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1500 points for the greater good

HQ:
Cadre Fireblade - 60
Ethereal - 50

Elites:
Riptide - 210
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster
* Velocity Tracker
* Early warning override

Riptide - 210
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster
* Velocity Tracker
* Early warning override



Troops:
Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fast Attack:
Pathfinder team (7) - 77
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Pathfinder team (7) - 77
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Heavy support:
Hammerhead - 195
* Longstrike
* Ion Cannon
* Tw SMS
* disruption pod

Skyray - 120
* Sensor spines

Looks like it covers all basis.

You may want to consider cutting down some points to give your riptide the shielded missle drones though.

what is the sky ray for?
personally i don't like ethereals.
The ion cannon with longstrik also seem a bit odd.
you also have the wrong points for the hammer head it should be 185 with the equipment you have on it.

So personally i would drop the Sky Ray and the ethereal.
Take two broadsides w/missle drones and give one of them a drone controller.

With that you would need to find 6 points from somewhere else though

I totes forgot to change the ion cannon when I added Longstrike :(

The skyray is another source of markerlights and for alpha strike. Plus it's good for the flyers I'm convinced I'll be facing

The ethereal gives me 50% more shots and with how many fire warriors I have I felt he was a must have. Plus with no transports the zephyr ability can help keep me mobile and still be offensive. I usually try to take as much ground as I can first turn giving me room to retreat and shoot while the riptides draw fire and pound anything advancing. The skyray and hammerhead (with rail since I'll fix it) stay at the back and bombard anything heavy. I usually keep my pathfinders in overwatch range for my fire warriors so I can get the markers. I'm hoping the riptides draw enough fire to keep the pathfinders around till later game

I like your list a lot but I would change a bunch of things: first is to take out the sky ray and give yourself enough points to get a bunch of gun drones. If you want some real dakka you should take 6 of those gun drones and attach them to one squad of fire warriors with the ethereal and fire blade and give yourself literally ALL the shots. I would also give yourself an aegis defense line for good cover saves too.

Can you attach drones to a fire warrior team? I'm really worried about dealing with flyers (drakes). Would the trade off be worth 24 extra shots on 1 squad?

Brutal Viking wrote:
Can you attach drones to a fire warrior team? I'm really worried about dealing with flyers (drakes). Would the trade off be worth 24 extra shots on 1 squad?

Here is what you do: attach 2 drones to your fire warrior squad, attach 2 drones to your ethereal, and 2 to the fire blade. That makes 6 drones that can dish out 12 shots at 18 inches, 24 with the fire blade, and 36 with the ethereal using storm of fire too. Even I worry about heldrakes, so I think you should get more AA= meaning that you should take out long strike (I know it sucks but trust me it will be worth it) and add another sky ray.

I think the list looks pretty good tbh, you have enough anti flyer definitely. I wouldn't bother adding gun drones to be honest, 12pts each and they are basically a fire warrior with jetpack movement, if you were going to take 6 drones take 8 more fire warriors. The aegis line would be a good idea IF you want to stay stationary, if as you said you want to stay mobile then it will probably just become a hindrance, it would be good with all those infantry but you'd have to lose 6 fire warriors to pay for it.

literally the only thing I can see being a problem is an army that is very vehicle heavy, such as wave serpent spam eldar, but they're always a trouble for tau.

one more thing that you may not have considered, with all that infantry (and no aegis) are you going to be able to reliably find cover?

What do you think about dropping 1 team of fire warriors to put the points into another hammerhead? Also can hammerheads shoot flyers? I can also drop the fire team Shas'uis since I hope to keep the teams under the the ethereal bubble of influence.

Brutal Viking wrote:
What do you think about dropping 1 team of fire warriors to put the points into another hammerhead? Also can hammerheads shoot flyers? I can also drop the fire team Shas'uis since I hope to keep the teams under the the ethereal bubble of influence.

No, they are the worst at shooting down flyers. That is what sky rays are meant for.

Oh I realize that but I've never read or heard of anyone doing it even by pure fluke so I was curious if there was a rule preventing it. I mean a S10 AP1 shot could potentially make quick work of a flyer; with a few marker lights of course

Thanks again for all the input guys I really appreciate it. I've definitely got some stuff to think about . Keep it coming

Broad side team would be more effective for shooting the Flyers IMO

I don't really understand ethereal + fireblade here. To get the most our of the two you need top be pretty close. I would drop the fireblade (ethereal leadership bible is too good) and longstrike and get a commander with dual fusion, PEN chip, iridium and FnP. Then cut the shas'ui's and 2 pathfinders from each unit (16 ML at 1500 points is probably excessive) and maybe trim a few fire warriors to try and fit in a broadside unit.

Then the ethereal can sit behind the 2+ armor of the broadsides plus drones, commander can join them if necessary for tankiness and the PEN chip our he can run around with the riptides.

Brutal Viking wrote:
1500 points for the greater good

HQ:
Cadre Fireblade - 60
Ethereal - 50
Since you are taking an Ethereal, a Fireblade is kind of superfalous, drop him to shave points

Elites:
Riptide - 210
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster
* Velocity Tracker
* Early warning override

Riptide - 210
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster
* Velocity Tracker
* Early warning override

VT are terrible on IA Riptides and mediocre at best on HBC Riptides, drop them to shave points

Troops:
Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 127
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle
Your points costs are off, 12 FW with Shas'ui is 118, not 127

Fast Attack:
Pathfinder team (7) - 77
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Pathfinder team (7) - 77
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Heavy support:
Hammerhead - 195
* Longstrike
* Ion Cannon
* Tw SMS
* disruption pod
Longstrike works best with a Railgun as opposed to an Ion Cannon, give it submunitions though

Skyray - 120
* Sensor spines
[color=cyan]Sky Rays are not going to be moving much until they drop their payload on a suitable target drop the sensor spines and give a BSF

That should give you ~135 points, spend it on a stuff to flavour, suits of some description would be nice.

Wouldn't the losing the sky fire on the riptides pretty much cripple me against flyers? Any suggestions on what kind of suits? A pair of tank hunters or something?

Brutal Viking wrote:
Wouldn't the losing the sky fire on the riptides pretty much cripple me against flyers? Any suggestions on what kind of suits? A pair of tank hunters or something?

One Sky Ray should be enough against flyers. Just don't forget that the markerlights of the Sky Ray also have Skyfire so you can "chain" markerlights with the Pathfinders to give a quasi-skyfire to other units.

What your list needs (other than the modifications listened by Krellnus) is Stim Injectors on the Riptides. Those things are absolutely HUGE and worth every point you spend on them!

Ok updated list to pick apart

HQ:
Ethereal - 50

Elites:
Riptide - 185
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster

Riptide - 185
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster

Troops:
Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fast Attack:
Pathfinder team (6) - 66
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Pathfinder team (6) - 66
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Heavy support:
Hammerhead - 190
* Longstrike
* Railgun
* submunitions
* Tw SMS
* disruption pod

Skyray - 120
* Blacksun filter

Broadside Team (2) - 170
* TW High Yield Missile System
* TW SMS
* Velocity Tracker

 Lemartes12 wrote:

Take two broadsides w/missle drones and give one of them a drone controller.

Dont bother with a Drone controller, it only works with Gun drones, Marker drones and Sniper drones.

Ok so for competitive play you really need to try and counter the meta if you want to do well.... the current meta is mostly Heavy durability with high mobility troops.I don't think this list will do so hot in a tourney becasue you don't seem to have much to deal with eldar serpent spam or a more standard missile heavy tau lists. IG and DE venom spam would probably be pretty rough too if you see them.That being said I think you have a cool gunline list that has a lot of anti infantry firepower and strong anti air. It will probably fair well vs horde/assault baised armies and you should have enough anti air to deal with flying monsterous creatures or a couple helldrakes. The wildcard will be the new SM book. You're likely to see a lot of grav guns in drop pods or on bikes and those will down your riptides in 1 turn of shooting if they can get into range.

To improve the list i would personally put stim injectors on the riptides and keep intercept for sure. drop longstrike and get a second skyray. I see some other commentors ask "why skyrays?" and the answer is because they are awesome! They can down a lot of scary stuff from across the board in a single turn, they are an accurate and durable supplier of markerlights, smart missiles are good anti infantry and in big guns they're great objective holders all for 115 pts. Reduce the pathfinders to 3, 4 man squads because it lets you get 2 markers on 3 different targets and honestly 7 pathfinders dies just as easily as 4. there's my 2 cents. GL in the tourney.

I've got a bunch more models so in your opinion what should I change out?

I would say save your points on the Firewarriors. If you have a Ethereal and set up right you dont need a Shas'ui. Take the extra points and get yourself a ADL,

HQ:
Ethereal - 50

Elites:
Riptide - 185
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster
You should still give the early warning to both riptides. The ability to shoot drop podding or outflanking units is amazing.[

Riptide - 185
* Ion Accelerator
* Twin link fusion blaster

Troops:
Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Fire warrior team (12) - 118
* Shas'ui
* Pulse rifle

Obviously fire warriors are the back bone of this list but I would condsider changing at least 1 unit to kroot. You can give them a hound to outflank and also sniper rounds. Great for distant objectives that fire warriors will never reach alive.[

Fast Attack:
Pathfinder team (6) - 66
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Pathfinder team (6) - 66
* Pulse carbine w/Markerlight

Heavy support:
Hammerhead - 190
* Longstrike
* Railgun
* submunitions
* Tw SMS
* disruption pod

Skyray - 120
* Blacksun filter

Broadside Team (2) - 170
* TW High Yield Missile System
* TW SMS
* Velocity Tracker

I've got 10 Kroot; should i get another 10 for a full squad or will 10 be enough?

I like the idea of Stim Injectors on my Riptides but feel like they're overly expensive for what you get

Will EWO be taken as a snap shot? (I'm at work and don't have my book on me)

I bought an ADL on the weekend and would kinda like to use it (I havent playtested with it yet so don't know how well it works) If I do take it, will my current AA be enough or should I take the Quad gun as well?

I was thinking if I don't take the quad gun I can get another Ethereal to give my Fire Warrior teams stubborn as well as Invocation of Fire.

updated list with suggested changes...

+ HQ + (50pts)

* Ethereal (50pts)
(Failure is Not An Option, Independent Character, Invocation of the Elements, Stubborn)
EMP Grenades, Photon Grenades


+ Elites + (380pts)

* XV104 Riptide (190pts)
(Nova Reactor, Supporting Fire)
Early warning override (5pts), Ion Accelerator (5pts), Twin-linked Fusion Blaster


* XV104 Riptide (190pts)
(Nova Reactor, Supporting Fire)
Early warning override (5pts), Ion Accelerator (5pts), Twin-linked Fusion Blaster


+ Troops + (399pts)

* Fire Warriors Team (108pts)
(Supporting Fire)
12x Fire Warriors (108pts), 12x Pulse Rifle


* Fire Warriors Team (108pts)
(Supporting Fire)
12x Fire Warriors (108pts), 12x Pulse Rifle


* Fire Warriors Team (108pts)
(Supporting Fire)
12x Fire Warriors (108pts), 12x Pulse Rifle


* Kroot Carnivore Squad (75pts)
10x Kroot (60pts), Kroot Hounds (5pts), Sniper Rounds (10pts)


+ Fast Attack + (132pts)

* Pathfinder Team (44pts)
4x Pathfinder (44pts), 4x Pulse Carbine and Markerlight


* Pathfinder Team (44pts)
4x Pathfinder (44pts), 4x Pulse Carbine and Markerlight


* Pathfinder Team (44pts)
4x Pathfinder (44pts), 4x Pulse Carbine and Markerlight


+ Heavy Support + (431pts)

* Hammerhead Gunship (145pts)
Disruption pod (15pts), Twin-linked Smart Missile System
* Railgun (5pts)
Submunition Rounds (5pts)


* Sky Ray Missile Defence Gunship (116pts)
Blacksun filter (1pts), 6x Seeker Missiles, Two Gun Drones, Velocity tracker (Skyfire)


* XV88 Broadside Team (170pts)
* Broadside Shas'ui (85pts)
Twin-linked High Yield Missile Pod, Twin-linked Smart Missile System, Velocity tracker (20pts) (Skyfire)
* Broadside Shas'ui (85pts)
Twin-linked High Yield Missile Pod, Twin-linked Smart Missile System, Velocity tracker (20pts) (Skyfire)

The ewo on the riptides isn't really for shooting flyers (yes snapshot) it's for shooting units who deep strike or come from reserve. Say some one deep strikes by your line to flamer your guys to death, you hit them with 2 high strength no saves templates.

I would strive to get the kroot to 15-20 as they are super cheap but have no armor. Losing 5 would make them pretty worthless so more I better!

Return the path finders to 2 6 mans. 4 is way to way to give up kill points and first blood. Also at vs 3 1 bad roll of shots means you may only get 1 light hit and you always want 2+ hits.

See that was what I was thinking with the pathfinders when I first made the list too that will definitely be going back I don't like how it looks with just 4.

So EWO on deep striking/outflanking units is at normal BS?

What are your thoughts on the quad gun vs another ethereal?

I could drop the quad gun and take Kroot instead I suppose...

Yes it just gives you interceptor so you can shoot at the end of their movement phase when they enter play from reserves. Big templates and fusions!

Well the line is very good for your warriors and the quad helps with aa and light vehicles.

Personally I don't normally run hammer heads and I find then unreliable but that's preference.

Lately I have been taking a crisis commander with iridium armor and drone controller and target lock. I have given him 2 marker drone and taken a 4 man. I join them together. I let him shoot the icaerus las cannon at bs 5 and 6 marker lights that can move and fire at bs 5 at a different unit. I then jump them behind him and he can suck up shots with the armor and Aline protection.

Don't think I can work the points out for a commander and escort... I tried initially but they end up soaking too many points. I thought about a buffmander as well

Just giving ideas, doent mean it will work on this list.

Yeah no worries . I wanted to try a drone list some time so ill keep that in mind for then