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I have just started playing 40k and im collecting Tau
i dont know what to put in my army.

Volumes have been written on the subject, and I've done a lot of the writing. There's a couple of threads worth your reading effort:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229095.page

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/264765.page

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/247674.page (especially this link)


In addition, read the Tactica on Tau.

No matter what:

-Kroot (10 strong squads, lots of hounds).
-Railguns (Hammerheads or Broadsides, or both)
-Crisis Suits
-Six strong fire warriors only

Fearspect wrote:No matter what:

-Kroot (10 strong squads, lots of hounds).
-Railguns (Hammerheads or Broadsides, or both)
-Crisis Suits
-Six strong fire warriors only

1. Kroot are personal preference. I refuse to use them because they take away points from the true strength of Tau: Shooty goodness.

2. Taking Hammerheads to use for anti-tank is a mistake. I've math-hammered it out elsewhere (as have many, many other people). Anti-tank comes in the form of broadside battlesuits or pirhana squads.

3. Six-strong firewarriors is also personal preference and *very* situationally dependent based on your army type. I typically play a static gun-line, and have 36-60 firewarriors in my army depending on the point level from 1500-1850. For a mobile Tau list, sticking six in a devilfish and holding them back in hopes of taking or contesting objectives late game is viable.

Personally, I'm an all or nothing player. In an 1850 game, I have 1,850 points worth of firepower on the table in turn one, holding nothing back and am counting on tabling, causing massive pinning tests, and in general wiping out my opponent. Annihilation games are almost an auto-win for Tau gunlines (I use 4-6 Broadsides with target locks), and in objective-based games, I spend turn one and two destroying half the enemy army, then march my 12-man firewarrior squads into cover to hold objectives giving them markerlight support so that they hit on 2+ and wound most everything on 3+. 12-24 shots per squad. Helios suits wipe out terminators and anything nasty enough to shrug off firewarriors, and between my 4-6 railguns capable of shooting at up to 4 vehicles per turn (not to mention the backup fusion blasters on Helios suits), there's virtually never a game where the enemy has armor left on the table at the end.

Outflanking and speedy armies can be dealt with through tactical sense. That's my two cents on the matter; pick a theme. Gunline (pure firepower), Mobile (no troops on the ground, vehicles playing hide-and-seek the whole game), or Kroot (obvious here).

I believe that if you're going to do something, give it your all; I don't subscribe to half-measures or mixed theme armies. When I play Tau, there are four kinds of opponents:

1. Those who will have a shooting match with you.
2. Those with an assault-based army.
3. Those who are going to try shooting at you and assaulting you.
4. Those who are going to try outflanking and deepstriking against you.

Each of those can be dealt with by a gunline in a couple ways.

1. Lol. Seriously, LOL. They might as well not even unpack their models.
2. You're going to spend 2-3 turns having your entire army lay into their army. If you've taken a good assortment of AP2-3 weaponry and vehicle killing stuff with markerlight support, they won't make it to you and you win. If they make it to you, you lose. These are the hardest matches for Tau.
3. Split forces are great. Your entire army is going to expend most of its firepower at half their army (the assault portion), and wipe it out. Then you're going to turn on the shooting portion and wipe it out too. As for you taking fire in the meantime, cover saves are great.
4. A box in the middle of the table to prevent one-turn assaults from the flanks means that your entire army has 2 turns to fire at whatever isn't in reserves. When the reserves start coming out, you get to deal with them piecemeal. If the dice make your opponent come out on both your flanks; pick a side, move towards it and destroy anything over there to give yourself an extra turn protected from the stuff on the other side (Tyranid genestealers in particular). Firewarriors also make great meatshield units to protect rear and flanks.

In fact, firewarriors make better meatshield units than Kroot. Know why? Both firewarriors and kroot are going to get the snot beat out of them when they get assaulted (or vice versus) but at least firewarriors have pulse rifles to kill stuff before it gets there.

I accept and respect your decision to play them how you do, obviously you have a lot of experience with them, and it shows.

I will just toss it out there though: Since the IG came out with their new codex, I feel there is a reasonable contender to match you quite well on a shoot-out: Mech IG.

That match comes down to who gets that first round of shooting in, but I will say that my scouting vendettas + melta ccs along with a heap of Hydras for Heavy Support neutered their big guns immediately in the last tournament I played this weekend. The rest was just cleanup.

Things would have gone differently if he stole the initiative though...

I don't mind playing against mechanized IG at all.

If I end up going second, I have advanced stabilization systems to walk my units on the board firing. Honestly though, it would depend heavily on terrain. A broadside unit for me is 2-3 broadsides, one with a target lock, and mandatory 2x Shield drones. If you can punch through my 2+ armor save (drones get 2+ armor save too) then I have a 4+ invulnerable save and likely a 4+ cover save as well. Short of getting assaulted (which I prevent by strategic placement) I'm not worried about getting outshot. In fact, the only shooting army that is remotely scary is the Ork gunline based around 45 Lootas.

Fearspect wrote:No matter what:

-Kroot (10 strong squads, lots of hounds).
-Railguns (Hammerheads or Broadsides, or both)
-Crisis Suits
-Six strong fire warriors only

This is not quite valid advice. It all depends on how you fit the army together and the different pieces and parts must support each other rather than spamming certain units.

I would say the hybrid list is the strongest.

Gunline
A gunline is relatively weak since the speed of the game has been greatly enhanced. Within 2 turns most enemies will be on your gunline assaulting you - one place you do not want to be at. You have tons of shots but you have relatively slow mobility.

Mechanized
With mechanized you spend tons of points. A pure mechanized list will only have 3 Railguns on Hammerheads - with BS4 you'll be missing 33% of the time according to the math (not including markerlights). It's also very expensive to mechanize. You have great mobility since everything can move 12" and fire at least 1 weapon (Crisis suits get a 6" assault move and multtrackers allow vehicles to fire if they were fast).

Hybrid
Take the good parts from the two lists above. Broad sides give you tremendous firepower from a long range. They will hit 75% of the time and S10 will destroy most vehicles. Add in transports with multitrackers and you have manueverable troops that always have a 4+ cover save on the transport.

Kroot are a counter-charge unit or a unit to outflank and to deny the board to others by infiltrating. The Larger the squad the better. It's all a numbers game with them. After a leadership test they will more than likely flee off the board.

Firewarriors are a basic troop that needs to stay at range. At rapid fire range they die. Support them with Kroot nearby to counter charge any assault unit nearby.

Crisis Suits are the catch all unit. Generalized they lose much of their power but when specialized correctly they will burn through enemy units. Jump Shot Jump and take advantage of cover. Devilfish provide great move able cover platforms that always get a gover save at 12+ inches.

Stelathsuits are an annoyance unit. They work well in support roles as a stealth marker team as well.

Broadsides are anti-tank and anti-powerful unit units. Instant Death things like obliterators. Take ASS and be able to move and deny distant cover saves as well. Take shield drones to make them more suvivorable.

Hamemrheads can be made into Anti-MEq or Anti-Tank/Anti-Horde units. The Railgun with submunitions takes out most troops except ones in power armor.

Start with a small list and add in the different parts where you are weak. There are tons of anti-tank and anti-GEq in Tau. Find a list and know what the units can do. Together the units mesh amazingly well but if you make a wrong move the Tau are very unforgiving.

Kroot are personal preference. I refuse to use them because they take away points from the true strength of Tau: Shooty goodness.

I don't see how that's the case. Pound-for-pound, Kroot are pretty much equivalent to Fire Warriors at shooting. You give up a little bit of punch against MC's and things with 5+ saves in exchange for a little boost against everything else. Light vehicles are a wash, in my opinion, since those should be getting gunned down in a hurry by missile pods on Crisis suits. Trading a 4+ save and 6" of rapid fire range for remarkably better close combat ability, a better cover save, and increased deployment options/mobility is worth it to me any day. Nobody said that Kroot have to infiltrate. Stick 'em around your other units, and fire away as you would with Fire Warriors.

MilkmanAl wrote:

Kroot are personal preference. I refuse to use them because they take away points from the true strength of Tau: Shooty goodness.

I don't see how that's the case. Pound-for-pound, Kroot are pretty much equivalent to Fire Warriors at shooting. You give up a little bit of punch against MC's and things with 5+ saves in exchange for a little boost against everything else. Light vehicles are a wash, in my opinion, since those should be getting gunned down in a hurry by missile pods on Crisis suits. Trading a 4+ save and 6" of rapid fire range for remarkably better close combat ability, a better cover save, and increased deployment options/mobility is worth it to me any day. Nobody said that Kroot have to infiltrate. Stick 'em around your other units, and fire away as you would with Fire Warriors.

As a gunline, Kroot are nowhere near as good as Fire warriors. Firewarriors for one can use markerlights whereas Kroot cannot. Also, when facing Imperial Guard that AP5 weaponry will deny armor saves to the majority of the army whereas the Kroot will not. The fact that markerlights can strip off cover saves from a distance for the Firewarriors and up the ballistics skill as well completely negates the argument in mind mind at which unit is better at shooting.

The two units are best used in combination. Set up the firewarriors with firing lanes and outflank the Kroot or keep them behind the firewarriors. When you outflank you force the enemy down the middle by having a unit with a large amount of attacks on the charge denying 12" in from the table edge with 3 attacks per model on the charge. If the Kroot are behind the fire warriors it is like them having a 4+ armor save they always receive.

Firewarriors are immensely better at shooting. Kroot are an excellent counter-charge unit with a serious amount of dice rolled on the charge. Like I had said before the Tau army is one of combined arms - all units have their worth increased when used in conjunction with other units on the board.

Eh, like I said, Fire Warriors and Kroot are, overall, pretty much the same in terms of killing power without any bonuses. Markerlights are definitely very nice, though. I always forget that Kroot can't use them since I never really use counters on anything other than suits.

MilkmanAl wrote:I don't see how that's the case. Pound-for-pound, Kroot are pretty much equivalent to Fire Warriors at shooting.

I guess that all I can say here is that I would invite you to lay down your combined forced Kroot/Tau on the table against my pure Tau, and see what happens. Having been there before, pound-for-pound, I can reasonably expect you to get monkey stomped with all those points worth of voluntarily sacrificed firepower.

You seem to be a fan of mathhammer. Work it out. 7 Fire Warriors and 10 Kroot are surprisingly even. Markerlights are what tip the balance in favor of Fire Warriors. You're ignoring that Kroot are more of an all-comers choice since they provide some desperation close combat ability. Without that, Fire Warriors would obviously be better overall. If you want to risk having an assault on your lines essentially being game over in favor of the all-out shooting bonanza list, go for it. I'd personally rather sacrifice a bit of my long-range crowd control (which might not even be a sacrifice at all if your markerlights aren't being used on the Warriors) in favor of having a panic button.

I can't speak for your playstyle, but if your Tau army needs some desperation close combat abilities, you probably did something wrong.

A dead one!

Well really I would have to agree with pepper on several of his posts.

Dashofpepper wrote:I can't speak for your playstyle, but if your Tau army needs some desperation close combat abilities, you probably did something wrong.

Probably so, but it's about preparing for all situations. I don't run as many markerlights as you apparently do, so I'm not sacrificing any firepower taking the superior HtH troops. Kroot are also nice for the Snikrot cluster&%$# that I find myself up against fairly often.

Dashofpepper wrote:I can't speak for your playstyle, but if your Tau army needs some desperation close combat abilities, you probably did something wrong.

No, it means your opponent is doing something right.

Unless everybody in your area is still playing foot marines, CC is an inevitability and you have to accept something important about that to get past it - you don't need to win in CC, you just need to lose with the units that are least valuable and least likely to keep your opponents tied up during your turn. This is why you take kroot. They might take an objective. They might soak up some firepower if your opponent is dumb enough to shoot them in woods. They WILL protect your units from CC, but not by being a "countercharge" unit. Go ahead, charge those marines. Oh look, you lost combat and now it's your opponents' turn. Way to be productive man, you just killed your own squad for him. That's not a speed bump, that's a free KP! Their job is to force your opponent to deal with them first either by shooting (templates are the only things that kill them unless terrain sucks, yay for 2+ cover saves) or by rolling over them in his turn. After he charges them, he's left sitting in the open. You could do the same things with fire warriors, but if I'm buying bodies why would I pay 3 points more for fewer deployment options? Seems silly to me.

How often do you play against demons? Does your "shoot them down in 2 turns" strategy work there? How about a wolf heavy SW list? Mechanized space marines or eldar? I'm honestly curious what armies you play regularly that lead you to your chosen playstyle.

Fire warriors really are a waste of points unless you're trying to flood the field with devilfish, and then are a dubious investment at best. Their leadership sucks, their survivability sucks, they're too expensive and their shooting is less than impressive. Go ahead, give them markerlights. Your 12 strong unit of FWs + the pathfinders to make them good are now ~220 points (not even counting the mandatory transport) for either 12 BS 5 S 5 shots at 30" or 12 BS 5 S 5 shots at 12" - 4 dead marines. Your 220 points for my 60. Why yes, I will take that trade. Then I'll charge you for being within 12" of me. Good investment, no? Meanwhile your crisis suits are chilling there wondering what the hell they did to forfeit valuable markerlights to gimpy units.

Basically, there's a better choice than FW for any purpose. They're not really good at anything. Which means they're bad at everything. I'll pass.

Hybridized tau with the proper bubblewrap to keep your army safe and active all 7 turns (yes, really! It is possible!) with slightly lower firepower is better than an all or nothing alpha strike - because you can't really alpha strike. There will be targets left. They will catch you. The game will go downhill from there. If your can keep your enemy at arm's length for the whole game, what can he do to you? He can shoot at your suits - through cover. He can shoot at your vehicles - with disruption pods. Tau win by playing the denial game and digging into your deployment zone and hoping you can kill enough of them before they get to you doesn't work for them.

Balanced armies win reliably against anything. The "specialist" tau really can be take all comers, believe it or not. Gun lines are well and good while your group is learning, but if your opponents continue to learn they'll figure out that they can beat you with target saturation, outflanking units, fast scouts. You'll wish you had kroot when you have six Valkyries dropping veterans in your face on turn one.

My ideal list would have kroot, pathfinders, one 6 man FW squad per pathfinder unit to make their boat scoring, plasma/missile suits, 1 unit of broadsides, 2 hammerheads. Season with piranhas to taste.

Note that the above is not valid if you do not regularly play against quality opponents, and I'm sure many gun-line proponents will be lining up to crow about their victories over foot orcs, foot marines, foot eldar, etc. Those don't count, folks.

Kroot are a must against ork armies. played a game recently where and opponent underestimated my kroot squad and got his stormboyz a bit too close. My kroot squad prevented the inevitable rush to CC against my gunline so they were able to focus fire elsewhere.

I actually play Eldar, Space Marines, Tyranids, Imperial Guard, Necrons and Chaos quite often. The Chaos is a mechanized list that will be in close combat as fast as possible. I've also had drop pods in the center of my army before blowing the crap out of them and running away.

Kroot and Fire warriors work well together. Kroot are a great support tool and Firewarriors can give them covering fire. Apart they are about Equal. Firewarriors are better at shooting but Kroot are better close combat players.

rogueeyes wrote:Kroot and Fire warriors work well together. Kroot are a great support tool and Firewarriors can give them covering fire. Apart they are about Equal. Firewarriors are better at shooting but Kroot are better close combat players.

I think that last line should read "Firewarriors are slightly better at shooting and have no close combat ability whatsoever. Also they are overcosted."

Fixed.

@grankbot:
You don't like gunlines, apparently. Sounds like you don't like firewarriors very much, either.

I think I will start by weighing in on the gunline discussion. Welcome to 5th, everyone! In the current metagame, the classic gunline has, for the most part, been nerffed. That said, gunlines can still win. But it's sort of based on luck with the terrain. Your broadsides won't have a problem pwning n00bs in a gunline, since they are usually static anyway. However, your FWs are going to be useless once they are assaulted. This is going to happen quick now that transports are so common in 5th, especially with Valkyries and Drop Pods. That said, an army can still be effective if it is BASED around a static line with some more dynamic elements to it. Like Dashofpepper said, he frequently uses Helios suits to deal with the stuff with armor that's too tough for his pulse rifles. Helios suits have an effective range of 12", and aren't exactly static. It also sounds like he moves his Broadsides around, too, and moves FW's around to meatshield each other, which I have to admit, is not a bad idea, though they are a little expensive for a meatshield unit. My point is, that a true, entirely static gunline, is dead. But, a static gunline with dynamic elements could be a real success, as seems to be the case with Dash's. My only question for Dashofpepper is: if you incorporate Pathfinders into your gunline, which makes sense, what do you do with their fish?

Now, the other heated arguement in this thread seems to be the ancient debate of kroot vs. firewarriors. I like to take a hybrid of the two. My army isn't exactly mech, but it's very mobile. I tend to only take the minimum of two troops, one being FW and one being kroot. True, my strategy often revolves around contesting objectives rather than capturing them, but it usually works all the same. My FW team is 12-man, with a bonding knifed 'ui. They borrow my pathfiners' fish and go around FoFing stuff. FoF isn't as great as it was in 4th, but it still works pretty well if I combine it with crisis support. The kroot, I usually infiltrate and send them in with at least one other unit nearby to assist them. As was previously mentioned, kroot are rediculous on the charge, but be careful who you are assaulting. I once assaulted a Broodlord and his retinue of six genestealers with 12 kroot and only had 2 left by the time it was my initiative turn. Charging doesn't help if you're dead. Oops. Hounds are a force to be reckoned with in CC, though. They are worth taking just for the extra bodies and because they acually make the kroot a legitimately assault focused unit capable of shredding almost anything. However, kroot are not worth shooting with, except in rapid fire range if the enemy is better than them in assault. At least the FWs can use markerlights, but the kroot will always be 4+. And the fact that they have no armor saves makes it so they are forced into cover and can't leave except to assault. That said, objectives are frequently in some form of cover. So if the kroot get to their target objective, or are just camping a home objective, they will be able to hold it well by going to ground and surviving well in an assault, which FWs can't do. FWs will always get sweeping advanced. Always. So, the point is, FW and kroot both have their uses. And lets face it, both of them are kind of crappy, but they can be used well with markerlights, cover, transports, and support from the rest of the army, which is how Tau are meant to be played.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wow, I wrote a lot. I'm sorry.

When I use pathfinders, my devilfish typically sits on a flank to get in the way of outflanking, serves as mobile cover, tank shocks around, and is generally a nuisance until it dies.

Yorick_of_Tau : You havent actually touched the main point, nor discuss what grankobot has pointed out.

On a side note, using tactics is nice. But fielding in subpar units and try to make the best use of them isnt very smart.

My point is, that a true, entirely static gunline, is dead. But, a static gunline with dynamic elements could be a real success, as seems to be the case with Dash's.

Yep, in 5:th those and variations of mixed lists, tend to do best.

No, it means your opponent is doing something right.

Exactly!

Unless everybody in your area is still playing foot marines, CC is an inevitability and you have to accept something important about that to get past it - you don't need to win in CC, you just need to lose with the units that are least valuable and least likely to keep your opponents tied up during your turn. This is why you take kroot. They might take an objective. They might soak up some firepower if your opponent is dumb enough to shoot them in woods. They WILL protect your units from CC, but not by being a "countercharge" unit. Go ahead, charge those marines. Oh look, you lost combat and now it's your opponents' turn. Way to be productive man, you just killed your own squad for him. That's not a speed bump, that's a free KP! Their job is to force your opponent to deal with them first either by shooting (templates are the only things that kill them unless terrain sucks, yay for 2+ cover saves) or by rolling over them in his turn. After he charges them, he's left sitting in the open. You could do the same things with fire warriors, but if I'm buying bodies why would I pay 3 points more for fewer deployment options? Seems silly to me.

How often do you play against demons? Does your "shoot them down in 2 turns" strategy work there? How about a wolf heavy SW list? Mechanized space marines or eldar? I'm honestly curious what armies you play regularly that lead you to your chosen playstyle.

I totally agree.

Over here non mechanized tau armies dont stand a chance. There are simply to many smoke rhino armies with or without flank, to many flamer and melta massed pod armies (those massacre tau shooty line armies like there is no tomorrow) and even hammer terminators locating in and acting like walking tau proof cover lines.
I´we seen with my own eyes old time tau players simply pack their stuff and leave in frustration when that hammer terminator squad DSed in their midst on a late turn when they were already hard pressed holding the rest of the army at bay. They had no answer to that but learned to include large kroot squads to counter it.

The hardest tau armies I ever faced were mixed armies since it is almost inevitable that the tau lines will get assaulted if the attacker plays it right and not just walks up in nice columns towards the tau lines. There are tons of tricks to use to reach their lines and the few times I got beat by tau had one thing constant, there was a kroot squad waiting for the elements that got through to meet them in melee.

To avoid a pure flanking assault armie with a tau shooty line is far from as easy as one might think, terrain is not always "even" and that defensive box in the middle will cluster up in a big pile of template inviting assault murder once 1/3 of the enemies force slams into them with 2/3 being one turn being right behind them.

The numerical advantage of a 60 firewarrior tau shooty line is in fact a direct disadvantage on the table vs a competent opponent. To quickly reach the tau lines with parts of the army is victory in itself as you dont need to win the assault, just bind the tau units in melee in order to have them cover fire LOS to the other units (melee in the way) and prevent shooting.
Remember, you grant the opponent a 4+ save if you shoot over your own units, its the bane of infantry heavy IG line armies.

Even worse are the all infantry armies since all those nice and expensive 3-broadside units, bought for good points to take care of 150-250p tanks can now kill 24p of marines per turn, not to mention all the fusion guns etc. After all it is a big point gain if all the points the opponent has to spend on anti tank wargear and units have nothing to do but shoot cheap infantry minis.
Personally I laugh when I face broodsides, the more the better. I use them to my advantage as gigantic pillows that my squads can hug in melee if they need to avoid a turn of shooting since usually nothing happens in such a melee and the rest of the tau army cant shoot into their own melees. Its always fun to see the opponents face when I talk about his broadsides referring to them as "pillows".

All this is easily avoided by having a mixed tau force to start with. Both foot shooty lines mixed in with mech support and transports make it hard for the sudden assaulters (and shooters) to earn points back and forces the attacker to rely on mixed units to take care of the initial objectives and if you force the opponent to abandon KISS, then half the battle is already won.

In all honesty, try to play widely different opponents, I never had any problems vs tau, ever, beat the crap of all kinds of tau armies. Tau players who used 100% mechanized, 100% infantry shooty lines, mixed armies etc, they didnt want to play me since I always won. That is until I switched to a different gaming club, then I had to learn and counter new styles of play and I started to loose against tau once again but only the mixed tau armies that are crammed full of piranhas, transports and mixed stuff like a kroot squad for the inevitable assault.
Still I rarely enjoy playing against tau since the codex is pretty outdated and quite frankly, it could have been a tad more powerful and unless the tau player puts together a cheesy list or gears it solemnly against mine, I usually win...and that is boring (besides who likes to play against cheesy army lists anyway).

Be it as it may, if you know your army and how to play it it is IMPOSSIBLE not to reach the tau lines, no matter how the tau army is built or how skilled the opponent is, it has never happened me, ever, not even close.
Well ok I lied, I actually got my behind handed to me three times without ever reaching the tau lines but those were some of my very first games ages ago when I was totally new to the game, the opponent had us play on a table with NO terrain what so ever and cheated as well (since all his hammerheads were shooting at me with big templates that were S8 AP2 but I didnt notice since I didnt know the game).
It simply doesnt matter if he is the best tau player in the world, sure he can probably beat me on a consistent basis BUT...the person who tells me I cant reach and touch his tau lines is either lying or seriously needs to change his gaming opponents.

Nope, tau is to easy to beat. Am trying to learn orks right now instead and its mighty fun since I am a total noob with orks and therefore I really enjoy to read ork strategy guides from people like dashofpepper (thanks man, been looking for a competent ork player to learn from for a long time). Its always fun to learn new things.

Wow, lots of good advice for Tau players in here.

I'll have to chime in that FW are obsolete in my mind and that suits should do the heavy haulin while Piranhas and Kroot deter and Pathfinder well... duh? and your railguns pop tanks.

If you can orchestrate it right it's disgustingly effective.

*sigh*

Well, I'm a staunch advocate of pure Tau armies without mercenaries. I think firewarriors are just dandy. Short of meeting on a table and proving who's army is better, we're not going to see eye-to-eye though.

Dashofpepper wrote:I don't mind playing against mechanized IG at all.

If I end up going second, I have advanced stabilization systems to walk my units on the board firing. Honestly though, it would depend heavily on terrain. A broadside unit for me is 2-3 broadsides, one with a target lock, and mandatory 2x Shield drones. If you can punch through my 2+ armor save (drones get 2+ armor save too) then I have a 4+ invulnerable save and likely a 4+ cover save as well. Short of getting assaulted (which I prevent by strategic placement) I'm not worried about getting outshot. In fact, the only shooting army that is remotely scary is the Ork gunline based around 45 Lootas.

Your list http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/265021.page#1107402 don't have A.S.S upgrade, unless you belong to those who like to cheat by changing your list after knowing which army you are playing against.

And quite obviously, you haven't had much playing experience against the new MECH IG.

Yorick_of_Tau wrote:It also sounds like he moves his Broadsides around, too

If he did, then i ll probably laugh caused he just sacrificed a turn of 3 twinlinked railgun shots.

Davicus, that's a static gunline list. I wouldn't expect the broadsides to move around.

I have four iterations of Tau lists for every point value: Static, Mechanized, Hybrid, Mobile.

Static is...static; my suits do some screening and mobile killing, but nothing else moves unless firewarriors need to advance to take stuff. Mandatory three sniper squads.
Mechanized is 100% vehicles; 6 firewarriors per devilfish, pathfinders, broadsides, and my HQ and elites typically deep strike.
Hybrid: I don't like this so much anymore, but still have my lists - firewarriors in devilfish, typically one squad of broadsides, one hammerhead, and sniper squads depending on points.
Mobile: No vehicles, no snipers (can't move and shoot), broadsides are mobile, three full elite teams (typically 1x Helios, 1x Deathrain, 1x Modified Helios (more plasma - links up with HQ). I fill in firewarriors where I can.

I've decided I don't like mechanized lists; I don't like Skyrays, I've actually never used a pirhana, and that leaves Hammerheads and devilfish. Hammerheads are great for anti-horde, suck for anti-tank when comparing what to put into a heavy support slot.

These days, I play either static gunlines (with screening suits), or mobile lists. I *really* like sniper drones though, and as often as not, I have a firebase of death consisting of sniper drones and broadsides (usually in a building or on the edge of a forest or somewhere) and preferably elevated if there's terrain for it on the table so that I have a turn or two to deal with anything sneaky (like kommandos)

Just curious DashofPepper - Your gunline Tau army looks interesting, but at 1850, how would you deal with an ork speed freak army that has say 6-9 trukks, deffkoptas, or 3 troops of stormboyz (any combination of those) ?

If I start first, i move 6 trukks flat out, stormboyz 15-18 inches, in range for a turn 2 assault. Is there anyway your list can knock down enough of the total of 132 boyz in a turn of shooting?

I also have a question for Dashofpepper. What do you do against Marines? If they go first they get 44" charge with Land Speeder Storms, Heavey flamers and Close combat scouts are then right on top of you before you've' rolled a dice or even got out your tap measure! How does your gun line coupe with that?