After a really fun game against Ultramarines (see batrep here), my last game of the last King in the North was against Alchemist Dave and his stunning T'au list.
Masque of the Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and Purple Death
Same list as before obviously:
- Troupe Master leading a Troupe of five Harlequins
- Troupe Master leading a Troupe of five Harlequins
- Troupe Master leading a Troupe of five Harlequins
- Shadowseer leading a Troupe of five Harlequins
- Death Jester
- 2 Skyweaver Jetbikes (Haywire Cannon and Zephyrglaives)
- 2 Skyweaver Jetbikes (Haywire Cannon and Zephyrglaives)
- Spiritseer
- Wraithlord (Bright Lances and Ghostglaive)
- Wraithlord (Bright Lances and Ghostglaive)
1,250 points
T'au
- Ethereal (Warlord) leading 10 Fire Warriors
- Cadre Fireblade leading 10 Breachers
- 10 Pathfinders
- 5 Stealth Suits
- 3 Sunforge Crisis Battlesuits
- 2 Piranhas
- 2 Broadsides
- Ghostkeel
- Riptide
Mission and deployment
The last mission was a special one: the defender deployed in a 14" radius circle in the centre (with four outer objectives on the perimeter). The attacker deployed in any or all of the four corners. At the end of the game, the defender would score 1VP for each objective they control and the attacker would score D3VPs for each one they manage to steal from the defender.
With only 12" between the armies at the start of the game and very little cover on the table, whoever got first turn was going to have a tremendous advantage - to be honest, even at the deployment stage I couldn't see this one going to five turns, it was all about killing the enemy (which was much easier to think about on the third game of the day to be honest!).
Because of the Wraithlords in the SE, Dave sensibly chose to put his army in the other three corners. He had no cover whatsoever.
Would the first turn roll-off be as decisive as we thought?
Dave won so we were about to find out...
T'au: turn 1
Yep, it was exactly as messy as we thought it would be!
I've decided not to draw up the normal maps I use for this game for reasons that will rapidly become apparent! Here's are some overhead pics from after the movement phase in turn one. Admittedly, it's hard to distinguish the T'au from the bushes; suffice to say that there were Xenos on the table but I wasn't outnumbered by Triffids quite as badly as it might appear.
The two Pirahnas flew straight into the central courtyard and unleashed their firepower at my Jetbikes, killing one unit and one in the second unit.
The Riptide walked forwards and melted one of the Wraithlords with relative ease
At the end of my turn half of my army was back in the box!
Harlequins: turn 1
I did what I could in my turn, but everything within easy reach of the enemy had been removed. I think the surviving Wraithlord and the Troupe in the East managed to get to grips with some of the enemy but it was already too little too late.
T'au: turn 2
Some of the crowd were on the pitch...and it really was all over. By the end of turn 2 I had just the Death Jester left and the game was done!
Rematch!
However, given that the game only took us about half an hour, we decided to rerack and start again. We set up exactly as we had done before (as best as we remembered) but I got to have first turn to see if it would be as one-sided in the opposite direction.
I didn't take any photos, but the short version is: it was. All four of my Troupes managed to charge into the enemy and the Jetbikes managed to have the best showing of the day with sustained hits galore followed up by plenty of devastating wounds into various vehicles.
The highlight for me was the Troupe in the South West taking down the Riptide all by themselves (Grenades plus three Fusion Pistols in melta range plus devastating wounds in melee proving rather effective).
Dave did make a better showing of it than I did, managing to struggle on into turn 3 this time, so a lot more evenly matched than the first outing (ha!) but once again a tabling was on the cards if we had played all the way through to turn 5.
Locker room
That was a hell of a way to end the event! With the draw, we both knew that a strong shooting army versus a strong melee army was always going to swing hard one way or the other, and the nature of the mission really emphasised that.
Kudos to Dave for letting me play out the alternate dimension version of the game afterwards (even though we pretty much knew what was going to happen) - I really enjoyed rolling more dice and seeing exactly what my clowns could do.
I have to say that I was bowled over by Dave's beautiful army - some T'au schemes can end up a little plastic-looking but even aside from the phenomenal (and serendipitous bases), Dave's paint work is fantastic.
There were gorgeous armies right across the room (one of my very favourite things to do at events like this is wander around and see so many amazingly painted models), which made it all the more special when my Quins were awarded Best Painted Army!
Even better than that however was that I'd brought my son to his very first event (with a thematic Raven Guard army he's painted himself over the last few months). He'd been a little nervous about things beforehand, but was absolutely buzzing after his games despite losing his first two and managing to squeak an exciting win his third (in the wooden-spoon match-up). I'm incredibly grateful to the fantastic people in the room who were all out to have fun. It really says a lot for Brapscallion and Sultan for organising this. Thanks guys!
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