Daemonhunters vs. Renegade Tau 500pts

October 21st 2007

Daemonhunters Forces Ordo Malleus patrol	Renegade Tau Forces Farsight Enclave patrol
Mike (hero of the Imperium)	Matthew (corrupted xenos)
HQ <none> Troops Squad Alpha "Death's Head" (5 Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, 1 veteran sergeant, 2 melta guns, Rhino transport) Squad Beta "Imperial Justice" (5 Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, 1 plasma gun) Tyrellian Guard, Squad Gamma (lascannon, Chimera transport) Elites <none> Fast Attack "Lucky Duke's" (2 Sentinels, 1 lascanon, 1 multi-laser) Heavy Support <none>	HQ <none> Troops 12 Fire Warriors (Devilfish transport) Elites <none> Fast Attack 5 Pathfinders (Devilfish transport) 5 Vespid Stingwings Heavy Support <none>

Battlefield & Mission

This was our warm-up game for the Daemon Seed campaign (see the downloads page for the full campaign rules). We hadn't finished painting our full armies for the campaign, but couldn't wait to get in a game, so we agreed to have a small Combat Patrol game with just 500 points each. We decided that the winner of this game would get the first turn in our first proper campaign game, but otherwise it would not count in the campaign.

We had already played a couple of campaign turns and knew that the armies were going to clash on the border between the Grand Plains and the Eastern Desert. Apparently an Imperium courier ship had crashed in the border region and light forces were sent ahead to recover valuable data on army dispositions...

It was exciting to think that this was the first contact between forces from the two beligerent empires - a clash of recce patrols!

Model terrain was fairly basic, consisting of a green sheet laid over the dining table to represent the plains of Angea. Books under the cloth created two hills (see photo below). Crashed spaceship pieces were scattered around the battlefield, plus some concrete barricades and some Tau structures (made by Matthew when he was a bit younger, from toilet rolls, yoghurt pots, etc.!)

Deployment

The recce forces enter the battlefield to search the wreckage

Both players chose small squads with transport vehicles as their main forces. These seem to be cost effective in small Combat Patrol games.

Mike: I deployed the strormtroopers squad with melta guns inside their Rhino, concealed from first fire by the hill. Hopefully they would be able to rush forward and get the opportunity to melta the Tau vehicles. The other squad were deployed ready to move in and occupy the Tau structure and barricades on the hill. This looked like a good place to stay put and fire, although of course the range of this unit is rather limited (24").

On the other flank, the Imperial Guard squad would stay inside the Chimera for the moment, and see how the battle develops. The Sentinels used their Scouts move to move forward, ready to engage the Tau armour.

First Blood

The Sentinel squadron is hit!

The Sentinels advanced and opened fire to no effect, but the return Tau fire destroyed one Sentinel and damaged the other! When we rolled for damage, it came up 'Weapon Destroyed', which is quite decisive when you've only got one weapon!

The Tau Pathfinders deployed from their Devilfish and the Vespids flew forward on their wings (into a rather exposed position!)

The Renegade Tau forces advance