From last week, here's a short batrep.
So brothers mate comes round, he used to play epic but stopped for a variety of reasons a year back. He was a marine and ork player and as the bro is running late, I convince him to have a go with this using Guard – makes sense surely?
Tau’sers
250 Crisis Team
100 SC
075 Drones
200 Firewarrior 1
200 Firewarrior 2
200 Firewarrior 3
200 Firewarrior 4
200 Firewarrior 5
075 Drone 1
075 Drone 2
075 Drone 3
075 Drone 4
075 Drone 5
075 Drone 6
075 Drone 7
075 Drone 8
075 Drone 9
075 Drone 10
075 Drone 11
100 Orca 1
100 Orca 2
100 Orca 3
100 Orca 4
100 Orca 5
100 Orca 6
150 Tigershark
Steel Legion
650 Leman Russ Company
050 Hydra
500 SC mechanised
050 Hydra
250 Infantry Company
100 Fire support
300 Vultures
250 Manticore Battery
200 Deathstrikes
150 Hydra Battery
150 Roughriders
100 Sentinels
150 Thunderbolt
Well I was banned from touching anything electronic over the weekend so didn’t get to draw pretty pictures.
Terrain was 3 woods, 5 city sectors, 4 hills on a table slightly smaller than 4 foot across, so deployment areas were reduced. This made deployment extremely tricky for the Tau, who were doing their best not to get multiple formations manticored.
To that end I stuck a formation of firewarriors and the BTS in orca. The map shows the deployment of important stuff. My base edge was stuffed full of 11 formations of drones, mostly facing off against the enemy, though two on the far side with the FW.
Turn 1
Tau init
Well, making the guard go first would be too cruel so I thought I’d get rid of an orca and send it to clip a Hydra which is duly destroyed, after doing a point of damage on me.
Guard then cap the t bolts, using the re-roll.
Drones on the right zap forward into a town area.
Manticores um and ah and eventually open up with 4 bp on some FW, doing a fair bit of damage and almost breaking the formation, whilst bm’ing another.
Severely damaged firewarriors try to rally and break themselves.
Tanks double forward and annihilate some drones.
Damaged FW marshal and move forward.
Deathstrikes overwatch.
More drones follow on the right.
Infantry reset overwatch.
Firewarriors re-set overwatch.
Roughriders move up behind town on right.
Orca strafes the LR, killing a tank.
Sentinels move up behind town getting under Hydra flak cover.
Orca tries to activate but fails.
Vultures bomb over and wipe out 3 drones on the right.
Firewarriors march forward on the right.
SC gets into the woods (poor thing decided not to go to the right as the objectives were not over there).
Orca goes forward and shoots the russ.
Drones double up and bm the russ.
Repeat after a fail.
Tigershark move up. Guard realises I’ve formed a neat little triangle with two Orca and a Tigershark, so the landing will be tricky to stop, so caps the TS. Junking and poor fire is enough to survive the Hydra and Tbolt fire, who dodge the return fire without problems.
Drones double up and bm the russ.
Repeat.
Orca comes in and lands, deploying its men partly into the town before dying to a deathstrike. The Crisis destroy two tanks and break the formation which retreats over to the SC company.
Next Orca activates with re-roll and wipes out the broken hydra, keeping the firewarriors onboard.
Drones fail to activate (in all cases these things move forward when failing).
Drones go forward and manage to get one in range of a tank.
Last lot of drones manage to kill an infantryman.
Tanks fail to rally and retreat into woods, losing one to dangerous terrain. Everything else rallies, most bm’s cleared.
Turn 2
Tau init
Orca on right go after the Vultures and with the drones manage to break them.
SC manoeuvres and almost wipes out all but two of the crisis, who retreat over the hills and far away.
Retain with deathstrike fails and the crisis live for now.
Tigershark with a re-roll deals with the manticores.
Retaining drones kill another infantry man in another crossfire.
Roughriders impact on the 4 drone formation on the right, wiping it out though losing a horse to the alleys.
Vengeful Tbolts set cap with a re-roll.
Sentinels get hit in a crossfire, lose a man and break back towards the blitz.
At this point I stopped taking notes and the rest of the turn is pretty much a large crossfire on the SC and leman russ with drones all over the place and Orca (losing the one filled with firewarriors) hitting the rear lines and broken vultures. At the end the SC is broken and fleeing, the tanks with only the commissar vanquisher left, who of course rallies. And bizarrely I forgot to activate the FW on the right!
With my own objectives secured the towel was thrown in. We rolled for the next turn and the guard won, with the right hand side firewarriors due to get roughridered, but the left was lost and the lightning fast drones all over the place, with the air force marauding around with only the thunderbolts to stop them (who again I might add did a great job, given the circumstances).
Oh a major factor as well was the brother coming back and repeatable asking was it time to go
The Guard army wasn’t ideal, but was a ‘typical’ force. Maybe some SHT’s instead of the infantry would have made it tougher, but would have cost another activation and left little to hold ground with.
So what do you think?
Some thoughts from my opponent.
I haven’t played guard in ages Chris.
Those drones are nasty, why can’t they be 6 strong, 150 points and not expandable?
Its still a silly game.
