Trial by Fire
I was finally able to get my Tau out for some exercise in the form of a short battle against Matt at Discordia Games. I have been planning out how to play them for a while, but this was their first game against an experienced player.

Experiment
I did something a little bit different this time around. I went back after the game and tallied up the Victory Points each side had earned for every turn, to see what information that gave me. If I had paid attention to this information during the game, I might have done some things differently. Read through to the end and you'll see what I mean.

Game: Last Man Standing. 400pts. Combat Patrol rules.

Lists

Chaos:
70 Lieutenant Mark of Slaanesh, Sonic Blaster, Spiky Bitz
125 Noise Marine Squad 4xSonic Blaster, Blastmaster, Mark of Slaanesh
204 Havoc Squad 2x Sonic Blaster, 4xBlastmaster, Mark of Slaanesh
399pts

Tau:
88 Shas'Vre CIB,PR,TA, HWMT, HWBSF
76 Shas'Ui PR,BC,TA,Tm Ldr,HWMT,HWBSF
76 Shas'Ui PR,BC,TA,Tm Ldr,HWMT,HWBSF
80 6xFW w/Tm Ldr:Markerlight
75 Piranha: Fusion Blaster, TA, Decoy Launcher
395pts

Setup

Chaos: Matt Clustered his Noise Marine Havocs in some Woods near his left flank, while the Noise Marine Troop Squad sat just outside cover and the Lieutenant joined them.

Tau: I put my Fire Warriors in a little fire lane between some trees. I couldn't actually put them in the trees (just outside my Deployment Zone) and putting them behind the trees would mean they'd have no line of sight. I hoped the fire lane would give them some protection but that they'd be able to cover a good portion of the field between us with fire and their Markerlight. I then put the Crisis Suits behind 2 of the stands of trees, focusing on my right flank. (This was fairly easy, since I had 5 units to deploy and Matt only had 3, so I knew exactly where he was going by the time I placed most of my Crisis Battlesuits.) The Piranha went on my left behind the third stand of trees.

Turn 1

Chaos: Every member of the small Chaos band (almost literally band, these are Noise Marines after all!) stands still and obliterates the Fire Warriors (the only target they could see.) It wouldn't have been so bad, but I didn't have any other targets for the Noise Marines to shoot, so they absolutely shredded the FireWarriors.

Tau: In turn, the Crisis Suits jump out from behind cover while the Piranha glides out from behind the trees, only to discover it is too far away to do anything but disembark the drones. The Crisis Suits kill 3 Noise Marines (taking the squad below half) and put a Wound on the Lieutenant.(This may have been due to the Torrent of Fire rule, I don't remember.) The Crisis Suits then nimbly jump back behind cover with their assault move. (Note that one of the suits had to walk into the wooded terrain at the beginning and shoot from there, then jump back during the assault phase, since landing in the woods would have forced a dangerous terrain test.)

Turn Score: 80VP Chaos to 97.5VP Tau (Draw)

Turn 2

Chaos: The Lieutenant runs like a little chicken. (Well, okay, he leaves the Noise Marines and hops back behind the Woods to get out of the line of fire. I still like my description better.) The Havocs also suffer an outbreak of common sense and remove themselves to behind the woods they had been in. The remaining 2 Noise Marine Troopers open fire on the Piranha but fail to damage it.

Tau: The Crisis Suits leap back out and the Piranha edges closer. Their combined fire brings down the remaining 2 Noise Marines, and the Crisis Suits jump back behind cover again.

Turn Score: 80VP Chaos to 160VP Tau (Solid Victory for Tau)

Turn 3

Chaos: The Noise Marine Havocs sensibly stay hidden, while the Lieutenant takes a potshot at one of the Drones, but fails to damage it.

Tau: The Crisis Suits have no targets, so they remain hidden. The Piranha opens up on the Lieutenant and finishes him off.

Turn Score: 80VP Chaos to 195VP Tau (Solid Victory for Tau)

Turn 4

Chaos: The Noise Marine Havocs remain hidden, presumably in an attempt to draw me out of cover.

Tau: The Crisis Suits move out of the treeline as the Drones surprise the Noise Marine Havocs by assaulting them! No damage is taken on either side. I forget to use the assault move of the Crisis Suits.

Turn Score: 80VP Chaos to 195VP Tau (Solid Victory for Tau)

Turn 5

Chaos: The Noise Marine Havocs get their wits about them and beat down the Drones for no losses.

Tau: The Crisis Suits and the Piranha fire into the Noise Marine Havocs and kill 3 of them (leaving the squad still at half strength and thus no Victory Points.) Feeling too confident, I forget to try to move the Crisis Suits in the assault phase. I don't think I could have gotten them to cover, but I should have tried.

Turn Score: 80VP Chaos to 195VP Tau (Solid Victory for Tau)

Turn 6

Chaos: The Noise Marine Havocs pour their fire into a Crisis Suit, which goes down.

Tau: The remaining Crisis Suits and the Piranha fire everything they've got into the Noise Marine Havocs, who manage to make every single armor and cover save!

Turn Score: 156VP Chaos to 195VP Tau (Draw)

Turn 7

Chaos: Dazed by their good fortune the previous turn, the Noise Marine Havocs are shocked as all of their fire bounces off the Crisis Suit they target!

Tau: The Crisis Suits and Piranha finally manage to wipe out the rest of the Noise Marine Havoc squad, ending the game.

Turn Score: 156VP Chaos to 399VP Tau (Crushing Victory for Tau)

Lessons Learned
Well, the first lesson is that I need to hide my Fire Warriors. At least in a list with nothing else that will start out in Line of Sight to the enemy, it will only invite pain. On the other hand, if I had started them out of Line of Sight, then moved them up in the first turn, the enemy would have had to choose between shooting them and the Piranha. For even more survivability, I might have tried advancing them so that they didn't have direct LOS, but they covered the area between our Deployment zones so that they could give supporting fire if the Chaos forces approached. I think I like this option the best and I will strive for that in the future. It means they give up a turn or two of firing, but it gives them a purpose and it keeps them safe, which fits well with my interpretation of the Tau way of thinking.

The second lesson is that Jump, Shoot, Jump works tremendously well, at least against a semi-static shooty army. Being able to tag Matt's Noise Marines with no retaliation was a wonderful thing. I do, however need to remember that Assault move when I am redeploying. If I had used that move on the first turn, I probably could have positioned myself for more JSJ action against the Noise Marine Havocs. I did not and one of my Crisis suits paid for that mistake.) JSJ could also leave my Piranhas in the dangerous position of being the only visible target, similar to that of the Fire Warriors in this game, but I may be able to mitigate that by using my Crisis Suits to damage the units most able to take down the Piranhas and by maneuvering the Piranhas well.

The final lesson is that I don't need to do massive damage to win with the Tau, and I don't have to be aggressive. This may be a hard one for me, as I'm used to my Tyranids having to be very aggressive to do enough damage to win, and the same with my Dark Eldar. The results from my experiment show otherwise, however, as you can see below.

Experimental Results
Okay, so my experiment was basically to compare Victory Points for each side on every turn. I wanted to get a feel for how I did during the game and see if I could learn anything from that, or if it might have helped me make decisions. The answer was yes. You'll notice that during most of the game, very little damage was done, yet aside from the first turn, it was mostly a Solid Victory in my favor. If the game had been called on turns 2-5, it would have been a Solid Victory for the Tau. That means I could have just basically sat back and waited for Matt to make a move. In fact, when I did get more aggressive, it briefly brought me back down to a draw before I could wipe them all out. If I had had this information during the game, I probably would _not_ have moved forward to engage the Noise Marine Havocs. I could have waited him out, content with my Solid Victory. I'm going to try to keep track of VPs on a turn-by-turn basis in future games, to get a better tactical grasp on what I need to do.

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