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I'm going to a kind of goofy tournament in early December, so plenty of time to plan. I'm rebuilding my Tau army from scratch so could go in almost any direction. The spirit of the tournament is casual, and there is some comp:

"Banned: Unbound lists, Super Heavies, Flyers, Flying Monstrous Creatures
Gargantuan Creatures, Formations, Forgeworld, Fortifications except Aegis Defense Lines, and any LoW that would fall into one of these catagories."

A single allied detachment is allowed; but the whole tournament is Highlander, and that includes any allied detachment. You cannot even duplicate a troop unit after purchasing all available troop types. It's strictly one of everything.

So, I'm in one of those "Good Me on one shoulder, Bad Me on the other" situations. Good me says abide by the spirit of the event, take a balanced list of most of the codex and roll some dice. Bad me says take a Crisis bomb that's objective secured and table all my opponents, who in this format will have nothing that can counter my army lol.

TL;DR: List 1: The Nice Guy List

Farsight Enclaves CAD

Commander: Iridium Battlesuit, Fusion Blades, Neuroweb System Jammer, PENchip, Stim Injector, Shield Generator, Fusion Blaster- 232

Cadre Fireblade

Ghostkeel Battlesuit: Cyclic Ion Raker, Twin-linked Fusion Blaster, Early Warning Override, BKR- 146

3x Stealthsuits: 2 Burst Cannons, 1 Fusion Blaster+Target Lock, BKR- 103

3x Crisis Suits: 6x Plasma, BKR- 159

12x Strike Team: BKR

10x Pathfinders: 3x Rail Rifles, Devilfish with SMS, BKR- 255

Hammerhead: Longstrike, Submunition- 180

Total: 1250

So yeah, nothing too crazy. The commander is rambo, the fireblade attaches to the strike team, the Pathfinders outflank, nuke something and die. Everything else self-explanatory.

List 2: The Bad Guy List

Farsight Enclaves CAD

Commander Shadowsun
Commander: Warscaper Drone, Iridium Battlesuit, Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite, Command and Control Node, PENchip, Onager Gauntlet, Neuroweb System Jammer, Stim Injector, Shield Generator, VRT- 247

9x Crisis Suits: 10x Plasma Rifle, 4x Fusion Blaster, 4x Missile Pod, 9x Target Locks, 18x Gun Drones, BKR- 738

5x Strike Team: BKR, Devilfish

Total: 1250

So yeah, this is mean for this type event. The only list I can think of that could mayyyyybe give me a run for my money is a similarly tricked out Wolfstar. But with formations being illegal, the Librarius Conclave is out. So he'd be limited to a Rune Priest and an allied Tigurius/Bike Libby. That's probably not enough psychic O to mess with me.

Bottom line, I'm leaning towards list 1. Both my opponents and myself would probably have more fun. But I just can't help myself sometimes......

Highlander is a silly format if you ask me that benefits some codices and screws others. I get what it's trying to do and, because of that, I would go with list one also. Maybe swap the Railgun for an Ion Cannon on the Hammerhead. I've never found a single Railgun shot to be very reliable. Sometimes you blow stuff up, but often you just strip HP after HP.

A question on your more evil list, why are you not using commander farsight? I realize he is a bit sub-optimal compared to what you have but his deep strike shenanigans are often worth it. Also on crisis units of this size its sometimes worth considering burst cannons. I've used a full farsight bomb with all double burst cannons to wipe out full squads of paladins before. it also makes no one want to charge that overwatch.
For your more balanced list i like it, but i would be sure to include sniper drones and kroot. Snipers do great things for their points and people often don't understand the usefulness and tactical flexibility of kroot.

 thedragondrage131 wrote:
A question on your more evil list, why are you not using commander farsight? I realize he is a bit sub-optimal compared to what you have but his deep strike shenanigans are often worth it. Also on crisis units of this size its sometimes worth considering burst cannons. I've used a full farsight bomb with all double burst cannons to wipe out full squads of paladins before. it also makes no one want to charge that overwatch.
For your more balanced list i like it, but i would be sure to include sniper drones and kroot. Snipers do great things for their points and people often don't understand the usefulness and tactical flexibility of kroot.

Exaltation for both of you fine gentlemen!

On Farsight: I do not plan on deepstriking the bomb; ever. It's too many points to leave off the board, even for a turn. That's why Shadowsun is imperative. Her 3D6 jump move means the unit can move into the center of the table on T1 and control the battle. What does limit me with her is the wonky rule surrounding deployment of ICs who have infiltrate with a unit that doesn't...even if you don't infiltrate them. It's stupid honestly; it ought to be enough to simply say that if she attaches, she nor her unit can infiltrate. Regardless, I have to deploy her separately which both leaves her vulnerable AND leaves the bomb without Stealth and Shrouded. Needless to say, the buffmander will be tanking some wounds, and I intend to lose a bunch of drones to LOS! on T1 if I go second.

On Burst Cannons: I've heard some mathhammer advocates argue that plasma and burst cannons are roughly equal against 2+, with Burst being slightly superior against 3+/4+ and plasma winning out against vehicles. The way I look at it, if I didn't have Ignores Cover and Twin-linked, I'd probably shade towards Burst Cannons. However, because I do, I think plasma is superior.

But good thoughts! I will be editing the list to move Shadowsun to the Primary Detachment. Someone let me know I could do that now. I'm still used to 6th ed where she couldn't be taken in FSE. So doing that and dropping 2 drones gets me a Devilfish for the Strike Team which gives me a durable Obsec unit and protects the Strikes longer.

You might want to proxy some breachers instead of strikers, especially if you have carbine wielding models already made up. Same cost as standard fire warriors, but much more deadly at short range. I doubt your guys will dismount often, but if they have to, i'd rather breachers.

Disruption pod, ahead of SMS for me as an upgrade on the devilfish. It will make giving away first blood, even more difficult.

I can't comment on all the gun drones in the star, only tried that one or twice, was too big a frontprint for my taste. If I was going to go that route though, i'd include the Warscaper drone, gives the unit move through cover, which when a unit has nearly 30 models with jet packs, probably makes a traditionally overpriced item, decent.

That and, taking difficult terrains on such a big unit, is such a hassle, if you're lazy, like me.

 Bryan01 wrote:
You might want to proxy some breachers instead of strikers, especially if you have carbine wielding models already made up. Same cost as standard fire warriors, but much more deadly at short range. I doubt your guys will dismount often, but if they have to, i'd rather breachers.

Disruption pod, ahead of SMS for me as an upgrade on the devilfish. It will make giving away first blood, even more difficult.

I can't comment on all the gun drones in the star, only tried that one or twice, was too big a frontprint for my taste. If I was going to go that route though, i'd include the Warscaper drone, gives the unit move through cover, which when a unit has nearly 30 models with jet packs, probably makes a traditionally overpriced item, decent.

That and, taking difficult terrains on such a big unit, is such a hassle, if you're lazy, like me.

The Warscaper Drone is the exact kind of absolutely fantastic outside the box idea that validates the existence of army list forums. Exalted! I'll dig into my codex to shuffle some points around for it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Shrike wrote:

 Bryan01 wrote:
You might want to proxy some breachers instead of strikers, especially if you have carbine wielding models already made up. Same cost as standard fire warriors, but much more deadly at short range. I doubt your guys will dismount often, but if they have to, i'd rather breachers.

Disruption pod, ahead of SMS for me as an upgrade on the devilfish. It will make giving away first blood, even more difficult.

I can't comment on all the gun drones in the star, only tried that one or twice, was too big a frontprint for my taste. If I was going to go that route though, i'd include the Warscaper drone, gives the unit move through cover, which when a unit has nearly 30 models with jet packs, probably makes a traditionally overpriced item, decent.

That and, taking difficult terrains on such a big unit, is such a hassle, if you're lazy, like me.

The Warscaper Drone is the exact kind of absolutely fantastic outside the box idea that validates the existence of army list forums. Exalted! I'll dig into my codex to shuffle some points around for it.

Oh man, forgot FSE sig systems are 0-1 though. Hrmm. It's that or lose any semblance of psychic defense.....Yup, I'm too lazy to roll all those dangerous terrain tests. Warscaper Drone it is.

I feel you on deepstrikers staying off the board. I just find the potential reward for the risk worth it, and its hilarious and very mont'ka fluffy. My opponents faces when I deepstrike that many suits in their faces. Point taken with the ignores cover. This is a preference thing. I find burst useful because i run alot of markers and more markers benefit high ROF more. Of course my lists look like
farsight
the 8 (select ones)
gigantic crisis blob 1-3
pathfinders and lots of them.

Heaven forbid those squads are near each other when the charge comes. The overwatch is pure evil.

also can you give a farsight detachment commander the multi spectrum sensor suite and command and control node now? I thought you needed the 8 to get those because of the detachment.

Yes, you can take sig systems from both books now; but FSE selctions are still 1 per army; which is a real shame because they have 3 really good ones and for this list specifically, I would love to have the warscaper drone AND the talisman. But oh well, it's still good.