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Welcome welcome fellow dakkaits, i am admiral9 (as you can see) and i was wondering what allies would be best for my tau in a 1700 points army

I am planning on spending 500 points of those 1700 on allies.
Here are the allies that i think would best fit:
guardsmen, space marines, chaos daemons, dark angels,orks or eldar.
And just one thing i will refuse to use any blood angels, space wolfs or grey knights i just refuse that completely.

The most undercosted units in 40k:

Purifiers
Grey Hunters
Long Fangs
Vendettas

Since you aren't taking three of those that leaves you with a vendetta squadron.

Well i as actually thinking about either taking a large but cheap guardsmen platoon or a ork mob to screen my tau.

Marines or Eldar might be more useful as you can use their compulsory HQ choice to buff your tau squads. But for separate detachments, grey hunters and long fangs all the way.

But yeah as i previously said i don´t want to use space wolves, blood angels or grey knights.

Eldar, take a farseer with the standard upgrades, buy the three cheap powers and take 10 rangers, 350 points. The farseer will never die, the objective you deploy them next to will never be lost, and psy powers will never bother you again.

At least, until the heavy flamers show up, but as a tau player, you should know how to deal with that!

Ah thats some nice advice thanks! I heard war walkers also are real killer if used properly maybe i will have some of them hang with my suits.

You're right war walkers can be really effective if used properly. I discovered in my last game that 3 with 2 scatter lasers each with the farseer with guide/prescience stood nearby is a great counter to flying things. The Flying Tyrant went down to them by turn two (I was helped slightly by my opponent choosing not to charge the war walkers with the tyrant giving them that second round of shooting).

To be honest, I would really reccomend IG, as tau currently don't have any anti-flyer weapons and vendettas are the best in the game, alongside hydras. This would still allow you a large squad of infantry as a speed bump, but I'm not sure that this would do an amazing amount more than kroot.

You don't need anti-air flyer weapons if you have 3 twin linked railguns. You should down 1 a turn.

I'd recommend more TAU!

Allies? Allies? We dont need no stinking Allies!

Milisim wrote:I'd recommend more TAU!

Allies? Allies? We dont need no stinking Allies!

But what about the Greater Good? What about the enlightenment of all races under the Etherials?

juraigamer wrote:You don't need anti-air flyer weapons if you have 3 twin linked railguns. You should down 1 a turn.

Let's see... With proper mathhammer applied, it turns out at 27,029,935 in 80,612,568 chance of downing at least one AV11 flyer. Not exactly a "should", if you ask me. Also, sorry about the numbers but 55/432 isn't a particularly nice set of numbers.

p_gray99 wrote:

juraigamer wrote:You don't need anti-air flyer weapons if you have 3 twin linked railguns. You should down 1 a turn.

Let's see... With proper mathhammer applied, it turns out at 27,029,935 in 80,612,568 chance of downing at least one AV11 flyer. Not exactly a "should", if you ask me. Also, sorry about the numbers but 55/432 isn't a particularly nice set of numbers.

27,029,935 in 80,612,568 is ALMOST EXACTLY 1/3.
one in 2.98 if you wanna be more exact than you need to be.
Don't make the numbers more undigestible than they need to be

Purifier wrote:

p_gray99 wrote:

juraigamer wrote:You don't need anti-air flyer weapons if you have 3 twin linked railguns. You should down 1 a turn.

Let's see... With proper mathhammer applied, it turns out at 27,029,935 in 80,612,568 chance of downing at least one AV11 flyer. Not exactly a "should", if you ask me. Also, sorry about the numbers but 55/432 isn't a particularly nice set of numbers.

27,029,935 in 80,612,568 is ALMOST EXACTLY 1/3.
one in 2.98 if you wanna be more exact than you need to be.
Don't make the numbers more undigestible than they need to be

Sorry, probably should have written 3/10 but I don't think about that sort of thing when working out the maths. I will do in future.

Also, I think you mean "almost exactly 3/10." Bit different to 1/3.

p_gray99 wrote:Also, I think you mean "almost exactly 3/10." Bit different to 1/3.

No. It's considerably closer to one third than to three tens.

Eldar or Space Marines IMHO. A Chaplain or Librarian as a HQ choice could bring you some much needed CC survivability or psychic powers. An Assault Squad as a fast attack choice is nice for counter-assaults or keeping enemy squads tied down. Stormtalon Gunships are an alternative solution should you engage lots of horde armies.

Same with the Eldar Farseer. They give you psychic powers plus decent CC survivability, should your troops be charged by the enemy. Plus you could pretend it is a psychic Ethereal

Well, now tau and space marines are battle brothers (for some reason), so space marines might be a good choise. But I always thought that tau would be best with eldar. So I would go with either space marines or eldar.

Purifier wrote:No. It's considerably closer to one third than to three tens.

Sorry. Again I wasn't thinking, you using a decimal put me off. Sorry.

Still, I hope I have still put my point across succesfully that it's not exactly likely to shoot down a flyer with 3 broadsides.

Why not add more drones? There's a fancy line of drones called "Necrons" which can be decent addition. The overlord necron drone is good in CC and a small warrior squad with a cryptek can add a punch. Add in some wraith drones to help protect your fire warriors and suits and you can survive melee alot better then before.

p_gray99 wrote:

Purifier wrote:No. It's considerably closer to one third than to three tens.

Sorry. Again I wasn't thinking, you using a decimal put me off. Sorry.

Still, I hope I have still put my point across succesfully that it's not exactly likely to shoot down a flyer with 3 broadsides.

When you have one chance in three (roughly) in a round, I would agree with your scepticism that "You should down 1 a turn."

Assuming your calculations were right (and I have no reason to believe anything else) he "should" down one every three turns.
That's not enough.

Orks make for very solid allies provided they're not Desperate Allies. As they're Allies of Convenience with Tau, that's not a problem.

You need to pander to what your army is weak at. Tau have trouble holding objectives. Their scoring units are flimsy at best. Tau also struggle stopping assault units reaching their lines. So, something like:

Warboss w/ ‘Eavy Armour; Bosspole; Cybork Body; Power Klaw - 105pts

29 Shoota Boyz w/ Big Shoota x3 + Nob w/ Bosspole; Power Klaw - 235
29 Shoota Boyz w/ Big Shoota x3 + Nob w/ Bosspole; Power Klaw - 235

- 575 points

You could also drop 130 points and take a Dakkajet to add some flier support to, but that's up to you.

The boyz sit on objectives, and block your opponent from getting to your fire warriors / broadsides etc. Now that fearless isn't a death trap, large units of Orks are very dangerous. And because they're allies of convenience, the orks are scoring too. No one wants to see their expensive assault units tied up in a 30-boy quagmire.

GCMandrake wrote:Orks make for very solid allies provided they're not Desperate Allies. As they're Allies of Convenience with Tau, that's not a problem.

You need to pander to what your army is weak at. Tau have trouble holding objectives. Their scoring units are flimsy at best. Tau also struggle stopping assault units reaching their lines. So, something like:

Warboss w/ ‘Eavy Armour; Bosspole; Cybork Body; Power Klaw - 105pts

29 Shoota Boyz w/ Big Shoota x3 + Nob w/ Bosspole; Power Klaw - 235
29 Shoota Boyz w/ Big Shoota x3 + Nob w/ Bosspole; Power Klaw - 235

- 575 points

You could also drop 130 points and take a Dakkajet to add some flier support to, but that's up to you.

The boyz sit on objectives, and block your opponent from getting to your fire warriors / broadsides etc. Now that fearless isn't a death trap, large units of Orks are very dangerous. And because they're allies of convenience, the orks are scoring too. No one wants to see their expensive assault units tied up in a 30-boy quagmire.

That could work, although I'd be more inclined to send them charging forwards as if I took them on with my DE or tau I'd just shoot them to death with masses of S5 or poisoned. Also, are you sure you want a warboss? How about a big mek instead with KFF, which could also provide cover for tau (IIRC).

p_gray99 wrote:

GCMandrake wrote:Orks make for very solid allies provided they're not Desperate Allies. As they're Allies of Convenience with Tau, that's not a problem.

You need to pander to what your army is weak at. Tau have trouble holding objectives. Their scoring units are flimsy at best. Tau also struggle stopping assault units reaching their lines. So, something like:

Warboss w/ ‘Eavy Armour; Bosspole; Cybork Body; Power Klaw - 105pts

29 Shoota Boyz w/ Big Shoota x3 + Nob w/ Bosspole; Power Klaw - 235
29 Shoota Boyz w/ Big Shoota x3 + Nob w/ Bosspole; Power Klaw - 235

- 575 points

You could also drop 130 points and take a Dakkajet to add some flier support to, but that's up to you.

The boyz sit on objectives, and block your opponent from getting to your fire warriors / broadsides etc. Now that fearless isn't a death trap, large units of Orks are very dangerous. And because they're allies of convenience, the orks are scoring too. No one wants to see their expensive assault units tied up in a 30-boy quagmire.

That could work, although I'd be more inclined to send them charging forwards as if I took them on with my DE or tau I'd just shoot them to death with masses of S5 or poisoned. Also, are you sure you want a warboss? How about a big mek instead with KFF, which could also provide cover for tau (IIRC).

A Big Mek is a strong alternative to the Warboss. I'd lean towards taking the Warboss due to his increased close combat prowess to help dissuade people getting too close (and hence protecting the Tau behind). The Klaw also scares off vehicles. An unexpected Waaagh! can send the warboss 6+2D6(rerollable) forwards, and amount of Klaw attacks he and his Nob gets should reduce any vehicles to scrap.

The KFF gives units within 6" a 5+ cover save, this includes Tau and enemy units as well. The problem is that the 6" bubble isn't that large, but some clever positioning helps, as only a single model in the unit needs to be within the bubble.

Yes, poison and and infantry shots will wear the unit down rapidly, which is why you take the Tau, to blow those up! Also, the 30-strong mob can put out a lot of shoota/heavy shoota shots, which will whittle down infantry plenty.

I still don't know why SM are Battle brother and IG arn't >_< i will still field my Gue'vesa'la IG army though ^_^

Eldar farseer and friends. they are battle brothers and they stop enemy psychics. Heck every Dark Eldar player I know is taking eldrad and pathfinders.