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Aye, not trying to be harsh. It would be a good idea if the devastators were just -cheaper-. But with the cover rules being what they are, and the price...there are just better ways to go about it. Which stinks, seeing as I used to love the devastator squads.

Anyway, update time: If his speeders are being a problem, you may want to look into a rifleman dread or two. Should tear down squadroned AV10 in short order, and it can be hidden completely out of LOS behind something, and still step out and fire all guns, unlike a predator. How are the games going?

back to the ram topic our thread starter mention a squad of piranhas doing their job of block/blasting his vehicles if you attepmt to ram and for THE ENTIRE SQUAD TO STAND ASIDE then the rest of his vehicles can keep moving

a note on grammer and spelling I DONT CARE its the internet get over if its a big deal to the thread starter ill PM them otherwise go grade school papaers and whine to people who are getting a grade

Alright, I -think- I can translate what he's saying, and you may want to go to the BGB, page 69 under "Ramming" and look at page 71 under "Ramming a skimmer."

If he rolls a 3+, your ramming tank stops. The squadron does not get out of the way, and your vehicles just stop. That's it. No big booms. The only time you -ever- move past a vehicle in the path of your ram is a Destroyed - Explodes! result.

Ramming skimmers without also being a skimmer is a bad idea.

Hmm. I never considered ramming his skimmers because the odds are in his favor for me to miss. I may have to try that and see how it goes.

Havok210 wrote:Hmm. I never considered ramming his skimmers because the odds are in his favor for me to miss. I may have to try that and see how it goes.

Um...thats our (mine and SOFDC) point. Don't listen to atlas_garon, I think he is reading a different rulebook. Don't ever try ramming a skimmer. Chances (big chances) are that he will avoid it, then suddenly you are face to face with a meltagun, and you have just wasted your shooting phase for that vehicle.

Dude.

Sternguard Squad = 125 pts.
5 combi-meltas = 25 pts.
Drop Pod = 35 pts.

185 pts. = Dead Broadsides.

Worried about those 4++? Toss a Libby in that DP with Null Zone for the low-low price of 100 pts and watch stuff die.

Scout Bike Squad = 70 Pts.
Power Fist = 25 Pts.
Infiltrate Universal Rule = 18+ inches away from broadsides.
Scout Universall Rule = 12+ inches away from broadsides.
Movement of 12 inches + assault move of 6 inches = first turn dead broadsides at a bargain basement price of 95pts.


As for Piranhas: with AV10, just shoot at them. With anything. I'm serious, too. Actually anything in your army has a decent chance of wrecking them. If the problem is his cover saves, and he's running them in squadrons, try a heavy flamer. I know it sounds silly to go vehicle hunting with flamers, but with an 8 inch template you have a strong chance to hit all three, ignoring his cover saves from movement. You have three chances to roll a 5/glance or 6/pen, and pretty much any result on the damage chart will yield awesomeness for you. By the same token, a Thunderfire Cannon at 100 pts. grants you a heavy 4, strength 5, small blast marker that ignores cover saves at range 60. Equally sexy for smiting blueskins in pathfinder skirts. And kroot. God, I hate Kroot.

I actually kind of like Kroot.

Another point on the cover save - the Disruption Pod only works if the shooter is more than 12 inches away, so if you get inside the 12, you can rake 'em with fire to your heart's content.

I think the real way to deal with Broadsides hasn't been mentioned, and it would make your army better in an all-comers sense too.

The solution is to take a ton of vehicles. Your opponent only has 1 squad of Broadsides, 1 Hammerhead and the 3 Piranhas to deal with armor. I guess his three Crisis suits can too. That still isn't a lot, so consider what would happen if you have something like 3 Tactical squads in Rhinos, 3 Vindicators, 3 dual TL-Autocannon Dreadnoughts, and a Librarian, which comes in at 1450.

The Dreads will mulch his Piranhas before the can do anything, which will buy you time to get the Vindicators and Tactical Squads close enough to do their worst. Ordinarily, Tactical Squads wouldn't do much in CC, but against Tau they'll win. His Broadsides aren't that scary against that much armor. Even if he uses Markerlights, you're looking at 2 S10 hits per turn. Obviously, you'll use Smoke Launchers in that critical first turn, so you'll have a 4+ save, and then he needs a 4 to pen a Vindicator. You can easily get at least 2 Vindicators to where they can threaten his army in a couple of turns.

I don't play vanilla Space Marines, so I'm sure someone else could come up with a better 1500 list, but I think the general principle of overwhelming your opponent with vehicles is a sound one in general.

As a Tau player myself, what always ruins my day is when someone deep-strikes terminators onto my broadside squad positions.

So. Any updates? Has the Imperium triumphed over the "greater good"?

I think the reverse can be said about this post. I've gone up against the same sort of stuff. I played against a space wolves army as Tau the other day and got beat pretty bad. My broadsides were the first things he targeted. He used those long range krak missiles to destroy them. I didn't have shield drones with me so they got smoked really quickly. He used his super HQ with body guards to charge through two of my fire warrior squads with ease and he used his other squad of only krak missiles to destroy my devilfish full of fire warriors. I tried fighting back with my battle suits and managed to wreak one of his land speeders and knocked off two weapons from two of his tanks. One of his land speeders got away with only one weapon destroyed and still had a heavy flamer and smoked a ton of my fire warriors in one turn. Game over for me. Maybe this could help you beat that Tau player.

How would krak missiles 'smoke the broadsides quickly' - they have a 2+ armor save and krak missiles won't break through that.

The advice about vehicle saturation is a good one - they can't kill everything!

He had a two full squads of them, and I had very unfortunate dice rolls. He also used the vehicle saturation technique as well. I had too many vehicles to destroy and not enough time with my hammerhead. He used las cannon fire to occupy my hammerheads turns by shaking and stunning the crew over and over again. Finally the game ended and the hammerhead was still standing but had done absolutely nothing the whole game.

Best counter to vehicle saturation I can think of is to turn those 2 squads of 3 broadsides into 3 squads of 2 broadsides and give the Team Lead in each a Hard Wired Target Lock.

That way your Broadsides could engage up to 6 vehicles a turn.

You'll also want to consider Crisis Suits with Missile Pods for counter vehicle swarm duty.

Use Vanguard Vets to tackle the Broadsides. If they fail to get close enouigh that is a problem. Tyr tio get close but not close enough. Place the first model 3" away.

SOFDC wrote:So. Any updates? Has the Imperium triumphed over the "greater good"?

I got to play Tau again, but against a different player. I took CC Terms in a Landraider and was able to get past his Broadsides (he did not take shield drones and TH+SS equaled a dead Broadside squad).

I ended up winning the game, but Piranhas were still a problem (I attribute that dice more than strategy). I took 2 dreads w/autocannons against 3 Piranhas and failed to penetrate any of them. Both Dreads fell to the melta ability, but I was able to get the CC Terms in range of them and beat them to death with Thunderhammers.

The big difference in this game to me was the lack of shield drones and my list including CC Terminators with Vulkan as my HQ.

I took 2 dreads w/autocannons against 3 Piranhas and failed to penetrate any of them.

Aye, that's bad dice, not even any immobilized-> wrecked glancing results on the squad? Or were they ran separately?

SOFDC wrote:

I took 2 dreads w/autocannons against 3 Piranhas and failed to penetrate any of them.

Aye, that's bad dice, not even any immobilized-> wrecked glancing results on the squad? Or were they ran separately?

They were run in a squad. By the movement and deployment, I was feeling the pain after my failure to penetrate on the first turn I could shoot at them.

3+ to glance and 4+ to penetrate? That is bad luck. TYou need a TFC. The can fire Tremor shells, causing them vehiclers to take dangerous terrain, even skimmers. See how easy they are to hit when they aren't moving!

Front and side armor on piranhas is 11...

Bottom line, your trying to have a shooting fight with tau. Unless your guard, don't, and get into melee asap.

To avoid the tau cover saves on the piranhas, just get close any turn he hasn't gone flat out. They die fast then.