13.1.8 1850 Harlistar vs Tau

First game of 2013.  Figured I'd continue to work my Eldar army thanks to Fritz's Invisi-council.  Great job, Fritz!

You won't guess what happened here?

Met Bryan at Fantasy Flight for a game and brews afterwards.

Wore my Serenity Valley "All Gave Some, Some Gave All" t-shirt.

Mission: The Scouring.  Deployment: Vanguard Strike.  Have to say I really like how the objectives are handled in the Scouring compared to other missions.

When we started Bryan said this will either be a fast game or a slow game because he will be constantly going through his Codex looking stuff up.  I thought he was going to bring his Chaos Space Marines.  Nope brought is Tau.  Great reason also.  He wants to get some games under his belt for Dark Star GT in March.  Check it out here if you'd like.

Brought a correct 1850 list.  Thanks Anon for schooling me and telling me I had 4 heavies.  Even generated powers correctly this game.  Worked surprisingly well.  As Bryan told me after the game he was really worried.

Tau win roll off and decided to deploy and go first.  Good olde fashion Tau Alpha strike.

Our stage of entertainment last evening.

Eldrad generated Dominate, Invisibility, Puppet Master and Hallucination.

Tau deployment.

Eldar deployment

Revealed the points of each objective.  Tau placed three in their deployment.  Same for Eldar.  Tau has them in area terrain.  Eldar have them behind walls and building.  Tau have 1, 3, 4 VP value objectives.  Eldar have 2, 2, 3.  Troops and Fast Attack are scoring units.  Tau have four.  Three Fire Warrior squads and one squad of Pathfinders.  Eldar also have four.  Dire Avengers, Guardians and two Vipers.

Decided to seize initiative.  6 appeared.  Thank goodness.  Not having Invisibility up during first enemy shooting phase is not health for one's Eldar well-being.

Top of first.  Eldrad is with Warlocks.  Olonora is with Harlequins.  Invisibility is cast.  Olonora casts Guide on War Walkers and Fortune on Eldrad and friends.  War Walkers are fortunate enough to be within range of one Broadside squad.  They reduce their number to one.  They make their leadership.  Plan is relatively simple.  Keep Troops on objectives in deployment.  Use Falcon and Fire Prism to provide any defense for scoring units.  Vipers will assist where they can.  What I believe is helpful to the army in the long haul Bryan mentions earlier wasn't helpful.

Bottom of first.  Tau First Blood 1 VP, Victory Point.  Tau also remove all Wraithguard.  Don't even bother shooting at Eldrad and friends or Harlequins.  Exactly what I want.  Need to keep those two squads under wraps til the reveal.  By then the headache for the Tau will have just begun.  Felt it was worth the points.

Top of second.  Eldrad and friends take out Pathfinders Devil Fish.  Witchblades are kind of badass.  One Devil Fish down.  Ended up with 13 Pens and 6 Glances.  After the skimmers jink save because it moved there was 8 Pens and 2 Glances.

Bottom of second.  This is the beginning of two long rounds of Tau shooting into Eldrad's invisi-council.  Tau begin to make a circle around Eldrad and friends.  Lose one Warlock this shooting.  Couple of Harlequins go down.  They keep their heads

Top of third.  Harlequins charge Pathfinders and take them down.  Eldar destroy Fast Attack unit 1 VP.  Had this great idea of copying an assault I read of one Dark Eldar Beastmaster squad destroying three Tau units.  Nope.  Disorganized charge to Battle Suits Devil Fish and 6 Fire Warriors in cover.  First roll was 1 & 4, Fleet re-roll kept the 1 and turned the 4 into a 2.  Nothing happens.  This of course gives a free round of shooting via Overwatch into the failed assaulted squad.  Thsi is exactly what I was talking about several posts ago.  It's not worth giving Overwatch when you're not guaranteed an assault.  By guaranteed I mean assault range less than 6" with Fleet.  Still with my roll it would've failed.

Bottom of third shooting.  While maintaining the concept of keeping the Shadowseer in the back it didn't occur to me to keep the big picture in focus.  The Fire Warriors in the foreground had a great shot at the Harlequin troupe.  Of course Shadowseer, clown with the claw in the air in the background is the closest.  Veil of Tears doesn't stop a 1 from appearing on that cover save.  Poof!  Shadowseer is gone.  Soon after the entire Harlequin squad was removed as well.

Bottom of third.  Tau continue to tighten their net and shoot into the re-roll save HQ squad.  Failed saves are slowly catching up with me.  Lose a couple of Warlocks.

Top of fourth.  Eldrad and friends with Olonora disorganized charge against Primary target Battle Suits and Devil Fish.  Winning assault.  Battle Suits fail leadership.  Eldrad catches them and they are destroyed.  Eldar Slay the Warlord 1 VP, total 2.

Bottom of fourth shooting.  Eldrad all by himself

Bottom of fourth.  Olonora does "Look Out, Sir!" for Eldrad she bites it taking her last wound.  Tau Slay the Warlord 1 VP, total 2.  Finally after several turns of shooting and re-roll saves that failed last to remain on the field is Eldrad.  It's literally down to the last two wounds.  Eldrad has taken two so far.  Makes first save.  Fails re-roll of last wound which is also last chance they could have wounded him this turn.  Talk about down to the wire.

Top of fifth.  Falcon and Fire Prism finally poke their heads out and shoot at Fire Warriors attempting to remove scoring units from the field.  Should've been trying to do this earlier.  Moved one Viper to an objective.  All Eldar objectives are covered.

Unpictured.  Broadsides use Smart Missile System to remove Viper from far objective in Eldar deployment zone.  Great use of that wargear.  Would've been a better idea to have Guardians move up to this objective instead of losing a Fast Attack.  Could have also kept the Viper 3" away because I believe that would've been outside of missile range.  Still wouldn't have mattered.  Spread would've been closer.  Now only two Eldar objectives are covered.  Tau run to cover all three of their objectives.

Dave tells us to wrap up the game because he's wants to go home soon.  We call it at that.  Don't bother rolling the dice for another turn.  He had me on VP's.

Lost 10-6 Tau.  During our debriefing of food and beers Bryan mentioned he think it would've been better if I would moved the Warlocks to the near objective then moved from cover to cover taking down Troops on objectives.  Told him that was my original idea.  Cut a bloody path from objective to objective like the battle against Chaos but decided against it.  Should've stuck with my first plan.  Bryan also mentioned he felt keeping the tanks out of the game wasn't helpful.  He thinks because of all the focused fire on the re-rolling 2+ cover and Invul saves would've been helpful for the tanks.  They could've been shooting the entire time.  Then it occurred to me.  I pulled "your model has to be removed from the table."  I kept those tanks out of sight because I was worried about the Broadsides taking them out.  Need to heed my own advice.


slainte mhath