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I need help against a tau player who has a nigh-invincible army. every week he brings the same old list and he kills my orks every time, not to mention everyone else he plays.
Here is a rough idea of his list. he says it comes down to 1500 points. (i have no idea what the actual point costs are, so i just have to beleive him or not play a game)

HQ
Farsight

Shas'O commander
- burstcannon, plasma rifle, 2 shield drones, multi-tracker, missile pod
Elites
3 battlesuits
-fusion blasters, plasma rifles, missile pods, multi-trackers, burst cannons
3 battlesuits
-fusion blasters, plasma rifles, missile pods, multi-trackers, burst cannons
Stealth Team
-2 Shas'ui, Targeting array
-Shas'vre, bonding knife, Marker drone
Troops
10 fire warriors
-2 markerlights, Devilfish with as he said it"All upgrades
10 fire warriors
-2 markerlights, Devilfish with as he said it"All upgrades
Fast Attack
6 pathfinders,Devilfish with as he said it"All upgrades
Heavy Support
Hammerhead
-Railgun, burst cannons, targeting array, disruption pod, target lock
Hammerhead
-Railgun, burst cannons, targeting array, disruption pod, target lock
Skyray missile launcher

Please help! I'm not a sore loser or anything, but i would like to beat this list once or twice.

things I see wrong right off the bat before adding up the List total:

he needs a Shas'ui in the Fire Warrior Squads for the markerlights and he can only have 1 markerlight per squad.

The Crisis Suits are illegal as well. They can only have 3 hard points. Those ones have 5 each.

Make sure he is only firing two weapons with the Multitracker as well.

I'll add up the points In a sec, but just right off the bat, he is cheating y'all.

Edit: also the hammerhead cannot take a targetting array because it comes with it standard, unless he means the standard one.

Ok added up the points. it's an 1864(or 1854) point Army. He is playing you guys like a fiddle.


My tips. Make him write out an army list with points values. Don't take anything at face Value. No point costs, no play.

hm. i see. i'll have to have him make a list. that AND field 1850 points of Speed Freeks. (I've done good against him with speed freeks, if good can be used properly here)
Thanks
Happy Wargaming

P.S: Hard points? those refer to the accessories a battlesuits can have, correct?

ripjaw wrote:hm. i see. i'll have to have him make a list. that AND field 1850 points of Speed Freeks. (I've done good against him with speed freeks, if good can be used properly here)
Thanks
Happy Wargaming

P.S: Hard points? those refer to the accessories a battlesuits can have, correct?

They refer to weapons and support systems but not wargear they have to be a 'vre or a team leader before they have access to the wargear items (and they take up a Hard point aswell). Anything 'Hard Wired' does not take up a space.
XV8 suits have 3 hard points. That usually means 2 weapons and a Support system or 3 weapons.

Yes. all battlesuits have to take 3 hardpoints ( weapons and Support systems). Shas'vre and above can take things from the Wargear section up to 100 points of extra stuff. Hard Wired items, drones, and most Special Issue items are wargear and do not use hardpoints.

Wow. Waac much?

Might just be a new player who has not read the codex properly and is inadvertently cheated.

How ever the points cost thing...He would have to be horrible at maths or the above list to be wrong, for him to not be cheating them.

Army builder for you my friend...

It never occured to me to cheat so I could win some games with my Tau.... wow, a whole new world just opened up.

And since alot of people have never even bothered to read up on Tau or even know that Tau are a playable race, we can get away with it scot free.

Maybe I've just played against bad farsight lists, but what's so scary about the list? Load up your boyz in wagons and get krumpin.

I remember one game I had a long time ago against a farsight list, he went for the one giant unit of suits and kept doing his little dance in and out of cover, until I pulled a classic pincer move, trukk with 5 meganobz flanks his left, 6 nob bikers with warboss flank right, bunch of dead tau.

I have no idea if his points are right or not as I did not bring my Tau book with me off to college, but what I can say is the systems look fishy on the suits.

Your best bet, is as you said speed freak. Take a couple buzzsaw koptas to attempt a turn 1 popping of the hammerheads (worked for me before) or at least the devilfish. Swarm forward with a bunch of boyz , all you have to do is make contact with that list and he's toast (I just ignore the lame preferred enemy from farsight, it just makes tau go from totally sucking, to just sucking in combat).

Oh yeah from now on Im telling everyone my HH rail is the base Devilfish model for 80 points.

Railgun, target array and burst cannons for 80pts? Thanks very much.

Wait also, isnt farsight only allowed 1 HH in his army??

Yep. Which is why anyone that doesn't have a ton of gundum models avoids Farsight like the plague. Other than fire Warriors, you only get one of Anything (No kroot, vespid, or Ethereal either).

ill agree with the cheating thing....he has too many points put in, for his 1500 pt army.. hes got too many hammerheads and too many markerlights in his firewarriors. otherwise, your bopys will take out his crisis teams in CC, biker nobs work well vrs hammerheads and fish, or even teams, and anything that hits a firewarrior makes it squeal like a little girl. i agree with above suggestions....make him write a list..... OR fight fire with orky fire. make a 2000 pt list to fight his "1500" if he calls you on it, call him on his. rough points costs? heres some examples.


firewarriors as listed (bonded, marker, team lead, fish with upgrades) = 220 plus drones. (usally 15 for the shield and 10 for the gun, 30 for the marker drone)

crisis teams ( as listed he has too many weapons, he can take max of 3, wich is redundant so ill change it to 2 and a support sys) =226 (team leader with shield drones, all with plasma/fusion multi trackers)

hammerhead with rail and smart plus upgrades =190 (ignornig terrain, firing as fast, obscured over 12" with rail and smart missles)

as you can see his points add up VERY fast. keep in mind that his suits have SNP, but are infantry. meaning they fire 1 weapon, unless they have multitrackers, and unless they are bodygaurds, only the team leader can take hardwire upgrades. the basic guys can only have 3 systems on the suits total. finally, for tactics wise, it seems his entire list is setup around markerlights and negating your cover or getting better hits. kill those pathfinders and youve made life TONS easier on yourself. and remember that markerlights are heavy weapons... they cant move and fire.

DarthSpader wrote:ill agree with the cheating thing....he has too many points put in, for his 1500 pt army.. hes got too many hammerheads and too many markerlights in his firewarriors. otherwise, your bopys will take out his crisis teams in CC, biker nobs work well vrs hammerheads and fish, or even teams, and anything that hits a firewarrior makes it squeal like a little girl. i agree with above suggestions....make him write a list..... OR fight fire with orky fire. make a 2000 pt list to fight his "1500" if he calls you on it, call him on his. rough points costs? heres some examples.


firewarriors as listed (bonded, marker, team lead, fish with upgrades) = 220 plus drones. (usally 15 for the shield and 10 for the gun, 30 for the marker drone)

You are a tad wrong on this example. FW squad is 120pts (10FW, 1 Leader with markerlight impossible to have 2 -they gain BK automatically due to farsight) then the DF fully upgraded is 155pts (175pts if it has 2x seeker missiles)

And the HH is 160pts as TA is baseline and he didnt take SMS but burst cannons. But he has 1 more then his commander allows.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ripjaw wrote:
HQ
Farsight
170pts

Shas'O commander
- burstcannon, plasma rifle, 2 shield drones, multi-tracker, missile pod
150pts -Illegal equipment if Multi tracker is no Hardwired but that could just be a typo error.

Elites
3 battlesuits
-fusion blasters, plasma rifles, missile pods, multi-trackers, burst cannons
246pts -illegal equipment, only 3 of these can be taken

3 battlesuits
-fusion blasters, plasma rifles, missile pods, multi-trackers, burst cannons
246pts -illegal equipment, only 3 of these can be taken

Stealth Team
-2 Shas'ui, Targeting array
-Shas'vre, bonding knife, Marker drone
150pts

Troops
10 fire warriors
-2 markerlights, Devilfish with as he said it"All upgrades
285pts Illegal equipment cant have 2 ML

10 fire warriors
-2 markerlights, Devilfish with as he said it"All upgrades
285pts Illegal equipment cant have 2 ML

Fast Attack
6 pathfinders,Devilfish with as he said it"All upgrades
227pts

Heavy Support

Hammerhead
-Railgun, burst cannons, targeting array, disruption pod, target lock
160pts

Hammerhead
-Railgun, burst cannons, targeting array, disruption pod, target lock
Skyray missile launcher
160pts, Illegal to taken another HH due to farsight, also no such thing as a skyray missile launcher unless he takes a skyray tank which is a completely different thing and does not have TA or a railgun. -He may however mean 2 seeker missiles which is 20pts extra. Either way tank is illegal.

This man is fielding a 2079pt army that is highly illegal as well.- I took the meaning of all upgrades as all not just the useful ones (give or take 50pts I am very sure I calculated accurately but if I am off it is not by much)
I would of been extremely impressed if you had won.

Also if he counts Seeker missiles as upgrades to his tanks add another 20pts to each one of them (total of 100pts)

Didn't even notice he had farsight in this army. That brings him to over 2k.

Yeah I just updated my post with a rundown.

Yea I was just rough costing stuff in my head, and using my friends tau as a guide, as he runs a similar but not farsight list. In any case i think its agreed that this guy has massively over pointed himself either accidentally or intentional is unknown. But the end result is ANY 1500pt army will have issues here. Not to mention the force org and wargear "mistakes". I think it boils down to getting him to provide an army list ahead of time, and making sure it's legit. Use his codex to double check then have the game and it will go MUCH different.

Also, make sure he models drone controllers on ALL of his models with drones.

MekanobSamael wrote:
Also make sure he models drone controllers on ALL of his models with drones.

I don't think WYSIWYG is the big problem here since all models it is taken on (1) at the moment can take the Hard wired Drone controller which does not have to be modelled and as he hasnt specifically mentioned drone controller or its HW version we cannot account him for this.

Sounds like one of twos situations:

A.) The guy is a douche, and cares more about winning than playing fair

B.) This is his first 40k army, which the tau codex can be somewhat hard to read if you haven't played either system before and he just has no idea what he's doing when it comes to list building.

I hope it's B, but after looking the list over, he has a pretty good understanding of the rules and how the current meta works, so I'm going with A. Make him show you his list, and if he gets upset, just don't play him.

I think it is B but someone else helped in the priming of his list.
Or maybe I am just being wishful

I say A.

No one can be that bad at math.

Nawwww I need some excuse to keep my faith in gamers.
He better be young.

syanticraven wrote:Nawwww I need some excuse to keep my faith in gamers.
He better be young.

I'm starting to lose mine, as every time I turn around there's someone switching armies to the flavor of the month like Space Wolves, or looking to exploit every little rule they can for what I like to call "cheap wins"
Sucks the fun out of the game.

But, like you I'm hoping B.

younger gamers i find tend to spend MORE time reading the dex and rules and or forums so they can have a chance vrs the long term guy who beats everyone cause he has 15 years exp. but...thats my local meta group not yours. either way, as i said. simple way is to get him to pen out a list, or provide one pre game. double check it, or have the local redshirt do so for any errors, and go from there. calling someone a cheater flat out is usually grounds for a conflict, verbal or otherwise... be cautious before doing so.

Check out his list dude. When we play at my club (in SA we don't have flgs) we allow the option for our opponent to have a squizzle over the list. @syanticraven: II also hope its B, I need all the hope in the world, especially in South Africa LOL!

Also I feel Im the only one that likes to use Shadow'sun. And you guys are right, Farsites army is meant to be limited to be based around an army of robots!

Geeze, and I thought I was generous allowing up to 4 points over in friendly games! 500 points is a bit drastic lol! I say 4 points (1504) because if you go to 1505, you may have bought something that costs 5 points just cause

For the 2 markerlights per squad, perhaps he is using drones. However, you should ask to see his list it looks horriblely overcosted.

He'd still need a Shas'ui for the Drones.