Warhammer 40k: Death Company vs Tau 1000-ish Points

In line with my last two posts (one and two), this covers a game of 40k between me and my oldest boy.  He loves the Blood Angels, and I love a well-painted mini, particularly some Death Company with jump packs.  So what follows is a few highlights from a game where we each had 1000 points or so.  He had Astorath as his warlord and a Death Company squad of 11 as a death star unit (which it is, at 1000 points), and I had Tau and some Kroot. 

The two forces lined up, Blood Angels on left and Tau on right.  Blood Angels took the initiative.

The land speeders advanced and drew a ridiculous amount of fire, but proved improbably lucky at managing not to get blown up.  Terrible Tau dice in this opening turn.

The Death Company runs in order to close the distance.  One land speeder is down.  Its crew dismounted, but I think this was a mistake - I think they were supposed to go down with the ship, so to speak.

Tau prove much more effective on the other flank, whittling away at tactical marines that wander into range.

 The Death Company take a couple of casualties from overwatch fire as they assault, but it doesn't really matter.  The Kroot get munched pretty easily.

The placement of the Death Company, in easy line of fire of Tau Fire Warriors, helps whittle them down a bit.

Tau on the right flank fall prey to some deadly Devastator Squad fire.

Some Kroot think it's a good idea to assault the tail end of the Death Company unit...

...and they suffer casualties and rethink this course of action.

And Astorath and his Death Company faithful close the distance to the Tau Fire Warrior line, delivering a crushing blow.  At this point, we called the game.  There was no Tau victory on the horizon.

Two lessons learned:
1.  The Kroot pushed me from 800 or so points to nearly 1000, and I need some more proper Tau troops to make this list competitive.
2.  The Kroot might have been effective as a speed bump of sorts, pushing them into the path of the Death Company so that they spent more time under the guns of the Tau line.  Something to think about for future games...