2500 point ITC Tournament List

[acehilator]

Ah I misread the Engram chip, I thought it was only triggering on opponent's strat activation. Auto-take indeed, but on something that isn't a Commander

Totally not sold on the Fusion Blades, I'd rather keep the Commanders as safe as possible instead of trying to force the melee. The Farsight Sept Tenet has poor synergy with most stuff, Stealth Suits might profit but T'au is better for them imho. So not really a point in wasting a detachment to try to gain access to the relic. The Thrusters have to be superior by quiet a wide margin, unless you are playing on planet Dustball.

[almostmercury]

Apr 8, 2018 21:09:38 GMT acehilator said:

The Coldstar Commander in the T'au brigade needs Vectored Maneuvering Thrusters as the relic.

I'm going to look into spending the CP on the thrusters. The relics I want are the chip, thrusters, and the mirrors... all of which are attainable.

Agree on lone Marker drones being useless. And too expensive. Switch the 5 model Drone unit to Vespids if you own the models.
Switch the second Drone unit to a unit of Pathfinders with Pulse Accelerator Drone, because 30+ FWs is enough to warrant a proper castle. Get an Etheral while you are at it, and don't forget the Cadre Fireblade

It's probably time to playtest the Fireblade, even in my list to get a feel for how much work it can do. The markerdrones are dropped, but again I think the opportunity for a markerlight VS a saved mortal wound is negligible and could be a valid strat if you were lighter on lights.

The Vanguard with the Firesight Marksmen needs to be Sa'cea, too good to give up and you need a Sa'cea detachment anyways to gain access to the "Orbital Marker Distribution Uplink" stratagem. Ditch the forth Marksman to free up points.
Make the Vanguard with the Stealth suits T'au, they are the ones most likely getting charged. Is your local meta assault heavy enough to warrant using T'au for the Brigade? Would need some shuffling around for Longstrike, but not running the FW castle as Bork'an seems like a waste.

As I explained above, it's the access to the stratagem that I'm most interested in. In addition to longstrike always being the first hammerhead you take even if you're not taking hammerheads and the 5+ overwatch just being an additional way to interact in the assault phase.

I appreciate the feedback even if you're only thinking about it. I hope the Orks are good though. Like Nids and Dark Eldar, they really deserve a good one.

[almostmercury]

Apr 9, 2018 3:16:52 GMT kazetanade said:

Up above i actually agree with most points made by auto, mainly the thing that springs up is crisis suits could be a reasonably priced high impact method of clearing infantry, as are Stealthsuits (better priced but less impact).

I'm really reluctant to take crisis suits to a tournament. They're really expensive for their impact and require quite a bit of investment. You need something like 6 all with 3 CIBs, and you MIGHT get a bit more for your buck with a C&CN commander following them in.

The Bor'kan reroll strategem looks trolltastic at best, i wouldnt actually rely on it in a competitive game. I also wouldnt bring more than 1 Riptide, but i would give the riptides Velocity Tracker (if Ion) and ATS (if HBC), then CFS if Tau or TL if Bor'kan or whatever(or just stick to rerollable OW).

I did find some great discussion over on advancedtautactica around the combination of ATS, TL, and VT and there is a decent consensus around the plausibility of ATS and VT. VT functions as a TL if the target has fly, but markerlights CAN offer TL effects as well. So, I'm interested in the experiement of ATS and VT together, because you get a fair amount for your points and they work in addition to markerlights instead of replacing effects.

I dont believe in Fire Warriors + Cadre as an anti-infantry measure; its just a deterrent. Do you know the amount of havoc a single Flyrant will do to them? We should as Nids, and its a lot. A single Dev Gaunt drop will wipe out via morale and double shooting approx 6 units of FWs. So you really need the stealthsuits (up to 3 or 4 units IMO) to control the map to prevent such things from happening, or you need a hella lot of kroot to prevent them running up with Mortarion or Genestealers or BA on T1 and just smashing your face flat. I dont own a single Kroot model so I'd be stuck with option 1. Use the FW as supporting fire with their 30" range, and deal the brunt of the attack using stealthsuits and the Riptide.

The firewarriors are T3, but they're also 3+ save in cover. A Flyrant would average 2-3 dead warriors in shooting. They're pretty awful smite targets, and then probably another 4 in combat. That's a lot of work to kill 7 point models. And if you take units of 9 like auto, then you have so many bodies to chew through.

For the record, stealthsuits ARE infantry but i dont think Viorla sept strategem gives them that much. Max size unit doubletap is 48 shots of 4+ S5, which is ok but I'd question the 2cp cost for that. And right now max sized stealths is not what you want.

It's more that the suits and commander would benefit from the Vior'la sept tenet, with the suits simply playing the roll of hard to shift board control. They're -1 to hit at all times and have a 2+ save in cover, with 2 wounds. They can also have a 4++ for weapons with AP. Flyrants just can't kill them without assaulting. But I'm really up in the air with septs right now. Seems like T'au Brigade and Sa'cea vangauard and something.

I want to suggest Broadside units with ATS, HYMPs and SMS with rerollable wound from the strategem (way more value than +1 to wound IMO and only 1cp) and +1 to wound. Similar to Broodlords with MRC except without the risk and less ap. Its also a lot more flexible than a Ionhead, can be protected by drones. Downside, 4+ to hit and wastes a commander slot (which you can fill with Plasma, and use him as basically a Buffmander w/ enogram and C&C, still kicks teeth in during Overwatch). I wish the enogram gave a reroll a turn, that would be a lot more times better but its already decent using it on someone else instead of the carrier.

I want to love Broadsides, I do. They're my personal favourite and I have some awesome HYMP kit bashes to use. But I don't trust them yet because of the army's poor usage of the assault phase. They don't have fly and they're not infantry, so they're unable to use ruins effectively (and they have to walk around), and they can't fall back and shoot either from fly or Darkstrider. That being said... they are more resilient than tanks thanks to 2+ and saviour protocls.

I'll come back later today thinking about ITC specifics and more closer look at your army concept. I just had to get the above off my chest, all i hear are "Tau is bad, Tau is disappointing, Tau is weak". The propaganda is strong in them.

It gives up BGH and Headhunter, but I can't help that. T'au depend on characters so you have no choice. The good news is that I have 11-12 and only 4 of them give up points. T'au aren't weak or bad, they're just really hard to build with using so many moving parts. How many marker lights do you need? How do you protect your markerlights?

[almostmercury]

List is updated. Thoughts?

[kazetanade]

OK breaking up your army concept into a few things here:

1: High T models role and ITC
You're looking at giving away max Big Game Hunter here, as you have nicely 2 Riptides and 2 Ionheads. The split is okay, as it helps to cover both type of damage profiles you need. What I'm concerned with is that you are "easily" giving away 2/4 points from any sort of basic Commander Drop or Melta Drop or long range anti-tank options. If you can outrange the enemy then you'll be fine, but the map design and deployment may not allow you to do so. The riptides are at least tanky, and I'm assuming you're at least using the 3++ on both of them (one of them will be branched) and not burning drones on them unless necessary. You're burning like 700+ points here though - It's a huge investment, and although The Riptides "covers" both spectrums, it's only really good against pseudo-elites and will suffer quite a bit vs higher Toughness enemies.

For the Riptide you'd be looking at 2 comparisons: You're comparing the HBC variants with Deathrain Broadsides, and the Ion variants with Ionheads. Vs the Ionheads they unfortunately hit a lot less with 4+ instead of a buffable 2+. But they wound tough enemies more consistently (S8 base vs S7 base), as well as having a consistent 6 shots. On the flip side, there's no advantage to firing it at anything T7 or below because you're always overcharged. Specifically for ITC, I'd use the Riptides over the Ionheads as the Riptides can output similar (and using markerlights can be buffed to a respectable 3+ RR1s, without Gets Hot) and are going to last a LOT longer on the field to continually apply pressure. But for the HBC variants, it gets a bit more vague. Deathrains output 18 shots of S5 and S7 at -1ap and -2ap respectively (with ATS), but are individually cheaper than a Riptide. You can get 1.5-2 for each Riptide you're bringing, which makes this unit a really high volume output. It's also easier to buff with anything not the T'au sept strategem. And it's also protectable by Drones.

One more point to consider is Longstrike himself - he's in a similar position as Pask is. They're really good and cost efficient compared to their peers. They also award 3 VP from that assassination secondary (1vp for every 2W(or 4W if Monster)that your chosen character loses, +1vp if you killed and its the warlord), 4 if you make them the Warlord. It's not actually that hard to kill Longstrike or Pask, they're not as durable and willy as Flyrants. So as your list stands, you're basically giving up 5-7 points from the get go, especially if you're going second and they have the aforementioned strong anti-tank capabilities.

2. Characters and ITC
You're giving away 4 secondaries by bringing 3 suicide Commanders and Longstrike, once the Commanders drop they'll be picked off by anything anti-infantry looking at them, even Devourers possibly. and ITC plays this beta character rule so you cant use 1 suicide Commander to tank for everyone else, which is ideal. If you want to do shenanigans like that, you'll need some Drones at the very least. It's also almost 200 points you're throwing away after 1 use, keep that in mind when you're looking at 1 turn returns you absolutely need to make your trade and Fusion Commanders may have trouble trading for something of equal value. Also, if you leave the Warlord as a Coldstar, you're giving away 4 points on that assassinate secondary (unless they only have 5W, in which case you're giving away 3, same as Longstrike). If your list was more aggressive and in their face, you could pull off multiple Commanders as they have to deal with the Ghostkeels, Stealthsuits, and Drones which are in their face at the same time, but right now I think they just need to shoot the minimal Stealthsuits or may not even need to shoot the stealthsuits to begin with depending on how aggressive they were deployed.

Another thing about your characters is the choice of Darkstrider, who gives a gimmicky buff that isnt going to be useful for most of the game. a Fireblade gives you a 2+ Markerlight, which is far more quality than your Fire Marksmen, and gives you a buff you are 100% using in the Overwatch phase, rather than a potential Fall Back if the unit is even still alive. Unless marksmen get some buff to movement before the game starts like Pathfinders, they're not going to be much better than a number of Cadre Fireblades. Cant remember the cost though, but Marksmen are an OOP model if my friends are right on that, so Fireblades give you more while being more easily obtained.

One thing I'd point out is that if you're wanting to use Enclaves, you might as well bring Farsight himself. I wouldnt touch Enclaves right now, not until I have a more solid strategy on how to use them. I only skimmed it.

3. Strategems
A good army will usually have a good use of several types of strategem. Your army should be in a decent position for that - the stealthsuits in V'iorla would be able to use their strategem (for what it's worth, I'm not that impressed by 48 4+ S5 AP0 shots, but you can do stuff with this I'm sure - like killing Genestealers), T'au sept would be ideal to use on Longstrike and his team (turning a 3+ to wound into a 2+), and OK but not fantastic on HBC Riptides (but just as good on IonTides, if you decided to bring them instead). If you were planning to use this T'au strategem to kill high priority targets, that's when I'd think about using Railheads to have a 5+ mortal wound proc. Problem is, of course, single shot (so I'd consider Railsides instead for 2 shots, but then you go back to the 4+ to hit conundrum). Of course, as you're aware, Railsides can take VT to get a +1 to FLY targets - and guess who are the primary offenders for the "OP" slot? That's right, non-Fliers with keyword FLY. Sa'cea is a must take, it's like the KRONOS of the T'au book. It's even better designed, there are things in there that benefit SO much from the easy Markerlights + the reroll of a dice per unit + the d3+1 markerlight strategems. KRONOS has no synergy at all. Not looking at Enclaves, and Bor'kan is also an option to bring that 2nd Riptide in giving you a rerollable D6 Ion with 3++.

Touching briefly on the Bor'kan / Sa'cea detachment, I rather turn it into a Supreme Command Detachment and bring 3 Fireblades, or turn it into a Fast Attack detachment and bring Pathfinders. Pathfinders may have less quality shots, but they have x4 the number of shots. With Sa'cea, you can get 1 really consistent hit and 3 guys also rerolling 1s, and they'll make it really easy to land 1 ML to use the d3+1 strategem. The catch is, of course, no Character Protection, so I'd still stick with the Fireblades for 2+ Marker Lights. ) Of course, a 3+ rerollable is pretty decent so if the point cost is a problem then that can stay no problem. Both are equally viable (as is not bringing KRONOS) but it makes life a lot easier if you do bring it.

Alternatively you can turn the Stealthsuit detachment into a Sa'cea instead of Vio'la, and bring something like 1 fusion per unit for a bunch of units of 3s. Hell, you can even bring a Markerlight in each unit for Markerlight saturation and still get a good weapon out of it. This allows you to bring the other detachment in Bor'kan, and shift a Riptide over for D6 rerollable Ion like mentioned. Just options.

The main thing is that the Sa'cea character MUST be able to see whatever unit they want marked. This will be very key IMO.

One thing I noted and I dont like is the lack of a C&C Node Commander. Of course, Commanders are a scarce resource so I understand, but IMO C&C is such a ridiculously strong strategem and it's not being taken advantage of; you dont have anything that really destroys the enemy with it, like a huge Crisis unit with Cyclics or a max Broadside Squad with Rails/Deathrain. All you have is a Riptide which is wounding on 5s vs a Primarch or 4s vs other standard MCs, which rerolling would force many more wounds yes but I'm not sure on how effective it would be. You'd need to do your mathhammer to be sure of that. I use the Patriarch as a gauge and think the results are respectable, if not awe-inspiring (6A hitting 2+ vs 18A hitting 4+/3+ reroll 1s; if you get it on a Fly unit, you should probably murder it through its sv4+? So yes still extremely respectable).

I think your primary is a Brigade? In which case CP is enough. If it's a single Battallion I think you have issues with CP. This army is even more hungry for CP than Nids are (I hate how the AM codex has the best generation of CP but they have the least requirements for mass CP, their good strategems are mostly so cheap).

4) ITC Missions
Map Control is actually reasonably important in ITC - much more important than in Maelstrom, which score so haphazardly that holding ground waiting for an objective is stupid, unless you're DG and cant die to begin with. However, the ITC Champions draft Missions which are the ones I studied were so TOUGH on objective scoring, that all you needed to do was to deny 2 objectives total in order to prevent the enemy from earning much if any of those VP. As you know, the primary objective scoring is pretty terrible in itself, score 1 for first kill / 1 for more kills, score 1 for objective / score 1 for holding more objectives. So that leaves Secondaries as the primary way to score, which in turn makes it important to deny the opponent any easy way of scoring. Make them work for the kills. Holding Map Control and preventing the enemy from getting a position from which they can hurt you is one of the major ways of preventing that, as is appearing off the board (because you arent screening out deepstriking max Reaper squads or 9 man Reaper Squads that are going to reroll hit reroll wounds and fire twice to thrice( I dont think firing thrice is plausible on the drop turn, but possible after that if they're still alive).

At the same time, map control will both score for your secondaries (Recon which is 1 unit in each quadrant to score 1vp a turn and Behind Enemy Lines, which is 1 unit wholly in the enemy's deployment side or something like that per turn), while making it marginally easier to deny the enemy from scoring that.

By right, Flyrants would perform decently in ITC as well outside of the fact that Nids will lose the secondaries trade, we have very few options for denying the enemy ITC secondaries.

As it stands, I feel that Broadsides, Stealthsuits, and Riptides are in FANTASTIC positions. Broadsides give up Gangbusters? But only have 3 models so give up 1 VP (need to reconfirm is it by model basis or wounds basis, I recall its model basis). Stealthsuits can be brought enmass and dont award anything outside of Death By a Thousand Cuts, which is pretty damn hard to score (kill 3 at a go to score 1vp. Kill 6, score 2. Kill 5, score 1. Next turn kill 1, score 0.), and Stealthsuits being T5 W2 3+ AND having -1 is pretty hard to kill. Bring them in min groups, bring them in big groups, both work just fine (I prefer min groups). You'll probably also bamboozle people into thinking it's prepping for a Commander Drop, and thereby buying more space. Riptides give only 1vp each, but are so super hard to kill at T7 and 3++ and W12 and Drones - it'll take forever for people to score that off of you. FWs are of course in a good position as well, but I dont rely on them as anti-infantry because you only really need to hold your own objective - the enemy will send elites at yours (which makes the T'au overwatch really good), but for you to run up to them and try and smash infantry lines doesnt seem like a great strategy especially as it might compromise your own objective. Ionheads are pretty good as well, and although they do give up points, people only have 3 secondaries - they're not going to burn one on a 2VP max secondary. It's just Longstrike and bringing enough Ionheads for him to buff that become a problem.

One last thing - I'm not sure about this, but I think each Drone counts as its own unit. In which case, Death By a Thousand Cuts is going to score like crazy. Hardly an effort.

5) Known ITC meta
I only know what's been reported on the Hive and what goes on the clickbait sites, but it looks like Reaper spam, Poxwalker spam, and some super alphastrikes that give up minimum secondaries like that BA list with what, a 9 man Sanguinary Guard and Flying Dreadnought HQ? I dont even remember anymore. I dont think T'au will be a super high contender in ITC, because they have dont that many great options for denying secondaries although they can score it themselves pretty well. Keeping that in mind, all you can really do is try to balance all the above and get some practice in with such lists.

6) Conclusion Suggestions
- Dont use Longstrike, he gives up too much points. Having 1 or 2 Ionheads is otherwise ok, but clashing with Riptides which I think is better for ITC.
- HBCTides vs IonTides, I like IonTides more compared vs Ionheads. HBCs could do well with the reroll wounds strat otherwise I wouldnt reaaaaally bother with it right now.
- more Burst Cannons/ Stealths. You have a hell lot of anti-elite and anti-tank in your Fusions + Ions + HBC, but not that great of Horde Clear in your HBC and Pulse Rifles. I'd lean more towards horde clear than elite clear, but I dont know what meta you're going to get. Your list would be positively fearsome to play in my tournament end of this month (which looks more like Adepticon without the long list of secondaries), since we have such a high concentration of elite/high T based armies.
- Look at Broadsides. They arent Fly, but they are T5 W6 Sv2+ and can be wrapped, also being able to take VT or anything else you want to prepare against; any system you put on them has a really good multiplication effect on them.
- Reconsider your markerlight saturations. You can take them on Stealthsuits so that they are always in range, you can take them on Cadre Fireblades to get that 2+ ML, you can take them on Pathfinders for raw number of shots. And on FW Sha'sui not that I have anything to say about that.
- C&C NODE DAMNIT
- Not mentioned above, but Kroots look pretty good. I think they'll work as the first line of preventing charges, that's the main thing. I doubt you'll need it with Stealthsuits pushing everyone back though.

[almostmercury]

The drones are collectively a separate unit. They separate from crisis suits or whatever to become independent, but whatever you take stays together.

Don’t forget about double SMS on all riptides, tanks, and broadsides. That’s 8 pulse rifle shots that ignore LOS and cover.

[kazetanade]

Granted I forgot about the double SMS on the Riptides and Tanks. Ref the HBC Riptides, they should be decent anti-infantry and if you keep a rerollable wound strategem I'd consider them a good alternative to bring to deal with any problems coming their way.

I need to find out why are Riptides more than 100pts more expensive than the tanks. That always feels so weird. Crisis Suits too, they're so expensive for the option to take 3 guns.

Ref Drones, I dont really know. I'd jsut check with TOs first if its important.

Ref Broadsides - IF the enemy actually makes contact with your important things, and you are T'au Sept with a freaking Riptide standing there, I'm going to have to seriously question what happened. A T'au sept should be THE most scariest thing to charge in the world, doesnt matter what faction you are. No other faction can get a 5+ rerollable OW with heavy duty weapons, with a Markerlight to buff the triple tapping Firewarriors to 5+ reroll 1s.

[acehilator]

Re: updated list -> I like it.

I would keep the second unit of Stealth suits, there is no such thing as too much midfield control
You can always use the second unit of Kroot for backfield anti-DS.

Markerlights should stay as-is too, some reliability for peace of mind, lol.

[almostmercury]

Kaz brings up a completely legitimate point about Longstrike though and he’s taking up an unnecessary hq slot. The trick is that he’s a 5th marker light for the tanks and a tau stratagem for himself... I think he might be worth it.

Is it worth it to pay 15 points per point of damage prevented for Longstrike? Bodyguards can take damage for him.

[autoxidation]

I think it’s reasonable that Longstrike is behind LOS terrain for ITC matches first turn. The army has enough units that a deep strike hit wouldn’t work before Longstrike could move out of cover and attack.

[kazetanade]

If its something you're confident in then Longstrike is a fantastic choice. He's head and shoulders above what others in his range can dish out. D6 shots of 2+ 2+-2ap 3 flat is scary, I'd love that on the miasma and its already a decent weapon.

You most likely wont find enough terrain to hide all other 3 Hammerheads nearby him though. I generally dont like to rely on LOS block strategies because the table given could be populated badly - Longstrike is not as small as a unit of HG, for example, and has a harder time hiding than an Exocrine. But risk vs reward and all.

Is there any strong units that Darkstrider could buff? You know a hidden Breacher team could be a nasty surprise for an enemy charging in and buffing breachers with +1Wound on their S6 -2ap guns would be a horrible experience for any enemy coming in regardless of T.

I *think* that covers all the points i can cover, considering my lack of exp with the army. Personally i like the damage profile you have right now with 3 ionheads +1 longstrike and 2 HBC Riptides. I'm not sure how you'll handle pox farms and other high model count strategies but most other TAC should be fair game.

Good luck with your event, may the odds be in your favour.

[almostmercury]

2 ionheads all with SMS, but that’s beside the point. Thanks for the discussion and input. I’ll run this list a few times make a few tweaks and give it a go.

[autoxidation]

I would consider dropping Darkstrider for markerlights on the shashuis and some more firewarriors to fill out the units.

[No One]

kazetanade said:

If you were planning to use this T'au strategem to kill high priority targets, that's when I'd think about using Railheads to have a 5+ mortal wound proc.

Ionhead is better by enough and/or gets more out of +1 wound to still come out ahead of rail against basically everything (I think literally everything <T9, but I'm not going to say that 100%).

(I hate how the AM codex has the best generation of CP but they have the least requirements for mass CP, their good strategems are mostly so cheap).

It actually works pretty well for balance...until you start just sticking them in other armies who are CP hungry. i.e. If I've blown through 15 CP in 3 turns in a nid/GSC/IG, all using good strats, while my opponent has only used 10 CP in an IG det (likely several 'might as well' CP uses as well), I've gained more from that.

almostmercury said:

Is it worth it to pay 15 points per point of damage prevented for Longstrike? Bodyguards can take damage for him.

Maybe instead of the technical drones?? Not sure how the pts work out on those, but you'd be saving 3 wounds (possibly more if you can then palm off to drones?) on your most important unit: probably only works out in your favour if he'd be getting blown off the table in one turn though...

Fire Warriors x6: Shas'ui, 5x Pulse Rifles

Fisticuffs Tau?

[almostmercury]

There’s always one guy who wants to take the fight straight to the enemy.