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Hi Dakka, I'm a relatively new Tau player so I don't have a vast amount of models (or experience) at my disposable at this moment in time, so this army list is what I am working towards. Any advice would be appreciated, my main opponents are Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, Necrons and Space Marines. I don't play at tournaments, not yet anyway, so I'm not too fussed about making my list hyper competitive, but I still want this to be a relatively decent TAC list to try and beat my friends with.


HQ:

XV8 Shas’el (TL Burst Cannon, Missile Pod, HW Mulit-Tracker, Stimulant Injector, HW Drone Controller, Shield Drone)
104 points

Elites:

XV8 Shas’ui Team Leader (TL Missile Pod, Bonding Knife, Target Lock)
XV8 Shas’ui (TL Missile Pod, Flamer)
XV8 Shas’ui (TL Missile Pod, Flamer)
152 points

XV8 Shas’ui Team Leader (Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Targeting Array, HW Multi-Tracker, Bonding Knife)
XV8 Shas’ui (Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi-Tracker)
XV8 Shas’ui (Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi-Tracker)
206 points

XV25 Shas’ui Team Leader (Drone Controller, Marker Drone, Bonding Knife)
XV25 Shas’ui (Drone Controller, Marker Drone)
XV25 Shas’ui (Drone Controller, Marker Drone)
190 points

Troops:

9x Fire Warriors (Pulse Rifles, Team Leader, Bonding Knife)
105 points

9x Fire Warriors (Pulse Rifles, Team Leader, Bonding Knife)
105 points

9x Fire Warriors (Pulse Rifles, Team Leader, Bonding Knife)
105 points

10x Kroot
7X Kroot Hounds
112 points

Fast Attack:

4x Pathfinders
48 points
Devilfish (Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger)
95 points

4x Pathfinders
48 points
Devilfish (Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger)
95 points

Heavy Support:

Hammerhead Gunship (Railgun, Multi-Tracker, Disruption Pod, 2x Burst Cannons, Flechette Discharger)
175 points

Hammerhead Gunship (Railgun, Multi-Tracker, Disruption Pod, 2x Burst Cannons, Flechette Discharger)
175 points

3x XV88 Broadsides (3x ASS, Team Leader, HW Target Lock, HW Drone Controller, 2x Shield Drones, Bonding Knife)
285 points

Total: 2000 points


The Shas'el will join the Fire Knife unit, the Kroot can be infiltrated/outflanking/deployed normally depending on the opposing force and terrain, and the footslogging Fire Warriors will come in from reserve to secure/contest (if it comes to it) the home objective. If you want clarification for the roles and reasoning behind any units just ask.

All tips and advice welcome!

Looks very similar to the 2000 pt list I run. Overall, very nice.

The only suggestion I have is to replace the stealth suits with crisis suits. I'm assuming you're taking them for anti-infantry (with their burst cannons) as well as the mobile marker lights on the marker drones.

Here's my alternative suggestion: Replace the stealth suits with crisis suits that have Burst Cannons, Missile Pods, and Multi-Trackers. This saves you 40 points. This also gives you a unit that matches the HQ's purpose (anti-infantry), so he can join that unit of suits and they won't need to take a bonding knife because if 2 of the suits die, you'll be at 50% and can rally, and then if the other suit dies, your HQ becomes an IC again.

With these extra points, I would suggest adding Pathfinders (since the marker drones are gone). Squads of 4 will drop a few markerlights, but they're much more efficient if you take 6-8. If you need more points for them you could probably drop a FW or 2 from each squad.

What made you decide to take the stealth suits and marker drones? I haven't seen this yet, so it seems unusual to me, hahaha.

Thanks for the response!

The reasoning behind the Stealth Suits with marker drones is for a mobile and a relatively durable markerlight base, considering I'm going to be playing some maneuverable armies, such as Dark Eldar, I didn't want to lose all markerlights during the turn when I have to reposition and move my Pathfinders. I first saw this kind of use for Stealth Suits whilst lurking on ATT and reading their academy articles, there's some really interesting stuff over there! (Link: http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=12814)

Your idea sounds good, it would certainly be useful against my Tyranid playing friend, and more Missile Pods will always be welcome when it comes to early turn transport popping before the Burst Cannons get into range, I'll certainly try it out.

A couple of my thoughts:

1. Dump the stim injector. No one cares if your commander dies, and it isn't likely to protect him anyway (double T shot, power weapons, etc)

2. I have never seen a squad of XV8s toting marker drones, or really any model taking them for that matter. The reason is that marker drones are way too expensive for what they do. These units are also illegal since they're only using 1 of their 3 hardpoints. They need to use two more, but more importantly you're already paying ~65 points per marker shot, which is way, way, way, way too much considering that you have half full pathfinder squads. The only reason (IMHO) to not take 3 full squads of pathfinders is due to the prohibitive cost of the devilfish they are required to take. Once you've made the decision to buy that fish, however, you should definitely bring the squad to full unless there's ablsolutely no way to get the points. 12 points per marker is way too cheap to pass up.

Here, you're already paying for two of them, but you aren't springing for the extra 12 points per model to beef your pathfinders up to full strength. Networked markerlights on the drones are rarely better than regular ones, and there's no reason to take them at all on a squad that doesn't have any other guns.

Let's say you take TL flamers on this XV8 squad to keep them as cheap as possible. That's going to total up to 208 for the squad. Now we're at almost 70 points per marker shot, or 150 points per marker hit.

Compare that to an extra 96 points for 8 more marker shots, and averaging 4 hits by beefing up the PF squads. With the leftover points you could buy a lot of stuff that you need. You could buy a 3rd fish, and beef up all three squads of FWs. Then all 3 could go mounted in the the fish that you have and go wreak some FoF havoc.

3. I like black sun filters on my hammerheads. 5 points is small enough to buy insurance against Dawn of War. Drop 2 hounds or a flechette if nothing else. Turn 1 is absolutely critical for Tau, and if your 2 hammerheads are gimped at that time, it's going to cause you trouble.

Hope that helps!

firemind wrote:Looks very similar to the 2000 pt list I run. Overall, very nice.

The only suggestion I have is to replace the stealth suits with crisis suits. I'm assuming you're taking them for anti-infantry (with their burst cannons) as well as the mobile marker lights on the marker drones.

Here's my alternative suggestion: Replace the stealth suits with crisis suits that have Burst Cannons, Missile Pods, and Multi-Trackers. This saves you 40 points. This also gives you a unit that matches the HQ's purpose (anti-infantry), so he can join that unit of suits and they won't need to take a bonding knife because if 2 of the suits die, you'll be at 50% and can rally, and then if the other suit dies, your HQ becomes an IC again.

With these extra points, I would suggest adding Pathfinders (since the marker drones are gone). Squads of 4 will drop a few markerlights, but they're much more efficient if you take 6-8. If you need more points for them you could probably drop a FW or 2 from each squad.

What made you decide to take the stealth suits and marker drones? I haven't seen this yet, so it seems unusual to me, hahaha.

Do this. The more Crisis Suits the better. Also, take one unit of Stealth Suits so you can infultrate and mess up the opponets plan.

I assume you're gonna have two of the Fire Warrior teams steal the Pathfinder's Devilfish? If so and you're looking for points, I'd consider dropping the Shas'ui and Bonding Knives from those squads. Other than that, the only real flaws I see were already addressed above

Drruum wrote:The reasoning behind the Stealth Suits with marker drones is for a mobile and a relatively durable markerlight base, considering I'm going to be playing some maneuverable armies, such as Dark Eldar, I didn't want to lose all markerlights during the turn when I have to reposition and move my Pathfinders. I first saw this kind of use for Stealth Suits whilst lurking on ATT and reading their academy articles, there's some really interesting stuff over there! (Link: http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=12814)

I would play it as is, no changes. I recognized the Stealths as Marker-jockeys. This is a good list.