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Was just wondering what people thought the majority of low point Tau lists should consist of? I have a few questions:
Is a battlesuit commander worth it at this level?
Is massed infantry the way to go for all those str5 shots?
Is a riptide too expensive for this level?
Kroot with sniper rounds maybe?

Thank you in advance for any comments
-Josh

with necrons, it was easy upon a time. 2 min units, and a lord with orb for 500 points. It IS fun to have choices, no?

personally, I'd go with:
Ethereal, 2 Marker Drones
2 Fire Warrior Teams, Shas'ui, 2 Marker Drones each
Riptide, Ion Accelerator, SMS, EWO, PEN Chip

oh, and make one of the Shas'ui the warlord.

I would opt for a battle suit heavy list personally, I find at that level Fire warriors are too easily removed from play and you are left with little backbone. 2 units of 3 and a commander and then build from there. Splitting the suits up gives more flexibility but I typically play like I am wielding a sledgehammer so it matters little to me.

Low point Tau armies are actually one of, if not THE most effective armies out their for the potential they can bring in comparison to other armies.

Usually when a competitive game of 500-1k comes up my list consists of;

Cadre Fireblade - 60

Fire Warriors x 5 - 54
Fire Warriors x 5 - 54

Riptide + Ion Accelerator - 185
Riptide + Ion Accelerator - 185

With anything else you'd like to bring from there on out. Totalling just 538 points, this list and anything added can pretty much annihilate anything you throw it against for its point cost. At 750 you can add some nice Pathfinders for BS booting or Cover Removing.

Tau have some of the best options for low point games. Cheap, efficient HQs, Troops, Fast Attack.

Besides some of the options already mentioned, Piranhas are excellent choices for bulking up a 500 or 750 point army. The beauty of them is that they are basically two very cheap units in one, a gun drone squad and a second mobile anti-personnel or anti-tank unit (depending on whether you equip them with Burst Cannons or Fusion Blasters).

Something like:

Cadre Fireblade
12 Fire Warriors
12 Kroot
4 Pathfinders
Piranha, Fusion Blaster
Piranha, Fusion Blaster
Sky Ray, SMS, Blacksun Filter

Would clock in at 500 and provide you with a nice balanced list.

But like the other posters have suggested, there is a wide variety of options available to you for low point games, unlike some other armies.

Ok. Dont use a Riptide is 500 points. Please. I'd use an Ethereal, 3x Battlesuits, 2 Firewarrior squads, Broadside.

You could play farsight enclave and bring a commander and two battle suit squads that could be fun. Maybe add in some pathfinders or stealth teams for marker lights if you can.

Thanks for all the ideas guys, I think I'll go with a Fireblade for my HQ, use him to buff a full FW team and use a railhead with Longstrike for effective anti armour

Something that usually works pretty well at low point games is:

Ethereal

3x Crisis Suit: Missile Pod/Missile Pod x3, Target Lock x2, Drone Controller, 3x Marker Drones

1x Crisis Suit: Twin-Linked Fusion/Flamer

11x Fire Warriors

11x Fire Warriors

Total: 497

List should work well against most opponents long as you use proper Tau tactics!

700 List I use is:

Ethereal

2x Crisis Suits both with Plasma, Fusion and Target Lock

6x Fire warriors

6x Fire Warriors

4x Pathfinders (dedicated to Riptide)

4x Pathfinders

Riptide with Ion Acc

2x Broadsides with Heavy Rail Rifles and one with Shield Gen.

 GoliothOnline wrote:
Low point Tau armies are actually one of, if not THE most effective armies out their for the potential they can bring in comparison to other armies.

Usually when a competitive game of 500-1k comes up my list consists of;

Cadre Fireblade - 60

Fire Warriors x 5 - 54
Fire Warriors x 5 - 54

Riptide + Ion Accelerator - 185
Riptide + Ion Accelerator - 185

With anything else you'd like to bring from there on out. Totalling just 538 points, this list and anything added can pretty much annihilate anything you throw it against for its point cost. At 750 you can add some nice Pathfinders for BS booting or Cover Removing.

Surely two riptides at this level will a) be unnecessarily overpowered and b) attract a tonne of hate?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KathiasBlack wrote:
Something that usually works pretty well at low point games is:

Ethereal

3x Crisis Suit: Missile Pod/Missile Pod x3, Target Lock x2, Drone Controller, 3x Marker Drones

1x Crisis Suit: Twin-Linked Fusion/Flamer

11x Fire Warriors

11x Fire Warriors

Total: 497

List should work well against most opponents long as you use proper Tau tactics!

I reckon this list would be great if you took the drone controller and 3 drones away from the suits and just stuck a team of 4 pathfinders in there (possibly 5 if you take a fire warrior away)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What are people's views on having two Fireblades both attached to maxed out fire warrior teams at 750 points with pathfinders, a railhead and a couple suit teams? Would this work well?

Moved my post to new thread as per mod request =]

I think you'd be better served by maybe starting a new thread to discuss this list, that way this thread can carry on helping the OP.

Thanks !

Riptides for the win!

I really enjoy taking a cadre fireblade for a cheap hq, all those extra shots from a squad sitting an objective can table an opponent at 500 points. I wouldn't suggest kroot as they are best kept in reserves and I don't like reserves in low point games personally.

Here's a 750 point Tau list I took to a tournament and did very well with.

-Ethereal

-Crisis suit: 2x melta, EWO
-Crisis suit: 2x melta, EWO
-Crisis suit: 2x melta, EWO

- 9 FW, devilfish with d-pod
- 9 FW, devilfish with d-pod

- 4 pathfinders

-Sky Ray with d-pod, blacksun filter

I'll freely admit though that the way I run Tau doesn't seem to line up very well with how the rest of the internet thinks Tau should be run. Some of that is my local meta and some of it is me just wanting to be a special snowflake (fortunately the tau codes has good enough internal balance I can do dumb stuff like that).

bring riptides, lose friends. Not joking. Theres a reason people hate this thing more than units that are technically better - it just does NOT DIE unless you are gearing a unit specifically to hunt riptides.

Which is kinda funny since Tau actually perform better at 500-750 without the riptide. Our firewarriors have the strongest troop gun in the game (ok comparable with eldar since they have pseudo rending, just less shots and less range) and they reliably kill marines for me even without the ethereal buff. Crisis suits usually wont have many S8 threats at these point levels, so sporting plasma and/or fusion bombs is vastly less risky and just as strong as in big games. I would rate a trio of plasma/fusion suits higher than a riptide in low points in power, since odds are theres only one gun that can splat them...deepstrike and kill it first lol.

Then again, like wombat, i run my tau in a rather odd fashion. The ork in me wants to be in your face. Im known for sending things down your throat forcing you to deal with them first even though i know it wont last long lol. Piranhas are my friend muahhaha.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Crisis suits usually wont have many S8 threats at these point levels, so sporting plasma and/or fusion bombs is vastly less risky and just as strong as in big games. I would rate a trio of plasma/fusion suits higher than a riptide in low points in power, since odds are theres only one gun that can splat them...deepstrike and kill it first lol.

What about when your opponent has 4-6 krak missiles scattered in different units? those are S8 correct? And he has a Dreadnought. with missiles and lascannons.

I think I'll probably use a railhead pie plate to take out any threatening infantry and just mop up the remainders with my target locked plasma/fusion suits.
I really rate Fireblades, I'd probably take 2 of them over a suit commander in lower point games with full teams of fire warriors and just shoot any infantry to bits with all that gunline madness, then stick Longstrike behind them for infinite overwatch should they get charged and in case their own overwatch isn’t sufficient


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I'm not too fond of making everyone hate me by taking a riptide in a 500 point army, it would take the fun out of the game anyway tbh

When do you plan to play this list? I would love to hear how it fairs. It sounds like a good plan.

I don't have any upcoming games yet, so I don't know when I'll be playing it but I'd love to see the look on my opponent's face when I obliterate all of his infantry round 1