faux-Battle Report #2 : vs. Tau

I had a game against a friend last night. I asked him to bring the pain at 2,000 points, and that he did. He ran something like:

-Ethereal, Longstrike? (hammerhead character guy)
-Pathfinders x2 units
-Riptides x3 (all with the melta and Ion Cannon)
-Crisis Suits x2 units (one was super plasma-based)
-Devilfish /w a 6-man unit of Fire Warriors
- 6-man Fire Warriors
-Skyray
-Little AV 10 skimmer vehicles with twin-linked marker lights (forgeworld, I believe)
-Void Shield Generator
*Sorry it's so lite on information, but I don't much about Tau

I took my 2,000 point Tournament list:

Nemesis Strike Force Detachment: (there are two detachments in the below slots)

HQ - Librarian, ML 3
HQ - Librarian, ML 3
Troop - Strike Squad x5, Incinerator
Troop - Terminators x5, Daemon Hammer, Psycannon
Fast Attack - Interceptors x10, x2 Incinerator
Fast Attack - Interceptors x10, x2 Incinerator
Heavy Support - Dreadknight, Sword, Teleporter, Heavy Psycannon, Heavy Incinerator
Heavy Support - Dreadknight, Sword, Teleporter, Heavy Psycannon, Heavy Incinerator
Heavy Support - Dreadknight, Sword, Teleporter, Heavy Psycannon, Heavy Incinerator
Heavy Support - Dreadknight, Sword, Teleporter, Heavy Psycannon, Heavy Incinerator

My warlord trait was re-rolled and I ended up getting -1 to my opponent's reserve rolls twice. He got the one where he chooses three of my units and they make a pinning check (and as far as I know, Dreadknights aren't fearless). We got the hidden tactical objectives mission and were on Hammer and Anvil deployment. We didn't roll off for sides or first turn, as I wanted him to do as much damage as possible to see what my army can weather - so I just let him choose both. I rolled off for powers, but I made mistakes again. I did end up with Invisibility, but opted for rolling on Santic with my Warlord Librarian. With such small units running around on my side, I'm not sure fishing for Invisibility was the best idea. I decided against Deep Striking anything in (and without Gate of Infinity walking the terminators acrossed the board was painful), because the name of this game for me wasn't about winning but just trying to endure what I could.

First turn he failed to do any significant damage. I was out of range of most of his guns. He shot two Interceptors dead and they ended up failing morale. I'll note now that my dice were ridiculous. I was literally rolling 1s and 2s or 5s and 6s - there was no middle ground. I'm pretty sure I rolled about average, but ended up rolling 1s and 2s for saving throws, and 5s and 6s for casting powers and morale and the like. My dice were possessed with a Chaos Daemon that wanted my Grey Knights to fail. When it was my turn, I shunted three of my Dreadknights in front of his army and inside the Void Shield (why not 4? well, one of my Dreadknights failed that Pinning warlord thing...awesome). I decided against shunting all my Interceptors, but in hindsight that was a bad idea. He was playing to do damage, so playing total gunline. I should have given myself some Turn 2 charges by placing the majority of my army in his face instead of just three Dreadknights. I cast powers and he denied 1 Sanctuary, but the other two suffered Perils (all those Perils I should have gotten in my game against you came out in this one) - and each Perils was a friggin' result of 1. Blargh. I passed my Leadership checks, sure, but ended up killing half a Dreadknight worth of Wounds on my own. I cast Invisibility on the Terminator unit, but I should have tossed it on a Dreadknight that was in his face. I killed some stuff, but nothing significant. So I had to endure his next round of shooting to get off some Dreadknight charges next turn...

...and three Dreadknights died. It took his entire armies' firepower, but he did manage to finish off every wound on the three Dreadknights I had. I was rolling pretty poorly on a lot of saves, so that's nice to be aware of. If I hadn't Perils in the worst way during Turn 1 it was pretty likely I'd have two alive Dreadknights ready to charge (even if they were a bit wounded it would have been enough to start wrecking stuff). My un-Pinned Dreadknight shunted along with my Interceptors. I did some damage, but nothing significant. I tossed Invisibility on to the lone Dreadknight, but it wouldn't matter in the end. The game went on another turn or so before I gave up when he brought down the last Dreadknight in Overwatch.

In the end, I learned exactly what I set out to - the durability of my army while facing down a ridiculously fierce shooting list with the worst odds against me (not having a choice of deployment, going first, and the worst deployment type against a gunline army). There were obvious things I could have done better, but I opted to play a bit more simply to better gauge my armies' defenses.

A picture of my army after the game.