War Convocation w/Inquisition vs. Tau w/Assassins

Hello again,

This was my first game running my War Convocation since my thorough losing at ATC this summer. I figured it was time to get the mechanical men out and since my friend Jon said he'd be running his Tau list from a recent tournament, I thought, hell, I'll bring a strong list too.

Jon ran something like:

Tau Buffmander
3x Broadsides (Missile/missile)
Tau'nar Supremacy Suit (the giant FW one)
Riptide (Accelerator/Missiles)
Firewarrior squad in the shield gunwall
Crisis Suit squad of three
Lone suicide Crisis Suit w/melta & flamer

Culexus Assassin allied in *fuck those psykers*

My army was:

Cult Mech Magos as my warlord (Autocadeuces of Arkan Land for freezies)
Kataphron Destroyers w/Grav & flamers x 4
Kataphron Destroyers w/Grav & flamers x 4
Skitarii Rangers x 10 w/3 snipers
Skitarii Vanguard x 10 w/3 plasma
Ironstrider Balistarius w/Lascannon
Onager Dunecrawler w/Icarus Array
Imperial Knight Crusader (Battle Cannon/Gatling Cannon/Missile Launcher)

Inquisitor Coteaz
Inquisitor (generic) level 1 Psyker w/2x servo skulls


We rolled off the big book missions and ended up with Big Guns Never Tire, four objectives and Hammer/Anvil deployment.  I won first and picked to deploy/go first.  The objectives were clustered on his side of the table...whoops.  He picked the proper side to deploy.

I set up (too) conservative.  An issue I have had with this army is planning to out shoot my opponent, but with only 30" on the grav, he can stay away from my nasty weapons and ignore my cover saves with his smart missiles and ignore both cover and armor with the buffmander/broadsides.

I deploy such that he can't infiltrate his culexus and start wrecking shop in the backfield, so he ends up deploying on his own half.

He gets the stealth ruins warlord trait, I get the Cult Mechanicus one that lets me maximize my War Hymns on my HQ, not super useful as I played it wrong.  My psykers both roll off Divination, but neither gets a useful power (hoping for the 4++ or the ignore cover).


We don't roll for night fight, and he doesn't seize so my turn one starts.


I infiltrated my guys forward, scout all the Skitarii and then start shooting. Nothing is in range of the grav Kataphrons because I'm an idiot and held them in terrain, they'll do nothing pretty much all game.

Turn One: The Knight does a little damage, the snipers hurt nothing, and my lascannon puts a wound on the Tau'nar.  I don't yet realize how screwed I am.

Jon starts doing Tau things, shooting, ignoring cover, killing shit.  He moves the Culexus forward to attack my lead squad moving up the flank.

Turn two: I do a little more damage, but again, my grav Kataphrons are held static (I still don't realize how much I'm screwing this up), the lascannon puts another wound on the Tau'nar, the Knight takes some damage and I fail my 2+ to repair him with the Magos.  I charge the Culexus and he, of course, hits first, but my taser goads giving me two additional hit for every 6 to hit is money and I think he goes down to one wound, then kills a dude rolling a six.

Turn Three: things are going bad for me.  His Tau'nar and Broadsides are killing the shit out of my dudes, my Magos (running solo, because I'm dumb) failed an invul and died to the Riptide.  The Knight is running a little low on hull points. I manage to kill the Culexus as the Ruststalkers charge in to help the Infiltrators, but they'll pretty much get wiped out to ignores cover, AP4 shooting.

Jon's solo Crisis suit jumps in behind the Knight, and his Riptide is on my flank.  I put my shields to the back, worried about the melta, and he shoots at the Onager Dunecrawler.  The Knight takes a lot of shooting to the front and get hull pointed out, explodes but doesn't scatter to kill anything.

Turn Four: Most of my stuff is dead or dying.  My generic Inquisitor is hiding in ruins near an objective as his Riptide jumps closer.  I kill a Broadside and my Onager dies to overwatch against his solo Crisis Suit (rolled double sixes!).

My Ironstrider is dead, my Inquisitor is killed by the Riptide, all I have left is Coteaz, a few Rangers and a couple Kataphrons.  I stuck these guys in terrain with zero tactical value, no objectives nearby and outranged by my opponent.

We call it at the end, Jon clearly whipped my butt.


I had a great time, and yet again, I played my WarCon poorly.  I repeatedly hold them back instead of pushing forward and drowning my opponent in fire, something that I need to do to capitalize on their strengths.  I need to need to properly utilize the Skitarii scout/infiltrate and my twin linked 30" 6 shot heavy grav squads (with Inquisitors).  Running the Magos solo was a risk, and there was no reward. Had he been in a Kataphron squad with Coteaz, I could have look out sir'd the the shots that killed him, and moved the whole unit forward with the Imperial Knight.

Jon played it well, he maximized terrain, kept out of range of my grav, and moved the Riptide forward for the objective once the grav Kataphrons were reduced and out of range.  It was my first game playing against a Tau'nar and Jon's is a beautiful mini. I think its powerful, but not broken nor undercosted.  I definitely want a rematch using the list I ran, I think had I played aggressively I could have gone strong on one side and mulched through a unit or two a turn, focusing first on the Tau'nar and the Broadsides/Buffmander, assaulting with my glass cannon Infiltrators/Ruststalkers, and taken the game.