Recryption: Space Marines vs T'au

 
A new contender enters the ring!

Kas has become more available again, and seeing as one of the systems in our annual campaign is named after his home region, he thought he'd better go and liberate it from the Xenos. 

The Crypt Angels are back, and not happy about what everyone's done with the place. Like any good absentee landlord, they're taking names and unleashing flames. He and I (Kraken) played out a 2000 point game, a Assert Battlefield Dominance match in terms of the campaign, and here's what he brought:

Armoured Speartip

• 1 x Carneus Malwaur of the Crypt Angels (it's Marneus Calgar, famous Space Marine and CP farmer)
• 1 x Captain with the scout move relic (free in this list, Rylstone has his Stronghold present)
• 1 x Judiciar
• 1 x Gravis Captain
• 6 x Eradicators
• 6 x Aggressors (bolters)
• 6 Bladeguard Veterans
• 5 x Scouts, missile launcher
• 5 x Intercessors, bolt rifles and a grenade launcher
• 1 Land Raider
• 1 Land Raider Redeemer
• 1 Storm Raven
• 1 Brutalis Dreadnought

That's a hell of a list, someone has definitely kicked the hornet's nest here. What can I possibly pack to match it?

Retaliation Cadre

• 1 x Commander R'nai R'jers (it's Commander Farsight)
• 1 x Coldstorm Commander with experimental weaponry and quad fusion guns
• 1 x Enforcer Commander with triple missile launchers and a support system, plus the uppy downy relic
• 1 x Hazard Suit, twin fusion cascades
• 2 x Stormsurge Battlesuits, one with each kind of ubergun
• 2 x Broadsides, heavy rail rifles
• 1 x Piranha, fusion gun
• 10 x Fire Warriors
• 10 x Fire Warriors
• 10 x Pathfinders, triple rail rifles
• 3 x Sunforge Crisis Team
• 3 x Starscythe Crisis Team
• 3 x Fireknife Crisis Team
• 5 x Stealth Suits

That's no easy sweep either, there's a lot of gun in that. If I can get it all pointing in the right direction at the right time, I should be able to swiss the cheese heading for me. 

Mission and Deployment

It's a standard tournament game, mission cards and so on. We're deploying in fat corners and fighting over four midline objectives, the twist is the Rylstone standard (failed Battleshock costs you a mortal wound). 

All my Crisis suits start in reserve, ready to drop in. Kas goes for an aggressive frontline deployment, I huddle pathetically in the back corner of mine. Nobody wants to go first but someone has to, and it turns out to be the Crypt Angels. 

Fight!

I'll keep this short, because it was. 

As you'll hopefully be able to pick out from the map gif, despite not really wanting that first turn Kas made an extremely good fist of it. If you were expecting six Eradicators fast deploying from a Storm Raven to be quite good, you're quite right - they demolished one Stormsurge in round one with enough spare firepower to kill the Piranha as well. Aggressors surged up and ate my Stealth Team, and then the Eradicators hid back in their flier before I could get any of them. 

My deployment left me in a place where the other Stormsurge couldn't shoot anything, so it tiptoed back to hide in the corner ruin with Fire Warriors screening it. It at least managed to pop a Scout with its firework launcher; the Broadsides and Pathfinders had a go at breaking the Storm Raven and didn't do too badly, but it wasn't enough. 

That meant it kept leaping round the board Eradicating things. By the start of turn two, as the Marines closed in, I was left with a single Fire Warrior cowering in a ruin. Although I'd scored reasonably well on objectives, my kill tally was stuck on that lone Scout. 

Dropping all the Crisis teams in helped a bit! I scuffed up one Land Raider, finished off the scouts and even nearly managed to drop Calgar where he was digging up command points in the back field. He survived on a couple of wounds, though. The Bladeguard came and slaughtered his Crisis team shortly after. He did manage to take the famous hero down with him, then died, along with the rest of my army, before turn four was quite finished. Oof!

Locker Room

Always nice to see a clean sweep! I struggle with tournament layout tables a bit, I think, I'm not really used to calculating where I need to be to get clean firing lines or charges. I like the symmetry and no-nonsense approach the layouts have, but I also find it doesn't feel very Warhammery somehow. Too much like the online 3-lane MOBA games in a way, very fair-minded and all, but loses something of the toy soldiers in space feel I like. 

Right - that firmly puts the Crypt Angels back on the map. Kas has chosen to put his own Dominance in Rylstone up one points and take the xenos down one, which doesn't actually change much. Entering the campaign a bit late, they are chasing the board, so by way of a bit of underdoggery he will score a one-off bonus of five points if he can get the Xenos down to zero locally in Rylstone.