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i haven't lost to tau or taudar with Emperor's Children yet, but I went to the wire with them twice.

Noiseboys are pretty effective against them

I've beaten some weak eldar lists, but i haven't played iyanden or mechdar yet.

Nidzilla will eat my lunch if played right. Which it has 3 times.

Noiseboys/heldrakes/laspreds and a few termies and/or daemonettes to provide some "oh, hellnah!" Will shake tau pretty good

That was a pretty much by the numbers game. The Tau seem to need better bubble wrap to tarpit units like wraith knights and probably some ion accelerators on the riptides.

Nevermind wrote:
I agree with Red Corsair. We know you are a good player so let's see some creativity or variety. It justifies your skill even more to win with a non point and click build.

Don't worry. This match is more of an experiment to see who is the bigger "cat" in the Tau-Eldar cat-fight. Nothing more. I don't really plan on running my mechdar often....probably only on request or if I want to test out certain matchups (as was the case in this battle report).

I can see how this match may be boring to some. On the other hand, however, I'm pretty sure there are some of those who would actually be interested in the results as well. In any case, I just had to get this matchup off my chest.

 Kingsley wrote:
As expected. To be honest, I suspect you would have won even if you had forgotten to deploy your Wraithknights-- that Tau army really didn't have any solid answer to your Wave Serpents.

That said I think the tournament results indicating Tau and Eldar dominance are overblown. One common thing in 40k is people switching to the latest army because it is new and cool. As a result, I suspect much of the popularity of Tau and Eldar is thanks to factors other than their competitive strength.

Are Tau and Eldar strong armies? Definitely. But are they totally dominant? To me at least that doesn't seem to be the case.

I think that if my opponent wasn't as tired, he'd probably have done better. However, I respect his army to the point where I wouldn't have given him the handicap of not deploying (or forgetting to deploy) my WK's. His army is just too dangerous. The last time I took one of my opponents lightly, I lost. Not going to make that mistake again.

There is the case of bandwagoning here, but make no mistake. Tau and eldar are for real, and they are going to stay at the top of tournaments even when players start to bandwagon onto the newer armies as they come out. Yes, they can be beaten, but they are so good to the point where they will consistently place high in tournaments. To me, that is the sign of a dominant army.

karandras15 wrote:
i haven't lost to tau or taudar with Emperor's Children yet, but I went to the wire with them twice.

Noiseboys are pretty effective against them

I've beaten some weak eldar lists, but i haven't played iyanden or mechdar yet.

Nidzilla will eat my lunch if played right. Which it has 3 times.

Noiseboys/heldrakes/laspreds and a few termies and/or daemonettes to provide some "oh, hellnah!" Will shake tau pretty good

Good to see you doing well with your Chaos, especially against the likes of Tau. That is quite an achievement.

Now let me ask you, have you played your Emperor's Children against a good Tau player in a tournament? That would be a true test to see how your army really stacks against them.

bogalubov wrote:
That was a pretty much by the numbers game. The Tau seem to need better bubble wrap to tarpit units like wraith knights and probably some ion accelerators on the riptides.

I'm not seeing how Ion Accelerators would be better in this case and especially against mechdar.

I think where he messed up majorly is with his deployment. He gave me the breathing space I needed to deploy my army safely away from his.

This match, on the whole,played out in a very one-sided way. The Tau player did very little damage.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
This match, on the whole,played out in a very one-sided way. The Tau player did very little damage.

Yeah, he didn't do much. From this game, he's changed up his list to be able to better deal with serpents and annihilation barges. His new triptide list now includes broadsides.

BTW, you should play against his army if you get the chance.

This batrep was so boring I fell asleep while reading it. I did finish reading it later. While these might be a true sample of the top meta wow it's so boring to me. jy2 I am much more liking your unconventional approach to the the game and your insight. If you want to keep writing these types of batreps that's fine but I am hoping you appreciate my honesty. All I gleaned from this is maybe the knight is okay versus fish.

No worries. I know my reports won't appeal to everyone. And actually, that's fine by me. You see, while I do write my reports to entertain and to educate the audience (well, ok, maybe it works sometimes), they are not the only reason why I do the things I do. I do it because I have a curiosity that I need scratched. Those who find it entertaining and informative can continue reading and those who don't, can just skip it and wait for my next one. Not a big deal, though I do appreciate your honesty.

Cool brother. It's mostly because I know you can rock with a better list. That's a compliment too.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This batrep was so boring I fell asleep while reading it. I did finish reading it later. While these might be a true sample of the top meta wow it's so boring to me. jy2 I am much more liking your unconventional approach to the the game and your insight. If you want to keep writing these types of batreps that's fine but I am hoping you appreciate my honesty. All I gleaned from this is maybe the knight is okay versus fish.

I respectfully disagree with this. To me the truly interesting games are ones fought between top players with the top armies they can put out, providing the matchup allows for creative play. This was not one of those games, despite the armies and players being very strong. The Tau army was hit by a list it had no probable way of dealing with and was crushed accordingly.

That is an unfortunate part of 40k tournament play, so much depends on the matchup you draw.

Jy2 that was just mean.

Hopefully the two of you had fun because it looked like you kicked a puppy.

The good part is that the more people that play mechdar the more hydra's become the best vehicle in the game. They are such a good model that they deserve this.

 ansacs wrote:
Jy2 that was just mean.

Hopefully the two of you had fun because it looked like you kicked a puppy.

The good part is that the more people that play mechdar the more hydra's become the best vehicle in the game. They are such a good model that they deserve this.

Unfortunately, the hydra cannot compete with the A-Barge even at the thing it is supposed to be good at.

 jy2 wrote:

Nevermind wrote:

karandras15 wrote:
i haven't lost to tau or taudar with Emperor's Children yet, but I went to the wire with them twice.

Noiseboys are pretty effective against them

I've beaten some weak eldar lists, but i haven't played iyanden or mechdar yet.

Nidzilla will eat my lunch if played right. Which it has 3 times.

Noiseboys/heldrakes/laspreds and a few termies and/or daemonettes to provide some "oh, hellnah!" Will shake tau pretty good

Good to see you doing well with your Chaos, especially against the likes of Tau. That is quite an achievement.

Now let me ask you, have you played your Emperor's Children against a good Tau player in a tournament? That would be a true test to see how your army really stacks against them.

Yes, I had a prep list for a local tourney player's list..he cleaned up the guard and mechdar lists and wanted to go against drakes, so i gave them to him ...the sonic blasters throw a ton of dakka down and I forced the guy to intrcept my deep striking daemonettes and the keeper, so the drakes made it on the table...he thought he could get them the next round,
but I destroyed his hole back court with sonic blasters, blastmasters and baleflamers that by the time his deepstrikers hit the table on turn 2, they were all that were left except one broadside and a few poor bastard firewarriors...the stealth suits were pretty much garbage on turn 1...

He summized that EC based lists are just a bad match up...I agreed...if he had 6 of those suits on the table with double force-org, I don't think I had a chance...but what do I know.

I have only played eldar in actual tournaments...I play the EC more and more now, so i might enter them

I honestly think the opponent could have won but he played his list to its perceived strengths rather than accordingly adjusting, which he could have done - that's one of the main reasons to me why it was a boring match. We could all see what was coming a mile away.

 ansacs wrote:
Jy2 that was just mean.

Hopefully the two of you had fun because it looked like you kicked a puppy.

The good part is that the more people that play mechdar the more hydra's become the best vehicle in the game. They are such a good model that they deserve this.

Only in this game did he seem like a puppy, but in some of our other games, Adam's Tau had been giving me a lot of trouble.

Hydras aren't the solution to mechdar because they are not a good TAC unit. But running 1 unit isn't so bad, assuming you're willing to forego those manticores, leman russes and the colossus.

karandras15 wrote:
Yes, I had a prep list for a local tourney player's list..he cleaned up the guard and mechdar lists and wanted to go against drakes, so i gave them to him ...the sonic blasters throw a ton of dakka down and I forced the guy to intrcept my deep striking daemonettes and the keeper, so the drakes made it on the table...he thought he could get them the next round,
but I destroyed his hole back court with sonic blasters, blastmasters and baleflamers that by the time his deepstrikers hit the table on turn 2, they were all that were left except one broadside and a few poor bastard firewarriors...the stealth suits were pretty much garbage on turn 1...

He summized that EC based lists are just a bad match up...I agreed...if he had 6 of those suits on the table with double force-org, I don't think I had a chance...but what do I know.

I have only played eldar in actual tournaments...I play the EC more and more now, so i might enter them

Good to hear. I think the we are now trending towards armies that can ignore cover and that definitely is one of the strengths of an EC Chaos build. Fortunately for me, most of the armies I run aren't as reliant on cover - probably one of the reasons why I haven't lost to an EC army yet.

But if there's any CSM army that can do well against those Tau and Eldar armies, I'd definitely vote for either Slaanesh or Nurgle CSM.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I honestly think the opponent could have won but he played his list to its perceived strengths rather than accordingly adjusting, which he could have done - that's one of the main reasons to me why it was a boring match. We could all see what was coming a mile away.

Yeah, that's why fatigue is a much bigger factor than most people think. When you're not thinking properly because you're too tired, you're bound to make some mistakes....and against a good player with a good army, that is one thing you cannot afford to do.

I always enjoy your reports jy2 and this was no exception, where I do think it falls down is in measuring Eldar against Tau. Given the tournament results used as context at the start of the report I don't feel the Tau list was particularly competitive given a Tau/Eldar dominated meta. Which may be because your local meta just isn't geared up that way.

Tau were lacking range and durable markers without skyrays, the ability to put on high numbers of glances such as tank hunting, cover stripping missiles and a means of dealing with MCs reliably such as sniper kroot or drones. There was very little in this match up for you to fear in my opinion.

I'd like to see a rematch against a Tau list more in line with the top balanced lists e.g. Tau/farsight (not the ovesa star though).

djn wrote:
I always enjoy your reports jy2 and this was no exception, where I do think it falls down is in measuring Eldar against Tau. Given the tournament results used as context at the start of the report I don't feel the Tau list was particularly competitive given a Tau/Eldar dominated meta. Which may be because your local meta just isn't geared up that way.

Tau were lacking range and durable markers without skyrays, the ability to put on high numbers of glances such as tank hunting, cover stripping missiles and a means of dealing with MCs reliably such as sniper kroot or drones. There was very little in this match up for you to fear in my opinion.

I'd like to see a rematch against a Tau list more in line with the top balanced lists e.g. Tau/farsight (not the ovesa star though).

Thanks.

To give a little background on my opponent's army, Adam has been doing very well with his Tau in our local meta. Other than Grant's Seer Council Deldar, my various armies and Janthkin's Slaanesh Daemons+CSM, he has dominated most of his other opponents. And against my armies, we've basically split our games. Sometimes, when you're having success with your build, you don't normally change it up. His Tau build has remained relatively the same ever since he bumped up his riptides from 2 to 3. I think it is when you are "shown" your weakness will you start to make some changes. It is my mechdar which has caused him to make changes to his army (i.e. taking broadsides now).

BTW, I don't believe my opponent follows the net to see which is the best Tau build and whatnot. Rather, he is the more traditional player who runs with what he's got and sticks with it until he feels he needs to make an adjustment. And that is exactly what he did after our game (I think this is may actually be the first time that he has conceded with his Tau).

I'd like to play against a "top-tier" Tau list but I'm afraid the people in our area don't really follow with what's a tournament-winning Tau build from the net. This may be as competitive a Tau army I get to play against unless I travel further away or start proxying tournament-winning builds myself.

J, Looking at possible counters to both lists

I' m pretty sure that a well decked out Deamon list will kill both lists fairly easy to,thinking about screamer council and/or Fleshound/Seeker spam with FMC.

Necron AV13, or Immothek council won't be an easy match up either, wraiths don't care about coversaves on flimsy skimmers.

 Valek wrote:
J, Looking at possible counters to both lists

I' m pretty sure that a well decked out Deamon list will kill both lists fairly easy to,thinking about screamer council and/or Fleshound/Seeker spam with FMC.

Necron AV13, or Immothek council won't be an easy match up either, wraiths don't care about coversaves on flimsy skimmers.

Daemons are a great counter army to both Tau and Eldar. We need them to keep these armies honest. However, the problem with daemons is that they are not a consistent army. Yeah, they may be able to beat Tau or Eldar, but can they do it over a series of 5-6 games as is common with most GT's? They also tend to be an unbalanced army and thus, more likely to come up against a hard counter in a series of 5-6 games.

I think of all the armies, necrons have the best chance against Tau and Eldar. As a matter of fact, I feel that the crown is shared by those 3 armies. However, necrons aren't nearly as visible due to the over-representation of Tau and Eldar (and Chaos as well!) in recent competitive play.

NEEDS MORE ION ACCELERATORS!!!!

ajsnips44 wrote:
NEEDS MORE ION ACCELERATORS!!!!

Why?

 jy2 wrote:

ajsnips44 wrote:
NEEDS MORE ION ACCELERATORS!!!!

Why?

As someone who has been on the giving and receiving end of riptides with both main weapons, Ion accelerator is just scarier. HBC still has a role, as anti flyer but beyond that the ion accelerator is just better.

 Pyriel- wrote:

It appears that Tau and Eldar may be the 2 most dominant armies currently. Both have been kicking some major butt recently. At the recent Nova Open GT 2013, Tau and Eldar (as the Primary armies) combined to take 8 out of the top 10 finishers:

1. Tau/Tau
2. Tau/Tau
3. Eldar
4. Tau/Tau
5. Eldar/Dark Eldar
6. Tau/Eldar
7. Eldar/Tau
8. Grey Knights/Tau
9. Tau/Eldar
10. Necron/Orks


And if you think that's bad, it gets even worse. This is the results from the Northern Warlords GT Warrington, UK:

1 Eldar
2 Eldar
3 Tau
4 Eldar / DE
5 Eldar / SW
6 Eldar
7 Mark Pocock Daemons
8 Necrons / Tau
9 Tau / Eldar
10 Eldar / Tau
11 Eldar
12 Eldar
13 Eldar / Tau
14 Tau / Eldar
15 Tau

Yikes! 13 of the top 15 were Tau/Eldar!!!

Wow. This is really beyond sad.
Talk about clueless morons designing the codexes this way.

Someone should email this to the gw dev team just to drive home the point.

Why email it to GW dev team, do we have a full list of all of the armies brought? Before going all 'burn the witches' you should first ask what armies were fielded and how many folks there were. If the bulk majority of armies are Tau or Eldar or some combo with them those results aren't surprising or even indicative that anything needs to change.

If they are in the minority, then yes, you probably do have a point.

The way i look at it if I was to bring 4x Riptide three would have ion and one heavy burst. I'd never play the list though.

Nice destructive victory J, what you would say is the best way to kill those Wave Serpents? What kinda units do you see as Eldar killers?

Also, maybe its just how they are used but the Riptides have well, under preformed in just about every fight I seen them in. Maybe its just how good you play against them but they really seemed to be a waste. They fail their charge rolls all the time getting themselves hurt and reducing their fire power for that turn.

I have not actually fought a Riptide myself (I play small 1000 point games my self) so I can't say they are bad but from what I've seen it looks like other units do better.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:


Why email it to GW dev team, do we have a full list of all of the armies brought? Before going all 'burn the witches' you should first ask what armies were fielded and how many folks there were. If the bulk majority of armies are Tau or Eldar or some combo with them those results aren't surprising or even indicative that anything needs to change.

If they are in the minority, then yes, you probably do have a point.

1 Eldar
2 Eldar
3 Tau
4 Eldar / DE
5 Eldar / SW
6 Eldar
7 Daemons
8 Necrons / Tau
9 Tau / Eldar
10 Eldar / Tau
11 Eldar
12 Eldar
13 Eldar / Tau
14 Tau / Eldar
15 Tau
16 Necrons
17 Eldar / Tau
18 Necrons
19 Necrons
20 Necrons
21 Daemons
22 l DE / Eldar
23 Chaos / Tau
24 Farsight / Eldar
25 Tyranids
26 BA / SW
27 Tau / Farsight
28 Daemons
29 Tau / Eldar
30 Tau
31 Tau
32 DE / Eldar
33 Tyranids
34 Eldar
35 IG / GK
36 Tau / Eldar
37 Eldar
38 Eldar
39 Chaos
40 Daemons / IG
41 Necrons / Grey Knights
42 Eldar
43 Space Wolves
44 BA
45 Grey Knights
46 Dark Angels
47 Orks
48 Space Marines
49 Daemons
50 Necrons

So, about 28 of 50 had some form of Tau/Eldar in their list. It does make it a little impressive they captured as many as they did, but it is not odd that they were heavily represented.

Not quite as bad as the initial list makes out, but not coming up roses either.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

ajsnips44 wrote:
NEEDS MORE ION ACCELERATORS!!!!

Why?

As someone who has been on the giving and receiving end of riptides with both main weapons, Ion accelerator is just scarier. HBC still has a role, as anti flyer but beyond that the ion accelerator is just better.

That really depends on what type of army you are playing.

I've designed my armies to not really care about AP1/2 guns all that much (i.e. wraiths, zombies, necrons in flyers, daemons with invuln's, guardians, termagants and T6 TMC's, wave serpents, etc.). Probably my only army that is concerned about the IA is my Draigowing, who can just put Draigo in front to tank those shots.

Against my armies, the HBC is a much more fearsome weapon. My armies usually fear volume-of-fire more than they do low AP weaponry, even if they are blasts.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

Why email it to GW dev team, do we have a full list of all of the armies brought? Before going all 'burn the witches' you should first ask what armies were fielded and how many folks there were. If the bulk majority of armies are Tau or Eldar or some combo with them those results aren't surprising or even indicative that anything needs to change.

If they are in the minority, then yes, you probably do have a point.

I think the results speak for themselves. Not only are those 2 armies really good, but they are really popular as well and thus, too many people are flocking to them.

While GW is not completely to blame, they do deserve a lot of the criticism. Whereas in most new codices when they come out, maybe about 25% of the units are good, 50% alright and 25% bad. As for the new Eldar and Tau, probably 50% of the units are good and there are practically no bad units. That is a sign of internal codex imbalance. There really isn't much weakness in those 2 codices and mostly strong units and army synergy. And whereas most of the unbalanced codices take a little while before you start seeing them dominate in tournament play, with Eldar and Tau, you are seeing it almost right away. Unfortunately, that is going to be the state of things for quite some time. It usually takes a new Edition release before those over-powering codices get nerfed.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The way i look at it if I was to bring 4x Riptide three would have ion and one heavy burst. I'd never play the list though.

I'd go 2 HBC + 2 Ions for 4 riptides. For 3 tides, I'd go 2 HBC's + 1 Ion.

And I'd love to play against that list.

 Ecstasy in Service wrote:
Nice destructive victory J, what you would say is the best way to kill those Wave Serpents? What kinda units do you see as Eldar killers?

Also, maybe its just how they are used but the Riptides have well, under preformed in just about every fight I seen them in. Maybe its just how good you play against them but they really seemed to be a waste. They fail their charge rolls all the time getting themselves hurt and reducing their fire power for that turn.

I have not actually fought a Riptide myself (I play small 1000 point games my self) so I can't say they are bad but from what I've seen it looks like other units do better.

It's just going to take volume-of-fire to take out those serpents. Either that or a fast assault army like daemons.

At least with the ability to strip cover, Tau actually are more efficient in killing serpents than most other armies. Broadsides with HYMP can reliably take out 1 per turn, especially with Markerlight help or a Buff commander. Skyrays can also punish them after they use their serpent shields.

Necron teslas are also really good at taking them out.

For me, it is the opposite. Most of the time when I've seen or faced those dang riptides, they generally over-perform. There's a reason why all the top tournament Tau players take them (the riptides) in spades....they are that darn good. They are to Tau what wave serpents are to Eldar or tervigons are to tyranids. That's just how good a unit they are.

Interesting, thanks for info. I will try use it should we ever come across each other in a tournament somewhere

 jy2 wrote:

That really depends on what type of army you are playing.

I've designed my armies to not really care about AP1/2 guns all that much (i.e. wraiths, zombies, necrons in flyers, daemons with invuln's, guardians, termagants and T6 TMC's, wave serpents, etc.). Probably my only army that is concerned about the IA is my Draigowing, who can just put Draigo in front to tank those shots.

Against my armies, the HBC is a much more fearsome weapon. My armies usually fear volume-of-fire more than they do low AP weaponry, even if they are blasts.

Volume-of-fire you say? That is what tau troops for for. No seriously that is how it has been for 3 codexs now. You kill the big stuff with elites/heavy support/HQ, the fast attack supports the army and the troops kill the rest. The same reason I never bring stealth suits, I already have plenty of pulse weapons why would I bring more? Using the HBC for VOF is a waste, you get A LOT more shots else where for cheaper. HBC is for the anti air set up, which works but isn't always needed.

The HBC takes a huge, wet, greasy mathematical dump all over the IA against the Mechdar army. That's not to say that the IA doesn't help out a bit in this match up as a one of; it fills a different roll that at times can be ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING if not played around correctly. This is actually one of the only match ups where this tends to be the case. Awesome report, thanks!