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This is my first attempt at creating a competitive tau list. Is this too many Marker Lights? Is there any gear i should add to my units? All suggestions are welcome.

HQ (50pts)
Ethereal

Troops (286pts)
10x Kroot w/ 10x Sniper Rounds
6x Fire warriors
6x Fire warriors
6x Fire warriors
6x Fire warriors

Fast Attack (264pts)
8x Pathfinders
8x Pathfinders
8x Pathfinders

Elites (570pts)
3x Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator, fusion blaster, Early Warning Override

Heavy Support (730pts)
3x Broadside Shas'ui w/ TL-High Yield Missile Pod, 6x Missile Drone
3x Broadside Shas'ui w/ TL-High Yield Missile Pod, 6x Missile Drone
2x Broadside Shas'ui w/ TL-Heavy Rail Rifle, Velocity Tracker, 2x Shield Drone, 2x Bonding Knife

Fortification (100pts)
Aegis Defense Line w/ Quad Gun

I like it. I'm not a big fan of missilesides and would rather take railheads or ionheads, but the list looks solid. I'd probably drop the quad gun and max out the pathfinder squads as much as possible for those additional markerlights. Or if you have access to or are willing to buy some sensor towers, drop another 30 points and take two and set them close to two of the squads of pathfinders for TL markerlights

I actually really like it. Not sure you need so many Pathfinders, though not convinced that there's anything better to spend the points on (maybe a pair of Piranhas).

Only 2 Broadsides to deal with anti air? The biggest threat I see to you here is the Helldrake heavy list.

The other 6 Broadsides are also AA fire they average about 6 S7 hits a turn each unit.

Ok. Well your snap shooting all the missles . I would. Try to fit in early warning on the misslesides. Its 30 points to take from elsewhere.

Yes but even snap shooting he's averaging 6 S7 hits without ML support which could easily double that. EWO is a good shout though dropping the FW teams to all be 6s gets him one team with EWO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yes but even snap shooting he's averaging 6 S7 hits without ML support which could easily double that. EWO is a good shout though dropping the FW teams to all be 6s gets him one team with EWO.

 FlingitNow wrote:
I actually really like it. Not sure you need so many Pathfinders, though not convinced that there's anything better to spend the points on (maybe a pair of Piranhas).

Nah hes better dedicating one squad for marking targets with so his riptides basically auto hit with no cover. Is the Shas'ui mandatory? if not i would drop them all from the fire warrior units to save points as the ethereal gives them all ld 10 anyway.

People seem to forget taus ability to use markerlights to grant them higher BS against flyers. Sure you need 6's, but if flyers are really that big of a deal and if they truly are the thing giving you the most trouble, one 6 from one pathfinder squad will allow the next pathfinder squad to hit on 5's. I'd guess you'll get at least three hits and from there one of your broadside units will have BS4 against that flyer and you'll still have a squad of markerlights left....

ajsnips44 wrote:
People seem to forget taus ability to use markerlights to grant them higher BS against flyers. Sure you need 6's, but if flyers are really that big of a deal and if they truly are the thing giving you the most trouble, one 6 from one pathfinder squad will allow the next pathfinder squad to hit on 5's. I'd guess you'll get at least three hits and from there one of your broadside units will have BS4 against that flyer and you'll still have a squad of markerlights left....

With just 1 ML hit his HYM broadsides get about 11 hits per unit. No need to get to bs4.

I think he has plenty of AA, between the quad gun, 2 skyfire rails, and a ton of S7 shots (with optional markerlights) he should be good.

My one suggestion (even though I don't play Tau) is to drop a unit of fire warriors and buff the numbers of the other squads. Playing my friend last weekend, and 6 fire warriors are really easy to kill, thus giving away first blood. Also, with 4 bigger units, it will be easier to fit them within the etherial 12" bubble (or string them out if need be). Heck, I'm even thinking that 10 fire warriors may even be too small, but I doubt you can find the points for that.

Tex big FW squads are liabilities. Essentially when a unit of FW is in combat it is dead. So you want as dew dead as possible (which dovetails well with support fire) but most importantly you want them dead in ONE round of combat. The worst thing that can happen to you is for your squad to survive round one and pass its break test. This is because it won't survive round two and then your opponent get to charge you again and you don't get to shoot him. Photon grenades have compounded this issue so we just can not afford bigger squads now. If we could drop the Photon grenades then we could get away with it and I would personally happily pay a point to get rid of them.

Look at swapping one unit of fire warriors for a unit of kroot with sniper rounds. Some variety never hurt.

I feel as though you have overkill on the pathfinders. Drop the, all to 6 strong and invest in a fireblade to man the quadgun and use the remaining points to bump a single squad of fire warriors to 12. Shave shas'ui as needed to get there.

elrodogg wrote:
Look at swapping one unit of fire warriors for a unit of kroot with sniper rounds. Some variety never hurt.

I feel as though you have overkill on the pathfinders. Drop the, all to 6 strong and invest in a fireblade to man the quadgun and use the remaining points to bump a single squad of fire warriors to 12. Shave shas'ui as needed to get there.

I actually mislabeled the fire warriors as Shas'ui even though i calculated the points as standard fire warriors (so i won't get any points back removing that). I like the idea of adding one squad of Kroot to possibly take a backfield objective while keeping them in cover since tau already has trouble doing this. Is it worth taking a Fireblade HQ just for the purpose of manning the quad gun? I suppose i could cut down on pathfinders to achieve this, even though i don't really want to considering marker lights seeming crucial with the new codex. I updated the list to reflect the changes of swapping 8 fire warriors for the 10 Kroot with Sniper Rounds, and adding 2 bonding knives to fill the remaining points.

I like the style, but I'm afraid you're just too light on Firewarriors, in my opinion.

The general mentality is that you bring at least a squad of troops for every 500 pts, or that troops should be about 1/3 to 1/4 your total points.

However, look at the mighty Tau troop. He's not as dirt cheap as a guardsem or Ork boy, but he's not much better in resilience. I like the addition of Kroot, but make them 20 man to hold more ground. I'm planning a 2K (1999+1) Tau list and I have 50 Firewarriors and I feel like I still might crumple just fearing their fragility. I play Sisters, so I know how more expensive T3 models feel when they fold (can only imagine poor Eldar!).

You've got tons of heavy gun, but if someone was to call it a wash and go after your troops, you'd be done. Two Heldrakes and you're having a bad day.