2000pts Tau Triple StormSurge vs Daemons w/ Magnus the Red
The Lists
Tau
Primary Detachment : Farsight Enclaves Combined Arms Detachment
HQ: Fireblade (Warlord)
Troops: 3x Crisis Suits w/ double missile pods and interceptor
Troops: 1x Solo Suit w/ double cyclic ion blasters
Troops: 1x Solo Suit w/ double burst cannons
Lord of War: Unit of 3 Stormsurges w/ pulse blastcannons, interceptor, 2 shield gens and skyfire
Formation: Drone Net
5 units of 4 marker drones
Assassin Detachment
1 Culexus assassin
Chaos Daemons
Primary Detachment : Omniscient Oracles Formation
Fateweaver (Warlord)
Lord of Change w/ Grimoire of True Names
Chaos Space Marines Combined Arms Detachment
HQ: Be'Lakor
HQ: Slaanesh Daemon Prince w/ lvl 3, wings, spell familiar, burning brand
Troops: 2 units of 10 cultists
Lord of War: Magnus
The Setup
Hammer and Anvil deployment, Maelstrom mission #1.
Tau win the roll to deploy and go first.
He very aggressively places his unit of 3 Stormsurges right in the middle of his deployment zone the full 24 inches forward. Directly behind them is the unit of 3 missile suits and farther back is the Culexus. Off to the left and right sides of the Surges are all the marker drones. The 2 solo suits and Fireblade are in reserve.
The Tau have first turn and are capable of an extremely brutal alpha strike and I have very limited line-of-sight blocking terrain on my side. I am only able to hide Fateweaver and the LoC which are on opposite sides of my deployment zone so I hold everything else in reserve in an attempt to mitigate his alpha strike.
I fail to seize even after the Omniscient Oracles reroll.
The Game
Tau 1 : The unit of Stormsurges moves forward to take control of the center of the table. The missile suits and Culexus follow behind and the drones kind of fan out diagonally. Due to me only places 2 models on the board out of LOS, he can't do much else. In his shooting phase, he anchors down the Surges and 2 of them are within range of Fateweaver to fire their smart missile systems and cause 1 wound.
Daemons 1: Fateweaver lifts off and flies to where the LoC was and the LoC lifts off and flies to where Fateweaver was. They basically switch spots in order to continue to stay out of LOS and to count as Swooping. The LoC activates the Grimoire on Fatey for that rerollable 2++. Fatey casts Endurance on the LoC. With Fatey's warp storm reroll I get Glorious Rot which kills 2 marker drones and a missile suit!!! Nice
Tau 2: His Fireblade walks on from his table edge and hides, neither one of his solo suits comes in which is to his advantage. He moves and runs the Culexus so he is kind of diagonally in front of the Surges. He still doesn't have much to shoot except for the same 2 Surges with smart missile systems, except this time they can double-tap. Not wanting to waste his shots on Fateweaver's rerollable 2++, they target the LoC. After some bad to-wound rolls and thanks to Endurance, the LoC is unscathed
Daemons 2: Thanks to Omniscient Oracles reroll to reserves, everything comes on. I feel like I'm in a good position to do some serious damage and highly anticipating to see what Magnus can do. All of my big bad flying daemons move to within 18 inches of the Surges. I use the Grimoire on Magnus which fails but then succeeds thanks to the Staff of Tomorrow, Whew!
After my movement phase, the dreaded Tau interceptor phase begins. Ugh, here it comes... As expected, all of his marker drones try to light up Magnus. He scores 3 hits which he uses for 3 D-missiles from the Surges with Velocity Trackers at BS 3. 2 of them miss and the one that hit rolls a 5 on the D table which is promptly saved by rerollable 2++!!! Jeez that was close. He then fires 16D6 + 16 (!) BS 3 shots and 8d6 + 8 snapshots at Be'Lakor to get rid of Invisbility. He dies even after jinking for a 2+ cover save. Firstblood goes to the Tau.
Losing Be'Lakor immediately to Interceptor sucks but I still feel like I still have most of my psychic might. In my psychic phase I roll a 3 for the warp dice for a total of 17. The first thing I try to do it cast Doombolt from Magnus with a single dice. My opponent tries to dispell and fails. It instakills the Culexus and knocks a wound off a Surge. Magnus then uses 5 dice on Treason of Tzeentch on the Surges. I use the massive firepower of his 3 Surges to destroy ALL of his drones and the missile suits. This was pivotal and I felt the momentum of the game swing in my favor. I use my remaining 11 dice on Gaze of Magnus and Prismatic Gaze, landing 2 D hits on the front Surge. I roll a 1 and a 4 on the D table, and use Fatey's reroll on the 1 which comes up a 6, deleting the Surge.
Tau 3: Realizing that his 2 remaining Surges cannot shoot this turn due to firing Interceptor and having wiped out the rest of his army, he concedes the game.
So I was really sweating the Strength D interceptor but due to all his markerlights having to Snapfire and then only having BS 3 on the D missiles, Magnus was able to shrug it off. Granted, I can't think of a more perfect unit to cast Treason on than 3 Stormsurges so that was convenient but dang, Magnus is really, really powerful. I don't see how an army with more conventional weaponry such as Battle Company, Imperial Knights, WarCon or even Eldar could even hope to compete.
