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 koooaei wrote:

 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?

Such tactics are highly effective against the Tau, but it is possible to funnel them. Just not when we're talking about bikes. They're just too manoeuvrable on the first turn.

And this player didn't forfeit "the minute he saw the army", he forfeited after he received bodyblows from the dice gods allowing fast units to infiltrate and Terminators to arrive right on cue. Conceding defeat when it is utterly certain and there is nothing more to be gained is not some sort of insult. If anything, refusing to do so is a waste of gaming time that could be put into another match.

Castling means you can't really move at all. Against a force that's on you quickly, it can be a really bad way to go.

Warlord Trait is luck of the draw. Your opponent knew you had that trait before deployment. He failed to plan for it.

Scouting and Infiltrating are becoming more powerful tools in this edition. I use it as much as possible with my Orks. A couple of Infiltrating units of your own can quickly halt this.

Kroot still infiltrate, right? Two small units would have stalled the infiltrating advance straight away. If he had won the roll off for placing Infiltrators, then your bikes would end up practically back in your deployment zone. If he had failed the roll off, he could still have effected the placement of the second squad. You don't need these units to be effective, you need them to block deployment! In my Meta it's very rare to see a Tau gun line without infiltrating Kroot roadblocks.

 grendel083 wrote:
Castling means you can't really move at all. Against a force that's on you quickly, it can be a really bad way to go.

Warlord Trait is luck of the draw. Your opponent knew you had that trait before deployment. He failed to plan for it.

Scouting and Infiltrating are becoming more powerful tools in this edition. I use it as much as possible with my Orks. A couple of Infiltrating units of your own can quickly halt this.

Kroot still infiltrate, right? Two small units would have stalled the infiltrating advance straight away. If he had won the roll off for placing Infiltrators, then your bikes would end up practically back in your deployment zone. If he had failed the roll off, he could still have effected the placement of the second squad. You don't need these units to be effective, you need them to block deployment! In my Meta it's very rare to see a Tau gun line without infiltrating Kroot roadblocks.

Yeah, I've used Kroot in that way since the very beginning. Very effective.

Warlord traits that allow you to turn any particular list into a potential alpha strike army? Yeah, that's not on. Random rolling for it just makes it even more stupid.

 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.

Dude, that's not dodgy or an oversight at all. Bikes and Jetbikes are a kind of unit with a Toughness value. No vehicle has a Toughness value, while Bikes and Jetbikes don't possess any kind of Front, Side or Rear armour. There's no reason to rule them as 'vehicles' for infiltrate/scout purposes.

What the rules say are what you should use. Bikes and Jetbikes aren't vehicles by the rules. No reason to try to apply vehicles rules on them.
This is no oversight at all, as they had a Toughness value back in 5th, had it in 6th and in 7th remained as so.

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:
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.

Bikes are in no way vehicles.

Also bear in mind, this warlord trait if given to an Infantry unit, allows that unit to bring along their Dedicated Transport (as per the infiltrate rules themselves). 3 Infiltrating Ork Trukk mobs is a very common tactic. And they have much easier access to this trait thanks to one of their relics.

Turn 2 charges from several units is how Orks roll nowadays. People need to plan for that. As mentioned above, Kroot are excellent for this.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Dude, that's not dodgy or an oversight at all. Bikes and Jetbikes are a kind of unit with a Toughness value. No vehicle has a Toughness value, while Bikes and Jetbikes don't possess any kind of Front, Side or Rear armour. There's no reason to rule them as 'vehicles' for infiltrate/scout purposes.

What the rules say are what you should use. Bikes and Jetbikes aren't vehicles by the rules. No reason to try to apply vehicles rules on them.
This is no oversight at all, as they had a Toughness value back in 5th, had it in 6th and in 7th remained as so.

*facepalm*

It's an oversight or cheese that bikers would be allowed to infiltrate with the Dark Angels warlord trait, not that they're classed separately in general. Obviously they're not vehicles for rules purposes, I'm saying it's broken that they're not considered vehicles for the purposes of that trait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 grendel083 wrote:
Turn 2 charges from several units is how Orks roll nowadays. People need to plan for that. As mentioned above, Kroot are excellent for this.

Orks drop a lot easier than Space Marine bikers. A pulse rifle can take out an Ork trukk...

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:
It's an oversight or cheese that bikers would be allowed to infiltrate with the Dark Angels warlord trait, not that they're classed separately in general. Obviously they're not vehicles for rules purposes, I'm saying it's broken that they're not considered vehicles for the purposes of that trait.

Ravenwing (And Whitescars?) can scout anyway, so can cover 36" in their first turn. So a Turn 2 charge is very possible without the trait.
Simply put, hiding in a corner behind an Aegis is easily countered in this edition. It's much more about mobility now. If you hadn't got any mobility, you need to take it away from your opponent

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:
Orks drop a lot easier than Space Marine bikers. A pulse rifle can take out an Ork trukk...

True! But if that Trukk has had a single turn of movement, then it's done its job.
That will be 3 Trukks you need to kill, not that difficult, but now 3 mobs of Orks have got out and are in charge range. You might be able to destroy those too if you're lucky. That's only 300pts gone, and you haven't touched the rest of the force.

Pulse rifles also wounds bikes on a 4+, better than any other basic weapon.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Pulse rifles also wounds bikes on a 4+, better than any other basic weapon.

Dark eldar wave with their poisoned...everything. Everything except for witch blades. Cause feth witches.

How could I forget DE

Oh I know, I've never versed them, thanks to the most common armies here being various flavours of marines and tau

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Pulse rifles also wounds bikes on a 4+, better than any other basic weapon.

While that's true, the 3+ save more than compensates. Whereas trukks can be blown up for extra wounds on passengers, and Orks wear t-shirts.

Ravenwing (And Whitescars?) can scout anyway, so can cover 36" in their first turn. So a Turn 2 charge is very possible without the trait.
Simply put, hiding in a corner behind an Aegis is easily countered in this edition. It's much more about mobility now. If you hadn't got any mobility, you need to take it away from your opponent

Yeah, but such attacks usually come from the front... i.e. down the barrels of most of the Tau army, blocked by a single unit, can't multiassault etc. He had no Kroot, but the Fire Warriors were expendable enough

It's not any one factor that led this guy to this, it's the confluence of all of them. He was perfectly justified to concede defeat. He didn't need to be an arse about it, sure, but he was justified.

My two cents:

Dude deployed poorly. Even if you didn't get that warlord trait, Dark Angels are pretty much only good at being in your face really quickly. I get there's not a lot of us Dark Angel players around anymore so maybe the guy didn't know, but the thing is what we are good at TAU SPECIFICALLY COUNTER.

A few things he shoulda thought of before packing up his things: He's got at least 1 shooting phase before you can assault anyway. Even then, your bikes get melted in overwatch against a Tau Castle when they try to charge, and his Riptide/Broadsides could easily kill your deep striking terminators ON YOUR TURN if the guy brought the Interceptor doohickey.

@GreaterGoodIreland: What? Why? How is that an oversight? I fail to understand. Because the bikes also have scout? I don't see that as a big deal. From personal experience, the only thing that ever happens to my bikes when I try to do infiltrate/scout shenanigans is they all get eradicated on turn 1. I don't know about you, but I dislike losing 27 point models en masse. Black Knights its even a worse idea because you're going to lose a large chunk of 42 point models that way. It's got a lot of alpha strike potential but it's hardly an overpowered tactic because it can backfire greatly.

Bikes have not and never will be considered vehicles for the purpose of WH40k. Just because we define them as such in the real world doesn't mean it makes them so in the game. Vehicles in WH40k = things with armor values rather than toughness. It's that simple. "Bike" is simply a unit type, like Monstrous Creature, or Jump Infantry.

 SRSFACE wrote:

Bikes have not and never will be considered vehicles for the purpose of WH40k.

they were in 2-d iirc.

 SRSFACE wrote:
@GreaterGoodIreland: What? Why? How is that an oversight? I fail to understand. Because the bikes also have scout? I don't see that as a big deal. From personal experience, the only thing that ever happens to my bikes when I try to do infiltrate/scout shenanigans is they all get eradicated on turn 1. I don't know about you, but I dislike losing 27 point models en masse. Black Knights its even a worse idea because you're going to lose a large chunk of 42 point models that way. It's got a lot of alpha strike potential but it's hardly an overpowered tactic because it can backfire greatly.

Bikes have not and never will be considered vehicles for the purpose of WH40k. Just because we define them as such in the real world doesn't mean it makes them so in the game. Vehicles in WH40k = things with armor values rather than toughness. It's that simple. "Bike" is simply a unit type, like Monstrous Creature, or Jump Infantry.

One unit of bikers, sure, you'd get murderised. Up to three? Potential for mischief is a bit too high. Its backfire potential is situational, as it proved here. Three units that absolutely must be dealt with almost in their entirety on turn one is no small problem for an opponent. And it's a warlord trait. Cheese.

And for the last time, I'm not claiming that bikes are vehicles in the rules, I'm saying their speed and slightly tougher nature make them worthy of a balance consideration.

If you don't plan for it, and your opponent is lucky enough to roll for it, then yes it can be brutal. It's not a given that they'll roll it, it's a game of dice, these things happen.

Not planning for these things, is entirely the fault of the player however

 grendel083 wrote:
If you don't plan for it, and your opponent is lucky enough to roll for it, then yes it can be brutal. It's not a given that they'll roll it, it's a game of dice, these things happen.

Not planning for these things, is entirely the fault of the player however

Well, not like you can't bauble wrap with firewarriors. A squad pushes forward to deny movement, others shoot.

And you should plan your deployment with at least DW assault in mind.

I had a game where turn 1, enemy whole command squad failed leadership and ran off the board. The game was technically over, but we played on until I tabled him on turn 3.

It depends on who are you playing with.

 koooaei wrote:
Well, not like you can't bauble wrap with firewarriors. A squad pushes forward to deny movement, others shoot.

And you should plan your deployment with at least DW assault in mind.

Absolutley. And you know before deployment what Warlord trait your opponent has.

I've been using a cheap unit of Kommandos more and more lately, just to stop Scouts and Infiltrators (Infiltrators are always deployed before Scouts ). 10 with a couple of Rokkits, incase they can get a side armour shot at something. Dirt cheap for what they do.

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
Dude, that's not dodgy or an oversight at all. Bikes and Jetbikes are a kind of unit with a Toughness value. No vehicle has a Toughness value, while Bikes and Jetbikes don't possess any kind of Front, Side or Rear armour. There's no reason to rule them as 'vehicles' for infiltrate/scout purposes.

What the rules say are what you should use. Bikes and Jetbikes aren't vehicles by the rules. No reason to try to apply vehicles rules on them.
This is no oversight at all, as they had a Toughness value back in 5th, had it in 6th and in 7th remained as so.

*facepalm*

It's an oversight or cheese that bikers would be allowed to infiltrate with the Dark Angels warlord trait, not that they're classed separately in general. Obviously they're not vehicles for rules purposes, I'm saying it's broken that they're not considered vehicles for the purposes of that trait.

No DA Warlord trait allows Infitrating. The one that allows it is in the BRB. No oversight, as it is quite clear that NON-VEHICLE units receive the special rule. Bikes are non-vehicle units, so what's your point? They should't be considered vehicles; you could argue they should have implemented another restriction (no bikes/jetbikes), but they didn't - which means it isn't an oversight. Cheese or broken? Maybe, but I don't think it is. It's pretty rare to find (jet)bikes with good firepower around outside marines. never head of people complaining about this specific situation before (showing how rare it is).

what I'm seeing here is tau players sticking up for the douchebag who didn't even have the decency to give the OP a full game.

If your dice give you c#@p then that's the way it went - we do want truly random results, right?
Because otherwise it would be obvious what would happen and we could all save a load of money by thinking through a game of 'rock-paper-scissors'...

I do not do s#|t like that; i play games till the last turn is complete, no matter how bad the dice roll.

Forfeiting turn 1 is just plain disrespectful.

It took me time, and in some cases money, to get to a place in order to play a game. If my opponent forfeits turn 1, both that time and money is wasted.

If your dice give you c#@p then that's the way it went - we do want truly random results, right?

Hells no. Many many people want SOME random results, but primarily based on skill not luck, especially when that luck comes early and massively sways the battle one way or the other.

SirDonlad wrote:
what I'm seeing here is tau players sticking up for the douchebag who didn't even have the decency to give the OP a full game.

If your dice give you c#@p then that's the way it went - we do want truly random results, right?
Because otherwise it would be obvious what would happen and we could all save a load of money by thinking through a game of 'rock-paper-scissors'...

I do not do s#|t like that; i play games till the last turn is complete, no matter how bad the dice roll.

If the dice rolls happen very early in the game and it's blatantly obvious who's going to win, I really don't have a huge problem with someone throwing in the towel early. Granted, it probably would have been a bit more polite to play it out to turn 2 maybe, lol.

I've been playing long enough to not really care about playing a game which is going to be boring. 40k is not exactly a fast game and I'd rather do something else for a few hours than get utterly smashed or utterly smash someone else.

Though it can be a bit annoying when someone THINKS they have almost no hope but they actually do, lol.

To the OP: Sorry that this guy is your most common, if not only 40k gaming partner. If I remember correctly from other posts, at the moment you're a younger fellow who doesn't travel much to find games. This, in time, can and will change.

In the meantime, I would suggest focusing on the other aspects of the hobby. Take time/pleasure in bettering your painting skills. Do some conversions...build some cool terrain. Basically, do things that don't involve this D-bag.

It would be funny, however, to find out that your nemesis was posting about YOU on another forum. I can see the thread starting off something like this:

Title: PLEASE HELP! MY BABY SEAL IS GROWING UP!

Post: Hello fellow WAAC enthusiasts. As a tau player in an extremely small pool of players, I'm having a hard time with my opponents' attitude. They're constantly complaining that there isn't enough terrain on the table (I let them place 2 level 1 ruins and a tree...wth?) and are almost always butthurt by the fact that tailor my list to defeat theirs. My most common opponent has even starting getting advice from players online in an effort to actually win a game or two, and the results have been...off-putting. Please help! How can I keep my friends from learning better tactics or wanting to have fun doing something other than removing their models from the table? Like I said...I don't have access to many players...maybe I should hit some playgrounds and see if I can get some 10 year olds to start gaming with me? Thanks!

To me, anyone who concedes when their army is still healthy is that guy. (Barring "my kid is in the hospital-run out the door" moments.)

Clearly that guy is in the game to have fun blowing up your dudes, and impressing you with the magnificence of his dudes. When the flow of the game changes, and he's about to have some of his own dudes blown up, he's no longer having fun, due to extreme selfishness.

We have one guy like that, and he's the reason we implemented a code of conduct for our games, which includes only conceding after the opponent's turn.

yeah sure. Because when a GK player drops a centstar and 2NDKs and kills 2 out of 3 chimeras and most of my special weapon squads on the board turn 1. I should be playing him till turn 4 when he will finaly table me , so that he has fun rolling dice.

Gaming is a two way street. It may be selfish for a player to forfeit early just because he's going to lose thus denying their opponent the joy of playing a game. It is also pretty selfish to expect someone to play out a 2-3 hour slaughter because his opponents expects him to sit there and take it.

In the end a game isn't worth it if both players aren't enjoying it, regardless of the reason. Its best to call it early so you can use your time saved to find a way for both players to be happy.

It's pretty great that all these parking lot armies that could just sit back and shoot everything in 5th and 6th are finally forced to use tactics. Tau have one of the best codices with tons of firepower and mobility, and even get a pile of special rules to negate their weakness to assault.

OP, The fact that your opponent crammed one of the most mobile armies into a corner of the board, then lost it when he got alpha striked means he is a terrible player (and sportsman). You did well, and your strategy was sound, your only mistake was playing someone who only wants to win without earning it, not someone looking to have fun.

Well in the sense of a real battle, in a real world situation, if a general determined that a tactical mistake was made, then a full-on retreat would be considered a good idea.

So while him conceding on turn 1 was very annoying he at least could have said, "

hey, i think I screwed up my deployment a bit here and this game is going to be one-sided. You win this match. Would you mind going through the gamesetup again and we can play again?"

[sarcasm]
So.. it is fair if the tau get to use their advantage and gunline to shoot up everything that gets close.. and its cheesy if something uses speed to avoid that...
The only way to play "fair" against tau is being shot to pieces by giving them 2+ turns of unhindered shooting?
[/sarcasm]

 Icculus wrote:


...he at least could have said,

"hey, i think I screwed up my deployment a bit here and this game is going to be one-sided. You win this match. Would you mind going through the gamesetup again and we can play again?"

"And I'd look down and whisper... NO"

I think you just have to take your licks if you set up badly. Simple as that.