Tau 1500 "I hate your troops" list

[Uncle Nutsy]

TROOPS
-----------
20 kroot, 12 hounds
20 kroot, 12 hounds
11 firewarriors

HQ
------
shas'el with missile pod, plasma rifle and positional relay

HEAVY SUPPORT
-----------------------
3x sniper drone teams
3x broadsides with target lock
3x broadsides with target lock

FAST ATTACK
-------------------
8 pathfinders with fish


After playing against troop heavy armies for a good while, and trying out horde-based armies, I figured this might be a good list to play against anyone who decides to pull troop spam. It could even punch a few holes into mech-ish lists too.

[Lykum]

That many kroot will do well in assault. I've been playing similar kroot heavy lists against my orks and the win depends mostly on who gets the charge.

I don't understand how the broadsides fit into the 'I hate troops' idea. I'd be using them to crack open transports. The hammerhead has the better blast template option. I suppose you could wipe out a squad at a time if you focused fire on them.

Also, against hordes, the airbursting fragmentation whatchamahoozit is almost an auto-kill template. I hate that thing.

[Uncle Nutsy]

The broadsides split transports in two, the sniper teams pin them and the kroot go in and mop up.

[blackarmchair]

Meh.

Two Ld 7 units with no saves...I'm underwhelmed. A few flamer templates (a common choice for troops) and those guys are either going to break and run or become useless fast.

The rest of the units are pretty standard Tau. Broadsides can be spooky but anything speedy (or even a drop pod) will get close and tie them up.

Tau are meant to shoot, Kroot have always seemed a disappointment to me...

[Nungunz]

I'm of a similar opinion as blackarmchair. Not enough firepower and not enough mobility. It doesn't look like a very strong list at all to me.


TROOPS
-----------
20 kroot, 12 hounds
20 kroot, 12 hounds
11 firewarriors

Kroot are good, but they are not assault troops. Kroot are there so you can block the board edge from out-flankers tyring to hit your suits tanks. Kroot are there to bubble wrap your suits and tanks and slow down assault troops long enough for your suits and tanks to do their job.

Two units of 12 with 2-4 hounds (for cheap higher Iniitiative to thin down enemies a little) are enough.

Firewarriors are very poor units and are fragile as heck. Keep them small (6-man) and always put them in a devilfish ( I assume your pathfinder's fish is going to these guys?). A second 6-man squad in a Devilfish would be nice just to have some mobile scoring units, but you will lose some firepower because of this.


HQ
------
shas'el with missile pod, plasma rifle and positional relay

Scrap the positional relay for a mutli-tracker.

No suits? Seriously? Tau rely on being Crisis suits to do the heavy lifting and killing (Broasides only get you so far). At 1500 you should probably be looking at 6-8 crisis suits including the commander.




HEAVY SUPPORT
-----------------------
3x sniper drone teams
3x broadsides with target lock
3x broadsides with target lock

Sniper Team isn't worth it. Target lock is nice, but you really only need 3 or 4 broadsides at this point level. Crisis suits should be able to handle light vehicles with relative ease. Use these to hit AV 13 and 14. Advanced Stabilisation System is your friend here.


FAST ATTACK
-------------------
8 pathfinders with fish

5 pathfinders hiding out in cover shoud be plenty. I find that larger units just attract too much attention. Devilfish should have Disruption Pods and maybe a multi-tracker. Give the fish to the firewarriors.

A group of 2 Piranhas would be fantastic. They will die easily, yes, but that's the point. Flat-out move them across the field and punk them down right in a bottle-neck or in front of that scary landraider.

The enemy will be forced to deal with them or not be able to move anywhere (delaying transports like that is key in a Tau list). If the die, any wrecks lift over still for dangerous terrain tests and you will have held up some key units in the opponents army and possibly disrupted their battle-lines.

Throw fusion-blasters on them and if they survive, they might actually do some damage as well. It doesn't matter if they don't make their points back in kills. If you hold up one or two enemy transports (or Monstrous Creatures, etc), they have more than done their job. Kills are just a bonus.

[Uncle Nutsy]

With six broadsides, I can easily pop a landraider on turn one, so I'm not worried about using piranhas as blockers. In fact, when I see a landraider hit the field I smile that ever so slight evil smile. "there's a crapton of points that's about to go up in a ball of flame."

I also don't intend on using sniper drones to pop transports. Personally, I find that to be a waste of a perfectly good longrange infantry pinning/markerlight designator team.

the shas'el is there mainly as support and isn't there for frontline action. His function is to call in reserves first (if needed) and to lend support second.

I've found 10+ strong firewarrior teams very survivable for mopping up whatever infantry is left over from just about anything. 20 or more rapidfire shots versus say.. an infiltrating team of genestealers = dead squad of genestealers.


yes no suits. everyone expects lots of suits, and I toss them a curveball when they see no suits.


In short: why delay a transport when you can immobilize or destroy them and possibly stop the squad inside to boot?

[Tynskel]

do you use the fish for your 11 firewarriors? The only thing I think the list should have is the disruption pod on the fish.

I am not a fan of humongous amounts of Kroot, but if I see them, I do think the should be in 20 models strong--- :)

Would it be better to drop a kroot squad to take a second firewarrior squad?

[blackarmchair]

It doesn't matter if you kill a land raider.

Even if you hit, pen get through the smokes and roll well enough on the damage chart to reliably kill it turn one or two the TH/SS terminators inside will simply walk at you not caring about the 2-3 railgun hits they take per turn and laughing as your kroot lose close combat by 11 and run away never to regroup.

And heaven help you if your opponent has long-range weaponry of his own. A Lascannon Dev squad would murder those broadsides...murder.

[Tynskel]

It doesn't matter if you kill a land raider.

Even if you hit, pen get through the smokes and roll well enough on the damage chart to reliably kill it turn one or two the TH/SS terminators inside will simply walk at you not caring about the 2-3 railgun hits they take per turn and laughing as your kroot lose close combat by 11 and run away never to regroup.

And heaven help you if your opponent has long-range weaponry of his own. A Lascannon Dev squad would murder those broadsides...murder.

people take lascan devs? Really?

I haven't seen one of those squads since 3rd Edition

[blackarmchair]

Fine. Anything str8 with at least ap2. Tri-Las Preds (common enough), squads loaded with meltas (VERY common), various IG tanks (demolisher, devildogs etc) and even plasma spam is dangerous. Even losing one broadside is enough to make the whole squad run with fair regularity.

Broadsides are great as static tank-killers (possibly the best at it) but you can't base an entire army around them. If they become primary targets they're easily delt with. With Tau you really need either Fire Warrior spam (which still isn't great) or crisis suits to do the real killing.

It's a fun idea but Tau have FAR more effective ways of killing troops than Kroot.

[Fast3ddy]

I see where you are going with this list but, let me give you a suggestion.

Try somehow to get some pirahanas in there to give your self some tactics. kroot on the front lines are only really good when they are surrported or have some cover. the piranhas let you drop of some drones to give cover saves to the kroot and hopefully help them get the charge, as the enemy will have to assault the drones before he get to your lines. Also the pirhanas will give you some much needed blocking that is so essiantal to the tau stategy that works in 5th ed.

Remember kroot can be great but they need the right support, there is nothing worse then watching a squad of 20+ kroot and friends run straight off the table, and they will.

[Uncle Nutsy]

okay. I just tried this list out vs 5th ed Tyranids.

I didn't put the krrot/hound mix on the front lines, but instead I infiltrated them. Yeah, seeing half an army infiltrate made the nid player sit there and think for a good while before the first move was made.

He sent a couple venomthropes, gaunts and a tyrannofex after one group, and a carnifex with venomthrope after the other. The kroot and hounds held out for three turns versus that tyrannofex, forcing him to assault with that venomthrope. I sent three hounds after that thrope and dropped it in one go.

all in all, I'd say that this list did pretty good as is, but it'll be much better after I tweak it some.