Anyway, he played a Character (on foot, not suit) who carried a Homing Beacon, said it was a FW unit and I cannot find it listed (in battlescribe) anywhere... So help me out.
What was he using?
No such model exists in 8th edition as far as I can see.
This. Forge World doesn't even sell non-battlesuit Tau infantry, and I doubt they have a character in one of their books without a model.
Anyway, he played a Character (on foot, not suit) who carried a Homing Beacon, said it was a FW unit and I cannot find it listed (in battlescribe) anywhere... So help me out.
What was he using?
No such model exists in 8th edition as far as I can see.
This. Forge World doesn't even sell non-battlesuit Tau infantry, and I doubt they have a character in one of their books without a model.
Sounds like you got cheated Nightlord.
Yea, found it, it's a Wargame Exclusive model, and I even had a second player intervene for a rules clarification and he told us both it was a FW unit. A previous game he had claimed his FW drones gave +1 BS to nearby units as well. This is why FW gets a bad reputation as a Boogieman for bad gamers. Thanks for the input. I think I'll pass on a game against this player.
Anyway, he played a Character (on foot, not suit) who carried a Homing Beacon, said it was a FW unit and I cannot find it listed (in battlescribe) anywhere... So help me out.
What was he using?
No such model exists in 8th edition as far as I can see.
This. Forge World doesn't even sell non-battlesuit Tau infantry, and I doubt they have a character in one of their books without a model.
Sounds like you got cheated Nightlord.
Yea, found it, it's a Wargame Exclusive model, and I even had a second player intervene for a rules clarification and he told us both it was a FW unit. A previous game he had claimed his FW drones gave +1 BS to nearby units as well. This is why FW gets a bad reputation as a Boogieman for bad gamers. Thanks for the input. I think I'll pass on a game against this player.
Yeah, I'm really sorry you ran into a player like this. Those rules don't exist in 8th.
Edit: Though to clarify, this player isn't making gak up entirely. In 7th there was an ethereal special character unit called Aun'do with a homing beacon iirc. I imagine there used to be some drone that did what he claims. This is a constant problem with people thinking the edition didn't change every unit.
Learn to say “show me the rule”. Otherwise people can cheat, or just as often make genuine mistakes. Both spoil games.
The tricky thing is where they say they don’t have the book that it’s in, but can remember it somehow. They can go and look for a game elsewhere.
Since switching to digital rules I’ve got the advantage that I actually have all the rules on my iPad, and can download the relevant FAQs. That makes this kind of BS a lot harder to pull.
Learn to say “show me the rule”. Otherwise people can cheat, or just as often make genuine mistakes. Both spoil games.
The tricky thing is where they say they don’t have the book that it’s in, but can remember it somehow. They can go and look for a game elsewhere.
Since switching to digital rules I’ve got the advantage that I actually have all the rules on my iPad, and can download the relevant FAQs. That makes this kind of BS a lot harder to pull.
He was included in the Infiltration Cadre Burning Dawn boxed set. This was also a special formation. Aun'do used the same model as the current Ethereal on hover drone, and could run a homing beacon. I could understand folks thinking units they used from 7th have similar rules in 8th, but they should really be asked to produce the data sheet, especially if you're going to go ahead and grab a wargames exclusive model for this particular character.
Thanks for the responses on the Stealth Suits. Do you still think they would be important for getting map control when DS isn't so prevalent?
I am trying to work out if you can justify having Piranhas in a list - and damage wise they are much the same. Stealth suits are a little more expensive, but a lot more survivable.
Tyel wrote: Thanks for the responses on the Stealth Suits. Do you still think they would be important for getting map control when DS isn't so prevalent?
I am trying to work out if you can justify having Piranhas in a list - and damage wise they are much the same. Stealth suits are a little more expensive, but a lot more survivable.
Many things can still deploy close to you or redeploy in turn one.
A screen to push back is as important as it was before.
Tyel wrote: Thanks for the responses on the Stealth Suits. Do you still think they would be important for getting map control when DS isn't so prevalent?
I am trying to work out if you can justify having Piranhas in a list - and damage wise they are much the same. Stealth suits are a little more expensive, but a lot more survivable.
Many things can still deploy close to you or redeploy in turn one.
A screen to push back is as important as it was before.
Well unless you want to be chancey and run ewo on big suits and use them to keep DS chargers back 1 round of ewo and 1 round of 5+ overwatch should leave a lot of things in pain.
Tyel wrote: Thanks for the responses on the Stealth Suits. Do you still think they would be important for getting map control when DS isn't so prevalent?
I am trying to work out if you can justify having Piranhas in a list - and damage wise they are much the same. Stealth suits are a little more expensive, but a lot more survivable.
Stealth Suits are still pretty useful despite the lack of turn 1 deep strike now. They're still super durable in cover against the most common weapons used to clear screens, and with most units having to either footflog, ride in transports, or wait until turn 2 to drop, I feel they're just as important as they were before.
On the other hand, Piranhas are pretty fast and relatively cheap, though less durable than stealth suits. They're a great harasser and are pretty amazing for rapid response in turn 2 and onward when your deepstrike denial may be a bit patchy at that point. That actually makes them better as a secondary screen rather than as your primary one like stealth suits might be. I'm not sure if they'd work well together - I almost always want to fit those fast attack slots with pathfinders or drones, so I feel like Piranhas end up being the first thing cut to make space for something else. Though the access to seeker missiles definitely makes them a nice inclusion...
If you intend to run some, let me know how they do.
This list is built with models that I currently have (a friend was very generous and gifted me his old army). I feel like I’m missing something while list building, and I am unsure of what kinds of drones to add to the list. I would like to get this list up to 1500 Pts and then 2000 soon after. Any help and suggestions are appreciated! Thanks
You have a pretty solid base to start from there I would suggest try to get a few 1k point games in to see what's working and not working for you. As some people prefer big suits, some people prefer infantry. It really depends on the meta your playing in and exactlly how the current faq beta rules and impending codex shake out.
This list is built with models that I currently have (a friend was very generous and gifted me his old army). I feel like I’m missing something while list building, and I am unsure of what kinds of drones to add to the list. I would like to get this list up to 1500 Pts and then 2000 soon after. Any help and suggestions are appreciated! Thanks
first off remember you dont need to be all one sept. each detachment can be different depending one what best fits the units.
first thing i noticed was the lack of targeting systems for that precious ap 1 youre riptide also needs the upgrade to move and shoot as well as the ap 1
i would ditch the sniper drones and add 2 shield drones to each fire warrior sqaud and stealth squad, otherwise you can say good bye to your riptide or ghostkeel turn one.
having 2 fusion commanders is risky if your noting going against a tank army ( necrons crush fusion manders) so i would take one with 3 ion blasters and a targeter.
remember tau are still an amazing codex. the way tau win is to keep our suits alive. and how do we do that? mass firepower and shield drones.
i run a similar list to you as my competitive list.
my last tip is never ever run a sqaud of drones always take 2 as an add on. this stops their puny leadership from causing problems and is a huge reason for the opponent to not shoot them. ( its so easy to overkill a sqaud of 1 or 2 drones.)
most of my new tau games come down to my commanders riptide and ghostkeel, last models standing because of the drones.
sureblade wrote: my last tip is never ever run a sqaud of drones always take 2 as an add on. this stops their puny leadership from causing problems and is a huge reason for the opponent to not shoot them. ( its so easy to overkill a sqaud of 1 or 2 drones.)
This isn't terrible reasoning but for one thing: you will absolutely hemorrhage killpoints. Each little pair of drones is a killpoint. This is a moot point in an objective-based game, but in any other kind of game, this is not necessarily the best way to use drones.
sureblade wrote: my last tip is never ever run a sqaud of drones always take 2 as an add on. this stops their puny leadership from causing problems and is a huge reason for the opponent to not shoot them. ( its so easy to overkill a sqaud of 1 or 2 drones.)
This isn't terrible reasoning but for one thing: you will absolutely hemorrhage killpoints. Each little pair of drones is a killpoint. This is a moot point in an objective-based game, but in any other kind of game, this is not necessarily the best way to use drones.
I can relate to this so badly, either wargear drones need to be given an exemption from kill points or they need to require the unit plus drones to be killed for the kill point.
As it is you can only win certain game types with an all out table, which isn't easy given tau certainly weren't given a tier 1 offensively OP codex.
Yet I'm sure someone on dakka will correct me on how tau are OP number one tournament place codex soon
Automatically Appended Next Post: Well given the results from the barnyard brawl are out and tau placed 7th overall does anyone have acess to will taylor's list so we can discuss what units work or don't in a competitive setting?
sureblade wrote: my last tip is never ever run a sqaud of drones always take 2 as an add on. this stops their puny leadership from causing problems and is a huge reason for the opponent to not shoot them. ( its so easy to overkill a sqaud of 1 or 2 drones.)
This isn't terrible reasoning but for one thing: you will absolutely hemorrhage killpoints. Each little pair of drones is a killpoint. This is a moot point in an objective-based game, but in any other kind of game, this is not necessarily the best way to use drones.
I can relate to this so badly, either wargear drones need to be given an exemption from kill points or they need to require the unit plus drones to be killed for the kill point.
As it is you can only win certain game types with an all out table, which isn't easy given tau certainly weren't given a tier 1 offensively OP codex.
Yet I'm sure someone on dakka will correct me on how tau are OP number one tournament place codex soon
Automatically Appended Next Post: Well given the results from the barnyard brawl are out and tau placed 7th overall does anyone have acess to will taylor's list so we can discuss what units work or don't in a competitive setting?
From what I understand, that Sa'cea outrider was a mixed sept detachment. Keeps SP intact, but gives you access to the strat, so I guess it works. Interesting choice on the pistols - I wonder if they were of any use. Also happy to see a successful Tau list that doesn't take maximum commanders.
That list in someways isn't that far away from where I would have gone but some of the choices do strike me as a little odd.
2 riptides is fairly standard
Stealths for screening
Pulse pistols? Interested to hear how people think about this as ita not something I've considered.
Broadsides not sold on them but haven't quite figured out if thats me or them.
Fusion star, again standard.
What stikes me is the massive lack of obvious anti tank?
Ice_can wrote: That list in someways isn't that far away from where I would have gone but some of the choices do strike me as a little odd.
2 riptides is fairly standard
Stealths for screening
Pulse pistols? Interested to hear how people think about this as ita not something I've considered.
Broadsides not sold on them but haven't quite figured out if thats me or them.
Fusion star, again standard.
What stikes me is the massive lack of obvious anti tank?
It's not obvious, but the Riptides and Broadsides with the T'au stratagem are pretty great for anti-tank. Hell, even a Strike unit can contribute to plinking a tank to death with the Darkstrider buff and T'au strat giving you +2 to wound, wounding almost every tank on 3s.
I'm eager to hear if the pistols helped at all. I can see a use for them once your Strikers get tied up in melee by cultists or something. Ensures you don't have to fall back and cede board control in order to still fire with everyone.
The Sacea detachment is a little weird to me. I'm not sure what the drones are all about, honestly. Two Riptides seems like an okay-ish choice, but I think I personally would've gone with 2 more missilesides instead. It's more firepower that way but is admittedly a little more static and less durable.
The two things I'm curious of are the pulse pistols and the railfinders. Pulse pistols are just a weird choice, and I wonder if he got any decent use out of them. The railfinders sound awesome in a Tau detachment with Darkstrider, with 4+ mortal wounds and whatnot, but man, wouldn't your opponent make them priority 1? They're super squishy yet potentially pack a brutal punch. Seems like a recipe for first blood to me. I'd be interested in hearing if he actually got to use them.
Otherwise, I don't feel like his list is far off from what we've all been tossing around as powerful lists. I know it looks like he doesn't have a lot of anti-tank, but don't underestimate volume of S5 shots buffed by Focused Fire. That's a lot of wounding on 4+, and high rate of fire is not something vehicles are built to withstand. You'll chop them down fairly quickly.
The player who wrote that list probably forgot about Sept/SP restrictions and played his drones the wrong way for most if the tournament. He could have swapped some Pathfinders around and fixed it.
MilkmanAl wrote: The Sacea detachment is a little weird to me. I'm not sure what the drones are all about, honestly. Two Riptides seems like an okay-ish choice, but I think I personally would've gone with 2 more missilesides instead. It's more firepower that way but is admittedly a little more static and less durable.
The two things I'm curious of are the pulse pistols and the railfinders. Pulse pistols are just a weird choice, and I wonder if he got any decent use out of them. The railfinders sound awesome in a Tau detachment with Darkstrider, with 4+ mortal wounds and whatnot, but man, wouldn't your opponent make them priority 1? They're super squishy yet potentially pack a brutal punch. Seems like a recipe for first blood to me. I'd be interested in hearing if he actually got to use them.
Otherwise, I don't feel like his list is far off from what we've all been tossing around as powerful lists. I know it looks like he doesn't have a lot of anti-tank, but don't underestimate volume of S5 shots buffed by Focused Fire. That's a lot of wounding on 4+, and high rate of fire is not something vehicles are built to withstand. You'll chop them down fairly quickly.
The drones were for Saviour Protocols on the rest of the big suits since it was a mixed detachment and were T'au sept. The inclusion of the Ethereal provides buffs to all T'au Empire so he doesn't need to be T'au sept nor would he benefit from either of the tenets. Add the marksman and you have two characters capable of triggering the Sa'cea strat. I think Riptides bring much needed mobility with the option of an 18'' move. I think the reason he brought pistols is also the reason he didn't want to bring more broadsides, but I'm just speculating there.
I wouldn't say pistols are all that weird, to be honest. In a TAC list you're going to face units that push forward and try to tie you down in your deployment by charging. They aren't really trying to kill you - they're trying to crack your screen. You either have to retreat and cede board control, deploy conservatively and cede board control from the start, or deploy spread out to ensure units can't tie down your firebase after they get past the stealth suits. Pistols solve that whole thing. A Strike team with pistols near a Fireblade can shoot 10 Str 5 shots into that combat and stand their ground. In theory I imagine the pistols help ensure your firebase maintains the same deep strike denial throughout the match by not really having to fallback in order to shoot an enemy in combat with your screen. I just want to hear if having that option ended up being more effective
I would think the railfinder team was probably deployed out of los and used the infiltrate move if they get first turn to put the hurt on something big early on. Tis what I've done, and if I lost it early it was probably to los ignoring shooting, which probably should have been trying to crack my screen. I'd like to hear if they survived long enough to make a great return on investment with how cheap they are.
meleti wrote: The player who wrote that list probably forgot about Sept/SP restrictions and played his drones the wrong way for most if the tournament. He could have swapped some Pathfinders around and fixed it.
Naw, it was a mixed detachment. I accidentally didn't include it in the list when copied it. Sacea Ethereal and Marksman for the stratagems while giving up the 1 reroll on the marksman. The drones were Tau for SP.
About the pathfinders with rail rifles, yes you can use focus fire to get mortal wounds on a 4+ but I think they are better used before using focus fire. Your broadsides cost 450 and your riptides are 280, they lay down a lot of hurt. You don't want to fire with them first to activate focus fire, you would rather shoot with your 88pt pathfinders to cause that first wound, thus powering up the broadsides and riptides.
We really don't have any cheap, reliable way to start focus fire. If we are trying to bust open a land raider things like firewarriors and stealth suits just don't cut it. Assuming you are lighting up that target with marker lights you are hitting on a 3+ re-roll 1's and with darkstriker you are wounding on 4+ (with 5+ doing a mortal wound). You don't really care how much damage you do, just that you do some damage.
lambsandlions wrote: About the pathfinders with rail rifles, yes you can use focus fire to get mortal wounds on a 4+ but I think they are better used before using focus fire. Your broadsides cost 450 and your riptides are 280, they lay down a lot of hurt. You don't want to fire with them first to activate focus fire, you would rather shoot with your 88pt pathfinders to cause that first wound, thus powering up the broadsides and riptides.
We really don't have any cheap, reliable way to start focus fire. If we are trying to bust open a land raider things like firewarriors and stealth suits just don't cut it. Assuming you are lighting up that target with marker lights you are hitting on a 3+ re-roll 1's and with darkstriker you are wounding on 4+ (with 5+ doing a mortal wound). You don't really care how much damage you do, just that you do some damage.
I think that's what they are probably their for as it just needs to be a wound and its probably our cheapest acess to motral wounds period. The only other option that comes to my mind for starting such a train is a railside, but the pathfinders are way cheaper. And moremarkerlights isn't a bad thing.
Though I keep finding myself feeling like I need to accept I'm going to be short of markerlights turn 2 onwards turn 1 if I go second as pathfinders seem to get removed sharpish by experienced opponents. Is anyone else finding this or just me?
For markerlights I don't really like pathfinders. I would much rather have a Sa'cea vanguard of firesight marksmen. I also like marker lights on my firewarriors. With the marker light stratagem you can average 3 markerlights from a reliable 2+ fireblade or darkstrider. The firesight marksmen should be able to finish the other two marker lights. If you need that last marker hit having a few extra on firewarriors is nice.
lambsandlions wrote: For markerlights I don't really like pathfinders. I would much rather have a Sa'cea vanguard of firesight marksmen. I also like marker lights on my firewarriors. With the marker light stratagem you can average 3 markerlights from a reliable 2+ fireblade or darkstrider. The firesight marksmen should be able to finish the other two marker lights. If you need that last marker hit having a few extra on firewarriors is nice.
I'm still on the fence regarding Pathfinders, though I think a large part of that is because I absolutely love those models.
When building lists, my practice so far has been to include enough marker-toting characters to reliably hit 5 times. After that, Pathfinders or whatever are just gravy.
Razerous wrote: I'm really liking 3 firebrands in a Sac're detachment (say the elite Vanguard) as a Markerlight / Commander platform / access to AoE markerlights.
75pts for 3 88% accuracy markerlights, each a character. Works for me!
Adding a Sacea detachment isn't very difficult either as ethereals are not Sept locked on their abilities.
Its barely a tax to throw in 3x5 fire warriors and an ethereal to make a battalion for 150 extra points. 9 more and you get 3 more rerolling markerlights.
Not counting commander, thats under 250 pts for 6 rerolling markerlights, a ld10 bubble+ethereal buffs, and 5 cp. I'll spend that every time. Tau blow through cp so fast, it's definitely worth it.
Alright, I have an upcoming 1000 pt team tournament and I haven’t committed to a list yet. If I took a Tau list I would like to take a Y’vharna. Anyone have a list with that included? Interested in seeing what you all would run.
KampfKrote wrote: Alright, I have an upcoming 1000 pt team tournament and I haven’t committed to a list yet. If I took a Tau list I would like to take a Y’vharna. Anyone have a list with that included? Interested in seeing what you all would run.
This weekend i played a team match with 1000 point for each player and my TAU list performed EXTREMELY WELL.
List had 2 coldstar commanders, 3 ghostkeell, a fireblade and 3 strike teams.
Basically i deployed ghostkeells mid-table and advanced to the border of the enemy deployment zone on turn 1, declared Kauyon (edited: Mont´ka) and moved the 2 commanders to cover just behind ghostkeels. My ally advanced and covered behind me.
Commanders destroyed 2 vehicles and ghostkeels made some decent damage to some infantry.
Ghostkeels unexpectedly managed to survive enemy turn 1 even after they recieved some fire and several assaults but that wasnt event needed: turn 2 my commanders and my ally finished enemy at short range: GG
KampfKrote wrote: Alright, I have an upcoming 1000 pt team tournament and I haven’t committed to a list yet. If I took a Tau list I would like to take a Y’vharna. Anyone have a list with that included? Interested in seeing what you all would run.
This weekend i played a team match with 1000 point for each player and my TAU list performed EXTREMELY WELL.
List had 2 coldstar commanders, 3 ghostkill, a fireblade and 3 strike teams.
Basically i deployed ghostkills mid-table and advanced to the border of the enemy deployment zone on turn 1, declared Kauyon and moved the 2 commanders to cover just behind ghostkeels. My ally advanced and covered behind me.
Commanders destroyed 2 vehicles and ghostkeels made some decent damage to some infantry.
Ghostkeels unexpectedly managed to survive thir turn 1 even after they recieved some fire and several assaults but that wasnt event needed: turn 2 my commanders and my ally finished enemy at short range: GG
If you declare Kauyon you can't move and Kauyon and montka must be declared before you move anything.
Sorry: declared Mont´ka, to get the ghostkeels to fire after advancing. You have to deploy ghostkeels just 6" from one commander, but with the base witdth, the 12" movement and the advance you get to the enemy deployment zone.
It was a battallion and a vanguard with the second commander and the ghostkeels.
Vior´La Battallion
Coldstar with 4 fusion.
Cadre Fireblade
3 x 5 strike team
T´au Vanguard
Coldstar with 4 fusion
3 x Ghostkeel with ion raker, burst cannon and shield generator.
Both commanders can advance and fire fusion without -1 to hit: one from the Vior´la sept rule and the other from warlord trait.
Traceoftoxin wrote: Its barely a tax to throw in 3x5 fire warriors and an ethereal to make a battalion for 150 extra points. 9 more and you get 3 more rerolling markerlights.
Not counting commander, thats under 250 pts for 6 rerolling markerlights, a ld10 bubble+ethereal buffs, and 5 cp. I'll spend that every time. Tau blow through cp so fast, it's definitely worth it.
I don't like that tax. I'd prefer to have Darkstrider, the Fireblade buff apply on every team, and better overwatch on all my Strike teams rather than a few re-rolling MLs for late game.
Traceoftoxin wrote: Its barely a tax to throw in 3x5 fire warriors and an ethereal to make a battalion for 150 extra points. 9 more and you get 3 more rerolling markerlights.
Not counting commander, thats under 250 pts for 6 rerolling markerlights, a ld10 bubble+ethereal buffs, and 5 cp. I'll spend that every time. Tau blow through cp so fast, it's definitely worth it.
I don't like that tax. I'd prefer to have Darkstrider, the Fireblade buff apply on every team, and better overwatch on all my Strike teams rather than a few re-rolling MLs for late game.
I mean.... my tournament list will be running 60 T'au fire warriors with Darkstrider and fireblade. The Sa'cea ethereal is a huge buff to a T'au fire warrior list, so that's not a tax. T'au fire warriors should be moving forward, the sa'cea ones are free to sit back and deny backfield DS and hold objectives.
You're really spending like 189 pts for the rerolling markerlights and CP. But, if you'd rather have the 27 fire warriors instead of 15 fire warriors and 3 marksmen (Plus the CP that comes with a battalion), that's a fair enough opinion.
Took me this long to realize that you can't run 3 Ghostkeels in that 1000 pt list with the new FAQ. I have everything purchased for a competitive 2000 pt list.
Vanguard
Coldstar Commander w/ 4 BC Riptide x3
8 Shield Drones
Outrider
Ethereal
Y'Vahra x2
8 Shield Drones
List seems mean, the shield drones were the most difficult thing for me to actually acquire. Really excited to put this many Riptide chassis on the table. So many big mechs
Riptides without branched nova and markerlights aren't half as scary.
Y'varah has a reputation and makes a great distraction but is overcosted.
You have 5CP total, I normally burn through 3-4 per turn.
KampfKrote wrote: Took me this long to realize that you can't run 3 Ghostkeels in that 1000 pt list with the new FAQ. I have everything purchased for a competitive 2000 pt list.
Vanguard
Coldstar Commander w/ 4 BC Riptide x3
8 Shield Drones
Outrider
Ethereal
Y'Vahra x2
8 Shield Drones
List seems mean, the shield drones were the most difficult thing for me to actually acquire. Really excited to put this many Riptide chassis on the table. So many big mechs
Pretty sure your Cold Star can take 2 Burst Cannons in addition to its HBC and Missile Launcher, as you have two additional slots you fill with weapons or support systems. Which means you can effectively have 2 HBCs and the ML rather than just 4 BCs.
Alright, I updated it so that I will have more use of Branched Nova Systems. I removed a Riptide, which gave me enough points for 3 firesight marksmen, darkstrider, 3 units of 5 fire warriors. I also swapped out the ethereal for a fireblade. I also had enough points to make the Commander into a quad fusion.
I would move the puretide to the fireblade, less likely to be shoot at, and take the extra relic to gice him the JSJ pack.
I would devide up the drones into multiple smaller units as the have low leadership and also borkan Y'varha is the scary one as it gives +6 inch to both weapons.
im thinking about resurrecting my few tau for the 8th edition and i need some advice for my first list. We play a lot of friendlies from 1000 to 1500 points and im looking for a nice list as a starting point.
I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?
FrankiePeanutz wrote: I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?
One Crisis suit with 3 Burst Cannons is 66 points. 9 of them is 594 points. You can get the same number of S5 shots with 36 Fire Warriors (that's 3 full squads of 12) if they have a Cadre Fireblade near them and are within half range (so same range as Burst if using Bor'kan sept). The cost of 36 FW and a Fireblade is 294 points. 300 extra points only gets you T5, a 3+ armor save, and the ability to deep strike (not as effective under the new beta rules), but you have less total wounds. Totally not worth it. Crisis are overcosted and underpowered, shamefully so. They really need to cost 15-20 points less per model, and/or get BS3+.
FrankiePeanutz wrote: I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?
One Crisis suit with 3 Burst Cannons is 66 points. 9 of them is 594 points. You can get the same number of S5 shots with 36 Fire Warriors (that's 3 full squads of 12) if they have a Cadre Fireblade near them and are within half range (so same range as Burst if using Bor'kan sept). The cost of 36 FW and a Fireblade is 294 points. 300 extra points only gets you T5, a 3+ armor save, and the ability to deep strike (not as effective under the new beta rules), but you have less total wounds. Totally not worth it. Crisis are overcosted and underpowered, shamefully so. They really need to cost 15-20 points less per model, and/or get BS3+.
Tau being over costed to an Ork player is laughable really, Orks entire line is over costed and underperforming. In any case I had not thought about other units equivalency in shooting when thinking of the XV8s, so thanks for the heads up. I’m thinking that I’ll just stick with Orks for now, as overcosted as they are.
FrankiePeanutz wrote: I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?
One Crisis suit with 3 Burst Cannons is 66 points. 9 of them is 594 points. You can get the same number of S5 shots with 36 Fire Warriors (that's 3 full squads of 12) if they have a Cadre Fireblade near them and are within half range (so same range as Burst if using Bor'kan sept). The cost of 36 FW and a Fireblade is 294 points. 300 extra points only gets you T5, a 3+ armor save, and the ability to deep strike (not as effective under the new beta rules), but you have less total wounds. Totally not worth it. Crisis are overcosted and underpowered, shamefully so. They really need to cost 15-20 points less per model, and/or get BS3+.
Tau being over costed to an Ork player is laughable really, Orks entire line is over costed and underperforming. In any case I had not thought about other units equivalency in shooting when thinking of the XV8s, so thanks for the heads up. I’m thinking that I’ll just stick with Orks for now, as overcosted as they are.
Only Orks don't have a codex yet. Tau crisis is in the codex, so it's here to stay. And saying that Orks have it worse does not mean Crisis have it good. There is also internal balance in a codex to consider, not only external. That being said, Crisis pay the extra points because of their flexibility. Sure fire warriors of bor'kan in short range are equal firepower with the crisis with BC, but crisis can also take meltas, plasmas, CIBs, flamers or even mix and match if they want to. This plus Toughness 5 (it's a big thing), options for support systems and deep strike, and you get to see why they chose to price them like this. Of course any unit that pays premium points for flexibility will lose effectiveness by virtue that - despite how many options you have- you will only get one setup down to the table: Crisis are not like the old oblits to change weapons at will during battle.
I like to check the pointcost of the Crisis next to the Tyranid Warrior, since these two units have a lot in common in terms of battle role, chasis and overall functionality. A naked warrior is 20 pts against the Crisis 42. In return the Crisis gets +1 str, +1 toughness, +1 save, deep strike, 3 fire points against 1, more weapon options/loadouts and access to support systems and drone support. Warriors get WS 3+ and +2 attacks, access to strong melee weapons, morale immunity and shadow in the warp to annoy psykers. From the comparison above we can see that the Crisis are not really worth more than double the price of the warriors. And then warriors are not even broken units, mostly used in friendly games as cheap synapse and some heavy bolter shooting. So overall, Crisis are in a very bad spot at the moment. The body is expensive and the guns are expensive. I think that the guns in the crisis are costed with the thought that the unit has BS3+, which is not true. You can see that a Tyranid Deathspitter, which is essentially an assault heavy bolter costs 5 points compared to standard heavy bolter's 10. This is to account for the fact that bearer is a BS4+ model in the Deathspitter case. However, when it comes to Tau, the guns are actually more expensive than the "standard" imperial versions with no direct reason as to why.
Simply put Crisis suits would need to be BS3+ to be worth taking and if GW evem hinted at making them BS3+ all the T'au haters would have a fit and burn down their local GW as T'au are OP mess. Heck I keep seeing people saying T'au units are OP as they stand. The only one I could even see as OP is coldstar commanders and it's 1 per detachment FFS.
What's even more insulting is when they admit to playing a tournament winning army and still claim T'au is OP.
My issue is you said its for casual play, I can make suggestions that would up the efficiency of your list but do you really want to be the one bringing a tournament list to a friendly game?
Squad leaders are free and improve your leadership take them all.
Multi tracker why?
Missle pods are over priced and outperformed
Coldstar commanders are where its at
Flamers, I'm not a fan
Could it still be that most Tau are still priced for the old markerlight rules? Essentially the BS of an XV8 or any other Tau unit could be anything with rerolls to 1s per 7th edition. I don’t see much change in cost between that rule set and the new one. The Burstcannon blob I mentioned earlier would be evermore devastating if say it costed 200 less points. Im on the fence with unit pricing in regards to internal balancing for the Tau. I would say that internally some things like XV8s are about double what they should cost, but externally compared to what other armies can do is say it’s about right......nope forgot about Eldar dickery, Tau are overcosted in this edition.
Tau aren't overcosted wholesale, but you do have to maximize unit synergy to make your units worthwhile. Fire warriors are excellent troops by any standard, Coldstars are so good they're borderline broken, and our big suits range from serviceable to pretty darn good. Crisis suits, however, are the dud of the book. You can make them useful by running them in Farsighted Enclaves, slapping 3 CIBs on them, and dumping a bunch of command points into them, but if you're not willing to build around them, they're best left on the shelf. There are some other not awesome units, but it's a solid codex overall.
Ice_can wrote: Riptides without branched nova and markerlights aren't half as scary.
Y'varah has a reputation and makes a great distraction but is overcosted.
You have 5CP total, I normally burn through 3-4 per turn.
Any thoughts on fusion in your stealth suit teams? You finding it hits efficient targets in your games, or best to stick to burst cannons and spend the points elsewhere? I like the idea of a fusion blaster with plenty of ablative wounds, but I'm worried that with 18" range it'll just be shooting at infantry most of the time and I'd just be better off with the burst cannon.
Justicar_Thunderflanks wrote: Any thoughts on fusion in your stealth suit teams? You finding it hits efficient targets in your games, or best to stick to burst cannons and spend the points elsewhere? I like the idea of a fusion blaster with plenty of ablative wounds, but I'm worried that with 18" range it'll just be shooting at infantry most of the time and I'd just be better off with the burst cannon.
Justicar_Thunderflanks wrote: Any thoughts on fusion in your stealth suit teams? You finding it hits efficient targets in your games, or best to stick to burst cannons and spend the points elsewhere? I like the idea of a fusion blaster with plenty of ablative wounds, but I'm worried that with 18" range it'll just be shooting at infantry most of the time and I'd just be better off with the burst cannon.
I like the fusion just because it gives you options. I've rarely been sorry I took it. I nearly popped a Necron character with it (if it hadn't been for that stratagem that lets them get back up on a 4+), but that was an extraordinary situation. There are plenty of games and opponents where it won't do much, but in other cases it can be clutch.
If you are looking for fusions, honestly a ghostkeel or a coldstar commander is better. With a Ghostkeel you can have d3+2 fusion shots, forward deployment and -2 to be hit. With the coldstar commander you have 4 fusion shots and 40" move before you unload.
Stealths on the other side have the awkward rule of one fusion in 3 models, which means that you pay a lot of points for that one fusion shot.
Also, I find that a single piranha is basically the same shootout in the same slots (fast) as the stealth teams, but will actually be better than three stealth suits. It has the same shooting and trades survivability (-1 to hit) for mobility (increased movement). However, its shooting does not degrade (but you will lose burst cannon shots for every stealth suit you lose) and it's a little cheaper to boot. Finally it can split into two units and go capture multiple objectives at will.
Overall I am meh about the stealth suits. Even if they look damn beautiful.
topaxygouroun i wrote: If you are looking for fusions, honestly a ghostkeel or a coldstar commander is better. With a Ghostkeel you can have d3+2 fusion shots, forward deployment and -2 to be hit. With the coldstar commander you have 4 fusion shots and 40" move before you unload.
Stealths on the other side have the awkward rule of one fusion in 3 models, which means that you pay a lot of points for that one fusion shot.
Also, I find that a single piranha is basically the same shootout in the same slots (fast) as the stealth teams, but will actually be better than three stealth suits. It has the same shooting and trades survivability (-1 to hit) for mobility (increased movement). However, its shooting does not degrade (but you will lose burst cannon shots for every stealth suit you lose) and it's a little cheaper to boot. Finally it can split into two units and go capture multiple objectives at will.
Overall I am meh about the stealth suits. Even if they look damn beautiful.
Stealth Suits are an elite choice, not fast attack.
topaxygouroun i wrote: If you are looking for fusions, honestly a ghostkeel or a coldstar commander is better. With a Ghostkeel you can have d3+2 fusion shots, forward deployment and -2 to be hit. With the coldstar commander you have 4 fusion shots and 40" move before you unload.
Stealths on the other side have the awkward rule of one fusion in 3 models, which means that you pay a lot of points for that one fusion shot.
Also, I find that a single piranha is basically the same shootout in the same slots (fast) as the stealth teams, but will actually be better than three stealth suits. It has the same shooting and trades survivability (-1 to hit) for mobility (increased movement). However, its shooting does not degrade (but you will lose burst cannon shots for every stealth suit you lose) and it's a little cheaper to boot. Finally it can split into two units and go capture multiple objectives at will.
Overall I am meh about the stealth suits. Even if they look damn beautiful.
Stealth Suits are an elite choice, not fast attack.
:O
Well hello there my brigade formation (I hate bringing more than one riptide and I was waiting for a way to not have to bring suits.)
topaxygouroun i wrote: If you are looking for fusions, honestly a ghostkeel or a coldstar commander is better. With a Ghostkeel you can have d3+2 fusion shots, forward deployment and -2 to be hit. With the coldstar commander you have 4 fusion shots and 40" move before you unload.
Stealths on the other side have the awkward rule of one fusion in 3 models, which means that you pay a lot of points for that one fusion shot.
Also, I find that a single piranha is basically the same shootout in the same slots (fast) as the stealth teams, but will actually be better than three stealth suits. It has the same shooting and trades survivability (-1 to hit) for mobility (increased movement). However, its shooting does not degrade (but you will lose burst cannon shots for every stealth suit you lose) and it's a little cheaper to boot. Finally it can split into two units and go capture multiple objectives at will.
Overall I am meh about the stealth suits. Even if they look damn beautiful.
Stealth Suits are an elite choice, not fast attack.
:O
Well hello there my brigade formation (I hate bringing more than one riptide and I was waiting for a way to not have to bring suits.)
topaxygouroun i wrote: If you are looking for fusions, honestly a ghostkeel or a coldstar commander is better. With a Ghostkeel you can have d3+2 fusion shots, forward deployment and -2 to be hit. With the coldstar commander you have 4 fusion shots and 40" move before you unload.
Stealths on the other side have the awkward rule of one fusion in 3 models, which means that you pay a lot of points for that one fusion shot.
Also, I find that a single piranha is basically the same shootout in the same slots (fast) as the stealth teams, but will actually be better than three stealth suits. It has the same shooting and trades survivability (-1 to hit) for mobility (increased movement). However, its shooting does not degrade (but you will lose burst cannon shots for every stealth suit you lose) and it's a little cheaper to boot. Finally it can split into two units and go capture multiple objectives at will.
Overall I am meh about the stealth suits. Even if they look damn beautiful.
The big problem is keeping the Stealth Drones alive.
Why does everyone say Broadsides are good? In every game I use them they get wiped out turn 1. I always get Lanced or Lascannoned to death, so my cover bonus is pointless. I had 3 broadsides, a literal quarter of my army, wiped out by a Fire Prism and a Hemlock.
Even if I put them out of LOS, the enemy just moves and shoots them.
Ice_can wrote: Riptides without branched nova and markerlights aren't half as scary.
Y'varah has a reputation and makes a great distraction but is overcosted.
You have 5CP total, I normally burn through 3-4 per turn.
Overcosted? hehehe. Okay.
Yes they really need about 25 to 50 points removed to mirror the overcosted riptide chassis they where costed to, R'vana is even worse. I'm not talking being 300 points but GW really overcosted everything in the index badly and the FW index shows it was based of such shonky points.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BaconCatBug wrote: Why does everyone say Broadsides are good? In every game I use them they get wiped out turn 1. I always get Lanced or Lascannoned to death, so my cover bonus is pointless. I had 3 broadsides, a literal quarter of my army, wiped out by a Fire Prism and a Hemlock.
Even if I put them out of LOS, the enemy just moves and shoots them.
With sufficient drones and other targets in your list you really shouldn't be loosing them so fast as the drone tanks lascannons and lances even msu with the 5+ it should take an avarage of 5 shoots before your taking wounds on broadsides.
I've only played one game so far with the codex but that was my sentiment with the broadsides as well. I actually took them out of my original list and replaced them with a stormsurge which worked out quite well.
For less points, and even though it was charged and brought down to 5 wounds, it managed to kill 3 blood angel/deathwatch characters and what was left of a squad of sanguinary guard trying to charge it in overwatch with the pulse blastcannon, it was insane. I was even forgetting to use my re-rolls in overwatch from the systems.
The broadsides still seem too expensive for what they do.
Its been a while since I posted but I have a GT coming up and I'd like some criticism from fellow tau players. I posted the lists I am considering in the army list section. I'd appreciate any help to make my list better for the tournament. Thanks.
BaconCatBug wrote: Why does everyone say Broadsides are good? In every game I use them they get wiped out turn 1. I always get Lanced or Lascannoned to death, so my cover bonus is pointless. I had 3 broadsides, a literal quarter of my army, wiped out by a Fire Prism and a Hemlock.
Even if I put them out of LOS, the enemy just moves and shoots them.
You need to start playing with better terrain. 40k has been balanced around densely packed line of sight blocking terrain since 6th.
BaconCatBug wrote: Why does everyone say Broadsides are good? In every game I use them they get wiped out turn 1. I always get Lanced or Lascannoned to death, so my cover bonus is pointless. I had 3 broadsides, a literal quarter of my army, wiped out by a Fire Prism and a Hemlock.
Even if I put them out of LOS, the enemy just moves and shoots them.
If they're not good, why are your opponents focus firing them to death?
I'm assuming here that they plinked your drones to death first with small arms fire, but I think if you kept all 3 Broadsides in one unit you were asking for them to get wiped out. If you're fielding Broadsides without drones, well, yeah, easy targets.
BaconCatBug wrote: Why does everyone say Broadsides are good? In every game I use them they get wiped out turn 1. I always get Lanced or Lascannoned to death, so my cover bonus is pointless. I had 3 broadsides, a literal quarter of my army, wiped out by a Fire Prism and a Hemlock.
Even if I put them out of LOS, the enemy just moves and shoots them.
Yes they really need about 25 to 50 points removed to mirror the overcosted riptide chassis they where costed to, R'vana is even worse. I'm not talking being 300 points but GW really overcosted everything in the index badly and the FW index shows it was based of such shonky points.
.
Could not agree less. YVarrah is terrifying and always supported with Drones. Its absurd how good it can be.
I have a tournament tomorrow, and I'll be running a list I've tried a couple of times, but replacing my Broadsides with a Stormsurge. I'm hoping it'll prove to be a bit more durable and useful. I feel like it has decent saturation since there are also a couple of Riptides and a Y'vahra for my opponents to shoot at.
ZergSmasher wrote: I have a tournament tomorrow, and I'll be running a list I've tried a couple of times, but replacing my Broadsides with a Stormsurge. I'm hoping it'll prove to be a bit more durable and useful. I feel like it has decent saturation since there are also a couple of Riptides and a Y'vahra for my opponents to shoot at.
My warning always is to play what you practice. Last minute changes are fine but I always recommend knowing yur tolerances and the feel of your army before going to tournaments. Do your thing, of course but its advice I've come to respect. I am that guy that has no idea what he's playinguntil the day of the tournament and while Ido well, it clearly hampers me. Yet when I go to "old faithful" lists, even when they aren't "necessarily" better, they always perform for me and I always know whento hold em and know when to fold em. Practice games can make something that is slightly less than optimal work better than optimal!
Why does everyone say Broadsides are good? In every game I use them they get wiped out turn 1. I always get Lanced or Lascannoned to death, so my cover bonus is pointless. I had 3 broadsides, a literal quarter of my army, wiped out by a Fire Prism and a Hemlock.
Erm...that definitely shouldn't have happened. Where was the drone support? Broadsides are glass cannons and need drones to live, just like any of our other suits. Even without drones, that sounds like some seriously impressive rolling on your opponent's part - like pretty darn close to perfect. His maximum damage output for those 2 units is 25 and you have 18 wounds.
People say Broadsides are good because they spew damage extremely effectively despite being fragile for the cost. All you really need out of them is a turn or two of buffed firepower, and they'll easily mow down just about anything you want. Pop Kauyon, C&CN, Focused Fire, and 5 markerlights on turn 1, and a unit of 3 ATS Missilesides is good to gun down 2-3 units of your choice. I'd say that's worth investing some points in drones for. If you can also manage to lay down some forward pressure with Commanders and maybe Ghostkeels and/or Stealth Suits, you might even allow your Broadsides to live a few turns. In addition to Focused Fire, Tau sept also makes them virtually unchargeable. Nobody is going to want to weather an extra mini shooting phase from that unit. Even without buffs, you can count on doing ~10 wounds to most things, just with the Broadsides alone. Given that there'll very likely be a bunch of Firebladed Fire Warriors around, not much is going to come knocking.
ZergSmasher wrote: I have a tournament tomorrow, and I'll be running a list I've tried a couple of times, but replacing my Broadsides with a Stormsurge. I'm hoping it'll prove to be a bit more durable and useful. I feel like it has decent saturation since there are also a couple of Riptides and a Y'vahra for my opponents to shoot at.
My warning always is to play what you practice. Last minute changes are fine but I always recommend knowing yur tolerances and the feel of your army before going to tournaments. Do your thing, of course but its advice I've come to respect. I am that guy that has no idea what he's playinguntil the day of the tournament and while Ido well, it clearly hampers me. Yet when I go to "old faithful" lists, even when they aren't "necessarily" better, they always perform for me and I always know whento hold em and know when to fold em. Practice games can make something that is slightly less than optimal work better than optimal!
Oh, I definitely agree, but I hardly got much practice in with this list anyway. As it happens, to me it was a good change as the Stormsurge did perform well (except in the game where it got blown up turn 1 by a 3-Tigershark list, exploding and killing a Coldstar and damaging a bunch of other stuff). I will definitely keep the Surge in the list. Not that Broadsides are terrible, per se, but they require more planning and thought on positioning, etc. whereas the Surge is very much point and click.
The biggest downside I see to the flyers is that they fit a weird spot alot of the weapon ranges don't sync up well.
Don't get me wrong 24 BS2+ HBC shots and 2d6 skyspear missiles will give drukari and even harlequins and probably ork vehicals a good going over but against T7+ thats a lot of shots to be fishing for 5&6 with a save after.
If I have a stormsurge or a skyray and get two markerlight hits on a target. Is there a limit to how many seeker/destroyer missiles I can fire at that target that round?
GeckoDragon wrote: If I have a stormsurge or a skyray and get two markerlight hits on a target. Is there a limit to how many seeker/destroyer missiles I can fire at that target that round?
I was looking at best coast pairings and it looks like a Tau player won an 80man gt over the weekend. I can't seem to find his list but it's good to see Tau in the upper ranks of tournaments.
FirePainter wrote: I was looking at best coast pairings and it looks like a Tau player won an 80man gt over the weekend. I can't seem to find his list but it's good to see Tau in the upper ranks of tournaments.
It was a standard Tau list, the sort of thing we're always talking about. I don't have it right now, but it was something like:
Coldstars with fusions
Cadre Fireblades
Strikes
3 HBC Riptides
2 Stealth teams
If you guys are talking about Midwest Conquest, then I know the Tau player in question, and he's pretty good. I've faced him before. A few guys from my local gaming club were there also and placed well.
I'm loving Tau right now, they actually feel really good.
Just a question on a unit I'm debating with myself about - how do you guys feel about Ghostkeels?
Ice_can wrote:The biggest downside I see to the flyers is that they fit a weird spot alot of the weapon ranges don't sync up well.
Don't get me wrong 24 BS2+ HBC shots and 2d6 skyspear missiles will give drukari and even harlequins and probably ork vehicals a good going over but against T7+ thats a lot of shots to be fishing for 5&6 with a save after.
I noticed this too, splitting targets might help to make it seem less wonky in practice than it will on paper, but I haven't actually taken the time to test them yet.
I enjoy taking at least 1 ghostkeel in most of lists. The high T, - to hit and infiltrate abilities combined make a versatile unit. Mine usually don't do a lot of damage but they are annoying to my opponent and provide a big anti deepstrike bubble.
I have one in my list for a GT this weekend. I'll post up so battle reports after and let you know how it does.
FirePainter wrote: I enjoy taking at least 1 ghostkeel in most of lists. The high T, - to hit and infiltrate abilities combined make a versatile unit. Mine usually don't do a lot of damage but they are annoying to my opponent and provide a big anti deepstrike bubble.
I have one in my list for a GT this weekend. I'll post up so battle reports after and let you know how it does.
I decided to take the plunge and start collecting T'au, picking up a small collection from a friend who doesn't want them anymore. Looking to expand my knowledge of the great good before I invest in any more models or take them out for a serious game.
How do folks feel about the Devilfish/Tidewall? Devilfish seems great for managing your deployment drops with a 12 man capacity what with being able to fit a single big squad, a couple of small squads, or squad + characters. Tidewall on the other hand seems like a really nice fire platform to just unload pulse carbine dakka.
Broadsides. Do we take these individually, or in units? Is HYMP worth it over the rail rifle? Is the advanced targeting system worth it, or should I just go with the shield generator? I've got 6 and I'd like to know how best to use them.
Do people take drones as units unto themselves, or are they best purchased as unit upgrades for suits/fire warriors? Are marker drones worth it, or is it better to use other options for your markerlights?
Devilfish are okay-ish though still overcosted. That said, they're giant models, so you can use them fairly effectively as roadblocks. I think I'd only ever put special weapon Pathfinders or Breachers in them. Maybe Gun Drones if you're wanting to do some Fireblade tricks. Except for Breachers, you're probably better off just taking more guys and/or guns instead of a transport. Tau are pretty mobile these days and suffer quite a lot when they're stuff in a transport. You want those guns blasting away.
Broadsides are great if you can buff them effectively and keep drones around them. the HYMP/SMS with ATS variant is the popular and most effective load-out. A unit of 3 of them lays out some serious pain with Kauyon, 5 marker lights, Command and Control Node, and Focused Fire (if they're Tau sept). The rail rifle gets some occasional love in Sa'cea lists, but it's mostly just a cheap alternative if you're short on points. Commanders usually provide more than enough firepower with that particular stat line by way of fusion blasters.
Drones...just get them where you can. I've resigned myself to more or less auto-losing kill points games during which I don't table my opponent, so I'm perfectly happy to take minimal drone squads to prevent morale losses and get extra drones from suits.
I think marker drones are a poor choice, personally. There are lots of better marker sources, particularly Firesight Marksmen and Pathfinders, and shield drones are much better at protecting your big, mean suits. They're stuck in a jack-of-all-trades role.
Took best general at a 1750 10 man ITC RTT this weekend. Went 2-0-1.
List was;
Tau battalion
CIB Commander with Tau relic
Darkstrider
Fireblade with Purtide, through unity WLT
4x10 Strikes
3x3 Stealth teams with velocity trackers
1x4 shield drones
1x5 pathfinders with 3 ion rifles
2x1 HRR/SMS broadsides with target lock
Sacea battalion
CIB commander with iridium armor
Ethereal
3x5 Strikes, ML on sgt
3x1 Marksmen
Farsight Patrol
Coldstar with 2 fusion+ fusion blades
1x10 Kroot
Not really sure how I got best general, I got lucky with match ups and scored well in Rd 2/3, and I think most other players were in tight matches.
Game 2 was Eldar, 3 fire prisms, 3 crimson hunter exarchs, 3 ranger squads, some swooping hawks, baharoth, 2 farseers and an autarch. Hammer and anvil. 6 objectives, bonus pt for holding 5 at once. I got first turn, used stealth suits to grab 2 obj on his side, and move up to create a screen for my Fusion commander to land in. Walked onion of death up the middle of the board. Sacea helped me get 5 marks on a flier, Tau sept trait helped me blow it up. TUD is amazing with +1 to wound on fire warriors. Kroot charged two ranger squads, wiped one and piled into the other. He kept fliers on his table edge to avoid getting blown up again and focused everything into stealth teams trying to get to fusion commander. He killed 6 stealth suits, but my fusion commander got out alright.
Rd 2 I jumped fusion commander up next to a prism/exarch. Moved everything up more, had very limited shots available cause he was on his board edge. Blew up a fire prism with the fusion commander shooting, and did some damage to the exarch. Broadsides put some wounds on the other exarch, but fortune saved him a ton of damage. Only killed a few rangers cause of bad rolls with the rest. Charged the exarch and rolled pretty bad, at the end of the turn it had 3 wounds left. His turn 2 the fusion commander died, lost pathfinders he did a few wounds to a broadside when only 1 drone wanted to do its job. Last stealth time died.
Rd 3 was the last rd. I put down one of the exarchs with a cib commander, finished last ranger squad, failed to finish an exarch. Moved to hold 4 obj. He moved out aggressively to get a recon point and hold an objective. Failed to kill anything.
Game 3 was against Orks with a brigade. 140 boyz, 5 mek guns, ~17 stormboyz, 10 kommandos, ghaz, 2 weirdboyz, painboy. Dawn of war.
Large LOS blocking middle of board was very dangerous for me, didn't want to get charged from out of LOS. Had to deploy in a gakky location to avoid that liability. Basically he refuse flanked me, ate some stuff I had on left flank and was forced to feed me one unit of boyz at a time via Da Jump. I used stealth teams on top of buildings to harass, they killed most of the stormboyz with overwatch. Broadsides and fusion commander killed most of the mek gunz. Fusion commander hilariously failed in an attempt to root some grotz off an objective and died to mass boyz fire after they teleported back to him. I ended up winning a pretty tight game at the bottom of 5 because he was just running out of bodies and I finally had enough breathing room to move my onion into the middle of the board. If there had been less LOS blocking terrain anywhere midfield I could have moved up and it would have been a much worse match for him. Still, was a terrible matchup for him, and his only real hope was to camp objectives and try to deny me points.
Overall thoughts
Onion of death is awesome. Fire warriors are super strong. Fusion coldstar is mostly a trap, for both players. People will dedicate way too much to stopping him, careful use of him with stealth suits can set up some good scoring plays and delay enemy plans. Over aggression with him = die like a bitch. HRR broadsides with target lock are solid. They really need markerlights/tau strat to do work, but even without they are passable. The mobility was useful in every game for getting LOS and staying safe. Stealth teams are god-tier. They are so durable and obnoxious, their deployment options are amazing, and they really enable a lot of the rest of the list. If I could, I would build a list entirely around stealth teams, but rule of 3 has made that impossible. I may add a fourth model with a fusion, but it's just so expensive, and the burst cannons are quite good for their job. CIB commanders do insane damage, but not being able to DS them aggressively turn 1 means I've been playing them more defensively. Sacea battalion is awesome. I can typically get 5 markerlights up on a primary target, and then 1 on a few others, or with a little luck, 5 on a second. Kroot are also amazing, their damage output is very high for their cost, they're mobile and people underestimate them. If their LD wasn't garbage, I'd use a lot more of them.
FirePainter wrote: I enjoy taking at least 1 ghostkeel in most of lists. The high T, - to hit and infiltrate abilities combined make a versatile unit. Mine usually don't do a lot of damage but they are annoying to my opponent and provide a big anti deepstrike bubble.
I have one in my list for a GT this weekend. I'll post up so battle reports after and let you know how it does.
thanks man, I'd appreciate it.
Well didn't do as well as I'd hoped to. Ended the GT 2-4. The ghostkeel was either effective distraction or completely ignored by my opponents. It did get me recon and linebreaker several times so having it got points but it did not kill much. One guy did was two turns of 3 ravagers firing at it so that was fun but overall I think more stealth suits would have done the same job and been cheaper.
I will say I think my ion rifle Pathfinders were MVPs. Most opponents were surprised by their damage ability
Untill the stealth drones get charictor keyword style protection ghostkeels are stuck in a rather meh place of not survivable enough to be able to be used aggressively enough to bully your opponents but don't do enough damage to not be ignorable.
4 fusion ghostkeels are some of our most efficient AT. With a shield generator they're pretty tough for their cost, as well. I think the cyclic ion raker is a trap, it's a great gun but it doesn't pair well with the other weapons. Burst cannons are no good vs heavy infantry/tanks, and the range of the CIR is wasted without a longer range secondary weapon system.
ShredderShards wrote: What would you guys say is the best units for playing Farsight Enclaves?
Unfortunately, anything but Crisis Suits.
Although, a 3-6 CIB Crisis Suit Deep Strike Bomb supported by a Commander using the right strats will delete an enemy unit on the turn it arrives, it just won’t survive past that single turn.
ShredderShards wrote: What would you guys say is the best units for playing Farsight Enclaves?
Unfortunately, anything but Crisis Suits.
Although, a 3-6 CIB Crisis Suit Deep Strike Bomb supported by a Commander using the right strats will delete an enemy unit on the turn it arrives, it just won’t survive past that single turn.
SJ
And only if that other player is coming to you. If he is playing a gunline and staying in his own deployment zone, well... all those points will be doing nothing for entire, crucial first turn. Vespids cheap and efficient as they are can afford that, several hundred points of Crisis cannot.
Hi all. Recently started collecting Tau (Death Guard mainly) and wanted to create a fluffy Farsight Enclaves list. Pretty happy with what I came up with but just wanted to bemoan the fact that if you go Enclaves your HQ choices seem to get dramatically slashed! That's all really. Cheers for listening!
The problem with the CIB is that it is only good if you overcharge. If shooting normals, it is really a glorified burst cannon. So markerlight support wil lbe mandatory.
Hopefully will be able to use mobility to delay the game while blasting key units apart, and pull off BIG Overwatch's on units that make it there thanks to Sept Tactics + Counterfire + GG ± Dakka, getting free kills weakening assaults and just flying out the next turn. Against shooting lists, focus the heavy weapons and tough it through the small dice with defensive profile and range dictation. No Advanced Targeting will have an impact on the math, but ideally this will be a good trade for what the dice don't show.
Depending on how important I feel the Mont'ka and the Shield Drones end up being, might even just drop them entirely to take a second Ethereal detachment and just spam Kroot Hounds as a speedbump, bubblewrap, cheap mobile objective grabbers, and a fairly points efficient assault unit.
I imagine no matter what I do, the list will get eaten alive by Mortal Wound spam, but hey that's the name of the game.
I don't like Markerlights in this edition. R'varna feels really overcosted. So does Y'vahra for the matter but nowhere near as badly. Does anyone feel contrary?
Any ideas how to deal with the new surge of imp knight players? Tried to fight one and nearly got tabled both times. I used 3 fire warrior squads 2 pathfinder squads, 6 crisis suits, 6 stealth suits, ghostkeel and a few others I cant quite remember. Nothing I had could even touch any of his 6-8T stuff and the things that could potentially help dish out the damage are generally one shot. Any units I should look for? I recently got a stormsurge to help it out as well.
cosmicsoybean wrote: Any ideas how to deal with the new surge of imp knight players? Tried to fight one and nearly got tabled both times. I used 3 fire warrior squads 2 pathfinder squads, 6 crisis suits, 6 stealth suits, ghostkeel and a few others I cant quite remember. Nothing I had could even touch any of his 6-8T stuff and the things that could potentially help dish out the damage are generally one shot. Any units I should look for? I recently got a stormsurge to help it out as well.
1 stop taking crisis suits those points are better spent elsewhere.
2 which sept were you playing? TAU sept firewarriors wound a knight on 4+ with the strategum 1 unit can be 3+ with darkstrider.
3 where are your heavy hitters I see no riptide, no broadsides no Y'vahra's (though they look bad against knights)?
4 pathfinders are a very squishy source of markerlights and any vaguely viable/competitive list will have them gone turn 1
5 what points are you playing?
I would say you want a battalion per 1k then add hammerheads riptides to suit your play style.
Sept traits and strategums are powerful and should be considered carefully. TAU and borkan are my go to with secea for markerlights and railsides
Focused Fire should work wonders against knights. Sure that requires cp but luckily our troops are good. And yes, as Ice_can said you need heavy hitters. Can't go wrong with Riptides or Hammerheads.
Oh and if they use stratagem to buff invulnerable saves just shoot something else. Always shoot what you can kill.
Fueli wrote: Focused Fire should work wonders against knights. Sure that requires cp but luckily our troops are good. And yes, as Ice_can said you need heavy hitters. Can't go wrong with Riptides or Hammerheads.
Oh and if they use stratagem to buff invulnerable saves just shoot something else. Always shoot what you can kill.
Thanks for the advice guys!
One thing I am concerned about is that focused fire, along with being 3(!) CP requires you to wound the knight once before. Alongside that why are crisis suits not worth taking aboutmore? I had them running triple plas and they were the only thing able to do anything (and won me the game actually)
The only issues I have with broadsides and hammerheads are that the anti tank shots are only 1 (pretty sure) shot each so thats a lot of points in one basket since they will be targeted by his castellans and blown off the board in one round of shooting.
One thing I am concerned about is that focused fire, along with being 3(!) CP requires you to wound the knight once before. Alongside that why are crisis suits not worth taking aboutmore? I had them running triple plas and they were the only thing able to do anything (and won me the game actually)
The only issues I have with broadsides and hammerheads are that the anti tank shots are only 1 (pretty sure) shot each so thats a lot of points in one basket since they will be targeted by his castellans and blown off the board in one round of shooting.
I'll compair them to one of the 2 riptides I run to show why they bad.
Crisis suits are t5 3w 3+sv no invo with tripple plasma 4 is more points than my riptide loadout
Riptide is t7 14 w 2+ Sv 5++invo with one riptide being 3++ from T1 onwards beats your crisis for durability alot bar that odd lascannon/shadowsword but thats what shield drones are for.
Weapons riptide wins by a lot more shots, longer range and flat 2 damage and smart missiles just for lols.
Hammerhead have you looked at the ion cannon profile?
Knights are not an easy match up but your list can be a lot stronger.
This is a good thing as his knight list is kinda stuck in they do what they do your Tau list can get a lot stronger.
I might recommend a Stormsurge with the Pulse Driver Cannon. D6 shots, at S10 and d6 damage is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you've got markerlights and are anchored. Plus you've got the D missiles for up to 4d3 mortal wounds. Probably not the most points-efficient option, but it is an option and should be considered.
ZergSmasher wrote: I might recommend a Stormsurge with the Pulse Driver Cannon. D6 shots, at S10 and d6 damage is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you've got markerlights and are anchored. Plus you've got the D missiles for up to 4d3 mortal wounds. Probably not the most points-efficient option, but it is an option and should be considered.
Yeah I just picked one up and built it with the blastcannon, ATS, multi tracker and sheild generator. Probably will add in a Longstrike as well. Kind of want to add a few sunshark bombers because I love the look of them, but i hear they are pretty bad
cosmicsoybean wrote: Any ideas how to deal with the new surge of imp knight players? Tried to fight one and nearly got tabled both times. I used 3 fire warrior squads 2 pathfinder squads, 6 crisis suits, 6 stealth suits, ghostkeel and a few others I cant quite remember. Nothing I had could even touch any of his 6-8T stuff and the things that could potentially help dish out the damage are generally one shot. Any units I should look for? I recently got a stormsurge to help it out as well.
Fueli wrote: Focused Fire should work wonders against knights. Sure that requires cp but luckily our troops are good. And yes, as Ice_can said you need heavy hitters. Can't go wrong with Riptides or Hammerheads.
Oh and if they use stratagem to buff invulnerable saves just shoot something else. Always shoot what you can kill.
Thanks for the advice guys!
One thing I am concerned about is that focused fire, along with being 3(!) CP requires you to wound the knight once before. Alongside that why are crisis suits not worth taking aboutmore? I had them running triple plas and they were the only thing able to do anything (and won me the game actually)
The only issues I have with broadsides and hammerheads are that the anti tank shots are only 1 (pretty sure) shot each so thats a lot of points in one basket since they will be targeted by his castellans and blown off the board in one round of shooting.
Crisis suits just aren’t very tough and need a lot of expensive support (drones, markerlights). They can have good damage output, especially with CIBs or Fusion Blasters, but they don’t have the staying power of any of our other units. Triple plasma is going to do good damage against T4 1W 3+ models and that’s about it. Wounding vehicles on 5s and only being one damage really hurts our plasma.
On Hammerheads and Broadsides, the best Hammerhead variant is the ion cannon which has d6 3 damage shots. Flat 3 damage is amazing this edition. Broadsides have more competition between the two variants, but I’d recommend the HYMP variant over the 2-shot rail rifle. HYMP are still solid against vehicles but are much better against everything else, and are more likely to wound a Doomsday Ark. Though HYMP is worst against T8, which is maybe a bigger consideration in the meta now.
Hammerheads getting killed off by Knights is a real problem for us. They’ve got the invulnerable and our tanks don’t.
Fueli wrote: Focused Fire should work wonders against knights. Sure that requires cp but luckily our troops are good. And yes, as Ice_can said you need heavy hitters. Can't go wrong with Riptides or Hammerheads.
Oh and if they use stratagem to buff invulnerable saves just shoot something else. Always shoot what you can kill.
Thanks for the advice guys!
One thing I am concerned about is that focused fire, along with being 3(!) CP requires you to wound the knight once before. Alongside that why are crisis suits not worth taking aboutmore? I had them running triple plas and they were the only thing able to do anything (and won me the game actually)
The only issues I have with broadsides and hammerheads are that the anti tank shots are only 1 (pretty sure) shot each so thats a lot of points in one basket since they will be targeted by his castellans and blown off the board in one round of shooting.
Crisis suits just aren’t very tough and need a lot of expensive support (drones, markerlights). They can have good damage output, especially with CIBs or Fusion Blasters, but they don’t have the staying power of any of our other units. Triple plasma is going to do good damage against T4 1W 3+ models and that’s about it. Wounding vehicles on 5s and only being one damage really hurts our plasma.
On Hammerheads and Broadsides, the best Hammerhead variant is the ion cannon which has d6 3 damage shots. Flat 3 damage is amazing this edition. Broadsides have more competition between the two variants, but I’d recommend the HYMP variant over the 2-shot rail rifle. HYMP are still solid against vehicles but are much better against everything else, and are more likely to wound a Doomsday Ark. Though HYMP is worst against T8, which is maybe a bigger consideration in the meta now.
Hammerheads getting killed off by Knights is a real problem for us. They’ve got the invulnerable and our tanks don’t.
Would the flyers (even from fw) solve that problem then? The negative to hit seems to really help survivability and one of the FW flyers has anti titan weapon on it as well.
Would the flyers (even from fw) solve that problem then? The negative to hit seems to really help survivability and one of the FW flyers has anti titan weapon on it as well.
I haven't played with Tiger Sharks, but they seem OK here. The AX-1-0 (the anti-tank one) does ludicrous damage if it connects, but if it's shooting at a Knight with a 3++ save and a command reroll, I think it might struggle a bit. The Fighter-Bomber can do some respectable damage with two HBCs and Focused Fire up. The real kicker is that they can both take six seeker missiles, with an innate 2+ ballistic skill. 30 points to pretend you're a Sky Ray sounds like a good idea if you play against a lot of superheavies.
Would the flyers (even from fw) solve that problem then? The negative to hit seems to really help survivability and one of the FW flyers has anti titan weapon on it as well.
I haven't played with Tiger Sharks, but they seem OK here. The AX-1-0 (the anti-tank one) does ludicrous damage if it connects, but if it's shooting at a Knight with a 3++ save and a command reroll, I think it might struggle a bit. The Fighter-Bomber can do some respectable damage with two HBCs and Focused Fire up. The real kicker is that they can both take six seeker missiles, with an innate 2+ ballistic skill. 30 points to pretend you're a Sky Ray sounds like a good idea if you play against a lot of superheavies.
I've got a friend who has been trying 3 Tigersharks, and that list is NASTY! Killed close to 1200 points of my army in just one turn (partly thanks to an exploding Stormsurge in the middle of my lines).
Would the flyers (even from fw) solve that problem then? The negative to hit seems to really help survivability and one of the FW flyers has anti titan weapon on it as well.
I haven't played with Tiger Sharks, but they seem OK here. The AX-1-0 (the anti-tank one) does ludicrous damage if it connects, but if it's shooting at a Knight with a 3++ save and a command reroll, I think it might struggle a bit. The Fighter-Bomber can do some respectable damage with two HBCs and Focused Fire up. The real kicker is that they can both take six seeker missiles, with an innate 2+ ballistic skill. 30 points to pretend you're a Sky Ray sounds like a good idea if you play against a lot of superheavies.
I've got a friend who has been trying 3 Tigersharks, and that list is NASTY! Killed close to 1200 points of my army in just one turn (partly thanks to an exploding Stormsurge in the middle of my lines).
Lol 3 Tigersharks wow. What is that like 1800 pts? What else did he even have?
I imagine it would blow up anything with Stormsurges', but I can't imagine a list that is basically 3x LOW-Hunters doing well under any other circumstance.
On a similar tangent, has anyone tried the Supremacy Suit? What do we think?
Would the flyers (even from fw) solve that problem then? The negative to hit seems to really help survivability and one of the FW flyers has anti titan weapon on it as well.
I haven't played with Tiger Sharks, but they seem OK here. The AX-1-0 (the anti-tank one) does ludicrous damage if it connects, but if it's shooting at a Knight with a 3++ save and a command reroll, I think it might struggle a bit. The Fighter-Bomber can do some respectable damage with two HBCs and Focused Fire up. The real kicker is that they can both take six seeker missiles, with an innate 2+ ballistic skill. 30 points to pretend you're a Sky Ray sounds like a good idea if you play against a lot of superheavies.
I've got a friend who has been trying 3 Tigersharks, and that list is NASTY! Killed close to 1200 points of my army in just one turn (partly thanks to an exploding Stormsurge in the middle of my lines).
Lol 3 Tigersharks wow. What is that like 1800 pts? What else did he even have?
I imagine it would blow up anything with Stormsurges', but I can't imagine a list that is basically 3x LOW-Hunters doing well under any other circumstance.
On a similar tangent, has anyone tried the Supremacy Suit? What do we think?
3 tiger sharks arn't the bad if they aren't the X-01 LOW hunter.
2 normal one X-01 is 1.5k and fairly TAC with plenty of points for a battalion. Nasty but they neeed to table you and you just kill the stuff on the table and he looses.
The Taunar at 2k points cost its just not practical for most games you can't really play to any mission. It's something you buy as a modeling project and might play in a casual apoc scale game.
The Taunar at 2k points cost its just not practical for most games you can't really play to any mission. It's something you buy as a modeling project and might play in a casual apoc scale game.
Of course you aren't winning any missions, but for it's cost is it at all justified in power? Might run one at 3k for chuckles
The Tiger Shark fighter-bomber might be the best unit in our arsenal, honestly. That's a bit dependent on our FW units getting updated to codex stats. That is, the HBC needs to be changed to match the codex.
MilkmanAl wrote: The Tiger Shark fighter-bomber might be the best unit in our arsenal, honestly. That's a bit dependent on our FW units getting updated to codex stats. That is, the HBC needs to be changed to match the codex.
Index models always use the most updated rules, so they have the Heavy 12 HBC as that’s been updated in our codex. Weapons that aren’t in our codex, like fusion cascades or the twin heavy burst cannon still need a profile update, though.
Would the flyers (even from fw) solve that problem then? The negative to hit seems to really help survivability and one of the FW flyers has anti titan weapon on it as well.
I haven't played with Tiger Sharks, but they seem OK here. The AX-1-0 (the anti-tank one) does ludicrous damage if it connects, but if it's shooting at a Knight with a 3++ save and a command reroll, I think it might struggle a bit. The Fighter-Bomber can do some respectable damage with two HBCs and Focused Fire up. The real kicker is that they can both take six seeker missiles, with an innate 2+ ballistic skill. 30 points to pretend you're a Sky Ray sounds like a good idea if you play against a lot of superheavies.
I've got a friend who has been trying 3 Tigersharks, and that list is NASTY! Killed close to 1200 points of my army in just one turn (partly thanks to an exploding Stormsurge in the middle of my lines).
Lol 3 Tigersharks wow. What is that like 1800 pts? What else did he even have?
I imagine it would blow up anything with Stormsurges', but I can't imagine a list that is basically 3x LOW-Hunters doing well under any other circumstance.
It was 3 regular Tigersharks, not the LOW hunter one. They put out insane amounts of firepower. The rest of the list was basically a couple of Coldstars, a Riptide, 3 min FW squads, a Marker Drone squad, Darkstrider, and a Cadre Fireblade.
Knights seem like a super easy matchup for a proper tau list. Minimal targets means markerlights are super efficient, our S5 spam wounds on a 5 (4 with t'au), CIB commanders average 5 damage each vs a knight, drones totally gimp the missile sniping, etc.
What I consider a proper T'au list doesn't really provide any sort of good target for knights, while having all the tools to take them out.
Traceoftoxin wrote: Knights seem like a super easy matchup for a proper tau list. Minimal targets means markerlights are super efficient, our S5 spam wounds on a 5 (4 with t'au), CIB commanders average 5 damage each vs a knight, drones totally gimp the missile sniping, etc.
What I consider a proper T'au list doesn't really provide any sort of good target for knights, while having all the tools to take them out.
Custode bikes are much, much scarier to us, IMO
Agree on Focused Fire, Knights are basically what the stratagem was made for. Just watch out for the 2+ armor save relic (Armor of Sainted Ion), it puts a considerable dent in massed pulse fire.
On Tau providing good targets: eh, depends on the list. One of the popular tournament lists right now is 3 Hammerheads + Longstrike and that provides some great targets for Knights. I don't run Hammerheads, but it seems like potentially a rough matchup for anyone that does.
I would say ditch the ghostkeel and get yourself a second battalion above 1k Tau should be double battalion IMHO.
TAU are a CP intensive army, and firewarriors arn't a bad unit to have for a CP tax.
Traceoftoxin wrote: Knights seem like a super easy matchup for a proper tau list. Minimal targets means markerlights are super efficient, our S5 spam wounds on a 5 (4 with t'au), CIB commanders average 5 damage each vs a knight, drones totally gimp the missile sniping, etc.
What I consider a proper T'au list doesn't really provide any sort of good target for knights, while having all the tools to take them out.
Custode bikes are much, much scarier to us, IMO
Agree on Focused Fire, Knights are basically what the stratagem was made for. Just watch out for the 2+ armor save relic (Armor of Sainted Ion), it puts a considerable dent in massed pulse fire.
On Tau providing good targets: eh, depends on the list. One of the popular tournament lists right now is 3 Hammerheads + Longstrike and that provides some great targets for Knights. I don't run Hammerheads, but it seems like potentially a rough matchup for anyone that does.
In my opinion, the best Tau lists will focus heavily on fire warriors. They're statistically amazing, and in the context of 8th, they're super strong.
If you mass them, I can see how they can do heavy lifting.
50, in rapid fire range, using a stratagem for +1 to-wound (with 5 markerlights) will cause a T6+ 3+ save unit 13 wounds (or 21 wounds to MEQ's, 43 GEQ's). That's pretty impressive for an infantry model I agree, for 7pts / model. Oh, add 50% to those numbers if you add in a Fireblade aura, more if you start using warlord traits / additional stratagems.
However losses due to injury (T3, 4+), Morale, reducing firepower, force density, foot print, multi-target drop-off etc means I'm not that interested. Plus I like mecha suits, like most blue-blooded wanna-be mecha pilots.
(Unbuffed, 12 firewarriors kill 1.34 MEQ's at 30", 21 guardsmen kill 1.17; both mediocre.)
I'll field the 3x5 or 2x5 + 1x12 (with Darkstrider) and enjoy their excellent efficiency for the shots they do put out / the ground they cover cheaply but that's it. At that level, they will be a great slot filler, objective capper and board control presence; but specifically will not do heavy lifting. Which is fine. That's what quad fusion commanders are for.
Granted, and my query relates to, Darkstrider + 12 firewarriors (with some/lots of buffs) can start to do some heavy lifting, meaningfully impact a target enemy unit.
Razerous wrote: If I have the choice of one; do I get a regular Fireblade bluntsman or Darkstrider (Tau Sept)
The army is 1500pts, 2 HBC riptides, 1 GK, 2 Quad Fusion Coldstars, 3 firesights, 3 FW teams (possible 1 is 12-strong?), 10-14 drones.
Thoughts?
If you're choosing between your first Fireblade and Darkstrider, take the Fireblade. He adds more damage even to a 12-man team, and he also improves the other teams.
Razerous wrote: If you mass them, I can see how they can do heavy lifting.
However losses due to injury (T3, 4+), Morale, reducing firepower, force density, foot print, multi-target drop-off etc means I'm not that interested. Plus I like mecha suits, like most blue-blooded wanna-be mecha pilots.
A tip on morale: take a Sa'cea detachment. My preferred one is:
But you can also take an auxiliary support (-1CP) for just the Ethereal, or a battalion for more CP. The Sa'cea Ethereal buffs your Fire Warriors to leadership 10, making your teams morale immune to any losses below 5 men. The Firesight Marksmen are probably the best markerlight sources in the army, as they're so reliable. And just as importantly, your Sa'cea characters give you access to the outstanding Sa'cea markerlight stratagem.
The Sa'cea markerlights are so reliable, plus the strategem is amazing because it allows you to chain into the regular one; so for a mere 2(?)CP, that's 1+1+1D3 tokens before anything pulls a trigger.
The Fireblade only adds more damage if the enemy target is within 15" of your infantry; whilst Darkstrider is 1x unit within 30".
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: We all agree that crisis suits are trash, right? I had an argument on Facebook (I know) over this, and they're overcosted trash, right?
Their only viable use is Farsight enclaves drops. Even that is still not particularly great.
Without infantry keyword it is too hard to get them cover, so they're not particularly durable.
Their damage output is worse than a lot of things in the codex.
They don't have JSJ like they used to to make them manueverable/durable.
So basically yeah, they're bad and outclassed by something else in every way.
But you can also take an auxiliary support (-1CP) for just the Ethereal, or a battalion for more CP. The Sa'cea Ethereal buffs your Fire Warriors to leadership 10, making your teams morale immune to any losses below 5 men. The Firesight Marksmen are probably the best markerlight sources in the army, as they're so reliable. And just as importantly, your Sa'cea characters give you access to the outstanding Sa'cea markerlight stratagem.
Thank you, this is brilliant and makes bringing Sniper Drones more attractive as well.
I do something similar. A Sa'cea Battalion of
Fireblade
Optional Fusionstar
Optional Etheral
3x5 Fire Warriors including Markerlight Shas'ui
If you're really feeling frisky, 3 units of a single broadside with HRR. That reroll makes them leaps and bounds more efficient than without.
This is in prettymuch every list I come up with. Good CP, reliable markerlights due to the reroll, Access to stratagems. Great value overall, with or without the additions.
I've been playing guard since 8th dropped mostly because they were collecting dust during the previous two editions. While I've enjoyed making guard great again I'm getting tired of all the winning. Ok, that last sentence was a lie Anyway I miss my Tau (and Necrons) so I'm shelving guard for a bit and trying to figure out Tau in the 8th environment. I've got pretty much every model in the Tau line except for the flyers and vespids. Many of them in spades (ran the crap out of the riptide wing and tried the piranha formation, etc). I know this isn't the army list forum but I would very much enjoy hearing about other people's 2k lists that they've had success with in 8th so I have some sort of frame of reference as to what I should be leaning towards. And really who doesn't enjoy talking about their own lists
But you can also take an auxiliary support (-1CP) for just the Ethereal, or a battalion for more CP. The Sa'cea Ethereal buffs your Fire Warriors to leadership 10, making your teams morale immune to any losses below 5 men. The Firesight Marksmen are probably the best markerlight sources in the army, as they're so reliable. And just as importantly, your Sa'cea characters give you access to the outstanding Sa'cea markerlight stratagem.
Thank you, this is brilliant and makes bringing Sniper Drones more attractive as well.
I had and continue to have Sniper drones from the day 8th dropped.
Razerous wrote: Exactly!
The Sa'cea markerlights are so reliable, plus the strategem is amazing because it allows you to chain into the regular one; so for a mere 2(?)CP, that's 1+1+1D3 tokens before anything pulls a trigger.
Unfortunately, the 'Uplinked Markerlight' strategem can't trigger off of the Sa'cea 'Orbital Marker Distribution Uplink'. 'Uplinked Markerlight' specifies: "Use this Stratagem after an enemy unit has been hit by a markerlight fired by a model from your army." and the Sa'cea strat markerlights aren't.
Hi all, new to Tau. Just got a quick question: For the Greater Good.
When an enemy unit declares a charge, a unit with this ability that is within 6" of one of the charging unit’s targets may fire Overwatch as if they were also targeted. A unit that does so cannot fire Overwatch again in this turn.
Does this refer to one unit and one unit only within 6"? Or does it mean all units within 6"?
Traceoftoxin wrote: Knights seem like a super easy matchup for a proper tau list. Minimal targets means markerlights are super efficient, our S5 spam wounds on a 5 (4 with t'au), CIB commanders average 5 damage each vs a knight, drones totally gimp the missile sniping, etc.
What I consider a proper T'au list doesn't really provide any sort of good target for knights, while having all the tools to take them out.
Custode bikes are much, much scarier to us, IMO
Agree on Focused Fire, Knights are basically what the stratagem was made for. Just watch out for the 2+ armor save relic (Armor of Sainted Ion), it puts a considerable dent in massed pulse fire.
On Tau providing good targets: eh, depends on the list. One of the popular tournament lists right now is 3 Hammerheads + Longstrike and that provides some great targets for Knights. I don't run Hammerheads, but it seems like potentially a rough matchup for anyone that does.
In my opinion, the best Tau lists will focus heavily on fire warriors. They're statistically amazing, and in the context of 8th, they're super strong.
I agree with this. I have 50 them and it really isn't enough. Something like 100-120 would be very strong.
Kinda hard to see the Tigershark as anything other than the most slept on unit in the game right now. It's hits double to triple as many HBC shots as the same amount of points worth of Riptides do, has insane mobility and makes easy use of Farsight rerolls and a single markerlight basically makes them twinlinked thanks to BS2+. Fly means they have built in Velocity Tracker too. And then there's the rest of its weaponry... And it's also a 14W T8 flyer on the survivability side with a very gentle wounds degrading thanks to ridiculous mobility with or without full wounds and the fact that 2+ to 3+ is not a crippling change
So with all the Imperial Knight updates and so on i think it's due time for ForgeWorld to set the points properly for the KX-139 Ta'unar. Its current points cost is ridiculous and it should get brought back down to about ~600 points in light of the IK rules.
Traceoftoxin wrote: Have we gotten official word that the FW stuff gets the updated HBC? Last I knew that was the big hold up.
Yes GW stated that if there is 2 versions a piece of gear, the most recent version is used.
They haven't definitively stated that that still takes place if the model comes from a different book though. Otherwise falchions would be 6d3 shots for twin volcano cannons instead of 2d6 as it would update inline with the shadowsword.
Unfortunately GW forget Forgeworld exsist for the most part, look at the imperial knights codex, adding anything FW totally broke that codex. Was only fixed in the FAQ as lot of players complained and GW went oh opps we didn't realise.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
X078 wrote: So with all the Imperial Knight updates and so on i think it's due time for ForgeWorld to set the points properly for the KX-139 Ta'unar. Its current points cost is ridiculous and it should get brought back down to about ~600 points in light of the IK rules.
A Ta'unar is worth way more than 600 points, It's not worth it current points I get, but your high if you think it's worth that few points.
Traceoftoxin wrote: Have we gotten official word that the FW stuff gets the updated HBC? Last I knew that was the big hold up.
Yes GW stated that if there is 2 versions a piece of gear, the most recent version is used.
They haven't definitively stated that that still takes place if the model comes from a different book though. Otherwise falchions would be 6d3 shots for twin volcano cannons instead of 2d6 as it would update inline with the shadowsword.
Unfortunately GW forget Forgeworld exsist for the most part, look at the imperial knights codex, adding anything FW totally broke that codex. Was only fixed in the FAQ as lot of players complained and GW went oh opps we didn't realise.
Maybe I'm wrong, this exact topic came up on Chapter Tactics and they seemed to think it was definitive, so I dunno.
Unfortunately I don't think there is a right or wrong here, it a unknown grey area
What annoys me now is that they don't seem to have a plan to update IA inline with or in response to the codex's and the evolving rule set.
They could have included the still in production FW units in the codex's and made it clear what was and wasn't supposed to interact with strategums etc, but GW decieded to go with leaving index, codex and Imperial Armour as valid simultaneously.
X078 wrote: So with all the Imperial Knight updates and so on i think it's due time for ForgeWorld to set the points properly for the KX-139 Ta'unar. Its current points cost is ridiculous and it should get brought back down to about ~600 points in light of the IK rules.
A Ta'unar is worth way more than 600 points, It's not worth it current points I get, but your high if you think it's worth that few points.
Disagree, i see it as directly comparable with a Dominus Castellan, Titanic weapons like the Volcano lance against Macro Tri-axis etc, with the stratagems the Dominus beats it easily.
Personally I've been looking at builds without big targets for volcano lance to shoot at. Hell of a lot infantry with Commanders should be alright. Maybe duo of Riptides with some drones.
My Longstrike list got destroyed against knights just yesterday even though I went first. Doesn't matter if you kill one and a half knights when the one that died comes back anyway fully operational.
Any thoughts on the XV9 hazard suits? They seem like they would be pretty great for anti infantry or even anti tank with the fusion guns and fairly survivable since you can take 4 drones if you want with one
Would it kill you to actually copy the FAQ answer here rather than sending people to go feth?
From IA index xenos faq:
Q: Can I use the weapon profiles for things like lasblasters and
D-cannons from Codex: Craftworlds, or do I have to use the
ones printed in Imperial Armour – Index: Xenos?
A: You can use the profiles from Codex: Craftworlds.
BoomWolf wrote: Would it kill you to actually copy the FAQ answer here rather than sending people to go feth?
From IA index xenos faq:
Q: Can I use the weapon profiles for things like lasblasters and
D-cannons from Codex: Craftworlds, or do I have to use the
ones printed in Imperial Armour – Index: Xenos?
A: You can use the profiles from Codex: Craftworlds.
Ive been on mobile all weekend so it’s harder to format a quote like that.
And we pay codex points costs, per the index-codex FAQ.
After playing with the idea for a while, I don't think they really fit that well into most lists. You'd have to have a list with a lot of other heavy options, storm surge, riptide, etc. for target saturation. Then you're really limited in what else you can bring. They're pretty durable, and hard counter a lot of the current meta, but with knights being so popular I imagine heavy AT is going to be super commonplace in the meta very shortly.
All that being considered, I have no doubt a list built around two of them could do very, very well. Maybe Dal'yth for 2+ to avoid being alphaed, but more likely T'au for +1 to wound strat.
After playing with the idea for a while, I don't think they really fit that well into most lists. You'd have to have a list with a lot of other heavy options, storm surge, riptide, etc. for target saturation. Then you're really limited in what else you can bring. They're pretty durable, and hard counter a lot of the current meta, but with knights being so popular I imagine heavy AT is going to be super commonplace in the meta very shortly.
All that being considered, I have no doubt a list built around two of them could do very, very well. Maybe Dal'yth for 2+ to avoid being alphaed, but more likely T'au for +1 to wound strat.
No way, they are not a target you can't afford to have shot, they are incredibly tough and have hard to hit and a wound profile doesn't have much effect either. Just hit hard right next to them with Stealth Suits. Make the Tiger's Farsight and have them launching Seekers along with the rest of their Arsenal at 2+ rerollable and rerolls to wounds. This is what I think is best for them, and it turns out Anthony Bellm does the same, Stealth Suits and multiple Farsight Tigers, and last I checked he was the #1 Tau player in ITC from playing like that. Might still be even, I dunno.
After playing with the idea for a while, I don't think they really fit that well into most lists. You'd have to have a list with a lot of other heavy options, storm surge, riptide, etc. for target saturation. Then you're really limited in what else you can bring. They're pretty durable, and hard counter a lot of the current meta, but with knights being so popular I imagine heavy AT is going to be super commonplace in the meta very shortly.
All that being considered, I have no doubt a list built around two of them could do very, very well. Maybe Dal'yth for 2+ to avoid being alphaed, but more likely T'au for +1 to wound strat.
No way, they are not a target you can't afford to have shot, they are incredibly tough and have hard to hit and a wound profile doesn't have much effect either. Just hit hard right next to them with Stealth Suits. Make the Tiger's Farsight and have them launching Seekers along with the rest of their Arsenal at 2+ rerollable and rerolls to wounds. This is what I think is best for them, and it turns out Anthony Bellm does the same, Stealth Suits and multiple Farsight Tigers, and last I checked he was the #1 Tau player in ITC from playing like that. Might still be even, I dunno.
After playing with the idea for a while, I don't think they really fit that well into most lists. You'd have to have a list with a lot of other heavy options, storm surge, riptide, etc. for target saturation. Then you're really limited in what else you can bring. They're pretty durable, and hard counter a lot of the current meta, but with knights being so popular I imagine heavy AT is going to be super commonplace in the meta very shortly.
All that being considered, I have no doubt a list built around two of them could do very, very well. Maybe Dal'yth for 2+ to avoid being alphaed, but more likely T'au for +1 to wound strat.
No way, they are not a target you can't afford to have shot, they are incredibly tough and have hard to hit and a wound profile doesn't have much effect either. Just hit hard right next to them with Stealth Suits. Make the Tiger's Farsight and have them launching Seekers along with the rest of their Arsenal at 2+ rerollable and rerolls to wounds. This is what I think is best for them, and it turns out Anthony Bellm does the same, Stealth Suits and multiple Farsight Tigers, and last I checked he was the #1 Tau player in ITC from playing like that. Might still be even, I dunno.
Do you happen to have more specific list?
Exactly what he’s running, i dunno, but I’ve mailed him now. What I think looks good is
Farsight Bat:
1x FusionStar 1x Cadre Fireblade
3x min size Firewarrior 3x max size Stealth Suits
2x Tigershark with Seekers
Sacea Bat:
1x Fusion Star Ethereal
3x min size Firewarrior 3x Firesight
You can juggle and adjust The markers and the seekers or stealth whatever else to fit in a Y'vahra or something if you want to support he suits with it
I’ll check back in if I get a response from Anthony
Oh wow, for some reason I thought they were BS3, BS2 is considerably better.
Even still, I think with knights becoming popular, that list is going to lose effectiveness as the meta returns to heavy AT. They're slightly more durable than an IK, and people are going to be building to remove at least 1 IK a turn.
I'm surprised that is the top Tau player's regular list, TBH. I don't deny it's a strong list, and a good foil for the current meta, but part of me wonders if there's a limited number of Tau players currently scoring for ITC.
Traceoftoxin wrote: Oh wow, for some reason I thought they were BS3, BS2 is considerably better.
Even still, I think with knights becoming popular, that list is going to lose effectiveness as the meta returns to heavy AT. They're slightly more durable than an IK, and people are going to be building to remove at least 1 IK a turn.
I'm surprised that is the top Tau player's regular list, TBH. I don't deny it's a strong list, and a good foil for the current meta, but part of me wonders if there's a limited number of Tau players currently scoring for ITC.
To be clear, that's not his list. I'm not sure exactly what he's been running, but I'll be sure to check in if he responds to my mail. And he's not doing well because its just meta foil, he's doing well because he's taking imo one of the most powerful combination of units available to Tau. He's SETTING meta. You are right that not as many Tau players are scoring - but not because they aren't competing, they just aren't getting the results he's getting, and I don't think it's coincidence that he's the one doing this. He's not just the highest ranked Tau player, he's #13 ranked globally, and thats purely with Tau.
47 HBC hits each between two Tigersharks, every turn, and easy Farsight re-roll application if wanted, is no joke. Those HBC firepower numbers are what you are getting from SIX RIPTIDES, for the price of THREE. And that's just the first weapon. 4x Burst Cannon, 4x Missile pod, 4x Skyspear. And on average they will hit all 12 Seeker missiles turn 1 as well with just 2 markers on their target. They hit like a goddamn landslide.
As you said they are MORE durable than a Knight, so lists building to kill a Knight might even miss the mark. Not to mention you have what a Knight doesn't, which is 75" movespeed. Deploy in the very back corner, very few lists are sinking the Tigersharks before you rain hellfire across the field with it. Between Coldstars, Stealth Suits and Tiggers you are clearing a whole lot of damage off the field very quickly. I'm not even sure the Tigershark is the right target to prioritise, and you have 1200 pts of high damage Infantry here, meaning heavy AT lists might be hamstringing themselves. Especially if any of those Knight counters are in CC, which I know is the plan for a lot of armies, Skari for example said he's taking Talos to deal with Knights, thumbs down for that plan here.
Discount it or chalk it up as "playing the meta" all you want, but it's not, and I am certain Tiggers are going nowhere.
SHUPPET wrote: Discount it or chalk it up as "playing the meta" all you want, but it's not, and I am certain Tiggers are going nowhere.
Until they get the nerfbat once players start pissing and moaning about them enough.
They are stupidly good for their points cost. Even the vaunted Fire Raptor is jealous. I've got two Tau playing acquaintances who use them, one of whom nearly won a GT this past weekend with his Tau list (rocking one or two Tigersharks).
SHUPPET wrote: Discount it or chalk it up as "playing the meta" all you want, but it's not, and I am certain Tiggers are going nowhere.
Until they get the nerfbat once players start pissing and moaning about them enough.
They are stupidly good for their points cost. Even the vaunted Fire Raptor is jealous. I've got two Tau playing acquaintances who use them, one of whom nearly won a GT this past weekend with his Tau list (rocking one or two Tigersharks).
HAha, thankfully nobody can outwhine the Tau. Let's be real, the instant people start complaining about it, a mass of Tau players who don't even use the model will talk about how desperately the army "needs" Tigershark to be this tough, just for Tau to be able to compete.
Anyway, here's Anthony's list. Outright stated that he most likely won't be changing gak for the new meta, only thing that may cause him to rework it is Chapter Approved buffs or nerfs.
Very similar, almost identical, to how I was doing it. Mine (compared to his) trades out a single Coldstar and the Kroot Hounds, so that I can take double as many Stealth Suits and more Fire Warriors, and 3 more CP. His may be better, I dunno I originally had Kroot Hounds in my list, but I like the thicker Stealth Suit units for multiple reasons. But Anthony has more experience and better credentials than me with Tau, so he no doubt knows what sacrifices he can safely make in cutting the CP and the additional Suits. Though at this point it's probably down to personal taste a little too.
Regardless, this is Tau's most competitive showing right now, and I think if more people were playing like this we'd see a lot more results. A lot of sleep on Tigersharks. Anyway, hope I've done a bit more to support my statements so you guys know I'm not just throwing out outlandish statements. I also have a small history of being right about this sort of thing I'll let you guys know if I hear anymore from Anthony though.
I may as well post Eric Tadt's list while we're at it. 7th place at the Dallas Open, same record as Anthony. He had two Riptides and a Y'vahra, and notably took a bunch of Kroot.
Zond wrote: As someone who only dabbles in 40k by reading mostly, why Farsight Enclaves for the Tigersharks in Anthony's list?
Due to their ability to easily move within 6" of any unit on the board, giving him an even bigger alpha strike which is important for the models, even more so since he has 12x Seekers likely firing at BS 2+ on turn 1. Also, Farsight benefits our Coldstars and Stealth Suits. It feels like the best Sept for them.
Really enjoyed the list. Not convinced on coldstars, always find them too suicidal for me and I like the reliability of the ion blasters.
I've plugged this into Battlescribe, and you've got me wondering what you're putting on your riptides and hammerheads as secondary systems.
Are your CIB Commanders 3x CIB+ATS or Quads or a combo?
I tried something similar in the past but took broadsides instead of hammerheads. I like this better!
Spectre_UK wrote: With no XV89 in the new codex, is there an official line on what it counts as?
They are Forgeworld so would be in Imperial Armour index Xenos if it's still supported, but given their age were they not based off the older XV8 and hence have probably been retired. You could counts as it as an iridium suit.
Ice_can wrote: They are Forgeworld so would be in Imperial Armour index Xenos if it's still supported, but given their age were they not based off the older XV8 and hence have probably been retired. You could counts as it as an iridium suit.
Apologies, yes, that's what I meant. They're not in IA Index Xenos so appear to have been deleted, which is odd as forgeworld are still selling them...
It used to be something like iridium in 5th, during 6th it became obsolete in rules and remained as just an alternative cool model.
Now I'm guessing its not even that cool alternative, given the newer sculpt crisis has iridium built-in and are poseable (unlike the old crisis who were not posable)
So how decent are hammerheads? have they gone by the wayside now that more people are taking tigersharks.
I know there will be a lot of people taking a raven castellan. what do we have to help protect the tigershark if not going first against it? only thing i have found was infiltrating shadowsun and giving it a -1 to hit but its kind of a suicide run for her.
IVIOOSE wrote: What are peoples thoughts on sniper drones? Worth taking or only ok ?
Are riptides better in pairs or just ok for their points cost?
Only one Riptide can benifit from the strategum so only 1 can be at maximum efficiency, however if your not taking first turn you can expect to loose one riptide turn 1 along with a bunch of drones.
Personally I think you need 2 unless your playing smaller games.
Riptides are good enough to take multiples, as many as suits your list. The first Riptide is the best thanks to BNC strat, but the second and third are still tough efficient units and you should always have redundancy in your lists.
IVIOOSE wrote: Has anyone tried a coldstar with the high output burst cannon, x2 burst cannons and ATS for 16 shots that is Mobil and good anti infantry
You could but given how quickly tau can burn CP's your going to be taking atleast 1 battalion maybe even double battalion, so you tend to have enough s5 firepower, HBC from either riptide or tigershark gives lots of s6 d2 shooting, you tend to want something other than more s5 shooting from a coldstar.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What are people's experience with tiger shark or tigershark Ax01.
Which is the better option as I think the Ax01 looks really cool as a model but I feel like it's pointed too much in comparison to the regular tigershark which comes with multiple loadout options.
meleti wrote: Riptides are good enough to take multiples, as many as suits your list. The first Riptide is the best thanks to BNC strat, but the second and third are still tough efficient units and you should always have redundancy in your lists.
If one dies the other becomes just as efficient anyway! Riptides don't live all game anymore :(
Was just considering sniper drones to go after characters or in a ta'u sept to get a few mortals turn 1 on a knight to use the +1 to wound stratagem.
was looking at running 2 tigersharks and cant decide if running a y'vahra or a burst cannon riptide would be better along with marker light support and some stealth suits
IVIOOSE wrote: Has anyone tried a coldstar with the high output burst cannon, x2 burst cannons and ATS for 16 shots that is Mobil and good anti infantry
Didn't the FAQ update change it so that the HOBC + Missile Pod had to stick together? ie, you can't have the HOBC without also taking the missile pod?
IVIOOSE wrote: Has anyone tried a coldstar with the high output burst cannon, x2 burst cannons and ATS for 16 shots that is Mobil and good anti infantry
Didn't the FAQ update change it so that the HOBC + Missile Pod had to stick together? ie, you can't have the HOBC without also taking the missile pod?
yep i did find that in the update again when i checked it.
when equipping a y'vahra with signiture systems like target lock or early warning override do you use the points as if it were a "riptide" or the points cost as "other" ? id does not have the riptide keyword and i did not see it in any of the faq's.
I've used mine in one event, and it put in work in two of the three games (in the other, it got focused down on the first turn before it could do anything and exploded, killing my Coldstar commander...). You do have to play it differently than one of the other suits, partially due to the fact that it lacks the <BATTLESUIT> keyword (meaning no Savior Protocols). Since it does have the <VEHICLE> keyword, it can use the Point Defence Targeting Relay stratagem, plus the Automated Repair System one (works on suits and vehicles). It's one of the Tau's only sources of mortal wounds thanks to the destroyer missiles. Long story short, it has a lot of firepower, but really it is not durable enough for its point cost.
One thing I've been thinking about is taking 3 Stormsurges along with Shadowsun. Getting to call Kauyon twice with that much firepower would be GLORIOUS! 3 of them would come to close to 1300 points, so plenty of room to fit a decent battalion along with them. You don't even need to bring drones like you do with a traditional suit-heavy list (like 3 Riptides and/or Y'vahras). But make sure to bring some markerlights along, as the D-missiles are craptacular without them due to hitting on 6's.
Imma guess you got it with a shield genie and the -1 ap doohikey? It looks like it has a nice mix of anti-big stuff with the main gun and ant-infantry with its copious missiles and whatever support weapon you pick. And of course mortal wound missiles are anti-everything.
IVIOOSE wrote: has anyone ever ran 3 tigersharks? they are basically shooty knights that fly. think it would work or would you not have enough ground support?
A guy at the last big event i went to ran 3 (1 with transport, 2 with extra missiles or something). They did extremely well, but he hated playing them. He prob would have won the event if it wasn't for smash captains and a slight miss on an faq somewhere or something.
Looking to run a tau list along these lines, it should seem pretty straight forward.
Sa’cae Battalion
2x Cadre fireblade w/marker light (42 each)
3x striketeam sashsui w/markerlight (38 each)
3x Farsight marksmen (25 each)
Devil fish (112) this is purely to reduce drops from 16 to 9
T’au Battalion
Cadre fireblade (42) Exemplar of the kauyon, PEC relic, shield drone
Commander (173) Iridium battlesuit, 3x cyclic ion blaster, advanced targeting system, 2x shield drones
Kroot (60) 12 beakies
2x Strike Team (35 each)
Tau Super Heavy detachment
2x Stormsurge w/ Burstcannon, blastcannon, shield generator, advanced targeting system, velocity tracker
1X storm surge w/ burstcannon, pulse driver, advance targeting system, shield generator, velocity tracker
So its all pretty simply what do you guys think. General tactics are get 5x markerlights on two things. I have 9 with a personal re roll each, and the uplinked strat for the last few. Then split them surges between them after getting a single wound form the commander/fire warriors and useing overlapping fields of fire
Hey everyone! I consider myself a competitive player, but not at all costs. Look of the army and the way it plays is also important to me.
Long time ago I used to play Eldar. Got 5000 points of them. Later on I took a break from 40k and sold them. Came back about a year ago. Bought SM because I wasn't sure if I really wanted to come back for longer, so I chose a theoretically cheaper army to start out with. Year passed and here I am. Back deep into 40k hobby playing with an army that not only is on the weaker side, but also is extremely boring to play for me.
I don't want to play Eldar again. Dark Eldar, Tyranids and Tau look interesting to me, and of these three armies Tau seem to have the best balance of strength, good looks and interesting mechanics. Especially I love the look of their suits. I would like to have 1500 points. Read a little bit and made this list:
To get that I would need to buy 1 start collecting, 2 Riptides, 1 Pathfinder box and I would still need 1 Fireblade and 20 fire warriors. I'm not sure if it's best to buy them in separate boxes or get second start collecting and 1 fire warrior box. At least that's the plan to start out with. Later on I'd possibly get Coldstars etc. What do you think about it? That's the competitive version of my 1500 list. In friendly games I'd obviously tone it down a lot.
Has anybody tried a really big squad of crisis suits with a commander to use command and control node?
It's really expensive, but on paper it should do horrendous damage.
9 crisis suits, each with fusion blaster + missile pod + something else.
They will almost certainly obliterate whatever they shoot the blasters at, and at the same time shoot across the table at something else, quite likely obliterating it as well.
Automatically Appended Next Post: yikes, and if you invoke Kauyon!
Alcibiades wrote: Has anybody tried a really big squad of crisis suits with a commander to use command and control node?
It's really expensive, but on paper it should do horrendous damage.
9 crisis suits, each with fusion blaster + missile pod + something else.
They will almost certainly obliterate whatever they shoot the blasters at, and at the same time shoot across the table at something else, quite likely obliterating it as well.
Automatically Appended Next Post: yikes, and if you invoke Kauyon!
Possitioning is the issue, your better off using Farsight and dropzoneclear strategum plus etc etc it creates one heck of a lot of overkill but it's an insane amount of points that needs equal power level on the board.
Necron player here who will soon be playing in a 2v2 tournament with a Tau player.
The armies are max 825 points per player (I know, odd number) and can only be two detachments per player.
My idea was to bring a Tesseract Vault (for those who don't know, a superheavy that is a mortal-wound machine) and some Warriors to protect it.
So, my question to you is: What can my ally get for 825 points worth of solid Tau units?
Note that we still severely lack CP in our army, so a Battalion Detachment would be preferable.
Also, while the Tesseract Vault is an amazing machine that will no doubt draw a lot of attention, it is not created for anti-tank purposes. So some anti-tank would be nice too.
Tau do anti-tank and CP really well. Between a couple fusion Coldstar Commanders and a bunch of Fire Warriors, you should have plenty of threats against heavy targets and hordes alike.
i have almost 10k pts of Tau and I don't know what to do with them.
I've been building up eldar and harlequins for the past year now and I find I'm drawn to their play style more.
I hate that Tau only seems viable by castling up and relying on overlapping buffs. I want to play them the way i've seen in the fluff. fast, tactical strikes, laying traps etc...
I don't understand why all our buffs only happen if no one moves! It seem so counter to tau strategies of the lore.
Also, Crisis suits, hazard suits and ghostkeels seem to have no place now!
Anyone else feel this way?
Any suggestions on list ideas or synergies? My local meta is a mix between tournament players and casuals.
Here's an idea of what I have to work with:
3 Commanders - magnetized for cold star or enforcer
1 old finecast cmdr
Farsight
3 Fireblades
1 Ethereal
Dark Strider
In 7th I played a fairly mobile army centered around deepstriking shadowsun + stealth teams in my opponents deployment zone. I feel your frustration with all our "sit and shoot" rules.
After a bit of a break I've been slowly getting back into 40k with smaller games (around 1k). I'm not exactly sure how well this will scale up, but here goes:
I've had a lot of fun packing darkstrider, some breachers, and pathfinders with rail rifles into a devilfish. They advance up the board with my stealth suits for that awesome overwatch support and then lay into whatever needs killing. You still need some markerlight support to get real nasty but it does have that strike team feel. I was really impressed with the punch from the rail rifles, especially once they have bonuses to wound.
Tyranids (Hive Fleet Kraken):
Flyrant (2x twin Devourer w/BL), -1 to hit relic
Neurothrope
25 Devilgants
20 Genestealers
3 ripper bases
Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon
Pretty bloody game, highlights including the Devilgants mowing down a FW squad (75 shots is brutal) and the Genestealers eating a boatload of For The Greater Good/Volley Fire/ Tau sept overwatch.
Problem was my poor early game strategy (suicide run with the Coldstar vs the Hive Tyrant - didn't manage to cause a single wound). I should have gone after the Tyrannofex (no invuln save, it would have been toast with any luck) and poor dice rolls turn 1 (failing to wound the Fex with my Riptide).
Fun game and I learnt a lot about how powerful the strategems are (on both sides - Single Minded Annihilation is obscene on a big gant blob).
Tyranids (Hive Fleet Kraken):
Flyrant (2x twin Devourer w/BL), -1 to hit relic
Neurothrope
25 Devilgants
20 Genestealers
3 ripper bases
Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon
Pretty bloody game, highlights including the Devilgants mowing down a FW squad (75 shots is brutal) and the Genestealers eating a boatload of For The Greater Good/Volley Fire/ Tau sept overwatch.
Problem was my poor early game strategy (suicide run with the Coldstar vs the Hive Tyrant - didn't manage to cause a single wound). I should have gone after the Tyrannofex (no invuln save, it would have been toast with any luck) and poor dice rolls turn 1 (failing to wound the Fex with my Riptide).
Fun game and I learnt a lot about how powerful the strategems are (on both sides - Single Minded Annihilation is obscene on a big gant blob).
Looks pretty solid, maybe try running shield drones if there's no drone controller around. I'd also put the PEN on a character that lives less dangerously and perhaps keep the Coldstar around the Riptide for a turn 1 'Kau'yon' before flying off to try and assassinate something. Other than that 'uplinked markerlights' is nice if you're going for more than 1 hit on the table and remember to use branched nova charge on the riptide
What point costs and profile do I have to use for the barracuda? FW index or codex?
Asking because of ion cannon. The codex version would make the cuda kinda viable
Aeri wrote: What point costs and profile do I have to use for the barracuda? FW index or codex?
Asking because of ion cannon. The codex version would make the cuda kinda viable
I'm pretty sure you use the Codex cost as its the most updated profile for the weapon
Hey guys quick question, under XV25 Stealth Battlesuits in the codex under abilities it lists Target Lock. Does this mean they automatically come with it or do you have to pay the points for the support system? Thanks in advance.
Crusaderobr wrote: Hey guys quick question, under XV25 Stealth Battlesuits in the codex under abilities it lists Target Lock. Does this mean they automatically come with it or do you have to pay the points for the support system? Thanks in advance.
The shas'vre has the option to take target lock and markerlight. If he does so, he pays the points. The rules for target lock are there just for reference.
mightymconeshot wrote: What is the current Tau Codex looking like? I bought someone's old army for cheap and wondering what builds there for Tau currently.
Fire warriors with cadre fireblades, fusion coldstars or cib enforcers, riptides and y'vahra, broadsides or hammerheads. Salt to taste.
There's also the occasional ghostkeel, aircraft, and stormsurge. But the first batch of units are the most commonly used. Stealth suits occasionally make it in for objective grabbing and screening. Usually you're going to see a Sacea sept detachment for access to their markerlight strat and Tau sept for their +1 wound strat and improved overwatch. Y'vahra want to be Borkan sept.
Anyone want to do the math on a 9 man Farsight Enclaves Crisis Bodyguard team with all plasma ( subtract 1 plasma rifle for a drone controller ) using the drop zone clear and focused fire stratagems in 1 turn at a fully marker lighted target at T7 and T8? Split fire against 3 squads of T4,T5, and T6 with 1 marker light each with just drop zone clear? Shooting and charging in CC? Please and thank you.
I swear im not building a fun Crisis Suit Farsight Enclaves list ( snicker snicker )
Crusaderobr wrote: Anyone want to do the math on a 9 man Farsight Enclaves Crisis Bodyguard team with all plasma ( subtract 1 plasma rifle for a drone controller ) using the drop zone clear and focused fire stratagems in 1 turn at a fully marker lighted target at T7 and T8? Split fire against 3 squads of T4,T5, and T6 with 1 marker light each with just drop zone clear? Shooting and charging in CC? Please and thank you.
I swear im not building a fun Crisis Suit Farsight Enclaves list ( snicker snicker )
Crusaderobr wrote: Anyone want to do the math on a 9 man Farsight Enclaves Crisis Bodyguard team with all plasma ( subtract 1 plasma rifle for a drone controller ) using the drop zone clear and focused fire stratagems in 1 turn at a fully marker lighted target at T7 and T8? Split fire against 3 squads of T4,T5, and T6 with 1 marker light each with just drop zone clear? Shooting and charging in CC? Please and thank you.
I swear im not building a fun Crisis Suit Farsight Enclaves list ( snicker snicker )
Planning on doing something similar with a 1k list but just going for 3 with full shooty drone load-out, burst cannons and ATS. They'll be my anti-chaff superstars.
What are the thoughts on the R'arna? Seems like a good stand and shoot option and tough at T8 with drone support tanking wounds. Seems perfect for countering things meta lists like custodes and DE.
Crusaderobr wrote: Anyone want to do the math on a 9 man Farsight Enclaves Crisis Bodyguard team with all plasma ( subtract 1 plasma rifle for a drone controller ) using the drop zone clear and focused fire stratagems in 1 turn at a fully marker lighted target at T7 and T8? Split fire against 3 squads of T4,T5, and T6 with 1 marker light each with just drop zone clear? Shooting and charging in CC? Please and thank you.
I swear im not building a fun Crisis Suit Farsight Enclaves list ( snicker snicker )
696 points for a 9 man plasma with drone controller or 878 points for all CIB with drone controller. Gonna keep the cost down for other stuff in the army.
Plasma is one of the worst options in our book. You'll keep the cost down but also the effectiveness. Crisis suits are hideously expensive already, so going straight plasma is a real kick in your list's nuts. Cut suits before changing weapons.
Elric Greywolf wrote: Has anyone noticed that drones can't be used to pawn off psychic mortal wounds?
Has that always been the case or is this a new thing?
Its a clarification as far as I know. I guess it makes sense however I do not like it,
Since stimulant injectors as wargear bit the dust Tau just have to take mortal wounds on the chin and keep on shooting.
In all honesty the mortal wounds mechanics need work, but on the topic of drones I find I have so few I keep them for D3 or Dd6 or such weapons over a single mortal wound.
Tau actually got out of the FAQ relatively well I think.
I fight an IG opponent pretty consistently, and he typically fields a baneblade variant (almost always with trojan support vehicle), a basilisk wing, several Leman Russes, hell hounds and guardsmen for days. I don't have access to FW units, but am looking for ways to succeed.
One of the less conventional ideas i was playing around with was using piranhas to try and cover as much ground as possible, and charge into the Leman Russes or basilisks to try and remove their shooting for a turn, and disembarking the drones to continue/spread the harassment for a turn or 2.
I figure the quad-fusion cold stars are going to be hitting (and dying) to the baneblade variant
for the sake of objectives, we roll at random for which mission etc, so no consistent PTFO to bring victory
what other tactics/strategies have you guys used in the T'au vs IG matchup to bring sweet sweet victory?
Does anyone think that the Seismic Destabilizer relic (use in the shooting phase on 1 infantry unit with the benefit of cover within 12", roll a dice for every model in the unit, 6s cause mortal wounds) just got a lot better post FAQ?
While I find Tau usually go second, if Tau do go first and your opponent uses Prepared Positions stratagem, the Seismic Destabilizer has the option to effect any infantry unit in an opponent's army. A coldstar with the Seismic Destabilizer could easily rush up the board and use it on a blob of 20 genestealers or 40 cultists. You could get a few mortal wounds in that case. Not sure how competitive it is to suicide run a coldstar for a few cultist kills, but in the right circumstances you could use fusion on something else and its a bit of fun.
Atticus wrote: Does anyone think that the Seismic Destabilizer relic (use in the shooting phase on 1 infantry unit with the benefit of cover within 12", roll a dice for every model in the unit, 6s cause mortal wounds) just got a lot better post FAQ?
While I find Tau usually go second, if Tau do go first and your opponent uses Prepared Positions stratagem, the Seismic Destabilizer has the option to effect any infantry unit in an opponent's army. A coldstar with the Seismic Destabilizer could easily rush up the board and use it on a blob of 20 genestealers or 40 cultists. You could get a few mortal wounds in that case. Not sure how competitive it is to suicide run a coldstar for a few cultist kills, but in the right circumstances you could use fusion on something else and its a bit of fun.
Putting a commander, of which we are limited in number, within 12" of a unit of genestealers doesn't seem like the smartest move, especially when on average you're only going to cause around 3 mortal wounds.
Atticus wrote: Does anyone think that the Seismic Destabilizer relic (use in the shooting phase on 1 infantry unit with the benefit of cover within 12", roll a dice for every model in the unit, 6s cause mortal wounds) just got a lot better post FAQ?
While I find Tau usually go second, if Tau do go first and your opponent uses Prepared Positions stratagem, the Seismic Destabilizer has the option to effect any infantry unit in an opponent's army. A coldstar with the Seismic Destabilizer could easily rush up the board and use it on a blob of 20 genestealers or 40 cultists. You could get a few mortal wounds in that case. Not sure how competitive it is to suicide run a coldstar for a few cultist kills, but in the right circumstances you could use fusion on something else and its a bit of fun.
Putting a commander, of which we are limited in number, within 12" of a unit of genestealers doesn't seem like the smartest move, especially when on average you're only going to cause around 3 mortal wounds.
Well when you put it like that...
Joking aside, yes I agree it's complete suicide as I said, probably would only be good if you wanted to help wipe a blob of cultists off he board before they Tide of Traitors. Just having a look at any more counter cover options for Tau and relic to take after puretide engram chip was nerfed.
Personally I'm still taking the Puretide chip. I never get a huge number of CP back from it since it needs 6's anyway, so the nerf is less harsh to it. If I want another one, I usually go with the T'au Sept one (Vectored Thrusters, or whatever it's called).
After playing and losing a game with my mixed T'au/Bor'kan sept list, I've come to the conclusion that mixed sept lists don't work very well, if for no other reason than too many abilities are sept locked. Ethereals' Invocation of the Elements and markerlights are probably the only things that aren't. So this means that I'll only be running my Y'vahra if I run my entire list as Bor'kan, as I found it to be pretty clunky trying to keep specific drones with it (and others for my T'au Sept Riptides). My new list idea is to run 3 Riptides and a Stormsurge. 2 Battalions means I'll have all the CP I probably need, plus the Puretide chip to hopefully get me my max 1 CP regen per round. Stormsurges probably aren't optimal due to the lack of the Battlesuit keyword (and the fact that we can get S5 shooting cheaper elsewhere), but I really like the Pulse Driver Cannon for its range and the fact that it hits like a truck as long as you don't roll a 1 for number of shots.
Got a 1500 point tournament coming up soon and still deciding on a couple of lists. I have one
Iist based around 3 riptides and a commander, another's based around 3 commanders and two riptides or this one.
How does this look like for a two riptide list? I know knights will be floating around in about 25% of the armies at least.
I pretty much always take either an Enforcer or Coldstar Commander (sometimes one of each), so I never have the option of taking an Iridium suit. Here's hoping Crisis suits get a big price drop in Chapter Approved so that I can actually take them without gimping myself.
Is it worth taking Vectored Manoeuvring Thrusters with the Fly nerf? I would normally spend the CP to add this to my quad-fusion commander, so he could shoot and jump behind a wall or something like that. Now, that is not an option, so do you think it is worth it just to put a little extra space between your commander and your opponent?
Mud Turkey 13 wrote: Is it worth taking Vectored Manoeuvring Thrusters with the Fly nerf? I would normally spend the CP to add this to my quad-fusion commander, so he could shoot and jump behind a wall or something like that. Now, that is not an option, so do you think it is worth it just to put a little extra space between your commander and your opponent?
If you can get him out of charge range, or at least make it a long-bomb charge, or jump behind a screening unit like Stealth Suits (you just can't jump directly over them), then yes it's worth it.
Hey. Took 2nd place at The Harbor Heresy GT. 30 players, 5 rounds, ITC missions. Lost a match to the guy that took 5th but otherwise was able to do EXTREMELY well.
One BIZARRE thing is that the Kroot Shaper doesnt have Vanguard which was pointed out to me. Has anyone seen a clarification on why? You basically end up leaving him behind or trickling guys back, ork style. Anything on this? Its not like hes critical( i have him just to get a Brigade) but i'm just kinda shocked.
I was wondering. Is the 3 sniper drones/1 firesight marksman box the only way to get firesight marksmen? It would cost a lot to buy 3 such boxes just to get 3 minor characters... Do you convert them, buy from third party manufacturers or just buy from GW?
I was wondering. Is the 3 sniper drones/1 firesight marksman box the only way to get firesight marksmen? It would cost a lot to buy 3 such boxes just to get 3 minor characters... Do you convert them, buy from third party manufacturers or just buy from GW?
It’s a really easy conversion...there are lots of examples out on google
Does the Iridium upgrade take a support system slot? It seems like it should, being listed as a support system, but Battlescribe for some reason disagrees.
Been looking at starting Tau, already have 30,000 points of Imperium so want to try some Xenos. I've come up with a 1500 point list but would like some ideas about the following options before I commit to anything.
Pathfinder weapons: The Rail Rifle and Ion Rifle look pretty decent but you have to swap out your Marketlights to take them, is this a useful trade at all?
Remora Drones: I'm thinking of taking 2 as an escort for my Coldstar. They're fast and while they're not massively tough, they have a built-in -1 to hit. For 91pts you get 2x Burst Cannons and 2x Seeker Missiles but they also prevent your Coldstar from being targeted as they'll be closer. If I take them I can drop a Fusion Blaster on the Coldstar to take a Drone Controller, so the Remoras are now at BS3+. I understand Remoras aren't the most competitive choice but can they perform this escort duty at all?
Remote Sensor Towers: Probably overlooked, but 40pts for a tower which can drop 3 Markerlight counters a turn isn't bad in my view, plus it'll often be overlooked by the enemy. If they commit to destroying it, then congrats, you've wasted a lot of firepower to destroy a 40pt tower.
I personally like the Remora Drones as Ballistic escorts for a Coldstar. The movement and the fact that only Fly can assault them has helped.
I wouldn't say they are competitive due to cost and people go with safer bets elsewhere, but for Rule of Cool they are awesome!
Pathfinders - this really depends on your list and how often you use Stratagems. I use converted Firesight Marksmen like a crack addict as my markerlight source with a strong use of the markerlight stratagem.
Getting back into Tau for Xmas, getting the start collecting set plus a box of pathfinders, already got a squad of fire warriors from years ago. What kind of units should I be staying away from nowadays?? I used to run double hammerheads years ago in 5th edition and they were incredible.
Thinking of going in a recon theme with some pathfinders and stealth suits possibly even some piranahs if any of that stuff isnt completely garbage.
Rogerio134134 wrote: Getting back into Tau for Xmas, getting the start collecting set plus a box of pathfinders, already got a squad of fire warriors from years ago. What kind of units should I be staying away from nowadays?? I used to run double hammerheads years ago in 5th edition and they were incredible.
Thinking of going in a recon theme with some pathfinders and stealth suits possibly even some piranahs if any of that stuff isnt completely garbage.
Ironically the iconic crisis suit is unplayable overcosted currently.
Devilfish are pretty bad
Hammerheads have mostly been replaced in competitive Tau lists.
But they're definitely playable casual.
Da-Rock wrote: Good news is that the Stealth suits are very solid. I see a lot of lists that flood the field with Drones, but I'm not a fan.
I tend to go big with 2 Riptides, Stormsurg and GhostKeel as my base and fill the rest, but I must admit that the basic Tau troops are good.
Glad that's the case, was going down the fluff route that my commander is well known for his tendency to use stealth units and deception in his battle plan, definitely having some stealth suits and pathfinders.
I just went 2-3 with Tau at a GT. With better tactics, I could have won one if not both of my last two games. I ran the following list:
Spoiler:
Battalion Detachment (T'au Sept)
Fireblade (Warlord: TU,D)
Fireblade: Puretide Chip
7 man Strike Team
5 man Strike Team
5 man Strike Team
3x Riptide: HBC, 2x SMS, Target Lock, Velocity Tracker
3x 6 Shield Drones
3 Broadsides (single unit): HYMP, 2x SMS, Velocity Tracker
Battalion Detachment 2 (T'au Sept)
Coldstar Commander: 4x Fusion Blaster
Darkstrider
3x 5 man Strike Team
Auxiliary Support Detachment (Sa'cea Sept)
Ethereal: Hover Drone
Game 1 saw me facing pure Astra Militarum (Catachans). The list was a mechanized one, with several characters and squads in Chimeras, plus some Leman Russ tanks. Even in this game I played pretty sloppy and chose poorly on my secondaries (the event used ITC missions), but I did manage to squeak out the win. In game 2, I faced what was almost a mirror match for me, a Tau list with 3 Riptides. He had no commanders, and ran a pair of Rail Rifle Broadsides, plus a lot more drones than me. I won decisively due to some questionable targeting choices on my opponent's part, but it was a fairly tough game and certainly no blowout. In game 3, I faced one of my own club's players who is ranked fairly highly in the ITC standings, and he was rocking a Chaos soup list with 3 units of Tzaangors, a number of Tsons characters, a big blob of Alpha Legion cultists, Abaddon, and a small detachment of Daemons (Poxbringer, Slaanesh Herald, 3 units of Nurglings). I got my butt kicked in this one since my opponent used wrap tricks to lock my Fire Warriors in combat and prevent me from falling back. If I had gone first, I might have had a chance, but as it was, no such luck. I faced Tyranids in game 4. 2 Battalions with 4 Neurothropes as HQ's, 4 units of Rippers and 2 20-man Genestealer units as troops, and 2 big units of Hive Guard and 2 Exocrines, plus a unit of 3 Venomthropes. I got first turn and managed to kill the Venomthropes early on, but I really didn't kill enough else and I didn't hold the objectives well at all during the game. It was a fairly exciting game that saw most of both armies get annihilated, but alas I came up short due to not holding objectives well. That's one thing I'll say about ITC missions; you absolutely have to be able to hold multiple objectives if you want a chance of winning. Anyway, game 5 had me facing Drukhari with a Supreme Command of Alaitoc Psykers in a Wave Serpent. This loss was the most shameful, as it was mainly due to very poor target selection on my first turn. I chose to shoot everyting at that stupid Serpent, even popping some strats on my units, and I still didn't kill it. It just went downhill from there and I lost badly. If I had shot my stuff at the Venoms instead, it might have been a very different game, as my opponent would have struggled to deal with my drone support (which the Venoms cleared pretty easily).
My takeaways from this event:
-With Tau, target priority is key. Don't do what I did in game 5 (and to a lesser extent in game 1) and shoot stuff that isn't that much of a threat. Focus on stuff that can clear your drones, or stuff that can kill your big suits.
-Riptides are a must take unit. They are fairly fast moving and put out a massive number of shots with their HBC (if you Nova charge it). I'd say make room for 3 in any Tau list.
-I don't think the Sa'cea strat is worth taking an Aux Support for. There were times I could have used the extra CP I would have had if I'd just made that Ethereal T'au Sept. I did use the Sa'cea strat a couple of times, but it really didn't to much that I needed. Now a Sa'cea Vanguard with 3 Firesight Marksmen, on the other hand, is probably worth taking.
-Figure out what the biggest, most dangerous target is on your opponent's side, and use the Focused Fire on that. I still need to get the hang of figuring out what's worth popping that strat on. Certainly not a damn Wave Serpent that's -2 to hit (sorry I keep harping on that, but I'm kicking myself a lot for that one).
-As I said in the summary above, you really need to be able to claim mid-field objectives and try to hold multiple ones in ITC missions. I played way too static in my games, and it cost me. It is a good idea to keep your units together for the supporting fire if you get charged, but against another shooty army don't worry about that. Start them close together to benefit from Kauyon or Mont'ka, but be prepared to split them up if you need to grab objectives.
-T'au Sept is probably the best Tenet to take. My round 2 opponent was running Bor'kan sept, but he lacked the T'au stratagem and Darkstrider, which are both things you want in your toolbox in a TAC list. Bor'kan isn't terrible, and it's the only way to run a Y'vahra or Blastcannon Stormsurge, but T'au is better, I think. YMMV, of course.
Overall I think I had a solid list, but I really need to learn to play it. I probably should get a few more drones, plus a couple more Firesight Marksmen and some Stealth Suits in there, but I'd have to drop the Broadsides for that, and I'm reluctant to get rid of that much of my firepower.
How do you field the Coldstar now that drones cannot manta strike turn one anymore to provide ablative wounds for him?
I was thinking about going 1 x Supernova Launcher, 2x air burst fraglauncher and ATS and be annoying as possible while staying out of range/sight.
Coupled with Bork'an warlord trait (reroll number of shots) and Seeker of Perfection Stratagem (+ 1 to wound on 6+ hit rolls) this could result in a nasty package, even though the Bork'an tenet is wasted on the commander.
Remoras are another option, but I'm not too keen on spending 100 bucks on a couple of those.
I tend to keep the Coldstar next to my big stuff (Riptides, Broadsides) on the first turn and declare Kauyon (or Mont'ka, if the situation calls for it). On the first turn his short-range weapons won't have a target, so I pop the C&C Node stratagem on the Broadsides. On later turns, I just kind of use him as a cruise missile to assassinate a character or a tank or something. He usually bites it immediately after, but more often than not he kills his target. That 40" move (move + advance) catches some opponents off guard, although experienced players can usually keep their characters protected.
I like the Supernova/AFP loadout in theory, but the Bor'kan strat is not worth the CP spent on it IMO, since you have to pop it before you roll the number of shots (meaning if you roll a 6 it is wasted). Really AFP's are not that great since their damage output is very swingy at best.
ZergSmasher wrote: I tend to keep the Coldstar next to my big stuff (Riptides, Broadsides) on the first turn and declare Kauyon (or Mont'ka, if the situation calls for it). On the first turn his short-range weapons won't have a target, so I pop the C&C Node stratagem on the Broadsides. On later turns, I just kind of use him as a cruise missile to assassinate a character or a tank or something. He usually bites it immediately after, but more often than not he kills his target. That 40" move (move + advance) catches some opponents off guard, although experienced players can usually keep their characters protected.
I like the Supernova/AFP loadout in theory, but the Bor'kan strat is not worth the CP spent on it IMO, since you have to pop it before you roll the number of shots (meaning if you roll a 6 it is wasted). Really AFP's are not that great since their damage output is very swingy at best.
Yeah, after reading the FAQ I changed my mind on the Bork'an Stratagem, too. The Vior'la tenet and Warlord trait seem to be the best option for this loadout, shooting at 2+ after advancing and getting an additional CP for the inevitable re-roll on the Supernova Launcher.
I use the Bork'an Sept for Stormsurges exclusively. That extra range for the short range cannon is a beautiful thing!
It's funny how different a list will look between Tournament play and Casual play......(ie: I never kit anything with 4 of the same weapons and the 40" Move and Burn would have everyone hate my poor little blue guys for the local gaming group! :-)
In Tournaments....having the ability to reach out and touch pretty much anything with x4 Meltas hitting on 2's, rerolling and all of the other possibilities is pure Gold!
I know absolutely nothing about playing Tau so please forgive the laziness of this post. I’ve always loved the look of the army and there’s a beautifully painted eBay lot we’ll priced. I’m just wondering if the below could be formed with some editions into a competitive force or if it’s way off base. Here’s the list of models and points without war gear. How would you approach it from here? In terms of what’s usable and building up to. 1750/2000 points
2 x Ethereal on Hover Drone = 50 each so 100
6 x Crisis Battle Suits (Magnetized with all weapons Magnetized) = 42 each so 252
18 x Drones = (This is on average out of the 14 types of drones) = 11.3 each so 203.4 total (roughly)
20 x Fire Warriors (10 as Strike Team and 10 As Breacher Team) = 8 points each so 160
1 x XV95 Battle Suit + Drones (Magnetized For Both Weapons) = 82
1 x KV128 Stormsurge (Removable and magnetized Shoulder Cannon) = 180
That's not bad at all. It would be a good for casual lists easily and with some fine tuning you could get a competitive list too.
Ethereals - I like em and two gives you good coverage for their buffs to infantry and Battlesuits.
Crisis Suits - The Crisis suits currently aren't great in competitive lists until they get a price drop.
Drones - 18 is a solid number of drones. I make do with around 12 well put together ones and 8 piles of junk....:-)
Fire Warriors - Love em, but 20 is low. 10 Beachers in a Devilfish transport is solid, but I would "eventually" add another 20 Fire Warriors and 20 Kroot.
Ghostkeel - Love it more than I should. I modeled it with both main weapons because I didn't like the look with just one, but it always does well.
Stormsurge - Not used as often in tournaments, but I play mine as often as I can fit it into a list, (I like to surround it with Sniper drones and give it a Drone Controller to boost Ballastic Skill.
Commander - The bread and butter of the Tau. You will always find a place for it in your lists.
Cadre Fireblades - I like them because they are cheap and go well with Breachers, but I prefer an Ethereal over them if I am not going Commander Battle suit.
Stealth Battlesuits - My favorite Kill Team guys. 3 is low, but they are actually used fairly often in lists.
Support Turrets - if I play Power Level I add them every time, if not I tend to use just two.
Any ideas on how to arm battlesuits? Mrs had bought me a start collecting set and some pathfinders for Xmas to start me off.
I always used to run with 3 units of 3 suits, 2 with PR and MP the other squad with double MP and I also ran 2 bodyguards with FB ! Absolutely love battlesuits but have no idea how to arm them. I will be magnetising bit still be nice to have some ideas. I looked at dual plasmas to keep them cheap.
Rogerio134134 wrote: Any ideas on how to arm battlesuits? Mrs had bought me a start collecting set and some pathfinders for Xmas to start me off.
I always used to run with 3 units of 3 suits, 2 with PR and MP the other squad with double MP and I also ran 2 bodyguards with FB ! Absolutely love battlesuits but have no idea how to arm them. I will be magnetising bit still be nice to have some ideas. I looked at dual plasmas to keep them cheap.
Suits are in a pretty bad spot right now due to their points and just how much more cost effective commanders are in relation to them. If I was going to bring a suit squad I would put three flamers on each one and just run them around burning everything. Nine D6 auto-hits is pretty good, and it negates their poor ballistic skill.
I am sure the numbers have been run before, but how much better would three suits be with two flamers and an ATS on each versus just having three flamers on each one?
On a different note, is the popular opinion on fixing suits just a point reduction to them? I would actually prefer to see them go to a 3+ ballistic skill rather than a point drop. I just think it is so weird that these super high-tech weapon platforms hit so poorly without marker lights. It just does not make sense to me from a narrative perspective.
Rogerio134134 wrote: Any ideas on how to arm battlesuits? Mrs had bought me a start collecting set and some pathfinders for Xmas to start me off.
I always used to run with 3 units of 3 suits, 2 with PR and MP the other squad with double MP and I also ran 2 bodyguards with FB ! Absolutely love battlesuits but have no idea how to arm them. I will be magnetising bit still be nice to have some ideas. I looked at dual plasmas to keep them cheap.
Suits are in a pretty bad spot right now due to their points and just how much more cost effective commanders are in relation to them. If I was going to bring a suit squad I would put three flamers on each one and just run them around burning everything. Nine D6 auto-hits is pretty good, and it negates their poor ballistic skill.
I am sure the numbers have been run before, but how much better would three suits be with two flamers and an ATS on each versus just having three flamers on each one?
On a different note, is the popular opinion on fixing suits just a point reduction to them? I would actually prefer to see them go to a 3+ ballistic skill rather than a point drop. I just think it is so weird that these super high-tech weapon platforms hit so poorly without marker lights. It just does not make sense to me from a narrative perspective.
Nice I will be magnetising and have loads of spare weapons so I'll give the flamers a go!
I find it bizarre the elite unit of the tau is only bs4+ it's really strange. My tactic used to be to deploy 2 tetras which would zip around pinging marker lights, which when I last played were incredible. I would then jump forward with the suits and smash the enemy with plasma and rockets.
I don't think you could adjust the BS of Crisis suits without doing the same for all of the suits, including Stealth, Ghostkeels, and Riptides, and that would require them to be somewhat higher costed. Dropping Crisis to 20 ppm (base cost without weapons), or 25 ppm and reduce the cost of the weapons themselves, would probably fix them. They'd be sort of like Space Marine Primaris Inceptors then in terms of ability.
Actually, what might help in addition to a significant cost reduction of the Crisis body itself, is to give each weapon two point costs: one for regular suits, and one for Commanders. After all, a Commander can get more mileage out of each weapon due to better BS, and there is precedent for doing this. Space Marines pay more to equip their characters with Thunder Hammers or Storm Shields than they do for their regular joes.
Has anyone considered a true horde army with Tau? Now that fire warriors and ork boyz cost the same amount I want to consider the idea - even if just to rule it out as insane.
Here's a potential 1750pt list I put together to see what it looked like:
Battalion 1
Aun'Va with two guards
Fireblade with shield drone
Commander with 4 CIBs and vectored thrusters
6x12 Fire warriors. Markerlights for Shas'uis
Battalion 2
Darkstrider
Fireblade with marker drone
6x12 Fire Warriors. Markerlights for Shas'uis
Riptide with HBC, 2SMS, ATC and TL
So the basic premise is to deploy the 144 fire warriors as densely as possible around all the characters. Aun'va gives them all FNP and stops them from running away too much (while being extremely hard to snipe). Darkstrider adds the crucial ability to fall back and shoot.
The commander and riptide are there to go and attack if needed (and possible). The riptide will likely stay in manta strike a lot against people with a lot of AT. I'd actually consider swapping it out for some bodyguard suits, so as to protect my characters even more, but they seem really fragile.
What do you think? I'm not sure it's actually good, but it looks like a pretty hard counter to some people. Charging anything would be kind of a challenge,
One major concern is that it could be a fairly boring list to play - and to paint. I currently own something like 75 fire warriors but not many of them are painted, and doing another 120 or so doesn't hugely appeal!
So would dropping the crisis suits to a base of ~30 points bring them back into the "useful" status, or are they still going to remain in the "overly costed" box?
hvg3akaek wrote: So would dropping the crisis suits to a base of ~30 points bring them back into the "useful" status, or are they still going to remain in the "overly costed" box?
Dropping the minimum squad size might help too; a Monat with three flamers to drop in and clear an objective might be a gamble worth taking. Throwing 3 suits (a significant % of your army) is not.
Weapons need two profiles - for crisis/stealth suits and for everything else. A gun is obviously better on a character with 2+ bs than on a crisis suit.
It’s rumoured that the cost of a crisis suit is coming down to around 30 in CA. That would help but isn’t evnough without cheaper guns.
Jadenim wrote: Dropping the minimum squad size might help too; a Monat with three flamers to drop in and clear an objective might be a gamble worth taking. Throwing 3 suits (a significant % of your army) is not.
Given the incoming changes to deep strike, not being able to flame stuff until at least turn 3 doesn't seem very useful. If the rumor is right, triple flamer monats would ring in at just under 60 points, get 10 hits, 5-6 wounds and 2-4 casualties vs most infantry. That's not clearing anything. You'd still need 3 of them to have a good chance of roasting a 10 man squad off the board in one turn of shooting.
OTOH a unit with triple Burst Cannon, not deep striking, is killing things turn 1. Averaging 18 hits and probably 12 wounds without markerlights, they'll cripple or eliminate a minimum sized squad every turn. Maybe 55-ish point burst cannon Crisis Suits might be worth it? 165 points for 36 S5 shots doesn't quite compete with a 12-man Strike Squad with Cadre Fireblade support but it's got its own unique advantages.
I really like crisis with 3 cibs or 2cibs 1fb. They just get the job done, are mobile and resilient with some drones.
They have always been a unit I could deploy to achieve certain goal as an independent unit.
Really appreciate the points drop.
I like the Ion Raker for the extra range, but now that the GK -1 to hit works outside of 6" instead of 12", the Fusion collider also works. Anecdoatally, i have never managed to get it to pull off more than 1 whole damage..
People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.
ZergSmasher wrote: Sounds about right. That's why Crisis suits are never used in competitive play. They are overcosted by a huge margin.
This. Add in losing core abilities (JSJ) which were vital to their method of play and you have a situation where one of the iconic units of the army has no role. Commanders are more accurate for high damage low shot guns, fire warriors are cheaper for S5 shooting and just as accurate, etc.
Klone12 wrote: People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.
What's up with that ?
Hammerheads fall into the 'not bad at all' category, while the tournament players are looking for 'really good' units.
IIRC Warhammer TV Dan had a tournament army of 3 Stormsurges and 3 Hammerheads.
Klone12 wrote: People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.
What's up with that ?
IMHO it's a straight up lack of durability, with the new 2CP cover save they might be better, but they have good damage potential, it's just that they are incredibly easy to focus a decent chuck of their damage potential away.
Loose longstrike and they are much less effective. They can't benifit from drones and lack support systems like suits.
I played a guy with multiple hammerheads using my knights at Heat 1 of the UKGT. Tabled him, pretty easily.
The very harsh reality that right now vehicles without invulnerable saves are just very little use, with the power of weapons that exist. At the London GT I played an IG player who said that he'd gone the whole tournament without getting to fire a shot with Pask in all 5 games.
A mode llike Longstrike or Pask will attract unsustainable amounts of hatred - which is quite reasonable due to how much damage they can do. The problem is that they are defenseless and very difficult to hide.
Klone12 wrote: People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.
What's up with that ?
Castellan is up with that. Ionheads are nuts unless meta is dominated by a knight that kills two per turn pretty reliably. Helverins help too.
Pre-knights they were seen a lot. Their damage output hasn't changed, but meta at the moment is unfavourable for them to shine.
Mandragola wrote: One major concern is that it could be a fairly boring list to play - and to paint. I currently own something like 75 fire warriors but not many of them are painted, and doing another 120 or so doesn't hugely appeal!
I don't have the models - and probably never will - but I have been speculating on something like this.
Not convinced by marker lights on the Shas'uis. Perks - they can't just get nuked off the table like Pathfinders or Drones.
Cons, you have a good chance not to get 5 marker lights even with 12 shots - and you wouldn't get them until at least half your army has fired anyway. So it seems like a waste of points to me.
But if you are embracing infantry spam I don't think there's anything wrong with taking 30 pathfinders. If they die, they die.
I'm thinking something like this:
Commander 4 CIBs.
Fireblade.
60 Fire Warriors
Fireblade
Ethereal
60 Fire Warriors
30 Pathfinders
Riptide.
I think you then have about 100+ points left to spend on more fire warriors, or some drones etc.
The issue you have is whether a single riptide is worth it - you could however cut out say 15 pathfinders and 10 fire warriors and get another riptide. (Not sure why I am speculating about a list I'll never play - but sure is the lure of theory hammer.)
You could also say the Riptides are going against the theme. After all moar infantry=moar problems.
If you can go with a triple battalion you could have 1 commander, 3 fireblades, 2 ethereals, 30 pathfinders and 160 fire warriors. With 25~ points left over.
Now I am not sure how fun 200~ bodies worth of Tau would be to play (although to some extent a castle is a castle) - but given the comically broken level of overwatch this would put out it would seem to just break certain melee armies. Hello Genestealers, meet 150-200 S5 shots hitting on 5s potentially rerolling 1s.
Hey hey, we got some price drops! Quick thoughts on the CA leaks:
Missile pods might be useful on Commanders now! I think I'll still take the newly-discounted fusions, but at least it's a viable option.
Cheaper Broadsides is a huge development. They were sort of in a glass cannon niche before, and while they're still there, a 25pt drop makes them far more workable. I'll be bringing them to most games, I think.
Flamer Crisis suits are back with a vengeance. A unit of 3 is great cover for just about anything you want to push forward, and your opponent basically has to deal with it ASAP, or he eats 9d6 hits the following turn. For 135pts, that sounds pretty okay.
Gun drones are cheaper. I dig it. I think 10 pts is an appropriate cost for them.
Ghostkeels got a bit of a price cut, making them pretty nasty for pushing board presence. They were already effective, so that 10-15pt discount feels good. With the massive flamer suit buff, I see very aggressive lists gaining popularity.
Skyrays...meh. Without changes to seekers, they're still trash.
Plasma, Piranhas, and Devilfish still aren't good.
I think broadsides wrapped in drones is now a good choice.
Crisis have probably gone from bad to acceptable, <70% of their previous price point is a pretty solid reduction. The less popular weapons have also gone down too. We shall see how this affects their usage. My first thoughts are as a battery with triple missile pods is a reasonable alternative to HYMP broadsides. The quad-pod commander also fits a T1 kau'yon play better than the quad fusion coldstar.
Piranhas are now cheaper speedbumps, devilfish will still be invisible.
Suddenly Tau have a bit more flavour but none of the core problems have been fixed.
John Prins wrote: 27 point Crisis Suits actually give me a reason to assemble my SC Crisis Teams.
Triple Burst Cannon might be fun as well. I may have to break down and magnetize stuff.
I like double missle pod with shield gen. Really tough unit for the points with basically 6 auto cannons in a 3 man squad. Could also roll with mixed loads.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also I disagree about skyrays. They aren't bad at all for what you pay now.
BoomWolf wrote: Missiles on crisis, even with the discount, is absurd.
Its not competing with broadsides, nor with commanders. at all.
The only thing crisis are good for is budget weapons like plasma, burst or flamers.
And honestly, even that's a bit questionable.
I wish I could disagree, but I think your correct, they are still a nice flavour unit in casual play, but without JSJ they are too short ranged and slow to be a turn 1 threat and manat strike means you need to realy hit like a train turn 2 and at BS4 they won't.
Still too dependent on support thats better spent on the heavy lifting units.
Also does anyone have any of the Forgeworld models points changes? I don't remember seeing any, which is ludicrous as they have buffed units that were better than FW before these new points reductions.
Nothing really meaningful in FW changes for us.
Heck, even tetras are unchanged somehow, and they are not even worth half their price.
Ralari's drops cost a bit less, he himself is unchanged. (drones are 13 each rather than 20 each. so 14 point saved. still overpriced.)
Hazards down to 40 base. maybe viable?
Hammerheads down to 100 base cost, so still meh, especially considering the missile variant needs to compete with 35 broadside base costs now.
Remora got tuned to 30-not sure if worth it even at that cost. (54 with guns) its mere 8 S5Ap0 shots at 36". its only value I see is as escorts to a coldstar...
Anything else that changed is too big to matter.
Seeing the FW changes across several books, its obvious the FW section of GW is still non-functioning.
BoomWolf wrote: Missiles on crisis, even with the discount, is absurd.
Its not competing with broadsides, nor with commanders. at all.
The only thing crisis are good for is budget weapons like plasma, burst or flamers.
And honestly, even that's a bit questionable.
Why is it absurd? The broadside only puts out 8 missile pod shots and 8 weaker smart missile shots which is only 16shots. The crisis 3 man team put out 18 missile pod shots. Plus you can get a larger squad of Crisis and give the entire squad reroll miss and reroll wounds. It looks to me like it is very much competing against missile broadsides as those missile pod Crisis teams can wipe out very large targets in turn 1 in 1 volley. Points per heavy missile looks to work out better on Crisis over Broadsides.
You also missed Cyclic Ion Blasters possible the best weapon to use on Crisis far better then plasma, burst or flamers.
Pottsey wrote: Why is it absurd? The broadside only puts out 8 missile pod shots and 8 weaker smart missile shots which is only 16shots. The crisis 3 man team put out 18 missile pod shots. Plus you can get a larger squad of Crisis and give the entire squad reroll miss and reroll wounds. It looks to me like it is very much competing against missile broadsides as those missile pod Crisis teams can wipe out very large targets in turn 1 in 1 volley. Points per heavy missile looks to work out better on Crisis over Broadsides.
You also missed Cyclic Ion Blasters possible the best weapon to use on Crisis far better then plasma, burst or flamers.
Its because unless I am doing something wrong a Broadside with missiles and ATS now costs 121 points.
Whereas three triple missile crisis suits costs 216.
If you were to say ditch the ATS (don't) you could almost get 2 broadsides for the cost of 3 missile crisis suits.18 missiles, vs 16 missiles plus 16 smart missile shots. Also a better save and more combined wounds. The broadsides have the downside of being heavy but that's about it.
By my mathhammer at least the pod (either 3 straight up, or 2 with ATS) suffers from a real absence of optimal targets. The triple pod gets good scores against Ravagers - which is nice I guess - and as you say, Ions are better.
The problem with crisis suits is finding the sweet spot between doing damage yourself and not offering your opponent a points pinata. Crisis suits with pods or ion blasters offer an efficient return for almost every unit in the game. You can cover them with hordes of drones - but that is expensive. Would manta striking in with 9 Ion shots for a bit under 250 points be "worth it"? I'm not convinced in a world where apparently Ravagers are "fine".
I think the changes have made Crisis suits less of a handicap if you want to bring them along to casual games - tbf the plasma variant is quite good against MEQ armies (if you have a friend who plays Primaris etc) - but I am not convinced they are any closer to being a competitive tournament choice.
My "try to make it work" unit is the Piranha. With a fusion blaster you pay 7 points more than the equivalent crisis suit. You lose a point of armour but gain 3 wounds. At the same time you have double the speed and when it dies you get 1-2 drones who can keep grabbing objectives. Its not a beat stick, but in terms of winning games it could have a place.
The Piranha might actually be worth considering, still probably won't be great-but being far faster than a crisis has uses.
Crisis point drop does not fix their inherit issue in 8th-they got nothing special going on.
Not mobile, not carrying any guns not available elsewhere, not durable, not ANYTHING really.
Anything a crisis can do, something else can do better.
