History is written by the winners, as they say...

o/

This past Saturday, the Fem Fa'Tau were negotiating with a small Eldar delegation on taking the possession of a new world into their benevolent empire. Then...as usual, Humanity's so-called finest showed up, yelling about the Emperor's Will, and some other such nonsense. Preparing for battle, the Greater Good deployed via the preferred 'Tau Deployment' (short table edges), along with their Eldar allies (all 11 of them). Arrayed before them were those of the crumbling Imperium refer to as the 'Strike Force Neverness'. Seriously, how could they dare to oppose the Greater Good?

Note the bedraggled broadside on the left, a victim of the machinations of yet another Ultramarine player: Mac n' Cheese....

Arrayed and ready for battle, the Fem Fa'Tau and their Eldar Corsair allies wait to meet their uninvited guests...

The Emperor's Finest deploy for battle...

 Treachery! Some how the accursed Space Marines steal the initiative!!!

Despite the sudden assault, the Imperium's shooting was easily defeated by the (unseen) darkness, with a hammer head only being shaken. Sadly, the Tau's return fire wasn't much better.

Suddenly, in a blinding flash (which consequently brought light to the game table, no doubt witchery was involved!). A squad of Terminators lead by a Librarian deep struck into the Tau Backfield, and managed to dispatch a hammerhead tank, granting them 1st blood!

Shortly thereafter the Landraider destroyed the other hammerhead with the loss of their big guns! Things suddenly looked dire for the Tau!

The stealth suits arrive behind the Venerable Dreanought which had just been stunned and thus of no concern for the moment, allowing them to turn their attention on a devastator squad. 

With things looking grim, the Fem Fa' Tau boldly make a suicide charge right up the middle in hopes of blunting the Ultramarine advance!

Meanwhile EVERYTHING ELSE (barring the far flung stealth suits) turned their fire on the Terminators, wiping them out!

Sternguard, why does it always have to be Sternguard? Needless to say, it indeed was a suicide charge at that point...

 

Tank Shocking thru the Sternguard, the Devilfish and Stealth Suits catch the advancing tactical squad in a deadly crossfire...whilst the Stealth Suits, shot the dreadnought in the back repeatedly, destroying it.

Another view of the typical 'everything dying where the forces meet in the middle of the table' scenario that happens in most games...

The Tactical Marines charge the Devilfsh, but only do minimal damage to it. 

The Devilfish finally falls to repeated assaults. meanwhile the tactical marines pull back to engage and wipe out the drones which were shooting the Whirlwind in its rear armor.

In an exceedingly rare maneuver. The Sternguard are caught off guard when Tau commander charges them!

Had things ended on turn 5, the Tau would have gotten pasted. However it didn't, and due to some rather spectacular assault phase jet pack moves (boxcars everywhere!), the surviving devilfish's drones and the Stealth suits move in to contest the enemy objective.

Despite the endless pounding by that infernal whirlwind, the few surviving Fire Warriors, were able to recover from pinning to pounce on their potentially exploding objective!

The Broadsides finally finish off the landraider with a glancing hit. Somewhere along the line, the Eldar, using their usual witchery took 2 hull points off the beast, then failed a tank shock morale check, and were wiped out when they rolled box cars to recover from a subsequent Sternguard charge. I think that's what lead to the Tau commander's charge...

The game ended on turn 6. The tau had line breaker, slay the warlord, and their objective granting them 5 Vps, whereas the Ultramarines only had first blood, for 1 VP. That said, the points would have been almost the exact opposite had the game ended on turn 5. So it was really closer than the final tally would make it seem...