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.

Hey all

I am keen to start a Tau army which is more than sit there and shoot the enemy until they die. I want to be up in their face sniffing their burning corpses once they have been blown up...ahem... sorry....

My idea was to try to write a list which is solely the retaliation cadre. I know I know, it is one of the best formations the new dex has but I thought it would be a cool looking army I get to suit it up to the max and see what happens....

The list I am posint below is circa 1600pts at present, I would either be looking for options to trim down to 1500 or beef up to 1850 (please see suggestions at the end of this braodcast....)

Buffmander: Commander with puretide neurochip, command and control node, multi spectrum suite, shield genny and 2 marker drones
Crisis suit the first: 3 suits each with 2 fusion blasters and a burst cannon each with 3 marker drones
Crisis suit the second: 3 suits with 2 missile pods and a fusion blaster each with 3 marker drones
Crisis suit the third: 3 suits with 2 plasma rifles and a burst cannon each with 3 marker drones
Broadside Team: 3 broadsides with high yeild m/pods, 3 seekers, 3 velo trackers and 3 marker drones
Riptide Team: 2 Riptides one with ion acc and target lock the other with burst cannon and velo tracker

Thoughts for 1500: trim the hell out of the broadsides
Thoughts for 1850: boost the suits and a pss third riptide.

I dont want it to be cheesy but I dont want it to be a pushover. I would appreciate what peoples thoughts are and what they would think if they came up against this. I am trying to make it all comers list too, Ta.

Love the Heavy Retal Cadre, includes all of my favorite units with very fun rules!

First I would suggest running your commander with weapons, the buffs are nice but giving up a BS5 tanky HQ really hurts when you have a small model count army. You should either run him as your tank hunter with 2FB/TL or as I like to do 2Cyclic Ion Blasters for the lots of high str shots. always give him Iridium (makes it so he cant be insta killed by str8, always happens when you don't take the armor) PEN, Nueroweb system jammer and Onager gauntlet too, this gives him an @ Init str 10 ap 1 attack and he can make any unit within a foot have Gets Hot when shooting and either Monster hunter/Tank hunter. Although the cascading markerlights aren't bad but i think you would be better off with gun drones. more dakka per unit = less units having to shoot the same thing.

Take off the velos and marker drones from the broadsides. Also I would run them with PR since they will be deepstriking and with PR they are very threatening. I usually give these guys HYMP,PR,Stims. This turns your broadsides into a really tanky unit that can kill most things with high volume, high strength shots w/ some AP2 to vaporize a few things.

On your crisis suits you should always do 2/3 with 2 of the same wep and a support system, like VRT or DC (Flamers are okay here since they can be used for hordes and overwatch defence/acts as a support system.) then the last suit 2FB,TL. This gives every crisis team a specific role while also being able to melta a vehicle/threatenknights or MCs. Also in the new codex you can have up to 9 crisis suits in the same group. If you have the points you should drop gun drones for more crisis suits.

So the upgrades are pretty shocking at the moment. Why Marker Lights with a buff manner? You're twin linked and ignoring cover any way give him a Drones Controller and gun drones. Likewise get a maximum sized squad to put him in give each 2 weapons (mainly double plasma or double fusion) and a target lock and loads of gun drones. Now you have bs10 ignoring cover gun drones that should annihilate infantry and twin linked ignoring cover plasma and melta that can all target separate units.

A good support crisis team for the other 2 units is guys with missile pods a Drones Controller and 2 marker drones. These can just buff Bs on important targets for the bomb to annihilate.

Broadsides want missile drones if drones at all. Whilst VTS are wasted on a squad of 3. EWO is a far better tool as it saves you 45 points and allows you to kill that flyer in the opponents turn instead of your own. You don't need sky fire when you have 24 twin linked shots.

Get EWO on both Riptides. Though I'd consider dropping one as they are a bit of an assault liability and without coordinated firepower to pair with a buff manner they struggle to match their points for damage output.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I was just going for a quick glance through what looked coo and with your pointers have refined to below:

Commander with puretide neurochip, C&C node, Multi spectrum suite, shield genny and 2 marker drones
(pretty much as before but with some gun drones instead of marker drones)

3 crisis suits, each with 2 missile pods, a drone controller, 2 marker drones
(as recommended can see see the benefit of these!!)


3 crisis suits, each with 2 missile pods, a drone controller, 2 marker drones
(as recommended can see see the benefit of these!! - and yes this is a second unit)

2 Riptides one wit ion acc and target lock, the other EWO

2 Broadsides with HYM systems, seekers and EWO

5 Crisis suits. 3 with 2 x fusion drone cont and 2 gun drones, 2 with 2 x plasma drone conts and 2 gun drones (weapon set up suits models I have already built!)

A concern though is the beast uni. Thats 6 suits and 12 drones (18 models....) deep striking...... if I Lost it.... ouch....

You don't need DCS on more than 1 model in a unit. Give the commander a DCS and get target locks on the big suit unit. I'd also consider swapping the missile units to 1 crisis in each and and getting 4 more suits for the buffmander unit.

Drop the seekers get an EWO on the other Riptide and spend any spare points on missile drones.

Good point on the DCS, I Never noticed that. I am too nervous about making that squad that big, They are deep striking afterall... might drop pod squads to 2 which then adds another 6 models to the buffmander unit...

Making a big deathstar that kills your opponent's army in a single hammer blow is pretty much all the Ret Cadre has going for it.