Battle Report Marines V Tau

Battle report

7th edition has been out a while now and I have not yet tried using an Unbound list. I have read the usual whinging on the web that hey are over powered and cheese lists destined to bring the end of the universe, but I wanted to try them out for myself.

I think the first major thing was to let my opponent know what I was thinking, he agreed so he knew I was taking an unbound. We also agreed we would be playing maelstrom missions, as these I think are the best to play and would balance the unbound potential to take whatever I wanted to its lack of having objective secured.

My list was:
Chapter Tactics – Salamanders
BRAY'ARTH ASHMANTLE
5 Assault terminators (5*TH/SS)
5 Assault terminators (5*LC)
5 Assault terminators (1*TH/SS, 4*LC)
5 Terminators (no upgrades)
5 Terminators (Assault Cannon)
5 Terminators (Heavy Flamer)
5 Terminators (Cyclone Missile Launcher)
This was a venerable dread leading members of the 1st company in to battle, hopefully more Tesco cheddar than some Colston Basset Stilton.

My opponent (Wulfen_Kind) list was:
Dark Stider
4 *12 Firewarriors in Devilfish
Stealth Squad
Pathfinder Squad
2 Hammer heads with Ion Cannons
TAU XV107 R'VARNA BATTLESUIT

We played mission 1 where each turn we had to have 3 objectives to get, and the set up was diagonally. I won the roll and set up 3 squads and Ashmantle, the 3 Assault terminator squads and the heavy flamer squad went in to reserve (forgetting that they are not Deathwing and would not start coming in on turn 1)
Another slight hiccup in my plan was WK stealing the initiative and getting to start he shooting on my straight away.
I am only going to do highlights as I did not take detailed notes throughout the game

Turn 1 – I only lost 3 terminators to shooting, most of it was out of range, but one squad did kill 2 of the terminators. 2 1’2 on 3 dice rolled.....I had a horrible feeling 1s would haunt me all game! More importantly he picked up all his objectives. In my turn I was only able to achieve 1 of them. 3-1 WK

Turn 2- a stellar turn from WK. He drew objective 46 (control all objectives and gain 3+D3VP’s). He had enough objective secured stuff to sit next to my squads and still claim the objective. He got all of them, and 4 VPs in addition to the 2 other ones totalled 6 for that turn. This move did leave his forces spread out and close to my units. I only lost another 3 terminators, so still no first blood. In my turn all of the assault terminators turned up and dropped close to his lines. I got first blood, but managed to lose a remaining terminator in a squad to over-watch fire!  I got another bonus VP for Ashmantle killing a vehicle in close combat. The score was 9-3 to WK

At this point my big problem was covering the board (and on one turn I got a real duff objective or destroying a building) being able to collect the objectives if and when they came up. I changed tactics a bit and went for the kill. If I could kill enough and stop him scoring more I may be able to get objectives to kill thing and get lucky on being near an objective.

This was going to plan, and by the and o nturn 5 I corned his big battle suit and killed a drone in combat.....he failed the following break test and ran off the board! He only had a fleeing pathfinder, a Hammer Head and a devilfish (down to 1HP) left on the board. I still had 10 terminators and Ashamantle left, but the score was 12-8 WK. I could just do this with another turn.......YES!

Turn 6 – he got no more points and tried to manoeuvre stuff away from my guys. In my turn I drew objectives I was near and I had linebreaker, so the game was 12-12, but I was able to take out the last of his stuff and clear the table of Xenos scum.

In the end it turned out to be a very close game indeed.

What have I learnt?

1. Mobile units with eth objective secured rule are a must have!
2. Big expensive models don’t really get their points back. Both Ashmantle and the big suit killed a bit but were generally ignored and didn’t make their points back. Ashmantle could do with a drop pod but in the current marine codex that is unavailable for him without ally BA/SW shenanigans. He got a bonus VP and may have done more against a more aggressive army
3. Unbound can be fun and not necessarily chesses fests. They are hard to play with against Battle forged list and playing Maelstrom mission. They would probably be quite strong in the older Emperors Will games
4. Maelstrom missions are a great leveller, and I think they are the best part of 7th edition, to win games it is not about just killing the enemy (difficult to say when I won the game by killing all the enemy!) but other games that I have played have showed this. Previously all the other missions you would sit about killing each other for 4 turns then go grab an objective with what was left. Now form turn to turn things can change and you always need to be able to get around the whole board on any given turn.
Pictures

Battlefield

The Boys

The Enemy

 

 

Mid Game

 

Not sure how i won with dice rolling like this....

A close up of my current terrain project:

 

Must get on an finish off Ashmantle, and the terms, and scenery and......on and on and on.

Chapter Expansion

I have been reasonably productive this last month. My main 2015 objective is to clear the back log of models i have.

First up here are a Tactical Squad and a Drop Pod.

The tactical squad is my 10th for my chapter, and the 3rd for my drop pod company. It is made up from bits I bought in a job lot a while ago. I stripped them down and repainted them. The Sergeant is an old MkII veteran model. Originally he had a bolt pistol and chain sword. I have enough squad leaders’ armed like this and wanted something different. Initially I was going to give him a plasma pistol. Unfortunately I didn’t have any in the left hand only right handed ones. In the end I rummaged through my bits box and found suitable kit options for him, a Grav-pistol and a Power Fist.

 The other change is the blue cloak. I noticed on this model there was book. So it got me thinking why would he be carrying this item? The story I have for him is that he starting to show some psychic potential and so has started his training with the companies librarians. He has the honour of wearing a blue cloak as a result of this

 

The Drop Pod is another one of my cheap purchases. I got a load of pods about 4 years ago for about £10 a pod. Unfortunately they were painted already. Some of my paint has had difficulty covering it. Over all I am happy with it as a gaming piece, rather than any well painted model.

 

I have also been buying more Forgeworld goodies.

First is Bray’arth Ashmantle, the Salamander Venerable Dreadnaught. I have completed about 80% of him and am currently working on detailing him.

 

Next up is a Battle-Automata. I really like the model, but don’t see collecting an army of Ad-mec. I do see an inquisitor with close ties to the Ad-mec being given one as a body guard. That is how I will use him. Again he is about 80% complete with a bit more detailing and highlighting required.

 

Finally I have built up some more models I got in the job lot. In total I got 8 Assault marines, 30 Tactical marines, 5 Devs, 10 Terms  (AoBR) and 5 scouts, all for £30. This month I aim to do some terms and some scouts.

The terms I have converted to lightening claw ones. I had a full set of claws so I only needed to buy some shoulder pads. I was able to pick them up off eBay for £3.  Here they are all built up.

 

The scouts I wanted a close combat squad. They will eventually get a storm as transport. I think a good load out for them is close combat blade and bolt pistol. They were all armed like this. I wanted the sergeant to be armed with a combi melta and a power fist. I had loads of spare combi weapons from the sternguard squads I bought a while ago, and the fist came from the command squad set I got with Sevrin Loth.

 

Both of these squads have now been under coated and are on my painting table. The expansion contiues