Aftermath is a companion series to Against the Grain. The goal will be to present Battle Reports of the lists we post in the Against the Grain series to show how well the armies performed. Some will be good, some will be bad, but hopefully they'll all provide some entertainment during your lunch break!
The Original List and What Changed
Just as a refresher, the initial list was built around the idea of using T'au seeker missiles to pour on mortal wounds in what would (hopefully) be a devastating alpha strike. The initial list can be found
here along with my rationale and some early results from testing. I made a few tweaks after those first two games to arrive at the list I have now. The Sky Rays, Sniper Drones and Marksman were dropped in favor of Longstrike and a Hammerhead with Railgun. While this cut down on the number seeker missiles, I think it greatly improves the long game while not severely hurting the alpha strike capabilities. It also let me break the Piranhas out into a separate detachment for an additional Command Point which was a nice perk. So here's the adjusted list:
Battalion Detachment
2x Commander: 4 Missile Pods, 2 Gun Drones
Kroot (15)
Strike Team (6): Shas'ui w/Pistol and Markerlight, Pulse Rifles
Strike Team (6): Shas'ui w/Pistol and Markerlight, Pulse Rifles
Outrider Detachment
Commander: 4 Fusion Blasters, 2 Gun Drones
3x Pathfinders (5): Pulse Carbines and Markerlights
Outrider Detachment
Longstrike: Railgun, 2 Smart Missile Systems, 2 Seeker Missiles
3x Piranha Squadron(3): Burst Cannons, 2 Gun Drones, 2 Seeker Missiles
Hammerhead: Railgun, 2 Gun Drones, 2 Seeker Missiles
Total: 1999pts
Test Games
I've played 6 games now with the modified list and am sporting a 4-1-1 record. So we'll run through the first three test games real quick before diving into the tournament report.
For the first game, I squared off against Robert Harp and his Adeptus Mechanicus. He runs a disgusting list that consists of a big unit of Castelan Robots that are backed up my Cawl and a Datasmith who provide rerolls and some wound regeneration. He foregoes any pretense of close combat and takes 3 Heavy Phosphor Blasters on each robot (usually running 5-6 robots) which translates to over 100 S6 AP2 shots with rerolls. This is a unit that can simply erase things from the board and unfortunately for me, I didn't have enough Seeker Missiles to wipe the unit in one go. This game was the one tie I had, there were four objectives and one relic in the center of the table. I was able to remove half of the robots with missiles so that really helped minimize the return fire, although the Piranhas still got shredded over the course of the game. It's been a few weeks now so I don't remember the exact details other than we each had 2 objectives at the end, the Relic was in no man's land still, and we each had two tertiary objectives (Linebreaker, First Strike, etc.).
Game 2 was against Jordan Brown and his Sisters army with Grey Knight allies. He had two melta squads mounted in Repressors which I forgot had that wonder pregame movement of 12". So I had two Piranhas squadrons get mauled early on but was able to protect most of my firebase as his long range shooting wasn't as strong as mine. Guilliman was doing his thing on Jordan's right flank. Fortunately for me, he never really advanced upfield, opting to stay back and buff the Dreadknights that teleported in. This was a tough game as Dreadknights are easily one of the toughest units to crack in the Imperium's arsenal. Seeker Missiles were able to do significant damage to one of the knights while weight of fire brought down the other with help from my commanders. Hard fought game but I was able to hold the two primary objectives and rack up some secondaries to squeak out the win.
Game 3 was against Matt Chiusano and his newly revamped Astra Militarum (Back in my day we called it the Guard). So this one wasn't your conventional list, Matt was sporting three Baneblade variants: Shadowsword, Stormhammer and Baneblade. Rolled for deployment and we got spearhead assault which let me attempt* to hide my Hammerheads towards the back along with my Piranhas. I seized initiative and moved my Pathfinders up to draw lines on the Baneblade sporting the most guns (it was A LOT of guns). Unfortunately, my Pathfinders hadn't been to the range recently and I couldn't get up to the magical 5 markerlights to get the +1 to hit. The Seeker Missiles whiffed magnificently and I was only able to knock it down to around 16 wounds, which was irrelevant as they were Valhallan and didn't degrade until they had taken an absurd amount of wounds. This game quickly turned into a beating, I wasn't tabled but it was a near thing.
QuestCon RTT
This past weekend, several members of the GCWA traveled to Mobile, AL for a first year convention that was sporting a 40K event as well. From the look of the convention hall and gaming area, this is a convention that's looking to grow and has the room to do it. The missions were modified to have an Attacker and Defender that would benefit depending on which primary mission was rolled. The Primary Objective was worth 9 points.
The 3 primaries were as follows:
1) Defender benefit: 2 Objectives in the the Defender's deployment zone
2) Kill Points by Power Level
3) Attacker benefit: 1 Objective in No Man's Land
The secondary objectives were the same for each game, three Relics dispersed across No Man's Land worth 2 points each. Tertiary Objectives were some of the standard rulebook/tournament staples: Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, First Strike and Big Game Hunter.
ROUND 1
Opponent: Mike Ooton
Army: Imperial Knights w/Catachan Allies
Opening round I draw Mike and his 3 Imperial Knights backed up by Stracken, 2 Infantry Squads and a relic toting, deep-striking Commissar with a big unit of Conscripts. Mike is a painter extraordinaire and had three beautiful Freeblades backed up by Catachan Jungle Fighters. Fresh on the heels of my beating from the Baneblades, I was really worried about the prospect of facing off against 3 Superheavies. He chose to be the Defender but fortunately for me, we rolled the mission that benefited the Attacker. The Primary objective was therefore placed just outside of my deployment zone, and the Relics were dispersed fairly evenly across the board with two on my left flank and the third on a hill to the right with Vanguard deployment.
Mike easily got the +1 to go first so I moved my Pathfinders and Kroot up into cover and onto the Primary objective, respectively. The two Infantry squads combined into one large squad and moved onto a hill to bring his lascannons into range of my Piranhas on the left. The Crusaders Opened up on the Kroot while offering potshots at my vehicles. The Kroot died horribly but they gave me a turn of not weathering Avenger Gatling Cannon fire on the more important units in my army. The Errant took a shot at Longstrike and knocked a few wounds off before failing a charge on a unit of Pathfinders. In the bottom of the turn, I deep struck my Missile Commanders into the middle of my line and sent my Fusion Commander off to the right to try and deal with the Errant. Markerlights and Seeker Missiles focused down one of the Crusaders with the Commanders finishing him off. The Fusion Commander landed a couple wounds but Mike rolled very well on his Ion Shield and only lost a couple wounds. Turn 2 saw the Errant take another shot at Longstrike while the remaining Crusader turned his Gatling Cannon on my Piranhas. **Note: The Gatling Cannon MURDERS Piranhas.**
My Fusion Commander was able to survive the titanic feet attacks with only 3 wounds taken (I also rolled hot on some 5+ saves). My turn 2 I was able to fall back with the Commander and bring down the Errant with weight of fire from the Fusion Commander, Piranhas and the Railguns.
At this point, it was just a matter of turning the guns on the last Crusader who valiantly fought on and crushed two of my Piranha units. He eventually fell and then it was mop up work on the Infantry.
I held Primary and one of the Relics while achieving all four Tertiary Objectives. Mike got First Strike off the Kroot.
Result: Victory 15-1
Round 2
Opponent: Warboss Hinkel
Army: Orks
For the second round I drew the Warboss himself, Anthony Hinkel, and his Speed Freak Orks. He may do his own write up but his list was Zhadsnark, Warboss on bike, 4x or 5x Warbikers(4), 4 Deffcoptas, 5 or 6 Warbuggies, a Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun, and 2x Stormboyz(10). All in all it was an incredibly fast moving army that could have caused serious issues if it managed to reach my lines.
Hinkel won the initial roll and elected to be the Attacker. He then deployed the three Relics very close to his lines for easy grabs by the Stormboyz. The roll for Primary was then very fortuitous for me as he rolled the Attacker mission, but had nowhere to place the Primary objective except right in front of my lines. His plan was to move up anyways so this wouldn't be an issue if he was able to win first turn and get into my face early. Fortunately I got the +1 to go first, even more fortunately we both rolled 1s so I got first turn.
Now as I have said, my list is built around the idea of removing one extremely high value unit on Turn 1 and then weather the rest of the game through sheer volume of fire and speed. But with Hinkel's army, there weren't any viable big units to focus on so I spread my markerlights around 3 of the warbike squads that were directly opposite most of my castle and stayed stationary with most of my army. The Missile Commanders again dropped into the middle of my lines for a Turn 2 Kauyon and my Fusion Commander saw an opening to drop in closest to Snikrot and did a suicide run on the opposite side of the table to try and get Slay the Warlord and First Strike in one go (he was not successful, but did a total of 12 wounds to the 2 Warbosses before being eviscerated). I was able to wipe out at least 2 of the marked warbiker units and put a couple wounds on the others. My Kroot moved up and sat on the Primary while my Fire Warriors spread out down the left flank to get angles on one of the Relics the Stormboyz were holding.
With his alpha strike charge effectively neutered, Hinkel had to keep to cover and try to hoard the Relics. He was able to crush the Fusion Commander and moved two wounded Warbiker units up to engage the Kroot and Pathfinders in the center board. He also pulled a cool move with Outflanking Deffcoptas and Warbuggies that arrived on each flank. I had counter-deployed well enough that they couldn't get deep into my lines but those that arrived on my right flank were able to seriously damage a Piranha unit with the opening salvo. Ork shooting saved me from what could've been a brutal ambush.
The following turn I was able to fall back from the Warbikes and declared Mont'ka with my Warlord who was within 6" of most of my firebase. This let me clear out the Warbikes, Deffcoptas, and the Warbuggies on my right flank. Submunitions took out a good number of Stormboyz and routed the rest. Hinkel brought in the rest of his outflankers the following turn but the game was pretty well decided at that point as the Stormboyz took their Relic and fell back to the far corner of the board. They died to Piranha fire but Zhadsnark managed to survive and sit on the Relic as the game ended.
I held Primary, 2 Relics, and had Linebreaker and First Strike. Hinkel held his Relic and achieved First Strike and Big Game Hunter by taking out a Piranha unit.
Result: Victory 15-4
Round 3
Opponent: Dylan Mosley
Army: Space Wolves w/Astra Militarum Allies
The third round was a matchup of undefeated armies. Dylan was running a very unconventional, but scary, list which included a Fire Raptor, Thunderbolt Fighter, 3 Quad Mortars, Grey Hunters, Logan and Ulric. Lots of rerolls for the air support and artillery had me worried. I won the initial roll and elected to be the Defender, deployment ended up being Search and Destroy which was convenient as there was a giant LOS blocking structure right in the middle of the board. We rolled for Primary and it was the Defender benefit mission. This was a huge stroke of luck as it meant he would have to come to me to get Primary, and his army was built to sit back and shoot.
So with all of that, I felt that I could pretty easily take primary but we both had a 3rd player nipping on our heels for top spot at the tournament so I need to rack up on secondary and tertiary objectives in order to get the top spot.
Turn 1 I focus all my markerlights and as many seekers as could draw LOS on the Fire Raptor as I felt that was the bigger of the two aerial threats. I was able to take it down while my Kroot advanced up into the middle of the Wolves. They picked up the Relic and charged into a unit of Grey Hunters to try and give them some protection from return fire. Return fire from the Thunderbolt severely wounded Longstrike but didn't knock him out which granted me another turn with his aura as the second Hammerhead was still unscathed. The game turned into a run and gun for the Relics as Ulric and a second Grey Hunter squad threatened the left most Relic, Logan smashed into the Kroot center board, and a third Grey Hunter unit retreated deeper into his DZ. Fighting on the left saw my Warlord exposed and gunned down by Bjorn, who was in turn taken out by the Fusion Commander as he fell back from Ulric achieving Slay the Warlord. Ulric chased him down and finished him off in CC before my last commander cleared the Relic of the last two Grey Hunters. I think Ulric survived on 1 wound.
Back in the middle, all Piranha units surged towards the Quad Mortars holding a ruined building now housing the deceased Kroots' Relic. Lots of pulse fire poured into the ruins and were able to remove two of the mortars before their crew jumped on the third Relic. Even though it was surrounded by drones, he was able to charge in and get into base to base contact, securing the Relic. Time was called at this point in what had been a very bloody game.
My Fire Warriors still held both Primary Objectives and I had been able to get all four Tertiary Objectives. Dylan held two Relics and had First Strike and Slay the Warlord.
Result: Victory 13-6
Conclusion
The 13 points in the final round gave me 43 for the tournament which landed me First Place by a single point! Second Place was a Death Guard army led by Mortarion and Third was his wayward brother Magnus and Tzeentch Daemons. All in all a great time with three fun games against great opponents.
So the final verdict for the Seeker Missile Tau? This seems to be a very viable army build. The alpha strike is potentially devastating for "centerpiece" armies and is capable of gunning down hordes with buckets of S5 shooting. It definitely has some weak points, particularly in longevity, but those will hopefully be mitigated by good deployment, positioning, and the devastating alpha strike. Even the Baneblade matchup could've gone much differently if my dice didn't go cold for the first round of shooting. I can't complain, this list was made to be unconventional and it ended up winning me my first tournament.
10/10 will run again, the only question now is do I experiment with Remoras instead of the Piranhas?
Until next time, thanks for reading! Keep rolling that hard six.
Tau'va
That will wrap up this Aftermath, let me know in the comments or on Facebook what you thought of the list and the BatReps. Constructive criticism is always welcome, let me know what you liked and what you didn't. Let me know what I did well and what needs improvement. Also! Here at Battle Brothers we plan to do more of these list techs so drop us a line on what you want to see next. Lots of new releases coming down the pipe so strike while the iron is hot!
