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This shows tau models being released way before a massive load of eldar:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=23937

Yes but only a small amount though. Then a massive wave of Eldar also these new Tau models are just the old models becoming finecast prehaps seeing new sculpts for prehaps the vespids but still unlikley wheras the Eldar has more releases and beveived more re-sculpts like with the case of the Avatar of Khain. Also completly new models (Xenarchs and others) as well as new cross kits (Warp Spiders/Everguard and others)

Tau Mako (Flyer) and Nautilus Defense Platform (Fortification) - I don't think they're old and becoming finecast Otherwise yes, bar the kroothawks everything is a finecast update basically.

Orkaswampa wrote:Tau Mako (Flyer) and Nautilus Defense Platform (Fortification) - I don't think they're old and becoming finecast Otherwise yes, bar the kroothawks everything is a finecast update basically.

And the Vespid kit which includes "Spinewings" which are a new introduction. That's gonna be another new plastic kit considering the current Vespid kit is already Finecast.

So the only thing left is Farsight. One out of five of the models/kits is a possible (because it is not impossible that they're releasing a new sculpt for Farsight) Finecast update.

It says in the link above something to do with farsight, he is on the release schedule, whether he's a new sculpt or just a finecast equiv we won't know, hopefully a new sculpt.

Captain Avatar wrote:OK, I've been crunching the numbers and with some very good tips from focusedfire, I've got my first Tau foot-list.

Focused wrote, that if I didn't feel like D-fish were worth taking, yet still wanted marker lights, then there was a way.
First, he pointed out that a Pathfinder team of 4 pf + Shas'ui +Devilfish gives you 5 mostly static marker light shots for about 175-195-ish points.
Then he pointed out that when built right, a stealth team gives 4 mobile markerlight hits for 215-235 points but is much more durable.

The only real problem is sacrificing the elite crisis slots for the 2 following stealth teams:

1 Shas'ui Team leader and 2 shas'ui + 4 Marker drones and 2 Gun drones(You position them in a 2gd+2md in front-3stealths in middle and 2md in back for best survivability)

Some questions/comments on your point values:
A squad of 5 pathfinders(why Shas'ui? unless I am missing some relevant wargear) + Devilfish (barebones, no point in upgrading if its a necessity) clocks in at 140 points.
An equivalent squad of Stealth Suits of 3 (a team leader to get a marker light on him, each with HW-DC and a marker drone, team lead taking 2) clocks in at 225 points. You could add more drones, but that would only increase the discrepancy.
Are the stealth squads really mobile? Because I can't think of a time I wouldn't want them in cover

I do like stealth suits, they just seem to be a large point value commitment for markerlights. I would be interested to know if anybody has tried the method out yet, if it helps keep markerlights for the whole game, or if it was less relevant.

Its basically much tougher markerlights. A stealth suit squads with markerlights in a crater is like terminators, with similar amount of markerlights to a pathfinder squad. However a pathfinder squad in a crater is food for the enemy, they are too easy to kill. However using a devilfish as a roadblock can protect them to a degree, but not really as well as the SFG on the suits, as if devilfish goes, you're squad of 5 PF is in trouble. I believe the shas'ui is there to challenge things, like abaddon running at them on his own, he can only kill 1 pathfinder due to challenge ;D

That may sound cool and all, but if anything gets into assault, I want my squad to pretend they are PDF and be killed to a man. let's me shoot the assaulters next turn.

Collection of tau only stuff from the list for anyone interested, new items in italics:

284054630110202 Kroot Kroothawks RE c01 Len_B 02 cc
256145512010301 Tau Empire Nautilus Defence Platform PL a20 Len_B 03 cc
256146011840307 Tau Empire Mako PL a18 Len_A 03 cc
256145730740301 Commander Farsight RE b07 Len_A 03 cc
256146211440307 Tau Empire Vespid Stingwings / Vespid Spinewings PL a14 Len_A 03 cc


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Did anyone notice aun shi on the GW hq page? He wasn't there before.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440287a&prodId=prod1060273

He's been there for years. Just counts as an Ethereal.

thehungryone wrote:
Some questions/comments on your point values:
A squad of 5 pathfinders(why Shas'ui? unless I am missing some relevant wargear) + Devilfish (barebones, no point in upgrading if its a necessity) clocks in at 140 points.
An equivalent squad of Stealth Suits of 3 (a team leader to get a marker light on him, each with HW-DC and a marker drone, team lead taking 2) clocks in at 225 points. You could add more drones, but that would only increase the discrepancy.
Are the stealth squads really mobile? Because I can't think of a time I wouldn't want them in cover

I do like stealth suits, they just seem to be a large point value commitment for markerlights. I would be interested to know if anybody has tried the method out yet, if it helps keep markerlights for the whole game, or if it was less relevant.

1)Why Shas'ui?
Experienced Tau players quickly learn that the 10 points for leadership 8 is worth it. Remember that your Pathfinders are going to be out where they can be shot. Your opponent will view them as high priority targets and at 5 models strong, it only takes 2 unsaved wounds in a single shooting phase to force a leadership test.
2-3 games where you roll 8's for leadership is usually enough convince most Tau players to take the shas'ui.

As to wargear on the Shas'ui? In 5th it was the Bonding Knife but that wargear is mostly unneeded now. In 6th ed, you take a gundrone or two because they give the unit a decent chance of surviving a sweeping advance by units whose highest initiative value is 5 or lower.

2)Pathfinder points cost?
Running base pathfinder and D-fish is, imo, a recipe for auto-fail. Standard builds take a Shas'ui and at least 20pts of wargear on the D-fish. Those 30-55 points usually means the difference between 1 turn of ineffective use and 3 or more turns of somewhat effectiveness. I have already discussed why the Shas-ui, so now I will explain the D-fish.

Yes, you can take a dumbfish at 80 points but in doing so, you are running a vehicle that doesn't realy get into the game except for being an extra target and being a line of sight blocker.
Now, if you spend an extra 20-ish points you can have a fairly survivable and mobile vehicle by buying the sensor spines & multitracker. Going the full 45 pt smartfish route, allows the D-fish to contribute some effective strength 5 shooting to the game through the addition of SMS and targeting array.

Basically, you spend an extra 45-55 points to make the initial 140 point investment a viable unit. This has been the problem with the pathfinders all along. 140 points for a unit that doesn't shoot/do damage is too many points spent for what time and codex creep has turned into an, at best, mediocre force multiplier.

Now, for close to the 195 point smart-fish ldshp 8 pathfinders you can take a unit that always has 4+ or better cover except against "ignores cover weapons".

3) As to math being off, you might want to re-check what I typed. I pointed out that at "one less marker light" you could have a much more survivable, "and mobile", unit.
That unit would cost 195 pts by having the Team Leader take a markerlight anf the unit taking 3 marker drones, 210 pts if you want to just run 4 marker drones and +20 more points to any of the previous if you want 2 ablative gun drone wounds.
These points totals would go up if you want to run a Shas'ui and hard wired systems for some reason.

The point that was being made was that for about the same points, you can sacrifice one markerlight to gain both more manuverability and survivabilty with close to the same number of strength 5 shots.

As to your question of whether they are really more mobile?
Undoubtedly yes. The Stealthsuits can infiltrate and fire the markers on the move and JSM to make use of los blocking terrain.

Yes, you would optimally want them in cover but if given the choice of staying in cover to shoot and letting them assaulted turn 2 or moving out and shooting through turn 5..............I'll take the latter.

All I can say is try it before you nock it. Against pathfinders, many opponents have gotten good about keeping units out of their fire lanes or at shooting them off of the board early in the game. The Stealthsuit marker teams allow for better positioning, Jump Shoot Move tactics with los blocking cover, and have both better armour and cover saves.


As I said before, The only area that really affects the competiveness of such a build is that you have to take body guards for your commanders in order to get enough crisis suits on the table, though this can be mitigated by being frugal in the wargear purchases/resisting the temptation to drone-up and load up on a bunch of the wargear options.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:That may sound cool and all, but if anything gets into assault, I want my squad to pretend they are PDF and be killed to a man. let's me shoot the assaulters next turn.

And there are times where you will pray for them to be a road block. But, that is not the point of having the Shas'ui.

The real point of the Pathfinder Shas'ui is leadership 8 against morale checks caused by shooting. Lets say that you have 3 different days, close ogether, where your Pathfinders walk off first turn not once but in two or more games because you rolled an 8. I had a couple of those days and that was enough to convince me that the ldshp 8 for units outside of transports the whole game was worth the 10 extra points.

I've not been sold on the devilfish upgrades for this edition, but that's because I use the Devilfish specifically for Mobile LOS blocking Terrain that the enemy has to put holes into. And It's worked so far. That 140 points I had in Devilfish upgrades plus the 140 points I had in kroot bought me 28 Shas'la Fire Warriors. That Shas'ui could become another body with another gun and standard-issue combat armor. Ld 7 may not be great( Especially since we are like the only army that takes LD tests), but 4+ armor is pretty sweet. It may not be Power Armor, but not much is AP 4.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:I've not been sold on the devilfish upgrades for this edition, but that's because I use the Devilfish specifically for Mobile LOS blocking Terrain that the enemy has to put holes into. And It's worked so far. That 140 points I had in Devilfish upgrades plus the 140 points I had in kroot bought me 28 Shas'la Fire Warriors. That Shas'ui could become another body with another gun and standard-issue combat armor. Ld 7 may not be great( Especially since we are like the only army that takes LD tests), but 4+ armor is pretty sweet. It may not be Power Armor, but not much is AP 4.

I agree, the 4+ armour on the fire warriors is decent.

Leadership 7, on the other hand,is pathetic. My experience has lead me to the opinion that sacrificing a fire warrior or three to help keep the unit from folding like a cheap card table is totally worth it. YMMV however.

Question? How were you spending 140 points on Devilfish upgrades? Most I ever spent was 120-ish on 3 and I quickly dropped down to just the 2 D-fish because they just were not able to put out the strength nor the volume of fire needed. I spent those extra points on Crisis suits and a couple more fire warriors.

I will say that the sensor spines have been very good. Though I am now trying to build an effective zero vehicle list. The reason for wanting the ero vehicle list is primarily due to the sheer number of necron players in the local area.
I have no problem with GK, DE, BA, Nids or Orks with my old all-comers list but the 'Crons are just being a problem for me at this time.

Captain Avatar wrote:Though I am now trying to build an effective zero vehicle list. The reason for wanting the ero vehicle list is primarily due to the sheer number of necron players in the local area.
I have no problem with GK, DE, BA, Nids or Orks with my old all-comers list but the 'Crons are just being a problem for me at this time.

I'm trying to slowly phase out vehicles as well. No matter what I try or do, my local meta has enough weapons that go "Haha! Lookit what I did to your tank!" that my vehicles have almost zero chance to make their points back. Sure, I expect devilfish to blow up but my hammerheads always seem to miss their shots (even with markerlight support they'll fail to pen) and fail their jink saves on the returning fire.

My stealth teams, however, have been earning their keep. They've been blowing up vehicles like nobody's business. I had one game last weekend where my fusion stealth team jumped in and blew up a predator, land raider and las rhino only taking casualties to the land raider exploding out to 6 inches when I was in melta range. The other all burst team hit another las rhino from behind and soaked up two turns of fire (<3 mobile cover)

I'm slowly migrating to more of a suit oriented list. My goals right now are 2 stealth, 1 deathrain and two HQ with bodyguard (1 fireknife and 1 helios) with two broadside teams as support and opening turn can opening (ID GKs? don't mind if I do!) With vehicle armor too easy to crack it just becomes way too much of a liability.

If your hammerheads survive the second enemy turn, they'll have a chance to recoup their points investment but they rarely last that long in my games. Maybe hiding a skyray will provide an interesting approach? Not exactly sure yet but I'm not ruling that out. At worst they provide a transport poping ability followed by mobile cover when they've expended their missiles.

Captain Avatar wrote:
Question? How were you spending 140 points on Devilfish upgrades? Most I ever spent was 120-ish on 3 and I quickly dropped down to just the 2 D-fish because they just were not able to put out the strength nor the volume of fire needed. I spent those extra points on Crisis suits and a couple more fire warriors.
.

On two devilfish, I had Targetting arrays, Multi trackers, blacksun fliters, flechettes, disruption pods, Seeker Missiles and SMS. They didn't put out too many shots, but they did ok throughout 5th. At least good enough to warrant 70 additional points per fish.

YotsubaSnake, i'm seeing the opposite in my local meta. Everyone is dropping lascannons and the like in favor of Plasma weapons, and everyone is dropping transports. I think I was the only person with a Non flyer transport that wasn't a Land Raider. The broadsides and Deathrains are on vehicle hunting duty, the Hammerhead is on large blast droppin' duty.

YotsubaSnake wrote:

Captain Avatar wrote:Though I am now trying to build an effective zero vehicle list. The reason for wanting the ero vehicle list is primarily due to the sheer number of necron players in the local area.
I have no problem with GK, DE, BA, Nids or Orks with my old all-comers list but the 'Crons are just being a problem for me at this time.

I'm trying to slowly phase out vehicles as well. No matter what I try or do, my local meta has enough weapons that go "Haha! Lookit what I did to your tank!" that my vehicles have almost zero chance to make their points back. Sure, I expect devilfish to blow up but my hammerheads always seem to miss their shots (even with markerlight support they'll fail to pen) and fail their jink saves on the returning fire.

My stealth teams, however, have been earning their keep. They've been blowing up vehicles like nobody's business. I had one game last weekend where my fusion stealth team jumped in and blew up a predator, land raider and las rhino only taking casualties to the land raider exploding out to 6 inches when I was in melta range. The other all burst team hit another las rhino from behind and soaked up two turns of fire (<3 mobile cover)

I'm slowly migrating to more of a suit oriented list. My goals right now are 2 stealth, 1 deathrain and two HQ with bodyguard (1 fireknife and 1 helios) with two broadside teams as support and opening turn can opening (ID GKs? don't mind if I do!) With vehicle armor too easy to crack it just becomes way too much of a liability.

If your hammerheads survive the second enemy turn, they'll have a chance to recoup their points investment but they rarely last that long in my games. Maybe hiding a skyray will provide an interesting approach? Not exactly sure yet but I'm not ruling that out. At worst they provide a transport poping ability followed by mobile cover when they've expended their missiles.

Your list sounds almost identicle to mine. Any tactical movement tricks that you have picked up?

Also, "Have you played Necrons with this list? If so, "How did it go?".

Captain Avatar wrote:

Your list sounds almost identicle to mine. Any tactical movement tricks that you have picked up?

Also, "Have you played Necrons with this list? If so, "How did it go?".

Well, I'm still trying to cope with the other half of the spectrum, which is the absurd numbers of High AP weapons that I'm going against. I just got back from a game where I watched someone tear through my commander and a team of crisis fireknives with AP2 weapons (was running from terminators that deep struck nearby so I got flushed out). This is why I'm leaning more on stealth suits. I only lost a handful of those from two full squads taking ridiculous firepower instead of a couple errant shots eating my crisis suits alive.

As for tactics? I'm currently trying to figure out the best method for approach. Early game I'm supposed to slow down and chew up anything advancing from their table edge to open a hole in their line, preferably on one flank. Then I like to push up into that hole with my mobile suits. This helps when my stealth suits arrive because they get right up into the mix of it and chew up units camping behind cover, opening the hole. It helps you run from assault units and allows you to sweep in objectives. I haven't been very good about implementing it though. It's been quite disorganized but that's mostly because I only have three teams that have the jet pack mobility (2 stealth, 1 crisis team w/ HQ) and it relies heavily on that. This is primarily why I'm trying to migrate over to a vehicle-less list.

Also, no I havn't played necrons yet and I'm not looking forward to doing it until I get a helios team up and running. I have had the misfortune of going against draigowing. It was quite silly, again needs better AP weapons. I'm finding it's what you need in general if you want a good TAC list.

Im primarily a necron player, so i can tell you what is wrong with tactics you post up, and help you improve upon them if you want?

That would actually be pretty awesome.

I'm seeing 6th Ed Tau as a highly mobile force. It's not a Gun Line force anymore, its now a skirmishing force.

Battlesuits? Move and shoot (except for Airburst, which is laaame).
Stealth suits? Move and shoot .
Broadsides? They can move and shoot too when you give them Relentless.
Fire Warriors? Move and shoot. Either skirmish away from incoming enemy troops, or rush forward and unload with rapid fire - with pinning from attached gun drones.
Vehicles? Move and shoot. Stick multitrackers on them and they can move 12" and still fire two weapons at full BS.
Gun drones? Move and shoot. Use them to harass and pin enemy troops at the back of the field.

Unfortunately, there's a few units that don't fit this philosophy.

Pathfinders need to be stationary to effectively use their markerlights or rail rifles, and if there's much cover on the board, that can be problematic.
Sniper drones have the same problem.
Kroot... well. They can't move and shoot as well as Fire Warriors can, and while they're decent enough on the charge, they suffer from having no assault weapons or grenades.


So what I'm thinking here is... rely on Stealth Teams with drones for highly mobile and kinda tough markerlight support, while they move in on enemy vehicles and infantry blobs.
Take 2-3 squads of suits (using extra commanders if you need to) for some purpose built sorts of targets - long ranged fire support, close in vehicle burning, etc.
Use skirmish lines of Fire Warriors to flank and harass advancing infantry and light vehicles, before pulling them back to take Objectives in turn 4 or 5.



Also, worth mentioning the Sky Ray.
It's expensive for questionable benefit, and as vulnerable as any other vehicle, but there is that one slight benefit from the fact that its two markerlights are right at the top of its turret, so hide it behind some cover and those two can still fire at full effect because the LoS is traced from the weapon. And they're networked markerlights too, so it can actually fire off its own missiles. Fit it with Smart Missiles and you can ignore the cover you're hiding behind to hit the enemy on the other side, and they probably wont even get to fire back, because the hull of the vehicle is entirely hidden, and the rules say that stuff like wings, tails, banners and weapons don't count for LoS. This last point is admittedly a bit cheesy - will probably come down to a discussion between you and your opponent.

Pathfinders aren't completely immobile, since now they can snap shot. I take two squads just for this reason. One will reposition an fire snap shot, the other will stay put. The team that moves alternates each turn. Broadsides I like to think of as Fortifications that we've been able to take since 4th. They do not move. Under any circumstance.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
Broadsides I like to think of as Fortifications that we've been able to take since 4th. They do not move. Under any circumstance.

Being able to reposition them 6" each turn without sacrificing their firepower in any way is handy for when the opponent is using vehicles that move around themselves.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
Broadsides I like to think of as Fortifications that we've been able to take since 4th. They do not move. Under any circumstance.

I've been reevaluating broadsides as of late and I'm going to challenge the old theory of "sit and shoot" broadsides. I'm primarily in a MEQ environment, so I'm thinking it's worth upgrading to the TL Plasma Rifles and maneuvering them much more freely. You're dealing AP2 shots so you're still ignoring armor. Also, if you happen to end up within 12" of some poor unit, they'll open up hell on them. With a proper screen, I can see an aggressive broadside move being incredibly effective. Opinions?

Quick distraction: I love the new quotes so much. :3

On topic: The enemy vehicles move, but it's like hiding an MC. Unless it's behind a wall, odds are you'll be able to see enough to shoot it. And we can turn that 4+ or +5 into a 7+ with Markerlights. In 5th, Because of Dawn of War Deployment, I took the ASS. At least then I could shoot after I tripped onto the board. But now while we can only fire snap shots on the move, they can still move and shoot. I prefer to put them on a hill with some shield drones and turn a tank into swiss with a Targetting Array. Almost BS5 Accuracy on a s10 ap1 gun that can still shoot from the back of your deployment to the back of their deployment( in Hammer and Anvil) is too much a temptation for me to pass.

And where does it say the Airburst cannot be fired when the battlesuit moves?

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:


And where does it say the Airburst cannot be fired when the battlesuit moves?

And then I went and looked it up again and realised that if you ignore whats in the (faq'd) codex and just look in the back of the rulebook, its an assualt weapon sooo... no problems.

I was wrong. In this case, that's a yay!

 Micky wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:


And where does it say the Airburst cannot be fired when the battlesuit moves?

And then I went and looked it up again and realised that if you ignore whats in the (faq'd) codex and just look in the back of the rulebook, its an assualt weapon sooo... no problems.

I was wrong. In this case, that's a yay!

It always was an assault weapon

Yeah, I was confused by the FAQ turning it into a Barrage weapon and the Relentless rule not saying anything about Barrage weapons x3

 Micky wrote:
Yeah, I was confused by the FAQ turning it into a Barrage weapon and the Relentless rule not saying anything about Barrage weapons x3

Phew, I was about to rant about the disrespect of the Airburst

In regards to Broadsides, I personally have stopped taking them.
Yes they are awesome and relatively cheap but in the end, they are susceptible to close combat and are less mobile than the Hammerhead.
Not to mention the loss of the beautiful blast template.

I'd much rather have my Hammerheads with Tetra support soak up firepower while blasting both armor and infantry which in turn provides a much needed distraction for my deepstriking Crisis Suits.

In regards to Stealth Suits, with the new ruleset, they could be very good. Has anyone found a good way to run them?
I was speculating on a Kroot spikestrip in front of some sooped-up Stealth Suits infiltrating combo so they can grab a 2+ cover save.

Broadsides have the same mobility and speed as all other infantry if you give them the ASS as they move with Slow and Purposeful, meaning full BS railguns on the move due to relentless, so really they are just as mobile as anything else in your army, all crisis suits can do is move 6" over and up.

Current good ways to run stealth suits from what ive seen is maxed out gun drones on the squad, or a markerlight squad, i.e 3 suits, 3 marker drones, 1 team leader markerlight.

 Orkaswampa wrote:
Broadsides have the same mobility and speed as all other infantry if you give them the ASS as they move with Slow and Purposeful, meaning full BS railguns on the move due to relentless, so really they are just as mobile as anything else in your army, all crisis suits can do is move 6" over and up.

Very true
But I will praise the Hammerhead nevertheless

 Orkaswampa wrote:


Current good ways to run stealth suits from what ive seen is maxed out gun drones on the squad, or a markerlight squad, i.e 3 suits, 3 marker drones, 1 team leader markerlight.

My friend plays them that way (Gun Drones maxed out) but I have never seen it actually played out.
However, do the gun drones benefit from Stealth and Shrouded?