Green Tide Breaks on the Blue Beach

I didn't want to be obnoxious so I didn't bring the camera, but I squeezed in an escalation league game vs. Orks.  First game against someone who wasn't Mike and army that wasn't SM.  We rolled Annihilation/Spearhead (3rd time in a row that's the game I've played) and I won the roll off, choosing to have him go first.

As best I can remember his list was:

• 'Ard Boyz w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw
• Slugga Boyz w/ Rokkit Launcher w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw
• Slugga Boyz
• Warboss (attached to 2nd Slugga Boy squad)

We played on a 4x4 table with a decent amount of terrain; from my table edge I was bottom-right and he was top-left.  Basically lines of buildings at each player table edge, with a central hill and a smaller one left of center.  He setup in cover as best he was able, I setup all my guns pointed in his general direction (with my shas'el far forward on the central hill, which was dumb).  Kroot in reserve, Fire Warriors disembarked but snuggled up close to the Devilfish, Broadside on the top floor of a building.

I failed to seize the initiative and it was on.

Turn 1: He ran.  I shot, and killed some boyz.

Turn 2: He ran.  I forgot to roll for the Kroot, shot, and killed some boyz.

Turn 3: He WAAAGH!'d, assaulted my DFish, and wrecked it.  I failed to roll the Kroot on, shot, and killed some boyz.  My Broadside took a dive off the building and both of his railguns popped off and his right arm broke at the shoulder joint.  Fuck.

Turn 4: The surviving 'Ard Boyz assaulted my Shas'el, killed him, and caught the gun drone in a sweeping advance.  I rolled the Kroot onto the table, and the Fire Warriors, DFish gun drones, Broadside, and Deathrains put paid to the rest of his list, though it was a near thing taking the last two wounds off the Warboss.  Poor Kroot didn't get to do a damn thing except walk up and say, "Hey guys, the Shapers sent us to serve.  Let's get this party star--oh wait, it's over.  =("

Granted it was only 500 points, but the whole game was wrapped up in less than 35 minutes.

Lessons learned:

1. Roll for your reserves, you moran!
2. Tau really do suck in melee.
3. It's best to not get overly fancy with dice-rolling multi-shot twin-linked weapons.  Trying to keep what's what straight by rolling "extra" dice at once takes more time than simply rerolling the misses.  Works fine for single-shot weapons.
4. When your Broadside is 6 inches off the table on the roof of a building be fucking careful!  They're top-heavy, and superglue doesn't really work that well on plastic-to-metal joins.