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My brother runs his tau with out any heavys is this wrong to do as ever one keeps telling him that tau need missile sides to work and 3riptides
This is what he uses
Fireblade and 60fire warriors
20Kroot snipers
One riptide ion cannon and plasm
2full teams of pathfinders one has rail guns other has ion guns
2Teams of suits one with fusion other with plasm
command suits with missile and plasm
he does really good with this army he is the first person in are group to stop a knight titan army.

he likes to deepstrike his suits which is a really bad thing to do but it works for him. so is he playing tau wrong like ever one says

Is he having fun? If yes then hes playing right.

It's an illegal army if there are 60 firewarriors and 20 Kroot.
Other than that an army doesn't have a right or wrong way to run it. If it's working it's working.

There is nothing illegal about 60 Firewarriors and 20 kroot

60 firewarriors = 5 units of 12. 20 kroot = 1 unit of kroot.

Legal.

Most people forget they goto 12 bodies because almost everyone leaves them at 10. Those additional 2 bodies are nice if you got points to sink, outside that its not that great since the kill ratio for leadership checks doesnt really change, and that 100pts from the additional 10 Bonded firewarriors most likely has a better use elsewhere than 10-20 extra S5 shots at close range.
If you doubt my statement of the leadership checks, 25% of current total = leadership check. 25% of 10 is 2.5, or 3 bodies. 25% of 12 is 3. Same thing. Unless you could get a 13th or more, 3 bodies would be what it takes and thats usually the reason you add more of any model to a unit if you arent trying to spam them as much as you can lol

And if hes having fun, hes playing it right. Only way i'd give him any guff about it is if he was getting tabled by turn 3 every time....which Heavies are not whats going to prevent that - smart play does.

Riptides arent heavy, btw.

Really good unconventional army! Deep striking suits is a fun tactic since most peoppeople expect static gunline tau. Few questions tho, how many markers does he leave w his patjfinders, what support systems if any do his suits/riptide have? This list has some obcious holes, such as limited aa and unreliable anti tank that can be filled quick and easy by heavy choices, but there is no "wrong" way to play tau. We adapt, we react, its what we do (gunlines are just our favorite).

I'd say an Ethereal to buff all the Fire Warriors would be more useful, IMO and maybe a Skyray (or is the Riptide Dedicated AA?)

Otherwise, yea, Tau are just a really good book. Only a handful units of lackluster and I doubt we'll ever see the flyers or vespids on the table, sadly.

Good on him. I don't think there's "anything to prove" with Tau, though. There are many good builds within the book. It's just Missilesides and Riptides are THE best units, that's all.

zilka86 wrote:
My brother runs his tau with out any heavys is this wrong to do as ever one keeps telling him that tau need missile sides to work and 3riptides
This is what he uses
Fireblade and 60fire warriors
20Kroot snipers
One riptide ion cannon and plasm
2full teams of pathfinders one has rail guns other has ion guns
2Teams of suits one with fusion other with plasm
command suits with missile and plasm
he does really good with this army he is the first person in are group to stop a knight titan army.

he likes to deepstrike his suits which is a really bad thing to do but it works for him. so is he playing tau wrong like ever one says

Your brother is running his Tau fine and don't let anyone tell him otherwise.

Deepstriking suits is not always bad. It's risky but can work well when you have close range equipped suits (such as fusion blasters). When it goes right you get to have an alpha strike without having to worry about them getting weakened by enemy fire as they close in on their target as they can drop right into the ideal threat range. If he's also using Homing Beacons on his pathfinders (believe it comes with one of the drones?) then that eliminates a lot of the risk inherent in dropping in your suits as it removes the risk of scatter. In my Farsight Enclaves list I use minimal Stealth Teams with a Fusion Blaster, ML+TL and homing beacon on the team leader for this purpose.

If he's found a way to play his Tau that suits him and isn't the usual castle-up-with-3-Riptides-and-Missilesides then good for him.

I have stopped running my heavy support choices since the last Tau codex has dropped as well. Without the multitracker and A.S.S., they are just to static for my taste. I haven't had any problems winning games without them (especially because the Riptide isn't an HS choice). Like other posters have said, your brother obviously isn't doing anything wrong.

Feel like a right plum. Lol. I play Tau and know they can go up to 12 warriors. Just momentary brain fart

I think your friend could up his killy power by switching over to Farsight Enclaves

It's actually a very good way to play Tau against people that know how to deal with the "standard" armies. Someone who brings the minimum two troops vs me is usually a Tau player who has no scoring units at the end of the game.

With six scoring units you'll have to work really hard to wipe them out entirely, and the suits cause enough havoc in the enemy lines that you can't focus on all those troops.

I thought gun line tau is the right way to run them . like ever army only has one way to run them right all other ways are bad

zilka86 wrote:
I thought gun line tau is the right way to run them . like ever army only has one way to run them right all other ways are bad

No, it's not

I've never run a Tau gunline and I do okay. I could probably win more if I did run a gunline but I would enjoy it less

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

zilka86 wrote:
I thought gun line tau is the right way to run them . like ever army only has one way to run them right all other ways are bad

No, it's not

I've never run a Tau gunline and I do okay. I could probably win more if I did run a gunline but I would enjoy it less

Pretty sure that was sarcasm

 Jaceevoke wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

zilka86 wrote:
I thought gun line tau is the right way to run them . like ever army only has one way to run them right all other ways are bad

No, it's not

I've never run a Tau gunline and I do okay. I could probably win more if I did run a gunline but I would enjoy it less

Pretty sure that was sarcasm

Considering it was by the OP, I assumed not to be on the safe side

1. Nothing wrong with deep striking in crisis suits (3x suits with double plasma, flamer, or fusion) can be nasty assassin units designed to pick up important targets. Just make sure it's cost effective to potentially lose that unit next turn
2. You don't need missile sides expecially if you want to play a more aggressive army that doesn't gunline (hammerheads are more mobile that broadsides)
3. Play what is fun. I personally use 0 riptides in my tau lists and focus on hammerheads, crisis suits, firewarriors, and pathfinders (markers not ion/rail)
4. If those firewarriors have some devilfish then you can unleash a semi version of the "Fish of Fury" tactic.
5. Fireblade is great for a gunline but if you want to be aggressive then a ethereal would be great (can't use the fireblade bonus if you move that unit). Darkstrider is also good for aggressive firewarriors.

The rules for the two footslogging HQs (fireblade/cadre) are interesting but they have the same flaw that makes me never take an ethereal unless hes with a group of broadsides - he is squishy as hell, and his unit is small and not THAT durable. Any time i attach something to a group of firewarriors suddenly that fire warrior unit gets whacked with every single gun whether its a good trade or not to wipe them off the board, just to get that HQ guy. For the cost they come at, no thanks. Not much cheaper than a commander and nowhere near as versatile.

Also i pretty much always deepstrike my crisis suits unless i was sporting missile pods. Nobody every plays with proper terrain, so i expect crazy huge fields of nothingness that i have to cross before my short guns can do anything. Same reason i always strive for the Outflank warlord trait on my bikernobz - that 1 turn of not charging is nowhere near as painful as the 2 turns of bulldozing open fields.

zilka86 wrote:
I thought gun line tau is the right way to run them . like ever army only has one way to run them right all other ways are bad

Some codices have more than one top build. Tau is one.

Others have one.

Others have none, with their best builds being mediocre at best.

Welcome to 40k.

Not seeing anything wrong with that. If he is having fun then its a perfectly good list. Everyone likes their list a different way. That's the fun in this game. Tau'va

Hell, theres a tau player at my local store that has a hard on for firewarriors, devil fish, and offensive pathfinders. Even at 2k points he doesnt have a single riptide and only 1 unit of crisis suits, everything else is hammerheads, ion heads, sky rays, firewarriors, or pathfinders w/ rail/ion rifles.

You look at his list and go "What the....?" but then he kicks your sorry butt. I was shocked how effective that list was against my tau lol and i outranged him most of the time since i had riptides and broadsides and my own skyray nuking his railhead turn 1 lol.

Point of this being if youre good enough, you can win or at least give your opponent one hell of a run for his/her money before you lose with just about any list. And for the record, he didnt beat me from luck on dice either - he gets hot'd every time he fired a weapon with that rule (ionhead, ion rifles) and even mishapped his Plasma suit squad.