Here's the set up:
Capture and Control, Spearhead, 1750.
Goals: Training game for the Great Escape Games' Contest of Champions 1750 tourney. Both my brother and I are trying out some recent tweaks to the lists. For him, it's a no frills mechanized army with meltas,heavy flamers and late game outflanking. For me, I'm exploring the possibilities of Piranhas and Monats Deep Striking: late game objective rushing.
Marc loads everything but the Vendetta and Valk onto the board. I place a scoring Devilfish with Firewarriros, the Hammerhead, both Broadside teams and the HQ goes as close to "Boot Hill" as possible. Two DF, Piranha and the three Monats are in reserve. It seems clear we're both going for a late game rush on our opponent's objectives.
Marc has turn one and immediately begins pounding away at the HQ. I loose both bodyguards. Unlike most other players I face, Marc's not ignoring my Broadsides and makes good a few direct hits to start working on them. On my turn, I launch missiles and Plasma riffle from the HQ with no real effect. The Broadsides and Hammerhead begin dismantling the Chimeras to get to the troops inside. One pops and dumps the survivors. The Hammerhead delivers a pie full of sub-munition and his troops eat it up.
Turn two: The Vendeta arrives outflanking opposite side of my Objective. He begins to push across his deployment zone with three Chimeras then his las-can teams pulp the Commander. I loose a drone off Beta Team Broadsides as well. I manage two Monats to Dead Center behind his Vendetta. The 'El AFPs the deployed team and the TL MP immobilizes the Vendetta; Broadside Beta then Shakes it. On the IG side of the board, I focus my Railguns on the advancing Chimeras. Lots of cover on the board, my set up is pretty terrain heavy...which some would complain about being too distracting.
Turn Three to Five: I'm seeing an effective draw here. With his Valk arriving then wrecked, the loss of one of my Broadside teams and the shredding of both my Monats, its down to his creeping Chimeras and the second of my Devilfish with the Piranha as support. In a selfish act of preservation, I don't race the Piranha up as originally intended. Bad choice, it becomes the focus of IG fire for the next two turns until it's demise in turn five. In the meantime, the Tau have managed to cripple two of the three remaining Chimeras and fend off an assault of IG with Firewarriors. The FW get cut down by return fire in turn six after routing the IG, but the decidedly non-Tau move pays off again and draws fire away from my castle. By turn Six, Marc has run a Chimera right up to my doorstep. The Devilfish, Broadsides and Hammerhead go Robotech on the disembarked passengers and take them out to the man in the fifth turn. I've no pressence even near his deployment zone let alone his Objective; not for trying with one last Monat's attempt to deepstrike and fail. The game goes to turn six and here we see the Tau do what they're not supposed to be able to do. The last Chimera makes a 12" rush on my Objective. Railguns fail to do anything but shake and stun. Then the Broadsides assault...out of six dice, one penns and rolls a five. The game draws.
