1850 Tau, two drone teams

[knightperson]

HQ:

crisis commander with plasma rifle, missile pod, drone controller, stim injector, iridium battlesuit, and 2 shield drones.          187 points

ethereal

Troops:

3x squads of 10 fire warriors with shas'ui.         100 points per squad

1x 20 kroot with sniper rounds and 4 hounds.   160 points

Elite:

crisis shas'vre with drone controller, Command & Control node, burst cannon, and 2 marker drones.
2x crisis shas'ui with 2 single-linked plasma rifles, target lock, and 2 marker drones.  Total cost 251.

crisis shas'vre with fusion blaster, plasma rifle, puretide engram, and 1 shield drone.
2x crisis shas'ui with fusion blaster, plasma rifle, advanced targeting system, and 1 shield drone.  Total cost 223.

Fast Attack:

6x marker drones.   84 points.

1x piranha with fusion blaster, disruption pod, sensor spines, 2 seeker missiles.    86 points

sunshark bomber. twin-linked missile pod, decoy launchers.     168

Heavy Support:

skyray with smart missile system, disruption pod, blacksun filter.    131 points

Hammerhead with ion cannon, Longstrike, disruption pod, sensor spines, 2 seeker missiles.  207 points

Total cost 1847.

Basically, instead of pathfinders I have two squads of 6 marker drones. One will have the commander attached for BS5 markerlights (although he has two shield drones to give them a chance against cover-ignoring ionhead blasts). The other one is 6 marker drones on the Elite squad, which can be twin-linked BS3 if the squad leader doesn't fire. The other two suits in that squad have target locks so they can fire their plasma rifles (four of them total!) at something else.

I put Longstrike in an ionhead rather than the usual railhead because I have 3 crisis suits and a piranha with fusion blasters for the heavy armor, and the ionhead's blast is better than the railhead's. Skyfire is handled by the skyray, bomber drones, and massed markerlights if necessary. General antipersonnel and horde killing is handled mostly by the troops and bomber.

[Chicop76]

You should bond suits if you take drones. If under 25% you need snake eyes to rally. All though you can argue 10. Under 25% states that you can only roll snake eyes.

If you have an ethereal why spend the 30 points on the ui on your troops.

I think you should give your hq target lock to fire seperate from the marker drones.

Remember if you take 3 suits the 25% won't be a factor or if your HQ joins those squads. However one drone puts you at risk. For example if you lose 6 drones and a suit your 2 remaming suits will have to roll snake eyes or run off the board.

[knightperson]

You should bond suits if you take drones. If under 25% you need snake eyes to rally. All though you can argue 10. Under 25% states that you can only roll snake eyes.

under 25% of 9 means only two models are left, but you're right that for the 3 points I have remaining I could bond the big Elite team.

If you have an ethereal why spend the 30 points on the ui on your troops.

Redundancy, basically. If the ethereal goes down, and its likely at some point that he will get sniped, I don't want to be at the mercy of the now-leadership-7 morale checks. And, truth be told, it's habit as much as anything else. I always run squad leaders because I don't like failing leadership checks!

I think you should give your hq target lock to fire seperate from the marker drones.

Remember if you take 3 suits the 25% won't be a factor or if your HQ joins those squads. However one drone puts you at risk. For example if you lose 6 drones and a suit your 2 remaming suits will have to roll snake eyes or run off the board.

You might be right about the target lock on the commander. I could easily drop a kroot hound to make the points for it, but I would have to trade in another support system to make room, and I don't want to do that. I think most targets that are worth 6 BS5 markerlights are also worth a couple of missile / plasma shots!

[Chicop76]

Cool.

I forget I am thiniking on high I roll. I either roll really low or high. When I roll leadership I am still known to fail with a 10. With my warpstorm table I have rolled snake eyes twice in a row on it. I have rolled 1-4 a lot, the nurgle one, and the slaanesh one, and the extra invul a lot, with the psyker killer a few times. I have yet to roll double 12 .

Besides all that I have rolled decent a few times.

Long story short 7 is average rolling for most. You should get 7 most of the time anyway. Spending 30points for leadership 8 is not going to make a differance.

Although this is coming from the guy who have to run icons and heralds in his squads for more leadership and reduction on the instability table. I hate that hounds can't take icons.

[knightperson]

Long story short 7 is average rolling for most. You should get 7 most of the time anyway. Spending 30points for leadership 8 is not going to make a differance.

I strongly disagree! You do not "get 7 most of the time", you get 7 on average. Meaning you roll below 7 as often as you roll above it. Yes, with Leadership 7 you should make more than you fail, but that's not the point. The odds of rolling a 7 or less on 2 dice is ... 58.3%, meaning you will fail that check over 40% of the time. The odds of failing a leadership 8 is only 27.8%. If your squad is trying to roll 7 or less and mine is trying to roll 8 or less, my squad will succeed almost 23.8% more than yours.

Yes, the difference between the two numbers above is less than 23%, but this is how the math works. Roll your dice however many times you want, counting the successes at Leadership 7. Add 28% to that, and that's how many successes you will have at Leadership 8. To me, that's absolutely worth it.

Now, you are correct that as long as the ethereal is alive that L8 doesn't make any difference, and if future games suggest that I can actually keep him alive (which I don't expect) then I might start dropping squad leaders. The other reason for keeping squad leaders is that if an enemy Character actually does make it through the supporting overwatch to issue a challenge, the shas'ui can tell the ethereal "don't worry sir, I got this." He will be lying of course, but he can do it, which might keep the ethereal's leadership and buffs alive.

[Chicop76]

Long story short 7 is average rolling for most. You should get 7 most of the time anyway. Spending 30points for leadership 8 is not going to make a differance.

I strongly disagree! You do not "get 7 most of the time", you get 7 on average. Meaning you roll below 7 as often as you roll above it. Yes, with Leadership 7 you should make more than you fail, but that's not the point. The odds of rolling a 7 or less on 2 dice is ... 58.3%, meaning you will fail that check over 40% of the time. The odds of failing a leadership 8 is only 27.8%. If your squad is trying to roll 7 or less and mine is trying to roll 8 or less, my squad will succeed almost 23.8% more than yours.

Yes, the difference between the two numbers above is less than 23%, but this is how the math works. Roll your dice however many times you want, counting the successes at Leadership 7. Add 28% to that, and that's how many successes you will have at Leadership 8. To me, that's absolutely worth it.

Now, you are correct that as long as the ethereal is alive that L8 doesn't make any difference, and if future games suggest that I can actually keep him alive (which I don't expect) then I might start dropping squad leaders. The other reason for keeping squad leaders is that if an enemy Character actually does make it through the supporting overwatch to issue a challenge, the shas'ui can tell the ethereal "don't worry sir, I got this." He will be lying of course, but he can do it, which might keep the ethereal's leadership and buffs alive.

My Ethereal has done quite well. I learned not to put him all the way in the back anymore but do these things.

1. Look out sir. Due to being ds in the rear my ethereal gladly grabs a fire warrior and let him take that shot. That being said my look out rolls have decreased due to placing him in the middle of the squad.

2. Can't see me, you can't hit me. Unless hit with a template weapon even if the whole squad dies if the Ethereal can't be seen or out of range he wil not die. Buildings with sections that have no windows are ideal for this, or a nearby structure. All my fire warriors can see and shot and my etheral do not have to worry about dying. Barrage is a problem if I fail look out sir, but I put my Etheral on the board in a way if you where to barage him you are not hitting many fire warriors, which reduces look out sir fails.

3. Abandon the sinking ship! A firewarrior squad is getting shot to hell with one guy guy standing or is about to get assaulted. Than it is time to run to another squad and let that other squad take on for the greater good. I had a few ds terminators wanting to charge my ethereal before. I simply detach and retreat deeper in my army and attach to another squad if I can. Needless to say if I melt you away than it maybe usless move ment, but better save than sorry.

4. Catch me if you can. I probably move my Ethereal a lot compared to other players. It's not uncommon for my guy to hop around 3 squads or find that ideal hidding cubby hole spot. I try to be careful taking ds into account. What's interesting is when people try to targe my ethereal they get frustrated cause he just don't sit still to die.

That being said I don't have any problems throwing firewarriors or pathfinders into combat to give my ethereal time to get away. I have debated on taking a bodyguard to attach him in case I get focused witchfired or mindwared a lot.

That is a good question. Can you look out sir focus witch fire attacks?

If somthing is over 50% than that is most the time lol.

Not saying leadership 8 doesn't increase your chances. I have yet to lose my ethereal in 6th edition. I would like to thank all those 5th edition battle reports with ethereals that love to hang with broadsides at times.

[Carrelio]

On point number 3 and 4, since you can't leave a squad and join a squad in the same turn, that leaves your ethereal out in the open as an independent character every time you jump ship.  So if you do this you need to make sure that you can immediately load him into a devilfish and cart him to safety, otherwise, unless you find some total line of sight blocking terrain he's done for.

[Chicop76]

On point number 3 and 4, since you can't leave a squad and join a squad in the same turn, that leaves your ethereal out in the open as an independent character every time you jump ship.  So if you do this you need to make sure that you can immediately load him into a devilfish and cart him to safety, otherwise, unless you find some total line of sight blocking terrain he's done for.

I think where I play I'm used to a lot of terrain. Blos terrain is very common. I tell them just imagine if their was little terrain. Anyway good point. Still not a real issue with proper placement.