I have gone InSaNe!!!!

Alrighty, some list building things, and some assault questions that tie into it. I have decided to be insane and build lists for fun. Tau can win with a mono Tau build and that is competitive. I have not been to a lot of super competitive arenas so maybe I can get away with doing silly stuff maybe I will just get completely crushed.





One of my list ideas was to go back to a seeker missile style list, but instead of doing it in a sane way, just going crazy with 3 skyrays and full pathfinders.
the supporting units would be three units of death-rains and three squads of fire warriors who get to dork around in the pathfinder's devilfish (which have sensor spines by the way, been having lots of fun with sensor spines)

Yeah I don't have a lot of plasma but I can get rid of a good chunk of my opponent's army with 24 seeker missiles and 30 markerlights. Having 6 tanks is nothing to sneeze at. IG, BA and DE can easily have more but with disruption pods and sensor spines tau vehicles are always a PITA for opponents.

An obvious drawback is that if I start losing the pieces of my puzzle my ability to get those seeker missiles into my opponet's forces lowers rapidly, a problem I discovered with my original seeker list army.




Answers to the questions in the video provide some reinforement on my second army idea. A nearly complete infiltrating list.

Death rain commander
1 squad of FW
3x6 stealthsuits with targeting arrays, team leader as TL and a FB
3x10 Kroot
3x3 Broadsides

Would I get crushed? Probably, would it be fun to play? Yes. I think so anyway. It's an all foot list which I have never done, and it is pretty suicidal, but it doesn't have to be.

I will be posting some battle reports with these lists soon. I have been pretty busy going to weddings playing video games and hanging out with people I haven't seen in a while, but soon enough I will get back to the (at least)1 battle report a week schedule.

-Krox

Kauyon vs Mont'Ka

Apparently everyone is debating this now, and I have been playing Disgaea 3.


Basically what it comes down to is that there are alpha strike lists, and run away+ speed bump lists. Alpha strike lists generally have a lot of fire power with Broadsides, Crisis teams, even my crazy seeker list I use sometimes is definitely an "Alpha Strike" style list.

Then there are the runaway speed bump lists, with kroot speed bumps and lots of transports, no static anything (sniper drones, broadsides) everything is always moving and staying away until the perfect time to strike happens.

It is fun to discuss theory and all the nerdie "what ifs?" Basically it comes down to this: Tau don't have any tricks that have not been seen and people are looking through their codeces to try to figure out some weird new thing to exploit. Yes you could spam Vespid or take 7 firewarrior squads in devilfish (one with the Ethereal) and you opponent would be confused, but it's not gonna be a crazy "OMG I discovered a new Tau strat!"

Instead of cementing your brain meats into one play style or another, cement your opponent's brain meat into the style you want to play against.


This past weekend I was in a tournament at Phoenix games here in Minneapolis. It was a very fun tournament and there is always a crowd of diverse players. I did not take my camera because it seems impolite to take time to record during a match where you have a limited amount of time to play.

The TO used the Adepticon mission scenarios for the different matches and it was a lot of fun. My first game I played against another Tau player, my first time fighting against Tau. He couldn't have been more than 11 and was super spazzy. He brought a Farsight list and his list was not valid. Instead of just disqualifying him I helped him re-work his list before the match. I did not take him very seriously and I lost the match, mostly because I did not deploy as well as I should have and did not put much thought into tactics because I didn't give my opponent enough credit. (It was still a really fun game because the kids commentary was hilarious)

My point being, your demeanor and attitude can change how your opponent will play the game. Psychology wars are the last tricks Tau have to play.

Saying that you are killing blow or patient hunter just locks you in to a mindset that prevents you from adapting to the changing battlefield. It is good to have an organization process for list building but maybe you should make sure your list can do both. I am still working on that last one in my list building, but I am having a lot of fun doing it and that's what matters. (That and playing Disgaea 3)

P.S.

My other 2 opponents were Grey Knights and Dark Eldar who I won against. The grey knights tried to play the sit back and shoot game, and the Dark Eldar player only managed to kill 2 crisis suits with his 28 dark lances, not because I had awesome skills, but because he couldn't roll to hit or to wound 80% of the time.

-Krox

Seeker Missiles! (go big or go HOME!)

in prep for the 1750 tournament coming up I have been working on some different ideas. Namely, missile spam. Now this list isn't as crazy as you could go with seeker missiles, but it has enough for 2 turns of alpha striking with 12 pathfinders and a skyray.

Shas'El MP, CIB, PR with a hard wired multi-tracker

2 groups of 3 deathrains

2x 6 FW
3x 10 Kroot
2x 6 pathfinders
2 Piranhas
Skyray
Railhead
2 Broadsides

My current list above.

All vehicles have a D-pod (the P squad only has 1) and each vehicle other than the skyray has 2 seekers on it. This equals 16 seeker missiles, and 14 markerlights.

What I am gonna do with this list is pick one thing I don't want to deal with, and blast the bejeezus out of it. I am tempted to run 2 skyrays, but right now i think i would rather have the mobile railgun.

The whole basis of the army is that the suits, pathfinders and tanks all shoot at 1 thing until it is dead. with 36" ranges on both the markerlights and missile pods they should all be able to shoot the same thing.

I see the shooting phase going like this:

Pick a unit, for the sake of argument let's say there are 5 plague marines in a rhino with a sorcerer who has lash.

First shoot at the transport with one squad of death rains, if they fail to pop it use the second squad, if that fails, broadsides, then hammerhead.

Once it is open, marker light the squad up and shoot as many seekers as possible, assuming average rolls it will be about 7 between the two pathfinder units and the skyray. let's say 6 missiles connect, S8 is insta kill for plaguemarines (they are T5 but for the purposes of instakill they are T4 which means no FNP) and with AP3, see ya later bye marines. Let's then say that the sorcerer passed his invul save, well you still have your HQ to shoot with as well as the 2 broadsides.

Ideally you will blow up that target sooner with less firepower, but even if it takes everything in your army, you still don't have to worry about those plague marines or that sorceror, thus completely changing how your opponent is viewing the game.

A lot of the time people want to go second because they get the last say. With this army going first is most beneficial because you want to deny your opponent the ability to use key items that his or her army is probably based around. (lash, fortune, hive commander, other psychic powers, orders, etc)

Removing that "fun feature" will be a psychological victory and force your opponent to react to the fact that they are starting the game with 325 points less than they thought they were (in the example of the plague marines with sor in rhino)

Also they don't get to rely on their "trick"

Obviously deployment changes based on whether you are going first or second, but due to the pathfinder's scout move you can still get to the best spot after your enemy has deployed so that both pathfinder units can shoot at the same target.

The main change for me in this list (besides the missile crazyness) is that I don't take any fireknives and I have 3 units of 10 kroot total. I used to never take kroot, but they are pretty cheap, can outflank, and have good charge stats (well, good enough to tie up oblits anyway) Plus they are a troop choice which means in 66% of the games my opponent HAS to pay attention to them. With 5 troop choices in 1750 I should be able to get some good positioning for holding objectives.

I am kind of sad about the fireknives, but they always get me into trouble. I think it is the mentality of "well I paid 20 points for the dang gun I better get as many shots out of it as i can" so instead of safely using them i used them very aggressively and they ended up dying around turn 3 or 4 on a regular basis. When I started using Deathrains I found that they lasted until at least turn 4 and most of the time until the match was over. They hit more often at a higher strength and a farther range, I think that i will have to run deathrains for a while until GW makes them assault 2 in the 5th edition tau codex (come on R'myr, share your gun tech with all your normal troopers, they have been working so hard!)

More updates to come on how the missiles are working out.

-Krox

Army List Review 5 : Pathfinders

Pathfinders are an intrinsic part of the psychology game in my army.

Generally, pathfinders make other units in your army perform better in the shooting phase. They also allow you to launch seeker missiles off of vehicles (even vehicles that have turbo-boosted).

They would be cheap, but they have to take a devilfish. Some people think this is a bummer and a deterrent to taking this unit, I really like devilfish and have no problem paying the extra cost.

So what do I do with pathfinders? A whole heck of a lot.

This unit, more than any other unit in my army, changes what it does depending on pretty much everything. Hammerheads are always gonna act scary, kroot always try to do some contesting in woods sillyness, piranhas are always going to push on the last turn and my suits are always going to be hide and seek harrassers. Pathfinders have to take into account, opponent's view of them, how mobile is my opponent's army, how high is their leadership, is my opponent looking to exploit cover, etc... I have been really tempted for a long time to use 2 units of pathfinders, but I haven't yet.

(I JUST made a new 2000 point list in army builder that had 2 pathfinder units, I don't think it is as effective for what I want to do at 1500 though... end of impulse army making segment. Army Builder is a rocktackular program by the way.)

Pathfinders should be in pretty much every tau army. In my opinion Tau need to focus down their threats and pathfinders with markerlights exemplify this tactic. Who cares if most of your units are BS 3, with markerlights all of your units can be BS 5 pretty quick.

Army List review 4: Piranhas

Alrighty, I really want to make an exploding fishwall army, but before I get any more piranhas, I need to know if there is any clarification on Flechette Dischargers. If I have 5 Piranhas, all with Flechette Dischargers, does that mean any assaulting unit takes 5D6 hits per dude?! I sure hope so...anyway on to the review of my army list.

I like Piranhas and I think they are pretty cool. The turbo boost is nice and they can take Disruption pods, which mean even if I don't turbo boost they still get a cover save. In this army they are a distraction as well as last turn objective contester. I left them with burst cannons because i did not want to go tank hunting with these guys, that may change after the results of the upcoming tournament.

I also have a full loadout of seeker missiles on these 2 for silly pathfinder+turbo boosting fun. Just run up the line so that the piranhas are parallel with the side armor of any tanks and mark the tanks with the pathfinders. Boom! seekers hitting on side armor, or rear if you can get that far back. Since seekers can be fired regardless of what the Piranha moved, it's a nice quick way to deliver some anti-tank firepower.

In mission where kill points are not an issue the drones come in quite handy with corraling enemy troops or providing cover saves to Kroot or whoever else needs some help in the back lines.

In my current army list I do not have flechette dischargers because the ruling is kind of iffy. IF it is true that each assaulting model takes xD6 hits depending on the number of flechette dischargers then this will def be a part of my army at a 4 strong squadron, I would also upgrade them with targeting arrays and fusion blasters so they become more of an annoyance, and to shore up the fact I will be taking less suits to pay for their cost.

Piranhas are very fun, but they are definately a finesse unit that you can't use like a hammerhead, and are a little more tricky to keep safe than crisis suits, (especially if you are going tank hunting)


I don't field more than 2 right now but fielding 3 or 4 of these guys can shut down landraider assaults, and force the enemy to focus on blowing up these guys instead of going after other elements of your army. It is kind of a silly tactic, but if you are trying to make your opponent lose his cool and make bad decisions, there ya go.

Army List Review Part 3 Firewarriors! (and devilfish)

Well, I am not going through FOC in the order I thought, actually I am just going on down the line on my army list that I printed out, which I guess means, troops before suits, but then my Kroot are at the bottom of the list, so oh well.

Firewarriors! And Devilfish. Some people say the fish is over-costed others say firewarriors can't do anything. I say that , yea maybe the devilfish is a tad expensive, but then I look at the sillyness of the price of the disruption pod, I think that it is a good points cost for a tank that can act as mobile cover for the rest of my army, AND get a +4 cover save itself.

I usually field Fish in a scorefish config (no bells or whistles other than Disruption pod) However I take 10 fw instead of the usual 6 for a scorefish.

I play mech Tau all the way (one unit of kroot, outflanking is nice but I will get to that later) Generally I keep all of my FW in fish, some games they never see the light of day. Fire warriors have good range and you can set them up in a pretty formidable gunline with broadside and markerlight support, but with all the drop pods, mycetic spores, and super fast troops (hormagaunts!?!) a static position will be overrun in no time. In general I shouldn't let my FW out of the fish unless they are going to FoF leftovers. In reality I push these guys to their limits a lot, and sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it goes poorly.

For an aggressive general there are a couple things of note. A scorefish is a dual sided sword, and kind of a funny name, because in an annihilation mission, score fish are just that, a bunch of points for the enemy. They give up 1 more KP versus a standard transport of a different race because of drones. This is a bummer, and in most kill point missions my strat is KP denial so I reserve these guys and try to keep them off of the field using positional relay. I could field them with smart missile systems, but to make that worth it I would also slap on a targeting array and multi-tracker and that gets too expensive for me. Plus with defensive weapons classed at S4, I could only fire one weapon and I really want to keep moving.

So back to the KP thing, keep these guys reserved. In the other two mission types, drones are a ton of fun and if used right really help control the enemy's movement. General drone tactics include: getting your opponent to shoot at them, getting your opponent to assault them, sitting them on an abandonded objective, blocking a retaliation assault on a double FoF (i have done this more times than I should have but who can resist 40 S5 shots at a group of oblits!? gotta love those cover saves getting in...)

Since drones count as disembarking from an open-topped vehicle you could assault with them after a move, but a squad of 2 drones will die to anything so it is better to have the enemy waste their turn assaulting or shooting these guys. (Different story with piranha squadrons...)

The devilfish itself is a pretty big tank. Armor front of 12 will keep it alive but it's width is where the money is at, those big hips are perfect for hiding a squad of suits. Old Shatter Hands does this better than me with his "circling the wagon" which I am completely stealing now and having more success than what I was doing before.

In summary I use the drones to be as annoying as possible, the devilfish for mobile cover and to keep my firewarriors safe, and suits with cover.

Firewarriors, the way I use them, are super Mont'ka. Its all about the killing blow, but knowing where to strike is a key element. I still FoF, but it is less powerul, but using Mathhammer i can tell you this- you will kill 1.5 MeQ on average with a FoF that has 10 FW, in other words, don't FoF anything other than leftovers, and unless you have some drone coverage don't FoF assaulters. Pathfinders make this better, but it is still risky.

I like fire warriors, but I just can't seem to take advantage of that 30" range. I am all about the "no guts no glory" FoF, and I can't bring myself to have my army sit still long enough to fire 30" away.

Armylist Review part 2: Christmas Commander and the two superknives

I do not usually play 2000 point games so I generally play with a slimmer list. The next Tournament I am in is a 2000 point game so I needed to gain some weight. This is a pretty fat unit points wise, but it is a lot of fun, and I am pretty happy with the models. (Still need to get better at taking pictures so I can actually do these guys some justice!)

Superknives are bodyguards that have twin-linked plasma rifles, a missile pod, hardwired multi-trackers, and hard-wired blacksun filters. The Christmas commander is a suit that has stimulant injectors, twin-linked plasma, and a shield gen. Normally this HQ has a plasma rifle, Cyclic ion blaster and a targeting array with a hard wired multi-tracker and stim injectors. However I got Rymr for Christmas and I can't NOT use him, so he gets to be in the first tournament of the year and I will see how he does.

Basically, this unit is supposed to draw a lot of attention, depending on the enemy they will start on the field, or deep strike somewhere within 18" of a transport, or small unit of guys, (5-6) or somewhere close to cover and force a chase.

So far in the prepatory games I have played this unit has done decent and has given small terminator squads a run for their money. I just have to be careful to not get too aggressive with them, because they have gotten stuck in CC in a couple games because i couldn't resist getting into rapid fire range.

A thing to remember that if you are going against MeQ's with these guys you need to be careful about shooting plasma and missile pods. On a unit of 4 or 5 guys you generally don't want to shoot your missile pods if you got 3 or 4 hits on plasma. If you decide to shoot your missile pods you could end up wasting your plasma shots, here is an example:

4 terminators for some reason wandered to within rapid fire range of your super team. You light them up with pathfinders so you are hitting with plasma on rerollable 2 or betters! hooray for you!

you get 6 hits with plasma if all wound, all guys are praying on their +5 ward saves, however, if you shoot missiles too...

let's take the 6 hits with plasma, then lets say you roll, two 1's with the missiles so, only 4 missiles hit, that's 10 wounds total that your opponent can allocate. He allocates 3 plasma shots to 1 term, 3 plasma shots to the other term, and 2 missile shots to the other 2 remaining termies. Because you shot those missiles, your unit allowed the terminators to weather the storm a hell of a lot better, versus just shooting the plasma. This is mainly only a problem with fireknives, but can happen on other suits depending on your configuration.

The reason I did not just take fusion blasters instead of missile pods is that I don't want to be too close to the enemy, and I want these guys blowing up transports from far away.

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