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2015/12/31 20:07:23
Subject: 1850Pt Tournament Practice Game: Baronial Court + Friends Vs. Riptide Wing Tau
Chickidity check yourselves, Top Yop coming in with a fresh clean battle report straight from tha' underground.
Anyway, we're currently play-testing for an 1850pt tournament with ETC-style missions and FAQ.
We decided to try out 2 nasty armies against each other, my mate chose a FLG Frankie-esque Tau list with 3 tides and 2 surges whereas I went for a Baronial Court list.
++ Space Marines: Codex (2015) (Combined Arms Detachment) (640pts) ++ Chapter Tactics * [White Scars]
Librarian (85pts) Master Level 1, Force Axe, The Hunter’s Eye (20pts)
Scout Squad (55pts) Boltguns
Scout Squad (55pts) Boltguns
Drop Pod (35pts) Centurion Devastator Squad (250pts) 3 Grav-cannons (75pts), 3 Hurricane Bolters (0pts), Omniscope (10pts)
Relic Whirlwind Scorpius (160pts) Battle of Keylek (35pts)
Riptide Wing Tau - 1850pts
(One Imperial Knight used as a Stormsurge proxy)
Riptide Wing 3x Riptides with Early Warning, Stimulant Injectors, Missiles and Ion Accelerators
Tau CAD
Commander Iridium, Drone Controller, Warlord
2x 5 Firewarriors
8x Marker Drones
2x Stormsurges 1 with Pulse Driver, 1 With Blastcannon, Early Warnings, Shield Generators
The Mission
The mission was essentially Purge The Alien as per rulebook with 6 tactical objectives on the board and each player drew up to 6 tactical objectives each turn. Any number of objectives could be scored each turn.
No First Blood but Warlord and Linebreaker as per usual. Each 3 hull points/wounds to a super-heavy or gargantuan resulted in a further point.
We proceeded to roll up pre-game tingz and had the following:
Tau warlord trait: +1 to Seize and re-roll reserve rolls
Knights won the roll to go first after deployment, which looked like so:
The 3 knights deployed at the edge of the hammer and anvil deployment in a rough line, staying within 6 inches of each other to ensure dem ion shieldwall saves.
The scorpius hunkered down in a ruin and on top of objective 3.
The Tau deployed with the Riptide Wing in close proximity behind a ruin and on top of an objective whereas the Surges and Marker Drone-star hunkered in the opposite ruin ready to take fire.
Tau attempt to seize the initiative...... AND THEY DID!
TURN ONE TAU
Spoiler:
All riptides nova charge their shields to 3++, and succeed.
Marker drones fire at the closest knight, scoring 6 hits.
The stormsurges fire off 4 D-missiles using markerlights at BS5 and score... double 6s... one imperial knight gone!!
Tau score 1 maelstrom, 1 kill point and 2 VPs for 6 HPs off a super-heavy.
TAU 4 - Knights 0[size=24]
TURN ONE KNIGHTS
Spoiler:
Tough start for the knights! One knight down and got seized on...
I knew I had to get rid of the marker drones to prevent more BS5 D-missiles coming at the other two knights.
The centurions and librarian drop in danger-close to the stormsurges and marker drones... staying one inch away.
Warlord knight shuffles back to claim OBJ1. Other knight moves forward to claim OBJ6.
I only lose 1 centurion to early warning from stormsurges due to their placement.
Combined shooting from the knights and centurions kills all the marker drones and the warlord commander.
I score 3 OBJs, ascendancy, warlord and behind enemy lines for a total of 7 VPs.
TAU 4 - KNIGHTS 7
TURN TWO TAU
Spoiler:
5-man fire team shuffles on, looking at the centurions.
Stormsurges plant anchors. All riptides pass nova charge on their guns.
Fire warriors take shots at centurions, failing to wound.
Stormsurges shoot D at the centurions but wiff miserably.
It takes all 3 riptides to take out the gone-to-ground centurions, along with the drop pod.
Tau score 3 kill points and 1 maelstrom.
TAU 8 - KNIGHTS 7
KNIGHTS TURN TWO
Spoiler:
Knights move up like so.
5 scouts shuffle on right flank and claim OBJ.
5 scouts shuffle on left flank.
Ironstorm rockets take out 3 firewarriors.
Combined fire from most of the army (battle cannons, gatling cannons, scorpius missiles) - brings the front stormsurge down to 1 wound. (The gatling cannon did 7 wounds and he saved 7 of them...)
Front-most knight fails his charge.
I score 2 objectives and supremacy.
TAU 8 - KNIGHTS 11
TAU TURN 3
Spoiler:
Stormsurges retract anchors and shuffle forward, needing to get in the fight.
Riptides pass all nova charges for 3++ again.
Front stormsurge blows up Scorpius.
Riptides spend the turn shooting at scouts to no avail... and only kill 2. Miserable.
Tau score 3 points.
TAU 11 - KNIGHTS 11
KNIGHTS TURN THREE
Spoiler:
Front knight moves up to challenge the riptide wing. I'm comfortably racking up maelstrom points but Tau are ahead in terms of killage.
Warlord knight moves left and opens up on the stormsurges... killing the front beast. Ironstorm rockets finish off the firewarriors.
Front knight makes his charge into a riptide and D-slaps the mother-brother to hell, before consolidating onto OBJ1 for points.
Warlord knight fails the long charge into the lonely stormsurge.
Knights score big with 3 points for killing a gargantuan, OBJ1, overwhelming firepower and killing a unit in the assault phase for 6 points overall.
TAU 11 - KNIGHTS 17
TAU TURN FOUR
Spoiler:
Fire warriors shuffle on hoping to score OBJ1.
Riptides nova charge guns and rapid hailfire, hoping to get lucky on the rapidly approaching knight crusader who killed their friend.
Stormsurge shoots small guns at the scouts and then shoots the S10 gun at the warlord knight... it hits... it penetrates... knight fails the save... A 6 IS ROLLED! and.... ANOTHER 6 IS ROLLED!!! 4 HULL POINTS AND THE WARLORD IS GONE!!!!
At this point I felt like the game had taken a huge turn... despite pulling ahead on maelstrom I only had a single imperial knight and some scouts left to do the dirty...
Riptides proceed to double-shoot the other imperial knight but wiff hugely... they do one hull-point of damage and proceed to scatter onto the fire warriors who lose 2 men and then run off the board!!!
Tau score kingslayer, kill a unit and OBJ3.
TAU 14 - KNIGHTS 17
KNIGHTS TURN FOUR
Spoiler:
Scouts move up to claim OBJ and strip a wound from the big chicken.
The last remaining heroic imperial knight wiffs with shooting but makes the charge into a riptide, he only hits once but does 3 wounds. The riptide hits back and smashes a hullpoint off. I then roll 3 stomps!! But proceed to fail with triple 1s... Boo.
Another big scoring turn for knights with ascendancy, OBJ3, OBJ2 and behind enemy lines for a total of 5 points.
TAU 14 - KNIGHTS 22
TAU TURN FIVE
Spoiler:
Both riptides nova charge. The one in combat boosts his save to a 3++ and the other boosts his jump to 4D6.
Stormsurge moves up to the brave scouts... and murders them all. I'm left to a single imperial knight and that's it!!!
My heroic knight wiffs in combat but stomps out the riptide with a 6! And then consolidates after the second riptide, hungry for revenge.
I score a kill point while Tau score 3 for killing a unit in the assault phase and 2 OBJs.
TAU 17 - KNIGHTS 22
KNIGHTS TURN FIVE
Spoiler:
Could be the last turn! And I have a single knight... but I'm far ahead on maelstrom. This game taught me that Knights have no problem keeping up in the maelstrom game.
Knight moves towards the last riptide and charges.
I proceed to wiff with his attacks again! But we roll the stomps... one stomp... 6!! The final riptide goes down to the heroic knight's smelly boot. Tau are down to a single stormsurge vs. a single knight!
Knights score blood and guts and a kill point.
At this point, Knights have won, but we roll to see if the game goes on (if the stormsurge kills the knight, Tau win with a massacre)... and it does.
TAU 17 - KNIGHTS 24
TAU TURN SIX
Spoiler:
Stormsurge shoots, he hits, but I finally make an ion shield save!
KNIGHTS TURN SIX
Spoiler:
Now we pretty much know that Knights have won... somehow pulling off a victory with a single knight after losing both the warlord and another early game.
The hero of the day moves up to face the chickenlord. They exchange a few pleasantries before the inevitable charge!
4 hits.... double sixes!! The chicken-king goes down!!
Tau are wiped out! And Knights down to a model!
FINAL SCORE TAU 17 - KNIGHTS 27
What a game, what a game. This is what happens when you play 40k with big toys.
I was surprised with the knights ability to keep up with maelstrom and obviously there was a big advantage with kill points.
The game also shows how silly 40k can get with the new rules and models... 2 gargantuans with 3 monstrous creatures facing up to 3 super-heavies...
Despite being seized on and having a knight D-slapped on turn one, I managed to turn the game around nicely. I knew I had to get rid of the marker drones early and then basically get in his face.
Please comment and let us know what to do better in future or other armies you'd like to see.
Microphone chickidy check and peace out my Gs xxoxx
This message was edited 17 times. Last update was at 2016/01/02 13:56:01
Crazy armies and results so far! Thanks for posting as the game goes on. Very interesting report and to be honest, I've not seen armies like this at all. Definitely makes me look at my own lists to see how they actually stack up. Cool report so far. Thanks for sharing and looking forward to the end of the game.
No earth shattering, thought provoking quote. I'm just someone who was introduced to 40K in the late 80's and it's become a lifelong hobby.
2016/01/01 14:08:18
Subject: 1850Pt Tournament Practice Game: Baronial Court + Friends Vs. Riptide Wing Tau (In Progress)
Sarigar wrote: Crazy armies and results so far! Thanks for posting as the game goes on. Very interesting report and to be honest, I've not seen armies like this at all. Definitely makes me look at my own lists to see how they actually stack up. Cool report so far. Thanks for sharing and looking forward to the end of the game.
Thanks pal, this is pretty much what competitive 40k looks like in the UK, especially at tournaments where they don't comp much.
We were trying to show how silly it can be with X big toys against X big toys with D-weapons all over the shop.
I think this really shows the problem with going all in on the Tau Mecha army. While I like the Riptide wing and more, it does leave you exposed to a lot of things since you're trying to play an army of Knights without Knights. Now don't get me wrong, the Riptide is great, but it's not exactly a Knight of either the Mechanicus or Wraith form, so when you go all in on the Riptide Wing and the Stormsurge plan, you will ultimately be hurting yourself as you're too focused on something you can't master.
In other words, I think both the Riptide Wing and the Stormsurge are very powerful, I just don't think doubling down on those is worth it, since it strips your ability to do much else. I think the right call is to pick one, and then make other decisions to have a more balanced list as a whole.
I mean look at the difference, the Tau get a similar amount of models, but they're getting a worse base unit in exchange for what can be argued as better middle sized units. I'd say a Riptide is about 0.5 of a Knight, so it ends up being 3.5 Knights (Assuming Stormsurges are Knights and the previous number I simply assumed) against 3 Knights, and then a Centurion Dev group, and some Scouts. Even if you assume the Stormsurges are better, you're probably looking at 4 Knights worth of value, which isn't to say it's unfair, just that it's not as good as cutting something to get more units so you're not as dependent on your few models to match the better constructed Knight list. So that's really it in my opinion, the Knights had a much more balanced list, the Tau did not.
Edit: Really like the models for the Knight army, the black and gold/brass is super pretty D:
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/01/02 06:19:22
Tinkrr wrote: I think this really shows the problem with going all in on the Tau Mecha army. While I like the Riptide wing and more, it does leave you exposed to a lot of things since you're trying to play an army of Knights without Knights. Now don't get me wrong, the Riptide is great, but it's not exactly a Knight of either the Mechanicus or Wraith form, so when you go all in on the Riptide Wing and the Stormsurge plan, you will ultimately be hurting yourself as you're too focused on something you can't master.
In other words, I think both the Riptide Wing and the Stormsurge are very powerful, I just don't think doubling down on those is worth it, since it strips your ability to do much else. I think the right call is to pick one, and then make other decisions to have a more balanced list as a whole.
I mean look at the difference, the Tau get a similar amount of models, but they're getting a worse base unit in exchange for what can be argued as better middle sized units. I'd say a Riptide is about 0.5 of a Knight, so it ends up being 3.5 Knights (Assuming Stormsurges are Knights and the previous number I simply assumed) against 3 Knights, and then a Centurion Dev group, and some Scouts. Even if you assume the Stormsurges are better, you're probably looking at 4 Knights worth of value, which isn't to say it's unfair, just that it's not as good as cutting something to get more units so you're not as dependent on your few models to match the better constructed Knight list. So that's really it in my opinion, the Knights had a much more balanced list, the Tau did not.
Edit: Really like the models for the Knight army, the black and gold/brass is super pretty D:
Thanks for the reply, I'm the Tau player.
This isn't actually my 1st choice pick of army for a tournament, we were just testing as we think this list will be popular due to Frankie uploading the list on FLG. I would normally take something like Supremacy armor + friends or drop the Stormsurges for Retaliation Cadre with Broadsides/Crisis star.
But as you can see, this list is mad in terms of firepower...I was surprised by how well it performed. If it shoots twice early on I can see it tabling a lot of armies if it goes first. It's also difficult to kill with FnP and 4++ on everything, and difficult to deploy against since the gargantuans move so far and have good LoS too (not to mention EWO). It is weak to Knights though, since after losing markerlights you lose the tools to kill them easily.
2016/01/02 12:03:51
Subject: 1850Pt Tournament Practice Game: Baronial Court + Friends Vs. Riptide Wing Tau
Tinkrr wrote: I think this really shows the problem with going all in on the Tau Mecha army. While I like the Riptide wing and more, it does leave you exposed to a lot of things since you're trying to play an army of Knights without Knights. Now don't get me wrong, the Riptide is great, but it's not exactly a Knight of either the Mechanicus or Wraith form, so when you go all in on the Riptide Wing and the Stormsurge plan, you will ultimately be hurting yourself as you're too focused on something you can't master.
In other words, I think both the Riptide Wing and the Stormsurge are very powerful, I just don't think doubling down on those is worth it, since it strips your ability to do much else. I think the right call is to pick one, and then make other decisions to have a more balanced list as a whole.
I mean look at the difference, the Tau get a similar amount of models, but they're getting a worse base unit in exchange for what can be argued as better middle sized units. I'd say a Riptide is about 0.5 of a Knight, so it ends up being 3.5 Knights (Assuming Stormsurges are Knights and the previous number I simply assumed) against 3 Knights, and then a Centurion Dev group, and some Scouts. Even if you assume the Stormsurges are better, you're probably looking at 4 Knights worth of value, which isn't to say it's unfair, just that it's not as good as cutting something to get more units so you're not as dependent on your few models to match the better constructed Knight list. So that's really it in my opinion, the Knights had a much more balanced list, the Tau did not.
Edit: Really like the models for the Knight army, the black and gold/brass is super pretty D:
Thanks for the reply, I'm the Tau player.
This isn't actually my 1st choice pick of army for a tournament, we were just testing as we think this list will be popular due to Frankie uploading the list on FLG. I would normally take something like Supremacy armor + friends or drop the Stormsurges for Retaliation Cadre with Broadsides/Crisis star.
But as you can see, this list is mad in terms of firepower...I was surprised by how well it performed. If it shoots twice early on I can see it tabling a lot of armies if it goes first. It's also difficult to kill with FnP and 4++ on everything, and difficult to deploy against since the gargantuans move so far and have good LoS too (not to mention EWO). It is weak to Knights though, since after losing markerlights you lose the tools to kill them easily.
Oh, don't get me wrong, it's nothing against you personally and I understand the power of testing (I highly encourage it), especially when running other people's armies as it gives you a much better understanding when playing against them. It's just that I never really liked Frankie's list for the very reasons you mentioned, and similar lists for that matter, as they really want to table people or will probably lose because while they're resilient, they're not as resilient as some other options. That's also not to say it isn't a good list, just that I have problems with it that I can't easily address.
I'm also with you on liking the Ret Cadre, I've even considered running a double Ret with the Dawnblade and then the marker drone formation as it gives you a ton of fire power and mobility. It's honestly surprising how few Crisis Suits I see running around these days.
Love the battle report am running something very similar.
Baronial Court
Crusader w/battle cannon and storm spear rocket (Baron)
Paladin w/ icarus
Errant vanilla
White Scars CAD Libby w/axe and eye
5 scouts in speeder w/flamer
5 scouts w/snipers and camo
Drop pod
3 Centurions w/grav and hurricanes
Stalker
1850 on the head.
Figure the drop pod w/libby and centurions should be able to out a hurting on one unit. I can always go for prescience or psychic scream on the libby. The scouts can try and poach objectives. I had the stalker so I just threw it in there along woth the icarus to have some token anti flyer.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/01/11 04:48:25
2016/01/11 23:06:09
Subject: 1850Pt Tournament Practice Game: Baronial Court + Friends Vs. Riptide Wing Tau
Interesting battle, really.
Do you think you had "luck" ?
If the Tau player succeed in keeping some ML alive, it could have been a defeat.
Maybe keeping 1 unit of drones in reserve to avoid the pod ?
At last, we saw how powerful a correctly supported Stormsurge can be.
The Riptides seemed so pointless this time !
Great looking models, too !
However, a bit annoyed by what I think is "modeling for advantage" (tau stormsurge).
swanson4969 wrote: Love the battle report am running something very similar.
Baronial Court
Crusader w/battle cannon and storm spear rocket (Baron)
Paladin w/ icarus
Errant vanilla
White Scars CAD Libby w/axe and eye
5 scouts in speeder w/flamer
5 scouts w/snipers and camo
Drop pod
3 Centurions w/grav and hurricanes
Stalker
1850 on the head.
Figure the drop pod w/libby and centurions should be able to out a hurting on one unit. I can always go for prescience or psychic scream on the libby. The scouts can try and poach objectives. I had the stalker so I just threw it in there along woth the icarus to have some token anti flyer.
Looks good bud. I prefer paladins to errants always, a one shot melta blast won't help hugely.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
godardc wrote: Interesting battle, really.
Do you think you had "luck" ?
If the Tau player succeed in keeping some ML alive, it could have been a defeat.
Maybe keeping 1 unit of drones in reserve to avoid the pod ?
At last, we saw how powerful a correctly supported Stormsurge can be.
The Riptides seemed so pointless this time !
Great looking models, too !
However, a bit annoyed by what I think is "modeling for advantage" (tau stormsurge).
Yeah definitely had some luck in the end making some important charges and stomps. I'd say the markerlights were always gonna die with all the ignores cover coming at him. He only played one squad of drones.
How would you say it's modelling for advantage pal?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/01/15 20:51:47
