Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

xmbk wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Fusion commanders dont need them and Fusion Commanders do nowhere near the damage.

I'm guessing you mean "per model". If you mean per point, I just don't see how a Stormsurge is more efficient for taking out that enemy unit that has to be taken out immediately.

Well lets start with the premise. Every platform has a timer. That timer is its wounds. The Commander has a much shorter timer with which to actually dish damage. His output is excellent and no one denies that (well...they shouldn't deny it?) but he is going to have to be close and he is going to probably be in harms way when he unleashes his particular fussilade, making his timer pretty relevant.

That Fusion Commander is gonna do work on the round he pops. This goes without saying.

That also goes without saying for the Stormsurge.

So we can get into assumptions on this or that but the basic thing here is, both do a boat load of work all at one time and should successfully end the threat they were aiming at if they unload completely.

The Commander just won't have as long to do it again. And I find that to be pretty important information. I cannot foresee every permutation, but the essential fact is, he simply cannot take it like the Stormsurge can. He also cannot deal that damage AND deal damage to lesser targets like the Stormsurge can. He's probably deep Striking in with a drone screen in order to get him a second shot. I think that's a good idea for a short range character who wants to stay alive. It may even work but its an expensive excessory (since to be fair you need a good sized drone curtain in order to ensure he stays safe as possible).

I have zero problem with the Fusion commander. I already said this pretty clearly. But guys like MilkmanAI want one solution to be the only solution so (presumably) they can look like a genius for figuring out what might be the most obvious thing in 40K.

What I have cautioned people about is simply accepting the falsehood that because one thing is very good, its the "only" thing to do. It's absurd.

I'm all for fielding a variety of lists. I look forward to GW continuing to tweak 8th so that there will be more variety to competitive lists. Stormsurge is not terrible, but Fusion Commanders kind of stand out right now. They are more effective big model killers, and I've found them to be more survivable than they look at first glance. If somebody wants them dead, they're dead (welcome to 8th). But it's usually not an efficient use of resources.

I field two to stay competitive, but consider it being nice.

 Jancoran wrote:

xmbk wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Fusion commanders...nowhere near the damage.

I just don't see how a Stormsurge is more efficient.

Well lets start with the premise. Every platform has a timer. That timer is its wounds. The Commander has a much shorter timer with which to actually dish damage.

But the commander is a character and can be protected by drones.

This is what frustrates me Jancoran, the lack of talking up both sides. The commander also has direct access to drones and is protected by all drones, which can make him pretty damned resilient.

The StormSurge, on T1, will do very very little amounts of work because you need;
- Markerlights (likely 10+) to be in range of a single target
- To be within 20" (you seem to favour the shotgun in your comparisons, so we'll go with that)
- Not moving, to get the +1 innate
- Being a massive target, unable to hide focus for the enemy army, meaning it can easily get reduced down to BS5+

 Jancoran wrote:
hitting with it almost assuredly without fail (yes it happens...of course).

Requires hitting with markerlights, so your 2+ re-rollable is actually a number (1 or 10 etc) of 4+ to-hit rolls followed by the 2+ re-rollable.

Fusion commanders are great. Triple ATS Ion commanders are great. Mixing in both with lots of extra drones (admittedly, it comes down the downside of first blood... but you can choose to drop after winning First Blood - perhaps!) is fantastic.

I also think the Havoc suits to be amazing for the same reason solo-suits in 7ed were good. Allowed you to field a decent amount of concentrated firepower. The 4 drone contingent is the icing on the cake and I would pick that over the ATS because the DC can impact every drone on the table and provides flexibility whilst the ATS simply adds to damaged on the burst-cannons. 32 Str5 shots hitting on 4's, for 130pts is, I think, one of the most cost efficient sources of Str4 firepower around (ignoring pure gun drones, of course!).

I'm also a champion for mobile markerlights, I think marker drones are very good when paired with a drone controller and the rifle-varient havoc fits really well with MLD's.

The argument I use for not liking the stormsurge is that it's not hard to kill. If you give it an invul save for 40 pts it helps a ton, but it's still like 20 wounds with T7 and 3+. It's basically like killing 2 rhinos with an invul save. It's saving grace is that the pulse cannon thing is about the only good gun on it. The cluster rockets, eh who cares, a squad of fire warriors with a fireblade does the same thing without the risk of rolling terribly for number of shots. The destroyer missiles aren't terrible, but I don't think they're good enough for the cost of the unit. It's just not enough firepower for its point cost and relative fragility.

The biggest thing that ruins the storm surge is that it's not a battlesuit. You can't use drones as ablative wounds for it. Granted, it might be too unkillable if it could.


On Markerlights: I love markers, but there's too much disparity between the number of hits and what they do. For most units you need either 1 hit, or 5, and anything in between is a waste. But 5 markerlight hits on something big really helps Fire Warriors make the most out of their cheap, massed S5 shooting.

xmbk wrote:
I'm all for fielding a variety of lists. I look forward to GW continuing to tweak 8th so that there will be more variety to competitive lists. Stormsurge is not terrible, but Fusion Commanders kind of stand out right now. They are more effective big model killers, and I've found them to be more survivable than they look at first glance. If somebody wants them dead, they're dead (welcome to 8th). But it's usually not an efficient use of resources.

I field two to stay competitive, but consider it being nice.

I field noFusion Commanders... and I'm competitive. if I fielded two, i would...also be competitive. And that's really my point. The Fusion Commander is awesome sauce, but we have to avoid, as Tau Generals, getting the tunnel vision that seems popular on the forums. We have to consider all kinds of solutions and I LOVE that 8th Edition really does allow you to compete hard without the so called "sure things".

I use Kroot Hounds. No one i know uses them and I've never seen them fielded other than on my own boards before. they are hidden gems at their jobs though. they linebreak, they do it cheaply and they do it quickly. They can actually DO damage, albeit, don't count on them being maulers. and of course the Hounds are excellent for tying something up and can use the Insane Bravery Strategem to good effect (they tend to like to explode if you don't when they take on a couple units at a time, but you only need them to hold for one round anyways). Just an example.

The Stormsurge is there because of several very specific things that you ABSOLUTELY must be able to deal with ...because if you dont you'll be playing for second place a lot. 2nd place is highly respectable (top 8 in fact is good when its a field of 32 after all), but it's not why you're there. The ONE THING you just can't handle dooms you.

Alpha Legion is a pretty hard counter to the Commander. if theres enough buffers around its most likely target. So is not having a very good target for the Fusionmander, as when conscripts and superheavies kind of get together (and they are winning BIG TIME events right now).

No. I think I will definitely continue to advocate that the variety in 8th Edition is excellent and the Stormsurge is not as good as it once was but it still holds the same vital role.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

cmspano wrote:

On Markerlights: I love markers, but there's too much disparity between the number of hits and what they do. For most units you need either 1 hit, or 5, and anything in between is a waste. But 5 markerlight hits on something big really helps Fire Warriors make the most out of their cheap, massed S5 shooting.

My force has 28 markerlights. I regularly get 2 targets "5'd". And when i do, erasure protocols engage. It's pretty cool. The targets are usually high value and can threaten my big boy, so we wallop them first.

Conventional wisdom has it that if you shut down the markerlights, you can shut the Tau down. Obviously, I benefit from this maxim when they try, like i said, because 4 are characters, 10 are tougher Drones, and 14 are hidden in Gunrigs. So It's kind of a chore to try. And when they try, it SEEMS to take a lot more resources than the enemy would prefer that it did. If they fail ( I can only think of one game where they killed enough markerlights to the point I was like "well...poop"), they have not accomplished anything other than angering the T'au Empire. =)

I probably wouldn't recommend taking 28 Markerlights in a lot of armies. It happens to work really well in mine because I would have already taken the Pathfinders anyways so all I'm really doing in their cae is paying a few extra points to add the versdatility to a unit i would have taken without the Markerlights. That isn't the case in all lists obviously so the need will vary.

unless i missed something, markerlights benefit from markerlights.
I tend to use my Cadre to start the stacking, since he hits on 2s. That lets the rest reroll 1s and get the 5stack easier.

Jancoran wrote:


I use Kroot Hounds. No one i know uses them and I've never seen them fielded other than on my own boards before. they are hidden gems at their jobs though. they linebreak, they do it cheaply and they do it quickly. They can actually DO damage, albeit, don't count on them being maulers. and of course the Hounds are excellent for tying something up and can use the Insane Bravery Strategem to good effect (they tend to like to explode if you don't when they take on a couple units at a time, but you only need them to hold for one round anyways). Just an example.

Get off your high hound! You're not the only one. I field 16 of them.

 Haechi wrote:

Jancoran wrote:


I use Kroot Hounds. No one i know uses them and I've never seen them fielded other than on my own boards before. they are hidden gems at their jobs though. they linebreak, they do it cheaply and they do it quickly. They can actually DO damage, albeit, don't count on them being maulers. and of course the Hounds are excellent for tying something up and can use the Insane Bravery Strategem to good effect (they tend to like to explode if you don't when they take on a couple units at a time, but you only need them to hold for one round anyways). Just an example.

Get off your high hound! You're not the only one. I field 16 of them.

This pleases me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
unless i missed something, markerlights benefit from markerlights.
I tend to use my Cadre to start the stacking, since he hits on 2s. That lets the rest reroll 1s and get the 5stack easier.

yup

 Vineheart01 wrote:
unless i missed something, markerlights benefit from markerlights.
I tend to use my Cadre to start the stacking, since he hits on 2s. That lets the rest reroll 1s and get the 5stack easier.

Shooting attacks are made one at a time per model basis. So for example, your five pathfinders in a squad shoot lights at enemy unit you can (and should) roll one at a time. When the first one hits the rest benefit as the markerlight effect takes place immediately.

I'm going to play around with multi-wound denial and Tau infantry, just to see what can be done. It's similar to some of the AM tourney lists that focus on points efficient single wound models. If you take just infantry and characters the opponent loses most of the efficiency out of his heavy weapons, and a lot of his special weapons. This kind of list also tends to be model heavy, and so does a nice job denying Alpha strike in a lot of it's forms.

The real question is can great masses of S5 guns backed by Fusion Commanders do enough wounds to big targets?

The broad strokes look like this (at 2000pts):

Aun'Va
3 Fusion Commanders w drone controllers
2 Fireblades

2 Ghostkeels with BCs, Rakers, ATS, and drone controllers
4 x 12 man Strike Teams
2x 10 Kroot Warriors
3 x 10 Pathfinders w 3 Ion rifle, MLs, and PA drones
3 x 8 Gun drones
2 x 8 Kroot Hounds

If I went whole hog the GKs don't fit, but they're -2 TH so I can use the cool models ands tell myself they're a good distraction. Plus they'll be fronted by lots o' drones.

The Kroot stuff does area denial and line breaking, while the drones and suits work flanks and the gunline shoots a lot buffed by fireblades and pulse drones.

Thoughts? As a general build idea? I feel like it could be optimized more....

Multi wound denial is the concept behind my list on the previous page. It's pretty solid. Surprisingly, it has dogs. . I think their best use is blocking charges.

I feel like there needs to a few more guns that can deal with shizz like 5 AC Razors, or other spammed T7 3+ W shenanigans. Your list seems to have the same lack, but also has more S5 shooting. How do you do against T7 spam?

 Fenris-77 wrote:
I'm going to play around with multi-wound denial and Tau infantry, just to see what can be done. It's similar to some of the AM tourney lists that focus on points efficient single wound models. If you take just infantry and characters the opponent loses most of the efficiency out of his heavy weapons, and a lot of his special weapons. This kind of list also tends to be model heavy, and so does a nice job denying Alpha strike in a lot of it's forms.

The real question is can great masses of S5 guns backed by Fusion Commanders do enough wounds to big targets?

The broad strokes look like this (at 2000pts):

Aun'Va
3 Fusion Commanders w drone controllers
2 Fireblades

2 Ghostkeels with BCs, Rakers, ATS, and drone controllers
4 x 12 man Strike Teams
2x 10 Kroot Warriors
3 x 10 Pathfinders w 3 Ion rifle, MLs, and PA drones
3 x 8 Gun drones
2 x 8 Kroot Hounds

If I went whole hog the GKs don't fit, but they're -2 TH so I can use the cool models ands tell myself they're a good distraction. Plus they'll be fronted by lots o' drones.

The Kroot stuff does area denial and line breaking, while the drones and suits work flanks and the gunline shoots a lot buffed by fireblades and pulse drones.

Thoughts? As a general build idea? I feel like it could be optimized more....

Sems solid. I'm a little surprised that i keep seeing Ion Rifles used in Tau forces.

It's a nice upgrade for the points IMO - it's no plasma gun, but what is?. The Rail option is just too pricey for my tastes. In a list like mine I'm happy just to have some higher S shots to help put some wounds on T 7 stuff, plus there's so much rerolling of 1's in the list that overcharging should be fine most turns if necessary. I'm considering missile pods for the Strikes for the same reason.

 Fenris-77 wrote:
I feel like there needs to a few more guns that can deal with shizz like 5 AC Razors, or other spammed T7 3+ W shenanigans. Your list seems to have the same lack, but also has more S5 shooting. How do you do against T7 spam?

Haven't faced anything I can't outshoot yet, largely because most lists are overpaying for big guns that don't earn their keep. Not hard for this list to remove 4 Razors in a turn, even after taking a turn of shooting. Fusion and Vespids drop, so they will always get a nasty turn of shooting, and they are the only thing close to juicy targets. So far, attrition has favored me. It's really Kill Points that are a problem, but on the flip side it excels at objective claiming.

Hey guys. New to Tau here. Is there a consolidated list of tiers for units or a compilation of the overall Tau status somewhere or I better start reading from the first page of the thread?

Here's a good place to start: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/733114.page#9528814

I agree with most of what is stated in the first post of that thread, and tournament lists have echoed the same sentiments, even though we can't really compete with the current most successful lists from other armies.

arhurt wrote:
Hey guys. New to Tau here. Is there a consolidated list of tiers for units or a compilation of the overall Tau status somewhere or I better start reading from the first page of the thread?

It would take you a while to read everything so here's a rushed overview:

Best stuff -

-Commanders (Quadruple Fusion Blaster or quadruple Missile Pods in general)
-Shadowsun
-Stealths
-Pathfinders
-Shield Drones/Gun Drones/Marker Drones
-Vespids

Good stuff-

-Ghostkeels
-Strike and Breacher teams
-Piranhas
-Crisis

Useful stuff -

-Firesight Marksmen
-Cadre Fireblades
-Ethereals
-Kroot Hounds and Carnivores
-All Drones again

Good on paper but not worth its price stuff-

-Riptides
-Stormsurge
-Broadsides
-Hammerheads and arguably Longstrike
-Devilfish

Trash stuff-

-Razorshark/Sunshark
-Skyrays
-Arguably Sniper Drones


Of course everything is always up for debate but that's the general feeling you'll find through those 50 pages.

Hey everybody. I'm helping a friend get started with Tau, but I haven't used tau since 5th edition. What is the best load-out for fire warriors?

Thanks guys, I'll dig in the links and info you provided and get back with my findings/questions.

Haechi wrote:
Best stuff -
-Commanders (quadruple Missile Pods in general) (1)

Good stuff-
-Piranhas (2)

-Crisis (3)


Trash stuff-
Sunshark (4)

Disagree with these parts.
(1) Cyclic Ion Blaster works better than Missile Pod, costing almost 2/3 of the latter. All Missile Pods have over Cyclic Ion Blasters is range; with pinpoint deeps trike from today, this is moot.
(2) I've tested Piranhas and they aren't really good. Either you use them in units of 1-2 models or be sure to have turn 1 and then unleash the seekers. And yet, in big groups, they're very susceptible to morale.
(3) Flamer crisis are indeed good. The other weapon choices - Commanders do better.
(4) Sunshark isn't trash - it's situational. Against the likes of Orks, Astra Militarum and Tyranids, Sunsharks shine. Versus Imperial Knights or multi-wound models, it isn't that good. All depends on the local meta.

CplPunishment wrote:Hey everybody. I'm helping a friend get started with Tau, but I haven't used tau since 5th edition. What is the best load-out for fire warriors?

Pulse Rifles. With the advent of the Breachers' weapons, there's no much point in using Pulse Carbines for Firewarriors

 Vector Strike wrote:

CplPunishment wrote:Hey everybody. I'm helping a friend get started with Tau, but I haven't used tau since 5th edition. What is the best load-out for fire warriors?

Pulse Rifles. With the advent of the Breachers' weapons, there's no much point in using Pulse Carbines for Firewarriors

Thanks for the input, but what are breachers and what do they do? My understanding is that the new firewarrior sprues come with this new gun. I got a nice unused sprue of fire warriors in the 7th ed kill team SM vs Tau box. I want to donate 6 so he can start with a minimum squad. Am I wrong that you can't go wrong with Pulse Rifles? I might just donate all 12 so he can have 6 Rifles and 6 breachers. What are your thoughts?

arhurt wrote:
Hey guys. New to Tau here. Is there a consolidated list of tiers for units or a compilation of the overall Tau status somewhere or I better start reading from the first page of the thread?

Avoid that thinking. The most important thing is HOW you plan to win. the units you use dont define that. It defines them. In my opinion. =)

You need reliable Line Breakers. You need reliable First Blood. You need reliable ways to kill Warlords. You need reliable ways to control objectives when the time comes (which means mobility). And then you need to kill things (last on the list although it usually gets first billing).

Figure out HOW you want to win and then figure out the units. If all you do is take some super powerful stuff and hope you get first turn...well... I mean... it works sometimes, but...

So, it sounds like Tau have changed quite a bit. the last time I played with them, their squads were 6-12 soldiers strong. Now it seems they've taken the Imperium's preference for increments of 5. I haven't looked inside the xenos index, but can you tell me if this is true? Can't help but wonder why this changed.

 CplPunishment wrote:
So, it sounds like Tau have changed quite a bit. the last time I played with them, their squads were 6-12 soldiers strong. Now it seems they've taken the Imperium's preference for increments of 5. I haven't looked inside the xenos index, but can you tell me if this is true? Can't help but wonder why this changed.

Because the box went to 10 figures.

...

D'oh.

 CplPunishment wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

CplPunishment wrote:Hey everybody. I'm helping a friend get started with Tau, but I haven't used tau since 5th edition. What is the best load-out for fire warriors?

Pulse Rifles. With the advent of the Breachers' weapons, there's no much point in using Pulse Carbines for Firewarriors

Thanks for the input, but what are breachers and what do they do? My understanding is that the new firewarrior sprues come with this new gun. I got a nice unused sprue of fire warriors in the 7th ed kill team SM vs Tau box. I want to donate 6 so he can start with a minimum squad. Am I wrong that you can't go wrong with Pulse Rifles? I might just donate all 12 so he can have 6 Rifles and 6 breachers. What are your thoughts?

Breachers are a close-range variant for Firewarriors (the old Firewarriors you knew are now called Strikers). Breachers have a gun that gets better as you get closer to the enemy. From 15" (the max range) it's pretty meh, but at 5" or less, it is pretty powerful.

Breachers go well inside Devilfishes

 Vector Strike wrote:

 CplPunishment wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

CplPunishment wrote:Hey everybody. I'm helping a friend get started with Tau, but I haven't used tau since 5th edition. What is the best load-out for fire warriors?

Pulse Rifles. With the advent of the Breachers' weapons, there's no much point in using Pulse Carbines for Firewarriors

Thanks for the input, but what are breachers and what do they do? My understanding is that the new firewarrior sprues come with this new gun. I got a nice unused sprue of fire warriors in the 7th ed kill team SM vs Tau box. I want to donate 6 so he can start with a minimum squad. Am I wrong that you can't go wrong with Pulse Rifles? I might just donate all 12 so he can have 6 Rifles and 6 breachers. What are your thoughts?

Breachers are a close-range variant for Firewarriors (the old Firewarriors you knew are now called Strikers). Breachers have a gun that gets better as you get closer to the enemy. From 15" (the max range) it's pretty meh, but at 5" or less, it is pretty powerful.

Breachers go well inside Devilfishes

What is the strength of a breacher? It sounds like they need a devilfish to be effective, so I might suggest he sticks with rifles for now.

The Strength of the Breacher is literally that. S6 guns.

Thing about breachers is the invul is a trap. Even if you get it, its just a 5++ and its the easiest ability to pick off since its not a character and its not attached to the unit.
Theyre better off not even taking it and just putting the points elsewhere. Even with the invul they tend to just die after they come out of a fish anyway, either from charges or return fire just eating through it. Causing 10 damage to T3 models with a 5++ isnt that tough to do.
If they can get the whole unit within 5" of something its probably going to be shredded though. So in a sense they can be considered a unit deleter...that costs an arm and a leg to do it and gives your enemy about 2 turns to pop the devilfish before it does anything.
i'm glad i only bought 1 unit of them. I dont see myself using them anymore

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Thing about breachers is the invul is a trap. Even if you get it, its just a 5++ and its the easiest ability to pick off since its not a character and its not attached to the unit.
Theyre better off not even taking it and just putting the points elsewhere. Even with the invul they tend to just die after they come out of a fish anyway, either from charges or return fire just eating through it. Causing 10 damage to T3 models with a 5++ isnt that tough to do.
If they can get the whole unit within 5" of something its probably going to be shredded though. So in a sense they can be considered a unit deleter...that costs an arm and a leg to do it and gives your enemy about 2 turns to pop the devilfish before it does anything.
i'm glad i only bought 1 unit of them. I dont see myself using them anymore

Breachers arent used as just one unit. If you are going to go with breachers, you have to have multiple units.