Morning Raid

Since the Tau arrived at Unum they have struggled with trying to translate and understand the imperial archive and intelligence reports that they has been able to find in the area they have secured. There is good news. It seems like the planet actually has been able to produce limited quantities of Teryllium, a resource needed to fuel both the space ships as well as the Tau skimmer. Unfortunately it seems to been produced in the southern hemisphere of Unum, far away from their current bridgehead. However it seems like a trade route that carried Teryllium used to pass not far from Tau area before the wars. The Command judges that the chances where high to find some left shipments of Teryllium in the abandoned colony of Teta 17. There is however only one problem. The colony was abandoned since it was overrun by orks

The battle was fought using the new GrimDark Future one page rules that can be found here 
Both sides had no experience in the new rules so we did probably not play entirely according to them.

Tau forces

Tau Commander O'Sada in Battlesuit with a missile pod, pulse rifle and a flamer

3 Crisis Battlesuites with 2x Fusion Carbines, 2x Pulse rifles, missile pod, gatling carbine and a shield drone

10 Firewarriors with pule rifles

1 Hammerhead with railgun and smartmissiles

Ork forces
Warboss Smashfaca Sukkapuncha with Shoota, Power claw, Cybork body and heavy armour.

20 Boys with pistols and close combat weapons. Led by a nob with a big choppa (Energy sword)

20 Grots with a herder

A Battlewaggon with a kannon and four rokkits.

5 Nobs with Pistols and basic choppas

3 Bikes

Commander O'Sada had laid a careful plan. His forces has travelled across the enemy territory during the night and will attack with the first light, the main force should try to draw the orks inside Teta 17 to the border of the colony and occupy them there for as long as possible while a team of stealth suites where to infiltrate the colony searching for Teryllium.
As the dawn broke and the ork sentinels spotted the Tau company just outside the colony they quickly rushed to battle

Both sides rolled for choosing side. The orks won and choose the side with the colony buildings since they did not want to give the Tau unnecessary cover. The orks set up with a strong centre with the bikes ready to outflank on the left and the battlwaggon with the nobs on the right. The Tau on the other hand choose to only deploy the Hammerhead and the Firewarriors on board. Keeping the crisis suites in reserve.
Then we rolled for who would set up the first objective marker. We where not quite sure of the order between deploying forces and setting up objective markers but we interpreted it this way. We rolled for four objectives and the orks to place the first. The orks choose to place their objectives rather close in the middle of the board while the Tau concentrated on the left flank where the orks where the weakest.

Turn 1 Orks begins

The grots rushed forward taking cover as good as possible in the colony buildings.

The Tau has to activate a unit, without much to shoot at they choose the grots. The small statue of the grots making them a hard target behind a low wall and only three is killed. The Tau had a quality of 4+ when shooting. But since the grots where in cover they needed 5+. Only 4 shoot hit their target. After the hits is resolved you should roll the defence of the target. To kill a grot you need to roll 2 or higher on the die. Not a hard task. To make it even easier the Tau has armour piercing pulse rifles that gives them +1 on their dies. So they actually only need to roll one or higher. However if we understand the rules correctly a one is always a failure to hit and wound so in this case the armour piercing doesn't matter. One 1 was rolled and only three of the four grots that where hit was actually killed.

Smashfaca bellows at his orks that they act like they are bigger cowards than the grots and the orks rushed to.

The Hammerhead re-position it self a bit and fire at the Battlewaggon that however was rather obscured by the buildings and the railgun miss the target. The smart missiles however hits but does only minor damage. All four of the smart missiles did hit since the linked seems to counter the -1 you get from the cover with a +1 to hit. However they did not have very much in the way of armour piercing and a 8+ needed to be rolled which resulted in that you had to first roll a six and then a four or higher. One lucky missile did nevertheless found a week spot and damaged the waggon. The Tau had now activated all its units on the field and it was all free to go for the orks

The bikes rushed around the shed and headed towards the Hammerhead.

On the other side the driver of the battlwaggon got really annoyed by the rocking the missiles had caused and hit the high gear rushing forward.

The nobs thought that they where close enough and decided to disembark and firing their pistols in the process. Actually killing a Tau even though they had some cover of the dune in front of them. It seems like it is no longer possible to charge out of a vehicle. So the Nobs had to disembark and try to engage next turn, a bit unorky in their mind.

Lastly Smashfaca also rushed forward aiming to join the Nobs in the slaughter.

Turn 2, Tau begins

Commander O'Sada has been studying the progress on a small hill not far away. It seemed like the right time. A short command over the comlink to the other Crisis suites and they all lifted into the air simultaneously.
The Tau started the turn since they was out of units to active first in the previous. The Tau rolled for reinforcement and both passed the roll so they where placed on the board.

Commander O'Sada landed close to the Hammerhead. Recognising the threat of the combine force of the orks and bikes, figure that his flamer could even out the odds. The other Crisis suites landed behind the Battlewaggon hoping to give their Fusion Blasters a favourable target.

The Crisis suites with the fusion blaster fire at the Battlewaggon while the rest aimed at the Nobs that now where in the open (We had decided to houserule that different weapons in a squad can choose different target. The rules are not quite obvious on this). Gork was however on the orks side and one shoot of the blasters did miss the waggon while the other burned a huge hole in its back. The nobz where not as lucky as one went down to the combine fire of the two crisis suites and another nob where wounded. A total of four wounds where caused on the Nobz and since they can take three each one was killed.

The Battlewaggon driver decided that it was do or die and advanced forward as fast as possible to get
to the side of the Hammerhead and able to shoot at it without its cover from a dune. The kannon nevertheless miss (orks) two of the rokkits however hits. But they bounced of the sloped armour of the Hammerhead. After modification for armour piercing the ork needed a 4+ to wound the Hammerhead. Two threes where rolled. A pity since if both rokkits had hit the Hammerhead had been no more.

The Firewarriors instead concentrate all their fire at the advancing Nobz. And succeed to kill another of them.

On the ork left flank the bikes, now in range with their short range shootas, fire at the Hammerhead. The shear amount of bullets in the air actually manage to cause a minor damage on the war machine.  The bikes needed to roll first a six and then a four or higher and manage to do one damage.

This does not however seem to concern the gunner of the Hammerhead that had taken his time to make sure that the advancing Battlewaggon is in the aim. A devastating salvo from the rail gun turn the Battlewagon to a smoking wreck, the slower missiles that follow up the railgun only hits thin

air. 

Smashafaca yell at his expandable grots that they should better advance towards the flyis on the hill or he will personally smash their faces. The grots advance into firing range and give it all they have. Alot of grots actually hit the crisis suits but not a single manage to pierce their armour. 12 shot hit. None rolled the 6 that was needed to wound one of the suites.

O'Sada did not like those plinking sound the bikes made on his Hammerhead. So he jumps over the Hammerhead and fire all he have at the bikes, the flamer was especially effective making two of the bikes go boom. The single surviving ork however continue to advance. 

The orks in the middle continue to rush toward the Hammerhead.

The nobz charge the Tau firewarriors hoping to smash some helmets in. The attack is not an success and only manage to kill three of the Tau while the valiant Tau in return manage to take down a wounded nob. The nobz are thwarted and forced back.

Furious of the miserable grots and the week nobz Smashfaca decided to show how things should be done and singlehandy charge the Crisis suites. The crisis suites however manage to take of in the last minute and the big claw only strikes air. Seconds later he is hit by one of them knocking him to the ground almost passing him out. Smashfaca miss both his attacks with the claw. And takes two wounds in return. Facepalm.

Turn 3 Tau begins

Commander O'Sada realise that he is uncomfortable close to the advancing boyz. He jumps a bit backward and fire his weapons. Once again the flamer is his most trustworthy friend and manage to roast three of the orks.

The boyz gets infuriated by this and charge O'Sada. It does not go well. The orks has problem to penetrate the Crisis suite armour and only manage to wound the commander. Meanwhile he manage to kill three of the orks himself with his iron fists. Unfortunately he got distracted by a choppa to the helmet and does not realise the danger of the buzzing sound until it is to late. The nobs chain choppa bites hard into his shoulder and stagger him backwards. The fighting spirit of the orks is nevertheless broken and they retreat a bit giving him time to breath. 33 dices was rolled for the orks. 17 hits. However a 6 was needed to wound the commander and only one was rolled on those 17 hits. Luckily the nob manage to do another wound with his big choppa but it is not enough. The commander in return only need to avoid to roll 1 for his hits to manage to kill the orks.

On the other side of the Hammerhead the Firewarriors fire into the Nobz. Almost killing all of them
only leaving a severely wounded nob left.

The lone surviving ork bike decide it is time for a strategic retreat and rush in behind the shelter.

On the hill behind the orks the Crisis suites advance to secure one of the objectives while fire the fusion blasters at the wounded warboss finishing him of. The rest fire their weapons on the grots killing four of them.

The grots also advance and fire back at the crisis suites manage to wound one of them, a feeble cheer can be heard when smoke start to appear from the crisis suite.

The Hammerhead is out of hard targets to fire upon and instead direct is power at the nearby orks. The railgun hit one of the orks straight in the torso but the mean beast just continue to advance towards it even thou it has a huge hole in the chest (a one is always a failure even when it is from a railgun). The rain of missiles cause another ork to vaporise. 

The badly wounded remaining nob charge the remaining Firewarriors manage to take one with him before he is cut down by short range fire. 

Turn 4 Tau begins

Commander O'Sada afford himself a quick glance at the battlefield, things are looking good for his troops, before he return his attention to the horde in front of him, but they look grim from himself. However the orks seems to lack some of the lust to fight after their warboss where slain. He must however keep them in combat as long as possible to give his scouts a change to retrieve the Teryllium.

He decide to jump over the ork boyz and attack them from
behind, by doing so he cut of their way of retreat to the colony. (And block them from being able to get to the objective)

Five of the green beast succumb as he fire while he jumps above them.

The orks swallow O'Sadas bait and charge him. This time he has no possibility to defend himself. His wound making him slow. The last thing he see is a giant brute throwing himself over him. But he knows that his sacrifice might have given his scout time to get out.

On the opposite side of the battlefield the Crisis suites fire all
they have at the grots. The fusion blasters are to cumbersome to hit any of the small statues but the other weapons are taking their tolls and killing five of the small bastards. The grot morale is however high and they refuse to lay down their puny arms. A six was rolled for the grot morale.

The ork bike rush to protect the objective.

Just to be blown out of existence by the Hammerhead

On the other side the grots advance trying to protect what is left to protect (securing two objectives) while they fire at the Firewarriors. The dune they hide behind protect them however from the inaccurate fire from the grots.

Finally the Firewarrior advance (contesting the objective) and kill two grots.

The Tau gets a message that the scouts has found a few possible containers and evacuated the area. As sudden as they appeared the Tau disappear leaving only piles of dead orks. The few reaming orks immediately starts to fight among them self to appoint a new boss. The hard earned containers on the other hand showed to contain only low quality Teryllium and the loss of Commander O'Sada will be hard to replace.

The game ended in a tactical draw with both side controlling one objective each and contesting the third. It was however a strategically victory for the Tau since they lost only a few Firewarriors and the commander while the orks lost, not only their warboss, but also most of their troops and the battlewaggon. If it haven't been for the most trustworthy of all trustworthy unit of them all. The stalwart grot it would been a even harder loss for the orks.

Conclusion

There new Quality Defence mechanic has put a lot more focus on armour or and armour piercing than before. Which is good since it makes the tanks feel more like tanks. The orks really struggled to get through the armour of the Tau. I imagine how it will be to face the Space marines where all sixes is needed. Need to take more rokkits.

The system still works well but it feels that it has been an overhaul and i think some number here and there might need to settle a bit before it feels as stable as before the overhaul.