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Hello,

I have never owned any Tau, and have very little experience playing Tau. I recently bought some unopened second hand Tau and was looking to start this off as a new army. The kits I have are:

-Start Collecting Tau
-Optimised Pathfinder Team x2
-Tau Commander
-Fire Warriors
-XV8 Crisis Battlesuits
-Codex

I was hoping for advice regarding building the Tau. Is there any loadout/weapons I should avoid? Do you Tau players tend to magnetise weapons?

I think the firewarriors can also be made into breachers. I guess that decision will affect the style of my army

Any other general advice will be much appreciated.

From my other armies I have ended up with redundant models, where i have stuck stuff on to only realise later it really doesn't work in game, so I was hoping for any suggestions from experienced players to help reduce this.

For the Greater Good

Cheers

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Tau(7E)

 oldzoggy wrote:
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Tau(7E)

Thanks!

Mordian2016 wrote:
Hello,

I have never owned any Tau, and have very little experience playing Tau. I recently bought some unopened second hand Tau and was looking to start this off as a new army. The kits I have are:

-Start Collecting Tau
-Optimised Pathfinder Team x2
-Tau Commander
-Fire Warriors
-XV8 Crisis Battlesuits
-Codex

I was hoping for advice regarding building the Tau. Is there any loadout/weapons I should avoid? Do you Tau players tend to magnetise weapons?

I think the firewarriors can also be made into breachers. I guess that decision will affect the style of my army

Any other general advice will be much appreciated.

From my other armies I have ended up with redundant models, where i have stuck stuff on to only realise later it really doesn't work in game, so I was hoping for any suggestions from experienced players to help reduce this.

For the Greater Good

Cheers

Check to see if the Fire Warriors are the new style of kit(plain black box with white painted Sa'cea Sept models on the front) or not(blue-grey box with photoshopped explosions and stuff and the vomit colored ochre T'au Sept models).
If they are, then yeah. You can build them into Breachers as well.
If you do build Breachers--take the Guardian Drone. It is built to synergize with them and works wonderfully.

If you had double boxes, I would even advise you take two Guardian Drones in a Breacher Squad and then use the other box to build the start of a Drone Squad.

With the Crisis Suits you have, you can't go wrong with:
1x Plasma Rifle
Missile Pod
Shield Generator

The Commander can take the same loadout plus a Drone Controller or one of the Signature Systems.

Pathfinders, most people will say Markerlights only and ignore the special drones. That's up to you. I like the Recon Drone and Grav-Inhibitor Drones.
With you having 20 Pathfinders, you can break that into 5 teams of 4(bare minimum), 4 teams of 5, or 3 teams of 6 and leave the remainders to build special weapon equipped Pathfinders.
There's an edition change on the horizon and who knows how that will affect the special weapons that are currently not so great?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Hello,

I have never owned any Tau, and have very little experience playing Tau. I recently bought some unopened second hand Tau and was looking to start this off as a new army. The kits I have are:

-Start Collecting Tau
-Optimised Pathfinder Team x2
-Tau Commander
-Fire Warriors
-XV8 Crisis Battlesuits
-Codex

I was hoping for advice regarding building the Tau. Is there any loadout/weapons I should avoid? Do you Tau players tend to magnetise weapons?

I think the firewarriors can also be made into breachers. I guess that decision will affect the style of my army

Any other general advice will be much appreciated.

From my other armies I have ended up with redundant models, where i have stuck stuff on to only realise later it really doesn't work in game, so I was hoping for any suggestions from experienced players to help reduce this.

For the Greater Good

Cheers

Check to see if the Fire Warriors are the new style of kit(plain black box with white painted Sa'cea Sept models on the front) or not(blue-grey box with photoshopped explosions and stuff and the vomit colored ochre T'au Sept models).
If they are, then yeah. You can build them into Breachers as well.
If you do build Breachers--take the Guardian Drone. It is built to synergize with them and works wonderfully.

If you had double boxes, I would even advise you take two Guardian Drones in a Breacher Squad and then use the other box to build the start of a Drone Squad.

With the Crisis Suits you have, you can't go wrong with:
1x Plasma Rifle
Missile Pod
Shield Generator

The Commander can take the same loadout plus a Drone Controller or one of the Signature Systems.

Pathfinders, most people will say Markerlights only and ignore the special drones. That's up to you. I like the Recon Drone and Grav-Inhibitor Drones.
With you having 20 Pathfinders, you can break that into 5 teams of 4(bare minimum), 4 teams of 5, or 3 teams of 6 and leave the remainders to build special weapon equipped Pathfinders.
There's an edition change on the horizon and who knows how that will affect the special weapons that are currently not so great?

Pretty sure the "Start collecting Tau" box comes with a fire warrior squad that can be made into Breacher teams.

On the crisis suits, I would say always magnetise them so you can change their loadout If needed.

Yes its a good idea to magnetize all the suit weapons. This goes for the small suits and the big ones. Magnets are dirt cheap and these models are horrible expensive.

Especially since 8th might shake up the meta quite a bit. It isn't unlikely that you would like to change out most weapons after the rule change.

echo on manets, and allof the suita are a breeze to magnetize all ou need is a pin vice, some neodinum magnets and boom all weapons options become viable

Tristanleo wrote:

Pretty sure the "Start collecting Tau" box comes with a fire warrior squad that can be made into Breacher teams.

Right, but he also stated that he had "Fire Warriors".

Hence the differentiation I made between the old and new boxes.
Old box let you build guys with Carbines or Rifles and two Gun Drones.
New box lets you build a lot more.

The tidewall shield line is the best transport for fire warriors, also never run fire warriors without a fireblade unless they're tax. Also, get riptiiiiides.

 Kanluwen wrote:
If you do build Breachers--take the Guardian Drone. It is built to synergize with them and works wonderfully.

If you had double boxes, I would even advise you take two Guardian Drones in a Breacher Squad and then use the other box to build the start of a Drone Squad.

With the Crisis Suits you have, you can't go wrong with:
1x Plasma Rifle
Missile Pod
Shield Generator

The Commander can take the same loadout plus a Drone Controller or one of the Signature Systems.

I've never found that the drone saved breachers at all and you have to take a useless sarge to get a drone, wasting further points. If your opponent knows that you have breachers, they will almost certainly be in cover, so you will almost certainly be in cover to be within 5", at which point your drone effectively does nothing against most weapons. Not to mention that the 22 points you spent getting a 5++ could have brought 2.5 more breachers for both more firepower and more wounds. Besides, how often do you get mass ap4 pointed at you breachers? Breachers are 1 use only, they drive their 'fish up (and they need the 'fish), get out, delete whatever they were pointed at and then get evaporated because nobody likes that much str6 ap3 fire. If they do somehow survive (because your opponent is bad), then they get back in the 'fish to do it again next turn.

As to the crisis loadout, that's pretty bad. different weapons is rarely a good idea unless you have a particularly cunning plan and paying 25 points for a shield gen is crazy when you get jsj for free and cover is genreally widly available. Since he's got a start collecting and a crisis box, he should be able to make 2x 3-man teams of the gun of his choice (plas/fusion/missile, but ideally magnetised for all) and then, given the selection of available models, kit the commander out as a Mark'O and build the various drones as markers and call it a day, though the option of putting the commander in with the crisis is always there too.

Mordian2016 wrote:
Hello,

I have never owned any Tau, and have very little experience playing Tau. I recently bought some unopened second hand Tau and was looking to start this off as a new army. The kits I have are:

-Start Collecting Tau
-Optimised Pathfinder Team x2
-Tau Commander
-Fire Warriors
-XV8 Crisis Battlesuits
-Codex

I was hoping for advice regarding building the Tau. Is there any loadout/weapons I should avoid? Do you Tau players tend to magnetise weapons?

I think the firewarriors can also be made into breachers. I guess that decision will affect the style of my army

Any other general advice will be much appreciated.

From my other armies I have ended up with redundant models, where i have stuck stuff on to only realise later it really doesn't work in game, so I was hoping for any suggestions from experienced players to help reduce this.

For the Greater Good

Cheers

Magnetizing makes tons o sense for Tau Crisis teams. Breachers are best when in Transports. Fire Warriors are still the all around best choice but Breachers are kinda brutal and they make a GREAT unit to have for bodyguard duty of a StormSurge against armies that like to DS in, because if they try to kill your Stormsurge from pods close up, the Breachers can hose down the assassins en masse. It's pretty sweet. The points they expend and will lose i nthis effort is truly noteworthy from that perspective. Even just two units of 5 breachers up close and personal can spill some expensive guts out of Deep Strikers and they seriously have to ask whether thats their favored way of going after him.

Crisis Loadouts are so controversial. I think the "safe" bet is the Target locking mob of suits with Shadowsun and a Command suit in there buffing them, and a ton o drones to match. Plasma and fusion top the list for best loadouts in most minds though I would argue strongly for consideration of the Cyclion Ion. short ranged but that is some profuse fire power there and its all around decent against lots of targets. Volume of fire is a thing.

As for Pathfinders... well you're better off using Drones for Markerlight support BUT if you do take Pathfinders, keep them small and scattered so no one can take all of them out too quickly.

Your next purchase, should be the Stormsurge. It allows you to take on the truly grotesque things you see in the game. it is an excellent Early Warning Override unit against flyers and it can do work on Flying Monstrous Creatures with its volume of fire. It's hard to argue against the StormSurge. it is not the unkillable thing some Super heavies, FMC's and Gargants can be, but it makes darn sure they aren't excited to see you.

Many thanks all for the help everyone. This is a great reference thread for me to look back to when planning and building the army

So for markerlight support do people tend to use a mix of dedicated drone squads and pathfinders?

Ask yourself at the start of the game if anchoring down your Stormsurge is safe from tank shock, and if you need something to menace and annoy the mid field or body guard your army. If you need to be able to assault something, don't anchor him, and if you could be tank shocked, don't anchor him.

I personally love the str 10 ap 2 large blast because of the utility it brings, in that you can double out things and ignore FNP so much easier with it. Being able to 1 shot multiwound t5 models is great, especially with things like necrons and death guard becoming relevant. the d cannon has it's uses, but I feel a competent player and play around it too easily.

Riptides and stormsurges are good in CC. They'll kill non CC units on the regular, with stormsurges able to 1 shot anything with stomps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Many thanks all for the help everyone. This is a great reference thread for me to look back to when planning and building the army

So for markerlight support do people tend to use a mix of dedicated drone squads and pathfinders?

Skyrays are the best markerlight support platform, but are too expensive to spam and get enough markerlights. I'd take one in a CAD army, hell I'd take 2, they're great.

Drones suck unless you've a drone controller or a drone net, at which point they're great.

Pathfibders are bad, any good player will target them turn 1 and delete them, and they're too immobile and squishy to resist.

Ranged support cadre makes path finders great though. Against shooting that isn't ignores cover, your pathfinders are basically terminators for 11 points if you drop them in cover.

Don't run upgraded fire warriors for markerlights.

Fireblades are great reliable markerlights, but you should get them for the double tap, or tax Hq on the cheep that doesn't cost two victory points.

I've heard tetras are nice, but haven't used them.

Mordian2016 wrote:
Many thanks all for the help everyone. This is a great reference thread for me to look back to when planning and building the army

So for markerlight support do people tend to use a mix of dedicated drone squads and pathfinders?

Drones dominate and are best.

Hate to takeover a post but I am in a similar situation! I haven't really played any 40k in years and I recently pulled out my old Tau army that I bought but never really played that many time.
I have
24 warriors (with rifles)
10 Kroot
1 hammerhead tank (haven't attached the rail gun or ion cannon)
9 XV8 battlesuits (2 with custom rail guns I wanted to use them as broadsides back in the day not sure if I can still do that?)
3 stealth suits
1 piranha
A couple handfuls of drones

Was looking at getting a pathfinder team and maybe a Riptide? Is the Riptide still OP though? I kind of like the idea of a bunch of XV8 suits )hence why I have so many lol

Also can I still use my old Tau codex? I've been out of the game for Probably 2ish year and even then never got much chances to play!

Welcome to the Greater Good, you guys! As usual, I agree with Drasius's advice, but the rest...eh...well, let's take it piece by piece.

Is there any loadout/weapons I should avoid?

Aun'shi, Vespids, and Hammerheads are really the only units in the book that you should never, ever use under the current rules. The first two are simply awful units, while Hammerheads are badly outclassed by Tidewall Gunrigs.

Do you Tau players tend to magnetise weapons?

Generally speaking, you want to magnetize just about everything you can since Tau units - Crisis Suits in particular - tend to be useful with a variety of different armaments, depending on the structure of your list.

If you do build Breachers--take the Guardian Drone.

As previously detailed, you'd be way better off with more Breachers

With the Crisis Suits you have, you can't go wrong with:
1x Plasma Rifle
Missile Pod
Shield Generator

That's a really fragile 77pt model that doesn't know whether it wants to crack vehicles or hunt marines. No thanks. Drasius has it right.

Pathfinders, most people will say Markerlights only and ignore the special drones. That's up to you. I like the Recon Drone and Grav-Inhibitor Drones.

Pathfinders: naked or bust. Their upgrades are far too expensive to be useful. Pathfinders would be my last choice for marker support, but since you've got them, consider acquiring a few Broadsides so you can run a Ranged Support Cadre. That way, you'll get your Pathfinders shrouded and infiltrate and make them twice as effective for some seriously powerful gun platforms.

Riptides and stormsurges are good in CC.

I occasionally enjoy a good Stormsurge stompfest, but that's really not where they belong. You want your big guy spewing out missiles all over the place - anchored, if possible. Riptides should be far, far away from close combat except in rare circumstances.

Drones suck unless you've a drone controller or a drone net, at which point they're great.

Marker Drones have always been one of the better marker sources, honestly. They're just way better now with the Drone Net and can be used extremely effectively without a commander giving them BS5 (which is still a great strategy, by the way!).

Fireblades are great reliable markerlights, but you should get them for the double tap, or tax Hq on the cheep that doesn't cost two victory points.

Fireblades are okay if you have a large unit of Fire Warriors to stick them in but are generally outclassed by the other options.

I've heard tetras are nice

Indeed they are!

Was looking at getting a pathfinder team and maybe a Riptide? Is the Riptide still OP though? I kind of like the idea of a bunch of XV8 suits )hence why I have so many lol

Also can I still use my old Tau codex? I've been out of the game for Probably 2ish year and even then never got much chances to play!

Riptides are powerful, no doubt, but given the current state of the game, I would not at all label them as overpowered or broken. That said, you definitely do not need a Riptide to perform well, even in moderately competitive games. Your Crisis Suit swarm strategy can work if you make a big unit of them and stick Shadowsun plus a Commander with all the buffing signature systems with them. That way, they just jump around the table vaporizing whatever stands in their way and get a 4+ cover save while doing so. You might also consider using a bunch of Broadsides which put out tons of dakka but are pretty fragile for their cost.

Personally, if I were in your shoes, my next purchases would be a Riptide or two and a Stormsurge. Both are powerful units with cool models that fit into just about every army list. That'd probably get you to around 1500pts, so you'd be ready to rock n roll.

Stormsurges with the D-shotgun should be played aggressively, which does mean getting into stomp range occasionally. Anchoring is more for the big mass-driver while you fort up. Two different play styles.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Stormsurges with the D-shotgun should be played aggressively, which does mean getting into stomp range occasionally. Anchoring is more for the big mass-driver while you fort up. Two different play styles.

SJ

Anchoring is one thing...needing the anchors another. The mobility of the Stormsurge is a real asset and I find that moving them just yields better results.

I suppose the hard core tournament lists use Two Stormsurges in a unit and then its twice as true. two Stomps per turn IF you can pull it off, is really good. Magnus doesn't like it, thats for sure!