1500 tau army for newbie

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**simakover**

Hi, I'm a new player in the Warhammer and chose the first army - tau. in our club we play 1,500 points. main opponents - demons, Tyranids, Eldar, BT, DA. I'm not good at planning, help me to improve my army. sorry for my english, I'm from Russia.

current list:

1 Cadre Fireblade (HQ) @ 60 Pts
1 Ethereal - Warlord (HQ) @ 50 Pts

1 Crisis Shas'vre @ [104] Pts Command and Control Node; XV8-02 Crisis Iridium Battlesuit; Drone Controller
2 Crisis Shas'ui 'Deathrain' #2 @ [81] Pts Missile Pod (x2); Target Lock
6 Marker Drones @ [24] Pts

3 Crisis Shas'ui 'Deathrain' @ [57] Pts Missile Pod (x2); Early Warning Override

1 XV104 Riptide (Elites) @ 225 Pts Twin Smart Missile System; Ion Accelerator; Early Warning Override; Stimulant Injector

1 Hammerhead Gunship (Heavy Support) @ 190 Pts Railgun; Submunition Rounds; Twin Smart Missile System; Blacksun Filter; Disrutpion Pod
1 Commander Longstrike @ [45] Pts

1 Sky Ray Gunship (Heavy Support) @ 131 Pts Twin Smart Missile System; Blacksun Filter; Disrutpion Pod

1 Aegis Defence Lines (Fortification) @ 100 Pts
Quad-gun

11 Fire Warrior Team (Troops) @ 99 Pts
11 Fire Warrior Team (Troops) @ 99 Pts
12 Fire Warrior Team (Troops) @ 108 Pts

Total Army Cost: 1499

**dementedwombat**

A few things to think about:

1. Fireblade is pretty useless as a HQ. His main purpose is to give you something to field at 500-1000 points where you only have 1 or 2 troops.

2. You have a total of 8 markerlights in that list, and 6 of them are mounted on one of the units that needs markerlights the most (which means they can't use them). Also any unit you mark will have already been shot at by 3 crisis suits with missiles. Markerlights are not necessarily the best thing in the Tau book, but they do great as a support to make your other units better.

3. against 3+ saves (I know Tyranids get them, and 2 of your opponents are power armor armies) you are basically relying on your hammerhead's single shot, an ion accelerator, and volume of fire. That isn't good. The ion accelerator is awesome, but it scatters, gets hot, and is mounted on a model with BS 3 (see point #2). I would put plasma as the secondary weapon on the riptide, and maybe change one battlesuit squad to dual plasma or plasma/burstcannon ('bladestorm', it is very effective).

I would remove the fireblade, take the first crisis shas`ui squad and make them bladestorm, also get rid of the marker drones. The sky ray would be better as rail broadsides (in my opinion).

Also your troops squads are really big. i don't know if you need 11-12 fire warriors. I always try to make my squads a number like "something times 4 plus 1" (i.e. 5, 9, 13...) since it maximizes the number that have to die before you make a morale check for the minimum number of points.

Here's my 1500 list to get you started. It doesn't have to be how you do things, but it works pretty well for me (except I have a very hard time on offense, i.e. going up and taking objectives). You can take Longstrike if you want to by making the fire warrior squad smaller. He's worth it against lots of tanks with heavy armor (if you have land raiders take him for sure). Also all the strength 8 interceptor is to instant death the Doom of Malan`Tai (you can swap fusion blasters and rail rifles for missile pods and plasma if you don't need to worry about that guy).

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry, I forgot the markerlight on the fireblade. You have 9 markerlights.

**simakover**

nope, its my fault. its is hard list =)

**dementedwombat**

Cadre Fireblade. I just call them 'fireblade' since it's shorter.

**simakover**

why bladestorm is effective? we only plasma on longrange.
why so many pathfinders?
i do not know how use a kroots.
why small amount of flight enemy removal?
why broadside with rails?
coomander joins to drone scquadron? why he take melta?

sorry if questions is obious, im newbie/

**dementedwombat**

simakover wrote:
why bladestorm is effective? we only plasma on longrange.
why so many pathfinders?
i do not know how use a kroots.
why small amount of flight enemy removal?
why broadside with rails?
coomander joins to drone scquadron? why he take melta?

sorry if questions is obious, im newbie/

1. Bladestorm is good because it kills the most different kinds of units with the least points (it can kill guardsmen, space marines, or terminators). I deep strike my battlesuits to get them close (this isn't really a good idea, but it's fun and it works more often that it fails).

2. Markerlights. A riptide wants 5 markerlight hits, 3 to make him BS 6 (so he can re-roll the 'gets hot' dice if he needs to) and 2 to remove cover. My commander-drone unit gets 5 hits on average, so he supports the riptide. The 2 pathfinder squads give 4 hits each. This is enough to either make two units BS 5, or one unit BS 5 ignore cover. That way one pathfinder squad targets the unit I want my 2 broadsides to shoot at and the other targets something for either the fire warriors or the crisis suits. The pathfinders also have pulse carbines, which can get extra shots from the Ethereal if the enemy gets really close.

3. Kroot can be used a couple different ways. First is to just sit them in front of your fire warriors and let them take the first enemy charge. Second is to outflank. That's what I usually do. it puts a big unit behind the enemy, and the krootox can do good damage to an enemy vehicle if they shoot at the rear armor. The kroot hound lets them re-roll their outflank so they have a better chance of getting the side you want. The sniper rounds are nice because they let you get rid of heavy weapons with precision shots, and they're only 1 point each, so it's usually worth it.

4. Nobody i play against uses fliers. You could give the riptides skyfire instead of stimulant injectors if you're worried about it. If you do that then you might want to give them the heavy burst cannon, since most fliers don't have a very high armor.

5 and 6: I give strength 8 weapons to my army because the tyranid player I play with a lot uses the Doom of Malan`Tai in a spore (tyranid drop pod). The doom is toughness 4 with a 3+ invulnerable save and does a lot of damage to my fire warriors if he stays alive, so I use strength 8 weapons with interceptor to kill it with instant death. That's why my commander has a melta and my broadsides have rails. The rails are also nice because they have a very long range, but missiles are usually better. That's why I took the missile drones, so I can use interceptor with the rails and still shoot the drones on my turn.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way, in my list above, you have enough points to put a homing beacon on the Ethereal. i always like to do that, since that way I can always deep strike my crisis suits next to the ethereal if my gunline needs extra fire support. It also gives them a safe spot to land if there's nowhere you want to put them or are afraid of bad scatter rolls.

**simakover**

ok. more ideas?

**CDRAlbrecht**

Wombat, I do t have my rulebook on me but I think you're wrong about markerlights on the Riptide. The Ion Accelerator only gets hot when you overcharge or novacharge it, in which case it fires as a blast weapon. When firing a Blast weapon with Gets Hot! You just roll a separate D6 and on a 1 it overheats. Ballistic skill isn't a factor because its not part of the scatter roll.

**dementedwombat**

CDRAlbrecht wrote:
Wombat, I do t have my rulebook on me but I think you're wrong about markerlights on the Riptide. The Ion Accelerator only gets hot when you overcharge or novacharge it, in which case it fires as a blast weapon. When firing a Blast weapon with Gets Hot! You just roll a separate D6 and on a 1 it overheats. Ballistic skill isn't a factor because its not part of the scatter roll.

I don't actually own the BRB

. but I swear I read it somewhere.

After a quick search I found this thread, it seems to say that BS 6+ can't let you affect a scatter roll since a blast weapon never actually rolls to hit, and BS 6+ only lets you re-roll on a to hit roll of one, but it does let you re-roll the gets hot dice (as stated by the gets hot universal special rule).

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/497090.page#5121381

EDIT: BS 6+ also makes you hugely less likely to scatter. It's a wonderful thing to get an effective "hit" something like 60% of the time.

**simakover**

how about this?

1 Ethereal - Warlord (HQ) @ 50 Pts

1 Tau Commander 'Deathrain' (HQ) @ 123 Pts Missile Pod (x2); Drone Controller

1 Drone Squadron (Fast Attack) @ 56 Pts
4 Marker Drones @ [56] Pts

1 XV104 Riptide (Elites) @ 185 Pts Twin Fusion Blaster; Heavy Burst Cannon; Counterfire Defence System; Stimulant Injector

1 XV104 Riptide (Elites) @ 225 Pts Twin Smart Missile System; Ion Accelerator; Early Warning Override

1 Crisis Team (Elites) @ 52 Pts
1 Crisis Shas'ui 'Sunforge' @ [52] Pts Fusion Blaster (x2)

11 Fire Warrior Team (Troops) @ 99 Pts

11 Fire Warrior Team (Troops) @ 99 Pts

11 Fire Warrior Team (Troops) @ 99 Pts

1 Hammerhead Gunship (Heavy Support) @ 190 Pts Railgun; Twin Smart Missile System; Submunition Rounds; Blacksun Filter; Disrutpion Pod
1 Commander Longstrike @ [45] Pts

1 XV88 Broadside Team (Heavy Support) @ 94 Pts
1 Broadside Shas'ui @ [94] Pts Twin High-yield Missile Pod; Twin Smart Missile System; Early Warning Override
2 Missile Drones @ [24] Pts

1 XV88 Broadside Team (Heavy Support) @ 94 Pts
1 Broadside Shas'ui @ [94] Pts Twin High-yield Missile Pod; Twin Smart Missile System; Early Warning Override
2 Missile Drones @ [24] Pts

6 Pathfinder Team (Fast Attack) @ 66 Pts

6 Pathfinder Team (Fast Attack) @ 66 Pts

Total Army Cost: 1498

**simakover**

no comments?

**AnonAmbientLight**

simakover wrote:
no comments?

Be patient.

It's time consuming to critique lists, and keep in mind, there may not be a lot of people willing to respond. Not because of you personally, but because they may not have the experience to do so. I usually do not comment on lists because i feel like i don't have enough experience to really advise people on what they should take or what's bad. I like to theorycraft more than anything.

So keep that in mind.

**dementedwombat**

I quite like that list (I would...since I can see some of the list i suggested to you got included

) but feel the need to question your choice of equipment for the riptides.

I like the ion accelerator loadout, except for the choice of smart missile system as secondary weapon. It seems like the ion accelerator would make it want to shoot heavy units and the smart missile is not good at killing stuff with lots of armor.

The burst cannon riptide is confusing me. Could you explain what you planned on doing with that setup? I would be tempted to get rid of that riptide and run a crisis team. You could probably get more firepower for points that way, and with the 3 huge fire warrior squads and ethereal you have plenty of anti-infantry shots.

I like the dual fusion crisis suit. You can deep strike him to get rid of enemy tanks and other annoying stuff on the far side of the table.

I think I'd make the commander the warlord instead of the ethereal, although this is your choice (mainly for the warlord power which can give a squad skyfire for one turn. That can be brutal in a marker drone squad). If the commander is doing his job right he should be hiding in the back with the marker drones and less likely to get shot at. Although the ethereal might be a lower priority target, but if he is the warlord then killing him gives 2 victory points automatically, which paints a big target on his head.

lastly, if you are worried about fliers more than heavy tanks you can always drop the hammerhead and put a sky ray in. I used to not like sky rays much, but the more I think about it the more I like them. They give you a bunch of seeker missiles with skyfire and (maybe more important) 2 markerlights with skyfire as well. Your broadsides will love being able to hit a flier on 4-5+ instead of on a 6.

Oh, one more thing, you can always put the broadsides in the same squad if you want. it makes them easier to support with markerlights (not that broadsides need that many markerlights, but the drones like them and removing cover can be nice). If you did that then you might not even need as many markerlights as you have (although I like having extra just in case). I put them in 2 squads because that way they can interceptor against 2 separate targets. If you don't have that many opponents bringing a lot of things in from reserve at once I would put them together.

**simakover**

i give riptide burst cannon for staying in fron of army. manly for make him first target, burst + bs 2 make a lot of hits on overwatch. if cut riptide, that crisis needed? rockets? plasma?
sungorge crisis- may be he worst?