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So I am browsing all of the top 5 lists from this year on Blood of Kittens, and I notice something about Tau: Not a single list has a Stormsurge. It was my impression they were the single best thing to happen to Tau. What gives?

Huh, that is weird. My guess is that Riptide Wings are superior, and Stormsurges cost so many points that mixing them with a Riptide Wing would be a liability.

 Verviedi wrote:
Huh, that is weird. My guess is that Riptide Wings are superior, and Stormsurges cost so many points that mixing them with a Riptide Wing would be a liability.

QFT.

SJ

 Verviedi wrote:
Huh, that is weird. My guess is that Riptide Wings are superior, and Stormsurges cost so many points that mixing them with a Riptide Wing would be a liability.

All the top lists either had Riptide Wings or 2 Y'vahra. I guess that's why. Interesting.

Y'vahra has been getting high praise for it's damage output - and who wouldn't with an AP2 torrent flamer and the mobility to get there, and un-tau-like close combat survivability. I just can't see myself fielding another XV10x suit; just feels cheesy. One is enough. GW turned the Tau into a cleft hoof version of Imperial Knights nearly with all of the focus on large models in 7th.

Yeah, I can't wait for the Y'vahra to get a well-deserved nerf or points hike. I bought one because it looks cool, but it makes me feel dirty putting it on the table.

 Overheal wrote:
Y'vahra has been getting high praise for it's damage output - and who wouldn't with an AP2 torrent flamer and the mobility to get there, and un-tau-like close combat survivability. I just can't see myself fielding another XV10x suit; just feels cheesy. One is enough. GW turned the Tau into a cleft hoof version of Imperial Knights nearly with all of the focus on large models in 7th.

I absolutely agree with this in a casual setting. Tournaments? You'll see me with a Riptide Wing or another Y'vahra.

I just don't want to go through the hassle of buying and painting more. The riptide was fun enough but I wouldn't feel the same way after doing 3 of them.

 Overheal wrote:
I just don't want to go through the hassle of buying and painting more. The riptide was fun enough but I wouldn't feel the same way after doing 3 of them.

That's where we are fundamentally different. While I enjoy painting, I'm much more into competitive play. I'm way more war gamer than hobbyist.

I can understand that. I should put up a painting thread sometime and showcase my stuff. I spend infinitely more time on the hobby than the battling that wasn't always the case but damnit I'd love to play with a fully painted army, when I did this in small scale escalation matches it felt wonderful.

 Overheal wrote:
I can understand that. I should put up a painting thread sometime and showcase my stuff. I spend infinitely more time on the hobby than the battling that wasn't always the case but damnit I'd love to play with a fully painted army, when I did this in small scale escalation matches it felt wonderful.

Sometimes my greatest victories are overcoming my own gray tide...

 Dark_Apostle_Spartachris wrote:
So I am browsing all of the top 5 lists from this year on Blood of Kittens, and I notice something about Tau: Not a single list has a Stormsurge. It was my impression they were the single best thing to happen to Tau. What gives?

I guess that the top lists from other tourneys did configurate themselves to hard counter Stormsurges. Triptide on the other hand is an uber-pain to deal with no matter what you try.

Riptides, Stormsurges, and Y'vahrah are the go to elements of Tau comp.

Edit
Ahhh yeah the top Tau list had my boyz the kroot! I am Kroot and the Kroot are with me. I use Kroot in a lot of my lists and kinda prefer them to Firewarriors and Breachers most of the time just because of how cheap they are and they can contest objectives or mess peoples plans by being annoying distractions. He also took Skyray gunships. Man his list looks a lot like mine and he got top Tau list at blood of kittens. Jeremy Martino's Tau list. He even took first place at Omegacon that is sweet as hell. His list is nearly identical to one I have used for a long time. Except the had one more commander and more crisis suits and I would throw in a RIptide/Y'vahrah (not both) and a Stormsurge just because I wanted to look at my cool Stormsurge. His list is very anti-meta and people were probably not expecting it. Hahah. Good for him.

Edit
I also don't have the Culuxis assassin either, but if I was going to be cheese it would be in.

Edit
If the opponent knew he was going to bring such an anti-meta list this would have collapsed easily I think, but they probably geared up to fight high powered suits and low model count army with the Tau. Also my competitive insticnt is pretty good when I get familiar with an army and I still think there is a good chance for the new Tau Barracuda to make a sudden impact in an anti-meta list much like this one. It is an insane amount of firepower and survivability to it and spamming them will be a nightmare. Basically even harder to kill flying Riptides that are more mobile.

 Dark_Apostle_Spartachris wrote:

 Overheal wrote:
I can understand that. I should put up a painting thread sometime and showcase my stuff. I spend infinitely more time on the hobby than the battling that wasn't always the case but damnit I'd love to play with a fully painted army, when I did this in small scale escalation matches it felt wonderful.

Sometimes my greatest victories are overcoming my own gray tide...

Nothing makes me sadder. Well, maybe putting all that love into painted WYSIWYG and then playing Orks literally riding plastic dinosaur toys and calling them Trukks and warbikes. But I mean, Orks riding dinosaurs was too good to decline a match with, even if it was hard to follow

 Gamgee wrote:
Riptides, Stormsurges, and Y'vahrah are the go to elements of Tau comp.

Edit
Ahhh yeah the top Tau list had my boyz the kroot! I am Kroot and the Kroot are with me. I use Kroot in a lot of my lists and kinda prefer them to Firewarriors and Breachers most of the time just because of how cheap they are and they can contest objectives or mess peoples plans by being annoying distractions. He also took Skyray gunships. Man his list looks a lot like mine and he got top Tau list at blood of kittens. Jeremy Martino's Tau list. He even took first place at Omegacon that is sweet as hell. His list is nearly identical to one I have used for a long time. Except the had one more commander and more crisis suits and I would throw in a RIptide/Y'vahrah (not both) and a Stormsurge just because I wanted to look at my cool Stormsurge. His list is very anti-meta and people were probably not expecting it. Hahah. Good for him.

Edit
I also don't have the Culuxis assassin either, but if I was going to be cheese it would be in.

Edit
If the opponent knew he was going to bring such an anti-meta list this would have collapsed easily I think, but they probably geared up to fight high powered suits and low model count army with the Tau. Also my competitive insticnt is pretty good when I get familiar with an army and I still think there is a good chance for the new Tau Barracuda to make a sudden impact in an anti-meta list much like this one. It is an insane amount of firepower and survivability to it and spamming them will be a nightmare. Basically even harder to kill flying Riptides that are more mobile.

I've been using a 1250 point list that is very close to the #1 at Omegacon. Someone on here clued me into making a Commander of the Support variety and putting him with a mob of Crisis and it's been cleaning up for me. Although I have been using an Optimized Stealth Cadre sine I've got a crap ton of old Stealth Suits and only 1 Riptide. I really, really like Jeremy's list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overheal wrote:

 Dark_Apostle_Spartachris wrote:

 Overheal wrote:
I can understand that. I should put up a painting thread sometime and showcase my stuff. I spend infinitely more time on the hobby than the battling that wasn't always the case but damnit I'd love to play with a fully painted army, when I did this in small scale escalation matches it felt wonderful.

Sometimes my greatest victories are overcoming my own gray tide...

Nothing makes me sadder. Well, maybe putting all that love into painted WYSIWYG and then playing Orks literally riding plastic dinosaur toys and calling them Trukks and warbikes. But I mean, Orks riding dinosaurs was too good to decline a match with, even if it was hard to follow

I absolutely love playing people with fun armies. When I play casual games I'm all about having as much fun as possible. You want to use 5 Imperial Knightsin a 4k game? Cool! I'm going to use this Manta proxy! (It's literally a pizza box and paper towel tube.)

The list he runs is very similar to the old crisis suit bombs/farsight bombs from an edition back. It was very potent but people learned to counter it then RIptides and SS came along and they had to counter those and seemed to have forgotten the old meta.

Edit
Maybe my poor opponents would have been better fighting three riptides and two stormsurges instead of my kroot and skyrays lol. Explains why I haven't lost a game since I started playing when I actually could get games. Here is me trying to tone down my list and making something powerful. I guess Vespids and Railrifle broadsides are next for me.

I looked at the list that won Omegacon and noticed that the second CAD had Shaodwsun as the HQ and Crisis Suits as troops? I am guessing that that is because the second CAD is Farsight Enclave. But I thought that Shadowsun can't be an HQ in FSE? I could be wrong but that struck me as odd.

 Dark_Apostle_Spartachris wrote:


I absolutely love playing people with fun armies. When I play casual games I'm all about having as much fun as possible. You want to use 5 Imperial Knightsin a 4k game? Cool! I'm going to use this Manta proxy! (It's literally a pizza box and paper towel tube.)

Lol, not big enough yet

Fun games bring piranhas ,vespids, etc are more enjoyable for me to play. Running net lists just winds up making the game pretty prescripted what each turn will look like, barring terrible/amazing rolls well outside of 2 standard deviations.

 Bach wrote:
I looked at the list that won Omegacon and noticed that the second CAD had Shaodwsun as the HQ and Crisis Suits as troops? I am guessing that that is because the second CAD is Farsight Enclave. But I thought that Shadowsun can't be an HQ in FSE? I could be wrong but that struck me as odd.

Dunno, I have yet to buy FSE. But I'm going to make a guess and say it was probably a legal list.

Farsight Enclaves can use stuff from the Tau Empire but not vise vera I think... if memory serves since we get access to their wargear upgrades for commanders. I forget where it says this and the logic of why but I'm fairly certain it's legal. It was a topic on advanced tau tactica from a long time ago when the new codex and fse codex came out which allowed it. It also makes kinda sense sine Mont'ka shows the two factions getting along slightly better than before because they have to. Also this is good news since I actually own shadowsun and fse but not farsight himself (yet). I'm expecting them to update his model soon or kill him off.

Shadowsun is rumored to be his waifu after all so naturally it makes sense. Kek. Also I don't do that waifu crap it's a joke at weird Tau fans. Although in a cannon novel it is implied they have had a romance in the past.

Edit
I made a topic about it on ATT as it got me curious. I'm all bout that fair play and even though I annoy the gak out of players of other factions it doesn't matter if a Tau player made a mistake or not. Fair play must be upheld.

Sorry, someone summoned me with FOOLISH LIES about Tau waifus?

Yes, FSE can take Tau stuff, but Tau can't take FSE stuff. I guess it's to represent FSE straight up stealing stuff.

Also defectors. There are cannon Tau defectors.

My story about my hunter cadre is Shas'o Monat'ka'ra and his entire "sept" defected to the FSE but not by choice and not much of the new colony sept or hunter cadre survived to make it there.

My own army fluff is that most of them were born in the Enclaves, but went on a raid in the aftermath of an Ork attack to steal some Y'vahras and Ghostkeel suits. I of course also recognize the existence of defectors. Have to get those plans somehow.

All of my fluff knowledge is strictly Chaos, and most of that is Horus Heresy and Word Bearers, lol.

Cool backstory. My guy was betrayed by the Ethereals who seen too much Farsight in him and rather than more loyal citizens defect yet again they tried to kill him. Escaped after killing an Ethereal and was about to be killed because lol no suit when my men sept came to the rescue. Unfortunately things did not end happily and losses were extremely high getting off of Kel'shan.

Edit
No more off topic for me.

Edit2
There is more to his story, but I have never written a full short story with him. I'll consider it and thanks.

Edit3
The topic of discussion is Tau competitive lists and we're not discussing the topic of the thread we're way off on a tangent talking about backgrounds and our fluff for our armies, but if you want to start a new topic to share people army fluff I'll post there in more depth.

Interesting. You should write a tale for him.

Edit: What is "topic"?

I have a Riptide Wing, one Ya'Vahra, and one Stormsurge in my Tau list...couldn't imagine taking out my SS.

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
I have a Riptide Wing, one Ya'Vahra, and one Stormsurge in my Tau list...couldn't imagine taking out my SS.

it is a high skill list for sure and you really need to know how it all synergizes together. It's not as simple as the Triptide and two SS or using Y'vahrah. You will need a plan of attack going in and playing to objectives against some armies.

Just sprinkle battlesuits and some aliens into this and you have the Tau. Anyone who wants to get better at strategy games in general should play Wargame series as it develops some fundamental skills and concepts a lot of players lack that most strategy games don't usually use or incorporate.