Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok, so I know the implacations of the title, and how most people would feel about the idea of Tau coming close to winning, as most believe Tau to be non competitive. I don't really believe this to be true, though they could use some dex love, they manage against most of what they face. SO anyways, my list:
HQ:
Shas’el, twin missile, plasma rifle, HW MT, HW DC, x2 SD, stim injectors

Elites:
Plasma Bodygaurd: Team leader, twin missile, plasma, Bonding knife, HW MT, HW DC, x2 shield drones, x1 shas’ui, plasma, missile, multi tracker, x1 shas’ui twin missile, plasma
(joined to HQ)

Deathrain unit 2: Team leader, twin missile, flame, bonding knife, HW DC x2 shield drones, x1 shas’ui with twin missile, flame, x1 shas’ui with twin missile, target lock

Deathrain unit 2: Team leader, twin missile, flame, bonding knife, HW DC x2 shield drones, x1 shas’ui with twin missile, flame, x1 shas’ui with twin missile, target lock

Troops:
X6 fire warriors, rifles
-warfish, SMS, multi tracker, disruption pod, targeting array, fletchettes
X12 fire wariors, rifles, shas’ui, knife, marker light, HW TL

X12 Kroot (infiltrate for PF fish)

X11 Kroot, x 7 kroot hounds

Fast:
Pathfinders x6, shas’ui, bonding knife 87pts
-warfish, SMS, multi tracker, disruption pod, targeting array, fletchettes

Heavy:
HH, Burst cannons, Railgun, Disruption pod, Multi tracker, target lock, fletchettes

HH, Burst cannons, Railgun, Disruption pod, Multi tracker, target lock, fletchettes

Total:1850 pts

Alright so automatically no Broads is a problem. I couldn't finish them in time, and so was forced to fill in their points where ever I could with what I had available. This amounted to fletchettes on all vehicles, and a full firewarrior squad(bleh).

First mission was annihilation, table halves, standard deployment:

Opponent was jump troop spam Blood angels: Rough list

Jump chappy with 10 man jump death company

5-6, 5 man jump troopers, 2 with power weapon, storm shield sarges, 3-4 with fist, plasma pistol sarges

x2 death company dreads, melta, heavy flamer

baal pred

x2 vindicators with siege shields

So automatically I looked at what he had and was like...crap, his whole army will be on me practically by turn 2-3. But I thought with only 5 man squads, I could kill them with ease and I simply needed to stay the f away from the 10 man death company which would be hard as hell to kill. We rolled for first turn, I won, and he failed to steal the initiative.

Turn 1 tau: Amazing first turn, large kroot unit outflanked, with pathfinders, finder fish, and 12 man kroot on the left, then going right a HH, then both deathrains, then the 6 man warrior fish with warriors inside, then hq and junk. I made a fatal flaw with not sending my hq towards his death company to get some ap2 action in there. Instead, everything shimmied to get shots, deathrains immobilized one dread, the HHs took out a vindicator, and I stunned the second dread. jumped all suits behind cover.
Tau 1: BA 0

turn 1 BA: He had 2 units of 5 man jumpers DSing, while everything else basically came straight at me. non dead vindy shot at the finders, killed three of them and 4 of the kroot, both units failed moral, kroot fled off the board and pathfinders moved 2 inches. First major mistake of mine during this game. The whole point of having the 12 man kroot was a cheap scoring unit that could mount up, and I forgot to stick them in the fish... other than that, nothing major happened, the baal got the super move and charged straight towards my line.
Tau1:BA1

turn 2 tau: So thankfully he didnt put his deathcompany as far up as he could, and they wouldnt be on me till 3rd turn, otherwise, no outflank kroot yet, the pathfinders rallied!! yay bonding knife!! once again, everything shimmied, with the vehicles moving enough to force 4+s if he assaulted them, and the suits doin the whole JSJ. I stunned the alive vindy, took the twin assault cannon off the pred, and basically only killed a few marines in random squads. Second mistake of the game, I shot tons of crap at his death company, which was obviously stupid with 3+ saves and feel no pain, but hey, live and learn. Not to mention that across most of the game he only failed 1 feel no pain until 5th turn. He was actually getting amazing roles all game.
Tau1:BA1

turn 2 BA: Everything jumps again, and holy cow, my movement put him 1-2" out of assault range from everything in my army. He jets up his baal predator up, and the vindy stays put, while one jump company gets in range of my HH on the right. Shooting results only in stunning my HH.

turn 3 Tau: Everything shimmies yet again, Outflank kroot come in, and get into assault range with his last vindy, though I made a large mistake, I forgot to move my devilfish on the left near the pathfinders which the death company would be hitting. Everything shoots, I manage to kill one squad of marines with my command group, but like an idiot, when I jumped them back, I left the commander in front, and he had a 5 man squad nearby with a fist... Otherwise, shooting only amounted in failing miserably to kill the pred, and a few casualties here and there in some squads. The kroot charge the vindy and manage to kill it!! I forgot to mention, knowing he would be on me next turn, I did a small castle in the center of my side, that look like this:
HH
HH CC DF the HHs are Hammerheads of course, the DF is devilfish and the cc is one deathrain squad. 6 man firewarriors still mounted in that devilfish.
________
Tau2:BA1

turn 3 BA: He gets both deepstriking squads in, puts them both in roughly the same spot, right in front of the right side of my line, one scatters 11" backwards, the other gets a hit. Otherwise, his death company is rearin to attack my pathfinder fish, while his baal moves into flamer range and his jump squad on the right with the fist prepares to kill my command group. Shooting results in a great side armor plasma pistol shot that wrecks my regular devilfish, the firewarriors proceed to pile out on the inside of the castle with just enough room to fit, who then get flamed by the pred and are completely wiped, He didnt shoot with his deathcompany, as I found out later, he actually was after my deathrain squad on the left which I believed to be to far away to charge. Needless to say, deathcompany charges and wipes the deathrains, one assault squad charges a HH and takes 2 fletchette casualties, which as a 3 maan squad brought up some contraversy to whether or not they would fall back having failed LD as being brought below 50% before attacks are resolved, the redshirts ruled that they would fall back. The fist squad on the right charges my command squad, kills the commander, and sweeps the rest(ouch). Everything else consolidates towards me.
Tau2: BA6

turn 4 Tau: Well, I am thinking I am in dire straights, but I vastly underestimated the power of fletchets on small squads. Walking FW come in and rapid fire the squad that killed the fish. Knowing I had to move or I would be surrounded, I moved my HH up to be within 6" of his falling back squad, I wipe out the squad that plasma'd my fish, stun the pred, and load up my finders into their fish, in hopes I might get lucky and prevent then from getting killed. Otherise, shooting is rather ineffective, resulting in only one more deathcompany killed and a casualty on the squad who deep striked and scattered.
Tau3:BA6

Turn 4 BA: His deathcompany kills my finderfish, planning to block all exits so my finders will also be killed but splodes it, loses a guy to the explosion, yet all my finders live, finders emergency disembark and get pinned, He assaults my firewarriors with his deepstriking unit that scattered and kills them, my HH was within 6" of his falling back squad who falls back another 13" right next to the outflank kroot, and he assaults both my HH that moved, and my last deathrain squad, whiffs horribly on both, the deathrains manage to break and sweep the 3 man squad that attacked them, while fletchettes manage to kill all of the 3 jumpers that went after the HH.
Tau5: BA8

Turn 5 Tau: Now I am thinking, this could actually be winnable, I still have both HHs, a deathrain squad anda full kroot squad, where as he has a dread that isnt doing anything, another one that is immobilized, and a deathcompany squad that is very far away potentially thanks to the still alive finders right there that for kill points he will have to go for. Not to mention, his remaining jump squads are all only a few men. So I jump everything right away from the deathcompany, except for the kroot, who move 6" to finish off the falling back squad, manage to kill both dreads left as well as the pred and the other normal assault troops, and now all he has left is his death company, who of course kill the finders next turn. We manage to get two more turns on rolls, but as it only amounts to his deathcompany chasing me while I kill them down to 5 plus the chappy, I will just end it here. So after all that, victory for the TAU!!
Tau10: BA8

It was a great game, and now I am a huge fan of fletchettes...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Second game to come soon... against, CSM with abby, a warptime Prince and other crap....YIKES!!

Yep, tau are a very competitive army if used right. GJ.

Indeed, now, Im not in any way trying to 'dis' Tau or Tau players, but is it just me or does it seem like most Tau players are quite young and inexperienced? Is there something about Tau that deters the older crowd?

gameandwatch wrote:Indeed, now, Im not in any way trying to 'dis' Tau or Tau players, but is it just me or does it seem like most Tau players are quite young and inexperienced? Is there something about Tau that deters the older crowd?

Not in my experience, I just think people don't know how to run it properly, taking "suicide suits" and "flamer suits" and the whole "Ninja Tau" thing has kinda de-evolved some people into thinking tau can be up-close-and-personal fighters, which they aren't. Also, unit choice (some people spam FW) really hurts people, taking a bunch of FW and an Etherial and not enough suits and mobile units and units like piranhas just bring you to a point where your army sucks.

Nids I find are accompanied by the worst and younger players.

gameandwatch wrote:Indeed, now, Im not in any way trying to 'dis' Tau or Tau players, but is it just me or does it seem like most Tau players are quite young and inexperienced? Is there something about Tau that deters the older crowd?

Not at all.

Torgoch, a long term and respected member of Dakka has been taking Tau to high positions in UK GTs for some years.

I'm an undistinguished but 'mature' Tau player.

YakFace is a Tau player too.

IMO the people who take Tau to tournaments are often good players who know Tau is a difficult army to use well, but because the players have good skills they often place fairly high. Tau have always suffered at tournaments from finding it difficult to score Massacres. (This isn't a factor in the UK where the tournaments are scored on Win/Lose.)

Thanks for the nice battle report and list.

I notice you too regard Fire Warriors as a waste of space.

gameandwatch wrote:Indeed, now, Im not in any way trying to 'dis' Tau or Tau players, but is it just me or does it seem like most Tau players are quite young and inexperienced? Is there something about Tau that deters the older crowd?

I think that depends on your local players. Alot of people around here thought Tau sucked until I and another player moved into the area. The first 10 games I played, I had people say stuff like, "I love your models but Tau suck." After beating most of those people and making it to the 'Ard Boyz semis, people don't say that anymore. It takes a while to figure out how to play them, but once you're comfortable, they get rolling along pretty well.

Ninja Tau and suicide units can work situationally. I usually keep a positional relay and at least one unit with fusion blasters in my army. It's not a tool you take out of the box every game. It isn't appropriate for every task, but it does sometimes scratch that itch. I actually like it when I see more unorhtodox units being tried on the battlefield. Tau players rely on their railguns and missile pods too much sometimes. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

EDIT: What KK said +1.

Well no, I agree with all three of you, It seems in my area, there is a fairly significant younger Tau crowd, as I went to the Baltimore Gt, it seems less that way elsewhere. I think most people equate Tau as 'suck' according to exactly what you just said, people spam crap units, or simply don't understand the truly unforgiving nature of the Tau metagame.

Yet I have found one thing universally true with Tau: Though it may be difficult on occasion to score Massacres, Tau have one great strength, unlike other armies, when they are over the hurdle and in the lead during a battle, they can finish in a big way.

Second game coming soon...

Ok game 2:
Mission is 4 objectives, spearhead deployment, my opponent gets first turn and takes it, I fail to steal the initiative.

His list is roughly:
Abby and 3 termies all with different combis
(riding in LR)
landraider, deamonic possession

A warptime, wings prince

1x10 normal marines, lascannon, plasma gun, rhino

1x10 noise marines, all with blast masters, champ with doom siren, rhino

1x12 or so thousand sons, sorcerer with bolt

Pred with only a twin las turret

vindicator with possession

So once again Im like, abby, warptime winged prince? This could be trouble, luckily it was spearhead, I had a nice patch o cover right in my deployment zone, and there was enough terrain and impassable terrain to funnel him in relatively one direction. He deploys his transports in a line, with the pred behind the rhinos, the raider closest to me, and the vindy was going to flank on my right. There was a large hill in the center of the board that would virtually block line of sight to all his vehicles save the raider. I deployed with general vision on everything, left my walking shitbirds in reserve, and decided to deep strike a deathrain squad as well as outflank with the large kroot.

turn 1 Chaos: He moves everything to my top left, vindy comes around the large hill on the right, takes a few potshots but the pods hold up.

turn 1 Tau: I do my shimmying as usual, and take shots at vehicles, he didnt realize how devestating deathrains can be on armor 12 and less, I stun both his rhino with noise marines and his pred. I have to mention something right now, because it is rediculous and explains what I am going to do with this batrep. I am not even going to mention my HHs, as for four straight turns they wiffed at doing anything, only getting 2 hits between the 2 of them in 4 turns, those two hits of course doing nothing to his raider. SO, everything JSJs back into place.

turn 2 Chaos: His TS are in the back, getting kinda crappy Slow and Purposeful roles, and he also kinda doesnt know what to do with them, so they just jocky around in back, waiting for my DSing and outflanking stuff. He jumps his prince behind some impassible terrain out of my line of site, and here makes a fatal flaw, in my opinion if he had waited a turn and attacked with both abby and the prince, I would have been f'ed, but he hid his prince, charge up abby's raider, dumped him and his chums out, and realized, crap, Im just out of range of the pathfinders in the terrain in my deployment zone. SO, he shoots with crew at the pathfinders, who get roasted, and says his final goodbyes realizing he is about to get shot to pieces.

turn 2 Tau: I am like, well, I guess I will shoot up abby who is nice and in the open! Rapid fire plasma HO!! no suits or kroot, shitbirds come in (footsloggin FW), who hide behind a hill. Everything shimmies again, I move my vehicles to avoid deamon prince rapage, but as a noob, forget to move them so my one deathrain squad has enough room to jump back. COmmand squad moves into rapid fire range, manages to kill all the termies and bring abby down to 1 wound, who is then finished by a random burst cannon. Teehee, teehee No more abby is a big relief... Everything jumps back behind cover, unfortunately the deathrains didnt jump back enough.

turn 3 chaos: His noise marines move out on my left flank, and dump out, the deamon prince jumps over the area terrain and is within charge range of my suits, the pred moves to shoot at my right HH, his marine rhino is in the back left remaining stationary to get pot shot lascannons on me, and the raider decides to stay put. OH I forgot to mention that his vindy was also epic fail, it managed to immobilize itself on the hill it was manuvering around, and though caused some contreversy with tau vehicle wings(you know where the drones are held) as being a part of the hull, which the whole situation was stupid since, after all the debate I rolled a DP roll and ignored it His pred shoots and does nothing, his noise marines shoot up my command squad but I make saves. His deamon prince charges my deathrains and as would be obvious, embarrases them He consolidates towards my HQ.

turn 3 Tau: Well, Obviously its clobberin time round two, everything shimmies a bit, outflank kroot come in on the far right about 33" away from his thousand sons, they move behind a small hill to leap over it, hopefully in tune with the DS suits to hit those bahstards hard and fast. HQ jumps up and blasts the hell out of the Deamon prince, killing him 3 times over. The noise marines lose 2 guys, and the predator is destroyed by a miraculous group of S5 side armor shots. Kroot run. OH nother thing I forgot to say, the 12 man kroot were properly placed in their fish at the beginning of the game, and the 6 man FW have been sitting in their fish.

turn 4 Chaos: He is thinking dire thoughts now, realizing his 2 heavy hitters are dead, so he decides to half go balls to the wall to try and kill my scoring units. He moves his noise rhino forward as well as his noise marines to be within charge range of my kroot fish. His thousand sons start to close on his left, my far right objective, as well as the kroot threatining that objective. He is thinking that maybe he can get a draw, if he can get into close combat with my HQ, contest both my objectives with a prolonged close combat and a rhino, as well as possibly win by having control of his. Bu I am wise to his game.

turn 4 Tau: deepstriking suits come in in his deployment corner, scatter onto terrain but no casualties, TL suit rear armors the vindy, killing it, rest shoot thousand sons, killing one. kroot move to within 8" of his left objective, and eventually run 4", and all my deployment stuff blasts the hell out of his noise marines, while my kroot fish unload to charge his rhino. 6 man warriors unload for rapid fire. In the end, I manage to kill all of them, with 4 vehicles and my Hq, plus some FWs all firing at them. The fish kroot charge the rhino and manage to kill it.

turn 5 chaos: he realizes it is basically over, he moves his raider up to contest, his marine rhino moves back to his right objective behind a building and dump them out to shoot at the outflank kroot or DS suits. His Thousand sons move to within 3" of his left obj.

turn 5 Tau: HEY, a HH manages to splode the LR!!!!! WOOOO, after 4 straight whiff turns, they do something!!! everything else moves to score and chase the rest of his stuff. DS suits, jump back, and blast his thousand sons, killing 2, other HH hits them with a submunition killing 2, and the kroot charge, whiping out the thousand sons. with that, the game ends, with a TAU victory!! yeah Tau!!!

Tau are amazing and definitely surprise people when played correctly. I haven't played much outside my group but everyone knows to get into assault as quickly as possible. Even then with the mobility of Tau The rest of the army simply speeds away from where the assault is happening. I've only been massacred once and it was because I lost 3 out of 4 broadsides in the first turn to multiple lascannon shots at both units from Obliterators. Stupid instant death shots actually hitting from long range - that and me not hitting anything at all with 4 twinlinked railgun shots.

I enjoyed how the game started with the Tau in the lead then turned into what seemed to be a grave situation only to be redeemed into a Victory. It seemed like an emotional roller coaster of a battle!

Tau arn't "bad" like half the Dark Eldar codex. Tau are just overcosted. Because of this it is very hard for Tau to Massacre in games against competitive lists.

Well done with Tau. People under-estimate them and you can make them pay. Killing Abaddon must have been satisfying.

gameandwatch wrote:
Turn 1 tau: Amazing first turn, large kroot unit outflanked, with pathfinders, finder fish, and 12 man kroot on the left,

Since when can units Outflank or arrive from Reserve on turn 1, without special rules that allow such?
That in itself casts some doubt on the kind of "tourney" you were playing here...

Read it like this:

I placed the large kroot unit in reserve and declared they would be outflanking

Then I placed the pathfinders, fish and 12 man kroot on the left of my deployment zone



His kroot came in on turn 3

Yes, thank you Illumini, sorry for the confusion, I was merely stating that hey were attempting to outflank, as reserves are what you declare before deployment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OH! and yes, Olympia, killin ol abby was deeply satisfying, especially since he screwed up and abby acomplished NOTHING before he died. I HATE abby, hes just royally annoying...

that chaos list was terrible!

Anyways, great list your runnin there! very versatile