Double Elimination

The second game Mike and I played on Tuesday.  Somehow he managed to roll spearhead/annihilation again, which probably should have been an indication that the dice weren't going to be with Mike for this game.  We swapped back to our traditional table corners and shuffled the terrain a bit to try and make it as different as possible from the game we'd just finished.  We started playing at about 2120, and Mike had told his wife he'd be home by 2130, so we made a conscious choice to play as quickly as we could and as a result there are a few "missing" pictures.

Deployment complete.  Such a no-nonsense look of intensity.  TSM + Chapter Master behind the central plateau, TSM squad embarked in the Rhino.  Shas'el Fireknife and elite Deathrains parked pretty far forward.  Not entire sure what I was thinking, there.  Broadside as far "up" the long table edge as allowed, and as far back as possible to avoid the early Zerg rush.  Kroot Carnivores + Hounds infiltrated with the intention of running and bum-rushing in Turn 2.

Middle of turn 1.  Not much I could do given Mike's counter-deployment, so just some movement.

End of turn 1.  TSMs and CM started coming around the plateau, but the CM's orbital bombardment scattered into uselessness instead of taking out the XV88.  To make up for it, the combat-squadded TSMs gunned down a Deathrain; I almost miffed up the wound allocation and didn't remove one of the Deathrains, but I caught myself before turn 2 started.

Middle of turn 2.  The Rhino hadn't popped smoke, so the Fireknife and the surviving Deathrain got a bit over-excited and let it rip, but they were largely ineffective.  The XV88 joined in the part, but between them all they only came away with a weapon destroyed and an immobilized.  The Kroot just sorta...stood there, not sure what to do with a Rhino in their face.

End of turn 2.  Kroot BBQ, anyone?  The flamer-wielding TSM from the Rhino turned 11 of 12 members of the Kroot squad into charcoal, and bolter-fire took care of the remaining one.  The surviving Deathrain had a rain of death poured in his direction and also went down.  Things are looking mighty grim for the cadre at the moment; I've only got 3 models on the field of battle, and one of them is a gun drone.

Middle of turn 3.  I managed to roll my reinforcements on and scored a mont'ka ("killing blow") on the Rhino. So now we've got an isolated TSM squad squeezed between the cratered wreckage of their rhino and a tall hill, and the tattered remains of a pair of combat squads that are within rapid fire range of a plasma rifle and a FW squad, as well as the Devilfish's burst cannon and gun drones.  Something is missing from the sequence of events, because the Chapter Master is gone from the field but I would have sworn I hit him with the XV88 and popped the instant-kill shot through his Iron Halo.  Based on the geometry, though, sheer weight of fire from the shas'el Fireknife must've done him in, so I guess the one-shot was the previous game.

End of turn 3.  The full TSM squad runs to support their lone comrade, who, in turn, charges the FWs but is too saddened by the loss of so many battle-brothers and isn't able to bust and blue-skin heads.

From here on out I'm not sure which turns the pics  are from; we were trying to get the game done and moved pretty quickly.  It did roll all the way into turn 7, so we're definitely missing a few.  Mike's dice also go frigid on him; for the remainder of the game his TSMs shoot wildly inaccurately and their power armor decides to take a vacation and turn into speedos.  I don't know that I couldn't have won, but I didn't win so much as Mike was defeated by his own dice.

I think the is the end of turn 5, but I'm not sure.  The shas'el and the Devilfish take refuge behind the plateau, while the FWs stay put to get their single 30" shot, should the game continue.  Which it does.

Somewhere in turn 6.  I have no idea what's going on here.  Devilfish detached its gun drones behind the central plateau??  FWs don't care about a 4+ cover save the DFish is granting the TSMs, since a TSM's armor save is 3+.  Shas'el + FWs + DFish take a reaping of the TSM squad.

Middle of turn 7, end of game.  One of those gun drones is actually dead and the other is falling back, but hell if I can remember which or who was targeting them.  At any rate, sheer weight of fire whittles the TSMs down to nothing and the game ends with Mike being tabled.

Elevated Tensions

Escalation league, game 1.  Short version of the league:

• 500 points for 2 weeks
• 750 points for 2 weeks
• 1000 points for 1 week
• 1250 points for 1 week
• 3 game per week maximum, win/draw/loss is 3/2/1 points
• 3 points per phase for having painted army

Deployment complete.  Mission was rolled as annihilation, deployment as spearhead.  We shook things up by me deploying top-left and Mike bottom-right; just given space constraints at the table we usually do it bottom-left and top-right.  I won the roll-off and made Mike deploy first/take first turn.

Middle of turn 1.  Movement, I've got movement!  You can see that the livestream already crapped out, and we didn't bother to try to get it running again.  Mike's orbital bombardment, centered atop the main body of the Kroot Carnivores and Hounds, scattered to the upper-right and only clipped a single Carnivore, obliterating it.

End of turn 1.  Not too sure why I left my XV8s up there out of cover.  The Rhino got shakened/stunned, but is still protecting a full 10-man TSM squad.  The Kroot got a bit nervous at the pretty light and sound show that squashed one of their buddies and decided to try and close the range to the TSMs and the Chapter Master.

Middle of turn 2.  The combat squad has broken away from the Rhino's protective shadow to attempt to close into bolter range of my shas'el.  The Chapter Master ran toward the Kroot, getting nearly full movement out of his extra D6".  The sad panda face Mike is making is because his missile launcher armed TSM didn't splatter my XV88.

End of turn 2.  The Kroot formation shuffled backwards a few steps, though I'm not really sure why; they couldn't stay out of the Chapter Master's assault range while staying within rapid fire range.  The XV88 shook/stunned the Rhino again, while the combined fire of the Deathrains and the shas'el caused enough casualties for a morale check.  The TSMs failed and broke for the table edge, but we both knew they'd auto-regroup immediately.

Middle of turn 3.  The Chapter Master charged into the mass of Kroot, but his faith in the Emperor was misplaced and between 22 attacks he took and failed to save enough wounds and went down, accompanied by 2 Kroot.  The TSMs at his back were bored of not shooting and came forward to also engage the Kroot, while the Rhino disgorged it's cargo and the broken TSM squad regrouped and moved up, firing their bolters at the shas'el.  You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the ML-wielding TSM is peeking around the Rhino's flank to get a shot at the XV88 next turn.

End of turn 3.  My reserves finally roll onto the field, scooting forward 12" and disgorging 6 FWs.  Thanks to the miracle of modern Tau technology, the Devilfish's multi-tracker allows it and its drones to fire after a 12" move, and the combined weight of fire from the Devilfish, drones, and the debarked Fire Warriors gun downs the TSMs.  The XV88 finally gets a decent shot against the Rhino, destroying the storm bolter, while the XV8s hold position.

Middle of turn 4.  Not much movement, as an oppressive sense of dread settles across the Space Marines.  Somewhere in turn 3 or 4 a wound was placed on the shas'el, but I don't remember when or by who.  A scattered frag missile clips a Fire Warrior, sending him on his way to wherever dead Tau go.

End of turn 4.  My XV88 scores a devastating hit against the Rhino and secondary explosions rip it apart in a fiery spray of wreckage.  The XV8s fire their various weapons, but I don't recall how effective it was; doesn't look to be terribly effective from the number of models still in the TSM squad.  The FWs clamber back aboard the Devilfish, and it and the Kroot surge towards the TSMs.  In the grim darkness of my dining room table there is only impending doom, and Mike concedes the game.

This game came down to a few bad rolls; the krak missiles never took out my XV88, the initial orbital bombardment only killed a single Kroot, and the Kroot managed to kill the Chapter Master in a single round of melee.  Any of those rolls going in Mike's favor would have drastically changed the game.

A Moral Victory

Battle 02 was played last night vs. Mike’s (aka amrbean) Space Marine chapter.  Points limit for the evening was set at 750; he came in at exactly 750 while I was a mere 749.  We rolled Capture and Control for the mission, Spearhead for the deployment, and I won the roll-off, choosing to deploy first and take the first turn.  Mike set his control point in the far corner of his two legal table edges (using his wedding band), and I offset mine a bit towards center to take advantage of a bit of blocking terrain (using an Ethereal painted by my Scottish friend Tom, who first introduced me to 40k several years ago via the original Dawn of War RTS).  I was slightly preoccupied being Dada, so to get things rolling Mike setup the terrain features for both of us, and he allowed me to move one of the trees down near his table edge to beef up the foliage there (for a plan of mine that didn’t work out).

It was with no small amount of trepidation in my mind (and a hungry 3-month-old in my arms) that we shook hands and had at it.  We were so absorbed in playing the game that we didn’t take pictures at some key moments, but whatever; we’re still new at this.

Pre-Game
Mike is setting up terrain.  That upside-down-bowl looks vaguely like a Tau building, don’t you think? We’ve already deployed, so this is effectively also a top-of-Turn 1 tableau.  It didn’t matter (as he never fired them), but my Broadside has a Twin-Linked Plasma Rifle rather than the Smart Missile System as modeled.  (I was disappointed with the Hammerhead’s SMS; 24” range was awfully short for my heavy support long-range guy).  We livestreamed the game via justin.tv; that’s what the Macbook is for.  Next time we’ll even try to have the audio working.

Turn 2 (Yes, we forgot to take pics during Turn 1.  Shaz’bot.)
This is the bottom of the turn; I think Mike is looking up some Sniper-related rules at the moment as he gets ready to shoot at my Broadside.  Notice the lack of visible ASMs; Hammerhead submunition rounds took a pretty bad toll already, and the survivors are using the Tau building as cover during their advancement on the Devilfish.   Look closely; see the beautiful patterns all that lovely smoke is making as it billows out of the smashed Predator?  I can’t remember if it was the Hammerhead or the Broadside, but I scored a Crew – Stunned in Turn 1 and a Destroyed – Explodes! in Turn 2.  Now Mike knows how my Devilfish felt in Battle 01.  Somewhere in here I completely forgot about the Kroot for a turn, which let Mike amble on up and chip out a model with his Razorback’s Storm Bolter.

Turn 3
ASMs were unsuccessful in their grenade attack on the Devilfish, who promptly skimmed the hell out of there.  This is where I failed to win the game by not making a beeline for Mike’s objective; I let myself get distracted by the smell of Space Marine blood in the air and worry overmuch about the Land Speeder (in my defense it was armed with a melta weapon).

A few different shots of the end of my Turn 3 player turn.  Scouts dead, but not before Pinning my Broadside.  We didn’t want to stop to look it up, so we agreed that he would’ve been pinned before making the fall-back morale check and then later that at the end of his pinning he was back in play instead of making another morale check for falling back or not; either way it was a moot point, I don’t think he ever managed to get another salvo off.

Turn 4
I moved the Hammerhead in to cockblock the Razorback from having a straight shot at my objective, having remembered that it was crammed to the rim with a full 10-man TSM squad.  That last ASM had managed to shove a grenade up my Devilfish’s tailpipe, which removed any hope of an outright scenario-victory for me.

I managed to wreck the Razorback during my shooting phase, and you can see the TSMs piling out.

Turn 5
I’m sorry, is that a Direct Hit on the scatter dice in the midst of the TSM squad?  Why yes!  Yes it is.  Actually it’s my second direct hit of the night, the first having been earlier vs. the ASMs.

Those Kroot are getting awfully close to the Captain over there on the far side of the table.

Turn 6
Mike rolled us into Turn 6; good for me, not as good for him.  Except that somehow my stupid far-sighted Hammerhead managed to miss the Land Speeder while blocking LOS for the Broadside.  Trying to save his Shas’la, my Shas’el assaulted in and took out 2 TSMs.  There are plasma blasts and missiles landing just about everywhere except on that damn Land Speeder!

Somehow that single damn Kroot passed his leadership check vs. morale.  A Shaper in the making?

The surviving TSMs assault and manage to take out one of my Shas’el’s drones while the Land Speeder scores a second Immobilized hit on the Devilfish (I think Mike was trying to blow it up in order to inflict casualties on the Fire Warriors), taking out the burst cannon.  And the Captain didn’t have any trouble repelling the Kroot’s assault and taking his head off.  Ah well, I guess he wasn’t shaping up after all.  Ha ha.

End of Game
I roll for Turn 7 and come up short; the game ends immediately in a tactical draw, with no one controlling any Control Points.  It’s only just now occurring to me, 2.5 hours after we finished playing, that neither of us technically controlled our own control points.  Oops?  There’s so much to remember.

Post-game analysis, bragging, and commiserating.

Conclusion
This is a damn fun game.

I was convinced going into it that Mike was going to mop the floor with me, but most of my units made good turns of the bad tactical situations I put them in.  I'm laughing (through my yawning) at the fact that neither of us was controlling our own point, but live and learn.  There was plenty of fumbling for the rulebooks, but our fundamental grasp was orders of magnitude better than it was just 10 or so days ago when we played our "prologue" introductory 550 point game.  Tau army lists seem to work a lot of the edge cases (complex units with multiple-wound and single-wound components: can I put a wound on a Shas'el two turns in a row, then put a third wound on a drone during a subsequent turn in order to save the Shas'el?) which it falls on me to be clear about.  I also lost sight of the actual victory conditions early in the game, which led to enough blunders that it snowballed into me needing a complete kill in order to win.

We need more terrain.  I won't be buying any, but even though I consciously tried to bring out lots of stuff to use as terrain features the table was sparse compared to what I see in other battle reports.  That's something else we'll get to over time, I'm sure.

Mike purchased Planetary Empires last week and brought the rulebook for me to skim.  The elegantly simple campaign rules it has look pretty damn fun.  We're going to try and get a campaign going, but it might be difficult to drum up another player who's willing to approach it as, "Let's play a game together!" rather than, "Let's see who I can crush beneath my armored boot."

All in all I feel as though I won a moral victory; I didn't lose the match outright, and I could've easily come closer to victory, if not actually achieving it, if I'd not been so caught up in bloodlust.