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.

yep.

you also have to declare which was your main target before shooting, ie. which unit you can charge. although, you can charge more than 1 unit if you position correctly.

<?  

 

I think part of the reason for taking O?Shovah is the cool factor: having a 8 suit strong unit of battlesuits led by a nutter wielding a huge sword is cool. This kind of shock factor shouldn?t be underestimated either: some players just won?t know what to do this kind of force. And I think its strong, even posing a serious threat to drop pods and Necons, the normal Tau bete noires. I don?t want to get too sanguine about it ? I don?t for one minute think this is the most deadly Tau army ever assembled. But it might do very well in the new GT season, where VP denial is even more important as people make sure they can eek out wins at the right moment.

 

On a quick aside, we were discussing what ?strength? might mean last night. Lots of people play it wounds, including us, but I can see where the ambiguity arises from. This does make a difference, in that if it is wounds, then the unit is 28 strong, needing to lose 15 wounds before it concedes points, whereas if it models, the unit is 21 strong, giving up VPS once 11 shield drones fall. Bearing in mind that once it approaches the tipping point, the unit must be played cautiously, it?s probably worth converting 2 SDs to GDs if strength is done by models rather than wounds.

 

Either way, this is a very difficult unit to kill.

 

I don?t see the vulnerability to indirect being a problem. Yes, Basilisks will have fun against it. But they will have more fun against Crisis armies that don?t have a host of shield drones to take the hits. Indirect is simply something Tau have problems with. Fortunately, you don?t tend to see to much of it at the GT. O?Shovah can simply charge into the lines of the IG, getting within indirect distance and crisis suits are rather good at cutting guardsmen down in cc. Defilers tend to be scattered around the chaos, but the model is very difficult to hide.

 

The list is far less vulnerable than normal Tau to the lone-crazy type character, Demon Princes, ICs on bikes etc, since if they reach the unit, it simply failsafes, retreats, and fills the Lone-Crazy full of plasma and railgun.

 

Against less effective assault units, the team can pretty well hold their own. O?Shovah?s weapon isn?t to be dissed, with 4 S5 attacks and a 4+ invulnerable; backed up by 14 S5 attacks from the bodyguards, the unit is quite killy! On the charge it does 960/216 MEQ kills, and should have rapid fired into the squad first. O?Shovah almost always has the option of charging, since an assault 12+6 type unit must end its move in 12? in order to engage (since O?shovah can simply retreat) and against reduced units of 5 bodies or less, is very dangerous when he does. The target locks on the bodyguards mean that only 1 suit needs to target the unit O?Shovah intends to assault, while the rest can target elsewhere. This offers great flexibility in firing while advancing, and means even when faced by multiple charges, O?Shovah?s unit still has a solution.

i rly think its gotta be the full size 7 bodyguard, 14 shield drones unit, which is 32 wounds/22 models.
(i play below half as being by wounds)

(i considered gundrones! as you probably won't need that much durability all the time, its 70pts less, and gets a lot of extra firing. but it makes the unit go down to T3, and i dont like that)

i disagree also about the daemon prince. with speed and stature he will catch us, and will probably cripple the unit, at least hold it up for several turns.

and you can't simply choose to failsafe, can you? you gotta be subject to a fallback move, ie you gotta fail your LD10 test. the speed/stature prince is one of the nastiest things for this unit to face i think.

 

true about getting the charge also. its filthy. problem is though he needs to be in b2b to swing, which isn't that easy if the unit is all spread out, the enemy needs to be within 12" of some crap shield drone on the edge of your unit, not within 12" of farsight.

but, if he does get the charge in, you're right that he's dangerous if theres less than 5 models remaining, and if he charges he can get his possy to gun down the squad to less than 5 guys with ease, even allowing some secondary fire going into other nearby squads

 

btw the ninja'O really does fit well into the army, it can hide in the protective folds of the shield drone spam and can't be shot, he can then jump out and charge a nearby secondary target, tying it up in combat (with shield and stims he's got 3+ armour 4+ invul and 4+ feel no pain!) just so that the unit can't counter charge into farsight. its useful to tie it up. then he can hit & run out after a couple of rounds, letting farsight shoot at it, loller. its quite deadly.

Actually, i need to read it in more detail, as you are probably right (I still don't own the Tau Empire codex yet...). Hmm. Still, I've never had huge problems with speeded statured princes as I just plug 'em with railguns normally. The bike/rune combo is the one i find trickier to deal with, as he is still an IC.

 

Farsight doesn't count for scoring purposes does he? So it would be 28 wounds / 21 models.

 

 

i think the army could dick on necrons. seriously. but drop pods i am less keen on. a single dread is all it takes.. farsight is your only hope there. if he's engaged with some troops and a dread charges the other end of the squad... also there's a danger of just being swamped by troops, i dont think you'll win against more than a few pfists.

rune bike isnt a problem, it will kill some drones then die to the counter attacks.

stature princes i am seriously thinking are a threat, the farsight unit wants to be aggressive and that means close and that means the prince can hide until he gets to combat, we have few rails and only 1 thats mobile so its not a sure thing at all.

if you keep the farsight unit at range then its getting much less in the way of shots off, and no charges (which are great fun)

 

farsight's not scoring but i think his wounds count for being above/below str, because you buy the squad as a retinue

From a pod player's perspective, I think the farsight list would be a lot more challenging than normal Tau. The weakness to FoD combined with the general weakness to flamers/heavy flamers/drop podded meltaguns makes most Tau a cakewalk for me. Farsight I think would take a serious pounding on the drop, but could turn things around if I got some bad luck (whereas normal Tau can usually be beaten if I roll d4s instead of d6s).

I think part of the reason for taking O?Shovah is the cool factor: having a 8 suit strong unit of battlesuits led by a nutter wielding a huge sword is cool.

Well I can't really argue with that! I agree he is cool and the 8 strong crisis unit would be pretty intimidating. It seems like the 06 version of the infinity seer councils

I do think that there's some strength lost by using one big squad though. And while my list was HQ heavy; it still takes 14 wounds to bring both units below half; those units can each claim a quarter (farsights would have to claim one or other); and there's more points to play with (3 HHs, mucho broadsides or even more crisis suits would be doable).

It just seems like you are adding points (like target locks) to have the unit act like what you can already do without Farsight.

yea but your suits have to operate further back, the farsight unit can spend its whole game rapid firing. crisis suits are disgusting when they get that many shots.

also, farsight can charge. he can charge a unit with several marines and a pfist, with impunity, just to get the extra D6" distance from consolidate, to get closer, to apply more pressure... normal HQ's can't do that.


these 2 things are radically different from normal tau play. and they're extremely powerful if you use them well.

you're right that it does seem counter-intutitive to add this many pts to replicate the function of seperate units, (targetlocks) but i think they're essential. anyway any points you load into farsight, is points that's probably gonna survive the game and score. thats also pretty strong thing for an army, particularly when you want minor wins, and vp denial.

I'm not sure where you'd find the points at 1500 but if you wanted markerlights, you could go with sniper drone teams.

Overall the Farsight retinue of doom looks like an excellent idea.

i played with this last night:

farsight - 170
bodyguard, AFP, flamer, 2 shield drones, multitracker, targetlock (99)
bodyguard, twin fusion, 2 shield drones, targetlock, failsafe detonator (103)
bodyguard, fireknife, 2 shield drones, target array, targetlock (117)
bodyguard, fireknife, 2 shield drones, target array, targetlock (117)
bodyguard, fireknife, 2 shield drones, target array, targetlock (117)
bodyguard, fireknife, 2 shield drones, target array (112)
bodyguard, fireknife, 2 shield drones, target array (112)

(bodyguard total: 772
farsight unit total: 942)

shas'O Ninja: VRT, shield, fusion, stim injectors - 127

1 elite deathrain, BSF - 46

6 firewarriors - 60
6 firewarriors - 60

BS3 fusion piranha - 65

2 broadsides, ASS, 2 shield drones - 195

1500.


basically the same as a previous list, but i took bs4 off the piranha in order to be able to fire the flamer as well as the AFP. typically, i never got to use the flamer, but the piranha only fired once and missed on a 3.


daemon prince, stature, speed, MoN, spiky bits, plague sword, some other stuff
LT, infiltrate, speed, manreaper, other stuff

7 guys, MoN, 2 plasma, pfist
7 guys, MoN, plasma, melta
7 guys, MoN, 2 plasma
7 guys, MoN, 2 plasma
7 guys, MoN, 2 plasma

mutated dread, twinlas
mutated dread, plasma
mutated pred, twinlas/h.bolters


hmm. so its gamma cleanse, his HQs are very dangerous, his heavys are very tough, his troops have loads of durability (my plasma only wounds on 3's) and his is loaded with plasma. he's got a lot of scoring units, i have 1 scoring unit that can only claim 1 quarter at the most, my other scoring units are extremely weak

my deployment is all about his infil speedlord, i need to not let it get into anything important of mine. so i've got firewarriors, and the deathrain at the edges of my quarter, more than 6" from where my doom unit is gonna get deployed.

the in my first turn, i adjust my FW squad so they're all packed close together and all in terrain, so they all strike I10 and all are in the killzone. speed-LT rifles into them gets 9 attacks and wipes them out, consolidates back into the woods. i fly piranha up, and fail to hit him.

i use some shots from the farsight unit to kill him though, they also kill a few nurgle marines and also i think take a weapon off a dread (i chose the pfist rather than the twin lascannon, as its feasible we might get into combat)
because i took his pfist though he shoots my piranha dead. later, he catches an angle into my ninja'O who had been trying to meltagun him and lascannons me dead.

and in turn 5 the same dread gets a rage and charges the farsight unit, he doubles his attacks for rage (6 attacks, str6, doesnt ignore armour saves anymore hahah) so i lose 1 shield drone, and lose combat.
but rather than getting to pile-in farsight into b2b so he can chop it up at init5, i fail my LD check with a 12 and my fusion guy blows himself up with the sucide bomb... the fall back 3D6" pulls me out of position from the middle of the board and i'm on the border of my quarter and the left side quarter, we dice for it and basically all the quarters are contested, and i win on VPs.

i lost 1 FW squad, 1 piranha, and the ninja'O.
he lost both his HQ's, 1 dread 1 pred and 2 squads.


not so sure about the piranha. its a 1-shot thing... if you try and do something with it then it will die straight after. and a combi-melta isn't worth 70 pts. i would rather have another deathrain and a few more upgrades for stuff, like BS4 on the existing deathrain and things. but the only thing that keeps me interested in it is turboing to score, the deathrain can score as well but they can't turbo in the last turn.. although i think im more likely to get it killed before then anyway.

the single deathrains are very nice, they're durable and reliable and get left alone and can claim objectives etc quite easily. bs4 is good on them.

the ninja'O keeps missing. he's BS5, but is cursed by the meltagun problem that it will always miss if its an important shot. he provides options but they're minority usage. i think he's not an important part of the army, but i do like him a lot, probably more than he deserves.

the AFP is pretty good, its not so useful against nurgle marines who ignore the pinning and it bounces off their T5, but in most other situations its great.

That's 'cause you've trained got him as a ninja. We all know ninjas suck. You should model him as a pirate. Instead of vectored engines, he can have the 'summon rigging' ability, so he swing around combats. And pirates are trained with their cannons, so he might hit something too....

As you had shots on the cranked lieutenant from shovah's mob, wouldn't it have been better to hold the piranha back and go for quarters?

Regardless, congrats on the win. Cleanse is where this army will struggle!

haha well ninjas > pirates. i would refer you to http://drmcninja.com/

also the piranha, meh well i thought the LT was a big threat. plus when i took the shot, i was shooting into his wood and nothing else could see me. the dread walked into the wood tho and shot me, grr

When I was theory hammering this list, I came up with something like this (1850 though):

Farsight, 6 fireknives with targeting arrays, 2 with target lock, one twinmeltagun guy with failsafe and target array/target lock (935 or somesuch)
2 x 8 fire warriors with markerlightuis (200)
2 x 3 crisis with 6 shield drones and twinlinked plasmaguns (510)
2 broadsides with 4 shield drones, one team leader with target lock (210)

twin meltagun man doesnt need the target array so much, and i'd want more than 2 with targetlock, i think loads of them with TL. i'm finding i charge a lot so flamer/AFP suit is quite handy.

Can we get a full battle report?????

no. i forgot it mostly already. plus can't be bothered. and i get the turns mixed up