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Powerbuild attempt #1: I am really trying to find lists that will work well, as well as units that take full advantage of the 5th Edition changes. The list itself isn't necessarily a Powerbuild (does one even exist for Tau?), but some of the units and techniques are designed to overload the 'paper / rock / scissors' balance of an enemy army. The goal is that there will be, at the end of my experiments, a few flavors of 'Powerbuild' that will be pretty streamlined and effective.

Shadowsun
Commander 'el - Missile Pod, Positional Relay, 2x Shield, HW Target Lock

Stealth x6 - 8x Gun Drones
Stealth x6 - 8x Gun Drones
Stealth x6 - 7x Gun Drones

6x Firewarriors
10x Kroot

Pathfinders x4

Broadside x2 (Team Leader, Advanced Stabilization, 2x Shield)
Broadside x2 (Team Leader, Advanced Stabilization, 2x Shield)
2x Sniper Drone Teams

TOTAL = 1850

I am going to attempt the following strategy.

1. Keep Commander Alive by joining to a Broadside Team and putting a Sniper team in front for Cover.
2. Shadowsun can deploy Deepstrike with one of the Stealth Teams, by herself, or other depending on Enemy Setup.
3. 1x Troop Choice can hop in the Devilfish, head near an objective, and wait it out. The key is keeping the Devilfish alive to get rerolls on Deepstrike scatters if needed.
4. Using Positional Relay, drop 3x Stealth Teams on Turn 4, hopefully... They will put Tiger Balm on the enemy's junk.

I am gonna give this a shot tonight, will report on the list tomorrow.

I didn't include much Pathfinder Marker Goodness because I find that getting the 'lights on target for the Stealths for the mid-game drop is unreliable and risky.

Good luck. My first impression is you will be hard pressed to win with the list consistantly. It will be interesting to hear your results.

16 scoring models not even in transports good luck

Not enough troops. Without troops to hold objectives you can only win 1 out of every 3 games. As of right now the most effective tau builds I see are large mechanized forces of 2-3 rail heads and tons of devilfish.

My largest issue with Tau is that they do not scale well. At 1000-1500 point games they can be good, however at 1750+ they tend to loss out to other armies with Powerbuilds.

Shadowsun is not an IC when you purchase her so you can NOT have her join another squad.

This is very clear in the Codex.

This is a pretty static list and the Shas 'el isn't necessary

Recommendations

Drop the Stealth team with x7 drones
Drop Shas'el with Positional Relay

Your list doesn't really make good use of the wargear. Only 1 squad can come in on a 2+ and none of the squads will do as much damage as maxed Crisis Unit HQ or Elite

Drop the Kroot, can't benefit from Shadowsun so not really as useful as a LD 10 Firewarrior squad.

Take 1 more Sniper Drone Squad (1-3 Per heavy slot)

Take as many Firewarriors as you can. No need to take Bonding knives or Ui. Spend points on Photons if you have extra

yay somone who likes stealth like me

Is the miss pod TLed on your commander el. If not you need another weapon.

Your running to many drones. I find 4 per squad is max. Anymore hurt the efficiency and effectiveness of the squad.

Need some hero killer weapons(ap2) I've got a friend who runs BTs and at 1850 He's fielding 8 vehicles with some heros and some termies. (IMHO)Your current list could only "try" to run away from that army. (Not being mean, just my personal experience)

P.S. We know its mandatory but might still want to write in the PFs Devilfish in your list

you said you're trying to capitalize on the changes in 5th edition, but you've overlooked the most vital one, being that only troops score.

6 T3 4+ model and 10 T3 saveless models are very easy to knock off with a single turn of shooting for almost any 1850 list, even with the devilfish. That will result in alot of anti-tank pain raining on your poor broadsides, rather quickly.

Besides objective based missions, kill points may be a concern for you. Shadowsun usually ends up being a freebie in most games I've used her (in terms of KP at least), not to mention how easily 10 kroot, 6 firewarriors, and 4 pathfinders will give up their 3 KP. And then there's the cruelty known as 'devilfish gundrones'....

I have a hard time swallowing those stealth teams. At 250 points or more for each squad, they're a huge investment. If they get snagged by any assault unit worth a damn they're goners, and that's a lot of points to lose so easily. Like, land raider levels of points. Especially considering they're T3 and mostly have 4+ saves, even the stealth fields won't save them much. Even a 30 boy shoota mob, one of their ideal foes, would force over 13 saves (before big shootas or rokkits) meaning all your drones or most of your stealth suits biting the dust.

For the record, the kill counts for a round of shooting from those stealth teams (before markerlights) would be roughly as follows:
space marines: ~2.7
orks (out of cover): ~8.37
orks with KFF: ~5.6
Terminators: ~1.4

I know I'm not taking the stealth field generator or pinning into account here, but frankly neither of those things have proved reliable in the past. Everything but us Tau is Ld9/10 or fearless these days, so pinning is a blue moon lucky surprise, not a reliable tool. Though I bet you don't need another person telling you about their lack of appreciation for stealth teams. God, how I want them to be good though......

Those are tough numbers for me to invest that kind of points into.

ubersnax wrote:Using Positional Relay, drop 3x Stealth Teams on Turn 4, hopefully... They will put Tiger Balm on the enemy's junk.

to make this happen, you'd need 2 other units in reserve, yes? Shadowsun and kroot, I guess? That's alot of your army in reserve, I'd be concerned about getting tabled by turn 4, frankly. You'd have 2 broadside teams, 6 FW in a devilfish, and the commander on the table for 3 turns, essentially....

Ok, before I report on the events of the evening, let me address concerns about what I was thinking/planning before the game.

1.) Shadowsun = not IC She is not able to join a squad...this is something I did wrong, I'm very sorry, and have cut myself several times in penance to satisfy the religious dieties of the Tau (possibly Scientoligists...).

2.) Stealth Suits with Drones. Here is my thinking. A Gun Drone is not a bad model.

Gun Drone:
1) 12 points when taken in a squad, but only 10 points when added to a drone controller.

2) It has pinning, it is twin-linked, it has a 50% chance to hit (by my math, which may or may not be a globally-approved version of statistics).

3) By adding the drone to a Stealth Team, you get Stealth for free.

So - 30 points = 1.5 hits, STR5, AP5, pinning, 3 wounds, 4+ Armor Save, T3, Stealth

Stealth Suit:

1) Same STR weapon, same range, same cost per hit.

2) No Pinning.

3) 66% less wounds per points.

4) Higher CC skills / Higher Armor Save.

So - 30 points = 1.5 hits, STR5, AP5, 1 wound, 3+ Armor Save, T3, Stealth, better CC

I think the gun drones and the Stealth together make a good unit, and I think the stealth gun drone is one of the most cost effective buys for the entire Tau army. However, I think that the unit gets too big to be manageable, and the short range hurts them as it contradicts the nature of the Stealth. When augmented by a single markerlight hit, the unit improves its cost per hit significantly (especially the drones), and the large squad size means your Markerlight is stretched to the max.

3.) Minimal Troops choices - Not good for a winning list, but I am trying to get in the maximum number of Stealth Teams to try them out, so I am in effect maximizing my exposure to this 'super unit hopeful' at the cost of scoring units. I am just playing my buddy at my house, so its not that big of a deal, as he will probably be trying the same type of thing with his Eldar. If the 'super unit incumbant' works out to be worthwhile (I'm a little doubtful) then I'll include them in a more competitive list down the stretch.

BatRep:

I can confirm the Positional Relay is not the most useful thing on the planet, I basically kitted out the Commander to sit back and do nothing but protect the relay, then pop forward and fire off a few missiles. I should have saved the points on him and put in something useful. Not to say the Pos. Relay couldn't be useful, it just wasn't in my game.

Also, Stealth ability is not really useful when fighting Eldar twin-council/jetbike lists. To shoot, they get close, when they get close, they get chopped to pieces. I shot a grand total of 26 BS4 Stealth and Drone shots (markerlighted), hitting 20 times, wounding 14 times. After he rerolled his saves, he ended up taking a grand total of ZERO unsaved wounds...

He brought 2 Fire Prisms, I poured 2 close range Fusion shots and 2 rails into 1, and 2 rails into the other one... They both just got immobilized, then promptly wiped my stealth team from the board with 1 combined shot. Keep in mind I was a little closer than desired because I had illegally attached Shadowsun to the squad and wanted to be close enough for a Fusion salvo, so maybe that was part of the issue.

The Broadsides are beasties, they soaked up tons of fire and eventually blew the Prisms.

The Pathfinders were unnecessary, the Devilfish was there to allow rerolls for Stealth dropping in, but it ended up just being a waste of 124 points (also they were 3 easy KP for my opponent).

FINAL CONCLUSIONS:

-Stealth Teams -- Even though I gave them every possible advantage for strategic implementation and flexibility, they were mediocre. I could bring them in on whichever turn I wanted with a fairly reliable method, anywhere on the table with a rerollable scatter... They still couldn't get the job done. Later in the game they killed a few Seer Council Warlocks, but they just weren't effective enough. They never pinned anything. This was probably due to a poor targeting choice by me, but dammit, if I take a monster Stealth squad I expect it to wreck anything the other guy puts on the table with a toughness value. They did not do that. Also, they are not durable enough. They are the FAILZ as far as 'super units' are concerned, in my opinion.
Future Role - Supporting / Infiltrating / Harrassment

Sniper Teams - They didn't really provide much assistance, but they did give me a decent perimeter around my castled broadside and commander team. The markers helped a bit.

Kroot / Firewarriors - Give them a transport or they die .. especially to flamers.

Shadowsun - Don't bother.

Funny, I've been knocking my head over and over again trying to run a list with Irid/stim/2SD commanders, who would then attach to the Fire Warrior Groups and allow them to to take some damage (by soaking wounds on the commander and the 4 shield drones). Part of my problem with it is that there's a 250 point Stealth team in the list (HWDC with 2 marker drones, for the record), and I'm not really sure if they're worth using. Clearly, this report has given me a clearer picture of how useful they would be. I'll probably cut them and add more Broadsides.

Actually, A single stealth team, infiltrating to help control a critical area can be good if equipped right. I like the just get enought for 2 fusions run a HW marker drones. For roughly 164 pts you get a tank killer squad(just don't go for 2d6 pen unless its a LR)just dance at the 12" range.

Shadow Sun works really well with an infantry army, you just gotta find the right place for her. I usually put her near sniper drone with FW team behind so they get Cover. Shes not as important as she used to be because of no Targ Priority tests. She used to help the Tau own that.