrains
- 1 Fireforge (Missile/fusion) crisis
- 2x 10 Kroot
- 4x 6 Firew Warriors
- 6 Pathfinders + Devilfish
- Skyray
- Broadside + 2 gun drones
OSH brought:
- Corbulo
- Inquisitor plus small retinue
- Vindicare assassin
- 5 Terminators
- 4 Death company
- 5 assault marines in rhino
- 20 tactical marines
- Baal Predator.
Without going too blow by blow, it went a bit like this:
- Tau don't do much first turn, devilfish moves to flank with FW cargo. Blood angels surge forwards.
- Good rolling starts to batter down marines, destroy assault rhino. OSH nearly makes it to the centre
- We continue shooting and knocking off marines. Kroot charge and die. Marines make it into the central building and Baal Flanks
- Tau pour fire into the middle and the baal. Marines really hold the middle and start killing Tau.
- Devilfish tau are near OSH's home objective. They outshoot then beat the inquisitor in assault. OSH moves out of the centre to claim.
- We put down all the fire we can but FNP is tough to deal with. OSH batters at me.
- More battering each side then the game ends.
It was a draw as we both held one objective and the other two were contested (one Death company vs 5 pathfinders and one vindicare vs the devilfish and cargo). I give OSH a huge amount of credit for reaching this point as I had so much more left alive at the end of the game (Shas'El, 2 deathrains, 18 Fire Warriors, 5 pathfinders, Devilfish, skyray and broadside) and thanks to some lucky rolling on my part he had only a few guys (Corbulo, 2 tactical, 1 death company, 1 vindicare, one baal minus assault cannons).
What did I learn?
- Tau can be really really nasty when they have enough markerlights. Having twin linking on the pathfinders let me just punish OSH at range.
- The vindicare can have a huge effect on deployment. I put my broadside out of the way for fear of being killed with a turbo penetrator round (2 wounds) and he didn't get to do as much as I wanted. In the end the assassin sniped out a deathrain with one shot from across the board. Very cool.
- Marines with Feel No Pain, cover and a medic are punishing to deal with. OSH saved or FNPed 15 wounds with no deaths in one turn!
- Helios suits are really nasty when there is cover around to slow enemy assaulters. Putting out the AP1 and AP2 shots forced OSH to stick to cover saves only without FNP.
- Think carefully about charging marines with kroot. It's probably better to shoot since you'll lose enough to the higher initiative that the extra attack on the charge probably won't be enough.
- Don't underestimate BA speed with their overcharged engines.
A thoroughly enjoyable game all in all though and OSH was a model opponent as ever. His terrain table is just great to play on as well. I've definitely got new appreciation for the marines after playing Tau and OSH told me he wants to get back to playing with big guns and fancy tech of his Tau.
So that's two draws in cityfight. The next match will have to be the decider :-)
Now some pictures of the game.
Devilfish prowls the streets.
Marines spy out their path
That's a lot of power armour
Missiles Away!
Lots of angry red marines coming for me
The broadside looks tough but he didn't do too much.
OSH's home base. The vindicare is hidden away at the top of the building just to the left of the white token.
Many marines plus Feel No Pain = much difficulty for Tau
OSH's terrain has cool model-placing points
Tau Firebase
Kroot about to die honourably...ish
It was a great game. The dark pictures actually add to the feel of the cityfight. I simply love the 'suits jump from rooftop to roof top.
ReplyDeleteNo work again today! maybe I can start that d9 terrain piece for real.
Yes, leaping from rooftop to rooftop is the coolest part of Tau in Cityfight. I want to get a bunch of those IMEX platformer/hexagon kits and make a really crazy 3d cityscape to play on. That would make for the most funky setup and it would be great to play a horde army swarming through the streets while the Tau desperately try to cut them down from above.
ReplyDeleteKroot just never seem to work (from what I have seen from OSH and our other Tau friend). I think everyone has/plays with them because they came in the battle force. I have never seen them tooled up with hounds and shapers, but then they lose their one appeal of being the cheapest thing Tau can buy.
ReplyDeleteYou are right that shooting would be better. I have routed 10 kroot with 6 D w/shoot Exarch. The lack of saves is what really get you.
FNP can be a real pain. Luckily I play Eldar so I either have my S9 Prisms or S8 Dragons to insta kill the marines so FNP gets ignored. With Tau it is a bit harder to get the mass S8+ shooting, you have but loads of S5/S6/S7 and then some S10.
I think kroot are very specific unless you tool them up to maximum size. I would go for small 10-15 count units and use them as a gunline from pockets of cover (woods for preference). With their weapons giving them +1A there isn't too much reason to assault with them in my view.
ReplyDeleteThe Feel No Pain really added a strategic element to the game on both sides though since OSH could use it on only one unit whenever he wanted. So I just had to put enough fire down that he was forced to choose which unit early on and then I could switch with the other firing squads. Still tough though.
In an open ground scenario I would have been able to put more plasma/fusion/railgun fire down but having so much cover around really made it tough. Still, I'm planning to get really good at using Helios (Plasma/Fusion) suits to their best effect and let the Deathrains and Hammerheads do the long range stuff.
Thanks for the comments though. I really want to play against Eldar sometime.
Pete
I'm still very jealous of the gaming table you get to play on. Is the beige building polystyrene packaging painted up?
ReplyDeleteHey Andy. It's Old Shatter Hands' table (from the Tau of War) and it's a great little playing surface.
ReplyDeleteYou can see details on his polystyrene building at http://tauofwar.blogspot.com/2009/09/forgotten-art-of-homemade-terrain.html.
It's a really great piece and looks even better in person.
In city fight AP2 just doesn't buy you as much like you mentioned with the mass cover saves. You can try and remove cover with market lights, but that is 3 marker lights to get rid of it.
ReplyDeleteFor city fight I have to re-think my army. Mech doesn't work in rubble. Fielding wraithlords and harlequins could be fun for change.
If you guys ever get plowed out maybe we can meet up at Old Shatter Hands and make a night of city fight.
Hey Reaper. I have to agree with you in general but for this battle, removing the 3+ armour and FNP was definitely worth it with the AP2/1 weapons. Cover is still there but being able to bring your kills up to 50% (4+ cover) vs 16% (3+ armour plus 4+ FNP) is a really big step.
ReplyDeleteMech can be quite powerful in cities particularly if you have skimmers. I used the Devilfish to hop over buildings several times and I'm sure Mech Eldar would be even nastier on that front with their speed. But I do reccomend changing up your army if only for the fun of playing different models.
We should definitely meet up for a city fight night at OSH or maybe at Dream Wizards. I'm down for that.
Nice post thhanks for sharing
ReplyDelete