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As the title suggests I am a new Tau player by way of rash decisions.
That being said Ive heard lot of controversy surrounding the Riptide, Y'Vahra, and Stormsurge.

Are they really as good as people say? The Riptide and Yvahra.
Is the Stormsurge as bad as people say? Just a look at the codex it seems to be pretty awesome to me.

I really like the Bor'kan sept because that extra 6" can come in handy in a lot of situations.

As for a commander im torn between the obviously powerful Coldstar or the Forgeworld XV84. The coldstar has speed on its side but the XV84 has a bunch of sweet rules and its has access to drones that can keep up with it.

To give you an idea of what i usually play against. Chaos. Lot of chaos and lots of Nurgle to be specific. Now with knights being awesome ive run into those as well.

Thank you any and all who reply!

The Riptide is good, but you need to support it with stratagems - i.e. it is command point hungry, because you're going to want to double nova charge it every turn. This means you're probably only fielding one, and you need to bring enough CP to feed both it and any other tricks you might try. This isn't terribly hard, as Tau have access to cheap HQ that are actually quite good at supporting their Troops choices. OTOH, you can bring two, as only one might get alpha striked before it can do anything.

Given the amount of praise the Y'Vahra gets you'd think it was the second coming, but most recognize it's a glass cannon, relatively speaking.

I don't know where people get the Stormsurge is bad, it seems fine to me.

Borkan is good, Sa'cea can be very useful, and Tau is very useful for gunlines and has all the good characters (Longstrike, Darkstrider).

You won't regret a Coldstar, they are stupid mobile. With 40" movement you can usually find a good position to not get shot back at too much, just defend it with shield drones on turn one.

Tau should perform well vs Nurgle as T5 isn't a problem for Tau firepower.

I see. Thank you for the input. Would you say a Yvahra is or isnt worth it in a casual setting? Not much of a competitive sce e where im at.

Your going to want at least a minimum strength battalion of strike team fire warriors and a pair of riptides as a center to your army, with a fireblade and commander, personally I would have atleast 1 coldstar as that 40 inch move turn 4 onwards can be clutch especially with 3 or 4 fusion shots.

A Yhvara is a lovely model Imho but right now its over costed point wise for competitive setting, in the 30 to 50 points range. However if your not facing people that chase the meta it still has a psychological effect on your opponents.
It will eat deathguard and primaris, but it has to be borkan.

If your fielding riptides a second battalion will net you some much needed CP. The other option is tigersharks which are very competitive meta but still don't seem as strong as Aldari or soup.

The other option people run is 3 Ion heads plus longstrike.

If you want to spend the extra bucks for Forge World stuff, you probably won't regret the Y'Vahra or Tigershark(s), but it's nowhere near necessary. Most of the regular Tau stuff is pretty decent, Crisis Suits are the only thing really worth avoiding - and even then, in a non-competitive environment, you might be able to get some use from them.

Interesting, thank you.

I think i will forgo the Yvahra in favor of the riptides. What is everyones opinion on the Remora Drones? I notice that have a speed that can keep up with the Coldstar. Would it be worth it? I mean stealth is kinda out the window in that case but Savior Protocols would be applicable wouldn't it?