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So, I'm trying to make a Tau army thats more fun for my friends to face, Thus I'm gonna make a more mobile Tau army using the Farsight Enclave. I was thinking some suits and kroot for troops, Stealth suits and a riptide for elite, Vespids and Piranhas for Fast Attack, And some sniper drones and a Skyray for heavy support. But then I though, What about allies? So here I am! Asking for sugestions on allies for a Tau army to make the list more varied and fun to face! (Not aiming for power, Just more variation and fun for my friends to face.) I thought maybe Chaos Daemons but.. They are the worst alliance.. So I'm not sure..

First, Farsight can not take kroots. Second, if you are trying to make your army more fun the first thing you have to realize is that for your opponent having to fight a riptide is never fun. IMHO the riptide should be a super heavy and not really used outside apocalypse sized games. It is really just too overpowered. We have a friend in our group that plays tau and really no one likes to play against him anymore because his book is so OP. He is moving to farsight but we will see how well that works out... As an ork this really saddens me because prior to the new codex me and this friend used to have some of the closest most epic battles ever. Now there is almost no point to playing against him. The only thing you can do with allies is piss your friends off more. Tau + anything else = still broken... If you want to have more fun playing games you should try moving to farsight (although I am not sure that fighting against 9+ crisis suits will be much more fun...), avoid riptides, avoid devil fish (wow you have 12 armor and constant jink on vehicles that fire over watch?!), and do not spam crisis suits or build super suit squads with 6 drones that are impossible to kill...

I thought the only limits in the Farsight Enclave book was No Shadowsun and No Aun'Va..? I havent heard anyone mention that Farsight Enclaves cant take kroot. I know that in the old Tau codex you couldent bring kroot if you took Farsight but in the current codex you can, and I havent heard anything about not being able to in the Farsight Enclave..

I am fairly certain that farsight can't take kroot. Either way you may consider an Aun'Va list he is a pretty cool model. I also love kroots. They look really cool on the table with all the trimmings. you never see a full up squad of kroot with hounds and krootox. I think they may even do some damage that way too. See if your buddys wont mind you doing proxies to see what kind of army you may want to build. come up with a theme and go with that instead of bringing broken units. it will always be more fun than fighting a riptide.

Honestly, someone in another thread mentioned it but I think a fun army would be 3 Riptides and 2 Imperial Knights backed up by just a few Crisis Suits.

Of course that would also be annoooooooyyying.

rothrich wrote:
First, Farsight can not take kroots.

Wrong. I'm looking in both Codex: Tau Empire and Farsight Enclaves and no such restriction exists.

Perhaps you're referencing an older edition of the rules? Might do well to make sure next time before you jump on someone.

rothrich wrote:
Second, if you are trying to make your army more fun the first thing you have to realize is that for your opponent having to fight a riptide is never fun. IMHO the riptide should be a super heavy and not really used outside apocalypse sized games. It is really just too overpowered.

Why single out the riptide, when immediately after this line you establish that the OP can never play his army "for fun" anyway because literally no matter how you build Tau they're still "OP" in your eyes?

Okay, so we've house-ruled the riptide out of "standard" games...which does what, exactly, since you're still not "allowed" to play Tau? Make you feel slightly better? Yeah, being a dick to my friends always made me feel better, which is probably why I don't have any now.

rothrich wrote:
We have a friend in our group that plays tau and really no one likes to play against him anymore because his book is so OP. He is moving to farsight but we will see how well that works out...

Probably not very well because his group keeps making up rules and restrictions for using Farsight that don't actually exist.

rothrich wrote:
As an ork this really saddens me because prior to the new codex me and this friend used to have some of the closest most epic battles ever. Now there is almost no point to playing against him. The only thing you can do with allies is piss your friends off more. Tau + anything else = still broken... If you want to have more fun playing games you should try moving to farsight (although I am not sure that fighting against 9+ crisis suits will be much more fun...), avoid riptides, avoid devil fish (wow you have 12 armor and constant jink on vehicles that fire over watch?!), and do not spam crisis suits or build super suit squads with 6 drones that are impossible to kill...

Devilfish? Really? You're complaining about one of the most overpriced and worthless transports in the game?

Personally, I feel really bad for your friend, because he has guys like you as "friends" who have effectively banned him from their little group for things completely out of his control. He can no longer play with the army he paid good money for because of mistakes GW made with a rulebook that he was required to purchase in order to keep playing. How much money and time is this guy out now because there's "no point" in playing against him anymore? And instead of trying to work to find a real solution to the problem you've just thrown your hands up and decided that "Tau are OP and can't be fixed."

I find it hard to believe that you guys were having such close games before, since the new Tau codex is mostly the same as the old anyway, other than new additions like the riptide and the Supporting Fire rule (which can be easily ignored). If anything playing against crisis suits with JSJ should be more fair than it's ever been, since the assault move is a random 2d6" instead of straight 6". Yeah, you have a chance of jumping 12" away but you could just as easily roll two 1's and get stuck in the open.

Anyway, as sad as it is there's your answer, Merellin. You can't make Tau more fun, and you'll get a ton of gak for even trying. Apparently the only solution is to quit playing 40k, because you picked the "wrong" army. Sucks, I know, but 40k isn't really worth playing anymore anyway, especially with people like this.

rothrich wrote:
I also love kroots. They look really cool on the table with all the trimmings. you never see a full up squad of kroot with hounds and krootox.

Yeah, there's a reason for that. They're awful.

I think they may even do some damage that way too.

No, they won't. Which makes it the perfect "fun" unit, I guess...until you actually kill something with the 48" S7 kroot gun, and then someone bitches about Tau being OP again because they had to take a model off the table.

come up with a theme and go with that instead of bringing broken units. it will always be more fun than fighting a riptide.

Because a Farsight army with lots of battlesuits has no theme? Also, I guess no "themed" Tau list would ever use devilfish...you know, even though it's kind of the one and only transport the Tau have and they supposedly utilize it quite a bit.

rothrich wrote:
I am fairly certain that farsight can't take kroot. Either way you may consider an Aun'Va list he is a pretty cool model. I also love kroots. They look really cool on the table with all the trimmings. you never see a full up squad of kroot with hounds and krootox. I think they may even do some damage that way too. See if your buddys wont mind you doing proxies to see what kind of army you may want to build. come up with a theme and go with that instead of bringing broken units. it will always be more fun than fighting a riptide.

False. There is nowhere in the FE codex that says you can't take Kroot. The only restrictions are no Shadowsun and no Aun'va, and you must take at least one 3 man crisis squad. Other than that you can take whatever you want. Hell, you don't even have to take Farsight if you don't want to.

 Samurai_Eduh wrote:

rothrich wrote:
I am fairly certain that farsight can't take kroot. Either way you may consider an Aun'Va list he is a pretty cool model. I also love kroots. They look really cool on the table with all the trimmings. you never see a full up squad of kroot with hounds and krootox. I think they may even do some damage that way too. See if your buddys wont mind you doing proxies to see what kind of army you may want to build. come up with a theme and go with that instead of bringing broken units. it will always be more fun than fighting a riptide.

False. There is nowhere in the FE codex that says you can't take Kroot. The only restrictions are no Shadowsun and no Aun'va, and you must take at least one 3 man crisis squad. Other than that you can take whatever you want. Hell, you don't even have to take Farsight if you don't want to.

And everything needs to be bonded if it can be, which is a waste of points. Almost bad enough to make me not care about crisis suits as troops anymore, lol.

Also, bonding knives are OP.

Ugh, I still can't get over that "devilfish are OP" bs. Oh jeez, I'm sorry, would you have preferred riptide spam? Or O'vesa star? Or Taudar with allied wave serpents? A Tau player taking devilfish is doing you a favor and hamstringing himself for you, and you have the balls to call cheese on that?

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Samurai_Eduh wrote:

rothrich wrote:
I am fairly certain that farsight can't take kroot. Either way you may consider an Aun'Va list he is a pretty cool model. I also love kroots. They look really cool on the table with all the trimmings. you never see a full up squad of kroot with hounds and krootox. I think they may even do some damage that way too. See if your buddys wont mind you doing proxies to see what kind of army you may want to build. come up with a theme and go with that instead of bringing broken units. it will always be more fun than fighting a riptide.

False. There is nowhere in the FE codex that says you can't take Kroot. The only restrictions are no Shadowsun and no Aun'va, and you must take at least one 3 man crisis squad. Other than that you can take whatever you want. Hell, you don't even have to take Farsight if you don't want to.

And everything needs to be bonded if it can be, which is a waste of points. Almost bad enough to make me not care about crisis suits as troops anymore, lol.

Also, bonding knives are OP.

Ugh, I still can't get over that "devilfish are OP" bs. Oh jeez, I'm sorry, would you have preferred riptide spam? Or O'vesa star? Or Taudar with allied wave serpents? A Tau player taking devilfish is doing you a favor and hamstringing himself for you, and you have the balls to call cheese on that?

lol yeah. I get around the bonding thing by having all my FE troops be Kroot (as they can't be bonded). That way, I only have to pay the 3pts for bonding on my required crisis unit. All my FW's come from C:TE, that way I don't have to bond them!

To answer the OP. Ally with Orks.

Orks: Either Primary or Allies - if you are not having fun you are doing it wrong.

 Happyjew wrote:
To answer the OP. Ally with Orks.

Orks: Either Primary or Allies - if you are not having fun you are doing it wrong.

Mate, you were faster than me Orks. Definetly. Its simply must work the fun way.

WOW some hyper sensitive tau players out there...

Still the devil fish is a great transport. I don't see why you would cal an av 12 vehicle that can over watch, hurts things that try to assault it and, is virtually impossible to score hits on because of jink and buffs to cover gak!? I was not trying complain that it is so OP that it should never be used but you should be aware that some armies built with fun in mind will have problems with it. especially if you decide to bring 3 or 4.

No one said the tau can not be fun. They can be. However, I think you would have a hard time saying that the tau are anything other than a tournament army, or that the riptide is anything other than a tournament unit. The rest of us in our group build fun diverse armies. We have taken a lot of time to paint and build our armies. There is no way for us to defeat a riptide. Not even a single riptide because we have built our armies for fun, fluff and, theme. If players like me do not want to play with players like you, it is because you are a different kind of player than we are. Not a worse player, not that you are doing it wrong, but that you are doing it your way and that way really doesn't really work against people that play our way.

I may be wrong but I was under the impression that the OP was having problems having fun games with his friends and was kind of looking to take some power out of his list. I was trying to help him with that. Not trying to offend all of tau nation.

Just to kind of show you what kinds of players we are here are the units that frequent our table.

Orks Spehs Marhines taus dark eldar
warboss libby commander raiders
grots capt. fireblade wyches
big gunz razorback crisis suits warriors
boyz dreadnaught kroots beasts
trukks pods stealth teams harlequins
burna bomba storm raven gun drone squad homunculs
looted wagon hammerhead wracks
buggies bomber thinggy jetfighter thinggy
tank bustas
trukk nobz

rothrich wrote:
WOW some hyper sensitive tau players out there...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Still the devil fish is a great transport. I dont see why you would cal an av 12 vehical that can over watch hurts things that try to assault it and is virtually impossable to score hits on because of jink and buffs to cover gak!?

Because it's WAY too expensive and you have to pay for that overwatch, which lets face it, is pretty ineffective. You get what, a burst cannon and maybe an SMS?

Way too expensive compared to what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wrong. I'm looking in both Codex: Tau Empire and Farsight Enclaves and no such restriction exists.

Perhaps you're referencing an older edition of the rules? Might do well to make sure next time before you jump on someone.

The guy in our group who plays tau told me this so I was just going on what he said. He said that farsight would never use kroot... I really don't know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I find it hard to believe that you guys were having such close games before, since the new Tau codex is mostly the same as the old anyway, other than new additions like the riptide and the Supporting Fire rule (which can be easily ignored). If anything playing against crisis suits with JSJ should be more fair than it's ever been, since the assault move is a random 2d6" instead of straight 6". Yeah, you have a chance of jumping 12" away but you could just as easily roll two 1's and get stuck in the open.

Funny how you say that the previous and current codex are close to being the same when there are pages and pages of complaints about how broken the current tau dex is and pages and pages of complaints prior to its release on how bad the old dex was getting...

rothrich wrote:
Still the devil fish is a great transport. I don't see why you would cal an av 12 vehicle that can over watch, hurts things that try to assault it and, is virtually impossible to score hits on because of jink and buffs to cover gak!? I was not trying complain that it is so OP that it should never be used but you should be aware that some armies built with fun in mind will have problems with it. especially if you decide to bring 3 or 4.

What game are you playing?
A devilfish with a +1 cover from the Disruption pod gets it a 4+ cover for moving.
The ability to fire overwatch with it's burst cannon and 4 Twin-linked shots? Okay, you're looking at about 1.88 hits in overwatch. Which against T4 gets about 1.25 wounds, not counting armor.
Lets look at the cost of that set up. It's almost 100 points! If your opponent is bringing 3-4 of them that's 300-400 points. Not counting the cost of the troops he's having to get to bring them. For three minimum sized troops you're looking at around 450 points.

What game do you play where players have trouble dealing with that?

And we're not hyper sensitive. You start off by saying something very wrong and follow it up with saying how the OP should not take several units for silly reasons.

rothrich wrote:
WOW some hyper sensitive tau players out there...

No argument there. Kinda hard not to be though, when any time you try to talk about your hobby or participate in it, all you ever hear is a ton of crap from other players about how your army's rules/fluff/aesthetic is bullgak and they're tired of looking at it, magnified tenfold when a new codex drops and it's perceived to be OP.

rothrich wrote:
he guy in our group who plays tau told me this so I was just going on what he said. He said that farsight would never use kroot... I really don't know.

It's old fluff. The old codex restricted you from taking kroot and vespid in a Tau army, with fluff about him being "distrustful of aliens" or whatever, I don't fully remember. It's all gone now in any case, and I'm sure there's even fluff in the new supplement specifically mentioning Farsight having kroot auxiliaries in the Enclaves. You can even take ethereals if you really wanted to, with the idea being that it's taking place before the events on Arthas Moloch.

rothrich wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

I find it hard to believe that you guys were having such close games before, since the new Tau codex is mostly the same as the old anyway, other than new additions like the riptide and the Supporting Fire rule (which can be easily ignored). If anything playing against crisis suits with JSJ should be more fair than it's ever been, since the assault move is a random 2d6" instead of straight 6". Yeah, you have a chance of jumping 12" away but you could just as easily roll two 1's and get stuck in the open.

Funny how you say that the previous and current codex are close to being the same when there are pages and pages of complaints about how broken the current tau dex is and pages and pages of complaints prior to its release on how bad the old dex was getting...

Well, they are mostly the same. It was like most of the other codexes that have been coming out, with a couple tweaks here and there, screwing with point costs, and then adding a couple new units in. It just happens in this case that the few changes they made to the Tau codex ended up being way more potent than expected.

As far as devilfish go, to get one kitted out so that it can actually do something you have to invest over 100 points into just the transport. As for what to compare it to? Well, look at what wave serpents can do for a similar cost. Makes the devilfish look pretty damn tame.

Merellin wrote:
So, I'm trying to make a Tau army thats more fun for my friends to face, Thus I'm gonna make a more mobile Tau army using the Farsight Enclave. I was thinking some suits and kroot for troops, Stealth suits and a riptide for elite, Vespids and Piranhas for Fast Attack, And some sniper drones and a Skyray for heavy support. But then I though, What about allies? So here I am! Asking for sugestions on allies for a Tau army to make the list more varied and fun to face! (Not aiming for power, Just more variation and fun for my friends to face.) I thought maybe Chaos Daemons but.. They are the worst alliance.. So I'm not sure..

You don't need allies for the variance....by adding in the more....rare...tau units, you have a very unique tau list.

Big Lump O'Kroot with Anushi
A ton of green and blue fun. Thats right, a tau unit that won't die (or run) immediately ....have fun assaulting things, and just running around being a thorn in their side.

Krootox
they are fun, are not totally bad, and rarely appear.

Piranhas
These are very rare, very mobile, and a lot of fun to zoom around with. You can drop the drones in various places to harrass enemy units too!

Vespid -
I love my vespid....they are a ton of fun, and incredibly rare.
Sure, they die like flies....but they are quite mobile, and are a NEW challange to most players.

Sniper Drones -
Another rare unit, although not quite that mobile if you want to fire the markelights. Still a lot of fun, and not bad.

Razershark / Sunshark-
These things are REALLY rare, and while not ...good....they are not terrible either.
Sure, they die like cardboard, but can be fun to zoom around....and the razorshark with its 360 turret is actually kind of handy sometimes.

Big Drone Squads!!!
Put a ton of drones on the table and run them around....use them for speed bumps, harrassment units, what ever.
Have fun with them.

If you have access to FW models, it gets even better.
Remora - very mobile and lots of fun. A tau FW unit ACTUALLY GOOD for the points.
Barracuda - the best FW tau unit. Kind of cardboard (2hp) but a lot of fun, and looks awesome
Tetras - zoom!! Looks good, fast and fun
XV9 suits - ok, not that great for the points, but mobile, fun and tons of options. and they look just awesome.

If you really NEED allies....add ork psykers, squigs and koptas....

best of luck, and have fun!!!

My Riptide always works as a distraction carnifex for me, I spend points on the stimulant injector and ion accelerator then watch it eat all the dakka while the rest of the army does work. However, I always end up fighting GK and lose to instant death. *shrug*

Fun? Play Tau FE, ally with Daemons. Bring Commander Farsight, but house rule him as a daemon prince and be the Daemon HQ. Fluff battle of fun!