Scenario: Dawn of War (or similar), Any mission type
Enemy forces: Anything that wants to assault you. So anything.
Dawn of War is my least favorite deployment type, by far. For one, I need Adv.S.S. on my Broadsides almost exclusively because of it, I can't light things up first turn, and I have to deal with Night-Fighting when trying to hit enemy transports. Dawn of War also effectively shaves a turn off the game, a turn needed to whittle down the enemy before moving out to contest, capture or finish the enemy off. Those problems, coupled with the ability of problem HQs such as Daemon Princes (One of the only units in the game able to assault through the 18" barrier thanks to Lash) being right up in your face first turn, leaves a lot to be desired for as a Tau general.
Assuming that you gain first turn, you want to take advantage of the fact that the enemy has to deploy 18" away from you, whilst being wary of Infiltrators. You also want to set up in a way that disallows prospective Infiltrators from getting behind your lines.
The main idea behind this formation is that you will deploy your forward Kroot formation up, but leave the majority of the enemy forces far back and the deployed ones dead, whilst forming your castle. The formation starts like so:
In the back, we see the beginnings of the castle; Shadowsun is on board, giving you at least the semblance of a threat to vehicles, though a small one at that. Your backfield Kroot are set up in their standard shielding position, giving cover and slight assault protection to your incoming units.
The forward Kroot are deployed far up, to push the enemy formation as far back as they can go. Each model provides an 18" buffer against the enemy.
To illustrate just how much of the board is covered by this formation, I've put together this picture below. The blue area is made up of a group of circles with 18" radii. No enemy can deploy in the blue area, and none can infiltrate there if they are visible.
As you can probably tell, this covers quite a bit of the area on the map. The only enemies your opponent will be able to target when he comes in are the Kroot, and only the deployed troops will be able to rapidfire them.
Finally, on your first turn, you bring in your castle and aim to hit whatever is on the board (night-fighting will nerf almost all shooting here).
Depending on preference, you can either leave your forward Kroot up as a skirmish line (a role in which they will probably perish), or fall them back and keep them close by.
From here on, the formation plays like the Pitched Battle castles. Block and shoot.
Thoughts?/Questions?/Responses?/Critiques?
9 comments:
good advice. I'm interested to see what happens if you get deploy second. When I played against my friend playing blood angels I ended up holding everything in reserve. Still got wiped out but at least he couldn't shoot at me, and didn't know where I was positioned in turn 1
Second Turn requires the sacrifice of a Kroot unit, but is still playable, albeit at a slight disadvantage.
You don't like DoW?
Interesting.
With Templars, it is very annoying. You are a mêlée army you have to cover much of the board to beat face.
That makes Annihilation hard against someone who has no reason to close with you.
C&C is also frustrating. Joe Foe has his objective all but off the TT and you have to cover 48" to get there, unless he hasn't killed your 2 TROOPS + HQ, which can reduce the distance to 24-42" away.
This makes Seize Ground the only desirable mission for a mêlée army.
With a shooty army, DoW can be good. Very good.
If you deploy first, you push his guys back to within 6" of his edge.
You have gained 6" more than you would with Pitched battle set-up against his initial forces, and 12" more against the rest.
T1: Kroot long shoot they enemy TROOPS [providing they are foot]
The rest of your forces come on.
12" for Fish chassis. 24" for Piranhas [if warranted] 6+d6" for Infantry.
Suits 12+d6"
End of T1, his stuff is in position [12ish" on] and so is yours. Night fight done with.
You have 24+" between you and him, just like if you deployed via Pitched Battle.
As most guys rush-to-crush Tau, one less turn for them to cover the TT.
Not good or good?
If he deploys first, his initial force gets mugged by your whole army,
AND
you come on so you can be in range of his initial force with Suits and Fish chassis but also as far away from the bulk of his subsequent forces.
For example, playing against Templars:
Imagine a clump of Rhinos in the middle.
1] He brings his guys on to the left of them. So you attack his Rhino clump from the right.
The distance between you and his subsequent forces is increased.
2] He brings his guys straight behind them. You can still attack from the right [or left] and the distance [being a triangle] is larger.
or
you can deploy directly in front of the Rhino clump and his subsequent guys will have to drive around their carcasses. Also increasing the distance.
3] He brings his guys on in two parts and on either side of the Rhino clump. He is now as close as he can be to your guys with one part, but quite far away with the other part.
Beautiful! Destroy him in detail!
I think ASS on your Broadsides is not great, tbh.
You walk on T1.
Even with Acute Senses, you'll not really be able to see anything but his initial forces. That might be handy if he has deployed Rhinos [which he probably has] but hardly great if also deploy infantry.
Your Suits should be able to take 2 TROOPS plus HQ. At best that'll be 3 empty Rhinos or a Rhino+squad+HQ.
You don't need Broadsides shooting to take that out, surely?
Even if you don't by bad rolls, if his guys are in the middle of the board, you still get another crack at them in T2, because his subsequent guys are only just getting there, and your Broadsides are shooting by now.
I much prefer Targeting Array for the same points.
Anything that will catch your Broadsides by covering the TT to get to them is either out of turns to do anything or is so fast that waddling d6" per turn isn't going to help all that much anyway.
I know that is a generalisation, but for the majority of the time, I feel it is true.
TA gets them hitting 8/9 instead of 3/4 -> 89% instead of 75%. Yum!
Versus AV11.
TA. 8/9 x 1/6glance x 1/6 destroy = 8/324 +
8/9 x 5/6pen x 3/6 = 120 + 8 = 128/324 or 39.5%
.
3/4 x 1/6 x 1/6 + 3/4 x 5/6 x 3/6 = 3+45 = 48/144 or 33.3%
an extra 6.2% which is quite a big increase.
Whilst you can never really make up for a turns shooting, your force *should* be able to deal with his initial guys without the Broadsides, and his subsequent stuff should be out of range due to Night Fight.
Versus AV14
8/9 x 1/6 x 1/6 + 8/9 x 2/6 x 3/6 = 8+48 = 56/324 or 17.3%
.
3/4 x 1/6 x 1/6 + 3/4 x 2/6 x 3/6 = 3+18 = 21/144 or 14.6%
merely 2.7% better
+++
TA actually brings an increase in effectiveness that is uniform across the board, as nothing else changes.
3/4 is only 84.3% as effective as 8/9
THAT IS HUGE!
27/36 versus 32/36
Every 36 shots [lol] the TA gives you another 5 effective hits.
If it were a neat 6 more from every 36, that would mean out of 6 shots the TA is giving you an extra hit. So you get an extra hit in each game.
Sounds useful to me ;)
What do you think?
What list are usually playing?
Oops, found it.
Personally I always equip my broadsides with TAs. The ASS barely helps in dow and is a waste in other games. The TA means u get the most out of them before they inevitably get deep strikers looking for them. I also give them a couple of shield drones. Expensive but worth it on such a valuable unit.
Not only does it protect u from lascannons but also often means a CC unit will take longer to finish the broadsides off.
Nice blog. I'll have to add it to my list. Only found it today cos of OSH. I really should get a tau blog up and running but I'm too busy with my SW one!
I used to use TAs, but with a position like this that likes to push its way upfield, I'd rather have the movement of the Adv.S.S. to keep them with the pack.
Depending on the terrain, a good S&P roll can be all you need to gain LOS, or ignore the cover granted by terrain.
Also there is my constant fear of those enemies that can cause havoc on their first turn of DOW, and I'd like to be able to pound those problem units with Railguns or SMS.
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