Butchered By a Tau gun line... help please!

[rinielle]

Well that was an experience, had my first game with a list I have been thinking about last night and was comprehensively beaten! haha
Really great game but wasnt left with much on the table by the end.

I faced a Buffmander Tau list, off the top of my head so could be wrong!

Buffmander with monster hunter and ignore cover
Cadre Fireblade

Plasma Crisis squad
Plasma Crisis squad
Riptide

12 FireWarriors
12 FireWarriors
12 FireWarriors behind an aegis and QUAD GUN!

Pathfinders (with some ap1 Rifle)
Pathfinders (with some ap1 rifle)

2 Missile Broadsides
Skyray
Longstrike Railgun hammerhead

My list

Flyrant 2xTLD Hive Commander
Flyrant TLD and Miasma Cannon Hive Commander

Venomthrope
2x Zoanthrope

6 Genestealers + Broodlord
15 Termagants Fleshborers
Tervigon
30 Termagants 15 Devourer 15 fleshborer

10 Gargoyle
3 Ravener with spinefists

2x dakkafex
Mawloc
Mawloc

Game...Relic (Number 6)

Deployment

Standard Tau gunline set up as far back as possible and kept commander and plas teams off of the board.

I was second so kept most thing off the board save the Carnifexs in the centre shielding the venomthrope and the two zoanthropes. I lay the gargoyles infront as a screen and a unit of raverners on my left flank to run up and harass. genestealers infiltrated for broodlord to be in range for psychic but out of los

My idea was to wade the storm and try and hit with everything on turn two with two outflanks, tervigon and big unit of terms, mawlocs etc to give a massive number of targets.


Turn 1

Not too much pain as most things were out of range of the main shooting or heavily screened, took down one carnifex with riptide and missile broadsides but not much more I can remember.

I moved everything forward trying to hug terrain nothing was in range, broodlord didnt pin

Turn 2

Shot again Gargoyles dead....carnifex dead...venomthrope dead... one zoanthrope dead...raverners down to 2 Pretty brutal. nothing came on.

Most came on two flyrants came on but one was shot completly out of the sky by the quad gun! Ahhhhh. I outflanked a tervigon into the back of his open aegis line (particularly favourable moment for me as I saw the shock and horror on his face when it cam on and spewed minions behind his aegis) and the large unit of 30 termagants flanked and unleashed on his longstrike rear blowing it up

Destroyed one unit of fire warriors with the tervigon and spawn and one mawloc ate the broadsides then misshaped (got greedy by trying to hit two units) and died. Second mawloc took a unit of pathfinders out. Broodlord didnt pin

Turn 3

buffmander and two units of plas came on and blew the remaining mawloc. Skyray dropped the second flyrant with the pathfinders. Riptide blew a pie shaped hole in the large unit, finished by fire warriors and i was pretty well done at this point

Bit of a mop up attempt but had a zoanthrope broodlord squad and a tervigon left .


Turn 4

Utter carnage took most of what was left off the board and we called it.


What I learned:

Flyrants are not very tough AT ALL! both got shot out of the sky, which leads me onto.....
Unsurprisingly Tau shooting is just brutal I thought I might get a few cover saves etc but it was painful to watch the lifting.
Mawlocs are pretty epic when they hit but are very vulnerable if they do not drop again.

Questions if I can get answers?

Was my target priority correct....Broadsides...Troops....Longstrike
I left the riptide as I heard it was hard to kill

Should I started any more off the board?

[snowdaman]

pathfinders. they are always the first thing to kill.

markerlights although don't do any damage are force modifiers for the army.

also how did a quad gun kill a flyrant out right. or do u mean he failed his grounding test?

Sent from my GT-I9100M using proboards

[rinielle]

Thank you for the response, yeah he bit the dust for his last wound. So focus on the pathfinders and the Skyray. Actually come to mention it longstrike really didn't do much against me.

[snowdaman]

ya long stikre is just bs 5 his tank hunter and such won't do anything against u. now he can overwatch for other units but depending on what he has that might be a lot or not.

ill post some more stuff once i get home.

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[milkybarnid]

rinielle

like snowdaman said go for the path finders first, once the markerlights are gone, the shooting effectiveness of his army drastically reduced, No Inc BS or ignore cover from it. though i am surprised he took rail rifles for his pathfinders. After pathfinders you did go for the broadsides which was right. Theres nothing much you can do about the deep striking suits, hope they scatter far away or position your units so they will get charged in your next turn, think gargoyles. Im going to assume the Cadre fireblade was manning the quad gun whilst joined to a fire warrior squad.

In regards to your list, you need to be in his face as soon as possible. Ravners shouldn't have spinefists, or you can't shoot and run (unless onslaught) which means you will be taking longer to reach his lines. Think about increaseing the gargoyle brood size, broodlord brood, you can drop a stealer. Mawlocs are very 50/50 when they work awesome, when they don't. Hope for a miracle. dakkafexes are great, but i would swap them for a biovore brood to shoot at the warriors. (multiple barrages are resolved as if the shot came from the centre hole which hopefully, bypasses the defence line)

Make sure the board has lots of terrain, espically 1 or 2 pieces of true LOS blocking (8"x8" possibly), otherwise its just a shooting range for the Tau. what was the deployment?

[toonarmy]

one tactic you could have used is to have your mawloc go at the fire warriors on the aegis. this way it wouldn't have been able to use intercept on your flyrant. I believe this is a valid tactic because TftD happens as you are trying to deploy from reserves.

as for target priority. i would get rid of the pathfinders first as others have said then to be honest the next priority will be dependant upon my list and what the enemy units are armed with. For example your opponent had missile broadsides so a load of shooting these would have been my priority. however if they had been equipped with rail guns then i would have left them till later.

Tau are just mean against Nids as their standard troops can largely negate one of our biggest strengths, Hight toughnes MC's. Against Marines their blotters wound Tervigons/mawlocs/tyrants etc on 6's but fire warriors wound on a 5+ which is big deal when these units can put out so many shots a turn.

[Halollet]

I play tau so I'll do what I can to help.

He seems to be relying on markerlights quite a bit. Defiantly take those out first.

If you're going to be relying on reserves then get yourself a Comms Relay, seriously. You can't put hundreds of points in reserve and let yourself be screwed by some bad rolls.

Flyrant TLD and Miasma Cannon Hive Commander - This guy, do you have any real reason giving him wings? For another 15 points, you can drop the wings and give him 2 guard making him more of a tank. You can hide the venomthrope behind this guy too!

Your fast attacks seem really minimal. I would either try to get the points to fill them out more, or drop one to fill out the other. Those units, as is, are too easy to kill before they get anywhere.

I would separate the zoans into two units so you get more powers and spread out your synapse.

As a general tactic that I've found is you shouldn't grab dominion. You're making a safety net for when you die instead of giving you buffs so you don't die in the first place. You could take it on a walkrant with guard since he's tougher and will be in the middle of the board any ways.

Why the 15 termies? If you swapped those out for hormies then you could catch and tie up things like riptides and crisis suits. Things not shooting you and having to slowly pick off gaunt by gaunt over several turns will have you laughing! Then rush in with the fexes and wipe them out!

Hope that helped!

[rinielle]

Thank you everyone for the comments they are most appreciated by a definite novice of the swarm mind. In response to a couple of points:

Yes the fireblade was on the quadgun which made it very nasty indeed.

My idea to use the flyrants was purely for speed again as I wanted as much in his face as quickly as possible. I never thought about hitting the pathfinders first as I (as a novice) were distracted by the big and shiny things! Also I have built two flyrants and dont have a walking fex at the moment so may proxy if needs be to test it.

The 15 gants were purely due to spare points and an extra unit for troop objectives, can easily switch in hormagaunts.

I have a rematch next week with the points bumped up to 2500 points. I have thought about including the deathleaper assassin squad and a second broodlord to perhaps attempt a couple of 'the horror' tests as they would be on -3 LD pinning tests with the assassin squad buff.

I have knocked up a list on the forum if anyone had a moment to have a look once again I would be most appreciative

Rini

[yowster12]

If you have the models I would recommend Biovores. These guys shred Tau to pieces. Also a Tfex would not be bad. He's kind of a nightmare to any xenos.

[bigpig]

Your list isn't really optimal. If you want some suggestions on that side of it; Ditch the miasma cannon and take the second devourer. I gave up on genestealers a long time ago. Yes you might get lucky with the Horror from the broodlord, but I really feel the points can be better spent elsewhere. Raveners could also be replaced. Fortunately he doesn't have a lot of Str8+ shooting so I guess they could be ok against this opponent, but I bet they just get eaten up by firewarrior shooting. Lastly, mawlocs are very hit and miss. Again, ok against a gunline if he has a big footprint, but they tend to miss a lot. Good units to look at would be biovores (great for bombarding long range gun lines) and Crone/Harpy (if you have the models).

Is there enough LoS blockign terrain on your board. It doesn't sound like it. You should be able to start venoms, flyrants, and other key models out of LoS and in terrain/venom cover so they cant get waxed by SMS shooting. Reserves vs Tau gets you shot a lot on the way in

[bronyzro]

Yeah, I'm not the perfect list builder, bur if you're gonna go up against Tau you need to trim the fat. You can't afford to waste anything, Tau just have too much long range obliteration.

I would consider biovores. They just rip Tau infantry to shreds.

[gman25639]

As a person that also plays tau, I will sya that lots of deep striking is scary for a tau gunline, especially a mawloc as it causes immediate damage and busts everything up. deep striking and fast stuff is the key.

[doomminion]

I think you did OK with the list you had. Its the list you took that gave you the biggest issues not your target priority.

1. Either take a sh!t load of stealer or none. Anything in between and you're going to have a bad time.

2. You need to be able to do more turn 1. Only getting shot at turn 1 is not a good strategy. Buy some Biovores and focus them on the pathfinders and then fire warriors.

3. You need more fast attack troops. Drop the raveners buy the new dataslate and run the Sky Blight formation. Also read Bebe's thread about Sky Blight versus Tau. I suggest you heavily focus on Fast attack and flyers.

4. If you have any points left over from Sky Blight purchase the Living Artillery Node formation and pin as many squads as you can turn 1 onwards. This will drastically reduce the damage Tau can do to you as they can only snap fire.

[eeknight]

I play Tau now and then. I love Kroot (they kinda bite, but I love a big Kroot blob with Krootox and Kroothounds) for some reason. Anyway, Biovores are absolutely terrifying to Tau. Bombard his Pathfinders then move on to the Firewarriors. Also, remember your pin checks. Tau morale isn't very good and we have a lot of pinning weapons. You can even pin Broadsides by taking out drones that are in the unit with them.

Also, poison for the Riptides.

[way2blaster]

"Incase of tau fire lane, break glass and use biovore.

No joke biovore eet soooo mutch tau...

And the thorax+miasa cannon tyrant is olso nice. "T-fex with acid spray makes the tau cry anyday"