new tau fleet options

[Camman1984]

I have 2 options for building my new tau fleet. My ruleset is the 2010 compendium fleet.

Main opponents are imperial bakka fleet and chaos fleet. Some eldar too.

My options basically depend on whether to go full ordanance or have some escort power.

1500pts

Fleet 1

Custodian
Special commander (meme or something like that)
Explorer (full carrier)
2x hero
2x protector
3x warden

Very few ships but 20 AC and about 28 torps

Fleet 2

Custodian
Meme
2x heroes
2x protector
3x warden
4x castellan

Gain 8 torps and 4 escorts but lose 8 AC

Give me yiur opinions. Tell me honestly if i am barking up the wrong tree lol

[Camman1984]

Forgot one list. This one is a bit different and varied but people hate the emissaryso didnt originally include it.

Fleet 3

Custodian
Meme
1 hero
2 protectors
2 emmisaries (kitted for torps)
3 wardens
3 castellans
Messenger

Only has 12 AC but has more flexible torpedo deployment. The messenger will hang with the pair of emmisarries. Making them a bit more accurate and keeping then safer by staying between 30-45 using batteries and torps.

[andrewchristlieb]

Fleet 1 sounds pretty spot on for Tau, lots of AC and a strong backbone of cruisers/ light cruisers for slugging.

Fleet 2 is kinda blah, the castellans are going to be overshadowed by those attack craft pretty much every game, torps are not a good balance to attack craft.

Fleet 3 is also a bit on the limp side, if your taking Emissaries with Ions you will need to close to use them and they're too weak to hang with pretty much everything and if your taking grav hooks your throwing away points by not bringing more Wardens.

[Camman1984]

Fleet 1 is probably my favourite. Trying to see the explorer rather than a carrier helps get over the puny firepower but the custodian and protectors have a few more guns on them.

I have also ummed and ahhed about putting the admiral in the explorer or custodian as althoughthe custodian is more flagship like, those 8 launch bays being upgraded to durable fighters and rerollable bombers looks quite nice.

The fleet is very low on fast manouvering escorts, would the AC numbers make up for that? Would you also keep the wardens back to protect the carriers rather than using them offensively?

[horizon]

Hi,
I prefer list two due the background of the Tau. And Castellans are great. Andrew is misguided and doesn't believe in the greater good. j/k
List two is flexible with a good core.

[cibili]

Do torpidos and aircraft has more powerful than. Direct fire?

[andrewchristlieb]

Promoting the greater good through superior firepower . And yes contrary to what the background would want you to believe an all carrier group will most likely trump an all gunship fleet assuming the players are equaly skilled. Attack craft are fast long ranged and powerful. Theyre also super easy to use and carriers tend to have weapons that complement the attack craft making them an even more attractive choice.

[Camman1984]

I decided to have a cardboard cut out game to see how things faired. Escorts were pretty useful for launching a flanking torpedo run but then died to return fire. My opponent was quite shocked by how much ordanance i had. He hadnt played tau before and his only AC came from a single heavy cruiser. A styx i think it was.

The only issue i had was the speed of the bombers, 20 cm is pretty slow. I loved the 40 cm torps though. Launching 38 torpedoes and having them mostly reach his force was ridiculous. In my first salvo on cruiser lost 6 hits, then a second one lost 8 and exploded, hulking the first cruiser and a couple of escorts. A number of other ships took hits too.

I found the bombers lack luster, his turrets dropped their attacks greatly d6-4 in one case. Meme's superior bomber rerolls helped as a wave of 6 of them took 7 hits off his heavy cruiser in one turn.

Otherwise i found the fleet pretty fun. The lower direct fire wasnt too bad once his fleet was in tatters, he did remove all my escorts and a hero by the end.

Any idea how to use wardens as they did very little, i used them to protect my carrier but they got wiped by a squadron of high speed chaos escorts?

[cibili]

I am really a newbie
Whats meme?

[Camman1984]

A very good character admiral in the cpf 2010 list. High ld, rerolls and gives skilled pilots to his attack craft.

[andrewchristlieb]

Check out the turret suppression rules in the faq, you may find that helpful against ships with a high turret value. Remember you only reduce your roll by one for each turret on the ship attacked not for any added by being in base contact with other ships.

[horizon]

Meme should read O Mes'me. The special character in the Tau fleet.

Your opponent should have gone AAF to close distance asap and shut down your main carriers first. Or in case of Chaos, 60cm ranged weaponry can do things as well.

Use the Styx for fighter cover only. Remember: 1 fighter marker takes out 1 torpedo marker. So 38 torpedoes could be about 8 markers for example, but well applied fighters means 6 out of 8 will be gone.

[cibili]

Hi, again.
Doesnt Tau seem weak by their cruisers with 6 wounds? Get crippled in 3 wounds?

[andrewchristlieb]

Yes they do.

[horizon]

That's why they can turn 90*.

[cibili]

Hi, which list did u used in game?

I decided to have a cardboard cut out game to see how things faired. Escorts were pretty useful for launching a flanking torpedo run but then died to return fire. My opponent was quite shocked by how much ordanance i had. He hadnt played tau before and his only AC came from a single heavy cruiser. A styx i think it was.

The only issue i had was the speed of the bombers, 20 cm is pretty slow. I loved the 40 cm torps though. Launching 38 torpedoes and having them mostly reach his force was ridiculous. In my first salvo on cruiser lost 6 hits, then a second one lost 8 and exploded, hulking the first cruiser and a couple of escorts. A number of other ships took hits too.

I found the bombers lack luster, his turrets dropped their attacks greatly d6-4 in one case. Meme's superior bomber rerolls helped as a wave of 6 of them took 7 hits off his heavy cruiser in one turn.

Otherwise i found the fleet pretty fun. The lower direct fire wasnt too bad once his fleet was in tatters, he did remove all my escorts and a hero by the end.

Any idea how to use wardens as they did very little, i used them to protect my carrier but they got wiped by a squadron of high speed chaos escorts?

[Camman1984]

I used fleet 2 in this case as i wanted to test varier types of ships.