Brass Templars (CSM) vs Tau/Eldar 2000

Late update! Last week Dank and I got a game in at our FLGS. This time I busted out my Brass Templars (A crusade of BT that have fallen to chaos) since his army matches up better with my foot horde of marines and I'm much less experienced playing MEQ than I am with 'nids.

I absolutely love the Black Templar, but the age on their codex is clearly visible. The idea of a tide of marines just storming across the field of battle massacring anything in their way is awesome. They're not far off of loyalist Khorne berserkers, and so I use the CSM book to let me play them the way I wish their codex did. This list has 90+ bodies on foot... it's not a competitive list at all, but it can simply overwhelm some opponents and is hilarious to play. The mass models isn't too hard for me to deal with, as Tyranids can easily have that many models on the table, split up among even more units. Without further ado, here's my list.

Chaos Lord on Juggernaut with mark of khorne, Axe of Immense Rape... errr, blind fury, sigil of corruption and gift of mutation




2x20 BP/CCW marines with icon of vengence, sgt with powerfist, 2 melta guns
15 bolter marines with 2 melta guns, icon of vengence
2x10 bolter marines with 2 plasma guns
2x7 havocs, 2 ml w/ flak, 2 lascannons

2 Chaos spawn

Some of my marines are out for painting, and you can tell by my heavy proxying that I was really scarping the bottom of the barrel for this list. The 15 bolter squad has a chaplain and a heavy bolter filling in for standard marines this round. Haha, I need to get more mans!

I roll up the reroll chaos boons warlord trait... followed by D3+1 more boons... which I roll a 6 for!

So, with all that I get..

Reroll armor saves, +1T, 5+ deny the witch and something else I don't really remember. Regardless, my lord has now become immune to ID from railguns, nigh impervious to small arms fire, and a decent save against any psychic shenanigans. Quite the results!

Dank modified his list a bit, trying out a standard farseer instead of Eldrad to get fortune/doom instead of book powers. Combined with his tank shas'el setup, he hopes to have a unit of dire avengers hold the center of the board and be almost impossible to remove.

His list, from memory looks something like this.

Shas'el - Blast weapon, burst cannon, 2 shield drones, 2+ armor, FNP
Shas'el - ASS, Hit and run, Plasma/missiles
Farseer - All the fixins

6 Stealth suits with 6 gun drones 1 marker drone
3 missile pod flamer suits

2x6 fire warriors
12 fire warriors with markerlight
2x10 Kroot
20 Kroot
10 Dire avengers, exarch with bladestorm, defend and double guns

3 Broadsides with plasma
2x1 Broadside





We roll Vanguard and Relic, he has first turn, no night fighting. I take a deep breath and get ready for the firestorm.
  Here's setup.

He deploys the avengers mid field with the drones and tank'el in the front. One unit of fire warriors far to the left in the building, one on top of the hill to try to lure shots and the big squad in the hill/rocks with their eyes on the relic. His broadsides are next to some terrain, aimed to give him the best view of my deployment zone so he can properly lay down some pain. The missile suits are far to the left.

He uses his infiltrators to cover his other units and protect his broadsides flank from my lord's unit.

I've got my big bolter squad in the middle, flanked by the two smaller bolter squads and the big assault squads on the outside. Both Havoc squads are on the ruins and the Chaos Lord and spawn are hiding out of LOS.I've put my meat in the middle to force him to grind them down to keep me off the relic, while I hope my fast movers and sweep up and break his flank.

First turn shooting he pops a few marines from the far right assault squad and my havocs. Of course...

I barely pass with the first unit so the second has to fail and run ELEVEN inches!

Ouch! Now with just snapshots I've lost a lot of my already weak fire support. I'm not happy, and things aren't looking good. Luckily I haven't given up first blood, and I didn't lose any of my heavies.

 Out of sight, out of mind. He moves his stealth suits onto the terrain edge to get his 2+ cover but forgets the lord's unit is right around the corner. I almost get denied the chance to teach him a lesson when he loses a suit and 2 drones to dangerous terrain!

My casualties after the first round of shooting. 3 off the left assault squad, 4 off the right, 2 off each havoc squad and 2 from one of my bolter squads.

Eager to get my vengence, the lord comes flying around the corner and Dank's morale plummets. He was already pretty upset about losing the 3 models to terrain checks, and right when he got over that he realized how close he was to the lord's fast moving unit.

The horde slowly advances. The havocs rally (Thankfully) and I prepare to take my ineffectual pot shots with my army. Lucky for me, my snapshotting havocs manage to pick up a lone broadside for first blood! I pick up a few kroot and not much else. A generally boring turn until my lord charges the stealth suits. With a 4 on his daemon weapon, you can guess how that combat went...

Having lost his stealth suits and a broadside, he's feeling the pressure, but not overly concerned. His biggest concern is the lord on his doorstep. Luckily one spawn has 2 wounds already, so he advances most of his army to get shots on them. Fortune up on the avengers and doom on the left assault squad.

He lays into me pretty hard, picking up both spawn, and most of the left assault squad. If you notice someone missing from the casualties... my lord survived with one wound left despite the majority of his firepower being dumped into him. A 3+ rerollable with T6 is tough as nails.

I tighten the noose, moving everything up. More ineffectual shooting picks up a handful of firewarriors/kroot. My missiles are scattering like it's their job, but I'm not concerned. I've got most of my marines left and my lord is about to bring his psyker to paintown. Man that was lame. I eat the overwatch with the left marines (I didn't want to test my luck with 1W left on the lord) and fail the charge. The lord picks up the slack by making it. None of his characters are engaged so none can take my challenge, I roll like shit and only pick up a few dire avengers. He runs! 

But I fail to catch him :( Now I know he's going to rally and I'm going to lose my lord. The only advantage is that I have pushed his tanky troop way off the objective so I can get my hands on it.

He rallies but forgets to cast his psychic powers. His army POURS firepower into the lord and I just barely die to the last firewarrior.

He's got me out of his deployment zone, for now, and whittled down my left assault squad to a melta, sgt, icon and a lonely butthead. Luckily I've still got a big assault squad, and my bolters are finally coming into double tape range.

I continue my advance, heedless of casualties. KILL THE MUTANT! MAIM THE XENOS! BURN THE UNCLEAN! Wait... are we getting a little chaotic? Oh well, FORWARD!

I shoot the small assault squad into the suits and the melta picks one up. More terribile shooting from my Havocs (Besides the one sniper lascannon, they've been massive failures all game.)

Moving into assault, I make both assaults (Small to broadsides and big to tank squad).

With a 2+ rerollable on the Shas'el and defend, I do no damage to the squad and my powerfist fails to even scratch the farseer in their challenge. I lose a marine but fearless keeps me fighting.

My small squad pastes both suits, sadly. Leaving me out in the open for his whole army to obliterate them. I'm fine with this, as it's pushed him away from the relic and will buy me a turn to get in there.


He fires into the 4 man with all his fire warriors, followed by a kroot charge. I make -every- armor save, then proceed to run down both Kroot squads.

With combat in the middle in an eternal stalemate (1 attack per marine vs 2+ rerollable and 14+ fearless marines to tank his shots, this isn't ending) and having lost two units of Kroot to my unkillable marines, Dank has lost all hope. I still have 40+ troop marines in the center of the board, he has no way to get troops there or anywhere near enough firepower to keep me off it.

We call the game here, as we're ready for Taco Bell! Letting my lord smash his stealth suits T1 really hurt him, and my 4 man squad of unstoppable fury really sealed the game.

Leave some comments!

Battle report: Tau/Eldar vs Tyranids 2k

Went on down to the FLGS for my usual weekly game with my buddy Dank and we decided to make a battle report of our game. I've been playing variations on this Tyranid list for a few months and have had fantastic results. He's been playing with Eldrad to support his Tau, but having trouble finding what other Eldar units fit his playstyle. Here's the lists;

Tyranids

Warlord - Flyrant with 2x TL devourers, old adversary

Flyrant with 2x TL devourers, old adversary, hive commander (Swarmlord model)

3x Hive Guard

10x Ymgarls

Doom of Malan'tai in a Pod

2x Tervigon with scything talons, cluster spines, toxin sacs, adrenal glands, three powers

10x Gaunts

20x Gaunts

25x Gargoyles with toxin sacs

3x Biovores

I rolled on biomancy for everything but the doom. Not that I really cast often vs Eldrad, often it just makes me kill myself so I don't even bother. I got ONE Iron Arm/Endurance, both on the green Tervigon. Everything else was enfeeble, life leech and haemmorage. Pyschic scream on the Doom. Not a fantastic start.

Tau/Eldar list (Might be a smidge off)

Warlord - Shas'el with burst cannon, barrage gun, iridium armor, two shield drones, multi tracker

Eldrad

6x Stealthsuits with 11 gun drones and 1 marker drone

2x3 Crisis suits with TL missile pods, flamers and leader with blacksun

5x Harlequins with Shadowseer and 5 kisses

6x Fire warriors

2x20 Kroot

10 Dire Avengers with Exarch, bladestorm, defend

3x Broadsides with TL Plasma, multi trackers, and two shield drones

Hammerhead with Ion Cannon, burst cannons

This list uses the shas'el with the dire avengers so the shield drones can tank shots for them, allowing him to bladestorm and backup. The massive stealth squad is almost impossible to shoot off with a 2+ cover, and with 2d6 jump move, a massive pain to try to catch. He uses divination with Eldrad, getting the remove cover and twin link. I don't remember what else, those were all he used.

We get the Scouring, Dawn of War and no night fighting. He has first turn. There are two objectives on each flank near the corners and two along the center line, one dead center (See that crater) and one to the left about 12". Warlord traits are nothing of note.

Because he has ~60 infiltrating bodies and Eldrad's redeploy, it's almost impossible to figure out where he's actually going to deploy. He opts to outflank one kroot squad and infiltrate the others. He deploys Eldrad's unit (the broadsides), both deathrains, harlies and the dire avengers w/ Shas'el centrally. The Fire warriors are walking on and the ion head is slightly to the right of center. His deployment is fairly neutral and really just making me spread out so he can go hard on one flank with infiltration and redeployment.

I deploy the biovores and 10 man gaunts in the far left LOS blocking building next to an objective, the pink Tervigon next to some ruins nearby (for synapse and to work on taking the 3 total objectives in the left half of the board). The gargoyles string across the center mostly in cover, within 12" of the left tervigon and with the warlord smack behind them. He's got the ruins for cover infront of him, not that it'll matter with Eldrad sitting with his anti-tank. I put the 20 man gaunt squad, 3 hive guard and HC flyrant on the very far right. I leave the gaunts out of cover, hoping to draw fire from the gargs with a juicy target. I outflank the green Tervigon, as I have space on both edges where I can come in out of LOS and shoot gaunts to objectives in the following turns.

Here's before infiltrators

As expected (who didn't see it coming?!?) he redeploys and infiltrates hard to my right flank, away from my biovores. He's come to fear them more than anything in my army, and it feels like he's giving them far too much respect this matchup to me. Regardless, he shifts the dire avengers and ionhead to the right with the kroot in front and the stealth suits in the middle of the board. I am confident he's looking to wipe my gargoyles out ASAP as they're always high on his threat list and in this match, another VP.

We flip the objectives and he's got a 3 and 4 on the far right side, a 2 in the middle, and a 1-2-3 on the far left. Of course! I fail to seize and clench my butthole, this might sting!

 

His right flank advances, the deathrains peek out to see the flyrant/tervigon (depending on how shooting goes), and he opens fire.

A single tear was shed for our loss

The flyrant and about half the gargs bite it. He just racked up first blood AND warlord in one go, not totally unexpected, but still painful. In this mission, while I wanted my flyrants, I'm willing to sacrifice them to keep my Tervigons up. I take a single wound on one Hive Guard, and then he jumps his stealth suits back into cover for the 2+ and to try to get away from the biovores.

HOLD THE LINE!

Phew, that wasn't too good. I have no force projection on his deathrains or his broadsides (for now!) and I'm already down 2-0. My biovores have no juicy targets, and he's got a ton of firepower on the right side of the board. I'm starting to think outflanking the second Tervigon might've been a bad idea!

I advance the gargs toward the stealth suits, hell, might as well try to get locked in and keep him from shooting me on his turn! The gaunts move up, the flyrant lands in the middle of the ruin, the gaunts near the biovores spread out to cover the left board edge and I spawn 6 more (1,2,3) to help herd the kroot if they come off that edge.

I start off shooting with the biovores into his stealth suit squad. I know it's a 2+ save, but they're fairly clustered and every suit that dies is 2 drones to boot. My initial shot scatters badly north, clipping a harlie and I think like 4-5 drones. My second shot does nothing, but my third is a hit and I place it smack in the middle of his suits...

Biomatter rain?

Absolutely BRUTAL. He loses 4 total suits, which brings EIGHT drones with it. Usually I spend the whole game plinking shots off that unit, but he managed to roll 4 1's out of maybe 10 saves. They pass pinning and leadership, and the gargoyles do nothing with their shooting. 

Meanwhile, on the right flank, the Gaunts shoot into the Kroot, the Hive Guard into the Ionhead and the flyrant into the Dire Avengers...

Tyranid shooting strikes again

SQUAD BROKEN

Another brutal set of shooting leaves his Ionhead wrecked to glances. He loses 5 Kroot and they fall back, and because of a pillar in the ruins, the Flyrant can't see the shield drone! He only takes 5 wounds from the Flyrant, but proceeds to fail 4x4+ armor saves, a 4+ LOS on the exarch and his 3+ armor. Luckily they stay put, but man... LOS sniping really hurt him there. It was ironic because we were talking about how I should've landed further to the right to use another pillar to do the same thing, but when I checked LOS, come to find out there was another pillar in perfect position. 

The gargoyles take a few casualties trying to charge in and fail their assault. I end the turn in much higher spirits, but poor Dank is in a bad place. After a solid start to turn 1, he's suffered some serious casualties and things are not looking good.

His Kroot come in, but on the wrong side of the board, and his fire warriors walk on. At this point he's almost given up hope, but he's sticking with it. He knows he can still claim 7 points if he breaks my right flank, and with the 2 point lead, there aren't enough points on the left for me to win. He moves his harlies up right under the flyrant to assault if he can ground me, shimmies the Avengers behind the wreck to help vs the gaunts assaulting, and angles all his firepower on my Tervigon to try to remove synapse from that flank. Meanwhile the fleeing Kroot refuse to rally and avoid running off the board by a few inches.

This isn't where we parked our car

The gaunts prevent the kroot from coming in and wasting my biovores. Keep them guns goin!

His shooting opens up on the Tervigon with his heavy weaponry, the Gargoyles with what's left of the Stealth team and the Flyrant with whatever is left...

Sadly he never came down to play

The Kroot actually did 2/4 wounds, sadly enough

Another terrible turn for Dank, the Flyrant takes one wound from the Fire Warriors, but passes four grounding checks. The Tervigon takes four wounds from the combined fire of the Kroot, Deathrains and Broadsides. Oh, and the gargoyles...

Where's your god now?

The lone survivor flips him the bird with a 4 on his LD test.

By this point, Dank's morale is tanked and the game is looking dire. If my turn goes poorly, he might still be in it, but he needs a serious infusion of luck to make it.

Sadly, the Doom and Ymgarls come in. The Doom drops next to the Broadsides/Deathrain squad in the middle, with LOS to the other unit. The Ymgarls come in next to Eldrad and wave hello. My outflanking Tervigon decides he's not needed and chills out.

On the left flank I spawn more Gaunts but shit out on doubles, advance the HG, Gaunts and only go 12" with the Flyrant into the center of his Fire Warriors, Kroot and Dire Avengers. 

Suicide missions have a tendency to get you killed

Eldrad is toast

The Flyrant has plenty of options

The Doom picks up a suit from the Deathrains, who fail their LD and run off the board. The Biovores shoot at the Deathrains in the building, only able to hit two of them but still manage to kill one... who then flee. The Tervigon shoots his cluster spines... and lands dead on.

The game is over at this point and we call it. The Ymgarls will eat Eldrad, the Flyrant will get his warlord, the Gaunts are poised to do some damage to the Harlies, and tie them up forever if they survive. 

It was a pretty bad game, with his dice just abandoning him after his first shooting. His biggest mistake was clustering up his Stealth team, but it was more of a dice thing. The Dire Avengers failing 5/5 (6/6, if you count LOS) was brutal as well. The Ionhead moving into Hive Guard range was a mistake I doubt he'll make again. There's not much he could've done differently, as he hit only one of my flanks and was poised to do well until his army just evaporated.

All in all, it was much better than the following game. We won't say much about that game, except outflanking all of your infiltrators against two Flyrants is a pretty poor decision.

Anyways, thanks for reading, feel free to leave feedback!