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Have done quite a few 9th edition matches against my sons Tau army (I am astra militarum) at 1000 points and he is getting frustrated as he has come close to winning once so far. Trying to figure out what he’s missing that will give him the edge he needs. He likes stealth suits a lot, has multiple commanders, even an xv9 I scratch built for him. He lacks vehicles (has 1 hammerhead), no broadsides, and no kroot. Has some of everything other than those. He has 2 remora stealth drones as well. Trying to see if there is something he needs at 1000 points that he’s missing, or secondaries he should easier focus on, or if astra militarum is just too strong at that lower point level and we should go to 2000. Any help would be great. He’s doing an amazing job painting his models (look better than mine) and I don’t want to see him stop playing due to always losing.

How about let him win a few games?

Or arm all his crisis suits with CIB and make sure he has enough 2 man gun drone teams to protect his suits, and the gun drones should never be left out in the open exposed.

Post both lists of the last game please (condensed format if possible)

Below is the last 2 armies we played roughly. At work and don’t have exact lists. Usualy he only uses 1 commander with a cadre fire blade, he just wanted to try 2 commanders this time.

Catatchan (astra) battalion
Emperors wrath artillery
Tank commander wdemolisher,lascannon
Company commander
Inf squad x 3 w plasma

Vet squad x2 w 3 plasma
6 crusaders
1 astropath
Seargent harker

Armoires sent x2

Wyvern w/ full payload

Tau w custom sept upgunned/hybridized weaponry

Xv8 commander w fusion x3
Xv85 commander w missile x3

Strike team x2 w 2 shield drones each
Breacher team

3 man stealth suit w burst cannons
3 man stealth suit w burst cannons
Riptide with advanced ion cannon and SMS
2 farsight marksman

So, I'm guessing what the problem here is that he doesn't seem to have much to protect the few heavy things he actually has (Riptide, Commanders) but for some reason he has shield drones assigned to the cheapo fire warrior squads instead. The double firing wyvern with full payload probably shreds through those guys right quick and it's just a matter of time before your many plasma guns bring down his riptide and the commanders just suicide.

I'd recommend not running with the emperors wrath battery (it's not legal in tournament play anymore anyway) to avoid how swingy im sure the double shooting full payload wyvern with +1BS can be, and maybe run the fire warriors as minimum backline squads with the SMS drone turret instead of trying to have them go toe-to-toe with FRFSRF guardsmen squads.

then give the shield drones to the riptide instead of the fire warriors, ditch the on-foot breachers because they're just god-awful, and add some more stealth suits to make up for the lack of frontline.

Sad it’s out of tourneys already, only got to use it in 1 then all tourneys here shut down, will shelf that boom now though. He was giving the shield drones to the fire warriors to make them 2 man units that move to the riptide. Didn’t think you could assign any to the riptide. Wanted to avoid having them in 1 big unit for me to focus. His main issue is taking points. I’ve tried building his army too but I can’t find something that can get to objective points quickly and not lose out on his shooting. Before making this post I was debating if piranhas are the answer he needs. He kills my army by the end of the game usualy, (except crusaders, emperor protects them) just can’t get those points.

Tau's best bet for taking objectives is to get there early with the more mobile/durable elements in the army. Maybe breachers in Devilfish. Maybe Piranhas or even cheap-loadout Crisis Suits. In this list it's also the Riptide - he is going to have to put the Riptide forward with plenty of drone buddies. Perhaps swap it to the Heavy Burst Cannon for more flexible firepower?

Other stuff.
He's gotta take more drones to protect the commanders and riptide.
The best way is to add pairs of drones to the commanders to start and then maybe the stealth team if he doesn't deploy them to far forward.
The small two-drone squads are really useful in objective scoring and obnoxious to kill since it's hard to shoot at them with the right amount of guns so that's good.
Definitely don't take the drones that come with the Riptide though - those have to be Shielded Missile Drones which are bad.

The Marksmen probably aren't doing much for him.
Instead a fireblade would work fairly well with strike teams and provide a 2+ markerlight. Or just more drones and rely on the Aerial Targeting strat for rerolling 1s.

A thought is to go harder into the Stealth Suits and infiltration rules and bring Ghostkeels. He put in two of those instead of a Riptide and the marksmen.

Also, he can't take two commanders in one detachment unless he's farsight enclaves.

Thanks a bunch. He could proxy his hammerhead as a devilish for now and focus on stealth suits and riptide to hold points.

Btw, where do you see what books are current rules? And is psychic awakening still legal?

PA will be legal until there is a new codex.