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Title bitz are not necessarily related to each other.

After realizing that after not playing very much recently that the things I was attempting with lists just didn't have enough of one thing or another. So my question is if there is a sort of guideline as to how much anti-horde or anti-tank to put into a list meant to be an all-comers list? How important is melta for the first thousand points? I have a thousand point list but wanted to see how much melta or anti-tank should likely go into a 1k list before posting. Also, when making a new list do you usually compare it with lists that are deemed decent and see how you would handle it?

Tau: I've heard that Tau is the thinkers army. Are there any suggestions for mind games while playing marines that would help not get slaughtered in the first few rounds with Tau?

Bluff, make it seem like you really don't want to do a shoot-off with the marine player...

Beyond that, there really are no mind games you can play (unless the player is either a noob or have never played against Tau before.)

This is a very general topic, its hard to give you absolutely every strategy and component to playing Tau and making lists...

Tau are definitely a "thinkers" army... or more like the "unforgiving" army. If you make a mistake, you will most likely fail.


I don't like fusion blasters because they require your units to be close to the enemy. I prefer railguns for everything with an AV. For the first 1000 points, you can get meltas for cheap (relatively), but as I said, they're risky.

When I critique a list, I don't compare it with other list. I first of all look at the units and see if they are optimized, and then on a more general scale I look and see if the army is too focused on 1 task, and has a hideous weakness.

There is no guide to how much Anti-Tank or anti-horde to include, you just have to balance it well yourself, and use your best judgement. I would (personally) say that at 1000 points, you should spend 200-300 points on fire-warriors and kroot, and at 1500, that should be 250-400 points on troops.

A decent 1000 pt. list is as follows:

Crisis Battlesuit Commander
Missile Pod/Plasma Rifle/Multi-Tracker/2 Shield Drones
117 Pts.

Crisis Battlesuit Team (3)
TL Missile Pods/Flamers
141 Pts.

Crisis Battlesuit Team (3)
Missile Pods/Plasma Rifles/Multi-Trackers
186 Pts.

Fire Warriors (86
60 Pts.

Kroot (13)
6 Hounds
127 Pts.

Kroot (13)
6 Hounds
127 Pts.

Broadside (A.S.S.)
80 Pts.

Broadside (A.S.S.)
80 Pts.

Broadside (A.S.S.)
80 Pts.


988 Points Total

You have 3 Railguns, and 3 TL Missile Pods, which should take care of all the armor. You have 4 Fireknifes (PR/MP/MT), which can take care of heavy infantry.

Then you have 26 kroot, 12 hounds, and 6 fire warriors which should take care of any troops.

Wow that list scares it is a pretty 1000 point list.

That's a pretty good list, I'd have a lot of forced invulns from it to be sure.

I didn't mean mind games in measure of messing with your opponents head, but rather in thinking more thoroughly...maybe doing averages in your head and planning for the full game and attempting to see possible moves? I don't have a wide breadth of experience to go on like a lot of people do here. I think I've got target priority down for the most part.

Noted with the fusion blasters. I like Rail Guns as well, 12'' is way too close with what I hear about Tau.

The Melta question was more geared towards a Doublewing list where I've got a unit of 6 Ravenwing bikes with a pair of Meltaguns, but for the same price I can get another 5 3++ terminators with a pair of Krak missiles instead. It would put me at 10 missiles per round at 1k points.