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Author Topic: #Updated# [No Longer] Budget Tau Armylist  (Read 602 times)

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Offline Sihylm

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#Updated# [No Longer] Budget Tau Armylist
« on: December 27, 2007, 11:27:23 AM »
So, turns out for christmas my GW-going mates pooled together and got me the Megaforce AND the battle force (one of them bought the stealth suits off me for his full stealth army though)

So, with this influx of tanks and infantry (I bought myself a devilfish as well. Yay christmas!) I have a very good amount of models under my belt and having read up abou the Fish Of Fury, I was thinking of going for a mech army.

I was wondering, what things are nessesary, which things should be avoided etc.

Model wise (or sprue wise) I have:

52 firewarriors
24 kroot.
6 Kroot hounds.
1 Crisis comander
3 crisis suits
4 devilfish
2 hammerheads
3 Piranhas
and 2 broadsides.
And a load of gundrones of course.

There's a 1500 point tournament coming up soon which I need an army for. So any advice on what i should go for would be brilliant.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2007, 07:36:47 PM by Sihylm »
The problem being, of course, that 'In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future Most of Us are Pretty Much Okay' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Offline Derikari

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Re: Budget Tau Armylist
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2007, 12:09:19 PM »
So... 1500 points? If you want to optimise the list, then I’d recommend playing at 1000 or 1250 points instead of filling up on upgrades. How much exactly are you willing to splash out if you want to optimise a 1500 point force? A battleforce is entirely usable, as I see you noticed, and from The WarStore, based in America, you can get 20% off, and an extra 5% early next month. If you’re in the UK, then there’s a good discount store based there, but I don’t know the name...

Also, got any spare models?

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Shas'o...
Fireknife composition...

Shas’el with a target array is just as good, and 10 points cheaper.

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10 Fire Warriors...
Shas'ui...
Bonded...
Markerlight...
EMP Grenades...

Rifles, I presume. EMP won’t help much as you have to get into melee, and that goes with odds with having rapid fire weapons. It also costs a fair bit for once in a while equipment. Chuck in a hard-wired target lock for some targeting versatility for the ‘Ui with the markerlight.

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Transport: Devilfish 80pts

If you want a mech squad, loose the markerlight. If you want a static force, then the Devilfish does moot. Chuck in decoy launchers, it helps immensely when you get skimmer moving fast status (SMF). Next up get multi-trackers so that you can use the gun on the move, particularly once you get SMF.

Now, if you want the squad to be static, then you can turn this into a gunship (“Warfish”). You should have ~14 Gun Drones from all the purchases, those can go to fast attack. To make this into a Warfish, swap the free Gun Drones for smart missile system (SMS), giving you a total of 7 shots, 4 of which are longer ranged and can shoot out of LoS. Next, throw in a target array, with 7 shots the ‘Fish can put the BS increase to good use. The only thing you lose out on is if you use this as a suicidal unit, or if you want those free Gun Drones, since they don’t give your opponent VPs when killed.

Having some Gun Drone squads in fast attack will eat up points and give you 2-3 useful squads. They’re good shooters in their own right, don’t be fooled by the BS2, with twin-linking they hit slightly more often than Fire Warriors and give you small, mobile cheap squads to take objectives, or act as speed bumps to fast units charging at you. ~170 or so points right there, and 2-3 more squads for you to play around with.

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12 Fire Warriors...
Shas'ui...
Bonded...
Marker Drone...

Giving the ‘Ui a markerlight and hard-wired target lock gets a markerlight cheaper, and can mark separately to the team.

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12 Kroot Carnivores...
Shaper...
6  Kroot hounds...
Armour...

Total Points = 159

Armour is useless, drop. Just stick to cover, almost everything negates a pathetic 6+. As for the Shaper, usually it’s simply better to get more Kroot, he’s quite an expensive addition considering he costs all up 4 Kroot, who bring more shooting and melee power, as well as slightly more survivability. As for Hounds, I consider them only useful if you’re dead set on melee, otherwise spending a single point more gets you something just as good in melee, bar the I, and a good gun. Plus ideally they should be taking the charge in terrain, for the first round of combat they would be striking first or simultaneously anyways.

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6 XV25 Battle Suits...
Shas'vre...
Bonded...
Target Arrays...

Total Points: 255

Downgrade the ‘Vre to team leader. There’s no point to having a ‘Vre, he only boosts melee and that’s not where these guys should be.

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3 XV15 Battle Suits...
Shas'vre...
Bonded...
Target Arrays...

Total Points: 135pts

Dump the ‘Vre, dump  bonding and move a guy to the 3rd elite slot. Now they don’t need it. :) Also, you have no weapons... filling the hard points is mandatory, you know...

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Hammerhead Gunship...
Burst Cannons...
Multi Tracker...
Fletchets...

Total Points: 120pts.

... No main weapon?! O_o Take the railgun... eats up points and is dead killy... It’s also mandatory to have a main weapon, plus gets you more anti-tank. You got the right idea by adding the multi-tracker, now get the other useful upgrades. Target locks make sure you don’t waste either the main or secondary weapons, and decoys as above. You can lose the flechettes.

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XV88 Broadside Battle Suit I

Shas'ui...
Multi Tracker...
Shield Drone...

Total Points: 90pts

Shas’ui can’t take that much, upgrade him to team leader and hard-wire the drone controller. Multi-trackers don’t have much point on a standard Broadside, the weapons are for completely different targets and act very differently. Getting advanced stabilisation system (ASS) would help you out much more by giving the some movement.

Well, getting everything legal, and getting Gun Drone squads should boost you up to 1500 points after all...
« Last Edit: December 27, 2007, 12:55:12 PM by Derikari »

Offline Sihylm

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Re: Budget Tau Armylist
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2007, 12:45:31 PM »
Yeh I was aiming for 1500 points.

As a point, te XV15's are the old stealth suit models, so they come with Burst cannons as standard.

For the Hammerhead, I missed the fact that you have to buy the railgun, that's what i intended to give it anyway.

Note about Kroot armour taken but I'm keeping the hounds for fluff reasons though, and because I love the models >>;

Markerlight notes taken too.

Also on the broadsides I have no idea why I put Multi tracker, I meant team leader to get the drones. Will also take ASS, I just wasn't sure if it was worth taking them.

And this wasn't so much a list designed to own everything, more of a list of the models I have from my noobish foray into Tau when they first came out (thus the irregular squad sizes, can't find all the models >>; I blame the fact that I was 14).

That reason is also why I don't have a full squad of gundrones yet, however, after taking a pair of clippers to the Stealth Suit boxes marker drones, I now have 5 of them to form a squad with. And if I can think of a way to replace the gundrones on the devilfish with SMS model wise, that'll be 7 drones.

With that noted, I'm willing to spend about £50ish getting this army better if you can think of any great additions.
The problem being, of course, that 'In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future Most of Us are Pretty Much Okay' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Offline Derikari

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Re: Budget Tau Armylist
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2007, 12:56:38 PM »
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As a point, te XV15's are the old stealth suit models, so they come with Burst cannons as standard.

Ahh, my bad. I thought that they were Crisis Suits because I only looked at the “3”. Ignore that comment. I’d move 1 guy over from the other team to boost the model count, though.

Quote
Also on the broadsides I have no idea why I put Multi tracker, I meant team leader to get the drones. Will also take ASS, I just wasn't sure if it was worth taking them.

Well, if you made them team leaders instead of getting a multi-tracker to hard-wire the drone controller, then they’re still illegal because you didn’t fill the mandatory hard point :P

Quote
And this wasn't so much a list designed to own everything, more of a list of the models I have from my noobish foray into Tau when they first came out (thus the irregular squad sizes, can't find all the models >>; I blame the fact that I was 14).

A bit of a refining here and there, it can be perfectly competitive.

Quote
That reason is also why I don't have a full squad of gundrones yet, however, after taking a pair of clippers to the Stealth Suit boxes marker drones, I now have 5 of them to form a squad with. And if I can think of a way to replace the gundrones on the devilfish with SMS model wise, that'll be 7 drones.

Sticking 2 missile pods together makes 1 SMS... then you have the other to deal with as it is represented as 2 parts of 1 system. And as it is, a 5 strong Drone squad is usable.

Quote
With that noted, I'm willing to spend about £50ish getting this army better if you can think of any great additions.

The stuff you have is usable enough. :) Although, you can never go wrong with more Kroot...

 


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