We played a Tau v IG game. The idea was to test some of the statements and hypotheses that have been bandied about in the Tau discussions.
The scenario was weighted against Tau. It required the Tau to succesfully engage an administorum building to capture some thingamajig or another. The board was 10'x4', with a dogleg, and required the Tau to cover about 8' of table length. Obviously, 4' width somewhat limited the maneuver advantage of the Tau also.
Basically, a meatgrinder to test durability versus a very heavy armor force to test AT capacity.
IG:
All-Basilisk arty co
SHT co + russ
Russ co + demolishers
Warlord titan
Reaver titan
HQ
2x Stormtroopers in valkyries
2x T-bolt formations
4x Hydras (1 with each company)
Tau:
FW in DF w/ Pathfinders and Ethereal
Crisis w/ Hvy drones and SC
Armor Cadre w/ HH - 8 IC
Stingrays w/ stingrays and Piranhas
Piranhas w/ piranhas
Heavy Drones
Stealth w/ drones
Scorpionfish/Narwhal
2x Guevesa w/ guevesa
2x Manta
FW formation w/ FW, Heavy Drones, Piranhas loaded in Manta
Barracudas
2xTigersharks, railcannon versions
It was ~6500 Tau v ~5500 IG, but I promptly forgot to put out the Stingray formation, so it ended up being about 6K. As I said, it was basically a meatgrinder for the Tau and the force was definitely not tailored for the scenario. Even at the full 6500 it was a long shot at succeeding. They decided to retreat for the Greater Good after about 6 turns. In that time, they destroyed both titans and most of the SHT co, while losing all the HH, Stealth, and Piranhas, and most of the Ethereal formation. In addition, one of the Mantas was alive only by the slimmest of margins (1 DC left) and only because the saves were simply unreal.
General observations
AT: AT is okay, if slightly low. As I said, I forgot the Stingrays. The Piranhas were an early IG target and broke on Turn 1. An unfortunate intermingling of the Ethereal formation and the armor formation led to their doom because I didn't see the Valkyries behind the trees and they were swamped by Stormtroopers. It was only at that point that I felt I was suffering for AT ability and even then I saw some ways to do some damage to AVs with Guevesa assaults.
In return for the slightly weak AT, they are obviously very good at taking out infantry and have a lot of access to TK weapons. Overall, I think that's an okay setup with respect to balance.
GMs: As noted, none of the GM-heavy formations saw combat. Had my stupidity not left 500 points of GM-toting pieces off the board, I think the Titans would have been toast in a fraction of the time because the GMs would have stripped shields that the TK weapons ended up dropping.
Mantas: Great Googly Moogly!
A company of 120cm direct firing Basilisks that can always see you is... shocking to say the least. I can't think of anything that might possibly be more brutal than support craft trying to cover 8' of board against that. Bleh. Still, overall the toughness of the Manta felt about right.
The firepower is better than a titan. The AA value was highly useful as I brought aircraft in between the two of them to protect them from interception even after all the IC HH's died. The total point cost seems just about right, but I did post about the FF value in the thread on support craft and I do think the Initiative should be 1.
Aircraft: Both my opponents felt that the air might be a bit too tough. The Railcannon Tigersharks were the biggest concern, but it was more the point value than the abilities that were bothersome.
Crisis Suits: Can't comment on the infantry/LV balance. I goofed it up. We targetted them as LVs, but I constantly forgot to take terrain checks, essentially moving them as infantry. Just too many new things to keep track of.
Drones: We need some clarification on the intent of the drone targetting rules. My understanding was that the "can be assigned AT hits" was strictly so they could shield AVs or LVs in the formation with them - that it was not to allow them to be targetted in essentially the same way that LVs are. In light of that, we played it so that drones in an all-infantry formation were not vulnerable to AT fire. If I was correct, that needs to be clarified. If not, well, I cheated my opponents out of ~8 AT shots.
Command and Control: I did find that they kept BMs. Basically, with so few leaders, within a couple turns of fighting most of the formations had a lingering 1-2 BMs that made activations much more difficult. In later turns I almost never retained initiative because it was virtually always a 4+ to activate. That would have happened much sooner in a GT scenario. I even felt most of the time that the IG had better C&C than I did.
Maybe I'm off on this, but I tend to think that is just plain wrong. There is every reason to think that Tau ought to have C&C ability somewhere below Eldar/SM but solidly above IG. At the very least, the Mantas ought to have an Initiative of 1. I could also buy into an argument that the "elite" battlesuit formations should have Initiative of 1.
Overall feel: The list felt in many ways like a lighter, faster version of the IG. I ended up unable to use some of the typical Tau-ish bits (only one CF and the GM formations essentially evaporated) and wasn't able to capitalize on the maneuver advantage due to the scenario. Basically, right now I'd put them as something between IG and Eldar.
The bonding knife ritual was supposed to be a really big part of the tau Fire Caste member 'coming of age' or 'paying his dues' and thus he and his unit become 'bonded' for life. Heh - that's just gone from E:A.
