Prot's Big Batrep: Ultra + Wolves VS. Tau 4,000 pts w/Pics

[Prot]

Wow Prot. Amazing game, the photos are fantastic as well. 

 

I think this just confirms Tau are insane at any point level, and are fundamentally unbalancing the game. I mean you brought arguably the best Pod and shock assault list you could, backed up with 2 Knight-Titans...and they still mopped the floor with half your force on Interceptor. That's just flat out broken. 

 

Still got the win on objectives, but it was close-run all the same. 

 

I don't think GK would've survived past Turn 2 or 3 to be honest. We field a fraction of the infantry of a Marine force, and once you focus down the Dreadknights, we just fall apart on the field. 

 

I most likely think you're right. My gut feeling is there is too much interceptor going on there, and what's left over is going to have me rolling fist fulls of saves which just mathematically catches up with me. 

 

Considering the Knights again, I just think the bare minimum is the best and these were 8x8 tables so we had that going against us too in the sense that the Knights would most likely never make it that far. My aggressive Alpha did suck a lot of missiles and heavy fire out of them.

 

The GK would have the psychic phase, but really the close combat doesn't mean quite as much because it's like Tau have two distinct tiers of it now: Either, super easy or super tough. (I've stood 3-4 combat turns with Riptides against my hammer captains)

 

As an aside the Breacher squads were actually quite gross as a kind of close combat 'last resort' squad. I hadn't seen these in action yet, but as you know the closer you are, the worse it is. They're a great squad to keep near a Stormsurge for that reason.

 

Thanks to everyone who read, and commented. I appreciate it.

 

It's been a long year of several batreps for my Ultra's and Grey Knights. I'm not sure what's on the horizon for Ultra's as I feel in the past year I've played just about every conceivable flavour of them (aside from Calgar/Honour Guard). So that would be about all I have left to try. :)

[Toxichobbit]

I really enjoyed that report. Shame the Tau army was unpainted, but it's understandable with someone using a new force. While I agree that there is too much Interceptor in Tau armies, I also think there's too much alpha strike Deep Striking. The Interceptor is a symptom of the game as a whole. When formations such as the Skyhammer exist (website, not the Kauyon one) then there has to be some defense against it. Tau also pay for the Interceptor, not that much in points but a lot in it using up a slot on their battlesuits.

I'd still rather their Interceptor was more limited, but I'd also rather there weren't Marine armies that can Deep Strike and remove my armies from the table on the same turn. Such is life in the 41st Millenium.

Wow Prot. Amazing game, the photos are fantastic as well.

I think this just confirms Tau are insane at any point level, and are fundamentally unbalancing the game. I mean you brought arguably the best Pod and shock assault list you could, backed up with 2 Knight-Titans...and they still mopped the floor with half your force on Interceptor. That's just flat out broken.

Still got the win on objectives, but it was close-run all the same.

I don't think GK would've survived past Turn 2 or 3 to be honest. We field a fraction of the infantry of a Marine force, and once you focus down the Dreadknights, we just fall apart on the field.

Not really the place to talk about it, but the problem goes way beyond Tau. Marines are just as bad. No disrespect to Prot, but he didn't bring the best Pod and Shock assault list, not even close. Abusing formations and ally rules you can make much worse (or better, depending on your view), which is something Tau cannot do as well due to lack of Battle Brother allies. And you mention Knights (not Knight-Titans :)) - unfortunately Knights aren't close to as good as they used to be a year or so ago, there's just so many ways to deal with them now. A nastier Marine list could do a lot more damage to that Tau list.

Eldar and Necrons are even worse than Tau or Marines. Tau have a really bad rep around B&C for some reason, likely because they were broken in 6th. 7th really toned them down and while their new formations have pushed them up again, they're not as bad as current Eldar, Necrons or possibly even Marines.

Tau are not fundamentally broken nor are they unbalancing the game. Not unless you also accept that Marines, Necrons and Eldar are also all fundamentally broken and unbalancing the game.

While I'm on the subject of "defending" xenos ... they're not fish!!! They're mammalian, have hooves, come from an arid planet and have no aquatic features at all. They couldn't be less fishy if they tried!

[Prot]

Toxic- I'm glad you enjoyed it!

No disrespect to Prot, but he didn't bring the best Pod and Shock assault list, not even close. Abusing formations and ally rules you can make much worse (or better, depending on your view), which is something Tau cannot do as well due to lack of Battle Brother allies.

Whoa, whoa... slow down there! You do realize in 2000 pts I got a full Ultramarines Battle Company, with 10th Co attached, and that does include a 3 man Grav Cannon Pod Squad, as well as a Tigurius Lead Librarius Conclave with Invis. (BTW: I never use Invis in my games but in this game I would try it, but as you know by now LibCon got popped on arrival) And to top it off I got a Paladin Knight in that 2K as well!

I would be really hard pressed to make a better Battle Co given the other parameters, plus you have to remember that my goal was not to go full Grav/Alpha. It was to provide as many primary targets to my opponent as humanly possible to allow the Space Wolves to "catch up" and the podded ones to disperse.

And I will say by including LibCon the problem is the order of operation: Interceptor goes off before the psychic phase. BUT if I got really lucky and dodge the two bazillion shots, I felt LibCon could have been a very big factor. I have used it a great many times, including against Tau and it can be a wrecking ball if not properly attended to by the Tau, but it was dealt with here.

Inevitably the plan DID work. And I have not found Grav to be that amazing against Tau, especially the GC's. And Grav really does feel like the only equalizer we have. Xenos don't have battle bros, because they don't need it. I honestly think GW made Grey Knights/Inq, and Imperial Knights just to force us to play keep up with the Xenos.

And you mention Knights (not Knight-Titans ) - unfortunately Knights aren't close to as good as they used to be a year or so ago, there's just so many ways to deal with them now. A nastier Marine list could do a lot more damage to that Tau list.

I agree I could have made a more 'dangerous list'. But the reason I didn't is because:

1. I had to have the bodies to spread out an ObSec army list that could cover 8 feet by 8 feet. My partner had the job of cleaning house. I simply ran the Objective side of it to get us the game points we needed. That worked as planned.

2. If I went full out with Skyhammer, I'm not convinced at this point level it would have A: Put a big enough dent in the Tau shooty brigade, and they had the points to bubble wrap even with the Jar Jar Binks squad. (I've seen it fail before which also made me hesitate) and B : It's a lot of points to make it effective, I think we would have lost the War while winning that battle in some corner of the Tau deploy zone. (don't forget the other surge was 8 feet away from the original one we decided to tango with, the riptides were in the middle, and in reserve).

So these were considerations I did think of. In retrospect the one change I would have made is the Knight. I wouldn't take one. Just not worth it especially at 8 feet of walking to go against a plethora of marker lights and D, and Stealth Cadre squatting in the middle of the table.

I could have used that... ~375ish points towards a large Grav cannon Dev squad. Maybe it would have lasted longer than the first one?

Eldar and Necrons are even worse than Tau or Marines. Tau have a really bad rep around B&C for some reason, likely because they were broken in 6th. 7th really toned them down and while their new formations have pushed them up again, they're not as bad as current Eldar, Necrons or possibly even Marines.

Tau are not fundamentally broken nor are they unbalancing the game. Not unless you also accept that Marines, Necrons and Eldar are also all fundamentally broken and unbalancing the game.

I have to disagree here. I don't think there is a more anti marine army in the game right now. Period. These guys are built to annihilate the 3+ save alpha strike. Sure Eldar do it too, and Necrons basically outllast everyone, but I admit at first I put the Tau _below_ the other Xenos. I did originally think the Tau dex looked very strong but in a perfect spot. After some games and everything I have witnessed firsthand I've been swayed the other way on Tau.

If you're talking Alpha Strike the Tau have that too... they really aren't missing anything anymore, that's the problem. That Mont'ka stuff is crazy good and the Riptide formation takes a unit that was incredibly good and gave it a bit more.

I think you have a really tough sell on your hands there. The only thing I see giving Tau a real problem is going to be Astra. The increase in the Tau bandwagon in stuff like ITC events and the like are proof of that, and that alone may cause more players to dig out their Astra which I hope they do.

Right now with what I'm seeing/playing I feel the only edge I actually have is in the Psychic Phase so I try to maximize that... it's just so bloody expensive in a Gladius list.

[Toxichobbit]

Bare in mind I'm not criticising your list or the way you played. You don't have to defend it to me, I love the lists you run. Much better than the hodge podge stew of formations you see in a lot of competitive lists. They're strong, thematic and very Ultramarine-y.

I'm criticising the use of your list to imply that Tau are broken, as per Interrogator Darius' comment. Firstly, your list was designed to drop in and be a massive threat that forced the Tau to fire at it. You purposefully used the list to distract the Tau and protect the Wolves. You played in a way that put your list in the firing line. I didn't see the game, only your report and photos, but I'm sure if you'd wanted to you could have played in a way that gave your list more protection when it dropped, which is normally how people would play vs so much Interceptor - it's just that if you'd played that way you wouldn't have been protecting the Wolves as per your plan. So saying that Tau are broken because of Interceptor and then using a battle report where someone has purposefully put themselves in a position to be hit by lots of Interceptor is a bad example to use. It's like me saying fire is bad because it burns and then putting my hand in the fire to burn myself and prove it. Not to mention the fact that you were using 2000 points to try and draw the attention of 4000 points of Tau, so taking heavy casualties was going to happen, it was basically part of the job description for your Ultras in that game.

Secondly, had you wanted to you could have taken a much more aggressive drop list, which outside of team games would generally be regarded to be more powerful. Tau rely a lot on their MCs and GCs for both survivability and firepower. Had you wanted to, you could have taken a list with stuff like a Skyhammer, MSU grav spam, the Librarius Conclave, deep striking Ironclads etc. That in itself wouldn't have reduced the casualties taken from Interceptor, but if you'd taken a list like that you would have been playing it differently, making your units less of a target, setting up for later turns etc rather than painting a bulls eye on your head to protect the Wolves. Once again, I'm not criticising your list or your plan, I'm saying that the Tau Interceptor would have been less effective and the damage you did more effective had you designed and played your list a different way, albeit at the cost of making the Wolves take more casualties and reducing the effectiveness of their counter strike. It's just two ways to the same goal, one of which is more susceptible to the Tau's Interceptor, the other more susceptible to their general shooting in later turns. Which way is better? In that team game, I have no idea and I don't think it really matters - the way you played was very effective and won you the game. But in a solo game I'm fairly confident that playing the way you did, dropping your army into positions purposefully to draw Tau firepower, would have been the worse of the two options .

It's also worth considering things from the other side before crying cheese. Imagine if Tau had much stricter access to Interceptor. For example, if the Early Warning Override was Crisis Teams only. Doesn't that just push things in the other direction? Now Marine lists can Deep Strike wherever they want with only the Crisis Teams to worry about. They can drop in mass grav and take out the Riptides and Stormsurge before they can do anything. The Assault Marines from a Skyhammer stand a much better chance of getting into melee without taking any casualties. The Tau player also can't do his own Deep Striking with Crisis, because he needs them on the table to give him some defense against the Marines alpha strike. Basically, without all the Interceptor the Tau are massively outclassed by lists that are fully drop enabled, which is something Marines do.

I'm not saying that Tau aren't powerful and that they don't have a absurd amount of access to Interceptor, because they are and they do. I'm saying that people also need to recognise that Marines are powerful and have an absurd access to Deep Strike. Eldar are powerful and have an absurd access to D-weapons. Necrons are powerful and have absurd survivability (and all those Wraiths ). Tau don't break or unbalance the game anymore than Eldar, Marines, Necrons etc, not to mention those horrible lists that are just a combination of the most powerful stuff from multiple armies. They are just a really hard counter to Marine drop lists. With all the recent Tau hate on this forum, mostly from Marine players, it's good to take a step back and realise that just because Marines cheese is countered well by Tau's cheese doesn't mean that Tau have suddenly unbalanced the game. That was done months ago when the Necron Codex came out and perfected by Eldar .

But moving on from the Xenos and back to Ultras. I'm fully in agreement that psychic powers are a good advantage over Tau. Do you really feel that Marines have nothing else? Obviously the drop route isn't a good way to go, as it's popular at the moment so Tau are loading up on Interceptor to counter it, but what about other Marine builds and formations?

[Prot]

Hobbit,

 

That's a fair representation you have there. The only thing I would add is... I personally haven't used the word 'cheese'. Secondly my assessment of Tau being almost built to dissect Space Marines is not based on this game. I'm using what I've experienced from other players, games I've personally been in or witnessed, games at the local GW, and the standings at GT's/national events. 

 

But in saying that, I think I should emphasize I like the challenge. And as you've noted I almost never take the common road, or net list. I like to invent my own path, and take up the challenge and just see what I can do with it.

 

The comments about the list- I'm glad you see what I was trying to do in our large game. Your suggestion is an interesting one that I won't truly know the answer to unless we can recreate this battle in the future. I'm sure the participants would love to, but I bet the playing pieces will be a bit different.

 

I honestly don't know if we would have won if I went full tilt into the nastiest stuff I could try. The biggest thing is we did play a sort of Maelstrom that forced you to stay honest. (I love Steal Objective X for this reason.) Making my list as large and obsec as possible did not only afford me the primary plan (as you outlined in your post) but it also let me spread on the larger (8x8foot) surface and grab/steal objectives, allowing the Wolves to almost 100% commit themselves to an aggressive secondary hammer.

 

One thing I go back to is the talk of Alpha Strike that marines are capable of... I have to say the Mont'ka/Farsight Enclave is one heck of a punch. It's not that flimsy and it has a very impressive 'alpha strike' that you'd be associating with Marines. The whole thing came down on us in that game and owned a quarter of that table in a turn.

 

(I've played against that build from different players on numerous occasions now and it's very potent).

 

So if I went Skyhammer/Grav heavy I would have to test that and see. At the end of the day, even in this game, I really prefer to take units/formations that I would against anyone. (I hate list tailoring) And I see some very bad match ups for Skyhammer. But maybe next time I will try it just for the sake of experimentation.

 

The truth is I've tried almost every combo I can possibly think of in the codex, and even sprinkled in some Raven Guard Kauyon formations! (Even Pinion!)

 

Thanks for your thoughts and taking the time to explain your position.

 

I have thought of moving on from Ultra as I feel I've nearly done everything in the codex but  I still have quite a few models to finish and there are 'fringe' units I still haven't really tried.... like Calgar. :)

[Toxichobbit]

I don't think anyone has used cheese other than me and I wasn't using it a serious term. I probably should have made it clearer, but I'm not addressing you personally with those comments, it's more about the general view of the community at the moment. There's been a lot of posting about how good Tau are recently, both on TBC and on other forums. For me, words like "broken", "unbalanced", "game breaking", "cheese" etc get thrown around too easily. I'm sure a lot of it is new army syndrome, but I also think there's some hangover from 6th ed Tau (who were imo worse to play against due to the previous ally rules). Like I said I feel like Tau are very good, the equal of Marines but not Eldar level. I've not experienced all of the Tau stuff yet, but I've played both with and against them quite a bit since the 7th ed Codex dropped and they just don't bother me as much as stuff like scatter laser bikes with bike mounted Farseers, Wraithknights and Wraithguard Deep Striking in Raiders. Or even Necron Wraith spam. That said, I've not played against them exclusively with Marines. I have used Marines against them, but also Tyranids and Eldar and used Tau myself against a number of different armies, so maybe it would feel worse if I was just playing Marines (who Tau do undoubtedly counter well).

 

I totally agree that Tau can alpha strike as well as Marines. I actually quite like that though, it moves away from the traditional gun lines. I like it for Marines as well, it fits the background. Neither of them are too healthy for game balance - it's really hard to balance around an ability where the opponents army can arrive where they want(ish), when they want(even more ish) and get a turn of shooting and even potential assaults in before the opponent. But the game balance ship sailed long ago, all we can do now is roll with it and try to find opponents who play the game the same way as ourselves.

 

Also agree on list tailoring. I never do it. That said, I don't see using a non-drop Marines against Tau as tailoring, nor do I think using a lot of grav is (as grav is potent against all of the strong armies at the moment). Both are things I'd want to give a good innings against Tau, see how they do.

 

I do notice you talking a lot about the options you've tried with Marines (Codex + Supplements) - I saw you've been playing some Grey Knights and obviously you got to combine with Wolves in this game. What about other allies, have you had chance to try either of the Angels, Astra, Cult Mechanicus or Skitarii alongside your Ultras? Or what about FW stuff? I'm interested to know as I don't have close to the Marine collection you have so I haven't been able to experiment as much as I'd like.

 

I would like to give a vehicle heavy list a go against them. They're good against vehicles no doubt, so I'd be thinking along the lines of Knights or something similar as a distraction, depending on points,  while trying to close swiftly with transports to get the Marines into short range. I'd also like to try a MSU Razorback list, taking advantage of the Gladius Battle Company bonus of course. I'm actually a big fan of plasma in a list like that. I know that grav is the golden child at the moment and is extremely potent against Tau (as well as Necrons, Eldar and any other power armoured armies) but I like the versatility of plasma. It's better against light vehicles, just as good against most infantry, equal to slightly worse against most MCs (strictly worse against GCs unfortunately) and is much better in a mobile force. Given that it's in an Ultramarine Battle Company, I don't see Gets Hot as an a issue because of the amount of To Hit re-rolls you can get. I definitely think it's a viable option for Ultramarines to grav spam.