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Just a point to note; the new movement rules allow you to selectively use models within a unit. Now it won't work all the time, but it does allow you to leave the Shas'ui stationary (and able to fire at full BS), whilst the rest of the Firewarriors move around him.

On Shadowsun: It is absolutely insipid that she is unable to deploy with a squad because of her wargear. That is just ridiculous. Fix this, GW.

Yes - I meant 6 pathfidners in a squad - preferably 8. That way you're getting 2-5 marker hits on average.

YotsubaSnake wrote:One thing I'd like to say is the fact that BSFs are almost useless on firewarrior teams. The problem is, unless you're shooting at an MSU army, their armor save is still going to be better than their cover they gain. Save yourself the points, on 4 squads that's enough for another upgrade that may be more useful. I'd only take BSFs on units that are going to be firing farther than 36" to see the enemy or with good AP to not allow cover saves.

I have found them rather useful. It lets the firewarriors harrass GEQs and light vehicles with impunity with nightfighting on, and helps against necrons.

But then my local store has a good variety, with at least 1-2 players of each army there.

My bad. Misread that.

 Jadenim wrote:
Just a point to note; the new movement rules allow you to selectively use models within a unit. Now it won't work all the time, but it does allow you to leave the Shas'ui stationary (and able to fire at full BS), whilst the rest of the Firewarriors move around him.

Good concept! This is something I'll have to integrate, controlling movement carefully to enable future movement and shooting options.

I think an adequately skilled general could make the decentralized markerlights concept work. I don't know that I'm that guy at this point, though.

I have tried giving marker-lights to the firewarriors, its not VERY effective, but if you are taking a squad leader, sinking 15 points to get a markerlight+HWMT while not netting alot of marker hits, makes your opponent spend more resorces on making sure your infantry moves around, rather then effectively killing stuff.

Its more of a hidden shield in the fact it creates a diversion, and if a situation arises that you don't need to move the guy, a markerlight bonus.

I finally got to play my first game since the new FAQ and at one point I got curious and deliberately let my devilfish full of firewarriors flat out in range of a bunch of Lootas holding a building.

45 shots, 2 glances and 7 pens later, I found my devilfish only missing one hull point, Absolutely ridiculous.

Still overcosted, but not as bad as before. The big advantage now is that the unit can hang around and survive until endgame and dump the drones to contest on the final turn.

New to the forum but I have skimmed through this thread to pick up a few things here and there. Looking to get back in the game since skipping almost all of fifth edition and not playing a game since fourth, so here go a few questions that I have in mind.
-In the new edition is it wiser to have two man crisis suits instead of the full three suit squad? This also goes for the commanders and the bodyguard squads.
-I have read a few threads on pathfinders and I am on the fence, I currently have a squad of six with the mandatory fish and a dpod and while having that special ability that comes with the transport is nice it is a lot of points invested. I am currently leaning forwards investing in two tetras and the imperial armor book with the rules, is this a wise choice or do I rough it out with a squad that I really need for points I do not like?
-what is a good size for stealth suit teams, I am currently playing with a squad of five with five gun drones for a bit of extra protection. The infiltrate ability and the fact that they always have a 4+ cover save is really attractive to me but a bit over costed as well. Does anyone have any advise as to how many (meaning larger or smaller squads) would be a better investment points wise?
Thanks in advance.

Tetra's are very overpowered. Scout move up a ruin turn 0, 2+ cover for whole game. Better than pathfinders by a longshot, cheaper than buying them as well (inc devilfish price £££$$$), cheaper points as well (110 for 2 with TA's, so 8x BS4 MLs). Also have the same effect as a pfinder dfish, the deep striking one.

I find that the best stealth gunner team is 3 suits with 6 drones.

@grullon1982; before you invest in the Imperial Armour book, be aware that they recently did a complete update of the rules for the Tau Forgeworld units as a PDF download (I think there's a link to it earlier in the thread). It's not currently on the main FW website as it was still written for 5th Ed., but according to the note on the download page they should be producing a 6th Ed. rules update in the near future.

Of course, if you fancy a good read, I can highly recommend IA3: The Taros Campaign as it has a lot of good background and mission scenarios for Tau.

 Jadenim wrote:
@grullon1982; before you invest in the Imperial Armour book, be aware that they recently did a complete update of the rules for the Tau Forgeworld units as a PDF download (I think there's a link to it earlier in the thread). It's not currently on the main FW website as it was still written for 5th Ed., but according to the note on the download page they should be producing a 6th Ed. rules update in the near future.

Of course, if you fancy a good read, I can highly recommend IA3: The Taros Campaign as it has a lot of good background and mission scenarios for Tau.

It's not complete. It has the Tetra, Remote Sensor Towers, Drone Turrets, Hammerhead turret variants, XV-8 suit variants for commanders, Heavy Gun Drones, and several different Kroot variants.

Rules for the XV-9 suits, Remora drones, the Barracuda flyer, Shas'O R'alai, Shas'O R'myr, and the Pirahna XT-42 variant are found in Imperial Armour 2, Imperial Aeronautica, and Imperial Armour 2nd Edition. It can be quite an expensive proposition getting everything together.

EDIT: It took me a fair bit of time to figure out where the most current rules were for each ForgeWorld unit intended for 40k. OP, if you're still reading this thread, hit me up... I'll look over my book collection and outline which units are in what book, if you'd like.

In case you are still looking for it, here's the link to the rules.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/t/Tauupdate.pdf

Note that the pdf says that it is ok in "standard" play so I'm guessing they are pretty official but does leave the caviat that your opponent should be ok with them. I've never actually used tau or fought them at tourny so I am not sure if tetras are tournament legal but I'd assume so.

I'm really interested to see if we get to use our flier options like the baracuda flying drones eventually

I've recently acquired some barracudas as well as xv-9 suits and commander r'alai is on the way. While I hope plastic kits and codex entries/updates are forthcoming, they are a blast to use in games now.

Do you have any batreps or tactical advice that came out of using them?

Shas'o Rmyr etc are out of date. Only use the update download linked, and IA2 2nd Ed (First Ed of number 2 is no longer rules valid). Everything you need is in those respectively. Rymr is overcosted massively for the very little he does.

The flyers are in the new aeronautica book. They're mostly overcosted compared to vendettas.

Well I have no battle reports yet, the only games I have played have been to learn the new rules and to get familiar again with the tau codex. I am very happy at the new rules for the stealth teams so that is a plus and I'm considering the suggestion given about a small team for harrasment purposes. I still need some feed back as far as the size of crisis suits and the benefit of maybe having 2 suit teams instead of the full 3 in a squad.

@grullon - its all been discussed in the thread
Every single possible thing has pretty much been discussed, just gotta plough through it

 Redbeard wrote:
The flyers are in the new aeronautica book. They're mostly overcosted compared to vendettas.

The problem is the Vendetta unit itself. It needs to have its points cost increased in a FAQ.

Rakeeb wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
The flyers are in the new aeronautica book. They're mostly overcosted compared to vendettas.

The problem is the Vendetta unit itself. It needs to have its points cost increased in a FAQ.

Agreed.

Rakeeb wrote:Do you have any batreps or tactical advice that came out of using them?

(reference was to XV-9 Suits, Commander R'alai, and Barracuda Air Superiority Flyers)

No batreps, sadly, as most of my games of 40K are at my FLGS and i typically don't think about taking photos until after all the damage has been done. I can, however, give a little insight into what i've seen so FAR out of these units:

Well Commander R'Alai looks great on paper - when his model arrives, gets built, painted, and put into a game I'll expand on him later.

XV-9 units are much the same - I've ran them through a variety of scenarios and I've noticed that to get the most bang for your buck there are 2 ways to go - - Take the Pulse Submunition Rifles (Phased Ion Guns can count-as until we get a plastic kit with appropriate weapons, or maybe I can re-cast R'Alai's PSR when he arrives) and go to town with s5 blast templates. Otherwise, Phased Ion Guns (PiGs) work really well if you can deliver 1 or 2 markerlights to the targeted unit (R'alai's marker drones are good for this, or I also like a stealth marker team). With AP4 and Rending, plus 4 shots per gun, the PiG is probably the best option due to a large number of dice to roll.

The barracudas are really neat - An AV10 flyer (something codex tau do not yet have), with only 2 Hull Points. The Imperial Armour Aeronautica book really helped out by dropping the points value on these flyers by 90 points, making them right alongside Vendettas in terms of cost. They bring to the table a s7 ap3 gun with 3 shots, a twin linked s7 ap4 2 shot weapon, and 6 s5 shots that ignore cover saves (automated turret rule). With the added ability to deep strike when they enter play, they can be used really well to saturate rear armor of enemy flyers with enough firepower to usually bring them down (Barring STORM RAVENS of course). That said, a quad gun, full Loota team, dakkajet, or any other high-ROF unit will take them down in return, even with the benefits of their agile rule (+1 to jink saves). Compared to the competition's flyers they pay more (in fact they are 30 points more than a night scythe, which has +1 armor, a comparable gun, better BS, and 3 hull points. what the what?) but again they fill a void that currently nothing in the codex does. If you manage to spend the $$ to get one or two, showing your friends the rules and drawbacks of the flyer should more than convince them all to allow you to use it in a game.

Anyhow that was my 2c regarding these FW units so far, I'm (hopefully) getting in another game tomorrow night so I'll see then and report back how it went.

Hi non tau player here, looking to take a small tau force as allies, and just wondering if this list is legal...

Ethereal
6 x fw
3 x broadsides with 2 Sheila drones each.

Thanks for your help in advance

No, you need to have a battlesuit commander as your allied HQ due to them being a 1+ choice.

Ok so I might as well drop the Ethereal then, whats the cheapest/efficient loadout for a commander? Bodyguard no body guard? Wargear? Thanks for the reply

I've been debating on eldar allies vs GK allies for the Tau.

I'm kind of torn between them and how to best run it. The first page was very informative but I don't think this particular aspect was addressed.

Eldar = farseer buffs, runes of warding anti-psyker defense

GK = can use coteaz to camp corners to defend against outflanking and strike squads can save against deep striking units along with easier time of getting first turn with coteaz. Also can take a stormraven for some good anti-air, and of course air power.

or maybe vanilla marines somehow?

Any opinions on what you find more useful?

Also for eldar allies, do you guys think that jetbike farseer is better (having a higher T) and more able to run away or last minute contest (accompanied by some sort of jetbike guardian squad)

vs

Pathfinder camping squad with long range (36') snipers on top of aegis? ( I guess the farseer can still be jetbike I suppose but probably die from all those dangerous terrain checks) Can buff the gun line but won't be able to keep up with crisis suits for buffs (though the crisis suits probably gonna get markerlight support?)

Eldercaveman-a Shas'el with a twin-link missile-pod and a blacksun filter is legal, cheap and useful.

As for your broadsides, make sure they at the very least pack a blacksun filter somewhere there.



Speaking of broadsides, what do you guys consider better for a squad of 2 broadsides in a small game (1000 points), the Adv.SS or the TA? (or something else entirely?)

Ok, so looking at my list there how would you load them out, I'm not overly familiar with the tau codex so any help you guys can give is a massive bonus, bear in mind I don't want my tau detachment to go over 500 points. But there is 500 points available.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Eldercaveman-a Shas'el with a twin-link missile-pod and a blacksun filter is legal, cheap and useful.

As for your broadsides, make sure they at the very least pack a blacksun filter somewhere there.



Speaking of broadsides, what do you guys consider better for a squad of 2 broadsides in a small game (1000 points), the Adv.SS or the TA? (or something else entirely?)

TA, all day. With terrain set up I always will have an elevated firing platform in my DZ to put them - I want those rail guns to be accurate. If they need to move they can still snap fire so all is not lost.

I should have probably mentioned that in our LGS terrain is setup either as a random clusterfeth with both players just placing random stuff and moving stuff around until the scene looks good (without any order or rules), and on tournaments we have preset terrain pieces.