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I am building a tau army of 1850 points . I would like to have an army that would do well against anybody. I have about half of the army already assembled and will soon have the rest. Just wanted some opinions on how this army would do in battle. The army is as follows:

HQ
Shas'o twin link missile pod, 2xshield drones - 123
Shas'o twin link missile pod, 2xshield drones - 123

Elites 6xcrisis suits twin link missile pod, target array - 318

Each Shas'o will be accompanied by 3 crisis suits

Troops 7xfire warriors team leader, marker light - 90
10 kroot, 10 kroot hound -130
10 kroot, 10 kroot hound - 130
10 kroot, 10 kroot hound -130
10 kroot, 10 kroot hound - 130

I will use the infiltrate rule with the kroot and assault enemy troops or tie up other units.

Fast attack
4xpathfinder, devilfish, dp, 2xseeker missile - 153
4xpathfinder, devilfish, dp, 2xseeker missile - 153

Heavy
2xhammerhead railgun, dp, multitraker, 2xseeker missile each - 370



Let me know what you guys think. I have been told by one experienced player that this list would not do well in tournaments.

To heavy in twin linked missle pods with BS4 Crisis Suits, IMHO, I prefer to mix it up with missile pods and plasma rifles or missile pods and burst cannons.

i think you should drop some/all of those seeker missiles and turn 3 of the crisis suits into fireknifes.

I try to have about one railgun per 500. At 1850 I think I'd try to squeeze 4, which means that you'll probably want at least one team of XV88s

I think you have too many kroot. They're not bad, especially with the hounds, but we're not an assault army. I don't really use them, so I won't knock them too bad, but that's my impression. I like fire warriors myself, because I think pulse rifles are excellent weapons, but others here disagree. If it's an issue of not having any other troop models, though, then don't worry about it. Come to think of it though, where are you getting 40 hound models though

Most people, myself included, think shas'o are a waste of points. Try a shas'el, for 25 points less. Twin linked BS5 is usually overkill and not worth what you pay for it. TL BS4 is way more efficient and statistically not much worse.

You're relying too much on missile pods, and you don't have a single plasma rifle (one of our best weapons) in the entire list. Missile pods are acceptable at killing light transports (AV10 and 11) but are fairly poor for AV12+. They also don't have enough AP to cut through power armor, so the wound output really gets hurt against MEQ, even though they wound on 2+.

Hope that helps

rmeju wrote:Most people, myself included, think shas'o are a waste of points. Try a shas'el, for 25 points less. Twin linked BS5 is usually overkill and not worth what you pay for it. TL BS4 is way more efficient and statistically not much worse.

I'll add to meju's point: a Shas should have a better/more offensive loadout that Deathrain. Shas'O or Shas'el+ (with a Target Array) should have lotsa dice rolling at his great BS 5.

rmeju wrote:You're relying too much on missile pods, and you don't have a single plasma rifle (one of our best weapons) in the entire list. Missile pods are acceptable at killing light transports (AV10 and 11) but are fairly poor for AV12+. They also don't have enough AP to cut through power armor, so the wound output really gets hurt against MEQ, even though they wound on 2+.

This is more good advice: Go fireknife!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

muntjac wrote:I am building a tau army of 1850 points . I would like to have an army that would do well against anybody.

Besides the usual "I'm new with this army" growing pains, you ought to keep in mind that Tau is generally considered pretty low on the meta-pole right now. In friendly games, I've been doing alright in 5e. Tourney-wise, every one is too fast and in h2h too soon. Deploy on the back edge, a lot.

muntjac wrote: Shas'o twin link missile pod, 2xshield drones - 123
Shas'o twin link missile pod, 2xshield drones - Elites 6xcrisis suits twin link missile pod, target array - Each Shas'o will be accompanied by 3 crisis suits

As stated, all Deathrains is under utilizing the Crisis Suit potential. It'd be great against Razor-spam & kans, but not enough anti-Infantry.

muntjac wrote:Troops 7xfire warriors team leader, marker light - 90
10 kroot, 10 kroot hound I will use the infiltrate rule with the kroot and assault enemy troops or tie up other units.

Shaper Leadership for large numbers of kroot is worth it.

muntjac wrote:4xpathfinder, devilfish, dp, 2xseeker missile - 153
4xpathfinder, devilfish, dp, 2xseeker missile - 153
2xhammerhead railgun, dp, multitraker, 2xseeker missile each

I think the Seeker points are better spent on Crisis Suit upgrades. One dead PF outta four is a morale check. Fielding 5 or 6 makes 'em a lot more stable.

muntjac wrote:Let me know what you guys think. I have been told by one experienced player that this list would not do well in tournaments.

I agree with that guy. At 1850, you ought to have 5 or 6 railguns; you have one. I can put in 5 RG between a b-side team and two tanks and MechIG will still out shoot it. I think 9 Broad-sides, and a pack of Deathrains, unit of FKs, and then some PFs & FWs inna 'fish is *roughly* tourney survivable, but then again, my list went 0 and 2 last month. That's no Wins, 2 Losses.

+1 to Brother Erekose's advice. He knows what he's talking about.

On the kroot, if you can get into woods, don't assault, get into woods. Kroot are absolutely nasty in woods, the +1 cover save can be extremely pesky for your opponent. Go 2 ground in woods, and you get 2+ cover save... And even not going to ground they can still be really nasty in woods.



No army... usually... will ever be able to make a list good against everybody, especially not Tau. Tau just have to make the best list possible and play the game as well as possible.

I recently started playing BA. As a somewhat experienced Tau player, I still will rarely win with them, especially against orks and nids. Though, it isn't as hard playing eldar with them or vanilla space marines.

My first BA game, I tabled my ork opponent... my second game, tabled marines. Third game, tabled eldar (granted the eldar player was an extremely new player, second game or so.)

My point being, Tau are one of the hardest races to play. Don't be discouraged because some guy said this list won't do well in tournies, I would say that to almost every Tau list because the new over-powered races can trump most anything.

I would weather the storm for a year and wait for a new codex. Once you are battle hardened, and a new codex comes out, Tau will seem really easy to play.