What would you do in this tactical situation?

I played a game last night against a friend of mine who runs Tau. He'd played a previous guy and we just left the table set up as it was. About half way through deployment it dawned on me I was totally screwed. table set up cost me the game, or did it?

Ok, so lets give you guys a scenario and see how you would deal with it.

• Shooty mech opponent, Tau, IG, Wolves, Grey Knights
• Open ground, killing field in the center, little high cover to shield raiders
• Spearhead deployment
• Your going second, and your opponent has castled all his forces
• Kill points

How do you deploy and what is your game plan?

Can we pick any list? If so, I would reserve my shooting Kabal except Ravagers and Dakkaborn hidden behind terrain (if not possible then they also end in reserves).
Then shooting vital units and waiting for reinforcements.

Total reserves , come on the side opposite his army, using flat-out and cheaper vehicles to generate cover, flicker fields should always be taken anyway so you will at least have five ups.

Tau don't do so well whe you jam your army down their face.

get in there fast and kick off some multi assaults (it stops them shooting)

Ultimately you really should be making pains to get 25% board coverage with terrain and at least a third of that should be BloS of some descrition. it makes for a much better more tactical game for everyone with the correct terrain.

you can honestly tell GW playtest with plenty of terrain.

reserve anything. If using Duke them go ahead and DS. Its risky I know, but its better than getting everything killed T1

Right. I reserved everything except two Ravagers and some reavers who clung to the slim cover, and planned to come in and get in his face. Turns out I seized, but miscalculated the distance on my ravgers as they emerged from cover, I was like 2" short. In return they were broadsided of the board. My reserves came in piece meal and were stripped of cover saves by Tetras. I then suffered limp lance through out the game.

What I cant figure out is if the terrain or my deployment killed the game. Seeing you guys use reserves the same makes me think the terrain. WIth that said, I told the Tau player the terrain favored him, but in truth i've played in tournaments with less. Kill points also meant he didnt have to move.

It's a horrible scenario, is it down to lucky dice? (reserve rolls?) I feel I did everything right, except the Ravagers misjudged range.

Well DE dont forgive mistakes so well, not that lances can be relied on to do anything much, prob a combo of terrain, misjudgement and limp lance ?

Probably lose horribly.

I would second Sorrow's commentary.

I think you misstepped in putting some things on the board - in that situation you either go full reserve or you full muscle the line, either one can work, but to do a mix of the two is not helpful in my opinion.

Your best setup depends on your army list. If you have a decent amount of Wych units I would have started on the board and muscled the line. Turn 1 all the assault tools would have moved 24" at the opponent, and the shooting stuff would have moved 12" beeline forward as well. His Pathfinders are weakened because he'll want to burn 1 on cover saves to reduce you to a 5+ but he can't affect an invulnerable save so will have to just toss points into BS or something, which is less impressive for Tau and also removes his easy chance to toast your Wych line. FFs are also at their best versus rail guns, we like high power single shots far more than mid power multi shots. Additional bonus if your shooting managed to hurt any of his stuff and prevent it from shooting. By Turn 2 you should have some Wyches in his line and also your support shooting in position to help.

If you're a shooting army I'd tend to advise full reserve. Come in on the table edge across from his castle for minimum distance to help you get our mid-range shooting into range despite his castle. By definition we'll be in range when we arrive. At that point it's a straight up shooting war, but DE really should be better than Tau at that unless the list is built really poorly - so, with average dice a DE victory - especially if they have 1-2 assault tools as well.

If it's a Baron DS list then this is an optimal matchup and you should win easily.

If it's a Hellion super blob list then follow the advice for the assault list above, and laugh as the Baron and his boyz absorb everything the Tau can throw at them. (though shoot Pathfinders a little more early this time - a Dakka Venom or two should do the trick).

And, yes, in a general sense a wide open board favors the shooting army. A massively cluttered board favors the mobile assault army. The goal is to try to have a board that is appropriately cluttered to weaken gunline, while not being so cluttered that it destroys it as a viable option.

Sorrowshard wrote:

Well DE dont forgive mistakes so well, not that lances can be relied on to do anything much, prob a combo of terrain, misjudgement and limp lance ?

Too true. Also never let your opponent set up the terrain with no say from you. In scenarios like this it's reserve or die, would be nice if we had some kind of reserve buff but hay.

I certainly learnt from it, and was also side swiped by the forge world stuff. Tetras are not fun when cover saves are so vital to DE.

Thor665 wrote:

I would second Sorrow's commentary.

I think you misstepped in putting some things on the board - in that situation you either go full reserve or you full muscle the line, either one can work, but to do a mix of the two is not helpful in my opinion.

Your best setup depends on your army list. If you have a decent amount of Wych units I would have started on the board and muscled the line. Turn 1 all the assault tools would have moved 24" at the opponent, and the shooting stuff would have moved 12" beeline forward as well. His Pathfinders are weakened because he'll want to burn 1 on cover saves to reduce you to a 5+ but he can't affect an invulnerable save so will have to just toss points into BS or something, which is less impressive for Tau and also removes his easy chance to toast your Wych line. FFs are also at their best versus rail guns, we like high power single shots far more than mid power multi shots. Additional bonus if your shooting managed to hurt any of his stuff and prevent it from shooting. By Turn 2 you should have some Wyches in his line and also your support shooting in position to help..

I run 4 full wych squads in raiders, backed up by 3 trueborn in venoms,2 ravagers and a Razorwing. lead by the Duke.

I was going second remember, and he had 6 broadsides. That in itself made me indecisive in rushing him. But your right, I should have reserved everything. Killpoints just meant he didnt have to move and I had around 30-40" of open ground to get over. I do wonder how deepstriking may have worked too.

I think its so easy when your playing a game to just chat at the beginning, and not really concentrate on how the terrain is and where you will deploy. Distracted!

With your army (which is rather cool by the way) in this situation, definitely full reserve, you should stomp him.

Going second full reserve works great. Less turns of shooting for the enemy. Don't worry too much about coming in piece-meal. Last game i went full reserve only 3 from 11 units showed up turn 2 so i just turbo behind cover, only lost one. Helps if there's some LOS blocking terrain tho.

Next turn the dice evened out and 6 units joined the 2.5 on the board and i overwhelmed his right flank, it was all over bar the drinking from there.

I too suffer greatly from limp lance. Since ive started taking a unit of BM its not so bad tho. They can buy my vehicles and blasterborn some more time to shoot as they draw lots of fire.

BTW always mass on one flank and overwhelm it. If you see some short ranged or slow infantry or move or shoot units out to one flank attack the opposite one (unless they're sitting on objectives that you must take).

Levitas wrote:

I played a game last night against a friend of mine who runs Tau. He'd played a previous guy and we just left the table set up as it was. About half way through deployment it dawned on me I was totally screwed. table set up cost me the game, or did it?

Ok, so lets give you guys a scenario and see how you would deal with it.

• Shooty mech opponent, Tau, IG, Wolves, Grey Knights
• Open ground, killing field in the center, little high cover to shield raiders
• Spearhead deployment
• Your going second, and your opponent has castled all his forces
• Kill points

How do you deploy and what is your game plan?

Like sorrowshard have said, reserves and come in through the long table edge and/or deepstriking. Do not even bother with seizing, as that will only weaken you (unless you have a Vect list). Another thing I would suggest is that if you can't find cover, make your own. Use your raiders, venoms, reavers, etc to cover the majority of your forces as they get into the table. While doing so, try to shoot down things that can shoot multiple times such as psyriflemen or Hydra squadrons to kill or suppress (GK can't be suppressed so you have to kill them all), and work your way down from there. Try to prod aggressively and break one of the walls of the castle and once it is breached, storm the breach. If possible try to have harassers that will allow you to engage from both inside and outside the castle walls to overwhelm the defenses.

Last but not least, if there is a possibility it is encouraged to multiple assault. Whether it is locking the Dreadnought for a few turns, or busting that parking lot, you can go miles for protecting yourself and further push the advantage. Even better if you could crack one transport and charge a vehicle while charging an exposed squad. That way you will stick in combat and will not suffer retaliatory return fire. If you have the numbers to do so, rinse and repeat.

PS: If you have a Razorwing or a bunch of them, it will make life easier to kill off the exposed infantry.


This is how I will play the scenario when I am faced with a shooting army that decides to bunker itself at a corner.

Just think of yourself as the Native Americans besieging a group of american settlers and you are not far from the marlk.

Every game I've played full reserve in, I've lost or drawn. Every game I've started everything or practically everything on the board, I've won. When I reserve, one or two things come on per turn and get annihilated because they have to survive an entire army shooting at them. Hiding them until more stuff arrives to reinforce them is pointless, as they're still not killing stuff, and in a victory point game you obviously want to be doing that. Deep striking means something arrives hopefully exactly where you need it to be, destroys something and then gets splatted, turning it into a suicide unit. That's not even considering the possibility of it scattering into what little terrain there is, or arriving too late, or scattering too far away or out of LOS of what you were hunting.

In this situation, I'd start pretty much everything on the board, mass it on one flank, and charge. Accept that you'll lose some vehicles, because being DE you always will, but know that if one of your squads makes it to their shooting orientated lines, they're going to destroy them in combat. Dodge things like Ravagers in and out of cover for as long as you can get away with, hopefully positioning them in such a way as to only be seen by what they're shooting at. Of course, that's just me. I like an overwhelming display of force, and it also gives me a better idea of how much stuff I've got left!

If there's no cover and he's massed all his stuff together, in a position where it can see you anywhere on the board, bringing stuff on one at a time will always get it killed. All of it being there at once forces him to get good at target prioritisation. And if it doesn't work, hey, at least it'll be over quickly

Of course, letting my opponent pick the terrain has cost me matches. Charging across a desolate board from a spearhead deployment in an annihilation match against a Chaos army with a Defiler, three Obliterators, a Predator, ten Noise Marines and a Daemon Prince is not an experience I wish to repeat! I never trust a chatty opponent who just says "This ok for you? Shall we pick sides?" as if the battle is an afterthought. I'm wise to their false nonchalance... Even if it's someone I've known for years, we'll roll for the terrain after deciding how many pieces we want and everything. It's not a trust issue, it's just fair.

I understand the plan of going full reserve, however, I tend to play fairly aggressive, so I woud deploy fully, using a pair of raiders to be my sacrifical cover, and then after taking all of his fire, hope that i have a raider or 2 left and then rush them up and try to get as many wyches as possible in is lines. If he wastes shots reduing your cover saves then fine, its less damaging shooting he is doing and you should still have your flickerfields.

Pretty much force him to spread his shooting around, or concetrate and eliminate a couple of key units. You list has quite a bit of redundancy, so losing a unit or two would not be then end of the world.

The smart move on his part would be for him to wipe out your wyches, if he does that, then you will lose. Otherewise, you should still have plenty of opportunity to over run his fire warriors and suits.

my 2 pain tokens

For me putting everything in reserve and living w/ the fact my army might come in piece by piece is way better then watching it get shot to bejesus T1, when in doubt start in reserve.

Either:
A)Full reserve, deepstrike everything in vehicles, lots of blasterborn, warriors in raiders with cannons, come down close and shoot till you run out of ammo
B) Run vect, hopefully steal the initiative and charge with a wych/blasterborn list
C) Pray for those Flickerfields

FYI, a good Tau list (they are rare) will rip DE to shreds in this kind of situation. The other armies you listed should be much more manageable. I would put this completely down to terrain. If you were having issues hiding even a couple of models then there was not enough LOS blocking stuff on there (Tau excel at picking apart DE on planet bowling ball). If your opponent was running massed Suits/Broadsides with the ability to shoot a different target with each model, you would be screwed without lots of LOS stuff. Seizing first turn would've given you a good chance of winning the game had you more stuff on the table.

As for what I would've done using my 1500 list:

1) Reserve the Wyches, have them come up his short edge. I have Enhanced Aethersails on them to help out with this too.

2) Be incredibly aggressive with the rest of my list. I can't out-range them even with Nightshields, and as I can't hide the only other option is to go boldly (but smartly) forward. Either way, with the lack of terrain it will be a difficult battle. If I couldn't get into gun range with the vehicles on turn 1 I would flat-out everything to make my own cover saves (he can't markerlight the whole army!).


Also, not sure if you knew this or were happy to play against them, but Tetras are FW units