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I don't feel like the Y'Vahra will be THAT good (i.e., broken) at the 400pt level, which is where it's probably going to be. It's leagues better than standard Riptides, but that's isn't saying a lot at the moment. I'd call it appropriately costed.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Gun Drones are awesome (who ever took them before other than in Piranha Wing gimmick lists?)

I did!

I ran a DC commander with vectored retros and two burst cannons or CIBs in a squad of 12 gun drones. They swept away an infantry unit every turn, I loved them!

*holy gak, autocorrect is on a roll today.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Gun Drones are awesome (who ever took them before other than in Piranha Wing gimmick lists?)

I did!

I ran a DC commander with vectored retros and two burst cannons or CIBs in a squad of 12 gun drones. They swept away an infantry unit every turn, I loved them!

*holy gak, autocorrect is on a roll today.

How will folk be deploying the drone swarm + drone-controller-model (commander, XV8, XV25)?

In my list above, I'm going to go as light on DCs as possible. Given that they're now often competing directly with weapon options, those support system slots are far too valuable these days to be used lightly. The big daddy suits that get support system slots in addition to weapon choices need things like ATS and target locks. The best place, by far, to have a DC is on a Stealth Suit since they really don't experience a huge benefit from any of the other options. Even with the durability buff, Stealth Suits still don't strike me as good units, but they're usable enough to have around if you've got a drone swarm to support.

Stealth suits are sturdy enough that burying one drone controller in there can make them a decent bolster unit for your gun line, even more useful if you plan to be mobile with them, because they all have the same speedy movement profile. And if they get wise and try to focus the stealth to death, the drones will selflessly jump in.

So long as drones attached to units count as separate units for purposes of kill points, tau will always be giving away buckets of them, so don't worry too much about taking msu of drones and aiming for a crushing victory on objectives.

In the... increasingly unlikely chance they come out and say drone controller effects stack, then a unit of crisis suits with DCs and MPs will be the ideal drone supporting platform.

I also think a high BS character in a drone port would be a good way to consistently put out 2-4 almost assured marker light hits, but I haven't looked at the points.

If you just need one DC then I think a crisis suit is the best place for it. This is especially true now that units can all split fire, so you can have a guy with a DC and different load-out to his friends.

An example load out could be to have two suits with 3 plasma rifles each (actually quite inexpensive, and scary) and one with two fusion blasters and a DC.

There's some real synergy between crisis suits and drones - if you can live with the fact that the suits are probably a bit too expensive. They can pass wounds over to drones and be given weapons to break open stuff with good saves for the drones to chew up.

A few of my thoughts to add on to the pile.

1. I think that Breachers won in a big way. Short range is straight up devastating and Medium range got a BIG buff with ap -1. I look for squads of breachers in fish to be go to units for counter punching alpha strike lists. I am especially excited to try them with Darkstrider, but that may be overly hopeful considering how good Fusion Commanders will be.

2. Piranhas still look pretty flimsy, but they could wind up being really good. I will try them out, but I have a feeling that they will need something like Drukarhi's flicker fields to gain enough survivabilty. Still, maybe they will surprise me.

3. I am not on the R.I.P.tide train. Yes, I think the Ion Accelerator loadout is way overpriced, BUT I the HBC with ATS is looking pretty savage to me for 320. Anything that can take 2 smart missile systems with ATS is valuable. Yes it went up in points, but so did a LOT of stuff, and I think that it will be a lot more durable than other similar platforms. Again, maybe this is my over optimism.

4. I think markerlight is just dead. I'm surprised to see that some people are still building lists with marker. To get a decent benefit you need to make your average at 5 hits, which means you need at least 10 lights. If you want to make it RELIABLY, you need more like 14 lights. Assuming you go first and don't take any casualties. So now you really need more like 18-20. JUST to reliably get +1 bs stacked on a SINGLE target. I see them as being just completely unusable.

Overall I am super pumped to try to find a way to play T'au as a mobile and agressive list rather than the boring castle play that we experienced in 7th. Don't believe the bad press.

I dont think markerlights are straight dead.

you can shoot off a couple and you dont need the full 5 dot shebang.

getting 1 is already good enough.
2 is a little meh unless you are building a seeker list
3 is only really beneficial for i think infantry with heavy weapons OR extra markerlights on the move. technically since all shots are individual one at a time, you shoot of one markerlight at a time till you hit. after which any additional hits are reroll 1s so you have a slightly better chance to hit any additional shots. (i think)

4 is really good but is situational useless if they are not in cover.

5 is the grand poobaa but its going to take a bit to get to.

i honestly think just the one marker light hit is pretty powerful as its often a normal HQ level power.

Hi Vector,

Yes. He had a homing beacon on the Stealth Suits with some drones protecting them.

So I couldn't kill them in T1.

 Desubot wrote:
I dont think markerlights are straight dead.

you can shoot off a couple and you dont need the full 5 dot shebang.

getting 1 is already good enough.
2 is a little meh unless you are building a seeker list
3 is only really beneficial for i think infantry with heavy weapons OR extra markerlights on the move. technically since all shots are individual one at a time, you shoot of one markerlight at a time till you hit. after which any additional hits are reroll 1s so you have a slightly better chance to hit any additional shots. (i think)

4 is really good but is situational useless if they are not in cover.

5 is the grand poobaa but its going to take a bit to get to.

i honestly think just the one marker light hit is pretty powerful as its often a normal HQ level power.

I actually don't disagree with your statements very much with the exception that I think that getting 1 is only OKAY and not good enough. The reason, mainly is how many points you need to invest to get enough marker to last multiple turns. It is just too many points for not enough production. I think that the points will just be better spent on more offensive units when the reroll is still only a 4+ if you are without 5 markers. Point for point, there is better production to be had elsewhere.

Suks wrote:

I actually don't disagree with your statements very much with the exception that I think that getting 1 is only OKAY and not good enough. The reason, mainly is how many points you need to invest to get enough marker to last multiple turns. It is just too many points for not enough production. I think that the points will just be better spent on more offensive units when the reroll is still only a 4+ if you are without 5 markers. Point for point, there is better production to be had elsewhere.

I think trying to spam them is a pretty bad idea. honestly 1 or 2 units of pathfinders will be fairly useful as with the new split fire rule you can allocate a BUNCH of rerolls of 1s around multiple units OR going ham one 1 thing that needs killing. its a very flex option which i think makes the new edition fantastic.

over spamming is bad.

The markerlight set up I'm considering is like this:

5 Pathfinders 97
2 Markerlights
3 Rail Rifles

Tidwall Droneport 70
4 Marker Drones 40

I think the droneport with pathfinders compares quite favourably to the (bad) railhead and broadside. You'll get a few markerlight hits, which is all you really need. The key thing is to get rerolls of 1s, as quite a lot of Tau stuff now gets hot.

To be honest I still can't claim that this is anything spectacular. It ought to be able to manage something though.

A basic 40 point, 5 man squad of pathfinders really isn't too bad either. That's not a lot of points, at all. They are still a little scoring unit that you can have get maelstrom objectives and the like. The major downside that I see is that you'll be less likely to go first if you take much of this kind of thing - which is why I'm looking at transports and tidewall stuff to get multiple drops at once.

Do the passengers count as moving if the drone port moves?

Why not spend a bit and put your fire warriors and a cadre fireblade in there? Then you have a mobile shooting platform flanked by four BS 2+ marker drones.

Between them you can have two pairs of additional drones of your choice following along and two additional marker lights from the fireblade and the shas'ui. Try to get one light on with the passengers (or, failing that, the drones from the units or pathfinders elsewhere) then hit them with four 2+ rerolling shots and enjoy that five-light bonus.

Putting a fireblade in there is an option for sure. So is a firesight marksman (or whatever he's now called) - or indeed Shadowsun.

Annoyingly, you're not allowed to put two units of pathfinders in the thing (as you can with a devilfish) For some reason fortifications only allow one unit (and as many characters as fit) to embark.

I just wouldn't bother putting fire warriors in a tidewall thing. I'd just buy twice as many fire warriors (nearly). I think it's worth it for these pathfinders, as they are pricey and made of paper.

It may well be worth taking one of the other kinds of tidewalls and filling it with a unit of 10 pathfinders, rather than having the drones. The basic shield line is softer though, and the price would be the same either way. The good thing about the shieldline is being able to take effectively two transports for one drop, and stick two units and a few characters inside them.

I'm not sure if the tidewall stuff is much good to be honest. The wall's reflection thing seems rubbish, as all people have to do to be save is have -1ap - and most heavy weapons will. It ought to have an invulnerable save like Kastellan robots, I think.

I don't know if you count as moving when your transport moves. It doesn't seem to say that you do, but that doesn't necessarily mean much.

Mandragola wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
When I initially asked the question, I was leaning towards Aeri's rationale and thinking that maybe both weapons get nova'd at the same time. I'm still on that side of the fence, but we'll have to wait for a FAQ to settle it for sure, I suppose.

There is only one interpretation of "a weapon". There are plenty of unclear rules in 8th and the indexes, but this isn't among them.

Let me try and explain this with an example. Meet farmer John. Farmer John has a cow. How many cows does Farmer John have?

Circle one answer:
a) 1 cow.
b) 2 cows.
c) We'll have to wait for a FAQ to settle it for sure.

See pic if you need more help.



Sorry for going off on one. Honestly the Y'Vahra is annoyingly good and is getting on my nerves a bit. The problem is that if it's not really seriously expensive it will be broken. I wish FW would write good rules to go with their models but they consistently fail to, and remain banned from many events. I don't see that changing, based on the evidence of the Y'Vahra.

It is simply GW's responsibility for clear text. "A" can be manipulated as easily as all of you have because you put it into a context that specifically works for your point.

In reference to the post about ordering a beer.....well, if I walked up and did this, does it fit into your context = "I would like "a" beer in a glass, I also would like "a" beer in a bottle while I would like "a" third beer that is in a glass with lime".

The same logic can be used in a sentence for the cow......so how many cows would we have then?

The point is that it's tricky to convey thought across text to others who are not inside your mind to know "exactly" what you mean.

I feel like markers are getting an unnecessarily bad rap so far. I agree that they're not as powerful as they were, but they're still worth using. Rerolling 1's is actually not too shabby, considering that Commander spam is a worthy strategy. For other stuff it's less impressive, admittedly. However, the fact that lights can be used by multiple units is a huge buff, even though the overall effects aren't as significant. You can make very sure that your target gets vaporized that turn.

Pathfinders really got a huge boost by getting so much cheaper. It's very nice that they come with pulse carbines so they can join in the S5 spam when they aren't needed as marker sources. Split fire is also very cool, letting you spread around rerolls of 1s once the big ugly stuff is gone.

People should ask Fw for clarification for both nova abilities (1-2 weapons and escape thrust being able to move or not)

MilkmanAl wrote:
S5 is worse against T3, but that's it. I'd actually argue that FW got a substantial buff from the to-wound table, rather than a nerf. You won't be mowing down guardsmen like you used to, I suppose, but now you can tackle light vehicles competently and even take a few chunks out of superheavies through weight of fire. That's a huge improvement.

But it's not a big advantage over other infantry in the game, most of which has S4 guns. Most vehicles and monstrous creatures are T6 or T7, and against them S4 and S5 perform identically. Pulse Rifles only have an advantage against T8 monsters/tanks.

Which is significant, right? Those T8 models are the nasty monstrosities that you want dead ASAP, and pulse rifles are twice as effective as other factions' basic guns against them.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Which is significant, right? Those T8 models are the nasty monstrosities that you want dead ASAP, and pulse rifles are twice as effective as other factions' basic guns against them.

Being twice as effective as a lasgun against T8+ is not very significant as you're twice as effective as possibly the worst choice to kill that kind of unit. And IG can field over twice as many Lasguns as our Pulse Rifles for similar cost.

I suppose that's true. Getting out-horded by IG isn't surprising, though. I like how we stack up against the rest of the field, however.

Suks wrote:

3. I am not on the R.I.P.tide train. Yes, I think the Ion Accelerator loadout is way overpriced, BUT I the HBC with ATS is looking pretty savage to me for 320. Anything that can take 2 smart missile systems with ATS is valuable. Yes it went up in points, but so did a LOT of stuff, and I think that it will be a lot more durable than other similar platforms. Again, maybe this is my over optimism.

4. I think markerlight is just dead. I'm surprised to see that some people are still building lists with marker. To get a decent benefit you need to make your average at 5 hits, which means you need at least 10 lights. If you want to make it RELIABLY, you need more like 14 lights. Assuming you go first and don't take any casualties. So now you really need more like 18-20. JUST to reliably get +1 bs stacked on a SINGLE target. I see them as being just completely unusable.

Overall I am super pumped to try to find a way to play T'au as a mobile and agressive list rather than the boring castle play that we experienced in 7th. Don't believe the bad press.

3-Run the math and you'll see that it's simply not.
Even with the NOVA active, there is not a single target in the entire game where the riptide gets a decent wound-per-point ratio, being always outclassed by the coldstar, gun drones, weapon carrying pathfinders, heck even flamer crisis somehow dout-reforms it against even tanks.
The riptide costs like an IK, it doesn't do anything remotely close to it.

4-I tend to agree, but if you made the mistake of taking any tanks or big suits, you need that 3 markers to counteract the "moving with heavy" penalty.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
Which is significant, right? Those T8 models are the nasty monstrosities that you want dead ASAP, and pulse rifles are twice as effective as other factions' basic guns against them.

Being twice as effective as a lasgun against T8+ is not very significant as you're twice as effective as possibly the worst choice to kill that kind of unit. And IG can field over twice as many Lasguns as our Pulse Rifles for similar cost.

Also better against T4 and T5. Plus T3, T6 and T7 when compared to S3, the original point. S5 clearly is meaningful.

This is my buddies 2k list. What do you all think?

2 cadre fireblades

2 squads of 5 firewarriors
Squad of 9 firewarriors

2 devilfish w/ sms

9 marker drones

Farsight

3x Commander w/ 4 Fusion

Commander w/ 4 CIB

Commander w/ 3 Missile Pods, Drone Controller

Stormsurge w/ Blastcannon, ATS, EWO, Shield Gen

I'm finding it hard to figure out what is he even planning with 2 fireblades yet so few infantry...

I was kind of wondering the same thing. Any thoughts beyond that though?

1)
I think the biggest issue T'au are facing is the possibility of first turn assaults.
We cannot improve our overwatch to godlike levels anymore and are still pretty much screwed in close combat.

What do you think is the best way to prevent this?

I think there are only 2 choices, either broadsides or a stormsurge with EWOs.
2 Missilesides with EWO cost 420 Points.
1 Stormsurge with AFP, Pulseblastcannon, EWO and ATS costs ~450 Points.

The EWO does not prevent us from shooting in our turn anymore!
--> I think stormsurges might get a fixed spot in our lists because of it's ability to deny first turn charges.
It even is perfekt to counter trygons delivering gaunts!
Opinions?

2)
The devilfish seems solid but costly, like in 7th ed.
It cannot take any support systems though (ats would have been nice)
Do you think we need TY7s?
Do you think they are worth 127 Points?
Since Gundrones are so much better now, I dont think SMS are worth 40 (!) points, do you?
2 TY7 + 2x10 Strikes are 414 Points, but could be a unit to grab objectives fast and prevent Strikes from getting shot. (this actually was one of the biggest issues I faced in my test games.)
Since objectives are held by pure body count, I think delivering strike squads is very important in 8th ed!

I think we're a horde army now at our best; so the answer to first turn assaults is to allow them to attack chaff units like Kroot Hounds (we can take 100 for 400 points.....). The other piece of the puzzle is to leave half our army in reserves to manta strike.

So for example, let's say my army is 2x Y'Vahras, a quad fusion commander, a coldstar, 100+ kroot hounds and a stormsurge with the works. (About 2k). I place my y-tides and fusion commander in reserve, and use my hordes of hounds to bubble wrap my bubble wrap around my surge and coldstar (deployed behind surge so he's not the closest unt). i dare my opponent to assault my cheap crap, and keep them outside the melta bubble of my surge with ewo.

Embrace the horde....(and find cheap 3rd party proxies for kroot hounds)

 The Shrike wrote:
I think we're a horde army now at our best; so the answer to first turn assaults is to allow them to attack chaff units like Kroot Hounds (we can take 100 for 400 points.....). The other piece of the puzzle is to leave half our army in reserves to manta strike.

So for example, let's say my army is 2x Y'Vahras, a quad fusion commander, a coldstar, 100+ kroot hounds and a stormsurge with the works. (About 2k). I place my y-tides and fusion commander in reserve, and use my hordes of hounds to bubble wrap my bubble wrap around my surge and coldstar (deployed behind surge so he's not the closest unt). i dare my opponent to assault my cheap crap, and keep them outside the melta bubble of my surge with ewo.

Embrace the horde....(and find cheap 3rd party proxies for kroot hounds)

You are right on the horde, but wrong on the unit horded.
You horde drones.

They are brutal in overwatch, creepy effective in shooting in general against most things, cheap, fast, durable enough, and are the ultimate meatshield for your important tau units as they can tank fro your characters even when behind them. (and for other battlesuits/infantry too)

Drones are currently the crutch holding together the mess that is the tau index.

Shame to see what they've done to so many Tau units - nerf them into oblivion. I'm suprised that more people aren't upset about the thrashing the Riptide has received at the hands of GW - almost every Tau player had one or more of these expensive models, and now they're little more than paperweights.

I don't entirely blame GW for this though, but the spiteful player base calling for the Tau to be gutted...well, GW was listening, and they were not kind with the knife. Did some units need rebalancing? Absolutely. Did those units need to be made nearly useless? Absolutely not.