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So a quick background on my tau history. Ive owned over 5k points of tau a few years back and the more i played them the more i grew bored of the whole "gunline" army. I ended up selling them off and moved to dark eldar. Now that the new kits came out i feel the pull to start up a new army of them based off the newer kits i like and the fluff i read in the new campaign books. The list is 3 formations.

Retaliation cadre

Tau commander with iridium, 2 plasma, stim

Riptide with IA, fusion, stim

Missile-side

3 crisis suits 2 plasma, counter fire on all suits

2 crisis suits 2 fusion blasters, target lock and 1 flamer between the 2

2 crisis suits airbursting frag

Ranged support cadre

3x 4 pathfinders

2x 2 missile-sides

missile side

Counter strike cadre

2x 6 breachers in devilfish

5 breachers in devilfish


4 pathfinders with 3 railrifles in devilfish



The idea of the list is for the ranged support cadre to sit back and provide fire were needed. 2 plus save pathfinders are pretty solid when their in ruins. The devilfish with breachers move on up to try to clear out objectives. The railrifle pathfinders are there to go after a unit with really good armor and even light tanks when needed. Counterstrike drops turn 2 and goes after priority targets based on what they have loadout wise. Ive played this list yesterday against a ironhands battle company and it did very well. i used the supremacy cards which i feel work good with this army. The breachers were quite impressive and tore up a command bike unit. Mvp of the game was when my last pinned pathfinder with railrifle rolled doubles sixes and melted the last wounds on the gorgon chain captain. i won after my opp declared the game lost when by turn 3 i was up 6 points and looking to table him by turn 5. Im looking for critics on this list. I will say outright i know there are better tau options but i want to bring breachers and the ranged support cadre since i like that the list feels like it is a battle in the montkau and kauyon books.

I wouldn't use the Pathfinders in the Devilfish, since they're snap firing the turn they get out, and will likely get shot right off the board before they've done anything meaningful.

I would put them on a Shieldwall or Droneport (cheaper pointswise than a devilfish anyway) also allowing you to re-roll 1's and giving them a lot more survivability in exchange for a bit of maneuverability.

You could even take the 3 squads of Pathfinders in the Ranged Support Cadre and up them to squads of 6, and then make one of them the rail squad on the fortification so they enjoy a 2+ cover.

Lastly, I don't like mixing the fusion blasters with the Ion Accelerator on the Riptide because of the extreme range differences (72"/18") I would leave them with the TL-SMS since it's at least got a 36" range.

i agree with everything said by Archerd, D-fishes are for strike teams toting carbines and mid range weps, not heavies. I dont truly understand why most tau players poor points into 2-3 man suite squads, 1 well placed Battle cannon and your 200 point squad is all gone. If you want mobile tau you should look into fielding at most 3-5 suites and 1 Riptide. Kroot with sniper rounds infiltrating will do a lot of DMG for a smaller cost. Add to that 3-4 max 12 man squads of strike teams in D-fishes for rapid response and 8 man squads of pathfinders and you'd be surprised how much hurt a non suite based tau can do.

Thanks for the feedback. If im not mistaken aren't railrifles 30inch rapid fire weapons when taken with pathfinders. They're the only pathfinder squad in a fish. They're meant to go after units sitting on objectives with good saves. The fact the counterstrike cadre allows reroll to hit on enemies holding objectives means that i can hit pretty well and use markerlights to remove cover instead of increasing the bs of the unit. That same approach works with the breachers. Regarding the fusion blaster on the tide i figured since he has to deepstrike i would go with the fusion for better chances at wrecking vehicles since i already have 6 broadsides for my missile spamming. strikers i actually have thought about using them as well mixed in with breachers. Maybe 1 squad of 12 with carbines and two 5 man breacher teams. I'm glad you bring up kroot cause everybody usually says their bad at anything then being a speedbump.I used to own 60 kroot and would field them to surprising effect in my games. Im having a hardtime trying to figure out how i could find points to add to what you guys suggest though. Maybe ill cut the deepstrike suit cadre and add a cad, but im not sure what to add to it then. Any suggestions? I will say though, im a competitive player who likes to field fluffy but strong list so things like hunter cadre buffmander abuse and the piranha drone spam aren't my thing. In a different list i have considered a huge firewarrior list backed by a ranged support cadre, tidewall, and stormsurge. 100 firewarriors is only 900 points if my math is correct and thats alot of firepower.