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Devastating Counterstrike and Aggressive Footing are not mutually exclusive.

I must have misread that in the past. Enclave flyers, get close, reroll 1's to hit and 1's to wound rolls... wow. I'm going to run 3 bombers like all the time :-)

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
I must have misread that in the past. Enclave flyers, get close, reroll 1's to hit and 1's to wound rolls... wow. I'm going to run 3 bombers like all the time :-)

People did try it the issue is the codex flyers arn't hard to kill and the forge world ones got brutally points costed in 8th and then nerfed in the new book. Should be fun in for fun games though.

Almost nothing is hard to kill in the tau codex, the battlesuits lists are better or were, but you pay dearly for the drone protection with less overall firepower.

Last game I had, my single flyer was responsible for 15 dead cultists, 4 dead havocs and most of a demon prince. Rerolling 1s to wound might have had me bag that DP solo.

Everything dies, the problem with a mech list, is that if you have skyrays, you get one turn of amazing, followed by four turns of lackluster performace. A good opponent knows that and focuses on your hammerheads, which are kinda easier to take down.Then your flyers are all you have. I wasn't aware that enclaves had two tenents, this is key. Also whats key is replacing skyrays with something thats a credible threat each turn its allowed to live. Since the forgeworld variant hammerheads are no better than the codex variety, and... we lost the datasheets, I'm back to skyrays, but they aren't good for a tournament list, so... I'm not back. SunShark Bombers have a lot of nice tools, but as you mentioned give them attention and they will fall. But if your entire list is equally good, equally tough, and sufficiently diverse you are going to be in a good spot.
Therefore, spam the hammerheads, spam the bombers, spam... piranhas and remoras? Remoras are in the same good space as sunshark bombers, excellent utility for the points and tougher than they look to take down. I only have 2 though, expensive to buy, (cheap to field, 60pts for 2xlongshot burst cannons, 2 seekers, and 1 markerlight)

Great Knarlocs look good too, but good luck finding those to buy.

Sterling191 wrote:
Devastating Counterstrike and Aggressive Footing are not mutually exclusive.

It isn't?

Irregardless, the ability to take 2 Commanders per Detachment certainly IS.

 carldooley wrote:

It isn't?

No, they are not. One is your Sept Tenet for being FSE, the other is an ability added to FSE detachments that is not a Sept tenet.

Tau Hive mind, C'Tans - max 3 wounds a phase and living metal allows them to getting one back each turn. As the odds on us doing damage in the Movement, Charge and Fight Phase are slim, we can't seemingly kill them until Turn 4. Anyone have any ideas what to do?

Chenko_chenko wrote:
Tau Hive mind, C'Tans - max 3 wounds a phase and living metal allows them to getting one back each turn. As the odds on us doing damage in the Movement, Charge and Fight Phase are slim, we can't seemingly kill them until Turn 4. Anyone have any ideas what to do?[/quote

Farsight Enclaves.
1. SunShark Bomber... flys over CTAN, then firestorm stratagem, that might get 3MW if you are lucky
2. Add a nice round of shooting and
3. 5 crisis suits...with furious assault stratagem, then a good round of combat

That's pretty reliable.

I'm running mech enclaves, so I can do everything but the mellee part. C'Tans need to charge to really do exciting stuff, so I might have to rely on them charging me or... take two rounds to pop each 1. Or ignore them and decimate the rest of the army.

 Sazzlefrats wrote:

Chenko_chenko wrote:
Tau Hive mind, C'Tans - max 3 wounds a phase and living metal allows them to getting one back each turn. As the odds on us doing damage in the Movement, Charge and Fight Phase are slim, we can't seemingly kill them until Turn 4. Anyone have any ideas what to do?[/quote

Farsight Enclaves.
1. SunShark Bomber... flys over CTAN, then firestorm stratagem, that might get 3MW if you are lucky
2. Add a nice round of shooting and
3. 5 crisis suits...with furious assault stratagem, then a good round of combat

That's pretty reliable.

I'm running mech enclaves, so I can do everything but the mellee part. C'Tans need to charge to really do exciting stuff, so I might have to rely on them charging me or... take two rounds to pop each 1. Or ignore them and decimate the rest of the army.

Yeah, I run FSE too and was just wondering how regular Tau were planning to deal with them. I was up against 2 Ctan in a 2k point yesterday and they were spooky.

How were the CTan Setup? Which ones were used?

I would imagine in tournaments, it'll be warrior spam, if so, I'm fine, got enough juice with all my tanks to take out 50+ warriors in a single turn if they drop on me. But limited answers to CTan as you might suspect. So maybe I'd have to ignore CTan, other than dropping 3 wounds per turn, and take both out on turn 4

So did any of you manage to get some games in? Tau seem to be considered one of the weaker forces in 9th, but I wonder if that's just due to a lack of data and mathhammering the rules.

How do you suppose we can contest objectives in 9th? Breachers in Devilfish look appealing, but what about Shadowsun and Stealth Suits/Ghostkeels?

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
How were the CTan Setup? Which ones were used?

I would imagine in tournaments, it'll be warrior spam, if so, I'm fine, got enough juice with all my tanks to take out 50+ warriors in a single turn if they drop on me. But limited answers to CTan as you might suspect. So maybe I'd have to ignore C'Tan, other than dropping 3 wounds per turn, and take both out on turn 4

1 Night Bringer
1 Void Dragon

4 x Canoptek Wraith
4 x Canoptek Wraith

1 x Canoptek DoomStalker
1 x Canoptek DoomStalker
1 x Canoptek DoomStalker

1 x Silent King
1 x Technomancer

2000 points, 107PL, 9CP

 BertBert wrote:
So did any of you manage to get some games in? Tau seem to be considered one of the weaker forces in 9th, but I wonder if that's just due to a lack of data and mathhammering the rules.

How do you suppose we can contest objectives in 9th? Breachers in Devilfish look appealing, but what about Shadowsun and Stealth Suits/Ghostkeels?

That's the issue... Tau can't. There isn't a bully unit that can hold up to shooting and mellee. Imperial Guad have bullgryns, Custodes are custodes. Terminators are resilent, so are plague marines. We were given kroot.... just isn't the same. Even if we could afford things like krootox riders and great knarlocs... they are all legends... and just not tough enough, though for the points I'll take it. But I can't get it so... nevermind.

Remoras look good... I'm not spending 400+ usd for 12 of them though.

I think you can only have 1 C’tan per detachment... Necron Codex Pg 51, last line at the bottom.

I don’t think you can slice that list to have 2 detachments with access to an elite in each.

Chenko_chenko wrote:

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
How were the CTan Setup? Which ones were used?

I would imagine in tournaments, it'll be warrior spam, if so, I'm fine, got enough juice with all my tanks to take out 50+ warriors in a single turn if they drop on me. But limited answers to CTan as you might suspect. So maybe I'd have to ignore C'Tan, other than dropping 3 wounds per turn, and take both out on turn 4

1 Night Bringer
1 Void Dragon

4 x Canoptek Wraith
4 x Canoptek Wraith

1 x Canoptek DoomStalker
1 x Canoptek DoomStalker
1 x Canoptek DoomStalker

1 x Silent King
1 x Technomancer

2000 points, 107PL, 9CP

I think you have bigger things to worry about than trying to kill CTans in a single turn. Whats your list? How are you dealing with his shooting elements (doomstalkers & Silent King)? And assuming the Technomancer has a cloak, you need him gone to cut down on the healing. You already got living metal to deal with. (As an aside, if the meta is space marines eradicators and melta fun, I think this list will have fits there first, and not pop up too much in tournaments).

 greatbigtree wrote:
I think you can only have 1 C’tan per detachment... Necron Codex Pg 51, last line at the bottom.

I don’t think you can slice that list to have 2 detachments with access to an elite in each.

2000 points, 9CP, 107 PL:

Auxiliary Detachment -2CP
EL: C'Tan Shard Nightbringer - 350 points

Supreme Commander +3CP
SC: Silent King - 450 points

Spearhead -4CP
HQ: Technomancer + Phylcaterine Hive + Canoptek Control Node - 110 points

FA: 4 x Canoptek Wraith - 140 points
FA: 4 x Canoptek Wraith - 140 points

EL: C'Tan Void Dragon - 350 points
EL: Crypto Thralls - 40 points

HV: Canoptek Doomstalker - 140 points
HV: Canoptek Doomstalker - 140 points
HV: Canoptek Doomstalker - 140 points


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
I think you have bigger things to worry about than trying to kill CTans in a single turn. Whats your list? How are you dealing with his shooting elements (doomstalkers & Silent King)? And assuming the Technomancer has a cloak, you need him gone to cut down on the healing. You already got living metal to deal with. (As an aside, if the meta is space marines eradicators and melta fun, I think this list will have fits there first, and not pop up too much in tournaments).

I used two patrol detachments:

1st: Farsight
HQ: 1 x coldstar (3 FB 1 Drone Controller) Fusion Blades
HQ: 1 x coldstar (3 FB 1 Drone Controller) Onager Gauntlet

Tr: 1 x 5 Strike Team

Elite: Heavy Burst Riptide w/ATS

Fly: 4 x Remora
Fly: 4 x Remora

2nd: Farsight
HQ: 1 x Coldstar (3 FB 1 Drone Controller) Warlord w/Through Unity Devastation

Tr: 1 x 5 Strike Team

Elite: Relic Ion Riptide w/ Plasma Rifles

FA: 5 x Shield Drones
FA: 5 x Shield Drones

Fly: 4 x Remora

Basically I was just trying to blitz the stuff I can kill then zip over the C'Tan shards was the goal. Purge the Vermin forces one to get up the field early before they're spread out.

Yup, I forgot about Aux detachments.

Purge the vermin is nasty... Did you take Linebreaker (and deepstrike units behind) to counter?

That looks like a fun list. I hadn't thought of drone controllers with remoras. But I don't see that the riptides are a solid part of the fun, no secondary systems. Not really enough drone support, and compared to the commanders and remoras for the points not enough firepower, and the current list seems to be 2001pts

What about sunshark bombers and ghostkeels? Don't be afraid to run 3 patrols... 6 units of flyers... too much fun :-)

But I see how you probably tackle the necrons... fly over for a round or two, and then mellee the ctan in turn 3 or 4. The only issue with that is... you get 3 swings totals with melee weapons. Maybe you want a unit of xv8 body guards to smash into the ctan with mortal wounds in the charge phase and then melee in the fight phase. combined with sunshark bombers and remoras dropping mortal wounds... it might work...

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
That looks like a fun list. I hadn't thought of drone controllers with remoras. But I don't see that the riptides are a solid part of the fun, no secondary systems. Not really enough drone support, and compared to the commanders and remoras for the points not enough firepower, and the current list seems to be 2001pts

What about sunshark bombers and ghostkeels? Don't be afraid to run 3 patrols... 6 units of flyers... too much fun :-)

But I see how you probably tackle the necrons... fly over for a round or two, and then mellee the ctan in turn 3 or 4. The only issue with that is... you get 3 swings totals with melee weapons. Maybe you want a unit of xv8 body guards to smash into the ctan with mortal wounds in the charge phase and then melee in the fight phase. combined with sunshark bombers and remoras dropping mortal wounds... it might work...

Drew up a prospective list for taking on the Necrons that was able to win a Grand Tournament Game 78-70 against a competitive Salamander list (he was practising for a tournament)


1 Patrol -2 CP - Sa' Ce
ELITE 1 x Cadre Fireblade
ELITE 1 x Cadre Fireblade

TROOP 1 x 5 man strike team

ELITE 1 x Firesight Marksman
ELITE 1 x Firesight Marksman

FAST ATTACK 1 x 5 man Pathfinder squad w/Recon Drone


1 Super Heavy Auxiliary - 3CP
LOW Stormsurge w/ Pulse Driver Canon, Shield Generator, Velocity Tracker and Relic Annihilation Warheads


1 Patrol -1 CP - Farsight Enclaves
HQ 1 x Coldstar 3 fusion drone controller - through unity devastation

TROOP 1 x 5 man strike team

FAST ATTACK 3 Piranhas w/6 seakers
FAST ATTACK 3 Piranhas w/6 seakers

ELITE 3 x Veteran Crisis Suit w/ 9 Fusion Blasters w/Cross Linked Stabilisers (rerolls 1s on hits and wounds)

FLY 4 x Remoras
FLY 4 x Remoras



Synergy of that Sa'Cea stratagem that can put a marker light on a unit visible to a Sa'Cea character and all units with 6" - that combines with the Farsight Enclaves +1 Markerlight within 12" which allows the Remoras and the Piranhas to use their seakers, so T1 one can fire up to 12 Seakers, 16 Remora Seakers, 4 Annihilation Warheads.

I took your advise with regards to secondaries: Engage on All Fronts + Raise the Banner + Assassinate and got 6+ points on each of them.

I think Tau have some really nice things going on, you just need to play it diffrent way then you used to.
What I think are their best units :

Tiger Shark with modulated weaponary stratagem - he offer 24 multiple dmg shots at decent -2 ap (you can increase it by 1 with warlord trait). Its enough firepower to take down most of your enemy army by it’s own, it lacks durability so I guess its a Glass Cannon

Commander spam , those guys hit all their shots, and it is a lot of the shots, you can field 6 of them if You Deicide to go triple patrol. They are self sufficient, doesnt require markerlight shots. They are also quite mobile (coldstar ones) so they can really jump around map delivering shots where its needed and capture empty objectives

9 crisis Battlesuit with flamers - ATS, volume of shots can take down 10 Man marines squad in a single round of fire. They are also self sufficient, they do not require any markerlights. They also want to be charged by a good unit once as their overwatch does same amount of damage.

Y’vhara battlesuit - similar as crisis bomb, self sufficient, enough firepower to take down full marine squad, doesnt loose that much output damage when its overwatching.

Cheap troops to fill detachments

Not something I'd ever have the models to run - but I can't help wondering if a hard skew might have more competitive success given the current meta. I'm thinking basically carpet of kroot+commander spam.

So something like:

FSE Battalion.
XV85, 3 Cyclic Ion Blaster+ATS
XV85, 3 Cyclic Ion Blaster+ATS
20 Kroot
20 Kroot
20 Kroot
20 Kroot
20 Kroot
20 Kroot
Shaper
Shaper
Shaper

FSE Patrol
XV85, 3 Cyclic Ion Blaster+ATS
XV86 Coldstar, 4 Fusion
20 Kroot

FSE Patrol
XV86 Coldstar, 4 Fusion
XV86 Coldstar, 4 Fusion
20 Kroot

For 1992 points.
Another variant would be ditching the FSE in say the Battalion, dropping one commander for 2 ethereals to scatter a 6+++ throughout the army and make up the difference with yet more kroot. It also ups the Kroot's leadership to 9, which is okay - but realistically, I think you are failing morale if anyone seriously shoots you. This could be the downside - and taking lots of 10 man squads might therefore be preferable.

As an army though, assuming you can keep the commanders screened, there isn't anything worth shooting with quality weapons. Commanders meanwhile offer decent shooting and movement while Kroot provide board control and respectable damage output compared to comparably pointed units.

The downside is your opponent is taking Assassinate and Thin Their Ranks and I'm not sure over a game you can stop them maxing them out. But if you can really win out on the primary that might not matter as much.

For me, I think FW spam would be more effective. With a Fireblade, and the Tau Sept you’re doing tremendous overwatch damage. Fewer bodies, but better guns and survivability vs massed small arms.

Having played a handful of games (just started Tau) I find that *lots* of FW are critical to my in game success.

Flyer spam is better.

Honestly I don't think the ctan are a major issue for tau. If you deal damage to them in overwatch (which is pretty easy) you are doing better than most armies at killing ctan quickly.

I do think overall that they sun shark bomber is great for 9th. No more -1 for moving. Drops bombs every turn. Reasonably durable.

I'm afraid I think the basic FW's days are increasingly numbered. S5 AP- 1 damage just doesn't cut it against Marines, Custodes, the new Death Guard we are about to see and so on. At the same time the basic 4+ save is so often reduced to near nothing again because of Marines and the meta they produce.

This is sort of becoming a problem throughout the game, because GW have made decent save wounds far too cheap on multi-wound models. This is sort of intentional fluffwise - but the game outturn is that people just won't use those units beyond the minimum. When the Tau Codex rolls round I'd expect pulse weapons to get something like "6s to wound do 2 damage" - or FW to get a significant points cut.

I'm not really sure on Sunsharks. Yes, offensive output is reasonable, although not great due to the usual Tau weakness of being BS4 while paying BS3 prices. I think if you play defensively (i.e. turn 1 just move horizontally across your own deployment zone, utilising the 30" range) there may be something. In competitive terms though I think zooming them forward is just asking for them to be deleted, as most *good* armies shouldn't struggle to clear multiple 12 wound T6 4+ models, even with a minus to hit, in a turn of average dice.

Tyel wrote:
I'm afraid I think the basic FW's days are increasingly numbered. S5 AP- 1 damage just doesn't cut it against Marines, Custodes, the new Death Guard we are about to see and so on. At the same time the basic 4+ save is so often reduced to near nothing again because of Marines and the meta they produce.

This is sort of becoming a problem throughout the game, because GW have made decent save wounds far too cheap on multi-wound models. This is sort of intentional fluffwise - but the game outturn is that people just won't use those units beyond the minimum. When the Tau Codex rolls round I'd expect pulse weapons to get something like "6s to wound do 2 damage" - or FW to get a significant points cut.

I'm not really sure on Sunsharks. Yes, offensive output is reasonable, although not great due to the usual Tau weakness of being BS4 while paying BS3 prices. I think if you play defensively (i.e. turn 1 just move horizontally across your own deployment zone, utilising the 30" range) there may be something. In competitive terms though I think zooming them forward is just asking for them to be deleted, as most *good* armies shouldn't struggle to clear multiple 12 wound T6 4+ models, even with a minus to hit, in a turn of average dice.

YMMV. In a list with Sunsharks, Remoras, Hammerheads and Skyrays... which do you target first? This is rhetorical of course, all nearly equally good targets, somethings will die, but not everything. My last game I had a skyray, longstrike and a hammerhead and all of my infantry, shadowsun and my 3vx flammer squad left, my opponent had one chaos terminator sorcerer alive... I did lose but it was close 68 to 75, I should have rushed the center objective, or I should have pushed forward sooner, I went 2nd. My solo Sunshark was put down on turn 3, and one drone lasted until turn 4. It did zoom forward, far left edge of the board, right into 2 demon princes, a missile launcher havoc squad, 2 cultists units and 5 bikers. I killed the shooty stuff, and he didn't want to go backwards with his mellee units, and his other havocs couldn't get LOS. So it lived. Turn 2, I face oblits and combimelta terminators but they didn't want to be that far out of position, so the sunshark go to live until turn 3, when I went after and failed to take out the terminators. You can be aggressive and live, if you end up in a place where your opponent cant see or doesn't want to be in.

Tyel wrote:
I'm afraid I think the basic FW's days are increasingly numbered. S5 AP- 1 damage just doesn't cut it against Marines, Custodes, the new Death Guard we are about to see and so on. At the same time the basic 4+ save is so often reduced to near nothing again because of Marines and the meta they produce.

This is sort of becoming a problem throughout the game, because GW have made decent save wounds far too cheap on multi-wound models. This is sort of intentional fluffwise - but the game outturn is that people just won't use those units beyond the minimum. When the Tau Codex rolls round I'd expect pulse weapons to get something like "6s to wound do 2 damage" - or FW to get a significant points cut.

I'm not really sure on Sunsharks. Yes, offensive output is reasonable, although not great due to the usual Tau weakness of being BS4 while paying BS3 prices. I think if you play defensively (i.e. turn 1 just move horizontally across your own deployment zone, utilising the 30" range) there may be something. In competitive terms though I think zooming them forward is just asking for them to be deleted, as most *good* armies shouldn't struggle to clear multiple 12 wound T6 4+ models, even with a minus to hit, in a turn of average dice.

After some thought, the easiest way to make Tau competitive is make 6 markerlights ignore invulnerable saves and I think we're back.

Was able to beat the Double C'Tan list, probably down to luck. At my opponents recommendation I went for Command Spam:

1st Patrol:
1 x Shadow Sun
1 x Coldstar w/ 3 fusion blasters, shield generator

1 x 5 Breachers

2nd Patrol:
1 x Coldstar w/ 3 fusion blasters, shield generator
1 x Coldstar w/ 3 fusion blasters, shield generator

1 x 5 Breachers

Super Heavy Auxiliary
1 x The Eight

10 Commanders, a Riptide and a broadside character with 5CP - lol.

Yeah I don't think your first patrol is legal.

From the Greater Good "If you are playing a matched play game with a
Battle-forged army, you can include no more than
two FARSIGHT ENCLAVES COMMANDER units
in each Detachment."

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
Yeah I don't think your first patrol is legal.

From the Greater Good "If you are playing a matched play game with a
Battle-forged army, you can include no more than
two FARSIGHT ENCLAVES COMMANDER units
in each Detachment."

There are only two commanders in each of the detachments shown.