Latest Tau List

I’ve been reviewing my Tau posts and I’ve realised I forgot to complete my “Tau From the Ground Up” series. So this is that post. I’ll get on to thinking about a list for the Tau IA units later in the week.

A quick recap. After a bunch of games and 2 Tournis I had come to the conclusion that whether you take Hammerheads or Broadsides has a big impact on the rest of your list. If you take Broadsides, the best place for your plasma is on them, allowing you to run cheaper Deathrains. However, because you do not have the Hammerheads to hide behind, nor to draw fire from your suits, you need to run Gun Drones. If you run Hammerheads you need to run plasma on your XV8s, which probably means Fireknives, although there is not the same need for gun drones.

So on that basis I’ve been thinking about a Broadside list. My next tourni is Throne of Skulls, which is 1500pts. The list I’ve been testing is this

Shasel Fireknife, with Positional Relay

3x3 Deathrains with Gun Drones. In each team I have one with a flamer, one with a black sun filter and one with a Drone Controller for wound allocation.

3x10 Kroot

2x6 Firewarriors in Devil Fish with Dpods

2x2 Broadsides with Plasma, all with Multitrackers, with Targeting arrays and drone controllers on the team leaders.

In the 3 games I’ve run with this list I’ve been pretty pleased with it. The game plan is to split deploy, with the Broadsides and bubble wrap in one position and the Deathrains in another. The opponent then has to decide whether to go for the Broadsides, the Deathrains or both. Neither choice is really the correct choice. If they go for the Broadsides they need to assault them (they are pretty tough at range with a 2+ armour save (usually) a 4+ cover save and 2 shield drones). Getting to them will usually take 2 turns if I don’t de-mech them first turn. Then there are the Kroot and the Plasma guns. With Multitrackers the 4 Broadsides put out 6 twin linked BS4, and 6 twin linked BS3 low AP shots per turn. And they are also getting ranged support from the Deathrains. If you go after the Deathrains, then the Broadsides pound you, and the Deathrains run away, while still pounding you. If you go for both, then the same thing happens; only with the range on my guns I can use my whole army to pound half of theirs.

While this happens my troops are coming in using the Positional Relay, and snatching up objectives.

Well that’s the theory at least.

EYIG