Dealing with 58+ S7 shots at 36" range [1850]

[Caitsidhe]

sorry - missed this bit [I]@40Kgamer - what other army can bring this volume of firepower and reslience in a single CAD? The only way AM can do this is with many autocannon heavy weapons squads and those fold like a paper napkin; Eldar CAN do it if they bring 8-9 wave serpents & continue to roll 6's for their serpent shield, eldar don't have access to the massive amounts of interceptor so are significantly more susceptible to deepstriking and if they're brining that number of wave serpents they've really got nothing to deal with AV14. Min-max wave serpents rings in at 1650 points with NO serpent upgrades taking (6) dire avengers & (3) banshees for the cheapest passenger units possible, "upgrading" one or two units of banshees to fire dragons to bust AV14 restricts HQ's & provides obvious target priority

I'm not 40K-gamer, obviously, but I thought I would take a stab at this. First f all, AM does far better than this. They don't have to approximate exactly the STR and volume of shots. They can spam a volume of shots with higher strength and larger blasts. I've fought AM (although I prefer to just call them Guard still) that could put down 20+ strength 8-10 Large blasts per Turn. Granted, this was a list tuned to the absolute hardest, but it follows the same logic as the Tau one. Variations on it had it spamming even more smaller blasts and many of them also ignored cover or had other crazy benefits. When it comes to firing for effect, the AM is just as nasty as the Tau (they just get there with a different look).

Then there are a huge number of variations based on spamming Dreads, Gravity Guns, and small arms. If you include Mortis Pattern Dreads and various other gun batteries and/or artillery you can supercharge any Space Marine army (as well as AM). Of course we cannot leave off the high strength spam special guest stars of this Edition, i.e. the bugs. The volume of fire provided by FMC shooting batteries which can in turn be backed up by squads of three MC gun batteries bearing down on opponents at high speed also bear special mention. Poison spam from Dark Eldar may not have quite the range and power but it kills just as effectively. Those hideous little mini-boats put down obscene amounts of power and you can spam them like there is no tomorrow. It only takes a few of them to survive (or go first) and you can blast most of the spamming shots from Tau off the table. Crisis Suits are, after all, not armor nor are any Riptides. Nothing says "up yours" to what look like giant robots than spammed poison shots.

While I agree that the specificity of Tau high STR volume seems hard to match shot per shot, you don't have to do that. You only have to match it for results and that isn't that hard to do. I don't begrudge the Tau players their cheese anymore because we now all live on the Moon and it appears the legends of it being made of green cheese are true.

[CoffeeGrunt]

This is why none of my Tau lists are built around a gunline, because A, it's unimaginative and dull, and B, that's not how they're meant to fight in the fluff anyway.

Historically I always play very aggressive lists that apply pressure turn one and start charging up the field, before Outflankers come in from the sides and surround my opponent. For anything less than a very aggressive opponent, it's terrifying seeing Tau being in your face Turn 3, unloading into your forces point-blank. Charging units with Riptides to finish them off is also very fun. It's always entertaining seeing someone setting up a Gunline, thinking we'll be trading shots from across the board all game...

Now I'm starting to trial Guard + Tau together, so I can finally run my Gue'vesa army. Tau section is a Farsight list that fights in the midfield and Outflanks into their Deployment, Guard hang back and hammer key targets with their heavy-handed firepower.

[DarkLink]

sorry - missed this bit 36.1" after nightshields=)

Nightshades don't extend the range of your guns. You mean 30.1". But Broadsides can still land a lot of hits snapfiring, and the Riptides will just tear you apart anyways.

Fortuned Beasts get shredded like space marines - they have to there to do any damage & once they cross into that 30" bubble, the broadsides become twice as effective as they get to add the SMS shots.

I'm not sure if you're entirely familiar with the shennanigans you can pull with a full beastpack. They were one of the nastiest armies in the game at the end of 6th for a reason, despite Tau's popularity.

[40kGamer]

QUOTE=clever handle;438948]@40Kgamer - what other army can bring this volume of firepower and reslience in a single CAD? The only way AM can do this is with many autocannon heavy weapons squads and those fold like a paper napkin; Eldar CAN do it if they bring 8-9 wave serpents & continue to roll 6's for their serpent shield, eldar don't have access to the massive amounts of interceptor so are significantly more susceptible to deepstriking and if they're brining that number of wave serpents they've really got nothing to deal with AV14. Min-max wave serpents rings in at 1650 points with NO serpent upgrades taking (6) dire avengers & (3) banshees for the cheapest passenger units possible, "upgrading" one or two units of banshees to fire dragons to bust AV14 restricts HQ's & provides obvious target priority[/QUOTE]

Caitsidhe addressed this earlier but I’ll add a little: S7 is not that statistically different from S6, both wound T4 on a 2+, both instakill T3 and neither are all that great vs vehicles… and Eldar are the masters of S6. Here’s an off the cuff 1850 Eldar list:

Spitirseer

5 x WG
1 x Serpent (TLSL)
5 x WG
1 x Serpent (TLSL)
3 x Jetbikes
4 x Jetbikes

5 x Dragons
1 x Serpent (TLSL)

6 x Swooping Hawks (Cause they’re cool!)
1 x Nightwing

3 units of 3 War Walkers (Either 2xSL or 1xSL/1xBL)

So in this list, depending upon how you load out the War Walkers you are running with 54-90 x S6 and 2-11 x S8 AP2 Lances, plus 3 x Serpent Shields.

The Wraithguard and Dragons murder vehicles/MCs within 12” and Hawks are one of the best harassment units in the game.

Let's not even get into the nasty gunlines that AM can build.

I'm not 40K-gamer, obviously.

Obviously… I smell like a wet dog and howl at the moon!

[clever handle]

Guard & Eldar really never give us that much trouble - as previously mentioned they don't have access to the large amounts of interceptor fire so reserves & deepstriking work very well, whereas against Tau... less than effective. Marine armies simply can't put out the volume of fire at range to be a threat, they also suffer from the same ability to be alpha-struck with reserves as these other two armies, and frankly grav guns get shut down when bogged down by low AV bodies - dark eldar troops & beast packs, cultists & spawn, orks, gribbly bugs, etc.

Either way, I don't want this to get too off topic & start discussing which army can build the best gunline, I'm here to figure out ways to circumvent the wall of missiles.

@Darklink - I know that lances don't effect MY range, consider sitting at TAU's effective 36.1" - we're saying the same thing. Sure, I'll lose (2) empty transports a turn from HBC riptides, that's the dark eldar's lot in life. Anyone who takes the ion accelerator has given me a huge boon. Vehicles target crisis suits as priority for instant death goodness, while staying the best of their ability out of range of broadsides - they all die like marines to lances, but poison kills riptides & crisis suits just as easily as marines so catching those mobile suits first is a matter of importance.

I'm very familiar with what beast packs "CAN" do. put the baron out front, drop some fortune & hope that they only shoot from that angle. Unfortunately suits can move and fire at ballistic skill, broadsides can move & use markerlights to get right back up there & as long as they can get an angle where the baron isn't up front you've got an average of 12 dead khymera per turn so tell me - how's that beast pack going to be effective? Its only saving grace is that if they're shooting it, they're NOT shooting the actual workhorses in this force - the raiders & venoms. Also, I think you underestimate my ability to roll two consecutive ones=)

[40kGamer]

Guard & Eldar really never give us that much trouble - as previously mentioned they don't have access to the large amounts of interceptor fire so reserves & deepstriking work very well, whereas against Tau... less than effective. Either way, I don't want this to get too off topic & start discussing which army can build the best gunline, I'm here to figure out ways to circumvent the wall of missiles.

Fair enough! Has anyone thought about hitting him over the head with 5 x Imperial Knights?

[This Dave]

Fair enough! Has anyone thought about hitting him over the head with 5 x Imperial Knights?

That was one of my first suggestions.

[DarkLink]

I meant that the beastpack is obscenely fast and can hide behind terrain, so the broadsides probably won't get to do much other than overwatch and one round of smart missiles, and just the crisis suits don't have that much of a punch... but if you're playing on a completely open table like it sounds like you are, you're doing it wrong anyways.

[40kGamer]

That was one of my first suggestions.

Whoops I skipped over that one! Great minds and all... :P It really is a good idea - shows a person how a themed army can not be all that fun to play against when it smacks you in the head!

[clever handle]

its not a completely open table in the STORE for the pick-up games, we actually have a fairly decent amount of LOS blocking terrain. Good luck hiding 15 models on 50mm round bases! I've said previously I honestly believe the dark eldar have all the tools necessary - if the player takes nightshields - to succeed against this army.

Eldar, I'm still not so sure of - wraithknights definitely are going to be effective here & with access to a ton of good buff & debuff powers I think they've got a decent chance of surviving the incoming fire.

Guard can sit back & trade shots, however I do think they'll struggle - and it will be almost literally the most boring game ever.

frankly I don't care about orks or bugs, but we haven't really discussed options for them at all; I'm not sure how daemons would fair either, I think slaaneshi stuff is fast enough & relatively cheap enough that it can cross the board, probably losing 50% of their numbers to the firepower but when they get there they'll tear it up.

Marines, well the answer does seem to be upgrade those heavy weapons to lascannons & sit back out of range. I do really think that drop pods is not the correct way to go as the turn you land you're reasonably looking at losing 20 space marines due to interceptor from the battlesuits & riptides.

Multiple imperial knights may work, but that's kind of a niche list & with the nerf to D-weapons I'm not convinced that they're all that great anymore for anything but survivability. I can confirm that one of our players has tried a 2x land raider crusader + (1) imperial knight build and hasn't found it effective - for whatever reason the knight just always seems to soak a tonne of firepower & then go down on overwatch=). We can't forget that this army construct is generally quite good at castling up & making use of supporting fire if necessary as their game-plan is generally "sit here and wait till I've crushed you before I move to claim objectives"