WoffBoot XIII: T'au Kill a Rotting-bird?

The Second Law (Pootle's Death Guard) vs T’pau (Kasfunatu's T'au)

The final battle to see who claimed the Woffboot title! My diseased but disgustingly resilient Death Guard were in front due to two major victories (7pts each) and Kasfunatu was the only general who could stop me.

It was a tall order. I had to get my own major victory (a win by 7VPs), which would make the score 16v15 in my favour. Seeing as the Death Guard already had two of their own major victories, this was going to be tough.

We were playing Vital Intelligence from CA18. One objective was in the middle of the table, with four more midway to each corner. Each objective held is worth 1VP at the end of each complete turn (not each player’s turn) but a D6 roll each turn makes that objective (or all five on a 6) worth double points.

I am not sure if this type of mission hurt or helped. At least I knew I was going to be hard pushed for Objective Points with a largely static army. Somehow I wished I was playing the more random ones; whilst it would not help me, it might hinder the DG more.

Despite my tournament advantage I was aware that the game against Kraken could have gone either way until turn 4 and I’d needed a big slice of lucky dice rolling to beat Stylus. All I knew about the T’au was that they had also blown the Wolves off the table with their shooting and had only narrowly lost to Kraken. Why did I feel like I’d brought a (plague) knife to a gun fight?

The armies were the same as in previous games this tournament, so I've stuck them at the end of the report.

I had heard everyone complain about the vehicles and how hard they were to shift. I knew that there was an awful flamer thing and grenade shenanigans that needed to be aware of too. That said, I had a point to prove that T’au firepower would be enough to take down these monstrosities.

Deployment

The Valkyrie was definitely NOT involved in this battle

Kasfunatu won the roll to decide the board layout and chose Hammer and Anvil to give himself access to the big tower (at the far end of board in the pic above) and maximise the distance for the Death Guard to stomp across to get within range. This was exactly what happened when I beat the Space Wolves and I even learned from my deployment there and didn’t stick the Helbrute right next to another unit in case it exploded – I was expecting it to be squished quite quickly.

I was sticking to the same plan that worked against the Wolves too, and might have worked with more turns against the Scions: hunkering several troops, drones, HQs together. The tower was too good an opportunity. I knew I was sacrificing mobility and would have to deal with central objective with firepower.

I had done some research on the T’au and (apart from “shoot the drones first” and "be bloody careful charging into their massive overwatch") knew that they are often tempted to form a castle in a corner, which limits their ability to react to mission objectives and grab territory.

Once again I put one squad of cultists on each rear wing to prevent deep-striking crisis suits landing behind me. I'd like to note that both cultist squads were being proxied by 90s Necromunda gangs, who have presumably turned to chaos in the 20+ intervening years. The former Orlock gang in particular, and their leader Pootle, caused psychological damage to both Kraken and Kasfunatu in different lives (I'm sure that was one of the reasons that Kraken killed that unit in the first turn in the game against him). 

The Plagueburst Crawler squatted like a rotting brick in front of the left-hand objective, and the Helbrute, Daemon Prince and Foetid Bloat-drone occupied ground near the right hand one.

I was feeling cocky about T’au weaponry and the power of rail rifles and triple enabled meltas. So split my heavy firepower. The broadsides with several drones against the Bloat-drone and the Coldstar and stealth drones against the Plagueburst Crawler. I was haphazard in my placement and cover as we’d already concluded going second was tactically superior, and hence I felt I could be carefree. My remaining commander waited in the middle to decide where likely needed.

All my marines had the unenviable job of running forwards from the ruins to grab the middle objective as often as possible and (presumably) get killed by the Tau pretty much as soon as they did so. I decided to run the Bloat-drone  and Daemon Prince forwards not so much hoping to engage the Tau in close combat but as fairly resilient distractions: though I knew that I couldn’t reasonably expect the Bloat-drone  to absorb another boatload of fire, anything shooting those two wasn’t shooting my objective-grabbing marines. 

Importantly, as it turned out, I put the plasma squad upstairs in the ruin, where they could overlook the crawler. I had decided that I wasn’t going to try to grab the two objectives in Kasfunatu’s deployment zone; as long as I controlled three objectives to his two each turn I should outscore him on points, especially as I would be more likely to be holding the one that was worth double points, therefore I wasn't planning to run the Crawler forwards this time. Of course, there was always the not insignificant risk that the T’au might just sit back and shoot my entire army away.

That’s the plan!

As I deployed first, I got to choose who went first. Despite being filled with dread about the idea of letting the T'au shoot at me first, I knew that going second in this mission meant that I would be able to control objectives more effectively, either running troops out to secure the middle objective or shooting the T’au off theirs.

A very wise decision!!

Turn 1. Active objective in the Death Guard back left.

Tragically, Kasfunatu wasn’t able to anti-steal the first turn and give it back to me (gah), so instead he pushed his Coldstar commander and Stealth drones forwards to engage my Plagueburst Crawler. One of the Enforcer Commanders also moved forwards to get within range of Bloat-drone .

I thought the broadsides might need the help, as there was a daemon prince to go along with the bloatdrone.

The Coldstar and Stealth drones unloaded with everything they had but only put six wounds onto the brick (which didn’t even dropped a bracket). I was quietly confident that the Crawler could withstand the fusillade of fire, maybe even getting a little cocky, given the Bloat-drone ’s performance against Stylus. However I definitely gulped when Kas played a stratagem to let his Coldstar have a second round of shooting. When the smoke cleared…the crawler was still there on 4 wounds.

Well that’s him screwed. At least he had ablative drone wounds. Annoyingly, in my excitement I also used a stratagem to reroll a wound dice, but picked up a missile pod die not fusion blaster die (my fault, and so did not ask for leniency) but should be more careful… that extra 3pips off armour and extra damage might have been useful!

Everything else in range unloaded on the Bloat-drone wounding it; but still leaving it a very viable threat.

In my turn I ran one of the Spawn out to grab the central objective. I moved the close combat squad out into the open so that I could put some crossfire into the Stealth drones on my left. I also advanced the Bloat-drone  and Daemon Prince forwards on the right, getting the drone within 9 inches of the Enforcer commander on the platform. 

In the psychic phase, the Plaguecaster put Miasma of Pestilence on the Bloat-drone  (-1 to hit) and the Daemon Prince let off a super-smite at the Enforcer commander nearly killing it in one go. 

In the shooting phase the Plagueburst Crawler unloaded its plague spitters at one of the stealth drones, killing it very dead. The close combat squad marines turned to their left and rapid-fired the other drone to death (actually, I think it was the Blight Launcher that did for it). Then, because the plasma marines were applauding from the balcony, I was able to put six overcharged plasma and some rapid-firing bolters onto the Coldstar itself, causing 5 wounds but leaving it on a solitary wound.

For a moment I thought I was done, but looking around for some hidden guns to finish it off, I spotted the cultists lurking in the back corner. They were not all in range, but a couple were in rapid fire range and I had a heavy stubber at the front too. I rolled about a dozen dice in total, scoring half a dozen hits and a solitary wound with an autogun. Might the Coldstar fail its 3+ save? Yes it might! I seem to recall that you paid a CP to reroll the save, with a predictably annoying result - either that or you'd rerolled earlier in the turn with the same result. This was particularly galling for Kasfunatu as the models proxying for that unit of cultists were a gang of Orlocks called the Flumps who had given him particular trouble twenty+ years ago in a Necromunda campaign we’d played. I determined that it was that unit’s champion, Pootle, who had fired the decisive shot.

Damn you Pootle!

But I wasn’t finished yet. I had a Foetid Bloat-drone  sitting underneath an injured Enforcer commander who also promptly melted under a barrage of filth from my plague spitters.

Oh. That’s not how this was supposed to go. I figured one commander was toast. But both… eep.

 VPs: 5-2 to the Second Law (first strike plus three objectives, including one worth two points, against two objectives)

Turn 2. All objectives worth double points.

The T’au unloaded a barrage of fire at the Bloat-drone. It resisted for a while, but wasn’t able to repeat its heroics from almost the same spot the previous day. The spawn fell, a couple of plague marines died too, and several wounds were put onto the Daemon Prince.

The Crisis suits dropped in on the Tau’s left, but as each were armed with flamers, they were a little less than effective this round. I can’t remember how far forward they were but I seem to remember they shot at the Helbrute with their non-flamer weaponry, taking a couple of wounds off it.

In my turn, I moved the close combat squad forwards to occupy the central objective again and plinked off a few shots at the T’au castle, not doing any significant damage.

Drones for the greater good

The Plagueburst Crawler was ordered to stay put and sit on the objective near him as any movement would result in him hitting on 6+ and I wasn’t likely to be able to get close enough to use the plaguespitters given its reduced movement. As the Daemon Prince’s life expectancy was now extremely short, rather than risk a charge into overwatch doom, I decided to try the Nurgle’s Rot strategem again as it had worked so well against the Space Wolves. Once again I had to advance to get him into a spot within 7” of as many units as possible, then spent 3CPs to cause D3 mortal wounds to each unit on a 4+. Disappointingly, my luck was merely average here and I didn’t kill anything particularly juicy.

You did take out the repairo-drones though.

VPs: 11-6 to the Second Law

Turn 3. Objective in T’au rear left worth double points.

Up to now, I had loved the fact that Plague Marines are toughness 5 so most infantry fire only wounded on a 5+. Now Kasfunatu showed what T'au can do and (having fully lit up the squad with 5 markerlights for a +1 to hit and rerolling 1s) unloaded with 30 shots from the two Strike teams (the Fireblade giving each an extra shot on top of rapid fire) that wounded on a 3+ due to the Dark Strider giving a +1 to the strength 5 wound rolls. The marines absorbed all the firepower, but unfortunately died in the process. The Broadsides killed the Daemon Prince rather easily.

In my turn I moved the surviving Blight Launcher marine squad over to occupy the central objective again, despite knowing what awaited them next turn. However, I was starting to build up a VP lead and could see that continuing for a while if I sacrificed one unit at a time to take the central objective. Rather than shoot forlornly into the T'au castle, I decided to try to further limit Kasfunatu's VP-generation by targeting the Breacher team lurking near the objective in the T’au back right with my crawler’s mortar, killing two of them.

The remaining few broke out snacks and tried to hide nonchalantly for the rest of the game.

With the tactics of this mission, my ONLY option was to table. I still then probably needed to do that before turn 5/6 to stand a chance of free points in potential turn 6/7.

VPs: 14-9 to the Second Law

Turn 4 . Objective in T’au rear right worth double points.

The Crisis suits moved forwards on the T’au left to attack the Helbrute, however their shooting wasn’t particularly effective and it was left on five wounds. A couple of tactical drones moved across the reinforce the remnants of the Breacher team on the double-point objective in the T’au back right. The T’au Strike team castle opened up on the squad of plague marines on the central objective, but because they were all in cover (this time – I hadn’t managed to do that last turn), I’d cast miasma of pestilence (-1 to hit) on them, and they weren't all lit up with markerlights, a Blight Launcher-armed marine survived, who declined to run away (I had lost three marines that turn but elected to remove the champion even though that meant the survivor was more likely to run away as the Blight Launcher was well-positioned to shoot at the troops on the double-point objective).

The cultists on my right moved forwards to occupy the objective whilst the Helbrute moved forwards towards the crisis suits. My Malignant Plaguecaster and Foul Blightspawn came out of the ruins, ready to help deal with the crisis suits too, with the Biologus Putrifier coming out enough to stay within 7” range of the Blightspawn to ensure he could reroll failed wound rolls using his arch-contaminator ability. My second spawn moved forwards to ensure that he was closer to the T’au’s guns than these two characters. The cultists on the left began to move forwards to help defend the objective near the crawler. I kept the plasma squad and chaos lord cowering out of sight in the ruins ready to seize objectives in future rounds if necessary.

In the psychic phase my Plaguecaster put a miasma of pestilence on someone (I can't remember who), causing a mortal wound on the nearby drones due to pestilential fallout, then smote the drones again, causing a further wound from the fallout. That's a really nice ability if you can get the Plaguecaster up close and personal (well, within 7" of someone), and I'd paid a CP to give him the Pandemic Staff, which added one to all attempts to cast Smite (and hence also increased the chance of Pestilential Fallout going off too).

In the shooting phase I wanted to deny the double-points objective to the T’au and, as it was only held by three Breachers and a couple of drones, shot the mortar over at them, killing a couple more Breachers and the heavy slugger at the drones (yes, splitting fire worked out fine here...). I then had the cultist heavy stubber and the central marine with a Blight Launcher to finish off whoever was left, which meant that Kas would only be claiming a solitary VP that turn for the objective under the Broadsides. On my right the Helbrute and Blightspawn killed the remaining crisis suits in a combination of shooting followed by a charge from the Helbrute and his nasty Power Scourge, leaving just a couple of drones (Kas chose to leave the drones alive and not try to shift the damage to them as he hoped to run them off to score linebreaker).

VPs: 17-10 to the Second Law

Turn 5. Objective in Death Guard rear left worth double points.

The Broadsides moved forwards to try to get some shots onto the Plagueburst Crawler to deny me double points (and take down the pesky daemon engine). Some more drones flew down to retake the objective in the T’au’s back right. Someone killed the Helbrute and the cultists in my back right this turn - the T'au still had an awful lot of guns active, though they were running out of things to shoot at.

The plague marine on the central objective was killed in short order, but the spawn was left alive on a couple of wounds and the shots onto the crawler either missed or didn’t damage it at all (I would imagine that I saved at least a couple of wounds by being Disgustingly Resilient as that would have been particularly annoying).

It was!

In my turn I ran the plasma marine squad out to retake the central objective once more. I had to advance to get them there so couldn’t put down any fire unfortunately. The Biologus Putrifier ran back inside the ruin so he couldn’t be seen – I was aware that I was running out of screening troops and my characters would be getting exposed soon; despite my lead there's no point gifting Slay the Warlord. The cultists on the left moved forwards so they could retake the central objective if and when the plasma squad died, trusting either that the crawler would survive or that the Putrifier could run out and secure it if the game went to a seventh turn (my Chaos Lord was marked for similar duties on the central objectives if absolutely necessary...I doubt he'd have enjoyed that, being only T4 and not disgustingly resilient, invulnerable save or not). 

In the psychic phase and shooting phase I did for the remaining drones on my rear right and my spawn on the front right charged a markerlight specialist for want of anything better to do. I didn’t want to charge something with dangerous guns as having the Spawn around was great for the Blightspawn and Plaguecaster messing around in the backfield (all by themselves now).

VPs: 21-12 to the Second Law

Turn 6. One of the objectives in T’au rear worth double points.

The spawn got killed, which meant that guns could now target the Blightspawn and Plaguecaster. Given the range considerations of their guns/psychic powers, I wasn’t too worried about losing these guys now, but I hoped to keep the Plaguecaster alive. Generously Kasfunatu targeted the Blightspawn but I don’t think he managed to take him down. Once more the two Strike teams unleashed a devastating volley of fire on the plasma squad on the central objective and killed the lot of them in one go.

In my turn I ran the cultists onto the central objective AGAIN. I asked if I could claim cover behind a mountain of 20 dead plague marines, but Kas didn’t go for that one.

Cinematic: yes. That’s what was in mind’s eye. But I have 9VPs to claim, and it was the Flumps I was about to be wiping out…. So no imaginary cover for you.

I was severely running out of troops now, but I had a huge VP lead so even though we rolled for the game to continue to a seventh turn, we agreed to end the game with a victory to the Second Law Vectorium (entropy always increases).

VPs: 24-15 to the Second Law

Conclusion

Once I cleared the first turn, I thought that I’d continue to accrue VPs faster than you, so I should win, but I was impressed/appalled by how easily the T’au deleted my “tough” plague marines. With only a small adjustment to the dice rolls I would have run out of troops entirely around turn 4 and probably given you the victory despite my early lead.

Rather than playing the final turn (which there was) and semi-guaranteeing 4 objectives (including bonus in my back lines), linebreaker (which would not be reciprocated) and a potential warlord kill: we called this only a win. The game had also gone 4hrs. With no impact of changing any position in the final tournament tables, and rather than go through the last round, General Pootle graciously agreed to not score this as a major victory (but also not have to play it out). Thank you. So T’au can just claim that they did not lose as badly as the others…. Not a thing to brag about, but I’ll take it!

I saw that your confidence was shaken early on by the (presumably unaccustomed) lack of turn one enemy-unit-deletion, coupled with losing two commander suits in return.

I should have perhaps listened to the warnings about vehicles and not been so cocky. If I have put broadsides, and coldstar on one flank and deleted a unit, it might have served me better…. Maybe the old adage is true: never split your fire.

Sometimes losing key units early on can mean that it’s hard to keep focus (I remember old first-edition advice for that situation: take a deep breath, close the cover of the rulebook and examine it in minute detail until you’re in the frame of mind to fight to the last man).

Sound advice!

Although I would have been opening and closing that book many times. I think every round I used a stratagem to reroll a 1 (needing a 2) to get another 1. Lots of deep breaths.

It was a good tough fight though and a very enjoyable game, even with the loss.

However it’s hard to see what you could have done differently as going second in this mission gave me a huge advantage in the VP calculation once I’d survived that first round of shooting, as I could just run troops out to grab objectives, not caring if they got killed the following turn (how very callous – perfect for a chaos army really). I think that just because the Coldstar can run out and shoot things on turn one doesn’t mean that it always should; it would perhaps have been better used to clear me off the other rear objective, backed up by a deep strike from the crisis suits at the same time. Once again my two daemon engines demonstrated a truly disgusting level of resilience and absorbed a lot of fire that could otherwise have taken out my (slightly) squishier units

Overall though, three decent victories gave me the tournament title on my first attempt! But I’m well aware that I had some big slugs of lucky dice-rolling. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Kasfunatu for hosting us and all three generals (and old friends) for helping me with rules queries over the last few months as I (over)prepared. I wonder if they regret that now… 

And now I am looking forward to some rematches. Maybe I should buy another couple of Bloat-drones ;-)

Pootle loves it when a plan comes together (difficult to tell, but the miniature is chomping on a cigar)

You are very welcome, and look forward to another bash at some point. Although next time, you are not vetoing my Y’vahra. :)
_______________________________________________________________________________

The Second Law

Battalion detachment

·       Daemon Prince of Nurgle (HQ)
Double Malefic Talons, Wings
Relic: The Suppurating Plate
Powers: Putrescent Vitality

·       Malignant Plaguecaster (HQ)
Relic: The Pandemic Staff
Powers: Miasma of Pestilence, Blades of Putrifaction

·       11 x Cultists (Troops)
Autoguns, heavy stubber

·       10 x Cultists (Troops)
Autoguns, heavy stubber

·       7 x Plague Marines (Troops)
2 x Flails of Corruption; 1 x Blight Launcher; 4 x  boltguns

·       6 x Plague Marines (Troops)
2 x Blight Launcher; 4 x boltguns

·       6 x Plague Marines (Troops)
2 x Plasma guns; 4 x boltguns

·       1 x Chaos Spawn (Fast)

·       1 x Chaos Spawn (Fast)

·       Foetid Bloat-drone (Fast)
Plaguespitters

·       Plagueburst Crawler (Heavy)
Plaguespitters

Vanguard detachment

·       Chaos Lord (HQ)Combi-plasma, Power fist

·       Biologus Putrifier (Elite)Warlord: Arch-contaminator

·       Foul Blightspawn (Elite)

·       Helbrute (Elite)Power scourge, Twin lascannon

Points: 1500 | Battalion + Vanguard - Relic: 8 CPs


T'Pau

Battalion - Bork'an Sept

·       Cadre Fireblade (HQ)
Markerlight

·       Commander in XV85 Enforcer Battlesuit (HQ)
4 x Missile pod, 2 x MV7 Marker Drone

·       5 x Breacher Team (Troops)
Shas'ui, Markerlight, Pulse blaster

·       5 x Strike Team (Troops)
Shas'ui, Markerlight, Pulse blaster

·       5 x Strike Team (Troops)
Shas'ui, Markerlight, Pulse blaster

·       DX6 'Remora' Stealth Drone w/ Seeker missile (Flyer)
2 x Long-barrelled burst cannon, Seeker missile

·       DX6 'Remora' Stealth Drone w/ Seeker missile (Flyer)
2 x Long-barrelled burst cannon, Seeker missile

Vanguard: Vior'la Sept

·       Commander in XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit (HQ)2 x Fusion blaster, Missile pod, Shield generator

·       DX-4 Technical Drones (Elite)

·       Firesight Marksman (Elite)

·       XV8 Crisis Battlesuits (Elite)
3 x MV1 Gun Drone, 2 x MV4 Shield Drone, MV7 Marker Drone
Shas'ui - Cyclic ion blaster, Flamer, Shield generator
Shas'ui - Flamer, Fusion blaster, Shield generator
Shas'ui - Drone controller, Flamer, Plasma rifle, XV8-02 Crisis Iridium battlesuit

Outrider: T'au Sept

·       Commander in XV85 Enforcer Battlesuit (HQ)Advanced targeting system, 2 x Cyclic ion blaster, Fusion blaster, 2 x MV4 Shield Drones, Vectored manoeuvring thrusters

·       Darkstrider (HQ)

·       5 x Pathfinder Team (Fast)
Shas'ui, Markerlight

·       Tactical Drones (Fast)
2 x MV1 Gun Drone, MV4 Shield Drone, MV7 Marker Drone

·       Tactical Drones (Fast)
2 x MV1 Gun Drone, MV4 Shield Drone, MV7 Marker Drone

·       XV88 Broadside Battlesuits (Heavy)
3x MV8 Missile Drone
Shas'ui - 2 x Smart missile system, Heavy rail rifle, Seeker missile, Shield generator
Shas'ui - 2 x Smart missile system, Drone controller, Heavy rail rifle

Points: 1500 | Battalion + Vanguard + Outrider: 10 CPs