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Just had an ITC tournament today, Just got back. We had 30 people there, so it was a great turn out.

Thought you might like some reports from the front lines.

For this tournament, I used the following list:
Total Tau Empire Roster Cost: 1492

: Combined Arms Detachment (33#, 1157 pts)

1 KV128 Stormsurge, 440 pts (Twin-linked Airbursting Fragmentation Projector + Early Warning Override + Velocity Tracker+ Shield Generator)

1 Crisis Shas'ui, 37 pts(Flamer + Twin-linked Flamer)

4 MV7 Marker Drones, 56 pts

1 Tidewall Gunfort:
1 Tidewall Gunrig, 85 pts
1 Tidewall Gunrig, 85 pts
1 Tidewall Gunrig, 85 pts

1 Sniper Drone Team:
3 Firesight Marksman, 39 pts
8 MV71 Sniper Drone, 120 pts

5 Fire Warriors, 45 pts

5 Fire Warriors, 45 pts

1 Cadre Fireblade, 60 pts

1 Cadre Fireblade, 60 pts



: Combined Arms Detachment (22#, 335 pts)

1 Crisis Shas'ui, 37 pts(Flamer+ Twin-linked Flamer)

9 Fire Warriors, 99 pts (EMP Grenades)

9 Fire Warriors, 99 pts (EMP Grenades)

1 Aun'Va, 100 pts

Game one:
I fought a list of FIVE Hive Tyrants, 2 Harpy's a Ripper Swarm and some few Mucolid Swarms. I have to say, I have never faced that much accurate high STR shooting from a Tyranid list, ever. He swooped all over the board and just unloaded on me round after relentless round. making matters worse was that my StormSurge was the only thing with anti-air ability and so I could already tell this game was going to be trouble. He killed THAT within a couple of rounds because it needed to die for him to live. Nonetheless, I stood my ground. The Gunfort protected me to the extent it could and I got lucky and blocked his Tyranid Nova power the one time it got into a PERFECT firing position to hit a ton of my units all at once.

I deployed everything in and around the Gunforts for this battle but had my StormSurge split out wide, smaller Fire Warrior squads and Crisis Teams in reserve. I did make one bone headed move during the game and charged a Mucolid Spore with a Crisis suit. Duh. Found out that is a stupid thing to do.

Despite all the firepower he had, I was dropping a flyer a round basically and always the one that COULD alight to the ground the next round to cause me Maelstrom worries. One of his harpys resisted the call to the grave quite a while and did a lot of damage before finally succumbing in the final round.

The result was a Tau Empire victory. The key was the short range of his shooting which allowed me to concentrate a heck of a lot of shots into him and frankly, going to ground was hardly an impediment to my chances given that I was hitting on 6's anyways!

Game two:


The second game was against literally the perfect army to kill mine,. He had an IG Artillery battery, using the new formation. For those who don't know, that formation is truly fearsome, allowing them to get an order to Ignore Cover! Wowa. His Manticore, Basilsik and 2 Eradicators ALL could take out my tightly grouped units in the confines of the Tidewall Gun Fort and laugh heartily at any effort to get a save. In one round, he could have cleared out the entire Gunfort and then some. Needless to say, this was daunting. The terrain set up well for him also: big LOS blocker in the middle made his barrages perfect weapons, and crossing the distances was unlikely to be a good idea. he also had the tank with the heavy duty tank killing gun and even had masters of ordinance in his Chimera to fire!

My solution? Null Deployment. The Gunfort just sat there and had to be empty. The Stormsurge was the only unit on the board, and because of the LOS blocker and the handy building his techpriest fortified, his artillery was sitting pretty, ready to fire a mile away at my Stormsurge with impunity, waiting with baited breath for my squishies to show up.

The Stormsurge without Markerlight support is a bit challenged but it ran up the right flank after being shot up and pretty much chose not to do any shooting of its own. Enemy shot it again because what choice was there, and this time scored some blows, doing three wounds to it. In response it tore two tanks apart, one with shooting to its side arc, one with its bare hands. Kaboom. Meanwhile my units poured on, all but the Sniper Drones and scrambled their way to stretch themselves apart in preparation for he next unforgiving barrage, but firing way downtown to stun an Eradicator which was a very important thing to do. Come the clouds did, raining death on Aunva's unit and the Fire Warriors as well as the Gunfort itself which took a wound to one of its guns. Pask and his Punisher buddy pushed upfield to get into range of the StormSurge and opened fire, dropping the StormSurge to just two wounds. Because of the angles, he had to gamble and get closer than I think he wished he had later. Killing the StormSurge would have been a coup so he tried.

The StormSurge visited misfortune on Pask and his squadron mate, obliterating both with D-Missiles now guided by Markerlights nd then Stomp'd the other as he had done basically to the last two. Fire Warriors downed the Last Eradicator using their gunfort and a Deep Striking Crisis tema presented a new threat, glancing one of the artillry pieces and threatening to charge the following round. His command squad and its chimra turned around and shot it, but only managed one wound. the Hydra fired at it also but mostly snap firing so it survived. The other Crisis team Landed behind Pasks team but had little to do except prepare to get charged by the Engineseer that was left which had been trailing Pask. Fire warriors streaked up the left flank since coming on turn two and prepared to strike at the Hydra.

Given little choice the Hydra spent its turn killing the Crisis team while the artillery tried to end the Stormsurge but they failed. all but the Chimera and an Enginseer in the ruins was destroyed.

The Chimera shot and killed the StormSurge, and that was pretty well the end of the game other than the enginseer continuing to go at it and eventualy getting punched in the face for his efforts. Siper Drones had crawled around the center of the field to try and get shots and were spread out quite a ways by this time.

Ultimately the game ended with his Command group and Chimers looking at my Crisis suit with vengeful eyes and nothing else on the board. His sole kills were the Crisis Suit and my StormSurge in the end, plus Fire Warriors that eventually EMP'd the Hydra. i think its hilarious that they made it all the way from reserves to the other side of the board and killed a Hydra. Hilarious.

Game Three:
Third game was tough. Yet ANOTHER Necron Decurion, this time with FIFTEEN of those Ignores Cover STR 6 blasts. I made a huge miscalculation in forgetting that they WERE Ignores cover. As a necron player aso I sort of knew this was possible but for some reason, I mis-remembered and thought that this was a function of a certain gun, not the Nebuloscope. he "Reminded" me of the reality by blasting apart my Sniper Drone team in round one, laving it almost a husk of its former self. For an encore in round two (of you've seen a Gunfort, you will recall that its nice round interior is a PERFECT killing ground for such weapons) he slaughtered all but one Fire Warrior in one unit and ALL of them in another. Clearly this was a bit of a shock! I really took it to the face the first couple rounds and he DID NOT MISS much at all, easily cresting 30+ hits with every unit against which I frankly had little defense. Despite the brutal "reminder", the Tau empire is not without its own compelling arguments. The Twin Linked large blasts of my own over the course of two rounds made an impact along with the Fire Warrior shooting (before being killed like cattle). He lost three Wraiths quickly as well, and a timely deep Strike by a Crisis team RIGHT in the middle of their units helped a little too. With all those in mind, we were able to obliterate the units of bikes. The StormSurge dropping its Pylons went off, firing a ton o fun. With the enemy now sort of pinned back a bit and unlikely to charge the Tau Empire, we pressed our advantage by floating its platform forward and lifting the Pylons up so the StormSurge could advance!

Advancing on the enemy proved pivotal as my second Crisis team managed to land in his backyard to take maelstrom points and he was forced to deal with it. that left the StormSurge free to strike and strike hard at the remaining Warlord and his now Wraith-like retinue who were holding the seized Relic. with Firepower aplenty, the fearsome Stormsurge crested the corner and between it and the Railguns, finished the Wraiths holding the relic, saving the day.

Final outcome: Tau Empire victory.

Key takeaways: people are taking a LOT more notice of weapon systems that ignore cover. I saw all kinds of evidence of it today and this will DEFINITELY underscore the need to think about your deployment strategy. i kind of foolishly relied too heavily on the Gunfort to protect me when i could have properly spaced myself against his army and used circular deployment to utterly mitigate his strongest suit. The promise of protection and my grave miscalculation of the Necron Jetbikes could have cost me the game and almost did. Minus that error, it would have been a complete rout of the Decurion from beginning to end with a LOT more pain inflicted a lot faster on them.

Another take away was that the IG artillery formation is going to REALLY return some lustre to the codex. Anyone playing that army without the Formation may wish to consider using it.

From the Tau perspective one more thing occurred to me. in ALL my games, especially the Tyranid one, there would have been GREAT virtue in the TideWall Rampart. that MANY cover saves bounced back at Flyers is a pretty effective anti-air measure. Consider that those guys were hitting 55 times a round on the average when all were alive which is 46 wounds. In that engagement, that would have meant about 6 bunced shots a round at STR 6! Beleive me, six extra hits and chances to knock one out is a big deal when you're talking about 7 flyers at 1500 points and only one unit to deal with them that died bfore it could fire twice! I imagine that usefulness would grow at 1850.

A good day for the Tau Empire.

The Tidewall Gunfort isn't legal in ITC

 CrownAxe wrote:
The Tidewall Gunfort isn't legal in ITC

We allowed it, along with all Network Defenses

How's that Velocity Tracker work for you? I'm always nervous about putting one on a SS because it forces you to fire ALL your guns Skyfire.

It only came up when i fired at aerial stuff. So it worked fine. I mean when there are seven flyers...what else do you have to shoot? Lol.

Also to be more accurate, you choose at the beginning of the phase and i think all your shots are indeed skyfire if you choose to do that but you dont actually have to fire at aerial/skimmer targets. It presented no special issues. Just more utility.

I definitely think the Stormsurge should probably not be used as your AA platform if it can be avoided. Only mention this because the only real weapons that can target the Flyers are the different missile systems and depending on if you take the Burst Cannon or not. Granted this would be great against a lot of Xenos Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures yet against the more common Imperial Flyers you will struggle as you won't be able to get through their armor 12.

I'm finding the Ghostkeel to be an excellent AA platform with CiR and Burst Cannon, VT and EWO.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I'm finding the Ghostkeel to be an excellent AA platform with CiR and Burst Cannon, VT and EWO.

SJ

This is how I have one of my ghost keels (of 3) set up. Except no EWO because then they cannot make use of OSC benefits

has anyone considered using the Seismic Fibrillator Node and the Warscaper Drone at the same time?

With Sensor Spines on our vehicles and Move through cover standard on MCs, we can stay mobile while our opponents are slowed by it?

i always find that relic to be too pricy for an essentially one time use (since it has a pretty good chance to go away or a small chance to not work at all).

Also, VT on a stormsurge? why do people put that on him? VT doesnt give you per weapon skyfire, you elect to have the Skyfire rule or not at the start of the shooting phase. Unless theres a skimmer floating around, that means if you use the VT the SS's main gun cannot be used. Maaaassive self-nerf there. All weapons have skyfire or none of them do, Skimmers are the only thing he can still shoot at with the blasts if he activates Skyfire.

 gmaleron wrote:
I definitely think the Stormsurge should probably not be used as your AA platform if it can be avoided. Only mention this because the only real weapons that can target the Flyers are the different missile systems and depending on if you take the Burst Cannon or not. Granted this would be great against a lot of Xenos Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures yet against the more common Imperial Flyers you will struggle as you won't be able to get through their armor 12.

The Stormsurge isn't a true AA "answer". I think we can all agree that in my list, there really ISN'T an AA answer. Having said that I have seen what happens when you allow a force multiplier like Belakor or a Nurgle Flying Daemon Prince to run rampant. You only need him to kill the force multipliers. And that is really the utility I want him for. Having Zero answers to those force multipliers is bad policy. 20 points in a 1500 point list to give me a shot at those is, needless to say, important.

SEVEN flying Monstrous Creatures was an EXTREME list that drop kicked the other opponents it faced. "ignoring flyers" is a fun thing to say on the Internet but that one list illustrates what's possible and even a list labeled Tyranids can whoop your ass if you give no respect at all to that.

The main thing to read in the battle reports I posted above is that it worked. I was undefeated despite my miscalculation against the Decurion (be assured I will be sharply aware of that in the future and they will find me a far less kind opponent moving forward). The army has good utility. it can handle alpha striking Battle Companies (that was my last practice game bfore the Tournament actually), Eldar battle hosts, and it does it elegantly with volume of fire, utility and as usual the chemistry between the units.

I was EXTREMELY concerned however going in because the version of the list you see above is actually not the most recent version. I learned through experimentation that there are a couple of things I could improve in the list, which aren't reflected here. I was in a hurry and printed the wrong list and so instead or rewriting five army lists on the spot, I just went with it.

The newer version has one of the Crisis suits becoming an Irridium Bodyguard with the Onager Gauntlet. This would have helped me in every single game I had at the tournament. The concept is simple enough: I wanted something I could drop on objectives or to line break etc, and the Iridium bodyguard proved both remarkably resilient but also a drain on the enemy resources. Plus in practice games it had donkey punched things to death which was quite handy. I want to experiment more with this concept. Monat Bodyguards like that can take a toll far in excess of their points. As it was my little 37 point gems did a great job (except the bozo who charged the Mucolid Spore..that uh...yeah. Don't do that).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
i always find that relic to be too pricy for an essentially one time use (since it has a pretty good chance to go away or a small chance to not work at all).

Also, VT on a stormsurge? why do people put that on him? VT doesnt give you per weapon skyfire, you elect to have the Skyfire rule or not at the start of the shooting phase. Unless theres a skimmer floating around, that means if you use the VT the SS's main gun cannot be used. Maaaassive self-nerf there. All weapons have skyfire or none of them do, Skimmers are the only thing he can still shoot at with the blasts if he activates Skyfire.

Did you read the list? I am using the variable distance cannon and if you get close enough you can fire its D weapon. I dont pay forthe upgunned cannon. I have likd the results of a mobile Stormsurge. The enemy typically wants to be close to me and my movement combines to create some pretty good opportunities to knock them out. If you only use the more expensive gun, sure. I don't.

I noticed you took Aun'va in your list. Did he really contribute at all? I am genuinely curious, as internet wisdom (I use the term loosely) says he's really bad.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I noticed you took Aun'va in your list. Did he really contribute at all? I am genuinely curious, as internet wisdom (I use the term loosely) says he's really bad.

First, my general thoughts on Aun'va: http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2016/01/aunva-master-of-undying-spirit.html

He contributed heavily. In the first game, as you can imagine, he was trying to force morale checks as often as he could, given that I wasn't dying nearly as fast as he'd have liked. Aun'Va protected me from it, allowing me to be LD 10 and re-rolling. he also was why my forces had enough volume to take down an FMC a round and his FnP bubble saved a couple guys, so yeah. Very impactful there.

In the second game, he didn't help as much because i Null Deployed. This was obviously due to the ridiculously perfect match up for my opponent. He simply had exactly the right army to smash my face in and I couldn't allow that to happen. So in that game, Aun'Va was not impactful, but then almost none of my Fire Warriors nor Sniper Drones even shot anything all game, literally. The StormSurge and Crisis teams and a charging Fire Warrior Squad contributed most of the offense. it wasn't awesome but it got the job done. That was a corner case where NO leader would have mattered so i mean... There's that. One thing I will point out is that he target'd Aun'Va with blasts in two different rounds and thanks to his bodyguard, he lived and maintained the Warlord point, so in that sense taking him over another Ethereal paid off twice.

In the third game i described above, Aun'Va definitely shined again. In that one he tried to take Aun'Va out along with the surrounding units and Aun'Va's Paradox of duality saved him repeatedly. I only ever lost one Ethereal Guard when it was said and done. But here again I was facing the Decurion and they don't die. His bks were getting 3+ saves AND a 4+ Re-animation protocol. So without him i would have been a goner. The Decurion also forced many morale checks in the first couple round so having an Ethereal mattered, but the 6+ FnP saved two Firesight Marksman and that was HUGE in this list because I start with very few (9) and 4 of them are inaccurate. So maintaining the Markerlights that hit on 2's so the Stormsurge could do work proved very important. A normal Ethereal would have given me the shots but not the 6+ FnP. Also the Ethereal would have been dead since he would have had no ablative wounds and STR 6 blasts just end Ethereals, especially those who lack the Paradox.

There is no end to the praise I can heap on Aun'Va. You pay so little to get so much. The internet is simply...wrong, when it comes to Aun'Va.

Okay, he sounds pretty cool, and his model is awesome! Maybe I'll have to get him someday. Thanks for explaining!

How did you keep him alive? or did you manage to have LoS in a convenient place to hide him?

I run Ethereal lists fairly often but i usually stay away from Aun'va purely because hes really, really damn hard to keep alive due to not being an IC and any crap-AP gun bypasses his "uber fnp".

One of the models i want to run just because of who he is. But the few times ive ran him he dies immediately to barrage weapons or bolters via droppods etc etc. I keep my normal ethereals alive via devilfish shenanigans (unlike ork KFF, his bubble is not ceased because hes in a vehicle )
Or am i completely missing something that makes him pretty resilient?

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Okay, he sounds pretty cool, and his model is awesome! Maybe I'll have to get him someday. Thanks for explaining!

Yip. Aun'Va has ben a part of my lists for a pretty long time, stretching all the way back to 5E. It is true that he MIGHT someday give up his extra VP and that MIGHT prove to be importnt. One cannot say that this will not happen. Having said that... It's been extremely rare and it is a chance I am fully prepared to take.

In list building for Tau Empire, I have taken the point of view that you should never look at what a unit costs to determine whether or not to take it. You need to look at what it can DO for you and bottom line, you need what you need.

So the army needs a force multiplier like Aun'Va because it lacks anti-air but can make up for it through volume. It needs anti-tank, and it gets that through the Gunfort. it needs help against Skyhammer, because assaulting from Deep Strike is crazy and without Supporting fire, we would do zero in melee, ever. We need EMP, because when a Battle Company shows up with free Rhinos, you need to go CHARGE those free rhinos! and when you're charging Rhinos, likelihood is, there will be return fire from the guys who were in them. And they wont be happy to see you, but no one asked them for an opinion so that's cool.

Aun'va will make you stubborn if you're forced to stand out there like that scene in V, the Final Battle where he's desperately shooting a pistol at an oncoming ship, Patton style.


Aun'Va also has killed trukk boy squads before. his buddies DO carry honor blades so i mean... Hardly a terrible shot at impacting the game at short range.

Lots of reasons you want Aun'Va.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
How did you keep him alive? or did you manage to have LoS in a convenient place to hide him?

I run Ethereal lists fairly often but i usually stay away from Aun'va purely because hes really, really damn hard to keep alive due to not being an IC and any crap-AP gun bypasses his "uber fnp".

One of the models i want to run just because of who he is. But the few times ive ran him he dies immediately to barrage weapons or bolters via droppods etc etc. I keep my normal ethereals alive via devilfish shenanigans (unlike ork KFF, his bubble is not ceased because hes in a vehicle )
Or am i completely missing something that makes him pretty resilient?

Again, did you look at the list? I had a Gunfort. Aun'Va was behind the Gunfort at all times. Keeping him safe was a simple matter in game one. in Game two he did the same albeit obviously barrages didnt care and did kill his Ethereal Guard. But then, thats what they are for. and in the third game it was a matter of ranges as much as anything that kept him safe for the parts of the fusilade that involved him.

The Necron player had a Veil of Darkness so I stukc both fve man Fire Warrior Sqauds to the side I knew he would try to drop in and took up lots of space. He made the drop attempt anyway and mishap'd along with some of his bikers, which ultimately allowed me to put them behind a building where they could see nothing. So I kinda made it hard on the Decurion to try for the assassination attempt, though it didnt deter him from trying of course.

I'm thinking it might be the quality of your opponents, because if it were my GK list you were facing, your Etheral would be dead on turn 1, along with every other model that's not a battlesuit.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I'm thinking it might be the quality of your opponents, because if it were my GK list you were facing, your Etheral would be dead on turn 1, along with every other model that's not a battlesuit.

SJ

Yeah, no.

You remind me of a girl that played at the tournament. She brought her list of DreadKnight doom and ultimate Skyhammer coolness. Flat told my friend he would be gone in turn one after seeing him deploy since most of his units were off the board to start the game. Amusing. As you might expect, her precognition was not rewarded and my friends plan was. Good list though. She plays Sean Morgan all the time so she can play.

Underestimating people is not smart. I'm sure the guy with a hundred ignores cover templates thought the same as you. Literally Perfect for destroying me. i am sure the guy with indestructible Necrons thought so. Almost nothing I had breaks 3+ armor. Just a few shots a round. I'm sure my opponent who could hit reliably 55 times at STR 6 per round, plus his Harpys,thought so too. And yet...

Underestimating people is a bad way to go.

 Jancoran wrote:
Yeah, no.

You remind me of a girl that played at the tournament. She brought her list of DreadKnight doom and ultimate Skyhammer coolness. Flat told my friend he would be gone in turn one after seeing him deploy since most of his units were off the board to start the game. Amusing. As you might expect, her precognition was not rewarded and my friends plan was. Good list though. She plays Sean Morgan all the time so she can play.

Underestimating people is not smart. I'm sure the guy with a hundred ignores cover templates thought the same as you. Literally Perfect for destroying me. i am sure the guy with indestructible Necrons thought so. Almost nothing I had breaks 3+ armor. Just a few shots a round. I'm sure my opponent who could hit reliably 55 times at STR 6 per round, plus his Harpys,thought so too. And yet...

Underestimating people is a bad way to go.

So real quick, I don't think anyone is saying that your list is bad, I think people are just saying that while you may have had success with some of the options you chose in your meta; In their experiences they would not have had the same success with it.

As for Aun'Va, I have never used him, but I can see where he could be a liability given the extra VPs and not joining units. Since I don't play a gunline style list, he is useless for me personally =)

 Jancoran wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I'm thinking it might be the quality of your opponents, because if it were my GK list you were facing, your Etheral would be dead on turn 1, along with every other model that's not a battlesuit.

SJ

Yeah, no.

You remind me of a girl that played at the tournament. She brought her list of DreadKnight doom and ultimate Skyhammer coolness. Flat told my friend he would be gone in turn one after seeing him deploy since most of his units were off the board to start the game. Amusing. As you might expect, her precognition was not rewarded and my friends plan was. Good list though. She plays Sean Morgan all the time so she can play.

Underestimating people is not smart. I'm sure the guy with a hundred ignores cover templates thought the same as you. Literally Perfect for destroying me. i am sure the guy with indestructible Necrons thought so. Almost nothing I had breaks 3+ armor. Just a few shots a round. I'm sure my opponent who could hit reliably 55 times at STR 6 per round, plus his Harpys,thought so too. And yet...

Underestimating people is a bad way to go.

While his point is bluntly stated, it is somewhat true. The Tyranid player did you great favors by focusing on the SS. He should have ignored it. Without Markerlight support, it is not scary in the slightest to the Flyrants. Your marker drones and sniper team should have been dead the first turn with that quantity of firepower.

Back on Tau Tactics though. A battle report from the field!

2000 points FSE vs. Blackmane's Drop Pod Assault (new wolf formation); Maelstrom spoils of war; 6 turns; Wolf Victory 15-12

Opponent ran 9 drop pods of which had 30 shooty wolfs and 40 CC wolfs, a multimelta dev squad, and some stupid good warlord that gives bubble of preferred enemy and what not.

Now back to the important stuff

FSE DBC: Retaliation Cadre -
Fusion Blade Commander (290 points all said and done)
1x3 Misslesides, plasma, target locks
1x1 Riptide, IA, Fusion, Stim
2x3 Crisis, dual burst cannons
1x3 Crisis, dual plasma

Aux: Firestream -
4x1 Piranha, 2 seekers

Aux: Drone Net -
4x4 marker drones

Allied: Ghostkeel Wing -
3x1 Ghostkeel, CIR, flamers, EWO

We may have lost the battle, but the Space Wolf pride will never recover, as one of their brothers was slain by a drone....

In all seriousness though, this was a tough game for both of us. He had just so many units that dropped in turn 1 that he had immediate board control wrapping the entire deployment zone. My strategy of stacking objectives on a table edge paid off as I got to pick deployment zones (selecting the non objective side); Which forced my opponent to either drop on objectives, or drop on me, which limits his future movement ALOT.

Like to say even with ITC FAQ, firestream was amazing.. they easily made their points back in sheer board control alone.. With so many pods among the terrain it was easy to block off movement with squads of 2 drones, that he had to blast through to then get to other units. The seeker missles were ok, I lost a piranha turn 1 so I only ever had a total of 6 at one time, they mainly took out some key marines or a drop pod here or there. The drone themselves easily made back the formations points.

Speaking of drones, the drone net is an auto include for me now, it was soo good.. bs3 mobile markerlights is amazing. and +1 BS of all my firestream drones was really really good.

Ghostkeel wing stealth field definitely saved piranha turn 1, there is no doubt about that. EWO knocked out a good sized unit of shooty wolfs, but he had just an overwhelming number of marines in my face that no amount of EWO mattered. They had a short life in this game as they were immediate targets (which was my choosing.. sorta).

So to the good stuff...

Turn 1
I had 2nd turn. He dropped his entire army on the table, only leaving a wolf pack outflanking. He had a unit of about 10 Thunderwolves and wolf leader on the board. As many stated on the forum, their shooting wasn't that bad, his entire army shooting me and I only lost 1 piranha. Cool! So my turn came around, I had the firestream drop their drones and blockade as best i could. The ghost having used all their weapons in EWO (with some intercepting marker drones).. I elected to charge a unit of wolfs.. now that seems crazy.. but what I counted on and did happen.. was he elected to counter charge nearby units.. So now my 3 ghostkeel were tied up with about 25 wolves (not all charging so not as many attacks, 15 countered). I lost a couple drones but I stuck in combat from killing off the same amount of marines (that t5 was a savior).

Turn 2
His thunderwolves charged ahead and got into combat with my ghostkeel. Shooting was meh, He had to waste shooting squads of drones just to open up lanes to move through. I lost 2 ghostkeel in this assault phase, the thunderwolves annihilated one squad, and lost another to another unit. Fortunately my third stuck around! So my turn, all my reinforcements came in.. all except 1 unit of marker drones. I was nervous deepstriking without beacons, but there was enough space thanks to weapon range to safely drop my broadsides and the rest. Shooting was ok for me.. I wiped out his 10 muts that had outflanked.. My riptide nova'd 4d6 (as to not get charged by wolves after scattering 12" to them), and then wiffed shooting (typical). burst suits scattered also towards his thunderwolves and i wiped out 3 of his multimelta devs (his warlord tanked a ton of shots too). This was neccessary. a 24" s8 ap1 bubble is nothing to sneeze at.. Over all .. ok shooting.. nothing crazy. Oh and ghostkeel died lol.

Turn 3
His thunderwolves charged a burst crisis team, and they died. His other wolves charged my other burst crisis team and they died.. most of my firestream drones are dead now, he had to start regrouping as my main force (broads, plasma crisis, riptide) were on the other table edge. My turn, firestream came back.. and dropped drones. I knew I had to take out the thunderwolves this turn (DOOM), and with broads, and all the seeker missles, and gun drones managed to take them out (minus his battle leader who failed morale and ran). moved drones around to again block movement. OH and riptide wiffed again.. bs6 i rolled 12.. ugh

Turn 4
He started regrouping as I forced his movement based on drone placement.. he had to take a few objectives which kept him from running everything, but he ran alot.. not a ton of shooting this turn for him. As for me.. i drew both FSE assault cards this turn.. of which I had a plasma suit and my warlord (who left his unit) charge a droppod to get me the 2 unit charging, and destroying the same unit that turn.. which should have gotten me like 4 points, but i rolled so bad (every d3 i rolled a 1 for this game) =/ As for shooting, i finished off his wolf gaurd leader.. and starting widdling down some other units.. with 10 markerlights (i rolled really high) on a squad of 10 marines and his warlord, I used brought my riptide up to BS10, which was good cause i rolled gets hot first and needed that reroll ha. I then still scattered an inch.. like really.. but managed to take out 7 marines. Widdled down the rest just leaving his warlord again.. what a pain that guy. did some more movement trying to force his army away from my broadsides and riptide.

Turn 5
He charged my warlord and plasma suit with about 20 marines.. i challenged his warlord, lost 2 drones and my crisis suit. warlord tanked about 7 wounds from the marines. His warlord did 1 wound to my commander. I then rolled 3 of 4 hits on his warlord, and was ready to slay him with ID (s8), but rolled three 1s to wound.. like are you kidding me... and of course didn't blind him. My turn, just trying to scrape objectives.. piranha came back and had some crazy movement, plus hopeful shooting to claim some objectives. My commander in assault again, Tanks everything leaving him with 1 wound.. and of course 3 attacks and i miss all of them ... sigh... but hey he is holding 3 squads of wolfs on him .. so kudos commander, kudos.

Turn 6
Same old.. not much going on.. he isn't near any objectives so he is chasing drones, and finally finishes off my commander, it literally came down to me failing my last wound to save.. it was kinda epic haha. This was a crazy turn for me... i drew 2 cards that were hard, but could win me the game. I had to kill 3 or more units for d3 in shooing, and kill 3 units by end turn for d3... So with some crazy shooting placement, I had everything planned... i had to kill a marine squad of 6, a marine squad of 2, a droppod, and i had a backup squad of 2 marines. First 2 gun drones killed the first 2 marine squad... YESSSS. Then 4 seeker missles did not kill a drop pod.. OH NO.. I had to use broadsides which split fire killed the pod and killed 2 of 3 marines.. OH NO... Fortunately I had a gun drone finish off the last guy.. phew... two units down. I then had my riptide not get hot... scatter only a few inches.. but still managing to killing 4 marines, fusion killed another leaving 1... UGH.. so can't get my d3 shooting objective.. annoyed... But, my riptide charged the last marine hammer was saved.. 4 attacks, only 1 hit.. oh no!!! and what did I roll guys???? a ONE... a freaking one.... that was pretty much my game in a nut shell..

Game ended.. wow.. what a game.. it was a slaughter all over, so much died.. really close game considering. He got first blood and warlord kill, so without that the game was 13-12 in maelstrom points so that was pretty darn close!!!

 Jancoran wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I'm thinking it might be the quality of your opponents, because if it were my GK list you were facing, your Etheral would be dead on turn 1, along with every other model that's not a battlesuit.

SJ

Yeah, no.

You remind me of a girl that played at the tournament. She brought her list of DreadKnight doom and ultimate Skyhammer coolness. Flat told my friend he would be gone in turn one after seeing him deploy since most of his units were off the board to start the game. Amusing. As you might expect, her precognition was not rewarded and my friends plan was. Good list though. She plays Sean Morgan all the time so she can play.

Underestimating people is not smart. I'm sure the guy with a hundred ignores cover templates thought the same as you. Literally Perfect for destroying me. i am sure the guy with indestructible Necrons thought so. Almost nothing I had breaks 3+ armor. Just a few shots a round. I'm sure my opponent who could hit reliably 55 times at STR 6 per round, plus his Harpys,thought so too. And yet...

Underestimating people is a bad way to go.

I wasn't boasting, just stating a simple truth. Your opponents' seem to focus on the wrong targets, which inflates your perception that your softer units are adequately protected, or untargetable. Good tactics versus Tau is always to kill soft targets first while ignoring hard targets until later. This means focusing on the 4+ save or worse units first with as much save ignoring firepower as can be brought to bear. The GK list I run is designed to win Maelstrom, which means it can kill off units like your Etheral, because you would be rolling 20+ saves versus bolter and Incinerator fire. And that is just from one Shunting unit. In order to defeat such an alpha strike, you would have to castle up with an intense level of bubble wrap, which again would give a player like me full run of the table while bunching your units up for easy pickings.

There is a reason why your set up works for you, and that is because of your local meta. Your list is built to defeat your local opponents, who per your own description play a much lower level of game than many on this forum are use to seeing.

SJ

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Yeah, no.

You remind me of a girl that played at the tournament. She brought her list of DreadKnight doom and ultimate Skyhammer coolness. Flat told my friend he would be gone in turn one after seeing him deploy since most of his units were off the board to start the game. Amusing. As you might expect, her precognition was not rewarded and my friends plan was. Good list though. She plays Sean Morgan all the time so she can play.

Underestimating people is not smart. I'm sure the guy with a hundred ignores cover templates thought the same as you. Literally Perfect for destroying me. i am sure the guy with indestructible Necrons thought so. Almost nothing I had breaks 3+ armor. Just a few shots a round. I'm sure my opponent who could hit reliably 55 times at STR 6 per round, plus his Harpys,thought so too. And yet...

Underestimating people is a bad way to go.

So real quick, I don't think anyone is saying that your list is bad, I think people are just saying that while you may have had success with some of the options you chose in your meta; In their experiences they would not have had the same success with it.

As for Aun'Va, I have never used him, but I can see where he could be a liability given the extra VPs and not joining units. Since I don't play a gunline style list, he is useless for me personally =)

I dont play a gunline typically either. This was kind of a first for me in a lot of years. The following is more representative of the style of warfare I prefer with Tau Empire: http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/11/tau-empire-vs-eldar-battle-report.html

But even in that report, Aun'Va is there. Listen to my opponents comments about him after the game. Aun'Va works because he works. Not because of some magical thing about the thirty people who showed up to play Saturday.

If you don't want to use him, don't. But he had a seriously positive impact in all three games and most importantly, was not killed, despite the pie platers that ignored cover, the Deep Striking Necron shenanigans that tries and the FMC spam. It just factually never seems to happen. I've lost a game BECAUSE of the ethereal point maybe once? That one Maelstrom point or whatever is rarely going to be enugh to matter given all the good he does.

 Jancoran wrote:

I dont play a gunline typically either. This was kind of a first for me in a lot of years. This is more the style of warfare I prefer with Tau Empire: http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/11/tau-empire-vs-eldar-battle-report.html

But even in that report, Aun'Va is there. Listen to my opponents comments about him after the game. Aun'Va works because he works. Not because of some magical thing about the thirty people who showed up to play Saturday.

If you don't want to use him, don't. But he had a seriously positive impact in all three games and most importantly, was not killed, despite the pie platers that ignored cover, the Deep Striking Necron shenanigans that tries and the FMC spam. It just factually never seems to happen. I've lost a game BECAUSE of the ethereal point maybe once? That one Maelstrom point or whatever is rarely going to be enugh to matter given all the good he does.

How many points is he? The battle report I just posted, i would like to say I failed about 7 leadership checks over the course of the game. As I am not 100% familier cause I never use him. Would Aun'va allow me to use his LD10 rolling for assault leadership results? and further let me reroll this?

That would actually be very interesting to consider in my lists, as I tend to fail leaderships all the time..

How does that work for psychic shriek and other leadership based abilities? Are these using Aun'Va or the units LD value? Does Aun'Va have to be the warlord to gain these leadership abillities?

Fragile wrote:


How many points is he? The battle report I just posted, i would like to say I failed about 7 leadership checks over the course of the game. As I am not 100% familier cause I never use him. Would Aun'va allow me to use his LD10 rolling for assault leadership results? and further let me reroll this?

That would actually be very interesting to consider in my lists, as I tend to fail leaderships all the time..

How does that work for psychic shriek and other leadership based abilities? Are these using Aun'Va or the units LD value? Does Aun'Va have to be the warlord to gain these leadership abillities?

Yes, you use his LD for Morale, Pinning and so on if within 12". You re-roll army wide no matter where with him. It isn't going to help on Pstchic Shriek. He is 100 points as it says here. And no, the only thing making him the Warlord gives you is a RIDICULOUSLY good Warlord Trait.

Total Tau Empire Roster Cost: 1492

: Combined Arms Detachment (33#, 1157 pts)

1 KV128 Stormsurge, 440 pts (Twin-linked Airbursting Fragmentation Projector + Early Warning Override + Velocity Tracker+ Shield Generator)

1 Crisis Shas'ui, 37 pts(Flamer + Twin-linked Flamer)

4 MV7 Marker Drones, 56 pts

1 Tidewall Gunfort:
1 Tidewall Gunrig, 85 pts
1 Tidewall Gunrig, 85 pts
1 Tidewall Gunrig, 85 pts

1 Sniper Drone Team:
3 Firesight Marksman, 39 pts
8 MV71 Sniper Drone, 120 pts

5 Fire Warriors, 45 pts

5 Fire Warriors, 45 pts

1 Cadre Fireblade, 60 pts

1 Cadre Fireblade, 60 pts



: Combined Arms Detachment (22#, 335 pts)

1 Crisis Shas'ui, 37 pts(Flamer+ Twin-linked Flamer)

9 Fire Warriors, 99 pts (EMP Grenades)

9 Fire Warriors, 99 pts (EMP Grenades)

1 Aun'Va, 100 pts

his warlord trait is "one use get up from ground" right? for me that is meh.. but i can see where that would be good though.

Hmm i might proxy him and and see what happens.. the reroll leadership might.. MIGHT be worth it for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The main issue i will have.. is most of his elementals will be for not.. as the majority of my units won't use them or won't be near his 12" bubble anyway..

 Grizzyzz wrote:
his warlord trait is "one use get up from ground" right? for me that is meh.. but i can see where that would be good though.

Hmm i might proxy him and and see what happens.. the reroll leadership might.. MIGHT be worth it for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The main issue i will have.. is most of his elementals will be for not.. as the majority of my units won't use them or won't be near his 12" bubble anyway..

It depends on your list of course. So i cant tell you whether he's necessary for your list. All I can tell you is that he's good.

And that trait is BRILLIANT. You can play a risky round where you expose yourself and lay into the enemy, then everyone goes to ground no matter the AP of the enemy you're getting saves and then...BOING. Brilliant. Ignores Cover obviously would trump it and that is indeed the situation I had in games 2 nd 3. The opponent had invested a LOT into Necron bikes (unusual, but it got him to top table so i am sure others found it effective also) and the IG guy had invested heavily into laughing at my warlord trait. So yeah its like all Warlord trits: sometimes its just world class good. Sometimes they trump you. But that's why you dont JUST rely on that.

Aun'Va + VSG?

Oh gosh.. could you ignore a shield generator (on a stormsurge) or/and stims on Riptides to offset the cost of a VSG?

Ah just a thought. I play at 1500pts and you can only play with so many toys Otherwise the Drone Net would be amazing, alas I only use 6 drones!

Razerous wrote:
Aun'Va + VSG?

Oh gosh.. could you ignore a shield generator (on a stormsurge) or/and stims on Riptides to offset the cost of a VSG?

Ah just a thought. I play at 1500pts and you can only play with so many toys Otherwise the Drone Net would be amazing, alas I only use 6 drones!

No to both questions.. VSG is static. for the cost of a VSG vs surge you will bet more for your money with the 4++ on the surge itself. As for the riptide.. like i said, VSG is static.. riptide is good because of its mobility.

That warlord trait combines well with the ghostkeel wing, guaranteed one turn of stealth and shrouding effectively for infantry units within the stealth bubble.