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Forgive me brothers and sisters, for I have sinned. It has been too long since my last confession. I...I broke down and decided to buy Tau. I don't know what I am doing anymore. Please help.

I decided to base the army off the Fi'Rios Sept world and it's dark green and grey colour scheme. I respect the ideals behind the army, so it works. Right now, I am working on the necessary purchases, but I could use some advice on it. I prefer to focus my armies based on personal preference, and I won't lie that I prefer a more troop based game rather than elite, so any recommendations for handling tasks would be appreciated. Anyhow, this is what I have come up with.

2x Gunrigs
Shieldwall(s?)
Ethereal
Cadre Fireblade
2-3 Firewarrior Teams with Devilfish
Pathfinders?
Hammerheads?

I know I need markerlights, but I can't figure out a good source of them.

This is all you need. They are about the size of a bike but do wonders.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-NL/Tau-Pathfinder-Tetras

 oldzoggy wrote:
This is all you need. They are about the size of a bike but do wonders.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-NL/Tau-Pathfinder-Tetras

....is that a baby Pirahna? Looks sweet, but something that small has to have a catch.

That being said, I did some more research, and turns out Fi'Rios has a heavy emphasis on earth and air caste.

Yeah it does. They used to be the rage inducing thing Tau could field, they got nerfed by halving the marker lights on them in the latest update they used to be the, but they are still great. Also they do not like to get shot at by anti light vehicle weapons, since they are small low AV vehicles.

An other thing to note is that they come with unusually close to the ground sands, this makes it easy to get the thing out of line of sight behind almost any vehicle.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am not the only one who has grown to like these things.
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/09/29/tau-empire-fast-attack-tetra-scout-speeder/

An army on doesn't have to be effective on the tabletop for you to love it
A good chunk of my armies go unused on the tabletop as I use them for the hobby side.
My G.I.JOE guard army is too damn big to use [even in an apocalypse game]. I just keep working on it as it reminds me of all the toy soldiers I lost or broke as a kid.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Yeah it does. They used to be the rage inducing thing Tau could field, they got nerfed by halving the marker lights on them in the latest update they used to be the, but they are still great. Also they do not like to get shot at by anti light vehicle weapons, since they are small low AV vehicles.

An other thing to note is that they come with unusually close to the ground sands, this makes it easy to get the thing out of line of sight behind almost any vehicle.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am not the only one who has grown to like these things.
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/09/29/tau-empire-fast-attack-tetra-scout-speeder/

They still have markerlight but need to pay for them. Also the weakest markerlight option is the pathfinder. Most people use drones or Skyray's. I myself prefer Skyray's, but they are the finesseful Shas'o's weapon and many new Tau player lack the battlefield awareness to make maximum use of them. They need more skill to pull off.

Edit
If you want troops then you want markerlight drones.

Edit2
In terms of markerlight usefulness and the platform they come in Skyray (underrated)> markerdrones> Tetra's (overhyped)> Pathfinders.

All the markerlights you could ever need are in the drone net. 4 units of 4 bs3 (as long as at least 2 units are on the field) drones. They also make pathfinders obsolete since they're the same BS but are relentless, can JSJ and have a 4+ save. A commander with drone controller, target lock and a pair of missile pods (usually refered to as a Mark'O) hands out his BS5 to a unit of drones while still being able to contribute some firepower to the battle.

As for troops, breachers in devilfish can work wonders now that you can jink the devilfish and not have the contents snapfire when they jump out.

I'd stay away from hammerheads for anti tank work, though the ionhead can do an OK job at removing MEQ all day long as well as strippping a couple of HP of med to light AV. Some crisis suits with dual fusion blasters do a pretty great job at removing enemy heavy tanks, as do HYMP/SMS broadsides while sheer volume of str5 fire with marker support can pop numerous AV10/11 light vehicles. Skyrays can also blow their load at a vehicle if there's no air based threats around and also comes with a pair of BS4 markerlights for a bargain basement price with some twin linked SMS thrown into the bargain for free.

Really, as long as you don't have a huge amount of love for vespid or mass amounts of kroot, there's not really that many bad choices for Tau at anything but the higher echelons of play IMHO.

There are nifty formations for troop-based armies.

Tau Codex/Kauyon:
Hunter Cadre
Infiltration Cadre (best used if you have Reserves)

Mont'ka/Farsight Enclaves:
Counterstrike Cadre
Ranged Support Cadre
Piranha Firestream Wing
Skysweep Missile Defence
Drone-Net VX1-0

As units, I'd suggest Darkstrider, Ethereals and Fireblade as support models.

However, I'd wager to have some Crisis too. They're so useful!

I'm curious, what makes the Hammerhead so bad? I thought it had an extremely good gun. It might need a broadside or two for backup, but I figured it was solid.

Do they still have those nasty cover save tricks ?

No idea. Still waiting for the codex on order. Out of curiousity, do Tau players have a minimum requirement for proper marker light support. I mean, my Tyranids ran about 1 synapse per 500 points, so would I need 1 marker light per 250 or so, just because they are so vital?

You might want to consider how hard to beat you want to make your army.

Some of the suggestions here will take you close to competitive - although without all the big bastards it's still pretty far.

I hear tetras from FW are a great source for MLs since they are skimmers and can quickly get around.

LMFAO. Oh the irony.

Unyielding Hunger wrote:Forgive me brothers and sisters, for I have sinned. It has been too long since my last confession. I...I broke down and decided to buy Tau. I don't know what I am doing anymore. Please help.

I decided to base the army off the Fi'Rios Sept world and it's dark green and grey colour scheme. I respect the ideals behind the army, so it works. Right now, I am working on the necessary purchases, but I could use some advice on it. I prefer to focus my armies based on personal preference, and I won't lie that I prefer a more troop based game rather than elite, so any recommendations for handling tasks would be appreciated. Anyhow, this is what I have come up with.

2x Gunrigs
Shieldwall(s?)
Ethereal
Cadre Fireblade
2-3 Firewarrior Teams with Devilfish
Pathfinders?
Hammerheads?

I know I need markerlights, but I can't figure out a good source of them.

You can most certainly make an effective army list using Tau troops, whether that means Crisis Suits (in a Farsight Enclaves list), Fire Warriors, or Kroot. I feel like many people underestimate how good our basic troopers are. Slinging a bunch of S5 shots around the board at 30" is pretty impressive. They can be moderately mobile on the ground in a Hunter Cadre, too. I have a decent amount of experience using lists centered around Breachers and can vouch for their effectiveness. (I can give you some list ideas, if you like.) I have had reasonable success against tournament-caliber lists (lost once in 15-ish games?), so don't feel like you have to run a Riptide Wing with a Stormsurge to compete. Kroot are also a bit on the underrated side, in my opinion. 7 points for infiltrating snipers is a solid deal, no matter how you slice it.

Unyielding Hunger wrote:I'm curious, what makes the Hammerhead so bad? I thought it had an extremely good gun. It might need a broadside or two for backup, but I figured it was solid.

The Hammerhead is bad because the alternatives are just so much better. Gunrigs have the same weaponry and are 2/3 the price and twin-linked. Ghostkeels are more powerful and more mobile for the same price. Broadsides are way better at covering mobs, while Crisis Suits and Riptides bust heavy armor more effectively. High-strength, single-shot weapons aren't really good for a whole lot this edition. It's much more effective to pour on wounds or strip hull points with high ROF mid-strength weaponry - something Tau have a ludicrous amount of.

Unyielding Hunger wrote:No idea. Still waiting for the codex on order. Out of curiousity, do Tau players have a minimum requirement for proper marker light support. I mean, my Tyranids ran about 1 synapse per 500 points, so would I need 1 marker light per 250 or so, just because they are so vital?

I think you'll find that most people allot around ~250 points in 1850 for marker lights. That usually means a Commnader with a drone controller in a unit of drones or a Drone Net with 4x4 Marker Drones. With marker support, I typically try to have enough to be able to take down 1 powerful unit a turn. When you have a Stormsurge, that means you need to be able to crank out at least 8 marker HITS: 2 to ignore cover, 2 for BS, and 4 for the D-missiles. If you're just trying to buff the rest of your army, it honestly works out to about the same amount - maybe 8-10 hits is enough.

As far as your marker source goes, the Drone Net surged into the lead as the most popular (and probably best) way to get lights in your army. There's just no getting around how awesome it is to have highly mobile, BS3, intercepting marker lights. Tetras have gotten a lot of attention in this thread, and while they are definitely very useful, I'd still rank the Drone net as far better. Skyrays are great units, but if it's just markers you're after, paying 57 pts apiece for them isn't going to get you very far. Pathfinders are garbage in all aspects. I'd only ever take them in the formation with Broadsides where they get shrouded and 2 marker tokens per hit.

Thanks for that insight. So, looking at things, would you say I should go ahead and get the Kauyon book? From what I can tell, it has the entire 7th ed codex, plus formations and fortifications. I picked up the old 6th ed codex for reference points for dirt cheap at my flgs, so it's been easy to kind of get a grasp on some of the list building.

Out of curiousity, do you guys have any faith in a list with an ethereal sitting on a full unit of sniper drones, 2 squads of fire warriors and a Cadre fireblade operating a trio of gun rigs with a pathfinder squad or two for objective hunting? I discovered those sniper drone squads last night, and they seem downright evil.

I'd say between 15~20% of your list should be markerlights

Kauyon is a reasonable purchase, as is the Mont'ka book. The latter has some really useful formations to play with, most notably the Riptide Wing and Drone Net.

I think you'd probably have decent success with the list you mentioned. That's plenty of firepower to take on most targets effectively. I'd probably ditch the Pathfinders in favor of Kroot, though, assuming it's forwsrd scouts you're after.

Since you plan on running an Ethereal, the Drone Net gets much more stable. Drones have a similar weakness to Pathfinders, low Leadership. Drones are tougher than Pathfinders, with a better save, but are often taken in minimum units of 4 in the Drone Net, because you must purchase 4 units. This makes the 3 units not with a Commander very vunerable to Morale. If one Drone gets popped (super easy to do), there is a ~50/50 chance they run. Drone Net Drones can Jink, but then are pretty useless for a turn. All that aside, the Ethereal fixes this with his Ld bubble, and makes them very stable. You would want to work in some form of Interceptor if you run a Drone Net, as the Intercepting Markerlights are so amazing, being able to take advantage of them will give you excellent response to Reserves.

I'll also hit the Tetra drum as well. They are very reasonably priced from Forgeworld (they come in two packs for £39), and are great on the table. What I love about them, is that they play like a true support vehicle. They Scout (12" because they're vehicles), are Fast Skimmers (always moving 12"), no Leadership to worry about, have Homing Beacons, and can Outflank. They are also inexpensive points-wise, giving you a good return on the points-per-hit. The tactical flexibility of the Tetra is big with their huge movement: they can sneak onto objectives, grab Linebreaker, or avoid an Assault easily because of their 30" maximum movement range. The speed of a Tetra really lets them do what their primary job is though, delivering Marker hits. 36" range is great, but good opponents will be able exploit that and keep critical units away if necessary (think IKnight vs Stormsurge's D Missiles). Rarely can anything keep away from a Tetra Squadron that is willing to stick it's neck out. As someone mentioned earlier the Tetra has an insanely low profile, making it easy to get a cover save without Jinking. With that in mind Tetras are much tougher than all the Infantry Markerlight options (maybe not Sniper Drone teams combined with the Tidewall you have), and tend to stick around, for me, a bit longer than anything short of a Commander w/Drone Controller, Iridium, and Stims tanking in front of a Drone Squad.

Either one will do great, and can benefit massively from the Tidewall.

Yea, the more I read up, the tidewall and other formations really pop out to me. I just discovered the 3 gun rig one, and that will probably be my go to fortification. To go along with the drones, do you think it would be cheaper to go with drone ports?