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 Pogman42 wrote:
In a world where i'm not able to field a bunch of MCs (i've got a single riptide at the moment) what is an effective way to up the amount of AP 1/2 shots in my lists?

Crisis suits with Plasma. They can have 2 plasma shots each.

ArmchairArbiter wrote:

 Pogman42 wrote:
In a world where i'm not able to field a bunch of MCs (i've got a single riptide at the moment) what is an effective way to up the amount of AP 1/2 shots in my lists?

Crisis suits with Plasma. They can have 2 plasma shots each.

Yeah, I sorta figured as much. I still haven't found the correct way to run plasma suits. In a unit? Deep striking? Etc.

 Pogman42 wrote:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:

 Pogman42 wrote:
In a world where i'm not able to field a bunch of MCs (i've got a single riptide at the moment) what is an effective way to up the amount of AP 1/2 shots in my lists?

Crisis suits with Plasma. They can have 2 plasma shots each.

Yeah, I sorta figured as much. I still haven't found the correct way to run plasma suits. In a unit? Deep striking? Etc.

Personally I run them in squads and only deep strike them if there's a high priority target I can drop in on and wipe out without too much concern of retaliation. Otherwise I run them on the board.

But you'll probably hear from a lot of people that ap 1/2 doesn't matter as much as simple weight of fire. The math tends to show that making them roll more dice is more reliable than having the ap 1/2.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also.. would anyone be willing to criteque my army here? I am mainly fighting Grey Knights, Daemons(Magnus), another Tau player and Blood Angels.

Yeah, I thought the same as well but I got utterly annihilated by a iron hands death star the other day.

I try to run all my Crisis, no matter how equipped, as solo suits. They're easier to hide and your opponent ends up having to overkill them, which helps make your whole army more resilient. Granted, you need more marker support this way but I tend to bring 4 sources, sometimes 5. that's enough.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:

 Pogman42 wrote:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:

 Pogman42 wrote:
In a world where i'm not able to field a bunch of MCs (i've got a single riptide at the moment) what is an effective way to up the amount of AP 1/2 shots in my lists?

Crisis suits with Plasma. They can have 2 plasma shots each.

Yeah, I sorta figured as much. I still haven't found the correct way to run plasma suits. In a unit? Deep striking? Etc.

Personally I run them in squads and only deep strike them if there's a high priority target I can drop in on and wipe out without too much concern of retaliation. Otherwise I run them on the board.

But you'll probably hear from a lot of people that ap 1/2 doesn't matter as much as simple weight of fire. The math tends to show that making them roll more dice is more reliable than having the ap 1/2.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also.. would anyone be willing to criteque my army here? I am mainly fighting Grey Knights, Daemons(Magnus), another Tau player and Blood Angels.

Spoiler:

So I'm playing around with my available Tau to make some fun lists that will at least hold their own. I can make Riptide Wings and have a Stormsurge but I am trying to forego them in the next couple lists I'm making to see what I can come up with. Though I love Riptides so can't go fully without them. I mainly fight Grey Knights, another Tau player, Blood Angels and now a Magus daemons list guy.

Anyway, here's my first list!

+++ CAD No Wing (Warhammer 40,000 7th Edition) [1850pts] +++

++ Combined Arms Detachment (Tau Empire: Codex (2015)) ++

+ Uncategorised +

Farsight Enclaves

+ HQ +

Commander
XV8 Commander Crisis Suit: 2x Cyclic Ion Blaster, Neuroweb System Jammer

+ Elites +

XV104 Riptide Battlesuits: Bonding Knife Ritual
Riptide Shas'vre: Counterfire Defence System, Ion Accelerator, Stimulant Injector, Twin-linked Plasma Rifle

XV104 Riptide Battlesuits: Bonding Knife Ritual
Riptide Shas'vre: Counterfire Defence System, Ion Accelerator, Stimulant Injector, Twin-linked Plasma Rifle

+ Troops +

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits: Bonding Knife Ritual
Crisis Shas'ui: 2x Cyclic Ion Blaster
Crisis Shas'ui: 2x Cyclic Ion Blaster
Crisis Shas'ui: 2x Cyclic Ion Blaster

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits: Bonding Knife Ritual
Crisis Shas'ui: Counterfire Defence System, 2x Fusion Blaster

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits: Bonding Knife Ritual
Crisis Shas'ui: 2x Fusion Blaster

+ Heavy Support +

XV88 Broadside Battlesuits: Bonding Knife Ritual
Broadside: Counterfire Defence System, Early Warning Override, Twin-linked High-Yield Missile Pod, Twin-linked Smart Missile System
Broadside: Counterfire Defence System, Early Warning Override, Twin-linked High-Yield Missile Pod, Twin-linked Smart Missile System
Broadside: Counterfire Defence System, Early Warning Override, Twin-linked High-Yield Missile Pod, Twin-linked Smart Missile System

++ Formation Detachment (Tau Empire: Codex (2015)) ++

+ Formation +

Counterstrike Cadre
Breacher Team w/ Devilfish: 7x Fire Warrior with Pulse Blaster
TY7 Devilfish: 2x MV1 Gun Drone, Sensor Spines
Breacher Team w/ Devilfish: 6x Fire Warrior with Pulse Blaster
TY7 Devilfish: 2x MV1 Gun Drone, Sensor Spines
Breacher Team w/ Devilfish: 7x Fire Warrior with Pulse Blaster
TY7 Devilfish: 2x MV1 Gun Drone, Sensor Spines
Pathfinder Team w/ Devilfish: 4x Pathfinder
TY7 Devilfish: 2x MV1 Gun Drone

Drone-Net VX1-0
Drones: 4x MV7 Marker Drone
Drones: 4x MV7 Marker Drone
Drones: 4x MV7 Marker Drone
Drones: 4x MV7 Marker Drone

I like the list; it's fun and different. How are you converting/buying all the CIBs?

This is where I got mine:

http://www.reddogminis.com/catalog/item/9021373/10272853.htm

 The Shrike wrote:


I like the list; it's fun and different. How are you converting/buying all the CIBs?

That was the dilemma I was about to run into, I'm not sure on that yet.

The above link is nice! But I'm not sure I want to spend money on a bunch of bitz... trying to find a really cool looking conversion.

I found a pretty funny one while I was at it though. I think it's kind of neat.

So does the stealth AoE buff from the ghostkeel wing usually end up being handy enough in general to make it worth taking over the optimised stealth cadre? It seems like it could at least help out a bit due to the range if you were to try something like the ranged support cadre with it (cause stealth and shrouded pathfinders), but I'm not sure about it. I'm considering giving the combination of the two a try as a different way to get markerlights into my list at least.

 n0t_u wrote:
So does the stealth AoE buff from the ghostkeel wing usually end up being handy enough in general to make it worth taking over the optimised stealth cadre? It seems like it could at least help out a bit due to the range if you were to try something like the ranged support cadre with it (cause stealth and shrouded pathfinders), but I'm not sure about it. I'm considering giving the combination of the two a try as a different way to get markerlights into my list at least.

It helps you when you want to play with Armor quite a lot. Armor is distressed in 7th Edition. The Ghostkeel Wing can really help fefend Tau Armor that has the Disruption Pods.

I've tried running a list with a bunch of Breachers in fish w Dpods and a GKW for the 2+ jink. It's fine but honestly the OSC is so deadly it's just a better formation againast most opponents.

I like the GKW/Breacher combo a lot, but if you're purely looking for offensive output, the OSC is hard to top. Overall, unless you're pulling some vehicle shenanigans, the OSC is a better choice.

So, competitive lists. I think I've pretty well settled on an army, but I'm still unsure it's exactly what I want. The lack of psychic defense is troubling, especially given how easy it is to acquire these days, but I'm trying to adhere to the ITC limitation of 3 detachments. I could cut down a formation by eliminating the Drone Net and just using normal Marker Drones, but having intercepting drones is really hard to ignore in a competitive environment. Then again, so is having Magnus make my Stormsurge D-missile and pulse drive me. Nullifying invisibility and other ridiculous deathstar buffs also makes going second hurt much, much less. I'll throw up both list options, just for the hell of it.

CAD
Commander - Iridium, DC, 2 flamers, NWSJ - 130
2 Crisis Suits - 2 flamers, BKR - 66
Stormsurge - pulse driver, shield gen, EWO, flamers - 430
Munitorum Armoured Container Cache - 40

Drone Net - 224

Riptide Wing
3 Riptides - HBC, SMS, 3 ATS, 2 TL, 1 VT - 579

Riptide - IA, SMS, EWO - 190
Riptide - IA, SMS, EWO - 190
1847 total
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commander - Iridium, DC, 2 Marker Drones - 142
2 Crisis Suits - 3 total flamers, BKR - 61
7 Marker Drones - 98
Stormsurge - pulse driver, shield gen, EWO, flamers - 430
Munitorum Armoured Container Cache - 40

Riptide Wing
3 Riptides - HBC, SMS, 3 ATS, 2 TL, 1 VT - 579

Riptide - IA, SMS, EWO - 190
Riptide - IA, SMS, EWO - 190

Null Maiden Task Force
5 SoS - 75
Rhino - 45
1850 on the nose

There's nothing particularly innovative about either list. The munitorum cache is a huge deal, allowing the HBC tides to essentially be twin-linked and granting the flamers torrent. It'll also prevent the odd gets hot roll for the IAs. Switching the Drone Net for Null Maidens prevents the HBC tides from being BS5 quite as often (since only one target can get illuminated) and, again, removes marker light intercepting but grants much-needed psychic defense and very modest counter-assault capacity. Basically, it's an offense for defense trade. Any thoughts?

Why the extra 7 Marker Drones in addition to the Drone Net? Seems like points better spent elsewhere, unless the goal was to blow 98 points to hit 1850 even.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Why the extra 7 Marker Drones in addition to the Drone Net? Seems like points better spent elsewhere, unless the goal was to blow 98 points to hit 1850 even.

SJ

Those 7 drones are in a separate list. The first list is 1847 and has the drone net, the latter is 1850 and only has the 7 marker drones, no drone net.

So as tau, we have something that most other armies cannot do, or do with quite as much variety. We can for all intents and purposes run an army with stealth/shrouded on everything.

in 1500 points you could run:
Cad with shadowsun and kroot for infiltrate and stealth (forests)
OSC
Ranged support cadre- so only the broadsides don't have stealth/shrouded. but this could easily be replaced by another OSC or a crisis blob with shadow sun

Do you think army-wide stealth/shrouded/infiltrate is a strong enough gimmick to come up even at your FLGS average Friday night? It's clearly no tournament idea, which is why i am just hoping for a 50-50 W/L, it seems fun to me.

So, I just played in an ITC event today. My list was the following:

My first opponent was running a huge Genestealer Cult army all on foot. Lots of Cult Ambush everywhere. He had a CAD and whatever the GSC multi-formation detachment is (Cult Insurrection?). Lots of small units of Acolytes and Metamorphs, plus a couple of min squads of Neophytes. He also had 2 blobs of 20 Purestrain Genestealers with a Patriarch in each, as well as a Primus and one Magus. As luck would have it he got first turn (and I failed to seize), but only three small units of Acolytes got that magic 6 on the Ambush table, and I had bubble wrapped my really good stuff. Problem is, like a dummy I didn't castle up in the corner like I should have, but rather in the center of my deployment zone (mission was Dawn of War deployment). The game was relatively unremarkable, with me just being worn down by the constant assaults. I conceded (mainly due to time) after just 3 turns, with only my Stormsurge and a few drones left, and the Surge was locked in combat. I did kill more than half of my opponent's army, but there were just too many bodies coming at me.

In the second game, my opponent was running a double CAD list, with Astra Militarum and Militarum Tempestus. The AM detachment had a large blob of Conscripts, a couple of Infantry Squads with Autocannon teams, a Command Squad with an Autocannon team, a Lord Commissar, and 3 separate Wyverns. He also had an Aegis Defense Line with a Comms Relay. The Tempestus Scions half was 4 Scions squads with a Taurox Prime for each. There were 2 units with 2 meltaguns and 2 units with 2 hotshot volley guns. He also had 2 Scion Command Squads with 4 Plasmas in each. All of the Scions infantry were deep striking. The mission was The Scouring, with Hammer and Anvil deployment. He got first turn and I once again failed to seize. Very little of note happened on his first turn. He somehow managed to immobilize one of his Tauroxes despite its reroll of Dangerous Terrain checks. He did manage to kill one of my units of Marker Drones, but very little else. On my turn, I anchored the Stormsurge and shot up a bunch of his stuff. I killed nearly half of his Conscript blob, which pushed them off of the objective. I also killed that immobilized Taurox, as it was also on the objective. This denied my opponent a Maelstrom point, and got me one for killing a unit. On turn 2, he got 4 of his Scions squads from reserves, but my warlord trait kept the others off (both Melta squads) despite his Comms relay. One of the plasma command squads mishapped into Ongoing reserves; the others got brutalized by my Interceptor shooting, with few if any survivors (can't remember if I killed them all or not). He killed my Piranha, netting him a Maelstrom point, but very little else died aside from a couple of Fire Warriors. On my turn 2, I killed one of the Wyverns with the Stormsurge's Pulse Driver, and I polished off the survivors from one of the deep striking Scions units, but my Riptide failed to kill the Taurox he shot at (with only the Smart missiles as he used the Ion gun for Interceptor) even when he charged it. This was sad as I had chosen to try to kill 3 units for 3 Maelstrom points, and I had only killed 2. Fortunately on turn 3 his Deep Strikers scattered into easy interceptor shots for my third unit kill despite him trying to drop them behind his lines to deny me killing them. One of the Melta units still stayed off, though. He moved up all of his 3 remaining Tauroxes, but the only thing they accomplished was to put a couple of wounds on my Stormsurge. On my own turn 3, I killed all three of the Tauroxes (for 3 Maelstrom points!) as well as another of the Wyverns (the Gun Drones outflanked and earned their pay) and some more Scions. Really at this point we were running out of time and I was just cleaning up. By the end of the game, I had claimed 5 of the 6 objectives and killed most of my opponent's army for a decisive win. The only point I missed was Slay the Warlord. The dice were really not kind to my opponent, as he had some really bad scatters and failed to wound far more than was statistical.

My third opponent was running a Rehati War Sect with Magnus and 3 Daemon Princes, as well as a small Daemons CAD with the Masque of Slaanesh, a unit of Blue Horrors, two units of Brimstone Horrors, and an Aegis Line with Comms Relay. I thought I was going to be roflstomped so bad that the game wouldn't even be fun, but I was wrong. I got first turn, but then my opponent seized on me. Not a huge deal, as he had placed Magnus far enough away that I couldn't light him up with Markerlights, and had also places all three Princes in reserves. On turn 1, Magnus took off and cast some spells around, but I didn't lose a whole lot due to some lucky dice rolling (well, lucky for me! ). I managed to kill one unit of Brimstone Horrors and actually put a couple of wounds on Magnus, amazingly enough. Too bad he had already used the spell on my Stormsurge that made him take control of it, wasting my D missiles on the Piranha (which jinked all the damage away!). On turn 2, two of his Princes came in, killing a couple of Stealth suits with Vector Strike. The Masque also deep struck in. I decided to fire some Interceptor at both Princes and the Masque. The Masque died to a couple of Broadsides shooting their SMS at her. After some Markerlights and plenty of guns were fired, I managed to inflict a total of 6 wounds on one of the Princes (they all had armor). My opponent rolled a total of four 2's, meaning that Prince went down. The other Prince took one wound and failed his grounding check, taking another wound. That same Prince got unlucky again in the Psychic phase and got Perils, taking a third wound. I managed to survive the Psychic phase without losing too much. When that Prince that was on the ground decided to charge one of my units, my Supporting Fire overwatch took his fourth and final wound, killing him. I couldn't believe my luck! On my own turn, I didn't accomplish much other than repositioning a few of my units and killing a few more Horrors, which split. My Stormsurge charged the Blues, killing several with Stomps (rolled one 6). They lost five more to Instability, but they did spawn some Brimstones. The Blues were conga lined in such a way as the Stormsurge found itself out of combat and consolidated. On turn 3, things started to go south for me, although I did manage to intercept and ground his third Prince, and that Prince also lost a wound to Perils, but that Psychic phase saw most of my units just get completely obliterated, many by a single 9 inch Nova power. The Riptide got turned into a Spawn, as did my Ghostkeel. The grounded Prince charged and killed a Marker Drone unit, and Magnus himself landed. On my turn 3, I had very little army left, with just my Commander and a couple of drones, and my Stormsurge, still standing. The Stormsurge did kill that Prince and tried to charge Magnus, but he failed to reach combat. On turn 4, my Commander was Instakilled by a psychic power, and Magnus charged the Stormsurge. I had denied Force, so the Stormsurge survived long enough to try to punch and Stomp on Magnus. It was not to be, though, as even with 3 stomps I couldn't roll a 6. He killed the Surge next turn and I was officially tabled. If I had been able to squish Magnus with a Stomp, that would have probably won the game for me, as he had very little in play that could hurt the Stormsurge, and I could run rampant through his surviving units. I might have tabled my opponent instead of the other way around. It was still a really good game, and I was surprised that I was able to kill all three Princes (my opponent's dice were cold for most of the game).

My takeaway from this tournament:
-Hunter Contingent is good but somewhat situational. I rarely used the Coordinated Firepower buff, and the 12" Supporting Fire never came into play. The OSC is really amazing, though, but it can be run as a stand alone formation.
-Drone Net is a must take for Tau, at least if you run Stormsurges. Intercepting Markerlights are really amazing!
-When facing a Genestealer Cult list like I faced, castle your stuff up in the corner instead of doing what I did. It's the only way to survive against that many bodies. I honestly don't know what I was thinking in that game.
-Knowing when to anchor is key to playing Stormsurges well. Against the GSC and Magnus lists, I needed to keep the Surge moving and Stomping, but against the Guard, which was mainly a gunline, I really used the double shooting to good effect.
-Tau should strongly consider allying in something to counter enemy psykers. Magnus and Libby Conclave lists can be really troublesome otherwise. Perhaps the Null Maiden Task Force would be a good fit, although One Eye Open could be an issue.

I played a tournament today and won an insanely nice prize. It was a fully built, professionally painted and ridiculously well magnetized Stormsurge. It's awesome. I can't beleive what a cool prize it was. I wasn't even going to attend that tournament until about an hour before, because my D&D game moved up to later in the evening.

Anywho, pretty cool. Ghostkeels were my MVP's.

So yeah, I played a tournament last weekend too. Didn't go that well, but I won 3 games out of 5. Only things I lost to were other Tau. Other guy had Driver Cannon on his Surge so I had to be extremely careful with Ghostkeels. I made a mistake in my deployment and lost my Surge in first turn. Definately my bad. Then my dice betrayed me and I didn't seem to make my saves at all. Ended up giving him the 20-0 win out of frustration. Not something I'm proud of, but I feel even hiding wouldn't have saved me from getting tabled.

Other game against Tau was easier.We both failed to kill each others Surges turn one, but they were both killed turn 2. Then it was just cat and mouse around the battlefield and scoring. He played extremely carefully and was using Piranha Firestream pretty effectively and keeping them out of harms way. Lost this one 14-6 I think. Would've been 12-8 but managed to fail one out of three saves and lost one Crusade objective in the end.

So yeah, definately a lot to learn. Bunker with escape hatch seems to be really good to catapult your markerlights in position turn one when needed. Not sure if I should get one before 8th edition but I'm thinking about it. Both of my Tau opponents had psychic defense, with other one having Culexus and other one using Sisters in a Rhino.

Ghostkeels biggest drawback is definately the range, but it really only seems to play a big role in mirror matches where opponent can easily ignore their cover. And even counter-measures are not so good when Tau can just use more markerlights to increase the BS of his snap shots. Against enemies coming at you they performed extremely well.

Oh yeah, the wins were against Warconvo with Cawl, WS battle company and Necron Decurion with 2 Harvests and Destroyer Cult.

 Fueli wrote:

Oh yeah, the wins were against Warconvo with Cawl, WS battle company and Necron Decurion with 2 Harvests and Destroyer Cult.

...and the other show drops. Lol.

Ghostkeels are awesome. Mirror matches are what they are. You won more than you lost. Just saying.

Snap shotting stops the large blasts and forces enemies to use up markerlights just to try and hit them AND get around their cover...all in all, this could be a lot worse. Thats a lot of Markerlights and if you threaten the opponent ENOUGH first, then they will have a hard time justifying their sole fascination with the Ghostkeels. They may still go that way but your other units can make them pay for it.

2+ armor on other units also helps because ignoring cover is of little consequence and added BS definitely has a point of diminishing return against it (though never useless, each successful save does not in fact increase the chance that another save will fail so honestly, 2+ armor in general in 40K is just pretty darn good).

Congratz. Sounds to me like you did pretty good.

Thanks Jancoran! Indeed the victories tasted sweet against such powerful lists. And what you're saying is true of course. I think the key would've been to play ghostkeels even more aggressive and to rely on counter-measures, even if I had to use all of them turn one to keep them alive.

As long as we're having a love fest for the OSC I have a couple of questions that could go in the YMDC forum but this is really Tau specific:

1. What cover save does a 3 'keel unit with all of its drones intact receive standing out in the open when being shot at from further than 12". I think it's only a 3+ but others at my FLGS says 2+

2. When moving through ruins the 'keels can move their regular 6" move. What do the drones move? MTC does confer to the drones but that means they still have to roll 3d6 when deciding how far they can go or they can use their jump pack to move 6" and not JSJ, right?

 necron99 wrote:
As long as we're having a love fest for the OSC I have a couple of questions that could go in the YMDC forum but this is really Tau specific:

1. What cover save does a 3 'keel unit with all of its drones intact receive standing out in the open when being shot at from further than 12". I think it's only a 3+ but others at my FLGS says 2+

2. When moving through ruins the 'keels can move their regular 6" move. What do the drones move? MTC does confer to the drones but that means they still have to roll 3d6 when deciding how far they can go or they can use their jump pack to move 6" and not JSJ, right?

To answer number 2: Jetpack equipped units can move 6" ignoring terrain hindrances (except for dangerous terrain tests if landing/taking off) and then thrust in the assault phase. They aren't limited to only using the bonuses from their equipment in one phase like jump pack equipped models are.

So in your example the Drones can move 6" and take dangerous terrain checks or roll for their move distance as normal and not take dangerous terrain tests. Neither option effects their ability to make a thrust move in the assault phase, they can do that regardless.

 necron99 wrote:
As long as we're having a love fest for the OSC I have a couple of questions that could go in the YMDC forum but this is really Tau specific:

1. What cover save does a 3 'keel unit with all of its drones intact receive standing out in the open when being shot at from further than 12". I think it's only a 3+ but others at my FLGS says 2+

2. When moving through ruins the 'keels can move their regular 6" move. What do the drones move? MTC does confer to the drones but that means they still have to roll 3d6 when deciding how far they can go or they can use their jump pack to move 6" and not JSJ, right?

2+ in the open with Drones over 12"

They are Jet packs so the terrain doesnt affect the ghostkeels. The Drones must still take Dangerous terrain tests. The Drones are not MC's.

Cool, thanks everyone. My argument for the 3+ was that the text says the keels would replace stealth (+1) with shrouded (+2) thanks to the having more than 2 drones and that at beyond 12" it would be doubled (+4) so why doesn't that translate to 6-5-4-3 for a 3+ cover save in the open?

The drones give the Keels shrouded, and since they already have stealth, they get a total of +6 to.cover.

MilkmanAl wrote:
The drones give the Keels shrouded, and since they already have stealth, they get a total of +6 to.cover.

Yeah, but in the text about that it says if you already have stealth you receive shrouded instead. Meaning you don't get both you exchange your stealth for shrouded.

The Ghostkeel already has stealth. The Drones grant stealth to an the unit's models if said models don't already have stealth or shrouded if they do. The Shrouded bonus from the drone doesn't replace the Ghostkeel's inherit Stealth USR, it replaces the Stealth bonus that the drone would otherwise grant.

Example: Two Drones plus Commander. Drones grant the Commander Stealth.
Example 2: Two Drones plus Ghostkeel. Drones grant the Ghostkeel Shrouded as the Ghostkeel already has stealth.

Yeah you have both Stealth and Shrouded when over 12" and its doubled. its cool. Ghostkeels: so good. when a Ynarri player who wins tournaments ALL the time dont like it, you're doing it right. =)

I wonder how 8th edition will change up how Tau play. Maybe they'll update rail weapons to actually be good again. I'm hoping a lot of units that are currently subpar will be made good in the new edition, but ultimately it is wishlisting on my part.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I wonder how 8th edition will change up how Tau play. Maybe they'll update rail weapons to actually be good again. I'm hoping a lot of units that are currently subpar will be made good in the new edition, but ultimately it is wishlisting on my part.

Well, if Lascannons are anything to go by then the Solid Shot railgun round will be dealing D6 wounds and have a rend of -4.
The Broadside Railgun could possibly be D6 wounds, or maybe D3 to differentiate it from the Hammerhead gun by more than 2 points of Strength (though I would also hope it goes up to Strength 9 as I don't think there is any way that a gun which can be carried on the shoulder of a standard space marine should have higher strength than a gun the size of the broadside railgun) also with a rend of -4.
Rail Rifles for the pathfinders will also be rend -4.

So all of them are going to remain very good at taking out armoured targets at the very least and likely to be invaluable in taking out high wound count models.