As promised this will be my first Battle Report for Epic (and actually my first at all).
Please keep in mind that this was my second Epic game, but I am open for constructive criticism, since I want to make less mistakes of course.

Rules used:

Epic Handbook 2008
Tau List 5.0
NetEA Biel-Tan

(If you want to read it as a pdf, I uploaded it following the link. Otherwise read on in this thread.)
http://www.file-upload.net/downloa....df.html

Next the played lists:

Tau - 3000 points - Armor Heavy - v5.0

Tau Cadres
Battlesuit Cadre (BC01)
+ 2 Crisis
+ Supreme Commander
Battlesuit Cadre (BC02)
+ 2 Crisis
AMHC (Railgun) (HHR)
+ Networked Drones
AMHC (Ion Cannon) (HHI)
+ Networked Drones

Tau Support Groups
Recon Skimmer - 6 Piranhas (RSP)
Recon Skimmer - 6 Tetras (RST01)
Recon Skimmer - 6 Tetras (RST02)
Broadside BS (BS)

Tau Air Caste
Barracuda
Tigershark
Orca (BS02 inside)


And my opponent:

Eldar - Biel-Tan - 3000 points

Biel-Tan Craftworld Hosts
Eldar Guardian Warhost (G01)
+ 1 Heavy Weapon Platform
Eldar Guardian Warhost (G02)
+ 1 Heavy Weapon Platform
(+ 1 Avatar)
Aspect Warrior Warhost
1
(2 Banshees, 6 Dark Reaper + Exarchs in 4 Wave Serpents) (BDR+WS)
Aspect Warrior Warhost
(4 Striking Scorpions + 4 Dire Avenger inside a Vampire Raider) (SS+A)
Aspect Warrior Warhost
(Swooping Hawks) (SH)

Biel-Tan CW Troupes
Ranger (4 Units) (R01)
Ranger (4 Units) (R02)
Windrider Troupe (WT)(6 Jetbike Units)
Falcon Troupe (FT01)
Falcon Troupe (FT02)

Biel-Tan CW Aircraft
Nightwings (NW)
Vampire (V) (SS+A inside)

+ 1 Wraithgate

Deployment




The pictures show where the mission objectives were placed and the deployment as well. The
picture is not very good, I know, but I thought its still viable.
Another better picture from my view showing the left side. As you can see, the models I
used aren't Tau yet. I borrowed Chaos Space Marines as proxy models. I assume its easy to
assign the units based on the first picture (Corel Draw is just to annoying to modify every
picture... sorry.)



And of course the units not yet on the table for the Eldar:



As for garrison the Eldar placed his two ranger formations at the forward mission objectives.
I wasn't sure if I really should place my tetras in front against the fast Eldar, but did it anyway.
As you will see a bit later that wasnt a good idea. Might have been better if in overwatch
mode as the rangers.
After 6 rolls or so I finally won the strategy roll, but since I wasn't sure what to do I let the Eldar start and he promptly showed me, what I should have done:

Turn 1:

E: Nightwings on CAP. Since I didn't know the aircraft rules very well I didnt think about that.

Retained Ini: E: The Vampire Raider did an air assault on my Tetras (RST02) and the As-
pect Warrior Host destroyed my formation completely. And since Eldar are able to reposition
themselves quite far after an assault he did that.



T: Barracudas on CAP.

E: The Falcon formation (FT02) announced a double and attacked my HHR, managing to
kill one Hammerhead.

E: Retaining the initiative one Guardian Warhost moved into cover near my starting posi-
tion. The weapon platform placed one blast marker on RST01.

T: I ordered my Hammerhead Railgun Formation to sustained re on the falcons right in
front of them, but since that formation lost one Hammerhead already and having two blast
marker, they did not do that much damage.

T: Retaining the initiative with my Crisis suits (BC01) and breaking the falcons with one
tank left. In this case a coordinated re order might have been well placed, but I forgot about it.

E: The Eldar launched an assault on my Tetras (RST01) with his Jetbikes killing them
all. Well, no markerlights left. But since he was not very tank heavy in this game I had not
that much use for the GMs anyway... Might have been nice for my aircrafts...


Now comes a somewhat tricky part considering the aircrafts. Therefore I just summarize it in one textblock: The Nightwings and Barracudas have been on CAP and I wanted to bring my Tigersharks in for a ground attack on the Falcons in the hills (FT01). We talked a bit about if intercepting the interceptor should be allowed, as it is stated in the Handbook 2008 (we play with it mainly) this might be a bit confusing. Nevertheless we ruled that my Barracudas as escorts are allowed to re on the Nightwings first. They couldnt damage the NWs, saving the two hits and therefore all three could re on my TSs managing to kill one. The Tigershark fired on the Falcons and managed to destroy one.

E: These falcons failed twice to marshall and therefore just moved behind the hill.

T: Hammerhead formation with Ion Cannons on Overwatch.

E: Moving his Wave Serpents with a double order right in front of the hills beeing careful
not to get inside overwatch range from my HHI. The infantry were placed behind the trans-
ports.

T: The Broadsides advanced into range to re at the transports to disable some of their
mobility, managing to destroy one Wave Serpent.

T: The piranhas advanced to discover they were still out of range and therefore could do
nothing to the designated target in form of jetbikes...
Thats it for the rst turn. The lonely broken Falcon did not manage to rally, but otherwise
most of the blast markers left the table.

Turn 2

E: The Nightwings made a ground attack on the HHR destroying nothing.

E: The Falcons destroyed one HHI with a double order placing themselves right back behind
the hill. In this case GMs would have been very useful...

E: At the beginning of this turn the Swooping Hawks shocked right behind my HHR and Crisis Suits, but decided to attack the near HHI in fear of supporting re from the Crisis Suits. They accomplished to break the HHI formation down to 2 Hammerheads that retreated into the left corner for the rest of the game.

T: Finally I was able to do something (I dont like the ability of Eldar to retain the initiative twice...).
The Orca landed on the hill right behind the wave serpent formation, which was also the most expensive formation. I chose this target due to me thinking to be already in a
disadvantage. The Orca actually killed two units of infantry.

T: Obviously the Crisis now had to kill as much as possible and hopefully break this for- mation. I forgot to announce sustained re but still only two infantry units survived. The formation had its 3 sepents left and the two units each got inside one WS to run away.

E: The second guardian squad leaving the wraithgate destroyed the piranhas completely.

T: And now, ladies and gentleman, comes the Epic Fail part: The Hammerheads (HHR) shot at the broken wave serpent formation killing nothing besides the one WS for being already broken and shot at. I have been thinking about coordinated fire but assumed my HHs should have been sufficient... My oppenent just saved everything.

T: The Crisis were in need to finish the job. The automatic kill was designated to the infantry unit getting out of the destroyed transport the earlier attack. All attacks from my crisis were saved by the eldar. Even the MW attacks due to reinforced armor on the wave serpents. Made me very sad...

E: The ranger squad on the right side of the table marched to assume control of both mission objectives there.

E: The Guardian Formation failed its initiative, so the Weapon Platform (G01) shot at the Broadsides just placing one BM.

T: Broadsides got the order for sustained re on the broken wave serpents nally destroying them. Three units needed for that mission objective...

Summary of the rest:
The ranger near the wraithgate advanced and placed one BM on my broadsides. The barracudas took a shot at the bikes, before they got up on the hill behind my Crisis placing BM. And finally my Tigershark failed to get in this turn due to his highly difficult initiative roll of 5+. The infantry boarded the Vampire Raider it and went off at the end of the turn to prepare my doom for the next turn. As for rallied units the HHI were unsuccessful, while the lonely falcon made it. I do not exactly recall how many blast marker left the table.
The picture shows the end of turn 2. The green marker shows the position of the broken Wave Serpents.

Turn 3
Summary:

The Tau won the strategy roll and started with a double order for the crisis suits on the hill. They got in range of the mission objective and killed off the jetbikes. Retaining the other crisis formation shot the swooping hawks to oblivion and claimed the mission objective on my table edge.

The Farseer from one Guardian formation brought the Avatar into the game, which then engaged the Broadsides killing them. Then I made the mistake of forgetting the Vampire Raider and therefore using my Barracudas and Tighershark for some useless ground attacks instead of putting them on CAP, which would have been my only option, for maybe getting rid of it.
Failing that it landed near my Crisis Suits on the hill and the infantry engaged them. The suits had to make 12 saves and actually suffered only one death from this attack. Killing nothing in return the resolution of this engagement was highly in favor for the eldar destroying the crisis unit.



No VP for me then. The orca was assumed to be broken as well, so the Eldar got one VP for "They shall not pass". Another point went to him for holding three mission objectives on his side. He nearly got another one for holding two on my side, but my HH were in 15 cm as well. I got one point for that most expensive unit kill, but considering how much I had invested, it was very pricey for me as well.

Eldar 2 - 1 Tau

Final Thoughts:

I made some mistakes in the beginning loosing alot of ground against the Eldar. Because of that I felt to be at a disadvantage the whole game, but not as much, as not beeing able to do anything. Since I know that feeling from other games, where it happend to be 2 hours of rolling dice to the inevitable end, this game was still very nice and thrilling. At least for the two of us, since I am not sure if I could capture that in this BatRep.

Due to my losses I had to abandon the whole right flank and my opponent had quite alot activations left that gave him the advantage to plant blast marker and then engage in relative safety. Even considering some misfortune with initiative rolls.
Assaults on my units are definetely something to fear and I am not sure what to do against it. Actually I think there is nearly nothing against it.
The only option might be to play more aggressive, which is a huge problem for me right now, as you might have figured. I wasn't sure what to do in the beginning, due to my inexperience with this game. I hope this changes in time.

As for aircrafts I think the Tau ones are not very worth their points. It is nice how they are used considering game mechanics but they didn't do that much and Barracudas seem kinda weak. Maybe I am overlooking something and I would be grateful for opening my eyes.    But without markerlights they seem pretty underpowered. And if I have markerlights. the ability of nearly free movement of aircrafts are quite minimized in my opinion.

Thats it for me.
I hope this Battle Report was of any use or at least some fun for You!
Thanks again, Chroma, fot the log sheets. Very useful!

Greetings
Assariel

Nice report, it looked like a fun game,

The Barracudas were recently downgraded as they were too powerful in previous versions.  They are quite a bit tougher to use at this point than they had been before.  I have seen about the same from them in my recent games as you saw here.

It looks like you learned quite a bit about the Tau in the game though and I bet you will get more out of them the next time.

Glad they helped and thanks for the battle report!

Not sure who to root for as I like both Eldar and Tau... *laugh*

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

For the one writing the BatRep of course!  

Thanks for your comments!

As for the Aircrafts: My friend and I talked about the Phoenix Bomber on that Biel-Tan list and I was kinda stunned in comparison:

Twin Shuriken Cannon 30cm AP4+/AA5+, FxF Reinforced Armour
Bomber Phoenix Pulse Laser 45cm AT4+, Pulse, FxF
Night Spinners 15cm 1BP, Disrupt, FxF
and armour of 5+

Three of those for 400 points.
133 points for one...

I dont want to say the Tigershark is no good, but it did not seem to perform that well this game. I gonna use them anyway, cause I already have the AI models...  

The Tau aircraft were very powerful in the 4.x lists.  We put a lot of effort into toning them down.  It is possible that the stats are too conservative and games like yours will show whether that is the case or not as the testing goes on.

Keep playing them and if they continue to underperform make a note of it.

No, I think we did a good job of *arming* the Tau aircraft in comparison with the published aircraft.  That means adjusting points.

_________________
"For the Lion and the Emperor!"

Time will tell! (Especially when my experience grows)

They seem more like a fine tuned tool and less like brute force. With markerlights they can be devastating against tanks, but without... its the general problem right now considering ml/bm.

Next wednesday I'll try a more ml filled list, with more infantry in general. But I'm kinda in favor of 45 cm markerlights for pathfinder, otherwise they are always too near for an assault. But this was Eldar the whole time.

The firepower of Tau could kill alot of squishy Eldar stuff... I am not sure if thats enough against, lets say, Space Marines. Gonna be interesting to see. But I am already in fear of directly assaulting sm units out of landing capsules...