1750pt vs Marines and Tau

Apologies first, many of you may have seen this in the Tactica thread where a lot of you helped me with an army to go up against a Tau army, this is the correct place for it and I have consolidated it for those who did not see it!

I used the same army for both games.

I took:
HQ:

Karamazov

Librarian M/C sword, smite, summoning, MoT, Vortex, warp rift

Elite:

Techmarine w/ OSR and 3 servo-skulls

Troops:

5 Terms w/Daemon Hammers

5 Terms w/Daemon Hammers (1 M/C), Psybolt ammo

Fast Attack:

10 Interceptors w/ 2x incinerators, psybolt ammo, 1 MC Daemon Hammer

Heavy Support:

5 Purgators w/ 3xpsycannons 1xincinerators, teleport homer, in Razorback

2 x PsiRifle Dreads



played 2 games 1 vs Tau the other against marines

game 1 vs Marines (remember my army was built to defeat Tau!!)

he had:

Capt with M/C claw
Libby w/ force wep, force dome and machine curse
2 x10 Assault squads
1 x10 Tac Sqd in Drop pod
1 x10 Sternguard in Drop pod
1 x5 tac sqd in lascannon razorback
1 x5 Termies with H Flamer
1 x5 scouts with 1 H bolter 1 Sniper

we rolled for scenario and got Annihilation with Spearhead deployment

highlights:

seeing the look on his face when I rolled for 5 barrage blasts from Orbital Strike relays in the first turn! didn't kill much though!

my GKIS 'intercepting' his 10 man tac sqd in drop pod killing half and losing 2, then getting counter charged by 10 assault marines and then holding the combat for 2 turns finishing the tac squad before succumbing to the ass sqd!

both termie units arriving in turn 3, 1 unit wiping out the remaining ass sqd marines in a blaze of SB fire!

the other ass sqd catching my purgation squad napping and assaulting them, the justicar held the ass sqd up for 2 turns at which point he was getting frustrated! then I used Karamazovs OSR to drop a lance strike onto my lone justicar using his 'by any means necessary' rule, due to them all being deep within a building we agreed all could have a cover save, sucessful save for me 5 failed saves for him!! lol!

taking out both his drop pods and his razorback in 1 round of shooting from my psifle dreads and karamazovs multimelta.

my termies making mincemeat out of his!

Both dreads acting as awesome tar pits for his combat squadded sternguard and holding them in combat for the last 3 turns of the game

Lowlights

Karamazov dying all too easily to his Libbys force weapon (force weapons work against us too!)

apart from being a good speedbump, the Purgation sqd did little

OSRs are good to have but are far too random and you have to be lucky to get decent hits against non-horde armies.

the result: Won by 7 kill points to 5

Very happy result seeing as my army was designed to take out 4+ armour saves, however 2 easy KPs from the Drop pods.

GAME 2

Vs Tau

I guessed beforehand that he would have lots of suits and fire warriors and no kroot....how wrong was I???

He Had: (excuse my ignorance of tau!)

Commander in suit with 2 shield drones plasma thing and missile pod
1x 20 Kroot
1x 10 Kroot
2x 3 Crisis suits
1x 3 Broadsides
1x 5 Pathfinders
1x 10Fire Warriors in Devilfish
1x Devilfish
1x Hammerhead with Ion Cannon
1x skyray
2x Pirhanas

We rolled for mission: sieze ground with spearhead deployment

Highlights:

MY GREY KNIGHT INTERCEPTOR SQUAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thanks to all of you that suggested taking a 10 man squad! in the first turn I shunted them accross the table length, shot both incinerators into the 20 man kroot sqd that was being used as a meat shield, covered 10 models, 2s to kill = 10 dead kroot, 5 more from storm bolter shots assaulted the remaining 5 and destroyed them!! then.......shot and assaulted the remaining 10 man kroot unit destroying it! then........jumped in front of his broadsides shot (took 1 wound of 1 of them(2+sv)) assaulted them and destroyed them! then....... jumped next to a 3man crisis squad shot then killing 1 and wounding another, the suits then failed their morale check and fled off the table! then.....jumped behind the pathfinder squad shot them and destroyed them all with incinerators and SBs! then...no I'm joking! it finished at 5 turns! they were unstoppable! my opponant ignored them due to there being too many other supposed more valuable targets!!

Termies deepstriking in and having a bad scatter despite servo skull action, leaving them directly in front of the Tau Gunline, being shot at by 95% of the tau force.....and I didn't fail 1 save, not even invulnerables!! my opponent had to have a little sit down and an little cry after that!!

Psycannon shots from the Purgation squad taking the Ion cannon out from the Hammerhead after 1 of the Dreads failed to do much against it in 3 turns!

lowlights:

Karamazov being insta killed by the broad sides rail guns (needed to roll 3 cover saves, saved 2! gutted!)

losing a terminator squad to a deep strike mishap (1 of my 2 troop choices gone in an objective game....I know...you warned me!!lol)

psifle dreads not being as effective against the tau skimmers as I hoped, but mainly due to the Tau disruption field saves!

his devilfish with fire warriors coming on in turn 5 to claim an objective.

the result: lost 1-0

I'm claiming a moral victory as I had obliterated most of his army, Karamazov is being dropped for a GKGM with grand strategy to make more units troops as I could have won 3-1 if that was the case!!

for both battles the techmarine with OSR was great purely because I put him in a building and my opponents forgot he was there!!
thanks to all of you who gave me the valuable advice, Tau aren't that good against us, you just need to give then something to think about.

if I was to play this army again, the ideal would be termies in godhammer landraiders/stormravens(as long as you can hide the SRs!) with GKGM and Libby, 2 x 10 man GKIS with incinerators, techmarine with OSR, and a dreadknight with Psycannon and Incinerator! basically get to grips with them fast, have a couple of sure-fire tank killers and use grand strategy to make the GKIS able to claim objectives!.

I would really recommend giving your terminators Psycannons, there will be situations where you just don't want to deepstrike them in, and the extra flexibility is really worthwhile. (Esp since they are relentless). Plus it gives you a bit more freedom to land further away and shoot at some targets.
I'd also suggest stealth for your librarian, if you get into 4+ cover you can give your terminators a 3+ cover save with the Librarian and turn the cover into a bunker for your squads, particularly against CC armies. In some cases you could probably almost give you entire army stealth if needed.

All good lists have kroot they need the bubblewrap!

Just as a suggestion, you could bulk out a squad of terminators to 10 man, give it 2 Psycannons, instead of or in addition to the PsyAmmo, for the price of the Purg squad, give or take 5-10 points.
This basically trades some of the PsyC onto relentless units and gives you another troop choice.
Alternatively you could swap them for a storm raven with a teleport homer, adding some anti tank, and depending what you swap Karamazov for, providing a delivery vehicle.

Also keep in mind with a GM and scout it can give you an extra option against gunline! People are abusing it to use the Teleporter Pack 30" move, but even with a normal 12" move your interceptors can get quite close for a first turn strike. It basically gives you a 30" range (12" scout, 12" move, 6" charge") first turn used right.

I agree with zeal, relentless psycannons are the bomb! and karamazov doesn't do a whole lot in your list besides the template, which since your list is a low model count you don't usually want to use his rule anyway.