new Tau, with heavy vehicles

[knightperson]

One of my first attempts at a Tau list from the new codex, this one centers on heavy vehicles.

HQ:
crisis commander with Cyclic Ion Blaster, Plasma Rifle, drone controller, Command & Control Node, and 2 marker drones. 162 points

ethereal with honor blade 55 points.

Troops:
3 squads of 10 fire warriors each with one shas'ui squad leader. 100 each.

Elite:
2 suits with fusion blaster, missile pod, advanced targeting system (precision shot), and a shield drone. 3rd suit is a shas'vre with the same equipment but a Puretide Engram instead of the adv targeting system. Puretide Engram lets him pick Counter Attack, Furious Charge, Monster Hunter, Stubborn, or Tank Hunter at the start of his movement phase. 223 points.

1 solo shas'vre crisis suit with airbursting fragmentation projector, burst cannon, neuroweb system jammer, and 2 gun drones. NWS makes an enemy unit's weapons have Gets Hot. 83 points.

Fast Attack:
Sunshark bomber with twinlinked missile pod, decoy launchers, & disruption pod. decoy launchers are now a 4++ save against weapons with Interceptor. 183 points.

A drone squad of 6 marker drones. They are BS 2, but as long as the commander is attached they use his BS 5. 84 points.

8 pathfinders. One is a squadleader with blacksun filter (nightfighting), and 3 have rail rifles. 144 points.

Heavy Support:
Longstrike in a railhead with smart missile system. Also gets submunition shot, disruption pod, and 2 seeker missiles. Longstrike makes the hammerhead BS 5 with Tank Hunter, Preferred Enemy (Imperial Guard), supporting fire, and overwatch with the SMS. 206 points.

skyray with smart missile system, disruption pod, precision shot, and blacksun filter. 141 points.

ionhead with smart missile system, disruption pod, precision shot, blacksun filter, and 2 seeker missiles. 167 points.

total cost: 1748.

Basically, the army will be anchored by the pathfinder squad, ethereal, and 3 fire warrior teams. The ethereal will keep them together and buff as needed (each turn he can choose to give nearby units Stubborn, Feel No Pain 6+, fire snap shots after running, or an extra pulse shot at 1/2 range). The commander and drone squad will be the primary markerlight source while the vehicles mill around and shoot at things. Vehicle killing will have to be handled by Longstrike and the fusion blaster crisis team, although pathfinders, seeker missiles, and the drones from the bomber would be effective with side shots. The only skyfire in there is the skyray, and nothing has interceptor, but seeker missiles now hit at BS5 against flyers once you get a markerlight hit, and they ignore cover. The lone shas'vre is basically designed to deal with lasgun spam IG lists, but he would be decent against anything with a weak armor save.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

"2 suits with fusion blaster, missile pod, advanced targeting system (precision shot), and a shield drone"

Don't Elite suits only have 3 slots? You may need to drop something there.

Other than that it looks reasonably solid, and as you know what you want to do with each piece and how you are going to support it, that helps too.

[Railgun Convention]

"2 suits with fusion blaster, missile pod, advanced targeting system (precision shot), and a shield drone"

Don't Elite suits only have 3 slots? You may need to drop something there.

Drone =/= slot. So that's two weapons and the ATS.

Looking fairly solid, I think.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

I read Generator, my bad. Need to not read these while sleep deprived.

[Chicop76]

30 fire warriors is not a lot of troops. I think you should take some kroot or more fire warriors.

Is the command node for shooting at air targets???

With a flyer and a skyray do you really need a command node for your drones??? Not to mention they already hit on 2+.

Why the honor blade??? Not like a strength 5 Ethereal will do anything.

Also I made this mistake and will part this knowledge on you. Why a skyray really need a black sunfilter. Think about it. Smart missles ignore cover and cover saves can't be taken against all it's weapons. Night fight impacts the skyray beyond 36" and 36" is the maximum shooting range for the skyray. I did the same thing and haven't changed my current list due to being lazy. I can however get a 5 point upgrade if I drop the filter since I have 4 points I need to use.

Dropping the filter and honor blade will free up 8 points for you to use somewhere else. If you drop the command node it will free up more points.

[BlackPowderChocobo]

If you do drop some points, put a Target Lock on the Commander.  With his arsenal and range, he really should be going after different targets than the 8 Marker Drones.  Alternatively, drop the CCN node, take the Neuroweb Jammmer, Vectored Retro Thrusters, and the Repulsor Impact Field.  Great way to annoy assaulters because you can

[knightperson]

30 fire warriors is not a lot of troops. I think you should take some kroot or more fire warriors.

Valid point. Not sure how I feel about the new kroot, but there's always room for some more fire warriors.

Is the command node for shooting at air targets???

With a flyer and a skyray do you really need a command node for your drones??? Not to mention they already hit on 2+.

That's what I had in mind, but you're right that that might be overkill. Maybe I could manage to give the CnC node to the Elite suits or something.

Why the honor blade??? Not like a strength 5 Ethereal will do anything.

because it was cheap? Mostly because my very-dusty ethereal model is the honor-blade version.

Also I made this mistake and will part this knowledge on you. Why a skyray really need a black sunfilter. Think about it. Smart missles ignore cover and cover saves can't be taken against all it's weapons. Night fight impacts the skyray beyond 36" and 36" is the maximum shooting range for the skyray. I did the same thing and haven't changed my current list due to being lazy. I can however get a 5 point upgrade if I drop the filter since I have 4 points I need to use.

Dropping the filter and honor blade will free up 8 points for you to use somewhere else. If you drop the command node it will free up more points.

The blacksuns are there because they're cheap, mostly. There would be some argument for keeping it so I could seeker missile very distant targets, but I'll see what else I could do with the points.

Good thoughts. Thanks for the insight!

[Chicop76]

30 fire warriors is not a lot of troops. I think you should take some kroot or more fire warriors.

Valid point. Not sure how I feel about the new kroot, but there's always room for some more fire warriors.

Is the command node for shooting at air targets???

With a flyer and a skyray do you really need a command node for your drones??? Not to mention they already hit on 2+.

That's what I had in mind, but you're right that that might be overkill. Maybe I could manage to give the CnC node to the Elite suits or something.

Why the honor blade??? Not like a strength 5 Ethereal will do anything.

because it was cheap? Mostly because my very-dusty ethereal model is the honor-blade version.

Also I made this mistake and will part this knowledge on you. Why a skyray really need a black sunfilter. Think about it. Smart missles ignore cover and cover saves can't be taken against all it's weapons. Night fight impacts the skyray beyond 36" and 36" is the maximum shooting range for the skyray. I did the same thing and haven't changed my current list due to being lazy. I can however get a 5 point upgrade if I drop the filter since I have 4 points I need to use.

Dropping the filter and honor blade will free up 8 points for you to use somewhere else. If you drop the command node it will free up more points.

The blacksuns are there because they're cheap, mostly. There would be some argument for keeping it so I could seeker missile very distant targets, but I'll see what else I could do with the points.

Good thoughts. Thanks for the insight!

The ion head should have the upgrade due to cover saves and beyond 36". Just saying it's a watse on a Skyray. Also night fight does not impact the seeker missles. Seeker Missles ignore cover saves and range is not an issue as long as a target been marker lighted.

Seeker missiles are really good on pirannas who can postion themselves 28" across the table and receive a +3 cover save. I have to read when the turbo move happens since you can turbo over a vehicle and use a marker light to shoot the vehicle in the back by using the piranna's seeker missles.

Another thought I had was on gun drones. A squad of gun drones is not bad due to overwatch. 10 drones can fire 20 times with twin linked guns for about 6 hits on average. Although 6 hits isn't really much though.

[knightperson]

The flat-out-seeker-missile-sneak, which really needs a better name than that, hasn't been legal since 6th edition. Since Flat Out happens in the shooting phase, in lieu of shooting anything, the seeker missile can't be fired. Well, maybe you could get away with it if you took the argument that an infantry unit firing at the target could declare use of the seeker, but in the new codex the wording is clear that it doesn't work that way.

I would have to look at the night-fighting rules, but I think without a blacksun filter the skyray would still not be able to fire the seeker beyond 36 inches. It's not a question of cover save, but unless the seeker description states that seekers ignore night fighting ... checks codex ... which it doesn't...    However, it does say "does not need line of sight", so the question is whether night fighting in the rulebook states that you "can't draw LOS beyond 36 inches" or whether it says "can not fire at a target beyond 36 inches." If it's the second, which I suspect it is, then RAW clearly states that you can't, regardless of what RAI might say.

Here's another markerlight problem that some <expletive> is going to argue at some point. Seeker description states "must be fired at the same target as the vehicle's other weapons." However, broadsides can also take seekers, and they are not vehicles. Somebody, somewhere is going to argue that I can't fire that seeker from my broadside because seekers can only be fired from vehicles!

[InsaneTD]

Firing a seeker with a markerlight would over ride most of those restrictions would it not?