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Here is a new list that I will be making over the coming weeks. In comparison to my other previous lists, this one is completely new and is mutable as I will be collecting new minis for this army. So please to tell what you think, what should be changed, and what is good. Thanks for the help.


DESIGNATION: 4th Hunter Cadre of Elsy'eir, attached to the 16th Commerce Protection Fleet(CPF)
Sept: Elsy'eir
COMMANDING OFFICER: Shas'O'Elsy'eir'Da'Anuk
Background:
The 4th is one of the few hunter cadres that originates from Elsy'eir. The 4th is a newly founded cadre, composed of veterans filling in command positions and new green recruits strait from Elsy'eir. Shas'O Da'Anuk, while a veteran of the Tau-Tyranid wars and skirmishes with Space Marines and Imperial Guard, has been given her first command. Shas'el Kunas'la'Dyerl is a veteran of the Ork Wars and is also inexperienced with command. Other notable leaders include Shas'vre'Elsy'eir' Raik'ors'R'myr a well know poet warrior, Sha'ver'Elsy'eir'Kais Naga an old but skilled stealth suit leader, and Shaper Omni Khi'haw a veteran and visionary among the Kroot. The CPF also has cadres from Vior'la, Sa'cea, and T'au. Both cadres from Vior'la and Sa'cea are like the 4th and are fresh new cadres, while the T'au cadre is the veteran and command cadre. Early into the 4th's service there has been some hostility and some ridicule from the hunter cadres from Vior'la and Sa'cea, believing that the Elsy'eir troops are poets and talkers not warriors. All members of the Cadre are highly educated and it is not uncommon for the Shas'o to hold Cadre level meetings with the entire Cadre including the Kroot and Vespid auxiliaries. Of interest, all of the vehicles are named after poems, essays, or treatises written by cadre members. As children of Elsy'eir they value education and the skill with the pen as much as skill with the gun.

Composition:
The composition of the cadre is one that is focused on speed. All of the Fire Warriors are in devilfish, and piranhas, hammerheads, and sky rays help to provide mobile firepower. Crisis suits lend heavy firepower where need and stealth suits act as scouts and serve as a source of suppressive firepower. Anuk and D'yerl are both supporters of of auxiliaries and as such both Kroot and Vespid are found in the cadre. The Kroot often serve to outflank the enemy or to hold objectives. The Vespid meanwhile act a rapid reserve, enforcement for objectives, or as support for the battlesuits. While no human auxiliaries are present, Anuk hopes to change that when the fleet visits the Third Phase Worlds.

Engagements:
At the current time, the 4th has only fought orks and tyranids. So far the cadre has aqucitted itself with honor and victory, quieting the naysayers of the Vior'la and Sa'cea cadres. Located near Fi'rios the 16th CPF has yet to move out to the Third Phase Worlds, where the cadres will help to train and support the new human colonists and subjects. During this time skirmishes with the Imperium are expected.


HQ

Shas'O'Elsy'eir'Da'Anuk (The Dark Bird)
Plasma Rifle, CIB, Multi-Tracker, Hard-Wired Drone Controller with 2 Shield Drones, Hard Wired Blacksun Filter
148
Anuk while a veteran of many battles, is both young for a Shas'O and new at commanding troops and feels that she has to prove herself as a commander. As fitting with her upbring, Anuk is well educated in a board number of subjects. One of her practices which the Shas'os of the Vior'la and Sa'cea cadres find amusing, is her practice of having Cadre level meeting where every member including the Alien Auxiliaries are allowed to voice opinions, propose with battle tactics, and comment on the morale and welfare of the cadre. Her weapon load out is a reflection of her experience fighting both the Space Marines and the Tyrainds, preferring high power weapons to kill hard to kill targets.

Shas'el'Elsy'eir'Kunas 'la'D'verl (The Agile Slayer)
AFP, Burst Cannon, Multi-Tracker, Hard-Wired Drone Controller with 2 Shield Drones
113
D'verl is the second in command and where Anuk is quite and reserved he loud and boisterous Intelligent and confident, D'verl enjoys mocking those who would underestimate his cadre because it is not from one of the first colonies or is lacking a strong military tradition. He also strong believer in the use of auxiliaries and has developed strong ties with the kroot and vespid in the cadre. His weapon load out is a reflection of his battles against the orks. He enjoys the affect the AFP has on large ork mobs and finds the burst cannon to be a good weapon to match it.

Elites

Stealth Team: Kais Naga (The Skillful Serpent)
4x XV25 Stealth Suits
1x Shas'vre
3x Shas'ui
Bonding Knife
135
Shas'vre Kais Naga is a typical stealth suit leader. As a general rule he is quite, always watching and taking in his surroundings. His name came from his tendency to strike quickly and venomously against targets, hence the Skillful Serpent. He is the oldest Tau in the cadre, forgoing the chance to become a commander so he might apply his trade. Anuk is hopefully that his charges who are newly bonded will learn from him.

VX8 Crisis Team: Raik'ors'R'myr (The Weathered Longblade)
1x Shas'vre
Plasma Rifle, Bust Cannon, Targeting Array, Hard Wired Multi Tracker, Hard Wired Drone Controller with 1 Shield Drone, Bonding Knife
2x Shas'ui
Plasma Rifle, Burst Cannons, Multi Tracker
214
R'myr is the second oldlest Tau in the cadre after Naga and has fought just about every opponent in the galaxy. A gifted poet, he is know for crafting poetry during his off hours and has a very strong bond with Khi'Kaw. A skill swordsman, R'ymr still prefers ranged combat but is not afraid to go to hand to hand if necessary. Both his and the two young charges under his care are geared for fighting a both elite warriors and standard line troops. Both Anuk and D'verl seek his advice time to time, and when he speaks at the cadre meetings, all listen with eager attention.

Troops

Fire Warrior Team: Run'al Ran (Blind Bravery)
9 Shas'la: Pulse Rifles
1 Shas'ui: Pulse Rifle, Bonding Knife
Devilfish: Meaning of Duty
Disruption Pod, Multi-tracker
200
Ran is a newly promoted Shas'ui, having just completed his Trail by Fire. An expert in languages, Ran often finds himself as point man with the kroot and vespid. As his name suggests, he is know for feats of bravery, the most famous when he charged a genestealer and killed it in hand to hand combat. Ran's devilfish is name after a treatise written by Naga explaining why he chose to stay a stealth warrior instead of progressing and taking his trails by fire.

Fire Warrior Team: M'Yen Nars (Unforeseen Stone)
9 Shas'la: Pluse Rilfes
1 Shas'ui,Pulse Rilfe, Bonding Knife
Devilfish: Unifying Difference
Disruption Pod, Multi-tracker
200
Nars earned her name by leading her fire team in an inspired defense against Orks on Fi'rios. After this event she was allowed to take her trail by fire and passed. Nars is well know for her knowledge in engineering and buildings. Nar's devilfish was named after a essay written by Ran, his first essay.

Kroot Kindred NohkH Yiaao
12 Kroot
3 Kroot Hounds
1 Shaper (Shaper Omni Khi'haw)
138
Omni's Kindred was assigned to the cadre to help absorb more genetic material for the Kroot race. Shaper Khi'haw is hoping to ingest a large number of human, Space Marine, and Eldar dna. For he believes that if the Kroot are to survive and thrive as species then the organ that must develop is the brain. Khi'haw is veteran warrior having fought with cadres from Dal'yth and Bork'an as well as in several mercenaries armies. He values the educational background of the 4th and hopes to increase the knowledge of the Kroot race. He is a strong friend of R'ymr after saving his life on Fi'rios. As with R'ymr when Khi'haw speaks the cadre listens.

Fast Attack

Mal'Kor
5 Stingwings
1 Strain Leader (nickname Pomplia)
102
Included for their arms and speed, the individual Vespid are know for keeping to themselves and not interacting with the cadre. This is offset by the Strainleader, nicked name Pomplia who speaks for the Strainwing. Friendly and talkative in her own way, Pomplia has become fast friends with Aunk, Khi'haw, D'verl, and R'ymer.

Piranha School
The Blade, Diligence, and the Elegance help to give Anuk and D'verl a third option when dealing with enemy armor. During battles, the drones detach to form a drone squadron, which serve has a harasser unit.
225

Piranha: Elegance of Simplicity
Fusion Blaster, Targeting Array, Disruption Pod
75
The Elegance is a newly christened vehicle and named for a poem written by Khi'haw. Her crew is new and eager to serve the greater good.

Piranha: Diligence of Destiny
Fusion Blaster, Targeting Array, Disruption Pod
75
The Diligence is another newly christened vehicle and his named after Nar's first essay. Her crew is also newly christened warriors.

Piranha: The Blade of Words
Fusion Blaster, Targeting Array, Disruption Pod
75
Named after an essay by D'verl, The Blade while a new vehicle, her crew are veterans. Know for their desire to destroy enemy tanks.

Heavy Support

Hammerhead Gunship: The Principle of Worth
Railgun, Smart Missile System, Disruption Pod, Multi-Tracker, Target Lock
180
Name after one of Aunk's essays, the Principle is standard Hammerhead. The one thing of note is that the crew is know as the best orators of the line soldiers.

Hammerhead Gunship: The Soft Spoken
Railgun, Smart Missile System, Disruption Pod, Multi-Tracker, Target Lock
180
Named after one of R'ymer's poems, the Soft Spoken is naturally crewed by tau who like to drink, party, and make a mess of the battlefield. While their methods are questionable, the results are not.

Sky Ray Missile Gunship: Enduring Flower
Smart Missile System, Disruption Pod, Targeting Array, Multi Tracker
165
As with the Soft Spoken, the Enduring Flower is also named after one of R'ymer's poems. Her crew is still getting to know the ship and both Aunk and D'verl have not worked with Sky Rays before, making this ship a learning experience for the entire cadre.




This is 2,000 on the dot. I have made some adjustments, mainly dropping shield generators for shield drones and adding some hounds. When I get to the 2250 level, I will add some pathfinders. To answer your questions Trogdor, hopefully the fish will keep them alive, I have played some 2,000 point and 1,500 point games and the fish have always stayed alive other when a group of termies attacked it, so they have been up to the challenge in the past. As for the the kroot, the size of the squad and cover should help them last. Also brock thanks for pointing out the math errors, I did not see those at all.
Additional advice and criticism is welcome as well as thoughts on my formatting of the list.

Ill be honest, I havent played Tau in a year or so, Ive been stuck in Ork-Mode for awhile. I had to tell you though, that I really like your list. I had been thinking about dusting off the Tau for awhile, and whenever I get around to it, I may use your list as a starting point. Id have to get myself a 2nd hammerhead and a skyray, but yea, I like it. It's very mobile and very shooty! I also like that you put in a Shaper because they should have one, and not include one because they arent "cost effective" and maybe you're not trying to build the super tourney winning list.


The only thing I ask is: Do you have enough troops to capture objectives? I usually find (with my orks anyways) that I run 6 troops and I still wonder if it's enough, lol.
Not to throw your list off balance, but Id consider trying to get maybe another unit of 'Fish mounted Fire Warriors.

Thats it, otherwise, looks great!

T-

Scrape up a few extra points and you can ditch the gun drone squad for an extra pirahna and use their drones as your drone squadron. When the gun drones drop in a squadron they form up to make a single unit so they only give away one KP. (As to their tactics. People know they are fast and start gunning for them pretty quick. I usually deploy them out of sight or in reserve.)

This would leave you room in the FOC for a pathfinder squad. This squad comes with a Devilfish so you could drop one of the fish for your troops and use the PF one instead.

Switch the CIB and the AFP on your commanders. It will not affect your strategy but will make them a little more effective.

Kroot- Drop at least five of them and replace with hounds. It takes work but when you get used to it that initiative 5 really helps.

The SkyRay works best when supported by a pathfinder squad. This helps you to get the missles off quickly while dropping the coversaves.
In 4th it was a good system but don't care for it in 5th ed. Love the model but hate the only six shots that you have to roll to hit twice with and still give coversaves.(The hitting twice is that first you have the marker hit then still have to hit again with the missle. I know it shoots at bs 5 but it still sucks when you roll double 1s to hit something that you've already hit.)

Honestly in this list I'd lose the Skyray but its your army and by playing it you'll figure out why they don't get used much except in Farsight lists.

Just a few ideas for you to play with, Happy hunting

Shas'o (120)
AFP, Plasma Rifle, Shield Generator, Hard Wired Multi-Tracker
(His job is to hunt hordes and MEQs, I have had a lot of fun with the AFP on the Shas'o, killing everything from Marines, Guard, Orks and even some Necrons. I know the argument that this is wasting his BS, but I have had success with the weapon. The plasma rifle to me is a good match as it has the same range and stands a good chance of killing what ever the AFP shot. One tactic I like is to use the AFP to clean up after a Railgun Submunition round or vise versa.

Your numbers are wrong here. This setup costs 140 points and the 18" range of the AFP is not the same as the 12"/24" that the plasma rifle has. I think that the AFP is a good match for BS5 due to the scatter rules but I'm not sure that the plasma rifle is a good combination of weapons. One is good for killing weaker horde units in cover while the other is good at picking off strong units outside of cover... A burst cannon would be a lot cheaper, has the same range, more shots and almost the same stat line making it great against the same types of targets in the same types of situations. Another option would be a missile pod for all the reasons why missile pods are great.

VX8 Crisis Team (184)
Shas'ui
Team Leader, Plasma Rifle, Bust Cannon, Targeting Array, Hard Wired Multi Tracker, Bonding Knife

Shas'ui x2
Plasma Rifle, Burst Cannons, Multi Tracker

(These are MEQs and TEQs hunters, plus the Burst cannons do give them some flexibility if I face orks or bugs.)

Math is wrong again. Should be 194 points. This team is good up close but without shield drones you'll lose suits left and right to instant death weapons which outrange you by a lot.

Gun Drone Squadron
12 Gun Drones
(These guys deep strike where they can be most annoying or where they are most needed. As with the AFP I have had good success with the drones.)

This squad is illegal. Gun drone squads are 4-8 units.

Heavy Support (505)
Hammerhead, Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod, Multi-Tracker,Target Lock

Hammerhead, Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod, Multi-Tracker, Target Lock
(For AV14 death and general tank busting. The submunition round once again gives me some flexibility.

At this point level I don't think two railguns is going to cut it for anti-tank. I'd replace one of the hammerheads or the skyray with a unit of 2-3 broadsides.

I fixed the gun drone squad number, not sure why I wrote 12 instead of 8. And I can not believe I missed the range issue with the AFP and the Plasma rifle. I will work on the list later, but I will replace the Plasma with a burst cannon, probably add some hounds to the kroot, and not about what else I will do.

Good luck with your list but I think if your not completey mechanized with Tau with the excetion of Crisis suits you will have a tough time winning. Thier are just to many hard core assault armies that only give you one turn to shoot before they are assaulting your stuff.

I updated the list now with fluff, please tell me what ya'll think. Thanks.

Nice back story. Very nice.

All I can say after that is that I'll bet that Lunahound is gonna llooovvvee you. I have the feeling that should the 2 of you talk, you'll get very cool ideas that you'll both want to build. Mind you, this is just a guess as to that I don't know Luna personally but only from whats been posted.


Tactically, The lack of markerlights is gonna hurt you.

The gundrone back fluff would still work if you pooled the points into the Pirahnas. But if you want to deepstrike them I can see the use.

The sms and markerlight systems will probably do more damage than the 6 seeker missles on the skyray.

If you could squeee just 2 more hounds into the kroots.

Still all in all looks like a fun theme army to play.

Edit: Deleted innacurate/outdated information about the vespids

focusedfire wrote:Nice back story. Very nice.

All I can say after that is that I'll bet that Lunahound is gonna llooovvvee you. I have the feeling that should the 2 of you talk, you'll get very cool ideas that you'll both want to build. Mind you, this is just a guess as to that I don't know Luna personally but only from whats been posted.


Tactically, The lack of markerlights is gonna hurt you.

The gundrone back fluff would still work if you pooled the points into the Pirahnas. But if you want to deepstrike them I can see the use.

That reminds me, most new players miss it but vespids cannot deepstrike. I know its silly but thats how they are written.

The sms and markerlight systems will probably do more damage than the 6 seeker missles on the skyray.

If you could squeee just 2 more hounds into the kroots.

Still all in all looks like a fun theme army to play.

Why can't vespids deepstrike? they're consider jump infantry.. and all jump infantry can deep strike (page 52).

@Milquetoast,

Thank you for pointing that out. I missed that in the new ruleset. I might actually now play them occasionally. I used to really mess up my friends templars with them. Again thanks for correcting me on that.

@Guardpiper, please to discount my comment about the vespids. I am also deleting that misinformation from the post. Am very sorry for the misinformation.

focusedfire, no problem, I did not know vepsid could deep strike ethier, that gives me some new ideas for them now. Glad you like the background. It took me a while to get it, I knew that when I made the army, I did not want to have the army from one of the regular septs, like Viro'la, Se'cea, or T'au. As for the army, I think I am going to leave it as is for now. When I move up to 2250 points, I will add pathfinders, and extra piranha, and some more kroot and hounds. Plus if I can some human troops.