I was just wondering if anyone has used the Tau Commander from the back of the Core Rulebook.
I will be putting it up against a group of 3 or 4 rank 1 Marines this Sunday (GM is in Vegas for Easter another will be busy with Easter another gets a ride with the GM, and I will be GMing) . The team will consist of a Space Wolves Successor Run Priest, Space Wolves Devestator, Imperial Fists Tech-Marine, and (maybe) a Black Shield Apothecary.

Being me, I'm a bit of a mean GM, throwing some very mean moments at the players. But they are still able to over-come the obstacle. I just don't want the entire game to feel like the players are on God Mode Energy Drink.

So for the side-mission I will be running, the Kill-Team will be out to assassinate a Tau Commander, in a attempt to throw the Tau forces into disarray.

Background for my mission I will be presenting is the following.
Jungle Hive World under siege by Tau forces. The stubborn Lord General Hector has been proving his worth after his many defeats. In other words, he is losing grip on the reality of the situation. But his own stubbornness and paranoia has kept him in his position, having regiment officers, naval officers and governors hung at the slightest hint of Tau sympathy.
It didn't take long for the Tau to gain a foothold in the city surrounding the main spire of the planets capital. Within' about of week, the Planetary Defense Forces were forced to retreat into the spire and recruit militias.
The Kill-Teams main objective to is assassinate the only obvious Tau commanding individual, Shas'O Myr, in hopes to send the Tau forces into disarray long enough to strike a blow back at them.

Anyway, for the boss, I was going to use the Tau Commander from the core rulebook and give him a little extra stuff. I'm giving him a grenade launcher under his wrist, with four Plasma Grenade rounds which do 2d10+12 E Pen 8. Also, he will have a Shield Drone that will have a chance of soaking 2d10 damage. But, it does not work against flame attacks.

Alongside the Commander, he will have two Battle Suit Bodyguards, who will have the same profile as him, but with less wounds. I'm thinking 60 rather than the normal 90 like the commander. I think I will arm them with dual Burst Cannons, just to add some fear with the possible 20 shots coming from both of them, suppressing the team and pinning them. Also, there will be 20 or so Tau Fire Warriors armed with Pulse Rifles. Every couple of rounds, if the Fire Warriors numbers are dwindling, I will roll to see if reinforcements arrive(via drop ship) to support their commander.

All of this will take place in the upper regions of the hive. The Tau Commander will be leading an assault against a PDF hanger that is currently being used to evacuate civilians. By the time the Kill-Team learns of his position, he will already be nearing his objective. So the Kill-Team will have to be picked up by Vendetta (I'm gonna have them under heavy fire from two Devilfish and the troops they were moving when it arrives. Have one of those quick evac movie moments.) and rushed up to the hangers, while dodging fire from Barracuda Fighters, and hopefully taking out a couple Orca Dropships on the way up. The more Dropships they destroy, the harder it will be for the Tau Commander to recieve reinforcements.

As for what actually happens during the fight, I can't say for sure because I cannot predict the movements of the team and how they will approach this new threat. They are accustomed to fighting hordes of Orks or Tyranids. I will be applying special abilities to the Fire Warriors, cast from the Commander. Ordering them to fire rapidly, or to take aim, allowing them to re-roll their rolls to hit.
So what do you guys think?

Huh, Im interested to see how it turns out. Re-update after ya run it please!

-J

I will post an update. But do you feel like this sounds like a good boss fight? Is it too easy? Too hard? Just right? Any suggestions?

Sounds like a pretty tough fight, i hope your players will have plenty of fate points to use for it.

Only real issue i can see for this fight is the firewarrior reinforcements being drop-shipped in. Considering the firepower that orcas and devilfish have, the presense of the drop ships could be an issue. Perhaps just having the firewarriors run in to join the fight or some such, avoids the issue of having the tau transports on the scene (either having them shoot the kill theam, or awkwardly doing nothing)

Beyond that, it sounds like it could be fun, although you may have to fudge some damage rolls to keep your players alive (but sometimes that makes for the best fights)

The Orca Dropships won't be there for fire support. The will be moving in and out because the PDF forces I have come up with to defend this hive will still have a strong air force. So the Orcas will have to worry about Vendettas.
Also, the kill-team won't be the only Imperial forces within' the hanger. There will be some PDF forces. Heavy weapons teams dug in tight like a tick. And with the amount of cover that will be available, some sporadic fire from the Orcas burst cannons and rockets won't be too too scary. Plus, they will only be around once every 5 or so turns. Depending on how many Orcas they destroy on the way to the hanger that is.

I like it, sounds like you've planned this through quite soundly. Perhaps perpare for your players trying to inspire/lead the friendly forces before/during the fight to help out.

Should be a fun fight.

Yes, this sounds like a very interesting fight. To me it sounds pretty ok. The only thing I would consider is the number of Tau present. I figure that the Tau have more troops attacking the hangar than just twenty Fire Warriors and the Commander with bodyguards, so what will these troops do when their commander is under attack. Naturally a fair few of these will be caught up in a fire fight with the PDF, but wouldn't there be natural for at least some of these forces to move to support the commander if he's attacked, and they are practically attacked from the rear as well?

Well it's not like the Fire Warriors are just going to stand there. They will be on the offensive. But I'm guessing you only skimmed through my post. Every couple of rounds, when the FIre Warriors numbers are dwindling, I will roll to see if reinforcements arrive via Orca Dropship. And when they do, the Kill-Team and the PDF forces in the hanger will have to deal with incoming fire from the Orca for a turn.

Now, there reason for the small number of Fire Warriors in this assault is due to the fact that by the time the Kill-Team arrives, the hanger will already be under attack. Fire Warriors will already have fallen, and the remaining twenty will be who's still standing against PDF forces before reinforcements arrive.

Are you going to be using the Fire Warriors as a horde?

I will be using the extra d10 for the Fire Warriors. Might as well. Because the team will be in cover, with their armor and toughness bonus... they will have a lot of room to soak damage before taking wounds.
To get them out of cover, the Tau Commander will actually rush them. Using his suit to fly over them, and drop one of his plasma grenades to flush them out.

Nah, didn't skim it. I just got the impression that those twenty Fire Warriors were there to protect the Commander, in addition to his two Battlesuits bodyguard, and that while reinforcements were flying in, the big fire fight between the Fire Warriors and the PDF was taking place a small distance away. If anything it seems like I missunderstood the scene you were portraying. I got the impression there was a huge ammount of Tau just around the corner, but for some reason they wouldn't try to save their commander.

I hope its a bit clearer now.

Again, the Tau Fire Warriors are there to do SOME damage. Not a lot, but enough to knock off a wound or two.

Now, the reason why I am only throwing so few Warriors is because after you factor in the Commanders armor, toughness bonus, and his shield drone that I made for him (which soaks up to 2d10), he's gonna be pretty hard to hurt. And then he still has his 90 wounds.

I'm not arguing with you. I'm explained how I came to view it, which was evidentally wrong, as I missunderstood what you had writen. I'm not critisicing your idea.

Be wary that the devastatyor can dish out a lot of damage in one round. He still has a +20 bonus due to size and +10 due to range. So be aware of that. Other than that the mission seems fair. I think the team will have a hard time with the commander, although they have a huge advantage. They only need to kill him, and can 'ignore' the others until the commander is dead.

By the way. Interesting use of a shield drone. I usually use it having a forcefield of 30% with a 1-10% overload chance.

Octus said:

To counter the +20 for his size, I'm gonna have him constantly flying to make him harder to hit.

And thanks for the comment on my Shield Drone.

I used a commander in a game a few weeks ago, with two squads of fire warriors backing him up. My FWs rolled terribly, but the commander layed down some extreme hurt and the jump pack makes him a tough cookie to lock down. However, it didn't take long for my plucky kill team to get him down, and due to the story i was using, he ejected rather than detonating his suit.

Also, love the idea with the gun drones. May have to steal that at some point in the future!

In the last session of my DW campaign, a Tau commander his stealth suit strike team tracked down the killteam to an abandoned Tau camp. The killteam consists of a tac marine, devastator, tech-marine and sister of battle/crusader heavily specialised in melee. The stealth suits carried three burst cannons and two fusion blasters. To represent the latter I used the pre-errata 1.1 astartes melta gun with four fewer damage and one less penetration but keeping the short range rule.

I had the commander use hit and run tactics (jump, fire weapons, come down behind cover of trees). The stealth suits were moving into position to mow down the killteam when half of them were spotted. The stealth suits are tough enough not to necessarily die in one hit (a krak missle wasn't enough in one case). The commander took a great deal of damage when the jumppack equipped tac marine and SoB came after him in a running (jumping?) battle. He wasn't fast enough to both run away to safety *and* shoot. He did attempt to flee at maximum speed when badly injured but a little too late for safety, the free strikes against fleeing (not disengaging) opponents triggering a self-destruct which injured the SoB. The suits with burst cannons perished to a man, two dying before shooting and one jamming before death. The two with fusion blasters did much better, one being totally undetected and the other ignored in favour of killing the rest. Melta weapons at close range are vicious. The tank of a tech-marine took 15 wounds after reductions in one hit.

The player's opinion was that it was a pretty solid challenge, which could have ended quite badly for them with a few different rolls (especially awareness). The -30 to WS/BS/Per checks with active stealth made a huge difference to the stealth suits survivability.