Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So far I have faced, eldar, blood angels, necrons, grey knights and dark eldar and have won every game. In fact the only non useful unit thus far has been the kroot, other than as a speedbump of course. first thing id do is probably drop a few at least for maxed firewarriors, but otherwise tough figuring out what else to do....

Tau 1500pts

HQ:
Shas’el, Plasma, missile, Array, HW MT, HW DC, x2 SD, BSF 132pts

Shas’el, Twin-missile, airburst frag, HW MT, HW DC, x2 SD, BSF 128pts

Elites:
Crisis Team: Shas’ui team leader, array, plasma, missile, HW MT, HW DC, x2 SD, 107pts
Shas’ui, plasma, missile, MT 62pts
Shas’ui, plasma, missile, MT 62pts

Crisis Team: Shas’ui team leader, twin-missile, flame, HW MT, HW DC, x2 SD, 87pts
Shas’ui, twin-missile, flame 47pts
Shas’ui, twin-missile, flame 47pts

Troops:
X6 Fire Warriors 60pts
Devilfish 80pts

X6 Fire Warriors 60pts
Devilfish 80pts

X6 Fire Warriors 60pts
Devilfish 80pts

Heavy Support:
Hammerhead, burst cannons, MT, BSF, ion cannon 130pts

Broadside Team: Shas’ui Team Leader, ASS, HW DC, x2 SD, BSF 120pts
Shas’ui, ASS 80pts
Shas’ui, ASS 80pts

Total: 1502pts

edit: my math is a little off, with this list i am over 2 points, cant figure out what to do

Guess noone has any thoughts... Oh well i'll just keep experimenting

Just seems like a fairly average Tau army build, not that there is anything wrong with it but usually a list like this I would expect averge performance and not undefeated (albeit a handfull of games). IMO this list, like all tau lists, suffer from a few codex weaknesses (psykers, melee etc) and for a tournament i would think allies could help you overcome at least one of those weaknesses. If you dropped the kroot and shaved a few points somewhere you could fit in a fareer with a min squad of rangers. That could help alot.

good luck in your tournament

I actually really like this list and I think I will use it the next time I play a 1500 point game. Any suggestions for a 1750 or 2000 point list? What would you look to add?


How has the Ion Hammerhead been for you? I haven't have the best of success with the Railheads so I may try the Ion and see how it plays (AP3 is pretty good against SM armies).

Do you send your HQs out on their own? I assume so because of the double SD.

What is your general game plan against SM (and their factions)? I have gotten crushed every time I have played a SM player, but then again, I started playing last spring so I am still learning. I often feel like regardless of what I do, I can't put enough unsaved wounds into the squads and end up getting owned in close combat (especially the Fire Warriors). Any input would be greatly appreciated on that end.


Good luck with the tourney!

I'm trying to come up with a 1500 tournament list as well, I think I will give yours a go tonight, ill let you know how i found it.

I feel that railheads arent really useful unless you are using pathfinders, but I find that pathfinders are too much of a crutch as they have no real way to afford them protection when on the ground, and are an expensive investment for only a BS3 markerlight. The railhead submunission was really the only truly useful aspect of the main gun, but I felt it better to just change to the much cheaper marine and transport chomping ion head.

As far as the ion head goes I have had GREAT success. For one, if opponents are at all used to playing tau players, they simply look for railguns, and if it doesn't shoot rails, they dont really concern themselves with it and so the ionhead largely gets ignored.

The 60" range marine/transport killer is just incredible, other than railguns there is no ranged marine armor puncher beyond 24" and let me tell you, gunning down 2-3 heavy weapon team members turn 1 is amazing,

As well, tau players have shown great concern for flyers but as my last games have proved, twin-linked missile pods and twin-linked railguns are more than a match for flyers. This means that if they have a few ground transports along with their flyers, the thinking being that the flyers will brunt all of the damage and the transports will go unnoticed, this gives a juicy target for your ion head to go for while everything else is bringing down those pesky flyers.

As far as the HQ's g, I run them with their respective crisis suit squads, plasma with plasma, twin missile with twin missile. Let me tell you how people melt when they see they have to get through 4 shield drones per squad to get access to the crisis suits, and the LD boost to the crisis is fantastic. Them being 4 man squads also means if they DS, it may not be the best choice to charge them with potential overwatch(though I rarely DS them as its always better to have them JSJ 'ing turn 1 on.)

I have yet to lose a game against any marine armies, their unit count is simply too small, and funny enough has gotten even smaller now with flyers coming into it. Simply keep your fire warriors mounted in fishes until they either move close enough to you to be rapid fired to death, or until the transport gets popped, but with vehicles now gaining the benefits of the cover they are behind and jink as a whole, tau vehicles are damn hard to take down.

Every time I have played against a marine player with a largely in-your-face assault army, the same 3 things have happened. First turn, if any dreadnoughts or firebase vehicles are on the board in view, they are target priority #1. My ion head goes after any marines that are walking and my crisis suits will either target the first things mentioned, or hunt transports, and I use the tau range to the max ( now that you can freely measure distances at any time) so that everything is out of range of his entire army, or the things that arent out of range (usually the crisis suits if they geta bad JSJ) have so many invul saves to go through in the first place that they wont likely take any major losses anyways.

second turn on you simply target prioritize. If flyers come in, shoot them with broadsides and suits if in range, if they arent a major issue, hunt transports or dreadnoughts instead, and if there are no targets there either, start gunning down marines on the ground either with shots that ignore armor, or simple weight of fire.

Be sure though to always focus a single flank, tau have excellent manouverablilty, and if you dont want to be surrounded and assaulted, then focuse everything to one flank, blast that side apart, and move everything that direction, this eliminates a major threat to your army as well as simultaniously putting you out of range of the rest moving on the opposite flank.

The last thing I will say because I have typed a ton already, is if you don't get hammer and anvil deployment (the long table ways deployment), then attempt to move most if not all of your army to one table side, this forces your opponent to funnel all of his forces down the narrower side, and extremely limits what flyers can fire at since they come in from his table edge, are forced to move a certain distance, and have a very limited firing arc.

In any case, I hope this massive amount of text helps and GL!

 gameandwatch wrote:
Elites:
Crisis Team: Shas’ui team leader, array, plasma, missile, HW MT, HW DC, x2 SD, 107pts
Shas’ui, plasma, missile, MT 62pts
Shas’ui, plasma, missile, MT 62pts

Crisis Team: Shas’ui team leader, twin-missile, flame, HW MT, HW DC, x2 SD, 87pts
Shas’ui, twin-missile, flame 47pts
Shas’ui, twin-missile, flame 47pts

I'd split 'em into three pairs, instead of two trios. Splits your fire, a good thing. Another good thing for you is making the enemy split his fire. Easier to JSJ to safety and harder to get caught in h2h with the smaller unit 'foot print'.

 gameandwatch wrote:
Hammerhead, burst cannons, MT, BSF, ion cannon 130pts

In one post you defended the IonCan and dismissed the RG. Given the new rules on templates (5e rules, too), the Submunition round actually kills more power armor.

 gameandwatch wrote:
Broadside Team: Shas’ui Team Leader, ASS, HW DC, x2 SD, BSF 120pts
Shas’ui, ASS 80pts
Shas’ui, ASS 80pts

I'd split off one dude:
1. since you have the HS slot open
2. "Big Guns Never Tire" now exists
3. infantry Target Locks got Retconned to Squatsville.

As far as the crisis suits go, I like them as they are mainly because they act as an assault deterrent (that many suits with overwatch is kinda scary to most people) and I like the leadership boost. yes it is a larger footprint, but as well, it also limits the KPs I give up if that mission comes up. And most of the time they end up shooting at the same things anyways hahaha

As far as the hammerhead goes, with scatter, unit spacing and ap4, it actually usually kills about the same (unless I get very lucky and is 35 pts more. Honestly with the railgun gone people feel far less threatened by it and that does its damage enough, because they ignore it and meanwhile its wrecking transports and small infantry units...and I just haven't had superb luck with it and that may be just me, but I'd rather just use the ion head.

The broadsides are an interesting idea...

Assaulting Crisis Suits with power armor, even with a TL Wall of Death, causes me absolutely no pause.Your Deathrains will get d3 hits x 3, so 3 to 9 smacks, so say 5 hits. With rerolls because of Twin-Linkage, that'll be 4 to 5 wounds. One or two (maybe) dead muhreens. Let's say you get all 9. With rerolls to wound, 7 wounds. Two (likely) dead muhreens. With 8 other SM assaulting Crisis Suits, that makes no difference at all.

If I had DE wyches, I wouldn't hesitate, but the girls might get a beating, but hey, only 3 girls can take a Crisis Team.

Submunition vs. IonCan: The MathHammer is on AdvancedTauTactica.com someplace. Like two to three more dead muhreens for the RG. I'm not slick enough to crunch the numbers.

I may just be stupid but the submuition thing makes no sense to me, 50% chance of scatter, also assuming they are not completely bunched up cause no one ever bunches them up, and no armor punching, dunno how that amounts to 3+ dead...

And if an entire marine squad makes it to me to assault my suits completely untouched... I am doing something very wrong...

Just wondering what your thinking was behind the two crisis suit commanders - I've always been very underwhelmed with them personally. Are you sure a third small crisis suit squad wouldn't be better?

Well, i like the LD boost, the extra drones, and the higher accuracy they give. As well, having an airburst on the one just in case for serious sudden hordes is nice. But really, they most interesting addition with 6th is characters and precision shots. So often those two have functioned by removing key units from precision and add just that slight bit more firepower to really mess things up.

I personally think they are incredibly good for their cost, and give the crisis teams what they need instead of overadding to the team leaders.

I just feel that minimizing overall units but keeping a large output of firepower is necessary. more often than not, they see 4 suits, with 4 drones and try once to damage them but, with the new JSJ they have massive mobility now.

Sounds fairly reasonable - and it is very nice to have the airburst there in the right situation. You could possibly put them in the front rank and use the look-out-sir rule to allocate specific shots to where they will do the least damage in the team. Just a thought

 gameandwatch wrote:
I may just be stupid but the submuition thing makes no sense to me, 50% chance of scatter, also assuming they are not completely bunched up cause no one ever bunches them up, and no armor punching, dunno how that amounts to 3+ dead...

And if an entire marine squad makes it to me to assault my suits completely untouched... I am doing something very wrong...

One thing, it only takes 3 or 4 marines to win a h2h versus suits.

From poster Jefffar on ATT, :

Jefffar wrote:Hammerhead: There are some competing schools of thought on the utility of the Ion Cannon vs the Submunition round in killing Marines, but you're the one who knows what they face most often, so I'll break it down like this - assuming no cover, an Ion Cannon should kill 1.67 Marines a turn. To kill 1.67 Marines a Submunition needs to have 7.5 marines under it. If your boards regularly puts enough Marines in one spot that with an average drift of 2 inches you can reliably clobber 7.5 marines with a single large blast, then go for the Railhead. If not, go for the Ion Head as it is cheaper and actually improves your odds on low AV vehicles.

So, now that I think about it, with 6e's "Focus Fire" denying a Cover Save, the Ionhead is a wee bit better on killing MEqs. Without that game mechanic, it was the Submun in 5e, hands down. Still go to http://advancedtautactica.com for more.

Yeah I don't think I have ever played an opponent who had 7-8 marines bunched up enough to fit under a pie plate AND have it not scatter.

Oh I forgot to mention, that with the example you gave of the marines charging the deathrain suits in particular. All the normal deathrains have flamers which is what I would use for overwatch...

 gameandwatch wrote:
Yeah I don't think I have ever played an opponent who had 7-8 marines bunched up enough to fit under a pie plate AND have it not scatter.

I curse my scatter die regularly. It likes to do well when my opponent uses it, but gives me arrows regularly.

I just posted this:
http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=18931

So check it after a few days (posting traffic on advancedtautactica.com is much slower than here on dakka) and we'll see what the smart number heads make of my argument.