We had a great game on Twitch this past Tuesday! Here are the player’s post game thoughts:
Phat J’s thoughts:
Before playing the game against Frankie I was well versed on the amount of devastating firepower his list could put out. With 3 Riptides that could fire each of their weapons twice at different targets at an increased ballistic skill and two Stormsurges able to target 8 units per turn and fire twice if they anchored themselves I knew full well that even with the obscene amount of objective secured units my Battle Company provided Frankie had the ability to eliminate all of them in only a handful of turns. I knew that if the game were anything other than Kill Points primary, I had a really good shot of winning the game however knowing my luck I was prepared for the worst. My instincts rang true and the dreaded mission 3 was rolled so my 25+ kill point list prepared itself as well as it could to take on Frankie and his 9 kill points.
My initial strategy was to try and get the first turn so I could put as much damage onto his army as possible. Frankie won the roll to go first and elected to do so. I still had a really good chance of seizing the initiative with Coteaz allowing me to re-roll my seize and Frankie’s Stormsurges giving me the ability to seize on a 5+ instead of the normal 6+. With that in mind I deployed everything on the table , which would let me hit him with everything I had and even if I failed to seize the initiative he wouldn’t be able to focus all of his considerable firepower on just a handful of units which would increase my ability to survive the top of the turn. After deploying and using my Scout move, I found out that even with the Scout move with my Rhinos, I would still be out of range with all of my Grav turn one due to the Vanguard deployment. Things just weren’t looking good for ol’ Jason. I then proceeded to fail my seize attempts and funny enough then rolled two 5’s for my Maelstrom.
In a game like this the only option I had was to play to the secondary and the tertiary, as the primary was lost before the game began. The Battle Company is incredibly powerful but by taking it to a tournament you have to be prepared to play at least one game where Kill Points are the primary mission so it’s important to focus on the missions and not be overwhelmed by your many easy to kill units exploding before you. Predictably I lost a LOT of units in the first two turns, but with a little persistence, a lot of Grav, some accurate deep striking behind Frankie’s line of sight, and a ton of luck, I was able to hang in there and the game ended on turn 6 with a draw.
My takeaway from the game is that Tau firepower is absolutely devastating, especially with the new formations in the Kauyon and Mont’ka books. In the hands of an experienced general they will absolutely table opponents in a couple turns. Be prepared to see variations of Frankie’s list at tournaments throughout the next year.
The World’s Greatest’s Thoughts:
Last nights game was a great one. I was a little worried before it started due to how much Grav Jason was bringing. Once we rolled kill points I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders since Battle Company has so many kill points.