Laying traps: Spearhead, Deployment

Spearhead deployment is one of the simplest styles of deployment for Kauyon Tau. Save for against outflanker heavy armies, the Tau normally can come out on top in this deployment type.

That being said, this deployment type can be tricky in the later turns… it is not how you act early on that will give you the advantage, but how you react. Due to the nature of Spearhead deployment, enemies can come from above or from the sides.

Fortunately, most opponents favor a flank to attack from, so it is not too difficult to find a weak flank to push. Deciding where to push is an important skill for a Tau force, and I’ll be going over the tactics of “pushing a flank” at a later date.

Deployment is rather simple; you spread your Kroot walls around your formation, making a quarter-circle around your firebase, with any overlap in the middle of the curve. This partially overlapping wall will shift towards the biggest threats as the game goes on.

The reason for this formation is that the enemy is able to attack from a multitude of angles in this game type. The position of the Kroot Walls allows for you to stay in a fully reactive formation until your opponent commits his units to a goal. Once your opponent shows his hand, then you can commit your walls to suppressing him.

The rest of the castle acts normally/as shown. Crisis Suits up front, ‘Sides in back, Pathfinders supporting, etc.

This formation has two possible outcomes. Either:

-You eliminate the enemy forces that attack from above your position. You will get into the position that Mont’ka players brag about; you are on the short table edge, using your superior range to pound away at the enemy across all 6’ of the board.

-Alternatively, you could end up destroying the force that started the game deployed. This position is more high-risk/high-reward as it puts you right in front of the enemy’s reserve units, but also gives you the center board and the ability to get into rapidfire range with more ease.

These situations rely almost entirely on your ability to pick which flank to attack and do so effectively. If both flanks prove too strong/you get unlucky/you pick wrong, you can be pushed into a contracted position in your corner. Whilst this is not the end of the world, it is important to note that you will lose a large amount of mobility.

If you are put in this corner, a crafty opponent will pound your walls, attempting to trap you behind them as they score. Again pushing the flank becomes necessary as an escape, and if you fail for a second time, you will almost definitely lose.

Laying traps: DOW Deployment 2 (2nd Turn Deployment)

Scenario: Dawn of War (or similar), Any mission type

Enemy forces: Anything that wants to assault you. So anything.

This deployment option attempts to form your castle as quickly as possible, just like in every formation. The downside to this one is that you can be pushed back early on, giving you problems of space,especially if the unit pushing you back is an offensive threat (guess what particular HQ I'm thinking about).

Anyways, it starts out fairly simple; you move your Kroot into the outer shell of the castle, and wait:

Your opponent then gets a choice; should he fall back or attack you with his deployed unit? If the enemy falls back to regroup, he gives you time to build the full castle, which is bad. So in the next picture I assumed he ran up and attempted to rapidfire the first line. This would draw fire as his other nits came on board, and hopefully run off my first Kroot.

In the above picture, I assume he does not run off the Kroot, as it statistically is unlikely, but the formation doesn't suffer too greatly from the loss of the first wall. The proximity of the attacking enemy allows an almost certain death, even through night-fighting.

Your vehicles can't fit behind the wall nearly as well, due to your original castle being pushed back to 6" tall. Instead, they come in on the sides, and f you can gain midfield, they'll slink back into place. Piranhas move forward to get ready to melt or blockade part of the incoming force.

Blow the close by enemy to hell. It isn't as if you'll get anything else thanks to night-fighting.

The castle than practically plays as normal, save for a little less space.

Laying traps: DOW Deployment 1 (1st Turn Deployment)

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.

That all being said, I have come up with two deployment options for this dreaded scenario; one for taking the first turn and one for taking the second. This is the former.
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?

Laying traps: Pitched Battle, Deployment 3 (Heavy Deepstrike Defense)

Tossing this one up, as it is rather short.

Scenario: Pitched Battle (or similar), Any mission type

Enemy forces: Used against heavy deepstrike, namely Drop Pod forces, preferably little to no backfield outflankers, whatever for Outflankers and Infiltrators.

This deployment attempts to neutralize the advantage of deepstriking melta forces from wrecking your vehicles early on or killing off a squad of suits with no cover, or (in rare cases) straight up assaulting you.

The deployment looks something like so:

I do not show Fire Warriors here, but they sit by the middlemost Devilfish, and hop in to avoid trouble.

The Kroot make a full bubble around the forces, giving enough space between themselves and your vehicles that melta range cannot be established. The Crisis Suits are protected by cover saves, as melta will probably reach them regardless of position.

The rest of the game is simple... stay in formation, blockade against and fire upon the enemy as they appear. Once the remainder of the force shows up, you no longer need walls everywhere... meaning a Kroot squad can likely, but not always, be dedicated to assault or scoring in a devilfish.

Remember that Drop Pod armies specifically gain their ability at a cost; they are slow afterwards, meaning in objectives you can use Piranhas and Devilfish to threaten to score. Furthermore, Drop Pods are asking to be melted for easy points in KP games, a task that you can set your Piranhas and Shadowsun to, provided they don't take away from blockading and leading, respectively.

This setup is weaker (but not weak) to frontal attacks, so use it only when you expect heavy deepstriking forces. Luckily, this formation does not take long to move back to the traditional Pitched Battle setup if your opponent decides to drop empty pods or otherwise not deepstrike.

Furthermore, this formation suffers severely against backfield outflankers, leaving you two choices if these appear in your opponent's army in anything but minuscule numbers:

1. Push forward Turn 1, and deploy your Gun Drones as free walls against the threat.

2. Deploy in formation 2. This may leave you in a load of trouble, but you can likely push forward with ease if the enemy has backfielders and deepstrikers.

Thoughts?/Questions?/Responses?/Critiques?

Also, if you want me to respond to a particular deployment setup (such as a Battle Mission, a tournament mission, or any of the above where terrain bothered you, give me an example of what you mean, and I'll queue it up.

Laying traps: Pitched Battle, Deployment 2 (Backfield Defense)

Scenario: Pitched Battle (or similar), Any mission type

Enemy forces: Used against deepstrike (not fully deepstriking, but with some forces) and backfield outflanking forces (which can't be in its entirety), whatever for Outflankers and Infiltrators.

The idea of this formation is to setup against split formations using a partial forward force utilizing backfield outflanking or deepstriking force. These Hammer and Anvil forces will bypass a lack in backfield defense and hurt your heavy-hitters, or your mobile vehicles. I'm thinking of Drop Pod meltas or Wolf Scouts with the same.

Your deployment will look something like this:

Here, the deployment is mostly like the former one, yet instead of infiltrating the second Kroot line they are folded up in the back of your formation. This offers no extra defense against first turn deep-strikers, but will help protect your rear units as you move out.

As the rest of your force moves forward, the Kroot unfurl. Not including running, the Kroot can reach the positions below. 'Sides assumed 4", Pathfinders obviously scouted, Fire Warriors in tank.

Whilst this is not a perfect formation of the bat, it can help deter backfield outflankers and some deepstrikers. The seemingly empty space and "undefended" Hammerhead are some tricks I often use to try to cause deepstrikers to come down in that area, only to have them at best get the Hammerhead, and get killed, or at best scatter into oblivion. Whilst the Hammerhead would normally be used for mobile contesting later game, most deepstriking armies lack the continuing mobility for this to be much of a threat.

On the next turn, the position closes up fully, allowing a fully reactive defense of your firebase:

I show Piranhas moving out in this, but they don't have to at all.

Note how the Kroot are spaced out... Backfield Outflankers can't hit anything with melta besides Kroot. Furthermore, there is little Deepstrike room either; Fire Warriors can be redeployed to fill space if needed, but the safety of the Devilfish is useful here. The list than plays as normal.

Note that this is not made to stop a mass of deepstrikers or Backfielders, but it is a useful trick for delaying those disruption units and keeping hold of the game.

Thoughts?/Questions?/Responses?/Critiques?

Also, if you want me to respond to a particular deployment setup (such as a Battle Mission, a tournament mission, or any of the above where terrain bothered you, give me an example of what you mean, and I'll queue it up.

For future reference...

This is the list I will be using in my Kauyon deployment examples. It is a simple variation of my Kroot Wall list, giving up a few missiles for survivability.

HQ

Shadowsun -175

ELITE

Fireknife Crisis Team- Shas'ui TL w/ PR, MP, MT, HWDC; 2x Shas'ui w/ PR, MP, MT; 2x Gun Drones -211

Fireknife Crisis Team- Shas'ui TL w/ PR, MP, MT, HWDC; 2x Shas'ui w/ PR, MP, MT; 2x Gun Drones -211

TROOP

Fire Warriors- 6x Shas'la -60

Kroot-10x Mercs; 7x Hounds -112

Kroot-10x Mercs; 7x Hounds -112

FAST

Piranha Squadron- Piranha w/ FB, TA, FD; Piranha w/ FB, TA, FD -160

Pathfinders-6x Shas'la; Devilfish w/ SMS, DP -177

Pathfinders-6x Shas'la; Devilfish w/ SMS, DP -177

HEAVY

Broadsides- Shas'ui TL /AdvSS, HWDC, HWTL; 2x Shas'ui w/AdvSS; 2x Sh. Drones -280

Hammerhead w/ Railgun, SMS, MT, DP -175

1850

Laying traps: Pitched Battle, Deployment 1

Scenario: Pitched Battle (or similar), Any mission type

Enemy Forces: Very little to no Deepstrikers, Very little to no Backfield Outflankers, and preferably no Infiltrators, though the last one really matters little.

This setup is my standard for Pitched Battle, and is my go to deployment against direct forces (forces that prefer to be on the field turn 1, or come on on their side of the field, and either rush or shoot me). This covers the vast majority of armies in the competitive scene these days... Razorback spam coming to mind.

I've put together a picture of what my standard deployment would be:

I understand that his may be hard to see, so I've provided a zoomed version:

The units here are my standard 1850 Kauyon/Kroot Wall list, save for a change in HQ; Shadowsun has replaced the two Commanders, trading ablative wounds and a few missiles for a fully Leadership 10 firebase.

Anyways, the idea behind this is that, without the threat of backfield enemies, and the enemies only popping in on your flanks and front, your are fully protected.

You will note that the forward Kroot need to be infiltrated; this is normally not a problem, but enemy infiltrators can mess with this a tad.

This army will move upfield on Turn 1, and attempt to get into optimal range for your Crisis Suits as early as possible. The idea is to move your Kroot line up and mess with an opposing charge immediately, whilst bearing down on the enemy with your full firepower. When the enemy enters your sweet spot, you will fall back again, and continually hit him with rapidfire strikes.

Your first and foremost objective in this is to demech your opponent. Infantry is very little to no threat to you, as the Kroot wall will protect you from their assault and you can strand them midfield.

A picture of your movement:

Once you have sufficiently thinned out enemy resistance, any remaining Kroot as well as the Fire Warriors can now grab objectives.

In this picture I show no movement of the Pathfinders, but note that they can Scout up and not lose much in terms of firepower...just note that they may be left behind if and when you fall back, and that they could be in trouble if the enemy seizes.

Against similarly castled or shooty armies, sending in the first wave of Kroot to mess with your opponent is useful, as it will disrupt their formation whilst you keep your cover giving wall intact. Against barrage heavy armies, you would be wise to spread this formation slightly to avoid massive amounts of pie-plates.

That is the gist of that deployment.

Thoughts/Criticisms/Suggestions/Questions?

Laying traps: Deployment options for Kauyon

Deployment is a huge part of the game, and one that should be thoroughly understood.

It was once said that in chess that one should, "Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine". I honestly believe that this applies to 40k as well.

40k is, more than anything, about being in control of the flow of the game. Every time you are placed in a situation you aren't sure how to handle, your control can easily slip to your opponent.

If you allow this to happen before the first turn of the game, you will need to be ridiculously more skilled in every other area to pull off a win. And chances are, the difference won't be that large.

This segment is to give the deployments that, in my opinion, are the most effective deployment options for Tau in the majority of situations. Whilst every deployment option has its downsides and weaknesses, not every deployment option is a catch all deployment, which is why I will be looking at multiple different deployment options depending specifically on the deployment type, and the enemy units (specifically how they may deploy).

Note that I will NOT be taking into account terrain. This may seem odd, but it is important, as terrain is a constantly shifting part of the game, and I cannot account for every possible setting. Instead, these deployment options are made to be modular; models are not set in stone, and, for example, you are perfectly able to move your Broadsides to a better fire lane if there is terrain in their line of sight. Furthermore, terrain may (and should) be used to benefit you. Buildings and impassable terrain may make excellent Markerlight nests or roadblocks, while a forest becomes and obvious place to build your flak line.

The first of these will be up soon, and it will have pictures.