Got in a competitive game against a really good Tau army. I am practicing for a 2K tournament and am thinking about bringing my necrons so asked him for a game. I've played against Adam 4 times before and he is the only person to have a winning record against me (not counting opponents who I've only played once before). I beat his Tau once with my daemons and he's beaten my daemons twice with his Tau. He also beat my space wolves once with his Imperial Guards. So going into this game, I knew I was going to be in for a tough fight. You can find our last fight in this battle report:

1750 - 50 Shades of Pink Daemons vs Farsight-bomb Tau w/Riptides

Since our last battle, my opponent has improved his list by adding another Riptide and more fire warriors. He also brought in eldar allies for some psychic defense as the good players in our area (me, Janthkin, SonsofGrant) normally run psychic-heavy armies. His Tau list is very balanced and would be something I would run if I were playing Tau. The only thing I think his list could use are some kroots for slightly more mobile scoring. Otherwise, it is a very good and very balanced list.

While I certainly respect the firepower of the Tau, I think my necrons can take them. He's got some tremendous firepower, however, he's got to get through 18 wraiths led by 2 2+ Destroyer Lords. He also has problems against AV13 vehicles such as my barges. But what will really hurt him are my troops in their flying croissants. That's how I normally win my games and with Taudar's lack of mobility, this advantage is even more pronounced (assuming my troops can get away from his shooting). All in all, I think my opponent should be a slight underdog in this game. It'll be rough. He may even shoot down all my wraiths but my prediction is that my croissants will win it for me.


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2000 Wraithwing Necrons (My list)



Destroyer Lord, - 2+, Mindshackle Scarabs, Res Orb
Destroyer Lord, - 2+, Mindshackle Scarabs, Res Orb

5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe

6x Wraiths - 2x Whips
6x Wraiths - 2x Whips
6x Wraiths - 2x Whips

Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge



2000 Triptide Riptide Tau



This is an approximation of his list.

Tau Commander - Iridium Armor, Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle, 2x Marker Drones
2x Bodyguards - Fusion Guns, Plasma Rifles
Ethereal
Farseer Ally - Doom, Runes of Warding

Riptide - Heavy Burst Cannon, TL-Smart Missile System, Skyfire, Interceptor
Riptide - Heavy Burst Cannon, TL-Smart Missile System, Skyfire, Interceptor
Riptide - Heavy Burst Cannon, TL-Smart Missile System, Skyfire, Interceptor

10x Fire Warriors
10x Fire Warriors
10x Fire Warriors
10x Fire Warriors
10x Fire Warriors
3x Guardian Jetbikes

7x Pathfinders
7x Pathfinders
7x Pathfinders

Hammerhead - Ion Cannon, Disruption Pods

Aegis Defense Line


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Mission: Crusade - 3 Objectives


Deployment: Dawn of War


Initiative: Tau


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PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:

Tau:

My first impression of his army was.....damn, that's a lot of shooting. Enough to even make my wraiths cringe. First turn, he's going to have 50 S5 shots + potentially 36 rending S6 shots and more. Then when I get into his "sweet spot" - 15"or closer - I'm looking at 150 S5 shots, 36 S6 shots + change! And finally, I will be charging into another 150+36 shots!!! All the while, he will probably be hitting on at least BS5 from Markerlights and with re-rolls to wound from Doom. I seriously doubt the resiliency of my wraiths compared to all that firepower!

Then when my flyers come in, I need to avoid his 36" intercepting riptides. 12 S6 rending shots will make a mockery of my AV11 flyers so I can't expect to come in with them to alpha-strike his forces. That means a reduction of my firepower and my movement is restricted as well. I can't take a "direct" path to his army to target the units I want, not unless I want to get shot down. Instead, I need to circumvent the threat radius of his riptides.

Riptides are to Tau as heldrakes are to Chaos. They are to Tau what Vendettas are to the Imperial Guards or annihilation barges/wraiths are to the crons. Riptides are without a doubt the single best unit in their young codex. The triple-riptide Tau list will probably be one of the most competitive Tau lists. Excellent firepower, high resiliency and their best anti-air option - these guys will be a problem for me in much the same way my annihilation barges will be a (minor) problem to him. I just may have to ignore them like I normally do against all the other units I am not so good in killing. In most of his games, they usually do the most damage and they nearly always survive. Heck, I am probably the only opponent to ever take out of his riptides....but that was back when he was only running 2. They make for an interesting barometer on how his army will do. While not a VIP target, the more riptides you can kill, the better off you probably are.

Finally, terrain will play a very important factor here. There is no area terrain for me to hide. My opponent set up terrain before I came and while he put up ample terrain, he didn't really put up any LOS-blocking terrain. Now I could have switched it up and added some LOS-blocking terrain....but I decided not to. The true test of a championship-caliber army is they need to have the ability to deal with any adverse conditions, like unfavorable terrain or going 2nd against a gunline army. Because in a tournament environment, you can't always expect things to go your way. Sometimes, you are dealt a bad hand and you just have to deal with it. Adapt to the situation and adjust your tactics. That is the mark of a good general. In any case, I thought that terrain would just make me have to work harder and I relished the challenge.


Necrons:

Here is why I think I will win. It is a principle I call Positional Dominance, and this is what my army is a master of. Positional Dominance is basically whoever can control the Movement phase in an objectives-based scenario has the advantage. If I can stop him from advancing by throwing a lot of fast threats at him, then he will be out of position to reach the objectives in the late game, even if he shoots down all my units. I am pressing him and basically setting up my troops on the objectives (actually, with my night scythes, I don't even need to expose my troops so early) while he is defending and staying still. Basically, it is his game to lose as he is defending his objectives and never really threatening mine. Even if he is able to successfully defend his objective, he can't really reach mine so at best, it will be a draw. However, if he fails, then I will be contesting his objective while keeping mine. At least that is the philosophy behind my strategy. No, the game won't be won on his shooting or my assault. The game will be won in the Movement phase and that is why the necrons are so good. They are, without a shadow of a doubt, the new masters of the Movement phase.

But for my strategy to work, I need to make sure I do 3 very important things:

1) Prevent him from advancing. Most people make the assumption that the wraiths are there to try to kill the enemy in assault. Well, that is one way to beat your opponent. However, the true purpose of my wraiths are to stop my opponents from advancing. Keep them on the defensive and to focus on my wraiths. So come Turn 5 after they've killed all my wraiths, then it hits them like a truck how far they are from the objectives. That is one of the reasons why wraiths are necessary in my list. They are there to control my opponent's Movement phase.

2) Most people would think that you need to kill off the enemy troops to win. That's true in most cases but sometimes extremely difficult to do, especially when you have limited firepower against troops that can go-to-ground for 2+ cover behind the Aegis (which, ironically, is actually ok for me as it stops their mobility). However, what I really need to do is to kill off his mobility. Take out any fast units - his guardian jetbikes and even his suits/riptides - that can reach my objectives. I especially need to kill off his jetbikes, as I can control where his suits/riptides will move with my wraiths there. They won't be advancing as long as I have my wraiths in his way. So my strategy is to stop his advancement and kill off any units fast enough to threaten my objectives.

3) Kill off his Ethereal. While his riptides may be the best units in his army, his Warlord, the Ethereal, is the single most important unit in his army. Heck, in any Tau army. If I can kill him, then I have a chance. If not, then I will probably lose. That is just how important his Warlord is. And it doesn't hurt that he gives up a extra Victory Point when killed.

So I am expecting a bloodbath in this battle. I may come out more battered than my opponent, but I feel that if I stick to my philosophy/strategy, then I will have the better chance for a victory, no matter how many units I need to sacrifice. Man, this is going to be a fun game.


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Deployment:




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Tau 1




Necrons 1




Tau 2





Necrons 2




Tau 3




Necrons 3




Tau 4




Necrons 4




Tau 5




Necrons 5




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POST-GAME ANALYSIS:

I think the Tau army has a slight advantage because you have to come to him and play his game. First round of shooting will hurt your wraiths simply to much and he can simply "ignore" your barges because the can only shoot at fire warriors behind a defence line. After that the riptides will dominate the midfield and eating croissants for breakfast. Necron only stands a chance if those wraiths get true and i thinks thats only going to happen if the Tau player makes a big mistake or really sucks at shooting at the first and second turn.

Still would like to see how this turns out!

I think the Tau are going to struggle to deal with the night scythes as they don't seem to have any high strength ranged weapons except the ion cannon the hammerhead (I could be wrong as I don't know what the overcharged burst cannons on the riptides do).

I think if the necron player can get this wraiths and lords in early and support with the scythes then the necrons will take it.

A couple of decent rounds shooting from markerlighted fire warriors could do a number on those wraiths though.

fierce fight for the Necrons. really wish i can see the Terrain. Though they could use more scoring mobility, that's the only weakness i see. more jetbikes or outflanking kroot perhaps?

can't wait to see the report!

Why did you bring two Regeneration Orbs?

shogun wrote:

I think the Tau army has a slight advantage because you have to come to him and play his game. First round of shooting will hurt your wraiths simply to much and he can simply "ignore" your barges because the can only shoot at fire warriors behind a defence line. After that the riptides will dominate the midfield and eating croissants for breakfast. Necron only stands a chance if those wraiths get true and i thinks thats only going to happen if the Tau player makes a big mistake or really sucks at shooting at the first and second turn.

Still would like to see how this turns out!

I defintely wanted to go 1st, that's for sure. It would've given him 1 less turn to shoot with.

rohansoldier wrote:
I think the Tau are going to struggle to deal with the night scythes as they don't seem to have any high strength ranged weapons except the ion cannon the hammerhead (I could be wrong as I don't know what the overcharged burst cannons on the riptides do).

I think if the necron player can get this wraiths and lords in early and support with the scythes then the necrons will take it.

A couple of decent rounds shooting from markerlighted fire warriors could do a number on those wraiths though.

Overcharged Heavy Burst Cannons give him 12 S6 Rending shots. TL-SMS missiles also give him 4 TL-S5 shots that ignore cover.

And his Riptides have got both Skyfire and Interceptor. My opponent has got decent Anti-air firepower.

Deshkar wrote:
fierce fight for the Necrons. really wish i can see the Terrain. Though they could use more scoring mobility, that's the only weakness i see. more jetbikes or outflanking kroot perhaps?

can't wait to see the report!

There is nowhere for my wraiths to hide. There is no LOS-blocking terrain.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Why did you bring two Regeneration Orbs?

So that my lords (and them alone) can come back on 4+'s.

I feel that an improved chance to be able to come back from the dead is worth its weight in gold....even if the unit can't benefit from it.

The overcharged burstcannon is 18 shoots its 12 or normal all at STR 6

i dont see what this is going to prove? other than a ripping good time!!!!

you have a 100% optimized necron list, he does not have a 100% optimized tau list, I dont even think we know what that is yet....

right off the bat i dont agree with burst cannons at all...they are not the best option for the riptide.

yes you can nova for 12 shots (all of which are gets hot and only str 6) plus your missiles is 16 shots, with the ion cannon you can have 8 sms twin linked missiles from nova (str 7) and 3 ion shots (str 7) that do not get hot...and the ion cannon can be overcharged for blast. Overall, you got better options.

Personally, I will take 5 less shots that are all higher strength and 8 of them (vs 4) are twin linked which is way better vs air since the pathfinder markers are not going to light up any croissants.

basic math hammer - burst cannon 12 burst cannons hit 6 times (2 gets hot), doing 2 glances/pens (rending could be nice?) and 4 sms do 1.5 ---total of 3.5 (with less chance of pens vs glances)

ion accelerator - 3 shots doing .75 and 8 sms missiles will get 3 glances/pens - means 3.75 glances/pens (with WAY higher chance of pens)

Theorius wrote:


you have a 100% optimized necron list, he does not have a 100% optimized tau list, I dont even think we know what that is yet....

You have a good point. Although wraithwing is everywhere which disappoints me. No creativity to the list, just throw wraithwing at people to as a take-all-comers list.

I can see the Tau struggling uless they can wipe the wraith squads before the flyers turn up..

I'm actually going with the Tau in this one. The Flyers seem to be the biggest threat, but all 3 Riptides combined should be able to take out 2 flyers on the turn they arrive.

With no LOS blocking terrain, I wouldn't be surprised if the Tau can wipe out a unit of wraiths on turn 1. If the Tau really need to, they can put over 80 wounds into the Wraiths if they get too close (end their turn 20" or closer) not counting Doom. And that's just from the Fire Warriors.

I'm rooting for jy2, but I actually expect this to be an uphill fight for the Necrons.

yeah tau can put out an obscene amount of mid-str fire, that's what is needed to put Wraiths down, and it also really depends on the amount and positioning of terrain. would be interesting to see how JY handles this.

Providing the Wraiths never get into melee, and the flyers are delayed it could be a easy victory to the Tau, in the case where all wraiths get into melee and all the flyers come in at the same time, Tau will struggle.

If the Tau can put a big enough dent in the Wraiths on Turn 1, then this will be a tough fight for the Crons. When the Flyers come on, those Triptides need to take down 1 or 2 right away to give the Tau any hope of holding the crons at bay. Plenty of ML hits will help the Triptides and the FW squads tear those Wraths apart, but only for one turn at full effectivness. It'll be interesting to see how the Wraiths do against Tau supporting fire Overwatch too.

If the Tau take enough Wraiths down turn 1, they have a shot.

The Hammerhead is gonna struggle against the AB's alone. There isnt much anti-AV13 in the Tau list, so its gonna have its hands full. Although the Commander and his unit could DS next to one. But that leaves them very vulnerable.

The AB's can also put the hurt on both the FW's and potentially the Riptides. Or Glance the HHead plenty.

The crons need at least 2 flyers to come on Turn 2, and ideally more to really stretch the Tau shooting.

If the Wraiths reach the Riptides then they are in for some hurt too. Rend and whip coils will bring them down, even if the Tides Smash to ID them. They just dont have the attacks or WS to hold their own I reckon.

Should be a good game!

I agree that your necrons are a lot worse off than you think they are. All wraiths are are fast MEQ when the opponent stacks a mass amount of low ap high str shots. If he focuses he should be able to able to take out one unit a turn. This game will come down to luck and that's it. If Jy2 can make enough saves early in the game, he wins. There isn't really much strategy involved when you have fast cc units vs a gun line.

As a seasoned Tau player I predict this game will come down to three key factors:

1. Tau Deployment
2. Whether or not Necrons Seize the Initiative
3. The amount of Wraiths the Tau Player kills in first two turns

With this Tau list, I would pour everything I had into the three wraith squads. Which is a lot. And turn two is probably just going to be a slowed amount of shots assuming whatever is left will be within 15in of those firewarriors (3 shots each warrior). Those heavy burst cannons will help against the wraiths too. Those barges and lords can do some damage too, but are not by any means that threat that those wraiths pose. The flyers can be annoying, but those riptides will slowly grind them down. Even if they only kill one flyer from intercepting turn 2, they will blow the others apart as the game goes on.

If you can have just one wraith from each squad and the two Lords survive for a turn two charge, you'll have a good chance, but only if everything makes it and charges separate units.

I think Crons win. Those D-Lord can take a lot shots and if only a few models make it into the gunline it might be over. I think Jy2 will be able to keep a Scythe or 2 out of skyfire range and play the objective game at the very least. Also, Anni Barge damage starts to add up quickly when they are left untouched, which they will be in this game.

Doom will hurt, but any Tau list without hymp-sides is doing something wrong.

I ran an identical necron list at 1850 (subtract one of the flyers+5 warriors). I found I was losing a lot due to my HQ getting clobbered thus giving up slay the warlord - or at least that didn't help matters with even number objective games. So I took an overlord as the HQ instead and stuck him in one of the scythes for added protection. I also swapped out one of the wraith units for a butt load of scarabs (2 bases can usually take out most vehicles).

I think the wraiths are going have a hard time of it. At least they'll be bullet magnets. Most of my games end with the wraiths almost extinct but I either hold or contest needed objectives starting turn 5 - and pray for the game to end

 hippesthippo wrote:
I think Crons win. Those D-Lord can take a lot shots and if only a few models make it into the gunline it might be over. I think Jy2 will be able to keep a Scythe or 2 out of skyfire range and play the objective game at the very least. Also, Anni Barge damage starts to add up quickly when they are left untouched, which they will be in this game.

Doom will hurt, but any Tau list without hymp-sides is doing something wrong.

Exactly, those RT'd are very expensive right there and he probably would have been better off with a unit or two of HYMP B-sides.

This game is slanted heavily toward the necrons though, anyone who doesn't think so has been asleep for most of 6th. This is a 3 objective game where tau have the softest targets for first blood, no real threat for line breaker and a VERY weak warlord point given up by the Ethereal. Not to mention the necrons can simply skirt the range of the RT's interceptor fire, oh and did I mention he has troops in NS in and objective game where he gets the last turn? Why is it so bad for him to go second? His wraiths and D-lords are throw away units, heck his A barges are too and considering how ridiculously under costed those units are for their resiliency I don't see thew Tau wining this one.

Tau suck at objectives, always have, still do. Where the DE struggle to hold objectives, the Tau simply can hardly ever get there

I think tau. Those wraiths are gonna take a ton of damage tryign to charge with all those fire warriors overwatching

chuxfm wrote:
I think tau. Those wraiths are gonna take a ton of damage tryign to charge with all those fire warriors overwatching

Oh yea? And if they are all within 6" of eachother what do you think tesla arching will do first?

 Red Corsair wrote:

chuxfm wrote:
I think tau. Those wraiths are gonna take a ton of damage tryign to charge with all those fire warriors overwatching

Oh yea? And if they are all within 6" of eachother what do you think tesla arching will do first?

Fire Warriors + Ethereal > Tesla arching

ajsnips44 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

chuxfm wrote:
I think tau. Those wraiths are gonna take a ton of damage tryign to charge with all those fire warriors overwatching

Oh yea? And if they are all within 6" of eachother what do you think tesla arching will do first?

Fire Warriors + Ethereal > Tesla arching

AV 13 + Fliers with TD > then whole tau gunline. Ethereal can only hide in one unit. He should be toast before they ever get an extra shot.

The Necrons will take this, its all about presenting to much targets.
Move Wraiths max forward, barges same so they have shots next turn.
In turn two you will either get wraith assaults or the ab en scythes taking down some riptides and almost guaranteed ethereal kill, after that its over ...

I'm calling it a draw. Necrons get battered by shooting, but threat of wraiths keeps Tau from advancing till its too late. I think Tau take First Blood, and Warlord, and one objective, while Crons take one objective Warlord and linebreaker.

I think this will hinge on the Tau turn 2 shooting, especially target priority, as jy2 will minimise the alpha strike damage. If they can take down two wraith squads including a lord (res orbs could be big) then have two/three layers of bubble wrap to absorb the last squad then they will be in good shape to focus on the flyers, barges and move out with the tides to contest whilst holding one objective. Would be good to see the board and objective placement before making a call.

by scrolling through the pictures i saw


the wraiths died coming in, only 1 dlord made it in and he died to the crisis suits in melee?

the riptides seemed to have trouble dropping the croissants cause they didnt die very quickly it seems (one riptide died as well)

It looks like tau lost by objectives but almost wiped the necrons from the board.

if that last picture was the end of the game that is!

Theorius wrote:
by scrolling through the pictures i saw


the wraiths died coming in, only 1 dlord made it in and he died to the crisis suits in melee?

the riptides seemed to have trouble dropping the croissants cause they didnt die very quickly it seems (one riptide died as well)

It looks like tau lost by objectives but almost wiped the necrons from the board.

if that last picture was the end of the game that is!

Also scrolled down the pictures. Really dont like the uneven objectives setup. If tau got to place 2 out of 3 objectives the won the game. Thats why my buddy and I always play with even objectives or place the third in the middle of the field.

shogun wrote:

Theorius wrote:
by scrolling through the pictures i saw


the wraiths died coming in, only 1 dlord made it in and he died to the crisis suits in melee?

the riptides seemed to have trouble dropping the croissants cause they didnt die very quickly it seems (one riptide died as well)

It looks like tau lost by objectives but almost wiped the necrons from the board.

if that last picture was the end of the game that is!

Also scrolled down the pictures. Really dont like the uneven objectives setup. If tau got to place 2 out of 3 objectives the won the game. Thats why my buddy and I always play with even objectives or place the third in the middle of the field.

No, the game is designed with the possibility of uneven objectives on purpose. You need to develop an Army that has mobility, either mobile scoring or at least mobile contesting.

Edit: there is a lot I don't like about 6ed (notably random tables), but uneven objectives forces a new aspect of tactical thinking on what could easily be a gunline versus gunline edition.

PRE-GAME ANALYSIS posted on the opening post.


Thanks for all the comments so far.

I voted Necrons, they'll take a beating but are more equipped to win this particular mission (better mobility).

The riptide load-out seems odd to me in that it doesn't compliment the rest of the list very well. Switching one or two to ion accelerators would add some much needed range, AP2, and S8+. The Tau don't have a realistic answer to AV 13+ (hell even a decent amount of AV12 will probably give them fits) and if the Tau are clumped to make use of their Ethereal/Overwatch rules, the barges/arcing could do some serious damage.

I'm interested to see how much damage the tau gunline can put out against the wraiths though.

Nice pre-game analysis. What are your thoughts on the 4d6" moving, objective contesting Riptides?
My worry is that the Tau can take out all of your Wraiths and Lords by turn 3 or 4, then jump a couple of Riptides over to contest your objectives by turn 5 or 6. Even all the tesla in your army combined will struggle to bring down one Riptide.

The other issue I see is that, with no LOS blocking terrain, your Warriors will easily be wiped out if they try to grab an objective too soon. Say on turn 5 or turn 6, you disembark 2 units by an objective and the game goes on? There's no way they'll survive. How do you deal with that problem?

shogun wrote:

Also scrolled down the pictures. Really dont like the uneven objectives setup. If tau got to place 2 out of 3 objectives the won the game. Thats why my buddy and I always play with even objectives or place the third in the middle of the field.

I won the roll to place objectives first. I also won the roll to pick sides. My opponent won the roll to go first. My opponent actually surprised me by putting his objective in the middle of the board, but I suppose his strategy was to use his jetbikes to contest in the end.

Mark kelly wrote:
The overcharged burstcannon is 18 shoots its 12 or normal all at STR 6

It's 8 shots normal or 12 rending shots on Nova-charge.

Theorius wrote:
i dont see what this is going to prove? other than a ripping good time!!!!

LOL! I see what you did there. Very punny.

Theorius wrote:
you have a 100% optimized necron list, he does not have a 100% optimized tau list, I dont even think we know what that is yet....

right off the bat i dont agree with burst cannons at all...they are not the best option for the riptide.

yes you can nova for 12 shots (all of which are gets hot and only str 6) plus your missiles is 16 shots, with the ion cannon you can have 8 sms twin linked missiles from nova (str 7) and 3 ion shots (str 7) that do not get hot...and the ion cannon can be overcharged for blast. Overall, you got better options.

Personally, I will take 5 less shots that are all higher strength and 8 of them (vs 4) are twin linked which is way better vs air since the pathfinder markers are not going to light up any croissants.

basic math hammer - burst cannon 12 burst cannons hit 6 times (2 gets hot), doing 2 glances/pens (rending could be nice?) and 4 sms do 1.5 ---total of 3.5 (with less chance of pens vs glances)

ion accelerator - 3 shots doing .75 and 8 sms missiles will get 3 glances/pens - means 3.75 glances/pens (with WAY higher chance of pens)

His list is very good. I think it is a good blueprint for a non-deathstar, balanced Tau army. You're going to find future tournament lists to use similar armies like this, just as most competitive necron armies use lists similar to mine (not in any ways implying that I originated my list).

The HBC (Heavy Burst Cannons) are really good. If I ran 2 riptides, I would give them both HBC's. However, for my 3rd Riptide, I'd probably go with the Ion Acelerator to mix things up.

Dracoknight wrote:
Providing the Wraiths never get into melee, and the flyers are delayed it could be a easy victory to the Tau, in the case where all wraiths get into melee and all the flyers come in at the same time, Tau will struggle.

BTW, did I mention that his Warlord got the Warlord Trait of -1 on all my Reserves?

 hippesthippo wrote:
I think Crons win. Those D-Lord can take a lot shots and if only a few models make it into the gunline it might be over. I think Jy2 will be able to keep a Scythe or 2 out of skyfire range and play the objective game at the very least. Also, Anni Barge damage starts to add up quickly when they are left untouched, which they will be in this game.

Doom will hurt, but any Tau list without hymp-sides is doing something wrong.

Are HYMP broadsides really that good? My opponent already has a lot of anti-infantry shooting already. What I feel he lacks is some anti AV13/14 offense. His list will always have problems against my annihilation barges or my daemon soulgrinders.

 necron99 wrote:
I ran an identical necron list at 1850 (subtract one of the flyers+5 warriors). I found I was losing a lot due to my HQ getting clobbered thus giving up slay the warlord - or at least that didn't help matters with even number objective games. So I took an overlord as the HQ instead and stuck him in one of the scythes for added protection. I also swapped out one of the wraith units for a butt load of scarabs (2 bases can usually take out most vehicles).

I think the wraiths are going have a hard time of it. At least they'll be bullet magnets. Most of my games end with the wraiths almost extinct but I either hold or contest needed objectives starting turn 5 - and pray for the game to end

That's also happened in quite a few of my games. I am getting desperately pummeled but manage to win the game with last turn troop drops and then the game ending. Basically, I win through my philosophy of Positional Dominance (more details in my Pre-Game Analysis) and a little luck. Necrons are probably one of the very few armies that can still win despite some devastating losses.

To mitigate the Warlord factor, I give my D-lords Res Orbs. Those little pieces of wargear have won me quite a few games. They are my X-factor.

Theorius wrote:
by scrolling through the pictures i saw


the wraiths died coming in, only 1 dlord made it in and he died to the crisis suits in melee?

the riptides seemed to have trouble dropping the croissants cause they didnt die very quickly it seems (one riptide died as well)

It looks like tau lost by objectives but almost wiped the necrons from the board.

if that last picture was the end of the game that is!

Remember in the other thread when you said you ignored objectives to win games by tabling?.... This is why that strategy is bad. NS transport troops is seriously that ridiculous, doesn't take much skill IMO to pinpoint drop a scoring unit from a flier last turn. I'm not implying that Jim is anything but a good player, just iterating why necrons are so good right now. When everyone else can't go further then 6" even from open topped transports and get out, a 36" flier dropping troops without scatter is that broken for only 165pts troops included.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, come on dude, who scrolls through photo bucket and spoils the report!

The riptides will instant gib the wraiths and can bring down the fliers... oh wait you dont have any broadsides, skyrays, or skyfire units...?

SPOLIERS!
CMON MAN!

 Tomb King wrote:
The riptides will instant gib the wraiths and can bring down the fliers... oh wait you dont have any broadsides, skyrays, or skyfire units...?

the riptides all have skyfire

iGuy91 wrote:SPOLIERS!
CMON MAN!

lol, dont know the results was just saying.

Theorius wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:
The riptides will instant gib the wraiths and can bring down the fliers... oh wait you dont have any broadsides, skyrays, or skyfire units...?

the riptides all have skyfire

If you have 18 wraiths and 4 flyers which takes priority of fire? Too much for one units to target.

 Tomb King wrote:

iGuy91 wrote:SPOLIERS!
CMON MAN!

lol, dont know the results was just saying.

Theorius wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:
The riptides will instant gib the wraiths and can bring down the fliers... oh wait you dont have any broadsides, skyrays, or skyfire units...?

the riptides all have skyfire

If you have 18 wraiths and 4 flyers which takes priority of fire? Too much for one units to target.

well, they have interceptor and skyfire, so typically during jy2's turn when the come in he shoots the sms at them, then during his turn he shoots the burst at them (if they didnt die) or the wraiths based on how dangerous he finds any of them.

 jifel wrote:
I'm calling it a draw. Necrons get battered by shooting, but threat of wraiths keeps Tau from advancing till its too late. I think Tau take First Blood, and Warlord, and one objective, while Crons take one objective Warlord and linebreaker.

In that case, it's a win for the crons because the Tau Warlord (the Ethereal) gives off an additional VP if killed.

djn wrote:
I think this will hinge on the Tau turn 2 shooting, especially target priority, as jy2 will minimise the alpha strike damage. If they can take down two wraith squads including a lord (res orbs could be big) then have two/three layers of bubble wrap to absorb the last squad then they will be in good shape to focus on the flyers, barges and move out with the tides to contest whilst holding one objective. Would be good to see the board and objective placement before making a call.

There is no real LOS-blocking terrain. There are 3 objectives - 1 in the middle and 2 on my side. That is because I won the roll-off for placing objectives first and also the the roll to pick sides first.

anonymou5 wrote:
No, the game is designed with the possibility of uneven objectives on purpose. You need to develop an Army that has mobility, either mobile scoring or at least mobile contesting.

Edit: there is a lot I don't like about 6ed (notably random tables), but uneven objectives forces a new aspect of tactical thinking on what could easily be a gunline versus gunline edition.

Agreed. This encourages one to design more balanced armies that also need to take into account mobility.

Uneven objectives is just as important as random game lengths. Without random game lengths, necrons, eldar, dark eldar and any army with ultra-fast troops would dominate the game. Without random/uneven objectives, pure gunlines would dominate the game.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:
I voted Necrons, they'll take a beating but are more equipped to win this particular mission (better mobility).

The riptide load-out seems odd to me in that it doesn't compliment the rest of the list very well. Switching one or two to ion accelerators would add some much needed range, AP2, and S8+. The Tau don't have a realistic answer to AV 13+ (hell even a decent amount of AV12 will probably give them fits) and if the Tau are clumped to make use of their Ethereal/Overwatch rules, the barges/arcing could do some serious damage.

I'm interested to see how much damage the tau gunline can put out against the wraiths though.

The HBC is a very versatile weapon. Think 3 assault cannons, but with better range and with the ability to ignore cover with some Markerlight help. Many people take a look at the high strength or lower AP of the Ion Accelerators and they automatically think it is a better weapon. IMO, volume-of-fire is what wins the day for Tau and the HBC gives you that in spades. Anyways, that's probably another topic for debate in the Tactica forum. Personally, I would go with a 2:1 ratio - 2 HBC's for every 1 Ion Accelerator. As for AT, I'd probably run 2 railheads.

Siphen wrote:
Nice pre-game analysis. What are your thoughts on the 4d6" moving, objective contesting Riptides?
My worry is that the Tau can take out all of your Wraiths and Lords by turn 3 or 4, then jump a couple of Riptides over to contest your objectives by turn 5 or 6. Even all the tesla in your army combined will struggle to bring down one Riptide.

The other issue I see is that, with no LOS blocking terrain, your Warriors will easily be wiped out if they try to grab an objective too soon. Say on turn 5 or turn 6, you disembark 2 units by an objective and the game goes on? There's no way they'll survive. How do you deal with that problem?

The 4D6" is good, though personally, I have yet to see a Tau player use it. Most of the time, they are over-charging their weapons instead and in this game, there is no shortage of targets. From wraiths to night scythes, his riptides should be doing a lot of shooting instead. Over-charging his HBC's also makes his intercepting fire that much more scary to me. If he doesn't, I'd probably alpha-strike his units on the turns my night scythes come in.

Warriors won't disembark until Turn 5. How you make them more survivable is by how you place the objectives. You want to place them as close to your deployment edge as possible. You also want to place them where your guys can get cover. In this game, I put them in ruins near my table edge so that my warriors could go-to-ground for 2+ cover if necessary.

And then you pray that the game ends.

 Tomb King wrote:
The riptides will instant gib the wraiths and can bring down the fliers... oh wait you dont have any broadsides, skyrays, or skyfire units...?

Riptides can't insta-gib the wraiths. Their shooting are only S6 in this game....unless you are talking about assault? Also, they have both skyfire and interceptor.

 Tomb King wrote:

iGuy91 wrote:SPOLIERS!
CMON MAN!

lol, dont know the results was just saying.

I don't believe he was refering to you with his post, TK.

 jifel wrote:
I'm calling it a draw. Necrons get battered by shooting, but threat of wraiths keeps Tau from advancing till its too late. I think Tau take First Blood, and Warlord, and one objective, while Crons take one objective Warlord and linebreaker.

You realize that would be a Necron win because of the ethereal point, right?

I think the Tau list is not as balanced as it could be. First I don't think three Riptides are necessary... More win versus balance. Second the army has very little to deal with AV14... It would really have a tough time versus two or more land raiders... That is probably not as big a deal versus your army but I think overall it's not a good thing. Third I'd find the points to mount the Farseer on a jetbike... That would open more options during most games. Fourth the army is very static... I think you will win simply because your Necron army is much more mobile just as you have pointed out earlier. I wouldn't count on the Riptides for a strong counter assault... They are basically jetpack monstrous creature gun platforms and that's it.

I do think it will be a great battle though and the Tau could definitely win. Looking forward to the batrep!

Necrons are going to get owned!

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Second the army has very little to deal with AV14... It would really have a tough time versus two or more land raiders... That is probably not as big a deal versus your army but I think overall it's not a good thing.

36 S6 rending shots actually has a fantastic chance of dealing with AV 14, and that's before you start accounting for marker lights.

An assault cannon is better than a lascannon for cracking AV 14. The 3 Riptides have essentially 9 assault cannons between them.

I still think as JY2 put it, the necron positional dominance will reign supreme. I think necrons take it in a close one. Just a lot of viable threats. 3 anni barges firing all game is going to do work staying at 30ish inch range with them just arcing all over the place.

 Janthkin wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Second the army has very little to deal with AV14... It would really have a tough time versus two or more land raiders... That is probably not as big a deal versus your army but I think overall it's not a good thing.

36 S6 rending shots actually has a fantastic chance of dealing with AV 14, and that's before you start accounting for marker lights.

An assault cannon is better than a lascannon for cracking AV 14. The 3 Riptides have essentially 9 assault cannons between them.

thats a good point, since 6 shots hit (without markerlights, but lets say they get bs 5 from marker so 9-10 hit, so you will get 1-2 glances/pens vs a landraider per riptide that gets nova for the burst, not bad!

Turn 1 up!





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think the Tau list is not as balanced as it could be. First I don't think three Riptides are necessary... More win versus balance. Second the army has very little to deal with AV14... It would really have a tough time versus two or more land raiders... That is probably not as big a deal versus your army but I think overall it's not a good thing. Third I'd find the points to mount the Farseer on a jetbike... That would open more options during most games. Fourth the army is very static... I think you will win simply because your Necron army is much more mobile just as you have pointed out earlier. I wouldn't count on the Riptides for a strong counter assault... They are basically jetpack monstrous creature gun platforms and that's it.

I do think it will be a great battle though and the Tau could definitely win. Looking forward to the batrep!

It may not be necessary to take 3 Riptides....but they are good to have. Just like I don't feel that 3 heldrakes is necessary in a CSM army, but people still run them anyways. Highly efficient units tend to get spammed by the more competitive players (as long as they don't have problems against spam-armies).

AV14 is over-rated. Most of my armies don't really deal with AV14 that well. Necrons, tyranids, daemons....they all have to rely on assault to kill AV14. Yet, all of them are good enough to win tournaments IMO (well, maybe except for my daemons). Nowadays, you have to worry more about AV13 as that is much more prevalent. The Tau have enough tools to deal with 1 or perhaps even 2 AV14 vehicles and IMO, that is good enough.

I like the farseer on a jetbike, but only if the points allowed. To me, the jetbike is a secondary upgrade that is good to have, but not a necessity.

Static is a problem with this army. Actually, it will be a problem with most Tau armies. My opponent can probably do some work on his list to improve his mobility slightly. However, mainly he's going to need to adjust his tactics. Actually, most Tau players in general will have to adjust their tactics if they want to be able to beat top tournament armies run by good generals.

bodazoka wrote:
Necrons are going to get owned!

Ah....you have much confidence in my ability, young one.

 Janthkin wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Second the army has very little to deal with AV14... It would really have a tough time versus two or more land raiders... That is probably not as big a deal versus your army but I think overall it's not a good thing.

36 S6 rending shots actually has a fantastic chance of dealing with AV 14, and that's before you start accounting for marker lights.

An assault cannon is better than a lascannon for cracking AV 14. The 3 Riptides have essentially 9 assault cannons between them.

Right. Over-charged HBC's can be used to deal with AV14. That is why it is such a versatile weapon.

Ouch. That was a veryyy rough turn 1.
Were his saves poor? Just a ton of wounds?
Damn.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Ouch. That was a veryyy rough turn 1.
Were his saves poor? Just a ton of wounds?
Damn.

My saves were maybe a little below average but not exceedingly bad. What killed me were all those buffs. Markerlights to essentially make his entire army BS5 or better, both his troops and his riptides. Markerlights really amplify the power of the Tau and is the secret to what makes their shooting so effective.

The crucial roll I needed to make was for my Warlord getting back up. Unfortunately, I didn't.

This is going to be a long game.

The equalizing factor will be if your flyers come in force, and they survive long enough to drop their cargo on T4/5 to claim objectives. The Tau will eat those french pastries if they come in piecemeal, and losing your warlord and unit of wraiths definitely hurt. Also a big thing that happened as well was your shooting failed to kill the ethereal, and if the tau shooting works like it should, you could be pinned and losing lots of guys.

Turn 1 tau!!!

ok pack it up, nothing to see here....tau won turn 1 game is over!!!

 jy2 wrote:

bodazoka wrote:
Necrons are going to get owned!

Ah....you have much confidence in my ability, young one.

haha definitely not a comment on your ability master!

I just have 0 faith in wraithwing against Tau.

3 x AV13 ghost arks with kitted out OL 's 3 x AB 's and a DS monolith! + fruit is the answer for Tau IMO.

The funny thing is, that the Riptides haven't really contributed much, compared to the Firewarrior+Ethereal.

I still have faith in JY2, he's come back from Worse!

Jesus H Creed, remind me never to take Wraiths against Tau!
O_O

 jy2 wrote:

 jifel wrote:
I'm calling it a draw. Necrons get battered by shooting, but threat of wraiths keeps Tau from advancing till its too late. I think Tau take First Blood, and Warlord, and one objective, while Crons take one objective Warlord and linebreaker.

In that case, it's a win for the crons because the Tau Warlord (the Ethereal) gives off an additional VP if killed.

Excellent point. I may still call it a draw, I'm iffy on if you can get linebreaker... I think you'll be in position for a turn 5 narrow win, that'll go down to a draw after a turn 6 where linebreaking unit gets evaporated.

Edit: Looking at whats popular for Tau, I'm thinking the only thing with a chance is a MASSIVE Drop Pod army, or for Nids a crap ton of biovores to hide far away and out of LoS. I think I'm going to start taking two units, just because of Tau.

 jifel wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 jifel wrote:
I'm calling it a draw. Necrons get battered by shooting, but threat of wraiths keeps Tau from advancing till its too late. I think Tau take First Blood, and Warlord, and one objective, while Crons take one objective Warlord and linebreaker.

In that case, it's a win for the crons because the Tau Warlord (the Ethereal) gives off an additional VP if killed.

Excellent point. I may still call it a draw, I'm iffy on if you can get linebreaker... I think you'll be in position for a turn 5 narrow win, that'll go down to a draw after a turn 6 where linebreaking unit gets evaporated.

Edit: Looking at whats popular for Tau, I'm thinking the only thing with a chance is a MASSIVE Drop Pod army, or for Nids a crap ton of biovores to hide far away and out of LoS. I think I'm going to start taking two units, just because of Tau.

Or a 2+ re-rollable Invul on some FMC!

 skoffs wrote:
Jesus H Creed, remind me never to take Wraiths against Tau!
O_O

Wraiths are very good against many tau lists, it is just not very good against this particular tau list. Most tau lists have smaller quantity of fire and more quality of fire, (s7/8 ap2/1 shots that do more damage) This list has a ton of shots but they are all s5/6 ap5/4. This list shines against wraith 3++ saves, where a plasma rifle heavy list would have trouble.

The tau player has nothing to shoot at those annihilation barges. Last turn he should have started moving forward. His only real hope is to either get behind the barges or do a crushing attack with the riptides. Without those wraiths tau can start moving its firewarriors out. If they can just get a riptide to sit on every objective and a unit of warriors to claim on of the objectives I think they will have this one in the bag.

 Tomb King wrote:

 jifel wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 jifel wrote:
I'm calling it a draw. Necrons get battered by shooting, but threat of wraiths keeps Tau from advancing till its too late. I think Tau take First Blood, and Warlord, and one objective, while Crons take one objective Warlord and linebreaker.

In that case, it's a win for the crons because the Tau Warlord (the Ethereal) gives off an additional VP if killed.

Excellent point. I may still call it a draw, I'm iffy on if you can get linebreaker... I think you'll be in position for a turn 5 narrow win, that'll go down to a draw after a turn 6 where linebreaking unit gets evaporated.

Edit: Looking at whats popular for Tau, I'm thinking the only thing with a chance is a MASSIVE Drop Pod army, or for Nids a crap ton of biovores to hide far away and out of LoS. I think I'm going to start taking two units, just because of Tau.

Or a 2+ re-rollable Invul on some FMC!

Or Heavy Artillery Batteries with Prescience supported by Sabres (so ridiculous)

I do think you did bad deployment, you should not have gone to him, but hide as a best as possible and go outside his 30 range or los from the bit of terrain.

Just running open field won't work... if you had waited untill turn 2 when flyers came on then you can try to slither forward with the help of the flyers and presenting to much targets!

Anyhow you are not forcing him to commit. Now he picks you off and he will then comit when he has full advantage.

 lambsandlions wrote:
The tau player has nothing to shoot at those annihilation barges. Last turn he should have started moving forward. His only real hope is to either get behind the barges or do a crushing attack with the riptides. Without those wraiths tau can start moving its firewarriors out. If they can just get a riptide to sit on every objective and a unit of warriors to claim on of the objectives I think they will have this one in the bag.

Agreed.

Those over charged rip tides will move 4D6 inches to contest objectives around turn 4ish after using smash to punch through the AB's

anonymou5 wrote:

shogun wrote:

Theorius wrote:
by scrolling through the pictures i saw


the wraiths died coming in, only 1 dlord made it in and he died to the crisis suits in melee?

the riptides seemed to have trouble dropping the croissants cause they didnt die very quickly it seems (one riptide died as well)

It looks like tau lost by objectives but almost wiped the necrons from the board.

if that last picture was the end of the game that is!

Also scrolled down the pictures. Really dont like the uneven objectives setup. If tau got to place 2 out of 3 objectives the won the game. Thats why my buddy and I always play with even objectives or place the third in the middle of the field.

No, the game is designed with the possibility of uneven objectives on purpose. You need to develop an Army that has mobility, either mobile scoring or at least mobile contesting.

Edit: there is a lot I don't like about 6ed (notably random tables), but uneven objectives forces a new aspect of tactical thinking on what could easily be a gunline versus gunline edition.

The fact that you need mobility doesn't change the fact that the player with 2 objectives has to big of an advantage. You can simply put the objectives 6 inch from your table edge and its an uphill battle for the other player with only one objective. What if Tau got 2 objectives in this battle report? Then the don't have to move at all and need even less mobility. So theirs no tactical thinking needed. If that third objective was placed in the middle of the field then it would be more exciting because the Necron need to get that objective despite all the tau shooting and also the tau army need to get out of their defence line to claim it. If the Necron army really wanted to win the could dig in and let the warriors claim both objectives. The could even attach a Necron Lord to both warriors units to take hits and to make sure the survive.

shogun wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:

shogun wrote:

Theorius wrote:
by scrolling through the pictures i saw


the wraiths died coming in, only 1 dlord made it in and he died to the crisis suits in melee?

the riptides seemed to have trouble dropping the croissants cause they didnt die very quickly it seems (one riptide died as well)

It looks like tau lost by objectives but almost wiped the necrons from the board.

if that last picture was the end of the game that is!

Also scrolled down the pictures. Really dont like the uneven objectives setup. If tau got to place 2 out of 3 objectives the won the game. Thats why my buddy and I always play with even objectives or place the third in the middle of the field.

No, the game is designed with the possibility of uneven objectives on purpose. You need to develop an Army that has mobility, either mobile scoring or at least mobile contesting.

Edit: there is a lot I don't like about 6ed (notably random tables), but uneven objectives forces a new aspect of tactical thinking on what could easily be a gunline versus gunline edition.

The fact that you need mobility doesn't change the fact that the player with 2 objectives has to big of an advantage. You can simply put the objectives 6 inch from your table edge and its an uphill battle for the other player with only one objective. What if Tau got 2 objectives in this battle report? Then the don't have to move at all and need even less mobility. So theirs no tactical thinking needed. If that third objective was placed in the middle of the field then it would be more exciting because the Necron need to get that objective despite all the tau shooting and also the tau army need to get out of their defence line to claim it. If the Necron army really wanted to win the could dig in and let the warriors claim both objectives. The could even attach a Necron Lord to both warriors units to take hits and to make sure the survive.

we play on 4x6 tables with big armies and to keep things interesting and fun every missions cant be made so stale that it is "fair" in all cases. I personally think they are still to tame. Want to shake up the meta? steal some of the flames of war missions like, hold the line where half your force has to go in delayed reserves meaning you cant even roll to have them appear until turn 3 and you do it with the rules of turn 1.

seriously, check out flames of war missions, they are exciting and fun and I love every one of them.

Think of it this way. The player who has the most objectives on his side (excluding orks becuase what ork stays behind to hold objectives?) will be at a disadvantage mobility wise, while the person with fewer objectives is at an advantage as to all he needs is that one objective to be in the lead.

Reason for person with more objectives is at a disadvantage is because they have to now spread their forces even more thinly than they might have wanted too, which means less troops or things in the way to stop the opponent from bum rushing an objective so that the points are in his favor. Of course this is without knowing army lists and whatnot and if the mission was Big guns never tire, then obviously my entire statement is out the window since it is easy to control an objective with a heavy.

The person with fewer objectives is at an advantage now because like I mentioned last time, they now have +1 more objectives for you to choose from. Whether you want to split the forces and go two at a time or just go after one to secure that victory is generals choice, but even if it was gun line vs gun line that means more choices to lob shells to provide cover for your precious troops running up or jsut to force your opponent to shift hiself after he has no one left on an objective and the game is now even.

nevermind, full derp mode.

Theorius wrote:


basic math hammer - burst cannon 12 burst cannons hit 6 times (2 gets hot), doing 2 glances/pens (rending could be nice?) and 4 sms do 1.5 ---total of 3.5 (with less chance of pens vs glances)

ion accelerator - 3 shots doing .75 and 8 sms missiles will get 3 glances/pens - means 3.75 glances/pens (with WAY higher chance of pens)

Your mathhammer is very off becasue you think SMS are s7...they are s5 the weaker variety. You are mistaking them with high yield missile pods. While I also prefer the Ion accelerator, The burst cannon is definately a better option vs anything flying. The burst cannon also benifits better from markerlights. Another thing to consider is that hes rerolling the failed wounds with doom for double rend chance. Yeah sounds pretty optomized to me.

Mark kelly wrote:
The overcharged burstcannon is 18 shoots its 12 or normal all at STR 6

well thats wrong... Do you even have the codex? maybe you should read the weapon profile before you post about it.

I think you screwed up deployment. You should have refused flank out of range of half his army at least. :/

urza8188 wrote:

Theorius wrote:


basic math hammer - burst cannon 12 burst cannons hit 6 times (2 gets hot), doing 2 glances/pens (rending could be nice?) and 4 sms do 1.5 ---total of 3.5 (with less chance of pens vs glances)

ion accelerator - 3 shots doing .75 and 8 sms missiles will get 3 glances/pens - means 3.75 glances/pens (with WAY higher chance of pens)

Your mathhammer is very off becasue you think SMS are s7...they are s5 the weaker variety. You are mistaking them with high yield missile pods. While I also prefer the Ion accelerator, The burst cannon is definately a better option vs anything flying. The burst cannon also benifits better from markerlights. Another thing to consider is that hes rerolling the failed wounds with doom for double rend chance. Yeah sounds pretty optomized to me.

Good grief your right I brain farted them to strength 7....

I also didn't think about fortune, it is sounding more and more like a good idea!

Battle report completed!


Post-game Analysis coming out later.

Awesome JY2! Great way to pull a (Crushing!) Victory from defeat.

I might have missed this somewhere earlier in your report (and if so, I apologize), but did you place objectives before you rolled off to choose table-halves? Or did your opponent choose to place his only objective in the middle of the battlefield? Either way, excellent report so far, as always!

It looks like the new Tau codex has made them even better at what they do well (standing back and shooting everything), and has done nothing to address their glaring weaknesses (troop mobility and objective denial). I think they will have to lean heavily on allies to be truly competitive, since you can't realistically expect to table every opponent.

mmm. a very static gunline. think competitive tau need some more mobile scoring to maintain high level competitiveness.
it really shows how the objectives wins the games.
still, nice job by JY to pull out a win, from that devastating firepower.

 Sasori wrote:
Awesome JY2! Great way to pull a (Crushing!) Victory from defeat.

Thanks. I didn't think I could do it, but I got a little lucky in the end.

Man, this game reminds me of some of the battles against Frankie (against his Harliestar and his Nurgle Marines) where he was beating my armies (crons against his Nurgle marines, daemons in against his Harliestar) to a pulp. However, I never lost sight of the Mission and won because I was rolling so poorly in our games (which transfered to my rolling for the End Game ). Had those games continued, he'd probably have tabled me as well!

I felt bad for my opponent though. He was in total disbelief at the end of the game.

hilleraj wrote:
I might have missed this somewhere earlier in your report (and if so, I apologize), but did you place objectives before you rolled off to choose table-halves? Or did your opponent choose to place his only objective in the middle of the battlefield? Either way, excellent report so far, as always!

It looks like the new Tau codex has made them even better at what they do well (standing back and shooting everything), and has done nothing to address their glaring weaknesses (troop mobility and objective denial). I think they will have to lean heavily on allies to be truly competitive, since you can't realistically expect to table every opponent.

We actually made a mistake here. We rolled for table halves first because we forgot about the objectives. After picking table halves, we then remembered about the objectives and rolled for that. I then asked him if he wanted to re-roll for table halves and he said that it was ok. We could keep it as is.

He did take me by surprise when he placed his objective in the middle of the table. I guess he was planning for his guardian jetbikes to contest one of my objectives in the end.

Actually, I feel that the Tau are fine as they are. People just need to change their mentality with regards to how to play them. With the riptides, there is no reason why he shouldn't be pushing them forwards aggressively, especially after he dealt with my wraiths. I think Tau players are just overly cautious and need to re-evaluate their tactics. It's still early and they will improve over time.

Wow despite the win, this report shows how the tau are gonna start to really put a crimp in the dominance of the 'crons. Still great battle with some good and bad luck on both sides. I wonder how this tau list would have done if you had an allied chaos detachment with a helldrake and mace prince.

Deshkar wrote:
mmm. a very static gunline. think competitive tau need some more mobile scoring to maintain high level competitiveness.
it really shows how the objectives wins the games.
still, nice job by JY to pull out a win, from that devastating firepower.

If they don't take allies, then they will have to rely on some kroots or perhaps even a warfish/devilfish. If I were playing his army, I'd probably swap out 1 unit of fire warriors and some change for 2 units of kroots. Outflanking kroots gives the army decent mobility. Either that or take 2 units of guardian jetbikes for his eldar allies.

Chancetragedy wrote:
Wow despite the win, this report shows how the tau are gonna start to really put a crimp in the dominance of the 'crons. Still great battle with some good and bad luck on both sides. I wonder how this tau list would have done if you had an allied chaos detachment with a helldrake and mace prince.

Tau will put a crimp in almost every army. They are just that good IMO. If you get someone like Yakface, SabrX or Gus (awesome Tau players in our area) running a triple riptide Tau list, I can honestly see them winning tournaments. The new Tau codex is very strong.

They don't care about 1 heldrake and daemon prince. My opponent tells me he's got no problems against heldrakes. He's also beaten my 4 FMC daemon list quite handily.

Jy2, thank you as ever for your battle reports. When I check the battle report list every few days, I always know that yours will be a thumping good read. Good pictures, great looking armies, detailed assessments of movements.

The Tau player really should have been advancing by turn 2. By his Turn 2 shooting he had already neutered your wraiths. Moving forward could have easily achieved the middle objective and given him more firepower against the ones in the back, perhaps even throwing a riptide at them to contest.

I think he was a good player, but too cautious. That's why I think orcs are the perfect ally for Tau; they charge right up the field to kill what they can (and usually die) while the Tau follow up behind them, which eliminates their desire to just sit in the back.

Crushing Victory for the 'Crons?? No bloody way I was expecting that after that cataclysmic first turn. Bravo sir

bodazoka wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

bodazoka wrote:
Necrons are going to get owned!

Ah....you have much confidence in my ability, young one.

haha definitely not a comment on your ability master!

I just have 0 faith in wraithwing against Tau.

3 x AV13 ghost arks with kitted out OL 's 3 x AB 's and a DS monolith! + fruit is the answer for Tau IMO.

Wraithwing is doable. They just need some LOS-blocking terrain. If I had that in this game, I have no doubt that I should be able to get them into assault.

But Necron AV13-spam is definitely a viable army against the Tau....as long as they don't go fusion-heavy and/or take triple-railheads with them.

 Sasori wrote:
The funny thing is, that the Riptides haven't really contributed much, compared to the Firewarrior+Ethereal.

I still have faith in JY2, he's come back from Worse!

They are actually doing alright. It was a team effort to take down my wraiths. The only irony is that his riptides have been doing much more damage to themselves than my army has.

 jifel wrote:

Excellent point. I may still call it a draw, I'm iffy on if you can get linebreaker... I think you'll be in position for a turn 5 narrow win, that'll go down to a draw after a turn 6 where linebreaking unit gets evaporated.

Edit: Looking at whats popular for Tau, I'm thinking the only thing with a chance is a MASSIVE Drop Pod army, or for Nids a crap ton of biovores to hide far away and out of LoS. I think I'm going to start taking two units, just because of Tau.

There are a number of builds that may give Tau a problem, and it usually involves fast armies or lots of templates. Triple-thunderfire SM lists, MTO daemons with 2++ or 2++ re-rollable's,
blast-heavy IG, biovore-nids, other Tau lists, AV13-spam (BA or necrons), land raider-spam....all these armies can potentially give the Tau problems.

 lambsandlions wrote:

 skoffs wrote:
Jesus H Creed, remind me never to take Wraiths against Tau!
O_O

Wraiths are very good against many tau lists, it is just not very good against this particular tau list. Most tau lists have smaller quantity of fire and more quality of fire, (s7/8 ap2/1 shots that do more damage) This list has a ton of shots but they are all s5/6 ap5/4. This list shines against wraith 3++ saves, where a plasma rifle heavy list would have trouble.

The tau player has nothing to shoot at those annihilation barges. Last turn he should have started moving forward. His only real hope is to either get behind the barges or do a crushing attack with the riptides. Without those wraiths tau can start moving its firewarriors out. If they can just get a riptide to sit on every objective and a unit of warriors to claim on of the objectives I think they will have this one in the bag.

Right. What works best against wraiths are volume-of-fire/attacks. That is one of their bigger weaknesses and that is also one of the Tau's biggest strengths.

Yeah, he should have played more aggressively much earlier. That is something most Tau players are going to have to get used to. Static armies just don't cut it, you need to move your guys and do it early.

Wow! how many wounds did he do to himself with novacharge fails and gets hot! wowza!!

sounds like you got super lucky jy2 (not to down play your positional dominiance which worked out well) just the rolls and finished turn 5, i also agree that he should have moved out his troops/suits way sooner once he had handled the wraiths.

Wow, amazing steal there. Your opponent probably did a weapons-grade facepalm when you rolled that 2 to end the game.

More or less as predicted. You kept his eye off the ball for long enough that all he had were long shots at the end. Realistically I think he'd need 2 more turns to pull out a win, your troops all look to be outside of markerlight range and I don't see him shooting down all 4 of your troop units with 2+ cover (in fact I think only the Riptide has range to your 2 units on the right, and a decent chunk of his FW look out of range of all of your troops). He might be able to tie objectives in one turn though

Not a fan of his move with the jetbikes. Unless he genuinely didn't know that you'd be gunning for them I don't understand that one. Putting them 18" in front of your two scythes would've been a better play in my opinion. Then if you wanted to shoot them you'd have to disembark warriors early (and in front of a riptide), or divert another scythe to that side of the table. As it was though he didn't force you to make any kind of a decision.

DSing one or both of his Commander/bodyguards probably would have helped him out a lot in this game too. I'm not sure how much damage they did to your wraiths, but them DSed near the right objective would've been hard for you to deal with. Is there a reason his ethereal was his warlord and not the T5, 2+ save, 4 wound guy? I'm also not sure their weapons compliment the rest of the list very well, I'd be more inclined to go 2 fusion on each, with puretide and target lock on the commander.

I also think he was overly timid with the riptides. He seemed to jump back a lot when there wasn't really a reason to (perhaps falling prey to the "I have this awesome ability so I'm gonna use it" mindset). Specifically I'm talking about the 2 in middle. Looking at how much damage he did to your wraiths T1 he could have very comfortably left them at the front of his DZ and positioned himself much better to contest with them later in the game (same thing on T2 only now there's quite literally no reason not to press forward since your wraiths are dead and your barges are all in range already).

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:
More or less as predicted. You kept his eye off the ball for long enough that all he had were long shots at the end. Realistically I think he'd need 2 more turns to pull out a win, your troops all look to be outside of markerlight range and I don't see him shooting down all 4 of your troop units with 2+ cover (in fact I think only the Riptide has range to your 2 units on the right, and a decent chunk of his FW look out of range of all of your troops). He might be able to tie objectives in one turn though

Not a fan of his move with the jetbikes. Unless he genuinely didn't know that you'd be gunning for them I don't understand that one. Putting them 18" in front of your two scythes would've been a better play in my opinion. Then if you wanted to shoot them you'd have to disembark warriors early (and in front of a riptide), or divert another scythe to that side of the table. As it was though he didn't force you to make any kind of a decision.

DSing one or both of his Commander/bodyguards probably would have helped him out a lot in this game too. I'm not sure how much damage they did to your wraiths, but them DSed near the right objective would've been hard for you to deal with. Is there a reason his ethereal was his warlord and not the T5, 2+ save, 4 wound guy? I'm also not sure their weapons compliment the rest of the list very well, I'd be more inclined to go 2 fusion on each, with puretide and target lock on the commander.

I also think he was overly timid with the riptides. He seemed to jump back a lot when there wasn't really a reason to (perhaps falling prey to the "I have this awesome ability so I'm gonna use it" mindset). Specifically I'm talking about the 2 in middle. Looking at how much damage he did to your wraiths T1 he could have very comfortably left them at the front of his DZ and positioned himself much better to contest with them later in the game (same thing on T2 only now there's quite literally no reason not to press forward since your wraiths are dead and your barges are all in range already).

i agree, but hind sight being waht it is we can commentate all we want when we were not in the heat of battle!!!

This bat rep has inspired me to trust in my reserves...if they come on before turn 4 that is .

On another note I never knew pathfinders were that effective? What did marker lights do that wiped out that many of your wraiths?

They probably boosted all those 2-3shot firewarriors to BS 5, they could barely miss.
Still, the wraiths served their purpose. As opposed to wrecking ball, they were a distraction

kinda the only units that were target able anyways lol.

POST-GAME ANALYSIS:

Wow....I got beaten up pretty badly. I knew Tau firepower was good, but even I didn't expect him to wipe out all my wraiths and 2 HQ's in 2.5 turns of shooting. Normally, my wraiths are fairly resilient but in this game, I just wasn't making my saves. I was not able to stop his advancement like I had originally planned, at least not with my wraiths. However, I did manage to throw enough distractions at him to make him forget about the objectives, at least until it was too late for him. You really have to pay attention to the missions when you are facing the crons. They can get to the objectives at will, whereas most armies need to plan for it and "keep their eyes on the ball". That is one of the major strengths of the necrons - they play the Movement phase like no other can.

To be fair, I don't believe my opponent has much, if any, experience against a competitive necron army. Most of the guys at our LGS don't really run necron flyers and the ones who do (i.e. me, Janthkin, Ministry) are actually playing other armies currently. Thus, I don't know if he has any real exposure to the necron flyers. It's like my 1st necron battle against Grant's seer council deldar. He really had no idea as to the "reach" of my flyers. The same thing happened here. My opponent had no idea about the reach of my night scythes and I made him pay with his guardian jetbikes. Also, had he not destroyed my immobilized night scythe, I wouldn't have been able to get them onto an objective (or near the objective). He will get better as he plays more against necron flyers, but for this game, I had the element of surprise.

In any case, my opponent should have won this game, but some tactical mistakes cost him. Where did he go wrong?

1. He didn't play aggressive enough with his army. As most people pointed out, he should have advanced them much earlier. I attribute this to the over-cautiousness that is most Tau players. It may also be due to a lack of experience. I'm sure he will improve over time with regards to when to start mobilizing his units.

2. He was too enamored with trying to shoot down my flyers. My flyers were actually a better "distraction" unit in this game than my wraiths. So every turn, he was trying to over-charge his guns when he probably should have went for the 4D6" jump in the last couple of turns for his riptides.

3. He didn't spread out his riptides enough. This allowed my flyers to come in unmolested. It did negate a turn of shooting for them, but overall, I think he was too focused on trying to take them out to really see the threat that they presented to the objectives. In order words, he was too focused on trying to shoot them down that he forgot to actually move towards my objectives. Maybe he just wasn't concerned because he thought he could shoot them all down? I can't say for sure.

4. He under-estimated the "reach" of my scythes and paid for it with his jetbikes.

5. He didn't move his pathfinders at all. If he had done that, they might have been in range to markerlight my warriors in the end. That would have meant no cover for them. Instead, my warriors were beyond the reach of his pathfinders.


Overall, my opponent played well, but not well enough. He could have and should have easily beaten my crons this game, but a few tactical errors and unfamiliarity with my army cost him the game. Well, that....and a little bit of luck on my part (i.e. the game ending when I needed it to). My philosophy of Positional Dominance worked, but not really in the way I intended. My wraiths were not able to stop his advancement, however, I was able to distract him long enough to secure the victory.


Tau MVP: Fire Warriors - It's close between all 4 of his units - fire warriors, riptides, commander's unit and pathfinders. Pathfinders did make his shooting much deadlier. Riptides help to take out wraiths, flyers and 1 annihilation barge. The commander and his unit took out 1 AB, the destroyer lord and some wraiths. However, I'd give it to his warriors just because their shooting did the majority of the damage.

Tau Runner-Up: Riptides - Not only did they have a hand in hurting all my units - the wraiths, AB and flyers - but they also served to restrict the movement of my flyers. They did a respectable amount of damage and affected the way I played, forcing me to play much more conservatively with my flyers than I normally do. If only 1 had made it to one of my objectives to contest, I would have hands-down given them the MVP award for the Tau.

Necron MVP: Night Scythes - They were clutch in this game. They survived a huge amount of firepower, helped to finish off 1 riptide, the guardian jetbikes and the ionhead (hammerhead with Ion Cannon). They also broke the fire warriors on his objective, thus giving my crons the Crushing Victory, as well as dropping off the troops for the victory.

Necron Runner-Up: Riptides - LOL! These guys did more damage to themselves than my necrons did! I believed I only did 1W to his riptides. He did 11-12W to himself from failed over-charges and overheating. Can you believe he killed off an entire Riptide (that's 5W!) by himself?!? Definitely some bad rolling for the riptides, but that's probably the only bad dice he had in this game.

Markerlights are heavy so if he moved them up they would of been snap firing. It is why scouting with them can help with that.

wow... not to put you down or anything but that is just so maddening! To lost after such a great start, and knowing it was all cause you had made such terrible tactical mistakes? Thats got to hurt.

If the objects had been closer to his line, if he had gotten two objectives on his side rather then you then he would have won this one.

Well played on your spot but that is a heartbreaking end for your opponent I am sure. Those Riptides sucked so bad this game, I mean, they did do stuff but they pretty much killed themselves!

I said triple Ripetide is overrated and I think this report proved just that - too much moar win in lieu of balance.

I think jy2 made some bad decisions in the beginning so it all evens out. You've really got to make the right calls down the line when the game is on the line. Gambling for the game to end on turn 5 was the right choice - I would have done the same. I play Necrons too and am happy to see that the flyers were so strong... I learned a lot in that regard reading this report.

I'd love to see a rematch some time.

I tip my hat too you good sir! I didnt think you had a chance just looking at the army lists!!

Spot on about the Tau players needing to change there game play now they have something they can be aggressive with! the Riptides!!

I was very surprised that he didn't 4D6 move towards your objectives to contest!

I played a Tau player a few days ago with 3 x ghost arks and the only thing I was worried about was the 2 x Str10 smash attacks from the rip tide. My Tau opponent only thought to charge me when I layed out the math hammer for him, before that charging into combat never entered his mind!

I think it is more of a example of a good tactical player versus one not so good playing the mission is more important then playing a game in regards to winning well done JY2

@jy2 "Are hymp really that good?" Yes, they are. You said it yourself when talking about how to equip Riptides, it's all about rate of fire (I would give tides ion/fusion+evo tho personally). HYMP-sides with drones have waaaaaayyy more shots, higher strength, and more wounds for a comparable price to Riptides.

Tack on the iridium/chip commander, which can float from unit to unit as needed, and they gain even more resiliency and tank/monster hunters. SICK.

I still think 'tides have a place and would take a pair with ion/evo, but I would consider 1 squad of missle sides to be mandatory in any Tau list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw, I called that game to perfection. 1 or 2 Wraiths lived and you were able to play the objective game.

Well played, Jim. Thanks for another great report. (Though I still think you deployed incorrectly. You had a PERFECT opportunity to refuse flank. Setting up spread out straight across the board against a pure gunline army plays right in to their hands.)

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I said triple Ripetide is overrated and I think this report proved just that - too much moar win in lieu of balance.

I think that the Riptides could've been much more useful here. I don't see any reason why (after the death of the wraiths) the Riptides couldn't have all started moving forward. Jy2 couldn't have really done much to them, and they would've easily been in contesting range by the end of the game. Also, they would've been a threat to all the barges (in assault, a smashing riptide will kill an AB) and would've made movement more difficult for the flyers (particularly the locked velocity one).

Given their resiliency, I the riptides alone could've clinched the battle for the Tau.

 hippesthippo wrote:
@jy2 "Are hymp really that good?" Yes, they are. You said it yourself when talking about how to equip Riptides, it's all about rate of fire (I would give tides ion/fusion+evo tho personally). HYMP-sides with drones have waaaaaayyy more shots, higher strength, and more wounds for a comparable price to Riptides.

Tack on the iridium/chip commander, which can float from unit to unit as needed, and they gain even more resiliency and tank/monster hunters. SICK.

QFT. Missilesides are monsters. I'm a necron player that runs triple barges, and these guys are what I fear. The force-multiplying effects of markerlights and the chip can make these guys absolutely horrendous.

Consider 3 missilesides, 2 drones each, with a drone controller, shooting at the front armour of an annihilation barge:

WIth no assistance, they have a 23% chance to glance it to death IN A SINGLE VOLLEY

4 markerlight hits (2 to take cover, +2 BS), they have a 72% chance to glance it to death IN A SINGLE VOLLEY

4 markerlight hits and tank hunter, they have a 98% chance to glance it to death IN A SINGLE VOLLEY

They're not cheap, but they can do a lot of damage to anything in the game except AV14.

Anyone else think the terrain was poor?

That table looked very sparse, and more importantly all the terrain was clustered on the edges. Additionally there was no line of sight blocking terrain at all.

Still good job on staying on task and pulling the win through.

Good job turning that around JY2, altough indeed as mentioned and i mentioned also I think you botched deployement and your first turn.

Running to gun lines is a tactic only employed by primitives when they have thousands to sacrifice.

Now however, you then executed the flyer game to perfection and the small gamble for turn 5 payed of.

I think Riptides are like Helldrakes, 2 is a worriesome thing to face 3 is overextending and debalancing your army.

As someone working to perfect his Tau army and strategies, I'm a little baffled by a few things on the Tau side. If the opponent isn't posting here (as he doesn't seem to be) maybe others can throw out thoughts behind his reasonings that I'm missing?


1) The first thing that stuck out to me was: why did he make his Ethereal the Warlord? I mean, I guess if you're planning on running the Commander out into the middle of the enemy army that you might figure he's going to die for sure, but just in general the Commander is SO much more durable with Iridium armor than the Ethereal that it just doesn't make much sense to me. Plus if you do, then you're putting 2 VPs together in a basket for your opponent to get as opposed to splitting them up between the Ethereal and the Commander.

Really, the only way that would make sense is if you have some really good LOS blocking terrain to keep your Ethereal hidden behind all game while not compromising his ability to support your squads at the same time, but that CLEARLY wasn't the case in this game, so it just seemed really odd to me.

And if you ARE going to put the Ethereal into a squad, why would you not put him into a 10-man Firewarrior squad and instead put him in with only a 7 man Pathfinder unit? I guess perhaps because you're counting on going to ground and don't want to lose a FW squad's shooting compared to a Pathfinder unit? It just seems like if you're going to have the Ethereal be a potential target then you need to put him in with a bigger squad for protection.


2) Which gets me to...how many shots did the Necrons manage to put onto the Pathfinder unit that first turn to kill 6 guys who presumably were getting 2+ cover saves? Or did he not go to ground for like the first Ann Barge's shooting and then later in the phase did so to save the Ethereal's skin? I know 3 Ann Barges can kick out a tremendous amount of wounds if you get lucky and roll those 6's to hit, so I'm wondering if you remember how many wounds were actually caused roughly to get those 6 failed 2+ cover saves (obviously odds wise that should be 36 wounds, which should be pretty unlikely to get!).

Also, he did have that ruin sitting right next to his ADL, it seems like he could have safely hidden the Ethereal (joined to a unit still) behind the ruin just to ensure that no amount of shooting could ever end up killing him, while still providing his abilities to all the Tau units behind the ADL.


3) I think people with Riptides seem to automatically use the Nova charge even when its not really necessary and that ends up being the main way that Riptides end up dying. Although I haven't gotten my Riptides onto the table yet, I think one of the keys will be figuring out when you can get away with NOT trying to Nova charge to make sure all your Riptides are still contributing throughout the entire game (instead of killing themselves).

For example, on the first turn he knew he was firing EVERYTHING at the Wraiths. I get that he really wanted to pummel the Wraiths on that first turn, but in that situation using the Nova charge really isn't adding that much additional benefit compared to the risk (IMO) of wounding your Riptides (especially as there would be NO flyers coming on turn 1 as well for him to Intercept either). Yeah, if he was going after vehicles or something where Rending was crucial, then you take your chances, but honestly I don't think the extra 12 S6 shots against Wraiths were crucial (and obviously they turned out not to be as he devastated your Wraiths without passing any of his Nova checks on that 1st turn.


4) His Commander and Bodyguard were unwounded going into the Necron turn 3, correct? If so, can you please explain how you managed to kill the Bodyguards before the Commander exactly? Was it just really poor placement of models on his part that allowed you to get flanking position to make the Bodyguards the closest models to some of your firing units? Because really, with a thrust move after the Crisis suits shoot, there should NEVER be a time where that happens except in extreme circumstances. The Commander should always be WAY in front and then the 2 Drones should be next followed by the Bodyguards last. So if ANYTHING the Drones should be the ones that end up getting waxed first if the enemy does some extreme flanking maneuvers, NOT the bodyguards.

This is especially true because the entire Bodyguard unit gets to auto-pass Look Out Sir tests, which means you really want to focus on getting all the (non S8+ AP2) wounds you can onto the commander until he's down to 1 wound remaining and only then start to auto-pass stuff off onto the drones.


5) I also agree that his unfamiliarity with the Necrons led him to castle way to long. Tesla weapons are the unique situation where you have no AP, so you're not really gaining anything from hiding Firewarriors behind the wall at that point (because you're probably not going to ground all that much with them either, I'd wager). So once all the Wraiths were killed and the last D-Lord was down, it should have been GUNG-HO the very next turn (really turn 3).


6) The Eldar jetbikes are a tough one. In many ways, that is one of the most important units in his army in this mission and against this foe, but probably the only real safe place to go would have been to fly TOWARDS those Night Scythes on the right flank (within their 18" minimum bubble) behind some building where other the Scythe and Ann Barges on the other flank couldn't see them...losing that unit really changed everything, because it meant he really only had any chance to capture a single objective.


7) And of course, anytime you're playing the BS objective placement rules from the rulebook that allow 2 objectives to be 6" from one table edge, whomever gets to have those 2 objectives on their side has a huge advantage beyond army match-ups, skill level, etc. The fact that the Tau player made this even worse by placing his one objective in the middle put him at a HUGE massive disadvantage.

If before the game you told me that it was Tau vs. Necron and the situation with the objectives, then even if there is NO terrain on the table and regardless of not knowing what the armies are comprised of or who is going first you have to give a huge edge to the Necrons...so frankly your opponent never should have been surprised that he lost.



Anyway, overall great read and very informative. Makes me definitely think about things I hadn't thought about with the Tau yet and can't wait for my Riptides to arrive in the mail (I think I'll only ever be running 2 max, though!).

I think the Tau guy was hoping to wipe out all AB before he went to the mid.

GTKA666 wrote:
I think the Tau guy was hoping to wipe out all AB before he went to the mid.

I agree, but given that Tesla weapons don't have an AP then you're not gaining anything by keeping FW units behind the ADL...and in fact you're kind of forcing the Necron player to have to decide whether to try to take out Troops that are moving towards objectives or go for stuff that is likely going to kill his ABs in the next turn. Whereas, by keeping the FWs behind the ADL, the Necron player can safely ignore them and just focus on taking out the stuff that can damage really damage him.

There's not too many multi-shot 'heavy' weapons out there like that (that aren't AP4), but a Necron army that basically only has Tesla weapons left is the rare case where that happens.

The Tau player just needs to work on his tactics with his riptides really. Turn 3 they should have begun booking it for objectives across the table, and his infantry for the middle. All of the Necron combat troops were gone turn 3 and only the some barges and flyers remained. Personally, I find my riptides attempting to Nova every turn, but his rolling for his riptides was atrocious to say the least. I would have stopped rolling to Nova by the third turn for sure with failing so many attempts.

I am now subscribing to the theory of Positional Dominance.

Excellent game.

If the Tau player got over the willies of getting into the thick of it, you would have been . But luck given by the Dice Gods favoured you to end the game.

Great report! Much appreciated.

Eh, the Fire Warriors should have been spreading out all over the board after turn one. This isn't 5th Edition where you have to stand still to get rapid fire.

I concur with all of Yakface's points. What's the point of the ADL when Tesla has no ap?

Why he didn't put easily accessible objs in his deployment is another mystery.

I will add that the movement phase is really the only part of the game where a good general has 95% control of what will happen (difficult terrain tests account for the other 5%). Games are won and lost during the movement phase, but beginner players or people who just thrive for the 'kill' tend to weight their tactics via shooting/assault.

Jy2 is a very good tactician, i read his batreps regularly. he understands, and puts to use with this "Positional Dominance" theory what the rest of us should all learn and live by: "Move Right, win the fight". or something along those lines. It also helps that necrons have basically the ability to appear anywhere on the table as long as their night scythes are functional.

41_WarGaming wrote:
I am now subscribing to the theory of Positional Dominance.

I'd subscribe to objective dominance 1st. I said it earlier and Yak said it again, in this scenario with these two armies and those objectives it was pretty much over before it began. Deploying poorly and being almost tabled only to win because of horrible objective deployment from the BRB has nothing to do with positional dominance and everything to do with owning half the VP turn one ie luck.

Terrain was actually not that bad, considering the fact that if you fallow the terrain deployment from the book it easily could have been worse, and probably would have been. So it baffles me whenever people ignore the BRB for terrain generation and deployment, but then claim that the objective deployment rules from the BRB are sound

Even after all this, the tau player lost it through silly errors. Basically Yak hit all the major points on the nose.


Necron deployment was simply awful, this demonstrates the biggest problems Necron players run into. They are so used to having that silly resilience that they tend to mis-deploy based on that false confidence. This was as hippo said, a refused flank 101 situation. There is really no reason to set up spread out across a gun line especially when you own 2/3 of the objectives 6" from your edge.

It was a decent game and demo'd the taus volume fire well, and most importantly showed how FW are the real work horses and maybe people will take the queue to stop minimizing them for RT's and bodyguards.

Had this game been set up with balanced objective placement this would have been over after the necrons bad deployment. Oh well, welcome to 6th

GG! hopefully nobody will spoil the next one as I know these take a lot of time and energy!

I will respond to more comments a little later when I have more time.

 hippesthippo wrote:
I think you screwed up deployment. You should have refused flank out of range of half his army at least. :/

That is definitely 1 strategy that I probably should have tried now with some hindsight. I admit that I just over-estimated the survivability of my wraiths. I really didn't think I would lose that many wraiths that quickly. I was going for the shortest-distance approach - I might take more fire initially, but he's only got 2 turns to do so. If I took him from an extreme flank, I would have taken less fire initially, but it would have taken at least 3 turns to get there and even though the 1st turn might be very little, I'd have to take 3 turns of firepower.

But in hindsight, I agree that a refused flank maneuver would have been the better strategy.

 yakface wrote:

As someone working to perfect his Tau army and strategies, I'm a little baffled by a few things on the Tau side. If the opponent isn't posting here (as he doesn't seem to be) maybe others can throw out thoughts behind his reasonings that I'm missing?


1) The first thing that stuck out to me was: why did he make his Ethereal the Warlord? I mean, I guess if you're planning on running the Commander out into the middle of the enemy army that you might figure he's going to die for sure, but just in general the Commander is SO much more durable with Iridium armor than the Ethereal that it just doesn't make much sense to me. Plus if you do, then you're putting 2 VPs together in a basket for your opponent to get as opposed to splitting them up between the Ethereal and the Commander.

Really, the only way that would make sense is if you have some really good LOS blocking terrain to keep your Ethereal hidden behind all game while not compromising his ability to support your squads at the same time, but that CLEARLY wasn't the case in this game, so it just seemed really odd to me.

And if you ARE going to put the Ethereal into a squad, why would you not put him into a 10-man Firewarrior squad and instead put him in with only a 7 man Pathfinder unit? I guess perhaps because you're counting on going to ground and don't want to lose a FW squad's shooting compared to a Pathfinder unit? It just seems like if you're going to have the Ethereal be a potential target then you need to put him in with a bigger squad for protection.


2) Which gets me to...how many shots did the Necrons manage to put onto the Pathfinder unit that first turn to kill 6 guys who presumably were getting 2+ cover saves? Or did he not go to ground for like the first Ann Barge's shooting and then later in the phase did so to save the Ethereal's skin? I know 3 Ann Barges can kick out a tremendous amount of wounds if you get lucky and roll those 6's to hit, so I'm wondering if you remember how many wounds were actually caused roughly to get those 6 failed 2+ cover saves (obviously odds wise that should be 36 wounds, which should be pretty unlikely to get!).

Also, he did have that ruin sitting right next to his ADL, it seems like he could have safely hidden the Ethereal (joined to a unit still) behind the ruin just to ensure that no amount of shooting could ever end up killing him, while still providing his abilities to all the Tau units behind the ADL.


3) I think people with Riptides seem to automatically use the Nova charge even when its not really necessary and that ends up being the main way that Riptides end up dying. Although I haven't gotten my Riptides onto the table yet, I think one of the keys will be figuring out when you can get away with NOT trying to Nova charge to make sure all your Riptides are still contributing throughout the entire game (instead of killing themselves).

For example, on the first turn he knew he was firing EVERYTHING at the Wraiths. I get that he really wanted to pummel the Wraiths on that first turn, but in that situation using the Nova charge really isn't adding that much additional benefit compared to the risk (IMO) of wounding your Riptides (especially as there would be NO flyers coming on turn 1 as well for him to Intercept either). Yeah, if he was going after vehicles or something where Rending was crucial, then you take your chances, but honestly I don't think the extra 12 S6 shots against Wraiths were crucial (and obviously they turned out not to be as he devastated your Wraiths without passing any of his Nova checks on that 1st turn.


4) His Commander and Bodyguard were unwounded going into the Necron turn 3, correct? If so, can you please explain how you managed to kill the Bodyguards before the Commander exactly? Was it just really poor placement of models on his part that allowed you to get flanking position to make the Bodyguards the closest models to some of your firing units? Because really, with a thrust move after the Crisis suits shoot, there should NEVER be a time where that happens except in extreme circumstances. The Commander should always be WAY in front and then the 2 Drones should be next followed by the Bodyguards last. So if ANYTHING the Drones should be the ones that end up getting waxed first if the enemy does some extreme flanking maneuvers, NOT the bodyguards.

This is especially true because the entire Bodyguard unit gets to auto-pass Look Out Sir tests, which means you really want to focus on getting all the (non S8+ AP2) wounds you can onto the commander until he's down to 1 wound remaining and only then start to auto-pass stuff off onto the drones.


5) I also agree that his unfamiliarity with the Necrons led him to castle way to long. Tesla weapons are the unique situation where you have no AP, so you're not really gaining anything from hiding Firewarriors behind the wall at that point (because you're probably not going to ground all that much with them either, I'd wager). So once all the Wraiths were killed and the last D-Lord was down, it should have been GUNG-HO the very next turn (really turn 3).


6) The Eldar jetbikes are a tough one. In many ways, that is one of the most important units in his army in this mission and against this foe, but probably the only real safe place to go would have been to fly TOWARDS those Night Scythes on the right flank (within their 18" minimum bubble) behind some building where other the Scythe and Ann Barges on the other flank couldn't see them...losing that unit really changed everything, because it meant he really only had any chance to capture a single objective.


7) And of course, anytime you're playing the BS objective placement rules from the rulebook that allow 2 objectives to be 6" from one table edge, whomever gets to have those 2 objectives on their side has a huge advantage beyond army match-ups, skill level, etc. The fact that the Tau player made this even worse by placing his one objective in the middle put him at a HUGE massive disadvantage.

If before the game you told me that it was Tau vs. Necron and the situation with the objectives, then even if there is NO terrain on the table and regardless of not knowing what the armies are comprised of or who is going first you have to give a huge edge to the Necrons...so frankly your opponent never should have been surprised that he lost.



Anyway, overall great read and very informative. Makes me definitely think about things I hadn't thought about with the Tau yet and can't wait for my Riptides to arrive in the mail (I think I'll only ever be running 2 max, though!).

I will try to answer as best as I can what I felt he was doing. Of course a lot of it has to do with 1) lack of experience against a competitive army like mine and necron flyers in general and 2) the tendency for most Tau players to be overly cautious about their armies.

1. He probably meant for his commander to be suicidal melta unit. I believe in most of his other games, his Ethereal survives and his suits dies, so he probably made his Ethereal Warlord by nature of habit. Also, in the previous games between us, I normally go after his fire warriors first and ignore his pathfinders. Had he put the Ethereal with the warriors, it would have made my target priority much easier. Now he's making me choose - go after his scoring units or after his Warlord with a non-scoring unit.

2. Not all of them were gettting protection from the Aegis. They were back away enough from it and my AB guns were high enough that some of those guys weren't 25% obscured by the ADL. Had he been slightly closer, he would have benefited entirely from the ADL.

He wanted to centralize his Ethereal so that everyone would and could benefit from him.

3. This would be a judgement call. With wraiths initially and flyers every turn, he probably felt it was a priority to maximize the firepower of his riptides. He just wasn't rolling well with them. Although he probably should have did the 4D6" jump near the end, I have no problem with him over-charging every turn. If I was playing Tau, the riptides are just another sacrificial pawn to me. I really don't care if they live or die as long as my troops survive. Just like I really don't care if my wraiths live or die. You can't really be to attached to your units surviving unless they are scoring or they give off VP's when killed. Those riptides were neither.

4. Doesn't the commander automatically Look-Out-Sirs to his bodyguards? He wanted his marker drones to survive, which was why he left them in the rear. So any shots that hit were were automatically going to his bodyguards first and foremost, whether his bodyguards were in front or his commander was. I fired both AB's and the NS and he failed just enough saves to kill off both bodyguards.

5. Force of habit and probably unfamiliarity with my crons. I think he just stayed back there because he was just so used to it. He probably didn't realize he didn't need to do this until Turn 3, which was when he started advancing his troops.

6. His concern was that I could have just disembarked my troops and rapid-fired at his bikes. I also had 2 NS in reserves that would be coming in so there really was no safe place for them to hide. However, moving back into the protection of his army, he would be daring my flyers to go into shooting range of his entire army. Also, any scythes coming in from reserves that try to take out his bikers would be moving into Interceptor range of his riptides. At least that is why I think he moved them back there.

7. Yup, that's just the risk of uneven objective placement. His placement of his objective in the center also surprised me, but in the overall scheme of things, he was able to reach it fairly easily (even though I was able to shoot him off of it). I believe he was planning to contest on T5 with his jetbikes, and had there been some LOS-blocking terrain on the table, they probably may have. Though had their been some LOS-blocking terrain on the table, he probably wouldn't have been able to kill off all my wraiths so easily either.

But even with the uneven objective placement, he could have easily overcome that by advancing earlier. Sacrifice 1 turn of shooting for his pathfinders by advancing and then running and next turn, he may well have been in range to Markerlight my troops. Advance his riptides to try to contest and advance his entire (of at least part of his) army on Turn 2 and he would be well in range to threaten my backfield objectives and objective-holders.

No, objective-placement was a disadvantage but not a HUGE disadvantage. I'm of the opinion that the lack of LOS-blocking terrain was a much LARGER disadvantage. It just makes gunline armies so much better.

As both a tau and cron player i think necrons will struggle vs a good tau list which I don't believe the list played was. they necrons list was a optimised tournament list , not only was the tau list not optimised I don't think its tournament competitive at all.

The Tau list is okay but it can definitely be improved.

 jy2 wrote:

No, objective-placement was a disadvantage but not a HUGE disadvantage. I'm of the opinion that the lack of LOS-blocking terrain was a much LARGER disadvantage. It just makes gunline armies so much better.

This bother me. It all depends on your idea of LOS blocking terrain. Terrain that can hide small units or tanks=good.... Terrain that can entirely hide 6 man units of wraiths let alone 18 while still advancing on your enemy=bad. I don't think there is a situation where 1000 points of wraiths is gona make it to 2000 points of tau without some seriously skewed terrain setup. With bubble wrap and friendly overwatch it's simply a losing strategy.


Wraiths have a 3++ and I don't think it was unintentional to make the new models so large for a 2 wound model. . I have to say I'm shocked if you disagree that having 2 out of 3, 3 VP objectives just 6" from your board edge is anything but a huge advantage.

On a side note I had a laugh that he didn't use black sun filters. Playing a gun line and knowing there are two separate 33% chances at night fight and having access to cheap night fight ignoring war gear and not using it baffles me.

I don't think JY2 was talking about having a LOS blocker for all 18 wraiths. But how different would this have been if he had 1 piece to hide a Dlord and 2 wraiths while the other 4 In the squad get blown away. My guess from reading his reports is he meant what you said, just enough terrain to block a tiny section and not be running through an open killing field in the middle of the board. The terrain was clearly set up in the tau favor and the objective placement balanced that out IMO.

Chancetragedy wrote:
I don't think JY2 was talking about having a LOS blocker for all 18 wraiths. But how different would this have been if he had 1 piece to hide a Dlord and 2 wraiths while the other 4 In the squad get blown away. My guess from reading his reports is he meant what you said, just enough terrain to block a tiny section and not be running through an open killing field in the middle of the board. The terrain was clearly set up in the tau favor and the objective placement balanced that out IMO.

So what does he mean then? Hiding space for one unit? OK so turn one still would have cost him a unit and a half and he would need to expose himself with the rest at some point to assault. Remember you need LOS to assault as well in 6th, so baring poor play from the tau, he was going to need to expose himself to 150 s5 shots at some point.

OK and had the central piece been solid he still would need to rush out for at least 2 turns worth of fire. Those wraiths are not going to beat that much s5 fire. All those wraiths are the equivalent of 36 assault marines, not even as resilient as blood angel FNP AM in this match up and I would never bet on them making it into assault and being effective so why would I bet on the wraiths? No, the objectives didn't balance the game, the game was unbalanced by the objectives and only seemed close due to clean firing lanes and poor necron strategy, people have this backwards. He never even had top assault him to win, had there been massive LOS blocking terrain all he'd need to do is hide until the end of game, not to mention how even more unbalanced it would have been had he placed those two objectives in areas out of site.

Cool batrep!

 jy2 wrote:

4. Doesn't the commander automatically Look-Out-Sirs to his bodyguards? He wanted his marker drones to survive, which was why he left them in the rear. So any shots that hit were were automatically going to his bodyguards first and foremost, whether his bodyguards were in front or his commander was. I fired both AB's and the NS and he failed just enough saves to kill off both bodyguards.

Actually I'm pretty sure there was no reason for him to put those wounds on his bodyguard. The Sworn Protector rule only states that they automatically pass any Look out Sir attempts. It says nothing about them HAVING to take the shots if they didn't want to. So yeah he should have been able to use his iridium armor commander to soak up those shots/wounds and once he was down to 1 wound he could start Look out Sir'ing. With the 2+ Armor save on the Character.. that would mean each hit would have had to make it through the 2+ armor save first, then each wound (or unsaved wound) he could either take on the character OR (when down to 1w remaining) he can pick any other model from the unit within 6" to take a Look Out Sir attempt, which he automatically passes due to Sworn Protector.

All told, he could have likely saved a good deal more wounds having the hits be on his commander, and then he'd have been able to mitigate 5 of them with 3 on the commander and 1 on each bodyguard. This is all based on my reading of the rules, BRB pg 16 and new Tau Codex pg 104 Special Rules reference section.

Do you feel that would have changed the outcome much JY2?

Im actually a little disappointed. As a Tau player whose new fire warrior gunline has gone 4-0 with ease I was hoping to see the wraiths hit home and do some damage. I dont doubt that a counter exists (a reasonable one that isn't 3 LRs) but I was hoping to see it here. I'm starting to feel bad blasting my opponents to pieces and watching their spirits get crushed. I might need to switch back to my Nids . Anyway, informative BR thanks for your effort.

 BigJP wrote:
Im actually a little disappointed. As a Tau player whose new fire warrior gunline has gone 4-0 with ease I was hoping to see the wraiths hit home and do some damage. I dont doubt that a counter exists (a reasonable one that isn't 3 LRs) but I was hoping to see it here. I'm starting to feel bad blasting my opponents to pieces and watching their spirits get crushed. I might need to switch back to my Nids . Anyway, informative BR thanks for your effort.

Im with you bigjp....one of the reasons i use crisis suits and a farsight deathstar as i think it is more fun for the enemy to fight against regardless of its efficiencies.

I am actrually moving about the board instead of setting up a wall and my opoonents have found it more fun, especially since i always let at least 1 assault unit (wittled down of course) try their hand at assaulting the deathstar and fighting farsight.

As others have said this is really not a competitive Tau list.

The Riptides IMO were not optimised with Interceptor AND Skyfire. Using Riptides as your only AA is a waste of points and best left to Missilesides who are probably the best AA unit in 40k right now. They are also great for taking on anything else through sheer weight of high strength firepower. They can glance AV13 to death pretty quickly too.

I have been using Piranha squads VERY successfully and I think 2 or 3 of these with FB would have minced your AB's. You have to be SUPER aggressive with the new Tau and I have won against a couple of tournie style Necron lists through sheer aggression and focus fire.

I also play Necrons so that probably helps ;-) They are incredibly frustrating to play against and the NS + Troop tactic of just claiming objectives is horrible and so effective. I think Crisis suits with two MPods each could have helped against troops and even the flyers. They spew out some good firepower since the FAQ to the weapon systems.

Overall the Tau player really needs to look at his list and not just rely on 3 Riptides to do the majority of the heavy lifting as when they fail he has no solid back up.

The Ethereal + Firewarrior combo however is brilliant and I use him inside a DF with 11 Firewarriors for a modern Fish of Fury. Combined with support it can put out a lot of pain. Risky as hell but hey, you gotta be aggressive :=D

 Red Corsair wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

No, objective-placement was a disadvantage but not a HUGE disadvantage. I'm of the opinion that the lack of LOS-blocking terrain was a much LARGER disadvantage. It just makes gunline armies so much better.

This bother me. It all depends on your idea of LOS blocking terrain. Terrain that can hide small units or tanks=good.... Terrain that can entirely hide 6 man units of wraiths let alone 18 while still advancing on your enemy=bad. I don't think there is a situation where 1000 points of wraiths is gona make it to 2000 points of tau without some seriously skewed terrain setup. With bubble wrap and friendly overwatch it's simply a losing strategy.

Wraiths have a 3++ and I don't think it was unintentional to make the new models so large for a 2 wound model. . I have to say I'm shocked if you disagree that having 2 out of 3, 3 VP objectives just 6" from your board edge is anything but a huge advantage.

On a side note I had a laugh that he didn't use black sun filters. Playing a gun line and knowing there are two separate 33% chances at night fight and having access to cheap night fight ignoring war gear and not using it baffles me.

I don't advocate huge LOS-blocking terrain where you can hide practically your entire army. I think a 6x6" is probably fair. Even 12x12" is getting a little too large for my taste. But some LOS-blocking terrain is better than none. Otherwise, it just becomes a turkey-shoot for gunline armies in what essentially is a shooty edition of the game.

Objective-placement can definitely be an advantage (as it was in this game)....but really, it depends on the dice roll. There are no guarantees here. Had my opponent won even one of those rolls - to place objectives first or to pick sides first - he could have very easily been the one with 2 objectives on his side. Just like the roll to go first or the roll to steal the initiative or the roll to make/fail a charge or the roll to see what mission and what deployment you have. In other words, this "advantage" is completely random. It turned out to be an advantage for me in this game....but it could have very well been an advantage for him as well. Just like going 2nd on board with no LOS-blocking terrain against a shooty army is an advantage for him.

In any case, these "advantages" can easily be mitigated by tactics and strategy. I could have very well avoided a thumping by deploying my units outside the majority of his shooting (though I would be way out of position) and he could have very well mitigated the objectives disparity by going after the objectives much earlier.

Night-fight isn't as much of a factor if you plan for it. All his suits/riptides have BSF. Also, markerlights don't suffer from NF because they don't cause any wounds. Once they hit, you can just remove cover for the rest of your shooting. It's really not that big of a deal. The only problems was that he did not plan for it and did not move his pathfinders earlier. BTW, even without NF, my warriors can still get 2+ cover from the ruins. That's because the objective there was Scatterfield (+1 cover) so really, he needed to move his pathfinders there to markerlight me anyways.

GreyDragoon wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

4. Doesn't the commander automatically Look-Out-Sirs to his bodyguards? He wanted his marker drones to survive, which was why he left them in the rear. So any shots that hit were were automatically going to his bodyguards first and foremost, whether his bodyguards were in front or his commander was. I fired both AB's and the NS and he failed just enough saves to kill off both bodyguards.

Actually I'm pretty sure there was no reason for him to put those wounds on his bodyguard. The Sworn Protector rule only states that they automatically pass any Look out Sir attempts. It says nothing about them HAVING to take the shots if they didn't want to. So yeah he should have been able to use his iridium armor commander to soak up those shots/wounds and once he was down to 1 wound he could start Look out Sir'ing. With the 2+ Armor save on the Character.. that would mean each hit would have had to make it through the 2+ armor save first, then each wound (or unsaved wound) he could either take on the character OR (when down to 1w remaining) he can pick any other model from the unit within 6" to take a Look Out Sir attempt, which he automatically passes due to Sworn Protector.

All told, he could have likely saved a good deal more wounds having the hits be on his commander, and then he'd have been able to mitigate 5 of them with 3 on the commander and 1 on each bodyguard. This is all based on my reading of the rules, BRB pg 16 and new Tau Codex pg 104 Special Rules reference section.

Do you feel that would have changed the outcome much JY2?

You are right. It looks like he made a mistake which ended up nerfing his own unit. I was not too familiar with the rule, so I played it how he thought it was played.

I will let him know the next time I see him.


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@Thread

I am sure there are many different opinions on what makes for a competitive Tau army. Some thinks triple-riptides are competitive, some think you need HYMP broadsides to make it competitive, some may think a Farsight-deathstar build is competitive, some think you need allies to make competitive......that is all fine. Perhaps it is a mark of a good codex when we all cannot agree on a truly competitive Tau build?

Personally, I really like my opponent's list. I feel that the strength of the Tau lies in its raw firepower headed by an Ethereal, with lots of markerlight support, taking advantage of supporting fire and the versatile riptides for anti-everything. For mobility, eldar allies are perfect with their super-fast jetbikes, psychic defense, and force-multiplying potential (Doom), at least for a few weeks more.

Now not everyone may agree, but that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Just don't be surprised when you see Tau winning tournaments with similar builds to my opponent's army here.

Though probably by then, not sure eldar allies will be the optimal choice for allies anymore.

 jy2 wrote:


I am sure there are many different opinions on what makes for a competitive Tau army. Some thinks triple-riptides are competitive, some think you need HYMP broadsides to make it competitive, some may think a Farsight-deathstar build is competitive, some think you need allies to make competitive......that is all fine. Perhaps it is a mark of a good codex when we all cannot agree on a truly competitive Tau build?

Personally, I really like my opponent's list. I feel that the strength of the Tau lies in its raw firepower headed by an Ethereal, with lots of markerlight support, taking advantage of supporting fire and the versatile riptides for anti-everything. For mobility, eldar allies are perfect with their super-fast jetbikes, psychic defense, and force-multiplying potential (Doom), at least for a few weeks more.

Now not everyone may agree, but that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Just don't be surprised when you see Tau winning tournaments with similar builds to my opponent's army here.

Though probably by then, not sure eldar allies will be the optimal choice for allies anymore.

I agree 100% I started off thinking the riptides were not optimized but pointed out in this thread I learned the effectiveness of rending and allied fortune, so I changed my tune. ((see if eldar survive as allies as you mentioned though))

my 2 cents - death star, 3 riptides, missiles sides, kroot!! WOOT WOOT!!!

shogun wrote:

The fact that you need mobility doesn't change the fact that the player with 2 objectives has to big of an advantage. You can simply put the objectives 6 inch from your table edge and its an uphill battle for the other player with only one objective. What if Tau got 2 objectives in this battle report? Then the don't have to move at all and need even less mobility. So theirs no tactical thinking needed. If that third objective was placed in the middle of the field then it would be more exciting because the Necron need to get that objective despite all the tau shooting and also the tau army need to get out of their defence line to claim it. If the Necron army really wanted to win the could dig in and let the warriors claim both objectives. The could even attach a Necron Lord to both warriors units to take hits and to make sure the survive.

Unfortunately, that's the way the cookie crumbles. 40K is an inherently unbalanced game. This is made even more pronounced by the differences of each and every army. Yes, it's an advantage to the army with more objectives on their side against a slower army. It is also an advantage for a shooty army to go first on a table where the opponent has nowhere to hide. It is an advantage for armies with strong troops because most missions involve objectives. It is an advantage for psychically strong armies against an army without psychic defense. It is an advantage for deathstar armies in certain missions (VP's, the Relic). It is an advantage for assault armies if there is too much LOS-blocking terrain. It is an advantage for flyer-heavy armies against armies with inherently weak anti-flyer/FMC shooting. It is an advantage for some armies with lots of ally options (i.e. Tau, IG, Imperial armies vs Tyranids). The list goes on and on.

But guess what? People still find ways to win despite these "advantages". Yes, it's called tactics and building a balanced army. If you want to play a fair game, play tic-tac-toe. In 40K, your "advantage" depends on the roll of the dice.

Deshkar wrote:
mmm. a very static gunline. think competitive tau need some more mobile scoring to maintain high level competitiveness.
it really shows how the objectives wins the games.
still, nice job by JY to pull out a win, from that devastating firepower.

Mobile scoring is definitely a good thing. But even without it, Tau can still pull off the win. Tau players just need to get out of the mentality that they are a static gunline army. When you are killing that many units, you need to be moving out. With the assault moves of the suits and riptides, they actually have some very good mobility. Don't just stay confined to "your space". Go out and conquer some new territory. Plan for how you are going to get to the objectives. Ideally, this should begin in the list-building phase even before you have played any game, but it continues onto your actual tactics in the game. As they say in the army, "Move your butt, soldier!!!"

 Unreg1stered wrote:
Jy2, thank you as ever for your battle reports. When I check the battle report list every few days, I always know that yours will be a thumping good read. Good pictures, great looking armies, detailed assessments of movements.

The Tau player really should have been advancing by turn 2. By his Turn 2 shooting he had already neutered your wraiths. Moving forward could have easily achieved the middle objective and given him more firepower against the ones in the back, perhaps even throwing a riptide at them to contest.

I think he was a good player, but too cautious. That's why I think orcs are the perfect ally for Tau; they charge right up the field to kill what they can (and usually die) while the Tau follow up behind them, which eliminates their desire to just sit in the back.

Thanks! And I agree with all your points.

My opponent is good, but he hasn't played his Tau in a while, at least not until the new Tau codex came out. He still has room for improvement. The more he plays against me and the other good opponents here, the better he's going to get. In a few months, I think his Tau is going to be a very scary army to face.

Orcs definitely make for some very good allies to Tau. A number of people have been using them to good success. I really like how orks complement a Tau army. But IMO, Tau are really competitive just by themselves. They can succeed just like necrons can succeed as a stand-alone army.

If a tau army wins a GT without misslesides you can tell me to eat crow. :p

 hippesthippo wrote:
If a tau army wins a GT without misslesides you can tell me to eat crow. :p

I'm not as familiar with them because I've never seen them in action. Who knows, maybe someone will win a tournament with riptides and missilesides. As long as they can put up a good volume of shots, especially S7 shots, then it is a good unit.

The only "disadvantage" I see with the missile-sides is that they can either take Skyfire or Interceptor, but not both. Riptides, on the other hand, can take both. Also, missilesides cannot deal with heavy army like the riptides can. That's why I think the riptide is a more versatile choice and why they will be more prevalent in competitive lists.

Of course, I don't see why a competitive Tau list can't have both.

You should have lost your Tau opponent seems quite incompetent, not planning for a 5th turn game over, it happens 1/3 the time.

 jy2 wrote:

 hippesthippo wrote:
If a tau army wins a GT without misslesides you can tell me to eat crow. :p

I'm not as familiar with them because I've never seen them in action. Who knows, maybe someone will win a tournament with riptides and missilesides. As long as they can put up a good volume of shots, especially S7 shots, then it is a good unit.

The only "disadvantage" I see with the missile-sides is that they can either take Skyfire or Interceptor, but not both. Riptides, on the other hand, can take both. Also, missilesides cannot deal with heavy army like the riptides can. That's why I think the riptide is a more versatile choice and why they will be more prevalent in competitive lists.

Of course, I don't see why a competitive Tau list can't have both.

I agree that Riptides are good. And in a first draft list I would prolly take two, but keep them cheap with only ion/fusion/ewo [~190 pts]. However, consider this.

A unit of 3 Broadsides costs 195 pts and puts out:
-12 s7 ap4, twin-linked shots @ bs3
AND
-12 s5 ap5, twin-linked, ignores cover, ignores los shots @ bs3.

Each suit can add 2 missile drones for 12 pts each. Each drone puts out 2 s7 ap 4 shots. So, for an additional 72 pts, you can add:
-12 s7 ap4 shots @bs2.

The drones prolly aren't worth it unless you've already maxed out your HS slots. Regardless, this unit puts out a metric f-ton of firepower at a very efficient cost. With an attached commander granting tank-hunter (and even more missles), I'm positive they are more effective at taking out high AV tanks than a Riptide.

I'm also not sure the inability to take both interceptor and EWO is a big deal. They're putting out such a high rate of twin-linked fire that EWO should be enough. Not to mention velocity trackers are friggin expensive. The [more than likely] attached Commander should be manning a quad gun behind the ubiquitous Tau aegis line anyways.

I agree with you that the best Tau list will probably have both Riptides AND Broadsides.

*****************************************

As a side note, I think it's worth pointing out that the senseless bashing of Jy2s opponent is entirely unnecessary and uncalled for here. In a niche hobby like ours, we should be encouraging new players (or players new to competitive play) and trying to help them. Constructive criticism is key. Bashing new guys until we have no one left to play man dolls with really isn't getting anybody anywhere. Price increases are hurting our numbers enough as it is. He may not be posting here, but you have no idea whether or not he's reading.

It was one of his first games with the new Tau. Riptides are the new hotness so I can totally see the enthusiasm for wanting to run three. He had some bad dice with the many Overheats... The FNP buff could have been a game changer. If I were to play Tau I'd take a long hard look at the heavy burst cannon... It's pretty darn good. That said some diversity I think would have served him better rather than spamming the same build x3. He is learning. Like I said before I'd love to see a rematch with more terrain next time around. Adam has bested jy2 several times which is a testament to his skill.

Its not bashing its text book definition of what happened. He had the OP practically tabled and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, its text book incompetence. I lost a match in my last GT to the same incompetence. It was table quarters and I had killed all my opponents units but a shot to hell LR and a rhino and a land speeder. He was able to beat me 2-1 on table quarters. I had given him exactly zero KP, and held 2 objectives to zero. Final score is 15-14 I lost by one claiming both secondary and tertiary objectives. You lose the forest for the trees sometimes, happens to everyone.

 Valkyrie wrote:
Crushing Victory for the 'Crons?? No bloody way I was expecting that after that cataclysmic first turn. Bravo sir

Thanks!

Theorius wrote:
Wow! how many wounds did he do to himself with novacharge fails and gets hot! wowza!!

sounds like you got super lucky jy2 (not to down play your positional dominiance which worked out well) just the rolls and finished turn 5, i also agree that he should have moved out his troops/suits way sooner once he had handled the wraiths.

I believe he did something like 11-12 Wounds on himself due to failed over-charges and overheats. This seems a little high to me so I attribute it to just bad luck on his part.

Actually, I'm beginning to wonder whether I really did get super lucky. I was rolling low for most of the game. It was actually consistent of me to roll low for the end of the game as well.

 Lt. Coldfire wrote:
Wow, amazing steal there. Your opponent probably did a weapons-grade facepalm when you rolled that 2 to end the game.

Yeah, I could see it in his face. He was kicking himself inside. Must have been a real downer of a game for him. I know I'd be down if it was the other way around - that I was the one who let an easy victory slip out of my hands. Oh well, live and learn.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:
More or less as predicted. You kept his eye off the ball for long enough that all he had were long shots at the end. Realistically I think he'd need 2 more turns to pull out a win, your troops all look to be outside of markerlight range and I don't see him shooting down all 4 of your troop units with 2+ cover (in fact I think only the Riptide has range to your 2 units on the right, and a decent chunk of his FW look out of range of all of your troops). He might be able to tie objectives in one turn though

Not a fan of his move with the jetbikes. Unless he genuinely didn't know that you'd be gunning for them I don't understand that one. Putting them 18" in front of your two scythes would've been a better play in my opinion. Then if you wanted to shoot them you'd have to disembark warriors early (and in front of a riptide), or divert another scythe to that side of the table. As it was though he didn't force you to make any kind of a decision.

DSing one or both of his Commander/bodyguards probably would have helped him out a lot in this game too. I'm not sure how much damage they did to your wraiths, but them DSed near the right objective would've been hard for you to deal with. Is there a reason his ethereal was his warlord and not the T5, 2+ save, 4 wound guy? I'm also not sure their weapons compliment the rest of the list very well, I'd be more inclined to go 2 fusion on each, with puretide and target lock on the commander.

I also think he was overly timid with the riptides. He seemed to jump back a lot when there wasn't really a reason to (perhaps falling prey to the "I have this awesome ability so I'm gonna use it" mindset). Specifically I'm talking about the 2 in middle. Looking at how much damage he did to your wraiths T1 he could have very comfortably left them at the front of his DZ and positioned himself much better to contest with them later in the game (same thing on T2 only now there's quite literally no reason not to press forward since your wraiths are dead and your barges are all in range already).

He might have made it to contest with his riptide had he gone for the 4D6" overcharge jump (along with 6" move and D6" run). He might have got his riptide in for linebreaker as well. In any case, winning on T6 was entirely possible. He might have even shot my warriors off of them as well.

He thought about turbo-ing his jetbikes towards my scythes and even beyond them, but he was concerned about me taking them out with my troops. I guess he decided to do what he felt might have been the lesser of 2 evils - pull his bikes back into the protection of his army. This way, if I had gone after them (and I did), my flyers would then be in range of all his guns.

His command squad did contribute to hurting my wraiths. They also took off 2 HP's from my AB with fusions (only glances) before his commander killed it in assault. Also, it was the Overwatch of his command unit that finally took down my Destroyer Lord (with a re-roll from Doom). If they hadn't been there, my D-lord would have made it into assault.

Yeah, he needed to play more aggressively with his riptides. That was probably his biggest tactical error in this game, and I actually told him so after our game.

GTKA666 wrote:
This bat rep has inspired me to trust in my reserves...if they come on before turn 4 that is .

On another note I never knew pathfinders were that effective? What did marker lights do that wiped out that many of your wraiths?

Not necessarily pathfinders, but their markerlights. Markerlights are what makes the army work. Fortunately for Tau, before only pathfinders could really take them. Now, almost every unit can take marker drones, and they have patherfinders and drone squads that will be your main source for markerlights.

Look at it this way - markerlights are to the Tau what psychic powers are to tyranids. You can still play without them, but they make things so much easier and your army so much better.

Markerlights can be used to remove cover or to upgrade the BS of your shooters. He was basically using them to make his fire warriors and riptides BS5 while taking away jink cover from my AB's and night scythes. Imagine 30 shots from just 1 unit of 10 fire warriors (firing in their "sweet spot") hitting at BS5. That's 24 hits, 16 wounds, 5 failed saves for my wraiths. And that is just 1 unit! It's crazy how effective markerlights make the army.

 Tomb King wrote:
Markerlights are heavy so if he moved them up they would of been snap firing. It is why scouting with them can help with that.

Yeah, but at least you could still fire them. In any case, he was using them against my flyers so he was snap-firing with them anyways. He should've just moved on up as well.

 Ecstasy in Service wrote:
wow... not to put you down or anything but that is just so maddening! To lost after such a great start, and knowing it was all cause you had made such terrible tactical mistakes? Thats got to hurt.

If the objects had been closer to his line, if he had gotten two objectives on his side rather then you then he would have won this one.

Well played on your spot but that is a heartbreaking end for your opponent I am sure. Those Riptides sucked so bad this game, I mean, they did do stuff but they pretty much killed themselves!

No worries. I felt bad for him myself.

Actually, if the situation was reversed - that he had 2 objectives on his side - I still might have won. Say he had his 2 objectives in his backfield and I had my objective. I still had 2 night scythes left. Assuming the game ended on Turn 5 as it actually did, I would have dropped off both units of troops to contest his objectives, also achieving Linebreaker in the process. So I would take it 1 objective to 0. Say he shoots down 1 unit of warriors with his intercepting riptide. Now we will end up tied on objectives with 1 objective each. He would get First Blood + Warlord. However, I would get +2 VP's for his Warlord and Linebreaker....I would have won by secondary objectives.

Of course, there were things he could have done to make it harder for me to contest, but the point I want to make is that it is not an auto-lose situation had he the more favorable objectives. You can still overcome this "advantage" by good tactics and proper planning.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I said triple Ripetide is overrated and I think this report proved just that - too much moar win in lieu of balance.

I think jy2 made some bad decisions in the beginning so it all evens out. You've really got to make the right calls down the line when the game is on the line. Gambling for the game to end on turn 5 was the right choice - I would have done the same. I play Necrons too and am happy to see that the flyers were so strong... I learned a lot in that regard reading this report.

I'd love to see a rematch some time.

I think dual-riptides is definitely a viable build - that Tau doesn't necessarily need 3 riptides to win. However, the fact of the matter is that people will spam the riptides just as they spam heldrakes in competitive play. Many competitive players (myself included) just love efficient units and the riptides are damn efficient.

My deployment is also a nature of habit for me. I'm so used to just deploying across from my opponent and then playing ultra-aggressively, especially if I don't think they can do enough damage to me with their alpha-strike. I have lost a couple of times by doing this, but I've won way more times than I've lost. Now looking back in hindsight, I agree that I should have played more conservatively with them.

I see my opponent every week at our LGS. You can be sure there will be a rematch somewhere down the line.

bodazoka wrote:
I tip my hat too you good sir! I didnt think you had a chance just looking at the army lists!!

Spot on about the Tau players needing to change there game play now they have something they can be aggressive with! the Riptides!!

I was very surprised that he didn't 4D6 move towards your objectives to contest!

I played a Tau player a few days ago with 3 x ghost arks and the only thing I was worried about was the 2 x Str10 smash attacks from the rip tide. My Tau opponent only thought to charge me when I layed out the math hammer for him, before that charging into combat never entered his mind!

I kind of want to say that many Tau players are just too "programmed" in the way they play. Sometimes, they don't see the options available to them tactically until someone points it out.

Tau players have been playing the defensive, gunline game for so long that many aren't sure when to "attack" and play aggressively. Today, my opponent exhibited that behavior, but I can guarantee you that he will learn from his mistakes and change his playstyle. He is actually a pretty good player. Hey, before this game, he beat me 3 out of 4 games!

Positional dominance is as much about forcing your opponent to move where you want him to, as it is about getting your own movement correct. In this battle the Tau achieved Positional dominace during their deployment phase. The objectives were all concentrated in one half of the board, and with the open nature of the battlefield, the Tau gunline really had the advantage from the start.
If the objectives had been more intelligently placed, across the board, The necrons would have forced the Tau out of their deployment zone to take or contest their objectives, and at a stroke robbed them of their dominant position. where they were placed is not really relevant, as with the nightscythes, the necron player could very simply drop troops onto them whenever he wanted.
The necron deployment was awful. there was the rest of the battleield to deploy in, much of it out of range of that scary looking mob of firewarriors, or at least with restricted fields of fire. and if the objectives were scattered, the tau player would have had to spread his forces more, and lost lot of mutual support, and you could have used the wraiths, out of LOS, to threaten any objectives he may be considering going after.
As it was, the necron player decided to concentrate the objectives, deploy opposite a gunline which proceeded to tear massive chunks out of the wraiths, and it was only the Tau players unwillingness to move out of his deployment zone (he didn't have to, after all) that allowed the Necrons to steal the win.

Overall, the Tau lost the game, rather than the necrons winning it (an important distiction) and the Necron player, failed to adapt to the threat that the tau gunline presented and tried to push home an attack that was obviously doomed to failure. there was no way those wraiths were going to make it in anything close to useful numbers, and that was exacerbated by deploying on the line, in the open.

The Tau dominated the game, but failed to score the points to win the game

MarkyMark wrote:
I think it is more of a example of a good tactical player versus one not so good playing the mission is more important then playing a game in regards to winning well done JY2

Thanks! It actually takes discipline to "play the mission". Many times, people just get too caught up in "killing stuff" or at least in trying to kill stuff. Though sometimes, you can get away with it by killing the troops, it is practically impossible to do so against necrons troops protected in their flyers.

 hippesthippo wrote:
@jy2 "Are hymp really that good?" Yes, they are. You said it yourself when talking about how to equip Riptides, it's all about rate of fire (I would give tides ion/fusion+evo tho personally). HYMP-sides with drones have waaaaaayyy more shots, higher strength, and more wounds for a comparable price to Riptides.

Tack on the iridium/chip commander, which can float from unit to unit as needed, and they gain even more resiliency and tank/monster hunters. SICK.

I still think 'tides have a place and would take a pair with ion/evo, but I would consider 1 squad of missle sides to be mandatory in any Tau list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw, I called that game to perfection. 1 or 2 Wraiths lived and you were able to play the objective game.

Well played, Jim. Thanks for another great report. (Though I still think you deployed incorrectly. You had a PERFECT opportunity to refuse flank. Setting up spread out straight across the board against a pure gunline army plays right in to their hands.)

I'll take your word for it - that they are good - though the riptides are a much more obvious choice. Most of the Tau players in my area are running riptides, but not many run missilesides. Can't really say I blame them considering there is a niche for the regular broadsides and those models look way cool, like Tau punk rockers with guitars, whereas the missilesides like kind of meh.

And good call.

 DexKivuli wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I said triple Ripetide is overrated and I think this report proved just that - too much moar win in lieu of balance.

I think that the Riptides could've been much more useful here. I don't see any reason why (after the death of the wraiths) the Riptides couldn't have all started moving forward. Jy2 couldn't have really done much to them, and they would've easily been in contesting range by the end of the game. Also, they would've been a threat to all the barges (in assault, a smashing riptide will kill an AB) and would've made movement more difficult for the flyers (particularly the locked velocity one).

Given their resiliency, I the riptides alone could've clinched the battle for the Tau.

Agreed.

 DexKivuli wrote:

QFT. Missilesides are monsters. I'm a necron player that runs triple barges, and these guys are what I fear. The force-multiplying effects of markerlights and the chip can make these guys absolutely horrendous.

Consider 3 missilesides, 2 drones each, with a drone controller, shooting at the front armour of an annihilation barge:

WIth no assistance, they have a 23% chance to glance it to death IN A SINGLE VOLLEY

4 markerlight hits (2 to take cover, +2 BS), they have a 72% chance to glance it to death IN A SINGLE VOLLEY

4 markerlight hits and tank hunter, they have a 98% chance to glance it to death IN A SINGLE VOLLEY

They're not cheap, but they can do a lot of damage to anything in the game except AV14.

Good data to know. Thanks.

 rems01 wrote:
Anyone else think the terrain was poor?

That table looked very sparse, and more importantly all the terrain was clustered on the edges. Additionally there was no line of sight blocking terrain at all.

Still good job on staying on task and pulling the win through.

You could tell the terrain was placed by a Tau player. j.k.

I think in the future, I'll probably alternate placing terrain with my opponents. People have a habit, even if subconciously, of placing terrain that they like on the table and not those that they don't.

 Valek wrote:
Good job turning that around JY2, altough indeed as mentioned and i mentioned also I think you botched deployement and your first turn.

Running to gun lines is a tactic only employed by primitives when they have thousands to sacrifice.

Now however, you then executed the flyer game to perfection and the small gamble for turn 5 payed of.

I think Riptides are like Helldrakes, 2 is a worriesome thing to face 3 is overextending and debalancing your army.

Yeah, I was betting on Necron resiliency + speed > Tau shooting. Lost that bet.

Then I had no choice but to use my shooting to try to distract him. It was actually somewhat effective, thank goodness!

Triple-riptides is not unbalancing. You can never have enough shooting from the Tau. Riptides give you good shooting, good mobility, a counter-attack presence and great anti-air. They're more versatile than the heldrakes because they can deny objectives and threaten enemy tanks with assault as well. And for about 200-pts, they are actually a bargain.

You don't need three Riptides though. If there had been more terrain its possible a D Lord could have assaulted one of them. Two is good enough. A third doesn't make them 3/2 better.

@jy2- Saying 40k is unbalanced and that I should revert to tic tac toe is a huge cop out. Are there random elements to the game? Absolutely! Does that mean we should not mitigate the most unbalanced aspects to the game? I'd like to think that if someone wants to claim to be a great general of 40k then they need to at least set the stage fairly. Had he received the side with 2 objectives it would have been massively unbalanced in his favor, I am not taking sides here but the fact remains that unless both players are going to discuss terrain and set up of objectives fairly eary on then honestly the whole game can be fairly moot in regards to said objectives. Did the necrons grab a couple objectives? Sure. Did bot players make mistakes? Absolutely, the difference being had the primary objectives been set up like most fair GT run them then all things considered this was a tau win.

Again this was a fun read and I am not trying to detract from the game simply giving what I think is solid feedback so if you play a rematch, we can have a fair table with even objectives. Like I said earlier, if you aren't going to use the BRB to pace terrain then why is it so important to use it's awful rules for objective placement?

 Red Corsair wrote:
@jy2- Saying 40k is unbalanced and that I should revert to tic tac toe is a huge cop out. Are there random elements to the game? Absolutely! Does that mean we should not mitigate the most unbalanced aspects to the game? I'd like to think that if someone wants to claim to be a great general of 40k then they need to at least set the stage fairly. Had he received the side with 2 objectives it would have been massively unbalanced in his favor, I am not taking sides here but the fact remains that unless both players are going to discuss terrain and set up of objectives fairly eary on then honestly the whole game can be fairly moot in regards to said objectives. Did the necrons grab a couple objectives? Sure. Did bot players make mistakes? Absolutely, the difference being had the primary objectives been set up like most fair GT run them then all things considered this was a tau win.

Again this was a fun read and I am not trying to detract from the game simply giving what I think is solid feedback so if you play a rematch, we can have a fair table with even objectives. Like I said earlier, if you aren't going to use the BRB to pace terrain then why is it so important to use it's awful rules for objective placement?

If you want to make 40K completely fair, then I am sorry....you're going to have to play with a lot of house-rules. You can do something about terrain, but a lot of the core mechanics and the dynamics of each individual army is inherently unfair. Even the deployment types, the mission scenarios, the objectives-placement, the bonus objectives, even stealing the initiative - just basic mechanics of the game - will inherently give 1 army an advantage over another. You just have to do the best you can within the framework of the system and it is this exact same system that can sometimes screw you (though randomly). The only fairness and balance to it is that it is random - you don't know who will and can be put at an advantage/disadvantage in any game until you actually play it.

In this case, the game gave me an advantage with regards to objective-placement because I rolled for it. Now why is it my responsibility to make that fair? The dice could have just as easily screwed me over and put 2 objectives on his side. Just as if I fail a charge, should my opponent let me re-roll my charge distance to make it fair and give my wraiths a fighting chance instead of getting mercilessly slaughtered? I'm sorry, but this is a dice game. You win and lose by the dice and that includes rolling for the mission type, initiative, who get's to pick sides and who places the objectives in addition to rolling to hit, to wound, on saves and for morale.

We did not begin the game with any pre-deteremined house-rules in terms of setup. I really don't see why we then need to make house-rules after we have already started rolling for stuff.

I appreciate your feedback. I'm just trying to say the game isn't completely fair. Some stuff, you can make as fair as possible - like terrain and terrain-placement. Other stuff you really can't because they are determined randomly. And while the game may be competitive, it is still just a pick-up game. Since we hadn't agreed prior to the game to playing any particular tournament missions/setups or any particular house-rules, that meant that we just played it by normal book missions/rules. Now if you complain about the fairness of that, then you're basically complaining about the fairness of 6th Edition on the whole.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

ajsnips44 wrote:
The Tau player just needs to work on his tactics with his riptides really. Turn 3 they should have begun booking it for objectives across the table, and his infantry for the middle. All of the Necron combat troops were gone turn 3 and only the some barges and flyers remained. Personally, I find my riptides attempting to Nova every turn, but his rolling for his riptides was atrocious to say the least. I would have stopped rolling to Nova by the third turn for sure with failing so many attempts.

Personally, I wouldn't let a few wounds stop me from using my Nova-charge if I was playing Tau. Unless he's only got 1W left and I need him alive to contest.

41_WarGaming wrote:
I am now subscribing to the theory of Positional Dominance.

Excellent game.

If the Tau player got over the willies of getting into the thick of it, you would have been . But luck given by the Dice Gods favoured you to end the game.

Great report! Much appreciated.

Thanks. Yeah, I stole this game. It should've been his.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Eh, the Fire Warriors should have been spreading out all over the board after turn one. This isn't 5th Edition where you have to stand still to get rapid fire.

I concur with all of Yakface's points. What's the point of the ADL when Tesla has no ap?

Why he didn't put easily accessible objs in his deployment is another mystery.

It was definitely a nature of habit for him to play so defensively.

But there is one benefit to the ADL - 2+ go-to-ground cover if he really needed it. That helps against my volume of fire, especially with his Ethereal gone and him testing for Morale off of LD 7.

As to the placement of his objective, it might have been his own confidence or his unfamiliarity with my army or both!

 tetrisphreak wrote:
I will add that the movement phase is really the only part of the game where a good general has 95% control of what will happen (difficult terrain tests account for the other 5%). Games are won and lost during the movement phase, but beginner players or people who just thrive for the 'kill' tend to weight their tactics via shooting/assault.

Jy2 is a very good tactician, i read his batreps regularly. he understands, and puts to use with this "Positional Dominance" theory what the rest of us should all learn and live by: "Move Right, win the fight". or something along those lines. It also helps that necrons have basically the ability to appear anywhere on the table as long as their night scythes are functional.

Thanks! One of the reasons why I promote my philosophy is because I hope perhaps my battle reports can help people with their games. Many people are under the impression that 40K is all about the offense - shooting and assault. The Movement phase is often regarded as not so important. What I am trying to say is that the Movement phase is just as important as the Shooting and Assault Phases. You can just as easily win the game with movement and positioning as you can with shooting or assault. I hope my reports make people think about not only Movement in the game, but that you have to take it into consideration in the list-building phase as well. Because you won't be able to move well if you don't give your army some mobile units when you build your armies.

And when it comes to movement, necrons have the ultimate advantage with troops in flyer transports. Their shooting and their assault can be good, but it is their mobility which is unparalleled.

The movement phase has always been the most important phase of the game and is by far the least affected by dice. If you think about it your scythes won you the game. Just think if Adam had a unit of missilesides to replace one of the Riptides. He made a lot of mistakes but in my opinion his unbalanced list lost him the game more than anything else.

Missilesides only have a 36" range, it was possible for the NS to keep out of range until the last turn.

Hmm Tau heavy support is very crowded, but I now think Skyrays are possibly the best value unit in the codex. 115 points for a 6 missile Alpha Strike at 72", twinlinked SMS, AV13 and two networked BS4 Markerlights, and Skyfire for free?

Missilesides are great, but very expensive, and BS2 Missile drones are kind of a waste of points since they can't split fire. Not to mention you can pretty much have almost similar firepower from a Bodyguard or Crisis suit team, without the single support system limitation.

A Longstrike Hammerhead is very useful as well against those scary AV14 threats... but Skyrays are so good and cheap I can't help thinking that three Skyrays in the HS slot is the way to go.

A third Riptide might be a bit excessive, but unit saturation is important.

I think the Tau way forward is anti-AV14 on Shadowsun/suits, Skyfire on Skyrays, Anti-MEQ on Ionsides with marker support, and VoF on Firewarriors, and Str 7 from Commander/suits. Now the only thing they need is a mobile, tough scoring unit and psychic defence: Eldar Guardian Jetbikes do the trick and Doomseer do the trick.

 Red Corsair wrote:

I'd subscribe to objective dominance 1st. I said it earlier and Yak said it again, in this scenario with these two armies and those objectives it was pretty much over before it began.

No it wasn't. Despite me having 2 objectives on my side, my opponent not only had a very real chance, but a very good chance to win it. I'm sorry, but if you thought that situation was an autowin for the crons, then I have to wonder about your tactical acumen. His mobility might not have been the best, but he had more than the means and the time to get to my objectives.

Terrain was actually not that bad, considering the fact that if you fallow the terrain deployment from the book it easily could have been worse, and probably would have been. So it baffles me whenever people ignore the BRB for terrain generation and deployment, but then claim that the objective deployment rules from the BRB are sound

I'm the type who plays it as it is, whether it is fair or not. I don't complain because I feel that a well-built army should be able to handle some unfavorable situations. I could have easily swapped out some area terrain for LOS-blocking terrain, but because I felt that you may come up to tables with little to no LOS-blocking terrain in tournament play, then you've got to learn to deal with it. A table with no LOS-blocking terrain is just not fair when you are playing against a gunline army, just as a table with too much LOS-blocking terrain isn't fair when you are playing against a fast assault army. But that's ok because I accepted it, just like the fact that my opponent accepted the objective-placement and layout. If he really felt it unfair, we could have re-rolled for table sides or even for the objectives placement since we kind of messed up in the first place.


For those who really have an issue with the objectives, perhaps in the future, I will request as a house-rule that there only be even-numbered objectives. Personally, I don't agree with changing the core rules in this manner, but I will see what my opponent thinks.

 Kendowned wrote:
As both a tau and cron player i think necrons will struggle vs a good tau list which I don't believe the list played was. they necrons list was a optimised tournament list , not only was the tau list not optimised I don't think its tournament competitive at all.

Really, now? Then I'd like to see what you think is a competitive Tau list at 2K. Don't worry, I'll be nice. I won't pick it apart too badly.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The Tau list is okay but it can definitely be improved.

Yeah, it can be improved upon.

But for some to say it isn't competitive is just sheer ignorance. Just look at what it did to my necrons!!!

Chancetragedy wrote:
I don't think JY2 was talking about having a LOS blocker for all 18 wraiths. But how different would this have been if he had 1 piece to hide a Dlord and 2 wraiths while the other 4 In the squad get blown away. My guess from reading his reports is he meant what you said, just enough terrain to block a tiny section and not be running through an open killing field in the middle of the board. The terrain was clearly set up in the tau favor and the objective placement balanced that out IMO.

Exactly.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
I don't think JY2 was talking about having a LOS blocker for all 18 wraiths. But how different would this have been if he had 1 piece to hide a Dlord and 2 wraiths while the other 4 In the squad get blown away. My guess from reading his reports is he meant what you said, just enough terrain to block a tiny section and not be running through an open killing field in the middle of the board. The terrain was clearly set up in the tau favor and the objective placement balanced that out IMO.

So what does he mean then? Hiding space for one unit? OK so turn one still would have cost him a unit and a half and he would need to expose himself with the rest at some point to assault. Remember you need LOS to assault as well in 6th, so baring poor play from the tau, he was going to need to expose himself to 150 s5 shots at some point.

OK and had the central piece been solid he still would need to rush out for at least 2 turns worth of fire. Those wraiths are not going to beat that much s5 fire. All those wraiths are the equivalent of 36 assault marines, not even as resilient as blood angel FNP AM in this match up and I would never bet on them making it into assault and being effective so why would I bet on the wraiths? No, the objectives didn't balance the game, the game was unbalanced by the objectives and only seemed close due to clean firing lanes and poor necron strategy, people have this backwards. He never even had top assault him to win, had there been massive LOS blocking terrain all he'd need to do is hide until the end of game, not to mention how even more unbalanced it would have been had he placed those two objectives in areas out of site.

Still, I'd prefer to have some LOS-blocking terrain rather than none at all.

Imagine if I was playing the very slow tyranids or other such army. Without any LOS-blocking terrain, they've got practically no chance against this Tau list.

LOS-blocking terrain gives you tactical flexibility. One doesn't necessarily need to rush. Rather, one can always sit and wait for the enemy to go after the objectives and then pounce.

 BigJP wrote:
Im actually a little disappointed. As a Tau player whose new fire warrior gunline has gone 4-0 with ease I was hoping to see the wraiths hit home and do some damage. I dont doubt that a counter exists (a reasonable one that isn't 3 LRs) but I was hoping to see it here. I'm starting to feel bad blasting my opponents to pieces and watching their spirits get crushed. I might need to switch back to my Nids . Anyway, informative BR thanks for your effort.

I don't think this is the norm. I still think wraithwing necrons have a good chance of making it into assault. His damage output was excellent because my saves were below average. I actually failed the first 2 saves for my D-lord on Turn 1! Also, even a smallish piece of LOS-blocking terrain would have helped my army tremendously. Finally, if my crons were to go first, that would be 1 less turn my opponent would have had to shoot down my army.

I think that, as an experiment, I will request a rematch with him with the same armies. Next time, however, I will give him the advantage in objectives-placement but will be putting some LOS-blocking terrain on the table. You're going to see the difference to be like day and night.

 jy2 wrote:

1. He probably meant for his commander to be suicidal melta unit. I believe in most of his other games, his Ethereal survives and his suits dies, so he probably made his Ethereal Warlord by nature of habit. Also, in the previous games between us, I normally go after his fire warriors first and ignore his pathfinders. Had he put the Ethereal with the warriors, it would have made my target priority much easier. Now he's making me choose - go after his scoring units or after his Warlord with a non-scoring unit.

I can understand that, but really with him going first he had to have the expectation to get first blood. And given that your Warlord is also likely going to be charging across the table towards him he really has to expect to get Slay the Warlord too.

That makes the two points you can get by killing his Warlord and Ethereal amazingly crucial to the outcome of the game, almost the entire deciding factor given the objective placement.

Yeah, your target priority would have been easier against the Firewarriors if the Ethereal had been with them, but he's also way less likely to lose the entire 10 man unit even if they don't go to ground...and if the unit DOESN'T go to ground then he can simply join the Ethereal to another unit in the next turn and make it much harder to ever get close to killing the Ethereal.

2. Not all of them were gettting protection from the Aegis. They were back away enough from it and my AB guns were high enough that some of those guys weren't 25% obscured by the ADL. Had he been slightly closer, he would have benefited entirely from the ADL.

He wanted to centralize his Ethereal so that everyone would and could benefit from him.

That's crazy, and that's pretty much what I was talking about above. Making the Ethereal the Warlord basically makes him the most important model in his army for winning the game. If he's going to join him to the Pathfinders then by gods that unit should be the absolutely right behind the ADL or directly behind a FW unit that is right up against the ADL. Its not like your army has a bunch (or any?) blasts/templates...so why did this happen?

His units are bunched up 'vertically' behind the ADL, when instead they should have been strung out and interspersed 'horizontally' with each other. Because of the 6" range of the Supporting Fire rule, as a Tau player you always want to string your units out 'horizontally' along your board edge to maximize how many can be within 6" of each other at all times...and it also means it would be a lot easier to get all of your units close enough to the ADL that only Night Scythes could have possibly targeted them 'over' the ADL and deny a cover save.

3. This would be a judgement call. With wraiths initially and flyers every turn, he probably felt it was a priority to maximize the firepower of his riptides. He just wasn't rolling well with them. Although he probably should have did the 4D6" jump near the end, I have no problem with him over-charging every turn. If I was playing Tau, the riptides are just another sacrificial pawn to me. I really don't care if they live or die as long as my troops survive. Just like I really don't care if my wraiths live or die. You can't really be to attached to your units surviving unless they are scoring or they give off VP's when killed. Those riptides were neither.

While I agree, the problem with that hypothesis is that the Riptides could and should have been used as denial units against the objectives on your side. By taking senseless wounds early in the game you make it harder for a Riptide to survive rushing to the other side and you also make it more risky to gamble for the extra 4D6" thrust when you really need it at the end of the game.

Obviously this is going to be a learning curve for me when I start fielding my Riptide's but I think just like good Tyranid players really have to think when to spawn their Termagants from their Tervigons, good Tau players are going to look for situations where they can get away with not Nova charging their Riptides to save some of their potential for later in the game when things can be really crucial.

4. Doesn't the commander automatically Look-Out-Sirs to his bodyguards? He wanted his marker drones to survive, which was why he left them in the rear. So any shots that hit were were automatically going to his bodyguards first and foremost, whether his bodyguards were in front or his commander was. I fired both AB's and the NS and he failed just enough saves to kill off both bodyguards.

Nope, that unit automatically passed any LoS tests it takes, but it is still totally up to the Tau player when (or if) to utilize LoS. So he should have kept rolling 2+ saves on his commander until he was down to 1 wound (out of 4) and THEN he'd potentially start passing off wounds via LoS, and I don't see why anyone wouldn't put the marker drones closest to the Commander, especially given that at the time there were still ABs flying around in front of them! The two bodyguards w/ fusion blasters are WAY more useful than BS2 marker drones IMHO.

So it sounds like that whole deal got played totally wrong, and its highly unlikely that the unit would have had to take a Morale Check which would have allowed it to threaten your objectives a whole lot more potentially.

@Yakface

If I was playing Tau against the crons, I would have made the Tau Commander the Warlord as well. In our game, he really didn't need to go kamikaze with his commander against my army.

As far as deploying his fire warriors, I wold have deployed the very front unit (or the front 2 units) horizontally. Then I would deploy the rest of the units vertically to ensure that they could shoot. Actually, I'd swap out 1 of those units of FW's for some kroots as my screening front line.

As for riptides, there is just too much motivation for him to always try to nova-charge them in this game. Initially you have the wraiths. Then you have flyers coming in. Then he has nothing to deal with AB's besides his command unit and over-charged riptides. I see your point about timing when it comes to powering-up those tides, but really, every turn was a turn that he should have tried to power up. Unlike tervigons, who once they roll doubles, they are done, riptides have 4 chances to try to nova-charge. Try to be too conservative with them and you may end up losing the game before you even know it.

As for LOS for his commander, yeah, he played it wrong. He kind of nerfed himself by doing so. During the game, I just took his word for it. Next time I see him I will let him know.

 gr1m_dan wrote:
As others have said this is really not a competitive Tau list.

The Riptides IMO were not optimised with Interceptor AND Skyfire. Using Riptides as your only AA is a waste of points and best left to Missilesides who are probably the best AA unit in 40k right now. They are also great for taking on anything else through sheer weight of high strength firepower. They can glance AV13 to death pretty quickly too.

I have been using Piranha squads VERY successfully and I think 2 or 3 of these with FB would have minced your AB's. You have to be SUPER aggressive with the new Tau and I have won against a couple of tournie style Necron lists through sheer aggression and focus fire.

I also play Necrons so that probably helps ;-) They are incredibly frustrating to play against and the NS + Troop tactic of just claiming objectives is horrible and so effective. I think Crisis suits with two MPods each could have helped against troops and even the flyers. They spew out some good firepower since the FAQ to the weapon systems.

Overall the Tau player really needs to look at his list and not just rely on 3 Riptides to do the majority of the heavy lifting as when they fail he has no solid back up.

The Ethereal + Firewarrior combo however is brilliant and I use him inside a DF with 11 Firewarriors for a modern Fish of Fury. Combined with support it can put out a lot of pain. Risky as hell but hey, you gotta be aggressive :=D

Who says the riptides were his only source for AA? And using riptides as AA is a waste of points? WHAT?!? You can't be serious?!? While missilesides can be a source of AA, he's actually got enough pulse rifles to seriously hurt AV11 flyers, especially with markerlight support and with one of the objectives being skyfire.

Piranha's are definitely a viable choice, just like hammerheads and skyrays. Unfortunately, nowadays they are eclipsed by riptides, broadsides and pathfinders and maybe even the Sun Shark.

I've got a question for you....have you run the new riptides yet? Moreover, have you tried running 2 or 3 riptides? For some reason, I have a feeling that the answer will be 'no'.

tgf wrote:
You should have lost your Tau opponent seems quite incompetent, not planning for a 5th turn game over, it happens 1/3 the time.

Yeah, I should have.

Calling my opponent incompetent is kind of harsh. I admit that he made mistakes, but he will learn from them. In my personal opinion, incompetent is someone who doesn't know how to play his army and makes the same mistakes over and over. He knows his army. What he needs is to refine his tactics, and that will come through experience.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
It was one of his first games with the new Tau. Riptides are the new hotness so I can totally see the enthusiasm for wanting to run three. He had some bad dice with the many Overheats... The FNP buff could have been a game changer. If I were to play Tau I'd take a long hard look at the heavy burst cannon... It's pretty darn good. That said some diversity I think would have served him better rather than spamming the same build x3. He is learning. Like I said before I'd love to see a rematch with more terrain next time around. Adam has bested jy2 several times which is a testament to his skill.

I'll recommend the missile-sides to him next time. I'm curious to see how they will perform as well.

 jy2 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

I'd subscribe to objective dominance 1st. I said it earlier and Yak said it again, in this scenario with these two armies and those objectives it was pretty much over before it began.

No it wasn't. Despite me having 2 objectives on my side, my opponent not only had a very real chance, but a very good chance to win it. I'm sorry, but if you thought that situation was an autowin for the crons, then I have to wonder about your tactical acumen. His mobility might not have been the best, but he had more than the means and the time to get to my objectives.

Wonder all you like. I am seriously questioning your tactical acumen myself if you think playing the most mobile army to date against the most static, with complete starting dominance over objectives is anything but a HUGE advantage. Further more I find it comical to question my tactics when it was your deployment that was a perfect demonstration of how not to deploy against a gunline. Literally had it not been for the objective placement you would have been utterly crushed and it's obvious to see, yet the report claims a "crushing victory for the metallic dead" where perhaps a more accurate and modest conclusive title should read.

Consider the fact that those 2 objectives were 6" from your edge leaving 30" for him to cross to get his FW within scoring/denial range. That's 5 turns, the length of the game you played not factoring any terrain rolls and assuming the obvious fact that he needs to be shooting rather then running. Yes I would consider this game an easy win for necrons based on those facts.

I find it very telling when a player can't find the humility to admit when a win was produced from such a situation and not from their hand. Sorry but there was nothing tactical about that necron win.

What I do find compelling is how your opponent despite his MANY errors AND being at a great disadvantage was very close to a win by tabling.

As for LOS blocking terrain I really can't debate it any further as it's hard to even tell from an internet observer what you consider it to be. Those GF9 Ruins in the center to me would qualify even with the occasional gaps as the majority of a units fire would be limited almost entirely and because its such a large piece. I think your going to struggle in general though to hide those massive wraith models from that even more massive riptide whatever the table is.

@yakface- I think he deployed his FW in columns rather then rows (this is speculation on my part) in order to fire all of them at enemy ground targets. Now wraiths are large as models so in this case he probably should have formed rows but I think many people forget that TLOS is forfeit from a squads own members but not friendly units. General beware if you pack 50 FW into a 5 row phalanx you will almost definitely be blind be the time you get to the 3rd unit back let alone the 4th or 5th when firing at like sized models. Many people fail to actually duck down an look at what there mob of FW do in regards to blocking LOS to other units behind them.

In regard to the ethereal I think perhaps purchasing a drone so that your ethereal can attach itself to the riptide and hiding both drone and ethereal behind it may be a valid strategy. If a player can resist those overcharge checks the riptide can make a considerable bodyguard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Food for thought while someone mentioned piranhas. At 40 pts a piece stock, it would only be 600 pts to field 15! I would hate to shell out the dough for those but with av 11 and 8 s5 shots a piece 4 of which are TL, that is some serious dakka for the points.

madtankbloke wrote:
Positional dominance is as much about forcing your opponent to move where you want him to, as it is about getting your own movement correct. In this battle the Tau achieved Positional dominace during their deployment phase. The objectives were all concentrated in one half of the board, and with the open nature of the battlefield, the Tau gunline really had the advantage from the start.
If the objectives had been more intelligently placed, across the board, The necrons would have forced the Tau out of their deployment zone to take or contest their objectives, and at a stroke robbed them of their dominant position. where they were placed is not really relevant, as with the nightscythes, the necron player could very simply drop troops onto them whenever he wanted.
The necron deployment was awful. there was the rest of the battleield to deploy in, much of it out of range of that scary looking mob of firewarriors, or at least with restricted fields of fire. and if the objectives were scattered, the tau player would have had to spread his forces more, and lost lot of mutual support, and you could have used the wraiths, out of LOS, to threaten any objectives he may be considering going after.
As it was, the necron player decided to concentrate the objectives, deploy opposite a gunline which proceeded to tear massive chunks out of the wraiths, and it was only the Tau players unwillingness to move out of his deployment zone (he didn't have to, after all) that allowed the Necrons to steal the win.

Overall, the Tau lost the game, rather than the necrons winning it (an important distiction) and the Necron player, failed to adapt to the threat that the tau gunline presented and tried to push home an attack that was obviously doomed to failure. there was no way those wraiths were going to make it in anything close to useful numbers, and that was exacerbated by deploying on the line, in the open.

The Tau dominated the game, but failed to score the points to win the game

There are 2 parts to my philosophy. The first is to control the movement of your opponent. The second is to set yourself up relative to the objectives. In a sense, you can kind of say that he controlled my movement because he wanted me to move towards his shooting. However, he failed to achieve the second part, which is to set himself up to either claim or contest the objectives. Thus, he did not execute the strategy of Positional Dominance, at least not in my eyes.

 Red Corsair wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

I'd subscribe to objective dominance 1st. I said it earlier and Yak said it again, in this scenario with these two armies and those objectives it was pretty much over before it began.

No it wasn't. Despite me having 2 objectives on my side, my opponent not only had a very real chance, but a very good chance to win it. I'm sorry, but if you thought that situation was an autowin for the crons, then I have to wonder about your tactical acumen. His mobility might not have been the best, but he had more than the means and the time to get to my objectives.

Wonder all you like. I am seriously questioning your tactical acumen myself if you think playing the most mobile army to date against the most static, with complete starting dominance over objectives is anything but a HUGE advantage. Further more I find it comical to question my tactics when it was your deployment that was a perfect demonstration of how not to deploy against a gunline. Literally had it not been for the objective placement you would have been utterly crushed and it's obvious to see, yet the report claims a "crushing victory for the metallic dead" where perhaps a more accurate and modest conclusive title should read.

Consider the fact that those 2 objectives were 6" from your edge leaving 30" for him to cross to get his FW within scoring/denial range. That's 5 turns, the length of the game you played not factoring any terrain rolls and assuming the obvious fact that he needs to be shooting rather then running. Yes I would consider this game an easy win for necrons based on those facts.

I find it very telling when a player can't find the humility to admit when a win was produced from such a situation and not from their hand. Sorry but there was nothing tactical about that necron win.

What I do find compelling is how your opponent despite his MANY errors AND being at a great disadvantage was very close to a win by tabling.

As for LOS blocking terrain I really can't debate it any further as it's hard to even tell from an internet observer what you consider it to be. Those GF9 Ruins in the center to me would qualify even with the occasional gaps as the majority of a units fire would be limited almost entirely and because its such a large piece. I think your going to struggle in general though to hide those massive wraith models from that even more massive riptide whatever the table is.

@yakface- I think he deployed his FW in columns rather then rows (this is speculation on my part) in order to fire all of them at enemy ground targets. Now wraiths are large as models so in this case he probably should have formed rows but I think many people forget that TLOS is forfeit from a squads own members but not friendly units. General beware if you pack 50 FW into a 5 row phalanx you will almost definitely be blind be the time you get to the 3rd unit back let alone the 4th or 5th when firing at like sized models. Many people fail to actually duck down an look at what there mob of FW do in regards to blocking LOS to other units behind them.

In regard to the ethereal I think perhaps purchasing a drone so that your ethereal can attach itself to the riptide and hiding both drone and ethereal behind it may be a valid strategy. If a player can resist those overcharge checks the riptide can make a considerable bodyguard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Food for thought while someone mentioned piranhas. At 40 pts a piece stock, it would only be 600 pts to field 15! I would hate to shell out the dough for those but with av 11 and 8 s5 shots a piece 4 of which are TL, that is some serious dakka for the points.

At this point, I think it's safe to say that we can just agree to disagree.

Yes, objective placement was an advantage to my crons. But whereas you think it is an overwhelming advantage, I think it is an advantage that my opponent could have easily overcome. His riptides could have moved, shot and still jumped towards my deployment and made it there in 2 turns (with an average move of 6" + 7" jump = 13" each turn, and that's not including over-charging his jetpacks or running on T5).

Whereas you thought terrain wasn't a big deal, I say that it took away a lot of tactical flexibility for my army and that does make a difference. Either deploy as I did and get shot up or deploy far away from his shooting and thus, take myself out of position to do what I want to do. Meanwhile he would be moving closer to me in order to try to get within firing range....and this would also take him closer to the ojectives.

Either ways, doesn't look like either of us are going to budge because I guess we are both just that darn stubborn.

This batrep illustrates that Tau still have some major problems holding objectives.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This batrep illustrates that Tau still have some major problems holding objectives.

Pshh maybe for some Tau players...

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This batrep illustrates that Tau still have some major problems taking objectives.

Fixed that for you.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
You don't need three Riptides though. If there had been more terrain its possible a D Lord could have assaulted one of them. Two is good enough. A third doesn't make them 3/2 better.

You don't need 3....but it's nice to have. Seriously, trying playing against 3 of them. They are such a versatile and good unit. They won't unbalance your list at all, at least not in my opinion.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Missilesides only have a 36" range, it was possible for the NS to keep out of range until the last turn.

Hmm Tau heavy support is very crowded, but I now think Skyrays are possibly the best value unit in the codex. 115 points for a 6 missile Alpha Strike at 72", twinlinked SMS, AV13 and two networked BS4 Markerlights, and Skyfire for free?

Missilesides are great, but very expensive, and BS2 Missile drones are kind of a waste of points since they can't split fire. Not to mention you can pretty much have almost similar firepower from a Bodyguard or Crisis suit team, without the single support system limitation.

A Longstrike Hammerhead is very useful as well against those scary AV14 threats... but Skyrays are so good and cheap I can't help thinking that three Skyrays in the HS slot is the way to go.

A third Riptide might be a bit excessive, but unit saturation is important.

I think the Tau way forward is anti-AV14 on Shadowsun/suits, Skyfire on Skyrays, Anti-MEQ on Ionsides with marker support, and VoF on Firewarriors, and Str 7 from Commander/suits. Now the only thing they need is a mobile, tough scoring unit and psychic defence: Eldar Guardian Jetbikes do the trick and Doomseer do the trick.

I've actually played against the skyray before and it's actually pretty good. My only concern is that the Tau heavy support slots are pretty stacked, with regular broads, missilesides and railheads (with Longstrike). But more importantly, people are probably going to fill out their FA slots first with lots of markerlights before going to the heavies. It's ironic that despite such good HS options, Tau players are most likely going to fill up their Elite and FA slots first.

I'm looking forward to the new Eldar codex...because that will be the day Runes of Warding gets nerfed.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This batrep illustrates that Tau still have some major problems holding objectives.

As long as you can kill their Ethereal. Otherwise, their troops are actually pretty hard to get off of an objective. Definitely go after the Ethereal's unit. Otherwise, it will be a much, much tougher fight.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This batrep illustrates that Tau still have some major problems taking objectives.

Fixed that for you.

The way Tau play in objectives games is to shoot the opponent off of theirs unless you can hide the units/objectives behind LOS-blocking terrain.

Sms don't care about a unit of 10 Cultists out of LOS.

Nice read. Thanks for writing it up. The only thing I can say is...should have bought stim injectors for his riptides.

I'll probably be rolling 1 riptide and 2 crisis teams for my (non competitive) list. It's interesting to see so many fire warriors. I usually only take the minimum 2 squads and try to just neutralize everyone else's scoring units. Then again, I am a large fan of the "1 suit and 2 shield drones" model.

 jy2 wrote:

madtankbloke wrote:
Positional dominance is as much about forcing your opponent to move where you want him to, as it is about getting your own movement correct. In this battle the Tau achieved Positional dominace during their deployment phase. The objectives were all concentrated in one half of the board, and with the open nature of the battlefield, the Tau gunline really had the advantage from the start.
If the objectives had been more intelligently placed, across the board, The necrons would have forced the Tau out of their deployment zone to take or contest their objectives, and at a stroke robbed them of their dominant position. where they were placed is not really relevant, as with the nightscythes, the necron player could very simply drop troops onto them whenever he wanted.
The necron deployment was awful. there was the rest of the battleield to deploy in, much of it out of range of that scary looking mob of firewarriors, or at least with restricted fields of fire. and if the objectives were scattered, the tau player would have had to spread his forces more, and lost lot of mutual support, and you could have used the wraiths, out of LOS, to threaten any objectives he may be considering going after.
As it was, the necron player decided to concentrate the objectives, deploy opposite a gunline which proceeded to tear massive chunks out of the wraiths, and it was only the Tau players unwillingness to move out of his deployment zone (he didn't have to, after all) that allowed the Necrons to steal the win.

Overall, the Tau lost the game, rather than the necrons winning it (an important distiction) and the Necron player, failed to adapt to the threat that the tau gunline presented and tried to push home an attack that was obviously doomed to failure. there was no way those wraiths were going to make it in anything close to useful numbers, and that was exacerbated by deploying on the line, in the open.

The Tau dominated the game, but failed to score the points to win the game

There are 2 parts to my philosophy. The first is to control the movement of your opponent. The second is to set yourself up relative to the objectives. In a sense, you can kind of say that he controlled my movement because he wanted me to move towards his shooting. However, he failed to achieve the second part, which is to set himself up to either claim or contest the objectives. Thus, he did not execute the strategy of Positional Dominance, at least not in my eyes.

Viewing a battle report from an observers perspective gives me a different point of view compared to someone who was fighting the battle. Its quite obvious that both of you adopted a strategy that you are familiar and comfortable with, and while its fair to say that the Necrons scored a crushing victory points wise, a look at the table at the end of the game shows a completely different picture. Its also fair to say that the Tau lost the game, rather than the Necrons winning the game, and that is a very important distinction when you consider the outcome. that isn't to say that it was an undeserved victory, you did after all play to the victory conditions and go after the objectives. However, you were saved from complete defeat by the simple fact that the game ended on turn 5.
The tau deployment, with a very concentrated firebase, and a commanding view of the central objective literally dominated the battlefield from the start. This was compounded by your poor placement of the central objective, and your poor deployment of your wraiths. you failed to take advantage of the rest of the battlefield, and your initial deployment, together with the positioning of objectives gave the tau very little incentive to move out of their initial very strong position. the tau could sit firm in their deployment zone, and given the cntral objective was in the open, simply shoot it clear in their turn. So in my opinion, the Tau achieved positional dominance in the deployment phase, and maintained it throughout the battle. If any criticism can be levelled at the Tau, its that they didn't move out of their deployment zone earlier. The wraiths were dead early on, and while the annihilation barges were still a threat, there was easily sufficient firepower to deal with them. So while the Tau achieved and maintained their positional dominance, they were unable, or unwilling to seize the initiative and exploit it.

The error that you made, while it didn't cost you the game, was failing to realise that the Tau had a very very strong position, and that you underestimated just how potent the tau shooting would be. The result was that your wraiths, the units you would use to control the movement phase were dealt with in short order. It could be argued that the wraiths achieved what they were supposed to, since the tau remained in their initial deployment zone and didn't advance sooner, but i think, based on numerous games played against gunlines, the players are not as prepared to advance as perhaps would be recommended and he would have maintained his position against any variety of necron army you would be able to throw at him.

From my perspective, the only thing that saved the Necron army from being tabled was the fact the battle ended on turn 5, if it had continued, it would have been a relatively simple exercise to clear the central objective, take out the remaining necrons, and table them.

What i think you can perhaps take from the battle is that Tau appear to have (if this batrep is anything to go by) a hard counter to a poorly deployed wraithwing, and that this tau player in particular is perhaps too defensively minded and needs to learn to exploit the dominant positions he achieves. Its hard to find any point in the battle that the Necrons had the upper hand despite the fact they technically won.

Position wise, casualty wise and indeed overall, i would put this as a solid Tau victory. but that is also the reason that this is a perfect example of why you need to keep the objectives in mind, since despite their positional advantage throughout the game, the Tau still lost on VP's

What a boring game. No idea why people choose to play gun-lines. I feel like deploying your models and then rolling dice for five turns is really boring.

Griever wrote:
What a boring game. No idea why people choose to play gun-lines. I feel like deploying your models and then rolling dice for five turns is really boring.

Well you've just described every single 40k game played since the dawn of time. Well done.

Perhaps something more involved like Chess is more for you?

People play gunline armies because the Tau army functions best as a gun-line army. Blame the designer, and not the gamer. Some people like to pew pew. Some find pushing 120 plastic orcs across a table every bit as dull.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Griever wrote:
What a boring game. No idea why people choose to play gun-lines. I feel like deploying your models and then rolling dice for five turns is really boring.

Well you've just described every single 40k game played since the dawn of time. Well done.

Perhaps something more involved like Chess is more for you?

People play gunline armies because the Tau army functions best as a gun-line army. Blame the designer, and not the gamer. Some people like to pew pew. Some find pushing 120 plastic orcs across a table every bit as dull.

Uh no, most armies are not gun-lines. Your dismissive tone is not necessary.

Nobody knows what Tau functions best at yet because it's still way too early.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:


Blame the designer, and not the gamer. Some people like to pew pew. Some find pushing 120 plastic orcs across a table every bit as dull.

QFT! Hoard orks are the boring games for me. No surprises just run at me and if I kill you before you get to me which is pretty likely then I win. If you get to me with enough hitting power to kill me then you win. Its too marine for my taste.

Griever wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Griever wrote:
What a boring game. No idea why people choose to play gun-lines. I feel like deploying your models and then rolling dice for five turns is really boring.

Well you've just described every single 40k game played since the dawn of time. Well done.

Perhaps something more involved like Chess is more for you?

People play gunline armies because the Tau army functions best as a gun-line army. Blame the designer, and not the gamer. Some people like to pew pew. Some find pushing 120 plastic orcs across a table every bit as dull.

Uh no, most armies are not gun-lines. Your dismissive tone is not necessary.

Nobody knows what Tau functions best at yet because it's still way too early.

If 'I feel like deploying your models and then rolling dice for five turns is really boring' isn't dismissive, I don't know what is. Saying the game is boring is dismissive. If you bring a dismissive tone, I am at liberty to bring it right back.

Is moving your army and shooting slightly more fun than standing still and shooting? At the end of the day, you're still moving models and rolling dice. If going from an almost-tabling to crushing victory isn't exciting for you, I don't know what it will take.

This isn't League of Legends, there isn't an evolving meta. Everything the Tau can do is readily apparent to a skilled player who reads the codex. Tau are good at pew pew from a static gunline. This is how the codex is designed. Don't read Tau reports if you hate gunline armies.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Nice read. Thanks for writing it up. The only thing I can say is...should have bought stim injectors for his riptides.

I'll probably be rolling 1 riptide and 2 crisis teams for my (non competitive) list. It's interesting to see so many fire warriors. I usually only take the minimum 2 squads and try to just neutralize everyone else's scoring units. Then again, I am a large fan of the "1 suit and 2 shield drones" model.

You can only take 2 support upgrades for Riptides.

If you take Stim Injectors, besides being incredibly expensive, that means you have to give up either Skyfire or Interceptor...both of which are INCREDIBLY useful in certain situations.

I think this bloke really nailed it (I've only quoted the key sentences):

madtankbloke wrote:

It's also fair to say that the Tau lost the game, rather than the Necrons winning the game

you did after all play to the victory conditions and go after the objectives.

However, you were saved from complete defeat by the simple fact that the game ended on turn 5.

If any criticism can be levelled at the Tau, its that they didn't move out of their deployment zone earlier.

A few people have mentioned the death of the wraiths, and the idea that the Tau gunline is a counter to them. This is true. To small arms fire (that are AP4 or worse) a unit of 6 wraiths is just as tough as 12 asault marines. Volume of fire will bring them down, as was seen in this report.

Tau are especially good at this for a few reasons: markerlights can increase the chances to hit; S5 makes wounding 3+ as opposed to 4+ on a lot of other weapons; and ethereals/range mean more shots/earier shots.

 Red Corsair wrote:
@jy2- Saying 40k is unbalanced and that I should revert to tic tac toe is a huge cop out. Are there random elements to the game? Absolutely! Does that mean we should not mitigate the most unbalanced aspects to the game? I'd like to think that if someone wants to claim to be a great general of 40k then they need to at least set the stage fairly. Had he received the side with 2 objectives it would have been massively unbalanced in his favor, I am not taking sides here but the fact remains that unless both players are going to discuss terrain and set up of objectives fairly eary on then honestly the whole game can be fairly moot in regards to said objectives. Did the necrons grab a couple objectives? Sure. Did bot players make mistakes? Absolutely, the difference being had the primary objectives been set up like most fair GT run them then all things considered this was a tau win.

Again this was a fun read and I am not trying to detract from the game simply giving what I think is solid feedback so if you play a rematch, we can have a fair table with even objectives. Like I said earlier, if you aren't going to use the BRB to pace terrain then why is it so important to use it's awful rules for objective placement?

I think youre looking at it wrong, and are being sour about the outcome for some reason. Every army has a "best case" and a "worst case" which can pop out depending on the mission/objectives/table set up. Getting all bent out of shape and basically calling a player on here an unfair gamer is in poor taste. Set the table up differently, and set the objectives differently and it would of been a different outcome. But thats obvious because like I said, it will end up favouring one army over the other. Period. This is one of the few things that happens in 40k that is fairly realistic. Its NEVER going to be a perfectly even, fair fight. Someone is going to get the shaft, its up to the player and the dice to overcome the odds.

I voted Necrons as the winner, though suspect they would be pretty beat up and expecting all Wraiths to die along with majority of the Night Scythes - looking at the aftermath is appears I was pretty bang on the money.

Reason I said those things is the RIptides can take out the flyers with weight of damage, but if a Riptide can be focused on with ABs, Warriors and then finished off with the old mindshackles and Wraiths, then job done. However, while this is happening those Wraiths will be taking fire power (didn't read if they did or not though by looking at it they got destroyed), though sounds like the Riptides killed themselves more than jy2 did

Some questions though:

How come you didn't place objectives like normally? i.e roll for table edge then roll for placing objectives.

Why did Tau deploy forward? Surely the opponent would expect you to put those Wraiths as close as possible? Everything would have done better being pushed back a little more with Riptides at the front. I am pretty sure Tau have the range to do this (correct me if I am wrong).

How come you moved the Night Scythes up the flank? I would have gone balls to the walls at that point as you badly needed the fire support and I would have moved them up, bailed out Warriors and then shot the gak out of the unit your D-Lord and Wraith was going to assault.

Well done on the victory, looks like Tau are pretty good, but I still hate 'em, so good job for mashing them up

 hippesthippo wrote:
Sms don't care about a unit of 10 Cultists out of LOS.

I suppose they don't. On the brightside, the main gun on the riptide would be wasted if he is firing at troops outside of his LOS.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Nice read. Thanks for writing it up. The only thing I can say is...should have bought stim injectors for his riptides.

I'll probably be rolling 1 riptide and 2 crisis teams for my (non competitive) list. It's interesting to see so many fire warriors. I usually only take the minimum 2 squads and try to just neutralize everyone else's scoring units. Then again, I am a large fan of the "1 suit and 2 shield drones" model.

 yakface wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Nice read. Thanks for writing it up. The only thing I can say is...should have bought stim injectors for his riptides.

I'll probably be rolling 1 riptide and 2 crisis teams for my (non competitive) list. It's interesting to see so many fire warriors. I usually only take the minimum 2 squads and try to just neutralize everyone else's scoring units. Then again, I am a large fan of the "1 suit and 2 shield drones" model.

You can only take 2 support upgrades for Riptides.

If you take Stim Injectors, besides being incredibly expensive, that means you have to give up either Skyfire or Interceptor...both of which are INCREDIBLY useful in certain situations.

Right. I think most Tau players won't get the stim injectors because 1) they are expensive and 2) riptides can only carry 2 support upgrades, of which mostly they will use it for Skyfire + Interceptor.

madtankbloke wrote:
Viewing a battle report from an observers perspective gives me a different point of view compared to someone who was fighting the battle. Its quite obvious that both of you adopted a strategy that you are familiar and comfortable with, and while its fair to say that the Necrons scored a crushing victory points wise, a look at the table at the end of the game shows a completely different picture. Its also fair to say that the Tau lost the game, rather than the Necrons winning the game, and that is a very important distinction when you consider the outcome. that isn't to say that it was an undeserved victory, you did after all play to the victory conditions and go after the objectives. However, you were saved from complete defeat by the simple fact that the game ended on turn 5.
The tau deployment, with a very concentrated firebase, and a commanding view of the central objective literally dominated the battlefield from the start. This was compounded by your poor placement of the central objective, and your poor deployment of your wraiths. you failed to take advantage of the rest of the battlefield, and your initial deployment, together with the positioning of objectives gave the tau very little incentive to move out of their initial very strong position. the tau could sit firm in their deployment zone, and given the cntral objective was in the open, simply shoot it clear in their turn. So in my opinion, the Tau achieved positional dominance in the deployment phase, and maintained it throughout the battle. If any criticism can be levelled at the Tau, its that they didn't move out of their deployment zone earlier. The wraiths were dead early on, and while the annihilation barges were still a threat, there was easily sufficient firepower to deal with them. So while the Tau achieved and maintained their positional dominance, they were unable, or unwilling to seize the initiative and exploit it.

The error that you made, while it didn't cost you the game, was failing to realise that the Tau had a very very strong position, and that you underestimated just how potent the tau shooting would be. The result was that your wraiths, the units you would use to control the movement phase were dealt with in short order. It could be argued that the wraiths achieved what they were supposed to, since the tau remained in their initial deployment zone and didn't advance sooner, but i think, based on numerous games played against gunlines, the players are not as prepared to advance as perhaps would be recommended and he would have maintained his position against any variety of necron army you would be able to throw at him.

From my perspective, the only thing that saved the Necron army from being tabled was the fact the battle ended on turn 5, if it had continued, it would have been a relatively simple exercise to clear the central objective, take out the remaining necrons, and table them.

What i think you can perhaps take from the battle is that Tau appear to have (if this batrep is anything to go by) a hard counter to a poorly deployed wraithwing, and that this tau player in particular is perhaps too defensively minded and needs to learn to exploit the dominant positions he achieves. Its hard to find any point in the battle that the Necrons had the upper hand despite the fact they technically won.

Position wise, casualty wise and indeed overall, i would put this as a solid Tau victory. but that is also the reason that this is a perfect example of why you need to keep the objectives in mind, since despite their positional advantage throughout the game, the Tau still lost on VP's

Yeah, my crons were getting dominated. Yes, it was more like him losing the game as opposed to my army taking the game. But a win is still a win, even if you are almost tabled in the process. Sometimes, you have to take the gamble for a Turn 5 win, especially when you are so depleted that if it went any further, you may be completely wiped out.

As for positional dominance, looks like we have 2 differing opinions on its definition. Your definition seems to be to control your opponent's movement by having him move to where you want. So from that perspective, then yes, the Tau did achieve positional dominance. My definition, however, requires more than just to control your opponent's movement. My definition is that you also have to move your forces into a position to easily claim or contest objectives. In that regards, the Tau failed to do. Thus from my perspective, no they didn't achieve positional dominance.

Griever wrote:
What a boring game. No idea why people choose to play gun-lines. I feel like deploying your models and then rolling dice for five turns is really boring.

Different strokes for different folks. Some people like to play gunline armies. Others may find it boring. Just like some people like to play rush armies whereas others may find it boring. You can't please them all.

BTW, is there a 40K game where you don't deploy models and then roll dice for 5 turns?

Griever wrote:

Nobody knows what Tau functions best at yet because it's still way too early.

Um....shooting?

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

If 'I feel like deploying your models and then rolling dice for five turns is really boring' isn't dismissive, I don't know what is. Saying the game is boring is dismissive. If you bring a dismissive tone, I am at liberty to bring it right back.

Is moving your army and shooting slightly more fun than standing still and shooting? At the end of the day, you're still moving models and rolling dice. If going from an almost-tabling to crushing victory isn't exciting for you, I don't know what it will take.

This isn't League of Legends, there isn't an evolving meta. Everything the Tau can do is readily apparent to a skilled player who reads the codex. Tau are good at pew pew from a static gunline. This is how the codex is designed. Don't read Tau reports if you hate gunline armies.

+1.

 DexKivuli wrote:
I think this bloke really nailed it (I've only quoted the key sentences):

madtankbloke wrote:

It's also fair to say that the Tau lost the game, rather than the Necrons winning the game

you did after all play to the victory conditions and go after the objectives.

However, you were saved from complete defeat by the simple fact that the game ended on turn 5.

If any criticism can be levelled at the Tau, its that they didn't move out of their deployment zone earlier.

A few people have mentioned the death of the wraiths, and the idea that the Tau gunline is a counter to them. This is true. To small arms fire (that are AP4 or worse) a unit of 6 wraiths is just as tough as 12 asault marines. Volume of fire will bring them down, as was seen in this report.

Tau are especially good at this for a few reasons: markerlights can increase the chances to hit; S5 makes wounding 3+ as opposed to 4+ on a lot of other weapons; and ethereals/range mean more shots/earier shots.

Wraiths can still survive such firepower, especially with the 2+ D-lord with 4+ come-back-from-the-dead (I equip my D-lords with ResOrbs) there to tank shots. But yes, they are rather vulnerable to volume-of-fire/attacks. An army such as this, horde orks, IG blob squads or even tyranid gribblies can give them problems.

If we look at the mathhammer: 30 pulse rifle shots hitting on BS5 due to markerlights against a wraithstar. 30 S5 shots, 25 hits, 17 wounds. It'll take 18 wounds just to kill the D-lord and then he has a 4+ chance to get back up.

If the wraithstar is Doomed, that's 30 shots, 25 hits, 22 wounds. It'll take another 6 wounds just to kill 1 wraith, so with 22 wounds, you will kill the D-lord and 1 wraith.

My opponent's shooting did way more damage than that because I failed an above-average number of saves and only 2 of his fire warrior units were in triple-fire range (of my front wraith unit).

Not trying to take anything away from Tau shooting. Just saying that normally, the wraithstar can survive a little better than that, though I probably wouldn't have survived 3 turns of Tau shooting.

 KingCracker wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
@jy2- Saying 40k is unbalanced and that I should revert to tic tac toe is a huge cop out. Are there random elements to the game? Absolutely! Does that mean we should not mitigate the most unbalanced aspects to the game? I'd like to think that if someone wants to claim to be a great general of 40k then they need to at least set the stage fairly. Had he received the side with 2 objectives it would have been massively unbalanced in his favor, I am not taking sides here but the fact remains that unless both players are going to discuss terrain and set up of objectives fairly eary on then honestly the whole game can be fairly moot in regards to said objectives. Did the necrons grab a couple objectives? Sure. Did bot players make mistakes? Absolutely, the difference being had the primary objectives been set up like most fair GT run them then all things considered this was a tau win.

Again this was a fun read and I am not trying to detract from the game simply giving what I think is solid feedback so if you play a rematch, we can have a fair table with even objectives. Like I said earlier, if you aren't going to use the BRB to pace terrain then why is it so important to use it's awful rules for objective placement?

I think youre looking at it wrong, and are being sour about the outcome for some reason. Every army has a "best case" and a "worst case" which can pop out depending on the mission/objectives/table set up. Getting all bent out of shape and basically calling a player on here an unfair gamer is in poor taste. Set the table up differently, and set the objectives differently and it would of been a different outcome. But thats obvious because like I said, it will end up favouring one army over the other. Period. This is one of the few things that happens in 40k that is fairly realistic. Its NEVER going to be a perfectly even, fair fight. Someone is going to get the shaft, its up to the player and the dice to overcome the odds.

Maybe read the whole thread and you will understand my point. Claiming to play competitive games in 6th REQUIRES fair set up and objective placement, this is why all competitive GT's have been designing set ups and objectives to balance the game, that's why the BAO mission packet is so dang popular right now. So my only beef is when the author claims to have won some impressive victory in a competitive game when it was set up to the contrary. I also didn't call him an unfair game and I am starting to get sore because the discussion keeps getting personal rather then looking at the facts. I would have complained about the outcome even had his opponent started with the 2 objectives in his deployment zone. It makes for a rather trivial and obvious outcome barring complete idiocy from the controlling player.

As jy2 said, agree to disagree. This is not the first time we have not seen eye to eye and it won't be the last I'm sure. But I rather enjoy the debate and I only discuss these topics honestly rather then join the mob. I enjoy the effort and good writing and again thank jy2 for sharing as always, I just think if we are to consider the game in a competitive light it would be best using a packet like the BAO where the mission is decided more by player decision and list design rather then initial objective deployment.

If you disagree that's fine, me and jy2 seem to be done with the debate however as we have analyzed it ad nauseum.

 yakface wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Nice read. Thanks for writing it up. The only thing I can say is...should have bought stim injectors for his riptides.

I'll probably be rolling 1 riptide and 2 crisis teams for my (non competitive) list. It's interesting to see so many fire warriors. I usually only take the minimum 2 squads and try to just neutralize everyone else's scoring units. Then again, I am a large fan of the "1 suit and 2 shield drones" model.

You can only take 2 support upgrades for Riptides.

If you take Stim Injectors, besides being incredibly expensive, that means you have to give up either Skyfire or Interceptor...both of which are INCREDIBLY useful in certain situations.

Well, that certainly answers my question. I will bow to superior experience on this one. To tell the truth, I haven't even gotten a chance to read the codex yet. The local store I get my 40k stuff from is rapidly turning into a model airplane/train store and the hobby games section keeps getting smaller and smaller. I had to order it in from good old GW.

 KingCracker wrote:

I think youre looking at it wrong, and are being sour about the outcome for some reason. Every army has a "best case" and a "worst case" which can pop out depending on the mission/objectives/table set up. Getting all bent out of shape and basically calling a player on here an unfair gamer is in poor taste. Set the table up differently, and set the objectives differently and it would of been a different outcome. But thats obvious because like I said, it will end up favouring one army over the other. Period. This is one of the few things that happens in 40k that is fairly realistic. Its NEVER going to be a perfectly even, fair fight. Someone is going to get the shaft, its up to the player and the dice to overcome the odds.

Exactly. 40K is inherently and potentially unfair. That is because of the random elements in the game and the fact that certain armies play better in certain situations (i.e. necron flyers in objectives games, Tau shooting on a table with no LOS-blocking terrain, psychic armies getting favorable/useful psychic powers, etc., Draigowing in the Relic). The only way to really make it fair is to inject a lot of house rules designed to either take away some of the random elements in the game or to nerf certain army strengths. That is something I'd rather not do unless both my opponent and I agree otherwise.

BTW, I'd like to thank the original poster for his feedback. I know his intent was for the good of the game, even if his delivery is a little blunt. But that's fine, some people are just a little more direct than others.

 mercer wrote:
I voted Necrons as the winner, though suspect they would be pretty beat up and expecting all Wraiths to die along with majority of the Night Scythes - looking at the aftermath is appears I was pretty bang on the money.

Reason I said those things is the RIptides can take out the flyers with weight of damage, but if a Riptide can be focused on with ABs, Warriors and then finished off with the old mindshackles and Wraiths, then job done. However, while this is happening those Wraiths will be taking fire power (didn't read if they did or not though by looking at it they got destroyed), though sounds like the Riptides killed themselves more than jy2 did

Some questions though:

How come you didn't place objectives like normally? i.e roll for table edge then roll for placing objectives.

Why did Tau deploy forward? Surely the opponent would expect you to put those Wraiths as close as possible? Everything would have done better being pushed back a little more with Riptides at the front. I am pretty sure Tau have the range to do this (correct me if I am wrong).

How come you moved the Night Scythes up the flank? I would have gone balls to the walls at that point as you badly needed the fire support and I would have moved them up, bailed out Warriors and then shot the gak out of the unit your D-Lord and Wraith was going to assault.

Well done on the victory, looks like Tau are pretty good, but I still hate 'em, so good job for mashing them up

We actually messed up on the objective-deployment. Normally it is roll for mission, place objectives and then roll for sides. In this game, we actually rolled for sides first because we forgot about placing objectives. We then rolled for objectives afterwards and decided to keep it as is. If my opponent had objected, we would have probably redone everything again or just re-roll for deployment. In any case, my strategy for placing objectives would be to put them as close to the edge as possible.

Tau deployed forwards so that they could shoot at my wraiths, are a little closer to the objectives and also to benefit from the ADL. Riptides out-ranged the FW's and he definitely didn't want to use them as a screening unit. I am of the opinion that his deployment was fine.

I moved the NS up to flank to avoid his riptides. They have sky fire and interceptor and in many cases, were overcharged. That meant 12 S6 shots. My flyers wanted no part of that. I decided that the survivability of my scythes were much more important than their firepower, especially since almost all my ground forces were gone.

Yeah, the new Tau are indeed pretty good.

I think you made a big mistake by bum-rushing with the Wraiths.

That's the right call against an army that's gone all-in on anti-tank, but against an army that's gone all-in on anti-infantry, I think you have to lead with the A-barges.

In your position I think I would have deployed the A-barges right on the line across from the Fire Warriors and the Wraiths all on one flank right on the edge of the Fire Warriors' range so they have to move out of cover if they want to bring weight of fire. I'd have probably hung back with the Wraiths until the A-barges (and later Night Scythes) had had at least two turns to pound on the Fire Warriors. Either they go to ground or a bunch of them die, but either way your Wraiths will have a much better time advancing late-game.

NeutronPoison wrote:
I think you made a big mistake by bum-rushing with the Wraiths.

That's the right call against an army that's gone all-in on anti-tank, but against an army that's gone all-in on anti-infantry, I think you have to lead with the A-barges.

In your position I think I would have deployed the A-barges right on the line across from the Fire Warriors and the Wraiths all on one flank right on the edge of the Fire Warriors' range so they have to move out of cover if they want to bring weight of fire. I'd have probably hung back with the Wraiths until the A-barges (and later Night Scythes) had had at least two turns to pound on the Fire Warriors. Either they go to ground or a bunch of them die, but either way your Wraiths will have a much better time advancing late-game.

After experiencing the firepower of the Tau this game, if I had to play against them again with my crons, I just may play more conservatively next time. It really will depend on a number of factors, including terrain setup, who is going first, mission type, etc. But ideally, yes, I want all my forces - barges, night scythes and wraiths - to strike all at once in a coordinated assault and hopefully as intact as possible.

It was a competitive game between jy2 and Adam. I really enjoyed reading the batrep and hope there is a rematch. I do not think the Tau army is optimized but it gave Jim's Necrons a run for the money. I would rather focus on all the many positive things in this thread rather than constantly harp on how competitive the game was. The meta is really crazy this edition and that makes things a lot more interesting than fifth edition for me.

I do agree with yakface - I'd much rather have Interceptor and Skyfire on the Riptides. They are very resilient as is. Making them more versatile is the better investment.

 jy2 wrote:
e]
We actually messed up on the objective-deployment. Normally it is roll for mission, place objectives and then roll for sides. In this game, we actually rolled for sides first because we forgot about placing objectives. We then rolled for objectives afterwards and decided to keep it as is. If my opponent had objected, we would have probably redone everything again or just re-roll for deployment. In any case, my strategy for placing objectives would be to put them as close to the edge as possible.

Tau deployed forwards so that they could shoot at my wraiths, are a little closer to the objectives and also to benefit from the ADL. Riptides out-ranged the FW's and he definitely didn't want to use them as a screening unit. I am of the opinion that his deployment was fine.

I moved the NS up to flank to avoid his riptides. They have sky fire and interceptor and in many cases, were overcharged. That meant 12 S6 shots. My flyers wanted no part of that. I decided that the survivability of my scythes were much more important than their firepower, especially since almost all my ground forces were gone.

Yeah, the new Tau are indeed pretty good.

No, you roll for mission first, then table sides then setup objectives. It appeared from the bat rep you just put the objectives down randomly or upon agreement with each other.

Well the Tau have 36" long rifles so they do not need to be deployed forward if you are depploying 12" from your table edge (which looks like you was) and the ADL can be placed any where, so could be pulled back. With the Riptides at the front they would be a nice assault blocker. But hey ho each one to their own.

Yes, I read about you moving up the flanks for that reason, though I still would have gone balls to the walls as you're in range either way of Riptide fire power. I would have just hoped for the best.

What do you think of triple Riptide lists then?

jy2, I think a better term for what you're meaning by saying 40k is an unfair game is that it is asymmetric. Despite being at the same points level, a game of 40k is not a symmetric battle between perfectly equally matched sides. Some armies are better than others in certain areas, and of course chance plays a role.

This is generally okay and accepted, asymmetric games allow for many cool strategies not possible with symmetric ones. The problem comes when, from a game design perspective, the asymmetries become either totally in favor of one or another player, to the point where it harms the fun of playing in the game.

BRB missions are beyond standard asymmetry. At their best (determined by chance), they are functional; at their worst, they encourage stale and static play. Compare the BRB missions to WM/H Steamroller scenarios, which still retain chance elements and asymmetry, but in a manner that does not make the players feel the mission is illegitimate.

When I get a 4, 3, and 2 value objectives in my half of the table in the Scouring, and I am playing a gunline with significant counter-assault elements, there's a fundamental problem. Having one player be aggressive in a matchup isn't bad, its bad when it effectively means that, unless I'm tabled, I win. From a game design perspective, it encourages stale play from my side, not exactly what we're looking for in an exciting game. The same happens in Emperor's Will, which quickly becomes 'who got first turn/got first blood.'

This also probably has to do with player vs game designer perspectives. From a player's perspective, asymmetry or unfairness is just the way things are, and one just deals with it by army composition and tactics. If one character in a fighting game is just better than others, so be it, I'll play that character in a tournament, and have all mirror matches with others who've made that same decision. That's my prerogative as a competitive player playing to win. However, if we're trying to encourage varied play styles and character selection, then we actively want to ensure that many choices are viable, and players don't feel screwed over.

TL;DR Asymmetry in 40k is good, but badly designed asymmetry is bad...
That's not to take away from the Battle Report, it's amazing as always!

So jy2 made a mistake. I can't even count how many times mercer made so many huge 'mistakes' to his own advantage. Pot call kettle black.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
It was a competitive game between jy2 and Adam. I really enjoyed reading the batrep and hope there is a rematch. I do not think the Tau army is optimized but it gave Jim's Necrons a run for the money. I would rather focus on all the many positive things in this thread rather than constantly harp on how competitive the game was. The meta is really crazy this edition and that makes things a lot more interesting than fifth edition for me.

I do agree with yakface - I'd much rather have Interceptor and Skyfire on the Riptides. They are very resilient as is. Making them more versatile is the better investment.

There probably will be a rematch somewhere down the line. But next time, expect my crons to give his Tau a run for their money.

 mercer wrote:
No, you roll for mission first, then table sides then setup objectives. It appeared from the bat rep you just put the objectives down randomly or upon agreement with each other.

In that case, our original setup was correct. It would make more sense to place objectives first and then roll for sides to try to discourage objective overloading. In any case, everything was rolled for.and objectives definitely was not placed randomly.

 mercer wrote:

Well the Tau have 36" long rifles so they do not need to be deployed forward if you are depploying 12" from your table edge (which looks like you was) and the ADL can be placed any where, so could be pulled back. With the Riptides at the front they would be a nice assault blocker. But hey ho each one to their own.

Yes, I read about you moving up the flanks for that reason, though I still would have gone balls to the walls as you're in range either way of Riptide fire power. I would have just hoped for the best.

What do you think of triple Riptide lists then?

Pulse rifles are only 30" and he had to deploy first. That means he had no idea how I was going to deploy. I don't see very many Tau players use riptides as assault blockers. There really isn't any need with supporting fire. Just use 1 unit of troops as a sacrificial screening unit for Overwatch firepower and then shoot the heck out of the enemy after he wipes out that unit. No need to sacrifice your riptide who can contribute so much more with his firepower.

Going balls-to-the-walls is exactly what I did with my wraiths and look where that got them. No, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. If my vehicles don't survive, then I have no chance of winning. Thus, I couldn't play as aggressively with them as I'd like. Granted, if my wraiths had survived and made it into assault, I probably would have considered this strategy. But the way things were going, I wasn't going to fly directly into the lion's mouth.

The triptide list is quite good. Expect to see them a lot in tournament play, just like the heldrake.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Thariinye wrote:
jy2, I think a better term for what you're meaning by saying 40k is an unfair game is that it is asymmetric. Despite being at the same points level, a game of 40k is not a symmetric battle between perfectly equally matched sides. Some armies are better than others in certain areas, and of course chance plays a role.

This is generally okay and accepted, asymmetric games allow for many cool strategies not possible with symmetric ones. The problem comes when, from a game design perspective, the asymmetries become either totally in favor of one or another player, to the point where it harms the fun of playing in the game.

BRB missions are beyond standard asymmetry. At their best (determined by chance), they are functional; at their worst, they encourage stale and static play. Compare the BRB missions to WM/H Steamroller scenarios, which still retain chance elements and asymmetry, but in a manner that does not make the players feel the mission is illegitimate.

When I get a 4, 3, and 2 value objectives in my half of the table in the Scouring, and I am playing a gunline with significant counter-assault elements, there's a fundamental problem. Having one player be aggressive in a matchup isn't bad, its bad when it effectively means that, unless I'm tabled, I win. From a game design perspective, it encourages stale play from my side, not exactly what we're looking for in an exciting game. The same happens in Emperor's Will, which quickly becomes 'who got first turn/got first blood.'

This also probably has to do with player vs game designer perspectives. From a player's perspective, asymmetry or unfairness is just the way things are, and one just deals with it by army composition and tactics. If one character in a fighting game is just better than others, so be it, I'll play that character in a tournament, and have all mirror matches with others who've made that same decision. That's my prerogative as a competitive player playing to win. However, if we're trying to encourage varied play styles and character selection, then we actively want to ensure that many choices are viable, and players don't feel screwed over.

TL;DR Asymmetry in 40k is good, but badly designed asymmetry is bad...
That's not to take away from the Battle Report, it's amazing as always!

Well said. I like how you put it better.

Yeah, the game of 40K is asymmetrical. That's a problem with playing the book missions. We did think about using the BAO scenarios but decided just to go with book missions for simplicity. I actually think this is more representative of the majority of the gamers because most players just run normal book missions. I actually like the BAO system because even if 1 army gets a mission that is unfavorable to it, it can still try to win the 2nd mission objective instead.

As usual, I will ask what mission-types my opponent wants to play - whether book, a particular tournament-style or custom - and we will go from there. If your list is balanced enough, then it shouldn't really matter much even if you are dealt a setback like going 2nd or unfavorable mission objectives. However, if that does hurt you, then you didn't design your list well enough to be able to handle such contingencies. Don't blame it on outside factors beyond the control of either players. Or at least that is my philosophy on competitive gaming.

Nice battle. Watching it has solidified in my mind that Tau are crazy good. Had the Tau general been on the same skill level as yourself and had seen that necron list before, it would've been a crushing Tau win, no questions asked. And as usual in 40k, you can't get through a game without the dice gods playing a prank on someone. Today it was the Riptides. That, and even against an unprepared opponent with an unoptimized list, the early-ending random game length roll saved the Necrons' collective bacon.

It is definately surreal to see a dozen guys on objectives stand up suddenly and announce that they won, and have an entire army on the other side all look down in sadness and walk home.

Dozer Blades wrote:So jy2 made a mistake. I can't even count how many times mercer made so many huge 'mistakes' to his own advantage. Pot call kettle black.

What's your beef, dude? I am just making conversation, this is what this is for, yes? I am not insulting jy2 in any shape or form. I am pretty sure he can defend himself and doesn't need a knight in shining armour with panties to back himself up.

And what exact mistakes have I made for my advantage? Be nice if you can point them out so I do not make them again. Also I love it how you put 'mistakes' to imply I am cheating.

Chill your beans and get off your high horse.

Great Report and list one thing to add is the Night scythe can move its full 36 in movement and spit out troops. they can't assault or shoot at full BS but it has huge reach for the Crons. also a flyer hit by immobilized result while zooming is just locked velocity and cant zoom or go less than 18in. and night scythe troops go into reserves when shot down.

NecronGeneral wrote:
also a flyer hit by immobilized result while zooming is just locked velocity and cant zoom or go less than 18in.

Actually, per the current FAQ, it's a bit worse than that:

Q: If a Flyer suffers Locked Velocity and was moving at Cruising
Speed (18"-36"), what speed is its velocity actually locked at?
(p81)
A: 36".

After reading whole batrep and some comments I think that its better not to advance with wraiths, they gonna make enemy defending for a while but then they all gonna die, just try to get out of 30" range, kill mobile scoring unit like jetbikes with teslas. Then when he advance with FW shoot them with everything you have to reduce those huge amount of S5 shots, then at the end of game wraiths can try to assault, probably etheral gonna be dead by this time.

Do you think it is viable tactic?

Sorry, but I've been on vacation. Just got back.

niv-mizzet wrote:
Nice battle. Watching it has solidified in my mind that Tau are crazy good. Had the Tau general been on the same skill level as yourself and had seen that necron list before, it would've been a crushing Tau win, no questions asked. And as usual in 40k, you can't get through a game without the dice gods playing a prank on someone. Today it was the Riptides. That, and even against an unprepared opponent with an unoptimized list, the early-ending random game length roll saved the Necrons' collective bacon.

It is definately surreal to see a dozen guys on objectives stand up suddenly and announce that they won, and have an entire army on the other side all look down in sadness and walk home.

No doubt he would have crushed my necrons had he more experience playing against them. This just really goes to show 2 things - 1) that necrons are never really out of the game as long as they have troops in transport flyers and 2) how you need to make a play for the objectives even with static gunline armies. I've had my share of necrons-getting-their-tin-can-rears-kicked-but-they-still-win-the-game because of my 1) necron flyers and 2) opponents were too busy trying to kill stuff that they went after the objectives a little too late.

 Janthkin wrote:

NecronGeneral wrote:
also a flyer hit by immobilized result while zooming is just locked velocity and cant zoom or go less than 18in.

Actually, per the current FAQ, it's a bit worse than that:

Q: If a Flyer suffers Locked Velocity and was moving at Cruising
Speed (18"-36"), what speed is its velocity actually locked at?
(p81)
A: 36".

Thanks for pointing that out.

BTW, our battle against each other is next on my queue of battle reports.

 SwistakCZC wrote:
After reading whole batrep and some comments I think that its better not to advance with wraiths, they gonna make enemy defending for a while but then they all gonna die, just try to get out of 30" range, kill mobile scoring unit like jetbikes with teslas. Then when he advance with FW shoot them with everything you have to reduce those huge amount of S5 shots, then at the end of game wraiths can try to assault, probably etheral gonna be dead by this time.

Do you think it is viable tactic?

Without terrain to hide behind, it isn't really a viable tactic. Each turn he would be advancing and I would be moving back....it's just going to take me more and more out of position. Meanwhile, he is getting closer to the objectives. In this situation, he would be achieving Positional Dominance against my crons. My wraiths might be alive but I am just digging myself into a deeper hole. No, that tactic would only work if there was some LOS-blocking terrain where my wraiths could hide behind. This way, they can still remain a threat as well as to prevent his troops from getting too close to the objectives.

@jy2
I didnt mean that you gonna run away from them whole game and let them take objectives without fight, just wait a while being out of his range, if he want to shot you he will have to move to be closer, when he move out his position behind ADL you can strike everything, you gonna kill some fire warriors with teslas which means more wraiths able to survive and charge.

The problem with that is that the guy I want to take out - his Ethereal's unit - is all the way in the back. So even if his front guys move up & out of the protection of the ADL, his Ethereal's unit will still be behind the ADL for a good 2 turns at least. Shooting at guys with 4+ saves and LD10 thanks to the Ethereal IMO just won't make enough of a difference. Meanwhile, my barges need to watch out for his command squad with the fusion guns and riptides with rending HBC's as well because my wraiths are too far away to really be much of a threat to anything (assuming I stay out of range of his shooting for a couple of turns).

If I were to play him again with the same armies, I'll probably deploy my wraiths just outside of 36" from his lines if possible. Then on my turn, advance my AB's and fire. Then on turn 2, when my reserves start to come in, I go full tilt against his army, advancing all my wraiths along my shooting.

Those are reasonable thoughts. Its true that fusion guns are real threat.

Your new tactic seems fine, you can save some damage just by careful deployment and then advance with everything.

Etheral going to ground behind ADL is not pleasant, but if you shoot it with night scythe he cant claim cover save from that height. So I think that waiting a while and then attacking with everything might be best tactic.

Btw. Very nice battle report, thanks for posting, Im gonna read more texts.

 SwistakCZC wrote:
Those are reasonable thoughts. Its true that fusion guns are real threat.

Your new tactic seems fine, you can save some damage just by careful deployment and then advance with everything.

Etheral going to ground behind ADL is not pleasant, but if you shoot it with night scythe he cant claim cover save from that height. So I think that waiting a while and then attacking with everything might be best tactic.

Btw. Very nice battle report, thanks for posting, Im gonna read more texts.

Yeah, I'm so used to my wraiths being invincible. I really didn't expect his shooting to do the damage that it did. I thought I could weather 2 turns of shooting by moving around the flanks and trying to stay out of his "sweet" spot for a turn or 2. But then I rolled horribly for my saves. It happens.

I definitely would've went after his Ethereal's unit with my night scythes had the AB's not killed him.

There's going to be plenty more reports coming out, especially against the new eldar. I do want a rematch against my Tau opponent but both he and I have been absent from our LGS for a while. One of these days.....