Lord Hanaur

Thats a very strong list.

I just think it's too cool for school, how many dudes you can bring to a party. It might not be the most practical answer to all lists, but WAVES upon WAVES of humanity washing up along the shores of certain doom, bravely firing their flashlights, and slamming in another energon clip until the enemy bolters cut them down but too late to avoid the absolute WEIGHT of their last charge. Dun...dun...DUUUUUUUUUN....

I pretty strongly disagree. My OFCC Tau list is anything but stagnant, and it's not spammy. No Aegis and no 200 Riptide lists for me. We on the move baby! (I just ninja'd your ninja)

Well alrighty then! I just just organized my IG. I have 108 Guardsman standing on their bases in various stages of repair, PLUS another 40 Guardsman or so that are special weapons, Vox casters or some other form of dude. Then theres the 21 heavy weapons teams, the 25 or so Storm Troopers, and I think over 30 command models, from platoon to Company commanders. Then there's the armor. Point is, It is really silly how many IG I have. Lol. Especially since I don't actually play them. But now that I have sort of "assembled the men" it might be time to revisit the fun.

Imperial Guard are a pretty solid force. they didn't make models for some of the really awesome stuff so you end up scratch building a little unless you're willing to pay Forge World Prices. But I like IG and would love to see more IG players! I havent seen a lot of kill team. though if you just get on the local forums, you can usually just post up that you want a game and someone responds and says "cool, what time?" Kroot heavy tau works. i have 10 Kroot + 8 hounds + 3 Krootox in my own Kroot units, which I take two of. Love me some Krootox.

My absolute core would probably be (as i look at the GW website)\ $91.50 Tau Recon Team boxed set (limited time availability in all likelihood) $41.00 Tau Empire XV8 Battlesuit Commander (obviously) $65.00 Tau Empire XV8 Crisis Battlesuit Team boxed Set (seems to filter into most every good list) $36.25each 2 Tau Empire Fire Warrior Team boxed sets (4 sets of 6 works nicely) $10.75each 2 Tau Empire Gun Drone Squads (to make Marker Drones with) $85.00 XV104 Riptide Battlesuit (because awesome) = $365.75 This is stuff that you will pretty much without fail want to own. It gets REALLY debatable when it comes to the Heavy Support slots so i didn't include that in the NECESSARY core list. It really isn't. But these are must have's in my opinion, for the long haul. I think my personal recommendation would be to add a box of Kroot, 6-12 hounds and 3 Krootox to the list. This is definitely NOT necessary per se and wont be universal to all lists. But it is damn solid as units go for all kinds of reasons. So you can get what you need for $400 to get rolling and playing games.

IG have nearly been relegated to ally status instead of as a primary force to an extent I have found highly unusual. Its not that NO ONE plays IG as primary but it is quite noticeable how many fewer do. And IG is not even a bad codex! They need to publish a couple of the models though. That's for sure.

Lysander is an awesome ally for a Tau force. He and a group of Terminators were a th ing in my Tau list when 6e came out and before the new codex. Tau don't need allies. But Lysander is an excellent ally if you wanted one.

I think no reasoning person would actually go with that but sure. This is why when the word RAW is actually invoked...usuaully...its when someone is trying to justify something absurd. PLay it as if the people using the weapon had a brain in their head, perhaps. thats the way I'd do it. :)

Fortress of Redemption is the Devil.

You bet!

Panthers aren't easy to kill, especially at long ranges. I'm not a big Panther fan as a rule anyways because they rapidly make the army small and like i say, they kinda get whalloped if they stay at long range forever and never truly threaten. they are a tweener unit. better by far than some of their brethren but ultimately not as VALUABLE if that makes any sense.

probably not. Its not a unit.

55 heavy weapons squads and.... creed!

Thats kinda interesting.

Fire enough artillery and Panthers go down. =). Might take a few shots but then...what else were the artillery doing that was so important that they could aim a 155 or two over that way? Jumbos are super beefy. One trick is to make sure the closest target is exactly 16" away and NOT a Jumbo. Food for thought.

We play Flamnes of War every Thursday, and sometimes Tuesday, in Olympia. Players like Mid and late war mostly there, but games of any era can be had if you just post on the forum that you want a certain game type. That forum is www.warsound.com. We play Flames of War every Sunday at the Game Matrix in Tacoma. Usually well attended times. You can plug directly in and ask about it at www.warsound.com also. Fair warning, www.warsound,com does have a fairly laconic crowd, so its not anywhere near as active as far as posting goes. But dont let that fool ya'. Lotsa lurkers.

Okay I got to play a game with this newest version. It was a great game. We both agreed looking at the forces, that movement would win it for someone. The Landing pad did nothing. It was just more terrain basically. It allowed me to hide a couple of my mutilators, but they were unlikely to be the enemy targets round one anyways. We used Nova style terrain and the LOS blocker in the middle was SILLY big, but it hardly mattered because we both had stompy forces. Neither one of us was winning this with shooting. His list was Fateweaver. Keeper of Secrets and a Grimoire Prince as well as two more Daemon Princes on wings, a unit of Daemonettes and a couple of Pink Horror units (I think that was most of it). He dropped his spawning sphere in turn 1 and I blew it up with the Eye of Night for first blood. His army raced to my right side to try and body slam me as mean and hard as he could. TONS of biomancy powers going off and he had a handy chart for each daemon so he could track what they were all casting and doing. ugh. As bad as playing the old Tyranids in that respect. Luckily he was pretty organized about it so the game didn't bog down too much. I used the Raptors, Mutilators and my HQ's to tie him up as long as I could on my right side for 4 turns. Turn 5, I had it won, 5-2 and a Warp Squall killed the Keeper of Secrets quite unexpectedly as it tried to make its way BACK to the left side where all my troops snuck in to steal his objective. That didn't change the game because he was just too far away from his own objective to get back and I killed all his troops and his Hell hole (or whatever that thing is that spawns out troopies). 1 or 2, 1 or 2, 1 or 2... Unfortunately the game went on to turn 6. His Fatewaever was able to contest and we ended with a draw because I didn't reconfigure my four units around his home objective correctly. Unfortunately, I didn't think to do it in the pivotal turn 5. Despite my mental lapse, an awesome game. His Warlord with a 2+ re-rollable was pretty insane. Killing the Grimoire should have been job one for the Obliterators and such and would be in future games I knew all I had to do was kill those troops, and I was able to do that. I already had First Blood and was confident my Nurgle Droppings could handle line breaking at worst if necessary so it was down to killing his warlord and that just wasn't possible. Net result was the tie. I really needed to kill the Grimoire instead of other targets. It will not Die kept his Daemons coming back for more (Biomancy). Concerted effort was needed. Still, against a flying menace of a list like those its hard to hit em, hard to ground 'em and even if you do, its still a Daemon Prince with Biomancy powers. Goof luck! I just held them on the right side as long as I could and that strategy worked. The mutilators are great book ends. You deploy them in spots where the enemy will eventually want to go, and not necessarily to threaten something immediately. They skulk around for when your enemy tries to make the fast break or where you might try to back up to to avoid something else like Raptors. They are good enough to grind a normal unit down a bit and force morale. They can be a pretty mean bodyguard (I rolled very very badly this time, but normally it works well) The obliterators are an interesting unit; changing weapons every round. I like having the Assault Cannon option. Very strong option at 24". A weapon for every range band! MVP for the game were the plain old Aspiring Champions. Thanks to challenges, I was able to really hold an army build like this for a bit. I also learned that Disorganized charges are a valuable tool when you might get stuck in combat with multiple characters in my unit. It frees the other characters to do REAL damage. to the second target. I thought of it too late to matter in this game but will remember that in future games. I am told this Daemon list wrecked face the two games before it played me so I was very pleased. I think it was his third time playing the list so I anticipate that he will have adapted by the time we face each other again. Ah the chess match goes on!

So what is the outcome here. What has the OP decided is ESSENTIAL?

Its not even for the same thing as the Crimson Hunter. they dont compete for roles. Might suggest the Icarus gun with built in picket fence if no Crimson Hunter. Just one thought. The Warlock Bike Council is there for Horrify I assume. I have done the same thing in my list. Experience says you might need a few more than that to kind of ensure you get Horrify. When it goes off, it's nothing short of spectacular. Have ou Tried Dark Reapers? Relentless and carry a big gun. They can be a lot of fun too. They need not get as close as Fire Dragons as an added bonus.

Hrm... well a mega battle can be chaotic. I think a game master is a very good idea. It always sucks because that means some really hoopy frood who knows where his towel is is gonna' get shafted and not be able to play. ...Of course, then thats an excuse for ANOTHER mega battle wherein someones else runs it and he gets to play!... Which is another excuse for ANOTHER megabattle to let that guy play... =)

I couldn't care less if it looks awesome. I bet the player probably doesn't invoke any advantages when he plays. So really, it's the player you gotta' look at, not the model. I play an Eldar guy who likes to "low sling" his Wave Serpents and doesn't like to take the bases off when its immobilized and I think frankly that he knows exactly the impact it will have and fully intends to invoke that advantage. But if another player had low slung Wave Serpents and never took the bases off but always said "Sure, it's on a base, so it would be higher, take the shot" or "okay so since my base is gone, I dont think I can see that target" then I'd say "cool looking models bro!" It's in the intent, for me. I generally ask that I be allowed to actually MAKE the mistake before someone judges me for it.. "Yeah but he COULDA" means nothing to me.

Kingpin, maybe we can carpool.

I see. I do understand the value you're talking about. The strategy as I mentioned is not to kill with those units. The additional 1-3 units that I have NOT shooting another unit is worth the potential of losing one good shot. Lets face it an obliterator still has to hit and penetrate, the enemy still has to fail its cover/invul/whatever. We cant know for certain wht might happen. But what is certain is they will need an added 1-3 units to take out the third Mutilator. And that's the value. Not indisputable, but thats the value.

Points. I can replace the Skyshield with ONE Obliterator. I am not opposed to that but want to see how the Skyshield effects things for me. All the other points in the army are tight. Not a lot of fat. Black Legion Obliterators cost 79 points. If I take one more normal Obliterator I already have to strip the meltabomb off the Sorcerer which is about all the extra points I have. I definitely cannot take 2 more Obliterators and I can't really turn one of the Mutilators into one for the same reason. Points are just toooo tight here. So at most the list will have 3 Obliterators and still function as intended.