Rules used: Official rules + 2008 errata.

Tau E&C version (Except pathfinders were kept at I 2+)

Crisis suits + SC - 350
Crisis Suits - 250
Armoured FW Cadre + £x Railgun HHs + Skyray. - 500
Armoured HH Cadre (Railguns) + Skyray. - 650
Broadsides - 300
Stealths - 275
Pathfinders - 175
Recon - 150
Recon - 150
Barracudas 175

2975

First up, army selection.  I think that by making the armoured cadre so big, it instantly stops "Popcorn".  If you want HHs then you have to invest a lot of points.  The base of the list is then set.  You need units that are going to markerlight and at the same time, big threatening units that can support the HHs and stop it from becoming the opponent's main target of choice (With it being the BTS).  Most support fms are markerlight units but the units that are going to make the most of said markerlights are in the core cadre section, with the exception of skyrays.  Much more subjective now but i enjoyed selecting an army from this list much more than previous ones, as it's simpler and allowed me to get all the things i really wanted for the army to play in the style that i wanted it to.


AMTL

Warlord Titan - 2x turbolaser destructors, gatling cannon, volvano cannon - 850
Reaver Titan - Apocalypse Rocket Launcher, Gatling Blaster, Volcano Cannon - 675
Reaver Titan - 2x Apocalypse Rocket Launchers + Carapace landing pad - 625
Warhound - Vulcan mega Bolter + Plasma Blast gun - 275
Warhound - Vulcan mega Bolter + Plasma Blast gun - 275
Thunderbolts - 150
Thunderbolts - 150
3000

Deployment:

As shown below:


Overview of deployment, with Tau Tetras (Craftily posing as warwalkers and sentinels respectively) and pathfinders taking position in scout order along the middle of the board.


The Tau scout line and the BTS Hammerhead fm along the right flank, deployed around the Tau Blitz.


Scout line and AMTL objective 2 with the Mech FW fm taking up position behind a building.


Titans take up position in mutual support of one another.  The Titan Blitz can be seen in the distance guarded by the barrage reaver.


Mechanicus objective 1


Tau objective 2.

Overview over Tau left flank, pathfinders in the middle, jockeying for position with the tetras.  Broadsides are on overwatch inside the Cathedral with crisis suits lingering in the ruined buildings close to the tau edge.


Close up of crisis deployment.


SC Crisis unit.


Barrage reaver's view of the battlefield.


Titans!

Turn 1:
Initiative: Tau.





Broadsides advance to bring the barrage reaver into range and LOS and open fire, stripping it of it's shields and causing it to take 2 saves.




Suitably shaken by the opening display of firepower the barrage reaver returns fire killing 1 and stacking up 3 x BMs.





Figuring the broadsides to be the lynchpin of this flank and taking the opportunity to get his god machine into the thinck of things the Princepts of the Warlord, retains and orders a double action.



The broadsides are no match for the fury of the warlord, even with at a diminished firepower capacity and promptly break and flee after 2 of their no die to the barrage of shot.

The Tau Barracudas go into CAP.

The Titan TBs also CAP.







Crisis suits maneuver into position down the left flank.  The trap is loaded.

Pathfinders also take up position, lighting up the enemy Warlord titan for the hidden Tau units.







Meanwhile the Mechanicus forces break off down the right flank.  A hunting pack of warhounds and Ambush Reaver.  The Tau respond by maneuvering Tetras into ML range of the now activationless mechanicus forces.

Hammerheads double into position and pop up to wreak carnage amongst the enemy battle group.  9 Railguns at AT 3+ and 11 GMs at 5+ thunder out over the terrain into the enemy warhound, the chosen target of the mechanised cadre's selective fury...





...When the dust clears, the enemy warhound stands defiant, shieldless but undamaged!





The FW cadre maneuvers (Doubles) onto Tau objective 2 and again pops up, aiming it's weapons at the lead warhound of the pack, also markerlit.  The firecontrol units performing perfectly in locking onto the Guiding beacon of the Tetra's markerlights and the combined fire of 3 railguns and 9 GMs smash the warhounds shields out of existence and cause 2 points of damage, punching through the Warhound's sheilds as if if they were made out of paper, breaking it.





The final activation of the turn sees the tetra units on the left flank double into position to mark the warlord - should the pathfinders be targeted next turn and add a BM to the gigantic war engine.

Rallys: Tau rally Broadsides,
AMTL: Broken Warhound.  All titans gain a shield.

Turn 2:







Teleports: Tau Stealth suits.  Teleport to within 10 cm of the Barrage reaver to prevent it from sustaining fire and also markerlighting the Reaver and Warlord (Despite there already being tetras and PFs, i wanted redundancy).

Initiative Tau:

The Tau commander calls a Co-ordinated fire mission to the nearby FW cadre.  The FWs advance and open fire with boosted railguns and GMs (In effect they stayed still but due to rules about pop up and sustained fire i had to declare an advance.  A side effect of the test ML rules seem to let you get around the restriction on popping up and sustaining.  Since you are advancing but are still +1 to fire on the target if it is markerlit).









The commander's Crisis unit also double into MW range and open fire, jumping back into the cover of the nearest building, the second crisis unit retains and does the same, causing serious damage to the enemy Warlord.  The Warlord is caught in a deadly crossfire and although it's thick rear armour saves it from destruction the BMs begin to stack up with alarcity.

Thinking the threat to the Warlord over and worrying about the Hammerheads positioned down the right hand flank ready to repeat the same trick this turn (And knowing that no-ones saves could be so jammy twice in a row with their warhounds) The Ambush reaver stalks round the hill and blows giant holes in the recon tetra fm - who also get quite jammy with their saves.  Retaining, the undamaged warhound follws and breaks the fm who then flee into the top right hand corner.







However the Warlord's princepts assumption is to be proven incorrect, as the recently rallied Broadsides stomp into position and open fire on the Warlord.





Although suffering little damage the firepower is enough to break the Warlord and send it frantically hurrying for cover.





Furious at the Alien's resistance the Barrage reaver is unable to rain down destruction onto the gathered masses of Tau soldiery in the distance by the constant harrassment of stealth suits.  The Reaver turns and engages them, crushing them like the insects they are.






View of the Tau left.

Pathfinders double into position behind the reaver titan.







Retaining, the HHs doubled to form a crossfire with the pathfinders with the reaver at it's centre.  One well aimed, markerlit barrage later and the Reaver is no more.



Tau Barracudas attempt to strafe the enemy Warhound but are shot down by CAP-ed Thunderbolts.

Second flight of theunderbolts stand down.

Tau tetras double into position to prevent the barrage reaver from sustaining fire again, next turn.



Rallys:
Tau, Stealth Suits,
AMTL: Warlord, warhound both rally.

Turn 3:

Initiative: Tau, again.





The Shas'O again, declares a Co-ordinated fire mission and both crisis units double over to the Warlord titan who is lit by the recently rallied stealth suits and cause it some more pain,  causing a critical.







The mechanicus respond by maneuvering their wounded but recently rallied warhound behind the Hammerhead fm and opening fire in a good killing crossfire position with the second warhound.



Retaining and sustaining fire the second warhound breaks the HH fm with a second crossfire and sends them running for safety, leaving AMTL objective 2 firmly in their hands.

Fleeing HHs.





The FW fm advances leaving the FWs to capture Tau objective 2 while the vehicles maneuver into position to shoot at the warlord once again.  They do further damage, leaving it on 1 DP and breaking it.





Thunderbolts once again descend from the skies and try to kill the Tau BTS, narrowly missing their objective.



The Barrage reaver once again, engages and slaughters the Tau scouts preventing it from firing it's barrage.



There's a little more jockeying for position and some desperste pathfinder shots into the Warlord to try and blow it up.

The rallied Tau tetras on the right flank march back to the Tau objective.

Going into the end phase the score was Tau: 1 (Defend the flag) AMTL: 0 (Very narrowly missed out on the Tau BTS)

End Phase:
The critically damaged warlord explodes handing the BTS to the Tau, making the final score:

2:1 in favour of the Tau!  


Titan Blitz


Titan BTS


Tau objective 1


Tau objective 2 & AMTL Objective 1.


Tau Blitz


AMTL objective 2


Tau BTS.

Another turn could have seen this game go either way.  The warhounds would have been in a position to push onwards towards the Tau blitz which was flimsily held by Tetras with BMs and the Tau BTS failed to rally and would certainly have been a sitting duck for thunderbolt fire.  In addition there were no further units to prevent the barrage reaver from letting rip and breaking/ disrupting the Tau hold on the objectives.  Paise the greater good for lousy Warlord tech priests, i say!  A very enjoyable game and pretty close.

More thoughts on markerlight and other Tau changes to come.

sounds really cool, keep 'em coming!

_________________
numquam culum es

Thank you very much for the incredibly detailed battle report.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Great reading. Thank you mate. I guess you know also that 5+RA is much better than 4+RA.

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Rats Keep Running...

Dark Eldar Dracon

Cheers guys.  I know some of the pics are a bit crap and there are millions of them but i had to get into some quite gymnastic positions to take them and to remind me what happened so i thought "Bugger, it, they're all going up".

So, observation time:

Well both me and my opponent didn't feel that the markerlight change was too much.  Without it i would have been struggling to take down void shields never mind damage battle titans, even with crossfires, in the complete abscence of long range MW attacks and TK weapons.

It certainly made the Tau firepower something to be feared and made them much more dynamic in terms of fire and maneuver.  Previous games i've had with Tau have pretty much made me feel like "Oh, so they're slow and have no real heavy firepower...great....".  It definately felt different to any other army i have.  In this list it was worth investing time, resources and fms to setting up markerlights wheras before i've never really seen the point of paying 150 pts for a recon fm that allows me to fire 6 GMs at 6+ (Because i've mainly been doubling to try and get crossfires).  personally i feel that the +1 to shoot at a lit target is a superb rule and should be the feature of any future incarnations of the Tau list.  Vehicle stats/costs etc can all be played with if some things are deemed unbalanced (Although personally i felt all the units i had were about right.

I'm also a fan of the cut down list.  No drones on broadsides or crisis suits made me much careful how i deployed them and they couldn't just stand there all game taking punishment and dishing it out.  I especially liked the HH armoured fm.  I feel this helps to define the list, right at the army selection stage.  If you want HHs you either have to combine them with FWs (Which you really need to take to clear enemy infantry from buildings due to the lack of AP GMs) and form a 40K esq Tau cadre as i did this game - which makes FW cadres really very nasty and good all round.  Or you need to take the big, expensive BTS fm.  Both fms don't come cheap so popcorning these things is not a good idea as they need some support if they are to benefit from MLs at distance and are not going to get blown away, early doors.

Those are my somewhat rambling thoughts on the proposal from my 1 game experience anyhow.  I will try and get some more time in gaming with the Tau but it's coming up to Brit-con and my regular opponents are wanting to get some 4K practice in against "Official" armies so i'll be wheeling the Eldar out again.  I might be able to twist someone's arm later on in the week though for some more Tau playtesting.

Anyone anymore thoughts?