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trying to buy what my son needs to have a playable army (1500-2000 points). Trying to use what he has and just add to it. He has the starter box, 3 x8 battle suits, 3 stealth suits, a hammerhead gunship( magnetized to be the missile boat version if he wants), and an extra box worth of fire warriors. I want to make his battlesuits into his commanders except I think I need to buy the shadowsun lady as well. I was first curious what weapons he should get for those commanders, as most things I read seem to point at 4 burst cannons but the 18” range makes me question it. I’m a guard player and not as familiar with tau as I should be. Also what models I should get that allows him to use what he has (he really likes the hammerhead....) any help would be welcome.

Riptides
Broadsides
Shadowsun (or possibly Farsight)
Build all your drones as sheild drones

I did a conversion to make my hammerhead into longstrike, and then you can use your crisis suits as crisis suit bodyguards to protect longstrike using their bodyguard rules). And longstrike is great.

Vrigor wrote:
trying to buy what my son needs to have a playable army (1500-2000 points). Trying to use what he has and just add to it. He has the starter box, 3 x8 battle suits, 3 stealth suits, a hammerhead gunship( magnetized to be the missile boat version if he wants), and an extra box worth of fire warriors. I want to make his battlesuits into his commanders except I think I need to buy the shadowsun lady as well. I was first curious what weapons he should get for those commanders, as most things I read seem to point at 4 burst cannons but the 18” range makes me question it. I’m a guard player and not as familiar with tau as I should be. Also what models I should get that allows him to use what he has (he really likes the hammerhead....) any help would be welcome.

You definitely want Commanders in a T'au army, so many stratagems and special tricks key off them. Also they are absolute powerhouse shooting units in their own right. Shadowsun is really good if you want to play a static gunline style of T'au - which is not always the best way to play them and specifically not always a good way to play them against Guard. Unfortunately you will not have any CIB weapons in any of those sets as that is the best all-round weapon on a Commander. That being the case I would suggest building one with 4 fusion blasters as a suicide-manta-strike option and another with 3xmissile pod and an ATS to be sustained long range firepower and to pop stratagems on other units.

That leaves the option of one more commander, a Buffmander with Drone Controller and fairly cheap weapons such as Plasma Rifles is a nice alternative to Shadowsun and does much the same job of putting Command & Control Node stratagem on nearby battlesuits and otherwise buffing stuff.

If you still have a team of 3 XV8 then one thing to try is the all-flamers team. 3 flamers per crisis suit, one of them with Iridium armour to tank small arms fire and a good number of shield drones to tank everything else. Move & Advance them across the table as fast as possible, they are surprisingly terrifying against anything T7 or below especially if one of your commanders gives up their shooting to put Command & Control Node stratagem on them. All missile pods makes for a great firepower unit, less potent than Broadsides but also less vulnerable to being trapped in combat.

So lets talk about magnets. Clearly you know something about using magnets - use them on the crisis suits without exception. There are a number of fairly viable builds of crisis suits but no single overwhelmingly great one so your son should try a few different options to find out what works and what he likes. Magnets are less of an issue on the Stealth Suits but personally I am quite fond of popping shield generators on my Stealth Suits to make a unit that is properly hard to shift, magnets let your son try that out without committing the models to it.

At this early stage build a fairly balanced mix of drone types. Ultimately if he wants to play in top level tournaments he will probably want more Shield Drones than anything but initially you have no markerlights in the list so he will want some of those on drones. Learning to use markerlights well is part of learning to play any sort of mainstream T'au list. Gun drones are the kings of overwatch and are also pretty great at horde-clearing so do not be afraid to build some of them just because top lists do not have them, at their current points cost they are viable enough.

The Hammerhead should really be either with Ion Cannon or swap it out for a Skyray. The railgun is in a sad place right now so put that piece aside for if/when they ever fix its rules.Longstrike is a model upgrade for a Hammerhead although a different datasheet, if your son likes tanks he will probably love Longstrike.

With 20 Fire Warriors I would suggest initially building at least 15 of them as Strike Teams. Breachers are a bit of a niche unit and only work well in some Septs (mostly Vior'la or Farsight Enclaves). With Strike Teams always - ALWAYS - take the pulse rifles rather than the strictly inferior carbines. Also if at all possible get a Cadre Fireblade, that little character is what turns Strike Teams from meh into wow.

Possible purchases. The Longstrike "upgrade" model for the hammerhead; Longstrike in an Ion cannon hammerhead is really good. Sadly he is target priority #1 for pretty much everyone so if you do that you might need to pay a points upgrade to make that XV8 team into bodyguards to keep Longstrike on the table whenever there is not terrain to hide him behind. Ion Cannon Hammerheads with one of them being Longstrike is a viable tournament build.

The other early purchase should be a Cadre Fireblade.

Other things that always get mentioned:

Riptides are awesome if you support them well with drones. If your son likes big battlesuits keep it in mind.

Broadsides are devastating if you take a maximum size unit and baby-sit them with Shadowsun. Very static but my goodness ALL the missiles.


Do not get too hung up on what is currently popular with tournament players, there are some real sleeper units in the T'au codex that will do well if played well. e.g. the GT finals were won by a list with 8 Piranha.

To get 3 more of those battlesuits, should I just get him another starter box to get him more infantry too? And maybe kit bash a fire blade from it as well?

If you want more xv8 then yes to the start connecting box, fire warriors are useful enough to have extra for the small bump in price.

The stand alone commander is more expensive per model but impressive. For silly times I'll take 9 xv8 and a buffing commander.

Consider that shadow sun is in fine cast, and as such was a big regret of mine. Watch for messed up bits. Her rules are good though.

You may want to convert some marksmen for market support

So after getting another starter box, and deciding next month we will grab him a riptide (and a few model conversions) we got the list below. I didn’t select a warlord or signature systems, he can play with those and figure out what he likes later.


++ Brigade Detachment +12CP (T'au Empire) [90 PL, 1694pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

T'au Empire Sept Choice: T'au Sept

+ HQ +

Commander in XV8 Crisis Battlesuit [7 PL, 114pts]: 4x Burst cannon, XV8-02 Crisis Iridium battlesuit

Commander in XV8 Crisis Battlesuit [7 PL, 133pts]: Advanced targeting system, 3x Missile pod, XV8-02 Crisis Iridium battlesuit

Commander in XV8 Crisis Battlesuit [7 PL, 154pts]: 4x Fusion blaster, XV8-02 Crisis Iridium battlesuit

+ Troops +

Breacher Team [4 PL, 42pts]
. 5x Fire Warrior
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse blaster

Breacher Team [4 PL, 42pts]
. 5x Fire Warrior
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse blaster

Strike Team [2 PL, 50pts]
. DS8 Tactical Support Turret w/ SMS: Smart missile system
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle

Strike Team [2 PL, 35pts]
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle

Strike Team [2 PL, 35pts]
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle

Strike Team [2 PL, 35pts]
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle

+ Elites +

XV104 Riptide Battlesuit [14 PL, 288pts]: 2x Smart missile system, Advanced targeting system, Drone controller, Ion accelerator

XV25 Stealth Battlesuits [6 PL, 141pts]: Homing beacon
. Stealth Shas'ui w/ Burst Cannon: Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon
. Stealth Shas'ui w/ Burst Cannon: Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon
. Stealth Shas'vre: Advanced targeting system, Fusion blaster
. . Markerlight + Target Lock: Markerlight, Target lock

XV8 Crisis Bodyguards [13 PL, 235pts]
. Crisis Bodyguard: 3x Missile pod, XV8-02 Crisis Iridium battlesuit
. Crisis Bodyguard: 3x Missile pod
. Crisis Bodyguard: 3x Missile pod

+ Fast Attack +

Pathfinder Team [4 PL, 64pts]: MB3 Recon Drone
. Pathfinder: Markerlight
. Pathfinder Shas'ui: Markerlight
. 3x Pathfinder w/ Ion Rifle: 3x Ion rifle

Pathfinder Team [3 PL, 52pts]
. Pathfinder: Markerlight
. Pathfinder Shas'ui: Markerlight
. 3x Pathfinder w/ Ion Rifle: 3x Ion rifle

Tactical Drones [4 PL, 70pts]: 7x MV4 Shield Drone

+ Heavy Support +

Heavy Gun Drone Squadron [3 PL, 68pts]
. 2x Heavy Gun Drone w/ 2x BC: 4x Burst cannon

Heavy Gun Drone Squadron [3 PL, 68pts]
. 2x Heavy Gun Drone w/ 2x BC: 4x Burst cannon

Heavy Gun Drone Squadron [3 PL, 68pts]
. 2x Heavy Gun Drone w/ 2x BC: 4x Burst cannon

++ Supreme Command Detachment +1CP (T'au Empire) [15 PL, 305pts] ++

+ HQ +

Cadre Fireblade [2 PL, 42pts]: Markerlight

Ethereal [3 PL, 51pts]: Equalizers, Hover drone

Longstrike [10 PL, 212pts]: 2x Smart missile system, Ion cannon, 2x Seeker missile

++ Total: [105 PL, 1999pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh could probably make another fireblade and replace that ethereal. But he has that one built and painted so let’s him play with it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Heavy gun drones are just something I could scrap build for him to fill that heavy slot. Will eventually get him broadsides don the road probably.