Battle Report 17

I was supposed to post this last week, but I completely forgot. Scratch that, I was supposed to post this 2 weeks ago, because that's when the battle took place. I went and posted the 1000-point tournament last week but I didn't write about this. Whoops.

Well, anyway, I was playing against my usual Tau opponent, the guy I can't beat. I only won against him once so far, but lost to him about five or six times. So I went and got some advice from Discord (the Warhammer 40,000 one), and they suggested I bubble-wrap my Imperial Knights with Guardsmen. So I tried that strategy.

As usual, my opponent brought Farsight, 2 Crisis Commanders with 4 fusion blasters each, 3 Crisis suits with 2 ion cyclic blasters each, 6 Crisis suits with 2 plasma rifles each, 14 Drones, 3 teams of 5 Fire Warriors each, 2 teams of 10 Pathfinders each and 1 Stormsurge.

I brought my usual 3 Imperial Knights, and this time I brought 2 Imperial Guard Detachments - a Battalion with Vostroyan doctrine and a Vanguard with Catachan doctrine. In the Battalion, I had 2 Company Commanders, 2 command squads with 4 plasma guns each, 3 infantry squads with plasma guns, and in the Vanguard I had 2 Company Commanders with power swords, 2 command squads with heavy flamer and 3 flamers each and one Commissar. No matter what doctrine they have, they are all Draconian Regiment. Heh. Anyway, yeah, that's what I brought. Thanks to that, I have a whooping 10 Command Points. Can you believe that?

The mission was twofold. Kill the Courier and capture 3 objectives or something. One was in the center, and if you hold it for 2 consecutive turns, you get 3 points or something.

Turn 1

Unsurprisingly my opponent started first since I had so many bodies and units on the table. Heh. First time for me, I love Imperial Guard. Anyway, he Deep Striked his Crisis suits next to my Knight Warden and dealt incredible damage to him, bringing him down to one wound or so, I believe, despite me using the Rotate Ion Shields Stratagem. He killed a bunch of Guardsmen in my Vostroyan infantry squads, reducing them to less than half their number, but other than that, I was in good position to grab the middle objective during my turn. Before that, however, his Fire Warriors shot and charged at one of my command squad and my company commander, but I ended up killing a couple in overwatch, and my Company Commander essentially whooped their asses in combat. Never charge a Tau into combat guys.

I used Consolidate Squads Stratagem to combine my wounded infantry squads together into one squad, grabbed the middle objective with them and my command squads, killed several Fire Warriors and Drones, and then charged my wounded Knight Warden into the Crisis suits. They blew him up on Overwatch, and I rolled a 6. Then I nuked a bunch of Drones and killed a couple of Crisis suits. Holy Omnissiah, that was brutal!

Turn 2

My opponent killed a few more Guardsmen, and advanced his Crisis suits further in to shoot my Knight Errant, but I don't think he killed him. I stubbornly held on to the objective to increase my lead, and I killed all the Pathfinders eventually. I did nothing to the Stormsurge however, I focused on the infantry. I also killed a few more drones and I think another Crisis suit. Damn, it's been 2 weeks, I can't remember.

Anyway, I jumped into a 6-2 lead here.

Turn 3

I think my opponent blew up my Knight and finally killed all my infantry. He got the last of his Fire Warriors to grab the middle objective, but I could still contest it or something. I can't remember. I killed all his Fire Warriors in my turn or something, but they were nearing my last, remaining Knight while I had very few infantry left on the table. I also took out a full team of Crisis suits, leaving 1 in one team and about 1 in another, which was the one who captured the objective.

Turn 4

I think he killed all my infantry this turn and grabbed the middle objective with his Crisis suit while the rest of his Crisis suits, Farsight and the Commander advanced toward my Knight. I survived. For now. But by now he had leveled the lead to 8-6 or something, and I had no way of catching up since my Knight Paladin (my Courier) was the only unit I had left on the table.

Turn 5

Well, there was nothing I could do as he continued to hold on to the lead and injured my Knight further despite Rotate Ion Shields. Knowing there was nothing I could do, I left the objective on the side of my table and charged Farsight. I failed to stomp him to death with Titanic Feet, and Farsight slew my Courier Knight. Who didn't explode. And I was completely tabled while my opponent sprang to a 8-10 win and got my Courier.

It was a close game that went all the way to the end, but at least I know what to do now and how not to repeat my mistakes. I will be playing him again today, and I can't wait to test my new Imperial Guard army against him! I'll let you guys know how it goes!