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Hey gang,

Tuesday night is 500 point night at my local game store. Tonight I actually get a chance to go. This is my pregame write up and I will put any battles I get into below.

The rules (at least before 7th) were just 1 troop required. So here is my list

HQ
Commander (Fusion Blaster, Burst Cannon, Drone Controller)
2 Missile Drones (Using commanders BS5!)

Troops
12 Fire Warriors with a Shas'ui

Elite
XV8 Crisis Suit (Fusion Blaster, Missile Pod)

Fast Attack
10 Pathfinders with a Shas'ui

Heavy Support
XV88 Broadside with TL Heavy rail rifle and TL SMS

That comes to 497 points.

I will let you know how I do.
Thanks,
Duncan

(Just noticed that Missile drones are a Drone option, I put those with the Commander to make him a long range bombardment unit.)

Missile drones can only be taken by Broadsides per the Tau FAQ.

Nocturus wrote:
Missile drones can only be taken by Broadsides per the Tau FAQ.

Doh! I thought I had read that somewhere, but they were listed under the drones list in the codex. Sigh.

Thanks for setting me straight.

Yeah it was like a day two FAQ added to the codex...

And now onto the battle report.

My opponent was looking to play orks, which was fluffy awesome for me. Here is about what he had.

1 Warboss with a power klaw
1 pain boy
1 nob w/ 'eavy armor
30 boyz with 'eavy armor (sluggas and choppas.)
These he ran as one huge mob.

2 cannons
4 grot gunners

So two whole units verse my army. I did not really how hard this would be at first.

Eternal War mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Vanguard
First player - Tau

Setup:

..
Tau Turn 1 - The pathfinders advanced toward the building to get some cover and overlook the guns and boyz. The Broadside shot at the guns (not sure we did this right) and could only see the guns so had to shoot just them, which was fine with me. I put 1 wound on a gun. My SMS was out of range just barely. Fire from commander and Fire Warriors killed 3 boys.



Ork Turn 1 - Orks advance. They also run for 1". The cannons fire and kill 2 fire warriors.



Tau Turn 2 - The pathfinders get into position. Put 1 markerlight on the guns. I deep strike with my lone battlesuit, but roll 11" scatter. Instead of landing behind the guns, I land on rough terrain in front of the guns. Then to make things worse, I fail the difficult terrain check and take a wound. My fire hits lots of stuff, but nothing sticks. The cannons are a 3+ and the boys are a 4+ with the 'eavy armor and the pain boys saves them a 5+. I start to realize I am in trouble.



Ork turn 2 - The mega mob advances for a total of 8 Inches. They are stuck in a river and have poor luck with the dice rolls. Cannons fire but do nothing.

Tau turn 3 - This was my best shot. The lone battlesuit put another wound on a different cannon. THe pathfinders (finally in position) score 7 markerlights against the ork horde. My fire warriors, commander, drones, and broadside rain enough death to kill 13 orks.



Ork Turn 3 - The Orks Waaaghh!. The Orks close, run, and charge (after the cannons fire and fail to do anything again.) My overwatch is pretty useless and kills 1 ork. The charge is horrific. My drones (?!?) fight first and a missile drone actually kills an Ork in H2H combat. WTH? At this point I say the game is a win no matter what. My commander kills an ork. Then my fire warriors and the orks go at the same time. I kill 3 orks with the fire warriors. The orks get 19 hits, 16 wounds and kill 9 fire warriors and a drone. The Nob kills the last warrior and the Warboss with a S10 AP1 power klaw kills my commander and the last drone. This leaves 10 pathfinders and 1 broadside. Hmm...



Tau turn 4 - The broadside decides to die shooting and holds his ground. The pathfinders re-position to get the orks in pulse carbine range hoping to pin them. The broadside kills 1 and the path finders kill 2 orks. The warboss makes the pinning test easily. This leaves 5 ork boyz, 1 nob, 1 pain boy, and the warboss. As well as 2 cannon with 1 wound each.



(My notes called this turn 5 so we may have missed a turn or just mis counted.)

Ork turn 5 - The cannons fire on my now exposed pathfinders and kill 5. The orks shooting manged to get a wound past my broadsides defense. (WTH!) The orks charge the broadside and kill it. Overwatch did nothing. We roll and continue to turn 6.



Tau turn 6 - My 5 remaining path finders shoot at the orks again. I kill 1 more boy and they easily pass the pinning test.

Ork Turn 6 - The cannons can't fire due to my pathfinders being out of LOS. The Orks are too slow to charge, but close and use the shootas to kill 2 more pathfinders. We roll and the game ends.



So, at least I was not tabled. Sigh. That was a killer mob and was worth over 370 points of his units. However, because they were all one unit and the cannons were a second unit, I scored no points. No kills, no warlord, no first blood; nothing. He technically killed my commander, the fire warriors, and the broadside, so 3 VP for Purge the Alien. He also killed my warlord (1 VP), had line breaker (1 VP), and first Blood (1 vp). So the end score was 6 to 0.

I think we made a few play mistakes, but overall they balanced out. Not totally sure what I could do better. Next time I will split the pathfinders into 2 units or take fewer. 7 Markerlights on the orks was excessive with only 2 units firing on them.

Any feedback would be helpful.

Thanks,
Duncan

Edit: Added pictures.

Nice report and it was interesting to see how the horde swarmed. I think that is going to be the new Ork style.

If you're planning to play some more at 500 points with this style list why not try out a Fireblade as an HQ and maybe swap some of those markerlights for Ion Rifles to give them a blast weapon to score a few more hits versus the horde.

Also as far as the missile drones go, put them on the broadside and give the broadside a target lock, that lets them target different things and gives some extra wounds to a unit that tends to be prioritized early for destruction by your enemy.

Noc

Just was looking at something. I don't have the new Ork codex yet. Can a unit of Boyz take a painboy? In the old codex only Nobz and FlashyGit could take a painboy. That would have made a huge difference.

Thanks,
Duncan

You could drop Commander who is eating lots of points and take eternal+warriors for additional firepower (storm of fire etc). This could swing game in your favor. please post picture coz deployment is another factor

Pictures added. Sadly I don;t have an eternal. I only have a commander and can fake a fire blade.

Thanks,
Duncan

You appear to have deployed too close. I would have sat exactly 30" away with the fire warriors and fallen back 6" a turn as his mob advanced. Premeasuring would let you do that.

As for the new codex, I believe pain boys no longer take up a FOC spot and can be added to any unit like the wolf guard from space wolves.

Noc

Previously painboys were only available to nob mobs and flashy gits. 30 boyz all with FNP is rough.

Painboyz take an HQ slot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's good in low point games, yes, but the boyz are hit with mob rule pretty hard now. It's now impossible to make a solid greentide list unless you play unbound or use double foc or stuff like that. Cause each squad needs a painboy to be any good and preferably warboss for ld9 to have better chances with mob rule. That's a lot of points invested in a slow and still vulnerable squad. Boyz are not as agood as before when they're on their own.

 vadersson wrote:
Just was looking at something. I don't have the new Ork codex yet. Can a unit of Boyz take a painboy? In the old codex only Nobz and FlashyGit could take a painboy. That would have made a huge difference.

Thanks,
Duncan

Bit cheeky asking if the other guy cheated when someone pointed out to you that a commander can't take missile drones and yet you still took them.

 jay170788 wrote:

 vadersson wrote:
Just was looking at something. I don't have the new Ork codex yet. Can a unit of Boyz take a painboy? In the old codex only Nobz and FlashyGit could take a painboy. That would have made a huge difference.

Thanks,
Duncan

Bit cheeky asking if the other guy cheated when someone pointed out to you that a commander can't take missile drones and yet you still took them.

I was just checking to see if Painboyz had changed. It did seem pretty darn powerful giving 30 models FNP that way.

As for the missile drones, I actually had not see the correction here on the forums before the game. I would be glad to apologize to my opponent, but I doubt he needs me to given the results.

Anyhow, time to start thinking about my next team.
Thanks,
Duncan

Unfortunately Green TIde at this level and maybe at the 750 and 1000pts levels will be okay though it is really tough with the Painboy (who is now basically mandatory) taking up an HQ slot and having to take a Warboss to get access to the Waaagh special rule.