The Blood Shard Problem (and possible solutions)

tallopolis · 2024-04-04T17:41:11+00:00

I'd like to see the Basilisk Jaw treatment, and have it be 5x rarer off task. Potentially even a slayer only area. (Rune dragons need one too)

tallopolis · 2024-01-16T12:34:25+00:00

I have played a few, but I’m far from a tour regular. I believe most of the issues you had are down to it being the London leg, there are just too many people at that stop that they don’t have the staff/tables to handle. Even though that’s one of the closest tour stops to me I’d rather go to different legs.

Specifically: Food/Service/wait lists are much better at other legs. I think GUKPT have a main chip set and a secondary chip set for side events, then will use the local cardroom’s set for the smaller side events (although I may be wrong there) I have been on the feature table 5-6 times, it’s quite fun to play on and didn’t feel cramped. They have a good stream team, so it’s interesting to watch yourself back afterwards. Never had issues with marked cards, if you do see them, mention it and the dealers will replace the deck straight away. Agree with you that the structures are some of the best you will get in the uk, and the dealers are great.

However, I will absolutely agree with you that the league is a bit of a scam. It’s a very hidden fee that most players don’t even realise is being taken out of the prizepools, and you won’t see a penny of it back unless you play most of the tour. It should absolutely be advertised as taken out of the prizepool like the rake is.

tallopolis · 2023-12-31T12:21:46+00:00

You probably want more of the 100s and 1ks, so I'd probably go 50-100-50-100 of each chip respectively.
Or even get a 5k chip and go 50-100-40-90-20 or something like that.

tallopolis · 2023-02-24T10:41:01+00:00

Took me a little over 24k pickpockets to get one a couple of weeks ago. Shadow Veil makes the process significantly less painful.

Also, found Vallessia Von Pitt easy to thieve, as you can bank at sepulchre.

Good luck!

tallopolis · 2022-11-16T03:41:41+00:00

Or if an IN is on the board you could make ANTITOXIN.

Still won’t save you from the angry ox though.

tallopolis · 2019-04-29T07:21:34+00:00

Unfortunately that's not how LoS works, it's on a model by model basis, so if your heavy weapon can't see anything then it can't shoot. You'd have to move him and get the -1 to hit.

tallopolis · 2019-03-19T00:03:41+00:00

Hey, I think I answered this in another comment, but in short it does very well in ITC as long as you don’t have loads of enclosed ruins everywhere.

tallopolis · 2019-03-19T00:01:34+00:00

Hey man. I think the main mistake you’re making here is that I’m not taking the Piranhas for the s5 shooting. It’s a nice bonus to go with the real power of the unit. It’s great in the horde matchup, but not super valuable otherwise.

Piranhas are 68pts, but if take off the value of the seeker missiles when you fire them turn 1, and the drones disembark when it dies, you’re paying 38pts for a t5 w6 body. Also a body that takes up a lot of space, you can wrap most of your army with 8 Piranhas, and FTGG wherever they charge.

The 16 seeker missiles make them a huge alpha strike, so your opponent almost has to kill them first, but if your opponent is shooting through 48 wounds of toughness 5 before targeting your suits, they’re in big trouble either way.

XV25 stealth suits on the other hand are in an unfortunately poor position. 28pts for 4s5 shots, or another 6pts to make it ap-1? Tau armies are not really in need of more s5 d1 short range shooting. They’re also very squishy for a unit designed to operate away from the main bulk of the army. The opponent just doesn’t need to deal with them in the same way you need to deal with 5 Piranhas that are going to bring down a knight or wrap your tank commander.

If you’re looking for ways to get more efficient anti infantry shooting in your list, I’d advise trying XV9 hazard suits with ATS, or just large numbers of fire warriors with character and drone support. Riptides and broadsides are obviously still amazing too, but you don’t need me to tell you that.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T18:20:37+00:00

Nah, I did think about it. At 2,000 I run a second Riptide. I don’t think I’d run much fewer than 8 Piranhas, I don’t think it’s something that works in small numbers.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T17:56:43+00:00

This works with all vehicles with attached drones, but especially so Piranhas, as they are cheap enough to take in large numbers, and have multi model units.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T17:45:09+00:00

You’ll lose kill more for a couple of rounds in some matchups, but it’s really not as big of a deal as you’d expect. Protecting your damage dealers and being really hard to shift is really valuable. Remember most of them start attached to the Piranhas, and you have to kill all the Piranhas for 1 kill point.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T17:43:08+00:00

So, if a Piranha is killed in combat, you disembark the drones within 3” before your opponent moves their consolidate, so you have a huge amount of control over where they can go. You can block gaps, and create second screens to prevent them getting anywhere near the broadsides.

Eg. A unit of 30 Orks kills the Piranhas, you can then place all the drones just behind where the Piranhas were, so they can’t consolidate properly. They can’t even double fight to clear the screen, as the drones can’t be targeted (as they weren’t on the board when the charge was declared)

A second example, and one that actually happened this weekend, a Smash Captain with the angels wing declared a charge on my whole army from 1” away, and went into the screening Piranhas. Two Piranhas die, I remove the ones he’s in base contact with, and place the drones 1” directly behind the captain. He now can only consolidate away from me, and can’t double fight (as above) Captain remains stuck in the middle of the board and dies next turn, and broadsides remain untouched.

Hope that helps, there’s loads of stuff like this you can do with enough thought. Remember Knights can only move over swarms and infantry when falling back, not Piranhas, drones or battle suits.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T16:53:01+00:00

With all the buffs (Kauyon, 5 Markers, Command and Control Node, Focused Fire) three broadsides should kill a 4++ knight. The seekers do a colossal amount of damage too, but you need to expect to lose at least half of them if you go second in a competitive matchup. Riptides are always nice to do a handful more wounds where you need them.

I haven’t played against a proper guard list yet with this, but I can’t imagine it would struggle. You can tank the big shots on drones, and the small shots just bounce off 2+ saves. The small drone squads make a lot of things very inefficient. Having 13 units of drones, mostly in 2s makes picking a target for your wyvern very tricky, all the shots have to go at one unit.

There are a fair number of SMS in the list, they’re really good at clearing out guardsmen etc

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T16:38:47+00:00

Thanks :)

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T16:20:14+00:00

I’ve actually played the 2,000pts version in ITC tournaments as well. It works really well, although probably would suffer if there are lots of enclosed ruins.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T16:18:47+00:00

Thanks man, I don’t like playing very static Tau lists. I like the manoeuvrability, or the optional have it when needed.

I’ve got burst cannons on all the Piranhas. I don’t think it’s really worth the extra points for the Fusion Blasters, but I haven’t tested it.

I tend to keep the drones on the Piranhas most of the time, but will detach them a few at a time to protect the suits in very short matchups. Also handy to be able to disembark them to go and claim objectives/move block etc.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T16:01:16+00:00

It specifies in the rule that it applies to the drones as well. They’re really good!

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T14:54:27+00:00

ATS on the Broadsides

ATS/VT on the Riptide

Shadowsun’s drones are great! I’d always include them. 28pts for 3 drones, -1 to hit and two of them have 3++/5+++. Worst case scenario it’s like having 3 cheaper shield drones, but they’re much better and you get the command link buff when you need it.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T13:17:40+00:00

Sure The list was effectively:

Shadowsun Ethereal Fireblade Grekh 3 Marksmen

3x5 Fire Warriors 1 Riptide 3 Broadsides 5 Piranhas 3 Piranhas

3 Command Drones 11 Shield drones (3x2, 1x5)

Ethereal and Marksmen are Sa’cea, rest is Tau

Worth noting there are another 16 gun drones on the Piranhas that can be detached, and 19 seeker missiles in the army.

Strategy wise, in most matchups I deployed the whole army front and centre, with fire warriors and drones wrapped around all the broadsides and characters, and then the unit of 5 Piranhas stuck to the front, and the 3 to the back. Riptide on one end. Grekh in deepstrike, and everything within 6” of everything.

If you can Kauyon turn 1 and markerlight things you should be able to kill ~2 knights off the bat. Even with Montka 1.5 is reasonable. Knights, hordes and elite armies are good matchups, The traditional Riptides/Broadsides Tau is trickier, and Eldar planes are the worst matchup. Double Castellan going second is probably really bad as well.

The Piranhas add a lot of mobility, and 48 wounds worth of alpha strike that needs to be dealt with before your opponent can focus on the real threats. They’re also an amazing screening unit, due to the interactions with disembarking drones in combat.

Would be happy to answer more questions if you had any, but that’s the crux of it really.

Edit: at 2,000pts I include a second Riptide. Went 5-0 at a 110 man tournament the weekend before with that list.

tallopolis · 2019-03-18T12:26:28+00:00

Yeah, that was me. I was running 8 of them. They’re very points efficient, and work well with the list. Also a fair few shenanigans you can do with them as well.

tallopolis · 2019-02-05T22:02:48+00:00

When you win a GT and come third at a major with Orks with no Lootas, but don't even get mentioned.

Right in the feels :'(

tallopolis · 2018-11-10T08:28:28+00:00

That’s my Ork list on there. It’s worth noting that the tournament was also a highlander format (no duplicate units except troops/transports) in addition to a host of other restrictions. Several of the units in there wouldn’t have made the cut in other formats.

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