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This text originated in a discussion in army lists tangential to the purpose of the original thread. Davian suggested, rightly, this be more usefully considered in tactic,. This discussion is thus largely repetitive. Spooky has been using the unit with good effect, but on my part the discussion is largely theoretical; what follows therefore owes as much to discussions with him as any insights on my part..  

 

About half an hour after the marine codex appeared last year, I think we had collectively agreed on here that ?Codex:Tau? stood absolutely very little chance against drop pod marines and absolutely no chance if the marines took 1-2 librarians. All test games I?ve heard of, and the few that I played at the time, appeared to confirm this.

 

?Codex: Tau Empire?, however, provides a possible solution in the form of the ?positional relay? and the new rules for Commander Farsight.

 

Drop Pods mean that a marine unit will inevitably close with Tau ? a situation from which Tau are not normally capable of extracting themselves. O?Shovah, however, works best up close. His 4 Ws5 S5 attacks will knock down 16/9 marines, 20/9 if he charges, and you can back him up with up to 7 fireknife crisis suits, all with Bs4.

 

The kill potential of the unit is pretty impressive. Assuming each suit rapid fires and charges, then, including drone attacks, it will kill around 416/216 marines per turn (although this is assuming no drone casualties have been sustained, an unlikely scenario). The rules for the target lock mean that you can split fire, so long as one model shoots at the unit you intend to charge, meaning a full strength O?Shovah squad is capable of dealing with 2 Marine units per turn, if it gets to charge (Farsight, incidently, comes with a target lock). Even if there is a powerfist in the squad, the presence of masses of shield drones mean the Tau unit still has the advantage in close combat, with the battle suits 2 attacks and S5 making up for the lack of WS. On the off-chance the Farsight unit loses combat, it is testing on Ld10, so is unlikely to break.

 

Utilising the positional relay means that in Gamma games (the most commonly game played and, I suspect, likely to be 4 of the 6 games in this season?s GT) Tau can hold off the Farsight unit until turn 3, meaning the librarian(s) is more likely have dropped and the FoTD can be avoided; no-one wants to test on Ld8 for a 900 point unit afterall! By taking the relay on a IC, it had be hidden behind a tank, in a corner, and once the tank is destroyed the IC can cower behind the wreck, as a hammerhead can nicely cover a crisis suit placed in a walking position. He thus will survive to turn 3, either to bring Farsight in, or, if nothing came down, to hold him off one more turn (assuming there is anything else left in reserve).  Of course the IC might get feared off the table before he has a chance to call the squad down, but at least in that situation the FotD is on the table, the situation the Tau player wants to be in.

Of course, in Omega games, the position relay is very unlikely to have much utility, since everything except 1-2 units of firewarriors will be off the board. The way the game plays out will depend very much on who gets first turn, and how the reserve rolls pans out, but similar tactics, will still apply. 

 

At 1850 the O?Shovah list Anti-Drop looks something like this:

964 ? O?Shovah unit of doom (all BS4 fireknife with 2 SDs each) with 2 target locks
117 ? Shas?el (fireknife/array) with positional relay
231 ? Fireknife team, with team leader with array, 2 shield drones
53 ? Deathrain with array
120 ? 12 Firewarriors
165 - Railhead
195 ? 2 Broadsides with 2 shield drones, ASS

The 53+231 Crisis Suits are largely filler points. O?Shovah requires a battlesuit team (which I assume means crisis), but beyond that you fill elite slots how you will. Stealth teams might provide a nice complement to the massive O?Shovah unit.

At 1500 fitting the O?Shovah list together becomes slightly tougher. You can lose 231 points of crisis team above, but everything else is fairly essential as the positional relay model really does need to be on an IC. However, you are facing less troops, meaning there is less likelihood of being bogged down in combat a 1500 points.

 

170 - Farsight

677 ? 6 Bodyguards with 1 target lock (all BS4, all 2 shield drones)

117 ? Shas?el (fireknife/array) with positional relay

53 ? Deathrain with array
120 ? 12 Firewarriors
165 - Railhead
195 ? 2 Broadsides with 2 shield drones, ASS

I?d be interested in seeing Drop-Pod anti-Farsight tactics. I suspect walling would work well, especially in recon, as farsight has to kill a lot to make up for the early game casualties. The tactic is by no means a guaranteed win, but it isn?t a guaranteed loss either, which any other Tau list very much is.

I'm confused - O'Shovah, 7 Crisis Suits and 2 Shield Drones can kill 416 MEQs in a single turn? My math skills dried up about an hour after I left school fifteen or so years ago, so maybe I'm missing the mathematical point of 416/216. Can you explain it to me in layman terms, please?

Other than that, very interesting. I run an O'Shovah list at present (merely because I wanted to do something different from the norm 3-HH Tau) and while I had considerable success under 3rd edition, 4th edition has left my army somewhat wanting. With the 3rd edition Codex, O'Shovah was a nightmare for my opponents and frequently targetted ASAP. In one game, he wiped out three full-sized Marine squads on his own, for example.

Now, he's not worth any more consideration than a regular (albeit vastly overpriced) Crisis Suit. If I get him into combat, he usually gets killed very quickly and does little damage.

But maybe that's because I'm still using him in the same way. And now I have something new to think about.

Using extremely laymans' mathematics, a BS 4 bodguard will score 120/216 for a BS4 plasma rifle per shot, 40/216 for a missile pod per shot, 24/216 per crisis suit attack and 12/216 per drone attack, add 'em up in my head and i get em as 416/216 if the unit charges and all get in close combat. Of course, we all know that isn't a true kill probability, 'cause not everyone will get in CC and the maths are wrong, but they are a reasonable approximation for the purposes here (and if you think i'm doing those maths in my head, then you 've got another thing coming!).

 

A full strength O'shovah potentially should be kill 2912(all suits+drones)+720(Farsight) in one turn, assuming all get to shoot, charge and attack in CC. Thats around 17 marines! Of course, we know is this unlikely to happen,but even so, the unit is capable to taking down 2 MEq squads per turn.

Doesn't loading so many points into the O'Shovah unit compromise the army's ability to deal with non-MEq, non-Drop Pod armies?

It shouldn't do any worse than the Crisis-only/Crisis heavy armies that have scored the best positions in the GT. It has somewhat less firepower than a normal crisis list, but has masses of durability. Its much harder to tie down a uit with a S5 power weapon than a regular unit, for example. The main vulnerability is the Speeded demon prince, or Lord on a bike with a thunderhammer or fist. O'shovahs 4 wounds and 4+ inv protect him from anything else pretty well. As an indication, Spooky has been playing it at Flameon, prompting a 'Farsight is broken' thread. Check their forums for more info (i'm blocked from flameon at work, so i'm hardly on there)

The only difference between the 1500 list above what i planned to GT with this year is that the 2 shield drone O I was taking (for SDs for Broadsides) are replaced by a positional relay 'el.

Okay, I still don?t understand vulgar fractions. Never did, never will. Maybe that?s why I shouldn?t gamble. But I understand decimal fractions. Be warned though, my math skills are weak.

Here?s how I see it:

O?Shovah gets two BS4 Plasma Rifle shots at the MEQ unit. 1.33 hit but the weapon is twinlinked, so it ends up being 1.77 hits. These wound on a 2+, so 1.48 MEQs are wounded and, as they get no saving throw, are also killed.

The seven Crisis Suits also get two BS4 Plasma Rifle shots at the MEQ unit and thus get 9.33 hits. These wound on a 2+, so 7.77 MEQs are wounded and, as they get no saving throw, are also killed.

In addition, the seven Crisis Suits also get two BS4 Missile Pod shots at the MEQ unit and thus get 9.33 hits. These wound on a 2+, so 7.77 MEQs are wounded. However, this time the MEQs get a saving throw and so only 2.59 MEQs are killed.

Now everything charges. It is extremely unlikely that the Bodyguard and Drones will all get to strike as their Initiative is only 3 and 2 respectively (I think so but I could be wrong on this, I don?t have my Codex to hand) and thus chances are although O?Shovah will do some damage the Marines will get to strike back and kill a fair few Tau models. Also, getting all those models into BtB will be damnable tricky, especially now that the Shield Drones have lost their protective melee advantage from the 3rd Edition Codex.

But, for the sake of argument, let us assume everyone does get to strike.

O?Shovah gets five attacks (I think he has four standard plus one for charging) and hits on a 3+, so he gets 3.33 hits. He wounds on a 3+, so those hits work out as 2.22 wounds, none of which get a save.

The seven Crisis Suits get three attacks each (two standard plus one charging, I believe) and hit on a 4+. These 10.5 hits work out to be 7 wounds, all of which can be saved against, resulting in 2.33 dead MEQs.

In addition, the fourteen Shield Drones also two attacks each (one standard plus one charging, IIRC) and hit on a 4+. These 14 hits result in 7 wounds, all of which can be saved against, resulting in a further 2.33 dead MEQs.



So, I make it 18.72 dead MEQ but my math might be off and I might have got some facts wrong here and there. And bear in mind that this is a one-trick pony, and it?s extremely unlikely that the pony will perform the one trick the first time anyway. Chances are a good proportion of the Shield Drones will be lost (if not some of the Crisis Suits) in incoming fire from the Drop Pod MEQs (and don?t forget it is arguable that the RAW states the Crisis Suits will have to take plasma/las/melta etc. shots before the Shield Drones), then the resulting charge will be made difficult by the large numbers, and finally, several models in the unit will be killed before they get a chance to strike back in melee.

Personally, I think I still prefer the old O?Shovah, who provided a virtual guarantee of taking down one MEQ unit per turn by himself, rather than the new version who has trouble doing the same with a near 1,000 point bodyguard. But that?s just me and my umbrage with GW?s pandering to Space Marine players.

In the GT you will face a lot of MEq armies anyway.

"964 ? O?Shovah unit of doom (all BS4 fireknife with 2 SDs each) with 2 target locks"

964 points on one unit, should, as far as I can tell, be a rather crystal-clear indicator that it is a bad idea.

Drones close protection makes them T4 and 3+ save, 4+ invulnerable, so you can pick and choose how to allocate hits across the squad from shooting or from the engaged models in CC. Mixed armour and Majority toughness don?t apply, as they are all the same. Are there any other relevant rukes? The drones are I4, so against marines you always allocate hits to drones as they will still get to attack back.

How durable is it?

8 marines drop on O?Shovah and are all in rapid fire range. For arguments sake, lets give them a powerfist and 2 plasma guns, and their plasma doesn?t melt, so they have 11 bolters and 4 plasma shots. A bolter is a 4*3*2 against Crisis and the plasma is 4*5*3 against shield drone, so you score 264+240 /216 casualties, or 506/216. That?s a little under 2.5 dead drones. O?Shovah won?t break ?cause he only lost 2-3 models, and the marine squad, unless incredibly lucky, dies the next round. You can keep that trade up for several turns, and happily take 2 pods landing on O?Shovah in one turn.

Terminators have an even worse time, in that while there shooting is slightly better at  528/216, they give up even more VPs as the Crisis team rapid fires them off the table.

I?ve realised I?ve neglected the ?pods storm bolter. As far as I?m aware, in the GT the FAQ will stop them shooting, which is probably why I forgot.

What you have to avoid doing is getting charged by the marines unless they?ve been reduced to 2-3 models. However, O?Shovah has enough firepower and control over positioning and arrival turn that this shouldn?t be an issue.

 

Posted By coelomate on 08/01/2006 8:40 AM
"964 ? O?Shovah unit of doom (all BS4 fireknife with 2 SDs each) with 2 target locks"

964 points on one unit, should, as far as I can tell, be a rather crystal-clear indicator that it is a bad idea.

 

Negative - if potent and durable, big units are good. They can take casualties, but give up no VPs.

The GT in the last two years has been won by indentikit 25 man Seer Councils. O'Shovah isn't as good as the Seer Council, but its the same principle.

 

Its an 'all you eggs in one basket' approach. You live or die on that one unit. A good ordance template on the unit and its over....

This is true.

I think it is also true to say that an Ordnance hit on any Tau unit is bad news. O?Shovah?s megaunit has the problem of being always hit, but can at least put the hits onto 4+ invulnerables. Smaller units are less likely to be hit, but have the problem of insufficient models to ?bounce? hits onto drones. I?m not sure either approach is significantly better, or rather more durable. Do you disagree?

This is designed for Anti-Drop Pod work though.  How many Basilisks have you seen in a Marine army?  Even on the slightly off chance of a Whirlwind appearing in a Drop Pod list, 3+ save across the entire unit makes it rather resilient to the shots.  A Vindicator could appear, but once again, is really weird in a Drop Pod list (although it is a viable counter if this strat really catches on).

Against an IG army or other ordnance list, you don't Deep Strike the suits.  You'll probably have to do some clever manuevering to get through the game, but if it gives Tau a chance against double FotD Drop lists, it's worth a look.

It's almost a shame you can't take Space Pope for Furious Charge and Preferred Enemy: You.

After looking at your list, I think that this force would probably lose to a number of other powerful lists, and still may not be the most effective anti-pod list out there. Daemon Bomb, Shooty Iron Warriors, Seer Council, and I imagine any sort of will balanced list with indirect firepower or speed could violate this army. If they wasted all of the supporting units and moved up the board, the 964 pt unit is all alone and surrounded. It would be pretty good in an assault, but a bunch of Daemons, Wulfen, what have you could still crush it if they got it bogged down long enough for others to pile-in. Realistically this unit would only be capable of dealing with one enemy unit a turn as it can only shoot/charge one unit a turn. Even against a pod army, if you hold the unit off the board until turn three or so, the rest of your army is going to get mauled, and then it becomes a question of whether this monster unit can do more than 964 points of damage to the enemy and satisfy objectives.
I've played against a lot of Tau armies and as far as I can tell the best ones are the Mech Tau armies with lots of skimmers. When moving 12" and equipped with target locks and decoy launchers, Tau tanks are very hard to kill, plus they can zip around the board causing trouble in a lot of different places. Pod armies hit hard, but usually have very short range and limited mobility once they hit the ground. If a Tau army has enough skimmers, coordinates them into hunting teams and keeps them all moving around so that everything counts as a glancing hit it will be hard for the pod player to cripple them with one drop. Plus, these hunting units can turn their attention to the podding units when they arrive.

torgoch said:
Drones close protection makes them T4 and 3+ save, 4+ invulnerable, so you can pick and choose how to allocate hits across the squad from shooting or from the engaged models in CC. Mixed armour and Majority toughness don?t apply, as they are all the same. Are there any other relevant rukes? The drones are I4, so against marines you always allocate hits to drones as they will still get to attack back.

This is debatable at best. The ?No Save? rule clearly states that models that do not get a saving throw should be removed first, so in this case the Crisis Suited Bodyguards would be the first to go, then O?Shovah (the Drones are a non-issue as they?d be removed with the Crisis Suits). This is not the time nor place to discuss such a controversial rule, however, so I?ll refrain from pressing the point.

And I forgot that Shield Drones were I4. Apologies. However, that still means that you will have to be incredibly cautious in placing your models to keep all the Shield Drones in BtB or 2? thereof and keep the Crisis Suits within the same distance so that the MEQs can be attacked back after the Drones are knocked out. I can?t see it happening. There?s just too small a frontage.

torgoch said:
How durable is it?
8 marines drop on O?Shovah and are all in rapid fire range. For arguments sake, lets give them a powerfist and 2 plasma guns, and their plasma doesn?t melt, so they have 11 bolters and 4 plasma shots. A bolter is a 4*3*2 against Crisis and the plasma is 4*5*3 against shield drone, so you score 264+240 /216 casualties, or 506/216. That?s a little under 2.5 dead drones. O?Shovah won?t break ?cause he only lost 2-3 models, and the marine squad, unless incredibly lucky, dies the next round. You can keep that trade up for several turns, and happily take 2 pods landing on O?Shovah in one turn.
Terminators have an even worse time, in that while there shooting is slightly better at 528/216, they give up even more VPs as the Crisis team rapid fires them off the table.
Agreed, the unit is durable due to its size. But not as much as you claim, I think. Only one droppod lands and targets the 1,000 point turkey sitting there? Unlikely. Try more like three or four (out of a realistic potential five or six, or an extreme potential of ten or more). Let?s try the typical Dakka droppod list. Out of the nine or ten FOCs, let?s say four land on Turn #2 around the big-ass O?Shovah unit. Picking stuff out at random, let?s say one Dreadnought, one Terminator squad, one Tactical squad and a Tornado are all plonked down on the table. (I?ll leave out the whole Fear/Fury worry ? that will ruin your day even with O?Shovah?s high Leadership).

So, that?s approximately 4 BS4 Storm Bolters, 4 BS4 Assault Cannons, 2 BS2 Storm Bolters, 6 BS4 Bolters, 2 BS4 Plasmaguns and 1 BS4 Heavy Bolter. Assuming we ignore the dreaded ?No Save? rule, that still accounts for seven Shield Drones. Doesn?t sound great, right?

But bear in mind that this is only 700 points. Even if O?Shovah and the rest of the army wipes this entire contingent out, which is unlikely, the remaining 1,150 points of the army will drop in shortly thereafter. And now you only have to kill four Drones to get a morale check and get the unit below have strength. In fact, you only have to kill 12 drones to get the unit below half-strength. That?s remarkably easy for most armies, even when those 12 models have a 3+/4+ save.

Durable? Undoubtedly. Worthwhile? Debatable. Risky? Certainly.

Don?t get me wrong, I?m not saying it won?t work. And it?s certainly a better idea than my O?Shovah army, which as I said is still modelled on 3rd Edition Codex format. But I am saying:

- it will be extremely lucky to work once;
- it will be odds-defying, near-impossibly lucky to work more than once in the same battle or against the same opponent;
- it will need to be extremely lucky to survive;
- it is not as practical as using O?Shovah as an IC under the old rules. (I know, there?s nothing we can do about that now, but I can still gripe. O?Shovah was the best thing in the old Tau Codex, if vastly overpriced. Now, he?s next-to-useless and still costs the same exorbitant amount! )
- and finally, my comments are all ?theoryhammer?; yours are based on some practical gametime; and I intend on stealing (and maybe tweaking) the idea, so now I?ll shut up.

Its not purely anti-drop, it is a tournament list ? hence the presence of broadsides and a railhead. If you were going pure anti-drop, then you would give the firewarriors a 80 pt fish to hide the Shas?el with the relay and ditch the broadsides. All the spare points would be put into more suits.

I can only speak with reference the NottinghamHQ GT Heats + Final. I've not seen many Defilers (1 per army usually) and not many Guard armies to be honest. Probably this isn't the right place to dicuss issues with ordnance for Tau in general.

Stu-rat, i think you've missed a key point - re-read the initial text.

I'm hypothesising using the positional relay, such that O'Shovah isn't on the board until the marines have had at least their first drop roll, maybe two if you are lucky. Certainly if you start with O-Shovah on the board then will probbaly be in trouble. If forced to do that I'd have him sitting firmly in a corner so only 2-3 pods (less if the scatter goes even slightly off-kilter), but that wouldn't stop me taking the Ld 8 check of doom and I wouldn't feel as nearly as confident. Even if you survive those checks the unit will get overwhelmed by charging marines.

You won't ever get the full close combat potential out of the unit, I agree, but we will get a decent CC potential out of it with good positioning.

I regard that RAW argument as absurd, but whether it is accuate or not, it is not the way it is reffed at the Warhammer Word GT, or any other event as far as I know. That, rather than RAW is my defining line, so there is no real point debating it further.

 

 

Posted By Samwise158 on 08/01/2006 10:03 AM
If a Tau army has enough skimmers, coordinates them into hunting teams and keeps them all moving around so that everything counts as a glancing hit it will be hard for the pod player to cripple them with one drop. Plus, these hunting units can turn their attention to the podding units when they arrive.

Mech Tau armies are garbage. Start a thread on them and I'll explain why they are garbage. They are certainly no good against Drop Pod forces loaded with melta, plasma and assault cannons that arrive adjacent to them. As Mauleed commented in the orginal thread that spawned this discussion, Drop Pods vs Tau was never anything short of a tabling.

torgoch said:
Stu-rat, i think you've missed a key point - re-read the initial text.

I'm hypothesising using the positional relay, such that O'Shovah isn't on the board until the marines have had at least their first drop roll, maybe two if you are lucky. Certainly if you start with O-Shovah on the board then will probbaly be in trouble. If forced to do that I'd have him sitting firmly in a corner so only 2-3 pods (less if the scatter goes even slightly off-kilter), but that wouldn't stop me taking the Ld 8 check of doom and I wouldn't feel as nearly as confident. Even if you survive those checks the unit will get overwhelmed by charging marines.

You won't ever get the full close combat potential out of the unit, I agree, but we will get a decent CC potential out of it with good positioning.

Didn't miss the point, just don't see the relevance. Again, you can land O'Shovah in Turn #3 if you like, but then you have to face off against a spread Marine army, you've lost most (if not all) of the rest of your force, and the large part of the Marine army lands afte O'Shovah and slaughters him in two turns.

Unless you're really lucky.


torgoch said:
I regard that RAW argument as absurd, but whether it is accuate or not, it is not the way it is reffed at the Warhammer Word GT, or any other event as far as I know. That, rather than RAW is my defining line, so there is no real point debating it further.

Oh, I agree it's absurd and (as you can see in my previous post) I agree we shouldn't discuss it. Just wanted you to be aware of it and of it being RAW.

I've recently been getting my Tau ready for a possible appearance at adepticon 1850 next year, and I think I'm having the same continuous headache as you are torgash, i.e. what to do about the fad Drop Pod army. I expect (and hope) for it's eventual nerfing, as it is all but impossible to stop with some armies at the moment (tau specifically).

I had a similar idea with farsight recently myself.

Problem 1 - Not all missions will allow him to start in Deepstrike. If you have a situation that does not allow him to do so, and you army must set up, he is at a substantial dissadvantage. In normal GT this will mean in any Alpha missions, in my Adepticon problem this will likely be 1-2 missions.

Problem 2 - The Iron Warriors type army. I agree with a previous poster that the game you run into a indirect army, which is fairly common in higher tears of play, then you have to be able to fight it off. If you deepstrike on one side of the board to get the defiler, the basilsk will be after you. However, saying that you could deepstrike between the two and use the target locks to fire on both targets at once. Then you simply have to deal with the str 8 demonprince that is coming in on you. Once he wipes Farsight, the rest of the squad is just moping up.

In the end, I think it's worth playtesting the idea. It is as good an answer as I have seen to dealing with drop pods.

I wish they had put something in the Tau Codex to help deal with them, becuase I've yet to see a comprehensive way to defeat them for Tau.

Try it out some, then let us know. I would love to know if it works.

One idea, what about a Pathfinder squad with a Marker Beacon. It would be a lot easier to get into excellent position with the unit then.

For the record, you suggested that we put together a thread on this; I just agreed with you. Just giving you credit where credit is due.

Anyway, I'm surprised to see how quickly this thread has grown. There are some good points being brought up so far. In addition, I've got a few ideas which may be a bit unconventional, but I think they're at least worth bringing up.

For one, we really, really don't want a huge unit like this getting run down in close combat. One charge from a dedicated assault unit and one sweeping advance later, that's nearly a thousand VPs down the drain. This is the only time I'd ever consider using it, but perhaps it'd be worth throwing a failsafe detonator on one of the suits, just to protect our investment.

Also, it's a good point that we may get overwhelmed by the sheer number of dropping / fast-moving units that can be brought against such a large unit. And unfortunately, unlike a normal Tau army, we cannot invest in multiple small units of Kroot to tie up enemy units until we have time to deal with them. We can make use of one unit, but in addition, perhaps it would be wise to give the other commander vectored thrusters, so that we can manage the number of targets a bit more effectively.

By extension, this also brings up another point. While Fireknife is the de-facto standard, this is largely because our suits need to consistently make up their points from a relatively safe distance. With a larger, more durable unit such as this, we may be able to get away with some shorter ranged configurations which give us more kills per point, such as BC/PR/MT. Of course, Fireknife should be the majority because we need missile pods to help pop vehicles, but there may be a benefit to saving some points by throwing in a few specialized oddballs, given that we're giving them target locks anyway.

We could also throw in a Tetra or two, to bump the unit up to BS5, but there's not a whole lot of wiggle room on points. I'm working on a list, which I'll probably post later, but it's become a case of 'too many elements, not enough points'. Lots of the fun, fancy stuff will have to stay by the wayside.

This list certainly has a lot better of a chance against drop pods then any other tau list I've seen.

This is true.

I think it is also true to say that an Ordnance hit on any Tau unit is bad news. O?Shovah?s megaunit has the problem of being always hit, but can at least put the hits onto 4+ invulnerables. Smaller units are less likely to be hit, but have the problem of insufficient models to ?bounce? hits onto drones. I?m not sure either approach is significantly better, or rather more durable. Do you disagree?

You realize, sisters will also give you problems with 3+ invulnerable for a unit as well? those 18-19 marine kills will probably be halved......and then your in trouble.

The real question is...in a tourney situation, are you willing to gamble that you'll have a majority of pods and therefore take this list, or assume just one drop pod opponent, and take a more traditional style tau list?

I've just re-read the assault rules, and concluded more target locks are required to make this work properly.

Carmachu: I don't find Sisters a particularly scary list, other than in one configuration, and that doesn't have an Sisters models in it. You don't*have* to deep strike with the list...Simply JSJing is perfectly reasonable.

WD: I think in the UK yes, as we've just gone to a no-sports, no painting, 3/1/0 system. Minor wins are quite acceptable.

Except for mech tau and all its skimmers, I dont find tau that scary either.

is this snarkasm or genuine? Mech Tau should be the least troubling list for Sister, as you have mobile meltaguns and their devilsfish essentially want to move towards you. Why are you finding it tough? 

Battlesuit Tau simply hang at the back and destroy transports. Seraphim might get there, but I don't see them ever getting there in force, and unless they arrive in numbers I don't see them surviving contact with Farsight squad - too many S5 attacks. I've played a few Sisters lists over the last two years, albeit not a lot, but I can't recall failing to go lower than a 17/3 over them.

 

 

is this snarkasm or genuine? Mech Tau should be the least troubling list for Sister, as you have mobile meltaguns and their devilsfish essentially want to move towards you. Why are you finding it tough?

Their still skimmers. No matter how many meltaguns you fire, unles its a good volley of exorcist fire, I STILL can only crack them on a 6. Yeah I can stun them, but thats not good enough. Still cant get to the gooey center unless the its blown.

Plus those new skimmers are a pain at AV 11.

Battlesuit Tau simply hang at the back and destroy transports. Seraphim might get there, but I don't see them ever getting there in force, and unless they arrive in numbers I don't see them surviving contact with Farsight squad - too many S5 attacks. I've played a few Sisters lists over the last two years, albeit not a lot, but I can't recall failing to go lower than a 17/3 over them.

OF COURSE I'm arriving in numbers. Thats standard stample of sisters, double team with 2 or more.

Really? Just destroy transports just like that? I keep'em out of sight turn one. Turn 2 its zip and smoke, so esscentially, unless you immobilze or destroay it, I dont care. Then its up, out and reach out and touch someone.

So its 12" + 12" +2" and reach out and touch you at 8-12"......(flamer templates are roughly 8".

Generally I have more problems with skimmers than with suits. I always have. Same with eldar's falcons and waveserpents. No sweat with their vypers, since its AV 10.

We're talking normal Tau, rather than Farsight here, but i just found Sisters couldn't get anywhere near me. Some cover you can't slew through, so the rhinos, even with dozer blades don't get that far forward, and the list I ran under Codex Tau had so many S7 and S10 shots that the Rhinos were just so much wreckage. Knock out the Exorcists, and the Crisis Suits didn't even need to bother hugging cover anymore.

Different strokes, different folks. Since no one plays here a farsight list, I'll never know.