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So me and my buddy decided to both get new armies (before we really only played 30k). He went for Tau and bought a bunch of stuff on eBay and I decided on Militarum Tempestus. We decided on a 500 point Zone Mortallis game. I'm bringing 2 units of 5 Scions, 2 lord commissars and a taurox. From what I've heard he's bringing 30 fire warriors and some battlesuits. At first glance the Tau weapons seem better. Is they even remotely fair?

No, you are playing the red-headed step child of the Astra Militarum, a faction that needs a significant update. You will be statistically trounced. His base gun is s5ap5 30" rapid fire, yours is s3 ap3 (neat!) 18" i think, short range (less neat).

So you can ignore armor all day, but wounding on 4's and needing to spend turns under fire to get in range..

He can play his Tau de-optimized to bring balance back, bringing versions of firewarriors with essentially close range shotguns (3 profiles from 0-5,5-10-10-15 inches) and can make the crisis suit not good. But really, Militarum Tempestus.. your screwed. Great fluff, no stuff.

 pumaman1 wrote:
No, you are playing the red-headed step child of the Astra Militarum, a faction that needs a significant update. You will be statistically trounced. His base gun is s5ap5 30" rapid fire, yours is s3 ap3 (neat!) 18" i think, short range (less neat).

So you can ignore armor all day, but wounding on 4's and needing to spend turns under fire to get in range..

He can play his Tau de-optimized to bring balance back, bringing versions of firewarriors with essentially close range shotguns (3 profiles from 0-5,5-10-10-15 inches) and can make the crisis suit not good. But really, Militarum Tempestus.. your screwed. Great fluff, no stuff.

This guy has played one or two games ever. With the way this is looking I'm not sure if there's anything even he can do to fail.

You are bringing an elite army while he is bringing basic units.
You hit better than he does and you are bringing a vehicle which if he doesn't take the correct weapons on one of his battle suits you can sit in and just whittle him down to nothing.

It seems he is looking to go foot slogging through the small map while you are trying to drive through it.

How much are your basic troops and the lord commissars, heck even the taurox?

if the tau can't fire everything at a unit in 1 turn then that unit has a high likelyhood to survive. Yes Firewarrior weapons are strong but if you are in their face they have issues due to crap close combat.

Zone mortalis is good for fighting Tau, but he can shoot smart missiles through those walls, if I remember right, if you don't use common sense and disallow it.

Either way the close quarters will drastically reduce their ranged threat, and make it a rather intense match.

 n0t_u wrote:
Zone mortalis is good for fighting Tau, but he can shoot smart missiles through those walls, if I remember right, if you don't use common sense and disallow it.

Either way the close quarters will drastically reduce their ranged threat, and make it a rather intense match.

He would have to have broadsides for the sms, which the op made seem there won't be that many points for.

I wasn't planning on driving up. You can't take DTs is Zone Mortallis.

I could hide all of my dudes behind the Taurox. He could only just glance a taurox.

I have a lord commissar with carapace armor, bolt pistol and power sword. 85
A lord commissar with a power fist and a bolt pistol. 95
Taurox with gatling cannon and the volley guns. 115
2 units of scions. One with a tempestor with a plasma gun, one with a bolt pistol. Both have a melta gun and a volley gun. 110 and 95

 skullzz wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
Zone mortalis is good for fighting Tau, but he can shoot smart missiles through those walls, if I remember right, if you don't use common sense and disallow it.

Either way the close quarters will drastically reduce their ranged threat, and make it a rather intense match.

He would have to have broadsides for the sms, which the op made seem there won't be that many points for.

fire warriors can buy it for a few points now. 45 points for the troop, 10 points for Sergeant 10 points for a SMS turret, repeat.

2nd FW can glance/pen every facing of a taurox.
3rd, they can also bring s5ap5 18" assault 2 weapons, still bringing more firepower than 12-22 dudes and a taurox at the same range can reasonably weather. and on 2s to wound, not 4's to wound back.

crisis suit might be weilding 24" rapid fire plasma, or 2 auto cannons, or 2 s7ap4 heavy 3 18" with option for large balst s 8 ap4
or ignores cover barrage s4ap5 large blast, not strong but again, no los... its uphill

In a straight up, both in 1 shot range?

50% of your hits drop a Firewarrior.(4+ to wound, no armour save)

41% of his drop a Scion (2+ wound, 4+ save).

His range isn't as useful, because Zone Mortalis - all you need do is watch your flanks, and wait for him to come close to the corner, pop out, pull that trigger and hope for the best.

Even his Battlesuits are vulnerable to massed Hotshot fire, again thanks to AP3 - and given how few of those he's likely to have, that's a risky proposition. And in Zone Mortalis, again if you're setting up ambushes, his Jet Packs aren't as universally useful, and there's less chance of him getting clean away, leaving him open to retribution.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In a straight up, both in 1 shot range?

50% of your hits drop a Firewarrior.(4+ to wound, no armour save)

41% of his drop a Scion (2+ wound, 4+ save).

His range isn't as useful, because Zone Mortalis - all you need do is watch your flanks, and wait for him to come close to the corner, pop out, pull that trigger and hope for the best.

Even his Battlesuits are vulnerable to massed Hotshot fire, again thanks to AP3 - and given how few of those he's likely to have, that's a risky proposition. And in Zone Mortalis, again if you're setting up ambushes, his Jet Packs aren't as universally useful, and there's less chance of him getting clean away, leaving him open to retribution.

right but 12 dudes versus 30... and could be 2 shots versus 1 shot if pulse carbines are brought, with pinning, as marginally helpful as that is

Then you can potentially use the Taurox as a rolling barricade. A barricade with ADDED DAKKA!

I'm not up on it's AV value though - so if it's less than 12 on the front, that's bobbins tactic because they'll just shred it!

But do look to create ambush points. Hide your guys round corners - try to anticipate his potential movement (factoring in Run - because if you've got no target, why not leg it?) so it's you nipping round the corner to unleash hell

Let's not mince words here. You've sunk a lot of points to have two lord commissars and a truck. The latter I suspect is because you wanted it to afford you a bit of toughness and survivability, and it's not going to do that for you- pulse rifles can potentially glance the front and pen the sides.

It's going to be an uphill struggle.

As suggested before, your best bet is to lure him out of his comfort zone. If you can draw him close enough that you can charge his fire warriors without giving the other squads los to assist with overwatch, but he's going to be trying to lure you out into a trap as well, and he has an advantage there, as his crisis suits are better suited to aggressive pokes than your truck will be...

I wouldn't even say it's an inherent balance problem either, fire warriors and crisis suits haven't changed all that much (if it's coming from eBay, smart money is bog standard pulse rifle warriors), he's just brought a decent rock to your scissors party.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Let's not mince words here. You've sunk a lot of points to have two lord commissars and a truck. The latter I suspect is because you wanted it to afford you a bit of toughness and survivability, and it's not going to do that for you- pulse rifles can potentially glance the front and pen the sides.

It's going to be an uphill struggle.

As suggested before, your best bet is to lure him out of his comfort zone. If you can draw him close enough that you can charge his fire warriors without giving the other squads los to assist with overwatch, but he's going to be trying to lure you out into a trap as well, and he has an advantage there, as his crisis suits are better suited to aggressive pokes than your truck will be...

I wouldn't even say it's an inherent balance problem either, fire warriors and crisis suits haven't changed all that much (if it's coming from eBay, smart money is bog standard pulse rifle warriors), he's just brought a decent rock to your scissors party.

They're actually half rifle half carbine. I sent him the links in the first place.

NivlacSupreme wrote:

They're actually half rifle half carbine. I sent him the links in the first place.

Carbines, bleck.

What kind of loadout do you have on the taurox?

 Captain Joystick wrote:

NivlacSupreme wrote:

They're actually half rifle half carbine. I sent him the links in the first place.

Carbines, bleck.

What kind of loadout do you have on the taurox?

Gatling cannon and las-shotgun thingies.

Swap the gatling for the missile launchers and you get 2 chances to insta kill his battlesuit per Taurox.

I'd suggest removing one of your Lord Commissar and getting more Scions or a Command squad. I am not too up to date on Zone Mortalis rules regarding Deep Strike, but keep in mind having a Command squad would let you run a Hellrain Brigade and have respawning Scions.

I was trying to not build a command squad until I had 3 squads of scions. I wanted to build a 4-melta unit.

NivlacSupreme wrote:
So me and my buddy decided to both get new armies (before we really only played 30k). He went for Tau and bought a bunch of stuff on eBay and I decided on Militarum Tempestus. We decided on a 500 point Zone Mortallis game. I'm bringing 2 units of 5 Scions, 2 lord commissars and a taurox. From what I've heard he's bringing 30 fire warriors and some battlesuits. At first glance the Tau weapons seem better. Is they even remotely fair?

Tempestus sadly are very poorly designed units (yay AP3...on short range waterpistols...carried by 4+sv Guardsmen at twice the price of Veterans) and are simply incomplete as an army, being basically a couple variations on the same infantry unit with 2/3rds of the transports they should have access to and thats basically the entire army.

Tau are a solid powerful army that are going to be a stupid hard matchup for Scions to deal with, but if you think theyre bad, wait till you face Eldar or Necrons.

NivlacSupreme wrote:
I was trying to not build a command squad until I had 3 squads of scions. I wanted to build a 4-melta unit.

4 Meltas isn't going to help much vs Tau, i think orders would help more

His list doesn't sound that strong for Tau and your list (2 Lord Commissars) sounds really weak. Just have fun and don't yell at him over faction choice and you'll have a lot of fun games as you build up your collections.

 pumaman1 wrote:
No, you are playing the red-headed step child of the Astra Militarum, a faction that needs a significant update. You will be statistically trounced. His base gun is s5ap5 30" rapid fire, yours is s3 ap3 (neat!) 18" i think, short range (less neat).

So you can ignore armor all day, but wounding on 4's and needing to spend turns under fire to get in range..

He can play his Tau de-optimized to bring balance back, bringing versions of firewarriors with essentially close range shotguns (3 profiles from 0-5,5-10-10-15 inches) and can make the crisis suit not good. But really, Militarum Tempestus.. your screwed. Great fluff, no stuff.

he will need to deep strike and remember his grenades to win that fight but it can be done. I definitely dont recommend the commissars.

Don't play storm troopers without support from other armies or enough points for fliers. The best you'll ever be solo is anti marines.

Zone Mortails makes this a better game for your lineup than a regular game would be. With that being said, Lord Commissars (or even Commissars) are the weakest part of the MT Codex. They are carbon copies from the IG, with no thought to them being with a unit of 5-10 vice 30. Nevermind that MT excel against 3+ saves, you are already putting yourself in a hole. To play this game you will want MSU, with most troops using stock rifles. Meltas and Volleys will be a waste (unless you are holding a spot with Volleys). If you insist on special weapons, ensure that squads have two of the same. Two stationary Volley Guns will twice as effective as two that move. On the flip side, two Meltas on armor will be better than a single shot from one while the rest of the squad looks on.

In tight quarters, most of his shots will be wasted. You will want smaller squads to end up dishing out more shots.

It is a bit strange to pick the most random lineup though and ask if something is fair.

Wait, how have you got a Taurox in Zone Mortalis? The rules specifically ban all non-Walker vehicles.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Wait, how have you got a Taurox in Zone Mortalis? The rules specifically ban all non-Walker vehicles.

Under 4' wide.

For reference, zone mortalis expansion sheet courtesy of GW themselves:
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Warhammer_40000/Zone_Mortalis_Expansion.pdf