Just has a quick Prot Bat-rep (Tau FUN game!)

[Prot]

I just played another Tau game, but it was against a 'fun list'.

Tons of vehicles, lots of tanks so very few saves for me.

I took so much damage from AP 3 or better it was insane. I lost my two biggest squads the turn after their arrival, but before I did I used the Beacon Angelis to flip a Chaplain and 5 Custodes across the table.

My HQ being wiped and two fair sized pod squads was typically Tau, but I think the worst part was I could only cause 2 Tau vehicles to jink on arrival (they still lived even after being targeted with an Auspex each.)

In his ensuing turn he moved tanks slightly (I couldn't get all his hammer heads in the picture below), but the Breacher squads are just so gross.... they are incredibly anti-drop pod , basically cleaning up anything that Interceptor couldn't.

About halfway through my opponent's turn I realized I was hardly rolling any dice. It came to me that most of what was targeting me doesn't allow me a save.... moments like these the game feels so anti-marine right now.

At the end of the day he had a heck of a time trying to get rid of my Custodes.... again.

+ Tau 'fun' deployment: squads of Breachers, and a long tank line with a Drone Commander in the middle and lots of marker lights.

+ So here's me dropping in.... shockingly in this game there was no Interceptor!!! I was shocked.... however with 90% of his army in boxes, I couldn't kill anything. +

- I'm picking up a lot of models and just putting them away with no saves.... but the Custodes did pop his throwaway squad of ObSec Kroot.

- He is ramping up the score bigtime.... I have a squad in the background (see top picture) to continue the IHB (Infernus Heavy Bolter) experiment. They are in that Grey Rhino.... T1, even with dozer blades, I move the rhino 2 inches, I roll snake eyes and the thing is immoblized. o_0

- I give up Warlord, and two of my best Aquila squads, my Libby (dead) failed to kill anyhting with Psychic Shriek.

- I now have 4 Custodes, an Aquila of 5 Stalker Bolters (never killed a thing, it's all in tanks) with a Cyclone Terminator (maybe he got a hullpoint off a vehicle all game? Caused some jinks mostly.

- The IHB squad got out of their dead rhino. All game they maybe killed 3-4 Kroot caught in the open. He saw that they were only Infernus Heavy Bolters, so he flew his vehicles right into them, shocking them off of objectives, knowing I could not even glance the front armour of his transports.

+ Tau coasting to a win.... I am playing magic wound time with these Custodes..... and they're angry. +

- Custodes play magic friends, get into CC smoke a squad. He's having trouble getting past my 2+ saves and 3++ shields. Custodes kill a tank, marker drones, Drone Commander, a full breacher squad, a Pathfinder squad (top of buliding), and a Hammerhead Tank.... THEN leave the runes near end game with 3 models left!!!!

- My BSSF Ancient comes firing in automatically on T4 (he failed all reserve rolls) and I have to kill a vehicle with him... that's all he has to do. He lines up the back of a transport with his Assault cannon, misses 3 shots, fails to pen/glance on fourth shot. He is annihilated by Breachers in the next turn.

- He was running away with this. He drew good cards, and while I had solvable cards, they were hard... kill this, grab that... nothing I was sitting on.

- My IHB squad is so innefective he is just dancing around it knowing I can't damage anything in range. He gets out of his transport to grab a big point turn and quickly ramps up 13 points on me.

- My Custodes take some serious tank shots but the Tau are used to me just putting models in the case... but not the Custodes. Everyone, including the Chaplain has a wound on them, but 3 models still live. I get out to mid field with the Custodes, they wipe up some remnant Kroot, and the Custodes smash into the Transport my Dreadnought could not hurt.

- Custodes destroy the Transport, the IHB squad fails to do anything again.

- The Stalker team which has literally done nothing (lack of soft targets, out ranged) decides they mush break from the building to get to mid table... they die a horrrendous death trying to get there. The Cyclone Termie fails his first save of the game (needed invuln from Hammer head), and the squad melts with him.

- The game goes to T6 and I concede. Ironically I have 2 Custodes with the single Chaplain, 4 members of the IHB squad, and the Rhino JUST repaired itself... and then gets destroyed. Amazingly enough I manage 12 points to his 13.

End Game Thoughts:

- I tried hard to make it a game. I was thoroughly demoralized at the mass loss of troops and how much my army struggled against armour. Also having so few saves against Eldar and Tau gets pretty old, pretty fast. Add in Admech/Grav and it's enough to make someone go to Daemons or something where you're better off running around the battlefield with a loin cloth for protection.

- This is the continuation of some heavy experimentation. Obviously this is not my idea of an optimized list but after some consideration I've made some final decisions on some units:

- BSSF as a stand alone Detachment is terrible.

- Watch Company is 'good', but too tax heavy

- Dreadnoughts are still terrible in mildly competitive meta's, but even more so when it's nearly the only armour your opponent has to focus all his melta/plas/las/Stealth Cadre at.

- Infernus Heavy Bolter. I'm not going to bother debating this any further. In my mind ,this is the worst weapon in the codex at a melta cheaper than a Frag. I won't say I'll never, ever field them again, because there's always a chance my wife will drive over all my Frag Cannon models and I'll have to proxy IHB's as Frag.

Custodes save the day!

[Jolemai]

Red Pod? 

[Prot]

Red Pod? 

 

Yes. It is the blood of many that coat that thing. :)

[Jolemai]

Perhaps I'm being naive, but did you not attempt to get into combat with the Vehicles? Even with the grenade ruling, that might have been the best way to destroy them (I do hope you were remembering to toss a krak grenade per squad in the Shooting Phase too!)

[Prot]

Well it was a brief batrep, but a quick run down:

 

The vehicles obviously are all faster than I can walk towards, but that being said all marines in the mid table were killed so there was no option there. Custodes killed 3 vehicles themselves in close combat. But I had to kill them in one shot or they move away, I'm in a cluster, and get shot to death.

 

The IHB Squad was never allowed to catch up to a vehicle. Objectives are still king in Maelstrom so at some point I had to determine whether chasing a Devil Fish down a street was the best course of action. I had to contest objectives with those bodies. (If they would have had Frag cannons, it probably would have been destroyed, but then again once he knew I had IHB's in that squad, he happily interacted with me from about 12" away.)

 

Yes, every single shooting phase I tossed a grenade. He was jinking quite well though. Don't forget we're talking AV12 here. So hit, then get past jink, then a 6 to glance.

Edited December 5, 2016 by Prot

[Jolemai]

Cheers. Was wondering as the tanks didn't appear to be moving much from the pictures :)

[SnakeChisler]

You can see why I'm modelling my squad with a boat load of Storm shields

 

Anyways

 

You need some long range Fire power to open up the boxes before dropping in in T2 armed to the Nines + Storm shields

 

So at this stage of the Tactical Briefing we turn to anyone who can give us instant ignores cover or a cheesy Psychic power easily cast or both some nice broken ones for the job

Phase Form, Electrodisplacement (As  far as I'm aware even though its a Blessing you can target any unit Friend or Foe and do a swapsee) and then there is Shifting World Scapes (you know its really broken when GW decide its a WC3).

 

Its pointless shooting at Vehicles that can jink at 3+

 

I've used Phase Form a couple of times against Tau that and an invisible bike squad are really at the top of their hate list & Veil of time on Storm shield guys is another? (2+ 2+ or 3++ 3++)

[Prot]

You can see why I'm modelling my squad with a boat load of Storm shields

Anyways

You need some long range Fire power to open up the boxes before dropping in in T2 armed to the Nines + Storm shields

So this is why I have been a fan of my smallish (1-2 man) Termie units with Cyclones. I guess otherwise it would be a las dread? I dunno about that though. I don't really like dreads and only include them as a tax in the BSSF.

It's the Jink in this case. He was getting 4+ I think... I turned it into 5+ with Auspex's (always include Auxpexes where possible.)

I would have some shots get through but it's not a melta list. With my Ultra's I would throw 3 melta pods on the cheap at them, before deciding if I needed to add 15-20 Grav Cannon shots. It's a little harder with.... 4 mini-lascannon shots.

So at this stage of the Tactical Briefing we turn to anyone who can give us instant ignores cover or a cheesy Psychic power easily cast or both some nice broken ones for the job

Phase Form, Electrodisplacement (As far as I'm aware even though its a Blessing you can target any unit Friend or Foe and do a swapsee) and then there is Shifting World Scapes (you know its really broken when GW decide its a WC3).

The swap one is friendly only. I use it with other armies. I've used it with this army when I include more of the Libbies. This list had one Libby, and I went for a long shot with Invisibility, did not get it, so just used Psychic Shriek (which I love) but he rolled super low, then Libby was dead.

Its pointless shooting at Vehicles that can jink at 3+

I've used Phase Form a couple of times against Tau that and an invisible bike squad are really at the top of their hate list & Veil of time on Storm shield guys is another? (2+ 2+ or 3++ 3++)

Vehicles jinked at 5+ again with Auspex (not everyone is a Black Knight! ) I just didn't have the type of fire power combined with Jink. But I had no other real targets there. He turtled up quite a bit.

I'd LOVE veil of Time. This is where I really miss Tiggy. I've maybe got lucky in one or two games and rolled it up. On Custodes... wow.

I'm thinking if I want to stick with marines, I may have to move to a FnP based army like Iron hands or Deathguard or something.

Edited December 5, 2016 by Prot

[Echelon]

Great bat rep as always. Thank you!

 

Now, I think it if u fair to get upset at the IHB. Sure try were in a bad spot that game. But you other squads, I am assuming had frags, also failed to pop anything and if the IHB squad had been frags it seems like you opponent would have burned them down just like you other squad. Don't Flamer attacks always hit rear armor? Or am I mistaking the rules again?

 

Anyway. The custodes sure proved powerful that game for sure.

 

I also feel that in the current climate storms shields are mandatory. My psychic twin star list is rocking five per squad. And I would have every Libby in terminator armor if i could. I am still thinking about dropping the drop pod and beacon and grabbing a second land raider.

 

The problem I see with drop pods, especially against tau, is that they are an all or nothing play. Otherwise you are splitting your forces and will be picked apart. I am honestly surprised anything that was dragged to the front lines survived past turn two. Been learning a lot about list building and how games play out by watching barrels on YouTube. The most important thing I have learned is that you do not want half your points in your opponents face and the rest far behind. You should pick a strategy and stick with it. If you are alpha striking, your whole force needs to do it and arrive at the same time.

 

Now this is something I am positive you already know. And you were running that test mainly to put my opinions to rest on the IHB. But I say to you sir! I will prove it is a good weapon. Just need to couple it with some anti tank that is not disintegrated the first turn.

 

Sorry for all the ranting. Something you might want to do in the future is decide to pull the boys in black out of the pod. Or possibly dropping the pods back near cover instead of right in the face of the tanks. I know you would have had to still slug it up the field but you would have had some armor saves and could have focused on point control and forced your opponent out of his defensive line.

 

I want to add that I say all things I want here but it doesn't change the fact that I cannot field an army yet. It is exceptionally difficult to find people to play here in Reno. I also can only speculate and run dice and percentage tests. So please, don't take anything I said as talking down or trying to insult. These are thoughts that came to mind as I was reading the battep.

 

Kudos to you. Pulling out that many points in the situation you were in is a testament to you skill and tenacity.

 

Thank you again for the report.

[SnakeChisler]

Had a game at the weekend with 80% Deathwatch against Marines / Grey Knights

A couple of things really bit home trying to DS multiple units even with storm Shields leaves you clustered up , the alpha strike did nuke 1/3 of the Marines but I ended up with no ap2 at range,
Stalker squad took an army's worth of firepower in the 1St turn they needed the buffed cover to survive and do anything, opponent was freaking out I'd prescion the apothecary.
Corvus was useless just as a support plane just not enough firepower against 2+ armour

Single 1 man units did well again cleaned out marine squads & single biker took out a Drop pod, 2 lone terminators performed well
KT's wiped everything on the drop.

Game before the stalker squad worked better with buffed cover

I lost the game but that was down to dumb dice rolls failing 2+ roll on both KT terminator 1St roll blowing up a Librarian trying to cast force averaging 50//50 on 3+ saves getting the stalker squad wiped 1st turn & having my Grav dev's end up locked with a 10 man Marine unit doing nothing and Ezekiel getting mind purge and loosing invisibility 1st turn (why roll for invis my dumb opponent decided that Veil of Time was a good idea on a Paladin Squad & Tigarius had the 4+ FNP power off Bio).

Still would have had no answer to dreadknights & terminators though & was in a Rock and Hard Place over the drop zone trying to take out any Grey Knights with Sanctuary across the board + FNP on one of the DreadKnights.

 

Going to go back down a bit to 60/40 mix for my next couple of games I think

Edited December 6, 2016 by SnakeChisler

[Prot]

Well that's too bad Snake, but I appreciate the feed back from your game.

 

So far stuff like a Dreadknight I just douse in poison rounds and cross my fingers. I've been saying it since the codex dropped.... they tried getting us to buy these boxes (gameplay wise) based on the Frag cannon. They only way Frag holds a candle to Grav Cannons is the template. And at that point you're probably sacrificing all your Frag next shooting phase.

 

Now if they ever turn the game back to 'remove any model' then great. But for now it's too hard to keep it alive.

 

I was doing the Storm shield thing too... I did at least one per squad. I'm now down to about 2 per army.

 

My armies have been almost pure DW or some fun tests, but what really cracks me up is the Grey Knights guys think they have it so bad, but I honestly get a lot more work done with my "limited" Grey Knights than I do my DW.

 

The small squads for termies are still gold. If I'm playing a more serious game, those 3 elite slots get used fast on 1-2 man termie squads.

 

Shields I kind of go two ways about. Sometimes in Aquilla's I'll have a Shield/hammer Termier in about mid spot of the squad to tank (instead of a shield marine). Some games that works fantastic. Some games... you know how it is.

 

Stalker squads are a funny thing. So unique.... and they have these games that are just amazing, then they have games where (in my last game) they do absolutely nothing.

 

I've still seen that with Skyhammer + DW CAD I'm able to take on Stormsurge/Riptide Wing, so I still stand by CAD > BSSF. I still play with either Detachment, and still mix it up, but I just prefer CAD so I'm really hoping the Watchblade and the CIA do give some form of boost either through Inquisition or mini-detachments...

[Jolemai]

How balanced was your build? Would you say you were ill-prepared or unprepared for such a list?

Certainly seemed to be quite the miss-match going on.

[Echelon]

@Jolemai - Prot is still doing a lot of testing. So the armies he fields are not optimized. But through doing this we found that solo termies/bikers are pretty decent.

Hey Prot, how do you think the cad below might work?

Watch Master - The Osseus Key
Vets x9 - melta bomb - drop pod
Four - vets x10 - melta bomb - drop pod
Three - Biker - HTH
Three - Terminator - assault cannon or cml

Should be pretty close to 1850. You can load all the marines, including the sergeants with shotguns & boltguns.

You could also use rhinos instead of drop pods if you were worried about over watch. But that will give you a ton of bodies and lots of melta bombs. Just a thought.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Echelon

[Prot]

Well I think that's pretty much what I've been playing in my more competitive games. Different weapon load outs but you have the gist of it.

[Echelon]

Do you think drop pods are the way to go? With most of our power being mid/short range you think it might be better just to move up the field in Rhnos?

 

What has your experience been in relation to drop pods and getting blasted as soon as you land? Have you found that the majority of casualties come from the initial drop or the enemy shoot phase after the drop?

[Prot]

This is a tough question, that I'm not 100% sold on yet.

 

Since it's kind of a complex question/answer I'd break it down like this:

 

Pods: Best for Alpha by a mile, but really have some issues getting back in the fight (if it moves too fast, IE: Eldar/ Tau )

 

Rhino: Nice to have moving ObSec, stuck on table in T1 can often just give First Blood/First Strike.

 

Beacon: This is how you get around Interceptor. If I'm playing Tau, 90% of the time, I'm taking one of my top 2 squads, and flipping it across the table to avoid Interceptor/I've been expecting you.

 

 

Pods: Rarely get exploded on drop in. The squads are just much, much higher target priority.

 

Rhinos: Usually die faster. Being 1 less armour value, and often housing 2 shooty weapons, they're hit heavily.

 

Honestly, from playing Battle Company I hate Rhino's in competitive play .Battle Co gets them (mostly) free, and they're (mostly) ObSec.

 

Deployment: With the Rhino you're running around hoping to get objectives. My problem with that is the list is so small if you play any competitive games, that 1-2 Rhino's  get hit pretty hard, unless it's not making an impact, then it gets ignored.

 

Deployment: Pods... gotta have 3. Once in a while I use 1. 2/3 on Turn 1, and then it's all about how you deploy.... Against Bikestar Orks, Space Wovles, etc, you put the Pod between you and the opponent is possible (or your squad is getting wiped next turn.) Against Tau/Eldar etc, you place/hope the pod lands about 5-7" away from the scariest shooty models....

 

What I do is put the pod in that zone, then move to within 1" of my Tau opponent/Eldar. Keep the Pod 6" away from you....

 

Why do I do this?

 

- Janky Xenos like to use the "I'll target your pod and hope it scatters/partially hits your marines" trick. This will happen a lot against experienced players.

 

- If the pod blows, you hopefully won't take wounds.

 

- if you get to the legal 1" mark, you can try to surround larger GC bases and then the template they hit you with can rarely hit your entire squad, and then with a 'good' deviation, it may even hit their own army.

 

 

I hope that helps a bit. But that's how/why I prefer pods, but people who don't play magines think you shut your brain off and drop them, but as you can see there's a lot more to it. I'd say I used to lose games base purely on how those pods could be placed.