Healthcare is really important, these nurses work long hours without complaints, while dealing with all sort of nonsense from half-awake patients. They really deserve our respect. They remind me of medics in the military, probably different patients but same kind of work. I need to work that element into my stories one day. Anyway, this isn't a tribute to them, so I'll return to the relevant topic at hand.
It was an Imperial Guard versus Tau battle, and it was extremely fun. I might have lost but it didn't feel like a defeat. That's the great thing about Warhammer 40K - I play it for fun, I play it for fluff, and even if I lost in points, I could still find something fun and delightful about it.
Onto the battle report. I used a Cadian Battle Group, or Draconian Battle Group because you know, I use my own Imperial Guard regiment from my own fluff. And Draconians are Cadian wannabes, so yeah. Anyway, I decided to go with a company command squad for the Battle Group Command, the Emperor's Fist Armored Company for the Core, and a Stormsword as the Super-heavy Element in the Auxiliary choice. I was actually considering using Stormtroopers/Militarum Tempestus instead, but I was too lazy to deploy so many infantry figures...and besides, I wanted to remain close to the fluff. What kind of armored company goes around with just Leman Russ tanks and no Super-heavy Support? It's much more fluffy to have Leman Russ tanks escorting a Super-heavy tank, so I went with a Stormsword primarily for fluff reasons.
I might have fared better with Militarum Tempestus, but we'll never know. Maybe I'll try it out next week, but I'm afraid I won't have time to go to Battle Bunker for another game because my mother probably wants me to go take care of my uncle instead. We'll see.
Anyway, we rolled off, I started first, and it was Tactical Escalation.
My army consisted of:
Battle Group Command
A company command squad with a heavy flamer and 3 flamers
Battle Group Core Emperor's Fist Armored Company
Leman Russ Vanquisher with lascannon (Tank Commander)
Leman Russ Battle Tank with lascannon (squadron mate)
2 Leman Russ Punishers with 3 heavy bolters each (separated into 2 squadrons)
Leman Russ Executioner with plasma cannons
Tech-Priest Enginseer
Super-heavy Element
Stormsword
My opponent's army consisted of a Combined Arms Detachment, because he didn't want to use the Mont'ka or Kauyon formations or Hunter Contingents. So, well, yeah. If I recall, he had something like this:
HQ
Ethereal
Fireblade Cadre
Troops
2 Fire Warrior Strike Squads (I think)
Devilfish
Fire Warrior Breacher Squad
Elites
Ghostkneel
2 Crisis Suits
Heavy Support
Skyray Missile Gunship
2 Broadsides
Infiltration Cadre
3 Pathfinder teams
2 Stealth Suit teams (3 each)
Piranha
So yeah, now to pictures galore!
Turn 1
My opponent was a very helpful guy, and he taught me how the Tau worked. He explained the rules of the Infiltration Cadre and how the Markerlights would turn the Seeker Missiles into instant-hit projectiles that strike my tanks at the rear. Upon hearing that, I panicked and decided to eliminate all of his Pathfinders and Markerlight providers first. Now that I think about it, that wasn't a very nice thing to do...sorry, man.
I opened fire with my Stormsword at two Broadsides because I was hoping the Apocalyptic Blast marker would cover both Broadsides and the Pathfinder team in front of them. It actually scattered forward, completely missing the Broadsides but instant-glibbing the Pathfinders in front of them and turning them into bloody pastes and strips of blue xenos flesh. Hah! The lascannons fired, and missed the Piranha, and I think the Devilfish either made its cover save (there was Night-Fighting and it was behind cover) or I missed. The heavy bolters on the other hand wiped out a second Pathfinder team.
So yeah, First Blood to the Imperium! For the Emperor!
The Leman Russ tanks had varying results of success. The Leman Russ Vanquisher fired at the Skyray, only for the guy to make his cover save. The Leman Russ Battle Tank completely missed his shot, his battle cannon completely scattering away from the Pathfinders and Breachers I was aiming at.
On the other hand, my 1st Leman Russ Punisher tank reduced a 20-men Fire Warrior squad into half of its size by hosing them with bullets. The second wiped out the Pathfinder team right in front of the Fire Warrior squad. Dakka is awesome. On the other side, my Leman Russ Executioner forced the 3rd Pathfinder team to go to ground and wiped out half of their number. Both squads passed their morale, thanks to being within the 12" bubble of the Ethereal, but they sustained heavy losses. I was lucky with my Executioner, the tank not rolling any Gets Hot! rolls for its plasma cannons and main Executioner cannon.
My opponent's turn came in and he moved all his forces up. As I basically wiped out two of his Pathfinder squads, all his Reserves instantly arrived via Deep Strike, the two Crisis suits, two teams of 3 Stealth suits each and the Ghostkneel arriving and blasting my Stormsword. The Pathfinders who had gone to ground missed their Markerlights because they snap-fired, and the Skyray managed to put a single Markerlight on the Stormsword for the Deep Striking dudes to fire upon him. For all that firepower, however, I think they only managed to take 2 hull points off it. The Broadsides fired at my Punisher and only managed to take one hull point off it but did destroy a heavy bolter sponson on its left. The Piranha flew ahead and took shots at my Company Command Squad, but they made their cover saves. Similar with the gun drones all scattering around everywhere. I think he embarked a Fire Warrior squad into the Devilfish and drove it up somewhere, but that's about it.
Oh, he did his Jump Shoot Jump and actually lost a Stealth suit to Dangerous Terrain. Wow, that was unlucky. Worse, it was the Stealth Suit with fusion blaster. Oh boy.
In any case, my opponent scored an objective, I believe, so we were pretty much even on points.
Turn 2
I continued firing with my Stormsword and basically wiped out more of the Fire Warriors in an attempt to kill the Ethereal and Fireblade Cadre, but they survived. The Pathfinders were finally eliminated by the Executioner who didn't roll any Gets Hot! rolls again for the second time. Lucky! The Stormsword's combined firepower managed with the damaged Leman Russ Punisher managed to put 3 wounds on the Ghostkneel, and the Stormsword's lascannons took a single hull point off the Piranha. I think the Vanquisher either fluffed his shot against the Ghostkneel or he made his cover save (or both, since I fired both the Vanquisher cannon and lascannon). I also fired the heavy flamer and flamers on the Ghostkneel after using the Monster Hunter order, and despite wounding on all hits, the Ghostkneel made all his armor saves. Ugh.
The 2nd Leman Russ Punisher wiped out 3 Stealth suits, which was good, meaning only one team was left. The Leman Russ Battle Tank again did not do anything, his stupid Blast Marker scattering yet again. His lascannon fired at the Ghostkneel in an attempt to kill it (thanks to the Tech-priest Enginseer giving him Power of the Machine Spirit) but he made his cover save.
The retaliation was brutal as you would expect. The Crisis suits jumped out of their hiding and tried to wipe out the Stormsword with the fusion blasters, as did the Ghostkneel, plus the Skyray fired all his seeker missiles after firing the Markerlight at the Stormsword, bringing him down to either 2 or 3 hull points. I believe. I lost a single guy with a flamer to burst cannons from gun drones, Piranhas and a Stealth suit team (the 2 remaining ones). The Broadsides fired their missiles at the side armor of my wounded Leman Russ Punisher, but I managed to make all the cover saves, luckily. Phew. The suits, as you would expect, jumped, shot and jumped.
He disembarked the Fire Warriors from his Devilfish to capture an objective, and at this point of time my opponent was pulling away on objectives scored despite losing a significant amount of his forces. That's why Maelstrom is so fun, it gives people a fighting chance!
Turn 3
I killed one of the Stealth suits with my heavy bolters on the Stormsword and completely wiped out the Fire Warrior team attached to the Fireblade Cadre and the Ethereal, both of whom were still unscathed. On the other hand, the Apocalyptic Blast Marker also hit the Skyray, and the AP1 caused him to explode, killing a few more Breachers beside him. Wow. But the Skyray at this point had already used up all his missiles so it wasn't much use. Whoops.
Anyway, the Executioner tried to fire on the Breachers, but rolled 2 of his Gets Hot! rolls this time and lost 2 hull points in a row. I guess I used up all the good luck in the first 2 turns. Oh well. Worse, the 1 that hit failed to wound the Breachers. WHAT?! Poor dude.
The damaged Punisher killed the Piranha, while the other Punisher basically destroyed the Firewarriors by wiping out almost the whole squad and leaving only 2 Fire Warriors and 1 Guardian Drone left, who broke morale and began fleeing toward the end of the table. The Vanquisher fluffed his shots against the Devilfish, missing both of them. The Stormsword killed the Ghostkneel, taking out that last remaining wound with his lascannon, yay. The Battle Tank fired upon the Breachers and I think killed about only 3 of them or so, but they obviously held morale.
By this time, my opponent didn't have much forces left on the table, but he was pulling ahead on objectives. He continued his hit and run tactics with his Crisis suits, pulling them out from cover and taking out my Stormsword. The explosion scattered forward and took out a couple of gun drones that had detached from somwhere. The Devilfish rushed forward for some reason while the devastated Fire Warrior team did not regroup and continued to run back to the edge of the table. The Broadsides opened fire on the wounded Executioner tank and took him out with a hail of missiles. Those high-yield missiles are really effective. I think I lost 2 more Veterans from my Company Command Squad here to combined burst cannon fire from lots of stuff, I can't remember. But something hilarious happened. The Stealth suit attempted to charge my Company Command Squad survivors, and survived the Overwatch - I mean, I had wounded him with D3 wounds from Wall of Flame from my flamer, and I rolled a 3, which meant 2 wounds, and scored a hit with 1 overwatch from the Company Commander's boltgun. However, he saved all 3 wounds with his 3+ armor save and got in.
He failed to do anything with his Hammer of Wrath, and my Imperial Guardsmen stepped up, only to kill the Stealth suit with a...bayonet. Yes, that's right. The smoking armor that protected the weak Tau from a wall of flame and a boltgun round, broke down and fell to a simple bayonet. Wow. That was just so hilarious I couldn't stop laughing. The Tau really are ridiculously weak in melee. This single instance proves it.
Turn 4
With the loss of my Stormsword, the tides were turning, I believe. The Punisher managed to kill the Cadre Fireblade, while the other guy was out of range of anything. Oh well. The Battle Tank took out a couple of the advancing Breachers, while the Vanquisher destroyed the Devilfish in front of him. Something like that, I believe.
My opponent drew Assassination this time, and he threw everything he had to kill my Company Commander, which he did with all the missile bombardment from his Broadsides. Not only did he score that objective, he also scored Slay the Warlord. I don't think he did much to my tanks, though, while his Ethereal ran into hiding to deny me Slay the Warlord. Oh well. But his Crisis suits were finally in full view of my tanks.
Oh, his 2 Fire Warriors and Guardian Drone did a heroic regrouping thing by rolling two ones and passing morale. They then proceeded toward an objective.
Turn 5
The gun drones all ran toward me or something, I can't remember. I do remember completely wiping out the Breachers with my Punsher or something, yeah. The other Punisher killed one of the Crisis suits, while my Vanquisher took potshots at the Broadsides and killed a single missile drone. My Battle Tank, which was useless for most of the game, fired upon the last crisis suit...only to scatter back onto my own Punisher tank and glance him. Ouch. WHY!?
I don't remember much but I think he tried to kill my Punisher tank, only to fail and miss his shots. Oh well. His gun drones also didn't do much while his Fire Warriors proceeded toward an objective or something. His Broadsides fired at my Vanquisher, only for me to make all my saves. Phew.
Turn 6
I remember killing the Fire warriors and Guardian Drone with my Punisher, missing with my Vanquisher, or something. But that's about it. I don't remember doing anything with my Leman Russ Battle Tank, or maybe I mixed up the events of Turn 5 with Turn 6. Hmm...well, whatever.
My opponent missed all his shots, and charged my Vanquisher and Punisher with his gun drones and Crisis suit. The former didn't suffer any damage, and neither did the latter despite the Crisis suit's attempt to strip him of his remaining hull point with melee. And nothing happened, ha ha. I think the Broadsides retaliated by stripping my unscathed Punisher of one hull point with their high-yield missiles for killing the Fire Warriors, but did no further damage than that.
The game ended at Turn 7, but I still had about 4 tanks left while my opponent's forces were completely devastated. He had lost 3 teams of Fire Warriors and Fire Breachers, 3 Pathfinder teams, 2 Stealth suit teams, a Ghostkneel, a Piranha, a Crisis suit, a Skyray, a Devilfish, his Cadre Fireblade, and only had his Broadsides, a single Crisis suit and an Ethereal left. A devastating, pyrrhic victory for him, if anything. But as he put it in his own words, he still won the game, and that was what mattered. He had 9 objective points to my 5, and that gave him an overwhelming victory in terms of Maelstrom points.
But as I said, I didn't feel like I lost the game even though I was technically defeated. Crushing the Tau with overwhelming firepower felt good, and I had fun, which was the most important thing. Most important of all, I managed to use my tanks, which was great. I wanted to use them in a game before I leave for Minnesota, and it was good to see the awesome firepower of my Stormsword before I leave him in my locker for years.
And besides, the nature of Warhammer 40K allows us to create any narrative we want. For this particular mission, the Tau might have won, but the Imperium didn't feel like they were defeated. It was something like this:
The Tau Empire prepared an ambush force for a traveling armored convoy. Their objectives were to assassinate the Company commander in charge of the armored company, and to steal the data. To that end, they succeeded - the Company commander lies dead, and they have retreated with the data after suffering grievous losses. On the other hand, the Tank Commander of the Vanquisher took over and rallied his forces to inflict heavy damage on the retreating xenos, unaware that the Tau had already completed their insidious objectives. Mistakenly believing that they have won, the Imperial forces laughed at the escaping Tau, but little did they know the cunning xenos had escaped with a valuable cache of tactical data and would use this in their advantage to ambush the Imperium again.
Something like that, so yeah, it's not a clear-cut situation of win-lose, but let's make it win-win for everyone! It's not a competitive game anyway, it's for fluff and fun reasons, so let's head in that direction!
I hope you've enjoyed this Battle Report. For the Emperor!
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