Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello all. I'm getting into the Tau army. The models i currently have are.

1 Tau Battle suit commander
3 Tau Battle suits
1 Tau Stealth Team (3)
3 Devilfish
36 Tau troops
28 Kroot and 1 Kroot Ox
6 pathfinders
1 Broadside (Plan on abtaining another)
1 Tau Sniper team
6 gun drones

The Battle suits are whats holding me up. don't know what to equip them with. Want to make due with the models I have but be some what competive.
Any help would be appricated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the battlesuits I mean how to Equip Them. Not assembled as of yet.

i personally like having the battle suits with missle pod and plasmarifle

krootox are pretty much useless i dont think neone uses them

other then that i cant help much as i run a gunline tau list and most people would tell you to go mobile or hybrid

My personal favorite config:
Plasma Rifle
Missile Pod
Targeting Array

I've seen it posted before, here I think, mainly battlesuits are our answer to what our armies can't do. Need some anti-armor? Fusion Blasters. Need some anti-MEQ power? Plasma Rifle, Missile pods. Need some extra firepower for that pesky horde army? Burst Cannons. Look to what you want your army to do, then see, with your approach in mind, what it needs to do. What your troops, fast attack, and heavy support can't do, your battlesuits can.

Figure out your game plan then fill in the gaps with your suits.

CapnBloodloss wrote:

Figure out your game plan then fill in the gaps with your suits.

That is the best Tau advice I have EVER heard. I'm going to take that to heart with my own Tau list. Thank you very much, CapnBloodloss!

I seems like you have a great start.

With regards to your battlesuits, if you must glue the weapons on the above advice for the "Fireknife" configuration of plasma rifle missile pod is very sound. That team can kill anything except AV 14. A much better idea would be to google K & J magnetics and order some 3mm x 1.5mm magnets and magnetize your suits and weapons so that you can experiment with different configurations.

I would also recommend that you look online for the hammerhead upgrade sprue and make one of your devilfish into a hammerhead. If your are inclined to purchase another tank always buy the skyray box. It comes with all the sprues to make any tau tank.

I don't know how competative you are planning on being but Fire warriors are currently not very good. The range and power of their weapons is often seductive to new players but they get stomped hard in assault and are instadeathed by a large number of weapons. Most competitive lists run the six required in the codex and stick them in the devilfish required to field pathfinders. Most then fill out the troop spots with kroot.

The stealth team is another unit that is often misused. For pure anti horde they are overpriced, but if you give the team leader a markerlight and a marker drone they become one of the two mobile markerlights that the tau have. When your pathfinders get smoked on turn two game after game you will see how important this is.

To be competitive you certainly need more railguns. The hammerhead I suggested and two more broadsides would go a long way toward evening the odds against tanks.

Start small with your games. Tau have an advatange at smaller point values

A suggested list
HQ
Crisis commander Shas'el
Missile pod
Fusion blaster
Multi-tracker
79

Elite
XV-8 team
Missile pod
Plasma rifle
Multi tracker
186

Elite
Stealth team
team leader w/ markerlight
120

Troops
6 Fire warriors
60
11 kroot
77
11 kroot
77

Fast attack
8 pathfinders (use FW as more pathfinders)
Devilfish
SMS
MT
TA
216

Heavy Support
Broadside
Team leader
Advance stabilization system
SMS
HW drone controller
1 shield drone
105

Heavy Support
Sniper team
80

should be 1000 on the nose if my sleepy math is right

Have a good time fighting for the greater good

Awsome thanks for the info. THat really helps me out. I had a question though. What about a plasma and a Fusion Blaster with Multi tracker Drone controller 2X gun drones (this is times 2 Battle suits. Commander same but with shield drones?

Remember that you are limited to three items on suits that are not squad leaders or commanders and you are limited to two drones per controller. So I would recommend that you start with simple plain configurations ie Weapon weapon multi tracker for the time being. Also remember that drones count for units taking morale checks and being able to regroup so keep their numbers down and include a bonding knife in squads with lots of drones

The "sunforge" configuration is a popular one for dealing with tanks, terminators, and monstrous creatures. Because of its short range however it tends to be a one hit wonder which you can't afford in small point games. In larger point games a squad of three can be really handy though they need markerlight support to be really effective. Remember that all the weapons on this type of squad ignore feel no pain so this is the go to squad for killing plague marines, death company, and nob bikers.

In smaller point games I would stick with a commander and a squad of three which is effective and cuts down on kill points which are the bane of tau.

I would personally say the configurations really depend of who you are normally fighting. In my gaming group there is an Eldar, Ork, Marine, and Nid player. For each player I prefer different configurations.

The nice thing about battlesuits is that you can switch the configurations becuase of how they are designed. I would suggest never gluing down the weapon systems.

What do you think about this configuration

Commander Shas'o
Bonding Knife, FB, PR, HW Drone Controller (2X Shield Drones) Multi Tracker, Stimulant Injector

2 Bodyguard Both same configuration
FB, PR, HW Drone Controller(Gun DroneX2) HW Multi Tracker, Target Array

Just a thought till i can afford more Crisis Suits in the near future. This would be considering the models i currently have to play with.
Any feedback would be great..

Thanks again all for the info.

Helios pattern's nice but I would do this if were you

Shas'El
Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle
Targeting Array
HW Multi-Tracker
HW Drone-Controller + Shield Drones
Stimulant Injector
Bonded (If you want to with your Bodyguards)

Same thing but 20 points cheaper. Its great for the heavier troops, Terminators and their ilk.

For the Bodyguards I personally wouldn't take the Gun Drones, I've never had too much success with them.

That squad will be very effective for one turn. The optimum range for those guy unfortunatly is only 12" meaning that you will be charged next turn if you don't kill every thing in this shooting phase. Also with the large number of ablative wounds in the squad even a few marines will tie you up in combat for a at least a turn more likely 2 or 3 where you aren't shooting. The bodyguards are also an extra kill point.

As weird as it sounds, you really don't want to make crisis teams that last and last in close combat. in a perfect world you would like your team to shoot for two turns the get assaulted on turn three and break and run. This way the enemy's assaulters are in rapid fire range for the next turn. This is why I keep my squads cheap. This way I have more squads to shoot back with on turn 4.

I understand that is not currently an option for you and the above squad is pretty good though it would probably benefit more from MP rather than FB
I would recommend that you drop one gun drone from one of the bodyguards and give the other bodyguard a drone controller and a shield drone. THis makes your squad a unique squad of multi wound models. Go read the rules for those. You can now give a wound to each member before you have to remove a suit giving you 4 free wounds w/ FNP on the commander.

Make you last suit a "Fireforge" MP FB MT and deepstrike him to hunt for enemy tanks

An interesting way to increase your crisis suit count would be to magnetize your broad side and any future ones so that they can be regular crisis suits or broadsides. You only need to magnetize the rail guns and the arms and not glue the backpack add-ons and they can then be another crisis suit when you don't want broadsides

Yeah was gonna magnetize the crisis suits so i can get different loadout. But I was thinking that unit was gonna Deepstrike and pop small groups or a tank etc..
Any thoughts on that.
Also i know if I'm close enough i'm toast in CC. LOL



Automatically Appended Next Post:

CapnBloodloss wrote:Helios pattern's nice but I would do this if were you

Shas'El
Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle
Targeting Array
HW Multi-Tracker
HW Drone-Controller + Shield Drones
Stimulant Injector
Bonded (If you want to with your Bodyguards)

Same thing but 20 points cheaper. Its great for the heavier troops, Terminators and their ilk.

For the Bodyguards I personally wouldn't take the Gun Drones, I've never had too much success with them.

Yeah was an questionable on the Gun Drones. Didn't know how well it would work out. Should I just change them out for shield drones.
Meaning i have 4 2 for commander and 1 each for the guards?

If you are planning on killing tanks with that loadout give the commander a MP instead of a fusion blaster and a HW target lock. THis way he can shoot at a tank further away and the bodyguards can melta a closer one. That is a 300 point unit that you are deepstriking and things could go badly for you if it misshaps. I still deepstrike but I use cheap one off fireforge suits which are only 54 points each.

In most units anything more than 1 or 2 shield drones is excessive and a waste of points. 4 Shield drones=6 FW or another crisis suit.

Gun drones are cheap and have pinning weapons and are generally best on regular crisis teams to soak up stray lascannons

Shield drones should generally only go on commanders and broadsides.

While its tempting to add upgrades to allow yourself to play at higher points levels its almost always a bad idea. Try to fit in a many guns a possible and use markerlights to compensate for the lack of special weapons and abilities

Thanks Razorlead. I think I'll save the 2 shield drones for both my broadsides.

With the Target Lock you need to know, at the moment its a broken piece of wargear. The Tau Codex is not 5th edition yet and with the new rulebook, there is no target priority test. At the moment I don't use them at all bc of this. Makes me use only 2 of my precious Broadsides instead of all 3 . Just an FYI if your thinking Target Lock's. There are 2 ways of handling this if you really want to use them, They automatically pass the old test and fire at a different target or just take a leadership test and if they pass, fire away, if not...just deal with the overkill. Again, just an FYI.

My deepstrike battlesuit units are never more then 2 suits, just in case things don't work out I'm not in too much trouble. I use twin-linked fusion blasters (AKA Sunforge) on a single suit unit and deepstrike him to kill the lone tank during lower point games. Its a suicide unit, one use, maybe 2 turn life span, and then he's dead. CC SUCKS, but thats what Kroot are for.

Don't confuse new players with stupid RAW vs RAI crap. 99% of people get that the target priority is ignored and the rule functions. THis is a none issue. At any major or minor tournament common sense prevails and the rule is allowed to be used.

Not my intention to confuse. Just thought I'd inform him. My apologies.

My Updated list. Tell me what ya think. Also this list is with some new models and its up to 2000. I did fairly well with it. But hey if it needs fine tuning from you all would be great.
Also since I last posted on about my crisis suits I've magnetized them so inter changeable weapons. In the works is a hammer head tank.

HQ (296pts)
1 Shas'el
Fusion Blaster,Plasma Rifle,HW Drone 2Xshield, TA, HW MT, Bonding Knife
1 Crisis BG- Fusion Blaster, PR, TA, HW MT

1 Crisis BG- Fusion Blaster, PR, TA, HW MT


Elite (186pts)
Crisis Battlesuit
3 Crisis PR,MP MT

Stealthsuits (155pts)
1 TL Stealthsuit Burst Cannon, TA, HW Drone Marker
2 Stealthsuits Burst Cannon, TA

Troops

8 FW (180pts)
Devilfish MT,TA, DP Burst Cannon 2 gun drones

8 FW (180pts)
Devilfish MT,TA, DP Burst Cannon 2 gun drones

8 FW (180pts)
Devilfish MT,TA, DP Burst Cannon 2 gun drones

Fast Attack
(150pts)
2 Prianha 2 Fusion Blaster 2TA 2 DP 4 Gun Drones

Pathfinders (216pts)
6 Pathfinders Marker Light/Pulse Carbine(X6) Photon Grenades, EMP Grenade
Devilfish Burst Cannon, 2 Gun Drones TA, MT, DP, SS, FD

Gun Drones (72pts)

6 Gun Drones Twin Linked Pulse Carbines

Heavy Support

Sniper Team (80pts)
1 spotter TA, Pulse Pistol
3 Sniper Drones Rail Rifles, TL, TA


Broadsides (200pts)

1 TL Broadside Twin Linked Railgun, SMS, HW Drone 2Xshield Drones, HW MT, TA
1 Broadside Twin Linked Railgun, SMS, TA

Broadside (105pts)
1 TL Broadside Twin Linked Railgun, SMS, HW Drone 1X Shield Drone, HW MT, TA

There you have it.
2000pts