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[ 12 posts ]

BatRep: Tyranid vs Tau, 3k
Tactica	Post subject: BatRep: Tyranid vs Tau, 3k Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:07 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241	boy... talk about leaving us hangin... Looking forward to the report! _________________ Rob
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asaura	Post subject: BatRep: Tyranid vs Tau, 3k Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:25 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:34 am Posts: 481	I'll fill in with a little more teasing   First of all, I want to apologize to Hena for being inexcusably late to the game. Mainly for this reason we only got three turns played and had to end the game without a crystal clear result, but my gut says the Tyranids would've won handsomely, had we played out the fourth turn. This was my first game in ages and the first game against Tyranids in Epic:A. The Tyranids felt -- right. They just kept coming and wouldn't stop. More comments once Hena gets the batrep up.
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asaura	Post subject: BatRep: Tyranid vs Tau, 3k Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:54 am
Brood Brother Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:34 am Posts: 481	A few comments on deployment and Turn 1 from the Tau viewpoint. I placed the T&H objectives deep in the Tyranid side to keep Garrisons away from me. This was "a limited success", since the Genestealer garrison couldn't threaten anyone on Turn 1. However (and this is where the "limited" comes in), there was only one Tyranid garrison. A quick analysis of the Tyranid army list would've shown this to be so. My excuse is that I was really late and just wanted to get on with it   The decision to go after the artillery bugs with the Tau air assets was obviously a mistake. I could've neutralized the Tyranid AA pretty effectively just by shooting at the Zoanthropes (LV targets can be targeted with AT fire in the middle of an infantry swarm) and the Harridan. My original idea for the aircraft was to do this, but I got carried away by the moment and just couldn't come to my senses. In the end, I accomplished nothing against the arty bugs and lost half my aircraft for this. For the rest of the turn, I didn't seem to really think, either. I just moved in range and took potshots at the bugs. As you can see from the photos, the end of turn 1 is a hopelessly intermingled line of Tau formations. What I should've done is to use the mobile cheap Piranhas to harass and slow down at least one flank. Instead, I just sat on my fishy ass and held on to a belief that I don't need to commit my forces. The initial deployment looks much better than the end of Turn 1. At the start, I have three infantry/PF formations in front of the others, clearly out of intermingled range. In the end, everyone but the Stingrays are kind of mixed up with no purpose.
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Tactica	Post subject: BatRep: Tyranid vs Tau, 3k Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:22 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241	I'm going to wait for the post bat rep comments to be placed before comemnting further, but it looks like the game was a fun one. Also, good to see Asaura back in the mix. BTW: I like the Tau models - Asaura's minis? Cheers, _________________ Rob
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asaura	Post subject: BatRep: Tyranid vs Tau, 3k Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 9:03 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:34 am Posts: 481	Aye, the Tau models are mine. The color scheme is a straight ripoff from Carl Woodrow's Dropship article on the Orca and the round bases are 20 mm steel washers. I like them, too In hindsight, the game contains some things which I think may be typical for players facing the Tyranids for the first time. One theme is the amount of ineffective fire thrown at the bugs. I just couldn't bring myself to maneuver even a bit instead of trying to shoot. Against anyone but the Tyranids, I would've placed quite a lot of BMs from Turn 1 on, but the bugs just didn't care. Another thing is how I set up Engage opportunities for the Tyranids, hoping to get them to split their forces and not concentrate on getting to the Blitzkrieg objective. I sacrificed the Pathfinders by leaving them in harm's way once the Tyranids were so close and the game near it's end that I felt I could just use the Markerlights on the Stingrays for the endgame. This idea didn't pay really pay off, however, as the Tyranid player still got two big assaults going, wiping out the Crisis+SC formation and breaking the Kroot, who were needlessly intermingled with some Pathfinders. One of the things I was originally planning to do was to concentrate fire on one big swarm at a time, with the idea that once I could get the synapse units exposed, I could finish them off and get rid of a big enemy formation. I didn't have the fire discipline to do this, although I did get a fair number of shots on some Tyranid Warriors. This is clearly a job for MWs, carried by either Crisis suits or flown in by the AX-1-0 Whitesharks. However, as noted earlier, I wasted the aircraft on a silly one-way artillery hunting mission. The reason I started turns 2 and 3 with many Coordinated Fire actions was that my troops were deployed messily and very vulnerable to intermingling assaults. I used CFs to get as many formations out of immediate danger as I could. This was just a byproduct of poor play, since I could've easily avoided most of the intermingling in the first place, had I really tried to do so. That said, CF also allowed me to both put a ML unit in a right spot and shoot some GMs right away, before anyone gets to kill off the pathfinders. One of the things which I think went well was the army list itself. It has 13 activations, which is a lot, but carries an obvious downside, as the small formations are very brittle. In this case, this wasn't a problem, since the big bug formations would've killed any amount of Tau in assaults, and the bugs didn't shoot almost anyone.
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Honda

Post subject: BatRep: Tyranid vs Tau, 3k Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:30 pm

Brood Brother Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:44 pm Posts: 1891 Location: Katy, Republic of Texas

One of the things I was originally planning to do was to concentrate fire on one big swarm at a time, with the idea that once I could get the synapse units exposed, I could finish them off and get rid of a big enemy formation. I didn't have the fire discipline to do this, although I did get a fair number of shots on some Tyranid Warriors. This is clearly a job for MWs, carried by either Crisis suits or flown in by the AX-1-0 Whitesharks. However, as noted earlier, I wasted the aircraft on a silly one-way artillery hunting mission. Another formation to consider is the Dragonfish/Scorpionfish combination for that long range MW fire. Whenever I fight against the Tyranids, I don't bring anyone who walks, so no stealth, crisis, or non-mechanized infantry. The Drf/ScrF gave me some heavy firepower that still skimmed and had good range. Also, Morays and IC-HH's are a nice compliment, though not cheap. I have not played against the new list yet, but in my earlier games against the Tyranids, I worked hard to stay out of double range, using terrain masking to fire from pop-up positions and keep the nasties at arms reach. I saw in one game where as soon as they get in engage range, you're dead. ...and staying away definitely gets harder to do as the Tyranids start pushing into your deployment zone. Sometimes I found myself jumping into their side of the table to develop crossfire opportunities and make sure I didn't get pinned against my edge of the table. They're definitely a tough opponent and match up well against the Tau. btw, cracked Lictor legs with a little butter and lemon are exquisite! ? The reason I started turns 2 and 3 with many Coordinated Fire actions was that my troops were deployed messily and very vulnerable to intermingling assaults. I used CFs to get as many formations out of immediate danger as I could. This was just a byproduct of poor play, since I could've easily avoided most of the intermingling in the first place, had I really tried to do so. That said, CF also allowed me to both put a ML unit in a right spot and shoot some GMs right away, before anyone gets to kill off the pathfinders.

I think your use of CF was quite masterful. What I'm not sure of yet, as I need to absorb the report a little more, is whether or not it pinned you near other swarms, thus allowing them to close with you.

Great report both of you and thanx for giving me a preview of future Tyranid fun.

We now have two Tyranid players locally, so I'm sure the Swarm will be having an impact on the rest of the players.