State of the Tau

In a sort of Christmas Eve Bash(or just a game), Troy and I met up at Hobby Town for a game of 40K. We might have played Malifaux, but I couldn't print the cards he wanted, so, Tau versus Tyranids. And I forgot to take any pictures of course.

It was a really good game. Capture and Control with Spearhead deployment. He is running a ton of bugs, not my strong suit, but objectives is, so maybe it will be a wash. He deploys everything in his corner, I deploy all but outflanking Kroot, deepstriking Vespids, and a unit of walk on Firewarriors, they normal ride is scouting some Pathfinders into a better position. In hind sight, it was a waste, the should have deployed in a building at the front of my zone, but whatever. The name of this game was the Tau win or hold in assault. What, you say! That's right, I couldn't get out of assault. A single Pathfinder held in combat for three rounds. What the heck! Other than that, I managed to prioritise his big bugs, even killing the Swarmlord for the first time ever, with any army. His stinking Tervigons would not stop regening, including three 6's for the three wounds I put on first turn on the second turn, turning my paltry shooting in the first turn into nearly nothing. My Disruption Pods also failed me, I think I only rolled a single save all game.
At the end of the game, I had a single Firewarrior left that was double joined by my captain and commander to increase his troop capturing bubble onto the objective on turn 5. It went to 6, but Troy couldn't do anything to the squad and they would move further on in my turn. I doubt I would have been able to do enough to wipe his objective, with a Tervigon and a squad of Termagaunts right there. I would have had to kill the Tervigon, and its death in turn wipe the squad. A turn seven would have seen another Tervigon move up, though for time it would have never have happened.
We played this kinda as a tournament game, as I hope to take the army to Genghiscon, and Troy is working on speeding up his turns to get to late game. We played for roughly two and a half hours, and squeeked in with ten minutes to spare.
I am happy with the results. I have been out of the Tau for a while, and it was my first real opponent. No offence to the other two guys, they just haven't been playing as long. Also, I generally have trouble against Troy, with any army. He knows his 'nids, and plays the game very well. It was my game to lose, and I didn't. I hurt his army bad, without losing any full force org slots. I took out his only HQ and didn't lose either of mine. Had this been a tournament with secondaries, I think I would have been sitting at the bottom end of the winners, with bonus points. He did suggest I drop the Advanced Stabilisation Systems and go back to Targeting Arrays, and I think I have to agree. The other sticking point for me in the army are the Vespid. I have tried Stealth Suits as well, with a Fusion/Markerlight leader, but neither is filling a useful slot. The Stealths were good at getting a vehicle then hunting contents or tieing up in assault. The Broadsides are taking out the vehicles, but from safety. The Vespids job is to dice a unit of Space Marines, like Long Fangs, that are small and hiding in the back field. Unfortunately, neither heavy mech nor Sapce Wolf Long Fang spam are in my local meta. Vehicles are in Genghiscon meta. I haven't seen Long Fangs really, but they may just be on the other end of the tables. I could also try a Piranha in the points, but I just don't know. It's gonna take some tweaking, but I think the list is starting to come together.