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Hi guys, new here and hoping to build a competitive 1500 Tau list.

Now I'm expecting it to be great and feel free to rip it apart as I have zero experience with Tau and am still in the planning stage.

HQ:
Commander 177pts
x2 Marker Drones
x2 Missile Pods
Iridium battlesuit
Drone Controller, Target Lock

Ethreal 50pts

Elites:
Riptide 190 pts
Ion Accelerator
Early warning override,

x4 Crisis Battle suite 248pts
Shas'vre x2 Missile Pod, Control and Command Node
Others with with x2 Missile Pod, Target Lock

x3 Crisis Battle Suite 191pts
Shas'vre
x2 Fusion Blaster, Pure Tide Engramchip
Others with x2 Fusion Blasters and Target Lock

Troops:

x8 Fire Warriors 72pts

x8 Fire Warriors 72 pts

x8 Fire Warriors 72 pts

Fast Attack:
X4 Path Finders 44 pts

x4 Path Finders 44 pts

x4 Marker Drones 56pts

Heavy Support:
x2 Broadsides 140 pts
High Yield Missile Pods + Early Warning Override

x2 Broadside 140 pts
High Yield Missile Pods +Early Warning Override

Total: 1496pts

As I say I'm still in the planning stage at the moment and this is kind of more units thrown together than an actual planned army list. Fire warriors are for anti horde stuffs, plasma team for TEQ and MEQ and light vehicles, Fusion Blasters for TEQ and Heavy duty vehicles, Riptide for support, Pathfinders for markerlight goodness and broadsides for AA.

First, you cannot take 3 weapons on a crisis suit. Those plasma have to be twin linked or you have to drop the missile pods on them. Second broadsides should never ever ever run rail guns as is. Why take one strength 8 shot over 4 strength 7 shots? It's all about volume of fire. Third look into using the hhnter contingent. And break the fire warriors into min squads. And for gods sake put early warning overrides on the suits. Drop pod or outflank armies will destroy you, and you might as well not even play a marine army using sky hammer annihilation force.

 Orock wrote:
First, you cannot take 3 weapons on a crisis suit. Those plasma have to be twin linked or you have to drop the missile pods on them. Second broadsides should never ever ever run rail guns as is. Why take one strength 8 shot over 4 strength 7 shots? It's all about volume of fire. Third look into using the hhnter contingent. And break the fire warriors into min squads. And for gods sake put early warning overrides on the suits. Drop pod or outflank armies will destroy you, and you might as well not even play a marine army using sky hammer annihilation force.

1st Point: Ahh.. my bad.. So early warning over the missile pods?
2nd Point: Yeah I can see that, I just wanted the extra high Strength range but that's easily changeable, would you run as 1 unit of 3 or split it?
3rd Point: I've seen it but wasn't sure how to fit in (again this list as it stands is very developmental) would you go 4 minimum Fire warrior teams?

Anything else you'd suggest up to and including ripping the whole list apart and starting again? The Commander for instance I have no real idea on the best way to equip him.

 Orock wrote:
First, you cannot take 3 weapons on a crisis suit. Those plasma have to be twin linked or you have to drop the missile pods on them. Second broadsides should never ever ever run rail guns as is. Why take one strength 8 shot over 4 strength 7 shots? It's all about volume of fire. Third look into using the hhnter contingent. And break the fire warriors into min squads. And for gods sake put early warning overrides on the suits. Drop pod or outflank armies will destroy you, and you might as well not even play a marine army using sky hammer annihilation force.

You can most certainly take 3 weapons on crisis suits. You can only ever fire 2 per turn tho.

Am i missing something?? Since when can you not equip 3 weapons???!?!? You cant fire 3 weapons but can you tell where it doesn't let you take them??

He is right about dropping the rail rifle for more missiles, its usually better. That being said i usually run 2 broadsides with missiles and 2 with rails and have decent success with both

Tun the Hunter contingent for sure though, you have all the pieces it looks, and could potentially make the difference in a fight with that +1BS and move and shoot.

fatbudda319 wrote:

 Orock wrote:
First, you cannot take 3 weapons on a crisis suit. Those plasma have to be twin linked or you have to drop the missile pods on them. Second broadsides should never ever ever run rail guns as is. Why take one strength 8 shot over 4 strength 7 shots? It's all about volume of fire. Third look into using the hhnter contingent. And break the fire warriors into min squads. And for gods sake put early warning overrides on the suits. Drop pod or outflank armies will destroy you, and you might as well not even play a marine army using sky hammer annihilation force.

1st Point: Ahh.. my bad.. So early warning over the missile pods?
2nd Point: Yeah I can see that, I just wanted the extra high Strength range but that's easily changeable, would you run as 1 unit of 3 or split it?
3rd Point: I've seen it but wasn't sure how to fit in (again this list as it stands is very developmental) would you go 4 minimum Fire warrior teams?

Anything else you'd suggest up to and including ripping the whole list apart and starting again? The Commander for instance I have no real idea on the best way to equip him.

1) Drop the Missile Pod to begin with then build the rest of your list. Your Broadsides with High Yield Missile Pod and Smart Missile System and any Riptide/Ghostkeel/Stormsurge should always come with Early Warning Override. I can't tell you how frustrating this simple wargear is to armies who rely on mass reserve (I.E. Drop pod armies). The Plasma Rifles have a relatively short range for their effectiveness, so giving those suits Early Warning Override is not necessary.

2) Either is just as effective and potent if you take the Hunter Contingent (More on this detachment later in the post), however you leave yourself vulnerable to an easy First Blood! or other objectives that give points based of Unit kills. Also, if you split the unit outside of a Hunter Contingent, it requires more Markerlights to buff the same amount of Broadsides.

3) The minimum squad requirement for Firewarriors (Strikers or Breachers) is 5. But if you already have/want to use 24 Firewarriors, three Squads of 8 work well within the Hunter Contingent.

Now for my suggestions;

1) Unlike other armies, the Command Squad equivalent for Tau (Bodyguards) do not offer much more capability on the table top than standard Crisis Suits besides being Signature Wargear cadies and Auto-Look Out Sir rolls. Outside of those scenarios, they cost 10 points more per model than a standard Crisis Suit. I recommend against using this unit.

2) Velocity Trackers are expensive and rarely effective unless you can also take Early Warning Override for Intercept. If you switch to Missilesides (HIGHLY recommended), don't take this wargear. The high Strength of the High Yield Missile Pods and their Twin-Linked rule will cause most AV fliers to fall out of the sky without any additional help (or at the very least, force the decision to Jink).

3) I personally don't take Stimulant Injector on my Riptide as it rarely sees any damage. The smart opponents will focus their attention on the weaker things (i.e. Crisis Suits) to reduce the overall strength of your army. I recommend replacing this with Early Warning Override.

4) If you take a Combined Arms Detachment, take a Skyray. 6 Strength 8 AP3 Seeker Missiles with Skyfiring Markerlights are incredibly effective and very dangerous to Flying Mounstrous Creatures.

Now for the Hunter Contingent;

To qualify for the rules of the Hunter Contingent, you must follow three simple list building Rules:

0-1 Command per core
1+ Core (The Hunter Cadre formation)
1+ Auxiliary (ANY of the other formations in the Tau Codex)

As with any other formation in the game, you must follow the list requirements of each formation, i.e. the Hunter Cadre requires:
1 Commander
1-3 Crisis Suit Squads, Riptide Squads, Ghostkeel squads, Stealth Squads (In any combination)
0-1 Fireblade
0-1 Bodyguard
3-6 Kroot Carnivore Squad, Breacher Squad, Striker Squad (In any combination)
1-3 Drone Squadron, Pathfinder Squad, Piranha Squad, Vespids (In any combination
1-3 Broadside squads, Stormsurge squads, Sniper Drone squads, Hammerhead Squads (In any combination)

Then take any one of the other formations in the book! That's it! Now your units can combine fire to share Markerlights, gain an additional BS, and potentially share abilities! (Up to your FLGS's interpretation)

You could take the list you have now, add a Squad of Drones for the Auxiliary requirement (Drone Network on page 73), and wreck the tournament!

Railsides do have a use but its very niche and specific, there isnt much the Missilesides cant overwhelm that the Railsides technically kill better. Personally i havent used them since they got nerfed to S8.

As stated before you really want some EWO in there. Riptides and broadsides are your best bet for them, as crisis suits tend to be slot-starved with 2 being taken by weapons already and TLocks being really damn good on them.

Also @Orock, its been confirmed ever since the last codex first dropping that we can now take two individual guns w/o twinlink. Very few people ever equip different guns these days. And nothing says we cant equip 3 guns, or 4 on a commander, you just cant use them all at once (which kinda imposes 2 gun limit without actually doing so)

Well I could see someone who likes backup plans taking say two middles and a fusion or plasma for super tough units. But to answer the question yes take min fire warrior squads. It sucks in kill point missions but helps protect you some against say wyverns and gives you more units to combine fire with.

Hi, I would say to get rid of all the shield drones, and the marker drones if you do not have drone controllers, and put the drone controller on the commander and change his shield drone to markerdrone. This will have a vast improvement of bs for the drones which you will find handy, and of course with that, give the commander target lock so he can shoot different units from the drones themselves. For me I often just put missile pods with the commander because it has the same threat range as the markers.

The crisis suits are better off having dual of the same weapon, making them more specialists which is what they do on the table top and fluff. For me I use alot of missiles with target lock and a shas'vre with all the signature systems such as Penchip, MSS, and Cnc node. This with a couple of missile crisis will destroy any vehicles that are not AV14. Even knights have a high chance of getting destroyed turn 1 when used with hunter contingent rules with broadsides. This means you need your riptide and maybe 1 or 2 crisis to dedicate killing against AV14 vehicles.

The firewarriors should be split into 3 teams of minimal squad, and maybe add in the new turret because they can help you co ordinate fire from the new hunter contingent. And hunter contingent also needs 3 squads of troops which you have.

Also, to get a hunter contingent, you need to get at least 4 drones as Auxillary unit. This I will choose markerdrones to add to your commander. Broadsides are good to be 3 in a team. Lesser killpoint giveaway if the lone guy dies!

But other then these suggestions, DirtyDeeds have broken down the things quite well.

So on tabletop, you fire both pathfinder units first, then your commander with his drones, and by this time at least 2 units will be marked so well at least 1 is going down. Then you can fire the rest and enjoy first blood if you are going first.

Orock wrote:First, you cannot take 3 weapons on a crisis suit. Those plasma have to be twin linked or you have to drop the missile pods on them. Second broadsides should never ever ever run rail guns as is. Why take one strength 8 shot over 4 strength 7 shots? It's all about volume of fire. Third look into using the hhnter contingent. And break the fire warriors into min squads. And for gods sake put early warning overrides on the suits. Drop pod or outflank armies will destroy you, and you might as well not even play a marine army using sky hammer annihilation force.

Wolfnid420 wrote:Am i missing something?? Since when can you not equip 3 weapons???!?!? You cant fire 3 weapons but can you tell where it doesn't let you take them??

He is right about dropping the rail rifle for more missiles, its usually better. That being said i usually run 2 broadsides with missiles and 2 with rails and have decent success with both

Tun the Hunter contingent for sure though, you have all the pieces it looks, and could potentially make the difference in a fight with that +1BS and move and shoot.

DirtyDeeds wrote:

fatbudda319 wrote:

 Orock wrote:
First, you cannot take 3 weapons on a crisis suit. Those plasma have to be twin linked or you have to drop the missile pods on them. Second broadsides should never ever ever run rail guns as is. Why take one strength 8 shot over 4 strength 7 shots? It's all about volume of fire. Third look into using the hhnter contingent. And break the fire warriors into min squads. And for gods sake put early warning overrides on the suits. Drop pod or outflank armies will destroy you, and you might as well not even play a marine army using sky hammer annihilation force.

1st Point: Ahh.. my bad.. So early warning over the missile pods?
2nd Point: Yeah I can see that, I just wanted the extra high Strength range but that's easily changeable, would you run as 1 unit of 3 or split it?
3rd Point: I've seen it but wasn't sure how to fit in (again this list as it stands is very developmental) would you go 4 minimum Fire warrior teams?

Anything else you'd suggest up to and including ripping the whole list apart and starting again? The Commander for instance I have no real idea on the best way to equip him.

1) Drop the Missile Pod to begin with then build the rest of your list. Your Broadsides with High Yield Missile Pod and Smart Missile System and any Riptide/Ghostkeel/Stormsurge should always come with Early Warning Override. I can't tell you how frustrating this simple wargear is to armies who rely on mass reserve (I.E. Drop pod armies). The Plasma Rifles have a relatively short range for their effectiveness, so giving those suits Early Warning Override is not necessary.

2) Either is just as effective and potent if you take the Hunter Contingent (More on this detachment later in the post), however you leave yourself vulnerable to an easy First Blood! or other objectives that give points based of Unit kills. Also, if you split the unit outside of a Hunter Contingent, it requires more Markerlights to buff the same amount of Broadsides.

3) The minimum squad requirement for Firewarriors (Strikers or Breachers) is 5. But if you already have/want to use 24 Firewarriors, three Squads of 8 work well within the Hunter Contingent.

Now for my suggestions;

1) Unlike other armies, the Command Squad equivalent for Tau (Bodyguards) do not offer much more capability on the table top than standard Crisis Suits besides being Signature Wargear cadies and Auto-Look Out Sir rolls. Outside of those scenarios, they cost 10 points more per model than a standard Crisis Suit. I recommend against using this unit.

2) Velocity Trackers are expensive and rarely effective unless you can also take Early Warning Override for Intercept. If you switch to Missilesides (HIGHLY recommended), don't take this wargear. The high Strength of the High Yield Missile Pods and their Twin-Linked rule will cause most AV fliers to fall out of the sky without any additional help (or at the very least, force the decision to Jink).

3) I personally don't take Stimulant Injector on my Riptide as it rarely sees any damage. The smart opponents will focus their attention on the weaker things (i.e. Crisis Suits) to reduce the overall strength of your army. I recommend replacing this with Early Warning Override.

4) If you take a Combined Arms Detachment, take a Skyray. 6 Strength 8 AP3 Seeker Missiles with Skyfiring Markerlights are incredibly effective and very dangerous to Flying Mounstrous Creatures.

Now for the Hunter Contingent;

To qualify for the rules of the Hunter Contingent, you must follow three simple list building Rules:

0-1 Command per core
1+ Core (The Hunter Cadre formation)
1+ Auxiliary (ANY of the other formations in the Tau Codex)

As with any other formation in the game, you must follow the list requirements of each formation, i.e. the Hunter Cadre requires:
1 Commander
1-3 Crisis Suit Squads, Riptide Squads, Ghostkeel squads, Stealth Squads (In any combination)
0-1 Fireblade
0-1 Bodyguard
3-6 Kroot Carnivore Squad, Breacher Squad, Striker Squad (In any combination)
1-3 Drone Squadron, Pathfinder Squad, Piranha Squad, Vespids (In any combination
1-3 Broadside squads, Stormsurge squads, Sniper Drone squads, Hammerhead Squads (In any combination)

Then take any one of the other formations in the book! That's it! Now your units can combine fire to share Markerlights, gain an additional BS, and potentially share abilities! (Up to your FLGS's interpretation)

You could take the list you have now, add a Squad of Drones for the Auxiliary requirement (Drone Network on page 73), and wreck the tournament!

bleak wrote:Hi, I would say to get rid of all the shield drones, and the marker drones if you do not have drone controllers, and put the drone controller on the commander and change his shield drone to markerdrone. This will have a vast improvement of bs for the drones which you will find handy, and of course with that, give the commander target lock so he can shoot different units from the drones themselves. For me I often just put missile pods with the commander because it has the same threat range as the markers.

The crisis suits are better off having dual of the same weapon, making them more specialists which is what they do on the table top and fluff. For me I use alot of missiles with target lock and a shas'vre with all the signature systems such as Penchip, MSS, and Cnc node. This with a couple of missile crisis will destroy any vehicles that are not AV14. Even knights have a high chance of getting destroyed turn 1 when used with hunter contingent rules with broadsides. This means you need your riptide and maybe 1 or 2 crisis to dedicate killing against AV14 vehicles.

The firewarriors should be split into 3 teams of minimal squad, and maybe add in the new turret because they can help you co ordinate fire from the new hunter contingent. And hunter contingent also needs 3 squads of troops which you have.

Also, to get a hunter contingent, you need to get at least 4 drones as Auxillary unit. This I will choose markerdrones to add to your commander. Broadsides are good to be 3 in a team. Lesser killpoint giveaway if the lone guy dies!

But other then these suggestions, DirtyDeeds have broken down the things quite well.

So on tabletop, you fire both pathfinder units first, then your commander with his drones, and by this time at least 2 units will be marked so well at least 1 is going down. Then you can fire the rest and enjoy first blood if you are going first.

Ok thanks for all the advice guys, I've edited the above list with the changes if you could please let me know what you think of it now?

In order for a unit to benefit from Command and Control Node and Multi Spectrum Sensor Suite the bearer must not fire, do its a waste of points to mix weapons and either of these wargear on the same model. Also, Tau signature systems are not limited to One per model. You can theoretically put every single signature wargear on the same guy (not recommended).

Otherwise, your list is solid and can benefit from the Hunter Cadre and Hunter Contingent formations if you want.

DirtyDeeds wrote:
In order for a unit to benefit from Command and Control Node and Multi Spectrum Sensor Suite the bearer must not fire, do its a waste of points to mix weapons and either of these wargear on the same model. Also, Tau signature systems are not limited to One per model. You can theoretically put every single signature wargear on the same guy (not recommended).

OK so what would you do instead? Drop those pieces of kit?

Yeah, either equip the model with weapons or stack Command and Control Node with Multi Spectrum Sensor Suite (I recommend the later on the Shas'vre in the missile pod squad, it basically makes them broadsides that can jump shoot jump).

Yeah your list is looking way better, your 3 teams of crisis can be combined to 2. 3 of which can be dual fusion with a shas'vre with PENCHIP. The other 7 can be 6 dual missiles with one of them shas'vre with MSS and CommandControlnode without any weapons.

What this means is you have 40 missile pod shots that are twin linked which can take down light vehicles and most infantry. And the fusion blaster teams are 6 melta deepstriking attacks that are tank hunter. So your list is currently looking pretty solid, just have to refine a little more to take out the unnecessary upgrades and you are done!

Oh and for tau, never upgrade to shas'vre/ui unless you need to do something with them like taking signature systems because they often just get 1 extra attack/ld which isn't that great.

The extra leadership is nothing to scoff at. That upgrade has saved my bacon numerous times.

LD8 is "average" leadership. I tend to either roll like a boss and get 3 or less, or get 8/9s. Lost count how many successful leaderships ive passed because of that upgrade.

It is pointless though if you plant to have an Ethereal around, as he makes everything in 12" LD10 anyway.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
The extra leadership is nothing to scoff at. That upgrade has saved my bacon numerous times.

LD8 is "average" leadership. I tend to either roll like a boss and get 3 or less, or get 8/9s. Lost count how many successful leaderships ive passed because of that upgrade.

It is pointless though if you plant to have an Ethereal around, as he makes everything in 12" LD10 anyway.

That's true, but I don't let my firewarriors come out more often than not, especially now with the turrets being in play. And I rather lose one unit than 1 VP though so I don't like bringing ethereals.

I usually play heavy firewarrior numbers with an ethereal hiding in a fish. Nothing changed to prevent his bubble from extending out of the fish, so its still viable.
Our devilfish are actually really durable for the cost, the reason they suck is because they fulfill a role that Tau cant utilize very well. I havent had my Ethereal die in a long long time.

I also tend to give bonding knives to everything that is in a squad of more than one model, not needing snake eyes to rally has made a decent difference on so many occasions

 Wolfnid420 wrote:
I also tend to give bonding knives to everything that is in a squad of more than one model, not needing snake eyes to rally has made a decent difference on so many occasions

Bonding knife has no effect unless the squad is 4+ models

Yeah bonding knives is a pointless upgrade unless its firewarriors or fully kitted out crisis/broadsides (i.e. drones too). It only comes into effect when youre 25% or less of your original numbers and you already failed a leadership test. Units of 2 or 3 never are that low.

Ive started not buying them on my firewarriors though since i regularly field 40 of them. Thats 40pts that i rarely ever need - i cant remember the last time i was glad i had bonding knives, but ive had a few times where i wish i had it.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Yeah bonding knives is a pointless upgrade unless its firewarriors or fully kitted out crisis/broadsides (i.e. drones too). It only comes into effect when youre 25% or less of your original numbers and you already failed a leadership test. Units of 2 or 3 never are that low.

Ive started not buying them on my firewarriors though since i regularly field 40 of them. Thats 40pts that i rarely ever need - i cant remember the last time i was glad i had bonding knives, but ive had a few times where i wish i had it.

Only thing I would use bonding knives for are if you have drones in the squad, such as Broadsides and especially the new ghost keels. Imagine losing all 6 drones and 1 ghost keel they flee and now your 2 remaining ghost keel can only regroup on double 1s

Lmao ive been wasting so many points.... i mean not really.....but.... i could like afford another fw or something

notredameguy10 wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Yeah bonding knives is a pointless upgrade unless its firewarriors or fully kitted out crisis/broadsides (i.e. drones too). It only comes into effect when youre 25% or less of your original numbers and you already failed a leadership test. Units of 2 or 3 never are that low.

Ive started not buying them on my firewarriors though since i regularly field 40 of them. Thats 40pts that i rarely ever need - i cant remember the last time i was glad i had bonding knives, but ive had a few times where i wish i had it.

Only thing I would use bonding knives for are if you have drones in the squad, such as Broadsides and especially the new ghost keels. Imagine losing all 6 drones and 1 ghost keel they flee and now your 2 remaining ghost keel can only regroup on double 1s

But that's a much better return on investment than putting it on firewarriors. Why would you need 2-3 Firewarriors to come back on a chance they might fail in the first place? But I would gladly pay 3 points for my Ghostkeels to have them, but 12 for a full squad of Firewarriors? Pass.

DirtyDeeds wrote:

notredameguy10 wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Yeah bonding knives is a pointless upgrade unless its firewarriors or fully kitted out crisis/broadsides (i.e. drones too). It only comes into effect when youre 25% or less of your original numbers and you already failed a leadership test. Units of 2 or 3 never are that low.

Ive started not buying them on my firewarriors though since i regularly field 40 of them. Thats 40pts that i rarely ever need - i cant remember the last time i was glad i had bonding knives, but ive had a few times where i wish i had it.

Only thing I would use bonding knives for are if you have drones in the squad, such as Broadsides and especially the new ghost keels. Imagine losing all 6 drones and 1 ghost keel they flee and now your 2 remaining ghost keel can only regroup on double 1s

But that's a much better return on investment than putting it on firewarriors. Why would you need 2-3 Firewarriors to come back on a chance they might fail in the first place? But I would gladly pay 3 points for my Ghostkeels to have them, but 12 for a full squad of Firewarriors? Pass.

Exactly the point i was making

bleak wrote:
Yeah your list is looking way better, your 3 teams of crisis can be combined to 2. 3 of which can be dual fusion with a shas'vre with PENCHIP. The other 7 can be 6 dual missiles with one of them shas'vre with MSS and CommandControlnode without any weapons.

What this means is you have 40 missile pod shots that are twin linked which can take down light vehicles and most infantry. And the fusion blaster teams are 6 melta deepstriking attacks that are tank hunter. So your list is currently looking pretty solid, just have to refine a little more to take out the unnecessary upgrades and you are done!

Oh and for tau, never upgrade to shas'vre/ui unless you need to do something with them like taking signature systems because they often just get 1 extra attack/ld which isn't that great.

I only had 2 squads of crisis suites in the list one 4 man with missile pods and one 3 man with fusion blasters. If I drop one of the Broadside squads, drop the Shas'vre on the fusion squad to a normal bod plus a few other upgrades I can get 1 squad of 5 missile pods and 1 Shasv're with the multispectrum and the command and control node. Think it's worth it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm also not sure if the 2nd squad of path finders and the ethereal are needed? I could just take more missile pod crisis suites or broadsides for the price?