This battle was a test skirmish using the Jungle Fighting special rules detailed in the catachan codex available from the GW site here: http://uk.games-workshop.com/imperialguard/catachan%2Drules/1/

So with that for reference the next campaign at my hobby shop will be using those rules. So to familiarize ourselves with it we decided to have a battle at 1250 points. The mission was... I dont even think we had one, just straight up cleanse with victory points, not table quarters. The board had 2 clearings in the top half, one on the left, one in the middle with a road running from the middle one to my board edge. A settlement was on the right. A river ran from the center of the right edge almost cutting off the lower right table quarter, a hill sitting roughly center of said quarter. Thats all the relevant stuff, everything else was jungle... all of it. The lists where as follows:

Thousand Sons
Sorcerer Lord and 4 man retinue
5 Flamers
7 Rubric Marines with thrall and sorcerer
7 Rubric Marines with thrall and sorcerer
Chaos Predator Destructer with twin lascannon
Chaos Demolisher

Now I really cannot remember all that this list had but all the sorcerers and units had various upgrades, psychic powers for the most part (Thousand Sons, of course mostly psychic).

Tau
Shas'O Ximoro'An in helios configuration
Monat Shas'ui w/ burst cannon, missil pod and Multi tracker
Crisis Team (2) equipped the same as the monat but with a shas'vre
Irregulars Firewarrior Squad (10), bonded, shas'ui, x2 carbines, photon grenades
Firewarrior Team (12), bonded, shas'ui
Firewarrior Team (12), bonded, shas'ui
Hammerhead Gunship, railgun, SMS and the usual upgrades
Hammerhead Gunship, railgun, burst cannons and the usual upgrades

In retrospect I should have split the crisis teams up some more, I forgot I was not using stealths in this mission. For those of you who think not using kroot here was a crime, well I couldnt easily tweak my list to include them for a test and I was seeing how my Firewarriors worked. Next week I may test the kroot out.

Deployment:
One rubric squad went on the left right inside of the left clearing. Defiler sat in the far back of center, predator forward of it and to the right, sorcerer forward and to the left, other rubric squad left of the predator and just right of the sorcerer. My Shas'O and the 2 man Crisis team went on the right next to my SMS Hammerhead and the whole grouping was stradled over the center line of the board. Another Hammerhead went to the left with Firewarrior squad alpha arrayed infront of it. The Devilfish went left of this Hammerhead with the Monat on its left respectively. Firewarrior squad Beta went between the left HH and the Devilfish.

Turn 1:
Tau
Yea I won somehow and decided to go first, I wanted my tanks up and moving before that battle cannon could start sending out its shots. I could not really target anything and couldnt wound anything. Basicly all of my units moved straight up.

Thousand Sons
Defiler blasts 6 of the 12 Firewarriors in squad Beta. Predator rolls up to the edge of the forrest bordering a trail and fires its twin lascannon at my SMS Hammerhaed, rolls a 2 to hit, twin linked re-roll it gets a 6, roll to pennetrate... 1. Hahahaha, that made me happy. That was about it, sorcerer shifted left, rubrics on right shifted left, rubrics on left moved forward.

Turn 2:
Tau
Hammerheads in no uncertain terms blasted the predator apart, the first failed to do it but the second, the burst cannon one I think, rolled a 6 to penn and a 5 on the damage chart. Bye bye predator. Devilfish moved up some more and so did everyone else.

Thousand Sons
Everybody wanted to shoot my burst cannon Hammerhead, and the first anti armor spell rolled a 5 on the glance chart, decoys forced a re-roll and it got a 2. Another 5 was rolled, decoy launchers forced a re-roll, this time it was a 3. Still 2 results that would have destroyed the tank, practicly nulled. Oh yea. But the battle cannon went blam and my 2 man team vanished. That was about it though.

Turn 3:
Tau
Hah, Devilfish in range of Sorcerer lord, Monat in range of rubrics now. Shas'O still moving up. Un-stunned Hammerhead shifted around. Firewarrior squad Alpha stopped and opened fire on the Sorcerer lord, just barely able to see him down a narrow window. Beta squad still advancing. Everything opened up and unleashed a torrent of fire on the Lord and his retinue just barely killing them all. The devilfish actually took the last wound off the lord with its burst cannon, hehe, first honored kill for the work horse of the cadre.

Thousand Sons
Retribution, they blasted the Irregulars and their Devilfish apart and also managed to summon in the zombies. That was it though. Battle Cannon failed to kill anything.

Turn 5:
Both Hammerheads skim around, closing the distance in preperation for a last forward rush to bring the Defiler in range. Firewarriors moved up some more but in general very little died though my opponent is really begining to dislike Smart Missils, I really should swap out the bursts on my other Hammerhead for Smart Missils, luckily I can still do that. Shas'O getting closer but still out of range and sight.

Thousand Sons
Zombies and rubrics move around some, defiler moves forward and its battle cannon scatters away unharming anything. Opponent wondering how on earth to take out my tanks now that they are within minimum range.

Turn 6:
Tau
Defiler blows apart spectacularly to the SMS Hammerhead, other Railhead shoots impotently at rubrics. Beta squad fires into rubrics and kills nothing. Shas'O still out of range.

Thousand Sons
Nothing can take out my Hammerheads, the sorcerer lord and the vehicles were it and now there is nothing he can do to them. So instead he kills 3 of the 6 remaining members of beta squad and they break, blast. Alpha squad loses a couple of troopers but other than that nothing happens.

Results:
Tau Loses:
Devilfish APC
21 of 34 Firewarriors
2 of 3 Crisis Suits
688 victory points

Thousand Son Loses:
Sorcerer Lord and 4 man Retinue
Defiler
Predator
1 of 5 zombies
2 of 14 rubric marines.
Into the 800s before counting stopped. Just the tanks was something like 600 and the sorcerer lord was a lot of points. I easily got over the 125 point differance needed for a win.

Victory to the Tau. A victory, not the most solid ever but a victory. My tanks performed very well, infantry not so much. The crisis suite once it got in range was not bad but it just could not kill any of the rubrics. That guy was making 90% of his armor saves with those guys, probably more like 95. Even a space marine only saves 66% or 2 of 3 of wounds on average. But the tanks and the lord were the true power in the army and they went poof. My Irregulars performed well though they just did not have the support they needed. I bought another Devilfish so my next game should include 2 mounted squads instead of 1 and 2 static. Ill also throw in a few drones to make up the slight point differance.

My Shas'O on the other hand never got off a single shot... not even one. He never took any fire either but he just took too long to get into range. Perhaps deep striking him would be worth a try... hmm. It is something to consider but in such dense terrain it just takes him too long to reach his targets. Though deep striking in the jungle is probably going to be a very risky endevour, more so than usual. Ill have to take a look into it some more, Im not as familiar with deep striking as I should be, I so rarely do it. He did not gain any VPs, but he did not lose any either so thats not bad.

The jungle fight rules are very interesting, we were using green felt to outline the paths and sort of ran out, although most of the terrain was in place. Its a strange system and for some reason we rolled 6 clearings... decided that wasnt right and re rolled 4 of them still getting a settlement. One clearing was right at the center of the board from all ways and at its very center was a statue of harvey bird mans boss with an imperial eagle around his neck, a funny thing to be fighting around I think.

This next campaign should be quite interesting indeed. I will be very happy once my army is finished mechanizing as my tanks performed very well in this battle.

It looks like the concentration of Space Marines is going to rise in this campaign. The local veteran is switching armies... again. All indicators suggest he will be starting a Black Templar force, he bought the codex today. His swordwind army was monsterous, his veteran IG just plain tough, I wonder how is marines will be... doubtless very good. Also the Daemonhunter player is also switching to Witch Hunters who will excell in such a terrain heavy board. All those flamers are bad news I am sure. This campaign is going to be tricky. Luckily I still have a few weeks to prepare, maybe as long as a month.

A bit of fluff in closing:

Shas'O Ximoro'An surveyed the jungle canopy as he leaned out the door of a Devilfish. In the distance the smoke rising from wrecked vehicles could be seen escaping the jungle and reaching for the sky. The landing had been costly, many good firewarriors had died, but the Chaos Marines had been driven back and their leader slain... for now.

"This is going to be a very interesting war I think." O'An said out loud to no one in particular.

"Reports say other armies are entering the system. We have spotted a few Tyranids, Eldar of the Ulthwe cratworld and mixed reports of several Space Marine chapters en route." Shas'vre Tred'nassa said from the interrior of the transport with the rest of the cadres shas'vre and shas'ui officers. Vre'Nassa had been wounded in the opening engagement, luckily he had survived, his companion had not.

"What of the forces of chaos?" He asked the shas'vre.

"As always they are being unpredictable. The Thousand Sons were merely the first to arrive though we suspect the Black Legion will show itself just as it did last time. We are unsure of the other chaos legions and rogue marines that were sighted in our previous engagements." Vre'Nassa obediently replied examining the data before him.

"Yes a very interesting war indeed."

The Devilfish banked and skimmed off its engines humming gently with the acceleration heading for the space port and the main head quarters of the Tau force even now being fortified. The expance of jungle stretched out as far as the eye could see, broken only by the jutting green mountain on the horrizen, a single rise in a vast green flat. How differant things were beneath that unimposing cannopy. Soon, soon the war would truly begin.