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Batrep in summary
Chris has stated the army lists above. To even things up a bit, we agreed I should use the Tau, so I got my second game with them.
Terrain and objectives
Again, to help skew things a little in the Orks favour, we agreed on a moderately heavily wooded table with a built up area almost dead centre. To quote a famous British soccer commentator, ?it was a game of two halves? - - On the Eastern half of the table, we each placed our Blitz objectives 45cms in from the edge, and the Orks placed their objectives directly in front of my Blitz, in / near two large woods. On the Western half of the table, I placed my two objectives 30 cms from the Ork table edge, and 30cms & 60cms in from the Western table edge to keep the Orks from using garrisons as a springboard.
Ork Set up
The Orks lined up in their deployment zone on Eastern table half opposite my blitz and their objectives (From W-E):-
Flak1, Gargants + Stompers, Big Flak, Flak2, Mob1, Flak3, Mob2, Flak4
Tau setup
Tau also placed all its forces in the Eastern table half as follows (W-E):-
Pathfinder 4, Pathfinder3, Hammerhead 1 in woods (+leader), Crisis, Hammerhead 2 (in the SE corner away from the Gargant indirect fire).
Tau garrisoned the woods with Pathfinder 2 (on OW) and Pathfinder 1, protecting both objectives.
Strategic Intentions
As Tau I wanted to keep away from the Gargant + Stompers (Chris gave some graphic details of the effects these things have when ?up close and personal? ? Yuk)
So :-
1) Kill the AA ASAP.
2) Kill the Gargant + stompers
3) 3 avoid direct confrontation with the mobs ? but shoot as many BMs on them as possible
Orks strategy (if it can be called such) is to push forward on the objectives as fast as possible stomping, crushing and generally disembowelling anything in the way.
Turn 1
Tau win the strategy roll and generously give the Orks first go. In summary, G+S and Big Flak advanced towards the West edge of the town, but were both damaged, and Big Flak broken by a combination of P3 moving into the town (to gain Markerlight), HH 2, Crisis, TS 4 and TS 5 (which behaved magnificently scoring 4 hits from 4 dice killing 2x Stompers and 1 hit on the Gargant - which only had one shield).
The TS were brought in (possibly a little prematurely) to cut down the Ork activations and carried out three runs from W-E along the Ork table edge removing Flak1 and Flak2 for no AA hits at all. The Orks FBs both intercepted TS3 bringing it down with 2 hits from eight A/c (quite lucky).
Mobs 1&2 and Flak 3&4 advanced towards the objectives as intended, but Flak 3 was broken by HH 1 (+ markerlight from P3) as the Tau continued to move all forces except P1&2 NW towards the table centre, away from the advancing mobs and Flak 4.
Finally P4 marched NW towards the Tau objectives
End of turn, TS 1&2 got 1BM each for leaving the Ork table edge. None of the Ork formations recovered, and all but P4 rallied.
Turn 2
Tau win the strategy roll, and decide to move HH2 forward slightly to form a cordon joining P2 with P3 in the town, both to provide fire support to the beleaguered P2 and also to fire very effectively on Mob1. ?
G+S advanced to the West edge of town, but was broken by HH1 and the Crisis who advanced within 30cms and let rip.
Flak 4 advanced down the eastern table edge and pulverised P2, which decided to save its OW as Mob1 & Mob2 were both just inside 30cms from its eastern end.
Mob 1 failed to assault, so marshalled 6 BMs! However, Mob 2 finally assaulted P2, breaking it. P1 then marched in a huge semicircle NW ? NE through the Tau lines upon the Ork blitz objective, which was being ?guarded? by two broken Ork AA formations.
I cannot remember the TS doing anything memorable, possibly attacking Mob1 (killing the single flak). One Ork FB tried to intercept, losing an A/c to the TS, and the other FB failed to activate
End of turn, Orks again fail to rally their AA, and G+S
Turn 3
The game is tipping in Tau favour because of the activations, but the Orks do have some territorial advantages
The Tau have pulled out of the path of the Ork advance, leaving the objectives unprotected, but have taken up positions in the centre of the table on the Orks western flank
Tau win the strategy roll ? and start to crank up the pressure by moving the ? strength P2 back into position on eastern side of Mob2, taking up crossfire positions. Flak4 doubles past them to contest the Blitz objective, but Ork fire fails to dislodge P2, and a series of attacks from Crisis, HH2 and TS leave Mob2, 1 BM shy of breaking.
Meanwhile P3 doubles to create a cordon just North of Mob1 between it and P1, and is promptly destroyed, but this action prevents Mob1 from contesting the Blitz objective. P1 expands to gain the Blitz and one of the Tau objectives and the TS finish off G+S to gain the BTS
In a fit of peak, the Ork FBs ground attack the foot slogging P4, breaking it and preventing it from gaining the other Tau objective.
Result Tau win 3-1 (and much more convincingly than my first Tau win last game)
Conclusions
30 cm AA fire did not even scratch the TS paintwork ? the only casualty being from the Ork FBs ? so Honda and others seem to be correct that Fighters are the only real ?antidote?. Also the TS DC2 strength really held up, the other TS not suffering any damage at all.
Again the TS issue (apart from numbers) is the main weapon range, which minimises the number of BMs being placed on the A/c, making it much more likely to fly in all turns increasing the potency ? in this game, all TS (except TS3) flew in all three turns contributing significantly to the slaughter in the centre.
This effect was exacerbated by the air umbrella provided by the two Hammerhead formations, which effectively deterred the Ork FBs for most of the game (killing one from memory at some point), and were instrumental in removing a good part of the Ork AA.
While I am not decrying this, evidently Tau AA and Air becomes a very potent weapon when used correctly in concert and it still seems far too easy for Tau to gain almost total air supremacy in one turn, potentially unbalancing the game to an unacceptable extent IMHO.
Other aspects ?
Tau Pathfinders in cover worked very well, contributing to slowing the advancing Ork Mobs and the destruction of various Ork formations around them, and the Crisis really rocked when moved to counter the enemy formations. In essence, the Tau seem well suited to counter moves rather than all out assault.
The Ork formations were really hampered by lack of speed, Bike formations would be an obvious choice against the more cautious style of Tau strategy here (and a difficult one to counter).
Again I think that Honda is at least partly correct in querying the Ork army list, but the TS, Hammerheads and Seeker missiles with markerlight very swiftly ?removed most of the Ork long range weaponry that might have been used to counter the Tau strategy.
All the best
Ginger
(PS hope you are all enjoying Superbowl XL)
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"Play up and play the game"
Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt
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Plus the army was picked in the style of what could be easily found in the box, not that scientific!
I have enough with the bigger box of Imperials!