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I've got an upcoming 2k, double FOC, FW allowed tournament coming up in two weeks. It's been a few years since I played my Tau and I wanted to get the group's opinion on what I've put together so far. My local meta tends to be very heavy with fliers so I've had to have some redundancy in that department.

HQ:
1. Suit Commander with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Drone Controller, 2 Markerlight Drones, Iridium Armor, and Neuroweb Jammer
1a.2 bodyguards both with twin linked plasma rifle, and fusion blaster and 3 shield drones.
2. Ethereal

Troops:
1. 9 Firewarriors and Shas'ui with Bonding Ritual
2. 9 Firewarriors and Shas'ui with Bonding Ritual
3. 9 Firewarriors and Shas'ui with Bonding Ritual

Elites:
1. Riptide with Ion Accelerator, TL SMS, Stimulant Injector, and Velocity Tracker
2. Riptide with Ion Accelerator, TL SMS, Stimulant Injector, and Velocity Tracker

Fast Attack:
1. 6 Pathfinders
2. 7 Pathfinders

Heavy Support:
1. Railhead with Longstrike, submunition shot, sensor spines, and disruption pods.
2. Broadside Team w/ 3 members, one Shas'vre, railguns, TL SMS, Velocity Tracker, and 4 Shield drones
3. Sniper team wiht 1 controler and 5 drones.

Fortifications: Aegis Defense Line

Any and all criticism obviously welcome. I'll hopefully get a few test games in this weekend.

What FW do you have if any? some of those suit variations in FW have built in iridium which are nice.

At 2k you dont nearly have enough troops. 4 sets should be minimum. and ethereal work better with more troops anyway.

Riptides you could switch out the VT for EWO which work nice against deepstrikers and for anti air. with something like 7 shots you should get at least one hit with an SMS or ion.

Why take drone controller if your taking shield drones.

make em marker drones to bump up your pathfinders or whatever.

Sniper drones are Meh would rather see more broadsides of some flavor.

I assume your taking a quad on the ADL.

Drop the Shas'ui on the FW's and the Bonding ritual. That's around 60 points right there. I agree with the poster above, drop the VT's on the Riptides (another 40 points) and right there you have another squad of FW's.

If you play it right keep the Ethereal in the midst of the 4 squads of FW's and you can use his leadership (if that is why you were adding in the Shas'ui onto the FW"s)

Broadside team..I would recommend dropping the Shield Drones (They will make you morale check on a 4+..whereas your Broadsides have a 2 save). Or use Missle Drones instead if you want the drones still.

Yeah i Agree with aeodian, drop the sha'ui on FW and the bonding knifes also drop the VT on the riptides just not worth it use them for ground.

i would turn all the broadside into HYMP suits and take max missle drones drop the shield drones and VT and give them EWO and bonding knifes. that will deal with any air you encounter.

i would drop the sniper team there not worth using a heavey slot on unless you wanna use them for fun i would take another tank as your solo tank will die fast and the more tanks the better the chances of one of them keep fireing.

hope all my suggestions help.

It's a nice 5th ed list.

Throughout the entire list, as the other posters said, toss out every last Shield Drone. Previously they were good because of Armor and Toughness, whereas the other Drones blew for Toughness and Armor. Now, they're all the same roll of the dice (in Ruins), and T4. So, it's far better to have a gun or MarkerL on that ablative wound. I don't see any reason to take SDs again as you'll almost always get back into Cover with the farther JSJ roll of 2d6 inches.

Sarge wrote:
My local meta tends to be very heavy with fliers so I've had to have some redundancy in that department.

Give your ADL an Icarus or Quadgun. Above, someone commented that a b-side team with HYMPs will be enough ... at 2k, I'd say no, bring an Anti-Aricraft gun, too. 2k can allow for a filthy amount of HellTurkeys, Cron Air, or Vendettas.

Sarge wrote:
HQ:
1. Suit Commander with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Drone Controller, 2 Markerlight Drones, Iridium Armor, and Neuroweb Jammer
1a.2 bodyguards both with twin linked plasma rifle, and fusion blaster and 3 shield drones.

There's no good reason to to pay bodyguard points if they aren't going to have neat toys. Demote the whole crew to your last Elite slot and pick up 30 points. And, volunteer one suit to be the MSS and C&CN bearer, with the other two (and Shas'O) being Helios. Everyone is Twin-Linked and Ignores Cover. I put flamers on all in case of asssault.

Sarge wrote:
2. Ethereal

As the others said, he ought to be surrounded by 48 or so FWs to benefit from a nigh-unassaultable Support Fire / StormofFire
buffing.

Sarge wrote:
Troops:
1. 9 Firewarriors and Shas'ui with Bonding Ritual
2. 9 Firewarriors and Shas'ui with Bonding Ritual
3. 9 Firewarriors and Shas'ui with Bonding Ritual

Two more units, easily supplied with points saved on Shield Ds.

Sarge wrote:
Elites:
1. Riptide with Ion Accelerator, TL SMS, Stimulant Injector, and Velocity Tracker
2. Riptide with Ion Accelerator, TL SMS, Stimulant Injector, and Velocity Tracker

I have no opinion on Riptides.

Sarge wrote:
Fast Attack:
1. 6 Pathfinders
2. 7 Pathfinders

I run three units of 6 at 1500 points, with a few MarkerDs. You need that 3rd unit. And up them to 8 for survivability.

Sarge wrote:
Heavy Support:
1. Railhead with Longstrike, submunition shot, sensor spines, and disruption pods.

I'm not sold on LongShanks.

Sarge wrote:
2. Broadside Team w/ 3 members, one Shas'vre, railguns, TL SMS, Velocity Tracker, and 4 Shield drones

Another vote for HYMPs and spam the Missile Drones. Very little survives that I point this unit at (with MrkRL help).

Sarge wrote:
3. Sniper team wiht 1 controler and 5 drones.

P'Tooi! Dees guys out for more troops.

Sarge wrote:
Fortifications: Aegis Defense Line

Needs a gun. Best add'l 35 to 50 points you'll spend.

Goof suggestions all the way around. I don't quite understand the interceptor versus sky fire. Skyfire, to my understanding, allows me to shoot at airborne targets at anytime while interceptor only allows me go shoot at them when they come on table. Is that correct? I was running out of points which is how the sniper team got in there. I have no problem dropping them for something else, particularly fire warriors. I have a drone controller on the HQ so the marker drones can use his BS to hit things. Nobody has found the additional point of leadership on the veteran FoW useful? As to FW figures I do have a barracuda but decided against it as its apparently 2 HP. If anybody as experience with it I'd love to toss it back in. I've got a couple of FW suits but I moved recently and they haven't surfaced yet.