In the next campaign game for my Tau, we will be playing a 1250pt game. We will be using a Raid scenario from the 4th edition rulebook. Since I had a week or so to prepare for it, I figured I'd better do some homework. First off, let's look at the potential scenarios...

Ambush-- The Defender sets up in a column in the middle of the board, heading for one of the small board edges. The attacker can set up on that small board edge or along the long board edges, at least 18" away from the Defender's units. The Defender must get off the small board edge (the Attacker's Deployment Zone.) I think the Defender gets points for every unit that goes off the board edge, while the Attacker gets double points for every Defender unit destroyed.

Sabotage-- Defender sets up part of his forces in the center of the board with the objective. He has some of his forces in reserve, but cannot activate reserves until the Sentries are alerted (which can happen in several ways) The Attacker has to move into assault with the objective, and stay there until the next Attacker assault phase, at which point the objective is destroyed.

Bunker Assault-- Defender sets up bunkers and obstacles in the center of one board edge. The Attacker moves in on any of the other board edges. While this is a victory points game, there are bonus points for having control of each bunker at the end of the game.

Of these three, I'm pretty sure it'll be Ambush, since I saw one of the other pairs of players playing that one. If that is the scenario, my plan will be to set up on the edges (to avoid giving them an extra move closer to the board edge by assaulting me) and shoot the crap out of him as much as possible. I'm not sure yet what rules cover moving the Inquisitor off the board edge during the game, but any unit that has the Inquisitor will likely be my primary target, along with any fast assaulters or transports.

As the Attacker in a Raid scenario, I have a different Force Organization chart I need to follow. I must have at least 1 HQ and 1 Elite selection. I may have up to 1 more HQ and 2 more Elites, plus up to 5 Troops, 3 Fast Attack and 1 Heavy Support. It is basically to represent an elite, fast force. Sort of a Commando-type force. While I was tempted to load up on 60 FireWarriors for the mass dakka, I didn't feel that would really represent the sort of force that would likely be used for this kind of operation. While their firepower, particularly against Orks, is massive, they didn't fit the theme and would probably be too immobile.

The basis of my Tau Empire army is the Battlesuit. Each suit has mobility, firepower and armor. After looking at my options for a little while, I decided to concentrate on the Battlesuits. Given my opponent's army, he'll likely have a lot of lightly armored bodies on the board, so I felt the need to include some Firestorm Suits (Missile Pod/Burst Cannon) for lots of dakka. I could have included a few more of them, but I needed some more flexibility. In case of more heavily armored models, I wanted some Fireknives (Plasma, Missile Pod) and a Centurion Commander for a mix of dakka and anti-heavy infantry (Cyclic Ion Blaster, Plasma.) To shore up my options against heavy vehicles or heavily armored Nobz, 3 Broadsides will be joining the party as well. The Team Leader of the Broadsides also has target lock to allow him to target something other than what the rest of the unit is targeting.

My opponent plays Orks. While I figure that he'll likely have a mix of units and types, he'll probably have a fair number of bodies on the board. I do have some concerns, however. First, playing Orks, he might simply load up on as many Ork Boyz as possible and try to flood me. He could easily get more than 100 Orks in this size list, and still have room for a Warboss and a few toys. It would be really difficult for almost any army to deal with that many Greenskins. As a slight modification, he might put them all in Trukks, like an old Speed Freek army, which would give him a few less bodies, but a lot more speed. On the other end of the spectrum, he might have Mega-Armored Nobz (I seem to remember that if you take certain HQ choices, it allows you to take them as Troops. While there would be many fewer bodies on the board, trying to take down 2W T4 Creatures with an armor save of 2+ (and probably 5+ invulnerable, though I'm not sure) and Feel No Pain would be a nightmare. Finally, with a similar HQ choice to the last one, he might take a bunch of Biker Nobz. Although they wouldn't have the 2+ save, they'd have T5 and a 4+ Invulnerable save and be _way_ faster! All these could be pretty devastating, so let's take a look at what my force could do to them. I'll break each one down by kind of weapon and target, then I'll put it all together by teams, so we can see which does what, and at what range.

Note that the below numbers are the chances of a successful hit causing a Wound. I'll integrate the chances of hitting when I put them into the units. Instead of boring you with repeating the operation for BS3, BS4 and BS5, I'll keep it separate for now.

Plasma vs basic Orks: 5/6 to Wound with no save=0.83 Dead Orks
Plasma vs Mega-Armored Nobz: 5/6 to Wound x 2/3 Chance to Fail save. No Feel No Pain=0.55W
Plasma vs Biker Nobz: 2/3 to Wound x 1/2 to fail invulnerable save. No Feel No Pain=0.33W

Burst Cannon vs basic Orks: 3x 5/6 to Wound with no save=2.49 Dead Orks
Burst Cannon vs Mega-Armored Nobz: 3x 5/6 to Wound x 1/6 Chance to Fail save x1/2 Feel No Pain=0.21 Wounds
Burst Cannon vs Biker Nobz: 3x 2/3 to Wound x 1/2 to fail invulnerable save. 1/2 Feel No Pain=0.5 Wounds

Missile Pod vs basic Orks: 2x 5/6 to Wound with no save=1.66 Dead Orks
Missile Pod vs Mega-Armored Nobz: 2x 5/6 to Wound x 1/6 Chance to Fail save x1/2 Feel No Pain=0.14 Wounds
Missile Pod vs Biker Nobz: 2x 5/6 to Wound x 1/2 to fail invulnerable save x1/2 Feel No Pain=0.42 Wounds

Cyclic Ion Blaster vs basic Orks: 5x 1/3 to Wound with no save=3.66 Dead Orks
Cyclic Ion Blaster vs Mega-Armored Nobz: 5x((1/6 to Wound x 1/6 Chance to Fail save x1/2 Feel No Pain)+(1/6 to Wound x 2/3 chance to fail invulnerable save. No Feel No Pain.))=0.63W
Cyclic Ion Blaster vs Biker Nobz: 5x 1/6 to Wound x 1/2 to fail invulnerable save. No Feel No Pain=0.42W

Railgun vs basic Orks: 5/6 to Wound with no save=0.83 Dead Orks
Railgun vs Mega-Armored Nobz: 5/6 to Wound x 2/3 Chance to Fail save. No Feel No Pain=0.55 Dead Orks (Instakill)
Railgun vs Biker Nobz: 5/6 to Wound x 1/2 to fail invulnerable save. No Feel No Pain=0.42 Dead Orks (instakill)

SMS vs basic Orks: 4x 2/3 to Wound with no save=2.01W
SMS vs Mega-Armored Nobz: 4x 2/3 to Wound x 1/6 Chance to Fail save x1/2 Feel No Pain=0.22W
SMS vs Biker Nobz: 4x 1/2 to Wound x 1/2 to fail invulnerable save x1/2 Feel No Pain=0.5W

The teams and their effectiveness versus different targets...

Centurion and 2 Bodyguards: BS5 Cyclic Ion Blaster, BS5 Plasma, 2x BS4 Missile Pod, 2xBS4 Plasma.
Basic Orks: 7.04 Mega-Armored Nobz: 1.9W Biker Nobz: 1.62W

FireKnife 'El and 1 Bodyguard: BS5 Plasma, BS5 Missile Pod, BS4 Plasma, BS4 Missile Pod
Basic Orks: 3.74 Dead Orks Mega-Armored Nobz: 1.04W Biker Nobz: 1.13W

FireKnife team: BS4 Plasma, BS4 Missile Pod, 2xBS3 Plasma, 2xBS3 Missile Pod
Basic Orks: 4.16 Dead Orks Mega-Armored Nobz: 1.15W Biker Nobz: 1.25W

Both Firestorm teams: 2xBS4 Missile Pod, 2xBS4 Burst Cannon, 4xBS3 Missile Pod, 4xBS3 Burst Cannon.
Basic Orks: 13.82 Dead Orks Mega-Armored Nobz: 1.17W Biker Nobz: 2.07W

Broadside Team: 3xTLBS3 Railgun OR 3xBS3 SMS.
Basic Orks:2.49 Dead Orks OR 6.03 Dead Orks Mega-Armored Nobz:1.65 Dead Nobz OR 0.66W Biker Nobz: 1.26 Dead Nobz OR 1.5W

17 Models with lots of dakka of varying kinds and 14 of them with Jetpacks. Now _that's_ an elite force! We'll see how it works next week!

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