Tau: Inaugural battle

Friday night, I had the first of (hopefully) many battles with my new Tau army.
This will be a short battle report mainly focussing on how the army plays.


The point cap for the battle was 1500pts and beneath is a short rundown of my army list:
HQ
Commander, 2 plasma rifles, shield generator, puretide chip, neuro web system jammer thingamajig, Iridium armor

Elites
5 Stealth suits, 'vre with markerlight and target lock and homing beacon, marker drone
Riptide with ion accelerator, smart missile system (SMS) and Early warning override
Crisis monat (1 suit) with 2 missile pods and early warning override

Troops
2x 10 Firewarriors with 'ui, bonding knifes, 1 has devilfish with disruption pod
12 Kroot including shaper and sniper rounds

Fast attack
10 Pathfinders with 'ui, 3x ion rifle

Heavy Support
2 Broadsides with heavy rail rifles, SMS, early warning overrides and 2 missile drones
Hammerhead with railgun and submunitions, disruption pod

The opponent was Dries' Hivefleet Ozymandias which included (from the top of my head):

HQ
Flying Tyrant with 2 twin linked brainleech devourers(?) and some additional upgrades (some help here, Dries?)

Elites
3 Hive guard
5 Ymgarl genestealers
Doom of Malan'tai in mycetic spore (edit: moved into Elite slot)

Troops
20 devourer gaunts in mycetic spore
10 basic gaunts
2x Tervigon with toxin sacs and adrenal glands

Fast attack
20 gargoyles with toxin sacs

Important note: we both used some proxies in the form of my Angels of Destruction:
- 2 terminator stand ins for stealth suits
- 10 scouts as pathfinders
- droppod and dreadnought as mycetic spores

Disclaimer: this re-telling is of what I remember. Some details are blurry as the entire battle was fought in a half-sleeping state, both by me and by Dries.

Mission and Deployment
We rolled for mission and deployment and came up with Purge the Alien (kill points mission) on a short table edge deployment (the name does not come to mind).
Dries won the roll off and decided to go first.

He deployed his gargoyles, a Tervigon and the squad of 10 gaunts in the center. The hive guard went on his left flank and the Flyrant is hidden in the Shrine of the Aquila. Everything was deployed as far as possible onto the table, to minimize the distance needed to get into close combat! (of course...)
The Ymgarl stealers, gaunts in spore, Doom in spore and second Tervigon were held back in reserves.

I deployed the Broadside team on a wall to have a good view of the battlefield. The crisis suit was set up behind the wall, to allow him to jump-shoot-jump (JSJ) with his dual missile pods. Both Firewarrior squads were set up in the center with the devilfish in support. On my left flank are the Pathfinders with the Riptide behind them. The hammerhead went on the right flank. Stealth suits infiltrated on top of the bastion on my left flank. Both the kroot and the commander were held in reserves, kroot to outflank, commander to deep strike.

Early game
The gargoyles flew up their full distance, but couldn't withstand the deadly force of the Tau shooting and succumbed. The rest of the nid force moved up, the Tyrant also taking one wound from Tau shooting, the Tervigon got wounded by the Riptide. In return, only one Stealth suit died in the Tyranid shooting phase.

Almost all of Dries' reserves arrived the second turn, except for the Ymgarl stealers. (on a 2+ roll) Suddenly: threats! Using the early warning override, some gaunts got shot up. The Doom killed a broadside and both missile drones, the Pathfinders were shot to shreds and the Stealth unit only consisted of the 'vre and the marker drone anymore. The Flyrant failed to assault (due to the casualties of the stealth squad) and took some damage by overwatch and covering fire.

In return the Shas'o showed up using the Stealth shas'vre's homing beacon and put down the already wounded Flyrant. The hive guard lost another member of their squad to JSJ damage.

Mid game
The Ymgarls showed up, only to be torn apart by Interceptor fire.
Both Tervigons spawned a healthy amount of gaunts and send their spawn forward, attempting to overwhelm the already beleaguered Tau forces. The Riptide was wounded, ran away and was run down by a squad of gaunts (d'oh!). A squad of Firewarriors lost a combat to a Tervigon, escaped his (her?) clutches, but promptly ran off the table with a 11" flee!
The remaining broadside died to the Doom of Malan'tai's crazy powers while the Hammerhead was headbutted by the remaining hive guard and exploded.

Sensing a defeat, the Shas'o and Stealth Shas'vre decided to use their jetpacks for the Greater Good and spent the rest of the battle trying to outrun the swarms of gaunts being spawned by both mommies Tervigon.
The only other squads remaining were a depleted squad of Firewarriors with their Devilfish. Valiantly they tried to bring down some smaller squads of gaunts to up the victory point count, but utterly failed and were
destroyed soon after.

Late game
The Tyranid hive continued doing what they were doing: spawning gaunts and trying to hunt the Shas'o and 'vre down.
In the mean time, I remembered I had some Kroot stashed somewhere and brought them on (I forgot rolling for them in the previous turn) in support of the Shas'o and 'vre. Before dying, they dragged a final squad of gaunts down with them.

After six turns, the score was: 8 for Tau, 10 for Tyranid. This was truly a strange battle, swinging the odds in all kinds of directions. In the end, a deserved win for Hivefleet Ozymandias. Watch this space for my opinion of the performance of the Tau units in this battle.