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The low down:
- Crusade 3 objectives.
- Hammer and Anvil
- We lost deployment and went second.
- Warlord Trait - Master of Ambush - Outflanking units have Acute Senses :(
one objective is in the wood on the left and the other is in the ruins.
Some Pathfinders control the 'middle' objective.
More deployment shots, Tactical squads and Pathfinders infiltrate.
These Pathfinders suddenly appeared in our back field in the bottom left of the board...
... and proceeded to light up our HQ Warolord Tervigon with markerlight shots.
Now I've never payed Tau, new or old Codex but that 4 dice is how many markerlights are on the Tervigon and it also gets hit by some high AP weapon.
The Pathfinders in the ruin to it's left also light it up and it's high AP weapon takes another wound.
Four of those marker lights manage to negate cover and suddenly I'm being asked to put another 3 wounds on the Tervigon from Railguns. At this point I've no idea who's shooting it because I can't see the 'Tau for the trees' [see what I did there].
However, when I changed my view to above the trees and Tervigon you can see those pesky Broadsides on the hill. Dan raised this with the other guys and we got out the laser pointers I was dubious but a couple of red dots managed to catch it's legs and the 'line of sight rule' specifically states 'catch a glimpse of a model's legs under tree branches' so we had to take it on the chin.
And lose First Blood and Slay the Warlord in turn 1 :(
Still, onwards and upwards, I spawn 11 Gaunts and Iron Arm up. We re-route the Hive Guard and my Tervigon and it's progeny to annihilate the Pathfinders and deny Linebreaker and their markerlighting shenanigans. The Bastion is out of range on the pathfinders but manages to hit the ones on the objective but without damage.
My rearguard take down 1 or two of the Pathfinders and hunker down in the Ironbark forest.
Dan's Tervigon, Devgaunts and 7 spawned Termagants head for the middle objective but the wood they're in is filled with Razorwings. He loses about half the Devgaunts in the woods, wither this turn or next.
The depleted Devgaunts target the Pathfinders in the ruin on the left and they break and run.
Some deft saving throws from Dan there probably on his Tervigon in their turn 2.
However the spawned gaunts get mullered.
Here come the BOOM! and DOOM! The Hive Tyrant deepstrikes in with the spore pod spot on next to it. The Doom gets out in range of three units. We'd debated this for quite a while. The gunline on the hill would have been equally effective and those Broadsides have rubbish Leadership but their weapons were all instakills. At least here there was cover, plenty of wounds to Leech and two objectives to root people out of. We had to hope we could weather the gunline storm!
Another 11 termagants for me and we head for the remaining Pathfinders. One of my Hive Guard was killed at some point [Dan informs me it may have been a victim to the Razorwings in the trees in our first turn - darn birds!].
The Doom sucks life but some pass their Ld test.
8 spawned gaunts from Dan manage to root out the remaining Pathfinders round the objective.
There are Razorwings here too, although they're not disturbed this time.
I'm guessing that a Doom savign throw. He'd past a few but this was an insta-kill too far. Still, it was saving those shots from going against the Hive Tyrant.
The Spore Pod also bit the dust.
Yet another 11 gaunts head for the ruins on the left. The Pathfinders had regrouped and moved back into position alongside a Tactical squad.
Dan's tervigon spawned 10 more gaunts but has taken 3 wounds. Some of my gaunts have made back to help secure the objective with his own. The Trygon also arrives.
Matt and Lacey were justifiably proud with how annoying their 'behind enemy lines' Pathfinder had been, but they had to go. Fleshborers, Impaler Cannon and Tervigons finally end their annoyance.
The Hive Tyrant jumps into the ruins. We debate whther he should shoot but take it one Devourer at a time just to hin the numbers by a couple in the end.
He challenges the sergeant, probably eats him.
The Trygon come sover to see what's up [See what I mean about Dan's painting? I actually think there is a great similarity between his style and my own. The only thing different is there's no dots. I also think I add another set of highlights to the main body that doesn't make his any less striking, in fact it accentuates the Chitin plates. his bases are full of details too, green pools of slime, broken metal plates, flock and hive nodes. I think it's a disservice to suggest we didn't have equal rights to the best army nominations, I think Dan's too modest :) ]
Everybody runs! With the Pathfinders gone we high-tail it across the board, spawning out on 9, moving and running the Termagants get 18" across the board in one turn and join the 11 Gaunts who vacate the Bastion so we have 3 troops controlling the objective.
The Hive Tyrant continues to savage whatever is in the Ruins and is somehow joined by the Trygon who manages to slither his massive frame into the wrecked building.
The munch on the remaining Space Marines contesting the objective and eyeing up the Pathfinders on the first floor, y'know - mouth height for a monstrous creature.
Having made a tactical blunder and moved his Termagants to surround the centre objective and in doing so disturbed the Razorwings yet again which promptly killed the entire brood Dan moved my gaunts in to take their place so we had two objectives secured.
These gaunts suddenly had the tactical squad that had been in the ruins on the right for company. I think they were slaughtered, probably by the gunline on the hill or probably Razorwings again but the Marines just couldn't make it far enough into the woods to contest.
Having taken the Bastion off to be entered in the best Fortification category we replaced it with the chaos ruins that originally had been on the board. However the important thing is the secured onjective.
Dan's Tervigon moved into the woods to secure the middle one now my Termagants were dead.
While the two monstrous creatures opened fire with Devourers and Bio-electric pulses wiping out the remaining Pathfinders leaving the objective unclaimed and Linebreaker firmly within our grasp.
With time called we had 7 VPs to the Purdus Alliance's 2 VPs. Considering the disastrous first turn we really came back thanks to some relentless gaunt spawning. Taking into account that we managed to do it without the full three Tervigons it's really suggesting that 3 is the optimum number. I think we all agreed though the winner of the game were the Razorwings who were so brutal with their rends. So we're two for two and Dan and I are really getting to grip with our synergy in playing so lets hope it just gets better.
