Best Tau Stratagems and Cheap Battalions

[Charlo]

Hey guys, I'm joining the Enclaves soon and am a total Tau noob, especially for this edition!

 

I've fallen in love with The Eight, and with the cheap Apoc box it's given me most of them off the bat.

 

What I need help with is essentially twofold:

 

1) what other forces to take to bring the 8 up to a 1500pt force. Single fleshed out Battalion? Two small ones?

2) what Stratagems should I always be using/ aiming to use. Uplink marker light seems solid as does drop zone clear, otherwise I'm a bit lost.

[Marshlands]

1) whatever you can fit. I quite like an Ethereal with FSE but that requires a seperate Sept. If youre using the 8 might as well commit to in your face MSU so i use things like Kroot and hounds and add on drone drops. Definitely would bring extra drones for the 8 anyway, usually a gun drone drop or 2 in particular. I like the grav drone synergy with the 8.

2) drop zone clear doesnt usually do much for the 8 as theyre BS2+ anyway. At 2.5k plus id bring a maxed hazard team to use it on with more charge debuffing fun. More generally I'm not sure there are many obvious strats. Torchstar using command and control on the riptide I guess

 

Maybe consider a stealth team with homing beacon. Again in larger games I like the ghostkeel strat to move them closer and then drop the 8 at point blank flaming/ charge range.

[Happy-inquisitor]

I would suggest having a read of the Mirrorcodex article at http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=29693

 

That should bring you up to speed on the basics. 

 

My 1500 point list is

 

The Eight

 

Coldstar, HOBC, 2 x MP, ATS, 2 Shield Drones

Cadre Fireblade, Shield Drone

Strike Team, 2 Shield Drones

Strike Team, 2 Marker Drones

Strike Team, 2 Marker Drones

 

And that's it.

 

What it gives you is 5CP (desperately needed) and all the real firepower in a Commander, so that synergises perfectly with The Eight. I prefer the Coldstar because at need he does add something a bit unique and special that none of The Eight can do. 

 

Running The Eight at 1500 is very tight on points but what I have found is that at this low points level hardly anyone has any effective counter to the Character Spam that they are combined with their short range firepower and strange abilities to undo the most common counter-tactics (such as deep strike and counter-charging). I have rampaged through a couple of RTTs with that list while tabling all my opponents, so its not as weak as it looks on paper. Doubt if it would do the same at a really big GT but I am not in the mood to bother with any of those this year so if anyone is going to try that it's not me.

[Emicus]

So many drone units, so many kill points :/

[Happy-inquisitor]

So many drone units, so many kill points :/

 

I was not playing ITC/ETC missions so kill points are not a thing.

Edited July 6, 2019 by Happy-inquisitor

[Charlo]

 

 

So many drone units, so many kill points :/

I was not playing ITC/ETC missions so kill points are not a thing.

Yep, screw ITC/ ETC.

 

Thanks for the help guys. I'll pull a list together and come back to what you said before once I'm done.