Tau 4-0 (DtF, TaH, BTS, TSNP)

350 A-10 pair
150 Barracuda
350 Crisis, SC
250 Skyrays
250 Skyrays
250 Skyrays
225 FW, 8 FW
175 Pathfinders
175 Pathfinders
150 Recon, 1 tetra, 5 piranha
225 FW, 8 FW
150 Recon, 3 tetra, 3 piranha
150 Recon, 3 tetra, 3 piranha
150 Recon, 1 tetra, 5 piranha

Not the army I was aiming for! but I was doing a million things at once, should have been altered from what Hena had more.

Marines
275 Warhound
275 Warhound
150 Thunderbolts
150 Thunderbolts
425 Land Raiders + Hunter
400 Terminators + Chaplain
325 Devs + Hunter
250 Bikes + Chaplain
200 Bikes
200 Thunderhawk
200 Thunderhawk
150 Scouts

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

During turn 1 one thunderhawk was downed by flak, the other killed on the ground by the a-10's, its cargo that killed the pathfinders wiped out by advancing firewarriors after a nearby recon moved in and lit them all up.

Turn 2, terminators come in, init marines.
A-10's paste a warhound.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Start of turn three the marines haven't got any warhounds and the thunderbolts are worried by flak.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Warhounds didn't deep strike and kill them some Skyray formations on turn 1?

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The end.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I was the marine player. I'm sure I made some crucial mistakes but I took away a few things from my first game against Tau:

1. Markerlights are really really really really really good in the current format. Being able to guide everything against everything giving it the plus 1 is really good with Tau's already really high hit rates.

2. Stupid amounts of anti-air that are also good for shooting people. It seemed every time I flew anything anywhere I was going to take a million AA shots to the face at low hit rolls. They should perhaps have slightly shorter ranged AA or not be able to mark AA shots, it just makes it impossible to get in there with thunderhawks.

3. AX-10's (right name?) are really really rediculous. TK3+ is a bit good on shadowswords but being able to fly in essentially anywhere
(and if you plan ahead of time it is anywhere as you can set up really strong no-fly zones for enemy planes which are the best AA for a lot of lists) and blow up whichever superheavy formation you choose is really really good, especially seeing as superheavy formations seem to be the cornerstone of marines and guard. Being able to markerlight that down to a 2+ is just stupid.

I can understand the idea of wanting to mirror the fluff with some of those units and the army in general, but it needs to be remembered that fluff is a story, told in the viewpoint of the army in question and highlighting particularly heroic actions.

Just because there is a story about an AX-10 blowing up a warhound doesn't mean they should be able to do it, and if they DO end up with that ability they definitely shouldn't be able to do it reliably.

Yes Tau should be better at shooting then the other races, but they shouldn't have strong counters to essentially all the ways to deal with strong shooting formations.

With a well constructed list and good deployment it just doesn't look like you get to put anything in range of the tau formations and still get to use them the next turn. And woe betide anyone that wants to use aircraft against them.

You can't mark AA shots.... MLs can't be used versus aircraft.


This is the biggest part of my argument against the 3-Skyray formation - too many shots in multiple, reasonably cheap, formations with 60cm range. Single Skyrays are not that ugly and easier to deal with, as you only get 2 shots. If you miss your opponent gets his ground attack in. With 6 shots it's unlikely that you will miss much and raise the chance of taking out that air assault which is more balanced.

Honda, if we're going to keep this formation, have you thought about upping their cost? 3 tanks multiplies the AA ability of the formation so while a single skyray costs 100, 3 in a formation gives you redundancy in AA shots so could the cost go up so it can't be popcorned like TRC has done? Did Morgan V. ask for the cost to go up on the formation? I can't recall offhand.

I'm definitely in favour of a price bump for the 3 skyray formation. It's probably the best solution; it allows us to keep the formation while reigning in its effectiveness.

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The activation advantage means the warhounds went down first, the 2 main ray formations were set up with terrain bloocking LoS and the centre one was just a spare set up in the open to try and draw things into attacking it as it was in the middle of the fire zone.

I think perhaps the marines are surprised that the 5+ to hit is natural, no markerlights required

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Short answer: Yes

As stated in the earlier thread, if evidence comes forward that requires a re-assessment of the Skyray formation, then I will do that.

However, before we get all hot and bothered, let's also keep a couple things in mind. The SM player faced the Tau for the first time. What would he do differently if he had played the game again?

As Dobbsy pointed out, MLs do not apply to AA attacks. Flying in the face of a lot of AA is generally not considered a career enhancing maneuver. Flak suppression is important. The thing to keep in mind when fighting the Tau is that if you do not attack the aspects of their list that give them strength, then it should be obvious that they are going to have their way with you...for the Greater Good.

So, let's continue the the playtesting and see where that gets us. If, Skyray spam is truly a problem, then that issue will be addressed.

@TRC: Also, just for the sake of discussion, if Skyrays were 275 each, what adjustments would you have made to your list?

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Not only that, but he faced TRC, an excellent player.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

amen to that

As to the Skyray fm, I don't know. They're pretty fragile and relatively easy to suppress. I guess the Marines suffer from lack of long range firepower, but there must be other ways of taking them out before air assaults? Terminators seem a bit overkill for that (though I would guess highly effective), a bike fm might be able to sneak past and take a fm out, or there's always Whirlwinds.

In the one game I've had against Tau (with Eldar, but no Voidspinners) I broke the fm containing the sole single Skyray, then wild weaseled one of the Skyray fms with Nightwings (losing one in the process) to allow a Vampire ground assault out of range of the other Skyray fm. Don't forget as well that 3 Firestorms can be had for 175pts (6 at 4+, though a lesser range) and Hydra fms are even cheaper.

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numquam culum es

Umm, I presume you are referring to the 'Shields of Vaul', which are only in the Handbook, not in the original Swordwind nor the NetERC lists.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

yep, that'd be a unit that's in some lists but not others, despite what seems like years of no list development at all  

comment still stands for hydras though

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numquam culum es

Yep their range is only 45cm though

Honda (or anyone else), I hate to ask this but, is it completely necessary for Skyray range to be 60cm? We might solve an issue here if the range was perhaps reduced to what most other lists get in AA range. We could then perhaps keep the Skyray formation chugging along as is (or even drop the price for the fm and the single upgrade) and we could perhaps boost the AA on the Barracuda a bit as well? We may even reduce the Tau's "near-impervious to air assault" umbrella that some folks seem to find.