Mini Bat Rep: Ultramarines vs Tau (some pics)

[Prot]

Sorry guys, but very rushed on this report....

Again I apologize for the lack of decent pictures, but I'm playing a mix of old models/new models, etc. I finally remembered to take a picture of the game before dice started rolling..

I can't remember the name of the scenario but the map was in my favour: Dawn of War deployment (yay). My opponent (kind of) turned his list down which had only one Riptide, but it carried the Relic gun (3 Damage + D3 Damage) for each hit that gets through. (On a model with a 3+ invuln and 8 drones beside it YAY!)

The Tau list was fully of the stuff that works, not a ton of marker lights though so I had hope. My list was identical to my last one... Grav Cents (not too hot on these) lots of different troop types, Calgar/Tiggy/LT/Chief Apothecary + 3 Eradicators all on foot.. no Vehicles in the army.

Here is the table:

- As you can see we have 2 larger Ruins on the mid board staggered and all the ruins are Obscuring. I am shifted slightly left/center with the majority of my army, and on the far right I do have Outriders, and the Incursors and the 5 man Assault Intercessors are there as well.

- Our Secodaries are almost identical: I decided on Engage on all Fronts, Raise the Banners (with 3 objectives on my side and so many troops my hope is to get them up, and start pressing forward since it will be mandatory to stay on them for Primary reasons anyway). And Assassinate.

- Tau took: Engage on all fronts, Assassinate and While We Stand We Fight. (his riptide, melta Coldstar, and Ghost Keel).

Game Notes:

Early:

- Tau get first turn, and things get ugly fast. I thought I hid my Centurions, but not with the Riptide having Fly. He jumps the riptide into the Ruins, charges him up with a 3+ invlun.... I realized that I've deployed hidden enough that he has very few shots. So Tiggy had put the -1 to hit on the Centurions.

Ironically with the staggering number of hits, it doesn't matter what Tiggy did... I even put "Transhuman" on the Centurions since his missiles are S9? Anyway, if I didn't have all those debuffs running, I would have easily lost all the Centurions... instead I had 1 left. And he wanted to wound that 1 left because he knew I had the upgraded Chief Apothecary. I managed to prevent that last Centurion from taking a wound.

- Tau have a good turn with the Ghost Keel and the stealth suits infitrating, moving up in cover and the Transport helping to grab him 3 quarters. But his shooting on my right flank wasn't great. He failed to kill my Outrider bikes, so I would have an answer on that side.

Ultra's:

- I start my turn with bringing back 1 centurion, and heal it to full health.

- My troops on my back three raise banners.

- My Shooting is 'good' but not great. I have that stupid clump of marines at mid table, and Tau out range me a lot, and have indirect fire so this forces me to breach the Obscuring terrain, and I push back on the right side of the table as well:

- Results are not great. I do everything I can with the Grav Centurions, but that 3+ invuln on the Riptide is very strong. I play Gravatic Amplification, and throw 3 Eradicators at the riptide for good measure. It ends up with 4 Wounds remaining, but still quite functional. The problem was I had to use almost everything else I owned at center table to try to widdle down drones. Many Drones were hidden as well so Drones in cover are extremely annoying. The result is I knocked the main drone unit out and didn't do enough to kill the Riptide.

- on the right flank problems having massed bolters and no re-roll aura's start to show their short comings. The Stealth Drones in cover laugh at hails of Outrider shots, Pistols from Assault Intercessors, and the Incursors are stuck raising the Banners.

- The Tau player forgets (I found out later) that horizontal assault engagement is 5" so my bikers and Assault intercessors charge the stealth suits, and I lose a bike in overwatch (combined overwatch with Ghost Keel Fun!) The -1 to hit those stupid Stealth Drones mean I kill 1 in total all turn! That's with both my shooting phase, and the assault phase!

- The turn ends with me virtually killing nothing but drones and a squad of Marker light drones.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

- Even though I'm in ruins, the Tau have a bead on most of my army, and their Deep Strike team from hell is coming in.... He brings up his Transport and Breachers get out as well to take on my Blade Guard.

- This is crazy lucky for me... The Crisis Suit squad has a trait to be additional AP... so he's shooting 60... SIXTY shots, with auto 5 Marker lights on my 3 Bladeguard models. Strength 7? (might have been six but I think seven) at AP-2 , 1 Damage each. Rerolling 1's, rerolling wounds, no Cover for me.... ouch.

- He causes 29 wounds at AP -2. I save 26!!!! One Bladeguard goes down, so now he's forced to fire Breachers, and a host of other stuff.... However he only takes a few wounds off of the unit. Wow.

- The bad news is the Riptide smokes the 2 Centurions without a sweat. (Even though I debuff like crazy again.) Tau simply use 1 CP to have the RIptide operate at top abilities. On the right side.... I take a lot of shots from the Tau troops, and Ghost keel, and the Outriders are down to one wound on one bike, and the Assault Intercessors are easily wiped.

- The good news is I have the new Ancient, and he lets 1 dead Centurion fire everything at the Riptide, and I kill it before it fires its indirect fire (we believe that is the correct order...) So at least I got something out of the Centurions this game.

- He has 2 of the heavy Broadsides?? They have a barrage of 8 missiles each, and 8 indirect shots each.... nasty. They are rerolling to hit and to wound, and I lose my character blocking Intercessors. (

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

- Ultra's turn had to be huge here.... His reserves on in, I figure I have to counter very hard. I decide on putting the Cataphractii terminators front and center just in cover to charge his Crisis Suits that just came in and put 29 wounds on my Bladeguard.

- My main troops are basically finished raising banners for the game, and can start moving upwards. However he's plowed a Tau transport deep into my zone to collect extra points for Engage on All Fronts. I only have 3 Eradicators left....

- On the right side it's full of fail again. Ghost Keel at -1 to hit all game... I decide to assault him with Troops, and the Outrider is desperate to kill a squad of Marker light troops, but dies in overwatch.

- Cataphractii remover 4 more drones, but he still has 2 out of line of sight hiding by the Broadsides. So when my Eradicators shoot the Broadsides, the drones take 2 of the 3 successful wounds so I barely dent one.

- Cataphractii charge... fail even with a free re-roll (I only need an 8, and his combined overwatch kills 2).

- It looks really bad. I'm still generating points, but with the fail charges all over the board, and heavy overwatch, I'm down to Bladeguard blocking characters.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

- Tau turn is just nasty: 60 Crisis Battlesuit shots with that strat (5 Marker lights) just annihilates my core around Calgar. Tiggy dies, Bladeguard die, Eradicators die, Apothecary die. Intercessors die. On the right side, (I've killed virtually nothing there with all the -1 to hit units). I'm down to one marine, and he still owns that side pretty much.

- The Cataphractii are spanked hard (Broadsides).

- At this point I fire the Eradicators as they die (Ancient) and kill his Coldstar to prevent him collecting While We Stand...

- He's scoring much more than me on Engage. I can't kill his transport. He's also scoring big on Assassinate because as usual by T3 I can't block them against Tau.

- At this point I concede as calgar and an LT. cannot kill about 1500 points worth of Tau....

As usual a smashing victory for Tau! They are nearly undefeated in my meta, and continue to Rick Roll most opponents. Here's the end game shots:

- Here's the Cataphractii, coming down, failing the free re-roll charge against the troops in ruins. (Since you have a 2" engagement range against walls, my plan was to engage the troops, then consolidate INTO the Battlesuits. It didn't work.) They would nearly all die next turn.

- This is the failure on the right side of the table: I nearly killed the Ghost Keel, but it kept 'melta-ing' Bikes, and the assault troops had so much trouble touching the Stealth Suits (everything was -1 or -2 to hit). This was really bad without rerolls. There are 7 Incursors here but they had no impact until the finally kill the 2nd Stealth Suit (after raising banners).

-

- A proxy White Scars hammer Intercessor Sarge is last living troop in front of Calgar and he tries a desperate T3 assault which would get him overwatched to death. (He still had 2 drones anyway ).

End game:

- It was an easy win for Tau. Not much I felt I could do once I lost the Eradicators and Centurions this is not a Tau army you can affect in any meaningful way with a bunch of Bolt Rifles. I would only make it to 2 assaults all game and suffered horrendous losses in overwatch.

- The Relic Gun Riptide continues to be one of the strongest, most difficult models to remove in my 25+ games of 9th edition. It just looks at something and deletes it.

- Speaking of deletion: The Crisis team shooting 60 times with full rerolls, +1 BS, AP-2 , No Cover, is another point and click unit that you have to be able to handle immediately after they drop.

- The Broadsides now having move and shoot with such strong weaponry and a 2+ save make for a deadly backline unit. You spend so much time shooting drones, it becomes almost worth ignoring until you take care of the other units.

- I did a decent job of killing marker lights, but that's about it. I normally ignore the god like Riptide, but in this game I did have one chance to take it down before he could bring his Crisis suits down, and get a bead on me with the Broadsides, but it didn't work... too many drones on the table.

- Walking up with Calgar might be done here. I've slowly turned my list down to give other armies a chance, but this was just painful walking into a death scene felt like that scene out of Platoon.... just really nothing you can do in this match up without going first. Going first is so powerful on some of these match ups.

Thanks for checking it out!

[Dosjetka]

I'm curious to know what the Crisis Suits were equipped with: I can't think of a combo that has that kind of shooting power?

Three burst cannons per XV8 is 60 shots but S5 and AP-1 with the custom trait. The only way to get AP-2 is to be within range of a CHARACTER with the Through Unity, Devastation Warlord Trait which only gives the extra -1 AP on a to wound roll of 6+. On top of this, I can't figure out how the Crisis Suits got re-roll for all wound rolls on the turn they came in from deep strike; at most, it's a re-roll of 1s and that's only if they're within 6" of their target which isn't possible when coming out of reserves.

 

Anyway, I don't want to derail your thread which focuses on Ultramarines, it just struck me as odd that there was such a combo for XV8s that I hadn't noticed despite having looked at XV8s and their options in 9th quite a bit.

[Lukoi]

Thanks for the batrep. It's extremely informative, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can from roll ups like this. Tau certainly have their moments.

 

As someone who adamantly refuses to take RTB anymore as a secondary, had you had those units further up earlier and shooting, do you think it would have helped in a noticeable way at all?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Hi Prot thanks for the exciting batrep ! :)

 

I’d love to see your terminators when they are done.

 

Q: Did you have units that could have Auspex scanned the crisis team ?

[Lemondish]

I don't recognize any of these Tau weapon profiles for the units mentioned. I haven't played a Tau opponent since well before Greater Good came out, so I am definitely missing some knowledge on this army. This batrep definitely helps a ton. I had no idea they had S9 missiles on the Riptide, or so much shooting from Crisis Suits (I haven't seen Crisis Suits since the beginning of the edition lol)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

They are no joke.

[Lemondish]

They are no joke.

Maybe they are. I'm looking at the rules on the app and I cannot find anywhere that details how you get so much firepower from Crisis Suits, or how you get missiles to S9.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Check their PA rules. S9 prolly doesn’t even matter since it was a pure infantry army.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Black Blow Fly

[WAR]

Sucks about the loss but good battle report!

[Prot]

I don't recognize any of these Tau weapon profiles for the units mentioned. I haven't played a Tau opponent since well before Greater Good came out, so I am definitely missing some knowledge on this army. This batrep definitely helps a ton. I had no idea they had S9 missiles on the Riptide, or so much shooting from Crisis Suits (I haven't seen Crisis Suits since the beginning of the edition lol)

 

 

Hi Prot thanks for the exciting batrep !

 

I’d love to see your terminators when they are done.

 

Q: Did you have units that could have Auspex scanned the crisis team ?

 

 

I'm curious to know what the Crisis Suits were equipped with: I can't think of a combo that has that kind of shooting power?

Three burst cannons per XV8 is 60 shots but S5 and AP-1 with the custom trait. The only way to get AP-2 is to be within range of a CHARACTER with the Through Unity, Devastation Warlord Trait which only gives the extra -1 AP on a to wound roll of 6+. On top of this, I can't figure out how the Crisis Suits got re-roll for all wound rolls on the turn they came in from deep strike; at most, it's a re-roll of 1s and that's only if they're within 6" of their target which isn't possible when coming out of reserves.

 

Anyway, I don't want to derail your thread which focuses on Ultramarines, it just struck me as odd that there was such a combo for XV8s that I hadn't noticed despite having looked at XV8s and their options in 9th quite a bit.

 

 

Hey guys, I'm no Tau player so I may have some of it wrong, however here is what I was told via text from the Tau player:

 

 

Again the Riptide gun from the PA abilities gave it S9, AP -4, 3+D3 damage each shot.

 

 

The Crisis Suits x 5 models. 3 shots x 4 Burst Cannons (12)  x 5 Models = 60 shots. S5, AP-1 

 

 

I'm going to guess on the re-rolls: 

Reroll to wounds came from Montka/Kauyon which he could do twice per game because of Shadowsun (I believe)

 

On the Auspex Scan, I made him aware of the Strat on his turn so he wouldn't do anything too silly and give me a free kill. He had the room to drop just outside of range and did so at my recommendation.

 

I will certainly try to finish those Cataphractii!

Edited August 17, 2020 by Prot

[Lemondish]

Thanks for the info, sir. Ton of stuff to keep in mind if I ever get an opportunity to play against Tau more than once a year lol

[Prot]

Thanks for the info, sir. Ton of stuff to keep in mind if I ever get an opportunity to play against Tau more than once a year lol

 

I envy you if that's the case! :)

 

Just some more random bits, that again I apologize if I got it wrong....

 

The -2 AP is from the Broadside and Riptide, using -1 from systems and another -1 from the trait. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Even AP1 is so powerful. AP5 is like better hope you have an invulnerable save or can shrug it.

[Lemondish]

 

Thanks for the info, sir. Ton of stuff to keep in mind if I ever get an opportunity to play against Tau more than once a year lol

 

I envy you if that's the case!

 

Just some more random bits, that again I apologize if I got it wrong....

 

The -2 AP is from the Broadside and Riptide, using -1 from systems and another -1 from the trait.

 

Tau, for whatever reason, just isn't super popular in my area. It's mostly grey plastic "I just love their lore" Iron Hands, followed by a tremendous amount of lovingly built and painted Chaos, Eldar, Nid, GSC, and Guard armies. No Tau, and I'm the only Sisters player (if 500 point games count).

 

Everyone has a Marine army as a secondary, though (minus the IH mains). I sometimes wonder if I would like Tau, but I can't get over really only having agency in the movement and shooting phase, so I'm guessing that's largely why the area is devoid of them - it doesn't fit their style.

[Prot]

Even AP1 is so powerful. AP5 is like better hope you have an invulnerable save or can shrug it.

 

Plus with all those marker lights, there's no cover. So AP1 seems to hurt just a little bit more.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Yes indeed.

 

i have a great track record versus these xenos but they are always a hard fight vs a good opponent.