Sigh…no camera, left the house without the dice box, the portents were not especially encouraging.
I got a game in today against the Orks, who I usually find very difficult to handle. For the play test, the Ork list was designed to be something that I’d like to play and that I felt would cause problems with the Tau. In essence, I wanted to feel like the Ork player was throwing locomotives at me all game.
Since we were working with available figs and this was supposed to be a fun game, the Orks fielded:
Gargant Gargant, Warlord 650
Uge Stompa Mob 9 x Stompas 575
Deff Dreads 4 x Dreadnoughts 140
Killa Kans 4 x Killa Kans 100
Gunzmob 5 x Shokk Attak Guns 125
Stormboyz Horde 6 x Stormboyz 150
Uge Blitz Brigade - 1 12 x Gunwagons 350
Odd Boy 1 x Odd Boy 50
Flak Wagon 1 x Flak Wagon 35
Uge Blitz Brigade - 2 12 x Gunwagons 350
Flak Wagon 1 x Flak Wagon 35
Uge Ork Warband 6 x Nobs, 18 x Boyz 500
Odd Boy 1 x Odd Boy 50
I went a little lighter on Recon than I normally do, figuring that I’d out activate the Orks and pick off softer units.
The Tau fielded:
Mechanized FW Cadre 6 x FW, 3 x Devilfish
FW upgrade 4 x FW, 2 Devilfish
Skyray 1 x Skyray
HH upgrade 2 x HH
Recon Group 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha
Recon Group 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha
Recon Group 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha
Crisis Cadre 4 x Crisis Suits
Crisis Upgrade 2 x Crisis Suits
SC upgrade 1 x Supreme Commander
Skysweep Support Group 3 x Skyray
Armored Group 4 x Hammerheads
HH upgrade 2 x HH
Tigershark Squadron 2 x Missile Strike Tigersharks
AX-1-0 Squadron 2 x AX-1-0
AX-1-0 Squadron 2 x AX-1-0
So the Orks had seven fairly difficult to handle activations, the Tau ten. The table had approximately 30% terrain, almost all of it LOS blocking. I’m not exactly sure now what I was thinking regarding objectives, but I placed both of mine on the far left side of the table, while the Orks placed both of theirs on the right side of the board, one lined up with my Blitz.
Turn 1
Although I was concerned about the Ork just pushing his way into my side of the board, I thought that I’d be able to set up good lanes of fire and by maintaining good fire discipline, tear up some of the larger units before they got to dangerous.
So much for best laid plans. The Ork player just doubled everything the first turn. This had the effect of beating up or breaking my Recon formations throughout the turn and set me up for some bad news. Whether this was a good strategy or not, I decided to go after the Gargant and then kill off the Stompa Mob.
The way the Ork player lined up, I had the Stompa mob, and Gargant directly across from the objectives on my side. On either side of that mess was one of the very large Blitz brigades. The Storm Boyz were on the far right of a Blitz, and the Ork warband to the left of the other. The Gunz mob was towards the center, kind of lollygagging around.
So by the time the Ork had finished most of his moves, my recon line was pretty much shredded. The Stormboyz jumped over to grab the far right objective and I got all over them with the Crisis and they were no more. My aircraft were hitting fairly well, but the Stompa mob kept making saves. The Gargant’s shields were slowly being knocked down.
Given the few number of flak wagons, I didn’t get too concerned over ground AA and felt that I could stay in control of the situation by allocating my air assets reasonably.
However, by the end of the turn, two out of the three recon formations were broken (one and two units respectively) and the third had four units left with two BMs. Neither of my recon formations rallied at the end of the turn.
Turn 2
The Orks keep on pressing me hard. Every move is pretty much a double and they are in my face. The rightmost Blitz falls for, or doesn’t care about my crisis formation, so they jump out and whack them Blitz pretty hard. It breaks and runs back to it’s baseline with only four Gun wagons and the Odd Boy left.
For a second, things brighten up considerably. The FW cadre, and Skyray formation beat on the other Blitz, but it is a little more resilient and only takes a few casualties. The Hammerheads deliver eight hits on the Stompa mob and all are saved. Hmm…not good. The Flyboys come in and start pounding on the Gargant and the Stompa mob and I do start taking the Gargant structures down, but the Stompas continue to make saves, all the while getting closer to the group of objectives. The Ork Warband decides to double up the middle and suddenly the situation looks ugly. The Warband catches my BTS and with the 30 Big Shoota shots it has, whacks me pretty good, knocking down enough Devilfish that the entire formation is reduced to moving at 15 cms. I still have the Skyray, so I feel like I can pull this out. My last Recon formation breaks and I try to bust through the Ork lines and try to draw some units away from the big push. No go, the Gargant turns its back on juicier targets and wipes out the Recon formation. Now, all I have in the way of ML support is the Skyray formation and the Skyray attached to the FW cadre. However in retribution, the Air caste sweeps in and takes the Gargant out. I’m thinking, I can pull this out.
Unfortunately, in the rally phase, none of my remaining Recon formations rally and now things seem to be slipping out of my grasp.
Turn 3
In looking over the situation, it becomes apparent that whoever gets to go first, will pull out the win. It is clear that if the Ork goes first, he will engage the remnants of my BTS and wipe them out. Also, if he decides to retain, the Stompa mob will charge into my somewhat healthy Crisis formation and then I’m a dead duck
In the roll, the Tau win and it looks like I’m going to get my BTS away and set up some better shots.
I roll to activate the BTS and triple. I roll a “1â€Â
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and lance only on my Nightwings). I'm kinda stuck. If I ignore the GG, I can't get TnH or Defend the Flag, if I try and take it out I'll mostly likely fail and I'll also give free reign to the rest of his forces. 
