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Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 11:21:42


Post by: xerxeshavelock


Here is a good place to discuss tactics etc for the new edition and how it will affect our Empire.

Just to start- here's a post about Markerlights:

Re Tau markerlights: if I'm reading it correctly entries 1 and 5 on the chart would apply in thr Fight phase if markerlights were placed on Overwatch. Quite possible as Tactical Drones have For the Greater Good. Might even be able to trigger Seeker and Destroyer missiles. Edit: Charge and Fight phases are separate, so yes to Seeker/destroyer, no to buffing cc attacks.

I also like how the first markerlight results help later ones hit as well. Eg you getting 3 down would then help a Skyray hit with it's 2 markerlights, rerolling 1s and negating the minus to hit on the move.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 13:33:04


Post by: chalkobob


This might help http://pintorjoakero.blogspot.ca/2017/05/taus-8th-index-leaks.html

Edit- I have a lot of thoughts but I have to go to sleep because I work tonight, but am totally stoked about the changes to drones. They deploy in coherency with the unit they are purchased for, but as of the first movement phase, they are treated as a separate unit. If they are within 3" of a friendly T'au infantry or battlesuit you may allocate wounds to the drones. Now the drones can take wounds without triggering a morale test for the unit they are protecting. Also loving the new support system rules - the advance targeting system improves the AP of all guns on the model by 1! It's going to be popular!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 16:02:10


Post by: Captain Joystick


So I was reading the stat-line of the broadside's heavy rail and getting more and more excited as I went, it looked like it's heavy 2 with D6 damage (and mortal wounds on a 6 to wound) would finally bring it in line with the missile pod (twice as many attacks, half damage, a little over half range).

Then I read the unit profile and it says you replace the railgun for a pair of them.

Ugh.

Also marker lights have changed noticeably. We're back to them acting as universal effects on the unit hit by them, so multiple units can benefit at once and not have to chose expending them for what benefits.

Unfortunately, the BS bonus is now the highest tier benefit, and it appears to cap at +1.

On top of that, the drone controller now also appears to cap at a +1 BS bonus, meaning my favourite commander loadout will have to be reconsidered. It does mean that, broadly, marker drones are no longer the undisputed marker light dispensing king, but they're still probably the strongest contender, being buffable to 'as good as' pathfinders on the shot and able to move besides.

I'll want to compare it to how the local meta shapes up, but I'm thinking about railheads again.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 16:04:50


Post by: MilkmanAl


I haven't really probed the lists deeply yet, but Broadsides with HYMP and sms and ats are going to be great. Also, consider blastcannon Stormsurge spam. 185pts for durable S14 firepower sounds badass.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 19:08:01


Post by: digital-animal


Some much needed nerfing I think, will have to take some serious consideration into my current T'au builds.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 19:53:14


Post by: xerxeshavelock


It looks like Piranhas' drones become several small units of 2 at the moment. That could be useful for spreading around additional ablative wounds. Plus the fact that they're probably the most efficient source of Overwatch fire.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:00:04


Post by: MilkmanAl


Man, our suits got completely reworked. Everything is just so much different than it was for 7th that it's tough to figure out roles for each unit. It's going to take some adjusting to Broadsides costing 200pts and being worth it...maybe.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:05:13


Post by: Caederes


MilkmanAl wrote:
I haven't really probed the lists deeply yet, but Broadsides with HYMP and sms and ats are going to be great. Also, consider blastcannon Stormsurge spam. 185pts for durable S14 firepower sounds badass.


Err....you're a couple hundred points off buddy...it has 10 guns on its profile, meaning you have to pay for all 10 of them.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:09:00


Post by: xerxeshavelock


MilkmanAl wrote:
Man, our suits got completely reworked. Everything is just so much different than it was for 7th that it's tough to figure out roles for each unit. It's going to take some adjusting to Broadsides costing 200pts and being worth it...maybe.


With split fire you might as well just chuck what you want on and get on with it

That said, the Multi Tracker rerolls 1s, but only if you're shooting all of your weapons at a single target.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:10:29


Post by: Captain Joystick


I take back what I said about the drone controller: you can in fact buff the attendant drone's shooting beyond a +1 by having them in range of multiple suits with a controller, silly me.

So you could have 3 suits in a unit with two missile pods and a DC each, buffing nearby drones to a 2+ to hit. The suits themselves would be 3 ppm more than how I used to field them, but they get the target lock functionality for free and I'm saving points by not having a commander running in the squad with them.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:23:28


Post by: Lance845


 Captain Joystick wrote:
I take back what I said about the drone controller: you can in fact buff the attendant drone's shooting beyond a +1 by having them in range of multiple suits with a controller, silly me.

So you could have 3 suits in a unit with two missile pods and a DC each, buffing nearby drones to a 2+ to hit. The suits themselves would be 3 ppm more than how I used to field them, but they get the target lock functionality for free and I'm saving points by not having a commander running in the squad with them.


We don't know if multiple buffs of the same kind stack. So far nothing has said that they won't but many (better written) games with these kinds of rules will put a cap on that kind of thing by not allowing them to be piled on like that.

Just saying I would not start planning out a list based on the idea of multiple drone controllers buffing just yet. We need to see the full 12-14 pages of core rules and we need to see the actual index.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:44:15


Post by: Captain Joystick


Of course any of this speculation is purely tentative and based on the information we have available thus far. I'm not talking about building lists at this point.

Another major hurt to the marker drone reigning as king is its threat identification protocols forcing it to target the closest unit. Means you'll be relying on movement to position it optimally... Or focussing fire to try to wipe units that risk distracting them.

Fortunately, the sniper and missile drones don't seem to have this limitation.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:47:56


Post by: GI_Redshirt


 Captain Joystick wrote:
Of course any of this speculation is purely tentative and based on the information we have available thus far. I'm not talking about building lists at this point.

Another major hurt to the marker drone reigning as king is its threat identification protocols forcing it to target the closest unit. Means you'll be relying on movement to position it optimally... Or focussing fire to try to wipe units that risk distracting them.

Fortunately, the sniper and missile drones don't seem to have this limitation.


Nor do Marker Drones. Read the rule again, it specifically states that Gun Drones must target the closest unit when shooting. Nowhere does it state that Marker Drones must target the closest unit as well. Marker Drones are free to shine laser pointers in anyone's eyes.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 20:58:40


Post by: Captain Joystick


My bad, I missed that on my first read-over. In my defence, it's like... really blurry!

That said, I really want to believe in this stacking drone controller thing. (I'll never let go, marker drone!)


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/30 21:29:55


Post by: MilkmanAl


Caederes wrote:
MilkmanAl wrote:
I haven't really probed the lists deeply yet, but Broadsides with HYMP and sms and ats are going to be great. Also, consider blastcannon Stormsurge spam. 185pts for durable S14 firepower sounds badass.


Err....you're a couple hundred points off buddy...it has 10 guns on its profile, meaning you have to pay for all 10 of them.
Ah yeah, I was thinking/hoping you could just put on what weapons you wanted. In that case, it'd be great to only slap on the big gun and go to town. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Do we know if the new Deep Strike equivalents count as moving? If not, it'd be pretty amazing to drop a Commander and a bunch of Crisis Suits in near something, call a Kauyon and just annihilate the core of your opponent's army. Triple rapid-firing plasma would chew through any armored targets short of knights and such at 75pts a suit.On a related note, I see plasma being a front-runner for favorite Crisis Suit weapon with fusion a close second for hard targets. That D6 damage is a big deal, even at twice the price per weapon.

Pathfidners may finally have found a way into my lists. 8pts per model is a solid deal, especially since they can move and shoot with decent effect. Marker Drones are still pretty nice, though, and could definitely be the hotness with stacked drone controllers (assuming that works...)

On a related note, Gun Drones are awesome.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 02:20:49


Post by: Alcibiades


 Captain Joystick wrote:
So I was reading the stat-line of the broadside's heavy rail and getting more and more excited as I went, it looked like it's heavy 2 with D6 damage (and mortal wounds on a 6 to wound) would finally bring it in line with the missile pod (twice as many attacks, half damage, a little over half range).

Then I read the unit profile and it says you replace the railgun for a pair of them.


Unless my math is wrong, assuming the target to be a Leman Russ) two HYMP do an average of 1.32 wounds, while the rifle does 2.05. The HRR is significantly better against hevay armo(u)r.

Am I missing something?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 08:09:32


Post by: xerxeshavelock


Hmmm. A Devilfish with embarked (dedicated) Gun Drones treats their weapons as its own. So a naked DFish has 12 shots....

Edit: Same with Piranhas.

Am I getting this right. If you buy a piranha it will cost xx plus xx for the 2 Gun Drones? The points seemed out of whack vs the Power level, so that seems to make more sense. It does make the Devilfish even more expensive than I originally thought though.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 08:36:01


Post by: fresus


Too bad the kroot shaper became an elite choice instead of an HQ. It was the perfect opportunity to have pure kroot armies.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 13:28:55


Post by: Captain Joystick


Alcibiades wrote:

Unless my math is wrong, assuming the target to be a Leman Russ) two HYMP do an average of 1.32 wounds, while the rifle does 2.05. The HRR is significantly better against hevay armo(u)r.

Am I missing something?


Not sure how you're getting to those numbers, but before damage an HRR has a 50% chance of landing an unsaved hit on a Russ in a vacuum. (2 shots * .5 to hit * .5 to wound, no save due to Ap) while the HYMP has closer to 66.7%, and the rail head is something like 44.4%.

That said, I don't see the two weapons competing in an anti-russ turkey-shoot, I'm more concerned with how they perform against monstrous creatures and transports, which is the theatre I expect HYMPs to excel in.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 16:49:52


Post by: MilkmanAl


So speaking of the HYMP, I'm not sure Broadsides compare well with our other options. As totally amazing as the bevvy of missiles coming out of one of those bad boys would be buffed by markers and an ATS, that costs 210pts. Even with the toughness buff, that seems way too much of a glass cannon for my tastes. I think you'd be a lot better off loading up a Hammerhead for similar cost but an extra toughness and double the wounds. You could also field ~25 Gun Drones for a massive 100 pulse shots, if dakka was really a problem for you.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 17:08:34


Post by: Vector Strike


Didn't like some of the changes, liked others. My biggest displeasures are the new ML table and seeker/destroyer missiles. Everything else is as expected (ok, maybe a lil' bit decrease on Riptide cost? )

One thing to substitute our dear Mark'O (RIP) is a BS2+ infantry guy in a droneport with marker drones. The drones use his BS


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 18:21:44


Post by: Alcibiades


 Captain Joystick wrote:
Alcibiades wrote:

Unless my math is wrong, assuming the target to be a Leman Russ) two HYMP do an average of 1.32 wounds, while the rifle does 2.05. The HRR is significantly better against hevay armo(u)r.

Am I missing something?


Not sure how you're getting to those numbers, but before damage an HRR has a 50% chance of landing an unsaved hit on a Russ in a vacuum. (2 shots * .5 to hit * .5 to wound, no save due to Ap) while the HYMP has closer to 66.7%, and the rail head is something like 44.4%.

That said, I don't see the two weapons competing in an anti-russ turkey-shoot, I'm more concerned with how they perform against monstrous creatures and transports, which is the theatre I expect HYMPs to excel in.


Yeah, but the HRR does considerably more damage to the Leman Russ per hit. The "before damage" is big.

The heavy MCs are about the same statline as the Leman Russ -- T8, 3+ armor save.

The HYMP is, like you implied with "transports," an anti-light vehicle. It's the Tau autocannon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
These weapons are well-differentiated.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 18:34:22


Post by: arnehelst


So I don't see anything that prevents Commanders or Crisis Suits taking a rail gun or a pulse blaster. What am I missing?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 18:46:07


Post by: Naaris


I read the point costs for a unit as:

Stormsurge - 180 + 20 for 2 Burst cannons + 122 for 2 Cluster Rocket Systems +40 for 2 smart missile systems + 40 for 4 destroyer missiles + 97 for the big cannon = 499pts + 40 for invulnerable save + 5 for Stims that now to get the ability to negate wounds on a 6+ & interceptor for 8pts = 552pts

A WK now is 402 + 65 for sword + 20 for shield + 15x2 for scatters = 517pts

Is this right?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 18:51:32


Post by: Captain Joystick


arnehelst wrote:
So I don't see anything that prevents Commanders or Crisis Suits taking a rail gun or a pulse blaster. What am I missing?


When it says it can take items from the 'ranged weapons' section, it's referring to the 'ranged weapons' section of the warmer section (dark grey box with picture of a crisis commander).


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 18:54:15


Post by: arnehelst


Ah, I see. I knew I was missing something


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 18:56:43


Post by: Captain Joystick


Alcibiades wrote:

These weapons are well-differentiated.


I'm not saying their too similar, I just think the HYMP edges the HRR as the better option, again. At least against the sorts of targets I typically think of fielding broadsides against.

That said, in light of the changes to minimum crisis suit squad sizes I may need to rethink my anti-heavy armour anyway.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 19:13:11


Post by: Alcibiades


 Captain Joystick wrote:
Alcibiades wrote:

These weapons are well-differentiated.


I'm not saying their too similar, I just think the HYMP edges the HRR as the better option, again. At least against the sorts of targets I typically think of fielding broadsides against.

That said, in light of the changes to minimum crisis suit squad sizes I may need to rethink my anti-heavy armour anyway.


Also keep in mind that the archetypal transports, the Rhino and Chimera, are tougher now. Quick math says that the HRR outperorms the HYMP against them as well (something like 2.5 wounds vs. 2).

The HYMP only has better average damage against really light vehicles.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 19:17:45


Post by: Vector Strike


Naaris wrote:
I read the point costs for a unit as:

Stormsurge - 180 + 20 for 2 Burst cannons + 122 for 2 Cluster Rocket Systems +40 for 2 smart missile systems + 40 for 4 destroyer missiles + 97 for the big cannon = 499pts + 40 for invulnerable save + 5 for Stims that now to get the ability to negate wounds on a 6+ & interceptor for 8pts = 552pts

A WK now is 402 + 65 for sword + 20 for shield + 15x2 for scatters = 517pts

Is this right?


No, because a SS comes with 1 CRS and you can't buy another


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 19:29:20


Post by: Naaris


so the 2 missile pods for the cluster rocket system count as 1 weapon?
I recall GW saying that a stormsurge had 10 weapons

1 main gun
2 sms
2 BCs / flamers or AFPs

What am I missing?



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 19:29:34


Post by: MilkmanAl



So I don't see anything that prevents Commanders or Crisis Suits taking a rail gun or a pulse blaster. What am I missing?

As awesome as it would be to have a bunch of Crisis Suits rocking pulse blastcannons (for 85ppm!), I'm sure we're just missing a list that breaks the options down a bit further. I'm assuming the weapons choices will essentially be the same as they are now and brainstorming accordingly.

After actually putting some reading time in, a few first thoughts:

First, Commanders are pretty great. They look like they'll be really useful for orchestrating alpha strikes with deep-striking suits of various kinds, especially if you can drop a Kauyon/Mont'ka on arrival. It doesn't hurt that deep strike is crazy reliable now, so you can easily precision drop some fusion blasters right where they need to be and unload.

Speaking of deep striking things in, Vespids! Holy crap! They might be useful! Earlier I was musing about plasma Crisis Suits, but really, 5 vespids are the same price as one plasma suit. Given the new wounding table, S5 isn't going to be a lot different than S6 against most targets, so you might as well drop 4 extra shots.

Fire Warrior spam...? With markerlights applying to everything shooting at a unit, MSU troops could work really, really well. Massed S5 wounds just about anything on at least a 5+, so even beefcake units aren't safe. With Devilfish being fairly resilient and fast, Breachers are also a solid option for armor control.

Riptides...the pendulum swung HARD. Sure, they're tougher, but they're basically on par with vehicles. However, they cost a crapload more. That said, the nova charged IA is pretty darn awesome. Then again, it better be for 350pts/model. With fusions, they could be pretty decent giant killers, but I think I'd much rather have a Stormsurge for the price.

Ghostkeels appear okay. At least the fusion collider is usable now, but I still thing the CIR with fusions or maybe burst cannons and an ATS is going to be the way to go. Points-wise, they're not so awful.

Vehicles took a huge buff overall. I like the looks of the Hammerhead a lot, and the Devilfish, as mentioned, is a solid transport option that actually has a fair amount of firepower.

Drones are going to be really important. Sacrificing them to keep big guns off your mega-suits is probably the way of the future.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 19:45:13


Post by: Vector Strike


Naaris wrote:
so the 2 missile pods for the cluster rocket system count as 1 weapon?
I recall GW saying that a stormsurge had 10 weapons

1 main gun
2 sms
2 BCs / flamers or AFPs

What am I missing?


those you have listed and 4 destroyer missiles

edit: alcibiades is right


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 20:01:46


Post by: Alcibiades


4 missiles + 1 main gun + 2 SMS + 2 flamers + Cluster rockers

10 weapons


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 21:04:23


Post by: BoomWolf


MilkmanAl wrote:

So I don't see anything that prevents Commanders or Crisis Suits taking a rail gun or a pulse blaster. What am I missing?

As awesome as it would be to have a bunch of Crisis Suits rocking pulse blastcannons (for 85ppm!), I'm sure we're just missing a list that breaks the options down a bit further. I'm assuming the weapons choices will essentially be the same as they are now and brainstorming accordingly.


No, we are not missing a list. its on the second page of tau, same gun options as we did in 7th (except you can have 3 guns now, they cost different and do different things I guess)

MilkmanAl wrote:
After actually putting some reading time in, a few first thoughts:

First, Commanders are pretty great. They look like they'll be really useful for orchestrating alpha strikes with deep-striking suits of various kinds, especially if you can drop a Kauyon/Mont'ka on arrival. It doesn't hurt that deep strike is crazy reliable now, so you can easily precision drop some fusion blasters right where they need to be and unload.


Actually, you can't. you want your fusion under 9", and your deepstrike is at least 6". fusion strikes are pointless now.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Speaking of deep striking things in, Vespids! Holy crap! They might be useful! Earlier I was musing about plasma Crisis Suits, but really, 5 vespids are the same price as one plasma suit. Given the new wounding table, S5 isn't going to be a lot different than S6 against most targets, so you might as well drop 4 extra shots.


Yea, vespids are big winners in this edition, but not due to DS shenanigans, but the sheer movespeed speed.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Fire Warrior spam...? With markerlights applying to everything shooting at a unit, MSU troops could work really, really well. Massed S5 wounds just about anything on at least a 5+, so even beefcake units aren't safe. With Devilfish being fairly resilient and fast, Breachers are also a solid option for armor control.


Fire warriors, also one of the winners of 8th.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Riptides...the pendulum swung HARD. Sure, they're tougher, but they're basically on par with vehicles. However, they cost a crapload more. That said, the nova charged IA is pretty darn awesome. Then again, it better be for 350pts/model. With fusions, they could be pretty decent giant killers, but I think I'd much rather have a Stormsurge for the price.


I don't see myself fielding either currently.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Ghostkeels appear okay. At least the fusion collider is usable now, but I still thing the CIR with fusions or maybe burst cannons and an ATS is going to be the way to go. Points-wise, they're not so awful.


Not awful isn't much of a praise.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Vehicles took a huge buff overall. I like the looks of the Hammerhead a lot, and the Devilfish, as mentioned, is a solid transport option that actually has a fair amount of firepower.


What buff? they cost so much more that any increase in power is negated by sheer costs.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Drones are going to be really important. Sacrificing them to keep big guns off your mega-suits is probably the way of the future.


Drones are also a winner in 8th. just for being cheap and packing two guns.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 21:30:03


Post by: MilkmanAl


No, we are not missing a list. its on the second page of tau, same gun options as we did in 7th (except you can have 3 guns now, they cost different and do different things I guess)
Noted.


Actually, you can't. you want your fusion under 9", and your deepstrike is at least 6". fusion strikes are pointless now.
I do not at all agree that a S8 Ap-4 D6 damage shot is pointless. Picking the highest of 2D6 is obviously better, but that's a lot of pain to dump on a prime target.

Re: Vespids, Stormsurges, and Riptides, I agree on all fronts, except Stormsurges do seem pretty decent still. That pulse blastcannon can really tear into things, especially with an ATS on board. Ghostkeels are probably the best of the bigger suits, but again, definitely nothing I'm super impressed with.

What buff? they cost so much more that any increase in power is negated by sheer costs.
Eh, I disagree. I think they get to where they need to be and unload firepower much more reliably than they did before. They're not THAT expensive, especially when compared with our bigger suits.

Anyway, the road to the greater good seems to currently be paved by the rank and file. Fire Warriors, Gun Drones, and Pathfinders lay down the pain for just about everything and get support from something that can erase big uglies without much trouble. Fusion suits seem like a good option for the latter task to me, but I'm open to whatever other options may present themselves. Ghostkeels, maybe? Broadsides with HRR and plasma?



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 21:39:57


Post by: Vector Strike


Fusion Crisis aren't dead. You'll need Homing Beacons for them to work properly, though (it's just like I use them today, so no change there),

On SSs... very few people seemed to notice, but it's only M6" and lost Stomp (wraithknight has a similar ability to Stomp now, as Knights). Looks like the testers really feared it in melee


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/05/31 23:25:58


Post by: MilkmanAl


Yeah, the Surge is now a bit on the pokey side, which limits the blastcannon's effectiveness a lot. That 10" range wasn't nearly as big of an issue when it was effectively 22". Losing stomps hurt considerably, but being able to walk away from combat and shoot a bunch is arguably better (even though everything can do so).

Riptides...ugh. I keep coming back to how hard they got beaten down. They needed a lot of reworking, clearly, but I'm not sure doubling their points cost was the answer. Maybe they'll play a bit better than they look.

So how about Aun'va now? I like the reroll 1s ability, and the 6+ FNP is quite a lot better now, since everything else similar got worse. Rerolling morale is also pretty sweet. All that for a reasonable price, too. He encourages gunlines a bit, but that's okay!

Commanders...4 fusions, anyone?



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 00:50:48


Post by: Martel732


Riptides needed beat down more than almost anything in the game as in individual unit. GW already has all the Riptide money they need for the next 5 years thanks to 6th and 7th ed.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 00:58:35


Post by: changemod


Martel732 wrote:
Riptides needed beat down more than almost anything in the game as in individual unit. GW already has all the Riptide money they need for the next 5 years thanks to 6th and 7th ed.


The mere existence of rend and multiple wound damage does a lot to mitigate Riptides, and their absolute biggest boon was their durability.

Hopefully the forge world ones hit a balance point that's a little less "Am I sure I even want to take this?".

Overall though, not liking the lower model count -any- of my armies will be forced to use now, tau or otherwise. Variety is fun, large armies are fun.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 01:04:42


Post by: Martel732


"their absolute biggest boon was their durability. "

No, durability they didn't pay for. Very important. Be as durable as you like, but please pay for it.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 01:15:41


Post by: changemod


Martel732 wrote:
"their absolute biggest boon was their durability. "

No, durability they didn't pay for. Very important. Be as durable as you like, but please pay for it.


That's an oversimplification: If Riptides were priced with their durability as the yardstick they would have had awful firepower for cost.

The real underlying problem was an awkward mismatch of durability to firepower ratio that made it basically impossible to appropriately cost.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 01:30:02


Post by: Martel732


They needed to pay for their durability, regardless of what it did to firepower/pt. That's the price of insane durability. And yes, that's bad unit design.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 01:49:43


Post by: MilkmanAl


Well, whatever. In any event, Riptides are damned expensive now. I echo the hope that the Forgeworld variants are costed a little less punitively, though that seems pretty unlikely, given that the base model is 200pts. Perhaps drone protection will make enough of a difference for Riptides to be viable, but at this premature stage, I'm leaning towards excluding them from my list entirely.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 02:26:59


Post by: BoomWolf


Honestly the riptide's issues all came from one place-invalidating the need to NOVA.

Two things caused it-the IA's pieplate option (there was almost never a need to NOVA an IA riptide's main gun because of it), and the riptide wings.

Other than these two, the riptide really wasn't ever a problem. any riptide that stuck to HBC and not in a wing, was completely fair.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 03:08:51


Post by: ZergSmasher


 BoomWolf wrote:
Honestly the riptide's issues all came from one place-invalidating the need to NOVA.

Two things caused it-the IA's pieplate option (there was almost never a need to NOVA an IA riptide's main gun because of it), and the riptide wings.

Other than these two, the riptide really wasn't ever a problem. any riptide that stuck to HBC and not in a wing, was completely fair.

Exalted for truth.

It's a slap in the face to all the players with 3 or more Riptides to nerf them so hard. Perhaps they needed a price increase, but what we got? Shame on you, GW! I'm just damn glad I didn't invest in any more of the damn things myself. My one will be quite sufficient now.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 03:11:48


Post by: BoomWolf


 ZergSmasher wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:
Honestly the riptide's issues all came from one place-invalidating the need to NOVA.

Two things caused it-the IA's pieplate option (there was almost never a need to NOVA an IA riptide's main gun because of it), and the riptide wings.

Other than these two, the riptide really wasn't ever a problem. any riptide that stuck to HBC and not in a wing, was completely fair.

Exalted for truth.

It's a slap in the face to all the players with 3 or more Riptides to nerf them so hard. Perhaps they needed a price increase, but what we got? Shame on you, GW! I'm just damn glad I didn't invest in any more of the damn things myself. My one will be quite sufficient now.


Same here. one for the retaliation cadre was all I ever wanted.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 03:25:12


Post by: ZergSmasher


On a more positive note, it looks like Longstrike got a price cut. He's now only 20 points more than a standard Hammerhead, compared to 45 when he was an upgrade for one. I'll probably take him instead of a regular Hammerhead in most games, as his special rules are good.

It looks like overall our wargear costs a lot more than it did. Not all of it is Riptide bad, but I do get the impression that the playtesters really did not like Tau much. At all. Maybe it'll be justified once we get a few games in and get the feel for them, but on paper it looks like Tau armies will be a lot smaller.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 08:51:02


Post by: wighti


Having played couple of matches now I can echo what most have said alredy.

Riptide and broadsides are almost useless now due to cost. Crisis suits are decent with the deep strike since you can ensure they can't get alphad(?) out before they get to shoot. Hammerheads seem to be the winner here. Long range, good gun and durability. They can deal with both hordes and heavy vehicles/monsters pretty well.

Infantry is also pretty good now. I've been focusing solely on breaches sine the early takes on this game seems to be armies pushing extremely fast hard hitting units in your face from turn 1. The S6 -2 gun is an amazing counter offensive weapon.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 11:03:47


Post by: changemod


wighti wrote:
Infantry is also pretty good now. I've been focusing solely on breaches sine the early takes on this game seems to be armies pushing extremely fast hard hitting units in your face from turn 1. The S6 -2 gun is an amazing counter offensive weapon.


Which is nice for people who play infantry, but a lot of people bought into Farsight all-suit lists, in my case because I'd just come off building a horde army and wanted to do something very elite.

Are stealth suits any good? I have 18 of those.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 12:51:44


Post by: Vector Strike


changemod wrote:
Are stealth suits any good? I have 18 of those.


Well, in an edition of every good option of yore getting more points, Stealth Suits kept the same price and got T4 W2. Also, they're the only unit with Homing Beacons (apparentely), so you can drop Farsight/Crisis under 9" of enemy units


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 14:39:08


Post by: MilkmanAl


Stealth suits are better but still strike me as fairly mediocre. Wouldn't you rather have 4 Gun Drones? The homing beacon isn't a particularly useful upgrade anyway, in my opinion. It makes fusion suit drops a bit more effective, but that's pretty much it. You're otherwise better off staying further away.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 14:43:14


Post by: Vector Strike


MilkmanAl wrote:
Stealth suits are better but still strike me as fairly mediocre. Wouldn't you rather have 4 Gun Drones? The homing beacon isn't a particularly useful upgrade anyway, in my opinion. It makes fusion suit drops a bit more effective, but that's pretty much it. You're otherwise better off staying further away.


Yeah, I'll wait on tetras to see if their homing beacons are more useful, as they're dead fast.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 16:04:30


Post by: Captain Joystick


Here's a thought: instead of using stealth suits to deliver expensive fusion suits into dangerous situations, why not kit out your stealth suits to deliver the fusion themselves? The fusion carrier can take target lock and the unit can (run) and shoot that sucker at suicidal close range with no BS penalty?

Also, while looking over these profiles I realized all the suits still have a 'jet pack' keyword. Are we positive JSJ is dead?

Alcibiades wrote:
The HYMP only has better average damage against really light vehicles.


I see where you're coming from and concede the point. It looks like I underestimated the heavy rail rifle after all.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 16:20:53


Post by: Vector Strike


 Captain Joystick wrote:
Here's a thought: instead of using stealth suits to deliver expensive fusion suits into dangerous situations, why not kit out your stealth suits to deliver the fusion themselves? The fusion carrier can take target lock and the unit can (run) and shoot that sucker at suicidal close range with no BS penalty?

Also, while looking over these profiles I realized all the suits still have a 'jet pack' keyword. Are we positive JSJ is dead?


Because if you start with them on the table, they'll get killed. Not always you'll get terrain nearby the enemy unit you want dead or opponents that don't see them as targets.
Also, you need 6 models in a unit of Stealth Suits to bring 2 Fusions, while each minimum unit of Crisis can bring 9 meltas for similar price

---

Nowhere else tells us that Jet Pack does that. Maybe in the codex, but neither in the BRB or in the unit sheet explains anything on it.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 17:57:07


Post by: MilkmanAl


Anyone have any army ideas yet? I'm currently thinking of a mostly troops force anchored by 2 Ghostkeels with a sizable contingent of fusion and plasma Crisis Suits dropping in to eliminate choice targets.

With a little drone support, the Ghostkeels should be durable enough to be a reliable source of fusion and light vehicle/MC control. They'll push forward early and hopefully participate in the Crisis Suit carnage.

A Commander with a bunch of weapons will drop in with the suits, call Kauyon (assuming you can do that), and wipe off a couple priority targets. The suits will max out on Gun Drones for protection and wicked crowd control.

Fire Warriors will form the bulk of the deployed units, with Strikers featuring heavily. I'd also have a unit or two of Breachers for counter-offensives. An ethereal - maybe Aun'va - would allow for increased damage potential.

I'm thinking Pathfinders for marker support, though I'm certainly not opposed to Marker Drones. I like the flexibility having pulse carbines provides, and I'm not certain my plan allows for reliable drone controller presence in my backfield.

I'll work on an actual list shortly.

Ghostkeel - ATS, TL, CIR, 2 fusions, 2 stealth drones - 203
Ghostkeel - ATS, TL, CIR, 2 fusions, 2 stealth drones - 203
Commander - 4 fusions - 160
Aun'va - 2 guards - 75
3x10 Pathfinders - 240
3 Crisis Suits - 9 fusions, 6 gun drones - 459
3 Crisis Suits - 8 plasma, 1 DC, 6 gun drones - 267 1607
30 (6x5?) Strikers - 240
1847

The Ghostkeels are still a bit of a question mark for me. I may be better off replacing them with more Crisis Suits and Fire Warriors. I also think I may be a little Pathfinder-heavy, but they're so cheap!




Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 23:15:31


Post by: GI_Redshirt


A Commander with a bunch of weapons will drop in with the suits, call Kauyon (assuming you can do that), and wipe off a couple priority targets. The suits will max out on Gun Drones for protection and wicked crowd control.


Reading over the Master of War and Manta Strike rules, I don't think you can use them in the same turn. Manta Strike happens at the end of your movement phase, meaning only after everything you want to move has moved and right before you go into the shooting phase. Master of War (declaring Kauyon or Mont'ka) is explicitly stated as being used at the beginning of your turn. As the Commander isn't allowed to drop in until the end of your movement phase, well after the beginning of your turn, he would not be able to call a Kauyon until the following turn at the earliest. Unless you want to argue that a model can use abilities when off the table, that's not gonna work. And before we go down that rabbit hole of YMDC, Kauyon only affects models within 6" of the Commander, and if he's not on the table no models will be within 6" of him.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/01 23:55:25


Post by: MilkmanAl


Righto. Good call. I obviously missed that, and it sounded too good to be true.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 08:14:07


Post by: xerxeshavelock


71 points for a Piranha with 2 Gun Drones seems good value now. For the same price as a Rhino we get 12 shots at BS 4+, and 12 shots on Overwatch as well per Piranha. Then split into 2 units as needed. T5 and 6 wounds is fairly resilient for a unit that is fast enough to often pick it's own fights.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 12:14:33


Post by: Coyote81


Has anyone been able to wrap their heads around the cost choice on Ion rifles for Pathfinders? 7pts, it's a 30" range heavy D3 S8 weapon on overcharge. I don't can if I have roughly a 1/3 chance of killing myself. One markerlgiht greatly reduces that chance.

You could just spam tons and tons of these units. With ethereal buffs, potentially Kauyon as needed. And Darkstrider nearby as a topper.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 12:44:59


Post by: GI_Redshirt


 Coyote81 wrote:
Has anyone been able to wrap their heads around the cost choice on Ion rifles for Pathfinders? 7pts, it's a 30" range heavy D3 S8 weapon on overcharge. I don't can if I have roughly a 1/3 chance of killing myself. One markerlgiht greatly reduces that chance.

You could just spam tons and tons of these units. With ethereal buffs, potentially Kauyon as needed. And Darkstrider nearby as a topper.


There are a couple reasons for the low price point on it, at least as I see it.

1. Outside of its strength and range, it really isn't an amazing weapon. Its only AP -1. Even if you are wounding infantry on 3+ (potentially 2+ if you Overcharge), all but the flimsiest units will get a save against this. It's also only D1, even on the Overcharge profile, meaning that it won't be great at killing multi wound models, especially vehicles and monsters who it will be wounding on 4+ at best and will laugh at the AP -1. It also lacks volume of fire. Rapid Fire 1 means 1-2 shots in normal mode, with D3 (average of 2) shots in Overcharge. We have plenty of other weapons, Ion weapons and Missiles mostly, that have the S7 AP -1 profile, but either have much greater volumes of fire or do D D3 or better. Is the weapon better than the Pulse Carbine? Of course, no one would say otherwise. But its far from this hidden gem of a weapon.

2. You lose the Markerlight in order to take it. No explanation is really needed here, Markerlights are valuable. Especially in 8th where everything can split fire and markerlights are cumulative. The age old argument against taking special weapons on Pathfinders, paying to lose a Markerlight from your army, still rings true. Granted it's not as bad now that everything can split fire so you can shoot that Ion Rifle at a different target, but you are still paying points to take a Markerlight out of your army.

3. You have to take it on a Pathfinder (Hopefully someday the Tau Empire realizes that Fire Warriors are perfectly capable of carrying weapons beyond Pulse Rifles and Carbines and we can see these weapons on guys who could really use them). T3 5+ W1 models are not something we as Tau want to be putting our special weapons on. Pathfinders are just too vulnerable to risk dropping points for a special weapon on, IMO. Even if it is fairly easy to reduce the risk of that mortal wound from Overcharge, the risk is still present and Pathfinders still aren't great at standing up to enemy fire. With the new AP system anything better than standard infantry weapons will knock them down like a bowling pin.

I do see the potential value of Pathfinder Special Weapon teams in 8th (3 guys with Ion or Rail and a Shas'Ui). I think, however, that if you're going to take a special weapon on a Pathfinder, you are much better off taking the Rail Rifle than the Ion. The Rail Rifle is just a better weapon, full stop. Yes you pay more for it, but the damage output is pretty worth it. Still committing the sin of spending points to lose Markerlights, but you'll have real damage output with those. The Ion Rifle, simply put, does a job that Tau don't need anymore help doing. It's role is filled in other places with better options, both in terms of damage output and in terms of the units carrying them. Is the Ion Rifle utterly useless and pointless? No, of course not. Especially in lower point games, it can be useful to have a cheap way of getting S7/S8 in your list. At higher points games where you have access to things like Crisis, Ghostkeels, Broadsides, etc.? You really have no need for it, and the Markerlight you give up will be much more valuable to your army.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 12:53:49


Post by: changemod


If drone controllers stack I can see a way to still make use of my marker commander, but otherwise I'm gonna have to completely rethink what to do with my HQ.

Might be best to just wait for the codex?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 12:53:51


Post by: Vryce


 Coyote81 wrote:
Has anyone been able to wrap their heads around the cost choice on Ion rifles for Pathfinders? 7pts, it's a 30" range heavy D3 S8 weapon on overcharge. I don't can if I have roughly a 1/3 chance of killing myself. One markerlgiht greatly reduces that chance.

You could just spam tons and tons of these units. With ethereal buffs, potentially Kauyon as needed. And Darkstrider nearby as a topper.


At 7pts per model, it actually seems like a decent option. Chance of mortal wounds when overcharged makes the chance of killing yourself worth it. With the changes to Markerlights, both in cost and efficacy, I'm actually considering the special weapon options on Pathfinders for the first time since they were introduced.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 13:00:33


Post by: xerxeshavelock


 Vryce wrote:
 Coyote81 wrote:
Has anyone been able to wrap their heads around the cost choice on Ion rifles for Pathfinders? 7pts, it's a 30" range heavy D3 S8 weapon on overcharge. I don't can if I have roughly a 1/3 chance of killing myself. One markerlgiht greatly reduces that chance.

You could just spam tons and tons of these units. With ethereal buffs, potentially Kauyon as needed. And Darkstrider nearby as a topper.


At 7pts per model, it actually seems like a decent option. Chance of mortal wounds when overcharged makes the chance of killing yourself worth it. With the changes to Markerlights, both in cost and efficacy, I'm actually considering the special weapon options on Pathfinders for the first time since they were introduced.

Me too - though Rail Rifles all the way!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 13:16:55


Post by: Vryce


I have also considered Rail Rifles, same chance of dealing mortal wounds without the risk of killing yourself, but it's triple the cost of the Ion Rifle. On a personal level, I do prefer the RR, and probably will have at least one squad of them, but they will become expensive to spam.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 13:31:47


Post by: Vector Strike


Ion Rifles don't deal mortal wounds to the enemies - it deals a mortal wound to the BEARER on a to hit of 1!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 13:56:16


Post by: Vryce


You're right.

Reading comprehension FTL..


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 14:22:15


Post by: Captain Joystick


changemod wrote:If drone controllers stack I can see a way to still make use of my marker commander, but otherwise I'm gonna have to completely rethink what to do with my HQ.


You can't equip multiples of the same support system on one suit. You can, however, load up three crisis suits this way.

That's presuming the DC effect stacks (and why shouldn't it? I think it should).


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 14:35:22


Post by: Naaris


I played my first 8th ed game last nite. My Tau vs my friends Chaos Marines. He is no pushover, and I stomped him. Close combat has not been brought up to par with shooting. Tau have gotten ridiculously better.

What I found:
Tau suits are now much more expensive
The entire Army is crazy mobile
All our battlesuits gained 1 Toughness
All suits gained more wounds
Key wargear - advanced targeting system - effectively removes bonus to saves or gives weapons that extra -1 to AP.
Broadsides are insanely good
Stormsurges are godlike
Vehicles are so much better now.
Invulnerable saves are game breakers

We just played out a simple game using the narrative missions. Decided to just use the power level system. agreed on 75 PL. Today I calculated my list and came out to 1535pts.

My List:
Longstrike with SMS and Railgun
Ethereal on hover drone - 8" movement
3x5-man strike teams
1x3-man Crisis suit team each with 2 Missile Pods and advanced targeting systems
1 broadside with 2 HYMP and 2 SMS - S5 T5 W6 2+ sv - with advanced targeting system - He alone was just over 200pts
1 Ghostkeel with 2 fusion blasters, 1 fusion collider and stim injector
1 Stormsurge with Pulse blast cannon and Burst cannons as well as his regular missile loadout. Also had Shield gen, Stims and Velo tracker

Chaos had:
Kharn
Unit of berserkers
Landraider
Pred with auto cannon? and las sponsons
Rhino
Unit of 5 CSMarines
Unit of 5 Warp Talons
Mauler fiend
Heldrake

I wanted to try a bit of everything but stay battle forged. he went first. The heldrake went for Longstrike and a firewarrior squad beside him. Longstike is tough as hell and could not be killed in CC by the heldrake. The whole concept of him fighting a mechanical demon dragon was great! His railgun wasn't overly effective. His SMS did a lot of work though.
The ghostkeel's fusion was also not overly effective. I found it to be too random.
The Crisis suits were real stars. 12 shots from that squad at S7 -2 (due to the ATS) D3 dmg took out the maulerfiend.
The stormsurge wrecked the landraider while taking nothing but las cannon shots and shrugged them off with 4+ invuln and the new stims

What we found was that target prioritization was critical. Sure everyone can hurt everyone now. But its still not worth trying to kill targets your unit isn't designed for. The big example were his warp talons attacking my CS suits after they deepstuck in. CS suits are now T5 with 3 wounds. His warp talons and all assault units got hit so badly with the nerf stick. He had 11 attacks now. They used to have 21 with mark of khorn / 16 without it. And those lightning claws used to negate my saves now i get a 5+ save. He used to wound them on 4. Now he wounds them on 5+.
He should have softened them up with some shooting first.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 14:56:34


Post by: Coyote81


 GI_Redshirt wrote:
 Coyote81 wrote:
Has anyone been able to wrap their heads around the cost choice on Ion rifles for Pathfinders? 7pts, it's a 30" range heavy D3 S8 weapon on overcharge. I don't can if I have roughly a 1/3 chance of killing myself. One markerlgiht greatly reduces that chance.

You could just spam tons and tons of these units. With ethereal buffs, potentially Kauyon as needed. And Darkstrider nearby as a topper.


There are a couple reasons for the low price point on it, at least as I see it.

1. Outside of its strength and range, it really isn't an amazing weapon. Its only AP -1. Even if you are wounding infantry on 3+ (potentially 2+ if you Overcharge), all but the flimsiest units will get a save against this. It's also only D1, even on the Overcharge profile, meaning that it won't be great at killing multi wound models, especially vehicles and monsters who it will be wounding on 4+ at best and will laugh at the AP -1. It also lacks volume of fire. Rapid Fire 1 means 1-2 shots in normal mode, with D3 (average of 2) shots in Overcharge. We have plenty of other weapons, Ion weapons and Missiles mostly, that have the S7 AP -1 profile, but either have much greater volumes of fire or do D D3 or better. Is the weapon better than the Pulse Carbine? Of course, no one would say otherwise. But its far from this hidden gem of a weapon.

2. You lose the Markerlight in order to take it. No explanation is really needed here, Markerlights are valuable. Especially in 8th where everything can split fire and markerlights are cumulative. The age old argument against taking special weapons on Pathfinders, paying to lose a Markerlight from your army, still rings true. Granted it's not as bad now that everything can split fire so you can shoot that Ion Rifle at a different target, but you are still paying points to take a Markerlight out of your army.

3. You have to take it on a Pathfinder (Hopefully someday the Tau Empire realizes that Fire Warriors are perfectly capable of carrying weapons beyond Pulse Rifles and Carbines and we can see these weapons on guys who could really use them). T3 5+ W1 models are not something we as Tau want to be putting our special weapons on. Pathfinders are just too vulnerable to risk dropping points for a special weapon on, IMO. Even if it is fairly easy to reduce the risk of that mortal wound from Overcharge, the risk is still present and Pathfinders still aren't great at standing up to enemy fire. With the new AP system anything better than standard infantry weapons will knock them down like a bowling pin.

I do see the potential value of Pathfinder Special Weapon teams in 8th (3 guys with Ion or Rail and a Shas'Ui). I think, however, that if you're going to take a special weapon on a Pathfinder, you are much better off taking the Rail Rifle than the Ion. The Rail Rifle is just a better weapon, full stop. Yes you pay more for it, but the damage output is pretty worth it. Still committing the sin of spending points to lose Markerlights, but you'll have real damage output with those. The Ion Rifle, simply put, does a job that Tau don't need anymore help doing. It's role is filled in other places with better options, both in terms of damage output and in terms of the units carrying them. Is the Ion Rifle utterly useless and pointless? No, of course not. Especially in lower point games, it can be useful to have a cheap way of getting S7/S8 in your list. At higher points games where you have access to things like Crisis, Ghostkeels, Broadsides, etc.? You really have no need for it, and the Markerlight you give up will be much more valuable to your army.


Response to your points:

1.The cost of the weapon and bearer by themselves allow this weapon to become a high volume weapon. Being rapid fire 30" or Heavy D3 for a total of 12 pts (Which is 3 points more then the cost of the marker light, never forget you are paying for that markerlight in 8th edition) Having played high volume firewarrior in previous editions as a strategy, only having a -1 AP is nowhere near as bad as your making it out to be. Not like Pulse rifles ever negated space marine armor before, and these are better then those where in 7th.

2. See previous point about paying for markerlights, you aren't wasting points anymore because you don't start with the markerlight in your cost, it's a separate 3 pts, that you don't pay if you take an ion rifle.

3. Most enemy high volume weapons don't have the range that Tau Pathfinders have. This gives us an advantage, we basically get to alpha strike with them all the time. You don't hear AM guardsmen complaining about their 4pt models with 7pt plasmagun. They are cheering. Sometimes, the cost effectiveness (Especially with the need detachment charts allowing to take so many fast attack choices if we choose) wins the day. I'll take a 7pt ioncannon over a 22pt railrifle everyday.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 14:58:40


Post by: MilkmanAl


I'm interested in your appraisal of the Stormsurge. I figured that it'd be tough to kill with the right upgrades, but do you think it holds up well enough to dedicated heavy weapons fire? Do you think including an ATS would be helpful? Were you able to get into useful range with the blastcannon without much trouble?

Similarly, I'm glad you mentioned the Ghostkeels' fusion. It seems like a decent weapon, but it's basically just 2 fusion blasters, on average. You can get that kind of performance elsewhere for cheaper. The CIR, though, seems like a nifty weapon in combo with an ATS. I'm not entirely convinced that you wouldn't be better off taking Crisis Suits with CIBs or missiles, though. Thoughts?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 15:11:26


Post by: Vector Strike


 Coyote81 wrote:
3. Most enemy high volume weapons don't have the range that Tau Pathfinders have.


Autocannons are 2d3 shots now


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 15:53:50


Post by: Naaris


MilkmanAl wrote:
I'm interested in your appraisal of the Stormsurge. I figured that it'd be tough to kill with the right upgrades, but do you think it holds up well enough to dedicated heavy weapons fire? Do you think including an ATS would be helpful? Were you able to get into useful range with the blastcannon without much trouble?

Similarly, I'm glad you mentioned the Ghostkeels' fusion. It seems like a decent weapon, but it's basically just 2 fusion blasters, on average. You can get that kind of performance elsewhere for cheaper. The CIR, though, seems like a nifty weapon in combo with an ATS. I'm not entirely convinced that you wouldn't be better off taking Crisis Suits with CIBs or missiles, though. Thoughts?


The way I kitted the stormsurge he was about 440. The velo tracker is now next to useless since most of our army has fly and doesn't take penalties when shooting fliers. I think it would have made more sense to give ti the ATS. That gives -1 AP to the cluster missiles, the SMS the BC's and even at 30' the Pulse Blast Cannon gets -1 rather than 0, at 20 its -3 rather than 2 and at 10 its -5 so those 2+ save models in cover still don't get a save.

People want that SS to die so they will go after it. 20 wounds is nothing to laugh at. And with a 4++ and FNP 6+ it doesn't die. like I said I was shrugging off 6 lascannon shots a turn. When he conceded, I was down to 15 wounds. he rolled the landraider up to it so that the berserkers and Kharn could jump out and assault it. 6" movement is fine. It was worth while to take.

Remember games will now be 2000pts on average. 400ish points for a SS is a good call. I also liked the Blast cannon because it's consistent in it's number of shots and DMG.

The ghostkeel needs another run this time with the Raker and BC's, FNP and ATS - S7 AP-2, Heavy 6 coupled with 8 S5 AP-1 shots, sounds good to me. Also 10wounds and his stealth and infiltrate shenanigans make him a valuable mid field horde or vehicle killer. Most tanks are T7. So hes got high volume of fire wounding on 4 or 5's against those units and is negating their 3+ save by 1 or 2.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 16:05:40


Post by: changemod


 Captain Joystick wrote:
changemod wrote:If drone controllers stack I can see a way to still make use of my marker commander, but otherwise I'm gonna have to completely rethink what to do with my HQ.


You can't equip multiples of the same support system on one suit. You can, however, load up three crisis suits this way.

That's presuming the DC effect stacks (and why shouldn't it? I think it should).


That was my idea yeah, I have three still unbuilt crisis suits, so was considering giving my marker commander who already has two missile launchers on her shoulders three bodyguards with the same loadout.

Leaving one leftover slot on the commander, probably for an ATS. Gives me one redundant drone controller, then crowd markers around them. Maybe some snipers too.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 16:13:56


Post by: Vector Strike


Naaris wrote:
The velo tracker is now next to useless since most of our army has fly and doesn't take penalties when shooting fliers.


This is a bit of misconception. Nowhere in the Fly or Shooting Phase rules says that units with Fly keyword are harder to hit. Some aircraft have the additional rule Hard to Hit, imposing a -1 to hit modifier. Velocity Tracker negates that, but adds +1 to hit against other stuff with fly - other suits, jump packs, destroyers, etc.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 16:25:17


Post by: Captain Joystick


MilkmanAl wrote:
Anyone have any army ideas yet?


I got started on one last night, just to get a feel for how much heavier my favourites are now, points wise.

I had a naked commander, two units of three crisis suits with two missile launchers and drone controllers with 12 marker drones each, one ghostkeel with CIR and fusions, longstrike and two hammerheads with rails and SMS. That was just under 1500 and obviously incomplete. I got to thinking about a proper loadout for the other crisis squad and was stuck on whether I should run them together with the commander for some mid-range action or if I should have them go for a flamer build, (two flamers and ATS of just three flamers? No idea.)

It's early stages, but I want to field those hammerheads I got for secret santa last year.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 17:32:51


Post by: MilkmanAl


I'm thinking a force of Longstrike-lead Hammerheads could be pretty effective. That +1 to hit is no joke, and Hammerheads seem to be costed reasonably by comparison to other similar units to begin with. Get a marker light on your target(s), and you'll be set for some destruction. I think I'd go with SMS on them, even though gun drones are pretty spiffy for the cost. The extra range and not needing LOS is still awesome. 207 pts doesn't strike me as a terrible deal for that.

Maybe even go whole-hog on Hammerheads with a Spearhead detachment, keeping them all in a tight enough formation to get the Longstrike bonus. Have a unit or two of Breachers around to wipe anything wanting to charge you and some Pathfinders for the few marker lights you need to wreak havoc, and you're all set. Instant army! 7 tanks and some little dudes.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 18:06:40


Post by: Da-Rock


I am looking at building up my Stealth Tau.

How are the Stealth suits and Ghostkeels?

How does Shadowsun fit in?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 19:13:37


Post by: MilkmanAl


Stealth suits honestly don't seem much better to me. They're certainly improved, but with Gun Drones getting so much cheaper, there's not a whole lot of need for fast S5. Ghostkeels are probably okay-ish. Shadowsun is a solid choice, with her extra command benefits. She's pretty expensive, though.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 19:35:27


Post by: Captain Joystick


At 2 wounds, T4, and a 3+ save they aren't half bad, actually. Their stealth fields now represent a -1 on the enemy's hit roll, meaning you'll be taking less incoming fire and you'll still be able to manage a 2+ save in cover. Unlike gundrones they can chose to shoot at targets more vulnerable to their fire instead of the closest.

Ghostkeel also gets a -1 to hit it over a certain range, and the stealth drones confer another -1 to hit. This stacks with the ghostkeel's stealth but is worded so it won't stack with more and more drones.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 20:26:40


Post by: Da-Rock


I have always wanted a large 3 to 4 man squad of Stealth Suits in a Tau Stealth suit army!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 20:32:38


Post by: SemperMortis


Tau 8th Edition Tactics:

Buy shooty things
Sit at the back of the board
shoot enemy

Rinse, repeat, win, deny that your army is boring to play against.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 20:33:57


Post by: Martel732


Just pretend you are playing against a computer AI like in a video game.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 20:40:03


Post by: MilkmanAl


I don't think Tau are going to be static this edition at all. Between precision Crisis drops and lots of drones running around spewing pulse shots everywhere and Fire Warriors being awesome, I think we've got a fairly mobility-focused army. I think that an early-game castle to benefit from essentially an army-wide Kauyon will be a common tactic, but there will be much kiting thereafter, JSJ or no. We've got some fast units and will do well to take advantage of them.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 20:57:56


Post by: Vryce


The problem with Stealth Suits, and it's the same problem they've always had, is their weapon. S5 is in no short supply in our army. In fact, other than Kroot, the only other weapon in our army that isn't S5, is the Airbursting Frag Projector. Their cover save was nice, and Infiltration could be useful in some cases, but massed S5 firepower was much cheaper elsewhere in the army. And sadly, that really hasn't changed. They're still the same price they always were, but they did manage to get +1W & +1T out of it, and the -1 to hit them is nice. So on that note, they are arguably better, but they're still toting around firepower that is easily replicated by Gun Drones. The option for FB's is still there, but you're almost doubling the cost of the suit to bring it, and it's still the same 1 per 3 restriction.

I honestly don't know what would make them more desirable, if you allow them access to the XV8 armory, you risk them overshadowing the XV8's. If you allow all of them to carry FB's, they would likely be too good - even now, with the increased cost of the FB.

Really, they're not any worse off than they were before, but there's nothing about them that is overly spectacular either. If you like the models, and like the idea of an all Stealth Army led by Shadowsun, they probably wouldn't be insta-loose (depending on your opponent, of course), but I wouldn't expect them to run the table. You'd definitely need some heavy hitters and I'm not sure even Ghostkeels would fit the bill. You'd need some form of Markerlight support, be it drones or a Pathfinder team or two, and something capable of punching hard, probably Broadsides.

It would be a cool army tho, I'll say that for sure.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 21:18:40


Post by: Da-Rock


I play Casual.

I have a little over $200 top spend on the new 8th book and some models.

I am torn between adding Tau Stealth suits (and maybe a bomber) and buying into some Harlequinn stuff.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 21:38:23


Post by: yellowfever


Im going to be building an all stealth army too, for no other reason than I think it will be cool.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 22:30:09


Post by: ZergSmasher


Spoiler:
Naaris wrote:
I played my first 8th ed game last nite. My Tau vs my friends Chaos Marines. He is no pushover, and I stomped him. Close combat has not been brought up to par with shooting. Tau have gotten ridiculously better.

What I found:
Tau suits are now much more expensive
The entire Army is crazy mobile
All our battlesuits gained 1 Toughness
All suits gained more wounds
Key wargear - advanced targeting system - effectively removes bonus to saves or gives weapons that extra -1 to AP.
Broadsides are insanely good
Stormsurges are godlike
Vehicles are so much better now.
Invulnerable saves are game breakers

We just played out a simple game using the narrative missions. Decided to just use the power level system. agreed on 75 PL. Today I calculated my list and came out to 1535pts.

My List:
Longstrike with SMS and Railgun
Ethereal on hover drone - 8" movement
3x5-man strike teams
1x3-man Crisis suit team each with 2 Missile Pods and advanced targeting systems
1 broadside with 2 HYMP and 2 SMS - S5 T5 W6 2+ sv - with advanced targeting system - He alone was just over 200pts
1 Ghostkeel with 2 fusion blasters, 1 fusion collider and stim injector
1 Stormsurge with Pulse blast cannon and Burst cannons as well as his regular missile loadout. Also had Shield gen, Stims and Velo tracker

Chaos had:
Kharn
Unit of berserkers
Landraider
Pred with auto cannon? and las sponsons
Rhino
Unit of 5 CSMarines
Unit of 5 Warp Talons
Mauler fiend
Heldrake

I wanted to try a bit of everything but stay battle forged. he went first. The heldrake went for Longstrike and a firewarrior squad beside him. Longstike is tough as hell and could not be killed in CC by the heldrake. The whole concept of him fighting a mechanical demon dragon was great! His railgun wasn't overly effective. His SMS did a lot of work though.
The ghostkeel's fusion was also not overly effective. I found it to be too random.
The Crisis suits were real stars. 12 shots from that squad at S7 -2 (due to the ATS) D3 dmg took out the maulerfiend.
The stormsurge wrecked the landraider while taking nothing but las cannon shots and shrugged them off with 4+ invuln and the new stims

What we found was that target prioritization was critical. Sure everyone can hurt everyone now. But its still not worth trying to kill targets your unit isn't designed for. The big example were his warp talons attacking my CS suits after they deepstuck in. CS suits are now T5 with 3 wounds. His warp talons and all assault units got hit so badly with the nerf stick. He had 11 attacks now. They used to have 21 with mark of khorn / 16 without it. And those lightning claws used to negate my saves now i get a 5+ save. He used to wound them on 4. Now he wounds them on 5+.
He should have softened them up with some shooting first.

I think this is less of a "CC has been nerfed, shooting is still king" and more of a case of a very bad matchup. Plus the points will most likely be tweaked for some things. Also, how many points was his army, or did you calculate? I suspect that Power Levels alone are not going to be very telling, and most players will stick to points to come up with an even game.

That said, I do think Tau are still very strong despite the hit we took to our beloved Riptides (more like R.I.P.tides now ). Their ability to disengage without penalty is killer. It's also nice to see that some underappreciated units are making a big comeback, like Longstrike and other Hammerheads. I expect we won't see many Sky Rays anymore, though, with them needing 6's for their missiles to hit (unless you can get 2 markerlights on something). One thing I'm wondering about is Kroot; are they any good now? It looks like Vespids became good or at least playable, but what about our favorite galactic scavengers?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 22:52:41


Post by: JohnU


 Vector Strike wrote:
Ion Rifles don't deal mortal wounds to the enemies - it deals a mortal wound to the BEARER on a to hit of 1!


The way Saviour Protocols is written, could that wound be allocated to a drone?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 23:18:23


Post by: Vector Strike


SemperMortis wrote:Tau 8th Edition Tactics:

Buy shooty things
Sit at the back of the board
shoot enemy

Rinse, repeat, win, deny that your army is boring to play against.


Wow, you've described Astra Militarum!

ZergSmasher wrote:One thing I'm wondering about is Kroot; are they any good now? It looks like Vespids became good or at least playable, but what about our favorite galactic scavengers?


Kroot kept the same price, but lost the option for Sniper ammo and traded Infiltrate for Scout. They got a +1S in their mele weapon, and that's all.
For melee chaff, I think Kroot Hounds are more interesting


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/02 23:29:27


Post by: Desubot


 Da-Rock wrote:
I have always wanted a large 3 to 4 man squad of Stealth Suits in a Tau Stealth suit army!


Im excited to do this too. i got a ton of metal ones and a few potato fusion ones.

on a side note i have to ask. Riptides: just how comparable are they to say other armies large tough as nails shooty things for the points?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 01:30:28


Post by: BertBert


I'll just drop the link for the tau armybuilder here: https://mega.nz/#!oyJlHBZB!Llb4X-GnpgpkW-N_5RFQOa461hncuR9sEVtcVH01r8c

Basic features are in, slot requirements are not.

Enjoy!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 02:17:00


Post by: Razerous


Some random musings;

Destroyer/Seeker missiles; The ideal target are going to units that are T6-8 (Not much is higher, few things are worthy at lower T) with a 2-3+ save, with weapons that would normally be firing at AP-3 / -4 and assuming to be wounding on 3's.

So we're wounding on 3's (as for 2+ to wound, you'd need Str 12-14+) and lets imagine 2+ save in cover (at best), AP-4 (very attainable) is reducing this down to a 5+ save, right? This is basically what the Destroyer/Seeker missiles are competing against.

That leads to a damage mitigation (between 44-66%... i.e. 5+ save or no save, after the 3+ to-wound).

That means, assuming to-hit roll is equal / auto-hit (97%).. for each mortal wound (which bypasses the to-wound and save / invulnerable save) equates to 2 wounds. (so 2 mortal wound = 2 dmg, 2 regular wounds, about 44-66% get through the to-wound and to-save, = x dmg, so assuming a 2dmg+ weapon)

That means.. each mortal wound (against the big toys) is equivalent to a str 7-9 AP -3 / -4 Dmg 2 hit. (Aka big gun hit) Assuming it doesn't have a invulnerable save

That means... if the target does have an invulnerable save, each mortal wound is equivalent to a *Big Gun hit x the invulnerable save chance. I.e. a 4++ would bump the dmg equivalent up to 3 dmg. The same target would take damage from 1 in every 3 regular wound, whilst 3 mortal wounds = 3 dmg.

Thoughts?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 10:32:49


Post by: changemod


Hmm.

With Sense of Stone active, you could potentially take a save and sense of stone on a character, save both, then take sense of stone again on a crisis bodyguard.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 10:54:00


Post by: Coyote81


changemod wrote:
Hmm.

With Sense of Stone active, you could potentially take a save and sense of stone on a character, save both, then take sense of stone again on a crisis bodyguard.


Sense of stone roll doesn't count as a save roll. Only Armor and Invul saves are save rolls.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 11:28:39


Post by: changemod


I'm thinking the best way to make the most of a riptide is this:

Burst cannon and twin plasma, take the +1 bs and -1 rend items, give them some drone babysitters to tank lascannon shots.

 Coyote81 wrote:
changemod wrote:
Hmm.

With Sense of Stone active, you could potentially take a save and sense of stone on a character, save both, then take sense of stone again on a crisis bodyguard.


Sense of stone roll doesn't count as a save roll. Only Armor and Invul saves are save rolls.


Did you miss an and or is this a non-sequitur?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 15:13:46


Post by: MilkmanAl


Interesting review of seeker/destroyer missiles. I'm not sure I follow or agree with all of your numbers, but your conclusion essentially puts seekers in line with hunter killers. That seems about right to me.

The real question, though, is whether they're worth it or not. Destroyer missiles are a moot point since you have to buy them along with your Stormsurge. Seekers are probably worthwhile, at first blush. That extra damage against a tough target early on can make a big difference, and now that you can shoot all your weapons all the time, they can be fired ASAP.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 15:25:01


Post by: changemod


MilkmanAl wrote:
Interesting review of seeker/destroyer missiles. I'm not sure I follow or agree with all of your numbers, but your conclusion essentially puts seekers in line with hunter killers. That seems about right to me.

The real question, though, is whether they're worth it or not. Destroyer missiles are a moot point since you have to buy them along with your Stormsurge. Seekers are probably worthwhile, at first blush. That extra damage against a tough target early on can make a big difference, and now that you can shoot all your weapons all the time, they can be fired ASAP.


Skyray probably isn't very good though: It's main armament can cause 6 wounds total, which is kinda wimpy even with the ability to ignore invuls.

After that you have some basic S5 shots and a Markerlight.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 17:11:06


Post by: MilkmanAl


I agree with that. The skyray got neutered. As an upgrade, the missiles seem useful but not as a main armament


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 17:19:25


Post by: Razerous


changemod wrote:
MilkmanAl wrote:
Interesting review of seeker/destroyer missiles. I'm not sure I follow or agree with all of your numbers, but your conclusion essentially puts seekers in line with hunter killers. That seems about right to me.

The real question, though, is whether they're worth it or not. Destroyer missiles are a moot point since you have to buy them along with your Stormsurge. Seekers are probably worthwhile, at first blush. That extra damage against a tough target early on can make a big difference, and now that you can shoot all your weapons all the time, they can be fired ASAP.


Skyray probably isn't very good though: It's main armament can cause 6 wounds total, which is kinda wimpy even with the ability to ignore invuls.

After that you have some basic S5 shots and a Markerlight.
If only it were D3 mortal wounds (and destroyers a chunk higher), would have made all the difference!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/03 17:23:42


Post by: changemod


Razerous wrote:
changemod wrote:
MilkmanAl wrote:
Interesting review of seeker/destroyer missiles. I'm not sure I follow or agree with all of your numbers, but your conclusion essentially puts seekers in line with hunter killers. That seems about right to me.

The real question, though, is whether they're worth it or not. Destroyer missiles are a moot point since you have to buy them along with your Stormsurge. Seekers are probably worthwhile, at first blush. That extra damage against a tough target early on can make a big difference, and now that you can shoot all your weapons all the time, they can be fired ASAP.


Skyray probably isn't very good though: It's main armament can cause 6 wounds total, which is kinda wimpy even with the ability to ignore invuls.

After that you have some basic S5 shots and a Markerlight.
If only it were D3 mortal wounds (and destroyers a chunk higher), would have made all the difference!


Eh even then, too much random to an effect with random damage like that and my eyes start to glaze over and start to look somewhere else for genuinely reliable options.

...This is going to be a fun edition for me, huh.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/04 15:31:27


Post by: MilkmanAl


Consider this for a Hammerhead-based army:

Spearhead detachment:
Longstrike - railgun, 2 SMS, 2 seekers - 225
6 Hammerheads - railgun, 2 SMS, 2 seekers - 1230
3x9 Breachers - 216
2x10 Pathfinders - 160

19pts left over for whatever - 2 more Breachers, I guess?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/04 19:16:17


Post by: Bryan01


If you deploy Darkstrider in a transport with some troops (e.g. breachers), does the transport get the vanguard move? I assume not, the way it is worded.

It also strikes me, that stealth suits were one of the few Tau units to get a straight buff. Same price, better stats.






Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 00:03:46


Post by: Unusual Suspect


They lost Jump-Shoot-Jump. Too early to call if they really lost durability in a general sense, as their guns require them to get into AND stay in a moderately fast infantry's charge range, which is an unhealthy range to be in when there are very fast moving and charging.

Being able to "allocate" wounds at will to nearby drones of all types is a whole other ball of wax, and the drones all have their uses. ML, Gun and Shield Drones are both ablative wounds, with the ML not losing accuracy on the move (and buffable to decent accuracy), Gun drone laying out potentially immense and frankly mindboggling firepower (albeit always at the closest target - your other units might have to "clear a path" for the Drone's targeting systems!), and Shield Drones capable of soaking up a surprising amount of firepower for their points. That's where the Tau battlesuit's durability is going to have to lie, because almost all the suits went up in price, and they're going to need a cozy blanket of drone protection (and maybe a hefty helping of Drone firepower) to do what they need to do.

Sniper Drones still seem like garbage to me, and I'm struggling to figure out where they could ever fit in terms of actually... serving some sort of function. 1-2 pulse shots with only-decent-if-very-buffed accuracy for that many points just doesn't seem like it'll ever actually kill more than the weediest subcommander hero.

But I've yet to really do the math on it, so maybe? Are they actually accurately pointed for their effectiveness? We basically got slightly longer ranged S5 weapons instead of Mortal Wound on a 6 to wound (or was it hit?) that all the other snipers got, and I'm curious if anyone has run the numbers to see if the only remotely cheap Heavy Support option in the T'au Empire arsenal is worth its points.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 00:39:21


Post by: MilkmanAl


I'm curious if anyone has run the numbers to see if the only remotely cheap Heavy Support option in the T'au Empire arsenal is worth its points.
I'd be quite surprised if it was. The advent of 8pt, 4 shot Gun Drones has made flooding things with S5 firepower easier than ever, so the ability to pick out a character with more of the same is unremarkable. There's no AP, so many (or most) characters will get an impressive save against your sniper drones. Even in this era of two billion point Riptides, we can do far better.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 01:33:07


Post by: Razerous


Pathfinders - check
Pulse Accelorator Drone - Check
Mark'O (3 MP, drone controller) - Check

Ball of Marker Droners, Gun Droners, etc. - Check

Each gun drone will be hitting on 4's, 4 shots at 24" range with an 8" movement. Re-rolling 1's isn't far fetched, either!

25pts on pathfinders, another 8pts on the PAD, plus pathfinder wargear.

===

Also, compare a commander with 3 missile pods (add in ATS for additional -1AP or a shield) and compare that in points and damage output to a Broadside.

A single XV88 costs (a bunch?) more, hits 1/2 it's 8 str7 shots and 1/2 it's 8 str 5 shots (/ other secondary weapon instead).

Final thought of the day - 3 man XV8 Crisis suit squads, 9 flamers. Approx 200pts. Deepstrike...

... Must deploy 9" you say, so out of range; can you advance and then flame? Is there a penalty/restriction... do 3 markerlights negate that penalty (I'm honestly not sure) because if it works; 9D6 str4 shots is really reasonable/reliable. Just some musings


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 02:30:58


Post by: Unusual Suspect


On the one hand, unfortunately the Pulse Accelerator only boosts units with the Infantry keyword, which the drones unfortunately lack.

On the other hand, sneak a peak at that Cadre Fireblade's Volley Fire, which only requires that "Models in <Sept> units within..." a certain range "...may fire an extra shot with ... pulse carbines" when shooting within half range.

The rules seem ambiguous to me, but worst case scenario, you've just boosted your fire-warror's-points of gun drone's shot count by 1. And if we got an extra shot with EACH pulse carbine, add another shot on, giving our Drones the potential to have 5 or 6 roughly 75% accurate Pulse shots per fire-warrior's-points of Gun Drone.

The real puzzle will be dismantling or moving around whatever your opponent tries to put in front to soak up the immense hail of pulse fire possible.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 09:13:33


Post by: xerxeshavelock


BertBert wrote:
I'll just drop the link for the tau armybuilder here: https://mega.nz/#!oyJlHBZB!Llb4X-GnpgpkW-N_5RFQOa461hncuR9sEVtcVH01r8c

Basic features are in, slot requirements are not.

Enjoy!


Hmm - was going to add it to the op, but the link says File Not Available. I've not used the site before - is it limited by country?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 10:00:03


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 Unusual Suspect wrote:
They lost Jump-Shoot-Jump.


Source for this?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 10:14:03


Post by: xerxeshavelock


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 Unusual Suspect wrote:
They lost Jump-Shoot-Jump.


Source for this?

I think it's more that it doesn't appear anywhere. Coupled with the intentional ignoring of multiple queries on the Facebook Tau focus.

I feared its loss way before the rules leaked. First, trying to speed the game up isn't helped by having an army where half the models (exaggeration) get to move twice, in particular spending potentially ages trying to hide them. Second, although it was an awesome idea (my favourite thing about the army tbh), there is a strong argument that it suits the lightning fast Eldar even more than the Tau, so if they were to reintroduce it at a later date I suspect that's where we might see it.

We can hope, but I'm pretty resigned to losing it now.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 10:27:16


Post by: A Town Called Malus


xerxeshavelock wrote:
 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 Unusual Suspect wrote:
They lost Jump-Shoot-Jump.


Source for this?

I think it's more that it doesn't appear anywhere. Coupled with the intentional ignoring of multiple queries on the Facebook Tau focus.

I feared its loss way before the rules leaked. First, trying to speed the game up isn't helped by having an army where half the models (exaggeration) get to move twice, in particular spending potentially ages trying to hide them. Second, although it was an awesome idea (my favourite thing about the army tbh), there is a strong argument that it suits the lightning fast Eldar even more than the Tau, so if they were to reintroduce it at a later date I suspect that's where we might see it.

We can hope, but I'm pretty resigned to losing it now.


All our Jet Pack units have a Jet Pack keyword which, so far, has not been seen anywhere in leaks. Unless GW is putting in keywords with no function, that will do something and JSJ is the most likely candidate for what that will be.

I highly doubt that GW is going to remove a facet of the army which is iconic and has been a part of the army since its very inception in 3rd edition.

As for units moving twice, there is already that in the game in the form of psychic powers repositioning units.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 10:29:12


Post by: stratigo


It's also a hard rule to balance. The Tau already have a lot of ability to defeat assaults via firepower, and almost all their suits have fly and so can unengage and still shoot, so giving them an extra move would make it simply too hard for assault armies to get to them.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 10:31:25


Post by: BertBert


xerxeshavelock wrote:
BertBert wrote:
I'll just drop the link for the tau armybuilder here: https://mega.nz/#!oyJlHBZB!Llb4X-GnpgpkW-N_5RFQOa461hncuR9sEVtcVH01r8c

Basic features are in, slot requirements are not.

Enjoy!


Hmm - was going to add it to the op, but the link says File Not Available. I've not used the site before - is it limited by country?


The link has been replaced by a new one. This topic will be updated regularly: http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=25576


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 11:19:46


Post by: Backfire


stratigo wrote:
It's also a hard rule to balance. The Tau already have a lot of ability to defeat assaults via firepower, and almost all their suits have fly and so can unengage and still shoot, so giving them an extra move would make it simply too hard for assault armies to get to them.


But this is the problem. Tau as they stand now are increasingly more about unloading loads of dakka to the enemy, instead of working clever and flexibly.
Shoot smart, not hard. That's what the Tau should be about.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 11:40:32


Post by: BertBert


Backfire wrote:
stratigo wrote:
It's also a hard rule to balance. The Tau already have a lot of ability to defeat assaults via firepower, and almost all their suits have fly and so can unengage and still shoot, so giving them an extra move would make it simply too hard for assault armies to get to them.


But this is the problem. Tau as they stand now are increasingly more about unloading loads of dakka to the enemy, instead of working clever and flexibly.
Shoot smart, not hard. That's what the Tau should be about.


I'd argue that with the new rules there is much more room for playing cleverly, at least compared to how things went in7th.

- Making good use of transports, not being able to disembark after moving
- calling Mont'ka and Kauyon at the right place and the right time
- absorb charging enemies with chaff to expose them to our shooting in the following turn
- using our weaker markerlights efficiently in terms of target priority and shooting sequence
- managing distance and line of sight for our now independent support drones


The new tau seem to be all about creating just the right circumstances in which everything comes together and I'm pretty confident that there is a lot of depth to be explored here. Certainly more than with the "Get everyting into CC as fast as possible"-kind of armies.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 11:45:29


Post by: Razerous


 Unusual Suspect wrote:
On the one hand, unfortunately the Pulse Accelerator only boosts units with the Infantry keyword, which the drones unfortunately lack.

On the other hand, sneak a peak at that Cadre Fireblade's Volley Fire, which only requires that "Models in <Sept> units within..." a certain range "...may fire an extra shot with ... pulse carbines" when shooting within half range.

The rules seem ambiguous to me, but worst case scenario, you've just boosted your fire-warror's-points of gun drone's shot count by 1. And if we got an extra shot with EACH pulse carbine, add another shot on, giving our Drones the potential to have 5 or 6 roughly 75% accurate Pulse shots per fire-warrior's-points of Gun Drone.

The real puzzle will be dismantling or moving around whatever your opponent tries to put in front to soak up the immense hail of pulse fire possible.
I honestly looked for that but missed it, as I discounted the first line as it was just the title all in bold.. but thanks & good shout!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 13:31:08


Post by: stratigo


Backfire wrote:
stratigo wrote:
It's also a hard rule to balance. The Tau already have a lot of ability to defeat assaults via firepower, and almost all their suits have fly and so can unengage and still shoot, so giving them an extra move would make it simply too hard for assault armies to get to them.


But this is the problem. Tau as they stand now are increasingly more about unloading loads of dakka to the enemy, instead of working clever and flexibly.
Shoot smart, not hard. That's what the Tau should be about.


I dunno if you've played 7th edition, but let me tell you, the Tau basically was a bunch of gundams unleashing torrents of firepower. There wasn't much a difference between shoot smart/shoot hard. It was just "We have the best shooting, so we shoot". Married to a farseer making them invisible for the cheesers out there, but even a pure tau list was not too dissimilar.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 14:03:23


Post by: Unusual Suspect


To those holding out for the hope of JSJ's return, I can sympathize but I think pulling the bandaid off now is the better choice.

Keywords do nothing except what the rules allow them to do. We've seen the page in the index for army-wide rules, and there is nothing to be found regarding JSJ.

Keywords are not all about benefits, nor about penalties - they're about distinguishing between classes of units. Some unit abilities, perhaps enemies or perhaps friends, will undoubtedly interact with Jump Pack and Jet Pack key words.

But seriously, clinging to JSJ because "we just haven't seen all the rules yet" is simply untrue (we HAVE seen all the rules, and JSJ ain't there) and presuming the keyword has a universal benefit would actually be extremely RARE for a keyword - aside from Fly, they tend to interact with other bespoke rules for classification purposes (if your target is a Vehicle, deals 1d3 Mortal Wounds to Infantry, etc.) rather than grant benefits all their own.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 14:09:41


Post by: Vector Strike


stratigo wrote:
Married to a farseer making them invisible for the cheesers out there, but even a pure tau list was not too dissimilar.


That was in 6th. We had no BBs in 7th


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 14:32:01


Post by: Aeri


I think the Tau spirit is still there - synergy between units.

and there are some pretty cool combinations possible!


Dronecontroller Stacking
All auras can be stacked!
3 Crisis suits with Dronecontrollers make Drones in 6'' BF 2+ - for 15 points total!
Add an Ethereal and you have twin linked bf 2+ marker drones. easy to get those 5 hits I'd say.

Tidewall Droneport + Commander
--> probably cheaper BS 2 Marker drones, but also only 4 of them.

Homing Beacons are evil!
Remember how you can only Mantastrike up to 9'' to an enemy unit?
Well, just get a unit of Stealth Suits in there and put down a homing beacon.
The beacon has to be 9'' away from any enemy model aswell, but instead of Manta Striking you can make a low altitude drop, allowing you to place the models within 6'' of the homing beacon.
That can be up to 3'' of enemy units - 9 Flamers I hear you say? (Beacon 9'' away, 6'' bubble --> 3'' distance)

Manta Strike + Kauyon
It nowhere says, that models that entered via Manta Strike count as having moved. It just happens at the end of your movement phase.
Add a Commander to your Mantastriking Crisis suits and let them unleash twin linked hell!
BTW: I think you can Mantastrike into melter range, since 9 '' is all you need for the effect to take place. That makes a great unit to get rid of some nasty tanks/monstrous creatures

XV88 + Kauyon
This has to be truly nasty, effectively doubling the dmg output of our broadsides compared to 7th edition.

Skyrays suck, end of story.
But they are ugly, so it's a good thing we won't see them anymore!


See, there are so many great new things the Tau can play with.
We are still very mobile and can deliver a deadly punch.
Drones got very good with double the shots compared to 7th and offer great protection!




Edit:
IMHO there will be no SJS, because of the wording of the Riptides Nova reactor. Compare it to 7th.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 14:50:55


Post by: GI_Redshirt


 Unusual Suspect wrote:
To those holding out for the hope of JSJ's return, I can sympathize but I think pulling the bandaid off now is the better choice.

Keywords do nothing except what the rules allow them to do. We've seen the page in the index for army-wide rules, and there is nothing to be found regarding JSJ.

Keywords are not all about benefits, nor about penalties - they're about distinguishing between classes of units. Some unit abilities, perhaps enemies or perhaps friends, will undoubtedly interact with Jump Pack and Jet Pack key words.

But seriously, clinging to JSJ because "we just haven't seen all the rules yet" is simply untrue (we HAVE seen all the rules, and JSJ ain't there) and presuming the keyword has a universal benefit would actually be extremely RARE for a keyword - aside from Fly, they tend to interact with other bespoke rules for classification purposes (if your target is a Vehicle, deals 1d3 Mortal Wounds to Infantry, etc.) rather than grant benefits all their own.


This.

Keywords are not the new USRs. They are nothing more than words that describe a unit for the purpose of serving as a shorthand when referenced in rules. Keywords themselves have no meaning, no special rules attached to them. For example, Crisis Suits have the "Battlesuit" keyword. Battlesuit itself means nothing in 8th, however it is referenced in relation to special rules and bespoken rules to describe how units with the keyword react with those rules (IE the Devilfish transporting rule states that it cannot transport units with the Battlesuit keyword, rather than Battlesuit having a definition or rule stating it cannot ride in a Devilfish).

Jet Pack, in and of itself, means nothing. It doesn't mean that JSJ is gonna still be a thing. It simply means that those units can be described as having a jet pack and at some point in the future GW can put out an army rule or bespoken rule that affects those models that have that keyword.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 14:53:21


Post by: BertBert


Aeri wrote:



Dronecontroller Stacking



If you read the rules for them, you'll find that DCs unfortunately don't stack.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 14:57:59


Post by: BoomWolf


Aeri wrote:

Dronecontroller Stacking
All auras can be stacked!
3 Crisis suits with Dronecontrollers make Drones in 6'' BF 2+ - for 15 points total!
Add an Ethereal and you have twin linked bf 2+ marker drones. easy to get those 5 hits I'd say.


No they don't, auras work if you have the unit within range to a aura giver, but not the same aura twice, due to the way they are worded.


Aeri wrote:
Homing Beacons are evil!
Remember how you can only Mantastrike up to 9'' to an enemy unit?
Well, just get a unit of Stealth Suits in there and put down a homing beacon.
The beacon has to be 9'' away from any enemy model aswell, but instead of Manta Striking you can make a low altitude drop, allowing you to place the models within 6'' of the homing beacon.
That can be up to 3'' of enemy units - 9 Flamers I hear you say? (Beacon 9'' away, 6'' bubble --> 3'' distance)



And then the enemy just steps towards the stealth suits, end their move within 9" of the beacon, and the beacon is destroyed. (also, charge the stealth suits and kill them)



Now, you know what I just noticed?
Our big suits-they pack heavy guns, and no ability to let them move and shoot in regular BS.
So yea, they cost much more, can't JSJ, cant even walk and shoot properly on our meager BS3 AND the markerlights took a heavy nerf.

If you thought you'll play tau as anything but an infantry gunline in 8th, you're going to have a bad time.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 15:01:41


Post by: BertBert


 BoomWolf wrote:




Now, you know what I just noticed?
Our big suits-they pack heavy guns, and no ability to let them move and shoot in regular BS.
So yea, they cost much more, can't JSJ, cant even walk and shoot properly on our meager BS3 AND the markerlights took a heavy nerf.

If you thought you'll play tau as anything but an infantry gunline in 8th, you're going to have a bad time.


So everything that doesn't utilize big suits is an infantry gunline? Also, you can take Target Lock on all of our suits and Markerlights will do the trick, too.

Combined arms Tau looks very promising and suit-only lists being heavily nerfed was the best thing they could've done in my book.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 15:04:05


Post by: Mud Turkey 13


Aeri wrote:
Manta Strike + Kauyon
It nowhere says, that models that entered via Manta Strike count as having moved. It just happens at the end of your movement phase.
Add a Commander to your Mantastriking Crisis suits and let them unleash twin linked hell!
BTW: I think you can Mantastrike into melter range, since 9 '' is all you need for the effect to take place. That makes a great unit to get rid of some nasty tanks/monstrous creatures


This also will not work since you have to declare the Kauyon at the beginning of your turn before movement or deepstriking would take place.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 15:05:42


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 GI_Redshirt wrote:
 Unusual Suspect wrote:
To those holding out for the hope of JSJ's return, I can sympathize but I think pulling the bandaid off now is the better choice.

Keywords do nothing except what the rules allow them to do. We've seen the page in the index for army-wide rules, and there is nothing to be found regarding JSJ.

Keywords are not all about benefits, nor about penalties - they're about distinguishing between classes of units. Some unit abilities, perhaps enemies or perhaps friends, will undoubtedly interact with Jump Pack and Jet Pack key words.

But seriously, clinging to JSJ because "we just haven't seen all the rules yet" is simply untrue (we HAVE seen all the rules, and JSJ ain't there) and presuming the keyword has a universal benefit would actually be extremely RARE for a keyword - aside from Fly, they tend to interact with other bespoke rules for classification purposes (if your target is a Vehicle, deals 1d3 Mortal Wounds to Infantry, etc.) rather than grant benefits all their own.


This.

Keywords are not the new USRs. They are nothing more than words that describe a unit for the purpose of serving as a shorthand when referenced in rules. Keywords themselves have no meaning, no special rules attached to them. For example, Crisis Suits have the "Battlesuit" keyword. Battlesuit itself means nothing in 8th, however it is referenced in relation to special rules and bespoken rules to describe how units with the keyword react with those rules (IE the Devilfish transporting rule states that it cannot transport units with the Battlesuit keyword, rather than Battlesuit having a definition or rule stating it cannot ride in a Devilfish).

Jet Pack, in and of itself, means nothing. It doesn't mean that JSJ is gonna still be a thing. It simply means that those units can be described as having a jet pack and at some point in the future GW can put out an army rule or bespoken rule that affects those models that have that keyword.


Well, except for the fact that we know that keywords do act as special rules which do not need to be defined in the army-wide special abilities section.

The keyword Fly, for example. We know that models with the Fly keyword can fall back from combat and shoot as normal (as mentioned in the T'au faction focus) yet nothing in the leaked index says that which clearly indicates that some keywords will be present in the rulebook and be universal. I imagine that Biker will be another one, and Jump Pack too, along with Jet Pack.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 15:37:30


Post by: Aeri



Dronecontroller Stacking: it clearly says that its cumulative (right hand side)
Spoiler:



 BoomWolf wrote:


Aeri wrote:
Homing Beacons are evil!
Remember how you can only Mantastrike up to 9'' to an enemy unit?
Well, just get a unit of Stealth Suits in there and put down a homing beacon.
The beacon has to be 9'' away from any enemy model aswell, but instead of Manta Striking you can make a low altitude drop, allowing you to place the models within 6'' of the homing beacon.
That can be up to 3'' of enemy units - 9 Flamers I hear you say? (Beacon 9'' away, 6'' bubble --> 3'' distance)



And then the enemy just steps towards the stealth suits, end their move within 9" of the beacon, and the beacon is destroyed. (also, charge the stealth suits and kill them)



You infiltrate your stealth suits, move them up, place the beacon, Deepstrike and be happy.
If you don't have first turn, don't infiltrate to far.


 Mud Turkey 13 wrote:
Aeri wrote:
Manta Strike + Kauyon
It nowhere says, that models that entered via Manta Strike count as having moved. It just happens at the end of your movement phase.
Add a Commander to your Mantastriking Crisis suits and let them unleash twin linked hell!
BTW: I think you can Mantastrike into melter range, since 9 '' is all you need for the effect to take place. That makes a great unit to get rid of some nasty tanks/monstrous creatures


This also will not work since you have to declare the Kauyon at the beginning of your turn before movement or deepstriking would take place.


Shadowsun will be on the field already, infiltrated together with those nasty homing beacon stealth suits.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 15:50:36


Post by: Fueli


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 GI_Redshirt wrote:
 Unusual Suspect wrote:
To those holding out for the hope of JSJ's return, I can sympathize but I think pulling the bandaid off now is the better choice.

Keywords do nothing except what the rules allow them to do. We've seen the page in the index for army-wide rules, and there is nothing to be found regarding JSJ.

Keywords are not all about benefits, nor about penalties - they're about distinguishing between classes of units. Some unit abilities, perhaps enemies or perhaps friends, will undoubtedly interact with Jump Pack and Jet Pack key words.

But seriously, clinging to JSJ because "we just haven't seen all the rules yet" is simply untrue (we HAVE seen all the rules, and JSJ ain't there) and presuming the keyword has a universal benefit would actually be extremely RARE for a keyword - aside from Fly, they tend to interact with other bespoke rules for classification purposes (if your target is a Vehicle, deals 1d3 Mortal Wounds to Infantry, etc.) rather than grant benefits all their own.


This.

Keywords are not the new USRs. They are nothing more than words that describe a unit for the purpose of serving as a shorthand when referenced in rules. Keywords themselves have no meaning, no special rules attached to them. For example, Crisis Suits have the "Battlesuit" keyword. Battlesuit itself means nothing in 8th, however it is referenced in relation to special rules and bespoken rules to describe how units with the keyword react with those rules (IE the Devilfish transporting rule states that it cannot transport units with the Battlesuit keyword, rather than Battlesuit having a definition or rule stating it cannot ride in a Devilfish).

Jet Pack, in and of itself, means nothing. It doesn't mean that JSJ is gonna still be a thing. It simply means that those units can be described as having a jet pack and at some point in the future GW can put out an army rule or bespoken rule that affects those models that have that keyword.


Well, except for the fact that we know that keywords do act as special rules which do not need to be defined in the army-wide special abilities section.

The keyword Fly, for example. We know that models with the Fly keyword can fall back from combat and shoot as normal (as mentioned in the T'au faction focus) yet nothing in the leaked index says that which clearly indicates that some keywords will be present in the rulebook and be universal. I imagine that Biker will be another one, and Jump Pack too, along with Jet Pack.


Fly -keyword also lets you move over units in movement phase. BRB page 177. Same page mentions the fall back and still shoot thing for units with Fly-keyword. So keywords enable exceptions to rules and are clearly indicated in rulebook text as bolded. I can't think of any other unit with jetpack to have a look if it does something for them. I'd imagine it can be used to prevent certain units using transports for example, like Rhino can't transport units with Jump pack


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 15:54:14


Post by: BertBert


Aeri wrote:

Dronecontroller Stacking: it clearly says that its cumulative (right hand side)
Spoiler:



It says that modifiers are cumulative, but that doesn't mean a single ability can necessarily be applied to the same unit multiple times.

A drone controller will give drones +1BS and and 5 Markerlights will also give them +1BS -> the modifiers are cumulative.


The wording on drone controllers is fairly clear, though: Are drones within 6" of a drone controller? Yes= +1BS, No= no effect. No mention of stacking there.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 15:58:27


Post by: pumaman1


BertBert wrote:
Aeri wrote:

Dronecontroller Stacking: it clearly says that its cumulative (right hand side)
Spoiler:



It says that modifiers are cumulative, but that doesn't mean a single ability can necessarily be applied multiple times.

A drone controller will give drones +1BS and and 5 Markerlights will also give them +1BS -> the modifiers are cumulative.


The wording on drone controllers is fairly clear, though: Are drones within 6" of a done controller? Yes= +1BS, No= no effect. No mention of stacking there.


I know its a new edition, but that would be consistent in the 7th ed faq, reduced/stopped the cursed earth 2++ rerollable. etc
can only benefit from any rule 1ce, can't get stealth and stealth and stealth and stealth... stealth only counts 1ce, shrouded 1ce.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 18:29:00


Post by: Vector Strike


 BoomWolf wrote:

Now, you know what I just noticed?
Our big suits-they pack heavy guns, and no ability to let them move and shoot in regular BS.
So yea, they cost much more, can't JSJ, cant even walk and shoot properly on our meager BS3 AND the markerlights took a heavy nerf.


Doesn't multi-tracker or target lock (con't remember which) repeat 3 ML result and then keep then firing as usual?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 21:14:26


Post by: Backfire


stratigo wrote:
Backfire wrote:
stratigo wrote:
It's also a hard rule to balance. The Tau already have a lot of ability to defeat assaults via firepower, and almost all their suits have fly and so can unengage and still shoot, so giving them an extra move would make it simply too hard for assault armies to get to them.


But this is the problem. Tau as they stand now are increasingly more about unloading loads of dakka to the enemy, instead of working clever and flexibly.
Shoot smart, not hard. That's what the Tau should be about.


I dunno if you've played 7th edition, but let me tell you, the Tau basically was a bunch of gundams unleashing torrents of firepower. There wasn't much a difference between shoot smart/shoot hard.


Yea I played Tau in 7th twice. It was boring as heck. That is my point exactly. I'm a 5th edition Tau player.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 23:18:53


Post by: ZergSmasher


So, what does everyone think about the Tidewall fortifications now? It looks like our guys can safely ride "inside" them now, and aren't able to be shot at until the fortification is destroyed. This seems a little bit good. I'm thinking of maybe putting some Strike teams with a Cadre Fireblade on a Shieldline for a mobile fire platform. Or does a Fireblade's Volley Fire ability work when he's embarked on a fortification? If it does, it seems like Shieldlines would be better for Strike Teams than a Devilfish, as they are cheaper and they let the guys shoot out. Breachers would probably still be better off in a 'fish since they need to get up close and personal with their guns.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 23:33:44


Post by: Vector Strike


aura abilities don't work from inside vehicles


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/05 23:47:06


Post by: ZergSmasher


 Vector Strike wrote:
aura abilities don't work from inside vehicles

Ah, so it's still true then. Oh well, nix the Fireblade, it's still possibly an effective tactic.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 00:56:01


Post by: pigasuspig


 BoomWolf wrote:



Now, you know what I just noticed?
Our big suits-they pack heavy guns, and no ability to let them move and shoot in regular BS.
So yea, they cost much more, can't JSJ, cant even walk and shoot properly on our meager BS3 AND the markerlights took a heavy nerf.

If you thought you'll play tau as anything but an infantry gunline in 8th, you're going to have a bad time.


Target Lock lets Heavy move and shoot without penalty, lets Rapid Fire advance and shoot like Assualt, and lets Assault advance and shoot without penalty. It's better than 3 ML hits.
Stormsurge has Walking Battleship and doesn't care anyway; for Riptide, Target Lock seems like an auto-take for one of your to Support System slots.

As for infantry: Practically the entire Tau arsenal is Assault rated: most things can Advance and shoot, and Target Lock/ML lift the penalty for doing so. I think we will have to use that Move-Phase mobility to build our tactics. It's different from JSJ, but probably less obnoxious at the end of the day.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 01:28:44


Post by: MilkmanAl


Does anyone have any indication what the detachment allowance is going to be like for tournaments? I know it's premature to be asking things like that, but given that the ITC guys had a prominent role in playtesting and presumably creating this edition, we'll probably get word on the issue sooner rather than later.

I ask because it seems to me like taking an Outrider detachment with a Commander or two and Pathfinders (and maybe gun drones) plus a Super-heavy detachment to fill the rest of your list with Stormsurges would be a way around a lot of the weaknesses introduced to the army and codex units.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 01:53:36


Post by: Vector Strike


The rulebook has a table. 1 for 1000p, 2 for 2000p and 3 for 3000p


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 02:48:18


Post by: Captain Joystick


 BoomWolf wrote:

And then the enemy just steps towards the stealth suits, end their move within 9" of the beacon, and the beacon is destroyed. (also, charge the stealth suits and kill them)


Except your reserve unit already arrived at the end of the movement phase you placed the homing beacon in, so the stealth suits did their job. The bit about enemy models destroying the homing beacon if they move within 9" is in the unlikely event that you placed the beacon and didn't have any unit in reserve to bring in.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 10:12:52


Post by: xerxeshavelock


 Captain Joystick wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:

And then the enemy just steps towards the stealth suits, end their move within 9" of the beacon, and the beacon is destroyed. (also, charge the stealth suits and kill them)


Except your reserve unit already arrived at the end of the movement phase you placed the homing beacon in, so the stealth suits did their job. The bit about enemy models destroying the homing beacon if they move within 9" is in the unlikely event that you placed the beacon and didn't have any unit in reserve to bring in.


Or the slightly more likely scenario that you leave them littered around across turns while the Stealths wander off? They appear to be removed under 2 circumstances: enemy within 9", or a sept unit uses them. I suppose it could be read that the shorting out is at the end of the movement phase whether used or not, but it's a little vague.

It does seem to suggest that you can't use them for more than 1 unit though - so no HQ and bodyguard. Is that how others read it?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 10:23:02


Post by: BertBert


xerxeshavelock wrote:
 Captain Joystick wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:

And then the enemy just steps towards the stealth suits, end their move within 9" of the beacon, and the beacon is destroyed. (also, charge the stealth suits and kill them)


Except your reserve unit already arrived at the end of the movement phase you placed the homing beacon in, so the stealth suits did their job. The bit about enemy models destroying the homing beacon if they move within 9" is in the unlikely event that you placed the beacon and didn't have any unit in reserve to bring in.


Or the slightly more likely scenario that you leave them littered around across turns while the Stealths wander off? They appear to be removed under 2 circumstances: enemy within 9", or a sept unit uses them. It could be read that the shorting out is at the end of the movement phase whether used or not, but it's a little vague.

It does seem to suggest that you can't use them for more than 1 unit though - so no HQ and bodyguard. Is that how others read it?


Yeah, it looks like it's one Homing Beacon per Stealth Suit squad and one unit deepstriking per Homing Beacon. However, they are removed after an enemy has finished their move within 9", so you can place them as closeto the enemy as you want if you plan on bringing your reserve in on the same turn.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 10:45:07


Post by: xerxeshavelock


BertBert wrote:
xerxeshavelock wrote:
 Captain Joystick wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:

And then the enemy just steps towards the stealth suits, end their move within 9" of the beacon, and the beacon is destroyed. (also, charge the stealth suits and kill them)


Except your reserve unit already arrived at the end of the movement phase you placed the homing beacon in, so the stealth suits did their job. The bit about enemy models destroying the homing beacon if they move within 9" is in the unlikely event that you placed the beacon and didn't have any unit in reserve to bring in.


Or the slightly more likely scenario that you leave them littered around across turns while the Stealths wander off? They appear to be removed under 2 circumstances: enemy within 9", or a sept unit uses them. It could be read that the shorting out is at the end of the movement phase whether used or not, but it's a little vague.

It does seem to suggest that you can't use them for more than 1 unit though - so no HQ and bodyguard. Is that how others read it?


Yeah, it looks like it's one Homing Beacon per Stealth Suit squad and one unit deepstriking per Homing Beacon. However, they are removed after an enemy has finished their move within 9", so you can place them as closeto the enemy as you want if you plan on bringing your reserve in on the same turn.


A strict reading of the rule suggests 1 per turn, rather than per beacon. 'If there are any friendly homing beacons on the battlefield at the end of your movement phase, ONE of your Sept units.....can perform a low altitude drop...'


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 13:14:29


Post by: Naaris


 ZergSmasher wrote:
Spoiler:
Naaris wrote:
I played my first 8th ed game last nite. My Tau vs my friends Chaos Marines. He is no pushover, and I stomped him. Close combat has not been brought up to par with shooting. Tau have gotten ridiculously better.

What I found:
Tau suits are now much more expensive
The entire Army is crazy mobile
All our battlesuits gained 1 Toughness
All suits gained more wounds
Key wargear - advanced targeting system - effectively removes bonus to saves or gives weapons that extra -1 to AP.
Broadsides are insanely good
Stormsurges are godlike
Vehicles are so much better now.
Invulnerable saves are game breakers

We just played out a simple game using the narrative missions. Decided to just use the power level system. agreed on 75 PL. Today I calculated my list and came out to 1535pts.

My List:
Longstrike with SMS and Railgun
Ethereal on hover drone - 8" movement
3x5-man strike teams
1x3-man Crisis suit team each with 2 Missile Pods and advanced targeting systems
1 broadside with 2 HYMP and 2 SMS - S5 T5 W6 2+ sv - with advanced targeting system - He alone was just over 200pts
1 Ghostkeel with 2 fusion blasters, 1 fusion collider and stim injector
1 Stormsurge with Pulse blast cannon and Burst cannons as well as his regular missile loadout. Also had Shield gen, Stims and Velo tracker

Chaos had:
Kharn
Unit of berserkers
Landraider
Pred with auto cannon? and las sponsons
Rhino
Unit of 5 CSMarines
Unit of 5 Warp Talons
Mauler fiend
Heldrake

I wanted to try a bit of everything but stay battle forged. he went first. The heldrake went for Longstrike and a firewarrior squad beside him. Longstike is tough as hell and could not be killed in CC by the heldrake. The whole concept of him fighting a mechanical demon dragon was great! His railgun wasn't overly effective. His SMS did a lot of work though.
The ghostkeel's fusion was also not overly effective. I found it to be too random.
The Crisis suits were real stars. 12 shots from that squad at S7 -2 (due to the ATS) D3 dmg took out the maulerfiend.
The stormsurge wrecked the landraider while taking nothing but las cannon shots and shrugged them off with 4+ invuln and the new stims

What we found was that target prioritization was critical. Sure everyone can hurt everyone now. But its still not worth trying to kill targets your unit isn't designed for. The big example were his warp talons attacking my CS suits after they deepstuck in. CS suits are now T5 with 3 wounds. His warp talons and all assault units got hit so badly with the nerf stick. He had 11 attacks now. They used to have 21 with mark of khorn / 16 without it. And those lightning claws used to negate my saves now i get a 5+ save. He used to wound them on 4. Now he wounds them on 5+.
He should have softened them up with some shooting first.

I think this is less of a "CC has been nerfed, shooting is still king" and more of a case of a very bad matchup. Plus the points will most likely be tweaked for some things. Also, how many points was his army, or did you calculate? I suspect that Power Levels alone are not going to be very telling, and most players will stick to points to come up with an even game.

That said, I do think Tau are still very strong despite the hit we took to our beloved Riptides (more like R.I.P.tides now ). Their ability to disengage without penalty is killer. It's also nice to see that some underappreciated units are making a big comeback, like Longstrike and other Hammerheads. I expect we won't see many Sky Rays anymore, though, with them needing 6's for their missiles to hit (unless you can get 2 markerlights on something). One thing I'm wondering about is Kroot; are they any good now? It looks like Vespids became good or at least playable, but what about our favorite galactic scavengers?


My army came to about 1534 his was 1465. Reason being I was able to take considerably more expensive upgrades than him with 0 power level implications.

I will be play testing riptides this Thursday. I don't think they're really any less powerful. Being able to fire those SMS at different targets from the main gun is killer! Kroot, and stealth teams will make the list this week along with Markerlight options such as pathfinders, sniper drones etc...


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 17:03:48


Post by: The Shrike


I have two battle reports up in the BR section, but here's a unit breakdown.

Okay, first of all, don't panic: we're still really good. My gut says we're about where we were before, not tippy top tier, but better than many. I haven't played with all our units yet, and the games were only 1000 points with the same list, but I don't see any obviously bad units. I'll only comment on what I played with:

Fireblade: Cheap cheap cheap, and very effective. I played him in a Devilfish with 10 Breachers and the extra shot at half range is devastating.

Ghostkeel: I set her up as a vehicle/character/monster killer with a fusion collider and two fusion blasters. I think this would have been awesome against some armies, like Imperial Knights, or Space Marines with lots of transports. However, the armies I played against, Necrons and Orks, he was ill equipped. I think there are going to be two ways to use Keels effectively, as I had him here, or as a cheap screening unit, which would have helped me more in my games. A Cyclic Ion Raker and a few flamers is a lot cheaper way to run her and she can score Maelstrom objectives thanks to her blazing speed, is super resilient, and can fall back and still shoot because she flies. Really fluffy way of imagining using Keels, bounding in the fog of war at the edge of the battle skirmishing, retreating, and revealing themselves again to score points and take out vulnerable units!

Crisis Suits: Wow, these are our best unit. I will say, plasma and burst are underwhelming options, but with fusion and missile pods, I think they will be incredible. Don't get my wrong, I had mine with Plasma and Burst, and they were still absolute bosses. They got tougher, can shoot 3 weapons, and because they have the "fly" keyword, can fall back and shoot. I can't emphasize how good that is. You can't lock us in combat anymore. Losing JSJ is a shame, but they move 8" and can still jump over stuff or land on impassable terrain. I suspect 2 missile pods with an Advanced Targeting System will be the go-to build. S7 -1 rend with D3 damage, and making it -2 rend with the ATS? That is awesome. And the 36" range with 8" move means you'll be hitting whatever you want to. Finally, with deep striking no longer scattering, if you do choose to drop these guys in, which I did in both games, they will be exactly where you need them to be (>9" from the enemy of course)

Breachers: These were and still are my favorite Tau unit. -2 Rend with 5" is not quite as good as AP3 was, but -2 rend in 8th edition is still very, very good. They can still be granted their +1 shot at half range, now given by a Fireblade, and they are just devastating at that range. And they are dirt cheap. 8 points per model. And now that charging units always go first, you may find yourself as I did assaulting with them rather than waiting to be shot in the ensuing turn. So cinematic, so freakin' cool.

Devilfish: They're more expensive than before, but you get so much more. 12" T7 3+ 12W is sooooo good. And it's a decent gunboat with two SMS systems and a Burst Cannon. I think I will try out a cheaper version with just drones, but SMS is still very good (though not as accurate as it once was)

Broadsides: I used the Heavy Rail Rifle with 2 SMS system base version, adding a multi-tracker to give me +1 to hit if everything fires at the same target. The Rail option gives you Heavy 2 S8 -4 Rend and D6 damage! Yes! That is awesome, and it is great at killing vehicles and monsters. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have any of those on offer in my games, but the SMS still does work. Are they more expensive? Yes. Much more. But they are much, much better. 2+ save with 6W and that amount of firepower at range is awesome. Well worth their points.

That's the unit breakdown, this weekend I will let you know how Stormsurges, Strike teams, Stealth Suits and Hammerheads are. Until then, I hope this is useful


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 17:42:47


Post by: GI_Redshirt


 The Shrike wrote:
I have two battle reports up in the BR section, but here's a unit breakdown.

Okay, first of all, don't panic: we're still really good. My gut says we're about where we were before, not tippy top tier, but better than many. I haven't played with all our units yet, and the games were only 1000 points with the same list, but I don't see any obviously bad units. I'll only comment on what I played with:

Fireblade: Cheap cheap cheap, and very effective. I played him in a Devilfish with 10 Breachers and the extra shot at half range is devastating.

Ghostkeel: I set her up as a vehicle/character/monster killer with a fusion collider and two fusion blasters. I think this would have been awesome against some armies, like Imperial Knights, or Space Marines with lots of transports. However, the armies I played against, Necrons and Orks, he was ill equipped. I think there are going to be two ways to use Keels effectively, as I had him here, or as a cheap screening unit, which would have helped me more in my games. A Cyclic Ion Raker and a few flamers is a lot cheaper way to run her and she can score Maelstrom objectives thanks to her blazing speed, is super resilient, and can fall back and still shoot because she flies. Really fluffy way of imagining using Keels, bounding in the fog of war at the edge of the battle skirmishing, retreating, and revealing themselves again to score points and take out vulnerable units!

Crisis Suits: Wow, these are our best unit. I will say, plasma and burst are underwhelming options, but with fusion and missile pods, I think they will be incredible. Don't get my wrong, I had mine with Plasma and Burst, and they were still absolute bosses. They got tougher, can shoot 3 weapons, and because they have the "fly" keyword, can fall back and shoot. I can't emphasize how good that is. You can't lock us in combat anymore. Losing JSJ is a shame, but they move 8" and can still jump over stuff or land on impassable terrain. I suspect 2 missile pods with an Advanced Targeting System will be the go-to build. S7 -1 rend with D3 damage, and making it -2 rend with the ATS? That is awesome. And the 36" range with 8" move means you'll be hitting whatever you want to. Finally, with deep striking no longer scattering, if you do choose to drop these guys in, which I did in both games, they will be exactly where you need them to be (>9" from the enemy of course)

Breachers: These were and still are my favorite Tau unit. -2 Rend with 5" is not quite as good as AP3 was, but -2 rend in 8th edition is still very, very good. They can still be granted their +1 shot at half range, now given by a Fireblade, and they are just devastating at that range. And they are dirt cheap. 8 points per model. And now that charging units always go first, you may find yourself as I did assaulting with them rather than waiting to be shot in the ensuing turn. So cinematic, so freakin' cool.

Devilfish: They're more expensive than before, but you get so much more. 12" T7 3+ 12W is sooooo good. And it's a decent gunboat with two SMS systems and a Burst Cannon. I think I will try out a cheaper version with just drones, but SMS is still very good (though not as accurate as it once was)

Broadsides: I used the Heavy Rail Rifle with 2 SMS system base version, adding a multi-tracker to give me +1 to hit if everything fires at the same target. The Rail option gives you Heavy 2 S8 -4 Rend and D6 damage! Yes! That is awesome, and it is great at killing vehicles and monsters. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have any of those on offer in my games, but the SMS still does work. Are they more expensive? Yes. Much more. But they are much, much better. 2+ save with 6W and that amount of firepower at range is awesome. Well worth their points.

That's the unit breakdown, this weekend I will let you know how Stormsurges, Strike teams, Stealth Suits and Hammerheads are. Until then, I hope this is useful


Always good to see people reporting from actual games that we're still fine as an army, especially given the negativity the Tau playerbase seems to have across multiple forums. Quick question regarding your suit loadouts, specifically the Ghostkeel and the Broadside. Why did you go with Multi-trackers over Target Locks? When I first read through the leaks, my immediate thought for Ghostkeels, Riptides, and Broadsides was that Target Locks were gonna be all but mandatory on them to counteract their main weapons and possibly secondary weapons being Heavy. It seems like you went with ensuring they can reroll 1s when focus firing and relying on markerlights to get the move and shoot heavy weapons with no penalty. In my mind, doing the reverse is the better option, ensuring they can always move and shoot with no penalty and relying on markerlights to get the reroll 1s is the more reliable option, as you only need 1 ML on the target rather than 3. What are your thoughts on this, given that I haven't been able to try out 8th Tau on the table yet and you have? Is the Target Lock as mandatory as it seems to be on our bigger suits?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 17:57:04


Post by: Dantioch


 The Shrike wrote:
I have two battle reports up in the BR section, but here's a unit breakdown.

Fireblade: Cheap cheap cheap, and very effective. I played him in a Devilfish with 10 Breachers and the extra shot at half range is devastating.

Breachers: These were and still are my favorite Tau unit. -2 Rend with 5" is not quite as good as AP3 was, but -2 rend in 8th edition is still very, very good. They can still be granted their +1 shot at half range, now given by a Fireblade, and they are just devastating at that range. And they are dirt cheap. 8 points per model. And now that charging units always go first, you may find yourself as I did assaulting with them rather than waiting to be shot in the ensuing turn. So cinematic, so freakin' cool.



You unfortunatly played the fireblade wrong, his aura only affects pulse rifles, carbines and pistols so it is pretty much pointless to put him in a unit of breachers. This makes me really pissed since breachers formed the core of my army for the last year and a half.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 18:18:13


Post by: Bryan01


I used Darkstrider yesterday with some breachers, he is about the same price as a fire blade. The -1 toughness, markerlight and his fall back aura is nice. I was not sure how the Devilfish would fare with the new rules. Not 100% sure I played it right, but at one point I charged the Devilfish into an enemy unit, then in my next turn the breachers disembarked and the transport made a fall back move.

We couldn't see any rule to stop this move. So I blasted away with the breachers at point blank range!

Stealth suits took a bit of getting used to with their 2 wounds a piece. The -1 to hit seems to work in assault, so I used them at one point to assault/tie up some fodder after shooting them up. The suits even won the combat. Most Tau units essentially have 8th edition hit and run now.

Longstrike and 2 hammerheads did allot of work.

Hordes is a thing now, with the way blast weapons work and terrain. They can cover objectives.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/06 18:52:28


Post by: The Shrike


Yeah shame about my mistake with the Fireblade, I'm sure we made other mistakes. In fact, I just remembered my opponent certainly was not adjusting his BS down when targeting my Ghostkeel because I didn't remind him to. Anyway, I'll probably try Darkstrider like the above poster.

As for the gear on the suits, you're probably right I just wanted to try everything out.

Other tactical/list-building notes:

I think our faction, more than most, will be dependent on Command Points for success. I'm thinking a Brigade detachment at the recommended average game size of 2000 points is not only doable, but essential. That's 12 re-rolls. A 1 on Longstrike's shot? No problem. A 2 on his D6 damage? Not an issue.

I used it multiple times to keep my Ghostkeel at 6 wounds and thus operating at optimum efficiency.

I'm not sure yet whether we are worse in 8th, mainly because that's dependent on how effective everyone else is and I've only played against Necrons and Orks. Still, our low BS seems to demand lots of Command Points to mitigate, even considering support systems and markerlights.

Also, while the all-Fusion Ghostkeel is good, especially using a CP to reroll the D3 shots for the Collider if necessary, I'm thinking a Commander with 4 fusion is incredibly cheap at 160 and more efficient than our other AT choices. BS 2+, and if you keep him behind our frontline units like KRoot, Keels, Stealths, Crisis and Vespid, he should live a long time to make enemy tanks and monsters miserable (and dead).


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 17:45:55


Post by: Fueli


So yeah, had my first game. Just threw together a list of cool models I didn't play too much in 7th ed so bunch of Fire Warriors, Fireblade, Pathfinders, two Missilesides and two Devilfishes. Oh yeah, and a Riptide and 3 Crisis suits and a Commander with two missile pods. I was facing walker heavy orks. I lost, but only because I lacked any real anti-tank or high power weapons. I'll write a better list for next time.

What was good:
-Fire Warriors with Fireblade is a solid gunline. Thinking of including Ethereal too
-Devilfishes are pretty good anti-infantry weapons with drones attached. They are also pretty big modes, thus able to block charges.

What I feel was lackluster:

-My list. No way around it, it was just bad list haha. Got excited about the Fire Warrior a bit too much. Should've bought markerlights for them too as even one hit is good.
-MIssilesides. Now these guys put out a good amount of shots but are really expensive. In this matchup his weapons weren't enough though. I feel like I should take more Crisis Suits instead.

What I faced was a list I think we'll see more of in 8th. Melee centric assault list that puts many threats onwards fast.Target priority will be even more important than before.

Markerlights are good even with one hit. I'm going to try and upgrade my shas'uis with those too.

Next time I'll test Stormsurge and Ghostkeels, the backbones of my 7th ed lists.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 18:32:54


Post by: astro_nomicon


Not a tau player Myself, but I figured I share my experience against my buddies Tau with you, and suggest that perhaps doom and gloom is an inappropriate response to nuTau.

Here's the lists:

2k Nids:
Spoiler:

2x Winged Tyrants: 2x Rending Claws, Tail, Adrenal glands

Swarmlord

Broodlord

20 Stealers (w/ Trygon)
15 Stealers
15 Stealers

11 Hormagaunts
10 Hormagaunts
10 Hormagaunts
10 Hormagaunts

Trygon: Adrenal Glands
Carnifex: Adrenal glands
Carnifex: Adrenal glands


2k Tau:
Spoiler:

Commander: 4x Fusion Blaster
Commander: 4x Fusion Blaster
Commander: 4x Burst Cannon, 2x Gun Drone

3x Crisis Suits: 8x Burst Cannon, Drone controller, 2x Gun Drone
3x Crisis Suits: 8x Burst Cannon, 2x Gun Drone
3x Crisis Suits: 9x Burst Cannon, 2x Gun Drone
3x Crisis Suits: 7x Missile Pod, 1 EWO, Drone Controller

7x Gun Drone
7x Gun Drone
7x Marker Drone
7x Marker Drone

2x Skyray

Sunshark Bomber


We called the game at turn 4 as I was basically tabled. I made a few gaffs here and there because I was rusty but this list was brutal to face. Granted it was *kinda* tailored to beat mine (I had been talking up how good nids were looking), but I still think it's a pretty good all rounder. Gun Drones drones are a steal at 8 ppm, and they do work with a drone controller and some marker lights. With the amount of marker lights he had he was consistently lighting up the biggest threat to his army at any given time with the full 5 markers. I think big blobs of drones around crisis suits are going to be good for you guys.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 18:40:16


Post by: Desubot


How did the carnifex do. was looking through it with a friend and basicly was awestruck at how its a faster punchier dreadnought for cheaper.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 19:48:41


Post by: astro_nomicon


 Desubot wrote:
How did the carnifex do. was looking through it with a friend and basicly was awestruck at how its a faster punchier dreadnought for cheaper.


Hard to say, his missile suits punked one on turn 2 and the other on turn 3 in addition to most of a Flyrant turn 1.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 19:49:36


Post by: TheCustomLime


Man... I'm going to need a lot more missile pods.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 19:55:40


Post by: astro_nomicon


 TheCustomLime wrote:
Man... I'm going to need a lot more missile pods.


It seems to me that you need 1 maybe 2 units tops because of their price. And whatever you do, surround them with a lot of drones for saviour protocols. They're gonna be public enemy number one to a lot of lists.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 20:58:19


Post by: Da-Rock


I am eagerly awaiting more reports on the Sunshark and whatever rules the Ramora Drone Fighters will have.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 22:49:48


Post by: TheCustomLime


 astro_nomicon wrote:
 TheCustomLime wrote:
Man... I'm going to need a lot more missile pods.


It seems to me that you need 1 maybe 2 units tops because of their price. And whatever you do, surround them with a lot of drones for saviour protocols. They're gonna be public enemy number one to a lot of lists.


Duly noted. Thankfully GW is generous enough to stuff the Start Collecting box with like 11 drones haha. Should I go with more Gun Drones or give them shield drones?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/08 23:30:27


Post by: Razerous


I have given up on the Storm Surge (too many points for too little special firepower).

The riptide however, is there any hope for it.

Imagine an army with decent marker light support (5+ hits) with a commander or two. Thoughts?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 02:31:04


Post by: ZergSmasher


Razerous wrote:
I have given up on the Storm Surge (too many points for too little special firepower).

The riptide however, is there any hope for it.

Imagine an army with decent marker light support (5+ hits) with a commander or two. Thoughts?

In the new edition, Stormsurge > Riptide for sure. Stormsurge is much better for the points, as it has more than twice as much firepower for less than twice the points even when fully kitted out. I'm not sure I'm ready to give the Riptide up as a lost cause either, at least with the HBC (Ion Accelerator is overpriced garbage, though), but you probably won't see more than one in a list. You probably won't see more than one Stormsurge in a list either, for that matter. Yes, the Stormsurge is slow, but it doesn't need to move fast since its guns have pretty good range and you can screen it with other units such as drones.

In a list that includes a Stormsurge, decent markerlight support is a must (just as it is in 7th), at least until you unload the D missiles. Other Tau lists can probably get away without markerlights, but Stormsurges do need them to maximize their firepower and points efficiency. A Commander would be a good choice in such a list as well, as both the Kauyon ability will buff a Stormsurge into the stratosphere (less so the Mont'ka, but that one helps other units more).

A unit I'm curious about for 8th edition would be a Coldstar Commander. I love the model, and I think a super fast Commander could be useful, if a bit situational. We don't have to worry about him faceplanting anymore and he's cheaper, so maybe he's a good choice now?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 06:20:00


Post by: astro_nomicon


 TheCustomLime wrote:
 astro_nomicon wrote:
 TheCustomLime wrote:
Man... I'm going to need a lot more missile pods.


It seems to me that you need 1 maybe 2 units tops because of their price. And whatever you do, surround them with a lot of drones for saviour protocols. They're gonna be public enemy number one to a lot of lists.


Duly noted. Thankfully GW is generous enough to stuff the Start Collecting box with like 11 drones haha. Should I go with more Gun Drones or give them shield drones?


I'm not a Tau player, but from what I'm looking at, gun drones all the way. They're gonna start melting if focused on either way, and if run properly the drones are just ablative wounds for the suits, so you may as well get some extra offensive capability out of them.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 09:48:24


Post by: Coyote81


Ok, I just finished a game against a Aeldari force consisting of:

Troope Master
Shadowseer
6xtroope 4xembrace2xblade
5xtroope 4xembrace1xblade
5xtroope 3xembrace2xblade
3x Starweavers
3x Venoms
5xTrueborn 4xblasters
5xTrueborn 4xblasters
5xTrueborn 4xblasters
3x Ravagers
Solitaire

This highly mobile force with an inv save on just about every single model.


Well I brought a brand new idea to the battlefield. What's the most efficient unit Tau can bring? Gundrones, yea you heard me, gundrones. So I decided to bring a good amount of gun drones, and units that buff/benefit from them. So here is what I came up with.

Commadner 3x Fusion Shield Generator
Cadre Fireblade
Ethereal
5xpathfinders 3xrailrifle 2xshield drones 1x pulse drone
5xpathfinders 3xrailrifle 2xshield drones 1x pulse drone
10xGundrones2xmarkerdrones
10xGundrones2xmarkerdrones
10xkroot
10xkroot
10xkroot
Riptide HBC 2x Fusion DC and TL
Riptide HBC 2x Fusion DC and TL
Broadside H.Railrifle 2x Plasma 1x Shielddrone MT
Broadside H.Railrifle 2x Plasma 1x Shielddrone MT
Broadside H.Railrifle 2x Plasma 1x Shielddrone MT


We played Secure and Control on Dawn of War map.
-Lesson learned, as Tau your going to give up first Blood all the time unless you bring 0 drones.
-DE have Linebreaker for sure
-Nowhere to hide your warlord, basically it has to be a suit commander and hope he toughs it out.

Random Ramblings about the match:

The idea behind my list is to run the riptides near each other, both units of gundrone following them with the ethereal and fireblade in the middle of them all buffing. The pulse drone increase the carbine fire distance, allowing for more fireblade action.

The kroot were there for anti-deepstrike and general objective harassment. (Mine didn't all die out until top of turn 5)

Pathfinders for markerlights and extra firepower (Railrifles ended up being rather subpar imo, should have taken 5 ML each.

The idea worked great, my units were really survivable (I didn't lose either riptide nor any of my suits, commander or broadside)

I shouldn't bring small drones squads like I did with the pathfinders. they just gave up first blood.

Ethereal wasn't really worth it. Think I will bring pathfinders without drones



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 10:20:52


Post by: Bryan01


I would have thought the ethereal would be decent for the low ld of the gun drones.

Speaking of which, whats to stop someone loading up gun drones into a devilfish? Do you even need fire warriors now to buy the dedicated transport?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 11:17:42


Post by: A Town Called Malus


So, just noticed that Longstrike is now a HQ choice. Interesting.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 11:29:48


Post by: Coyote81


 Bryan01 wrote:
I would have thought the ethereal would be decent for the low ld of the gun drones.

Speaking of which, whats to stop someone loading up gun drones into a devilfish? Do you even need fire warriors now to buy the dedicated transport?


You can buy a Dedicated transport for any other slot unit you purchase, Farsight gives you the option to buy a transport, even though he can't use it. However, I'm really down on the devilfish, it just costs too much.

As for the ethereal, that only matters when you lose tons of models in the same round, I don't think I ever lost more then 2 to shooting, and when they get mopped up in combat, it's a butt whooping, so no morale really needed.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 11:39:31


Post by: Razerous


Are the Str 9 ap -4 3Dmg D6 shots from the Riptide really that bad, once you apply force multipliers?

The Heavy Burst Cannon seems like firepower that you can easily get elsewhere, very underwhelming for the platform.

One better AP, Three better Str, D6 shots vs 12 shots.. hmmm

RIPtide


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 12:47:41


Post by: BoomWolf


Yes, they are.
Because they require to take a mortal wound, stand still and only have BS3, and cost a fortune.

Meanwhile, IG throws 40ish points of lascannons at you.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 13:49:03


Post by: Razerous


 BoomWolf wrote:
Yes, they are.
Because they require to take a mortal wound, stand still and only have BS3, and cost a fortune.

Meanwhile, IG throws 40ish points of lascannons at you.
Do you need to stand still to Nova ?!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 13:53:36


Post by: Vector Strike


 Coyote81 wrote:
Ok, I just finished a game against a Aeldari force consisting of:


Did you win?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 17:17:35


Post by: Bryan01


Not sure what to make the Devilfish yet, it is expensive and maybe we're paying for the ability to assault out of transports, which won't happen too often. It is durable to be fair.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 17:17:56


Post by: Martel732


Can you guys put kroot in devilfish?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 17:21:10


Post by: JohnU


Martel732 wrote:
Can you guys put kroot in devilfish?


<Sept> Infantry or Drones only.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 23:27:26


Post by: doc1234


Can you still shoot assault weapons on a charge? If so, I can assume carbine warriors or breachers would benefit I guess?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 23:28:50


Post by: Desubot


 doc1234 wrote:
Can you still shoot assault weapons on a charge? If so, I can assume carbine warriors or breachers would benefit I guess?
I think that restriction is gone now.

even heavies i think.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 23:46:20


Post by: Coyote81


 Vector Strike wrote:
 Coyote81 wrote:
Ok, I just finished a game against a Aeldari force consisting of:


Did you win?


I did not win, When turn 5 ended I held one objective with a commander/riptide vs a venom and lost the other objective with 2x starweavers vs my broadside, my opponent had firstblood, linebreaker and slay the warlord, I only managed line breaker. If I had tied the 2nd objective by killing a venom in combat with my broadside I would have won.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/09 23:48:23


Post by: BoomWolf


Razerous wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:
Yes, they are.
Because they require to take a mortal wound, stand still and only have BS3, and cost a fortune.

Meanwhile, IG throws 40ish points of lascannons at you.
Do you need to stand still to Nova ?!


No, but it has heavy guns, and the relentless ability that used to be built into it is gone.

So unless you want to shoot at BS2, you gonna stand still.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/10 00:02:36


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 BoomWolf wrote:
Razerous wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:
Yes, they are.
Because they require to take a mortal wound, stand still and only have BS3, and cost a fortune.

Meanwhile, IG throws 40ish points of lascannons at you.
Do you need to stand still to Nova ?!


No, but it has heavy guns, and the relentless ability that used to be built into it is gone.

So unless you want to shoot at BS2, you gonna stand still.

Or give it a Target Lock.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/10 00:30:28


Post by: Martel732


Not very equal of the Tau not letting Kroot ride in the Devilfish.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/10 05:19:13


Post by: wighti


Martel732 wrote:
Not very equal of the Tau not letting Kroot ride in the Devilfish.


They're equal, the sept dudes are just a bit more equal than the auxiliaries.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/10 07:47:10


Post by: BoomWolf


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:
Razerous wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:
Yes, they are.
Because they require to take a mortal wound, stand still and only have BS3, and cost a fortune.

Meanwhile, IG throws 40ish points of lascannons at you.
Do you need to stand still to Nova ?!


No, but it has heavy guns, and the relentless ability that used to be built into it is gone.

So unless you want to shoot at BS2, you gonna stand still.

Or give it a Target Lock.


And now you both wasted a precius slot on the riptide, and made yet another markerlight result do absolutely nothing.

Honestly, reece did a good job making the tau army as clunky and uncomfortable to play as possible.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/10 16:31:45


Post by: Razerous


 BoomWolf wrote:
 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:
Razerous wrote:
 BoomWolf wrote:
Yes, they are.
Because they require to take a mortal wound, stand still and only have BS3, and cost a fortune.

Meanwhile, IG throws 40ish points of lascannons at you.
Do you need to stand still to Nova ?!


No, but it has heavy guns, and the relentless ability that used to be built into it is gone.

So unless you want to shoot at BS2, you gonna stand still.

Or give it a Target Lock.


And now you both wasted a precius slot on the riptide, and made yet another markerlight result do absolutely nothing.

Honestly, reece did a good job making the tau army as clunky and uncomfortable to play as possible.
I'm not convinced the Io Accelerator Riptide is bad.

With some support and the right choice of support systems, I feel it could be very good and very durable.

But I'm probably wrong...


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/12 14:51:52


Post by: The Shrike


Played my fourth game of 8th edition, report up in the BR section if interested.

Quick hits:

-Stormsurge is mediocre.

-Flamer Crisis are wonky, not sure if they're good. I dropped in via Stealth suit borne Homing Beacon, vaped two infantry units, charged and surrounded a tank so it couldn't fall back; then I fell back out of combat and vaped a Taurox, and then got blown away myself by a Baneblade. I ran 9 flamer and 9 plasma in a unit of 6. That's 432 points. I probably killed about 340 worth. So now we're into the territory of "did I distract my opponent with them enough to make up the gap"? I doubt it. I lost a close one.

-Quad Fusion commanders = heck yes.

-Ghostkeels - Good screeners, don't deal much damage.

-Pathfinders - surprisingly good.

-We have to play cagey/defensively to win. I tried to alpha strike and it broke me. I fought him to a stand still but lost the war of attrition after that; which we usually will, we're not that durable.

-You need at least 1 infantry unit in a Fish to have any chance in the Relic.



Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/12 17:41:54


Post by: MilkmanAl


I'm gonna get my game on this weekend. Here's the list I plan to roll with, and I could use some C&C:

Brigade Detachment
Longstrike - railgun, 2sms, 2 seekers - 215
4 Commanders - 3x4 fusions, 1 with 3 fusions, DC, 8 gun drones - 681
6x7 FW - 336
3x5 PF - 120
3 Firesight Marksmen - 63
3 hammerheads - railgun, 2 SMS, 2 seekers - 585
2000 on the nose


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/12 18:10:20


Post by: pumaman1


 The Shrike wrote:


-You need at least 1 infantry unit in a Fish to have any chance in the Relic.



Do you mean for the speed to get to the relic? and to physically block LOS to your troops behind it?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/12 19:46:36


Post by: Mandragola


Well only infantry can now hold the relic, and you can't get back into a vehicle if you've got it. Battlesuits, other than stealths, are not infantry.

Personally I'd want to have a character grab it, then put models in the way to keep them from being shot - and have drones take the hits for them. This seems like a decent option for someone like darkstrider or a fireblade.

The ultimate relic stealer is probably shadowsun. She can start off in contact with it, then run off. Unlike in previous editions, there's nothing to say your move ends when you grab the relic.

On an entirely different subject, I think I quite like the coldstar commander. Give it an ATS and some other support system (many are good) and have it zoom around. It can sit in your castle and call kauyon on turn 1, then fly off and have a good time.

It's not as outright devastating as a fusion suit, but it makes a good warlord as it's quite hard to kill. Its incredible movement will be a major asset at the end of objective games.

It looks to me that playing Tau effectively will sometimes require doing stuff in the assault phase. In particular I think we'll charge things with our ghostkeels quite often, so as to prevent them from doing annoying things to us in the following turn. Ghostkeels look like a really great harrassment unit to me.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/12 22:43:16


Post by: The Shrike


MilkmanAl wrote:
I'm gonna get my game on this weekend. Here's the list I plan to roll with, and I could use some C&C:

Brigade Detachment
Longstrike - railgun, 2sms, 2 seekers - 215
4 Commanders - 3x4 fusions, 1 with 3 fusions, DC, 8 gun drones - 681
6x7 FW - 336
3x5 PF - 120
3 Firesight Marksmen - 63
3 hammerheads - railgun, 2 SMS, 2 seekers - 585
2000 on the nose


I think this is on the right track. You're set for knights or parking lots; the only thing I would consider is losing a Hammerhead for a Devilfish and shifting some extra firewarriors to make one large squad of 12 to go in it. The Relic demands it, and even other missions are going to have an objective you need to surround with models a distance away. Otherwise, let us know how it goes.

I just got a peek at the Y'Vahra rules on the Community site and I am licking my chops. Somehow it got BETTER.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/12 23:59:06


Post by: Unusual Suspect


The Y'vahra mostly got better in firepower, but it also became a lot more vulnerable to assault (while simultaneously having its own ways of mitigating that if the Y'vahra can survive it) due to the shortened range of its Flamer weapon. the Haywire gun has a decent profile but meh damage (made up for, somewhat, with the chance for mortal wounds on vehicles) and has more shots, on average, when Novaing.

The flamer got an arguably significant upgrade in effectiveness, starting out baseline with a double-the-shots Flamer template at 6/-2/D3. That's a decent anti-infantry/light tank profile, and not bad at all even for the medium and heavy tanks at 3 damage a pop! Seriously, that's just below a Lascannon's average, and that's 2 templates' worth of autohits. What used to be an at-will Gets Hot profile choice for the flamer became Nova dependent, and traded a bit of its penetrative abilities for an extra template's worth of shots.

Which can be boosted by ATS, by and by. So if that's really a problematic tradeoff, grab an ATS and burn the Greater Good right into 'em.

Their ability to Nova and exit the game for a turn seems to have fairly limited usage, given that the Y'vahra can only come back more than 9" away from an enemy (and so only the Ionic Discharge Cannon would get to shoot that turn, which would be a saddening event). It seems mostly worth it if you need to relocate him across the entire board with nothing worthwhile to annihilate between (so losing out on a turn of Flamer shooting isn't as big of a deal) OR if your Y'vahra gets stuck in combat despite its Fly ability.

I'd rather see my Y'vahra hopping 18" from ablative wound pool to ablative wound pool (whoops, did I misname my Tactical Drones again?) within 6-8" of an enemy unit or two and annihilate all in its path, preferrably laughing maniacally while the anti-infantry bullets headed its way get tanked by the T7 2+ profile while the Lascannon-esque shots get diverted to a nearby Shield or Gun Drone.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 00:41:47


Post by: The Shrike


I don't think it got worse at all, barring an exorbitant points cost...we don't have that yet. If it's around 400 with its weapons, Multi-tracker/Stims and ATS, as I expect it to be, that isn't too much. This thing is better than a Stormsurge.

As for vulnerability to assault, that can be managed by ensuring that it stays within its lane. We can't just throw it into the middle of the board. Just like Crisis, we have to let it play at the edges, nuking everything in its range, then moving in again a little closer. And if it does get charged? Hello 2-3d6 auto hits at S6 -3 (with ATS) 3 dmg. Like, good luck. The only thing she'll be vulnerable to is really large units like orks and little bugs but the rest of our army is really good at killing those so hey, #targetpriority.

I'm nervous about the points but I'm thrilled about the profile. I was worried about the nerf bat.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 01:52:16


Post by: BoomWolf


MilkmanAl wrote:
I'm gonna get my game on this weekend. Here's the list I plan to roll with, and I could use some C&C:

Brigade Detachment
Longstrike - railgun, 2sms, 2 seekers - 215
4 Commanders - 3x4 fusions, 1 with 3 fusions, DC, 8 gun drones - 681
6x7 FW - 336
3x5 PF - 120
3 Firesight Marksmen - 63
3 hammerheads - railgun, 2 SMS, 2 seekers - 585
2000 on the nose


Sorry to ruin the party, but mathematical analysis (done by others) reveals that hammerheads are just...bad.
Even with longstrike's aura. even longstrike himself.

They are outdone by the generalist Tri-CIB/ATS commander even against heavy tanks, the quad-fusion commander outpreforms against practically everything that has more than one wound. outside the "melta range", in it the difference is drastic.
hammerheads are outdone against anything without a +2 save (yes, even against knights) by gun drones, pathfinders with ion or rail rifles (and if you are in rapid range, rail rifles are just superior in all cases).
A breacher's pulse blaster is ALWAYS BETTER, even at mere medium range, at short it becomes godly superior.

(all thosh are not looking by how much a gun does, but by how much it does compared to what it costs.)


The hammerhead's only merit, it's godlike range, is simply irrelevant for a regular gaming table. and even on a huge one-they just don't put out any reasonable amount of wounds.
Longstrike himself, with marker reroll, will only average between 2 to 4 wounds against the heavy targets (3.5 to raider, 3 to IK/riptide/BT, 4 to a russ, 2 to a GUO)
The hammers naturally fare worse.

They are FAR too expensive to what they actually do, and packing lingstrike and 3 more hammers is just setting yourself up to disaster. hammers are somehow even worse than they were back in 7th.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 03:04:16


Post by: Peregrim


Efficiency comparisons are great and all, but they're not always reflective of performance. On paper, rail rifle pathfinders might do more wounds at a cheaper cost than railgun hammerheads, but the pathfinder team loses efficiency a lot faster than the hammerhead as it starts taking wounds. So at the end of a game, you might find that the hammerhead ended up doing a better job dealing wounds for its cost than the pathfinders. Or maybe not. But I'd be surprised if a list that relied on pathfinders with special weapons, breachers at close-medium range, and copious amounts of gun drones as the primary sources of damage did particularly well.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 11:45:30


Post by: Mandragola


Peregrim wrote:
Efficiency comparisons are great and all, but they're not always reflective of performance.


Well yes and no. Efficiency calculations tend to only focus on the damage a weapon does, not how easy it is to bring it to bear on its target or how survivable its platform is. It's a bit silly to compare the damage of a railhead against a knight with that of gun drones, when the railhead can hit the knight from 72" away and not have to deal with the huge risk of being charged by the knight.

But they do tell you how powerful a gun is. And in effect a hammerhead's railgun isn't all that much more powerful than a lascannon, but you can have a lot of lascannons in an army. A railhead has to be compared to a quad-las predator, and I'm afraid the marine vehicle is just obviously better.

So the railhead has to justify its points in terms of killing the knight at all. And the problem is that it will fail to do so. A las predator is nearly 4x as good at killing most vehicles, compared to a railhead.

I think they should have made railguns do 2d6 damage. That would both make it more consistent and also make it actually do something worth bothering with. If guns aren't going to have many shots then those shots must do a lot of damage. Otherwise you end up with the situation where you can try to do 1d6 damage with a railhead, or 4d6 with a cheaper crisis commander. It doesn't take long to pick.

On an entirely different subject, I'm a bit worried by what I've seen so far of that FW index. I don't think it looks very balanced, which is worrying, given FW's history. Hope that I'm wrong.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 11:52:52


Post by: Razerous


The Y'vahra.... I'm saved.

It's godly.

Would be happy with 400pts. This beast will blow chunks off things!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 12:02:19


Post by: Bryan01


I don't think it is a secret, that currently in the index, commanders and gun drones rock the kasbah in comparison to everything else.

Most other things seem usable at least. I found longstrike and two hammerheads, all with ion cannons alright in my first 8th ed game. I think your paying allot for the durability and flying aspect though.

I just love the aesthetic of Tau tanks, so i'll try to make them work. Plus it is just an index, chances are when the real codex comes out, if GW are indeed listening, I wouldn't go investing in commander models and gun drones (although most Tau players have plenty of the latter and commanders are easily made out of crisis suits..)


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 12:29:48


Post by: MilkmanAl


Efficiency comparisons are great and all, but they're not always reflective of performance.
Indeed. Riptides would've never been used in 7th if firepower per point was all that mattered. Broadsides and Breachers would've ruled the roost.

Anyway, I agree that Hammerheads are not anywhere near as good as Predators, but I'm not convinced there isn't a place for them when buffed by Longstrike. Under those circumstances, they'll essentially always hit. (Getting 1 marker hit on whatever they're targeting is trivial with universal split-fire.) They have great range and can fly away from assaults, so it's not all bad. For the same cost, you get a Commander and 6 Gun Drones, and I would wager that's not as durable as the Hammerhead's T7 3+ frame.

Hopefully we get some adjustments come codex time. A ~15pt decrease would make them plenty viable. Riptides need a solid 40-50pt drop, too.

The Y'Vahra, though, hell yes. If it clocks in around 350-400, that'd probably be a fair price and tons of fun to play around with. I'm leaning towards armies that have a heavy alpha strike via deep strike, so that'd be an awesome complement.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 13:45:18


Post by: Razerous


What would compliment the Y'Vahra?

It would obviously do some heavy lifting. A quad fusion commander appears to always be a good idea, gun drones for massed firepower.

I'm leaning away from suits due to the high initial cost.

I'm still hoping for the Ion Accelerator Riptide. Assuming marker + commander support (although the commander buff is 1/game or 1/turn?).. it would hit on 97% rates, aiming for a high-roll on the D6 hits.... Just still not good enough. It feels like they've charged through the nose for the 72" range.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 13:48:04


Post by: MilkmanAl


What would compliment the Y'Vahra?
Oh right, I didn't put my thoughts to paper too well on that one. i meant that I'd be dropping in a bunch of Commanders and drones and such, so having the Y'Vahras able to sprint forward and support them would be huge. You can only "reserve" half your army, so the other half could be Y'Vahras that get up in your opponent's business immediately, anyway. I like that Y'Vahras are still a little on the glass cannon-ish side despite being comparable with heavy vehicles. That's kind of cool, as long as they don't make them cost a bazillion points.

Standard Riptides are dead to me unless they get a tweak. There's a reason they've gotten the nickname "R.I.Ptides."


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 14:11:42


Post by: Cephalobeard


I'm of the opinion 3 Y'vahra (Point Depending) and then Multiple Commanders and as many drones you can Jam in will be pretty decent.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 15:41:20


Post by: MilkmanAl


I think you're probably right, but it'll be tough to maximize command points that way. I'm not really sure whether doing the list gymnastics to make a Brigade detachment happen are worthwhile, but we can do it more easily than most armies with dirt-cheap and effective options in every slot with the exception of heavy support (which is why the Hammerhead thing works-ish).


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 15:59:51


Post by: Mandragola


MilkmanAl wrote:
I think you're probably right, but it'll be tough to maximize command points that way. I'm not really sure whether doing the list gymnastics to make a Brigade detachment happen are worthwhile, but we can do it more easily than most armies with dirt-cheap and effective options in every slot with the exception of heavy support (which is why the Hammerhead thing works-ish).


Brigades are a pain to field. Battalions on the other hand are pretty easy, so my suggestion is just to take multiples of those. All Tau troops, and most HQs, seem good. If you've got an odd number of HQs, maybe have a vanguard or outrider detachment. Ignore heavy support unless something radically changes, either with points or the damage that railguns do.

I'm starting to think that CIB crisis suits might be fairly good. I'm trying to work out how they compare to ghostkeels.

In terms of firepower there's not a lot to choose between two blasters and one raker. They are exactly the same on normal mode but the blasters average to 4 shots when overcharged, rather than 3.5. The raker does have more range of course, but this advantage is somewhat reduced because the ghostkeel's secondary weapons have the same range as the blaster (or less), so it's probably going to have to be just as close.

Ghostkeels are far tougher than crisis suits, though the ability to deep strike should guarantee at least one shot from the suits. And four guns benefit from its ATS, rather than just two. On the other hand it kind of has to buy a target lock with its second support system slot, which is expensive.

I'm considering a loadout of 3 suits, two with 2 CIBs and ATS, one with two fusion blasters and DC. They can then bring 6 marker/gun drones - or maybe even a mixture of the two. I see the ability to bring drones along, and pack a DC, to be the main benefit of crisis suits.

Anyone have thoughts or suggestions?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 16:31:11


Post by: Desubot


Its probably worth trying to list gymnastics. its a good exercise for things like tournies that might limit detachments to 1

did CIBs become available to normal suits?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 16:31:33


Post by: MilkmanAl


Ghostkeels are a reasonable purchase for the moment, I think. They're fast, hit relatively hard, and can be pretty durable if you take care of their drones. Their worth is pending Y'Vahra points cost, though. Ghostkeels aren't cheap, and if the Y'Vahra is anything less than double a Ghostkeel, I think you're far better off with the latter. It's just better at everything.

Crisis Suits I'm not so hot on anymore. They're fragile as hell for the price, and given how flexible the force org choices are now, there's not really much reason to not use Commanders instead if you want to drop stuff in.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 16:47:21


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 Desubot wrote:
Its probably worth trying to list gymnastics. its a good exercise for things like tournies that might limit detachments to 1

did CIBs become available to normal suits?


CIBs and AFPs have been available to normal suits, in unlimited numbers, since the 6th edition codex.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 16:53:14


Post by: Desubot


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 Desubot wrote:
Its probably worth trying to list gymnastics. its a good exercise for things like tournies that might limit detachments to 1

did CIBs become available to normal suits?


CIBs and AFPs have been available to normal suits, in unlimited numbers, since the 6th edition codex.


I could of sworn they were signature systems.

man its been a while


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 17:41:45


Post by: Mandragola


As far as I can see the one main reason to include crisis suits is for drone controllers. Just about any other platform values its slots too highly to stick a DC in one. Commanders might be the exception here, but the lure of the fusion commander is strong. Coldstars should have ATS and TL.

And of course, if you've got drones, you've got your survivability issues somewhat reduced. Drones die instead of your suits.

Somewhat oddly, it's arguably a good thing that suits cost a lot of points in one go. If you run a lot of suits you're significantly more likely to get first turn, and this matters an awful lot. 300+ points in a drop is a good thing when you aren't actually dropping them on the board anyway - so you still get to set them up after the other guy has deployed.

You can say the same thing about riptides too I suppose, except that those seem to be flat out over-costed - which is obviously just bad.

a Tau army that wants to go first could do stuff like put 2x6 fire warriors in each devilfish, to fill out slots without adding drops. You can potentially even put fireblades in there too.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 17:42:36


Post by: Razerous


Was there any math done on 3 CIB vs 2 CIB + Support system-of-most-benefit?

I ask because of the crazy-high cost of suits nowadays, thinking to max out the slots!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 17:55:20


Post by: MilkmanAl


Check the Tau comments thread. there are a couple extremely useful spreadsheets in there that allow for calculation of weapon efficiency and outright list what loadouts are best. Spoiler alert: fusion wins. CIBs with ATS and/or MT were up there, as well.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 17:58:59


Post by: Mandragola


I haven't done that adding up, no. But a hell of a lot of stuff has a 3+ save or better, even before cover. Turning a 3+ into a 4+ save is a 33% increase in damage - which is the same as a third CIB but costs 10 points less. So I guess it's worth it if your target would have had a 2+ save to start with. Not much actually does.

I think that velocity trackers are perhaps a weirdly good support system for suits. Lots of stuff flies, and +1 to hit is a big deal. Not so much if you meet orks though!

Plasma rifles also look an interesting option. A plasma rifle costs less than half what a missile pod does, and with its great AP you don't really need any support systems. I could see a case for running 3 dudes with 8 plasma rifles and a drone controller - assuming that DCs don't stack (I don't want to get into the debate on whether they do or not - awaiting a ruling).

Here's the sort of thing I mean by an army using suit units to reduce the number of drops. Two battalions, 9 drops at 2k:

Commander Shadowsun 195
2 Shield Drones
Command Link Drone

Commander 160
4 Fusion Blasters

Coldstar Commander 148
High-yield Burst Cannon
Missile Pod
Advanced Targeting System
Target Lock

Cadre Fireblade 42
Markerlight

5 Breachers 40

5 Breachers 56
Guardian Drone
Shield Drone
Devilfish 127
Burst Cannon
2 Gun Drones

5 Breachers 40

5 Breachers 56
Guardian Drone
Shield Drone
Devilfish 127
Burst Cannon
2 Gun Drones

5 Fire Warriors 40

5 Fire Warriors 40
Devilfish 127
Burst Cannon
2 Gun Drones

3 Crisis Suits 299
6 Plasma Rifles
2 Fusion Blasters
Drone Controller
6 Marker Drones

3 Crisis Suits 321
4 Cyclic Ion Blasters
2 Advanced Targeting Systems
2 Fusion Blasters
Drone Controller
6 Marker Drones

Ghostkeel 181
2 Stealth Drones
2 Burst Cannons
Cyclic Ion Raker
Advanced Targeting System
Target Lock


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 23:06:33


Post by: The Shrike


 Cephalobeard wrote:
I'm of the opinion 3 Y'vahra (Point Depending) and then Multiple Commanders and as many drones you can Jam in will be pretty decent.


It seems like, given its 20 power level, we're probably looking at 400 points. I'm definitely thinking hey'll still work best in pairs, but 3 seems like it would crowd out support units.

If we assume the three worthy systems for the Y'Vahra are ATS, TL and Stims, only one of those can be replicated in other ways. I'm going to go Stims and ATS, then take a couple units of Pathfinders and some marker drones to help the IDC. After that marker support that leaves me 1000 points for a Quad fusion commander, a Coldstar, a Breacher team in a Fish for the Relic (and other distant objectives), 20 Vespid and 30-40 Kroot.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/13 23:14:34


Post by: BoomWolf


MilkmanAl wrote:
Efficiency comparisons are great and all, but they're not always reflective of performance.
Indeed. Riptides would've never been used in 7th if firepower per point was all that mattered. Broadsides and Breachers would've ruled the roost.

Anyway, I agree that Hammerheads are not anywhere near as good as Predators, but I'm not convinced there isn't a place for them when buffed by Longstrike. Under those circumstances, they'll essentially always hit. (Getting 1 marker hit on whatever they're targeting is trivial with universal split-fire.) They have great range and can fly away from assaults, so it's not all bad. For the same cost, you get a Commander and 6 Gun Drones, and I would wager that's not as durable as the Hammerhead's T7 3+ frame.

Hopefully we get some adjustments come codex time. A ~15pt decrease would make them plenty viable. Riptides need a solid 40-50pt drop, too.

The Y'Vahra, though, hell yes. If it clocks in around 350-400, that'd probably be a fair price and tons of fun to play around with. I'm leaning towards armies that have a heavy alpha strike via deep strike, so that'd be an awesome complement.



A 15 point reduction does nothing to help the hammerhead.

The issue with the hammer is that it can't do it's one dedicated job-destroy big things.
Even at BS2 from longstrike's aura, a hammer is expected to do an average of 2.2 wounds to a land raider or 1.88 to an IK. longstrike himself does 3.19 and 2.79 wounds.
The 72" range is meaningless, the table isn't all that big.

So, longstrike and two hammers would take, on average, slightly over 5 turns on undistupted shooting in order to take down ONE knight.
Against land raiders its better, it would only take 3 turns for the trio of hammerheads to take out the land raider.

And that's when you heavily outspend them.

That's just poor performance at their dedicated job. and considering IKs are a serius threat, you'll have no choice but to bring something else to handle them, and whatever handles the IK would also double as an answer to any LR or other tanks, rendering the hammerhead moot.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 00:55:18


Post by: MilkmanAl


Actually, I probably wouldn't use them for big game hunting. Medium targets that the SMS can deal with effectively are a better option. The Commanders would be tasked with taking down big, scary things. I'm with you that Hammerheads are underpowered, but I don't think they're anywhere near as bad as you're saying, assuming you have Longstrike around.

Edit: At this juncture, it's a bit of a moot point, anyway, since I'll probably be frying faces with Y'Vahras, assuming they don't cost an absurd amount of points. The Brigade detachment may be a lost cause for the moment, with Commanders being so much better than any other heavy weapons platform we have.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 01:38:06


Post by: The Shrike


What do we think are our most effective screeners? We need cheap, fast units to stay out ahead of our Commanders, Crisis and Y'Vahras.

I'm thinking about 100 Kroot Hounds...am I crazy?

I just think that with the exception of a few big suits, we're a horde army now.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 04:01:49


Post by: luke1705


 The Shrike wrote:
 Cephalobeard wrote:
I'm of the opinion 3 Y'vahra (Point Depending) and then Multiple Commanders and as many drones you can Jam in will be pretty decent.


It seems like, given its 20 power level, we're probably looking at 400 points. I'm definitely thinking hey'll still work best in pairs, but 3 seems like it would crowd out support units.

If we assume the three worthy systems for the Y'Vahra are ATS, TL and Stims, only one of those can be replicated in other ways. I'm going to go Stims and ATS, then take a couple units of Pathfinders and some marker drones to help the IDC. After that marker support that leaves me 1000 points for a Quad fusion commander, a Coldstar, a Breacher team in a Fish for the Relic (and other distant objectives), 20 Vespid and 30-40 Kroot.


I'm definitely going to shoot for 2 storm surges and 2 Y'Vahras and then see what else I can do from there. Shadowsun's double Kauyon seems awesome, but maybe not worth the increased cost over a regular commander.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 07:09:47


Post by: Razerous


 luke1705 wrote:
 The Shrike wrote:
 Cephalobeard wrote:
I'm of the opinion 3 Y'vahra (Point Depending) and then Multiple Commanders and as many drones you can Jam in will be pretty decent.


It seems like, given its 20 power level, we're probably looking at 400 points. I'm definitely thinking hey'll still work best in pairs, but 3 seems like it would crowd out support units.

If we assume the three worthy systems for the Y'Vahra are ATS, TL and Stims, only one of those can be replicated in other ways. I'm going to go Stims and ATS, then take a couple units of Pathfinders and some marker drones to help the IDC. After that marker support that leaves me 1000 points for a Quad fusion commander, a Coldstar, a Breacher team in a Fish for the Relic (and other distant objectives), 20 Vespid and 30-40 Kroot.


I'm definitely going to shoot for 2 storm surges and 2 Y'Vahras and then see what else I can do from there. Shadowsun's double Kauyon seems awesome, but maybe not worth the increased cost over a regular commander.
But the stormsurges are so poor.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 17:34:24


Post by: MilkmanAl


Quick question for you guys regarding Y'Vahras:

"Overcharged Burst" rules state that "The Y'Vahra can fire using a weapon's Nova Reactor profile." Does that mean both weapons can be fired with the nova profile or that you have to choose which one gets said profile?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 20:38:02


Post by: wyomingfox


I would say one weapon as the possessive " weapon's " is singular. If it had said " weapons' " then I would say both.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 21:09:32


Post by: Mandragola


MilkmanAl wrote:
Quick question for you guys regarding Y'Vahras:

"Overcharged Burst" rules state that "The Y'Vahra can fire using a weapon's Nova Reactor profile." Does that mean both weapons can be fired with the nova profile or that you have to choose which one gets said profile?


When you say "a weapon's" you are referring to a single weapon. There's no other way to take that. And honestly the Y'Vahra is either broken or well over 400 points, so be happy with the filth it already is.

Razerous wrote:
 luke1705 wrote:
 The Shrike wrote:
 Cephalobeard wrote:
I'm of the opinion 3 Y'vahra (Point Depending) and then Multiple Commanders and as many drones you can Jam in will be pretty decent.


It seems like, given its 20 power level, we're probably looking at 400 points. I'm definitely thinking hey'll still work best in pairs, but 3 seems like it would crowd out support units.

If we assume the three worthy systems for the Y'Vahra are ATS, TL and Stims, only one of those can be replicated in other ways. I'm going to go Stims and ATS, then take a couple units of Pathfinders and some marker drones to help the IDC. After that marker support that leaves me 1000 points for a Quad fusion commander, a Coldstar, a Breacher team in a Fish for the Relic (and other distant objectives), 20 Vespid and 30-40 Kroot.


I'm definitely going to shoot for 2 storm surges and 2 Y'Vahras and then see what else I can do from there. Shadowsun's double Kauyon seems awesome, but maybe not worth the increased cost over a regular commander.
But the stormsurges are so poor.


I don't know if stormsurges are really that bad - yet. I think that there's real value in having a survivable model with an enormous threat range. Its alpha strike really is serious as well.

Whether it's worth its points, I'm not sure. Fully kitted out, with the probably obligatory ATS and shield generator, it's close to 500 points. It's a huge amount, but the alpha strike it can do is also pretty huge. Honestly I would not be at all surprised to see these things making their points back a lot of the time.

For a third support slot I think I'd give it an early warning override. This is great protection for it if the other guy's plan is to drop plasma or melta squads nearby. So far as I can see, it can fire all its weapons every time a unit deploys - though opponents will probably learn their lesson after the first unit!

I can't see a use for the pulse blastcannon, I'm sorry to say. This guy clearly wants to be nailed down, nice and far away. The idea of approaching closer to the enemy is contrary to everything else about him.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 21:49:51


Post by: ZergSmasher


Razerous wrote:
But the stormsurges are so poor.

I disagree. It's expensive, but with all those guns and how tough it is it had better be. Obviously you shouldn't expect it to last very long in melee against, say, an Imperial Knight, but I think it will be a great gunline unit if it sits in the backfield, deploys its anchors, and it is properly supported by other units. I can't see taking more than one, though, and it definitely is not a must take anymore. At least it's better than the horribly nerfed RIPtide.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 22:10:55


Post by: Razerous


Mandragola wrote:
Spoiler:
MilkmanAl wrote:
Quick question for you guys regarding Y'Vahras:

"Overcharged Burst" rules state that "The Y'Vahra can fire using a weapon's Nova Reactor profile." Does that mean both weapons can be fired with the nova profile or that you have to choose which one gets said profile?


When you say "a weapon's" you are referring to a single weapon. There's no other way to take that. And honestly the Y'Vahra is either broken or well over 400 points, so be happy with the filth it already is.

Razerous wrote:
 luke1705 wrote:
 The Shrike wrote:
 Cephalobeard wrote:
I'm of the opinion 3 Y'vahra (Point Depending) and then Multiple Commanders and as many drones you can Jam in will be pretty decent.


It seems like, given its 20 power level, we're probably looking at 400 points. I'm definitely thinking hey'll still work best in pairs, but 3 seems like it would crowd out support units.

If we assume the three worthy systems for the Y'Vahra are ATS, TL and Stims, only one of those can be replicated in other ways. I'm going to go Stims and ATS, then take a couple units of Pathfinders and some marker drones to help the IDC. After that marker support that leaves me 1000 points for a Quad fusion commander, a Coldstar, a Breacher team in a Fish for the Relic (and other distant objectives), 20 Vespid and 30-40 Kroot.


I'm definitely going to shoot for 2 storm surges and 2 Y'Vahras and then see what else I can do from there. Shadowsun's double Kauyon seems awesome, but maybe not worth the increased cost over a regular commander.
But the stormsurges are so poor.


I don't know if stormsurges are really that bad - yet. I think that there's real value in having a survivable model with an enormous threat range. Its alpha strike really is serious as well.

Whether it's worth its points, I'm not sure. Fully kitted out, with the probably obligatory ATS and shield generator, it's close to 500 points. It's a huge amount, but the alpha strike it can do is also pretty huge. Honestly I would not be at all surprised to see these things making their points back a lot of the time.

For a third support slot I think I'd give it an early warning override. This is great protection for it if the other guy's plan is to drop plasma or melta squads nearby. So far as I can see, it can fire all its weapons every time a unit deploys - though opponents will probably learn their lesson after the first unit!

I can't see a use for the pulse blastcannon, I'm sorry to say. This guy clearly wants to be nailed down, nice and far away. The idea of approaching closer to the enemy is contrary to everything else about him.
How great is the firepower? A number of Str 5 shots (gun drones?!) and some Str 10 AP -3/-4 shots.

No great accuracy, no great speed. Its resilience is okay to very good, depending.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 22:47:18


Post by: The Shrike


For less points, Drukharii can have 3 ravagers that collectively have NINE S8 -4 d6 damage shots and 30 wounds. i know that isn't apples to apples but come on. (also, rail gun hammerheads only do 1d6 damage? really?)

I'm not joining in the "8th Tau stink" chorus, but they did overcorrect some things. Surges lost FNP, stomp and fearless natively as well as 6" of movement. It deserved a points decrease not a modest increase.

R.I.Ptide.

Hammerheads are a joke compared to predator annihilators and ravagers.

Breachers were nerfed now that they can't be buffed by a character for an extra shot at half range. Why? When was that ever a problem?

S5 is nerfed in the new wound chart, so our big bad infantry gun isn't big or bad anymore. S6 would have represented a similar superiority in 8th's system as S5 once did.

Markerlights are ok, but a sixth hit should have granted twin linked. More importantly, markerlights as they have functioned for the last five editions were meant to counteract our innately poor BS. We already yield two entire phases of the game. With the nerf of markerlights, we're a shooting army that misses half the time...that's supposed to be Guard's job but are cheap enough to mitigate that. "Quantity has a quality all its own." is their thing not ours.

Rant over; we're still usable, and can still compete. Just have a narrower selection, which is a shame because most armies saw their choices expand.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 23:08:53


Post by: ZergSmasher


 The Shrike wrote:
For less points, Drukharii can have 3 ravagers that collectively have NINE S8 -4 d6 damage shots and 30 wounds. i know that isn't apples to apples but come on. (also, rail gun hammerheads only do 1d6 damage? really?)

I'm not joining in the "8th Tau stink" chorus, but they did overcorrect some things. Surges lost FNP, stomp and fearless natively as well as 6" of movement. It deserved a points decrease not a modest increase.

Surges did lose those things, but many of them were considered OP by many players, especially Stomps. There were rant threads here on Dakka about how undercosted the Stormsurge was (although I never thought so). I think in the new edition the points should have stayed about the same, but oh well, I think they are still playable.
R.I.Ptide.

Sadly, you're not wrong about this one. Massive overcorrection by GW if you ask me.
Hammerheads are a joke compared to predator annihilators and ravagers.

In a direct comparison, yes they are.The Pred's weapons, and those of the Ravager, are going to be wasted on smaller models, whereas the Hammerhead can do some work with its SMS and submunitions rounds to thin hordes. Longstrike does help Hammerheads as well, so I think they are still usable.
Breachers were nerfed now that they can't be buffed by a character for an extra shot at half range. Why? When was that ever a problem?

Uh, who was actually doing that in their lists? I would never risk an Ethereal that close to the enemy in 7th. Half range on Breachers is crazy close for a model that gives up an extra VP when he dies. Since they've made Ethereals so cheap and they no longer give up VP when they die, they probably wanted to kill those shenanigans since there is so little risk involved now.
S5 is nerfed in the new wound chart, so our big bad infantry gun isn't big or bad anymore. S6 would have represented a similar superiority in 8th's system as S5 once did.

Not really nerfed, at least not badly. S5 will wound pretty much anything on 5's or better, which is pretty nice when they previously needed 6's to wound big things, if they could even touch them at all. Sure, you can't blink out Guardsmen on 2's anymore, but I don't think that's honestly a huge deal.
Markerlights are ok, but a sixth hit should have granted twin linked.

That would have been nice, but they are trying to cut down on the rerolls. Theoretically.
Rant over; we're still usable, and can still compete. Just have a narrower selection, which is a shame because most armies saw their choices expand.

Narrower selection? Not sure I agree. Vespids are playable now, Gun Drones are awesome (who ever took them before other than in Piranha Wing gimmick lists?), Krootox are okay since they are their own units now, and Pathfinders are pretty nice as well. Yes, we lost Riptides and Sky Rays, at least competitively, but most of the rest of our book is usable if played well.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 23:19:10


Post by: Mandragola


A stormsurge wants to have someone call Kauyon for it on turn one, and preferably a bunch of markerlight hits on things too, for +1 BS. Then it can pretty reliably stick ~7 mortal wounds on something like a ravager or predator and finish it off with the pulse driver cannon.

It can only do that once of course. The thing it does every turn is spit out an average 22 S5 shots with good range, while being very hard to get rid of. That durability is hard to measure and assign a value to, but it's what made riptides good in the past.

I'm definitely not saying that it's a must take. Not for a second. It costs a lot and the stuff to go with it is pricey too. But I think it's a perfectly valid option.

I've been thinking about some other units that I'd like to use. Pathfinders with rail rifles are really cool, but the challenge is to somehow keep them alive, firing for multiple turns. I think I may have found a way to achieve this, with the various tidewall thingies. They are effectively moderately tough open-topped transport vehicles.

The droneport might be the best of all of these. You can have 4 marker drones that use the pathfinders' BS, plus maybe a bonus if there are DCs nearby. You deploy the droneport, its drones and the pathfinder squad as a single drop, perhaps even with the odd character inside too.

It's nothing all that amazing, but it seems quite fun. The whole lot comes to around the price of a broadside.

I'm not sure tidewalls are worth it for fire warriors. The answer there is probably either having them ride in devilfish, or just having loads of them. I'm not sure I agree that S5 has been nerfed. Yes, it only wounds S3 on a 3+ instead of a 2+, but it's equal or better against literally everything else. I think that fire warriors will have benefited from the changes to the AP system, as there were quite a lot of ap4 weapons with high rates of fire before, and these now tend to only have AP-1 now. If you can find cover for them they'll have a 3+ save a lot of the time, which is pretty cool.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/14 23:43:49


Post by: ZergSmasher


Mandragola wrote:
I'm not sure tidewalls are worth it for fire warriors. The answer there is probably either having them ride in devilfish, or just having loads of them. I'm not sure I agree that S5 has been nerfed. Yes, it only wounds S3 on a 3+ instead of a 2+, but it's equal or better against literally everything else. I think that fire warriors will have benefited from the changes to the AP system, as there were quite a lot of ap4 weapons with high rates of fire before, and these now tend to only have AP-1 now. If you can find cover for them they'll have a 3+ save a lot of the time, which is pretty cool.

Breachers definitely need a 'fish rather than a tidewall, but Strike Teams? With what a Devilfish costs compared to the 70 points needed for a Tidewall Shieldline (which can potentially give mortal wounds back to people that fire at it!), I think it's not terribly clear cut. The only question I have is aura abilities. Do any of them work on units inside of vehicles? I'm not entirely sure. If not, then maybe a Tidewall is not such a great idea except in certain cases.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 00:14:03


Post by: Mandragola


I'm debating just putting fire warriors on foot, without any kind of transport. They are cheap and have long-ranged guns, so rather than putting them on a tidewall I'd have (nearly) twice as many of them instead. A good way to be survivable is to have twice as many guys, and shoot the other guys twice as dead.

As you suggest, there are a ton of rules questions that come up when you put units in tidwall things. These are some:

1. What happens with any drones the unit may have? They aren't allowed inside, so do they deploy outside? Can they deploy in coherency of models in a transport at all?

2. Aura abilities don't work from inside a transport going out. Do they work if someone outside uses them? I think not, as there's a wording in the transport rules saying that embarked models can't be affected by stuff.

3. A tidewall thingy would seem a good place to stick a firesight marksman, especially since he can give his 3+ BS to droneport drones. But does he have line of sight to anything while he's in there, so as to give +1 BS to his sniper drones? I think maybe he does, because we do have rules saying to measure LoS for him from any point on the droneport. His ability is not an aura with a range (which wouldn't work), it only requires him to have LoS. All still probably rather irrelevant, given that the only reason to take sniper drones is to fill a brigade.

4. If I drop my droneport, with its own drones, a marksman and a unit of pathfinders inside it, plus their drones outside it, is that all one drop for deployment? I think it probably is, though there seem to be no rules for deploying the drones one way or the other.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 12:15:39


Post by: xmbk


I think something Tau and Eldar players are underrating is the value of Fly on their tanks. Tying up tanks and the counters to that will definitely develop, we're above all that (see what I did there?).

Don't agree that S5 is somehow devalued.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 12:46:13


Post by: MilkmanAl


S5 is worse against T3, but that's it. I'd actually argue that FW got a substantial buff from the to-wound table, rather than a nerf. You won't be mowing down guardsmen like you used to, I suppose, but now you can tackle light vehicles competently and even take a few chunks out of superheavies through weight of fire. That's a huge improvement. It's not like we are lacking in the crowd control department, so wounding T3 on 3s isn't a crippling change, in my opinion.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 13:16:57


Post by: BoomWolf


xmbk wrote:
I think something Tau and Eldar players are underrating is the value of Fly on their tanks. Tying up tanks and the counters to that will definitely develop, we're above all that (see what I did there?).

Don't agree that S5 is somehow devalued.


I don't lnow about eldar-but Fly on tau tanks is worth nothing.

Because tau tanks, are worth nothing.


See, the problem si, the "all mighty railgun", doesn't actually KILL anything.
It does 2.2 wounds on average per turn to a land raider or 1.88 to an imperial knight WITH the buff from longstrike. that's not helping anyone. not at the abnormal price tag it has.

The hammerhead, skyray, devilfish, piranha. they all share a common factor-they can't kill a damn thing compared to how much they cost.

Sure, they are relatively fast, and they can get out of combat.
But locking them in combat hardly changes anything, as they hardly kill anything to begin with, being fast doesn't matter when you can't do anything once you reach into position and the hammerhead's range doesn't matter when the practical target range is between 6" to 48" away.

Tau armor is not a thing in 8th, hopefully the codex will fix that.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 14:36:32


Post by: xmbk


And 16 points of Kroot Hounds can stop that Land Raider from firing for a turn. Also, BC on a Hammerhead can be good for character assassination. Raiders don't have that kind of maneuvering. If you prefer the gun drones everyone is going crazy over, don't forget to include them when factoring the cost of a Hammerhead. Not saying the Raider isn't good, but people tend towards extreme analysis when new books come out. Plus we're used to GW creating extreme imbalances. I'm optimistic there will be less of that this edition.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 15:07:51


Post by: MoD_Legion


 ZergSmasher wrote:
Krootox are okay since they are their own units now

How are they okay now? They used to be great, buffed by an ethereal, having cheap ablative wounds, stealth (forest), and decent enough in cc, they were awesome at taking down void shields (my brother runs orcs battle wagons while hiding under a void shield generator the first 1-2 turns). Krootox' lost every one of their possible buffs so now the firepower is meh (like everything we have) and they can be easily picked off. I doubt I'll be running them in 8th which is a shame because they are expensive models (money wise).


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 16:21:53


Post by: Mandragola


 BoomWolf wrote:
xmbk wrote:
I think something Tau and Eldar players are underrating is the value of Fly on their tanks. Tying up tanks and the counters to that will definitely develop, we're above all that (see what I did there?).

Don't agree that S5 is somehow devalued.


I don't lnow about eldar-but Fly on tau tanks is worth nothing.

Because tau tanks, are worth nothing.


See, the problem si, the "all mighty railgun", doesn't actually KILL anything.
It does 2.2 wounds on average per turn to a land raider or 1.88 to an imperial knight WITH the buff from longstrike. that's not helping anyone. not at the abnormal price tag it has.

The hammerhead, skyray, devilfish, piranha. they all share a common factor-they can't kill a damn thing compared to how much they cost.

Sure, they are relatively fast, and they can get out of combat.
But locking them in combat hardly changes anything, as they hardly kill anything to begin with, being fast doesn't matter when you can't do anything once you reach into position and the hammerhead's range doesn't matter when the practical target range is between 6" to 48" away.

Tau armor is not a thing in 8th, hopefully the codex will fix that.


I agree with you on the hammerhead, and even more so on the skray. They fail to do their jobs.

But the devilfish and piranha are entirely different stories. The fish is a good transport and has decent firepower for its cost (if not insanely good, like the AC razorback). You can stick a couple of units into it, and maybe even characters too, to speed up your drops and get first turn. I think it's a correctly-costed unit.

And the piranha is a cheap, reasonably shooty, very fast platform. I can't honestly say I'll be using them, but it's not an awful vehicle. Decent in maelstrom, in particular.

Both vehicles benefit from being armed with assault weapons, rather than heavy ones, so they are able to bring their guns to bear pretty easily. In fact a piranha has firepower very similar to a battlesuit, just with twice the speed and twice the wounds for only 3 more points.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 18:11:41


Post by: necron99


Has anyone heard anything about the supremacy armour? I bought one of these this year and only managed to play it once (took awhile to build and paint properly) before 8th came out :(


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 18:38:08


Post by: Vector Strike


 necron99 wrote:
Has anyone heard anything about the supremacy armour? I bought one of these this year and only managed to play it once (took awhile to build and paint properly) before 8th came out :(


We'll have to wait FW's Index Xenos. I bet we'll see its profile only by July


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 19:38:46


Post by: Da-Rock


I am waiting on Ramora stats too. Just got 4 of them in the mail yesterday........


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 19:55:24


Post by: Razerous


 Vector Strike wrote:
 necron99 wrote:
Has anyone heard anything about the supremacy armour? I bought one of these this year and only managed to play it once (took awhile to build and paint properly) before 8th came out :(


We'll have to wait FW's Index Xenos. I bet we'll see its profile only by July
How will they release it, do you think?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 20:54:44


Post by: mcsheehy


Hey guys,

Just thought I'd post here.

Im not a Tau Player *Boo Hiss* but my friend plays Tau and we have a few 8th edition games under our belts now.

He seems to be favoring suits/mech and drones.

It's actually got to the point I don't want to play his lists.

Twice against his list I was as good as tabled at the end of Turn 1.
50PP games.

He ran, (I think)

2 Shadow Keel? 2 Flamers and Raker.
2 S/Drones.

2 Commanders, 4 Fusion

3 Stealth Suits

3 Drones

3 Drones

2 Units Fire warriors for obj holding.

My unit of 10 termies disappeared in 1 turn. Including a Long Fang pack.



I had 1 round of shooting, 1st turn. Everything wound that went through was diverted to a drone.

His turn, he Deep Striked the commanders within 9" of my termies for 2d6 Damage. (To be sure)

And flamered my long fangs.

Termies went from 10 strong to 3. Died on Morale.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 20:55:19


Post by: necron99


Razerous wrote:
 Vector Strike wrote:
 necron99 wrote:
Has anyone heard anything about the supremacy armour? I bought one of these this year and only managed to play it once (took awhile to build and paint properly) before 8th came out :(


We'll have to wait FW's Index Xenos. I bet we'll see its profile only by July
How will they release it, do you think?


That was the other unfortunate event - I spent like $200 on the tau and heritics books in January...now they'll be boxed up with everything else from 7th edition and head up to the attic :(


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 21:56:18


Post by: Vector Strike


Razerous wrote:
 Vector Strike wrote:
 necron99 wrote:
Has anyone heard anything about the supremacy armour? I bought one of these this year and only managed to play it once (took awhile to build and paint properly) before 8th came out :(


We'll have to wait FW's Index Xenos. I bet we'll see its profile only by July
How will they release it, do you think?


Absolutely no idea. As Ta'unar was a quite controversial unit, I might guess it'll come with some serious changes. Also, as Blast weapons got nerfed in 8th, I think the super-railgun will be its best weapon.

mcsheehy wrote:Hey guys,

Just thought I'd post here.

Im not a Tau Player *Boo Hiss* but my friend plays Tau and we have a few 8th edition games under our belts now.

He seems to be favoring suits/mech and drones.

It's actually got to the point I don't want to play his lists.

Twice against his list I was as good as tabled at the end of Turn 1.
50PP games.

He ran, (I think)

2 Shadow Keel? 2 Flamers and Raker.
2 S/Drones.

2 Commanders, 4 Fusion

3 Stealth Suits

3 Drones

3 Drones

2 Units Fire warriors for obj holding.

My unit of 10 termies disappeared in 1 turn. Including a Long Fang pack.



I had 1 round of shooting, 1st turn. Everything wound that went through was diverted to a drone.

His turn, he Deep Striked the commanders within 9" of my termies for 2d6 Damage. (To be sure)

And flamered my long fangs.

Termies went from 10 strong to 3. Died on Morale.


We welcome players from various factions to share with us their opinions and suggestions - especially when they're as nice as you!

May I ask if he used a homing beacon with the stealth suits? Normally, we cannot manta strike (the new name of Tau's deep strike) within 9" of an enemy unit.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 22:08:10


Post by: Aeri


MilkmanAl wrote:
Quick question for you guys regarding Y'Vahras:

"Overcharged Burst" rules state that "The Y'Vahra can fire using a weapon's Nova Reactor profile." Does that mean both weapons can be fired with the nova profile or that you have to choose which one gets said profile?


since the rule uses an indefinite article instead of "one" or "a single", it is pretty clear that there is no limitation on how many weapons may use the nova reactor effect.
if the authors of the rules intended to limit the use to one, it would be written "The Y'Vahra can fire using a single weapon's Nova Reactor profile."
"a single" is the usual term GW uses, if they want to limit the use of something.

Otherwise aura abilities would be kinda trash.
For example Kaldor Draigos Bane of Evil:
"When a friendly GK unit within 6'' [...] you can reroll damage rolls for that unit"
If you would read "a" as "a single" this would mean that his aura only applies to one unit only.
Since this is not the case and the same wording is used for the Y'Vahra, the meaning of the rule is pretty clear.
And yes, its very much op. But that can never be an argument when dealing with FW Rules.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 22:54:49


Post by: Vector Strike


The Y'vahra will probably cost 400ish points and has short-ranged weapons. Not only it won't endure too long in the battlefield, it already has a steep cost. I find it quite ok to have both weapons nova'ed at once


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 23:09:48


Post by: Mandragola


Aeri wrote:
MilkmanAl wrote:
Quick question for you guys regarding Y'Vahras:

"Overcharged Burst" rules state that "The Y'Vahra can fire using a weapon's Nova Reactor profile." Does that mean both weapons can be fired with the nova profile or that you have to choose which one gets said profile?


since the rule uses an indefinite article instead of "one" or "a single", it is pretty clear that there is no limitation on how many weapons may use the nova reactor effect.
if the authors of the rules intended to limit the use to one, it would be written "The Y'Vahra can fire using a single weapon's Nova Reactor profile."
"a single" is the usual term GW uses, if they want to limit the use of something.

Otherwise aura abilities would be kinda trash.
For example Kaldor Draigos Bane of Evil:
"When a friendly GK unit within 6'' [...] you can reroll damage rolls for that unit"
If you would read "a" as "a single" this would mean that his aura only applies to one unit only.
Since this is not the case and the same wording is used for the Y'Vahra, the meaning of the rule is pretty clear.
And yes, its very much op. But that can never be an argument when dealing with FW Rules.

This is just wrong. If you walk into a bar and order "a beer", you get one beer. If you want another beer you have to hand over more money. A reference to "a <thing>" is singular. One of that thing.

Your Draigo reference is not relevant because entirely different things are happening there. A unit within 6" fires and gets to reroll to hit, or whatever. Then another unit within 6" fires and also gets to reroll to hit. In this case, the unit is triggering the effect, by firing within 6" of Draigo. There's nothing to stop that from happening multiple times. When the battlesuit activates its nova reactor it takes a wound and a weapon gets to fire with the nova platform. If another one activates its nova reactor then it also gets to power up a weapon.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 23:54:58


Post by: MilkmanAl


When I initially asked the question, I was leaning towards Aeri's rationale and thinking that maybe both weapons get nova'd at the same time. I'm still on that side of the fence, but we'll have to wait for a FAQ to settle it for sure, I suppose.

In any event, here's the list I'm going to run this weekend:

Battalion
3 Commanders - 4 fusion - 480
6 gun drones - 48
3x5 fw - 120
15 total pf - 120
2x3 Stealth Suits - fusion with DC, 2 VT - 226
10 Gun Drones - 80
1074

Battalion
3 Commanders - 11 fusions, dc - 467
6 gun drones - 48
3x10 gun drones - 240
3x5 fw, 2 gun drones - 168
923

1997 total

I'm basically trying to maximize Commanders and Gun Drones, which it seems like everyone agrees are currently the strongest choices in our index. I don't think much can hold up to that volume of precision-dropped melta, and there's a veritable storm of S5 to back it up.

The Stealth Suits are the only questionable choice, in my opinion. They're there to be drone controller caddies and nothing else, but an extra fusion here and there never hurts, right? They should be plenty fast enough to position themselves near the Commander drop(s) for a little backup. They have VTs because it's a cheap upgrade that may end up giving a significant bonus. I'd probably run them naked, otherwise.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/15 23:59:43


Post by: Razerous


If the Y'vahra costs 400pts, can fire one or both weapons Nova'd.... either way I'm happy, it provides high-end effective damage on a reliable platform.

Will it be able to take out a Knight, one vs. one, curiously?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 02:36:52


Post by: MilkmanAl


By the numbers, an Y'Vahra can reasonably reliably take out a knight in two turns, even if you can only nova charge 1 weapon.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 10:07:45


Post by: Mandragola


MilkmanAl wrote:
When I initially asked the question, I was leaning towards Aeri's rationale and thinking that maybe both weapons get nova'd at the same time. I'm still on that side of the fence, but we'll have to wait for a FAQ to settle it for sure, I suppose.


There is only one interpretation of "a weapon". There are plenty of unclear rules in 8th and the indexes, but this isn't among them.

Let me try and explain this with an example. Meet farmer John. Farmer John has a cow. How many cows does Farmer John have?

Circle one answer:
a) 1 cow.
b) 2 cows.
c) We'll have to wait for a FAQ to settle it for sure.

See pic if you need more help.



Sorry for going off on one. Honestly the Y'Vahra is annoyingly good and is getting on my nerves a bit. The problem is that if it's not really seriously expensive it will be broken. I wish FW would write good rules to go with their models but they consistently fail to, and remain banned from many events. I don't see that changing, based on the evidence of the Y'Vahra.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 11:54:08


Post by: MilkmanAl


I don't feel like the Y'Vahra will be THAT good (i.e., broken) at the 400pt level, which is where it's probably going to be. It's leagues better than standard Riptides, but that's isn't saying a lot at the moment. I'd call it appropriately costed.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 14:33:17


Post by: Captain Joystick


 ZergSmasher wrote:
Gun Drones are awesome (who ever took them before other than in Piranha Wing gimmick lists?)


I did!

I ran a DC commander with vectored retros and two burst cannons or CIBs in a squad of 12 gun drones. They swept away an infantry unit every turn, I loved them!

*holy gak, autocorrect is on a roll today.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 15:46:43


Post by: Razerous


 Captain Joystick wrote:
 ZergSmasher wrote:
Gun Drones are awesome (who ever took them before other than in Piranha Wing gimmick lists?)


I did!

I ran a DC commander with vectored retros and two burst cannons or CIBs in a squad of 12 gun drones. They swept away an infantry unit every turn, I loved them!

*holy gak, autocorrect is on a roll today.
How will folk be deploying the drone swarm + drone-controller-model (commander, XV8, XV25)?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 15:58:44


Post by: MilkmanAl


In my list above, I'm going to go as light on DCs as possible. Given that they're now often competing directly with weapon options, those support system slots are far too valuable these days to be used lightly. The big daddy suits that get support system slots in addition to weapon choices need things like ATS and target locks. The best place, by far, to have a DC is on a Stealth Suit since they really don't experience a huge benefit from any of the other options. Even with the durability buff, Stealth Suits still don't strike me as good units, but they're usable enough to have around if you've got a drone swarm to support.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 16:25:02


Post by: Captain Joystick


Stealth suits are sturdy enough that burying one drone controller in there can make them a decent bolster unit for your gun line, even more useful if you plan to be mobile with them, because they all have the same speedy movement profile. And if they get wise and try to focus the stealth to death, the drones will selflessly jump in.

So long as drones attached to units count as separate units for purposes of kill points, tau will always be giving away buckets of them, so don't worry too much about taking msu of drones and aiming for a crushing victory on objectives.

In the... increasingly unlikely chance they come out and say drone controller effects stack, then a unit of crisis suits with DCs and MPs will be the ideal drone supporting platform.

I also think a high BS character in a drone port would be a good way to consistently put out 2-4 almost assured marker light hits, but I haven't looked at the points.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 16:37:22


Post by: Mandragola


If you just need one DC then I think a crisis suit is the best place for it. This is especially true now that units can all split fire, so you can have a guy with a DC and different load-out to his friends.

An example load out could be to have two suits with 3 plasma rifles each (actually quite inexpensive, and scary) and one with two fusion blasters and a DC.

There's some real synergy between crisis suits and drones - if you can live with the fact that the suits are probably a bit too expensive. They can pass wounds over to drones and be given weapons to break open stuff with good saves for the drones to chew up.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 17:37:14


Post by: Suks


A few of my thoughts to add on to the pile.

1. I think that Breachers won in a big way. Short range is straight up devastating and Medium range got a BIG buff with ap -1. I look for squads of breachers in fish to be go to units for counter punching alpha strike lists. I am especially excited to try them with Darkstrider, but that may be overly hopeful considering how good Fusion Commanders will be.

2. Piranhas still look pretty flimsy, but they could wind up being really good. I will try them out, but I have a feeling that they will need something like Drukarhi's flicker fields to gain enough survivabilty. Still, maybe they will surprise me.

3. I am not on the R.I.P.tide train. Yes, I think the Ion Accelerator loadout is way overpriced, BUT I the HBC with ATS is looking pretty savage to me for 320. Anything that can take 2 smart missile systems with ATS is valuable. Yes it went up in points, but so did a LOT of stuff, and I think that it will be a lot more durable than other similar platforms. Again, maybe this is my over optimism.

4. I think markerlight is just dead. I'm surprised to see that some people are still building lists with marker. To get a decent benefit you need to make your average at 5 hits, which means you need at least 10 lights. If you want to make it RELIABLY, you need more like 14 lights. Assuming you go first and don't take any casualties. So now you really need more like 18-20. JUST to reliably get +1 bs stacked on a SINGLE target. I see them as being just completely unusable.

Overall I am super pumped to try to find a way to play T'au as a mobile and agressive list rather than the boring castle play that we experienced in 7th. Don't believe the bad press.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 17:47:37


Post by: Desubot


I dont think markerlights are straight dead.

you can shoot off a couple and you dont need the full 5 dot shebang.

getting 1 is already good enough.
2 is a little meh unless you are building a seeker list
3 is only really beneficial for i think infantry with heavy weapons OR extra markerlights on the move. technically since all shots are individual one at a time, you shoot of one markerlight at a time till you hit. after which any additional hits are reroll 1s so you have a slightly better chance to hit any additional shots. (i think)

4 is really good but is situational useless if they are not in cover.

5 is the grand poobaa but its going to take a bit to get to.

i honestly think just the one marker light hit is pretty powerful as its often a normal HQ level power.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 17:59:31


Post by: mcsheehy


Hi Vector,

Yes. He had a homing beacon on the Stealth Suits with some drones protecting them.

So I couldn't kill them in T1.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 18:08:44


Post by: Suks


 Desubot wrote:
I dont think markerlights are straight dead.

you can shoot off a couple and you dont need the full 5 dot shebang.

getting 1 is already good enough.
2 is a little meh unless you are building a seeker list
3 is only really beneficial for i think infantry with heavy weapons OR extra markerlights on the move. technically since all shots are individual one at a time, you shoot of one markerlight at a time till you hit. after which any additional hits are reroll 1s so you have a slightly better chance to hit any additional shots. (i think)

4 is really good but is situational useless if they are not in cover.

5 is the grand poobaa but its going to take a bit to get to.

i honestly think just the one marker light hit is pretty powerful as its often a normal HQ level power.


I actually don't disagree with your statements very much with the exception that I think that getting 1 is only OKAY and not good enough. The reason, mainly is how many points you need to invest to get enough marker to last multiple turns. It is just too many points for not enough production. I think that the points will just be better spent on more offensive units when the reroll is still only a 4+ if you are without 5 markers. Point for point, there is better production to be had elsewhere.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 18:14:35


Post by: Desubot


Suks wrote:

I actually don't disagree with your statements very much with the exception that I think that getting 1 is only OKAY and not good enough. The reason, mainly is how many points you need to invest to get enough marker to last multiple turns. It is just too many points for not enough production. I think that the points will just be better spent on more offensive units when the reroll is still only a 4+ if you are without 5 markers. Point for point, there is better production to be had elsewhere.


I think trying to spam them is a pretty bad idea. honestly 1 or 2 units of pathfinders will be fairly useful as with the new split fire rule you can allocate a BUNCH of rerolls of 1s around multiple units OR going ham one 1 thing that needs killing. its a very flex option which i think makes the new edition fantastic.

over spamming is bad.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 18:41:16


Post by: Mandragola


The markerlight set up I'm considering is like this:

5 Pathfinders 97
2 Markerlights
3 Rail Rifles

Tidwall Droneport 70
4 Marker Drones 40

I think the droneport with pathfinders compares quite favourably to the (bad) railhead and broadside. You'll get a few markerlight hits, which is all you really need. The key thing is to get rerolls of 1s, as quite a lot of Tau stuff now gets hot.

To be honest I still can't claim that this is anything spectacular. It ought to be able to manage something though.

A basic 40 point, 5 man squad of pathfinders really isn't too bad either. That's not a lot of points, at all. They are still a little scoring unit that you can have get maelstrom objectives and the like. The major downside that I see is that you'll be less likely to go first if you take much of this kind of thing - which is why I'm looking at transports and tidewall stuff to get multiple drops at once.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 19:20:04


Post by: Captain Joystick


Do the passengers count as moving if the drone port moves?

Why not spend a bit and put your fire warriors and a cadre fireblade in there? Then you have a mobile shooting platform flanked by four BS 2+ marker drones.

Between them you can have two pairs of additional drones of your choice following along and two additional marker lights from the fireblade and the shas'ui. Try to get one light on with the passengers (or, failing that, the drones from the units or pathfinders elsewhere) then hit them with four 2+ rerolling shots and enjoy that five-light bonus.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 19:31:35


Post by: Mandragola


Putting a fireblade in there is an option for sure. So is a firesight marksman (or whatever he's now called) - or indeed Shadowsun.

Annoyingly, you're not allowed to put two units of pathfinders in the thing (as you can with a devilfish) For some reason fortifications only allow one unit (and as many characters as fit) to embark.

I just wouldn't bother putting fire warriors in a tidewall thing. I'd just buy twice as many fire warriors (nearly). I think it's worth it for these pathfinders, as they are pricey and made of paper.

It may well be worth taking one of the other kinds of tidewalls and filling it with a unit of 10 pathfinders, rather than having the drones. The basic shield line is softer though, and the price would be the same either way. The good thing about the shieldline is being able to take effectively two transports for one drop, and stick two units and a few characters inside them.

I'm not sure if the tidewall stuff is much good to be honest. The wall's reflection thing seems rubbish, as all people have to do to be save is have -1ap - and most heavy weapons will. It ought to have an invulnerable save like Kastellan robots, I think.

I don't know if you count as moving when your transport moves. It doesn't seem to say that you do, but that doesn't necessarily mean much.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 20:22:31


Post by: Da-Rock


Mandragola wrote:
MilkmanAl wrote:
When I initially asked the question, I was leaning towards Aeri's rationale and thinking that maybe both weapons get nova'd at the same time. I'm still on that side of the fence, but we'll have to wait for a FAQ to settle it for sure, I suppose.


There is only one interpretation of "a weapon". There are plenty of unclear rules in 8th and the indexes, but this isn't among them.

Let me try and explain this with an example. Meet farmer John. Farmer John has a cow. How many cows does Farmer John have?

Circle one answer:
a) 1 cow.
b) 2 cows.
c) We'll have to wait for a FAQ to settle it for sure.

See pic if you need more help.



Sorry for going off on one. Honestly the Y'Vahra is annoyingly good and is getting on my nerves a bit. The problem is that if it's not really seriously expensive it will be broken. I wish FW would write good rules to go with their models but they consistently fail to, and remain banned from many events. I don't see that changing, based on the evidence of the Y'Vahra.



It is simply GW's responsibility for clear text. "A" can be manipulated as easily as all of you have because you put it into a context that specifically works for your point.

In reference to the post about ordering a beer.....well, if I walked up and did this, does it fit into your context = "I would like "a" beer in a glass, I also would like "a" beer in a bottle while I would like "a" third beer that is in a glass with lime".

The same logic can be used in a sentence for the cow......so how many cows would we have then?

The point is that it's tricky to convey thought across text to others who are not inside your mind to know "exactly" what you mean.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 20:26:30


Post by: MilkmanAl


I feel like markers are getting an unnecessarily bad rap so far. I agree that they're not as powerful as they were, but they're still worth using. Rerolling 1's is actually not too shabby, considering that Commander spam is a worthy strategy. For other stuff it's less impressive, admittedly. However, the fact that lights can be used by multiple units is a huge buff, even though the overall effects aren't as significant. You can make very sure that your target gets vaporized that turn.

Pathfinders really got a huge boost by getting so much cheaper. It's very nice that they come with pulse carbines so they can join in the S5 spam when they aren't needed as marker sources. Split fire is also very cool, letting you spread around rerolls of 1s once the big ugly stuff is gone.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/16 20:29:09


Post by: Vector Strike


People should ask Fw for clarification for both nova abilities (1-2 weapons and escape thrust being able to move or not)


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 00:07:42


Post by: Backfire


MilkmanAl wrote:
S5 is worse against T3, but that's it. I'd actually argue that FW got a substantial buff from the to-wound table, rather than a nerf. You won't be mowing down guardsmen like you used to, I suppose, but now you can tackle light vehicles competently and even take a few chunks out of superheavies through weight of fire. That's a huge improvement.


But it's not a big advantage over other infantry in the game, most of which has S4 guns. Most vehicles and monstrous creatures are T6 or T7, and against them S4 and S5 perform identically. Pulse Rifles only have an advantage against T8 monsters/tanks.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 00:15:48


Post by: MilkmanAl


Which is significant, right? Those T8 models are the nasty monstrosities that you want dead ASAP, and pulse rifles are twice as effective as other factions' basic guns against them.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 00:29:18


Post by: A Town Called Malus


MilkmanAl wrote:
Which is significant, right? Those T8 models are the nasty monstrosities that you want dead ASAP, and pulse rifles are twice as effective as other factions' basic guns against them.


Being twice as effective as a lasgun against T8+ is not very significant as you're twice as effective as possibly the worst choice to kill that kind of unit. And IG can field over twice as many Lasguns as our Pulse Rifles for similar cost.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 01:47:37


Post by: MilkmanAl


I suppose that's true. Getting out-horded by IG isn't surprising, though. I like how we stack up against the rest of the field, however.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 09:28:29


Post by: BoomWolf


Suks wrote:

3. I am not on the R.I.P.tide train. Yes, I think the Ion Accelerator loadout is way overpriced, BUT I the HBC with ATS is looking pretty savage to me for 320. Anything that can take 2 smart missile systems with ATS is valuable. Yes it went up in points, but so did a LOT of stuff, and I think that it will be a lot more durable than other similar platforms. Again, maybe this is my over optimism.

4. I think markerlight is just dead. I'm surprised to see that some people are still building lists with marker. To get a decent benefit you need to make your average at 5 hits, which means you need at least 10 lights. If you want to make it RELIABLY, you need more like 14 lights. Assuming you go first and don't take any casualties. So now you really need more like 18-20. JUST to reliably get +1 bs stacked on a SINGLE target. I see them as being just completely unusable.

Overall I am super pumped to try to find a way to play T'au as a mobile and agressive list rather than the boring castle play that we experienced in 7th. Don't believe the bad press.



3-Run the math and you'll see that it's simply not.
Even with the NOVA active, there is not a single target in the entire game where the riptide gets a decent wound-per-point ratio, being always outclassed by the coldstar, gun drones, weapon carrying pathfinders, heck even flamer crisis somehow dout-reforms it against even tanks.
The riptide costs like an IK, it doesn't do anything remotely close to it.

4-I tend to agree, but if you made the mistake of taking any tanks or big suits, you need that 3 markers to counteract the "moving with heavy" penalty.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 12:16:28


Post by: xmbk


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
MilkmanAl wrote:
Which is significant, right? Those T8 models are the nasty monstrosities that you want dead ASAP, and pulse rifles are twice as effective as other factions' basic guns against them.


Being twice as effective as a lasgun against T8+ is not very significant as you're twice as effective as possibly the worst choice to kill that kind of unit. And IG can field over twice as many Lasguns as our Pulse Rifles for similar cost.


Also better against T4 and T5. Plus T3, T6 and T7 when compared to S3, the original point. S5 clearly is meaningful.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 19:51:08


Post by: astro_nomicon


This is my buddies 2k list. What do you all think?

2 cadre fireblades

2 squads of 5 firewarriors
Squad of 9 firewarriors

2 devilfish w/ sms

9 marker drones

Farsight

3x Commander w/ 4 Fusion

Commander w/ 4 CIB

Commander w/ 3 Missile Pods, Drone Controller

Stormsurge w/ Blastcannon, ATS, EWO, Shield Gen


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 22:00:25


Post by: BoomWolf


I'm finding it hard to figure out what is he even planning with 2 fireblades yet so few infantry...


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 22:48:53


Post by: astro_nomicon


I was kind of wondering the same thing. Any thoughts beyond that though?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 23:04:06


Post by: Aeri


1)
I think the biggest issue T'au are facing is the possibility of first turn assaults.
We cannot improve our overwatch to godlike levels anymore and are still pretty much screwed in close combat.

What do you think is the best way to prevent this?

I think there are only 2 choices, either broadsides or a stormsurge with EWOs.
2 Missilesides with EWO cost 420 Points.
1 Stormsurge with AFP, Pulseblastcannon, EWO and ATS costs ~450 Points.

The EWO does not prevent us from shooting in our turn anymore!
--> I think stormsurges might get a fixed spot in our lists because of it's ability to deny first turn charges.
It even is perfekt to counter trygons delivering gaunts!
Opinions?

2)
The devilfish seems solid but costly, like in 7th ed.
It cannot take any support systems though (ats would have been nice)
Do you think we need TY7s?
Do you think they are worth 127 Points?
Since Gundrones are so much better now, I dont think SMS are worth 40 (!) points, do you?
2 TY7 + 2x10 Strikes are 414 Points, but could be a unit to grab objectives fast and prevent Strikes from getting shot. (this actually was one of the biggest issues I faced in my test games.)
Since objectives are held by pure body count, I think delivering strike squads is very important in 8th ed!


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/17 23:26:51


Post by: The Shrike


I think we're a horde army now at our best; so the answer to first turn assaults is to allow them to attack chaff units like Kroot Hounds (we can take 100 for 400 points.....). The other piece of the puzzle is to leave half our army in reserves to manta strike.

So for example, let's say my army is 2x Y'Vahras, a quad fusion commander, a coldstar, 100+ kroot hounds and a stormsurge with the works. (About 2k). I place my y-tides and fusion commander in reserve, and use my hordes of hounds to bubble wrap my bubble wrap around my surge and coldstar (deployed behind surge so he's not the closest unt). i dare my opponent to assault my cheap crap, and keep them outside the melta bubble of my surge with ewo.

Embrace the horde....(and find cheap 3rd party proxies for kroot hounds)


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 00:51:37


Post by: BoomWolf


 The Shrike wrote:
I think we're a horde army now at our best; so the answer to first turn assaults is to allow them to attack chaff units like Kroot Hounds (we can take 100 for 400 points.....). The other piece of the puzzle is to leave half our army in reserves to manta strike.

So for example, let's say my army is 2x Y'Vahras, a quad fusion commander, a coldstar, 100+ kroot hounds and a stormsurge with the works. (About 2k). I place my y-tides and fusion commander in reserve, and use my hordes of hounds to bubble wrap my bubble wrap around my surge and coldstar (deployed behind surge so he's not the closest unt). i dare my opponent to assault my cheap crap, and keep them outside the melta bubble of my surge with ewo.

Embrace the horde....(and find cheap 3rd party proxies for kroot hounds)


You are right on the horde, but wrong on the unit horded.
You horde drones.

They are brutal in overwatch, creepy effective in shooting in general against most things, cheap, fast, durable enough, and are the ultimate meatshield for your important tau units as they can tank fro your characters even when behind them. (and for other battlesuits/infantry too)

Drones are currently the crutch holding together the mess that is the tau index.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 02:05:13


Post by: Retrogamer0001


Shame to see what they've done to so many Tau units - nerf them into oblivion. I'm suprised that more people aren't upset about the thrashing the Riptide has received at the hands of GW - almost every Tau player had one or more of these expensive models, and now they're little more than paperweights.

I don't entirely blame GW for this though, but the spiteful player base calling for the Tau to be gutted...well, GW was listening, and they were not kind with the knife. Did some units need rebalancing? Absolutely. Did those units need to be made nearly useless? Absolutely not.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 02:45:11


Post by: Amishprn86


 Desubot wrote:
I dont think markerlights are straight dead.

you can shoot off a couple and you dont need the full 5 dot shebang.

getting 1 is already good enough.
2 is a little meh unless you are building a seeker list
3 is only really beneficial for i think infantry with heavy weapons OR extra markerlights on the move. technically since all shots are individual one at a time, you shoot of one markerlight at a time till you hit. after which any additional hits are reroll 1s so you have a slightly better chance to hit any additional shots. (i think)

4 is really good but is situational useless if they are not in cover.

5 is the grand poobaa but its going to take a bit to get to.

i honestly think just the one marker light hit is pretty powerful as its often a normal HQ level power.


Having never play Tau and looking at them for the 1st time, i dont think Markerlights are easy to get and amazing!

Tau seems so much more fun now, i'm starting them atm.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 04:20:38


Post by: ant7


I am getting back in the game after a few years off. I am seriously considering tau. I like the fire warriors and pathfinder models. I have read a couple of posts saying they are good if spammed. Do you more experienced players think so?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 11:20:54


Post by: The Shrike


I think drones are good; but having to fire at the closest target will be so easily exploited by good players. Kroot hounds are half the points; fast, and still hit reasonably hard on the charge.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 11:43:48


Post by: MoD_Legion


Imho its quite obvious that in the line 'can fire using a weapon's Nova profile' the singular element references the Nova profile and not the weapon. It simple states that when shooting all your weapons, you can choose to use the nova profile (if the weapon has one) to do so, no restrictions that its only allowed for one weapon.

To stay in the farmer example, when meeting farmer John you are allowed to pet his cow(s), but not on head. However, if you give him a tenner, while petting a cow you are allowed to pet a cow's head. How many cows are you allowed to pet on the head?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 12:06:01


Post by: Biophysical


I'm working on theory still, here, but it strikes me that Cadre Fireblades can really underpin any Markerlight strategy. Say you've got 3 squads of Fire Warriors supported by a Cadre Fireblade for objective holding and back line defense. The Fireblade starts by firing a Markerlight at a target with a high probability to hit (now everyone re-rolls 1s). Then the Fire Warrior Shas'uis can roll their Markerlights, getting 1-2 more hits. If you've got a single Pathfinder unit, this is probably enough to get the extra 2-3 hits for the jackpot 5 hits. Alternatively it makes it easy to dole out single hits for when split fire is the right choice. This isn't even including other penny packets of Markerlights like Stealth Suit team leaders or a few Markerlight drones thrown in the mix. All of these things strike me as pretty minimal investment for a big potential payoff. With the exception of Pathfinders, you're just paying for the Markerlights themselves on units that are useful in their own right.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 12:11:59


Post by: MilkmanAl


 The Shrike wrote:
I think drones are good; but having to fire at the closest target will be so easily exploited by good players. Kroot hounds are half the points; fast, and still hit reasonably hard on the charge.
I don't think that limitation can be exploited very easily. Really the only thing you don't want drones shooting at is T6+ stuff with a 2+ save, and even then, weight of fire can drag them down. Drones are reasonably fast, so you can likely maneuver away from any impending Land Raiders or whatever and get shots at more appropriate targets. You also probably have the option of just blasting that hard target away so your drones can frolic. Kroot Hounds are an interesting option, but I think it's pretty hard to ignore our 8pt burst cannons.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 12:19:03


Post by: Pottsey


Is this right Stealth -1 to hit means if plasma shoots at you and roles a 2 it becomes 1 and explodes? Likewise without stealth if a unit has +1 to hit then it won’t explode on a roll of 1? Stealth suits also look better in CC as that -1 effects CC hits and the unit can withdraw from CC and shoot weapons.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 12:51:26


Post by: Vector Strike


BoomWolf wrote:
You are right on the horde, but wrong on the unit horded.
You horde drones.

They are brutal in overwatch, creepy effective in shooting in general against most things, cheap, fast, durable enough, and are the ultimate meatshield for your important tau units as they can tank fro your characters even when behind them. (and for other battlesuits/infantry too)

Drones are currently the crutch holding together the mess that is the tau index.


I think Drones would be good as a cushion behind the Kroot Hounds. If the enemy charges the Hounds (and it'll have to), the Drones can help with overwatch

Something like this:



Pottsey wrote:Is this right Stealth -1 to hit means if plasma shoots at you and roles a 2 it becomes 1 and explodes? Likewise without stealth if a unit has +1 to hit then it won’t explode on a roll of 1? Stealth suits also look better in CC as that -1 effects CC hits and the unit can withdraw from CC and shoot weapons.


As per the Designer's Commentaries (aka 'first FAQ'), yes. Unless the rules say 'unmodified rolls of X' (like overwatch), modifiers indeed stop overheating.
Is there anything in T'au index that gives us +1 to hit? I've seen re-rolls of 1 and +1BS, but not modifiers to the roll itself, IIRC.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 13:33:29


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 Vector Strike wrote:

Is there anything in T'au index that gives us +1 to hit? I've seen re-rolls of 1 and +1BS, but not modifiers to the roll itself, IIRC.


5 Markerlights.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 13:39:31


Post by: doc1234


Anyone had any thoughts on using the XV8s third slot for a flamer? Along with a pair of regular weapons i mean as opposed to a tripflame suit. An autohitting overwatch deterrent seems like it'd be useful with the new charge system.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 13:39:47


Post by: The Shrike


 Vector Strike wrote:
BoomWolf wrote:
You are right on the horde, but wrong on the unit horded.
You horde drones.

They are brutal in overwatch, creepy effective in shooting in general against most things, cheap, fast, durable enough, and are the ultimate meatshield for your important tau units as they can tank fro your characters even when behind them. (and for other battlesuits/infantry too)

Drones are currently the crutch holding together the mess that is the tau index.


I think Drones would be good as a cushion behind the Kroot Hounds. If the enemy charges the Hounds (and it'll have to), the Drones can help with overwatch

Something like this:




I like this idea. Maybe instead of 100 hounds, it's 60 hounds and 20 Gun Drones (5 units of 4). That's an even 12 fast attack slots with my two Y'Vahras. So two Outrider detachments. Perfect.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 14:35:40


Post by: Vector Strike


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 Vector Strike wrote:

Is there anything in T'au index that gives us +1 to hit? I've seen re-rolls of 1 and +1BS, but not modifiers to the roll itself, IIRC.


5 Markerlights.


And here I was, thinking 5 MLs gave +1 BS. They give +1 to hit, which is even better.
Now to get those 5 Mls reliably...


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 14:48:43


Post by: MilkmanAl


100pts of Pathfinders should do the trick. I don't think you're going to find more than 1-2 targets in armies worthy of that kind of focused fire, so you really don't need as many markers as it may initially appear. It seems to me that many people are caught up in 7th rules where you wanted like 15% of your army to be marker lights. Now, that amount is excessive at best and outright wasteful at worst. Take enough to reliably get your 5 hits on something giant, even if they have to weather a turn of shooting, and be done with it. Afterward, you're probably best splitting your markers up for rerolling 1s, which is, in my opinion, the second best buff after +1 to hit.

I like the idea of markers being a less significant part of our army points-wise, but their diminished role and importance hurts the synergistic aspect of Tau armies I enjoyed so much in previous editions. I mean, it's not all bad, but I like having to weave different units together for greater effect. It adds a lot of depth to the game play and list building. We still have that quality to an extent, but it seems like Tau have trended more towards being individual units, even with the new drone rules.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 14:55:57


Post by: Amishprn86


 Vector Strike wrote:
 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 Vector Strike wrote:

Is there anything in T'au index that gives us +1 to hit? I've seen re-rolls of 1 and +1BS, but not modifiers to the roll itself, IIRC.


5 Markerlights.


And here I was, thinking 5 MLs gave +1 BS. They give +1 to hit, which is even better.
Now to get those 5 Mls reliably...


This will be easier than you think once you start looking at the cool combos you can do.

Between the special character, drones, vehicles etc.. you will be able to get 1 uit at full and a few units with 1-2 if need be.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 15:28:44


Post by: xmbk


Three games now with a 9-flamer suit team using the homing beacon. Great results against SM and IG. Can really impact your opponent's strategy.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 16:25:01


Post by: MilkmanAl


I played around some with an all-flamer suit lineup coupled with promethium pipes in 7th, and it was unexpectedly awesome. I'm very interested to see how they adapt the pipes to the current rule set and may have to repeat my flamer madness if it feels right.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 16:44:42


Post by: The Shrike


MilkmanAl wrote:
I played around some with an all-flamer suit lineup coupled with promethium pipes in 7th, and it was unexpectedly awesome. I'm very interested to see how they adapt the pipes to the current rule set and may have to repeat my flamer madness if it feels right.


As fun as that sounds, I think terrain is going to be faction specific now. In matched play I think it might be tidewall or nothing for us.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 16:50:48


Post by: Talamare


xmbk wrote:
Three games now with a 9-flamer suit team using the homing beacon. Great results against SM and IG. Can really impact your opponent's strategy.

9 Crisis Suits with Flamers?
By the way, Crisis Suits can now use and fire 3 Weapons each. Meaning 9 Suits would be 27d6.
This would also be 69 points per suit, or 621 points. (ATS would be 1 point per suit cheaper, or 612 points)

As far as TriFlamers vs TwinFlamer ATS
vs MEQ
27 * 3.5 * 1/2 * 1/3 = 15.75
18 * 3.5 * 1/2 * 1/2 = 15.75

vs GEQ
27 * 3.5 * 2/3 * 2/3 = 42
18 * 3.5 * 2/3 * 5/6 = 35

vs BEQ
27 * 3.5 * 1/2 * 5/6 = 39.37
18 * 3.5 * 1/2 * 6/6 = 31.5

vs TEQ
27 * 3.5 * 1/2 * 1/6 = 7.87
18 * 3.5 * 1/2 * 1/3 = 10.5

vs Rhino/Dread
27 * 3.5 * 1/3 * 1/3 = 10.5
18 * 3.5 * 1/3 * 1/2 = 10.5


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 16:51:44


Post by: Aeri


MoD_Legion wrote:
Imho its quite obvious that in the line 'can fire using a weapon's Nova profile' the singular element references the Nova profile and not the weapon. It simple states that when shooting all your weapons, you can choose to use the nova profile (if the weapon has one) to do so, no restrictions that its only allowed for one weapon.

To stay in the farmer example, when meeting farmer John you are allowed to pet his cow(s), but not on head. However, if you give him a tenner, while petting a cow you are allowed to pet a cow's head. How many cows are you allowed to pet on the head?


No need to discuss this any further, he is the only one arguing you can't shoot both an he disqualified himself with that "cow" example that doesn't even fit the situation...


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 17:00:24


Post by: Vector Strike


I have a question on Homing Beacon. It says "(...) If there are any friendly homing beacons on the battlefield at the end of your Movement phase, one of your <SEPT> units that has been set up in a Manta hold can perform a low-altitude drop instead of a Manta strike."

Does it mean that, no matter the number of friendly homing beacons on the game in a particular phase, I can bring only 1 unit this way? Or can I bring at least 1:1 unit per homing beacon?

The Shrike wrote:
MilkmanAl wrote:
I played around some with an all-flamer suit lineup coupled with promethium pipes in 7th, and it was unexpectedly awesome. I'm very interested to see how they adapt the pipes to the current rule set and may have to repeat my flamer madness if it feels right.


As fun as that sounds, I think terrain is going to be faction specific now. In matched play I think it might be tidewall or nothing for us.


Just checked Index Imperium 2; all fortifications there are Unaligned.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 17:25:24


Post by: MilkmanAl


Ah, interesting. I didn't realize fortifications were in Imperial 2. If promethium pipes still make things "torrent," which looks to be 16" range, that could be brutally awesome on flamer suits. That volume of medium-range autohits with split fire damn near breaks the game. That's all speculation, of course, but I'm veeeeeery interested in this scheme.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 17:35:45


Post by: Vector Strike


Pipelines are just terrain now. Act as barricades but, for each final roll of 7+ (like rolling a 6 when using it as cover), roll another die; if you roll an 1, the unit suffers a mortal wound.

Nothing on turning fire stuff into 'torrent'


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 17:36:09


Post by: Aenar


 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Shame to see what they've done to so many Tau units - nerf them into oblivion. I'm suprised that more people aren't upset about the thrashing the Riptide has received at the hands of GW - almost every Tau player had one or more of these expensive models, and now they're little more than paperweights.

I don't entirely blame GW for this though, but the spiteful player base calling for the Tau to be gutted...well, GW was listening, and they were not kind with the knife. Did some units need rebalancing? Absolutely. Did those units need to be made nearly useless? Absolutely not.

Same here. I consider myself lucky to have multiple armies, but my favourite one (Tau) just does not look interesting to play anymore. I'll keep painting whatever models I have still unpainted but my planned purchases are for those other armies I have.
Whether a unit is viable or not to play is, sadly, one of the factors for me when considering a new purchase. I guess that Tau sold too well in the last few years and now GW has to push some other factions.

As for the Riptide, I have only one of them and it is simply overcosted for what it does. I can't find room for it in any list I make.

What buggles me is a lot of combined changes, both in the general rules and Tau-specific ones. I simply cannot accept that the only viable lists include hundreds of Gun Drones or Kroot Hounds, didn't they tell us that "everything will be viable and balanced"?
Let's wait for a Codex and hope for the best.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 18:02:28


Post by: Aeri


What the riptide broke was the kind of player, that brought 3 or even more of them to the table.
1 riptide was a perfectly reasonable unit. A very good and tough one, but not broken. I expected a slight pointraise or some nerfs to it, but this is just crazy.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 18:05:30


Post by: Pottsey


 Vector Strike wrote:
BoomWolf wrote:
You are right on the horde, but wrong on the unit horded.
You horde drones.

They are brutal in overwatch, creepy effective in shooting in general against most things, cheap, fast, durable enough, and are the ultimate meatshield for your important tau units as they can tank fro your characters even when behind them. (and for other battlesuits/infantry too)

Drones are currently the crutch holding together the mess that is the tau index.


I think Drones would be good as a cushion behind the Kroot Hounds. If the enemy charges the Hounds (and it'll have to), the Drones can help with overwatch

Something like this:



Pottsey wrote:Is this right Stealth -1 to hit means if plasma shoots at you and roles a 2 it becomes 1 and explodes? Likewise without stealth if a unit has +1 to hit then it won’t explode on a roll of 1? Stealth suits also look better in CC as that -1 effects CC hits and the unit can withdraw from CC and shoot weapons.


As per the Designer's Commentaries (aka 'first FAQ'), yes. Unless the rules say 'unmodified rolls of X' (like overwatch), modifiers indeed stop overheating.
Is there anything in T'au index that gives us +1 to hit? I've seen re-rolls of 1 and +1BS, but not modifiers to the roll itself, IIRC.

Longstrike gives +1 to hit to other hammerheads which I means you can overcharge Ion cannons without risk of overload. Which might be nice as that's D6 against units if 10+ models.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 18:24:21


Post by: MilkmanAl


 Vector Strike wrote:
Pipelines are just terrain now. Act as barricades but, for each final roll of 7+ (like rolling a 6 when using it as cover), roll another die; if you roll an 1, the unit suffers a mortal wound.

Nothing on turning fire stuff into 'torrent'
Well crap.

By the way, I agree with the "WTF?!" sentiment about most of our bigger units. I was cautiously optimistic that maybe the costs would prove okay-ish in the larger picture of the game, but those hopes have largely been dashed. Stormsurges are usable, and I like the idea of an EWO Surge protecting stuff from drops. That said, it seems like the best way to play Tau is massed troops plus doing the dropping, yourself, so that counter-strategy may not really be terribly useful. Ghostkeels are interesting as speedy forward distraction units, but again with the drops. Crisis Suits are overcosted, and R.I.P.tides are a calamity. I'm hopeful that the Forgeworld suits will ease the pain a little, and the Y'Vahra looks like a promising start, even though it's going to be 400+ points.

As it stands, if you're going to win games, we're a horde army supported by Commanders. I think that's actually going to be a competitive strategy, but there aren't a whole lot of other viable options that I see. Perhaps someone will blow us all away with their Vespid/Piranha spam list or something, but we need that codex STAT.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 18:30:02


Post by: Aeri


After reading the FAQ:

How do the bonusses of 1 and 5 Markerlights work together?

I cannot reroll 1s if I have 5 ML, can I ?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 18:38:02


Post by: MilkmanAl


Aeri wrote:
After reading the FAQ:

How do the bonusses of 1 and 5 Markerlights work together?

I cannot reroll 1s if I have 5 ML, can I ?
Fortunately, they state explicitly that "re-rolls always happen before modifiers," which makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than the other way around, which a lot of people seemed to think was the case.


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 20:31:18


Post by: Amishprn86


There was a FAQ?


Tau 8th Edition Tactics @ 2017/06/18 20:45:51


Post by: MilkmanAl


It's linked in the rumors forum. It's actually very useful and answered a lot of questions I had.