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Tau v4.3.3 'Five Aces' vs. Jaldon's v6.0 'nids |
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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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| Tactica |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241 |
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| Tactica |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241 |
Me? Heh, no - of course not, that's why I post these things and that's how we all learn. By all means, put holes in it and tear it apart, disect it - whatever! Be my guest.  Questions: Did you use the aircraft to snipe synapse units? Seems like the Hive Tyrants would be an easy way to take out 2 formations in that manner with last activations. |
See the report - it just wasn't in the cards. Also,
I've added a general response to aircraft sniping. This player was not only aware of the 'sniping my big bugs' tactic and planned for it, but it really wasn't feasible when I tested those waters on turn 1. Too much of the 5x AX-1-0 tactic relies on the long term success and punishment of the bomber. Losing them sacrificially early would not be a good thing. Aircraft sniping is not a power of the AX-1-0, its just an area of the main rules that allows anyone with fliers to try and ruin the nid synapse in a gamey manner. Furthermore, there were many runs where the AX-1-0 in question missed or only got a single hit. That's a very risky prospect.
How many Nid players use 10 Zoanthropres, no WE-bugs and no (or few) AV-bugs? (It's not something I've seen in any of the batreps in the Nid section, but perhaps with the new list that will change)
Cw,
Its a fair question. Since I don't play bugs as a main list, so I don't know. The couple times I have fielded them myself, I tried to take the all infesting all smaller bug horde - but I couldn't get it to work in the old lists. Local bug players feared the shadowsword then. We were trying to find a way around it as at the time, the big bugs were mandatory for the list to be effective - like you've already said.
I know its been a big complaint amongst several locals that they don't have to take SHT bugs in 40K, but when you go to epic - your list doesn't work and you 'have' to take the big bugs "in the older bug lists".
Jaldon's new rework of the list may afford a more versatile way to play the bugs competatively. I definitely applaud that effort if its intentional!
I can tell you this - having that many wounds on the field is like playing against even more aggressive orks. For me playing a list that couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag, it was very daunting. One lictor unit killed my entire crisis formation with SC!!
There's no winning that attrition game if you can't get into the synapse fairly quickly and decisively. Even then, the bug player can move another synapse to 'reclaim' the remenants of a recently killed synapse swarm - so the synapse become increasingly harder and harder to kill as the game progresses when coupled with spawning.
I actually liked the list he fielded quite a bit. It was very 'bug horde' and 'I don't care what you have or do, the heart of my army is always sound and growing. Very - "fear me" and "unstoppable impending doom". That established the bug horde feel to me better than any bug game I've played in the past. So - from the adversary perspective, hats off to Jaldon on the efforts thus far and from what little I've seen.
Also, how many IG and Marine players 'have' to take titans or even SHT in a viable tourny list? I've seen more than one tourny list with each where no SHT or titans are taken - and the list has placed if not won. Should the bugs be any different? Its definitely a design question, but my opponent doesn't own a terrible amount of the bigger bugs. He's read enough of the forums and played against the Tau enough with his marines to know what the Tau are capable of.
Also, Andy is one of the players in my local gaming group that meets every Saturday. He knows I go air - heavy, no matter what I play (IG, eldar, chaos or tau) so its no suprise for him to take a bunch of AA against me.
Finally - did you look at the bug list Cw? The warp blast zoanthroape is a great purchase in the current list! Its 30cm AP4+/AT4+/ AA4+
When you are always on the move, who wouldn't want these things - if you can always spawn them back into any formation as needed! (especially if you know aircraft sniping means quick death for your synapse - and your synapse are AT targets while the majority of his formation is AP targets - you have to put some kind of AT insulation there... what would you put there in the bug list if you were playing them Cw?)
Comment:
Dispite playing against a list which is particularly resistant to the AX-1-0, you still managed to be ahead on VPs (if not quite getting a win).
True. My 1 BTS victory condition came from the tyranid special rule of obtaining BTS. If you kill the majority of the synapse choices, you get awarded BTS. Well, I did that - but only because I was able to capitalize on killing all 3 of his 30 point lessor synapse nodes prior to my opponent activating them and carrying out a spawning action. I worked very hard to make sure that if he did get to spawn them before I could shoot at them, that he only got a single D6... as luck would have it, right after deploying 4 teleporting formations (2 of which were synapse on turn 3) he had to decide to activate a synapse or do something else first. Unfortunately, he got his only roll of a "1" to activate in the game at a very crucial time for him! So I have my opponent to thank for his contribution to my obtaining BTS there.
Furthermore, he could have played it safe an not teleported the lessor synapse node on my side of table in turn 2, and he could have teleported both 2nd and 3rd synapse to safter locations in his own lines under his AA umbrella if he wanted to keep me from obtaining BTS. It was all in his control frankly. However, on turn 2, he was going for some luck... we even discussed his decision after he made it and before he rolled the dice for strategy. It was a calculated gamble with uphill odds since I had +2 to the roll, but if we tied - he got the tie breaker even. My blitz obj was basically undefended and he was going for the juggler with the move. It didn't pan out. A similiar decsion was made when he teleported the 2nd and 3rd synapse to the bug left field objective. He was not planning on activating one of them but he was planning on getting to the other. Unfortunately, the activation dice god threw him a curve ball at the wrong time during this second, but lessor gamble.
Fortunately for me, when I charged the first one with my pathfinders - I won - we had to go two rounds as we drew the first go! I got lucky there. Again, fortunately for me - I had planes that could get over there and dispatch the 2nd and 3rd teleporting zoanthropes. Keep in mind though - I wouldn't have gotten BTS at all if my opponent was just playing safe and didn't throw the lessor synapse out in 'go for the win' situations.
Was it his smartest plays?
How valuable is that 1-0 result considering the context? That's for you guys decide.
I think we would all agree that it is possible to put together a list that the "5 Aces" isn't great against ('Nid, LatD or Ork horde, Necron pylon-heavy list), but there are a lot more that are (SM, IG, Eldar, OGBM, AMTL, BL and their variants).
OGBM and AMTL may never even make it to 'actual' lists. AMTL and OGBM can take a load of AA too BTW (unless things have changed since I last played with/against these lists - which is quite possible). Also, many locals would challenge that the BL list falls in the Nid and Ork category. Their strongest version - IMHO, is the almost all infantry and daemon version.
Your point is well taken, the AX-1-0 will underperform if not become marginal against ~50% of list or list variants out there and has the potential to be quite effective against ~50% of list or list variants out there.
I fully agree with that.
In fact, with the ability to spawn destroyed AA units, and immunity to BM, the Nids are possibly the worst possible opponent for the "5 Aces", one might expect that against the worst possible scenario the "5 Aces" should expect to be soundly thrashed. IMO, the Nids in general present one of the most difficult match-ups for the Tau, with the disrupt weapons being nullified and losses not building up due to respawning, and, of course, the strangth of the bugs is the Tau weakness - assaults and especially CC (infiltrate...).
I would agree with much of this, not all. I don't think the bugs are the worst match up for the 5 aces. I think the all infantry list of 'whatever' would be the absolute worst for the TS AX-1-0... that could be eldar, that could be bugs, that could be orks, BL, LatD - there are a host of such lists that could be 'worse' for the "5 aces" list.
However, for this game, I told my opponent to bring whatever he wanted - knowing full well that he could use my IG, his marines, or his bugs. I actually was not expecting bugs and I was expecting IG - as he likes the way my army is painted and the way it plays. I did tell him I was playing my Tau and that I had a new tactic I was going to wreck him with - whatever he played.
He does know Tau have good AA - and then there's the 'knowing me' factor.
Before deciding that the previous expreiences shown in battle reports (of the "5 Aces") has not been proven to your mind I would request that you try it again against some other list. I propose that you have seen the lowest performance of the "5 Aces" against the Nid horde.
Fair enough. I'll give it another go or two.
(On a side note I believe you once mentioned that it would be a better test of a new list to try it against one, or more, of the establised lists, from the rulebook, or perhaps Swordwind. Something to consider.)
Also a fair request.
I'd like to play it against eldar actually. Unfortunately, the guy with Eldar in our group has recently seperated from his wife and the armies are all at the old house and well, you can imagine that whole situation. This is the guy's house we normally played at so we are without a large portion of our armies right now as he had many of them.
I own Tau and IG myself. Andy owns bugs and marines. So, I can play against any of those.
Since marines are really a flawed list anyway IMHO - I would fully expect to beat them with most anything I played.
That leaves IG. So in the short term, the only thing I can play the "5 aces" against would be the IG. TRC already posted what you can do against IG. I guess it would be neat to see if another player can generate a different result.
I'll have to look at setting that up perhaps.
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Rob
| nealhunt |
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Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Nashville, TN, USA |
I agree that the cheese factor on this is high, but it is a legal tactic that impacts directly on the effectiveness of the aircraft. If you are going to evaluate it accurately, it should be power-gamed. To stop 'sniping' of his bugs, he intentionally insulates his synapse with heavy amounts of AA zoanthroapes and always recovers them first when facing airforce heavy lists. The point is that in order ot make the synapse the closest, you have to fly right in there and deal with a LOAD of AA. Good luck! |
I crunched some numbers. Flying through the AA zones of 4 Zoanthropes gives ~60% chance of survival for DC2, 5+armor. If you fire only the TK and MW attacks (so you avoid the Hive Tyrant taking a normal AT hit in allocation), that takes your kill% for a "down the barrels" run to somewhere in the 50% range. That's 100 points v a probable loss of 175, but with the extra value of killing a Synapse it's still worth consideration even if it won't automatically cause the swarm to go to ground.
If you caught one of the formations far enough away from the other that you could make the approach move with only 2 shots, that takes the survival rate up to ~90% and the kill rate to ~70%.
Basically, if you can hit them when either 1) swarms are separated outside mutual AA support range, or 2) close enough to the end of the turn that another Synapse creature cannot move in to keep the swarm from going to ground, a close attack run to pick of a Synpase is a high-percentage tactic.
Indirect fire on bunched FW + DF on tau table edge midfield in 4+ cover. Exocrine's 120 range proves brutal on a 4x6 field. They place 4 BM, killed 1 DF, 1 PF, broke one formation of PF's due to disrupt!
Is that right? 2 exocrines would be 2 BP, disrupt under the most recent list. That's phenomenal for a 1 template, AP5/AT6 attack.
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Neal
| Tactica |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241 |
Thank you for the comp, and agreed. The plane is built to take on AT formations, or more specificially SHT and Titans. Its no suprise that it will work good against those. Its also no suprise that lists with no fliers and good 30cm AA coverage can thwart the efforts of the plane. Atleast that's what we seen. The plane wasn't even the right choice against this bug list. I went from using them first and being excited about them while taunting my opponnt - to listening to him laugh and point at them as they took more damage... I quickly started looking at the value in what I could do with my PFs, crisis, and Hammerheads while the looming indirect disrupting exocrines sat off on the horizon. It was a fun game, and it was also clear, the AX-1-0 are nice and have a place in the list, but they are far from the end all if the opponent doesn't have the right targets. One still has to be able to eliminate enough of the enemy ground formations to make objectives available, and one still needs enough of his own formations to take objectives. I'm beginning to understand that being able to tailor a force to a single opponent's, can tilt the balance of a list somewhat, leaving one side or the other feeling a little hard done by. |
Agreed. I think multiple perspectives from multiple posters in multiple locations will give us the real deal on the AX-1-0. At this point, I'm hard pressed to say its even close to the end all unit, moreover, I don't even think its the ideal tau list to take to a tournament. I think the 5 aces list will really hammer blow the unsuspecting. I think the tau are in for a rude awakening against somebody whom which regularly plays against aircraft, worse yet, someone whom which has all infantry or all mixed infantry and AT formations.
Cheers Dobbsy,
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Rob
| Tactica |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am Posts: 2241 |
I agree that the cheese factor on this is high, but it is a legal tactic that impacts directly on the effectiveness of the aircraft. If you are going to evaluate it accurately, it should be power-gamed. |
Not going to disagree, you have to power game when testing.
However, the reasons of not sniping were not limited to this view point alone. There was no real opportunity to snipe IMHO that would also allow for safe disengagement moves of the planes in question. You may disagree of course. I can only say what I felt as I analyzed the situation and unit placement.
To stop 'sniping' of his bugs, he intentionally insulates his synapse with heavy amounts of AA zoanthroapes and always recovers them first when facing airforce heavy lists. The point is that in order ot make the synapse the closest, you have to fly right in there and deal with a LOAD of AA. Good luck!
I crunched some numbers. Flying through the AA zones of 4 Zoanthropes gives ~60% chance of survival for DC2, 5+armor.
We didn't always fly through 4, but if you look at his formations, in order to snipe, you'd be flying into 4+ and you'd probably be fliying out of 3+ more to disengage. Also as the game progressed, more zoanthropes were put into other formations. Just want to be clear that thinking you were only going to fly through 4 zoanthropes on approach and disengage when attempting a snipe is not really a reasonable hypothesis for this game... kudos to my opponent for placement perhaps.
If you fire only the TK and MW attacks (so you avoid the Hive Tyrant taking a normal AT hit in allocation), that takes your kill% for a "down the barrels" run to somewhere in the 50% range. That's 100 points v a probable loss of 175, but with the extra value of killing a Synapse it's still worth consideration even if it won't automatically cause the swarm to go to ground.
If you caught one of the formations far enough away from the other that you could make the approach move with only 2 shots, that takes the survival rate up to ~90% and the kill rate to ~70%.
If you look at the game, I'm not sure where you are saying this would be feasible. He used his AA umbrella really effectively. In order to snipe and 'get past' the INFANTRY insulation of his formations and get to the synapse, you had to get right on top of the heart of the formation - that meant you were in all kinds of AA. The one formation that he did seperate from the others - I did punch a hole in the side of it and I did kill the synapse hive tyrant. The other formation that I alsmost killed all of the synapse was a t warrior formation of three synapse creatures, and I killed two of the three out of that formation. Aircraft sniping just wasn't in the cards on the remaining 3 formations IMHO.
Basically, if you can hit them when either 1) swarms are separated outside mutual AA support range, or 2) close enough to the end of the turn that another Synapse creature cannot move in to keep the swarm from going to ground, a close attack run to pick of a Synpase is a high-percentage tactic.
I understand the math and the point in the first point, but the second point assumes they are not close enough already. If you look at the game, there's marginal opportunity to do this and even when you do, you have to fly in the face of soooo much AA to get on top of the synapse, that its just not a viable tactic IMHO.
I'd rather have a AT specific gun - a LANCE weapon for example would be ideal to pull off the snipe of the synapse. It would be much more effective at getting by the AP targets without having to get right on top of the synapse target. The MW force you to get on top of the synapse node in order to make it the closest.
If you really want to get gamy... the synapse node could put himself into base to base with other AP targets adn other AT targets. Then when you fly your plane in and mange to set it on all that crap somehow, you can start measuring your gun muzzles to the base of each model or whatever you want to do to determine which one is the closest and which isn't... then when you get one AT hit from your missle and one MW hit from your light railcannon, the enemy can allocate your AT hit to the hive tyrant and your MW hit to the infantry bob stand right next to him... and now he can make his save with his hive tyrant, and Mr. Gargole will go 'pop'... and that assumes your plane actually survived the approach move and got over that mess somehow.
So, I hear you NH, but I think the numbers analysis only goes so far. Angles of approach and model positioning, cover all come into account as to whether you can really be as effective as your math is showing.
In game, cover played a big role as to whether or not planes could hit. When those light railcannons need 5+ to hit, GM's needs 7+ and Missle Pod needs 6+ - flying through 4+ AA4+ on the approach does not look very exciting. Not to mention disengage moves.
Then there's the fact that aircraft sniping, like sustain-fire pop-up on skimmers - is just wrong.
We all agree, if the entire of AX-1-0 being too strong is based upon a loop hole in the main rules, any plane becomes too strong for the same reasons - not just the AX-1-0...
My vote is to fix the problem in the rules, just like we did with sustain-fire pop-ups. Just make it so that whereever you stop a plane before you fire - you have to be able to set it on the field or a piece of terrain.
"You may pass over of course, but you cannot set a plane on enemy models." Kind of a no-brainer anyway IMHO.
Indirect fire on bunched FW + DF on tau table edge midfield in 4+ cover. Exocrine's 120 range proves brutal on a 4x6 field. They place 4 BM, killed 1 DF, 1 PF, broke one formation of PF's due to disrupt!
Is that right? 2 exocrines would be 2 BP, disrupt under the most recent list. That's phenomenal for a 1 template, AP5/AT6 attack.
Yes - I agree, phenominal... except he was sustain fring (thus the indirect) so it really was AT5+ and a single template by your analysis...
However, what is more alarming is that my opponent "ANDY" said it was a 4-point barrage for having 2 exocrines at 2BP each... so by his math it was was AP4+/AT5+ modified to AP3+/AT4+ for sustain fire. So, he was using two templates at AT4+ instead of AT5+
On the other hand, my tanks were all next to each other behind a wood due to the previous move of trying to get to a specific location and getting shots via pop-up - so I needed to be closer to the wood than my target on the other side... he could have caught 4 tanks with one template easily enough... but not all 6... and he did roll really good. I don't recall how many were 4's and how many were 5+ though...
Going to check the latest jaldon bug list now... ANDY...
I really don't understand this. Why did you bring them on at those spots? Are you pre-plotting aircraft entry points or something?