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hey gang. A discussion on another board has prompted me to put up a set of batreps from our 5th ed test games. A friend of mine has been prepping his tau for the coming changes in 5th edition. I'm going to do 3 quick batreps of some of his games. Keep in mind that I'm not a tau player but was the opponent for most of these games. I'm not going to include points costs, as some of these games were a month ago. Anyway, heres the tau list

Shaso missile pod plasma rifle multitracker bsf

3x crisis team MP/PR with MT

3x crisis team MP/PR with MT

3x stealth team markerlight 2 marker drones

12 firewarriors in devilfish

2x12 kroot

3x3 sniper drones

2x hammerhead

Ok, so we are worried about many facets of 5th edition, particularly scoring units. But we decided to run with 3 scoring units to see how it went.

First game I'll talk about was against a wazzdakka bike horde...

the list.

wazzdakka

biker boss

2x12 warbikes

4x12 trukkers

3 rokkit buggies

If you haven't explored warbikes yet. Don't worry, they are good. This list doesn't suck.

Ok, so we just rolled for missions, he wasn't sure what particular mission he was worried about most. We got a recon objective. We discussed a little bit about how tau should place for recon. If they play for dawn of war or pitched battle, they want to spread objectives wide along the long edges. If they do that, and then get spearhead, they are in pretty big trouble. He deployed wide, playing for the long table edge deployments. It worked out, as we got a pitched battle.

Tau won first roll.

He deploys his army into 2 firebases. The sniper teams are spread across the long table edge, at each end he has a hammerhead coupled with a crisis team, in the middle are the stealth suits, and posting up in the two buildings in his deployment are the kroot units. Devilfish is going to hide all game or at least until those rokkit buggies are neutralized.

I'm playing the bike horde. So i deploy one bike unit with a warboss and 2 trukks in the open area in the center of the table, and the other bike unit with wazzdakka and 2 more trukks on my extreme right flank. The buggies I match up against his right flank crisis team, but deploy them out of LOS.

top of 1. Things seem to just go to plan for the tau, no extraordinary luck yet. the one-two combo of missile pods into trukks followed by submunition into trukkers meant that he can take out 2 trukks and all their boys every turn. On his left flank, he did the trukk pop submunition mop to my lead trukk. unfortunately i got the one result that doesn't remove the trukk from play and that blocked my second trukk from a clear drive. In the center he got more tricky. I knew this was coming. he loads up markerlights on my biker unit in the center, ignoring the 2 trukks, and then proceeds to pound the crap out of them with BS5 missile pods and me with a 6+ cover save! If you haven't played against warbikes before, they don't die to shooting, period. The smart move is to kill the trukkers and just contain the bikes. I'm just saying that so that you understand that when i say I lost 7 bikes to this combo, and saved running off the table with a bosspole reroll, its a big deal.

bottom 1. Trukks go flat out, bikes in middle go up 12" and try to kill kroot with their shockingly diminished firepower. Surprise surprise, kroot take cover. 3+ cover save (would have been a 2+ in jungle) owns my shooting maybe i kill 3. Bikers with wazzdakka turbo boost. Wazzdakka puts his str 8 into the crisis team hoping for some instant death, but they save. rokkits stay hidden waiting for a crisis team behind a building to either round a corner or somehow get drawn in a little closer.

top 2. the pop and mop gets used on the other trukk unit on my right flank. just wazzdakka and 12 bikers over there now. the same cover save reducing trick gets used in the center of the table again. Taking my bikers down to just the warboss. He pops one of the trukks with a sniper rifle, and the zoggers get pinned, which lets him relax a bit. i guess he relaxed too much because he forgot to move his devilfish to the corner like I was sure he was planning to.

bottom 2. So I have 3 potential charges. Wazzdakka and bikers charge a big crisis team, the warboss charges the side of a devilfish (which wouldn't have been there if opponent was paying attention) And a fresh trukk boy unit can charge kroot in a building. the trukkers didn't make it. Close but they couldn't get up a flight of stairs on the assault move. Wazzdakka plows through the crisis team and consolidates facing the other door on the devilfish, aiming their guns at whoever falls out the other side. Warboss fails to get a '6' though, so the fish-heads are safe.

top 3. Devilfish exfiltrates the situation. the whole army goes into warboss and warbikes except the stealth team, they flipped th switch and engaged their burst cannons, chewing up the pinned trukker unit.

bottom 3. I'm ready to concede here but I'll give him one more turn to make an amzingly bad mistake. the fresh trukkers finally get up to the kroot, and actually win. I'm close enough to consolidate into a sniper team, which will only save the 5 remaining orks for another turn or so. they are currently too far from objectives to just hang out. Warboss is gone now its just nob biker and wazzdakka. I charge and kill off a hammerhead for spite, and then consolidate. the buggies have a clear shot at the devilfish so they make their play. they shoot, hit twice, and fail to pen. With just 3 buggies, 5 orks, wazzdakka and one biker mob left, and with him having more than half of his support and 2 out of 3 troop units alive and well, it is polite to concede at this point

Game 2 Multi-wing

their list

sammael on speeder

belial with tlc

termie unit with apoth and standard and AC

termie with AC

termie with AC

termie with AC

3x bikes 2x meltas

3x bikes 2x meltas

2x attack bikes with MM


This was a list that he was worried about and i thought he was crazy. But we will see.

We roll for objective and get recon. Tau player places objectives hoping for that long table edge, nice and spread. We roll and get spearhead. Not good.

Tau player won first turn however, and was able to pick a corner that gave him a decent chance of forcing a tie and just playing VP denial. He deploys his two units of crisis teams on opposiste sides of his box, and with that deployment lost the game right there. Neither of us knew that until after.

He split his crisis teams because in his games against agressive opponents having the wide-spread on firebases made boxing in and blocking firelines impossible. Terminators are a special case for tau though. If you see any termies, you'll need to take them down fast, preferably before their support arrives.

I was playing this list too. I scout the bikes up as close as possible while cutting LOS to as much as possible. whenever you play multiwing, you have the first turn where you wonder if all 8 bikes are going to die on turn 1. Unless you put them in a stupid place, it is not going to happen, but it's always scary. sammy was a wuss and just hid for the whole game. i was pretty sure it was going to go to VPs.

Top of 1. I'll keep this turn short... tau kills 4 bikes.

bottom of 1. Belial and the command squad have to teleport partway into a crater to be where i wanted to be, fortunately they didn't fail any dangerous terrain tests. i dropped them right on taus front porch. I dropped the other termie unit slightly back and slightly to the right. My 3 man bike unit hooked around a building heading straight for a crisis team. the attack bike boosted away and hid for the rest of the game.

top of 2. I still hadn't seen the trouble the tau player was in, but looking at his scrunched up face i could tell that it looked bad from his angle. he was forced to shoot at the turbo boosted bikes until they were dead, since they were a massive threat to the only units he has that can hurt this army. he found his JSJ spot and put as much damage into belials unit as possible. 9 wounds of terminator with an apothecary and a 4+ cover save don't really fall over very easy. no wounds taken. he points out to me that if hs other crisis team was close, they could have got to a good jsj and probably killed a couple of belials termies, math says he is right.

bottom 2. I get one of my termie units, i have to go commando on the teleport, but i land fine. I shuffle up the other termie unit from the DWA and put the game into a hammerlock.

top of 3. he has slipped his army away from belials corner, and is close enough to both of the objectives to make a play for them on turn 5. the problem is. If any of his crisis teams JSJ any of my termie units besides belial's unit, they are going to have to eat 2 or 3 termie units firing back at them, I've got more termies then he has crisis suits so he can't do that. hes just got to hope that I fail a massive amount of 2+'s I don't generally do that.

Bottom 3. I have a termie unit in cover on every objective. They are fearless, my opponents ap 2 is spread out. the only good news for him, is that offensively, this army hits like a girl. i've killed 1 kroot unit total in 3 turns.

top of 4. i've lost 2 termies. he knows he can tank shock me off of an objective, and even claim that one, but if the game goes to 6, his other kroot unit is dead meat. He'll lose 1 to 2. So he concedes so some other guys can get a game in.

That was a tough loss for that army. i think it had the tools to win the tie-breaker if he had really thought through how DWA works. If his crisis teams and hammerheads were ready to pounce on the DWA, he could have probably removed a full termie unit, or really hurt belials unit. but he played too defensivle, and once the reinforcements showed up, i had enough firepower to trade with him, which he just couldn't do.

Game 3. groundpounder orks

ork list

warphead

SAG mek

2x12 lootas

3x30 sluggas with pk nob

2x20 stormboys

This should be a pretty good test of power level right? I just kibitzed this game, so my details may be a bit patchy.

they generated a take and hold. no objective placement before deployment type for take and hold so they roll up a dawn of war.

ork player wins 'the roll' and chooses his half. Places 60 slugga boys and the warphead at the table center line. He places his objective right underneath them, dead center on the board. Nothing held in reserve

Tau player deploys his kroot spread wide and obviously far back (they are clearly doomed) and the shaso as hidden and as far as possible off to one side. nothing in reserve. He places his objective in the extreme corner of his table half. I see cheesy tank shock scoring planned.

This game is so fun and cinematic, was much more fun to be able to sit and watch, and it seemed to play out like a movie.

top of 1. what do you expect. all orks come on from the edge, they move forward max distance, and then run. the lootas make it to a building on the left flank and in a crater nearby as well. SAG is with them. ork player dedicates a stormboy unit to each kroot unit and prepares to go hunting. the two forward slugga units move and run and are daring any tau to come on.

bottom 1. it doesn't look like nightfight is going to help those 2 advancing slugga units haha. the entire tau army comes on from almost the same point on the long table. I can't really draw you a picture, but visualize the vehicles coming on in a pyramid shape with a pocket of unassaultable suits behind them. there is no where inside the pocket for stormboys to land. Entire tau army into slugga boy unit 1. And they are gone.

top of 2. Stormboys use move up and have the kroot lined up to get them next turn. The lootas have to spend one more turn on the move before they can open fire. The farther back slugga unit moves forward then runs, the other slugga unit is in easy reach of the other kroot unit and charges them, wiping them out. nothing to consolidate into.

bottom 2. tau player play conservateivly and doesn't open his devilfish hammerhead wall, He puts his whole army into a stormboy unit and wipes it out.

top 3. i think the ork player started counting the turns here. He broke for the tau players objective and ran, he didn't advance his further back slugga unit. his stormboys got to the other kroot unit and wiped them out.

bottom 3. The way the tau player came in, his shooting was far away from the lootas other than the vehicles. the ork player represented that he was going to win on VPs (like most take and hold games are decided). But when he switched strats and went for the objective win, i think that kinda surprised the tau player. The tau player took his fish and his hammerheads and started to head for his own objective which was in the far back corner. Most of his slower shooty elements shifted over and so didn't shoot. They needed to get into a good spot in case the game goes long.

top of 4. the slugga boy unit in the tau layers side continues to sprint for the objective. The lootas open up on the hammer heads that are trying to bodyguard the devilfish over to the objective. A series of bad rolls keeps all of the skimmers alive, but shaken.

bottom 4. turns are flying by with everyone on the move. Some light shooting into the further back shoota unit takes a handful of them out.

top of 5. the sluggas make it to the objective, the lootas take out a hammerhead

bottom of 5. Devilfish is too far away to tank shock the sluggas completely off the objective. Wow! Hammerhead and the suits shoot at the other slugga unit and take off another handful.

i watch in anticipation... tau player rolls a 5, and the game continues. he would have lost it there, being unprepared for the orky cunnin'

top of 6. lootas decide to roll poorly again and fail to remove the hammer head. the sluggas hang tight on the objective.

bottom of 6. the tau army blasts away at the sluggas on the ork objective. Leaving just a small amount of them left scoring. the devilfish tank shocks the orks off of the tau objective.

the roll to continue is another 5!

top of 7. sluggas on tau objective, surround and fist the scoring devilfish. Killing all of the fire warriors and 7 of their own number i the process. Lootas shoot at the hammerhead, shaking it.

bottom of 7. tau has just enough firepower here to kill off the remaining orks on the ork objective, and break and run off the orks on the tau objective. With no scoring units on the table, the game has indeed gone to VPs.

Tau had all their suits left, and all of their snipers left. orks had their lootas and SAG. Easy win for the Tau.

Thanks Shep. Good reading.

If I have time today I'll post a few myself.

Great reports. Look forward to reading yours, Stelek.

Interesting read. I'm interested in your opinion regardng the Ravenwing bikers. In 5th edition, you will know if you will get first turn or not. If you don't, wouldn't they be better suited (especially against Tau) to just keep them in reserve and flank with them? I've held off on my Ravenwing specifically for the uncertainty of getting 1st turn in 4th edition. I'm hoping the final edition of 5th will still have the PDF's mission parameters (less the KP concept). I'd really like to pull out my RW army again and get to working again.

thats a possibility. I'm definitely not a pro dark angel player. it was my roommates models i played with.

I just got it stuck in my head that you need to use the homers to get a good close deep strike. that isn't necessarily true. I'd need to play a lot more games with multi-wing before I'd be qualified to answer that question. I wouldn't even have needed to hold them in reserve in that particular game, I was out of range and LOS for the most part. i could have gone really aggressive and turbo boosted the whole team over to one of the crisis suits. I'm sure i would have come through pretty intact.

The way I read the pdf you cannot consolidate or sweep into a new unit after wiping one out, did I miss something? Otherwise an assaulty army like orks can just keep steamrolling through squishy unit after squishy unit not having to worry about firepower. I must be wrong though its worked this way since 3rd ed at least.

In the pdf you can't sweep into an existing combat, but you can sweep into enemies that are not locked in a combat.

Love this battle report, specially because it shows that Tau re not as bad off as many people believe in 5th ed.

I will admit I loved the Tau part specially, but I nevertheless liked the way the Ork player played, very interesting indeed