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I just wish that we could take all the "Tau are weak now, WAAAAAH!" crap into another thread and get back to tactics discussion in this one.

"Wound Tanks on a 5+"
Since T8 Tanks are fairly rare... so do Standard Bolters.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I don't play Tau, but I have heard the complaints and am really curious about the nature of the problem.

Is the main issue that a) GW released bad rules, b) people would need to radically restructure their lists for them to be playable, or c) something else entirely?

Most of the rules are fine, only Markerlights and Seeker Missiles stand out as being garbage.
Oh, and the interaction between Saviour Protocol and Shield Drones.
Also, Tau has like 4 Different ways to give the Army Reroll Hits of 1s. Would be nice to see less overlap.
... Stimulant Injector should really be on a 5+.
and the Hammerhead Ion Cannon is a complete joke.

There is also a MASSIVE list of things that are overpriced.

As well as Gun Drones are probably underpriced, I'm more than willing to see them get a nerf.

I would also like to see Commanders get a permanent Aura Buff and a slight cost increase.
They are meant to be Commanders, not "Don't worry army, I got this!"


As far as B is concerned.
TFG who only bought the army to spam Riptides need to radically restructure their list, but more than likely since Riptides have been nerfed beyond oblivion...
They will probably just sell their Riptides and move onto Tzeentch Daemons or SM Storm lists.
Basically every other Tau player who has been playing Tau for years don't have much options to adapt.
You can either take the viable (read "on par with strength with standard stuff from other armies") stuff, or you can take something that is significantly weaker than basic options for other armies.
... Then wonder on the table why ... My Army can't Psychic, Shoots worse than you, and Can't Melee.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I just wish that we could take all the "Tau are weak now, WAAAAAH!" crap into another thread and get back to tactics discussion in this one.

We aren't best equipped, but I think we are well set to PTFO, except kill points. We can bring abundant reasonably strong troop, fast speed bump units, and a few heavy hitting quality firepower.

2-3 commanders equipped to bring the pain to critical enemy units, in manta strike,
6-12 troop choices, 2-3 larger ones to hold the back field, the rest smaller units in devil fish to sprint up to midfield and hold objectives.
Piranhas are still excellent at flanking units of all types, and can force non-fly units to waste turns of fire-power by charging predators/devastators/ anything, and can disembark the drones the turn before for more harassment. And the piranha is tough enough to take more than negligible effort.
Vespid are excellent non-tank reaction force with their speed
Kroot hounds are excellent speed bumbs for making other units either waste turns swinging, or fallback. Again if they have fly its negated in useful degree, but not that many points wasted, and then they can still just sprint to back field and soak up fire.
While most expensive 2 MP 1 TL crisis suits are mobile heavy hitting firepower, so you should only bring 1 or 2 units, sorta like our fluff (Sorry FSE, you are still waiting in GW's manta)
Stealth suits are essential for the homing beacon to get your commanders where you need them AND absorbing the shots for commanders by being closer
Tanks as appropriate.

You can get to and hold or tie up so many units and are in a position to shoot them if they fall back or kill you units that short of min-maxed tournament lists yet to be finished. kill points we will lose pretty much every exchange, but objective games, i think PTFO, and we are in a strong flexible place.


**Note, this is entirely game theory, as posted just a bit ago, no games yet. but seems a reasonable CAD strategy should work ok

The main issues I see for tau is a true horde army, like 120+ works or gants. I just don't know if we could kill enough in 5 turns to be able to fight for objs. Big flyer or Mister lists er can deal with via fusion or hammerheads. Elite infantry are dealt with by breachers or Plasms or just weight of fire.

Stealthsuits are one of the most improved units too. The -1 to hit at all times is amazing along with the toughness and extra wound from 7th. I've been running 8+ stealths so far and they never let me down

I'm gonna run a unit of 10 FW with carbines instead of rifles, and give them a pulse accelerator drone (from the pathfinder teams) to see how that would work as a mobile force. Always being able to advance if needed and a range of 24" with two shots each could be interesting.

 FirePainter wrote:
The main issues I see for tau is a true horde army, like 120+ works or gants. I just don't know if we could kill enough in 5 turns to be able to fight for objs. Big flyer or Mister lists er can deal with via fusion or hammerheads. Elite infantry are dealt with by breachers or Plasms or just weight of fire.

Stealthsuits are one of the most improved units too. The -1 to hit at all times is amazing along with the toughness and extra wound from 7th. I've been running 8+ stealths so far and they never let me down

A true horde army dies to decent amount of normal shooting. and tau infantry shooting should be more than enough to deal with them. its going to come down to leaving the shiny toys at home and bringing out the basic bread and butter list. Kroot, Fire warriors, Gun drones. keep them positioned properly to not get first turn assaulted. and break them down one unit at a time.

or basically you cant make an army of only mono taskers and expect to take out everything. i feel like suits are basicly perfect to be combat swiss army knifes but people focus them soo hard that half the army becomes useless the second some one brings out a skew list.


that and they are a bit too expensive.

 Desubot wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
The main issues I see for tau is a true horde army, like 120+ works or gants. I just don't know if we could kill enough in 5 turns to be able to fight for objs. Big flyer or Mister lists er can deal with via fusion or hammerheads. Elite infantry are dealt with by breachers or Plasms or just weight of fire.

Stealthsuits are one of the most improved units too. The -1 to hit at all times is amazing along with the toughness and extra wound from 7th. I've been running 8+ stealths so far and they never let me down

A true horde army dies to decent amount of normal shooting. and tau infantry shooting should be more than enough to deal with them. its going to come down to leaving the shiny toys at home and bringing out the basic bread and butter list. Kroot, Fire warriors, Gun drones. keep them positioned properly to not get first turn assaulted. and break them down one unit at a time.

or basically you cant make an army of only mono taskers and expect to take out everything. i feel like suits are basicly perfect to be combat swiss army knifes but people focus them soo hard that half the army becomes useless the second some one brings out a skew list.


that and they are a bit too expensive.

Don't horde armys like gaunts outshoot us?

Pottsey wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
The main issues I see for tau is a true horde army, like 120+ works or gants. I just don't know if we could kill enough in 5 turns to be able to fight for objs. Big flyer or Mister lists er can deal with via fusion or hammerheads. Elite infantry are dealt with by breachers or Plasms or just weight of fire.

Stealthsuits are one of the most improved units too. The -1 to hit at all times is amazing along with the toughness and extra wound from 7th. I've been running 8+ stealths so far and they never let me down

A true horde army dies to decent amount of normal shooting. and tau infantry shooting should be more than enough to deal with them. its going to come down to leaving the shiny toys at home and bringing out the basic bread and butter list. Kroot, Fire warriors, Gun drones. keep them positioned properly to not get first turn assaulted. and break them down one unit at a time.

or basically you cant make an army of only mono taskers and expect to take out everything. i feel like suits are basicly perfect to be combat swiss army knifes but people focus them soo hard that half the army becomes useless the second some one brings out a skew list.


that and they are a bit too expensive.

Don't horde armys like gaunts outshoot us?

Do they? whats the range? what is their saves? who is going first and how do you plan on deploying to avoid getting shot off the board first turn.

I don't think anything in the game outshoots Gun Drones.

Fire Warriors are a different question.

 Talamare wrote:
I don't think anything in the game outshoots Gun Drones.

Fire Warriors are a different question.

Dont have book in hand but can gun drones get buffed from characters?

but speaking of characters (kinda) the main draw back for drones is for them to be relatively good you have to get leashed onto units that have drone controllers which often are on cheaper "units" that can be targeted rather than on characters.

(Kind of a weakness)

Really the way drones work rely on bad opponents. Yes the suit can put out damage and you know that the stones win just take the wounds. So target the drones first and then deal with the suits.

That being said a DC with manta strike crisis suits is great. Also stealthsuits with DC works well with advancing drones

 Desubot wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
I don't think anything in the game outshoots Gun Drones.

Fire Warriors are a different question.

Dont have book in hand but can gun drones get buffed from characters?

but speaking of characters (kinda) the main draw back for drones is for them to be relatively good you have to get leashed onto units that have drone controllers which often are on cheaper "units" that can be targeted rather than on characters.

(Kind of a weakness)

Drones are affected by the Cadre Fire Blade's "Volley Fire". They are affected by a commanders "Master of War" as well as Shadowsun's Command Link Drone's "Command Link" and Farsight's "Way of the Short Blade". They are affected by the Ethereal's "Failure is not an option" but not "Invocation of the Elements" as they lack either the Infantry or Battle suit Keyword. They are not affected by a pulse acceleration drone's "Pulse Accelerator" as they lack the Infantry Keyword. They are not affected by Darkstrider's "Structural Analyzer" or "Fighting Retreat" as they lack the Infantry Keyword.

I'm a bug Gun Drone fan, but I appreciate Strikers for their range. Massed 30" S5 firepower is nothing to sneeze at, and they obviously can perform very well at short range, too.

The more I mull the index, the more I'm thinking of taking Ghostkeels for a spin. they're the closest thing we have to a reasonably-costed big suit, and I can see the -2 to hit being a huge problem for most armies, assuming you can keep the Stealth Drones alive. They're kind of flimsy and underpowered for the points, but if you can keep a swarm of drones around them, you could potentially create a significant flanking force for ~500pts. A couple CIRs with ATS support will do some heavy damage if left alone for too long, and the drones will clear the chaff away with relative ease.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I just wish that we could take all the "Tau are weak now, WAAAAAH!" crap into another thread and get back to tactics discussion in this one.

I must confess that I'm starting to think like that too. Okay, we got problems and we know most of them. Until they fix it, let's try to have some fun! GW doesn't read here anyway.
However, it gets a bit unnerving when people say Tau is okay and its players should stop whining. It's not okay at all. The indexes (both Gw and FW) DO have a lot of problems that need addressing, but reapeating them here ad nauseum won't fix anything, as telling us there are no problems won't make them magically good.

In the end, I think it's easier just to scroll down such posts until you find people really trying to play and asking for tips.

I think a big problem is suits as a rule went up in points a ton and that's why people who like suits are unhappy (I think the ITC tau player may be a fan of FW spam)

The other problems are marker lights are now minor buffs not core part of the army and the shield drone nerf

Oldmike wrote:
I think a big problem is suits as a rule went up in points a ton and that's why people who like suits are unhappy (I think the ITC tau player may be a fan of FW spam)

The other problems are marker lights are now minor buffs not core part of the army and the shield drone nerf

A single markerlight makes overcharged weapons a 1/36 chance of harming the firer now, that's easy and substantial. you could make a whole list around overcharging stuff, and marker drones every time its available as an option. and broadsides are functionally relentless if you can mange 3 on a target (or just a TL). and while RR make use of it less than HYMP and HYMP isn't what it used to be for the price. If you bring a ATS on a broad side, and get 3 markerlights, you are now 8 s7 d3 damage ap -2 shots, with 8 more s5 ap-1 shots, re rolling 1s, for 58% hits, hardly terrible.

 pumaman1 wrote:

Oldmike wrote:
I think a big problem is suits as a rule went up in points a ton and that's why people who like suits are unhappy (I think the ITC tau player may be a fan of FW spam)

The other problems are marker lights are now minor buffs not core part of the army and the shield drone nerf

A single markerlight makes overcharged weapons a 1/36 chance of harming the firer now, that's easy and substantial. you could make a whole list around overcharging stuff, and marker drones every time its available as an option. and broadsides are functionally relentless if you can mange 3 on a target (or just a TL). and while RR make use of it less than HYMP and HYMP isn't what it used to be for the price. If you bring a ATS on a broad side, and get 3 markerlights, you are now 8 s7 d3 damage ap -2 shots, with 8 more s5 ap-1 shots, re rolling 1s, for 58% hits, hardly terrible.

The number of shots and accuracy or whatever... is fine
The cost is what makes it terrible... I really don't want to have to post the math hammer AGAIN
I think I've already posted it like 6 times in this thread.

To get 3ml hits needs about 6 ml hits on avg. It will cost 48 points. A target lock only costs 6 and does the same thing. The ml will then promptly be shot off the table. Even for a big suit it's only 12 for target lock.

Ml are hot garbage in 8th.

Yeah 180-200+ points for a single broadside plus the points for those marker lights means you could probably take 2 commanders and get equal or better firepower with more versatility.

 Talamare wrote:

 pumaman1 wrote:

Oldmike wrote:
I think a big problem is suits as a rule went up in points a ton and that's why people who like suits are unhappy (I think the ITC tau player may be a fan of FW spam)

The other problems are marker lights are now minor buffs not core part of the army and the shield drone nerf

A single markerlight makes overcharged weapons a 1/36 chance of harming the firer now, that's easy and substantial. you could make a whole list around overcharging stuff, and marker drones every time its available as an option. and broadsides are functionally relentless if you can mange 3 on a target (or just a TL). and while RR make use of it less than HYMP and HYMP isn't what it used to be for the price. If you bring a ATS on a broad side, and get 3 markerlights, you are now 8 s7 d3 damage ap -2 shots, with 8 more s5 ap-1 shots, re rolling 1s, for 58% hits, hardly terrible.

The number of shots and accuracy or whatever... is fine
The cost is what makes it terrible... I really don't want to have to post the math hammer AGAIN
I think I've already posted it like 6 times in this thread.

So don't post it again, that's fine. The cost is high, yup. But unless you want to bring pathfinders with ion rifles, or crisis suits with MP/CIB getting a good number of anything above s5 is costly short of the commander spam. But quite clearly s7+ is essential in cracking bigger MCs, and fusoin-commanders cracking t8 MCs. Railguns just don't have the shots to do enough damage. Mortal wounds are fun, but 4d3 average 14 wounds versus 1-6 wounds +0-3 unsavable wounds.. the math for what we need is still there, and ML can improve its potency.

Yes it's ineffecient. But unless you plan on downing everything with fusion commanders and s5 guns, make what you have work, and it works better re-rolling 1s, or allowing movement and shooting as normal. sucks you have to move before you know if you can do so w/o penalty

 pumaman1 wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 pumaman1 wrote:

Oldmike wrote:
I think a big problem is suits as a rule went up in points a ton and that's why people who like suits are unhappy (I think the ITC tau player may be a fan of FW spam)

The other problems are marker lights are now minor buffs not core part of the army and the shield drone nerf

A single markerlight makes overcharged weapons a 1/36 chance of harming the firer now, that's easy and substantial. you could make a whole list around overcharging stuff, and marker drones every time its available as an option. and broadsides are functionally relentless if you can mange 3 on a target (or just a TL). and while RR make use of it less than HYMP and HYMP isn't what it used to be for the price. If you bring a ATS on a broad side, and get 3 markerlights, you are now 8 s7 d3 damage ap -2 shots, with 8 more s5 ap-1 shots, re rolling 1s, for 58% hits, hardly terrible.

The number of shots and accuracy or whatever... is fine
The cost is what makes it terrible... I really don't want to have to post the math hammer AGAIN
I think I've already posted it like 6 times in this thread.

So don't post it again, that's fine. The cost is high, yup. But unless you want to bring pathfinders with ion rifles, or crisis suits with MP/CIB getting a good number of anything above s5 is costly short of the commander spam. But quite clearly s7+ is essential in cracking bigger MCs, and fusoin-commanders cracking t8 MCs. Railguns just don't have the shots to do enough damage. Mortal wounds are fun, but 4d3 average 14 wounds versus 1-6 wounds +0-3 unsavable wounds.. the math for what we need is still there, and ML can improve its potency.

Yes it's ineffecient. But unless you plan on downing everything with fusion commanders and s5 guns, make what you have work, and it works better re-rolling 1s, or allowing movement and shooting as normal. sucks you have to move before you know if you can do so w/o penalty

MP Crisis Suits are better than HYMP
Railsides with a DC and Missile Drones are better than HYMP

Also, both Pathfinder Special Weapons are really good. Don't feel shy about using them.

How about XV9's... I'm curious if anyone one else has tried them?

I feel solo suits supporting either 4-strong or bigger drone squads could be good!

 Desubot wrote:

Pottsey wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
The main issues I see for tau is a true horde army, like 120+ works or gants. I just don't know if we could kill enough in 5 turns to be able to fight for objs. Big flyer or Mister lists er can deal with via fusion or hammerheads. Elite infantry are dealt with by breachers or Plasms or just weight of fire.

Stealthsuits are one of the most improved units too. The -1 to hit at all times is amazing along with the toughness and extra wound from 7th. I've been running 8+ stealths so far and they never let me down

A true horde army dies to decent amount of normal shooting. and tau infantry shooting should be more than enough to deal with them. its going to come down to leaving the shiny toys at home and bringing out the basic bread and butter list. Kroot, Fire warriors, Gun drones. keep them positioned properly to not get first turn assaulted. and break them down one unit at a time.

or basically you cant make an army of only mono taskers and expect to take out everything. i feel like suits are basicly perfect to be combat swiss army knifes but people focus them soo hard that half the army becomes useless the second some one brings out a skew list.


that and they are a bit too expensive.

Don't horde armys like gaunts outshoot us?

Do they? whats the range? what is their saves? who is going first and how do you plan on deploying to avoid getting shot off the board first turn.

18” range, 3 shots per model and reroll 1’s when in a large squad. They can be made to deepstrike so go first shooting 90shots at BS 4. They can wipe out a Firewarror squad before it even gets chance to fire back. If that wasn’t bad enough for less then 300pts of Hive guard the nids can outshoot at range any 300pts of Tau Elite or hvy units. Combine the gaunts with hive guard and the nids can put enough more then enough firepower to rival if not outshoot Tau.

At 18" Range you can make a null zone that prevents the enemy from shooting the fire warriors (using cheap kroot spaced out with 9" space between the fire warriors and kroot) . or just chuck them into fish and force the enemy to target prioritize with their anti tank

if they deep strike trying to kill the fish then meh. good chance that it wont die to it, then you pop out end them with rapid fire or charge them with a fish to keep them locked for the turn.

at least thats what i can see.

What kinda guns and range do hive guard have? any good transport options or do they walk.

I just put together a Brigade list in Battlescribe so I thought I'd post it here and see what everyone says.
Brigade Detachment:
HQ:
Darkstrider
Cadre Fireblade
Commander: 3x Missile Pod, ATS, 2x Gun Drone
Troops:
10 Breachers: Guardian Drone
10 Breachers: Guardian Drone
10 Kroot Carnivores
10 Strikers: DS8 Turret w/Missile Pod
6 Strikers: DS8 Turret w/Missile Pod
6 Strikers: DS8 Turret w/Missile Pod
Elites:
Firesight Marksman
XV25 Stealth Team: 3 suits, 1x Fusion Blaster
XV8 Crisis Team: 3 suits, each has 2x Plasma Rifle and Multi-tracker, 1x Gun Drone
Fast Attack:
10 Pathfinders: 3x Rail Rifle, Pulse Accelerator Drone
Tactical Drones: 4 Gun Drones
5 Vespid Stingwings
Heavy Support:
3 Sniper Drones
1 Broadside with HRR, 2x SMS and Target Lock
1 Broadside with HRR, 2x SMS and Target Lock
Dedicated Transport:
Devilfish
Devilfish
2000 points on the nose
I'd probably start the Commander, Crisis suits and Vespids in reserves. Commander would drop in on turn 1 to do stuff, while the others would wait until the opponent moved some stuff up or lost stuff to my shooting to drop in and perhaps gank a character or two behind the lines. Even if they can't it'll force the opponent to play honest and watch their backfield instead of just putting the characters at the back. The Railsides could move around and shoot with impunity since Target Lock removes the penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons. The Breachers would ride in the Devilfish and probably provide the most mobile element of the army, grabbing objectives or the Relic. The other infantry will cluster around the Fireblade and use his ability to put out a large amount of shots, at longer range thanks to the Pathfinders' Pulse Accelerator Drone. The Firesight Marksman and Sniper drones are a tax to get the Brigade detachment. 78 points is worth it to get a total of 12 CP. My biggest concern with this list is the relative lack of heavy firepower. I'm not sure I'll be ready for a mechanized Guard list or something. Thoughts?

 ZergSmasher wrote:
My biggest concern with this list is the relative lack of heavy firepower. I'm not sure I'll be ready for a mechanized Guard list or something. Thoughts?

Therein is the difficult part of new tau. Heavy firepower is either an additional HQ detachment for more spam-manders, or cost inefficient options. As i think it makes a more enjoyable game for both parties, I encourage you to pursue non-commander options. But lack of las cannon on any vehicle spam does make us comparatively weak versus mech guard

Sniper drones are so terrible they have problems killing even human HQ's let alone anything bigger. Total waste of points.

 Gamgee wrote:
Sniper drones are so terrible they have problems killing even human HQ's let alone anything bigger. Total waste of points.

Well if they are firing on their own yes. But the buff from a drone controller and the marksmen make them hit on a 3+, the marksmen can still try to marker light the target thus re-rolling 1's, in reality the hit to wounding is pretty good. The problem is the standard vs. mortal wound's. I personally like the snipers and will continue to use them now that they are not bogged down by their marksmen.

Ishotfirst wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Sniper drones are so terrible they have problems killing even human HQ's let alone anything bigger. Total waste of points.

Well if they are firing on their own yes. But the buff from a drone controller and the marksmen make them hit on a 3+, the marksmen can still try to marker light the target thus re-rolling 1's, in reality the hit to wounding is pretty good. The problem is the standard vs. mortal wound's. I personally like the snipers and will continue to use them now that they are not bogged down by their marksmen.

The problem with Sniper Drones isn't their shooting ability (even if I still cannot fathom why that of all things got nerfed), the problem is the weapon they're using. 48" S5 AP0 D1 rapid fire 1 just is not a good sniper weapon. No AP on basic shots, no chance of doing something special on to wound rolls of 6 (mortal wounds or AP -4 or what have you), they basically just took a regular pulse rifle, added 18" to it, threw it on a drone and said "here's your sniper!". I wouldn't care if Sniper Drones were BS 2+ rerollable base, I still wouldn't take them because their gun is just a slightly longer range version of our base gun. The job of snipers (to kill enemy characters) is better handled by infiltrating Stealth Teams/Ghostkeels or Manta Striking Crisis Suits or Commanders, as they have the weaponry to actual do some damage to characters and HQs. And all that is of course ignoring the fact that we have to waste 2 slots in a detachment in order to even make them borderline usable. Sniper Drones are worthless without a Firesight Marksman, meaning that you have to use up both a Heavy Support slot and an Elite slot just to make our snipers work, and as I already said, their guns are laughably pathetic, especially compared to the sniper options other armies can field.

As much as I like the idea of Sniper Drones (hell I used to run them fairly often back in 6th and early 7th), leave them at home for now, they aren't worth bringing.

 Desubot wrote:
At 18" Range you can make a null zone that prevents the enemy from shooting the fire warriors (using cheap kroot spaced out with 9" space between the fire warriors and kroot) . or just chuck them into fish and force the enemy to target prioritize with their anti tank

if they deep strike trying to kill the fish then meh. good chance that it wont die to it, then you pop out end them with rapid fire or charge them with a fish to keep them locked for the turn.

at least thats what i can see.

What kinda guns and range do hive guard have? any good transport options or do they walk.

They don’t need transports. 2 shots each, hit on 3+, S8, 36” so can hit over 80% of a typical board. -2AP and D3 damage and they can also shoot out of line of site so can hide behind a building along with ignore cover. So that’s 12 shots for 288pts better accuracy and better damage then Tau and unless I missed something they can out damage any of our long range Elites or heavy’s in the 300pts range.

The null zone against the gants isn’t very effective as the gunts tend to appear with a Trygon Prime monstrous creature or the other nasty options. Still not sure on the best way to counter, guard, gants and Trygon's. That's a lot of shooting power.

It’s not all doom and gloom Tau do have great Stealth, HQ and fast attack but I am finding our Elites and Hvy are getting out shot by close combat army’s.

What I find interesting about snipers is this from the Tau preview at GW. “Lastly, I want to talk about Sniper Drones. When paired with the T’au HQ’s such as the Cadre Fireblade they will bring down those pesky support characters with deadly efficiency even if they are hiding behind their infantry. The 48″ range on their Sniper weapons, plus their fast movement, means they will be filling those characters with lead (or plasma?) a lot faster than snipers from other factions.”

Yet in the codex Fireblade doesn’t work and they are useless for killing pesky support characters.