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So I'm new to Tau, been playing Dark Angels and Space Marines before, and I had my first 1v1 game against my buddy who plays CSM, close match, lost 3-2 (Warlord, ethereal, line breaker vs First Blood, Linebreaker)
Wondering if you might give some thoughts on how I could have built this list better.
Lists:

Tau:
Crisis Commander, (buffmander), vectored thrusters, Iridium armour, 2x marker drone, drone controller
Ethereal, Blacksun Filter, 2x shield drones

Troops
12x fire warriors
12x fire warriors
11x fire warriors

Fast attack
4x pathfinders
4x pathfinders

Elite
3x crisis suits, (2 fusion, 1 plasma), target locks on fusion
6x gun drones

Heavy
Hammerhead, submunition rounds
3x Missilesides, 6x missile drones
Sniper team (2x marksman, 5x sniper drones)

ADL, Quad gun

Crimson Slaughter
Sorcerer (lvl 3, 2+ armour relic, divination relic, horns)
Warpsmith

Troops
10x cultists, heavy stubbier
10x cultists, heavy stubbier, 3x auto guns
20x possessed, mark of slaanesh, icon of ecstasy, rhino, havoc launcher

Heavy
Spartan Assault tank, ceramite plating, extra MM, HK missile.


The CSMs went first, the 20 possessed, warp smith, and sorcerer inside the tank advance towards the fire warriors in the gun line, eventually get in, and at the end of the day, either kill or sweep the warriors, broadsides, and snipers, hammerhead fails to hurt the tank except a few glances, crisis squad advances and kills the cultists. no troops left for either side. End of turn 6 the hammerhead finally goes down and I concede. Linebreaker with crisis suits, one squad of pathfinders hiding in a ruin. CSM had warp smith, sorcerer, and spartan tank left.

Seriously considering not using the hammerhead very often. Yeah it's my only S10, but for the price I could get 2 more fusion suits and a few other bits and bobs...

You don't have any Riptides and he's using Forgeworld.

I'd get rid of the Snipers, Ethereal, Gun Drones, and see what else you need to add Riptides.

The Hammerhead is the only thing in your army that can shoot down the Spartan. Give it Longstrike for Tank Hunters, to ensure you get those pens.

If you play this guy regularly, a Riptide or two and Longstrike will ruin his gak.

We don't really have a problem with forge world stuff in our group. I have not looked at what there is for Tau to use, as I'm brand new to it.

Our other tau player used to play riptides all over the place, and it was just not fun to play against, so i'm trying to avoid putting in a riptide if at all possible. Maybe I would pick one or two up for tournaments, but not friendly games.

The snipers I'm feeling like they didn't do anything, so yeah I can drop them for sure. For a core of 3x fire warrior squads + ADL, is it really a good idea to lose the ethereal? I mean triple fire s5 inside 15" seems awesome, even if he is worth an extra VP.

was thinking of maybe dropping the hammerhead in trade for fusion blaster suits to drop all over tanks or run up and shoot them in the face if they're gonna come to me. then switching the commander's suit team to burst cannons for infantry massacre.

Dropping the snipers and the hammerhead would pick me up 231 points at the current setup, which could buy 4 double fusion suits, and bump my last fire squad up to 12 guys.

When you say drop the gun drones, would that still hold if i re-ket the commander squad for burst cannons? seems like they'd be a good addition of S5AP5 goodness, and ablative wounds for the suits.

yeah sniper drones seem soooo cool, but drop them. likewise I feel like you are spending a bit to much on your buffmander, mine runs 135 and I dont like his cost, ethereals are really good, but not for just 3 FW squads. Personally i dont run squads of 12, usually I stick to 6 or 10 man squads, so I can get more objectives and spend any saving on maxing crisis suits/heavy.

also 1 riptide isnt mean, 2+ is.
how many points is this? honestly I'd drop the ethereal. and gun drones are meh. keep the hammerhead, as its our best reliable AV 14 answer, so I'd keep him.

how optimized do you want your list?

Ok new 1500 list after considering your inputs (thanks). What do you all think of this:

Commander (buffmander), vectored thrusters, iridium armour, 2x shield drones
Cadre Fireblade (goes with big FW squad)

Troops
12x fire warriors
6x fire warriors
6x fire warriors

Elite
Riptide with Ion accelerator, fusion blaster, EWO, VT
3x crisis squad 2 w/ fusion blasters + flamer, 1 w/ burst cannons and Target lock

Fast attack
4x pathfinders
4x pathfinders
4x pathfinders

Heavy
Hammerhead, submunition, longstrike, night vision, SMS, 1x seeker missile.
Skyray, night vision, gun drones
3x Missilesides

Fortification
ADL

Personally I like it, mine looks different but to each their own. The riptide will hurt him bad with support(especially if buffmander is with him, which would allow you to get rid of IR and save points IMO) and if your friend messes up he'll target the riptide, they are very hard to kill.

Yeah i had it in my brain to send the commander with the suits, but makes a good deal of sense to stick him with the riptide, then i can drop the armour and drones to keep majority toughness high and save 49 points, which i can throw into something else, maybe a quad gun?

Is your meta heavy fliers? Otherwise I think you have enough for one or two with ripride/skyray. Maybe more FW or pathfinders? I'm playing a game tomorrow with 2 groups of 6 so I can let you know then how well it worked for me.

Not really, My space marines are the most flyer-heavy of the bunch.
I can expect 0-1 heldrakes from CSM, 0-1 Crimson Hunters from elder, 0-1 stormravens from GK / SM, 0-1 voidravens from DE, nothing from tau, or orks. the only other player who has air in quantity is necrons, with a bagful of croissants, but he usually fields ground armies, sometimes 1 flyer.

Let me know how that game goes.

Dont expect miracles from the Riptide canning that Spartan Assault Tank.. Sure the nova charge is nice and all, but with Tau BS being pretty low and pathfinders needing quite a bit of work before getting in some good boosts to your BS and removing cover, honestly, you'd be better off taking Haywire grenades and suicideing some Pathfinders into the thing.

Chances are it's going to get glanced to death and you can pretty much just blow up the Possessed once they're out in the open.

Riptides are a slippery slope. I'd say stick to your guns and run none, will be more satisfying.

Also that Rhino can't hold 20 possessed but I assume you just formatted the list wrong or something

GoliothOnline wrote:
Dont expect miracles from the Riptide canning that Spartan Assault Tank.. Sure the nova charge is nice and all, but with Tau BS being pretty low and pathfinders needing quite a bit of work before getting in some good boosts to your BS and removing cover, honestly, you'd be better off taking Haywire grenades and suicideing some Pathfinders into the thing.

Chances are it's going to get glanced to death and you can pretty much just blow up the Possessed once they're out in the open.

I'm not expecting to see the spartan again, he was just giving it a whirl, proxying a regular LR, and he wasn't too happy about the 20 possessed, I imagine he'd prefer to go MSU possessed in rhinos over one giant blob again.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Riptides are a slippery slope. I'd say stick to your guns and run none, will be more satisfying.

Also that Rhino can't hold 20 possessed but I assume you just formatted the list wrong or something

He bought the rhino as a DT for the possessed, but stuck them in the Spartan Assault tank. the rhino was just a gun platform.

If you're expecting the Spartan again, avoid Fusion suits. Spartans are immune to melta.

I dunno riptides make short work of AV 14. Nova charged IA rolls 2 pen dice and takes highest, just need 3 lights usually to get ride of russes and the like in my experience. Thats not even taking tank hunter into consideration from his buffmander.

There's a plane called Barracuda in IA3E2 (Taros Campaign), featuring an Ion Cannon (same from Hammerhead), 2 cover-ignoring burst cannons, a TL missile pod and able to get 4 seeker missiles. Its S8 AP3 blast (prone to Gets Hot, though) can clean swathes of possessed and frees your HS slots for more Railheads (the only thing apart the Riptide able to crack the Spartan open). Or you can go Firebase formation and grab 6 Railsides (already TL) and a Riptide, all with tank hunters (glance it to death!)

I usually see people fielding squads of 9 FW instead of only 6. And you have so few pathfinders... how about swapping one squad for Tetras (from the same forge world book)?

Change those fusion blasters for plasma to kill even more possessed and his HQs. The cultists can be dealt with the warriors (put enticing objectives in your FW's field of vision; cultists guns don't go that far)

The possessed are IN the spartan, folks. They can't be shot until they're already murdering things.

That being said, might be best to wait until 7th to see what the rules bring. There's rumors of being able to consolidate into assault again. While right now, as it stands those 20 possessed will wreck anything they touch and be able to be shot after, if they're able to sweep into new units it will require different tactics.

Ethereals take a little work to get running right in a gun line. I like them stuck in to a sniper drone drone. That way you can buff the warrior squads and keep them moving with out to much risk, and the Sniper drones provide LOS! and get to double tap out to 24". And they do need an infantry heavy list to really be worth it (FW,Kroot,Gd, Sniper drones, PF)

I only really like the Railhead with Longstrike. Since your group does Forgeworld, it can be worth looking at the other *head options.