Interactive 1750 vs tau

Hey All-

I though I'd do an interesting twist on a battle report. Each turn I'll stop and ask what you guys would have done. Once I get a few responses, I'll reveal my thoughts and what I did, and tell you how my opponent responded, then do the same thing for the next turn. Sound fun? Alright!

I'll post a picture of each turn. Feel free to post response pictures if you want. Use the Army List Key to identify units.

Him-

FK (commander +2plasma/missiles suits and 2 drones)

FK (3 plasma/missile suits +2 drones)
Hel (3 plasma/melta suits +2drones)

FW (6fw)
FW (6fw)
Kroot (~13 kroot)
Kroot (~13 kroot)

PF 6 pathfinders
DF devilfish
PS (2 piranhas)

BS (3 broadsides 2 drones)
RH (Hammerhead with Railgun)
IH (hammerhead with ion gun)


Our list!

ST (Stern)
GM (GM with hammerhand and Icon)

T (4 termies with 1 incinerator)

GK (8gk with incinerator)
GK (8gk with incinerator)
Psy (6 gk with two psycannons)

LR (land raider, Smoke, EA)
LR (land raider, Smoke, EA)

It's spearhead annihilation. Tau are going first. They have the Helios (Plasma/fusion) suits deep striking and 6 fw in reserve. How do you deploy?

As silly as it would be, I would consider Deep Striking the GKT's while sticking both squads of PAGK with Incinerators inside a Land Raider along with one of the two Grey Knight Heroes. And then deploy the Land Raiders are far forward as possible. And the last squad of PAGK with the two Incinerators, I would place them behind a Raider, after making sure that the raiders are ready to blitz towards one side.

I would try to get in the face of the Broad Sides as soon as possible, it's better that way instead of hanging around waiting to be picked off from afar. I remember playing against Tau once, in a doubles match with my Thousand Sons in a DOW deployment, didn't lose much, but by deploying as far forward as I did, it really put the pressure on the player.

It's a gamble, but those raiders will protect the GK's before they get popped from the Rail Guns, but with luck, the Lascannons will destroy something before reaching the front lines.

yeah I dont know about this one. To start off i would have taken a little bit different list, but working with what you have......

I agree with Dark Ronin about deep striking the termies, but i would have the GM with them. Then i would put Stern and the 6 man/2 cinnie squad in one land raider and an 8 man in the other.

I honestly would then put everything not deep striking in reserve. My reasoning for that is to denythe Tau some shooting, That is what they excell in.

Tips i learned playing Tau:
Smart missles dont care about the shrouding or cover.
Psycannons work well against Tau vehicles
Get close when you can
Did i mention the damn smart missles!

Sorry guys, I just noticed i typed a two incinerator squad when it's dual psycannons. Fixed!

Titus, as a long time Tau player myself i have some contention with your points. Smart missiles range is 24" compared to the shrouding average of 31.5. They'll rarely ever roll less anyways, so the problem isn't really the ignoring shrouding, it's the fact anything that close will most likely pass shrouding. Also, it doesn't pen GK armor and can't touch a LR, so cover is irrelevant, and you'd still get cover anyway if you were in terrain or touching it.

I find psycannons to work terrible against everything but piranhas. most tau vehicles are 12 or 13 front armor with an automatic cover save. That means against a devilfish (the only non piranha unit you can hurt), you need on average 6 full psycannons (18 shots) to just cause one glance, and you can't pen. The Hammerhead and SkyRay you can't touch from the front, and they're skimmers that can fire as fast, so your only getting the front.

Getting in close is definitely the way to go, though!

I find the problem with rushing tau head on is that one turn the pirahnas block your movement and the railguns pop LR's. You are on foot right next to kroot then, but you get bogged up as all that plasma just chews through your squads. Also I could at max hide one LR close to the center without being seen by the broadsides, and the Railgun Hammerhead would still have a clear first turn shot.

So I decide, as titus did, to fully reserve/deep strike. I had stern with an 8 man in an LR and GM with an 8 man in LR, 4 termies seperate, and a 6 man dual psycannon on foot. Turn two saw me get the Stern LR and termies, which came in as such:



I got my guys out to multiassualt all the vehicles, but first i shot my flamer into the piranhas, hoping to kill the drones on the other side. I did kill the drones, but i also killed the pirahnas, meaning no multi assualt. What a powerful incinerator! Realizing this might be bad, I shot the two lascannons into the railgun hammerhead and destroyed it as well, and hunkered down to wether a bunch of plasma with no cover. Terminators deep struck as bait in terrain on the other side, killing some kroot.

At this point he got another FW squad, moved to shoot the termies, took out the LR, and killed about half of the GK squad with stern.

Now, for your move. The table looks as is below.

You've got psycannons walking on, your termies look to be about 3" inside of cover, and the kroot 4" away from the edge of cover. Do you stay in cover and shoot, try to get out to assault and no shoot? Where do the psycannons come in, close to help or back corner to deny kill point?

Ok here is what i would do in this situation.

I would bring my psycannon team on where the bunker is and get them in there. You may lose a round of shooting but will be able to camp the Psycannons at max range the next few rounds while in cover. The other thing you could do is to bring them on near stern the full 6 inches and hope that the FK are within the psycannons short range.

I would then take stern move him away from the GK unit, assault and hammerhand the shit out of that Hammerhead. The remaining GK move to either shoot the same FK that the Psycannon unit would, or if within range charge the flank of the Kroot.


Termies have an assault build on them with the incinerator. They were meant to charge in and hit the enemy. If your termies are 3" in you have a very good chance of rolling a 5 for movement. which would put you two inches from the nearest kroot and then probably 4 inches from the next one. well Within charge range.

I like how you think, titus!

The pictures not super clear, but the kroot are definitely out of the stern squads charge range and the FK are actually a little over the halfway line - too far to psycannon.

Heres what I did - I brought the termies up and didn't shoot them. I got 3" so was just barely still in cover. I needed a 4 to assualt - and got a 3. Oh well, at least i'm still in cover. It was only about a 60% chance anyway, so I knew it could fail.

I left stern with the GK and had them all assualt the ionhead. I wanted it dead and i didn't want stern seperate from the GK, as they could then either focus fire him or the squad and i wouldn't be able to do wound allocation anymore. Plus one railgun to stern means a squishy, squishy death. I didn't trust the storm bolters agains the FK, with about 4 guys shooting you score on average one unsaved wound, and they're two wound models (the commander even more!). The Ionhead Died.

This is the part I might have done different. I brought the Psycannon squad up right behind the hill, just a tad from cresting it and fully hidden from view. My plan was to blast away at kroot until they ran (notice how close the last guy is to the board edge, one run means death) and hope my cover saves would last me for maybe the second squad of kroot. I think in hindsight the smarter move is to take the bunker. Then the tau really couldn't kill me, with shrouding and the angles, and I didn't really need the KP at this point, so it probably would have been better to take pot shots and garuntee their safety then risk their KP to get one more KP. But i was focused on supporting my assault and getting more KP instead of looking at the KP ratio.

Anyways, The helios squad lands, pathfinders hit the Terminators, and with a little railgun and FW help they are GONE. fwoosh. I even went to ground. The combined rest of his army takes out sterns squad and puts a wound on him, but stern is still kicking! The kroot, staying at 2" coherency, shuffle over to right in front of the FK, and he prepares to level things all to my side of the board again.

Now it's 4-3 in my favor, but he's definitely getting sterns KP next turn unless hes stuck in combat. I need some quick kill points!

Luckily, the LR is coming on. it's turn 4, how do you play it now?

hi all i didn't spoke because brother titus told what i was intend to say
this turn : my primary target would be the pathfinders with stern and psycannon and the firewarriors with the coming LR... hoping to destroy them quickly
Aubec

I respectfully disagree, aubec. Though it's not improssible to kill the FW, I'd have to move 12 and fire the heavy bolter. I'd have to make them run, so i need a minimum of two dead. i have three shots at 8/9 to hit, 5/6 to wound, and 1/2 get a cover save. On average thats dead. even if i get lucky, they still have to fail a leadership check, which is statistically unlikely. What is VERY likely is that the Broadsides would then get a kill point from my LR and expose the troops inside.

In addition, the Psycannons/stern have almost as poor odds against the pathfinders, and the then stern can't assault anyone. Also notice that the kroot would be fully visible to the psycannons (no cover) and have an armor save worse than the storm bolters, and a lower leadership...... and are closer to the board edge. Plus i had killed a few earlier.........

I noticed that nothing but his broadsides and helios suits could cause any damage to my LR, so i moved fast behind cover where neither could see it next turn, and shot the heavy bolter at the kroot. 1 went down (cover saves).

Stern ran up to the kroot, but didn't shoot. Why? notice I said he left his kroot at 2" coherency. Astute students of the rules will notice that you may ignore "can't move within 1 inch of a model" in the assualt phase, and sterns base is smaller than 2 inches. I charged his FK squad with stern! I should have killed his commander with my force weapon for another kill point, but we had a rules disagreement that he said was in the FAQ. We looked it up later and I was right, but it's really confusing unless you are super up on the rules. Basically, even if a commander has drones he can be singled out in CC since he never looses the IC rule. so instead his crisis suits started running and stern was left all by himself to eat alot of shots, but at least within 6" of the runners.

Psycannons shot more kroot, but they held fast.

On his turn the commander had to run again, he shot up stern, repositioned a few things, and tried to shoot the psycannons (got a few in, but shrouding held off a few squads) The Land raider is basically invincible now unless he very carefully sets up his helios suits, as to do any damage at all he has to end the turn before within 18", and then i can just drive over and assualt them before they jump in.



Theres not alot of choices left in this game. I choose to leave the psycannons up top to shoot kroot (them and LR finish the kroot off) and keep the LR out of sight. The game ends, but if it continued he can MAYBE get the psycannon points, in which case i drive in, smoke, and assualt something, getting me more points.

Victory for the GK! Any comments on the strategies/other things?












Anyways, did you guys enjoy this type of Bat Rep? it's a little labor intensive, but i think it's interesting. Or I could just do a normal bat rep from now on, to get more up on the boards. Let me know!

yes i like that but i find it hard to have a clear image of the tactical situation, i'am a visual guy and it's difficult to me to think tactics without really seeing the battle ground... but hey that's just me
Aubec

Pictures (photos!) would make it alot more effective I think!

Sweet. I'll look into getting a new camera soon, and perhaps another one of these will be on the horizon

cool !!
Aubec

Quick comment to make, your opponent was correct in the ruling about the commander and the drones. The drones are considered war gear that forms a retinue but the entire unit can still join other units. This is what make shield drones so good.

Overall a good battle report with a cool format. Hope to see more like this in the future, its interesting to see what other people say. congrats on the win!

Don't sheild drones count as seperate kill points though?

No.

Shield drones are not a separate unit, they are taken as wargear/additional models for whatever unit they are bought for. Drones are only ever a separate kill point when bough as the independent drone only fast attack choice or when they are taken on a vehicle and survive disembarkation.

As for the drones, yes we went back over it as a club and ruled it that you can't single out the Commander. The debate stems from the line in the Commander entry in the Tau codex that states "if accompanied by drones, he may still join other units as an independant character". Originally we thought this meant that he joins AS an independent character, meaning he regains IC status when joining units to make the rules work (since you can't join two non-IC units together and if he doesn't have IC status he breaks the rules and theres ALOT of questions about moral checks and combat and the like). However, our club decided that to keep consistancy with our other rulings (like things that move AS jetbikes aren't jetbikes) that he doesnt lose the retinue protection.

Hmmm interesting, the sheild drones is a really cool concept, so its good to hear its not being ruined by bad rules intepretation!
I have to admit I look forward to seeing the next Tau codex.