8e T'au Discussion Part 7: Warhammer 40k Army List Builder is no more edition

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missilefists never look not silly

Would 60 boyz under a Big Mek KFF be able to withstand T'au fire while footslogging, or am I fugged?

Depends on the army shooting at you I imagine.
Footslogging gives a decent chance to get shot at so it comes down to whether he has the firepower and maneuverability to outshoot you and stave off combat.

If you're mobbing and the other guy brings as much volume of fire then... Yeah, you might be screwed cause gun drone lines can produce tons of fire and are very point efficient.

Then what can I do? How the hell can I get my 100+ boyz into combat?

1st for special snowflake weeaboo general

Hope you aren't versing drone spam?
Use deepstrikes?
Transports?

I feel like missile fists might work okay if it was just one missile fist and the other hand was doing something else.

Played Tau in 3rd through 5th edition before I fell out of love with 40k and sold them all. What's the absolute max number of suits (particularly XV8s) a list can get away with these days before it becomes an impediment? I've done a little research on 8e and it sounds like suits in general are too expensive to field in huge numbers and the Farsight Enclaves aren't looking too hot either.

As someone who never liked the ridiculously big FW suits and Riptide stuff but was always a fan of the flexibility of the XV8s, I'm mixed on what I've heard from 8e. Not looking to cheese, but I've always liked suit heavy lists and if there was a way to pull that off in 8e while still putting up a decent fight, that'd be nice.

Say I was keeping to 1000 points for now, is a Coldstar Commander and a squad of 3 XV8s already too much with the increased point costs? I wouldn't mind swapping that out for stealth suits and the Ghostkeel, that thing look cool. I like most of the suits and just want to field as many as I can get away with without seriously hamstringing myself.

>good suits:
commander
coldstar
stealth
ghostkeel
stormsurge
tau'nar
>Bad
Riptide
Crisis
>No verdict yet
XV109
XV107
Tau'nar
>Not a suit but the worst unit in the codex RAW
tigershark AX-1-0

Yeah
I'd run the keel instead of crisis
Stealths are good too

Is bringing multiple commanders even fluffy or non-WAACfaggy? Being able to dump an almost-invincible character within melta range and with enough firepower and stats to delete whatever he's thrown at as soon as he arrives for 160 points sounds pretty WAACfaggy to me.

Crisis Suits aren't that bad, they can essentially do the same for a little bit cheaper but have balanced stats. Plus you can bring 6 gun drones with them for more overall evenly-distributed dakka.

well it depends on how many commanders you are bringing.
In my current WAAC list I have 5 hqs
2 Cadre fireblades
1 farsight
1 commander with 4 fusions blasters + shield drone
1 Buffmander XV84 with 9 marker drones and 1 shield drones
Would you consider this waacy?

Does it win?

No, that doesn't sound too bad. I mean the "load up 6 commander with guns and alpha strike them" thing. THAT I consider WAACy. I use a single commander with 2 guns and 2 systems which is really all I need as I have plenty of fusion elsewhere.

I'm 2/1/0 with it so far
first was against orks running that fw biker hq with boyz footslogging under kff, nobs in a trukk and meganobz footslogging with lootas firing from range, i won
second game was against no legion csm.
guy ran footslogging cultists, csm in rhinos, chosen with special weaps, helbrutes, forgefiends, warpsmith, fark apostle and lord in termie armour, i won
last game was against new admech, no objectives here so only kill points, I pulled off a last minute tie by nova charging my Y'vahra ion cannon and raping a damaged onager with 4 wounds + 3 mortal wounds to tie the game
that is fair enough, I only have 4 crisis suits so if I'm bored I might try a 1000 point list with 4 commanders + farsight commander bomb and recreate 7th edition levels of cheese all over again

What do people think of Hazards? burst cannon hazards pump out nice amount of shots

>You see shas'la vlad'mir, when make of the cadre ALL commanders, enemy will never know which to shoot.

burst cannon hazards good, others not so much
for a suit heavy list they replace crisis suits quite nicely for burst cannons, allowing you to take fusion commanders, keels and stealthsuits to fill in gaps

pic is the list I've been using for games so far
the piranha and the riptide represent a XV109 with target lock+ATS and a Barracuda AX-5-2 with swiftstrike railgun+cyclic ion blasters

>burst cannon hazards good
Perfect.

My hazards have been one of my favourite models, so I would have been so sad to see them become worse.

>Bad
>Riptide
>Crisis
LOL

>Being able to dump an almost-invincible character within melta range
"Melta" range is 9". You must deploy >9".

>Crisis Suits aren't that bad, they can essentially do the same for a little bit cheaper but have balanced stats.
Crisis Suits are great for missile pods, cyclic ion blasters, and flamers. I wouldnt bring any other equipment on them.

>"Melta" range is 9". You must deploy >9".
All Commander strategies use homing beacons to DS within like 4 inches.

>Crisis Suits are great for missile pods, cyclic ion blasters, and flamers. I wouldnt bring any other equipment on them.
Agreed on that. Something that has the rate of fire to still get good results with BS4+ or something that completely bypasses it

>All Commander strategies use homing beacons to DS within like 4 inches.
Homing beacons are 1 use per commander, and each homing beacon is essentially 110 points

Something worth considering

.. the fuck are you talking about? Homing beacons are 1 use per stealthsuit squad but they're 20 points.

You only really need 1 for a crisis suit flamer drop

He's talking about the cost of the stealth team to bring the homing beacon.

I don´t know if this was discussed before but know that i see the effect of the photon grenades, there´s my question, if i overwatch with 2 different Fire Warrior squads and i fire one photon grenade for each of them,if both of them impact, does the ability stack, meaning that the squad charging me will hit me with a -2?

Oh ok, but stealthsuits are great now so they'll pull their workload for sure. My 12 are always an auto-include.

I just rolled some dice to test out a 6-Flamer+ATS drop with a 3-man XV8 bodyguards and shit that's sweet. Average about 3 dead TH/SS terminators everytime I shoot.

>They charge you, autohits
>They try to run away, forgoing or gimping their shooting phase
>You chase 8" and can advance without a problem cause autohits
>They shoot you
>lmao 6drone!1

No. The wording says 'subtract 1 from any hit rolls made for infantry units that have suffered any hits from photon grenades until the end of the turn'

Do you deploy yours in midfield or in your deployment? All my midfielders just get rekt immediately instead of my other units, but I'm starting to think that's a huge waste and I might start putting them in my front line.

I have never ever fielded Crisis Suits save for my Commander, I don't even own any but him. So I'm just doing some theorycrafting and will playtest with proxies to test them out before I decide to buy a box.

If you're talking about stealthsuits, I tend to infiltrate them midfield in cover. -1 to hit and 2+ save actually makes my opponents refuse to bother with them. They are mobile so you won't have much issues starting in the deployment zone I'd wager. I have your problem with my Ghostkeel, it's too tasty a target for most of my opponents, it's only ever survived one game in 7th.

>not shas'la d'islav

Yeah, I've been deploying my three teams of three stealth suits in cover, but they just get shot and charged on turn one. It doesn't help that I was bringing a Brigade and as a result usually went second. I'm thinking about changing the tactic and dropping two or three squads in midfield in the same area, rather than stringing them out like I have been doing, or just dropping them in the front line beside the Fire Warriors and Pathfinders for a bit of extra protection.

>it's too tasty a target for most of my opponents, it's only ever survived one game in 7th.
Ghostkeel is the best bait unit in the game

It's very easy to deploy the GK behind cover so it has a 2+ save. Put the drones out of LOS to absorb heavy weapon shots.

It's not particularly tanky but it does enough damage that your opponent can't ignore it. They'll always put themselves within 12" of it to ignore the -2 hit penalty, and then probably try to charge it, too.

This is terrible positioning and you can easily exploit it.

Ghostkeel is the epitome of bait and trap strategy

I would love some tips on positioning to fuck 'em up then. At the very least my expensive beautiful suit dies for something.

You want it to be a midfield unit. You need to know:
1. What guns the enemy has, and what they do
2. The range of their heavy weapons (after movement)
3.

Try to stay out of 12" threat range of the heavy weapons but in range of the faster units so you can draw them in. If you deploy correctly the drones will be out of LOS so you will definitely survive heavy weapon fire (especially with -2 hit) and the light weapons fire won't do too much damage against your T6 and 2+ save.

Woods and Battlescape are my favourite scenery to deploy a Ghostkeel, since they reduce enemy charges by 2". Float over a Gravity drone from a pathfinder team and you reduce enemy charges by an additional D3".

Alternatively you can use the Ghostkeel as a flank guard to ward off deep strike. This works well if you have a gun nest positioned n a corner that draws the enemy in and some more mobile units (Commander, Coldstar, Sunshark, Crisis) going where necessary to exploit weaknesses.
Adding a ghostkeel with an Early Warning Override as a midfield anti-deployment unit means that there is no way for the enemy to get close to your gun nest with deep strikes. If they deploy within 12" they get shot, if they deploy > 12" they have -2 to hit with shooting and CANNOT charge you.

Ghostkeel is a great unit but I think people expect it to be doing more damage and survive more attacks. If you want that kind of unit then you should take a Riptide instead.

Damn this is some good shit, lad. I already use a gunline flanked by MSU Kroot Hounds to completely deny my half of the board any deepstrike bullshit though, so I'm covered there.

Not the guy you're replying to, but a good trap might be putting it just ahead of a blob of Fire Warriors and Cadre Fireblade. If they want to negate the Ghostkeel's defense, they need to get close, and if they're that close they're opening themselves up to a full-strength 15" volley of pulse rifle fire. Basically:

Deploy Ghostkeel with the front of its base 8" away from the fire warrior blob. Allow enemy to get within 12" of ghostkeel. They will end their move 18-20" away from the Fire Warriors. Move Fire Warrior blob up 6" into 15" rapid fire range, use Cadre Fireblade embedded in the blob to get 3 shots per FW. If you want to make the trap even more devious, bring a pulse accelerator drone on a Pathfinder squad to extend the FW rapid fire range to 18", letting you deploy the FW 3" further back from the Ghostkeel and putting the threat range of the FW rapid fire at 24". Bonus points for hiding them in a Devilfish so that nasty blob isn't on your opponent's mind when they're closing in on the Ghostkeel.

Good shit my man, I got a strong gunline. Though instead of devilfish, I use shieldlines. It's pretty good bait and you can still shoot them even if the enemy is in CC with it since it's a fortification but THEY still need to disengage.

Not bad. I've been thinking of getting a Ghostkeel for the exact strategy that I outlined. I own two Shieldlines but haven't used them yet because they just seemed too squishy for me. Now that I've been getting my Devilfish blown away by my mate's Dark Eldar, I'm starting to think that two shieldlines for roughly the cost of a Devilfish is a pretty good deal. The one disadvantage they have is that only one unit can enter a shieldline, meaning I can't bring MSU to negate the heinous damage of morale on my Fire Warriors. I should probably give it a crack, though.

Shit I lost some of the post

3. Their fast units, and how fast they go

Noted, brother. Thank you!
I honestly found them useful. My last game I tried two. One for 10-man pathfinders and another for 9 breachers with darkstrider. The idea was that a unit charges the shieldline, I disembark and shoot them with 18 AP-2 shots that wound on 2s thanks to Darkstrider's ability. The problem was it got blown up turn 1 at ranged from lucky lascannon barrages.

BUT it still saved my breachers and allowed me to butcher a vanguard veteran squad. the pathfinders, for the first time ever, didn't get wiped out. In fact, they took no casualties and the their shieldline tarpitted an assault squad which got torn apart by Kroot Hounds.

At first glance it seems like tanks (T7, 13+W) are quite durable, but in actual games this is not the case. Our tanks are large models that struggle to get in cover and out of LOS, which makes them easy targets for heavy weapons like lances and lascannons.

They are durable against smaller fire (S3-5) but are blown apart quite easily by heavy fire (S8+, AP4) because they don't have any kind of invuln save.

I find the Ghostkeel and Riptide to be the best defensive units that Tau can field.
Heavy weapons can be absorbed by nearby drones, effectively giving you 4-6 more wounds per drone (always assume enemies will roll high for heavy weapons) and small fire is less effective against their high toughness and good saves.

The Riptide is ESPECIALLY durable! I don't think people give the Riptide enough credit in 8th edition.
Against heavy weapons you have the same toughness and wounds as a tank (T7, 14W) but with drones soaking heavy weapon hits and a 3+ invuln you are not as vulnerable to lascannons and the like.

Against small fire you have a 2+ save, can give it Stim Injectors for a 6+ ignore, make it your warlord for another 6+ ignore, and bring technical drones to heal it for D3.

I love the new Riptide. It is a great bait unit and it does decent damage to boot.

The more i think about it, the more I want to try 3 XV8s with flamers and ATS and 6 gun drones. This shit can solve all my problems I'm having with my friend's immortal SM HQs and TH/SS termies.

Fuck mortal wounds, you don't need seekers when the world's on fucking fire!

..but is it fluffy? I'm on a forest world. You'd think my Tau would be reluctant to cause a fire that might end up consuming a continent.

>..but is it fluffy?
This is why narrativefags are the worst

What a load of bologna. The narrative is one of the funner parts of the game. It gets you in the game, shapes how you build and paint your dudes and how you play, what tactics you use and how you deal with objectives.

Unless you're a WAACfag in which case go play a different game like vidya. Only 60 bucks with no effort required.

>im not going to use this amazing option for my army because muh headcanon
>using flamers makes you a WAACfag

Truly the worst

>You'd think my Tau would be reluctant to cause a fire that might end up consuming a continent.

Are all your fights in your planet? If not, it makes sense to have a specialized crispy unit to work on other planets

>ain't me starts playing

>flamers on a forest world

It does seem like a very effective weapon, sort of "mutually assured destruction" kind of a thing.

The real thing you want to ask yourself, is are you tau the good guys or the bad guys?

It's not that flamers are WAAC but I do like narrative
Good points, I don't know why I never thought of that. But I also thought .. it really is for the greater good, even logically. Better to burn out a
threat and lose a large swathe of forest than lose the planet.
Hah, yeah I actually got told by my friend that shit's perfect for jungle/forest combat because of WW2 bunkers and Vietnam.

A fair few of my dudes have camo too. Lock and load!

I do wish Tanks had some of the same survivability options as battlesuits, like being able to get Shield Generators or offload wounds to drones.

It feels like there's very little reason to have the old dividing line between them now

Fluffwise there is no reason for not having repair drones for vehicles. Gameplaywise it's ok if vehicle repairing is not t'au thing but that's a bit flimsy when literally everyone (sans eldar?) can repair their vehicles somehow. If that's the case then give us sensor spines back to gain cover more easily for vehicles.

I think we just need to view our tanks as long range support, and hopefully put enough threats in our opponents face that they have to deal with the midfield before they get a chance to fire at our long range.

Tanks are definitely stronger against mortal wounds though! Drones can't soak mortal wounds from psykers, and a 6W broadside can be killed by a single lucky Smite while a tank doesn't even get knocked down to half health.

;_;

I don't know if I'd call that 'stronger' so much as just the battlesuits not having an advantage there. Granted, our tanks arent often designed to be in the thick of things, but neither are those Broadsides.

Yeah, that's another big glaring weird point, with how technical drones can patch up all manners of battlesuits but can't do the same for a vehicle or whatnot.

Maybe they wanted to avoid such thinga affecting flyers, since then you'd have something fast and hard to hit that's constantly getting healed or shrugging off wounds, but the Coldstar commander also already exists

technical drones cannot keep up with flyers... they'll heal them twice in a game, at most

unless you have ' mobile repair stations' everywhere

My understanding is that Breachers are good for holding a spot. Set them up in cover, maybe with some ranged support from a missile drone and some pathfinders to drop markers, and they can hold a tactical objective especially against melee armies. Since their guns work best at close ranges, overwatch is especially dangerous.

Well, technical drones to heal in some spots, and then normal drones spread around to take hits.

Like I said, it's possible they wanted to avoid that, but you jusy pointed out why it wouldn't be a feasible plan. Aside from the Interceptor drones on the sunshade, which honestly should be perfectly capable of eating hits for the bomber.

T'au is a planet

Tau is a species and the name of the faction

the faction changed its name to T'au Empire

++ Supreme Command Detachment +1CP ++
+ HQ +
Commander [6 PL, 120pts]: 4x Plasma rifle
Commander [6 PL, 120pts]: 4x Plasma rifle
Commander [6 PL, 160pts]: 4x Fusion blaster
Commander [6 PL, 160pts]: 4x Fusion blaster
Commander [6 PL, 160pts]: 4x Fusion blaster

++ Outrider Detachment +1CP ++
+ HQ +
Commander [6 PL, 120pts]: 4x Plasma rifle
Commander [6 PL, 120pts]: 4x Plasma rifle
+ Elites +
XV25 Stealth Battlesuits [6 PL, 115pts]: Drone controller, Homing Beacon
XV25 Stealth Battlesuits [6 PL, 95pts]: Drone controller
+ Fast Attack +
Tactical Drones [6 PL, 80pts]: 10x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [6 PL, 80pts]: 10x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [6 PL, 80pts]: 10x MV1 Gun Drone

++ Outrider Detachment +1CP ++
+ HQ +
Commander [6 PL, 120pts]: 4x Plasma rifle
Commander [6 PL, 120pts]: 4x Plasma rifle
+ Elites +
XV25 Stealth Battlesuits [6 PL, 95pts]: Drone controller
XV25 Stealth Battlesuits [6 PL, 95pts]: Drone controller
+ Fast Attack +
Tactical Drones [6 PL, 80pts]: 10x MV1 Gun Drone
Pathfinder Team [3 PL, 40pts]
Pathfinder Team [3 PL, 40pts]

++ Total: [2000pts] ++

Yes/No?

>I don't know if I'd call that 'stronger' so much as just the battlesuits not having an advantage there.
It's definitely stronger. Mortal wounds are always in small, fixed amounts and being able to mitigate them is key.

A smite doing 3 wounds and killing a crisis suit can be 70 to 100 points of damage, while a smite doing 3 wounds and killing 3 fire warriors did 24 points worth of damage.

Tanks are less vulnerable to mortal wounds than most battlesuits. I think Riptides are the exception because they can be healed by Tech drones.

Mitigating mortal wounds is an important part of the overall strategy of the game

>Since their guns work best at close ranges, overwatch is especially dangerous.
Most enemies will charge out of the 5" range, and end up with a 5-10" charge.

At 10" S5 AP1 2 shots per model is still pretty good for overwatch, but snapshotting breachers wont do much damage and if they get charged then they'll be dead pretty quick after that.

Pretty sure drones can soak mortal wounds. SInce if you check the rules for it (page 181) it says that you "allocate it as any other wound", at which point a loyal drone can heriocally sacrifice itself.

So, is pic related correct for riptides using nova reactor?

I think that it would normally have to specify mortal wounds.

Some abilities specify they activate "when you take a wound or mortal wound" and others say "when you lose a wound" and both of those would work on mortal wounds.

It says "you can choose to allocate any wounds to the Drones instead of the target unit". My interpretation is that this takes place during the step where the enemy has rolled to hit/wound and you are selecting which units are going to make a save against it.

It makes sense for the Drone to get in the way of missile or melee weapons, but it wouldn't make sense for a drone to take the mortal wound from a nova reactor.

I think for now I'll play assuming it doesn't work and hopefully they FAQ it

I suppose that yes one could do that according to RAW, but I would never use it myself because it's absolute bullshit. The wording is "Riptide Shas’vre suffers a mortal wound." after all which is pretty much identical to smite except it says unit, but that could be enough to differentiate them.

But drones throwing themselves in a kongaline to absorb a railgun shot I can see happening.

I really wish there was some way to take the more 'specialist' drones outside of their specific units. It'd be really fun to have an Interceptor Drone escort for a Commander without having to take a Sunshark

But MW are not "any other wound". Wound allocation is a step in the standard attack sequence, a sequence which psychic powers (and other weird effects like Nova Reactor) do not go through.

That's my interpretation, anyway. It seems strange for a Drone to intercept mind-bullets, or to somehow take the hit from a Nova Reactor. Really needs a FAQ.

I'm sure you aren't supposed to be able to soak Nova Wounds, but Smite and other outside sources of Mortal wounds you should be able to soak with drones imo.

They should just have written "The riptide suffers 1 dmg or loses a wound" and it would be clear with no shenanigans (Sense of Stone/Stims would still apply because they activate at this step anyway).

They say to allocate it like any other wound, you just skip step 1 and 2 go straight to step 3 with no saves allowed.

Well I don't know about tau tech but I could see them using drones as emergency heatsinks. Sure it reduces the drone to a molten slag but it's for the greater good.

so RAW a drone can absorb the nova reactor

So bring a squad of gun drones near your riptide to give it +1 wound per turn

Thanks GW

Can always fall back and fighting retreat with darkstrider too

Not an argument

I'd be fine with them ruling that Drones can block Smite and/or other MW powers, I'd just like that to be made clear in the rules. Presently it's a funky grey-area.

you made the initial claim that riptide is bad

burden of proof is on you

these threads have discussed the riptide to great length and it made me realize the riptide is still bretty damn gud

I'm not the guy you were originally talking to. I just thought you could make a better counter argument than just green texting.

If you model the drones with fire extinguishers I wouldn't even mind.

I might consider a bit more ML support; 10 PFs for a 2000pt army seems a bit on the low side.

I'd be interested to hear how it goes.

Leaked art of new Tau codex

They could pretty easily come up with some good-enough explanation out their asses; "The drone links its circuits to the Riptide, an electrical current arcing to the drone, frying its circuits be leaving the Riptide unharmed!" or something.

...

Thoughts on the Barracuda? I haven't seen many people talking about it. Would one with a Railgun be decent as anti-air?

4x FB Commanders are our best anti-plane unit

>drop wherever you want
>BS2+
>planes are T6 or T7, so wounding on 3s
>d6 damage per hit

Do any planes have invulns or 2+ saves? I haven't seen one yet

Can I invade to ask about a Chaos list?

I'm trying to come up with something at 1500 points without vehicles (I don't have any :() and want something relatively versatile

10xHavocs 130 Lascannon 25 Autocannon 20 Heavy Bolter 10 Missile Launcher 25
Combi-Flamer 11
221
10xHavocs Lascannon Autocannon Heavy Bolter Missile Launcher 130
210
10xHavocs Lascannon Autocannon Heavy Bolter Missile Launcher 130
Combi-Flamer 11
221
1xChaos Lord 74 Power Fist 20 + Combi-Plasma 15
109
1xSorceror Terminator Armor 140 Force Stave 14 + Combi-Bolter 2
156
10xTerminators 310 2xHeavy Flamer 34 Chainfist 22 8xPower Axes 40 +1xPower sword4 + 7xCombi-Bolters 14 Combi-

Melta 19
443
5xWarp Talonsx15+5xLightning Claws 5x13
140
1500

You may want to ask on the main 40kg thread as you are more likely to find individuals there who are versed in Chaos list-building.

You should probably make your havocs a bit more uniform. Just because universal splitfire is a thing, doesnt mean that you should purposefully split up guns with such different ranges. Put the heavy bolted, lascannons, and autocannons in groups of 3, then stick a missile launcher with each if you want versatility.

The weapons on the termies seem strange, with a random sword and combi-melta in there for little reason.

Seems fine, though youll lack much mobility

Can suits still JSJ?
Havent read the index yet. Don't own it.