I recognise there are two sides to every coin here (and I'm sure some will feel I'm moaning, but meh...) but I'd like to make my points anyway. After playing them for 7 years now and in several different builds and tournies, here's my final feedback about the issues with the Tau as they stand.

Recon For what they have to do and what they actually get to do, they are either over priced or under strength. They die like flies. You simply cannot stop the opponent from killing them due to their necessary proximity for ML coverage. The first time an opponent meets them, they know they need to kill them and they always do. I understand balance in a list but this formation takes the piss. A Tau player cannot take enough for my mind and when you do, you leave yourself lacking any formations that can hurt stuff well in big numbers.

Railguns - while they hit well, they really don't damage much with Reinforced Armour. Given the amount of RA I see in the lists played nowadays this hurts a lot. If I'm not using my tanks to kill armour, I'm not using them correctly. Even some Disrupt might be a nice addition to try and suppress/break stuff you can't kill.

Hammerheads - they are fodder for anything with an AT weapon. Hiding only gets you so far.

Seeker missiles - mostly an annoyance weapon. Dropping 8 dice from a 6 HH + Skyray formation (maximum possible)doesnt actually do much. Even with a Sustain action you may hit 4 times on average (4+ to hit when markerlit). Given the prevalence of RA targets in lists nowadays, they are pretty underwhelming weapons and while it may look cool rolling so many dice it never pans out that you do much damage with them. If you're expecting to sit behind cover while the enemy is markerlit and annihilate the enemy with them you're dreaming.

Don't get me wrong, they are excellent for knocking out light vehicles and transports, but when your tanks are needed to kill hard armour targets (which tanks are supposed to be employed for), they are naff. I realise they are what they are, I'm just making a point to the whole list that I'm guessing some people will feel they are a super addition to the tank for boosting shooting. And while they very well may be in numbers of dice, you don't get much for your bang. It gets worse if your Recon/ML are tasked elsewhere, or worse, dead.

Markerlights - +1 to hit is great. When it's tied to a weapon system that isn't very powerful it's maddening and disappointing. You can hit all you like but not killing something means it's an expensive (look at the Skyray's cost increase for the ML it carries) addition to your army list.

Crossfire - if I'm told once more that Tau need to crossfire to gain the killing advantage I will probably choke. Putting your formations into a crossfire position usually ends up with your crossfire formation (normally recon or hammerheads for me as they are fastest) dead. Smart opponents don't leave you the option to get into a crossfire position all that often so unless you like to throw away your activation advantage by sacrificing recon formations etc you shouldn't do it. This doesn't even take into account the issue of Thick Rear Armour.

Activation advantage - I rarely see it unless I take highly fragile, small formations that do one thing in the game before dying or becoming broken to never regain their ability to activate due to C&C issues. I find most army lists nowadays can easily fill in activations with cheap formations. This means Tau really don't get that much of an advantage. Case in point - my list below is 13 activations and it doesn't change much if I spam minimal size, cheap activations. My opponents at Cancon had roughly 12 each. Granted I could have increased mine by making my formations smaller, but that just means the Tau hit like a six year old girl when my formations do actually hit something - not exactly how I envisage Tau to work.

Command and control - it's average at best and horrible for the tanks (your main source of firepower) in the list. I lost count of how many failed activations I had with single BMs on my formations ("crap dice rolling" you say? Over 3 games and the warm up game...? It does not compute. Anyway, I guess this really can't be helped but thought I should include it for fullness of feedback regarding the list as a whole.

Stealth - should really get back their 1+ initiative.

Skyray - Disappointing for me. They are more a deterrent than anything. When a Thunderhawk takes no damage from 3 of them several times, it's disappointing to say the least. They just never quite measure up to expectations.

Play style - "Run away to win" is fairly dull and not much fun for the player, or the opponent. My single win at Cancon was using this method and I didn't enjoy it because I spent the entire game worried about getting smashed by the Knights(a warm up game showed me just that). More often than not I find I'm forced to play this way. I understand the Tau have a doctrine but we are the ones writing the list so couldn't something be done to balance this better?

AP fire - The list's shining light. Awesome for killing infantry and LVs but absolutely useless for dealing with all War Engine/ RA armies. When 2 in 4 armies these days seem to pack these units into their lists, it leaves the Tau list wonting.


Lastly, I'd really like to get some feedback from Tau players on my list from the recent tourney as, yet again, it failed to a large degree. As you can see, there's no shortage of Markerlight formations.

My 4k list for Cancon was this:

Crisis + Shas O
Crisis + Shas El
FW + FW + Ethereal + Broadside (BTS)
Mech FW + Pathfinder + Bonded Team + 2 Hammerheads (ML)

Recon + 3 Pirahna (ML)
Recon + 3 Pirahna (ML)

Stealth (ML)
Broadside

6 Hammerheads + Skyray (ML)
6 Hammerheads + Skyray (ML)
6 Hammerheads + Skyray (ML)

Barracuda
Hero

Apart from my 3rd and final game, by the end of the second I had amassed only around 1500 vp (roughly 750 each) and lost approximately IIRC 3600-ish in return for my efforts ....

For supposedly the most shooty army going, this is woeful.

I played a Knightworld and a Minervan Superheavy list in the first two games - granted, mostly War Engines but I see a lot of lists like this nowadays because a lot of lists seem to want to cram them in. Third game was Space Wolves (who actually had infantry so I faired better - somewhere around 1200 IIRC for the loss of just 115 over that total).

Anyway, thanks for reading this lengthy post.

Interesting, I've been looking at lists and results in UK scene, would like to hear some thoughts from some of these players:
http://epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampionship/albyr.php

_________________
http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

List - too many hammerheads, not enough fire warriors.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Interesting post Dobbsy, I like the way you've turned the sort of post people sometimes make about an army after doing poorly at an event into something potentially useful by adding lots of detail and a unit breakdown.



3 Skyray put out 2 AA5+ missiles each, so maybe there was some bad luck involved if you didn't manage to scratch the paint.

From the sounds of your match ups, would more TK weapons been a bonus, or are the Tiger AX and Manta pricing themselves out of your list even at 4k?
Did you get much value from the Hero Cruiser?

Skyrays work best attached to fire warriors, where they'll get to use their markerlight.
Attached to hammerheads, you're just using them as expensive AA.
The skyray formation is overpriced for the same reason.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Interesting post, will follow this one

I thought it was a lot of hammerheads too, but are firewarriors really going to be any better against the WE heavy lists he was facing?

_________________
http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Actually I use them mostly to boost tank numbers due to fragility and especially for the Fusion head HHs I use.
Pathfinders are much better attachments to Fire Warriors BTW. You get two so it's harder to kill off the ML.
Can I ask you how a Skyray attached to FWs is going to help kill a Leman Russ Company?


This is true but this has happened a lot in the past as well. i can only go by past experience here.


No point just moaning - you're lucky if people listen anyway Thought perhaps my experiences might help somewhere along the line though. <shrug>


Yep they price themselves out for me when I'm trying for activations. Also I don't like the Support Craft rule. It's a BTS hand over against a Minervan list - which pops its head up almost every time a tourney happens round here. Every time I've used the AX1-0 it's been a spectacular failure. Far too expensive and easy to shoot down. I got no value from the Cruiser apart from killing one SHT (out of 3 companies and 4 platoons...).


I have to wonder what armies you tend to face then. I'd like to see you face up against a Titan or two as well. Both WE armies I faced had at least one formation of Warhounds too....


I'm lucky I had that many tanks or things would have been worse. I like Fire Warriors but they are very limited versus armour.

FW's move in to target something AP-biased, end up within 30cm of the Russes having shot at whatever their main target was.
Something else (Hammerheads, Broadsides) retains, gets crossfire + markerlight from the FW's.
Russ Company neutralised as a major threat for the turn, if not broken.
You'll probably lose the FW formation to a counter-attack.


Sure, but they're more expensive and have no integral AA.
Pathfinders' Sniper is nice, but rarely provides much on top of the Fire Warrior's already-excellent AP firepower, I prefer independent Pathfinder formations.

IMO if you're taking Skyrays, put them somewhere their markerlight ability will get used, otherwise by keeping it at range you're paying 100pts for an asset and only using 75pts of its abilities.


Feel free to check the EUK website, it has records of which Tau lists have fought which armies, etc.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

in my experience, a hammerhead formation shooting at a markerlit warhound will blow it sky high, shields or not.... crisis suits are equally capable too, did you find they were able to make an impact without an orca to fly them around in? I've only ever faced crisis suits in armies with orcas, and they've tended to do the heavy lifting against well armoured stuff....

_________________
Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

I find players normally pick a force that will work (hopefully) against what they usually face or what they expect to meet, especially for tournaments.
So I'm not going to say you should take formations A+B and drop Formation C or you have too many of one type and not enough of another.

Looking at the list you did take I'll try to give some ideas of what I've seen work.



You have enough Hammerheads to make 5 formations and with the other upgrades you could also squeeze an extra formation (of some type) into the list with the points.
This would give you 16 activations and allow you to use co-ordinated fire (and not fall behind on activations) on the hard to destroy WE's and Reinforced Armoured formations you mentioned you had problems with.
This would help lay extra BM's and give you a better chance of crossfire and help with suppression whilst limiting the loss of activations when retaliation comes .
You earlier mentioned that the smaller formations are taken out too easily but a formation of 7 in a beefed up HH + Skyray formation only takes 1 extra casualty to break than a 4 or 5 strong formation. Also if you do only take 2 casualties (enough to break a small HH formation) is the firepower of 2 vehicles (after suppression) going to be effective in game terms more than possibly having an extra formation on hand.

I've also found Co-ordinated fire really helps with activating formations when it's crucial to attempt to take out a threatening formation. As many have found with shooty armies (not just Tau) there is often times when you have to retain the initiative to nullify a threat, 1 roll of 2+(1+ if you use crisis formations to trigger it) is better than a 2+ followed by a 3+ attempt (it also allows an attempt to retain of needed).

Nothing to do with tactics but looking at the tournament part of the original post you mention points destroyed compared to the opponents, how were the tournament games scored as points destroyed doesn't always affects who wins the games , although it does help to destroy formations I've had games where I've won and lost because 1 players has got carried away with killing stuff instead of keeping an eye on objectives.

I'll write up a more in depth post later when I'm not limited to an iPad but, on ethe issue of seeker missiles, especially on hammerheads, they very much a secondary weapon in the vein on a lascannon. They're not a primary weapon.

Activation Count - 12 is incredibly low at 4k, for example my Tau 3k list (4 wins, 1 loss, 1 draw in tournaments) has 12 activations. Most lists at 4k are in the 14-18 range.

Recon - absolutely vital formation, I generally take 3 formation - 1 tetra+5 piranhas. 5 tetras+1 piranha and 2 piranhas and 4 tetras. The 5 tetra one garrisons forward and is strung back to my deployment zone - then I can use combined fire to take out garrisons or small enemy formations. The recon doubles and ML them, the 5 piranha recon or even a FW formation then singles or sustains with guided missiles. Expose as few as possible to help them survive, they will die but it keeps the opponent back initially and the combined fire/guided missiles can sting.

Skyrays - not much better AA except pylons. I generally take 4 - 2 with Railheads, 2 with FW. Fantastic for AA, self ML, and the 2 guided missiles.

Hammerheads - used in isolation they are useless, in combination with lots of ML they are fantastic - stay behind cover and hit a ML formation with 4 dice on 3s and 6 on 5s (with a skyray) - easily take out a falcon formation or even a Warhound.

My general list
Mech FW+mech Fw+Skyray+bonded team
Mech FW+skyray
Railheads+skyray
Railheads+skyray
Crisis+Shas'O
Mech Pathfinders
Recon
Recon
Recon
Orca
Barracudas
Hero

2 Recon formations do combined fire as above (even maybe FW do it if there is a good target (big FW has 7 guided missiles)). hero takes out WEs, barracudas go on CAP.
Crisis go on OW in a building, if its going well or there isn't much AA Orca picks them up and they go WE hunting turn 2

3rd recon+PF act as teleport screen if necessary, after that as mobile reserve+extra MLs

FW move forward following cover supported by hheads - big FW with its ML skyray has annihilated a IG mech Co on a double before. It does sometimes backfire but get them close and they are great.

Vs a big titan or Russ Co standard tactics as with SM or any other high activation army, kill the little stuff, BM the big stuff to limit effectiveness and then slice up big stuff with multiple activations, crossfire etc

_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

Thanks for all the replies guys. I guess there's a couple things I can try and I don't agree with all of them but in general I find almost all of what I originally posted applies to your responses.

Basically, I have 2 recommendations for the Tau list to perhaps give it a slight lift.

4x Tetras for 100-125 points - Why is it that Minervans, SL etc can have 100 point filler formations to boost activations/scout screen/annoy/hold ground etc but Tau can't have a 4-Tetra 100-125 point formation?

Disrupt on Railguns - if Tau can't kill RA targets let them disrupt/suppress the enemy. It seems that's what they've done in the fluff available e.g. ambushes etc

I think both these changes can be balanced by changes in costs and structure to formations in the list if necessary. I mean if 4 HHs is the optimal way to use them why not remove the option to have 6?

The list doesn't need a small cost formation for activation boosting, its core and support options are already fairly cheap (don't mean underpriced). Lists like Minervans have expensive core formations which if added to 250-350 point support formations leaves a very low activation count. Players have found lists like these are aided with a small cost formation.

I think that could be an option to test on the ION version as most find it slightly under par compared to the other 2 versions.



All lists have options that aren't optimal especially for tournament play, most lists would be boring and most armies that got used would be very similar if they were only allowed optimal choices.

Anyway, more importantly where are photos of the event