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For a change of pace I've decided to break out the Tau army I had been working on before 5th edition came out. I haven't changed it up much since that original list so we will see how it does in a 5th edition environment.

Mech Tau
HQ
1 Shas'el w/ tl flamer, missile pod

Elite
2 Crisis Suits w/ tl flamer, missile pod
2 Crisis Suits w/ tl flamer, missile pod
2 Crisis SUits w/ tl flamer, fusion gun

Troops
6 Fire Warriors, devilfish w/ sms, multi-tracker, disruption pods, target lock
6 Fire Warriors, devilfish w/ sms, multi-tracker, disruption pods, target lock
6 Fire Warriors, devilfish w/ sms, multi-tracker, disruption pods, target lock

Fast Attack
1 Pirahna w/ target lock, fusion gun, disruption pod, 1 Pirahna w/ target lock, fusion gun, flechette discharger
1 Pirahna w/ target lock, fusion gun, disruption pod, 1 Pirahna w/ target lock, fusion gun, flechette discharger
4 Pathfinders, devilfish w/ sms, multi-tracker, disruption pods, target lock

Heavy Support
Hammerhead w/ rail gun, burst cannons, multi-tracker, disruption pod, targetting array
Hammerhead w/ rail gun, burst cannons, multi-tracker, disruption pod, targetting array
Sky Ray w/ sms, multi-tracker, disruption pod, target lock

Mech Eldar
HQ
1 Farseer w/ doom, guide
5 destructor locks
1 enhance lock
1 embolden lock
wave serpent w/ spirit stones, shuriken cannon

Elites
8 Banshees, exarch w/ mirror blades, wave serpent w/ spirit stones, shuriken cannon
8 Fire Dragons, wave serpent w/ spirit stones, shuriken cannon

Troops
9 Dire Avengers, exarch w/ shimmer shield, defend, wave serpent w/ spirit stones, tl bright lance
9 Dire Avengers, exarch w/ shimmer shield, defend, wave serpent w/ spirit stones, tl bright lance
8 Dire Avengers, exarch w/ twin cats, wave serpent w/ spirit stones, tl bright lance

Objective: Annihilation
Deployment: Dawn of War

He wins the roll off and lets me go first

Deployment:
I deploy two empty fish's on the 24 inch line. One in the center and one 24 inch's in on the east side (north is my opponent). He elects to bring everything on the first turn. I leave 1 unit of suits in reserve for deep striking.

Tau Turn #1
Everything moves on the table all 3 fire warrior squads are held in reserve but their rides come on the table. I basically castle everything in the middle of the table. My two forward fish back up.
KP Tau: 0 Eldar 0

Eldar Turn #1
Everything boosts on the table he's coming in towards the center with everything off in the middle of the eastern half of the table.
KP Tau: 0 Eldar 0

Tau Turn #2
2 rail guns, 2 fusion guns from pirahna's, 10 missile pods and I think I shake a wave serpent. Everything starts to disperse from the center moving to the west and north away from his stuff. One of the fire warrior squads come in from reserve, they hide on the southwestern side of the field behind a hill.
KP Tau: 0 Eldar 0

Eldar Turn #2
The farseer squad, and 2 of the dire avengers boost again to get right up next to the center building that has my retreating models running around it. Fire dragons disembark to take out the pirahna's that shot at them, the other dire avengers and banshees break off and head to the west to head off me fleeing away. Even with cover saves both pirahna's are down, but I don't lose any drone's in the process.
KP Tau: 0 Eldar 1

Tau Turn #3
I try to shift more to the west to get away but it won't be far enough, I use one fish and my commander to block off the exit hatch for the farseer and friends so they can't assault anything. I whittle the fire dragons down to 5 models and then assault with the drones, he kills 2 drones on the way in, I kill 1 fire dragon and actually pass a break check!. The western dire avenger wave serpent is destroyed. Another fire warrior squad comes on the table they go on the southwest side and hide as well.
KP Tau: 1 Eldar 1

Eldar Turn #3
The banshee wave serpent boosts across the center to try to go after my tasty fire warriors hiding on the side. His other two squads of dire avengers get out, one squad kills a crisis suit (I fail morale and off the table it goes), the other squad assault's the shas'el, puts one wound on him and they are locked in combat. The drones kill another fire dragon but they pass their morale check. He manages to knock out the hammerhead I had on the eastern side.
KP Tau: 1 Eldar 3

Tau Turn #4
My last squad of fire warriors and deep striking suits come in. The suits deep strike behind a wave serpent on the eastern side but only shake it. My unit of fire warriors come on in front of the dire avengers and with some flame templates their shooting and some other shots kill everything but the exarch. I blow up the banshee wave serpent and kill all but the exarch (sounds familiar doesn't it!). I manage to pepper the other squad of dire avengers down to one model, that get pinned by drones. My Shas'el fails 2 saves and dies, and of course I lose one drone, fail morale and they break, setting up the fire dragons for shots on the two man crisis suit team that just deep struck.
KP Tau: 2 Eldar 5

Eldar Turn #4
Banshee exarch asasults a fire warrior squad kills 2 the fire warriors retaliate and actually kill off the banshee! The farseer and friends get out and flame 2 crisis suits and then assault and kill them, the dire avengers, and lone exarch shoot my fire warriors, kill 4, then the lone dire avenger assaults in killing one, I pass morale!. The fire dragons toast my two suits
KP Tau: 2 Eldar 7

Tau Turn #5
I blow up another wave serpent, kill off the dire avenger's that had been disembarked earlier, and kill off the fire dragon's.
KP Tau: 5 Eldar 7

Eldar Turn #5
The farseer squad comes charging out of the building managing to get into base to base with my pirahna squad, and 2 devilfish, he strips the weapons and immobilizes one of the fish but the other's get away. My lone fire warrior locked in hth with the dire avenger exarch (this was the twin cats one) holds!
KP Tau: 5 Eldar 7

Tau Turn #6
I blow up another wave serpent, whittle a dire avenger squad down to 2 models, and whittle at the farseer squad. The lone fire warrior holds again!
KP Tau: 6 Eldar 7

Eldar Turn #7
He blows up the immobilized devilfish finally kills off my little fire warrior (with 2-3 turns of doom I might add). And kills off my drones.
KP Tau: 6 Eldar 10

Tau Turn #7
I kill off his exarch that killed my fire warrior and blow up another wave serpent and I kill some more warlocks, but can't manage to kill off the last exarch from the last dire avenger squad.
KP Tau: 8 Eldar: 10

Eldar Turn #8
His warlocks make it to my pirahna's and blow them up and he blows up my second hammerhead with a lucky lance shot.
KP Tau: 8 Eldar: 12

What was left at the end of the game:
Tau: 2 above half fire warrior squads, 1 sky ray, 3 devilfish
Eldar: 1 dire avenger exarch, 2 warlocks, 1 farseer, and 2 wave serpents.

So this is the first outing for my old tau list that I've played maybe once since 5th came out. I think i probably should have deep struck all of my crisis suits not just the fusion ones. I also think that the fire warriors might have done a little more work for me if I'd actually placed them near some of the action, either that or they would have died faster!. I had some really bad shooting (double 1's on to hit roll's needing 2's for the pirahna's) early on but I think the dice recovered for me a bit This list bleeds kp's like no bodies business, even for a mech list coming in at 19 seems a bit high to me. The original theme behind the list was to make an explorer corp's so everything is mounted and I modeled (using the tank commander body) surveyors with binoculars to lead each of the fire warrior squads. So everything needs to be mobile. I think I did a good job of spreading out from the initial onslaught and it probably would have worked even better if I'd deep struck all the suits. Anyway's I'll keep working on them and we will see where they end up. Thanks for reading.

Great report! Interesting to see some hot x on x action. I think you would probably enjoy shep's ninja tau.

KPs are pretty rough on Tau right now, as you mentioned. You opponent only had 12 and most of them were pretty rough to get.

I have nothing to base it upon, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a Tau update next year. It seems to me that the ROI you would get for your man hours would just be too good to pass up - their models are great, their rules just need a few minor tweaks. You could introduce a new xenos species and call it done.

Nice report! So are you heading down to Valhallas on Wednesdays again now? I kind of stopped going because it was pretty dead for a few weeks.

@Somnicide - Yeah I'm exploring some kp reducing scenario's right now. I think I might be able to get down to the 15 range to make it a bit better for myself.

@tzeentchling - Now that all the ard boyz and con's are out of the way I should be back up there on a regular basis, Rob too I think.

Hmmm... Ok, but lack of pictures isn't really selling it for me, still tau, especially mech, have trouble with kp, eg. firewarriors in transport, with no upgrades is 3 kp

I talked with him about this after the game but I have thought it over more and I still think you drop the missle pods and go for fusion. Combine the pirhana squad into one big squad and add some more pathfinders to the unit. Combining the pirhana squads drops your kp total down by 2 and makes them much harder to kill. And while 17 isn;t great it at least start to bring you in line with most mech IG lists these days.

I think it is also worth mentioning that mech eldar have a significant advantage against mech tau. I will need to bring a different list next week and we can see how it plays out. I am thinking that orks will have a problem against your list and most space marine players will as well.

I would suggest mounting the firewarriors in the fish that are coming in from reserve. You are able to do this. Then both models will come in together. Move into range disembark and fire off shots. If you can maneuver behing a wave serpent with the fire warriors you can actually get a penetrating hit - from the sides and the back of wave serpents it's tough to get hits.

I'd mix the crisis up a little bit. That's a lot of flamers which means your close to the enemy. Plasma will help or even twinlinked missile pods.

It was a nice report though - hopefully it goes better next time!

I don't understand why the Crisis Suits all have TL-flamers. I think it would be a lot better to Twin-Link the main weapons and keep the Flamers on them as a fairly cheap third hardpoint, that gives the Crisis Suits some flexability.

Twin-linked Missile Pods are really great against AV10-12. I would not suggest deep striking them (only the Fusion Blaster suits should deep strike).

Against a Wave Serpent army like this, your Fusion Guns aren't likely to do that much, so I'd use those Piranha's to block the exit hatches of his assault carriers (perhaps you can even get some Fusion shots behind the Energy Field!). Your Crisis Suits should be protected by Devilfish', so they can't be assaulted.

Fighting against a Mech Eldar army is always a difficult battle. The Wave Serpents won't do that much damage though. So as soon as any infantry come out of them, focus on bringing them down, as the infantry are the units that deal most of the damage in a Mech Eldar army.

I've got a couple mech marines lists that I'd be willing to try out against your Tau. One is dual-LRC. I suspect that list will have problems against you, but I'd like to see how it does anyway.

@rogueeyes, I only had one fish coming in from reserve, I started the other two on the table to prevent 2 serpents in my face on turn 1 . My general thought was that the fire warriors weren't going to do much and were just going to be easy kp once their fish got popped so the plan was to hide them. Next time I think I'll keep them in the fish just because a few extra shots would have netted me an extra kp probably (but I might have given the other two up as well you never know).

@Airmaniac, One of the pirahna squads died on turn two but the other squad managed to down 2 wave serpents, one off of a back shot and one from a front shot. I blocked the exists when possible but the pirahna's never got in a real good position for it, mainly because my opponent spent most of the game turbo-boosting half of his serpents around the table. I did leave some suits exposed just to get him to dump his units. It worked for one but then I failed the leadership check and lost the unit anyways.

Along the lines of equipping the suits. I'm definitely not set on anything but I have some feelings on them. I don't see a reason to take more than two in a unit. More than that and you can't really hide behind a devilfish plus that way the last man standing can always rally. I also like to keep them fairly cheap.

tl flamer, missile pod, seems to be very versatile for a low cost investment. It's not as suicidal as taking the tl flamer, fusion gun (which I also like a lot). I think you get more mileage out of the tl flamer than the tl missile pod, mainly because I would rather re-roll on the huge mob of orks that just assaulted the front of my devilfish rather than get a few extra shots off.

Against the mech eldar list I didn't feel comfortable deploying a devilfish wall because of the warlocks, 9 witch blades will eat the devilfish too quick especially if I'm using them to keep his assault units close, so I chose to try to scatter, unfortunately wave serpents move faster than crisis suits do , so I ended up sacrificing them in this game to get him to dismount his juicy squads so I could shoot them. This idea worked but I was at too much of a kp deficit.

I'm trying to build an all purpose list and I think you get more out of the tl flamer vs. hordes. Twinlinking for missile pods is more expensive than it is for the flamers and usually only nets you an additional hit.

Warmaster wrote:Along the lines of equipping the suits. I'm definitely not set on anything but I have some feelings on them. I don't see a reason to take more than two in a unit. More than that and you can't really hide behind a devilfish plus that way the last man standing can always rally. I also like to keep them fairly cheap.

Last man can always rally? They can always regroup at 50% but I know there use to be a last man standing rule in 4th edition that is no longer around in 5th edition. 2 suits is a great number. You do not need a team lead and no bonding knife which nets you 10 points. 2 deathrains and 2 fireknives are my preference. Against Wave Serpents an Ion Cannon is much better versus a Railgun since everything counts as S8.