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Battle Report Tau V Eldar |
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| clausewitz |
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Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2005 2:02 pm Posts: 916 Location: Glasgow, Scotland |
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| Tactica |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241 |
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| Steele |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 6:40 am Posts: 423 Location: Duisburg , Germany |
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Also , maybe I missed it, but did your opponent made any moves to get to a Combned assault ? As it is written he just picked some formations that were just in Range. He often exposed his Elite Aspects. But , hey , his playing Style. Eldar are very challenging if played with all their toys, and against your List should have won if employed and used different, but I wasn?t there, and after all it?s all hypothetical, and you had fun.| Honda |
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Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:44 pm Posts: 1891 Location: Katy, Republic of Texas |
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Yes, it was broken by the two scorpions and finished by the Fire Prisms.
In turn 3, fire prisms did 1 point of damage to your only remaining moray, correct?
Turn 4, If I read you correctly, you said the fire prisms scored two _more_ damage on the remaining moray. Shouldn't it have died? (I've done that before to sombody too!)
Sorry that was a typo, it was one damage, 2 Blast Markers, so it was broken with 1DC remaining.
Considering 2 moray formations and 4 turns played... ?You had an aggregate of a potential of 8 shooting attempts in theory between the 2 WE. Due to their lack of resilience, plus the one turn where you rolled bad after doubling, you only got to actually do damage in 3 of the 8 shooting rounds with the Morays if my math and understanding of what happened is correct.
True, but the problem for the Eldar was that they dominated the Scorpions. ?Normally the Scorpions can hide and pop-up to do their damage from a distance, but the Support Craft rule worked in my favour this time, they had nowhere to hide, and since he knew I would target the Scorpions he did his best to destroy them, but it just took far more shots for him to destroy the Moray than the Morays needed to destroy the Scorpions. ?This denied him the chance to use them to whittle down my other formations before he got to assaulting.
Its good to hear the Morays are strong offensive pieces for their class with the Railcannon variant as they are intended to be, as we also know they are more suseptable to damage for their class and can never hide from the enemy!
Case and point was your game. You lost one moray before it could ever fire. The other took more than 50% damage, and from your report, it looks like it may have been dead. Which if I understand correctly would have taken away one of your objectives achieved. However, even if you only had 2 damage done to it - you lost 5 of 6 wounds across these two in 4 turns. ?
Yes, they got hit a lot, but that?s because they were shot at a lot. ?My opponent knew that if I was able to use them on OW he was in big trouble, as the 2x TK shots would mean that if he doubled with his Wave Serpents, and he picked up troops, those two shots could kill half of any of his formations (2 WS and the 4 units transported). ?So he felt he had to take them on.
The eldar players I encounter in my neck of the woods are not like yours and Jaldon's opponents. Both of your and Jaldon's players seem to rely more on infantry as a main force than some of the locals do. That's not a bad thing, just a different style of play than I'm used to.
The Tau are known for their ability to deal with infantry in my parts. An infantry heavy elitist Eldar force may be great against marines, but seems to play to The Tau's potential more. That said, I know your opponent didn't know what you were playing. I'm just making a comment from my perspective in my area - that's all.
Although the Tau won this game convincingly I think that the Eldar list could have won, if he had been able to position all his formations as he intended in Turn 1 it would have gone differently, having two formations fail to activate, and thus not be in range for the turn2 assault-fest, cost him badly, I could concentrate fire on less formations that did reach my lines.
I'd like to see your same opponent go with the revenants, long range goodies, falcons, and some more of their god awful good fliers! I'd like to see him try to draw you out - if he can. I'd like to see if he can make use of overwatch more than you - it didn't even seem like he could do that in this game with all the infantry.
I guess he thought two Scorpions and the Fire Prisms would be enough fire support till his assault troops got into range. ?Although after my poor AA showing more fliers could well be on the cards in future.
I didn't hear your opponent using any tactics to draw you out, like pop up and hit and run - was he using those abilities? Perhaps he couldn't afford to do to the other fire support for the infantry needed or situational circumstances.
Turn 1 he couldn?t quite perform hit and run with the Scorpions as he needed to move about 35 cm forward to bring the Moray in to range. ?There was plenty of pop-up attacks from both sides, I didn?t always type that in the report, as it would have got a bit repetitive. ?Morays, Hammerheads and GMs have range on the Scorpion 75cm versus 60cm, so it was me doing the drawing out, also since he had gone for assault formations I, as the Tau, naturally had more firepower.
Also, you guys had a load of WE damage guoing back and forth, were you rolling for crits? I never heard... err... read either of you score one.
That's not to say you weren't rolling, but out of all those hits back and fourth, I wonder if any were rolled since none were reported. As far as I can remember we were rolling for criticals, the Morays twice killed the Scorpions with TK hits, so we maybe didn?t roll if it was already dead.
The vampire raider appeared to be doing a number on you, what was the problem dealing with it - not enough AA in range, or no AA left typically where he was coming in?
I fired my two skyrays each time the Vampire entered and left the board (2x AA5+, since MLs were in place), but out of 8 shots I never hit *shrug*.
Does the bel-tain have the gate ability? How about swooping hawks? Both of those seem like they would be advantageous to your opponent.
Swooping Hawks were nearly chosen I believe, in the end he picked the Shining Spears for their better save. ?He didn?t pick a Wraithgate as he had no ground-pounding guardians.
As the Stingrays are known for dealing heavy AP damage, i'm suprised your opponent didnt' work to dispatch the lighter armor choice target - was he trying or just not ?having luck?
I had the Stingrays well hidden, right at the back of my position, he did get the Jet Bikes to FF them near the end, but I rolled well enough to win the assault on that occasion.
What do you think about the list the Eldar player fielded against you? Was he built/deployed to deal with your battle plan in your opinion - or did he play into your battle strategy ?at all?
If he was been able to get all his formations into place he could have wiped the floor with me. ?He had so much assault potential that a couple of good results could have left me with nothing but small support formations that he could have dealt with. ?I have never seen Scorpions be so toothless, he had no way of knowing that they would be so out-classed.
BTW: who do you think is the better tactician out of you and your opponent in Epic? Do you think either of you out 'played' the other in this game? If yes - how so? The win aside, do you think one of you had the better battle strategy overall - if yes, how so?
Hard to say, he certainly handed me my hat in the last game. ?He?s probably better at running IG than Eldar. ?My strategy was much improved over last time, and I had my Crisis Cadre hold out against some very heavy assaults (like when the 1st Aspects assaulted with the 2nd Aspects providing support), if he had some Fire Dragons it might have gone differently, as the XV8?s 3+ save kept them alive many times.
It was a good battle report. I enjoyed the read. I'll be interested in your further elaboration if you have the time.
Thanks.
BTW: I'm envious of Jaldon's batreps too!
Where does he find the time
?Even my ?bare bones? report took hours to prepare. | clausewitz |
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Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2005 2:02 pm Posts: 916 Location: Glasgow, Scotland |
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| clausewitz |
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Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2005 2:02 pm Posts: 916 Location: Glasgow, Scotland |
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| Tactica |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241 |
Agreed, but if you would have had a 4-0 victory in the 3rd turn and your opponent had not missed activation rolls, yet you still blew him out - I would have serious concern. Since you pulled off a 4th turn, and were not able to lock it in at turn 3, that's encouraging to me. The win/loss tables were able to turn in turn4 from victory conditions, agreed. However, as you said, part of your success was due to his activation failures and dual supreme commander failure. Damage may have been much closer in turn three - if not tables turned by your own commentary had early activations went differently. It hurts when that percentage of your force doesn't cooperate - especially when its part of your h-t-h element and that's the main push of your force. Sorry that was a typo, it was one damage, 2 Blast Markers, so it was broken with 1DC remaining. |
Oh I see, well thankfully it didn't get down to tie breaker points counting conditions then!
True, but the problem for the Eldar was that they dominated the Scorpions. Normally the Scorpions can hide and pop-up to do their damage from a distance, but the Support Craft rule worked in my favour this time, they had nowhere to hide, and since he knew I would target the Scorpions he did his best to destroy them, but it just took far more shots for him to destroy the Moray than the Morays needed to destroy the Scorpions. This denied him the chance to use them to whittle down my other formations before he got to assaulting.
This all sees good to me. First, He relied on a 60cm MW2+ pulse, (up to 3 shots per tank!). That's a super ugly weapon but has to get close to be effective. It doesn't have to get REALLY close to be effective though. The WE moves 25cm... So had he decided to be 85cm away from your Moray's 75cm guns, he could have moved in 25cm, but at 60cm, pulsed the heck out of you at 3+ due to hit and run, then jumped back to his position out of your range. that would have kept you from ever sustain firing with your morays at 2+ and would have continued to draw you into whereever he wanted to forcing your weapons fire at 3+ base. If he always put himself into ruin or trees, after his hit&run move, that would have put your weapon systems at _4+_ instead of a sustain 2+ or a moving base 3+.
Now, perhaps hit and run wasn't his bag... OK, but if one prefers the Scorpion, one shoudl be prepared to leverage hit&run as their are volcano cannons to be weary of in mor than one list out there. Perhaps his battle strategy would have been better served, in general, with a different EoV main anti-WE threat.
He could have went with the Void Spinner 60cm 3BP Disrupt, Indirect fire (120cm indirect!). Tau have nothing that can shoot that kind of range. 2 of these babies with a 6BP, Disrupting barrage would have put the hurt on all kinds of goods each turn. Morays would have had to really position to get to these guys. That would have definitely drawn out the Tau enemy if the Tau wanted to deal with them.
This vehicle would have been doing double damage, causing blast markers galore, and the tau shield would have only been at 6+ instead of 5+ too.
So, not insulting his tactics, but I wonder if he's mindful of these kinds of options considering you note that he's a better IG than Eldar player. I wonder if he's glossy eyed with that Scorpion's MW2+ pulse and forgot about leveraging terrain and hit&run since he's the one usually doing the pop-up and drawing the enemy to him.
I wonder if he was puzzled in how to use what he took effectively against the morays. I also wonder if he would consider a formation of void spinners after thinking about the above.
Anyway, just conversation considering the comments made... and if there is room for improvement with his Eldar skills, we definitely want him to gain the knowledge, will only help him be as tactically sound as he is ith the IG when it comes to playtest reports!
So he felt he had to take them on.
Agreed, I see two shadow swords, two scorpions, 2 void spinners - or worse, 2 Feral titans (shudder!) I have to deal with them ASAP!! They get plenty of fire in a 2700 point game. He was right to dump on them. He was also good to contain them to only dealing damage on 3 of 8 possible shooting sequences and leave them broken with 1 wound on turn 4. Well done on his part I'd say. Morays spent a lot of time realing from the hail of fire. That's good and shows their vulnerability if not used sparingly. Now, not that he didn't contain them enough, he did - but I'm wondering if he could have improved enough on his fire discipline and/or tactics with the army and considering your play approach to have quieted the morays down even more and possibly killed them both on or before turn 4?
Although the Tau won this game convincingly I think that the Eldar list could have won, if he had been able to position all his formations as he intended in Turn 1 it would have gone differently, having two formations fail to activate, and thus not be in range for the turn2 assault-fest, cost him badly, I could concentrate fire on less formations that did reach my lines.
That's good to know. We've all been in situations where we had a good solid list and battle plan, but the 1's at the wrong time (for activations) seem to come up more in this game than any other IMHO! Losing two formations took a big percentage of his ground pounder tactic out of play early on.
For this reason, I prefer to have an army that doesn't rely on a single concept or tactic but has flexability and adapt to situatons as they develop. I like to have a backup formation for every effort I attempt on the field. Basically, I want more than one way to deal with WE. I want more than one way to deal with Aircraft. I want more than one way to deal with teleporters, etc.
Not saying this was your opponent's plan - just giving an example... I won't build a that effectively says, "I'm going to run acros the field, get into h-t-h, and I'll worry about objectives later. If my h-t-h rush is stopped, I lose."
With Tau for example, I won't say I'm going to mark and CF into oblivion... I will say I'm going to kill by fire discipline, evaluating targets and moving to position for the best firing opportunities against the larges threats. I will work to control the battlefield and only give ground when it suits my killing blow metality. I will be the patient hunter if necessary and forgo a turn of firing to better position for a win or next turn firing opportunity. I will work to establish an activating advantage the entire game prefering high priority targets that haven't activated over those that have.
I'd like to see your same opponent go with the revenants, long range goodies, falcons, and some more of their god awful good fliers! I'd like to see him try to draw you out - if he can. I'd like to see if he can make use of overwatch more than you - it didn't even seem like he could do that in this game with all the infantry.
I guess he thought two Scorpions and the Fire Prisms would be enough fire support till his assault troops got into range. Although after my poor AA showing more fliers could well be on the cards in future.
Well, I'm not saying that they weren't enough. If you two play that same game a few times, I wonder if you don't have a mixed bag of goods in the end. First turn, activation successes and to hit rolls will have a very high impact on your games with these two armies as built I suspect. I think they are very close lists, and I actually lean to the Tau list being a bit better as taken compared to the Eldar as taken. Now, I'm not an Eldar veteren in epic but have played and played against them quite a few times. I think he had better toys to be more effective if he wanted too and could have toned down the infantry a little... However, Steele will and has disagreed with me on this point. He feels the Eldar list is better as built. That's interesting because he plays both armies as well. So - as noted above, I'm not so sure he couldn't have made better use of what he took - but I also think he could have taken a few other pieces which I consider staple must have eldar pieces if I'm building a list for 'all takers' perspective. Revenant will always _always_ make the list.
How can an Eldar player not value the Revenant as staple?:
============================================
Revenant:
Speed:35cm, Armour:5+, CC:4+, FF:4+
2x Revenant pulse lasers, R:45cm, FP:MW3+, Pulse (up to 6 MW shots per turn)
2x Eldar Missile Launcher, R:45cm, FPAP5+/AT6+/AA6+, --
Notes: Hollofield, Dam. Cap. 3, Walker, Jump Pack, Fearless, Weapons may fire all around due to high manouverability (instead of being in a fixed arc)
Now when you start thinking about this with hit and run (jump forward, shoot, then jump away) then the range of those weapons go to 80cm for -1 to hit, but you stay out of the range of 75cm or less weaponry! Walker allows him to navigate terrain very well and make use of cover/ruins/trees. Jump pack means this titan is basically a skimmer. Holofield means this beast is a pain in the @$$ to hurt if you do get hits on it!
These have the potential to ruin a Tau player's day - or any player's day for that matter!
I didn't hear your opponent using any tactics to draw you out, like pop up and hit and run - was he using those abilities? Perhaps he couldn't afford to do to the other fire support for the infantry needed or situational circumstances.
Turn 1 he couldn?t quite perform hit and run with the Scorpions as he needed to move about 35 cm forward to bring the Moray in to range.
Well, once in range, I would have been making use of the hit and run to keep the morays moving if they wanted to deal with the scorpion. There's also the possibility of deploying them into woods or ruin knowing the moray can see anywhere but still forcing it to take a -1 to hit mod. That way you let the moray move instead of sustaining and you make him hit you on 4+ instead of 2+. Now, if he doesn't move towards the scorpions, so be it, then move out to position for the hit and run next turn or double and fire on him without worrying about him firing back in turn 1.
I fired my two skyrays each time the Vampire entered and left the board (2x AA5+, since MLs were in place), but out of 8 shots I never hit *shrug*.
Yeah, that's just bad luck!
Swooping Hawks were nearly chosen I believe, in the end he picked the Shining Spears for their better save. He didn?t pick a Wraithgate as he had no ground-pounding guardians.
Hm... guardians aren't the only thing that can gate... you can run them bikes through there too, right? How about those h-t-h forces. Zip up, blast the enemy... gate in some buddies to take care of the short work!
Swooping hawks are another one of those formations that just are tricky and handy... and seem like a no brainer to me! (self proclaimed E:A Eldar novice though!)
What do you think about the list the Eldar player fielded against you? Was he built/deployed to deal with your battle plan in your opinion - or did he play into your battle strategy at all?
If he was been able to get all his formations into place he could have wiped the floor with me. He had so much assault potential that a couple of good results could have left me with nothing but small support formations that he could have dealt with. I have never seen Scorpions be so toothless, he had no way of knowing that they would be so out-classed.
Yep - see above. I wonder if some tactics changes could have even done better. however, not the EoV I would have ran and titans... Ohhhh the revenants...
Seems like he put an awful lot of faith in close combat success and EoV formation. His activations hendering the first, and your morays hendering the second really cramped his style. I *think* or at least *wonder* if some of that style couldn't be adjusted - if not in list choice, perhaps in some tuned tactics for the next matchup. He'll have to make that call.
Hard to say, he certainly handed me my hat in the last game. He?s probably better at running IG than Eldar. My strategy was much improved over last time, and I had my Crisis Cadre hold out against some very heavy assaults (like when the 1st Aspects assaulted with the 2nd Aspects providing support), if he had some Fire Dragons it might have gone differently, as the XV8?s 3+ save kept them alive many times.
Hmmm all interesting. So where you got to learn a bit with the Tau last time, perhaps he can learn with the Eldar from this game.
Next Eldar vs. Tau game from you guys should prove interesting.
Good batrep and good commentary.
Many thanks Cw,
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Rob
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