Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 16, 2011 7:33:57 GMT -5
FAST = PATHFINDER TEAM
One thing needs to be said up front: whether or not you include pathfinders in your army will determine how you build the rest of it. They are, as is widely accepted, a force multiplying unit, meaning that they increase the effectiveness of other units. Oh, and for what it's worth, if you equip them with rail rifles, you're wasting points. Rail rifles do nothing for Tau that the rest of the army can't already accomplish.
One more thing worth mentioning up front: the codex requires you to purchase a devilfish for them. This alone makes the investment a significant decision. Fortunately, the devilfish is a useful vehicle, but it also means that you're spending the equivalent of a full crisis squad on what ultimately only results in two to four markerlight hits a turn.
Of course, this is all you want from them, especially when they're specifically supporting broadsides or a crisis command squad. As scouts, it's also easy to get them in good position, and the markerlight range means that they'll be useful for as long as the squad is alive. Although they're often targeted early and often, they usually don't need to survive more than a couple rounds to perform their duties. If luck turns against them though and they either die or run away before they're useful, you've lost a significant chunk of your army to absolutely zero effect. Then again, I suppose they've then absorbed firepower that wasn't directed at your killing units. Conversely, usually it's going to be weak firepower that's directed at them to do the job.
Considering the above, it's a difficult decision to make whether you want to include them. Their devilfish will come in handy either as a transport or a secondary skirmisher, and pathfinders can also use their markerlights as crisis management by decreasing enemy leadership for pinning tests. The bottom line is that a Tau army doesn't require pathfinders but on occasion will provide the decisive support to other units that result in victories that would have otherwise been unlikely or impossible.
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 16, 2011 8:06:35 GMT -5
FAST = VESPID SQUAD
Being jump infantry, skilled flyers, and fleet, vespids are a quick unit which reliably gets from one place to the next, meaning from one patch of cover to another. They're equpiped with a neutron blaster, a weapon with short range but good strength which also bypasses marine armour. They could be a great unit but even moreso than other units within the codex suffer from extravagant overpricing. They also have poor armour protection and can't fight in close combat.
The most damning condemnation of the unit stems from the fact that vespids are incapable of performing any role effectively. Since they are so expensive, they are poorly suited to act as skirmishers. Due to their very short range and terrible close combat ability, they can't actually serve as a fast attack unit. Because it takes too many of them to provide a decisive volley, they're also too tactically unwieldy to serve in a crisis management role. The only thing they're good at is making the player long for a codex update.
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 16, 2011 8:11:41 GMT -5
FAST = GUN DRONE SQUAD
I love gun drones. They serve as excellent secondary skirmishers, adding a little bit of bonus firepower, blocking routes of advance, occasionally pinning an enemy squad, and threatening rear armour. I don't like paying for them, though, and neither should you. Take them for free on your piranhas or devilfish and leave these squads at home.
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 16, 2011 8:32:18 GMT -5
TROOP = FIRE WARRIOR TEAM
Note that at least one squad is required by the codex in your army. On the plus side, they're inexpensive as mentioned, are equipped with decent body armour, and have a default weapon with above average strength and good range. As negatives, they have poor toughness, poor ballistic skill, nonexistent close combat ability, and most importantly shaky morale. Furthermore, if you realistically want to use them to claim objectives, then a devilfish is also necessary. Due to these reasons, fire warriors are also therefore overpriced.
In short, take one squad and if you include pathfinders, work in concert with their devilfish. Don't expect them to do much during most of the battle beyond shaking light armour or scoring a few kills against infantry.
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Post by Jack Shrapnel on Dec 16, 2011 9:03:23 GMT -5
looking good Jon!.... once it's all complete (maybe with some prospective army builds if we're lucky ) let me know and it will be compiled into the library of knowledge...
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Post by pmlizardmen on Dec 16, 2011 9:31:20 GMT -5
dont for get the kroot there my favorit unit TAU has
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 18, 2011 3:42:20 GMT -5
TROOP = KROOT SQUAD
Very cheap and very versatile, kroot are the real troops of the Tau. Unlike everything else in the codex, Kroot are eminently affordable and can fielded in numerous small units which is the way to go. Their job is primarily to protect the rest of the army. To do this, several small units are better than fewer large ones. Due to their lack of armour and poor toughness, they die easily. This is actually a good thing when they're assaulted during the enemy turn. It means that they'll be swept aside easily, leaving the enemy targetable on your turn.
They don't just protect the rest of your army, though. With the ability to both infiltrate and outflank they can be easily positioned to attack the weak points of some enemy armies. Combine that with their cover save and movement bonus in wooded terrain and the kroot can actually be used to occupy good firing positions. Keep in mind that firing is what the kroot do best. Despite what's written in the fluff, kroot are not assault units, although they can threaten weak enemies with poor initiative like guardsmen or Ork boyz in that regard.
Although unnecessary, kroot hounds are also a viable addition to any kroot unit as their much improved initiative can give the unit better survivability against assaults. Krootox riders, however, are a poor addition. They're both expensive and adding them removes the unit's ability to infiltrate. A shaper is also unnecessary, adding very little to the unit while also being quite pricey. Keep the unit cheap so that you can spend those points elsewhere.
Of course, they're also scoring units, so you have to play them carefully in objective games. Dying so easily, you can quickly be left without any way to win the game. This is another reason you want to take multiple cheap units. It allows you assign most of them to protect your army whilst still being able to assign another unit or two to harassment or late-game objective capturing. Anyway, you get the idea. Just imagine what any Tau army would be like without these guys. If you're struggling with Tau and haven't yet considered including kroot, give it a try. You'll find games much less stressful.
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 18, 2011 4:08:06 GMT -5
SPECIAL CHARACTERS
The codex features three special characters: two commanders and one ethereal. Including any of them will make your army worse. The only reason to using them would be for fluffy bunny reasons.
Aun'Va is the special ethereal. He's basically the same as a normal ethereal except that the standard abilities are amplified a bit and his staff confers a cover save. Also, he has two guards who protect him, counting as a bodyguard. He makes the Tau better in close combat, whether he's dead or alive, although the specifics differ in each case. It's not even worth detailing, however. This guy is beyond pointless and he's insultingly pricey.
O'Shaserra aka Shadowsun is a special commander. She wears a unique stealth battlesuit and carries two fusion blasters which can target two different vehicles. She also improves the morale of units close to her. She's also quite expensive and although has a good ballistic skill, her weapons are of so limited range that her stealth suit is useless if she wants to actually fight. It will protect her well if you want to use her exclusively for the purposes of morale boosting, though. Still, the size of her command bubble isn't sufficient to justify her expense.
O'Shovah aka Farsight is the other special character. He's a close combat specialist in a standard crisis battlesuit who carries a melee artifact, confers preferred enemy against Orks, and grants free bonding knives for any eligible unit. He can also have a special bodyguard of up to seven additional suits. So far, this is all good stuff... but unfortunately, including him screws over the rest of the army. Most importantly, you can't take more than one unit of broadsides, piranhas, and can not take any kroot. Have fun running uselessly across the battlefield with his uber-crisis unit while the rest of your army gets tabled. Besides, running the pimped out bodyguard is going to cost you half an army anyway. This is another useless choice for a competitive army.
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 18, 2011 4:31:18 GMT -5
ARMY CONSIDERATIONS
Well, what do Tau do well? They shoot high-strength weapons, often with good armour penetration. They don't always hit with them but when they do, it hurts. This means that vehicles of all types and monstrous creatures tend to disappear quickly, as does elite infantry with good armour, and multiwound models with poor toughness. However, this implies a heavy reliance on crisis suits equipped with missile pods. You don't have to do this. In fact, consider a spectrum in which the weapons that will be firing every turn are S5, S7, or S10. You may build your army with the aim of including all of these, or place an emphasis on either extreme. Keep this in mind when building your army because balancing the number of shots in your army with the strength of those shots is going to be the key in determining how your army deals with enemy armies. It will easily allow you to identify your army's weakest and strongest matchups.
Tau also have the relatively cheap ability to split fire effectively via target locks, both for squads and vehicles. This makes them the premiere fire control army in the game but you have to consciously make the decision to go this route. It's up to you whether you think the points are worth it. The problem is that although Tau excel at fire control, they don't excel at throwing high numbers of shots downrange. Therefore, your units often shouldn't split their fire, meaning that the target locks are wasted points. Again, this will depend on your army but you're well advised to spend time making this decision.
Tau also excel at fighting in the dark. The suits begin with acute senses (although why don't the vehicles?) and can be augmented ever further by adding cheap blacksun filters which double the rerollable distance. This is, to put it mildly, a remarkable advantage in nightfighting scenarios. Most tournaments include some sort of Dawn of War deployment and sometimes, tournament scenarios even extend the nightfighting further. Although the investment in points isn't significant, it's enough that if you were to include them everywhere possible, you might find yourself a unit short of kroot. Again, this will depend on the composition of your army and how you want to play it. Again, it's worth some serious dedicated consideration.
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 18, 2011 5:09:12 GMT -5
LIST BUILDING
Where to being building a competitive 1850 list... oh yeah, pathfinders! First of all, you need to decide whether you're going to include them or not. If you are, you have to decide whether you want one or two units. Two units will lend itself better to crisis management, especially when it comes to saturating the enemy's uber-unit with pinning penalties. One unit is better utilized to initially support your railguns early game and later, your crisis command squad. With one squad you can probably get away with running a small unit since you're really only looking for one or two markerlight hits to increase ballistic skill. Any extra hits will usually be spent decreasing the enemy's cover save from the same volley. If you choose to avoid pathfinders altogether, you're probably going to end up building an army based on brute force, spending those points on crisis suits and broadsides.
If you include pathfinders, those devilfish are probably going to be used in a dual role capacity: that of skirmishers in annhilation games and transports in objective missions. I also recommend matching your number of fire warrior squads to the number of devilfish. At this point, you want to purchase your crisis command squad to see how many points remaining you have to spend on the rest of your army. This is also the time that you want to decide on whether you need piranhas. If you think that the devilfish will suffice for vehicle skirmishers, then maybe you don't need any. If you're only running a single devilfish, then you might need one. If you have no devilfish, then you almost certainly need piranhas.
Next, decide how heavy you're going to invest in railguns, and in what form, meaning broadsides or hammerheads. Note that an exclusively mechanized Tau force is highly survivable but its firepower output is actually a little underwhelming. This means that regarding match results, you're unlikely to suffer too many severe reverses but you're also unlikely to claim many impressive victories. In a tournament setting, this translates into not winning the tournament. I therefore recommend either a mix of broadsides and hammerheads or investing entirely in broadside squads.
Lastly, decide what ratio you want to spend your remaining points towards crisis suits and kroot. You need some of both, of course, but if you've included more mech units above, then fewer kroot are required. If at this point you have a primarily squad-based army, take lots of kroot... and there you have it, your core of your army is decided. With the army considerations outlined previously, you should be well on your way to creating a competitive Tau army. Just beware of the fancy little wargear tricks in the codex. Although you can build an army around deepstriking, for example, by including a positional relay and using the pathfinder devilfish's marker beacon, you're still automatically limiting the effective firepower available to you over the course of a full game, and that's not good for Tau.
Remember, Tau function best currently by doing the following: shooting, using skirmishers to delay the enemy, and shooting some more. Everything else requires hope... and that's something you want your enemies to be reduced to.
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 18, 2011 5:14:37 GMT -5
SAMPLE 1850 LISTCRISIS COMMAND SQUAD - 1 Crisis Shas'El (plasma rifle, missile pod, multitracker, bonding knife, 2 shield drones) - 2 Crisis Shas'Vre (plasma rifles, missile pods, targeting arrays, hw multitrackers) CRISIS SQUAD - 1 Crisis Leader (burst cannon, missile pod, multitracker, bonding knife, 2 gun drones) - 2 Crisis Shas'Ui (burst cannons, missile pods, multitrackers) CRISIS SQUAD - 1 Crisis Leader (burst cannon, missile pod, multitracker, bonding knife, 2 gun drones) - 2 Crisis Shas'Ui (burst cannons, missile pods, multitrackers) CRISIS SQUAD - 1 Crisis Leader (burst cannon, missile pod, multitracker, bonding knife, 2 gun drones) - 2 Crisis Shas'Ui (burst cannons, missile pods, multitrackers) BROADSIDE SQUAD - 1 Broadside Leader (twin-linked railgun, smart missiles, targeting array, hw target lock, bonding knife, 2 shield drones) - 2 Broadside Shas'Ui (twin-linked railguns, smart missiles, targeting array) BROADSIDE SQUAD - 1 Broadside Leader (twin-linked railgun, smart missiles, targeting array, hw target lock, bonding knife, 2 shield drones) - 2 Broadside Shas'Ui (twin-linked railguns, smart missiles, targeting array) FAST ATTACK VEHICLE - 1 Piranha (fusion blaster, targeting array, disruption pod, 2 gun drones) FAST ATTACK VEHICLE - 1 Piranha (fusion blaster, targeting array, disruption pod, 2 gun drones) WARRIOR SQUAD - 1 Warrior Shas'Ui (pulse carbine, markerlight, hw target lock, bonding knife) - 5 Warrior Shas'La (pulse rifles) KROOT SQUAD - 10 Kroot (kroot rifles) KROOT SQUAD - 10 Kroot (kroot rifles) KROOT SQUAD - 10 Kroot (kroot rifles)
Done! Thanks for reading
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Post by Jack Shrapnel on Dec 18, 2011 10:15:17 GMT -5
awesome Jon... thanks so much for doing this... going into the library of knowledge!
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Canex
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Post by Canex on Dec 18, 2011 10:40:41 GMT -5
No worries; it was fun. EDIT: Wow, I just looked at it. I hadn't realized it'd added up to so much.
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