well i just read through all 15 pages of this thread and i have to say it is very promising. i don't play tau but my friend has an army sitting on the shelf. he gave up after playing at least 2 dozen games because he did not like the play style. all of our dislikes seem to be addressed w/ this list. personally i think some of the more (to use your term) "gunline" units should stay though. we have some games coming up this weekend and i hope i can talk him into dusting the tau off to give this version a try.
and i don't want to sound too critical to the AC but after reading through all these posts, i only counted 2 people who did not like this list. so to go back the tau=girl analogy, there has to be some initial attraction before you start discussing wedding plans, which this list seems to have a lot of interest by many different people.

I have tested E&C's proposal in 2 games so far with a 3rd game set up for Tuesday. I've enjoyed both games I used it in. Initially I had some concerns about relying that much on ML's but the change to the ML rule made it much less risky to use ML units. As E&C stated I have yet to loose all my ML units and as I'm sure he will back up my play-style hardly conservative. The unit stat changes have made up to a large extent the initial overpowering of some units namely broadsides who were able to double and hit on 2's. I think its not far off being a balanced list, all we are arguing about now is points costs and a couple of upgrade options.

Could you post the army lists you used to give us an idea how you set up your force?

I'm interested in how much of the army you are giving over to ML formations (with a view to possibly having a game with this list next week).

Thanks.

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The list E&C posted earlier was my exact list.

Crisis suits+ upgrade+ SC.
Mech FW+ Skyray+ bonded team
Mech FW+ Skyray+ bonded team
stealth suits
Broadsides
Recon
Recon
HH+ Skyray
Ax-1-0
Barracudas

3000 points 10 activations. 6 ML formations.

It is possible that my opponent will be using an AMTL list.
How do you feel your army would go against such a list (or a WE heavy Guard or BL list)?

I've found that the things that the AX-1-0 are best at killing are obviously the best defended from air attack.

I dodn't like having HH as the BTS. They are a small formation that is easily dealt with. I also wouldn't want my SC/Crisis Suits as the BTS (2 birds with 1 stone...).
Did you HH formation survive both games?

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My HH survived the game against E&C's guard but were destroyed in the second against zombo's D.Eldar. that was due in no small part to simple bad luck. I needed to roll a 2+ to have my broadsides go on over watch and rolled a 1. I also had my skyrays broken and poorly positioned so I couldn't prevent the air strike that finished them once broken.

I don't think my list would do particularly well against WE heavy lists. Its a bit too heavy on AP fire. I think its flexible enough to hold its own but would still probably loose. It was designed to have a good mix of units to test them for development and also to be an all comers list. So far it has provided me with 2 very close and entertaining games.

Thanks for the info mate, MUCH appreciated.

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If a *single* enemy unit is in range of a Markerlight, the *entire* enemy formation is "lit", this tends to "stretch" Markerlight range so that those forward Tau formations don't have to expose themselves quite as much as in v5.1.

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just played 2 games w/ this list and i loved it. the first game i got my butt handed to me by chaos. it was my first time using tau ever so i made some dumb mistakes. the second game went to 4 turns w/ the IG, for a tau win. i had a formation going after every objective on the board, so i think it's safe to say they are maneuverable.
loved all the changes but some things could also be changed. being able to ML an aircraft? that doesn't make a lot of sense and made skyrays AWESOME.
bring back the scorpionfish. granted i would probably never use it but it's nice to have another option as far as play style goes. don't you wish someone would of been around to make the SMs not so reliant on the drop army? plus it sounds cooler then the "nerdwall."
E&C: you've said several times that if the majority of your army list wasn't accepted you would take your toys and go home (i'm paraphrasing and i hope that doesn't come off sounding mean). i think that cooperation works both ways.

i should of probably elaborated further. i realize that one unit isn't going to magically bring the 2 lists into one. but keeping the scorpionfish allows a different style of play, as highlighted in clauswitz's batreps. i wouldn't call it a gun line but certainly different than what you are trying to achieve. is that really so bad to have another option?
i know i'm sounding overly negative but i did love the list. and everything did work very well together. heck i don't know if my regular tau opponent has ever used coordinated fire and i used it twice over the 2 games. whatever happens w/ the official tau list it's safe to say that you have 2 more people recruited to this list.
thanks for all the effort and for posting it.

I imagine they draw straws to see who will die this turn

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If you still want to play a game where you have several Missile formations in your half on Overwatch, with Markerlight Pickets, and bait formations to draw the enemy in (Ie: the particular style of 'Patient Hunter' that Clauswitz uses), then you can still do that, as a group of 6 Piranhas can put out exactly the same ammount of Seeker Missiles per turn (6), and cost less points too. The only difference is that Piranhas are not only good at missile attacks, and thus are incentivised to also do other things in the game.

Nothing is stopping the use of clauswitz's style of 'Patient Hunter' in my proposal.

The difference is that you can't only use that style of warfare to win games, as the AP and MW missiles are gone, so you have to use Fire Warriors,etc. to deal with encroaching enemy infantry.

is that really so bad to have another option?

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To back up E&C's point. When zombo and I played last time I had to modify my normal strategy to try and bring his dark eldar to bare. I stalled as many of my activations as I could to draw out his activations putting my crisis suits and Broadsides on over watch. Doing strafing runs with the barracudas. At the end he had to commit his Titan on a suicide run to get me to move from the protection of over watch. E&C's list is very capable of playing in this way and the missile barge Scorpionfish IMHO is not a necessary addition to facilitate this. Unfortunately zombo is away at the moment and neither of us took notes during our game, but I have another game lined up for Tuesday against Eldar and will no doubt be using a similar strategy. I'll see if Pulsar would help me with a battle report.  

As for the AA question Zombo and I both agreed that for our test that ML's could not be used for AA. It not only made skyrays awesome but Barracuda's also became extremely vicious when engaging aircraft.

Be sure to download and print a bunch of Battle Report Game Log Sheets to make note taking a breeze!

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Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Yes i'd be up for doing a battle report Jstr19, and yes Chroma i've used those sheets before they are cool

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