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.

Firewarriors in Gunrigs are certainly quite resistant and, if you spread them well, you can even grab 2 objectives (I believe a triangle formation would cover the biggest area)

 Vector Strike wrote:
Firewarriors in Gunrigs are certainly quite resistant and, if you spread them well, you can even grab 2 objectives (I believe a triangle formation would cover the biggest area)

The Fire Warriors work famously with a Cadre Faireblade and an Ethereal. The Ethereal is equally potent when working on the Sniper Drones. Obviously the heavy horsepower of the large guns on the rigs are gotten at a relatively good price and reasonably tough enough to force the enemy to do some work to silence them.

The Markerlights make the force dangerously good at utilizing the StormSurge and the Gunrigs make you think twice about focusing solely on the much harder to kill StormSurge. The overall effect has been pretty darn decent. As always, like all Tau Armies, they struggle against Psykers (thus the Talisman, which doubles as an invul save). My overall satisfaction with the force is pretty high. I mean obviously winning a couple tournaments never hurts ones opinion of anything.

My scariest matchup was against the Emperors Fist Artillery company. So much ignores cover pain. Second scariest was against Spammed Flyrants. I had to really play well against that.

 The Shrike wrote:
I have experimented with Troop heavy lists but I think you have to use a CAD; ObSec is too important. Something like this:

MSU

Tau Empire CAD (1130)

Ethereal-50

5x5 Breachers, Fish w SMS-675

Y'Vahra: Stims-265

Tetra
Tetra

FSE CAD

Commander: Iridium Suit, 2 Fusion Blasters- 140

6x1 Crisis: 2 double missile, 2 double plasma, 2 double fusion, BKR- 318

Tetra
Tetra
Tetra

Piranha Firestream Wing- 224

1x1 Targetting Piranha, 2 Seekers

3x1Piranhas, 6 Seekers

Total: 1847

I've been trying to figure out a way to properly do Crisis Suit spam, and while I've never actually put it on the tabletop, I feel like Tau troop obsec spam is just inferior to what most other armies can put out. One 2W 3+ model is not exactly difficult to get rid of. Without some formation bonus that allows you to hone multiple units' firepower, either with an extra BS or pseudo-doom, you relegate yourself to simply being good at shooting rather than awesome at shooting. Considering we have no assault or psychic phases, good at shooting won't cut it. Marines can do the mediocre shooting obsec thing because they're more durable and have more units. GSC can do it because they bring a bajillion dudes. Tau are stuck with less durability and fewer units than both. That's not our strength.

I like the idea of Gunrigs a lot and would use them more often if the Gunfort was a legal ITC formation. I could definitely handle having a Commander with various buffs and a VT rocking out a few railgun shots. Fireblades are all well and good, but I tend to be running around with my FW a fair amount, screening things and capturing objectives and whatnot.

Yeah, against other MSU, like Gladius, our version of MSU is fine. It's up against better shooting armies like renegades or warp spider spam that it struggles. Tau are just in tough spot right now. We're very good against many builds, but the tippy top we can't seem to touch without the Big Tuna. By the way, what do you guys think of this alternate monster mash list, sans riptide wing:

Farsight CAD

Ethereal

Monat
Monat

Y'Vahra
Y'Vahra

R'Varna

Stormsurge: Blaster, AFP, EWO, VT

Ghostkeel Wing

3x1 Ghostkeel w Raker, Fusion

Drone Net

4x4 Marker Drones

Total: 1850

The surge goes cheap with no shield but has Stealth from the GKW. Y'Vahras do what they do, R'Varna I think is super sneaky good especially against all the Cult Mech/Skitarii, Renegade artillery and jetbike/bike spam. Thoughts?

Hey gang, I've got a last minute game v Sisters of Battle coming up tomorrow. I highly suspect St Celestine will be there, but I'm not sure the rest of the composition.

I've done the.math, it looks like about 140 non-AP 2 wounds are needed to remove her, which would work out to about 3 turns of a 3 man Riptide Wing kitted with HBC and SMS (incl 1 Nova'd Hailfire) as well as a 3 Ghostkeel Raker/Burst Cannon and 2x3 Man Stealth Suits with Burst Cannon OSC focus firing on her.

I, unfortunately, don't have any Kroot, so I can't effectively tarpit her. The other option is just to stay highly mobile and kite her around the battlefield with JSJ and kill the rest of the army.

Any suggestions or other key units I need to look out for?

Get her committed to one side of the battlefield and bring your stuff in diametrically opposite? Theres only so many rounds in a game after all.

I like the list overall, but I feel like the Ghostkeel Wing might not be the best choice. There's certainly nothing wrong with just taking Ghostkeels for their own sake, but You'll probably have to work to make the stealth bubble effective for you. Most of your units are highly mobile and will be unable to hide in cover and do their respective jobs at the same time. Maybe go with an OSC at the expense of the R'Varna? That's a bit of a shame, though. The R'Varna deserves some love. Give it a whirl, and if the stealth works for you, leave it be!

For Sisters, peel open the transports ASAP, and kite them like a mofo. They've got a ton of melta to knock out your big dudes, so denying mobility is key. As for Celestine, she's crazy hard to kill, so unless you can stomp or D her away with relative ease, try to pick off the other models in her unit before trying to take her on. You're better off dismantling the rest of the army instead of dumping fire into her.

I'm enjoying a weekend work day and thinking back to the armor spam idea we were kicking around awhile back. Given the current meta of demons and Riptides and scatterbikes, oh my! AV13 (and AV12, to some extent) is actually reasonably durable. You'll get eaten by Renegades artillery lists, but them's the breaks. I seriously doubt you could make yourself competitive, but you'd catch a few people out, for sure. Try this on for size:

CAD
Ethereal - 50
2x8 Breachers - 144
2 Devilfish - dpods - 190
3 Skyrays - SMS - 345
3x2 Tetras - 210

Firestream Wing
16 Piranhas - 2 seeker missiles each, 1 dpod on Target Acquisition Team - 911

Or if you want to actually have a chance to compete with Wraithknights and such...

DBC
Hunter Cadre
Commander - DC, TL, missile pod, iridium, stims, 2 marker drones - 177
3x6 Breachers - 162
3 Devilfish - 240
7 Marker Drones - 98
Stormsurge - pulse driver, shield, EWO, ATS, AFP - 438
1115

Firestream Wing
13 Piranhas - 2 seeker missiles each - 728

I hope they brought their anti-armor.

Okay, so ObSec MSU Tau spam...how to make it work? Our troops generally kind of blow at holding objectives, and we don't have the benefit of tons of free stuff like some other armies. Fortunately, Crisis Suits make up for durability with mobility. The following is the best I could come up with. It was a slow 24hrs, okay?

CAD
Ethereal
6xCrisis suit - 2 flamers, BKR - 198

CAD
Commander - DC, TL, 2 missile pods, 2 marker drones, iridium - 177
6xCrisis Suit - 2 flamers, BKR - 198
Stormsurge - blastcannon, shield, VT, EWO, burst cannon - 440
7 Marker Drones - 98
Broadside - EWO -70
Promethium Pipes - 40

Riptide Wing
3 Riptides - IA, SMS, EWO

That's 1841, and I'm not really sure what to do with the points. It's a silly list, to be sure, but don't sleep on the possibility of 24 torrent flamers. That alone will give you a substantial amount of control over everything within 12" of your Pipes, which could end up being most of the midfield. A little Hailfire action will deal with heavy armor, and the Stormsurge, as always, is for taking down opposing big dudes.

You've read the FAQ for Flamers and Supporting Fire, right?

Q: How does Supporting Fire work if the unit has a flamer
which is out of range?
A: As long as a unit is eligible to fire Supporting Fire
and is equipped with one or more flamers, they can use
them as if they were also being charged.

Because it would make your list a hell of a lot meaner as part of a Hunter Cadre.

12" range for you to engage as part of a Supporting Fire, plus you getting Torrent. Much lols can be had.

Wow, no joke. I remember having read that but didn't process it in the context of this list. You can't spam nearly as many flamers that way, though, and they wouldn't be obsec.

+Wow, great catch on the flamers+Hunter Cadre!

Digression: I love Breachers; and usually I run them in fish in a CAD with Y-tides in support. Is it worth giving up Obsec to abuse the movement and BS bonus of a Hunter Cadre?

Movement: 6" Fish move, 6" disembark, Run+Shoot 5" S6 AP3. So average 20" threat range.

Shooting: Add an Ethereal for Storm of Fire bonus and it is ON. Besides, Fish fires+Drones detach and fire+Breachers = +1 BS.

Resilience: 12" Ld Bonus from Ethereal, 12" Supporting Fire, Disruption Pods + Ghostkeel Wing in support for 2+ jink. GW FAQ means Breachers are still at full BS!

Anyway, I'm going to try it but eager to hear your thoughts.

A Breacher-focused HC? Why not? You listed the reasons it'd be useful. I actually haven't gone that route before with my Breacher lists, opting instead either for the Fast bonus of the Counterstrike Cadre or obsec, but the HC is a fine way to go about things.

Something like this, perhaps?

HContingent
HCadre
Commander - DC, TL, 2 Missile pods, iridium, 2 marker drones - 177
2x7, 1x6 Breachers - 180
3 Devilfish - 3 dpods - 285
Riptide - IA, SMS, EWO - 190
Piranha - 40
Stormsurge - pulse driver, shield, EWO, AFP, ATS - 438

Drone Network
6 Marker Drones - 84

Ghostkeel Wing
3 Ghostkeels - CIR, fusions, 3 EWO, 1 VT - 455

1849, total. Not exactly singularly focused on Breachers, but they still feature prominently. You could also switch around things a bit to have an OSC instead of the GW and/or include a minimal CAD for an Ethereal.

I couldn't figure out how to squeeze in an Ethereal; but the Storm of Fire bonus is probably superfluous, and giving up that VP can be the difference in ITC missions, and not in a good way. (Not that I play in ITC events, I have a 1-year old lol; I live vicariously through you all and play in my den )

Anyway, here's what I came up with for the Hunter Cadre Breachers.



Meanwhile, care to consider the latest version of my ITC list should I ever get out to an event?

The HC Breachers seems solid to me. You're missing the fast attack-ish choice, but that's nothing some gear rearrangement can't fix. An issue with HC Breachers, it seems, is that you're neither fast (like the CS Cadre) nor heavily armored (like you would be with dpods and GKW). That could potentially be crippling, despite the extended threat range.

As for the tournament list, go for it, brother. Blind those Wraithknights! Given the "theme" of your list, if you want to call it that, the only change I think I'd make would be to switch out a flamer suit for 4 more Breachers to make those units a credible threat and take further advantage of your Ethereal.

P.S.: I have a 10-week old who screams constantly, so I feel your pain! My gaming days came to an exceptionally abrupt halt not too long ago.

Also, are you putting the Overwatch vehicle gear on the Devilfish?

Cause the more stuff that can Supporting Fire/trigger an Overwatch the better.

Oh, I had paid for 6 Marker Drones, just forgot to type them in.

As for the ITC list, I'm just throwing things at the wall to be different. The typical Riptide Wing or Double Surge doesn't seem to be getting us into the top 8 of the big events (Adepticon, LVO, BAO, NOVA etc); and the Big Tuna is normally banned so what to do right?

OK so I'm doing a tournament next month and looking at adding in an ally to an 1850 list. The main list is loosely:

Retaliation Cadre -

1 X Commander with 2 weapons, drone controller, Stim, 2 marker drones
1 X Riptide with Ion
1 X Broadside
1 X Crisis 2 weapons
1 X Crsis 2 weapons
1 X Crisis 2 weapons, target lock, 2 marker drones

CAD -

1 X HQ (either Ethereal, Cadre Fireblade, Darkstrider)
1 X (Strike team/or Breachers)
1 X Kroot
Maybe 1 X Pathfinders
1 X Yvahra with EWO, Stim
1X Storm surge with blast cannon, EWO, shield

Maybe 1 X 3 Sniper drones , 2 Marksman (Bs5 Makerlights)
Maybe 1 X Skyray
Maybe 1 X Shieldwall (thinking about Fireblade with Firewarriors on it, sniper drone marksmen may fit too)


So for my choices of ally, I am looking at either the:

1 X Culexus Assassin
(140 pts)

Or

1 X Farseer on jetbike
1 X 3 Windriders with Scatter lasers
(196 pts)

So basically the choice is either taking the anti psyker infiltrator, for less points, or taking a psyker of of my own with some complimentary scatter lasers. Which would you take with the above list?

The token Psyker isn't going to do a ton for you in that list. Have you considered running Sisters of Silence?

5x Sisters + Bunker w/Escape Hatch are quickly becoming a stock part of my Tau lists. Thanks to the Hatch they have a pretty mean bubble of "f your psykers" range.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
The token Psyker isn't going to do a ton for you in that list. Have you considered running Sisters of Silence?

5x Sisters + Bunker w/Escape Hatch are quickly becoming a stock part of my Tau lists. Thanks to the Hatch they have a pretty mean bubble of "f your psykers" range.

Ok cool, pointwise, what does that come to? How do the Sisters compare to the Culexus?

A min unit of Sisters is about half a Culexus. A Bunker with Escape Hatch is the other half. :-p

I'd recommend an auxilary for the retaliation cadre to benefit from the Dawn Blade Contingent. Here's the list I've been running lately that I've liked a LOT.

Note, I did take inspiration from Paul McKelvey's list.

Dawn Blade
Retaliation cadre
Buffmander
Missilesides x3, x3 target lock, x5 missile drones
Bursttide with intercept, sky fire, ECPA
Single Fusion Crisis
Single Fusion Crisis
Single Fusion Crisis

Firestream
7 total piranhas, 11/12 total seeker missiles

Drone net
X16 Marker Drones

CAD
Cadre fireblade
Firewarriors x5 bkr
Kroot x10
Double flamer crisis
Double missile crisis
Double missile crisis
Skyray, bsf

I plan on switching that skyray out for tetras when I get the models.

I have SOOOO many rerolls with this list, I just melt things.

I asked in YMDC but I want the definitive Tau expert opinion:

Can I thrust move on to the board from reserves with a Y-tide?

The rules for the thrust array state that you may choose to move as a swooping mc at the beginning of any of your movement phases. By rule, is reserves its own mini-phase? Or does it take place at the beginning of movement therefore disallowing a thrust move when coming in from your board edge? Thanks!

I'm not looking at my rules, but reserve rolling occurs "at the beginning of your turn," correct? If so, you should be good to go with your thrust move.

 The Shrike wrote:
I asked in YMDC but I want the definitive Tau expert opinion:

Can I thrust move on to the board from reserves with a Y-tide?

The rules for the thrust array state that you may choose to move as a swooping mc at the beginning of any of your movement phases. By rule, is reserves its own mini-phase? Or does it take place at the beginning of movement therefore disallowing a thrust move when coming in from your board edge? Thanks!

My understanding is that a unit coming on from reserves goes onto the board within their movement distance. You have a choice on how the Yvahra moves, one being up to 24" every other turn after the first time. I haven't played the Yvahra from reserve, that way, but I'm pretty sure you're good to go.

That is a pretty cool list dirty deeds. Always nice to see a non monster mash Tau list as well.

Speaking of which, I run the crisis suit unit of fun (shadowsun+ Buffmander and 9 crisis suits). I just copped that the hunter cadre has some nifty bonuses for the unit, it allows them to run and shoot + extends their supporting fire bubble. With shadowsuns as warlord, that crisis suit unit would be moving 6, run, shoot, 3d6 jet pack move.

You have to pay some taxes though for it though (a fast attack and heavy support slot, the 3 troops are fine I think).

I think instead of running an OSC, the Ghostkeels in a unit of three in the hunter cadre has some potential as well, as they get to run and shoot if within 12 of the commander, plus add supporting fire. As Ghostkeels are a bit short ranged, that is a nice bonus.

How should I run Pathfinders? I was thinking squads of five led by a Sergeant with gun drones.

What do you expect the Pathfinders to be doing and contributing?

Similarly, what do you expect the gun drones will do to help the Pathfinder contribute?

Gun Drones have comparably increased toughness, but you'd need to be down to 2 or less Pathfinder from the initial team to benefit from it.

Gun Drones have at best comparable firepower, and have a 4+ armor save...

...But Gun Drones don't have Markerlights, and that's generally the end-all, be-all of Pathfinder squads (at least, the ones not sporting Rail Rifles or Ion Rifles). Given what you're getting, you might as well spend almost exactly the same points on bringing more Pathfinders (and thus gain more ML).

Bring massed S5 firepower in your Fire Warriors, or perched in the wings of your Piranhas. Bring your Pathfinders with a plethora of ML.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
What do you expect the Pathfinders to be doing and contributing?

Similarly, what do you expect the gun drones will do to help the Pathfinder contribute?

Gun Drones have comparably increased toughness, but you'd need to be down to 2 or less Pathfinder from the initial team to benefit from it.

Gun Drones have at best comparable firepower, and have a 4+ armor save...

...But Gun Drones don't have Markerlights, and that's generally the end-all, be-all of Pathfinder squads (at least, the ones not sporting Rail Rifles or Ion Rifles). Given what you're getting, you might as well spend almost exactly the same points on bringing more Pathfinders (and thus gain more ML).

Bring massed S5 firepower in your Fire Warriors, or perched in the wings of your Piranhas. Bring your Pathfinders with a plethora of ML.

I expect them to hide in a ruin, shine their laser pointers on people and then die gloriously for the greater good haha. Fair point on the markerlights.

If you run Pathfinders at all, they should be naked - markers only. They're basically the worst marker light option in the book, though, so unless you just love the models, I'd work with something else.