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DirtyDeeds wrote:I play Tau and I have a mixed gunline/ mid field strategy that blends well together and I believe these formations and new rules will make me unbeatable in my meta. I'll have to scale back a bit if I want to keep my friends. :/

Well, to be fair its pretty hard if not impossible to completely avoid the gunline tactics. I bring Broadsides every game, they never move. But aside from the new Stormsurge i got, literally nothing else stayed put unless my firewarriors were already in optimal Rapid Fire range. Two units being completely stationary does not mean i do a Gunline tactic, but i still have elements of it.
Heck, i play my orks insanely assaulty in the 7th ed book (total flip from 6th to me). Slugga choppas, MANz missiles, warbikers, walkers, etc. I still use Lobbas and Lootas. Am i a gunliner? Heck fething no lol.

So yeah. pessimists gonna' Pessimate I guess. And yes: i made that word up just now. And It's awesome.

Ok, that made me laugh for real. Nice one lol

Col. Dash wrote:
Ahh interesting. I dont need to run a monat afterall and can still run the full retaliation cadre with an infiltration cadre. The bonus BS only requires the units in it to DS, but not necessarily to DS with the rest of the formation, thus I can still start the broadsides on the board and DS with the rest getting the bonus. With all the markerlights from the pathfinders the broadsides wont need the BS anyway.

Since I will need a commander, I am thinking a XV-81(I think) with the integral networked marker light to start on the board to boost the broadsides in case of drop pods from my opponent.

Don't forget that you don't get turn two auto deep strike unless all of your formation is in reserves. If you leave some out, it also risks being shot at instead of the Infiltration Cadre, which you need one of to die to get the drop first turn. It still sounds like it is far better to leave all of them in reserves so you can deep strike them into better positions than simply deploying them.

 Johnnytorrance wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Except thats not how they fight.

This entire codex screams turtle.

It encourages you to fight from a distance and shoot your opponent. even if they assault you, now you have a 12" supporting fire. why even bother putting terrain on the table? to benefit Tau? might as well just play on a flat board. It doesn't matter if they have B3 base because for very little you'll be getting units that hit on 3s and 2s.

Space marines got squadroned dreadnoughts? of course the best solution is to give riptides that as well.

40k is going to a bad place in 7th edition. sucks.

don't get me started on STR D missiles and a super heavy that will beat anythings face at only 600 points.

Turtle? A friend of mine plays a strike team-heavy mobile force that is based ENTIRELY around getting upfield and into rapid fire range as fast as possible.

He rarely uses markerlights, and doesn't even own a riptide. I don't think he's lost a game yet, and he's had the same army list since 6th dropped. If you think that a static gunline is the only way to play Tau, you're wrong and have no idea how to play Tau.

Tau has two things going for it, shooting and mobility. Why would you want to scrap one of those thing and play gunline? This codex seems even more mobility based. The best formations are the optimized stealth cadre and the retaliation cadre. One has a maximum range of 24" and the other one give deep strike and relentless to our broadsides which was our only non-mobile unit.

With tau you need to move up, focus down one area of your opponents army and then jump into that hole you just made.

 lambsandlions wrote:
Tau has two things going for it, shooting and mobility. Why would you want to scrap one of those thing and play gunline? This codex seems even more mobility based. The best formations are the optimized stealth cadre and the retaliation cadre. One has a maximum range of 24" and the other one give deep strike and relentless to our broadsides which was our only non-mobile unit.

With tau you need to move up, focus down one area of your opponents army and then jump into that hole you just made.

KACHING!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 McNinja wrote:

Turtle? A friend of mine plays a strike team-heavy mobile force that is based ENTIRELY around getting upfield and into rapid fire range as fast as possible.

He rarely uses markerlights, and doesn't even own a riptide. I don't think he's lost a game yet, and he's had the same army list since 6th dropped. If you think that a static gunline is the only way to play Tau, you're wrong and have no idea how to play Tau.

YAYA!

Jancoran is happy lol

In all seriousness, yes Tau can do gunlines and yes it technically works when your opponent doesnt know how to deal with it. I'd rather run circles around my enemies and pepper their hides with high rate of fire guns than sit at a distance and hope to god i dont face a droppod army, biker rush army, or an IG tankline (AV14 is damn near impossible without some REALLY good luck on tau's end to take out at table range)

And i have literally ran circles around my opponents before. Crisis team with duo plasmas did a large circle around a couple of units and avoid charge every time by a couple inches. Thats hilarious when that happens lol

Mobile Tau armies are much, much more versatile to the situation at hand, while gunlines gotta hope they dont face a counter. Find a counter, you lose unless the dice really hate your opponent.

I think closer to the mark is, some enemies simply cant be ready for it. They are too slow. and when that happens... By all mens gunline. They asked for it in those cases.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Jancoran is happy lol

In all seriousness, yes Tau can do gunlines and yes it technically works when your opponent doesnt know how to deal with it. I'd rather run circles around my enemies and pepper their hides with high rate of fire guns than sit at a distance and hope to god i dont face a droppod army, biker rush army, or an IG tankline (AV14 is damn near impossible without some REALLY good luck on tau's end to take out at table range)

And i have literally ran circles around my opponents before. Crisis team with duo plasmas did a large circle around a couple of units and avoid charge every time by a couple inches. Thats hilarious when that happens lol

Mobile Tau armies are much, much more versatile to the situation at hand, while gunlines gotta hope they dont face a counter. Find a counter, you lose unless the dice really hate your opponent.

Well, IG tank lines USED to be a problem. We have OSC now

The only real issue I see is packing enough AP 3 to knock out biker armies. Probably worth a riptide to get some shots at range since you can also ignore cover with it with good ol' buffmander. Actually considering some Railsides in my list because of this. Also because if they get the Skyfire warlord trait (as I currently plan to run buffmander with them to try out) that would be pretty dope.

Unrelated question - I see a lot of people running a bunch of EWO upgrades on models and units that don't have a velocity fracker. Why is this? That seems very inefficient

Actually i pretty much exclusively roll on Command Traits for my warlord trait. 4 of 6 of them are damn powerful for Tau.

A second LD10 bubble (if you have an ethereal that is) for almost entire army LD10.
Moves through cover. No more danger tests on crisis/stealth suits!
Reroll to hits of 1 in shooting. Yeah doesnt benefit Buffmander's unit but 12" bubble makes about half of your army benefit largely, especially those Gets Hot fethers.
Rerolls to hits of 1 in melee isnt as powerful but its still very useful since if we get in that situation, its a godsent to have around lol.

I find the Tau specific ones to be very, very situational at best. The ability to deny Look Out Sir is awesome but our warlord is always a buffmander so its never used. I'd like it on Shadowsun but she has her own trait and unfortunately we cant simply pick another.

Also the OSR is only good against IG AV14 when they get up close. Weve always had answers up close for AV14 - Fusion spam. Admittedly OSR does a much better job even with bursts than a couple crisis could ever do with fusions on the face.

 luke1705 wrote:


Well, IG tank lines USED to be a problem. We have OSC now

The only real issue I see is packing enough AP 3 to knock out biker armies. Probably worth a riptide to get some shots at range since you can also ignore cover with it with good ol' buffmander. Actually considering some Railsides in my list because of this. Also because if they get the Skyfire warlord trait (as I currently plan to run buffmander with them to try out) that would be pretty dope.

Unrelated question - I see a lot of people running a bunch of EWO upgrades on models and units that don't have a velocity fracker. Why is this? That seems very inefficient

I'm a Tau player who usually runs EWO and I've never used Velocity Trackers. EWO lets you do more than shoot down flyers. It'll wipe various deepstriking units and units that try to outflank as well which is generally what people are going to try to do to you to close the distance to your army quickly. As far as not needing velocity trackers, Missilesides get enough hits in on flyers coming on from reserves through twinlinked that they don't need velocity trackers. In the rare cases where a unit or two of broadsides were not able to kill the flyer, they've at least forced it to snapshoot which is usually good enough for me.

I would think that Ravenwing would be a scary opponent for Tau. Granted, Tau have markerlights which can take away their rerollable jink saves, but they are damn fast and fairly tough, especially those command squads with their FnP. Plus, if they charge from within 6" of a Darkshroud, they are immune to overwatch. Ouch.

I haven't played gunline Tau since I could field 9 Broadside with Strength 10 railguns (and even then I gave them Stabilization Systems so they could move)


I do personally hate the Supporting Fire rule. I think it encourages clumping up and static play, which, as has been noted, is boring (for the Tau player too).

I would have rather our army wide special rule was something like Darkstrider's ability to Consolidate after Overwatch. That rule pays off if you push the Tau up the table and maneuver them independently of each other. Much more interesting for everyone and much more reflective of the way the Tau actually would fight.

However, some of these formation special rules and new units are actually encouraging us up table.

Infiltration Cadre - put those units up table early in the game to score marker hits. Who cares if they get overrun as that triggers your Retaliation cadre to deep strike in with a buttload of Crisis Suits, Riptides and Relentless Broadsides/

Optimized Stealth Cadre - weapon ranges of 18 to 24 inches and the need to keep within 6 inches of each other means you have to push in close.

Heavy Retribution Cadre - okay, you probably want to park the Stormsurges in the backfield, but that Ghostkeel unit needs to get pretty close to the enemy to make use of the formation special rule.

Allied Advance Cadre - Benefits for putting units well forward in forested terrain

Breachers - they want to be less than 6 inches form the enemy, what more do we need to say there?

Hunter Cadre - the bigger Supporting Fire bubble means units have room to maneuver while Ambushes and Feints allows for some rapid movement.

I keep finding it funny how tau haters tend to focus on us being a boring gunline, when I literally hasn't seen a single tau gunline for the entirety of 7th edition and that every other inner-tau tactic discussion is just what us the best way to jump on people's positions with deepstrikers, rushes, outflank and infiltration.

 luke1705 wrote:


Unrelated question - I see a lot of people running a bunch of EWO upgrades on models and units that don't have a velocity fracker. Why is this? That seems very inefficient

Because outflanking reserves can make mess of an entire Tau gunline or whatever is back there. The Haemonculous Coven for example can bring 5 Talos into your backfield. MIGHT wanna do something about that. And so on.

 luke1705 wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Jancoran is happy lol

Unrelated question - I see a lot of people running a bunch of EWO upgrades on models and units that don't have a velocity fracker. Why is this? That seems very inefficient

EWO's are cheap and give you an out in many difficult situations.

NO1 thing they do is change a guaranteed First Blood against you into one for you vs. drop pod list (But this worked better with the old FBSC, you could always should a pod with 3 broadsides for almost guaranteed kill).

NO2 Protect you units against any form of deep strike, be it SkyHammer (And Tau is the only one with even a bit of an ''out'' against this, everyone else just has to sit there and take it.), other drop pods or some of the more exotic DS options like Falcons, WebWayed Firedragons/wraith guard and so on.

NO3 If your about to get charged and something deep strikes or arrives from reserve you get at least one more shot out of the unit (This is a lot better than it sounds).


Rule of thumb: Broadsides, Riptides, StormSurge always get EWO. Rest at your discretion.

It's a bummer you can't give the Ta'unar EWO

Did they forget to put sky rays in the hunter contingent rules? Because I want my sky rays back!

The only way to get skyrays in the formation is the Armoured Interdiction Cadre, which unfortunately is the worst possible to way get skyrays because each unit of skyrays you want you need 3 units of hammerheads.

^ With the coordinated fire Skyrays with Networked markerlights might be a little too powerful perhaps.

Which come to think of it - might make it worth bringing a sunshark bomber.

Just take Darkstrider for -1 T shenanigans, 2x5 Breachers and however many Skyrays you want, it's not like they really need re-roll to hit when they have TL weapons and BS5 Seekers.

I like how they did the Formations. It forces you to make decisions.

How about allocating grounding test wounds to drones?

The Coldstar lands on its drone!

hehehe.

I'm curious-are breacher squads any good at all? The problem I see is that their weapons have very short range (15" to even touch anything, 5" to be a significant threat). I would think a valid tactic would be to take a squad of ten with a Guardian drone in a Devilfish, run up the board in the 'fish, disembark right in front of some MEQ, and let them have some AP3 in the face! Then, if they survive the inevitable counterattack, they just pile back into the 'fish and do it again! The high strength of their guns could also make it possible to pop a Rhino/Chimera/Taurox so your battlesuits could start shooting whatever's inside. The guardian drone would help them survive the counterattack, and if you could park the 'fish in the right spot, it could block LOS for some dudes wanting a shot at your breachers. On paper it looks good, but is it really as good as it sounds?

 Vineheart01 wrote:

DirtyDeeds wrote:I play Tau and I have a mixed gunline/ mid field strategy that blends well together and I believe these formations and new rules will make me unbeatable in my meta. I'll have to scale back a bit if I want to keep my friends. :/

Well, to be fair its pretty hard if not impossible to completely avoid the gunline tactics. I bring Broadsides every game, they never move. But aside from the new Stormsurge i got, literally nothing else stayed put unless my firewarriors were already in optimal Rapid Fire range. Two units being completely stationary does not mean i do a Gunline tactic, but i still have elements of it.
Heck, i play my orks insanely assaulty in the 7th ed book (total flip from 6th to me). Slugga choppas, MANz missiles, warbikers, walkers, etc. I still use Lobbas and Lootas. Am i a gunliner? Heck fething no lol.

So yeah. pessimists gonna' Pessimate I guess. And yes: i made that word up just now. And It's awesome.

Ok, that made me laugh for real. Nice one lol

Mobile tau FTW! My army (with it's 6 Dfish) might not be the most competitive, but it sure is fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I'm curious-are breacher squads any good at all? The problem I see is that their weapons have very short range (15" to even touch anything, 5" to be a significant threat). I would think a valid tactic would be to take a squad of ten with a Guardian drone in a Devilfish, run up the board in the 'fish, disembark right in front of some MEQ, and let them have some AP3 in the face! Then, if they survive the inevitable counterattack, they just pile back into the 'fish and do it again! The high strength of their guns could also make it possible to pop a Rhino/Chimera/Taurox so your battlesuits could start shooting whatever's inside. The guardian drone would help them survive the counterattack, and if you could park the 'fish in the right spot, it could block LOS for some dudes wanting a shot at your breachers. On paper it looks good, but is it really as good as it sounds?

They are good if you can get them there. Getting them there is expensive, however. That's the real downside to me (that and the 4/- at the longest range. Quite fun, although I'm sticking with carbine warriors.

Breachers require a devilfish in order to do anything. On foot, they wont ever get more than a couple of guys in that 5" range without getting charged first.

I like the idea of the gun, i think its too short though. Either a better range or give them at least competent melee skills (WS3, 2 attacks, still S3 AP-) so they can at least attempt to fend off the inevitable charge.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Breachers require a devilfish in order to do anything. On foot, they wont ever get more than a couple of guys in that 5" range without getting charged first.

I like the idea of the gun, i think its too short though. Either a better range or give them at least competent melee skills (WS3, 2 attacks, still S3 AP-) so they can at least attempt to fend off the inevitable charge.

Breachers are good line defense units from reserve or deployed in the case of enemies who can get there fast. I'd use them to defend the Storm Surge from Wraith Guard in Serpents and things like that.

meh either way im not a fan of them. i may proxy a squad of firewarriors eventually but probably not. my squads being color coded makes it easy to tell which is which

 Vineheart01 wrote:
meh either way im not a fan of them. i may proxy a squad of firewarriors eventually but probably not. my squads being color coded makes it easy to tell which is which

Im not saying to go buy 30 right now. Just explaining how i might use them.

I have a feeling that Breachers might be a sleeper favorite. With the prevalence of MSU marine spam nonsense, they're going to have good targets all over the place. With the run/fire rules, they're reasonably mobile on foot and can exert a reasonable amount of board control since they're pretty powerful within that magic 5" range. If you think about it, they effectively have a 14" threat range - 6" move, 3" run on low average, and 5" shooting. That's obviously not incredible, but if you think of them like dedicated assault troops, that actually sounds pretty decent, right? At the worst, they'll force your opponent to divert some firepower from other things to make sure your Breachers don't get close enough to unload a bunch of S6 AP3 death on his units. I think standard FW are probably a better bet, but I'm more than willing to try Breachers out fairly extensively. At the moment, I plan to run a very aggressive, mostly medium-range list, and they should perform well in that environment.