BR23: The Black Buzzards VS Tau Mech/Riptide - 1500pts

its brand new Alsarion, just came out yesterday

They FAQed it to day.

Funnily it's word for word what I got everyone to email GW in this thread. Even the capitalisation on Wound but not on allocation (what I left to see if they copy pasted from our emails).

Another great report sir; can I ask how you do your reports please?

During the game do you take photos, and/or make extensive notes, or are you just blessed with an eidetic memory?!
What software are you using to create the images? Yours are some of the clearest visuals I see on Batreps, the right balance between detail and clarity. Are they your own thumbnails for units, or stock ones?

To what extent do you feel you list-tailor for specific opponents? Or do you vary your army just for experimentation? Obviously the Ravagers, 2x9 Reavers and some Warrior squads are in almost all your reports, but do you aim for a "tournament army", or do you believe that a good general adapts to the battle ahead and chooses troops accordingly?

Keep up the good work, and I hope to see another report against GK soon, as they are causing me trouble at the moment!

Thanks.

commandersasha wrote:

During the game do you take photos, and/or make extensive notes, or are you just blessed with an eidetic memory?!

Camera phone photos and notes. I try to write the text for the report as soon as possible after the game as that's when the memories are most accurate, even if its just a draft. The notes are mainly for exceptional things (like keeping track of shadow field saves), or things that I think would be interesting to share.

commandersasha wrote:

What software are you using to create the images? Yours are some of the clearest visuals I see on Batreps, the right balance between detail and clarity. Are they your own thumbnails for units, or stock ones?

Vassal, its a engine designed to play turn based games over the internet. It has a 40k module that has sprites for most of the units and terrain. Then I crop the screenshots for each turn and add arrows with GIMP (similar to MS paint/Photoshop).

commandersasha wrote:

To what extent do you feel you list-tailor for specific opponents? Or do you vary your army just for experimentation?

I don't tailor, I try to experiment though as the edition is so different to 3rd, 4th and 5th. So much still to learn.

commandersasha wrote:

Obviously the Ravagers, 2x9 Reavers and some Warrior squads are in almost all your reports, but do you aim for a "tournament army"

I aim to have a balanced army, but whether it's tournament worthy is hard to say as I haven't been to any tournaments this edition.

commandersasha wrote:

do you believe that a good general adapts to the battle ahead and chooses troops accordingly?

I think a good general at the end of the day makes the most of what he's got.

A ramshackle raiding force is going to be equipped to deal with a variety of threats, but probably won't have the resources to specialise in hunting a specific prey, besides who knows what's going to be waiting for you when you make planetfall at your local gaming store.

If I know roughly what I'm facing in advance, I'll read through their codex, check out the race specific forums and most importantly I'll talk it out with other members in the TDC chat, get their ideas and thoughts. I pretty much bombard Shadow with questions: will he want first or second turn? How is he likely to deploy? What might he reserve? What will his target priority be? Then we talk it out with whoever is on chat and run though various scenarios. What will you do if he does X? What about Y?

If you have a good idea of how your opponent is going to play, then you are unlikely to get surprised and you will be able to maximise the resources you have.

So again I don't tailor but I do prepare myself as best I can.

Hope that helps.

Mushkilla wrote:

I pretty much bombard Shadow with questions: will he want first or second turn? How is he likely to deploy? What might he reserve? What will his target priority be? Then we talk it out with whoever is on chat and run though various scenarios. What will you do if he does X? What about Y?

Always with the questions

Sadly this game is as much about mindsets as it is about dice rolling. When someone picks their army, they normally conform to how that army is precieved to play. Take tau or IG for example. They are made for immobile shooting forces. Sure IG has blobs with straken and tau can be very mobile, but these elements are normally fogotten to take what they feel is right. By looking at their list, you can almost see how they will play and react. Allies have made this worse as people normally take their strengths and only strengthen them with their choice of allies, instead of using their allies to cover their primary army's weakness.

Ofcourse that is a huge generalization, and it really depends on the experience and how comfortable your opponent is with their army, but after all my years of playing, I have found I am rarely wrong

Shadows Revenge wrote:

I have found I am rarely wrong

I can testify to that, all the advice you have given me has almost invariably been right on the money.

Thanks for the replies, very interesting. I had my first DE successes today, with a win and a draw against a GK list I was dreading: Coteaz, Death Cult, NDK and 2 Vendettas with Vets.

Your battle reports have been very useful to me in demonstrating how and when to apply pressure. Having come from Tyranids, with whom I had a lot of success in 5th, but less so in 6th, I have had to bring a very different approach with DE.

I enjoyed the report as always.

On the riptides that was a nice call on the combo charge. I have to say though I believe the tau player misplayed them pretty badly letting your lethal archon get anywhere near either one.
IMO the correct move should of been moving 6" plus 4d6" more in any direction away from the archon and shooting. Ah well his mistake your gain!

He should of indeed. I do find the nova reactor to be rather unreliable though, so it's not something a tau player can count on in any case.

My biggest mistake was not using the splinter pistol instead of the huskblade in close combat against the fire warriors to get a two round combat. Would have been pretty stylish, live and learn I guess.