As the name says, 5th ed affected the Tau in some drastic ways and seeing as its going to be 2-3 years before they get a New codex. I figured that this would be a good time to work on adapting the Tau Tactics and Builds to 5th ed.
This thread is about sharing lessons learned, dirty(but legal)tricks, and the use of conventional and unconventional tactics in an effort to make the Tau more competitive or at least keep them interesting to play until the next codex.

Please no trolling or Tau hate posts. I will report such very quickly if others haven't already done so. I really would like for this thread to be about the exchange of strategies, tactics, and new ways of making the codex work in 5th ed.

I think most reading this thread will have enough experience to not need a recap of the basics. If I'm wrong on this please let me know. Having said that, I will begin with what are, IMHO, the current most common or promising Builds with their inherent tactics.

First, There is the Mech Tau Build. This build seems to be one of the more common builds. Its strengths are the use of Devilfish transports and Railgun Hammer Head Tanks that when teamed with the Tau diruption pod makes for a very durable, if somewhat boring to play,build. Mech Tau follows the philosophy of the Mont'ka(IMO). You hit hard in one area until the enemy is no more. Then you use the opening for manuvering room. This Army starts it dash for objective on turn 3. Sometimes turn four depending upon objective placement.
The positives are that the build is mobile and very durable.
The negatives is the lack of massed firepower becuase of everything in transports and an uninspiring playstyle.

Second, The Tau Staitic Gun-line Illusion. Not many run this build. I've been told that it is too chancy. The strength of this army is also its weakness. It is a Jack of all trades army that is balanced but doesn't excel. This army normally has four vehicles and the rest are infantry or jump infantry. This army plays off of their positioning and focused firepower. You set up to where your deployment looks like a classic static gun-line with the infantry dominating you deployment zone. The trick is to have the devilfish properly screened so that come turn 3 they are still around. Just about the time that the first hardhitters are in range to assault you load up your scoring units and dash off towards the objectives with the Tanks and jump infantry.
This army uses a combination of both the Kauyon and the Mont'ka.
Positives-Strong Firepower Army with the flexibility and tools to be good against most armies.
Negatives- Lose a transport or troop unit and the game can go quickly from a strong win to desperately scrambling for a draw.

Third, Ninja Tau- This is a tactic gaining popularity amongst the more experienced Tau players as well as possibly the newer players, too. This is a build that uses a piece of wargear and deepstriking units to allow the Tau player to set the tempo of the game by giving the Tau player a very precise means of controlling what comes on the Table from reserves and when they arrive. Using this the Tau player leaves one, acouple, or his entire army in reserve except for one or two squads. This build probably gives the most Tactical flexibility for the Tau but has its drawbacks too by pretty much having to make it to turn 5 in order to win..
This build is very much a mixture of Kauyon and Mont'ka with the emphisis being heavily upon the Kauyon style of warfare.
Positives-Army is protected by being in reserve and arrives where it will do the maximum amount of damage to your opponents forces.
Negatives-This Tactic relies upon the survival of one squad being on the table with minimal support for 3 Turns and in timed matches your opponent may Play Slowly hoping that the game ends turn 4 before you can get you army in position.

Fourth, is the Broadside spam army. This is a build that goes for maximum fire power and durability but sacrifices mobility in the process. This build is where the player tries to go for 2-3 full squads of the Broadsides which doesn't leave room for much of snything else. This army is a Mont'ka static gun-line army.
Positives-9 Railgun shots a turn and 9 armour save 2+models.
Negatives-Loss of mobility and reduced flexibilty in types of fielded weapons.



These are the basic starting point builds that I can immediately think of. The above are just quick references and if I missed any please to post them. If You feel that I am wrong then please post your reply from your POV. I will debate but if it tuns into an arguement then I will stop. Again this thread is about viable 5th ed Tau build strategies and tactics.



Now a personal tactic that I use. I make the Broadsides my Bait unit in games where I wish to use the principles of the Kauyon in my army. I run this unit at max capacity and also run four shield drones and two gundrones. The variety of the drones allows me to exploit the wound allocation table a little by having models equipped differently. To this squad I join an Etheral with a shield and a gun drone. This gives me a durable, fearless, and Toughness 4 bait unit that has to take eleven wounds from a single squads firing before the Etheral takes on wound.

This is my Bait unit in the Tau Static gun-line Illusion.


Who is next with any helpful hints build strategies, or suvival tactics?

I am now running a Ninja Tau build with the Tau Crisis Commander(Shas'el) joined with a team of broadsides, an Ethereal, and have shield droned the heck out of them.

The commander has the positional relay and Iridium armour. Might even play with him getting the stim injector to soak up a few more wounds. I'm not going to get into the rest of the commanders load out because that will be a matter of personal preference.

Now this unit gets castled with a screening unit out in front giving a cover save to the Broadsides and to help prevent first turn assaults. They should give just enough time for a second squad to come in if the team is being pressed by numerous fast assault types of units.

This should leave enoght time to run the Ninja Tau strategy. One of the bright sides to this is that if your opponent comes after the team hard then he'll probably be out of position when the rest of your army arrives.

I don't play as Tau but i have had to face them a few times.
Ive seen some effective Build that utilize 2 or 3 Skyray Tanks. They did well and were able to Pop a few tanks while Pathfinders and Fire warriors moped up the people that survived. After the tank ran out of Seekers they became a mobile Markerlight shooter. They looked like a good think to work for 5Th E.

I have been playing Tau for a few years now in a casual gaming group. The general builds the OP suggested are good rules of thumb for tau players, I myself had the static gun line when I first started, but it lacked the dynamic flexability I wanted out of a tau army. Just wanted to toss a few things players may find to spice up their games. Now, before I start babbling I generlay run a somewhat mechinised army (2 devilfish, 2 hammer head) and play very mobile in the interest of drawing enemies into concentrated fire of a large number of suits I often field and use the tanks to cover.

Crisis suits, for example, offer many forms of flexabilty on their own. I find myself recently in love with a simple unit of three suits all with twin linked flamers/fusion blasters. Deep strikeing them in the interest of guarding your flank has proven increadbly useful over the last few games i have played.

If you need some hard hitting power armor cracking firepower, there is always the standard Plasma gun/Missle pod command team, though I find it a bit boreing to field from time to time, but always fun to watch the wounds roll.

Stealth suits and me have a very explosive relationship. They seem to do increadbly well and die in spectacular ways, or have a long slow life chipping away at things. With the most recent additions fusion blasters have increased that sort of relationship greatly, a few hits often the difference between victory and splatter.



As a general tactics note I would like to say that the key to being tau is to make sure a unit is dead when your done with it, now this seems like a pretty no brainer but I find the more 'overkill' I pour onto something the better I end up doing in the long run, barring catastrophic dice failure.

Well I will try and think of more as time goes, Thanks for starting a thread like this!

One of my favorate tactics is a "suicide" commander, followed by 2 sqauds of fire warriors, a devilfish(optional) and a etheral just behind him running the following:

XV8 commander "Shas'O"

- Failsafe detonator
- Stim injector
- Shield generator
- Anything that you fancy (my load is plasma, multi-tracker)

Fire Warrior sqauds (2 sqauds of 12)
- Bonded
- Shas'ui

Etheral
- Nothing

Now.. for the "suicide" to work effectively, you have to know the following:

- You WANT to the ENEMY to get into CC with this dude, not you.
- You WANT the XV8 commander to survive that round of combat.
- You WANT to lose and fall back

Most likely if your fighting a big BIG mob of orks or nids, chances are they can't get all their attacks. If you survive (hopefuly with 1 wound left) you prompt a moral test.

With a -1 to -3 penalty and with the commanders Ld of 10, you want to roll high with it. Having a etheral in range to re-roll the check helps alot.

If you passed the check, chances are if your fighting large mobs they would have surrounded you.. which meaning you can't fall back and get destroyed. If you fail the mortal check, you don't move back d6", and now that he's lost combat, he can trigger his powerful str 8 blast over the area.

There will be a very high chance that the enemy attackers will survive... but that's only 1/2 the pain.. Because of the failsafe detonator, the enemy sqaud doesn't make a consiladation move (but sadly doesn't take a moral check via 25% loss of numbers), which means that the sqaud is completely out in the open. Move the fire warrior sqauds and rapid fire the fools to oblivion.

That's my mont'ka tactic..... if a bit extreme.

Also... don't discredit sniper drone teams. They are exellent at pinning and great anti-power armor fire power. Sure a bit static.. but that's why i sit a team really far away from my main army, right on the table edge. At only 80 points they could easily distract enemy units, most likely units that cost twice as much.... and if you cause a unit to get pinned, they've just earned you a extra turn before you have to deal with that sqaud.

Hammerhead tank equipment is important for survivability and flexability. Everybody always gets the good old distruption pod. 5pts of awesomeness, it grats a 4+ cover save if the attacker is shooting futher away than 12". We ALL pretty much know that and we all pretty much take them on every tank, flyer or skimmer we got. But we should note what upgrades are highly effective with the hammerhead, so i shall list a few.

Multi-tracker - 5pts - Multi-trackers function differently on tanks. Normaly on suits, they let you fire 2 weapons. With a tank, it counts as a fast vehicle for shooting purposes. It does NOT mean a Hammerhead becomes a fast vehicle and can move 18", it just means that you can fire a single weapon while moving at 12"... and i think i know what weapon you would shoot *cough*Railgun*cough*.

Thanks to the multi-tracker, the Hammerhead becomes a very mobile tank and for 5pts you can't go wrong.

Target-lock - 5pts - Target-locks are another awesome item for Hammerheads. This little puppy lets you fire each of the hammerheads weapon systems at different targets. So say you have a enemy ork tank in front of you, with troops walking along side of it. You could fire the railgun at the tank and then use your secondary weapons on the troops. Because the secondary weapons would most likely not able to even score with armor penertration, thats 4-6 shots gone to waste.

My play experience is very limited, but I have developed a fondness for Flachette Dischargers of Piranhas. I move up infront of a hord, deploy the drones and take o few shots. I don't care who they assault. hopefully the drones first, so i can move the Piranha and shoot some more. BUt it is a thing of beauty to see an orc mob lose half its force before the assault and then a bunch more when the Piranha's grav engines go critical.

Deathevn wrote:As a general tactics note I would like to say that the key to being tau is to make sure a unit is dead when your done with it, now this seems like a pretty no brainer but I find the more 'overkill' I pour onto something the better I end up doing in the long run, barring catastrophic dice failure.

Well I will try and think of more as time goes, Thanks for starting a thread like this!

This, is why my screen name is Focusedfire. To clarify this a bit further;

Make your battle plans to where you have redundancies in case of unfortunate dice rolls. Focuse on the primary threats untill they no longer exist and then move to the next most pressing target in need of vaporization. I set up with interlocking fields of fire in such a manner to where I can have the tactical ability to help support the removal of an enemy unit but if things go average or better the remaining units still have another viable target that isn't getting a coversave from my own units.



Deathevn- Your welcome and thank you for your well thought out contribution.

Just thought i'd steer the conversation a little.

How and when do you use Stealth Suits? Is the Fusion Blaster worth it? What kind of upgrades are best and for which situations?

One of the best uses of Stealth Teams I've found, particularly in the growing TLOS environment, is the Stealth Markerlight Team... give two or three Stealth Suits maximum Marker Light Drones, and now you have a squad that can move and hit with markerlights, taking advantage of JSJ, along with the Stealth Field Generators of the Stealth Suits themselves, making them very hard to kill.

I used to run them with the fusions but eventually came to realize that I could make a 2 xv-8 suit "suicide squad" that was just as effective for less points. The 2 XV-8's also seem to survive better.

Now I use them for their burst cannons so I don't have to put the BCs on a XV-8. I run them 4-6 strong and then deepstrike or infiltrate them trying to get an intercept on light vehicles or fast assaulters. That much massed firepower really rocks. Especially if you run them with targeting arrays.

If I'm playing a very assault oriented army I'll try to infiltrate deep into their territory. If you can hit a squad hard and get your opponent to divert some of his army to go backwards to get you it is pure win.

Another thing you could do is what they suggest and run them with marker drones. MAN, they are effective like that. The Drones just happen to be about 10pts to expensive so I never run them that way. Only ever did it to test the concept. What I'm saying here is that they are extremely effective but not 30pts a peice worth. Thats giving up 3 fire warrior shots a turn for a 50% chance of a marker light.

When I use them now, it is as part of my Ninja Tau either to deepstrike back objectives or to infiltrate them right in front of the Team with the positional relay to give that team a cover save.



Spelling and punctuation edits

GhostRecon wrote:One of the best uses of Stealth Teams I've found, particularly in the growing TLOS environment, is the Stealth Markerlight Team... give two or three Stealth Suits maximum Marker Light Drones, and now you have a squad that can move and hit with markerlights, taking advantage of JSJ, along with the Stealth Field Generators of the Stealth Suits themselves, making them very hard to kill.

That's a good tactic.. if costly points wise. Would be quite hard to kill unless someone gets in close *oh look, running orks with warrghh*

Regarding Stealth suits I have to say I like them with fusion blasters, I usualy take 2FB 4BC unit in most games all with targeting arrays. I do argue with myself if the fusion's are worth tradeing the burst cannons for, but at the end of the day I find that I like the idea of having another unit people wish to avoid with their Land raiders/preds/russ's ect. Its more of a scare tactic then direct impression on the battlefield. Fusion blasters also have much better odds at poping marines and their equivlants then burst cannons, so a bit of punch in that regard is very welcome.

I am looking and willing to hear other ways people outfit their stealths, preticuarly in the Support systems regard, the +1 bs is nice and makes them alot more killy, but I am just wondering if other people have had noteable sucess with other bits and pieces.

As far as actualy applying them to the battlefield I love these guys on one of my flanks. With the loadout I give them they can handle any light intercepting units they throw to try and crush a vulnerable flank. Deepstriking seems a pretty good choice for them, but as a word of caution , deepstrike them into your own 'territory' as a counter unit. For some reason whenever I attempt it even vaugely near enemies, whole armies turn to pulverize the poor guys , this is usualy to my advantage, but not very healthy for the poor stealth suits.

Just thought I would throw my own question out there.

Devilfish a fairly simple APC, take your fire warriors from A-b without getting your head shot in. Its all good. Now my question is, besides disruption pods what do people equip on them for support systems? Gundrones or SMS? I rarely have a 'standard' loadout for them so I was just wondering what others commonly use!

I usually run my devilfish with Disruption Pods, Multitrackers, and Flachette Dischargers. I keep the gundrones to set a screen infront of the fish, plus i think the points could be better spent elsewhere. THeir primary function is to get the troops from point a to b, but then i use them to harrass the enemy hoping they will assault it. (a lot of ork and some nid armies at the flgs)

Now I understand this mentality on how to treat the APC quite well, Fluchette launchers are absolutely hellarious. But I have to ask, as an overall idea isnt it flawed? Your risking units in the hope that others will 'take the bait' as it were. It WORKS certinly, but there has to be a better way for us to handle our transports!... well at least thats the ideal. I love fluchette launchers and have done this myself many a time. Recently I have tried to cut back on that in the interest of preserving KP's

The best way for a lot of armies to destroy our transports is through charging them. Ignores the field, strikes at rear armor 10, lots of attacks. Especially enemies like Orks and Stealers. Flechettes can cut down drastically on the number of enemies trying to swarm the Fish/Head.

I just don't see any other use for them. There just aren't any other options for the 'fish. A second weapon system is wasted as i need them to move more than 6" each round as an anti-assault tactic. Eventually they will have to do something about the 'fish and drones. And that is what i want. Any unit assaulting the drones and 'fish are not going after my railheads and broadsides. That is what i am most concerned with. Would i like better options? sure, but i don't see any available.

Mentioning flechettes. I mostly run them on my Pirahnas.

This may be wrong but by the reading of the rules if you have three of them with flechettes and the squadron is assaulted then all three get to fire the flechettes.

This is how I've been running them and my gaming group agrees that they play that way.

I put disruption pod, target lock, multi-tracker, taregtting array, and flechettes on my devilfish, but thats because i use it as a light tank that happens to carry fire warriors :-P

flechettes are DEFINITELY worth the 10 points. in order to get a clean shot at out tanks you have to either assault or get to point-blank range, and usually assaulting is easier.


Now i just wish we could tank shock and fire em off. get the wounds, dont get assaulted!.

A fairly minor tactic I like to use is disembarking gun drones from d-fish or piranhas and using the drones as one-way cover saves for infantry. It's pretty easy to space two drones wide enough in coherency to help fire warriors survive heavy bolter or Necron Destroyer fire better, and the drones can use their jet pack rules to move when you're shooting your own guns. It's also kind of fun to use a couple of drone squads to give a big kroot mob saves while they walk across the field and soak up lots of fire for such a cheap unit.

Obviously the two-drone squads are liabilities in Annihilation, but for objectives they can really improve infantry survivability since most people want to focus on the Troops instead of wasting a turn shooting up a two-wound unit.

Back to stealthsuits for a moment. I never take fusion blasters on them because they're such short range and not at all the same targets you'd want to shoot with the burst cannons. Some people are irrationally terrified of stealthsuits because of the combined annoyance of their stealth fields and jet packs, and because they get so many shots. I love to infiltrate them up close to get in the action right away, and hopefully kite some slow assaulters.

Now there is a topic i'd like to see discussed. How do you decide to infiltrated and what scenarios do you look for in doing so? Is there something you see on the board that sets a light off in your mind that says time to infiltrate? How do you avoid the unit being cut off and murdered? Also, i would like to know the same about Deepstriking. Where and when?

The awesome thing about Infiltrate is that you can always just place the unit in your deployment zone if it looks too dangerous or whatever. Stealthsuits' short-ranged guns and jet packs make infiltrating far forward an attractive option unless there are fast assaulters. I don't even really ever deep strike stealthsuits since I want to get them shooting right away, but deep striking gun drones or suicidal fusion-equipped Crisis suits is fine with me.

The thing I'm still trying to learn in 5E is when to leave things in regular reserves...

Mechnomancer- I see the difference between deepstriking and infiltrate as follows:

Infiltrate-Declared during deployment and deployed after all units have been deployed but befroe first turn or scout moves.

To me this makes infiltrate a situational reactionary device. Not something I actually factor in as a set move when designing the list but more of intentional flexibility. It is a final way to gain an advantage through the actual tactical deployment or from just the threat of the deployment.

If stuck deploying first I often threaten infiltrate with my kroot or stealths just to keep my opponent "honest". When I make this threat it is often my intention to infiltrate into my own lines. My opponents do not know this and will often spend so much time deploying to deprive me of the imagined positional advantage that they leave their units exposed.

These units can still be used defensively to react to your opponents infiltration moves.


Deep-Strike- Declared during deployment places the unit into reserve so that the unit will not hit the table until turn two. Deep Strike units(By this I mean crisis suits and drones) are something that you do factor into your plans when writing the army list.

To me the deepstrikers are a part of the overall strategy instead of just reactionary flexibility. Whether it is Ninja tau or that one backfield tank killing unit the deepstrikers are written into the army list with the primary thought that they "will" instead of may deepstrike. The reason for this is their weapons load outs. In 40K :

Fusion=deepstrike right behind tank
Missles= deepstrike towards opponent table edge near the corners as is safe then harass enemy light vehicles.
Plas=Positional deepstrike pinpoint MEQ killing.
Flamers=deepstrike and burn the weak back objective holding unit or atleast cheap swarm killers.
Gundrones=Cheap deep-striking back objective denial. Don't shoot worth a flip but can tough enough with sv 4+ to take more than an isolated units fire to remove.


There are more but I think I have presented my point of veiw of my preffered methods on when to deepstrike or infiltrate.


Edited for spelling and sentence structure.

Im going to chance the conversasion a bit as I have nothing to add to the deepstrikeing list, for the most part I have to agree wtih Focusedfire's useages of them, but in the general theme of it I would like to say that I dont put together 'suicide' units of Crisis suits, I love the buggers to much to do that to them. I usualy use the short ranged loadouts as a deturent to assault units.


Infiltrate? Usualy only with kroot, and I usualy try and delay it as long as possible and use them to rush/contest an objective in the rears of the enemy. Basicly a last ditch objective/killpoint grab and or snipe .


I would like some imput on ethereals , I cant stand the buggers to be honest, but ive heard of some people useing them to great effect and im wondeirng if i could get some basic/useful stratagies for employing them on the battlefield

Deathevn-I run a single squad of what would normally be called a suicide squad. Funny thing is that when combined with my other tactics these guys have been surviving better then my other teams.

It has to do with my deployment and subsequent movement or possible lack there of. Most of my opponents will try to stick one nasty tank way in the back and in cover. Becuase most don't fear the Tau assaulting such they will leave that vehicle relatively isolated.

I combine my deepstrikes with LoS to the PF devilfish for added accuracy and what usually happens now is that when the team takes out the isolated vehicle they are in cover unless it blows up. Either way there is usually not enough in the area to take out the squad.


Ethereals it is all about mitigating the possible downsides of using them. If you want a nasty anchor for your mech-tau. Join them with a broadside squad and shield drones so you don't have to take morale tests for losing the sheild drones. If the Ethereal buys it your army is tanks and don't test.

You can also run the ethereal with a fire warrior squad with 4 sheild drones so that they are hard to push off of the objective. This can be a reserve squad loaded in a devilfish that is supposed to shoot the opponent off of the objective or just a foot unit that walks on the board near your closest objective.

Personally, I've found that ninja tau does a good job of mitigating the ultimate price of failure rolls as the army either isn't on the board or you've just supplied to many targets to deal with and not enough time. I've already covered the Broadside/Etheral Tactic. To this squad I join a posi-relay commander.

Let me know if you need me to be more detailed.

After around 20 games of 5th edition (having missed out editions 3-4) here are my thoughts on Tau:

Everyone seems to take tanks. I am beginning to realise why – Tau infantry are just not survivable enough without them.

Everyone seems to take multiple shield generators. I am curious about this: why so many? You don’t get multiple invulnerable saves, do you? Having said that alot of my suits end up getting insta-killed. And every other army I face seems to have invulnerable saves. So maybe I should follow suit.

Taking drones for extra wounds is a great idea until you fail a few morale checks.

I find that I struggle alot against horde armies such as Orks and Nids. I can’t seem to pop off enough of them before they reach my lines, especially when we play dawn of war scenario. I recently fielded stealth suits for the first time, however firstly (against Nids) I got charged in the first turn before a shot was fired, and then secondly was out of range (against an Ork horde), after that I failed a morale check and fled the board. So not great so far, especially for 30points a suit.

Deep striking the elite units seems to make sense purely on the basis that they are still on the table at the end of the game.

On a positive note, I would recommend sniper teams but only against SMs, and take at least 2 units.

So I think I have alot to learn but these boards certainly help. Thanks for starting the thread.

troy_tempest wrote:

I find that I struggle alot against horde armies such as Orks and Nids. I can’t seem to pop off enough of them before they reach my lines, especially when we play dawn of war scenario. I recently fielded stealth suits for the first time, however firstly (against Nids) I got charged in the first turn before a shot was fired, and then secondly was out of range (against an Ork horde), after that I failed a morale check and fled the board. So not great so far, especially for 30points a suit.

Submunitions are your best friend against horde armies.

Kroot are the unsung heroes of the tau lists imo. They screen my gunlines from charges to buy an extra turns shooting. They screen the flanks from outflankers and deepstrikers. They provide a mobile cover save for crisis suits to JSJ over. They never survive a battle.

Poor guys *single tear while saluting*

Oh one other thing, how can you have irridium armour and positional relay in the same army when they are both special issue?

Iridium armor is from the wargear portion of the list where the positional relay is from support systems row of battlesuit options.

BTW, sorry I haven't posted much in the past few days. Busy schedule IRL for the past week or so. I'll try to start posting more on-topic strategy tips to get the conversation going in the next couple of days.

Lately I have adopted a "Ninja Tau" build like several other Tauists. I find against Horde armies, especially during DoW, that they don't know where to send their horde, and end up spreading their units in confusion. Not only do you get to skip the Night Fighting turn, but you get to come in where their line is weakest, usually a corner. Then the Skimmers form a screen for any disembarked infantry while the Hammerheads go to town. You can even tank shock your way in if they try to block your deployment, which bunches up their lines anyway.

However, I find the disadvantages to Ninja Tau and 3 Hammerheads are you're completely dependent on the reserve rolls. I've had games where 0/3 Hammerheads came in on Turn 2, and thus it was hard to clear space for other units coming on. And then anti-armor was trouble because Hammerheads miss, even with BS 4. Painfully so.

So I usually put all FW's in Devilfish, outflank with a couple units of 10 strong Kroot, and deep strike my suits. This way, you're guaranteed to cause some havok, even if you fail a couple crucial reserve rolls. I enjoy the build very much and enjoy watching my opponent wander the battlefield in confusion, wondering if they showed up too early...

However, Ninja Tau may become hard to use when 2 Officers of the Fleet show up, and either necessitate the use of a Pos Relay or starting everything on the table. However, in KP missions this may backfire on the guard, as I would be happy to go second and leave my entire force in reserve until turn 5!

Im fairly certain ninja tau strategy is based arround the pos Relay.
The tau use it to keep everything off the table until the last couple turns when it shows up automatically and nobody has a chance to kill anything.

To me, Ninja Tau is keeping everything in reserve. I use a Pos Relay if I'm in the mood, but it's not required IMO.

Synchronicity- I see your point and can agree to a certain extent. The part of me that doesn't agree is looking at the situation from a controlled use veiwpoint.

When everything is in reserve the Tau player doesn't have near the control over his army that the positional relay beginning the game on the table does.

IMO, Being Ninja is about controlling the situation through going from absence to overwhelming presence in the most tactically advantageous positions in a controlled manner. Not using the Positional relay makes the tactic much more of a gamble or un-ninja.


I will say that I am beginning to reduce the number of Hammerheads in favour of more crisis suits and pirahnas. I got this idea when looking at doing a Farsight themed Ninja Tau set-up and from my last two wins where only one of my tanks was on the field before 5th turn. I will still probably run the normal Tau but am adopting a more uncoventional army structure to better exploit this Tactic.

what does the term "ninja-tau" describe?

Just a quick thanks to focusedfire for this thread. I tried out ninja tau against my tyranid opponent and it worked a treat, though it was a very close game (8-6 KP victory).

Basically my kroot got sacrificed to slow down his infiltrating fast assault unit which gave me an exra turn to dakka them with stealth suits.

The rest of his army suffered at the hands of markerlight-guided massed fire. Keeping fire warriors in the devilfish improves their survivability tenfold! Also useful for the old 'fish of fury' tactic that worked well against the lightly armoured nids.

Deep striking the suits slowed down the genestealer units and kept my opponent guessing. It was great fun to play this way as well, with all the suits deep striking. Having the pathfinder devilfish also helped as I would have scattered every DS unit without the re-roll from the marker beacon.

So thanks again focusedfire and others - I have definitely learned something useful here!

What if your opponent is more mobilethan yours? I've been more mobile than all the other armies i've face, but now i go up against an eldar army that is highly mechanized. I guess i'm just looking for tips on how to deal with this. I successfully turned away an ork horde by holing up in a corner and blazing away. Would the same tactic work or is this just suicide?

Eh, Eldar can be more mobile then you but they cannot out shooty you. Eldar die easy to tau weps from what I have heard. Wave-serps will prolly be the biggest pain in the butt.

Eldar will out-manouvre most armies with their skimmers and fleet troops. My advice is bring fusion blasters and railguns to deal with the skimmers. These days I use my helios commander to deep strike (blast a key enemy vehicle and then harass their lines using the vehicle wreck as cover!).

I just played an eldar player (this evening in fact!) and burst cannons were effective. A 3-man crisis team with BC and MP guided by pathfinder markerlights could do serious damage to most eldar infantry units. If you're facing more heavily armoured eldar like scorps the you probably want AP2 guns on your suits. Give them markerlight support so they actually hit!

Against Wave Serpents and their strength shield thingies, I'd imagine that Seeker Missles and Missle Pods would be very nice.

Melta's are pretty much a waste against eldar wave serpents.

Ah you're absolutely right, wave serpent energy field means only 1d6 penetration even at half range!

Your best bet is deepstriking burst cannons or massed MP fire.

Meltas are hardly a waste since you still get the +1 to the damage roll making a 5 or a 6 a kill on a glance.

You are better off taking missile pods against them. Melta's are dreadfully short range, while Missile Pods have a good chance to pop them from across the board, plus you are not dependent on a single close range "all or nothing" shot.

Hats off to focusedfire this is a very good thread. I have a few questions. 1. How will the new IG's ability to slow reserves effect Ninja Tau. 2. If you built a all comers list (ninja) what would it be 1500, 1750, ect. Just curious because I am thinking of breaking out my Tau that have been gaurding the downstairs family room. I have always liked stealthsuits so this seems like a good fit for me and I have been semi-retired since 5th hit.

Someone mentioned it in another thread but Pirahna spam really seems like a interesting take on Tau and with the low cost of them and high number possible in there units you can't pass up the possibility.

edit:

To say that taking 3 units of 5 give you actually 30 gun drones as well which are actually not that bad when you look at it.

It's very expensive in model cost. £15 for a single Piranha = £225 for all the vehicles.

It would be a fun army in looks and as you say the drones would be useful. You could deploy all of them as three big Gundrone squadrons early on.

The amount of table covered by models might prove to be a disadvantage if you are trying to keep out of the way of the enemy.

It really seems like a interesting army period. Add in Fusion Blasters w/ targeting Arrays; Disruption and Flechette you have something that seems to be very viable.

So, what do you do when your opponent is sitting there with stuff in reserve ready to deep strike or outflank you?

If your opponent decides to put everything in reserve ; more power to him he will find out really quick why not.

Tau Pirahnas are very wide models and perfectt for blocking ; if you go first and they go second and put everything in reserve you have more than enough troops and movement ability to zoom across to the far side of the board and block parts of the board edge.


OutFlank doesnt work well against a highly mobile army thy can just zoom to the center of the board and respon quickly to which side you move onto.

Deep Strike is easy to deal with by either disembarking your drones which you have 30 of and placing around your vehicles so that Multmeltas cannot get in range or placing your army in reserve. Every tank is a fast tank and can move 12 plus with large squad sizes if you fail a reserve roll on one or two of your Pirahna squads you still have a good number as they can fire at seperate targets.

Or simply move on 24 inches.

The thing that is really beneficial though is that you can put your devilfishes and Skyrays out of LOS or way behind cover still move 12 and not require LOS with those units. This gives each one of them a threat range of 36 with SMart Missiles.

Hey guys, I know it has been a while but have been busy with the Fan-dex.

I'm posting because I started exploring another set in stone don't do this as a new tactic. I don't know why but when everyone says a unit just shouldn't be used my mind starts exploring how to use them.

This time it has to do with Pathfinders armed with Rail Rifles. Everyone say don't so it because sniper drones are cheaper but lets look at this.

You buy two or three pathfinder teams.

All of their Devilfish get shuttled over to the fire warriors and kroot.

First Pathfinder team gets marker lights.

But the next 2 get Rail Rifles & Markers

This gives you a bunch of markers, Rail Rifles, and transports for your army all while leaving your Heavy slots untouched.

I'm figuring 3-6 man marker teams, 2 Hammerheads, 1 full broadside team. 3 cheap troop choices, 2 deepstriking elites and a deep striking commander.

Just an idea

Oh yeah, mods sorry if this is threadromancy

It is, but you started this thread and are doing a great job of staying on topic, and have some advice that I will say sounds pretty darned decent.

So we'll keep this thread open.

It's perfectly viable and a good idea your going to have to purchase those Devilfish regardless.

2 Pathfinders w/ Railrifles

5 Pirahnas w/ Fusion and Target links, disruption etc..

10 Man Deepstriking Gun Drone Squad from the Pirahnas which get to reroll because of the Devilfish.


2 Squads of Kroot

2 Squads of Firewarriors.


Inexpensive a good idea and starting base for a solid core army.

I think the strongest build strategy should focus on removing the enemy's mobility turn 1. broadsides and deathrains with markerlights can accomplish this easily, and should focus on trying to remove as many dedicated transports at they can, so that the rest of the army has plenty of time to shoot. This may sound like a gunline army, but I think infiltrated kroot, combined with the deathrains popping transports, would serve as the main anti-infantry firebase, with 20-40 bolter shots per turn, and not half-bad in CC either. Fire warriors shooting from objectives 30 inches away to aid them, devilfish with SMSs would serve as distractions, pumping out fire from behind impassable terrain so that the enemy has to DS or run stuff way out of the way to get to them. The pathfinder ability to reduce scatter will help DSing fusion/plas suits to take out tougher targets.

tl;dr trap them in their deployment zone.

@ Iorek-Thank you for your kind words

@Hollisman-Don't know if the Gundrones get to deploy separate from the pirahna. Is this a new 5thed rules interpretation?

BTW, I was on the thread where the idea of spamming pirahnas came up. If you want I can dig up the guys screen name. IIRC,It was in the How do eldar handle nob bikers thread back in december.
This guy put the idea out and I cursed him because I was going to have to buy more models. You still gotta take a crisis commander though. This bummed me out because I was thinking of running a no Battlesuit force.

@Cannoness Rory- You just described the force and tactics I used to run in 4th edition. The tactics are still very sound but I started having problems with the new 5th ed builds.
So I began to tinker and have been toying with unorthodox builds ever since. Seems of late, whether win or lose, if I make a new tactic work I enjoy myself more that just a win with the same tactics over and over again.

I can't remeber if we covered it early in the thread but yes. Removing your opponents speed is of great importance. About the same as punching a whole in their line to give yourself some place to run to.

One of the build that was being problematic was land speed spam infront of a mechanized wave. There just weren't enough shots to slow the SMs down or to even punch an effective hole before they got there. I figured it out by moving to more of a Ninja type build with my own personal tweeks.

Have you read the whole thread? If so please let me know what you think.

Also, could you double space your posts every couple of lines. It helps to pick out points to address and makes quoting easier.

Have a good one

,Later

You would have to ask someone how the rule works for gun drones; I know you can do it ,but I couldnt explain the order on how you are doing it.


The Pirahna Swarm is one of my Favorite army lists and you can get Pirahnas for pretty cheap on EBAY.

The best thing about it is that it really is a force multiplier in numbers.

I could go on about it but basically.

2 5 man squads of pirahnas
1 Pathfinder squad

5 Fast Attack options.

It must be because the drones are counted as passengers. This makes the Pirahnas into a form dedicated transports under 5th(Or at least they are treated as such). If this is what is being used its like the Pathfinder/Devilfish Outflank/Reserve set up where they deploy seperately but at the same time. Not saying that this is correct. Just the way that I see the rules applying to allow such to happen. It is an interesting wrinkle that defintely improves the Pirahna as a unit.

No prob on the Pirahnas these days but thanks. Its just funny that I was chatting with the guy and as soon as he typed it there were three of us that immeidiately had that light bulb over the head moment. I even started a thread on it but lost interest in the concept when I found the no crisis theme couldn't be done.

I'm glad to see other picked up where we left off and have made it into a good build. It gives the mobility that is necessary for the Tau in 5th ed.

Yeah its definitely one of the better builds for Tau and people do not use it at all.

I am almost positive that is how it works; check Steleks blog he explained it really well.


The tactic out of that though is because of the foot print of the Pirahnas which around 6 inches wide you can effectively just "corner" your opponent by boosting 24 inches forward.


It gives you a 3+ cover save ; You need 6s to hit them in Close Combat. Depending on your interpretation of Flechette you get attacks at the squad when they assault you.


Even moving 24 inches and staying 12 or so away from your opponent really just blocks them completely in.

If they shoot past the pirahnas then your army has 4+ cover saves and your able to deny units cover saves w/ marker lights from Pathfinders.


It's just an all around great army. Cheap Cost Efficient; Able to deal with a Variety of opponents via Target locks etc..

In fairness, what you lose in mobility with Broadside Spam, you get back in sheer titanic amounts of firepower.

I ask you, what can stand against 9 Broadsides?

In answer to radiohazards question:

1) 3 Basilisks that are out of line of sight.

2)Land Raider spam using smoke and going first.

3)SM Mech swarm, 1750 pts. Has three tanks, 3 full landspeeder squadrons, 2 Razorbacks and 2 rihnos

4)Drop Pod armies

5)SW armies that bring the scouts in the back door.

6)Any army that can get units into assault by second turn. The assaulters don't have to be able to kill the broadsides quickly. just tie them up to where they don't shoot.

@Everyone:
I still maintain that the Tau army does not respond well to spamming one unit. The build has to be more of a theme where if a unit is going to be the focus of your strategy every other unit you pick will have to compliment it.

If you do build such a "themed" army it will tend to be good for only one tactic and limited in the variety of opponents you can successfully engage.

I am not saying that this is a don't. Just to be realistically aware of what you could be facing when you build a spam list.

Just my opinion.

I just want to take the time here and say thanks to everyone that is contributing to this thread.

I also want to say that I encourage polite critique of ideas for this will lead to better and fully formed tactics and builds.

Even though I just recently posted the idea about the rail rifle equipped pathfinders, I want the focus to be more on Tatics. That we will post builds in order to examine what tactics in game can be employed to make these builds better and to examine in which situations they are weak.

Happy hunting
,Later

Here is a good tactic and involves some actual decision making ability.

Everyone talks about positional relay and Ninja Tau , but Positional Relay is a great wargear item period for use with Kroot. Yes, you heard me right kroot.


How does that work?

Place 2 squads of Kroot in reserve outflanking along with 1 broadside deepstriking unit w/ Fusion Guns/ Flamers.


Pathfinders devilfish allow you to reroll deepstrike in LOS. On the second turn Deep Strike the Crisis suits within Melta range of what you need to kill. Here is a good "deepstrike set up" for Crisis that is cheap it is very similar to a Termicide squad from Chaos Codex.

Shas
Fusion Gun Twin Linked ; Target Lock
Fusion Gun TwinLinked ; Flamer
Shas ++ Fusion Gun ; Flamer ; Hardwired Target Lock ;

140 ish dont have codex.

With this squad and Correct position you can if needed fire at 3 Seperate Targets ; with the ability to Reroll the deepstrike this really is a Suicide Crisis Squad which you need to be carefully choose what you are going to kill.

A good rule is try to at least target heavy armour AV14 etc.. this will help get "points" back.


The reason why is because Kroot ultimately are not what you would want to have sticking around on field for a long period of time and it allows you to outflank on later turns or use Kroot to come in on turn two and make a charge on a vulnerable unit.


Anyway Positional relay is excellent for controlling the pace of the game. Being able to cherry pick when your unit comes on board is a great way to quickly grab objectives with Kroot late in the game.

When placing objectives if you have them place them near the middle / corners etc.. This will help as well. Anyway this a great way to keep a unit that ultimatley is a cheap glass hammer alive and around for a good period of time.

I think you mean Deepstriking Crisis as opposed to broadsides. But yeah, the positional relay is an amazing tool that didn't come into its own until 5th ed.

When placing objectives while using the positional relay, set the objectives as close to the Table edges as possible. If you have 3 squads outflanking it just about guarantees that both(Maybe 3) will be contested.

A recent test tactic that I have come to like is utilizing 'feeding frenzy' with 'rapid seeker missle barrage'.
This includes:
-An infiltrating stealth marker team, with a team leader that has:Targeting array, HW-TL, HW-DC, x2Marker Drones and a markerlight
-x5 or x4 piranha squadron(equipped with disruption pods, and seeker missiles)
-A semi large kroot carnivore squad, infiltrating(usually 10 kroot, and 7 hounds works best)

The tactic has you infiltrating both the kroot and the stealths, the kroot preferably in cover, while the stealths just need to be able to JSJ and marker any tank in the opposing army of value.

Meanwhile, you deploy the piranha squad on the flank that you are going to infiltrate the kroot, first turn detach all the drones into one 8-10 man group, and run them up with the kroot(tactic known as 'drone wall'), flat out the piranhas up the flank, and jump the stealths out.

I forgot to mention, for this to work, the stealths must be on the opposite flank of the piranhas, kroot and drones. This is important because he is going to position his army and or move on his army away from the large group of piranhas to attempt to avoid them.

Now because seeker missles can be fired no matter how far the vehicle moved, this means that the stealth team has potentially a two vital vehicle shot first turn no matter how the enemy was deployed.

I have found that 2 responses are common when these units are seen by opposing armies:
Either 1: They will see the large amount of piranhas and do their best to stay away from them which includes, deploying less valuable vehicles as screens, keying you into knowing which vehicles hold the good stuff ...

Or 2: They will attempt to thwart the piranhas by holding many key things in reserve, not realizing that being fast attack, piranhas deploy last (other than infiltrators and scout moves) and therefore you can choose what to do based on his responses.

You deploy as said, respond as said, flank, JSJ hit one to 2 key vehicles with side armor thanks to the flat out positioned piranhas, either cripple or disable them first or second turn, and then feeding frenzy in while the enemy tries to react, meanwhile a kroot unit screened by drones is coming closer to the slaughter, ready to mop up or sweep forward objectives.

In 5 out of 6 games, my opponent has responded as one of the two examples above and all those 5 out of 6 times, I have had a first or second turn key seeker kill on a vehicle resulting in a completely blocked force, or the disposal of a very expensive unit early. 4 out of those 6 games were capture games, and I found myself easily able to leap on their far flank quarter, or furthest back objective early and holt it for the rest of the game.

(10 drones and 17 kroot in cover are not easy to get rid of) I also found that with 5 piranhas, they never manage to kill more than 2 while they are exposed on the flank and they later provide good screening and a major fear factor to my opponents back troops.

I have even gone so far as to hide them on the back of their flank table edge covering it to prevent them from bringin on reserves.

Circle the Wagons ;

Tactical Level : Easy

Type : Deployment

Requires: 2 5 man Pirahna Squads w/ Disruption pods. Hammerheads ; Devilfish , Transports.


When deploying form your Pirahna with Disruption fields in a upside down V formation.

With 4 inch Coherency , you can place Large Fire Warrior Squads w/ Mark Lights within this V along with Hammerheads ; etc..

This pretty much gives every single unit in your entire army a 4+ invulnerable.


Pretty simple set up. If you face Drop Pods; deploy your Drones outside of the ring to prevent close deepstrike.


a note on disruption pods that is incredibly important

Because the Unit uses Squadron rules , Disruption pods are fantastic. Why? Because according to the rules if more than 1/2 of the squad is outside of the 12inches of the unit firing at the pirahnas the whole unit still gets the 4+ cover save from the disruption pods because you count cover exactly like normal squadrons.

For Example;

A unit of sternguard deepstrikes within 8 inches of 2 Pirahnas of the 5 man squad. 3 of the units are beyond the 12 inches required to be obscured by disruption pods. Because of this the whole unit gains cover saves because Squadrons count cover just like normal units do and if more than 50 percent is in cover they all have a cover save.

Putting Target locks on leaders of crisis teams as well as taking many squads a possible. By doing these two things you can maximize the number of units you can target. It also uses the rules against your enemy because they have more targets to face and since they can only target one enemy per turn even in assault.

Positional Relay and Broadside team with ASS in reserve.

Hide first turn, then move on and fire.

Generally I like cheap multitudes of Crisis suits instead of small units of elites

3 Crisis Suits
Twin Link Pod , Target Lock
Twin Link Pod , Flamer
TwinLinked Pod, Flamer , Target Lock

152 points

If you want to add drones you can I guess, but 9 of these is 18 STR 7 AP 4 shots. Use these to just decimate light infantry and AV as well as Mechanized list hate to see this. Being able to fire at 9 different targets as well. If you want more annoying you can add in a drone controller to each unit and put in Gun Drones for ablative wounds, but i would not make these more than 180 points so that you have enough left over for Tanks Tanks Tanks.


This is how I use them.

If cover is not available that you can jump out of LOS and jump back during Assault Jump. Use Hammer heads as mobile cover. Keep Moving always with Hammerheads and these guys behind; they have 36 inch range jump out from behind the Hammerhead fire use assault move to jump back behind Hammerhead. All the while steadily moving away from the enemy. This allows you to gain cover saves from the Hammerhead if needed ; Hammerheads having displacement fields helps as well as if they decide to shoot it it has a 4+

They can more than keep up with Devilfish with units inside the same goes for Hammerheads.

By utilizing this you can alway be in cover with your crisis teams , and with disruption pods on your Devilfish you will have a 4+ as well.

That is a good set up Hollisman. Nice applied tactics also.

Question- Do you not trust your dice? The crisis load you just gave is a very conservative type of build that sacrifices number of shots for almost guarnateed auto-hits. Was wondering if there is a story behind such.

As to my basic Crisis teams. I run them 2 strong, 2 weapons(Not twinlinked) and multi-trackers(Sometime TA's instead).

I run them 2 strong for several point saving reasons.

First) At 2 strong and no drones I don't need to upgrade one to team leader to buy a bondingknife. The unit will always be at least 50% as long as the 2nd suit lives. This can save 10-15pts

Second) The smaller Team is easier to hide and manuever for the purposes of Jump-Shoot-Jump.

Third) My Suits spend most of their time as anti-vehicle, so with the exception of a couple of squadrons they don't need the volume of fire power.

I run the 2 weapon set up for:

1)Tactical Flexibility. Flame/fusion for my deepstrike "Suicide" team. It is good against hoarde or vehicle.

2)Points efficiency: Don't feel the second twin-linked system is worth the points or sacrificing the wargear slot for.

Multi-trakers are cheaper than all but one weapon system and increase your volume of fire. I chose weapons with complimentary ranges or function depending upon the armies build and needs.

For bodyguard I aways take the TA because it is cheaper than a pathfinder and always on. This is where I stick my "really needs to hit stuff like Plasma/missle combo or plasma/fusion.(I don't get to run these guys in my Ninja Tau build because of the Ethereal and Commander joining the Broadsides)

Pls, keep in mind that this is all personal preference but it does lead to different strategies. My strategy is about getting the highest volume of fire per point spent without overbuying in any unit


BTW,
@Gameandwatch and everyone- I finally remembered who and where the Pirahna "Feeding Frenzy" came from.

His Daka name is Hoarseman and it was on a thread about stealthfields and sniperdrones. So if anyone asks where the "feeding frenzy" idea came from it was Hoarseman.

My view on Crisis suits is to use them as very specific in their goal as to what you want them to do. I use the Suicide Squad Fusion/Flamer as well and love it as a unit. Usually I take two of these squads w/ a Fusion/Flamer Deepstriking squad.

They have almost guarrenteed success at hitting with twinlinked. Its average for twinlink BS3 is a little higher than BS4. The lay out still guarantees a complex unit. Which is helpful for wound allocation. The benefit of the lay out if I attach gun drones makes it 20 points more but gives you the advantage of the following.

Cover. All you have to do to keep cover is maintain the gun drones in cover w/ one Crisis suit thats more than 50 percent of the squad. It's much easier to put 2 drones and a suit in cover than 3 suits. I don't really use shielf drones because 90 percent of the time I can stick at least 3 guys from that squad either behind another squad or behind some pirahnas that are ahead etc.. etc..


I use them very specifically to target MCs ; Light Armour ; and Mass Fire at troops. For 300 points I get 12 STR7 AP4 shots. I think Imperial Guard are the only army that can get that in the form of a squadron of 3 Hydras, but with the advantage of being able to fire at 9 separate targets which is a excellent conservation of fire power. 4 Twin Linked STR 7 AP4 shots against AV10 to 12 is usually enough to get a roll on the chart.


It's brutal brutal firepower for low low cost leave the Tank Busting to specific Squads that excel best at it such as Pirahnas w/ Fusion guns, Hammerheads, Broadsides ( I do not use broadsides).

i'm tanking the good old fashion Warfish as a full squad of fire warriors still kill only 2-4 MeQ's which is the same as a 6 man squad. so by taking the SMS on my fish they can do more damage even after moving 12". Also TLOS rule is anoying in cites of death but wait... SMS don't give a monkies about LOS. so it's a win-win wep and also if you combine the range of the SMS(24" plus the speed of your tank 12") that makes a amazing 36" of no LOS needed. now heres where we go Fishing, the good old fashion Fish of Fury with SMS = a bad day to go fishing for your enermies

and if you say i can't shoot my guns after moving 12" look at the upgrade Multi Tracker.

IWhat do people think of using minimum squads in Devilfish

Hollismason wrote:IWhat do people think of using minimum squads in Devilfish

Works very well.

Just IMO. I would avoid playing Ninja Tau. It's just so bad. Friendly wise? Could be fun. Competitive wise? Well it's not in any way shape or form. Won't argue just saying research it and know about it before committing to it. EDIT: I'll explain. It WILL work VERY well if your opponent doesn't know how to deal with this type of army. Anyone with a clue how to though will decimate it. It's a one trick pony thats not even that great at what it does. It's a semi-demon bomb. Wanna be Alpha Strike Guard.

For tau the best tactic is blocking movment and deploying correctly.

Easy concept.

Use kroot with hounds, Pirahnas, and Devilfish to screen your more valuable units such as crisis suits, firewarriors, broadsides, and hammerheads. Forcing your enemy to make contact with these

Daemon Defense. Stelek shows in the battlereport what to do and it's better than anything I could type out.

http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/07/battle-report-tau-vs-demons.html

Well the point of Pirahna swarm is to completely block Mobility of your opponent if needed and use the Pirahna an their 4+ cover and 4+ disruption to create "lines".


Basically you box your opponent in and fire at him with Marker Lights then use marker lights to deny him cover saves from your pirahnas.

Pirahnas are Very Resilient in that you need 6s to hit and they have a 4+ cover all the time pretty much.

Next turn if you need you can dump 20 gun drones into their deployment.

@EzeKK-Pls,When you say to not use something, give the thought process as to why. Point out the negatives in a realist, detailed, and constructive form instead of "Its just so bad.

As for Ninja Tau, It works in the right situations but, if your opponent intentionally plays slow then you have a problem in the competitive enviroment.

From there it goes to the varying degrees that you apply the Tactic, whether you start the whole army in reserve or just part of it. Did you read and adjust to your opponents build properly(Did he have Shrike or some such)?

Pls, give us a bit more why. This forum is for the discussion of the pro's and con's of certain tactics as oppossed to arguments.

Well, FF, I myself have found ninja tau to be ineffective in the competitive environment mainly because of the point level. If you are playing non-competitive you have access to point games below 1500 which is where I think ninja tau really shines! But considering most competitive games are 1500 or above, the opposing force simply has too much to bear for ninja tau to handle.

Think of it like this, your playing IG, its not Dawn of War, you decide to play ninja tau, deploying your commander with the PR and whatever other small groups you choose to deploy. I know you like to attach the commander to a BS team Focusedfire. SO thats all you have on the board:

The IG guy chooses to deploy literally everything he has at his disposal, say this is a 1750 pt game, which would likely include, around 6 chimeras, some vendettas or valkyries, and probably 3 LRBT of some variation, most likely one regular, one of the plasma variety, and a vanquisher. With all that going full speed on the first turn, and considering he knows your army list, he needs only to cover the sides, where neccesary, and charge straight at you as spread out as possible to decrease your chances of successful DS.

By turn 2 or three hes on top of you and if your commander goes, then pretty much there goes the whole shebang. But with a significant point decrease, he has far less units to cover and counteract your units coming on, whether its DS, outflank or simply roll on, it would make it far more aggrevating for him seeing as he can charge everything at your commander, but then you have tons of room to move around, and if he decides to cover your board edge, you can use that PR and DS or outflank units in order to force him off.

just my experience...

First point I would make is that Ninja Tau has different deployments depending upon what and who you opponent is.

First, Against IG it isn't as good to run the whole army in reserve. Remember, that just because you have the posi-relay doesn't mean that you have to keep the whole army back. It gives you tactical flexibility and control concerning your reserves.

With IG, this is where it may be better to hold just a few deep striking units in reserve(For dropping behind his tanks or objective denial)and bring them out in a measured controlled pace.

I will say that, at 1750 pts, I have faced the rhino/landspeeder spam full tilt charge from our local champ(End up facing 11+ vehicles). I have dismantled his army with the Ninja Tau build even when keeping everything in reserve.
Personally, I'm hoping that the individual charges his whole army at the commander because it means that they aren't going for the objectives.

In essence what I'm saying is that the Ninja Tau tactic is not having your entire army in reserve but rather about having precise control over what is in reserve. Even is the entire army is in reserve you can always choose to not use the Positional relay if you feel the situation calls for such. IMO, 15 points for that much flexibility is not a bad purchase.

It works really well with Kroot as they generally do not have the "survivability" with no armour save at all.



One of the things I am working with on Ninja Tau is Pathfinders w/ EMP grenades and Warfish Outflanking.

focused: I said to research it.

No good player I have met runs ninja tau. Some 13 year old did. Till he tried it on me and he didn't kill anything in my army the last turn because I had raiders in cover. He had fusion suits. Guess what? They got one turn of shooting because they were the only things on the board and I blew them away. The next game he played them against a foot guard player who lined the table edges with conscripts so he couldn't come onto the board through edges and couldn't hide anywhere. Oops.

Ninja Tau (true) might work at 1k points where the guy doesn't have enough men to get your suits.

With "true" ninja tau (which means you hold basically everything in reserve) it's like playing football without an offensive line. It doesn't make any sense. You have none of your big guns on the table which Tau HIGHLY excel at. Thats like trying to play something like foot dark eldar or eldar with no seers for that matter. When you have something SO good (raider spam! seers!) why do you let it waste?

Alpha Strikes happen turns 1-2 MAYBE 3. Eldar and IG (kings of alphastrike) can't even wait for turn 5-6 to do it!

No one has fun versing ninja tau either. You waste people time bsing around for 5-6 turns then you come in with your army. How is that fun?

Now taking a positional relay and holding SOME squads in reserve isn't bad. But holding your whole frickin army in reserve for a bad version of an alphastrike turn 5 is just stupid. Taking positional relay doesn't make you "ninja tau" it can make you a "smart" person. Taking it and holding broadsides in reserve with ASS (when you receive the 2nd turn and are versing something like lance spam DE) then positional relay is smart.

To make a good suggestion: Ask ANY good CD player. Now ask him what he thinks of Daemonic Assault. Then ask him "Would you rather have all of your army available at one time or come in peace meal?" 9/10 he will say "HAVE IT ALL!" very enthusiastically, if he didn't already mention that he thinks DA makes his army to peace meal. The other 1/10 will be the guy who thinks its fluffy or hasn't played CD before.

PROS:
Is hard to counter if you don't know how to.
You don't have to have a nice looking army because people will only have to see it for a turn.
You can think your cool by calling your army NINJAZ!

CONS:
Bad version of an alphastrike.
Bad version of a Daemon Bomb.
Your letting your big guns not have time to make use of them. 200 point broadside unit that shoots for one turn! WOW!
Your a ONE TRICK PONY! You got one trick and once some guy learns how to take a bat to your leg your dead in the dirt forever.

I use Positional Relay for Deepstriking fusion guns on the second turn of the game.

If you have two kroot squads you can bring them both on usually on the 3rd turn.


Ninja Tau Shouldn't wait till the 5th or sixth turn; everything should be on board on the 3rd and higher.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can someone post a Farsight unit I am unsure of how to equip them and was wondering if they are worth it?

Also, AunVa ; it says he comes with 2 Honour Guard


Anyone ever use him?

@EeKK-First, about your tone in your post. If I were to use the same tone I'd say something like, "From your reply I can offer an opinion of why you have not been impressed with the tactic. IMO, it is because you are playing 13 year olds and the tactically challenged. It is easy to rack up wins that way."

You see what I did there. While not a personal attack it is still a statement while, using your own words against you, it was neither a constructive nor helpful statement. This thread is about "discussing" tactics. I ask that you offer opinions and give the situations or reasons for your stance so that the tactics can be examined and improved.

Now to your point of how the player applied the tactic. With the IG having your entire army in reserve isn't the most effective use. Now having the army in reserve when facing Lash can work to some extent as when facing low model count armies. What I'm getting at is that your stance is completely fallacious due to the assumption of how the tactic has been improperly applied.

If someone is running the Ninja set-up they should understand that it is about the flexibility in deployment choices. It requires that you actually know your army and your opponents. Understanding which armies are better for holding the complete army in reserve and which ones you just want to have a couple of surprise units.

The same goes for the mission type and deployment. This is a tactic that requires quick thinking and tactical assessment.

In reply to your misguided true Ninja Staement-Being Ninja isn't about always deploying from a hiding spot. It is about being able to use each and every tool you have in the manner that is the most effectiv for the situation. Hint* Just because you took the relay doesn't mean that you have keep the entire army back.

Now you are trying to turn this into an argument by your wording and are using unsubstantiated comment to support your personal prefference. If it was supportable then provide a link. Untill then you will just be coming across as trolling for an argument. As a matter of fact your tone is coming across as fairly hostile in your post(Especially the first and last line).

First line, NO, give supporting evidence as apposed to some vague research it answer
Last-line, comes accross as a sort of personal attack which is not in keeping with the tone and spirit of this thread.

We are looking for discussion, not an emotional opinionated rant. If that is what you want to engage in then please take it somewhere else.

Now to address your poorly disguised emotionally based attack in the pro's and cons

Pros replies
1)Even when one does know because it is not a limiting tactic
2)An attempt to discredit a tactic through insult as oppossed to fact
3)Repeat of number 2
Cons replies
1)Not an alpha strike. Alpha strike go first.
2)You keep comparing to CD. Do CD get re-rollable deepstrikes?
3)Usually deploy my big guns to where they get to fire the whole game. Only exception is DoW which is where this tactic really shines
4)Could be construed as a personal attack and shows your completely unfamiliar with the tactic and how it is applied.

To do a pro's and cons to support an argument you have to be willing to actually give the flaws in your argument and then address them. Something a little more like:

Pros:
1)Gives the Tau an uncharacteristic mid to late game punch.
2)Lets the Tau hit their opponent where he is weakest.
3)Enables Tau to reach backfield objectives more reliably.
4)Doesn't necessarily limit army build or use of other tactics
5)Allows the Tau commander to control timing and tempo of game.
6)Allows a good commander to adapt his game to his opponent. If opponent thinks they know what is happening it allows for a change of tactics.

Cons:
1)Limits your volume of fire in early game.
2)Sacrifices control of the center of the table for a good part of the game
3)Relies upon a greater element of chance in some areas
4)Is weak against first turn assault armies(but then the Tau normally are in that situation anyway).
5)Your opponent can always "Play Slow" in an attempt to reduce effectiveness of the tactic
6)Tau Commander needs a good poker face in certain situations.

These aren't all but is a good beginning to a fair look at a tactic.

Yeah so this is my Farsight Squad

Farsight
Bodyguard Twin Missile
Bodyguard Twin Missile ; Target Lock
Bodyguard Twin Missile ; Target Lock ; Black sun Filter
Bodyguard Twin Missile ; Blacksun filter
Bodyguard Twin Missile; Target Lock ; Drone controller x2 gun drones
BodyGuard
Twin Missile; Drone Controller x2 Gun Drones ; Target Lock ; Blacksun filter
Body Guard TwinMissile ; Target Lock; BS Filter ; Flamer

Comes to a little over 600 with Farsight; Yes / NO

To Adding Plasma for 140 points and Multitrackers for another 35 which would bring it to a horrendous 735 points. If I added that within 12 it would give 14 STR7 and 14 STR 6 ap2 shots though.

I'd say for how small the points would be that I'd be tempted to go ahead and arm every or every other bodyguard with a flamer. Maybe tweek the unit to exploit wound allocation if this is for a highly competitive tourny. Just some ideas.

Alright focusedfire, I understand your point, but I think we are mixing ideas. I think what is 'Ninja Tau' needs to be defined, because I thought it referred to having most of the army in reserve and only deploying a commander, to get the best choice units in early... please explain what you think it is...

A quick question about Burst Cannons. Are they worth taking anywhere? All the talk I've seen is about missile systems and fusion blasters...

Everything is unique in that unit; I actually came up with a Cheaper version using flamers.

The Problem I am having is that Farsight allows no Kroot so its only up to Firewarriors which kind of blows.


Comes to 410 or 580 w/ Farsight.

Im just having a problem with no really good scoring units. This is what it is kind of looking like right now.

Farsight + Body Guard (600)

Elites
3x Fireknife @ 186 ( missilepod/ plasma/ Multitracker)


Troop
Firewarrior w/ Devilfish @ 175
Firewarrior w/ Devilfish @ 175

Fast Attack
Pirahna x 5 fusion 380

Heavy support
Skyray @ 165
Hammerhead @ 170


It's just not working really. Also, I am addicted to large Pirahna Squads.

@Gameandwatch- Ninja Tau can be about having most of the army in reserve. The tactic started off with that at its root but it has evolved, as things do, and has become more of a theme about flexibilty. The posi-relay and its "Ninja"(Hate that name) uses became more appealing in 5th ed with the outflank rules and the KP working against us in a third of the missions.

Ninja Tau has now evolved into being about the Tactical flexibility afforded by a very cheap piece of wargear. This war gear also has the benefit of not locking the player into a strategy where its use is mandatory. The Positional relay only works when you choose to use it. It is not always on.

The relay also allows for a very measured and controlled metering of when and how your reserves come in. This can be a very nice advantage especially when dealing with a build that yours may be weaker against than what is normal. You can use the control valve the other way by keeping units that are essentially free KPs out of play until it is absolutely necessary for them to come in. By teaming the PF Devilfish with your deep strikers you get to be very aggressive with your Deepstrike placements thereby possibly eliminating the threat to those weaker units. Paving a safe path for their arrival as it were.

The thing that makes this "Ninja"(did I mention that I hate the name? But hey, I didn't name it.) is that you can look at my army on its tray and still have no idea what you may face in terms of deployment or tactics. Even if I keep most of my army back I can alway choos to not use the relay and roll for all of my reserves getting half of them in on second turn. If you deploy thinking that the Tau are going to wait until fourth turn this can be a nasty suprise. This is why the posi relay is considered to be a toolkit.

Not saying the tactic is perfect. There is no such thing. Only the right tactic for the right time and scenario.

I, personally, have had good results with my Ethereal and Posi-relay commander tucked in with a 3 broadside team and shield droned to the max and everything in reserve.. I've had just as good results with the same army with nothing in reserve. It depended upon who I was facing and the scenario that we rolled.

@Hollisman-Will catch up with you in a day or so. Sorry but gotta go for now,Wife is callin'.

Ah, so I was right in the first place, and what I read on ATT was too specific. Well, in that case that is the way I play and I call it a helping of Kay'on, with a pinch of mon'tka.

Depends upon which section of ATT you visit. One of the articles adresses that the tactic has grown and developed into more of a flexibility philosophy rather than a locked methodology.

@Hollisman- Farsight is a deepstrike oriented army and does respond well to the "Ninja" Philosophy.

You hide a posi-relay in the unit, add sheild drones/gundrones galore

Then run a cheap second commander & bodyguard

Two Cheap elite deepstrikers

One basic Stealth squad no fusion

3 Fire warrior squads, 2 with warfish

1PF squad

1 Gun drones squad(If you have the points)

Your Pirahna squadron in cheap configuration

A Hammer head

A broadside squad.


Play around with this basic structure untile you get the points and build you want(Hint, It is tempting to run 7 bodyguards on farsight but it cripples your army, anything over 5 is just another type of nob build without the HtH to back it up.)

This is only a general buoild concept but tell me if it helps.

Using positional relay correctly will win you games and incorrectly cause you to be mudstomped into the ground.

It's been stated but it's great for holding off reserves and swarming during the 3rd turn with outflanking Kroot and pathfinders in devilfish.

It's just difficult to learn to use and what you want to keep in reserve.


Generally anything Squishy or to ensure a late game outflank with Kroot.

I use it to make sure I almsot always get that second turn deepstriking Fusion gun Crisis team that can reroll because of the pathfinders devilfish.

Then just not use it on the 3rd and later and roll for my kroots outflanking



A mistake a lot of Tau make is not going first; yes you may lose the roll , but against certain armies going first ensures a better survival.

You need to use your mobility to take out what is the biggest threat antitank.

I pretty much always take first turn if I'm offered it. Tau really need that one turn of hitting as hard as they can before the other army gets moving. Transports need to be stopped in their deployment zones. I usually go for stunned/immobilized results and then move on. Wether it be popping transports or just getting a few battlecannons blown off can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Funny, I normally give away the first turn. It allows for my army to have the last objective rush without getting assaulted in return.

I think whether you go first or second is dependent upon your personal style. Are you an aggressive alpha strike type or more of a patient counter-puncher?

When it comes to decisions like this play according to your personal style. Personaly, I like counter-punching while I manuever for that decisive strike.

I lean toward playing second with marines but with Tau I always want that alpha strike first turn.

It helps alot agains armies that we don't have a defense against.

A very good example is Seer Council. Taking a first turn with that is good because they will either put their seer council back away or try to leave LOS which thankfully keeps them a good bit away.

It also stops the fortune , turboboosting, etc... which out of LOS is null because of SMS which works to a degree.

Against Orks its good against Nobs , Against Marines its good against Transports such as the landraider.


The point of that is to make it so you have more maneuvreability than the opponent.

Im trying to work on a 2000 point list after not playing my tau in about 6 months.

what i have been running was a single commander fusion blaster missle pod as a sacrifice single shot, 2 squads of pathfinders, 2 full up firewarriors in devilfish 2 full squads of firewarriors to steal the pathfinders devilfish, 2 hammerheads and 2 broadsides.

i have a few steathsuits and a 2 crisis suits (maybe 3 if i push it...) to add and a unit of kroot to add (although its only 12 strong, may need to get a few more kroot) and i can build up 5 pirhanas perhaps not to mention i could swap out for a sky ray or ion cannon or whatnot although really?! sky rays can be good but they need a list designed for them, and im always dubios of an ion cannon over a rail gun for the second HH.

does anyone have any thoughts? im basically working out the list now at work.

@Fizzywig-Don't want this to become a list thread. There is another forum for such. I will examine what your proposing and offer up tactical concepts.

First a quick critique of your original:
Was there other stuff that you used to run? List seems light for 2000pts. Looks like a 1750 list that is a little heavy on wargear.
HMM..Going off of what you posted, it looks as if you used to run a purest Tau army with no alien allies. Looks as if your weren't really running Crisis Suits either.

You have a good Mech build but the PFs and Broadsides stick out a bit in this list. If you are intent upon keeping these units then you might want to keep a wall o' bodies in front of these units and have them castle in a corner. This might let your markers and broadsides survive long enough to do their job while the Mech aspect of your army uses its mobility to hit the objectives.

It is up to you as to what or if you are using for the wall of bodies. If you use the Kroot you will definitely need more of them if your leaving them out in the open. If you are planning on just loading them in a Devilfish then 10-12 is ok. Don't forget about opportunities to out flank.

The wall of bodies might allow you to drop one of the devilfish in favor of some extra crisis suits. If so the running your commander with one and then the other two as a team can work really well with mech mobility.
If you still have points left over then the stealth suits would be a nice addition but you may find the pianahas a bit more suitable or comfortable with your play-style.

From here on it is a matter of personal prefference.


Funny you mentioned the Ion Cannon. Have been kicking around the idea of 2-3 Ionheads(A broadside unit if onlt 2 Ionheads), 1 Piranha squadron of 5 (all melta? Don't know yet.), 2 PF squads with 5 markers and 3 rail rifles each, 2 FW squads to pick up the PFs dev fish, another Fw team and a kroot squad or 2 kroot squads depending on if broadsides are taken, 2 "suicide" Crisis fusion/flamer teams, and commander(Airburst?, Plasma?, or melta? Posi relay? Maybe).

The thinking is that this is a build that would be a strong Anti-meq build that could go up against rhino rush and Speeder Spam. It could still handle a LR spam build as well as lash. The Ion heads should be just as effective against the Eldar if not more so.

Hoardes might be the real problem but the RoF(Rate of Fire) from the Ion heads Should chew through most squads fairly quickly. Units mauled by the Ion cannons then get tagged by the rail rifles and markers to force pinning checks. If all else fails then there should still be enough mobility to push for late game ties by contesting objectives.

I'm not saying to use this build, it is an example of a volume of fire mech to mech hybrid build that focuses upon getting as many shots as possible while maintaining mobility. From there it is a matter of manuevering for side shots and getting your meltas into place for effective shots.

How you deploy such a build depends upon the army your facing and whos is going first.

BTW, If their are Land speeders on the table with the Assault cannons and or Multi-meltas either keep the Piranhas in reserve or make sure they are over 48" away. If he is deepstriking them then its up to you to decide.

Hope something in their helps

I've found from my humble tau experience that broadsides aren't worth it.

However, 2 units of 3 fusion piranhas are.

My typical tau army has:

2 units of crisis suits with TL missile pods and flamers
2 Hammer heads basics with rail guns, burst cannons, disruption pods, and multi trackers.
2 units of 3 fusion piranhas.

This gives me 6 units that are fairly decent at killing tanks and armor... AND they can multi-task and kill of small horde units. the 6 flamers, sub-munitions, and gun drones from the piranhas seems to be fairly effective at both roles.

If your meta game area is more tank heavy you can add some AT crisis suits... if its more horde, aim for a 3rd hammer head...

Focusedfire and i I think both agree that Pirahna are so worth it its not even funny.

Point for point you have one of the best units in the game.

380 points for 5 fusion guns; disruption fields target locks.

THERES MORE

A five man pirahna gives you 10 gun drones here is the important part disembark these suckers

They are 13 points a piece so for

380 points you get 5 pirahnas and 10 gun drones more than you can actually purchase in a squadron.


So 13 points a piece you get actuallly 5 pirahnas and 10 gun drones.

Yes; it is two KP but it is a incredible value. If you subtract the value of your gun drones from the pirahna ; 130 points from 380 your getting a value of 250 for 5 pirahna or 50 points.

What happens when Tau fight Chaos Daemons? They start out deepstriking and just get into close combat. Outside of suicide tactics like the fail safe detonater and a bunch of kroot, tau just don't survive close combat.

fludit wrote:What happens when Tau fight Chaos Daemons? They start out deepstriking and just get into close combat. Outside of suicide tactics like the fail safe detonater and a bunch of kroot, tau just don't survive close combat.

being a chaos deamons player and a tau player I can tell you this... Use transports.

Deamons have a tough time dealing with transports that outrun them. Crisis suits can jump run jump to avoid being eaten. Bait them one way then shoot them from afar. Use transports to block assualing units. flechettes work wonders.

Yeah , if you are expecting to face Daemons Mechanize up which you should anyway. Leave the pathfinders off in reserve land outflanking as you don't want troops other than kroot on the board.

Castling against Daemons is a good tactic just pick one board side with your mechanized and then just blast away or move away.


Flechettes are good but really other than Greater Daemons and a few daemons with Rending Daemons have a hard time dealing with Mechanized.

Just a quick thought, I have always used warfish but more and more the points for a SMS is hurting me, has anyone considered dropping the drones off atleast one first turn, and joining to the drones with an HQ? Just something that popped into my head...

@gamesandwatch
Negatives-The HQ will have to be solo and nekid. When the drones die they will still give up the extra KP.

Positives- Saves points in two units. Will give another unit on table with pinning.

Works depending upon personal playstyle.


Am currently working on new slightly different write up.

It runs three Ion heads. Leaves the Tank Killing to the crisis suits. Will have a 5 piranha squadron, 2 Pathfinder units, 2 FW units, 1-2 kroot units,2 suicide fusion/flamer crisis, and a fusion/airburst commander.

This gives a decent level of redundancy. A lot of light vehicle/high toughness killing shots. Crisis provide LR or horde killing. Am working on if the Piranha will have burst or fusion.

The reason I'm looking at this type of builsd is because it leaves me with a lot of flexibilty in how I deploy and maneuvuer.

I agree with the Reasoning, I just hadnt ever heard it being done before. If the commander has drones, couldnt he still join the unit, and if so couldnt another commander join the unit as well?

If so, that would be a decent idea, or atleast, you could save on 2 devilfish, have 2 commanders join both sets of drones, and that would save overall. Just a continuous thought.

My questions are this:
Can the commander join the unit with drones?

If so can multiple commanders join?

Things I have found out from my play.

Railguns are amazing for popping tanks. They are like melta guns that can hit you from anywhere on the board. You want enough to take out transports and vehicles, but not too many so that you can't take out troops. I find 2 broadsides and 2 hammerheads to be a very stable, cheap enough HS option for most armies.

Firewarriors suck. Take 6 and call it a day. Your troops should be kroot and hounds. Keep one in a woods and half the squad behind cover. Hello 2+ cover save.

Pirahnas (as stated before) are awesome for blocking movement and general harrassing.

Suits are for killing infantry. Pop transports with your railguns and then plasma, missle the troops to death.

gameandwatch wrote:
My questions are this:
Can the commander join the unit with drones?

If so can multiple commanders join?

Yes. But you have to do it in a certain order.

Tau commanders can join into a unit but have to do it in a certain order so they don't end up in a Multi character unit. See diagram

Commander A Commander B and Unit C

A+C+B= X a unit with both characters.

or with the new rules you can do

A+B= Y a Multi-character unit then Y can't join C as they are cause they would have to go in order(ACB).I know its weird but hey its 40k.

Maybe I wasnt clear enough:

Can the commander join the drone unit WITH himself having drones as well? As in commander with DC and 2 SD, join the 2 GD?

nothing stops you from that, the DF drones are a separate unit

Considering how weak Firewarriors are, how many would you field in a squad with a fish?

I've seen conflicting suggestions, some saying that 6-8 FW in fish is better and more economical than taking 10-12 FW in Fish.

Any comments???

Timmah wrote:Things I have found out from my play.

Railguns are amazing for popping tanks. They are like melta guns that can hit you from anywhere on the board.

Figured that out all by yourself eh?

The rest of your advice is legit though.

A fun tactic for long table edge battles is to set up 2 units of 2 broadsides in opposite corners of your deployment zone. You will then have fire lanes at just about everything on the board with very little room for hiding in cover unless you have a ton of LOS blocking terrain.

I also like having an Ionhead to back up by Broadsides but is also able to take out MC and punch through SM armor as well. An ion cannon is Instant death on the majority of things on the board and has a high enough rate of fire to cut down most monstrous creatures. On average you'll miss 1 of the 3 shots while the other 2 punch through. The only time this backfires is with 2+ amor save which is where the Railguns take over.

Hollismason wrote:Yes; it is two KP but it is a incredible value. If you subtract the value of your gun drones from the pirahna ; 130 points from 380 your getting a value of 250 for 5 pirahna or 50 points.

While I agree that Piranhas are a decent value, I am going to (kindly) debate your logic here with economics. It's true you can subtract out the cost of 12 point drones and call your Piranhas cheaper.

However, this is only true for people who originally intended to take a drone unit. Instead of taking a FA choice of drones, you can get them along with 5 fusion Piranhas. If we subtract out the Drones of a 70 point Piranha (Piranha, Fusion, TA), you are getting an 11/10/10 fast melta skimmer for 58 points! That's a great deal as far as the Tau Codex is concerned, no doubt.

But, that is only for people who originally intended to take a Drone unit. Let's say you just wanted the Melta Piranhas (probably the majority of Tau players). Too bad, you have to also include the cost of two Drones per skimmer because the codex forces you. For 5 Piranhas totaling at 350 points, that's 120 points I'm spending on a unit KP that I didn't want. If it were up to me, I would spend those 120 points elsewhere if given the chance, based on need.

You can apply the same theory to any item on sale in a store. Let's say you've worn through the buttocks on your favorite pair of jeans, and are in desperate need of a new pair. You walk into Old Navy and see they're having a summer sale on jeans, 25% off. You decide to buy a pair, as you were already in the market for a pair of jeans, and you save 25% rather than you normally would (because you were going to buy a pair no matter what). This is a good deal.

Now, let's say you walked into Old Navy without an agenda to buy jeans because you don't need any. You see the same pair of jeans for 25% off, and decide to buy them because they're on sale. This, however, is not a good deal, because you didn't need the jeans. You would have gone on to use that money instead for something you needed, like groceries.

So you see, saving points on Piranhas by subtracting out the Drone cost is only applicable if you originally needed a Drone squad. Otherwise, you're wasting points on a unit you didn't want.

@Sychronicity-Ahh..., Just want to point out that the drones are 12pts ea. At two drones a piece it comes to 46 pts for the fusion piranha if it only costed 70pts originally.
The real bargain here is that you get a two for one in the fast attack slots, which leaves you with two slots still available for those precious pathfinders you might need.


This tactic is about taking the lemon that 5th ed handed the Tau and making lemonade. If your going to get penalized for KPs from drones on a vehicle the Piranhas at least let you make a squadron out of them to where your opponent will have to expend effort to get that KP.

Look at the points people spend to avoid this cheap KP on the Devilfish and the appeal becomes clearer. It also brings me to the one tactical point in your post that I humbly disagree with. The assumption of need over the opportunity to use. A player doesn't need any units beyond the basic one required to fill the FOC. But, I can't think of a Tau build that wouldn't be able to make use of a Deep Striking Gun drone unit.

I typically run a Static and Mobile Gun Line that ends up being a mix of Kauyon and Mont'Ka.

Early in the game, I play a static gun line, about 36 Fire Warriors with rifles sitting back in cover, blasting everything in sight. Each squad has a markerlight and if I can afford it, 1-2 marker drones. Supporting this are 2 Hammerheads, a team of 2 broadsides, then crisis and stealth suits. I usually run one full crisis team and commander, or a commander with full retinue, depends on how much heavy firepower i need. I also run a full stealthsuit squad, 2 fusion blasters, and 12 drones, mostly gun drones with a few marker drones. This provides mobility and strong standing army power.

Early game, the Fire warriors are primarily firing markerlights at troublesome vehicles, especially ones with blasts, or ones that can drop vehicles easily(leman russ demolishers and vanquishers are targets i drop fast) Then i use the hits to guide in railguns and if i need them, seeker missiles. The stealth and crisis suits hop around, take pot shots at enemy elites, and move toward an ambush point for anything that looks like it will advance quickly.

This gives me ample time to kill off enemy vehicles and lets the enemy move up, I'd much rather him do most of the walking than my Tau, it reduces the risk I take later. This is the main mix of Kauyon and Mont'ka, I'm allowing him to move up so I can get a better position, an at the same time delivering my hardest hitting stuff at the biggest threat my army has, vehicles.

Mid Game-- by this time, my opponent is usually halfway across the board and getting into my deployment. This is when my FW's move up, they advance and start laying waste to infantry at close range, with the support of the stealthsuits and a hammerhead or two's submunitions. Broadsides continue to blast vehicles, so will a hammerhead if they fail and i really need a vehicle taken out. My main mission here is to move up and secure a firing point mid field. I converge my troops and focus fire on one area and take it. this give his flanking and outflanking units less of an advantage over me.

By this point, I dominate about one half of the board, I've usually lost about 1/3 of my fire warriors. I usually leave one squad behind to cover the rest. This serves a dual purpose, One, they cover the advance, able to shoot at long range enemies, and two, it keeps flankers on track. If i completely abandon the spot the flankers were going to, they usually hit the main force, I use them to draw the flankers out, which will make this squad of FW's suffer big casualties usually, but that separates his flanking/outflankers and lets me have a stealth/crisis team double back and blast them, with support from the now stationary fire warriors that advanced, and whats left of the left behind squad.

Late game-- assuming that the tactics worked, i didnt get a string of bad luck or my opponent good luck, by this point most of his vehicles are dead and nearly all of his big infantry squads are gone too. Fire warriors soften up whats left and 12" moving suits and hammerheads hunt them down.


I have some kroot and piranha and am going to work on a strategy for them soon. I wouldnt take piranha in low points games due to the extra kill points from drones, but if i can afford 4-5 piranha, a squad of 8-10 gun drones would be nice.

The one major problem I see with an army style liek yours RedFloyd, is the same problem I see with nearly all Tau today, and its something we are all adapting to...and that thing is a pure deepstrike army.

In the case of the latter, your army is sitting there waiting for the first turn( assuming you go first) or has a rough time dealing with whats coming down or teleporting in as your army has lost its mobility in order to favor firepower.

Say you are facing demons, if a soulgrinder teleports 6 inches in front of your gunline, you know that thing has an enormous CC range, and so you would focus on that. Now say 2 soulgrinders, a couple monstrous creatures and the deadly little unit known as flamers comes in, they are already on top of you, due to forward cover you have limited firing arcs on them, and if the opposing player is smart, he has put his units next to things unable to deal with them ( grinders and firewarriors, monstrous creatures and vehicles, or elites, etc).

what do you do with that now that you know you cant run, as you will be caught, and if you try to focus on one thing, you will lose out to another, and he still has half of his army waiting to come in... Same goes for podding marines.

In the advent of 5th edition, gunlines simply do not work any longer as now nearly every army has the mombility to get around and surround your force.

Stand and die, or fight and flight? Its your choice...

Yeh, full deepstrike and full outflank armies are a pain, i'm still working on tactics to use against them. Against a full deepstrike I try to keep my forces balance, trying to give myself the most flexibility, thats about all I can do. Against full outflank, i push toward the middle of the field, and the middle of my deployment zone, this gives me room between the flanks and me, and if he decides to bring something in on his table edge, away from it. I dont get much practice against either of these armies, my friends and most of the people who play at the hobby store i play at dont run lists like those too much. My IG friend tends to have a fair number of autocannon/missile sentinels outflanking, these were a pain at first but as long as the game is going my way I can move away from the edges a little so they can't melee my FW's(I learned fast that this is death incarnate for tau, chain meleeing through my infantry) and I try to move up a bit and use more area cover so that they cant get behind my guys using walls and hedges and such. Theres one guy who plays a Master of the Forge SM army with 3 or 4 ironclads and all his TAC squads in drop pods at the game store nearby, but I havent played that army of his yet, my nid playing friend beat him the other day with a mostly stealer swarm with a few MC's. He managed to keep his stealers away from the dreads and keep them on his TAC, and get his MC's(hive tyrant and one carnifex at least, maybe 2, cant remember) on the dreads.
I'm thinking of trying kroot out against the next outflank/deep strike army, i rarely use kroot, but it seems like they would be a good thing to screen the fire warriors and protect them from deep striking units. If i keep most of my forces in area terrain in about the same area of the board, spread out enough to protect from blasts and multiple assaults, 1 kroot squad per FW squad might be able to create a curtain with 2" coherency to keep anything from DSing near my main troops. The major flaw of this idea though is that most DS armies have really good melee units if built right, SM,Deamons mainly. Kroot of course are really fragile, i may have to try this out sometime, might work some.

Positional Relay helps against outflankers and deepstrikers.


That said there is no reason to never not take a 10 man kroot 10 man Hound squad in your army period.


Kroot are fantastic for dealing with all sorts of stuff.

Sorry if I missed the gun drone/piranha conversation, but I read something that focusedfire wrote that was a little confusing. A "deep-striking" gun drone unit? Is that do say that if you take a piranha, you can deploy it without the drones and hold them in reserve? If so, can you do that for a devilfish too?

Please tell me if I misunderstood you, and if I didn't, what rules loop allows you to do this.

It's a debatable tactic some people say you can some say you cannot. I don't think you can personally and don't play that way.


Focusedfire probably knows more about it.


Also, if you say Tau 3 times in a mirror Focusedfire shows up.

Hollismason wrote:

Also, if you say Tau 3 times in a mirror Focusedfire shows up.

True story hehe!!

I'm not sure about detaching the gun drones from vehicles while they are still in reserve. True that they are passengers and create a squadron when detached in battle but it is not a squadron until the drones detach. This unit is created IN BATTLE. I'm not sure if they discussed this in YMDC but if not it should be brought up.

Deathrains are amazing. Kroot for a suicide attack are great but lack staying power. If there was some way to give Kroot an armor save (and a 6+ save is not a save IMO). Kroot are only good in large numbers - very large numbers. Kroot are very fun to play as well.

The best way to play tau is to try a ton of different tactics and change things up once in a while. I want to build a Kroot Horde Army lead by XV8s but they problem is that it takes forever to model and I hate playing with models that are not painted. That and it costs 4 times as much as a normal army or so.

Its a big gray area I have talked to GWAR about it he seems to think RAW that its not possible then there are some other people on the other side of the fence that say well it is.

The main proponent of it is STelek I read his argument over on his blog, its semi convincing but it still doesn't get past some major points.


Basically, The Pirahna etc... are not "transports" by clear definition even though they have a unit , also they are multiple model transports again something that is not really possible.


I dont know the people who say it cant be done are the proponents that its not written and its a big murkey area that if you do make some suppositions then yea you could probably convince some people.


Personally, I dont use it as I have no desire to argue with my opponent , Ill do it in Friendly games but not in tourneys .


If that makes sense.




About survivability of Kroot;

Two words

Positional RELAY


With 1 deepstriking Crisis suit team an this you an ensure that your Kroot squads come on Flanking on Turn 3 or later.


That's pretty much how to make them survive. Its also great for placing Objectives near the board edges etc..


Overall just flat out the number one piece of wargear every army should have is


POSITIONAL RELAY.


This doesn't mean playing Ninja Tau this thing is fantastic for all sorts of reasons.

It's a 15 point wargear item that is OPTIONAL to use.

It's just a great piece of wargear and you should have it in your army regardless of what you have.


Now on to


Pathfinders


Has anyone tried them with outflanking along with Kroot w/ Ninjaing tau?

Ie something akin to being the back up firepower to the Kroot assault w/ Reserve Hammerheads and Kroot etc.. outflanking.

Ive been heavily experimenting with this idea, my main enjoyment has been giving them a few rail rifles and emp grenades, makes those vehicles think twice about ramming, and/or assaulting walkers... unfortunately, there arent many things you can give pathfinders, and they have no real improvement over regular FW in actual combat...

rogueeyes wrote:I'm not sure about detaching the gun drones from vehicles while they are still in reserve. True that they are passengers and create a squadron when detached in battle but it is not a squadron until the drones detach. This unit is created IN BATTLE. I'm not sure if they discussed this in YMDC but if not it should be brought up.

Well, common sense would say it should be possible, but IMO since Piranha is not a transport, and drones are not in fact passengers, it is not possible as far as rules are concerned. That the drones are in some respect treated as passengers does not actually MAKE them passengers...

The argument around it is based around this :

The only specification that makes a vehicle a transport is whether it carries troops or not.

The only other restriction is that if a squad purchases a dedicated transport or one that does not use up specifically a FOC and no other unit may begin the game deployed with in it.



There actually is not a subsect of Vehicle : Transport.


What defines a Transport is if it is carrying passengers.

Now where people are getting this is the following:


In the deploying section it states a unit may be deployed with in a dedicated transport all at once or kept in reserve.

Or

If it is not a dedicated transport etc..


Basically its thus


Pirahnas carry passengers , gun drones are passengers albeit with specific rules for firing.

Something that carries passengers is a transport.


Transports can be deployed empty.


It's something like that.

Arise,......Arise,.......Arise my thread.

I summon you from beyond the grave to do my bidding once more. Mwaahahaha


@Mods-Sorry if this is Theadromancy but am trying to keep a running thread of the evolution of Tau tactics.

Question: Is it thread necromancy if it is a thread I started?


@ All Posters, It has been a while since I've posted on this thread, was working on my Fan-dex and other projects IRL but I'm wanting to get the ball rolling again.

I want this to be a running thread that focuses on the evolution and developement of Tau tacics. As new codices and even new rulesets emerge I'd like to discuss the best ways of dealing with these new challenges here in this thread.


Where I had left off, I had been developing a build that did not rely upon railguns because of their expense.

This build has been up and running since late last summer and has been working quite well. You can find some versions of the list here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/290159.page

What I would like to know is:

Have the latest codices affected your tactics and builds?

Any old tactics that have come back into style?

Has there been any new tactics or techniques emerge that are not already posted on this thread?


Thanks,
Later

Are there particular builds or tactics you are having trouble countering?

If so then pls post here for discussion.

Focusedfire, could you start a new thread and reference this thread with a link? That's really the best way to handle situations like this. (Once you do I'll chime in as well; I'm especially keen to hear about the new Blood Angel codex experiences).

Thank you.