Our Twitch Subscribers voted and tonight’s game will be T’au vs. Orks! Tune in at 5pm PST to our Twitch Channel for the fun.
Frankie is the resident T’au player, but is still away from work. However, he’s written a solid list for the mighty Petey Pab to take out. It features deployment options, mobility, firepower, marker light support and the fearsome Longstrike!
- 2,000pts
- T’au Faction keyword
- 2 Deatchments
- Battalion
- Vanguard
- Command Points: 7
| Unit | Description | Size |
| HQ | Battalion Detachment | |
| Commander | 3x Missile Pod , Drone Controller, 2x Marker Drones | 1 |
| Commander | 3x Missile Pod , Flamer | 1 |
| Troops | ||
| Strike Team | Pulse Rifle | 5 |
| Strike Team | Pulse Rifle | 5 |
| Strike Team | Pulse Rifle | 5 |
| Heavy Support | ||
| Broadside Battlesuit | Heavy Rail Rifle, 2x smart Missile systems, | 1 |
| Broadside Battlesuit | Heavy Rail Rifle, 2x smart Missile systems, | 1 |
| HQ | Vanguard Detachment | |
| Longstrike | 2x gun drones, Railgun | 1 |
| Elites | ||
| Crisis Battlesuits | 6x Missile Pod, 3x Flamer, 4x Marker Drones | 3 |
| Crisis Battlesuits | 6x Missile Pod, 3x Flamer, 4x Marker Drones | 3 |
| Crisis Battlesuits | 6x Missile Pod, 3x Flamer, 2x Marker Drones | 3 |
| Totals | 29 |
Reece is back with some Orks! Typically, Orks get obliterated by T’au due to a combination of punishing special rules the T’au have that just took Orks apart. How will they fare in 8th ed?
Unlike the previous Kan Wall Reece ran, this is a more “traditional” Ork list, featuring lots of Boyz on foot, some Elite units with increased mobility and some weedy Grots in the back manning the big guns! It also will feature some of the awesome psychic support Orks can bring to the table.
- 2,000pts
- Faction Keyword: Orks
- Detachments: 3
- Battalion
- Vanguard
- Spearhead
- Command Points: 8
| Unit | Force Org | # | Weapons | # |
| Battalion | Command Points | 3 | ||
| Warboss on Warbike | HQ | 1 | Big Choppa | 1 |
| Kombi-Skorcha | 1 | |||
| Weirdboy | HQ | 1 | ||
| Shoota Boyz | Troops | 30 | Big Choppa | 1 |
| Rokkit Launcha | 3 | |||
| Shoota Boyz | Troops | 30 | Big Choppa | 1 |
| Rokkit Launcha | 3 | |||
| Slugga Boyz | Troops | 30 | Big Choppa | 1 |
| Kombi-Skorcha | 1 | |||
| Big Shoota | 3 | |||
| Vanguard | Command Points | 1 | ||
| Big Mek on Bike | HQ | 1 | KFF | 1 |
| Kombi Skorcha | 1 | |||
| Nobz | Elites | 12 | Power Stabba | 6 |
| Trukk | Transport | 1 | Big Shoota | 1 |
| Wreckin Ball | 1 | |||
| Tank Bustas | Elites | 12 | Rokkit Launcha | 12 |
| Trukk | Transport | 1 | Big Shoota | 1 |
| Wreckin Ball | 1 | |||
| Kommandos | Elites | 5 | Power Klaw | 1 |
| Burnas | 2 | |||
| Spearhead | Command Points | 1 | ||
| Weirdboy | HQ | 1 | ||
| Big Gunz | Heavy | 3 | Lobba | 3 |
| Grot Gunners | 6 | |||
| Big Gunz | Heavy | 3 | Lobba | 3 |
| Grot Gunners | 6 | |||
| Mek Gunz | Heavy | 3 | Traktor Kannon | 3 |
| Grot Gunners | 15 |
Talk to me about shootas vs choppas. I see the upside with being able to advance and shoot and the overwatch is great, but all the special rules seem to push Orks into melee where the shootas are less good.
It depends. Shootas are better in Tukks IMO, without question. I like Shootas for their ability to reach out and grab someone, though. The extra range is great.
That seemed to be a logical pairing given that you can advance with the trukks and still shoot.
I’d love to have unlimited money to try out all the wacky Ork armies in my head. I think Orks could win a shooting war if they go all in on Heavy Support. Lootas seem nearly broken good and the mek guns and big gunz seem really reasonable points-wise.
Yeah, in Trukks it is a no brainer, Shoota Boyz all day for me.
Lootas are the business. They wreck things like T’au Crisis suits, terminators, etc. Plop them in a Battlewagon and profit.
The Ork artillery is very strong, yes. The ability to hit things you can’t see is very important for picking things off of objectives or taking down the legions of Devastators that will be all over the tables.
Shokk Attack Guns are INSANE now too, especially considering you can spam Big Meks in the HQ detachment!
My favorite Ork model.
Would you say the’re….SO GOOD?! Muahaha!
Woooo more orks!
Does the waaagh banner cause Ghazghull/any other with 2+ to hit to automatically hit?
No, natural 1’s always fail. But, it allows you to overcome -1 to hit as with the Power Klaw, etc.
Ghaz has Kustom Klaw no -1 to hit. So zero affect unless he’s debuffed or something.
Oh, sorry, you mentioned Ghaz specifically, I though you meant any Warboss. But yeah, it stops a debuff which is still awesome but a natural 1 always misses.
Someone likes their missiles with a side dish of more missiles.
Frankie writes lists that do one thing, and do it well, haha.
Thanks so much for running Tau! Wish Frankie was playing, but I’m sure Pablo will do them justice 😉
Also, that’s a lot of bodies in the Ork list…
Yeah, the T’au army is fairly straight forward, honestly. Stay at maximum range, blast the Orks, try to keep them out of melee!
And yes, a lot of Boyz, muahaha!
Thanks for all the great free content, guys! I’ve long been aware of you but never really visited (outside of buying a mat) as I’m not really a tournament player. I’ve been all drawn in by the 8E hype train and all the great work you guys have done helping it along and insight you’ve given us all.
ANYWAY, I’ve got a small list of Space Wolves questions and a general rules debate that popped up locally. What’s the best way to get those to you guys? Email? Facebook? Pop into the livestream tonight and post them generally there?
Thanks again!
Glad you’re enjoying the content! Ask questions during the stream or during the podcast and we’re happy to answer them.
I would definitely like to see another Chaos vs Orks rematch with Reece and Frankie. Are there any restrictions if I take emperors children for noise marine troops such as no other gods or can I still include the rest of the marks/ different gods? A little confused since it says all units that can take slaanesh mark must do so. The wording sounds like all other units are still legal?
Curious to know if smite always hits the nearest enemy model. Even ones engaged in close combat.
Psychic powers, including Smite, do not care about whether a unit is locked in combat. (They also ignore the restriction only being able to shoot at a character if they are the closest unit, since by definition they are not shooting attacks.)
Can Greyfax snipe characters using Smite then even if they aren’t the closest unit then courtesy of her psyoculum?
I don’t believe so- Smite doesn’t actually say it targets a unit, it just says that the nearest unit suffers the damage. I assume that the Psyocculum only works on shooting attacks, since no other attacks are subject to the restriction on targeting characters/
That’s not how I would interpret it. Smite always has to target the closest unit – it doesn’t matter if they’re a character or not. The Psyocculum just allows her to target psyker/daemon characters with abilities that actually have the ability to choose a target in the first place.
Do note that unlike shooting and some other things, Smite does not use the word ‘target’ in its text.
Yeah, that got annoying in my Game last week. I wanted to Smite my opponent’s Monolith, but the Immortals that had jumped out of it were closer, even tho they were locked in combat.
How would you guys build a T’au tournament army?
Stupid question but is there a replay available?
https://www.twitch.tv/frontlinegaming_tv/videos/all
Thanks!!
I feel like you wanted this game to alleviate some of the fears of Tau players, and I appreciate that, I really do. But due to the way the game played out I don’t think it proved any of the points you were trying to make (That was one of the biggest roll of 6’s I’ve ever seen during overwatch). The guys & gals over at ATT are going over it better than I could: http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25689. They’re a bit too harsh but there’s a lot of truth to their arguments.
But rather than bickering endlessly over this, do what I’ve done. Write a Tau list (any points value) with the following restrictions:
– Can only contain the following units: Riptide/Ghostkeel/Stealth Team/Commander/Crisis Team/Drones
– No missile pods on the crisis suits
Play at least half a dozen 8th ed games against an opposing list (any faction) whose only restriction is that it must be a dedicated close-combat, wreck-shop list (no balanced “funzys” lists).
You and Frankie clearly like to play long-range Tau, these restrictions will hopefully force you out of your comfort zone and highlight some of the issues I’m trying to articulate.
And if you still aren’t willing to listen to a random in your comments, at least listen to other pros: Tabletop Tactics have given one of the most honest and objective analyses of Tau I’ve seen so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ZO1xD3lg8
I agree, this game really didnt prove anything about how good Tau are. It was a bit frustrating seeing Reece just goof around and teleport boys up to their death. Then get backdoored.
Tau are not setup for success in this edition, with just commanders being the only really good unit. Crisis suits are still hitting on 4s and you need 5 markerlights to even hit the same as an regular joe in most other semi shooting armies can.
I wish FLG would address these issues seriously instead of just brushing them aside.
Maybe forgeworld stuff will even things out. We can only hope GW is listening for when they release the codex.
I largely agree. I could write a pretty chunky essay on Tau design philosophy, all the things I think GW got right/wrong this edition, and what I reckon should be changed. But the main points that should be discussed are:
1) Tau are really hard to balance for many obvious and subtle reasons. So finger pointing isn’t fair or productive (that ATT thread got a little nasty).
2) Gunline Tau got a lot stronger and more synergistic, without becoming unbalanced. Not many bad things to say there. Most of the issues revolve around suits and drone interaction.
3) Tau suits basically need to operate inside 18″ to be effective (unless you spam missile pods) a lot of the rules that let them do this safely are gone.
4) Markerlights… too much to say here.
5) Tau suits and drones. They’re are very binary now. Too many small changes make the difference between them being effective or not. E.g. is your opponent smart enough to shoot the drones first? Does that assault unit have a power fist? Did you alpha-strike? Did you spam missile pods? Do you have 5+ markerlights on the target?
Argh, I could go on and on and into much greater detail. But long story short there does need to be more honest discussion (on both sides) and play testing. It isn’t quite as bad as some are saying but the “everything is awesome you just can’t see it yet or you’re not using them right” argument doesn’t hold water either.
>Can only contain the following units: Riptide/Ghostkeel/Stealth Team/Commander/Crisis Team/Drone
Well, I mean, first off none of those units are bad. Commanders are obviously great, Drones are excellent, Riptides and Ghostkeels serve their own purposes, and Crisis are a perfectly acceptable weapon platform. But ANY codex is going to underperform if you limit yourself to only a small subset of units, even when some/all of those units are good. If you told a 7E Eldar player “you can build a list, but the only units you can include are Warlocsk, Windriders, and Warp Spiders” then their army would still be mediocre, because those elements alone (even though they are all useful) are not enough to fill all the roles needed.
It may very well be that Tau aren’t great in 8E, I think it’s too early to say yet. But they aren’t _bad_; they have several powerful mechanics and a lot of their units saw major improvements in cost or firepower (either in absolute or relative terms.)
I totally agree, the restrictions are there just to try and highlight (through experience) the issues with those specific units.
And an all-suit build is arguably one of the most common Tau builds. Saying that limiting yourself to suits would be mediocre is like saying Ork dreadmob, Eldar bike or assault marine builds are mediocre. Those can all stand up on their own pretty well.
I dunno, I would say that Eldar bike armies (which one would assume don’t include skimmers) are not only not all that good, but also incredibly limited in scope. Ditto ASM armies, and Dreadmob.
Focusing entirely on one unit, or one subtype of unit, will always make your army weaker and less able to function. Sometimes, when the unit is powerful enough on its own (e.g. Windriders last edition) you can do something moderately functional with it, but it’s still going to fold up and die whenever it runs into any of the units that are an effective counter to its singular choice. Many people like these armies- and more power to them for finding something they enjoy- but I don’t feel like the designers or playtesters should be going out of their way to try and make them work better in a competitive environment.
I can’t say in 8th edition, since I haven’t played an Eldar bike list yet. But in 7th, in the last two tournaments I played in, something like 3/4 of the top players were fielding scatbike lists. I probably shouldn’t have used that as an example.
Let me re-phrase my argument. In some ways Tau got a bit stronger, I would absolutely agree with that statement. And overall Tau may be a bit better off against a balanced opposing list. But. That was never the Tau’s problem, not in 7th or any edition before that. That Tau’s problem has always been against dedicated assault armies.
Because of the core changes to the main rules and the loss of certain army rules, in my 8th ed experience the Tau are now more vulnerable to dedicated assault lists than they have ever been before. Most of these issues revolve around suits and their relatively short ranged weapons (Reece/Frankie clearly don’t play Tau in close so that seems to be why they don’t see a problem).
And these issues become more pronounced when you play a suit-based list, which was previously (in my experience) a solidly mid-upper tier build but now can’t stand up to relatively common assault builds.
And rather than people insisting that “everything is awesome, nothing to see here” I’d like a more frank and honest discussion about the pros but also the very real cons of the Tau in 8th, and also a slight acknowledgement from the FLG team that just because the way they like to play Tau (at arms reach) works in 8th, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any issues.
That’s about as concise as I can make it without going into detail.
Abusepuppy, Riptides are objectively terrible for their pointcost.
Bringing them in your list is playing with a handicap when you can bring much more efficient units.
Just watching this now, as there as been so much content from WarhammerTV this week I haven’t had time to watch any other videos.
Reece, did you guys figure out how Ork artillery works? I’ve been confused by this since I saw it, and was excited to see the list had artillery in it, hoping you’d know the answer. Unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be the case.
Are the grots and the gun a single unit? Are the grots a single unit and the gun a single unit? I’ve got to think it’s the second option, since the first raises questions about mixed toughness.