1850 Tau list for the weekend trip to New Orleans.

[chicop76]

Not sure I will play or not, but if I get the time to play. This will be the list I will run.

Hq
Commander: w/ C&C node, Multi, Puretide
Ethereal

Troop
12x Fire Warriors: Devilfish w/ overwatch, filter, 2x seeker missiles, smart
10x Fire Warriors
10x Fire Warriors
13x Sniper Kroot
13x Sniper Kroot

Elite
Riptide: fusion, early warning, ion
Riptide: fusion, ion, early warning

Fast
4x pathfinders
4x pathfinders
4x pathfinders

Heavy
Skyray: Filter, smart
Hamerhead: Filter, 2 x seeker, smart
3 broadsides: rail, smart, 3 x seeker, 3x target
8 missile drones

I call this lots of cover denial missiles !
13 seeker missiles!
24 smart missile shots!
And 16 missile pod shots!
All deny cover

All though my rail rifles deny cover too and I have 14 marker lights that can deny cover to any weapon system I like.

This is my latest Tau version. I felt I needed more mobility, so I added a transport. Now 7 seeker missiles extra gives me extra fire power for my army to dish out. If I drop them I could have 56 extra points. If I drop some gear and a few fire warriors I can add another devil fish.

How ever I want to see how this list works out. I am gussing I will be facing the new marines. As a side note this is still my basic list minus crisis suits with seekers and devilfish.

I am still ironing out the kinks to my tourney list.

[chicop76]

Played against guard which was a pretty good game. Even though I won I still have issues with some units, and I felt bad rolling aside I should had done a lot better.

For starters let me cover the seeker missiles first. On the broadsides they worked rather well. The extra shooting was nice, and the fact the missiles are bs 5 even when I gtg is very helpful. However on my devilfish and hammerhead I felt they didn't perform the way I really liked.

The overall issue I fou.d is I was very limited with my marker usage. With aegis shielding I needed marker lights to deny cover. During the game wanting to fire my seekers limited my options. In short I need all 4 platforms of marker shooters t fire lights which in turn one was used to fire missiles. I had to chang my tactic to allow for example my units to deny cover. Either I need more lights or less missiles, so my armies synergy with my lights will work better.

Smart missiler was rather nice, with 30 twin linked denying cover shooting it help conserve on marker lighting. The drones are attractive.

My railhed under performd again. The problem wth the model is everyone basically hide their good stuff or have cover saves. I feel that I need to give the head deny cover to actually perform the way I need it to. Overall alone it's just not a real threat. Thinking that my melta jumpers may be more worth it.

After some thought going.melta may be the way to go. OShova list do well for a reason. I figure 2-4 suits deep striking with melta guns could be helpful. I have to double check if I can take a.body guard with an ethereal for 3 solo double melta suits.

Thinking about it I am thinking about taking shadow sun. If I do that I can infiltrate or outflank with her and a body guard of melta suits with all target locks which would let me shoot at 4 differant targets, 4 or 3 since all target should allow me 4. Infiltrate would be useful due to easisly being able to be in 18" fusion range in turn one, although 9" melta range would be a bit harder to pull off.

Dropping the missiles on my vehicles and keeping them on my sides.

I also want to point out I may make my etheral more mobile or drop him for shadowsun. I don't castle up which hurts. He has hbelped several times, but not so much when I start playing mobile long range striking. The fireblade is also a bad option since I tenf to move my firewarriors. The leadership 10 and stubborn bubble has helped out a lot though, also zephar's grace which I use a lot. May see how it works w/ out ethereal.


Everything else works out pretty well. The sniper round kroot seems like a waste since I move them a lot or snap fire do to gtg. Also against t3 armies regular shooting is better. Another issue happens to be that rapis firing tends to better as well.

I feel I need more long range counter than anything else. The armies that seem to be troublesome are the armies that like to stay outside of 36" range. Everyone else I really have no trouble with. Which means droping the head will lower my threat range outside 36 a little. However the thoughts of ds melta or infiltrating suits would change that though or adding sniper drones.

Armour 13 isn't a problem to handle even with out the head. Armour 14 is a problem if it decides to sit back and shot, but ds melta is there for that.

Going back to range I have 5 models that can hit outside of 36", well 6 models in this list, seekers can too due to lights.

Not 100% sure I want to drop my Ethereal. I have thought about the O'Shova bomb, but 250 points t spend int the unit is not much. The issue of O'Shova cost is. Deterant. Shadowsun is differant due to having 2 melta guns already. I may have to get gear that allows for on the spot ouflanking. Not sure yet. I may do 3 deep striking melta suits that include shadowsun, I can do 4 such suits with shadow sun in the army.

50-60 points for a double melta gun that I can easily lose is a questuonable investment, especially with bs 3. I wonder if I ca just take 3 melta guns and twin link two, giving me one re roll and one regular shot. Even so a throw away platoon squad with just two meltas come to 50 points. For 10 points more I am getting better durability , mobility, and the chance to ds, with a better melta gun. For 200 points or around I can have 3 units with 6 melta guns. With my daemon ds experiance I can feel confident I can get within 18" of a vehicle easy. The hard part would be staying within 9". If I ds at an angle 8" away I doubt mishaping would occur often. Thinking about it more instead of taking shadowsun I can take another commander. If I do that staying within 200 pts would be rather easy. Losing a 100 point commander isn't a big deal. Intercept is only a big deal with Tau or Grey Knights for the most part. Gk intercept can be easily avoided, while Tau's can be troublesome, however if a riptide waste it's fire on a 50 pt suit, who am I to complain.

I did gather a lot of insight which hopefully will create a better list. I am thinking of adding a sniper drone squad, 2 units of solo melts ds suits, iraduim to my commander, and dropping seeker on devilfish, droping hammer head, sniper rounds off the kroot. If I have extra points I may more pathfinders.

[Chadddada]

Keep me updated! Starting to plan out my Tau army build and I am liking this list.

[chicop76]

Sure thing. Still working out the bugs. Funny thing that 1500 points of my army has ben solid every game while about 350 has been ok, or not worked really well.

For example my broadsides with support commander is really, really good. The unit is soooo good I am thinking of adding allies from O'Shova for a 2nd support commander.

Right now though I am trying stay strait one army with no allies. That being said the only area where I am not strong in is long range combat, beyond 36". Not saying I can't put out significant damage beyond 36". The issue is my list so far can do about 25% damage to armies beyond 36". Meaning it may take till 5th turn to wipe you out. On the bright side my long rangved units are very durable as well. Which means I can play the long range game which some Tau armies lack.

The list I have is really strong within the 15" range thanks to 32 fire warriors and 26 kroot dishing out 96 strength 5 and 78 strength 4 shots. The ethereal comes in real handy when an army foolishly deep strikes or come close within my lines. It's pretty scarry te carnage I wrought upon deep striking armies. That beeing said I tend to not try to wipe out units, but leave them really low to die to overwatch, meaning I may leave like 2 marines alive, so they can die in overwatch. What's even better is that my troops d-grenades are really helpful and making my troops stubborn is equally good. I have won combat due to stubborn fire warriors who had the number advantage, no one wants to assault the kroot :(.

Another major weakness is mobility which is not tooo bad. I tend to move my army up in some games, depending onthe othe sides fire power. I'll risk my fire warriors to bolter fire, but would take out heavy bolters which can put some hurt on my troops.

My riptides are awesome. They can be ranged, melee, mobile, or short range, and very durable. Need a squad of terms to feel a strength 8 ap 2 pie plate, need a tank to take a strength 9 ordanance shot from 72", need melta in a tank face, need a squad gone, need 3strength 10 hammer of wrath attacks against a tank, te riptide does a lot. It's not really ignorable and can take a decent amount of hits.

Now marines have grav weapons. I can see a grav pistol being used over a plasma pistol, not knowing cost. For standard tropops plasma is probably going to be a lesser choice to grav and melta. I would say melta is still a solid choice over the two. Which leaves the nex exo squads with grav cannons. Unless they are jumping out of a landraider they have very limited range 30",36" possible with landraider. That being said a riptide can stay out of range from them for a time. Seeing that a tide can possibly wip out a squad of 3 in 2 turns of shooting I don't see them as a real threat, another reason for the sniper drones.

Coming to my pathfinders I find they are really helpful. Mini squads of 4 has been working, until I overloaded them with the buren of seeker missiles. 4 is enough to deny cover. I think 6 may be ideal since on average you can deny cover and get +1 to bs which can help with riptide shooting, denying cover strength 8 ap 2 large pie plates are brutal. Typically unless we are playing vps they are ignored, or when fast attack can score. I have used them as outflankers which has helped very much. They outflanked and blasted some guard off an objective and took it, it also helped that I blasted the area from range and making a counter attack very unlikely. Not saying they should outflank all the time, but it is an option. Another thought is to give them railguns and outflank which means 6 strength 6 ap 1 shots. No sure about paying 45 extra points for that type of fire power. However the ion at strength 8 seems to be attractive as extra anti-tank as well. However once you equip heavy weapons to pathfinders it kind diminish they support role actions and +5 armour isn't the greatest in the world, good against guard, but evryone else tear through it like butter. Which means at the end of the day they need to do some damage if they decide to strike out as an offensive unit, with out lights even outflanking marnes in the open they would be hard pressed to earn back their points with rail guns in tow. 4 at the lowest cost with 3 rail guns hit almost 100 points. If you figure out units like crisis suits who can take 4 plasma guns and can deal out 8 plasma shots out of ds seems to show ho expensive it is to equip pathfinders like that or about 5-6 vespids instead. Not very cost effective.

Heck I thought about using vespids, but I need more higher strength weapons and my tides do their job rather well at range 72" over 18".

The deep strike melta suits is something I used before in other editions, they was twin linked. Now with 2 melta shots they can do some damage. Twin melta and a plasma gun is another thought. However I figure I can acomplish this with 4 melta as a better setup. I have ds my riptides in conjunction with my crisis suits and they was pretty devestating taking out several vehicles, all stayed within 9" with a tide almost mishaping.

I am excited to see how my new adjustment will work in future battles. I know the melta suits will be helpful against armies like eldar and necron when they try to do the long range game. It did help out a lot whe I went against ig.

[Tyrendian]

4 Heavy Support choices in 1850? wait a sec... you'd need the Farsight allies to do that anyways... or am i missing something?

[Kraggi]

4 Heavy Support choices in 1850? wait a sec... you'd need the Farsight allies to do that anyways... or am i missing something?


Three heavy support choices,

Sky ray
Hammerhead
Broadsides

The missile drones are an upgrade for the broadsides.

Gotta say I like the look of it, mi got struggle vs 2+ armies a little, but with the amount of firepower saves will be failed!

[chicop76]

Yeah, so far i have tested it against my other army list and it has performed really well. Hince i know how to deal with Daemons, Nids, and several of the human armies.

I am still working with my list. I am working and helping my son with his Dark Angel/ Marine list.

I ran differant scenerios and can't really come with a good counter for the above Tau list, but Ravenguard/ Dark Angel seem to be strong due to scouting bikes and assault marines.

I do fear the threat of scouting bikes with grav guns.

I only have 3 heavy options ????

Also I may wait till I get the farsight book. the more I think about an IC riptide joining my broadsides the more my mouth water. Having a support commander with a 2+ and if i add the missile shield drones I can have 16 twin linked missile shots. However I would probablly drop the drones to raise majority toughness to 6 due to commander t5, riptide t6, 2 drones t6, and 3 broadsides t6.

The above combo need like 60 plasma shots from marines to just kill my commander possibly, if i just throw off wounds on my riptide and commander with them taking all the wounds.

Anyway my current list building is on hold while i go through the Marine codex. I just finished putting together 25 assault marines and 18 bikes. I am debating on scout marines in rhinos as well. if done right I can get a Marine army to start in the middle of the field quite easily with cover saves ranging from 2+ through 4+.