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The beacon from the Inquisitorial vessel broadcast into the black reaches of space. This far out from the core, signals were few and far between, and it stood out easily. Search parties quickly formed, but not all parties had the best interests of the Inquisitor in mind...
Short campaign, interesting variety The first game was the combat patrol. We lined up to attempt to grab 4 counters. 3 of them were decoys, and the fourth was the Inquisitor or a member of his retinue (Servo-Skulls, Acolyte, etc.) I took on Thousand Sons (sidebar--why am I hitting such tough opponents? something like 6 out of my past 10 games have been against armies tougher than standard Space Marines. Deathguardx2, Necrons, Deathwing, Thousand Sonsx2--with Sisters, Space Wolves, Space Marines and Imperial Guard to fill in the rest. Yeesh.) I had decided prior to the game that I needed to 1) Have more FireWarriors when possible. In 5th edition, Troops are the only units that can claim objectives, and I've had some issues with losing games due to not having any Troops left. 2) Protect my FireWarriors. As mentioned above, I need these guys to stick around and they can be pretty fragile. 3) Be more aggressive with my Crisis Suits and all the non-FireWarrior portions of my army. I have tried to preserve them in previous battles, which has limited how much of their firepower is available. Given these thoughts, when I drew up my list, I put in 2 teams of 6 FireWarriors to cover number 1 on my list. I then added 2 teams of 2 Fireknife (Plasma Rifle and Missile Pod with Multi-tracker) Crisis Suits with a Team Leader in each squad having a Target Array for BS4. For 400pts, that's a good amount of mobility, flexibility and firepower. My opponent, being a Thousand Sons player, didn't have much choice for 400pts that included a squad of Troops and didn't include heavy vehicles or models with more than 2 Wounds. He went with 2 squads of 5 (I think) Rubric Marines and a sorceror in each, with the Sorcerors having the Bolt of Change power (I think, it's the lascannon-like power.) That's a lot of firepower with AP3 Bolters and Slow and Purposeful movement and it's a lot of resilience with their armor and invulnerable saves.
Basically, the game was initially fairly static (or at least very slow and purposeful.) I kept my FireWarriors behind cover and at very long range to keep them safe. My Crisis teams jumped around cover to maximize their firepower, but still keep slightly safe from the AP3 bolter fire. His two squads moved up, checking out 3 of the 4 counters. (I managed to check the other one early in the game.) The last counter, of course, was the important one, and by luck of the draw, was the Inquisitor himself. We were at turn 3 or 4 at that point, and I'd wiped out all of one squad and killed one of the rubric marines from the second squad. I skipped forward with my Crisis Suits and even moved up my FireWarriors to get better firing positions. For the most part, my fire bounced off their armor and invulnerable saves, but on turn 6, they missed 4 saves in a row and the whole team went down, leaving me alone with the Inquisitor. The forces of order and disorder had been fairly even up to that point, but the Inquisitor put us over the top. While I hadn't needed both teams of FireWarriors for claiming objectives, I did manage to keep them safe and alive through the whole game. I'd also managed to play a little more aggressively with my Fireknife teams, which is how I managed to do so much damage to those Rubric Marines. Next up will be a Killteam scenario. Since the forces of Order found the Inquisitor himself, we will be the brutes and the forces of disorder will have to try to kidnap him with their killteams. So, we looked up the rules for Killteams. Interestingly, Tau Killteam Brute Squads consist of 3 Gundrones, and we get 3 squads of them. 18 Gundrones? I don't have nearly that many. Eventually we worked out that either I can proxy FireWarriors for Gun Drones, or (with opponent permission) I can use FireWarriors instead of the Drones. Looking at the rules, however, drones are better than FW for this, since their Initiative is much better, so they can spot the Killteam more easily. Now my questions is, what to use for the Boss? In the Tau entry under bosses, it says to use a Shas'ui. Since the basic boss is only a 20pt upgrade, I guess that means a FireWarrior Shas'ui. That even leaves 10pts spare, so I could give him some kit. The best options for 10pts seem to be either a Markerlight or perhaps a Drone Controller and a Gun Drone, and he can carry either a Pulse Rifle or a Pulse Carbine. If my opponent (who plays Orks, and may be taking a bunch of Flash Gitz with serious firepower) breaks some of the mutable rules for his Kill Team, I can have additional points for the Boss. What to do with more points? Well, for 10 additional points I could add a( or another) Gun Drone to the Boss' team. I could instead have my Shas'ui be equipped with a Stealth Suit, which is a way better option. (His team will be able to Jump/Shoot/Jump again and he'll have solid armor and a burst cannon.) I could also get some specialist kit such as Las-Traps to help me spot the Kill Team earlier. Okay, let's do a brief list of what I will do with the various point levels.
Even though I won't be playing the Kill Team side, what would be my Tau Killteam options? No multi-wounds leaves out Crisis and Broadside suits, no Armor Value means no Piranha and no Devilfish/Hammerhead/Skyray. What's left? Stealth Suits, FireWarriors, Kroot, Gundrones, Vespid and Pathfinders? Hmm. While the idea of remotely guided Gun Drones is very Tau-like, It doesn't really fit the feel of Kill Team. Although Vespid are certainly an interesting idea, I don't have the models, so I'll take them off the list as well. Kroot might work well if used with the Kroot Mercenary rules, but without them, they just don't have enough options to really make a decent Kill Team (though a Kill Team that included one or more as members might be very characterful) so let's scratch them as well. Of the remaining 3, each has a mark against it. The FireWarriors provide decent defense and pretty good firepower, but they aren't really 'elite' and don't really offer much in the way of Kill Team Customization. Stealth Suits have good defense and good firepower and great mobility, not to mention they perfectly fit the ideal of a mobile, stealthy Kill Team sneaking in and taking out high value targets. On the other hand, any time they actually use their jet packs, it gives the brute forces a Klaxon counter, which really cuts down on their stealth value. Finally we have the Pathfinders. Their fluff fits the idea of a Kill Team and with Rail Rifles and Target Locks, they have some customization available and some good firepower. The problem is that all of these teams seem to work best at using their battlefield firepower, not their stealth. The easiest option might simply be to bound in, shoot the crap out of all the brute squads, then claim the objective over their smoking bodies. The only issue would be if the Brute squad player chose the Doomsday Device piece of equipment. (Assuming, of course, that you had the firepower to cut down all the Brute squads as well. That's much easier for some armies than for others.)
Well, this is shaping up to be an interesting campaign, and it's made me think and re-evaluate some items in my codex. Thought-provoking is a great thing, and I'm pleased with it so far. We'll have to see what the next wrinkle is. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |
