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The Third Sphere Reclamation Recon Force (Tau)
I've modified the list since the last time. Not liking my suit configurations I've dropped the 3 two man teams and replaced them with one 3 man team, and then used the extra points to upgrade the weapons on the 3 man team, add a couple more pathfinders, and beef up the suit command. I also combined my piranha's into 1 larger unit. With those changes I've now reduced my kill points from 19 down to 15. A bit more resonable, and made my easy to get kp a little harder to get. This also I think will let me use the drones off the piranha's more effectively and will make the crisis suits a bit more survivalbe. The plan is to attatch the commander to the crisis suits giving them the benefit of the 2+ saves from the drones and the commander himself. The commander is pure anti-infantry while the crisis suits with the fire knife configuration are for light-medium tank popping, and monstrous creature hunting (and of course marine killing).

HQ
Shas'el w/ airbursting fragmentation projector, tl flamer, hard wired multi-tracker, hard wired target-lock, hard wired drone controller, 2 shield drones, irridium armor, stimulant injector

Elite
3 Crisis Suits w/ missile pod, plasma rifle, multi-tracker

Troops
6 Fire Warriors w/ pulse rifles, devilfish w/ sms, disruption pods, multi-tracker, targetting array
6 Fire Warriors w/ pulse rifles, devilfish w/ sms, disruption pods, multi-tracker, targetting array
6 Fire Warriors w/ pulse rifles, devilfish w/ sms, disruption pods, multi-tracker, targetting array

Fast Attack
6 Pathfinder's, devilfish w/ sms, disruption pods, multi-tracker, targetting array
4 Piranha's, all have target lock, fusion blaster, 2 have disruption pods and targetting array's, 1 has a flechette discharger

Heavy Support
Hammerhead w/ rail rifle, burst cannons, multi-tracker, disruption pods, targetting array
Hammerhead w/ rail rifle, burst cannons, multi-tracker, disruption pods, targetting array
Hammerhead w/ ion cannon, burst cannons, multi-tracker, disruption pods, targetting array
Total Kill Points: 15


The evil xenos scum who refuse to be assimilated (Eldar)
HQ
Farseer
Warlock squad (8), Wave Serpent w/ shuriken cannon, spirit stones

Elite
8 Fire Dragons, Wave Serpent w/ shuriken cannon, spirit stones
8 Banshees, exarch, Wave Serpent w/ shuriken cannon, spirit stones

Troops
9 Dire Avengers, exarch (defend, shimmershield), Wave Serpent w/ bright lance, spirit stones
9 Dire Avengers, exarch (defend, shimmershield), Wave Serpent w/ bright lance, spirit stones
8 Dire Avengers, exarch (twin cats), Wave Serpent w/ bright lance, spirit stones
Total Kill Points 13

I let my opponent role mission and deployment. He rolls the exact same thing as last week. So spearhead annihilation it is! I win the role to go first and take the first turn.

I fill up my quarter . Hammerhead's keeping back piranha's set to go boosting forward and devilfish everywhere in between. The pathfinders have a nice piece of terrain to set up on that gives them view of most of the battlefield.

He then responds by placing his 6 tanks in closed formation back further in his deployment zone so thee piranha's have no target first turn. He tries to seize the initiative and fails.


That's a lot of open space between the two armies!


Turn 1 : Tau
The piranha's boost forward the majority of my devilfish shuffle to the left. My two rail guns and ion cannon miss or fail to pen any vehicles. Man that was a quick turn
Kill Points, Tau: 0 Eldar: 0

Turn 1 : Eldar
The 3 dire avenger serpents move up 12 and take bright lance shots at a hammerhead, one gets through and is saved by the disruption pods.
Kill Points, Tau: 0 Eldar: 0



Turn 2: Tau
The piranha's move to the left to avoid the fire dragon's. The devilfish on the left move up, one lone devilfish moves up the center to interdict the fire dragon wave serpent (keeping it from the piranha's) and the hammerheads shuffle back. My suits unfortunately decide to show up. I would rather have had him go another turn and advance up the table more. But I place them in the new castle I'm building in the northwest quadrant. My shooting is marginally more effective, I destroy a brightlance and shake a wave serpent, go team!
Kill Points, Tau: 0 Eldar: 0

Turn 2: Eldar
The brightlance-less wave serpent ram's a devilfish, doing no damage, the devilfish does no damage back. The farseer wave serpent ram's a piranha, ripping a gun off, the piranha with it's measly strength of 7, pens and then wrecks the wave serpent, the seer council passes it's pinning check. The shaken wave serpent also ram's into the piranha's destroying the piranha that had it's weapon torn off previously, no drones are hurt but they are pinned. His one brightlance shot of the turn, hit's and pen's I fail my disruption pod save and it's stunned, a perfect sitting duck for the fire dragon's. The banshee's move up he fires some flamers from the warlocks at the piranha's but does no damage.
Kill Points, Tau: 0 Eldar: 0


Ramming speed, full ahead!

Interlude: As I was getting ready to move my opponent was looking oddly at his seer council and he said "You know what I don't think I get to shoot or something." He then grab's the rule book and starts reading, and then says nope, I can't shoot, actually the squad is dead. Sure enough under the flat out section it says that your squad may not disembark in the turn that you moved flat out. And under wrecked it says that any model's that may not disembark are destroyed. Wow, 3 kp to me right there.
Ammended total Kill Points, Tau: 3 Eldar: 0



Turn 3: Tau
The piranha's move to block the rear hatch on one of the ramming serpents with dire avenger's, and proceed to destroy the wave serpent, auto-pinning the dire avengers in their wreck. I move up two devilfish to an inch away from his lead wave serpent with dire avengers (so they won't be able to assault my suits on the next turn). I shake his remaining bright lance serpent, take another failed railgun shot at his fire dragon wave serpent and kill a few of the dire avenger's.
Kill Points, Tau: 4 Eldar: 0



That's what you get when you ram a vehicle squadron, close enough for the entire squad to surround your exit hatch's!


Turn 3: Eldar
His lead dire avenger squad gets out, and the banshee's get out. The banshee's assault and kill my drones, the avengers manage to peel a drone out of the crisis suit squad. He rams a wave serpent into my hammerhead with ion cannon, rolls a 1 for the pen, i roll a 5, and then a 6, blowing up his wave serpent. The fire dragons get out and roast the hammerhead that was on the far right flank. He shoots and kills a piranha.
Kill Points, Tau: 5 Eldar: 3


I swear at one point there were drone's right in the big empty space!




Turn 4: Tau
I dismount the 2 fire warrior squads. So in grand total I unleash 12 rapid fire pulse rifles, 4 sms's, 3 burst cannons, 1 tl flamer, 1 airburst, 3 missile pods, and 3 rapid fire plasma shots into the two squads of dire avengers and the banshee's. When the dust settles there is one banshee left, and one squad of dire avengers has 1 plus the exarch left. My hammerhead again fails to hurt a wave serpent.
Kill Points: Tau: 6 Eldar: 3



Turn 4: Eldar
You would think he had enough of this ramming business, but apparently not, he goes flat out getting a strength 10 hit on a devilfish and rolls, you guessed it a 1, I then pen and blow up his wave serpent. Mental note, do not ram tau vehicles, apparently they are made of some strange material that makes them immune to ramming. The survivng banshee roll's a 1 for her fleet and fails to make it into hand to hand. The dire avengers charge into a fire warrior squad killing 1, the fire warriors kill 1 dire avenger in return. The other squad of dire avengers dismount and assault the pathfinders, killing 4, the pathfinders kill one in return and decie for some obscure reason to stick around. He shoots and kills another piranha.
Kill Points: Tau: 7 Eldar: 3

Turn 5: Tau
The last piranha flat out's 24 inch's away to the other side of the table to preserve the kp. I shoot the last banshee, sms and burst cannon the fire dragons dead, and the missile pods from the crisis suits finally down the last bright lance wave serpent. The lone exarch kills 2 fire warriors breaks the squad and runs them down. The other dire avengers whiff it, only kill 1 pathfinder, and I pass my morale check. My other squad of fire warriors get back in their fish.
Kill Points: Tau: 10 Eldar: 4

Turn 5: Eldar
With nothing left to do his lone exarch charges my suit commander and squad, my commander crush's the exarch with his might fist! Go go Tau close combat. The other dire avenger squad kills the last pathfinder. We roll for a turn 6 and it comes up a 5. My friend asks if we want to call it, and I say sure, I was going to table you anyways. His response was, you can't table me in one turn. Sooo the gauntlent has been thrown.
Kill Points: Tau: 11 Eldar: 5


Can you find the exarch?

Turn 6: Tau
The rail gun lines up it's shot on the waveserpent, and phzzit, misses again. 6 plasma rifle shots and 6 missile pods shots arc into the last wave serpent and immobilize it, not looking good. I then sink 3 sms's, 1 ion cannon, 4 burst cannons, and 6 rapid firing tau into the lone dire avenger squad, they go to ground, and when all is said and done all that's left is the exarch. So left to shoot is one devilfish and 1 squad of fire warriors. The fire warriors unload into the rear of the wave serpent, getting one pen and one glance, and the pen wrecks the serpent. The sms from the devilfish then arcs out and does one would to the exarch, who fails his save!
Kill Points: Tau: 13 Eldar: 5


Hmm, something's missing from this picture.

The aftermath: Wow so my opponent just had some horrible dice roll's, all those ram's and all he got out of it was a weapon destroyed and a wreck, I downed 3 serpents that way as well as getting the points for the council. Asking in retrospect if he still would have rammed with the council he said that he would have, otherwise I would have let him take the move back. On an interesting side note, I believe that if I had destroyed the vehicle instead of wrecking it, his council would have lived and even been able to assault the drones. Well my Tau got their revenge against the pesky eldar now I'll just have to get him to break those space wolves out for a re-match!

The List: I liked running the piranha's as a 4 man squad, they had drastically increased survivability, and dropping the extra kill points helped immensley. The fire knife worked out better than the previous suit load out but I still don't know about it. I don't like the wound allocation shenanigan's because of the different ap of the weapon's, but I also don't like the idea of putting the fusion on them, I think they would have to get way too close to use that combo effectively. Overall I think the list meshed together better, it's hard to tell with all the bad dice rolling my opponent had . The pathfinder's still did a whopping nothing for the whole game, but it's another vehicle that definitely added shot's. The ion head doesn't seem to do a whole lot, but he put a lot of the "last guy killed" here and there shots on units so I think it stays in for now, plus I just don't have the points to upgrade him to a full rail gun. I think the current load will work just fine for fun games down at the store.

Some further list tweaks will be to try dropping the pathfinders and sticking in a stealth team instead. The other thought is to drop the crisis suit's and put in another unit of piranha. From a fluff of my list perspective I don't like having crisis suits in my list at all, but I'm forced to have one, with the suit commander. I also dislike the fact that "pathfinder's" are stationary. The name and their purpose, from a fluff perspective, fits my theme perfectly, but their actual performance on the table top is very static and counter to a speedy strike force sort of idea.

Thanks for the report! I will have to double check that flat out thing - I hadn't noticed it before and since my current list is using scout laden storms I need to be away of that.

Nice to see the tau working a bit better. As for the pathfinders, I say infiltrate them somewhere far away and just markerlight the hell out of things - then it fits, they snuck up ahead of the rest of the force and are now calling down the thunder.

As long as you aren't going flat out trying to ram something or going into terrain, it's been so long since I played a marine army I don't even remember if speeders are classified as tank's, your fine. It's just if it happens to be destroyed during the movement phase that it went flat out, doesn't affect subsequent turns of people firing at you.

Ah got it, whew. that had me worried. Nah, speeders can't ram so I can continue to zip my scouts around on an explosive flying couch all I want.

More to the point, don't ram with Wave Serpents. I've had nothing but bad luck with them ramming as well. S10 hits against AV12 or 13 and rolling a 1 or 2, followed by my Serpents exploding. I also learned the hard way, don't have guys in the Serpent when you ram fast! On the plus side, I'll never make that mistake again.

Remember kids: leave the ramming to the Orks