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Basically what it says on the tin is there any possible way to play them in a competitive environment?

Throw all of your games, get tabled quick, and take every opponent to the bar an hour into the round as part of a ploy to win Players' Choice?

They make the squad they are in fearless right? Stick them in a 20 kroot/12 hound unit in cover, with LOS to the rest of your forces. Tau are not happy taking morale checks, his reroll can save games by preventing suits from falling back off the table.

A squad of fearless, BS 4 fire warriors? Also, if he dies everyone gets preferred enemy.

I play Tau and I have to say I think they are as useless as tits on a boar. Don't waste your money on one... If you have it, paint it and use it as an objective marker.... or to say to people... look I have an ethereal model... and watch as everyone jumps 1mm in excitement..
All kidding asside, I still think Tau can be competitive, I just don't think Ethereals really have a place in a competive list. sorry

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: Nooooooooooooooooo...

...ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

o!

There uses are rather limited. I think the best use it to make your army fail Ld and lose the game.

Being the absolute worst unit in the game bar none. They are the one unit that makes your army objectively worse just by including it.

There is a use for them, amazingly.

You can make a squad fearless (broadsides) and provide leadership re-rolls for all other non-vehicle units but kroot and drones.

What this means is not only can you force a unit to stay put, but you can re-roll successful leadership, to try to force a unit to run. Having battlesuits fall back 3d6 and then easily regroup on your next turn is amazing for keeping them alive. The same is true for everything else. You can attempt to force a unit to stay in melee, to leave melee, and so on.

The only issue is using this method means it's best to take two ethereals, since if you lose one there is no real loss and you can use the re-roll for when one ethereal dies.

They are pretty bad, don't get me wrong, but they can be used to great effect. I'm currently running my tau as a 0 battlesuit army, and doing quite well. No losses yet.

It's been an eternity since I looked at the Tau Dex, but couldn't you stick one in a squad of like 20 warriors in some cover? Keep it back and well protected.

Or is it just virtually impossible to keep them alive?

It's quite possible to keep them alive. I was using a squad of 20 kroot with 8 hounds in cover, or trees if I could find them, and not only has my ethereal never died, he's even claimed several models in melee! A tyranid shrike and a sanguinary guard thus far.

Putting him with 2 shield drones on a squad of broadsides practically makes him impossible to kill, especially if you use mulit-level ruins and place as much as you can on separate levels to minimize hits.

juraigamer wrote:It's quite possible to keep them alive. I was using a squad of 20 kroot with 8 hounds in cover, or trees if I could find them, and not only has my ethereal never died, he's even claimed several models in melee! A tyranid shrike and a sanguinary guard thus far.

Putting him with 2 shield drones on a squad of broadsides practically makes him impossible to kill, especially if you use mulit-level ruins and place as much as you can on separate levels to minimize hits.

Yeah, this is about the only loadout. Otherwise, just hold on to him for the next codex update

Regicide.

Keep everything that isn't an ethereal/pathfinder/FW off the table, in reserves.

Put all the PF and FW into their fish.

get the ethereals killed.

Automatically pass morale test, get preferred enemy. I actually find that in 10,000+ point apoc games it's worth executing Aun'va for this.

Bring the space pope hero and if you win, claim you were basicly playing with a 200pt (or however much he is) handicap (and if you lose you can claim the same thing)

Wait till 6th edition where preferred enemy matters, and etheral's morale checks aint as bad?

juraigamer wrote:Putting him with 2 shield drones on a squad of broadsides practically makes him impossible to kill, especially if you use mulit-level ruins and place as much as you can on separate levels to minimize hits.

It's almost this, but not quite. Why stop at two drones?

3 Broadsides, each with a Drone Controller, so a full 6 Shield Drones, with two for the ethereal himself.

*That* unit is that will take forever to kill with shooting. Eleven models with 2+, and eight with 4++, in Cover, of course.

In h2h, it'll get whittled down like a termie crew with no power weapons.

16 months ago I *did* field this in an RTT. Lousy shooting dice pretty much lost me two games, earning me a 3rd round buy.

Yes, yes, thanks for the sympathy.

A BT Marshal and his 5 termie buddies took ... IIRC maybe 3 to 4 rounds to kill it this load of drones and suits, and the old man, with their lightning claws and THs. The BA player ignored the unit, just having Mephiston eat everything else (KP mission).

Now, if you own 9 broadsides, and loaded out each model with Drone Controllers, that is, 6 Shield Drones per unit, *that* is going to get opponents to do that "phew" blowing noise through their lips. Try just talking about that set up.They'll do the blowing thing. Of course, five seconds later they'll still deride the game as an auto-loss for tau. Heck, I do.

Any h2h speedy army will simply tar pit them, but 9 nigh-unstoppable railguns will make IG & Mech sphincters clench.

Ethereals could be an awesome buy at 50 points. Morale is a weakness for Tau (how many units of Broadsides have you seen run off the back table edge?), and Ethereals plug the hole, plus you get a less reliable version of Combat Tactics (which is yet weaker for not being paired with ATSKNF).

The Price of Failure is just a stupid rule, especially when paired with the LOS requirement. If he dies, terrible things happen, but in order for his abilities to work, he can't be hiding out of LOS or in a transport.

In order to use one, you've got to figure out a solution to those problems.

If you can figure out a way to have a 90% chance or higher for him to not die during the game, it could be useful. . . the problem is, if he dies, some fraction of your army just either ran totally off the board, or went crazy and screwed up your positioning big-time. I. . . would not say they're a good choice. CAN be useful, if used very, very carefully, but generally aren't.

As long as he doesent die i actualy fond him kinda usefull at times. Problem is, he does more often then not. I would however say that he is underrated, but still not good. But i would still rather take him then vespids.