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A while ago I was toying around with the idea of reserve shenanigans with tau and how brutal it would be to have 70%ish of your army turn up turn 5 and kill everything. The only problem was having my commander on the board T1 and keeping him alive AND having to spend 3 turns of feeding six man fire warrior squads at my opponent so I decided to go with a Draigo bomb instead (seeing as I have 12 of the necessary models) and trying it with that.

The idea behind this army is that I use psychic communion to keep my 20 paladins in reserve (they’ll be split into combat squads) till about turn 4 (I’ll do my best to go second so I can have the last turn) and drop down the 20 paladins in my opponents face. At the start of their turn (turn five) they will have only three turns max to kill 20 two wound termies and hopefully I’ll be within assault range by my turn 5. In scoring games such as home and away I can have Draigo and Mordrack make each other scoring and sit on my home OBJ. So, what do you guys think? Will this tactic work or am I just licking windows again?

Here’s the list:

Draigo 275

Grand Master Mordrak 200

(10) Paladins 640
1. Psycannon, Hammer
2. Psycannon, Hammer
3. Psycannon, Sword
4. Psycannon, Sword
5. Sword
6. Sword
7. MC Hammer
8. MC Hammer
9. Halberd
10. Halberd

(10) Paladins 635
1. Psycannon, Hammer
2. Psycannon, Hammer
3. Psycannon, Sword
4. Psycannon, Sword
5. Sword
6. Sword
7. MC Hammer
8. Hammer
9. Halberd
10. Halberd

The problem you will gave is the event will be entrenched. The Tau tactic is not to delay but toreliably come in exactly when required.

Must people play ninja Tau keeping everything in reserve. You should use it instead to bring on deep strikers or out flankers as needed.

Basically if you can table an opponent in the last 3 turns then you should be able to do it better in the first 3. I see this turning into a draw as you won't be able to kill enough and neither will your opponent.

Characters cannot become scoring under Grand Strategy, if I remember correctly. Nor Mordrak's Ghost Knights, if you chose to bring them; it specifically mentions these. Which as soon as he spawned a knight, thus becoming an upgrade character to the unit, your plan gets divided by zero.

As far as turns for killing, it really depends on what you face. Do you really want to be counter assaulted by the enemy, if it's say, other Grey Knights or Hammernators? Can you destory 180 ork boyz over 3 turns (sometimes only 2)? One Ironclad Dreadnought can rape a 5 man squad of Paladins; a Furiouso is worse. With only 4 units able to shoot, how much do you expect to kill? Psycannons can fail, and will, fail.

Remember, rolling a 6 for reserves will bring the unit in even on turn 2 with 2 Psychic Communions.

Is it really a good idea to leave 475 pts of badassery on your home objective anyway? Seems like a waste of resources.

The biggest flaw in your plan is that you brag saying the opponent will 3 turns maximum t wipe out your army; but you forget the same applies to you, so you aren't gonig to win many games. And all of this is assuming that Draigo and Mordrak survive until then (Draigo probably will; Mordrak not so much).

As other have mentioned also you can't make Draigo scoring and Mordrak will rarely end the game as scoring even if you make him.

meh, I'm not too bothered about the scoring thing I have 4 other troops to take OBJs

The biggest flaw in your plan is that you brag saying the opponent will 3 turns maximum t wipe out your army; but you forget the same applies to you, so you aren't going to win many games.

in a KP game the army gives up 6 KPs at best, 5 of which are going to be VERY hard to kill. in three turns I can see about 1 or at worst 2 units of paladins getting killed and I can see them easily killing smaller units in the 4 turns (max) that I'll have left

Do you really want to be counter assaulted by the enemy, if it's say, other Grey Knights or Hammernators?

well if thats the case I'll deploy next to something less dangerous. one thing that I find when fighting an opponent and most of my my stuff is in reserve is that they over move and tend to isolate units leaving me free of any TH/SS termies. as far as 180 orks goes I have enough dakka to kill a unit or two before they swamp me