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Right now the aim to play against my friends is 500 points, we are having a round robin tournament in a few weeks, I never played a game before!

They are Imperial Guard, Eldar and Blood Angels.

I have to get the army I am going to put together painted so I am trying to narrow down a force to use, I have :-

Ethereal
24 x Fire Warriors
6 x XV8 Battlesuits
2 x Piranha
1 x Devilfish
10 x Drones

All are put together and undercoated and half the fire warriors are painted, so now i'm just trying to finally make my mind up!

Cheers!

ETHREAL!


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We'll, in 500 point you need:
Numbers
Firepower
And armour.

So I think you should bring 1 squad of crisis, 12 firewarriors the ethereal and the piranhas, I don't know what upgrades as I play eldar but I think it will fit.

+++ for Beeftain (500pts) +++
+++ 500pt Tau Empire: Codex (2013)

+ HQ + (50pts)

* Ethereal (50pts) (Codex: Tau Empire p97)
(Failure is Not An Option, Independent Character, Invocation of the Elements, Stubborn)

+ Elites + (141pts)

* XV8 Crisis Team (141pts) (Codex: Tau Empire p100)
(Supporting Fire, Very Bulky)
* Crisis Shas'ui (57pts)
Crisis battlesuit, Fusion blaster (15pts), Twin-linked plasma rifle (20pts)
* Crisis Shas'ui (60pts)
Crisis battlesuit, Cyclic ion blaster (15pts), Drone controller (8pts), Fusion blaster (15pts)
* Marker Drone (12pts)
Markerlight
* Shield Drone (12pts)
Shield generator

+ Troops + (216pts)

* Fire Warrior Team (72pts) (Codex: Tau Empire p99)
(Supporting Fire)
8x Fire Warrior Shas'la with pulse rifle (72pts), Photon grenades

* Fire Warrior Team (72pts) (Codex: Tau Empire p99)
(Supporting Fire)
8x Fire Warrior Shas'la with pulse rifle (72pts), Photon grenades

* Fire Warrior Team (72pts) (Codex: Tau Empire p99)
(Supporting Fire)
8x Fire Warrior Shas'la with pulse rifle (72pts), Photon grenades

+ Fast Attack + (93pts)

* Piranhas (93pts) (Codex: Tau Empire p101)
* Piranha (45pts)
Burst cannon, Sensor spines (5pts), Two Gun Drones
* Piranha (48pts)
Burst cannon, Seeker missile (8pts), Two Gun Drones


play around with this idea. I spent a couple hours just now at work playing around and coming up with this list.
The idea is to have your piranhas pester your enemy, ideally running around and mowing down infantry. Use the markerlight drone to aid in using the seeker missile as quickly as you can and then the drone is there to absorb a wound from your armor hunting unit of crisis suits. so any transport or tank or armored unit send your crisis team after. i figured to throw them a shield drone incase you get caught out with no cover saves and he hits you with a high AP weapon.
Rolling with 3 units of 8 FW should be plenty to hammer out shots esp if you keep atleast 2 units close to your ethereal. youll be able to use the other unit of FW to hold an objective if you have to.
But yeah this sounds like a fun list i would even like to try but alas, i do not have any piranhas


what do you think?

Wow mate thanks a lot for this!

I have a really nicely painted Devilfish that I would love to use, maybe I can drop one of the 8xFW squads so I can use that instead?

But I do have the piranhas to use as well so I can switch it up a little depending on who I face off against!

Again I really appreciate the time you put into giving me these helpful tips!

i understand the desire to use the devilfish esp if you painted it up but keep in mind i figured to keep a couple units of FW near the Ethereal at all times to get a whole lot of bonus shots with invoke the elements special rules.
The Ethereal grants great bonuses to all FW within 12'' so if you decide to drop a unit of FW and put a unit in a DF make that unit have 10-11 FW and the Ethereal

I just crunched some numbers and pretty much if you want to have a FW unit with a devilfish then you can only fit 1 unit of 11 FW but then you could add some extra seeker missiles to the DF and the Piranhas and maybe have the FW unit have a shas'ui with a markerlight and target lock. and this would give you a good chance of hitting something with one of your 3 seeker missiles, but maybe im going overboard with the missiles and you dont need those. if you take out all the missiles and the marker lights then you should even have extra points for possibly a 2nd unit of FW (you can drop the drone controller and drones off of the crisis suit to make sure to have points for more FW)

I was just thinking that if you had 3 units of 8 FW start close enough to the ethereal with a good deployment and line of sight you can shoot off a whopping 48 shots right off the start! (if you go first) haha...

yeah man youre gonna have to play a few rounds and see what type of fighting style fits you. i like the idea of having a unit of FW with an ethereal (or a recon drone sitting in the devilfish) to give the DF a homing beacon and soaring into battle and deep striking with some suits maybe have a flamer or two or even target lock so when the suits jump in between your DF and the enemy you can shoot at different units with each crisis suit. and the flamer helps protect you against being assaulted.


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heres a pic of the start of my Sa'cea sept Fire warriors. My camera isnt the best fyi.
http://instagram.com/p/rI7Hijj8Ib/?modal=true

Yeah I understand what you mean!

A big group of fire warriors with an ethereal does seem like a really good idea with some fast attacks of the piranhas and a deep strike with the crisis suits!

Maybe I can use the Devilfish at a later date when I up the amount of points I use!

But what you have written makes sense for a more optimal group, but I guess the main problem is that as soon as the Ethereal dies, I lose a large chunk of my firepower!

How would you suggest keeping him safe enough?

Guess I will start painting my Piranhas!


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Oh I edited since I was at 497 points so put advanced targetting on one of the crisis suits to bring it up to 500!

Beeftain wrote:
the main problem is that as soon as the Ethereal dies, I lose a large chunk of my firepower!

How would you suggest keeping him safe enough?


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Oh I edited since I was at 497 points so put advanced targetting on one of the crisis suits to bring it up to 500!

Well dont let him die! haha, now i havent had one die on me yet and i dont know EXACTLY what happends when he does die, but you will want to keep the ethereal out of line of sight to opponents and not stacked ontop of your other FW incase he shoots a RPG or something at you with AOE damage. my idea of having 3 units of FW would help to kind of "block" the ethereal out of danger if kept in the back, be careful tho if the ethereal joins a unit and you get a wound with a precision shot against you then the opponent can choose which of your models takes the wound and that could be a potential danger. just know who is in your opponents units. a "character" who rolls a 6 for a hit in the shooting phase will be able to choose who takes the wound.

but i mean at 500pts you dont have much room to work with. when i ran with an ethereal and FW unit in a DF i just positioned my ethereal carefully behind the DF after i unloaded. heh


A description of my last game i played that was 500pts i deployed with 11 FW and 1 ethereal in a DF and saved my 3 man crisis team and my kroot squad on reserve.. this was a bad plan because my opponent infiltrated with a scout team of Space marines and cornered my DF right away with a team of snipers and a rocket. so i was forced to deploy my kroot in a bad spot inbetween my DF and the snipers and they were in the wide open and were taken out in 2 turns by his dreadnaught, and since i had my crisis team on reserve for deep strike i had to wait until the beginning of turn 2 to roll die to tell me if they could even deep strike that turn, luckily they were allowed to, and at this time he had 2 units of 5 space marines and a recon team each with a rocket launcher headed to my DF and he had a beast dreadnaught hammering me aswell. but on my side of the board there was only one place i could deploy with cover to my DF and i couldnt even move from that spot until after my crisis team deep striked. and i was lucky not to scatter more than 2 inches because i DS behind his dreadnaught and outflanked him and that was the turn of the battle, all of a sudden i split his forces and began picking him off after i unloaded the Fw and used the DF as a decoy to take hits away from my FW and ethereal. but a deep strike has a big chance to change the outcome of a game one way or another, a gakky DS will likely lose it for you, where a well placed and timed one end up winning you the game. just look up all the DS rules and know what could go wrong because a LOT can go wrong if you scatter badly and you are near obsticles. haha. Im goign to work on a 750pt army now and post on the forums, you should take a peek later when its up.
but i cant wait to hear what you end up using as your battle list! so many options!

Awesome mate

Yeah I got 3 weeks and 5 days to decide to kinda painting on the fly and making sure I get nearly all of my options ready

Can the ethereal travel in the DF with the FW team? Or is that not worth it?

I actually got 3 more crisis suits so I got 6 in total now, been working on magnetising the weapons which has gone quite nicely with 3mm x 1mm magnets and some super glue!

My Devilfish is complete and looking nice, Not sure if I will magnetise the sensors\missiles yet but I could do, or just stick them all on since it will look awesome anyway!

Is 6 crisis suits viable in a 500 point game?

i would not run more than 3-4 suits in a 500 pt force. i personally havent ran with more than 3 yet

im making my commander xv8 suuuper beefy. hes gonna be a pest tomorrow when i play haha.

Man it is really hard work grinding through Fire Warriors! Painting them can be sooo frustrating but the reward is good!

Yeah FW take some time lol. but they look so good in a group together with some nice bases.
But hey, you will quickly learn to deploy very wisely. A bad deployment could make or break your whole strategy. For my game on Sunday, i held a unit of 3 XV8 suits and a Commander on reserves to deep strike. But how reserve units work is that on the start of your 2nd turn you roll a die, its like roll a 4+ to deploy this turn, if you fail then the start of your 3rd turn roll for a 3+ i think, if that fails then automatically deploy the start of your 4th turn... this kinda hurt me the other night as i only had 3 turns to use my big team and they did allow me to tie the game, if it werent for their firepower i would have lost.. but yeah.. Deploymets! read on strategies or something.

What kind of game did you play?

Did you get to go first?

Yeah I been reading my Codex and the 7th edition rules like mad!

Bought some 00 and 000 brushes today, I found my 0 brush wasn't quite pin point enough for painting of certain parts of the Fire warriors, but it is going well I think

I will post pictures soon, My devilfish is done though, and 2 of my piranha's

Crisis suits still to do and my Fire warriors / Ethereal plus a handful of drones, 3 weeks and 2 days to go!

When you take the farsight enclaves and farsight I'm pretty sure you can only take "the eight" as they are described in that supplement. That means all the points costs and weapon loadouts as described.

I really prefer to outfit my crisis teams with specific weapons to deal with specific targets. For example I want my plasma's to deal with 2+ armor saves. I want my fusion blasters to deal with vehicles. And flamers for light inf blobs. Getting farsight in with plasma is an ok call but as stated above he is expensive and usually best in big games 1850-2000


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To clarify I'm saying take farsight as a commander with no bodyguards and then because he is an independent character you could put him in a crisis suit team outfitted any way you choose.

The game we played was Big Guns Never Tire. He deployed and went first. His strategy is usually to split up his 10 model units of devastators and tactical marines into units of 5 (special rule) so it makes for more targets on the board for me. He also usually deploys with his lascannons and missile launchers in direct line of sight and with assault supporters in the back guarding his DN flank. So it makes my deployment tough because if i deploy ANY infantry in line of sight then he will blast me away with his super long range missile launchers (they have a track record of blasting my troops) and i deployed my Broadside as far back as i could because the railgun could fire at his units but i learned i should have deployed further up the field within 30 inches not in line of sight because my smart missile systems have Homing.. so i will use that strat next time i think. I need to work on deployment ugh.