Double blow - Game 2

Army list can be found in previous post.

Game 2 vs chaos allied with black legion.

Abaddon - got shrouded on boon of mutation

2 oblits mon

2 oblits mon

2 oblits mon

10 cultists

10 cultists

5 spawn mon

Helldrake 

Helldrake

Sorcerer ml 3, bike, boon of mutation (?)

10 cultists

10 cultists

Helldrake

2 oblits mon

His sorcerer got puppet master, fearless and some other thing. Yes I say his because I've played this guy before, he's a very good player, all the models were his own and he told me that his friend was there only because he needed a team-mate for the purposes of doubles.

Mission - big guns never tire, deployment - hammer and anvil.

We win the roll of to choose sides and straight away make a mistake as Paul persuades me that there's a nice ruin where we can place everyone. Unfortunately this turns out not to be the case as it means for the most part no one would get cover. We get to go and deploy first. They plonk their aegis right in the middle of the board. We fortify the far left ruin and put broadsides in it. Riptide, pathfinders and bikes in the middle and thunderfire and two rhinos with tacticals behind the building as well. Everything else in reserve, kroot outflank.

They string cultists out along their back board edge and put abbadon and spawn in cover as far forwards as possible. Oblits are in deep strike.

Plan is to hopefully bum-rush the cultists for first blood and shoot up the spawn as much as possible, potentially holding them up in assault with the chapter master. We also wanted to move the riptide up as far as possible to ensure a fusion blaster interception of the helldrakes. Rhinos would hopefully stay back to protect against deep-strikers and dart under the helldrakes after they come in.

Enemy fails to seize and we realise that our plan isn't going to work as it's night and the cultists are too spread out or too far away. We focus on the spawn, take off two wounds of two separate ones and one wound off abbadon. 

In return the sorcerer puppet masters the riptide and tries to snag a rhino for first blood but no luck there. Nearest cultists climb up a ruin so I can't charge them. Sorcerer also casts fearless on the now bunched up cultists.

Our turn and I forget to turn on a chapter tactic and fail to charge with the bikers leaving the riptide exposed to a charge and the bikers to helldrake flamer death next turn. Another wound is taken off abbadon and the two spawn are now on one wound each. Thundefire kills a decent number of cultists but they're fearless.

Helldrakes come in and so do two packs of oblits. Intercept leads to a crew stunned on a helldrake which is then ignored on a 2+, the hp is regenerated at the end of the turn. Everyone except the chapter master who is left on two wounds and one biker dies. Riptide is assaulted and killed for first blood. Pathfinders are roasted, one survives and runs. 

think this pic just about summarises the game...

Turn 3 we still hold two objectives to their one and kill one oblit from each pack due to some pathetic shooting, we kill two spawn in shooting and charge in killing the sorcerer but losing the lone biker. Chapter master holds. One talon fails to do any damage to a helldrake. Broadsides fail against the drakes as well but we do finish off one squad of oblits.

Basically over the next few turns, instead of playing for the draw we try and go all out for he win. Due to a series of bad dice rolls and good luck by the opposition we only manage to kill two oblits and about 8 cultists over the following turns while losing the rest of our army.

Game ends turn 6 with the tau commander in combat on an objective with the an obliterator, a spawn and abbadon. They hold an objective with the cultists and one with oblits and have killed both our heavy supports in return for losing two of theirs. They have all the secondaries too.

Win on primary, win on secondaries and 1400+ difference in vps means it ends a 20-0 loss.

Conclusions:

We should have played a lot more conservatively. Perhaps sitting back and waiting for the helldrakes might have been a bit better than what happened instead. Would have also given us more time to deal with the spawn and the clustering in our deployment zone would have made it more difficult to land for the oblits.

As our (main) opponent Altermann said, "Tactical squads are shite, don't take them." This game they couldn't even kill two squads of two oblits before being roasted to death by the hell chickens. Also, precision shots would have been useful in this game to get around abbadon tanking all the shots for the spawn. Oh 4 squads of cultists are no match for 10 kroot.

Finally, a stromraven would definitely have been better than the two storm talons which a) came on piecemeal and b) were very susceptible to vector strikes. 

Not many mistakes on our opponents' part(s), and a nasty list that went on to win the whole event (18-2, 20-0, 20-0). Need to learn how to beat helldrakes dammit.

As an afterthough, we need to play with a bit more composure, against better opponents... We started off with two objectives to their 1 and could have just held them the whole game, if we'd been a little careful.