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First of all I do not believe this is a competitive tactic in terms of tournament setting but it still has the capacity to be.

Hey guys I was just chilling when I thought of an idea for a ninja tau army, So first we have two units who can help our suits deepstrike accurately, stealth suits with homing beacon (take up a valuable elite slot, but not a bad as they can infiltrate and survive that first turn a bit more effectively.) and the devilfish for pathfinders (take the recon drone and throw it in the fish while pathfinders stay to light up targets).

Now it has not changed really from last codex (except we cannot just keep units in reserve until turn 4) except that we have gotten much better at accurate deepstriking and with the positional relay we can outflank quite nicely. Now the basic idea for this was to have a mass reserves assault on turn 2 (using aegis line with comms relay) and either use a stealth team or devilfish to make sure everyone makes it to the party. Also with the positional relay you can just camp a unit with it in your backfield near one edge of the board and use that edge to swarm a horde of kroot onto the enemy side.

Now I am leaning towards use of stealth suits as the devilfish are more prone to being shot to pieces and cannot infiltrate. My hope was to run 3 teams of crisis suits (one is command unit) as deepstrikers and 2 teams of 30 kroot outflanking (if I took 4 teams of 15 it will offbalance my army as half need to be on the board) Now these right here are about 1200 pts. (3 teams of 3 suits, 1 team of 4 pathfinders with homing fish, team of 3 stealth with homing beacon, 2 teams of 30 kroot.) After this I plan to add more markerlights (pathfinders, drones etc.), 2 teams of fire warriors as a base, and either another Hq with suits, or maybe 2 hammerheads.

Now it is pricey and it isn't the most competitive (Helldrakes will probably laugh at this) but it seems pretty fluffy and fun and I plan to be trying it out! Any constructive criticism?

This is the new army i am preparing actually.

3 units Stealthsuits
2 UNits Stingwings
Etheral
Commander
MarkerSwarm
Some Fire Warriors.
Skyray

I'ts gonna' happen.

No Shadowsun Jan? considering its a ninja tau list after all
( understand you might want the commander with the markerswarm, but hey )

Yeah I feel fluffy armies are more fun to play than competitive, especially when they actually succeed. Like one list I wanna run (this is rather silly and more spam than fluff) is 3 teams of 5 piranhas with fusion blasters which is 750 pts. and then add 3 hammerheads putting me at 1100 points. And just massacre their anti vehicle firepower and fly around the map after I have brutalized them. (turbo boost 24 inches with 15 piranhas turn 1 anyone?) And then I plan on adding 3 teams of 12 fire warriors in fishes to take objectives and shoot anything left alive.

I cannot imagine the psychological fear someone experiences when 15 vehicles are on their front door and 3 battle tanks are sitting back with 3 more vehicles.

Dracoknight wrote:
No Shadowsun Jan? considering its a ninja tau list after all
( understand you might want the commander with the markerswarm, but hey )

I know, right?

Shadowsun WOULD be cool. when I get home I'll post the entire list. I may have her in there and just forgot. I have been so darn BUSY lately that I got as far as planning the list and then ran completely out of time the last three weeks to do anything with it. So I have just carried around my old list to get games in til i can pep this one.

Anyways, I'll post it here when I get home.

khuffy wrote:
Now it has not changed really from last codex (except we cannot just keep units in reserve until turn 4)

I disagree strongly that this is not a major change. The whole point of ninja Tau was that you could keep your entire army off the table until the end of the game and then move in to claim/contest objectives with too little time left for your opponent to do anything about it. Now that strategy is dead since there's no way of holding anything back voluntarily. A mass outflank/deep strike attack on turn 2 might be a viable plan, but calling it ninja Tau makes about as much sense as calling a Khorne berserker rush list ninja Tau.

That whole turn two rush is what iv'e been doing since 6th came out.
Shadowsun and two stealth teams, some kroot, an eldar autarch... 2+ reserves on the first turn is really nice. And the other fun thing is that now theres a lot less deepstriking risk. Drop stealth team in, then use them to keep shadowsun from scattering, add in a pair of 18" meltas, season with jet pack moves, and you have a nice death from the skies omelette

khuffy wrote:

Hey guys I was just chilling when I thought of an idea for a ninja tau army, So first we have two units who can help our suits deepstrike accurately, stealth suits with homing beacon (take up a valuable elite slot, but not a bad as they can infiltrate and survive that first turn a bit more effectively.) and the devilfish for pathfinders (take the recon drone and throw it in the fish while pathfinders stay to light up targets).

The Recon Drone is part of the Pathfinder unit, so if the Pathfinders disembark so does the Recon Drone.

Okay found it crumpled up on the floor. Kids these days. Here's what I've been pondering.

6 Stealthsuits (Gun dronesx2, Advanced Targetting System x5, Fusion x1, 1x Retrothrusters)

6 Stealthsuits (Gun dronesx2, Advanced Targetting System x5, Fusion x1, 1x Retrothrusters)

6 Stealthsuits (Gun dronesx2, Advanced Targetting System x5, Fusion x1, 1xRetrothrusters)

9 Marker Drones

9 StingWing (Strain Leader)

9 Stingwing (Strain Leader)

Ethereal

Commander (Drone Controller, Vectored Retro thrusters, Onager Gauntlet. Positional Relay)

10 Fire Warriors
Devilfish (Disruption Pod)

10 Fire Warriors

10 Kroot +3 Hound (3 are necessary to allow the full 12" extension of the unit in round 1)

10 Kroot +3 Hound

SkyRay (Disruption Pod, Smart Missile System)

This still feels a little like a prototype. I'm still pondering whether i should go with 5 man Stealth units (certainly no less than that though). That's 99 points that can go into a Fire Warrior unit. Alternately, That's 3 Firesight Marksmen with 4 Sniper Drones. They can be a second unit of Markerlights for me, and the added Sniper shots are not terrible, especially when an Ethereal makes them fire 3 times at 24" range. Far from the worst investment ever and it gives me variety for my Markerlight targets. Last option I am considering is an Ionhead, which would add to my AP 2 ability which I have to admit is lacking (although lets be real here: The torrent can make up for a LOT in that regard.

So I am like 85% done with the list, but I love its ability to get First Blood, it is a themed force with highly mobile troops (my forte) as well as, in this case, an EXTREME diversity of deployment options. I feel like it can dominate a flank for the first two turns, and keep pressure off the scoring units, which is really important to Tau. Tau scoring units are not the most ardent of positional defenders. Lol.

khuffy wrote:
Yeah I feel fluffy armies are more fun to play than competitive, especially when they actually succeed. Like one list I wanna run (this is rather silly and more spam than fluff) is 3 teams of 5 piranhas with fusion blasters which is 750 pts. and then add 3 hammerheads putting me at 1100 points. And just massacre their anti vehicle firepower and fly around the map after I have brutalized them. (turbo boost 24 inches with 15 piranhas turn 1 anyone?) And then I plan on adding 3 teams of 12 fire warriors in fishes to take objectives and shoot anything left alive.

I cannot imagine the psychological fear someone experiences when 15 vehicles are on their front door and 3 battle tanks are sitting back with 3 more vehicles.

The amount of drones that will pop off the Piranhas will also be really interesting to see. 15 Piranahas = 30 drones = 60 Carbine shots.
I really like the sounds of this list, doesnt match my playstyle (i like suits too much) but it would be awesome to see. Add in a Ethereal in a Fish so that the drones outside can shoot 90 shots TL! With any Firewarriors that came ot of your fish too. If somehow everythng survived that would be the ultimate Fish'O'Fury. 90 shots from the drones and 108 shots from the Fire Warriors, let alone the Devilfish, Piranha, and Hammer head shots. Thats awesome.

60 shots IS a lot of shots.

Considering i managed to put together a 1k list with total of 80 shots where about 20-30 of them is TL'd....yeah...

Anyho on your list Jan, why not a iridium suit? might cut it shot of your 99 points for a 10man firewarrior squad, or you can just fill that last up with having 2 fusions in your stealth squads with iriduim and maybe snipers ( they cost like 60 for a minimum squad )