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HQ: Commander Shas'el (102 Pts)
1 Commander Shas'el
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Drone Controller
1 Shield Drone @ [15] Pts

Elite: Crisis Battlesuit (186 Pts)
1 Crisis Battlesuit
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker
1 Crisis Battlesuit @ [62] Pts
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker
1 Crisis Battlesuit @ [62] Pts
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker

Elite: Crisis Battlesuit (186 Pts)
1 Crisis Battlesuit
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker
1 Crisis Battlesuit @ [62] Pts
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker
1 Crisis Battlesuit @ [62] Pts
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker

Elite: Crisis Battlesuit (186 Pts)
1 Crisis Battlesuit
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker
1 Crisis Battlesuit @ [62] Pts
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker
1 Crisis Battlesuit @ [62] Pts
Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Trackerr

Troops: Fire Warrior (60 Pts)
6 Fire Warrior

Troops: Fire Warrior (60 Pts)
6 Fire Warrior

Troops: Kroot Carnivore Squad (112 Pts)
10 Kroot Carnivore Squad
7 Kroot Hounds @ [42] Pts

Fast Attack: Pathfinder (157 Pts)
6 Pathfinder
1 Devilfish @ [85] Pts
Disruption Pod;
2 Gun Drones

Fast Attack: Pathfinder (157 Pts)
6 Pathfinder
1 Devilfish @ [85] Pts
Disruption Pod;
2 Gun Drones

Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit (180 Pts)
1 Broadside Battlesuit
Team Leader; Hard-wired Drone Controller; Advanced Stabilisation System
1 Broadside Battlesuit @ [80] Pts
Advanced Stabilisation System
1 Shield Drone

Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit (180 Pts)
1 Broadside Battlesuit
Team Leader; Hard-wired Drone Controller; Advanced Stabilisation System
1 Broadside Battlesuit @ [80] Pts
Advanced Stabilisation System
1 Shield Drone

Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit (180 Pts)
1 Broadside Battlesuit
Team Leader; Hard-wired Drone Controller; Advanced Stabilisation System
1 Broadside Battlesuit @ [80] Pts
Advanced Stabilisation System
1 Shield Drone

Total Roster Cost: 1746

I am assuming you are going against marines for the most part because of the massive amount of Plasma Rifles.

The only problem I can really see is with holding objectives. You have a very specialized army that is really only going to shine against marines and with Annihilation as the objective.

Is this for a specific mission or a list in general?

In objectives you'll be hurting. Also against hordes you will be hurting. Replace a squad of broadsides and get a hammerhead. S6 AP 4 pie plate will help against hordes.

Fireknives are useful if you do not know what you will be facing. Specialized crisis squads for tasks would be much more helpful and less costly. A deathrain squad with target lock will hit more often and destroy more vehicles than a fireknife squad. They are also less costly. A Helios squad will give you more Elite killing/MC killing then a fireknife suit.

It's hard to say what you should improve on not knowing the purpose of the list. Is this an all comers list? Facing some particular army?

Giving the devilfish to the a squad of fw will help with some mobility issues, this list is def Meq tailored, but that also includes their twins the necrons typically, a good general list.

I would also give your commander a multi-tracker. It seems you took it out because it put you 1 point over the max, but with rearranging the other Heavy Support it should even out.

So, pretty much, it's the Stelek "best of tau", but with broadsides filling out HS instead of having piranhas in the FA slots.

Really, this list looks really mean. I would NOT want to be on the other side of the table from this. Don't listen to those that diss it - haters gonna hate, you know? You got a good list here.

At 1750, there's not much advice I can give that doesn't involve going up higher in points values. It would not be a terrible idea to get a switch out one BS team for a railhead, simply so you can use it to block LOS to your crisis suits.

In objectives you'll be hurting. Also against hordes you will be hurting. Replace a squad of broadsides and get a hammerhead. S6 AP 4 pie plate will help against hordes.

The former is true of tau pretty much no matter what. It's just the facts of life for tau that objective taking is a pain.

The latter claim strikes me as false, but it's not a bad idea to get a railhead anyways.

Fireknives are useful if you do not know what you will be facing. Specialized crisis squads for tasks would be much more helpful and less costly. A deathrain squad with target lock will hit more often and destroy more vehicles than a fireknife squad. They are also less costly. A Helios squad will give you more Elite killing/MC killing then a fireknife suit.

Helios are terrible. You either go for risky, unreliable deep strikes, or else they sit and don't do anything really until the enemy is within 12''.

Deathrains aren't bad per se, but if you don't have plasma in your army you will have a hard time dealing with massed 3+ armor, FNP, or 2+ saves. you cannot really skimp on it and expect to kill enemy infantry units to a man before they can assault your lines. Fireknives will also outperform deathrains at killing av12 if you add in markerlights, which this list has.

Thanks for comments!

The firewarriors sit in PF devilfishes. And I forgot the multi-tracker on commader = =

The build of XV8 units(autocannon and plasma) is from the recommedation on YTTH. I thought it was the best combination of range and fire density, just like the concept of LasPlas razorback. And it receive fine support from markerlights.

Does the XV8 teams need drone to absorb damage? When discussing with local TAU players, we agreed that battlesuits are in lack of some survivability today(more and more S8+ shooting in new codicies, which bring instant death). And I thought the reasonable solution for this problem is to take more units of suits, not to wrap them with many drones or to give them expensive Ld10 commander.

I don't trust on non-TL railguns...so there are 3 XV88 units in the list. And 6 missiles would also do some damage to horde

tokugawa wrote:Thanks for comments!

The firewarriors sit in PF devilfishes. And I forgot the multi-tracker on commader = =

The build of XV8 units(autocannon and plasma) is from the recommedation on YTTH. I thought it was the best combination of range and fire density, just like the concept of LasPlas razorback. And it receive fine support from markerlights.

Does the XV8 teams need drone to absorb damage? When discussing with local TAU players, we agreed that battlesuits are in lack of some survivability today(more and more S8+ shooting in new codicies, which bring instant death). And I thought the reasonable solution for this problem is to take more units of suits, not to wrap them with many drones or to give them expensive Ld10 commander.

I don't trust on non-TL railguns...so there are 3 XV88 units in the list. And 6 missiles would also do some damage to horde

Drones do help. Don't Take gun drones however because you can end up with a majority T of 3 instead of 4. Shield drones are the best bet giving you a 4++ save for 5 points cheaper than a shield generator along with an extra wound and wound allocation.

When you take a railhead it is not for the railgun S10 shot but it is for the pie plate submunition. A S6 shot wounds most things on a 2+. It instant deaths a large majority of things as well (Imperial guard and SoB HQ units).

If you take helios take shield drones on them since they are going to be in risky positions. Also why use markerlights against vehicles when you can take deathrains that will not need you to waste them on something that can be destroyed or a damaged with a single shot? It's a 75% chance to hit with each missile on a deathrain. For a fireknife you need to waste 2 markerlights to get near that. Markerlights hit only 50% of the time so you will average 6 hits on 3 hits on 2 different units. So if you hit a vehicle you end up losing a markerlight or use it to negate part of a cover save (which is much more difficult with vehicles especially gainst suits taht can move around all over the place).

I use to use all fireknives until I switched. I normally take 1 3 man helios suits, 1 3 man deathrain suit and if I end up taking 3 squads of crisis I will take an a fireknife suit to back up the other two. Tau needs the right weapon for the right job.

Using the pathfinders devilfish for firewarriors transportation is great. You get a reroll to scatter on deepstriking for free. 6 smissiles = 24 shots = 12 hits. Against a full ork squad that's not even making it take a morale test because it is still fearless. SMS is good in night fighting but not for anti-horde. A Railhead will have 6 S5 AP5 shots from 2 burst cannons and a S6 AP4 pir plate AND BS4 without a markerlight. Plus it's a whole lot harder to kill the devilfish than it is to kill 2 broadsides.