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So, any suggestions?

Commander is the first thing that comes to my mind, but he's kinda expensive with all that upgrades.

Ethereal? Looks nice, but a 500 pts game isn't kind of place where you can make good use of his buffs...

something like Ethereal, rip with ion, two missilesides and the rest on fire warriors. Keep them within twelve in heat for the feel no pain on everything or the extra pulse round but at the very least everything is ld10 the

I actually just threw together a 500 point Tau force since I was going to do an active stealth field for a painting contest and only needed a few boxes to bring that up to a small force, so what I went for was making my commander my Markerlight support.


Commander: Two missile pods, target lock, drone controller.

Four Marker Drone unit from fast attack.

Which is enough to effectively make the entire 3-4 unit army BS5 if I focus fire down one unit at a time.

Yeah but what else are you brining? You 330 pts ish. In my list marker lights aren't super necessary. Almost everything is twin linked or gets an extra shot and there is no marker support worth the pts to it

So what would you bring to make it worth the 64 pts with the controller

I am thinking about building a tac Tau list and I plan to give Commander 2 Plasma Rifles to be able to deal with 2+ armor.

Also, 2 squads of 5 FW + Sergeant, 1 Devilfish and a unit of Pathfinders.

Ethereal, cheap commander or Darkstrider

jakejackjake wrote:
Yeah but what else are you brining? You 330 pts ish. In my list marker lights aren't super necessary. Almost everything is twin linked or gets an extra shot and there is no marker support worth the pts to it

So what would you bring to make it worth the 64 pts with the controller

A big stealth team. Jump shoot jump BS5 S5 shooting with four shots each and a 2+ save in most terrain.

Leaves room for something to go horribly wrong, sure, but if all goes well I'm wiping a unit a turn in a 500 point game.

Fits the Tau philosophies on strategy more or less perfectly really.

cadre fireblades are also worth considering as unlike ethereals, you will actually get to use their weapon, they provide double shots at long range if you don't move (great for holding objectives) unlike the ethereal's half range, fireblade has 3 wounds, markerlight and does not give away bonus victory points for being slain unlike the ethereal (making him and his unit a lesser target). cadre fireblade>ethereal anyday. a battle suit commander would be better but seeing as this is only 500pts I think fireblade would do the job better. if you do take him always have a fireblade in a unit of 12 warriors and two drones, no less.

Can't go wrong with a fireblade, I run him and 12 fire warriors. 24 shots with markerlight support is pretty good going 36 at 15" is even better!

Cadre I think is the better fighting commander and is not at fragile.

I find ethereals in 500pt games quite useful. Whether playing on a 4x4 or a 4x6 (recommend 4x4 for games under 1250), between the increased fire output, or ability to move quickly across the board and still gets shots off when mixed with Drones and warriors it is qutie good, and I use Piranha's for armor busting at 500.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

changemod wrote:

jakejackjake wrote:
Yeah but what else are you brining? You 330 pts ish. In my list marker lights aren't super necessary. Almost everything is twin linked or gets an extra shot and there is no marker support worth the pts to it

So what would you bring to make it worth the 64 pts with the controller

A big stealth team. Jump shoot jump BS5 S5 shooting with four shots each and a 2+ save in most terrain.

Leaves room for something to go horribly wrong, sure, but if all goes well I'm wiping a unit a turn in a 500 point game.

Fits the Tau philosophies on strategy more or less perfectly really.

Also one of the best points values to use Shadow Sun. Here is a500pt I play for fun, it packs a punch, can engage up to 8 targets at once if you feel lucky. I don't recommend deepstriking this list, you got 6+3d6 movement each turn after infiltrate so should be able to get anywhere you want and survive a lot of shooting.

At 500:
Shadowsun w/ CnC drone 155

Elite
6 Stealth w/ 2FB,6 target locks 220

Troops
6 Fw w/BK 60
6 FW w/BK 60