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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241
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Well, I played the list in the "please critique..." thread against the shadow wind eldar Saturday after my AMTL vs. Orks game.
The Eldar player is a much better opponent compared to the Ork player as he's just more fluent and effective with the Epic:A rules.
The tabletop was heavily covered (wish I had pics) but beautiful table complete with probably more than your normal amount of terrain.
High Level Stuff
4K game
Eldar (Swordwind v 4.1 Tau)
4 turns played
Summary Result: draw.
CAVEATS
* Tau used Proposed Whiteshark
* Used the proposed Skimmer Pop Up rules
Interesting Observations
Tau got first activation in 1, 2, and 4 turns.
Eldar had no Supreme Commander
Tau's Supreme Cmdr was always successful
Eldar turn 2 and 3 were the worst dice I've ever seen in a game
Tau had Great dice the entire game long - no kidding.
LISTS PLAYED
Eldar Swordwind
2 Foramtions of Plain Jane Aspect Warriors
- Swooping Hawks gated in via his objective marker
- Chicks w/blades arrived via Vampire Raider
1 Avatar
3 Formations of 1 Vampire Raider Aircraft
- (pulse gun and can carry infantry, 2 DC, Reinforced armor)
2 Formations of 1 Revenant Titan (2 MW Pulse Guns)
1 Formation of 3 Cobras (MW barrage)
1 Formation of 2 Scorpions (TL-MW Pulse Gun)
1 Formation of 1 Scorpion (TL-MW Pulse Gun)
1 Formation of 3 Fire Prisms
2 Formations of 3 Falcons w/2 Fire Storms
================================
14 Activations
Tau
Cost ? ? ? Models ? ?Unit
==== ? ? ?===== ? ==============
250 ? ? ? ?4 ? ? ? ? ? Battlesuite Cadre
125 ? ? ? ?2 ? ? ? ? ? Battesuites
75 ? ? ? ? 3 ? ? ? ? ? ?Tetras
250 ? ? ? ?4 ? ? ? ? ? Battlesuite Cadre
125 ? ? ? ?2 ? ? ? ? ? Battesuites
75 ? ? ? ? 3 ? ? ? ? ? ?Tetras
100 ? ? ? ?- ? ? ? ? ? Shas'o
200 ? ? ? ?8 ? ? ? ? ? FW Cadre
250 ? ? ? ?3 ? ? ? ? ? Rail-Head
125 ? ? ? ?2 ? ? ? ? ? Ion-Head
25 ? ? ? ? ?1 ? ? ? ? ? Swordfish
250 ? ? ? ?3 ? ? ? ? ? Rail-Head
125 ? ? ? ?2 ? ? ? ? ? Ion-Head
25 ? ? ? ? 1 ? ? ? ? ? ?Swordfish
400 ? ? ? ?2 ? ? ? ? ? Scorpionfish Super-Heavy Missle Gunship
300 ? ? ? ?4 ? ? ? ? ? Broadsides
75 ? ? ? ? ?4 ? ? ? ? ?Gundrones
600 ? ? ? ?2 ? ? ? ? ? Mooray Assault Ships
350 ? ? ? ?2 ? ? ? ? ? Whiteshark Bombers
250 ? ? ? ?3 ? ? ? ? ? Barracuda Superiority Fighters
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?1200 ? ? ? ? Air Caste Subtotal
3975 TOTAL
highlights
Suffice it to say that the change of the skimmer pop up rules allowed me to stay back and live instead of advancing directly into the enemy skimmers LOF. I was able to sit back and use Overwatch as well as cautiously hunt my enemy instead of running toward him to get shots while he ignored all terrain and recked me. Big difference.
On the other hand, I had amazing dice this game. No kidding - two morays in a formation firing the ion-phalanx's for 12 dice total hitting 11 times when I moved!
At the same time, my opponent had 2 turns where he couldn't rally units that he needed 2+ and couldn't activate units he needed 2+ on for some reason... just some amazingly bad dice.
Net result was - I still only drew on victory conditions - though I felt like I actually played this game vs. just being a pin cushion. On the other hand, in victory points even - I came out a little behind.
FYI - I'm considered out best Epic player in our group.
Soo... with great dice and a list that was actually capable of doing damage, while my opponent had two turns that were absolutely horrible dice (turns 2 and 3) I barely could squeeze out an objective draw.
My opponents' list had MORE tanks this time compared to his Saim hann variant. The expirimental pop up rules had a bigger effect on him than anything else because I could actually play the game against him and use LOS blocking terrain - meaning he would have to advance to do damage or go on overwatch himself.
The Tau have a real imbalance of AP to AT shots. They have some decent AP damaging shots, but against an Almost all skimmer and all pop-up kind of army where there's no light vehicles and only two AP formations - the tau struggle to deal with all the vehicles. The AT needs addressed.
Both of us plus the Orc on-looker that watched the game all agreed, the tau are not matched appropriately to the Eldar yet. All things being equal - skills and dice - the Eldar should generally win against the Tau.
Ulghhh... ran out of time... blah... have to finish this later guys. I have a loan closing I have to get too... so... I'll finish later.
[EDIT - added 8/2/05 detail]
OK, so picking back up on this bat rep - btw, it's now tuesday and I'm doing this from memory, so I'm going to keep it high level.
Here's a rough idea of terrain - in ASCII vision...
ELDAR
-1- -2- -3- -4-
-5- -6- -7- -8-
TAU
ELDAR SIDE OF TABLE
-1- Refinery: this a large hill dominating the area butted up against the eldars deployment zone taking up 3/4 of the space. It's a fortified walled off refinery area with sparce buildings and tank emplacements.
-2- Spaceport: A large circular airport complex in the NW corner with a runway that streches all the way to the SE corner dominates this piece. It has a few sparce buildings around the board but nothing massive or significant outside of the spaceport.
-3- Orbital Bombardment - Wrecked City: Massive 10 - 30cm diameter craters cover this board with 4 major ruins and reminent ruins all over - a board that's impossible for infantry on ground level to see across.
-4- Manufactory District: In the NE corner, there's a Forgeworld city scape complete with tank factory closer to center of board and several roads and buildings extending to the east. There's a wood in the South west corner of this board
TAU SIDE OF TABLE
-5- Imperial Outpost: There is a 15 cm wide wood that runs from NW to NE along the top of this board. It completely blocks LOS to the N of this board. Aproximately 2/3's the way down this board to the S, there's a long FW defense line with two bunkers that runs completely from W to E of board edges. Behind the barricate are various missle silos and low level buildings sparcely placed.
-6- Trenchworks: This is a trench board. Theres a small wood to the NE corner of this board, but other than that there are 3 sets of trenches long enough to put a full cadre of crisis + upgrades into. One is located in the NW corner, one is due West, and the remaining trench line is SE corner.
-7- Basillica: This is two mountains sheered off flat about 10cm up in the air - seperated by a crag and joined by a bridge wide enough to take a Titan across. The larger one dominates the board spreading from halfway mark all the way back to the S most edge. There is one ramp on and off of the mountain to the East of this Southernmost mountain. The forward mountain runs from center line up to a little beyond mid way and tapers in on the NE and NW corners to form a very rough eliptical pattern when viewed from top down. The northermost mountain has A forgeworld building due North and a forgeworld tower due East. The southern most mountain has a forgeworld cathedral on it and a smaller forgeworld building just SE of the cathedral but the buildings almost touch.
-8- Battlefront: This board represents the forward position of tanks with 5 sandbag tank emplacements set up all the way down from SW to SE table edge. Moving towards center, there are a few more tank emplacements here and there. Mainly a plains board. There is a fair sized wood at the NW corner.
ELDAR DEPLOYMENT
Single Scorpion hid in NW section of -1- Refinery
Prisms hid behind spaceport due NEN of -2- Spaceport
2 scorpions hid in NW of ruins in -3- Bombed City
Falcon formation 1 hid behind ruins in -3- Bombed City
Titan 1 hid behind ruins at NE corner of -3- Bombed City
Titan 2 hid behind Tank Factory in -4- Manufactory
3 Cobras hid behind Tank Factory in -4- Manufactory
Falcon formation 2 hid behind buildings in -4- Manufactory
(2 aspects, 3 flyers, avatar off table)
TAU DEPLOYMENT
Broadsides hid behind buildings in SE of Imperial Outpost -5-
Crisis 1 in SE trenchline of Trenchworks board -6-
Morays in SE of trenchline -6- and SW of Basillica -7-
Crisis 2 hid in S of Cathedral in Basillica -7-
Hamerheads 1 hid in S of Cathedral in Basillica -7-
Scorpionfish hid in S of Cathedral in Basillica -7-
Hammerheads 2 hid in SE of building in Basillica -7-
Firewarriors garrison behind NE wood in -8-
(Whitesharks and Barracudas off board)
THE BATTLE!
Turn 1 - Tau win Initiative
Garrisoned FW's double to cover in NE woods -8- within right most defend the flag objective distance.
Eldar double a single Revenant from Tank Factory in Manufactory -4- over to the middle of -8- tree line to pound the FWs, but only kill 1. (my hammerheads could now get a bead on him though...) Eldar curse!
Eldar retain initiative to portal swooping hawks through left defend the flag objective in NE of trenchworks in -6- and engage in FF against the dug in crisis in the trench line. Crisis cannot use Jetpacks to get away because they have Tetras with them (for marker lights and I didn't know drones rule yet). (lesson learned here)
Luckily, the Eldar continue bad dice rolling. He wounds 2 and I fail to save 1. Ultimately the swooping hawks break with 2 stands remaining! (I rolled great and carry over death put additional hits!) Swooping hawks retreat to where they came from, behind NE wood in -6- out of direct LOS.
Tau activate crisis in -6- that just received a blast marker from combat and put them on overwatch (webway portal gate second defend the flag eldar placed objective thingy approximately 35cm due north of their location where swooping hawks went)
Falcon formation 1 in bombed city -3- advances to land behind a huge crater due south in -3- and out of LOS from Tau. He pops up and drills the garrisoned FW's in -8-, killing 3 and breaking the formation. FW's retreat just out of LOS behind treeline.
Eldar retain to activate Vampire Raider 1. It enters from -1- and swings into -5- from the NW landing to assault the broadsides with Screaming Banshees inside. The broadsides die to the man. Screaming Banshees lose nothing and consolidate.
Tau activate Whitesharks entering table from -5- right where the landed Vampire Raider is and we annihilate the speed 0 landed war engine! WHoohoo!
Eldar Scorpion 1 Triples from Refinery -1- to get behind a small building in the spaceport board -2- on the NE side.
Barracudas move on from Imperial Outpost in -5-, up and around through the refinery in -1- and enter the spaceport from the W openning up fire on the prisims hiding behind the spaceport in -2-. One prism dies and they break.
Crisis 2 Activate for a double and move N from behind cathedral in basillica -7- to the S edge of the bombed city in -3- while openning up on the Falcons 1 whom which were hiding behind a crater. This also put them in MLs. We killed one falcon.
The 2 unit scorpions hiding in the bombed city -3- did a hit and run and moved out to middle of bombed city to fire on crisis, then moved back to their NW starting position of -3-. We lost a tetra and a crisis.
The Eldar retained and popped Titan 2 out for a single and moved due S to another ruin in the bombed city -3- openning up on the crisis that fired on the falcons - poof, 2 tetra and another crisis died breaking the formation. Crisis went back to hiding behind the cathedral in the S of -7- with their withdrawal.
Scorpionfish did a single move to the W side of the cathedral in the Basillica in -7- and fired on the swooping hawks that were broke killing them (barely! - Thank you blast marker damage plus one wound)
Vampire Raider 2 moved on to dispatch the Barracudas from the rear but rolled so bad in shooting. Just a blast marker placed on the barracudas.
Hammerheads 1 moved forward in -7- to hill left of bridge and bottom of mountain on the W side basically staying out of direct LOS. Popping up, we fired and killed 2 more from the falcon formation at the S of -3-! He saved 1 of the three hits - more not so good dice! He broke and fled the remaining two falcons to where they came from at the N of the bombed city.
Vampire Raider 3 came in for an approach via -1- and straight into -6- on the crisis in the SE area of the trenchworks - but too close. They were Marked by the Tetra in the crisis formation, and met fire from 3 of 4 AA6+ ion cannons, and both AA5+ scorpionfish. Again, he couldn't roll a reinforced save if he tried - he took 1 wound - as that's all I could manage from my stellar 3 AA 6+ and 2 AA 5+ fire from scorpionfish - none of the 6+ AA hit so - go scorpionfish... LOL.
Hammerheads 2 from -7- now sustain fire into Titan 1 which is positioned in -8- in the open. Pow, he takes 4 hits and saves 1 from holofield and 1 of 3 remaining from reinforced 5+ (yay - eldar crappy roles - tau strategy at this point!) He breaks - Eldar general curses again. He goes back to where he came from behind tank factory in -4-.
Cobras & Falcons move up from behind tank factory in -4- and position behind wood in -4-.
Avatar didn't come on.
Vampire Raider 3 flies off and gets a second hit on it by a Moray, he fails to save a reinforce 5+ and it crumbles in exit.
Whitesharks and Barracuda exit without issue.
Eldar fail to rally broken titan 1, broken falcons 1.
Prisms Rallied. remaining scorpion rallies.
Tau FW rally, Tau crisis in basillica fail to rally.
Turn 2 - Tau win Init
OK, this is getting way to long... so significant events only:
Tau put forward Hammerheads in Basillicat -7- on overwatch only to kill one of the 2 scorpions attempting to move up and blast them - so they break and flee before they can fire.
Eldar fail to activate the remaining vampire raider needing a 2+
FW's move to mark avatar that appear from portal and it takes 2 wounds as a result from crisis 1 advance into woods.
Second set of eldar falcons kill FW's
Hammerhead formation is taken down to 2 models after Cobras advance and wipe most of them out.
Single Scorpion formation is killed by whitesharks
Prisms are broken before they can acivate by barracudas
screaming banshees are broken
Turn 3 - Eldar Win Init
Crisis in wood die from 1of2 remaining scorpions but die to whitesharks plus hammerheads later.
Cobras get fired on by rallied crisis from basillica
Titan 2 from eldar move up in bold double move to fire on scorpionfish and fails to do a single wound! Moorays do a single move but scorpionfish sustains to take titan down while he's marked... scorpion fish just really marked as all their hits were saved and that helped his own guns - morays rolled amazing... 11 of 12 hits needing 3+ after the move! That was amazing! In rolling saves, his dice fell apart on him (again) - needing 11 3+ saves, he should have failed 3 or 4. He only made 4 saves. That left him with 7 5+ reinforced needed and he couldn't do it - poof, dead titan due to crazy bad dice - again.
Vampire Raider 1 dies and eldar have no more flyers, barracudas lose a model and both whitesharks have a wound on them.
banshees rallied
Turn 4 - Tau win Init
Mainly a positioning turn but neither of us have enough of anything significant to really bring down much and both are cautious about moves. He only had 4 activations
Nether one of us got blitz or break their spirits, we both had formations on the enemy's side of the table, neither of us controlled all of the objectives on our side or the two on the enemy's side...
Draw.
Unfortunately - it was primarily due to the Eldar's super bad dice, the Tau's amazing dice, and the fact that we were plying the experimental pop up rules.
Both of our and our onlookers perspectives were the same. It was an Eldar win that was lost due to dice. Tau have a real problem with AT. I learned that drones as well as stealths are needed in the crisis suits for them to be truly effective, but at what hit does one pay for such things? Tau need larger formations but must do so at the expense of potential AT shots. Tau don't have many quality AT shots as it is. The moray's main cannon - the rail cannon is slow firing and will never be used by me as slow firing plus always being seen plus movement of 20 means it would make this a worthless tool. As a result, I use it as a medium grade weapon with a lot of shots - the ion phalanx. The Skyray - for being a specialist AA unit - is really lacking in value. If you don't know if the oponent is going to take AA or not, the Ion-cannon is the better choice. It's more effective as a prized AT unit by comparison to the Skyray and gives you basically the same shot as a Skyray does at AA - so why take the Skyray? The Skyray needs to be a better piece or will just be replaced by the Ioncannon. The Skyray is overpriced for what you get out of it by comparison to numerous other units in the Tau list. Non of us agree with the the Light Vehicle mandate of the crisis and broadsides. I find myself never looking at Kroot as an option. If I'm going to take infantry that have no AT value, the only other reason I'm looking at them is for marker lights. Auxillary thus far have not been an option for me.
That's it. 
_________________
Rob
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