The first engagement of my GF's Tau army...

o/

I've not fielded Tau in quite a while, and certainly not since the new codex release. Combine with that my girlfriend's want to play with her new army, and it was painfully obvious that I needed a crash course in the new Tau's operating procedures! As such I took them for a spin (with her permission of course) this past Saturday night while she was at work. My opponent was to be the ever wily Neverness and his archaic Ultrasmurfs. 

As per my norm, what follows will be a photo dump of the game with my usual running commentary in the captions. He also took quite a few photos of our game, so give his blog a look for a battle report from the opposing viewpoint. Indeed, this game is probably the best covered of all of my games thus far!

Setup was 1500 points, Crusade scenario with 4 objectives, and the weird triangular deployment zones. Tau went first and night fight didn't kick in till turn 5.

The amassed tau. Again this was sort of a 'community project' in its assembly (with more stealth suits than one can shake a stick at), and once more many thanks to RTVoril, Kushial & Screech!

Neverness' Ultramarines, of which I'm sure all of the models are of legal drinking age! (Note the 'crayon tank')

The Tau's deployment. I had the Pathfinders way too far back which greatly limited their ability to markerlight anything. The 4 drones at the bottom would harass the Ultrmarine left flank for a few turns before suffering the fate of all skeet (which they so clearly resemble). 

The Ultramarines left flank deployment.

Their center deployment...

...and this tactical squad was holding their right.

The Devilfish advances under the watchful guns of a broadside.

Not much forward movement for me on turn one. In the assault or rather 'jumping phase' my Tau commander would consistently roll a '2' all game due to his iridium armor. This greatly hampered his unit's movement.

Both Stealth suit units arrived on turn 2, with the 2 fusion blaster squad arriving and killing the dreaded crayon tank granting me first blood!

Truly, the 'Warhammer Ancients' had arrived (via teleporter)!

The Ultramarine left flank does an about face to deal with the stealth suits that arrived behind them!

I'm pretty sure this was the first time I've ever encountered the Legion of the Damned!

Oh Shit! The Landraider was full of Sternguard! Thus my Stealth suits summarily died, sad face.

Those damned legionnaires killed my Devilfish! However in point blank range of the pathfinders, they were markerlighted and blown off of the table! The U-Marine tac squad out of picture killed one of the Devilfish's Drones as well.

The greater good unloads into the ancient termies, however the Sgt. on point absorbed a ton of fire before dying! It was rather disheartening.

The remaining drone commences its 'annoyance operations' against the U-marine right flank. It wouldn't accomplish much beyond that though.

Hand to hand is unethical! You were supposed to die to all of the ungodly overwatch fire! (stupid termie armor) The Fire warriors held for a turn, but the results were predictable.

I've flanked the enemy (which in most cases spells certain doom for my armies).

Faced with overwhelming odds, the last tactical marine on the right hides in that ruined building.

Contesting the objective and killing a fire warrior resulted in a text book sweep & clear of the room in which he was hiding. The Objective hadn't read the textbook though, as it blew up killing 2 fire warriors.

The Stealth suits move at best possible speed to engage the enemy, while that drone finishes off a lone marine that was hiding in the center building ruins.

My Commander (on the left) slowly moves his unit forward to engage the sternguard.

The last Termie rounds the corner, and combined with the sternguard, kills the drone, bodyguard and wounds my commander, only to be cut down by the plasma rifle's overwatch fire!

My commander then tries to tempt the sternguard away from the Fire Warriors that are holding their volatile objective.

The Stealth suits continue to advance while ignoring the big, blue box, as they lacked any fusion blasters with which to deal with it.

The fire warriors hold despite the sternguard's attempt to annihilate them. Three other fire warriors hid within the building on the left, but were close enough to an objective to cede me victory!

 Final victory points came to 8-3. I had first blood, war lord, and 2 objectives, to Neverness' 1 objective. Victory to the Tau! It was a good game and good learning experience. The Pathfinders need to be in a forward position with better fields of fire, as do the Broadsides (well, not so forward, just better fields of fire). Also that landraider was an issue. All I had to deal with it really were the 2 fusion blasters, as the heavy rail rifles only rolled 4s for armor penetration (no doubt forgetting that they were no longer STR10!). However with so many stealth suits and 2 unassembled piranhas, I ought to be able to remedy that.The list will need some tweaking, but was a good first run and gives my a good starting point on giving my GF some instruction in their use.

On a side note, a new guy to the group (Ben) arrived looking for  a game of WHFB. Sadly there were no armies for him to fight, but the quick photo below gives a glimpse of his amazingly painted High Elves! The sea guard specifically were just...wow! He plays 40k too, but the tone of his voice on mentioning his 40k armies made it clear that WHFB was his preference. He also knew of Necron Bob and his High Elves (having also played at this year's Brawler Bash), so perhaps Bob can give us some insight as to whether or not Ben's Playing skill equals his painting skill (and if it does, the sons of Stirland could be in trouble...).

This photo gives little indication of just how well painted this army is!