Black Moon Cadre - [Shadowsight]

If I win the bidding, you guys will see this list when I'm back.

+ HQ +

Shas'el Commander (160pts)
TL Plasma Rifle
Iridium Armour
Shield Generator
Stimulant Injector
Hard-Wired Drone Controller - 2x Shield Drones


+ Elites +
2 Full teams of XV15 stealthsuits
Burst Cannons
Targetting Array


1 Full team of XV8 'Crisis' Battlesuits
Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle
Targetting Array
Hard-Wired Drone Controller - 2x Gun Drone


+ Troops +

5 Full Teams of Firewarriors
Pulse Rifle


+ Heavy Support +

1 Full team of XV88 Battlesuits
Smart Missile System
Targetting Array
Team Leader
Hard-Wired Blacksun Filter
Hard-Wired Target Lock
Hard-Wired Drone Controller - 2x Shield Drone

Haven't got my models but I'm able to build lists and I'm honestly feeling the subtle changes, even though I haven't seen them in action, Tau synergy has been heavily focused on and, of course, spamming firewarriors is still not a viable choice because of it.

I've made up two lists, naming them Dark Eclipse and Pulsing Nightmare. The lists are not fixed so they change as I play with them, but core units for the former are probably HQs, Riptide and Broadsides in the former list; while the latter's core units are Firewarrior teams which focus on bringing so many STR 5 hits in the shooting phase and overwatch, it's ridiculous.

I'm not considering the skimmers until I get back home, but a list with two hammerheads with one having Long Strike is always in mind.

Dark Eclipse

Spoiler:

Pulsing Nightmare

Spoiler:

Judging from the name... Good Tau gone bad =D

in the new dex, a few more tau commanders are going slightly renegade lol

that's y daemons and tau can ally. lol

lol Jo i think u got something there

how's the new codex overall? it might spur me to restart the tau.

Ethereal's are good now. Seeing how you always told me to play one in 4th ed. Your dream came through dann lol.

If you really want to read why, just open the spoiler I guess.

Spoiler:

The short answer would be that since my cadre is named Black Moon (Mon D'yanoi), naming my army list is just to correlate to it I guess. Dark Eclipse could just a name placement I guess, there's no strong theme to it. However Pulsing Nightmare, probably represents that the constant massive waves of pulse will be coming towards my enemy as they try to "Bring a Chainsword to a Tau Fight'.

It has been growing a lot since I first began with 500 points, but now it's around 3500 points, I'm seeing a lot of different lists I can built with my army. Especially mechanised ones and the ones in 2000 points range.

Had a small game against a fellow British at 1250 points, and *gasp* it was my first time using the 6th ed. Tau.

I basically tested out how Riptide, the Sun Shark Bomber and Cadre Fireblade would play out. Additionally, to also test the Commander's new toys.

My opponent was more or less a Space Marine player and just a beginner, so he wasn't prepared to face against a Tau gun line, main disadvantage he had was that he didn't have any transport to reach combat faster and safer. Hence, I can't properly say I'm doing any better before but the new codex gave me a boost.

And yes, Tau gun line has more or less been revived although I've only used two full teams of firewarriors. The one with Cadre Fireblade did the most work with his special rule to shoot an extra shot. 24 shots at BS5, at 30" is sick.

Suffice to say, my opponent's foot slogging list was too slow. None of his units reached CC range so I never used Support Fire once.

Riptide did poorly, but I think it's the fact most targets he can select are overkill, there was never the need to nova charge him. Though boosting his BS and attaching a commander to him would greatly benefit his blast template shots.

Since it was my first time seeing the converted Riptide on table, he dwarfed EVERYTHING in comparison with others while still in an oval base, since I'm still painting him all this time, the dreadnought felt so tiny. I was definitely happy to see everyone's reaction when they saw it. And yeah, sorry, still can't show it to the public until July.

The darn Bomber only showed up on Turn 4 and I couldn't say much since.. everything was pretty much gone by then. Though it is also my first time using a flyer, I'd like to say they are freaking fast. By his second movement phase, I was going to move out of the table already. The bombs weren't flashy but hey, it's a large blast that wounds most units on a 3+.

Didn't use much of Commander's new toys, I only had the chance to use the rerolls to hit and ignore cover saves on the riptide and crisis suits, which is nice, especially for lower point games. I didn't get to use Puretide Engram Chip, Onager Gauntlet or the Neuronweb System Jammer though.

Converted Riptide? Photos please?

Like I mentioned, I can't. I'm participating in an online competition and I'm required to conceal my WIP until it ends, which is at the start of July.

This is mainly because to avoid biased voting, since it'll likely affect between people who do post WIP and those who don't. In my opinion, this is really a good rule to have in painting competitions in Malaysia too. However, I think this is strongly due to that this competition is judged through pictures and all participants are only allowed to submit 3 pictures of the model, hence people posting WIP would contradict that rule.


Below's the link to the competition. The two winners will get each a Tau book signed by their authors.

Not so creatively named but hey, it's straightforward of what this 1850 list has.

+ HQ +

Farsight
Crisis Suit Bodyguard Team
1 Bodyguard
with Drone Controller, Shield Generator, Vectored Retro Thruster, CCN, MSS, Neuroweb System Jammer, Onager Gauntlet
3 Bodyguards
with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod
3 Bodyguards
with Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster
4 Gun Drones

Shadowsun
Command-link Drone
2 MV52 Shield Drones

+ Elites +

1 Full teams of XV15 Stealthsuits
Burst Cannons

1 Riptide with Ion Accelerator, TW Plasma Rifle, Early warning override


+ Troops +

6 Firewarriors
6 Firewarriors
Pulse Rifle


+ Heavy Support +

Hammerhead (Longstrike)
Railgun (Submunition round), Disruption pod

3 Broadsides with TW Heavy Rail Rifles, TW Smart Missile Systems, Velocity Tracker
2 Shield Drones
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I've been thinking of combo-ing these two HQs together, this is just a mock list so it's subject to changes.

I'm tackling flexibility on playing aggressively or defensively, for instance Farsight and Shadowsun deepstriking together with the bodyguards, gaining all the buffs the bodyguard gives and stealth and shrouded to the entire unit to cripple or outright destroy a small elite unit.

Else, use Shadowsun as the warlord, so that the jetpack unit she attaches to has 3D6 Thrust move.

But after the game with a CSM player, I'm not entirely sure how to deal with 2 300+ FMC Tzeentch Daemon Princes. Considering it has 4 Warp Charges? He would certainly be able to roll Iron Arms which makes him impossible to kill whether through lots of ground tests or high AP shots skyfire shots.

With Toughnes 6-8, 2+/4++ saves (re-rollable on 1s) and also Ahriman buffing its Sunburst psychic power and giving it Invisibility... it's rather difficult to counter. Any advice?

For some reason the army list looks really really small for 1850. Very elite as well which can be good and may not be a good thing at the same time. VS DP you could opt for a skyray to blast it out of the sky but with that said against units below T6 small arms fire is much more viable. Firewarriors are almost always my MVP for me but I have a cadre fireblade with them all the time for the LD, +1 shot and also a markerlight for other units to take advantage off.

Invisibility can be undone with 2 marker it should not be an issue for us Tau. But in this list you only have 6 marker lights maybe expanding your markerlight support?

I don't own Skyrays so it's an unfortunate over there. My army has always been trying to overly rely on markerlights because if so, the whole army might crumble just because my unit can't operate without them.

Money constrictions really, just making the best out of what I have.

Anyways, I've changed it to make it a Farsight bomb now, 7 Plasma rifles, 3 missile pods, 3 fusion blasters, 5 if including Shadowsun and 4 Pulse carbines from drones. Additionally, the 6 Stealthsuits might be around to help out too.

Though I like to see both of them HQs in action together but I think they function better without one another because of the major costs concerned.

Ah ic. Have u tried a full crisis team with x6 burst cannons and 6 gun drones they are quite good the hail of shot can really cause some havoc. Didnt the hammerhead set comes with the skyray parts too?

yea definately drop one hq tho, the point sink can hurt you a lot. Btw what else do you have that is not being used in ur army? maybe can buff your firewarriors a little 6 is a bit too small even if they were going to be sitting and capping something they wont survive a single round of fire from most units

It's the old skyray box that contained both skyray and hammerhead parts.

I have 3 different crisis suit units that have fixed weapons on them (PR/MP, PR/FB, BC/F), so no changing there. Though the 6 stealthsuits functions the same with 6 burst cannons.

I certainly have two different lists of them separate but I like to see how they combo together first.

The firewarriors are most likely going to hide in reserves actually. Usually I would also put them in devilfishes too. So I think I'm most likely to aim for crippling or tabling my opponent.