Tau Gun lines

I played a 1K comp game that is in prep for tourney. The stipulations are; 1HQ, 0-1 Elite, 2-6 troops, 0-1 fast, 0-1 heavy. No fliers and no allies. My list is as follows:

HQ
Baron

ELITE
nothing right now (thinking of changing this to a 3 man splintercannon squad)

TROOPS
4X5 man kabalite warriors each with a blaster mounted in venoms

FAST
20 khymera
4 beastmasters

HEAVY
1 Ravager

Against anyone else I think this list is pretty solid (critique away if im wrong), however, against a Tau gunline its all but worthless. The only reason its not worthless is the scoring method we will be using. Each side has 1 OBJ in its backfield placed by the player worth 1 point each. There will be 2 OBJ's in the outside of the deployment zones worth 2 points each pre-placed. The map will be a 4x4 table with a decent amount of terrain (LOS blocking needs some work). This is a group tourney that I am running and playing in (the group is getting much bigger so this may be one of the last ones I run and still take part in if I cant get some of our other capable members to host). Anyway, by the end of the game I scored 11 points and he scored 12. I did the best I could keeping OBJ's in mind, but I was almost completely tabled. I had 2 warriors left on my own OBJ. Taking in to account my horrible dice rolls, it doesnt seem like I could done much. His list looked something like this:

HQ
Aun Shoo

Elites
none

TROOPS
6x12 man fire warrior squads

FAST
none

HEAVY
3 Broadsides with missile pods and smart missile systems

He got first pick for deployment and got on a huge mountain that over looks much of the board. So right off the bat it was a little one sided however, I still think any list should be able to beat any list (save power builds that are stupid ridiculous. But given the stips that I put in place should have mitigated this). I tried my hardest to get the Khymera in CC however they got shot to pieces by oh ...... 200 something shots from just about everything he had, with his dang warlord using his nasty extra shot nonsense, and allowing them to go to ground and get back up once per game (which was devastating for me as I forgot he could do this). A few mistakes were made in this, but I really dont see how I couldve done much that wouldve changed the outcome. Any advice? Im thinking maybe the khymera squad needs to take a hike.

Woof. That sounds like a god awful match up, especially considering his terrain and numbers advantage. Maybe consider dropping the beasts in favor of a good sized pack of reavers? With some luck you could get in a good position for a heavy turn two blade vane run, and hopefully they'd be a big enough fire magnet that you could pump a lot of poison into his forces with your venoms while he's busy trying to take the bikes down. They'd be roughly as survivable as the beasts anyways, though with a much smaller wound pool.

I dunno, really I'm just spouting off what might as well be nonsense. I don't know what I'd do in that situation.

doomseer11b wrote:

He got first pick for deployment and got on a huge mountain that over looks much of the board.

Sounds like this is the biggest problem. The Tau are probably the deadliest shooting army in the game and if they get into a decent firing position at the outset of the battle then any army is going to struggle to shift them. Do you think you'd have had the same issue if that mountain wasn't there?

I still wouldve had issues but definitely not the slaughter I received. My beasties would have most likely seen combat, and I could've hid better. Unfortunately, the mountain is a static piece of terrain. Either way, the only thing I could think of, was maybe to turbo boost EVERYTHING into his face, for a 4+ jink with most of his army (except the broadsides, which is my concern about bikes) which may have messed with his target priority maybe allowing my beasts another turn to try and get in combat (it was so close, one more turn and I would've gotten there, the decimated that squad with one turn of shooting).

Where are your night shields? Would've made life much easier for you. Also I'm not a huge fan of the all Khymera packs unless you're allying in Eldar to try to get Fortune, and at low point level games there often isn't as much S6+ around to gib flocks. Something like this would've been much better for you:

Baron
2 x 5 warriors, Venom w/NS, extra SC
2 x 5 warirors, blaster, Venom w/NS, extra SC
5 BMs, 10 Khymera, 6 razorwings
Ravager, NS

Exactly 1000

Move the beasts up into cover then go to ground when he gets into position to triple tap with his fire warriors, 47 wounds of 2+ cover isn't going anywhere in a hurry. Shoot broadsides first, then mop up fire warriors. Once he's a little depleted let the beasts get up and charge. Watch out for the Ethereal power that lets him run and fire snap shots, with our flimsy vehicles a few S5 snap shots can really mess things up, not to mention TLed HYPMs/SMS.

This is where u need a venom or 2 with nightshields..staying out of his range.

It forces him to move up with either the fire warriors or the broadsides..snap shooting increasing your odds.

You don't have a chance of getting into CC with all those units and supporting fire.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

Where are your night shields?  Would've made life much easier for you.  Also I'm not a huge fan of the all Khymera packs unless you're allying in Eldar to try to get Fortune, and at low point level games there often isn't as much S6+ around to gib flocks.  Something like this would've been much better for you:

Baron
2 x 5 warriors, Venom w/NS, extra SC
2 x 5 warirors, blaster, Venom w/NS, extra SC
5 BMs, 10 Khymera, 6 razorwings
Ravager, NS

Exactly 1000

Move the beasts up into cover then go to ground when he gets into position to triple tap with his fire warriors, 47 wounds of 2+ cover isn't going anywhere in a hurry.  Shoot broadsides first, then mop up fire warriors.  Once he's a little depleted let the beasts get up and charge.  Watch out for the Ethereal power that lets him run and fire snap shots, with our flimsy vehicles a few S5 snap shots can really mess things up, not to mention TLed HYPMs/SMS.

This. Couldn't say it better myself. night shields against most tau low points lists are very powerful since they don't have much beyond 36".