Tuesday 20 April 2010

Blood angels

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Managed to get my first game against a blood angels player yesterday evening. Suffice to say that I got my rear handed to me on a plate. Even in a battle missions scenario that slightly favoured my Tau (Tau mission counter attack). The lack of marker lights on the board to start with hampered my firing and by the end turn 3 most of my units were dead or dying.

Although I did do a lot better then his previous opponent playing codex marines. The basic marine player killed about 6 blood angels before dieing, I managed about 20 and a land raider. So not all bad.

Monday 19 April 2010

New XV9 Battlesuits Available

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Forge world have released new variants of the XV9 battle suit. One with Phased Ion guns, one with fusion cascade guns and another commander variant with what I would presume to be a pulse sub munitions rifle with a heavy duty shield generator.

TAU  BATTLESUIT  COMMANDER SHAS'O R'ALAI WITH DRONESTAU XV9-01 WITH FUSION CASCADES

TAU XV9-04 WITH PHASED ION GUNS

These battle suits look awesome. Photos are used without permission from forge world, but I’m sure they won’t mind as I fully intend on buying 3 or 4 of these puppies.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

The red sea

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Managed to get down to my local GW this evening for a quick game. I arrived relatively early so I could book a table and have a look at the games being played. Of the 8 players present, there were no fewer then 3 blood angels armies. All of them barely past basecoat stage of painting.
So I guess this means I'm going to be seeing a lot of red in my local metagame. The game I ended up watching was between an eldar and BA army. I felt sorry for the eldar player as the blood angels decimated his army. At the end of the game. The remains of the eldar army was being smacked around by Dante, the Sanguinator, Lemartes with a full death company and a baal predator in their lines. The tactical squad and veteran assault squad seemed to be getting quite bored with having nothing to do.
With two seer councils, eldrad, two squads of dire avengers, wraithlord, pathfinders, banshees and a fire prism. This didn't seem like a pushover eldar list either.
From what I have seen, it seems the Blood Angels are the army to have at the moment. As a tau player I don't think we have many options to counter the blood angels. Outflanking Baal predators means side shots, maybe rear, into your hammerheads. Kroot walls would be largely ineffective against marines that can accurately deepstrike then charge. Piranhas may have some joy at slowing down fast rhinos for a turn. But assault marines just laugh and jump over you. On the brighter side however, strength 5 basic weapons hurt mephisto more. On the whole, Blood angels are more survivable then regular marines (assuming feel no pain) can get to you quicker, and hit a hell of a lot harder. Have to try atnd get a game in against them, shouldn't be too hard to find a player.

Saturday 3 April 2010

Tale of Four Gamers: Apocalypse

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For the conclusion of our Tale of Four Gamers event, we decided that an apocalypse game would be in order. For this event my Tau would be allied with Chris' Imperial Guard force. While Ginges' Orks would be 'Allied' with Richs' chaos marines.


The Orks set-up as a huge mass as close to no mans land as possible. Some of the chaos forces set-up hidden behind the orks, the rest waited to outflank (although me and Chris didn't know this at the time). 

Turn 1: The ork and chaos forces on the board surged forward as fast as possible. the Stompas' pyscho-dakka-blasta opened fire first. Half hour later, when Ginge eventually rolled a double, relatively few models were actually removed as casualties. The rest of the Ork and Chaos shots caused few casualties among the good guys, although a lucky shot  by the chaos baneblade destroyed the disruptor beacon. With a rare outbreak of 5 and 6s my firewarrior and Pathfinder squads broke and headed (extremely swiftly) for the hills.

As the Evil forces ended their turn the Tau and Guard readied their guns, however at a sign from the stompa the orks launched a blind barrage before their advance, obscuring the majority of their army form the Tau and imperial retribution. Leaving wazdakka and his bikers exposed on the flank. The Tau remote drone network picked out targets for the seeker missiles. Unfortunately it was not enough. By the end of the Good guys shooting phase, wazdakka was left on one wound with two trukks and a soul grinder taken out. 


Turn 2: Chaos forces outflanked behind the forces of good while with a loud waaghh the Orks crashed into the front. By the time turn was over the casualty rate among the Tau and Imperials was catastrophic. With Shas O'Kunas and his battle suits dead or fleeing, one hammerhead down, the remaining squad of pathfinders dead. The Imperial forces casualties were even higher. The mortars died all 3 hydras were killed. while the large stubborn squad was flamed by the stompa then wiped out by the burna boyz. Not much remained from the forces of good.
At this point me and Chris were thinking the result was pretty much a done deal. With precious little left to deal with the chaos marines running rampant through our lines and even less left to deal with the Stompa. The outlook was grim.

The Tau and Imperial forces took stock of their situation deciding that we lacked the firepower to take care of the chaos forces running through our lines we decided that all we could do was try to hold them up and try to secure the objectives in the opposition deployment zone. The Tau barracuda and XV9 battlesuits arrived from reserve. The Tau forces concentrated on the chosen marines. Leaving a few alive but pinned. The blue hammerhead damaged the drive on the stompa slowing it's advanced. The barracudas seeker missiles didn't cause much damage. But the barracuda took out a few of the looters hanging out near the back of the Ork lines. The rest of the fire from the Allied good guys was scattered causing light casualties.

Turn 3:
The rest of the Chaos reinforcements turned up, slaughtering what little remained of the imperial and Tau forces. In the assault phase the deamon prince charge the hammerhead with one squad of deamons assaulting the XV9 battlesuits and another squad charged into the broadside. The terminators destroyed the hellhammer. 
The XV9s took out 7 of the assaulting deamons (3 from fearless), taking no casualties themselves. While the broadside crushed two of the deamons attacking him. 
Another Hammerhead and squad of firewarriors arrived on the field. Firing on a squad of chaos marines near the XV9. The Firewarriors killed a grand total of 0 marines but the hammer head killed two. The Other hammerhead moved behind the stompa and fired on the remaining soul grinder, missing. The Baneblade immobilized the stompa.

Over the next couple of turns, the XV9 battlesuits finished off the deamons and flanked round the field, securing one of the objectives in the ork deployment zone. The railgun armed hammerhead was destroyed by the remaining soul grinder, while the Ion cannon armed hammerhead secured the other objective. The last devilfish was destroyed by the stompa, It's drones contesting one of the center objectives. The two surviving imperial guard veterans contested the other centre objective, with the chaos forces holding the remaining two. It fell to kill points to decide the winner. Giving the win to the ork and chaos forces. See Ginges Blog for full details of the scores.

The Board at the end of the game. Not much left!!

Shas O'Kunas coughed up a mouthful of blood, the stimulant injectors in his suit taking the edge off his pains but it was still agonising. He looked up at his attacker powerless to do anything. As the chaos marine raised his blade to finish his existence, it's shimmering energy field seeming to hunger for his blood. O'Kunas looked out of his shattered visor, determined to face his death head on. The chaos marines' head disintegrated before he could land his blow. The rest of his squad was perforated by fire from the XV9 battlesuits, forcing them to go to ground. He sent a coded message to the XV9 thanking them. But advising them to secure the objective and get out of there, the battle was lost. With that O'Kunas blanked out.