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How do you deal with mawlocs and Ravener Broods popping up beind your line???

It gets quite hard when you have a sqaud of FWs firing away when all of a sudderen 3 Ravener Broods pop up in front with 3 Ws and 4 As! and you only get one turn of rapid fire, which isn't enough to take them out.

So what should i deploy to combat them?

I have ready to deploy:

24 FWs

24 Kroot

Krootox

Kroot shaper

2 kroot hounds

2 Crisis suits

4 broadsides (random, but they were really cheap on ebay lol)

2 Devilfish

6 Stealth suits

He only has 700 points of dudes, so i normally go with:

12 FW

12 kroot, kroot shaper, krootox, 2 hounds (i take the shaper for his 3 Ws and As, same with the krootox, and he has his kroot gun)

1 crisis (HQ) with plasma, missile, multi tracker (hard wired) and targeting array

2 broadsides (with targeting array, they never miss then)

He has (i think):

1 Mawloc

3 Ravener Broods

1 Venomthrope

3 warrior brood (one with venom cannon, that gun gets annoying)

12 Hormagaunt Brood

12 Termagant Brood

8 Genestealer Brood with Broodlord

I havn't actually checked his point counting, but now that i write it down, it seems like a lot of troops...

I havn't built any drones yet, which would probably help my crisis suit a bit.

But on a funny note, in one game he popped up with his Ravener brood next to my FWs, which turned into a very bloody CC for both sides, the end result was my FWs dead and him with one Raverner with 1 W lol, i thought it was funny.

It was a proud day for my little blue men, to hold off in CC against the nid horror (and considering FWs have a WS of 2 and the Raveners have a WS of 5 lol)


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Also how do the nids have the same BS as the tau?!!! lol

nos wrote:I havn't actually checked his point counting, but now that i write it down, it seems like a lot of troops...

You didn't list an HQ, but what you did list comes out to ~900 points.

Are you using the kroot bubble wrap?

Disperse. Force him to attack one group of forces or the other, then make the long walk through the pulse rifle fire to get to the other batch.

Great White wrote:Are you using the kroot bubble wrap?

Bubble wrap? what is this kroot bubble wrap you speak of?


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Jefffar wrote:Disperse. Force him to attack one group of forces or the other, then make the long walk through the pulse rifle fire to get to the other batch.

Like splitting up the FWs?


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rigeld2 wrote:

nos wrote:I havn't actually checked his point counting, but now that i write it down, it seems like a lot of troops...

You didn't list an HQ, but what you did list comes out to ~900 points.

Yeah he hasn't got a HQ yet, but that is interesting about the points

You can do one of several things:

- Bubblewrapping is when you surround your important stuff with screens. Your opponent physically wont be able to get to the good stuff until they have gone through something expendable. If done correctly they will also end the combat during their turn so you get another round of rapid fire before the charge (though dice can screw this up for you here if someone rolls way above or below average).

- Not allow any room for Deepstrikers to come in behind you. With the Mawloc that isn't really going to help, but it does with the Raveners. If they want to Deepstrike they should have to do it in front of your screening units since there is no-where to fit behind your dudes.

- Spreading out your forces varies depending on what your opponent is bringing. Against nids I would reject the idea. They have the speed and mobility to knock out a huge chunk of points quickly and if you have no counter attack units in place then they will have done so with little you can do to punch back.

oh so thats what bubble wrapping is, i normally surround my broadsides with the kroot, so when the mawloc appears, i normally have 2 turns off 3 rail shots or 12 missiles into it, but the bastard has 6 wounds lol, with a 3+ save and since its a MC my broadsides don't get their 2+ save.

Also would a invulnerable save (a shield generator) get a save against a MC?

nos wrote:would a invulnerable save (a shield generator) get a save against a MC?

Sure would. Same with Shield Drones.

Spamming shield drones with everything is sounding like a good idea...

nos wrote:Spamming shield drones with everything is sounding like a good idea...

Just the important things. Crisis and Broadside suits.

Perhaps post an army list in the Army Lists forum and ask for some general advice, along with some notes about your common opponents.

nos wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

nos wrote:I havn't actually checked his point counting, but now that i write it down, it seems like a lot of troops...

You didn't list an HQ, but what you did list comes out to ~900 points.

Yeah he hasn't got a HQ yet, but that is interesting about the points

He ... wat.

So you're not playing by the rules in the book?
At the very least he should run a Warrior as a Tyranid Prime - but then he can't use the other warriors (minimum squad size)

When you say Ravener Broods - do you mean 9 models or 3?

A sidenote about Raveners, they have a crapy armor save (5+) so if you shoot enough at them, they fall over rather hard. Also if he didn't equip them with any shooty bits means that turn they deepstriked or popped up out of the Marlock's reserve tunnel means they're not doing anything but running.

The warriors will be a strong matchup for you and yes, the warrior toting the basic venom cannon is rough, but screen with some fodder or just dive into cover! You can still ID both the Warriors and the Raveners with the Broadsides, by the way.

Something else to keep in mind if it hasn't happened to you already; those Genestealers can infiltrait and outflank! The Broodlord a bit overboard and kinda a pointsink for him, since Tau aren't that hard to break in melee in the first place.

When it comes to charging and melee as the Tau, just avoid engaging 'healthy' units. Tau are like the Eldar, weak, but suprizenly capable in hand to hand, as you saw with the Ravener situation. You're not going to have an easy time hitting or wounding except maybe the 'gaunts, but if you Battle-Buddy (have one unit unload everything and another charge if the target is below 50%) you'll see better results. Of course that goes with a grain of salt. As Tau you should try to avoid reckless and unsuported melee, but if you have to engage, do it wholesale and make your 'Nid player sweat some. He expects you to cave into assaults if he gets close, beat him at his army's own game and he'll think twice about blindly rushing you.

One last side note; 'Nids have an army wide BS of 3, and only a couple units sport better (hive guard and the Prime, who can confer his BS and WS to any Warrior unit he plugs into)

Bloody Adair wrote:A sidenote about Raveners, they have a crapy armor save (5+) so if you shoot enough at them, they fall over rather hard. Also if he didn't equip them with any shooty bits means that turn they deepstriked or popped up out of the Marlock's reserve tunnel means they're not doing anything but running.

Trygons make the tunnel, not Mawlocs. And Raveners can't use it because they're Beasts and the tunnel only allows Infantry.

While the Mawloc popping up is annoying, he's not the beast in CC that a lot of Tyranids are - throw some FW at him to tarpit (since he can't assault the turn he comes in).
The only real danger in his list is the Raveners.
You also aren't fielding any vehicles - if you hide in a metal box, the Nids will have a much harder time of getting to you.

Right-o. They're both huge ugly giant snakes, forgot that one was the living torpedo >.< But my warning still stands if that unit is present (the Trygon that is)

The little guys would have a hard time with armor, true, but just about everything else in that list would be capable of bringing them down in melee (rear armor and str 4). And 'Nids tend to have field control so mobility is kinda moot most times.

My Tau opponent (I play Nids) has had great luck with his shield drones on almost everything. YMMV.

I think they're worth it.