'Guns' tau - trying without air bar Orca
450 6 crises + Shas'O (BTS)
400 7 crises
375 FW(bonded, pathf, DF)(6+2=4DF)
300 hammers x4 + skyray
300 hammers x4 + skyray
300 broadsides x6
275 3 x skyray
250 stealth х6
200 Hero
150 Orca

TRC marines
400 Terminators, Chaplain
350 Terminators
375 Tacticals, Hunter
350 Pred Annihilators, Hunter
200 Thunderhawk
200 Thunderhawk
150 Scouts
275 Warhound
275 Warhound
275 Warhound
150 Thunderbolts

Game abandoned after 2 turns due to Tau annihilation.

Deployment as shown.
Tau kept Broadsides in orca in Hero

Turn 1
Marines teleport in both terminators. Win init. BTS terminators on flank attack enemy BTS intermingled with hammerheads. Win wiping Crisis down to 1 stand and breaking hammers.
2nd Terminators attack buttoned up Firewarriors, winning combat by wide margin on dice roll and reducing formation to one devilfish.
Hammerheads respond move forward engage Warhound without markerlight support, get a crit, warhound stumbling into each other and one out of cover.
Hero retains but misses warhound on 1 dc remaining, merely breaking it.
Also misses warhound standing in open.
Orca arrives to planetfall point in middle of marine army.
Scouts advance, put broadsides in their ZoC and bm the orca. Preds fail to sustain but still kill 3 broadsides in crossfire.
Rest of turn centre terminator unit reduced to one man by Crisis, orca broken and killed, terminators extracted by Thunderhawks.

Turn 2
Marines win init. Preds double and break hammers. Warhound sustains at 2nd hammers, breaking them. Other warhound has a go at stealths, warhound finishes off broken broadsides.
Crisis have a go at the scouts, get shot by tacticals and air assaulted in return by BTS terminators.

Tau pretty cut up, marines ok, after a few more activations game is called.

Rules question - can the hero benefit from its targets being markerlit?

Turn 2

Tau army without a pair of overwatch garrisons... brave man!


Yes.

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Indeed. I feel for me the core of a tau army is one crisis with sc, 1 mech fw, 1 garrissoned FW, 1 garrissoned pathfinder. Then either A-10/air route with lots of ground AA for air game or Manta/Hero route for something quite different.

I've always found garrisoned Broadsides to be a strong deterent.

And who the heck starts "buttoned up" when there's Terminators coming?!? *laugh*

Well numbers wise its an interesting choice.

If buttoned up the terminators will get 8/3 hits and 16/9 kills on the devilfish. That translates into I'm not sure how many kills overall. 1 7/9 devilfish dead - with 4 stands inside each having a 2/3 chance of dying as well, I think that is roughly 2 1/3 dead FW for just over 4 kills total? I hate percentages, who can help me out?

If deployed the terminators will hit FW and now you have 8/3 normal hits and 10/3 MW hits which translates as 5 kills - so more I think overall. The biggest difference is return fire - buttons up you get 4x6+ and 4x5+ compared to 4x5+ and 8x6+, the latter giving a 2/3's chance of killing a terminator compared to being buttoned up only giving you a 1/2.

Of course the best option is to have the devilfish between you and the terminators but against teleports that's quite hard. Works well when you are dictating the moves however.

What about the Terminators sustaining fire using the other formation for crossfire? Options...

True - but thats not a point efficient trade In that situation I would prefer to hold them back them have them die tot he Taus retalitory fire.

The one who had a very hard time remembering Epic mechanics at the moment. I agree, this was dumb.

For the record, is there any working method of destroying 'hawks? I'm not sure even 6 skyrays have a real chance to shoot it down.

Considering something crisis-heavy next time.

--Guns

Broadside suits that start the game on Overwatch.

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Hmmm, you're right. I've played games against T/Hawks and I've used 6 Skyrays before. I've certainly damaged the odd T/hawk but in all the test games we played earlier in the year (over a dozen), I only shot down 1 Thunderhawk. At least they always had a Blast Marker on them before the Engagement! (not that it usually helped ).

It's best to forget about shooting them down and just be prepared for the assault that's heading your way.

As E&C said, Overwatch is probably your best bet. Broadsides can shoot at the T/hawk when the units move out of the flyer once landed (of course the assault will still usually hurt for the Tau by this stage). FireWarriors on Overwatch will at least put a lot of BM's on the attackers and may kill enough to make a difference.

Skimmers out the front of formations also helps to minimise the power of units like Terminators and Assault Marines (they have to use their FF and Termis don't get the extra attack).

Tau will generally struggle against Marines that are in competant hands.

Cheers,
Steve.

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But the way air assaults go nowerdays you only get to shoot at the Hawk after it has dropped off the terminators.

with 3+ vs smth like 5+ it helps?(I understand, that without FW-in-DFs losses'd be lighter)

Also, does use of massed piranhas(like 9) as skorpfish replacer have any strategic use?


I feared that.

With Tau, it's all about minimising the damage from enemy assaults. Every other army can do Engagments better than Tau. So yeah, only facing one 3+ attack is better than facing two attacks at 3+ with one of them being Macro Weapon! You have the Fire Warriors set up behind the Devilfish/skimmer screen.

The better tactic is to shoot the enemy to death before thay assault you... but to quote Han Solo "that's the real trick". It ain't easy...

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The trick to preventing air assault as Tau is to make them unpalatable for the Marine player.

Broadsides on overwatch will chew up mixed formations like Thunderhawks and infantry even if they're not markerlit.

Pathfinders on overwatch will kill Marine infantry with their sniper rifles.

Fire Warriors on overwatch are simply a nightmare for infantry to assault.

Skyrays are mostly there to deter other kinds of aircraft, and provide markerlights.
Barracudas are a nice purchase to help deter air assaults too.

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