I am all for a new codex as every other tau player is, but I know a lot of tau players out there, or at least people with tau armies, don't like to play the tau any more due to them getting whooped a lot.

Well... There is some light at the end of the tunnel. Using some 'unorthodox' means, I have pulled out some high ranking spots in some local tourneys. Now these are not just garage tourneys. The latest one was a sanctioned
GW GT tourney.
I pulled off 4th place, and some people could not wrap their head around that tau beat them. As is customary, as it seems, the armies that won the top three where space wolves, sisters of battle, and grey knights respectively.
That is all customary, but I seek to change that. It may take a new codex to do it, but I just want for fellow Tau players that the Tau are not defeated yet.

For the Greater Good,
Waffles


Sorry about the wait, trying to make everything work.



Feb 25th. Seattle Bunker Games Workshop GT Tourney. 1500 points: Normal Force Organization.
All photography from GW's facebook page.

my list: Unit cost: 96
XV8 Shas'el
--- [, TL Missile pod, Positional relay, HW Drone controller, Gun Drone, HW BS filter]

++++ [Elites] ++++


Unit cost: 201
XV8 Shas'ui TL
--- [TL Fusion blaster, Plasma rifle, HW Multi-tracker]
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Plasma rifle, BS Filter]
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Plasma rifle, Drone controller, Shield Drone]

Unit cost: 201
XV8 Shas'ui TL
--- [TL Fusion blaster, Plasma rifle, HW Multi-tracker]
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Plasma rifle, Drone controller, Shield Drone]
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Plasma rifle, BS Filter]

Unit cost: 152
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Missile pod, BS Filter]
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Missile pod, Drone controller, Shield Drone]
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Missile pod, Target lock]

++++ [Troops] ++++

Unit cost: 145
6x Fire Warrior 'la
--- [Pulse rifle]
Devilfish
--- [Burst cannon, 2x Gun Drone, Landing gear, Disruption pod]

Unit cost: 145
6x Fire Warrior 'la
--- [Pulse rifle]
Devilfish
--- [Burst cannon, 2x Gun Drone, Landing gear, Disruption pod]

Unit cost: 60
6x Fire Warrior 'la
--- [Pulse rifle]

++++ [Fast Attack] ++++

Unit cost: 145
5x Pathfinder 'la
--- [Pulse C./ Marker]
Devilfish
--- [Burst cannon, 2x Gun Drone, Landing gear, Disruption pod]

++++ [Heavy Support] ++++

Unit cost: 118
XV88 'ui TL
--- [TL Railgun, TL Plasma rifle, A.S.S., HW Multi-tracker, HW Drone controller, Shield Drone, HW BS filter]

Unit cost: 118
XV88 'ui TL
--- [TL Railgun, TL Plasma rifle, A.S.S., HW Multi-tracker, HW Drone controller, Shield Drone, HW BS filter]

Unit cost: 118
XV88 'ui TL
--- [TL Railgun, TL Plasma rifle, A.S.S., HW Multi-tracker, HW Drone controller, Shield Drone, HW BS filter]
-----------------------
Total model count: 39




FIRST BATTLE: 5 objectives: dawn of war, 6 turns exact. ENEMY: Necron.



Table layout: Two centralized ruins and 4 corner placed small forests.
Objectives where placed at true center, opposite 12" 12" corners, and along the middle 12" away from the center to the left and right.
Roll off gives me First turn.

Decron list (inexact) 2 monoliths, Doomsday Arch, Two troops with Gauss, Immotech, Immortals.

Deployment: Tau: HQ centralized at 23" to keep his troops away
:Necron: Three troops, two on left and one right, Immortals with Immotech mid board.

Seize Initiative: Failure
To come on: 2 broadsides and pathfinders. Reserve troops, 1 broadside, and deepstriking suits.

Turn 1
Broadsides come on left both left side and commander starts moving back from middle of board. Pathfinders find cover in Right hand corner to set up markerlight shots.
Two necrons are killed and both stand back up.
Monoliths and Doomsday Arc comes onto board. Failure to see enemy. left hand troops pushes forward. Righthand troop seizes objective. Immortals push up middle.
Necrons wanted it to stay night fight and so it stayed night fight.

Turn 2
Commander allows broadside to come onto the board and everything else stays back.
Commander stays mid within cover and shoots at forward troop. Kills 2, one stands back up.
Broadsides take out one monolith and Doomsday arc.
Necron left troop pushes forward. Sees a broadside but does no damage. Immortals move up mid board and seize control of right mid objective. Left hand troops split up. One for Tau side objective and one for true mid objective.
Chain Lightning kills one broadside.
Necrons want night fight again, but their will is granted: Night Fighting continues

Turn 3.
Commander tries to bring on Firewarriors with Devilfish, but fails to do so. Everything else stays off.
Broadsides try and take out monolith, but fails to do so.
Commander kills 1 troop that is going for Tau objective
Monolith targets Broadsides, but fails to hit. Left hand troops gain objective control.
Left hand troops can not see broadsides. Immortals can see commander, dealing 1 wound and loosing drone. Moral check passed
Chain Lightning fails to hit anyone.
Night fighting ends.

Turn 4
With no more night fight Commander lets the Tau flood gates open. All reserves come into play except for a single FW squad with DF.
Deepstriking plasma suit squad and missile pod squad deploy to take out Tau objective holding Necrons. Third deepstriking unit comes in next to commander mid board. All make direct hits thanks to re-rolls.
Both FW squads come on left side to help take out Tau objective holding squad.
Necron troop holding Tau side objective is obliterated with FW's and crisis suits. Broadsides shoot at monolith, but only stun it. Commander and third crisis suit squad shoots the second left side Necron Troop. Killing 5, and making them run.
Necron chain lightning take out a Broadside's drone, causing Broadside to flee.
Immortals shoot at 3rd crisis suit squad and deal 3 wounds. Crisis suits do not back down.
Monolith Shoots at Missile Pod squad, killing Two suits, and sheild drone. Single Suit does not fall back.

Turn 5
Last FW team comes onto Board to take and hold Tau side objective.
FW Teams get into Devilfishes (FW without dedicated use Pathfinder's dedicated Devilfish). One Team takes the Left side mid objective and the other sets up for taking true mid objective next round (front of devilfish only about 2 inches away).
Broadside shoots at monolith and destroys it. Commander and crisis suits start to try and converging on immortals. Shots kill 4 immortals, but all 4 stand back up.
Immortals move off of right mid objective to try and stop the devilfish.
Immortals fire at DF, getting 2 glancing hits and stuns transports.

Turn 6
FW's secure possitions to take both left hand side objectives. FW disembark and take cover and claim true mid objective.
all suits shoot at immortals, 5 go down and 4 stand back up.
Tau Finish All turns with 3 objectives within control.
Immortals Move back to claim mid right objective.
instead of firing, immortals run 5" to get within 2.5 inches of true mid objective.

Draw game. Tau 2 objectives, Necrons 2 objectives.
Necrons pulled off a draw with "conga-line maneuver."




GAME 2: Annihilation - spearhead, 6 turns exact. Enemy: Space Marines (Doom Legion)


Table layout: Two centralized ruins and 4 corner placed small forests. (same table as first game)
Roll off Gives Space Marines first turn.
Enemy Deployed Right upper corner, I deployed Lower Left Corner.

Enemy List: 4 dreadnaughts, 3 separate speeders, three tactical squads, three drop pods (two with dreadnaughts, one with marines), Techpreist, and two rhinos.

Deployment: Two space marine squads within a ruin on the midway line, 2 dreadnaughts and 3 speeders behind for cover. 2 rhinos in reserve, drop pods and their cargo in deepstrike.
: Pathfinders in ruin on the midway line, Shas'el behind ruin (in reference to the space marines) and my devilfish in the back corner as far away as possible.

Scout moves: Pathfinders moved into the 12" radius 'no deploy zone' to get a larger target advantage.

Seize initiative was a failure.

Turn 1:
Space marine drop pods, both with dreadnaughts (power weapon and meltas) come out of the sky. First tried to come down near the commander towards my board edge. It scatters a full 12" towards my devilfish.
Second drop pod misses and stops right before the ruin to the right.
Three speeders come around the right ruin from the north (his board edge) and 2 dreadnaughts move though cover to the south.
Dreadnaught one comes out and fires at my devilfish. Successful hit for a destroyed transport.
Dreadnaught two fires at my commander doing no damage.
Pathfinders put two marker lights upon dreadnaught 2. Dreadnaught can not shoot next turn.

Turn 2:
No reserves come in.
Dreadnaughts 1, 3 and 4 start to move towards the middle of the board after my pathfinders and my commander. Speeders diverge, 1 and 2 go south and 3 goes north.
Commander is shot and takes 1 wound.
Speeders take out 2 pathfinders forcing a moral check: They stand and fight.
Commander is assaulted by Dreadnaught 2, they are locked in combat. -------- Sorry, did not mention that drone went down from assault.
Commander has one broadside come in at a 2+.
Broadside comes in on left hand side in perfect spot to get shot at dreadnaught 1's back armor.
2 marker lights hit dreadnaught 1 from the pathfinders.
BS on broadsides goes from 3 to 5. Broadside hits with both plasma and railgun into dreadnaught 1.
Railgun is an automatic penetration shot and dreadnaught flies apart in an un-calculable number of pieces.
Commander can not hit the dreadnaught but survives for another round, still stuck in combat.


Turn 3
No space marine reserves come in yet. (forgotten transports are not rolled)
The Ruins dwellers still do not move since they get a 3+ save while there.
Dreadnaught 3 makes it about halfway from left and right, while dreadnaught 4 is about 7 inches behind the first.
The three speeders converge onto the pathfinders, one northeastward, one eastward, and one southeastward. With flamers, the pathfinders cook while hiding for non-existent cover.
Dreadnaught 1 hits and kills the Shas'el. Afterwards it turns and starts heading after the broadside to exact revenge.
*cue sarcastic comment from space marines about how easy the tau are to kill*
Without the Shas'el to hold back reserves, the tau rush on. Every single tau is rolled to come onto the board except for a single FW team with DF
PR suit team 1 comes on 6 inches behind dreadnaught 4.
MP suit team comes in along the north edge slightly to the right of midway lengthways.
PR suit team 2 comes in behind dreadnaught 1.
Broadside 2 comes in on the left side to help out with dreadnaught control.
Broadside 3 comes in on the right side to get a rearward shot into dreadnaught 3.
FW w/ DF 1 comes in mid board and FW come out of DF to get rapid fire on speeders.
FW static team come in next to FW team 1 to assist with speeder control.
After a devastating round of shooting (for the space marines that is) the tau destoyed: southern most speeder. dreadnaughts 3 and 4
dreadnaught 1 was shaken and missing a melta. Eastward speeder was missing a melta.

turn 4
Drop pod comes in ( Rhinos are once again forgotten)
Drop pod comes in at northwestern corner, about 12" east and 8" south from the board sides.
Squad comes out and shoots PR suit team 1. With other concentrated shots upon that team, drones go down and each suit only has 1 wound left.
Northernmost speeder goes south and takes out 5 FW's, FW's (or rather FW) held his ground.
Eastern Speeder goes northward to get cover saves.
Devilfish is shot by a multimelta from the ruin. Devilfish explodes, taking out 3 of 6 FW in team 3. Team 1 FW is not hit.
Dreadnaught 1 assaults PR team 1, Kills a single suit. PR team 1 is way too brave and does not fall back.
FW w/ DF team 2 comes into play in the back right hand corner.
FW team 1 Starts running To the right Corner, As does FW team 3.
MP team moves to get better shots, but only imobilizes and takes out all weapons.
Broadsides 1 and 2 mop up kill points by taking out drop pods. one drop pod is destroyed
Broadside 3 shoots cross board and misses.
Devilfish and its drones shoot at the now southern speeder, immobilizing it.
PR suit team 2 shoots at the ruins, taking one marine, and moves behind cover in the southern most right hand corner.
Dreadnaught 1 kills another suit. The team now falls and is caught. The revenge upon the broadside continues.

Turn 5
Rhinos are remembered and come in.
Rhino 1 comes in in very back northeastern corner.
Rhino 2 comes in tankshocking MP suit team. The team was not scared, but was now pushed into range of the marines in the ruins.
Bolter fire from the drop pods take out the shield drones of both broadside 1 and 2.
Fire from the ruins are directed at both the MP suit team and RP suit team 2. PR suit team comes out unscathed.
MP suit team is reduced to only one suit. Does not fall back.
Dreadnaught 1 assaults broadside 2. With no shield drone, Broadside goes down.
Broadside 1 shoots and kills dreadnaught 1.
FW teams 1 and 3 keep falling back to the corn avoid shots,
Broadside 3 shoots and destroys southern speeder.
MP suit moves eastward to avoid fire and takes out the rhino that tank shocked his team.
PR team 2 jumps foward and shoots into the ruins, taking out 1 more marine. Then they jump back behind cover.

Turn 6
Space Marines start coming out of the ruins for a last second chance, but did not make it far due to difficult terrain tests.
Broadside 3's shield drone goes down. Broadside does not back down.
Drop pod bolters take out 2 fire warriors out of the 3 man team. This little FW was done and ran off the board.
Broadside 1 destroys another drop pod.
Broadside 3 destroys southern immobile speeder.
MP suit takes out another weapon on the remaining speeder, but since it had no weapons and was immobilized, it was destoyed.

Kill points for Space Marines: 7
Kill points for Tau : 9

-- Looking up after this battle I realized that we were the last match going, coming down to the last 5 minutes left in the time limit, and we had become the entertainment of the night.--

This was the most entertaining game of annihilation I have ever played. Not due to rolls or opponent, but due to my concentration upon the game. I there were so many points in this game that if I would have made a single mistake, I would have been decimated.

I will get game 3 in at some time. I am not too fond of it due to my opponent was really rude. He complained off the start that he "wanted a more challenging opponent for his last game of the night." Then after the 5th round, he realized that I was just plain beating him up and he started throwing dice and swearing heavily. Blaming his dice, the game board layout, his list, and the game's mission/deployment.

I had won the game, but was one of the worst games I had played in nearly a year. It nearly left a bad taste in my mouth until I realized that the next table over had noticed his bad sportsmanship as well and had him removed from the store. I was not particularly glad that he left (maybe kicked out even), but was glad to see that the other players did not stand for that kind of conduct.



I can still post the battle report up for my third game, but I really do not wish to remember that battle in great detail....
Just let me know.

If you guys want any more information or are a player in the lower puget sound area, let me know and I can talk and play with anyone.
Waffles

I get the feeling this could be a better batrep... I mean, just add in what armies were used, maybe some pictures, the ups and downs of the games,a points value of the tournies.. Or you know, anything vaguely batreppy.

It's great youve taken 4th with Tau, I love my Tau, but this thread could do with a bit more detail.

In the tournament at my LGS this past weekend Tau took 1st place. They're not dead, they just take a lot of skill to play.

Ovion wrote:I get the feeling this could be a better batrep... I mean, just add in what armies were used, maybe some pictures, the ups and downs of the games,a points value of the tournies.. Or you know, anything vaguely batreppy.

It's great youve taken 4th with Tau, I love my Tau, but this thread could do with a bit more detail.

Not a problem. I was not planning to go full detail, but I shall when I get the chance. I got the pictures of the armies I faced, but not while the game was in motion due to time constraints. My next tourney (at the end of march) I will be sure to do so.

Sorry for the inconvenience,
Waffles

Look forward to it then ^-^

What Sept / colour scheme do you use?

iBambam wrote:In the tournament at my LGS this past weekend Tau took 1st place. They're not dead, they just take a lot of skill to play.

This.

I play tau, and a lot of other armies....tau are by and far the most challenging (ok, demons vs. gk is worse) and are NOT forgiving at all to mistakes (player skill) bad dice (luck) or some missions.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a competitive tau player (yeah, I know, its an oxymoron) they are indeed WAY behind the power curve, but can do well.

They do not allow for bad dice or mistakes very much at all.

Here is a batrep from my recent tourney, where I took 4th overall (third with a corrected scoring error) and tied fourth in battle points.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/432314.page

OP, Can we at least see what your army build was/is?

chaos0xomega wrote:OP, Can we at least see what your army build was/is?

It is now in the post

Funny, I fought those same Necrons in a doubles match

Ovion wrote:Look forward to it then ^-^

What Sept / colour scheme do you use?

LOL, I have to say this is a long standing joke.

My tau are part of the A'cu Sept.

After I got my first models I had a tough time deciding a paint scheme. After a while I just got fed up with it and then I looked behind me and saw my ACU's on my bed.


After that I thought of some fluff and painted the army with the colors of khaki, grey, brown, and green. Accented with red and silver, and color coordinated with shades of Blue.

This is how the army came out:
Pictures taken by a random person that then posted them on GW seattle's Facebook page. Not the greatest, but I plan to do my own pictures ( I will take them into my studio some time) in the future.






If people want to see more, just let me know and I will see about taking them with me to my studio sometime this week,
Waffles

Nice paint job, and not to shabby of a bat rep! Pics would be nice, but aren't mandatory. Getting a look at the opponents list would be helpful. An idk where your from, but a lot of tau players I know do not share in the feeling that the tau are "broken" or "unplayable." The people who feel that way are noobs who build bad lists or players of other armies who do not know the tau codex very well. Without a doubt the codex of a whole as a tau is not very strong, probably tied for weakest at the moment. But if you stray from those bad units and bad suit load outs, ^^^^^^ case in point, you can easily compete with other top armies. Definitely an unconventional and rather ridiculous tau cadre, but nice job performing well with it lol

I LOVE that paint scheme. thanks for sharing!

Very interesting list. I totally get the "dang wound wrap" when I shoot plasma. To combat it, I only shoot the plasma when dealing with very small squads (when shooting, units are not required to fire all weapons, only in CC must they use all attacks).

Of course, if your method works for you then it works for you!

I also noticed a lot of BS filters out there....Yeah, dang DOW and necrons.....I can see the use for the missiles, but maybe not the Plasma...especially with our suits having acute senses.

I combat night fighting with BS filters on my markerunits when I can (I love my skyray).

Anyway, congrats to another competitive tau player!!!

for the greater good!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ahh...forgot to mention....the positional relay.

This is an amazing tool. While I don't use it all the time (would love to hear more on your thoughts on it) it is essential for getting key units early, and keeping fragile units late (troops).

MUCH Better, and a nice army.
Very well painted.

I'll be interested to see the rest of the games

As is customary, as it seems, the armies that won the top three where space wolves, sisters of battle, and grey knights respectively.

Sisters of Battle? Really?

davethepak wrote:
Ahh...forgot to mention....the positional relay.

This is an amazing tool. While I don't use it all the time (would love to hear more on your thoughts on it) it is essential for getting key units early, and keeping fragile units late (troops).

It is a corner stone in the way I play my army. I like it for I only put out a few things (at most my HQ, broadsides, and pathfinders) and let the enemy come to me. Once they are close I open the flood gates (in turn 4 most of the time) and let the tau flush out.

36 strength 5 shots any where take out something. Usually I stack my army to combat a single side of the board so that I know what I am in front of WILL die. I overshoot and make sure that it takes a turn or more for the enemy to react.

It is effective for me and I have been using it a lot lately.

My four corner stones are as follows: Specialized crisis suit teams deep striking, Single Broadsides for survivability, Positional Relay for precise reserves, and pathfinders.

The pathfinders are not for markerlights, but rather a special ability to their devilfish: Marker Beacon. This allows me to re-roll my deep strike scatter. Lessens my chance of a miss hap by about 90% it seams like.


As far as the BS filters go, I have them on my broadsides and my commander due to the fact that They are always the first ones out and there are A LOT of Necron players around here. The BS filters everywere else is for wound allocation. As long as the war gear is different from suit to suit, I can allocate wounds and make the squads a lot more survivable.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Amerikon wrote:

As is customary, as it seems, the armies that won the top three where space wolves, sisters of battle, and grey knights respectively.

Sisters of Battle? Really?

yea, I was a bit amazed as well, but he played well and had A LOT of good dice rolls.

If i remember right it went like this

space wolves
sisters of battle
Grey knights
Tau (WHOO HOO)
Blood Angels
Grey Knights
Dark Eldar
Space Wolves
Imperial guard
Necron
Blood Angels




It may be slightly off, but I am pretty sure the top 12 where like this.

Waffles

jazzpaintball wrote:Commander is assaulted by Dreadnaught 2, they are locked in combat.

Dreads assaulted the Comm and he doesnt die?!?! What kind of weapons do they have.

Also, what are the range weapons on his speeders, dreads, and vehs.

I would like to know how is it your commander survive a full turn without dying.

Isseyfaran wrote:

jazzpaintball wrote:Commander is assaulted by Dreadnaught 2, they are locked in combat.

Dreads assaulted the Comm and he doesnt die?!?! What kind of weapons do they have.

Also, what are the range weapons on his speeders, dreads, and vehs.

I would like to know how is it your commander survive a full turn without dying.

It seems like you are just not liking me, lol.

I believe they were just standard dreadnaughts. they had meltas and power weapons. One dreadnaught (number 3) had a flamer instead of a melta, but never got to use it.

I did mess up slightly and fixed it. On the charge the dreadnaught got one hit and wounded: killing my drone. I will fix that. Thank you.

The second turn was pure luck. He hit with one and rolled a 1 to wound. I did not expect the commander so live a single round, but it is what it is.

The dreads had the one shooting weapon: melta.
The speeders had melta's and heavy flamers.
The rhinos, I have no idea for they never shot anything more than bolters.

Waffles

I was glad to see you placed so well as you practiced a lot.
9th was necrons and 10th was blood andgles.

As for that guy in the 3rd round he may not be able toplay for a year because of what he did. james doesn't take that type of behavure.

Talonwinter wrote:I was glad to see you placed so well as you practiced a lot.
9th was necrons and 10th was blood andgles.

As for that guy in the 3rd round he may not be able toplay for a year because of what he did. james doesn't take that type of behavure.

THANK YOU!! I knew that list was off a bit, I just couldn't quite remember exacts past 6th and 7th.

As for the guy, I feel kinda bad for him not being able to play at such a great place, but what he did was unacceptable.

May I ask who you are and what you played? I have a feeling this is the guy that pulled out the land-slide players choice, but I am most likely wrong.

Waffles

jazzpaintball wrote:

Talonwinter wrote:I was glad to see you placed so well as you practiced a lot.
9th was necrons and 10th was blood andgles.

As for that guy in the 3rd round he may not be able toplay for a year because of what he did. james doesn't take that type of behavure.

THANK YOU!! I knew that list was off a bit, I just couldn't quite remember exacts past 6th and 7th.

As for the guy, I feel kinda bad for him not being able to play at such a great place, but what he did was unacceptable.

May I ask who you are and what you played? I have a feeling this is the guy that pulled out the land-slide players choice, but I am most likely wrong.

Waffles

I played Necrons next to you first round. I also play at tacoma GW. I seen you but never got a game in with you this last month. I play Nids and Necrons if you want to pratice for next month. I will taking nids to the 2000 point gt thier. I am called chancy.

Ahh yes, you play this army:



I remember you and yes, I do hope to play you some time. I am gonna guess you took the 9th place with the necrons?

jazzpaintball wrote:It seems like you are just not liking me, lol.

I love all Tau competitive players, as long as they are not arrogant noobs (I know you are not one of those) who pretend they know everything about Tau

jazzpaintball wrote:Ahh yes, you play this army:



I remember you and yes, I do hope to play you some time. I am gonna guess you took the 9th place with the necrons?

yep those are mine

I'm glad James isn't taking crap from player #3. I used to play at his previous store when I lived in Seattle.

I'd appreciate it if you told him Tom the economist says hi.

Please add battle 3 too. Even better to read about a cocky douche getting run over by an old codex. Always funny to read about TFG drama too

Thanks for posting up the battle reports (1 and 2).

Here is my executive summary:
Tau did not beat those armies, you did. Congrats.

More full version;
Some books are clearly better than others, but the most important element is the player.
I am not saying that other factors do not matter; terrain, mission, deployment, bad dice and of course, codex.
But the most important element is the player; both before and after the game.
Yes, when other factors are equal (or even just close) then CODEX matters ....a lot.

Some detailed observations.

Game one: The necron player had a list that hurt him a lot. The storm lord and two monoliths at 1500 points?
That is a LOT of points for limited firepower at that point range, especially given the nerfing monoliths took.
Yes, monoliths are not easy to take out (your railguns rolled very well - sad for him) but they easily die to meltas and do not have deepstrike immunity anymore.
I love the storm lord, but he just does not do a lot of damage...and night fighting is a two edged sword, as necrons are very shooty now. Usually the storm lord works well when using scrabs and wraiths (or other short range stuff). Still, he is a point sink at 1500.

Game two;
Four dreads? Unless there is some ruleset I am unaware of, that takes a master of the forge, and I have to say if you are doing that, its 6 all the way (otherwise why take him?).
Between forgetting to roll for deployment and other mistakes clearly this player was not playing his best game. Of course, the mission being kill points helped as well.

Thanks for the reports. I have to say your use of the positional relay is very cool - and as a tau player I it has not worked its way into my "normal" lists.
I also agree that if running a deepstrike list, the pathfinder fish is essential (how ironic...usually the fish is considered the tax on the pathfinders...but in this case, the pathfinders are almost a tax on the fish...). While I have only tested this list variant once or twice, your reports have inspired me to have some fun with it a bit more.

The tau dex certainly has a LOT stacked against it (I won't bother with the laundry list here....) but it is not worthless by any stretch.

I think the biggest challenges in using it are;
1 - Its not easy to use. Specialized units, high cost and a very different metaphor make tau perhaps the most challenging codex to use well (perhaps after eldar).
2 - It allows for no mistakes or bad luck - tau do not broker errors well....I tragically know this and was totally able to relate to your comment here;

I there were so many points in this game that if I would have made a single mistake, I would have been decimated.

There is a pressure involved in playing tau...a pressure that one cannot understand unless one plays them.
Its dealing with that inevitable tide of assault that is coming - bringing almost certain death with it.

Sorry to hear about your last game...yeah, I have had bad experiences like that. What a jerk.

I have to say, one thing about tau....they always get underestimated - which makes beating those players even better.

Actually I would say one thing people say Tau are bad and have a laundry list of issues but I can tell you because no one see them often they can hit you with some wth moments. lol I recall the first time I played against their 4th edition codex I definately underestimated them and got a thorough shlacking. lol

How do you find your deep striking Tau against a jumpy/DoA BA list, if you have had any experience play against them?7

Congrats on the tournament result as well.

Eldercaveman wrote:How do you find your deep striking Tau against a jumpy/DoA BA list, if you have had any experience play against them?7

Congrats on the tournament result as well.

Actually I do play this list quite a bit. One of the more prominent players at my local store plays what he calls "Steel Angels." its a list that comprises of deepstriking marines that only have a 1 d6 scatter, death companies, dreadnaught with blood tallons ( I HATE that thing for the tau have nothing to stop it and nothing that can hurt it in CC), Maphiston (wrong name I am sure, the SC that has a Toughness of 6), a couple of vindicators, and the flying transport. A few things here and there change, but that is his basic list.

so far the scoreboard against him is 2-2-1. The loss was from the first time playing him.

The greatest trick I have is that I have the positional relay. He origianally just brought stuff on and I would send a deep striking unit in to divert him or to take out a more lonely squad/character/tank. Afterwards he started to play more in reserve.
Thats where the PR comes in. I can hold off my troops until after he comes in. WIth that, I know where he is and I can get the drop on him, not the other way around.

Every time I go against him, it is a tough battle, but it is a lot nicer having the ability to greatly know where the enemy is and reacting to him.
I try and stay true to the Tau fluff, and this is the best way I can be part of it: following the doctrines of Tau.

Kauyon - hunter patience. let the enemy get out into the open and come to you. Then when it is time:
Mont'ka - place the Killing Blow and take out as much of the enemy as possible at a single moment in time. The enemy has to rethink his strategy and give you time to keep killing.

I know.... I am a Tau nerd... and I love it,
Waffles

jazzpaintball wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:How do you find your deep striking Tau against a jumpy/DoA BA list, if you have had any experience play against them?7

Congrats on the tournament result as well.

Actually I do play this list quite a bit. One of the more prominent players at my local store plays what he calls "Steel Angels." its a list that comprises of deepstriking marines that only have a 1 d6 scatter, death companies, dreadnaught with blood tallons ( I HATE that thing for the tau have nothing to stop it and nothing that can hurt it in CC), Maphiston (wrong name I am sure, the SC that has a Toughness of 6), a couple of vindicators, and the flying transport. A few things here and there change, but that is his basic list.

so far the scoreboard against him is 2-2-1. The loss was from the first time playing him.

The greatest trick I have is that I have the positional relay. He origianally just brought stuff on and I would send a deep striking unit in to divert him or to take out a more lonely squad/character/tank. Afterwards he started to play more in reserve.
Thats where the PR comes in. I can hold off my troops until after he comes in. WIth that, I know where he is and I can get the drop on him, not the other way around.

Every time I go against him, it is a tough battle, but it is a lot nicer having the ability to greatly know where the enemy is and reacting to him.
I try and stay true to the Tau fluff, and this is the best way I can be part of it: following the doctrines of Tau.

Kauyon - hunter patience. let the enemy get out into the open and come to you. Then when it is time:
Mont'ka - place the Killing Blow and take out as much of the enemy as possible at a single moment in time. The enemy has to rethink his strategy and give you time to keep killing.

I know.... I am a Tau nerd... and I love it,
Waffles

That's awesome, I play against a guy in my village, he has Tau, and I run a Jumpy/DoA list and he really struggles against me when I'm dropped infront of him, so maybe you have found a way of fighting fire with fire, I'll point him towards this thread, in the interest of fair play and competition.

Cool, if you need to, send him to me and I can always give him ideas. I am by no ways the best tau player, but I have some crazy ideas that will spark people's imaginations to create even better armies/strategies.

jazzpaintball wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:How do you find your deep striking Tau against a jumpy/DoA BA list, if you have had any experience play against them?7

Congrats on the tournament result as well.

Actually I do play this list quite a bit. One of the more prominent players at my local store plays what he calls "Steel Angels." its a list that comprises of deepstriking marines that only have a 1 d6 scatter, death companies, dreadnaught with blood tallons ( I HATE that thing for the tau have nothing to stop it and nothing that can hurt it in CC), Maphiston (wrong name I am sure, the SC that has a Toughness of 6), a couple of vindicators, and the flying transport. A few things here and there change, but that is his basic list.

so far the scoreboard against him is 2-2-1. The loss was from the first time playing him.

The greatest trick I have is that I have the positional relay. He origianally just brought stuff on and I would send a deep striking unit in to divert him or to take out a more lonely squad/character/tank. Afterwards he started to play more in reserve.
Thats where the PR comes in. I can hold off my troops until after he comes in. WIth that, I know where he is and I can get the drop on him, not the other way around.

Every time I go against him, it is a tough battle, but it is a lot nicer having the ability to greatly know where the enemy is and reacting to him.
I try and stay true to the Tau fluff, and this is the best way I can be part of it: following the doctrines of Tau.

Kauyon - hunter patience. let the enemy get out into the open and come to you. Then when it is time:
Mont'ka - place the Killing Blow and take out as much of the enemy as possible at a single moment in time. The enemy has to rethink his strategy and give you time to keep killing.

I know.... I am a Tau nerd... and I love it,
Waffles

HA! Now it's 2-2-2 Blood for the blo........ ..........Ummm i mean long live the Emperor.

iBambam wrote:In the tournament at my LGS this past weekend Tau took 1st place. They're not dead, they just take a lot of skill to play.

Is pure luck skill now? They are no where near as effective as other armies, that is proven as a statistical fact.

OPINION
My opinion is that Tau didn't win those games, but you did with good unit placement and a lot of luck.

> I personally don't like the army list you use, but then again I use Flanking Kroot as assault and not bubble wrap like every other Tau player. Also I just hate TW-MP, they are the least effective combo of weapons in cost/effectiveness on a crisis suit. But bringing one squad of them I can't really complain with the current level of transport spam most the top armies are using.
> Nightfighting for three turn on the first game was really helpful. But this isn't normal. With proper sight I feel the Necron player would of probably done a lot more damage before your suits could of come in.
> Cron army was also faily weak compared to what could of been fielded.
> "Rhinos are remembered and come in." Another pure luck moment. Going the entire game and forgetting his reserves? That's pretty impressive.
> SM army didn't seem like a strong meta-game army. But I'm not too familiar with Doom Legion. Didn't seem as scary as spacewolves.
> Suit doesn't die in combat with a dread?
> I just find myself thinking "lucky" with too many things that go on in the fights.

Positive Notes

> Your army looks great!
> I like deepstriking units, sometimes.
> A Tau army that plays without Kroot Bubble Armor is always impressive and welcome to me.
> No Hammerheads is becoming the new Meta for Tau it seems. And when I play it, it works. Only problem is swarm armies (half my local area is orks >_&gt.
> Your unit placement and decisions were top notch! You defiantly know the army you built, and you have the dice gods on your side to make it work. (Yah I still feel it's a lot of luck)

I wanna see game 3, and I hope you fight a person who brings a strong metagame army or swarms. I feel that well played melee armies will easily roll over this list.

Yea, swarm armies are also something I fear. After playing for 6 years, I have yet to play against orkz. It is not that people around me dont play them, its that the ork players are also huge SM players and most of them would field a "better army" while playing. (or some other reason, IDK)

jazzpaintball wrote:Yea, swarm armies are also something I fear. After playing for 6 years, I have yet to play against orkz. It is not that people around me dont play them, its that the ork players are also huge SM players and most of them would field a "better army" while playing. (or some other reason, IDK)

How do you play against IG, GK , and SW mech spam?

WOW!
I remember that GT, and we are still floored that 5 Tau Players showed up.

Good Job on getting 4th. I pulled out 11th with my mech BA, which isn't bad for being tabled turn one.

I hope I play you at the next GT (2k), because now I know your secrets.

Also, I didn't remember seeing someone getting kicked out, but if they got rid of a TFG, good riddance.
(What army was he, if you don't mind telling me?)

This was a nice tournament. Turns out we had at least one army from every codex. And as almost everyone there, I too was suprised at the amount of Tau we had at the game. Also, I was the only Ork player there.

jazzpaintball wrote:Yea, swarm armies are also something I fear. After playing for 6 years, I have yet to play against orkz. It is not that people around me dont play them, its that the ork players are also huge SM players and most of them would field a "better army" while playing. (or some other reason, IDK)

(dave the tau guy here) Ork kan lists I can handle fairly easily, even some ork wagon/trukk lists.

Ork bike/speed lists....they totally destroy me. With the cover saves, invuls and FNP those bikers are just impossible to kill, unless you get lucky.
(they get into combat VERY quickly thus you maybe have one turn of shooting against them...if the dice are unkind that round.....).

In wargames con last year, my worst defeat was against a ork biker list (drop pod wolves are a challenge as well, but not like ork bikers).

Hordes is why I run deathrains in my lists (FL/TL MP) - I have long range light at, and close range flamers.
Of course, that suits my play style, each player will have their own, my choices work for me....

I have to say, in games you can run FW units, I run Commander Ralai - he is expensive but his weapon flexabiltiy really helps with horde (he can fire either a 36" S9 assault 2, or S4 Assault 2 5" blast - but both have 'gets hot".) I hope we get more units like this in the new dex....(if it ever comes).

Thanks for keeping the tau going....I just finished my kroot this past weekend (did the last 40 in one go....took a week).
I will try to make a post about them. Next up: finish my pathfinders.

For the greater good!!!

jazzpaintball, nice going on the tourney. And great looking army!

7yler wrote:jazzpaintball, nice going on the tourney. And great looking army!

Thank you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

davethepak wrote:I have to say, in games you can run FW units, I run Commander Ralai - he is expensive but his weapon flexabiltiy really helps with horde (he can fire either a 36" S9 assault 2, or S4 Assault 2 5" blast - but both have 'gets hot".) I hope we get more units like this in the new dex....(if it ever comes).

Who/what is Commander Ralai?

davethepak wrote:
Ork bike/speed lists....they totally destroy me. With the cover saves, invuls and FNP those bikers are just impossible to kill, unless you get lucky.
(they get into combat VERY quickly thus you maybe have one turn of shooting against them...if the dice are unkind that round.....).

In wargames con last year, my worst defeat was against a ork biker list (drop pod wolves are a challenge as well, but not like ork bikers).

Bubble wrapping is your friend.

Isseyfaran wrote:

davethepak wrote:
Ork bike/speed lists....they totally destroy me. With the cover saves, invuls and FNP those bikers are just impossible to kill, unless you get lucky.
(they get into combat VERY quickly thus you maybe have one turn of shooting against them...if the dice are unkind that round.....).

In wargames con last year, my worst defeat was against a ork biker list (drop pod wolves are a challenge as well, but not like ork bikers).

Bubble wrapping is your friend.

Yup, but too bad that most decent players and tourney players develop a list in which you can not tailor to the enemy.

Ohh, and just a heads up, the list idea you gave me. So far that list variant is 0-1-6. Not that great of list evidently.

Waffles

jazzpaintball wrote:

Isseyfaran wrote:Bubble wrapping is your friend.

Yup, but too bad that most decent players and tourney players develop a list in which you can not tailor to the enemy.

Ohh, and just a heads up, the list idea you gave me. So far that list variant is 0-1-6. Not that great of list evidently.

Kroots arent tailered units. Tau TAC lists all have kroots.

jazzpaintball wrote:Ohh, and just a heads up, the list idea you gave me. So far that list variant is 0-1-6. Not that great of list evidently.

I am pretty sure it has to do with the player more than the problem of that list Those list are among the best ones in the "market" for Tau.


Also, you haven't enlighten everyone how your list will deal with Mech spams and LF spams. Being able to beat 2 out of 10 list (an analogy) does not make a list a good one.

This thread brings a tear to my eye. They grow up so fast... Sniff sniff.

Seriously, dude, I am very happy about this Tau Powah showing. You practiced like crazywith me and the other guys to make it happen too.

A guy on another forum was bagging on Tau. He even told me that in order for me to win, I needed inferior Generals. Lol. Yeah right. Cause the Generals around here are such softies right?

I like how you mention your tactics. If yer gonna' do that, you gotta put my link up! sheesh.

JK. But seriously. Awesome work.

Jancoran wrote:This thread brings a tear to my eye. They grow up so fast... Sniff sniff.

Seriously, dude, I am very happy about this Tau Powah showing. You practiced like crazywith me and the other guys to make it happen too.

A guy on another forum was bagging on Tau. He even told me that in order for me to win, I needed inferior Generals. Lol. Yeah right. Cause the Generals around here are such softies right?

I like how you mention your tactics. If yer gonna' do that, you gotta put my link up! sheesh.

JK. But seriously. Awesome work.

What are you ranting about?



Anyway the reason why Positional Relay Tau army does not work is because essentially you are still coming in piecemeal like normal reserve - in this case even smaller pieces. That is already assuming the bearer survives 1-2 turns of shooting. Any decent list will be able to do the killing. Even if it miraculously pulls off, there isnt much alpha strike to speak of by turn 5. And if it's an assault army, they are just waiting at your doorstep at turn 5 for you to enter the field, and then pounce on you the next turn.

If one decides to deploy as normal, then this list just doesn't pack as much firepower as the standard Tau list do.

Wow Kenny. I can not tell if you are trolling or just a bit ignorant, but I will assume the later as most players seem to be the latter.

The idea behind the Positional Relay is not coming in like piecemail, but rather to come in at once in the middle of the game. The whole idea is so that the enemy is out in the open and/or near your board edge when the tau flood gate opens.

Everyone and their uncle that plays this game knows the Tau for one thing: Shooting. Therefor, they deploy in reserve and hide what is on the board. This happens and the Tau do not have optimal shots. Likewise, when I want a suit team with plasmas to come in and obliterate a terminator squad, I have to make sure they are in the open and that my XV8's have a spot to land. If I have to roll for them to randomly come into play, I may not get the unit I want on the board when I want it or even worse have to put the team in and have the enemy get nothing but cover saves to my ap1/2 shots.

If you play Tau and think this is a stupid idea, then go ahead and keep playing your lists.
If you dont play Tau and think this is a stupid idea, then you have not played against this kind of list and seen what it can do.

Ignorance is bliss, but it will loose you games,
Waffles


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Isseyfaran wrote:

jazzpaintball wrote:

Isseyfaran wrote:Bubble wrapping is your friend.

Yup, but too bad that most decent players and tourney players develop a list in which you can not tailor to the enemy.

Ohh, and just a heads up, the list idea you gave me. So far that list variant is 0-1-6. Not that great of list evidently.

Kroots arent tailered units. Tau TAC lists all have kroots.

jazzpaintball wrote:Ohh, and just a heads up, the list idea you gave me. So far that list variant is 0-1-6. Not that great of list evidently.

I am pretty sure it has to do with the player more than the problem of that list Those list are among the best ones in the "market" for Tau.


Also, you haven't enlighten everyone how your list will deal with Mech spams and LF spams. Being able to beat 2 out of 10 list (an analogy) does not make a list a good one.

I will give that Information as soon as I encounter it. I do not ask people to field certain armies against me, instead I just ask that they put their strongest tourney list against me. Until I find someone who plays a horde tourney list or a Mech Spam list, I can not do much. I am unsure that these lists are not a very competitive list style or if it is just that I am unlucky getting the right players on the right days

Long post:

Kenny:
Jazzpaintball plays at my store. He and I play a lot. I have been helping him learn to play Tau in 5th Edition (and his newness to 5th makes his 4th place showing all the most spectacular and well deserved). So I take a little pride in it I guess. We must have played 10 games before that tourney to get him ready and switched this and that i nthe list over and over again.

He's right about the Positional Relay. It is huge. It allows him to use isolation to kill his prey. While his list is VERY different from mine, he employs it similarly.

Blood Angels, IG and Space Wolves (and all other armies) all share one problem when facing his Tau: they have no targets. All the firepower, speed and crushing melee ability is wasted for 3-4 turns. The enemy has a choice: Split up and cover the corners and center, but then his force is broken up and more vulnerable and less able to respond to the other pieces of it. Optionally, the enemy can stand back and be patient, shooting what it can. But do you really wanna' exchange shots with his broadsides as your whole game plan and hoping they will both break on ld and not regroup before your transports/important stuff is dead? No, you need to shut them up reliably. So you are back to splitting up and charging the corners. If you're a horde or a Blood Angel, the conundrum is the same. You're splitting up and even if you attack just one, you're accomplishing little and using a lot ot do it... and Tau range is going to prevail afterwards.

Or he can deploy as normal when it makes more sense to get volume over timing.

His Tau can delay the suits by bringing in the non-essential Kroot. So if you try to play the waiting game with him, it's playing with fire. His Kroot will never deploy anywhere but where he wants to divert you. Problem is, if you dont divert, he has a firebase for the game... While the Broadsides plink away... So the KP is easy to get but is it worth it? Make the wrong decision for just one round and he can lead you on a merry goose chase. Tough call.

So the beauty of the strategy is that all your choices are bad choices. You will kill the Broadside in turn 3-4 in all likelihood and be stranded on the best case scenario (7 times out of 9, nothing works all the time) with time running out. God forbid those 2+ saves tie your unit up longer. That is when the flood gates open and he rips apart whatever sector he needs to in order to secure the victory and then holds on for a round.

I'm over simplifying, but that is essentially the plan. There are a few things that really help against this build, but of course remember that many builds just dont feature these things, so yeah they may help, but will they actually get fielded? Sometimes. Here are some tips against it:

1st, Vanguard Veterans. a pair of very small squads can force him into plan B as can a pair of infiltrator units. If he knows you have them he can also counter your counter, but that depends on who deploys first right? So this is one way to force his flood gates open sooner than he wants and give you the targets YOU want.

2nd possibility is LD nerfing. Tau have poor ld. While I certainly wouldn't bet on the ability to force a LD check when you're firing at three 2+/4i models with so few shots (ask any player who plays Terminators), a high volume of fire like armies that feature entire Heavy bolter units (Sisters of Battle for example) and the like might be able to force the check. of course the IG Psyker Battle Squads are really good at knocking Broadisdes off the table. Still no guarantee, but such units would improve the chances of not having to isolate your forces, albeit the Kroot may soon arive to at least halt them for a precious round soon so make hay while you can. The command suit makes it tougher to kill one of the units as well. Unfortunately the command suit unit is the one you MOST want to target this way so... Snikrot would work well forcing the Broadsides foward to protect the Commander and then snagging the other ones.

So there are answers, but most of the answers force him to plan B and plan B isn't bad either: shoot your face off. Sometimes plain old brutality works when finesse does not. Tau that get a little luck on to-hit rolls (or aided by Pathfinders, which he has) can really do damage even with basic Fire Warriors. Not reliably, but it happens.

Are you going to come up to the GW 2000 point in two weeks?
I you need pratice vs a hoard my need are around at tacoma.
Always glad to see tau do good. Ninja tau are something you don't see all the time.

jazzpaintball wrote:Wow Kenny. I can not tell if you are trolling or just a bit ignorant, but I will assume the later as most players seem to be the latter.

Don't be too quick to judge. We shall see.

jazzpaintball wrote:The idea behind the Positional Relay is not coming in like piecemail, but rather to come in at once in the middle of the game. The whole idea is so that the enemy is out in the open and/or near your board edge when the tau flood gate opens.

You are coming in small piecemeal UNTIL you choose to not trigger the positional relay. So either you send in one unit at a time, or you roll for normal reserve. How is either case not a case of coming in piecemeal?

Also, why should the enemy choose to be "out in the open'? I don't quite get this part.

jazzpaintball wrote:Everyone and their uncle that plays this game knows the Tau for one thing: Shooting. Therefor, they deploy in reserve and hide what is on the board. This happens and the Tau do not have optimal shots. Likewise, when I want a suit team with plasmas to come in and obliterate a terminator squad, I have to make sure they are in the open and that my XV8's have a spot to land. If I have to roll for them to randomly come into play, I may not get the unit I want on the board when I want it or even worse have to put the team in and have the enemy get nothing but cover saves to my ap1/2 shots.

I don't understand what advantages there is in having 10-20% of your forces on the board against 100% of your opponent's, and adding in 10% onto the board one at a time. You mention "coming in at once in the middle of the game". What is the middle of the game? Turn 3? - Not guaranteed. Turn 4? - Not guaranteed. Also, even if it happens, it really isnt a "middle game Alpha strike" because you have just sacrificed 20-30% of your whole army piecemeal to the opponent in the first half of the game.

All of the above is ASSUMING your bearer survives. I can't think of any decent list which cannot kill the suit commander in 2 rounds of shooting.

jazzpaintball wrote:If you play Tau and think this is a stupid idea, then go ahead and keep playing your lists.
If you dont play Tau and think this is a stupid idea, then you have not played against this kind of list and seen what it can do.

Actually, there have been tons of posters posting such list already. Maybe you haven't been visiting dakka forum frequent enough?

jazzpaintball wrote:Ignorance is bliss, but it will loose you games,

It's lose, not loose. Loose is the opposite of tight.

jazzpaintball wrote:I will give that Information as soon as I encounter it. I do not ask people to field certain armies against me, instead I just ask that they put their strongest tourney list against me. Until I find someone who plays a horde tourney list or a Mech Spam list, I can not do much. I am unsure that these lists are not a very competitive list style or if it is just that I am unlucky getting the right players on the right days

I am actually quite surprised that you said that. I mean haven't you been to the Nova Open, or read any battle reports on them? If you did, you should be very familiar with the competitive lists around. Mech spam is what is 5th Edition is all about. If you haven't played against them, then you haven't played competitive 40k. Or shall I now say you are ignorant ?

Also, why is it that you haven't explain how your list would deal with the list just mentioned? For example, BW spam? Is it because your list has no way of dealing with them?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hi Jancoran, first of all, thanks for the long post. Right or wrong, at least you make an effort to back yourself up, and seem to have a better idea than jazz.

You mentioned BA, SW, and SW. Why won't the opponent choose to stand back and exchange fire with the broadsides? A standard SW list at the point level mentioned has 6 las/plas razor. 6 lasc on average hit 4 times, wound 3.33 times, and kill 1.666 broadsides a turn (or its drones). So over the course of 3-4 turns, he can wipe out whatever broadsides you have. On top of that, there are 15 missiles from the Long Fangs every turn, who can constantly shoot at your commander and whatever is on board. So instead of exchanging fire with a 100% Tau army on the board, they are now exchanging fire with 20% of Tau army on turn 1 and 2, and 10% additional every turn.

I may possibly be missing something, but i m here to learn. So maybe you can enlighten me?

Also, Ork BW spam. All they have to do is spend 2 -3 turns driving to the edge of your board, wipe out in assault your broadsides (or whatever is on board, and wait to assault the rest of the Tau army. If 100% of a normal Tau list don't pack enough firepower to wipe out 100% or even 80% of an opposing army, i don't see how this list (which packs even less firepower when looked in totality) can do it - say if the "everything comes on board in the middle of the game" gets pulled off.

Well Kenny, thank you for noticing my typo. I know how difficult it is to not attack someone for double hitting a key, so whatever.

In either case, when I come up against a long fang game, I will field my army in more of its entirety. You seem to be bludgeoning me due to the fact that I have not gone to a world renown tourney. I appologize for that, I will get right on that......

As far as the games go, I am having great success with this list. I am tired of explaining myself for my wins. When this list is no longer effective, I will try something else. I am always evolving the list, but just because It has not worked for you and others does not mean someone with the foresight can not win with this list.

I am done talking to the players of Singapore. Granted it is only the two in this thread, but if the other players are like yourselves, I will take that red and white flag as a warning and proceed with caution.

Ignorance is bliss, but it will lose you games.
That goes for everyone, even myself. And I GUARANTEE I am still ignorant because I don't win every game. Therefor I keep learning and evolving. I am proud of my ignorance for I can learn from it instead of being hindered by stupidity.

Waffles

Kenny wrote:
Hi Jancoran, first of all, thanks for the long post. Right or wrong, at least you make an effort to back yourself up, and seem to have a better idea than jazz.

You mentioned BA, SW, and SW. Why won't the opponent choose to stand back and exchange fire with the broadsides? A standard SW list at the point level mentioned has 6 las/plas razor. 6 lasc on average hit 4 times, wound 3.33 times, and kill 1.666 broadsides a turn (or its drones). So over the course of 3-4 turns, he can wipe out whatever broadsides you have. On top of that, there are 15 missiles from the Long Fangs every turn, who can constantly shoot at your commander and whatever is on board. So instead of exchanging fire with a 100% Tau army on the board, they are now exchanging fire with 20% of Tau army on turn 1 and 2, and 10% additional every turn.

I may possibly be missing something, but i m here to learn. So maybe you can enlighten me?

Also, Ork BW spam. All they have to do is spend 2 -3 turns driving to the edge of your board, wipe out in assault your broadsides (or whatever is on board, and wait to assault the rest of the Tau army. If 100% of a normal Tau list don't pack enough firepower to wipe out 100% or even 80% of an opposing army, i don't see how this list (which packs even less firepower when looked in totality) can do it - say if the "everything comes on board in the middle of the game" gets pulled off.

Perhaps i should have said that while you may and will try to exchange some shots with the Broadside, but that is a death of one thousand paper cuts. it takes too long. Even with Las/Plas, the plasma portion of that can't hit anything until turn two (at which time there won't be six of the manymore, I think we can agree). 2+/4+ is no joke. I would never claim that something works all the time, but when you consider that the 6 las/Plas fire only six times in round 1 (and many armies don't have that same luxury, and some have more), you see that 4 hit and unfortunately, they aren't all hitting at the same time, so when the Shield Drone bounces one, the statistics actually become less and less likely of a UNIT kill. So the chances of killing the unit go down after each UNsuccessful hit, even though the chance of hitting doesn't change. Thats a little complicated for me to try and show here but hopefully the idea is easy enough. It is unlikely that six shots can kill a Broadside unit (barring bad luck) but it IS likely to cause the morale check which is what you really wanted anyways. More to the point, the death of the broadside isn't necessarily that important after the first two rounds anyways. They really only have to do their jobs for two rounds. After that, it's gravy for the Tau player. Also, don't forget, there is one additional target you may want to include as important: the Pathfinders. Leaving them alive can be as dangerous as the broadsides at times.

As for the 390 points fighting off 2000, you're right. SOUNDS bad. But THIS IS SPARTA! (just kidding but i couldn't help it) My opinion is that you want to do things for good sound reasons...not just reasons that just sound good. Is it to the Tau advantage to allow your {fill i nthe blanks} army to bring all its might to bear, all game long? To allow the Dark Reapers to bomb us endlessly? To allow the fast Vindicators to rumble up and just demolish our units in round 2? perhaps allowing Commander Shrike to sneak up and gank two broadsides by round 2? Or perhaps allo the Tervigons to outflank into us and just begin the slaughter? All those examples are about position and giving the enemy targets. The concept is why almost everyone agrees that you let Daemons and Dark Angels go first. Why? Give them no targets and overwhelm them with firepower of course. The Positional Relay just lets the Tau force the enemy to act somewhat like Daemons and Deathwing, if that makes sense.


So the idea here is position. If the orks do the Waaaaaagh, and they cross the board in record time (and they will if their truks dont kill all of them first) , they are stil likely charging in round 3 when they charge (because the tau player will if he can go last and the ork will be only too glad to let him most of the time). that means it will be round 4 until they can do something else and thats IF the silly Broadside doesn't have the presence of mind to die when bidden to! Where are the orks, top of 4? they are in three sectors (plus their backfield, so four). and it's 4th round. they have two rounds to get back to where they need to be. That is a Loooong walk through hails of STR 5-7 firepower that laughs off their t-shirts. STR 5 Crisis Suits can win a combat if the enemy is sufficiently weakened first if it comes to it (Gawds forbid).

So the orks took fire for three rounds up to that point, got to their sectors, and only ONE of the sectors, potentiallyy two, will be able to impact the battle further. The Tau player can now invade those two with massive firepower that would wither anyone and they have now done to the orks what the orks did to them: outnumbered them and probably outgunned them. The Tau just chose where to do it, whereas the orks kind of had their targets dictated ot them because they couldn't know who and what would come in where. Had to go to what was there or had to slow themselves down. And what ork army benefits from going slower? Lol. Not many.

So does that answer the question, or nay?

jazzpaintball wrote:Well Kenny, thank you for noticing my typo. I know how difficult it is to not attack someone for double hitting a key, so whatever.

In either case, when I come up against a long fang game, I will field my army in more of its entirety. You seem to be bludgeoning me due to the fact that I have not gone to a world renown tourney. I appologize for that, I will get right on that......

As far as the games go, I am having great success with this list. I am tired of explaining myself for my wins. When this list is no longer effective, I will try something else. I am always evolving the list, but just because It has not worked for you and others does not mean someone with the foresight can not win with this list.

I am done talking to the players of Singapore. Granted it is only the two in this thread, but if the other players are like yourselves, I will take that red and white flag as a warning and proceed with caution.

Ignorance is bliss, but it will lose you games.
That goes for everyone, even myself. And I GUARANTEE I am still ignorant because I don't win every game. Therefor I keep learning and evolving. I am proud of my ignorance for I can learn from it instead of being hindered by stupidity.

No, it's not your fault that you haven't been to the real competitive scene. This is a discussion forum, so I m just telling people that (in fact most are already well aware of that) this list will not work in the competitive scene.

So you say if you meet a Long Fang spam list (i m really surprised you havent, because it is one of the MOST common list around in current metagame) you will deploy the army as usual. In that case, you are already at a severe disadvantage as compared to your Tau counterparts (the standard lists) since your list severely lacks firepower. YOu mentioned "foresight". I m not doubting that you have it. But if you do have an idea, why not share with us how to deal with the list stated above?

Anyway, this is a discussion forum where people exchange ideas. No need to get personal/offended when people say your list doesnt work. The Nova Con is there in this dakka forum to read about. The games/battle reports are here. The list are here. You can read them yourself. You should be glad people tell you the truth instead of fabricating lies, telling you your list is wonderful and giving you false hopes. Ultimately, we all want to improve.

Jancoran wrote:Perhaps i should have said that while you may and will try to exchange some shots with the Broadside, but that is a death of one thousand paper cuts. it takes too long. Even with Las/Plas, the plasma portion of that can't hit anything until turn two (at which time there won't be six of the manymore, I think we can agree). 2+/4+ is no joke.

There is no 2+/4+. Lascannons are AP2... The broadsides only gets a 4+ cover, which is already factored into my math.

Jancoran wrote:I would never claim that something works all the time, but when you consider that the 6 las/Plas fire only six times in round 1 (and many armies don't have that same luxury, and some have more), you see that 4 hit and unfortunately, they aren't all hitting at the same time, so when the Shield Drone bounces one, the statistics actually become less and less likely of a UNIT kill. So the chances of killing the unit go down after each UNsuccessful hit, even though the chance of hitting doesn't change. Thats a little complicated for me to try and show here but hopefully the idea is easy enough.

I m not saying the lasc shots will kill the broadsides. I m just saying on average 1.666 model (from the broadside unit are expected to go down per turn. So first 1-2 turns you are stripping off the drones. After that, it's the broadsides that are eating and dying from the shots already. 1.666 x 4 turns = 6.666 models. Jazz's model count for the 100% heavy slot only have 6 model count in total.

In fact that's not even the case. His list has a drone attached to each broadside. Immediately after one drone is down, it is the broadside that is eating the lascannon shots already.

Jancoran wrote:It is unlikely that six shots can kill a Broadside unit (barring bad luck) but it IS likely to cause the morale check which is what you really wanted anyways. More to the point, the death of the broadside isn't necessarily that important after the first two rounds anyways. They really only have to do their jobs for two rounds. After that, it's gravy for the Tau player. Also, don't forget, there is one additional target you may want to include as important: the Pathfinders. Leaving them alive can be as dangerous as the broadsides at times.

As per my math above, a total of 6.666 models will die through the course of 4 turns, sometimes less, sometimes more, but average is what makes theoryhammering ticks. The 6 razorbacks is only a small part of the army. There are 18 others long fangs (15 missiles), and some speeders/dakka dreads. I understand your community don't play such competitive lists, but this is what the competitive scene is all about. Even if the LFs fire kraks at the pathfinders (and leave the commander alone so that he can pull of the positional relay every turn), the pathfinders are dying at a rate of : - 15 shots, 10 hits, 8.333 wounds, 4.166 dead PER TURN. The numbers are there - accurate. I didnt fabricate them. This is the disadvantage of presenting yourself piecemeal to the opponent. I pick your army apart.

Jancoran wrote:My opinion is that you want to do things for good sound reasons...not just reasons that just sound good. Is it to the Tau advantage to allow your {fill i nthe blanks} army to bring all its might to bear, all game long? To allow the Dark Reapers to bomb us endlessly? To allow the fast Vindicators to rumble up and just demolish our units in round 2? perhaps allowing Commander Shrike to sneak up and gank two broadsides by round 2? Or perhaps allo the Tervigons to outflank into us and just begin the slaughter? All those examples are about position and giving the enemy targets. The concept is why almost everyone agrees that you let Daemons and Dark Angels go first. Why? Give them no targets and overwhelm them with firepower of course. The Positional Relay just lets the Tau force the enemy to act somewhat like Daemons and Deathwing, if that makes sense.

But as per what i have written above, it now doesnt make sense to you, right? Daemons are daemons, they don't play like Tau.

So for the case of Tau, instead of forcing the SW army to exchange firepower with 100% of your Tau army, you allow 100% of the SW army to exchange fire with 30% of your Tau army, and then deal with the rest of your army bit by bit later on. This is hardly strategy. Even Jazz said he will deploy as normal. Seems like both of you don't see eye to eye?

Jancoran wrote:So the idea here is position. If the orks do the Waaaaaagh, and they cross the board in record time (and they will if their truks dont kill all of them first) , they are stil likely charging in round 3 when they charge (because the tau player will if he can go last and the ork will be only too glad to let him most of the time). that means it will be round 4 until they can do something else and thats IF the silly Broadside doesn't have the presence of mind to die when bidden to!

Erm Jancoran, i m surprised. A battlewagon moves 12inches a turn without rpj. 3 full turns of movement already means 36 inches. Disembacking is another 2 inches. Fleet is 1-6 inches, 6 inches if ghaz is in the army, and charge is another 1-6 inches. BW are open topped, so the orks can charge the turn they disemback, so they don't have to wait until turn 4 dude...

If you do the math yourself, you will realize turn 3 is the latest, and turn 2 the earliest.

Jancoran wrote:Where are the orks, top of 4? they are in three sectors (plus their backfield, so four). and it's 4th round. they have two rounds to get back to where they need to be. That is a Loooong walk through hails of STR 5-7 firepower that laughs off their t-shirts. STR 5 Crisis Suits can win a combat if the enemy is sufficiently weakened first if it comes to it (Gawds forbid).

Actually, there isnt hails of firepower. The 9 crisis suits only have 4 TL plasma, 2 TL Fusion, and 12 TL missile shots. That gives us 18 hits, 13.5 hits, 11.2 wounds, 7.5 dead orks after 5+ kff cover (i m not even talking about 4+ standard cover). And this is EVEN assuming the orks get shot off the wagons, which is highly unlikely because you only have 3 broadsides. That ork list will have about 50-60 boys, excluding deffkoptas, lootas, etc. 7.5 dead orks is hardly enough to "WEAKEN" them.

We haven't even talk about Nob bikers. They can move to any part of the board within 1 to 2 turns. The Tau list doesn't have any mechanism to stop them. So for e.g., after zooming to the extreme bottom left corner to bring down the broadsides, they can move to another edge of the board and be ready to assault into any other elements of the Tau list that has just entered the board. The Tau list has no bubble wrapping capabilities, so there is absolutely no way to tarpit the bikers.

This has been a very good thread in all honesty. Even with the debating that seems hostile at times. Its good to have opposition to your opinions, otherwise we would never see that we may be wrong.
I played Tau back in 2008/2009 and i did well with them. I went undefeated with them in my Very First Ard Boyz (first round) and had alot of success in local tourenys... Then SW and Blood Angels came out... the old dex started to frustrat me to the point that they went under my bed for the past 2/3 years and i gave in to the Power dexs. This thread with the tactical debating and seeing Jazz's crazy ideas has inspired me to get them out again. To go back to the drawing board. I want to playtest your reserve ideas, its something i never tried before and it could be a very big surprise but i see kenny's point. There are alot of SW/Ork/IG players in my area so i will have to dig deep and see what i can do with your tactics.
Congrats on 4th place, I love it when i see Tau or Orks (My current 2 old armies) taking a top spot in a tourney. Old dexs doing well gives hope that its still the player and not the dex.

Kenny wrote:
There is no 2+/4+. Lascannons are AP2... The broadsides only gets a 4+ cover, which is already factored into my math.

As per my math above, a total of 6.666 models will die through the course of 4 turns, sometimes less, sometimes more, but average is what makes theoryhammering ticks. The 6 razorbacks is only a small part of the army. There are 18 others long fangs (15 missiles), and some speeders/dakka dreads. I understand your community don't play such competitive lists, but this is what the competitive scene is all about. Even if the LFs fire kraks at the pathfinders (and leave the commander alone so that he can pull of the positional relay every turn), the pathfinders are dying at a rate of : - 15 shots, 10 hits, 8.333 wounds, 4.166 dead PER TURN. The numbers are there - accurate. I didnt fabricate them. This is the disadvantage of presenting yourself piecemeal to the opponent. I pick your army apart.

But as per what i have written above, it now doesnt make sense to you, right? Daemons are daemons, they don't play like Tau.

So for the case of Tau, instead of forcing the SW army to exchange firepower with 100% of your Tau army, you allow 100% of the SW army to exchange fire with 30% of your Tau army, and then deal with the rest of your army bit by bit later on. This is hardly strategy. Even Jazz said he will deploy as normal. Seems like both of you don't see eye to eye?

]Erm Jancoran, i m surprised. A battlewagon moves 12inches a turn without rpj. 3 full turns of movement already means 36 inches. Disembacking is another 2 inches. Fleet is 1-6 inches, 6 inches if ghaz is in the army, and charge is another 1-6 inches. BW are open topped, so the orks can charge the turn they disemback, so they don't have to wait until turn 4 dude...

If you do the math yourself, you will realize turn 3 is the latest, and turn 2 the earliest.


Actually, there isnt hails of firepower. The 9 crisis suits only have 4 TL plasma, 2 TL Fusion, and 12 TL missile shots. That gives us 18 hits, 13.5 hits, 11.2 wounds, 7.5 dead orks after 5+ kff cover (i m not even talking about 4+ standard cover). And this is EVEN assuming the orks get shot off the wagons, which is highly unlikely because you only have 3 broadsides. That ork list will have about 50-60 boys, excluding deffkoptas, lootas, etc. 7.5 dead orks is hardly enough to "WEAKEN" them.

We haven't even talk about Nob bikers. They can move to any part of the board within 1 to 2 turns. The Tau list doesn't have any mechanism to stop them. So for e.g., after zooming to the extreme bottom left corner to bring down the broadsides, they can move to another edge of the board and be ready to assault into any other elements of the Tau list that has just entered the board. The Tau list has no bubble wrapping capabilities, so there is absolutely no way to tarpit the bikers.

Kenny thanks for the replies. A Few things. One, you and I are not necessarily talking the same lingo here. let me address the above points singularly so we can be on the same page.

1st, I play with 2 Shield Drones and missed the fact that he plays with one. I would never take just one. My army always has two. So that was a small error on my part because i just blanked on that. I strongly recommend he take two, for all the reasons you cited. Changes things in a big way. With one drone he is far more vulnerable. Yet I see his broadsides game after game lasting to near the end if not the end. part of this is because objectives force new targets on you whe nteh Tau are popping up everywhere. Still, two drones is mucho advisable.

2nd, I don't think you're digesting the fact (and perhaps you will have to take my word on this) that the Broadsides do not NEED to survive past turn 3 (and maybe not even past turn 2 in some games), depending on who went first. That isn't the goal. Isolation is. In Warhammer, something will die no matter your best efforts. the goal of this approach is to make it happen on your terms, at a time that is most convenient for the Tau and least convenient for the opponent, and at a rate of attrition that is frustratingly dangerous for the opponent. I did not suggest you were fabricating anything. But if you spend 3-4 turns killing nothing but three singular Broadsides, they are likely to have done equal or better damage in that time. So the enemy must cut them down in the surest way they can: up close in personal. Exchanging shots with them until they die advantages the Tau, and not you.

On the statement about Daemons: I was telling you that the Tau force other armies into the same conundrum as deploying second against Daemons: theres no enemy, so where do i put my Daemons? Too close together for support and I'll Mishap. Too far apart, they get isolated. Too close to the enemy board edge, they get blasted. Too far, and they get whittled. So by not deploying against Daemons, you can often gain a tremendous advantage in both position and timing. The Tau sort of cause the enemy to have the same problems is what I meant.

You're getting hung up here on the idea that your 100% of the army can DO anything to my 20% during these first 2 rounds. Very few of the enemy units can really reach the Broadsides nor harm them in the first two turns. There are a few and they WILL try as they should, but really, what is the point of deploying fully with weapons I cannot reach you with and giving you your choice of targets when instead I can limit your shots and make them against the toughest thing in the force and wait til I am in range before shooting? In play, you will find that this IS strategy, a battle plan designed to minimze the enemy's chances, while not hurting my own. Like all battle plans, you may be forced to plan B. Thats good and healthy. But more often than not, plan A works very very well. i would not get up here and espouse thing I have not done or succeeded at. I am just trying to describe how it works in play, when plan A can continue to be plan A.

As for your contention that you could be on the Broadsides in turn 2: Not truly. the only time this is possible is when you are exactly and directly across from the target. The Broadside won't be. So it will be turn 3. Of course if he is not moving and firing, then I suppose you're right. But he will be. So no worries there. And again... Recall that I said all along that you we want you isolated over there. So you getting there faster isn't really contrary to the plan, is it? It just means we have a preference now as to which side we will want to flood.

In a game with Bikerz and the like, This seems a legit point. Consider though that the bikes survive their trip in (and some may), there must be no terrain they must avoid (turbo boosting disallows straight lines most of the time). Then yes perhaps If the Broadside doesn't move in those two turns... More likely, they will be turn 3 chargers though. Two rother easons, besides terrain and the broadside moving itself that it's more likley turn 3: First is, he will know you have Bikerz. The Pathfinder Devilfish with Disruption pod will probably just get deployed and move to slow you down in those two turns. No bubble wrap needed. An elegant solution and now it can attract fire for the broadsides (and is more or less not mission critical in and of itself)

The KFF is indeed a concern. I agree with you. KFF's being changed to 4+ in the FAQ is dumb, but it's a reality. But then the Tau player knows you have that too. So out come the Pathfinders in that case, to take it away. What I have seen very typically is four trucks and a battlewagon that form a flotilla up the middle, ready to scatter at the right WAAAAAGH moment, thusly all well protected. This is a tough one. it wont change the basics here, but lets face it, the more dice it takes to kill ANYTHING, the better the chances of having to go to plan B. The Pathfinders will help the Broadsides take out the battlewagon, and it will likely take all three. Immobilizing it makes the KFF get out and join another trukk, which slows them down and gives the Tau yet more time to do damage. But i cannot have a crystal ball to see what would happen there. The KFF is really good though and I don't want to discount it, lest you question my credibility. But again, the point is isolation so at some point the KFF will not be there to protect them and it is then that the flood gates open. and again, based on where the KFF is will probably have a lot to do with which side the flood gates open. That brings us back to the beginning really.

The thing about this is, its a fluid strategy. You can alter it ever so slightly for the type of opponent you face. It works in the general sense against all types.

The army can handle all the primary and most likely armies, and while Hordes provide the greatest challenge, by far, even they can be somewhat handled by the volume of fire, piranha flechette dischargers and the Fire Warriors + tanks themsevles. STR 5 fusilades are pretty cool, says ANY horde army, once the KFF's loactaion is isolated.

The real weakness of the army is that hordes can tie this type of army a little easier as long as its not a KP mission. A smart Horde general will see the way to do that, but the question is, will a tie be enough? is that what your ork horde really came to do? tie? Lol. Probably not. But I can admit without shame that a Horde can be played to tie this army and then its a matter of a staring contest. who gives in to blood lust first. Hehehehe. But in KP missiones, Hordes will not like this any more than anyone else does. In fact when i designed this army, it was specifically designed because of KP's originally. All the tactics sort of came afterwards.

Long posts. I've enjoyed the discourse Kenny and I hope you will look at this dispassionately and take from it the valuable parts. A good Tau general will be thinking some of these things. You can also read about some of my other takes on my blog: 40KUnorthodoxy.blogspot.com if you want. Or not. =)

jazzpaintball wrote:I know.... I am a Tau nerd... and I love it,

I love it. I can really appreciate this as well.

Congratulations on placing well.

Something to this effect has already been said, but tabletop generals win games not lists.

We could make a long list of players who consistently place well with what the internets might call 'unorthodox' lists.

Keep up the good work.

Feldmarshal Goehring wrote:

jazzpaintball wrote:I know.... I am a Tau nerd... and I love it,

I love it. I can really appreciate this as well.

Congratulations on placing well.

Something to this effect has already been said, but tabletop generals win games not lists.

We could make a long list of players who consistently place well with what the internets might call 'unorthodox' lists.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you.

Post deleted.

Reds8n

Jancoran I really like the out of the box thinking.

From reading this thread i believe there are differences in the army composition between your and the OP's army list. I am very interested in your list. could you please post it for us and give us a little talk about why you have included the unit selection.

I did not get to play vs this list. I played next to him on his first game. He played well vs necrons with a player that liked odd list. He then went on to win two games straight. The tourny he went to has a good mix of players and skill levels.
Thiere are some very competivite player thier. I know I.m one of them. There is a a SW, BA, IG, Two GK with diffrent list that travel to the big tourny to play. To the people that saying show me the math. The math only works so far. Its good for a avg. thats all. I won many games with my Tryanids that the math said i should have lost.

I hope he is coming up to the next tourny as i would love to play him at that point lvl. 1000 to 1500 tau can do real good with.

As for SW long fang spam. I love it. We don't see it alot here as a lot of players have hard counter for it. I know my tyranids do.

Waffles countinue the hard work.

Talon

Thank you Talonwinter. I will try and make it up there again when I can get my kroot and piranha painted for my 2k list. As far as a game, I would love to play some guys up in the seattle area. The Bunker is a bit far to travel, but if you can meet me half way in Tacoma, I would gladly play. If you are North of Seattle, Just let me know and I will try to make it up there for a day to play you as well as a couple other people that seem to want to play against this army.

Just let me know and I will try and make it happen.

Cheers,
Waffles





Kenny(1): As far as playing "experienced players," I play nearly nothing but these "experienced players." I am still holding my own against people who have been playing for 10+ years and using lists that you say I can not contest a game with.

Just yesterday I played a rather tough opponent. He had a BA with lots of troops and lots of vehicles (Two tanks, 2 rhinos, land Raider, three 10-man squads, Librarian: 1500 points) I could have won the game with some more knowledge and without making a couple mistakes, but with 4 objectives, I still pulled off a draw. Does this player now become a "newbie" because he did not flatten me out?

Does anyone become less of a player by losing?

It sure does seem so since if someone can not obliterate my list they must "suck" and "not be an experienced player."

I love, and encourage, anyone to challenge my list, both in words and on the table. But you have seemed to gone from giving advice and constructive criticism to full out 'if you play this list, you are stupid.'

Post deleted.

I do hope you realize what you are saying.

You have made personal attacks: "its lose, not loose. Loose is the opposite of tight."
Direct personal attack based off of a typo.

You are also attacking the intelligence and ability of other players. What I am wondering now is if you think a person can not have a competitive army unless they play a mech/LF spam / ork biker / IG list.

I have to ask you though: If you play against a person with a certain list that you have dealt with before, do you play the same way as before?"

I can already answer that question: NO.
This is because every game is different. Every deployment is different. This is why I can not tell you what I can do against any list before I play it. I do not care what list a person plays, it is the person I am playing, not the army.
Yes, the army makes a difference, but I have seen a list get trampled upon with one player, and then win every game with another player. Its about the general.

I can not truly tell you what I will do when facing any army due to the fact that EVERY GAME IS DIFFERENT.

Like you said: "we can always theoryhammer about [a] list." But we can not all base the effectiveness of an army on the list itself.

I will always play a game as if I playing it the first time due to the fact that the person behind the army is the difference.
I will always do this with a huge grin on my face for this is such a fun game.
I will always be changing my list.
I will always meet new friends.

I think I have a great list for I know I am still not playing it to its full potential and yet it is still proving effective. Just because it is not something you will think it works, does not mean it will not work.

With this list I am currently 4 - 6 - 2. Not all of this is due to the list, but rather me.
I can only go with results, and these results are not bad with as lousy of a general I am.

Until I find something that I truly can not hold my own against, I will continue to develop this list.

Lets hope my next few tournaments can produce decent scores to show that Tau, with and without "competitive lists," can still hold their own and show that this army is not left in the dark quite yet.

Waffles

TheMicah25 (and Kenny):
I think part of the confusion for Kenny is two-fold. First he thinks I am talking specifically about ONLY this list. I am not, though I am trying to make it make sense in Jazzpaintball's context. I am talking about the fundamental tactics, base level. I think the "mechanism" for this kind of thinking is pretty particular to Tau.

The second thing he does not know is that my list departs DRAMATICALLY from Jazzpaintball.

I think the value in this thread is that it shows a newer player with a super finesse army and a crafty build can show strongly in a competitive environment like that was. I cannot help but feel great about how he did. =)

As for my list... If you REALLY wanna see it... Whats the ettiqueete here? am I thread jacking if I put it here?

I wouldn't mind if you put it up here.

You can put it up here or in the army lists section. The only problem with that section though is that there are so many put up that a list is only on the front page for about 10 hours. If you put it up there, just make sure to link it here for the people who want to see it.

Night Jan,
Waffles

Kenny, I think you brought up legit stuff, that causes one to go to plan B (which means varying degrees of different deployment). I think you kind of passed right by the MEAT of my responses on it though. So its hard to untangle that now.

For example, Turboboosting and units moving flat out cannot go through difficult terain. So by just the virtue of that alone, you probably charge turn 3 unless the Tau player falls asleep (and hey, that happens). You kind of didn't seem to recognize what I was saying and that was just one example of how much we'd have to untangle for me to respond well.

I get that you feel that you can beat Tau. I think confidence is great. I just dont buy the whole "well unless its the NOVA, you can't even CLAIM to know what good IS". I think that's... Incorrect thinking. I think thats a charitable way to put it. 99.5% of the games people play aren't at the NOVA. Which means games "out there", just like these games he played, are the proving ground FOR the NOVA... Not the other way around.

Will he win? As Napolean and many others have acknowledged over time: "Success requires no explanation. Defeat allows none". His wins were earned just like yours always are. Accept them and improve by learning about what we do well in actual games. Or not.

I came here to read a battle report and get some insight on Tau methodology for the upcoming Alamo GT.......

And instead, I find that most of the text is this train wreck of an argument.

Kenny, it's not wonder you got banned. If DakkaDakka had a right mind, they'd go out of their way to IP ban you if possible.

Jazz, congratulations on finding your play-style niche. It's awesome when people can find just the right way that their army works for them and make it, in fact, work for them.

Jancoran, good job with the teaching, bud. Keep it up! He done right good, he did.

As for the validity of these results due to an "uncompetitive" selection of opponents..... People bring bad lists to tournaments all the time, but just because you place higher than them doesn't, nor should it, degrade the accomplishment. If he was someone completely new to the game (which is seems like he's pretty close due to what Janco said). You're trying to stir the gak, and quite frankly, it's immature, and I can't fathom why you went out of your way to create a new account for the explicit purpose of arguing with them.

FOR THE GREATER GOOD!

waffles i noticed that your thread doesnt actually have your list in it. In the link that you have provided you stated that the posted list isnt the one that you used for the games. could you please post it up here for us?

Its good to see and will give us a better understanding of your tactics when we know what tools you use.

I will edit it to have the list on the front page soon. I think there was a very small change, but I will have that list (my current list) up soon.

post deleted.

Kenny, I just want to figure something out. In a 1500 point game, what would a mech spam list look like? Maybe I have played it more than I think i have. Granted I have not played an ork biker list or a long fang list, but the reason why i dont know what i will do is because speculation gets you no where. I do not know what to do until the person puts the troop on the table and the game starts.

Like i said before, every game is different and to say "I will do this against this type of army" is stupid for there is no way to mentally prepare yourself for the infinite amount of scenarios.

The general Idea behind dealing with a lot of rhino's is to field by broadsides and my missile pod squad on the deployment, and start blasting them open for my other suits to come in and obliterate the squad inside. If there is heavy cover for him, I would deepstrike the MP squad behind the tanks on turn two. Good odds to have that work with the positional relay.

I have dealt with a mass load of 35 point trash cans on tracks. Its a pain, but it is survivable.

What exactly would you like to see me go against. If you want to post up a list, I am sure I can find a buddy around here that can play the list you post and I can truly see how the Tau fair against it instead of theoryhammering it to death.

Waffles


Also, kenny2? how many times are you gonna get banned before you realize what you are doing?

post deleted.

Sure. I can hop in a car and travel 2500 miles to a tournament. It is easy because I am in the sae country right? I would gladly go ifi had the money. I work part time and am a soldier, so funding is a huge issue for any tourney over 50 miles away.

I would love to go if someone would take me, lol. But I can only imagine I would sooner see pigs fly before someone funding me to play.

Sooo.... I posted the list some of you requested in another thread here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/436851.page

We can talk about it there if you like.

Also I blog on topics that get too long for forums so you may find that useful to read. I think I put it up before but here it is again. If I'm breaking a rule by putting this up, just nix it. I read something on the profile page that made me wonder but here it is.

www.40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com

One last point. I had to alter the post I put up in Army Lists about this due to forum rules. Oops. So just letting you know in case in threw you. the original post had to ber deleted by rule and fixed. My apologies. Jazzpaintball, make sure to watch out for putting individual points costs up, if you did. Apparently, not good,.

Yes, we must maintain a bit of ambiguity so as to keep things friendly with GW. After all that material is covered under their copyrights.

Word. I get it totally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, there is a game that shows this. Its a battle report a guy7 did when I played against him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp78gM3Qt_Q

Loved the battle reports!

could have used a couple more pics but, i like how you have condensed the detail of what happen each turn.

i really enjoyed reading and didn't have to go through tons of text to find out what happened

concise and to the point. well done

And great to read some battle reports from a not so used army.

Winning with Tau is skillful reading battle reports like this one makes we want to play tau or eldar, someone who dosent just really on durable units to survive. (like my plauge marines)

but warhammer costs too much for me to get another force ( live in Australia)

again well done, sorry about your third game, the worst thing about 40k can sometimes be the people =(

Jancoran wrote:Word. I get it totally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, there is a game that shows this. Its a battle report a guy7 did when I played against him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp78gM3Qt_Q

I watched that battle report. Everything came out on turn 4, IIRC. I felt it was risky coming in so late, but you stuck to your game plan pulling out the victory.

Yeah and I was winning by 2 a fair amount of the game, but lost a little ground at the end. It was a good example of the tactica in action and not just talking about it, so I thought I'd post it. There are others floating out there. Perhaps if my friend puts his up, then you will be able to see it against another army.

The Battle Report was done by my friend, not me. He does them.

I find this all very interesting. I really like things that work and are diametrically opposed to what the 'internets' claim to be the gospel of 40k.

I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of folks are just regurgitating the material that they read somewhere else on a forum. Of course, I mean instead of speaking from actual experience or personal knowledge.

Love the thread! I learned a lot I play at Seattle Bunker hope to see you there sometime.

Feldmarshal Goehring wrote:I find this all very interesting. I really like things that work and are diametrically opposed to what the 'internets' claim to be the gospel of 40k.

I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of folks are just regurgitating the material that they read somewhere else on a forum. Of course, I mean instead of speaking from actual experience or personal knowledge.

I doubt seriously you're seeing what I do in many places, nor Jazzpaintball. My guess is we're in the minority. and by guess I mean, Ive been told flat out Im crazy a ton of times on innumerable forums. Except, of course, the one for our local gamers. They know.

I like your list alot - I dont think enough people max out on crisis battle suits - the best elites in town for tau !

Nice paintjob with your army the overall effect is pleasing

Jeah I like JazzPaintballs army too. It must have taken some serious time to do those tanks, if you look closely at them. His Crisis units no less so. I think he deserved better paint score than he got at our team tourney but wo doesn't feel that way on some level I suppose?

Jazzpaintball is getting better and better with each game too. Part of it is learning enemy codex's. thats pretty important.

Just a heads up:

Thanks for everyone who liked the battle report, and thanks for the suggestions on how to make it better.

I have another tourney this weekend and I will be using a slightly modified list. Same generic idea though. I will make sure to take more pictures and I will post it up early next week.

Thanks again guys,
Waffles

Git 'em. Bring home the gold!

WOW! I was at this tournament! You pulled out at 4th? Congrats dude!

He just won Best Overall with his Tau Saturday as well. Just FYI. He won't toot his own horn about it perhaps, but I will. Two strong showings in a row.

Impressive to say the least.

Give us some juicy details. Perhaps another battle report thread.

Battle report for last saturdays game:

Lost first two games.
Won my last game against a kid who really did not know the game at all.
Due to bonus points, having an 89% percent for a paint score, a 100% sportsmanship score; the 36% for the actual games I tied for best overall. According to a rule by the store owner, a tie is broken by the highest sportsmanship score.

Yup....I won best overall with only one win....

I feel horrid... caused a flame war between some of the best 40k players at the local store.... and ultimately cheated out a prize for someone more deserving.

Josef.... thanks for bringing it here.... I appreciate it.....

This is an interesting result to me because the rules for the tournament clearly made it focused on your preparation with respect to painting and modeling than your on the table performance. If these rules are posted ahead of time, shame on anyone arguing with the person who did well based on the actual scoring criteria.

I have played GT's and finished in the bottom third due to getting killed on painting scores. I accepted this going in (this is in spite of being in the top 15-20% in Battle Points. I enjoyed the games, I enjoyed my opponents and their beautiful armies coupled with my poor overall showing prompted me to be more serious about producing a fully painted, based ready to go competitive army.

At the end of the day, those players who finished well due to their brilliant looking armies deserved it. They put in far more work than I did and I might trounce them on the battle field, but they looked damn good on the field and on their display board as casualties!

(In short: congratulations on your finish, do not be ashamed of doing well when you deserve it. Do not let the jealousy or immaturity of others take away from it)

Thank you. I don't think this would have bothered me so much if it wasn't for it being at my local store. Since everyone knows everyone, it seems to hit a bit harder.

But yea, so there are individuals are quite mad due to them thinking that all they need to do is get a "sweat shop" (actual words) to paint their armies and never step on any toes to win overall. Saying that: "With this system you can win overall with out winning a single game."

Its a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 scoring percentage that has been used a few tourneys now, but has not had a complaint about it until I played int he tourney.

Everyone knew the system, but it still caused a flame war.

jazzpaintball wrote:
But yea, so there are individuals are quite mad due to them thinking that all they need to do is get a "sweat shop" (actual words) to paint their armies and never step on any toes to win overall. Saying that: "With this system you can win overall with out winning a single game."

Its a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 scoring percentage that has been used a few tourneys now, but has not had a complaint about it until I played int he tourney.

Everyone knew the system, but it still caused a flame war.

I said the sweat shop thing, for the record. And I am correct. You could have won with zero wins.

Don't be a martyr about it though. You won and did so using the rules which EVERYONE at the shop agrees on, including me. ALMOST everyone agrees that the calculation method might need changing. THAT was the issue for us on that forum, not you.

The issue wasn't really the idea of 1/3. It was the way they calculated it. which was not your fault. So chill out and enjoy the win. We love you Waffles. And stop moping too.

I am curious, how did they shut you down at this event? Since it was a local store event, I am guessing the opponents new your basic style and game plan in advance so had a counter ready for you. I run into that with my non-standard 'nid lists. People I play alot know how to counter it, folks that don't respect it do to lacking the "required" units get stepped on.

barnowl wrote:I am curious, how did they shut you down at this event? Since it was a local store event, I am guessing the opponents new your basic style and game plan in advance so had a counter ready for you. I run into that with my non-standard 'nid lists. People I play alot know how to counter it, folks that don't respect it do to lacking the "required" units get stepped on.

Yea, that was the primary thing.

The first game was against, in my personal opinion, one of the best players at the store. I play him constantly as a "mile-marker." Once I can beat him continuously, i know I will be ready for any marine list.
Both of us, Mike ( the marine player stated above) and I, go to tourneys to play new people. Go figure that by chance, we happened to face each other on the first round. He knows my list precisely and knew what to do. It was close, but he pulled the victory out by a kill point.

I really think my list is more effective against people who are not used to it. Tau have a hard time with their codex. Having any general know exactly what you are going to do hinders the list a bit.

The second game was pretty bad. It started off with me not having anything deployed (dawn of war) against a necron combo that caused dangerous terrain across the board.
Then after I deployed the kid said that everything I put on the table (nothing in area terrain, just the normal board) would now have to roll dangerous terrain. I understood that, but the kid said that I would take a wound if i rolled a 1 or 2.
It does say that in the Necron codex, but the terrain has to be dangerous to begin with, not just what became dangerous for the first turn.
Called a judge over and the judge ruled in my favor, lost a couple drones, but 1's are bound to happen, 2's would have decimated me.
The kid then started to do some BS things like moving through terrain, rolling a 5 and 1, moved the front person 5 inches, then moved the models in the back in front of the original model moved. That wasnt the only time, witnessing a few times a moving necron from the back of the group to the font, effectively getting a 10-12 inch move.

With sportsmanship score getting decent prize, i decided just to keep my mouth shut, and give the game. It was not worth the fight and ultimately walk away with nothing.
I do get complements on my paint job, but I never expect it to win prizes, so I did not even plan on that.

The third game was with a newbie. Loved the kid. He had not played against tau before, and I gave him a full rundown on what to do against me. I was helping him out in deployment and execution against my army. I wasn't worried about winning and i want to always make sure that new players stick with the game. It is too damn fun for more people not to play because of an ass-hat opponent.

Ultimately I was not expecting to win anything except for maybe the sportsmanship award. I did not and the kid that i played last got it. I was quite happy for him for he wanted a drop pod so badly.

Then the overall winner was called out for me and my jaw dropped....

I have no problem winning, or losing. But the thing i hate is that only due to me winning it is that the local store's scoring system is under fire.
If "best overall" was given to someone with 1 win and 1 draw, or 2 wins and 1 loss, or even 3 draws, I dont think there would have been complaint.
A couple months ago there was a team tourney that the best overall was with 2 wins and a loss. I know this for my team beat them. No one even batted an eye lash at them for winning that.

I love this game way too damn much to see people fight over it, and (god forbid) not play in another tourney because of it.

Probably got GK'd. Lol. We should seriously make that a verb.

He will have his opportunity to fly like an Eagle at the Elvensword Ambassadorial Tournament though (assuming registration is open still). He's going to represent Tau there and since you cannot play against the same codex twice in our tournament, and Tau can be pretty good all-comers lists, it should be a good test. No one can just tune up against a certain type of list nor a codex in that Tournament. I am looking forward to that in May.

Already signed up and payed for.

Looking forward to playing in that tourney.

And yes, GK'd is from now a verb.

And on top of that, his army is very nicely painted.

jazzpaintball wrote:Lost first two games.
Won my last game against a kid who really did not know the game at all.

Ouch.
Not sharing your batreps with everyone?

Isseyfaran wrote:

jazzpaintball wrote:Lost first two games.
Won my last game against a kid who really did not know the game at all.

Ouch.
Not sharing your batreps with everyone?

Yes yes, I already know Issey. May I just say it for you?

"You do not have a competitive list."
"You went up against opponents that knew what they were doing."
"You need a Hammerhead"
"You need a Hammerhead with a railgun"
"you need kroot"
"You need kroot"
"you need kroot walls"
"You don't know how to build competitive tau lists."

more can be put down. But I don't wish to have these stupid arguments. I like this list, I am going with it, competitiveness be screwed.

Thank you issey, have a good day.

Love the discussion of tactics in this thread!

It's nice to see players come up with their own tactics and lists, instead of the stuff that gets posted and reposted all over the internets.

What Jazz and Jancoran wrote sounds like a sound tactic. I don't think it is the answer to all Tau problems, but it certainly is an approach that can make an opponent's game a good deal more difficult than just the usual Tau built. I can think of some very rough match-ups for the OP's list (super-shooty IG as one example), but all lists and tactics have these.

If we would all go with the standard internets advise that also got posted on this thread, we could just agree on a standard list for each race and everybody would play the same - just silly

jazzpaintball wrote:

Isseyfaran wrote:

jazzpaintball wrote:Lost first two games.
Won my last game against a kid who really did not know the game at all.

Ouch.
Not sharing your batreps with everyone?

Yes yes, I already know Issey. May I just say it for you?

"You do not have a competitive list."
"You went up against opponents that knew what they were doing."
"You need a Hammerhead"
"You need a Hammerhead with a railgun"
"you need kroot"
"You need kroot"
"you need kroot walls"
"You don't know how to build competitive tau lists."

more can be put down. But I don't wish to have these stupid arguments. I like this list, I am going with it, competitiveness be screwed.

Thank you issey, have a good day.

AWWW, why so defensive? I was merely asking for batreps for some entertainment. I didnt ask for a "competitive batrep" (nor expecting one from you) , did I?

Railheads = fail.

Isseyfaran wrote:

AWWW, why so defensive? I was merely asking for batreps for some entertainment. I didnt ask for a "competitive batrep" (nor expecting one from you) , did I?

I like how you changed your post 2 days later to cause a fight. I will put up more Batreps, but due to what happened at the tourney and how some people where upset about the outcome. I dont want a batrep to be more fuel on the fire.

Just post the Batrep for Golly G Willikers sake! Sheesh.

I just wanted to say this thread has been one of the most amusing arguments I've seen in a while. just wanted to let you guys know after reading your tau ideas I tend to agree with just about everything Jancoran and Jazzpaintball have said. being a tau player myself i have learned a few things here, though I doubt I will be able to implement them as i prefer my firewarriors over my suits.

Well that is okely dokely. If there weren't multiple ways to win, we'd have no point, right? The pundits would be right.

I think its great just knowing how many ways there ARE to win. I can't lie and say Tau are as good as {fill in the blanks} at this or that because they fall short by design in areas. But they are so fun to play that I just like opening doors...and enthusiasm...for them in other players. If we accomplish nought else, that would be a worthwhile goal.

It's an interesting list overall, but I could never use it. My local store is 50% orks, 20% nids and now 20% crons, with a random Wolf and dark elder player in the mix. Most swarmy armies have no problem tabling a Tau player, and this list would probably get tabled faster than normal.

Interesting perspective. I assume you mean Jazzpaintball?

He's changed the list some since this. He's evolving it.

Hordes are tough on some levels. Orc hordes are really good because despite what the statline says, they shoot just fine. So their sheer speed and number of bodies can overwhelm you. You just need road blocksto slow them down so your fire bases can keep shooting, or option b, lead then lateral. with bait. Devilfishs and Piranhas are good for that.

Tau really can't deal with both well in my opinion. It's either you prep for hordes, or you prep for that IG guy with 10 vehicles. There is no solid mid ground to stand on and do well, especially at lower point games.

I personally hate facing Tau. Not because of the players, but because they keep knocking my Raiders out of the sky and just annihilating my Warriors with shooting.

Tau do have a big list of issues, but in experienced hands, they are deadly.

Puscifer wrote:I personally hate facing Tau. Not because of the players, but because they keep knocking my Raiders out of the sky and just annihilating my Warriors with shooting.

Tau do have a big list of issues, but in experienced hands, they are deadly.

I would assume the Tau player you are talking about either fights you all the time or similar army lists to yours with not that much variance.

I dont think thats a fair assumption (though it may be true).

The Tau blow EVERYONE out of the sky with regularity. The first two turns, the Tau tend to OWN the game. between their unerring accuracy in the first two turns and their sheer firepower, they create a blood bath all over the place.

It rounds 3-5 they lose ground again and must struggle for their eventual win, using guile, speed bumps and mobility to stay the course.

So what he's saying isn't that wierd and I have played as Tau in tournaments all over the place. It's the same basic pattern in most games.

what differs...a lot in my case... is that Tau players who rely on very few units can be taken apart late in the game easier. It somewhat doesn't matter when the enemy comes to grips: when they do, lots of stuff dies.

So small unit count can really hurt you and as many play Tau as an "elite heavy" army, there's enough horror stories to go around the internet for a life time.

I personally have 101 models in my army (I hink thats right) and so after round 2, I'm not as susceptible to that. But smaller Tau armies will always have to play an A game if they choose not to spread their strength around. But a Tau's A game hurts a LOT.

Which comes back to his assertion thatt a skilled Tau player can make anyones day a little sadder. They just can't make mistakes.

hey jazz I live in redmond and I'm putting together a mean 1500 necron list! I'd love to take on your tau some time!

Gauntlet thrown!

tautemplar wrote:hey jazz I live in redmond and I'm putting together a mean 1500 necron list! I'd love to take on your tau some time!

Hey, I live in Redmond and would love to play you!

how bout we go to redmond and play BOTH of you? lol.

might be an idea, I have not played at the seattle bunker for quite a while. I may have to go tomorrow since I will be in kent around 12 already.

I do have tomorrow off

I'm really trying to get games and gizmos more into w40k because its so near my house lol the bunker is cool and all but I always feel like they're pressuring me to buy stuff there instead of just letting me have fun lol.

I'm up for a game at Games and Gizmos most nights of the week. Seattle Bunker would be best for Jazz and Janc though.
What day would be good for all of you?

Well I am at the bunker now. Hoping to see someone

Sorry I couldnt make it down today.

jazzpaintball wrote:might be an idea, I have not played at the seattle bunker for quite a while. I may have to go tomorrow since I will be in kent around 12 already.

Once agian i want to thanks for the game on friday. I hope your game vs IG went better. I like your list and play style it was fun. Hope you do well on the 12th.

Come by for a rematch any time. My list is allways growing.
Take care

C.R.

Talonwinter wrote:

jazzpaintball wrote:might be an idea, I have not played at the seattle bunker for quite a while. I may have to go tomorrow since I will be in kent around 12 already.

Once agian i want to thanks for the game on friday. I hope your game vs IG went better. I like your list and play style it was fun. Hope you do well on the 12th.

Come by for a rematch any time. My list is allways growing.
Take care

C.R.

Can not say it did, due to circumstances out of our control, we where not able to play. I played a couple games vs eldar this weekend. I am not used to them and had never fought against their vehicles before. Never knew how many shenanigans those wave-serpents have. The second game with the knowledge came out in my favor, and my 600 points of crisis suits did not have to be utilized very much.

I still think that the Wave Serpent is in the running for best Transport in the game, IMHO.

Agreed, it is very very good.

The eldar transports can be a pain. You at lest got two game vs them so you know what to expect now.

YOu have also seen a diffrent Necron list with mine. You will not be caught unaware next time you see wraiths. Sad thing whas you only seen half of what that list could have done. Oh well next time.

I think IG will hate your list from what I have seen of it. No worries there i think. Dark eldar, necron and Tyranids i feel you need to watch out for more then anything.

I have played enough deldar to know how to take them out. They got some cool things, but as long as I can take out their transports, they are pretty dead in the water. And even luckier for me is that most of their stuff is open topped. Which means my st 10 shots get a pen +2. As long as I roll a 3 and up, their transports are trash.

Necron has always been a pain for me ever since the new codex. And tyranids are hard for it seams like no one really plays with them much any more. I know players, but they seem to rather play something else.

I got tomorrow off and I am in Federal Way. I am thinking about packing up the motorcycle and heading up to the bunker again if anyone is willing to play. I can imagine that Mondays are pretty slow, but If someone would like to meet up with me, I would be willing to take the trip.

I'll come by sometime around 2 or 3

I appologize but something came up (family in the hospital) I will post up, but I may try and make it tomorrow or later today.

No appology is nessessary. Hope things are ok.
I'll try to make in tomorrow as well.

burn him in effigee for his transgression. Lol.

Seriously though: hope things are good with the inlaws.

Didya see the Elvensword pics, Waffles?

I always want to see more Tau Players, as a SM, Eldar and Tyranid Player, I've always found Tau to be a really fun game (though when their suits always make 4+ cover saves with shield drones, it is frustrating!). Your tactics seem fun, something I've never really ran into before.

Feldmarshal Goehring wrote:I still think that the Wave Serpent is in the running for best Transport in the game, IMHO.

Yes, they can be extremely resilient with all of that armor and the Energy Field (for dedicated transports, anyways). Combined with how every unit can basically take them ... YAY! (for the Eldar players) Then again, plenty of games they get shot down first turn by the first enemy shot, too.

yeah sometimes you feel like a nut right?

Sometimes you feel like you GOT Nut'd

Wave Serpents are hard core though. I use one or none in my list, but that isn't because I dont think they are good. they are.

I have been tempted on many occasions to start an Eldar army just so I can play with Wave Serpents.

jazzpaintball wrote:I have played enough deldar to know how to take them out. They got some cool things, but as long as I can take out their transports, they are pretty dead in the water. And even luckier for me is that most of their stuff is open topped. Which means my st 10 shots get a pen +2. As long as I roll a 3 and up, their transports are trash.

Necron has always been a pain for me ever since the new codex. And tyranids are hard for it seams like no one really plays with them much any more. I know players, but they seem to rather play something else.

I got tomorrow off and I am in Federal Way. I am thinking about packing up the motorcycle and heading up to the bunker again if anyone is willing to play. I can imagine that Mondays are pretty slow, but If someone would like to meet up with me, I would be willing to take the trip.

Heck any pen result from a Rail Cannon ruins my Raiders day. Since I play Dark Eldar I can attest to loosing my D-Lance off my Raider. (My biggest pet peeve, next is my blasters not doing anything at point blank range, then my dual cannon venom's not managing to wound with 12 dice, I could go on ) D-lances are my biggest AT and ACS (Anti-crisis suit)

Nice pic, Enigma. That rox.

Jancoran wrote:Nice pic, Enigma. That rox.

Thank you very much. I found it one day while browsing google for Tau pics

Jazz, Jan- Going to be out that way in a august for my wedding and I think several rounds of 40k should be a good nerve calmer. Which stores do you normally play at? Love to see the lists played first hand. ( I'll even brings some nid's for variety

we mostly play at Olympic Cards and Comics in Lacey, but we have been known to play at GW tacoma and the Game Matrix in tacoma.

Just PM us with times and dates. PM is best way. I think you can add us as "friends" or some such on this site also.