TAU and SPACE WOLVES versus Chaos Space Marines

Game: Warhammer 40,000 3rd edition
Opponent: Colin and Gary
Allies: Marc (commanding all the fire warriors, both crisis suits) and Steve with Space Wolves
Mission: Recon
1st turn: ?
Points: 2000

Tau

• Shas’O’Tau’Ko’Vash’Ch’ien’Shi Shas’O - plasma rifle, fusion blaster, shield generator
• Shas’Ui’Tau’Ho’Lu’Demlock Crisis battle suit - Shas’ui with plasma rifle, missile pod and multitracker
• Shas’Ui’Tau’Ho’Lu’Hemlock Crisis battle suit - Shas’ui with plasma rifle, missile pod and multitracker
• Shas’Ui’Tau’Kais’Mal’Coar - 3 stealth suits
• Shas’La’Tau’Han’Dan - 7 Fire warriors, all with pulse rifles, Shas’ui with markerlight
• Shas’La’Tau’Mont’Yr - 6 Fire warriors, all with pulse rifles, Shas’ui with markerlight
• Shas’La’Tau’Mull’Kin’Tyr - 6 Fire warriors, all with pulserifles, Shas’ui with markerlight
• Murabla - 11 Kroot
• Shas’Ui’Tau’Yu’Rang - Shas’ui Broadside with twin linked railguns, smart missile system and shield generator
• Shas’Ui’Tau’Tzun’Dau - Shas’ui Broadside with twin linked railguns, smart missile system and multi-tracker
• Shas’La’Tau’Or’Es’Mont’Ka - Ion cannon, smart missile system, multitracker, decoy launchers, seeker missile

Space Wolves

• Leader with power fist
  
• Blood claw unit in rhino
• Blood claw unit in rhino
• Grey hunter squad
• Vindicator
• Attack bike with multi melta

Chaos Space Marines (Emperors Children)

• Tooled up Daemon prince
• Lieutenant with retinue in rhino
• Dread with plasma cannon
• Dread with plasma cannon
• Havoc squad with blastmasters
• Marine squad in rhino
• Marine squad
• Marine squad
• Marine squad
• Marine squad
• Daemonette unit
• Daemonette unit
• Predator

Terrain and deployment
We played over a six foot table (yay!) and rolled the recon mission. Our plan was to sit back and shoot with our armies until the inevitable charge and then counter charge with the blood claws and Kroot.

The game
The Emperors children attacked piecemeal, which should have helped us greatly, but we rolled poorly for shooting early in the game.

One surprise was a house rule in the shop that a unit dumped out of a destroyed rhino can’t be shot at for the rest of the turn. This left the Chaos Lieutenant and his unit right in the centre of our fire base unmolested.

Both Daemonette units summoned from this unit and the subsequent charge wiped out the vindicator, a unit of fire warriors, and the attack bike. But thanks to the old assault rules we could shoot up the Chaos victors, and then counter charge with the Kroot.

Our centre held with some firepower left and then we charged the blood claws forward, one squad on each flank. The squad on our left wiped out an enemy squad but was then wiped out to a man by the daemon prince. Hey ho, but they held him up for 3 turns. On the right the blood claws and grey hunters wiped out three squads and ended up in the enemy deployment zone, along with a crisis battle suit and the stealth team.

The chaos army only had the daemon prince and half of the havoc squad surviving at the end of the game.

Result: Win

Learning points

• Tau + Space Wolves = ouch time
• Marker lights worked superbly with the crisis suits and hammerhead
• House rules re: destroyed transports almost lost us the game – no wonder rhino rush armies rule in this store! Maybe devilfish might be more usable for my Tau though
• Countercharging works
• Larger table is miles better for Tau.