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I've recently changed my army from IG back to Tau due to some real life conditions, and I've been hearing whispers that there will be a new Apocalypse edition or supplement coming in a few months. So I was wondering what's good with Tau in Apocalypse. assume that anything can be scratchbuilt or converted or that money for FW stuff is unlimited. what should I take for a Tau Apocalypse army?

 yeri wrote:
assume ... that money for FW stuff is unlimited

That's quite funny considering the FW Tau Manta costs 960 Brit pounds.

If you are going to scratch build it, start with a boogie board and work from there.

Tau? Apocalypse? You're funny...

Manta's, fully loaded with as much suits, transports and models as possible

 Wilytank wrote:

 yeri wrote:
assume ... that money for FW stuff is unlimited

That's quite funny considering the FW Tau Manta costs 960 Brit pounds.

If you are going to scratch build it, start with a boogie board and work from there.

of course I'm going to scratch build everything, I just put that in there because some people don't like scratch builds. I just wanted to convey that if anything could be taken what should be taken?

Go full Air Force. Bring five-bazillion Tiger Shark AX-1-0's to the table and watch your opponents cry in anguish. For ground forces, take the Stealth Suit formation and max out the squads in it (take all the fusion blasters!).

 AtoMaki wrote:
Go full Air Force. Bring five-bazillion Tiger Shark AX-1-0's to the table and watch your opponents cry in anguish. For ground forces, take the Stealth Suit formation and max out the squads in it (take all the fusion blasters!).

Rules-wise, this. As many Tigershark AX-1-0s as you can, the STR D AP 1 railgun handles vehicles while the STR 7 AP 3 10" blast wipes infantry off the table. And don't forget that you can fire your own seeker missiles now, so buy them.

The only drawback to this plan is that you're scratchbuilding, and if you try to scratchbuild Tigershark spam within a sane amount of time the quality of each model is going to be terrible and nobody is going to let you use them.

1.) get a gun

2.) rob a bank with said gun

3.) use money to buy as many Mantas as you can

4.) ???

5.) Profit!

6.) Blame it all on your parents when get arrested.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
Go full Air Force. Bring five-bazillion Tiger Shark AX-1-0's to the table and watch your opponents cry in anguish. For ground forces, take the Stealth Suit formation and max out the squads in it (take all the fusion blasters!).

Rules-wise, this. As many Tigershark AX-1-0s as you can, the STR D AP 1 railgun handles vehicles while the STR 7 AP 3 10" blast wipes infantry off the table. And don't forget that you can fire your own seeker missiles now, so buy them.

The only drawback to this plan is that you're scratchbuilding, and if you try to scratchbuild Tigershark spam within a sane amount of time the quality of each model is going to be terrible and nobody is going to let you use them.

That's why you use slave labor from the orphanage I mean volunteers, yes...volunteers who are absolutely paid to do it.

Well the tau apocalypse formations are nice.

Never underestimate a devilfish that fives you a 12" radius bubble of stealth/shrouded, and pathfinder squads that "appear" on the board on your first turn and can shoot heavy weapons.

Or D3+1 markerlight hits for every three hammerheads.

 Peregrine wrote:


Rules-wise, this. As many Tigershark AX-1-0s as you can, the STR D AP 1 railgun handles vehicles while the STR 7 AP 3 10" blast wipes infantry off the table. And don't forget that you can fire your own seeker missiles now, so buy them.

The only drawback to this plan is that you're scratchbuilding, and if you try to scratchbuild Tigershark spam within a sane amount of time the quality of each model is going to be terrible and nobody is going to let you use them.

I don't really see what's so hard about them. They're a pretty simple wing design that can be relatively easily made with either layers of plasticard or two layers of foam core poster board, a dremel, and an exacto knife. They're basically a giant wing with guns underslung on it.

As far as Apoc I always relish the opportunity to field infantry and crisis suits like they're GEQs. Add the new Riptides into the mix and theoretically you could field a tabletop version of "Cingular, Raising the Bar" from firewarriors->stealthsuits->Crisis suits->Crisis XV8-05->Broadsides->Riptides.

Tons of hammer heads :3 and broadsides with even more missle drones.. it will be a rail/missle mayhem!

Take 100 fireblades all as 1 squad for fun. Then laugh as each one fires 101 target locked shots at 30 inches, for a total of 10100 s5 shots. Every turn everything in range that can be killed by str 5 shots, will be dead. Then take something else to deal with the inevitable armor brigades.

I've always wanted to see a Manta.

I was wondering if I should get my brother a Manta for his college graduation. I decided to buy him a Dodge Aries to convert. It's cheaper that way. ~ (In all seriousness, I did see a Dodge Aries with an asking price of $450...)

 greyknight12 wrote:
I've always wanted to see a Manta.

Several months ago, there was a thread in the Painting Showcase forum about a dude who had painted up a Manta quite nicely. His second manta.

He dropped the first one.

Then bought a second. Because he could.

 McNinja wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
I've always wanted to see a Manta.

Several months ago, there was a thread in the Painting Showcase forum about a dude who had painted up a Manta quite nicely. His second manta.

He dropped the first one.

Then bought a second. Because he could.

There's something strangely fitting about your comment about people with far too much time, money, and power and your avatar...

Back on topic I'm unconvinced by the Manta...it seems to have the same "all your eggs in one basket" problem that the Orca has. And of course when you drop everything off it's just an oversized underpowered flying titan...

 dbsamurai wrote:
I don't really see what's so hard about them. They're a pretty simple wing design that can be relatively easily made with either layers of plasticard or two layers of foam core poster board, a dremel, and an exacto knife. They're basically a giant wing with guns underslung on it.

They're a giant curved* wing. It's not as easy to scratchbuild as the boxy Imperial vehicles, and it's a very large model. So in theory "bring 10+ Tigersharks" is a great idea, but unless you're going to devote months/years of work to the project you're just not going to be able to build that many without giving up quality. More realistically you might be able to build 1-2 decent quality Tigersharks to add to a traditional Tau army.


*And no, you can't build it flat. If you just trace a Tigershark outline onto a flat sheet of foam and ignore the curved details you shouldn't be allowed to use your "model".

 King Pariah wrote:
I was wondering if I should get my brother a Manta for his college graduation.

Just make sure your brother has enough experience to build one properly. The Manta is NOT a model for beginners.

 dbsamurai wrote:
Back on topic I'm unconvinced by the Manta...it seems to have the same "all your eggs in one basket" problem that the Orca has. And of course when you drop everything off it's just an oversized underpowered flying titan...

Kind of. The Manta is MUCH better than it used to be. IA:Aeronautica gave it two heavy railguns instead of a single twin-linked gun, 6th edition gave it optional skyfire on all of its guns and made it extremely unlikely that 'weapon destroyed' will kill a main gun, and the new codex gave it a powerful blast shot from the ion cannons and 33% more firepower from the mass burst cannons. As a pure gunship it's probably not as good as equal points in Tigershark spam, but if you're getting any use at all out of the transport capacity then it's probably worth taking one. The biggest drawback, assuming you're smart enough not to overload it with transported units, is the physical size of the model. It's hard to transport, hard to base, and hard to move on a crowded Apocalypse table. But if you can deal with a huge and heavy model it's worth taking one.

Spam tiger sharks, unleash the feeding frenzy! Laugh evilly! DRINK YOUR FOES' TEARS!!

 Peregrine wrote:


They're a giant curved* wing. It's not as easy to scratchbuild as the boxy Imperial vehicles, and it's a very large model. So in theory "bring 10+ Tigersharks" is a great idea, but unless you're going to devote months/years of work to the project you're just not going to be able to build that many without giving up quality. More realistically you might be able to build 1-2 decent quality Tigersharks to add to a traditional Tau army.


*And no, you can't build it flat. If you just trace a Tigershark outline onto a flat sheet of foam and ignore the curved details you shouldn't be allowed to use your "model".

Actually that's what I was saying. You cut out the flat shape of the wings in foam, then you use a dremel to add the curved details just like you would if it was made of metal. though to be fair I have some practice using a dremel on soft foam It wouldn't be too hard to get the curves, it's just critical to make the wings in two parts, the engine intakes as two more parts, and then the main hull as a single part.

 Peregrine wrote:


Kind of. The Manta is MUCH better than it used to be. IA:Aeronautica gave it two heavy railguns instead of a single twin-linked gun, 6th edition gave it optional skyfire on all of its guns and made it extremely unlikely that 'weapon destroyed' will kill a main gun, and the new codex gave it a powerful blast shot from the ion cannons and 33% more firepower from the mass burst cannons. As a pure gunship it's probably not as good as equal points in Tigershark spam, but if you're getting any use at all out of the transport capacity then it's probably worth taking one. The biggest drawback, assuming you're smart enough not to overload it with transported units, is the physical size of the model. It's hard to transport, hard to base, and hard to move on a crowded Apocalypse table. But if you can deal with a huge and heavy model it's worth taking one.

Yea none of that sounds better than Tigershark spam...Overpriced, oversized model that would drop under any sustained titan fire and probably take the entire cadre with it...=/ Though I do have to admit that the prospect of getting two hammerheads, two devilfishes, and a crapload of drones and suits when you buy it is pretty cool

You're all wrong. Use Fire Warriors, call them "Cadre Fireblades", attach about 30 of them to each other, add an ethereal or twelve, then just spam melta crisis suits.

Cadre Fireblades effect other Cadre Fireblades, and they can splitfire. How does 30+ shots per model, splitfired wherever you want at BS5 sound? Add shadowsun (or join them to stealth suits) for massive lulz.


Literally the only time the cadre fireblade is superior to an ethereal.


Then, I suppose, once you've done that, everyone else is right - spam tigersharks or mantas, because really why not.

 dbsamurai wrote:
that would drop under any sustained titan fire

Nope. You hit it on normal BS, but you don't get permission to hit it with blast weapons (which is all that titans are armed with). Until/unless you go into hover mode to deploy troops on the last turn of the game you're completely immune to titans.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

uberjoras wrote:
How does 30+ shots per model, splitfired wherever you want at BS5 sound?

It sounds utterly pointless because Apocalypse is all about tanks, and pulse rifles can't touch tanks. So you just spent a ton of points on annoying your opponents with your completely un-fluffy "exploit" and still didn't even manage to bring anything that can have any impact on the game.

 Peregrine wrote:

 dbsamurai wrote:
that would drop under any sustained titan fire

Nope. You hit it on normal BS, but you don't get permission to hit it with blast weapons (which is all that titans are armed with). Until/unless you go into hover mode to deploy troops on the last turn of the game you're completely immune to titans.

And there's it's primary draw compromised. If you can't hover to drop off troops for risk of getting blown to kingdom come then 50% of its usefulness is out the door...Tigersharks may be a one trick pony but at least they're not an "either/or" unit like the manta

 dbsamurai wrote:
And there's it's primary draw compromised. If you can't hover to drop off troops for risk of getting blown to kingdom come then 50% of its usefulness is out the door...

Not really. You can drop battlesuits without hovering, and the whole point of putting fire warriors and/or vehicles on a Manta instead of on the table or in normal reserve is to keep them safe until a late-turn objective grab. So you spend most of the game shooting stuff as a flyer and don't go into hover mode until the end of the game, at which point you drop off an entire standard-40k army at a critical point and win the game. You might lose your Manta if your opponents are foolish enough to shoot at it instead of the troops it just delivered (and still have any big guns alive to shoot it with), but by that point it's done its job anyway.