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Been thinking of trying these factions for a while now, with Christmas coming up and running out of ideas for other stuff I've also been thinking of updating my Gifts For Geeks wishlist.
Would anyone have any particular advice to give on what's good for starting out these two factions (besides the appropriate Codexes, of course! )?
If it helps, I can give my thoughts on what I might like for each.
Tau:


Black Templars:


Also, what supplies would be needed for magnetizing the Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer kit?

Thanks in advance for everything!

Sorry to bump but, any advice on this?

For the Templars, the "Black Tide" is reasonably effective, especially if you run the LR Spearhead, but it's an expensive formation (but also effective, since you'd ignore pretty much every damage result besides explodes). Can't comment on much else since I run a UM Demi-Company.

Good Luck!

 War Kitten wrote:
For the Templars, the "Black Tide" is reasonably effective, especially if you run the LR Spearhead, but it's an expensive formation (but also effective, since you'd ignore pretty much every damage result besides explodes). Can't comment on much else since I run a UM Demi-Company.

Good Luck!

Don't want to derail his thread But can you PM me War Kitten with a short run down of what your UM demi company list looks like? starting UM myself and looking for list advice. Thanks!

PM sent

High level for Tau, what in particular are you hoping to achieve with it, and what in particular are you hoping to avoid in terms of cheese?

Riptides to me see a little bit underpriced for what they are and tend to excel when punching below their weight class. HBC pairs well with the velocity tracker and if you can mitigate the risk of its weapon getting hot you can put a lot of hurt on infantry, while the ion is more anti-tank and pairs ok with EWO. Either way, it's a fire magnet so pack the stims on it too.

Crisis suits are extremely moddable and there are more than one effective ways to deploy them. Common flavors include a single suit with dual fusions deep striking and trying to pop off a more expensive tank before it dies, and more kitted out teams that you try to maneuver out of harms way with the jetpack's thrust move.

Fire warriors (strikers now) are better off with pulse rifles. And with them lean towards a more static gunline style arrangement.

You should also put thought into which faction of tau you'll be using. Empire has relics that promote a degree of squad synergy and are a major source of complaints, while FSE relics are generally more geared towards individual excellence but often are reliant on dice rolls to be most effective. Far can also take crisis suits as troops which can make it easier to juggle them with other elites.

 War Kitten wrote:
For the Templars, the "Black Tide" is reasonably effective, especially if you run the LR Spearhead, but it's an expensive formation (but also effective, since you'd ignore pretty much every damage result besides explodes). Can't comment on much else since I run a UM Demi-Company.

Good Luck!

What would be the "Black Tide" specifically? I've heard it a bit but not ever fully elaborated on.

And thank you!

If I remember right it's big squads of initiates plus neophytes in Land Raiders. (Crusaders I think).Now you can take the Land Raider Spearhead (which is 3 land raiders) and you ignore all damage results except for explodes. So put Crusader Squads in there, and have fun

 Captain Joystick wrote:
High level for Tau, what in particular are you hoping to achieve with it, and what in particular are you hoping to avoid in terms of cheese?

Honestly, I don't know Tau well enough to say.
In terms of what to "achieve" I suppose I don't want it to be too static or boring.
In terms of cheese avoidance, the stuff people whinge about a lot, as well as Formation nonsense. I also have a really bad feeling about the new stuff...

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Riptides to me see a little bit underpriced for what they are and tend to excel when punching below their weight class. HBC pairs well with the velocity tracker and if you can mitigate the risk of its weapon getting hot you can put a lot of hurt on infantry, while the ion is more anti-tank and pairs ok with EWO. Either way, it's a fire magnet so pack the stims on it too.

Yeah, that's basically what I heard. They sound really cool.but also I'm worried that people will be angry if I get too many because well... I suppose 1 or maybe 2 would be safe?

 Captain Joystick wrote:

Crisis suits are extremely moddable and there are more than one effective ways to deploy them. Common flavors include a single suit with dual fusions deep striking and trying to pop off a more expensive tank before it dies, and more kitted out teams that you try to maneuver out of harms way with the jetpack's thrust move.

Yeah, I definitely want them. Guessing it's best to magnetize? Though that's another can of worms for supplies...

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Fire warriors (strikers now) are better off with pulse rifles. And with them lean towards a more static gunline style arrangement.

Heard about the static-ness. Would combining that with other things being more mobile work?

 Captain Joystick wrote:
You should also put thought into which faction of tau you'll be using. Empire has relics that promote a degree of squad synergy and are a major source of complaints, while FSE relics are generally more geared towards individual excellence but often are reliant on dice rolls to be most effective. Far can also take crisis suits as troops which can make it easier to juggle them with other elites.

That's something I legitimately don't know. One the one hand Farsight Enclaves might be cooler, more unique and let me dump Fire Warriors in favor of bonus Crisis Suits but at the same time te Supplement seemed complicated and unclear and I don't even know if it works anymore...

P.S. How are Broadsides?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 War Kitten wrote:
If I remember right it's big squads of initiates plus neophytes in Land Raiders. (Crusaders I think).Now you can take the Land Raider Spearhead (which is 3 land raiders) and you ignore all damage results except for explodes. So put Crusader Squads in there, and have fun

Okay, that's clear enough and kinda what I wanted to go for, at least part of it.
So that clears up some things for my wishlist at least!

New supplement stuff is out with the Mont'ka book.

Isn't that a different thing to FSE though?
And I was thinking of the new Codex rather than the old Codex and Campaign Book combo.

Nope, FSE got ported to the newest campaign book, along with cadian stuff. It's pretty cool, one of the formations apparently lets you have infinite piranhas I guess? idk but it seems like a good time.

Is that in the new Codex or do I have to buy it separately?

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
Honestly, I don't know Tau well enough to say.
In terms of what to "achieve" I suppose I don't want it to be too static or boring.
In terms of cheese avoidance, the stuff people whinge about a lot, as well as Formation nonsense. I also have a really bad feeling about the new stuff...

I wouldn't worry too much about people whinging over Tau, it is something you're going to see if you play them even decently, as they're thematically geared towards synergy and boosting their units in shooting in order to make up for their mediocre ballistic skill, terrible close-combat game, and complete lack of psychic phase. Unless you're willing to house rule it to recapture the feel of 5th edition (shooting harmlessly without buffing anything, refusing to use supporting fire, utterly caving when anything gets into combat with you, forcing the entire army to take leadership checks when an ethereal dies) you're going to eventually run into someone who complains.

Speaking of which, you should also consider how you intent to deliver markerlight hits to improve your shooting, there's a few additional options but I consider there to be three major options:

Pathfinders - Cheapest, decent BS, immobile
Marker Drones - Medium price, poor BS, mobile
Marker Drones with Drone Controller Commander - Most expensive, best BS, mobile

As for the new stuff, the Ghostkeel isn't that bad a unit, and was a very satisfying kit to build. Can't speak to the Stormsurge though. In fact it isn't a bad time to get into Tau, the crisis suit model was aging pretty bad and now it and the commander have been updated pretty well.

As far as the formation nonsense, I'm going to pitch an idea to you further down.*

Yeah, that's basically what I heard. They sound really cool.but also I'm worried that people will be angry if I get too many because well... I suppose 1 or maybe 2 would be safe?

I've heard it often repeated that taking one is tough but friendly, while three is TFG territory.

Yeah, I definitely want them. Guessing it's best to magnetize? Though that's another can of worms for supplies...

Yes. Crisis suits should be magnetized, they're clearly designed to be very accomodating to it. I've seen people get by using the existing pegs and slots built into the parts already, sometimes with pins with a degree of success.

Heard about the static-ness. Would combining that with other things being more mobile work?

Honestly I'm not sure. The pulse carbine configuration is clearly meant for a more mobile fire warrior team, but you never see anyone use it (because while it's technically a tiny bit more useful than rifle it's range is worse), while the new breachers are even more focussed on mobility and close range.

That's something I legitimately don't know. One the one hand Farsight Enclaves might be cooler, more unique and let me dump Fire Warriors in favor of bonus Crisis Suits but at the same time te Supplement seemed complicated and unclear and I don't even know if it works anymore...

They're in the Mont'Ka book, which builds on Kauyon which builds on the old codex. Or you could think of it is building off the new codex, either way you're looking at buying two books in order to run it anyway.

P.S. How are Broadsides?

Broadsides are typically very static. Their missile pod variation easily outstrips the railgun in terms of usefulness (mainly because it feels like they were balanced to be competitive with the railgun configuration before the railgun got nerfed). They don't have relentless or any other sort of logical heavy dedicated fire support mech ability and are very typically immobile for the entire game.

However...

*Even though you said you weren't looking to apply formations, I'm still going to suggest you consider the Retaliation Cadre. It has one commander, three units of crisis suits, one riptide unit, and one broadside unit, as large or as small, and kitted out however you like. The formation is supposed to arrive from deep strike on turn 2, where they have a buff to their BS for that turn. The Broadsides have relentless as well. I feel like you could run this alongside a CAD and effectively mitigate any concerns regarding elite slot constraints limiting the number of crisis suits without having to bother with the Enclave rules. The suits in the formation could each be individual suicide tankbusters while the ones in you CAD are more thoroughly kitted out, for example.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

I wouldn't worry too much about people whinging over Tau, it is something you're going to see if you play them even decently, as they're thematically geared towards synergy and boosting their units in shooting in order to make up for their mediocre ballistic skill, terrible close-combat game, and complete lack of psychic phase. Unless you're willing to house rule it to recapture the feel of 5th edition (shooting harmlessly without buffing anything, refusing to use supporting fire, utterly caving when anything gets into combat with you, forcing the entire army to take leadership checks when an ethereal dies) you're going to eventually run into someone who complains.

I suppose, I just can't help but worry about being yelled at or them trying to break my teeth and/or models...
I certainly wouldn't want to self-nerf THAT much but if I could take things down to where the above is reasonable unlikely, that would be good.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Speaking of which, you should also consider how you intent to deliver markerlight hits to improve your shooting, there's a few additional options but I consider there to be three major options:

Pathfinders - Cheapest, decent BS, immobile
Marker Drones - Medium price, poor BS, mobile
Marker Drones with Drone Controller Commander - Most expensive, best BS, mobile

I was wondering about this myself. My mind immediately jumped to Pathfinders but they sound like they might be a little too limited and boring, particularly since I want my list generally mostly mobile I'd say.
I suppose that means stocking up on Drones. Also that Commander sounds cool and I have no clue on what I want for HQ so that's jumped out at me! Is that just Marker Drones and a generic Commander kit?
Had Pathfinders on my list but kinda wondering if I should drop them now...

 Captain Joystick wrote:

As for the new stuff, the Ghostkeel isn't that bad a unit, and was a very satisfying kit to build. Can't speak to the Stormsurge though. In fact it isn't a bad time to get into Tau, the crisis suit model was aging pretty bad and now it and the commander have been updated pretty well.

I gotta say I'm not sure what to take from this, I'm kinda worried there two are cheesy and if I need to avoid them. Would you be able to weigh in on if the Ghostkeel is that extreme?

 Captain Joystick wrote:

I've heard it often repeated that taking one is tough but friendly, while three is TFG territory.

One it is then!

 Captain Joystick wrote:

Yes. Crisis suits should be magnetized, they're clearly designed to be very accomodating to it. I've seen people get by using the existing pegs and slots built into the parts already, sometimes with pins with a degree of success.

Sounds about right.
While I suppose I could get by with the peg-and-slot stuff, I do wonder what sort of supplies would be needed to do it properly.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

Honestly I'm not sure. The pulse carbine configuration is clearly meant for a more mobile fire warrior team, but you never see anyone use it (because while it's technically a tiny bit more useful than rifle it's range is worse), while the new breachers are even more focussed on mobility and close range.

Oh, I suppose I should clarify, I actually meant immobile FWs sharing a list with other, more mobile things.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

They're in the Mont'Ka book, which builds on Kauyon which builds on the old codex. Or you could think of it is building off the new codex, either way you're looking at buying two books in order to run it anyway.

Oh.
Well I'm defining going new Codex with this so... Ouch.
I guess the thing is Farsight and friends interest me, but I don't know if this would be too complicated or ineffective for me.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

Broadsides are typically very static. Their missile pod variation easily outstrips the railgun in terms of usefulness (mainly because it feels like they were balanced to be competitive with the railgun configuration before the railgun got nerfed). They don't have relentless or any other sort of logical heavy dedicated fire support mech ability and are very typically immobile for the entire game.

Hmmmm... Well might be boring but I might drop 'em in if I end up with a number of other immobile things in my list.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

*Even though you said you weren't looking to apply formations, I'm still going to suggest you consider the Retaliation Cadre. It has one commander, three units of crisis suits, one riptide unit, and one broadside unit, as large or as small, and kitted out however you like. The formation is supposed to arrive from deep strike on turn 2, where they have a buff to their BS for that turn. The Broadsides have relentless as well. I feel like you could run this alongside a CAD and effectively mitigate any concerns regarding elite slot constraints limiting the number of crisis suits without having to bother with the Enclave rules. The suits in the formation could each be individual suicide tankbusters while the ones in you CAD are more thoroughly kitted out, for example.

Okay, this is a big dilemma.
On this one hand this sounds really cool and fun!
But it also sounds really... Well...
So I'm a little split.