Just a point to note; the new movement rules allow you to selectively use models within a unit. Now it won't work all the time, but it does allow you to leave the Shas'ui stationary (and able to fire at full BS), whilst the rest of the Firewarriors move around him.

On Shadowsun: It is absolutely insipid that she is unable to deploy with a squad because of her wargear. That is just ridiculous. Fix this, GW.

Yes - I meant 6 pathfidners in a squad - preferably 8. That way you're getting 2-5 marker hits on average.

YotsubaSnake wrote:One thing I'd like to say is the fact that BSFs are almost useless on firewarrior teams. The problem is, unless you're shooting at an MSU army, their armor save is still going to be better than their cover they gain. Save yourself the points, on 4 squads that's enough for another upgrade that may be more useful. I'd only take BSFs on units that are going to be firing farther than 36" to see the enemy or with good AP to not allow cover saves.

I have found them rather useful. It lets the firewarriors harrass GEQs and light vehicles with impunity with nightfighting on, and helps against necrons.

But then my local store has a good variety, with at least 1-2 players of each army there.

My bad. Misread that.

 Jadenim wrote:
Just a point to note; the new movement rules allow you to selectively use models within a unit. Now it won't work all the time, but it does allow you to leave the Shas'ui stationary (and able to fire at full BS), whilst the rest of the Firewarriors move around him.

Good concept! This is something I'll have to integrate, controlling movement carefully to enable future movement and shooting options.

I think an adequately skilled general could make the decentralized markerlights concept work. I don't know that I'm that guy at this point, though.

I have tried giving marker-lights to the firewarriors, its not VERY effective, but if you are taking a squad leader, sinking 15 points to get a markerlight+HWMT while not netting alot of marker hits, makes your opponent spend more resorces on making sure your infantry moves around, rather then effectively killing stuff.

Its more of a hidden shield in the fact it creates a diversion, and if a situation arises that you don't need to move the guy, a markerlight bonus.

I finally got to play my first game since the new FAQ and at one point I got curious and deliberately let my devilfish full of firewarriors flat out in range of a bunch of Lootas holding a building.

45 shots, 2 glances and 7 pens later, I found my devilfish only missing one hull point, Absolutely ridiculous.

Still overcosted, but not as bad as before. The big advantage now is that the unit can hang around and survive until endgame and dump the drones to contest on the final turn.

New to the forum but I have skimmed through this thread to pick up a few things here and there. Looking to get back in the game since skipping almost all of fifth edition and not playing a game since fourth, so here go a few questions that I have in mind.
-In the new edition is it wiser to have two man crisis suits instead of the full three suit squad? This also goes for the commanders and the bodyguard squads.
-I have read a few threads on pathfinders and I am on the fence, I currently have a squad of six with the mandatory fish and a dpod and while having that special ability that comes with the transport is nice it is a lot of points invested. I am currently leaning forwards investing in two tetras and the imperial armor book with the rules, is this a wise choice or do I rough it out with a squad that I really need for points I do not like?
-what is a good size for stealth suit teams, I am currently playing with a squad of five with five gun drones for a bit of extra protection. The infiltrate ability and the fact that they always have a 4+ cover save is really attractive to me but a bit over costed as well. Does anyone have any advise as to how many (meaning larger or smaller squads) would be a better investment points wise?
Thanks in advance.

Tetra's are very overpowered. Scout move up a ruin turn 0, 2+ cover for whole game. Better than pathfinders by a longshot, cheaper than buying them as well (inc devilfish price £££$$$), cheaper points as well (110 for 2 with TA's, so 8x BS4 MLs). Also have the same effect as a pfinder dfish, the deep striking one.

I find that the best stealth gunner team is 3 suits with 6 drones.

@grullon1982; before you invest in the Imperial Armour book, be aware that they recently did a complete update of the rules for the Tau Forgeworld units as a PDF download (I think there's a link to it earlier in the thread). It's not currently on the main FW website as it was still written for 5th Ed., but according to the note on the download page they should be producing a 6th Ed. rules update in the near future.

Of course, if you fancy a good read, I can highly recommend IA3: The Taros Campaign as it has a lot of good background and mission scenarios for Tau.

 Jadenim wrote:
@grullon1982; before you invest in the Imperial Armour book, be aware that they recently did a complete update of the rules for the Tau Forgeworld units as a PDF download (I think there's a link to it earlier in the thread). It's not currently on the main FW website as it was still written for 5th Ed., but according to the note on the download page they should be producing a 6th Ed. rules update in the near future.

Of course, if you fancy a good read, I can highly recommend IA3: The Taros Campaign as it has a lot of good background and mission scenarios for Tau.

It's not complete. It has the Tetra, Remote Sensor Towers, Drone Turrets, Hammerhead turret variants, XV-8 suit variants for commanders, Heavy Gun Drones, and several different Kroot variants.

Rules for the XV-9 suits, Remora drones, the Barracuda flyer, Shas'O R'alai, Shas'O R'myr, and the Pirahna XT-42 variant are found in Imperial Armour 2, Imperial Aeronautica, and Imperial Armour 2nd Edition. It can be quite an expensive proposition getting everything together.

EDIT: It took me a fair bit of time to figure out where the most current rules were for each ForgeWorld unit intended for 40k. OP, if you're still reading this thread, hit me up... I'll look over my book collection and outline which units are in what book, if you'd like.

In case you are still looking for it, here's the link to the rules.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/t/Tauupdate.pdf

Note that the pdf says that it is ok in "standard" play so I'm guessing they are pretty official but does leave the caviat that your opponent should be ok with them. I've never actually used tau or fought them at tourny so I am not sure if tetras are tournament legal but I'd assume so.

I'm really interested to see if we get to use our flier options like the baracuda flying drones eventually

I've recently acquired some barracudas as well as xv-9 suits and commander r'alai is on the way. While I hope plastic kits and codex entries/updates are forthcoming, they are a blast to use in games now.

Do you have any batreps or tactical advice that came out of using them?

Shas'o Rmyr etc are out of date. Only use the update download linked, and IA2 2nd Ed (First Ed of number 2 is no longer rules valid). Everything you need is in those respectively. Rymr is overcosted massively for the very little he does.

The flyers are in the new aeronautica book. They're mostly overcosted compared to vendettas.

Well I have no battle reports yet, the only games I have played have been to learn the new rules and to get familiar again with the tau codex. I am very happy at the new rules for the stealth teams so that is a plus and I'm considering the suggestion given about a small team for harrasment purposes. I still need some feed back as far as the size of crisis suits and the benefit of maybe having 2 suit teams instead of the full 3 in a squad.

@grullon - its all been discussed in the thread
Every single possible thing has pretty much been discussed, just gotta plough through it

 Redbeard wrote:
The flyers are in the new aeronautica book. They're mostly overcosted compared to vendettas.

The problem is the Vendetta unit itself. It needs to have its points cost increased in a FAQ.

Rakeeb wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
The flyers are in the new aeronautica book. They're mostly overcosted compared to vendettas.

The problem is the Vendetta unit itself. It needs to have its points cost increased in a FAQ.

Agreed.

Rakeeb wrote:Do you have any batreps or tactical advice that came out of using them?

(reference was to XV-9 Suits, Commander R'alai, and Barracuda Air Superiority Flyers)

No batreps, sadly, as most of my games of 40K are at my FLGS and i typically don't think about taking photos until after all the damage has been done. I can, however, give a little insight into what i've seen so FAR out of these units:

Well Commander R'Alai looks great on paper - when his model arrives, gets built, painted, and put into a game I'll expand on him later.

XV-9 units are much the same - I've ran them through a variety of scenarios and I've noticed that to get the most bang for your buck there are 2 ways to go - - Take the Pulse Submunition Rifles (Phased Ion Guns can count-as until we get a plastic kit with appropriate weapons, or maybe I can re-cast R'Alai's PSR when he arrives) and go to town with s5 blast templates. Otherwise, Phased Ion Guns (PiGs) work really well if you can deliver 1 or 2 markerlights to the targeted unit (R'alai's marker drones are good for this, or I also like a stealth marker team). With AP4 and Rending, plus 4 shots per gun, the PiG is probably the best option due to a large number of dice to roll.

The barracudas are really neat - An AV10 flyer (something codex tau do not yet have), with only 2 Hull Points. The Imperial Armour Aeronautica book really helped out by dropping the points value on these flyers by 90 points, making them right alongside Vendettas in terms of cost. They bring to the table a s7 ap3 gun with 3 shots, a twin linked s7 ap4 2 shot weapon, and 6 s5 shots that ignore cover saves (automated turret rule). With the added ability to deep strike when they enter play, they can be used really well to saturate rear armor of enemy flyers with enough firepower to usually bring them down (Barring STORM RAVENS of course). That said, a quad gun, full Loota team, dakkajet, or any other high-ROF unit will take them down in return, even with the benefits of their agile rule (+1 to jink saves). Compared to the competition's flyers they pay more (in fact they are 30 points more than a night scythe, which has +1 armor, a comparable gun, better BS, and 3 hull points. what the what?) but again they fill a void that currently nothing in the codex does. If you manage to spend the $$ to get one or two, showing your friends the rules and drawbacks of the flyer should more than convince them all to allow you to use it in a game.

Anyhow that was my 2c regarding these FW units so far, I'm (hopefully) getting in another game tomorrow night so I'll see then and report back how it went.

Hi non tau player here, looking to take a small tau force as allies, and just wondering if this list is legal...

Ethereal
6 x fw
3 x broadsides with 2 Sheila drones each.

Thanks for your help in advance

No, you need to have a battlesuit commander as your allied HQ due to them being a 1+ choice.

Ok so I might as well drop the Ethereal then, whats the cheapest/efficient loadout for a commander? Bodyguard no body guard? Wargear? Thanks for the reply

I've been debating on eldar allies vs GK allies for the Tau.

I'm kind of torn between them and how to best run it. The first page was very informative but I don't think this particular aspect was addressed.

Eldar = farseer buffs, runes of warding anti-psyker defense

GK = can use coteaz to camp corners to defend against outflanking and strike squads can save against deep striking units along with easier time of getting first turn with coteaz. Also can take a stormraven for some good anti-air, and of course air power.

or maybe vanilla marines somehow?

Any opinions on what you find more useful?

Also for eldar allies, do you guys think that jetbike farseer is better (having a higher T) and more able to run away or last minute contest (accompanied by some sort of jetbike guardian squad)

vs

Pathfinder camping squad with long range (36') snipers on top of aegis? ( I guess the farseer can still be jetbike I suppose but probably die from all those dangerous terrain checks) Can buff the gun line but won't be able to keep up with crisis suits for buffs (though the crisis suits probably gonna get markerlight support?)

Eldercaveman-a Shas'el with a twin-link missile-pod and a blacksun filter is legal, cheap and useful.

As for your broadsides, make sure they at the very least pack a blacksun filter somewhere there.



Speaking of broadsides, what do you guys consider better for a squad of 2 broadsides in a small game (1000 points), the Adv.SS or the TA? (or something else entirely?)

Ok, so looking at my list there how would you load them out, I'm not overly familiar with the tau codex so any help you guys can give is a massive bonus, bear in mind I don't want my tau detachment to go over 500 points. But there is 500 points available.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Eldercaveman-a Shas'el with a twin-link missile-pod and a blacksun filter is legal, cheap and useful.

As for your broadsides, make sure they at the very least pack a blacksun filter somewhere there.



Speaking of broadsides, what do you guys consider better for a squad of 2 broadsides in a small game (1000 points), the Adv.SS or the TA? (or something else entirely?)

TA, all day. With terrain set up I always will have an elevated firing platform in my DZ to put them - I want those rail guns to be accurate. If they need to move they can still snap fire so all is not lost.

I should have probably mentioned that in our LGS terrain is setup either as a random clusterfeth with both players just placing random stuff and moving stuff around until the scene looks good (without any order or rules), and on tournaments we have preset terrain pieces.

Ok I've reworked my Tau allied list, can you check it over for me, let me know any changes, I must/should make...

Allied Detachment
Shas'El 75 Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle
Multi Tracker
HW drone controller.
2 Marker Drone
2 x Sheild Drone
172

Fire Warriors x 5
Shas'ui x 1 with Markerlight 80

3 x Broadsides
4 x Sheild drones
1 x Blacksun Filter
273

525

Thanks

Eldercaveman wrote:
Ok I've reworked my Tau allied list, can you check it over for me, let me know any changes, I must/should make...

Allied Detachment
Shas'El 75 Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle
Multi Tracker
HW drone controller.
2 Marker Drone
2 x Sheild Drone
172

1: How 4 drones. A drone controller lets you take 0-2 drones total. I would drop the Marker Drones.
2: Shas'el is 50 not 75.
3: An incredibly tough Shas'el has Iridium Armour and 2 Shield Drones. Oh, and if you give him a Hard Wired MultiTracker and you can Twinlink one of your weapons.

Fire Warriors x 5
Shas'ui x 1 with Markerlight 80
You're better off running this as 8 fire warriors than with the 1 markerlight that has a 50/50 chance of hitting (if you don't move) that only the broadsides of shas'el can take advantage of.

3 x Broadsides
4 x Sheild drones
1 x Blacksun Filter
273

I'd take a Team Leader, give him a Hard Wired Black Sun Filter and Bonding Knife, and take 2 more shield drones.

525

Thanks

Eldercaveman wrote:
Ok I've reworked my Tau allied list, can you check it over for me, let me know any changes, I must/should make...

Here are my viewpoints of your approach...

Allied Detachment
Shas'El 75 Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle
Multi Tracker
HW drone controller.
2 Marker Drone
2 x Sheild Drone
172

A Drone Controller can only control up to two drones, not four. Highly recommend you drop the marker drones. I'll explain in a bit. Also recommend giving him a targeting array as well.

Fire Warriors x 5
Shas'ui x 1 with Markerlight 80

The markerlight here is unnessicary, again, I'll explain below.

3 x Broadsides
4 x Sheild drones
1 x Blacksun Filter
273

You can probably use the points you saved above on marker drones to add two more shield drones, if you're so inclined. Promote a member to be a team lead and give him a HW Blacksun for that effect.

But i would most recommend, with three broadsides, giving them all target locks instead. Three broadsides on a single target, especially vehicles, is probably the single strongest definition of "overkill" in the entire warhammer 40k game. Two shield drones on the team lead will hold the line enough to help out, but once someone wants your suits dead, they will be and no amount of shield drones will stop that.

As for the markerlights, here's the big problem with them. They only work on Tau units. Not whatever other faction you're using. Just Tau. It means that you're increasing the BS of your commander, who should have a Targeting array already or your broadsides, who are twin linked and almost don't need it. You could reduce cover saves, but that requires an insane amount of committment from 500pts of your army just to kill one unit with your broadsides or commander (your firewarriors rarely need markerlights). You can shave off a whole pile of points with my suggestions and still get admirable results.

Thanks for the help both, I have made a few adjustments,

Allied Detachment
Shas'El 50
Fusion Blaster
TL Plasma Rifle
HW drone controller.
HW Multi-tracker
Iridium armour
2 x Sheild Drone
202

Fire Warriors x 6 - 60

3 x Broadsides
4 x Sheild drones
1 x Blacksun Filter
273

510

I've dropped the fire warriors down to the minimum as they are only going to be a back field objective holder, my main purpose for this Tau allied detachment is to field 3 broadsides, and that is it really. It will be allied with my Blood Angels, and I don't really want to go much over 500 points.

I'd drop it to a Shas'el - the BS5 isn't worth 25pts. (the +1 WS is irrelavent, the +1 wound isn't that helpful on an already expensive T4 model that has 3 Wounds anyway, and +1 attack is as useful as +1 WS).

You make a pretty convincing argument for the drop and it does give me an extra 25 points to play with, does dropping down to 'El, mean I need to make any changes to wargear?

I'm debating on the Target locks on the broadsides, as my friend does like to field a multitude of vinidicators, so dropping them in turn one would be quite nice, however I have seen Broadsides, that struggle to hit the Broadside of a barn door.

Eldercaveman wrote:
I'm debating on the Target locks on the broadsides, as my friend does like to field a multitude of vinidicators, so dropping them in turn one would be quite nice, however I have seen Broadsides, that struggle to hit the Broadside of a barn door.

Yes, but that's just terrible dice rolling. A twin linked BS4 hits nearly 75% of the time and will easily just about any armor. Granted, it's tougher when you're going against AV14, but when you do pen you have a 50/50 chance of blowing whatever was unlucky enough to get hit all to bits.

If heavy vehicles are your problem, I would honestly consider a twin linked fusion instead of plasma on your commander and have it go all in on armor and 2+ armor units. It would be one hell of a haymaker and make your opponent focus on it instead of the rest of your army. However, it needs to be mobile if you did this and Iridium Armor takes away more mobility than I care to lose.

To be fair I could just strip the Commander down to basics. He is literally there as a means to an end, where does the BS 4 come from on the Broadsides? Maybe there would be an easier way to do this, you have 500 points to spend on Tau, your only restriction is it must be codex legal, and must include 3 Broadsides, what do you pick?

I would actually take a Railhead with DPod, Flechetts and MT. Just zip about popping things with a 3+ cover. Drop in a Shas'el w/ 2 Vre weaponised between them for anti-everything for the annoyance factor, and 12 FWs w/ 2 SDs to blob on an objective.

 IHateNids wrote:
I would actually take a Railhead with DPod, Flechetts and MT. Just zip about popping things with a 3+ cover. Drop in a Shas'el w/ 2 Vre weaponised between them for anti-everything for the annoyance factor, and 12 FWs w/ 2 SDs to blob on an objective.

I'm not too familiar with the Tau lingo, so could you give me it without please?

I am open to this idea though, how many points would it be roughly? or exactly?

~800 points for all that lot IIRC (I have a 30% of army total for allies, so forgive large points tag XD)

Translation: I would take a Railgun Hammerhead with DPod, Flechette Dischargers and a MT. Just zip about popping things with a 3+ cover. DS in a Shas'el HQ w/ 2 Shas'Vre bodyguards, weaponised between them for anti-everything. (for the annoyance factor) and 12 Fire Warriors w/ 2 Shield Drones to blob on an objective.

See 800 is to much for me, I have 1500 of BA to field and I want this as a 500 point add on. Well truthfully I have 7000 points of blood angels, but I just wanted the fun of fielding 3 broadsides.

hence my apology for the price tag. using tau as allies, you can quite easily field an insane number of points using each point of allied foc

Tau, being a 4th Edition Xeno codex, are expensive.

unfortunetely so.

Except the troops, who are rather cheap, but rather weak.

 Micky wrote:
Tau, being a 4th Edition Xeno codex, are expensive.

Bit of a historical question. I haven't been around long enough to know this - was overcosted options a real issue for 4th edition non-Imperium armies?

Eldercaveman wrote:
Ok I've reworked my Tau allied list, can you check it over for me, let me know any changes, I must/should make...

Allied Detachment
Shas'El 75 Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle
Multi Tracker
HW drone controller.
2 Marker Drone
2 x Sheild Drone
172

Fire Warriors x 5
Shas'ui x 1 with Markerlight 80

3 x Broadsides
4 x Sheild drones
1 x Blacksun Filter
273

525

Thanks

Just go here for your Tau template (and for all army building information):

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2012/09/template-tau-empire/

Can we go back to talking about tactics? I'm enjoying this thread.

Interesting article today on Bell of Lost Souls that really highlights the reasoning behind all of the focus in this thread on ForgeWorld. We knew it would make the Tau better but evidently they were quite competitive in a ForgeWorld atmosphere.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/09/get-yo-resin-on-forgeworld-and.html

I'd like to look more closely at the Comikaze results. Do we have anyone in the thread who was present and playing?

 Flavius Infernus wrote:


Just go here for your Tau template (and for all army building information):

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2012/09/template-tau-empire/

Can we go back to talking about tactics? I'm enjoying this thread.

well I got some tactics questions anyway:

ve been debating on eldar allies vs GK allies for the Tau.

I'm kind of torn between them and how to best run it. The first page was very informative but I don't think this particular aspect was addressed.

Eldar = farseer buffs, runes of warding anti-psyker defense

GK = can use coteaz to camp corners to defend against outflanking and strike squads can save against deep striking units along with easier time of getting first turn with coteaz. Also can take a stormraven for some good anti-air, and of course air power.

or maybe vanilla marines somehow?

Any opinions on what you find more useful?

Also for eldar allies, do you guys think that jetbike farseer is better (having a higher T) and more able to run away or last minute contest (accompanied by some sort of jetbike guardian squad)

vs

Pathfinder camping squad with long range (36') snipers on top of aegis? ( I guess the farseer can still be jetbike I suppose but probably die from all those dangerous terrain checks) Can buff the gun line but won't be able to keep up with crisis suits for buffs (though the crisis suits probably gonna get markerlight support?)

I'm personally leaning more towards Eldar Farseer for buffs myself. I feel I only need Runes of Warding and a bunch of psychic powers. Probably a jetbike for mauverability and jink, so I would accompany it with a guardian squad for contesting sake (and essentially extra wounds for your farseer)

 sudojoe wrote:

 Flavius Infernus wrote:


Just go here for your Tau template (and for all army building information):

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2012/09/template-tau-empire/

Can we go back to talking about tactics? I'm enjoying this thread.

well I got some tactics questions anyway:

ve been debating on eldar allies vs GK allies for the Tau.

I'm kind of torn between them and how to best run it. The first page was very informative but I don't think this particular aspect was addressed.

Eldar = farseer buffs, runes of warding anti-psyker defense

GK = can use coteaz to camp corners to defend against outflanking and strike squads can save against deep striking units along with easier time of getting first turn with coteaz. Also can take a stormraven for some good anti-air, and of course air power.

or maybe vanilla marines somehow?

Any opinions on what you find more useful?

Also for eldar allies, do you guys think that jetbike farseer is better (having a higher T) and more able to run away or last minute contest (accompanied by some sort of jetbike guardian squad)

vs

Pathfinder camping squad with long range (36') snipers on top of aegis? ( I guess the farseer can still be jetbike I suppose but probably die from all those dangerous terrain checks) Can buff the gun line but won't be able to keep up with crisis suits for buffs (though the crisis suits probably gonna get markerlight support?)

I played two games with a drop pod tac squad and librarian with terminators. THe tac squad comes in turn one, harassing about the back lines of the enemy, and gives the tau gunline allot of relief from advance/fire. With a teleport homer sergeant I have the option of being really dangerous in one side of the board and having a strong gunline at back, or dropping the termies somewhere else for an even spread of threat.

Next thing I'm gonna want to try is 60 ork boys and a warboss

I had an opponent take two drone controller things on his hq for 4 drones? Are you saying that doesn't work?

x_x

you cant take the same upgrade twice, by the same logic I would buy two railguns for my hammerhead and shoot 2 templates each turn.

I think thge problem was that they took a drone controller, and a hard wired drone controller.... Im not positive about the legality, but Im going to lean towards no.

Hard-wired systems are the same wargear, just not taking hardpoints.

The is no such wargear "Hard-wired dron controller", there is "drone controller" and "hard-wired system", a hard-wired one is still a drone controller.

You CAN take a Drone controller AND a Hard-Wired Drone Controller, but one will take a hard point, the other will not. But it's REALLY expensive and generally not that amazing a tactical option.

Sigh...

Well, you will have to take it to YMDC, or realise that as both the DC and the HWDC follow the same rules (as stated in the "hard wired" explanation in codex) and that the the drone controller rules are not "a drone controller allows you to take 1 or 2 drones" but "a character with a drone controller must take one or two..."

The main point of the sentence is that even by RAW it states that having A drone controller, not ANY drone controller, and as such even if you could take two, they would still be one or two drones.

Well he gives his guy iridium armor and 4 shield drones so now I have 4 more 2+ saves to go through...

Also if taking a drone controller lets you take one or two drones it stands to reason that taking and additional controller would let you take four drones...

tedbpb wrote:
Also if taking a drone controller lets you take one or two drones it stands to reason that taking and additional controller would let you take four drones...

Not really... If I say 'everyone with a nike shoe may have a piece of candy', do you automatically assume that because you have a pair of shoes that you get two pieces of candy?

The rule states, "A model with a drone controller must take one or two Gun, Marker, or Shield Drones, in any combinations". It doesn't say that you get one or two drones per controller, it says the model must have one or two drones because it has a controller. If your friend wants to waste points on an emergency backup controller, that's up to him, but it doesn't entitle him to more drones.

 Redbeard wrote:

tedbpb wrote:
Also if taking a drone controller lets you take one or two drones it stands to reason that taking and additional controller would let you take four drones...

Not really... If I say 'everyone with a nike shoe may have a piece of candy', do you automatically assume that because you have a pair of shoes that you get two pieces of candy?

The rule states, "A model with a drone controller must take one or two Gun, Marker, or Shield Drones, in any combinations". It doesn't say that you get one or two drones per controller, it says the model must have one or two drones because it has a controller. If your friend wants to waste points on an emergency backup controller, that's up to him, but it doesn't entitle him to more drones.

It actually shaves points - drone controllers are 0 points. (Except on xv9 suits).

However I have to look at my codex- I think something in the armory section somehow limits taking a hard wired version and a hard point version of the same wargear. I do know that army builder blacks out a second wargear if the other version is selected for the suit.

Anyhow it's pointless. The rules are clear - each SUIT can control up to 2 drones each. Period.

What's more important? Deep strike and outflank defense along with some fliers/flier defense

or


psychic buffs and psychich defense?

Im wondering, What could make Stealth suits better?
Im thinking a couple of things.
1: add one more ap to burst cannons(Ap 4 would do wonders)
2: Give them flamers and access to the full array of other XV suits(give them missle pods for uber fun.
3:

Basicly, more / better wargear options is what they need. Either that or a points reduction.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im wondering, What could make Stealth suits better?
Im thinking a couple of things.
1: add one more ap to burst cannons(Ap 4 would do wonders)
2: Give them flamers and access to the full array of other XV suits(give them missle pods for uber fun.
3:

If they had xv8 wargear there would be no reason to take an xv8. The stealthsuit would be +5 points for a 2+ cover save.

Well atleast give thme something(atleast flamers)
And yes there would, Crisis suits would be able to carry two weapons.

Be cool if you could give every member of the squad fusion guns, not just 1-per-3, too.

If you switch the Burst Cannon to a 1 weapon hardpoint, I think that'd be enough.

That way they can still take that 1 piece of extra wargear but have a bit more kick.

Battlesuits would still be good, being cheaper and able to bring more accurate and varied firepower for the same cost.

But we will see what the new codex brings (whenever that may be)

I plan on using the Stealth Suit unit as an escort for a Shas'El or Shas'O R'alai. The basic idea here is that both suits can offer the other variety something in return, ideally Hit and Run through Vectored Retro-Thrusters. I just think that R'alai might be a very expensive way to go about giving that to them, although on the flip side R'alai in a unit of Stealth Suits with some Gun Drones to sacrifice if need be makes a powerful anti-horde unit.

I don't like the idea of Stealth Suits carrying marker drones and being used as a "stealth marker unit" because the markers come at an absolute premium -- almost three times the equivalent cost of a Pathfinder per marker. It's a price the points-starved Tau can ill afford.

There are a few specific unit upgrades I'd like to see, but I'd rather avoid wishlisting in a tactics thread, personally.

Rakeeb wrote:
I plan on using the Stealth Suit unit as an escort for a Shas'El or Shas'O R'alai. The basic idea here is that both suits can offer the other variety something in return, ideally Hit and Run through Vectored Retro-Thrusters. I just think that R'alai might be a very expensive way to go about giving that to them, although on the flip side R'alai in a unit of Stealth Suits with some Gun Drones to sacrifice if need be makes a powerful anti-horde unit.

I don't like the idea of Stealth Suits carrying marker drones and being used as a "stealth marker unit" because the markers come at an absolute premium -- almost three times the equivalent cost of a Pathfinder per marker. It's a price the points-starved Tau can ill afford.

There are a few specific unit upgrades I'd like to see, but I'd rather avoid wishlisting in a tactics thread, personally.

Shas O'Ralai is not an independent character. Much like Shadowsun, he must remain with his marker drones only. Unlike her, however, if the drones both die he still must not join another unit.

Sad, because he has so much potential as a squad leader with his stubborn rule and marker drones with BSFs. As it stands now he makes a good outlying commander, firing off his cluster ion shells or hyper density sabots to pick off/harass enemy units.

Grr. That's somewhat upsetting. I'm sure you're right, but that really dampens my desire to pick him up now. That 190 points is too high for a guy who can die on his own in that manner.

Do we have an official ruling on that somewhere, or is that just an implied extension of the Shadowsun ruling?

The reason it doesn't work, is because he doesn't have the independent character rule, and doesn't have a rule that say he becomes one when his drones die like shadowsun does.

However he is still a very survivable character, with T5, a 3++, and the ability to JSJ so that he can hide from enemy units that are a threat.

Well that really puts a dent in my desire to pick him up. I think he's good as well, but I also think he's overcosted in the role of a mobile gunnery platform (despite it being a very flexible gun). His cost (and in fact most HQ units) is only justified if he's got some kind of force multiplying effect. Bringing his Hit and Run and Stubborn rules to a unit, and his mobile markerlights, are a significant boon - but solo I just don't think he justifies his cost.

I think he should be able to join untis, but only units of XV-9's to balance him a little. He's actually very good for his cost imo, look at our decked out Shas'o. He cost almost the same, and doesn't do nearly the same amount of damage with shooting, and isn't a force multiplier either, but I know a lot of people take either a super cheap sha'el, or the decked out shas'o. A lot of times, I'd rather have the XV-9(can't rememeber his name, something like Rai'la) over the Shas'o dispite not being a IC. he can take as much fire as our vehciles can and that just means they need to divide up their anti-vehicle weapons even more. Think of him as being 40pts cheaper too, since he comes with 2 marker drones, and everything comes into light a little more.

Coyote, I'd like to contest your statement there. I think that as an IC who could join squads it'd be simple to justify him, but outside of a squad it's really tough to do so.

Shas'o R'alai brings Stubborn, two Markerlights, and Hit and Run as force multipliers to the average unit. Stubborn is very hard to contest, as it's not mirrored by any other part of the Tau codex. The rest of it, though...

Let's take a Shas'El. We'll give him an XV-84 suit, Vectored Retro-Thrusters, a twin-linked Fusion Blaster, a Burst Cannon, and a hard-wired multitracker. He costs just about half of what Shas'O R'alai costs in total (within 1 point) and brings 85% of the functionality - a markerlight (at BS 4), armor and horde killing, Hit and Run. Sure, he doesn't bring a 3+ Invuln save for Stubborn, or the 5" blasts... but I'd contend that those three things don't equal 100 points, especially as our example Shas'El can in fact join other units and give them his toys.

The combination of force multipliers here is considerable. Hit and Run does a *lot* for a Stealth Suit squad, especially if it uses Gun Drones to siphon away any close combat wounds, then takes advantage of the enemy close combat unit's suddenly poor positioning. The Markerlight (along with the stealth squad's 15 point markerlight) allow the unit to participate in the combined-arms nature of the Tau, or call in Seeker Missile support if it's available.

I don't think that experimental rifle is enough to justify R'alai's gigantic points cost unless he's able to join a squad. The guy is almost as pricey as Aun'Va.

As an aside, if R'alai can't join a squad, then the Tau have *universally* bad special characters. Aun'Va is just awful.

To start, you can only have 3 hard points, yours has 4(TL fusion blaster=2, Burst canon=1 Vector thrusters=1)
So from my math, thats 10 FW pts for you commander. 90pts difference.


Those 90pts = 3++, stubborn, 5" blasts(in an army that lacks many blast weapons) BS5, T5, I4, A4, W4(effectively 6 if you count the marker drones, thats double of what your Shas'el gets),LD10(huge difference in survivablity), defensive grenades, 2nd marklight, Blacksun filter on everyone.

Doing some quick price comparisons. 2x FWs for your shas'el to get a 4++(and that takes away one of his hardpoints)2x FWs for the other marker light, 1/3FWpts for the BSF, 1FWpts for targeting array, or 2.5FWpts to be a shas'o. So thats 53-68pts of gear that you could take, and the commander already has(and it's better) plus your still lacking stubborn, I4, defensive grenades, and a comparable weapon.(IMO the only ones that compare rom the codex are the railgun and the Ion cannon, neither of which a shas'el/o can take.) so paying 22-37pts for the last couple of abilities seems like a steal, espeically when you include that awesome weapon.

BTW your comparison on a fusion blaster and burstcannon with multitracker being remotely comparable with his pulse submuntions rifle with experimental ammo actually offended me. (Are you serious?) No way those two weapons compare in any situation with the versitlity and effectiveness of his shots. Range issues(futher reducing your survivabiltiy), the fact that you can fire both doesn't really matter, because they aren't made for shooting at the same thing, so effectively you only have 1 shot per turn that matters.

Overall, I believe Commander R'ALAI to be well worth his cost by himself, and if given the IC rule, would be compensating nerfs.

I can't agree with that. Almost 200 points for a dude who's one Slam or Dreadnought CC attack away from ID is not worth his points value unless he has a squad to work with. (Trying to avoid saying straight up points costs due to the Dakka rules).

A Slam and/or DCC hit no him would be really hard to manage, since he's got a 6" move, 24" range and 2d6 assault move away each turn. And even then he's got a 4++ against it. I don't think those are good reasons. Everyone takes Vulkan from C:SM and he's even less survivable and about the same points.

ps: thanks for the hint, I forget that rule sometimes.

Oh yeah, I definitely agree that Vulkan He'stan is way less survivable. I also think he does a whole lot for the army list as a whole with the twin-link thing.

I guess that's my point overall: if R'alai was able to confer his bonuses on things OTHER than just himself, I think he'd be worth his points cost. Without that, it's really pushing things in my estimation to employ him as a mobile anti-everything shooting platform. He's just too vulnerable. I mean, even basic troop fire can bring him down with nine or ten solid hits... that 3+ save is hardly salvation from a (say) heavy bolter barrage.

The best basic troop shots are from Tau themselves, they need 60 shtos to kill R'Alai, 60shots hit 30 times, wound 15 tiems and i assume he gets 5 wounds, since he can LOS a wound on a 50/50 chance. (honestly, this probably gives him more then 5 but I'm keeping it simple for simple sake.

Marines would need simliar numbers since they hit better but wound worse. 60 shots is an aweful lot imo., even a heavy bolter barrage from SM, would need 45 shots instead of 60 since they hit on 3's.

I have failed to see the vunerablity. Esepcially since you ahv to get all those shots in range of him, he effectively has a 30" range weapon, if you count his move. and he still gets his 2d6 move away from enemies.

Rakeeb wrote:

As an aside, if R'alai can't join a squad, then the Tau have *universally* bad special characters. Aun'Va is just awful.

Hey, I think Shadowsun is actually an amazing character. Even if she can't join squads, she still has two BS5 fusion blasters that can shoot at different targets.
Along with the cover boost, armor saves from DT, coming in turn two on a 3+, re-roll scatter from the pathfinder devilfish (or tetra) and the larger jetpack move after deepstriking (not to mention overwatch), she isn't nearly as suicidey as in 5th.

Shes a schizophrenic model.

It's a term used to describe something that is at cross purposes with itself. Here's why.

Her weaponry suggests that she needs to be up-close to accomplish anything. But, in doing so, she's almost certainly going to die after doing it - if not outright, then by being caught in an assault, unable to fire those guns for the rest of the game. This is compounded in 6th by assuring your opponent will score 'Kill the Warlord'.

On the other hand, her other abilities, namely buffing the leadership of the entire army, something desperately needed in an army where an 80 point model can run off the table after a drone dies, requires that she stay alive, unharmed, and largely within your battle lines.

Her weaponry has no synergy with the role that she should be playing in the army.

I agree strongly with Redbeard, and his opinion is something that can roll effectively to all of the Tau special characters save for Farsight - and as for O'Shovah, bringing him is a *huge* compromise in the army's overall ability to function. In the modern era you'd almost certainly require allies simply to build a viable army.

 Redbeard wrote:
Shes a schizophrenic model.

It's a term used to describe something that is at cross purposes with itself. Here's why.

Her weaponry suggests that she needs to be up-close to accomplish anything. But, in doing so, she's almost certainly going to die after doing it - if not outright, then by being caught in an assault, unable to fire those guns for the rest of the game. This is compounded in 6th by assuring your opponent will score 'Kill the Warlord'.

On the other hand, her other abilities, namely buffing the leadership of the entire army, something desperately needed in an army where an 80 point model can run off the table after a drone dies, requires that she stay alive, unharmed, and largely within your battle lines.

Her weaponry has no synergy with the role that she should be playing in the army.

Maybe have her just stay back and buff the mobs of FW's? I always just seen her as a counter attack unit/kill deep strikers and drop pods with dreadnaughts. Also useful for when you suicide the etheral .... kekeke

Btw, where are the rules for this R'alai guy?

Also, how do you guys stay in range with 2d6 moves anyway? If I move more than 6' away, I may not be able to move back close enough to actually fire on anything. Just hug the cover save? Damn floating drones are so hard to hide. Someone always manages to see some antenna thingy and shoot them.

 Redbeard wrote:
Shes a schizophrenic model.

It's a term used to describe something that is at cross purposes with itself. Here's why.

Her weaponry suggests that she needs to be up-close to accomplish anything. But, in doing so, she's almost certainly going to die after doing it - if not outright, then by being caught in an assault, unable to fire those guns for the rest of the game. This is compounded in 6th by assuring your opponent will score 'Kill the Warlord'.

On the other hand, her other abilities, namely buffing the leadership of the entire army, something desperately needed in an army where an 80 point model can run off the table after a drone dies, requires that she stay alive, unharmed, and largely within your battle lines.

Her weaponry has no synergy with the role that she should be playing in the army.

This post sums up my opinion of shadowsun succinctly and mirrors my every consideration to her rules. Hopefully they change her in the next book so that either she is good at dropping in and shooting tanks, (hit and run maybe?) or a longer ranged fusion blaster.

Those are good points.
However in my experience she has always been worth it. I've only managed to use her in two games of 6th, though in both those games she was instrumental in my victory, and lived to tell the tale. I agree that the warlord situation is unfortunate, but that can be mitigated by playing safely.

In my first game she dropped in the middle of the board, and was able to jump behind impassible terrain until the rest of my army caught up.
In the second one my opponent was rushing forward leaving only some gaunts behind, so she deepstruck and took out his venomthrope. Then she jumped back into his deployment zone and he had to choose between turning around and continuing towards me. (She then took out the gaunts in combat).

I've also Ignored her LD buffing ability for the most part.

 sudojoe wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
Shes a schizophrenic model.

It's a term used to describe something that is at cross purposes with itself. Here's why.

Her weaponry suggests that she needs to be up-close to accomplish anything. But, in doing so, she's almost certainly going to die after doing it - if not outright, then by being caught in an assault, unable to fire those guns for the rest of the game. This is compounded in 6th by assuring your opponent will score 'Kill the Warlord'.

On the other hand, her other abilities, namely buffing the leadership of the entire army, something desperately needed in an army where an 80 point model can run off the table after a drone dies, requires that she stay alive, unharmed, and largely within your battle lines.

Her weaponry has no synergy with the role that she should be playing in the army.

Maybe have her just stay back and buff the mobs of FW's? I always just seen her as a counter attack unit/kill deep strikers and drop pods with dreadnaughts. Also useful for when you suicide the etheral .... kekeke

Btw, where are the rules for this R'alai guy?
Also, how do you guys stay in range with 2d6 moves anyway? If I move more than 6' away, I may not be able to move back close enough to actually fire on anything. Just hug the cover save? Damn floating drones are so hard to hide. Someone always manages to see some antenna thingy and shoot them.

His rules can be found in the Imperial Armour Apocolypse 2 book. you might be able to find it foating around the internet too.

As for shadowsun, I agree her weapon and abilities are too mismatched for her to be effective.

It's a real shame.

Characters are intended to be force multipliers. Whoever decided that the Tau were going to be the notable exception needs to be straightened out.

Rakeeb wrote:
It's a real shame.

Characters are intended to be force multipliers. Whoever decided that the Tau were going to be the notable exception needs to be straightened out.

Totally agree, There a lot of times I wish I could just have a crisis suit team leader as my HQ, would save on points.

I played a tournament last weekend, 750pts, 5 games.

I had 3x 6 Fire Warriors, 2x TL MP Crisis Suits, 2x Broadsides, 2x Crisis with Fusion/Flamer, 3x Stealth Suits with 1 Gun Drone each and a Shas'el with TL Plasma.

In each game, i outflanked the Stealth Suits and deep striked the suicide squad - sometimes with the commander, sometimes without.


The suicide squad worked out pretty well - they always did some damage, they never mishapped, and then they soaked up a round or two of shooting before going down. Probably their best moment was when they deep struck behind a group of deathwing assault terminators and killed the four guys at the back who didnt have TH/SS (2x fusion hits, 2x plasma hits).


But, overall, MVP in 4 out of 5 games was the stealth squad. In game 5 they didnt show up before the game ended (on turn 3), but in each other game they showed up and caused a lot of damage. My squad of 3 + 3 was 120 points and only had 12 shots, but being able to position them to the rear of the enemy in an advantageous position, in cover, soaking up tons of fire and not getting hurt, that was priceless. I think in the four games, i lost the gun drones a few times, but not a single suit. They made mincemeat of the IG command squad, they saved some FW on an objective by pinning a squad of hormagaunts, they took out two thunderfire cannons, and they gave me slay the warlord by taking out the Farseer in the only game i lost (CC Eldar Jetbike army).

Thanks for the feed, Micky. I really like your army list, I feel like you've got a lot of fire there for 750 points.

Hi you guys.

I used to to pretty well in late 5th with my tau, but now that everyones finally settled in 6th I can't seem to compete anymore. :(

It'd be cool if you could take a quick look at my list over here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/478316.page and maybe some advice as well.

Hey guys, I was wondering how the multi-tracker works on, say, a hammerhead in 6th? My codex is with a buddy for a while now and I don't understand why this is an option or any different from any vehicle now in 6th; does it say that you can use one more weapon system at full BS now or something? Thanks for the help.

Fire as fast vehicle.

Sweet thanks for the quick reply.

The one weapon choice I am using more in 6th edition is the flamer on the XV8's since most of my friends are running alot more infantry.

In the games I played agaisnt tyranids I seem to be killing alot more then normal, my friend runs full squads of hormagaunts and I am killing 20+ of them a turn with it, I am also killing quiet a few space marines and necrons with them to .

I think the new best loadout for a Shas'el/o for anti Nids/Orks is the Frag Cannon & the Cyclic Blaster.

Hmmm. I still think that flamers are a bit risky for me, especially with a random jetpack roll in the assault phase.

My current strategy is flat out Devilfish providing mobile cover for my Crisis Suits to JSJ from. Long range anti-armour pings off the 2+ cover save whilst my Crisis Suits can move forward to get into their ideal range whilst being safe from Missile Launcher ID as they're out of sight.

Anything which tries to get close to nullify the Disruption Pods (so Meltaguns) has to deal with a full unit of Fire Warriors jumping out and pumping 24 shots out, along with the Burst Cannon/Gun Drones from the Fish and whatever weapons that XV8 unit is carrying (most likely Fireknife or Deathrain, Helios if it's my Commander and retinue).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IHateNids wrote:
I think the new best loadout for a Shas'el/o for anti Nids/Orks is the Frag Cannon & the Cyclic Blaster.

Against Orks I'd say a Burst Cannon is better than the CIB. AP1 against Ork infantry is useless and those extra two shots don't make up for S3 and so wounding on 5s.

CIB causes 1.38 wounds on average.
Burst Cannon causes 1.66 on average.

Good point, although that Rending comes into its own when faced with Nobs/ Eavy' Armour

 IHateNids wrote:
Good point, although that Rending comes into its own when faced with Nobs/ Eavy' Armour

True, but for that we have Missile Pods and Plasma Rifles, which are both longer range, more reliable and capable of more roles. Plasma can glance most vehicles rear armour reliably and doesn't rely on luck to nullify 2+ saves and Missile Pods will penetrate most light vehicles and plays to our strength in mobile long range firepower.

Against T3 blobs the CIB a mincer. It rips Guard apart. Against things other than that, it sadly gets outshone by our old standards.

Ok, youve convinced me to drop it XD

 IHateNids wrote:
Ok, youve convinced me to drop it XD

Not trying to convince you, just putting forth my experiences. If you get lucky then it'd be sweet to see a unit of Terminators get vapourised by it. I just don't like relying on luck that much. Some people have probably had great experiences and, as you mentioned in your first post, it is great for killing 'Nids. Where I played there weren't many Tyranid players (mostly Necrons and assorted Marines with the odd Guard player) and my army composition tends to reflect that with lots of high strength weaponry to force saves if I can't nullify the save completely.

I have minced two Termies at once with it like...

Hehehe, having tested the XV-9 Hazard suits with dual cascades a bit I can tell you that nothing terrifies Teq and MC's more than two of those guys deep striking down right next to them

It's a higher volume of shots at lower S and rending, but I enjoy raining down with phased ion guns with my XV-9 suits. Throw in some markerlight support and they really shine.

 IHateNids wrote:
I think the new best loadout for a Shas'el/o for anti Nids/Orks is the Frag Cannon & the Cyclic Blaster.

Totally agree with you, stick him in a suicide squad with flamers/burst & fusion and you can do a heck of a lot of pain.

It would be *really* cool if we could take more Cyclic blasters, though... if they weren't special issue, I think it would be fun to have suits running around with two of those, twin-linked.

 taudau wrote:
Hehehe, having tested the XV-9 Hazard suits with dual cascades a bit I can tell you that nothing terrifies Teq and MC's more than two of those guys deep striking down right next to them

Those are fusion cascades right? 2x D3 fusion shots? How many FW worth of points is a XV9 with those?-

One xv9 with 2 fusion cascades plus a blacksun filter is 12 firewarriors of points.

I prefer a unit of 3 hazard suits carrying dual PiGs w 2 bsf and 1 dc with 2 shield drones. 24 s4 ap4 rending shots for the cost of 33 and a half fire warriors.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im wondering, What could make Stealth suits better?
Im thinking a couple of things.
1: add one more ap to burst cannons(Ap 4 would do wonders)
2: Give them flamers and access to the full array of other XV suits(give them missle pods for uber fun.
3:

3. Rail Rifles.

Forget the burst cannons, forget the flamers, keep those boyz in the back, basicly turn them into the sniper drone squads in the next codex. Hell even if it was 1 in 3 like with the fusion, I'd take a 6 man squad for something with 2+ cover saves dangerous at 18" against hordes and can jetpack everywhere. At least I wouldn't need 20 friggen drones hanging about them.

I was wondering why don't people take twin-linked missile pods on their fireknife shas'els and team leaders? Instead of using a hard point for the multi-tracker you can just hard-wire the multi-tracker and for 6 extra points you get to reroll those s7 shots.

Also has anyone ever joined a Shas'el with a unite of stealth suits? The Airbursting fragment projector and flamer would be good to get templates in the back lines and a missle pod would be good for hitting the back side of vehicles. Something like AFP, MP, Flamer, HW MT, HW TL.

Because a Targeting Array is superior on any suit that carries two weapons and can take the multi-tracker as hard-wired, with the exception of a shas'o, who has no use for it. (points compared to killing power that is)

The twin-linked give better results per gun, but the array upgrades hitting chances with both, and the overall increase is simply better, especially on fireknifes who are generalist suits and as such need to get both guns as accurate as they can.


Shas'el+suits works like a charm as long you equip him to deal with the same targets, I personally favor a shas'el with BC, CiB, TA, HWMT leading 3 man teams (with gun drones a plenty) to form a super gunner squad who by experiance rain terror on the backfield by exterminating everything from tyrnids to power armor by pure mass of powerful shots.

A reverse option is to use shadowsun to grant the stealth field to a squad of crisis suits, equipping the lot af plasma/fusion to rain terror at deep strike

I've been toying with that. I'd like to get a special character in the mix, but the Tau don't have a good one that can join squads and not significantly impact your army build. Ergo, I've been toying with some possibilities when it comes to Shas'el units working with Stealth suits. I think the biggest advantage is the higher Ld and the Vectored Retro-Thrusters, so that the unit can potentially escape a bad close combat situation, and even manipulate one in order to draw an enemy out of shelter and into an exposed position. Giving the unit some harder punch can be useful as well, and of course the Shas'el benefitting from the 2+ cover save is very useful.

The real question is how to pull this off without throwing a ton of points at it, since it's ultimately just making the Stealth suits better and there's more to the army than them. Still chewing on that angle.

 BoomWolf wrote:
A reverse option is to use shadowsun to grant the stealth field to a squad of crisis suits, equipping the lot af plasma/fusion to rain terror at deep strike

The problem with this is that Shadowsun cannot join a unit until her drones are gone. Funny rule, I don't like it and it should have been FAQed but I guess giving stealth/shrouded to just about anything in the codex is a bit rough. Stealth Helios? Don't mind if I do!

How important are you finding the drones are in your battle suit and broadside squads.

I'm trying to figure out how to make room for some GKT in my friend's tau list so I can tool around with them and see if I like the army.

Also how are you finding the tougher devilfish, has it made them worth taking? What do they add to the army except repositioning and blocking?

 Lucre wrote:
How important are you finding the drones are in your battle suit and broadside squads.

On Crisis and Steath teams they're a beneficial option. On Broadsides they're almost a requirement due to the amount of firepower they will invariably attract. I usually run them on my broadsides and crisis teams, but rarely on my stealth teams.

Also how are you finding the tougher devilfish, has it made them worth taking? What do they add to the army except repositioning and blocking?

I'm finding them gloriously awesome. They can easily come in turn 2+ and bee-line it straight to an objective. Having a 2+ on that flat out makes them incredibly difficult to kill without ignoring cover saves. I mentioned earlier that a squad of lootas opened up on a flat-out fish my last game. After 3 pens and 8 glances were inflicted, only one glance actually resolved!

Drones are dependant on what suits there are and how the suits are equipped.

Suits with a shield generator dont care too much for shield drones obviously (few builds bother taking it though)

For crisis its really situational, but usually not needed, or only a pair of shields/guns

For broadsides shields are very useful, and usually a squad takes a pair and a solo takes one.

For stealth I find gun drones very atractive, ther are a cheap way to technically add more of the same to the unit, at the price of a larger footprint.



As for the new and improved devilfish-its freaking good. that thing dont die to ranged anti-tank, and it sure as hell wont be glanced to death. melee is the only worry, but you are tau anyway and you avoid melee like a rat avoids cats/
However, the new effects the DP FAQ had on hammerhead, especially the forgeworld heads, they just became monsters.

I've been finding that my broadsides usually don't die unless they get assaulted. But having said that, I still give them a shield drone.

I also give my commander a shield drone or two, but finding them less useful somehow.. dunno why, but they don't seem terribly effective.

Stealth suits I always run with drones (gun, usually), just for the extra cheap firepower and the extra durability of the cover saves.

I've found the Shield Drones to be invaluable for my Broadside squads, the 2+ / 4+ meaning they weather damn near anything and everything.

In the same vein, I generally find on a 'base' Shas'el drones aren't really worth it, but with Iridium Armour it makes him tank like in his resilience.

Gun Drones with Stealth Suits are of course amazing.

Re: sticking a commander with a squad of stealth suits, I've found that the Infiltrate move or the Outflank move is what's really made them stand out as one of my best units.

Problem with that is that if you stick a commander in with them from the game start, they can't outflank or infiltrate. They can deep-strike of course, but somehow that feels less useful.

...on the other hand, if i just happen to roll the "Warlord gets Outflank" trait, then I'm totally sticking him in there.

Another option i once came up with but never tried is infiltrating a full 6-man + Drones Stealth Team and Deep Strike a self-contained survive at all costs Shas'el, then just join them turn one.

 IHateNids wrote:
Another option i once came up with but never tried is infiltrating a full 6-man + Drones Stealth Team and Deep Strike a self-contained survive at all costs Shas'el, then just join them turn one.

I'm trying to wrap my brain around this. So turn 1, the Suits deploy infiltrated; turn 2 (minimum) your Shas'el deepstrikes, and let's say he ends up right next to them or is able to scoot there in the assault phase. This matters because you join in the movement phase. So either he lands within 2" and can join, OR he has to scoot next to them and survive a round of fire before he can join up.

So Turn 3 is the earliest he can reliably join, and is terribly vulnerable in turn 2.

EDIT: The guys at MiniWarGaming did a Tau vs Tau fight, and one of the two players took Sniper Drones versus say more Broadsides or Hammerheads. The Sniper Drones were an interesting part of the gunline because they were so hard to hurt that the other player didn't even bother to shoot at them save for one or two garbage shots. Only problem: their effective damage contribution was less than amazing. Dan brought 2 units of them for 160 points, and they killed perhaps seven Fire Warriors the whole game.

The batrep is at http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/-tau-vs-tau-waaagh-batrep-part-14?utm_source=newscontent&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newscontent

What did you guys think of it?

The few times I have fielded sniper drones I have found them to be very underwhelming to say the least and most of my opponents just ignored them for other targets. But having said that I have not tried them in 6th edition yet, has anyone dared to try them over hammerheads and broadsides recently?

Grullon1982 wrote:
The few times I have fielded sniper drones I have found them to be very underwhelming to say the least and most of my opponents just ignored them for other targets. But having said that I have not tried them in 6th edition yet, has anyone dared to try them over hammerheads and broadsides recently?

I think the unit, costing as much as a single broadside, is good in 1000 point games and lower - Up to 3 of them only take up one FOC, they come with BS4 markerlights, and since target locks are back you can use the shrouded marker to light up a different target than the one you're trying to pin with your drones (or drop their Ld by -1). Once games get above that 1000 point threshold you typically see more AV12-14 vehicles on the table, and as such you'll need a hammerhead (with awesome D-Pod survival) or a battery of XV-88's (for killing with extreme prejudice).

If the sniper drones could have more than 3 per unit, even say up to 5, i think they'd be a more solid choice for bearing down high volumes of sniper fire. Right now they're not a terrible unit, but the heavy support slots have better options (IMO) than them.

I think that at 2000pts+ with a twin foc they're good aswell.

Especially with Gun Emplacements to be fired by the Drone Controller.

Rakeeb wrote:
I'm trying to wrap my brain around this. So turn 1, the Suits deploy infiltrated; turn 2 (minimum) your Shas'el deepstrikes, and let's say he ends up right next to them or is able to scoot there in the assault phase. This matters because you join in the movement phase. So either he lands within 2" and can join, OR he has to scoot next to them and survive a round of fire before he can join up.

So Turn 3 is the earliest he can reliably join, and is terribly vulnerable in turn 2.

No.

If it all goes as i planned it, Turn 2 the Shas'el comes down and the Stealth team Drones jump out of cover and shield Shas'el from anything not-barrage. Turn three, they fuse and move on to kill some stuff. Baring in mind that with 2+/4++/5+ FNP the SHas'el should survive most that gets thrown at him.

As for the sniper drones, well that works. ADL w/ Quad gun. The Drones hide behind the Line, 3+ cover, and the spotter uses the Quad gun. Must try this tactic...

If only the spotter could take wargear. Multi-tracker with networked markerlight whilst also firing the quad gun? Nice....

The attractive thing about sniper drones is the fact that you can take 9 rail rifles and 3 networked BS4 markerlights in three seperate highly durable squads for the cost of a unit of pathfinders. Against an opponent like Tau or Necrons of IG, its not so brilliant - but against marines? That AP3 shooting suddenly becomes necessary, and you start using those markerlights to improve your sniper shots.

I'm building a 1500pt force, and I'm highly likely to take a full squad of broadsides, a full group of sniper drones, and an Ion head. I feel like the broadsides have enough anti-tank firepower, especially combined with a fusion-equipped crisis squad.

 Micky wrote:


I'm building a 1500pt force, and I'm highly likely to take a full squad of broadsides, a full group of sniper drones, and an Ion head. I feel like the broadsides have enough anti-tank firepower, especially combined with a fusion-equipped crisis squad.

I agree strongly with this. I won't be bringing an Ion head, since there are better ForgeWorld mounts, but it's very unlikely that I'll bring a Railhead at this point. The submunition round is cool but it's not 50 points of cool.

You're going to have little to no trouble with elite armies, vehicles and MEQs, but what's your solution for Hordes?

Sure you're going to kill 10-20 models a turn, but when each enemy squad is that many or more?

The Plasmahead with a SMS can kill eight dudes a turn, so that's a start. I intend on taking more Fire Warriors than most of the folks here would be comfortable with. All of my draft 1750+ units have four full squads, and 1500 points armies don't have less than three.

Pretty much every list of 6th I've done has 6x6 Fire Warriors

12 FW or 6+6 FW for every 500 points seems to be the Tau standard these days.

BTW-SMS plasma head has 9 potential kills per turn, not 8.

 Micky wrote:
That AP3 shooting suddenly becomes necessary, and you start using those markerlights to improve your sniper shots.
.

I may be wrong or just reading incorrectly but I though mark lights only effect "tau" so drones and kroot cant gain any benefit?

Tau Drones are Tau and can use / benefit from Markerlights.
Kroot can not.

Rakeeb wrote:


I agree strongly with this. I won't be bringing an Ion head, since there are better ForgeWorld mounts, but it's very unlikely that I'll bring a Railhead at this point. The submunition round is cool but it's not 50 points of cool.

Well I don't have any Forge World turrets yet... once I do, i'll start fitting plasma instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:

I may be wrong or just reading incorrectly but I though mark lights only effect "tau" so drones and kroot cant gain any benefit?

The spotter in each sniper squad makes them a Tau unit, also.

I was thinking of putting a couple broadsides ontop of a bastion for the nice LOS position, but they would also be in base with the icarus lascannon. I know there was a thread or something about this earlier, but what was the final ruling on a skyfire weapon giving a model skyfire? So that I can have a broadside fire a lascannon and twin railgun at fliers using full BS.

 BoomWolf wrote:
12 FW or 6+6 FW for every 500 points seems to be the Tau standard these days.

BTW-SMS plasma head has 9 potential kills per turn, not 8.

Hey, am I missing something here? Plasma cannon is Heavy 4, SMS is Heavy 4... where's your 9th shot coming from?

I mean, I could just take burst cannon, wouldn't be no thing.

Plasma turret is heavy 4, each burst cannon is assault 3 - 10 shots. Plasma being twin linked means you'll hit with the money shots more often.

Yes, and since it's cheaper, it'll probably be the angle I take.

BUT BACK ON TOPIC

So one thing I like to bring to the tau thread is batreps, since they're primary sources of Tau tactics in action. We haven't discussed ArbitorIan's (really awesome looking) Tau in practice down here, but there are three recent battle reports by him sitting in the Battle Reports section of the site. One was against a horde of light Ork vehicles (which ended about how you'd expect), one was against Necron, and one was against Dark Eldar. Fascinating stuff and I encourage each of you to go read them and see what Ian's been up to.

Links are:

Tau vs Dark Eldar: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/477574.page

Tau vs Orks: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/475744.page

Tau vs Necron: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/478017.page

Rakeeb wrote:
The Plasmahead with a SMS can kill eight dudes a turn, so that's a start. I intend on taking more Fire Warriors than most of the folks here would be comfortable with. All of my draft 1750+ units have four full squads, and 1500 points armies don't have less than three.

Pretty close to my list plans.

barnowl wrote:

Rakeeb wrote:
The Plasmahead with a SMS can kill eight dudes a turn, so that's a start. I intend on taking more Fire Warriors than most of the folks here would be comfortable with. All of my draft 1750+ units have four full squads, and 1500 points armies don't have less than three.

Pretty close to my list plans.

All with shas'ui and hard wired blacksun filters, yes?

I'm really looking at that markerlight for the Shas'ui. I expect some folk to be uncomfortable with it, since it's a point sink with questionable return (you realistically need a target lock to get the most out of it). If it doesn't earn its points back consistently I'll probably look to remove them. I'm honestly just looking to let the Fire teams play in the bigger combined-arms game.

Does anyone have any batreps which included Marker shas'ui in practice?

Not a recorded batrep, but i tried it and its a bad idea unless gunlining

Too many points on a non-mobile and squishy model, as long you have ANY plans for that squad to be mobile you need to forget it.

A squad intened to sit on home objective can have it though.

Unless you're playing against Guard or other, similar lightly armored opponenents, I find it's useless to bring BSFs on your firewarriors. I know my local meta is mostly marines so they would be taking their normal armor saves anyways.

Maybe but it's only 3 points per team. Hardly breaking the bank and is awesome when you come up against lightly armoured opponents such as Dark Eldar.

Makes it easier to glance light vehicles to death at long range, too. Don't want them getting better cover/jink saves after all.

But if you're running four squads it can mean another drone or an upgrade for one of your battlesuits. I'm personally against it because if you get night turn one you just position yourself to chew into them harder turn 2. If you don't, you just chew them up until they have a negligble force by the time night shows up later in the game.

Rakeeb wrote:
I'm really looking at that markerlight for the Shas'ui. I expect some folk to be uncomfortable with it, since it's a point sink with questionable return (you realistically need a target lock to get the most out of it). If it doesn't earn its points back consistently I'll probably look to remove them. I'm honestly just looking to let the Fire teams play in the bigger combined-arms game.

Does anyone have any batreps which included Marker shas'ui in practice?

When there are points to burn, I will add a markerlight and target lock and or a hw Multitracker. Makes for an expensive 'ui but I think you get better use out of the markerlight w/ Target lock so it can fire at a different target. HWMT is more just for grins, though potentially it would let you shot and throw EMP grenade. Have to check the BRB about that one.

Sadly EMP grenades do not have a ranged profile. Like Melta bombs, they must be applied in cc only.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Maybe but it's only 3 points per team. Hardly breaking the bank and is awesome when you come up against lightly armoured opponents such as Dark Eldar.

Makes it easier to glance light vehicles to death at long range, too. Don't want them getting better cover/jink saves after all.

I've kinda felt that its more of a 13 point cost because I wouldn't take the Shas'ui upgrade otherwise.

Also don't forget that a single markerlight token removes Night Fighting penalties for shooting.

 Micky wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Maybe but it's only 3 points per team. Hardly breaking the bank and is awesome when you come up against lightly armoured opponents such as Dark Eldar.

Makes it easier to glance light vehicles to death at long range, too. Don't want them getting better cover/jink saves after all.

I've kinda felt that its more of a 13 point cost because I wouldn't take the Shas'ui upgrade otherwise.

Also don't forget that a single markerlight token removes Night Fighting penalties for shooting.

I always take a Shas'ui for the leadership 8, having seen myself fail a leadership test by one too many times to rely on a leadership value of 7. Blacksun Filters are just a 3 point bonus.

I second that. the LD bonus is a great addition, considering the bell curve makes 8 a rather common result.

I dont see why to bother with the BSF on firewarriors unless I have spare points lying around and really NOTHING to do with them though.

I guess part of the reason I haven't been taking the Shas'ui upgrade is that I tend to field lots of squads of 6x Fire Warriors... maybe instead i'll do 3-4 squads of 12 and see how that goes =)

In the few games i've played so far with tau i've found the Shas'ui to be a good choice with a markerlight upgrade.

That extra markerlight has given the option to use my pathfinders for more HVTs. That either the broadsides are targeting or to backup the crisis suits.

In regards to BSF's I admit I haven't put them on the firewarriors and so far it hasn't been a issue for me.

I think BSF upgrades are auto-includes for certain units (Broadsides, for instance) but the vast majority of the army operates between 12-30", and we don't have a lot of very high AP weapons - MEQ types, for instance, will prefer their power armor to any Shrouded save. I do think that Marker heavy armies should be using their lights to negate Night Fighting where possible, especially against hordes, since it'll save some 20-30 points in the long run.

Anything with Plasma Rifles should have a BSF, in my opinion. I don't want that space marine to have any save against my expensive gun. Even if it is only a 6+ cover save as he's standing out in the open, sods law says he'll make it at least enough of the time to be annoying.

Also Deathrains (and Fireknives for when they take shots at vehicles) should have one in there as their primary targets are light vehicles which now get a cover save at only 25% obscured, so you don't want to give them any extra bonus to that save. Even more so for Skimmers.

What do you guys think about advanced stability systems on broadsides? Are they worth the 10pts each? Do you guys move your broadsides a lot or do you mostly just keep them in one spot. Would it be worth forgoing ASS on three broadsides and taking an imperial bastion allowing the broadsides to hit almost anything because of their LOS.

Me personally I don't run A.S.S. ever. I sit them behind an aegis line about 10-12" from the table edge with clear 2-4' shooting paths depending on the setup and usually give them a bsf or targeting array. I keep them in one spot w/ plenty of coverage close to them or a small bubble wrap of 10 kroot. You want to force your opponent to come to you think 300 spartans. I'd forgo the bastion, would be a nice birds nest but how many points is that. Aegis is a lot cheaper and gives you 4 up on everything or 2 up on your hammerheads. Broadsides are nice but w/ the change to the damage chart I find myself not blowing stuff up more so than glancing them to death. I run a squad of 2 w/ shield drones and 2 plasma cannon hammerheads as my heavies. Seems to work good so far.

I use a 3-man A.S.S. team with team leader with Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker, Target lock and 2 shield drones.

Mobile railguns are amazing, able to hide when necessary and just walk out and light something up without sacrificing accuracy.

Means turn one they can deploy completely out of sight in case the opponent steals initiative (or had it to begin with) and are safe from being shot to bits before they have a chance to kill anything.

A.S.S. is awesome for when your opponent tries to block line of sight from your Broadsides but still attack the rest of your army - usually a 6 inch move from your Broadsides is enough to bring it into the line of fire.

If your broadsides are sitting on top of a bastion, then there is no A.S.S needed (tried it in one game and it was awesome. Has a lascannon farseer with the ignore cover power up there too). However any ground-based broadside unit should have them, and I used to use them all the time to great effect.

On a side note. WOOO 200!

Is A.S.S. considered a must take for a single broadside?

....a 2nd broadside is a must take for a single broadside.

Real answer is no.

Skyshield would be the best terrain with static broadsides. 4+ invul save, room for a couple of units and a Kroot bubblewrap, elevated field of view reduces opponent's chance to get behind cover and if they assault you they have to go through difficult terrain.

Alternate would be a bastion, which I would probably stick a sniper drone team on top of along with the broadsides within.

Jefffar wrote:

Alternate would be a bastion, which I would probably stick a sniper drone team on top of along with the broadsides within.

....aaaaand suddenly the reason for the Bulky rule on battlesuits and stealth suits becomes clear!




I played a game the other week with a deep strike suicide squad, packing all the anti-infantry weaponry I could mount on it.

I think it was.... cheap commander + 2 shas'vre... there was an A.S.S, an ion blaster, a burst cannon, and everyone had twin-linked flamers, and multitrackers.

They deep struck, got a direct hit, landing right next to a squad of Mandrakes and a squad of Kabalite warriors. Turned all those weapons on the warriors, killed all 17 warriors but not the squad leader. Next turn the mandrakes charged in, and all died to flamer overwatch (3xD3 rerollable wounds)

Obviously, against 3+ or 4+ it would have been very different...

 Micky wrote:

Jefffar wrote:

Alternate would be a bastion, which I would probably stick a sniper drone team on top of along with the broadsides within.

....aaaaand suddenly the reason for the Bulky rule on suits becomes clear!

Doesn't really have any effect though. Bulky means they count as two models but the Bastion can hold more than 6 models.

Also Broadsides aren't Jetpack Infantry, which is what what makes Crisis Suits and Stealth Suits Bulky, so RAW Broadsides are not Bulky and only count as one model for transport capacity purposes


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Micky wrote:

Speaking of A.S.S....


I played a game the other week with a deep strike suicide squad, packing all the anti-infantry weaponry I could mount on it.

I think it was.... cheap commander + 2 shas'vre... there was an A.S.S, an ion blaster, a burst cannon, and everyone had twin-linked flamers, and multitrackers.

They deep struck, got a direct hit, landing right next to a squad of Mandrakes and a squad of Kabalite warriors. Turned all those weapons on the warriors, killed all 17 warriors but not the squad leader. Next turn the mandrakes charged in, and all died to flamer overwatch (3xD3 rerollable wounds)

Obviously, against 3+ or 4+ it would have been very different...

Think you're talking about the Airburst Fragmentation Launcher, not the Advanced Stabilisation System which confers Slow and Purposeful as that would have no effect in the scenario you just described.

You are, of course, exactly right. Post edited to reflect this

new tau player here and finding the whole thread very useful but question came up in my head of shield drones vs gun drones.

is it better to get 3 gun drones to get some shots in and to take shots (up to 3 wounds for same price I'm thinking) for crisis suits or shield drones for 4+ invul but only 2 wounds?

Well for 1, each criss suit can only take 2 drones to begin with

So really you are comparing the extra shootign to the invul save and toughess boost.

Yes I said toughness boost. The gun drones are T3 and the Sheild Drones are T4 when attached to a crisis suit. Since the rolls to wound from shooting are based on the majority toughness on the unit, if the crisis suits get outnumbered by their drones the unit drops to Toughness 3.

Overall I prefer gun drones in independent squadrons or with Stealth teams.

Jefffar wrote:
Well for 1, each criss suit can only take 2 drones to begin with

So really you are comparing the extra shootign to the invul save and toughess boost.

Yes I said toughness boost. The gun drones are T3 and the Sheild Drones are T4 when attached to a crisis suit. Since the rolls to wound from shooting are based on the majority toughness on the unit, if the crisis suits get outnumbered by their drones the unit drops to Toughness 3.

Overall I prefer gun drones in independent squadrons or with Stealth teams.

Ahh, I totally forgot drone controller doesn't let you have more drones. Was thinking hard wired + a suit option but now I think on it, I guess it's the same wargear.

Now another question, I've been debating on eldrad + pathfinders giving him crazy cover behind an aegis but wondering if his special rule to reposition units in the army extended to Tau units?

Lastly, while I wait for some tetras to come in the mail, I'm debating on trying to fix up a 1500 points list.

HQ suit with missles/plasma
I got 3 squads of fire warriors (8 each) one with a d.fish
Plasma + missles crisis suits x3 with 2 shield drones x 2 (or maybe just 2 gun drones)

3 broadsides w/2 drones
2 rail hammer heads

+ ageis and quad gun + eldrad + pathfinders that comes in at 1700 points

Trying to get it down to 1500. what do you guys think I should do to shave 200 points and /or make it better?

sudojoe wrote:new tau player here and finding the whole thread very useful but question came up in my head of shield drones vs gun drones.

is it better to get 3 gun drones to get some shots in and to take shots (up to 3 wounds for same price I'm thinking) for crisis suits or shield drones for 4+ invul but only 2 wounds?

Personally, I look at it this way:

Gun Drones:
Stealth Suits - Cheaper, extra twin linked shots, more T3 wounds with a 3+ save / 4+ cover in the open / 2+ cover in cover.
Fire Warriors / Pathfinders - Effectively extra bodies, extra shots, and a higher Initiative for if / when you get swept.
Basic Battlesuits - If you're sinking points into extra wounds for suits, 20pts is better than 30pts, (even with the +1T and 4+* on basic suits I just don't see it as worth it) I though generally I'm not going to take them for basic suit squads anyway and if I am, it's 2 to a squad of 3 suits.

Shield Drones:
Broadsides - Broadsides LOVE shield drones, 2+ / 4+* is great. 2 per Broadside means you cover every approach with shield drones for an insanely hard unit.
Commanders - They're all right here, T4 3+ / 4+* is OK and the commander is generally a little more important.
Commanders with Iridium Armour - Same as Broadsides in this respect - 2 T4 2+ / 4+* wounds on top of the 3-4 T4 2+ wounds on the commander is worth the 50pts.

 sudojoe wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Well for 1, each criss suit can only take 2 drones to begin with

So really you are comparing the extra shootign to the invul save and toughess boost.

Yes I said toughness boost. The gun drones are T3 and the Sheild Drones are T4 when attached to a crisis suit. Since the rolls to wound from shooting are based on the majority toughness on the unit, if the crisis suits get outnumbered by their drones the unit drops to Toughness 3.

Overall I prefer gun drones in independent squadrons or with Stealth teams.

Ahh, I totally forgot drone controller doesn't let you have more drones. Was thinking hard wired + a suit option but now I think on it, I guess it's the same wargear.

Now another question, I've been debating on eldrad + pathfinders giving him crazy cover behind an aegis but wondering if his special rule to reposition units in the army extended to Tau units?

Lastly, while I wait for some tetras to come in the mail, I'm debating on trying to fix up a 1500 points list.

HQ suit with missles/plasma
I got 3 squads of fire warriors (8 each) one with a d.fish
Plasma + missles crisis suits x3 with 2 shield drones x 2 (or maybe just 2 gun drones)

3 broadsides w/2 drones
2 rail hammer heads

+ ageis and quad gun + eldrad + pathfinders that comes in at 1700 points

Trying to get it down to 1500. what do you guys think I should do to shave 200 points and /or make it better?

For a 1500 point game, I found that two railheads and one broadside usually gives you enough railguns. If you need to cut points, the easiest way IMO would be drop one broadside, and switch Eldrad out for a Farseer with two powers, and all of those fancy runes and stones.
Were you going to swap out his powers or stick with the codex ones?

Alternatively, take out a squad of fire warriors.

well as I have no marker lights in the list, I was using eldrad for the accuracy boost mostly. Lots of people forget but you can't use the same power twice in the same turn so only eldrad can buff 2 units with divination (twin linking)

while the other farseer is limited to 2 different powers which may or may not be in range of anything

For a 1500 point game, I found that two railheads and one broadside usually gives you enough railguns. If you need to cut points, the easiest way IMO would be drop one broadside, and switch Eldrad out for a Farseer with two powers, and all of those fancy runes and stones.
Were you going to swap out his powers or stick with the codex ones?

Alternatively, take out a squad of fire warriors.

don't I need around 3-4 troops for 1500? 3 small groups seem kind of risky to me but I shall try it. Alternatively I also have a bunch more crisis suits. Total of 12 crisis suits of varying builds (and I can always chop off arms if needed, there's always super glue!) and 4 broadsides, 2 raid heads, 1 d.fish. I picked up the army 2nd hand so I got what I got. Also have a sniper drone team in there with an etheral, 6 stealth team with one guy with a fusion blaster, 30 fire warriors total, 6 pathfinders with 3 rail rifles and 1 kroot. Figured I'll go order up 2 tetras next as my next upgrades to the army and probably another d.fish as the idea of mechtau appeals to me

1500 is so restrictive but oh so fun to balance around since it forces so many hard choices.

Drop one of the RailHeads, problem solved.

My 3 packets of sniper drones just arrived - no bubbles thankfully, but every single one is warped by the heat, ugh....

But in any case... keen to try these guys out once I have them assembled. Will let you know how a full 240pts of sniper works on the table, not just in the meta.

I shudder to think what 3 squads of sniper drones would cost in aus/nz, it's bad enough here.

I know I convert mine from regular drones rather than pay £30-40 a squad...

In 5th I found 1500pts to be the ideal game size for Tau (or at least for my Tau, which was light on railguns and suits). My point is, three missile pods, and four railguns should be enough in most cases to deal with vehicles (so you can drop a broadside). It should be at least close to the same in 6th.

IMHO the game size is a bit small for the point investment of Eldrad, as opposed to a regular seer using presience and another power (most of which are quite good). Or at least, right on the edge of where it becomes worth it or not. The regular seer can do most of the same stuff, for a lot less cost. And you need to drop 200 points

 Ovion wrote:
I shudder to think what 3 squads of sniper drones would cost in aus/nz, it's bad enough here.

I know I convert mine from regular drones rather than pay £30-40 a squad...

Got a guy in the UK to send them over. TBH i'd have rather made them out of gun drones too, but I didn't really have the bits to do it.

 DakkaHammer wrote:
In 5th I found 1500pts to be the ideal game size for Tau (or at least for my Tau, which was light on railguns and suits). My point is, three missile pods, and four railguns should be enough in most cases to deal with vehicles (so you can drop a broadside). It should be at least close to the same in 6th.

IMHO the game size is a bit small for the point investment of Eldrad, as opposed to a regular seer using presience and another power (most of which are quite good). Or at least, right on the edge of where it becomes worth it or not. The regular seer can do most of the same stuff, for a lot less cost. And you need to drop 200 points

You bring up excellent points dakkahammer. I will probably do a few test games against myself to see what would happen with just a farseer and short a broadside. I might need to go get some more bloody fire warriors up in this as I feel like my troops are fairly light still. The hammerheads I like 2 of just cause they are such excellent fire magnets and will hopefully survive with their 3+ cover's.

 Micky wrote:

 Ovion wrote:
I shudder to think what 3 squads of sniper drones would cost in aus/nz, it's bad enough here.

I know I convert mine from regular drones rather than pay £30-40 a squad...

Got a guy in the UK to send them over. TBH i'd have rather made them out of gun drones too, but I didn't really have the bits to do it.

UK retail? that's still a scary number (£24 a squad...)
I built mine out of Drone bits and a pulse rifle (needs... a Drone body, 3 Drone Pulse Carbines, a Pulse Rifle and 4 Drone Antenna per Sniper Drone body, then a Firewarrior, Battlesuit Shield, that... bobbly suit bit and another Drone Antenna.)

Currently I'm working towards building another 6 +2 DC. I'm mostly short antenna atm... and then I want to make another 9+3 so I can field 18 at 2000pts (because why not!)
Sadly my Tau Bitz box is running a little low on the Drone Antenna and Drone Pulse Carbines... (need to find someone with a whole ton spare, or buy a load more drones from ebay)

Ive actually just stuck a Pulse Rifle on an actual gun drone. It looks good enough, but there is a lack of Fire Warriors going spare to make a DC with.

One thing I'm finding from these finecast drones is... the old metal sculpts really are a bit s**t. They don't have a huge amount of detail and there's no reason why they shouldn't be plastic.

And yeah, like I said... if I had the bits, I could have tried making my own sniper drones, but... well... I used all my bits to make my own shield and marker drones <_<;;

Pulse Submunition Rifle XV-9s are awesome - just had to point that out.

For 150 points you get a highly durable suit with two shield drones and two pie plates of death. The best thing about the PSR's is that they're deadly even without markerlight support - and they can dig out stuff like eldar rangers from far away.
Couple that with s5 for massive ammounts of wounds and you've got a winner

The only shame is that there isn't a weapon model out for the PSR yet :(

I suppose you could buy two R'alai models, but I had personally intended to use the Phased Ion Guns myself.

I used instant mold & green stuff to make duplicates of ralai's gun.

Just a quick question, but does anyone have any views on Piranhas this edition?

taudau, you could always look at the beam gun by Paulson Games. It looks a lot like the Pulse Sub Rifle for R'alai, little thicker imo but same size and similar look and way cheaper. As far as piranha goes, I was running 1 in my 2k list early in 6th pretty much for line breaker and the occasional melta shot. Now I tend to run more tetras and they have become very survivable with disruption pods boost and last me most games til the end for line breaker and of course the multitude of markerlights it gives you.

Tetras, being vehicles, are ineligible for claiming the "line breaker" secondary obj.

i wass thinking just zip about claiming 2+ cover, than pop something if it gets too close

 IHateNids wrote:
Just a quick question, but does anyone have any views on Piranhas this edition?

I still think the usefulness of Piranhas is limited due to the short range of their fusion blasters/burst cannons. It often leads to them getting charged in combat (which to this day I have yet to see a vehicle get charged in 6th ed and not get wrecked/exploded)

However I am a fan of the forgeworld varient that allows them to take TL MPs instead. That or take plasmarifles/railguns if you want. That varient is actually harder to kill then a crisissuit equivelant unit with the same upgrades, and for a cheaper price. The only real downside being the lack of being a denial unit and the Jetpack rule.

I might start trying to field more of them, since i can also load them up with seeker missiles giving my tetras even more of a punch.

Piranhas are still useful for movement blocking of large tanks, and elite combat units. Always remember that those combt units don't get to consolidate from vehicles, which is precious movement lost on their part.

I have actually killed a Daemon Prince when it charged me last edition with the fletchettes, so Im not worrying about charges.

DP was on 2 wounds from shooting, and charged a team of three Pirahnas. 2 hit, 2 6s to wound, 2 failed saves. it was priceless

I need help with the Loadout on my Two Solo Crisis Suits.
I would like to run BC/PR on one While MS/Burstcannon on the other.
but i need other ideas. Any ideas for help? I know a fireknife is a good choice, but such a low volume of shots they put out doesnt help me.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I need help with the Loadout on my Two Solo Crisis Suits.
I would like to run BC/PR on one While MS/Burstcannon on the other.
but i need other ideas. Any ideas for help? I know a fireknife is a good choice, but such a low volume of shots they put out doesnt help me.

What kinds of roles do you want to accomplish? I'm getting the feeling you'd like to get an anti-horde approach. I'm assuming these are HQ suits (you don't want to waste elite slots with montats ) which makes the Airburst a very attractive option. You can then twinlink BCs on that unit to get him some good light armor kill power. I've used the Airburst in my last game (granted, a month ago, but still) and it performed admirably against annoying as hell troopers to kill.

If you're going for another goal with them, please let me know.

i find a solo suit is good with BC & TL Flamer for anti-horde. Or go all experimental with Cyclic Ion & Airburst. ~7 dead Nids/IG/other-T3-targets a turn, what with no cover and decent-ish AP.

Not Horde, More like anti Infantry. Like marines and such.

Specifically Anti-MEQ you want AP3 or better, meaning for Tau Fusion Blasters, Ion Cannons, Plasma Rifles, Rail Rifles, Railguns and Seeker Missiles are your friend, with an honourable mention going to the Cyclic Ion Blaster.

So for suits, you're pretty much limited to Fusion Blasters, Plasma Rifles, and Cyclic Ion Blasters.

For lone suits, the Plasma / Fusion Blaster combo may be the better option.

That said, you're better off leaving regular infantry to Fire Warriors, Devilfish, Hammerhead Railguns (large blast goodness) and squads of suits with more shots.
Lone suits I'd use to focus on taking out hard-targets, probably with a twin-linked Fusion Blaster and a Plasma Rifle (or possibly a Missile Pod).

 DakkaHammer wrote:
In 5th I found 1500pts to be the ideal game size for Tau (or at least for my Tau, which was light on railguns and suits). My point is, three missile pods, and four railguns should be enough in most cases to deal with vehicles (so you can drop a broadside). It should be at least close to the same in 6th.

IMHO the game size is a bit small for the point investment of Eldrad, as opposed to a regular seer using presience and another power (most of which are quite good). Or at least, right on the edge of where it becomes worth it or not. The regular seer can do most of the same stuff, for a lot less cost. And you need to drop 200 points

took your advice dakkahammer and had my first game with the tau minus a broadside but I kept eldrad and it worked really well!

Twin linked hammer heads were amazing as far as I was concerned lol as I ended up fighting a typhus plague zombie list and I barely squeeked by shooting them all down with rail guns and templates. I ended up not being able to afford the quad gun or aegis but I snuck in 2 broadsides. The twin linked burst cannons were also really handy. Hero of the day however goes to my drone squad that detatched from an immobilized devilfish and they managed to kill a terminator with shooting as well as killed 1 plague zombie with fnp in close combat and passed morale from getting shot by some plague marines lol. Eventually died from all the rest of the zombies killing the one guy in close combat but worth it as it dragged them out of cover cause the guy was pissed at the drones for killing a terminator lol

Also, tau I feel like we almost have a pinata event vs plague zombie spam as they can't shoot back and was probably kind of an easy game but still felt really good for shooting purposes. Wish I could buff the crisis suits with eldrad though but I deep struck them and kited around. Debating on multi-tracker vs targeters now for the 2 normal guys. May also reconsider the shield drones but not enough data to decide yet.

I got what feels like a nub question but...

Does the Pathfinder's Devilfish count as Fast Attack in the FOC? I was thinking for the mission where Fast Attack count as scoring. If so I guess they would give up two KPs when killed?

DFs only give up one KP when killed. The drones are counted as part of the vehicle, and don't give up a separate kill point.

As for the FOC question... I'd say that since it's part of a FA choice, then yes it'd count as FA.

A Dedicated Transport has the same FoC slot as the unit that takes it.

You'll need to make a note of which are the FA ones though to avoid confusion.

tetrisphreak wrote:Tetras, being vehicles, are ineligible for claiming the "line breaker" secondary obj.

Piranhas, however, carry a very small drone squadron, that does count for linebreaker. Devilfishes have these as well, so taking a piranha just for linebreaker might be a waste if you have DF's already

I have a question. Has anyone tried out XV-9's with Fusion Cascades?
did you field them in full squads? how'd they do? how survivable were they?

I love these models and their weapon choices, they are just so darn expensive (points and $) especially since their support system choices are either too expensive or useless

I've only seen one person use the XV-9 and that was back in 5th. The guy had no idea how to play Tau, got the one XV-9 killed, and I think he lied about them being 40K approved.

But if I remember right, the fusion cascade gives you 2D3 melta shots at 18" on a T5 suit.

Personally I don't like how the XV-9s are sold with only the single weapon option. If they sold the base model and sold the arms separately I would have tried them out, instead you have to shell out for two expensive models to try two different guns.

I recently picked up a Tau force, and I am eager to start experimenting. I have read through this thread, and there is some great information here, thank you to all that have contributed. I have not played 40K since 5th edition, and so I am a little rusty on some of the 6th edition rules, but I have been trying to catch up. Given the models that I have I am probably going to be running a foot army, and I was glad to see from this thread that this seems like a viable option now. I wanted to get a little feedback on the list that I am making while it is in a conceptual stage before I post it to Army Lists for fine tuning. That being the case, here is a skeleton list:

HQ:
1x Shas'O: Airbursting and Missile Pod, HWDC, HWTL, Multi-tracker, BSF, 2x Shield Drones
2x Honour Guard: 2x Deathrains w/ gun drones or two more shield drones

1x Ethereal
7x Honour Guard: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight

ELITES:
3x Fireknives: Multitrackers, HWDC, HWTL, BSF, gun drones
5x Stealth suits: Marker Sahs'ui w/ 2 Marker Drones
3x Stealth suits: 1x Fusion Blaster

TROOPS:
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight

HEAVY:
2x Broadsides: Plasma Rifles, Shield Drones, ASS
2x Broadsides: Plasma Rifles, Shield Drones, ASS

FORTIFICATION:
Aegis Defense Line w/ Quad gun

Here are my thoughts:
With so much of my force made up of small FW units, I thought that having an ethereal would be helpful . I figured that either he or one of his honor guard would man the quad gun (could one of the guard do this?). They would be positioned behind the aegis, hopefully in a place with good sight lines, both to maximize their fire output and make best use of his Morale boosting. One unit of Broadsides would stay relatively stationary behind the aegis, and the other would stay mobile to pop vehicles that are out of sight lines. The FW squads would serve as skirmishing units, with the Shas'uis lighting up targets for heavies and for other FW units. The Shas'O and friends would provide additional long range support, and user the Airburster to nuke any light infantry that make it close to the Aegis. The stealth suits would Infiltrate to try and put some hurt and markerlights on the enemy turn one. The fusion stealth squad was really intended to take out any back line heavies that the railguns don't manage to pop, kind of a frontline response unit. The firknives would burn markerlights, and handle the mid-field. I wanted
Like I said, this list is still in the conceptual stage. I was trying to avoid vehicles, but I do have a railhead and an ionhead that I could bring in if points allow. I was a little nervous about including them until I had the rest of the list ironed out, and I would probably only want to bring one if I was able to bring both.
So, what wisdom do you have to lay on me? More markerlights or less? Markerlights in FW squads work? Loadouts on the crisis squads make sense?

a few quick notes. Ultimately it's your army so you put what you want in it and have some fun experimenting.
And yes, your honorguard would work great on the Quadcannon, since he is BS4. I'm not sure on the rules about the rest of his unit firing at a different target though.

However, some things where you could work on are:

1) Keep in mind that you must take 25% casualties before a squad takes a morale check. To combat this you want squad sizes of 9+ (3 required to check instead of 2) or even the full 12 (4 kills needed). Also, you cannot regroup if below 25%. To combat this you need squads of 8+ (2 firewarriors can still regroup at normal Ld). Since your army will be on foot your squads need to be more resilient to Ld checks by being larger. I would take one or two FW squads and distribute them throughout the others and honor guard.

2) Fusion blasters in stealth teams are highly unreliable. Plus you can take a deep-striking suicide crisis with TL fusion blasters and targetting array for almost half the points of that stealth team. It costs less, is almost as survivable, and is much more effective at popping high AV

3) If one squad of broadsides will be behind the Aegis, then there is no need for ASS. You could even argue that the shield drones are not worth it since the Aegis grants gun drones a comparable invul save. Just know that when you buy shield drones for the Aegis Broadsides you are paying only for the 2+ armor save

4) Putting markerlights in every squad you can think of is costing you alot of points. It will definately get results, but there are more efficient ways of getting them. You are paying 25 points per markerlight in the FW squads. Total, all 9 of your ML's are costing you ~225 points. That is 4 tetras or 8 Pathfinders+fully kitted Devilfish+some change.
However, give your list a try and see how you like it. Generally, markerlights work best in designated markerlight platforms, but you never know

5) A tactical point about the markerlights's. Only the marker drones have integrated markerlights. Which means they are the only ones that can benefit their own unit. Your shooting phase will be tricky because you must shoot with the entire unit before moving to the next one. This means a FW's markerlight hit can only benefit the units that fire after his own, and since there's only 1 per squad it makes accumulating markerlight counters difficult.

Thank you so much for the feedback!
Good notion about the honour guard not being able to fire at a different squad, I will have to look into that.
On to your points:

1) In a 7 man squad, 25% casualties for a morale check is 3 models killed. At that point, the unit is actually close to half strength, so if they run it is not that big of a loss. To be below 25% so that they can't re-group, they would have to only have one model left, so no big loss. The idea of this is to break up the units so that the enemy has to divide their fire amongst more targets. Granted, each unit dies more easily, which does sacrifice a kill point. This also affords the opportunity to include more markerlights, but I will discuss that later.

2) I completely get your point here. The one advantage that the stealth team has over the monat suit is that they can infiltrate and start harassing the enemy turn 1. The crisis suit can DS, but that always has an associated risk. You are absolutely right though, he would do a better job once he is there at a lower cost, so I will take this into consideration.

3) You are absolutely right about the loadout on the Broadsides. I was trying to keep them a little more flexible, and just intended them to start behind the aegis, but it is probably an unnecessary points sink.

4) The way I saw it, I was buying a Shas'ui for every FW squad anyway for the improved Ld, so giving each one a markerlight was only costing 15 pts per unit. Total for 7 markerlights would be 105 points. 7 PF's (Shas'ui w/ 1 TL) and their naked Dfish are 179 points, and can only light up at most two targets. granted, that actually puts more bodies on the field, and they have some cool tricks, but in a foot list their transport is going to get smoked fast, as it is the only vehicle on the table. The markerlight stealths just looked like a good way to boost the number of lights I had to play with each turn. As for tetras, you are absolutely correct. They are awesomesauce, and I would love to have 2x2, but I don't have the money to sink into them at the moment.

5) The shooting phase will be tricky. I kind of figured that I would start with whatever unit has no shot on infantry, and just shoot their markerlight. Start stacking markerlights on hard targets, and if someone fails their target priority test and lights up whatever the rest of their squad is shooting at, just burn that one for the squad shooting after it. With great flexibility in who gets lit, comes potential complications, and sometimes you just have to make the best of a bad situation.

I think that I am going to keep the lights in the squads until I have an opportunity to playtest. Has anyone had any experience with this tactic?
I will definitely be editing the suits. Thanks for the input, this is why I brought it here first.

From my experience, the one ML in your FW squad is going to have a very minimal impact. Taking those out and investing in at least one transport seems to be a better useage of points.

The reasoning behind that is that if you get a stripped down transport you have a good, very mobile skimmer. But all you need to add to it is a Disruption Pod and suddenly you have a transport that is incredibly difficult to take down, as moving normally confers a 3+ Jink and moving flat out confers a 2+ Jink, meaning your opponents have to place tons of effort into taking it down while you have the advantage of mobility to your troops.

I see you've put alot of thought into this, and if you have reasons for doing what you did then you should go with it and give it a try.

25% of 7 is 1.75, 8 is 2, and 9 is 2.25. So for anything below 9 models, you will take a Ld test whenever you lose 2 models. So basically, for shooting-casualty-Ld-check purposes a 6 man squad is no different than an 8. You could take one FW from each squad and form another minimal squad if MSU is what you are after.
You can set up your squads however you want, the advantages/disadvantages are very small, I just wanted you to be aware of what they were.

Infiltrating harassing stealth suits is a great thing. The fusion-stealth team is just an awkward unit to use without dumping tons of points on it for support systems and making a Stealth Cloud. In some cases, it will work great, but in others it ends up trying to do everything and accomplishing nothing. I found, for the most part, I was either wasting the FB shots on infantry, or wasting the BC shots on heavy armor.

Would you consider changing your stealth marker team to 3 models and have them operate in the backfield, then bump up your dedicated harass stealth team to 5? 5 Burst cannons (or 4 plus a FB) will annoy just about anything and with so many units on the board the stealth marker team should be fairly low on his target priority list.

By my math 15 ptsper FW squad = 90, 15 for the Stealth leader, and 60 for the marker drones. Total 165, still in pathfinder territory and you get a bonus devilfish for locator beacon and obj. grabbing, or 3 tetras kitted out.
As I said, how you distribute your markerlights is up to you. And I encourage you to test the Markerlight firewarrior squads, it is a rarely used tactic and may be very effective in 6th. Food for thought: there is a good discussion on pathfinders vs. tetras here over at ATT.

Final note, you do not need to pass any target priority tests for 6th. You can shoot at whoever you please, and target locks automatically allow you to fire at a different target.

@ Da Skyman: Embarrassing, but you are spot on. I am studying calculus and physics right now, but apparently basic arithmetic is outside of my range of ability. Thanks for the correction.
Your suggestions for the stealth teams sound great, and I am implementing them as written. Very helpful, I just wasn't sure how exactly to make them into a round peg, and I think that's it.
I wasn't giving the FW squads marker drones. Just a markerlight for the Shas'ui. Each squad comes out to 95 points, which is about what the pathfinder squad costs without the devilfish. This way I am sacrificing a couple of abilities that I don't necessarily need in this unit for it to be scoring, and I don't have to buy a devilfish. The points spent on the devilfish basically buy another unit. With the marker stealth team, this gives me a total of 9 ML's on the field that can be shot at 8 targets.
Glad to hear there is no more priority test, that makes this work even better.

@ Yotsuba: It is not 1 ML in one FW squad, it is 7 in 7. I am not investing in one transport because one of the advantages of running foot is that you get to deny the enemy the proper use of their AT weapons. With only one on the board it would also be an easy KP. Don't get me wrong, I think that the devilfish, particularly with disruption pod, is the best transport in the game. Just doen't seem like a good idea to only include one. This is the same reason that I am nervous to only include one hammer head.

Twinkle Starchild wrote:


4) The way I saw it, I was buying a Shas'ui for every FW squad anyway for the improved Ld, so giving each one a markerlight was only costing 15 pts per unit. Total for 7 markerlights would be 105 points. 7 PF's (Shas'ui w/ 1 TL) and their naked Dfish are 179 points, and can only light up at most two targets. granted, that actually puts more bodies on the field, and they have some cool tricks, but in a foot list their transport is going to get smoked fast, as it is the only vehicle on the table. The markerlight stealths just looked like a good way to boost the number of lights I had to play with each turn. As for tetras, you are absolutely correct. They are awesomesauce, and I would love to have 2x2, but I don't have the money to sink into them at the moment.

The nice thing about pathfinders is that they can be shooting before the rest of your army. Ui' with Marker lights can only shoot when its their squads turn to shoot, and then the lights can only be used by squads that have yet to have shot in that phase. Most of the time the things you want to light up are the things you want to be shooting at first, not with 'whatever is left after all your troops have laid down fire.

Also, the devilfish is a tax, but only if you make it one. Otherwise its an av12 skimmer with a 2up save when it flats out. And a transport to boot, and in the scouring, it can drop gun drones that are scoring. Any other time, it can drop gun drones that are denial units, denail units that can disembard 6 (from anywhere on the hull, run d6, and then jump shoot jump 2d6). Think of the pathfinder d-fish as a little something extra that just happens to be manditory unless you have Tetras.

The pathfinders being a dedicated markerlight unit is definitely helpful. I included a stealth marker team in the list for lighting up high priority targets that are transports for units that I would want to shoot with my FW teams later in the shooting phase. The shooting phase would kind of go like this:
1) Stealth team lights up high priority transport
2) A heavy unit burns the lights to pop the transport
3) 1 or two FW squads fire, with their markerlights going to either stack on an armoured target or increase BS for the unit after it if an infantry target is available. Depending on what is in LOS, the honour guard may fire first since they are starting off with BS 4, or they may fire after a ML hit on an infantry unit is scored by a prior unit so that they are at BS 5.
4) A heavy pops whatever they have been lighting up
5) More units fire...etc...

I accept that this is a much more complicated process than the dedicated marker team, heavies, FW teams approach that is often used. I think that might be an advantage though, as all of the units involved are forced to work more in concert. There will be a shift in target priority, as each of 6 FW squads will have have to make decisions not only on how best to position for firing at enemy infantry, but also how best to position to place markerlights effectively. I think that this is an advantage to this approach as well. By having markerlights in every unit, it will make it so that you can place markers on enemy units that you might not otherwise be able to reach. Dedicated marker units also have the disadvantage that if they are wiped out, that's it. One wisely placed demolisher round, and poof goes your markerlight support. By hiding the lights in the regular FW squads, you make those lights more survivable and more flexible at a slight cost to efficacy due to FW's not having scout, etc...

I understand that devilfish are awesome transports, and I would not argue against them in most lists, but do you really think that having one floating around is really going to be worth its points? Worth potentially generating a KP for the enemy? I am spending 90 points to give each of the 6 squads (though I am thinking of making them 7x 6 man squads after Da Skyman's math settled into my brain). Why would I spend nearly that much on a transport that would be the only vehicle on the table?

I see people using, or atleast mention, the stealth marker team and I really have to ask why. The unit is insanely expensive for access to just a few BS3 markerlights.

I'm a firm believer that if you're going to take markerlights, you take Tetras. If you don't want to, can't, don't have access to tetras then you just don't take markerlights. Tau firepower is fairly reliable when you twin linke missile pods and railguns, and the points that you would spend on markers for the stealth squad would better be used on just getting more FW.

Keep in mind that you'll have to establish fire superiority very early on as well. If your firewarriors become pinned, flee, tank shocked, locked in combat, or have to move for a better position, the markerlight cannot be used. This means you'll have to stay as stationary as possible to get the most out of your markerlights. 6th edition shooting has made shooting units better because they can fire while they move. The markerlight is essentially forcing your firewarriors to keep pretending they are in 5th edition.

When you make your move for objectives your firepower will decrease as your markerlight support disappears. Granted, these are only single BS3 markerlights you are giving up, but they are the majority of your markerlight support, especially if you've lost a few FW squads over the course of the game (highly likely, as they are your only scoring unit)

I have another proposition for you. What about SDT's? Take out your stealth marker team and you have enough points for 3 SDT's. That is 3 markerlights (same as stealth team) at BS4, in 3 seperate units, that can fire at different targets than the rest of their unit, the rest of the unit's guns will be effective at markerlight range, AND it's networked so the sniper drones can benefit as well. They are survivable in cover (especially an Aegis) and scoring units in Big Guns Never Tire. They are less mobile, but your list isn't built to be especially mobile anyways. The major issue with SDT's is their low AP rail rifles will make them higher priority targets for MEQ's, the 3 seperate units will help with that.

I understand that the ML's hinder the FW's movement, and that they would not all be firing even in the first turn or two, and that as they get eliminated the strength there would fade. You face the same problem with PF's though. Unless I am mistaken, the 6th edition rules allow you to snap fire the markerlights, so I see that as an improvement over 5th. I really like the idea of the SDT's. The more I was looking at the stealth suit teams, the more I was getting concerned that they were too much of a points sink. I think that if I was going to run stealth suits I would rather have them as a dedicated harassment unit. Including the SDT's makes it so that the hammerheads are out, and I am a little concerned that without them this list is missing enough hard hitting units. Hmm, what about something like this:

HQ:
Helios Shas'O
Ethereal
6x Honour Guard: Shas'ui w/ TL and ML

ELITE:
2x Helios Suits
3x Deathrain Suits
3x Stealth Suits: Shas'ui w/ Fusion Blaster and TL, maxed gun drones

TROOPS:
6x 6 FW Teams: Shas'ui w/ TL and ML

HEAVY:
2x 2 Broadsides w/ PR
3x SDT

I could probably even squeeze in some more suits at 1500 points, and definitely more at 1850. Maybe make one of the broadside teams 3 members strong, and strengthen the stealth team. That would be a total of 10 markerlights that can fire at up to 10 different targets. The SDT's fill the gap of having a more stable source of ML's, and having access to additional MEQ killing power is always great. I will have to run numbers on all of this, but I think that it is an interesting strategy.

The obvious, and major, drawback to the SDT is the cost. 240 points would buy an awful lot of suits, or more warriors, and ultimately you are getting a total of 9 s6 ap3 shots and three markerlights.

However remember that you move models now not units, so you can move everyone in the unit except the marker light provided they meet all the other restrictions.

Wow this actually looks like one of the most solid mono tau list ive seen on the internet. I was skeptical at 1st glance because I haven't had much luck with markers on the FW squads but putting them in 6x6 FW squads seems like a decent way to protect your MLs and allows even distribution to different key targets. The only real downside i can see to this is it will draw MORE aggro to your troops, which on second though may actually make this a poor decision. From my experience getting the enemy to ignore your fragile troops is pretty key to winning games. Let us know how it runs though yeah?

Personally I would take even MORE plasmasides and drop the SDTs but I haven't tried them since 6th. Split fire AP3 pins might be useful vs certain armys and the BS4 MLs seems like a good deal for 80 pts. Personally I would leave the helios as a montat. There are a lot of variables in them performing the way they should but it really only takes one to shred somthing. Addtitionally two suits are not really gonna survive any longer than 1 suit. Most things that will shoot at the montat will overshoot and waste firepower. Maybe consider a second helios HQ and throw em in the stealth suit squad?

Like i said before though its a pretty solid list. Personally I run my tau with allies every game now but i'm tempted to run this one.

I have been taking iridium armor for my Commander shas'el and have been really loving it. Yes you are gimped with your fall back move but really I don't see that as being all that horrible because with iridium armor and shield drones the unit takes a whole lot of firepower to do a dent (think of all those times you haven't been able to kill a terminator squad) Anyway, I always run them with the shield drones infront and my commander in back because he is my HQ and I want to protect him. But I am thinking of putting him in front in a formation like this:


Assuming I am not going up against ap1/2 s8+ guns that will kill my commander in one shot I think this is a good formation. Basically all the shots his the commander, but if there is an ap1/2 I can look-out sir on the drones or on a regular suit who has two wounds. My commander has 2+ save with 3 wounds so he is going to need a lot of shots before dying and once he gets to his last wound I can look out sire and then move him to the back the next turn. By putting the commander in the front I can allocate wounds how I see fit increasing the longevity of the squad. Is it too risky to put my commander out in the open like that or does this seem better because if I do get a failed wound I would rather have it on the commander who has 3 than a shield drone who has one. I could even take stimulant injections for fnp so it is less likely he will die.

Thoughts?

Also what do you guys think of giving sensor spines to a devil fish and then have that devil fish flat out onto the other side and then move into an unoccupied building? In ruins the fish gets a 2+ cover save and the gun drones can pop off on the last turn for line breaker.

 lambsandlions wrote:
*SNIP*

Assuming I am not going up against ap1/2 s8+ guns that will kill my commander in one shot I think this is a good formation. Basically all the shots his the commander, but if there is an ap1/2 I can look-out sir on the drones or on a regular suit who has two wounds. My commander has 2+ save with 3 wounds so he is going to need a lot of shots before dying and once he gets to his last wound I can look out sire and then move him to the back the next turn. By putting the commander in the front I can allocate wounds how I see fit increasing the longevity of the squad. Is it too risky to put my commander out in the open like that or does this seem better because if I do get a failed wound I would rather have it on the commander who has 3 than a shield drone who has one. I could even take stimulant injections for fnp so it is less likely he will die.

Thoughts?

Also what do you guys think of giving sensor spines to a devil fish and then have that devil fish flat out onto the other side and then move into an unoccupied building? In ruins the fish gets a 2+ cover save and the gun drones can pop off on the last turn for line breaker.

You may want to keep in mind that wound allocation has been changed via FAQ from what is in the rulebook. LOS can now only transfer wounds to the closest model (with no RAW resolution for what to do if multiple models are closest) Our group usually plays it that if you have 2 at the exact same distance, then and only then can you chose where the wound goes. That being said the formation you have suggested will keep the squad alive for quite a time.

As to the devilfish, sensor spines and and disruption pods on a fish isn't a bad way to get linebreaker, Keep in mind that the fish doesn't need to be in ruins to get the cover save, he just needs the ruins to be between the firing model and the tank. I would suggest either keeping it cheap with the 85pt "Dumbfish" with only the D-pods, or Going whole hog and setting it up "Warfish" Style (Smart Missile, Targetting Array, Multi-Tracker, Disruption Pods and other toys to Taste) I would only reccomend the warfish if you don't have more firewarriors. The price difference between the Dumbfish and Warfish can be around 50-60pts depending on options. You can take a squad of firewarriors for not much more than that.

Let me ask what may seem like a dumb question since I am only about 3 months in to (slowly) building my Tau army, but if you run a commander and shield drones behind 2 XV8 suits, why wouldn't you make them part of a body guard team, then give each model 2 shield drones to run a 3 suit squad wrapped in 6 shield drones? Is that too much of a points cost wrapped up in 1 unit? Or am I missing some other part of strategy that hasn't become apparent to me yet?

To further clarify where my army stands, I am just now finally butting up to about 2000 points total in built models with 24 Fire Warriors left to build and paint and a Hammerhead to finish assembling. It has been very interesting reading this thread and other Tau to get a better grasp of how to best use the Tau. Thanks!

hokieseas wrote:
Let me ask what may seem like a dumb question since I am only about 3 months in to (slowly) building my Tau army, but if you run a commander and shield drones behind 2 XV8 suits, why wouldn't you make them part of a body guard team, then give each model 2 shield drones to run a 3 suit squad wrapped in 6 shield drones? Is that too much of a points cost wrapped up in 1 unit? Or am I missing some other part of strategy that hasn't become apparent to me yet?

To further clarify where my army stands, I am just now finally butting up to about 2000 points total in built models with 24 Fire Warriors left to build and paint and a Hammerhead to finish assembling. It has been very interesting reading this thread and other Tau to get a better grasp of how to best use the Tau. Thanks!

A crisis squad with 6 shield drones is paying 60pts those drones. That is way too much. The bodyguard is ok, but keep in mind that bodyguards are 10pts more expensive than regular suits.

Btw I hope you have more than 24 firewarriors. My army runs 36, and I feel like I am still short on troops.

Just remember that bodyguards remove his independent character status and change his LOS roll.

And you're probably always going to feel like you're short on troops because FW are very under performing. I've given up on FW and started using allies to get me two decent troops.

I'm with savage on the FW, your better off running your Tau with a small allied contingent to get some better survivable troops.
Right now I'm trying DA with Tau, seems to be working so far and I get nice options with making bikes or termies troops

hokieseas wrote:
Let me ask what may seem like a dumb question since I am only about 3 months in to (slowly) building my Tau army, but if you run a commander and shield drones behind 2 XV8 suits, why wouldn't you make them part of a body guard team, then give each model 2 shield drones to run a 3 suit squad wrapped in 6 shield drones? Is that too much of a points cost wrapped up in 1 unit? Or am I missing some other part of strategy that hasn't become apparent to me yet?

To further clarify where my army stands, I am just now finally butting up to about 2000 points total in built models with 24 Fire Warriors left to build and paint and a Hammerhead to finish assembling. It has been very interesting reading this thread and other Tau to get a better grasp of how to best use the Tau. Thanks!

The main problem I have with 3 suits and 6 shield drones is the footprint of the unit. These all have big bases and it is very hard to jump back and hide in cover when you have a bunch of bulky drone models.

That and it would draw too much attention. I like to spread suits out as evenly as possible so it makes it less obvious which one should be shot at first, and even encourages my opponent to spread out his fire.

 Thaylen wrote:

A crisis squad with 6 shield drones is paying 60pts those drones. That is way too much. The bodyguard is ok, but keep in mind that bodyguards are 10pts more expensive than regular suits.

Btw I hope you have more than 24 firewarriors. My army runs 36, and I feel like I am still short on troops.

I will probably cut back on the shield drones once I have more troops and options to fill out my points.

What I currently have is a combination of the original Tau Battleforce box from 3rd edition (I think it was) and the current Battleforce box which I got this past Christmas, and then other things I have bought or have been given.

That being said, if I can remember correctly, what I have is:

4 XV8 Crisis Suits, 1 which I use as a commander
3 XV25 Stealth Suits w/ 2 Marker Light Drones
1 Ethereal (given as a xmas gift, have never used in a game yet)
24 Fire Warriors
24 Kroot
1 Piranha
6 Pathfinders
1 Devilfish
1 Broadside Suit
1 Sniper Drone Team
20 or so Gun Drones (some of which I proxy as my shield drones)

What I have left to finish:

1 Hammerhead tank
24 Fire Warriors
1 XV8 Crisis Suit, missing parts which I am going to convert to a second Broadside suit

So, it is slow going building up my army options to pull from. I have started looking around at building some ally squads just to give me something else to paint and build, but have not decided what to do yet.

Anyways, thanks for all the information in here. Enjoying it.

Do you mean you're missing the Broadside bit pack on the last XV-8?

Personally I hate the look of the current Broadside. Paulson Games has some really good weapons bits if you don't want the conversion kit.

I'd probably hold off buying anything else though. We're supposed to be seeing a new set come out in only a month or so.

With what you currently have available I suggest sticking to 1K and less lists. Trying anything higher and you're stretching things out a bit too much.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Do you mean you're missing the Broadside bit pack on the last XV-8?

No, it is an unassembled Crisis Suit model. It was given to me by a friend who found some Tau bits in a box of something else he bought from a guy. My plan is to buy the Broadside upgrade bits when I get the chance. Which is how I have my 1 current Broadside. A friend bought a box of something else, and found a Crisis Suit with no feet and no weapons on it in the bottom of the box, so I bought the upgrade kit for that one.