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Hey I am a Tau player and I need some help. Some of my friends and I have decided to do a mini tournament.
The armies:
Tau (Me)
Necron
Tyranids
Blood Angels

So I need some tips of what I should include in my army.

Thanks.

This would be better in the Army Lists sub-forum, but I'll throw in my two cents before the 'Spam Plasma Rifles and Missile Pods' people post.

First off, what kind of Tau army do you field? Is it a gun-line or mechanized army?

Well, I normally play a sort of 1800 battle so 1000 I will have to cut down...

This is roughly what I normally use:

Commander battlesuit with two bodyguards, normally deep strike (plasma's and fusions)

Two squads of 9 fire warriors, front lines shooting (forgotten the name of gun, the rapid fire one)

Two broadsides, sit at back as usual (targeting arrays)

2 Hammerheads (gonna only use one)

14 Kroot, run forward shoot or assualt

3 goads, shaper and a great knarloc (experimental, probs not gonna use)

6 Stealth team, infiltrate

Full Pathfinder team with devilfish

and i have two piranas but usually do not use them...

I think thats everything...

Ok where to begin.
At these points:
Don't use bodyguards. Run them as normal suits. They are cheaper and just as effective

I would go with either one full firewarrior squad, or two minimum ones

Broadsides are fine.

Yes use one hammerhead

Kroot are good.

I have no idea what goads or great knarloc are. I'm assuming they are forgeworld items, which are generally not allowed in tournaments. If you are allowed to use them, they are probably overcosted like most FW stuff, so I would avoid them.

Stealth teams are too expensive here.

I would advise against pathfinders, but if you really want them, go with a 4 man unit.

Yeah avoid the piranhas.


Do you have any more crisis suits? They really are the backbone of the Tau army, and you should have a bunch.

At 1k I would run:
3x 10 Kroot 210
1x Piranha Fusion, Dpod 70
Broadside Ass, SD 100
Broadside Ass, SD
Broadside Ass, SD
so far 580pts
Fill the rest out with Crysis twin missile pods

Here is what I would run:

Crisis Battlesuit Commander
Bladestorm (PR/BC/MT)
-83 Pts.

Crisis Battlesuit Team (3)
Team Leader w/ TA
Bladestorm (PR/BC/MT)
189 Pts.

Crisis Battlesuit Team (3)
Team Leader w/ TA
Bladestorm (PR/BC/MT)
189 Pts.

Fire Warrior Team (10)
100 Pts.

Fire Warrior Team (10)
100 Pts.

Broadside
A.S.S.
80 Pts.

Broadside
A.S.S.
80 Pts.

Railhead
BCs/MT/DPs/TL
180 Pts.

1001 Pts.


I know people freak out at bladestorms, but they are actually a really good variant. The plasma rifle is very different than the burst cannon, but together they can kill horde or heavy infantry. This variant is actually one of the most point efficient at killing MEQs as well. Also, the plasma rife and burst cannon have similar ranges, which is another reason they work well together.

^You're missing the required firewarrior unit in there. You also forgot to add the points to make those broadsides team leaders, so they could take two items of wargear.

Additionally Deathrains are rather ineffective, so buying a bunch of them would be a bad idea. A few of them isn't bad, but you should take more than just those.

ninjad!!

And yes, deathrains are crap against anything but light vehicles...

I try not to take them unless I'm against orks which have many models with 4+ saves, and many vehicles with AV 11 or below

You are right about the FWs I forgot. But I did add for team leaders
Broadside 70 Ass 10 leader 5 SD 15 100total
I would replace one squad of kroot for 6 FW
I think the deathrains would be just fine. Hes playing against crons and Nids, these would work well against these. Now the BA maybe not

Cool thanks for the help

Don't fret, point for point Tau is actually decent at smaller point games. You can bring things others have trouble fielding.

Abyssel wrote:Don't fret, point for point Tau is actually decent at smaller point games. You can bring things others have trouble fielding.

Nonsense, tau do crap at lower points. They need more points to get a well rounded army.

In a 500 pt. game, try fighting a kff mek and 3 units of 20 boys...

Mal the Wolf wrote:You are right about the FWs I forgot. But I did add for team leaders
Broadside 70 Ass 10 leader 5 SD 15 100total
I would replace one squad of kroot for 6 FW
I think the deathrains would be just fine. Hes playing against crons and Nids, these would work well against these. Now the BA maybe not

Yeah sure deathrains will be awesome against both of those armies [/sarcasm]. They would be awful against both of those. Necrons are 3+ saves across the board, and at these points, Nids are just going to bring a bunch of little bugs. Your deathrains are only throwing out two shots a turn. That is going to do almost nothing against 3 20 man squads of hormaguants.

The Bringer wrote:

Abyssel wrote:Don't fret, point for point Tau is actually decent at smaller point games. You can bring things others have trouble fielding.

Nonsense, tau do crap at lower points. They need more points to get a well rounded army.

In a 500 pt. game, try fighting a kff mek and 3 units of 20 boys...

Yeah, but any army is going to struggle against those boyz. Horde armies are monsters at low point levels. I agree with Abyssel, Tau do fairly well at low point levels. Our required HQ is pretty cheap (they rarely get over 100 points), and we have access to small low point troop choices. That leaves plenty of room for stuff that matters, like some crisis suits, or a hammerhead. Plus the fact that firewarriors are packing str5 guns, gives us a leg up when most of what you will be facing is troop choices.

What config for the commander?
If I want a troop killing thing, burst cannon, Airbursting frag, ion blaster?


BTW some more people are entering now:
So we already got Tyranids ,Necrons , Blood Angels,
now we also have another Tau player -_- ,Imperial Guard, Orks and... Eldar

Generally outfit your commander to go with one of your units of suits.

Also check this out:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/360480.page

Dave that link is fething awesome. Not much for mathhammer personally but it was a great read.