Last Saturday was the start to returning to 40k as a regular game. I ran a 2,000 point T'au gunline list against some Necrons in a game that only lasted three turns. Results/reasoning below...
The Necron list was comprised of a Destroyer Lord, three units of four Destroyers (with one Heavy Destroyer in each unit), three Doom Scythes, four units of five Immortals, three Annihilation Barges, and a flying Cryptek. I believe they were all Sautekh Dynasty which lets them treat all weapons they have as Assault weapons if they advance, and they do not suffer the -1 to hit for moving and firing heavy weapons.
I ran the following list:
2,000 pts T'au Empire - 112 PL - 10+ CP
T'au Sept Battalion Detachment
HQ
Cadre Fireblade
Commander Shadowsun
Ethereal (Warlord: Through Unity, Devastation, Puretide Engram Neurochip)
Troops
10 Kroot
10 Kroot
10 Kroot
5 Fire Warriors, Shas'ui (Markerlight)
5 Fire Warriors, Shas'ui (Markerlight)
5 Fire Warriors, Shas'ui (Markerlight)
Elites
XV104 Riptide Battlesuit (Heavy Burst Cannon, 2 Smart Missile Systems, Advanced Targeting System, Velocity Tracker)
XV104 Riptide Battlesuit (Heavy Burst Cannon, 2 Smart Missile Systems, Advanced Targeting System, Velocity Tracker)
Heavy Support
3 XV88 Broadside Battlesuits (2 High-yield Missile Pods, 2 Smart Missile Systems, Advanced Targeting System)
T'au Sept Outrider Detachment
HQ
Cadre Fireblade
Troops
9 Fire Warriors, Shas'ui (Markerlight)
10 Fire Warriors, Shas'ui (Markerlight)
Fast Attack
5 Pathfinders
5 Pathfinders
10 MV4 Shield Drones
10 MV4 Shield Drones
Sa'cea Sept Vanguard Detachment
HQ
Cadre Fireblade
Cadre Fireblade
Elites
Firesight Marksmen
Firesight Marksmen
Firesight Marksmen
24 drops/units
This list is far more gunline-y than most T'au lists I'd run normally, but I wanted to see how much firepower I could throw downrange whilst staying unmolested for at least two to three turns. There's 30 Kroot, 34 Fire Warriors, 10 Pathfinders, 20 drones, and nine characters making up over 100 infantry. The flip-side is that there's two Riptides and three Broadsides pouring out some ridiculous firepower with enough bubble-wrap to ensure they won't get alpha-struck before they can do their part. If it seems like three units of heavy shooting isn't enough, keep in mind that each Broadside can still split-fire thanks to 8th edition, so once the primary targets in turn one are dead, they can start picking off individual units with their 16 shots each (8 of which are damage D3). The point is to really have excellent target priority and kill the most important and/or dangerous/largest models in my opponent's army as fast as possible as early as possible so that later turns are just picking units off of objectives and taking them with my Kroot and Fire Warriors. There's enough markerlight support in this list to ensure two to three units are getting 5+ markerlights every turn for the Riptides' and Broadsides' shooting.
And that's exactly how things went down. The game I played against the Necrons used the Beachhead Eternal War mission from Chapter Approved 2018. In short the Necrons shot about 70 infantry off the board over two turns (leaving me admittedly a little salty), but weren't able to put my Broadsides or Riptides in any serious jeopardy. I had about three out of six wounds stripped off of one Broadside due to the sheer amount of damage one shots from the Annihilation Barges simply because I didn't want to allocate those to drones especially since Broadsides have a 2+ save plus a 6+ feel no pain-equivalent from the Ethereal's Sense of Stone meaning they should pass most AP 0 saving throws. The drones are for tanking multiple-damage shots and the only things that had that were the Doom Scythes and Heavy Destroyers which is where I absolutely did use Savior Protocols.
So after our table quarters deployment, I got the first turn, and so I wiped out one unit of Destroyers due to the Necrons being set up far enough away (table corners) that I didn't have range to much. In return the entire army moved up and killed a couple of my Fire Warrior and Kroot units. The most damage came from the Doom Scythe strategem that allows them to forego shooting, pick a point in LoS within 18" or so, and everything within 3" of that point takes 3D3 mortal wounds on a 4+, a 3+ if it's a unit with five or more models, and a 5+ if it's a character. This strategem surprised me as I was utterly unaware of it and it only costs one Command Point. I don't know if three Doom Scythes put out more firepower individually than multiple instances of units taking an average of six mortal wounds, but I was tightly packed enough that it was pretty rough to be on the receiving end of.
In my second turn I started shooting at the Annihilation Barges and they used a strategem to make the Quantum Shielding roll get a -1 which I actually had anticipated they had in their repertoire word for word (in pre-discussions with my opponent). This made the one that used it nearly unkillable taking only two to three damage from a Nova-Charged Riptide's Heavy Burst Cannon (after hits, wounds, saves, and then Quantum Shielding). Impressive. However I used my Broadsides and Riptides (plus leftover infantry shooting) to bring down all three fliers, one of which crashed and burned into a bunch of infantry and her other fliers (which were flying very close to each other in a tight formation). In return again this is where I lost multiple wounds off of one of my Broadsides and lost a vast majority of my Fire Warriors and Kroot. I was practically wiped off the table except for what I had in one large ruin which housed my Broadsides, Riptides, drones, a couple five-man Fire Warrior units, and various characters.
However in my third turn I wiped out the two units of Destroyers, finished off the Annihilation Barges, and at that point the only Necrons left on the table were the two characters and four units of Immortals. We called the game there, even though we were dead even on victory points (six each).
After the game we talked and decided the 3D3 Mortal Wound strategem would have been better used on the Broadsides and Shadowsun castle, and we found out I unfortunately cheated with my Broadside placement (they were in the 2nd floor of a ruin). There was ample placement to my left side of the ruin to still set up my castle and be wholly within my deployment zone and still have LoS so nothing much would have changed, but it is still a gameplay error on my part.
I built another list that takes out basically all of the Fire Warriors and trims the fat a bit and gets another three-man Broadside team in there and I think that might suffer from not enough ablative wounds or alpha-strike protection. It's funny though, I literally saw that same exact list pop up in the bigger T'au group on facebook a couple days after I had entered it into Battlescribe. It makes me kinda happy to think that I've got my finger on the pulse of the T'au meta with the ideas I'm trying since others are trying them as well.
Nick Nanavati just took 3rd place at a GT with the following list:
T'au battalion
Coldstar- 3 mp ATS 2 shield drones 161
Cadre fireblade-2 shield drones 62
Darkstrider 45
5 strikes- markerlight 2 shield drones 58
5 strikes- markerlight 2 shield drones 58
5 strikes 2 shield drones 55
T'au Outrider
Cold star- 3 mp ATS 2 shield drones 161
Cadre fire blade- 2 shield drones 62
6 shield drones 60
7 shield drones 70
7 shield drones 70
T'au vanguard
Cold star- 3 mp ATS 2 shield drones 161
Cadre fireblade- 2 Shield drones 62
Riptide- heavy burst cannon, sms, ats, target lock 280
Riptide- heavy burst cannon, sms, ats, target lock 280
Riptide- heavy burst cannons, sms, velocity tracker, ats 278
Firesight Marksman 25
Firesight Marksman 25
Firesight Marksman 25
To make it easier to read, it's three Riptides, three Cold Stars with missile pods and drones, some characters with drones, some Fire Warriors, and some standalone drone units. Obviously Nick is one hell of a player period, but this list seems rough. There's no bubble-wrap for the weak characters and non-mobile fire warriors, so the plan is clearly to rely on the mobility of the Riptides and Coldstar Commanders. IMO though it's too vulnerable to charges and there's nowhere near enough markerlights to mitigate T'au's shortcomings (-1 to hit armies are a thing). It just makes me really wish I could watch the games he played with this list to see how he deployed and maneuvered this list in games to score a third place finish.
So I'll keep trying my list towards the top of the article out maybe a few more times but with how quickly the infantry gets picked up it may be hard to have board control and claim mid-field objectives which is a fairly big problem.
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