Wednesday 31 October 2012

Tau and Allies

Tau, like most armies, benefit enormously from the addition of allies.  There are simply some things certain armies can't do, that other armies can.  Tau purists, this post isn't for you.

Just like to point out I don't own that image.

Anyways, I have seen people try a number of things: Grab some cheese units from other codices, and add them to our army list (Vendettas, Scythes, Paladins etc.), units that do what we do (shoot), heavily armoured assault units (TH/SS terminators, paladins again, Nob Bikers), disposable wounds (orks, IG) and psychic heavy hitters.  While they all work in their own way, what we really want is synergy.  I have tried allies from a number of different codices, and drawn certain conclusions about them.

Space Marines:  Ah, our imperial battle brothers.  Popular for several reasons, one being that everyone and their grandma has a SM army, so simply adding it to a tau force is only natural, right?  Admittedly, some of their units have great synergy with ours (scouts, sternguard) and others are good for filling niches tau can't (pushing into their deployment zone and keeping them out of ours, ASM and either variety of terminator works).  There are really two units I want to give a little bit extra emphasis to however: Librarians and scouts.  Librarians are good for all the obvious reasons, yes, but also have some interesting tactics when mixed with our army, particularly broadsides.  Three power really stand out here: Force Dome, it isn't a great invul. but it makes the broadsides less dependent on cover and so increases tactical flexibility.  Gate of infinity is great for several reasons: Get broadsides out of harm's way, get side/rear armour shots, and last minute objective grabs in Big Guns Never Tire.  The other one needs to be rolled for, it is the biomancy power 'Endurance'...FNP, IWND, Relentless broadsides? Yes, please.  Scouts are great because they have the range of tau troops and so mesh with our play style, have sniper weapons which is now a big deal, and are a cheap way to fill the troops slot.  I usually add a lascannon stormtalon to round off the allied contingent here.

Eldar:  Don't mesh with our style of play very well.  We are mobile, they are fast.  Big difference.  Their speed means they will get near the enemy, and we won't be able to keep up.  Unsupported eldar=dead eldar.  The good things, though, are that they have divination so can boost our shooting, eldar jetbikes so they can have T4 farseers keep up with our crisis suits and JSJ with them, monstrous creatures if that's your thing, and can have jetbike troops.  So while you can play around with them to make them mesh, you will really just be shaping them into a tau list with different models, so really what is the point? Farseers are all that comes to mind.

Necrons: Lots of people are trying them thanks to us having access to cheap nightvision, and them having their night-causing rules.  Or for their flyers.  Both are not the greatest reasons.  Most armies have access to nightvision, either in the form of searchlights, blacksun filters or simply being dark eldar, other armies either us short ranged fire or are assault oriented.  Nightfighting isn't that big a deal.  As for their flyers, a lucky volley of bolters could down them.  Pass.  I am sure there are other ways to run them with tau, but they are not immediately obvious, or appealing.

Grey Knights: It is tempting to take Draigo and a bunch of paladins.  Don't.  If you run grey knights alongside tau, I would recommend either a henchmen list with psyfleman dreads, or a PA list, because warp quake really is a great rule for an army that does NOT want anything coming that close to it, especially at full strength, having not crossed the board while getting chewed by pulse and burst cannon fire.  Librarian would be pointless for the most part, what with us not being battlebrothers, however it could be useful for psychic defense or buffing other GK.

Chaos:  I see potential here.  The new chaos codex can really create just about any army type, which is good.  It also has access to some ridiculously tough units, and if you run out of slots for broadsides, take obliterators!  Being so new, I will need to playtest, I am however thinking of either a daemon prince with some oblits and cult marines, or a Tzeentch chaos lord with the sigil of corruption, 2+/3+ with a terminator unit attached, standard marines as troops and again, oblits.  Bonus since people haven't figured out how to counter it yet, due to newness.

BA/SW.  These are both gimmicky codices.  If you use either as allies, you may as well just take their cheese units.  I wouldn't recommend them though unless you REALLY want a runepriest in a drop pod with some GH.

IG: Same as above, don't mesh too well, being simply a "brute force" kind of army.  If you take them, may as well load up on vendettas and hydras I suppose.

DE: Wouldn't suggest it.  Suffers from the same drawbacks as elder, don't have battlebrother psykers to compensate.

Daemons: Could be fun, can't see it working out.  Would be hilarious to have An'ggrath fighting alongside the tau too.

Well that pretty much covers specific armies.  Not to sound like a broken record, but I will repeat myself; strive for synergy.  A force that works in a way similar to the core force, yet accomplishes things it can't and covering some of it's weaknesses, is what you should be aiming for.

Saturday 27 October 2012

Tournament Results

Ended up taking 2nd place overall, of about two dozen players.  Played Four games.

Game 1:
My opponent for the first game brought a true horde army: Chaos cultists allied with orks.  Among the more interesting bits of the list were abaddon and two maulerfiends.  We got Vanguard Strike and the emperor's will, on a terrain heavy board. Has some abominable rolling for my shooting for the first two turns, and he got most of the way across the table.  Top of turn three, my three suit units deepstrike and hit right where they need to, and some unholy good luck sees his army ripped to shreds.  Abaddon was killed trying to death or glory my hammerhead when it, with only one burst cannon left, tank shocked his unit.  The best moment was when one cultist unit charged my broadsides, and the aspiring champion issued a challenge.  I accepted with my broadside team leader because I believed in him, and he lost.  The cultist rolled on the boon tabled and became a prince.  He then challenged again and I accepted with my librarian, who he also killed.  He rolled and got D3+1 more rolls, of course getting four.  He gained THREE additional wounds and 1T.  Thank goodness the game ended there, with firewarriors on my objective and nothing on his.

Game 2:
Faced a necron army with two flyers, Zahndrekh and a whole lotta mech.  We rolled dawn of war and Emperor's Will for mission and deployment.  He got first turn, but I stole the initiative.  I had my stealthsuits, tank and scouts deployed way up the field, and moved them further up, hoping to keep him away from my heavy, long ranged fire support in the backfield.  For the first few turns, I was sweeping through his weak backfield, and then his flyers came on.  They wrecked the broadsides and firewarriors, so we had basically swapped ends of the field and started to head back towards our own ends.  His flyers deployed their troops, and I wrecked most of them, eventually whittling one squad of warriors to 2 men and the other to three.  My suits choose now to come in, and shoot down one flyer and the squad beneath it.  The stealthsuits destroy the other flyer, which crashes and kills the warriors beneath it, meaning he was tabled.

Game 3:
Faced a Chaos Space Marine/Daemon alliance, epidemius and plague marines.  Wasn't the most exciting game, we rolled Dawn of War and crusade.  3 objectives, one in each deployment zone and one in the middle.  I held mine, and advanced a firewarrior squad up to the central one, with my stealthsuits in his deployment zone harrassing him and soaking up a silly amount of firepower with their 2+ cover save. They were the only unit slain to a man on either side this game, almost nothing died.  I still got first blood for fusion blasting a rhino though!

Game 4:
The final round, I faced a Blood Angels/Space wolves allied list.  Hammer and Anvil, Purge the Alien.  Runepriest with grey hunters drop podded into my deployment zone, Mephiston and death company were the blood angels contingent.  They killed all three squads of firewarriors in the first two turns, and thunderhammered my poor hammerhead to death (after it claimed half the GH squad that podded in).  My Warlord and the fireknives I attached him to scattered onto mephiston (he was alone too, hard to hit a lone 25mm base) and mishaped to death.  The other unit dropped nearby, and by this point I REALLY wanted mephiston dead, so I fired them at him.  The burst cannon shots ALL missed, except one which managed to wound and also beat his armour, imagine that.  The plasma shot all hit, and NONE OF THEM WOUNDED.  Next round, mephiston charged and they actually killed him with overwatch.  Then death company with 3x thunderhammers happened.


All in all, it wasn't the hardest tournament I've ever played, but it was certainly fun.  Especially killing Mephiston, and watching Bruce the Cultist (he earned a name today) become an unstoppable force of nature.  The dice gods favoured me today.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Upcoming Tournament: Oct 27, 2012

Coming up on Saturday at my friendly local games workshop is a 1500pt Warhammer 40k tourney.

I've been running permutations of different lists through my head for the past several days, and have finally chosen an army roster!

First though, I REALLY wanted to run a mono-tau list, something along the lines of:

HQ:
Shas'el w/ MP+PR+VRT+HWMT-97

Elites:
6x Stealth Suits, 2x FB-184
3x Crisis Suits w/ MP+PR+MT-186
3x Crisis Suits w/ PR+BC+MT-174

Troops:
10x Firewarriors-100
10x Firewarriors-100
10x Firewarriors-100

Heavy Support:
1x Hammerhead w/ railgun, Burst Cannons, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod-165
1x Hammerhead w/ railgun, Burst Cannons, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod-165
2x Broadsides w/ TA, Team Leader w/ 2x Shield Drones-195

Total: 1456.  Would have thrown in some hard-wired blacksun filters for a few units, maybe another shield drone somewhere.  The commander would have joined the scouts for a 2+ save and to give them H&R.

However, I decided that while that list may suit me well in terms of what I like to field, it wasn't quite a tournament list.  I decided to bring along SM allies, for psychic powers and stormtalons!

HQ:
Shas'el w/MP+PR+MT-87
Terminator Librarian-125

Elites:
6x Stealthsuits w/ 2x FB-184
3x Crisis Suits w/ TLMP, Flamers-141
2x Crisis Suits w/ MP+BC+MT-100

Troops:
10x Firewarriors-100
10x Firewarriors-100
10x Firewarriors-100
5x Scouts w/ Sniper Rifles-75

Fast Attack:
Stormtalon w/ TL Lascannons-150

Heavy Support:
2x Broadsides, 2x TA, 2x Shield Drones-190
1x Hammerhead w/ Plasma Cannons, Burst Cannons, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod-130

This list has a lot more anti-flyer firepower, between the deathrains, hammerhead, broadsides and stormtalon. Once again, the commander is going with the stealthsuits.  Terminator with the broadsides [to make sure they never, ever die...biomancy is great ;)]

Another thing I was thinking of maybe doing, due to the poor anti-meq/teq of this list, was to put plasma rifles on the broadsides and give one an A.S.S, put them with the librarian and select the powers 'gate of infinity' and 'null zone'.  Alternatively, I could swap out the three deathrains to two fireknives, and use the extra points to upgrade the second crisis unit's missile pods to plasma rifles.

So much to consider!  I'll post the results once the tournament is done.