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One thing I'm finding from these finecast drones is... the old metal sculpts really are a bit s**t. They don't have a huge amount of detail and there's no reason why they shouldn't be plastic.

And yeah, like I said... if I had the bits, I could have tried making my own sniper drones, but... well... I used all my bits to make my own shield and marker drones <_<;;

Pulse Submunition Rifle XV-9s are awesome - just had to point that out.

For 150 points you get a highly durable suit with two shield drones and two pie plates of death. The best thing about the PSR's is that they're deadly even without markerlight support - and they can dig out stuff like eldar rangers from far away.
Couple that with s5 for massive ammounts of wounds and you've got a winner

The only shame is that there isn't a weapon model out for the PSR yet :(

I suppose you could buy two R'alai models, but I had personally intended to use the Phased Ion Guns myself.

I used instant mold & green stuff to make duplicates of ralai's gun.

Just a quick question, but does anyone have any views on Piranhas this edition?

taudau, you could always look at the beam gun by Paulson Games. It looks a lot like the Pulse Sub Rifle for R'alai, little thicker imo but same size and similar look and way cheaper. As far as piranha goes, I was running 1 in my 2k list early in 6th pretty much for line breaker and the occasional melta shot. Now I tend to run more tetras and they have become very survivable with disruption pods boost and last me most games til the end for line breaker and of course the multitude of markerlights it gives you.

Tetras, being vehicles, are ineligible for claiming the "line breaker" secondary obj.

i wass thinking just zip about claiming 2+ cover, than pop something if it gets too close

 IHateNids wrote:
Just a quick question, but does anyone have any views on Piranhas this edition?

I still think the usefulness of Piranhas is limited due to the short range of their fusion blasters/burst cannons. It often leads to them getting charged in combat (which to this day I have yet to see a vehicle get charged in 6th ed and not get wrecked/exploded)

However I am a fan of the forgeworld varient that allows them to take TL MPs instead. That or take plasmarifles/railguns if you want. That varient is actually harder to kill then a crisissuit equivelant unit with the same upgrades, and for a cheaper price. The only real downside being the lack of being a denial unit and the Jetpack rule.

I might start trying to field more of them, since i can also load them up with seeker missiles giving my tetras even more of a punch.

Piranhas are still useful for movement blocking of large tanks, and elite combat units. Always remember that those combt units don't get to consolidate from vehicles, which is precious movement lost on their part.

I have actually killed a Daemon Prince when it charged me last edition with the fletchettes, so Im not worrying about charges.

DP was on 2 wounds from shooting, and charged a team of three Pirahnas. 2 hit, 2 6s to wound, 2 failed saves. it was priceless

I need help with the Loadout on my Two Solo Crisis Suits.
I would like to run BC/PR on one While MS/Burstcannon on the other.
but i need other ideas. Any ideas for help? I know a fireknife is a good choice, but such a low volume of shots they put out doesnt help me.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I need help with the Loadout on my Two Solo Crisis Suits.
I would like to run BC/PR on one While MS/Burstcannon on the other.
but i need other ideas. Any ideas for help? I know a fireknife is a good choice, but such a low volume of shots they put out doesnt help me.

What kinds of roles do you want to accomplish? I'm getting the feeling you'd like to get an anti-horde approach. I'm assuming these are HQ suits (you don't want to waste elite slots with montats ) which makes the Airburst a very attractive option. You can then twinlink BCs on that unit to get him some good light armor kill power. I've used the Airburst in my last game (granted, a month ago, but still) and it performed admirably against annoying as hell troopers to kill.

If you're going for another goal with them, please let me know.

i find a solo suit is good with BC & TL Flamer for anti-horde. Or go all experimental with Cyclic Ion & Airburst. ~7 dead Nids/IG/other-T3-targets a turn, what with no cover and decent-ish AP.

Not Horde, More like anti Infantry. Like marines and such.

Specifically Anti-MEQ you want AP3 or better, meaning for Tau Fusion Blasters, Ion Cannons, Plasma Rifles, Rail Rifles, Railguns and Seeker Missiles are your friend, with an honourable mention going to the Cyclic Ion Blaster.

So for suits, you're pretty much limited to Fusion Blasters, Plasma Rifles, and Cyclic Ion Blasters.

For lone suits, the Plasma / Fusion Blaster combo may be the better option.

That said, you're better off leaving regular infantry to Fire Warriors, Devilfish, Hammerhead Railguns (large blast goodness) and squads of suits with more shots.
Lone suits I'd use to focus on taking out hard-targets, probably with a twin-linked Fusion Blaster and a Plasma Rifle (or possibly a Missile Pod).

 DakkaHammer wrote:
In 5th I found 1500pts to be the ideal game size for Tau (or at least for my Tau, which was light on railguns and suits). My point is, three missile pods, and four railguns should be enough in most cases to deal with vehicles (so you can drop a broadside). It should be at least close to the same in 6th.

IMHO the game size is a bit small for the point investment of Eldrad, as opposed to a regular seer using presience and another power (most of which are quite good). Or at least, right on the edge of where it becomes worth it or not. The regular seer can do most of the same stuff, for a lot less cost. And you need to drop 200 points

took your advice dakkahammer and had my first game with the tau minus a broadside but I kept eldrad and it worked really well!

Twin linked hammer heads were amazing as far as I was concerned lol as I ended up fighting a typhus plague zombie list and I barely squeeked by shooting them all down with rail guns and templates. I ended up not being able to afford the quad gun or aegis but I snuck in 2 broadsides. The twin linked burst cannons were also really handy. Hero of the day however goes to my drone squad that detatched from an immobilized devilfish and they managed to kill a terminator with shooting as well as killed 1 plague zombie with fnp in close combat and passed morale from getting shot by some plague marines lol. Eventually died from all the rest of the zombies killing the one guy in close combat but worth it as it dragged them out of cover cause the guy was pissed at the drones for killing a terminator lol

Also, tau I feel like we almost have a pinata event vs plague zombie spam as they can't shoot back and was probably kind of an easy game but still felt really good for shooting purposes. Wish I could buff the crisis suits with eldrad though but I deep struck them and kited around. Debating on multi-tracker vs targeters now for the 2 normal guys. May also reconsider the shield drones but not enough data to decide yet.

I got what feels like a nub question but...

Does the Pathfinder's Devilfish count as Fast Attack in the FOC? I was thinking for the mission where Fast Attack count as scoring. If so I guess they would give up two KPs when killed?

DFs only give up one KP when killed. The drones are counted as part of the vehicle, and don't give up a separate kill point.

As for the FOC question... I'd say that since it's part of a FA choice, then yes it'd count as FA.

A Dedicated Transport has the same FoC slot as the unit that takes it.

You'll need to make a note of which are the FA ones though to avoid confusion.

tetrisphreak wrote:Tetras, being vehicles, are ineligible for claiming the "line breaker" secondary obj.

Piranhas, however, carry a very small drone squadron, that does count for linebreaker. Devilfishes have these as well, so taking a piranha just for linebreaker might be a waste if you have DF's already

I have a question. Has anyone tried out XV-9's with Fusion Cascades?
did you field them in full squads? how'd they do? how survivable were they?

I love these models and their weapon choices, they are just so darn expensive (points and $) especially since their support system choices are either too expensive or useless

I've only seen one person use the XV-9 and that was back in 5th. The guy had no idea how to play Tau, got the one XV-9 killed, and I think he lied about them being 40K approved.

But if I remember right, the fusion cascade gives you 2D3 melta shots at 18" on a T5 suit.

Personally I don't like how the XV-9s are sold with only the single weapon option. If they sold the base model and sold the arms separately I would have tried them out, instead you have to shell out for two expensive models to try two different guns.

I recently picked up a Tau force, and I am eager to start experimenting. I have read through this thread, and there is some great information here, thank you to all that have contributed. I have not played 40K since 5th edition, and so I am a little rusty on some of the 6th edition rules, but I have been trying to catch up. Given the models that I have I am probably going to be running a foot army, and I was glad to see from this thread that this seems like a viable option now. I wanted to get a little feedback on the list that I am making while it is in a conceptual stage before I post it to Army Lists for fine tuning. That being the case, here is a skeleton list:

HQ:
1x Shas'O: Airbursting and Missile Pod, HWDC, HWTL, Multi-tracker, BSF, 2x Shield Drones
2x Honour Guard: 2x Deathrains w/ gun drones or two more shield drones

1x Ethereal
7x Honour Guard: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight

ELITES:
3x Fireknives: Multitrackers, HWDC, HWTL, BSF, gun drones
5x Stealth suits: Marker Sahs'ui w/ 2 Marker Drones
3x Stealth suits: 1x Fusion Blaster

TROOPS:
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight
7x Firewarriors: Shas'ui w/ HWTL and Markerlight

HEAVY:
2x Broadsides: Plasma Rifles, Shield Drones, ASS
2x Broadsides: Plasma Rifles, Shield Drones, ASS

FORTIFICATION:
Aegis Defense Line w/ Quad gun

Here are my thoughts:
With so much of my force made up of small FW units, I thought that having an ethereal would be helpful . I figured that either he or one of his honor guard would man the quad gun (could one of the guard do this?). They would be positioned behind the aegis, hopefully in a place with good sight lines, both to maximize their fire output and make best use of his Morale boosting. One unit of Broadsides would stay relatively stationary behind the aegis, and the other would stay mobile to pop vehicles that are out of sight lines. The FW squads would serve as skirmishing units, with the Shas'uis lighting up targets for heavies and for other FW units. The Shas'O and friends would provide additional long range support, and user the Airburster to nuke any light infantry that make it close to the Aegis. The stealth suits would Infiltrate to try and put some hurt and markerlights on the enemy turn one. The fusion stealth squad was really intended to take out any back line heavies that the railguns don't manage to pop, kind of a frontline response unit. The firknives would burn markerlights, and handle the mid-field. I wanted
Like I said, this list is still in the conceptual stage. I was trying to avoid vehicles, but I do have a railhead and an ionhead that I could bring in if points allow. I was a little nervous about including them until I had the rest of the list ironed out, and I would probably only want to bring one if I was able to bring both.
So, what wisdom do you have to lay on me? More markerlights or less? Markerlights in FW squads work? Loadouts on the crisis squads make sense?

a few quick notes. Ultimately it's your army so you put what you want in it and have some fun experimenting.
And yes, your honorguard would work great on the Quadcannon, since he is BS4. I'm not sure on the rules about the rest of his unit firing at a different target though.

However, some things where you could work on are:

1) Keep in mind that you must take 25% casualties before a squad takes a morale check. To combat this you want squad sizes of 9+ (3 required to check instead of 2) or even the full 12 (4 kills needed). Also, you cannot regroup if below 25%. To combat this you need squads of 8+ (2 firewarriors can still regroup at normal Ld). Since your army will be on foot your squads need to be more resilient to Ld checks by being larger. I would take one or two FW squads and distribute them throughout the others and honor guard.

2) Fusion blasters in stealth teams are highly unreliable. Plus you can take a deep-striking suicide crisis with TL fusion blasters and targetting array for almost half the points of that stealth team. It costs less, is almost as survivable, and is much more effective at popping high AV

3) If one squad of broadsides will be behind the Aegis, then there is no need for ASS. You could even argue that the shield drones are not worth it since the Aegis grants gun drones a comparable invul save. Just know that when you buy shield drones for the Aegis Broadsides you are paying only for the 2+ armor save

4) Putting markerlights in every squad you can think of is costing you alot of points. It will definately get results, but there are more efficient ways of getting them. You are paying 25 points per markerlight in the FW squads. Total, all 9 of your ML's are costing you ~225 points. That is 4 tetras or 8 Pathfinders+fully kitted Devilfish+some change.
However, give your list a try and see how you like it. Generally, markerlights work best in designated markerlight platforms, but you never know

5) A tactical point about the markerlights's. Only the marker drones have integrated markerlights. Which means they are the only ones that can benefit their own unit. Your shooting phase will be tricky because you must shoot with the entire unit before moving to the next one. This means a FW's markerlight hit can only benefit the units that fire after his own, and since there's only 1 per squad it makes accumulating markerlight counters difficult.

Thank you so much for the feedback!
Good notion about the honour guard not being able to fire at a different squad, I will have to look into that.
On to your points:

1) In a 7 man squad, 25% casualties for a morale check is 3 models killed. At that point, the unit is actually close to half strength, so if they run it is not that big of a loss. To be below 25% so that they can't re-group, they would have to only have one model left, so no big loss. The idea of this is to break up the units so that the enemy has to divide their fire amongst more targets. Granted, each unit dies more easily, which does sacrifice a kill point. This also affords the opportunity to include more markerlights, but I will discuss that later.

2) I completely get your point here. The one advantage that the stealth team has over the monat suit is that they can infiltrate and start harassing the enemy turn 1. The crisis suit can DS, but that always has an associated risk. You are absolutely right though, he would do a better job once he is there at a lower cost, so I will take this into consideration.

3) You are absolutely right about the loadout on the Broadsides. I was trying to keep them a little more flexible, and just intended them to start behind the aegis, but it is probably an unnecessary points sink.

4) The way I saw it, I was buying a Shas'ui for every FW squad anyway for the improved Ld, so giving each one a markerlight was only costing 15 pts per unit. Total for 7 markerlights would be 105 points. 7 PF's (Shas'ui w/ 1 TL) and their naked Dfish are 179 points, and can only light up at most two targets. granted, that actually puts more bodies on the field, and they have some cool tricks, but in a foot list their transport is going to get smoked fast, as it is the only vehicle on the table. The markerlight stealths just looked like a good way to boost the number of lights I had to play with each turn. As for tetras, you are absolutely correct. They are awesomesauce, and I would love to have 2x2, but I don't have the money to sink into them at the moment.

5) The shooting phase will be tricky. I kind of figured that I would start with whatever unit has no shot on infantry, and just shoot their markerlight. Start stacking markerlights on hard targets, and if someone fails their target priority test and lights up whatever the rest of their squad is shooting at, just burn that one for the squad shooting after it. With great flexibility in who gets lit, comes potential complications, and sometimes you just have to make the best of a bad situation.

I think that I am going to keep the lights in the squads until I have an opportunity to playtest. Has anyone had any experience with this tactic?
I will definitely be editing the suits. Thanks for the input, this is why I brought it here first.

From my experience, the one ML in your FW squad is going to have a very minimal impact. Taking those out and investing in at least one transport seems to be a better useage of points.

The reasoning behind that is that if you get a stripped down transport you have a good, very mobile skimmer. But all you need to add to it is a Disruption Pod and suddenly you have a transport that is incredibly difficult to take down, as moving normally confers a 3+ Jink and moving flat out confers a 2+ Jink, meaning your opponents have to place tons of effort into taking it down while you have the advantage of mobility to your troops.

I see you've put alot of thought into this, and if you have reasons for doing what you did then you should go with it and give it a try.

25% of 7 is 1.75, 8 is 2, and 9 is 2.25. So for anything below 9 models, you will take a Ld test whenever you lose 2 models. So basically, for shooting-casualty-Ld-check purposes a 6 man squad is no different than an 8. You could take one FW from each squad and form another minimal squad if MSU is what you are after.
You can set up your squads however you want, the advantages/disadvantages are very small, I just wanted you to be aware of what they were.

Infiltrating harassing stealth suits is a great thing. The fusion-stealth team is just an awkward unit to use without dumping tons of points on it for support systems and making a Stealth Cloud. In some cases, it will work great, but in others it ends up trying to do everything and accomplishing nothing. I found, for the most part, I was either wasting the FB shots on infantry, or wasting the BC shots on heavy armor.

Would you consider changing your stealth marker team to 3 models and have them operate in the backfield, then bump up your dedicated harass stealth team to 5? 5 Burst cannons (or 4 plus a FB) will annoy just about anything and with so many units on the board the stealth marker team should be fairly low on his target priority list.

By my math 15 ptsper FW squad = 90, 15 for the Stealth leader, and 60 for the marker drones. Total 165, still in pathfinder territory and you get a bonus devilfish for locator beacon and obj. grabbing, or 3 tetras kitted out.
As I said, how you distribute your markerlights is up to you. And I encourage you to test the Markerlight firewarrior squads, it is a rarely used tactic and may be very effective in 6th. Food for thought: there is a good discussion on pathfinders vs. tetras here over at ATT.

Final note, you do not need to pass any target priority tests for 6th. You can shoot at whoever you please, and target locks automatically allow you to fire at a different target.

@ Da Skyman: Embarrassing, but you are spot on. I am studying calculus and physics right now, but apparently basic arithmetic is outside of my range of ability. Thanks for the correction.
Your suggestions for the stealth teams sound great, and I am implementing them as written. Very helpful, I just wasn't sure how exactly to make them into a round peg, and I think that's it.
I wasn't giving the FW squads marker drones. Just a markerlight for the Shas'ui. Each squad comes out to 95 points, which is about what the pathfinder squad costs without the devilfish. This way I am sacrificing a couple of abilities that I don't necessarily need in this unit for it to be scoring, and I don't have to buy a devilfish. The points spent on the devilfish basically buy another unit. With the marker stealth team, this gives me a total of 9 ML's on the field that can be shot at 8 targets.
Glad to hear there is no more priority test, that makes this work even better.

@ Yotsuba: It is not 1 ML in one FW squad, it is 7 in 7. I am not investing in one transport because one of the advantages of running foot is that you get to deny the enemy the proper use of their AT weapons. With only one on the board it would also be an easy KP. Don't get me wrong, I think that the devilfish, particularly with disruption pod, is the best transport in the game. Just doen't seem like a good idea to only include one. This is the same reason that I am nervous to only include one hammer head.

Twinkle Starchild wrote:


4) The way I saw it, I was buying a Shas'ui for every FW squad anyway for the improved Ld, so giving each one a markerlight was only costing 15 pts per unit. Total for 7 markerlights would be 105 points. 7 PF's (Shas'ui w/ 1 TL) and their naked Dfish are 179 points, and can only light up at most two targets. granted, that actually puts more bodies on the field, and they have some cool tricks, but in a foot list their transport is going to get smoked fast, as it is the only vehicle on the table. The markerlight stealths just looked like a good way to boost the number of lights I had to play with each turn. As for tetras, you are absolutely correct. They are awesomesauce, and I would love to have 2x2, but I don't have the money to sink into them at the moment.

The nice thing about pathfinders is that they can be shooting before the rest of your army. Ui' with Marker lights can only shoot when its their squads turn to shoot, and then the lights can only be used by squads that have yet to have shot in that phase. Most of the time the things you want to light up are the things you want to be shooting at first, not with 'whatever is left after all your troops have laid down fire.

Also, the devilfish is a tax, but only if you make it one. Otherwise its an av12 skimmer with a 2up save when it flats out. And a transport to boot, and in the scouring, it can drop gun drones that are scoring. Any other time, it can drop gun drones that are denial units, denail units that can disembard 6 (from anywhere on the hull, run d6, and then jump shoot jump 2d6). Think of the pathfinder d-fish as a little something extra that just happens to be manditory unless you have Tetras.

The pathfinders being a dedicated markerlight unit is definitely helpful. I included a stealth marker team in the list for lighting up high priority targets that are transports for units that I would want to shoot with my FW teams later in the shooting phase. The shooting phase would kind of go like this:
1) Stealth team lights up high priority transport
2) A heavy unit burns the lights to pop the transport
3) 1 or two FW squads fire, with their markerlights going to either stack on an armoured target or increase BS for the unit after it if an infantry target is available. Depending on what is in LOS, the honour guard may fire first since they are starting off with BS 4, or they may fire after a ML hit on an infantry unit is scored by a prior unit so that they are at BS 5.
4) A heavy pops whatever they have been lighting up
5) More units fire...etc...

I accept that this is a much more complicated process than the dedicated marker team, heavies, FW teams approach that is often used. I think that might be an advantage though, as all of the units involved are forced to work more in concert. There will be a shift in target priority, as each of 6 FW squads will have have to make decisions not only on how best to position for firing at enemy infantry, but also how best to position to place markerlights effectively. I think that this is an advantage to this approach as well. By having markerlights in every unit, it will make it so that you can place markers on enemy units that you might not otherwise be able to reach. Dedicated marker units also have the disadvantage that if they are wiped out, that's it. One wisely placed demolisher round, and poof goes your markerlight support. By hiding the lights in the regular FW squads, you make those lights more survivable and more flexible at a slight cost to efficacy due to FW's not having scout, etc...

I understand that devilfish are awesome transports, and I would not argue against them in most lists, but do you really think that having one floating around is really going to be worth its points? Worth potentially generating a KP for the enemy? I am spending 90 points to give each of the 6 squads (though I am thinking of making them 7x 6 man squads after Da Skyman's math settled into my brain). Why would I spend nearly that much on a transport that would be the only vehicle on the table?

I see people using, or atleast mention, the stealth marker team and I really have to ask why. The unit is insanely expensive for access to just a few BS3 markerlights.

I'm a firm believer that if you're going to take markerlights, you take Tetras. If you don't want to, can't, don't have access to tetras then you just don't take markerlights. Tau firepower is fairly reliable when you twin linke missile pods and railguns, and the points that you would spend on markers for the stealth squad would better be used on just getting more FW.