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Referencing to this BatRep http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/06/battle-report-round-3-ard-boyz-semis.html , what are your thoughts on either Orks or Tau being top/bottom tier armies?
Do you think the BatRep gives a fair illustration of the strengths of Tau and weaknesses of orks?

I know there are 2 schools of thought and therefore I seek your inputs.

Before anyone start to spam, I m looking for a discussion of the ingame specifics. If you are not ready to do it, please don't post.

*Shrug*
That ork list isn't optimal for starters and it appears that the player is very *inexperienced with the army. (I find his lack of paint disturbing)

Stelek however afaik is one of the best tau players on he american circuit.

strider
IMO orks are a good army.... the lowliest boy has an awesome stat line for the 6 or 7 points it costs to bring him, and can ride what to me is one of the best transports in the game - open topped, dirt cheap, potentially scatters towards your opponent when it dies.... so good. Gazkull is ofcourse near unstoppable in cc. Nobz are great fighters. Burners are also really good bc they're fast deadly and dirt cheap. Besides all those the new deff dread models are the sickness.

Tau are a bottom tier army for a couple of reasons.... the once-powerful railguns have really suffered from everything and its mother getting 4+ cover, and are also outclassed by deadlier cheaper more numerous meltaguns... their lack of close combat specialists means they can rarely take an objective from determined opposition... also crisis suits carry what to me is underpowered weaponry for what the thing costs. They still have marker lights though which are pretty good and fire warriors still carry one of the better rapid fire squad weapons in the game. Not enough though IMO.

AF

Tau are sneaky good, especially at higher points levels. That said, they have pretty much one top build, with exactly one set of tricks.

If you know you're going to see a lot of AV14, than tau become one of the strongest armies. I think enough people win enough events with Orks to show that in the real world, Orks do just fine. Most top players avoid Tau because they have some real weakness, especially at 1500 and 1850.

You guys haven't pointed to the BatRep and explain what's wrong. If the BatRep is accurate, then it has probably addressed all your concerns.

ChrisCP wrote:*Shrug*
That ork list isn't optimal for starters and it appears that the player is very *inexperienced with the army. (I find his lack of paint disturbing)

Stelek however afaik is one of the best tau players on he american circuit.

So lack of paint correlates to inexperience with the army? You must be kidding me?

Interesting that you choose to focus on the cheeky aside, in parentheses, after my period... touch a nerve did I?

Lets focus on what I said, the ork list is not optimal - it appears the player is inexperianced with the army.

We could discuss the deployment and the army list if you really want, but I thought you wanted to discuss -Rankings. I was saying that here we have what appears to be a person who hasn't played 50 games with mechanised Orks and another who plays Tau - professionally. Not exactly an un-biased sample and most defiantly not a good example to discuss the merits of each army with regard to tiers.

Upon skimming the comments I found a few interesting things,
"He played very well, to be honest. A few minor points he might have done differently, but those potential moves were just game changers, not game winners." So there was never anyway Tau could have lost this battle it appears,
"You realize this game was decided by my ability to roll 3+ dodges, and my opponents ability to roll 4+ cover against my penetrating hits." very insightful and a good sign of a player not understanding the odds he's playing againts 66% vs 50% or ~3.25 vs 2 not bad odds at all,
And this bit,
"Had to explain you can't rotate and tank shock vehicles sitting next to you to get a line of attack elsewhere."
If someone could explain that to me......

Chris if you are too lazy to contribute, then don't. I m looking for discussion of in-game specifics, not general comments/views like "I think he is inexperienced or his list just sucks". If there is something that you THINK is the case, explain it or back it up. Otherwise, you are free not to contribute, really.

striderx wrote:Chris if you are too lazy to contribute, then don't. I m looking for discussion of in-game specifics, not general comments/views like "I think he is inexperienced or his list just sucks". If there is something that you THINK is the case, explain it or back it up. Otherwise, you are free not to contribute, really.

He is saying why the *shudders* YTTH batrep shouldn't be a point in the argument at hand.

He backed it up with statements.

Game set. Match.

Which is not what I am looking for. In any case, I m not here to rant. If you like to troll (and really is not interested to discuss the game specifics), can you troll somewhere else?

striderx wrote:Chris if you are too lazy to contribute, then don't. I m looking for discussion of in-game specifics, not general comments/views like "I think he is inexperienced or his list just sucks". If there is something that you THINK is the case, explain it or back it up. Otherwise, you are free not to contribute, really.

I'd already offered no need to be rude. Keep in mind you're calling someone who's taken the time to write replys longer than two scentnces - not exactly lazy.
Your thread title indicated a desire to dicuss tiers not in games specifics, you asked "Do you think the BatRep gives a fair illustration of the strengths of Tau and weaknesses of orks?"

ChrisCP wrote:
We could discuss the deployment and the army list if you really want, but I thought you wanted to discuss -Rankings. I was saying that here we have what appears to be a person who hasn't played 50 games with mechanised Orks and another who plays Tau - professionally. Not exactly an un-biased sample and most defiantly not a good example to discuss the merits of each army with regard to tiers.

So if you don't feel that my post adressed the two points you raised... as for this then maybe you could look for some *specific* questions about the game - don't want to be called lazy but breaking down a battle report containing foul launguage isn't something that's plesant no? And you're asking people to willingly read and re-read it.

You've now asked for some in game specifics okay then.

Lets start with his use of lootas - 2 lots of 9 man squads - this is in my opinion (as with anything I post) an unusual squad size, he's either trimmed points with them or run out of them to field - at 9 they have no benifit from numbers against shooting and have sucked up another 45/60 points per unit from a squad of 5/6.

He deployed both squads right next to eachother one clumped up horribly too. This doesn't take advantage of the fact one has two units, and also meant that the fire lane down his right hand side was not covered. Why he would do this and effectivly give the Tau a 1/4 of the board in which he's not visible against 48" guns I do not know - that coner has los to far more of the board than the position he deployed in. The second squad could have then occupied th space diagonally from the tall grass congo-lining left - this would have neutralised a great deal of he cover granted from terrain pieces. I belive I read somewhere that 'my stuff had 4+ cover against lootas shooting' or something o that effect I'd have liked to see where/when this was happening as there probably was either another thing that could have been shot or he might have been able to fire with something like 5/9 to negate the CS.

So that's the lootas pretty much.... more?

why is this thread not in the battle reports section?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and yeah like Chris said you wanted to talk about army tiers whats the problem? Battle reports are boring dont really feel like reading one right now. Why be rude?

striderx wrote:Which is not what I am looking for. In any case, I m not here to rant. If you like to troll (and really is not interested to discuss the game specifics), can you troll somewhere else?

It is not what you're looking for? He said he didn't think it was an accurate descriptor of the armies.

Do you think the BatRep gives a fair illustration of the strengths of Tau and weaknesses of orks?

As for in game specifics? Why does it matter if it was skewed.

Funny that you call me a troll by the way.

ChrisCP wrote:Lets start with his use of lootas - 2 lots of 9 man squads - this is in my opinion (as with anything I post) an unusual squad size, he's either trimmed points with them or run out of them to field - at 9 they have no benifit from numbers against shooting and have sucked up another 45/60 points per unit from a squad of 5/6.

He deployed both squads right next to eachother one clumped up horribly too. This doesn't take advantage of the fact one has two units, and also meant that the fire lane down his right hand side was not covered. Why he would do this and effectivly give the Tau a 1/4 of the board in which he's not visible against 48" guns I do not know - that coner has los to far more of the board than the position he deployed in. The second squad could have then occupied th space diagonally from the tall grass congo-lining left - this would have neutralised a great deal of he cover granted from terrain pieces. I belive I read somewhere that 'my stuff had 4+ cover against lootas shooting' or something o that effect I'd have liked to see where/when this was happening as there probably was either another thing that could have been shot or he might have been able to fire with something like 5/9 to negate the CS.

So that's the lootas pretty much.... more?

As far as I understand from the BatRep, the positioning of his Lootas wasnt game changing. His lootas actually had range and LOS to the Piranhas, and were shooting at them. I personally believe he had his target priority right - Lootas on the Piranhas first. Of course, I welcome views to the contrary, which is the purpose of this discussion.

So yeah, as far as I could see, Lootas wasnt the problem.

I thought the Piranhas and their 3+ dodge was the main problem, something that IS game changing, and something that I havent found a way to overcome.

Inquisitor_Syphonious wrote:

striderx wrote:Which is not what I am looking for. In any case, I m not here to rant. If you like to troll (and really is not interested to discuss the game specifics), can you troll somewhere else?

It is not what you're looking for? He said he didn't think it was an accurate descriptor of the armies.

Do you think the BatRep gives a fair illustration of the strengths of Tau and weaknesses of orks?

As for in game specifics? Why does it matter if it was skewed.
Funny that you call me a troll by the way.

If you think it was skewed, explain. If you think it was skewed because the ork player was noob, explain what makes him a noob. If you think it was an unfair comparison of the 2 armies because 1 player played extremely badly, then explain what he should have done better and therefore conclude it wasnt the fault of the codex. If you just want to continue spamming generic statements, then yes it 's not very funny that I am calling you a troll.
If you want to discuss in your next post, I politely welcome (like the way Chris just did). But if you continue to spam, I ll report you to the Mod.

striderx wrote:As far as I understand from the BatRep, the positioning of his Lootas wasnt game changing. His lootas actually had range and LOS to the Piranhas, and were shooting at them. I personally believe he had his target priority right - Lootas on the Piranhas first. Of course, I welcome views to the contrary, which is the purpose of this discussion.

So yeah, as far as I could see, Lootas wasnt the problem.

If you think it was skewed, explain. If you think it was skewed because the ork player was noob, explain what makes him a noob. If you think it was an unfair comparison of the 2 armies because 1 player played extremely badly, then explain what he should have done better and therefore conclude it wasnt the fault of the codex. If you just want to continue spamming generic statements, then yes it 's not very funny that I am calling you a troll.
If you want to discuss in your next post, I politely welcome (like the way Chris just did). But if you continue to spam, I ll report you to the Mod.

I just told you exactly why it was a bad idea to do what he did, I'll now try to provide a picture to help illustrate why - it'll take a little while. If your just going to say 'nup doesn't explain anything' then fair enough - but keep in mind, "As far as I understand from the BatRep", this is a bat rep written by a Tau player - is he really going to tell everyone exactly what would have been more effective against his army? I don't even like handing out my millitary tactics to people alfway across the globe to be all grandiouse - I'm beginning to feel I have to however as otherwise people seem to have no understanding of the 'why did I lose again?'

We are trying to explain what 'makes him noob' in your words - I said inexperienced - also seriously man, you've been reading Stelek too often and his attitude has rubbed off onto you, tone it down and people won't arc-up in turn.

Well not really, but the fact that people like to make big claims like "this is good", "he is good", and repeatedly doing that without backing up those generic comments with explanations just pisses people off. If you do not discuss game specifics in Warhammer Tactics section, then why bother to post anything at all? General comments are meant for the General Chat section. If you think your strategies are so precious that you need to keep them to yourself, I cant stop you.

Yes, you explained the flaws of his lootas, but which in this case did not affect the game AT ALL (because his lootas had range and LOS to ALL the Piranhas the whole game). Of course, if you thought his lootas should not be targetting the Piranhas, I welcome your debate, but I ll like to know what else he should have targetted.

Okay - tried to install Vassal to make pretty pictures, no 40k module so can't be arsed atm.

So from these weirdly angled shots - this is what I'll try to show;

Wait a second................Penny drops...........what the fracking frack of all fracks??? From the 'Ard Boyz Semi - Scenarios herefor round 3...
"DEPLOYMENT
Dawn of War, the first turn does not use Night Fight."
Have I missed something here? Also anyone want to explain this bit to me "Had to explain you can't rotate and tank shock vehicles sitting next to you to get a line of attack elsewhere." ? That's be awesome.

Anyway, I'm going to assume from here on that it's 'just a game' and it's pitched battle - not the scenario 3 DoW deployment........

Here's the Los for his deployment.


Here's what I'm suggesting




Onto the skimmers and their 3+ dodging, so what of it? I don't understand how that fact of life that skimmers dodge deffrollas on a 3+ is game changing - I see a player banging his head (rollas) against a wall as game changing however ~ if at first I don't succeed, I'll hurt my face again… and again… is it bleeding yet?

Who went first? It does matter, esp in dawn of war, and is often the reason why you see bad deployments. If he put the lootas in the one corner, tau, if placing 2nd, would have just deployed in the other corner. By putting them in the center, he had a somewhat better chance of getting to do something with them when they finally got to shoot.

The ork player looked like he knew about what he was doing, and actually gave good tau general a good game. Which in my experience is pretty impressive considering that the orks were facing one of their worst matchups.

My opinion: Both orks and tau are incredibly one dimensional in their tactics. But tau at least are one dimensional in a good way (able to give good players with good lists a hard game), where orks have rules that gimp their army, (taking out armor at range) Orks could have been a great book, but GW gimped them with an incomplete list and bad rules. So that leaves them in the world of a handful of rules abuse lists. (wound allocation, ramming, ect) I usually just call orks a noobslayer army, as once you know how to take them out, you don't lose to them much.

Well, for starters, no single match, ever, Ever, EVER says anything about codex strength against another, it may be certain power-builds from the codex against each other, basic troop choices against the other. Though it will never say anything about the competitiveness of a codex.

Also, Stelek (even though I think he is full of air alot of the time) is a better player. That ork guy, is a good player, don't get me wrong, though Stelek <shrug> out-played him.

If the tau army didn't have a plethora of skimmers, the ork would have won. Is Stelek's list more efficient than the ork one? Looks like it. Tough match up, since the skimmers blocked off the BW completely. List vs list, not army vs army.

Before you somehow interpret my posts as trolling again, how do you think that this possibly reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the army? Airhead.

He could have positioned his battle wagons better, since from the sound of it, he went second.

He could have gotten out earlier, game changing if he had enough bodies.

notabot187 wrote:Who went first? It does matter, esp in dawn of war, and is often the reason why you see bad deployments. If he put the lootas in the one corner, tau, if placing 2nd, would have just deployed in the other corner. By putting them in the center, he had a somewhat better chance of getting to do something with them when they finally got to shoot.

Do you know how to deploy for DOW? One HQ two troops - that's how - now how exactly did either player stick to that?

I dont' have much time today but the next biggest error the Ork player made was to not drive around the Skimmers.... seriously not that hard. Plowing straight into a 3+ save where yor units have a 4+ they'll need to take at least 5x more often >_<
Sigh, be back tomorrow ^_^ to do the list =P

Orc seems ver inesxperience. His army wasent that good like the Tau was.

ChrisCP wrote:

notabot187 wrote:Who went first? It does matter, esp in dawn of war, and is often the reason why you see bad deployments. If he put the lootas in the one corner, tau, if placing 2nd, would have just deployed in the other corner. By putting them in the center, he had a somewhat better chance of getting to do something with them when they finally got to shoot.

Do you know how to deploy for DOW? One HQ two troops - that's how - now how exactly did either player stick to that?

I dont' have much time today but the next biggest error the Ork player made was to not drive around the Skimmers.... seriously not that hard. Plowing straight into a 3+ save where yor units have a 4+ they'll need to take at least 5x more often >_<
Sigh, be back tomorrow ^_^ to do the list =P

I was meaning when they move on. During dawn of war the deployment effectively starts during first turn as the rest of the army moves on. Dawn of war effectively makes most of the armies deployment happen while you are fighting (so you don't get the obvious set piece look to battles).

Its hard to tell in the report who went first, because in the first picture we have much more than 2 troops and an HQ present on both sides. Add in the fact the tau brought scouts, and it isn't very clear to me who went first. I think the tau player probably did, but orks probably wouldn't want to put their lootas in the open against the full tau army with the tau having full shooting phase first. The center was safer if the orks went second. (as in not losing them before they get to shoot) If the orks went first, there was a guessing game where the tau could come in, so a central position is also a safer bet.

On a board that size, Dawn of War Deployment, with him Tau castled in the corner, Orks should have been able to get into combat turn two with a waaagh. 13 Inch Move Turn 1, 13 Inch move turn 2, 2 inch disembark range, fleet roll, and then assualt, with an assualt range of min 36 inches, he should have been in with something, especally with turn 1 night fighting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not saying this would have one him the game, but it would have put a tonne more pressure on the Tau player, and put more tactiacl threats onto the field to respond to. keeping the orks in the transports maximized shooting against them, and ignores the orks greatest strength which is their troops in combat.

ChrisCP wrote:

notabot187 wrote:Who went first? It does matter, esp in dawn of war, and is often the reason why you see bad deployments. If he put the lootas in the one corner, tau, if placing 2nd, would have just deployed in the other corner. By putting them in the center, he had a somewhat better chance of getting to do something with them when they finally got to shoot.

Do you know how to deploy for DOW? One HQ two troops - that's how - now how exactly did either player stick to that?

I dont' have much time today but the next biggest error the Ork player made was to not drive around the Skimmers.... seriously not that hard. Plowing straight into a 3+ save where yor units have a 4+ they'll need to take at least 5x more often >_<
Sigh, be back tomorrow ^_^ to do the list =P

The Tau skimmers were lined up so that the gaps in between wasnt enough for the wagons to move through. Any movement through would require the wagon to declare a ramming.
The deployment of the Lootas, I would say again, did not affect their shooting for the whole of the game.

striderx wrote:

ChrisCP wrote: drive around

The Tau skimmers were lined up so that the gaps in between wasnt enough for the wagons to move through. Any movement through would require the wagon to declare a ramming.

Is the concept so hard?

And look, I'm explaining what I feel they did wrong based on my opinion and the poor information we have.
You may feel something is good/fine/of negligable effect - okay super - but you asked why? What did people notice that told them X or Y? So instead of presenting counter cries 'things had no effect' try to look at the why of the suggestions.

Ork list

HQ
KFF Mek - Check - not much wrong here
Ghaz - a 225 point guy with 'one thing' a six 6" run - which as far as I can tell was not used for the while game - so *shrug* not much point in him then is is?

Elite
Mega nobs - a 200 point unit that I assume was taken because builder felt that it could do a job a 5 man nob squad couldn't.
Nobz - a 10 man itemised squad? Excessive. About 450 points if I've done my maths orright.
Lootas - I've covered the squad sizes before.

Troop
Boys - For some reason the list builder was unsure of what his goal was, so decided to include both variants of their basic troop choice
Shoota Boys - That's what this little thing tells me - also the lack of BPs is of major MAJOR concern.

Junk
Deffkopta - 2 by 2 - but not enough space for the Buzzsaw.... - no other FA choices, so why not take 1,1,2 then? More target selection, more Ld tests to take... just well more~!
Battle Wagon - Deffrollas, a gun, grot riggers, red paint, plank - Pretty much a B&B build.


If you have a problem or don't agree with something then tell us why or ask why, don't just cover us with a blanket of 'irrelevant'

No it wasnt hard to grasp, but I wouldnt have expected anyone to suggest something so ridiculously - drive around. This literally mean driving around the wall of piranhas, towards the left side of the board (left side from the ork player's perspective). If you bother to calculate the odds, it is better to ram the piranhas.

Each extra turn you take to go around obstacles, you eat an extra round of meltas and Railguns.

The Ork player made a fail list. 5ed CC sucks for Orks they can't win a CC ever (mega nobs exclued).
Orks are a shooting army i run 9 killa kans with Grotzookas and a mek w/KFF and i out shoot any tau army any day of the week and a battle wagon with Ard case running 9 mega nobs flat out 13" to the railgun with a back up battle wagon

Why the Ork list was bad:

No Buzzsaws on Deff Koptas: This is like taking a Nob in a Boyz Squad without a PK, not a good idea. When you look at the bat rep pictures, the Koptas flanked on the board next to a whole pile of crisis suits. If they had Buzzsaws, even one buzzsaw, they could have tied up and done significant damage to those gun platforms. As it is, they came on, shot some BS 2 TL shots to no effect, and died.

Meganobz: I'll be upfront, diversified nobs /w 5+ invulnerables and FNP trumps meganobz in 90% of all situations. You'll also never see a nob squad utterly fail assaulting a unit in the open because they got on Slow and Purposeful.

No Grabbin' Klaws on battle wagons: One of the best tools Orks have against skimmers/fast vehicles. Far preferable over grot riggers... the Big Mek can fix your ride.

Why the General seems to be inexperienced: Failed to kill almost any AV 11/10/10 Open Topped vehicles with squadron rules in 4+ rounds of game play. Sacrifice a unit of boys if need be to toss out the volume of attacks you need to accomplish it.

Only tried one thing: Driving straight at the Piranha wall. Never tried to drive sideways to spread the wall out. or to get to the side armor of the piranha and unleash shootas against them.

In short, it was a suboptimal list and the general never adapted their tactics against the skimmer wall, seeming to be stuck in 'if it's a vehicle deff rolla it!' mode until far too late in the game.

I've maintained for a while now that Tau have thier own Achilles heel in the form of Jump heavy lists, especially if they have FNP. The Tau Player in one of the 'ard boyz finals lost their first round to... a Jump BA list. This doesn't mean anything except that a weakness of the army was exploited in a bad matchup

Have I missed something here? Also anyone want to explain this bit to me "Had to explain you can't rotate and tank shock vehicles sitting next to you to get a line of attack elsewhere." ? That's be awesome.

This sounds like the Ork player was trying to take advantage of rotation being a free movement to rotate his BW 360° before driving off, therefore allowing his Deff Rolla to make attacks on any nearby enemy units without moving in their direction.

Also, ChrisCP, you have the most patience of any forum poster I've ever seen.

According to the BRB, you pivot *before* declaring a tank shock/ram, so I really don't know what the reference is to either.

notabot187 wrote:So that leaves them in the world of a handful of rules abuse lists. (wound allocation, ramming, ect)

I'm sorry, what? Wound allocation is specifically endorsed by the GW in the entry, and ramming's exists proves GW wants it to. By that logic, building a Tau army in Warhammer 40k is a rules abuse because it uses the shooting rules too much.

I think Stelek was the better player here, but I think Stelek got lucky too. Like he said, "So in the end, me sucking at killing BW worked out in my favor as the 60 foot Orks never really mattered." I see that Stelek lacked anti-infantry in quantities sufficient to immediately kill 60 Orks, and that could have been his down fall. If the Ork player had disembarked and swarmed the Piranahs and Crysis Suits he'd have been in a much better spot. Instead he wasted time ramming skimmers and only disembarked his squads one at a time.

I agree with ChrisCP entirely in his breakdown of the Ork's list.