1750 vs Tau

Brother MJSWASEY agreed to do battle versus a fledgling tau collective, with few battle under their belt. The result was as you'd expect for the Emporers Elite.

BC stern +4 Termies

targeters on all troops choices:
8GK
8GK
5GK (2 are psy)
5GK (2 are psy)

5gk Fast attack (2 are incin)

Land Raider with smoke/EA

Dread with MM, CCW, smoke, EA

Tau:
FK commander and 2 FK bodyguard

3 Deathrains

6 FW
6 FW + Warfish
6 FW + Warfish
14 ish kroot

7 pathfinders + warfish

2 broadsides
3 sniper drone teams
1 railgun hammerhead

5 objectives, Pitched battle, GK deploy first

on the far right GK with psy deploy in forest within 3" of obj. medium right is a Land raider with termies, and hidden touching the LR's right side is the dread. big GK squads deploy in the middle and on the left just a few inches from terrain, on the far left almost touching a hill are the last psycannon troopers

Tau deploy pathfinders in the center on a building, with crisis suit behind to jsj. Two DF are in reserve, one DF+ troops are hidden way in the back, broadsides to the right of center, kroot to far right. Three sniper drone teams spread in cover on the left.

Tau sieze initiatve, kill ~3 gk and get the MM off the dread.

Everything GK besides the far right psycannons advance. Far left psy takes positions on the hill, mid left GK take their five remaining members and rush into the cover in front of them, Mid GK kill off 3 pathfinders, LR advances straight to 12" from broadsides and blows smoke, Dread nestles out of sight in the LR(which is tilted right to block los to the dread), Far right fires at kroot.

Tau bang away on the weakened squad to two men, advance Hammerhead to ineffectually pound on GK vehicles, and jump around.

Termies assualt broadsides, the two remaining memebers of a big squad retreat behind a hill out of LOS, Psycannons pound remaining pathfinders, Dread advances toward Kroot. GK assualt hammerhead and wreck it

Tau reserves # one come in on left, zooming forward toward the hill objective my psycannons are on. shoot at termies ineffectually (BC sterns reroll saved a wound!) kill a GK or two.

Incincerators stick the landing and wipe out two sniper drone squads. Psycannons on left pop a devilfish, mid squad advances to the left, behind LOS from a land raider. GK termies get another assault on deathrains.

At this point i have a left and right objective with the psycannon squads (thanks, shrouding!) a bunch of guys just left of the center terrain (objective is in right side of it) A two man squad making it's way over to the center, a dread advancing on kroot, in the far right, Terminators advancing on kroot from close to his board edge far right, and a LR on his deployment line left of center. He has some kroot far right on an objective, a sniper drone team on a hill with an objective, surrounded by a devilfish, crisi squad, and another fish zooming towards me.

he shoots the incinerators down to two men, kills a termie, and kroot move to rear armor to immoblize dread! the left devilfish parks on the objective.

I assault the Sniper drone team, advance troops from behind lr to within 3" of the objective near his left deployment, move termies to within ~9 inches of kroot. LR wiffs on Devilfish, GK wiff too. Drones are wiped, two man squad is about 7 inches from mid objective.

His last squad comes on the far right, parking between my termies and the obj/kroot. his fish floats around my left objective, his crisis suits advance to the point my big squad holds.

My GK immobilize the fish, termies immobilize the other fish and get JUST within 3" of obj. GK assualt commander and bodyguards and 2 suits manage to stick in with one wound each. bad cover rolls deny me the center ojective, , everything else is contested......... EXCEPT for my back right objective. the game goes on, but i easily get 2 more objectives minimum next turn, so he conceedes. i was only down one termie, and immobilized dread, and approx 10-12 gk


Tau are a super tough army to learn, i think more so then grey knights or really most anything except probably dark eldar. They take alot of very specific strategies you learn with time and practice only, and aren't as forgiving as marines good toughness and saves can often be. I give him props for picking it as his first army and he did really well with them for a early outing. A rules misconception is why the three sniper drone teams were taken, but they easily did just as much damage as the rest of the army combined.

Plus he had a killer paint scheme.

True about the Tau learning curve. When played well though by a player who knows how to use them they can be devastaing. Thanx for the batrep and congrats on the win.

Nice batrep. Good win

good batrep
broadsides are awesome !
i learned it the hard way
it's curious that your oponant did not bring some more !?
Aubec

well heres the thing- he spent quite a few points and his last heavy slot on the drones, thinking he could field them as one group and therefor use one markerlight hit to boost them all, which would make them fantastic since they would all pretty much always be bs 5, wound on 2's, give marines no armor of cover save. Thats not how it works, each group of 3 uses hits seperately, so i think from now on he might field more broadsides/hammerheads.

My 1750 tau list i shared with him is as follows:

Commander with Twin Liked Melta, targeting array, Stim injectors(FNP)
Fireknife Crisis x3
Stealthx5 (1 with melta)
9 Fire warriors with Team leader
9 Fire warriors with Team leader
9 Fire warriors with Team leader
9 Fire warriors with Team leader
2 upgraded warfish
8pathfinders with team leader.
2x broadsides, Targeting array, 2xshield drones, target lock
2x broadsides, Targeting array, 2xshield drones, target lock
Hammerhead with railgun, the works, burst cannons

how i explained it too him is below. It does lack some of the AP he brought to the table, but most likely would have killed the LR/Dread combo easier (although our smoke is still the best thing ever against tau) and been able to respond better to the marines , plus taken ALOT more shots at things.

Commander with Twin Liked Melta, targeting array, Stim injectors(FNP)
For deep striking (which he can reroll scatter for) and pounding a tank. he is then nigh invulnerable to things that don't pen his armor or are s8, so can bound around after more or draw heavy weapons fire for under 90 points. In our last game, depending when he came in he coulda plopped in front of the LR and made a death or glory or force it to go around, or kill it or the dread later game

Fireknife Crisis x3
If you've played as or against tau you know these are good

Stealthx5 (1 with melta)
I hate spamming crisis suits at people, and these guys are alot of fun, plus outflanking the can do 12 s5 shots and a melta into rear armor, or harass troops really well. in our game they could have killed the dread (on rear armor they do great!) or contested my back objective, or just annoy alot of marines and pick off weakened squads

9 Fire warriors with Team leader
9 Fire warriors with Team leader
9 Fire warriors with Team leader
9 Fire warriors with Team leader
2 upgraded warfish
having alot of s5 shots do work against alot of armies as they advance. I find ld8 is crucial since fire warriors die like flies. The two warfish(one is the pathfinders, but included here cuz thats where i actually use it) are for zooming troops in trouble out of the way of trouble, but generally troops are outside in cover, firing. His were always inside the devilfish just to make them scoring. as tau you need every shot the first 3 turns, because you will start to lose from turn 4-5 on, so THATS when you put them in fish and fly them to objectives.

8pathfinders with team leader.
Force multiplier. Need tanks dead this turn? broadsides are bs5 and ignore cover. Need troops to go down? same thing for plasma guns, the s6 ap4 pie plate, etc. soooo good. I always max the squad for 4 hits on average, which get broasides the bs5 ignore cover, or gives anything else bs5 and allows 6+ cover.

2x broadsides, Targeting array, 2xshield drones, target lock
2x broadsides, Targeting array, 2xshield drones, target lock
4 broadsides who can all target different targets, are bs4 twin linked, and have two drones to soak up wounds. I use the targeting array instead of the slow and purposeful because with two and pathfinders, i can usually see what i need to and take away cover, so the extra bs helps me more then moving a bit to try and see. Regardless, BS really pretty much either need the +1 bs or slow and purposeful, any other wargear isn't as good. and more is definitely better and 4 is a great amount for 1750, destroying lost of light tanks or a few heavy.

Hammerhead with railgun, the works, burst cannons
Fires a railgun, DESTROYS swarms/hordes, is generally an all around bad-arse for cheap. it seems tough and as a skimmer would be a good obj holder, but keep it in the back, do NOT brng it forward. It's only tough if it's far away and presents front armor. it hates meltas, is only rear armor 10 and side 12, and generally has a huge range, the burst cannons are a plus, don't feel you need to use em every turn.

next time with this army you'll have more problem to win brother MJ
Aubec