Well, here is my report then although Doombringer hit the high points.
The Board was one I made there as Doom was making his list. There was a large township in the middle, with a highway running (not quite straight) down the middle of the board. There was a Workshop on the right side of the city, and a Cathedral on the left. Actually,
My deployment:
Kroot are Garrisoned up in the city.
Recon 1 are Garrisoned in behind the workshop
Broadsides are Garrisoned up on the hill.
Hammerheads are in the bottom left.
Sky Rays in middle behind the white building.
Fire Warrior Cadres are to the center-right. The four vehicles in the front are one Cadre, the 6 in the back are the main body.
Recon 2 are behind the hill, the Tetras kind of spread out.
Crisis Suits in the Bottom right corner.
His deployment:
Sentinels Garrisoned in the city.
Leman Russes on the left.
Warhound beside them.
Chimeras all on the road with the Supreme Commander
Three Hydras by the Valkyries
Those fateful Storm Troopers
Three Basilisks behind the woods.
Baneblade
Infantry company with support squad on the far right.
Turn 1 - Strategy Roll: Tau
I decided to make an immediate engage on his Sentinels with my Kroot. I figured I could push them out of the city and be up an activation. We forgot the overwatch though, not sure how much of a difference it would've made. He lost 2 sentinels, then lost the rest to hackdown hits. I used my 5 cm move to get behind buildings as much as possible.
He activated his Supreme Commander formation and moved up to engage the Kroot. At the end of it, I had one Kroot stand left, booking it back to Recon 1.
I think at this point I marched the Crisis Suits up behind the middle hill on the right.
It gets kind of hazy after that. He shoots at the Crisis Suits with the Basilisks, 1 dead and blast markers.
I move up the Hammerheads behind the Cathedral and pop up to shoot at the Leman Russ tanks, kill none.
He doubles his Leman Russes around the Cathedral, gets a few shots and kills a Hammerhead.
I counter with my Sky Rays which double up to the Leman Russes and fire seeker missiles. Actually manage to get a hit, which kills his Vanquisher (the closest target).
He moves his Hydras up by the Cathedral, one by the wide bit on the right of the building.
I move up Recon 1, Piranhas behind a building and couple Tetras up to mark the Hydras. Piranhas missiles do nothing.
He moves up the Warhound, doesn't fire the Plasma Blastgun (wanted to use it next turn), at the end gets one kill (the only one the Warhound could see, incidently). Hydras are still marked.
I use the big Fire Warrior squad to launch a barrage of Seekers at the marked Hydras. Kill 2, break the last one.
I think he put his Baneblade on Overwatch here.
I moved Recon 2 up behind his big infantry formation, marking everything.
That lured his other infantry formation (with support units) to double over to the other side of the forest and fire at the Recon, they broke and ran towards the Fail rock.
I moved the small Fire Warrior squad up behind the forest.
I think the Ride of the Valkyries happened here, Broadsides Overwatched at Marked Valks (marked by the small fire warrior squad's Sky Ray).
I think that was all. End phase, the Kroot rally, Crisis Suits rally, Hammerheads take off a blast marker. Recon doesn't rally. Recon rally.
He does his things too, the Leman Russ tanks don't take off all their blast markers.
Turn 2 - Strategy Roll Tau
Hmmm... I'm not sure what I did first here. I think I moved up the Sky Rays and fired into the back of the Warhound. 6 shots, 5 hits. 3 failed armor saves, 1 dead Warhound. There was much rejoicing in the land.
He tries to activate the Leman Russ tanks but fails this turn, I believe.
I try to bring back the Tigersharks, fail.
He moves up his Supreme Commander formation and fires at the Sky Rays in vengeance. Kills one, they're broken. Run behind the fail rock. Totally. Worth. It.
I'm pretty sure I double up my broadsides towards the Baneblade, don't get into LOS.
He moves up his Baneblade and fires at the Broadsides, kills 1-2.
I move up Recon 1 (the nonbroken one) over at the double to mark the Baneblade, and take backwards shots from Seekers at the marked Storm Troopers, breaking them.
I doubled up the Crisis Suits and fired on the Baneblade. Some trick shooting with the Fusion blasters and a bit of luck, one dead baneblade. My doubts on the effectiveness of these units is slowly going away. 10 cm move towards the woods.
Basilisks take a long shot at the broken Recon by the Fail Rock, wipe them out.
I evaluate my options and decide a risky advance through the woods at the big infantry formation with the Support companies. Sky Ray marks the formation, all the fire warriors get out and fire. Makes a hell of a fusillade. A couple AT hits from Seekers, 9 AP hits, 4-5 Disrupt (Pulse Rifles failed a bit, Carbines did well). Almost, /almost/ broke the infantry. Couldn't, quite do it.
Then the infantry called an engage action and killed the fire warriors. 2 Devilfish and the Sky Ray get out alive, everyone else dies. Good times.
I move the big fire warrior squad to behind the small clump of trees with the building on the right, spreading out.
I think that was it. Somewhere my Hammerheads fired at the Leman Russ tanks, but did no damage.
End phase - Hammerheads keep their blast marker, as do the Leman Russ tanks. Sky Rays continue to be broken. Crisis suits rally. Storm Troopers rally, big infantry squad that engaged the Fire Warriors rally. Broken Fire Warriors still broken.
Turn 3 - Strategy roll Tau (that +1 over the Imperial Guard was telling this game)
Tigersharks come in first, make a run at the Leman Russ tanks. Kill 2 with Titan Killers. Lots of blast markers.
I think the Leman Russ tanks do a Marshal and get behind the Cathedral.
I see an opportunity, so I decide on a risky move. I make an engage move with my big Fire Warrior squad on his basilisks behind the woods, and declare them intermingled with the big infantry formation w/ support weapons. A bit bad on my rolling leaves me with 2 kills, then he got 2 kills back. He had blast markers, he outnumbered me. Straight roll off, I won by 2. Basilisks are a non-entity now, and both formations break.
I choose to retain the initiative and managed to activate the crisis suits, who double through the woods and fire at the Storm Troopers, kill 2 and break them again.
He moves his Supreme Commander formation up and fires at the Crisis Suits. Armor and invulnerable saves keep me kicking.
Hydra fails to activate.
Recon 1 moves back to the bottom of the big infantry formation and fires, killing 2 and clearing them away from an objective.
I can't remember anything else this turn... Hydras shoot at the Tigersharks as they fly off to no effective.
Broadsides fail to activate, but use the 'hold' action to move to the objective.
End Phase - Sky Rays rally, broken Fire Warriors rally. The Fire Warriors up top keep their blast markers, the Hammerheads lose theirs. Basilisk (singular) rallies, if I recall. Recon 1 loses its blast marker. Storm Troopers and the big infantry fail to rally on a 5+. Leman Russ tanks get rid of their last blast marker. Crisis Suits shed 2 blast markers.
Turn 4 - Strategy Roll Tau
Tigersharks come in for another run on the Leman Russ tanks, kill 2 more. He's down to 5 tanks, 3 blast markers.
Leman Russ tanks fail to activate.
I see an opportunity, so I Sustain with my crisis suits at the Supreme Command formation. 3 suits, 3 shots each, sustain + markerlight. 9 kills, +1 blast marker for being shot at breaks them.
Basilisk fires at my big fire warrior squad, kills a few. No effect, in the long run.
Fire Warriors try and fire, but fail. They move around a bit to get into a more ordered formation.
Hammerheads move and fire at the Leman Russ tanks, kill none, another blast marker.
I think we called it here.
I had 2 objectives (that lone Kroot squad held one Take and Hold, Broadsides hold the other). Big Fire Warrior squads pushed the Guard off their blitz, and he didn't have anyone in my half of the table.
From a story perspective, I guess the Imperial Guard were trying to refuel at the factory/depot, but the Tau stopped them that close.
MVP - Skysweep Missile Defense Cadre. Unusually good luck, sure. Really, the MVP is probably the big Fire Warrior group. They provided the mass I needed to actually push someone decisively off an objective. It was a very close call though. I was almost turned aside doing a complete flank attack against basilisks of all things. He did get about 5-6 guys from the big infantry squad into the mix, though.
It was always my intention for the big Ethereal guard to hit the Blitz. Though the engage wasn't exactly how I hoped to do it.
Anyway, AT3+ Hammerheads were not Gods of the Battlefield, and were almost completely ineffective against their most common adversary in the fluff (Leman Russ). It felt silly having to call in Tigersharks to kill them but damn if there doesn't seem to be any other way. They + luck kept those Leman Russ tanks from steam rolling down my left.
It's only 2 games, but I'm standing by my assertion about AP5+/AT3+ hammerheads. I'll drop the price down to 300pts for 6 to see if they suddenly break the game, but I don't feel it happening. Broadsides were still more damaging, and their resilience let me be pretty cavalier with them (drawing the Baneblade into the trap). The Broadsides performed, and stopped the Storm Trooper advance into the city in its tracks. Brilliant really, even though their shooting was actually a bit subpar (3 1s to hit).
Between the Kroot and the Broadsides I killed most of his mobility in turn 1. I considered leaving his Leman Russes out to dry and moving the Hammerheads to the other side of the city more than once, but decided to slug it out for the test purposes.
Thoughts...
Kroot screen is really helpful in my opinion. Not particularly in this game, but against marines doing the Terminator drops they can really protect the things that don't do a good job of protecting themselves (Broadsides, Hammerheads).
Hammerheads probably want their own inbuilt Sky Rays. I found that the targets they wanted to go after were often to hot for Recon to be hanging around marking them. I am now /firmly/ against Disrupt hammerhead AT guns though. The game changes so much that I can't see any way to balance it. Suddenly one volley leaves about half the Leman Russes unable to shoot back. I don't know how to make it work.
I like the Recon as they are. 3/3 lets me get forward so I don't have to march to hit enemies trying to hide, and gives them some bite to give those same kinds of units something to think about. Even makes them reasonable AP platforms, like when Recon 1 broke the Storm Troopers.
I can see how the Sky Ray formation is fragile, but the memory of this game is probably going to stick with me. Dispersing them as much as possible is probably the good idea, though. Getting Barracudas does let me get everyone a Sky Ray of their own... Also frees up enough to get a Supreme Commander with a bit of finagling.
I honestly don't view the Ethereal squad as being something I need to treat with kid gloves. In fact I felt it let me be a bit reckless with them, because I knew that the squad wasn't going to disintegrate in bad resolution roll. Bonded + Ethereal also means I shed blast markers at a pretty good rate, so they can take the hits and be combat effective for longer. Ethereal getting sniped is a bad thing... We'll see.
Crisis Suits are bushwhackers. I can't afford a big squad, though. Will try to get the Supreme Commander back, if only to shed blast markers faster.
Still feel no desire to use pathfinders. Or gun drones. Want to try stealth suits at some point. And a Manta, at some point or other.
-Professor
