Ultimates Game 5

Mission: Vanguard – All infantry count as scoring units. Three objectives, placed by the TO
(This was queried and jump infantry were added to the list....)
Opponent: Tau-
5 x Devilfish with 5 warriors
2 x Rail head
1 x 2 Broadsides
Commander with missile pod and flamer?
1 x 3 Crisis team with missile pods and flamers
1 x 1 Crisis with twin-linked fusion
1 x 6 pathfinders w/ Devilfish
2 x 1 piranah

The ruling that all jump infantry counted as scoring units meant that my opponent suddenly gained 13 scoring units taking his total to 18 scoring units... I gained fire dragons and my autarchs, taking me to 9 total.
I started this game with a bad feeling. I don’t really have the guns to take out more than about 4-5 tanks in an entire game generally and that left enough for him to cordon off two objectives out of the three.
I had the option again, so I chose to go second. This time around I flanked with all three squadrons of walkers. There was one objective up either end (roughly) and one central, all three roughly on the center-line of the table. I figured whichever end the walkers came in from they would be of use, and I needed side/rear shots to have a chance at cutting through the number of vehicles.
His first two turns he secured one flank and one objective, circling it with three tanks. The central objective he put a few units forward towards but didn’t come far enough forward to be hit by dragons in the turn they arrived. All of his drones disembarked and the table was a flood of scoring units. His solo fusion blaster crisis didn’t arrive.
My turn two everything came on, almost all of it going flat out, the exception being one Dire Avenger tank which found a spot to fire from where it was given LOS cover from the other tanks. The Dragons were up in his face along with the autarch tank and one DA tank.
My general tactic against tau is to push forward, get in their face and then tankshock as much of their army off the board as possible. It works better the more crisis and broadside teams an opponent takes, my worst matchup against Tau is really a tank-heavy build, since the suit heavy build relies on missile pods and rail guns to bring down my tanks and its rare that they can bring down enough to stop 3-4 of the serpents getting into multi-tank-shock range...at which point the Tau army falls apart. Low leadership on expensive models that move 3d6 on a fallback is a bad combo.
Anyway, with that in mind I’d thrown a LOT forward, hoping to cut him off from the central objective, put pressure on him, hopefully live through the three turns necessary and win two objectives to one.
My walkers that came on came from the opposite flank to his castle, by choice. Originally i had wanted to get the rear armour shots, but the new plan (conceived after he’d moved for two turns) was to solidly lock down my end’s objective and then put so much pressure on the center that he couldn’t get anything in there and keep it alive long enough to stop me winning. Upon entering the field the walkers stunned the nearest hammerhead and settled in, one of the squadrons instead shut down a piranha, failing to kill it but leaving it stunned. A missile stunned the second one.
His turn three the pathfinders lit up a dragon serpent and the broadsides obligingly blew it out of the sky, no cover save for me. I started worrying. If he could do that a few times I was going to really struggle. The rest of his shooting thankfully did very little. The walkers were out of range of almost all of his shooting, the other railhead did bugger all and his general vehicles dropped a variety of shots into the exposed dragons. His solo crisis suit appeared, scattered onto my tank (with rerolls from pathfinder fish) and got put back in reserve.
My turn three the dragons made their entry and shut down a pair of devil fish. Both my autarchs dropped out and one went for each piranha. Some dire avengers got out of one tank to take down some fire warriors that had been evicted from their tank. Then my tank shocks started. His broadsides ran off the board, the pathfinders held and two drone squads disappeared. My autarchs dealt with the two piranha, one in the shooting phase, one in the assault phase.
His turn four saw another serpent go down and a second squad of fire dragons eat it. He got into position to try and pressure the center, while on ‘my’ flank, his hammerhead and one drone squad tried to get a line on contesting my objective. His solo crisis suit appeared, scattered onto my tank...again (with rerolls from pathfinder fish...again) and got put back into reserve...again.
My turn four the serpent on my objective moved to block the hammerhead from getting in range to contest (no guns that end of the field that could hurt the hammerhead) making certain its REAR DOOR was near the bloody objective this time! Meanwhile everything that could focussed on shutting down his crisis team that was close to the center objective. I failed miserably in that, they stood through multiple tank shocks and a lot of fire, having a couple of dudes left at the end of it. More drones died, by my estimate he couldn’t contest the center objective except with three squads of drones.
His turn five proved me right. He got three squads of drones in place to contest, plus got his crisis close...but not close enough. His commander also failed to make the distance. The center objective was mine for the taking. His shooting had minimal effect and all in all I was pretty confident.
My turn five saw probably my biggest stupid move of the tournament.
I lined up death for all three squads of drones, sending one autarch after each of two squads and a walker squadron blew one completely off the table. During my shooting phase the two autarchs both killed one of the two drones in the squads they were headed for, and I finished off one drone squad with dire avengers...but for some unknown reason, i then stopped shooting the other one. My mind went “that autarch will clean up that last drone in CC no problems, better look at what to do about the other things coming in in case we go to turn 6...”
I was wrong. The autarch failed in CC to deal with a single drone (Turns out if you do the math, thats not very surprising what with no power weapon and all) and of course the game ended.....so it was a freaking draw!
Great game, well played by my opponent who had pretty poor luck all game and still eked out a draw courtesy of smart play by him and stupid play by me.
Two silly mistakes in one tournament, both cost me a win to a draw....