Right, I finally got a game in with my Tau and we were able to try out a few things.

Moray Railcannons - 45cm range
Support Craft rule as is (ie. no Always Popped Up here)
Markerlight Turrets are Scouts, Fearless and can deploy by Garrison.
Tau Delectors - 5+ Inv Save (as per TRC's suggestion)

Forces

Adeptus Mechanicus
Skitarii Demi-Century + Hydra
Ordinatus Majoris with Nova Cannon + Hydra BTS
Basilisk artillery
Sentinels
Sentinels
Ad Mech Cruiser
Shadowsword
Warhound + 2 Turbolaser Destructors (he has a love affair with these guns)
Warhound + 2 Turbolaser Destructors
Warhound + 2 Turbolaser Destructors
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts

I have realised, whilst writing this list that my opponent had too many support formations and my mate will be reminded of this when I next see him!  

Tau
FireWarrior Cadre + Broadsides
FireWarrior Cadre + Broadsides
AMHC (Rail) + Stingray + Swordfish + Networked Drones
Pathfinders (with Devilfish)
Scorpionfish + Supreme Commander
Tetras
Stingrays
Hero
2x Morays (with Rail Cannons) BTS
ML Sentry Turrets

We placed the terrain together and then the forces were set up as per the photo.
Both FireWarrior formations were garrisoned on Overwatch. The Turrets were also garrisoned near the half way line along a possible route of advance along a road.

I admit that mistakes were made (tactically and with the Ad Mech army composition). What we really wanted to trial was the effect that shorter range guns had on the Moray and not having ML Turrets all over the board (forcing ML units to be used much more).

The Morays were loaded onto the Hero (didn't really fancy facing the Ordinatus Nova Cannon) which was to be activated on the 1st turn. I made the 2 Morays a single formation as I was worried that one would be destroyed without firing a shot once they were deployed. The plan was to kill the Ordinatus as quickly as possible (since there was no way the Morays could hide from it) and then go for the Warhounds with what was left. Of course, nothing ever quite goes according to plan.

The Ad Mech won the Strategy roll and the Basilisks killed 1 Pathfinder unit and a Devilfish, whilst putting a Blast marker on the Hammerheads. The Pathfinders Marshalled and moved a bit nearer.

The Imperials spent the next few activations moving the Sentinels into cover nearer the enemy.

The Tau Marshalled the Hammerheads and moved behind cover aswell. The Stingrays and Scorpionfish also got into position for the next turn.
The Skitarri moved into some ruined buildings. With his next activation, my mate advanced one of the Warhounds and fired at the Turrets for 4 hits. All were saved (one Turret was in rubble getting 4+ saves and the other one made both it's 5+ saves). We both think that Turrets should only have a 6+ save and this only reinforced that opinion.

The Tetras moved next followed by another Warhound moving to the left and trying to get find a way across the board without getting Railguns up the tailpipe.

This is where the fun began. The Hero activated and fired it's shots at the Ordinatus. One shot missed (flaming 1's   ) but the other did 3 points damage. The Morays descended and retained to try and finish off the ancient weapon. After scattering out of Sustain Fire range ( ) they moved into position fired 4 TK shots. With the Ordinatus broken (there were too many missed shots again) the last Warhound turned into position and attacked the high Flying Morays leaving both with only 1DC each and close to being broken.

The Shadowsword fired at the Morays but the damage was deflected away.

I probably should have used this time to move the FireWarriors up but chose to leave them on Overwatch near 3 Objectives.

The Thunderbolts flew in next and managed to finally kill one of the Morays, braking the other which headed back to safer aircover. The 2nd Thunderbolt flight headed in to try and finish off the last Moray. One was shot down and the other's attack was defelected away harmlessly.

End phase.
All units Rallied (we'd both saved our re-rolls for this reason).
The Thunderbolts were able to leave without further incident.

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2nd Turn.

This Strategy roll was vital and the Tau won it.

The Moray doubled back towards the Ordinatus and attemped to finish it off. Only one shot hit but it did maximum damage and the revered machine finally perished. Incidently, this really upset my mate as it was the 1st time he'd ever lost it during a game and he love's his original creation. He was out for revenge! The Broken Hydra moved to the far corner and hid.

I retained and moved the Hammerheads out to attack a Warhound hopeing to break it but they weren't able to do enough damage. This left the Hammerheads out in the open...

The Shadow sword fired at the Moray but again, the damage was deflected. Retaining, a Warhound opened fire on the last Moray and it finally fell in flames.

The tetras called a Coordinated Fire with the Stingrays in the hope of breaking the last Warhound before it could turn the Hammerheads into swiss cheese... All they did was place 2 blast markers so the Warhound was free to activate .Retaining, the Scorpionfish finally broke the Warhound that the Hammerheads had attacked.
The remaining Warhound advanced and killed 4 Hammerheads in 1 volley. Broken, they retreated towards the Tau Blitz.

The rest of the turn was taken up with Sentinels picking off Tetras and various infantry units positioning themselves to claim objectives. The Thunderbolts straffed the FireWarriors.

All units Rallied again.

*Some of these details may be a bit out of sequence, my memory is having trouble putting it all together. The basics are there though.

Unfortunately, we had to call the game here (it was late) and we both agreed that an Ad Mech victory was most likely (3 Warhounds and a Shadowsword would be hard to handle with the depleted firepower left to the Tau... but not impossible I spose).

We had a short chat afterwards and both agreed that the shorter range really make the Morays much easier to deal with. All the misses with the Rail Cannons definately point to having 2 weapons so that you have some ability to compensate for lousy dice shaking. We both had a laugh about reducing the Rail Cannons to TK1. We really don't mean to offend anyone who thinks this is a good idea but this is just not playable in our opinion. Just how are the Tau supposed to deal with larger war engines with TK1 weapons. Please, we hope hope that playabilty will win out over blind faith in fluff.
I think that a 60cm range would be more appropriate but that would lead to the deaded ability to attack the enemies DZ. 45cm is probably fairer. With the shorter range guns we see no need what so ever for always popped up. My opponent really can't understand all the fuss. At 45cm, every singe race/army is going to be able to hit them easily. No need to complicate things further.

The change to turrets made them playable and not such a threat to the enemy. The only thing we found annoying about them was the 5+ save which did make a difference here. Once hit, they should die quite easily. 6+ save for us.

The 5+ Deflector save was interesting. It came into play a lot during this game because of all the Turbolaser Destructors. There were many shots that would've caused damage under the original system. Mind you, they still saved 2 hits from a Volcano cannon aswell...
We both liked the 5+ roll. It was easier and still effective.

These few changes really changed the way the Tau played. Once the Morays were in play, there was a need for maneuvering to try and protect them. This brought out units that might've stayed hidden and gave the opposition more targets than the Tau would've liked. Tetras were fun and I think I'll use them a lot more often. The FireWarrior/Broadside Cadres did shape the deployment of the Ad Mech and the Overwatch kept their half of the board clear. I think that Broadsides are better used on their own though. The 2 together on Overwatch, meant I was lothed to move them. I think I'd be more agressive with them next time.

Anyway, it was fun and as zombocom says, thats what it's all about (and I agree whole heartedly).

Next time, I'll use one Moray and mix in some airpower.

Steve.

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Adeptus Mechanicus
Skitarii Demi-Century + Hydra - 350
Ordinatus Majoris with Nova Cannon + Hydra BTS - 600
Basilisk artillery - 250
Sentinels - 100
Sentinels - 100
Ad Mech Cruiser - 150
Shadowsword - 200
Warhound + 2 Turbolaser Destructors - 350
Warhound + 2 Turbolaser Destructors - 350
Warhound + 2 Turbolaser Destructors - 350
Thunderbolts - 150
Thunderbolts - 150

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Thanks, looking forward to the other turns. And nice touch with the techy and gothic fonts in the pic!

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That is cool.  

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A quick tap with a calculator tells me this is 3100 points; I know you don't think that twin-weapon fit Warhounds should pay the extra 25pts, but that only explains 75pts of the discrepancy, have you changed the price of anything else as well?


The Hero activated and fired it's shots at the Ordinatus. One shot missed (flaming 1's   ) but the other did 3 points damage.

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So were you activating the turrets?

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We had a short chat afterwards and both agreed that the shorter range really make the Morays much easier to deal with. All the misses with the Rail Cannons definately point to having 2 weapons so that you have some ability to compensate for lousy dice shaking.

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TRC - No we didn't bother activating a them. Didn't seem much point. If they were a larger formation with armed Turrets mixed in, that would make it interesting.

E&C - The Tau are going to have GREAT difficulty dealing with large War Engines if this present push to follow 40K stats is used.
A single attack is simply not playable at this scale. The number of Railcannons on the Manta and Moray (and AX10) should not be touched. This firepower is needed.
Fluff has to be secondary to playability in this case.
We are not in favour of changing the Manta to a Bomber either. How can it be justified that your 700+pt unit may not even appear on the board if it fails it's activation? Not going to happen.

This may seem blunt, but some of these fluffy suggestions just are not practical for game play.

Thats how we see it (not just me).
Steve.

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Surely activating them is enormously worthwhile as utterly expendible activations to increase activation count and thus out-activate the enemy?

This is the main problem with having the turrets as normal units, activation count skyrockets.

On the manta: With a 1+ init it'll definately turn up on the first turn, and if you land it then it can stay stationary on the board for the next turn if you're so worried about it not turning up.

The whole point of downgunning the manta is to make it cheaper, thus make it taken to support the army rather than being the basis of it.

AX-1-0's should be the main anti-titan weapon in the tau arsenal, and they should probably go down in price even at the current stats to encourage them to be taken (though with the current moray stats they're basically worthless).

To be perfectly honest I'm not enormously bothered if they all keep 2xTK(d3), it was just an idea to mesh more with the background and try to downgun the manta as most people had agreed on.

As long as the range is reduced to 45 i'm basically ok with the moray, and it seems in this battle that it seemed to be fine. I'm still in favour of playtesting APU though, because the stratosphere-high support craft rule just doesn't make any sense. If it's that high, it should use the plane rules, or if lower the skimmer rules, not this bizarre best of both worlds.

note that APU won't make all that much difference as long as the range is reduced to 45; as long as the moray is firing it'll be able to be shot at anyway.

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The whole point of downgunning the manta is to make it cheaper, thus make it taken to support the army rather than being the basis of it.

AX-1-0's should be the main anti-titan weapon in the tau arsenal, and they should probably go down in price even at the current stats to encourage them to be taken (though with the current moray stats they're basically worthless).

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Surely activating them is enormously worthwhile as utterly expendible activations to increase activation count and thus out-activate the enemy?

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Marines have to rely on other titans to kill titans by shooting! The other option is terminator assaults but that's not easy to make work either.

Are there any other races/armies that rely heavily on airpower to kill Titans?

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