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I'm interested in buying one, despite the Forge World pricing. I'm not poor, but I'm definitely not rich either, so buying an y'vahra is some pretty noticeable spending on my budget, and I wanted to check with the fine folks here on Dakka if you think it's actually worth its points.

On paper, it looks awesome. Whereas the normal riptide is so overcosted I wouldn't dream of fielding one, the y'vahra's plasma flamer and in-your-face weaponry, couple with a couple support systems, makes it seem like it could be downright nightmarish. What worries me is the points cost. Is it like the riptide, broadside and crisis suit too costly for its battlefield role, or should I buy one and expect it to wreak havoc on my enemies?

Any input would be appreciated. I have 0 experience with forge world models except getting my ass kicked by them whenever my opponent fields one, so I'm really hoping the y'vahra could be a centrepiece for my army.

OK, a few points to consider first before making a fairly decent outlay.

1) Opponents can dowright refuse to play against you if you rock up with a FW mini/army. Not as bad as it used to be but it does happen.

2) If you are considering FW can you stretch to the Tuna Supremacy suit/monstrosity. That will bring far more hurt to the table?

3) Also, what is your reason for looking at FW, just because your opponents use FW models and they knobble you? Could you adapt tactics and/or unit choices with what you already have?

Believe me, I am not trying to say 'learn to play noob', just a few points to cover before you get the card out and pay a bundle.

I've played with (on a team game-not by me) and against them. They're brutal.

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
OK, a few points to consider first before making a fairly decent outlay.

1) Opponents can dowright refuse to play against you if you rock up with a FW mini/army. Not as bad as it used to be but it does happen.

2) If you are considering FW can you stretch to the Tuna Supremacy suit/monstrosity. That will bring far more hurt to the table?

3) Also, what is your reason for looking at FW, just because your opponents use FW models and they knobble you? Could you adapt tactics and/or unit choices with what you already have?

Believe me, I am not trying to say 'learn to play noob', just a few points to cover before you get the card out and pay a bundle.

1) Not likely to happen at our club. We've got no formal rules that I know of, but generally there seems to be an understanding that if you want to bring FW, you can. The club tournament doesn't bar them either AFAIK.

2) I've considered it. I could afford it, I guess, but something in me cringes at the idea of buying your way to victory with a hardcore supermodel. I hate it when that happens to me, and I don't want to be That Guy. I'm really only wanting the y'vahra to level the playing field, as a lot of the guys I play against bring really hardcore stuff and IMHO the tau right now aren't great (whereas space marines etc have a whole new codex to play around with).

3) Basically that, yes. As I said before I think Tau armies right now aren't very strong, and although most players at my club don't bring FW, some do and I don't want to be doubly disadvantaged. Right now all I've got that is legitimately good is Longstrike and the fusion commander, everything else is either decent (stormsurge, hammerheads, fire warriors, pathfinders etc) or flat out bad (all of the battlesuits except stealth suits, on account of being overcosted and unreliable, thanks markerlight nerf).
Could I adapt? Sure, and I already have by incorporating 2 fusion commanders and longstrike into my army, but no matter what I do I always seem to be at a disadvantage. Part of it is my relative inexperience (I'm one of the newest members at the club, 1 year of gaming so far and 8th is still fresh), but part of it is also the lack of really hard-hitting, tough in-your-face units. As Tau I CANNOT be out on the board, scoring objectives etc, until I've had a good three or four turns of shooting if the army I'm facing is tough, which is a severe scoring disadvantage that's carried over from 7th ed. The y'vahra would fill that niche neatly, I think.
The biggest problem for me is twofold: some of the best units from 7th are all but useless due to overcosting, and the markerlight nerf has made my entire arsenal, across the board, that much less powerful.

I'm really hoping the next tau codex will fix this. Until then, I need something that can pick up the slack against the competitive lists in my club.

So, I can't really say whether it is or is not worth the cost to you, that's something you need to decide for yourself. I can however, tell you about my experiences with them.

My most commonly used list, which is currently undefeated in the shop, consists of a Y'Vahra, two fusion Commanders with Gun Drones, two three man Crisis Suit squads with CIBs and ATS, and six Gun Drones, two full Breacher squads in Devifish, one of which also has Darkstrider, two six man Pathfinder squads with three in rifles, and finally a minimum Strike Squad with a markerlight on the leader, so that it all fits into a battalion.

The reason I tell you this is to give context for how the Y'Vahra plays. Your entire list has to be aggressive, not just that part of it. It's expensive and hits like a train loaded with trucks against the right targets, so your opponent is going to focus it down if you let them. Against most weapons, it's not much more durable than a Devilfish, so it needs protecting. Drones are a must, but other threats are useful too. When your opponent has to choose between letting it live, and getting letting everything else that's launched across the table, or deepstruck into their face live, it becomes a difficult choice. It's fast enough that it will leave those drones that keep it alive far behind, so the best way to do it is to deep strike them in beside it after it's moved. Second turn you move it to where the drones already are, if it's still around.

Even when your opponent kills it without it doing anything, it's usually drawn so much attention that everything else is able to run around untouched, which will win the game for you. As far as a centerpiece goes, it's a great one. Treat it like a glass hammer and it'll do well for you. As a single aggressive piece it'll more than likely kill one thing then dire horribly, but if your entire army is aggressive, it has a decent chance of lasting to the end of the game, or at least being such a massive distraction that it let's you target key pieces with other things.

Plus... It's pretty damned cool looking.

Deadawake1347 wrote:
So, I can't really say whether it is or is not worth the cost to you, that's something you need to decide for yourself. I can however, tell you about my experiences with them.

My most commonly used list, which is currently undefeated in the shop, consists of a Y'Vahra, two fusion Commanders with Gun Drones, two three man Crisis Suit squads with CIBs and ATS, and six Gun Drones, two full Breacher squads in Devifish, one of which also has Darkstrider, two six man Pathfinder squads with three in rifles, and finally a minimum Strike Squad with a markerlight on the leader, so that it all fits into a battalion.

The reason I tell you this is to give context for how the Y'Vahra plays. Your entire list has to be aggressive, not just that part of it. It's expensive and hits like a train loaded with trucks against the right targets, so your opponent is going to focus it down if you let them. Against most weapons, it's not much more durable than a Devilfish, so it needs protecting. Drones are a must, but other threats are useful too. When your opponent has to choose between letting it live, and getting letting everything else that's launched across the table, or deepstruck into their face live, it becomes a difficult choice. It's fast enough that it will leave those drones that keep it alive far behind, so the best way to do it is to deep strike them in beside it after it's moved. Second turn you move it to where the drones already are, if it's still around.

Even when your opponent kills it without it doing anything, it's usually drawn so much attention that everything else is able to run around untouched, which will win the game for you. As far as a centerpiece goes, it's a great one. Treat it like a glass hammer and it'll do well for you. As a single aggressive piece it'll more than likely kill one thing then dire horribly, but if your entire army is aggressive, it has a decent chance of lasting to the end of the game, or at least being such a massive distraction that it let's you target key pieces with other things.

Plus... It's pretty damned cool looking.

I'd be perfectly fine paying the money if they're good. What I really need to know is the points cost. Without weapons added I think they're at least in the 300s...


Crisis suits, really? I can't think of anything they do that other units don't do better for cost. But if it works for you, all the more power to you.

So... the entire list has to be aggressive? That's an interesting thought; I usually play a fairly static gun line, with stealth suits and commanders to account for presence across the board. What I had imagined is the Y'vahra taking position alongside a flank, going for some juicy targets while drawing fire away from the rest of my gun line, or if they ignore it, circle round and pick off targets at will.
Can drones even deep strike? Is that a special rule for y'vahra drones? Because normal drones can't, I've checked.

That is the idea, yeah. Like most really powerful models, it'll attract all the fire in the world (I recall a game I played vs a khorne player who brought that nasty forge world scorpion thing- it died in one turn, but I don't think I shot any of the bigger guns at anything but the scorpion, allowing the rhinoes with berzerkers to advance unchecked). Most of all it'll force my opponent to react to my play, rather than me reacting to his as tends to be the case with a more passive gunline.
"Kill one thing and die horribly"... well, that sounds like an okay trade? If it gets one good turn, it'll probably be worth it if I can take out equally as many priority targets of my enemy. The idea of an aggressive tau list feels like anathema to how the army was designed. We're not aggressive because up close, we evaporate.
If I were to go aggressive, what would you recommend? As far as I'm concerned, breachers are only useful in a devilfish, and a devilfish is too costly for what it brings, and crisis suits are quite possibly the worst unit in the entire index for the tau, with its mediocre, unreliable shooting and high points cost.

That I completely agree with. It looks really, really cool.

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
1) Opponents can dowright refuse to play against you if you rock up with a FW mini/army. Not as bad as it used to be but it does happen.

Just to nitpick, opponents can do that for any model or any reason, it's not somehow exclusive to FW stuff.

Drones bought for deep striking suits can deep strike, as they are set up on the table together.

The Y'varha runs in the ~400-450pts range depending on what you fit it with. Definitely not the suit for you if you don't want to be aggressive, considering its weapons are in the 12" or less range. Also BS4+.

It's a hair over 400 once you add in the support system you want on it. And honestly, I've not had any issues with the Crisis Suits. Since they're largely ignored in this list, they can target whatever they want, and are great for doing those last few wounds, or if they get to overcharge with a markerlight on the target, actually make for decent antitank.

Drones can't deepstrike, unless they're bought by a unit that can. They're set up with whatever purchased them, so if you buy Crisis Suits, you can take two drones for each suit, and when you deploy those suits, you deploy those drones as well. It's actually a big part of what makes the Crisis Suits worth it to me. The fact that I can drop six ablative wounds anywhere on the board I want.

The trick to aggressive Tau, and I seem to be one of the only people who thinks this way, but being close isn't an issue if you kill everything that wants to charge you. My last game was against a World Eater's army. I spent 90% of the game inside of a foot, and the only thing I lost was the Y'Vahra after it was charged by an Assault Claw at nine inches, so I couldn't use the flamer.

The only issue I have with the Y'Vahra is that without drones, it's hideously expensive, and won't last against any real attempt to take it out. And it's so fast that drones have no chance of keeping up. So it only works well as a distraction if you are able to get drones around it.

I will say it's a great piece, I've played eight games with that list against several different armies, and usually won by the end of second turn through overwhelming firepower. It's definitely an alpha/beta strike list, and we play with a good amount of Loss blocking terrain, but being able to deepstrike half my army helps them get into spots where they otherwise couldn't hope to. It's a list that more or less takes advantage of pinpoint deepstrike to remove threats.

It's a hair over 400 once you add in the support system you want on it. And honestly, I've not had any issues with the Crisis Suits. Since they're largely ignored in this list, they can target whatever they want, and are great for doing those last few wounds, or if they get to overcharge with a markerlight on the target, actually make for decent antitank.

Drones can't deepstrike, unless they're bought by a unit that can. They're set up with whatever purchased them, so if you buy Crisis Suits, you can take two drones for each suit, and when you deploy those suits, you deploy those drones as well. It's actually a big part of what makes the Crisis Suits worth it to me. The fact that I can drop six ablative wounds anywhere on the board I want.

The trick to aggressive Tau, and I seem to be one of the only people who thinks this way, but being close isn't an issue if you kill everything that wants to charge you. My last game was against a World Eater's army. I spent 90% of the game inside of a foot, and the only thing I lost was the Y'Vahra after it was charged by an Assault Claw at nine inches, so I couldn't use the flamer.

The only issue I have with the Y'Vahra is that without drones, it's hideously expensive, and won't last against any real attempt to take it out. And it's so fast that drones have no chance of keeping up. So it only works well as a distraction if you are able to get drones around it.

I will say it's a great piece, I've played eight games with that list against several different armies, and usually won by the end of second turn through overwhelming firepower. It's definitely an alpha/beta strike list, and we play with a good amount of Loss blocking terrain, but being able to deepstrike half my army helps them get into spots where they otherwise couldn't hope to. It's a list that more or less takes advantage of pinpoint deepstrike to remove threats.

400? That doesn't sound too bad all things considered.

My issue with the crisis suit is that they're overcosted. Sure, them being ignored does mean they get to live... but that awfully unreliable 4+ BS means they're not sure to hit anything, and the markerlight nerf makes it little better (especially since they're often out of range). If a crisis suit cost 20 or so pts base instead of 43, I'd probably consider taking them, but as is, they add too little for too many points.

Well yeah, I know that... but the y'vahra can't deepstrike, right?

World Eaters are, all things considered, a comparatively weak army. An all-melee army whose only strength is getting up close and butchering is something I've countered with relative ease, too predictable and too easy to counter. However, a more varied army of chaos, or any army with lots of high toughness and armour saves and a great variety of tricks up their sleeve, that's a lot harder to handle. Your list as you described it doesn't seem to have close to the amount of shooting necessary to just kill everything.

My question to you would be how competitive the lists you played against were. Against some of the gnarliest stuff out there, I'm not so sure "aggressive tau" would even be an option.

Crisis suits with flamers are really good. You just need some stealth teams with homing beacons.

The way I'd play y'vahra would include Coldstar to pop mont'ka on it turn one, then dropping crisis suits with drones around it for protection. With a good advance roll he will likely get to shoot it's ion discharge cannon at something. Then just hope you brought enough drones to be able to wreck face next turn too.

Stealth suits are good. Crisis suits are not. Flamers make them good at one thing only, and every bit as susceptible to easily being focused down by dedicated gunfire. At best you do a lot of damage to one unit with your flamers, only for the suits to die the next round or maybe the round after that if you're lucky. Currently I see no use for them that isn't utilmately a waste of points.

Drones are good, mont'ka is good, but I don't see why I'd ever use a coldstar when I want basically every commander to have fusion blasters.

In general, never spend money on something because it's good in a game (particularly if it's a high budget item). Spend money on something because you like it.

That goes double for large, poorly produced resin items from a major manufacturer.

In short: do you like the whatever unit? Buy it. If you just want some X-mathehammery-percentage-boost...then no, don't buy it.

 Elbows wrote:
In general, never spend money on something because it's good in a game (particularly if it's a high budget item). Spend money on something because you like it.

That goes double for large, poorly produced resin items from a major manufacturer.

In short: do you like the whatever unit? Buy it. If you just want some X-mathehammery-percentage-boost...then no, don't buy it.

I kinda think like that except if I did, I'd never have bought any pathfinders or commanders because they don't really excite me... you collect minis for fun as a hobby, but you kinda also have to be realistic if you want to play the game properly.

Now, is the y'vahra cool? Undoubtedly. Is my primary reason for getting it that it's cool? ...no. I'm sick and tired of losing, that's why. I love playing and I love painting, but I'm not the kind of person who just shrugs if he loses ten games straight.

It is beyond broken and you absolutely should field this in a competitive list.

Put it in the middle of your commanders, as you'll have a lot of them, and if it comes time for greater good, you'll have the single nastiest flamer in the game firing overwatch.

Here's how you win with Tau:

1. A ton of commanders.
2. A Y'vahra
3. Some crisis suits, maybe a 5-10 pathfinders
4. A lot of drones, like 20+

Learn to play this list and you will crush people. Tau are one of the best armies in this edition, and the ITC stats reflect it. If you're losing get some of the good stuff.

Given that you say you run more of a gun line Tau army, have you considered the R'varna instead? Seems like it would fit with your current army style better and puts out quite a bit of firepower.

 Marmatag wrote:
It is beyond broken and you absolutely should field this in a competitive list.

Put it in the middle of your commanders, as you'll have a lot of them, and if it comes time for greater good, you'll have the single nastiest flamer in the game firing overwatch.

Here's how you win with Tau:

1. A ton of commanders.
2. A Y'vahra
3. Some crisis suits, maybe a 5-10 pathfinders
4. A lot of drones, like 20+

Learn to play this list and you will crush people. Tau are one of the best armies in this edition, and the ITC stats reflect it. If you're losing get some of the good stuff.

Right now I field only 2 commanders, although I plan on getting more.

Crisis suits? Never on your life. They're terrible for their cost. Drones are worth considering, I guess. Pathfinders... you need at least 20 to secure markerlight support.

 SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
It is beyond broken and you absolutely should field this in a competitive list.

Put it in the middle of your commanders, as you'll have a lot of them, and if it comes time for greater good, you'll have the single nastiest flamer in the game firing overwatch.

Here's how you win with Tau:

1. A ton of commanders.
2. A Y'vahra
3. Some crisis suits, maybe a 5-10 pathfinders
4. A lot of drones, like 20+

Learn to play this list and you will crush people. Tau are one of the best armies in this edition, and the ITC stats reflect it. If you're losing get some of the good stuff.

Right now I field only 2 commanders, although I plan on getting more.

Crisis suits? Never on your life. They're terrible for their cost. Drones are worth considering, I guess. Pathfinders... you need at least 20 to secure markerlight support.

Crisis Shasui/Shasvre in two units of 3, for a total of 18 cyclic ion blasters. It's quite a bit of dakka and they have enough wounds to shield commanders further, after drones go down.

Those, plus the gun drones, will chew up MSU, and the commanders will shred big targets. And the Y'varha makes you nearly immune to assault.

Crisis Shasui/Shasvre in two units of 3, for a total of 18 cyclic ion blasters. It's quite a bit of dakka and they have enough wounds to shield commanders further, after drones go down.

Those, plus the gun drones, will chew up MSU, and the commanders will shred big targets. And the Y'varha makes you nearly immune to assault.

582 96

Let's see here. 2x3 suits with 18 fusion blasters would cost me a whopping 582 points. With 6 gun drones each, that's 678 pts total.

678 points for two squads that are kinda good against SMEQs? On an unreliable 4+? Just... this is exactly what I'm talking about. The cost is way too high. That's 678 points that should be spent on more reliable shooting. I'd be paying way too much for a very specific amount of dakka that frankly I can get better worth out of from other areas of the Tau arsenal. The only real advantage is the deepstrike, everything else I get better worth out of elsewhere.

It's not too high. The list I shared with you is a tournament winning list. Anyway i'll let you figure it out. Everyone has different playstyles. Good luck!

Yes on the Y'Vahra, definitely buy one if you play against competitive lists.

Let's not start the "Y'vahrah is broken drum" please because it's not. If you can't handle a non-commander spam Tau list in this meta and are not a fellow bottom tier list then shut up and get good. Sick of hearing newbies parade around the drum oh the Tau are op the Tau are op and idiots believed the hype and we are now stuck with our trash army with over nerfs.

The Y'vahrah is one of our only "good" units that is perfectly balanced. No Tau list in any big tournament in 8th has won with one. They do get high, but they aren't that good they will auto win the game for you. The big problem is smart players will focus fire and the fact the rest of the Tau army is meagre and unable to support its alpha/beta strike capabilities.

Heck even the Ta'unar TITAN is easily taken down by Gulliman and grav/missile spam lists. It's simple insanity how good he makes an entire army for how cheap. My TITAN was taken out in two turns and that was with a dozen drones acting as albalative wounds. It barely evened the playing field. The fact that a huge titan can barely level the playing field for a Tau army in 8th says a lot about the atrocious state of our index.

If I had done some things different and had a more fair map I might have been able to tie him, but it would have been an uphill battle.

The Y'vahrah is the only good Forgeworld unit left. The Ta'unar is a joke for its cost right now especially it's heavy rail cannon array upgrade which costs 5 more points than the default gun and does less damage to all targets. Forgeworld has nerfed too much of our stuff.

The Y'vahrah will be a good solid purchase and it's one of my fav Tau models I own. Simply superb model. It is not so good that it can win a game on its own or as OP as RIptide Wing spam in 7th. It's good and it should be left where it is.

The rest of the Tau FW range needs to be looked at and buffed slightly. The units aren't as bad as the codex for the most part, but they aren't great. I think one of the XV9's is more points efficient than the equivalent crisis suit load-out, but it's not saying much.

Don't buy and play Taunar unless they're spamming Cerastus Knights or Warhounds.

It was the only unit I had in my collection other than my troops that didn't suck ass. Also I used to play my friends and other local players near me and we would poorhammer some proxies in for troops. All of a sudden I had to actually have more troops ready for a tournament so I rushed to get some more ready. As a FSE player who used tons of suits 8th edition has devastated my 7th ed list and most of my collection is gathering dust.

I miss running my crisis suits. :(

I did manage to win a game with it and come in 5th place though so it's not terrible, but it's not super OP either.

Don't drop the discussion into "get good" territory. Tau are doing better than almost all the armies in overall ITC faction rankings, and still finish very good in major events. They are in a great place right now, far better than most armies.

The Y'varha negates some armies entirely. Just by existing.

For the last time that is commander spam. I and 95% of other Tau player don't want to rely on commander spam to win. They are easily over half the cost of the list in all the major ones that actually win.

It's boring, unfluffy, and unfun to play against, and in it's current iteration unfun to play since all you do is suicide drop them all down.

When it comes to actual Tau games without commander spam the results speak for themselves as its a slaughter out there with Tau being in bottom tier of factions currently. You can try and pretend against all the months and months of evidence, but every single time I debate this no one can disprove me. Going on 4 months now of basically everything I've said not being disproved but being proven. The only thing I was wrong about was commander spam being this good. Heck I even want commander spam tonned down along with other stuff (Guilliman for example is way too strong). You know what? I'm sick of repeating myself. Suffice to say I want the game balanced since before 8th dropped and I haven't seen any real attempts to do so yet in 8th. I think my past posts have spoken for themselves on the matter.

 Marmatag wrote:
It's not too high. The list I shared with you is a tournament winning list. Anyway i'll let you figure it out. Everyone has different playstyles. Good luck!

Crisis suits being overcosted (and riptides, and broadsides) is a hill I'll gladly die defending. They're just not nearly worth it anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gamgee wrote:
For the last time that is commander spam. I and 95% of other Tau player don't want to rely on commander spam to win. They are easily over half the cost of the list in all the major ones that actually win.

It's boring, unfluffy, and unfun to play against, and in it's current iteration unfun to play since all you do is suicide drop them all down.

When it comes to actual Tau games without commander spam the results speak for themselves as its a slaughter out there with Tau being in bottom tier of factions currently. You can try and pretend against all the months and months of evidence, but every single time I debate this no one can disprove me. Going on 4 months now of basically everything I've said not being disproved but being proven. The only thing I was wrong about was commander spam being this good. Heck I even want commander spam tonned down along with other stuff (Guilliman for example is way too strong). You know what? I'm sick of repeating myself. Suffice to say I want the game balanced since before 8th dropped and I haven't seen any real attempts to do so yet in 8th. I think my past posts have spoken for themselves on the matter.

This 100%. Commander spam is the only way to really stay competitive against the nastier armies out there. I've done decently against various lists, but wins are few and far in between. I don't think my list choices are weak, but I shouldn't have to completely ignore the fluff just to make a winning list.

Short answer: yes!

Medium answer: yes, it delivers what you pay for it.

Long answer: of course you should get one - ont only it works really well, it's the coolest-looking Riptide variant!
However, it will die. The enemy won't let it survive many turns after witnessing what it can do. However, do you know what? It works as a distraction carnifex way better than a Riptide, for a similar cost. It does double duty for almost a Knight in price (and nowhere as resistent).
Be sure to squeeze as much work from it as possible before it vanishes from the table by turn 2 or 3

If you're buying it because it's a strong unit be aware that FW have a habit of nerfing strong models into oblivion when they next get updated.

The only good reason to buy FW is because you really like the model. You cannot rely on a strong unit staying strong (GW units aren't immune from this but it seems to happen very predictably with FW) or even having functional rules.