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I've got a game coming up that is tau vs (swarm) orks at 2k points, who currently rules our local gaming, this is my army, what you think?

HQ

commander - cyclic ion, iridium armour, missile pod target lock and drone controller -- 70pts
-Commanders body gaurds (x2) - Burst cannons, missile pods, target lock -- 62pts each
-- 6 markerlight drones

Elites

Riptide (x2) - ion accelerator, stimulant injector -- 221 pts

Crisis battlesuit - twin fusion blaster, missile pod, target lock -- 81 pts
-- 2x gun drones

Troops

Strike squad (x3)- 11 fire warriors, 1 shas'ui (with marker and target lock) --157 pts each
-- 1x gun drone
-- 1x gaurdian drone

Fast attack

Piranha - Fusion blaster, Gun drones -- 50 pts each

Heavy support

Hammerhead (x2) - Rail submunition, SMS, black sun filter -- 131 pts each

Hammerhead - Ion cannon, SMS, Blacksun Filter, Longstrike -- 171pts

Support

Drone network (x2 gun, x1 marker) -- 56pts each

Total pts --- 2000 pts


What you think?

What do you mean with swarm orks? mobs of 30 boyz on foot? greentide? blitz brigade or trukk spam? or you just know that orks will be your opponent but with no idea about their list?

With tau and at 2000 points you should have no problem at all in dealing with orks. Orks have some mid tier lists with lots of bikers and meganobz, but other than that tau are far superior.

Of course players' experience matters and a good ork player can be tough to defeat.

my opponenet is a really good ork player to beat would can do a 1st and at latest turn 2 charge...
he runs ork boys with power claws and mainly wagons, but is also using trukks to aid his speed,

on top of all that he has 2 units of bikers and uses the mega
kustom force field to give all around him 4+ invul

Tau tend to match up well against Orks, but if he's running a Green Tide, the formation with 10 Ork units all mashed together into 1 mega-unit, that could be a tough game.

As for your list, there's definitely a lot of room to optimize. I don't know what models you have access to or how competitive you're wanting to make this list, but even with what you listed, we can make some tweaks.

First off, generally try to avoid arming your suits with different weapons. You'll often be mixing and matching ranges and purposes when doing so, so pick a job for your suits. For your Commander, dual missile pods is probably best since he seems like he's going to run with your Marker Drones. His bodyguards are a waste of points. Just attach him to a regular Crisis Suit unit instead, saving yourself 20 points in the process. Alternatively, split the suits off entirely, and have the Commander run with a Marker Drone unit - probably what I would choose.

Riptides should basically always have an early warning override. That's far too strong of an upgrade to ignore for 5pts. Stimulant injectors aren't my thing on Riptides, but they're a reasonably popular choice. I find that my Riptides rarely die without them, so I don't bother.

Upgrades for Strikers are overcosted. In them plain, and you'll have enough points for another unit.

Hammerheads are totally outclassed by Tidewall Gunrigs which are essentially the same thing but twin-linked and 2/3 the cost. That said, not many people have 3 Gunrigs, so whatever works.

As for the Drone Network, I'm not sure what you're aiming for. Most people use the Drone Net for Marker Drones since it's relatively easy to get S5 AP5 elsewhere, and intercepting marker lights are freaking awesome.

More later when my iPad isn't dying!

edit: Okay, here we go.

So, Ork bikers. They're solid units, for sure, but you should be a pro at ignoring their cover and dumping S7 shots on them. Even if they're in that 4++ KFF range, wounding on 2s should be more than sufficient to pile on enough wounds to stop those bikers in their tracks.

Speaking of massed S7 fire, Trukks should be no problem whatsoever. Pop them, and then mow down whatever is inside. Battlewagons are definitely a tougher situation, however, maybe consider grabbing some fusion blasters on your Crisis Suits to crack that AV14. You can also scoot around the side to get at that juicy AV12 on the sides.

It occurs to me that a Stormsurge would wreck him pretty handily. Throw that bad boy in the mix if you have one, and watch the skulls get missiled/blasted/stomped.

I'll try to stick to the units you mentioned you have and rearrange things a bit the way I'd run it:

Hunter Contingent:
Commander - 2 missile pods, drone controller, target lock, Iridium Armor, 2 marker drones - 167
3 Crisis Suits - 2 missile pods each - 156
2 Riptides - ion accelerators, EWO - 380
4x9 Strikers - 324
Piranha - fusion - 50
Whatever heavy choice you have

Armored Interdiction Cadre
3 Hammerheads as you listed- 433
Skyray - 115

Drone Network -
4x4 Marker Drones - 224...if you have them. Swap in Gun Drones as necessary or just run them as markers, if you can.

That's 1859, so 141 pts for your heavy choice in the HC. Maybe 2 indiviual Broadsides with EWO? I can see that list doing decently against the Orks you described.

I'll echo a lot of what Milkman says. Essentially your list is all over the place. And Honestly I think you need to recheck some of your list.

Commander @ 70pts with all that stuff? maybe a typo and you meant 170?

And you state your crisis suit has a twin linked burst cannon- fusion- and target lock. that's 4 hard points you can only take 3

Ditch the Body guards, they're not worth the points IMO . you could run some multiple small Crisis teams in the Hunter Cadre and in all actuality Burst cannons might even suffice points wise so you can generate wounds. or CID's

The Hunter Cadre over watch special rule should allow you some safety against a rush. Or you could play Farsight Enclaves which has preferred enemy Orks.

You might need to know more about your buddy's list. I hate to provoke an arguement in someone else's gameroom but a few points; If it is a Blitz Brigade nothing from those Battle Wagonz should be assaulting turn one. For him to get a MFF (4++ Invul) he has to have a formation from the W!G codex that includes a Big Mek. So he really needs to have the Council formation or the Dread Mob and if he had the Council I'm sure you would be talking about Ghaz, so maybe not. Also, the MFF only affects the vehicle the Big Mek is on and is not a bubble unless he gets out.

Deploy your hammerheads on different sides of the board and shoot side armor on battlewagonz. That Pirhanna should be used to get in close and take a melta shot at at least the side of a Wagon.

FUN FACT! Ork battlewagonz are long and narrow, making the front AV14 arc very small. Be sure your Ork friend is being honest about what arc you are standing in when taking shots with your Railcannon and Fusion Blasters.

Try getting a flame template or two in your list. Ork vehicles are Open Topped and suffer from No Escape! rules when struck with a flame template. (I've played against enough of my friend's Land Raider Redeemers to be more familiar with this then I ever wanted to be).

Do not be afraid to fire small arms at Ork Trukks, even a lowly Fire Warrior's Str 5 AP 5 gun can strike any part of a Trukk and send it into a fiery explosion causing Str 4 wounds to all that is inside and nearby orkz and even other Ork Trukkz. Remember, unless he is fearless somehow (not likely unless it's a Ghazcurion) that he has to roll Morale if he loses 25% of his Boyz, and then also Pinning Tests.

Next, an Ork swarm list at 2000 points is going to fill the whole board and trip all over itself. Aside from deploying the Hammerheads split on the board you might consider overloading one side to force all his choppy stuff to clog the board. Then simply feed the front of the mob cheap things as they approach the corner. Particularly vehicles because (remember this) if he assaults a vehicle, he does not remain in combat and cannot make a consolidation move. And because of assault rules his boyz will bunch up on the vehicle, easily mopped up by templates in shooting after you need but move your vehicle if he didn't destroy it and fire again.

With Markerlight support for your hammerheads you should likely strip him of his Battlewagonz your first turn of shooting. Use your smaller stuff on Trukkz.

 Rismonite wrote:

For him to get a MFF (4++ Invul) he has to have a formation from the W!G codex that includes a Big Mek. So he really needs to have the Council formation or the Dread Mob and if he had the Council I'm sure you would be talking about Ghaz, so maybe not. Also, the MFF only affects the vehicle the Big Mek is on and is not a bubble unless he gets out.

Not really, he can use the detachment included in the supplement to use an HQ big mek equipped with the MFF. A big mek on bike with MFF is quite common and gives its invuln to everything that comes under the 6'' bubble. Sometimes I use that big mek too, it's quite tough to kill because other than the invuln he joins 7-8 warbikers, maybe even a warboss.

 Balancekeeper89 wrote:
I've got a game coming up that is tau vs (swarm) orks at 2k points, who currently rules our local gaming, this is my army, what you think?

Zero intent to be mean but I have to say your list is a bit of a mess. I'm going to go through and point out some of the errors and give a bit of advice as to how to tidy it up.

HQ

commander - cyclic ion, iridium armour, missile pod target lock and drone controller -- 70pts
-Commanders body gaurds (x2) - Burst cannons, missile pods, target lock -- 62pts each
-- 6 markerlight drones

Point value on the commander suit is definitely incorrect but I will assume its a typo. Good rule of thumb with Crisis Suits is to have 2 of the same weapon on each suit and for each suit in a unit to use the same weapon. So your commander should have 2x Cyclic Ion and for the commander to work with a unit that is also using 2x of the same weapon per suit. Iridium and Drone Controller are fine
Body Guards are almost always not worth it over regular Crisis Suits. Your basically paying premium points for 1 extra leadership and auto passing look our sir rolls.

Elites

Riptide (x2) - ion accelerator, stimulant injector -- 221 pts

Crisis battlesuit - twin fusion blaster, missile pod, target lock -- 81 pts
-- 2x gun drones

The Riptides are fine but the Crisis Suit has an illegal loadout. Each Crisis Suit has 3 gear slots and a twin linked weapon takes up 2 slots. Also I generally don't think gun drones are worth it with Crisis Suits unless your trying to spam S5 shots with a bunch of burst cannons + gun drones.

Troops

Strike squad (x3)- 11 fire warriors, 1 shas'ui (with marker and target lock) --157 pts each
-- 1x gun drone
-- 1x gaurdian drone

I love Fire Warriors but I find the Shas'ui upgrade to almost never be worth it. Fire Warriors work best when they are dirt cheap so bring a squad of 12 with their pulse rifles and you cut the cost by basically half. A 6+ invuln save isn't going to help much while your usually going to be looking to have cover or rely on your 4+ armor to keep you safe. Drones also lose the main benefit of being T4 as the majority toughness of the unit is T3.

Fast attack

Piranha - Fusion blaster, Gun drones -- 50 pts each

Heavy support

Hammerhead (x2) - Rail submunition, SMS, black sun filter -- 131 pts each

Hammerhead - Ion cannon, SMS, Blacksun Filter, Longstrike -- 171pts

This is fine. Not a huge fan of Longstrike but its not terrible by any means.

Support

Drone network (x2 gun, x1 marker) -- 56pts each

Each drone unit need 4 drones if im not mistaken and you shouldn't mix drone types in a unit.

Total pts --- 2000 pts


What you think?