First Blood

First bloodGrimcron has kindly invited me to his place for a game today and I can't wait to blog about it, considering that it was my first game in more than a month! Teach's Black Beards are ready for gold, slaves, honor and (first) blood. Yes, always in short supply of blood =)

Grimcron played his usual 1750 Tau list (refer to his blog) with some minor adjustments- Crisis Suits now have BS 4. During deployment, I realised I am 250 points short so I added troops and foot mainly. Well I only have 7 ships!

Black Beard (temporary) 1750 list
HQ
Teach the Dracon, RJB, Shadow Field, Punisher, Tormenter Helm, Plasma Grenade, Combat Drugs
Elite
2 X 5 Mandrakes (lol)
2 X 5 Wyches, 2 Shredders. Raider with Nightshield and Torture Amp
Fast
1 X 5 RJB, Succubus with Punisher, 2 blasters
Troops
2 x 10 Warrior Squads, 2 Dark Lances
4 X 5 Raider Squads, 1 Dark Lance. Raider with Nightshield
Heavy
2 Ravagers, 3 Disintegrators, Nightshield

Yeah I used Mandrakes =)
I heard so much about how crappy they are, I just cannot resist using them lol. It was a learning game and Grimcron has graciously allowed me to do stuff that would earn me the inglorious 'Idiot' title more than 10 times over.
Highlights
Seize and Control deployment with 5 objectives
Turn 1
I choose to go second Wohoo!
Both squads of DE Warriors were wiped out by turn 2, after bearing the blunt of Tau firepower. Of course, the Dark Lances were not charged up and dealt no damage to the Hammerhead and Piranha.

Turn 2
All (4) Raider Squads, 1 Ravager and 1 Wych Raider came in. Raider Squads only managed to shake ONE Hammerhead. I begin to think of the "rubber lance syndrome". Ravager vaporised a few insignificant Kroots and 1 Pathfinder, then got itself melted by the Piranha that was constantly 'hit' by rubber lances in Turn 3.

Turn 3
Tau immoblised one Raider, destroyed the Wyches' Raider. Mandrakes appeared from cover and assaulted the same Kroot bubblewrap unit. Of course they did not kill enough (killed 6 for 5 of their units) which was a good thing. Wouldn't want them to be shot up by the second unit of 15 kroots. Raiders' combined fire destroyed Railgun from ONE Hammerhead. Wohoo! I think of Brettonians charging with rubber lances =)

Turn 4
If you are wondering. This is when my boss, Teach (Dracon) finally arrived on his slow RJB. Finally blew up one Piranha, leaving the other to wreck one Raider later. Now how did the other Piranha survive? Teach and the RJB made their maiden entrance in front of the last Piranha and proceeded to roll snake eyes for both blaster lol. (I see Brettonian lancers again lol)

Turn 5 and on...
All Raiders destroyed. Teach died under volume of fire from Crisis Suits. Time to shake hands.

Thanks Grimcron! I really saw for myself what an unforgiving army the DE is and I really liked it =) This is the ideal army to learn the strategies of 40k from. I can't wait to learn more using this list and Grimcron has kindly offered a rematch tomorrow. Wohooo!

Stuff which I did and will NEVER do again with DE include:
1. Choosing to go second
DE is about attacking 'too FAST too FURIOUS'. Giving up the first turn meant giving the initiative and any chance of winning to my opponent
2. Using Mandrakes (lol, by the time they finally reached combat in turn 3, both squads were run down for all they're worth)
Okay, it was for the fun of it. Honestly, they were fun to move about until they showed up. Lol, not so fun after that.
3. Reserving everything (for going second) except...- allowing my pirates to come in piecemeal
Even if I have to go second, target saturation is better than coming in piecemeal. My counterattack was pathetic, not due to the rubber lances (lol) but rather the inability to 'gang up' and do substantial damage to any part of the battle. Same goes for point 4.
4. Deploying only my foot warrior squads in cover and the Mandrakes. They were inevitably wiped out by turn 2 for my stupidity and lack of targets.

Conclusion
The real Black Beards will be back (and with more ships) after charging up the batteries for the Dark Lances and feeding all Mandrakes to the Lions. Can't wait for my second game tomorrow =) Oh by now you should know that my title refers to Grimcron drawing my first blood (my first defeat!) wahahaha.

More to come. Now to pick up my penknife and handsaw for the 8th Raider...

Signing off,
Teach (Krom's alter ego aka dark side hee)