BR: 2K Blood Angels vs. Tau

Today, I played my first game of 40K in months.  I finally decided to get my damn Blood Angels on the table and they played against my friend JR's Tau.  We played a Battle Mission game and there was 3 objectives 12" apart from eachother spread out on the map.  The first marker was placed in the middle, I placed the 2nd 12" directly to the left of that and the third one he placed by his deployment zone.

My army list looked like this:

Mephiston
10x ASM (PF/Infernus, 2x Meltaguns)
10x ASM (PF/Infernus, 2x Meltaguns)
5x ASM (RB TLAC, PW, Meltagun)
5x ASM (RB TLAC, PW, Meltagun)
Corbulo
Sanguinary Priest
3x Baal Predators (TLAC/HB)
2x Vindicators (DB)

His army had:

HQ Suit with BS5 and Missile Pods
3x 3x suits with Plasma/Missiles
2x units of Kroot
2x units of Fire Warriors in Devilfish
2x 2x Broadsides
1x Hammerhead with Railgun
2x 2x Piranhas with Fusion

He rolled for first and deployed.


First turn saw both Vindicators take heavy combined fire.  One lost a weapon and the other one was stunned.  The Tau jumped around like cowards and some poor rolls kept the Rhino holding my Sanguinary Priest in good condition.  His Piranhas also jumped in front of my army and threatened all my vehicles with their Fusion weapons.  On my turn, I returned fire from my Baal Preds and they killed one of the Broadsides on the right side of the field.  3x Baals shooting all their shots at 2x Broadsides killed only 1.  Very sad face.  It's OK, the rest of the army pushed up; Mephiston jumped up behind the ASM squad and everyone was in range of the Priests' FC/FNP bubble.  I moved some units around to deny him as much shooting as possible, giving most of my army cover or denied LoS.  The only damage done by me this time was killing two Piranhas that flew in front of me with some good meltagun/infernus shots from one of my ASM squads.  They assaulted and killed the gun drones after, then rallied into cover.

His following turn disabled two of my Baals and took the weapon off one of my RBs.  JR epically failed to kill the Vindicator but managed to disable its shooting again with a Stunned result.  Nothing really happens on his turn except his suits jump back into cover after killing a couple of ASM.  I'd like to make it clear that I completely forgot what weapon my RBs got because I haven't played in so long and thus, forgot to use their TLAC (thinking it was a Heavy Flamer lol).  So the RBs moved up and proved more bubble on my right most ASM squad that also flew up.  Mephiston passed for wings and he flew up behind them.  My left most ASM assaulted and killed some gun drones before getting back into cover by the middle objective.  Corbulo's RB hides behind the terrain (out of LoS and getting a sweet cover) and sits tight.

On his turn, he destroys one of my Baals and stuns the other, epically misses my Vindie again with his Pirahnas, but was able to score a kill on it with the Railguns he had.  He rolls a Wrecked result and my Vindie parks itself nicely in front of my RB, making it even harder to see.  After killing some more ASMs, he jumps back and I have 5 ASM left in the other squad and Mephiston behind him.  My RB with the Priest's unit is also nearby.  During my turn, I disembark my Priest's unit of ASM and run them towards the cover by his control point.  My ASM flies into terrain and gets ready to assault.  Mephiston casts Wings and gets ready to help the assault on the Kroot.  My Vindie without a weapon turbo-boosted across the board to provide the squads with a AV11 LoS-denying cover after the assault that was to be completed.  Shooting from the Baal also penetrated and stunned his Devilfish on the right side.  My leftmost ASM flies towards the remaining Piranhas and killed it with meltagun/infernus fire.  The assault from Mephiston and the ASM kills all the kroot, leaving him with no scoring unit.  I massacred behind the Vindicator without a weapon.


His next turn blows up my Vindicator (blocking Meph) and leaves my assault squad with just the Sergeant, failing to kill the entire unit.  Combined fire from the rest of his units puts down a Baal Predator but fails to kill the RB sitting at the top objective.  Some Marines die at the bottom but all is well.  Instead of jumping back, he moves his army into position to assist his Kroot congo line running for the far left objective.  His Commander is in the open and so are 3 of his suits.  On my turn, Mephiston flies over kills all 3 suits and then hides behind a piece of cover denying him LoS to Meph, my last Baal opens fire and kills his HQ suit and that last Sergeant flies back near the Sanguinary Priest's unit of ASM to tell warstories and drink tea.  They are now comfortably controlling the point on his side of the board.

On his turn 5, he flies his army closer to me and moves his Kroot across the board into scoring position.  He flies his remaining 6 suits closer towards the middle of the map to support the remaining scoring Tau forces.  Some shots later and my remaining Baal Pred gets all his guns blown off in epic fashion.  His Devilfish that was stunned before flies next to Mephiston and waves because he can't do anything, so the turn passes to me.  I eyeballed the distance towards the suit and Mephiston makes 3 power tests for Wings of Sanguinius, Unleash Rage and Sanguine Sword.  He rolls a 6 on his fleet and charges into combat from 24" away; locking both units of suits in combat and manhandles both of them.  The only heavy weapon he has on the field is the Broadsides on the far left side of the board.  He had a Hammerhead fly too close to my ASM by the middle marker and they charged in with a Thunderhammer and a Krak grenades.  The HH got stunned and had its Railgun knocked off, which is fine.  Oh, and I guess I should mention the Baal Pred ramming the Devilfish that was next to Meph from 15" away and doing absolutely nothing.

JR rolls for Turn 5 and the game ends.  Corbulo's unit of ASM was sitting on the middle CP, my Sanguinary Priest's unit was sitting on the one by his deployment, and his leftover Kroot held one.

Looking back, even though I was seriously outgunned, I think that smart use of terrain and LoS denial saved most of my marines from Tau firepower.  I used my ragtag vehicles as cover and denial and made the best of the situation because I had stronger troops that can reliably hold locations with FNP.  Though JR made some really bad pen rolls for his weapon damage, I think the winners of the game go to my resilient and powerful troops that hugged every piece of terrain like it was their mother.  I'd like to thank JR for the game (always a pleasure) and having to put up with my constant questions.  I had WHFB and Warmachine all mixed in there lol.

2-1 Victory for Blood Angels!