Hey guys,
recently I
stumbled over the Tau codex. Knowing that a friend of mine is willing to sell
his small Tau army, I thought about different builds for this codex and whether
it would be worth buying this army or not. Soon enough I figured out that Tau
will always need some lucky draws in a tournament to be able to achieve a good
final position, because there are lots of armies, which can easily wipe Tau
out.
One of the
greatest enemies are, of course, Daemons, because they can take lots of damage,
before they die und appear quite near to the Tau army on the battlefield. This
is never very good for a shooty army, but this threat is limited through the
appearance of GK armies on mostly every tournament. BA armies, which heavily rely on Assault
Squads can do the same (even more accurate), but those are just Marines and
even with FnP they tend to die quite fast, if your army is equipped with some
plasma rifles. Against IG or other
Marine builds it is very important to field lots of missile pods, in order to
disable most of the Chimeras/Rhinos/Razorbacks as soon as possible and to get
the enemies out of the vehicles, where they are vulnerable.
Against Orks and Tyranids it is most important to pack as many shots as
possible to stop the flood of enemies, before they reach your line, because Tau
are really no CC-specialists. All of this leaves us with the question, how a
Tau list should look like, in order to get a good setup against most of the
common enemies.
First of
all we HAVE to buy one squad of Fire Warriors. The profile is, well, not really
great and their standard rifle will make most of your opponents only make
smile. There are lots of upgrades that can be bought for the squadleader and
the squad is permitted to buy a Devilfish troop carrier. In my opinion it is
best to keep this unit as cheap as possible, while some players tend to buy a
Devilfish in order to make the unit more mobile and durable, to capture
objectives with it. I for myself think that six Fire Warriors are more than
enough to sit on your home objective and keep their heads as near to the ground
as possible. This way the first 60 points of the army are already spent and we
got at least one Troop choice covered.
The first attempt for my army was to build versatile Crisis suits, supported by
some Heavy Support units. To get to my aim, I started with a single commander
and placed him in a squad of the Crisis suits, because they are way cheaper
than bodyguards. The unit was completely equipped with missile pods and plasma
rifles. This way I was able to stop low armoured transport vehicles at some
distance and was able to kill even MEQs and TEQs quite sure.
Commander
- Shas'o
+ - 1 x
Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. Target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
- - - > 147 Points
Crisis
Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- - - > 124 Points
In addition
to this I took another unit of 3 Crisis, which basically was equipped the same
way and could support the first unit in completing its task. Another unit of 3
Crisis joined the army, this time equipped with missile pods and fusion
blasters. Their task was to stop even stronger armoured vehicles like LRs and
stuff like that.
Crisis Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis Team leader
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. Target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- - - > 226 Points
Crisis
Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis Team Leader
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Fusion Blaster
- Multi-Tracker
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. Target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Fusion Blaster
- Multi-Tracker
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Fusion Blaster
- Multi-Tracker
- - - > 202 Points
I still had
to add at least another unit in the Troop section and decided to buy some Kroot
accompanied by some Kroot Hounds, 16 models seemed to be quite a good unit to
give some cover for my other units or to move forward in order to attack my
opponent’s objectives. The remaining about 900 points could now be spent for
units from the Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots.
It was
quite clear that a Tau force just can’t work without Broadside Battlesuits and
I decided to add two units of two Battlesuits to the army. Despite the fact
that those units are quite expensive I added a Railgun-Hammerhead with some
upgrades as my third Heavy Support squad.
Fast attack units are not that interesting in a Tau force, but a unit of two
Piranhas, equipped with Fusion Blasters, gave me some mobile antitank weapons
and I could use them to contest my opponent’s objectives. In addition to this I
decided to add a unit of Pathfinders, because I wanted to play around a bit
with marker lights and received a free Devilfish to give my Fire Warriors some
kind of protection.
The list
finally looked like this:
*************** 1 HQ
***************
Commander
- Shas'o
+ - 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. Target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
- - - > 147 Points
*************** 3 Elite
***************
Crisis
Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis Team leader
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. Target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- - - > 226 Points
Crisis
Battlesuit Team
+ Crisis Team Leader
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Fusion Blaster
- Multi-Tracker
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. Target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Fusion Blaster
- Multi-Tracker
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Fusion Blaster
- Multi-Tracker
- - - > 202 Points
Crisis Battlesuit
Team
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
+ Crisis
- 1 x Missile Pod
- 1 x Plasma Rifle
- Multi-Tracker
- - - > 124 Points
*************** 2 Troop
***************
6 Fire
Warrior
- - - > 60 Points
12 Kroot
4 Kroot Hounds
- - - > 108 Points
*************** 2 Fast Attack
***************
6
Pathfinder
+ Devilfish
- Targeting Array
- Disruption Pod
- - - > 167 Points
2 Piranhas
- 2 x Fusion Blaster
- 2 x Targeting Array
- 2 x Disruption Pod
- - - > 150 Points
*************** 3 Heavy Support ***************
Hammerhead
- Railgun
- 2 Burst Cannons
+ - Targeting Array
- Disruption Pod
- - - > 165 Points
Broadside
Battlesuit Team
+ Broadside Team Leader
- Smart Missile System
- Advanced Stabilisation System
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
+ Broadside
- Smart Missile System
- Advanced Stabilisation System
- - - > 200 Points
Broadside
Battlesuit Team
+ Broadside Team Leader
- Smart Missile System
- Advanced Stabilisation System
- H-w. Drone Controller
- H-w. target Lock
- 2 x Shield Drone
+ Broadside
- Smart Missile System
- Advanced Stabilisation System
- - - > 200 Points
Summed up :
1749 points
I played a
small number of games with this list and quickly figured out that I just needed
more Crisis, because they are mainly the key unit in a Tau force.
The next article will cover the next list I thought about, with a lot more
Crisis suits and which advantages the new list has over this one.
Cheers
Cleutin
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