This battle will take place later today. Should be an interesting match up. I have lots of markerlight coverage, but don't have a single thing that can stand up to his weakest CC formation. I'm quite concerned about the T-hawk/Wolf Guard combo.

Space Wolves

01 Space Wolves 6 x Grey Hunters, 3 x Rhinos 300
02 Space Wolves 6 x Skyclaws, Jump Pack 360
03 Space Wolves 4 x Grey Hunters, 3 x Rhino 300
* Long Fangs 2 x Long Fangs 150
04 Space Wolves 4 x Grey Hunters, 3 x Rhino 300
* Long Fangs 2 x Long Fangs 150
* Rune Priest 1 x Librarian 25
05 Thunderhawk 1 x Thunderhawk 200
* Wolf Guard 4 x Wolf Guard 350
* Wolf Priest 1 x Chaplain 25
06 Thunderhawk 1 x Thunderhawk 200
* Wolf Guard 4 x Wolf Guard 350
* Great Wolf Supreme Commander 50
07 Swift Claws 6 x Swift Claw Bikes 240


Tau

01 Mechanized FW Cadre 6 x FW, 3 x Devilfish 225
* Skyray 1 x Skyray 100
02* HH upgrade 2 x HH 125
02 Recon Group 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha 150
03 Recon Group 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha 150
04 Recon Group 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha 150
05 Recon Group 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha 150
06 Pathfinder Team 4 x Pathfinders, 2 x Devilfish 175
07 Crisis Cadre 4 x Crisis Suits 250
* Crisis Upgrade 4 x Crisis Suits 200
* SC upgrade 1 x Supreme Commander 100
08 Skysweep Support Group 3 x Skyray 250
09 Armored Group 4 x Hammerheads 250
* HH upgrade 2 x HH 125
10 Armored Group 4 x Hammerheads 250
* HH upgrade 2 x HH 125

12 Tigershark Squadron 2 x Missile Strike Tigersharks 225

More later...

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

The Tau


The massive Space Wolf horde


Offboard forces

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Turn one initiative went to the Space Wolves. I must admit the task before the SWs looked rather daunting, considering the activation advantage of the Tau, but Wolves being wolves, they put their snouts down and went for it.

Turn 1 Summary

The Grey Hunters + Long Fangs advanced through a valley to the Tau left, securing important landmarks (i.e. objectives) along the way. The Long Fangs were especially punishing, though most of the damage was absorbed by the Tau recon forces.

Grey Hunters firing on distant Fire Warrior cadre


Cognizant of the fact that the Wolves battle plan was sensitive to any early attrition, most of movement on the SW part was conservative and focused on setting up aggressive moves in Turn 2.

For the Tau's part, the emphasis was on pushing the Recon screen out to increase the zone of Markerlight coverage.

There were some clashes, though.

The Skyclaws rushed on of the Recon formations and although they actually tied the first round of combat, by the second round it was all over and the Skyclaws had destroyed one Recon formation. In retribution, the IC-HH formation advanced towards the Tau right hand objective and Broke the Skyclaws with a large number of hits/kills.

Enjoying the safety of their AA umbrella, the Tau Tigersharks roamed over the battlefield, placing several hits on a Grey Hunters pack.

Everyone rallied.

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Turn 2 Summary

Initiative goes to the Wolves again.

Now blooded, the SWs howled and began their charge...

The furthermost Grey Hunter pack set up on a hill and poured supporting fire into anothe recon formation. Although damaged, the recon formation held on. Seeing an opportunity, the Thunderhawk bearing the Rune Priest escorted terminators assaulted the IC-HH formation hovering near an objective and wiped them out. The Tau were surprised that even after scoring so many hits, the Astartes dropship was still able to land and deliver it's cargo of death. The ground was littered with the hulks of burning Hammerhead tanks. Those few that survived (2) broke towards the Wolves Blitz objective.

Undaunted, the Tau Supreme Commander moved up and began pounding the ensconced terminators (killed two stands). Additional resources took advantage of Pathfinder markerlights to destroy the Thunderhawk, thus pinning the Rune Priest and his warriors.

On other sections of the battlefield, SW and Tau formations exchanged fire.


The Tau IC-HH did not rally.

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Turn 3 Summary

Guess who gets the initiative...yep, Wolves. Sigh...

At this point the Tau were concerned that although the Wolves were few in number, they were slowly whittling away the numerical advantage of the Tau and should they achieve some level of parity, the Tau would then be in serious trouble.

With this in mind, the Tau struck out at the grounded terminators and wiped them out. The Wolves retaliated with moving another Grey Hunter pack (sans Long Fangs, thankfully), to secure the right most Tau objective again. The Tau responed by pounding the attached rhinos with seeker missiles, thus slowing the Packs mobility to a crawl.

The Swiftclaw bikes charged another recon formation on the left and breaking it in CC...which seemed to be a recurring theme for the recon teams. Might be a little harder to recruit for them in the future if the Tau commander doesn't get that figured out. The survivors sped towards the Wolves Blitz in an attempt to double the Tau's chances of securing that objective.

Unfortunately for the Swiftclaws, their attack and consolidation move left them lit by markerlights, which the Fire Warrior formation took full advantage of, wiping the bikers out to a man.

The Tigersharks continue to cruise across the battlefield stripping armor from SW formations.


Wolves Skyclaws do not rally and neither do either of the broken Tau formations. Sigh...

At this point we look at victory conditions and we are firmly tied at 0-0.

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Turn 4 Summary

The Wolves smell blood...Tau blood.

Against all odds, the Tau get the initiative. Needing to strike hard, the Supreme commander singles out of a building complex to hit the rightmost Grey Hunter pack as hard as it can. In spite of dealing massive damage, some of the Hunters remain. Grrr...

In the center, the Wolves don't have a lot of good choices. Although none of the remaining Tau formations are strong enough to challenge the Grey Hunter pack, there are two Tau formations near the Blitz (it wasn't until later that we remembered about rallying formations in the last turn rule) and so they moved close enough for the Long Fangs to shoot, which they did to telling effect, thus finishing up the work on the recon formation that their brethren started last turn.

However, the "Epic" move of the day was about to take place. The Tau had been securing their Blitz Objective with the RG-HH cadre and the Skysweep formation. In a very impressive display of brute force, the Thunderhawk with the Wolf Lord lined up their approach and flew through extremely heavy anti-aircraft fire (5 hits, 1 damage, 0 crits) to land the Lord and his terminators. Once again, the landscape was littered with burning Hammerhead chassis, though this time, none survived the massacre.

Death of a cadre


Pathfinder rail rifles drive off Grey Hunters


The Tigersharks again cruise back onto the board to eliminate the remainder of the Skyclaws, while the leftmost Grey Hunter pack delivers enough missiles to break the FW cadre.

End game resolution: For the life of me, I'm trying to recall what the objectives were, though we were tied at 1-1. I know that the Wolves had the Tau Blitz...perhaps the Tau had the Wolves. I'm not sure now.

Since we were running behind for another event, we totaled victory points and the Wolves only had approx. 1000 pts left, and the Tau had approximately 1200 remaining.

So a winning tie for the Tau in a very hard fought battle and an extremely enjoyable game.

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

wow, cool report and very enjoyable read. Loved the pictures too. Sounds like whatever the Wolves hit, they killed, they just didn't have enough formations to kill enough.. Brutal assaults and amazing shooting - seems about right for Space Wolves vs. Tau

_________________
numquam culum es

Great report.   The lack of activations I think lost the game for the wolves.  But in typical Tau fashion, hold back and wait for the enemy to attack.  Good work.  You have inspired me to finish painting my wolves. (I still use the standard marine list as no need to fix something that aint broke).

_________________
Has anyone seen my baseball?

Nooo!

Not pale grey again!  

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats