This was my third game of the day. I was up against a Steel Legion player. I felt confident I could handle his infantry. He had two Warhounds, a tank comany and a two deathstrikes, these units were all a concern. RA has allways been a problem for me when playing Tau. On the other hand I had loaded up on MW attacks this time around. Crisis suits, Riptides and hammerheads all have Macro weapons.

My list was the following:

Shas'o Borkas Ballers



I don't have my opponents exact list, but you should get the general idea from the deployment photos. With that said lets go to deployment. (there weren't a whole lot of places for infantry to hide, so we decided that all the brown parts of the hills counted as scrub (giving cover and a 6+ save).

Tau:



Imperial Guard:




My riptides were the only WE I had so they weren't all that happy about phasing deathstrikes. Naturally I was very glad when I won the initiative. I sent my Barracudas in, they survived the attacks of the lone hydra that could reach them. an killed a missile launcher.



Tau followed up with more airplanes. I finally got to use my Sun Shark Bombers (they had either died or failed to activate in my previous 2 games). My opponent had also by misstake put his company within 30cm and markerlights of the central recon formation. I wanted to soften up his garison so went after the guard company. I didn't dare to go after the manticores as they were guarded by two hydras in range.
Anyways both AA attacks missed and I killed a four guard units.



The manticores then opened up on my deployment zone hitting both the hammerheads and the central FWs.
I was quite lucky with my saves (4 hits) on the hammerheads and only lost one tank (taking me 1 BM from breaking. One devilfish also ate a missile.



I then regrouped with the hammerheads but failed to remove all BMs.



The guard company didn't like being markerlit so sustained fire on the my recon, getting two hits but my piranah made its save.



I sent forward the crisis suits and killed a few more guard units, breaking the company. I used my tau jet pack move to get behind cover.



Warhound 2 went forward and hid behind a house. He shot at my forward recon formation killing the 2 units it could see. The broken fromation fled behind a hill.


I doubled forward my sedcond recon formation to take the first formations place, putting markerlights on both the warhound and tank company. The 2 piranahs actually hit the tank company with one guided missile attack and my opponent was gracious enough to fail his RA save.



Thunderbolts intercepted my Barracudas taking one down.



Railheads were sent forward and shot the markerlit hound, it was hull down. I took down both shields thogh.



Rough Riders went forth



I then did something I cant rember?

IG sent forth the SC company. My Riptides went ahead and killed two or three chimeras. I retained with the FW on foot and dbl towards the infantry company. I killed all the infantry that was without cover (as they had lost their chimeras). This tooke the company 1 BM from breaking. Being out in the open was of course a rahter risky move. It was a gamble, counting on me to win initiative for turn 2 and a follow up sustain order.



Warhound 1 went forth and tried to kill some crisis suits. The MW attacks missed though and only a single gun drone units went down.



FWs with pathfinders dbl up and hacked down a few of the broken guards.



The tank company then dbled and took some long range shots at my MW-toting hammerheads getting 4 hits. I rolled great for my saves and only the skyray went down.



Edit: correction. My FWs with skyray did not fail but rather, marshaled and shot a guided missile at the IG Supreme commander company inflicting no casualties but actually breaking them.



That concluded turn 1.

The End phase saw the broken guard company on foot rallied but more crucially the SC mech. company did not rally. They ran behind the close by hill to get out of sustain or advance distance of my FWs on foot.



I failed to rally my broken recon.

Turn 2 to follow when i get home tonight.

Turn 2.

IG won initiative for turn 2. The Tank company moved up and killed most of the forward FWs. 2 devilfish and 3 infantry units survived and fled far away.



The death strike retained and shot a missile at one of Shas'o Borkas buddies.



I decided to try and go for the BTS objective. The skyray FWs were sent ahead dbling to put markerlights on the Tank company, they also shot something can't remember what exactly probably the tanks, but might have been the titan to make it harder for it to activate.

Crisis suits then dbled to get within MW range and shot at the tanks, but they managed only to kill one tank after which they jumped back.


At this point something shot at my FW, I think it was the guard company. Something died but not the markerlight producing skyray.



Hammerheads doled forward to lay some MW hurt on the markerlit tanks, but even with crossfire couldn't hurt the tanks.


I was lucky as well though. A warhound advanced and got several hits on my HHs but only one was killed.



Riptides were lacking anything really important to do advanced and killed all but one of the sentinels (they were markerlit by the FW on foot).



I tried to dbl with my FWs on foot to go around the hill to hack down some more guards from the broken mech. company. they failed their activation however and just moved closer to the objective.



Thunderbolts went in and killed the remains of the broken FWs.



I tried again to kill some tanks with the railheads. I advanced and pop up over the hill. Again they were saved by their thick armor and I only got to place a BM. (From this picture I remember that I broke earlier with my MW hammerheads. It was after the reloading manticores advanced and laid a BM. I'm not sure when this happened)



End of turn

We were in quite a hurry at this point so pictures weren't that frequent and I don't quite now who rallied or not but I'm pretty sure the SC mech. company didn't.

Turn 3 began with me winning initiative.

The lone Barracuda went in and killed a manticore breaking the two survivors.



We were speed playing at this point so I only took one more photo. It's apparent I move up my railheads to kill another tank with the crossfire bonus. The crisis suits also moved forward to attack either the tanks or the warhound. Which also seems to have moved up.


I know I also sent the sun shark bombers after the broken mech. company and killed a bunch of them.

We then had to stop mid turn 3, no one had any fulfilled objectives so far but we agreed I was in clear leed. The guard player was kind of contained and had a big activation disadvantage.