You can't realistically use more than 1? I think that restriction is stupid and is a byproduct of lazy rules writing, but I don't plan on ever taking fewer than 3 Commanders in a 2000 pt game. We're now great at detachment spam, and one of our extremely cheap HQs happens to significantly buff the troops you'd need as "tax" for a Battalion. Alternatively, you could take an outrider to take advantage of our amazing fast attack choices.

I'm not saying the Commander thing is a non-issue, but it does promote more diverse lists, regardless of whether it's a hatchet job or not. There are some very easy, essentially tax-free work-arounds for taking up to 3 Commanders in a normal-sized army.

Adaptability with a new codex is key. Every edition some particular build or another gets the shaft. The limit on Commanders does sting a little, but to me it doesn't feel any different that when the Rhino Rush died - all of a sudden I had a ton of transports that went from being awesome to being death traps. Unless you were spamming Commanders really hard there are a lot of ways to use the detachments to get more or less the same army on the table - 4 commanders in 5K is easily doable. 4 Commanders in 2K? Not so much, but them's the breaks.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Thank the people who spammed Commanders as buffbots.

People didn't spam Commanders as buffbots. Our commanders had two buffs, which were mutually exclusive and could only be used once per game.

People spammed Commanders because GW was really dumb and overcosted Crisis (not to mention removing the possibility of lone crisis suits outside of commanders) to the point that the Commander was better in every single metric on a point for point basis.

GW appears to have solved that issue by leaving Crisis as they are and limiting Commanders, meaning that they haven't actually fixed the issue that made people spam commanders in the first place. Which is obviously not going to have the effect of getting rid of spam as instead people will just spam the next best thing, which is not going to be crisis suits, sadly. At the moment it is looking like Fire Warrior gunlines. Yay, so fun to play.

I don't mind the commander limit, so long as we get more secondary HQs (The rumored XV8 commander might help if it's not limited as well). I actually would prefer if every faction had this limit: 1 marine captain, 1 warboss, 1 necron overlord etc... then give them cool build options like tau commanders have. You could really make them unique.

P.S. IG would be in a rough spot with this change, so platoon commanders would need to move to HQ at the very least.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Thank the people who spammed Commanders as buffbots.

People didn't spam Commanders as buffbots. Our commanders had two buffs, which were mutually exclusive and could only be used once per game.

You do realize that "Drone Controllers" are a thing, yeah?

It doesn't matter why they were nerfed, or how much we hate it, what matters is what we can do with it. MilkmanAI is right, we have access to -very- cheap detachments, that are actually useful. Fire warriors are actually in a good place for cost efficiency with damage output and durability. Even without changes, Kroot are still useful.

You can take a brigade with 60 strike/breachers, 1 commander, fireblade and whatever third hq you want. Then a battalion with a commander, ethereal and 30 kroot. 1350 pts or so, gives you almost 100 models on the board, all of which are solid and useful. Can throw around 650 pts of addtional AT (Assuming both commanders are fusion). Can easily swap out some of the brigade units (Sniper drones for broadsides, etc.) and get more firepower and trim the brigade fat.

You could also just do a battalion and specialized detachments, if you want to maximize commanders and our FA/E/H slots.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Thank the people who spammed Commanders as buffbots.

People didn't spam Commanders as buffbots. Our commanders had two buffs, which were mutually exclusive and could only be used once per game.

People spammed Commanders because GW was really dumb and overcosted Crisis (not to mention removing the possibility of lone crisis suits outside of commanders) to the point that the Commander was better in every single metric on a point for point basis.

GW appears to have solved that issue by leaving Crisis as they are and limiting Commanders, meaning that they haven't actually fixed the issue that made people spam commanders in the first place. Which is obviously not going to have the effect of getting rid of spam as instead people will just spam the next best thing, which is not going to be crisis suits, sadly. At the moment it is looking like Fire Warrior gunlines. Yay, so fun to play.

There's not really a good way to balance Commanders and regular Crisis Suits with points alone, short of redesigning Commanders to be buffbots. Commanders are I think the only non-targetable Characters with shooting comparable to what you can get from targetable units. That's intentional -- GW tends to want HQs to be impressive combatants, and it's not like you can make typical Commanders into CC powerhouses, but the base type of thing they are (crisis suits) is pretty expensive so that the small buffs that they provide aren't worth a huge fraction of their total points. If Commanders are desirable for their shooting ability, then there's basically always going to be a degenerate list where you take a bunch of Commanders and then trash units to sit between them and the enemy to render them untargetable. GW has responded to this sort of thing before. Malefic Lords were conceptually similar -- they hid behind trash units and threw out tons of Smites. They got put in the ground because they really weren't intended to be useful anyway. But Commanders are basically working as intended, GW just wants to make sure that you're bringing targetable heavy weapons too, or at least that you're paying for drones to protect your big guns as intended.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
It doesn't matter why they were nerfed, or how much we hate it, what matters is what we can do with it. MilkmanAI is right, we have access to -very- cheap detachments, that are actually useful. Fire warriors are actually in a good place for cost efficiency with damage output and durability. Even without changes, Kroot are still useful.

You can take a brigade with 60 strike/breachers, 1 commander, fireblade and whatever third hq you want. Then a battalion with a commander, ethereal and 30 kroot. 1350 pts or so, gives you almost 100 models on the board, all of which are solid and useful. Can throw around 650 pts of addtional AT (Assuming both commanders are fusion). Can easily swap out some of the brigade units (Sniper drones for broadsides, etc.) and get more firepower and trim the brigade fat.

You could also just do a battalion and specialized detachments, if you want to maximize commanders and our FA/E/H slots.

One of, IMO, the biggest disappointments from this book so far is that we didn't see "lieutenant" styled characters with non-Crisis Suits(Broadsides, Ghostkeels, Stealths--hell, even Piranhas!) would have been an interesting or unique thing to make it so that the "1 Commander per Detachment in Matched Play" rule didn't feel so onerous.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Thank the people who spammed Commanders as buffbots.

People didn't spam Commanders as buffbots. Our commanders had two buffs, which were mutually exclusive and could only be used once per game.

People spammed Commanders because GW was really dumb and overcosted Crisis (not to mention removing the possibility of lone crisis suits outside of commanders) to the point that the Commander was better in every single metric on a point for point basis.

GW appears to have solved that issue by leaving Crisis as they are and limiting Commanders, meaning that they haven't actually fixed the issue that made people spam commanders in the first place. Which is obviously not going to have the effect of getting rid of spam as instead people will just spam the next best thing, which is not going to be crisis suits, sadly. At the moment it is looking like Fire Warrior gunlines. Yay, so fun to play.

There's not really a good way to balance Commanders and regular Crisis Suits with points alone, short of redesigning Commanders to be buffbots. Commanders are I think the only non-targetable Characters with shooting comparable to what you can get from targetable units. That's intentional -- GW tends to want HQs to be impressive combatants, and it's not like you can make typical Commanders into CC powerhouses, but the base type of thing they are (crisis suits) is pretty expensive so that the small buffs that they provide aren't worth a huge fraction of their total points. If Commanders are desirable for their shooting ability, then there's basically always going to be a degenerate list where you take a bunch of Commanders and then trash units to sit between them and the enemy to render them untargetable. GW has responded to this sort of thing before. Malefic Lords were conceptually similar -- they hid behind trash units and threw out tons of Smites. They got put in the ground because they really weren't intended to be useful anyway. But Commanders are basically working as intended, GW just wants to make sure that you're bringing targetable heavy weapons too, or at least that you're paying for drones to protect your big guns as intended.

Here's how you balance commanders and XV8s: you charge different points for guns on a commander, compared to an XV8, to represent the fact that they are far more powerful on a guy who hits on a 2+.

They already do this all the time in other books, by the way. It's not some revolutionary idea.

Anyway I have to say I'm quite looking forward to the new book. I can see myself fielding a brigade - or even two of them (though that looks less likely). I'm really interested to see what can be done with a fish-based list, maybe backed up by some of the bigger suits. I've never been much of a fan of static lists though, so I don't see myself fielding hundreds of fire warriors.

the should just give us more generic/non-tau sept HQ choices, if we had that I wouldn't care at all about limiting commanders

Mandragola wrote:

Here's how you balance commanders and XV8s: you charge different points for guns on a commander, compared to an XV8, to represent the fact that they are far more powerful on a guy who hits on a 2+.

They already do this all the time in other books, by the way. It's not some revolutionary idea.

You're not thinking this through. As I explained, the fact that Commanders are Characters and so can hide behind other units makes this infeasible. It wouldn't matter if Commanders were also BS4+. If Commanders shoot more efficiently than regular suits, you just take Commanders. If regular suits are sufficiently more efficient than Commanders that you want to take some, then you'll tend to want to bring as few Commanders as possible since people would prefer to go after the more fragile and shootier regular suits anyway. Plus then Commanders feel like they're not pulling their weight when you actually put together a balanced list using both. Either character protection is valuable because your opponent can't shoot the things they really want to shoot, or it isn't because the things your opponent really wants to shoot aren't characters. Because Commanders are really only good for their shooting, their character protection is only valuable insofar as they are your best shooters. That's very different from a Captain or a Farseer, where you'd love to shoot them but only because of how they interact with the other units around them.

I'm excited for the book, too, even if it doesn't end up being mightily competitive. Also, FW spam doesn't have to be static. I plan on running my units all over the place. They may be concentrated near a Fireblade because duh, but they'll be on the move.

The Fish points cut makes me happy. For the first time since 4th, they might actually be worth having around. I enjoyed a lot of success last edition abusing a combo of d-pods and the stealth from a Ghostkeel Wing to get Breacher-filled Fish with a 2+ jink save. I'd love to field a dedicated mech Tau force. That would be so cool! Given the fact that Hammerheads may actually become useful, it seems very possible to go basically vehicle-only.

That's just one of the many possibilities I hope to explore.

calisk wrote:
the should just give us more generic/non-tau sept HQ choices, if we had that I wouldn't care at all about limiting commanders

'Just want to add that many special characters are COMMANDER keyword units, and are impacted by the rule.

Marking this down now:

All super competitive Tau lists will eventually gravitate towards have 2x Borkan Y'VHara in their lists. 14" 3 damage flamers solve all tau problems. And for 1CP you can give 1 of the Y'Vharas reroll wounds from a buffmander. Everything else in the codex will do less damage.

Wulfey wrote:
Marking this down now:

All super competitive Tau lists will eventually gravitate towards have 2x Borkan Y'VHara in their lists. 14" 3 damage flamers solve all tau problems. And for 1CP you can give 1 of the Y'Vharas reroll wounds from a buffmander. Everything else in the codex will do less damage.

Forge World Y'varahs were already broken. I play Tau and i will gladly say so. Le sigh.

Wulfey wrote:
Marking this down now:

All super competitive Tau lists will eventually gravitate towards have 2x Borkan Y'VHara in their lists. 14" 3 damage flamers solve all tau problems. And for 1CP you can give 1 of the Y'Vharas reroll wounds from a buffmander. Everything else in the codex will do less damage.

This is why the Y'vahra is going to get the nerfhammer sooner or later, lol.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
So, when are Space Marine Captains going to be limited to one per detachment?

I have yet to actually see a SM-list with more than 1 Captain, and I would never consider fielding more than one myself.

If it makes you feel any better we can only have 1 Chapter Master.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
So, when are Space Marine Captains going to be limited to one per detachment?

I have yet to actually see a SM-list with more than 1 Captain, and I would never consider fielding more than one myself.

If it makes you feel any better we can only have 1 Chapter Master.

This is incredibly off-topic so I won't make a second post about Space Marines, but running multiple Blood Angel Captain Smashf*ckers (jump pack, thunder hammer, probably storm shield) is common. You see it less often among non-BA lists, but it's still there.

While the damage output of y'varhas is amazing 2 of them plus a commander is half of a normal list. In 3 models. And those models are still very susceptible to lascannons. I don't think skewing a list that hard will be good.

 FirePainter wrote:
While the damage output of y'varhas is amazing 2 of them plus a commander is half of a normal list. In 3 models. And those models are still very susceptible to lascannons. I don't think skewing a list that hard will be good.

Not to fluff the Y'vahra too hard, but with a 14" Flamer it can simply opt to Nova it's 3++ every turn. Makes lascannons a little less spooky.

 Cephalobeard wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
While the damage output of y'varhas is amazing 2 of them plus a commander is half of a normal list. In 3 models. And those models are still very susceptible to lascannons. I don't think skewing a list that hard will be good.

Not to fluff the Y'vahra too hard, but with a 14" Flamer it can simply opt to Nova it's 3++ every turn. Makes lascannons a little less spooky.

All true and at this point I agree that 1 y'varha is pretty much autoinclude. But I like boys before toys and I for one will be riding high in fish of fury 2.0

 FirePainter wrote:
While the damage output of y'varhas is amazing 2 of them plus a commander is half of a normal list. In 3 models. And those models are still very susceptible to lascannons. I don't think skewing a list that hard will be good.

And yet...

I'm starting to see tau being a 2 battalion plus army 1 as your wrapping layer probably tau for 5-6 overwatch or the one that allows kroot to for the greater good. With some stealth suits to give deep stike denial.
Borkan battalion for backfield long range firewarriors and big suits
Something to give you a farsight counter assualt option.

 meleti wrote:

Wulfey wrote:
Marking this down now:

All super competitive Tau lists will eventually gravitate towards have 2x Borkan Y'VHara in their lists. 14" 3 damage flamers solve all tau problems. And for 1CP you can give 1 of the Y'Vharas reroll wounds from a buffmander. Everything else in the codex will do less damage.

This is why the Y'vahra is going to get the nerfhammer sooner or later, lol.

I'd rather have the Bor'kan tenet nerfed or removed for flamers than that the Y'Vahra gets balanced around having 14" flamers with a specific sept tenet but is useless in every other circumstance.

Pandabeer wrote:

 meleti wrote:

Wulfey wrote:
Marking this down now:

All super competitive Tau lists will eventually gravitate towards have 2x Borkan Y'VHara in their lists. 14" 3 damage flamers solve all tau problems. And for 1CP you can give 1 of the Y'Vharas reroll wounds from a buffmander. Everything else in the codex will do less damage.

This is why the Y'vahra is going to get the nerfhammer sooner or later, lol.

I'd rather have the Bor'kan tenet nerfed or removed for flamers than that the Y'Vahra gets balanced around having 14" flamers with a specific sept tenet but is useless in every other circumstance.

They haven't even released the codex and your already calling for nerfs
Just so y'vhara's a non codex entry aren't what? points hicked in December.

Ice_can wrote:

Pandabeer wrote:

 meleti wrote:

Wulfey wrote:
Marking this down now:

All super competitive Tau lists will eventually gravitate towards have 2x Borkan Y'VHara in their lists. 14" 3 damage flamers solve all tau problems. And for 1CP you can give 1 of the Y'Vharas reroll wounds from a buffmander. Everything else in the codex will do less damage.

This is why the Y'vahra is going to get the nerfhammer sooner or later, lol.

I'd rather have the Bor'kan tenet nerfed or removed for flamers than that the Y'Vahra gets balanced around having 14" flamers with a specific sept tenet but is useless in every other circumstance.

They haven't even released the codex and your already calling for nerfs
Just so y'vhara's a non codex entry aren't what? points hicked in December.

It's less that I want the Y'vahra nerfed, I just know how this is going to go:

1. It's a FW unit, a lot of people hate those.
2. It's almost certainly the best Tau unit in the game.
3. People will take Y'vahras, even moreso than they are now.
4. People are going to charge it. They just are.
5. GW will look at everyone playing with a FW unit in non-ETC competitive play, and they'll give it a casual 100 point increase next December like we saw with some FW stuff last Chapter Approved, and that will be it.

YVara was really good pre codex. Now it has a 14" flamer and access to rerolling wounds and access to double nova abilities. Those are big buffs. The reason why I say run 2 is that if one of them gets killed by lascannons on turn 1, the other one is still a great thing to turn CP into damage. Yeah they cost like a lord of war, but their damage potential is madness. 3d6 str6, -2, 3dam at 14" and auto hitting to ignore all of the modifier nonsense. The rerolling wounds gets you 55% to wound against all tough targets in the game. And drones can tank lascannon wounds. Unless they are nerfed in march, Borkan YVara will be standard.

Ice_can wrote:
I'm starting to see tau being a 2 battalion plus army 1 as your wrapping layer probably tau for 5-6 overwatch or the one that allows kroot to for the greater good. With some stealth suits to give deep stike denial.
Borkan battalion for backfield long range firewarriors and big suits
Something to give you a farsight counter assualt option.

I agree. I will probably start with 2 bork'an battalions and then a farsight vanguard and see what point line up with that.

Wulfey wrote:
YVara was really good pre codex. Now it has a 14" flamer and access to rerolling wounds and access to double nova abilities. Those are big buffs. The reason why I say run 2 is that if one of them gets killed by lascannons on turn 1, the other one is still a great thing to turn CP into damage. Yeah they cost like a lord of war, but their damage potential is madness. 3d6 str6, -2, 3dam at 14" and auto hitting to ignore all of the modifier nonsense. The rerolling wounds gets you 55% to wound against all tough targets in the game. And drones can tank lascannon wounds. Unless they are nerfed in march, Borkan YVara will be standard.

I've yet to see any indication that Y'vahras can double nova reactor. The Riptide stratagem works on an XV104 RIPTIDE BATTLESUIT, which the Y'vahra is not.

 meleti wrote:

Wulfey wrote:
YVara was really good pre codex. Now it has a 14" flamer and access to rerolling wounds and access to double nova abilities. Those are big buffs. The reason why I say run 2 is that if one of them gets killed by lascannons on turn 1, the other one is still a great thing to turn CP into damage. Yeah they cost like a lord of war, but their damage potential is madness. 3d6 str6, -2, 3dam at 14" and auto hitting to ignore all of the modifier nonsense. The rerolling wounds gets you 55% to wound against all tough targets in the game. And drones can tank lascannon wounds. Unless they are nerfed in march, Borkan YVara will be standard.

I've yet to see any indication that Y'vahras can double nova reactor. The Riptide stratagem works on an XV104 RIPTIDE BATTLESUIT, which the Y'vahra is not.

I would say the bolding of XV104 Riptide battlesuit means no double nova for any forgeworld suits as they clearly wont have this keyword

The forgeworld update in Fires of Cyraxus is likely to have an effect on points of tau units. The main relevant one is whether the Y'Vahra gets a correction - anyone got an idea when this might be released, there was a rumour of end of this month.

Also there was a rumour that coldstar commanders can choose their weapon choices, someone on Reddit pointed out the example given was "4 plasma rifles" which would suggest 4 hard points to use. There was meant to be a limitation as not having access to CIB. But that still leaves fusion blasters open to use - quad fusion coldstars is extraordinarily competitive, would love that, but common sense makes me think it's more likely to be 2 weapons + 2 support systems. Anyone got confirmation on this?

sadhvikv wrote:
The forgeworld update in Fires of Cyraxus is likely to have an effect on points of tau units. The main relevant one is whether the Y'Vahra gets a correction - anyone got an idea when this might be released, there was a rumour of end of this month.

Also there was a rumour that coldstar commanders can choose their weapon choices, someone on Reddit pointed out the example given was "4 plasma rifles" which would suggest 4 hard points to use. There was meant to be a limitation as not having access to CIB. But that still leaves fusion blasters open to use - quad fusion coldstars is extraordinarily competitive, would love that, but common sense makes me think it's more likely to be 2 weapons + 2 support systems. Anyone got confirmation on this?

Some guy over on ATT claimed it to be true. He said his FLG had the book and had a look at it. I think he also confirmed commander limit before GW preview.

 Cephalobeard wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
While the damage output of y'varhas is amazing 2 of them plus a commander is half of a normal list. In 3 models. And those models are still very susceptible to lascannons. I don't think skewing a list that hard will be good.

Not to fluff the Y'vahra too hard, but with a 14" Flamer it can simply opt to Nova it's 3++ every turn. Makes lascannons a little less spooky.

Y'vahra Nova only gives a 3++ against melee attacks. There's also no way in hell I'm using the Nova for anything except Nova-profiling the flamer.

I d like to know the point costs and loadouts of the new 4 wounds xv8 commander. If its bf3 3 weapons i think it would be enough to run single xv8 again.
Since CIB are not in the XV8 box, im pretty sure that they will be restrictet to our normal Commanders only.

Y'vahras are perhaps going to end up like the Daemon Primarchs. Big and scary, but useless in highly competitive play due to being focused down so hard, so often. My Chaos list that runs 3 Obliterator squads would gak all over 2 Y'vahras. It already did beat a list with the Bash Bros., and they are somewhat tougher than a Y'vahra.

If you invest in 2 Y'Vahras, you also need a ton of drones to protect them. That's not really an issue, since Gun Drones are still pretty decent at 12 points. My current thought for a list is basically 3 fusion Commanders, 2 Y'Vahras, and FW as necessary to fill detachments, and the rest with a mix of ion Pathfinders and deep striking Gun Drones. That all makes a lot of assumptions aboout rumors being accurate, but it'd make for a pretty strong list if what we've heard is all true.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Y'vahras are perhaps going to end up like the Daemon Primarchs. Big and scary, but useless in highly competitive play due to being focused down so hard, so often. My Chaos list that runs 3 Obliterator squads would gak all over 2 Y'vahras. It already did beat a list with the Bash Bros., and they are somewhat tougher than a Y'vahra.

We can try that out next tournament . Aidan had 2 squads and barely killed half the drones before I had him almost tabled. Turns out 3 damage weapons are really good at killing oblits.

Yvahras without drones are fairly easy to kill. With drones they're untouchable. It's why you take 50 of them. With a double yvahra list you're betting you can kill whatever threatens the yvahras before your drones are dead. With shield drones that's a fairly safe bet even before the range increase.

Great, I can already see how people spamming certain units ruin them for everyone again ^^ Nerfbat is already swinging.

I think it's almost inevitable that the Y'Vahra will get some kind of nerfing. GW doesn't want the best and most obvious auto-include to be a FW model. On the surface I'm OK with that since FW is moderately unattainable for lots of gamers for cost reasons, and the game is already more one of "who's got deep pockets" than I'd really like.

I'm going to proceed with list building and planning on the assumption that I'll be fine if I don't immediately shell out for two or more Y'Vahras.

Question, everyone is peeved that the Crisis Suits didn't get a points decrease. However, now that Drones can DS, those same suits might a lot more durable when they DS since they can be effectively screened. Has anyone got any proto-builds that make good use of DS Drone-Crisis synergy, maybe combined with a cheap CCN Commander? It feels like there's maybe some useful synergy there, but I haven't found it yet.

 Fenris-77 wrote:

Question, everyone is peeved that the Crisis Suits didn't get a points decrease. However, now that Drones can DS, those same suits might a lot more durable when they DS since they can be effectively screened. Has anyone got any proto-builds that make good use of DS Drone-Crisis synergy, maybe combined with a cheap CCN Commander? It feels like there's maybe some useful synergy there, but I haven't found it yet.

Drones taken as part of a unit of Crisis Suits already deep struck with the Crisis team, it is in the tactical drones entry in the Index:

When a unit is set up, any accompanying drones must be placed in unit coherence with it.

Each suit in the unit could take 2 drones, so even a minimum sized unit of Crisis (because of GW removing our options for lone crisis suits) could drop in with 6 drones as a screen.

Yeah, I get that, but there are additional benefits to screening with a separate unit of drones. One, you can get more Saviour Protocol bodies between your suits and his guns (so long as they are w/in 3"), but also you can split that separate unit off to act as a speed bump to delay HtH or to cover other parts of the board. You could do both obviously, but I was thinking more about uses for the separate unit.

Or, the simple act of having the same drones go with one of two different teams as the scenario dictates.

Aeri wrote:
Great, I can already see how people spamming certain units ruin them for everyone again ^^ Nerfbat is already swinging.

TIL taking 2 of something is spamming it. But yeah, my old list had 55 drones and 10 commanders and I don't feel bad about it at all. That list or that current one is the only way I don't get tabled. It's not our fault our index was such gak we had to spam the 3 viable units to even have a chance of placing at tournaments.

 Fenris-77 wrote:
Question, everyone is peeved that the Crisis Suits didn't get a points decrease. However, now that Drones can DS, those same suits might a lot more durable when they DS since they can be effectively screened. Has anyone got any proto-builds that make good use of DS Drone-Crisis synergy, maybe combined with a cheap CCN Commander? It feels like there's maybe some useful synergy there, but I haven't found it yet.

I feel like a lot hinges on how shield drones will change. I had thought there was talk of Saviour Protocols getting brought into line with other bodyguard rules, so that it's per wound actually suffered (after saves and damage). They might then lose their 5+++. The idea might be that they're worth 8 points just for bodyguarding compared to 12 for the gun drones. Going to a regular bodyguard rule with no FNP makes shield drones slightly worse at protecting Crisis Suits from bolters -- you can just shoot the shield drones and kill them slightly faster than you can now kill them by shooting the suits -- and a lot worse at protecting them from lascannons, since one hit could kill multiple drones. If they still have the FNP and get the regular bodyguard rule then that's pretty great for beating small arms but still makes them more vulnerable to big guns.

Gun drones would seem to be really bad at protecting suits at 12 points, though. I mean, 12 points for T4 4+ is pretty fragile, and with the normal bodyguard rule you'd be losing a bunch to a lascannon hit. And the gun drones are actually more vulnerable to bolter fire than a cheap Crisis Suit -- a bolter hit expects to kill 3 points of gun drone while putting 0.111 wounds on a suit, so you're only coming out ahead if the suit costs at least 81 points, or if you can position the drones so that they can't be directly shot at and can only bodyguard. Even a tri-plasma suit doesn't cost that much.

There’s no consistency in how bodyguard units work. Some soak individual wounds, like often bodyguards, so they can partially absorb a lascannon hit. Others instead take the hit - but resolve it against them instead of the original target, like deathshroud termies. So you roll to wound against their toughness and saves.

The second model makes more sense to me. It’s way harder to woundva riptide than a drone, so it’s dumb to have drones absorb shots only after they’ve beaten its toughness and 2+ save. But at the same time if the drone gets in the way it should tank the whole hit.

Mandragola wrote:
There’s no consistency in how bodyguard units work. Some soak individual wounds, like often bodyguards, so they can partially absorb a lascannon hit. Others instead take the hit - but resolve it against them instead of the original target, like deathshroud termies. So you roll to wound against their toughness and saves.

The second model makes more sense to me. It’s way harder to woundva riptide than a drone, so it’s dumb to have drones absorb shots only after they’ve beaten its toughness and 2+ save. But at the same time if the drone gets in the way it should tank the whole hit.

I agree the second method makes much more sence, than the almost fnp damage redistribution method.

Well Dal'yth is up. Not much to say although I like the buff to ghostkeels. I was already using them and the buff to both stealth and their ion gun is awesome!

The sept and warlord trait are pretty meh to though. Sticking with bork'an and farsight o far

Yup, I'm definitely gonna grab a ghostkeel now since it's less vulnerable to deepstrike shooting.

I’m not too impressed by the Dalyth stuff to be honest. It seems a particularly poor trait to use with ghostkeels and stealth suits - which want to be moving. I can see a case for it on units you expect to sit back and shoot, like broadsides and maybe stormsurges. In fact it’s probably at its best for big stuff like that, which would otherwise struggle to get cover saves. Fire warrior gunlines would certainly benefit, too.

So not useless, but nothing at all to do with the fluff.

The stratagem for stealth suits on the other hand seems extremely weak - at least as GW are describing it. Stealths can already fall back and shoot, so all this does is let them move further, when doing so.

If there is a good use for this strat then it’s probably in having the ghostkeel “throw” the stealths around the battlefield. Movement is a big deal and it’ll help to be able to rapidly reposition stealths. It might actually be a way to get farsight stealths up close to benefit from their reroll to wound. It definitely doesn’t combo with a sept trait that’s all about standing still!

So far, this is the least interesting update, I think. We already knew the trait was unspectacular and we haven’t seen a lot else. I don’t think we knew about auxiliaries coming down in points a bit, and I suppose that means the list of points changes we’ve seen so far might not be complete. Or maybe I just missed it.

If and I doubt they have changed egg men aswell that would really put the hurt on plasma deepstrike spamming.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mandragola wrote:
I’m not too impressed by the Dalyth stuff to be honest. It seems a particularly poor trait to use with ghostkeels and stealth suits - which want to be moving. I can see a case for it on units you expect to sit back and shoot, like broadsides and maybe stormsurges. In fact it’s probably at its best for big stuff like that, which would otherwise struggle to get cover saves. Fire warrior gunlines would certainly benefit, too.

So not useless, but nothing at all to do with the fluff.

The stratagem for stealth suits on the other hand seems extremely weak - at least as GW are describing it. Stealths can already fall back and shoot, so all this does is let them move further, when doing so.

If there is a good use for this strat then it’s probably in having the ghostkeel “throw” the stealths around the battlefield. Movement is a big deal and it’ll help to be able to rapidly reposition stealths. It might actually be a way to get farsight stealths up close to benefit from their reroll to wound. It definitely doesn’t combo with a sept trait that’s all about standing still!

So far, this is the least interesting update, I think. We already knew the trait was unspectacular and we haven’t seen a lot else. I don’t think we knew about auxiliaries coming down in points a bit, and I suppose that means the list of points changes we’ve seen so far might not be complete. Or maybe I just missed it.

I think Dalyth probably started as a -1 to hit trait faction and they changed it up after seeing how broken it is army wide, the problem being cover for not moving goes against everything but pathfinders probably already hidden in cover and big suits who even then will probably benifit more from borkan to give them a larger threat radius

Mandragola wrote:I’m not too impressed by the Dalyth stuff to be honest. It seems a particularly poor trait to use with ghostkeels and stealth suits - which want to be moving. I can see a case for it on units you expect to sit back and shoot, like broadsides and maybe stormsurges. In fact it’s probably at its best for big stuff like that, which would otherwise struggle to get cover saves. Fire warrior gunlines would certainly benefit, too.

So not useless, but nothing at all to do with the fluff.

The stratagem for stealth suits on the other hand seems extremely weak - at least as GW are describing it. Stealths can already fall back and shoot, so all this does is let them move further, when doing so.

If there is a good use for this strat then it’s probably in having the ghostkeel “throw” the stealths around the battlefield. Movement is a big deal and it’ll help to be able to rapidly reposition stealths. It might actually be a way to get farsight stealths up close to benefit from their reroll to wound. It definitely doesn’t combo with a sept trait that’s all about standing still!

So far, this is the least interesting update, I think. We already knew the trait was unspectacular and we haven’t seen a lot else. I don’t think we knew about auxiliaries coming down in points a bit, and I suppose that means the list of points changes we’ve seen so far might not be complete. Or maybe I just missed it.

I agree with all of this, but I'm curious who runs a Fire Warrior gunline as a static entity. In my estimation, they are (and always have been) at their best when they're taking advantage of their extended double-tap range, which means moving them towards their targets for a massive 3 shots apiece. No standing around in this guy's army! Also, here's hoping the non-Tau got cheaper across the board. That'd be a nice surprise.

By the way, I'm really amused by the possibility of a Da'lyth Stormsurge superheavy detachment.

Yeah that could be right. Nids get the same, though their version does work when moving. I wonder if the people who currently get -1 to hit all the time will be retconned to be in cover. My Crimson Fists certainly hope so!

I can’t say I like the mechanic. It would be better if it stacked with actual cover. As it is, it’s probably a downside for this sept if there’s Terrain around, because the baddies will hide behind it.

And yeah, Stormsurges can be from whatever sept you want - though if they are, they won’t benefit from other septs’ buffs. That’s probably a deal-breaker I think, as they really want markerlight support, Kauyon etc.

I take one other thing from these updates. In the Tau script, there are no apostrophes randomly scattered in their words. I’m therefore boycotting the arbitrary addition of apostrophes to all the Tau words by humans. It’s silly.

Ice_can wrote:

Pandabeer wrote:

 meleti wrote:

Wulfey wrote:
Marking this down now:

All super competitive Tau lists will eventually gravitate towards have 2x Borkan Y'VHara in their lists. 14" 3 damage flamers solve all tau problems. And for 1CP you can give 1 of the Y'Vharas reroll wounds from a buffmander. Everything else in the codex will do less damage.

This is why the Y'vahra is going to get the nerfhammer sooner or later, lol.

I'd rather have the Bor'kan tenet nerfed or removed for flamers than that the Y'Vahra gets balanced around having 14" flamers with a specific sept tenet but is useless in every other circumstance.

They haven't even released the codex and your already calling for nerfs
Just so y'vhara's a non codex entry aren't what? points hicked in December.

I'm not asking for nerfs, I'm saying that IF the Y'vahra is to be nerfed they should nerf what's causing problems, which is it's 14" flamer when using the Bork'an tenet. A 6" range increase on an 8" weapon is MASSIVE and most likely so impactful that the Y'vahra cannot be properly balanced for both Bork'an and other septs at the same time while this rule exists. It'll probably either be OP for Bork'an and balanced for other septs or balanced for Bork'an but useless for other septs. If the Y'vahra always has an 8" flamer (or something like 9 or 10" for Bork'an) it's much easier to make it usable for everyone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mandragola wrote:
I’m not too impressed by the Dalyth stuff to be honest. It seems a particularly poor trait to use with ghostkeels and stealth suits - which want to be moving. I can see a case for it on units you expect to sit back and shoot, like broadsides and maybe stormsurges. In fact it’s probably at its best for big stuff like that, which would otherwise struggle to get cover saves. Fire warrior gunlines would certainly benefit, too.

So not useless, but nothing at all to do with the fluff.

The stratagem for stealth suits on the other hand seems extremely weak - at least as GW are describing it. Stealths can already fall back and shoot, so all this does is let them move further, when doing so.

If there is a good use for this strat then it’s probably in having the ghostkeel “throw” the stealths around the battlefield. Movement is a big deal and it’ll help to be able to rapidly reposition stealths. It might actually be a way to get farsight stealths up close to benefit from their reroll to wound. It definitely doesn’t combo with a sept trait that’s all about standing still!

So far, this is the least interesting update, I think. We already knew the trait was unspectacular and we haven’t seen a lot else. I don’t think we knew about auxiliaries coming down in points a bit, and I suppose that means the list of points changes we’ve seen so far might not be complete. Or maybe I just missed it.

I think it would have been better if Dal'yth units benefitted from cover if they moved a certain distance (to prevent "I moved my Fire Warrior gunline 0.01"! They have cover now!" shenanigans).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mandragola wrote:


I take one other thing from these updates. In the Tau script, there are no apostrophes randomly scattered in their words. I’m therefore boycotting the arbitrary addition of apostrophes to all the Tau words by humans. It’s silly.

And horrible to type because if I use ' before a vowel it'll automatically put an accent on my next letter unless I press space first

Actually the ghost keel stratagem works really well with Dal'yth. It's the only way to move your suits closer AND keeping your cover bonus.

Mandragola wrote:
Yeah that could be right. Nids get the same, though their version does work when moving. I wonder if the people who currently get -1 to hit all the time will be retconned to be in cover. My Crimson Fists certainly hope so!

The nid version doesn't work on anything that has "Fly".


I'm thinking that is why the Tau one requires you to be stationary during your turn while the Nid one doesn't. Nids don't get Gargoyles or Flyrants running up and down the field with +1 to their armor save while Tau can have basically all of their stuff with "Fly"(barring the actual Flyers) stay still during their turn and get +1 to their save.

I can’t say I like the mechanic. It would be better if it stacked with actual cover. As it is, it’s probably a downside for this sept if there’s Terrain around, because the baddies will hide behind it.

And yeah, Stormsurges can be from whatever sept you want - though if they are, they won’t benefit from other septs’ buffs. That’s probably a deal-breaker I think, as they really want markerlight support, Kauyon etc.

Markerlights, right now, don't require you to have the same <Sept>. They just apply to Tau Empire stuff.

Ok that’s cool. Maybe I will go for some dalyth stormsuges then. I’ve got one, partially built.

Mainly I’ll be waiting to see the whole book, plus the March FAQ updates, before committing to anything major.

Wall of Mirrors, as written, provides fairly high levels of mobility (albeit with some serious limitations) for a single stealth squad. It'll be situational, but if you load up a full Stealth squad with a few fusion, you could move roughly 20" (6" from riptide + 12" away from riptide +~2" for the base) at the beginning of the movement phase, move 8" (because it isn't restricted - it was just a mirage!), assault move +1d6", and still hit on 3's rerolling 1s with 2 fusions if you have enough markerlight support on the target.

Edit: the extra movement and assault move may not work, given the FAQ entry about removal and setup. Still, decent mobility and no penalties to shooting. *shrug*

If they're of the Dalyth Sept, they also have the added benefit of being able to have some of that mobility (~20") and retain their Sept trait benefit, since they don't meet any of the limiting factors thereof. Mobile terminators that impose -1 to hit, with semi-decent firepower (with ATS). Not bad.

So, uh, the rest of the stratagems, all the signature systems, and all of the point costs and weapon profiles/support system rules are up.

Lots to digest.

http://www.3plusplus.net/2018/03/tau-leak-stratagems-warlord-traits-signature-systems-point-values/

Commander with 3x CIB+ATS is 21.3 points per damage vs T7/3+, an AMAZING damage output. Actually one of the highest in the game for dedicated AT. T'au sept with the 6" JSJ relic, and the 18" gun is actually totally legit. Kills 4 reapers on average, even without overcharging, as well.

4x CIB is 22.2 for T7/3+, but is more flexible and more volume, so higher potential damage output. 4x CIB averages the same damage as 3xCIB+ATS vs 3+ save, and is better vs anything 4+ save (Including invuln). Thought it is 6 points more expensive.

Got our new commander loadout, boys.

Fusion still better for T7+ 3+ or 2+ with no invuln. Though it is marginal at T7/8 3+, and still within 10 ppd at T7/8 2+.

That's not our new loadout, that was the loadout the moment the index dropped.

CiB was the best, without question-and gotten better.

Meanwhile plasma is still dumb as hell and weaker than imperial for no reason (it was weaker because it was set to safe! now imperial is both safe and stronger?)
Not to mention the rail line weapons, supposdly iconic tau, are still utterly useless.

Hail our new ion overlords.

Built a list that is ETC and ITC compatible. Expanding on my death onion concept. Right now it's at 1973, to give me a bit of flexibility based on what the official drone rules become. If sniper drones are no longer available as heavy slots, then the whole list has to be reworked, as there is nothing remotely close in cost in the heavy slot.

List has a Brigade, Battalion, and patrol for 15 command points. 1 is spent pre-game for the second relic. 31 drops.

"What the hell is first turn?"

T'au Sept Brigade
Commander - 4x CIB, JSJ relic
Fireblade - Warlord, Puretide engram relic, bonus AP on 6 to hit aura trait
Darkstrider

6x10 Strike Teams - 6x1 SMS turret (The death onion, can drop SMS for points elsewhere)

3x1 Firesight Marksmen (Cheap markers, fills elites)

3x4 Kroot Hounds (Cheap harassing units to try to engage shooting units, fills fast)

3x3 Sniper Drones (Combos with T'au stratagem for volume of firepower to try to put mortal wounds on units. Cheap heavy slot. Would like to find a place for a drone controller)

Sac'ea Sept Battalion
Commander - 4x Fusion (Gets more out of the single reroll than CIB, also more effective vs a handful of targets)
Ethereal (Buff is not sept based. Sac'ea increase his LD aura, making death onion fire warriors LD10. They cannot lose a model to morale until 6 casualties as they autopass on a 6. Gives out 6+++ to the onion.)

3x5 Strike teams - Markerlight sgt (Sac'ea reroll on markerlights)

3x1 Firesight Marksmen (Sac'ea reroll on markerlights)

2x3 Stealth Suits - Fusion blaster (Sac'ea reroll on melta)

Dal'yth sept patrol (Stop laughing, there's a reason)

Commander - 4x CIB (Use Dal'yth strat to allow him to also JSJ like the T'au commander)

1x10 Kroot (Because everyone loves kroot)

Ghostkeel - Ion Raker, 2x burst cannons (Torn between putting him with the stealth teams for possible use of their stratagem, or using him as area denial. With a possible -2 to hit and 2+ save, he could make for a fairly tough target vs shooting. Can easily swap him up to sac'ea, though. 8 pts for 4++ is definitely a strong choice.)

Idea is to use sac'ea for their 2cp strat and light up a bunch of units. Priority target #1 catches the D3 bonus marker stratagem, so it should be at 4, and then I can top it off. Should take 2-3 of my markerlights to get it to 5. Then I have 8-9 to get 4/5 more on the next priority target.

T'au sept just lays into it, using strat as soon as available. Once strat is up, all fire warriors are getting the AP bonus on to wounds of 5 or 6, and snipers get MW on 5/6. Because all the weapons are rapid fire, moving and shooting is a legitimate option. If something is hiding out of LOS, I can drop the 6 SMS and do the best I can.

T'au and Dal'yth commander can both be played relatively aggressively, dropping in and firing, then moving 6" to get out of LOS.

Stealth teams, kroot and ghostkeel are to help buffer against deep strikers, deny far objectives and generally just be skirmishing units.


My concerns -

I feel light on raw offensive power. I'd honestly like 5 CIB commanders, and am totally open to swapping the fusion CC for a CIB CC. If coldstars actually can take 4 weapons though, I feel like a 4 fusion coldstar is almost an autotake. Can advance 40" and fire fusion blasters into backfield arty.

The fire warriors damage, even with all buffs, is not spectacular past 15", though it is enough to pick up plenty of infantry units. Within 15, with 5 markers and the tau strat, it is a complete meat grinder. It is super comparable to ultramarines razorback, though I think the sheer number of shots makes it far more damage per point.

I may be heavy on markerlights. I wanted to be able to reliably 5 mark 2 targets a turn, but in doing so I may have sacrificed too much damage. The sac'ea detachment offers fairly limited damage potential, though the 6 units only constitute 189 points of my army (Not counting the 2 hqs, which I would have no matter the sept). I could swap Dal'yth to the battion, make an aux detachment for a commander, and turn the kroot hounds into pathfinder special weapon teams or something.

I will never get +1 to go first, though the list is designed so that there are no valuable units to alpha, just lots of cheap units which will force my opponent to heavily split firepower to avoid overkill, and risk not doing enough damage.

Ok, now that 3plusplus give us all the relics, strats, traits, guns, etc I can make a review of sorts


Lets start by comparing the different septs:

T'au:


Vior'la:


Dal'yth:


Sa'cra:


Bor'kan:


Farsight Enclaves:



End result, no clear winner because honestly none of them is all that good.
Dal'yth is the clear loser that nobody will ever play (a shame really, fluffwise they are awesome.)
FSE are a one trick pony, so are viorla (and their trick is overlapping x_x)
T'au is basically a random assortment of things that are decent on it's own, but have zero synergy (oh the irony)
Sac'ra is decent for some specific builds,
Bor'kan will we the go-to because it honestly the only one you can plan around, despite the sept trait being the only useful part of it.

Everything sept-spesific honestly isn't impressive, and the generic picks are better (and they are mostly not too hot either x_x)

The go-to relics are two generic ones, the PEN chip for CP farming, and the seismic destabilizer. the only issue is that you want both of them on "safe" HQs, and we don't really have any "safe" hqs. they are all either squishy, or aggressive.

Stratagems, are mostly situational and/or janky, but a few stand out.
The CA uplinked markerlight is a thing.
EMP grenade is a good way for a fireblade to help with a daemon engine or any other melee vehicle.
Nuroweb system jammer is useful against enemy shooty bomb type units, especially if they are using potentailly overheating guns.
Stims can be useful for your wounded superheavy to deliver one last punishment.
Branched NOVA, for obvious reasons
CNCN is useful for FSE crisis bombs with the man himself pulling out the trick (as his shooting isn't all that hot anyway)


I'll comment on the weapon and point changes later.

let me rephrase it so it better fits the actual situation:

T'au, Vior'la, Bork'an and Farsight enclaves are pretty good. Great Traits, Relics and stratagems.
The other two are a bit lackluster, but still playable if you enjoy the fluff.

Aeri wrote:
let me rephrase it so it better fits the actual situation:

T'au, Vior'la, Bork'an and Farsight enclaves are pretty good. Great Traits, Relics and stratagems.
The other two are a bit lackluster, but still playable if you enjoy the fluff.

This seems about right to me. And to be honest, it’s quite impressive that they’ve managed to make so many septs at least borderline useful, rather than having a stand-out winner. To me, Tau is probably the best bet still. Their bonus applies to every unit, so if you want to run an army featuring mix of different stuff then that seems like the way to go. And focussed fire is awesome. So is Darkstrider... longstrike not so much.

Shield generators now cost 8 points for ghostkeels. That seems like a good thing, and possibly a reason to run them with all-fusion - so you don’t need the ATS. Just under 200 points for the guy with two drones... which is a lot, but he is quite a tough cookie. Suffers badly to hit modifiers though. I just wonder if Tau need to be running units like Ghostkeels to have any realistic chance of grabbing objectives in maelstrom missions. The temptation to sit back and shoot is very strong, but not necessarily a great way to win games. Maybe the shield generator is a better call than the ATS even on Ionkeels - due to amounts of invulnerable saves there are in the meta at the moment. Or maybe that game I played recently against 9 flyrants has had too much influence on me.

Broadsides look pretty viable at around 130 points each. That actually seems quite interesting to me, because it makes Dalyth less dreadful. A static gunline might actually be a viable way to play Tau. That’s not to say it’ll be the best way to play them - obviously. You could well argue that broadsides benefit just as much from Tau or Borkan. I think velocity trackers might be the way to go for their support systems, to be able to shoot up Eldar, flyrants and stuff like that. If nothing else, broadsides look like a decent way to fill out heavy support slots in a brigade.

Having said all that, they do have to compete against Ionheads - which cost only a little more. The improved ion cannon is now far superior to the railgun - effectively firing D6 krak missiles. It hits on a 3+ and might be even happier to sit still to gain cover saves than the broadside. Drones can’t tank for it though. Unless I’m missing something, the ionheads makes the skyray look kind of ridiculous, because every hit it does is equivalent to the 6 one-shot missiles the skyray has.

I’m still quite tempted by FSE. Logic tells me not to be, but they seem like the most fun option, if not the best.

The ghostkeel as far as we know did not solve the problem that it features a heavy main weapon while short range and low BS
He's a though nut to crack, but he is extremely reliant on markerlight support, possibly too reliant-and the fusion loadout didn't really get better (only like 9 points cheaper and the guns are the same)
The CiR/burst is probably still for the best with the buffer raker. would need to run the numbers if the ATS is still a good idea on it though.
Shields on it could be nice. maybe. depends on if the meta tries killing them with quality fire or quantity fire.

Broadsides seems to be viable, yes. but they don't help Dal'yth at all, they are better off Bor'kan as you said. (or even T'au maybe)-and they could simply be set in cover and be done with it.

And yes, competing against Ionheads is...an issue.
The railgun is practically erased from the game as I doubt there is any scenario now that the railgun is the favorite. if you could have longstrike in Sac'ra THEN railheads could be viable, but otherwise its all ion all the time.
The rail line really needs to be updated. I know ion is the "new hotness", but seriusly no need to shove it up our throat in how its always the superior pick over any other option every time it comes up.

And yes, skyrays remain a joke.


Anyway, here's an amusing tidbit.
Any non-commander battlesuit of the T'au sept equipped with the CDS support system is actually more accurate on overwatch than on regular shots.

Overall things seems ok. I was expecting more things to drop in points. It seems like GW is very timid making Tau good. They seem to be pushing infantry and big suits.

Personally I am ok with this but I would have like crisis to drop 5 points or something. It's sad that the unit that got me playing Tau is just not very effective. I probably still run a unit of them but ghostkeels and riptides and much more points efficient.

Relics seem ok but puretide chip is the obvious winner. I'll probably run the super plasma with 3 ions for fun at least once.

Strategems are ok but really on the riptide and battlesuit repair stand out to me as always useful. This codex seems nice but it doesn't solve any of the main problems Tau had. I will play it but I am not terribly optimistic.

Right now to me it seams that tau is designed to be a mix of detachments, right now I'm thinking Borkan battalion as a base for your army.
Probably a Tau second battalion for darkstrider and longstrike and improved overwatch screen for firebase units.
Farsight vangaurd for a deepstrike bomb and the man himself, or dalyth vanguard for objective holding eggmen. Or maybe a dalyth for stormsurges

Don't give up on crisis just yet.
The CIB buff also buffed crisis. With the right markerlight support they can get rid of a 10 man termi squad in 1 shooting phase.

IMHO crisis are a very durable and reliable plattform.
Give them some drones aswell and they will get the job done.

What they are not are alphastrike assassins. (and thats good imho.) Although they CAN deal a suprising amount of damage once they mantastrike.

It's quite depressing how many of the stratagems are just the old wargear that GW took from us.

MSSS - old wargear
Failsafe Detonator - old wargear
Automated Repair System - old wargear
Neuroweb Jammer - old wargear
Repulsor field - old wargear
CnC Node - old wargear
EMP grenades - old wargear
Hunting Grounds - new
Branched Nova - new
Uplinked markerlight - new
Turret replacement - new
PDTR - old wargear
Extra relics - new but we used to be able to take multiple anyway
Ion Beam - new
B&C - new
Recon Sweep - new
Wall of Mirrors - new
Stims - old wargear
FF - new
Strike and Fade - JSJ, if you play one sept whose bonus is for staying still
Experimental Weapons - new
Positional Relay - old wargear
Hot Blooded - New but apparently Vior'la soldiers are less well trained and only shoot at the closest unit when ordered to fire in double time. You know, despite the best Fire Caste academy being on Vior'la.
Orbital marker - new
DZ clear - new

so 11/25 of our stratagems are just wargear that GW took away from us.


As for our signature systems, one of them is JSJ. An ability integral to crisis and stealth suits since the very beginning is now signature wargear only available on one unit in the whole army. It's as if Power Armour was suddenly limited to one HQ in a space marine army and the rest had to either be in scout armour, terminator armour or run around naked. Oh, and the naked ones are more expensive, too.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
It's quite depressing how many of the stratagems are just the old wargear that GW took from us.
so 11/25 of our stratagems are just wargear that GW took away from us.

That's how it's been with every army though. Guard lost "Mobile Command Vehicle" on Chimeras(something that used to be justification for the high-ish price point on that transport) and made it into a Stratagem as well. Some of the artillery rules that got added with Mont'ka that made those lists mean as all hell got reworded and brought into the Guard book as Stratagems as well.

You're not the first, you won't be the last.

Hot Blooded - New but apparently Vior'la soldiers are less well trained and only shoot at the closest unit when ordered to fire in double time. You know, despite the best Fire Caste academy being on Vior'la.

The fluff on the Stratagem description actually made a bit of sense there. It's the unit getting as close as possible to a specific enemy unit to unload on them.

As for our signature systems, one of them is JSJ. An ability integral to crisis and stealth suits since the very beginning is now signature wargear only available on one unit in the whole army. It's as if Power Armour was suddenly limited to one HQ in a space marine army and the rest had to either be in scout armour, terminator armour or run around naked. Oh, and the naked ones are more expensive, too.

What did Vectored Retro-Thrusters used to do?
I want to say that it was to grant Hit and Run but I'm not 100% sure and can't find my Tau books.
Yes, it sucks that it's a Relic. But you're still Fly units, meaning you can disengage at will from combat and still fire normally.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
It's quite depressing how many of the stratagems are just the old wargear that GW took from us.
so 11/25 of our stratagems are just wargear that GW took away from us.

That's how it's been with every army though. Guard lost "Mobile Command Vehicle" on Chimeras(something that used to be justification for the high-ish price point on that transport) and made it into a Stratagem as well. Some of the artillery rules that got added with Mont'ka that made those lists mean as all hell got reworded and brought into the Guard book as Stratagems as well.

You're not the first, you won't be the last.

Hot Blooded - New but apparently Vior'la soldiers are less well trained and only shoot at the closest unit when ordered to fire in double time. You know, despite the best Fire Caste academy being on Vior'la.

The fluff on the Stratagem description actually made a bit of sense there. It's the unit getting as close as possible to a specific enemy unit to unload on them.

As for our signature systems, one of them is JSJ. An ability integral to crisis and stealth suits since the very beginning is now signature wargear only available on one unit in the whole army. It's as if Power Armour was suddenly limited to one HQ in a space marine army and the rest had to either be in scout armour, terminator armour or run around naked. Oh, and the naked ones are more expensive, too.

What did Vectored Retro-Thrusters used to do?
I want to say that it was to grant Hit and Run but I'm not 100% sure and can't find my Tau books.
Yes, it sucks that it's a Relic. But you're still Fly units, meaning you can disengage at will from combat and still fire normally.

Vectored Retro Thrusters were hit and run but it was the jet pack unit type which gave our suits the ability to move in the assault phase even if not assaulting.

3 crisis with 9 cib is cheaper than 2 commanders with 8.

The bs4 can be offset by farsight strat and 5 markerlights.

Just fwiw

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Vectored Retro Thrusters were hit and run but it was the jet pack unit type which gave our suits the ability to move in the assault phase even if not assaulting.

I'm aware of what Tau suits were able to do before. Just didn't know VRT off the top of my head with any certainty.

I'm just saying that "Fly" seems to have been an attempt to make things a bit less "I can do something to you, but you can't do anything back to me".

I think the biggest thing is the waste of the jumppack keyword. Why put it on there if it does nothing. None of the strategems use it they all go off battlesuit. So why is it there?

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
3 crisis with 9 cib is cheaper than 2 commanders with 8.

The bs4 can be offset by farsight strat and 5 markerlights.

Just fwiw

So then include the price of the unit you used to get the 5 markerlight hits (Probably 10 Pathfinders) and that exceeds the cost of the commanders then.

you could use a smaller group and just use the markerlight stratagem, but then you're burning nearly 1/3rd of your command points on a suicide drop.

Wasn't there supposed to be this rumour about how we should clean the dust off our hammerheads/skyrays?

The way I see the leaks, a skyray is really purposeless, and the rail gun is just plain bad. Even tyrranofex gets to shoot 3 times with its own version, yet somehow the railgun gets 1 shot? come on.

Ion is nice tho.

I'm really excited about the rail rifle broadsides. Though a lot more expensive than equivalent enemy units (looking at you, hive guard!), they at least have 2 shots with good range, str, ap and damage.

I will agree with most people that fire warriors is the way to go. Weirdly enough there is no leak about how much the devilfish costs.

Devilfish base cost is down. Its112 with stuff so a small reduction but nice.

 FirePainter wrote:
Devilfish base cost is down. Its112 with stuff so a small reduction but nice.

Whaaaaa! This is not cheap :O It's a transport for crying out loud! 112 is dangerously close to tank points! Like actual tank.

 FirePainter wrote:
I think the biggest thing is the waste of the jumppack keyword. Why put it on there if it does nothing. None of the strategems use it they all go off battlesuit. So why is it there?

I'm wondering if maybe the reason behind it is so they can add campaign/battlezone specific rules later on down the road.

I could see stuff where "Fly" units can't operate unless they also have the "Jet Pack" keyword or weapon tweaks down the road where AA stuff can lock better onto things that have Vehicle, Jetbike, or Jet Pack with Fly.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Wasn't there supposed to be this rumour about how we should clean the dust off our hammerheads/skyrays?

The way I see the leaks, a skyray is really purposeless, and the rail gun is just plain bad. Even tyrranofex gets to shoot 3 times with its own version, yet somehow the railgun gets 1 shot? come on.

Ion is nice tho.

I'm really excited about the rail rifle broadsides. Though a lot more expensive than equivalent enemy units (looking at you, hive guard!), they at least have 2 shots with good range, str, ap and damage.

I will agree with most people that fire warriors is the way to go. Weirdly enough there is no leak about how much the devilfish costs.

Depends if there is a special rule for them we haven't seen yet, The Hammerhead entry was surprisingly sparse given that it only really touched upon longstrike's battlesuit rulewise.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
3 crisis with 9 cib is cheaper than 2 commanders with 8.

The bs4 can be offset by farsight strat and 5 markerlights.

Just fwiw

Not by enough, and not once you've paid for that markerlight support.

However they do have really nice "anti-anything" firepower. Each one on its own has 50% more dakka than a cyclic ion blaster, and the drop zone clear stratagem will prevent them from overheating.

They have to compete with missilesides though. A unit of these, with ATS, Kauyon and focused fire, will hurt things a great deal. I'm not yet sure if I prefer missilesides - which seem to really want an expensive ATS and the Borkan trait, or railsides. Railsides don't need an ATS and can therefore take another support system (such as a VT, for only 2 points) and are quite a lot cheaper. Focused fire with rail rifles (heavy or not) will actually result in a fair number of mortal wounds added onto the target.

I think that the codex might have swung the balance back in favour of long-ranged units, rather than fusion and CIBs to kill everything. I guess we'll see about that.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Wasn't there supposed to be this rumour about how we should clean the dust off our hammerheads/skyrays?

The way I see the leaks, a skyray is really purposeless, and the rail gun is just plain bad. Even tyrranofex gets to shoot 3 times with its own version, yet somehow the railgun gets 1 shot? come on.

Ion is nice tho.

I'm really excited about the rail rifle broadsides. Though a lot more expensive than equivalent enemy units (looking at you, hive guard!), they at least have 2 shots with good range, str, ap and damage.

I will agree with most people that fire warriors is the way to go. Weirdly enough there is no leak about how much the devilfish costs.

http://www.3plusplus.net/2018/03/tau-leak-stratagems-warlord-traits-signature-systems-point-values/
80 pts

1 of the other benefits jet-pack gave in 6th and 7th was relentless, it was a "stable firing platform" as opposed to jump packs which were all speed and charging. But suits can't advance and shoot w/o penalty w/o marker support. so lost that part too

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
Devilfish base cost is down. Its112 with stuff so a small reduction but nice.

Whaaaaa! This is not cheap :O It's a transport for crying out loud! 112 is dangerously close to tank points! Like actual tank.

Well a rhino is 72 points with a storm bolter and carries 10 @ 10 T7 3+ wounds while a devilfish is 112 for 8 S5 shots and carries 12 @ 12 T7 3+ wounds. Seems reasonable to me

 FirePainter wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
Devilfish base cost is down. Its112 with stuff so a small reduction but nice.

Whaaaaa! This is not cheap :O It's a transport for crying out loud! 112 is dangerously close to tank points! Like actual tank.

Well a rhino is 72 points with a storm bolter and carries 10 @ 10 T7 3+ wounds while a devilfish is 112 for 8 S5 shots and carries 12 @ 12 T7 3+ wounds. Seems reasonable to me

Never said I consider the rhino to be cheap either

I just look at my models and I try to find out a way to build a 2000 out of it. With the new point reductions I'm afraid I will have to purchase some more. In short I own:

Commander
Ethereal
Cadre Fireblade

24 Fire warriors + 2 Devilfish
6 XV-8 suits

4 Piranhas
8 pathfinders

1 x Riptide

3 x Broadsides
2 x Hammerhead/Skyray

 FirePainter wrote:

Well a rhino is 72 points with a storm bolter and carries 10 @ 10 T7 3+ wounds while a devilfish is 112 for 8 S5 shots and carries 12 @ 12 T7 3+ wounds. Seems reasonable to me

I mean, you don't see many loyalist Rhinos. You see some Chaos Rhinos because they can carry Berzerkers. That's the big issue with transports -- how worthwhile they are tends to depend on how useful their transport capacity is. Wave Serpents are really expensive but Eldar have a bunch of infantry which are really, really good except for their short range and fragility. Devilfish are likely to suffer because Fire Warriors are reasonably durable and have great range.

All valid points and I think just taking more fire warriors and broadside will be better than taking fish but I do feel they are comparable to the rhino even if they aren't going to be used.

A Devilfish also has FLY, which is a huge difference. For the first time in years, Devilfish seem worthwhile.

Regarding the new big leak, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. I need to digest the info more, but it sounds like we'll be a mid-tier army, which is fine. Borkan will keep us alive on the competitive scene with Commanders, Drones, Y'Vahras, Fire Warriors, and Pathfinders as our stand-out units. Strategems are poor overall with a couple that'll get used regularly. Relics are okay at best, but at least it's free stuff.

I'm massively disappointed that Stormsurges and Crisis Suits aren't discounted more. I love Fire Warrior spam and am thrilled it's going to be viable. However, I do wish suits were a better option without extensive support. Codependence is not synergy.

 FirePainter wrote:
All valid points and I think just taking more fire warriors and broadside will be better than taking fish but I do feel they are comparable to the rhino even if they aren't going to be used.

Weird thing is that they could be really useful carrying breacher teams around, But with the new septs, we can have striker fire warriors with 42" range. That's 21" for double tap range and then you can use the devilfish points for more striker teams. At which point, why really play breachers?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MilkmanAl wrote:
A Devilfish also has FLY, which is a huge difference. For the first time in years, Devilfish seem worthwhile.

Regarding the new big leak, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. I need to digest the info more, but it sounds like we'll be a mid-tier army, which is fine. Borkan will keep us alive on the competitive scene with Commanders, Drones, Y'Vahras, Fire Warriors, and Pathfinders as our stand-out units. Strategems are poor overall with a couple that'll get used regularly. Relics are okay at best, but at least it's free stuff.

I'm massively disappointed that Stormsurges and Crisis Suits aren't discounted more. I love Fire Warrior spam and am thrilled it's going to be viable. However, I do wish suits were a better option without extensive support. Codependence is not synergy.

I really really wanted skyrays to be useful. As it stands now.... I mean did they even look at the rules for the seeker missiles? How on earth does a weapon like this even cost points, let alone be the only weapon that your heavy support can hold?

Yeah Breacher could fun in fishes but strikes just put out more damage. And skyrays rules are just depression incarnate.

 FirePainter wrote:
Yeah Breacher could fun in fishes but strikes just put out more damage. And skyrays rules are just depression incarnate.

The 6 to hit rule in seeker missiles has really zero reason to exist. It's a one use only weapon. Just let it fire ffs. It's not even that destructive or anything. I really cannot understand the reasoning behind this.

Vior'la sept is up and I see some good synergy with breachers, vior'la sept and the shoot twice stratagem. Add in the Breaacher stratagem to make heads roll.

Viorla Breachers with some Fireblade support could be a fun way to go. Since Devilfish are actually usable, it won't break you to have them all loaded up and cruising across the battlefield. It doesn't matter as much that they're not going to be doing anything for a couple turns since they're so bloody cheap. A Breacher-based mech army could be fun to mess around with.

Speaking of breacher-based mech army, or just close ranged tau in general, this is what I'm considering trying out:

Viorla Battalion

Aun'shi
Coldstar Commander 2x Fusion (hopefully) with Seismic relic

10x breachers, DS8 turret SMS, Guardian Drone
10x breachers, DS8 turret SMS, Guardian Drone
5x strikes, DS8 turret SMS

Devilfish w/gun drones, burst and Seeker
Devilfish w/gun drones, burst and Seeker

10x Pathfinders 3x Rail Rifles, 2x marker drones
5x Pathfinders 3x Ion Rifles, 2x marker drones+Recon Drone

Farsight Vanguard

Commander Farsight (might swap for basic fusion commander with fusion blades)

6x Stealth Suits, 2x Gun Drones, Homing Beacon
3x Crisis Suits with 4x Shield Drones, ATS, 3x CIBs each
Riptide HBC+2 Fusions, ATS
Ghostkeel Fusion Collider 2x Fusions+Stealth Drones

With point drops that seems to work out to 2k. Going for maximum close range firepower/melee Tau madness.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Viorla Breachers with some Fireblade support could be a fun way to go. Since Devilfish are actually usable, it won't break you to have them all loaded up and cruising across the battlefield. It doesn't matter as much that they're not going to be doing anything for a couple turns since they're so bloody cheap. A Breacher-based mech army could be fun to mess around with.

I don't think fireblades work with breachers. Your best bet is to take them and a bunch of pulse rifles.

It'll be interesting to see whether it works best to have a horde of fire warriors on foot or less of them in devilfish. On foot they seem vulnerable to getting swamped, and the fish does have a fair bit of shooting of its own to compensate for having fewer guys. One advantage of a fish-based approach is that you can have a lot fewer drops with a brigade, by putting 2 units of FWs, breachers or pathfinders into 4 fish. Characters can get in there too.

Borkan pulse rifles near a pulse accelerator drone have a 42" range, which could remove the need to transport them. 3 shots at 21" from a 7 point guy would get a lot of work done.

Shadowsun is hard to love. Look at that warlord trait: reroll to hit if she's standing still. She's an infiltrator with fusion blasters - what's she doing standing still? Also, if she actually is standing still, it's so she can call Kauyon - which she can do twice... giving her rerolls to hit. On top of which, she comes with a drone that lets her make a unit reroll 1s to hit.

Despite all of that I think there's still arguably a case for taking her. Rerolls to hit two turns in a row for a castle, containing say a couple of broadside units, some riptides and/or maybe a stormsurge, would make a big difference. Ionheads would like it too. Combined with the focused fire stratagem, the shooting would be very nasty.

I've got a FW XV89. I might make it into a crisis commander, stick some missile pods on it and task it to sit around in my deployment zone, calling Kayon in turn 1. I'd give it the "Through Unity, Devastation" warlord trait and pop focused fire. +1 to wound makes a big difference when you've got rail weapons doing mortal wounds and other stuff getting -1ap. It does make missilesides look increasingly good though - if stuff is in range. In fact there's a case for leaving the guns off the commander altogether, and just having him give missilesides rerolls to wound. Edit: maybe that's what shadowsun does - nothing, but call kauyon twice on broadsides while using the CNC node strat.

It's really hard to decide on a sept, still (which is a good thing I guess). The focused fire stratagem really does seem very good though, so I can see that being the decisive factor.

My first list I am thinking something like this:


Should be 1998 with new points. No drones for protection is an issue but it puts out a good amount of fire power and has a decent body count.

The Vior'la sept trait is better than the leaks suggested as it only turns the rapid fire weapons into assault when you advance.

So you maintain the benefits of rapid fire double tap at half range when moving normally and can use extra movement from advancing to pull back whilst still firing at full accuracy.

Also, hilariously GW are advising people to build quadfusion coldstar suits. So they are telling people to build the most OP commander build whilst apparently feeling that quadfusion commanders were so OP without being able to move 40" in a turn that they needed to be restricted to one per detachment.

I don't think fireblades work with breachers

I think you're correct. Boo.

It'll be interesting to see whether it works best to have a horde of fire warriors on foot or less of them in devilfish.

At 118 pts for 2 SMS and a burst cannon, a Devilfish is actually a legit durable source of firepower. It's taking the place of 17 Fire Warriors, which is a questionable trade, but it would get the units it's carrying within that awesome 18" or 21" Borkan triple tap range on turn 2, guaranteed. Taking the midfield would be pretty easy, and you'd have a few flying tanks hanging out obstructing movement and spewing out missiles in their spare time.

On the other hand, FW are reasonably speedy in their own right, so it may be better to just have them hoof it into position and fire as they go. As you said, 36/42 inches is great range for a staple troop.

It's really hard to decide on a sept

Not for me. My choices will be Borkan, Borkan, and Borkan. Everything else might as well not exist. I'm open to playing around with Viorla and FSE with gimmick lists tailored to them, though.

The focused fire stratagem really does seem very good

Really? I feel like it's overpirced by a good CP. That said, we're really good at generating CP and don't have all that much to spend them on. Those strats...aren't great. You've got your die reroll per turn from the BRB and extra markers. That's pretty much it.

Edit:
List i'm mulling:

Borkan Brigade x2
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
Fireblade - 42
3x5 FW - 105

642 for both

Borkan Outrider
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
2 Y'Vahras - EWO, ATS - 846 (I assume)
3x5 Pathfinders - 3 ion rifles - 156
15 Gun Drones - 180

1998 in total

It's very light on protection for the Commanders and Y'Vahras, so I may well scrap the pathfinders for a mix of Marker and Gun Drones. Oddly, those 6 Pathfinders should be all the markers you really need. Rerolling 1's to hit on the Commanders is where it's at. The FW can just use shot volume. Thoughts?

the_scotsman wrote:
Speaking of breacher-based mech army, or just close ranged tau in general, this is what I'm considering trying out:


3x Crisis Suits with 4x Shield Drones, ATS, 3x CIBs each

That would be either ATS + 2CIBs or 3CIBs no ATS. Crisis only have 3 hard points each.

I like the list Milk. Double y'varha is killer and all that really matters is turn 1. You can cripple multiple big targets and the rest is clean up. Not going first though.......

MilkmanAl wrote:

The focused fire stratagem really does seem very good

Really? I feel like it's overpirced by a good CP. That said, we're really good at generating CP and don't have all that much to spend them on. Those strats...aren't great. You've got your die reroll per turn from the BRB and extra markers. That's pretty much it.

Edit:
List i'm mulling:

Borkan Brigade x2
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
Fireblade - 42
3x5 FW - 105

642 for both

Borkan Outrider
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
2 Y'Vahras - EWO, ATS - 846 (I assume)
3x5 Pathfinders - 3 ion rifles - 156
15 Gun Drones - 180

1998 in total

It's very light on protection for the Commanders and Y'Vahras, so I may well scrap the pathfinders for a mix of Marker and Gun Drones. Oddly, those 6 Pathfinders should be all the markers you really need. Rerolling 1's to hit on the Commanders is where it's at. The FW can just use shot volume. Thoughts?

Yeah I do think focused fire is that good. If you want to bring down Magnus, Morty, a cusdodes unit, a plaguebearer blob or a knight, focused fire will make your job a lot easier. Getting +1 to wound is just that big a bonus.

I'm not arguing, even for a second, that Borkan isn't a great sept. It's obviously really really good. A borkan commander with the devastation warlord trait, popping kauyon and the CNC strat, would do an awful lot of good for some missilesides. Focused fire might not be as good as an extra 6" of range on those HYMPs. But then railsides would get their extra mortal wounds quite a lot more often too.

Given how the meta is right now, full of daemons and flyrants that rely more on invulnerable saves than armour, I think an approach based on ion and missile saturation is likely to be better than one based on railguns. I'm pretty sure someone did some maths earlier to show that a quad CIB commander is now just better than a quad fusion one, for example.

 FirePainter wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
Devilfish base cost is down. Its112 with stuff so a small reduction but nice.

Whaaaaa! This is not cheap :O It's a transport for crying out loud! 112 is dangerously close to tank points! Like actual tank.

Well a rhino is 72 points with a storm bolter and carries 10 @ 10 T7 3+ wounds while a devilfish is 112 for 8 S5 shots and carries 12 @ 12 T7 3+ wounds. Seems reasonable to me

Isnt this near razorback territory while it also flys, cant get locked in combat and possibly moves faster?

Anyone who has ever used Veterans of the long War knows how strong Focused fire will be. Especially when the basic guy shoots at str 5. This is a huge difference when you want to kill the big baddies. Imagine Striker teams triple tapping and wounding at 4's. What's more, the Focused fire stratagem really rewards focusing down specific things. And guess what? So do markerlights. Between these two, I really think that if Tau want something dead right now, that something will most certainly die.

 Desubot wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
Devilfish base cost is down. Its112 with stuff so a small reduction but nice.

Whaaaaa! This is not cheap :O It's a transport for crying out loud! 112 is dangerously close to tank points! Like actual tank.

Well a rhino is 72 points with a storm bolter and carries 10 @ 10 T7 3+ wounds while a devilfish is 112 for 8 S5 shots and carries 12 @ 12 T7 3+ wounds. Seems reasonable to me

Isnt this near razorback territory while it also flys, cant get locked in combat and possibly moves faster?

I think the razorback has better gun options and access to reroll buffs. A razorback with twin asscannon has 12 S6 -1 shots at better BS for 114.

@Mandragola 4 ion would be nice if we could put it on a coldstars but since it's limited to normal commanders it is not quite as good. The mobility if the coldstars is just too good.

the cosmic serpent wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Speaking of breacher-based mech army, or just close ranged tau in general, this is what I'm considering trying out:


3x Crisis Suits with 4x Shield Drones, ATS, 3x CIBs each

That would be either ATS + 2CIBs or 3CIBs no ATS. Crisis only have 3 hard points each.

Good catch. I forgot the systems take up a hardpoint. I think i'd probably go with maximum gunsiness for them and plan on giving them tons of support the turn they arrive through CPs and other shenanigans.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking I'll probably ditch Farsight and run a second commander for 2x fusion + fusion blades, in the beefiest toughest battlesuit build I can make. My army is officially based on a Viorla sept battlegroup lost in the fourth sphere expansion, who've emerged from the warp with some unconventional tech and a bit more of a Pacific Rim attitude towards combat. So it'd be more fluff friendly to not have Farsight in there actually running around with them. Plus, finecrap, what is it good for (absolutely nothing, ungh).

Problem with saying you have to figure in markerlight costs is that with a limit on commanders, we need markerlights for our army anyways.

CP are easy to come by. I'm working with 15 and the puretide chip. No Tau army should have less than 9 and a puretide.

Broadsides are decent AT and AI, but not good at either. They're fairly durable, but again, not exceptional.

The more I do the math on them and consider how they fit into an army, the less I like them. Same goes for most of the suits. A single riptide has a lot of potential with the double nova charge.

the_scotsman wrote:

the cosmic serpent wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Speaking of breacher-based mech army, or just close ranged tau in general, this is what I'm considering trying out:


3x Crisis Suits with 4x Shield Drones, ATS, 3x CIBs each

That would be either ATS + 2CIBs or 3CIBs no ATS. Crisis only have 3 hard points each.

Good catch. I forgot the systems take up a hardpoint. I think i'd probably go with maximum gunsiness for them and plan on giving them tons of support the turn they arrive through CPs and other shenanigans.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking I'll probably ditch Farsight and run a second commander for 2x fusion + fusion blades, in the beefiest toughest battlesuit build I can make. My army is officially based on a Viorla sept battlegroup lost in the fourth sphere expansion, who've emerged from the warp with some unconventional tech and a bit more of a Pacific Rim attitude towards combat. So it'd be more fluff friendly to not have Farsight in there actually running around with them. Plus, finecrap, what is it good for (absolutely nothing, ungh).

It wouldn't be unfluffy for Farsight to work with these guys to acquire new tech. He is likely to have sympathizers within Vior'la as that was his home sept before he went renegade, which is how they explain FSE gaining access to riptides. I'm considering running a small detachment with him from time to time. My army is already painted up Vior'la I figure for occasional battles Farsight can show up as part of a "tech swap" with a crisis team acting as his bodyguard. Could be fun.

Mandragola wrote:
Yeah I do think focused fire is that good. If you want to bring down Magnus, Morty, a cusdodes unit, a plaguebearer blob or a knight, focused fire will make your job a lot easier. Getting +1 to wound is just that big a bonus.

Combined with Through Unity, Destruction and the Structural Analyzer from the Darkstrider, as a non-Tau player this appears extremely nasty.

Milk has the right idea.

Coldstars + YVharas, and then Trooptaxes + Markerlights + HQtaxes + FillLastPointsWithDrones

Continuing on the theme of the Tau sept, I do like the look of longstrike, plus a couple of ionside friends.

I'm picturing a firebase constructed around Longstrike, an XV8 commander with Through Unity Destruction and a drone controller (and a shield, and maybe no guns!), 3 missilesides with VTs, 6 missile drones (maybe) and a decent-sized unit of marker drones.

That fills out two HQs, all the HS and one FA slot from a brigade. So on top of that I'd take strike squads, a fireblade as my 3rd HQ and some cheap-ish FA and elite stuff - quite likely drones and stealths.

I'm still debating shadowsun. She wins the relic mission, by deploying on it and running like hell. She's just not allowed to be warlord, and would have to be in some other detachment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok I put the list together to see what it would look like. Not actually super-impressed. Those broadsides are way expensive! I wonder if this army would actually be better built as two battalions, or a battalion and a spearhead, as I'm not getting huge value out of my elites and fast attack.

Commander 83
Drone Controller
Shield Generator

Cadre Fireblade 42
Markerlight

Longstrike 202
Ion Cannon
2 Smart Missile Systems

5 Fire Warriors 35

6 Fire Warriors 42

6 Fire Warriors 42

6 Fire Warriors 42

10 Kroot 50

10 Kroot 50

4 Gun Drones 48

4 Gun Drones 48

6 Marker Drones 60

3 Broadsides 456
6 High-yield Missile Pods
6 Smart missile Systems
3 Advanced Targeting Systems

Hammerhead Gunship 165
Ion Cannon
2 Smart Missile Systems

Hammerhead Gunship 159
Ion Cannon
2 Gun Drones

Devilfish 112
Burst Cannon
2 Gun Drones

Devilfish 112
Burst Cannon
2 Gun Drones

3 Stealths 84
3 Burst Cannons

3 Stealths 84
3 Burst Cannons

3 Stealths 84
3 Burst Cannons

If I'm honest, looking at the list, I think I've disproved my own hypothesis on broadsides. 450 points is an awful lot to spend on a unit - especially one that lacks the fly keyword. There's just no need to put all my eggs in one basket like that.

The ionheads with longstrike look decent, but I think I need to make better use of those elite slots. I'll have another think and try to do something involving ghostkeels, or maybe riptides.

the cosmic serpent wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

the cosmic serpent wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Speaking of breacher-based mech army, or just close ranged tau in general, this is what I'm considering trying out:


3x Crisis Suits with 4x Shield Drones, ATS, 3x CIBs each

That would be either ATS + 2CIBs or 3CIBs no ATS. Crisis only have 3 hard points each.

Good catch. I forgot the systems take up a hardpoint. I think i'd probably go with maximum gunsiness for them and plan on giving them tons of support the turn they arrive through CPs and other shenanigans.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking I'll probably ditch Farsight and run a second commander for 2x fusion + fusion blades, in the beefiest toughest battlesuit build I can make. My army is officially based on a Viorla sept battlegroup lost in the fourth sphere expansion, who've emerged from the warp with some unconventional tech and a bit more of a Pacific Rim attitude towards combat. So it'd be more fluff friendly to not have Farsight in there actually running around with them. Plus, finecrap, what is it good for (absolutely nothing, ungh).

It wouldn't be unfluffy for Farsight to work with these guys to acquire new tech. He is likely to have sympathizers within Vior'la as that was his home sept before he went renegade, which is how they explain FSE gaining access to riptides. I'm considering running a small detachment with him from time to time. My army is already painted up Vior'la I figure for occasional battles Farsight can show up as part of a "tech swap" with a crisis team acting as his bodyguard. Could be fun.

Yeah, it's not entirely unfluffy but the more I think about it, the more I want to be playing "my dudes". The way I'm painting them up, they've got a variety of crazy camo patterns projected onto their armor to match the bases they're on, but the ones that are not done up in camo (showing the underlying armor) it's all painted up in extremely beaten up and weathered Viorla scheme. The farsight detachment is just going to be a reflection of how incredibly far they've gone into the Mont'ka doctrine of extreme aggression, even past the normal Vior'la fire and candor. My Aunshi is also very likely to be a heavy kitbash rather than the official model.

I think a fusion blade commander might outperform Farsight anyway, between its shooting and its close combat attacks it'll deal a ton of damage to a vehicle target. Plus you can give it a shield generator and Iridium armor and it's more durable than farsight and still fewer points.

I think Broadsides are great now, but I don't think I'd use more than 1 in a unit so you run less risk of getting that ludicrously expensive group of battle bots tied up and unable to shoot.

Longstrike-lead ionheads sound pretty great, and I'm interested to see what happens with the double-HBC forgeworld variant. I mean, if it goes from heavy 16 to heavy 24 with 2 dmg, that'd be all sorts of worth 200pts, considering it'll hit on 2s until Longstrike eats it. Tau tank spam, anyone? If they do end up getting FtGG, those Hammerheads are going to essentially be impossible to assault. Just gets worse if they can have vehicle upgrades.

I think they still suffer from the same thing they did during the index-era.

The hammerhead costs roughly the same but is around twice as durable(Not counting in drones, which make the broadside more durable but cost points for each hit they absorb). More importantly, the tank flies which is huge.

wighti wrote:
I think they still suffer from the same thing they did during the index-era.

The hammerhead costs roughly the same but is around twice as durable(Not counting in drones, which make the broadside more durable but cost points for each hit they absorb). More importantly, the tank flies which is huge.

Why not both?

Keep your broadsides in the back objectives, bubble wrapped by striker teams. Send your hammerheads to claim midfield. Drop suits forward. Sounds something I could get behind.

Also I don't think they are the same any more. A Railside is 90ish pts now while a Railhead is 140ish. Quite a difference.

Don't think Tau will have a problem with the big daemon princes as a pair of Vior'la quad fusion Coldstars can pretty much one-shot a Primarch with the hot blooded stratagem on one (the warlord, with precision of the hunter), having started 49" away at the beginning of the turn. For 110 pts less.
35.6 wounds with a -4 save after a single marker hit.

Against Mortarion, you'd knock off 11.7 wounds once you've taken into account his invulnerable save and disgustingly resilient.

[Edit] Still in an older mindset, Coldstars are not infantry - so that makes more sense.

You'd need three Coldstars to do this, but they'd no longer need to be Vior'la - so two (including the warlord) would be able jump back to 15" using strike and fade and/or retro thrusters. Once just needs to fire off the Mont'ka aura to get around the fire and advance penalty.

Having the warlord and a friend being back out at 15" though, able to jump 40" away the following turn means it's not a suicide mission for everyone. Though you're now 40pts over Mortarion - but it's not like a JSJ quad fusion Coldstar is going to be hurting for targets...

You were taking a Dal'yth and T'au detachment to supplement your Bork'an troops anyway?

Tastyfish wrote:
Don't think Tau will have a problem with the big daemon princes as a pair of Vior'la quad fusion Coldstars can pretty much one-shot a Primarch with the hot blooded stratagem on one of them, having started 49" away at the beginning of the turn.

Unless they change it commanders can't use that stratagem because they are not infantry.

 FirePainter wrote:

Tastyfish wrote:
Don't think Tau will have a problem with the big daemon princes as a pair of Vior'la quad fusion Coldstars can pretty much one-shot a Primarch with the hot blooded stratagem on one of them, having started 49" away at the beginning of the turn.

Unless they change it commanders can't use that stratagem because they are not infantry.

Yep. People, read your datasheets. lol

So now that we know coldstar commanders can take 4 weapons how are you guys feeling about 4 flamers on a cold star? While flamers might now be the best on a commander due to their bs 2+, being able to put down 4 flamers where ever you want them is pretty powerful. It also makes great charge deterrent if you put that commander next to a 4 fusion commander. The Thermoneutronic Projected (Vior’la Sept) flamer also just seems powerful enough that you might consider 3 fusion 1 thermoneutronic projecter.

The problem with flamers on a coldstar is opportunity cost. Coldstar is the most mobile thing in the army and hits on a 2+. Why puts auto hitting things on that? You really want either CIBs or Meltas. Anything else can be done using cheaper and more spammable platforms.

Lol Necron dynasties spoilers already put theirs tactics far above T'au ones...

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Lol Necron dynasties spoilers already put theirs tactics far above T'au ones...

Unless those are fake. And even then I don't feel they are that far above.

I'm happy if they make necrons playable again. I miss facing those undying robot duders, but they are not my cup of tea. Going to be fun to beat them with my blue goatfishes.

Sautekh is a straight upgrade from viorla. Mephrit would've been really nice to have, too.

Necrons =/= tau, and they are coming from way further back. I sincerely hope they'll fix that army.

For tau, I don't understand the QQ. From what we've seen, we can make a myriad of different playstyles work, from gunline, to much to aggressive lists.

We have one of the best brigades in the game, with 0 tax units and many viable options in every slot. Great deployment tricks and in the coldstar we have the single best unit in the game. I'm happy it's 0-1 for commander because I wouldn't want to play vs 8 coldstars + drone swarm and this way we'll have a really cool unit on the table.

So based off rumors, leaks, and previews, it appears I will be trying out an elite, small number army for my 2000 point army.

Coldstar - x4 fusion

Riptide - HBC, SMS, ATS, Stimulant
Riptide - HBC, SMS, ATS, Stimulant

Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS
Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS
Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS

Broadside - HYMP, SMS, Shield Generator
Broadside - HYMP, SMS, Shield Generator

SS - BC, Pulse Driver Cannon, ATS, Shield Generator, Stimulant Injector

notredameguy10 wrote:
So based off rumors, leaks, and previews, it appears I will be trying out an elite, small number army for my 2000 point army.

Coldstar - x4 fusion

Riptide - HBC, SMS, ATS, Stimulant
Riptide - HBC, SMS, ATS, Stimulant

Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS
Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS
Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS

Broadside - HYMP, SMS, Shield Generator
Broadside - HYMP, SMS, Shield Generator

SS - BC, Pulse Driver Cannon, ATS, Shield Generator, Stimulant Injector

1 Stimulant injectors no longer exsist in the Codex.
2 your going to be very limited on CP's with that list.

 Fruzzle wrote:
Necrons =/= tau, and they are coming from way further back. I sincerely hope they'll fix that army.

For tau, I don't understand the QQ. From what we've seen, we can make a myriad of different playstyles work, from gunline, to much to aggressive lists.

We have one of the best brigades in the game, with 0 tax units and many viable options in every slot. Great deployment tricks and in the coldstar we have the single best unit in the game. I'm happy it's 0-1 for commander because I wouldn't want to play vs 8 coldstars + drone swarm and this way we'll have a really cool unit on the table.

If the Coldstar is the issue, why not just limit the Coldstar?

Or, not buff the coldstar in such an absurd manner to begin with, that was also an option.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Or, not buff the coldstar in such an absurd manner to begin with, that was also an option.

Agreed. Even if it just had two BS2+ fusion blasters it would still be a damn good weapons platform.

Ice_can wrote:

notredameguy10 wrote:
So based off rumors, leaks, and previews, it appears I will be trying out an elite, small number army for my 2000 point army.

Coldstar - x4 fusion

Riptide - HBC, SMS, ATS, Stimulant
Riptide - HBC, SMS, ATS, Stimulant

Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS
Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS
Ghostkeel - CIR, BC, Shield Generator, ATS

Broadside - HYMP, SMS, Shield Generator
Broadside - HYMP, SMS, Shield Generator

SS - BC, Pulse Driver Cannon, ATS, Shield Generator, Stimulant Injector

1 Stimulant injectors no longer exsist in the Codex.
2 your going to be very limited on CP's with that list.

Unless they release a FAQ, stimulant injectors are still usable. Anything that was in the Index, but not the Codex uses the Index version. Space marines, Chaos, and I think Eldar all use this ruling.

I always read that as meaning if the unit doesn't have an entry in the codex, but technically your right I keep forgetting that they faq'd it the dumbest way to include options rather than only applying to units.
I can see alotnof people getting angry at some of the busted options it gives tau, though why they had to steel our stim injectors for a poor stratageum

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Or, not buff the coldstar in such an absurd manner to begin with, that was also an option.

Agreed. Even if it just had two BS2+ fusion blasters it would still be a damn good weapons platform.

Word. I don't think it's too much to claim the quad fusion coldstar is one of the best units in the game. I'm not sure what made GW rule on them so favorably, but I'm okay with it, given the 1 per detachment limit!

Because GW starts making HQ to beatsticks instead of Leaders with orders and actual buffs.

Look at Slamguinus from the Blood Angels. He has to deepstrike and doesnt move 20" or 40" but he hits like a LoW

I'm thinking of options for buffmander to stand next to my firebase but I'm not sure if it's worth it or should I just use three quadfusion suits. The stratagem prevents the commander from shooting so something like missile pod commander surely isn't worth it.

My coldstar is the only suit that's not magnetized, so maybe I'll use that with its regular load out. Could use his mobility for late game objective grabs if/ when I run out of cp.

Any thoughts?

MilkmanAl wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Or, not buff the coldstar in such an absurd manner to begin with, that was also an option.

Agreed. Even if it just had two BS2+ fusion blasters it would still be a damn good weapons platform.

Word. I don't think it's too much to claim the quad fusion coldstar is one of the best units in the game. I'm not sure what made GW rule on them so favorably, but I'm okay with it, given the 1 per detachment limit!

Same reason that they introduced separate rules for commanders in XV8 suits to those in XV85 armour. To sell Commander kits.

Previously there was little reason to actually buy a commander kit, unless you wanted the official parts for CIBs or Frags rather than kitbashing your own out of spare weapons from the crisis kit.

Same logic applied to space marine characters though.

You got the commander model because it looked snazzy.

Winters SEO review is up on youtube nothing much we didn't already know. Lots of images from the codex, he got somethings wrong about options but on well.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Same logic applied to space marine characters though.

You got the commander model because it looked snazzy.

You will have a hard time arguing with tourney organizers and anyone who is stricter with WYSIWYG. Good luck explaining why your XV8 Crisis suit is supposed to be using the regular or even Coldstar Commander profile rather than the new XV8 one.

Could anyone quickly clue me in to where the Codex discussion started in this thread? Maybe not the earliest possible leaks, but where the conversation became based on complete Sept Tenets and/or reliable points costs and build strategies? Thinking about Tau for my next faction and I don't want to get mired in Index details that arent relevant. Thanks!

How does this loadout sound like for a Commander?

Commander in XV86 Coldstar Battle Suit
Farsight Enclaves
Exemplar of Mont'ka
2x Fusion Blasters - Fusion Blade Signature System
Shield Generator
Drone Controller(Not sure what type of drone)

This is my only Tau model. I just want to theorize his loadout

Looks like codex talk started roughly on page 58 or so. Anything from there on should be current info and thoughts.

So...I've got a little free time today, so it's high time to formulate some list ideas! I'll make a few assumptions along the way, but everything should be workable. First up is an attempt at a more balanced Fire Warrior spam list.

Tau Brigade
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
2 Fireblades - 84
3 Firesight Marksmen - 72
3x5 Pathfinders - 3 ion rifles, pulse accelerator drone- 180
3 Hammerheads - ion cannon, 2 SMS - 495
6x5 Fire Warriors - 210 1215
2 Gun Drones for each Commander - 72
5 Gun Drones, 1 shield - 70

Tau Battalion x2
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
Fireblade - 42
3x5 Fire Warriors - 105

1999 total
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
And a less-balanced but probably still pretty effective approach:

Tau Battalion
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
Fireblade - 42
5x10 Fire Warriors - 350
5 Devilfish - 2 SMS, BC - 590
5 Gun Drones - 60
5 Marker Drones - 50
1266

Borkan Battalion
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
Fireblade - 42
Y'Vahra - ATS - 413
3x5 FW - 105

734
2000 total
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, Ion Pathfinder spam, because they're awesome:

Borkan Battalion:
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
Fireblade - 42
3x5 FW - 105
3x5 Pathfinders - 3 ion rifles - 156
2 Riptides - HBC, 2 SMS, 2 ATS, 1 VT - 546

Borkan Outrider x2
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
6x5 Pathfinder - 3 ion rifles - 312

1995

I would not say 45 fire warriors is spam to be fair! I think kroot are still going to be a thing. Cheap enough screen that most armies need.

The coldstar in general looks very tasty. No wonder it is 1 per detachment.

Well, it's 60 FW in that first list (2 Battalions), but you can certainly argue that's not spam either! It's just tough to get a whole ridiculous load of them due to max squad sizes. Even a Brigade only allows 120 of them, at the absolute most. Maybe I should play around with that a little.

So yeah, let's try again!

Tau Brigade
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
2 Fireblades - 84
3 Firesight Marksmen - 72
3x5 Pathfinders - 3 ion rifles, pulse accelerator drone - 180
3 Hammerheads - ion cannon, 2 SMS - 495
11x10 Fire Warriors - 770

Tau Patrol
Coldstar - 4 fusions - 174
7 Fire Warriors - 49

1998

117 FW seems a little more spammy!

All the lists look like fun. I only wish I had more ion pathfinders to try that one out.

Do you think the ionheads will be better than missilesides?

 BoomWolf wrote:

You got the commander model because it looked snazzy.

Guilty

Dandelion wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

You got the commander model because it looked snazzy.

Guilty

it's why I got mine. Zero intent to get anymore Tau. I just like that model. I was going to build it as a Coldstar even before the Fusion Blaster became an option. I like the Airborne Commander with a ton of speed. Now I just need to get another Fusion Blaster and I will be set.

So, even with the points drop it seems like Razorsharks are junk. I so badly want it not to be junk, but it's still junk. Too few shots, crappy AP value, and the base hull is still expensive. Changing the quad ion gun to Assault is an interesting choice considering that it basically gets Strafing Run, so hitting non-FLY models on 2's. Just too few shots to matter.

The skyray has a velocity tracker standard now. Pretty sure it didn’t before? Does that make it viable..

 Bryan01 wrote:
The skyray has a velocity tracker standard now. Pretty sure it didn’t before? Does that make it viable..

Makes it frickin strong against fliers. They are all T7 anyway, so you have six missiles hitting on 3+ and wounding on 3+ turn 1, should down even a stormraven or reduce it to insignificance.

Also 2+ against anything that flies and doesn't have a to hit modifier means that it will get rekt as all you need is two markerlights on target and you are basically auto-hitting with all 6 missiles.

One more reason I consider the Skyray a viable choice now. Sure, it won't be doing that much past turn 1, but it still has the markerlighting power of two Firesight Marksmen (so great for starting markerlight chains in addition to your Fireblades) and will either be able to support the backfield with SMS or charge and block anything that threatens nearby objectives or Broadsides/Riptides/Stormsurges/other pricy backfield units.

Coldstar is now our god’s gift.

Can’t wait to field them and make the imperium player cry.

Do we have confirmation that coldstars can take any weapon? I thought the rumor was they couldn't take ion blasters, but in the reviews so far no one has mentioned it. I think quad ion will be just as viable as quad fusion.

Yes we have.

Other thing: People start mixing different septs, but isn't this the same like fielding Ultramarines with imperial fists?
I think fluff wise an army should come from 1 sept only.
In tournaments you can bring any super friends list, I don't care about those

So what sept is everyone making their coldstar commander?

Vior'la to move 40" a turn and fire at full BS. Doesn't do much for your supporting firewarriors though accept for hot blooded.

Farsight enclave for fusion blade and close up wound reroll's of 1 (may be amazing on CIBs). Other than that, nothing special.

Bork'an just to make your other units better, no bonus for your coldstar.

The main reason for adding a comander to a borkan brigade would be to give him the puretide chip and have him hang with the firewarriors with full plasma he should put a dent in any armoured deepstrikers and that reroll should help with getting those first markerlights to stick. Though if your light on points no reason a cadre fireblade can't have it.

Is there any reason they made the puretide reroll once per battle rather than once per turn? It's only a single dice reroll, with limited applications (only to hit, wound or damage) with limited range (only within 6" of a unit with the chip). Just seems pretty weak to me.

Once per turn would have put it into the auto take category. For everyone but tau sept.
Right now its more for CP's than anything else but really the vectored manovering thrusters will be most peoples go to for tau sept. Which is also where most of the charictors live.

I think you either want really destructive guns, like fusion blasters and CIBs, on your commander - or nothing much at all. There’s a case for a commander with a dc and shield who just exists to call kauyon and make broadsides reroll to wound. That probably isn’t a great use of your one commander per detachment though.

I think it’s entirely within the fluff to have Tau from different septs in one army. The expansion fleets are formed of everyone in the empire. I’m not sure it’s a great idea, but it’s legitimate.

Well got my first game scheduled with the codex this week. Going to do a fairly simple list with lots of fire warriors and some big suits.



So I will spend a command point to get the puretide chip, I'm just debating where to put it. I know the reroll would be good for the fusion-mander but I am tempted to put it on a fireblade for safety. Otherwise its a simple list, lots of triple tap warriors and big suits to handle other things. Stealth provide some deep strike protection and enough markers to help out. What do you all think?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Is there any reason they made the puretide reroll once per battle rather than once per turn? It's only a single dice reroll, with limited applications (only to hit, wound or damage) with limited range (only within 6" of a unit with the chip). Just seems pretty weak to me.

I mean, it's already one of the best relics in the whole game. Every Guard list takes the worse Kurov's Aquila, and basically everyone would be thrilled to be able to pay 1 or 2 extra CP for the PEN. It expects to make its cost back in CP regeneration alone if 6/12 stratagems get used over the course of the game, and then on top of that you get what's effectively an extra free CP from the re-roll as long as the Fireblade or Ethereal with it is within 6" of a big gun.

Farsight Enclave suits with CIBs seem pretty good, don’t they? Each one can fire 9 S8 shots when they drop in, with no risk of overheating - thanks to the stratagem.

There’s even a case - maybe - for using Farsight with them. He can use the CNC node stratagem to make a unit reroll to wound. Doing that would potentially give you an awful lot of rerolls.

Each one is of course a lot of points - 96. But as an alpha strike these guys dropping in look pretty credible.

 FirePainter wrote:
Well got my first game scheduled with the codex this week. Going to do a fairly simple list with lots of fire warriors and some big suits.

Spoiler:

Bork'an Battalion
Coldstar w/ 3 ion & relic plasma
Fireblade
3x8 fire warriors
Burstide w/ ats & tl
2x missilesides 2/ ats

Bork'an Battalion
Coldstar w/ quad fusion
Fireblade
3x8 fire warriors
ghostkeel w/ ion &burst ats & tl
2x5 pathfinders w/ pulse drone

Vior'la Vanguard
Coldstar w/ 4 ion
2x3 stealth teams
2 firesight marksmen

So I will spend a command point to get the puretide chip, I'm just debating where to put it. I know the reroll would be good for the fusion-mander but I am tempted to put it on a fireblade for safety. Otherwise its a simple list, lots of triple tap warriors and big suits to handle other things. Stealth provide some deep strike protection and enough markers to help out. What do you all think?

The list looks pretty similar to what I've been considering; Bork'an firebase with Vior'la forward elements. However, I've been thinking of running the Ghostkeel with the fusion collider and switching the ats for a shield generator now that those have dropped in points. Hoping to create a distraction (models size, fusion weaponry and infiltrate should help) to take some heat off of the broadsides while sporting a negative hit modifier and decent invuln. Think it might pay off? Other than that I'm expecting Missilesides, Burstides and a commander with Kauyon/through unity devastation to be a pretty nasty combination!
Probably wouldn't put the chip on a Coldstar, sure you get more value out of the reroll, but a coldstar with four guns is pretty suicidal and the chips main draw is not the reroll but CP generation for which it needs to be on the board.

I guess coldstars CAN be suicide units, but that's poor unit management, in my opinion. You really need to use your drones well to keep them alive. At the very least, force your opponent to use a disproportionate amount of firepower in taking them out. Use their fantastic mobility to kite around to favorable positions. Barring some serious weirdness, you opponent should never be able to target your Commanders without clearing a fair amount of chaff first.

MilkmanAl wrote:
I guess coldstars CAN be suicide units, but that's poor unit management, in my opinion. You really need to use your drones well to keep them alive. At the very least, force your opponent to use a disproportionate amount of firepower in taking them out. Use their fantastic mobility to kite around to favorable positions. Barring some serious weirdness, you opponent should never be able to target your Commanders without clearing a fair amount of chaff first.

My problem is currently I am having a hard time finding points for drones. All the lists I am coming up with are using more fire warriors instead of drones. I agree with your points but I am going to try using stealth suits and ghostkeels as my target blockers for commanders. I'm sure after a few games my riptide and y'varha will miss the drone support and I'll put them back in.

 FirePainter wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
I guess coldstars CAN be suicide units, but that's poor unit management, in my opinion. You really need to use your drones well to keep them alive. At the very least, force your opponent to use a disproportionate amount of firepower in taking them out. Use their fantastic mobility to kite around to favorable positions. Barring some serious weirdness, you opponent should never be able to target your Commanders without clearing a fair amount of chaff first.

My problem is currently I am having a hard time finding points for drones. All the lists I am coming up with are using more fire warriors instead of drones. I agree with your points but I am going to try using stealth suits and ghostkeels as my target blockers for commanders. I'm sure after a few games my riptide and y'varha will miss the drone support and I'll put them back in.

I think that my approach with a coldstar would be to give it vectored thrusters. If it can fire at 18” and then move another 6” away, it ought to be pretty safe.

I actually really like the idea of using our stealth units as Commander protection. It's expensive, but it's also potentially really effective and frustrating for your opponent. Ghostkeels, in particular seem like a serious pain to push through. -2 to hit and. 4++ on T6 W10 is pretty freaking durable, to say the least, and it eliminates the option of clearing drone rubbish with small arms before hitting the commander. I may give that a shot.

anybody else thinking that Sa'cea is actually pretty damn good?

MilkmanAl wrote:
I actually really like the idea of using our stealth units as Commander protection. It's expensive, but it's also potentially really effective and frustrating for your opponent. Ghostkeels, in particular seem like a serious pain to push through. -2 to hit and. 4++ on T6 W10 is pretty freaking durable, to say the least, and it eliminates the option of clearing drone rubbish with small arms before hitting the commander. I may give that a shot.

Agreed, this might create some nice synergy. A single Keel or even Stealth team might not have the shots to pop a tank, but once they work as landing pads for Coldstars they go from an annoyance to something the opponent really has to consider taking out unless he wants to eat another round of close range quad fusion.
Is there any merit to a non coldstar commander now? Thought of grabbing a regular one with missile pods to hang back and allow my backline to benefit from Through Unity and a first turn Kauyon without losing his firepower... but I feel like after that first turn a coldstar with ion or Fusion would just do so much more.

Aeri wrote:
anybody else thinking that Sa'cea is actually pretty damn good?

For rail weapons I agree, but then almost all of those just don't seem to stack up against the alternatives :(
The +1 LD is nice but hardly game changing.

Sa'cea could be nice with railheads but if you are running hammerheads you want longstrike so that means t'au Sept. Might be better with railsides and fusion keels. Or small stealth teams with a fusion included.

Sa'cea is a reasonable buff even for units that fire more shots. Ion cannons are 3 shots always now, right? A BS3+ Ion Cannon expects 23% more hits with Sa'cea. This is a bit stronger than re-rolling 1s.

5 BS4+ shots (such as a min Strike Team at long range or Pathfinders firing Markerlights) get 19.4% more hits -- this is still better than re-rolling 1s. Obviously Pathfinders with just a few rifles get a lot out of it.

Likewise Sniper Drones and Ghostkeels get a significant benefit.

It's just a nice all-rounder trait. It also plays pretty nicely with re-rolling 1s for BS4+ models. I think really the only tempting units that you're not pretty happy to have it on would be big Strike Teams or small Strike Teams near a Fireblade.

So, I thought I'd compile a list of which sept is best for each unit, perhaps to facilitate building efficient "Tau Soup" lists. These are my opinions and many will disagree, but these are what my gut tells me would be efficient sept choices for these units. For obvious reasons I'm not mentioning the named characters as they are from specific septs. I'm basing my opinion on the sept tenets and their unique stratagems and warlord traits. My hope is to stimulate some discussion, not start any fights, so play nice guys.
HQ:
Commander (XV8 or XV85): Any, depending on loadout and the rest of the list.
Commander (Coldstar): Farsight Enclaves
Cadre Fireblade: Bor'kan
Ethereal: Any
Troops:
Strike Team: Bor'kan
Breacher Team: Sa'cea, Farsight Enclaves
Kroot Carnivore Squad: Dal'yth (situational, but the only thing they can possibly benefit from)
Elites:
XV8 Crisis (or Bodyguard) Team: Farsight Enclaves
XV104 Riptide: Bor'kan
XV95 Ghostkeel: Sa'cea for Fusion, Bor'kan for CIR
XV25 Stealth Team: Sa'cea or T'au
Firesight Marksman: Bor'kan
Kroot Shaper: Dal'yth(like Kroot above)
Krootox: Dal'yth (like Kroot above)
Fast Attack:
TX4 Piranha: Sa'cea for Fusion, T'au for Burst
Tactical Drones: Any
Pathfinders: Sa'cea, Bor'kan
Kroot Hounds: Dal'yth (like Kroot)
Vespid Stingwings: Dal'yth (like Kroot)
Heavy Support:
TX7 Hammerhead: Sa'cea, T'au (for Longstrike)
TX78 Sky Ray: Sa'cea
XV88 Broadside Team: Sa'cea for HRR, Bor'kan for HYMP
Sniper Drones: Bor'kan, Sa'cea
Flyer:
AX3 Razorshark: Sa'cea, Farsight Enclaves (possibly if it can fly close enough)
AX39 Sun Shark: Sa'cea
Dedicated Transport:
TY7 Devilfish: Any, depending on what is riding inside
Lord of War:
KV128 Stormsurge: T'au, Sa'cea, Dal'yth (if anchored)

I'm thinking some combination of Bor'kan and Sa'cea might be the best way to go, possibly with some T'au sprinkled in. Interestingly a Stormsurge might benefit from the Dal'yth tenet since it won't move that much (if it has the Pulse Driver Cannon). 2+ saves on that thing is pretty spicy! Of course, many heavy weapons will still put you on the 4++ (you did take the shield generator right?), so it's probably still better to go with T'au for the mighty overwatch potential. Also of note, nothing particularly benefits from Vior'la over other traits. Crisis suits might be an edge case, though, as advancing and firing their assault weapons without penalty could be nice. Too bad their stratagem doesn't benefit battlesuits (not that Crisis are any good as they stand), but it could help Breachers get some serious teeth if they are trying to pop something big. Dal'yth looks to be the big loser though unless you are running a totally static gunline. Even then, Bor'kan is probably a better bet as you will want the extra range.

I'd say if you are running stealth suits without fusion vior'la is a good choice. Also coldstars do benefit from vior'la as well.

Overall a really good list. I agree bork'an is probably best for competitive play.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

You got the commander model because it looked snazzy.

Guilty

it's why I got mine. Zero intent to get anymore Tau. I just like that model. I was going to build it as a Coldstar even before the Fusion Blaster became an option. I like the Airborne Commander with a ton of speed. Now I just need to get another Fusion Blaster and I will be set.

I just impulse bought a coldstar for $40 on ebay. It will be my only tau model.

If I'd put my 2 cents in, a few things in your list are off.

Fusion coldstar are probably best as Vior'la (though bladed FSE is also good)
Breachers should be FSE or Vior'la, not Sa'cra
Riptide can honestly be Dal'yth.
Firesight should probably be Sa'cra
Stealth suits and small crisis teams are pretty good for Vior'la
Gun drones are probably best for T'au.
Sniper drones are obviously Borkan, not Sa'cra
Razorshark is FSE or Vior'la, not Sa'cra


Honestly, the biggest issue with Vior'la isn't that the trait isn't good for a wide array of units (it really is), its that markerlights can get the same benefit anyway...(bad warlord trait, unimpressive relic and a stratagem that really ins't good for tau infantry also don't help Vior'la)

Sa'cra suffers from not knowing its own tactics. half of it support large squads, the other half supports MSU. (also, relic is bad, warlord trait is basically useless as you got enough LD with Sa'cra that moral is virtually a non-thing, and the stratagem is questionable.)

Viorla is ok with a specialised army designed to make the most of it.

Sacea is a tricky one. On the face of it, a reroll per turn is great for a lot of the heavy units, especially hammerheads. But as with Viorla, it suffers a lot from just being duplicated by the effects of markerlights.

To be fair to both though, not needing so many markerlights in the first place is a good thing. Markerlights cost points, which could instead be spent on more guns. I know this is a blindingly obvious statement, but lots of people talk like you can assume markerlight hits on every target you fire at - which obviously you cannot do.

I reckon Tau is a good all-round sept. One of the reasons for this is that the special characters. Longstrike in particular seems good as he buffs Ionheads - which are already a very strong unit. Darkstrider is cool too - letting infantry fall back and shoot is a really big deal. And the Tau relic letting a commander move 6" after shooting is also great on a coldstar - which is of course a really good unit. Oh and focused fire also looks excellent - especially for the quite large numbers of units (sniper drones and anything rail-related) that do mortal wounds on a 6+ to wound.

So, for me, Sac'ea screams min supreme command detachment of 3 Fireblades.

Their free re-rolls allow you to pretty much guarantee you getting the markerlight shot off, alongside the potential stratagem usage if you come up 1 short on a few units. You also can't argue much about getting 1CP for 126 points.

Aslong as they haven't made markerlights (sept) aswell that would be really bad.

Yes, but then you lose the aura benefit, because it will only apply to other Sa'cra warriors.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Yes, but then you lose the aura benefit, because it will only apply to other Sa'cra warriors.

I agree, but, at that point you aren't taking the detachment for the aura, you are taking it for the high access to a lot of markerlights and the additional CP.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ice_can wrote:
Aslong as they haven't made markerlights (sept) aswell that would be really bad.

I guess - but i'd be incredibly surprised if they made that move. Worth considering and keeping an eye out for though - i don't remember hearing anything either way in any of the reviews.

Kdash wrote:
So, for me, Sac'ea screams min supreme command detachment of 3 Fireblades.

Their free re-rolls allow you to pretty much guarantee you getting the markerlight shot off, alongside the potential stratagem usage if you come up 1 short on a few units. You also can't argue much about getting 1CP for 126 points.

Well you can have a battalion for 189 points if you really want CPs, with two fireblades and 3x5 fire warriors. And fireblades hit on a 2+, so they don't need the reroll really.

I think there's a pretty strong case for taking multiple battalions. Fire warriors are decent, and give you very cheap troop units. So for instance I was thinking of adding a farsight enclave vanguard detachment to get some crisis suits, but it might be better to just add a battalion. I could have my unit of suits, a commander to go with them and various troop options - any of which would be useful. I'm thinking 2x5 (or 2x6) breachers in a fish, plus a unit of 10 kroot. And maybe an ethereal because his abilities work on everyone, regardless of sept, so I can stand him in my firebase... if I have one.

Fire warriors at 5 models per unit is pure madness. Even cheaper troops than cultists, AND with the ability to actually be useful? Paint me interested. Cheap fireblades buffing the fire warriors and giving reliable markerlights is also very welcome, I think for their points they are extremely useful in any list. And all the CP will be most welcome too.

Only thing is that I don't foresee ever playing first with this kind of list


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ragnar Blackmane wrote:

 Bryan01 wrote:
The skyray has a velocity tracker standard now. Pretty sure it didn’t before? Does that make it viable..

Makes it frickin strong against fliers. They are all T7 anyway, so you have six missiles hitting on 3+ and wounding on 3+ turn 1, should down even a stormraven or reduce it to insignificance.

Also 2+ against anything that flies and doesn't have a to hit modifier means that it will get rekt as all you need is two markerlights on target and you are basically auto-hitting with all 6 missiles.

One more reason I consider the Skyray a viable choice now. Sure, it won't be doing that much past turn 1, but it still has the markerlighting power of two Firesight Marksmen (so great for starting markerlight chains in addition to your Fireblades) and will either be able to support the backfield with SMS or charge and block anything that threatens nearby objectives or Broadsides/Riptides/Stormsurges/other pricy backfield units.

Am I missing something? Don't the seeker missiles state that they only hit on 6's regardless of any modifiers? How come the skyray is suddenly useful? Let me know because it's really my favorite unit in the whole army .

Seeker missile hit normal if you have 2 markerlights on a target. Still doesn't make the skyrays useful since once you blow the first turn load you are 100ish points for 2 markerlights and sms. If there had been a strategem to rearm a units seeker missile skyrays would have been amazing. As such I don't think they are worth the points.

It's hard to justify sky rays. Let's try...

A velocity tracker is a great piece of kit for 2 points. Tons of stuff has the fly keyword - not just flyers. Most of that stuff doesn't actually have a "hard to hit" style rule, so the firespray will hit on a 2+. It has a couple of markerlights on its own, which will hit on a 2+ at those targets, so often it'll be able to fire its missiles unsupported.

There's also the fact that a massive alpha strike is really useful. For example if you're up against dark angels you'll really want to kill their darkshroud, and a skyray is pretty likely to do that in one go, leaving the rest of your stuff free to shoot other targets.

There are many downsides though, obviously. I don't think skyrays compare at all well with ionheads now, which cost about the same amount and get +1 to hit against everything if Longstrike is there.

 FirePainter wrote:
Seeker missile hit normal if you have 2 markerlights on a target. Still doesn't make the skyrays useful since once you blow the first turn load you are 100ish points for 2 markerlights and sms. If there had been a strategem to rearm a units seeker missile skyrays would have been amazing. As such I don't think they are worth the points.

I don't know....they are very good at eliminating big threats on the first turn. No shooting doesn't matter if there's nothing left to shoot at 3 skyrays shooting 18 missiles should completely decimate anything they want, including mortarions or other bad things. Do they still have networked markerlights?

I’m personally looking at 2 Broadsides and a Skyray – which, with the way I have them set is only 44 points more expensive than Longstrike with Ion and an Ionhead.

Skyray for me is all about that turn 1 delete 1 or 2 units. After that it just becomes another markerlight battery with the odd SMS damage, while sitting on an objective. It’s damage potential is extremely high for that 1 round, if you have the 5 markerlight support for it.

It can definitely be played around though, with LoS denial and deep-striking – but it still means your opponent has to get rid of it turn 1. If it is on the table with a couple of Ionheads, or a couple of Riptides, it’ll probably survive a few turns.

Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

I feel the alpha strike for skyrays is overblown.

6 seekers with 5 markers. Hit on 2s reroll 1s will do 9 damage on average to a rhino. So it won't kill a rhino on average.

Against a leman russ those same 6 missile do 6 damage average. So only half killing a leman russ.

They have a real high potential for damage but I personally don't see it happening.

Maybe am not thinking of the right targets so please correct me if you have better experience.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

A railside is 40 points cheaper than a Rail Hammerhead – and that’s including Velocity tracker. Without the tracker, it is 50 points cheaper than the Hammerhead, if you don’t add in drones. The Heavy Rail Rifle also has 2 shots, over the Hammerheads 1. Again though, it requires markerlight support imo, but will put out more dmg than the Hammerhead throughout the game.

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

A railside is 40 points cheaper than a Rail Hammerhead – and that’s including Velocity tracker. Without the tracker, it is 50 points cheaper than the Hammerhead, if you don’t add in drones. The Heavy Rail Rifle also has 2 shots, over the Hammerheads 1. Again though, it requires markerlight support imo, but will put out more dmg than the Hammerhead throughout the game.

I thought it was 100 +38 for the Railhead, 90+25 for the railside. Where does the 40+ difference come from?

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

A railside is 40 points cheaper than a Rail Hammerhead – and that’s including Velocity tracker. Without the tracker, it is 50 points cheaper than the Hammerhead, if you don’t add in drones. The Heavy Rail Rifle also has 2 shots, over the Hammerheads 1. Again though, it requires markerlight support imo, but will put out more dmg than the Hammerhead throughout the game.

I thought it was 100 +38 for the Railhead, 90+25 for the railside. Where does the 40+ difference come from?

Broadsides are 60 points base + weapons.

 FirePainter wrote:
I feel the alpha strike for skyrays is overblown.

6 seekers with 5 markers. Hit on 2s reroll 1s will do 9 damage on average to a rhino. So it won't kill a rhino on average.

Against a leman russ those same 6 missile do 6 damage average. So only half killing a leman russ.

They have a real high potential for damage but I personally don't see it happening.

Maybe am not thinking of the right targets so please correct me if you have better experience.

No I guess you are kinda right – I wasn’t taking the -2ap into account.

That said, an Ionhead or Broadside don’t come anywhere close to the same damage to the Rhino, so, I dunno now!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

A railside is 40 points cheaper than a Rail Hammerhead – and that’s including Velocity tracker. Without the tracker, it is 50 points cheaper than the Hammerhead, if you don’t add in drones. The Heavy Rail Rifle also has 2 shots, over the Hammerheads 1. Again though, it requires markerlight support imo, but will put out more dmg than the Hammerhead throughout the game.

I thought it was 100 +38 for the Railhead, 90+25 for the railside. Where does the 40+ difference come from?

I was presuming the Hammerhead had the Rail and 2 SMS, whereas the Broadside had Rail and 2 SMS. Works out at 168 and 135 (so 33 points differences before additions.)

Kdash wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
I feel the alpha strike for skyrays is overblown.

6 seekers with 5 markers. Hit on 2s reroll 1s will do 9 damage on average to a rhino. So it won't kill a rhino on average.

Against a leman russ those same 6 missile do 6 damage average. So only half killing a leman russ.

They have a real high potential for damage but I personally don't see it happening.

Maybe am not thinking of the right targets so please correct me if you have better experience.

No I guess you are kinda right – I wasn’t taking the -2ap into account.

That said, an Ionhead or Broadside don’t come anywhere close to the same damage to the Rhino, so, I dunno now!

That's fair. It takes an ionhead 2 turns to get the same damage
But after that they contribute more damage by not having one shot weapons. Idk I'd love to be wrong but hammerheads just seem more consistent to me. But I haven't played a skyrays in 5?? years I think

 FirePainter wrote:

Kdash wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
I feel the alpha strike for skyrays is overblown.

6 seekers with 5 markers. Hit on 2s reroll 1s will do 9 damage on average to a rhino. So it won't kill a rhino on average.

Against a leman russ those same 6 missile do 6 damage average. So only half killing a leman russ.

They have a real high potential for damage but I personally don't see it happening.

Maybe am not thinking of the right targets so please correct me if you have better experience.

No I guess you are kinda right – I wasn’t taking the -2ap into account.

That said, an Ionhead or Broadside don’t come anywhere close to the same damage to the Rhino, so, I dunno now!

That's fair. It takes an ionhead 2 turns to get the same damage
But after that they contribute more damage by not having one shot weapons. Idk I'd love to be wrong but hammerheads just seem more consistent to me. But I haven't played a skyrays in 5?? years I think

To my experience now many games don't go above turn 3/4 at most. So it could depend on the meta - if you have long games where people are defensive then hammerheads are better, but if your meta is all about those alpha strikes - delete half of an army- kind of games then perhaps a skyray is what you need most.

One thing is certain, with seekers being a one use only item, we really don't want to shoot them at anything with less than 5 markerlights - possibly also with focussed fire stratagem as well.

Can anyone explain how the Skyrays are good now? They were garbage with the index, with markerlights and seeker missiles as they were.. I thought nothing changed?

Seekers are now str8 ap -2 d6 Damage one-use missiles. Like hunter-killers of the Imperium. They have good damage potential, but they're not that efficient. Imo they are alright on other platforms than Skyray.

 Fueli wrote:
Seekers are now str8 ap -2 d6 Damage one-use missiles. Like hunter-killers of the Imperium. They have good damage potential, but they're not that efficient. Imo they are alright on other platforms than Skyray.

And to rub it into all the Space Marines players, they are 1 point cheaper as well... for some reason

Kdash wrote:

 Fueli wrote:
Seekers are now str8 ap -2 d6 Damage one-use missiles. Like hunter-killers of the Imperium. They have good damage potential, but they're not that efficient. Imo they are alright on other platforms than Skyray.

And to rub it into all the Space Marines players, they are 1 point cheaper as well... for some reason

It only hits on a 6

 Fueli wrote:
Seekers are now str8 ap -2 d6 Damage one-use missiles. Like hunter-killers of the Imperium. They have good damage potential, but they're not that efficient. Imo they are alright on other platforms than Skyray.

They can front load 6 shots hitting on 2s rerolling ones in the first turn, while out of LOS, which should be enough to down most tanks. After that, you can use them to charge enemy guns until they blow up.

Razerous wrote:

Kdash wrote:

 Fueli wrote:
Seekers are now str8 ap -2 d6 Damage one-use missiles. Like hunter-killers of the Imperium. They have good damage potential, but they're not that efficient. Imo they are alright on other platforms than Skyray.

And to rub it into all the Space Marines players, they are 1 point cheaper as well... for some reason

It only hits on a 6

Until you get 2 markerlights on the target. As you're running markerlights anyway, it would hardly be considered a tax.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:

 Fueli wrote:
Seekers are now str8 ap -2 d6 Damage one-use missiles. Like hunter-killers of the Imperium. They have good damage potential, but they're not that efficient. Imo they are alright on other platforms than Skyray.

They can front load 6 shots hitting on 2s rerolling ones in the first turn, while out of LOS, which should be enough to down most tanks. After that, you can use them to charge enemy guns until they blow up.

Missiles require LoS unfortunately.

I don't really like the idea of the Sky Ray at all.

1. The Sky Ray is a big investment in Markerlights. Sure, it's got 3 of its own, but it needs at least 2 hits and preferably 5 to do its work. Markerlights and Uplinked Markerlight are a scarce resource and the Sky Ray is likely taking some of them away from my other shooting.

2. Once it's fired its shots, it's just a small Markerlight source and a big point sink. It's a really limited purpose model that just feels bad if it didn't accomplish its purpose on turn 1, for whatever reason.

3. It's vulnerable. Sky Rays aren't hard to shoot off the board. This applies to Hammerheads and to some extent Broadsides too, and while I'm fairly comfortable taking multiple Broadsides and might even want multiple Ionheads, taking multiple Sky Rays sounds absolutely insane to me right now. Maybe someone else is going to run multiples and have great successes, but from my perspective, I can't even bring myself to take 1 Sky Ray much less 2 or 3.

4. I just don't like S8 AP-2 shooting. Like, at all. The main profiles I'm shooting at T7 3+ and T8 3+, and while I can at least wound the first profile reasonably well, they've still got a great chance to save. That said, the Ion Cannon isn't much better in this regard and I'm not totally sold on Railsides.

5. Stormsurges! I don't like the model that much, but the big boy seems pretty good right now.

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

A railside is 40 points cheaper than a Rail Hammerhead – and that’s including Velocity tracker. Without the tracker, it is 50 points cheaper than the Hammerhead, if you don’t add in drones. The Heavy Rail Rifle also has 2 shots, over the Hammerheads 1. Again though, it requires markerlight support imo, but will put out more dmg than the Hammerhead throughout the game.

I've done a bunch of calculations for how much damage various units do to T7 3+ save units. I picked this toughness because loads of things have it. I've ignored the damage from SMS and BCs, because I expect they'd be firing at something else. This throws off the efficiency calculations somewhat, as stuff like broadsides and hammerheads will be engaging other targets simultaneously. The battlesuit is assumed to be a Farsight sept guy using the +1 to hit stratagem. All Ion weapons are overcharging - and nova charging if possible.

These are the results:

Unit / Wounds caused / points/wound.
Fusion Coldstar / 7.78 / 22.37
CIB suit / 4.00 / 24.00
CIB Coldstar / 6.67 / 24.30
IA fusion Riptide / 7.33 / 42.14
All fusion GK / 4.67 / 42.64
Ionhead / 3.11 / 45.00
HBC fusion Riptide / 6.33 / 46.11
CIR Fusion GK / 4.33 / 46.85
HRR Broadside / 2.50 / 50.00
IA SMS Riptide / 5.00 / 61.80
Fusion Commander vs 4++ / 2.59 / 68.66
HYMP Broadside / 2.00 / 70.00
HBC SMS Riptide / 4.00 / 70.00
Railhead / 1.94 / 86.40

EDIT, following corrected commander hit chance: So the most damage per point is achieved by Fusion Coldstar, and a non-coldstar commander would be even better. Just behind that are suits and commanders with CIBs. I think I rate these ahead of fusion personally, because they are just as powerful against targets with invulnerable saves - like flyrants and daemon primarchs. There's still probably a strong case for running a fusion commander though, especially if you give it the Tau relic that lets it run away after shooting. The CIB suits are cool but very fragile, whcih makes them harder to fit into a list.

The next bracket, around 45 points per wound caused, are riptides and ghostkeels with fusion blasters, and ionheads. I think the ionhead stands out here because it does its thing at 60" range. It also isn't that much less effective vs stuff with invulnerable saves, while the fusion blasters feel a bit wasted on stuff like hive tyrants.

Broadsides come out surprisingly badly. I was quite surprised that the HRR broadside does more damage than the HYMP, but it's nothing amazing. Given that you can get more efficient, tougher platforms that fly instead, I'm not sure there's much of a case for taking broadsides.

The railside is complete trash, sad to say. If you let it fire twice there'd still be more efficient options - even against targets with no invulnerable save.

I've added in riptides with SMS, because I think that's likely to be a good option. It doesn't do much for the thing's efficiency against tanks but it can shoot up infantry and can live at 30" instead of 18, which should help a lot.

I then looked at applying some buffs. I gave everyone reroll 1s to hit, which is easy enough to get hold of (and kind of essential for Ion stuff). I gave units the effect of the Tau focused fire stratagem, if they could take it, because I'm interested in running Tau myself. And I tried out a CNC node on the CIB suits to try and calculate if it's worth doing that instead of just having the commander shoot. I've also added an ATS to the HYMP broadside. The hammerheads are near Longstrike, because why would you not take longstrike if running hammerheads?

CIB suit buffed +CNC / 6.22 / 15.43
Fusion Coldstar Buffed / 11.34 / 15.69
CIB Coldstar buffed / 9.72 / 16.66
CIB suit buffed / 4.67 / 20.57
ionhead buffed / 5.67 / 24.69
HBC fusion Riptide buffed / 10.40 / 26.92
IA fusion Riptide buffed / 10.69 / 28.89
All fusion GK buffed / 6.81 / 29.24
Fusion Commander buffed vs 4++ / 5.67 / 31.39
CIR Fusion GK buffed / 6.32 / 32.12
HRR Broadside buffed / 3.79 / 32.97
Railhead buffed / 4.84 / 34.74
HYMP Broadside buffed / 4.15 / 36.64
HBC SMS Riptide buffed / 7.00 / 40.00
IA SMS Riptide buffed / 7.29 / 40.73

The effect is very significant for most units, typically increasing damage caused by around 50%. That's pretty cool I think, and makes a strong case for the Tau sept and its stratagem.

CIB suits still look very strong. They haven't been buffed by focused fire, but then their owner would have saved 3CPs (and spent 2 to give them +1 to hit). You could argue that I should include the price of drones to keep them alive in their cost, but as those drones will either be gunning things down or markerlighting stuff themselves, that doesn't seem necessary.

It looks hard to justify the CNC node. It's only really worthwhile on a big unit of suits, and putting all of those points into one unit of fragile guys seems a bit too risky to me.

There are some pretty respectable results from ghostkeels and riptides. These are interesting because they are both durable and hard to shut down - as they fly. I think that a ghostkeel with CIR, 2x fusion, target lock and shield generator makes an excellent midfield unit, which is something Tau really need. They are perfect for coldstar commanders to scoot behind as well. If they stick close together then charging Tau sept ones will be no fun at all.

Ionheads really are great. You can boost their effectiveness even further by adding a couple of seeker missiles - which seem worth it if you're running Longstrike with them. The opening volley from these would be devastating, and not drop off all that much afterwards.

I hope that's useful. And I hope I haven't messed anything up!

the advantage of the skyray is certainly the alpha. Afterwards its not a target worth shooting for the other player. Points spent on it are spent for the chance to nuke something early, and then afterwards a semi-reliable marketlight source.

PERHAPS stick SMS on it for harassment, but mostly just use it to slightly buff the shooting on the table that isnt alpha. Its vulnerabiility is offset by the fact that once its goes off, its not worth killing anymore.

Razerous wrote:
Can anyone explain how the Skyrays are good now? They were garbage with the index, with markerlights and seeker missiles as they were.. I thought nothing changed?

Seekers are better now, and Skyrays and Hammerheads are the only vehicles with 3+ BS, so they're the best platform for the Seekers, assuming you boost them to 2+ with Markerlights. That doesn't make them 'good', however, I'd still rather just take Hammerheads and bolt on Seeker Missiles.

Mandragola wrote:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

A railside is 40 points cheaper than a Rail Hammerhead – and that’s including Velocity tracker. Without the tracker, it is 50 points cheaper than the Hammerhead, if you don’t add in drones. The Heavy Rail Rifle also has 2 shots, over the Hammerheads 1. Again though, it requires markerlight support imo, but will put out more dmg than the Hammerhead throughout the game.

I've done a bunch of calculations for how much damage various units do to T7 3+ save units. I picked this toughness because loads of things have it. I've ignored the damage from SMS and BCs, because I expect they'd be firing at something else. This throws off the efficiency calculations somewhat, as stuff like broadsides and hammerheads will be engaging other targets simultaneously. The battlesuit is assumed to be a Farsight sept guy using the +1 to hit stratagem. All Ion weapons are overcharging - and nova charging if possible.

Spoiler:

These are the results:

Unit / Wounds caused / points/wound.
CIB suit / 4.00 / 24.00
Fusion Commander / 5.19 / 34.33
CIB Commander / 4.44 / 36.45
IA fusion Riptide / 7.33 / 42.14
All fusion GK / 4.67 / 42.64
Ionhead / 3.11 / 45.00
HBC fusion Riptide / 6.33 / 46.11
CIR Fusion GK / 4.33 / 46.85
HRR Broadside / 2.50 / 50.00
IA SMS Riptide / 5.00 / 61.80
Fusion Commander vs 4++ / 2.59 / 68.66
HYMP Broadside / 2.00 / 70.00
HBC SMS Riptide / 4.00 / 70.00
Railhead / 1.94 / 86.40

So the most damage per point is achieved by CIB suits. They are actually a long way ahead of the next best option - Fusion commanders - with CIB commanders not far behind. This is interesting because people seem to think suits are really bad, but their damage is actually exceptional. To be fair, this might be because CIBs got a significant buff in the codex, added to the effect of the Farsight stratagem. In fact these guys are so strong that they look totally viable for non-farsight septs - who get the added benefit of saving CPs. Even with the 25% reduction in damage they'd still be the most efficient unit.

The next bracket, around 45 points per wound caused, are riptides and ghostkeels with fusion blasters, and ionheads. I think the ionhead stands out here because it does its thing at 60" range. It also isn't that much less effective vs stuff with invulnerable saves, while the fusion blasters feel a bit wasted on stuff like hive tyrants.

Broadsides come out surprisingly badly. I was quite surprised that the HRR broadside does more damage than the HYMP, but it's nothing amazing. Given that you can get more efficient, tougher platforms that fly instead, I'm not sure there's much of a case for taking broadsides.

The railside is complete trash, sad to say. If you let it fire twice there'd still be more efficient options - even against targets with no invulnerable save.

I've added in riptides with SMS, because I think that's likely to be a good option. It doesn't do much for the thing's efficiency against tanks but it can shoot up infantry and can live at 30" instead of 18, which should help a lot.

I then looked at applying some buffs. I gave everyone reroll 1s to hit, which is easy enough to get hold of (and kind of essential for Ion stuff). I gave units the effect of the Tau focused fire stratagem, if they could take it, because I'm interested in running Tau myself. And I tried out a CNC node on the CIB suits to try and calculate if it's worth doing that instead of just having the commander shoot. I've also added an ATS to the HYMP broadside. The hammerheads are near Longstrike, because why would you not take longstrike if running hammerheads?

CIB suit buffed +CNC / 6.22 / 15.43
Fusion Commander Buffed / 11.34 / 15.69
CIB Commander buffed / 9.72 / 16.66
CIB suit buffed / 4.67 / 20.57
ionhead buffed / 5.67 / 24.69
HBC fusion Riptide buffed / 10.40 / 26.92
IA fusion Riptide buffed / 10.69 / 28.89
All fusion GK buffed / 6.81 / 29.24
Fusion Commander buffed vs 4++ / 5.67 / 31.39
CIR Fusion GK buffed / 6.32 / 32.12
HRR Broadside buffed / 3.79 / 32.97
Railhead buffed / 4.84 / 34.74
HYMP Broadside buffed / 4.15 / 36.64
HBC SMS Riptide buffed / 7.00 / 40.00
IA SMS Riptide buffed / 7.29 / 40.73

The effect is very significant for most units, typically increasing damage caused by around 50%. That's pretty cool I think, and makes a strong case for the Tau sept and its stratagem.

CIB suits still look very strong. They haven't been buffed by focused fire, but then their owner would have saved 3CPs (and spent 2 to give them +1 to hit). You could argue that I should include the price of drones to keep them alive in their cost, but as those drones will either be gunning things down or markerlighting stuff themselves, that doesn't seem necessary.

It looks hard to justify the CNC node. It's only really worthwhile on a big unit of suits, and putting all of those points into one unit of fragile guys seems a bit too risky to me.

There are some pretty respectable results from ghostkeels and riptides. These are interesting because they are both durable and hard to shut down - as they fly. I think that a ghostkeel with CIR, 2x fusion, target lock and shield generator makes an excellent midfield unit, which is something Tau really need. They are perfect for coldstar commanders to scoot behind as well. If they stick close together then charging Tau sept ones will be no fun at all.

Ionheads really are great. You can boost their effectiveness even further by adding a couple of seeker missiles - which seem worth it if you're running Longstrike with them. The opening volley from these would be devastating, and not drop off all that much afterwards.

I hope that's useful. And I hope I haven't messed anything up!

This is a really great post. It was clear CIBs had improved a whole lot, but seeing it laid out like this really drives home just how much better they are now. If only we had a reasonable source of official models for these guns!

It also drives home just how efficient the HBC Riptide is now. Check out just how competitive it is with an IA riptide firing at one of the most common vehicle profiles.

 meleti wrote:

This is a really great post. It was clear CIBs had improved a whole lot, but seeing it laid out like this really drives home just how much better they are now. If only we had a reasonable source of official models for these guns!

I boggles my mind that Forge World isn't selling resin CIBs by the forklift load. Someone at GW thinks they'll sell Commander kits just to get the CIB, maybe?

Broadsides always look bad in these analyses because they spend points on a personnel weapon that is being calculated in a role it is rarely used for.

In other words, only 50% or so of the Broadsides points should be used to determine his anti-vehicle efficiency. The rest is being spent for anti-personnel.

One of the other points to make with SMS carriers (heh) like Broadsides and Riptides is that indirect fire is really quite important in some contexts. If you're playing with lots of LOS blocking terrain, especially things like LOS blocking first-floor ruins, indirect fire is a big deal when it comes to gunning units off objectives or freeing the way for your own units to hold objectives.

I suppose the question in regards to the Skyray is - how many Markerlights is too many, and how many is "ideal"?

As it stands, i can see a list forming that has 22 MLs giving me an average of 15.5 hits first turn... if going first... (And before stratagems)

These are backed up by a Ghostkeel, 2 Riptides, 2 Broadsides, a Skyray and then a fair chunk of other stuff. The question is - would you consider that too much investment?

(just did the calc vs Mortarian.... all that costing ~1350 points would only do ~15 wounds on average to Morty, not counting SMS and Burst Cannon damage... my idea suddenly feels inadequate )

Hmm, I don't think it is just the number of markerlights in your army but how they are spread out as well. For example, if your makerlights are all in pathfinder squads, they could easily be lost. 22 markerlights does seem a tad bit overkill though.

When you calculated the 15.5 hits, did you take into account the benefits of the markerlights that would already be on a target, for example rerolling ones?

 John Prins wrote:

 meleti wrote:

This is a really great post. It was clear CIBs had improved a whole lot, but seeing it laid out like this really drives home just how much better they are now. If only we had a reasonable source of official models for these guns!

I boggles my mind that Forge World isn't selling resin CIBs by the forklift load. Someone at GW thinks they'll sell Commander kits just to get the CIB, maybe?

Thanks.

And yes, the difficulty of getting official CIBs is a major pain. I've got this idea of making crisis suits holding a single gun a little bit like a cyclic ion raker in both hands, but so far haven't made any sort of a start on actually building them. Luckily the airbursting frag projector is pretty bad, or I'd have to work out how to make some of those as well.

A slight health warning on the HBC riptide is that a big proportion of both versions' damage is the fusion blasters. I'm not really sure that HBC and fusion is a sensible load-out for a riptide. It's probably better off chilling out far away.

I've been quite sparing with the ATS, which is now a very pricey upgrade. I've given it to the HBC riptides and the buffed version of the HYMP broadside. It does help a lot against my T7 3+ target, but is useless if it has an invulnerable. I think it's a good option on the riptide but I'm not convinced at all by the broadsides.

Ghostkeels don't need it, in my opinion. The CIR GK does similar damage to the fusion collider one. I really think these could be good units for midfield control.

I do hear what people are saying on the value of the SMS, and how it distorts these calculations. I haven't included them at all, on the basis that they ought to be firing elsewhere. But it's kind of impossible to calculate the effect of them doing that. Even with an ATS you only cause 1 wound to MEQs with two SMSs.

I might need to run the calculations for suits with missile pods and fusion blasters. They'd be very expensive, so I'm pretty sure they are bad, but it never hurts to know for sure.

Burst cannon suits might even not be rubbish now. 66 points for 24 shots seems pretty good. In theory it's not as good as what fire warriors can do, but in practice the suits are very good at bringing that shooting to where it's needed.

Mandragola wrote:

Kdash wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Next big question: Railsides or missilesides? Honestly it's kind of hard to justify the cost of either. A railside does the same kind of shooting -more or less- as a hive guard only it costs waaaay more. On the other hand, hive guard shooting is great shooting. Missilesides are kind of weird. Lots of shots but the profile is pretty meh. Basically 2 autocannons each.

Not entirely sold on either to be honest. They pretty much cost the same as a hammerhead, without the added survivability or mobility. What are people's takes on the broadsides?

A railside is 40 points cheaper than a Rail Hammerhead – and that’s including Velocity tracker. Without the tracker, it is 50 points cheaper than the Hammerhead, if you don’t add in drones. The Heavy Rail Rifle also has 2 shots, over the Hammerheads 1. Again though, it requires markerlight support imo, but will put out more dmg than the Hammerhead throughout the game.

I've done a bunch of calculations for how much damage various units do to T7 3+ save units. I picked this toughness because loads of things have it. I've ignored the damage from SMS and BCs, because I expect they'd be firing at something else. This throws off the efficiency calculations somewhat, as stuff like broadsides and hammerheads will be engaging other targets simultaneously. The battlesuit is assumed to be a Farsight sept guy using the +1 to hit stratagem. All Ion weapons are overcharging - and nova charging if possible.

These are the results:

Unit / Wounds caused / points/wound.
CIB suit / 4.00 / 24.00
Fusion Commander / 5.19 / 34.33
CIB Commander / 4.44 / 36.45
IA fusion Riptide / 7.33 / 42.14
All fusion GK / 4.67 / 42.64
Ionhead / 3.11 / 45.00
HBC fusion Riptide / 6.33 / 46.11
CIR Fusion GK / 4.33 / 46.85
HRR Broadside / 2.50 / 50.00
IA SMS Riptide / 5.00 / 61.80
Fusion Commander vs 4++ / 2.59 / 68.66
HYMP Broadside / 2.00 / 70.00
HBC SMS Riptide / 4.00 / 70.00
Railhead / 1.94 / 86.40

So the most damage per point is achieved by CIB suits. They are actually a long way ahead of the next best option - Fusion commanders - with CIB commanders not far behind. This is interesting because people seem to think suits are really bad, but their damage is actually exceptional. To be fair, this might be because CIBs got a significant buff in the codex, added to the effect of the Farsight stratagem. In fact these guys are so strong that they look totally viable for non-farsight septs - who get the added benefit of saving CPs. Even with the 25% reduction in damage they'd still be the most efficient unit.

This is awesome! Are you able to do the maths on CIB suits without the +1 to hit from FSE, and also pathfinders with ion rifles now that they have Damage 2 (I have a feeling the pathfinders might be right near the top).

TerminusEst wrote:
Hmm, I don't think it is just the number of markerlights in your army but how they are spread out as well. For example, if your makerlights are all in pathfinder squads, they could easily be lost. 22 markerlights does seem a tad bit overkill though.

When you calculated the 15.5 hits, did you take into account the benefits of the markerlights that would already be on a target, for example rerolling ones?

Yeah, added in the re-rolling 1's for the majority of the markerlights.

Disposition has 13 coming from 3 units of marker drones, 6 characters, 2 on the skyray and 1 in a unit cos of points. Fully expecting the drones to get targeted still gives me 9 markerlights and a very strong chance of getting stacks of 5 on 2 units with stratagems.

I could swap sacrifice 3 markerlights for a XV84 Commander (so i drop 2 in total - which is prob a better idea)

sadhvikv wrote:

This is awesome! Are you able to do the maths on CIB suits without the +1 to hit from FSE, and also pathfinders with ion rifles now that they have Damage 2 (I have a feeling the pathfinders might be right near the top).

The points per wound for a CIB crisis suit would be 32 whilst a five man pathfinder team with three ion rifles would be 26 (If I have done my maths right!).

However, the pathfinders' shots are more random as they are D3 as opposed to the 3 shots of the CIB and the Crisis suits are definitely more durable.

(just did the calc vs Mortarian.... all that costing ~1350 points would only do ~15 wounds on average to Morty, not counting SMS and Burst Cannon damage... my idea suddenly feels inadequate )

I think the problem here is Mortarion's invun save, you would do much better with a single Stormsurge against Mortation, simply due to the four destroyer missiles which, with 5 marker lights and stability anchors, have a good chance of all hitting and putting an average of 8 wounds on him. If all the other weapons also fired, I calculated that the Stormsurge could put around 17 wounds on Morty

Mandragola wrote:

So the most damage per point is achieved by CIB suits. They are actually a long way ahead of the next best option - Fusion commanders - with CIB commanders not far behind. This is interesting because people seem to think suits are really bad, but their damage is actually exceptional. To be fair, this might be because CIBs got a significant buff in the codex, added to the effect of the Farsight stratagem. In fact these guys are so strong that they look totally viable for non-farsight septs - who get the added benefit of saving CPs. Even with the 25% reduction in damage they'd still be the most efficient unit.

I don't understand how you're getting this. I don't have new points in front of me but my understanding is that not much changed for suits. I get the same number you did for FSE CIB suits, but I get 22.2 ppw for CIB Commanders. Just real quick: regardless of profile, the regular (BS3+) suit gets 3/4 as many shots at 4/5 the chance to hit, so the Commander's points divided by the regular suit's points times 0.6 should get you the relative efficiency of the regular suit. For CIBs the regular suit is 92.5% as efficient as the Commander.

How do people feel about stealth suits and how would you run them? I personally always loved the model

I liked stealth suits in the index and I like them now too. I run min squads every once in a while I throw a fusion blaster in there. I think vior'la could be good so you can keep them mobile. I plan to use them as forward screens for my coldstars.

Do you think 4 squads of 3 is too much? 1 fusion in each?

No I think that would be fine. So long as you have a good amount of other things to support

It really depends on how many points you are playing and what is in the rest of your army. In a friendly 2000 point game, I think 4 squads of three would be fine. The thing I find with stealth suits is, although they are quite durable, they don't have the highest damage output so you might need to bring some big guns alongside them.

I assume drones will get the benefit of sept tenants?

They appear to have gained manta drop as a rule which makes sense and is a nice addition.

Yeah I'll run 2000 points with a mix of fast aggressive units ghostkeel commander and cold star, then a gunline for support 2 broadsides hammerhead and fire warriors

Since the drones have the sept keyword in the index (and I am assuming they do in the codex), they will get the benefits of the tenets.

Dionysodorus wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

So the most damage per point is achieved by CIB suits. They are actually a long way ahead of the next best option - Fusion commanders - with CIB commanders not far behind. This is interesting because people seem to think suits are really bad, but their damage is actually exceptional. To be fair, this might be because CIBs got a significant buff in the codex, added to the effect of the Farsight stratagem. In fact these guys are so strong that they look totally viable for non-farsight septs - who get the added benefit of saving CPs. Even with the 25% reduction in damage they'd still be the most efficient unit.

I don't understand how you're getting this. I don't have new points in front of me but my understanding is that not much changed for suits. I get the same number you did for FSE CIB suits, but I get 22.2 ppw for CIB Commanders. Just real quick: regardless of profile, the regular (BS3+) suit gets 3/4 as many shots at 4/5 the chance to hit, so the Commander's points divided by the regular suit's points times 0.6 should get you the relative efficiency of the regular suit. For CIBs the regular suit is 92.5% as efficient as the Commander.

I'm talking about Coldstar commanders - which I realise I never said. Normal commanders would be more efficient.

More importantly, I'd put in the wrong chance to hit for unbuffed commanders. That's where the main error was. Sorry - there was a lot of data and this mistake got through. These are the full stats for CIB suits and coldstar commanders. Do check if right.



The "wounds" column is the average wounds per hit, while the "wounds c(aused)" column is the result of multiplying all the previous ones together. Then points/wound is the model's cost, divided by wounds caused.

I'll correct my original post with these numbers. Thanks for the catch. Non-coldstar commanders will be marginally more efficient than even suit squads - with the added bonus of not needing CPs to activate and being hard to pick out. Coldstars will be epically fast. Continue buying commanders, essentially.

Mandragola wrote:

 meleti wrote:

This is a really great post. It was clear CIBs had improved a whole lot, but seeing it laid out like this really drives home just how much better they are now. If only we had a reasonable source of official models for these guns!

A slight health warning on the HBC riptide is that a big proportion of both versions' damage is the fusion blasters. I'm not really sure that HBC and fusion is a sensible load-out for a riptide. It's probably better off chilling out far away.

I've been quite sparing with the ATS, which is now a very pricey upgrade. I've given it to the HBC riptides and the buffed version of the HYMP broadside. It does help a lot against my T7 3+ target, but is useless if it has an invulnerable. I think it's a good option on the riptide but I'm not convinced at all by the broadsides..

So as long as both suits are running blasters, they're both benefiting equally from them and they won't skew the comparison at all. I'd still say the key takeaway here is that the IA is only slightly better (if at all) at shooting one of the more important IA target profiles. The gap is going to even smaller on T8 3+ (Exocrines, Lemans, Knights, etc.). I'm feeling pretty good at HBC tides, or maybe pretty bad about IA tides.

You're probably right about HBC/FB being a fairly rare profile, but I think I'd often prefer SMS on both tides because I do value that indirect fire (and delegate primary anti-tank roles to Commanders).

Mandragola wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

So the most damage per point is achieved by CIB suits. They are actually a long way ahead of the next best option - Fusion commanders - with CIB commanders not far behind. This is interesting because people seem to think suits are really bad, but their damage is actually exceptional. To be fair, this might be because CIBs got a significant buff in the codex, added to the effect of the Farsight stratagem. In fact these guys are so strong that they look totally viable for non-farsight septs - who get the added benefit of saving CPs. Even with the 25% reduction in damage they'd still be the most efficient unit.

I don't understand how you're getting this. I don't have new points in front of me but my understanding is that not much changed for suits. I get the same number you did for FSE CIB suits, but I get 22.2 ppw for CIB Commanders. Just real quick: regardless of profile, the regular (BS3+) suit gets 3/4 as many shots at 4/5 the chance to hit, so the Commander's points divided by the regular suit's points times 0.6 should get you the relative efficiency of the regular suit. For CIBs the regular suit is 92.5% as efficient as the Commander.

I'm talking about Coldstar commanders - which I realise I never said. Normal commanders would be more efficient.

More importantly, I'd put in the wrong chance to hit for unbuffed commanders. That's where the main error was. Sorry - there was a lot of data and this mistake got through. These are the full stats for CIB suits and coldstar commanders. Do check if right.



The "wounds" column is the average wounds per hit, while the "wounds c(aused)" column is the result of multiplying all the previous ones together. Then points/wound is the model's cost, divided by wounds caused.

I'll correct my original post with these numbers. Thanks for the catch. Non-coldstar commanders will be marginally more efficient than even suit squads - with the added bonus of not needing CPs to activate and being hard to pick out. Coldstars will be epically fast. Continue buying commanders, essentially.

Can coldstar commanders take CIB?

Why are suits hitting on a 3+? If you are giving them ML support, you absolutely have to factor that into their point cost.

Mandragola wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

So the most damage per point is achieved by CIB suits. They are actually a long way ahead of the next best option - Fusion commanders - with CIB commanders not far behind. This is interesting because people seem to think suits are really bad, but their damage is actually exceptional. To be fair, this might be because CIBs got a significant buff in the codex, added to the effect of the Farsight stratagem. In fact these guys are so strong that they look totally viable for non-farsight septs - who get the added benefit of saving CPs. Even with the 25% reduction in damage they'd still be the most efficient unit.

I don't understand how you're getting this. I don't have new points in front of me but my understanding is that not much changed for suits. I get the same number you did for FSE CIB suits, but I get 22.2 ppw for CIB Commanders. Just real quick: regardless of profile, the regular (BS3+) suit gets 3/4 as many shots at 4/5 the chance to hit, so the Commander's points divided by the regular suit's points times 0.6 should get you the relative efficiency of the regular suit. For CIBs the regular suit is 92.5% as efficient as the Commander.

I'm talking about Coldstar commanders - which I realise I never said. Normal commanders would be more efficient.

More importantly, I'd put in the wrong chance to hit for unbuffed commanders. That's where the main error was. Sorry - there was a lot of data and this mistake got through. These are the full stats for CIB suits and coldstar commanders. Do check if right.



The "wounds" column is the average wounds per hit, while the "wounds c(aused)" column is the result of multiplying all the previous ones together. Then points/wound is the model's cost, divided by wounds caused.

I'll correct my original post with these numbers. Thanks for the catch. Non-coldstar commanders will be marginally more efficient than even suit squads - with the added bonus of not needing CPs to activate and being hard to pick out. Coldstars will be epically fast. Continue buying commanders, essentially.

crisis hit on 4+ = 0.5

xmbk wrote:
Why are suits hitting on a 3+? If you are giving them ML support, you absolutely have to factor that into their point cost.

FSE suits hit on 3+ with manta strike stratagem.

With markerlights they can get down to hitting on 2's rerolling ones ignoring cover, AKA nasty they stand good chance of alpha striking down anything if you throw down a large group just sucks that they are squishy for the points cost

Yeah the CIB suits I mention are hitting on a 3+ using manta strike stratagem. It does say that in the original post on the previous page. I don't give the buffed ones the benefit of Focused fire, because they aren't from the Tau sept.

To be honest, Coldstar commanders just seem like a better option. From everything we've heard, they ought to be able to take CIBs. Indeed, it would be kind of weird if the one model that actually came with them couldn't have them. I just wish I could put them on my ghostkeels too.

Coldstars are also way better at staying alive than normal crisis suits.

So the question becomes: How can we have a lot of commanders? Answer: by having several battalions, and maybe the occasional vanguard detachment.

Here's a vague idea of what that might look like. I'm not sure whether to go for the devilfish or not, but they've let me keep down to 12 drops, which might mean occasionally going first. Comes to 2k.

It's short on markerlights, which is an issue. I'd prefer drones but there's nobody obvious to give a DC to. One option would be to swap the riptide and pathfinders for another ghostkeel with a DC rather than a shield generator. Thinking about it, marker drones are a lot better now that they can deep strike - which keeps them from being shot away before they can do anything. I'll see if I can make that work instead.

Tau Battalion

Coldstar Commander 174
4 Fusion Blasters
Vectored Manoeuvering Thrusters

Cadre Fireblade 42
Markerlight

5 Fire Warriors 35

6 Fire Warriors 42

Devilfish 112
Burst Cannon
2 Gun Drones

10 Kroot 50

Tau Battalion

Coldstar Commander 162
4 Cyclic Ion Blasters

Darkstrider 45

5 Fire Warriors 35

6 Fire Warriors 42

Devilfish 112
Burst Cannon
2 Gun Drones

10 Kroot 50

Tau Battalion

Coldstar Commander 162
4 Cyclic Ion Blasters

Ghostkeel 203
Cyclic Ion Raker
2 Fusion Blasters
Shield Generator
Target Lock
2 Stealth Drones

Ghostkeel 203
Cyclic Ion Raker
2 Fusion Blasters
Shield Generator
Target Lock
2 Stealth Drones

Ghostkeel 203
Cyclic Ion Raker
2 Fusion Blasters
Shield Generator
Target Lock
2 Stealth Drones

Riptide 280
Heavy Burst Cannon
2x SMS
Target Lock
ATS

6 Pathfinders 48

If you guys want to see some silly cost efficient damage, start doing the math on Ion rifle pathfinders, FYI.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The JSJ on a fusion commander isn't bad, but we can probably get more mileage out of using it on a CIB commander. Skirting at 18" and getting 6" means we can easily fire on a target then get behind another unit, or out of LOS. 9" to get the juicy double tap range that really pushes the fusion ahead of the CIB in efficiency puts them so close that 6" isn't going to give them a lot of breathing room vs a lot of enemy forces.

For that reason, I can see a lot of T'au and Dal'yth paired CIB commanders. Both can get JSJ (Relic and stratagem), with a third fusion commander who can dive into enemy lines and kamikaze 1-2 high value targets. You don't always have to kill a target to make it worth it, sometimes you just gotta knock it down a profile or two.

Ion rifle pathfinders get an average of 6 shots. 3 of those should hit, 2 should wound and one should get past a 3+ armour save, doing an average of 2 damage. They cost 52 points for the unit, so that’s 26 points per damage. There are also two spare guys landing markerlight hits. That’s pretty good – up there with the commanders and CIB suits.

There are downsides though. They aren’t mobile, their range isn’t great and they are incredibly fragile – with guardsman profiles. There’s also the issue that you end up with an awful lot of drops.

However, tidewalls exist. I wonder if it’s efficient to put pathfinders on a tidewall thing. This could be a good way to keep markerlights in relative safety. You could get a shieldline with a defence platform and put a unit of pathfinders in each – perhaps along with a couple of characters to reduce your drop count.

A major downside of fortifications is that they take up a detachment, which means having fewer commanders. It would be a pretty strong option if you were going for a brigade though.

I think you’re probably right about JSJ being better on a CIB commander. In fact I’m not really sure there’s much point taking a fusion commander when the CIB option exists. Other stuff – like ghostkeels – can take fusion blasters, and they are a lot happier being up close than the commander is. My thinking on the fusion commander was that JSJ might help him nuke something and then run away behind a ghostkeel.

A slightly cheeky trick seems possible with JSJ, as it happens immediately after the guy fires. So you could have him move to spread the effect of auras, like the one from Through Unity Devastation. Alternatively you could just make a fireblade your warlord – which would have the added benefit of not needing to keep the commanders quite so safe. CIB commanders will tend to hurt themselves quite often, even with markerlight support.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Addendum: A coldstar commander isn't allowed a CIB after all. I watched some of a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuztP8Alo4A) and it showed the list of weapons. There's a little asterisk thing saying no CIBs for coldstar commanders - though he can heve everything else.

So basically take fusion on coldstars and CIBs on normal commanders. It's kind of not that big a problem for a CIB commander to have to stick around other units.

The XV8 commander has 5 wounds and can take Iridium. He might actually be a better option than the big guy anyway. It's kind of a toss-up I think, though the extra wound and lower cost (without iridium) probably swings things in favour of the enforcer, for me.

Also if you're going to watch that video, you might want to turn the sound down. The guy doing the review is infuriatingly uninformed. He doesn't understand about support systems so he complains that all the big suits can't move and shoot. He barely shows the support systems list, but it certainly seems like ghostkeels can have shield generators - which I'd been a bit suspicious of. It's a really great upgrade for them so I'm a bit surprised they are getting it for so cheap - especially when the model doesn't have one.

ballzonya wrote:
Do you think 4 squads of 3 is too much? 1 fusion in each?

So.. unless they removed the infantry keyword from them, the Viorla Hot blooded stratagem to shoot 2ce at nearest unit with 6 stealth suits with burst cannons and or 1 or 2 fusion blasters, possibly some markerlight support, possibly some ats, possibly some multi-tracker, that is a prodigious amount of high-risk, high-reward dakka.

With the index I would often out multi trackers on stealth suits. For 2 points to reroll ones was fine. Now for 10 points and only against units with 5 or more. I really don't think it's worth it.

The only support system I'd give to stealths now is a drone controller or velocity tracker. The others are to expensive or just not useful imo.