Jwolf 40K: Was Conan a Tau?

Jwolf scored a perfect 100/100 battlepoints with this Tau Empire army at a 70+ entrant tournament.  Here’s the old General’s words of wisdom:

Hi all, Jwolf here.  So last weekend we went down to San Antonio for the Alamo 40K.  Alamo events are pretty much my favorite – very old school, 5 games, played in a social hall where men who were old when Ike was president work the beer taps.  The atmosphere is relaxed and sociable, and good Mexican food is in easy walking distance.  Last year I played Tau and went undefeated (2 wins and 3 draws), so I figured I’d load up a new Tau list and see if I could do as well.  Turns out new Tau were sufficient to the task.

Here’s my list:

The Utility Belt

Commander, 2 Missile Pods, 2 Marker Drones, Velocity Tracker, Drone Controller.  Special Issues Smorgasbord of: Iridium Armor, Neuroweb Buzzkiller, Donkey Punch, Puretide Chip, Multispectrum Sensors.

Riptide, Ion Big gun, TL Fusion, Interceptor and Skyfire.

3 XV-8s, Double Plasma and Interceptor.

3 XV-8s, Double Flamer and Fusion.

13 Kroot, snipers and 1 hound.

8 Firewarriors, EMP.

8 Firewarriors, EMP.

12 Gun Drones.

7 Pathfinders.

7 Pathfinders.

3 Broadsides, all-missiles, 2 Target Locks, 1 Skyfire.  6 Missile Drones.

Longstrike,  Automated Repair, Sensor Spines, Disruption Pod.

Using The Utility Belt
What works best about the list is the super toolbox commander.  Yes, he’s really expensive.  He also breaks the rules like nobody’s business.  Need to ignore some cover?  He’s got your back.  How about taking some S8 hits in the face?  Deal!  And the Puretide Chip means that if you need to kill Monstrous Creatures or Vehicles he can greatly improve your effectiveness. He’s always able to do what needs to be done.

The Riptide is an amazing addition to the army as well.  5 wounds of jetpack monster with a 72” Ap2 S8 blast means that enemy elite forces are taking it in the chin from turn 1.  Old Tau were masters of long range firepower; with the new book it is very easy to end up with very little firepower outside of 36”, and the Riptide fixes that problem nicely.  I like him with Interceptor and Skyfire, as he can push to midboard and swat at flyers pretty easily.

And no Tau army that wants to bury anyone in bullets should leave home without the obligatory Salvosides.  The firepower these things provide in their bubble is ridiculous, and with 2+ armor and two wounds, they can be pretty hard to budge.

Troops in this list generally are in reserve to come in for objectives later as a plan.  In practice, I put them on the board to start in three of five games.

My tournament games were not terribly fun; I had the firepower advantage and won the roll for first every game, and I never had the initiative seized on me.  Going first is a pretty huge advantage for a firepower army, and I used that advantage ruthlessly. 

How The Utility Belt Performed

Round One I played an awesome Dark Angels player who made more saves than anyone could have imagined for two rounds of shooting.  He still died, but it was a pretty light-hearted game with a lot of laughs.

Round Two my opponent had a solid 5e Space Wolves army.  I had an amazing 5 story building in my deployment zone, practically custom built for Tau, and rained death on unit after unit.  Definitely one-sided and really demonstrated that the game has changed a lot in the past 12-18 months.

Round Three I played an Iyanden force with Eldrad added in.  I killed everything, but it was a close question to see if Eldrad would live through the game.  This game had the commander using Monster Hunter to have the Broadsides kill three Wraithlords very efficiently.

Round Four I played against a pretty scary CSM army, two Helldrakes and 2 psykers with puppet master.  My opponent set one unit of CSM and their psyker down in range of the salvosides, which meant I only had to deal with one of the psykers by the time he got to act.  The Riptide still got puppeted and killed some Broadsides, but eventually firepower won out.  One of the Helldrakes was actually armed with the Hades and killed Longstrike with it, very annoying.  Again the Puretide Chip was a big winner, allowing me to reroll to wound against the Daemon Prince on turn 2 and armor penetration rolls against enemy vehicles on other turns.  The Kroot outflanking behind the Aegis killed off two units of cultists to capture the enemy deployment zone.

Round Five I faced off against a fellow pure Tau list on table 1 for all the marbles. Worse, I was looking across the table at the theoretically more optimized Tau that Minus67 had brought.  He commanded an ethereal-led force, tons of Fire Warriors, 3 min-sized pathfinders and 2 Hammerheads + 1 Salvosides, 3 Devilfish.  I won the roll to set-up first, he set up to seize the initiative, and did not get his 6.  Longstrike put one enemy Hammerhead down, my Salvosides took out all but one of his suits and all of the missile drones, and the game took a fairly predictable arc.  The Kroot were my heroes, pinning a critical unit of Fire Warriors two turns in a row.  The target locks and multi-spectrum sensors were important here, one round I killed two Devilfish with this, and the next round I killed the Ethereal and his unit behind the Aegis line.

So that was my tournament experience at the Alamo.  I ended with a perfect battle score of 100/100, and barely won the overall.  I won’t be playing Tau for a while (I might play them at ATC; the jury is still out).  Overall Tau are nowhere near unbeatable, but they require changes to army construction and playstyle for most armies; this is a good thing for the tournament scene overall. 

Ethereal: What is best in life?

Shas’O: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.