jy2 wrote:Sir_Prometheus wrote:I suppose I might see you there. I'm looking over your ard boys battle reports, and will have a response for you.
How many people were at your ard boyz? Doesn't look to be that many.
Last year, we had 24 because there was only 1 location in our area. This year, that got cut into about half because
GW added another venue in our area. I think we had about 10-12 people only this time.
We had 13. Somehow I got the impression yours was a bit smaller from the reports.
So let's take a look at those batreps, shall we? I've decided this is a better thread for it rather than hijacking that other thread.
First of all, I'd like to say I appreciate the service you provide in doing such detailed batreps. I'm pretty lazy about doing mine, and they aren't quite as detailed.
http://prometheusatwar.com/2011/08/ard-boyz-battle-reports/
A few observations, mostly about your list:
I like the idea with the warding staves in small squads, to make a tarpit out of a small unit that might otherwise get blown away. Good idea. I do wonder if 4 of them was really needed, but I like that you did differentiate with some units have having hammers, and some staves.
I like the addition of the interceptors, it adds some much needed flavor to your army. They also look like the did a lot of heavily lifting for you. I've only used interceptors a couple times, but my own experience indicates, even worse than purifiers, in small squads they're easy to dakka down, and even more expensive. This has led me to think they work better in 10 man squads, which often isn't an investment I'm up for. I'm curious as to why yours didn't see more fire like mine do, whether you were real cautious with them, or people prioritze differently over there, or what.
You by and large were quite aggressive with the Psyflemen, which is good, it keeps the reinforced aegis up front, but why, oh why, didn't you give a couple of them, the venerables, an assault cannon? With BS5, it actually performs much better than the autocannon against a lot targets. You were almost always within range. I prefer to have a psycannon, DCCW and str 5 bolter combo, which has almost as much output, though at shorter ranges, than the psyflemen, but if you're not interested in the CC utility you can always do autocannon left arm with psycannon right arm. That actually has a lot more firepower than the dual autocannon arms, and once again, seemed like you almost always had the range.
You really drive your purifiers hard into CC, rather than holding back to shoot, which I find odd, since you've dedicated 40% of the squad to a shooting role.
Let's keep in mind the ratio here. Your 5 man purifier unit 2 psycannons, rhino and the warding stave costs 209 pts. My 10 man with 2 psycannons and
psybolts in a rhino costs 280. That's 74% So if you gave up 4 of those squads, you could get 3
GKSS fully equipped, maxed out. 50% more bodies. Way more Dakka.
Individual reports:
Looks to be a pretty standard variety of
SW list. Surprised he didn't take a rune priest.
1) good job reserving your traitor, that's what I did, too, though I didn't baby sit him, I used Driago's psychic communion to keep him off board for longer. (yet another benefit of being Crowe)
2) forgetting night fight probably helped you out. Any long fang or razorback shots that didn't go straight on your psyflemen would seem to be a mistake. When I read "wrecked/weapon destoryed stunned rhin" I read a psyfleman that didn't have the same done to it.
3) How exactly did you wipe out 6
TWC first turn? That's 12 T5 wounds, with good saves. (more, the Lord was in there, right?) Your army has the firepower but not, I suspect, the right guns in the right place turn 1. I'm think you must have gotten pretty lucky there, correct?
4) I think the battle rolls pretty predicatably from there, with the crippling effects of not having shot your psyfleman more in the early game, and losing half of his rock units turn 1. But your enemy seemed either unaware, or forgot, about the Heroic Sacrifice power on Crowe. Getting into
CC with him with expensive units, let alone the lord, was just silly. On the other hand, Crowe would have been fairly trivial to shoot up.
I am struck by how much better
GKSS would have done through much of this. You would have been stunning/immobilizing rhinos much more easily, while destroying them at about the same rate. You would have been much more able to deal with both
TWC and
GH at range, before they even got close, and when they did get close, sure, you could have used purifiers to protect them.
So, I play Tau. They were actually my first army, even the army played last time I did the Ard Boyz, which was a few years ago. I've largely stopped playing them mostly because psychic powers mess them up too easily. I, too, think they can be surprisingly good, but it all depends against what. I'm really surprised this guy made it to third place. Partly because of inherent weaknesses of Tau against some units, but mostly because it doesn't seem like a very good list.
1) His broadsides are all good, and his death rain crisis suits have their place, but he needs to put more plasma shots in there. 3 isn't enough. It's not surprising he wrecked 4 rhinos a turn, that's what the
deathrains are designed to do, but he's way over specialized, not everything is a rhino.
2) Why the heck doesn't he have more Devil Fish? DFs are the best thing Tau have going for them right now, overpriced as they are, mostly because they're tough and can tank shock you off objective. If he'd have 2 more DFs (you can put Kroot inside them,
btw) you never could have beaten him at the Objective game.
3) I love pathfinders, but they're a force multiplier unit, they need a good partner to amplify. What was the point of the pathfinders in this list? Most of his firepower is twin linked, doesn't really need a boost to
BS all that much. I suppose reducing cover saves is nice, but he doesn't have that much low
AP. I just don't see a good synergy for them here. Some seeker missiles would have been a good idea, or more firepower that is less twin-linked.
4) Firewarriors simply should not be on the ground, immobile.
5) some Piranhas would have done him a lot of good.
6) His broadsides should have
messed your psyflemen up. What were they doing this whole time? I see a lot news about how you tried to kill them, very little about what they did back to you.
All that said, it sounds like he fought you to a stand still. You're right, that he doesn't really care how you good you are in
CC, you'll squish him just the same. It's actually quite liberating, as a Tau player, when your opponent is talking about how badass his units are, and you're just like "it's all the same to me buddy, I'm just trying to shoot you before you get there."
Which, you know, once again is an argument for using more
GKSS. More shooting, more bodies, and if they wanted to get into
CC they're gonna kill the Tau just as dead.
Purifiers vs Ard Boyz 3: Draigo-Stormraven
Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, I like the idea behind Stormraven-based list. Some interesting things here, good concept, kinda mis-constructed in the execution, both in the final list and how it was used. I get the feeling he hand't had a huge amount of practice with it (which is hard to get with a Ard Boyz list). It's kinda overpowering, so even unpracticed, will smash some folks, but can splat a bit against others. That's what happened with you.
Actually, the list went splat, and he was still fighting you to a draw. The only reason it wasn't a draw was that he was dumb and, once again, let Crowe get into
CC with his big expensive Draigo, which was worth double pts, and they mutually annihilated. Can you tell me why people keep on letting you do that to them? I mean, bravo on pulling it off, but it shouldn't be so easy, he's not so hard to shoot down. Are they unaware of that power? Are you like some super ninja in getting him into combat? It's almost enough to convince me that Crowe is worth his pts, except well, you could do the exact same thing with a 100 pt BroChamp.
Main comments:
1) Neat as the 3 Stormraven's are, it's probably better to have one of them be a Land Raider. Just in case, Y'know, some body was crazy and took 5 freaking psyflemen, and they had nothing better to do.
2) Who won the roll for initiative? I know he went first, but was that his choice? I would have been fighting to go second, here. Had you gone first, when he came screaming on, he could've hurt some dreadnoughts. He would have been lucky to kill even 1, but he might've, might have stunned something, might have blown off an arm, anything to delay some of the pain.
3) I like his gundam /winged
DK conversions. But why, oh why, didn't those have the Teleporter packs? That would have been much better. He could have either come one normally, running to nearly keep up with the SRs, or shunted, to be right there, guaranteed, end of his turn 1.
That's pressure. You're gonna be thinking a lot harder about dedicating all fire at the SRs with those guys in your face. Or he could have Deep struck as he did, and just bee much more mobile. Probably would have shunted, myself.
4) I kinda feel a few assaulty dreads in the SRs might have served well here, would probably have to replace some
DK for that. Might be too many eggs in one basket.
5) He makes the same mistake you do, and takes too many psycannons in his purifiers. Why put 4 psycannons in a squad that is inherently meant to only be shooting 1 round before charging out of a SR? Could have saved himself 20 pts, hit harder. He only gets to really use those 4 psycannons when things go wrong. Backup plans are good, but don't plan to fail.
6) I hate that inquisitor build, especially in this list. Should have used a Xenos inquisitor with crazy nades. He's not even taking a henchman squad? He's paying 100+ pts for one
BS 4 psycannon.
7) I'm assuming the teleport homer in the purgations squad is a typo? Otherwise, I like the 4 flamer thing.
Anyway, again, you won this one because you had a ton of psyflemen, and he had a very juicy target for all that. And you really won it because he let Draigo get sucked into the warp, which there wasn't really a good reason to let happen.
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
- 1500 6th ed codex: 2 wins, 1 loss, 0 draws 
