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Hi, Just getting back into the game after a twelve year hiatus. I havent touched a model since third edition and I decided to collect a brand new army; something I had never seen, nor played, nor played against: tau.
After buying all the books and giving everything a good think over I've put together a list I'm hoping is pretty well rounded and able to deal with most situations. But before I start handing all my money over to GW I was wondering if people who have actually played with 6th edition rules and tau units could give me some advice and criticism about what units I've decided to take and how I plan to use them. Having no practical knowledge of the game or the units makes putting a list together a little daunting; everything works in "theory". That being said some of the big observations I made between 3rd and 6th edition (a bit of a jump) that helped guide me in my list are as follows:
Flyers - They exist now. My generally thinking about them runs along these lines: if i take units that are solely dedicated to taking out flyers and my opponent has none then I've wasted points and am at a disadvantage, likewise, if I don't take flyers and my opponent has invested points into dedicated anti flyer units then they have wasted points and I am at an advantage
Transports - Used to be everyone just stuck the biggest nastiest things they could find in their codex into a transport and hurled them at the enemy with fingers crossed. This doesn't seem to be a viable tactic anymore. I still really like transports though. I like the idea of a modern warfare battle field with infantry hugging their tanks for firesupport and cover
Area Terrain - You can shoot through this now. Big scary long range guns are scarier then what they used to be. From what I remember 3rd edition used to be about having firing lanes. So positioning your big guns into a spot that let them see the most of the board and hope something moved into line of sight. It's not clear to me how vulnarable all my forces are against enemy shooting.
Set up - Used to alternate with your opponent placing one unit at a time. Its hard for me to conceptualize how setting up your whole army at once changes deployment and the game
Wound Allocation - I remember my opponent always picking and that lascannon space marine being impossible to kill. Closest model makes for an interesting change.
Theres obviously alot more but these seem to me to be huge game changing mechanics and I'm not sure if im building my list properly to adjust to them. If anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated. That being said here is the list I came up with.
HQ
Commander
Command & Control Node
Puretide Engram Chip
Multispectrum Sensor Suite
Xv8-02 Iridium Armour
Stim Pack
Drone Controller
2x Markerlight Drone
207 pts
Ethereal
50 pts
Troops
15 Kroot
1 Kroot Hound
Sniper Rounds
110 pts
15 Kroot
1 Kroot Hound
Sniper Rounds
110 pts
11 Firewarriors
Devilfish
Disruption Pod
Gun Drones
194 pts
11 Firewarriors
Devilfish
Disruption Pod
Gun Drones
194 pts
Elites
Riptide
Ion Accelorator
TL Plasma Rife
Early Warning Override
190 pts
3x Crisis Suit
6x Missle Pod
3xTarget Lock
6x Marker Drone
243 pts
3x Crisis Suit
6x Fusion Gun
4x Shield Drone
3x Flamer
3x Bonding Knife
222 pts
Heavy Support
1 Hammerhead
Railgun
Longstrike
Disruption Pod
Submunition Round
TL Smart Missle System
190 pts
1 HammerHead
Ion Cannon
Disruption Pod
GunDrones
140 pts
total 1850pts
The overall strategy I had in mind was to split the army into three groups.
Group 1
This consists of the commander joined by the missle crisis team, the Riptide and Longstrike. Basically a mobile firebase.
Against Vehicles there's:
12 st 7 Missle pod shots, rerolling misses (command and control node), rerolling armour pen (puretide chip) no cover (multispectrum suite)
The Riptides st 8 large blast or st 9 ordinance large blast supported by 8 markerlights hitting on 2s (drone controller) rerolling misses (command and control node)
And Longstrike hitting on 2s st 10 rerolling armour pen (tank hunter) and rerolling 1s against imperial guard and all their scary tanks (preferred enemy)
Against hordes and troops theres
the same 12 missle pod shots, if there is a monstrous creature running around the puretide chip can give them reroll failed wounds
the Riptide and his fancy st 8 blast
And longstrike now using submunition rounds st 6 ap 4 Large blast + his 4 smart missles
The riptide provides additional fire support against Teq units which is why I gave him the Early warning override, to keep deep striking teqs away from my fancy fire base. Ive been reading deepstriking is a thing now (never really saw anyone use it in 3rd edition) and there seems to be all this wargear floating around making it super accurate and that scares me.
This base also does my anti-air. The missle pods while hitting on 6s get to re-roll their misses and with 12 shots im hoping a few will connect. Likewise the 8 markerlights rerolling misses can be used to boost the bs of either longstrike or the riptide (probably the riptide) for some additional anti-flier shots.
The commander in addition to doing all his buffing will be deployed in front of all the other models so hopefully he'll suck up all the incoming fire that the unti gets and with this 2+ 5+ fnp the missle pod unit will be pretty hard to kill. And if the odd lascannon or plasma shot comes his way (and they will come) I can always look out sir it with a marker light drone. With him in front the only thing i would be really concerned about is big st 10 ap 2 blast guns and really only guard have that at big ranges and thats why i brought longstrike. (also im scared of close combat but im tau and thats just the way it is)
These units are meant to pal around together providing cover to one another, ex. the riptide stands infront of longstrike giving him a 4+ cover save (shooting through units + Disruption pod), and with all the rerolling im going to be getting out of them I am (theoretically of course) planning on decimating a couple of units/vehicles a turn. I'll use the nova reactor on the riptide sparingly. But its there if i need it. For example if im staring down the barrels of a three strong lemon russ squad the overcharged ion cannon might be a nice thing to try for. Or If im expecting a squad of scary terminators to deepstrike next to my group i might over charge the plasma gun to give me an extra two ap 2 shots. The nice thing about all these big guns is that i can move 6 inches and still fire. So i can back away or move around trying to get LOS to targets hiding behind big buildings and walls.
Group 2
This group is the two firewarrior teams, the ethereal and the ionhead. The idea is to move up with the devilfishes and ionhead, release the firewarriors and move into rapid fire range have everyone shoot 3 times (66 pulse rifle shots yay!) and drop and Ion large blast template then jump the 6 drones in front of the fire warriors giving everybody a cover save and making it difficult to assault. Assuming there is something still alive, the firewarriors then begin retreating (move 6 inches back, shoot pulse rifles, flat out move the devilfish and jump the drones so that its difficult for the enemy to shoot back or assault. With the ethereal giving everyone ld 10 and the drones and devilfish being used as shields I think this mid range firebase could be both hard to kill and fairly dangerous.
Group 3
The two kroot squads and the Fusion gun crisis team. My plan with these guys is to keep them in reserve and deep strike and outflank into the opponents deployment zone. Theyre job is to take out the backfield squads that would be giving me trouble like hidden barrage units or heavy weapons teams hiding in cover or whatever. I'm still a little unsure about what to equip the crisis team with (is 6 fusion guns overkill? should i switch in some plasma? Should i drop the flamers and get target locks and make the shield drones gun drones?) Im not really sure how effective this is going to be. But i really like the idea of having a "attacking" force that doesnt have to actually walk across the board. Im basically hoping these units can stay alive long enough to take away or contest the enemies objectives and also notch me a few linebreaker victory points.
Final thoughts
The overall strategy is that im hoping with the firewarriors getting their three shots in their first turn and the big guns coming out of my firebase i can do a considerable amount of damage to the enemy in my first turn of shooting. Enough to hopefully blunt and cripple their forces so that i can mop them up and go after objective with impunity. With all my vehicles getting good coversaves and the only infantry that i deploy either in reserve, in vehicles, or hiding behind my commander i think the list can take a few rounds of shooting from most armies without getting too beat up. My strategies will change, of course, depending on the lists im facing. For example a tyranid list i might deploy my kroot normally and try and snipe their monstrous creatures or triple tap their pulse kroot rifles with my ethereal to take down the hordes. Or against a flyer heavy list i might keep my devilfish in reserve and hopefully have it timed so that they come in and release the firewarriors after all the planes come on the table and hopefully in double tap range of a flyer or two (that might requie a fair bit of luck but whatever). Anyway if anyone could give me their thoughts or can point out anything I'm missing before i run out and buy all this stuff that would be amazing and I would really appreciate it. Thanks
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