Hi all following some great advice from people over on the army listing sub forum I tweaked my wych cult themed force a bit and headed off to my local GW store to try and find a game. As it turned out I did find one against a tau player that I've had mixed success against with my raven wing themed Dark angels in the past..
So the forces were:
my cult of the red (well grey in truth) Greif.
1 succubus (Warlord)
2 incubi 1 Klaivex
venom (2xsplinter cannons)
all riding together with a Web way portal
5 Wyches
4 Wyches 1 Hexatrix with agoniser
Riding in a raider with Night shields toting a Dark lance
Another identical 2 squads riding in a Night sheiled Dark lanced Raider
3 Reavers with Caltrops and a blaster
3 Reavers with Caltrops and a heat lance
1 Razor wing with 2x Dark Lance monosythe missiles
Meanwhile the Tau had rocked up with
1 Fireblade (warlord)
2 squads of ten fire warriors
3 stealth suits
2 Broadside suits one with all the missiles the other with a rail gun thing
1 Hammerhead with Longstrike
and of course 1 Riptide
and a bunch of drones.
The mission
we rolled up the relic, with regular face off deployment.
The table
was a 4 x 4 realm of battle board set to have one bigish hill in the centre of one deployment zone and two smaller hills in the corners of the other there was a large ruin table centre and a twisted copse to the left of the big hill and two small buildings to the right of it. on the other side there was a ruined bastion on the left hand hill a medium sized ruin towards the middle of the deployment zone and a swamp on the right that was only just in the deployment zone, there were a few small bits of scatter terrain spread around the table but in essence there was about a 12" wide swath of clear ground around the central ruin and most of the flank with the ruined bastion and two small buildings was clear.
We rolled for edge I lost and so he chose the edge with the big hill I wasn't too sad about this but I realised the hill position would give him the chance to hose the relic with fire.
We then rolled for deployment I lost that too (not the best start so far 2 dice rolled and I'd lost out on both!) He opted to set up first.
He deployed in what might best be called a blob on top of the big hill with longstrike backed up to the board edge in the centre of this blob, the rip tide was just a bit to my right the broadsides and the stealth team deployed in and around the 2 small buildings.
This made my deployment easy with the raider riding wyches they heroically hid behind the medium ruin in the middle of my deployment zone. The reavers where another matter, should I deploy them to my left where there was more cover but a riptide or on the right which was much more open and covered by 5 battle suits? in the end I decided to put one squad on each flank on the basis that the rip tide was just one thing and if it wanted to smash jetbikes that would save other things getting minced and I was gambling on jinking keeping the guys on the other side alive and distracting another set of big guns...
So we were set.
Given my poor luck previously I was a bit shocked to seize the initiative.
Then to balance that out I rolled for my drugs, +1 S normally that would be good but against T3 Tau I would have rather had either the extra attack or better still the extra toughness. but it was still better than the +1 Initiative I suppose
Turn1
The reavers cranked open their throttles and sped off towards the enemy.
I sneaked both of the raiders a tiny bit out of cover to take a shot at the hammer head both hit one glanced and the other was a pen woop woop I got weapon destroyed and then laughed my cruellest laugh when it proved to be his main gun. the reavers on the right opend up on the stelth team that was masking the broadsides and dropped one the other reaver opend up on the riptide and managed to take two wounds off it, there was then a slight pause whilst I did a little dance for joy.
my first turn joy was dented a bit when the rip tide clearly annoyed by being shot pulverised my poor bikers I just could not make enough jink saves the brodsides meanwhile managed to miss every shot at the other bike squad, probably just as well as I forgot to declare I was jinking
The stealth team was a bit more efficient though and knocked one biker out of the sky. The fire warriors found that the could not hit the raiders this was really because of their deployment half of them had nothing to shoot at and I jinked the few pulse rifle shots that glanced me. Longstrike had become something of an observer now his gun had broken, I didn't feel bad he has wrecked enough of my armies in the past.
Turn 2
On my reserve roll the Succubus was only too keen to join the symphony of pain but the razor wing pilot clearly had better things to do and didn't turn up. I now got my first nasty surprise as the web way split open and the succubus and incubi came ripping in to real space the riptide splattered them with some filthy interceptor upgrade. the venom fell out of the sky but fortunately the boss and her boy jumped clear sadly this left them stranded with out a ride and with one pistol to use this turn grrr. in an effort to keep them around long enough to charge something next turn I put one raider between them and the fire warriors then I had a moment of inspiration the rip tide had shot every thing it had in my turn that meant it wasn't going to be doing any more shooting for a while I sped the other raider over to it and filled it so full of splinter pistol shot and dark lance fire that it couldn't save them all and over it went with the moral victory in the bag I boosted the reavers over to the broadsides and blastered one to bits and then HoWed the other overrunning into the stealth team.
Predictably my opponent hammered the raider in front of the fire warriors with everything he had and equally predictably my paper plane fell out of the sky shedding wyches as it went. the combat between the stealth suits and revers ended in a no score draw, so I did the decent thing and ran away with hit and run.
Turn3
Now that the riptide was dead the razorwing deigned to turn up (did that pilot know something I didn't?) I jockeyed around lining up assaults on the fire warriors and dropping a unit off to snag the relic the reavers aimed for their old chums the stealth team and the raider now it wasn't giving rides out shot longstrike for a giggle it missed. The razorwing pumped everything into Longstrikes hammer head and managed a glance to finish it off.
I then sent in my assaults the two no Hexatrix squads going in first to soak up over watch fire one whole squad was wiped. But everyone else was grateful for their sacrifice and murdered the tau with extreme prejudice apart from the succubus she failed to hit with a single attack, it quite defies probability but there you go. the reavers smashed another stealth suit and the last one ran away but not fast enough. and that was it.
So that was it, my first DE game and a quite convincing victory. I'm under no illusions I had more than my fair share of luck in that game but it was a lot of fun and I learnt a few useful things, the AT weapons on the reavers didn't get much use but the caltrops where awesome, WWP is fun but is a lot of points when all our transports can deep strike anyway. but best of all I learnt that just as bolt pistols are more often than not terminator bane splinter pistols can put a major crimp on any MC's day.
Subject: 1000pts wych cult vs Tau 
Tue Nov 25 2014, 01:07
