Dark Angels Vs. Tau

Gundam John and I got in a game yesterday and I got my first taste of the new "Greater Good."  John brough some Grey Knight Allies and I had my guard as well of course.

We played a simple game with standard deployment, 5 objectives and kill points.  I won the roll and elected to go second.  My range is much more limited than his, so I wanted to make sure that I was not wasting time repositioning and moving while he got 2-3 extra rounds of shooting at me before I would be able to respond.

He put his Aegis line in the middle and deployed evenly across the board, broadsides, 2 suit teams and the ethereal center followed by Fire Warrios squads, pathfinders and Hammerheads on both sides, in that order.  I decided to counter by putting all of my ranged shooting on my left, the blob with Azrael in the center and one squad of tacticals on the right.  For reserves I had Marbo, 5 Deathwing, Platoon Command w/ Flamers in a Chimera, and the Lemun Russ Eradicator.  I usually don't like to start games with so much in reserve, but with the range and firepower the Tau bring, it is better for these to arrive late than to get shot off the board before I see a turn.

Ultimately, I won the game because of this deployment.  It left me with just enough advantage throughout the game to take advantage of John's static gun-line.

The first round of shooting took out my Lascannon Heavy Weapons Team, and the Company Command Squad, with the exception of the commander himself.  My turn I blasted 2 of the three broadsides off the board with lascannons.  Terminators came down on my right.

Turn 2 I lose the terminators to rapid fire and plasma/fusion suits.  I also lost a few marines, but the only one with a special weapon I lost was the Plasma Cannon to gets hot!  Chimera comes on, but no Marbo or Lemun.  I have another solid round of shooting where I clear off the 3 suits that had just killed the terminators...not a fair trade, but I'll take it.

Turn 3 the the chimera gets popped and the blob of guard is wittled down to 3 guys and Azrael.   Lemun and Marbo show up.  Marbo wastes most of a Fire Warrior Squad and the Lemun takes out another.  Things are picking up for me at this point big time.

we only have turn for another round so we agree to call it after 4.  I lose the blob and Azrael in this turn, Marbo gets shot up good from overwatch, but the Lemun takes out another squad and I pick off enough from another with the devastators to make some run.  I end up winning objectives 2 to 1 and kill points 7 to 6.  It was interesting because a turn earlier and we would have tied objectives and I would have lost kill points by a good deal.  I made some really choice moves with target selection late in the game and did a really good jobs of not giving up 3 squads that were decimated by hiding them out of los.

I expected a bit more out of the new Tau book.  I think part of this was that John was running pretty much the same thing he has been but with a couple suit teams and hammerheads instead of broadsides.  I think there are a lot more toys and upgrades, that he has up until now previously ignored because they were bad in the old book, that will make a bigger difference.  I think I'll be more afraid as the adjustments start being made.