BR21: The Black Buzzards VS New Tau - 1500pts

exsquared wrote:

Assuming the game had gone on, how were you planning to use the reavers? Best case scenario I can see is they bladevane a unit when they enter, needing to be very lucky to make their points back, then get blown off the board by a load of S5 ignores cover shots.

Answered at the bottom of page 1.

My bad, not quite sure how I missed that . Given that Tau pretty much hard counter reavers, have you considered swapping them out for something else.

The ideas struck me...

Was the Tau lists you've been punished by all-comers or specifially designed to brutally beat DE?


Tau Empire (TE)

HQ
Fire Blade, marker drone

ELITES
3 Stealth Suits, Burst Cannon, advanced targeting
2 Stealth Suit, Fusion blasters, target lock
1 Shas'vre, Burst Cannon, Markerlight & Target Lock, advanced targeting, marker drone

3 Stealth Suits, Burst Cannon, advanced targeting
2 Stealth Suit, Fusion blasters, target lock
1 Shas'vre, Burst Cannon, Markerlight & Target Lock, advanced targeting, marker drone

TROOPS
12 Firewarriors
10 Kroot, precision ammo
3 Krootox
1 Kroot hound
10 Kroot, precision ammo
3 Krootox
1 Kroot hound
10 Kroot, precision ammo
3 Krootox
1 Kroot hound

FAST ATTACK
5 Marker drones
5 Marker drones

HEAVY
Hammer Head, Rail Gun, twin linked smart missiles, disruption pod
Hammer Head, Rail Gun, twin linked smart missiles, disruption pod

I mean:
1) It's anti-armour capabilities are severely limited. Against AV13 and AV14 vehicles, list would rely on two railcannon shots. Which is ~equal to two dark lances against LR's and double of that amount against AV13.
Would you consider it enough to take 2-4 DL's for 1500 pt game?

Sure, there're fusion blasters on suits, but they need to come close. Without drop pods or faster movement, even with infiltration it's possible to keep them off your heavy armor. And they're fragile.

2) Bad anti-air. Tau can feature Skyfire or Interceptor, or both on their units, but only reliable anti-air lies in marker drones, which could be focused turn1 or just being swept by hellchickens.

By lots of mediocre str shooting, it seems like list is designed to play against large amounts of infantry and light transports. Probably monsters wouldn't like Kroot squads too. But i doo see that Tau lists coming into serious trouble against, for example, mechanized IG.

Agreed, its not a particularly balanced list for the reasons you mentioned and brutalises light armour armies like Dark Eldar. But I think it will take some time before Tau players settle into balanced lists.

So that expierence pretty much inadequate, you play your well-established, balanced army against one which is tailored to win you, but autolose to most of serious modern 40k treats.

Hijallo wrote:

So that expierence pretty much inadequate, you play your well-established, balanced army against one which is tailored to win you, but autolose to most of serious modern 40k treats.

Not really. We're trying to figure out how to tailor to new Tau and struggling to find anything.

I think that TE list would struggle against several different armies so don't think it will be the main 1 out their but it certainly showed our weakness, great report tho, as you said think it will be awhile before any balanced lists appear.

In meta where marines still show themselves, i'd expect Interceptor Riptides with Ion Accelerators. 8/2 large blast with option of ignoring cover is amazing against SM, they die like gaunts, but not with gaunts' prices!

And that's good defense against reserve based alphastrikes. If you could law the rules, it can be also used against, for example, necron airforce dropping on objectives turn5.

And this mean more targets for splinter cannons, less crisis/stealth teams which can be quite destructive...

Missile Barrage Broadsides probably would be popular too, especially with velocity tracker. Also Skyray, which could fire all it's missiles now, and provide markerlight support into the air target.

Some theoreticians even developed anti-air tactic called markerlight circle, it starts with skyray markerlighting flyer (one marker should be enough, but what's desired is 2 hits, here he comes farseer with divination!), if it's something tough firing it's rockets; continues with crisis or broadside team with markerlight drones - use markerlights to increase BS of snapfiring for team and their markerlight, so, as long as terribad rolls are not involved (tl;dr: never) they can effectively concentrate their firepower at one flyer, probably taking anything down (so SR transporting assault troops wouldn't be viable option anymore, if Skyrays and suits with markerdrones became popular).

Should i mention they devastate our transports? Bud good things:
1) only one system on Broads, so no target lock on AA suits, and one dead venom/raider per turn isn't impressive for a squad of 3
2) Missiles pods of any kind are still 36"
3) Their drones are no longer share their save; so it would take much less to expose suits to volley darklight fire.

I've got to say my first thought after reading this was: Vect would have been funny

Yea, he's expensive... but the TE player might have got second thoughs about deploying so aggressively if he knew you could seize on a 4+.

Another funny thought: mandrakes might actually be useful. Not only because of TE kroot infiltrators, but also to force back scouting Karanak led flesh hounds.

If both players have infiltrators you roll off to see who gets to infiltrate first - even with a minimum sized unit, you can deny an entire quarter of the field for infiltration.

I've got more suggestions, not put into a particular list yet but units and combo's to consider.

A big beast unit in front to soak wounds with about 4-6 flocks.

Jetfigters to nuke those drones. Furthermore, some airpower of your own is a good thing vs. all other armies too.

Talos, 3, I run mine with haywires and liquifiers. I love them - way more survivable than ravagers, at least according to my experience. The kroot might not like to stare down 3 monsters they'll have a hard time killing and deploy in a more safe position giving the rest of your army more space to maneouvre.

A couple of boats in reserve with liquifier wracks. 5 man units and a liquifier should do it. That's only 240 points in reserve if you take 2x 5 wracks + liquifier in a bareboats raider.

Our flyers aren't good competers in the skyes anyway, and they take the place of old trusty Ravager which is needed to deliver "alpha" strike.

Hijallo wrote:

Our flyers aren't good competers in the skyes anyway, and they take the place of old trusty Ravager which is needed to deliver "alpha" strike.

I don't agree with that assessment.

Yes, fighters were better at nuking a target in 5e - but they are vastly more survivable than ravagers.

Ravagers often don't kill anything turn 1, DE are not a good alpha strike army. Ravagers draw a lot of fire, and they can't take it - there's too many long range, high strength weapons out there for them to survive for more than a couple of turns.

So I certainly don't need Ravagers for a very dubious alpha strike. Let's say you've got turn 1, and you have 3 Ravagers with a total of 9 shots. 6 hit, 3 pens and 1 glance vs. Rhinos. Statistically you need up to 5 pens before you roll an "Explodes" result.

So you killed one Rhino with at least 315 points of Ravagers - and I haven't factored in any kind of cover save.

Awesome alpha strike? Don't get me wrong, I like Ravagers, but they so often manage to bounce, or just die that you can't rely on them.

The DE flyers have a bad reputation in 6e but it's not a fair comparison. As long as we have 5e dexes with cheap Vendettas then it will look bad - but so will almost any other flyer.

I read a comment by Agahnim somewhere, where he said that the fighters were really the bombers and the Voidraven was the dogfighter.

I fully agree.

Take a look at the Storm talon, the Ork flyers, the DA flyers, the new Tau flyers. We can get a flicker field and not give a flying f... about evading incoming fire, The fighter is born with missiles, and both flyers have the lance rule.

Storm raven: it's good. Very good. It's also very expensive! In the context of the armies that can take a Storm raven it's fair enough in my opinion as there will be a lot less marines on the ground. Especially the early turns we often spend moving into position.

Helldrake: good vs. ground targets. Not so much vs. flyers.

So there's really only the Vendetta and the a-bit-too-cheap Night scythe left. I don't often see more than 2 Vendettas, and rarely more than 3 Necron flyers in 1500 point lists. I'm a TO myself, often go to tournaments and I play in a very competitive environment in my LFGS and with my friends.

With 2-3 flyers of your own, haven't tried it yet as I so far only own a single fighter, I can't imagine how that won't be an asset vs. a lot of the common builds.

Even more so than a Ravager is, as it will survive longer and have a stronger impact, if nothing else the enemy will have to divert his own AA (including flyers) to splash yours.

You can get your dark light everywhere in the FoC - but the flyers you can only get from the HS section.

Good luck, but this sounds exactly like the old Tau to me..blown off the table in less than 3 turns was standard fair with one of local Tau players in 5th.

The battle report for the rematch is up:

BR22: The Black Buzzards VS Tau Rematch - 1500pts

Mushkilla, I really respect you, and think of you as a good player However, i'm surprised this type of thing hasn't happened to you before. You have SO many near auto-loss matchups with the list you run. If you ran a slightly more balanced/competitive list, I think you would rarely lose. Then again, if you're playing for fun, then you're doing it right!

Flayed_Heart_Kabal wrote:

Mushkilla, I really respect you, and think of you as a good player However, i'm surprised this type of thing hasn't happened to you before. You have SO many near auto-loss matchups with the list you run. If you ran a slightly more balanced/competitive list, I think you would rarely lose. Then again, if you're playing for fun, then you're doing it right!

Thanks for the kind words. Yes I could run three ravagers, and loads of venoms. But who would read any of these battle reports then?

I enjoy using reavers and quite frankly have never had so much fun in 40k before. I have also learn't a lot more using this list, the matchup above is one that could have been considered "auto-lose", but putting a bit more thought into deployment showed it was winnable. The only real way to learn the weaknesses of a list is to play it for a long time, for example it's taken me this long to realise that I should drop the blasters from the 10 man warrior units because I never use them.

There's also a question of style, I could run wracks as my troops, or a groteques bodyguard for my Archon, but the reason I play Dark Eldar is for the finesse (S3, T3, I5, 5+, fleet), if I start using "Brute" models what's the point? The same thing can be said for venom/raider spam, If I wanted to sit back and shoot all day why not play Tau instead? This current list is unfinished, there are things in it I'm not sure of (the blaster Archon for example), but it does let me use all three phases of the game to win (movement, shooting and assault) and that's what I enjoy about it.