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So it's time for the monthly tournament at the FLGS. This month we're doing 2000 points with special scenarios we probably won't know until the day of. I usually end up in at the top table with the local Ork horde player who always puts up a hellacious fight. Other opponents usually include mechanized IG, mechanized marines, demi company ultras, and biker marines. Last tournament had some hilariously unbalanced missions where you got bonuses for holding the center of the board each turn - needless to say, easier to accomplish with marines than firewarriors.

Anyway, since I have no real way of knowing the missions, I've decided to simply shoot the living crap out of my opponents. I think the static nature of the list will surprise most of my opponents since I usually load up on tanks and skimmers. I also have never included farsight.

HQ
Farsight-
Shas'vre- plasma, mp, mt
Shas'vre- plasma, mp, mt, 2 shield drones
Shas'vre- plasma, mp, mt, bsf, 1 shield drones
Shas'vre- afp, flamer, mt, hwtl
Shas'vre- plasma, mp, mt, 1 shield drone
Shas'vre-plasma, mp, mt, hwbsf 2 shield drones
695

ELITE
2 Deathrain Suits- 94
2 Deathrain Suits- 94
2 Deathrain Suits- 94

TROOPS
8 Firewarriors- shas'ui w/markerlight, bk, hwtl 105
8 Firewarriors- shas'ui w/markerlight, bk, hwtl 105
8 Firewarriors- shas'ui w/markerlight, bk, hwtl 105
8 Firewarriors- shas'ui w/markerlight, bk, hwtl 105

HEAVY SUPPORT
3 Broadsides-
-Team Leader w/plasma, mt, hwbsf, hwdc, 2 shield drones, bk
2x'ui w/ plasma, mt
293

Hammerhead- railgun, burst cannons, mt, dp 165

Skyray- TA, DP, burst cannons 145
TOTAL 1999

Obviously there are mobility issues, and I would love to have a few more markerlights but I figure this will be pretty devastating firepower provided I can bring it to bear effectively. What are your thoughts on improving the list. I considered dropping some odds and end along with the sky ray and a squad of deathrains in exchange for 3 sniper teams. I also considered consolidating the deathrains and dropping some stuff for either steal suits or more fire warriors.

Comments and criticisms welcome.

It doesn't seem to me like a Farsight bomb is a tournament-viable tactic. I think I'd opt for cheap Shas'els and units of 3 crisis suits instead.

Firewarriors also seem like an unwise choice. Kroot will be much more mobile and can force opposing units off objective if necessary. They can also contribute well to your gunline if you want/need them to.

Skyrays are awful and blow spectacularly without Pathfinders. Scrap that completely.

Speaking of Pathfinders, you could use a unit of them.

I would give the Broadsides Advanced Stabilization. The team leader can still have a multitracker, and chances are slim that you'll want all of them shooting at different things anyway.

MilkmanAl wrote:It doesn't seem to me like a Farsight bomb is a tournament-viable tactic. I think I'd opt for cheap Shas'els and units of 3 crisis suits instead.

Firewarriors also seem like an unwise choice. Kroot will be much more mobile and can force opposing units off objective if necessary. They can also contribute well to your gunline if you want/need them to.

Skyrays are awful and blow spectacularly without Pathfinders. Scrap that completely.

Speaking of Pathfinders, you could use a unit of them.

I would give the Broadsides Advanced Stabilization. The team leader can still have a multitracker, and chances are slim that you'll want all of them shooting at different things anyway.

You just described the force I usually take. It's shas'el, 9 elite crisis, 2 FCW in devilfishes, 2 kroot+hounds, 2 pathfinders, 3 BASS, 2 Hammerheads. I will agree that BASS is probably better for this list and I will change that.

As for defense of the list - perhaps it would be better if I spelled out what the players I have trouble with will most likely bring. There are only three players that give me trouble - the others may bring killer internet lists but don't know how to play them.

Killa Kan Orks Player will probably bring something like this
Ghaz
Lootas
2x Shoot Boyz with Nob
1x 'Ard Boyz with Nob
1x Nobz in Trukk
1x Boyz in Trukk
20 Stormboyz
9 Kans

The idea here was to beat up his cans and nobz early on while I whittle is boyz with FCW and railhead. massed plasma/mp fire with markerlight support should do well. Farsight gives preferred enemy and can act as a countercharge with his super council. This is the player I have the most trouble with.

Demi Company Marines
Kantor
Libby w/Gate
5 Terminators
5 Sniper Scouts
Las/MG Tac
MM/FL Tac rhino
Plas/Plas Tac
10 Sternguard
10 Assault Marines
whirlwind
whirlwind or vindi
las/las pred or speeders

I usually have problems killing enough marines in this army with my usual mech/hybrid list. Anything out of transports gets chewed up by bolter fire. I thought that a large unit of suits could steam roll individual units and be largely immune to his fire by taking advantage of wound allocation. Would need to watch out for orbital strike and possible vindi.

The last player will either take
4 dreads
Master of the forge
2-3 Tac squad in rhinos/razorbacks
2 Vindicators
Terminators.

or something like
Creed
CCS
1 Platoon w/ 2-3 squad, PCS, conscripts
2-3 mechvets
1 Vendetta
3-5 Leman Russ in varying configurations
1 Griffon

Again, the farsight unit can really tear up these armies. If farsight is really subpar, tell me why - don't just tell me that he is subpar.

I got the sky ray because I figured, as long as I was experimenting, I might as well try it . Is there a better way to get mobile markerlights? My pathfinders ALWAYS get pasted as soon as the enemy has range.

I'm not oppsed to using a more traditional list... just tell me why it will do better.

If farsight is really subpar, tell me why - don't just tell me that he is subpar.

For starters, Farsight bombs require you to take Farsight. That's 170 points for a model that would cost 120 if you just made it yourself. In other words, you're paying 50 points for him to be a monstrous creature and give bonding knives to everything. (Speaking of which, you can take the knives off your Fire Warriors if you stick with them.) I also find shield generators to be a waste, so that's 20 more points you save. In higher points games, the limitation on Broadsides really hurts. In my opinion, 2 units of Broadsides are a must for 2000 point armies. The armies you described are all very armor-heavy, so you're going to want a reliable way to bring down vehicles en masse. The missile pods are a great start against the Kans, Trukks, and Rhinos, but there's no substitute for penetrating on a 2+ with a bonus on the damage table.

The Farsight+bodyguard unit is a beast, to be sure, but I don't think tough enough to be worth spending a third of your points on. A Shas'el and 2 units of PR/MP suits would run you in the 500 point range with some upgrades (such as gun drones for ablative wounds) and would be just as durable, if not more so thanks to being separate units. The extra points could be another Hammerhead or a unit of Pathfinders.

It may seem like you're forfeiting some flexibility by eliminating a unit full of multi-trackers, but I'd argue the opposite; I think you actually gain some flexibility by taking separate units. How often will you want only one PR/MP suit firing at a target? Probably never, but if you feel like you need that option, it can be achieved with multi-trackers on Crisis suit team leaders. Splitting the unit up makes you less vulnerable to blasts and assaults and allows you to cover more of the table.

Markerlights are definitely an issue, and I'm right there with you on the squishy Pathfinder problem. A strategy that has worked decently in the few games I've tried it is upgrading to a Shas'ui and sticking 2 gun drones on him to buy time before Pathfinders start eating it. The extra leadership is a nice bonus. If it's mobile markerlights you want, your options are pretty limited. The Sky Ray just really isn't a very effective unit, especially considering the volume of S7 shots a Tau army can (and should) pour out. You can slap a couple marker drones onto Crisis teams, but that'll just make them even bigger fire magnets than they already are. I think the best mobile option is fielding a unit of Stealth suits with a few marker drones. They're damn near impossible to shoot at, but they come at the cost of an Elites slot which sucks. They're also super expensive. I think you're better off sticking with Pathfinders, personally.

If you do decide to go with Pathfinders, don't forget to condense your Fire Warriors into 3 units so they can take better advantage of markerlights. Since you're sticking to the gunline strategy, you might also consider using large Kroot units as mob control instead of Fire Warriors. 20 S4 shots vs. 14 S5 shots is pretty much a wash against most things, but Kroot are a lot better in close combat and can be incredibly pesky to kill if you lodge them in woods.

Here is my standard 2000 point list. Is it better?

Shas'el- afp, tlflamer, hwmt, bk, stimms, hwtl, 96
Shas'el- plasma, mp, ta, hwmt 97

ELITE
3 Fireknives- 186
3 Fireknives- 186
3 Deathrains- 141

TROOPS
12 Firewarriors- 120
10 Firewarriors- 100
10 Kroot- 8 hounds 118

FAST ATTACK
6 Pathfinders- 72
Devilfish- dp, flechette discharger 95

6 Pathfinders- 72
Devilfish- dp, flechette discharger 95

HEAVY SUPPORT
3 BASS- sms, team leader w/hwtl, bk, 2 shield drones, hwbsf 288

Hammerhead- railgun, burst cannons, dp, mt 165

Hammerhead- railgun, burst cannons, dp, mt 165

Infinitely better. Farsight may stick around forever, but when your almost 700 blob of death isn't actually killing anything, is it really worth the points?

The first commander you have in the list doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though. Why put the flamers and blast weapon (if you must take them, and I don't understand what makes the AFP worth taking at all. 90% of your army has no choice but to be anti-infantry, why waste potential with the ones that don't need to be) on a commander and waste his higher BS?

I have to seriously disagree about the assessment of Farsight.

I take a lot of firewarriors so that I can maximize my torrential hail of firepower, and those bonding knives make a difference.

In addition, you're paying the extra points for a power weapon - the only one in the Tau arsenal. A STR5 power weapon isn't anything to sneeze at, and its attached to a character with a retinue who cannot be targeted. And if you assemble a Farsight bomb well, it can simply annihilate anything.

One of my favorite tactics is to bring a unit of pathfinders (I deepstrike my farsight bomb) so that I can reroll my scatter if I don't get something I like. My farsight bomb is basically a fethton of Fusion and plasma, arrayed differently with two flamers tossed in, with a multitude of shield, and gun drones (and a marker drone x1 usually), with a smattering of target locks on suits with fusion blasters.

That way, this unit can deep strike and flail about at multiple targets. The best use I ever had for one of these was in a game against a Dark Angel army. He had two land raiders, terminators in them, two dreadnoughts, and a couple of squads of terminators on foot. I deep struck into the middle of this mess, used my pathfinders to light up his terminators on foot and in a single round of shooting destroyed one land raider, exploded the other (and he lost one terminator in the process), destroyed one dreadnought, immobilized the other, and I had declared the terminator unit my primary target, which took a metric load of plasma to the face, killing four models.

I'm not promising those kind of results every turn, but between wound allocation magic, 3+ armor saves and 4+ invulnerable saves on shield drones that every suit in the pack can take if you like, a Farsight bomb can pretty much laugh off whatever attacks it, and Farsight can help even the wounds done to it. Farsight was obviously assaulted the next turn by two units of terminators, and lasted for three rounds of combat before dying (killing several more terminators). In the meantime, while half of his remaining army was tied up with my SINGLE HQ CHOICE, the rest of my army annihilated everything else on the table and sat waiting patiently for combat to end so that they could finish off the units in close combat.

grankobot wrote:Infinitely better. Farsight may stick around forever, but when your almost 700 blob of death isn't actually killing anything, is it really worth the points?

The first commander you have in the list doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though. Why put the flamers and blast weapon (if you must take them, and I don't understand what makes the AFP worth taking at all. 90% of your army has no choice but to be anti-infantry, why waste potential with the ones that don't need to be) on a commander and waste his higher BS?

That commander absolutely murders GEQ and Orks which I play against alot. We use alot of heavily ruined city terrain in our battles, so I've found that hitting a tac squad 8-9 times with AFP and FL works out better than the 2-3 hits I'll get with plasma/missile. He's also hell against the horde ork player that I usually end up playing against at the top tables. I suppose he could be downgraded to a shas'vre in the deathrain squad but they usually attempt to stay out of 18" range.

Basically I take him because there is a lot of cover and blast/cover ignoring weapons are the bees knees. Stimms and multiple wounds keep him alive longer at short range.

I suppose I'll stick with this for now. I believe the next tournament after this will be 2500 points. Any thoughts on expanding this list?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dashofpepper wrote:I have to seriously disagree about the assessment of Farsight.

I take a lot of firewarriors so that I can maximize my torrential hail of firepower, and those bonding knives make a difference.

In addition, you're paying the extra points for a power weapon - the only one in the Tau arsenal. A STR5 power weapon isn't anything to sneeze at, and its attached to a character with a retinue who cannot be targeted. And if you assemble a Farsight bomb well, it can simply annihilate anything.

One of my favorite tactics is to bring a unit of pathfinders (I deepstrike my farsight bomb) so that I can reroll my scatter if I don't get something I like. My farsight bomb is basically a fethton of Fusion and plasma, arrayed differently with two flamers tossed in, with a multitude of shield, and gun drones (and a marker drone x1 usually), with a smattering of target locks on suits with fusion blasters.

That way, this unit can deep strike and flail about at multiple targets. The best use I ever had for one of these was in a game against a Dark Angel army. He had two land raiders, terminators in them, two dreadnoughts, and a couple of squads of terminators on foot. I deep struck into the middle of this mess, used my pathfinders to light up his terminators on foot and in a single round of shooting destroyed one land raider, exploded the other (and he lost one terminator in the process), destroyed one dreadnought, immobilized the other, and I had declared the terminator unit my primary target, which took a metric load of plasma to the face, killing four models.

I'm not promising those kind of results every turn, but between wound allocation magic, 3+ armor saves and 4+ invulnerable saves on shield drones that every suit in the pack can take if you like, a Farsight bomb can pretty much laugh off whatever attacks it, and Farsight can help even the wounds done to it. Farsight was obviously assaulted the next turn by two units of terminators, and lasted for three rounds of combat before dying (killing several more terminators). In the meantime, while half of his remaining army was tied up with my SINGLE HQ CHOICE, the rest of my army annihilated everything else on the table and sat waiting patiently for combat to end so that they could finish off the units in close combat.

Farsight bomb and its uses makes sense to me, but I always get a little stuck on the composition of the rest of the army. Anyone want to enlighten me?

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:

grankobot wrote:Infinitely better. Farsight may stick around forever, but when your almost 700 blob of death isn't actually killing anything, is it really worth the points?

The first commander you have in the list doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though. Why put the flamers and blast weapon (if you must take them, and I don't understand what makes the AFP worth taking at all. 90% of your army has no choice but to be anti-infantry, why waste potential with the ones that don't need to be) on a commander and waste his higher BS?

That commander absolutely murders GEQ and Orks which I play against alot. We use alot of heavily ruined city terrain in our battles, so I've found that hitting a tac squad 8-9 times with AFP and FL works out better than the 2-3 hits I'll get with plasma/missile. He's also hell against the horde ork player that I usually end up playing against at the top tables. I suppose he could be downgraded to a shas'vre in the deathrain squad but they usually attempt to stay out of 18" range.

Basically I take him because there is a lot of cover and blast/cover ignoring weapons are the bees knees. Stimms and multiple wounds keep him alive longer at short range.

You see a solid light infantry killing unit. I see a kill point carrying a "please lascannon me" sign. What works for you is what works for you I guess, but I'd never field it.

And if you assemble a Farsight bomb well, it can simply annihilate anything.

700 points of one unit SHOULD annihilate anything. All the time.

But Farsight doesn't annihilate anything all the time, and when he does it's your 700 points killing someone elses' 200 points. Hmm, that seems like a good investment. He's overpriced, his unit is overpriced, and he limits some of the best units in the codex. I'll pass

I'm sure there are more efficient uses for a shas'el but he has never ever disappointed in the 30+ games I've used him. *shrug* It's nice to smack a chimera and then toast the occupants.

I'm trying to copy and paste this out of excel and it doesn't work perfectly, but this is my static gunline 1850 list. My Shas'o tends to attach himself to one of my elite units.

Between my pathfinders and my sniper teams, I can potentially cause six pinning tests per turn. Something I play on and off with is putting 3-4 carbines in each squad of firewarriors so that they can all potentially cause pinning too; YMMV. I'm never short on anti-tank, which is the flavor of lists these days. I have four broadsides able to fire at four different tanks per turn if I need, and my Helios suits run a screen where I need them to and can pop anything with their fusion blasters that I need to.

My firewarriors stay in cover the best they can; in a game where you and your opponent each place terrain, I create a firebase of ruins/forest/cover on either side of the board so that regardless of which side I get, I'll have cover. I've found that this dominates most things in its simplest forms, and if you're fairly new to 40k, a few games under your belt where you get outflanked or lose will help you learn what questions to ask before you deploy or the game starts (What do you have in reserve? Do they have the scout or infiltrate special rule?) and you'll learn the nuances of playing against deep striking armies, and outflanking armies. Those make up the smaller portion of your gaming, and most games you play will be you on one side, your opponent on the other, and you either blasting at each other until someone is dead, or your opponent trying to close with you while you blast them dead. Did I mention that list can cause 6 pinning checks per turn? Ld10 is fun, but statistics have a way of evening out, and while I primarily use markerlights to give myself +Ballistic skill, I have been known to use them to nerf someone's leadership to help them fail a pinning test.
-----------------


HQ
0
Shas'o Flamer Airburst Frag HW Drone Control Shield Drone x2 HW Multitracker Iridium Armour Shield Generator

Troops
Fire Warriors, 12 Shas'ui Gun Drone x2 HW Drone Control HH Markerlight
Fire Warriors, 12 Shas'ui Gune Drone x2 HW Drone Control HH Markerlight
Fire Warriors, 12 Shas'ui Gun Drone x2 HW Drone Control HH Markerlight
,
,
,

Elites
Helios, 3 Fusion/Plasma Team Lead DC+SD HW Multi Fusion/Plasma Multi-tracker TL Plasma DC+ GD
Deathrain, 3 Team Lead Twin-Linked Missile HW DC + GD Twin-linked missiles DC + GD Twin-linked missiles HW DC
,

Fast Attack
Pathfinders, 8 Devilfish Disruption pods Rail Rifle +TL x3
,
,

Heavy Support
Snipers, 3 Stealth Field Targeting Array Networked Markerlight
Broadside Team, 2 Team leader HW Drone Controller Multi-tracker x2 HW Target Lock Shield Drone Shield Drone
Broadside Team, 2 Team leader HW Drone Controller Multi-tracker x2 HW Target Lock Shield Drone Shield Drone