Rules used:
2008 errata/faq
Minervans (straight from Raiders - no tourney mods)
Tau v5.0

Armies:

Minervans
Baneblade company - 2 Baneblades, 1 Stormhammer
Shadowsword company - 2 Shadowswords, 1 Baneblade, 1 Hydra (BTS)
Stormhammer company 1 - 3 Stormhammers
Stormhammer company 2 - 3 Stormhammers
Stormhammer company 2 - 3 Stormhammers
Medusa 1
Medusa 2
Hydras

Commissars in each SHT company

Tau
Shas'o - Crisis + Crisis + SC
Fire Warriors - FW + FW
Kroot
[all the above have the option of going in Orcas]
Broadside Firewarriors - FW + Broadside + Skyray [garrison]
Firewarrior air assault - FW + Crisis + Shas'el [Orca only]
Recon - 5 Piranha, 1 Tetra
Stealth
Orca 1 (FW/Crisis)
Orca 2 (Kroot)
Barracuda
AX-1-0


Opening comment:  Clearly, these armies are completely unsuited to fighting each other.  The Tau are heavy on infantry with only AP fire and moderate FF against SHTs.  On the Minervan side, they are a bit light on AA, especially as the range of the major threat, the AX-1-0 with their TKd3, is 45cm against 45cm ground flak, meaning they will almost always be able to find a target that can be struck without concern about being targeted in return.

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Neal

Battlefield:  Sorry, no pics.  I walked out without my camera.

Fairly rough terrain.  Each quadrant had one large hill with patches of scrub and there was one small impassable cliff.  There was a patch of woods just off center towards what ended up being the IG side of the board.  Each player had a patch of woods near their deployment zone, just to the left of their respective centers.  A road ran the length of the board in a gentle arc, but never played a part in the game.  It looked something like this:

Minervan side

hill      - open(bl) - woods(obj)- open    - woods
hill(obj) - open     - woods     - hill    - rubble
open      - open(obj)- open(obj) - open    - open
hill      - woods(bl)- open      - hill    - open

Tau side

Tau chose the long board edge.  I wanted him to have to cover a larger front, as a tight SHT line would be murder to crack.  I also put him in the side with denser terrain to try to bottleneck him.  He would have to spread out to avoid it, which would give me a better chance to pick off formations out of the flak umbrella and/or with air assaults.

Objectives - I placed the blitz so I would have a good blitz garrison for the Broadsides.  After that, I tried to spread them out enough that it would be hard for him to cover without spreading out.  I put them in range of good infantry cover.  The left flank hill was steep towards the Minervan blitz (with the small impassable cliff section), so it gave good LoS protection.  There was also scrub to use.  The other T&H was in the middle of some woods, with the hill providing additional potential blocked LoS.  Minervans placed everything in the open.  The Blitz was placed so he could surround it and have the best lanes of fire from the beginning.

Setup (everything from the Tau side):

Tau - Garrisoned Broadsides in the woods.  Recon went to the right of that.  The large FW (12-unit) formation on the hill to the left.  Crisis behind the hill on teh far right.  Everything else in reserve.

Minervans - Baneblades on left, just peeking around the hill through the open slot for lane of fire.  Shadowsords next, then 3 Stormhammer companies.  Hydras were behind, just to the right of the blitz.  Medusas flanking on each side of the Hydras.

_________________
Neal

Turn 1

No teleport.
Tau win strategy.  IG activate first.

Shadowsords move up and kill one Piranha (making me realize I should have deployed them farther to the right, near the Crisis).

FW formation rushes across towards the other hill.

Baneblade company doubles up the hill (around the cliff) and kill one FW (by the time they moved around the small cliff and climbed the hill they weren't in range with much weaponfy).

Broadside FW fire on the Shadowsords (I realized at this point I should have fired OW when they moved to shoot at the Piranhas).  One point of damage.

Hammer 2 fails to activate and Marshalls.

AS-1-0 attack the exposed Baneblade company, but cannot get close enough to use the 30cm range attacks without being exposed to the Shadowsword's Hydra.  They kill one Baneblade anyway.

Hammer 1 advances to a position to support the Shadowswords.

Tau Recon  marshalls, moving forward and right, out of LoS behind the woods and hill.

Hammer 3 double moves and has just enough move to run around the woods in front of them and barely get one Piranha in LoS of one SHT.  BM only.

Barracuda strafe the Baneblades.  BM only.

Medusa 2 double moves up into the middle of the Hammer 1 company.

Crisis double move to the rubble on the far right flank.

Hydras fail to activate and Marshall.

Orca 2 (with Kroot) strafe the Baneblades.  No damage, but that puts them at 6BMS and they break, withdrawaing back to roughly their starting position.

Medusas fail to activate and Marshall.

===

Wow!  3 failed activations for the IG on 2+ rolls.  None of them could have done much to hurt the Tau.  Mostly, it kept him from moving his army forward ~15cm, which would have allowed a little better position.

It was abundantly clear that this was going to be a position game.  Minervans were trying to keep bunched up under the flak umbrella and keep from leaving anything far enough out that it could be picked off with an air assault.  Meanwhile, the Tau were maneuvering for position to try to keep them boxed in.

===

All formations rally.

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Neal

Turn 2

No teleports.
IG win strategy.


Shadowswords sustain fire and kill 3 FW from the Broadside formation (TK from front-to-back hit the infantry and the Broadsides were just barely out of range of the Baneblade so it couldn't fire AT and pick them out.

AX-1-0 attack Hammer 3 from max range, killing one SHT.

Tau retain and advance with Recon (because they are flapping in the breeze if I didn't).  They move around the hill to the right and pop up.  I figured with 4 AT shots I might get lucky and break the Hammer 3 company.  No such luck - 1BM only.

IG Stormhammer 3 company moves up to the crest of the hill and Engages Recon.  Recon loses (shocker!) but the BM mod hurts the SHTs - 2 kills, 1 hackdown.  1 Piranha and 1 Tetra do a forward retreat to the far right flank behind the woods in the Minervan deployment zone.  That's far enough to be out of threat range and with a ML and Scout, they should be able to harass if they rally.

Crisis double from the rubble to the hill and fire on Hammer 3.  They manage to get 1 point of damage and 2 BMs to break the company, then JetPack back behind the edge of the hill.

Medusa 1 double move in front of the Shadowswords to develop their position but are out of range.

Firewarriors move up the hill on the left flank, but still behind the lip out of LoS.

Baneblades marshall, moving to change facing to hit anything coming over the hill occupied by the FW.

Broadsides marshall, moving out of LoS of the Shadowswords, clearing all 4 BMs in the process.  I figured since they hit on 2+, Advancing them didn't hurt and if they were out of LoS, that guaranteed they would get in the first shot next turn.

Hydras go on OW (No air assaults for you, young man!).

Barracudas strafe Medusa 1 because they were the farthest forward and out of the flak coverage.  BM only.

Medusa 2 double move, and it turns out they have enough move to clear the flank of the hill and get a couple of Crisis in range.  1 Crisis dies to a MW hit.  This also puts them in 30cm of the Recon group hiding behind the trees, potentially hindering their rally.

Orca 2 (kroot) strafes the Shadowswords to get them to at least 2BM, so they will still have one after rallying.  BM only.  It turns out that the Forward arc on their 45cm shot makes them pretty adept at doing this while still being able to avoid flak and exit off their own board edge.

Hammer 1 goes on OW.

Orca 1 (FW/Crisis) strafe Medusa 2.  BM only.

Hammer company 2 fails to activate and moves up behind Hammer 1.

===

So... The Tau have succssfully kept the Minervans bottled up, but with the dense IG position and units on OW, there's no place to even think about getting a bite on them.  It's just picking at them and positioning for the objectives so the IG will be forced to do something aggressive sooner or later.

===

All formations rally except the Tau FW on the left flank (even the Recon skimmers).

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Neal

Turn 3

Stealth teleport behind the trees in the middle of the board.  (I felt like I needed them, but as noted, the IG were so dense that trying to get any closer would have been virtual suicide.  Also, with a +1 on the strategy roll and IG winning the prior turn, I felt like I was probably going to win strategy)  No BMs.

Tau win strategy.

Crisis suits Advance, wiping out Medusa 2 and JetPacking back around the hill, but close enough to claim the objective on top of the hill.

Shadowsords Fail to activate and rally.  (This was immediately apparent as a mistake - IG didn't have any good targets anyway, so marshalling the vulnerable Hammer 3 would have been better.  They weren't going to do much and it would have saved the Shadowswords as a future activation and potential threat against landed Orcas.)

AX-1-0 strafe Hammer 3, killing another tank and breaking the formation.

(At this point, its apparent that the Minervans are going to have a big challenge preventing Tau from getting TSNP and DTF, as they are running very low on mobile activations.  This forces the Minervans to do things they don't want to from here out.)

Medusa 1 doubles forward around the trees to fire on the Stealth.  BM only.

Recon double moves directly in front of Hammer 1.  Both the Hydras and Hammer 1 are on OW, but if they fire, IG lose an activation.  I figured that was worth saccing the Recon.  Minervans, however, didn't take the bait and Hammer 2 takes 1BM and the Minervans have a Scout ZoC in the middle of their army that they will have to maneuver around or deal with.

Baneblades double move back up the hill and fire on the FW, killing 3 of them despite the double move and scrub cover.

Broadsides advance back out of cover, killing 2 Medusas, breaking Medusa 1.  The back of the formation covers the Blitz.

Hammer 1 doubles into the woods in front of the Stealth to get LoS on them.  The Commissar's tank rolls a 1 for the terrain check and then CRITICALS!  The remaining Hammers kill 3 Stealth, breaking them, and are in position to contest both the objectives on my side.  The Stealth retreat back to the woods in front of the Broadsides.  That consolidates the Tau backfield position and they are still in range to capture all 3 objectives on my board half if needed in Turn 4.

Barracudas fail to activate and stand down.

Hydras sustain fire on the Recon platoon.  Was it worth letting them place a BM to have the future Hydra activation to stall with?  I dunno.

Firewarriors double over the hill into LoS of every freakin' thing he has, placing a BM on Hammer 1 with their pulse rifles.

(This ended up being a huge error.  I thought I would be able to drop troops in front of the remaining SHTs to keep him from moving forward, enabling me to win with DTF and TSNP.  Complete brain fart.  He had that central area locked down under 4 Hydras, so there was no way I was going to be able to drive 2 Orcas up the middle.  I basically threw the FW away.

What I should have done at this point was maintain position and squeeze.  I was steadily gaining ground on him.  These FW could have moved into support fire range of the Baneblades, placed a BM on them, and supported an air assault against them, which could have been done without any flak fire.  It could have crushed that SHT company, leaving troops a bit out of position for objectives but in a great spot for LoS and cover.  Turn 4 could have been about objectives, or I could have kept picking off SHTs with the AX-1-0 and won on points.

To make matters worse, when these guys get clobbered, it gives him Defend the Flag and They Shall Not Pass, so the position reverses and now I'm forced to play aggressively.)

Hammer 2 doubles forward, spreading out so they are within 15cm of teh left flank objective on my side AND the right flank objective on the IG side.

Unfortunately, because I threw those FW away and I have to do something aggressive just to keep him from winning, I feel like I have to go for the win.  Now we get to the fun part...

TAU AIR ASSAULT!!!!  (My opponent accused me of having an incurable Ork mentality at this point)

I have TSNP.  Hammer 1 and Hammer 2 are each contesting one of my DTF objectives, so I have to break both to win.

Kroot land to assault Hammer 2 with a clipping attack against the leftmost Stormhammer.  Since he had spread out to contest both objectives, the other Hammer could not countercharge far enough to get into range of FF.  Also, I could do this barely out of support range of Hammer 1 and barely out of flak range of the Shadowsword Hydra.  It was a perfect setup.  Kroot go into the assault resolution with +1 (-2 kills, +2 BMs, +1 outnumbering) and win by 1.  Hammer 2 retreats back and to the right (Tau's right), sort of behind the hill and next to the trees, but close enough that a double move in Turn 4 puts them back on the objectives.

Kroot consolidate towards Hammer 1.  Remember they were barely out of support range, so 7 Kroot models made it within range of the lead Tank.

FW/Crisis/Shas'el repeat the process on Hammer 1, again clipping just the lead tank.  Unfortunately, they cannot do that while staying out of range of the Shadowsword Hydra and take a BM, so the BMs are even.  The FW do poorly and the Crisis fail both their armor saves on the Crisis suits.  Just bad luck.  The resolution ends up being -1 for the Tau (-2 kills, no BMs, +1 outnumber).

4+FF and MWFF - The FW hit horribly with their 5+FF but rolled several 4's.  They would have had 3 more hits, which would have put them average instead of below.  With that and the MW on the Crisis they almost certainly would have gotten another kill.

The resolution was a tie - the worst possible result for Tau!  Now another SHT can countercharge into FF range and the IG can pile up kills.  I would greatly have preferred to lose by one and bug out.  The second resolution is +4 in favor of IG but luckily the Tau only lose by 1 - still only one hackdown, but the IG killed 3 FW stands in that second round.

The Orca is auto-killed as well, of course.

===

Aaargh!  If only I hadn't decided to push it.  As it is, if the FW had FF4+, I believe this game would probably have been over 2-0 with the Tau completely dominating maneuver and pulling off some sweet assaults.

===

Hammer 1 and 2 both fail to rally.  Medusa 1 (the lone tank) fails to rally and ends up back near the Blitz.

Tau 1 (TSNP) - IG 1 (DTF)

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Neal

Turn 4 (unfortunately, this was such a nerve-wracking game and I was so into it that my notes got sketchy...)

Hammer 1 sustains fire at Kroot, wiping them out and that keeps them in position on both the objectives they are covering.

Broadsides, which stood a remote chance of breaking Hammer 1 due to Hammer 1's failed rally, fail to activate.  Because I know I absolutely have to have the AX-1-0s to have a shot at winning, I refrain from using the SC reroll.  However, the Shadowswords are in LoS so I hit them for 1 damage on a different tank.

Baneblades continue to move across the hill, firing on the Fire Warriors that were forced into the open after breaking last turn.  The FW are wiped out.  This keeps them in capture range of their DTF objective on the hill.  However, the Baneblades did not have the distance to cross the mid-board and still fire.

Stealth try to activate and fail!  Again, I know I need the AX-1-0 so I do not use the reroll and cannot retain.

Hydras double forward to cross the midboard and fire at the remnants of the FW/Crisis/Shas'el from the air assault, breaking them.  This stops my TSNP and puts a second formation in contesting range of the objective.

Crisis double move, firing on the Hydras and breaking them, then JetPack to spread out and keep both TSNP objectives and the formation still manages to be out of LoS behind the trees and hill.

At this point it looks grim for the IG.  They have DTF and TSNP, but the Tau have TSNP and only the Hammer 1 company between them and DTF.

IG Hammer 3 (remember Hammer 3? - the remaining tank had retreated back behind the trees by the IG deployment zone) is in position to rush forward and contest another objective (barely) but fails to activate.  It moves back around the stand of trees just in case and stays within 15cm of the IG DTF objective in the trees.

Tau bring in the AX-1-0 to hit Hammer 1.  I bring them in against the middle tank that has only 1 DC left to have the best chance of killing it.  1 hit for 2 points of damage and Hammer 1 breaks.

It's now 2-2 with each side having DTF and TSNP.

The remaining Orca, which had taken a point of damage from flying out through the Hydra AA, had 3 BMs - 1 BM each for approach/disengage, 1 BM damage.  In order to win, I just have to land on the IG side.  However, since the flak disintegrated I have a wide choice of location.  After measuring we determine that the Orca can land close enough to the right flank DTF to keep the IG from having it.

... assuming it activates with -3, needing a 5.

The Orca activates and rolls a 4!  Aaaargh!  Reroll... 5!  The Orca destroys both IG goals and the Tau win 2-0.

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Neal

AABS

Holy Cow!  What a nail-biter.  That was an extremely intense, chess-like game with every activation choice and every move carefully considered.  It was great!

The lack of an SC reroll was a problem for the IG with the failed activations.  However, on balance, the Tau string of failures in Turn 4 made up for a lot of that.  Between that and the IG killing activations with each of theirs, the HUGE Tau activation advantage on Turn 4 evaporated.  The biggest thing the activation problems did was help keep the IG buttoned up early on.  If they had developed their position better, it could have been a lot different.

After discussing the Minervan army list, I think we came up with several ways to improve it.  Just a single arty formation would have been a big benefit as it would have been a great 'stall' activation like the Medusas but it would have reached out to touch something.  Also, breaking up the Shadowsword into 2 singles would help a bit with activations and flexibility.  Personally, I also think his deployment could have been better.  Swapping the flank SHT companies, the Baneblades would have had better opportunities to gain LoS and the Stormhammer 3 would have done every bit as well with the see-sawing back and forth over the hill on the opposite flank.

Tau infantry - I was completely satisfied with their assaults.  The Kroot assault was 325 points against ~325 points of properly prepared target and barely won.  The FW assault was 525 points of FW/Crisis plus ~100 points of Kroot support against 500 points of semi-prepared target and barely lost.  Even then, the loss was mostly due to poor die rolls (3 hits below average from the FW and 2 failed 3+ saves on the Crisis) rather than their assault ability not being up to the task.

My opponent agreed with that assessment and said it was about the outcome he expected.  It was enough of a threat that it was a substantial factor in keeping him from sending his formations out too aggressively.

I have a sense that early in a game, air attacks will be better used to land/shoot/crossfire while later in the game they can be used as a decisive assault on a vulnerable formation.

I don't think I would take a Shas'el again with the FW/Crisis air assault.  I took it because I thought the formation was likely to get banged up in an air assault and shedding an extra BM would be nice.  However, late in the game like I used them it's not likely to make much difference and early in the game with a land/shoot it's not likely to be needed as much.  It's pretty expensive for use that will like end up being moderated by those factors.

AX-1-0:  This was clearly the game winner.  As I noted, if I hadn't gone all crazy and spring the "killing blow" in turn 3 too early, I am pretty certain I would have "patient huntered" him to death, largely due to the AX.  That 45cm range is still a killer because most flak in the game is 45cm or less.  It is wicked firepower.

However, that said, we agreed that 1) the SHT army is pretty much its ideal hunting ground, 2) the IG AA was a bit light, and 3) a single interceptor formation would likely have put a big dent in them.  They might still be a bit too powerful, but neither of us was willing to stake out that assessment as a definite position.

Recon:  I love these guys.  Even with my poor deployment that lost a unit off the bat and forced them to Marshall when they could have done something more effective, I had a blast with them.  Running them right up in the middle of the enemy and daring them to use an activation to get rid of them was a hoot (even if not very Tau-ish).

Markerlights:  My aircraft firepower suffered considerably from a lack of Markerlights.  I probably would have picked up over 30 AT5+ shots if I'd had targets lit.  I think the lesson of that is if Tau are going to go heavy on the Air Caste, they need to tailor their ground forces to have more MLs than I did.

That said, I think a major drawback to Fire Warriors is how difficult the army list makes it to add MLs to anything except a mech infantry formation.  You must pay for Devilfish if you take Pathfinders, so they're already mech and if you choose to deploy them without you're dropping paid-for models.  Adding Stealthsuits prevents the formation from garrisoning and makes the FW formation too large for an Orca unless you leave a unit behind.  Tetras add LV status and lose their speed and quite a bit of their Skimmer advantage.  The only option that seems feasible is to add a Skyray which, as long as it is the only unit over 15cm, will still allow the FW to garrison even though they obviously can't use air transport.

I'm probably missing a ML option, but you can surely see the point - if you want to add MLs to FW, you are extremely limited in your options for deploying the FW.

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Neal

Nice report Neal, it was a compelling game.

Great stuff Neal. Nailbiting as you say. Your post battle comments are also very interesting.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Nice report Neal... but tie that camera around your neck next time!  *laugh*

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Thanks Neal. Indeed it was a great game. I have to say it was one of the best games I've been a part of since playing epic. The two opposing armies were completely different in style and capabilities. Yet the game worked out to be quite a chess game, only fun with killing and stuff.

The manner in which you played the Tau felt in keeping with my understanding of the army flavor. I constantly felt as though I was being drawn into a trap (which I was). Despite the fact I had large amounts of heavy armor I felt vulnerable throughout the game.

It was, in fact, a nail-biter extraordinaire. But a blast!

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Do I really need a signature!

Oh, btw. It made me get my unpainted Tau minis out of the drawer and start painting. What a sickness this hobby is!

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Do I really need a signature!

Thanks for the Battle report Neal, great stuff

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"Dyslexia is a Privilege, not a right"