P&B battle report vs Tau

My second 1250 Paint & Battle Campaign battle was against a tau player. As I am not familiar with the tau codex, I don't know the correct names for some of his units, let alone their upgrades. His army consisted of a battlesuit commander in a squad of another battlesuit and two shield drones. He also had two battlesuits with heavy weapons and two shield drones. He had a transport vehicle with scouts in it and a hammerhead. He also had two units of fire warriors with drones and a unit of kroot. We rolled for mission and deployment and got seize ground (3 objectives) with pitched battle deployment. I won the roll to deploy objectives first and placed one in the table edge that would suit my opponent the most (large woods terrain for his kroot). He placed his in the middle of the board and I placed the last one back on the same side so we had a triangle of objectives. My opponent won the roll to go first and deployed his army completely.

He deployed his kroot in the woods on his left side, hid his HQ suits behind the woods, put one squad of tau warriors in a ruin on his right side and the other in the open between these two squads. He deployed his heavy weapon suits right of the tau warriors in cover. His hammerhead was deployed near his own table edge behind the woods. His transport skimmer was deployed between the two units of fire warriors. Since everything in my list is in drop pods, I deployed nothing. He then scouted his transport skimmer forward and had his scouts get out into cover near the objective in the middle of the table.

In my opponents first turn, he moves some of his units a bit around but as he has nothing to shoot at, this round is quickly finished.
In my first turn, I brought in my first three drop pods. All three scattered 11 inches! This screwed my tactics up and left my terminators mostly out of the game. I placed my first drop pod with my terminators next to his HQ but scattered just next to the board edge. Had the arrow been a bit more to the long or short table edges, I would have scattered off. The termintors got out and were luckily still in rapid fire and melta range of his HQ. I placed my second drop pod with grey hunters, wolf guard and rune priest between his fire warrior units but scattered towards the middle of the board. My rune priest left the unit when disembarking so he could fire at a different unit. I then placed my third drop pod with Logan and the long fangs in the middle of his deployment zone next to his fire warriors. But I scattered towards the other objective near the kroot. In my shooting phase my rune priest got off Jaws of the World Wolf and took out one of his heavy weapon suits. The unit of grey hunters shot at the tau warriors in the open and killed a few drones. My terminators shot all their combi-weapons at his HQ unit and he lost three wounds on the suits. I split the fire from the long fangs and shot two at the remaining heavy weapon suits and two at the hammerhead but failed to do anything useful.

In my opponents second turn, he first used his marker lights to hit the grey hunters and the long fangs. His shooting kills one long fang, several grey hunters and one wound on both Logan and the runepriest. Two of the drop pods get their weapon shot off. In stead of shooting, his kroot assault the long fangs and Logan. Logan uses his living legend rule and he and the long fangs kill six of his kroot but I loose three other long fangs. The kroot fail their check and run away and with Logan in terminator armour, I cannot run them down but I consolidate within 6 inch. His HQ suit jumps away from my terminators.
In my second turn, both of the remaining drop pods come in. The first one also scatters 11 inches but still ends up in rapid fire range of the HQ unit but now blocks the way for my terminators. The second one scatters less and ends up next to the first grey hunters' drop pod. My terminators start moving around the woods towards his running kroot. I also ran them in the shooting phase but rolled a 1. The first grey hunters squad moves towards the scouts, shoots at them with pistols and melta and then assaults them. The small grey hunters squad that dropped near the HQ unit shoots at it and kills one of the suits. The other small squad shoots at the fire warriors in the open. Logan and the remaining long fang also move closer to that unit, shoot at it and assault it. The rune priest runs into cover and the tries Jaws of the World Wolf again but fails to take something down this turn. I win the assault against the scouts, killing all but one who runs and gets away. His route towards his table edge will take him near the two drop pods so I will not need to escort him off the board. I consolidate these grey hunters into the terrain the scouts were in. Logan and the long fang also win combat without further casualties and the remaining fire warriors run off and once more I cannot pursue. I consolidate closer to both these running fire warriors and the running kroot.

In his third round his fleeing units run some more and both the fire warriors and the kroot end up near his board edge. His shooting causes a few grey hunter casualties but not enough for morale checks. He does kill the rune priest.
In my third turn the unit of grey hunters in cover moves out and assaults his troop transport. The terminators move round the forest and within 6" of the running kroot. The long fang and Logan move closer towards the fleeing units and the nearby Hammerhead, shoot at it and assault it. The first small unit of grey hunters moves in pursuit of his retreating HQ unit and shoot at it, killing both drones. The other grey hunters move into the ruin that holds the second unit of fire warriors, shoots some pistols and assault them. The grey hunters that assault the troop transport take damage from some defensive upgrade, killing all the grey hunters except for the mark of the wulfen and the wolf guard. The mark of the wulfen immobilizes the skimmer and then the wolf guard can finish it off with his fist, causing an explosion. Logan and the long fang also suffer from the defensive upgrade on the hammerhead, killing the long fang but Logan can also explode the hammerhead. The second unit of grey hunters wins the combat against the fire warriors in cover but they remain locked.

In my opponent's fourth turn, both his kroot and his fire warriors run off the board. The heavy weapon suit shoots at the mark of the wulfen and wolfguard and kill them both. With the slow and purposefull rule, it looks like this unit will not be able to get in range to contest an objective. The grey hunters and his remaining fire warriors trade blows. I kill all but his sergeant model but the units remain locked in combat. His HQ remains shooting and retreating.
In my fourth turn, my terminators move closer towards his tau HQ. Logan also moves closer and joins the terminator squad. The small squad of grey hunters moves closer to the tau HQ, within claiming distance of an objective and shoot at him. A storm bolter from a drop pod takes off another wound, leaving him with only one. My terminators and Logan also shot at his HQ but only one was in rapid fire range. I forgot about relentless, so the others would have had one shot as well. In combat I kill the last remaining fire warrior and consolidate towards a second objective but I was just out of claiming range.

In my opponent's fifth turn, his heavy weapon suit wrecks a drop pod and his tau HQ kills one terminator. He had no more scoring units and I still had three left. One of them was already on an objective. But I wouldn't make it towards the third objective.
In my fifth turn my shooting kills his tau HQ. I move so that I hold two objectives. My opponents rolls a 2 when we check if the game continues but it ends. He only had four models left (his heavy weapon suit with two drones and one scout still running but unable to regroup as the unit was below 50%).