TAU and SPACE WOLVES versus Chaos Space Marines and Dark Eldar

Game: Warhammer 40,000 3rd edition
Ally: Maurice
Opponents: Gary and Hugh
Mission: Recon
1st turn: Tau and Space Wolves
Points: 2000

Tau

• Shas’O’Tau’Ko’Vash’Ch’ien’Shi Shas’O - plasma rifle, fusion blaster, shield generator, Hard wired multitracker
• 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’La’Tau’Han’Dan - 12 Fire warriors, 10 with pulse rifles, two with pulse carbine, Shas’ui, bonded
• Shas’La’Tau’Mont’Yr - 12 Fire warriors, 10 with pulse rifles, two with pulse carbine, Shas’ui, bonded
• Murabla - 11 Kroot
• Kor’Vesa - 6 Gun drones
• Kor’Vesa - 6 Gun drones
• Kor’Vesa - 6 Gun drones
• Shas’Ui’Tau’Yu’Rang - Shas’ui with twin linked railguns, smart missile system and shield generator
• Shas’Ui’Tau’Yu’Rang’u’Tang - Shas’ui with twin linked railguns, smart missile system and target lock
  

Space Wolves

• Large blood claw pack in land raider crusader
• 6 blood claws with jump packs
• Venerable dreadnought
• Rune priest

Chaos Space Marines

• 5 Raptors
• Squad with lascannon
• Squad with lascannon
• Close assault squad in rhino
• Lieutenant and squad in rhino
• Dread with twin linked lascannons

Dark Eldar

• Ravager
• Drachon and six Incubi in Raider
• 4 warp beasts
• Large Wych squad
• 10 man warrior squad with two dark lances
• 10 man warrior squad with two dark lances
• 10 man warrior squad with two splinter cannons
• Talos

Terrain and deployment
4000pt battle on a 4x4 table. Yikes!

Also it was the Necron table which is heavily converted with hills, monuments and crystals. Looks great but is a devil to play on. Difficult terrain all over the place.

The game
We won first turn and only inflicted one wound on the Talos despite the majority of our armies shooting at it.

Fortunately the Dark Eldar did no better than us and we picked up in the second turn killing the Talos, stunning the Ravager, stunning the Dreadnought, immobilising a rhino, wiping out half of a warrior squad and a full marine squad.

The Crusader was first immobilised and then destroyed.

A massive close combat erupted between the wyches, Raptors, lieutenant and henchmen and the two blood claw units with the rune priest. In the centre the Incubi sped forward, had their Raider shot out from under them then assaulted the Tau firebase along with the Warp beasts.

On the right the Venerable dreadnought soaked up three turns of heavy fire and destroyed the second assault squad in the rhino. With the game in the balance, time ran out and we had to pack up.

Result: Draw (ran out of time)

Learning points

• This was a Tau army designed for pinning playing against two armies capable of being pinned and despite forcing numerous tests not one enemy unit was pinned. Aaaaarggghhhh!
• Splinter cannons did for the kroot again.
• Playing as a team is very difficult; I only targeted the Talos because my ally was frightened of it and he committed a few tactical errors. Ho hum.
• Fire warrior squads did very nicely against the DE warriors.