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My friend and I have decided (since we're both poor college students) that we would each build a 1000 point army that we would field as a tag team set (so we could play people with 2000 points as well).

Grey Knight Army
HQ
Techmarine

Troop
Strike Squad
Hammer x2
Psycannon

Elite
Dreadknight
Incinerator
Greatsword
Teleporter

Heavy
Dreadnought
Flamer

Purge Squad
Incinerators x4

Dedicated Transport
Razorback
Twinlinked Plasma gun with Lascannnon
Storm Bolter
(Will be holding the purge squad inside)

Fast Attack
Storm Raven
Hurricane Bolters
Meltas
Lascanon
(Holding Dreadnought, Strike Squad, and Techmarine)
Points:1000

Tau Army

HQ
Commander with twinlinked plasma rifle, marker drone
Bodyguards x2 (one with twin linked fusion, one with twin linked burst cannon)

Troop
Fire warriors x6
Fire warriors x6

Elite
Stealth x3 with markerlight, and shield drone and marker light drone
Riptide with ion accelerator, shield generator, and injector with 2 shield drones

Heavy
Broadside with plasma rifle, shield generator, and a shield drone

Transport
Devilfish with smart missile and auto system repair

Fast Attack
Drone Squad x6 (3 shield, 3 markerlight)

Our attack plan:
Start with razorback snap firing as it advances, dreadknight immediately begins in their face, and the tau army either moves into better firing positions or fires on the enemy as stealth move to do their thing. Continue until storm raven reserve arrives.

I can only speak for the Grey Knight portion.

First of all, Dreadknights are Heavy Support. This makes your list illegal since you will have 1 Troop and 3 Heavy Support. Assuming you're using the Nemesis Strike Force, you can only have 2 Heavy Support. I'd suggest dropping the Dreadnought. (of course, you could always go unbound but that's no fun )

I'm not sure what you want to do with the Techmarine. A librarian is a very effecient HQ unit point-wise and IMO a much better choice, even if you don't upgrade it to level 3. You can attach the Librarian to a deepstriking unit while the Techmarine has to catch a ride.

Since you'll have extra points from dropping to 2 Heavy Support units, I'd swap the Strike Squad for a Terminator squad. They'll be able to support the Librarian better and can fire the psycannon at full range and 4 shots and still charge afterwards. (The Strike squad will have to choose each turn to either fire the psycannon or to charge into melee. They can't do both since it is a salvo weapon.)

Also, the Stormraven is capable of carrying troops but it's not really great if the rest of your army is starting on the board. You won't be able to charge until at least turn 3. With the Nemesis Strike force, you can deep strike on turn 1. I'd utilize this rule and not carry the Troops in the Stormraven. Use the Stormraven as a gunboat and keep it in the air.

Sorry, the dreadnought is the elite and the knight is the heavy. You only need 1 troop choice which is the strike squad the tech marine is designed to stay in the stormraven for entire game as it can repair from inside. As for the gunboat, we'll have to discuss about that, as of right now, though, that's where we're standing. We decided tech over lib so that the raven stays afloat, and the strike squad also has deep strike as well.

elnino1102 wrote:
Sorry, the dreadnought is the elite and the knight is the heavy. You only need 1 troop choice which is the strike squad the tech marine is designed to stay in the stormraven for entire game as it can repair from inside. As for the gunboat, we'll have to discuss about that, as of right now, though, that's where we're standing. We decided tech over lib so that the raven stays afloat, and the strike squad also has deep strike as well.

Oh ok. Well you may find the stormraven won't need much in the way of repairs. It'll either go down in one turn from focus firing or it won't get scratched. If it does go down then in all likelihood you'll have a dead techmarine due to the Str 10 AP 2 hit he'll take from the thing crashing.

It's a fun idea! I love the idea of a Stormraven coming in with a boatload of melee troops and Dreadnought, but in practice it is very lackluster. I've tried it and it's very disappointing when you zoom onto the board and find yourself looking at a dead stormraven, dead melee unit, and wounded Dreadnought all from a single skyfire unit that got a lucky penetration hit.

The strike squad is better off deep striking on turn 1, otherwise they won't be able to reach the board until turn 3 at the earliest due to the stormraven needing to switch to hover the turn after it arrives. If you can fit points for terminators I highly recommend them instead of a strike squad. Or atleast switch the psycannon to an incinerator so you can assault the same turn that you shoot.

I do like the incinerator idea over the psycannon

The tau aspect of this list needs some work in my opinion depending on how "competitive" you trying to be? Along that same line is forgeworld an option?

Assuming forgeworld isn't an option due to financial constraints lets look at your list in detail.

Firstly, bodyguards for a commander are a waste of points. You can accomplish the same effect by adding a commander to a team of crisis suits.

Drop all of your drones. All of them. A sheild generator on a commander with an irridium battlesuit and stims is the way to run a durable commander.

Broadsides - either take them high yeild missles with smart missle systems or not at all. I understand being concerned about 2+ armor save units, however your plasmas have that covered. Really your weight of fire has this covered but that's just the way I choose to deal with those kinds of units.

Firewarriors need devilfish with disruption pods to be effective. That and an ethereal. This way you can move forward 12 inches disembark and lay 3x shots down range. Devestating cheap firepower.

Pathfinders or skyrays for markerlight support.


Otherwise just run 10 kroot with 1 hound and try to grab ojectives that way.


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The fire base support cadre is always a good bet.

Is your commander running a drone contoller?

To be honest, I've brand new, barely know anything about the tau or how to build.

It's not meant as a put down. It's apparent that you're new, we were all there once. How "competitive" do you want your list? Do you want to include forgeworld?

I can't say I know enough about forge world to really delve into it. I play guard mostly (and thats guard from a codex ago). My eldar army was subpar, barely planned, just collecting people I thought were cool looking without knowing how they worked. My Space Marines were generic, all around jack of trades, not bad, but not specialized in any way. When I stopped playing, it was 5th edition, I just recently got back in and its 7th. My buddy with his Grey Knights, I can help a lot more, Tau, its an army I'd never fought before so I can't even say what's good or bad from what's been done too me like with Eldar and Guard, why I post every change in army list here and ask tactics as well so I can learn.

Like markerlights I think are amazing (could be wrong) and the Riptide and Broadside sound awesome too, but then again, they can suck terribly.

Your on the right track. Marker lights are in fact awesome. Any good tau lists will feature some sorce of markerlight.

One popular option is a "mark'o" commander loadout. You have a commander with drone controller and usually Missle pods, target lock, thereby letting your bs5 drones mark whatever they need to while your commander softens up a target of his chosing.

Another option is the tried and true pathfinders. While they are you cheapest option for getting markerlights on the field they are also the easiest to kill. Only t3 with 4+ armor isn't hard for most armies knock out.

Then there are vehicles with markerlights. These include the skyray, which has networked markerlights that also can opt to have skyfire. They come standard with bs4, a rarity in tau, and armor 13, also can take disruption pods. There is also the tetra but this is a forgeworld model, 35 points for a high intensity marker light, heavy 2 twinlinked marker light, on a amor 10 2hp vehicle. More survivable with 7th edition rules, these are my preffered method for marker lights these days.

Broadsides are good, however they are immobile. Also they are best fielded in a firebase support cadre. This is a formation that gives them tank hunter and preferred enemy space marines, both crucial. Always take them as high yeild Missle pods with smart misslesides. This gives you 8 shots per broadside, tons of dakka.

Riptides are good. Again best in a firebase support cadre. Also the forgeworld variants are viable here but not necessary. Run with heavy burst cannons and fusion blaster with stims and if possible the earth caste pilot array(farsight enclave).


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I like to try to get the 6 broadsides from the cadre, all missles and early warning overides. This can provide you with fairly good alpha strike protection and also works as solid anti aircraft.


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Tau struggle against high av targets, av 13 and 14. The hammerhead is a poor solution to this. Although it is s10 it is also only 1 shot. Doing the math that leaves you with very little chance of destroying such targets in a single shooting phase. To deal with av 13-14 effectively you'll need fusion blasters, emp grenades can work but it's almost guarenteed suicide for the squad who does it, or the Y'varah battle suit on forgeworld which lets you have a haywire gun.

Taus strength is volume of s5-s7 shooting. We have a bunch of units that do this very well and very cheaply compared to other races.

I can only speak for the Tau half of this army, but I'll do my best to give you some understandable pointers rather than simply telling you to do things without explaining why they work (lots of people used to do that to me and I was just like .....why)

First of all, let's take a look at your HQ. You've put together a team that has vastly different ranges within it. If you wanted to markerlight something from a safe distance, your burst cannon suit and fusion suit are very likely to be out of range and unable to actually do anything, as well as possibly your commander. As Epartalis mentioned, their isn't any point in taking bodyguards because they're more expensive than regular suits and do virtually the same thing, you could just attach the commander to a normal unit.
If you want to run your commander as a marker unit, he definitely needs a drone controller (to give the drones his BS5) and he would be best equipped with 2 missile pods, because they are the same range as the drones meaning the unit will always get to fire all shots.
Also, facing off against marines etc that have str8 weapons, they can insta-kill your commander if he doesn't have iridium armour - I always give my commander this upgrade.
As a side note for all suits, it's a lot more effective to take two of a weapon than a single twin-linked weapon.
I actually never run my commander as a marker unit, I give him iridium armour, drone controller, 2xgun drones (gives you another 4 twin-linked BS5 shots), cyclic ion blaster and plasma rifle. This makes him a pretty good trolling unit as he has a 2+ save and +1 toughness with enough firepower to nicely reduce any type of unit.

Okay, onto your troops selection - as long as you keep one team in the fish and never disembark them, that team should survive as being a nice objective secured devilfish. However, you do need to change what your fish is kitted out with if you want it to be survivable. Disruption pods are an autotake option if you're using the unit like this as it maximises chance of survival. You've done well with putting the SMS on - this allows the fish to sit out of line of sight on an objective (if the terrain allows this) and just shoot at whatever you want in range, ignoring any enemy cover, perfect.
The other 6 man team will get slaughtered if not placed well though. Ideally, they should be sitting in cover holding an objective at the back of the board, but simply having them in cover will do. Their long range allows them to be a bit of a nuisance for enemy troop units and also light vehicles.

Elites and Fast attack: you've made a grave mistake here in that you haven't used any crisis suits. They are the best component of your army and are very versatile. I'd take these over stealth suits anyday. First of all, get rid of the drone squadron, they're virtually useless like this. That's 84 points you're paying for a unit that only averages 1 markerlight hit per turn - a unit of pathfinders with no upgrades would be much better at this job. And you desperately need pathfinders in your army, especially to boost riptide BS. I'd possibly even stick two units of 4 pathfinders in this slot for 88 points.
Okay, that stealth suit unit is hugely expensive for a unit that isn't particularly effective. My suggestion is get rid of that whole unit, and replace it with a crisis team. Now, the loadout of the team heavily depends on the enemy you think you'll be facing. If you'll be facing a lot of heavy armour, you'll want suits with two fusions each (if you can afford 3 suits, you give 2 of them a target lock so they can basically deep strike and blow up potentially 3 vehicles before they receive any return fire - bit of a suicide unit but works great).
If you'll be facing many Terminators (or equivalent), you'll want to have a team of suits with two plasmas each - the AP2 denies termie armour saves, and at rapid fire range, that's 12 AP2 shots you'll be firing (averaging 6 hits, 5 wounds = lots of dead termies). Plasma is also great for wiping out normal marines for the same reason, as well as character units, and MCs. They can also hurt armour if they've already fulfilled their primary role in a game.
If there's a tonne of light armour on the board, missile pods are perfect. 4 Str7 shots from each suits can glance to death or blow up 2-3 vehicles per turn. Long range (36") makes them very versatile as they'll always have a target.
If you're dealing with hordes, burst cannons and flamers are the best options here. Imagine a whole unit of Tyranid gaunts being obliterated by 24 burst cannon shots, or 12 combined with 3 flamer templates - ouch! Flamers are also great charge deterrents because they auto-hit in overwatch due to them being templates. This is incredibly useful when facing choppy enemies and gives your suits better survivability. If you're struggling to find what to spend your last 5 points on, sticking a flamer on one of your suits is a good way to go. They can go about their main role of tank-popping/heavy infantry hunting and then protect themselves from assault by pesky weaker units.
The other main strength of crisis teams is that they can jump-shoot-jump (JSJ). This allows them to move out from cover, let off some shots, then hop back into cover with their thrust move to weather any return fire in the enemy turn.
Onto your riptide: riptides are great, full stop. He's a very durable unit. You don't need all that stuff on him though. Stimms are enough to keep him alive, he doesn't need a shield generator too. And the missile drones are expensive - I'd say drop these and spend that 50 points elsewhere in your army. An EWO is a great upgrade for the riptide - he is usually a big target and you could run into a lot of trouble with a player who drop pods a sternguard squad right next to him. EWO (used at the end of THEIR movement phase) means he could actually wipe the whold squad out with an ion accelerator blast before they do anything at all. You won't be able to use the IA next turn, but you still have your secondary weapon. The secondary weapon you pick depends on your situation really, but I usually pick SMS for that line of sight/cover-ignoring long ranged goodness. The accelerator is mostly what I go for due to its higher strength, but if you're facing lots of flyers, the burst cannon is better at bringing them down.
As a side note, if you're facing a flyer-heavy list, take EWO with velocity tracker on a burst cannon riptide, with fusion as a secondary and watch your opponent cry as his flyers drop out the sky.

Heavy support: broadsides are great, but only if you take them HYMP with SMS. This is the way to maximise their killing ability whilst also making them pretty good at taking down flyers (4 twin-linked str7 shots? Flyers will cry, light ground tanks will cry even more). You don't need any extras on them, just take the single 65pt broadside. If you can fit it in, take another single broadside with the same loadout as a separate unit (you could take them in the same unit if you wish, but you'd need to give one of them a target lock so they can fire at a different unit).


I'll just give you a breakdown of other cheaper HQ options too:

Cadre fireblade - absolutely awesome if you attach him to a 12 man fire warrior team. This allows you to spit out 24 str5 shots at 30" (or 36 at 15") whilst also allowing you to fire his BS5 markerlight at a different unit using split-fire. Combine this tactic with pathfinder markerlighting for maximum effectiveness/making your opponents troops disintegrate.

Ethereal - in short, he's pretty amazing for the points cost. Buy an aegis defence line, stick 2 full squads of fire warriors behind it and dare your opponent to try and engage your squishy tau in close combat. If he tries, he'll never get there alive, and the FWs benefit from the ethereal's LD10.

Another thing - I've had huge success with the railgun hammerhead. Put Longstrike in it and you have a str10 ap1 gun that hits on a 2 and has unlimited overwatch with it's secondary weapons. Great for popping open a land raider turn 1 and forcing your opponent to try and deal with this threat whilst leaving the rest of your army to do its thing (if they can get in range first). The only thing is, the hammerhead is a pretty weak option without Longstrike, so you're best using fusion suits to kill av13 and 14.

Hope some of this helps