Thought I'd start a separate thread for battlereports to not to clog down the vior'la thread and make it's easier to follow the discussions.

Did a first test game last week. It can be found here here.

I have started a second test against fellow taccomer Mordoten using tabletop simulator.

He plays marines (will get the list when we continue) and I play the following list.



Mostly the same list as last time, took R'varnas instead of stormsurges. Changed the heavy rail gun for the nexus missile Array.

First turn. Deployment and first activation can be seen here. The space ship bombarded the R'varnas. Two suits took one damage. One riptide was also caught and died to a critical.



M1.2: Droppoding devestators sustain fire on R'varnas. (The pods only put another BM on them) The third R'varnas takes a damage (so they've all lost 1 DC.). They break due to BMs and flee into the woods. They may look a lot like storm surges, but they are R'varnas (couldn't find any models).



T1.1 Riptides Marshall shooting devestators for 1BM

M1.3 Empty thunderhawk attacks PF in city for 1 BM.

T1.2 PF in middle doubles to overwatching LS. Putting 3 ML within 30cm of two LS and 2 ML within 30 of the annihilators. Counting on only one getting killed. But the landsspeeders were aces and both hit. 6 units left and 4BM for me and crucially no ML on the annihilators. No shooting as all units in range were suppressed.

T1.3 HH still retains and dbl shoot the LS which are markerlighted for 1BM.

M1.4 Land speeders two doubles and shoots the PFs killing some units and breaking the, They flee back to the central city.

T1.4 BTS FWs (at this point I realized that I have 3 BTS formations ) doubles forward to shoot devestators for 2 kills breaking them.

M1.5 WH1 doubles towards the middle. Shooting the broken PFs. Wiping the formation through kills and BMs.

T1.5 PF2 from my left flank doubles into middle city. ML on warhound and 1BM.

M1.6 WH2 doubles towards middle. Killing a devilfish from my PFs. 2 MB. Both hounds are now markerlighted.

T1.6 Skyrays advance shooting guided missiles on WH1 stripping both shields.

M1.7 Annihilators dbl and kill 2 HH and the skyray. The two surviving HHs flee towards my left.

T1.7 Supremacy sustains on the WH1. Two nexus missiles hit (hitting on 4+ with ML and sustain). Both hits get through armour and one does a critical killing the titan.

M1.8: BTS tacticals go on overwatch.

T1.8: Orca and gang ground attacks marine BTS. Hunter misses. All my infantry gets into the city with the crisis at the front. They take one OW hit, but it's saved. I shoot back and get some very good hitting rolls. Killing all infantry (SC thanks to sniper from the firesight marksmen) and 3 rhinos.

M1.9: Terminators ground assaults FW intermingled with orca. They kill 4 of my units for none in return. I only roll a 2 and loose by 11. Orca and gang are wiped.

Everything rallies in the end phase.

Very cool. TS looks great. Seems like a nice easy way to get pics for battle reports.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

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Heres the list I'm using:

Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Codex Astartes (NetEA Tournament Pack 2015)
==================================================

DEVASTATOR [250]
4 Devastators

LAND SPEEDER [200]
5 Landspeeder

LAND SPEEDER [200]
5 Landspeeder

PREDATOR [325]
4 Annihilator, Hunter

STRIKE CRUISER [200]

TACTICAL [475]
6 Tacticals, Supreme Commander, Hunter, Razorback

TERMINATOR [400]
4 Terminators, Chaplain

THUNDERHAWK [200]

THUNDERHAWK [200]

WARHOUND [275]
1 Warhound Class Titan

WARHOUND [275]
1 Warhound Class Titan

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Turn 2.

Marines won initiative

M2.1 Remaining warhound advanced and killed 2x pathfinders. The formation had 4BMs total and 5 remaining units.

M2.2 Retain with devestators advancing and shooting recon for 1BM breaking the formation. They fled towards my left flank.

T2.1 FW doubled shooting the devestators killing the 2 remaining stands. The firsight marksmen laid markerlights on the nearby predators.
T2.2 I retained with the supremacy killing two predators with the nexus missiles.

M2.3 (I think this happened here, but might have been later) thunderhawk shooting but missing HH. They were just rallied so broke from the 1 BM.

T2.3 Skyrays doubled putting ML on warhound hoping to take the shields down. No hits from the missiles though.

M2.5 BTS tacticals (or actually just rhino and hunter) tried to marshall. Failed and regrouped, but still retained 1 BM.

T2.4 Riptides doubled towards the center with one catching site of the WH. One shield was taken down.

M2.6 Terminators stalled a bit and went on to overwatch

T2.5 Spaceship went after the warhound. Both attacks hit doing 4DC, enough to kill the titan.

M2.7 Predators marshalled moving behind close by forrest.

T2.6 R'varnas couldn't really reach anything so went on OW.

M2.7+ LS1 and then LS2 both doubled close to my FW formation encircling them. Only killing a devilfish I think. Retain with thunderhawk2 for a clipping ground assault. However Daniel had placed one speeder within 9 cm of a devilfish enabling me to draw one of the formations into the assault. This got all my units except one to be able to contribute.

To no avail though. I lost four units for two speeders. Daniel won by +6 and I was wiped.

All marines rallied. HH rallied but not the recon.

turn 3

Marines won again

M3.1 Thunderhawk1 which sustain one DC leaving the board last turn. Attacked the rallied HH from battlecannon range. Killing one and rebreaking them.

M3.2 Full landspeeder formation advanced scout-ZOC-ing the riptides. Doing one DC (no crit) with their multi meltas. (2BMs)

T3.1 Skyrays again doubling ML on preds hitting with one missile, but it was saved.

T3.2 retain with supremacy for another nexus missile salvo. Killing two preds breaking them.

M3.3 LS2 failed activating and regrouped (1BM from breaking).

T3.3 R'varna advanced out of forrest shooting the full LS formation (with ML from the skyrays). Killing 3 they were broken and forced to retreat.

M3.4 Thunderhawk shot skyrays for 1BM (staying out of 60cm).

T3.4 Here I made a critical misstake. I marshalled the riptides but elected to shoot instead of moving into his talbehalf. Only placed a BM on the unbroken LSs.

T3.5 + 6 terminators and BTS hunter both doubled together killing on skyray breaking them. This left me only two broken formations (skyrays and HH) on mordotens half.

He began by failing to rally his broken LSs they moved in between my HH and skyrays to get both within 30 cm. I preceeded to fail both rally rolls. This gave mordoten the victory by 2-0. BTS + they shall not pass.

Interesting game. Thanks for the report.

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Just wondering about the points costs on your list. Vior’la Cadres 1.01.pdf

Fire Warrior Cadre: 6 Fire Warriors, 3 Devilfish [225], 2 Crisis Suits [+25 ea, Lose 2 FWs, 1 Devilfish], Shas'o [+100], Breacher [free] giving: 4 FW Breacher Teams, 2 Devilfish, 2 XV8 Crisis Suits, Shas'o for 375 points. Query Crisis Suit upgrade bundled with Shas'o?

Fire Warrior Cadre: 8 Fire Warriors [225], 2 Crisis Suits [+25 ea, Lose 2 FWs], 2 Firesight Marksmen and up to one Devilfish [+75, Devilfish not taken], Breacher [free], giving: 6 FW Breachers, 2 XV8 Crisis Suits, 2 Fireshight Marksmen for 350 points. Query Marksmen without Devilfish 50 points?

Heavy Battlesuit Cadre: Shas'el and 3 Heavy Battlesuits [325]. Query using the points from the draft Epic UK list?

Skysweep Support Group: 3 Skyrays [225]. Query, not a great unit so a points drop?

Looking forward to getting some more "test" games in but work has been crazy busy. And never manage that many games anyway. But Mark is a great battle report blogger so, . . . . soon, . . . . hopefully. Thought I might test some of the global Tau changes first: Crisis Suits with better Plasma Rifles and reduced cost upgrades, Manta with points drop and two main railguns, etc.

After thinking about crisis suits I thought that 25 points each is to much. I therefore tried the cirsis upgrade at 25 pts for replacing two FWs. They are somewhat of a liability with taking away mobility (20cm move) and also they replace 2 FWs + 1 devilfish.
So your above example is correct from the Vior'la 1.01, but I tested them slightly cheaper.
I think I'll change it to "replace two FWs with two crisis suits units. One with a shas'el character for + 50 pts" in the next update. + 75 pts to replace the shas'el with a shas'o. That makes them like a commander upgrade leading the FWs.



I'd like us to test them at 75 points for the formation without the devilfish. Without it they can be transported in an orca. That makes the formation a fair bit more powerful than an air-drop formation in the 3rd phase tau list, with them bringing markerlights. I think paying a premium by loosing the devilfish is reasonable.


I couldn't really see why I lowered price it was 350 in the 1.9 list. And with the discussion we had previously on the price of the different suits. I thought 275 was a fair price for 3x Y'vahra + 25 points per upgraded suit to ripted/R'varna gets us to 350 points. So I tried them at 350


Yeah I will change the cost in the next update. I think the formation needs a points drop, it's not all that good and it's hard to utilize their markerlights so I think it's reasonable. Tried it out in this game.


Any tau testing of either list is much appreciated.

So I tried another game with the list. 3000 pts standard tournament scenario. It was against forum member Argol. He brought a Scions of iron list, which he's also the AC of.

I took the same list from the last battle.



Turn one went to the marines.

I'm afraid I didn't take all that many pictures. Hopefully you can follow. I also forgot to take a picture of deployment, but I think you'll see most of it in coming pictures.

M1.1 Orbital bombardment hit my mech. FW cadre killing my Shas'o and two more units for four BMs. So that was rather annoying start. It also places a BM on the nearby HHs.

T1.1 I try to marshall, but fail on top of that I only remove 3BMs.

M1.2 Thunderhawk CAS went after the skysweep fromation and go ahead and miss with all 6 AA attacks. One skyray survives.

T1.2 I went on OW with the R'varnas to protect them and the nearby riptides and KV139 from the air assault.

M1.3 Thunderbolts kill a devilfish from one of my PF groups.

T1.3 One marine scout formation was within markerlight range. I used the nexus missile titan to attack them. Inf was in cover. I shot the tanks which were in the open and I proceeded to miss all attacks.



M1.4 Thunderhawk transporter pair 1 with annihilators ground attacks my hammer heads. The skyray from that formation misses, again. My unlucky rolls seemed to be contagious and all annihilator shots except one misses. I failed the save though, so was down one HH.



T1.4 Tried to marshall and shoot back with the HHs, but failed. Regrouped and removed all BMs.

M1.5 Some tacticals doubled up.

T1.5 My lower PFs try to double and shoot close by scouts. I fail again. I took the BM and shot anyway. Only one PF unit and one devilfish were in range. I missed.

M1.6 Second tactical formation doubled into a supporting position against my just activated formation also shooting them. One PF unit was killed.

M1.7 Retain with nearby scouts which engage my PFs. No kills on either side, but supporting fire takes out two devilfish and I get wiped in resolution.



T1.6 Riptides doulbed to upper scouts shooting them, but missing all shots but one. Thankfully that scout failed its save.



M1.8 3rd scouts formation doubled to shoot my the remaining pathfinders, who use their OW and kill one scout. No kills on the PF formation.

T1.7 Orca with cargo lands and attack the last tac formation (unactivated) upgraded with two destructors. I missed both MW attacks, but all inf is killed and one rhino. Their hunter missed.

M1.9 2nd empty transporter pair formation lands next to my orca and shots it, breaking and destroying it.

M1.10 Scouts marshall and shoot PFs for 1 BM.

Turn 2.

So that was really bad first turn for me. I catch a small break to and we roll equal on the strat roll and tau actually gets to go first.

T2.1 Riptes advance into a position were all can see and shoot on the scouts, everything dies except for the razorback.

T2.2 I try and retain with the hammerheads fail, wanted to move back and shoot. I shot anyway luckily getting four hits with the unsupressed vehicles. Marines fail all saves so the formation is wiped.

M2.1 Scouts assaults PFs, which break after two rounds of fighting.

M2.2 Thunderbolts stands down.

T2.3 My airinserted infantry doubles to shoot the marine supreme commander and his tacs. 3 tacticals + the Supreme commander land raider + 1 razorback dies. They remaining units break.

M2.3 CAS ground attacks mechanized firewarriors. Two FWs and one devilfish dies.

T2.4 R'varnas double and shoots a socut formation but only produce one hit, which is saved by the scout.

M2.4 The remaining rhino and 2 destructors from last turns decimated tac formation marshalls and moves towards the marine blitz.

T2.5 Titan moves dubblar och dödar en scout + rhino, breaking the formation I couldn't use the missiles since no markerlights were close by. Here I made a misstake I forgot the unit has 120 cm and played it with only 90 cm. Otherwise I likely would advanced and have shot the remains of the SC tactical formation for the hope of claiming BTS.



M2.5 Tacs in the lower part doubles and kills a HH. They break from the BMs (failed to rally in the end phase).

M2.6 Thunderhawks stand down

M2.7 2nd thunderhawks picks up tacticals

M2.8 Scouts marches somewhere.



Here's a end of turn picture.

Turn 3.

Things weren't looking so good. Maybe I could play for a draw. Initiative went to marines.

M3.1 Scouts assaulted my broken BTS formation. Winns on +1 and wipes them. Marines claim BTS.

M3.2 Thunderbolts attacks my hammerheads which had rallied. One dies and they break again.

T3.1 Firewarriors tries to move towards the blitz and shoot destructors. I however failed. This ment the MW attacks were out of range Shot the destructors anyway, but missed all attacks.

M3.3 Surviving razorbacks from scout formation fail

T3.2 Titan doubles and takes one offensive objective. Again instead of shooting missiles believing range is only 90 cm I shoot the razorbacks but misses.

I forgot to write down the rest of the activations. I moved my R'varnas down to my blitz. I was however forced to march to reach the objective, so couldn't shoot. It was a long shot since I knew they would be air assaulted, but I figured they had a very small chance with their good armour.

Riptides trippled along the road and claimed blitz. However the rallied remains of the marine SC formation were able to contest it.

The last action were the air assault. Which I predictably lost. Ending the game in a 3-0 loss (BTS, T&H and Blitz).

The start of the first turn was really demolarizing and loosing the Shas'o straight away gave me a lot of problems. I got some hope of a draw at least during the first half of turn two, but had to few formations at the start of third.

Argol is one of the top three players in Sweden in my estimation and he's a really good player that I loose more to than I win against. But I always seem to struggle when I meet marines with tau. That's two losses in a row against marines. I think the know no fear rule play a part in it. They are very hard to break with shooting, which of course is what tau needs to do, making it a somewhat hard match up.

Some feedback on the lists

Scions:
That thunderhawk CAS thing is a beast. It's so versatile and can go after any AA formation it wants all by it self. The risk of loosing is rather small and it has a rediciolus amount of attacks. I think it was actually fully reasonable to just fly straight into my skysweep formation.
This way it can pave the way for any upcoming air assaults. I think it could do with a nerf or at least a noticeable price increase

Tau:
Again I saw why I have stopped using the skysweep formation. It's too fragile.
Argol were thorough in taking out my MLs and in combination with me misstaking the range on the missiles ment the KV139 saw little use of the nexus system. I think this is as it should be. Didn't feel to good or to bad.

I found no problems with the riptides or R'varanas. They seem about right. Perhaps the R'varnas are a bit to tuff, 5+ RA maybe?

Hey lads, back again with another batrep for all your Vior’la developing pleasure. I played a Vior'la test list against Kinzog's fearsome Salamander army.

3000 pts - Vior’la 2.3 vs Salamander Space Marines

6 Breachers, Shas’O, 2 Pathfinders, 3 Broadsides, 1 Skyray
6 Breachers, Fireblade, 2 Pathfinders, 3 Broadsides, 1 Skyray
8 Crisis suits
3 Stealth suits, 3 Ghostkeels
3 Y’Vahras, 1 Riptide
3 Y’Vahras, 1 Riptide
2 Stormsurges

6 Tacticals, Supreme Commander, 1 Hellfire Dreadnought, 1 Drop pod
6 Tacticals, 1 Hellfire Dreadnought, 1 Drop pod
4 Devastators, 1 Vulcan Dreadnought, 1 Drop pod
4 Devastators, 2 Salamander Devastators, 1 Hunter
4 Terminators, Chaplain
4 Assault units, Chaplain
4 Scouts plus transports, 1 Razorback
4 Land Raiders, 1 Hunter
2 Thunderbolts
Strike Cruiser

Deployment
Tau held Stealth group in teleport
Salamanders held 2 Tacticals and 1 Devastator in planetfall, as well as 1 Terminator in teleport




Turn 1, Salamander assault unit moved up, to occupy forest. Crisis suits countered and killed 3. Heavy battlesuits moved up and attacked the scout formation, killing 2. Thunderbolts came in and shot up some breachers, then got shot down by skyray/riptide fire. On the left flank, stormsurges and heavy battlesuits put damage into the devastators and broke them.

Crisis suits move up and mess up some assault marines


Turn 2, was rough on the Tau. The strike cruise came in and dropped a lot of hurt on the fire warriors, killing a fireblade, 3 breachers, a pathfinder, and damaging a Y’Vahra. The fire warriors broke and ran. This was followed by the landed marines assaulting into the heavy battlesuits, wiping them for the cost of 2 tac marines. The other heavy battlesuits pulled a combined fire with the crisis suits and counterattacked, killing one of the tac formations. The scouts regrouped. Back on the left flank, the breachers moved into some woods which the land raiders were hiding behind. They inflicted a blast marker and lit them up with markerlights. The stormsurges took a sustained fire with their destroyer missiles, killing two land raiders.

Right before the Battlesuit got slaughtered, Fire Warriors running for their lives into the woods


Turn 3, the teleports went off. The terminators teleported in behind the breachers on the left flank, while the stealth suits blitzed the blitzkrieg objective. The terminators crossfired the fire warriors, killing a broadside, a breacher, and the supreme commander. The land raiders followed suit but failed their initiative and got no hits. The stealth suits wiped out the broken devastators in crossfire. Crisis suits attempted to retain the initiative but failed. They shot at the remaining space marine tactical, killing 1. That same tactical unit engaged the crisis suits, killing 4 crisis suits and the shas’el. The heavy battlesuits attempted to shoot back but whiffed all 4 of their shots. The stormsurges then whiffed against the terminators. Both breachers then marshalled. The score was 1-0 (Tau had blitzkrieg), so we went to turn 4.

Turn 4, the tau won strategy. The fire warriors killed a stand of terminators, the heavy battlesuits failed their retain and ran from the marines. The land raiders shot up the fire warriors, killing a pathfinder. The terminators then engaged the fire warriors. The 2 remaining terminators got wiped but took 2 broadsides, 3 breachers, a pathfinder with them, breaking them. The remaining scouts ran across the board and wiped out the rest of the fire warriors. The stormsurges fired on the land raiders again, killing one. The stealth suits killed the last land raider, breaking the formation and securing the second objective to win the game.

Stealth suits win the game with a 2 pt daisy chain


Final results: 2-1, Tau had Take and Hold and Blitzkrieg, Salamanders had Break Their Spirits.

TL;DR: Tau eked out a narrow victory in a very bloody battle.


Takeaways on the Vior’la, particularly the Y’Vahra:
- One major rules question we have is the Guided Missile rule and concealment. If a valid target is markerlit, does it benefit from “hull-down” type obscuring bonuses (-1 to frepower rolls) i.e. does the missile go over intervening terrain.
- Crunch-wise there seems to be no reason to take a Y’Vahra over a Riptide. 6 Y’Vahras (700pts) inflicted a total of 4 kills (2 shooting, 2 in CC). Riptides have a long-range MW3+, an AA gun, and 2 multipurpose missiles. But to get close enough to use the Y’Vahra, doubling is useful, but that makes them a 5+. After getting close enough to use the Y’Vahra, they have no way of preventing an engagement which they may well lose. 5+ CC and 4+ FF isn’t great considering that’s the Y’Vahra’s purpose in the fluff, and moreover, those are the same stats as a Riptide. The Y’Vahra has an EA, but it isn’t a MW so that’s still only a 50% increase over a Riptide.
- For us, the Y’Vahra is a worse Riptide. Some areas we noted for improvement are assault stats, movement (esp ability to escape undesired engagements), main gun is a TK that has trouble hitting for its range and doesn’t make the Y’Vahra better in assaults.
- Breachers themselves perform fine but might be better if all the list’s AA and command assets weren’t tied to them.
- Stormsurges are good as AT platforms (assuming markerlit targets), but the Supremacy was already good at that. We’ve been spitballing some ways of retooling them towards a more infantry support role. Increasing the cost and adding their main missile batteries to the stat line (BP2 disrupt or something, seems odd that they’re excluded given how prominent they are).
- On a more positive note, the crisis and stealth suits all performed excellently in their intended roles.

If anyone has some feedback on how they’ve used the Y’Vahra effectively, I’d be interested in hearing it. Otherwise I hope the feedback is helpful. All the best!

Nice! How many more battlereps is needed at this point?