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Rough idea moving forward.

T'au Brigade + [Sept of preference] Battalion

Fireblade
Darkstrider
Ethereal

6x10 Firewarriors (Markerlight on sgt to taste)

3x Marksmen

3x4 Kroot Hounds (Size to taste)

3x3 Sniper Drones

The marksmen+drones are cheap, and with +1 to wound the drones become -passable- character snipers for things like slamguinius or custodes captains. Nothing amazing, but, at 2 shots a head, hitting on as good as 2, but most likely 4s (Depending on uplink, drone controllers, markerlights, etc.) and getting a +1 to wound, they'll cause you should get a mortal wound per unit with the 3cp T'au strat up (6 shots, 3 hit, 1 MW), if not better (Hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, you should get 6 hits, and 2 MW).

The real meat of this brigade though, is the onion of death. Throw the 3 characters in the middle, and wrap fire warriors around them in concentric circles, spacing appropriate to enemy assault threats (Jump enemies need less than 1" between layers, hordes need you to be super packed in tight so they can't isolate models, etc.). Now, if someone assaults any part of your onion, you can throw the character markerlights to start. Hopefully you get 1 of the 2, with a 5+, it's not terrible odds. Regardless, you now have 180 (Less casualties, or any models you elect to use photon grenades/sgt markerlights) pulse shots of overwatch (3 shots because of fireblade). Even estimating 120 shots, you should have 40 hits, against marines 26 wounds, so 8-9 dead marines. Whatever still gets in will probably kill most of a fire warrior unit. Even still, with LD9 from Ethereal, a fire warrior unit that lost even 7 members will only be wiped on a 5, because 6 is autopass. You may also have a 6+++ from the ethereal, to help mitigate losses. But, assuming you do lose a full unit (Which is totally possible), they can consolidate into the next unit. Maybe activate a 3cp stratagem to swing again, and do the same. Your turn, you have now lost 140 pts of firewarriors or less to assault. You can fall back out of combat and fire at full because of darkstrider.

The best part is the onion itself is less than 600 pts. Any shooting dedicated to weakening it is not focused on the other 2/3 of your army. If they aren't targetting it, you still have 8 markerlights and/or up to 61 pulse rifles (+1 carbine), which triple tap in short range. So just keep moving them upfield and sit their big ass on an objective to make your opponent cry.

The total cost of the whole brigade is 852 pts, with 6 markerlights for the sgts.

Personally, I'm leaning towards a Borkan Brigade to go with it.

Put a missile commander in the T'au and the ethereal in the Borkan (Assuming 1 commander per detachment), as Ethereal buffs are not based on sept (Unless that changes, obv). Missile commander can hang out in the onion and do his job, while adding a bit more kick to the overwatch.

Borkan then has the usual fusion commander, to do fusion commander things.

3x10 kroot, for doing kroot things.

Then maybe rail/plasma broadsides, ghostkeel or two, etc. Lots of points left over to work with.

Depending on what other stratagems/relics come out, could easily go with something other than Borkan as well. Just seems like the best current candidate for fire support.

I'm somewhat inclined to go pure Borkan Fire warrior spam. S5 has you wounding anything on at least 5s, so you're a threat to any target. That composition is far from optimal, but it's probably pretty tough to crack for all the reasons you mentioned. Better yet, all your opponent's multi-damage weapons would be wasted as you fill the board with 250 Tau bodies, 240 of which dump out 3 S5 shots within 18". Vehicle and flyer spam would be bad news for you, though.

MilkmanAl wrote:
I'm somewhat inclined to go pure Borkan Fire warrior spam. S5 has you wounding anything on at least 5s, so you're a threat to any target. That composition is far from optimal, but it's probably pretty tough to crack for all the reasons you mentioned. Better yet, all your opponent's multi-damage weapons would be wasted as you fill the board with 250 Tau bodies, 240 of which dump out 3 S5 shots within 18". Vehicle and flyer spam would be bad news for you, though.

Why? I can't fit appropriate AT into the other 1000-1200 pts of the list? Also, fire warriors in triple tap range average 42points per wound vs T7/3+... that's comparable to most dedicated AT platforms.

I'm on the borkan brigade boat,

6 fw,
Ethereal, fireplace commander
3x pathfinders
3x missile broadsides
Prop 3x stealth or ghostkeels

Than battalions or 1cp detachments

Our relics seems really strong, you probably want 2+

Coldstars with fusion will be amazing, even if only 2.

Lots of people are complaining about the codex so far but I believe we'll be in the top bracket.

The only thing that will really piss me of if homing beacons are really changed, otherwise codex seems good. Burst tide will also be great imo

 pumaman1 wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

Kdash wrote:
So, the question is... Is a Riptide, with HBC, SMS, Target Lock and ATS worth the rumoured 309 points?

It probably is, I think. It's got decent firepower for its price, though arguably not great durability.

The Ion accelerator option is also pretty interesting. It doesn't really need an ATS, which allows for other options in that support slot. I think you probably want SMS with the HBC and something else - probably fusion - with the IA.

The cost is still very high. It remains to be seen whether they are worth it.

190 points for 4 lascannon shots at 3+, t7 s+ 11 W, 285 for 3 w more 1 better armor, worse bs base, for statistically still less damage (3.5 shots still at bs 3,) s8 , or 3.5 shots at same str 3 set damage, but each 1 is another mortal wound, or nova 1 guaranteed wound for heavy 6 s8 d3 damage ( so 12 potential damage) or still mortal wound for each 1 rolled 6 shots of s9 set 3 dmage..

its damage potential is slightly more consistent, but its max is lower, harder to 50% obscure, will hurt itself rather often, and chew through cp if using that strategem. i'd say 100 riptides vs ~120 quad-las preds, las preds will take the victory
and real talk for points it would be closer to 135 las preds vs 100 riptides

In play I think you’ll find different results. I’d put fusion on an IA tide and advance it towards the predators, using its shield to get a 3++. The fusion blasters make sense as the SMS is pretty weak without the ATS.

The fly keyword makes a vast difference for shooty units, because they can’t be locked. Instead, they can lock enemies like predators down in cc.

Predators are pretty good in a straight firefight, but less so on a board with objectives, terrain and so on. They aren’t at all flexible, while riptides are extremely flexible.

It may well be the case that the HBC version is better. I don’t think it is against hard targets though. The IA wounds tanks twice as easily, for 50% more damage - which would make the two guns do exactly the same average damage - but then the IA has better ap. but then on the other hand it does cost more, it’s more specialised in what it can target and it hurts itself.

Looking at that, to be honest I think I prefer the HBC tide. The IA version is viable I think, but I’m not convinced that it’s enough better at killing tanks compared to the HBC to make up for its cost and hurting itself. That other support system it can take might make up some of the difference but I’m not sure. A velocity tracker might well be a strong option, since it’ll be very helpful against Eldar stuff and often remove the risk of overcharging.

Another consideration is if there’s something else that does the IA tide’s job better than it does. Coldstar commanders with 4 fusion blasters would be pretty compelling, for example - all the more so if you could give one of them fusion blades.

So let’s see. I think it’s too soon to write off the IA tide, but there is certainly a case building against them.

As someone who played Tau since 4th edition, reading this line on the Warhammer Community Bork'an article made me cry:

For many, the Riptide Battlesuit is the iconic T’au Empire unit...

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
As someone who played Tau since 4th edition, reading this line on the Warhammer Community Bork'an article made me cry:

For many, the Riptide Battlesuit is the iconic T’au Empire unit...

"I was there, Gandalf. 3000 years ago. I was there the day skimmers were nerfed. I was there the day the strength of Fish of Fury failed."

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
As someone who played Tau since 4th edition, reading this line on the Warhammer Community Bork'an article made me cry:

For many, the Riptide Battlesuit is the iconic T’au Empire unit...

"I was there, Gandalf. 3000 years ago. I was there the day skimmers were nerfed. I was there the day the strength of Fish of Fury failed."

Ahh 4th edition. I remember being on the top row at the UKGT with nothing but Ulthwe and Iron Warriors as far as the eye could see. I’d built a list that countered that meta pretty well - not actually featuring any fish. It was easier than facing rhino rush in 3rd.

To be fair, riptide wings were a common sight in 7th. Lots of people probably do see them as an iconic Tau unit. I’m willing to bet the model has been out for more years than we’d like to think.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
I'm somewhat inclined to go pure Borkan Fire warrior spam. S5 has you wounding anything on at least 5s, so you're a threat to any target. That composition is far from optimal, but it's probably pretty tough to crack for all the reasons you mentioned. Better yet, all your opponent's multi-damage weapons would be wasted as you fill the board with 250 Tau bodies, 240 of which dump out 3 S5 shots within 18". Vehicle and flyer spam would be bad news for you, though.

Why? I can't fit appropriate AT into the other 1000-1200 pts of the list? Also, fire warriors in triple tap range average 42points per wound vs T7/3+... that's comparable to most dedicated AT platforms.

Please don't misunderstand; I think Fire Warrior spam is going to be a strong option for us. I just meant the balls-to-the wall Fire Warrior approach with literally 250 of them on the board plus some support elements might be a little sub-optimal against lists like DA flyer spam or the wall of Plagueburst Crawlers that showed up to LVO. You need 27 shots just to take 1 wound off a PBC, so if there are 10 of them, that's bad news bears. Anything short of that, though, is probably going to have a tough time dealing with that volume of shots. Even eldar stacked -hit will fold once your horde works it's way within 12", and you could even go so far as to deep strike in some drones for early harrassing, assuming the rumor that they can DS pans out.

Now all I have to decide is how motivated I am to buy and assemble another 100 FW :p

I think that Tau Sept might be equally good for spamming Fire Warriors. If you think of 240 dudes in tight-ish layered groups of 60. The overwatch each group puts out hitting on a 5+ is pretty sick (60 hits w/in 18" with a Pulse Drone). That will evaporate a unit of 25 Bloodletters or 13 MEQs before they even swing. That's pretty good defense against getting whacked in HtH. There are some hard counters and you need to worry about sacrifice charges, but I think it's got potential.

That list built with either Sept throws 720 S5 shots with good range. That's a lot of dakka gentlemen. (That's 26 wounds put on PBCs for everyone following along at home). Add in Darkstrider and the +1 wound stratagem and you're rolling.

You can do a lot with high volumes of shots, but you can't really take out tough vehicles with lots of saves and good wounds. AP makes a massive difference.

I think the best way to fill out the troops choices for a brigade might actually be 6x5 breachers in 3 devilfish. They'd have the durability to survive an alpha strike and could hit back very hard - while also being able to advance towards stuff.

If you actually were going for a huge number of fire warriors then I think the trait to be in cover unless you moved might be the best option.

Seeing a rumor on ATT that coldstars can now take up to 4 weapons (no cib though). Does this mitigate the commander restrictions? Having 3-4 fusion blasters that can move 40" a turn sounds amazing to me.

 FirePainter wrote:
Seeing a rumor on ATT that coldstars can now take up to 4 weapons (no cib though). Does this mitigate the commander restrictions? Having 3-4 fusion blasters that can move 40" a turn sounds amazing to me.

If true, that's a game-changer. Even at 1 per detachment, you can have 3 of those guys and a couple Y'Vahras hopping around amidst a drone swarm nuking hard targets at will. With 3 Commanders, and 2 Y'Vahras, you would have about 700 pts to throw at FW and drones - definitely enough to get a battalion or two locked down plus the forward drone support you'd need.

Mandragola wrote:
You can do a lot with high volumes of shots, but you can't really take out tough vehicles with lots of saves and good wounds. AP makes a massive difference.

What's that old adage? Quantity has a quality all it's own. I agree that AP is a key component, but with enough volume, even AP- guns become reliable against pretty much any target, especially S5 guns that wound pretty much anything on a 5+ at worst.

Mandragola wrote:
I think the best way to fill out the troops choices for a brigade might actually be 6x5 breachers in 3 devilfish. They'd have the durability to survive an alpha strike and could hit back very hard - while also being able to advance towards stuff..

In order to define 'hard' I think you'd want to compare the actual numbers against a variety of targets, and in the context of actual play, taking into account aura buffs, stratagems, and the like. Same goes for 'survivable' - compare wound totals, toughness and save. The Devilfish costs about as much as, what 16 fire warriors? So it's essentially comparing the Fish and 12 Breachers to 28 Fire Warriors. I haven't done the math, but I suspect it's not an awful comparison. Mobility is a big plus, but I suspect the dakka isn't quite as good. The Fish is objectively more survivable at T7 with 12 wounds, but that really depends on what kind of T7 target saturation you have. If there aren't better targets for AT weapons that fish are going to get hosed pretty good.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of builds we see when we have the whole codex to work with.

Farsight preview up. Includes fusion blades and confirms commander restrictions.

Also would seem to indicate that our plasma weaponry is staying S6 with no overcharge option.

So the Imperium plasma still got buffed twice(no longer gets hot and potential for overcharge) whilst ours stayed the same as before.

Ok so I take one interesting thing from that update: the high-intensity plasma rifle does 2 damage.

So my next question is, who can take a high-intensity plasma rifle? Because I want them on everything please.

Farsight continues to be kind of "meh". Fusion blades are ok, but it's annoying (albeit reasonable!) that you can only have 2 attacks.

I'm not sure what to make of the CNC node yet. Actually, if plasma rifles are really going up to D2, then I can see a case for it. Imagine dropping in 9 guys all with triple plasma, using the rumoured farsight strat to give them +1 to hit, and giving them rerolls to wound as well. Stuff would die, but I'm not sure it would be worth the price you'd pay.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Also would seem to indicate that our plasma weaponry is staying S6 with no overcharge option.

So the Imperium plasma still got buffed twice(no longer gets hot and potential for overcharge) whilst ours stayed the same as before.

I'm not so sure (But in the same vein, I'm also not too hopeful considering the change here.)
Farsights plasma rifle is now unique as it's represented as a high intensity, boasting +6" range, -1 additional AP and 2 damage instead of 1. a normal t'au plasma to mee seems like it might just get buffed to 30"

And with this up, I'm officially boycotting any Tau product until further notice. not buying the codex, the cards, any models, or anything that relates to them.

Because I guess my two-commander in a battalion army that I played from freaking 5th is now illegal.

About 5k army, 4 different HQs
And I can't field a legal battalion because of an idiotic restriction that makes no sense.

 BoomWolf wrote:
And with this up, I'm officially boycotting any Tau product until further notice. not buying the codex, the cards, any models, or anything that relates to them.

Because I guess my two-commander in a battalion army that I played from freaking 5th is now illegal.

About 5k army, 4 different HQs
And I can't field a legal battalion because of an idiotic restriction that makes no sense.

not that it helps... but for the cost of 2x 5 man fire warrior squads, you could run a patrol detachment for the second commander. That's what I'll be doing.

(Seriously though, as someone who usually only fielded 1 normal commander and a Coldstar commander And occasionally Farsight too, Long live Farsight Enclaves , I feel your pain... this is literally just patching up a problem that should really be dealt with properly in the codex.)

 BoomWolf wrote:
And with this up, I'm officially boycotting any Tau product until further notice. not buying the codex, the cards, any models, or anything that relates to them.

Because I guess my two-commander in a battalion army that I played from freaking 5th is now illegal.

About 5k army, 4 different HQs
And I can't field a legal battalion because of an idiotic restriction that makes no sense.

So get a Fireblade or an Ethereal and go crazy. Nearly everyone else is having to adapt to the new edition, so you can too. Run 2 battalions with a Commander and a Fireblade/Ethereal in each. I'm probably going to do exactly that, or maybe a Brigade.

Two broadside configurations I've been heavily considering;

Rail/SMS/Target Lock

and

HYMP/SMS/ATS

Both are about 45 points per damage vs T7/3+
Rail is 56 PPD vs T8/3+ compared to 62 PPD for HYMP

Rail averages .8 +.8 unsaved wounds vs T3/3+ (So likely 2 dead reapers)
HYMP averages 2.2 + 1.3 (So likely 3 dead reapers)

Which makes rails less cost effective than max range pulse rifles, and missiles only slightly more effective.

I'm not seeing any option for cost efficient long range anti-infantry shooting. SMS are nice because they ignore LOS and cover, so for ITC they can chip away at reapers, but they're not likely to do lots of damage.

Gun drones dropping next to a drone controller stealth suit or dropping with a commander are still likely our most cost efficient anti-infantry, aside from double/triple shot pulse rifles.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
And with this up, I'm officially boycotting any Tau product until further notice. not buying the codex, the cards, any models, or anything that relates to them.

Because I guess my two-commander in a battalion army that I played from freaking 5th is now illegal.

About 5k army, 4 different HQs
And I can't field a legal battalion because of an idiotic restriction that makes no sense.

So get a Fireblade or an Ethereal and go crazy. Nearly everyone else is having to adapt to the new edition, so you can too. Run 2 battalions with a Commander and a Fireblade/Ethereal in each. I'm probably going to do exactly that, or maybe a Brigade.

Alternatively, just e-mail them to ask for the change in the FAQ. You have 2 weeks, get to campaigning. I e-mailed them already.

40kFAQ@gwplc.com

Telling me to "just play multiple patrols" is hardly solving anything.

Because that means that for example, if I want a third hammerhead, I need a third patrol, so 6 troops and 3 HQs, unlike anyone else with 3 troops and 2 hq for 3 HS slots.

Because that means I have minimum CPs, as patrols are not worth CPs, even when fielding the troop and HQ count of a godamn brigade.

Amusing how GW are so amazingly idiotic that they are trying to actually SELL commanders in the article while saying "BTW, you can't realistically use more than one"
I was honestly planning to get farsight, and maybe another coldstar, before the info started dropping.
Once it did, Its painfully obvious that I shouldn't.

It is the most stupid update. Rather than buff other units to a fair level (commanders were spammed because they were the only good unit) they Nerf them into the ground. Standard GW.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Also would seem to indicate that our plasma weaponry is staying S6 with no overcharge option.

So the Imperium plasma still got buffed twice(no longer gets hot and potential for overcharge) whilst ours stayed the same as before.

It's to get us buying all the new fancy ion weapons.

Also I was looking at the fusion blades and it just says a model with 2 fusion blasters so could we get that in a riptide or ghostkeels?

So, when are Space Marine Captains going to be limited to one per detachment?

 BoomWolf wrote:
Telling me to "just play multiple patrols" is hardly solving anything.

It is when your complaint is "I want to field multiple Commanders and not much else".

Because that means that for example, if I want a third hammerhead, I need a third patrol, so 6 troops and 3 HQs, unlike anyone else with 3 troops and 2 hq for 3 HS slots.

Or if you want 3 Hammerheads, run a Spearhead--1x Commander and 3x Hammerheads?

Because that means I have minimum CPs, as patrols are not worth CPs, even when fielding the troop and HQ count of a godamn brigade.

Amusing how GW are so amazingly idiotic that they are trying to actually SELL commanders in the article while saying "BTW, you can't realistically use more than one"
I was honestly planning to get farsight, and maybe another coldstar, before the info started dropping.
Once it did, Its painfully obvious that I shouldn't.

Thank the people who spammed Commanders as buffbots.

I mean, realistically, you now are getting to feel like Scion players who had Command Squads(not counting the twerps who ran 4x Plasma/Melta Scion Squads) bulking out their Elite slots for running anything aside from Patrol Detachments.
It sucks that you're getting punished for someone else's garbage. It really does. But it's been happening and will keep happening as long as GW is playing catch up to ITC and other non-by the book events.

 FirePainter wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Also would seem to indicate that our plasma weaponry is staying S6 with no overcharge option.

So the Imperium plasma still got buffed twice(no longer gets hot and potential for overcharge) whilst ours stayed the same as before.

It's to get us buying all the new fancy ion weapons.

Also I was looking at the fusion blades and it just says a model with 2 fusion blasters so could we get that in a riptide or ghostkeels?

You mean the fancy ion weapons that you can only buy one of, in a box for a model you're only allowed one of per detachment? Awesome marketing technique.

I'm pretty sure relics are limited to characters only, except where explicitly stated otherwise. I'm afraid our riptides and ghostkeels won't start carving things up with fusion any time soon.

Shoot forgot the character limit. Darn would have been fun.

And yes I mean the ion weapons that are better than all other options and very limited in supply from GW. GW marketing has never been good with things like this. Why change now