Can I never play Tau again please? Grey Knights vs. Tau Battle Report
Last time, I talked about my first encounter against Tau. Well, my next game was another game against Aeldari, but between taking several weeks off and not taking enough pictures, I realized there wouldn't be much for me to tell. So I'm skipping ahead to Rounds 11 & 12. Yes, I'm combining both rounds, because I ended up having to play BOTH Tau players in back to back weeks. With the second Tau player being the one that I did the playtest week against.
Both went about as you would expect.
Rounds 11 & 12: Grey Knights vs. Tau
I really did make an honest effort in both games, even though I knew how the games were going to go. In the first game, I didn't do a good enough job of hiding my Dreadknights. And my opponent had the Tau-equivalent of a Knight, so he just obliterated all 3 of my Dreadknights before I even got a turn. With my Warlord and a lot of my heavy hitters gone, I tried to focus fire on units to get them down, but Tau being Tau I didn't have much chances there. I think I conceded by the end of turn 2.
In the 12th round, playing against the same army as my Tau playtest, I realized that if I let the game get to Round 3+, I'd be screwed as the exploding dice came in. So my game plan was to try and score as many objective points as I could so that if I started struggling in Round 3, I'd have a decent enough advantage on points that would make up for that.
Didn't really go according to that plan. It's a solid plan, I just didn't execute it very well. 2 more losses, 5-7 score overall after month 3 of the league.
At this point, many of the people in the league had dropped out, tired of playing the same army after 3 months. So there was only a handful of people left. I decided that if I got paired up against a Tau person again, I'd automatically forfeit.
Why?
It's simply not fun. And it's not because I keep losing. I lose….A LOT. Warhammer 40K is one of the few games that I don't mind losing a lot because I'm still typically having fun while I'm playing. Even if I lose the match, there are still great moments that happen - like a couple of strike squad marines going up against a tank AND DEFEATING IT! Or that one last Terminator in a unit that keeps making his saves and just. Wont. Die! Which annoys the crap out of an opponent.
There have been 3 games, however, where I wasn't having fun. The first one was in my first crusade where I played against Harlequins. It was a 500 point game that took HOURS because the mission kept having us respawn. So the mission was to blame there. Even after that match, the organizers stated that they should have put a time limit on it because it was just watching my units spawn, die, spawn, and die over and over again. (This was also like my 4th game of 40k overall).
The other 2 games? These two. I don't keep up with the tournament "meta", but these felt like I was going up against tournament lists. And I felt like there was nothing I could do against them. I'll have to search around and see if there are any 9th edition battle reports of Grey Knights vs. Tau where the GKs win, but I'm scratching my head here. For me, it felt like they had tons of rerolls, so while they have even higher chances to hit my units, none of my attacks got through. IF I did some hits and IF I managed to cause some wounds and IF the Tau didn't make their save? Then just some drones would die and the unit wouldn't be affected that much. Sure, if I had somehow managed to take out their Warlord, then they would have lost most of their abilities, but see previous statement on why that was impossible.
What did I learn?
I'm actually excited for the new Command Point/Warlord trait changes. To me, it seemed like the perfect balance against these Tau lists, where they come to the game with only 6 of 12 CP because they've dumped so many upgrades on their list.
Time to work on a 2k points list. I tested out a list that added in a Storm Raven for some extra firepower, but it died real quick due to all the high Armor Piercing weapons that are in the league right now. Which means….
I'm so tired of losing so many units when I play. I play very aggressively normally, which works sometimes but lately has had me fall flat on my face. Now, I want to try doing something different….(stay tuned to find out what)
When have you not had fun in a game that you normally love? Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter/Facebook.