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Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:29 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
Actually two reports! With pictures Hopefully Gavin will add his two pence worth. Especially since I'm working from bad memory and might have got things a bit wrong! (Note text following just getting pictures up while this pc is availible.) Army lists Tau - Commanded by Gavin, first game using Tau army 5 TS 4 Pathfinders 1 Hammerhead Ion formation 1 Hammerhead Ion formation with Leader 1 Crisis fomration, with Supreme Commander Note we use salamander space marines (painted by PG) as Tau proxies. Eldar - Commanded by me 1 Avatar 1 Fireprisms (Flak, 75cm range) 1 Nightwing squadron (Aircraft) 2 Formations of 3 falcons and 2 firestorms (Flak 45cm range) 1 War walker lot 1 Aspect host, 5 Dire Avengers, 3 Dark reapers, 2 Exarchs 4 Lots of Guardians with 3 heavy weapons each 2 Storm Serpent formations The club (well part of it.) Also our setting up.

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:33 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
This is the eldars starting flak set up (Those barrage things are actually firestorms.)

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:37 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
The two sides deploy. As you can see I have all the vehicles thoroughly covered by the flak. 2 guardian formations and the aspect warriors are off table. As a note from tactica lots are in the wood, lurking in cover. The other two formations and the warwalkers are garrissoned. Nice tight deployment of objectives, hopefully favouring the assualt specialists, namely me. The Tau have pathfinders/hammerheads/crisis/pathfinders/hammerheads/pathfinders with another lot of pathfinders garrissoned.

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:40 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
The fight is on in the centre, note the tigershark to hit dice - out of 30 TK attaches they managed to hit 3 times during the game (with a few hits from other weapon systems). The battle developes. Turn one a big battle erupts in the centre. Note both sides were rolling very bad dice. The net result was a lot of breaking but not much damage. The nightwings failed to go onto CAP. The tigersharks tried a couple of wild weasel runs, but couldn't kill anyhting, but by weight of blastmarkers broke the fireprisms (with some help from the pathfinders blast marker) after they came forward slightly to hammer the Tau BTS goal. Massed TS fire tried to do for one of the stormserpents after it had advanced forward (that and it rolling a one for its dangerous terain test). Markerlighted the second formations of falcons got a lot of missiles from skulking tanks. The final two were finished off by failing their dangerous terrain tests. The Tau had two lots of pathfinders evaporate (one had death by aspects), and some tanks lost. The Tigersharks had taken a couple of damage points from their wild weasel missions. The eldar had a lot of broken stuff from the pathfinders mainly. End of turn rallies were awful for both sides, only the Hammerheads shaking blast markers. Turn two showed further hammering. The Tigersharks contented themselves with the broken units where there lack of hits didn't matter much. The Nightwings jumped one, causing a point of damage as the blighter made a couple of saves. They also drove the TS away from their flak firearc to other less advantagous angles. The Crisis tried to be clever but got furtherly broken by a guadian formation and damaged stormserpent, which got killed by a tigershark. They never rallied. The centre hammerheads had to come forward to get a target, wiping out the warwalkers. A bit too forward as a storm serpent firing BMing them and an extreme range firefight from the aspects with guardian support (some sort of triple activation there I think) wiped them out. End of turn rallies were better for eldar, all units not broken lost their blastmarkers. Tau units failed to rally.

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:42 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
The flak can't take the pressure of all the blast markers.

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:47 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
Situation (I think end of turn 1 - Gavin will hopefully jog my memory).

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:49 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
Well, it all comes down to objectives. With few working Tau ground formations I tried to ensure that they wouldn't have any left to claim anything. The avatar now turned up. The nightwings dive bombed a pathfinder fomration, reducing its slightly damaged self a bit further. Hoped for more. The Tau tanks shielded off as many pathfinders as they could, which meant they took a couple of assaults, most notably from an enraged avatar.They died. Still the pathfinders looked healthy enough. Tigersharks finally got a couple of hits in and did for the avatar, which finished off the two broken flak formations as they only had 1 tank each. A couple of tense activation rolls, some inefective overwatch fire and the tau were through the eldar lines holding 2 objectives including the blitz. Tigershark attacks removed the contesting Eldar formation (just) handing it to the Tau. Pretty close though. End of game. 2-1 to Tau General notes, my activation rolls were terrible, both sides to hit rolls were bad, our rallying was abismal. I hate my dice, I'm getting dragon slayers ones! Lots of it came down to disrupt weapons in point blank battle and blastmarkers (especially turn one). Markerlights and the aircraft helped Tau units put blastmarkers and sometimes hits all over the place. A good counter to those dodgy Eldar! Few units really shined here. The tigershark berifit of getting many hits became a near unkillable unit that placed lots of blast markers instead. The good armour and more importantly two hits gives it this good secondary back-up. Pathfinders were as ever great The Tigersharks here didn't do much as Gavin got very few hits. The supreme commander roll kept them all flying however. The ability to put BM everywere though was nice. They were lucky to get the avatar, my saves were as bad as his hits. Still didn't manage to shoot many down and I have to say the Tau with lots of markerlights and missiles are very good at shooting flak formations up. Gavin may have some more pertinent thoughts as he had the Tau this time.

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:58 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
Second game, same forces, switched sides. Well, back with the Eldar Gavin did a different formation with the falcons with the tanks being an ablative shield for the flak. Being braver than me he was also quite happy to roll lots of dangerous terrain tests. The game started with a few daring moves, the pic shows the result of the Hammerhead charge round the cover to draw a bead on 2 flacons. Killing them broke that formation. The fireprisms came forward and with the help of a charging stormserpent and emerging war walkers (how do they fit?) killed half the BTS hammerhead formation before they even activated. The other hammerhead eventually got done by a wave of assaults from the storm serpents cargo hold. However lots of markerlight fire did for the stormserpent and the fireprisms (well, it broke them). The Warwalkers by the end of the turn looked a bit ropey and the crisis doubled forward to slaughter the eldar holding the far left objective. The first tigershark got capped by the fighters and 5 hits sent it down to earth. The others though butchered the fireprisms and eventually got all the firestorms. The game ended after the first turn. Despite the loss of a plane the eldar forces were pretty mauled with just infantry left in contention, only one broken vehicle remaining. I still had half my tanks and had only lost one formation of pathfinders. The fight had taken place away from the objectives and with no transports the infantry would have been shot to pieces trying to get there, not to mention the 4 bombers still flying, those nightwings only being able to get 1 per turn at most. Plus it was getting late and that bar does close eventually. Game two, mid way through first turn.

Author:	Honda [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 2:28 pm ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
Eldar 1 Fireprisms 1 Nightwing squadron 2 Formations of 3 falcons and 2 firestorms

So, I'm struggling with this list. Does the Eldar player "still" not know that you're bringing 5 x TS?

I am confused at how someone can think that 1 squadron of fighters is going to be able to deny Five Aces from roaming all over the board, doing whatever they want.

Based on your earlier comments, it sounds like the TS didn't shoot very well, so perhaps their overall impact on the game wasn't significant, but leaving your AA defense up to random statistics is not how you win a game, let alone a war.

If the intent of the game was to just have fun or play a campaign scenario, then I understand. But if this is supposed to add "evidence" for the case that the TS is overpowered vs. a situationally effective piece, then again, I struggle to see where anything that wasn't previously stated is being revealed.

Case proven: If you let five TS roam freely without challenging them, especially against low body/vehicle count armies, then they can have a huge impact on the overall battle.

Case not proven: That the above statement applies to "horde" armies or when the count of TS is two or less.

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
? Don't get it. Thats more flak than I've seen used in a game before. 1 Squadron of 3 Nightwings - 300 points (Aircraft) 1 Battery of 3 Fireprisms - 250 points (Range 75cm) 4 intergral Firestorms - The equivalent of 200 points (Range 45cm) So thats 750 points of flak capable units verses 875 points of bombers. I'm sorry, what sort of flak levels are you considering adequete?

Author:	Honda [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 9:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
TRC, I'm not trying to be overly critical. I was just extremely surprised that since you've already proven that the TS can snipe its way to an advantage, I truly expected more fighters to bounce them. JMO, but by yielding the initiative to you by selecting flak over fighter assets, the Eldar player hasn't taken any real steps to neutralize your strength. So it would seem to me, if I was going to play someone who has trashed me with the 5 Aces trick (or is at least famous for it ? ?), then I would think it's my responsibility to do something to wrest the initiative away, not continue to yield to your tactics. Again, maybe it's just the differences in playing styles or war fighting philosophies. For example, in the early stages of the Cold War when the Russian airforce was turning the sky black with the number of aircraft they were producing, the US did not suddenly start maximizing their AA production. They attacked the problem with superior air assets. I think we are fairly familiar with how effective Eldar air assets can be, so it was my expectation that your opponent would have taken offensive actions, rather than defensive actions. I apologize if my message came off harsh, that wasn't my intent. I think I should have embedded the "incredulous" smilie to indicate how surprised I was at the Eldar list.

Author:	primarch [ Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:49 pm ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
Hi! Great report and pics! Primarch

Author:	The_Real_Chris [ Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:14 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
I think the lists are choosen as air deterant ones. If you put 900 points into three squadrons of nightwings your army can only take on air heavy armies, you have lost on the ground (though nightwings are pretty neat). Flak is always a more attractive option as it gives ground activations and everyone I chat to sees epic as a ground game. Further we are trying to play without going into an air arms race. No one wants a situation were you have to be taking air stuff as a deterant, and to be frank that is already happening somewhat. The whole point of the list isn't to show 'hey this is a killer list' but rather to try and emphasise by the shortest route possible the power of the aircraft. In the ork game it comes out more as they kill the flak and the fighter bombers have to intercept whilst under fire from the hammerheads. Even limiting them isn't going to do much. So I get only two? Well I can still get 5-6 turns of flying out of them. Even if I don't take them the threat of such beasts in the air means there will be more flak around. You have to do something about them. You can't afford to be under fire for 2,3,4 turns from them. Whats that on average? Three turns of 4 4+ TK shots and 2 6/5+ MW shots. 6-7 kills on RA targets, thats of course if your flak is keeping them at arms length, there are other attacks closer in. Hmm, this is something of a diversion from the bat rep though, so I'll stick it in the plane thread.

Author:

The_Real_Chris [ Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:28 am ]

Post subject:

Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points

Quote (Honda @ 04 Feb. 2006 (20:17))

I'm not trying to be overly critical. I was just extremely surprised that since you've already proven that the TS can snipe its way to an advantage, I truly expected more fighters to bounce them.
(Extreme Editing)
I apologize if my message came off harsh, that wasn't my intent. I think I should have embedded the "incredulous" smilie to indicate how surprised I was at the Eldar list.

Generally its sits off at 45cm and shoots, sniping has been somewhat rare and unnessecery mostly.

No worries, you didn't seem harsh, I just didn't get what you thought as I tend to lump anything with an AA value together in term of defences.

The whole Fighter/Flak option is an interesting one. Compare 3 Nightwings to the other flak options. 5 Firestorms would cost 50 points less, with a greater rate of fire, and they have the ability to do stuff on the ground as well. Fighters are only worth it if you know bombers are about. The Edlar incidentally have the best option here fighter wise, though 300 points of Ork fighters are a good multirole if one shot weapon. The thunderbolt is somewhat poor comparison with near everyone taking hydra to get more shots (and better saves

) and avoid the 15cm counterflak the plane must brave to get its full 2 attacks in. Small squadron size doesn't help much. I still always take a squadron though as I've always liked them and they are very good at shooting up LV formations straying outside the flak umbrella.

the US did not suddenly start maximizing their AA production. They attacked the problem with superior air assets.

They may have been influenced by the german experience there. The germans went all out for flak (and had some very good guns) as the fighters they could easily produce just died and the pilots were novices. The rocket stuff was too late and too few to help much. Of course the flak couldn't stop anything, just make it more costly.

So it would seem to me, if I was going to play someone who has trashed me with the 5 Aces trick (or is at least famous for it

), then I would think it's my responsibility to do something to wrest the initiative away, not continue to yield to your tactics.

Well nine times out of ten I have a siege or other Imerpial army, so you never know whats in the bag......

Author:	Ginger [ Sun Feb 05, 2006 5:35 am ]
Post subject:	Tau vs Eldar, 2700 points
Ok Honda And with apologies to Chris for the delay in posting (work pressures). Regarding the Eldar army, I provided a modified version of my original list knowing I was to face the "5 aces", so generated an army with two tactical options 1) The two Falcon / Firestorm formations give 2x 4+ pulse dice each, and at 5 strong, should be relatively resistant to aircraft if positioned correctly. They were in turn covered by the FirePrisms, and the Nightwings - a total of 1050 points of AA and air as Chris has pointed out earlier. This is intended to provide some form of "air umbrella" to cover the rapid assault by ground troops 2) The Storm Serpents permit a large portion of troops to be kept off-table to be delivered into the assault as required ? and away from any form of airstrike by the TS, thus reducing their effect some. --------------------------- When we met, we agreed to swap sides giving me the Tau (as I am a relatively inexperienced in EA), and also agreed to set up a battlefield with a moderate amount of terrain including the two woods (garrisoned at the start) and the built up area (later occupied by a pathfinder formation) to provide as much cover for ground formations as possible, further dampening the possible effects of the TS. SO, from the Tau point of view, the tactics are fairly obvious . . . 1) Remove the umbrella ASAP using the TS 2) Kill the Storm Serpents ASAP to prevent the Eldar close quarter assaults 3) Keep the Eldar at arms length as long as possible to allow the firepower to take effect. The Eldar intentions become 1) Keep the air umbrella going as long as possible (and hopefully kill some TS in the process) 2) Keep in cover unless killing something or getting objectives 3) Use the Storm Serpents judiciously to apply reserves at the relevant points and to backup assaults Chris has got the bare bones of the battle pretty well, although there are a couple of minor errors ? Turn 1 ? The Nightwings failed to activate at all (the first of many low dice). ? The TS only suffered 1 damage and 6x BM from their ?wild weasel? attacks. The combined weight of ground fire and 3x TS runs taking out all three AA formations. You should note that The Eldar AA formations only got a total of 2x FirePrism and 3x Firestorm shots off at the 3x TS on the way in before succumbing to these attacks, and thus no shots at the end of turn. Turn 2, ? All the Eldar AA failed to recover, essentially sealing their fate, though I am not sure that they would have had much effect ? 2x TS failed to activate reducing the damage a bit Turn 3 ? As Chris noted, I switched 2x TS to take out the Avatar to cause the extra BM on the remaining Eldar units killing the broken AA and Serpent (big grin!) At the end of the game, I only had 1 ? Pathfinders and a broken Crisis formation left ? but just managed to get to the objectives. Chris has understated the appalling dice for both of us ? I lost count of the number of 1?s and 2?s, it was a record by any standards; to the extent that in the end others were becoming disturbed by our almost continuous groans / laughs. However, a close fought, fun game (and my first ever E:A win!) ---------------------- As we completed relatively early, we agreed to swap sides, and I tried to use fewer Eldar garrisons in favour of ?off-table assaults?. Although cut short (Pub closing time), essentially, combined TS and long range Seeker missiles repeated the destruction of the Eldar troops in just over 1 ? turns ? the ground AA failed to down anything (the Nightwings activating this time was the only highlight) and history was well on the way to repeating itself. ------------------------------- In conclusion (if it needs saying) - IMHO if an EA novice like me can beat an experienced player like Chris when we have done as much as possible to skew things against the Tau, the unrestricted TS is definitely unbalanced. The fact that only 3 a/c were needed to effectively strip the AA in the first turn in both games, even with appalling dice IMHO suggests that the stats themselves are too good in any event ? so as a game designer of several decades experience, I would respectfully repeat the suggestion of reducing the railguns to 1x MW 3+, TK(D3) 30cms, and probably restricting them to 1x TS per 500 air points. All the best Ginger

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