possible yes, but by no means all the time. If you want to shoot a WE, you have to go where the WE is so anyone using their army "properly" will keep them under flak protection and stop you from suppressing said flak. It goes both ways y'know. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, as they say.
On average yea, but obviously you only get average or better results 50% of the time... Average is not "every time", that's my point. And clearly 1 flyer is not a concern here, they just aren't in the same league.

Yep plus side is that they can target non we and can be used (or try anyway) every turn. Downside is they cost twice as much (or have half the firepower) and can't alpha strike targets in the deployment zone like void spinners - which tau don't have many options for.

Yeah on reflection you're probably right, I can imagine myself saying the same thing in another circumstance

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So at the moment we are filling the Vior’la tread with a discussion about a formation option that might get included. Seems to me that the strength of the opposition is such that IT SHOULD NOT. I think that the opposition is biased by the history of the AX-1-0 and experiences when is was a DC2 warengine with 2 x MW1+ (TK) shots for 175 points for each unit. But ultimately getting an army approved requires some consensus that it is balanced and the amount of work to do that here seems, . . . astronomical; equivalent to getting Philae to Comet/67P.

The rest of my post is about the current play test version: 2 x AX-1-0s for 350 points with stats as in the Approved Tau Army List. Discussion about the effectiveness of the pair of units needs to keep the cost more firmly in mind. In particular, what I might call, the opportunity costs are large.

Here is the first opportunity cost. If you need to use a re-roll you cannot use it for other purposes. You don’t get a re-roll unless you spend points on a supreme commander and in basic 3rd Phase Tau that is a Crisis Suit formation with commander upgrade (minimum cost 325 pts under 6.7.2, or, 100 pts added to a Vior’la Fire Warrior Cadre). You need to allocate some fraction of this cost to the effective use of the squadron.

Here you need to provide more AA cover to ensure an effective bubble. Now some gaming metas have more or less airpower operating (locally the space marines tend to walk but Mark’s orcs often come with a flying circus, and the Black Templars like to fly) but at least some of those assets needed to be included in the opportunity costs needed to make the squadron effective.

A Guard army with artillery and Shadowsword type units don’t really need to move up much so there are some fractions of tournament blind games where that tactic is not viable and this is an opportunity cost paid game to game.
Here we have markerlights being a requirement to ensure the performance of the AX-1-0s. Now any Tau army will need/have markerlights but they are a touch more difficult to get into place for an aircraft (since they can’t come together with a coordinate fire). If you don’t have to deep strike then the opportunity costs are very low. However ensuring you target the small enemy super-heavies that can stand back outside 30 cm from a Tau markerlight means there are some costs.

Like all aircraft, if it fails to activate it can’t do anything to the enemy. It can never claim or contest objectives. So here are two further significant opportunity costs.


CONCLUSION

As a general principle to reduce the relative impact of the opportunity costs on each unit/squadron you take more of them. Supreme commander, heavy AA cover, vulnerable markerlight cover all cost the same but can be spread over more units. If I was going to set up for AX-1-0 operations I’d take two pairs in a 3000 point game. If they were capped to restrict numbers the opportunity costs for me would be too high. Please don’t cap numbers.

To finish I think Onyx highlights the issues, admittedly here he is discussion singletons. “If” they work, and peoples probability calculations (gut feel though various averaging assumptions to (?) a complete modelling) vary, then that would not be a fun army to play against. Really binary and nasty to lose to. Never nice to have the heart ripped out of your army.

So Mark, Glynn, other local dudes, want to face six AX-1-0s in a 3600 points or upwards game?

For the Greater Good.

All in all, the Tau army seems to work as designed then It was always supposed to be the most mutually supporting force and when played as such is very effective. Using a-10s means they are one of your focuses. But you still want your cheap support missile batteries to hit marked enemy arty, you still want the firewarriors who rip up the infantry part of the above guard army (remember you get to put objectives in his side of the table near wherever you like, and he does have to enter your side at some point...).

Back to playtesting this, I hope to get a game on vassal, especially after having gone to all the trouble of making the really bad manta and other icon it uses for tau

Steve54 wrote:
I'd be far less hesitant over single A-X- 1-0s than orcas with deflector shields




My next encounter with Markconz Imperial Guard will continue the pursuit of his forces and the Shas'o will need greater mobility to catch up with them. Seems the perfect scenario for loading up troops in the Orca transport squadrons and to catch up and remove the Imperial presence from the Tau Colony.

Any advice, testing requests for such a force? I have almost finished 8 Orcas now so can max them.
Probably aim for a high activation approach.

Thought I'd try assault landings with Fire Warriors and Cadre Fireblade and Orca barging into contact (maybe).
Take the hits on the Orca, a useful screen with Armour 4+ and Invulnerable Save 5+.
Might try some planetfall, offload Crisis Suits which coordinate fire and then, maybe,
get back into the Orca with jetpack extra move. Obviously would want markerlights about.
Probably teleport/deploy stealth suits further back to move and fire and climb on board an Orca.
Usual tricks of contesting objectives with air-landing Orcas on turn 3.

I think you should test 8 FW and 3 pathfinders in an Orca. Pathfinders are cheaper and more reliable than crisis suits. The suits has to teleport at the start of the turn. If your opponents gets the initiative then they'll likely see the threat. It also sort of forces you to air-deploy early in the turn when your suits are still around.

With pathfinders you bring with you ML that the opponent will have no way of suppressing or breaking before the orca deploys them. You can bring the troops in later in the turn without the risk of loosing ML.

The suits does bring the possibility of cross fire though, so that's something you miss.

A formation of 11 units and ML will kill or at least break most infantry/LV formations. Cadre fireblade would also be a good option, that way you get a pretty descent air assault formation if you need to go after some kind of AV formation, like artillery.

It appears that Andrew's talking about assaulting with the troops, Borka about landing then shooting. Markerlights do nothing in assaults (o:
I agree that with Tau, Not assaulting is likely the best option, unless you're up against particularly defenseless formations.

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Oh, I was thinking about doing both. There is enough lift capacity in my Colonial Tau Force
to have plenty of each. Against armour the Tau shooting option is poor, even with Crisis Suits.
But base-to-base assault with the Orca, say, and some gun drones in base to base, to keep
enemy armours FF down and use Fire Warriors to FF the rest.

Fire Warriors with pathfinders are a great option for shooting (Inf and LV).

Perhaps have a few empty Orcas for pickup, prepping, drawing CAP?

Any other guidance for air assaulting?

I tried the list with my Tau in a 2 vs. 2 battle the other day, and it has some interesting things in it that the Third Phase Expansion is missing, I like it

While playing I found a few things that I was unsure of when looking at the stat list for the Moray.
Is it a skimmer? it does not have this on the profile. nevermind on this one, it has Support Craft.
How many Ion Cannon attacks does it have, one or two?
How can it use Planetfall when it can't be carried by the Protector Class Battleship?

For the Manta Dropship, the Third Phase Expansion has it with 3 Seeker Missiles but the Vior'la list it only has 2 Seeker Missiles, what is the reason for this?

I did also find it a bit confusing that I had to look up the special rules in the Third Phase Expansion list, and that they were not included in the Vior'la documents.

I will try a list with an orca at a tournament in 2 weeks. It will be the below list.

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [350]
8 Fire Warrior units,
3 pathfinder units,
Cadre Fireblade

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [325]
6 Fire Warrior Units, 3 Devilfishes
2 Pathfinder units and 1 Devilfish

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [325]
6 Fire Warrior Units, 3 Devilfishes,
2 Pathfinder units and 1 Devilfish

XV104 RIPTIDE FORMATION [400]
3 XV104 Riptides, Shas'o Commander

ARMOURED ATTACK GROUP [425]
6 'Railhead' Hammerhead gunships,
Skyray

ARMOURED SUPPORT GROUP [375]
6 Hammerhead gunships,
Skyray

RECON SKIMMER GROUP [150]
3 Pathfinder Tetra,
2 Piranha

RECON SKIMMER GROUP [150]
3 Pathfinder Tetra,
2 Piranha

BARRACUDA SQUADRON [150]
2 Barracuda Fighters

SUN SHARK SQUADRON [200]
2 Sun Shark Bombers

ORCA ASSAULT DROPSHIP [150]


Trying to test some of the new units and combinations some more. I've played a few games using the orca/FW combo in the approved list. Will be interesting to see how the orca performs in this list with the deflector shield and possibility of bringing ML (eg pathfinders). I'm usually very "in the moment" when at a tournament so will probably not remember to take all that many pictures, but will try to give feedback afterwards.

Looks good Borka, it will be interesting to see how it performs. An Orca without Crisis Suits is unusual, but that's a nice AP punch you're carrying. It should make enemy infantry nervous




I'll incorporate the relevant rules into the Vior'la documents soon to make it as simple to use as possible.

Just noticed when looking at the unit stats that a shas'el doesnt get the plasma rifle? Is this intentional?

Im a bit confused about how to represent a fireblade in a crisis formation also. Is it supposed t be a crisis suit with a fireblade pilot? Im assuming it is.

If the shas'el doesnt have the commanders plasma rifle, then could the shas'el and fireblade not just be combined into 1 upgrade? do away with the shas'el and just have a fireblade commander instead?

Or keep the shas'el and have the fireblade as an upgrade/ replacement commander? so you dont have both in the same formation?

Anyway, really liking this list and still working on my Viorla Tau force!

Steve

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There are two new battle reports available

Vior'la Tau vs Black Templars

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=28871


Vior'la Tau vs Ork Gargants

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=28867

Battle report 3 for Vior'la, dialogue: http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/2015/01/epic-4k-marine-vs-viorla-tau.html
and my comments down the page: http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=28916


Given the lack of BP artillery in the Tau arsenal and the need to push an attack into 15 cm range for the Pulse Bomb attack I think that the 200 points is fine. It comes from the Air Caste (1/3 portion), so limits other choices. And as you say has problems with likely to stand down at least once each game.


I agree that the combination is a deadly alpha strike option. But it is only really effective shooting at an infantry (or light vehicle) heavy formation. It has to get within 15 cm to get the second trench of 11 Disrupt attacks which leaves it vulnerable to counter strike. They have no integral AT fire at all, for quite a lot of points. They are fairly immobile once landed, unless you have another Orca to pick them up. They can't deploy in a very dispersed formation since they can only go 5 cm from the Orca, which leaves them very vulnerable to enemy artillery BP fire.

This was my experience with my first use in the recent game but also, in Borka's Game 2, so para-phrase:
The Fire Warriors and Pathfinders were left exposed and needed a successful retain with Hammerheads to protect them.
Good fire from FW/PF formation was deadly but the second activation was needed to break the target formation.
Missing their Orca they were stranded. They had no AT so went in to try and FF the warhound and lost.

Two final points:
(1) lots of hits from shooting tends to leave a surprising number of surviving units if attacking more heavily armoured infantry (or troops in cover). Allocating the hits then rolling for kills means a fair number actually survive (lots die with several killing hits).
(2) the addition of Pathfinders is an upgrade cost and my feeling is that Tau are generally better with more activations. Making the upgrade even more expensive is costly.

I'll be testing these combinations some more, and have not really set my mind. However at the moment would vote for lean towards leave it at 100 points.

Great to see the surge in play testing going on. For The Greater Good.
Cheers, Andrew.

I played Viorla for the first time on Sunday, battle report up now. It was a 5-0 defeat for my IG though I gambled a load on attempting to assault a half dead Manta on the first turn and the game could have gone the other way had I succeeded.

I don't have time for a detailed commentary and am not familiar with the development on the list (I prefer the core Tau list personally)but I just wanted to chip in that I'm not keen on the Moray. It seems annoying and unnecessary - I don't think the Tau list should have a better, flying Warhound equivalent in their list. A Warhound can be killed in CC by a decent attacker e.g. Terminators, Landa assault, ect but the Moray couldn't be plus it has integral AA to boot. The core Tau list lacks in the this sort of department true; but lists are characterised by what they don't have as well.

If they are in they definitely should count towards the air and titans 1/3, as currently not doing so allows a Tau player to field more tough, fearless, long-range support craft that most armies can deal with. I also think they should cost 325 rather than 300 too, but the 1/3 is the most important change. I'm cross-posting this here and the Moray thread as wasn't sure which was the more appropriate.