Army List review Part 1 Pos'El

Here is the first piece in my "army list review". Primarily, this is going to be a grouping of posts that focus on my army list selections, why they are in there and how I use them. I will start with the HQ of the FOC and just work my way down.

A Pos'el is a Shas'el with the positional relay, and generally some long range firepower. For me he is equipped with a shield drone, iridium armor, and twin-linked missile pods.

This guy is less useful in single shot games, where you just bring 1 list and play 1 game. I like to use him versus armies that have a lot of deep strikers themselves, and so if I know I am going to be playing against something like that I will definitely take him. In a tournament setting where you have to take the same list against multiple opponents I will always take him because he radically alters how I can use my army from game to game. This means that I will alter my strategy based on who and what I am going up against.

Against speedy armies: Generally against fast speedy armies I will deploy almost all of my army to the field. I need to have all the guns ready to shoot those last turn objective contenders early on and really need to be a bully about making sure I can control the battlefield. The positional relay is generally used only once to bring in the suicide suit right where I need it to take out a key transport or piece of armor. The other squads of suits just use the tanks as mobile cover. Examples: ravenwing, jetbike eldar.

Against Mech armies: Against mechanized i deploy most of my army, except for the suits, which will be brought down (hopefully no 1's) once a turn closer to cover than to enemy troops. Unless it's the suicide suit NEVER drop suits closer than 18" to the enemy, ya there is scatter, but it is better to drop them somewhere they can get to cover than somewhere to shoot (remember their assault phase move!), because generally they are not going to be able to eliminate all threats to themselves when they deepstrike in. This way your enemy has to spend resources hunting your suits down and hopefully splitting up his army a little bit while you use the rest of your army to support your suits on the other side of the battlefield. This can mean shooting with HH or FW squads, but generally the support comes from the fact that the enemy is less likely to cover an efficient space if they are trying to go after those shiny crisis suits that just dropped in, so you can get better positons with your tanks and pathfinders.
Examples: Mechdar, Rhinotime, IG, Taumech

Annihilation missions (and assault first turn armies and Drop pod armies, but the KP thing is important to note as well)
I have like...21 kill points in my army i think (give or take a few) Kill point missions are tough on Tau because of the whole drones count as a kill point so a single piranha counts as 2 KP. In this situation i reserve EVERYTHING, except the Pos'el. Each turn i bring in one unit (or even better roll a 1 and bring in nothing) I will bring in the piranhas first, and put them somewhere that is out of the way, but within 24 inches of a good position, then I bring in a Hammer Head, then turn after that the pathfinders in their devilfish (their re-roll scatter is nice for the suits when everything comes in on turn 5). Trying to keep things coming in as far away from the enemy as possible. If i am going second hooray for me, if I am going first, I still have the same tactics it is just riskier. Hopefully I have been able to keep my Pos'el out of sight and hiding, maybe taking some potshots at transports or speeders. With the Pos'el I only have to bring in 1 unit a turn, so this is basic KP denial. I try to bring in everything on one turn and do as much damage as possible, remember you only need one more point than the enemy to win. (this tactic is most enjoyable when you are going second)

The Pos'El allows me to take a look at what kind of person my opponent is, what type of army they are using, and then based on tactical insight and intuition I can completely change how my army works from one game to the next. Sometime I guess completely wrong and deploy my army when I should have reserved but I have gotten pretty good at figuring out the best way to do this, and it makes an insane amount of difference in KP missions.

Next up will by the Superknives with the christmas commander!

-Kroxitau