[Galahad_Knight]

Well, I'm in the middle of a game at the moment (8 hour halftime on account of one of us having to work tonight). My new Tau army vs my brother with a new(ish) Khornite Chaos Marine list (I say ish because his usual list is mostly khorne as it is, he just dropped a coupl units and replaced them with berserkers)

1850 Seek and Destroy.

We just finished his side of Turn 3 (He got first go, of course). As it stands, the only units that I have left on the field that haven;t either been completely obliterated or are cutrently engaged and awaiting wipeout are as follows:

1 Shas'o (w/2 drones from a dead piranha running in front as a screen)
2 FB Piranha w/drones
1 Devilfish (SMS was destroyed)
1 Hammerhead (Railgun blown off before it could even fire!)

He has left
1 unit of 3 berserkers
1 unit of 4 berserkers
1 unit of 2 bikers
1 unit of 4 bloodletters
1 unit of 6 hounds
(All cut down from 8 by shooting and a lucky assault hit or two))
1 tooled up CC boss monster
1 Defiler (about to get hit by the FG piranha and tried up with drone assault if it survives.)
1 rhino
1 dreadnought

Things look pretty bleak. About my only hope is to somehow get my commander away (He's got Super Kill Guy and 4 bloodletters on one side and 2 bikers on the left. If he can shoot the bikers out he can run like hell)
Take out his Defiler (working on it)
And then everyone runs like hell, taking potshots as I go until time runs out and I pray that I salvaged enough points to come out on top.

Things look really bad though, unless I can take out his defiler (and thus the last of his ranged support) and the bikers (who can catch me) and turn it into a succesful run and gun, I'm screwed, hard. The good news is, of I can take out those two units, I don;t think he has a chance to catch me. He;s got pistols and close combat vurses a jetpack and skimmers.

So, any chance I can turn this around?

Any advice for future conflicts? Two things really screwed me up this time. THe first was losing the first go, and the other thing was him deploying his guys at the edge of his DZ, thus forcing me to crowd the board edge to keep out of the 24" no fly zone. Having to stick everyone in a 9 inch deep strip really screwed me for placing my pathfinders. My army literally streched from one end of the board to the other. I had no choice for where to put them.

I just can't inflict enough damage with pulse fire to take out his squads before he can hit me. ANd usually most of my squads just crumple in the first round of assault. My snipers, pathfinders and FWs don't have enough mobility to get out of the way, and I couldn't get my battlesuits far enough away before the shit hit the fan, so they all got caught up on assault after his guys massacred the squad they were next to and consolodated into them. With those berserker rolls, they were on me so fadt and tight, the only places I could run to would just end up putting me too close to another squad.

[darthgus]

There is a time when you should do the honourable thing and resign the game.

Its no fun to chase around the table trying to kill your commander. I can't even believe that you already spent 8 hours playing this game.

It is not a case of you are going to lose, you have already lost, you just don't want to admit it to yourself.

[Galahad_Knight]

I never said we spent 8 hours playing, I said we were taking an 8 hour break because one of us had to work.

Before you slam me for not being a quitter, read the post.

In the meantime, saying "I can't win, I'm taking my plastic spacemen and going home" reeks of poor sportsmanship. Not only is it just plain quitting, it also denies the other person a real victory. My brother *wanted* to play the thing out. He'd just come off a long day of work and the first thing he did was tell me to get up and get to the table.

So please, don't call me a poor sport just because I wouldn't tell my little brother that I don;t feel like being slaughtered.

Now, back on track, he *did* win in the 4th turn, and I attempted to concede before my turn, but he encouraged me to give it a shot and at least try to take some down with me to narrow the margin of victory (And not because he wanted to wipe me out. He was actualy rooting for e since he knew this is a new army for me). I told him margin of victory only matters in tourneys and he reminded me that if this were real, they'd keep fighting rather than be captured by the forces of chaos.

So I fought back. I killed the last of his bikers (an extremely expensive unit), I routed one of his remaining berserker squads, and I splashed his last defiler.

He won, but the only intact unit he had was his commander (the dread was mobile and full points, but I blew an arm off so he didn't get away scot free)

In fact, the dread was the only scoring unit on the field by the end of it. If he hadn't lucked out on a rage roll and gotten his commander into melee with my own, I might have even been able to turn it around, assuming I could keep stringing his comander along and shooting him up as I went.

The moral of the story? Never give up, never surrender.
And don't make assumptions as to someone's motivation and character when you haven't even read the post through. I said he was my brother and that we were coming back to the game. If I were just trying to rob him of fun, do you think hed have bothered coming back to the table? Do you think I;d do that to my little brother to begin with?
He had fun, I had fun.
I think you owe me an appology.

Now, are you going to make some suggestions for my next encounter with his Khornites, or are you just going to tell me to do the honorable thing and just not play him again?

[Kugelblitz]

Originally Posted by Galahad_Knight

I told him margin of victory only matters in tourneys and he reminded me that if this were real, they'd keep fighting rather than be captured by the forces of chaos.

I find that having experience with "real" often times the real thing to do is bug out before everything gets too crazy. Especially for a mech heavy unit, load up, pull back and call for air.

Good fight, btw, and sometimes gaming things into the bitter end reveals a few tricks here and there. even people who are winning can make mistakes.

[Bird III]

Hmmm. Returning this thread to decorum...

I think that there are many other threads dealing with Khorne. Tau are rather well set up for playing them, as Khorne needs to be in CC, while Tau are used to running away.

Skimmers are really good, as they are very difficult to hit. In that list, I would really target the bikers and Lord right off the bat to reduce his speed and limit the things that can hurt you. Let the deepstrikers and heavy weapon pot-shots take care of the artillery, then watch the beasts and infantry run after you as you gun them down.

At the point you wrote in, having no heavy guns hurts. With only medium armour,a couple ionheads would chew these guys apart.

You actually had a pretty solid strategy, I think. Maybe you could throw a fast bait unit or two closer during deployment just to mess up his attack waves.

Playing missions also helps change the game from just a rampant free-for all.

I never give up either- even in some games that I have clearly lost early on, I'll play out just to see what will happen. This game is so fun because even with all the strategy, there is so much randomness that you never know how things will turn out.

[Galahad_Knight]

Well, he got the first go and I got the part of the board with buildings as opposed to natural cover, so I envisioned it as chaos attacking an isolated tau colony. Nowere to run, so you fight to defend the women, children and teddy bear factory. Still, neither of us wanted to quit, we both wanted to see it through, and we were both rooting for the underdog.

I think in the future if he's going to bring his doom bunnies against my Tau I'm going to have to create a special list with Khorne in mind (Flachette launchers on everything for a start). He suggested the same thing.

Any suggestions/advice for going speciffically anti-khorne? Bear in mind, I can't go full on mech since I don't have enough fish at the moment.
I've got a broadside, a commander, 2 crisis, 6 stealths, 3 piranha, 24 FW, 8 PF, a hammerhead, a fish and a whole mess of drones.

Bird, glad to see I'm not alone in a) sticking it out, and b) thinking I;ve got a chance.

I did notice that onc emy squishy squads were gone, his guys were pretty much useless against even crippled tanks. Every quad had a powerfist in it, and a plasma pistol or two, but apart from that, thye weren;t much. His hounds actually buggered for cover when my crippled fish turned its burst cannon on them, because he knew they didn;t have a chance on assault.

The fact that his main heavy support units have BS means if I need to, I can tie them up with piranha drones. I locked his defiler up for a turn and a half with four little drones. They couldn't hit it, but they forced him to slowly pick them off, two attacks at a time. Kept his big gun quiet long enough for me to maneuver my tanks without fear of backshots and chase off some of his tattered units (not to mention moving my piranha out of LOS of its gun when it broke free) before the piranha could double back and finish it off.

Bad luck at the onset of the game really screwed me over. None of my pathfinders hit with their markerlights and the next turn they were the first to be pulled under and wiped in assault, then they consolodated into my broadside

Think I should spread my snopers out, or place them closer together so they can converge on one squad? Normally spreading them out maximizes the pinning checks, but his troops were all fearless.

THAT was a big pain in the butt too. No pinning, no falling back, bah!
And we were playing missions...we just happened to roll the "rampant free for all" mission (Seek and Detroy) ;-)

[Falstead]

Kroot!

Kroot!

KROOT!

If you want a cheap distraction/speedbump unit these poor meatbags willing mercenaries are certainly the way to go.

Firstly their ability to infiltrate is a huge bonus. They are deployed last meaning you can put them exactly where they need to be. Secondly they have a fairly decent shooting attack against infantry, especially for their point value! Let them hang back in a nice piece of cover and snipe at distant opponents. Then as they get closer you can rapid fire them! Third Khorne units that blood rage head towards the closest enemy. Throw some kroot onto the flanks so that your opponent has to bloodrage away from the center of your army and instead sends his 200+ point combat specialist squad running into the woods to flush out some 70 point infiltrators ;D

Two or three units of Kroot can really really benefit you quite a lot. Just remember Kroot are ok in combat, but above all they need to be in cover! Don't break cover, don't charge someone with a better initiative than you and always KEEP ON SHOOTING!

Good luck!

[Bird III]

1) Yeah, Kroot could help, but remember that they will be worn down in a couple turns of combat so use them wisely. Search the forum for some of the excellent kroot tactica.

2) Frisbees are perfect for, like you said, tying up the defiler for several turns. His crappy WS and low attacks means you can frustrate him pretty bad. Indirect fire is not a problem with deep strike.

3) Between disembarking gun drones and being skimmers, those pirhannas should be useful in slowing his advance. You don't need to stop it, just slow one side, so your firebase can take on his army piece by piece.

4) Try the ionhead. Against a list like this it would be more useful against targets like the lord or dread than a rail. You have other weapons to take care of the smaller stuff. Still won't help if you lose it first round, but at least it's cheaper so you can take more models somewhere else.

5) You probably know this, but you could buy more skimmers. Another hammerhead or even other fish would work wonders in what you can do.

Originally Posted by Galahad_Knight

Bird, glad to see I'm not alone in a) sticking it out, and b) thinking I;ve got a chance.

My pleasure

Originally Posted by Galahad_Knight

Bad luck at the onset of the game really screwed me over. None of my pathfinders hit with their markerlights and the next turn they were the first to be pulled under and wiped in assault, then they consolodated into my broadside

Bad luck rolls do happen, especially with only one shot. Spacing out your units so no (at least no early) consolidation assaults can happen is very important. That broadside would have helped. Maybe keep your pathfinders on a flank- that way they can do their job while tempting him to go running sideways instead of at your main line. Pathfinders are fragile and will die if he learns how powerful they can be- it's your job to get them to pay for themselves by either surviving longer or letting your troops do more damage.

Originally Posted by Galahad_Knight

Think I should spread my snopers out, or place them closer together so they can converge on one squad? Normally spreading them out maximizes the pinning checks, but his troops were all fearless.

THAT was a big pain in the butt too. No pinning, no falling back, bah!

Yeah, fearless sucks. Makes tank shock useless too.

Originally Posted by Galahad_Knight

And we were playing missions...we just happened to roll the "rampant free for all" mission (Seek and Detroy) ;-)

Aaah. Say no more.

It's not so bad. If he's a regular opponent, you will learn how to crush him. >

[Calaban]

Kroot would be better served behind the Tau lines..why?

1) They can add their fire against the approaching beserkers with their respectable near-bolters

2) they patiently wait for the tau unit to get into CC, and hope that those Firewarrior units are large enough and spread out enough to survive until the Kroots next turn, when they will charge in and get the maximum effectiveness with their 3 attacks each.


And that brings me to another way to aggravate CC armies as Tau, or anyone really: Maximum 2" coherency. 12 firewarriors at maximum coherency simply cannot be wiped out in a single round of combat, and will tie those berzerkers with up to 3 game turns of helplessly dying.

The thing to remember is that only those within 2" of fellows in B2B in CC can take wounds, and it would be near impossible for an 8 man khorne unit to spread out enough to draw all 12 warriors into that 'B2B+2" ' killzone, meaning a lot of those kills are going to go to waste. ^-^ And if the Tau pass their morale check, they dont all swoop in, they move up to 6" to move in.. and 12 FW spread out... plus the 3"+ of no mand land in the dead zone.. will result in a squad thats still spread out enough to potentially absorb another 60 wounds and yet remain on the board, and locked in combat (thats 2 turns now of not killing something else!).

And if the Tau should happen to fail their morale, since the khornates were so effective at killing everything thats in B2B (right?), then the Firewarriors get to break off from combat, and ready their rapid fire rifles.... because there is no consolidate without someone in B2B. ^-^

Now I dont mean to be condescending by restating how the rules work, but it helps to show the Tau answer to insane CC armies, and should encourage Tau players to not panic, and keep this harsh plan in mind, to frustrate the CC armies to no end. >

[CmdrBonesaw]

Especially for a mech heavy unit, load up, pull back and call for air.

Rule 36: "If the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support!"

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20031002.html

But, seriously, Khorne should be a fair game, expecially for Mech Tau... Skimmers are nigh impossible to kill in CC; and if you field one or two Piranhas, you`ll have the frenzied troops charge in the wrong direction *g*