The Kabal of the Vile Rose: Real Space battle reports from Pandora VII

Hiya folks! Quick low-down here, I'm taking part in a 14 way campain set on Pandora with some punishing campaign rules that reward those who win and really penalise those who lose.

I arrived late to the campaign but got stuck in quickly at the Campaign Organiser rolled up that I was the player this round who'd be attacked by a Random Event (a non-player owned army attacks my invasion force).

The game was set to be Big Guns Never Tire in the diagonal setup, no Nightfighting at the start of the game.

My 1,000pt Invasion Force can be found near the bottom of THIS thread.

We rolled for choosing deployment sides and the Tau won.
We rolled for who sets ups up first and likely goes first - yep, after 3 roll offs, the Tau won (despite Sathonyx picking his moment to strike!).

Our table featured the tower from the Fortress of Redemption in the centre with the seperated missile pad/walkway joined to another missile pad (not used as missiles in our game however - just fortification cover) in the north-east of the table. A large impassable rock sat in the SE side of the board with another in the mid east side. Finally two ruins lay in the West and North west sections of the board.

The 2 objectives were placed in the two ruins, one was placed to the western end of the walkway/fortification piece and one was placed in my deployment zone behind a rock.

The tau reserved one unit of 2 Crisis suits, deployed their Sniper drones in the western ruins with an Ethereal joining their ranks (I have no idea why either?!). A unit of 2 Crisis suits sat to the north of them with a unit of 10 Firewarriors to their north. Some markerlight drones (6ish?) sat between the two units. A second unit of 10 Firewarriors hung out in the NW ruins and Commander Shadowsun began with her 6 Stealth suits in the very north behind the fortress walkway/fortification. A unit of 6-8 (I can't remember how many) Pathfinders sat behind each Fire Warrior unit.

My deployment: I attempted to hide as much as possible! The Venom, Raider and Ravager all chilled out behind the two LOS blocking rocks in my deployment half, the Beasts setup as close to the enemy sniper drones as I could get them with the Farseer/Jetbikes sat to the south of them. The warrior units all sat inside their respective transports.

I then rolled for Seize the Iniative and rolled a 6!!!

Thank god for that!

TURN 1. Apologies for bad quality photo, unpainted models and proxies!

Photo at the end of my movement phase...


I began by launching the Beasts straighttowards the Snipers and Ethereal Unit and enter into the ruins entirely. The Ravager poked his head around the rock to gain LOS on the Crisis suits, the Venom peeked out to see the markerlight drones and the warrior raider hopped up to the central tower to gain LOS on the pathfinders, the jetbikes similarly remained out of LOS of as much as possible but drew a bead on the nearer pathfinder unit with their shuri cannons. Guide was cast onto the Ravager successfully and Prescience was cast onto the Jetbikers. Shooting saw both Crisis suits die to the Ravager, the Venom destroyed the markerlight drones(!) whilst the jetbikes dropped the pathfinders down to having 2 guys remaining! The Raider warriors with their re-rolls shot up 3 sniper drones leaving 3, the controller and the ethereal. All tau morale checks are passed. In the Assault phase the beast pack attempt a 9" charge on the snipers but fail it by 1". They suffered a wound on one of the razorwing flocks.

The Tau begin their first turn by jumping Shadowsun and her stealthy bodyguards over the walkway towards the Venom but remain out of range, for the moment... The firewarriors in the NW ruins move out and head towards the beasts as do their pathfinders. The ethereal gives his drones Feel no pain. The mid board fire warrior unit walks forwards towards the nearest objective, their pathfinders have to move to draw a bead on the beast unit. Shooting sees one markerlight hit on the Beasts and 3 more wounds placed on the nearest Razorwing flock with some decent cover saves made. The other pathfinders try to lay markerlights on the raider whos nose is poking out from behind the central tower but score no hits. The central firewarriors lay shots into it from the 6 guys who can see it but they score one glance that is saved from the cover. No assaults occur.

TURN 2.

I've gotta run to work this will be finished asap!

Look forward to the rest of the report. (And damn, wrong about the kroot...

Etheral w/ sniper drones.... (don't have my tau codex) Etheral ability to increase number of shots at half range kind like rapid fire 2x-- it works on the sniper drones which have an incredible max range in additional to all of the perks of the sniper special rule. Also the Ethereal can take a "thing" (for want of the actual name) providing a scatter free deep strike bubble. Etheral's are like hammies, they make whatever they join substantially better. Looks he deployed the unit too close (probably for a more effective alpha strike) you seizing the initiative really threw off his game plan which went from a day at the shooting range to save the etheral's behind particularly due do to the campaigns harsh rules for losing your HQ.... Everyone always seems to underestimate how quickly that beast squad can move... Wonder what his plan was if he couldn't precision shoot the beast masters out of the squad.

Reserved for future comments after battle report is complete.

Wow! That actually IS a very potent combination right there! I had wondered whether my opponent had mistaken the rules when he fired each of his sniper drones three times, but actually having looked at the book today and seen that their sniper rifles are rapid fire, get to use the BS (in every connotation of that word!) of the drone controller and have the Ethereal's extra shot benefit, that really is a nasty unit - it was very unlucky of him then for me to deploy my beast pack so aggresively towards it and then steal the initiative! I agree that a 'day at the gunshow' was exactly what he intended from that game, but I focused my firepower quickly on his markerlights, longer ranged JSJ crisis suits and on the sniper drones to mitigate as much return firepower as I could. Certainly knocking out the markerlight drones with poisoned shots was a good call. It was fortunate that I had the tools required to do the job in my army and then implemented them in the correct order, against the correct targets.

Anyway, on with the show!

Here's some other perspectives at the end of my turn 1 / during Tau turn 1.

Looking from the SE corner of the tables: avenues of fire of the Ravager / Venom after taking out the Crisis suits (partial LOS block for the Venom to see the markerlight drones)


My opponent's perspective from the NE corner looking across towards the SW corner with my beastpack in the distance. Shadowsun and the stealth suits lurk in the foreground whilst the firewarriors walk up towards the nearest objective.


TURN 2.

I started my turn by launching the beasts full pelt up towards the sniper drones who had attempted a slow retreat towards the main contingent of his force (something I forgot to mention in the Tau's first turn movement). The jetseer and his guardian compatriots moved up to the SE corner of the nearby ruins drawing shuri cannon LOS on the nearest firewarrior squad. The jetbikes gain Prescience whilst the Ravager again gained Guide. The raider moved 1" to gain jink and kept its eye on both the nearest remaining pathfinders and the fire warriors. The Venom moved to keep a healthy distance between itself and the stealth suits whilst maintaining LOS on the jetpack unit. My shooting involved dropping another pathfinder from the first unit, killing off 4 firewarriors from the nearest squad as well as the ravager downing 2 pathfinders from the distant unit (could't figure what else to shoot as the stealth suits had incredible cover saves), and finally the venom knocked out two stealth suits. I wanted the venom targetting the distant pathfinders but because of shadowsun and the stealth suit leap over the barrier it would have been compromised in return for gaining the LOS on the pathfinders. All morale checks were passed. Finally the Beast squad piled into the drones and tore them apart before consolidating back into cover and as far away from rapid fire range as my 4" roll would allow! I gained 2 more VPs for this: destroyed a Heavy Support and an Ethereal.

Photo during my assault phase; proxy-wise: most of the reavers are being used to count as guardian jetbikes, the seer is a normal jetseer conversion painted white. The talos/chronos is the Baron, the jetbikes in the beasts are the beastmasters, grey horses are khymera and silver/white ones are razorwing flocks.

The tau rolled in for the crisis team to arrive and did so successfully, they attempted to land near to my ravager and venom but scattered towards their own lines. The stealth suits hopped over the nearby stone pillar and formed a firing concave with the nearby 6 firewarriors, single pathfinder, 10 firewarriors from the second squad and their 4 remaining path finders. All of them drew a bead on the Beasts whilst the crisis suits eyed up the ravager.

Photo during the Tau turn 2 movement phase (last of my photos of this game sadly)


Shooting saw all hell let loose as every possible markerlight and rapid fire shot (Crisis suits excepting) as well as shadowsun and her stealth suits pummeled the Beast unit, when the dust settled, two beastmasters, 5 Khymera and 4 wounds on Razorwings was the butcher's bill despite the feel no pain and invulnerable save rolls. My opponent had decided not to negate cover (due to a lot of invulnerable saves in my unit) and instead gave his units +1 BS where possible. The crisis teams knocked 2 hull points off the ravager thanks to jink saves preventing one of the three successful rolls (stopped the pen luckily!). I passed morale and prepared to go for the jugular...