Tyranids Vs Tau

By TheGraveMind

So the week before the new codex came out, I got a game in against tyranids with my tau. I talked to one of the other premier Tyranid tournament players and we set up a game. I hadn't faced him running his Nids before, and as a Nid player gone Tau, I wanted to see how I could handle it.


We both declined the relic, and instead rolled up emperor's will, with dawn of war. We had night fighting first turn due to his warlord trait, while I got sky fire for a turn. I took first turn on the roll.

 We were so busy talking about our anticipation for the new Nid book, that I didn't put my 2+ save commander in front of my sniper squad like I normally do. I figured no harm, I'll move him up when I move. He seizes on me, moves up his hiveguard, 4 shots hit and wound, ignore my 2+ cover save and 4 sniper drones dead. Losing 12 BS5 sniper drones from turn one hurt, and made it much more of a struggle taking down his TMCs.

On my turn I move some missile pod suits to the side to get LoS on the hive guard and kill them. My quad gun fires into his harpy that moved up, and with my suit commander attached, kills it straight out. Fire warriors and broadside kill most of the lead gaunt squad.

On his next turn his outflanking warriors come in led by a prime, as do his ymgarl. But Doom does not, which is a big hurt as he would have taken most of my fire power. Instead I intercept most of his ymgarl down to about 3 left alive, and put some wounds on the prime/warriors from my riptide. Mean while he moves his second harpy up and kills more fire warriors. On overwatch I kill all but one ymgarl, and cause him to be out of range.

I can't risk his large warrior squad hitting into my side, so after trying to thin them down, I have to fire a sky ray into them, and 6 S8 shots downs the whole squad. I take a risk and fire the second sky ray into his hive tyrant, but he makes all of his cover saves. I then fail to kill off the harpy that was closer, and only put a few wounds on it. My over watch doesnt' kill it, and I lose combat by one, and run get swept and lose my Trick commander. The lone ymgarl manages to blow up my sky ray that had shot at the flyrant.

 His doom comes in next turn, but my Interceptor just does enough to make him fail 3++ and kills him before anything else. I use my warlord trait giving my riptide skyfire for the turn, with ripple fire meaning I'm firing 4 plasma shots and 3 ion shots into his tyrant, but I either still fail to hit, to wound, or he makes cover since he made it up to my defense line. I am able to kill the harpy and some more gaunts. My back field Suits move up to his gaunts on his objective and clip a few with flamers, and will most likely get the squad next turn. His midfield tervigon has to pull back to try and save the gaunts.

 

So by this point on Turn 4, He has his tervigon and wounded tyrant left, and some gaunt, while I still have most of my fire power still chugging along. We both have our objective, we both have line breaker so it is down to me with first blood and him trying to snag my ethereal for warlord/bonus VP. He assaults with his gaunts, the last ymgarl all trying to drain my overwatch before his tyrant assaults in. I'm able to kill enough off and keep my overwatch, and when he declares his assault against my ethereal, my riptide is able to finally put that last wound on him with plasma rifle fire.

Overall it was a pretty rough and close game, he definitely took a pounding, but really kept the pressure on me. Losing sniper drones and my commander to mistakes really hurt, and not prioritizing the MCs correctly cost me a lot, while for him not throwing both harpies in my face may not have worked out the best, and not getting all reserves that turn hurt him a lot as I would have been forced to let the ymgarl assault me and kill doom instead.

Of the list he took compared to the new book, he lost Doom in a Pod, and the ymgarl, and really gained nothing. If he tried this again with the new book, I'd have a lot less pressure on me, and I could still easily take down his harpies and flyrant along with outflanking warriors just fine.

I'm hoping after he tests out the new book a bit, we can get another game in and see how it goes. Anyone else doing a before and after with the tyranids? Can they still keep the pressure on like they used to?