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shogun wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I'm just saying, you can't say "It's cheap if you do illegal things!"

It's also cheap if you steal the boxes, for instance.

I can say it, and then its up to people what the do with that.

@shadowfinder: You can also steal the boxes, so thats another tip right their.

I want to be mad at you. But gosh-darn did that make me laugh.

 JNAProductions wrote:

shogun wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I'm just saying, you can't say "It's cheap if you do illegal things!"

It's also cheap if you steal the boxes, for instance.

I can say it, and then its up to people what the do with that.

@shadowfinder: You can also steal the boxes, so thats another tip right their.

I want to be mad at you. But gosh-darn did that make me laugh.

I am not mad when I go to a tournament and a guy borrowed 5 imperial knights from his warhammerclub-buddy and get more painting points then me. I'am also not mad at the guy who made 7 riptides out of Japanese robot toys and get great points for conversions. But the also cannot be mad at me because at least I did a lot of work to make and paint this. If I weren't doing this then i would have stopped with 40k two years ago because I'am not going to buy a 400 dollar army to find out its obsolete when the next codex/formation hits the shelfs. Back on topic...

shogun wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I'm just saying, you can't say "It's cheap if you do illegal things!"

It's also cheap if you steal the boxes, for instance.

I can say it, and then its up to people what the do with that.

@shadowfinder: You can also steal the boxes, so thats another tip right their.

What? are you talking about??


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I feel Genestealer are a go big or go home unit. Will see how they work out.

I will be testing 58 of them at a RTT this weekend. I have over 120 models in a in the list.. It has two of the First curse units and a unit of 18 in the BC. So will be giving it a try.

Small units I feel are not worth it. Big unit of them make them a threat giving you board control in that area for the most part.


I feel a lot of people have jumped on the GSC band wagon with a focus on the Meta's and acolytes. I feel genestealer are a good counter to those GSC armies that have gone with MSU format.

The RRT I am going I know 2 other guys that are bring them in some form or another. One guys running them with 5 Flyrants but no Genestealer. Most people taking BC are considering them a tax for the Cult Insurrection.

With a possible strength 6 on the charge they can much most units just fine. The number of attacks and ability to hit on 3's vs most units makes them truly scary. I know my thunder wolf units are scared of coming close to them. Even my wulfen units will not survive very well vs them.

My space wolves are not scared of 5 man squads charging them with wulfen with i5 claws and axe's on the charge swing before they can. But 15 to 20 man genestealer units are another issue.

shadowfinder wrote:
My space wolves are not scared of 5 man squads charging them with wulfen with i5 claws and axe's on the charge swing before they can. But 15 to 20 man genestealer units are another issue.

It's not that genestealers are not good in close combat, getting there is the problem. In your example you compare 15/20 genestealers with a bunch of small 5 unit squads but it doesn't work like that.

20 acolytes with 2 rock saws and a magus from the subterean uprising got 3d6 for cult ambush. It may not perform the same (still pretty close)but at least this squad got a good chance of getting there. The also got grenades and the possibility to decrease the enemy unit Initiative with mass hypnosis. Thunderwolfs + storm shields in cover will always hurt genestealers first.

Has anyone faced riptides or stormsurges with the cult yet? I'd wonder how the MSU would fair against them. Do they die to overwatch, or get beaten in CC against these big critters? I imagine riptide wing with sms could be a fairly rough match up

 DoomMouse wrote:
Has anyone faced riptides or stormsurges with the cult yet? I'd wonder how the MSU would fair against them. Do they die to overwatch, or get beaten in CC against these big critters? I imagine riptide wing with sms could be a fairly rough match up

Not yet, but the should be in a lot of trouble I tell you that. Even when GSC don't get first turn its hard for the Tau to deal with all these units that infiltrate within 3/6 inch.h ere will be more kroot around for shielding these days...

shadowfinder wrote:
I feel a lot of people have jumped on the GSC band wagon with a focus on the Meta's and acolytes. I feel genestealer are a good counter to those GSC armies that have gone with MSU format.

I don't think they are.

Don't get me wrong, if you face an opponent playing MSU Morphs that hasn't prepared for Stealers you'll probably come out on top, because high-I CC-capable armies are a difficult match-up for MSU Morphs. Thing is, properly built MSU Morphs are pretty balanced as armies go, so they have loads of ways to deal with these kinds of opponents. Not all of these tactics are immediately obvious, and even when you figure them out you still need practise using them effectively, but they're available to anyone using an MSU Morph army and are highly effective. Mass Hypnosis is always useful, but against anyone relying on striking first to kill your dudes it can be decisive. Combining Hypnosis with Invisible Fearless Neophyte mobs is a good way to lock down deathstars that can't get out of combat, and because your army is MSU you're not crippling yourself to do it. Note that 10 Whip-Morphs aren't an effective answer to The First Curse - Whip-Morphs are for killing stuff like Bike Command Squads, small elite units that rely on quality rather than quantity to do their damage and thus suffer if they lose units prior to their Initiative step, or Wraithknights, which can limit the amount of damage they receive at I4 by killing a couple of dudes at I5. Run them into 20 Genestealers and they'll kill maybe half of them - then you lose the Morphs at I6.

You seem to think that MSU GSC lists work by running 5-man units into the opponent one unit at a time. That's not how it is at all. You can still get large numbers of models into a single combat with an MSU Morphs army - the difference is that I'm rolling 4 dice for my "blob" rather than just one, and I'm only ever risking 5 models at a time in any situation. Take Overwatch, for example; I think Riptide Wings get something like 24 Burst Cannon shots and 12 S5 Smart Missiles if they're all within 6" of one another (which they generally are). If they fire that at your Genestealers you could lose half of them. I'm not saying you will, but it's possible. If they fire that at my 4x5 Acolyte/Claw-Morph mobs I'll lose a maximum of 5 models no matter what. Maledictions like Terrify or Mass Hypnosis also affect a maximum of 5 models; blessings and buffs do too, but these units don't need buffs to do what they do.


tl;dr - Genestealer spam is not an easy match-up for MSU Morph armies, but it's not the hard counter you seem to think it is.

Not yet, but the should be in a lot of trouble I tell you that. Even when GSC don't get first turn its hard for the Tau to deal with all these units that infiltrate within 3/6 inch.

Is that true? I haven't played with GSC as Tau or vice-versa, but I can tell you that when playing Tau, I typically have a whole lot of intercepting smart missiles. Those are very bad for GSC, to say the least. If you're trying to get in my face, you can count on 5-6 of your MSU getting mostly wiped immediately. Chances are good that accounts for all the 6's you rolled on the Ambush table.

On the other hand, if GSC get the first turn and rattle off a couple 6's, I have to imagine you could easily swamp the big guns. The immediate charges are really the only thing concerning for Tau. Even with massive MSU, you'd have to get fairly lucky with your Ambush rolls to mount a credible threat on any turn other than the first.

I played against with a weird GSC, Ork, and flyrant army.
(I only had deathwatch overkill okay!)
I had 60 orks in 2 big units and 2 10 man units with two warbosses
one full subterranean assault with aberrants included
and two flyrants with muculids and a regular genestealer unit.

Played against Riptide wing, two nemesis dreadknights and some walking greyknights, and an imperial knight.

We had a longways deployment set up.

I rolled infiltrate with my orks and put them all 18 inches away from his army except for one ten man unit to hold a back field objective.

I deployed my GSC stuff behind his riptide wing and got an acolyte and a metamorph unit that could assault. So basically his army had a horde of GSC behind it, a bunch of orks in front of it.
He failed to seize so charged one of his riptides. I lost the first unit to overwatch, the second unit managed two win combat and the riptide was run down.

One of my warbosses went ham that game and killed a nemesis dread knight AND an imperial knight while living to the end of the game. My GSC killed his random grey knight librarian and troop unit.

The part that made me want to write this though, the riptides are mean. I killed one before it could shoot and still lost a unit to it. The other two killed my aberrants, and three other units the next turn. Basically anything they looked at funny. Eventually I managed to get into combat with my (regular) genestealers, a primus, an acolyte squad, and a metamorph squad. Fearless is super important because I failed my fear check, then he hit on threes, killed on two, I would do nothing in return, and immediately got chased off after losing most of a unit to overwatch.

They're absolutely brutal to fight. You need fearless and honestly, I'm considering aberrants because they're the only thing that is reasonably tough against them. The problem is that even when you finally get to the fight, if they have a 3+ invul and fnp, there is a good chance you won't do anything and if your not fearless, you're in trouble. It was very lucky that I won that first combat and I would not count on that happening again.

The scenarios
no bubble wrap, GSC going first- lose one unit to overwatch- kill riptides
bubble wrap, GSC going first - lose one unit to overwatch- kill bubble wrap-hail fire, smart missile overload- lose 6 units- lose 1 unit to overwatch- hopefully enough left over to still kill riptides
no bubble wrap-GSC going second- lose 6 units(all the ones who can charge)- lose 3 more to regular shooting- lose 1 more to overwatch-hopefully enough left over to still kill riptides
bubble wrap - GSC going second- lose 6 units(all the ones who can charge)- lose 3 more to regular shooting- lose one unit to overwatch and kill bubble wrap, lose 1 more to overwatch-hopefully enough left over to still kill riptides

The problem is that even with no bubble wrap, if they seize on you, tau just win, losing SIX units is pretty devastating, even for a MSU heavy army like GSC. You also have to account for movement. They could blow away enough units that you can't even charge the next turn, especially with 32 mm bases on everyone.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Has anyone faced riptides or stormsurges with the cult yet? I'd wonder how the MSU would fair against them. Do they die to overwatch, or get beaten in CC against these big critters? I imagine riptide wing with sms could be a fairly rough match up

Not with my GSC, but I played my Wolves/ Sisters against Taudar with a Skathach and a Riptide Wing the other day, and in all honesty I don't see Tau being a much more difficult match-up than Scatbike Eldar - that is to say, they're beatable, but it's not likely to be an easy game. Sure the Suits can shred your dudes, but your dudes can shred the Suits too, and unlike most other CC goons you're not walking across the table for three turns to reach them. They Overwatch a maximum of 5 mutants to death, then whatever's left piles in and shreds them.

Stormsurges may be a different kettle of fish - I've never seen one before so I have no idea what they can do.

Looking through BoLS army list compendium I think the toughest match-up would probably be the dude with the White Scars Gladius and the Servo-Skull Inquisitor, depending on how you play Servo-Skulls with respect to Cult Ambush. I'm tempted to say they affect Cult Ambush the same way they do regular Infiltrate, and in that scenario you've got a large army (8 tanks, a Drop Pod, a Bike Command Squad, a Culexus Assassin, plus 45-50 Marines) that can essentially snatch board control out from under your nose before the game even starts and just rule midfield wholesale with their bolters. Even without the Servo Skulls, he's still rocking a hell of a lot of stuff for an MEQ army. The GSC have no trouble killing multiple units per turn but even still I think MSU Morphs might struggle to play the mission **and** kill enough of his units to really disrupt his game. I'm not sure how you'd go about beating that. You can't pick him to pieces like you could with Eldar, because he can just drive bolters up to you and blow you up. Can't really rely on the usual Cult Ambush carousel because once something deploys, the likelihood is it'll end up trapped on the table by Rhino hulls. Can't rely on Morale or Sweeping because Spice Maroons don't Sweep and they auto-pass regroup tests. Even your psykers aren't reliable because of the Culexus. It's a toughie alright.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MilkmanAl wrote:

Not yet, but the should be in a lot of trouble I tell you that. Even when GSC don't get first turn its hard for the Tau to deal with all these units that infiltrate within 3/6 inch.

Is that true? I haven't played with GSC as Tau or vice-versa, but I can tell you that when playing Tau, I typically have a whole lot of intercepting smart missiles. Those are very bad for GSC, to say the least. If you're trying to get in my face, you can count on 5-6 of your MSU getting mostly wiped immediately. Chances are good that accounts for all the 6's you rolled on the Ambush table.

That's interesting. What do you mean by "a lot"?

For me, "a lot" typically means at least 4-5 things with smart missiles (Broadsides, Riptides, Stormsurges, mainly) but probably more like 6-9 plus whatever else has an early warning override. A single unbuffed SMS will kill 3 GSC dudes, so at the very best, you're looking at 2 units completely wiped or 3-4 neutered. Below is the Tau list I've been playing most recently, for reference. you'll note that while not short on interceptor in general, it doesn't have quite as many SMS as I usually run.

Hunter Contingent
Hunter Cadre
Commander - 2 missile pods, drone controller, TL, 2 marker drones - 152
3x5 FW - 135
8 Marker Drones - 112
Crisis Suit - 2 flamer - 32
Stormsurge - pulse driver, shield gen, AFP, EWO - 435

Firebase Support Cadre
Riptide - IA, EWO, SMS - 190
2 Broadsides - EWO - 140

Optimised Stealth cadre
2x3 Stealth Suits - fusion - 190
3 Ghostkeels - fusions and CIR, 1 VT, 1 TL, 1 CDS, 3 EWO -

MilkmanAl wrote:
For me, "a lot" typically means at least 4-5 things with smart missiles (Broadsides, Riptides, Stormsurges, mainly) but probably more like 6-9 plus whatever else has an early warning override. A single unbuffed SMS will kill 3 GSC dudes, so at the very best, you're looking at 2 units completely wiped or 3-4 neutered.

So, worst case scenario, in an extreme tailored list rolling all 6s, I'm looking at like, 50 dead Ambushers, with an average of 30-odd, and you can't use the SMS again in your next shooting phase. I think I could probably work around that, to be honest - it wouldn't be easy, but I don't think this is a hard counter to MSU Morphs. Might mess up Stealer-spam pretty badly though, especially if that Stormsurge lives long enough to Stomp them.

Also, does the SMS need LoS to Intercept stuff?

So, worst case scenario, in an extreme tailored list rolling all 6s, I'm looking at like, 50 dead Ambushers, with an average of 30-odd, and you can't use the SMS again in your next shooting phase. I think I could probably work around that, to be honest - it wouldn't be easy, but I don't think this is a hard counter to MSU Morphs. Might mess up Stealer-spam pretty badly though, especially if that Stormsurge lives long enough to Stomp them.

Something like that, yeah. The issue is that the high-yield missile pods will also each wipe a unit, so in a sense, intercepting sort of lets each Broadside split its own fire. The intercepting itself isn't an insurmountable assault, but it'll definitely hurt a lot. Big Tau units are sitting ducks for pretty much anything GSC has to offer outside of Neophytes, but 2-3 dudes isn't going to cut it, even against Crisis Suits. You'll have to be crafty with the guys you're planning on getting into combat and double/triple up on whatever you're aiming to take down.

Also, does the SMS need LoS to Intercept stuff?

Indeed it does not. Therein lies the hurt.

Overall, I don't think intercepting Tau is a hard counter to GSC, but it's definitely a really difficult match. Perhaps it's trite to say for GSC, but if you manage to get a strong first turn, you're in excellent shape. Tau are incredibly bad at close combat, so you'll rapidly sweep away whatever you get in contact with. Otherwise, you're going to be chasing around a (usually) very mobile force that has the firepower to pick off numerous units per turn. You'll really have to get your unit rotations and placement right to prevent interceptor from eviscerating you, too.

In ITC rules, it actually does need LOS to intercept. If you use that rule set.

See, that's what I was thinking as well. Interceptor says that the shooting attack can be made against any unit "within line of sight", which suggests the unit has to be able to see what it's shooting at even if the weapon normally wouldn't need LoS to fire.

Now all you need to do is find some way to hide 60 Hybrids behind a single Riptide/ Stormsurge for a full turn and you're golden.

Interesting. I'll have to keep that mind!

The most OP unit would be a unit of neophytes holding note cards.

 BBAP wrote:

shadowfinder wrote:
I feel a lot of people have jumped on the GSC band wagon with a focus on the Meta's and acolytes. I feel genestealer are a good counter to those GSC armies that have gone with MSU format.

I don't think they are.

Don't get me wrong, if you face an opponent playing MSU Morphs that hasn't prepared for Stealers you'll probably come out on top, because high-I CC-capable armies are a difficult match-up for MSU Morphs. Thing is, properly built MSU Morphs are pretty balanced as armies go, so they have loads of ways to deal with these kinds of opponents. Not all of these tactics are immediately obvious, and even when you figure them out you still need practise using them effectively, but they're available to anyone using an MSU Morph army and are highly effective. Mass Hypnosis is always useful, but against anyone relying on striking first to kill your dudes it can be decisive. Combining Hypnosis with Invisible Fearless Neophyte mobs is a good way to lock down deathstars that can't get out of combat, and because your army is MSU you're not crippling yourself to do it. Note that 10 Whip-Morphs aren't an effective answer to The First Curse - Whip-Morphs are for killing stuff like Bike Command Squads, small elite units that rely on quality rather than quantity to do their damage and thus suffer if they lose units prior to their Initiative step, or Wraithknights, which can limit the amount of damage they receive at I4 by killing a couple of dudes at I5. Run them into 20 Genestealers and they'll kill maybe half of them - then you lose the Morphs at I6.

You seem to think that MSU GSC lists work by running 5-man units into the opponent one unit at a time. That's not how it is at all. You can still get large numbers of models into a single combat with an MSU Morphs army - the difference is that I'm rolling 4 dice for my "blob" rather than just one, and I'm only ever risking 5 models at a time in any situation. Take Overwatch, for example; I think Riptide Wings get something like 24 Burst Cannon shots and 12 S5 Smart Missiles if they're all within 6" of one another (which they generally are). If they fire that at your Genestealers you could lose half of them. I'm not saying you will, but it's possible. If they fire that at my 4x5 Acolyte/Claw-Morph mobs I'll lose a maximum of 5 models no matter what. Maledictions like Terrify or Mass Hypnosis also affect a maximum of 5 models; blessings and buffs do too, but these units don't need buffs to do what they do.


tl;dr - Genestealer spam is not an easy match-up for MSU Morph armies, but it's not the hard counter you seem to think it is.

You seam to think that powers are the equalizer in dealing with everything. You first have to get to them and be in a areas to use them. You suggestion of the power can be added to the Genestealer to make them just as nasty as the units you are saying will be using on them.
Relying on them makes for a big issue when you don't get them off. As for SUb Uprising you have to have units that can take advantage of it and two or three 5 man squads can are not getting ride of a large unit.

As for overwatch a large can take the losses and still whip out said units. You example with riptide have the them killing half a 20 man unit.? your gig off averages of the damages the put out but you are not taking in to the possible saves they have vs it.

As for the 5 units charging you have a likely hood of losing 2 of the units not jut 5 unit. As the riptides will fire on different units not all on one unit. Supporting fire for Tau lets them pick the unit they want to fire the supporting unit at even if the first is locked in to combat.

shadowfinder wrote:
You seam to think that powers are the equalizer in dealing with everything. You first have to get to them

Mass Hypnosis is the Primaris power for Broodmind. It's a given.

and be in a areas to use them.

24" range. Your Stealers are coming to me.

You suggestion of the power can be added to the Genestealer to make them just as nasty as the units you are saying will be using on them.

That's where you're wrong. I can Hypnotise 20 Genestealers at a time. You can only Hypnotise 5 of my dudes per cast.

Relying on them makes for a big issue when you don't get them off.

Hypnosis is a 1-dice power. I have 10+d6 dice. You might Deny it once or twice, but I can cast it 5 times.

As for SUb Uprising you have to have units that can take advantage of it and two or three 5 man squads can are not getting ride of a large unit.

5 man squads do plenty of killing if you field them as units of 10-30 models instead of running them like you seem to think I di. Even the 5-man units will kill plenty, they're just too fragile to use alone.

As for overwatch a large can take the losses and still whip out said units

The same principle applies to MSU Morph mobs, except a single Overwatch is going to kill 5 models max, so they don't take large losses at all.

You example with riptide have the them killing half a 20 man unit.? your gig off averages of the damages the put out but you are not taking in to the possible saves they have vs it. As for the 5 units charging you have a likely hood of losing 2 of the units not jut 5 unit. As the riptides will fire on different units not all on one unit. Supporting fire for Tau lets them pick the unit they want to fire the supporting unit at even if the first is locked in to combat.

I'm not going off averages. I'm going by extremes. A Ripetide Wing won't kill 10 Stealers on Overwatch. It won't kill 3x5 Morphs/Acolytes either. In either case you hit with enough force to kill a Riptide in one, maybe two assault phases.

Thing is, even if I'm wrong about how many models I'm risking to Overwatch, going by averages I lose roughly as many as you do give or take - but I get more back when I RttS. I'm losing 5 max to Overwatch anywhere else, and I'm paying a lot less for the ones I do lose.

At the end of the day though, it's your army. You run it however you want. I'm not saying Stealer-spam is a bad list, just that it's not the most efficient or powerful build you can bring from the Codex, and I think you're going to struggle against armies that MSU Morphs would handle easily.

I'm a big player of Tau and am already a fan of SMS. When they use their nova power to get twice as many secondary weapon shots, it gets brutal.

What Tau players are not doing right now is bubble wrapping. They are mainly bringing all of the big suit toys and the minimum of the troops.

GSC will change that. They'll need to start bubble wrapping things with kroot. Also there is a meltabomb point wargear option that allows them to fire overwatch at BS2. With twin-link, that will make things more difficult.

Not only am I excited about playing GSC, I'm hoping it tones down the super units and Godzilla lists since it can punish those units with the right rolls.

Tau has the tools to utterly destroy GSC. But at least in competitive games, Tau lists are unlikely to be optimized against GSC.

Tyran wrote:
Tau has the tools to utterly destroy GSC. But at least in competitive games, Tau lists are unlikely to be optimized against GSC.

Maybe with some very specific list-tailoring, but even then...

If the GSC goes first its pretty much done. Even when the GSC units infiltrate with the cult ambush rule and give the Tau a full round of shooting its still going to be hard for Tau to remove/stop each and every unit/model thats within charge range. If 3 acolytes get in close combat with a riptide, the could chase him of the board with a few rending attacks.

Also don't forget that GSC units that got a 5 result on cult ambush can get a free round of shooting during that deployment. It's a great way to take out a few markerlight drones to stop the ignore cover bonus, or punch a hole in the kroot bubblewrap.

Tau don't even need to list tailor

Tau can cripple 4 to 8 units a turn easy. With SMS and buffmander they can cripple MSU armies quickly. Without list-tailoring the can be quite the force if they go first. Most list are lacking bubble rap but others use reserve trick to get around going second to get to shoot you first.

Tau are very good vs GSC

shadowfinder wrote:
Most list are lacking bubble rap but others use reserve trick to get around going second to get to shoot you first.

I'm not seeing how that works. I can whip more or less everything bar my Neophyte blobs back into Ongoing Reserve during my own turn 2, so I can seize the initiative back. You also get -1 to your reserve rolls from the Cult Insurrection Detachment bonus, and I don't think coming in piecemeal is a good idea against Cult Ambush. Tau can kill 50, 60 models a turn if all their dudes are on the table and in position to fire - anything less cuts down the number of models I lose to Interceptor, and hence increases the number of Rending attacks your dudes will eat.

I also don't think bubblewrap is necessarily a good idea against Cult Ambush. Taking it in the first place limits your firepower (which means more of my models survive your Interceptor), trying to use it to fend off Cult Ambushes limits your mobility (any 6s I roll allow me to place my dudes within 3" of enemy models, so your army needs to be stacked on top of one another to stop me getting around the bubblewrap), and Neophytes will blow up Kroot min squads with little trouble. If you take big squads I can probably "hide" dudes in combat with them for a turn or two, then run out and munch the Suits once the birdmen are dealt with.

Tau are very good vs GSC

No doubt - but it's not an auto-win. The Cults are still plenty capable of messing up a Tau army quite badly. It'd be a tough game on both sides. I think that's the consensus here.

 BBAP wrote:

shadowfinder wrote:
Most list are lacking bubble rap but others use reserve trick to get around going second to get to shoot you first.

I'm not seeing how that works. I can whip more or less everything bar my Neophyte blobs back into Ongoing Reserve during my own turn 2, so I can seize the initiative back. You also get -1 to your reserve rolls from the Cult Insurrection Detachment bonus, and I don't think coming in piecemeal is a good idea against Cult Ambush. Tau can kill 50, 60 models a turn if all their dudes are on the table and in position to fire - anything less cuts down the number of models I lose to Interceptor, and hence increases the number of Rending attacks your dudes will eat.

I also don't think bubblewrap is necessarily a good idea against Cult Ambush. Taking it in the first place limits your firepower (which means more of my models survive your Interceptor), trying to use it to fend off Cult Ambushes limits your mobility (any 6s I roll allow me to place my dudes within 3" of enemy models, so your army needs to be stacked on top of one another to stop me getting around the bubblewrap), and Neophytes will blow up Kroot min squads with little trouble. If you take big squads I can probably "hide" dudes in combat with them for a turn or two, then run out and munch the Suits once the birdmen are dealt with.

Tau are very good vs GSC

No doubt - but it's not an auto-win. The Cults are still plenty capable of messing up a Tau army quite badly. It'd be a tough game on both sides. I think that's the consensus here.

I have two guy in my area that run a formation that if you kill unit from it all reserves come in no dice roll needed. So riptides broadside and suits all come in no issues. So -1 to reserve rolls doesn't help as the bypass it. It can be quite nasty in it's own right.

You don't bubble rap your whole army only the parts needed. It is quite easy to block of a area and then make the inside impossible to place a 5 man squad in too. Kroot are cheap and have decent shooting and are decent in combat. They can take 5 man unit with no issues. Bubble rap is not done in MIN sized units it is done in 15 to 20 man units. I don't see how Neophyte are going to blow up the kroot squads.

The thing is right now we don't see bubble rap in tournament very often. In IG or renegades. We see it in large Deathstars like Bark-Star with 45+ wolves. the wolves bubble rap the IC inside so to speak.

With renegades zombies are very effective and will keep you from getting in to combat effectively.

Back to Tau they only need a bubble rap to last a few turns to be able to wedel down GSC units. I am not saying that Tau are a auto lose. They are a very hard match up. Much harder then many of the other armies.


I think I am not understanding how you are approaching the game as it seam to be very different approach with the same army. Which is a good thing, means we have a good Codex .Do you have a Army list so I can see you play style.?

This is the "base" army list I'm working around at 1850pts:

Insurrection:
- Brood Cycle
-- Iconward
-- 1x5 Stealers
-- 1x5 Claw-Morphs
-- 3x5 Acolytes
-- 2x10 Neophytes

- Subterranean Uprising:
-- 3x5 Claw-Morphs
-- 2x5 Acolytes

- Subterranean Uprising:
-- 3x5 Claw-Morphs
-- 2x5 Acolytes

- Lord
-- Patriarch, ML2

- Lord
-- Magus, ML2, Crouchling


CAD:
- Patriarch, ML2
- Patriarch, ML2
- 2x5 Acolytes


1410pts. 440pts to play with. With this base, you dump what you need to in reserve (generally the Stealers and CAD Acolytes, plus whatever else I think I can live without for a few turns) and deploy everything else as needs be - generally the Magus and Iconward with one blob of Neophytes, Warlord with the other for wounds, CAD Patriarchs with Cycle units (although I don't like that - people love to shoot at Patriarchs and I've had a couple of turn 1 close calls even despite Shrouding). Turn one you either hit stuff with anything that can charge and RttS with everything else, or if that's not a good idea you RttS as much as possible. If I can get casts off I'll leave 4-6 Warp Charges on the table - if not I'll put my psykers in Ongoing Reserve and just start casting on turn 2.

Doing it this way ensures you're always going to have stuff coming in from Ambush, and you've got so many dice to roll you're guaranteed a 6 or three. You're also guaranteed several 1s, a few awkward 2s, and a couple of 5s that may or may not be useful; anything that lands out of position gets shoved in a corner ready to RttS and try again next turn. I tend to be RttSing with at least 3 units on every turn bar turn 5, in which case I'll only RttS stuff that's in a really, really bad position.

EDIT: I should probably point out that in the eight or so games I've played with this army list, I've never once gone first. Not once. I have an idea how it'd work going first, but I've never had a chance to try it out.

You can fill that 440pts out with various different things, though I like to try and bring in anti-air stuff or anti-armour shooting if I can get it, preferably stuff tough enough to survive turn 1 on its own, which gives me leeway to RttS my entire GSC contingent if I feel like it. A couple of things I've tried so far:

ITC Comp:
- Two Flyrants with TL Devourer/ Shock grubs and 2 Mucolids. You need to drop a Claw-Morph squad and The Crouchling to fit these in, and in all honesty I probably wouldn't do it again. I ran them against a Scatbike Eldar army and while they weren't awful, I just didn't feel like they did enough to justify the reshuffle. The Flyrants are surprisingly fragile too - 480pts is a lot to ask for 2x4 wounds, even on a flyer, and Grav spam will blow them up no problem at all. Shadow in the Warp was a pain as well. One of the Mucolids did manage to blow up a Scatbike unit all by itself though, which was amusing.
- CCS and Infantry Platoons, all with Flakk MLs. Wasn't impressed with this one either. The BS3 shooting just isn't good enough to be reliable with such a small contingent - but I'm not willing to drop any of my GSC units (which are good) to include more Guard units (which are bad). Played it against a mech Wolves army with an IK, where it performed poorly, and a shooty Eldar army, where it performed poorly and then died. In both games my Acolytes killed more vehicles than the Missile Launchers did.
- Pask Vanquisher with a Lascannon and HB Sponsons, Veterans with a Missile Launcher, Vendetta. Drop a unit of Claw-Morphs and you can fit all this in. Ran this against Scatbike/ Wraithknight Eldar and mech Wolves with an Imperial Knight (the one with the Battlecannon and chainsword), and it did pretty well against both. The Pask Vanquisher is a really nasty piece of kit, tough as old boots and capable of dishing out a lot of damage. It's cheaper and sturdier than a single Flyrant too. The veterans died before they could fire a shot against the Eldar and did nothing at all against the Wolves. The Vendetta was complete ass.

ETC Comp:
- Daemons Allied (Fateweaver, Horrors, Screamers, Tzeentch DP). The idea here was max Warp Dice, and I was so sure it would work that I dropped some GSC stuff to fit it all in. I was wrong. It was a complete disaster. Just an unmitigated fail-fest. I ran it against an Ultramarines army with lots of grav, melta and bikes, which you'd think it'd do well against, but it's just too much. There's far too much going on, and because both halves of the army want to be in CC it's way too difficult to keep them out of Come The Apocalypse range of one another. I did manage to swap the Horrors for a Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster though, which was funny - not sure it's legal to give Horrors Malefic powers anymore, but he died to Gravs before he could do anything so we didn't query it too closely.
- Coteaz, OM Inquisitor with Servo Skulls, 2 Acolytes, 1 Psyker, Psyback, Culexus Assassin. I played this against a pretty sub-optimal Wolves army (Fenrisian Wolf "deathstar" with Celestine and Canis, Wulfen in a Stormwolf, plus a few other daft units and a Culexus Assassin), but even at that it was quite handy. The "allied" contingent has a really small footprint so Come The Apocalypse wasn't an issue - your dudes tend to want to be near your psykers, who want to be far away from the Culexus, who is generally fine running around on his own forcing enemy psykers to move, while the Psyback can just sit in a corner far away from everything and plink away until it dies. If you don't feel you need Coteaz's Warp Charges you can also use it as a deathride. The Servo Skulls are more a hindrance than a help - they're "enemy" Skulls, so your dudes can't Ambush within 12" of them, which is annoying, although you can just stick them all behind the Psyback and Infiltrate everywhere else. I can see them being extremely useful against the likes of White Scars though - deploy them across the middle of the board and you take away his Scout move at the cost of access to the mid-board for your own units.

One army I'd quite like to try allying with is Necrons, although I don't really know any Necrons players and I doubt I could get enough models together to proxy them.

Did a test-game against a Bark star. Bark-star got first turn but i used my 20 acolyte unit + primus to deploy outside 3 inch (result 6). it died, but that also means it couldn't hit and run and had to settle for a consolidate move. Already got my next screen neophytes behind them but I lost a few because of cleansing flame. During my psychic phase I summoned a big unit of 20 neophytes and deployed them 6 inch outside the bark-star and let them run in the shooting phase to close the gap. I kept doing this for another 2 turns and the barkstar was only able to move 6 inch a turn. During these turns I kept grabbing Tactical objectives.

Next time I am going to keep my 2 CAD acolyte units in reserve so that I could possible claim an objective with objective secured.

I don't want to fight a barkstar with 'purge the alien'/killpoints mission...jeez.. Only way to win that is hoping you go first and that you got a few 6 results and kill a lot of dogs first turn with mass hypnoses! But then you still got to kill them completely! Hard nut to crack..

Question: if you attack the barkstar form all angles its hard for it to 'hit and run' without a model being within 1 inch of an enemy model(in close combat), right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BBAP wrote:
This is the "base" army list I'm working around at 1850pts:

Insurrection:
- Brood Cycle
-- Iconward
-- 1x5 Stealers
-- 1x5 Claw-Morphs
-- 3x5 Acolytes
-- 2x10 Neophytes

- Subterranean Uprising:
-- 3x5 Claw-Morphs
-- 2x5 Acolytes

- Subterranean Uprising:
-- 3x5 Claw-Morphs
-- 2x5 Acolytes

- Lord
-- Patriarch, ML2

- Lord
-- Magus, ML2, Crouchling


CAD:
- Patriarch, ML2
- Patriarch, ML2
- 2x5 Acolytes

I believe the ITC format does only allow a single "double/same" formation so you cannot have 2x subterean uprising + 2 x lords of the cult. And you need at least one big unit for your characters, believe me.

I have gotten about 30 games in so far with the GSC, 1 major GT and two RTT's it has been fairing well. What i have noticed that it is important to have fearless bubbles to mitigate losing combats as it will happen. it's interesting to see what other people are running. The army does better in two functions, One having mass amounts of acolytes and metomorphs cycling in and out of reserves and charging from angles and picking on units that hide around the board. Two being having large units of neophytes that are fearless to tie down units and lock them in place by blocking with other small 5 man units. this is not easy to pull off and takes a lot of practice but if done right the list can take on just about anything.

shadowfinder wrote:
I have two guy in my area that run a formation that if you kill unit from it all reserves come in no dice roll needed. So riptides broadside and suits all come in no issues. So -1 to reserve rolls doesn't help as the bypass it.

But if I'm killing units from the Formation then my Ambush has already landed, his army wasn't on the table to stop it, and he's lost a portion of his firepower. I can live with that.

You don't bubble rap your whole army only the parts needed

... which in this case would be the Riptides, Stormsurge and Crisis Suits. I'm not going to bother charging Strike Teaks until those Suits are dead.

It is quite easy to block of a area and then make the inside impossible to place a 5 man squad in too.

These aren't Drop Pods I'm placing; they're 28mm dudes. Even supposing you manage it you have to keep your Suits within the bubblewrap or it doesn't work. That limits your mobility, which is a bad thing.

Kroot are cheap and have decent shooting and are decent in combat. They can take 5 man unit with no issues.

Kroot are dreadful in combat. They get 1 attack each, hitting on 4s, wounding on 4s. 10 Carnivores and 10 Hounds would struggle to kill 5 Acolytes - not that I'd ever charge that unit with just 5 dudes, but if I did I'd probably kill it. If it charged me... I'd ask why you're pulling your bubblewrap out of position to try and kill 5 Acolytes.

I also think you're seriously underestmating the damage these 5 man squads can do. You realise Acolytes are just Genestealers with WS4 I4 and Grenades, right? They get 4 attacks each on the charge (2 base, +1 pistol & CCW, +1 charge bonus), just like Stealers do, and they Rend, again like Stealers do. The Claw-Morphs likewise, except they're S6.

Bubble rap is not done in MIN sized units it is done in 15 to 20 man units. I don't see how Neophyte are going to blow up the kroot squads.

Not if they're 20 models each, but I don't need to blow them all up in that case. I just need to clear a path through the bubblewrap, or kill enough models to force a Leadership test - that'll shift them too.

The reason Tau tournament lists contain no bubblewrap isn't (just) because people want to spam Riptides. It's because Kroot suck and are overcosted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shogun wrote:

Did a test-game against a Bark star. Bark-star got first turn but i used my 20 acolyte unit + primus to deploy outside 3 inch (result 6). it died, but that also means it couldn't hit and run and had to settle for a consolidate move. Already got my next screen neophytes behind them but I lost a few because of cleansing flame. During my psychic phase I summoned a big unit of 20 neophytes and deployed them 6 inch outside the bark-star and let them run in the shooting phase to close the gap. I kept doing this for another 2 turns and the barkstar was only able to move 6 inch a turn. During these turns I kept grabbing Tactical objectives.

I played an IH deathstar a few weeks ago and it went more or less like that - killed his entire army bar the deathstar and just kept harassing and harassing until I eventually pinned it in a corner behind a sea of bodies. Problem is it was only a 2-objective game and I couldn't get the deathstar off the other objective, so I ended up tying that. Killed a fair few dudes from the unit though, including the Apothecary and a couple of Librarians, but it cost me a helluva lot of dudes.

Question: if you attack the barkstar form all angles its hard for it to 'hit and run' without a model being within 1 inch of an enemy model(in close combat), right?

Yeah, but they move like 3D6" or something and ignore all models locked in combat so it's not that hard. What I'd want to do is surround the combat with a ring of Neophytes so it can't HnR anywhere; that would be really difficult against 45 dogs, but against Smasfether Command Squads and suchlike it'd probably work.

I believe the ITC format does only allow a single "double/same" formation so you cannot have 2x subterean uprising + 2 x lords of the cult. And you need at least one big unit for your characters, believe me.

See, this is why I hate comp. I get the idea behind it, trying to limit the amount of power-spam armies and encourage variety, but it rarely works, and in cases like this it actively gimps the army. I either ditch some of my psychic dice, or I ditch some of my most effective units. Ho hum.

 BBAP wrote:

Yeah, but they move like 3D6" or something and ignore all models locked in combat so it's not that hard. What I'd want to do is surround the combat with a ring of Neophytes so it can't HnR anywhere; that would be really difficult against 45 dogs, but against Smasfether Command Squads and suchlike it'd probably work.

The do ignore models in close combat for moving but the cant end their movement within 1 inch of an enemy model thats in close combat. Its the enemy models outside close combat the can ignore/ move 1 inch away from them.

 BBAP wrote:

shadowfinder wrote:

I believe the ITC format does only allow a single "double/same" formation so you cannot have 2x subterean uprising + 2 x lords of the cult. And you need at least one big unit for your characters, believe me.

See, this is why I hate comp. I get the idea behind it, trying to limit the amount of power-spam armies and encourage variety, but it rarely works, and in cases like this it actively gimps the army. I either ditch some of my psychic dice, or I ditch some of my most effective units. Ho hum.

I also got an ITC-format tournament coming up and I really wanted to play with 4 psykers (2 magus + 2 patriarch) but it sucks that I got to drop one of them. I don't want to play 'first curse' or 'broodcoven' but I'am considering 'the doting throng'

I'am waiting for the missions format and then we will see.