2500 Competitive Tau List

[slobulous]

HQ

Shas'el and 2 Bodyguards: twin-linked missile pods, plasma rifles, hard-wired multi-trackers, shield drones (one each) 294

Shas'el and 2 Bodyguards: twin-linked missile pods, plasma rifles, hard-wired multi-trackers, shield drones (one each) 294

Elites

Battlesuit Team x3 : twin-linked missile pods, flamers, team leader w/ 2x shield drones 176

Battlesuit Team x3 : twin-linked missile pods, flamers, team leader w/ 2x shield drones 176

Battlesuit Team x3 : twin-linked missile pods, flamers, team leader w/ 2x shield drones 176

Troops

Fire Warriors x6 : 60
Devilfish : smart missile system, multi-tracker, target lock, disruption pods 120

Fire Warriors x6 : 60
Devilfish : smart missile system, multi-tracker, target lock, disruption pods 120

Fire Warriors x6 : 60
Devilfish : smart missile system, multi-tracker, target lock, disruption pods 120

Heavy Support

Broadside Team x3 : targetting arrays, team leader w/ 2x shield drones and target lock 280

Broadside Team x3 : targetting arrays, team leader w/ 2x shield drones and target lock 280

Broadside Team x3 : targetting arrays, team leader w/ 2x shield drones and target lock 280

Total
2496

[Denied]

Competitive Tau list, Oxymoron?

[thecactusman17]

No, there are just only a handful of decent ones.

You could look into running oshava and maxing a suit squad, that unit can do a lot of damage and is hard to kill. The positional relay can also be a good option if you use melta
guns, drop then in close to make it work well.

[Anggul]

Out of curiosity, why do your Devilfish have target locks? Are they meant to be advanced targeting arrays?

[Fry Globes]

Competitive Tau list, Oxymoron?
hahaha you've obviously never played a good player with a good list recently, tau may be bottom tier and their inability to compete in assault is a terrific hamstringing but focus fire and strategic sacrifice can make you BLEED!

slobulous, i can see where you're going with that list, maximising the effective shooting choices tau have is a good way to start but in my opinion you can never hold off an enemy for the whole game with shooting alone. fast/assault vehicles, outflankers, infiltrators and scouters will ruin your **** if you don't have units that can you can afford to throw away in the name of tarpitting/neutering/kiting threats.
i also don't think you have enough variety in terms of your shooting

your broadsides are ok but if you can find cover for them you can use the cheaper gun drones over shield drones. a personal choice is paying for plasma rifles over the smart missile launchers they have, i like the plasma because i think they're better insurance for when you're about to get charged

i think you've gone a bit overboard on the deathrain battlesuits, i agree that strength 7 is very nice to have in 5th edition but i think if you were to change a few to targeting arrays over flamers you would need less suits overall due to the higher accuracy, yes you lose the flamers but how often do you fire those flamers?. the bodyguard suits are a ripoff in my opinion because you get very little that is useful for the 10 points they cost over regular crisis suits

i assume you're just leaving your devilfish troops in reserve to take objectives later in the game but i would urge you to consider doubling the size of at least one of the squads because 12 rapidfiring pulse rifles can acheive a lot more than 6, say there's a depleted combat squad or beat-up rhino contesting your objective...

here's a few units that work well for me;

10 Kroot, 8 Hounds /// 118 - this is the kind of sacrificial unit i was talking about, options to infiltrate, outflank or plain old reserve mean that you can pick and choose the place on the battlefield where they will have the best effect. the large squad size makes them decent at 'bubblewrapping' more valuable units and their reliatively low point cost makes it easier to swallow when they get flamed to hell whilst buying a turn for your crisis suits to flee. a lot of people underestimate the kroot, but, for less points, they and their hounds are better than poison hormagants against T4 in the majority of circumstances. *edit* i forgot hormies have move through cover which is significant and i think kroot really should have instead of fieldcraft : ( oh and fleet, haha, well kroot are still ok compared to hormies and tau don't have too many options... infiltrate and outflank are rather handy and kroot can actually shoot, hounds have initiative 5 but there's no grenades anyway. i'm rambling now but with all the multiple small unit spam that's around i like my odds charging 5 marines with 54 strength 4 attacks (grey hunters still hurt you bad though)

6 Stealth Suits /// 1** - these are one of the best units for infuriating your opponent and leading his troops a merry dance. they're too fast for infantry to catch and their stealth fields mean the enemy is forced to get within burst cannon range to have a reasonable chance of being able to even see them, which is when you turn on the dakka. they can't escape for long against anything faster than infantry but you should be shutting that sort of stuff down with long-ranged shooting. also worth a mention for their ability to suppress light vehicles.

3 Pirahnas, Targeting Arrays, Fusion Blasters /// 225 - this is a lot of points, you can run 2 pirahnas instead but i find the third melta necessary. i usually keep these in reserve, either to keep them safe for late game when nasty stuff might have made it near my deployment zone or, with a positional relay, i'll bring them on early game to deal with annoying things like drop-pod dreads. once they've made their initial strike they're good for blocking assaults and contesting objectives.

another unit i would consider at this points level is pathfinders, i find they're often worth it purely for their ability to take cover saves away. if you're confident in your ability to keep them alive and firing you can also use markerlights to replace targeting arrays in augmenting your units' ballistic skill

hope some of that is of a help, if you'd like i can post my 2500 list but it's only a hypothetical extension of my 1500 list, i don't have much experience in games that large