New edition, new army, no clue

[General Tullius]

I'm about to start T'au and have the basics ordered with a commander and some Strike Teams, but the changes to the game from 8th to 9th have left me in a weird place.

I now have no grip on 9th and I have no grip on T'au.

I'd still like to get painting on some models though, but now I don't know what to paint.

I had a 2000 points list planned that allowed for points increase and was geared towards killing and standing back:

 

XV-85 Commander w/ 4 CIBs

 

Cadre Frieblade

 

3 x 5 Fire Warriors w/ Pulse Rifles

 

2 x Riptide w/ Heavy Burst Cannon & SMS

 

2 x 3 Broadsides w/ HRR

 

Top up with Shield Drones

 

That list now feels clunky and very much unable to control the table.

Also I guess that Secondaries like 'While we stand, we fight' and 'Linebreaker' or 'Engage on all fronts' are very T'au-friendly and I should try to go for more mobility.

I was thinking about Ghostkeels and Stealth Suits, but they seem really quite squishy.

How about two detachments for a total of:

 

XV-86 Commander w/ 4 FBs

 

XV-86 Commander w/ 4 FBs

 

3 x 5 Fire Warriors w/ Pulse Rifles

 

2 x Riptide w/ Heavy Burst Cannon & SMS

2 x 3 Crisis Suits w/ Burst Cannons & ATS

 

2x 1 Broadside w/ HRR

 

Top up with Shield Drones

 

The Riptides and Coldstars can try to engage on all fronts for 3VP while the Commanders live, 2VP afterwards. The XV-86s might get some use out of 'Assassinate' or 'Bring it down' as well.

I'd appreciate any feedback and guidance immensely :)

[Panzer]

9th changes are tricky and potentially a lot bigger than some people assume so giving solid advice is rather difficult currently. Personally I think Breachers will continue doing good work, but only 3x5 doesn't feel like it'll be nearly enough. Not much you can do wrong with Riptides and commanders either. Instead of Shield Drones I think I'll switch over to Gun Drones though. 5ppm cheaper which should easily equal out the 4++/5+++ but also adds 4 S5 AP0 shots per model.

[The_Chaplain]

Id probably go with gun drones or markerlight drones over shields at this point as they are considerably cheaper with the recent points changes.

 

A unit of breachers with a devilfish might be good for mobile objective grabbing since this seems to be a more mobility focussed edition.

 

What Sept are you thinking of running? Farsight enclaves currently allows 2 commanders per detachment, which means you wont be paying the command point tax for multiple detachments. Farsight enclaves also has some strategems for closer range firefights.

[General Tullius]

I haven't thought about Septs that much yet since who knows which ones will be useful and which won't this edition.

I thought maybe I should get a solid 1000pts core together that I liked first and see which Sept is good for it once I know what does what.

 

FSE are the only ones I kinda ruled out.

That's for a very dumb reason though: nobody can tell Septs apart except for FSE because they're usually red so if I was to put white suits on the table, I'm afraid I'd have to do the whole 'ice world camo' song and dance every time.

However, if white suits with black or gold markings (haven't decided if I want to go with red accents yet so I'd like to stick to colors that exist within the suit already) would widely be accepted as FSE, I'd definitely take a closer look at them.

 

Shield Drones are up 5 points? Thanks for telling me now! Gun Drones it is!

Darn, that means Drone Controller is good now and I have to drop something else

[Panzer]

About the colours, you'd have the same problem with white armour since everybody and their dog paints their T'au white these days due to GW using the Vior'la parade uniform colour scheme on their boxes.

Most people won't care and the ones who do care should be satisfied with telling them that not the armour colour is what tells you which Sept the units belong to but the colour of the Sept and rank markings (grey for FSE).

[General Tullius]

About the colours, you'd have the same problem with white armour since everybody and their dog paints their T'au white these days due to GW using the Vior'la parade uniform colour scheme on their boxes.

Most people won't care and the ones who do care should be satisfied with telling them that not the armour colour is what tells you which Sept the units belong to but the colour of the Sept and rank markings (grey for FSE).

It's just Vior'la? I thought it was the 'default' scheme for any Sept with the red denoting Vior'la specifically?

But that's exactly what I mean, white can be anything since few people know better.

Glad if that includes FSE.

But what's the FSE inverted Vior'la scheme about then?

[Panzer]

The white armour with red cloths is Vior'las parade uniform, yes. Everyone can wear white armour but this specific combination is a Vior'la thing and what GW uses for the boxart.

 

What do you mean with FSE inverted Vior'la scheme?

[General Tullius]

The white armour with red cloths is Vior'las parade uniform, yes. Everyone can wear white armour but this specific combination is a Vior'la thing and what GW uses for the boxart.

 

What do you mean with FSE inverted Vior'la scheme?

I've read in several wiki entries that the red FSE scheme is an acknowledgement of Farsight's past in Vior'la.

That it's an inversion of their colors - red armor instead of markings, grey/ white sept markings for FSE.

Then again, there's never any citation in 40k so it might just be a rumour nobody has bothered to disprove yet.

Well, I'm going with default boxart white and non-specific under-skeleton black markings for now unless that turns out to be terribly dull on suits. I like it alright on Fire Warriors.

[Panzer]

Ah that's what you mean. Well T'au sometimes are allowed to wear an inverted colour scheme as special honour. Like Shadowsun is wearing white armour with orange/brown markings instead of the classic T'au Sept colour scheme with orange/brown armour and white markings (old boxart colour scheme). The exact colour of the markings would depend on where they are deployed in that case since it would follow the colour of the armour of the rest of the army which have their armour painted to fit into the environment (the old traditional boxart colour scheme is basically for deployment in desert environments).

The exact origin of the FSE colour scheme is not perfectly clear iirc. I also read somewhere that he decided to wear red armour to honour his fallen comrades. Could be that it got clarified in one of the recent FSE novels, however I didn't read them since they are written by Kelly and his T'au fluff is godawful. That being said the red of his armour is also much darker than the red of Vior'la.

[General Tullius]

Well, all this still leaves the question as to how T'au can actually do board control.

In a Space Marines list, I'd try to get a solid coverage of at least 50 bodies in the middle of the table, with a little anti tank in the back and wsomething speedy to grant me some maneuverability until it dies turn 2 or 3.

I can't really see pulling that off with my Firstborn Marines and I really can't see T'au do that either.

I mean, suits have drones to give them staying power but they don't score anything and a sut with 5 drones still gets outscored by 7 Termagants.

Can T'au outkill an opponent without casteling up? Serious question, not rhetorical.

I don't see myself spamming Breachers since they're just... they die. A lot.

Maybe if I use some Stealth Suits and Ghostkeel to spread across the table?

[The_Chaplain]

Ghostkeel with the prototype system from greater good psychic awakening denying deepstrike within 12" parked in the center of the board backed up with a unit of stealth suits maybe? Denying deepstrikes and effectively funneling enemy reinforcements into certain fire lanes might be useful.

 

Tau infantry (fire warriors, breachers, pathfinders) dont have the greatest mobility outside of devilfish transports shooting them up the table- so you have to get creative.

[MithrilForge]

Well nothing against you Tullius  but i see no kroot/vespid etc in your list (understandably of course) So I'm going to be happy if 9th Ed helps bring back Kroot etc… they could be fun for objective grabbing if they were cheap enough and had some cool new rules, fingers crossed . 

I'm kinda over seeing the same old thing from T'au lists all the time...

 

Mithril

[Lord_Starscream]

Well nothing against you Tullius  but i see no kroot/vespid etc in your list (understandably of course) So I'm going to be happy if 9th Ed helps bring back Kroot etc… they could be fun for objective grabbing if they were cheap enough and had some cool new rules, fingers crossed . 

I'm kinda over seeing the same old thing from T'au lists all the time...

 

Mithril

 

I'm not aiming for the most competitive list myself, as I'm not running a Riptide. I'm going with running x6 Broadsides, x2 Skyrays, and then as many Marker Lights and troops as I can fit in the army. I think by the end of the rough approximate list I ended up with x24 Marker Lights. Turn 1/2 is just the turn of the Seeker Missile and Heavy Rail Rifle, lol.

 

It probably won't be very good, but I think I'll have a big enough stick to make it funny.