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My friend and I started getting back into 40k after a long absence about 6 months ago, and have been refining our armies. I have been focusing on a new Tyranid army (Hive Fleet Inferno), whilst he has been focusing on Space Wolves and Tau.

Nids
I created a fresh Nid list to form the core of my army, and have been playing with pretty much the same list for many games now. I have taken the same army in all three of these games to try and help me focus on strategy, what works, what doesn't work etc.

Tau
The focus for my friend over these three games was to find a list of Tau that worked for him. You will see a very clear progression from his first army to his third, and how effective each was.

Each game can be found here:
Nids vs Tau (Part One - Currently reading)
Nids vs Tau (Part Two)http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/372694.page
Nids vs Tau (Part Three)http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/372926.page#2878089

Hive Fleet Inferno
Tyranid Prime – LW/BS & Death Spitter
5 Warriors (4 deathspitters, 1 Barbed Strangler)
2 x 10 Hormagaunts
2 x 15 Gargoyles
2 x 1 Zoey
2 Hive Guard
Trygon

Tau
Leader in suit (plasma/missile pod?) and marker light drone
3 Broadsides
Hammerhead
2 x 6 Firewarriors
1 x 8 Firewarriors
2 x 4 gun drones
1 x 3 sniper drones and marker light

Mission – Annihilation, pitched battle

Tau get first turn and deploy:
The three broadsides take up firing positions on the hill on the Tau right flank with two squads of six Fire Warriors setup in front. The leader (with a marker light drone) sets up right of centre with a squad of four gun drones in front. A squad of 3 sniper drones take up position in the centre. The Hammerhead deploys behind a building on the Tau left flank, along with a squad of 8 Fire Warriors and another squad of 4 gun drones.



Tyranids deploy:
My Nids largely deploy across the entire board. The only particular items of note, is that my hormagaunts are in front of my gargoyles (for both first turn cover saves, and for timing purposes later in the game) and the Trygon sets up with the power plant between him and the broadsides so that at worse, he will at least get a cover save if they shoot him.
After I have setup, the two gun drone squads make a scout move forwards (intending to bring my gargoyles within rapid fire range, and separate the ‘waves’ of my army).



Tyranids fail to seize.



Tau Turn 1
Whilst the gun drones move forwards again, the rest of the Tau army remains relatively stationary, and starts to pick long range targets where they can. Firing however does not start well, with the hammerhead managing to kill 1-2 hormagaunts and gargoyles and the Broadsides Insta killing one of my Zoeys.



Nids Turn 1
The Nids lines surge forwards, with the gargoyles quickly overtaking the slightly slower moving hormagaunts. The left hand brood of gargoyles fired upon the gun drones, taking 3 of the four down with the remaining one fleeing. On the right, the Hive Guard managed to Shake the Hammerhead (just in range), whilst the gargoyles managed to down one of the gun drones. The Warrior with the barbed strangler shot at the firewarriors in front of the broadsides, killing two firewarrios (and making them flee) and wounding a broadside and pinning them! Great shooting. The gargoyles on the right then charged the remaining three gun drones, wiping them out and then getting a 6” consolidation move enabling me to bring them back behind the building and out of rapid fire range.



Killpoints – Tau: 1 , Nids: 3

Tau Turn 2
With their Hammerhead shaken and the broadsides pinned, their wasn’t much happening in the Tau turn. The Fire Warriors rallied and reformed in front of the broadsides, the 8 man Fire Warrior squad backed off into the terrain to prevent being charged by the gargoyles and the rest shot into my horder doing minimal damage



Nids Turn 2
The horde again swarmed forwards. The Gargoyles and homrgaunts on the right switched direction towards the centre of the board, putting some buildings between themselves and the 8 man Fire Warrior squad and keeping out of rapid fire range. The only firing of note was the Hive Guard wrecking the Hammer head. In the assault, the gargoyles charged into the sniper drone team, but failed to kill them all.



Killpoints – Tau: 1 , Nids: 4

Tau Turn 3
The Tau then brought all of their fire to bear (except for the 8 man FireWarrior squad) on my horde, but only succeeded in killing off one of the gargoyle broods, and doing minor damage to the hormagaunt brood behind. Somehow, the sniper drone squad continued to hold up the other gargoyle brood...



Nids Turn 3
The horde was now in striking range, and it was time to land the killer blow. As the gribbly bugs scittered forwards eager for combat, the Hive Guard again got lucky and managed to skewer two of the broadsides with their deadly weapons (3 wounds and two ones on the save – ouch!). My horde then crashed into his remaining army, 1 hormagaunt brood into one fire warrior squad, another into his leader and the Trygon into his other firewarrior squad. The Trygon wiped out all 6 warriors in one go, whilst the hormagaunts managed to kill 3 of the four fire warriors, and kill the marker light drone with his commander for minimal loss. The gargoyles also finished off the last sniper drone and advanced towards the broadsides.
With only a handful of Tau left, and most of the Nid horde intact, the Tau decided to concede at this time.







Killpoints – Tau: 2 , Nids: 6 – Victory Nids!

Please feel free to comment, make suggestions/criticisms of both battle report, gameplay, army selection and tactics.

I will update this with my own review of the battle sometime over the next week, and appreciate your thoughts/comments.

Thanks!

Great to see some of your beautiful tyranids in action, here.

The game seemed to end very quickly, unfortunately !

I don't know Tau very well, but I expected a much higher efficiency during shooting phases, especially against nids.
Can you give me your toughts on the game ?

I look forward to your future battle reports. Are you going to add some fluff ?

This game was over from the beginning IMO, because of a couple of reasons:

1) They're facing the swarm, should have done away with the gun drones....not worth the points

2) Should have used everything in your power to boost BS...for example...pathfinders come default with markerlights, and targeting arrays 1UP your BS upto BS5...that would have made it a lot easier shooting wise for the Tau.

3) IMO, sniper drone teams aren't worth it unless you take the 3 teams that count as a single heavy choice...with just one....its pretty worthless. If i'm not mistaken, gun drones are 12pts a pop, and having 8 of them is 96pts, add that to the 10pts that you did away with the ML drone for the commander, and you could have taken a devilfish troop transport, as well as an 8 man pathfinder squad. That's 8 markerlights right there.

Just a thought, but that's what i've learned since I started playing Tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Something that I forgot to add, my main opponent in 40k is my roommate who has 7000+pts of Nids...from what it looks like, you have a pretty well rounded Nid army list here...I especially like the Trygons...monstrous creature, plus 6 wounds...its like an alien wrecking ball. Good move putting it behind cover to close the distance between you and the Tau though because had he put targeting array's on his stuff....he could have wrecked the Trygon before it even got there and might have had a chance against the rest with his fire warriors that were within rapid fire range (provided that the Trygon was killed before it got its grubby bone swords on the fire warriors).

Also, just another tip to the Tau player...I've never actually used this in a match, but in the last few months, I've become quite fond of the "Kroot Spam" technique. Its kinda hit or miss since kroot have no armor save, but you get enough kroot and it becomes a major key in victory.

Well done!

nice rep and pics, result was fairly obvious though, that tau army would struggle against anything

Great report man!

@ Grenat: Yeah, the game wasn't really worth playing further, as the Tau couldn't come back from where they were and would probably be wiped out in the next couple of turns. His Tau were hampered from the start with army selection really: he only had two marker lights in his army to improve his shooting (most Tau are only BS 3), and it didn't help that I outpositioned his 8 man Fire Warrior squad, caused a six man squad to flee and pinned his broadsides on turn 1. I have two more reports still to write up, which will show the Tau army/tactics evolving into something a lot more competitive by the third game.

I was originally going to add in some fluff for this report, but might save it for the second and third reports that lasted longer.

@ ThatTauGuyJoe: I don't know if it was over before it started, but yes his army selection wasn't ideal for this game and after my first turn it did essentially become unwinnable. The gun drones were a deliberate ploy to try and draw out half my army into rapid fire range of his fire warriors so that he could shoot my army up piecemeal. Unfortuunately it didn't work as on the one flank, my shooting did enough to see off the drones, and on the other I rolled a 6 on consolidation and managed to get back behind cover (and out of rapid fire range). Had I rolled a one, his 8 man firewarrior squad could have advanced into rapid fire range and with the help of a marker light probably killed the entire brood.

The path finders are one that he originally thought were a bit pricey for what they do, but after using them in the 3rd battle, I think they will be a permanent fixture in his army from now on! He also used the Kroot in the 3rd game (though only 1 unit, not spam), so you might want to check it out when I post it as his list was a lot better and it performed accordingly.

As far as my Nids go, I feel they're quite well balanced when used correctly. The combination of Trygon, Hive Guard, Zoeys and Warriors are particularly effective. On their own Zoeys and Warriors are considered a bad choice as you can get insta-killed by Str8+ weapons, but then your not targeting the Trygon or Hive Guard, so it can be difficult to work out what to shoot first...

@ Arakasi, SevenSins and BeefCakeSoup: Thanks. Keep an eye out for the next two batt reps that should be up in the near future

neat nid color scheme!

Hell yea slice'n'dice, i'm lookin forward to seeing how the next bat reps look!

I can not wait to read more !

I'd have to second the weird Tau selection comments. Though at that points level its difficult to fit the cool toys in. I'd be tempted to leave the pathfinders at home and TL everything.

troy_tempest wrote:I'd have to second the weird Tau selection comments. Though at that points level its difficult to fit the cool toys in. I'd be tempted to leave the pathfinders at home and TL everything.

He's right. Tau aren't much of a threat till 1500+ point games...I will agree with everyone else, Sniper Drones are garbage, and the Firewarrior squads are awkward. Also, I think 3 Broadsides at 1000 vs a horde army is the wrong way to go. Dropping a Broadside, Gun Drones, and Sniper Drones would open up plenty of points for more troops and/or Crisis Suits.

All in all, it was a good job though...pinning the 'sides and shaking the Hammerhead was what did the Tau in...good job, Nids!

Thanks Mega_Bassist

For those who are interested, I have now put up the next two games in this series, they can be found here:

Nids vs Tau (Part Two)http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/372694.page
Nids vs Tau (Part Three)http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/372926.page#2878089

Thanks for reading, all C+C welcome