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.

I'm starting my 40k with a Tau army, the reason this is not in army lists is due to the new codex coming out soon. I have some models from a friend, and based on last edition Tau codex, was thinking of getting the new Burning Dawn kit and a commander to round out the army. The list, when I have sold redundant models, would look like this.

HQ
Crisis Commander (No gear decided, likely Onager Gauntlet with VRT, fusion, and plasma)
Ethereal w/ Honour Blade & Hover Drone (Exclusive model)

Troops
6 Fire Warriors & 2 Gun Drones, 5 Rifles & 1 Carbine
6 Fire Warriors & 2 Gun Drones, 5 Rifles & 1 Carbine

Elites
2 Crisis Suits, 1 w/ Flamer & Missiles, 1w/ Plasma, Burst, & Target Lock (May be Bodyguards if codex follows SM trend and makes them elite FOC)
6 Stealth Suits w/ Shas'vre, 2 w/ Fusion Blasters

Heavy Support
Min Sniper Drone Team
Hammerhead Gunship w/ TLMP, Rail Cannon, and Sensor Spines

Fast Attack
10 Pathfinders w/ Devilfish (Loadout Undecided)
Piranha Skimmer w/ Fusion Blaster (Technically unknown loadout, but the FB is way better than the BC on the skimmer)

So, this is meant to be aa balanced Tau list. I have a small gunline with the ethereal,warriors and snipers, hammerhead can support here too. There's some fast units for objectives and limited anti-vehicle potential. The commander and Crisis team/bodyguards will deepstrike in near stealth suits, hopefully some locator beacon? The piranha, pathfinders, ethereal and 3 Stealth suits will come in the box set, apart from them and the commander everything is already built. Thanks in advance.

Mixed weapons in fire warrior units never work out.

it should be one or the other.

as well no idea whats going to happen with the devil fish so its possible the carbines will continue being useless

you only really need 1 drone as well. mostly for running away if sweeping

mixed weapons in crisis units is also meh. as you are ALWAYS shooting weapons that dont nessessarily work well against 1 target. otherwise finding optimal range with target locks can get difficult. and the extra wasted points on the locks.

you may as well take them as individual units

I love Stealth suits

Minimum sniper drones are kinda meh. assuming drone controllers remain the same. getting or kit bashing extra spotters is a nice way to get lots of extra marker lights

Hammer head should have D pods and sit behind a ruin for 3+ no reason to have it moving forward in terrain.

a single suicide piranha wont do much. try to get them in units.
the extra drones off them is hilarious too.


over all thoughts. you have a lot of crazy stuff.

ID drop the sniper drones and go for a skyray. you have no anti air. and unless you are always fighting cron air or some other flying nonsense then you wont need more than 1 missile volley.

If it stays the same its also funny to get 3 sniper drone spotters with a fireblade with two markerdrones for 6 bs 5 marker lights.

Sadly, almost all your wargear criticism is against already assembled stuff from the friend. I'll consider the rest though. Of course it all depends on new codex

Visually do whatever you want. Just let people know what your running on each unit/model so they know. If you want actual advice on the better things to take or not to take. Pathfinders are junk. Anyone with even the slightest tactical acumen is just going to focus them off the board as soon as possible. Buffmanders, Tetra's, and Skyrays are all good ML support. I like Skyrays myself due to their durability and they can offer some smart missile support fire. They can also fire at air targets with no penalty. If you don't have any air in your meta you might want to look into the buffmander or tetra's.

XV8's, Riptides, and Missile Broadsides are your mainstays. I usually always bring at least one XV8 team with all Fusion Blasters for anti-tank. I'm sticking with base codex stuff and not FW since you might not want to use it or proxy it. If it's not a super competitive game I'll usually grab some kroot with sniper rounds depending on the enemy army.

Avoid Vespids, Pathfinders, and drone squads of all kinds.

 Gamgee wrote:
Visually do whatever you want. Just let people know what your running on each unit/model so they know. If you want actual advice on the better things to take or not to take. Pathfinders are junk. Anyone with even the slightest tactical acumen is just going to focus them off the board as soon as possible. Buffmanders, Tetra's, and Skyrays are all good ML support. I like Skyrays myself due to their durability and they can offer some smart missile support fire. They can also fire at air targets with no penalty. If you don't have any air in your meta you might want to look into the buffmander or tetra's.

XV8's, Riptides, and Missile Broadsides are your mainstays. I usually always bring at least one XV8 team with all Fusion Blasters for anti-tank. I'm sticking with base codex stuff and not FW since you might not want to use it or proxy it. If it's not a super competitive game I'll usually grab some kroot with sniper rounds depending on the enemy army.

Avoid Vespids, Pathfinders, and drone squads of all kinds.

Gonna disagree with the part in bold. If we follow that logic, then grav-cents, TWC and the likes are 'junk'. They're squishy, yes, but not even in the same ballpark as junk. Cover exists.

To the OP, hang off for a week or two before making any further decisions. Play a few games, see what you like/dislike and go from there. Generally, it's always preferable to have all your crisis suits toting the same weapons, so they all have the same focus. You said you got them from a friend, so it wasn't under your control, but I would look into ways to remedy that.

There is a reason you don't see Pathfinders in a competitive Tau list, because of all the ML options they are the "junkiest" of the options and not really considered. This is also due in part due to their lack of mobility and yes fragility even if you think a measly cover save is all that. It's only going to take any sort of drop pods or long ranged attacks to wipe them. Despite all the claims we're also not the only army with ignores cover weapons.

I don't have time to explain all the intricacies of why they're bad just suffice to say they are.

Now are they all that bad? No. In a casual list they can do alright. They could be pretty good units again if a few things changed about them. Because of how frail they are and need to re-position so much they need to have some sort of ML that works on the offense. Finally a buffmander gives out much more buffs in addition to his ML support of his drones and at the same time the Skyrays can hit flying units with their ML's ect.

They're cheap and it shows, but why anyone would want the cheapest form of our most vital aspect of our army is beyond me. It's asking for any smart player to get rid of them and there are way more ways to kill some Pathfinders in cover than a Buffmander or Skyray.

Actually, the reason I don't see anything in a competitive list is simpler - I don't care what's in competitive lists. I see that thrown around here a lot, like it actually means something. But just because something isn't "competitive" doesn't mean it's "junk". You apparently have a bias towards them, and that's fine, I suppose, but believe it or not, different people like different things.

Shocking, I know.

I'm sorry I interrupted your obviously busy day, but rest assured, I don't need you to explain the intricacies of anything to me. We disagree on the usage of a rather ubiquitous support unit. Pathfinders have been working fine for me since the original Tau codex appeared back in 2001 and I see nothing of note here that changes that. Sure, there are now other options in the codex that can do what Pathfinders do, and that's a good thing, but by no means does it relegate them to the status of Vespid.

Well, thanks for the advice, though it might be hard to do some of it because I'm getting the collection, for the ethereal, campaign book, and the stealth suits. Sorry Gamgee, but I think I might keep the pathfinders. Mainly because they are my main source of ML and I have seen them perform very well in numerous battles when used right. Still, thanks for your opinion. So changes: The piranha will have two more skimmers for his unit, albeit with burst cannons. May get rid of one of the pathfinder drones for the new guardian drone for more survivability. Sniper team will be replaced by another FW squad with carbines, and the already existing squads will be all rifles and combined into one squad. Crisis suits made individual units. Possibly stick the flamer/pod suit as a lone guard for commander. Add disruption pods to hammerhead. That should be good then. Again, thanks everyone.