How are the Tau faring in 8th so far?

[Honda]

So question for everyone.

 

I thought this was going to be a thread about gaming observations, lessons learned, etc.

 

Instead, this has turned into mostly it's a "I wish for..." kind of thing and "what if's".

 

I haven't started building my T'au yet (waiting on their codex thingie), so I'm just collecting things that look interesting. What I've observed so far from battle reports is that how marker lights are used requires rethinking, suits seem to be pretty good, Riptides are less of an obvious choice, Stormsurges seem to perform Ok, Ghostkeels and Stealth seems Ok and people will be getting in T'au faces early.

 

What I haven't seen people do yet is, use FW's effectively, attempt the ol' Fish of Fury, take any aircraft, or figure out "to Hammerhead or not, to Skyray or not" kind of questions.

 

So is anyone playing with those units yet to see what they do?

 

I can see in the Templars forum that people are still deep into the discovery phase of how units work, so I'm wondering the same here.

[Panzer]

Breacher in Devilfish are VERY strong if used right. Just crash the Devilfish into the enemy unit (preferably a non-choppy one) and either force the enemy to fall back and sacrifice a round of shooting with that unit or to fight a T7 Sv3+ multi-wound model. Next turn you disembark and fall back with your Devilfish to shoot the unit you charged before. After that the Breacher should be close enough to other enemy units so they don't have to embark again.....or they are dead because T3 Sv4+/5++ gets you only that far when you are right infront of the enemy lines. :P

 

You just need to manage to get enough pressure on the opponent so he doesn't feel like shooting the Devilfish early on. Longstrike and Crisis Mantastrikes help a lot with that.

 

 

The problem with Strike Teams is that Gun Drones are better. I mean they are good to hold backfield objectives but considering how fast the opponent usually is at your fireline, a unit with T4, Fly and twice the amount of shots for the same cost is just better. Sure it hits only on 5+ and has to fire at the nearest target but even then their damage output is better (and can easily get improved by a Drone Controller).

Putting a tanky unit as closest unit to the Drones is not that easy either since they are pretty mobile with M8 and Fly (and can even advance&shoot without penalty with the help of 3 Markerlights) and you can always just shoot the tanky unit with a different unit first.

Oh and another plus is that you can use them as ablative wounds for Suits and other Infantry of course, so you could basically play an army of bodyguards. :D

 

Aircraft-wise...well the Razorshark is rather underwhelming as I've heard so far, but the Sunshark is really good against things like Marines. Can't speak about FW units.

 

Hammerhead or not....the answer tends towards "not unless you have Longstrike with you". Again, can't speak for FW units.

Skyrays are generally "not" since Seeker Missiles aren't that great anymore. I mean if your opponent has a unit you really want to nuke then you could try some Seeker Missile spam (they cost basically nothing anyway) but that's a rather niche application.

[Skaorn]

How do those missile turrets work for Firewarriors? It was nice to see that they finally added a support weapon for them. I have no idea how well they worked before but with 8th I'm wondering if you get charged 1st turn and fall back, does it just disappear and you just wasted points on it?

[depthcharge12]

With the whole breachers thing, I've heard that you can still disembark even while the devilfish is technically tied up in cc...is that true? (As long as your models have space to disembark)

 

Also, what's everyone's view on the wording of the Fireblade? It says extra shot and not extra attack. 4chan claims that means you get to fire twice, therefore FWs would have 4 shots at 15" instead of 3 with pulse rifles. Drones models would have...lord...8 shots a piece?

[Panzer]

How do those missile turrets work for Firewarriors? It was nice to see that they finally added a support weapon for them. I have no idea how well they worked before but with 8th I'm wondering if you get charged 1st turn and fall back, does it just disappear and you just wasted points on it?

I don't think DS8 turrets are worth it in 8th edition anymore, but only because once they are gone they are gone for good unlike in 7th.

Also if you are in danger to get charged turn 1 just don't deploy the turret if you don't want to lose it after falling back. Nobody forces you to place it as soon as you can. ;)

[Panzer]

With the whole breachers thing, I've heard that you can still disembark even while the devilfish is technically tied up in cc...is that true? (As long as your models have space to disembark)

 

Also, what's everyone's view on the wording of the Fireblade? It says extra shot and not extra attack. 4chan claims that means you get to fire twice, therefore FWs would have 4 shots at 15" instead of 3 with pulse rifles. Drones models would have...lord...8 shots a piece?

Yes that's true. Or else what I wrote above wouldn't work, no? ;)

 

I say 4chan claims bull- :cuss there. RAI is clearly one additionall "attack" per weapon at half range. The RAW wording is not 100% clear since it uses the term "shot" which is almost never used in the rules. It's always about "attacks". The few times "shots" is used in the rules, it's more often used in place of "attack" than it got used in place of "shooting all attacks" even.

It's a derp from GW and needs an Errata.

[depthcharge12]

 

 

With the whole breachers thing, I've heard that you can still disembark even while the devilfish is technically tied up in cc...is that true? (As long as your models have space to disembark)

 

Also, what's everyone's view on the wording of the Fireblade? It says extra shot and not extra attack. 4chan claims that means you get to fire twice, therefore FWs would have 4 shots at 15" instead of 3 with pulse rifles. Drones models would have...lord...8 shots a piece?

Yes that's true. Or else what I wrote above wouldn't work, no? ;)

 

I say 4chan claims bull- :cuss there. RAI is clearly one additionall "attack" per weapon at half range. The RAW wording is not 100% clear since it uses the term "shot" which is almost never used in the rules. It's always about "attacks". The few times "shots" is used in the rules, it's more often used in place of "attack" than it got used in place of "shooting all attacks" even.

It's a derp from GW and needs an Errata.

I'm still trying to find any wording that says you can't deploy while in combat, but I have yet to find it. But like you said, I'm taking a "Breacherfish" to try it out. I'm hopefully going to lure my opponent towards my juicy gunline of squishy models, then use Manta striking XV8/9s, Ghostkeel, and the Breacherfish to pick them apart and drag units away from it. Kauyon it is then :D

 

Also needing an errata is the XV9 wording...it says take an ability, not purchase or take an upgrade, from the wargear section. So far, the RAW people say it means you don't have to pay for it, you just get the ability. I personally think it's a typo or FW writers made a goof, however, that doesn't make me right. The wording just seems odd, but a precedent with ALL the other suits says you have to buy the upgrade, so it's weird that XV9s get a pass.

 

I don't know if it has been mentioned here (I know it's on ATT), but I highly recommend using a long range commander (commander helping hand? :P) to sit behind your markerlights T1 and kick off Kauyon to get those essential rerolls for your markerlights to buff the rest of your army. This basic tactic shouldn't be a shocker to anyone, but the idea of "cascading" your markerlights is a new concept for the edition. Failing that, use a cadre Fireblade with his 2+ markerlight to chain the other ones onto a focused target.

 

 

Edit: I hate to make a wishlist thing, but I would be super happy if for fortifications we got a Stealth Canopy. Think Halo Reach with the Covenant having those canopies above their troop deployments. Perhaps it would be -1 to hit models within 12" of the projector or -2 to hit if the firing model has the Fly keyword (representing the canopy like a tree...covering the zenith but not viewers 90 degrees from it)

Edited July 17, 2017 by depthcharge12

[Skaorn]

I don't think DS8 turrets are worth it in 8th edition anymore, but only because once they are gone they are gone for good unlike in 7th.

Also if you are in danger to get charged turn 1 just don't deploy the turret if you don't want to lose it after falling back. Nobody forces you to place it as soon as you can. ;)

I have no idea how they work, like the Stormsurge or the Breachers. I just imagined they wouldn't work like Eldar weapons platforms and was envisioning that you had to deploy them with the squad and once you moved, it was gone. In 8th they might have decided to have them act like drones without the SP, so they'd be their own unit, which might have been good. Sounds like the only thing good about them compared to my worst fear is that you can choose when to deploy them. I still wish they just allowed you to upgrade your Shas'Ui weapon to a special weapon instead. I know people have a problem with that idea but It would have kind of incorporated the Firewarrior video game (hey at one time it was one of the few sources of fluff we had) and would have had more of a place then all the "Gets Hot" items the Tau now get.

[Panzer]

 

I don't think DS8 turrets are worth it in 8th edition anymore, but only because once they are gone they are gone for good unlike in 7th.

Also if you are in danger to get charged turn 1 just don't deploy the turret if you don't want to lose it after falling back. Nobody forces you to place it as soon as you can.

I have no idea how they work, like the Stormsurge or the Breachers. I just imagined they wouldn't work like Eldar weapons platforms and was envisioning that you had to deploy them with the squad and once you moved, it was gone. In 8th they might have decided to have them act like drones without the SP, so they'd be their own unit, which might have been good. Sounds like the only thing good about them compared to my worst fear is that you can choose when to deploy them. I still wish they just allowed you to upgrade your Shas'Ui weapon to a special weapon instead. I know people have a problem with that idea but It would have kind of incorporated the Firewarrior video game (hey at one time it was one of the few sources of fluff we had) and would have had more of a place then all the "Gets Hot" items the Tau now get.

 

A bit pointless to ask for advice without knowing the actual rules, isn't it? :D

[Skaorn]

 

 

I don't think DS8 turrets are worth it in 8th edition anymore, but only because once they are gone they are gone for good unlike in 7th.

Also if you are in danger to get charged turn 1 just don't deploy the turret if you don't want to lose it after falling back. Nobody forces you to place it as soon as you can. ;)

 

I have no idea how they work, like the Stormsurge or the Breachers. I just imagined they wouldn't work like Eldar weapons platforms and was envisioning that you had to deploy them with the squad and once you moved, it was gone. In 8th they might have decided to have them act like drones without the SP, so they'd be their own unit, which might have been good. Sounds like the only thing good about them compared to my worst fear is that you can choose when to deploy them. I still wish they just allowed you to upgrade your Shas'Ui weapon to a special weapon instead. I know people have a problem with that idea but It would have kind of incorporated the Firewarrior video game (hey at one time it was one of the few sources of fluff we had) and would have had more of a place then all the "Gets Hot" items the Tau now get.

A bit pointless to ask for advice without knowing the actual rules, isn't it? :D

Well if you read my original post I asked how do those missile turrets work in the very first sentence and then later stated that I didn't know how they worked even prior to 8th. I did this to find out what they were like while still keeping it relevant to the topic, which is why I didn't bother to ask about bleachers or the stormsurge. What is the issue?

[jeffersonian000]

On melee suits, there already is a T'au school under Farsight that has melee as a focus as seen with the Eight, so it's neither unheard of nor non-canonical. The occasional XV8 with Onigar or Fusion Blade as a thing, especially on a commander level combatant. Just saying.

 

SJ

[Panzer]

Onager proved to be not exactly useable and fluff-wise all but one got destroyed afaik. And Fusion Blade is a special ordered modification of one of Farsights Eight member who is considered to be a "weirdo" even among Farsight Enclave member....who are already weirdos compared to regular T'au Empire member. ^^

[Skaorn]

On melee suits, there already is a T'au school under Farsight that has melee as a focus as seen with the Eight, so it's neither unheard of nor non-canonical. The occasional XV8 with Onigar or Fusion Blade as a thing, especially on a commander level combatant. Just saying.

 

SJ

 

As long as they are for Farsight only, I can deal with that.  Regular Tau armies shouldn't get melee suits.  I wouldn't want them for my old Tau force or have them taking up room in the codex.  Having a weapon system that can put out a ridiculous amount of shots in OW would be more fitting IMO.

[Panzer]

 

On melee suits, there already is a T'au school under Farsight that has melee as a focus as seen with the Eight, so it's neither unheard of nor non-canonical. The occasional XV8 with Onigar or Fusion Blade as a thing, especially on a commander level combatant. Just saying.

 

SJ

 

As long as they are for Farsight only, I can deal with that.  Regular Tau armies shouldn't get melee suits.  I wouldn't want them for my old Tau force or have them taking up room in the codex.  Having a weapon system that can put out a ridiculous amount of shots in OW would be more fitting IMO.

 

*cough* Flamer *cough*

[Skaorn]

While I would agree with you if flamers were a template instead of a d6, I'm someone who's lost every plasma gunner in my CSM army in my CSM army to overheats, in the span of 2 turns. I generally don't trust random rolls for things like that because I always seem to roll low. I'd probably still stick with burst cannons personally as you have a set number of shots even if I would still have to roll to hit.

 

What I'm actually referring to is GWs willingness to create weapons now with 6+ shots now, when before 4 seemed like the absolute max. If we're going to be talking about how Tau handle CC in 8th and wishlisting, why not put out for a system that does 6+ shots to a target but is only useable in OW? I'd personally put it as a support unit myself rather than a gun, because of the restriction, but that's just me.

 

I note that you haven't answered my previous question to you sfPanzer.

[Panzer]

If you take Burst Cannons just go and take CIBs instead.

[Spiritual Liege]

Just a general thought about how the Tau are doing, I played my first game with then today and absolutely devastated the Death guard. I thought I would take a beating, reading how crap people think they are nowadays but I barely lost any models and wipeouted them turn 5.

 

I got something like this:

Battalion with Longstrike, Fireblade and Commander with 4 flamers, 20 Fire Warriors, 10 Pathfinders, 2 Railheads and xv109 Y'vahra. The Y'vahra pretty much carried the whole army by himself while Longstrikes squad killed a couple of Rhinos and my Fire Warriors just put a load of shots into stuff. The Commander didn't do much, but that because I thought he would've brought more Zombies for my flamers.

 

So, they did good for me and I think there is still hope for us.

[Skaorn]

If you take Burst Cannons just go and take CIBs instead.

Are those not just for commanders anymore?

[Skaorn]

Just a general thought about how the Tau are doing, I played my first game with then today and absolutely devastated the Death guard. I thought I would take a beating, reading how crap people think they are nowadays but I barely lost any models and wipeouted them turn 5.

I got something like this:

Battalion with Longstrike, Fireblade and Commander with 4 flamers, 20 Fire Warriors, 10 Pathfinders, 2 Railheads and xv109 Y'vahra. The Y'vahra pretty much carried the whole army by himself while Longstrikes squad killed a couple of Rhinos and my Fire Warriors just put a load of shots into stuff. The Commander didn't do much, but that because I thought he would've brought more Zombies for my flamers.

So, they did good for me and I think there is still hope for us.

When I've had a unit carry the whole game, that just makes me wonder about that unit being OP. How do ou think things would have gone if you could have only used a regular Riptide?

[Spiritual Liege]

It could have gone otherwise maybe, but considering the Y'vahra was almost third of my list and my opponent didn't have the chance to properly focus it down I wouldn't say it is op. The nova charged flamer does brutal damage, yes, but so should do any gun that is mounted on a 400+ point platform.

 

Just to inform my opponents usually are rather mediocre as players and it could have gone otherwise against some tournament veteran.

[Panzer]

 

If you take Burst Cannons just go and take CIBs instead.

Are those not just for commanders anymore?

 

That hasn't been the case since the 6th edition codex lol

Just a general thought about how the Tau are doing, I played my first game with then today and absolutely devastated the Death guard. I thought I would take a beating, reading how crap people think they are nowadays but I barely lost any models and wipeouted them turn 5.

 

I got something like this:

Battalion with Longstrike, Fireblade and Commander with 4 flamers, 20 Fire Warriors, 10 Pathfinders, 2 Railheads and xv109 Y'vahra. The Y'vahra pretty much carried the whole army by himself while Longstrikes squad killed a couple of Rhinos and my Fire Warriors just put a load of shots into stuff. The Commander didn't do much, but that because I thought he would've brought more Zombies for my flamers.

 

So, they did good for me and I think there is still hope for us.

Commander with Flamer is such a waste lol. Better give him weapons where he can use his BS2+ and put Flamer on regular Crisis instead.

[Galron]

I just played against tau this weekend with my Elysians. They are a fairly solid army I think. Of course the Y'vahra as we know is an absolute beast. It took sooo many shots from so many units to take down and still managed to kill a tauros, 2 drop sentinels, a regular sentinel, a scion squad, and inflicted heavy damage on a Vulture 1st turn that the storm surge finished off. Killing it made my opponent concede on the 3rd turn, wasn't a rage quit though, he was about out of stuff at that point.

 

-Crisis suits- stupidly tough units now to destroy and you have to kill what? 2 out of three in a turn to even get a morale check needing a 6? My opponent had his all with twin fusion and flamers and even against my mostly infantry guard, quite deadly. Now in melee our units might as well have been having a pillow fight for all the damage we were doing to each other and that includes two commanders and three normal suits versus 3 vets and an IG commander. He could have shot them but instead was vaporizing a heavy weapon squad per volley with fusion guns.

 

-Drone thing- stupidly annoying having to waste shots killing drones before hitting the suits themselves. t4 vs t5. Now what my opponent did was have all of his drones as markerlights. He had no problem getting pretty good coverage until I started knocking the squads out in order to get to the suits.

 

-Stormsurge- retarded amount of guns one has to get through to charge, plus the 6+feel no pain and the 4++ invul makes this a very tough thing to take down. It took both my Venators with twin lascannon, a melta vet squad both shooting and charging with a breacher charge to knock it down to one wound. I would have killed it my last shooting phase but he conceded before their turn to shoot. Really amusing to have a giant stompy monster charge a guard commander and the guard commander just steps to the side and swats it with his chainsword, O LAY!

 

-Kroot- well..... lets just say regular guard beat them when the kroot charged.

 

-Stealth suits- that homing beacon mechanic is pretty sweet. Not only that but has it been addressed as to what happens when you deploy a stealth team first on your opponent's deployment zone line? Do they have to be 9" away? My opponent started his stealths out of LOS in the center of the board and on the first turn, jumped right in front of my guys and dropped the beacon and deep struck crisis and drones in and promptly forgot to shoot the stealths and I didn't even notice to remind him. A great way of overcoming that whole no DSing within 9" thing and getting around DS denial bubbles. Granted he failed to notice my camo Cyclops sitting 5" away(its really that unnoticeable) and it simply drove into the middle of his DS group and killed all the drones and stealths by blowing itself up, and thats when I learned about the drone sacrifice thing. Those 3 crisis though took far too much firepower to take down and a wounded one of that group made it to the last turn after wiping a sentinel, 2 mortar squads and doing damage to another Vulture.

 

-Vespid took on my Venators after bubble wrapping his stormy. I had killed two with mortars, then he lost one to lascannon overwatch and then my venators killed the last two in hand to hand leaving the gunners to high five each other out of their turrets.

 

His was a selective army and when I told him it was elysian guard he figured I would have more vehicles. That said each time he hit with a fusion gun took out a base. He had recently played the same army vs a guard heavy army which included a DoomHammer superheavy and he apparently tabled the guy. So Tau is definitely not out for the count. Just like my army, its a matter of getting used to playing the new rules and adapting the armies to match. What worked before, doesn't work now and vice versa. MSU is the name of the game though, minimizing the amounts of morale checks is vital.

[Remus Ventanus.]

if there are melee suits I hope they are stealth suit sized and very sleek looking. I'm not much of a fan of farsights look Edited July 25, 2017 by Remus Ventanus.

[Panzer]

-Stealth suits- that homing beacon mechanic is pretty sweet. Not only that but has it been addressed as to what happens when you deploy a stealth team first on your opponent's deployment zone line? Do they have to be 9" away?

 

Well it's quite clear how it works.

 - If the T'au player is done with his deployment he can deploy the Stealth Suits outside of the enemy deployment zone and at least 9" away from enemy units

 - If he can find a spot where he can deploy them on the opponents deployment zone line without being closer than 9" to any enemy unit, he may do so

 - Then the opponent can deploy his units as close as possible to the Stealth Suits while staying inside of his deployment without the T'au player breaking his own deployment rule since that unit already got deployed in a legal way

 

So, deploying as close as possible to the opponents deployment zone while he still has units to deploy left isn't always a good idea. I learned that in my very first game whend deploying my Ghostkeel super close to my Tyranid opponent and he counter deployed a big one right infront of him (forgot the name). Luckily he just barely managed to beat it to half wounds and then wasn't able to catch it again but I had to dedicate most of my armies shooting (1k point game) to get rid of it so my Ghostkeel could survive.

[Ishagu]

The Ultramarines are the new Tau.

 

Roboute Guilliman - The best buff mander

Redemptor Dreadnoughts - Riptides with CC

Army wide disengage with shooting

New fancy hover tanks

Interceptor via a strategem

 

Move over Sushi Boys! :-P

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ishagu