Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello, all!
I played a game on Saturday against Tau Empire for the first time. Although I beat them, it seems I fell in love with their playing style. I had a few questions about them:
a) What does Farsight Enclaves bring that the codex does not?
b) If I wanted, could I get just the supplement (no exposure to these)

My opponent had an all-suit army (with 2 floating marker-light things). I am not sure if this is what I want, but I really liked it.
Thanks in advance!

The Farsight Enclaves book contains a lot of options, special wargear, and the option to take crisis suits as a troop choice, allowing you to make the all crisis-suit army. It also include a whole Unit of special characters called The Eight.

But you will still need to get the Tau Empire codex, because the supplement doesn't include the stats for all the units.

no. The Farsight enclaves book contains around 4 pages of rules for £30 and some new warlord traits and relics.

You will need the Tau codex for the rest of your army's rules anyway, and this book also contains rules for Farsight, so instead of paying £60 just for a handful of extra rules over the normal codex I say you buy the normal Tau codex and then get the supplement if you are really into the Farsight fluff and special characters ("the Eight")

Thanks guys! I like the all-suit army, so having to get both is a bummer :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Where do all-suit armies stand in the competitive spectrum? (Competitive, fun, both)

As someone who is reasonably familiar with Tau, but has not run a troop suit list personally, I think they would be a bit underwhelming. Crisis suits are really not durable. In order for them to not die you pretty much have to get very clever with hiding them behind terrain and advance them very cautiously. I have honestly given up on using them as anything other than cheap interceptor umbrellas to support the rest of my army (a job they excel at from a firepower/points cost standpoint) or else throwaway deep striking anti armor (which my crisis suits seem to refuse to do for me, but in theory is a sound idea and many people have reported success with it). I just can't get them to close to weapon range without them dying.

I guess it could work, but it would need to be a very different style of play than I'm used to. Maybe someone else who has tried it could step in. I might just be using my suits wrong, but trying to get a unit that's about as durable as 4 space marines within 12-18" of the enemy always seems to be something I struggle with.

 dementedwombat wrote:
As someone who is reasonably familiar with Tau, but has not run a troop suit list personally,

What do you tend to run (don't give me a lot of specifics, just the general idea, for obvious reasons)

 The Shadow Lord wrote:
Thanks guys! I like the all-suit army, so having to get both is a bummer :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Where do all-suit armies stand in the competitive spectrum? (Competitive, fun, both)

I'll be bringing my Farsight Enclave to Nova in August, and ran them competitively in 6th Edition. Granted I ally in Tau for a BuffCommander and mandatory 6 Firewarriors which I made smaller counts as Drones for.

But its got 2 Commanders, 3 Riptides, 6 Fire Warriors, 12 Crisis Suits, and 12 Drones and so far its doing well in 7th.

For friendly play, it isn't hard to pick up on the rules that are required to run Farsight Enclaves. Having it on you is the important part for Tournaments IMO. Buying it kind of sucked, but hey, I had an apple gift card anyway and the digital edition was neat enough.

Thank you Zagman. Just wondering, why do you have the 6 Fire Warriors? Is it part of the Farsight supplement rules?

The 6 fire warriors would be to fill out the minimum troop requirement since you can ally Tau Empire codex to the Farsight supplement.

Well, I generally just run "a bit of everything". The Tau codex is awesome because it gives us a gigantic toolbox to deal with all kinds of threats, and most of the tools are actually very good at what you want them to do, as long as you use the right tool for the right job. A lot of people like to just take a ton of riptides, but I really feel like the army is at its best when you take different unit types to support each other.

I like to have a "core" of an Ethereal and a couple squads of fire warriors (in transports now. Devilfish are awesome in 7th!). Support that with a riptide, sky ray, pathfinders, and crisis suits. Like I said, a little bit of everything. I guess you'd call my army a "rapid response cadre" (cadre is the Tau term for a fighting group).

One thing you could do is take shadowsun with a crisis suit team. She jacks up their survivability very nicely by granting the entire unit stealth and shrouded, and she can take two special shield drones with a 3++. You also can make her the warlord so that squad gets to be extra speedy (I'm sure you saw the crisis suit ability to jump around in the assault phase. Imagine getting to roll 3d6 for that squad instead of 2).

I bought the tau forge world book and use her with a squad of Hazard suits (just think the bigger brother of crisis suits) but I imagine the principle would apply just fine with crisis suits too.

Are Devilfish open-topped?

Oh the awesomeness that could result if they were...

Alas, they have no fire points whatsoever. Apparently GW thought our fire warriors being able to fly around in mobile skimmer bunkers was overpowered. They do get a pair of gun drones that fire like passengers and can disembark if you want them to. Great for blocking charge lanes to the troops that actually matter.

I just heard from somewhere that there is a data slate. Is it good?

I mean it lets you cram more riptides and broadsides (two units that are very good, even though I've stopped using broadsides) into a list, so by that definition yes it is. I'm really not sure how it fits into the detachment system anymore though. I never paid much attention to all the supplements and extras, even less now 7th has probably changed what can be taken with what.

I am sorry but crisis suits are so, so, so much better than fire warriors or kroot for their points cost and are arguably the most flexible and useful objective scoring troops choice in the game. They are worth their weight in gold.

Sir Arun, could you share a little about your list?

Crisis suits can fill out a variety of roles and having them as objective secured troops is an awesome bonus.

First of all I have yet to see a Tau list that did not include any crisis suits. Like...90% of Tau players have at least one unit of them.

Now instead of these guys taking up an Elite slot and not being objective secured AND forcing you to take a unit of troops as well, Farsight Enclaves gives you a lot more room for good stuff by making them troops.

This way you can field 3 Riptides and at the same time not worry about sinking points into FWs or Kroot.

As if all this wasnt enough, Crisis suits themselves are solid - two space marines cost 28 points. A Crisis suit is cheaper than that with the same armor save, better strength, deep strike, jump infantry rule (so you neednt worry about terrain) and jetpack assault move to round things up.

But the biggest bang for your buck comes from the fact that you can give each suit whatever weapon you want to.

Usually most troops choices are limited to 1 good weapon per squad, while each crisis suit can take upto 3 (and fire 2). The combos are limitless.

You want to kit a unit of 3 suits out with 2 missile pods each and have them hang back and sit on an objective while firing 12 S7 shots upto 36" away using the JSJ method and thus being impossible to even get hit by the enemy unless he outflanks or deep strikes or infiltrates? Be my guest.

Repeat the same process with plasma rifles and you'll make life hell for assaulty MEQ armies trying to get to you.

Alternately, you can load up on fusion blasters and backup flamers and DS the suits and 1) immediately snatch an objective away from a non-troops enemy unit; 2) contest an objective from an enemy troops unit who however, being troops, will usually end up being inferior to your kitted out suits and generally wreak havoc in the enemy's fire base like blowing up his tanks.

However mostly due to their mobility, you can have crisis suits react to things changing around you on the battlefield a lot better than generic troops would (who usually rely on transports or are otherwise pretty much stranded) it's like having ultra mobile troops like eldar jetbikes - but ones that actually pack a punch in terms of firepower - is the best thing that can happen.

I agree with everything the man (using the gender of your username here) says, in theory. I find that mine just die before they get close enough to actually do anything useful. I guess this could be because my opponents overvalue them and concentrate all avalible firepower on them at every opportunity. In that regard, they're awesome. I'll take a 57 point bullet sponge any day (a well kitted out suit does indeed cost 57 points. They're incredibly cheap for their benefits. But like I said they die so easily.)

they usually die easily if you only have 1 unit of them and deep strike them in enemy territory, as is the case with normal tau armies using crisis suits.

but when your suits are troops, you'll have more and perhaps have them operate from your own deployment zone with missile pods etc. that way they wont be priority target #1

 dementedwombat wrote:
Oh the awesomeness that could result if they were...

Alas, they have no fire points whatsoever. Apparently GW thought our fire warriors being able to fly around in mobile skimmer bunkers was overpowered. They do get a pair of gun drones that fire like passengers and can disembark if you want them to. Great for blocking charge lanes to the troops that actually matter.

is THAT where they drew the line with Tau being overpowered

Thank you. As now you have sold me on Crisis Suits, I believe I must buy 2 books. And yes, I guess a transport holding up to 12 ICs and FWs being open-topped would be a little over the top

i've played Tau for a little bit in the old dex and played them quite a lot since they got the new one. An all suit army can be viable, though not very competitive since crisis suits arent that difficult to counter.
Still, its not impossible. It will just take a fair bit of tactical knowledge since one slipup can lose a crisis unit either to assault (short range weapons) or random S8+ weapons pasting them.

Also i dont think allowing some firepoints on the devilfish would make us broken. At best it would be two on top, or one on each side one on top anyway so big deal 2 firewarriors can shoot lol and probably firing snaps anyway. Though it would make devilfish even better than they are in 7th, as im loving them now (before i couldnt justify them).

I dislike devilfish because of no fire points and high cost , really wish we had fire ports

its 100pts for a devilfish with d-pods, sensor spines, and gun drones. Heres the thing about it:

Its an AV12/11/10 vehicle that is Objective Secured since its a troop choice's dedicated transport. It provides a massive roadblock to stop a chokepoint, and can Tank Shock infantry units away from an objective (ive done this many times, and every time i get "Devilfish can tank shock?" even though i literally do it every single game lol)

yes its less dakka per point than another unit of firewarriors. thats not the point. the devilfish is strong enough that forces bigger guns that they would rather fire at our suits with to take down, the firewarriors die in droves once they start getting shot at - devilfish doesnt care.

I used to hate devilfish, and the two that i scored off ebay for dirt cheap along with a handful of FW eons ago had a thick layer of dust on them by the time i finally fielded them in 7th. Now theyre autoinclude to me.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
its 100pts for a devilfish with d-pods, sensor spines, and gun drones. Heres the thing about it:

Its an AV12/11/10 vehicle that is Objective Secured since its a troop choice's dedicated transport. It provides a massive roadblock to stop a chokepoint, and can Tank Shock infantry units away from an objective (ive done this many times, and every time i get "Devilfish can tank shock?" even though i literally do it every single game lol)

yes its less dakka per point than another unit of firewarriors. thats not the point. the devilfish is strong enough that forces bigger guns that they would rather fire at our suits with to take down, the firewarriors die in droves once they start getting shot at - devilfish doesnt care.

I used to hate devilfish, and the two that i scored off ebay for dirt cheap along with a handful of FW eons ago had a thick layer of dust on them by the time i finally fielded them in 7th. Now theyre autoinclude to me.

Mobile and resilient Objective Secured with a 3++ Cover Save is pretty valuable. IMO they are still Overcosted, but unfortunately they are the only option Tau have short of FE Crissi for mobile OS.

I just tried running them this last week for the first time in a couple editions. I can agree the fish are pretty dang awesome. One thing I always struggled with for my fire warriors was spacing (getting them where they need to be at the range they want to be at). Transports fix a lot of that. You can deliver the fire warriors where they're needed and now in 7th the transport itself is a pretty resilient scoring unit.

Plus you can drop off your fire warriors, shoot with them, then flat out move your transport in front of them during the shooting phase. Fish of fury is a wonderful thing.

Well, not the same turn they disembark sadly. Youre disallowed from flat-out if you disembark and/or embark any units.

However i still do the precision spot-drop thing with them, usually in the middle of the table. 12 FW in one fish, 11 + Ethereal in the other = 69 S5 Ap5 BS3 shots at 15" range. Obviously leave the Ethereal in the fish, since his bubble is measured from the hull rather than his tiny base and he is MUCH safer inside than out (anti infantry can blast the FW away in a heartbeat, but odds are wont hurt the fish).

I wouldnt say theyre that bad anymore in terms of cost. Theyre pretty gaking durable and give Objective Secured on a model that can push other models out of the way (remember, if they pass the Tank Shock they still have to get out of the way if you land on them. Aim it right so theyre outside 3" from the objective after being 1" from your hull and bam objective is yours not theirs)
What i wish they got if i would change anything without making them UNDERcosted..like wave serpents...cough cough... is give them SMS for free option. Literally not taking them because its 10pts more, even though its a very good platform for it since its twinlinked (better when snapping) 30" vs 18" of its original gun, and ignores cover to mess up some 5++ Daemons in cover or 5+ armor save guys in cover.

Darn, I own an opponent an apology then. I did the flat out in the turn I disembarked. I asked the guy if it was legal and he said yes though, so I'll keep that in mind...of course I combined that with keeping the Ethereal in the transport and ended up getting it in the path of a charging Haruspex. So that evened out.

Also, don't count on them being BS3. When you're firing that many shots it's a pretty good deal to spend the markerlights on them. 12 fire warriors with an ethereal amount to 6 additional hits per markerlight.

Oh yeah, definitely.

Friend of mine that plays Tau did that to me. I deepstriked a fusion bomb behind him to pop his Skyray and Hammerhead and they ate Etheral + Cadre bonus fire from 2 12man firewarrior squads sitting nearby (btw thats 48 shots from one unit, 36 from the other). He gave the one with the Cadre BS5 and yeah....surviving with a single model with a single wound was one hell of a shock after getting hammered that hard rofl.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
However i still do the precision spot-drop thing with them, usually in the middle of the table. 12 FW in one fish, 11 + Ethereal in the other = 69 S5 Ap5 BS3 shots at 15" range. Obviously leave the Ethereal in the fish, since his bubble is measured from the hull rather than his tiny base and he is MUCH safer inside than out (anti infantry can blast the FW away in a heartbeat, but odds are wont hurt the fish).

Ha goddamn now thats a neat little aggressive Tau tactic that at least wont make your opponent complain that as Tau youre castling up in your own deployment zone with that Ethereal

 Vineheart01 wrote:
What i wish they got if i would change anything without making them UNDERcosted..like wave serpents...cough cough... is give them SMS for free option. Literally not taking them because its 10pts more, even though its a very good platform for it since its twinlinked (better when snapping)
30" vs 18" of its original gun, and ignores cover to mess up some 5++ Daemons in cover or 5+ armor save guys in cover.

No...just no. For fairness sake the amount of points a tl-SMS costs for the Devilfish should actually be the amount of points it SHOULD cost on the Hammerhead or Skyray...the fact that you get it for FREE there is imba because NOBODY takes the tl-Burstcannon option anymore except those unfortunates who play by WYSIWYG and have glued Burstcannons on their tanks ever since assembling them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Darn, I own an opponent an apology then. I did the flat out in the turn I disembarked. I asked the guy if it was legal and he said yes though, so I'll keep that in mind...

You *can* flat out the turn you disembarked... if your transport didnt move during your movement phase, I think. So its either move 6" + disembark, or move 0" + disembark + flat out 6" to protect them after they fired. Dont have the BRB on me to confirm this right now.

That sounds good, thanks for the posts. I might have to do the Devilfish combo until I can justify buying another book. (or I might never buy the FE...)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One last question, do you prefer Pathfinders or Tetras? My opponent had 2 Tetras. I have been reading other threads and found that it is mixed. As I don't know the stat-line or war gear of Pathfinders (I believe I know the Tetras'), I'm just curious. Thanks.