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Take 2 stormsurges and your unit of ghostkeels and run the heavy retribution cadre.

Retribution cadre is the only way you can get a stormsurge without a character. Hunter Cadre requires a commander, and a CAD requires 1 HQ of any choice so youre at least taking an ethereal if points are your thing (though he wouldnt do much without a ball of firewarriors to hang out with)

Though thats 2 units of stormsurges. And personally one of the dumbest non-alien formation we got. The rules are pretty meh considering it forces the ghostkeel to be really damn close to danger and the focus fire thing is kinda weak...and what the hell would survive 2 stormsurges firing on them anyway lol

Honestly I would definitely take that formation if the stormsurges were one unit. As is, meh.

Nope, its the moneygrabber formation. Funny that its not broken as all hell since its the moneygrabber. More than one stormsurge is seriously too expensive and except in beyond 2k lists will start to devour your support points in order to bring the 2nd SS.
The large blast is the only weapon he has that doesnt need any ML support. The 4D6 missiles isnt twinlinked (oddly enough) so 1-2 ML on it makes it way stronger and its D-Missiles are NOT seekers so you need ~5 ML per flippin missile (1 to make it D, 2 for BS5, 2 for Ignores Cover just in case you dont roll a 6 on the D table). Course if you fire multiple at the same unit you dont need to stack the ML as badly but its still a LOT of them.

I have fielded my Stormsurge 4 times so far, and every time i have shot a D missile without 5 markerlights i either miss or it gets coversaved. If you have ~900pts in 2 models, odds are you either dont have any cannonfodder to choke up chargy units, viable AA, or proper marker support. One of those three is missing, and that leaves a large loophole in your defenses.

Actually on the note of seekers, that'd be kinda cool if the Stormsurge could buy a Seeker Rack... say 40pts for 6 missiles (1 free missile for the cost, since LoW perks). He bypasses the main seeker issue of "must fire at the same target" since GMCs can splitfire all weapons. That would be cool.

Set the Ghostkeel(s) up for AA, run half the Surges with D-shotguns, and take a Drone-Net or two. Pure magic.

SJ

Vine heart,

You should check out the list that Frankie down at Frontline Gaming runs. There are a lot of video batreps available online but double stormsurge definitely works, so long as they are one unit. The wound allocation nonsense alone is bonkers. It also doubles the efficiency of any markerlight you use on them (probably want to have the unit ignore cover pretty much every turn on a priority target lol)

He also runs a riptide wing which, as opposed to a ghostkeel wing, I think is very good. Firing twice one turn is simply insane, and when you can nova 8/9 times instead of 2/3....well then. TBH I would definitely run a riptide wing if I didn't love ghostkeels so much. I almost did a riptide wing plus OSC plus drone net list. If I'm not mistaken, there was a list similar to that which performed pretty well at the LVO

How do you guys feel about running a solo Riptide Wing? In 1850, you can run 8 Riptides and a Marker Drone Net with all the fixins (including target locks) pretty comfortably. I historically haven't been terribly fond of running a ton of Riptides since they're pretty expensive for the offensive output they generate, but being able to crank out an extra turn of shooting tips that balance significantly. The nova rerolls are also great for survivability and offense. You would suffer badly against certain matchups, for sure, but it's entirely possible that having your whole army shoot twice could knock your opponent into a deficit he couldn't recover from.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
.and what the hell would survive 2 stormsurges firing on them anyway lol

Read the formation rules again. It doesn't say it has to be the main gun.

Two stormsurges can suppress a huge amount of targets at the same time.

Alcibiades wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
.and what the hell would survive 2 stormsurges firing on them anyway lol

Read the formation rules again. It doesn't say it has to be the main gun.

Two stormsurges can suppress a huge amount of targets at the same time.

Only problem is any place that uses ITC rules won't even allow that formation at all

Two Storm Surges can in theory use "monsoon of destruction" against 8 units at the same time!

notredameguy10 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
.and what the hell would survive 2 stormsurges firing on them anyway lol

Read the formation rules again. It doesn't say it has to be the main gun.

Two stormsurges can suppress a huge amount of targets at the same time.

Only problem is any place that uses ITC rules won't even allow that formation at all

Theres also that.

I'd much rather be limited to 1 stormsurge than face 3 WKs. Course as ive mentioned several times i dont do tournaments, though i still pay attention to them. I just dont have fun with the kind of lists a tournament demands of you or you are expected to face.

MilkmanAl wrote:
How do you guys feel about running a solo Riptide Wing? In 1850, you can run 8 Riptides and a Marker Drone Net with all the fixins (including target locks) pretty comfortably. I historically haven't been terribly fond of running a ton of Riptides since they're pretty expensive for the offensive output they generate, but being able to crank out an extra turn of shooting tips that balance significantly. The nova rerolls are also great for survivability and offense. You would suffer badly against certain matchups, for sure, but it's entirely possible that having your whole army shoot twice could knock your opponent into a deficit he couldn't recover from.

If you can say it will suffer badly in certain matchups, dont take it. That's my advice. A balanced army isn't as sexy, thats for sure. 8 stompy bots? Pretty cool looking, But i just dont think I'd wanna do it. It would probably annhilate some people though.

Here's my first draft of the Retaliation Cadre/Dawnblade Contingent:

--------------------------

RETALIATION CADRE:

Commander: Jammer, Iridium, 2x plasma, ATS (145pts)

4x Crisis: 2x plasma, ATS, Shas'vre with MSS and CnC (232pts) [Commander goes in here]

5x Crisis: 2x Missle Pod (260pts)

2x Crisis: 2x Fusion Blaster, 1x Target Lock (109pts)

Riptide Unit: 2x Riptide. One with HBC, VT and EWO. Second with EWO, Ion and Target Lock. (400pts)

3x Broadside: HYMP, VT. (255pts)

DRONE NET VX1-0: (280pts)

2x 5 Marker Drones

2x 5 Gun Drones
------------------------

Comes to 1681. Thoughts? I kind of want the Air Superiority Cadre to handle flyers, but I feel I need some way of bringing at least a portion of the retaliation cadre down without scattering.

We're running a Damocles campaign at the FLGS. Tau /Xenos vs IOM.

Background -




I want a bit of a fluffy list so here's what I came up with for this week. again we get 200pts free for fortifications
2 CAD + Optimized Stealth formation + Aegis Line

CAD 1
Farsight
BuffMander w/drone controller
Riptide - IA and FB or Plasma
Crisis Suit team with Plasma/Fusion and target locks + 4 marker drones
2 5 man FW squads
2 5 man pathfinder squads
Skyray
Sniper team

CAD 2
Ethereal
2 5 man FW squads

Idea is to have Ethereal behind the aegis line buffing FW and Sniper team. Riptide doing what it does. OS ruining everyones day. Sky Ray gives AA support and more dakka. And a mini farsight bomb with CS team, Buffmander and Farsight dropping out of reserves.

I was going to take a comms relay for the aegis line or an ammo dump for rerolling 1s.

How do you think this would perform. Going against Lamenters, Guard, BA, Raven Guard, Astral Claws and Admech?

Comms relay for the win.

MilkmanAl wrote:
How do you guys feel about running a solo Riptide Wing? In 1850, you can run 8 Riptides and a Marker Drone Net with all the fixins (including target locks) pretty comfortably. I historically haven't been terribly fond of running a ton of Riptides since they're pretty expensive for the offensive output they generate, but being able to crank out an extra turn of shooting tips that balance significantly. The nova rerolls are also great for survivability and offense. You would suffer badly against certain matchups, for sure, but it's entirely possible that having your whole army shoot twice could knock your opponent into a deficit he couldn't recover from.

You win big and you lose big. Your marker lights would be really efficient but even with 2 riptides at BS4 natively (until one dies) once they ML get taken out, you definitely have an issue. It really is dependent on going first.

Basically it comes down to "how much AP 2 does your opponent have?" but you can be tar pitted an you don't have a good board presence (in terms of quantity). Mobility is also not awesome.

In short, it's too unbalanced. I would say that 5 riptides is the most to ever run in a wing (1 squad of 3 and 2 solos) but even that is quite a lot. I would personally prefer to stick to the minimum requirements since it gives you more list-building flexibility (for example one of the FLG guys runs a riptide wing list with 2 stormsurges because of the extra points! Ouch!)

126th Tau list posted, interesting use of Hunter Contingent with a FSE allied CAD to get more Suits but not Strikers.

YangusTheGreat wrote:
The Hunter Contingent is unfair quite frankly, I won't be using that one against friends.


The Kroot/vespid one looks interesting, not sure what Obscured (forests) means though.

The stealth thing looks ok, but I wish they would allow fusion blasters on each stealth suit...

Honestly I'm pretty excited I can use double cylic ion blasters on crisis suits.

Except its not really. Thats why it hasn't been used in any tournaments lately.

I like using Kroot and Stingwings are way rare but i own 27 and do like to break them out at times. They improved a great deal from their previous incarnation and while the Formation for them isnt overly exciting, it also doesn't hurt. So if you already plan to have them in your force then the Formation may make sense.

I'd be pretty interested in some talk about how best to use them (without the usual and rather useless "they suck" comments that really don't answer that question).

notredameguy10 wrote:

Except its not really. Thats why it hasn't been used in any tournaments lately.

I haven't seen reports of any tournaments not using the ITC ruleset, but you can definitely make a stronger argument for the HC's broken-ness if you're using it as, in my opinion, it is written and intended. It basically gives you a "delete unit" button that you can push every turn by running a buffmander. I don't think it's broken or unfair, really, but it's definitely powerful as all hell, especially when you start throwing a bunch of target locks into the mix.

Yep in the ITC ruleset it's not broken (which is good) but if you play it as it sounds (which IMO is more or less army-wide buffmander, let alone perhaps letting things like stormsurges keep those buffs when they target other units in the same shooting phase after firing a token weapon along with the buffmander) it's very powerful. Personally, I've been veering towards a CAD simply because I don't want to deal with any of that ambiguity. And I think some obsec is still important.

In any case, it'll be interesting to see how FSE changes. No doubt it will give us some new options.

MilkmanAl wrote:

I haven't seen reports of any tournaments not using the ITC ruleset, .

There's a ton. Lol.

 Jancoran wrote:
I like using Kroot and Stingwings are way rare but i own 27 and do like to break them out at times. They improved a great deal from their previous incarnation and while the Formation for them isnt overly exciting, it also doesn't hurt. So if you already plan to have them in your force then the Formation may make sense.

I'd be pretty interested in some talk about how best to use them (without the usual and rather useless "they suck" comments that really don't answer that question).

Isn't the theoretical appeal of Vespids theiir Move Through Cover and Fleet?

Alcibiades wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
I like using Kroot and Stingwings are way rare but i own 27 and do like to break them out at times. They improved a great deal from their previous incarnation and while the Formation for them isnt overly exciting, it also doesn't hurt. So if you already plan to have them in your force then the Formation may make sense.

I'd be pretty interested in some talk about how best to use them (without the usual and rather useless "they suck" comments that really don't answer that question).

Isn't the theoretical appeal of Vespids theiir Move Through Cover and Fleet?

No.

So i wrote an artickle a long time about them and compared them to Crisis teams which are quite popular. Things have obviously changed a lot BUT:

Stingwings allow you to Deep Strike in, which is useful for all kindso f reasons but since they benefit from Markerlights, You have a unit that can Deep Strike in and then eliminate units out on the wing. They also have Hit and Run with a High INIT! this goes unnoticed by many but it's true and so you can also use them to get an enemy clumped up for your blasts.

The Stingwings firepower is pretty good. STR 5 and AP 3. One can easily argue that the Breachers provide as much firepower for less at short ranges, but they cant deep Strike, they dont have good init, dont hit and run and aren't jump troops.

Maelstrom missions favor mobility. Stingwings are your fastest units as far as reaching objectives goes.

The upgrade to 4+ armor was much needed and i am glad they did that. At T4 they are also much tougher than Tau Fire Warriors generally and their Stingwing Strain Leader is LD 9 so not bad at all in that department.

Nothing in the Tau codex can be confused with being an assault unit but at least the Stingwings are getting away from most of their unsuccessful engagements because of their high init and that is worth something. Most Tau units just get consumed in close combat but you can keep Stingwings active and a viable target for another round and if they get a little luck, they are annoyingly resilient.

Imagine them coming in, killing your longfangs and then getting shot and charged by Tacticals nearby. Even though they aren't likely to win the combat, they are likely to survive and ounce out... Leaving the
Tacticals clumped and out of position. Not only will the Stingwings fire on them, but I am sure other units can now take advantage of the situation. Since most people go with minimum sized Tacticals or whatever, the chances of their being ENOUGH Stingwings left afterwards to harass and take objectives is pretty good. If five survive, they could be killing yet another unit on their turn!

Compare this to the perfoermance of a similarly priced Crisis team that deep Strikes in and tries to kill the same unit of Longfangs. They really can't. Not enough shots. So then the Longfangs THMSELVES can charge and unlike the Stingwings, a Crisis team is far more likely to be swept in combat with zero chance of reprisal later. And unfortunately the Longfangs thast remained can stay entrenched in combat potentially protecting them as well.

So it stands to reason that Stingwings really do make excellent "Wing" units both literally and figuratively. they outperform their Crisis teammates in some respects. Now obviously we would be talking about Crisis teams that are built with shorter range and high str weaponry like plasmas, meltas and Cyclic Ion type weapons. Clearly the role isnt the same as say Crisis Teams with Missiles.

The Stingwings are also going to weather STR 8 weaponry better thasn a similarly priced Crisis Team which is an added advantage. Crisis Teams suffer greatly when faced with Hunter Killers, Lance spam from Dark eldar and the similar host of STR 8 weaponry in the 40K universe.

So Stingwings have always seemed to work well for me. I don't use them most of the time just because some of my other toys ar so impressive looking and I enjoy the pyrotechnics, but the Stingwings rarely fail to be useful to me when used. The Tau Empire codex is filled with hidden gems like Sniper Drone Teams, Stingwings, Stealth Suits and even the lowly Cadre Fireblade which are pretty underused. Stingwings might be the MOST underused.

 Jancoran wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:

I haven't seen reports of any tournaments not using the ITC ruleset, .

There's a ton. Lol.

No doubt. I just haven't seen or read them.

Vespids...eh. There's are good reasons nobody uses them. I'll leave them in the same rubbish bin as special weapon pathfinders.

MilkmanAl wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:

I haven't seen reports of any tournaments not using the ITC ruleset, .

There's a ton. Lol.

No doubt. I just haven't seen or read them.

Vespids...eh. There's are good reasons nobody uses them. I'll leave them in the same rubbish bin as special weapon pathfinders.

I definitely dont agree on that. Pathfinders are gooood times.

Stingwings are simply not owned by enough people to even have a body of work to look at. I've seen them fielded by other players exactly zero times and i play a lot, up and down the I-5 corridor.

Ironically I went 5-0 at a tournament once and they were in my list. I am ure there was more to it than that but its not as if they cost me the game or anything. That no one plays them isnt a sterling endorsement BUT then again, people poo poo a lot of things they simply have no experience with.

Stingwings, like Weapons Pathfinders, have a lot of potential. But they aren't a point and click style unit. They are much more finesse based, which makes them unpopular.

Most competitive players prefer a unit that will do well even if they make a mistake. Stingwings or weapons Pathfinders if used wrongly just evaporate before they accomplish anything.

Worse, before the advent of formations, they both used up an important Fast Attack Slot in which you could have any of a number of different markerlight units, which are a precious commodity for the Tau.

Jefffar wrote:
Stingwings, like Weapons Pathfinders, have a lot of potential. But they aren't a point and click style unit. They are much more finesse based, which makes them unpopular.

Most competitive players prefer a unit that will do well even if they make a mistake. Stingwings or weapons Pathfinders if used wrongly just evaporate before they accomplish anything.

Worse, before the advent of formations, they both used up an important Fast Attack Slot in which you could have any of a number of different markerlight units, which are a precious commodity for the Tau.

Well yeah, but if something is a "finesse" unit and you are good, there is no problem it seems you'd agree. Its problem has a lot more to do in my opinion with the simple fact that they just werent very good when they first came out and werent in the original fluff, sort of. i mean you can add all the robots you want to the Tau Empire because robotics is how they manage to overcome the massive outnumbering they suffer against the Imperium. It all makes sense. Their allies make sense too but Vespids were late to the party and were hurting when they first came out.

But they made pretty much EVERY change any one wanting to play Stingwings would want. Upped the armor, gave them Hit and Run (perfect) and they are now what one wouold have hoped they were the first time around.

So I mean, I just think people literally have no experience with them and dont want to spend the money to learn. I'm okay with that. Not condemning it but as for the unit itself, I have a hard time disliking it given my experience.

True story: I once played the guy who got caught cheating (and won)at a GT. It was all over the net. This was at a different tournament than that one but a lot of people know him because of that GT. He won a lot of events at one point though his movement shenanigans was the issue from what I understand. Anyways, I was using three units of Stingwings. He was spamming Warp Spiders (much like the LVO winner was only this was long before the formation). He was EXTREMELY unhappy. He like me had never seen anyone else play them, had no idea what they did and he was in the running for the finals. He didn't make it. He has mellowed considerably as a person since then by all accounts but at the time he was about to flip the tabl. The Stingwings obliterated his Eldar. Cover? Nope. 3+ saves? So what? It was just over.

So they are not really a "finesse unit". they are kinda like a hammer. They aren't as glass as some hammers can be either. T4 and 4+ armor is really as good as Space Marine scouts as far s shooting them. So...

My main problem with vespid, is they honestly just lose to crisis in terms of firepower.

4 vespid cost 72, a dual burst crisis costs mere 42, and its usually either close in damage output, or superior.

Against 3+ without cover, the vespid do 3 unsaved wounds to every 2 by the crisis, so 1.5 times better, but they cost 1.7 times more. and against every other scenario the crisis just piles ahead.

Heck, you can pack a dual burst crisis with two gun drones for 66. you will do a tiny bit more damage even against 3+ saves out in the open, for cheaper. and will throw a pin chance for good measure.
Even at their own niche, they fall behind.

Vespids just cost too much for what they bring as DS surgical strikers. under the formation where they can infiltrate they get interesting, but as DS surgical strikes, I'd say crisis wins every time.

Not to mention that if the Strain Leader dies you're stuck with Leadership 6.

So really if you're going to use them then their actual minimum cost is 82 points, making a Crisis Suit even better in comparison, as otherwise they're quite likely to run after the first failed save.