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Hello everyone! Long time since last posting. I've picked up Tau & need help ironing out my list. There are two other Tau players at my local shop. One plays a lot of suits & the other is a static gunline. The suit list tends to get shot off the board a lot & the gunline has a hard time getting to objectives safely. I've done some looking around on 1d4chan & here on the forums. The idea is to give my opponent multiple small targets. If somethng happens to one of the units, it won't be that detrimental to the army. I'll post things as based on what they are doing. Total points per Battlescribe is 1491 points.

Cadre Fireblade
5 man Strike Team with two Marker Drones
5 man Strike Team with two Marker Drones
*Camp backfield objectives. Marker Drones to use as a charge shield if something gets too close.

Darkstrider
5 man Breacher Team
5 Man Breacher Team
Devilfish
*Pushes up the board & contests objectives

Coldstar Commander with Drone Controller, Two Fusions, Burst Cannon
Three Remora Stealth Drones
*Gets behind enemy lines & fires from the backside. Debated about making Farsight enclave & switching BC for another FB to the the Blades

5 man Stingwings
5 man Stingwings
*Lands in cover & harasses. Get "Deploy Scramblers" secondary

Pathfinder Team with three Rail Rifles & Pusle Accelerator Drone
* Send the Accelerator to hang with Strike Teams. Get Pathfinders into cover to harrass.

Three Crisis Suits all with ATS & two CIB
Three Shield Drones
Three Marker Drones
*Push forward & engage

Three Crisis Suits all with ATS & two AFP
Three Shield Drones
Three Marker Drones
*Push forward & engage

Currently undecided for which Sept I should go with. I plan to use CP for more markerlights. Any suggestions will help! Thanks!

For your sept choice, I highly recommend Farsight Enclaves, they have by far the most options. The Fusion Blades are great (You only need two Fusion Blasters to take them, so you can keep the Hvy Burst Cannon on your Coldstar.) It also means you can bundle your Crisis Suits together and give them Veteran Cadre, making them WS 4+ and BS 3+, then, with Drop Zone Clear giving them +1 to hit when the Manta Strike, and automatically having a marker light under 12", you basically hit all the things. Though Darkstrider can only be taken in the T'au sept, so you'd have to cut him. A good 60 point cut for the below recommendation.

As for grabbing objectives fast, if you have find 60 points for a unit of 10 Kroot Carnivores, they are surprisingly good at that. They get a 7" Pregame move, then move 7" for their regular move, plus whatever you roll on advance which basically gets them wherever you need them. So long as you situate them in cover, there is a 1CP stratagem that gives them -1 to be hit and +1 Sv over and above whatever they get from cover normally. (Though the -1 to hit doesn't stack with the -1 to be hit from dense cover, unless the opposing unit has a +1 to hit.) Still, that's a very fast and quite tanky unit for only 60 points. My current list is all Kroot, so I've got some good experience with them. XD

As for the regular list itself, showing the points you come up with would really help, I did the math and only got to 1462, unless you use more than a minimum unit of Pathfinders.

How are you finding the Remora Stealth Drones I've never used them before myself? Even with the Drone Controller, it seems like a lot of points for not a lot of damage output when you could just take 3 more crisis suits instead?

Also, each crisis team can only take 2 drones for support, or are you saying you take an extra unit of 4 drones and put them with them. I think 2 shield drones is fine, and you can cut down on a lot of the marker lights for other units if you go Farsight Enclaves as you always get 1 marker light within 12" and 1 and 5 are the two best marker light brackets by far.

Hope that helps out a bit. Let me know if you have any more questions, always happy to chat Tau strats.

Thanks for the input Tawnis! I definitely give the Kroot a try! That’ll give my opponent another squad they would have to deal with.

As far as points I was using Battlescribe. It gave me a total of 1491 points. I’ll edit that into the original post. Thanks for pointing that out!

The Remoras are in the Imperial Armor Compendium from Forge World. They are armed with are with two assault 4 S5 D1 cannons & two seeker missiles a piece. They are flying with a pretty fast movement speed. Plan was to have them surround the Coldstar & with the DC bump them to BS 3+. They’ll keep the Coldstar from being charged since they can fly & be in between that & the enemy. Also what about switching them for Piranhas that way can keep four weapons on the Coldstar?


For the Crisis Drones, I’ve asked & read that each suit gets two drones. Did they FAQ that?

Yeah, I know the models, I have just never used them on the table. They seem decent at taking out light infantry, but that's never really been Tau's struggling point. Personally, I'd run a pair of shield drones on the Coldstar and take either another weapon, or a shield generator. If you've got the Fusion Blades, people will be hesitant to charge you with characters as they can get one shot, or swarms as you can use the 1CP Repulsor Impact Field. So long as you keep him away from small elite units like Bladeguard, you should be fine without the screen. If you need to Fall Back with him, you can always Mont'Ka to be able to shoot anyway.

I've also never used Pirahna's myself but they seem pretty comparable to the drones they would replace. You could go either or, but again, I don't think that dealing with light infantry is your problem. If you're worried about that, just add more Fire Warriors, you'll get more bang for your buck, especially with the Fireblade.

Oh yeah, you are right, I never noticed since they are sold with two and I only ever see anyone run two per unit. I think you can ease up on the drone count either way. You could still take more shields if you think you really need them, but I'd cut the markers if you go Farsight Enclaves.

Between cutting the FW drones and some of the marker drones, you could probably get close to fitting a Riptide in the list, it's one of the better units for combatting marines. Both the Heavy Burst Cannon and the Ion Accelerator are great options depending on what you're up against. 18 Str 6 Ap -1 D: 2 shots or 6 Str: 9 AP -3, D: 3 shots respectively.

Kroot are terrible, any of them
Fusion Blades are good if you can leverage them, but in my experience... you get max 2 attacks per fight phase and if your opponent has invulnerable saves you are wasting time as they'll prove worthless (and I have a wonderfully converted model with fusion blades and ran the model a half dozen games, and combat when it happens is disappointing).

Remoras are amazing... especially for engage on all fronts and blocking non-flying models from advancing at choke points.

To your original list
6 suits to 9 suits in a single unit is good if you are using the airburst relic, add in a sheild gen and some 2+ armor upgrade and you got a unit that won't die., have a few drones hang near and out of LOS to handle the bigger shots.

I'd probably run pathfinders with no upgrades except for perhaps the anti-charge drone.

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
Kroot are terrible, any of them.

That's always been the consensus, and I thought so too until I started playing them just for fun. IMHO it's not so much that they are bad, more that they are really niche.

For example, when we're talking about an OBsec unit that you just want to get to and sit on an objective, what would be comparable at 60 points or less? 5 Fire warriors for 45? They're fine for backfield with long range, but can't move up fast without a transport, in which case you're paying the additional 90 points for the Devilfish. When you talk about survivability to hold the objective, lets' look at some shooting against them. 10 Intercessors will make 8.89 unsaved wounds against Kroot and 5.92 against Fire warriors. While the points lost are exactly even 54 points each, the Kroot unit is alive (even if he likely fails morale) where the Fire Warrior Squad is not. Also +/- 1 still leaves the Fire Warrior squad dead, but the Kroot possibly alive loosing one to morale and still holding on with 1 more model left (unless you are paying for a 6th Fire Warrior, but who does that? And even then, it's a 1/3 change to loose the Fire Warriors and a little less than 1/6 to loose the Kroot to morale). The thing is, unless you pay for the drones ahead of time, you don't have any real way to protect them if you really need that objective. Use 1CP for Hidden Hunters and suddenly, you only take an average of 4.44 unsaved wounds against the Kroot unit, making them far more survivable as a holder of an objective so long as they are in cover. For punching back, I'll take 20 Str 4 shots over 10 Str 5 shots any day, they both hit on 4's so, not other difference there other than 30" range on the Fire Warriors over the 24" on the Kroot. While they are both bad in melee, Kroot are at least less bad with WS 3+ S 4 vs Fire Warriors WS 5+ S 3 (though that is partially mitigated by Fire Warriors having a 4+ sv over 6+). They're not going to win any fights against marines, but could tussle with a unit of guardsman if needed.

Kroot Carnivores are a mathematically faster, hit harder in the mid to close range, and are either equally or more survivable. Their only downside is that they don't benefit from your Sept tenant, so that could potentially swing it depending on what it is.

I see both sides of the Kroot argument. I got PLENTY of cultists that I can sub in & give them a try. Worst case is I don’t like them.

I mention in my OP but both of the other Tau folks play Firesight Enclaves. I’m all for giving them a try but I would like to play other Septs so that way when I face them is not entirely a mirror match.

For the Crisis Suits, you both recommend putting them together as one unit. I’ve seen the blob of 2+/4+ suits and while effective they tend to be fairly hard to keep coherency in a medium to heavy terrain board and I've seen it crumble under close combat & focused fire. My thoughts on the two squads of three is that they start from each end of my deployment zone & meeting in the middle. If one gets charge/shot off I can still use my other squad. I must say I like the “Veteran Cadre” stratagem. I get that it’s 2 CP. I will give each a try & see how I like them when I play Farsight.

 DirusdaPlagueFather wrote:

I mention in my OP but both of the other Tau folks play Firesight Enclaves. I’m all for giving them a try but I would like to play other Septs so that way when I face them is not entirely a mirror match.

For the Crisis Suits, you both recommend putting them together as one unit. I’ve seen the blob of 2+/4+ suits and while effective they tend to be fairly hard to keep coherency in a medium to heavy terrain board and I've seen it crumble under close combat & focused fire. My thoughts on the two squads of three is that they start from each end of my deployment zone & meeting in the middle. If one gets charge/shot off I can still use my other squad. I must say I like the “Veteran Cadre” stratagem. I get that it’s 2 CP. I will give each a try & see how I like them when I play Farsight.

LoL, yeah there's a reason for that. Other than Farsight Enclaves, none of the other Septs really got much love and since the enclaves are close ranged focused it helps to mitigate the Tau's greatest weakness. I think T'au sept is probably second best with the 5+ to hit on overwatch. I mean, I run Dal'Yth, but since it's an all Kroot list, my Sept tenant doesn't matter; it's just so I can take the Gunship Diplomat Warlord Trait to give my Kroot For the Greater Good. Maybe a bunch of Vior'la Breachers and Battlesuits that bounce around everywhere could work since they don't get penalties for advancing with assault weapons and can advance at shoot Rapid Fire Weapons at -1 BS.

If you decide not to go Enclaves, then spreading out your Crisis teams makes more sense for mobility. The only reason to blob them together is to get the benefit of stratagems, and the the best ones are in Farsight Enclaves with Veteran Cadre and Drop Zone Clear.