Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, what do people think will be more useful for 5th ed tau armies?

I've put down some factors that will come into play but please add more and let me know what you think the better build is for tau now.

FWIW I'm leaning towards tanks

Suits-
wound allocation means ablative armour (drones!) is less effective
not being able to hide behind area terrain makes jetpack shoot-and-hide less effective
deepstrike has become more dangerous overall, but the pathfinder devilfish beacon means its still a viable tactic for suits

Tanks-
more survivable in 5th
disruption pods are the best 5pt tank upgrade in the game now IMHO (4+ cover save anywhere as long as the firer is more than 12" away)
not as mobile (although the fast vehicle upgrade will still let railheads move 12" and get a S10 shot off or make a 24" redeploy move)

Suit Up

It's my opinion that suits are slightly better for a mobile tau army. As suits are far cheaper and have a number of battlefield rolls and weapons choices opposed to a hammerhead with rail gun. This is my opinion for a mobile tau army, as i play alot of cities of death and tanks arnt as viable and there for this maynot be the case for your tau army. you should do some test games to test out both options

I'm thinking you ought to go with the typical Tau mixed approach. Get yourself 2 'Heads, some broadsides, then devilfish and crisis suits till you run out of points.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:
Suits-
wound allocation means ablative armour (drones!) is less effective
not being able to hide behind area terrain makes jetpack shoot-and-hide less effective
deepstrike has become more dangerous overall, but the pathfinder devilfish beacon means its still a viable tactic for suits

Less effective? Just as effective you mean. You couldn't allocate 5 wounds to a drone and nothing to a Braodside/Crisis before.
You can still JSJ
Deepstriking has become a lot safer.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:
Tanks-
more survivable in 5th
disruption pods are the best 5pt tank upgrade in the game now IMHO (4+ cover save anywhere as long as the firer is more than 12" away)
not as mobile (although the fast vehicle upgrade will still let railheads move 12" and get a S10 shot off or make a 24" redeploy move)

With the new damage chart, yes. In CC, no.
DP are indeed great now, but it will probably be lowered in the upcoming FAQ to 5+.
Just as mobile, I never put SMS or Burst Cannons on my HH due to the limited range and cost. Warfishes are slower now but with 5th, taking drones is a lot better.

Wait...36" is limited range for SMS?

News to me.

Deepstriking has become a lot safer.

I keep hearing people say this but I tend to disagree. Granted if you land on an enemy or friend you are less likely to die but if you land in terrain you may take wounds. This makes DS much more dangerous IMHO.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:
Suits-
wound allocation means ablative armour (drones!) is less effective
not being able to hide behind area terrain makes jetpack shoot-and-hide less effective
deepstrike has become more dangerous overall, but the pathfinder devilfish beacon means its still a viable tactic for suits

I think the wound allocation system is going to be pretty much the same for Suits as it was previously, if you are going to take enough hits that you risk losing a suit over the drone, than something has gone horribly wrong. Also the 4+ pretty much all the time will make suits very survivable even with the changes to LoS.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:
Tanks-
more survivable in 5th
disruption pods are the best 5pt tank upgrade in the game now IMHO (4+ cover save anywhere as long as the firer is more than 12" away)
not as mobile (although the fast vehicle upgrade will still let railheads move 12" and get a S10 shot off or make a 24" redeploy move)

First the multi-tracker does not allow you to move as a fast vehical, it allows you to shoot as one. So Tau tanks can't move flat out in 5th, also moving flat out is a max of 18" now, not 24". With the changes to defensive weapons and the removal of SmF Tau tanks are going to be nearly immobile still, and they are now going to be taking lots of Penetrating hits from heavy weapons. If even one of those hits makes it through your going to be in for a wold of hurt.

Overall I think that a Suit heavy army with Broadsides in support will be the best way to go.

Stelek wrote:Wait...36" is limited range for SMS?

News to me.

Unless I missed a FAQ somewhere, SMS is 24 inches.

I think people will still need both. Suits kill MEQs, hammerheads kill large, lightly armored units.

I dunno about broadsides fro 5th though. They seem awful slow for escaping flankers, deep strikers, etc. to me.

I'm going to play sans tanks in my first few games of 5th. While it is true the hammerhead and devilfish will be more survivable in 5th, especially with the right wargear, I believe the trade off in firepower will give the edge to suits.

I agree it is better to not be targeted than to get a 4+ cover save, I see lots more 4+ saves in my future. Equipping the suits slightly differently (say a team leader with a black sun filter or target lock) may allow a pair of suit to take 2 wounds and still not lose a model.

Stelek: I guess the poster was thinking SMS range plus 12" vehicle movement is 36". I do get plenty of people confusing SMS and missile pods all the time though.

I'm not a good competitive player so I may be completely wrong. Won't be the first time. That probably explains why I'll run shadowsun more often in 5th.

Move 12", Fire 24". Range=36".

Missile Pods have a 42" range.

kroeger - sorry, my bad, you're right about shooting as fast, not moving as fast.

Even so, I still think its a good option, as you can move 12" to get into a better firing position (or back off if their big guns are getting into range) and still shoot the railgun. Or you can move 6" and fire everything.

Overall though, just about everyone seems to think that losing SMF is death for every skimmer in the game. A Hammerhead is still front armour 13. Fine its not in the Land Raider/Monolith league but it weighs in with the best of the rest.

Kitted out with Railgun, SMS, Multitracker, Target Lock and Disruption Pods its 180 points. You could easily pay that for a falcon or LRBT and for my money its a much superior tank.

Does anyone agree that tanks can work for tau?
Or have I finally cracked...?

Actually, I was kind of thinking about buying gun drones for my hammerheads. Since you can't move and shoot your secondary weapons effectively anymore then why not just buy gun drones and have them disembark on the first turn before your tank moves (assuming you even want it to move) and then they can just go off and do their own thing and lend support wherever they're needed and be a general nuisance.

Between some number of hammerheads and piranas you could have quite a few units of gun drones running around the table causing pining tests and possibly contesting objectives at the end of the game.

Lots of two man units of drones could really pose a difficult question for your opponent as to whether to just ignore them but risk their units being pinned at inoportune times or actually dedicating resources to eliminating them that could be much better spent eliminating more threatening things. If your opponent shoots them they lose the ability to assault somethign else and for that matter waste their shooting on a two man unit. If your oppoent assaults them they can no longer count on consolidating into something else and since they are a two man unit they should never survive close combat and as such won't cause problems by keeping enemy models engaged and thereby denying you an opportunity to shoot at them.

Stelek wrote:Move 12", Fire 24". Range=36".

Missile Pods have a 42" range.

Ah, what you call range I think of as threat radius. Still, in 5th I would think it would be more like 30" as I'd rather move 6 and fire everything or 12 and fire the railgun.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:kroeger - sorry, my bad, you're right about shooting as fast, not moving as fast.

Does anyone agree that tanks can work for tau?
Or have I finally cracked...?

I agree with you. I think hammerheads will be fine. I'm not quite as excited about firewarriors in a 'fish as I used to be, however.

Edit: I tend to think all the Tau vehicles need a drop in points cost with the skimmer changes. I'll still use em though.

have both. as someone said before, suits kill MEQ, tanks kill everything else. if you take disruption pods and multi-trackers on your vehicles, they become almost as good as falcons, but with better guns. suits get shot more, but so does everything, and the likely hood is you have more guns than the other guys. 4+ cover saves means that sheild generators arent really worth it anymore, so thats brings the cost of some suites down quite a bit. you can spend the rest on pathfinders that reduce the cover save of everything now.

Suits. Tau tanks are still effective as thier war gear is not half bad for 5th.

why would the faq change disruption pods to 5+? they're useless against melta weapons, which will be all over the place in 5e. The RULEBOOK specifically says "if the wargear gives obscured, you get a 4+". Seems like they wrote that pretty deliberately. How much other wargear in the game gives obscured? That wouldn't be a FAQ so much as just changing the rule in the printed rulebook.

I agree that drones are pretty much just as useful as before. In a few situations they're worse (two lascannon hits, for example) but in most other cases they work out the same.

Of course, I'd just continue to use both. Crisis suits did lose the ability to hide behind their terrain, but...skimmers block line of sight now! Hide them behind your own tanks. Move tank 12, follow with crisis suit 6, shoot, put crisis suit behind tank.

Actually the better tactic is sit back with the disruption pods and be landed so immobilized hits don't blow you up.

Sit behind the tank with the crisis suits, then move out, fire, and move back.

If someone gets close, ram 'em with the Hammerhead then move up and rapid fire them with the suits.

It works well. lol

true, don't want to move 12 if you don't want to be immobilized. You'd probably have to combine the two. Sit, shoot, sit, shoot, ok there's a meltagun getting close did I kill it...no...time to move. You'll be able to keep them reasonably hidden either way (assuming your hammerheads are big enough to hide crisis suits behind...stupid true LOS)

Stelek wrote:Actually the better tactic is sit back with the disruption pods and be landed so immobilized hits don't blow you up.

Sit behind the tank with the crisis suits, then move out, fire, and move back.

If someone gets close, ram 'em with the Hammerhead then move up and rapid fire them with the suits.

It works well. lol

That sounds really mean.

How many suits can we hide behind a Hammerhead? I would like to have two single-suit units per Hammerhead. I feel that a single suit doesn't put out enough firepower on its own to really make an impact. Then again I always ran three-suit units back when I played Tau, so I guess i am kinda spoiled that way.

BTW. Are there rules for landing Skimmers in 5th? And how do they work with the new "use the base the model comes with and remove if destroyed" rules?

Tau tanks have a 'landing gear'. This means they can stay still and cont as a normal tank, not a skimmer.

I saw someone above say that you should load out with suits, but do suits count as scoring units in 5 ED.???

Suits don't score but they (and every other model for that matter, like devil fish) can contest.

Ok so for scoring games it is well advised to have some FW's cool cool thanks for clearing that up.

It's pretty much mandatory to have FW's in a Tau army. I can't think of any time when I wouldn't take them.

Aeddon wrote:It's pretty much mandatory to have FW's in a Tau army. I can't think of any time when I wouldn't take them.

Not just pretty much, it is mandatory, they're 1+.

Rosicrucian wrote:Not just pretty much, it is mandatory, they're 1+.

Yeah, sarcasm isn't my strong suit...

Steelmage, I run 3x3 crisis w/MT, PR, MP...and a min leader kitted the same. You can usually hide 2 teams behind the hammerheads (I run 2) and hopefully a piece of terrain will get you some protection for the last team.

In 5th however that 'head will only give you a cover save. Still good, but not as good as total cover.

We can hope that people will adjust terrain builds ( especially for GT's as there is usually very little that will actually block true LOS on a GT table traditionally)

Still, it might be dangerous to base strategy on the first turn hide in 5th.

Also think that suits will suffer in 5th, at least with the terrain around here. And when you have to mount the hammerheads on flying bases you will have everyone shooting under them.