Imperial Guard Vs Tau, 1500 Points

[Ylide]

Sorry I haven't posted any bet-reps in a while, I got sucked into EQ2. :blink:

This was my first match in a little over a month, and my normal opponent decided to try and try and take on my IG army again with his Tau. Since he's a little light on Tau models, we scaled back to 1500 points to make it a little more fair. (We played at 1750 last time these two armies clashed and I spanked him)

Here's what I took:

Doctrines:
Sharpshooters, Iron Discipline, Close Order Drill, Stormtroopers (1 left over but I didn't need it)

HQ:
Command Squad, Junior officer, autocannon, ID
Anti-tank squad, 3x lascannon, sharpshooters

Elites:
Stormtroopers, 4+sergeant, 2 plasmaguns, deepstrike
Stormtroopers, 4+sergeant, 2 meltaguns, deepstrike

Troops:
Infantry Platoon 1
Command Squad, Junior officer, Missile Launcher, 2x Grenade Launcher, ID
Infantry Squad, autocannon, gren. launcher, COD
Infantry squad, missile launcher, gren. launcher, COD
Infantry squad, missile launcher, gren. launcher, COD

Infantry Platoon 2
Command Squad, Junior officer, Missile Launcher, 2x Grenade Launcher, ID
Infantry Squad, autocannon, gren. launcher, COD
Infantry squad, missile launcher, gren. launcher, COD
Infantry squad, missile launcher, gren. launcher, COD

Fast Attack:
Hellhound

Heavy Support:
Basilisk w/ indirect fire
Leman Russ BT, hull heavy bolter, sponson heavy bolters, extra armor
Leman Russ BT, hull heavy bolter, sponson heavy bolters, extra armor

models: 95
Points: 1533 (we have a house rule of 50 point leeway on rosters)


His army was Tau Farsight Enclave and consisted of Commander Farsight, Commander Shas'o w/ 2 bodyguards (decked out w/ shields, plasmaguns, and missile pods), a stealth suit squad, 2 firewarrior squads (12 each), pathfinder squad w/ devilfish and 4 seeker missiles, hammerhead w/ rail gun and 4 seeker missiles, broadside team (2 guys with railguns, shields, target locks, and smartmissiles)

The game mission was Seek and Destroy, gamma level. I won the deployment and first turn rolls, much to his chagrin. We played long table edges on a 4x8 table. Deployment took forever, of course, with my enourmous IG army. I spread my infantry around the middle 4" of the table, trying to keep them in as much cover as possible. My hellhound was on the front lines, knowing that he's more afraid of my tanks than the lil ol' flamespewer. I put one tank into a corner (with the lascannon team in front of it) and the other behind cover near my grunts. The basilisk was placed behind a large bunker. Stormtroopers were held in reserve. He deployed most of his forces directly opposite mine, his broadsides on one flank with his HQ units and pathfinders, and the stealth team on the othe flank. He put his hammerhead on an elevated piece of terrain, hoping to catch LOS to some of my concealed units. (no such luck)

He infiltrated his devilfish along my left flank, trying to get around the bunker and and take out the basilisk. He deployed his drones but didn't disembark the pathfinders.

Turn 1: IG
I advanced my hellhound towards his front line and moved the concealed leman russ out of cover. Fearing what his pathfinders could do to my armor, I opened up with the lascannon team on the devilfish, scoring several hits and one rather large explosion. Half his pathfinder team was decimated in the blast, the others emerging unscathed if not a bit scorched. One of my infantry squads opened up on the pathfinders and killed all but one man. The command squad near them had nothing better to shoot at due to cover and killed the gun drones. My hellhound sprayed a gour of flame at one of his fire warrior squads, killing 4. Its stormbolter took out another 2. The leman russ that I moved from cover could not fire its battle cannon so it opened up with 9 heavy bolter shots and took out the rest of them. The second leman russ fired its battle cannon at the command squad but scattered poorly, as did the basilisk....only killed one battlesuit. My infantry poured missiles and autocannon rounds into his hammerhead, destroying that as well. I ended the turn with a grin.

Turn 1: Tau
His stealth team moved into cover and shot up one of my right flanking infantry squad, but they were in cover and only took a few casualties. His remaining firewarrior squad blasted half of one of my other infantry squads into oblivion. His broadsides fired at my russ, but only managed to stun it. His Crisis team HQ fired at my lascannon team, killing all 3 loader goons and one of the lascannons. The bodyguards fired at another infantry squad, killing half of them. Commander Farsight was luckily out of assault range.

Turn 2: IG
My reserve rolls resulted in the plasmagun team coming into the fray. They struck perfectly behind his broadsides. I opted not to move anything else and opened fire. The stormtroopers killed a broadside with their plasmaguns. The remainder of my lascannon team killed the last HQ bodyguard and a lucky missile killed Commander Shas'o. I dropped a battlecannon template and hellhound template on his other firewarrior team, killing most of them. 2 infantry squads opened fire on his stealth team, which had wandered too close for their stealth suits to conceal them, and killed 2 of the 3. At this point, he conceded the game, having lost well over 75% of his troops on turn 2.

I had hoped for a better fight this time around, but getting the first turn with so many guns really puts a hurting on his low model-count army. He's going to rework his list and try to take me out next week after finals are over.

[Gathrog]

Wow you really put a beating on this guy. It just goes to show not even the Tau can out shoot the IG. He really needs to change his list around and use tau's good speed and mobility a little more.

[Ylide]

Originally posted by Gathrog@Dec 12 2004, 01:39
Wow you really put a beating on this guy. It just goes to show not even the Tau can out shoot the IG. He really needs to change his list around and use tau's good speed and mobility a little more.

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I keep telling him that playing Farsight Enclave is maybe not the best choice because it limits the Tau's best units to 0-1, but he just won't listen. He has a hardon for getting into cc with Commander Farsight, but I don't play a cc-oriented army. (even my daemonhunters are shooty)

What he needs is another crisis team, a deep striking gun drone squadron, a cpl more stealth suits, and either another hammerhead or another firewarrior team cruising around in a devilfish. Or, if he's dead set on close combat, he needs some kroot.

[Maj Stryker]

Dang.

That nearly makes me sick. Such bravery on the part of the Xeno scum. I think I would have taken more burst cannons to help deal with your troops had I been your opponent.

The Tau should really take a hard look at this defeat. What went wrong and how should we fix it?

Deployment: Unless you get first turn...don't leave your one hammerhead out in the open, especially on a hill so everyone can shoot you. Cover is your friend. The Pathfinders should have gotten out of thier Devilfish, but that wouldn't have saved them.

Turn 1: IG goes first. Well, what did Farsight expect to happen? Of course the IG are going to shoot the heck out of him. All Tau units were in clear view of dedicated anti-armor troops. Losses included one whole firewarrior team by two tanks, one Broadside, one devilfish, all but one member of Pathfinder team, and the Hammerhead. TAU goes second. The Tau commander did pretty good considering the horrendous losses he just took. Killed 5 guardsmen from 1 squad with 12 shots from a firewarrior team (estimated shots), 4 guardsmen from one heavy weapons squad, stunned one leman russ, killed another 5 guardsmen from another squad with two crisis suits. My conclusion of Turn 1 is: Very Well Played by the IG commander, Tau Commander has overcommitted...heavy losses early should have signaled to him to withdraw, re-organize and try again.

Turn 2: The Game is Nearly Over. IG Commander gets a lucky reserves deep strike roll and obliterates the last Broadside suit. Had the IG not gotten this roll, I believe the Tau would still have conceded. Heavy Weapons left from the Tau's first turn finish off the crisis suits. The two tanks who killed the first Firewarrior Squad kill the second the SAME WAY!! The Stealth team did not use thier mobility to stay out of lasgun range and were gunned down. The Tau commander concedes cause he has ONE Stealthsuit left and the remainders of one smoking, shell-shocked Firewarrior squad.

IG Casualties = 14 troops, one big ding in the Leman Russ.
Tau Casualties = 24 firewarriors, x number of pathfinders (they may never know due to the fire in the devilfish), 2 crisis suits, 1 Shas'O, 2 Stealth Suits, 2 Broadsides, a Devilfish, and a Hammerhead.

The Tau played right into the IG commanders hands. In trying to stay static and use his long range guns, the Tau left themselves vulnerable to deep striking units, mobile armor and longer ranged anti-armor weapons. Mobility may have saved the Tau Commander if he had withdrawn from LOS and regrouped. Had he gotten to go first, the first turn may have been to the Tau, but even with Markerlights and Seeker Missiles, I have a hard time thinking that the Armor of the IG would have been reduced to a considerable number.

Better Luck next time Xeno.

[Robizzle]

That wasnt a battle...that was a Massacre

good job. I play Tau extremely commonly, but rarely crush them as much as that.

[Karedam]

I once had a 1300 pt battle against a good friend with Tau, using my Bloodangels. He made a similar mistake, After I annihilated at least 80% of his units, he surrendered and left me with a single downed soldier. An unfortunate assult Terminator who got fried by pulse carbines.
All in all, he really needed to reconsider his list. The whole battle was to test Rail Rifles, he decked his pathfinders with a couple, but it didnt do them any good, because they both rolled ones and failed their saves!
Personally, I fight until either I have no units left, or theyve deserted. so, is there a trend in Tau commanders for cowadice!?

[Ylide]

Well, we just played another game and he won but I'm not posting the bat-rep because I let slide a couple of rules that basically turned the game for him. He was moving his broadsides and shooting, which I thought was not legal but couldn't remember for sure til I checked the codex later. I also wasn't making him take all-on-your-own tests for his single stealth suit and gun drone that were slowly ripping their way through my back ranks due to poor hth rolls on my part. I also can't remember all the battle details because I just finished finals and my brain is fried.

[Reric]

Damn good battle report haha can we say PWNAGE!!!!


keep them coming

and long live Ever Crackers =P


Reric