With my regular computer down and me being restricted to an ancient 600Mhz system for the moment that croaks at pretty much any task I throw at it, I´m ready to do a dry-run once more and get a feel for always-popped up Support Craft and nerfed Morays, as well as something I´d reckon to be a GM-horde. Game will start in 3-4 hours.


3000 Pts Tau:

Rules:
Deflector at fixed 5+
Support Craft APU
Moray main weapons halved, stays at 325 for this test

200 FW Cadre
200 FW Cadre
200 FW Cadre

600 2xScorpfish, 1xSC upgrade
425 4xStingrays, Skyray, 2xStingrays, NWDs
175 6xPathfinder Tetras
175 6xPathfinder Tetras
175 6xPathfinder Tetras
175 6xPathfinder Tetras

650 2xMorays (TK)
325 Moray (TK)

Tactics:
FW as speedbumps/objective guards, if they shoot anything, fine.

Morays to deepstrike stuff, I´m interested in the BM-durability of the 2-strong formation and whether it´s worth taking over singles.

Pathfinder Tetras to Markerlight targets for the Scorpfishes and Stingrays, both of which should be upgraded sufficiently to maim enemy formations with one solid strike. 4 formations of Pathfinder Tetras combined with stalling actions by the Morays and FWs should make markerlighting easy and limit return fire, plus there is a lot of redundancy here.

BL 2995 Points "Genghis Khorne"-variant

Rules: LI´s NewPlaytest.doc

800 Banelord
200 HellBlades

325 Bike Coy + Pact
325 Bike Coy + Pact
325 Bike Coy + Pact
400 Armoured Coy 2xLand Raider, Stalker, 2x Predator, 2xVindicator
400 Armoured Coy 2xLand Raider, Stalker, 2x Predator, 2xVindicator

220 Daemon Pool: 11xLD

Tactics:

Depend pretty much on setup and Banelord positioning. Generally shoot stuff with armour at close distance, assault with Bikers then, penetrate the enemy rear area and eliminate support units ASAP. Use Banelord to control Blitz, everything else forward.

Comments?

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Who is your opponent for this?

Otherwise I would prefer two moray and a Hero (plenty of TK then) arriving after the enemy threats have activated turn 1, with a Tigershark carrying heavy drones for support.

I can tell you the WE formations are less value than singles. Every army list that has linear scaling points for multiples don't offer any advantage - IF - they do not have void shields (which alter hit allocation in a big way).

All that happens is they don't break but the unsuppressed one is at -1 to activate.

Also you have stacks of co-ord fire there, but very few formations to combine it with. Something of a waste.

So all in all its not a list I would use and can be optimised in many ways

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As I wrote above, it´s a dry run and I´ll play myself. Good news is, I´m moving back to my home city in early ´09 and will have the old crowd to run these playtests with then. I´ve even strategically gifted away a 5000+ points Saim-Hann army earlier this year to prep the ground...


Army choice is limited by available proxies, my Eldar are being abused as stand-ins here and it is bad enough as it is. However, with 11 activations and some serious firepower on the Morays. Stingrays and Scorpfishes I really think that I won´t need Coord Fire, and that upgrades to make that work would actually weaken the army.

The 2-strong Morays are actually supposed not to break, we all know that rallying 2+ Ini formations can be a PITA and the idea here is to avoid breaking in the first place. Plus holding isn´t that bad with Morays anyway.

Dropping one formation of Pathfinder Tetras, adding NWDs (networked drones) to the Scorpfishes for 2x Leader there and a Hero might be an option though.

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Don't forget those tetra have co-ord fire! It works best negating some of the deliberate weaknesses in the Epic system. So typically big activation armies have little firepower per formation and break fast. However in true Tau style Co-ord fire negates that giving you the firepower of far larger formations so less of your formations can get mauled by the enemy and you build a big early lead.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Understood.
I´ll try to make it work when given the opportunity, the main punch of this list is supposed to come from other units though, the FWs are just there to open up support slots and the P-Tetras are basically fast, cheap Markerlighters.

Any damage done by the FWs and P-Ts is considered a nice bonus here...

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Oh and considering what you are testing hammerheads would probably be a little unfair! Considering they have the ability to fire from behind cover with the firepower of a Russ company at long range (Russ direct fire, 5 1/3 hits, HH pop up fire marked 6 2/3 marked, 5 2/3 unmarked) for less points (700 points vs 475 for typical load outs - Russ plus hydra and HH plus swordfish and skyray) and that armour heavy enemy force is unlikely to reach you!

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Yeah, it´s bad enough already!

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Setup



Yeah, bad picture, but on this machine editing is well-nigh impossible.

Tau in front, left to right:
T-Ps
T-Ps (garrison spread out before the lines)
Moray1
T-Ps
T-Ps
Scorpfishes
Moray2
FWs (garrsioned behind hill)
FWs in rubble near Blitz
Stingrays
Fws
Moray3

yup, forgot to place 2 Morays in a formation...  

BL left to right:

Bike1
Bike2
Banelord
Arm1
Arm2
Bike3

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Turn 1

Initiative: BL

After some musing, BL decides to go first and the Baelord launches 2 Havoc Rack missiles at Moray 2 and 2 nearby T-Ps, placing a BM and killing both respectively.

The turn progresses with both sides stalling as best as they can, some daring FWs that made for the ruins get strafed by the HellBlades and subsequently annihilated when the Bikers FF them. Stalling proves actually difficult for the Tau as they can´t just park in front of the BL forces as this would bring swift destruction on their heads while they would have to advance GM units to strike unactivated BL, which they´s prefer not to and hang back instead.

T-Ps therefore flank on their left flank, Bike1  countermoves, keeping out of ML range.

On the other flank, BL finally march Bike 2 across the board, losing 3 when the Stingrays advance on them, which are then caught by the doubling Arm2 losing 3 and breaking (good/bad rolls).

Outactivated Arm1 loses 4 tanks (no Land Raiders) to the Scorpfishes after killing 2 FW form the central garrison, breaking.

Morays retaliate against Arm2, killing the Stalker, and break Bike2.

T-Ps march behind the Armour, putting them in a  potential Crossfire.
Blitz-FW go on Overwatch

BL rally all.

Tau rally all but the Stingrays, even with the reroll.





There are a lot of BL in the foreground, ready to strike at the Tau Blitz. On the Tau left flank, numerous T-Ps are in position to take out Bike 1 and mark the Banelord after finishing it off.

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Turn 2

Initiative: BL

Aiming to take the Tau right flank with minmum effort, Chaos doubles the now-smaller Arm2 next to the Moray behind/over the rubbly hill, BMing it (Deflector saves all), Bike3, recently rallied, engages with 3 DBeasts. And loses, killing the daemons and 1 biker. Between the Bikers and the supporting tanks, BL landed a grand total of 1 hit, which was deflected.

Tau now gun for the Arm1, hoping to break it before it activates. Scorpfishes sustain with the T-Ps behind the tanks markerlighting, but only a single Pred is killed (awesome saves here as well). However, the formation is 2 BM short of breaking, so the freshly-assaulted Moray which has good LOS advances and ... misses them.

Retaining, T-Ps double forward form near the Blitzrubble and kill 3 Bikers from Bike2, which cleared the ruins of FW in T1. Quite a display of marksmanship...

Unwilling to wait for a repeat of that on the other flank, Bike1 engages the T-Ps between it and the table edge, killing 3 after a hard fight which cost 2 daemons and was too close to comfort, though it looked easy to do.

The other T-P sustain on them, killing 1.

Banelord bombs the Stingrays, wrecking 2 more, HellBlades shoot up the T-Ps that shot up the Bike1 on the right.

Morays sustain or double to whittle down the Arm2, leaving only a sinle Land Raider standing.

APU allowed a Moray to fire here from a position that an ordinary skimmer would have had to take a move action to shoot from!

Garrison FW go on Overwatch, screening the cneter from Bikers.

BL rally all but Bike1 on the left flank, which is left with 3BM
Tau rally all but the T-Ps that lost the assault against Bike1 on the left flank.

No pic as the Digicam´s batteries failed.

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Turn 3

Ini: Tau ... it had to happen eventually!

With BL armour closing in, it was time to stop them. Scorpfishes sustain, wrecking all but the Land Raiders in Arm1, breaking them.

Unwilling to be overrun, the rightmost T-P open up on Bike1, driving it back.

BL pulls of the same maneuver as last turn, BMing Moray 3 with Arm2, then assaulting with Bike3 , this time succeeding, though barely.

Moray 2 near the Blitzrubble must advance (to pull a 40° turn and not move an inch!) to get Arm2 into its sights, but misses, breaking the lone Land Raider.

The Banelord sends it´s last missiles crashing into the Blitz-FW, killing 3 and preventing them from putting up any efficient Overwatch fire. Combined arms in action. The assault by Bike2 is devastating, wiping out the FWs and clearing the Tau Blitz.

The Stingrays (all 2 of them) double across the board to finish the broken Arm1, but only BM-kill 1 Land Raider which has joined Moray3 in retreating to the Tau T&H near the table edge.

HellBlades, after a rerolls, swoop in to strafe the T-Ps that were instrumental in the destruction of Arm1 by the Scorpfishes earlier, half of them are killed and they retreat towards the Tau center.

Tau rally all but these.
BL rally all.

Objectives: BL 1 (Blitz) Tau 0

Sitrep: Both sides have suffered stinging losses. BL are unable to get at the Scorpfishes in T4, the Banelord would need the full attention of the Morays and possibly the Scorpfish, plus some T-Ps to mark it in order to give the Tau Blitz, T&H and BTS. It can be done with some luck though.

BL *might* cling to Blitz, but going for the T&Hs will be difficult. Trying to cause max carnage and aim for a draw would be the best option.

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Turn 4

Ini: BL after both sides roll a "1", which removes the final daemon form the pool.

After a quick going through options, I realize that the Blitzrubble isn´t exactly an impassable object to Bikes2 ... and the Scorpfishes beyond are in their grasp, or rather, with FF6+, at their mercy.

Arm2´s lone surviving Land Raider provides a BM on them, advancing to claim Blitz as well in the action, and the Bikers go full throotle through the scattered rocks, mastering their terrain tests. Despite the Deflector, 2 damage are caused on the Tau SC´s Scorpfish, and resolution destroys them nicely. Blitz and BTS!!

The rest of the battle is the usual maneuvering for objectives and breaking 1 or 2-strong formations as the Tau now pretty much lack the means to clear their Blitz from a 6-strong Bike unit in cover and the lone tank, while their efforts to get T&H fail when the Banelord shoots up the Stingrays heading to the right flank.

Result: BL 2, Blitz and BTS, Tau 0

Comments:
APU: To anyone familiar with the Skimmer rules, this should be easy. Being able to sustain while popped-up was quirky, but no biggie. To be fair, BL lacked the means to put serious firepower on them so they weren´t shot at much.

Deflector: Liked it, very simple rule, just like the Holofield. It also saved as many hits, I kept rolling those 5´s and 6´s as required... until the Scorps got trashed at least!

Moray: I was far more comfortable with the nerf, but they missed a lot in this game. Against this BL army, the Ion variant would have been better as the Rail couldn´t decimate the Bikers in a meaningful way and the armour always had the Land Raiders in the rear to avoid getting TKed.

325 could be allright, but I wouldn´t mind 300 either. I do not think that keeping 2x Rail or 2x Ion, even with reduced range, is a good idea, that´s just an insane amount of firepower on a DC3 warengine that can planetfall, has a very good shield, carries it´s own AA and is fearless to boot.

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I don't quite get the Tau strategy. Why after a BL unit moves up do tetras not just co-ord it with a nearby GM formation? So Tetra's double, gm's sustain kinda thing.

Also how did the FW's get close enough to the bikes to be ff'ed? Do you frown on pre-measuring or they marched to get so far forward etc.

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x