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BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500

 Post subject: BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500
PostPosted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 9:22 am 
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Howdy all - a few of us recently picked up Epic and have been proxying with our 40k gear.  We just played a game tonight, so here it is.

Edit: we used all of the Experimental Rules that we were aware of.  We used Tau 4-3-3, and Ulthwe v23 right off the official site.  We did not use the spirit stones alterations that are currently being discussed, though they wouldn't have made a difference.

Ulthwe Eldar -
The Avatar
1 Guardian Warhost, 3 Heavy Weapon platforms - 150
1 Guardian Warhost, Seer Council, 3 Heavy Weapon platforms - 200
2 Night Spinner Troupes - 175 each - 350
1 Falcon Troupe, 2 Firestorms - 250
2 Fire Prism Troupes - 250 each - 500
Revenant Titans - 650 (BTS)

Tau (not sure on the points) -
Dragonfish Supreme Commander thing
8 Ionheads and a Skyray
2 Morays (BTS)
2x 8 Fire Warriors in 4 Devilfish
4 Broadsides
Tigershark AX10

Deployment and objective placement worked out such that half of the board was completely out of it.  The Tau side had a forest and a largish hill right up near his deployment zone, behind which one group of Fire Warriors, the Broadsides, and the Dragonfish deployed.  The Morays were right smack in the middle of the deployment zone, just to the right of the above groups, and as far forward as possible.  The Hammerheads and the other FWs deployed on the other side of the Morays.  The middle of the board had two hills such that those Hammerheads and FWs were out of LoS, and another one almost directly south of the hill the Broadsides were hiding behind.  The Eldar had two forests in their deployment zone - one in the middle and one on the left.  The Revenants and the Night Spinners deployed inside one (the Night Spinners just along the edges), the Guardians deployed in the left forest, and the Prisms and Falcons deployed behind or to the left of the middle forest.

Eldar won first the strategy roll, and one group of fire prisms promptly moved up behind the left hill and shot the morays, causing two failed saves and so suppressing one of them.  The other fire prisms failed a rerolled initiative check and hid behind the middle forest in the Eldar deployment zone.  Slightly upset, the remaining Moray then annihilated two of the Fire Prisms that had attacked it, breaking the remaining one.  At a loss for something to do that wouldn't open me up to all kinds of Ion Cannon hurt, and wary of the Fire Warriors, the Falcons just joined up with the lone survivor of the Fire Prism formation.  The rightmost group of FWs then doubles forward and unloads from the Fish, marking the rightward group of Night Spinners and killing one with Guided Missiles and breaking the formation.  The Broadsides attempt to achieve something, but fail initiative.  The other group of Night Spinners takes aim at them, but somehow gets distracted.  The Dragonfish follows suit.  Guardians pass their strategy roll, but just putter around for lack of anything better to do (those Fire Warriors are a good 30" away).  The other group of Fire Warriors (the one directly across from the Guardians) fails initiative and sits still.  The other squad of Guardians putters around, and then the Hammerheads fail initiative and sit still.  With no remaining enemy activations (excepting the AX10), the Revenants double forward and gun down one of the Morays, leaving the other with a single DC.  The Tigershark then decides that discretion is the better part of valor, and stays away from the massive AA umbrella.  The Eldar removed all blast markers and the Tau were left with some on the Moray (do Fearless formations keep taking BMs even when the units are all suppressed?).

Eldar got to go first again, and this time the Revenants jumped to the right and took down 4 Hammerheads, breaking the remaining five vehicles.  The full Fire Prism group opened fire on the Moray, but failed to inflict any damage and left it unsuppressed.  The lone Prism then tried to fire, but got managed to break itself in the process (what fun...).  Being understandably grieved at the loss of 4 Hammerheads, every AT gun in the Tau force decided to turn on the Revenants.  Coordinated Fire saw 4 Broadsides, the Moray, and the Dragonfish all unloading at point blank range (two Sustained Fires and a move and fire).  Fortunately, the Titans saved against both TK shots and the Dragonfish missed completely, though the Broadsides inflicted a point of damage on each Titan - they were now suppressed.  The 2-strong group of Spinners then failed initiative and shot the Fire Warriors that had done such horrible things to it, doing no damage and failing to hit.  Said Fire Warriors failed their initiative in turn.  The 3-strong group of Spinners doubled forward, landing next to the Revenants, and proceeded to lay a template over the Dragonfish and the Broadsides, inflicting a BM on both.  The second group of Fire Warriors then shot over the hill before marking and firing at those Spinners, doing no damage whatsoever.  The Tigershark proceeds to fail initiative.  The Guardians, lacking a purpose now that it was clear that the FWs wouldn't be charging their objective, milled about in confusion, with one sticking near its objective and the other marching 18" over to relieve the 2-strong Night Spinner group of theirs.  The Eldar then remove BMs, leaving one on the broken Prism and two on the Titans.  The Tau have one on the Moray and two on the Hammerheads, and two or so on the Fire Warriors near the Eldar deployment zone.

Ulthwe wins strategy again, and the Night Spinners up top sustain on the horde of Fire Warriors, Broadsides, Moray, and Devilfish.  The Fire Warriors take 3 BMs, the Broadsides take 3 and a casualty, breaking them, and the Moray takes two, suppressing it again.  The Revenants then unload on the Hammerheads, slaughtering them to a man.  Finally, the two-strong Spinner group fires on the Fire Warriors near it, inflicting two BMs and a casualty.  After waiting so patiently, the Tau are at something of a loss as to what to do, and finally decide to have the top FW group sustain on the markerlit Revenants - unfortunately, those three BMs suppress most of the Devilfish (excepting a few FWs and a fish, the squad is out of LoS so only the fish can be suppressed), and the squad does no damage.  Hoping to redeem themselves, the Falcons sustain on the Fire Warriors on the Eldar table half, killing just enough to leave an 8-strong broken formation.  The Dragonfish tries to shoot at the still-markerlit Titans, and fails to damage them.  After that, the rightward Guardian squad moves up to control another objective, giving the Eldar all three on their table half.  Realizing that it's over, the Tau send the Tigershark in to deliver a parting shot, annihilating the two Spinners near the Revenants before getting focus fired by the Titans, some Prisms, and the Firestorms and going down in flames.  The Eldar won 2-0.

I'm realizing that this is a bit long for a BR - will try to shorten them up in the future.

Is there any validation for me feeling like it was a close game even though I only lost 2 Prisms and 3 Night Spinners?  It just seems like, had a few things gone differently, those Hammerheads could have carved up one of my tank formations, while the Revenants could have easily been destroyed by a lucky Railcannon.

A fun game for all involved, though, and the Tau player is now preparing a strategy to play against our Guard player's 8 Shadowswords (long story short, Tau won decisively against the Guard thanks primarily to the Morays, and Guard's decided that he's going to kill anything with a DC on the first turn).






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 Post subject: BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:46 am 
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It would be good to hear from the Tau player on his thoughts of your list vs. his.

From the report, it sounds pretty one sided to the Eldar favor.

Eldar can be a very tricky force to play against in my experience. It took me a good half dozen games and a firm understanding of their rules before I really realized how to face them to get draws. Even then, they are a tough and very flexible force. They alighn particularly well against the Tau where the Tau  do not necessarily measure up in all areas against this foe. The tau do have the means to at least exploit the one weakness of the Eldar (armor) should a proper battle strategy and force be fielded. It does take some work and the Eldar right now have the means to counter these efforts - so IMHO - your opponent had his work cut out for him with your list.

Its interesting to hear that current Spirit Stones discussions would not have helped. It sounds like things were just not going so well for the Tau on this day. It also sounds like you had a very tight battle strategy to counter the mobile foe.

Well done. 2-0 is a very solid victory.

Again, it would be nice to hear from your adversary if he chooses to weigh in.

Cheers,

Rob

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 Post subject: BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:18 am 
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He's not much for forum-going, but we did spend about an hour afterwards talking about the game, the lists, and tactics.

In our view, the big problem that he had was an inability to force my hand.  Where the Guard can bring artillery, forcing me to overextend myself in order to put some BMs on them quickly, all the Tau have are these Support Craft, and if they can shoot me, I can shoot them.  If I can keep the Support Craft tied up, I can run circles around him, taking advantage of move-shoot-move and the like while bombarding with Night Spinners.

While the Morays have served him quite well against the Guard, they seem something of a disadvantage when there's an excellent chance of failing to get the first action, since they're really fragile for their firepower.  He's considering a Manta instead, since it can take all the fire directed at it without getting destroyed or suppressed, though it loses a bit of firepower.

We were also looking at various ways of making him more resilient against suppression, and also ways of giving him more activations.  We're looking at these cheap Gun Drone upgrades and formations - they seem like they'll eliminate the main weakness of the Broadsides, and give him some throwaway activations so that I can't take two actions in a row with the Titans.

The second Fire Warrior group seems a bit redundant, too.  He doesn't have that many Guided Missiles, and he's got AP covered with those Hammerheads and one formation of FWs.  He was thinking about dropping the Dragonfish and a FW group in order to pick up a Shas'o and some Suits, and then using the points saved (as well as points saved from perhaps dropping the AX10) to pick up some more Hammerheads.  While they didn't do anything this game, they certainly scared me, and most of my early maneuvering was based around getting the Revenants close to them.

We agreed that the biggest problem he had was that all of his formations were more expensive than all of my formations, excepting the Revenants.  Because of my ability to quickly bring firepower to bear anywhere on the board, any unit leaving cover in order to move forward and fire was sure to get annihilated, and even if it had wiped out its target, that's still a net gain for me.  I could use Night Spinners and Fire Prisms as bait, drawing groups out after them before shooting them up.  Conversely, every formation he had was valuable, and every casualty he took represented a severe loss in utility.  This struck us as odd, largely because it seems like it should be the Eldar for whom every loss hurts, while I was able to use suicide squads (like those first Prisms who shot the Morays, and the Spinners deployed so as to lure the FWs or Hammerheads to double and shoot them) in order to force his hand.

Tactically, he thinks that he should have deployed the Morays further back, forcing my Prisms to double if they wanted to try anything.  I had already deployed the Revenants such that the Morays would have to double to shoot them, and the Titans were sitting in a large forest too.  The coordinated fire bit may have been a mistake too - the Revenants had already gone, and a few more BMs from FWs and Devilfish would have suppressed them.  The Broadsides may have been better used to snipe the Falcon group, and the Dragonfish could have gotten LoS to some Night Spinners.

I was fairly happy with my list, but I'm still really worried about Guard artillery barrages since I can't take Void Spinners.  The Revenants performed superbly, and I'm in full agreement that they ought to cost a few more points.

My two Guardian squads did a whole lot of nothing, though.  It just doesn't seem worth it to give them Wave Serpents, and I need at least one of them to deploy at the start so I can take advantage of SC rerolls, so a Wraithgate also doesn't seem terribly worth it.  I suppose I could just charge them straight ahead as another suicide squad, but this also just doesn't feel Eldar.

Both of us felt that there was enough AA on the table to make aircraft simply not worth it.  The Tigershark was a pretty dismal failure, and I couldn't justify Pheonices or Nightwings when I could get more Fire Prisms or another Falcon group for the price.  Is this normal?  I'm certainly holding on to the Prisms so as to deal with Russes and Shadowswords, and my Firestorms are one of my only sources of good AP fire, and the Tau feels the same way about his Ionheads, so it doesn't seem like aircraft will ever be that worth it.  Granted, I had great success against the Guard with a Vampire full of DAs and Scorpions, but it almost got shot down on the way there, and he's now got 4 to 6 Hydras after seeing how efficient they were against ground units too.

I'm not sure that it matters, but we're attempting to build lists that will work against all armies - while we're setting up lists anew for each game because we're new to this, we try to build lists that will work against any opponent instead of tailoring them.






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 Post subject: BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:31 am 
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Perhaps your opponent could field a couple of Gue'vesa Companies next time?  13 Infantry that he can use to hold ground and soak up hits.  (And easy to proxy if he has access to some IG infantry)


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 Post subject: BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:23 am 
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@Gotchaye,

Wow, some great feedback there!

Thank you for all that. It really helps to see how 'new eyes' are looking at the lists.

You hit many importanty points.

With the Tau, your opponent has already found what many of us know to be the severe weakness of the Moray. Its a great gunboat that can deliver, but it has a severe deficiency in that - yes, it/they can see the field, but the ENTIRE opponent army can see them. That's a 1 to Many relationship that does not boad well for the Morays.

The best way to try and work around this is to try and get to activate the Moray's before the opponent takes their first activation... the best way to do that is to utilize Planetfall. That of course means your opponent has to invest in a space craft as well. However, I've found the Tau to be light on quality long range MW/TK punch. So the spaceship will deliver that. Furthermore, the planetfall means he'll be able to drop the morays closer to your side of the field, then with a retain of the initiative after activating the spacecraft... he'll now be able to sustain fire with the Moray on your side of the field at some juicy target. It always helps to have the Supreme Commander available and unused when you do this... that way if you need him, you can.

Now then, when your eldar receive a one-two punch from the spacecraft and then the morays, now you get to decide whether its worth it to fire on something that's already activated (the morays) or deal with something yet to activate.

I do not recommend the Manta, at present, its over-priced for what's delivered.

Regards to the Eldar running circles around the Tau - yeah, your hit and run and longer movement's make that quite possible. Also, your superheavies have some great ranges. The tau need to try and make use of overwhatch with pop-up ... IF they have the range on the situation. Otherwise, Tau have to be the agressor against Eldar.

This doesn't exactly feel right since the Eldar fight so well in combat, but its the nature of the beast.

Regards to your AA power - I agree, your AA is pretty sick. Its interesting to hear that the AX-1-0 didn't do very well for your opponent. I agree that the Eldar can defend quite well against any AA the Tau player can bring to bear, but others would disagree.

Regards to a second HH contingent or even an AMHC of HH's for him, I'd highly recommend it. The HH are one of the formations that are working in the Tau list and are by many stretches the necessity of any tau list.

The Pathfinders have proven to be a more valuable asset than any FW cadre too. I would advise your opponent to consider the PF's for their scout, zoc, sniper abilities. the sniper ability can worsen the Eldar's already bad armor values. Have him take a look. They also get the CF Tau ability - which I will caution you - should be used sparingly lest your tau buddy lose the activation game very quickly.

The broadsides are quite fragile as LV's in epic. Oddly, they are extremely durable in 40K... its just one of those battles I've given up on fighting LOL... anyway, if you want the broadside to be usable, you have to bus it in on an Orca. Its the only way to get them to fire before they are fired upon. The 75cm gun is decent, but only against the AV target of choice. The orca will allow you to deliver them to the field properly and protect them while off board. they are a great flanking force and its best to deliver them to cover in a ruin or a rocky alcove - can't put them in buildings as they are LV's in Epic instead of infantry. :/ (another stupid issue in E:A that makes no sense as long as obliterators, terminators and the alike are infantry - but don't get me started) :)

Regarding to the FW - I think they are best left at home. Stealths and their teleport ability may be something your opponent looks into as a nice trick to your camping Eldar... but your strategy is so high that he'll probably never get the jump on you... never mind, scratch that idea.

Regarding the Crisis suits, the initiative 1 really helps the list get activations in. Most of the tau list is currently initiative 2. When coupled with not having any blast marker management ability, it means the tau accumulate blast markers throughout the game and have a hard time getting rid of them. It also means less and less of the tau successfully activate over the game. Therefore, replacing FW with Crisis is a good idea.

I too am not a big fan of the Scorpionfish with the Dragonfish upgrade - the base Scorpionfish just simply costs too many points for what it does so the additional 100 points for the Dragonfish upgrade becomes very over the top very quick. I'd steer clear of it for now.

Your Eldar Vampire rush should be quite effective against your opponent. If you can stifle his ion-head contigent, it sounds like you'd have a clear path to rush in and disembowel some tau.

I think the revenants are a beating. I think the Tau have a fairly hard time having a flexible amount of AT fire to deal with such things. However, there are assets your Tau friend can take to give them a run for their money. Its all about mass AT fire with that thing. The tau player should attempt to crossfire them to lower that holofield and armor save though otherwise that 3+ save is next to impossible to consistantly deal with.

Thanks for all the follow-up, i really look forward to your next couple reports to see how you both progress.

there's no question that the Eldar list is more refined and has more special rules than the Tau list does. You'd be good to give your opponent a helping hand with the Tau early on. You both might even try playing a game, then swapping sides so you both can get a feel for what can be done with the other's lists.

Again, looking forward to lesson's learned and your next report.

Cheers,

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 Post subject: BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:48 am 
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Thanks for the batrep, always good to see people take the time to write it up (I take ages, I'm half way through the first of two and looking for distractions!).

Eldar are tricky buggers, and personally I (along with many others) reckon they are overpowered, so its good to see the Tau lose to them :)

A couple of general points applying to any armies you and your mate might use.

Killing stuff. If ever you have a choice between killing something that hasn't gone yet this turn and something that has, shoot the one that has yet to activate. Its a big boost as it increases your....

Activations. When you have less than your opponents its very important to introduce a level of parity. The best way to do this is to target the enemy smaller units, and wipe them out.

The other way is to take advantage of an overconfident enemy retaining lots. Try and ensure that your chaps are in cover to limit the damage and then after he is out of activations set up crossfire/concentrate on certain units.

Tau can set crossfires like no other race with co-ordinated fire. Double a pathfinder formation or similar behind the target and then fire with that and  another unit inflicting extra blastmarkers and reducing the Eldar thin armour by an additional one!

Airpower is a tricky beast. When you get good at it you can make even light Thunderbolt fighters work for you. Facing 800 odd points of flak however would challenge anyone :)
Don't be tempted not to use your planes, just settle for less damage. You have paid the points so get something for them!
In the game above the Tigershark could have tried for 1 unit a turn. Its better than nothing or death. As it has a 45cm range pick a target that means you are outside the Eldar flak ranges, if thats impossible attack the outermost unit instead, so you only take one flak shot incoming. When attacking pay attention to your angle of escape. Pick a route which avoids further flak. Oh, and activate after all the flak formations have had a go!
One way to get a good escape angle is to fire at the very limit of your fire arc - with a 90 degree arc forward that means you can be at a 45 degree angle to the enemy unit and that means you can escape more easily.
The best way to use air effectively is never get shot!

Oh, and pathfinders! My favourite Tau formation. I suggest you use them. They can markerlight stuff and assainate farseer with their sniper ability, not to mention break infantry with their 8 disrupt attacks. And they are scouts :)

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 Post subject: BatRep: Ulthwe vs Tau 2500
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 7:28 pm 
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I'm not sure that we'll be seeing human auxilaries - we each picked our armies because we like the theme (though we did all end up with our 40k picks), and he's about Railguns and firepower.  Our Guard player's the one who seems to enjoy meatgrinding.  I like the speed and the ability to cut things up from close range without actually getting into assaults, though I guess my things aren't too bad in those.  For the same reason, I'm not thinking that we'll get many swap-sides games.  I just have no desire to play Tau or Guard, and they feel the same.  Our Tyranid plays so seldomly that whenever he does he'll want to use his own list.

I'll certainly suggest planetfall.  However, I imagine that he'll move away from that after some games against Guard artillery, where he'll want things on board from the start in order to deal with them, and in which a 150pt cruiser is something of a waste.  He also might not get that much out of it against 'nids.  We were kind of looking at Orcas already, actually, and the Broadside thing sounds like a great idea.

Our thoughts exactly on stealth suits - just too slow, and my infantry don't seem to be a threat anyway.  I really have no intention of taking many Aspect Warriors, though I've considered Hawk troupes teleporting in to gain crossfire benefits before assaulting, supported by whatever was shooting earlier.  I just don't like the general slowness of Aspect Warriors, with Hawks being a bit weak and Spears being not much better than Jetbikes, and Serpents being far too fragile to be trusted with that sort of thing.

Crossfire penalizes the Holofield save?  That's a pity.  Does it hurt the Tau invulnerable save as well?

Thanks for the aircraft advice Chris - the AX10 may have been able to avoid the Firestorms had we been thinking more clearly, but I'm pretty sure that the Prisms and Revenants would have always been in range.  I'll suggest pathfinders - I assume you intend for him to drop the FWs to get them, while making up his cadre requirements with Hammerheads.

For myself, I may well try Saim-Hann next time.  A few BMs on the Ionheads or Hydras would allow a pair of Hunters to run in and gun something down.  It would get around the whole too-slow Guardian problem, since I can just take Windriders, perhaps even firing them out of Storm Serpents.  The lack of a Supreme Commander makes me uneasy, though, and I'll admit that my favorite units are the Falcons and Fire Prisms - there aren't, by any chance, any plans to make a more vehicle-centered craftworld, are there?


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