[Vash113]

Well today the manager at the hobby shop seemed to want my army to die so he made me the defender in a sabotage mission. The board setup had this rather large piece of bridge over a small river in the rough center of the board and several small buildings to the right of it. All other terrain didnt mater. Army lists were as follows:

Space Marines
HQ:
Captain, power weapon, bolter
Chaplain, terminator armor

Elites:
Terminator Squad (5), heavy flamer

Troops:
Tactical Squad (10), melta gun, plasma gun, plasma pistol, krak grenades
Tactical Squad (10), melta gun, plasma gun, plasma pistol, krak grenades
Scout Squad (5), bolt pistols & close combat weapons
Scout Squad (5), 4 sniper rifles

Fast Attack:
Landspeeder, multi melta
Assault Squad (5), power fist

Heavy Support:
Whirlwind
Devastator squad (10), 3 lascannons, plasma cannon, sergeant, power fist

Tau
HQ:
Shas'O, FB, PR, SG, HW MT
Shas'el, PR, CIB, TA, HW MT

Eliltes:
Shas'ui, team leader, PR, MP, TA, HW MT
Shas'ui, team leader, PR, MP, TA, HW MT
Stealth team (6)

Troops
Firewarriors (10), shas'ui, bonding knife
-Devilfish, MT, TA, DL
Firewarriors (10), shas'ui, bonding knife, x2 pulse carbines
-Devilfish, MT, TA, DL

Heavy Support:
Hammerhead, Rail, BC, MT, TL, DL
Hammerhead, Rail, BC, MT, TL, DL
Hammerhead, Ion, BC, MT, TL, DL

Deployment:

Space marines deployed sniper scouts in lower building, other scouts below I had a line of drone sentries along their deployment both HQs went on either side of the objective with troops in devilfish infront. Rest all in reserves

Turn 1:
Space Marines
Snipers shot down one sentry, other scouts assaulted another sentry and set off the alarm.

technicly afterwards looking at the mission he could have deployed his full army should he have wished to do so at this point

Tau
Lower devilfish with carbine troops skimmed down, dropped out troops and fired on scouts, killing all of them, other DF took out one sniper scout.

Turn 2:
Space Marines
This is where it gets really, really ugly, terminators, both tac squads, whirlwind, landspeeder,assault marines and the devastators all come in leaving just his captain still in reserves. At this point I am royally screwed unless luck really favors me... which it doesnt. First Tac squad deployes where the scouts had been, other deploys right infront of a small pond where my second DF is floating, Devs go into the building in center of their deploymenat and spread out a lot, terminators next to the lower tac squad, assault marines on their other side, Landspeeder deploys above second tac squad. Both DF stunned, terminators flame and kill most of the unloaded fish but also catch two other terminators and my only lucky result of the game... he rolls snake eyes and two terminators go down to their own flamer. The mirth of this is short lived. Rest of firewarriors go down to bolters.

Tau
One Railhead comes in and remarkably is stuck on the other side of the board. Stealths, both crisis and both other hammerheads stuck in reserves. Now I am really, really in a bind as my army is simply being washed around by a tide of marines and with less than half of my army deployed I dont have the firepower to hold them back from the objective. Shas'O and Shas'el shoot down all terminators and wound chappy, Firewarriors deploy from second fish and blow down landspeeder. I deploy the drones from both stunned fishes, southern one shoots and assaults lower squad, northern group shoots marines then uses assault move to land right infront of the devastators just to be a pain. Hammerhead takes down 3 marines from southern squad.

Turn 3:
Space Marines
Assault squad catches shas'el, northern tac squad rolls 6 for difficult terrain movement then 6 for assault catching my Firewarriors, Devs fail their target priority test and are forced to fire all their guns on the two drones, haha. Southern drones go down to the chappy, shas'el falls and assault marines consolidate onto the objective.

Tau
One crisis suite and both other hammerheads come in but are now very far behind in the battle but luckily thanks to sheer speed get in range of the assault marines and shoot down 4, the Devilfish take out a few marines and Shas'O tries to kill last assault marine both in shooting and then assault and even though he inflicts 4 wounds the marine saves them all and wins combat.

Marines in combat with objective all turn, its destroyed, marines instantly win.

Results:

Tau Cassualties
Shas'O
Shas'el
20 Firewarriors
4 Drones

Space Marine Cassualties
Landspeeder
5 Terminators
4 Assault Marines
6 Marines
5 Scouts

In short I hate missions like this as they can so easily be lopsided and unsurprisingly my reign of bad luck was just blatantly obvious today. In retrospect I should have ditched the Fish's and bulked up on every Firewarrior I have and set up a massive gunline of bodies to delay long enough for my Hammerheads and suits to show but... oh well. The marine player was very lucky in his roles today, mine sucked, the objective was bad for my army and in general oh well. Tacticly there wasnt a whole lot more I could have done and I cant identify any major tactical errors aside from my list, just given the objective luck determined all and 600 odd points of my army wasnt able to stop 1400 points of marines from smashing through. If I had managed to kill the assault sergeant and then the reduced tactical squad next turn I could have probably pulled a win but as was luck decided all and my gamble failed.

This is why I dislike objective missions. Eh Ill just have to play a rematch next weekend if I get the opportunity.

well thats too bad but not quite the best reason to hate objectives. the more fun way to go through the game is doing the objectives that no one has to proteect (like the page 80 missions, those are fun) otherweise just play seek and destroy (best mission ever)

[Rechar]

Missions that don't focus on side A destroying side B usually become very short, play along the standard d6 mission list.

[MechTau]

You are at a disadvantage. Unless you use all the advantages they give you!
[list][*]You place extra bunkers on your side of the table[*]You can put down tank traps and mines/booby traps

• Various sundry forifications are yours to place!
  
  It heavily favours the attacker without proper terrain.

[Vash113]

Sadly the store manager choses all missions and in general I find missions to be rather annoying and ill constructed ending up in very unbalanced games rellying on luck. Some of the scenarios are interesting and fun but more often than not in my experience its much better just to duke it out as an even fight lessens the impact of luck and increases the need for tactics and strategy and leaving no easy or simple way to win.

Actually that particular mission did not allow me to place any terrain what so ever, your thinking of a different scenario. In this one I got no aditional fortifications to set I have played the other one I just cant remember its name and that does not relly on destroying an objective but holding a target area and the army with a scoring unit in there wins or if its contested its a draw. Thats more interesting and favors more tactics but this... not really.

Hey i think i found a reason for all of that bad game testing. either you are testing GW missions (lucky) or the store manager hates you (hah hah) either way it doesnt sound too fortunate for you, why dont you just play normal games...

[Vash113]

Eh I prefere too but the store is usually if not always running some kind of campaign and things need to be fluffy, hence scenarios only today there was no campaign and the store manager simply wanted to see my army lose for a change oh well. In any case I hope my luck improves soon Ive been rolling terribly lately I literally rolled 5 ones for my reserves turn two, it was rediculous.

do what i do, :shifty: roll your dice in the few hours before you play until you start getting higher numbers (4+ usually) and then put them away and go play some games, for the greater good.