NI25 warm up game - Tau Vs Guard

 This was my last warm up game for Northern Invasion 2024 and it was against my son's Tau list. By this point all the list had to be in and so if this didn't work then I was a bit screwed. For this version of the list I took the extra Scion squads and command squad, pushing the Scion Tempestor as my warlord to grant the four Scion squads the battleline keyword. This meant that I was going to have a bit sitting off the board at the start of the game, with the scions all in deep strike and the deathwatch sitting in rhinos.

The Tau list was quite a mix bag but with a strong suit presents. There were two breacher squads in devil fish, a strike squad, also in devilfish with a fireblade. Pathfinders with Dark strider, three squads of stealth suits, a ghostkeel, two broadsides, two squads of crisis suits one with a commander and one with farsight. Two piranhas and a squad of rampagers. 

This should be a fairly strong list, with bodies to take objectives early game and some serious punch dropping in late game. I was also aware that I needed to keep them close to nullify the shooting, while not using my own shooting strength. 

The Tau came out strong but so did I. Pushing hard in all quarters, pushing the deathwatch up the wings and the guard straight up the centre. 

I also tried to manoeuvre to deny as much of the board to deep strike as possible, which worked out quite well. The Tau shooting was pretty devastating when it hit but I was able to keep a lot of my units out of sight or range. 

The Deathwatch proved themselves in this game, taking a lot of punishment and really dishing it out too. Granted the unit at the top of the board got annihilate eventually but not before pulling in multiple tau units, including farsight. 

The Scions proved to be a worthy inclusion, dropping in all over the board. They didn't do much in the way of damage but they dropped in on objectives, including my home objective to secure me valuable points. The Armigers again did not excel themselves, with both their shooting and combat proving a bit lack luster. 

Despite the score line, by the time we came to the end of turn 4 the guard were in a desperate way. With very little.left on the board and in serious danger of loosing several more. 

At the end of the game, the guard had three squads of scions, spread all across the board, a single mortar team, a tech priest with a crippled Russ and a large squad of deathwatch stuck down the far end of the board miles away from the rest of the action. The Russ was only still alive due to some luck and poor roll from Farsight. Had the game.gone on another turn or two, like in the good old days, the tables could well have turned in the Tau's favour.

 The score ended up looking very one sided, while the secondaries were not to far different, 26 to 35 it was the primary points that once again proved the difference at 9 to 45. 

While this game my not have pushed my list again, it did teach me a few lessons, namely that I taking the scions was probably the right move, as they performed as hoped, being able to drop in all over the board doing secondaries and also primaries. The Armigers were average again and I think are the weakest part of the list now.