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So my estimation is that the Stormsurge is 75pts undercosted.

Do we agree, and if not, how much am I off?

It depends who you are trying to balance it against?

Custodes, future Eldar (just a guess) - Current price is fine.
Dark Eldar, Crusher Stampede - Maybe a 5% bump to 345.
TSons, GKnights, Sisters, Orks, etc - A 10% bump to 365.
Death Guard, Space Marines - A 20% bump to 400.

I'd probably just apply this to every model in the codex too. But, it isn't going to happen. GW have created a mess and their plan for fixing it is to make more mess with new unbalanced codexes, supplements and armies of renown.

Why so high against sisters

Sisters in my opinion are in the same group of books as TSons, Orks, etc. They are definitely not in the group above and probably not in the group below of Death Guard, Space Marines and formerly Necrons (I think they've gone up with the points drops). They could be pushing down towards that lower group though with their recent points increases.

Points increase loss of multifaction nerfing of rets their in much tougher place

U02dah4 wrote:
Points increase loss of multifaction nerfing of rets their in much tougher place

Also bringing it back to Tau, Sisters seem to have a really bad match into them. They can't hide from all the no LOS guns, are really good targets for massed AP3, while Retributors are exactly the kind of shooting you want into mixed suits/drones with saviour protocols in their back pocket.

So - possibly due to overdosing on mecha anime recently, have been thinking of starting a T'au Empire Crusade force.

My first thought is (for the sake of as much variety as possible whilst sticking with the theme) a pure battlesuit force using one of every battlesuit class (accepting that the Enforcer is just an XV8 with some twiddly bits and the KV128 isn't technically a 'battlesuit')

The easy bit is that crusade forces work off power level and don't include warlord traits or relics by default, so I'm assuming I get a sept trait and nothing else to start with.

A vanguard detachment of

HQ
1 x XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit

Elites
3 x XV25 Stealth Battlesuits
3 x XV8 Crisis Battlesuits
1 x XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit


Heavy Support
1 x XV88 Broadside Battlesuit
1 x XV105 Riptide Battlesuit

is 50 power on the dot, and has the potential to look visually awesome.
Now the downside is that I don't have any 'leftover' power for any prototype systems or drones (aside from the Ghostkeel's non-optional stealth drones).

What I'm not sure of is what Sept and what weapon/support system loadouts I should be looking at.

Obviously I won't have any objective secured (that might be a reason to build an XV85 Enforcer instead), so generally speaking I'm only going to be able to take an objective by gunning down absolutely everyone protecting it - which feels like the aggressive style of Farsight might make sense. Lots of flamers, burst cannon and melta weapons.



Thought: I can spare points for some drones if I put the Commander in an XV802 Iridium suit and 'downgrade' the XV8 team to a pair of bodyguards. That saves 3 power, which could net me some drones - my brain says marker drones as it's the only way to get markerlight support in a pure battlesuit force (aside from the Farsight sept rule).

Do people have any recommendations?

@Iocarno24, I think if you want to keep to your theme, best bet would be to change your commander to an enforcer instead. At least then you can make your crisis suit unit obsec.

So, from latest results of GTs with the new Tau in the mix, it looks like the meta is now dominated by Tau and Custodes. Both with a massive win rate over all other factions once you exclude custodes and Tau. However, most of the GTs are being won by Custodes, not Tau.

Looks like Custodes are going to be a hard matchup for Tau. So specifically against custodes, what's our plan to deal with them? Specifically those 3x3 units of Bikes that can move 14 inches, have 7 wounds, 2+ save, 4++, and can fight well too. Plus the Dawn Eagle Captain on jetbike. So that's 4 units that might be zooming up the board while hiding behind LOS on turn 1, and hitting our army by turn 2. And simply put, I think if any good custodes player can tag a Tau player with 4 units on turn 2, its probably pretty much lights out for us. So, what's the best way to deal with them and Custodes?

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Looks like Custodes are going to be a hard matchup for Tau. So specifically against custodes, what's our plan to deal with them? Specifically those 3x3 units of Bikes that can move 14 inches, have 7 wounds, 2+ save, 4++, and can fight well too. Plus the Dawn Eagle Captain on jetbike. So that's 4 units that might be zooming up the board while hiding behind LOS on turn 1, and hitting our army by turn 2. And simply put, I think if any good custodes player can tag a Tau player with 4 units on turn 2, its probably pretty much lights out for us. So, what's the best way to deal with them and Custodes?

1) Bork'an Skyrays. No invulnerable save strat + no line of sight strat.

2) Bubble wrap key units with cheap Kroot so you can keep shooting or reposition.

3) Put 'speedbumps' in their way such as Drones, Kroot Hounds, Pirahna , Vespid, and min squad Stealth suits. So that you can get into position to score.

4) Use deepstrikes to get at hiding units and divert attention.

 D6Damager wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Looks like Custodes are going to be a hard matchup for Tau. So specifically against custodes, what's our plan to deal with them? Specifically those 3x3 units of Bikes that can move 14 inches, have 7 wounds, 2+ save, 4++, and can fight well too. Plus the Dawn Eagle Captain on jetbike. So that's 4 units that might be zooming up the board while hiding behind LOS on turn 1, and hitting our army by turn 2. And simply put, I think if any good custodes player can tag a Tau player with 4 units on turn 2, its probably pretty much lights out for us. So, what's the best way to deal with them and Custodes?

2) Bubble wrap key units with cheap Kroot so you can keep shooting or reposition.

I've had some success with this strat against them, though it was only in one game so it's hardly a large sample size. Most I've seen tend to go with the heavy weapons on the bikes over the hurricane bolters, so they often cant clear out large blobs of light infantry. Then you punch back with Fusion Blasters and Plasma Rifles. I did manage to pull out the win, but it was really close, only 8 VP difference IIRC.

So can someone give the following list a try and tell me how it goes.

Custom sept tennets: Blocking Tactics, Play their part

HQ-
Crisis Commander/w Cyclic, Fusion, Plasma, Flamer, iridium, Solid Image Projector, Through boldness Victory, 2x shield drones
Etheral on hover drone/w Sence of stone, Wisdom, Humble Stave, Exemplar of Kayoun, 2x marker drone
TROOP-
3x10 Kroot Carnivore
ELITE-
3x6 Crisis Suits/w Flamer, Plasma, Cyclic, 1x iridium, 5x shield generator, 1x EWO, 2x marker drone, 4x shield drone
3x2 Crisis Bodyguards/w Flamer, Plasma, shield generator, 2x shield drones

For anyone wondering, Blocking Tactics is CORE INFANTRY who charge become obsec (or double obsec) and Play Their Part is Crisis/Stealth/Broadsides count as 3 models for controling markers, Ghostkeels/Riptides/Stormsurges count as 5 models.

I like it but not sure how strong it is, I like the idea of Stealth Suits with it.

Only mildly tactics-related, but there's a painted Sentry Turret selling on Ebay for $35 right now if anyone wants to pick one up for Legends. The seller seems legit; most of what they're putting up are various Tau models for about their selling price, so it looks like it's an old army rather than a bunch of recasts. I know Sentry Turrets are hard as hell to find on the secondary market nowadays, and I'm personally not interested in picking one up, so I figured I'd get the word out to y'all first.

As for the tactics part of this post: Speaking in pure theoreticals, how good would Sentry Turrets be in a Legends game anyway? I don't pay much attention to the actual "game" side of 40k much nowadays? It seems decent if you're running a Kauyon build, other than the fact that it can't move.

Probably the single cheapest way to deploy massed Plasma Rifles. It also has the Drone keyword, so can benefit from a DC (which would be pretty critical to negate the "can only target closest" problem).

Biggest downside is the lack of mobility.

120 points + DC for a battery of four? Maybe park a Ghostkeel nearby to babysit a backline? I can see some potential.

So what kind of lists are people playing right now? What's considered good for our faction?

Take a look at what Siegler is playing for an upcoming tournament. He goes through his list in detail. Siegler from Art of War. He is one of the best players in 40k.

A lot of lists I've looked at run patrols for minimal troops and Kroot are the popular choice over Strikes and Breachers. And they do patrols plural for more Commanders.

Then the recent goonhammer article notes that based on popularity Crisis are clearly the best unit in the codex, Ethereals second. Then Commanders (incl. Shadowsun), Broadsides, Stealth Suits are the other popular choices.

Personally, I've been looking at running spearheads. 3 skyrays, a hammerhead, and a riptide. Put sms or burst cannons on the hammerhead and one of the skyrays,and drones on the rest to give them manta strike and save them for kau'yon strikes.

 carldooley wrote:
Personally, I've been looking at running spearheads. 3 skyrays, a hammerhead, and a riptide. Put sms or burst cannons on the hammerhead and one of the skyrays,and drones on the rest to give them manta strike and save them for kau'yon strikes.

I'm not seeing how drones give the vehicle the manta strike ability. The drones have it, but that's not given to the vehicle unless I missed something

 Sazzlefrats wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Personally, I've been looking at running spearheads. 3 skyrays, a hammerhead, and a riptide. Put sms or burst cannons on the hammerhead and one of the skyrays,and drones on the rest to give them manta strike and save them for kau'yon strikes.

I'm not seeing how drones give the vehicle the manta strike ability. The drones have it, but that's not given to the vehicle unless I missed something

That is an actual possibility that requires an errata/faq.

Drone models have the manta strike ability, and manta strike does not specify that all models in a unit need to have the manta strike ability to make use of the rule.

We know that the abilities of the drones are kept when they are part of another unit, that's core rules and if it didn't then the Valued Sacrifice and Artificial Helpers rules would have useless parts, therefore drones retain their manta strike ability. This is where the previously covered "Broadside riding Shield Drones down from a manta" came from a couple of pages back.

The only possible thing which I think could prevent manta strike from being given to vehicles with docked drones is that while docked, the drone does not count as a model on the battlefield for any rules purposes (so you cannot use the Saviour Protocols strat on your devilfish and remove a docked gun drone from it in exchange for nullifying a shot against something). And I think that is quite a reach on my part and very much straying into RAI territory.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Sazzlefrats wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Personally, I've been looking at running spearheads. 3 skyrays, a hammerhead, and a riptide. Put sms or burst cannons on the hammerhead and one of the skyrays,and drones on the rest to give them manta strike and save them for kau'yon strikes.

I'm not seeing how drones give the vehicle the manta strike ability. The drones have it, but that's not given to the vehicle unless I missed something

That is an actual possibility that requires an errata/faq.

Drone models have the manta strike ability, and manta strike does not specify that all models in a unit need to have the manta strike ability to make use of the rule.

We know that the abilities of the drones are kept when they are part of another unit, that's core rules and if it didn't then the Valued Sacrifice and Artificial Helpers rules would have useless parts, therefore drones retain their manta strike ability. This is where the previously covered "Broadside riding Shield Drones down from a manta" came from a couple of pages back.

The only possible thing which I think could prevent manta strike from being given to vehicles with docked drones is that while docked, the drone does not count as a model on the battlefield for any rules purposes (so you cannot use the Saviour Protocols strat on your devilfish and remove a docked gun drone from it in exchange for nullifying a shot against something). And I think that is quite a reach on my part and very much straying into RAI territory.

Yah true. the range though, I can easily keep them in reserve instead and have them come on the table from a board edge instead. A Riptide though, that could benefit from 'Drop Zone Clear' with an 18 shot Heavy Burst Cannon...

I have a question regarding Strike and Fade. Can this be used agressively? For example to get Farsight in combat? Move, SnF, charge for an average of 23".

It doesn't say you can't charge after, only that you can't shoot again so yeah, you can charge after.

Shame Farsight is missing the Crisis keyword (possibly an oversight?), else you could also pop Dynamic Offensive on him for a guaranteed 6" advance and ignore penalties for shooting assault weapons when advancing.

He'll probably already ignored the advancing penalty for being in Mont'ka, but the 6" auto-advance wouldn't hurt.

Lacking CRISIS definitely seems like an oversight, our codex seems full of them.
I wonder how long we're going to be waiting for our day 1 FAQ fixes.

Might be heading to a 1k tournament this weekend so could use a bit of advice about my list and the game in general.

HQ
Cadre Fireblade

Enforcer Commander - Cyclic, Missile, Plasma, Shield, Onager, 2x Shield Drone, Precision of the Hunter

Troops
10x Breachers
10x Fire Warriors - Pulse Rifle, 1x Marker Drone
10x Fire Warriors - Pulse Rifle, 1x Marker Drone

Elites
4x Crisis - Cyclic, Missile, Plasma, Shield, 2x Marker Drone, 3x Shield Drone

Heavy Support
2x Broadsides - HRR, SMS, 2x Shield Drones

To me it seems a little light in terms of numbers. I'm wondering if it's worth getting rid of the Breachers and using a different Detachment. The 85pts spared from the Breachers might let me grab another couple of Crises and either have them 1x6 or 2x3. I have a number of units at my disposal to add/remove including a Hammerhead, Ghostkeel and a couple of Remoras.

I'm also curious about how to use such a list; I've only played 1 game of 9th so far and we just went with "kill as much as we can" as we were unfamiliar with the objectives. I've been playing since 4th Ed, but with the new objectives such as Octarius and Nachmund I'm completely lost as to what my priorities should be.

Thanks all

Is there a consensus on what to equip a broadside with as a secondary system/weapon other than a twin smart missile system?

Advanced Targeting System? Stabilised Optics? Seeker missile?

EDIT: While I'm at it might as well ask, drones: what types to build? Seems like everything gives you bits to do gun drone, marker drone, or shield drone. I plan to have a bunch of fire warriors, crisis suits, broadsides suits, commanders, stealth suits, all the usual suspects. What should I build?

For drones I would make sure to build a decent set of marker drones, and then gun and shield to taste. As you note these days everything comes with a couple that can be built as any of the three, so you will eventually have more than you know what to do with. I have enough of all of them built myself that I did not need any new ones for my list when the new codex came out.

 ph34r wrote:
Is there a consensus on what to equip a broadside with as a secondary system/weapon other than a twin smart missile system?

Advanced Targeting System? Stabilised Optics? Seeker missile?

EDIT: While I'm at it might as well ask, drones: what types to build? Seems like everything gives you bits to do gun drone, marker drone, or shield drone. I plan to have a bunch of fire warriors, crisis suits, broadsides suits, commanders, stealth suits, all the usual suspects. What should I build?

If you're taking the Railguns I wouldn't bother with ATS as it actually makes them worse; they can't proc their mortal wounds. Stabilised Optics can be ok but if you play Mont'ka you're ignoring the penalty anyway. Personally I'd go for the Velocity Tracker or Multi-Tracker; there's a large number of Fly units out there, and if you're running HYMPs or SMS then exploding 6s is a nice free bonus.

 Valkyrie wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Is there a consensus on what to equip a broadside with as a secondary system/weapon other than a twin smart missile system?

Advanced Targeting System? Stabilised Optics? Seeker missile?

EDIT: While I'm at it might as well ask, drones: what types to build? Seems like everything gives you bits to do gun drone, marker drone, or shield drone. I plan to have a bunch of fire warriors, crisis suits, broadsides suits, commanders, stealth suits, all the usual suspects. What should I build?

If you're taking the Railguns I wouldn't bother with ATS as it actually makes them worse; they can't proc their mortal wounds. Stabilised Optics can be ok but if you play Mont'ka you're ignoring the penalty anyway. Personally I'd go for the Velocity Tracker or Multi-Tracker; there's a large number of Fly units out there, and if you're running HYMPs or SMS then exploding 6s is a nice free bonus.

I think the twin plasma rifles are now better than the SMS. With the new armor of contempt, good luck with us killing anything with out of line of sight shooting.