The new Fireblade detachment?

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**Windir83**

The new The Tau Fireblade Support Cadre has been listed on several sites as a separate detachment. Can someone that has this tell me if that means Tau can now take 5 Riptides and/or 15 Broadsides by using the Farsight supplement as an ally? (I can't remember the points cost of that so it might be prohibitively expensive.) If so, can someone that is experienced with Tau tell me what kind of damage output we can expect from that?

**Nilok**

You have to take a riptide and 6 broadsides. It doesn't take up any spots on the FOC, but it is still very expensive just to get a Riptide.
It dose however give all the models in the formation Tank Hunter and Preferred Enemy: SM as the cost of giving all SM Hatred the formation.

You can also take the formation with any army as long as your are not "Come the Apocalypse" with Tau, but follow the same allying rules.

This is mainly a kill all vehicles (and SM) setup. A lot of firepower, but not very mobile that can be swarmed easily.

**DJGietzen**

A Formation presents a collection of two or more units that fight alongside one another in a particular way. When you choose an army, you can take a Formation as a special form of Detachment. Unless otherwise stated, you can take any number of Formations in your army, and each is considered to be a completely separate Detachment, regardless of how many units make it up. Formations do not count as your army’s Allied Detachment, even if they are made up of units from a different codex to your Primary Detachment, and they do not stop you from taking an Allied Detachment in the same army. However, the Levels of Alliance rules from the Warhammer 40,000 rule book do apply to them and units chosen from a different codex that are in the same army.

So long as any detachment in your army is not "Come the Apocalypse" with Tau you can take as many Firebase support cadres as you can afford. Not a cheap order as those Cadres are 1 Riptide and 6 broadsides each. They won't count as Heavy units though, in case that ever matters.

**Windir83**

So that means you can almost fill out your army with a bunch of Broadsides and a couple Riptides. A couple of markerlights and that sounds frightening to me.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh my damn, that firebase bundle actually saves you a ton of money too! Wtf is going on here?

**Nilok**

Windir83 wrote:
So that means you can almost fill out your army with a bunch of Broadsides and a couple Riptides. A couple of markerlights and that sounds frightening to me.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh my damn, that firebase bundle actually saves you a ton of money too! Wtf is going on here?

Well, yes, you could just have an Ethereal and two groups of Fire Warriros to get the basic FOC requirements and flood the field with Fireblade Cadres.

By my numbers, in a 2000 point game, you can have an Ethereal and two basic Fire Warrior units and be able to field 3 un-upgraded Fireblade Cadres with 132 points left for upgrades.

That's 3 Riptides and 18 Broadsides.

**Windir83**

Some drones and some Skyfire/Interceptor or whatever else takes your fancy and I'm thinking that anything that moves into their LoS is gonna be paste. Aside from Seer councils with Fortune and the screamer star I guess.

**DJGietzen**

But only 1 out of 6 eternal war missions don't make use of scoring units and none of the cadre units will ever be scoring in those eternal war missions.

**Nilok**

DJGietzen wrote:
But only 1 out of 6 eternal war missions don't make use of scoring units and none of the cadre units will ever be scoring in those eternal war missions.

I don't really think that is a problem with this setup's objective. Your goal is to make sure there is nothing left on the field. In a tournament that would be a problem, in a normal game, its just cheesy.

**KonTheory**

I might use it...
guard allied with SM with an inquisitor and a fireblade formation...
sounds like fun...

in all honesty tho. I will prob try it.. simply so I can use other heavies..
Also the Idea that 3 broadsides with the railgun give them velocity tracker.. in my head it sounds good
thats 3 twinlinked S8 AP1 shots at flyers.. that also get to reroll armour pens... I can see this being good anti air

Im going to try this
Riptide with ion
3 broadsides with HYMP EWO and a couple missile drones
3 broadsides with HRR VT and a couple missile drones

See how that goes

**Mulletdude**

KonTheory wrote:
I might use it...
guard allied with SM with an inquisitor and a fireblade formation...
sounds like fun...

in all honesty tho. I will prob try it.. simply so I can use other heavies..
Also the Idea that 3 broadsides with the railgun give them velocity tracker.. in my head it sounds good
thats 3 twinlinked S8 AP1 shots at flyers.. that also get to reroll armour pens... I can see this being good anti air

Im going to try this
Riptide with ion
3 broadsides with HYMP EWO and a couple missile drones
3 broadsides with HRR VT and a couple missile drones

See how that goes

Nah. That's not the optimal use of this formation. Take the formation as a farsight detachment so the riptide has access to toys.

Riptide with HBC, TL-SMS, VT, EWO, ECPA
3 broadsides with HWMP, EWO, and shas'ui
3 broadsides with HWMP, EWO, and shas'ui

That will get you the most bang for your buck with this formation, and only costs 681 points

**DJGietzen**

Its a fireblade detachment, not a farsight detachment. You can't have an ECPA.

**Jamo**

Are you able to customize the unit or are you stuck with a certain configuration on all those suits? Do you need the tau codec?

**nosferatu1001**

Yes, you need the codex!, and you can still customise using TE options - not farsight, as it isn't a farsight detachment

**Jamo**

What's TE exactly bro?

**rigeld2**

Tau Empire

**Jamo**

Of course it is. Thanks

**DJGietzen**

Jamo wrote:
Are you able to customize the unit or are you stuck with a certain configuration on all those suits? Do you need the tau codec?

There are several configuration options in the data-slate. I do not think you need to codex as every option and wargear you could use has both a cost and full description with the rules.

**Mulletdude**

DJGietzen wrote:
Its a fireblade detachment, not a farsight detachment. You can't have an ECPA.

Except that's not quite how it works. I'm not going to re-type everything said at ATT, but I will provide a link. http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21778&sid=214f81463ec91b69465774e6bb9ae721&p=274832#p274832

**nosferatu1001**

Yes it is, as nothing in your proof referenced where it says this is a detachment from farsight supplement. If it isn't you have no permission to use their equipment