BATTLE REPORT
Vior'la Tau vs Tyson's impressive Soviet (Minervan) Tank Legion.
Setting the stage for war: The objectives are small discs with Russian stars on them, one out of sight behind trees to left and the others visible.
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, TANK DRIVES YOU
Reinforced armour armies without any infantry are very common in the local metagame - they hit hard from range, can assault, are mobile and durable.
And of course it is the ultimate form of target-denial when facing Tau, who count AP weapons as a key part of their power. There aint nothing to fire at.
With initative, AX-10s scream in before Thunderbolts can be put on combat air patrol, and take out a Shadowsword.
Super heavies rumble forward and clear out scouts from the ruins.
Broadsides open up, sustaining fire against a markerlit tank formation. Despite this representing some of Tau's best AT firepower, reinforced armour prevents even a single hull point being stripped.
Thunderbolts engage the AX-10s, and immediately afterwards are chased by Tau Barracudas.
More thunderbolts scramble to chase an orca filled with crisis suits, but are unsuccessful
The Soviets solidify their position in the midfield
Another Orca comes in, carrying hundreds of points worth of Crisis suits. This is the Vior'la version, upgraded with a Tau Deflector Field, but all this serves to do is make an expensive explosion even more expensive as Soviet thunderbolts swat it from the sky.
This is a huge loss, and combined with how few tanks their weapons have killed puts the Tau on the backfoot.
Riptides open fire on a tank formation, sustaining with markerlights and cross-fire support to drive the message home. Two tanks die - so they are killable!
A moray moves up towards the centre, failing to kill a tank as it does but at least putting down a blast marker. (this was playtesting the double Macro rather than single TK variant)
Desperate times call for desperate measures - the survivors of this tetra and piranha formation land between 3 tank formations, daring them to waste an activation on a low value target or be markerlight.
At the end of turn three, the Soviets are completely dominating the game, with Tyson moving onto objectives while plastering Tau units with firepower.
In order to get some use out of it, I had the surviving empty orca land next to the Soviet Blitz and put a blast marker on a tank with its awesome 6+ gun - thunderhawks have no reason to envy this flyer, but at least it would contribute.
At the end of round 3, Tyson's Soviets had enough objectives to win. With only 1 formation remaining, I decided to triple my BTS/Supreme commander formation of firewarriors up field to contest an objective held by tanks.
If I lost initiative in round 4 they'd be destroyed in assault, but the alternative would be losing now. It's always better to lose later
I was fortunate enough to win initiative, and break the tanks near my BTS formation.
What followed were a series of frantic moves on both sides, with the victory hanging in the balance.
The final result was a win to Tau by the narrowest of margins, with a single crisis survivor holding an objective (forest top left), the orca surviving 2 turns on the ground to contest the blitz, and the firewarriors charging up field to take another. In the centre the Moray is placed precisely to hold/contest 2 objectives, so whatever survived the tank onslaught at least ends the game in the right position.
Tyson was clear before the game that he it was a refresher since he hasn't played much Epic recently, but even so with this matchup favouring AT vs AP weapons I consider this a satisfactory victory against the odds.