Tau VS orks, 1500 points, pic heavy

[St Loke]

TAU VS ORKS - 1500 points

Mission: Seize Grounds
Deployment: Spearhead

Cadre St Loke:
Shas el with BC (burst cannon) MP (Missile Pod) And Multitracker
Shas el with TL MP and Flamer

3X Crisis suits with BC MP, and Multitracker

3X Crisis Suits with TL MP and Flamers

10 Kroot and 3 Kroot hounds

10 Kroot and 7 kroot hounds

6 Firewarriors

3 Broadsides, with TA, 1 team leader with Target lock and 2 Shield Drones

3 Broadsides, with TA, 1 team leader with Target lock and 2 Shield Drones

Railhead with Disruption pod and multi tracker.

Piranha light skimmer with FB TA and Disruption pod

As you may see this is not an optimal list. It lacks mobility and it really lacks pathfinders to make those broadsides effective. It's not utterly crap, but it's not awesomesauce either.

Tawaaaghs Thraka and his merry men:
Ghazgkull Thraka

Big Mek
Kustom force field

5 Lootas w/Deffguns

9 Nobz
9x ’eavy armour
3x Bosspole
Painboy
4x Cyborks
2x Power klaw
2x Big Choppa
Shoota/skorcha kombi-weapon
Twin-linked shoota
Trukk (dedicated transport)
-Red paint job
-Armour plates
-Reinforced ram
-Boarding plank

12 ’Ard Boyz
’eavy armour
Nob
-Power klaw
-Bosspole
Big Shoota
Stikkbombz
Trukk (dedicated transport)
-Red paint job
-Armour plates
-Reinforced ram

18 Shoota-Boyz
Nob
-Bosspole
-Power klaw
Big Shoota

10 Gretchin
Runtherd

2 Deffkoptas
2x Twin-linked rokkit launcha

2 Deffkoptas
2x Twin-linked rokkit launcha

2 Deffkoptas
2x Twin-linked rokkit launcha

My friendly opponent, Tawaaagh has just started to collect his army. And this list reflect his miniature collection so far. It's perhaps not a very good idea to bring Thraka in to a 1500 points match, and 2 trukks as the only source of transport is perhaps a bit bold. Though, list making is only a part of the battle.

Deployment:
We roll a seize ground mission and get four objectives with a spearhead deployment. We place the objective pretty close to the two in open terrain, one on a hill and one in a ruin. He wins the roll off and opts to go first choosing, and he picks the top left corner due to the three storage high ruin that sits in the zone. He places the trukk with Thraka, big mek and the nobz behind a tower ruin near his table edge, and the one with the boyz right behind a midfield ruin. Lootas go in to the high ruin and the gretchins are placed behind the tower ruin near the thraka-truk. He deploys two of the koptasquads and outflanks one.

I castle up in my corner and try to place as much as possible outside the range of the sweet deffgun embrace. My Piranha is placed recklessly as near his trukks as legal with flamersuits right behind it. Both my broadside squads have good firing lanes to three of the four objectives, and the railhead is placed near midfield to threaten that flank. I hold my crappy fire warriors in reserve and outflank my largest kroot squad.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-_...2017.13.49.jpg
Deployment overview

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n...2017.13.57.jpg
Ork deployment

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...2017.14.06.jpg
Tau Deployment

In retrospect I made a mistake of being to passive in my placement of the one broadside squad, I should have made sure that I had good firing lanes to all four objectives. The ork player should have predicted that I would castle up (I R TAU, ALL I DO I SHOOT AND RUN) and placed his lootas with good firing lanes further ahead. I also thinks he should have outflanked all of his koptas, but that's just my humble opinion. The trukk placement couldn't really be any other, there was not enough LOS blocking terrain to do anything else. But he has first turn and the trukks might get to be of some use, unless I...

SEIZE INITIATIVE.

Tau turn 1:
In the movement phase I just position my hammerhead and drive my piranha 24" to block of the trukk with Thraka in it (in case my railguns fail me).

They did not fail me; I blew up the two truks with my broadsides. On kareens 11 inches away from my deployment and kills half of the boyz squad inside, the remaining boyz fails the pinning test. The trukk with Traka and the nobz simply just blows up and everybody makes it.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F...2017.14.15.jpg
TRUKK VS BROADSIDES

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Q...2018.23.13.jpg
Boyz gets pinned

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-C...2017.39.23.jpg
Tau movement and shooting...look no Trukks?

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t...2017.39.29.jpg
Trukk have kareened back 11 inches, killing 7 orks in the process

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-u...2017.39.34.jpg
Thraka and his mötley crew are stranded

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...2017.40.38.jpg
Overview Tau turn 1

Ork turn 1:
He moves everything forward, one kopta squad turboboost along his table edge towards me, and the other squad goes along my table edge. Everything shoots at the Piranha without doing anything to it, the Thraka has had enough and assaults the damn things and punches it back to Tau-heaven.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-s...2018.10.48.jpg
Overview Ork turn 1

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-j...2018.23.02.jpg
Thraka VS Piranha

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-K...2018.11.02.jpg
Koptas heading for Tau lines

Tau turn 2:
No reserves arrives, nothing much happens. I shoot at his boys, the railhead scatter away. Kill a few nobz with my broadsides. The Crisis suits re position them self in the assault phase.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-B...2018.23.33.jpg
Railhead scans the battlefield looking for something to blow up

Ork turn 2:
All his units runs forward. The koptas try to blow up the Railhead but fails. He detaches the big mek from the Nob squad and joins the large shoota squad instead.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...2018.23.07.jpg
Mek joins the boyz squad

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-h...2018.25.01.jpg
Nobz fibble with the trashed piranha

Tau Turn 3:
The Kroot arrives! Outflanks on the left table edge. I make a horrible decision and decide to assault the small boyz squad that lost it trukk in turn 1. I roll a 3 on the difficult terrain test and fail to make it into assault. WHY DID I NOT SHOOT GODDAMNIT! Apart from that I continue with the orkocide, more nobz, boys and one of the koptas near my table edge return to their fungal state. The remaining kopta fail his morale save and runs.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N...2018.23.47.jpg
Let the Orkocide commence

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-R...2019.11.45.jpg
WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SHOOT?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-y...2018.56.59.jpg
"Bet they cant reach us up here"

Ork turn 3:
Everything green (except Kroot) moves towards the Tau castling position once again. The Kopta regroup. One odd thing happens as the ork player forgets to move his boyz that's in standoff with my outflanking kroot. He remembers them in the assault phase and rolls to assault through difficult terrain...and fails. The showdown continues! Lootas have done nothing sensible all day, so they start to climb down from their ruin to fekk up the kroots!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i...2018.38.05.jpg
FORWAARD!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W...2018.56.45.jpg
The showdown of the idiots. Forever divided by bad dice rolls

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-2...2019.11.49.jpg
Lootas out on a stroll

Tau Turn 4:
Firewarriors Arrive, they head towards the objective on the hill. The Kroot moves into difficult terrain and prepares to assault the choppa boys (DONT DO IT! SHOOT IT INSTEAD!). His large squad of 18 shoota boyz with a KFF-mek vaporizers to SMS fire, kroot rifles, Burst cannons and Missile pods. The tau long range guns are good, but the close range guns are totaly awesome against orks. Firewarriors rapidfire the remaining kopta near my table edge and kills it. The Kroot assaults the choppa boyz (NO U DIDNT!) and loses with 1 wound, but against all odds they don't break.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...2019.38.09.jpg
My trusted Firewarriors arrive

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m...2018.24.10.jpg
The everlasting Kroot kongoline, the only kongoline you can see from the moon

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...2019.11.40.jpg
Overview Tau Turn 4. This is before I shoot up the yellow boy squad in the midfield. After the shooting phase in turn 4 it's gone.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4...2019.37.26.jpg
Suicide charge..*sigh*

Ork Turn 4:
WAAAAAGH or whatever. This is the turn it all goes green. The lootas continue their climb and runs towards their battling boyfriends (?) that have a serious case of kroot. The outflanking kopta arrive and comes on the right table edge where the Tau are all castled up, he shoots the broadsides and charge em with the koptas (no buzzsaw? Taste the 2+ save). Thraka and the nobz charges my Railhead and wrecks it. But the most important thing this turn is that he hides his gretchins behind impassable terrain, not far from the midfield objective....The Kroot dies as the lootas charge into the melee.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-7...2019.37.52.jpg
Before the WAAAGH

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-f...2020.08.40.jpg
The Koptas arrive and charges the broadsides

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-m...2020.08.44.jpg
"They can reach us down here though"

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V...2020.08.51.jpg
In case of kroot; apply lootas evenly over the infected area

Tau Turn 5:
I discover that the gretchins are too close to the midfield objective. I suddenly realize that I MIGHT LOSE! I move my suits towards the midfield objective and hope that a turn 6 might arrive. My firewarriors takes the objective on the hill. The flamesuits burns away on Thraka and the nobz without any success. WS 2? Inititativ 2? Broadsides don't care, they kick koptASS anyway. The kopta breaks and heads home.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-X...2020.20.45.jpg
"F'ck you stats, I'll win if I wanna"

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6...2020.21.22.jpg
Suits flames, then JPJ backs and beholds as the nobz take the objective.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-F...2020.21.30.jpg
"OMFG! WE FORGOT ABOUT THE GRETCHINS!!"

Ork turn 5:
He runs the gretchins out on midfield and takes the objective (WHY DID I NOT SEE THAT EARLIER OMFG). Thraka and the scoring nobz take an other objective, my kongoline kroot holds one objective, and my crappy firewarriors holds an other objective.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9...2020.21.37.jpg
Hill objective

We roll to see if we get a turn 6, a 2 shows up and we shake hands and it's a draw.

My Army list: Subpar, I lacked mobility, I really missed pathfinders. It's hard to make a good allcomers list in 1500 points. I could have taken 3 railheads, but I didn't want to tailor a list, I just wanted to make a solid one, though I failed at that.
My tactics: I think I played pretty solid in some aspects (deployment), but failed miserably in others (opting to charge with kroot, FORGETTING about the gretchins midfield). If I could go back in time i'd ignore the nobz totaly and instead shot up all boyz and gretchins.
Tau of the match: None really stood out, Kroot made a good job of holding the objective and the SMS really made slush of the orks though.
The most Taurrible: Crisis suits. Though I used them really subpar, they should have been used more direct.
What did I learn: play the mission idiot.

Big thanks to Tawaaagh who's a new player and a great opponent!

[Seabo]

Liked the writeup. A draw is still good lol. Definitely hard to shoehorn everything you want in 1500.

[St Loke]

Thanks for the comment Seabo! Some feedbacks helps the motivation. It's a bid sad that one cant link pictures directly into the forum here, but I guess there is a good reason for that.

It's quite hard to make a good allcomerslist in 1500, and when you meet a deathstar unit like he had I got a bit blind and wasted way to many shots at it. Live and learn!

[Grimgork]

Nice report and it seems that it was a funny good game. I liked the writeup very much and I hope you will write more reports in the future :-)

[fluffymcfluff]

Nice batrep, keep em' coming. I would also like to add, nice paint on both armies, well done.

[St Loke]

Thanks for the kind comments!

Going out to play necrons tomorrow, it will be an other friendly match, so I will be able to take lots of pics.

Is the ratio of pics/text ok? Or should I add more pics?

[GingerBalls]

I thought it was well paced and pic'd. Good job and good luck against those necrons!

[St Loke]

Had a match against a necron player today who mixed up the WBB rules. The confusion made the game chaotic and a bit uninteressting. My next matchup is a small tournament I'm organizing. I will be playing White Scars (count as blood angels) and there will be more batreps from that event.

Here are some pics from the necron match:

[Junkinggravy]

Nice list and battle.
I probably would have gone with a second RailHead, rather than the squad of Broadsides for a battle against Orks. The Blast weapon would be great for them and you have less heavy vehicles to worry about compared to other armies. But if you're like me and don't tailor a list to a given opponent, that is definitely the way to go.

One final suggestion. On your commander, I would suggest taking a positional relay. With that you can almost assure you get your reserves right away if that is your intention. if you have multiple units waiting to outflank or deepstrike however, you can only bring one in so you wouldn't be able to mass outflank Kroot.
Not bad overall. In my opinion, Tau are in need of an update, but they can still fight as you've shown. But a draw is a victory in my book.

[Far Seer]

Cool report. It's good to see Tau are still being played.