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.

if you ignore the cover save, then the reroll wont work. then they die like any other SM

 DaKKaLAnce wrote:
if you ignore the cover save, then the reroll wont work. then they die like any other SM

Great, lets assume I'm going pure competitive, without taking skyhammer.

Ally in the librarious conclave detachment from space marines, at 1750 4-5 ML 1/2 psykers fishing for invis. Put psyker and maybe one other with invis into a RWCS with a Int. Chappy. This unit is going to chew down your line one unit at a time, and there's really nothing you can do about it. Sure thing you can ignore it but...

Then psychic shriek you off the board. Even if you ignore cover on my other units. A 5 man bike squad with 2 grav and combi grav is under 150pts. I personally run 4 man squads. And it's deadly.

Note, I believe tau, can, and will, play against ravenwing well, but the more they play to ravenwing, the more they open themselves up to other weaknesses. Personally, I feel like I, as a DA player can look across the table to see tau, and not automatically think "welp, gg".

There's a guy in my area who uses 4 skyrays in a combined cad with double pathfinders base Kroots and a Farsight bomb. Lol Ravenwing... I play Dark Angels myself too, just of the death wing variety. Also many lolz had when I'm matched against him.

 raiden wrote:

 DaKKaLAnce wrote:
if you ignore the cover save, then the reroll wont work. then they die like any other SM

Great, lets assume I'm going pure competitive, without taking skyhammer.

Ally in the librarious conclave detachment from space marines, at 1750 4-5 ML 1/2 psykers fishing for invis. Put psyker and maybe one other with invis into a RWCS with a Int. Chappy. This unit is going to chew down your line one unit at a time, and there's really nothing you can do about it. Sure thing you can ignore it but...

Then psychic shriek you off the board. Even if you ignore cover on my other units. A 5 man bike squad with 2 grav and combi grav is under 150pts. I personally run 4 man squads. And it's deadly.

Note, I believe tau, can, and will, play against ravenwing well, but the more they play to ravenwing, the more they open themselves up to other weaknesses. Personally, I feel like I, as a DA player can look across the table to see tau, and not automatically think "welp, gg".

Thats odd because in my experience the match-up isn't really that unbalanced. Like I said I don't know how competitive you'd rank my opponents list, I'm not super familiar with the units. My tau list I know for a fact isn't competitve (rocking stealth teams, snipers and only 2 crisis suits).

He ran something like 1 large bike squad with an apolocary and that super HQ biker, 2 of the double wound bikes, the thing that gives everyone stealth (once in a squad of land speeders), that invisible librarian bubble in a drop pod with lots of grav, 2 scout squads, and a psyker that would always possess himself into a greater daemon. Most of his units seemed to have plasma or grav and he probably had a handful of things that I'm forgetting. He tended to outflank or deep strike most of his army not just flat out across the table at me. Maybe that's wrong?

The librarian deathball I ignored and it killed a squad/unit a turn. I traded my crisis suits/warlord for his big bike squad/warlord. Then I simply had too many ob sec troops spread everywhere on objectives in a way he simply couldn't effiecently kill them off said objectives. To sum up the battle, I could simply take more losses than he could, I was mobile enough to not get caught in a corner and simply die in cc, and I could force him to make armor saves instead of re-rollable cover saves to force casualties. Not saying this is the end all be all way to beat Dark Angels, but it's worked fine for me so far.

I'd say his list wasn't bad, but he wasted points on scouts, and didn't use the ravenwings best thing. MSU.

 Vector Strike wrote:

 Grumblewartz wrote:
Detach all the drones from your vehicles to grab objectives

A unit entirely composed of drones cannot capture objectives. The devilfish can, on the other hand.

Unless they were part of an infantry unit because then they are treated as exactly the same members of the unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Col. Dash wrote:
With Tau you want to have an MSU firebase and the rest of your force will be aggressively DSing in, both denying the DA many of their charges on high value targets and allowing the Tau to hit from a distance. Flamers, missile pods, plasma are your friends, pretty much standard fare for tau troops anyway.

Yeah your firebase will go down if you do not divide it up and spread it out but most of your drop troops should inflict heavy casualties. Also allows you to hit the small DA back field if there is one. Throw in sniper drone, stealth marker teams, buffmanders to remove the cover saves.

No I'm not Deepstriking most of them so they can get in range with grave anf plasma talons with a 24" first turn move with scout and just table me. That seems motherflipping silly. In fact having more than 200pts in reserve without a reroll on reserve rolls make you bad at warhammers in my opnions usually

jakejackjake wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

 Grumblewartz wrote:
Detach all the drones from your vehicles to grab objectives

A unit entirely composed of drones cannot capture objectives. The devilfish can, on the other hand.

Unless they were part of an infantry unit because then they are treated as exactly the same members of the unit.

Where they came from has no bearing on this issue. Reread the first line of the Drone rules.

then the rules contradict each other very directly


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's never mattered to me though and now that everything can score they'll change that in the new book

We will disagree then. Tau are all about the deepstrike with a firebase, and having half the army in reserves is a fairly good plan in most situations. I have not been tabled yet first turn, came close. But for the oppnent to extend that much to table me left his units very exposed when the DSers did come in. Not using the mobility and special rules the Tau have is bad warhammer IMHO. But fight your way, I don't believe in gunlines, only bait.

jakejackjake wrote:
then the rules contradict each other very directly


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's never mattered to me though and now that everything can score they'll change that in the new book

They still can't score. Their rule is more advanced than the one in the rulebook. A unit comprised of only drones cannot score or give away points.

 Vector Strike wrote:

jakejackjake wrote:
then the rules contradict each other very directly


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's never mattered to me though and now that everything can score they'll change that in the new book

They still can't score. Their rule is more advanced than the one in the rulebook. A unit comprised of only drones cannot score or give away points.

It's directly in their codex. That's what I meant by rule book. Which rule supercedes the other? The one in the part about taking them as an upgrade or the one about taking them as a solo unit or detaching them from units they come with unupgraded.

Also who takes drones on their vehicles?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Col. Dash wrote:
We will disagree then. Tau are all about the deepstrike with a firebase, and having half the army in reserves is a fairly good plan in most situations. I have not been tabled yet first turn, came close. But for the oppnent to extend that much to table me left his units very exposed when the DSers did come in. Not using the mobility and special rules the Tau have is bad warhammer IMHO. But fight your way, I don't believe in gunlines, only bait.

No all of the best armies run up in your face at the moment. So this is just not true. Say you have 600 pts in reserve... which is way too many for Tau and you have no reroll. You play turn 1 down 600 pts and the following down 200 (since on average 1/3 will fail), which means your opponent gets an easier times prioritizing targets.. you actually make his first turn easier, and he is shooting 1850 pts at you with you shooting 1250 at him. Most things, besides some knight titans like crusaders(which almost no tournies allow) tht camp in the backfield can be addressed on turn 3 or later if you can't tap them enough from range. Keeping your 600 pts alive for a turn is rarely worth starting the game at a severe disadvantage

Deepstriking can be very good but it can also cost you the game in a crap load of situations

jakejackjake wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

jakejackjake wrote:
then the rules contradict each other very directly


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's never mattered to me though and now that everything can score they'll change that in the new book

They still can't score. Their rule is more advanced than the one in the rulebook. A unit comprised of only drones cannot score or give away points.

It's directly in their codex. That's what I meant by rule book. Which rule supercedes the other? The one in the part about taking them as an upgrade or the one about taking them as a solo unit or detaching them from units they come with unupgraded.

The rules do not conflict at all. Drones in a unit count as part of that unit (much like ICs.) However, if the unit is reduced to just drones, it becomes a non scoring unit.

Don't get too carried away with markerlight and ignore cover. It's definitly not needed. Ravenwing is a low model counts army, so just have a huge volume of fire. Never focus a squad down, it's not necessary. Just force the jink on a squad, then move to the next one. If most of his army Jink, he won't be able to deal any sort of damage. Use an aegis to help cover against Grav if you need to. Kroot to bubblewrap your force so they can't charge shiit. Easy Win.

If you want to hurt Ravenwing, you need to ignore cover. You nailed it with the markerlights, bud. Be smart with them, and the bikes will fail 3+ like any other marine.

Take out the darkshrouds if you can, then you can overwatch and you have reduced their save. Don't bother targeting without ignoring cover, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PandaHero wrote:
Don't get too carried away with markerlight and ignore cover. It's definitly not needed. Ravenwing is a low model counts army, so just have a huge volume of fire. Never focus a squad down, it's not necessary. Just force the jink on a squad, then move to the next one. If most of his army Jink, he won't be able to deal any sort of damage. Use an aegis to help cover against Grav if you need to. Kroot to bubblewrap your force so they can't charge shiit. Easy Win.

Incorrect in my experience. With a darkshroud, black knights or bikes joined by Sammael are 2+ rerollable. You MUST ignore cover or you will not cause wounds. Volume of fire? Only 1 in 36 wounds will stick. At toughness 5, that's a pretty tall order.

Don't think for one second jinking renders the bikes toothless, either, as jinking does not prevent a charge. RW would LOVE to get in CC with Tau. Also, consider the Ravenwing formation allows free jink turn 1, full BS turn 2.

Bubblewrapping with Kroot may be wise, I'm not familiar with their stats, but it sounds smart.

Forcing Jink + bubblewrap with Kroot is what you will need in order to win the game. The ignore cover is just there after to kill models. The goal against a Rw is to force Jink. Models will fall.

You shoot your gun that don't ignore cover until he Jink with most of his forces. Then, pick up some model here and there with your ignore cover stuff.

After, if they want to shoot, they are screw. If they charge, that's a massive support fire Overwatch that are going to tip the balance in your favor. The combat need to last only 1 turn tho, so don't max out Kroot squad. Cuz if it last 2 turn, your Tau are screw because of hit&run.

When I said ignore cover are not needed, I meant getting carried away with ignore cover is not needed. You don't need more markerlight than the usual I think. 2 squad of pathfinder + a Commander with drone controller and marker drone will give you all the marker you need, that can be use by broadside or whatver AP you can find to kill model. My point is: you should shoot them to force the jink, then pick your target with the broadside to bleed squad. Never focus on bleeding squad, you will lose so much fire on a signel squad, it's not needed.

Even with ignore cover up the ying yang which is not TAC RW will simply overrun Tau.

Fortification of any sort will help you get them too now that I think of it.

Not really - it's just meltabomb bait.

again, it's a matter of wrapping your stuff. A Tau with semi-good positionning will not let you decide what you want to charge.

Put 1 Riptide, 6-9 broadside and a couple firewarrior in a skylanding pad, wrap with Kroot, (I'm thinking non-maelstorm game here) and you should be able to contain the RW with a decent success rate.

I'd love to see a batrep of Tau army well countered to Ravenwing between two equally skilled players... I think it'd be interesting.