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Are there any models/loadouts that would be an auto include against Eldar?
Im just recently getting back into 40k after a 3-4 year break.

 KonTheory wrote:
Are there any models/loadouts that would be an auto include against Eldar?
Im just recently getting back into 40k after a 3-4 year break.

velocity tracker that +1 to hit vrs fly keyword really helps with BS 4+ base.

Jumping back into 40k with the Tau vanguard box, but stuck on how to actually make a playable list.

I realise at minimum I should probably have a battalion, so looks like I’ll be picking up a couple of boxes of fire warriors.

For 1k points I was thinking something like;

Coldstar
Fireblade
3x5 Fire Warriors
Riptide
2x3 Crisis

From what I’ve read the crisis suits aren’t so good these days, but any advice on how I could make the best of what I have, just to get a few games under my belt?

Nehcrux wrote:

Jumping back into 40k with the Tau vanguard box, but stuck on how to actually make a playable list.

I realise at minimum I should probably have a battalion, so looks like I’ll be picking up a couple of boxes of fire warriors.

For 1k points I was thinking something like;

Coldstar
Fireblade
3x5 Fire Warriors
Riptide
2x3 Crisis

From what I’ve read the crisis suits aren’t so good these days, but any advice on how I could make the best of what I have, just to get a few games under my belt?

Crisis suits are cheap and good at clearing out the chaff. So if you went light on firewarriors they could be the replacement for that. The only problem there is no CP gen. Burst Cannon and Flamer crisis are the cheapest loadouts.

Over on ATT they have been playing around with Missile Pod loadouts to replace broadsides.

CIB's are widely considered the best crisis suit loadouts but you will have to proxy because that gun isn't included in the kit. you get one in a commander box and that's it.

 carldooley wrote:
Is there a viable reason nowadays to pick up the Index? Are vehicle squadrons still a thing?

You’ll get mixed answers, but essentially the index are out of date unless an army/unit doesn’t have a codex or codex entry

Crisis suits are not the very top competitive, but currently are in an OK spot, so you should not feel bad for bringing them. They also bring good utility with their ability to show up anywhere on the board with Manta Strike (and they just look cool).

Especially with the other stuff in your list, they should do fine if you build them to round out your threat profile.

As mentioned above, cyclic ion blasters are a good high-power choice, but require getting 3rd party bits or such since only the commander comes with a single one.

With two squads of suits you should have 6 of each of the more traditional weapons, except either fusion blasters or missile pods (I forget which) that you actually get 4 of in the kit, so you end up with 8.

Lets look at various builds for our crisis suits. I like to compare things to firewarriors, which we expect to have around, and which actually end up as decent all-rounders. (and things like burst cannons and plasma rifles are not that different in profile from them)

Let's start with burst cannons:
153 points for triple cannons suits. They put out 36 S5 shots. 20 firewarriors puts out 40 S5 shots in rapid fire range for 140 points. So that is pretty close, there are some tradeoffs, board presence vs. max range, etc, but you should not feel bad for having the suits.

In your circumstance, dual burst with Advanced Targeting System (ATS) would be much easier in terms of bits (since you have 7 burst cannons, not 9) Let us look at them.
These guys are only 147 points, so about the same. To compare things, we will need to decide on a target. Let us use a standard infantry targtet, T4 3+
Vs T4 3+:
Suits: 24 shots, 12 hit, 8 wound, giving 4 damage
Firewarriors: 40 shots, 20 hit, 40/3 wound, 40/9 go through saves, or about 4.5 damage

So the firewarriors have a slight edge, but it is close, and again suits can drop in where you want them, are more resistant to small arms, etc. Here you also need to consider who you will be fighting. People who have only invuln saves (deamons, harlequins) make the AP useless, also people with bad saves (orks, little tyranids, IG) make the non-AP shooting pull ahead. On the other hand, if you expect to face 2+ saves (termies, Thousand Sons, marines in cover, Riptides) the AP gets a big boost of power.

I personally like the triple plasma build, which for the same price as triple burst cannons, gives us
18 shots, 9 hits, 6 wounds, 5 unsaved vs. marines or such, actually pulling ahead of the firewarriors. This build does sharpen the tradeoffs of targets, since it relies even more on having good AP.

If you want the range, a unit with 2 missile pods each and an ATS each will run you 189 points, and put out vs, say a predator or hammerhead profile tank,
12 shots, 6 hit, 3 wound, 2 get through, so 4 damage. Let us compare to an ion hammerhead and dakka broadside.

Hammerhead(overcharging): 3.5 shots, 7/3 hit, 14/9 wound, (I think the hammerhead ion cannon is AP -2, going off of memory right now) 28/27 get through, so about 1 shot for 3 damage.
Though if we add the smart missiles, 8 shots, 16/3 hit, 16/9 wound, 16/27 after saves, so 3.5 total damage, roughly.
Hammerheads are less mobile, getting hit by heavy weapon rules, and though they have more wounds and are cheaper, not that much cheaper and most importantly, cannont use drones to tank enemy fire.

Broadside with High Yield Missile Pods, Smart Missiles, ATS: 8+8 shots, 4+4 hit, 2 + 4/3 wound, so 4/3 + 2/3 get through, for 8/3 + 2/3 damage or 10/3 damage. So for suits that can make use of drone support, we have the comparison of:

Crisis suits, 189 points, mobile, 4 damage to medium tank profile, for 2.12 damage per 100 points.
Broadside, 121 points, limited mobility, 3.33 damage to medium tank profile, for 2.75 damage per 100 points

Now consider that broadsides routinely show up in tournament topping lists (a set of 3 also uses buffs really well) and for less intense competition the damage tradeoff for mobility of the crisis suits seems like a reasonably choice someone might make.

Does anyone know if the sunshark or razorshark comes with drone flying bases? I see them on the box art and the assembly instructions but my box didn't come with them.

Thanks for the replies, and that excellent write up!

If I pick up a few extra flamers & missile pods I could try;

Coldstar - ATS, HOBC, 2x MP
Cadre Fireblade
3x5 Fire Warriors
Riptide - HBC, SMS
XV8 - 3x3 Flamers
XV8 - 3x3 Missile Pods

Coming in at 890, or 910 if I change the Coldstar to 4x FB to add some anti tank.

Thoughts on spending the remaining 110/90 points? What sort of drones should I be adding?

Nehcrux wrote:
Thanks for the replies, and that excellent write up!

If I pick up a few extra flamers & missile pods I could try;

Coldstar - ATS, HOBC, 2x MP
Cadre Fireblade
3x5 Fire Warriors
Riptide - HBC, SMS
XV8 - 3x3 Flamers
XV8 - 3x3 Missile Pods

Coming in at 890, or 910 if I change the Coldstar to 4x FB to add some anti tank.

Thoughts on spending the remaining 110/90 points? What sort of drones should I be adding?

Crisis suits aren't bad at all, but they are outshadowed by broadsides and riptides. If you are going to run them you might want cyclic ion blasters, otherwise missile pods are decent as is all plasma. I can't imagine forcing yourself to play with flamers. Your commander if you are using a cold star... really wants 3 or 4 fusion blasters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KonTheory wrote:
Are there any models/loadouts that would be an auto include against Eldar?
Im just recently getting back into 40k after a 3-4 year break.

Anything with velocity trackers, though ATS is probably more important.

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
Does anyone know if the sunshark or razorshark comes with drone flying bases? I see them on the box art and the assembly instructions but my box didn't come with them.

Contact GW customer support in any case, if you are lucky they might just send you another Sunshark kit if what people say about them is true.

I haven't played my Kroot (might as well be 100% up front, totally fluff and PL based list) since the old Kroot Mercenaries in 4th.

My goal is to use just Kroot, or appropriate Counts As where absolutely necessary. Heavily modified and kitbashed, lots of custom models.

Here's what I've got:

1 Master Shaper (Counts As Etherial)
1 Crisis Suit Commander with dual Flamers
20x Kroot Carnivores
12x Kroot Carnivores
6x Krootox Riders / Knarloc Riders (custom models)
2x Shapers with Kroot Gun
1x Shaper with Pulse Carbine
3x Great Knarloc
2x Great Knarloc with Bolt Throwers
4x Great Knarloc with Baggage Harnesses
2x Remote Sensor Tower

I don't have much money to get more models right now, but I'm heavily considering getting a box of Skinks to use as Hounds, as the entire Kindred is reptile/dinosaur themed. That would give me 24 Hounds. Ideally I'd take even more.

Is this viable in a super casual scene?

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
Does anyone know if the sunshark or razorshark comes with drone flying bases? I see them on the box art and the assembly instructions but my box didn't come with them.

I've got a Sunshark one week ago and I've already assembled it.
The two drones come with two classic flying bases, but the flying stems are slightly different from the standard ones. They have a ball joint on top, not a cilindrical peg. The underside of the Interceptor Drones is obviously made to accomodate those ball joints.

Nehcrux wrote:
Thanks for the replies, and that excellent write up!

If I pick up a few extra flamers & missile pods I could try;

Coldstar - ATS, HOBC, 2x MP
Cadre Fireblade
3x5 Fire Warriors
Riptide - HBC, SMS
XV8 - 3x3 Flamers
XV8 - 3x3 Missile Pods

Coming in at 890, or 910 if I change the Coldstar to 4x FB to add some anti tank.

Thoughts on spending the remaining 110/90 points? What sort of drones should I be adding?

I would suggest going one of two ways with your Coldstar. Either go with three missile pods and an ATS and use him as part of your castle to boost other units with Kauyon, or give him four fusion blasters. Camping a Coldstar hurts him since he likes to zip around the map, so I think the four fusion blasters is probably your best bet overall for him. I run two normal commanders in my list that are outfitted like the two options I mentioned. I start with the missile pod commander on the map next to my Riptide, and I put the fusion blaster commander in deep strike reserve. With four fusion blasters you can pretty much destroy any unit your opponent throws at you(perhaps other than a knight).

For crisis suits I would say skip the flamers. They can be pretty cool against a horde, but the range really hurts them. Deep striking with them is no good because they will be out of range when you place them on the map, and your ability to deep strike crisis suits is what really sets them about from your other units. I would recommend plasma or missile pods since you already have a lot of anti-infantry with the riptide and your fire warriors, so adding more S5 with the burst canons is not going to go a long way(unless you know you are fighting a lot of weak horde type armies).

As far as drones go you will definitely want at least four shield drones to sit with your riptide because he is going to draw a lot of attention from turn one. A lot of people only use shield drones, but I think gun drones work pretty well, too. Four S5 shots per drone is nothing to scoff at even if they only hit on fives. Drop in four of them with your crisis suits and unload 16 S5 shots into some chaff while your plasmas or missile pods blast something a bit tougher. Then when your opponent counters they have to waste shots on the drones or let them saviour protocol a few attacks before he can hurt your suits.

Finally, no matter what you decide I would suggest magnetizing the weapons on all of your suits. It is super easy to do, and you can then play around with all of the weapons and decide what you like best.

So I'm coming back into the game and want a competitive army that will allow me to adapt to a changing gamescene as the book ages. So I have a coldstar already and one broadside on the way.

I was going to add
2 rip tides
9 crisis suits
6 broadsides (half missiles half railguns)
30 fire warriors
10 pathfinder
What else should I add to this plan

 captain collius wrote:
So I'm coming back into the game and want a competitive army that will allow me to adapt to a changing gamescene as the book ages. So I have a coldstar already and one broadside on the way.

I was going to add
2 rip tides
9 crisis suits
6 broadsides (half missiles half railguns)
30 fire warriors
10 pathfinder
What else should I add to this plan

Unless your buying the starter set's I'm.not sure 9 crisis suits is something your likely to field short term.

Also how do you feel about ForgeWorld?

Ice_can wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
So I'm coming back into the game and want a competitive army that will allow me to adapt to a changing gamescene as the book ages. So I have a coldstar already and one broadside on the way.

I was going to add
2 rip tides
9 crisis suits
6 broadsides (half missiles half railguns)
30 fire warriors
10 pathfinder
What else should I add to this plan

Unless your buying the starter set's I'm.not sure 9 crisis suits is something your likely to field short term.

Also how do you feel about ForgeWorld?

Love forgeworld and probably want to get r'karna and y'vahra variants. I was thinking of possibly just buying one riptide and using the other two as counts as for a while.

The plan is to buy a vanguard detachment which has the riptide the second commander and 6 suits is that enough?

Uber lists right now are Shield and Markerdrone spam, with 3 Riptides and fw to support them. Add Shadowsun. Add Broadsides. That is a powerful list. It absolutely hates things that ignore overwatch which is its achilles heel, but other than that, it can wipe units away with fair ease.

I just kind of got my butt handed to me in a GT recently, running Tau. I don't feel like my list was that bad, as I designed it to not be totally dependent on markerlights to function. Ended up going 1-3-1, which is kind of depressing, but it was a competitive field and I'm not the greatest player. Rather than go through and give a complete summary of my games, I'll jot down my list, opponents' lists, and my takeaways.
My list:

My opponents and results:
Game 1: Imperial Soup (Astra Militarum and Knights): Loss (13-35)
Game 2: Orks: Win (37-11)
Game 3: Adeptus Custodes: Loss (18-28)
Game 4: Alaitoc (the dreaded Flyer list): Loss (19-31)
Game 5: Chaos Daemons (with Magnus and Morty): Draw (24-24)

My takeaways, based on my list and how it did in the various games:
-Ghostkeel is not really worth the points. It just didn't do very much in any of my games, and usually died pretty fast, and coughed up 2 kill points thanks to its drones.
-Riptides are still the main damage dealers for a Tau list, but I need to rethink what wargear I give them. I want to ditch the Target Locks for ATS, but that means I need more markerlights to allow them to move and shoot without gimping themselves. VTs are nice and came in handy in three of the games.
-3 Commanders is probably a must have, but I want to replace the Crisis guy with Shadowsun if possible. An extra turn of Kauyon might have swung at least a couple of my lost games. I'll probably see about converting a Stealth suit or something.
-At first I thought I was going to miss my Broadsides since I usually run a unit of 3, but I found that I had a bit more freedom of movement since I didn't have to protect them. Their firepower is great, but they are an anchor on your list and other gunlines can outrange them sometimes.
-I probably need more Markerlights. I wanted my list to not be dependent on them, but having +1 BS might have helped in a few situations. Not sure on the best way to include them in a list, but right now I'm thinking Firesight Marksmen.
-I need to remember more of my Strats. There were some times when Neuroweb System Jammer might have helped, as well as C & C Node, although for that one I really didn't want to sacrifice a Commander's firepower.
-Tau really struggle against T8 targets like Knights, and even against T7 sometimes, due to Riptides' cannons being only S6. The T'au Sept strat helps with that, as does C & C Node, but towards the end of a game I found myself strapped for command points despite having 14 at the start of the game. Maybe I need to waste fewer of them on rerolls, especially since I tended to fail the roll anyway when I used a reroll.
-This one is not really Tau specific: 40k is a game of inches. A positioning error of just half an inch caused me to lose a Commander to a heroic intervention in my final game, which resulted in me getting a draw instead of a win. Check your distances, kids, and watch out for enemy characters getting close to your characters.

Tau just won NOVA, and nobody on Dakka is talking about it in the Tau tactics thread?!

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Tau just won NOVA, and nobody on Dakka is talking about it in the Tau tactics thread?!

Yep,
3 Rips, couple CIB Cold stars, 40ish shield drones, 10 path, SCD fill and 6CP.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Tau just won NOVA, and nobody on Dakka is talking about it in the Tau tactics thread?!

Because its a pretty standard list in a tournament that was almost tailor made for Tau to perform well?

(being able to chose for end of game scoring is huge for Tau since it lets you castle in comfort for 4 turns before jumping out to claim all objectives after the enemy is removed).

 FeindusMaximus wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Tau just won NOVA, and nobody on Dakka is talking about it in the Tau tactics thread?!

Yep,
3 Rips, couple CIB Cold stars, 40ish shield drones, 10 path, SCD fill and 6CP.

That cannot be right CIB Cold Stars are not a legal setup.

Where can i see the lists from NOVA open?

From reddit:

His list was Tau Sept, and only 6 CP

Outrider Enforcer Commander with 3 Cyclic Ion blasters, Advanced Targeting, 2 shield drones

Darkstrider

5Fire Warriors, 2 shield drones

2x5 Pathfinders with Grav, Pulse, Recon and 2x shield drones

2x6 shield drones

5 shield drones

Vanguard

Same commander, also with 2 shield drones

3x Riptides with Heavy Burst cannon, Smart missiles, advanced targeting, velocity trackers

Supreme Command

3x Cadres, each with two shield drones, one with Puretide neurochip

Another of the same Commander, also with 2 drones

Ethereal, 2 shield drones

By my count, that’s 35 shield drones and 41 drones total. And the shield drones are in 15 different units. Ive heard so many Tau players say this is a bad idea because it concedes Kill More, maybe this will finally put that argument to bed. Also had three Cyclic Ion Commanders and four characters with Markerlights, plus ten Pathfinders

EDIT: sorry if this is crap formatting, I’m on my phone.

NOVA Lists don't follow ITC scoring.

Nurglitch wrote:
NOVA Lists don't follow ITC scoring.

Still it was awesome seeing Tau take the top spot (and orks were very well represented which I thought was cool too)

It is literally the silliest thing in the universe to undersell this.

It won. The rules are the same for everyone and it won. That's huge.

It's ALREADY enormously difficult to win at a tournament. SO MUCH has to go as planned. You have to capitalize on enemy mistakes. You have to have answers to a multiplicity of threats.

Winning any event is tough but for it to be this event makes it twice as tough or even three times as tough.

So it should be celebrated big time. T'au Empire haven't been weak since the 6th Edition codex. They also haven't been at the tip top of the heap really ever. No one can remember a time when Tau engendered the same fear as Wave spam or Scatter spam or Ynnari BS before the debuff, or the Castellan + IG combination. TauDar was the closest T'au ever came, and that was only after a Formation came out, but even then, it was the combination, and not really the T'au as a codex.

So to be number one in that arena seems really darn notable.

also the fact that I could have counted on one hand the number of players running Tau compared to IG, or eldar flyer spam or disco lords or custode grav-tanks or skorpius tanks....statistically it should have been impossible for Tau to pull it off. The guy who won must be an amazing player...

 necron99 wrote:
also the fact that I could have counted on one hand the number of players running Tau compared to IG, or eldar flyer spam or disco lords or custode grav-tanks or skorpius tanks....statistically it should have been impossible for Tau to pull it off. The guy who won must be an amazing player...

he was the one who beat Allen Hernandez and his Tzeentch Daemons at the BAO. So yeah, he's good.

 Jancoran wrote:

So it should be celebrated big time.

I disagree. That army doesn't feature any Crisis teams, Stealth teams or Broadsides. It has no Hammerheads or Devilfish. No Kroot.

All it does is highlight how in order to be competitive, Tau players need to leave all of the iconic Tau units at home, except for Fire Warriors (of which it has a whopping 5) and Pathfinders (10) and they're only in there because they are cheap for what they need to do.