Managed another playtest game this week against Steve54's tau for a second time
I took the following list:
Tacticals - Supreme Commander -375
Bastion - 250
4 LR Achilles - 425
4 Predator Annihilators - 250
Devastators - 2 Devastator Centurions - fortications - 375
Thunderfires - 250
Thunderfires - 250
Scouts - 150
Scouts - 150
Hyperios Launchers - 125
Thunderbolts - 175
looking at it now I think I've either forgotten something or added it up wrong on the night....
IIRC steve had something like the following:
Large mechanised Firewarrior formation - skyray
normal mech firewarrior formation - skyray
railheads - skyray
Hero
Orca
Barracudas
Broadsides
recons
recons
recons
pathfinders
Crisis
Table setup, I tried to keep my objectives close to Steve's so I could garrison his and contest my own, unfortunately like an idiot I set my blitz up on the far side of the board and put too much stuff garrisoning the bastion objective
Turn1 - marines win initiative
Achilles double and hit recons, killing two and breaking them with disrupt hits
Tbolts retain and go on CAP
Hero (yes I know it's a custodian
) pinpoints bastion, fortunately one shot misses and the other only does two damage
Thunderfires march forwards
Crisis go on overwatch
other thunderfires move on to hill
Barracudas strafe scouts, killing a scout stand and a rhino
Devs go back on overwatch
one of these formations either failed to activate or did....something....
Recons markerlight Achilles and place a blast marker
Preds single and break recons....
Pathfinders double, shining their laser pens everywhere
Scouts have a pop at them
Recons sustain fire and blow up both scout rhinos.... bugger...
Scouts marshall and remove blast markers
Big fire warrior formation doubles forward
The scouts all die...
Tacticals double up and against all odds, manage to pop a couple of devilfish with missile launchers
Hammerheads shoot preds, 3 hits, all saved....
Orca stands down after failing to activate
Turn 2, various things rally etc, marines win initiative
Preds single and shoot at fire warriors, killing a single chuffing devilfish, despite scoring 6 hits....
Land raiders shoot at fire warriors and do very little, they also waste the re-roll in the process
Hammerheads pointlessly sustain fire on the Achilles....
....except it's not as two achilles fail their saves AND invulnerables
Fire warriors sustain fire on tacticals, who save a considerable amount of hits, but still lose two stands and a rhino
Thunderfires shoot at pathfinders, scoring few hits and pathfinders make many saves, but the disrupt his break them
Devs realise they are in range of the hammerheads and blow two up
Tau stuff surrouds thunderfires and shoots
3 die
Barracudas strafe tacticals, who save all hits
something occurs..... I forget what
Bastion does something....
Orca drops broadsides off, tbolts intercept and are shot the hell down.....
![:{[]](./images/smilies/headbang.gif "Headbang")
Broadsides then plug two predators....
...unless they didn't and actually shot at the broken achilles who fortunately make all their saves, with something else killing the preds....
Crisis suits double forwards and hit devs, missing with all attacks... heh heh heh
[SCENE MISSING]
Pathfinders double up and markerlight Achilles
[BEGAN ENJOYING THE GAME AND FORGOT TO TAKE PICS]
Tau win 2-0 with Blitz and T&H, marines manage to get into tau half and deny them TSNP
Thoughts
Bastion works really well, didn't seem overpowered or underpriced, vulnerable to pinpoint attacks, easily ignored if placed out wide....
Achilles aren't that great, not much tougher than a normal land raider, extra range is okay but weak AT hurts them, can't see myself using them going forward except as a single one in a LR formation to place blast markers and stretch range, as they are their weapon mix is a bit stupid, encouraging you to hang back and sustain OR close with the enemy to use the sponsons, I think I'll stick to regular LR or the fellblade in future
Thundefires are pretty well balanced, probably work as an overwatching blitz guard, not sure about taking extra formations, they are SLOW and lack transport, they certainly don't need to be made more expensive at this stage
Devastator Centurions are quite underwhelming, for the same price you could buy 5 Las razorbacks and have generally better shooting and mobility, in this game nobody bothered assaulting them so their extra FF attacks weren't used
Hyperios are absolutely fine as they are, perhaps even overpriced, 30cm range covers less than half the area that 45cm does, in this game they were easily avoided (mostly thanks to my stuipid placement of them....
)Overall, I like how the list is shaping up at the moment, I've enjoyed all the games I've had with it, I think the v0.2 has fixed most of the glaring errors (bastion, achilles) and could be quite stable