Keeping Tau Viable

[Bigred]

I'm a big believer in Kroot for 3 reasons.

They are the best assaulters we have.
They are costed close to what they should be
They can outflank

The outflanking is key. In general I find that the static gunline Tau builds go down to the more recent top shelf codices easily. Stuff like Space Wolves, Droppodding Lysanders, and Grey Knights are going to be on top of your firebase on turn 2.

So that means you have to have an army that can fight on multiple fronts. That's why my initial firebase is a little smaller than normal and why I emphasize move and fire Hammerheads to dress up my Broadsides. You have to be able to respond fluidly and in force midgame and open up new flanks to keep the enemy off balance.

Flexible firepower that can move and fire is much more valuable to me than higher quantity static rail shots.

Good IG players will stay out of LoS and butcher you with Manticore fire and hellhounds, if you assume a lot of railshots will save you (it wont). Marines will drop right on top of you with termys that will totally shatter your firebase, and Grey Knights are the worst - with Swiss Army Knife units that do EVERYTHING better than your units will (moving, shooting, assaulting, scoring).

In general, my biggest struggle, is to keep my scoring units around and alive late game. Unlike a lot of the newer armies, our scoring units are generally terrible, so its a points sink you have to deal with just to able to compete. Never expose any of your scoring units without a good reason too.

Here's my Tau psychological trick - deploy your rails right whee everyone can see them, and talk about them all the time. Go quiet on the pathfinders. If the badguy starts blazing away on turn one for your rails and high powered stuff, you are going to have a good game. If he ignores them, and prioritizes your markerlights, its gonna be a tough one.

Finally, you have to play for the objectives ruthlessly with our old codex. There is just no room for attritional battles. make every unit count, and dont be afraid to move up and even assualt if you need to. From pile-in moves that can pull enemies off of objectives, to plain old suicide assaults to buy time for the rest of your army to reposition, do what you have to to get those objectives. Also, note that an opponent will almost NEVER expect a Tau player to assault for any reason outside of Kroot, so when you do it, it can be a real surprise.

-bigred

[Urza8188]

Agreed. I say the same thing to scrubs who can't win using pyrovores or chaos spawn. They just have to play better to beat the Grey Knights and the Space Wolves.

List building is very, very important for Tau right now. 5th has a high emphasis on troops and Fire Warriors are weak in staying power and damage output without a price to match. Kroot, the I 3 no armor assault troops, are constantly begging to be destroyed.

To win? Pick a list that causes serious damage/disruption on the first turn, doesn't fall easily to return fire, and can block your opponent from closing the distance. Load up on crisis suits - they are all we have left.

I agree entirely, especially on that last bit.

I also agree that kroot are easily the better troop choice but still not all that hot. I REALLY wish i could take hounds alone, Maybe with just a shaper for the leadership/armor id even pay the absurd cost of a point apiece if the unit still came out under 100 pts. The hounds work out VERY close to hormagaunts pts and stats, just replacing fleet with outflank really and fieldcraft is very decent.

Boy this thread blew up a bit ^^. Good to hear everyone's opinion on competitive tau.

[ElectricPaladin]

I agree entirely, especially on that last bit.

I also agree that kroot are easily the better troop choice but still not all that hot. I REALLY wish i could take hounds alone, Maybe with just a shaper for the leadership/armor id even pay the absurd cost of a point apiece if the unit still came out under 100 pts. The hounds work out VERY close to hormagaunts pts and stats, just replacing fleet with outflank really and fieldcraft is very decent.

Boy this thread blew up a bit ^^. Good to hear everyone's opinion on competitive tau.

I'm very proud of myself - long live the Tau thread!

[Drakkan Vael]

Agreed. I say the same thing to scrubs who can't win using pyrovores or chaos spawn. They just have to play better to beat the Grey Knights and the Space Wolves.

List building is very, very important for Tau right now. 5th has a high emphasis on troops and Fire Warriors are weak in staying power and damage output without a price to match. Kroot, the I 3 no armor assault troops, are constantly begging to be destroyed.

To win? Pick a list that causes serious damage/disruption on the first turn, doesn't fall easily to return fire, and can block your opponent from closing the distance. Load up on crisis suits - they are all we have left.

I do not disagree. List building ist very important for Tau. Increasing steadily in importance with the aging of the codex.
But often it ist the player making mistakes that decides the battle, not the list. I often hear complaints about a weak codex (it is not entirely wrong) but not about playing it bad.

As Bigred said: exploit the weaknesses and mistakes your opponet makes, sacrifice units if necessary, play the mission, not the enemy. Suicide units and bait often work wonders with your enemy, drawing him away from objectives or over-charging it (running past it only to catch some Tau on the other side of it in an assault).
I love playing Tau and hope to see turrets and Tetras in the next codex as well as the XV9 and the Remora.

[Bigred]

From your lips to the Studio's ears.

I'm off to bed dreaming of Tetras and XV9s

I never said I wanted Tau to be good in assault, but something that's just a little bit of a speed bump would be grand - and Assault1 Markerlights...

[Rabid1903]

From your lips to the Studio's ears.

I'm off to bed dreaming of Tetras and XV9s

I never said I wanted Tau to be good in assault, but something that's just a little bit of a speed bump would be grand - and Assault1 Markerlights...

Assault 1 Markerlights are the #1 thing that I want. Just tired of having to decide between sacrificing my pathfinders to light something up or retreating them and sparing an enemy unit.


Also, I figured I would throw this out there seeing as how long it took me to figure these out. Here is a guide to Crisis suit configuration names: [url]http://www.40konline.com/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=939[/url]

[SeraphimAngels]

Tau were my first army with a group of friends who played all marines hahaha, either chaos or Imperial. I learned what to take or not, it all depends on who I was facing to see how i would kit out the game. Also with house rules i could use barracudas. Which I am a huge fan of.
I like running all my crisis suits to have one arm have plasma at all times, its good against troops/monstrous creatures. Also can be good if you can get behind an enemy tank, if not actually busting every tank with that the enemy gets distracted by a crisis suit shooting up back armor.
Occasionally i'll throw in a vespid squad as marine killers, trying to time their jump or defense of my fire warriors to double tap and shoot them. I would use a devilfish to swoop in disembark my fire warriors and pop off a sqaud of ten vespid to kill a lot of stuff. AP3 weapons let my fire warriors survive usually.
Broadsides are amazing, I love running 1-2 squads of them, with 3 suits in the squad with upgrade to team leader to take shield drones for protection. 3 Railgun shots take out all tanks easy especially being twin linked.
I hope that the new xv-9 suits get adopted into GW gameplay but I am not holding my breath on that. I hope the kroot become efficient in 6th edition, but again idk...

[ElectricPaladin]

Last night I struck gold. Someone had given a huge collection of 40k models to the guy who runs our FLGS - to be given to a good home - and he decided to pass the Tau along to me. The haul included:

* 3 Ethereals
* 5 Kroot Shapers
* 5 or 6 more Kroot (some in bits, some assembled)
* Many Kroot bits (probably enough for 5 or 6 more Kroot, if I buy some torsos on eBay)
* 4 Krootox
* 2 NIB Crisis Suits
* 2 NIB Broadsides
* Some Fire Warrior bits (but no complete Fire Warriors)
* 7 metal pathfinders (and one Fire Warrior dressed up as a Pathfinder sergeant)

I'm hoping the new codex makes some of these models actually useful (especially the Pathfinders, Krootox, and Ethereals), but the Broadsides and Crisis Suits are immediately useful.

In honor of my good fortune, I'd like to hear about how you use and kit out your XV8s and XV88s.

As for myself, well, the use of XV88s is pretty much written into their stats. I turtle them up in the corner, usually in some cover, and use their railguns to take out vehicles, or snipe at infantry with high strength, low AP fire. One to two wounds a round may not be much, but it can make the difference between an enemy unit that can make it to my lines and one that can't.

I like to kit my Broadsides out like so: unit of two, leader with hardwired target lock, hardwired drone controller, and two shield drones, both models with ***. This is a hardy little unit that can focus fire or split fire. Of course, now that I' own four Broadsides splitting fire might not be as important, though if I field all of my XV88s this way I can potentially kill four different vehicles a turn...

XV8s, on the other hand, I feel like I'm a lot less clever with. I like Fireknife, Fireforge, Plasma Rifle/Burst Cannon, and Missile Pod/Burst Cannon, but I don't feel like I use them very well. I'm especially eager to hear what you do with your Crisis Suits.

[Urza8188]

Last night I struck gold. Someone had given a huge collection of 40k models to the guy who runs our FLGS - to be given to a good home - and he decided to pass the Tau along to me. The haul included:

* 3 Ethereals
* 5 Kroot Shapers
* 5 or 6 more Kroot (some in bits, some assembled)
* Many Kroot bits (probably enough for 5 or 6 more Kroot, if I buy some torsos on eBay)
* 4 Krootox
* 2 NIB Crisis Suits
* 2 NIB Broadsides
* Some Fire Warrior bits (but no complete Fire Warriors)
* 7 metal pathfinders (and one Fire Warrior dressed up as a Pathfinder sergeant)

I'm hoping the new codex makes some of these models actually useful (especially the Pathfinders, Krootox, and Ethereals), but the Broadsides and Crisis Suits are immediately useful.

In honor of my good fortune, I'd like to hear about how you use and kit out your XV8s and XV88s.

As for myself, well, the use of XV88s is pretty much written into their stats. I turtle them up in the corner, usually in some cover, and use their railguns to take out vehicles, or snipe at infantry with high strength, low AP fire. One to two wounds a round may not be much, but it can make the difference between an enemy unit that can make it to my lines and one that can't.

I like to kit my Broadsides out like so: unit of two, leader with hardwired target lock, hardwired drone controller, and two shield drones, both models with ***. This is a hardy little unit that can focus fire or split fire. Of course, now that I' own four Broadsides splitting fire might not be as important, though if I field all of my XV88s this way I can potentially kill four different vehicles a turn...

XV8s, on the other hand, I feel like I'm a lot less clever with. I like Fireknife, Fireforge, Plasma Rifle/Burst Cannon, and Missile Pod/Burst Cannon, but I don't feel like I use them very well. I'm especially eager to hear what you do with your Crisis Suits.

If you're interested in trading or selling those krootox I am interested in picking em up. I was actually looking to get some for an old 1500 list i made but i'll be damned if i'm gonna spend $20+ per model.They're not like....good or anything.....its more of a flavor and fluff thing. Id be willing to trade though PM me if interested.

IMO burst cannons are wasted weapon slots on crisis suits. Not that they aren't cost efficient they certainly are the most cost efficient S5AP5 on your list but....crisis suits to me are there to fill the other major holes in your lists. One thing Tau doesn't lack is versatile middle of the road firepower S5AP5 is about as mediocre as shots get. Missile pods are pretty unanimously the most useful weapon they have because they're only one less shot than the burst, double the range, and much stronger allowing you to easily screw with transports. Flamers while shorter range than the burst cannons fill the anti horde gap in your list and the twin linked are the most cost efficient infantry killer in the codex, they even mess up termies about as well as plasma because they just land so many wounds (unless they have FNP). Plasma obviously performs well vs everything that isn't high armor vehicles but personally i think they're too expensive w/o markers or BS4+. Fusion I don't give much credit to, Im not a fan of suicide suits. Vs T4 multi wound units they are pretty good but if you get within 12 of a functional transport you're already dead most likely. stick with the Missiles IMO

[Reivax26]

I have actually had success with running a Shas'el with the Fireknife setup inside a squad of 3 Fireknives. The unit throws out a quality number of shots and if backed up by some markerlight hits can decimate Monstrous Creatures or light armor. I used 2 squads setup like this in a recent game and if it hadn't been for them I would have lost to a Tervigon Tyranid list a lot worse than I did. (Had 1 bad round of shooting and often that is all it takes against them lol). I played a list that I was thinking of taking to a local tournament that is coming up but after playing it I think I need more troops in it and definetly going to put Kroot in it. I noticed that against Nids the Pirahna unit that I was running didn't do squat. Against vehicle heavy armies I guess they would be a lot more useful but against the Horde armies they are useless in a Kill Point game.