GT List Performance

The list needs work. Some things worked, but others didn’t.

What worked

·         Tetras. Adding the sensor spines was a great move. Being able to move in and out of terrain at will, without worring about immobilization, was invaluable in all my games.

·         Plasma Cannons. I’ve fallen back in love with Hammerheads. The Plasma Cannons synergise so well with Tetras. With a few marker light hits, anything that doesn’t have a 2+ save just evaporates, whether it’s in cover or not.

·         Broadsides. They did their job very well as always. In game 4 I was on the receiving end of 6 Broadsides, and it’s not a lot of fun! Again, they synergise really well with Tetras. However, I’m glad I only had 3. There was a marked lack of armour, and I suspect that might be more common.

·         Dpods. Having a 3+ cover save on an AV13 tank is just great! But…you need to be careful to keep more than 12 inches away, and flyers can close that gap really easily.

What didn’t work

·         Orks. Or at least the 2 big mobs.  There were 2 problems, both of which I’ve mentioned before – first they take up too much space, and second they hold too long in combat. It was a pain to move them around, and it was a pain to move things around them. The number of times they were just “in the way” was annoying. The second problem probably lost me Game 6, and Game 4 , but it was a concern in other games too. If I’m using a squad for bubble wrap, they need to break, so I can shoot assaulting squad in my turn. And boys are rubbish in combat if they don’t get the charge (I2, S3 – really S3 for an Ork!). And they just take too long to play in a tournament setting. If Game 6 had gone onto turn 5 I might have won, but we only got to turn 4 largely because combats where you are throwing 50+ dice just take too long.

·         Fire Warriors. It makes me really sad to admit this. I thought I had cracked how to use fire warriors, but I haven’t. In all the games I played they made a significant contribution once. In game 5 they jumped out their fish and blew away a 5 man strike squad. In all their other games they either didn’t get out their fish at all (Game 6), got out, didn’t do very much and were massacred and/or ran away (Game 4), or were blow out their fish and mostly died in the explosion (Game 2). Part of the problem was positioning. With all the Orks around it was difficult to get them into the right place at the right time to jump out and shoot stuff. The other problem was fragility – once they’re out their fish a stiff breeze blows them away. In addition, to get them out into optimum range, you’re Devilfish is exposed to fire that is usually under 12”, so the Dpods don’t work. I think ‘Warriors in ‘Fish have their place (maybe in a highly mobile army where they’re supported by SM  bikes?), but it’s not in this army.

·         Flyers. I need something other than Twin Linked rail guns to deal with Flyers.

·         Plasma rifles on the Broadsides. I only used them once, in Game 5. Generally speaking stuff didn’t get close enough. I think this was a function of stuff getting caught up in the boyz.

·         Commander with the Broadsides. He sort of worked. The additional shield drones, the additional body with 3 wonds and a 2+ save, and (in particular) the Advanced Stabilisation System were good, but I think he fired his plasma gun and Fusion Blaster maybe 2 or three times all tournament?

So, back to the drawing board.

My initial thoughts are to keep the Tetras the Hammerheads and the Broadsides, but to replace the Firewarriors with Deathrains. However, the big question is over the Orks. Are they the best allies for Tau?

If I’m keeping the Orks, then one option would be to cut the squad sizes to perhaps 15 boyz. I could then perhaps take a dakka jet or maybe some Nobs as a counter assault unit. An interesting alternative might be a squad of burna boyz to hang out behind the Aegis line, but just in front of the Broadsides. Most units will think twice before charging them!

However, the most intriguing option might be Space Marines.

One option might be a couple of Tac Squads and a Librarian. The Tac Squads do what they do, and give me 2 very sound scoring units, and a degree of bubble wrapping. The Librarian however, could attach to a big squad of Kroot and grant them And They Shall Know No Fear and Leadership 10. Also if he took Force Dome he could give them a 5+ invulnerable save. Couple this with Null Zone, and it would help against Demons! Finally, a Techmarine could attach to the Broadsides giving them leadership 10, ATSKNF, and 2 power fist attacks! That would free up the XV8 Commander so he doesn’t need to baby sit the Broadsides. If I gave him Vectored Retro Thrusters and attached him to the Kroot Squad, that would give the squad Hit and Run….at the Librarian’s initiative.

So my Kroot Bubble wrap has a 4+ cover save behind the Aegis (2+ if I go to ground), a 5+ invulnerable save from anything that ignores cover and leadership 10. If the scary stuff assaults it they take 40 S4 shots on Overwatch (assuming everything is in rapid fire range). If they lose combat, they fall back but immediately regroup and fire at full effect. If they win combat (which might just happen – each of them has 2 WS4, S4 attacks, and I could mix in some Kroot Hounds at initiative 5, much better than Orks) the Commander allows them to hit and run out of the combat, so I can shoot the scary stuff in my turn.

The only problem might be mobility. Foot slogging Tac squads aren’t very mobile. However, something occurred to me during the tournament. I only need mobile scoring units in 1 out of six book missions. In Purge the Alien I’ll do what Tau do best and kill stuff at range. In Big Guns, I have my Hammerheads and Broadsides. In the Scouring I have the Tetras. In the Emperors Will I go for First Blood and Kill the Warlord then bunker down. And in the Relic I just rage quit ‘casue it’s such a stupid mission. Only in Seize Ground (or whatever it’s called now) do I actually need to go and get an objective. Maybe I could take a couple of drop pods?

A crazier option would be to take a Master of the Forge (to go in the Kroot bubble wrap), an Iron Clad Dreadnaught in a Drop Pod as an elite choice, another one as a Heavy Support Choice, a Scout Squad, a Tac squad in a drop pod and give the Tau Commander a Positional Relay. The scouts baby sit the home objective (hopefully in a bolstered ruin)  both Ironclads come down first turn to “distract” the opposition, the Tau contingent shoot the shit out of everything, staying safe behind their Kroot bubble wrap, while the Tau Commander’s Positional Relay keeps the Tac squad off the table until turn 4 when it can drop onto an objective!  

Now that sounds like a plan!

EYIG

Evolution of the GT List

I’ve now played 5 games with the list I posted last week and I’m beginning to get the hang of it. I’ve played one game against grey knights, one against wolves, one against biker marines, one against a Wraithguard Army, and finally one against Necron Flying Circus (I’ll talk about this is a separate post).

The Good

It’s super resilient. Everything in the list is hard to kill. The Hammerheads are AV13 and usually have a 3+ save. The D’fish are AV12 and usually have a 2+ cover save. The Fire warriors are in their fish until they need to get out. The Broadsides have six 4++ ablative wounds (their Shield Drones, and the shield drones from both commanders) a 2+ armour save, a 4+ cover save, and leadership 9. Twenty eight fearless boyz with a 5+ cover save from the KFF are pretty hard to shift. And finally, the tetras are often hard to draw LOS to (they are very low to the ground), and usually have a 2+ cover save.

The Boyz are fantastic bubble wrap, much better than Kroot. In only one of my games did something assault anything other than the Orks.

The plasma cannons on the Hammerheads, combined with the Tetras stripping cover saves, are just death to marines. In the game against the biker army, I was wiping out a unit of bikes per turn with the Hammerheads alone (Usually 6 marker light hits, each Hammerhead picks up 3, 2 to strip cover and one to make them BS5. This meant that usually all 8 shots hit, and (allowing for a couple of 1 on the “to wound” rolls) it produced 6-7 dead bikes!

The Broadsides were, as usual, great at taking out heavy armour (in the biker list he had 2 Predators, both of which died very quickly, before they did very much at all). However, having them fitted with the TL plasma guns, and combining them with both commanders makes them absolutely deadly at close range too. In the game against wolves, my opponents was running three thunder wolves with 2 battle leaders on wolves. They had just murdered a unit of boyz, and were inches away from the Broadsides. With the help of a rapid firing squad of fire warriors, and some marker lights from the Tetras, they evaporated in a hail of Railgun slugs and plasma shots.

Tetras. What can I say – they are just amazing. Marker lights were always awesome, but the platforms on which you could buy them (essentially Pathfinders, Skyrays, and Stealth suits) were pretty rubbish. They combine so well with the Hammerhead’s plasma cannons. In the game against the wraith guard army, being able to strip cover from fortuned wraith guard, and then just punching straight through their 3+ armour save was golden! Same against the bikes. One highlight was stripping all the cover from a Harlequin Deathstar and turning them into a red mist with a unit of rapid firing fire warriors! And they are so resilient….in all 5 games I only lost one, even against people who knew what they did and were targeting them from the get go.

Firewarriors. I take it all back. Fire warriors in D’fish with 2+ cover saves, and reliable marker light support are now pretty good. They aren’t fantastic, but they provide good torrent of fire which my list was lacking before. In my game against the bike marines, 2 squads (with marker light support), rapid firing into a bike squad killed it.

The not so good

The Commanders. The Shasels were there to do 2 things. First to hang out with the Broadsides in the first turn or 2 to provide 4 more shield drones, and a leadership boost, and second to support the  fire warriors when they got out of their ‘fish. They worked well in the first role, however it was hard to get them to work in the second. Nine times out of 10 the Fire warriors were getting out some distance from the commanders, and they were not in a position to attach to the squad. In one game I ran them behind the Devilfish until the warriors got out, which sort of worked. However, I found I typically wasn’t getting out until turn 2 or 3, which meant that for 2 or 3 turn the Commanders were doing very little.

Where they did work well was as fire support for the broadsides when things came in close and needed to be hit hard with plasma, but his only happened in 2 of the 5 games.

The boyz. I know I said they were great, and they really were. However, they had 2 draw backs. Firstly, they are very unwieldy. Moving 30 boyz around is really hard, and they’re slow. Inevitably some of them are in cover and are slowed down by needing to move through that cover. Getting them to far away objectives is difficult. Also, as bubble wrap, they are almost too good. The beauty of Kroot is that they stopped an assaulting unit and then evaporated in one assault phase, leaving the assaulting unit to be rapid fired to death in my next  turn. The trouble with a 25+ man squad of boyz is that they are too resilient. Against a lot of assaulting units they will get held up in combat for too long. That’s fine if you can reposition out of charge range – but that’s kinda hard with broadsides. The problem is unpredictability – you do not know when they will break.

Scoring. The list only has 4 scoring units, and all of them have other jobs to do (torrent of fire for the Fire warriors, and bubble wrap for the boyz). If possible I need other units to do nothing but score.

Reliance on Tetras. The units that makes everything work are the Tetras. Without marker light support the Plasma Cannons are OK, but not great, and the fire warriors become pretty mediocre again. If as a result of poor positioning by me, or lucky/unluck dice I lose the Tetras in the first 2 turns, my army is severely crippled. The other problem with the Tetras is that you want to keep them in terrain as much as possible, preferably ruins. In one game, the first time I flew them into ruins I rolled double ones and immobilised both of them!

The Changes

After a deal of thought I’m going to drop one Shasel and replace him with 2 squads of Kroot. I’ll upgrade the remaining Shasel with Iridium Armour (giving him and his Drones a 2+ armour save), and will re-task him simply baby sitting the Broadsides and adding fire support when things get too close. That leaves my Firewarrior squads more mobile, although a little more fragile.

Also, the addition of 2 squads of 10 kroot gives me more scoring options, leaving the Boyz and the Fire warriors to focus more on their jobs of bubble wrap (and maybe getting an objective) and torrent of fire (and maybe getting an objective). Thanks to the Ork FAQ, the Kroot also benefit from the KFF’s 5+ cover save.

I’m also going to give the Tetras Sensor Spines, allowing them to ignore difficult terrain.

As for the problem with Boyz being too good in assault, I think I’ve fund a way round that in the rules…..more on that in a later post.

So the final list is

HQ

Shasel, XV81, Fusion Blaster, Plasma Rifle, Multitracker, Iridium Armour, HW Shield Drone Generator, 2 Shield Drones.

Troops

12 Fire warriors, Devil Fish with Disruption Pods

12 Fire Warriors, Devil Fish with Disruption Pods

10 Kroot

10 Kroot

Fast Attack

Tetra with Targeting Array, Disruption Pods and Sensor Spines

Tetra with Targeting Array, Disruption Pods and Sensor Spines

Heavy Support

Hammerhead Gunship. Plasma Cannons, Burst Cannons, Multitracker, Disruption Pods, Black Sun Filter.

Hammerhead Gunship. Plasma Cannons, Burst Cannons, Multitracker, Disruption Pods, Black Sun Filter.

Broadside Team Leader with TL Plasma Rifles, Multitracker, HW Drone Controller, HW Black Sun Filter, HW Target Lock, 2 Shield Drones

Broadside with TL Plasma Rifles, Multitracker

Broadside with TL Plasma Rifles, Multitracker

Fortifications

Aegis Defence Line

Allies

Big Mek KFF

25 Shoota Boyz

26 Shoota Boyz

The only change I might make is to the Shasel. I don’t think there is any point in running an XV81 any more (i.e. the forge world variant with SMS). I might just run him as a standard Sunforge i.e. with plasma rifle and fusion gun. That would give me 20 points to spend on more boyz!

EYIG

Tau List Review

FU_2PartyBoy asked me for my thoughts on the following list

Commander Shas'o: Eject, BSF, Drone, Multi-Tracker

2x Gun Drone

10 Kroot

2x 6 Firewarrior w/ DFish (D-Pod Spines Gun Drones)

2x (seperate FOC slot) Piranhas (DPod spines fusion gundrones)

2 Broadside (shas'ver, sms, drone, mulit tracker, BSF, 2 shield drones

2x Hammerhead (Railgun, SMS, Target array, BSF, DPod, MultiTracker, Spines, TArget Lock)

Eldrad (traded powers for Divination Book powers)

2x 3 Guardian Jet Bikes (1 cannon each squad)

3 Shining Spears w/ Exarch (cannon starlance)

My initial thoughts were that for a 2000pt Tau list, there simply isn’t enough shooting, nor enough scoring units, given how fragile they are (the Kroot and Jet Bikes). So how would I change it?

I’ve already posted a little about Tau with Eldar allies. In brief they work really well at boosting the strengths of a Tau army i.e. they make Tau shooting even more deadly. Eldrad casting prescience on Fireknife squads or on large squads of fire warriors is just horrible. However, the problem is it does not “solve” the perennial Tau weakness - squishy troops with low leadership. Another aspect of the same weakness is the lack of effective bubble wrap, with the changes in cover saves making Kroot less effective. The question is how do you cover these weaknesses?

But first, comments on the list. Bear in mind that while going through it, I’m looking to save points for more guns and more troops.

HQ – Firstly, there is no need to pay the extra points for a Shaso over a Shasel. The extra point of leadership, BS, WS and a wound is not IMHO worth it. The weapons are not listed but I suspect the HQ suit is a Fireknife (plasma rifle and missile pod), as it lists a multi tracker. That’s pretty standard, and fine if your want him to run with another fire knife squad – we’ll come back to that. The ejector system is just not necessary.

Kroot – Kroot aren’t so good in 6^th edition because cover saves are 5+, not 4+, and you can focus fire models that aren’t in cover. However, given the need for more troops and bubble wrap, I suspect we’re stuck with them. However, we will need more than 10.

Fire Warriors – I’m beginning to reassess my position on Firewarriors. I still think BS3 Leadership 7 Fire warriors are rubbish, but if you can get round that…..! We’ll come back to these as well.

Devilfish are expensive, but with Dpods really resilient. Not sure spines are necessary, but I could be persuaded on that.

Piranhas – In 5^th piranhas were great at blocking armour before it crashed your lines. Now I’m not so sure. The ease with which they are hit in close combat, only having 2 hull points, and the fact that people are generally taking less armour, would tempt me to leave them at home and use the points elsewhere.

Broadsides – yes. Broadsides are still one of the best units in the codex and are in almost every list I run. There is no need for the multi tracker though – you are unlikely to want to shoot a rail gun and the SMS at the same time. I usually run them with targeting arrays for BS4.

Hammer heads – I’m still pretty undecided about Hammerheads in 6^th. While they are super resilient with AV13 and a 3+ cover save from d pods, the fact of the matter is they’re really expensive, and their damage output is pretty rubbish for the points invested. I would be tempted to trade them in for 2 more Broadsides, and use the points saved elsewhere.

As for the Eldar allies drop the shinning spears. I used to play Eldar a lot before I fell in love with the blue fish guys. I could never get shinning spears to work. They are simply too fragile, and ever more so now that turbo boost only gives a 4+ save rather than a 3+.

So with that out of the way – what might the list look like? Well I’m going to suggest a reasonably “traditional” gunline list, using fire warriors and suits. It’s an idea I’ve been thinking about and I have not play tested it at all, but in my head it sounds good!

First up we need synergy with Eldrad rolling on the Divination table – essentially that means units that benefit from prescience. Some of the other powers are amazing, but you can’t really build an army around them as they’re random – but you can rely on prescience being cast twice per turn. The two units that benefit most from prescience are Firewarriors and Fireknife suits. If your’re taking Eldrad, IMHO you should take 2 full squads of Firewarriors, and 2 squads of Fireknives. That way you can decide what you need to boost each turn, depending on the situation– torrent of fire, or high strength, low AP weapons. But there are more choices to make before we move away from Firewarriors and Fireknives!

First the Firewarriors. The problem is low leadership and fragility. I think you can do 2 things about fragility – first, take an Aegis defense line, and second take 2 devilfish. If the FW deploy behind the defense line they get a 4+ cover save. Everybody knows that. However, devilfish have landing gear, and in any turn they don’t move can be deployed off their stand behind the defense line for a 2+ save. Fewer people know that! So you can either deploy your FWs behind the line beside the fish if you’re going first and have a juicy target to shoot at, or behind the line in their fish if you want to protect them for a turn.

Leadership is a bit trickier. The “easy” way is to put Eldrad in one squad, and your Shasel in the other, giving Eldrad’s squad leadership 10 and the Shasel’s squad leadership 9. If you go down this route you might want to give your Shasel Iridium armour and a couple of shield drones and deploy him front and centre, using him to “tank” wounds for the squad. The trickier, but perhaps more effective way, is to take an ethereal. He will make one squad fearless, and give all Tau units (sadly not Kroot) a reroll on any leadership test. The problem is you still have to take a Shasel, so it’s an additional 50pts. On balance I’m not persuaded the Ethereal is worth it.

As for the Fireknives, the decision is whether to take them as Elite slots, or as bodyguards for 2 Shasels. The issue is accuracy – you can boost body guard Fireknives to BS4 by giving them targeting arrays and HW Multi-trackers, you can’t do that with Elite Fireknives. The boost in accuracy however comes at a significant additional cost. Given we have prescience, we’ll stick with Elite Fireknives.

Next we need more troops. We could take another unit of Firewarriors, but without a way to boost their crappy BS outside of prescience, I’m not sure that’s the answer. If you could run Forge World units I might be tempted to take them with a couple of tetras, but otherwise I think we are stuck with Kroot. In addition, we need something to stop fast assault troops and deep strikers, and while not as good as they used to be, Kroot are our only option. They are also handy as a disruption unit coming on via outflank. So we will take a bunch of kroot as points allow.

Next, Broadsides and/or Hammerheads. Given that the plan is to deploy Firewarriors and Fireknives behind the Aegis, in a gunline, I think Broadsides win over Hammerheads. As points allow, 2 squads of 2 with targeting arrays and HW BSF and HW Drone Controller on the team leader, and a couple of Shield Drones.

Finally allies – and that’s reasonably easy – Eldrad with 2 squads of Guardian jet bikes. Eldrad ‘casue he’s awesome, and the Jet bikes for very fast troops for last minute objective grabs/ contesting/linebreaker. Putting a positional relay on the Shasel is also a good idea to try and keep them off the board until turn 4.

Putting it all together something like this

HQ – Shasel, Twin Linked Missile Pods, Positional Relay, Iridium Armour, HW BSF, HW Drone Controler. 2 Shield Drones

Troops

12 Fire Warriors Devilfish Disruption Pod

12 Firewarriors, Devilfish, Disruption Pod

10 Kroot

10 Kroot

10 Kroot

Elites

XV8 Team Leader, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, HW BSF, HW Drone Controller, 2 Shield Drones

2 x XV8 Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker

XV8 Team Leader, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, HW BSF, HW Drone Controller, 2 Shield Drones

2 x XV8 Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker

Heavy Support

XV88 team leader, Targeting Array, HW BSF, HW Drone Controller, 2 Shield Drones

XV88, Targeting Array

XV88 team leader, Targeting Array, HW BSF, HW Drone Controller, 2 Shield Drones

XV88, Targeting Array

Fortifications

Aegis Defense Line

Allies

Eldrad

2 x 3 Guardian Jet Bikes

This comes in a few points short (30ish), which you could use for bits and bobs, or if you feel the need, drop a couple of fire warriors and get a quad gun. The idea behind the list is that you sit behind your defense line and blow stuff away, using Eldrad’s buffing powers. You keep the ‘Fish “hull down” for a 2+ save protecting the fire warriors, unless/until they need to redeploy. The Kroot bubble wrap if necessary, or alternatively outflank if that would help. The Jet Bikes are kept off the board (using the Positional Relay) until turn 4 when they swoop in and snatch objectives.  

At least that’s the theory! As I said I have not played this list. I’ve played a variation of it without the Aegis, which was a classic “glass hammer”. The thinking behind the Aegis is to make it a little more robust.

If you think this could work for you, please let me know how you get on play testing it. My next tourni doesn’t allow allies, so I’m going to run my bikers until November so wont be playing Tau for a bit.

EYIG

Saturday Day of Gaming

Great day of gaming on Saturday. There were 12 of us and we all got to play 3 games each, eat pizza and drink beer.

As I mentioned I ran 3 different lists to try and decide which are the best allies for Tau. What I'm going to do post up three brief battle reports, and then my thoughts on each list.

Game1

I decided to use the orks first. I was drawn against a foot slogging eldar list, with a wraith guard deathstar (10 guard backed up by Eldrad and another farseer), a squad of dire avengers, pathfinders, warp spiders, 3 war walkers, harlequins and 2 wraith lords. We played seize ground and vanguard deployment. I had first turn.

I deployed the orks up front, covered by the KFF, with kroot and suits running behind them the idea was to rush the wraith guard with the orks, bog them down, kill everything else with my suits, and preserve the kroot to take objectives.

It worked reasonably well. The rail guns killed the war walkers and wraith lords, the orks killed the harlies (over watch is pretty nasty if you're rolling 40+ dice!), and the death rains dealt with everything else.....except the wraith guard. Fortuned wraith guard are really difficult to kill. It was a draw on objectives, but I got first blood for the win

The army concept worked really well. It's pretty simple. Run the boys at your opponent, while your suits kill stuff, the fire warriors camp the home objective, and the kroot snatch other objectives. Your opponent can not ignore 60 boyz running at him, and while he's killing them, he's not killing your suits. The whole game I lost one suit.

The only problem was the lack of low AP weapons. Need to work some fire knives into the list.

Game 2

Eldar allies this time. Was drawn against sisters. Two 20 "man" units of sisters, 2 units of seraphim, with St Celestine, unit of mixed crusaders and assassins (with some guy that buffs them, not sure which one), 2 of the organ pipe rocket launcher thingies. Played the Scouring, vanguard deployment, and my opponent got first turn.

My opponents tactics were obvious I thought. He only had 2 scoring units and they couldn't combat squad, so he was really forced to camp 2 objectives, and rush me with the seraphim, while pounding me with the organ pipes. There was little chance of me chewing through two 20 man units with 3+ saves, so I would have to concede 2 objectives, but that left 3 others. But I might struggle to put down both squads of seraphim before they got to me.

So I castle up on one objective and infiltrate one kroot squad all by itself on another one. I reserve the other kroot squad and the jet bikes. The hope was that he will be tempted to send one seraphim squad after the infiltrating kroot and rush my castle with the other, plus the crusaders. I assumed he would put one squad of sisters on each of the objectives on his side. I would hopefully kill the one seraphim squad and the crusaders, before it got to the gunline, and then snatch the 2 other objectives with the outflanking kroot and/or the jetbikes.

It worked like a charm. It was helped by the fact that the objective that I infiltrated the kroot onto was the 4 point one, and one of the objectives in his side was a 2 pointer, forcing him to try and take the 4 pointer. It was pretty close though. His first turn of shooting wiped out a full broadside squad for first blood. In response the remaining broadsides missed completely! In his second round of shooting he killed my commander for “kill the warlord”.  It was a bit of an uphill struggle from there.

However, Eldrad casting prescience on fire knives was absolutely devastating, and neither the seraphim squad not the crusaders reached the gun line. St Celestine did. I killed her every round, but she just kept getting back up again and again. Eventually I put her down with a gun drone in close combat!

The stars of the game however, we're the kroot. Two squads of them combined managed to hold the 4 point objective, kill the seraphim squad, before it reached them (it failed to get into combat twice, rolling too low on 2d6) and, with help from some missile pods, broke one of the 20 "man" sister squads, seeing it off the objective!

So another win. I really liked this list. It's fragile but utterly devastating, providing Eldrad gets the powers he needs on the divination chart. But it is a classic "finese" list, and probably too fragile for tournaments, particularly the scoring units.

Game 3

So "top table" (we were running a swiss pairing system) against dark eldar, and eldar allies. Squad of witches in a raider, squad of incubi in a raider, 3 venoms with scoring units in them, a squad of dire avengers with a farseer, 2 flyers, a ravager and a wraith lord. Big guns never tire, with Hammer and anvil, and me getting to go first.

I have never had a game where dice luck was so imbalanced! My dice were on fire (well except when it came to " to hit" rolls with hammer head rail guns!) and my opponent's we're cold, cold, cold.

For example, his turn one he moves both raiders flat out at my gun line. I move my bike squads forward to counter, and to rapid fire anything that gets out. First death rain team scores 3 penetrating hits on one raider, my opponent fails all 3 cover saves, and i blow up the raider, killing 4 witches. The remainder are pinned. Next death rain team blow up the other raider killing an incubi. My bike squads then proceed to kill the rest of the incubi, my opponent failing four 3+ armour saves in a row!

Next turn I roll for mysterious objectives, and get a sky fire nexus (or whatever it's called). Because it's big guns never tire, my Hammerhead controls that objective, and has sky fire!

My opponents flyers come on and at one point hit my commandeer with 3 dark lances, and then he rolls 3 ones to wound! One of his flyers is then downed by rapid firing fire warriors controlling the sky fire nexus!

It really was a bit of a travesty! Basically I couldn't miss, or fail a saving throw, and he couldn't hit or pass one!

However, more important than the outcome (I won!), was it taught me something about this list. Tau vehicles, while now really hard to kill (my HHs had 2+ saves hiding behind ruins, and my Devilish had 2+ save moving flat out), they just do not kill stuff! It’s the same story as always with Hammerheads, while the large blast is nice, it’s a lot of points for a one shot S10 AP1 round. But there is another problem – giving the Dpod shrouding actually makes the vehicles too hard to kill. My opponent just ignored them and concentrated on killing my suits – exactly what you do not want to happen! And now needing to get the fire warriors out of the devilfish before they can score, kinda defeats the purpose of have a really survivable transport vehicle.

Conclusion

So 3 very different lists.

The Ork list isn’t subtle, but I suspect it will be reasonably effective. The only problem was the lack of low AP weapons. I only had 4 railguns with an AP lower than 4 – that made taking out the Wraith Guard hard – and I suspect it would make terminators and marines hard too. I need to rejig things to get some plasma into the list,

The Eldar list is lots of fun to play – it is the list that reminds me most of “old style” Tau gun line lists, where everything is entirely dependant on killing stuff before it gets to you. The list does this far better than the old lists, and the jet bikes give you some very mobile scoring units. However, it is still very fragile, particularly the scoring units. I really don’t think it’s the best list.

The bike list didn’t really work. I think I need to swap out the Hammerheads for broadsides, and drop the Devilfish. However, I think it has the potential to be the strongest list. The problem might be that it will only work at higher points levels….need to think this one through a bit more. It may be that a mech Tau list works better as a pure Tau list, rather than with allies.

EYIG

Blood Angles with Tau

I used to run 3 different  BA armies – Razorspam, DofA and tri stormravens.

 

There seem to be mixed views on whether or not Razorspam BA armies are dead. Most arguments I think focus on Hull Points and how this makes them far more fragile. I think this is probably correct, but to my mind that’s not the biggie. The big issues are being hit on 3+ in combat, and not being able to assault out of vehicles even if they didn't move. I think this kills the army build for BA. Razorbacks may still have a role as backfield support units, where they will be harder to suppress (for example in a SW army), but for BA (who want to get up close and personal), I really don’t’ think they are worth it.

 

My Tri Raven army flat out doesn’t’ work. Everything would need to stay in reserve which just doesn’t make any sense for the army.

 

Which leaves DofA. It will need to change. You must plan for most of your army starting on the board. So they need to be resilient. Which brings me to Sanguinary Guard. With Dante to make them troops, priest support, and artificer armour, they are pretty resilient. The big problem would be ranged support, which then brings me to Tau allies. A couple of squads of deathrain suits with shield drones plug that gap.

 

So the army might look something like this

 

Dante

 

Sanguinary Guard squad, 2 infernus pistols x3, one of them with a banner.

 

10 man assault squad with 2 plasma guns and sarg with twin Plasma Pistols

 Priest with jump packs x2

 

Shas'el Commander + 2 Bodyguards with TL missile pods, 2 shield drones and a black sun filter

 

3 XV8s with TL Missile Pods, 2 shield drones and BSF

 

6 Fire warriors

 

A little short of 1750, but that gives you scope for extras e.g. plasma on the assault squad, chapter banner, infernus pistols on the priests etc.

 

 

I actually ran this for the first time last night at our not-a club wargaming night against a foot slogging SW list (long fangs x3, grey hunters x4 with TDA Wolf Guard in each and Rune Priest), and it was OK.... but not great.

 

 

The armies mobility was fantastic. While being more expensive than 3 squads of devastators with ML's, the suits were far more mobile and, with Drones, more survivable. The Plasma squad was pretty good - coming in with Dante they pretty much wiped a GH squad on their own, and survived the return fire (Dante taking hits for the squad and within 6 of a priest).

 

 

The disappointment was the SG. I seemed to roll far more ones than I should have done (!), and they struggled to chew through the Grey Hunters.

 

 

It definitely deserves another outing, but I might try replacing the SG with 4 ASM squads. While not having the 2+ armour save, they have boides in their favour.

 

 

Thoughts on the idea in general and the list in particular welcome.

 

 

EYIG