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yep, does not seem very friendly to me...

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Played my 3rd game of 8th last night hoping for a nice gentle game with my foot marines, turned up the guy had Tau 3 Riptide's 3 missile sides, longstrike and pals on an open terrain devoid board playing kill points....

It was a massacre! Riptide's are absolutely crazy to face although I did kill one with mass bolter and storm bolter fire.

40k is not meant to be played on planet bolling ball, sounds like you ran into 'that guy'.

 Ordana wrote:

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Played my 3rd game of 8th last night hoping for a nice gentle game with my foot marines, turned up the guy had Tau 3 Riptide's 3 missile sides, longstrike and pals on an open terrain devoid board playing kill points....

It was a massacre! Riptide's are absolutely crazy to face although I did kill one with mass bolter and storm bolter fire.

40k is not meant to be played on planet bolling ball, sounds like you ran into 'that guy'.

He was a nice dude but yeah it was totally tailored for his win, he had been playing for years but didn't understand that plasma guns overheating when you roll a 1 to hit and there's a character nearby allowing re roll 1s that my guy didn't die lol

An important lesson for me though using big units of 10 is not a good idea in 8th.

Rogerio134134 wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Played my 3rd game of 8th last night hoping for a nice gentle game with my foot marines, turned up the guy had Tau 3 Riptide's 3 missile sides, longstrike and pals on an open terrain devoid board playing kill points....

It was a massacre! Riptide's are absolutely crazy to face although I did kill one with mass bolter and storm bolter fire.

40k is not meant to be played on planet bolling ball, sounds like you ran into 'that guy'.

He was a nice dude but yeah it was totally tailored for his win, he had been playing for years but didn't understand that plasma guns overheating when you roll a 1 to hit and there's a character nearby allowing re roll 1s that my guy didn't die lol

An important lesson for me though using big units of 10 is not a good idea in 8th.

Using power armor is not a good idea in 8th in general :(

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Rogerio134134 wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Played my 3rd game of 8th last night hoping for a nice gentle game with my foot marines, turned up the guy had Tau 3 Riptide's 3 missile sides, longstrike and pals on an open terrain devoid board playing kill points....

It was a massacre! Riptide's are absolutely crazy to face although I did kill one with mass bolter and storm bolter fire.

40k is not meant to be played on planet bolling ball, sounds like you ran into 'that guy'.

He was a nice dude but yeah it was totally tailored for his win, he had been playing for years but didn't understand that plasma guns overheating when you roll a 1 to hit and there's a character nearby allowing re roll 1s that my guy didn't die lol

An important lesson for me though using big units of 10 is not a good idea in 8th.

Using power armor is not a good idea in 8th in general :(

I've painted so many recently lol I'll try and make it work! Using the Deathwatch codex so that should help.

Tips vs guard/Astra Militarum???

I usually run the usual competitive 3x riptide, couple broadsides, Shadowsun, Coldstar, Drones, etc.

But especially with the new vigilis stuff he just puts the mortars/wyverns (that out range me) into my drones (hidden or not) and then big tanks kill the suits.

Help?

Budzerker wrote:
Tips vs guard/Astra Militarum???

I usually run the usual competitive 3x riptide, couple broadsides, Shadowsun, Coldstar, Drones, etc.

But especially with the new vigilis stuff he just puts the mortars/wyverns (that out range me) into my drones (hidden or not) and then big tanks kill the suits.

Help?

Well thats what he should do right? When you take a list like that you are really setting yourself up. he waits to see which Riptide will get the double buff, and kills a different one. He drops the Drones and now board coverage is lost. It's the right plan.

After ONE Riptide I start kind of doubting the value of taking more. ONE is quite good and because its frustrating for players to try andget through all that droneage, they will often just let him do his thing and you'll get PRODUCTION from him nearly all game, but you're missing out on some other opportunities for the list when you pump SO many points into big robots.

Ynnari probably eat this alive when they fire their Dark Reapers twice into it. No matter the invul, so few models means he doesnt have to be THAT lucky.

I'd reconsider taking three and see what dropping 2 gets you. My guess is: a lot.

So, besides commanders and maybe a few Stealth Suits, are most T'au suits just really bad in 8th? I ask because I had thought about running a full Suit list at 1000 points (amount of free time available + my attention span really keeps me from playing 2000 point games).

I have:
1 x Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit
1 x Riptide
6 x Stealth Suits
3 x Crisis Suits
1 x Broadside with HYMP
1 x Broadisde with Heavy Rail Rifle

I can get that up to 1000 points without much trouble in 8th. Or would you recommend that I use my

1 x Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit
1 x Ethereal
2 x Breacher Team
1 x Strike Team
6 x Stealth Suits
1 x Pathfinder Team
3 x Devilfish

I'd prefer using the suits because 1) they cook cool and 2) they are fewer models. But, I've gathered that it's almost an auto-lose to use a full Suit army.

To those who play T'au, what is your advice?

Thanks

SG

Tau as a codex suffered from a bit of what can we make a strategum syndrome in the transition to 8th edition meaning that a number of things that make stuff work are now locked up in command point intensive strategum combinations. Which can now be denied by 2 out of the 5 other factions.

CA 2018 did help suits vecome more viable, but they still have issues.
I would always suggest starting a tau list with a basic battalion of FW and commander,fireblade combo, for those sweet 5CP for the addict like habit you'll find Tau have when it comes to spending CP.

You then need to look at something like broadsides or the obvious riptide for additional firepower and drones for survival. Firesight marksmen really shouldn't be the go to but pathfinders I find just get auto deleted by any competent opponents. This would be less of an issue of Tau firepower didn't feel like its substandard in 8th edition levels of lethality without markerlights.

Right now I wouldn't even take a devilfish for anything other than drop count reduction and with tau that's mostly a waste of time and points that are better spend on firepower.

Yeah, riptides are a staple of top lists, though they hit diminishing returns after one.

Broadsides also seem to do well, with the full missile dakkaside being a nice pick especially after the point drops.

Stealth suits are an interesting unit, with their deployment shenanigans, and reasonable durability, but are still a bit pricey and rather anemic firepower compared to other options. I take two units of three in my list, but they are actually there to guard my ghostkeels, and usually die turn 1.

Speaking of ghostkeels, they work quite nice. Especially with their point drop, they do good work. Mine are helped defensively by my opponents being too dumb to ever shoot the stealth drones; however even their innate hit malus and a shield generator work quite impressively when combined with the shield drones the stealth suits bring. They also put out very nice firepower with the cyclic ion raker and fusion blasters. Mine like to munch on imperial knights. "Oh, you have a 4++, well, I still do full damage since my main gun is only AP -1 anyway."

Crisis suits are interesting now with the point drop. I have only had one chance to use the squad I added to my list from the freed up points after chapter approved, and while they did not do anything, it was sort of my fault for trying to shoot them at a -2 to hit eldar flyer. On the other hand, they took a full round for ravagers and eldar flyers shooting to actually kill them off, which seemed decent, and left my ghostkeels unshoot for a turn to continue blasting away. Mathematically the triple plasma build can actually compete with firewarriors in terms of killing 3+ armor, while offering advantages vs. T3/5/6 and 2+ armor saves as well as giving board presence with being able to drop in. I actually run mine with 2 plasma and a missile pod on each, since I had the extra points wiggle room, and I wanted a bit of extra anti-big ommph the multi-damage missile offer, as well as the range so that they can aid other parts of the board after they drop in (since part of their purpose in my list is to go for hard-to-reach objectives, being able to claim an objective in one corner and not be limited to plasma range to contribute shooting seems useful)

If you do run lots of suits, make sure to bring plenty of Shield Drones. They are absolutely key to keeping suits (especially the big ones like Riptides) on the table.

Amusingly, a fair number of Tau lists at LVO were running Dahyek Grehk (from Blackstone Fortress). For 20 points, the potential to do some mortal wounds is pretty nice, and he probably comes in handy in the one ITC mission where the bonus point is for holding three objectives with characters.

Hi, I play Tau (though its the smallest of my 6 armies), but also, and that is more to the point, I struggle A LOT against them, much more than eldar and imperial soup, strangely enough (I often lose against a very good Tau player though, so I know it is not just the codex's power, the guy's skill totally comes into play here), so i am pleased to see Tau made it in the top 8 at LVO.

Can anyone among the exeprienced Tau players (tounament wise) please explain how this "winning" list works ?

Thank you very much in advance !

Also, if the list could be posted here it would be great

By the way, I think this Tau list and the chaos soup list were the only "suprise lists" to make it into the top 8, the 6 other lists are perfectly clear about their power level IMHO (from what I can percieve about the game anyway).

Budzerker wrote:
Tips vs guard/Astra Militarum???

I usually run the usual competitive 3x riptide, couple broadsides, Shadowsun, Coldstar, Drones, etc.

But especially with the new vigilis stuff he just puts the mortars/wyverns (that out range me) into my drones (hidden or not) and then big tanks kill the suits.

Help?

Yup, that's going to be a hard match up.

Maybe think a little bit more outside of the box with your riptides. They are fairly quick and have the fly keyword. Maybe you could even use the movement effect of overcharge to get them in range of those mortar teams.

I remember in the armies that people don’t want to play thread that someone said that they didn’t play gunline T’au, but rather assault T’au. What competitive options does this army have, and does anybody have any examples of a competitive assault T’au list or two?

Here is the LVO Top-8 Tau list:



From looking at it, you have a solid firebase with the 3 riptides. They get protected by the shield drones, which potentially get morale boosts from the Ethereal. They get buffed by Shadowsun, for 2 turns of re-roll all hits, and probably 1 getting re-roll wounds from C and C node. The Counterfire Defense System is an interesting choice on them. It really focuses on being worried about charges. That slot seems to be fairly variable though, other top Tau lists I have seen also put Velocity Trackers or especially Target Locks in that second slot (the HBC, SMS, ATS combo is constant).

Then you have one of the interesting adaptations, the breacher bomb. With Vior'la the d-fish can move+advance and still get decent shooting out, then next turn the breachers disembark 3'', move, advance, and double tap with the stratagem. They do rather nice damage, and really provide control over mid-field objectives. Also the two big squads of kroot are interesting--maximum bodies for the points, and with their scout move can team up with the breachers to swarm the midfield. I wonder if Aun'shi went in the d-fish, hung out behind the kroot, or went with the drones/riptides...

The kroot character is super cheap and so fits in nicely--extra character protection for objectives and I hear it can do some damage.

Also the AFP coldstar is interesting, that I suspect is influenced by the ITC rules making much more los-blocking from terrain than the normal rules, so especially if you expect IG mortars and such having the fast, los-ignoring horde clear seems useful.

As for assault tau, I myself run a close-combat tau army (the people at my store get mad if you call it assault, since I don't actually charge people most of the time, aside from before the codex when I was beating up treadhead IG by charging their russes).

Here is my list:


How this army works is I have a firewarrior blob, which needs to get within 15'', but then will decimate stuff. The breachers are really good damage once they get within range, which is not to hard except vs. gunlines on the long-way map. The real hitting power is my ghostkeels, which along with Shadowsun and the stealth suits infiltrate in the enemy's face. Shadowsun and the stealth suits provide shield drones, and the stealth suits provide a roadblock vs. early charges. Also the fusion coldstar needs to get in close to the enemy, and has the speed to do it. Even the crisis suits want to drop in danger-close to get efficient blasting with their plasma rifles.

I find my list does quite will, though it can require some finesse. I routinely beat up imperial knights, since I lean on the ghostkeels and firewarrior blob. You rotate ion sheilds to get a 4++? Joke's on you, my giant ion cannons only have AP -1, so they still do full damage! The T'au sept strat really hurts stuff like knights.

I also managed to beat a Dank Eldar list that the guy was going to take to LVO. The stealth blob managed to nuke down a Talos on overwatch, and even after he vect'ed my focus fire, I was able to nuke down his blob of grots on my turn. The commanders 2+ bs does nice to shoot down annoying elf flyers.

 ServiceGames wrote:
So, besides commanders and maybe a few Stealth Suits, are most T'au suits just really bad in 8th?

Thanks

SG

A singular Ghostkeel served me SO well in SO many games. I took one to the LVO as well and it had similarly great production and results. I literally faced the luckiest Castellan alive in my second round match but that Ghostkeel pumped out a total of 30 Melta shots over the course of one game including two charges it survived. i don't know how that Castellan wasn't dead after what i threw at it but then again, Castellans are just too much to begin with. i dropped a list that was eerily similar to the one that won LVO (must be a net list rolling around out there) with no issues and again the Ghostkeel was critically important to that. So i cannot say enough about the Ghostkeel, honestly. Its rugged, it's immediately on top of the enemy and saves the rest of the list a lot of trouble.

I haven't played with using more than one but there are enough battlesuit stratagems to choke a horse. They all compliment the Ghostkeel exceedingly well. If the rest of my list has worked as well as the Ghostkeel did I might have had a better weekend!

Consider the ways you can use the Ghostkeel. It was quite excellent for me.

 Jancoran wrote:

 ServiceGames wrote:
So, besides commanders and maybe a few Stealth Suits, are most T'au suits just really bad in 8th?

Thanks

SG

A singular Ghostkeel served me SO well in SO many games. I took one to the LVO as well and it had similarly great production and results. I literally faced the luckiest Castellan alive in my second round match but that Ghostkeel pumped out a total of 30 Melta shots over the course of one game including two charges it survived. i don't know how that Castellan wasn't dead after what i threw at it but then again, Castellans are just too much to begin with. i dropped a list that was eerily similar to the one that won LVO (must be a net list rolling around out there) with no issues and again the Ghostkeel was critically important to that. So i cannot say enough about the Ghostkeel, honestly. Its rugged, it's immediately on top of the enemy and saves the rest of the list a lot of trouble.

I haven't played with using more than one but there are enough battlesuit stratagems to choke a horse. They all compliment the Ghostkeel exceedingly well. If the rest of my list has worked as well as the Ghostkeel did I might have had a better weekend!

Consider the ways you can use the Ghostkeel. It was quite excellent for me.

My experience with Ghostkeels is that the drones die almost immediately, and then the suit itself doesn't last terribly long afterwards. Now, maybe I'm playing it wrong, I dunno. I figure Target Lock and Shield Generator are the go-to secondaries for it, yes? And Fusion Collider is probably better than CIR, right?

If you want to run Ghostkeels I think your better of running multiples.
1 stealth drone can cover multiple suits and 3 sets of 2 hopefully means 1 survives past the first turn.

In my experience with the Ghostkeel.....it survives almost always because it quickly becomes a lower threat due to the Riptides and Commanders taking things out.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

My experience with Ghostkeels is that the drones die almost immediately, and then the suit itself doesn't last terribly long afterwards. Now, maybe I'm playing it wrong, I dunno. I figure Target Lock and Shield Generator are the go-to secondaries for it, yes? And Fusion Collider is probably better than CIR, right?

Yes, the target lock and shield are really nice. I call mine troll-keels, since they are so good at absorbing enemy fire between the hit malus, friendly shield drones, and their own shields. And then I can have one operate full power for 1 cp, and if I am feeling really spicy use the heal strat on them.

I like the CIR over the Fusion Collider. It seems like invulnerable saves are far and away the meta, so it is better to not rely on the massive ap of the fusion collider. Overcharged CIR still do about the same damage to tanks, etc, but do not drop half their power vs. 4++ that are so common (ghostkeels, hive tyrants, imperial knights) or even all the 5++ stuff that people seem to roll well on vs me (D-eldar, mechanicus, etc)

Also, I find people have trouble committing enough firepower to take out the drones, it just feels so bad for them to shoot enough long range weapons to finish them off, especially when I have both stealth and shield drone units floating around.

Classic tau is still my fav though:


2 battalions and a spearhead.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 ServiceGames wrote:
So, besides commanders and maybe a few Stealth Suits, are most T'au suits just really bad in 8th?

Thanks

SG

A singular Ghostkeel served me SO well in SO many games. I took one to the LVO as well and it had similarly great production and results. I literally faced the luckiest Castellan alive in my second round match but that Ghostkeel pumped out a total of 30 Melta shots over the course of one game including two charges it survived. i don't know how that Castellan wasn't dead after what i threw at it but then again, Castellans are just too much to begin with. i dropped a list that was eerily similar to the one that won LVO (must be a net list rolling around out there) with no issues and again the Ghostkeel was critically important to that. So i cannot say enough about the Ghostkeel, honestly. Its rugged, it's immediately on top of the enemy and saves the rest of the list a lot of trouble.

I haven't played with using more than one but there are enough battlesuit stratagems to choke a horse. They all compliment the Ghostkeel exceedingly well. If the rest of my list has worked as well as the Ghostkeel did I might have had a better weekend!

Consider the ways you can use the Ghostkeel. It was quite excellent for me.

My experience with Ghostkeels is that the drones die almost immediately, and then the suit itself doesn't last terribly long afterwards. Now, maybe I'm playing it wrong, I dunno. I figure Target Lock and Shield Generator are the go-to secondaries for it, yes? And Fusion Collider is probably better than CIR, right?

Mine used Shield Generator and Multitracker with Fusion. I deployed it fairly early RIGHT on the enemy doorstep and used it to wreck something truly valuable and then charge something truly valuable to shut it up. It's Toughness and saves make it difficult to bust. The Stratagem allows me to cure up to 2d3 wounds at top of his turn AND mine if they dont kill it and then I repeat (assuming they pulled away from me).

While the suit is usually, on paper, better at longer distances (if you can hide the drones SUCCESSFULLY which is no given but worth trying) I have found that getting into that sweet 9" range and cutting someones heart out is pretty sweet use of him. Some units may get within' my 6" but not many (since I just killed the closest thing at 9").

the Ghostkeel also changes peoples deployments which is a very nice side benefit.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Amusingly, a fair number of Tau lists at LVO were running Dahyek Grehk (from Blackstone Fortress). For 20 points, the potential to do some mortal wounds is pretty nice, and he probably comes in handy in the one ITC mission where the bonus point is for holding three objectives with characters.

He is also literally the cheapest thing you can hide in reserves to pop out at the right moment to grab a random positional VP. And in doing so you get to defer deploying anything for real for one more drop so you see more of the opposition deployment before you do anything.

It is a lot of utility for 20 points although his only real damage output is one rather unreliable special rule.

Nice model too, although until I had him I did not realise how much taller than regular kroot he is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Budzerker wrote:
Tips vs guard/Astra Militarum???

I usually run the usual competitive 3x riptide, couple broadsides, Shadowsun, Coldstar, Drones, etc.

But especially with the new vigilis stuff he just puts the mortars/wyverns (that out range me) into my drones (hidden or not) and then big tanks kill the suits.

Help?

Do not be a static gunline, Guard play that game better than you. Get up to them and lock things in combat to try to control their shooting phase. Use your drones to buy you enough time to get up there and then use and abuse the Fly keyword to keep stuff locked in combat until you want to fly out and shoot. It is not easy but if you just stand still you will find you are quite likely to be ground to dust by the immutable forces of mathhammer and AM stuff just being cheaper than T'au equivalents.

AM are still a tough match even without the additional crazy of the Castellan, they always have been.

Yeah, I have a really good track record vs. ig at my local store. Charging the russes and such was a big part of many of my successes. It helps that the people who play ig around me are all massive treadheads that want to run pure tank armies with no infantry, so getting up to charge the tanks is really easy. Especially with stealth suits/ghostkeels.

I beat an extremely similar copy of the winning list.

Brandon took the Vigilus Emperors Wrath: Straken, 2 Commanders, 8 infantry squads.
Also: Bullgryns, Astropath and Priest for buffing. 2 hellhounds and Rough riders. Mortars and a couple wyverns. The obligatory "I want to win at all costs" Castellan.

The list I faced was Rod Tripletts:

Vigilus of course, Castellan, Straken and two commanders, 2 primaris Psykers for buffing...8 Infantry squads...Astropath, Commissar and Priest, 3 Scout sintinels3 mortar teams (sort of replaced his Wyverns but prettyy much just trades re-roll hits for re-roll wounds)

The Bullgrysn/hellhounds/rough riders were replaced by 3 Jump Captains and 3x5 scouts but the lists FUNCTIONED very similarly, but more objective-taking focused. One Jump captains smashed both my Gunrigs to pieces in round one on his own. oofta. 240 points gone in a heartbeat.

seems like several armies looked similar to these two in function if not exact form.

To ensure I am not unintentionally cheating..a Vior’la strike team with a DS8 turret - if you use the hot blooded stratagem on the unit, the turret fires twice along with everyone else in the unit. Correct?

GSC player here but question about: Early warning override.

If any enemy units are set up within 12" of a model from your army equipped with an early warning override as the result of an ability that allows them to arrive mid-battle (i.e. teleporting to the battlefield), then at the end of that phase the model may immediately shoot at one of those units as if it were your Shooting phase, but you must subtract 1 from hit rolls when resolving these shots.

It allows to shoot only one unit that dropped in, not like 5 different units, right?

it says it right there in the rule.

"Shoot at one of those units".

 Bryan01 wrote:
To ensure I am not unintentionally cheating..a Vior’la strike team with a DS8 turret - if you use the hot blooded stratagem on the unit, the turret fires twice along with everyone else in the unit. Correct?

Its part of the unit. so yeah.