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I wanted to put together a fun Tau force, but not think too hard in the process.
It will suck, but how much?

HQ
Crisis suit Shas'o
Burst Cannon
missile pod
multi tracker

bodyguard
2 more crisis suits, Shas'vre, same loadout

Elite
2 Crisis suits, shas'ui, same as the others

Troops

4 squads of 10 fire warriors, half with carbines

Heavy support
2 broadsides
TL rail guns
TL plasma rifle
multi tracker

I wanted to make sure that everything can shoot something on the move, and all units are bonded
Thougts?

Wait, do you have 20 full squads with rifles and 20 ful squads with carbines? Or is each squad 50/50?

I just realised my 'dex is outdated...

But yes, the squads are 50/50, each one having 5 carbines and rifles each. However, that option may no longer exist...

Well, for what it's worth, that's what I think my army list should look like...
I promise I'll get a new codex before I try to put the models together!

Badly

The bodyguard are only worth being able to hide the HQ in CC.. so either swap them out for standard elite battlesuits or take out both suits.. add one suit to the 2nd team and add 2x shield drones to the hq.

Id suggest having 3 squads of 9 (with a bonding knife) with pulse rifles & 1 squad of 9 (with a bonding knife) with pulse carbines.

I like it, works quite well.. seems quite economic for a mere 1000pts,

Illeix wrote:I wanted to put together a fun Tau force, but not think too hard in the process.
It will suck, but how much?

HQ
Crisis suit Shas'o
Burst Cannon
missile pod
multi tracker

bodyguard
2 more crisis suits, Shas'vre, same loadout

Elite
2 Crisis suits, shas'ui, same as the others

Troops

4 squads of 10 fire warriors, half with carbines

Heavy support
2 broadsides
TL rail guns
TL plasma rifle
multi tracker

I wanted to make sure that everything can shoot something on the move, and all units are bonded
Thougts?

Hi there! I play Tau, and wanted to drop some insight here. I have a 1k Gunline list that I use for 2x2 tournaments, and its been...destructive.

Your HQ: In 1k points, you either need to minimize your HQ, or deck him out. You've sort of gone halfway, which makes him...well, not a daunting HQ. A couple of suggestions:

1. Take a Shas'el instead of a Shas'o. Its 25 points for +1 wound, +1 WS, +1BS. Give your Shas'el the Airbursting Fragmentation Launcher (Large Blast), and a Cyclic Ion Blaster. Also give him a stimpack (Feel No Pain) and *very* seriously consider giving him Iridium armour. IE:

HQ:
Shas'el
Fragmentation Airbursting Launcher OR
Cyclic Ion Blaster (or plasma gun)
Shield Booster
Hard-wired Multi-tracker
Stimpack
Hard-Wired Drone Controller
2 Shield Drones
Iridium Armour

OR, you can do the same with Shas'o. You end up with a 3-4 wound model with a 2+ armour save, Feel no pain(4+ reroll on a failed save) 2 drones each with a 2+ armour save (since they take on the properties of their owner) and everyone with a 4+ invulnerable save. Since your army is missing crowd control and blast templates, the FAB gun is almost requisite. Having either a FAB gun or a flamer or two is pretty important to being ready to deal with swarms of Orks, turbo-boosting scarabs (2+ cover save), turbo-boosting ork warbikers, or anything else that gets to add to its cover save to make it hard to hit. Cyclic Ion Blaster is personal preference. Rolling 6s to wound to do an AP1 hit is fun, and you get 5 shots.

The Iridium armour doesn't make you slow and purposeful - you still get your full 6" move during the movement phase, but during the assault phase, you'll move D6 instead of 6". I think its worth it, because you can then place your commander (and any suits you've attached him to) out in the middle of everything and let those 2+ armor saves and 4+ invulnerable saves draw fire.

Bodyguard: Lose it. Not even worth it. The suits cost 10 points extra for a benefit that you shouldn't ever need. If you want your HQ attached to suits, just move him up to some suits. Remember: at the end of any movement that results in your HQ being within 2" of a unit, he's considered attached.

Troops: I tend to think that pulse carbines are mostly overrated. Almost everything NOT Tau in 40k has one of the following: Fearless, Leadership 9, or Leadership 10. Pinning doesn't work so well against any of that. Sacrificing range and firepower for the slim chance of pinning a unit for a turn isn't very promising. And, as I'll explain below you can cause more effective pinning checks. I'd go with straight up fire warriors. Make sure every squad has a Shas'ui, and if you can afford it, take a bonding knife with each squad too.

Elites: Burst cannons and missile pods are for trying to get as many dice rolls as you can. Honestly, by subbing out your carbines for pulse rifles, you've *got* extra shots now. A *LOT* of them. For a balanced and still fun army, you need some "space marine killers." I'd add either plasma guns, or twin-link your missile pods. Lately, I've even been doing Fusion Blaster/Plasma Gun/Multi-tracker. Every suit can kill a vehicle, or insta-kill/armor penetrate any model. These are great for wiping out terminators too. 2+ armour saves don't mean much against a team of suits rapid firing AP2 plasma goodness down your throat.

Heavy Support:

Snipers!!!! If you don't have any snipers, glue a pulse rifle onto a drone and stick a pathfinder in front of them. My 1k list has two sniper teams as one of my heavy choices. S6 AP3 means you've got space marine and necron killers here. Spotters have a 36" range networked markerlight, and if it hits, your drones need 3s to hit, and likely 2s to wound unless you're shooting destroyers, immortals, Warbikes, Carnifexes...these things are space marine killers, *AND* they are rail-rifles, which makes them pinning. Instead of using 18" pulse carbines in your troops choices, use 30" AP3 pinning weapons. If your fire warriors are 18" away from a unit, then they should either be falling back into your massed firepower, or moving up 6" and delivering two shots apiece at rapid fire range; a lot of armies can close 18" and assault in one turn, making your carbines likely one-shot wonders. You shoot a unit, and if it isn't pinned (unlikely) the unit will get assaulted next turn.

Broadsides: I take two teams of them in my 1k list, one of 2 suits, and one with 1. I'd get rid of the twin-linked plasma. With everything else, you're not going to be able to afford it in 1k points, and you need to optimize your points. TL plasma is great, but in all likelihood, you'll never get a chance to use it. You're likely going to be unloading railguns at distant vehicles, terminators, destroyers, HQs, or whatever needs it the most, which makes your plasma useless here. And anything closing in fast to get within your 24" range is likely going to be getting raped by the rest of your army - presuming your railguns are at the rear of your lines. Things that can deepstrike or infiltrate and hit you from behind or the side are going to be on you before you can fire them anyway, so you might as well save yourself the points. I used to take them quite prevalently, but I don't anymore because I never really got to use them much. Also, your broadsides *NEED* shield drones. Again, shield drones take on the attributes of their owner. Adding 2 shield drones to a squad means two extra 2+ armour saves, along with a 4+ invulnerable, and you can drop a wound on the drone if you get hit by a S8+ weapon. If you don't have shield drones, someone is going to Lascannon your Broadsides on turn one, and they're going to straight up die.

With all that said, here's my 1k gunline. Remember - my advice is to maximize one aspect of your playstyle. Be good at one thing, don't try being a little of everything. Either go completely mobile and take all pulse carbines, or take none. This is more of a static gunline with roving suits that I'm proposing. Here's my list. I have 3 suits, two with twin-linked missiles, and one with TL flamers to deal with swarms.

HQ
Shas'el Stimulant Injector HW Multi-tracker Cyclic Ion Blaster Airbursting Fragment Drone Controller Shield Drone 115


Troops
Fire Warriors, 7 Shas'ui 80
Fire Warriors, 7 Shas'ui 80
Fire Warriors, 7 Shas'ui 80
Fire Warriors, 7 Shas'ui 80

Elites
Deathrain, 2 team leader twin-linked missile twin-linked missile drone controller gun drone Blacksun #3 Crisis TL flamer blacksun gun drone 150


Fast Attack


Heavy Support
Broadside Team, 2 Drone Control HW Multitracker Shield Drone #2: Multitracker 165
Broadside Team, 1 Drone Control HW Multitracker Shield Drone 90
Sniper Team, 2 160

Points Summary:
HQ: 115
Troops: 320
Elites: 150
Fast Attack: 0
Heavy Support: 415
Total: 1000

Ok, a lot of these options are missing from my codex, looks like I really need to update it...

I like the sound of those airburst frags, what's the stats on 'em?

Anyway, thanks for the advice, I'll keep it all in mind!

Sure. If you're using a 3rd edition codex, its definitely time for an update. Stop into your local store and shell out ~$20 for it.

The FAB gun (Fragmentation AirBurst) or something is Strength 4 AP 5. Nothing special there right?

Str4 AP5, ignores cover, large blast.

With Shas'o and his BS of 5, you can minimize your average scatter for the times you don't hit on target. You can carve HUGE swathes out of Orks, Imperial Guard, other Tau, and remember that swarm units take double wounds from template weapons. Necron players think that a 2+ cover save for turbo-boosting a unit of scarabs across the board is great fun until you pop a FAB blast and a flamer or two on them.

-=Edit=- Do NOT recommend downloading codexes, or pirating any material, here on Dakka. Shell out the money for it; getting the PDF file is theft. - Iorek

Never understood how to run a Tau force, didnt get very far in the first place. I always tried to like use my battlesuits way to much and I was so bad using fire warriors.

Crusnik wrote:Never understood how to run a Tau force, didnt get very far in the first place. I always tried to like use my battlesuits way to much and I was so bad using fire warriors.

I guess you are using them backwards, soldiers supporting suits.
From my games with Guard, I found quickly that infantry are nearly worthless, SM and Nobs notwithstanding. Their lives have no purpose beyond holding ground, and catching incoming fire otherwise destined for things more capable to earn their points.

First of all dashofpeppers wall of text crit me for 5,000,000

Burst cannons on xv8's are tantamount to worthless you get so many s5 shots from a tau army that sacrificing the other wonderful weapons a crisis suit can take is just not helping you turn those burst cannons into plasma rifles to get the full effect from your suits. also drop the bloody bodyguards, only worthwhile if you are going to give them all the special bells and whistles from the armory, your not so save yourself 20 points and make them into regular suits with your commander joined to them.

Carbines have an 18" range meaning if you're getting to shoot with them you are about to get assaulted unless you have a devilfish to jump into, skip the carbines form your fcws into a gunline pop transports in the backfield with your broadsides and make the unlucky troops inside march up to you.

I'd be wary of taking Sniper Drones. With the preponderance of cover saves, they're not very effective (I speak from experience on this one). You're better off with more, higher AP shots.

Cover saves are irrelevant.

Sniper drones are Space Marine killers. Also, Necron killers. People with 3+ armour saves aren't particularly concerned about 4+ cover saves unless they see a templated S8 AP2 something headed their way, or suits with Fusion/Plasma coming to grief them. Things that are going to depend on cover saves (Orks, Imperial Guard, 4+ armour save stuff) aren't things that you should be sniping anyway.

Having a 30" show-stopper is quite effective, especially when you can rest easy that your sniper drones aren't going to get shot at; they have stealth fields and require night-fight to be rolled against them to get shot - people are going to find easier targets and save your snipers to assault.

Now...even if your standard space marine / necron / 3+ armour save guy goes into woods to get a cover save, there's a *HUGE* difference between a 3+ armour save and a 4+ cover save. While in cover, they're going to be moving D6 towards you (determined by a 2D6 roll) instead of 6 inches. You're going to slow your opponent's advance, *and* be forcing pinning tests on them. Either way is a winning situation for you.

And to the previous poster addressing my wall of text; don't confuse a well-thought out, organized, and paragraphically separated list of suggestions with a wall of text. It isn't my fault that you haven't the literary capacity to read something longer than a few sentences.

oh and here I was about to agree with him about sniper drones and he insults my literary capacity.

You have 3 full pages of text their buddy, experience will show that if you can't communicate more concisely nobody is listening.

Ok, Dash, Aftersong, say you're sorry, and then we'll all move on...
The mods don't take kindly to insults.

*snickers*

My post was for Illeix. I'm sure he read it and took from it what he wanted. If he didn't read it, then I've potentially wasted 20 minutes of time and...so?

Dashofpepper wrote:Cover saves are irrelevant.

Sniper drones are Space Marine killers. Also, Necron killers. People with 3+ armour saves aren't particularly concerned about 4+ cover saves unless they see a templated S8 AP2 something headed their way, or suits with Fusion/Plasma coming to grief them. Things that are going to depend on cover saves (Orks, Imperial Guard, 4+ armour save stuff) aren't things that you should be sniping anyway.

You're making the assumption here that your opponent doesn't know what sniper drones do. The MEQ opponents I've faced have made sure that they get a cover save versus these guys (and it's not difficult, considering that they're move-or-shoot weapons). You can't count on your opponent being incompetent. Also, you're totally getting sigged on that.

Now...even if your standard space marine / necron / 3+ armour save guy goes into woods to get a cover save, there's a *HUGE* difference between a 3+ armour save and a 4+ cover save. While in cover, they're going to be moving D6 towards you (determined by a 2D6 roll) instead of 6 inches. You're going to slow your opponent's advance, *and* be forcing pinning tests on them. Either way is a winning situation for you.

A few things:
1. There are plenty of units that will be perfectly happy sitting in cover trading shots with you, and most assault units have ways of avoiding cover or your incoming fire (transports, jumppacks, etc).
2. LOTS of things provide cover saves besides woods. Walls, hills, other models, and none of these impede movement.
3. Pinning tests are almost a formality. Your MEQ targets tend to have high leadership values (9 or 10, or even Fearless), and pinning tests come up too infrequently for this to be a real bonus.

I'm not saying that they're worthless (I'm still running three squads, as that's what I have painted up). I am phasing them out due to poor performance and the fact that I really feel that I can spend the points more efficiently on other units. In cover, Firewarriors are more effecient against MEQs, and fare far better against softer opponents. I just don't see the Sniper Drones as being a good buy.

Iorek wrote:
You're making the assumption here that your opponent doesn't know what sniper drones do. The MEQ opponents I've faced have made sure that they get a cover save versus these guys (and it's not difficult, considering that they're move-or-shoot weapons). You can't count on your opponent being incompetent. Also, you're totally getting sigged on that.

Again I'm going to have to disagree with you here, a meq squad trading shots with sniper drones is a bad idea, the drones get stealth fields in addition to the cover save, this is a winning situation for the tau player tying up a shooty unit trying to see sniper drones not to mention the fact that the drones have a markerlight with them (at bs4) to reduce that coversave. As for the other half of your point saying that assaulty units have a way around via jump packs and transports. Jump packing troops won't have cover and as a high threat unit, any tau player is going to commit more than just their drones to shooting them down honestly I have yet to see jump troops actually hit my line, they pop out and I blow their heads off. As for transports anything short of a landraider is going to be a smoking crater before it gets halfway across the table and even a landraider has a good chance of blowing up long before it delivers it's cargo with several s10 ap1 shots heading it's way.

Pinning checks a formality? even with unmodified ld10 it can be blown which is HUGE nevermind modifying that ld 10 with marker hits

yes 5th edition has changed alot of things for tau but people going around proclaiming powerful units like sniper drones and FCWs useless are just showing their lack of imagination and adaptability.

I think we just have different play styles. I see where you're coming from, but they're just not working for me (basically they don't do much for me on the tabletop), mostly for the reasons given.

We do have a terrain-heavy play environment here, and that does affect my opinion.