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For starters, here's the list I ran. I had my librarius conclave and one of each of these squad, no extra models, just listed upgrades

Ezekiel and 2 librarians in a rhino with a command squad (apothecary and 2 plasma)
Deathwing Knights
Deathwing w/ assault cannon
Scout snipers
Tactical with plasma
Ravenwing w/ plasma and melta bomb
Black Knights w/ sword and melta bomb
Dev squad w/ 2 las

Just double checking, none of that is cheese? The only thing I could possibly understand is the conclave, but I'm getting one extra librarian out of the deal. It's designed to be my TAC list, and is mediocre at that task.

When I rolled for warlord trait, I got the ability that lets me infiltrate my hq and 3 non-vehicle units. I chose two bikes squads to infiltrate, and the terminators to DS. I also got 1st deployment.

He was running tau.... longstrike, a riptide, some kind of flyer, broadsides, a crisis commander, some fire warriors.... the game didn't run long enough for me to look at everything. But he packed it all into one corner of the board, opposite the side that I had put my devastators and ezekiel.

Using the infiltrate, I put my bikes 18" away from him, one along the table edge and one in the opposite end of his deployment zone, then scouted them 12" towards his stuff. Turn 1 I get my DS, drop the terminators about 3 inches from his front line. Start to move the bikes and he forfeits.

First off, everything I did is perfectly legal, right? I ran it past some other guys and they didn't see any faults in it. Second, what I did could have been countered, right? I mean, start of his turn his entire army would have shot up those 4 units, at least. And all the suits and longstrike could at least make it almost out of charge range? The only thing that would have survived until turn 2 to charge would have been the knights, meaning I would have already lost a third of my army at least.

Can you even blame the warlord trait either? Without it my termies would have just dropped 6" away from you instead of 3"

Please, anyone, explain to me why an opponent would do this. I just need some way to wrap my mind around what happened. This is definitely going to put me off from playing 40k for awhile. I've been kind. I've been forgiving. It's the same opponent that I've mentioned in two other posts, and I should have listened when everyone said not to play him. I just feel legitimately guilty that an opponent got mad at me. Did I do something wrong? Am I a bad person? I feel terrible

I don't see anything wrong with this. Best I can figure he realized he might actually get into close combat and not have an easy victory.

Interesting, my friend who plays GK recently did a similar alpha strike move where he used interceptors and Dreadknights to cage in the Tau player's forces and although he didn't forfeit immediately like your opponent he got pretty upset quickly and gave up after his army failed to do much in his first turn.

Honestly, it's probably because as a Tau player you want to be the one dictating the flow of the battlefield and for many once you get as close as you do they think the game is over for them. The army and a lot of their lists are written in such a way that they don't count for your opponent using or getting things like infiltrate properly or other early "up in your face" tactics.

Don't feel bad about it, especially given that you were playing Dark Angels of all armies and they're definitely not one that exactly inspires fear or dread as a powergamer army.

You played the game right and to your strengths, the fact that he's willing to give up so quickly gives a hint of what he's expecting or hoping for a game, most likely a curbstomp in his favour.

He likely needs to learn how to adapt to unexpected situations in game, and while I understand that is often an acquired trait, its one that is nonetheless worth learning even if you lose quite a few games in the process. As they say: "No pain, no gain".

The warlord trait is extremely powerful in that situation, but not a "quit turn 1" advantage by any means.

I would count that as a crushing victory, and rub it in from time to time. Good for you to be able to rock an opponent so hard they run away in fear of their impending doom.

Stuff you did was perfectly fine. And it's easilly counterable by proper deployment. Castling is a loosing strategy since 7-th anywayz.

Why would you let the poor sportsmanship (and playing) of one player, turn you off from 40k? Just play with better people.

Get a "I forfeited to Dark Angels" tshirt and make him wear it.
Never play him again otherwise.

Sounds like just a sore loser. If he'd not castled up in the corner he would have had a chance. Sounds like he's had too many easy curbstomps.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Get a "I forfeited to Dark Angels" tshirt and make him wear it.
Never play him again otherwise.

This just made my night

Also, he's currently one of the only people I can play. When the weather gets bad like now not as many people make it out in the evenings as their drive might not be as easy as mine. Since he was the only 40k guy at the store tonight I figured hey, maybe he'll be reasonable for once.

I think I'm going to start playing with the heroclix guys on Tuesday nights.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, now I'm starting to wonder, is my army actually that looked down upon? We can be competitive too ya know

 Grimskul wrote:
Interesting, my friend who plays GK recently did a similar alpha strike move where he used interceptors and Dreadknights to cage in the Tau player's forces and although he didn't forfeit immediately like your opponent he got pretty upset quickly and gave up after his army failed to do much in his first turn.

That's my favorite tactic, it ignores the EWO entirely and is the reason why GK have a chance against them, gotta move fast if I want to kill that Riptide before my Stormraven comes on T2, of course this type of list for Tau isn't very fun to play against. But OP you played perfectly to the Tau weakness, closing the gap quickly with no losses; you didn't let him dictate the game like Tau are used to doing he probably is so used to not being in CC and not experiencing it himself that he thought that it was gg at that point, congrats you won the psychological warfare aspect and instead of playing the game out, forfeited what most likely would have been a decent game.

It honestly isn't your fault, I dunno what his problem is because if he does have those units in his list he wasn't playing hardball and neither were you, soooo I guess he is just inexperienced and he just needs to mature?

EDIT: Seeing that you were the one who started the Terrain thread, I would simply say he wanted a easy win and you putting the pressure on so early literally crumpled his will to fight.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Get a "I forfeited to Dark Angels" tshirt and make him wear it.
Never play him again otherwise.

This just made my night

Also, he's currently one of the only people I can play. When the weather gets bad like now not as many people make it out in the evenings as their drive might not be as easy as mine. Since he was the only 40k guy at the store tonight I figured hey, maybe he'll be reasonable for once.

I think I'm going to start playing with the heroclix guys on Tuesday nights.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, now I'm starting to wonder, is my army actually that looked down upon? We can be competitive too ya know

Well Dark Angels unfortunately follows the trend as the experimental pre-vanilla Space Marine codex where they find out the kinks and ideas that they'll do for the vanilla codex that is almost inevitably sometime afterwards their release. You can see it from how your relics and stuff like Grim Resolve or Inner Circle rules act as precursors to an unfortunately more popular and generally effective list of relics and chapter tactics.

Dark Angels can still pull off strong combos and units (especially with rad grenades from your Black Knights) but you guys miss out on proper air support and other goodies in the case you don't ally them in.

I think you did nothing wrong, as seeing as this guy is less than enjoyable to play against as stated in your other threads I think its pretty obvious he is the problem.

He had notice before deployment you were infiltrating, he ignored that fact and gave you the freedom to do what you did. Thats not cheesy or weak on your part, thats playing the game and taking advantage of your opponents mistakes. And thats how you win games and make them more enjoyable and entertaining.

I would just sugest not playing with him, but if you find yourself in the situation where he is the only option once again just stick it to him like this time!

Had a similar thing happen with me and a Orc player, where he was winning and I killed off his KFF and he quit...

Lame

 kingbobbito wrote:
Using the infiltrate, I put my bikes 18" away from him, one along the table edge and one in the opposite end of his deployment zone, then scouted them 12" towards his stuff.

This is the only problem. When you Scout re-deploy, you must remain at least 12" away from any enemy units. But even then that's not much of a difference to your scenario.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sounds like just a sore loser. If he'd not castled up in the corner he would have had a chance. Sounds like he's had too many easy curbstomps.

So what was he suppose to do spread? Tau aren't meq , just like IG, spread they die, they have a ton of support rules that work on a very short range.
I guess the dude didn't have enough plasma to kill 4 squads and didn't have enough riptides to tar pit them. And I doubt it is fun for a tau player to be stuck in constant melee for 3-4 turns, when your technicly rolling dice, but you know that your opponent has better stats and will win anyway.
Wasted time, don't see why quiting such a game would be a bad thing. I know he lost, his opponent knows he won, why play it , to roll dice?

Makumba wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sounds like just a sore loser. If he'd not castled up in the corner he would have had a chance. Sounds like he's had too many easy curbstomps.

So what was he suppose to do spread?

That would've been the smart thing to do instead of putting everything in one corner where he had no mobility, no ability to react, and gave his opponent no need to do anything except point all of his models at one spot.

Sitting in a corner against a high alpha strike army was asking for trouble, toss in Infiltrate and all of a sudden you're looking at 1 turn of movement before assault. It's part of 40k's nature rock paper scissor and Tau don't have any rocks or scissors. While every other army does.

When I rolled for warlord trait, I got the ability that lets me infiltrate my hq and 3 non-vehicle units. I chose two bikes squads to infiltrate, and the terminators to DS. I also got 1st deployment.

Do bikes not count as vehicles for the purposes of that ability? They are vehicles in the obvious sense of the word, it seems a bit like rule-lawyering to say they aren't.

That niggle aside, there isn't much you can do in that situation with Tau. You either need space or a single enemy unit as a target when you're playing them, because shooting is far less efficient at killing than melee is. No sweeping advances to mop up riddled units, no combat lock stop the enemy from interfering, cover saves everywhere and you generally can't make Marines run away with it. No deep masses of bodies and firepower for the Tau like the Guard have to compensate either.

The warlord trait essentially eliminated the possibility that he could win entirely. Your list is decent, but not entirely unbeatable even with his piss poor list. What should have been a decent game for both players was undone by you suddenly gaining the ability to drop troops that usually can't, deus ex machina style no less. That can be frustrating. Talk of deployment changes solving the problem is easier said than done. Spreading out against your list would have been equal parts boring and suicidal for different reasons, but mostly it comes down to the fact that any one of your units is better than any one of his except the Riptide, and the Riptide can't be everywhere at once. The bikes could have bypassed or smashed through any screening units while the Terminators caused havoc in the rear, and he would have been rendered combat ineffective in the exact same turn he would have in the castle situation; your second turn.

Maybe it doesn't excuse attitude, but withdrawing from that situation is hardly an illogical decision. Infiltrating the likes of bike squadrons in will generally mean a boring-as-gak curbstomp game for an opposing Tau player. Bikes are already annoying as hell when they're attacking from regular deployment zones.

They aren't a vehicle as described in the Rules, so it's fine to infiltrate them.

How do tau deal with turn 2 assaulters in general? There are plenty of such builds, really. CSM have those, White scars have those, Orks have those, etc. With positioning and shooting you to bits. How's it different from what the op had? I think you should blame the player - not the mismatch.

I have only forfeit, or seen forfeits, on turn one against people who have clearly tailored or the dice gods have effectively wrecked someone in turn 1, and both players agree to start over. Anything else is just being a sore loser, but your accounts thus far indicate you're dealing with some rather acute levels of WAAC. Especially against Dark Angels, dear god.

It seems pretty clear from your accounts that your Tau player isn't very good at the game; he's used to winning by codex and list, and while those are certainly the most important things these days in 40k, he's making amateur mistakes; castling against a small model count close-range army rather than spreading out to minimize targets for the small number of units you're fielding (not like Tau have to worry about being able to hit things), and just giving up without even trying smacks of poor sportsmanship. 40k takes forever to set up and get going, at least make the effort to shoot at the other guy; after all, you could roll nothing but 1s for saves and be killed off by two firewarrior squads.

They aren't a vehicle as described in the Rules, so it's fine to infiltrate them.

Again, sounds like rule-lawyering, but I suspect such an oversight in the Dark Angels codex is pretty much in line with how things are going these days. One way or another.

 koooaei wrote:
How do tau deal with turn 2 assaulters in general? There are plenty of such builds, really. CSM have those, White scars have those, Orks have those, etc. With positioning and shooting you to bits. How's it different from what the op had? I think you should blame the player - not the mismatch.

I blame both. His poor list combined with the game giving the OP a Deus Ex Machina ability as well as the dice gods allowing the Terminators in at the same moment. The latter two alone happening would have made the game boring even with a good list, unless you're one of the more masochistic players out there.

As for turn two assaulters, generally they don't arrive as three units at the same time from different directions. The OP would have been able to kill the entire Tau army over the course of a single assault. Those types of scenarios are generally the result of horrendous luck and bad game design, which happened here, exacerbated in this instance by a poor list. Otherwise, blocking/sacrificial unit + Supporting Fire + follow-up mass shooting is the standard response. There isn't enough Supporting Fire in any balanced Tau list to stop two bike squadrons and a Terminator Squad attacking in the same turn. One unit can block an entire group of units if they're deployed right. Hell, I've stopped two bike units with a single unit of Kroot before, and when the Kroot died, I turned their graves into a highly efficient biker-meat factory the next turn. That sort of tactic definitely wasn't a possibility here, and the Tau are very weak to that sort of assault in the first place.

Giving up when the game would be boring as hell is not poor sportsmanship. Doing so while whinging about it and not setting up another game probably is though. Would the OP have understood if he had been polite about it though, I wonder?

Bikes haven't been vehicles in 40k for at least several editions (if at all, though I'm not sure on that as I heard that they were in 2nd)

It's been accepted by the player base for just as long that they aren't.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
castling against a small model count close-range army rather than spreading out to minimize targets for the small number of units you're fielding (not like Tau have to worry about being able to hit things),

The Tau do have to worry about hitting things. BS3 pretty much across the board, markerlights aside.

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:

As for turn two assaulters, generally they don't arrive as three units at the same time from different directions.

But that's exactly how such lists work. I say it's not much difference from what's happened here.

Should you forfeit the moment you see a blitz brigade? Or a Huron + Cypher infiltration list? Or a bunch of marines in droppods?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Bikes haven't been vehicles in 40k for at least several editions (if at all, though I'm not sure on that as I heard that they were in 2nd)

It's been accepted by the player base for just as long that they aren't.

That's pretty much what I'm saying. They are vehicles, yet for the purposes of the rules, they're in a separate category, allowing them to infiltrate in this manner which is specifically not for vehicles. It's legal but still dodgy. Seems like an oversight or cheese to me.

Yeah from reading your other thread, all I have to say to the Tau guy.

 koooaei wrote:
How do tau deal with turn 2 assaulters in general? There are plenty of such builds, really. CSM have those, White scars have those, Orks have those, etc. With positioning and shooting you to bits. How's it different from what the op had? I think you should blame the player - not the mismatch.

They deal with it by support fire during overwatch. Tau are all about positioning the right units in the right spot

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Bikes haven't been vehicles in 40k for at least several editions (if at all, though I'm not sure on that as I heard that they were in 2nd)

It's been accepted by the player base for just as long that they aren't.

That's pretty much what I'm saying. They are vehicles, yet for the purposes of the rules, they're in a separate category, allowing them to infiltrate in this manner which is specifically not for vehicles. It's legal but still dodgy. Seems like an oversight or cheese to me.

On the other hand they're also susceptibile to weapons to which most vehicles wouldn't be very worried about.