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Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.

The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.

Needless to say, it didn't go well.

He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.

So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.

Here are the lists.

Tau:

2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.

4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels

Marines:

1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber

I'll give you the easy answer.

Be less gak.

There is no way that Tau army should have tabled your army in 1 shooting phase if you deploy half decently.
That includes not deploying everything in the perfect position to get shot to death if he siezes, which still happens 1 in 6.

Heck i'm not sure its possible to wipe all that even if your parked out in the open. 44 marine wounds, a Repulsor and Redemptor?

He tabled you, top of turn 1?

In one shooting phase just to kill the repulsor alone he'd need both hammerheads, the ghostkeels, and one other anti-tank wepaon, presumably on one of the Commanders. That's how bad Tau shooting averages are.

The 4 Fire Warrior squads can do 20 wounds, max, unless they're in rapid fire, which is only 10 of your 21 primaris marines, if they hit and wound with every single shot, and you fail every single save.

The other Commander is unlikely to kill the Redemptor Dreadnought by himself (they have 14 wounds right?) with only a maximum-antitank-loadout damage potential of 24 wounds.

EDIT:
I agree with Ordana. There is almost damn near no way that tau army could do 44 Marine wounds, plus ~30 tank wounds in one shooting phase. It would be the dice-rolling of a lifetime.

I'm pretty new to Tau but that doesn't sound like it should've been able to do that turn 1, How much cover were you using?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
He tabled you, top of turn 1?

In one shooting phase just to kill the repulsor alone he'd need both hammerheads, the ghostkeels, and one other anti-tank wepaon, presumably on one of the Commanders. That's how bad Tau shooting averages are.

The 4 Fire Warrior squads can do 20 wounds, max, unless they're in rapid fire, which is only 10 of your 21 primaris marines, if they hit and wound with every single shot, and you fail every single save.

The other Commander is unlikely to kill the Redemptor Dreadnought by himself (they have 14 wounds right?) with only a maximum-antitank-loadout damage potential of 24 wounds.

EDIT:
I agree with Ordana. There is almost damn near no way that tau army could do 44 Marine wounds, plus ~30 tank wounds in one shooting phase. It would be the dice-rolling of a lifetime.

You don't see the big picture here. After shooting, the Tau army charged him and killed his few remaining marines in meele.

Now, sorry for being snarky. About Primaris, after chapter approved point reductions I think most of their infantry are very competent. Intercessors at 18ppm, Hellblasters are good too, and Inceptors have become actually usefull. The Redemptor Dreadnought is usable, and the Agressors I think are balanced too. I think the weakest part of the Primaris line are the characters, Reivers and the Repulsor.
But to be honest that was a pseudo-competitive Tau list. It could be much more competitive, but it wasn't a bad list by Tau standards.

Oh right, the Tau charged.

Possible, but even more unlikely than them shooting with enough damage to meaningfully harm the list.

Ordana wrote:
I'll give you the easy answer.

Be less gak.

There is no way that Tau army should have tabled your army in 1 shooting phase if you deploy half decently.
That includes not deploying everything in the perfect position to get shot to death if he siezes, which still happens 1 in 6.

Heck i'm not sure its possible to wipe all that even if your parked out in the open. 44 marine wounds, a Repulsor and Redemptor?

Hummm...considering everything in that Tau army can deploy in DS/infiltrate/or has the range of the table....how do you expect him to "Deploy better"

You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.

Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Like you have no synergy in your list at all.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Ordana wrote:
I'll give you the easy answer.

Be less gak.

There is no way that Tau army should have tabled your army in 1 shooting phase if you deploy half decently.
That includes not deploying everything in the perfect position to get shot to death if he siezes, which still happens 1 in 6.

Heck i'm not sure its possible to wipe all that even if your parked out in the open. 44 marine wounds, a Repulsor and Redemptor?

Hummm...considering everything in that Tau army can deploy in DS/infiltrate/or has the range of the table....how do you expect him to "Deploy better"

When playing 8th edition I've found the game falls apart if there isn't a decent amount of LoS blocking terrain on the board. So most I've found most people assume the table is built with a decent amount of LoS blocking terrain. If that is the case, he should have deployed accordingly so that all of his units can't be shot at turn 1. If there wasn't that kind of terrain on the board, then they need to work on making actually balanced tables. That's just what I've found so far.

I mean (and I know this is alien to you Xeno) he could screen, he could castle in a corner and use his Intercessors to block deepstrikers, even with that small a model count he has deployment tricks he can engage in.

 Togusa wrote:
Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.

The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.

Needless to say, it didn't go well.

He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.

So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.

Here are the lists.

Tau:

2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.

4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels

Marines:

1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber

Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.

Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Like you have no synergy in your list at all.

You are right and wrong here - drop pods and terminators are terrible - primaris marines are actually preferable to terms and drop pods.

Yeah I mean its pretty obvious when one player takes an entirely unoptimized list and the other takes a fairly optimized list that we can clearly state its the codex's fault rather than the player.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
I mean (and I know this is alien to you Xeno) he could screen, he could castle in a corner and use his Intercessors to block deepstrikers, even with that small a model count he has deployment tricks he can engage in.

You can't screen from shooting. Only LOS blocking will help you there. It's unfair to the OP too to suggest he just deployed like a fool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah I mean its pretty obvious when one player takes an entirely unoptimized list and the other takes a fairly optimized list that we can clearly state its the codex's fault rather than the player.

Whats clear is even with chapter approved a primaris marine is not worth 18 points.

I see a lot of people say termies are bad but man, tell you what never had any problem with them, most people screw up using them. You need to drop them right after you advance up and ready to charge the next turn, that way you force your opponent to either shoot at your unit advancing up on them, or shoot at termies that are going to get in melee and do some damage. I admit tactical terminators are poop, but assault terminators are on point.

That's just my opinion on them, never done me wrong yet.

Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.

Ultimately OP is likely lieing or at least highly exaggerating because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh right, the Tau charged.

Possible, but even more unlikely than them shooting with enough damage to meaningfully harm the list.

Yeah, this whole thing smells incorrect to me. Something either went horribly wrong or horribly right.

And ignore Xeno, he just comes to every post to talk about how every army is OP compared to marines, even T'au.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.

Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Like you have no synergy in your list at all.

I do not own any non-primaris models.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.

Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.

It was mathematically unlikely.

He should play the game with all the same lists again. That's my main advice.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.

Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.

Um. I do not know this fellow, and I am most definitely a real person. There are members of Dakka that have been here for years that know me in real life.

Also, I am not twisting the truth. At the end of the first shooting phase all that remained was my captain. The repulsor was destroyed by Longstrike and 1 of the ghost keels. Remember, the Hammerhead is -5 rend, so no save for a repulsor. It does Mortal wounds for longstrike in addion as well. The hellblaster squad lost 4 models and failed leadership twice removing the 5th model. the 15 intercessors were all killed by pulserifle fire from the fire warriors and the smart missiles on one of the commanders. The other commander with melta killed the redemptor with help from Ghost keel #2.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.

Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.

It was mathematically unlikely.

He should play the game with all the same lists again. That's my main advice.

We will be trying it again next week.

This is an image from the game at the end of shooting turn 1.

So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?

Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.

Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing. Did you not consider simply using 2 command points to prevent your Hellblasters from even taking a morale test?

Togusa, to be honest as Slayer has said, that Tau player has some very hot dice. Try to play more games with the same lists, and with more terrain for cover and LOS blocking.

 Galas wrote:
Togusa, to be honest as Slayer has said, that Tau player has some very hot dice. Try to play more games with the same lists, and with more terrain for cover and LOS blocking.

Thanks, this was actually an issue. As you can see in the picture above, the table had what I thought was plenty of LoS. It's really unfortunate that shooting through a building doesn't give you minuses to hit or enhance my cover. The new terrain rules aren't very good. As for his rolling, indeed even he was surprised. 61 rolls of a 6 on his turn occurred. Marker lights from the drones gave him plenty of chances to hit, and I saw no trouble with him making hits. Also keep in mind that one of the IC squads died because when a repulsor explodes it does D6 mortal wounds. That left only 2 models in the squad to get shot by tau pulse rifles.

Also, do keep in mind thread this was a friendly game, while I cannot control what my opponent brings, I did not run anything "optimized' because that is not how I play 40K.

So then if you're not playing optimized 40k and he is then your concern isn't with the game but with your opponent?

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?

Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.

Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing.

I am still fairly new to playing the game. I'm sure many deployment errors occurred. When the repulsor exploded, it took out most of 1 5 man squad with it. It was pretty easy for the pulse rifles to kill two marines.

 Togusa wrote:
It does Mortal wounds for longstrike in addion as well.

It does d3 on a 5+ vs Vehicles and Monsters and 6+ vs everything else, not every shot.

 Togusa wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?

Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.

Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing.

I am still fairly new to playing the game. I'm sure many deployment errors occurred. When the repulsor exploded, it took out most of 1 5 man squad with it. It was pretty easy for the pulse rifles to kill two marines.

When you play a shooting heavy army you should be deploying as much of your army simply out of LoS as possible. If you take away a third or more of his shooting he can't alpha strike you anywhere near as hard. Also you could really do with more terrain on the table (I know that isn't in your control as much) or atleast a more even distribution as it looks as if your opponent ended up with all of it on his side. Also you know Intercessors have 2 wounds correct - a 5 man fire warrior squad outside 15" cannot possible kill a 5 man Intercessor squad.

Longstrike + 1 Ghost Keel on average do ~6 wounds or so to a repulsor, somtimes + d3 mortal wounds.

If that's all it took to kill your repulsor, then the problem is the dice, not the game. You should've recorded the rolls and sent them to Guinness Book of World Records for defying the odds.

The Tau list looks stronger than yours and it is possible that you deployed badly, but despite this the results seem pretty extreme. But then again, random is random, sometimes extreme results occur.

*EDIT* When I wrote this comment, the pictures above and the discussion following them had not been posted yet, so bear that in mind when reading this.

 Togusa wrote:
Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.

The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.

Needless to say, it didn't go well.

He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.

So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.

Here are the lists.

Tau:

2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.

4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels

Marines:

1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber

Without more detail its gonna be hard to help you figure this one out.

1. How much terrain were you guys playing with? What kind of terrain is it? How much of it is LoS blocking? 40k in general doesn't function well as a game without a decent amount of terrain on the board.
2. How exactly did you deploy? Did you deploy with the expectation that you would have first turn and thus did not have a good defensive position?
3. Was this just a case of hot dice? Cause Tau tabling anything in 1 turn is kinda hard to believe without exceptional dice rolls.

Without more details, this kinda seems to be a case of an unoptimized list potentially played poorly. Honestly, being told that your list was wiped off the board in a single turn of shooting against that Tau list tells me that you guys did not have enough terrain on the board, you deployed poorly, and the Tau likely had some very lucky rolling.

Remember that Primaris Marines at this point are not intended to be used fully as their own army. They simply do not have the unit count necessary to do so. They lack versatility and variety. They either need to supplement a regular Marine list or be supplemented by regular Marine units. Trying to play a pure Primaris list, while cool and fluffy, is an uphill battle as you are starting the game on hard mode.

Above all else, don't get discouraged by one bad loss. We've all had them, and we all will continue to have them. Keep your chin up, figure out what mistakes you made, learn from them, and implement those lessons next time.

The greatest teacher, failure is.

I've found Primaris vehicles to be pretty underwhelming in general; 8th tends to reward more cheap vehicles and vehicles that can shrug off heavy anti-tank firepower over a few expensive vehicles that die to a few shots each, and Primaris vehicles suffer heavily from the specialist-trumps-generalist problem.

The winners of the Space Marine motor pool in 8th are the cheaper Rhino-chassis tanks, basic Castaferrum dreads built to a specific task, and anything that has a built-in Invulnerable save.

And on top of the problem of your weaker arsenal you're at a points level where a pure Primaris army has to dump too many points into Troops to get much done, fighting a pretty min-maxxed Tau army running minimum Troops to get a bunch of the best units available to the Tau (Ghostkeels and Hammerheads).

There are decent Primaris models, with decent rules (Intercessors have made me comfortable deploying Marine infantry outside of vehicles again, Hellblasters are wildly destructive and only let down by their lack of good delivery mechanisms, I've seen Aggressors and Inceptors used effectively), but a pure Primaris army isn't really doable, and the most effective Space Marine armies I've seen this edition are built around the Flyers, heavy weapon firebases, or Forge World vehicles that have built-in Invulnerable saves.