Tactical Command
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/

Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=17061		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  Honda [ Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
More to follow as the game is tonight. My list is (from memory):

* FW Cadre, (6 x FW, 3 x DF), 2 x HH-IC, 1 x Skyray (not sure if I took the FW upgrade, will have to check)

* Crisis, 4 x Crisis, Crisis upgrade (4 units), Supreme Commander

* 3 x Recon formations, 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha

* Hammerhead cadre, HH upgrade, all Railgun HH

* Skyray cadre, 3 x Skyray

* 2 x Tigershark Missile Boat

* 2 x Tigershark AX-1-0

I'm primarily interested in seeing the interaction of the formations as well as work on getting a feel for the ML synergies in the list. Since I am expecting to face a decent amount of armor mixed with lots of jet bikes, my initial strategy will be to hit armored vehicles hard early and try to hold off the bike hordes.

I do not know what the SH armylist looks like.

We shall see how it all unfolds.

More later...
Author:  mattthemuppet [ Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
Quote: (Honda @ Nov. 04 2009, 10:00 )

More to follow as the game is tonight. My list is (from memory):

* FW Cadre, (6 x FW, 3 x DF), 2 x HH-IC, 1 x Skyray (not sure if I took the FW upgrade, will have to check)

* Crisis, 4 x Crisis, Crisis upgrade (4 units), Supreme Commander

* 3 x Recon formations, 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha

* Hammerhead cadre, HH upgrade, all Railgun HH

* Skyray cadre, 3 x Skyray

* 2 x Tigershark Missile Boat

* 2 x Tigershark AX-1-0

I'm primarily interested in seeing the interaction of the formations as well as work on getting a feel for the ML synergies in the list. Since I am expecting to face a decent amount of armor mixed with lots of jet bikes, my initial strategy will be to hit armored vehicles hard early and try to hold off the bike hordes.

I do not know what the SH armylist looks like.

We shall see how it all unfolds.

More later...

I'd spread a bunch of BMs around, stay on overwatch with FW, let him batter himself up against your forces then move in for the objectives. Perhaps use your scouts to impede his flanking tactic too. Looking forward to the report!
Author:  Morgan Vening [ Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
Quote: (Honda @ Nov. 04 2009, 15:00 )

* 3 x Recon formations, 2 x Tetra, 4 x Piranha

I'm no expert on Tau, but from where I sit, there isn't much reason I can see not to take a 3/3 split on Tetra and Piranha. The ability to Garrison (and thereby Overwatch), and have redundancies for MarkerLights seems IMO to outweigh any slight firepower increase.

Just my opinion, obviously.

Morgan Vening
Author:  Honda [ Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
Quote: 

I'm no expert on Tau, but from where I sit, there isn't much reason I can see not to take a 3/3 split on Tetra and Piranha. The ability to Garrison (and thereby Overwatch), and have redundancies for MarkerLights seems IMO to outweigh any slight firepower increase.

Just my opinion, obviously.


It's a good point and I'm not sure exactly what the best mix is. Right now I'm looking at it as 12 potential hits vs. 9. It may turn out that 3/3 is the best combo because it is safer, but right now I like the fact that 2/4 gives those formations some teeth.

I guess that's why we playtest.  :agree:
Author:  Evil and Chaos [ Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
A formation with 5 or 6 Piranhas (maybe one 'emergency' Tetra) on the other hand packs a pretty impressive Guided Missile salvo for a cheap price.
Author:  Honda [ Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
Quote: 

A formation with 5 or 6 Piranhas (maybe one 'emergency' Tetra) on the other hand packs a pretty impressive Guided Missile salvo for a cheap price.


Strongly agree. I used to field a couple of similar formations in earlier lists and I liked their mobiity and the fact that if you put out enough shots, some will hit. A Recon heavy list has always been a lot of fun for me.
Author:  The_Real_Chris [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:02 am ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
I used to use Piranha extensively as they were the cheapest gm missile shot.
Author:  Honda [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming...

The table


Tau


Saim Hann Eldar
Author:  Honda [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
So, John showed up with the following list:

2 x 6 vehicle tank formations, consisting of a couple of Falcons, a Firestorm and the rest Prisms

1 x 3 plane squadrons of Nightwings

1 x Vyper squadron of 6 vehicles

2 x Large bike squadrons with Farseers, one had some Vypers in it, one didn't

2 x Wave Serpent formations with Guardians

So a decent amount of armor in the list, but not as much as he has fielded in the past. As we were both a little rusty, we proceeded in a relaxed manner and remained flexible ("Oh, I should have done this", "No problem, go for it", etc.).

So, Eldar won Initiative, and elected to go aggressive on my left side where I had one Recon formation and the Hammerheads. The SH tank formation scored enough hits to break the formation.

Not a great start for me by any means. I jumped my HHs on Overwatch and then watched John roll several 1's for activations, allowing me to create the Recon buffer I felt I needed to get some maneuvering room.

Since my focus was on armor early on, one of the offending SH tank formations came under fire of my Tigershark missile boats. It cost me a TS, but it did receive a liberal sprinkling of BMs and a few kills.

Blackhawk going down...


This was then followed up by an AX-1-0 strike and some other supporting fire and the formation was killed off.



At the end of the turn, just about everything rallied for both sides and my previously broken Recon unit on the left was back, but with two BMs.

All in all, not a bad exchange, but I was certainly helped by the poor SH activation rolls.
Author:  Honda [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
Turn 2

John continues to fight activation rolls, but works to set up his usual SH "Torrent of Fire" on one flank. In the mean time, his other tank formation decides to test the middle of the Tau formation and comes out much the worse for their efforts. So does the Vyper formation. His Nightwings fail their second activation attempt.

Two turns of activation rolls.


This means that early in the turn, I now have air superiority. So, I set up moves to take advantage of this.

Victorious Allied, er...Tau aircraft roaming the battlefield


By the end of Turn 2, the shop was closing and we had to clean up. All objective were either contested or not in possession by either party, so we were solidly at 0-0 at the end of Turn 2. I fairly certain that in Turn 3 the game was going to go big for either one side or the other.

I had done a pretty decent job of cutting down John's formations, putting him at an activation disadvantage, but (and this is a big one), on the right flank the SH had set up the two large bike formations and one of the Wave Serpent groups to really whack my FW group. There was enough FF in those formations to wipe out my BTS and leave me lacking. A lot of it would have come down to the first few activations to see if I could extricate the FWs and dance away. The downside to that, is that would have left the SH with control of the right side of the board and an easy shot at my Blitz.

So although I had killed off quite a bit, the SH still had enough teeth to cause me some serious damage.

So I would call this game the obvious draw it should be.

Observations:

1. I really liked how the list played. I was always cognizant of where my Recon groups were and trying to preserve them since a lot of firepower is tied to their existence.

2. The 6 ship HH formations seem fragile to me having been used to larger formations, but I think they are workable.

3. The 8 unit SC Crisis formation was a pretty hard hitter, though for some reason I had thought it would handle armor better than infantry, when in reality they are very nasty anti-infantry formations.

4. I used Coordinated Fire once in Turn 2 to eliminate one of the SH tank formations, which brought up an interesting question that I'll post later in the Tau section.

5. I felt very "nekkid" without my Scorpionfish, but got over it. I still think pushing the counters to SHT/WE threats to the Air Caste is the right way to go.

4. I will try the 2/4 Tetras to Piranhas a bit more. As part of the CoFire action, Sustained + ML + 4 Seekers did a pretty good job on the SH Tank formation, allowing the Crisis to come in and do clean up rather handily.

5. I made all of my activations the entire game. John was not so fortunate. I'm not counting on that happening again.

Overall, I think the list worked well, feels a little fragile to me, but I think that just may be due to a lack of familiarity with all the components.

Great game John!
Author:  mattthemuppet [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
did John take an SC? Not sure what that is in the Saim Hain list, but it's pretty much essential with Eldar.

beautiful Tau models too  BTW :)
Author:  jfrazell [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
Sorry, whats an SC? Its been awhile since epic gaming so I am especially rusty. EDIT: Just looked at the list and realized the wildrider chieftain is an autarch. Thats new.

Task Force Lupe Tortilla

Wind Rider Host One 250
1 wind rider  plus  6 jetbikes
farseer 50
6 jetbikes 200

Wind Rider Host Two 250
1 wind rider  plus  6 vipers
farseer 50

Wind Rider Host Three 250
1 wind rider  plus  6 jetbikes/vipers
6 jetbikes/vipers 200

Guardian Troop 6 guardians, 3 wave serpents 250

Guardian Troop 6 guardians, 3 wave serpents 250

Sword of Vaul
5 falcons 300
1 firestorm

Sword of Vaul
3 prisms 195 345
1 firestorm 50
2 falcon 100

Nightwings (3) 300

Total 2695
Author:  Honda [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
Ok, didn't realize the SH could take such an animal (SC). That would definitely have helped out the Eldar. John rolled so many 1's it was painful.
Author:  mattthemuppet [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
John, I would have taken more formations and fewer upgrades (plus the Chieftan, SCs are always worth the extra points either to reroll activations or rallying in the end phase) - that would give you far more flexibility and no real decrease in fire power, though at a slight cost to the robustness of your army. Flexibility and being able to pick and choose your fights are what Eldar excels at. More formations (particularly vypers coming out of a gate) would have allowed you to sow some BMs around and hamper the Tau's response to your actions.

Are SH allowed Rangers? They're worth their weight in gold - garrison them in woods/ruins/buildings near a forward obj and they're very hard to shift. It once took a full mech co, shadowsword co and hydra detachment to make a 4 unit ranger fm break (only 2 stands killed!), when they could have been doing much nastier things elsewhere.
Author:  jfrazell [ Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Tau vs. Saim Hann, 2700 pts
No rangers.

Ayah, my older lists had some smaller units. Just finding my epic items (or most of it anyway) was an achievement.  ??? The first move was messed up as I was trying my BFG Dark Eldar pinwheel maneuver and forgot the you move / I move of EPIC.

I have to work back up my wave attack. Was starting to get the hang of it in turn two but Honda didn't go for the broken unit bait and the Tau units were just outside of the wave distance for real effectiveness.

Tau heavies on overwatch were very efficacious and the coordinated action maneuver they had was a surprise. We could have played more but our discussion of variants and permutations of that went long, although worth the discussion.

At 3,000 (our test game next) we'll have the SC and some smaller formations as well potentially. Instead of three hosts I'm looking at 4-5.
Page 1 of 2 All times are UTC [ DST ]
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/