2000 Pt. 'Gunline' Tau

[ClockBlock]

40K Army: Tau

Hello all! I've recently acquired the Tau codex and have been thinking over several lists. I've been checking around the internet a bit to see if there were any tactical sort of army I could base mine on. I've found one that someone called a Gunline army, which basically focuses on lots and lots of long-range shooty units. Dumbed down, that means lots of fire warriors (who I really do hope will get better when the next codex is released) with several long-range battlesuits.

However, I've decided to adapt the army slightly to suit my own playing style, while still staying true to the shooty aspect of the army idea. Anyways, without further ado, here's the list:

HQ
Commander - 125 pts
- Shas'o
- Missile Pod, Cyclic Ion Blaster
- Drone Controller, Shield Drone

Elites
x3 Crisis Team - 164 pts
- Team Leader w/ Bonding Knife
- x3 TL Missile Pods
- x2 Target Locks, x1 Drone Controller w/ Shield Drone

Troops - All FWs have bonding knives.
x12 Fire Warriors - 135 pts
- Shas'ui

x12 Fire Warriors - 135 pts
- Shas'ui

x12 Fire Warriors - 135 pts
- Shas'ui

x12 Fire Warriors - 135 pts
- Shas'ui

x20 Kroot - 161 pts
- Shaper

x20 Kroot - 161 pts
- Shaper

Fast Attack
x8 Pathfinders - 216 pts
- Devilfish
- x3 Rail Rifles

Heavy Support
x3 Broadside Battlesuits - 265 pts
- Team Leader w/ Bonding Knife
- x3 Target Locks

x2 Broadside Battlesuits - 200 pts
- x3 Target Locks
- Team Leader w/ Bonding Knife

Hammerhead Gunship - 135 pts
- Ion Cannon
- Secondary Smart Missile System
- Disruption Pod and Decoy Launchers

Total: 1967

Edit Note: I checked over the models I currently own and noticed the Pathfinders had Rail Rifles. Oh well. I dropped one Broadside to make room for the Rifles. I know it was probably stupid, but there was nothing else I could really drop that would allow enough points.

This list should be fairly self-explanatory- all the battlesuits and FWs will hammer away at the enemy with their extensive firepower (hopefully killing most of the unit.) The Kroot will then move in and clean up the unit, mostly in CC. Before that though, I'm going to use them to add to the firepower of the rest of the army.

If you're going to say to take a Railgun instead of an Ion Cannon on the Hammerhead, I took the Ion cannon because of three reasons: It has only 12" less than a Railgun, the IC is Heavy 3, so if it doesn't move it can fire three times, at S7, and AP3- almost as good as the Railgun for substantially less points.

I don't want this list to go above 2000 points- I cap it at only 2000 points, anything above I consider cheating. Oh, by the way, this list is intended for friendly competition, I'm not focusing on entering it into tournaments or anything.

[snake-eyez]

A few things,

12 fire warriors with the team leader are 130 points, the bonding knife is an extra 5 points, so each squad should be 135 points.

Vehicles are different to infantry when it comes to heavy weapons. You can move 6 inches and shoot the heavy gun (rail gun or iron cannon). Give it the multi tracker upgrade and you can move 12 inches and shoot the gun (since the upgrade makes it count as a fast vehicle).

I don't think targeting arrays are worth having on twin linked weapons like the broadsides, I cant see the improved accuracy being worth it for a twin linked weapon.

You should be giving target locks to the broadsides and crisis suits to split fire (since you often dont need 3 twin linked rail guns shooting at a light armoured transport).

I'd try to take more shield drones with the crisis and broadside battlesuits to give them some protection, and give the broadsides bonding knives (and maybe also ASS).

The devilfish you have to take with the pathfinders isnt a complete waste, as a squad of firewarriors can take it on the first turn. Then you can use it to grab objectives late in the game, or just to get around the board faster to find a good place to get out and rapid fire.

[ClockBlock]

Alright. I didn't know that FWs could take the Devilfish- I don't really use transports that much (then again I haven't played THAT many games- maybe three or four.)

Alright. Yeah, I'll replace the targeting arrays on the broadsides, as twin-linked already gives me another roll.

And I'll fix up the points cost on the FWs, I don't know how I made that mistake.

[ClockBlock]

Ok, I've updated the list, with some ideas from the only suggestor on this thread so far. Thanks for the help, snake.

[Pooky]

Looks like plenty of shooting.

Couple of questions:

- How do you plan on capturing objectives? If you use your Kroot they will be shot down by the opponent due to their poor armor. If you advance your Fire Warriors then they will not have their fantastic 30" range of St5 awesomeness.
- How will you handle something that negates the gun-line tactic? Three basic examples I can think of are:
1) Ork Speed-Freeks army that uses Battle Wagons with a Big Mek and Kustom Force Field to give everything a 4+ cover save. You will only have 1 turn (IF you get first turn) to mitigate their speed.
2) Tyranids with a Mawloc/ Trygon appearing in your deployment zone. After the initial hit of having the big nasty and ugly thing staring at you there are all of the small critters that follow and drown the gun lines.
3) Space Marine Drop Pod SM army. This style of army can negate your critical elements on the first turn, i.e. wipe out your Troops so you can not capture objectives. Admittedly, if it is a kill-points game then you have a fair chance.
-

[ClockBlock]

Looks like plenty of shooting.

Couple of questions:

- How do you plan on capturing objectives? If you use your Kroot they will be shot down by the opponent due to their poor armor. If you advance your Fire Warriors then they will not have their fantastic 30" range of St5 awesomeness.
- How will you handle something that negates the gun-line tactic? Three basic examples I can think of are:
1) Ork Speed-Freeks army that uses Battle Wagons with a Big Mek and Kustom Force Field to give everything a 4+ cover save. You will only have 1 turn (IF you get first turn) to mitigate their speed.
2) Tyranids with a Mawloc/ Trygon appearing in your deployment zone. After the initial hit of having the big nasty and ugly thing staring at you there are all of the small critters that follow and drown the gun lines.
3) Space Marine Drop Pod SM army. This style of army can negate your critical elements on the first turn, i.e. wipe out your Troops so you can not capture objectives. Admittedly, if it is a kill-points game then you have a fair chance.
-

Hmm... The Drop Pods are going to be annoying. I do know that I'm going to use the 'Fish to carry around some FWs- I think they can capture while they're in a transport, right? I haven't played objective games anyways, and like I said, this is intended for friendly competition only, just down at the local club I play at. Actually, I think I can afford to lose one unit of FWs to guard an objective to the last while the rest support the others.

About the Tyranids, I don't know how I'm going to deal with them, as I have never played against a new Tyranid army. I guess if they had a Trygon/Mawloc, I'd gun it down with what I have- the Ion Cannon might come in handy there. Tyranids don't have the best armor saves- I think the best is like 3+ on the Hive Tyrant. Most only have 5-6+. As the actual troops get closer, I might just try to use as much Rapid Fire as I can to try to take down as many as I can. If there is impassable terrain with a top to stand on, I think I can use jump packs to fly the Battlesuits up there and shoot at the Tyranids.

For SMs, I don't know what I'm going to do. They can only carry five Marines if I recall correctly, and that's not many. However Marines are really powerful, so I guess I'd focus fire on the Marines- they might be in range for Rapid Fire. Hopefully I can manage to gun them down before they can really deal some damage. I really don't know, I still need to finish up my Tau army anyways, I don't have that many units- I think only like one Battlesuit and three squads of units. Luckily Pulse Rifles are AP5- not that bad for basic weaponry, I guess. With S5 and Rapid Fire, I think I can stand a fair chance taking them down. Space Marines are going to be the bane of this army if they have Drop Pods...

As for Orks...I don't know how I'm going to do that. I guess they're going to be like the SMs- try to take down as many as I can before they get here. I can charge with the Kroot- the Shaper has 3 attacks, which is quite good for only 21 extra points.

For all armies, I'm going to use Markerlight spamming on them from the Pathfinders. With the extra BS, I'm guaranteed to score a few hits at least...

I still need to play as the Tau and get a feel for them when this list is finished- it's mostly hypothetical, with only a few units actually existing. The definite units I have are 12 FWs, a squad of Kroot, the Pathfinders, and a Battlesuit. Those aren't going to change. I'm still a noob at 40k, the Tau are my first army I'm going to play as. I'm probably not going to play until I get the new codex for Tau anyways when it finally comes out, and by then I believe I'll have to edit this list...

[Reivax26]

A little light on vehicles for my taste but whatever you feel like playing is what you should play anyway. While people can get on here and critique you to the ends of the earth for the decisions you have made on the list ultimately its up to you to decide what you want to field. In a friendly environment for casual play there isn't any reason why this list wouldn't be good to play. One of the biggest problems on the internet in gaming forums like this one is you get the players who only go to tournaments and so they automatically go into a mode where they tell you everything that they would change about the army. Maybe you just really like Troops or maybe you are wanting to paint them up to be a showcase army. Whatever the reason it doesn't really matter to anyone but you.

[lantzkev]

the custom field is 5+ for the speed freak thing.

As for gunline, try dropping shield drones, and just taking more crisis suits etc.
as for the crisis suits, drop TL for two seperate weapons and then add multitracker.
kroot, add hounds for them to win.
drop hammer head for more broadsides,
the commander drop the shield drone, give it iridium and tuck him away in a squad of firewarriors as you want, or any unit and let him soak up non instakill or ap2 shots.
CIB is sad panda at times or very awesome, but rather than a missile pod, since you're going anti-infantry, get a AFB or plasma rifle.

If you want to do a gun line, focus on gun lines. Tanks don't make the gun line work. also I've never found the rail rifles work very well.

[Fraf]

Drop the kroot shapers, they are a useless point sink. For the cost of 1 shaper, you can get 4 basic kroots, that's 4 more attacks (7 more on the charge), 1 extra wound (you could even argue 3 extra as a T3 model with a 6+ save is gonna get insta-killed no matter how many wounds it has) and 3 extra models for Ld test thresholds. You could also take kroot hounds if you already have 20 kroots in the unit.

Drop the expensive Shas'O and take a Shas'el instead (with a targetting array if you really want BS 5). Also, if you have a 2 weapons battlesuit pattern, always take a multitracker (except maybe with flamer-based patterns)

In a unit with N battlesuits, you'll never need more than N-1 target locks (see your broadside teams)

Keep shield drones in your broadside units and either shield or gun drones in your crisis units. Without them, they're just asking to be insta-killed by any S+8 Ap 3- weapon, and since you have almost no vehicles, all those Lascannons, krak missiles, multimeltas, dark lances, etc ... will be completely dedicated to killing your suits.

Forget about ionheads. Take either Railheads (for the anti-horde pieplate and occasional anti-tank pot shot) or broadsides (for more true anti-tank). Even sniper drones would be a better anti-marine choice than an Ionhead, especially in a gunline list.

Drop the rail rifles and only take markerlight pathfinders, you're gonna need a lot of them with that many firewarriors (I would even try to fit a second team of 8).


Finally, SM Drop Pods can carry 12 models or a dreadnaught, that's a bigger threat than you think for a gunline

[lantzkev]

if you're running a large kroot squad shapers are useful, the leadership 8 vs 7 means you're not dealing with as much leadership issues from gunfire losses (which is one thing you don't want them running from) so ignore them on the dump him part. Don't however buy the 6+ armour it's a pointsink that only works in melee for the most part.

I disagree with taking shield drones, for the most part the cost you spend in shield drones could easily just buy you another or close to another of whatever it's meant to protect.

[blurrymadness]

the custom field is 5+ for the speed freak thing.

Derp! no it's not. It gives vehicles obscured and gives infantry a 5+. Vehicles that don't specifically get modified when received obscured get the 4+. This has been gone over 800 times per second per second; this is how it works.

I'd drop the kroot to 10 man squads, drop 2 firewarrior squads; grab two more sets of 10 man kroot (all kroot should have *no* upgrades), add devilfish to the firewarriors for target saturation purposes.

-Either way, I'd drop the railhead and get another set of broadsides. Go target locks for split fire and don't look back. Don't buy shield drones; you're welcome for that. If you want nice saves use kroot or firewarriors to give them cover.
-Kroot tend to be better than firewarriors in several ways, including firepower. Feel free to think about switching all those into more kroot.
-Drop bonding knives. You're close to your board edge; if you're already running, you're gone. Save yourself 20 points.
-Drop team leaders on kroot and firewarriors
-Drop rail rifles, get a few less pathfinders
-Add another crisis suit team, two if all of the above affords it. Give the new teams fusions and pods (imo), it'll make them able to mop up anything broadsides fail to, but the pods keep the gunline theme while you're waiting to see what happens. Fire both when it comes to anything close up.
-Drop team leaders on Broadsides (unless you have to take them for upgrades; I forget.)

This makes it look like:
HQ
Your suit

Elites
3x Deathrain
2x3x FB/MP,Multi-tracker (shoot multiple weapons?)

Troops
2x12xFirewarriors, Devilfish
4x10xKroot

Fast
5xPathfinders, Devilfish

Heavy
3x3xBroadsides, targetlock

That's 9 railguns splitting fire, 10 missile pods to hit transports, 6 fusion blasters for stuff that just *needs* to die; still a decent number of bodies and shots going out for infantry; as well as 3 vehicle hulls and 19 suits to help saturate the enemies AV firepower.

[lantzkev]

Derp! no it's not. It gives vehicles obscured and gives infantry a 5+. Vehicles that don't specifically get modified when received obscured get the 4+. This has been gone over 800 times per second per second; this is how it works.

?Yeah clearly everything gets a 4+... which was what I was pointing out, bikers won't be getting a 4+ from the field.


I disagree with you on the fusion blasters, nothing really needs a fusion blaster that a railgun can't fix or hit.

[Fraf]

if you're running a large kroot squad shapers are useful, the leadership 8 vs 7 means you're not dealing with as much leadership issues from gunfire losses (which is one thing you don't want them running from) so ignore them on the dump him part.

1 - There's no way that upgrade is worth 21 points
2 - taking more models instead with those points ALSO helps against leadership issues from gunfire by raising the amount of casualities needed before you take the test, while also being overall more useful by bringing more fire/hitting power and more wounds.
3 - in close combat, that Ld 8 will actually hurt you, since as a Tau, you don't want your units to stay more than 1 phase locked in CC, especially after being assaulted close to your gunline (kroot walls). If that happens, it means you won't be able to shoot the assaulters during your turn, and the combat will very likely end during your assault phase, leaving an assault unit close to your line and free of its actions during your opponent's next turn : you really don't want that to happen.

[Vrigor]

3 - in close combat, that Ld 8 will actually hurt you, since as a Tau, you don't want your units to stay more than 1 phase locked in CC, especially after being assaulted close to your gunline (kroot walls). If that happens, it means you won't be able to shoot the assaulters during your turn, and the combat will very likely end during your assault phase, leaving an assault unit close to your line and free of its actions during your opponent's next turn : you really don't want that to happen.

Guardsmen sometimes fail us for the same reason... and double 1's are the devil. Those units are possessed by chaos and should be shot

[LeonidasL]

I have to point out several things for you to consider.
1) Broadsides. They are really good with twin linked weapons; they are AMAZING with BS4. Drop the target locks and give them targeting arrays. Give their leader target lock and 2 shield drones. If Snake-eyez is happy with his broadsides hitting 75%, I am happy with mine hitting on 90%. Plus drones help your guys survive lascannon hits.
2) Feel no pain. Your army seriously lacks in ap2, ap1. Feel no pain armies, like the Blood Angels will tear you appart everytime and you won't be able to do any substantial harm to them. I love plasma rifles on crisis suits.
3) Melta guns. We know broadsides are good tank hunters, but against Land Raiders, you need meltas. I usually field 2x Shas'o with plasma, missile pod and fusion gun, with hardwired multi tracker and 2 shield drones.
4) Crisis suits. For some unknown reason, people run their teams without drones. I always try to take teams of 2 crisis with a shield and a gun drone.
5) From experience, I find a unit of 3 crisis with twin flamers and missile pod, plus 2 gun drones to work wonders. Those can deep strike in LOS of the beacon of the pathfinder's devilfish to reduce their chance to scatter.
6) Can you remove the rail rifles from the pathfinders? You need those guys to mark not to kill.
7) Broadsides dont need bonding knives. They are deployed at the back of your army, practically on the edge of the board. If they lose their morale test, they go off the board, thus making the bonding knife obsolete.

[Boris420]

I'd keep the Hammerhead. One thing Tau lack is horde control, pie plates are always good to have just in case. The main role of a HH (IMO) is to take out groups of lightly armed infantry and to be used as a backup for your broadsides in case they: A) Fail to hit or B) can't get LOS to anything. The most important thing about Tau is the balance between cannon fodder and heavy hitters. You need Kroot bubble wraps as much as your suits. Have a Team of Crisis Suits? Use a Devilfish to block LoS to them as they advance, keep a kroot bubble around them as well since they can JSJ, and don't forget that Gun Drones come with most vehicles so use them as throwaway units and send them towards the enemy. Broadsides need Kroot bubbles as well, otherwise you'll have a hard time with outflankers/infiltrators/Snikrot Kommandos, etc. I personally use a 1:1 ratio between Kroot and suits. I only take 6 FW's so they can use pathfinder fish's and claim an objective once the dust settles. I've seen Pirahna's used to slow down an enemies advance as well. Also, flachette dischargers! I stand by them 100% unless I'm facing TEQ/MC's/enemy gunline armies. Food for thought, most of this is personal taste. Go to the Tau Tactica website, these guys are geniuses!