Counter Offensive: Battle #3
As the evening wound down, I wanted to get in one more battle, and a fellow named Grant was ready to mambo with his Shiny Red Tau Army. He only had 1500 points, so I cut down my list and substituted Space Marine Leader Jirbu Ghosh for the more expensive Chaplain Daksha Ram.

An Exercise in Futility
Mission: Patrol
Opponent: Tau (Grant)
Points per player: 1500

What happened? Going into this battle, I knew three things:

1. Tau have a lot of AP 4 weapons;
2. A “shooty” Marine army was no way to fight Tau; and
3. The mission would require me to come on piecemeal, hamstringing me. 

Well, it turned out to not be interesting—at least on Turn One. We each deployed one unit of Troops—him a squad of Fire Warriors, me a squad of “assault” Scouts, and neither of us had any shooting. So much for that.

Turn Two was a bit livelier. His Stealth Suit team, a Hammerhead, another Fire Warrior squad and two units of Broadsides came on. The Hammerhead pasted six of my Scouts—felgercarb! On my turn, the Razorback with the Devastator squad, Jirbu Ghosh, a “tactical” Scout squad and all six Land Speeders (yes!) came on. The twin lascannons on my Razorback shook the Hammerhead—no more of that thing’s noise, at least for one turn.

On Grant’s next turn, both Crisis Suits turned up and shot down two of my Land Speeders. One Broadside unit stunned two Speeders; the other Broadside unit waxed the Razorback—no more twin-linked lascannon nonsense out of me, eh? Well, not so, because the rest of my army came on, including my Predator Annihilator, which shook the Hammerhead. A Land Speeder fried a Stealth Suit dude (the only thing in range) and my Devastators fired on the Crisis Suits, to no avail.

Now that the Tau were warmed up, they went to work. The Broadsides shook the Predator, destroyed a Land Speeder, and blew the heavy bolter off another. The Stealthy Dudes also took down a Speeder and disarmed another (the Crisis suits then polished off the disarmed Speeders). The Fire Warriors opened up on some “tactical” Scouts, killing one. In reply, I destroyed Grant’s Hammerhead and killed two Fire Warriors. 

With those pesky Speeders gone, the Tau turned their attention to my troops, killing a total of ten. The Broadsides shook and immobilized my Predator and my Vindicator. My Scouts shot back, plinking two drones attached to the Crisis Suits. Mercifully, time ran out on the game.

Outcome: Tau win (793 Victory Points to 160 Victory Points)
 

Post-Game Analysis
Previously, I had only fought Orks with the Scout list, so even though I knew some of the battles would not go well, I still wanted to play them to see what would happen. 

The Scouts do best in a “stand-back-and-shoot” mode against an enemy who 1) has few tanks, and 2) is determined to move toward me. This was sufficiently proved in the battle against Brian (and confirmed two weeks later when I fought another Bryan and his Word Bearers). Stung by fire from the “tactical” and “devastator” Scouts (and the supporting units), the enemy slogs forward, only to be counterattacked by the “assault” Scouts and whatever HQ is leading them. 

As Rob demonstrated in my second game, the “Scouts & Such” list struggles against an enemy with lots of tanks, even if those tanks are advancing and not hanging back to fire. My inability to roll decently to see in the dark didn’t help either, but it wasn’t the primary reason why I lost. Rob’s Stormtroopers were of similar quality to my Scouts, but were backed up by more (and better) tanks.

Rob’s army also had a great deal more mobility than mine, which Grant pointed out in my battle against him. Without any kind of transports or any chance to Infiltrate closer to the Tau lines, my Scouts were nothing more than clay pigeons. There are few armies that are going to win a shootout with Tau, and Marine Scouts aren’t one of them.

This is not to say that I didn’t have a good time: because the Scout army is limited, it’s a challenge to use. I also think it scores major style points. But if you’re looking for a tournament winner, Scout-heavy is not the way to go, methinks. 

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© Copyright Kenton Kilgore, November 2004
 

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