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I was thinking today, and I want to know your opinion, fellow Tau players.

What is, in your opinion, the most powerful Tau star that could be played?
No restrictions, any amount of points.

Go ahead, tell me what you think.

Shadowsun, Farsight, A fusion blade/stim/shield gen/iridium commander in a squad of 9 crisis bodyguards, 1 is a buffsuit, 7 have 2PR,TL and 1 with 2FB, TL.And all the gun drones you can take.

This gives you a 4+cover save in the open, 15 twinlinked ignores cover plasma rifles, 5 fusion blasters, and some stopping power in Melee, with about 40 str5 ap5 shots coming form the drones.. Shadowsun is your warlord for 3d6 jump.

Farsight and the Commander can hold their own in melee vs smash-captains, and the bodyguards each throw down 3 str5 attacks in melee. Combined with all the drones attacks, you have almost 50 dice being thrown combined with farsights and the commanders armor/fleshbane high str low ap attacks. You can also give your unit counterattack with the PEN chip when you know you are going to be charged. giving you just a ridiculous amount of attacks to throw at your opponent.

I enjoy Farsight in a Command Squad with Plasma/Shield Bodyguards joined by a Brightsword Commander. Lots of AP2, lots of Look Out, Sir!, and actually decent in melee.

SJ

Yeah I like to call the new bomb list the "Full Monty." In its most indulgent form, this is how I'd go:

Shadowsun
Farsight
Buffmander
9x Crisis, double plasma/fusion to taste, 18x Gun Drones

It's Objective Secured, deceptively fast, easily gets 2+ cover, but doesn't need it because of 2=/4++ FNP tanker + 18 ablative drone wounds for LOS!, and has more firepower than any other single unit in the game, outside of mayyybbbe a full unit of 6 gravcents with gravcannons/lascannons (these don't ignore cover without perfect timing, and you can't guarantee you'll have it every game).

What's even meaner than the unit on its own though is if you drop Farsight, you can get 2 Stormsurges with shields and EWO in under 1850. Change the Gun drones in the star to marker to support the surges and oh boyyyy....

 The Shrike wrote:
Yeah I like to call the new bomb list the "Full Monty." In its most indulgent form, this is how I'd go:

Shadowsun
Farsight
Buffmander
9x Crisis, double plasma/fusion to taste, 18x Gun Drones

It's Objective Secured, deceptively fast, easily gets 2+ cover, but doesn't need it because of 2=/4++ FNP tanker + 18 ablative drone wounds for LOS!, and has more firepower than any other single unit in the game, outside of mayyybbbe a full unit of 6 gravcents with gravcannons/lascannons (these don't ignore cover without perfect timing, and you can't guarantee you'll have it every game).

What's even meaner than the unit on its own though is if you drop Farsight, you can get 2 Stormsurges with shields and EWO in under 1850. Change the Gun drones in the star to marker to support the surges and oh boyyyy....

That stuff with the Stormsurges and the Markers sounds vicious. I'd like to try it out, but I'd need Stormsurges. xD

 d00mspire wrote:
I was thinking today, and I want to know your opinion, fellow Tau players.

What is, in your opinion, the most powerful Tau star that could be played?
No restrictions, any amount of points.

Go ahead, tell me what you think.

When playing tau its important to think your whole entire army is a death star. For tau, death star unit do not really exist anymore because they are so weak compared to other army's death star in term of survivability. people love to use crisis bomb, but think about it, crisis bomb can't even last a turn against other tau list or even the gravcent star or the superfriend star with invisibility or veil of time. The crisis bomb is at best a glass cannon. A true death star must be able to dish out lots of damage while being able to absorb damage no matter what army your opponent use. A test to see weather the unit is a death star, you should think if that unit can absorb the entire opponent's firepower in at least two turns without losing its potency in a 1850pts game. In this sense, only a properly crafted tau army can fulfill this requirement.

Like other have said, a farsight bomb is a good option, for a reasonable choice (you said no restrictions, so in theory you could just add an infinite number of commanders to this star).
It's however not that great of a deathstar, as it's very weak to Str8 shooting (the buffmander can tank a bit, but if the shots are coming from another side, then it's no good).
An intercepting iontide (or two, given the point cost) would be a huge counter.

One could argue that a unit of 3 riptides (especially as part of a riptide wing), or even 3 ghostkeels in a OSC, would be a better unit than a crisis bomb, just because it can really take a beating while still having a huge damage output.

A squad of three Stormsurges of pretty "Deathstary". Not only are they nearly a battlestation, they are also nearly the size of a small moon!

SJ