2500 point game vs a friend SM with Tau ally

[Rafici]

Ok so think will be our first game of 6th edition. We have decided to not have fortifications and I will be the only one with a flyer. I believe he will take GK and IG as the ally (KG will be henchmen heavy)

So my list
HQ: Lib with termi armour, 2 powers (gonna have a go at swapping these to see what other powers are like so Idea on which ones to go for would be great - playing in 11 hours time) and a storm shield
Elite: dread with 2 x TL autocannon + drop pod with DML and beacon
Elite: 7 termis with CML ( wanted to try them instead of assult ones I usually field)
Troops: Tactical squad with ML, flamer and PW with Razorback with las/plas combo.
Troops: tactical squad with ML, flamer, PF in drop pod.
FA: Land speeder typhoon
FA: Stormtalon - thought I would try Skyhammer to see what it is like.
FA 6 man bike squad with 2 meltas and a PF + attack bike with MM
HS: 2 x vindicators

Ally: Tau
HA Fireknife but add iridium armour (the 2+ will help ignore all those PW he will have) and a shield drone
Elite: 2 x fireknifes
Troops: 10 firewarriors in devilfish with disruption pods
HS: 2 broadsides

It is about 1900 points of SM and 600 points of Tau.

What do you think. This is a fun game so the aim is to test out new rules not win. I like the idea of Allies as making an army is now so much more intersting.

[juggulator]

not really enough troops. (can't believe I'm saying that) But yeah, only 20 tac marines and 10 fire warriors at 2500 seems very low.

[Rafici]

In the end we roles the 5th Mission.

At the end of turn 5 we both held our own objectives, I got first blood (1VP), he had killed my warlord (plus the termi squad he was in) =1VP and I had a VP from having things in his half.

We started to play turn 6 but after his turn he had done nothing, had no chance of getting into my half and I was about to remove his men from his objective and take it myself (prob to be contested in Turn 7)

We called it a day but learnt some interesting things.

I have a game on Sunday at the same points level against SW.
Not sure what rules we will play as we are trying to do some rules at a time.

In a game where there was a lot of objectives, my troop count could have hurt me but in this one I still had 19 of them left at the end of the day.

TBH On turn two I have the termis with both HQ's, The drop pod with tacticals and the battlesuits, as well as the flyer all come in and I put them all straight infront of him whilst the troops and vindis flanked him. It took him two turns of fighting to win the middle but by that pont I had roled over his flank.

Looking forward to the next game but Tau works very well with SM. It brings things SM lack!

[juggulator]

Yup, they do, I recently ran a Blood angels list that had guard allies.

1750 BA (100 with IG (75

HQ- 175
Death Company Tycho- 175

Troops- 425
5x Death Company, 2x Power Weapons, Hand Flamer, Lemartes- 290
1x Death Company Dread, HF, Blood Claws- 135

Heavy Support- 400
Storm Raven, MM, AC- 200
Storm Raven, MM, AC- 200



HQ- 165
5x Company Command Squad, Astropath, 3x Plasma, Chimera HF/HF- 165

Elites- 65
Marbo- 65

Troops- 260
10x Demo Vets, 3x meltaguns- 130
10x Demo Vets, 3x meltaguns- 130

Fast Attack- 260
2x Vendetta Gunships- 260

IG can cap points and be pretty valuable in a pinch. Might seem like a lot of anti tank but it has 4 flying units which helps.

[Rafici]

Nice. Thats the interesting bit. How many points do you give to the ally before you weaken the main army to much.

[juggulator]

That's been my struggle as well. What do you think?

[Rafici]

It depends on the ally. The whole point of taking an ally is to access something your army lacks.
For a tau ally I wanted broadsides to kill AV - S10 shot with a rerole that add two onto the the penitrating table wipped away everything they shot at (although I wish I could have target lock to shot 2 things. - not sure if a team leader means one can use the precision shot rule?)
So to get them I needed to spend about 300 points. = firewarriors + devilfish with disruption pods (this turned out to be a great unit for attacking the enemies objective as in my SM list they focused on the scary things and he left it too late to attack the devilfish)
And I also needed a battlesuit - choosing a fireknife for that plasma goodness!
To that was 300 points (and most HQ's and troop choice will come to somewhere around there if you make them usable - could be less than 200 if you kept them cheap to sit and hold an objective)
On top of that you need the unit you really want from that army - mine was broadsides at 180 points.

But thats 500 points to get access to what I want, so its prob best to go with 2 great units, in this case I choose the elite fireknifes.

I don't think anything under 500 is worth it and 600 would be about the right amount in my view but could see up to about 700 points.

I really don't think you should have more than about 1/4 of your points in the allies - otherwise you might as well play the other army and both are not at full force (armies work best when working as a team - Your allies need to improve the team and not work outside the team)

What I really don't get is the need for a 2nd FOC over 2K
I used to field up to 3K in 1 FOC and now I can have an ally to help with that. There is really no need for the 2nd FOC unless your posibly Nids!