Here comes my second Battle Report!

Rules used: Epic Handbook 2008 and normal Hardcopy of the E:A book.

My Tau list (v5.1):

Crisis Suits + 2 Crisis + Shas'o (CS)
AMHC Railguns (HHR)
AMHC Ion Cannons (HHI)
Orca with Firewarrior Cadre + Pathfinder Upgrade (FWPF)
Broadsides (BR)
Stealthsuits (ST)
Firewarrior + DF (FWDF)
Barracudas
Tigersharks

Tyranids (v9.2.1):

Genestealer Swarm (6) + Genestealer (GS)
2x Lictor Swarm + 2x 3 Lictors
2x Assault Group (1 Tyrant + 4 Warriors) (AG1 and AG2)
Hive Group (Dominatrix Bio Titan) + 3 Zyantrophes (Domi)
Assault Spawn Cluster (3 Haruspex) (Running with Domi)
2x Carnifex Cluster (2x 3) (Running each with AG1 and AG2)
9x Gaunt Cluster (3 Hormagaunt, 6 Termagants) (distributed to those three groups: AG1, AG2 and Domi)

With his list it seems there are 95 (actually 100) points missing, since he said he would field 3005 points. We were not sure later.

Deployment:  



I hope the picture is self-explanatory. Liktors and Stealthsuits did not teleport into this game right away and the Tyra player garrisoned his genestealers around the lowest objective on the picture. (Please ignore those colored objects on the "wall". I tried Gimp this time and did not get the hang of it completely yet.)

Turn 1:
Tau won the strategy roll, which is not that hard obviously against the strategy rating of 1 on the Tyra side. Since I knew he couldn't fire on me from that distance, also had few activations and I did not want to get too close to him, I let him start.

AG1 failed to march, therefore chose to move 15 cm.

HHI doubled behind the far end of this artificial plateau and fired on AG1 but due to a bad roll did not manage to hit.

AG2 also failed to march, moving 15 cm straigt ahead.

FWDF doubled onto the bridge to get a better defensive position for now.

DOMI tried to march and failed as well but using his reroll he finaly got to march straight towards the middle of the table.

The Broadsides doubled next to the FWDF onto the bridge and fired at AG1, but killed only one Warrior due to good saves on the nids side.

The Genestealers, well, you might imagine by now, failed to do what they were told and therefore moved forward. (Never seen someone that unfortunate at initiative rolls... but its not that easy with Tyranids if not assaulting.)

Now comes my suicide mission which is definitely not characteristic for Tau and I did not like to take this option. But I wanted to get as much shots from my Guided Missiles as possible towards the Dominatrix Bio-Titan. Therefore the Orca landed in the ruins behind the DOMI formation (and very near to AG2) mostly for the benefit of markerlighting the Dominatrix. Good rolls meant also some nice amount of kills and blastmarkers to the synapse units, killing actually all Zyanthropes. (The picture showing the end of turn 1 describes this situation, whereas the yellow circle shows where the DOMI formation stood.)

Being inside the markerlights, now was the time for some additional air action. Since the DOMI formation marched, his only antiair was unusable for him and the Domi could not shoot at my aircrafts. The Barracudas did kill absolutely nothing... and the Tigersharks faired exactly as bad... therefore just adding some BM.

I rolled average to slightly below, but the ability to save twice and also have an invulnerable save let the titan get away unscarced.

The Crisis attacked DOMI as well and managed to do some minor damage adding toward the BM limit.

As the final formation for this round the HHR managed to wrench one DC from the titan and broke the formation. But in this case it was not very good for me, as he could use his "retreat" to advance towards my units...

The Orca flew off the table leaving the FW formation pretty much to die...


Broken formations:
Only DOMI, which managed to rally. Most of the BM were removed.

He rolled good on his spawning rolls (5,6,6) bringing quite some units back.

Comment on the first round: I think it was very lucky on my side that he was failing that much on his initiative rolls. It would look alot different for me, if he were nearer at my throat than that, especially since I could focus in relative safety on DOMI.

Turn 2:

The pictures also showed where the teleport units landed bringing down some pressure on me. I chose to use my stealth suits defensively as well since I was pretty sure not to have the slightest chance to live through an assault of AG1, considering how big the formation is, even with those casualties it already suffered. Therefore the option to possibly lure AG1 back or capturing the objectives myself seemed most appealing to me. Additionally these were my only markerlights besides those two pathfinder units in the Orca Firewarrior formation.

Well, no surprise, I won the strategy roll... which was very good for the survival of my broadsides and crisis suits. Again I chose to play defensively and more or less abuse the skimmer rule against CC units.
HHR marched right between my broadsides on the bridge and the liktors that teleported in the back on the landing pad. The picture was taken later but the only difference to the actual situation are the missing Firewarriors that were standing right next to the broadsides.



Retainig the initiative I gave the double order for the Crisis suits to attack DOMI, trying to get as much damage out as possible before my most expensive formation gets destroyed which seemed pretty inevitable in that situation. Well, I could have attacked the lictors but they kinda seemed not worth it. After killing only one of the bigger creatures (I think it was a Haruspex, but not sure) the suits jumped behind a small terrain feature which actually brought them nearer to AG1...

Pretty much denying the Tyra player any viable targets for his lictors he gave the assault order to his genestealers attacking my crisis suits. 4 of the 7 got into CC with three of my Crisis. They killed nothing, since I saved the actual four hits. I myself managed to kill one GS in CC and another via FF getting me a lead on assault points for resolution, winning the assault actually by 5 destroying the whole GS formation. Kinda lucky...

FWDF doubled in a circle around CS for protection. This was pretty much a very, very bad decision, since I forgot the 4BP MW attack of the Domi Bio-Titan. ~_~

And of course he tried to advance DOMI towards my Crisis and kill them all, rolling a 1! Supreme Commander: rolling a 3. In that moment we thought that was enough but barely. A bit later we remembered that BM gave +1 on the initiative roll, which meant he needed a 4+. We did not rewind it and therefore I had to live with loosing 40% of the units, right above to break the formations. Considering how bad it could have been, I was pretty lucky again.

BR sustained fire on the liktors behind the rocks killing 4 and therefore break the formation.

AG2 assaulted the FW and PF formation in the ruins leaving only the two PF and one FW unit to run away broken. (I consider this pretty uncharacteristic... against Eldar I normally dont get to run away, at least the hackdown gets all killed, pretty much to those stupid exarchs etc... another point why Tau, even with a 4+ in FF would not nearly be as good in FFs than Eldar)

The Stealth Suits doubled towards AG1 to markerlight them.

HHI sustains fire on AG1 and kills some small stuff and all but one synapse creature, which brought me two killed synapses short of reaching the BTS goal.
Trying to achieve it I let the aircrafts out on synapse killing, but to no avail again. Barracudas stood down and TS killed nothing. Even the orca came trying for a lucky shot. Therefore those two formations earned themselves one BM each for getting under fire from the Dominatrix AA flying back home...

This was the end of turn 2 and I forgot to make pictures, sorry for that. But I have to say it was a kinda static game and the end pictures are pretty similar to now.

Broken formations:  
FWPF, not rallying.
One lictor formation, not rallying.

Turn 3:

HHI killed the last warrior of AG1 (chose all AT shots just to kill the two remaining light vehicle units... to be on the save side.) and one Carnifex.

The remaining Crisis advanced onto the bridge shooting at DOMI managing to chop off one DC and killing some smaller stuff, achieving the BTS goal.

Furious the Dominatrix assaulted the remaining 4 Crisis suits on the bridge, which was just wide enough so only the titan could engage. The titan killed "only" two suits and I managed to strip off two DCs, rolling for critical effects the roll came up: 6,6. xD To check on the table I rolled 4 and 6, which meant two additional DC gone and that thingy on top of the titan got killed. Therefore it lost his synapse ability and all remaining units of AG1 and DOMI would probably be gone at the end of this round... Again, lucky me.

No resolution for that assault since my opponent forfeited not seeing a chance to win this game.


(Something is actually missing, since AG1 broke my FW formation down to 3 DF and 3 PF, but it does not matter as much)

I am pretty sure I could've achieved a

Tau 3 - 0 Tyra

considering the board and my possibilies. BTS, Blitz and maybe TSNP.




This game looks pretty much as if I had too much luck and my opponent none. He failed alot of rolls and I only a few, but in general I rolled mostly average and some rolls below, as my opponent did. He had some lucky saves, especially invulnerable saves and my aircrafts pretty much sucked again this match. Not only considering damage dealing but also their tactical use was seemed limited. And I even managed to get those guided missiles out. Those 275 points for the TS are, well, hard to justify when coming up with an army list. Its funny that I fired more GMs with only to formations that were able to markerlight than in other games. But this was obviously due to being mobile inside an orca, and flexible with defensive stealth suits.
But one important aspect was, that he had so few formations that I could use those ML/GM formations without fear of immediate retaliation. Even then, those AT5+ shots seemed not overpowering, just adding a bit to the overall picture. 5+ is quite high. I am still not sure how to see GMs.

It appeared to us, he needed more sturdier units to screen his synapses since I did not bother myself much with those small units going mainly for AT shots.

It still was a fun game for both of us, but I think it was a bit depressing for the Tyra player. But Epic is relatively new in our club which means most of us have probably only 3 to 4 games til now. I think only two had twice as many games. But it seems its getting up pretty fast soon.

I hope you liked my battle report I sure to write some more, so please give me some comments to motivate me towards more BatReps!

Greets
Assariel

Great report - yes keep adding more!!

Haven't got around to using the latest nid list yet myself.

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Thanks for the report, Assariel!

These are both armies I'm playtesting as well.  Any more thoughts on the Bugs?

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I really like the dífferences in playstyle with Tyranids. I have to say, I know only Tau, Eldar, Death Guard for sure yet and I think I can imagine how SM and Imps are played. Tyras are very unique, but I am happy that he did not split his huge formations in smaller ones later, cause that would've been annoying to describe in a BatRep imo.  

I have to look at this list a bit closer, since I am pretty sure to fight against it in the near future.
As already mentioned I am not sure if he just not has some of the heavier hitters yet or if there are not many "tank aquivalents" in that list. But we thought he needs more units that can absorb the AT damage for more survivability for his synapses. Again a nice aspect I think adding to the unique aspects of Tyras. I think its relatively similar in 40k, but since I never played it I am talking only from the Epic standpoint.

The Dominatrix Bio-Titan seems to be a very good unit. I think it has good abilities and is priced appropriate. But its especially hard to kill it with all that stuff around it running in the same formation. Thats unique as well, right? Or does have another faction the ability to have a combined formation with a titan and normal units?

One very bad thing for him was those wasted 600 points on lictors, that did nothing. They couldn't attack my skimmers and one salvo from my broadsides was enough to break them. Very unfortunate for him, again.

One question from my side: Is it a good idea to assemble so big formations or would it be more viable to take smaller ones to have more activations. I can see the aspect considering nearly unbreakable formations, especially with those expendable units.

Also, do you have some suggestions for the Tyra player for list assembly? This one was pretty much fidgeted together right before the game after he got his package and put the units on the bases.  

Thanks for your comments!

Great report, and I have to agree with you, the Tyranids play differently from most other armies. Your opponent should have (as you correctly suggest) have had at least one more synapse group. If Tyranids are outactivated, they really suffer because they have to move forward and can then be shot/assaulted to pieces.

Lictors are very hard to use correctly. I am still learning my lessons with these. They should not be used as terminators. Since Tyranids have a Strategy Rating of 1, they are most likely to be broken before they are given the opportunity to do something themselves. Currently, I teleport them close to (or even behind) a Hive Tyrant formation and use the Commander ability to include the Lictors in the assault, who Infiltrate a long way. My Hive Tyrant swarms are often deplored of bugs after trudging up the battlefield, so Lictors act as great reinforcements. Also, never take 3 of anything. It is the weakest number in Epic A. Better one formation of four than two of three. At least in my book.

To advocate against myself, one use of formations of three Lictors would be to Teleport them in turn 1 to pop up your activation count, use them as rearguard to give your swarms better survivability. They can still move up behind Hive Tyrants for combined assaults.

/Fredmans

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The lictors were two formations of 6. I agree with 3 is a very weak number in this game. But then again, 2x6 lictors means 600 points which is also a hefty number. But the idea adding them to another formation seems a good one since its nearly impossible for them to start the turn.

Just a rule note: when firing on a formation that combines war engines and normal units, the attacker can select, actually *must* select, which type of unit they're firing on... so, a Dominatrix is *not* protected by non-war engine units in Her formation.

3.2.1 Allocating Hits To War Engines

If a formation includes both war engines and non-war engine
units then an attacker must state whether any attacks he makes
on the formation will be directed at the war engines or the
other units in the formation. Attacks directed at the war
engines can only be allocated against war engines if they hit,
while attacks directed at other units may not be allocated to the
war engines in the formation.

Orks are the other army that can have "combined" formations like that.

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Ah, good to know. Another rule that is not fully integrated in our minds.  

Also LatD and BL, which can add Greater Deamons, and, in case of Cultists, the War Altar...

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And guard if you add upgrades to your super heavy tank formation...

The list of mixed formations is really quite large when you think about it!

It's true!  Hadn't really put 2 and 2 together like that, but a lot of armies can mix like that!

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