My Tau Go Pew Pew

Tau versus Tau 2000 pts

I was invited to play a 2000pt game versus Dan, another Tau player from Cobblestone games at the Battle Barns final evening of gaming (a sad day indeed, the battle barn is no more). I gladly accepted and set about devising a way to beat the Tau, as the Tau.

The Pregame planning:

Given my notoriously bad dice, I decided that if we both brought standard Tau lists, and it came down to a long range shooting match/dice fest that I would surely lose. I needed something nonconventional. I also couldn't think of a reason for Tau to fight Tau (acting like a bunch of humans) unless one of the teams was a Farsight enclave. Since Farsight lists are universally considered to be uncompetitive, I didn't expect Dan to bring one, and since I've played a few games with Farsight lists lately I decided that Farsight would be my solution.

After waffling with some standard style lists with pathfinders, broadsid team, multiple crisis suit teams etc.. I realized that almost every game I've played lately has been determined by kill points. Each list I made contained no fewer than 13 kill points. Inspired by Eric's excellent Eldar Jetbike list that has minimal kill points, I decided that minimizing kill points would be the second component to making my Farsight list competitive against a standard Tau list. I stripped out everything I could, took my 4 mandatory unit choices (Farsight, Crisis Suit Team, Two Firewarrior squads) then after waffling back and forth about a squadron of 4 piranha, settled on a Broadside team, and an IonHead.

Conceptually, I planned to split the Farsight Team into 2 groups, 4 suits with Fusion Blasters would either split fire and target vehicles, broadsides, or nearby Crisis teams (causing instant death for any wound applied to a broadside or a suit), while Farsight and the 3 fireknives would focus on mid range targets starting with Crisis and Stealth Suits. If any crisis team was in assault range, I'd declare them to be the squads target before splitting fire, and minimizing my shooting at them so they'd still be around to assault and hopefully keep me from being shot during his turn (this never happened).

My final list contained 6 SIX Killpoints at 2000 points, and looked something like this (please excuse extra notation in unit entries, it was intended to help remember who had what) :

2000 Pts - Tau Empire Roster - Tau 2000pts Farsight of DOOM!

Total Roster Cost: 2000

HQ Farsight Bomb - Fire Both Wpns!!! (16#, 982 pts) (CBg = Crisis Bodyguard)
   1 Cmdr Farsight PR DawnBlade SG HWTL, 170 pts
   1 CBg FB MP SG BsF - ForgeFire, 92 pts = (base cost 35 + Fusion Blaster 12 + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter 3 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Shield Generator 20)
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
   1 CBg FB MP SG - ForgeFire, 89 pts = (base cost 35 + Fusion Blaster 12 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Shield Generator 20)
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
   1 CBg PR MP SG - FireKnife, 97 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Plasma Rifle 20 + Shield Generator 20)
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
   1 CBg PR MP SG BsF - FireKnife, 100 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter 3 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Plasma Rifle 20 + Shield Generator 20)
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
   1 CBg TLFB SG - Sunforge , 83 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Twin Linked Fusion Blaster 18 + Shield Generator 20)
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
1 CBg PR MP SG - FireKnife, 127 pts = (base cost 35 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Iridium Armour 20 + Stimulant Injector 10 + Missile Pod 12 + Plasma Rifle 20 + Shield Generator 20)
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
      1 CBg FB PR SG FSD - ForgeFire, 104 pts = (base cost 35 + Failsafe Detonator 15 + Fusion Blaster 12 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Missile Pod 12 + Shield Generator 20)
         1 Shield Drone, 15 pts

Elite: Crisis Shas'vre (5#, 202 pts)
   1 Crisis Shas'vre, 82 pts = (base cost 25 + Airbursting Fragmentation Projector 20 + Missile Pod 12 + Positional Relay 15 + Team Leader 5 + Shas'vre Upgrade 5)
      1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
      1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
      1 Crisis Battlesuit, 43 pts = (base cost 25 + Missile Pod 12 + Twin Linked Flamer 6)
      1 Crisis Battlesuit, 47 pts = (base cost 25 + Flamer 4 + Twin Linked Missile Pod 18)

Troops: Fire Warrior (12#, 163 pts)
   10 Fire Warrior, 100 pts = 10 * 10
      1 Shas'ui, 33 pts = (base cost 20 + Markerlight 10 + EMP Grenade 3)
         1 Marker Drone, 30 pts

Troops: Fire Warrior (12#, 163 pts)
   10 Fire Warrior, 100 pts = 10 * 10
      1 Shas'ui, 33 pts = (base cost 20 + Markerlight 10 + EMP Grenade 3)
         1 Marker Drone, 30 pts

Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit (5#, 325 pts)
   1 Broadside Battlesuit, 105 pts = (base cost 70 + Hard-wired Multi-tracker 5 + Hard-wired Target Lock 5 + Shield Generator 20 + Team Leader 5)
      1 Broadside Battlesuit, 90 pts = (base cost 70 + Shield Generator 20)
      1 Broadside Battlesuit, 100 pts = (base cost 70 + Twin Linked Plasma Rifle 10 + Shield Generator 20)
      1 Shield Drone, 15 pts
      1 Shield Drone, 15 pts

Heavy Support: Hammerhead Gunship (1#, 165 pts)
   1 Hammerhead Gunship, 165 pts = (base cost 90 + Ion Cannon 15 + Two Burst Cannons 10 + Disruption Pod 5 + Multi-Tracker 10 + Seeker Missile x2 20) + Sensor Spines 10 + Target Lock 5

Game Day:

An hour before I should have left, while trying to pre-assemble my suits with appropriate wargear I discovered that none of my shield generators were magnatized, and that 4 or 5 suits were lacking magnets in at least 1 hard-point. By the time I got it all straightened out I was 25 minutes late getting to the Barn and in a wicked bad mood. Fortunately Dan my opponent had troubles of his own and ended up being even later than me, so it wasn't an issue anyway. I'd never met Dan, but it turns out I had seen him playing the one time I'd been out to Cobblestone.

Dan brought a pretty standard Tau list as expected other than having a team of Stealth Suits and no shield drones to speak of. I don't recall all his wargear choices but it looked something like this:

HQ:
Shas'O - Fireknife + SG

Shas'El - AFP, Flamer
Bodyguard - TLFB

Elite:
3x Crisis Suit - Fireknives

3x Crisis Suits - (not sure on the loadouts, they had some proxies)

6x Steath Suits with burst cannons (loved this unit, all XV15's)

Troops:

12x Firewarriors (I think it was 3 teams of 12, my photos are too blurry to count)

12x Firewarriors

12x Firewarriors

14x Kroot Carnivors including a shaper

Fast:

8x Pathfinders + Devilfish gun drone + Dpod

Heavy Support:

2x Broadside Suits with SMS

2x Broadside Suits with SMS

Hammer Head Gunship with Railgun and 2 burst cannons, DPod.

The Game:

Dan rolled the dice for missions and deployment. We got Annihilation as the primary with Seize Ground and 3 objectives as a secondary, with Dawn of War as the Deployment.

I won the roll to place objectives first, and placed my objective in the open on Dans side of the board, he placed his objective on my side, diagonally opposite of mine and with a Bastion in the center of the table blocking LOS from one to the other. I placed the last objective on Dans side as well, mirroring the placement of his placement. The plan was to give him a reason to stay on his side of the board, and to draw him out into the open with his troops if possible.

Deployment:

We rolled to deploy first and I won, I chose my side of the table as I already had my army out of the bag near this side, and because I'd placed objectives with this side in mind. Since it was Dawn of War, I got to place up to 1 HQ and 2 troops. Normally I don't deploy anything on the board in Dawn of War, but normally I don't go first, and I don't usually have markerlights (heavy wpns) in my firewarrior teams. However since I was running Farsight, it was an easy call to Place him on the board running across the center to force Dan into the 6" along his board edge. For some reason I placed my HQ ringing around the Bastion instead of just placing some suits on it, this would hurt me later. Then I placed the firewarriors (whom I usually reserve) so I'd have access to my markerlights from round 1. I put them in terrain in either corner, with one team stretched out to the center line to increase the area of denial for his deployment. Everything else would walk on on turn 1.

Dan apparently hadn't played a Dawn of War mission in some time and initially deployed the majority of his army on the board. After some clarification on what was allowed to deploy, he settled with placing his firewarriors in either corner, in or behind terrain, and a monat HQ also behind the hill to my right. He reserved the Shas'el team, the proxied crisis team both deepstriking, and outflanked his Kroot.

After deployment Dan rolled to sieze the initiative and succeeded. This made me cringe a bit, but I was confident that between the nightfighting rules, and the size of my HQ that it wouldn't hurt me to much.

Game Summary:

I was going to write a play by play on the game, but here it is 2 days later and I can't recall all the specifics, and my phone failed to take almost any worth while images. So instead of rambling on and guessing at what happened here are a few pictures, and a summary of the end of the game.

My HQ wiped out a broadside team, the fireknives, the proxy crisis team, 2 firewarrior teams, and put some hits on the Shas'el team. In the end, my HQ was almost wiped out but Farsight managed to hold on as an IC taking cover behind the Ionhead. The Ionhead killed 1 of the Proxy suits, finished off the Shas'el, and killed a few firewarroirs and 3 stealth suits. My firewarriors on the left were wiped out by Kroot outflanking except for my Shas'ui and the markerdrone which were escorted of the board by the kroot consolidating near them. My broadside team blew the railgun off his Hammerhead, killed his pathfinder devilfish and killed his Shas'O on turn 5. My crisis team failed to have any effect and got wiped out my massed fire from his whole army on my right side. My firewarriors to the right were also wiped out all but one firewarrior who failed leadership and fell off the board. His pathfinders worked far better than mine providing him with alot of markerlight hits through out the game. My getto pathfinder/firewarrior team managed to call in the 2 seeker missles with their markerlights, both of which failed to have any effect.

In the end, neither of us controlled any objectives markers, so no points there, and I had 3 out of 6 kill points still on the board, while he had lost 8 kill points. My plan to minimize kill points in my list paid off, and I won the game.

And here are the least lousy of the bad pictures I remembered to take: