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.

So I've been interested in starting Tau (1500pt?) and after reading through forums etc it seems lile they get a lot of Hate.
I've yet to play against one(beginner) or see a Tau army.

Now, I don't need my army to be full competitive- I want to be able to enjoy playing it without cheese!

So I was thinking maybe just 1 Riptide? And basing my army on infantry/ stealth suits?

What would a generic list look like without the Riptide spam and cheese?

And is the Start Collecting box a good start?

Thanks guys.

Just play

HQ: Shaper
Troop: Kroot
Fast attack: vespids, flyers and kroot hounds
Heavy: Krootox

 oldzoggy wrote:
Just play

HQ: Shaper
Troop: Kroot
Fast attack: vespids, flyers and kroot hounds
Heavy: Krootox

Not a fan of Kroot models and fluff.

And... Vespids have IMO one of THE worst models out of the current GW range...

Just avoid spamming the Riptide and take a couple of sub-optimal units like Breachers or Pathfinders. You should be fine.

Sikplex, I would recommend playing what you want to play and what your friends are comfortable playing against, not so much what the internet doesn't like.

Yet, I would also recommend, in order to keep your friends from reacting the same way as the internet, to play a variety of units, not always the most efficient units.

Bring some Firewarriors [by themselves, they're not cheese], Devilfish, Hammerheads, Kroot [including them can be fun for both sides], Broadsides, maybe an Ethereal.

Pick up the Start Collecting box, and experiment with the units as you learn. You should aim to learn over time how the army works, and how to use a variety of units well, and not just rely on having a few optimized units as a crutch.

If you stick to a CAD and only take one Tau MC then you should be fine

Tau are hated simply because they are frustrating to play against. It's not about cheese, but the style of play they must use to be successful. Superior range and fire power do not make for a great gaming experience. Nobody likes getting slapped around for 5-7 turns doing minimal damage back.

That said, you can beat them. But not everybody wants to relive the experience. Even Tau players. It's the main reason you rarely see Tau vs Tau games.

second attempt. Do not use marker lights or anything that can make a jump move ; )

I'm just using whatever I like the look of best and trying to keep the entire army short to mid ranged so that while I may use jump shoot jump, I'm not doing it from half a board away too. Markerlights I'm throwing on stealthsuits which I'm told is suboptimal then I'm looking at a total of 6 lights in 1850.

Of course, a lot of tau units are quite good but only a few of them are extremely good. Just avoid the stormsurge and take a single riptide, you'll have a decent army without the cheese, but still mid tier.

The biggest issue people have with tau is that most of the tau turn is JSJ or just shoot from across the board. For the first few turns, outside of bikes or pods (which they get to shoot first), you can't do much of anything against them, and even after that they'll rarely see close combat. Against the extremely static tau armies it feels like the game is just "march toward them while dying, if you make it there you stab them", where suit games feel like "why can't I shoot them, get back here cowards". In general it always feels like "we ignore all your special rules" as well as having a very hard counter to close combat (all our stuff gets to shoot your stuff if you don't make 4 coordinated charges).

It really is hard to overcome these issues outside of running extremely underoptimized lists, at which point you won't have a good time. I'll play against tau, but that's because I'm fine with the whole "my stuff dies en masse" thing. Some people just want more interaction in a game.

The problem is the definition of cheese, I have a large force of Tau but prefer to field Farsight enclaves with mass battle suits and 2 of my friends are of differing opinions. one outright refuses to play me as tau as he see's many aspects of tau as broken, despite the fact they are aspects that I play the bare minimum of, if at all. The other friend is more than willing to because the list is pretty straight forward and pretty predictable despite its strength. I say far sight enclaves, he expects plenty of battle suits, not 3 riptides with lots of marker drones or a swarm of piranha. you can't really cheese a list if you play a more rounded style army that incorporates a fluffier style army rather than focusing on the powerful formations.

People overstate how powerful Tau are. I lose with them all the time!

In my last two games, I was beaten by Tyranids then Dark Eldar / Eldar Corsairs (git kept putting my broadsides in reserve!).

Anything in the game can handle 1 Riptide, aslong as you don't include other powerful units with it.

I'd say steer clear of the Stormsurge, the standard "command squad" build, spamming Skyrays or Ghostkeels if you want an actual casual Tau army.

Firewarriors, Pathfinders, Hammerheads, Sniper Drones, Ethereals, Pirahnas and especially the Tau -flyers make for a more relaxed army. If someone hates on that, they just got issues and it has nothing to do with actual game balance so leave those fellas to play by themselves.

As a caveat to the riptide, don't take stimms or the IA, limit the use of the 3++ nova charge

I enjoy playing non cheese. Personally I am a big fan of the tau vehicles so I like playing them. Usually not considered cheesy playing two hammerheads and no riptides.

 pumpinchimp wrote:
People overstate how powerful Tau are. I lose with them all the time!

In my last two games, I was beaten by Tyranids then Dark Eldar / Eldar Corsairs (git kept putting my broadsides in reserve!).

Why would you put Broadies in reserve?

 Vector Strike wrote:

 pumpinchimp wrote:
People overstate how powerful Tau are. I lose with them all the time!

In my last two games, I was beaten by Tyranids then Dark Eldar / Eldar Corsairs (git kept putting my broadsides in reserve!).

Why would you put Broadies in reserve?

I didn't. The corsairs get a psychic power that puts an enemy unit into ongoing reserves. He kept doing it to my broadsides, they spent the whole game walking on my board edge then snap firing at things. It sucked (but at the same time was really funny).

It's stupid that they don't have relentless.

I think playing with lots of terrain alleviates a lot of problems with facing Tau. Just make sure you can't play a static gunline.

As a side effect the game feels a lot better with the amount of terrain.

play maelstrom of war missions preferably tactical supremecy objectives.

I would not say don't take any riptides, but keep it to one.

get devilfish for your fir warriors and actually play mobile tau. it is both fun to play and fun to play against while still being fairly strong. JSJ units are fine but keep it to less than 1/4 points, gives your opponent something to work towards assaulting.

general rule of thumb for me in games to keep them fun is that I should be spending roughly equal time in movement, shooting and assault phase, though when playing my tau it is just roughly equal move and shoot, then avoiding assaults like the plague unless I am playing with allies that can do so.

People always do this - give something "They" dislike a negative name and then push that narrative to everyone around them.

How many major tournaments have been won by Tau over the years? All I seem to find is Eldar.

I can't imagine telling someone not to play something they own. I do like when people take it upon themselves to make sure both sides are having fun. Ultimately that means it's not about the rules that GW creates, but what the players do with it. The players are responsible for spam lists.

 Da-Rock wrote:
People always do this - give something "They" dislike a negative name and then push that narrative to everyone around them.

How many major tournaments have been won by Tau over the years? All I seem to find is Eldar.

I can't imagine telling someone not to play something they own. I do like when people take it upon themselves to make sure both sides are having fun. Ultimately that means it's not about the rules that GW creates, but what the players do with it. The players are responsible for spam lists.

We've gone over this a few times so i'll rehash it quickly and if you want more detail you can go find the older posts.

Tau are not #1 overall, they are tied for #2 with SMs. Eldar are still the end all be all cheese of cheese. Tau do better then almost every other army though because of how little skill it takes to play their super competitive builds. Take Riptides, deploy markerlights, kill things from across the table.

tau get a bad rep because the game is boring when you play against them. its a cat and mouse game that you really cant win because they are faster then almost every other faction and have more dakka then every other faction.

The point of this post wasn't telling others what to play with or not to play with it was to help a guy play casual tau because he doesn't want to be TFG Tau player which we all know and love

So with that in mind to the OP, Don't take riptide wings, 1 riptide at the ABSOLUTE MOST, don't take anything bigger then a riptide either. Avoid spamming SMS, Missilesides and what not. Even though they are never seen, regular standard issue firewarriors are actually fairly good. S5 Range 30 rapid fire weapon? yes please. Take some stealth suits for fun, they are also under rated but they are pretty bad. Grab some Suits to jump around and have fun with. Piranha are also good fun and can do some damage if used correctly, but again sub optimal.

In most circumstances, fire warriors are more effective than tac marines. They do double the wounds to T6, a critical T value, and they can glance out AV 11 and glance out AV 10 twice as fast.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Da-Rock wrote:
People always do this - give something "They" dislike a negative name and then push that narrative to everyone around them.

How many major tournaments have been won by Tau over the years? All I seem to find is Eldar.

I can't imagine telling someone not to play something they own. I do like when people take it upon themselves to make sure both sides are having fun. Ultimately that means it's not about the rules that GW creates, but what the players do with it. The players are responsible for spam lists.

We've gone over this a few times so i'll rehash it quickly and if you want more detail you can go find the older posts.

Tau are not #1 overall, they are tied for #2 with SMs. Eldar are still the end all be all cheese of cheese. Tau do better then almost every other army though because of how little skill it takes to play their super competitive builds. Take Riptides, deploy markerlights, kill things from across the table.

tau get a bad rep because the game is boring when you play against them. its a cat and mouse game that you really cant win because they are faster then almost every other faction and have more dakka then every other faction.

The point of this post wasn't telling others what to play with or not to play with it was to help a guy play casual tau because he doesn't want to be TFG Tau player which we all know and love

So with that in mind to the OP, Don't take riptide wings, 1 riptide at the ABSOLUTE MOST, don't take anything bigger then a riptide either. Avoid spamming SMS, Missilesides and what not. Even though they are never seen, regular standard issue firewarriors are actually fairly good. S5 Range 30 rapid fire weapon? yes please. Take some stealth suits for fun, they are also under rated but they are pretty bad. Grab some Suits to jump around and have fun with. Piranha are also good fun and can do some damage if used correctly, but again sub optimal.

Iirc only riptide wings placed well, and even then daemons beat them along with cross and SM from whatever the last major tourney was (again, iirc)

Eldar/tau combo placed 5th (of which it was MOSTLY eldar with a single riptide wing with a grand total of 3 riptides), and farsight enclave placed 7th. So really, one tau army placed 7th, DA placed 2nd, but daemons still won overall.

 Gamgee wrote:
http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2017/02/07/las-vegas-open-2017-top-8-lists-pictures/

So in order.

Chaos Deamons, Dark Angels Wolfstar, Chaos Deamon, Cult Mechanicus War Convo, Eldar-Tau, Corsairs, Farsight Enclaves and Chaos Deamons. Also I think a Dark Eldar player almost made the top 11 with a majority DE army and only a tiny amount of Eldar.

So those are all doing good int eh current meta, but this was not factoring in the new Eldar release at all. So it's already out of date. From what I hear both GS 2 and GS3 adds some super powerful options to their respective factions. It all remains to see how the meta will play out.

If you play Tau where you have lots of models and are taking casualties then it's not as unfun for the opponent to play against. If your bringing just a few big MC suits with lots of wounds and good saves then it's more frustrating when a lot of the enemy's shooting is plinking off of them. Also playing Tau where you being more aggressive with scoring and moving instead of camping at long range makes the game a lot more fun. That being said if the opponent is playing pure melee then don't just run your guts forward to get charged but having units to spare and plenty of bodies makes Tau more interesting to play as and against.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

get devilfish for your fir warriors and actually play mobile tau. it is both fun to play and fun to play against while still being fairly strong.

Is there a list for that? Sounds cool.

Dragobeth wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

get devilfish for your fir warriors and actually play mobile tau. it is both fun to play and fun to play against while still being fairly strong.

Is there a list for that? Sounds cool.

basic 1850

shadowsun
riptide
stealthsuits
crisisx3 burst cannon and missiles

2x10 breachers with emp grenades in devilfish
2x fir warriors with emp in devilfish

1 razershark

2x broadsides each its own unit rail rifle and missiles velocity trackers and EWO

troops take objectives zip around in devilfish and get in good positions

crisis suits jump around and stealthsuits try and cover hop

everything but the broadsides stay in motion

 oldzoggy wrote:
Just play

HQ: Shaper
Troop: Kroot
Fast attack: vespids, flyers and kroot hounds
Heavy: Krootox

Kroot ox, shaper and hounds are upgrades to kroot, not their own units.

yeah this is partly why I posted it.
I know this, or at least I thought I knew, I have been trying to make a decent kroot army for a while now but its impossible due to nu hq HQ's outside the chapterapproved stuff. However the GW site doesn't list them all under troops they list them under HQ, fast and heavy...

Did I miss something, is the webshop wrong or is it hinting at some changes ?

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Dragobeth wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

get devilfish for your fir warriors and actually play mobile tau. it is both fun to play and fun to play against while still being fairly strong.

Is there a list for that? Sounds cool.

basic 1850

shadowsun
riptide
stealthsuits
crisisx3 burst cannon and missiles

2x10 breachers with emp grenades in devilfish
2x fir warriors with emp in devilfish

1 razershark

2x broadsides each its own unit rail rifle and missiles velocity trackers and EWO

troops take objectives zip around in devilfish and get in good positions

crisis suits jump around and stealthsuits try and cover hop

everything but the broadsides stay in motion

Can't take 2 support systems on a broadside