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POST-GAME ANALYSIS:

Deamons:
I'd like to start off my Post-game with an apology.

I apologize for the plethora of mistakes we made in this game. We made a lot of mistakes this game, some due to unfamiliarity with the new rules, some due to still being in the "5th Edition" frame of mind and some just due to the fact that we weren't careful enough when reading the rules. I'd like to thank all of you who pointed out the mistakes to us (and did so politely instead of laughing at our faces ). I write these reports to entertain and educate the 40k masses and one of the good things that happens in these reports is that I also learn a lot about the game as well thanks to the readers. So thank you for not only your input, but for your patience as well as we are all re-learning this new game. We will strive to do better next time.

With that said, this was a fun game despite all the little mistakes. I had a blast playing the "plague bomb". It's just a fun list to play (though I don't know if it was fun for my opponent to play against). It's strong, but honestly, it isn't really over-powering (OP) in my opinion. There is just a lot of weakness in this type of army - lack of AT besides the FMC's, lack of mobility from the scoring units, lack of shooting, everything needs to go right for the list to work, FMC's may get tarpitted in combat, etc. When I didn't get my preferred wave in, I thought for sure that I would lose this game. Fortunately, I had excellent reserve rolls on Turn 2 to give my chaos forces a fighting chance.

This game was a game of ups and downs, which is one of the reasons why it is so memorable to me. After my wrong wave came in and SabrX wiped out my DP on Turn 1, I felt that I couldn't really win. Then after I hit the Tallymax and my nurglings wiped out SabrX's ork boyz on Turn 3, I could see the frustration in my opponent's face as he almost gave up. Then when both of his kroot regrouped on Turn 5, I was like And then my plagues broke his ork boyz and consolidated towards the objective to make it a close one. So despite all the mistakes, it was quite an enjoyable game and I had a lot of fun. I'm sure my opponent did also as he is now 2-0 against me in 6E.

One thing that you do have to consider is that games now take longer to play in 6E. Despite the minimal use of wound allocation and complex units (other than the nob bikers), it still took us about 4.5 hours to complete this game....and we didn't even really finish it as we just decided to end it after T5. And this is despite the lack of shooting in both of our armies (well, mine mostly). Part of the reason is because my opponent was playing a horde army. But mainly it is because the core mechanics of 6E just forces you to play more slowly. Having to roll dice one at a time due to Look Out Sir and other similar mechanics just take time. There isn't really any getting around this, no matter how experience you are or how fast you play. That's just the way 6E will be from now on. I think from now on, we wil be going down in points for our future battles.

SabrX's army was a challenge to play against. Although it is by no means a balanced list (neither is mine), it is IMO a pretty fun list as well as a challenging list for certain armies to play against. However, I still think the way to go for Tau is shooty Tau with ork allies. This battle also gave me a glimpse into the ork army and I will say this - orks are now very good. They just got much better this edition. Don't be surprised if you see them winning in tournament play again. IMO they are now a top-tier army again.

Thanks for tuning in. I had just as much fun writing this report as I did playing it.


Tau: (by SabrX)
That was an intense match. The Plague Bomb is definitely a top tier list. Once Epidimius maxes tallies, the Plague Bearers becomes super buff. Nobz Power Klaws don’t do anything because they can't bypass 3+ FNP. Ork Boyz is Str3 and need 6’s to wound when they are not charging. The only thing they can do is stall for time. Only the Warboss proved effective. I'm surprised he survived.

Fateweaver was a constant thorn in my side. He racked up a lot of kills with his swoop and shooting attacks. It’s really difficult to kill him once he’s in swooping mode. I got lucky grounding two Daemon Princes early in the game. Had they still been alive, they would have thinned out my horde with combined Breath of Chaos.

Towards the end, I got really lucky with my regroup rolls. If the Kroots near the middle objective ran off the table, it would have been game over. In the end, it was ultimately the Kroots that won me the game. There were too many of them for Jy2 to handle.

The Ork detachments also did a splendid job. They stalled all three Plague Bearer units and took out two Daemon Princes. Nobz Bikers and Warboss were super resilient. I surprise Jy2 by making a lot of FNP saves. The new wound allocations and FNP boosted their effectiveness. The Orks will be a great addition to my Tau army.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

DexKivuli wrote:
I take it back, I take it back!!
/me checks under his desk for Nurglings about to bite his ankles.

I hadn't really considered the power of nurglings with Epdiemius's tally up. I'd just been thinking about plague bearers, who - even with a solid chance of killing a model with each attack - only have 1 attack base. I think Nurglings will be the key ingredient to making this list really deadly... with three attacks, that's a lot of death!

A very interesting pair of lists, and a well-fought victory for the Greater Good.

Yeah, nurglings definitely have some hitting power when the tally maxes out. They were actually my "secret weapon" here. But you do have to be careful how you play them as they don't have FNP. Thus, you first hit the opponent with the plaguebearers to tie them up. Then the nurglings will be the secondary wave to help finish off whatever unit is stuck in combat with your plagues.

sudojoe wrote:Lol very entertaining fight. I bet you guys are noticing just how long these horde armies and complex fights end up taking. I think the first games we did went some 4-5 hrs too. It's one of the other reasons I just took out my nobs from the boyz squads.

More bodies and shooting and can't challenge anyone just to speed things along. I have gotten just some 1000 point games down to 2hrs but it's still a struggle just to go through so many steps from terrain set up to picking warlords to complex fights and interruption shooting via turrets/damage in movement phases/pre-measuring. It's definately alot more time consuming.

Had one guy start having heat stress after a while and it took him probably 2 minutes to work up 6' move +12' shooting = 18' range for one of his squads when he was trying to decide if he wanted to move them or not. Probably measured like 8 times just to make sure. I think it was like our 3th game and the AC was out so I can't blame the guy

Yeah. SabrX had to roll an enourmous amount of dice. Surprisingly, my plaguebearers absorbed a lot of damage and still survived. For those who have never played against a Nurgle list before (and especially one buffed up by Epidemius' Tally), you will hate fighting them in combat as their ability to withstand damage is just really frustrating for many opponents.

And with the exception of the nob bikers, we didn't even really try to abuse wound allocation and complex units. Honestly, I am against using these combo complex units and I will try to minimize the usage of them in my armies. Yeah, to keep our games from taking too long in the future, I think I will go down to 1500-1750 for my future reports unless my opponent wants to play at the higher points.

Lovechunks wrote:really kool battle reports with good pics enjoyed this while sipping on my morning coffee. thanks for the great BR keep it up

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

SevenSins wrote:A neat rep, now that is a proper horde, SaberX!

A dirty trick with the "sacrificial gretchin to chaos", as if any chaos god would give rewards for gretchin sacrifices

Gretchin aren't scoring when taken as desperate allies are they? (Moot as they were wiped out but...)

You are right. Thanks for pointing it out.

That reminds me of my 1st game where I tried to use my flyers (necron scythes) to contest the objectives on the last turn. Man, do I feel foolish. Live and learn. Live and learn....

Great report guys and thanks for sharing it. I agree with your analysis jy2, 6th takes a LONG time lol. So long I didn't realize my weekly game hit the 4 hour mark, we only had to look up on strange combat. I agree that less points is the obvious solution but I will take the glass half full approach and be grateful on the ease it will place on my wallet

Thanks again guys, and thanks for not focusing on whats broken in 6th like so many other are!

jy2 wrote:

SevenSins wrote:A neat rep, now that is a proper horde, SaberX!

A dirty trick with the "sacrificial gretchin to chaos", as if any chaos god would give rewards for gretchin sacrifices

Gretchin aren't scoring when taken as desperate allies are they? (Moot as they were wiped out but...)

You are right. Thanks for pointing it out.

That reminds me of my 1st game where I tried to use my flyers (necron scythes) to contest the objectives on the last turn. Man, do I feel foolish. Live and learn. Live and learn....

No worries, It's a new edition and we are bound to make mistakes.

Plague Bomb is going to be extremely difficult to counter. It's funny how it will become a race to kill the Grots before you kill your own. I definitely like the Bastion with Comm Relay idea for making it more reliable.

Red Corsair wrote:Great report guys and thanks for sharing it. I agree with your analysis jy2, 6th takes a LONG time lol. So long I didn't realize my weekly game hit the 4 hour mark, we only had to look up on strange combat. I agree that less points is the obvious solution but I will take the glass half full approach and be grateful on the ease it will place on my wallet

Thanks again guys, and thanks for not focusing on whats broken in 6th like so many other are!

Glad you enjoyed it.

Ease on wallet? I don't know about that. You may consider buying detachments for you existing armies, which you've no plans to expand into a complete army. That's what Jy2 and I did with Orks. I bought 60 AoBR Boyz, AoBR Warboss, box of Nobs, and soon (hopefully) a squad of Nobz Bikers lead by a Warboss. All that for my Tau army. Ah, so many choices with Tau! I feel like a little kid in a candy store. Necron flyers + Tau? Eldar + Tau? Grey Knights + Tau? Tau + Blood Angels? Too many choices!

SabrX wrote:I bought 60 AoBR Boyz, AoBR Warboss, box of Nobs, and soon (hopefully) a squad of Nobz Bikers lead by a Warboss. All that for my Tau army. Ah, so many choices with Tau! I feel like a little kid in a candy store. Necron flyers + Tau? Eldar + Tau? Grey Knights + Tau? Tau + Blood Angels? Too many choices!

But no Tau + Tyranids. Yakface & I showed how devastating that was at the BAO team event last year, and GW must have noticed the unfettered awesomeness that was unleashed.

SabrX wrote:Plague Bomb is going to be extremely difficult to counter. It's funny how it will become a race to kill the Grots before you kill your own. I definitely like the Bastion with Comm Relay idea for making it more reliable.

Plague Bomb is trivial to counter because the combo doesn't work. Check out the army list thread for more info.

Janthkin wrote:

SabrX wrote:I bought 60 AoBR Boyz, AoBR Warboss, box of Nobs, and soon (hopefully) a squad of Nobz Bikers lead by a Warboss. All that for my Tau army. Ah, so many choices with Tau! I feel like a little kid in a candy store. Necron flyers + Tau? Eldar + Tau? Grey Knights + Tau? Tau + Blood Angels? Too many choices!

But no Tau + Tyranids. Yakface & I showed how devastating that was at the BAO team event last year, and GW must have noticed the unfettered awesomeness that was unleashed.

That would be a terrifying combo! It's a shame Tyranids can't ally with anyone. There's been so many stories revolving around Genestealer infestation.

I don't think there's any restrictions for double tournament, so it may still be viable. The new rules has done a 180 on tournaments. Ard Boyz will be rediculous with double FoC. Standard games will have to be dimmed down to 1500pts if they want to stick to 2 - 2.5 hour time limit per game.

Fetterkey wrote:

SabrX wrote:Plague Bomb is going to be extremely difficult to counter. It's funny how it will become a race to kill the Grots before you kill your own. I definitely like the Bastion with Comm Relay idea for making it more reliable.

Plague Bomb is trivial to counter because the combo doesn't work. Check out the army list thread for more info.

Aw great, are we going to have a repeat of the Necron Airforce vs Crowe Purifiers thread with a lengthy debate spilling over?

There's a section in Dakkadakka called '40K You Make Da Call'.

Start a thread and discuss it over there. Whether Aura of Decay needs a target or doesn't is debatable.

SabrX wrote:That would be a terrifying combo! It's a shame Tyranids can't ally with anyone. There's been so many stories revolving around Genestealer infestation.

I don't think there's any restrictions for double tournament, so it may still be viable. The new rules has done a 180 on tournaments. Ard Boyz will be rediculous with double FoC. Standard games will have to be dimmed down to 1500pts if they want to stick to 2 - 2.5 hour time limit per game.

One can hope that GW will eventually remember Genestealer cults, and give them a little WD attention. Let me ally with my IG, please!

But there is no Ard Boyz anymore; it's dead.

Janthkin wrote:

SabrX wrote:I bought 60 AoBR Boyz, AoBR Warboss, box of Nobs, and soon (hopefully) a squad of Nobz Bikers lead by a Warboss. All that for my Tau army. Ah, so many choices with Tau! I feel like a little kid in a candy store. Necron flyers + Tau? Eldar + Tau? Grey Knights + Tau? Tau + Blood Angels? Too many choices!

But no Tau + Tyranids. Yakface & I showed how devastating that was at the BAO team event last year, and GW must have noticed the unfettered awesomeness that was unleashed.

Kinda bummed out that tyranids don't get any allies. However, with the way the tyranid codex is, you can't really afford many allies due to its rather expensive "toys" (i.e. monstrous creatures) if you want to build a coherent, all-comers tyranid list IMO. But yeah, I think Tau+Nids would make a good combo.

Fetterkey wrote:

SabrX wrote:Plague Bomb is going to be extremely difficult to counter. It's funny how it will become a race to kill the Grots before you kill your own. I definitely like the Bastion with Comm Relay idea for making it more reliable.

Plague Bomb is trivial to counter because the combo doesn't work. Check out the army list thread for more info.

With the more conservative ruling, it's not that it doesn't work. It's just that it's much harder to make it work.

For those not aware of the conflict, there is a rules debate on whether Aura of Decay needs or doesn't need a target in order to work (you can find the controversy in the original thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/463220.page ).

In the case of conflict, my tendency is to go with the more conservative, or restrictive, interpretation (unless both parties involved agree otherwise). Thus, in the future, I will play it as Aura of Decay does need to target a legal enemy unit within range in order to go off (unless FAQ'd otherwise). I realize that this will nerf the plague bomb greatly, but I do not want to promote any combo, strategy and/or rules interpretation that is questionable at best. So until it is FAQ'd or accepted by the majority of gamers out there as legal, then I will steer away from the controversy and play the more restrictive interpretation.

SabrX wrote:
Aw great, are we going to have a repeat of the Necron Airforce vs Crowe Purifiers thread with a lengthy debate spilling over?

There's a section in Dakkadakka called '40K You Make Da Call'.

Start a thread and discuss it over there. Whether Aura of Decay needs a target or doesn't is debatable.

It's ok. As this happened in my battle report and many people look up to my reports for strategy tips, I feel obligated to let them know my viewpoint on this issue. There is a case for both viewpoints so people who want to run this build need to be aware of that. Because I really don't want someone to try this build at a tournament only to have the judges rule against him and screw up his entire strategy/army design. So in friendly games, talk about it with your opponent. Otherwise, have a backup plan just in case he (or the TO in a tournament) does not agree. In my army, my Nurgle Flying Circus is the backup plan. If the Aura gets ruled against me, then the list can still compete via the flying circus. Moreover, they will help to increase the Tally as they are quite killy in most cases.

Great report as usual and original battle !!
A pleasure to read.

tetsuo666 wrote:Great report as usual and original battle !!
A pleasure to read.

Thanks!

Couldn't Jy2 theoretically take any chaos space marine unit with mon and epidemus to play a plague bomb. I know it wouldn't be as good cuz you would have no gretchin but 2+ poison 3+ fnp chaos termies doesn't sound to bad to me!
(I'm not sure my self)

On a different note wouldn't it be cool if next dex csm termies could take storm sheilds and mot for a 2+ invuln. Now that would be survivability!

Yeah, I could, but that would be an entirely different army altogether. For this battle, I wanted to try out grots and daemons. I think the difference is that it would take longer for nurgle marines to max the tally than it would for daemons and grots (though at the time of the game, I wasn't aware that I've been playing it wrong).

BTW, nurgle chaos termies wouldn't get 3+ FNP because they would have to have FNP in the first place in order to benefit from it.

I doubt CSM are going to get storm shields or 2+ invulns in their new codex.

I could see an Aspiring Champion with MoT having a 2++ just like Grey Knights Warding Stave.

That's just downright nasty.

A unit of 10 Tzeentch Terminators, all of them aspiring champions and all with 2++.....allied with Fateweaver.

**shudders**