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Alright, I have an upcoming 1000 pt team tournament and I haven’t committed to a list yet. If I took a Tau list I would like to take a Y’vharna. Anyone have a list with that included? Interested in seeing what you all would run.

KampfKrote wrote:
Alright, I have an upcoming 1000 pt team tournament and I haven’t committed to a list yet. If I took a Tau list I would like to take a Y’vharna. Anyone have a list with that included? Interested in seeing what you all would run.

This weekend i played a team match with 1000 point for each player and my TAU list performed EXTREMELY WELL.

List had 2 coldstar commanders, 3 ghostkeell, a fireblade and 3 strike teams.

Basically i deployed ghostkeells mid-table and advanced to the border of the enemy deployment zone on turn 1, declared Kauyon (edited: Mont´ka) and moved the 2 commanders to cover just behind ghostkeels. My ally advanced and covered behind me.

Commanders destroyed 2 vehicles and ghostkeels made some decent damage to some infantry.

Ghostkeels unexpectedly managed to survive enemy turn 1 even after they recieved some fire and several assaults but that wasnt event needed: turn 2 my commanders and my ally finished enemy at short range: GG

Second commander just in an aux detachment I'm guessing? That does sound pretty slick.

elvelux wrote:

KampfKrote wrote:
Alright, I have an upcoming 1000 pt team tournament and I haven’t committed to a list yet. If I took a Tau list I would like to take a Y’vharna. Anyone have a list with that included? Interested in seeing what you all would run.

This weekend i played a team match with 1000 point for each player and my TAU list performed EXTREMELY WELL.

List had 2 coldstar commanders, 3 ghostkill, a fireblade and 3 strike teams.

Basically i deployed ghostkills mid-table and advanced to the border of the enemy deployment zone on turn 1, declared Kauyon and moved the 2 commanders to cover just behind ghostkeels. My ally advanced and covered behind me.

Commanders destroyed 2 vehicles and ghostkeels made some decent damage to some infantry.

Ghostkeels unexpectedly managed to survive thir turn 1 even after they recieved some fire and several assaults but that wasnt event needed: turn 2 my commanders and my ally finished enemy at short range: GG

If you declare Kauyon you can't move and Kauyon and montka must be declared before you move anything.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


If you declare Kauyon you can't move.

Sorry: declared Mont´ka, to get the ghostkeels to fire after advancing. You have to deploy ghostkeels just 6" from one commander, but with the base witdth, the 12" movement and the advance you get to the enemy deployment zone.

It was a battallion and a vanguard with the second commander and the ghostkeels.

Vior´La Battallion
Coldstar with 4 fusion.
Cadre Fireblade
3 x 5 strike team

T´au Vanguard
Coldstar with 4 fusion
3 x Ghostkeel with ion raker, burst cannon and shield generator.

Both commanders can advance and fire fusion without -1 to hit: one from the Vior´la sept rule and the other from warlord trait.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Its barely a tax to throw in 3x5 fire warriors and an ethereal to make a battalion for 150 extra points. 9 more and you get 3 more rerolling markerlights.

Not counting commander, thats under 250 pts for 6 rerolling markerlights, a ld10 bubble+ethereal buffs, and 5 cp. I'll spend that every time. Tau blow through cp so fast, it's definitely worth it.

I don't like that tax. I'd prefer to have Darkstrider, the Fireblade buff apply on every team, and better overwatch on all my Strike teams rather than a few re-rolling MLs for late game.

Lemondish wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Its barely a tax to throw in 3x5 fire warriors and an ethereal to make a battalion for 150 extra points. 9 more and you get 3 more rerolling markerlights.

Not counting commander, thats under 250 pts for 6 rerolling markerlights, a ld10 bubble+ethereal buffs, and 5 cp. I'll spend that every time. Tau blow through cp so fast, it's definitely worth it.

I don't like that tax. I'd prefer to have Darkstrider, the Fireblade buff apply on every team, and better overwatch on all my Strike teams rather than a few re-rolling MLs for late game.

I mean.... my tournament list will be running 60 T'au fire warriors with Darkstrider and fireblade. The Sa'cea ethereal is a huge buff to a T'au fire warrior list, so that's not a tax. T'au fire warriors should be moving forward, the sa'cea ones are free to sit back and deny backfield DS and hold objectives.

You're really spending like 189 pts for the rerolling markerlights and CP. But, if you'd rather have the 27 fire warriors instead of 15 fire warriors and 3 marksmen (Plus the CP that comes with a battalion), that's a fair enough opinion.

Took me this long to realize that you can't run 3 Ghostkeels in that 1000 pt list with the new FAQ. I have everything purchased for a competitive 2000 pt list.

Vanguard

Coldstar Commander w/ 4 BC
Riptide x3
8 Shield Drones

Outrider

Ethereal
Y'Vahra x2
8 Shield Drones

List seems mean, the shield drones were the most difficult thing for me to actually acquire. Really excited to put this many Riptide chassis on the table. So many big mechs

Riptides without branched nova and markerlights aren't half as scary.
Y'varah has a reputation and makes a great distraction but is overcosted.
You have 5CP total, I normally burn through 3-4 per turn.

KampfKrote wrote:
Took me this long to realize that you can't run 3 Ghostkeels in that 1000 pt list with the new FAQ. I have everything purchased for a competitive 2000 pt list.

Vanguard

Coldstar Commander w/ 4 BC
Riptide x3
8 Shield Drones

Outrider

Ethereal
Y'Vahra x2
8 Shield Drones

List seems mean, the shield drones were the most difficult thing for me to actually acquire. Really excited to put this many Riptide chassis on the table. So many big mechs

Pretty sure your Cold Star can take 2 Burst Cannons in addition to its HBC and Missile Launcher, as you have two additional slots you fill with weapons or support systems. Which means you can effectively have 2 HBCs and the ML rather than just 4 BCs.

SJ

Alright, I updated it so that I will have more use of Branched Nova Systems. I removed a Riptide, which gave me enough points for 3 firesight marksmen, darkstrider, 3 units of 5 fire warriors. I also swapped out the ethereal for a fireblade. I also had enough points to make the Commander into a quad fusion.

I would move the puretide to the fireblade, less likely to be shoot at, and take the extra relic to gice him the JSJ pack.
I would devide up the drones into multiple smaller units as the have low leadership and also borkan Y'varha is the scary one as it gives +6 inch to both weapons.

See below my suggestion

I like it! Thank you for your suggestions!

evening fellow tau players!

im thinking about resurrecting my few tau for the 8th edition and i need some advice for my first list. We play a lot of friendlies from 1000 to 1500 points and im looking for a nice list as a starting point.



What am i missing?
How do i get the most out of the markerlights?
shall i aim for multiple 1-marker or go all in for the 5?
Do i have enough drones?

thanks in advance!

I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?

FrankiePeanutz wrote:
I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?

One Crisis suit with 3 Burst Cannons is 66 points. 9 of them is 594 points. You can get the same number of S5 shots with 36 Fire Warriors (that's 3 full squads of 12) if they have a Cadre Fireblade near them and are within half range (so same range as Burst if using Bor'kan sept). The cost of 36 FW and a Fireblade is 294 points. 300 extra points only gets you T5, a 3+ armor save, and the ability to deep strike (not as effective under the new beta rules), but you have less total wounds. Totally not worth it. Crisis are overcosted and underpowered, shamefully so. They really need to cost 15-20 points less per model, and/or get BS3+.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

FrankiePeanutz wrote:
I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?

One Crisis suit with 3 Burst Cannons is 66 points. 9 of them is 594 points. You can get the same number of S5 shots with 36 Fire Warriors (that's 3 full squads of 12) if they have a Cadre Fireblade near them and are within half range (so same range as Burst if using Bor'kan sept). The cost of 36 FW and a Fireblade is 294 points. 300 extra points only gets you T5, a 3+ armor save, and the ability to deep strike (not as effective under the new beta rules), but you have less total wounds. Totally not worth it. Crisis are overcosted and underpowered, shamefully so. They really need to cost 15-20 points less per model, and/or get BS3+.

Tau being over costed to an Ork player is laughable really, Orks entire line is over costed and underperforming. In any case I had not thought about other units equivalency in shooting when thinking of the XV8s, so thanks for the heads up. I’m thinking that I’ll just stick with Orks for now, as overcosted as they are.

FrankiePeanutz wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:

FrankiePeanutz wrote:
I’ve always been a Stealth Suit guy through to 7th and have not played an 8th edition game with Tau. I had always preferred the synergy with Shadowsun and Burst Cannon have always been reliable. Now with the changes I’ve seen with 8th and suits being able to fire all of their weapons, I was wondering why I haven’t seen any 9 suit squads of XV8s with 3 Burst Cannon a piece. 108 shots seems great to me and with failsafe placement instead of deep strike, I can’t wrap my head around not taking at least one squad of these monsterous 12 shot SOBs. Statistically one volley should take out a full Ork Boy unit or just about any other standard infantry squad, and that’s without markerlights. Is there a better load out that would do a better job statistically or am I missing something?

One Crisis suit with 3 Burst Cannons is 66 points. 9 of them is 594 points. You can get the same number of S5 shots with 36 Fire Warriors (that's 3 full squads of 12) if they have a Cadre Fireblade near them and are within half range (so same range as Burst if using Bor'kan sept). The cost of 36 FW and a Fireblade is 294 points. 300 extra points only gets you T5, a 3+ armor save, and the ability to deep strike (not as effective under the new beta rules), but you have less total wounds. Totally not worth it. Crisis are overcosted and underpowered, shamefully so. They really need to cost 15-20 points less per model, and/or get BS3+.

Tau being over costed to an Ork player is laughable really, Orks entire line is over costed and underperforming. In any case I had not thought about other units equivalency in shooting when thinking of the XV8s, so thanks for the heads up. I’m thinking that I’ll just stick with Orks for now, as overcosted as they are.

Only Orks don't have a codex yet. Tau crisis is in the codex, so it's here to stay. And saying that Orks have it worse does not mean Crisis have it good. There is also internal balance in a codex to consider, not only external. That being said, Crisis pay the extra points because of their flexibility. Sure fire warriors of bor'kan in short range are equal firepower with the crisis with BC, but crisis can also take meltas, plasmas, CIBs, flamers or even mix and match if they want to. This plus Toughness 5 (it's a big thing), options for support systems and deep strike, and you get to see why they chose to price them like this. Of course any unit that pays premium points for flexibility will lose effectiveness by virtue that - despite how many options you have- you will only get one setup down to the table: Crisis are not like the old oblits to change weapons at will during battle.

I like to check the pointcost of the Crisis next to the Tyranid Warrior, since these two units have a lot in common in terms of battle role, chasis and overall functionality. A naked warrior is 20 pts against the Crisis 42. In return the Crisis gets +1 str, +1 toughness, +1 save, deep strike, 3 fire points against 1, more weapon options/loadouts and access to support systems and drone support. Warriors get WS 3+ and +2 attacks, access to strong melee weapons, morale immunity and shadow in the warp to annoy psykers. From the comparison above we can see that the Crisis are not really worth more than double the price of the warriors. And then warriors are not even broken units, mostly used in friendly games as cheap synapse and some heavy bolter shooting. So overall, Crisis are in a very bad spot at the moment. The body is expensive and the guns are expensive. I think that the guns in the crisis are costed with the thought that the unit has BS3+, which is not true. You can see that a Tyranid Deathspitter, which is essentially an assault heavy bolter costs 5 points compared to standard heavy bolter's 10. This is to account for the fact that bearer is a BS4+ model in the Deathspitter case. However, when it comes to Tau, the guns are actually more expensive than the "standard" imperial versions with no direct reason as to why.

Simply put Crisis suits would need to be BS3+ to be worth taking and if GW evem hinted at making them BS3+ all the T'au haters would have a fit and burn down their local GW as T'au are OP mess. Heck I keep seeing people saying T'au units are OP as they stand. The only one I could even see as OP is coldstar commanders and it's 1 per detachment FFS.
What's even more insulting is when they admit to playing a tournament winning army and still claim T'au is OP.

thanks for the help lol

 _Ness wrote:
thanks for the help lol

My issue is you said its for casual play, I can make suggestions that would up the efficiency of your list but do you really want to be the one bringing a tournament list to a friendly game?

Squad leaders are free and improve your leadership take them all.
Multi tracker why?
Missle pods are over priced and outperformed
Coldstar commanders are where its at
Flamers, I'm not a fan

Two new Tau lists from DiceShot

https://diceshot.com/2018/05/15/tau-b-souzas-list/
https://diceshot.com/2018/05/15/tau-p-brodziks-list/

Could it still be that most Tau are still priced for the old markerlight rules? Essentially the BS of an XV8 or any other Tau unit could be anything with rerolls to 1s per 7th edition. I don’t see much change in cost between that rule set and the new one. The Burstcannon blob I mentioned earlier would be evermore devastating if say it costed 200 less points. Im on the fence with unit pricing in regards to internal balancing for the Tau. I would say that internally some things like XV8s are about double what they should cost, but externally compared to what other armies can do is say it’s about right......nope forgot about Eldar dickery, Tau are overcosted in this edition.

Think about fielding 1-3x 12 Gun Drones + 1-3 XV95 Ghostkeels with a drone controller + bits.

Very efficient firepower, good bullet sponges for nearby suits

Tau aren't overcosted wholesale, but you do have to maximize unit synergy to make your units worthwhile. Fire warriors are excellent troops by any standard, Coldstars are so good they're borderline broken, and our big suits range from serviceable to pretty darn good. Crisis suits, however, are the dud of the book. You can make them useful by running them in Farsighted Enclaves, slapping 3 CIBs on them, and dumping a bunch of command points into them, but if you're not willing to build around them, they're best left on the shelf. There are some other not awesome units, but it's a solid codex overall.

Ice_can wrote:
Riptides without branched nova and markerlights aren't half as scary.
Y'varah has a reputation and makes a great distraction but is overcosted.
You have 5CP total, I normally burn through 3-4 per turn.

Overcosted? hehehe. Okay.

Any thoughts on fusion in your stealth suit teams? You finding it hits efficient targets in your games, or best to stick to burst cannons and spend the points elsewhere? I like the idea of a fusion blaster with plenty of ablative wounds, but I'm worried that with 18" range it'll just be shooting at infantry most of the time and I'd just be better off with the burst cannon.

Justicar_Thunderflanks wrote:
Any thoughts on fusion in your stealth suit teams? You finding it hits efficient targets in your games, or best to stick to burst cannons and spend the points elsewhere? I like the idea of a fusion blaster with plenty of ablative wounds, but I'm worried that with 18" range it'll just be shooting at infantry most of the time and I'd just be better off with the burst cannon.

Depends on sept.

Tau sept straight burst

Sa'cea fusion definitely

Justicar_Thunderflanks wrote:
Any thoughts on fusion in your stealth suit teams? You finding it hits efficient targets in your games, or best to stick to burst cannons and spend the points elsewhere? I like the idea of a fusion blaster with plenty of ablative wounds, but I'm worried that with 18" range it'll just be shooting at infantry most of the time and I'd just be better off with the burst cannon.

I like the fusion just because it gives you options. I've rarely been sorry I took it. I nearly popped a Necron character with it (if it hadn't been for that stratagem that lets them get back up on a 4+), but that was an extraordinary situation. There are plenty of games and opponents where it won't do much, but in other cases it can be clutch.

If you are looking for fusions, honestly a ghostkeel or a coldstar commander is better. With a Ghostkeel you can have d3+2 fusion shots, forward deployment and -2 to be hit. With the coldstar commander you have 4 fusion shots and 40" move before you unload.

Stealths on the other side have the awkward rule of one fusion in 3 models, which means that you pay a lot of points for that one fusion shot.

Also, I find that a single piranha is basically the same shootout in the same slots (fast) as the stealth teams, but will actually be better than three stealth suits. It has the same shooting and trades survivability (-1 to hit) for mobility (increased movement). However, its shooting does not degrade (but you will lose burst cannon shots for every stealth suit you lose) and it's a little cheaper to boot. Finally it can split into two units and go capture multiple objectives at will.

Overall I am meh about the stealth suits. Even if they look damn beautiful.