I played another 1850 game with my Tau on Sunday against
Hart’s Chaos Space marines/Chaos Daemons hybrid list. It was an Emperor’s
Will/Vanguard Strike game. I had little problem shooting the everliving hell
out of his army, but it came down to his Nurgle Lord with one wound sliding
into home to contest my home objective at the last second, and the game ended
on Turn 5, so he took it 4-1 (I got first blood). Some further notes on Tau
after this game:
I love gun drones. They seriously put out a ton of shots
together with the Ethereal Storm of Fire bubble, and are also handy to have in
the same area as your fire warriors for providing supporting fire. BS2 is no
big deal when the guns are twin-linked and S5. Plus they can move out, pour
shots into enemies, and pull back to serve as assault screens. Since any of the
heavy tanks and the devilfish already have one gun, taking SMS instead means
one gun would usually be snap-fired (unless you’ve got great cover). I’d rather
have the cute little drones to fly around and be annoying, especially since
they don’t give up kill points.
Since the Sky Ray is my only unit (currently) with
skyfire, and I’ve only played against Chaos armies with dragons so far, it can
be a little bit challenging to bring down dragons the first time they show up
on the table. But for the second time, at some point the dragon flew over my
fire warrior nest, and with help from the Sky Ray markerlights, enough S5
infantry survived to snap fire into the rear armor 10 and wounded or destroyed
it. It’s always a tough call on how many Sky Ray seeker missiles to commit to a
particular target. I have been throwing 3-4 at a time up at the dragons, and it
has not been enough to do the job. It just seems like a waste to go ahead and
launch all 6 at once, leaving the Sky Ray to just be a roving double
markerlight vehicle (if it doesn’t move). I eagerly anticipate fighting other
races’ fliers to see if I can do any better against AV 10 or 11. Flying
monstrous creatures have so far not been a problem given the amount of pulse
rounds I can put out at close range.
Disruption pods, still worth it. I made plenty of cover
saves this game because of them.
I’m iffy on my TL-flamer/burst cannon crisis team, since
they are sort of a delicate one-trick pony, but they only cost 126 points, so
it’s not like I’d get much by cashing them back in. Plus they give me a
deep-strike unit that I can either take to the backfield for contesting and/or
the Linebreaker point, or use my Ethereal’s a homing beacons on my gunline for
some accurate anti-swarm flames.
Still waiting on my Broadsides to come in… don’t think GW
has even shipped them to the states yet. Bah. Playing with a second hammerhead
and the stealth suits (especially their homing beacon) is still fun for now.
The Tau firebase is very difficult to get close to and not
get the hell blasted out of you. If they don’t make the charge in one fell
swoop, they are probably within range of an Ethereal Storm of Fire barrage
during the Tau turn, they must then survive all the supporting fire overwatch,
which is also enhanced by Storm of Fire. Things that can charge from great
distances, such as Maulerfiends or beasts, are high priority targets. But even
if an enemy does make it through gun drone screens to a fire warrior squad, the
fire warriors will either be wiped out or break, and the assaulters will
probably not survive a second turn to take anything else out. It looks like the
key to assaulting Tau is either getting them to spread out somehow, or
whittling down the firebase with your own shooting before jumping in for
up-close carnage. Obviously, heldrakes can be a big problem to keeping up your
gunline resilience. I’m trying to get better at model placement to control
Heldrake movement over and around my firebase. Again, if you can make them fly past
you and get your pulse rifles in the rear armor, bringing them down becomes a
much more reasonable proposition.
Having 3d6 jet pack moves with my Shadowsun/low-AP crisis
suits is cra-mazing. Given their awesome range, as long as you are within 12
inches, you are putting in 6 S6 AP2 shots and 5 S8 Ap1 shots, re-rolling ones,
and then bouncing away up to 18 inches. I wish I could afford to put another
few drones with that unit to soak up wounds from things like the baleflamer or
krak missiles, but I’m not sure how to get the points. I did give the
fusion/plas suits advanced targeting systems this time, but it didn’t do much
for this particular game (Hart made great look-out-sir rolls and cover saves
for his Nurgle Lord and accompanying plague marine unit).
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