Take The Long Way Home
Had a battle against my buddy from work the other day. He hadn't played in over a year, but was very familiar with 3rd ed rules, and most of the 4th ed changes didn't affect his army as much as mine, so he was able to adjust very readily.
The table: The table at the gaming store was about 6'x8' with two little tape markers about 5' apart. We played with the tape as the back of our DZ and gave ourselves a 15" deployment, so that left about 30" between us rather than the standard 24". I knew this would be a huge advantage for him, but he was rusty and all so I decided to be generous and let it go at that. He courteously set up most of his troops pretty close to the front, so we were all happy. The terrain was fairly thick with hills, rocks, and woods.
Deployment: He deployed his two hammerheads with railguns in the far left corner, then a squad of fire warriors on the hill on the left side. In the center was a 28-strong pack of kroot and 2 crisis suits. To the right was his Shas'o, another unit of 2 crisis suits, 2 broadside suit, and another squad of 12 fire warriors. I deployed a squad of thousand sons slightly to the left, a dreadnought, my sorcerer lord and 6 chosen of tzeentch with doombolts (and 1 with mass mutation) just right of center, and another squad of thousand sons to the far right. I left 9 rubric terminators, 18 flamers, and 1 lord of change in reserve. He then infiltrated stealth suits on my far right, on the other side of the hill from my sons squad (ominous foreshadowing). He won the roll and opted to take first turn.
Tau turn 1: Turn 1 saw my opponent bring his hammerheads out of hiding and fire off solid railgun shots from each hammerhead and each broadside suit to the few fire lanes I had been forced to leave him. He ended up insta-killing 2 sons on the right and 1 on the left. His stealth suits jetpacked up the hill and failed to kill anything.
Chaos turn 1: With 30" of table in front of me, I began the slow march with my two squads, rolling a 5 and a 6 for their movements. As I was still far from his battle lines, I resisted daemonic possession and managed to keep the lord of change at bay until he could be really effective rather than a large target. The chosen, lord, and dreadnought moved up the center, carefully in cover from any big guns. The thousand sons on the right flank open fired on the stealth suits and killed 1.
Tau turn 2: In his second turn, he was a little more aggressive with his crisis suits, and killed 1 chosen with a lucky missle pod shot before sneaking back behind his own lines. Another chosen fell to a railgun shot, and the stealth suits again failed to cause any damage before zipping back to the other side of the hill.
Chaos turn 2: This time I decided to invite daemonic possession, as the lord of change could use an assault with the stealth suits to leapfrog towards the Tau battle line and support whatever nasties I could summon this turn. Unfortunately I rolled a 2. I chose to deep strike my terminators on his right flank, between the stealth suits and his main battle line. Unfortunately they scattered 11 inches toward my board edge and were also slow and purposeful. Still, they were within 12" of his firewarriors, and brought down 10 with their bolters. The first unit of flamers of Tzeentch arrived near the chosen and began to move into firing range. The poor dreadnought, was forced to choose between an old west shootout with the hammerheads and 2-3 turns of weaving through cover to find other worthwhile targets. It dared to fire on the hammerheads knowing that it would probably go down the next turn nonetheless. It opened fire with twin-linked lascannons and.....missed, even with the re-roll.
Tau turn 3: The stealth suits took off running down the far side of the hill and everything in the Tau army turned and opened fire on the terminators that had just appeared before them. A few plasma cannon/misslepod shots killed 3 terminators, and the fire warriors proved highly ineffective at taking them down. The hammerheads greedily fired off their railguns at the dreadnought, exploding him violently into the nearby chosen, who all survived the blast. In the assault phase, the stealth suits valiantly assaulted the terminators, sacrificing 2 of their own to delay the attack on the main line. Although outnumbered 3-1, they still made their morale check with a 4 on a 4 or under leadership test.
Chaos turn 3: In my third turn, I again invited daemonic possession and again failed my roll. This is one reserves roll that always takes a 4+ and does not improve. The master manipulator was taking his time, perhaps to better protect his greater daemon from the devilish guns of the tau army. The second squad of flamers appeared and rained fire on the kroot, bringing down 15 of them. The rest turned tail and fled. Being under 50% strength, and therefore unable to rally, they would eventually flee the battle. The terminators finished off the pesky stealth suits, but unfortunately could not get much closer to the enemy.
At this point, my opponent realized he had forgotten his pathfinders and their devilfish, and I allowed him to bring it on the board and let him use it as if it had been there the whole time. This seemed only fair enough since he had been missing out on 3 rail rifle shots and three markerlight shots a turn for 3 turns.
Tau turn 4: Turn four saw the broadsides insta-kill 2 more terminators, bringing their number down to 3.
Most of the rest of the army also fires on the terminators, and a hammerhead at the far end of the board finally brought down one more.
Chaos turn 4: Again I rolled for daemonic possession and again got a 2. At this point I was trying to think up ways to get my daemonhost killed. My flamers and chosen fired again, killing 2 gun drones, and a crisis suit. At this point I was getting very near assault range with both my chosen and my terminators (yes, on turn 4).
Tau turn 5: On turn 5, his crisis suits finished off the two remaining terminators. The other troops finally free from the distraction of the termies, fire on the flamers, killing 3 from one squad and 6 from another, mostly with insta-killing missle pods. The chosen squad gets markerlit but nothing fires on it.
Chaos turn 5: Again the Lord of Change fails to arrive! I am full on begging my opponent to kill my daemonhost at this point. The flamers fire on the lone crisis suit and kill him, finishing off that squad. The chosen finally get in range and cast mass mutation, gaining +1T for the turn and assault the stronger of the fire warrior squads causing a few wounds and receiving none.
Tau turn 6: The crisis suits fired on some thousand sons and kill a few, but not enough to reduce the unit to below 50%. The rest of the army aims at the three-strong squad of flamers and due to some very unlucky rolls, only can kill 2. Having 1 hammerhead shot left, he aims it at my lord, who requires the same rolls to kill as my last flamer, and is worth more points. The lord is markerlit, but he rolls a 1 to hit! In the assault phase, the chosen finally break the fire warriors, who run off the board.
Chaos turn 6: This turn was just victory point grab-bag turn for me. Once again my GD didn't arrive, but I could care less about his lazy ass at this point. The flamers fired on the Shas'o and caused 6 wounds. He had a 4+ inv. save, but again due to poor rolls, he somehow managed to fail all 6 of his saves. The single flamer killed off the remaining two fire warriors with his doombolt. The chosen then unleashed doombolts of their own on the pathfinders, killing 3 of them. They slaughtered the other three in close combat, drawing the game to an end.
Victory points:
Tau - 745 (he killed my dreadnought, a full squad of termies, half a squad of flamers, and half a squad of thousand sons)
Chaos - 1052 (I killed his Shas'o, his kroot, his stealth suits, one squad of crisis suits, 2 squads of fire warriors, and a squad of pathfinders)
For a "Solid Victory"
Thoughts: Even though I knew it would screw me over, the 30" table really frustrated me, as did not having a lord of change to support my assaults. I think my opponent got very distracted by my terminators. He was right in firing railguns at them, but should have left his fire warriors to take care of my demons. I concentrated on one flank, denying him a lot of fire lanes and making his fire warriors on my left totally ineffective, and really not part of the game at all. The forgotten pathfinders are a tricky subject and I wish he had deployed them earlier, it would have been a far closer game. In fact, had he managed to kill that last flamer, or make 3 saves for his Shas'o, the game would have been a draw.
In all, a very satisfying game and valuable experience for both of us. Looking back on it, the only things I would change were jumping that dreadnought out. I KNEW he was toast, and I wanted to risk him being able to kill something worth a lot more VPs. Also, the terminators. They were great, but I think I should deploy them closer to the rest of my army so they don't get picked on like they did. That being said, I'm glad they did get picked on, because by the time the rest of my force was 12-18" away it was still almost completely intact. I also really liked my chosen with doombolts, they were a lot more effective than any other unit of chosen I've ever fielded, and just one guy with Mass Mutation could have really tipped the scales for me had I been assaulting a stronger unit.
If anyone would like pictures of the battle, just let me know and I'll send them via email.
As always, comments are appreciated.