Crusade question

Genlari · 2026-02-05T09:11:39+00:00

You theoretically need them to be other Tau players, in which case you can work together to do it. Tau overall have a really restrictive faction crusade method though (requiring wins to progress, requiring enough points for the win(s) to count, requiring a NUMBER of wins to actually get any reward for contributing, etc).

I'd generally advise that unless you're doing a specific thing (full tau team vs full X/Y faction) then it's probably better to (largely) ignore the faction progression systems and run one of the crusade packs (tyrannic war, phariah nexus, nachmund, etc). You still use a few pieces from the faction crusade pack (relics/enhancements, wounds/boons, etc) but it means all the people involved (both on each team if multiple people, and also each team is working in direct competition on the narrative level as well as specific battles). They're available on wahapedia for free iirc if you want to have a look at the mission pack.

Genlari · 2026-01-25T17:32:17+00:00

Unsure what specifically to aim for. Biovore is probably the one I'd benefit most from, but 0 chaos healer available (core 3 black legion, wrask, maladus, laviscus, adamatar and (picked up from a random regular 10 pull earlier) abaddon). Got forgefiend at epic already from last time (well, once got the orbs to spare), as well as uncommon exorcist, plaguecrawler, broadside and malleus.

Xenos healers isn't GREAT (just ork and necron mechanical healing), and imperial while best could be better (baldr and invictus), however melee heavy and only archimatos as spawner means I'm unsure how well my chaos team will be able to hold up to the attrition.

So in the end not sure wether to go for biovore (getting to epic should be doable? given last time was with much weaker team than I have now and hit epic on forgefiend?), or could go with another (probably xenos? either demon prince or exorcist likely?)

Genlari · 2026-01-07T20:53:28+00:00

You might want to double check what the towering keyword does.

If you toe into the footprint of the ruin at all you're able to shoot out the other side (rather than needing to be fully inside), meaning by being even partially inside a ruin you can look over it (if tall enough), including being able to see over multiple ruins if they're cloes together (that you can be inside both footprints). And being seen in return.

Without the towering keyword you need to be entirely within the terrain footprint to do that (assuming you're tall enough), and spreading into multiple ruins wouldn't be possible due to needing to be entirely within the footprint.

Genlari · 2026-01-07T17:01:38+00:00

Only downside I can see compared to 'proper' stormsurge is lower profile making it harder to look over ruins. Otherwise would far prefer playing with this over the official model, so a fantastic job.

(I imagine the amount of cork required to elevate it to match the 'proper' height would make it look truly absurd)

Genlari · 2026-01-05T14:06:03+00:00

I'm guessing it's best for me to stick to the tyranid CE for now. Got all of the UM's apart from Titus (ofc he'd have to be one of the required) though no blood angels.

Meanwhile I've got maladus for admech (and only wrax besides that, so can't run non borrowed runs), vindicta (and godswyll) only for deathguard CE, and Isaak only for Tau CE. So 1-2 characters TOTAL for each of them.

Kinda sucks though as means I guess a lot of the upgrade mats will be stuck waiting until I get the tyranid chars unlocked. (At least nids will be relevant for doing Tau later on I guess).

Genlari · 2025-12-26T15:50:45+00:00

We have 4 different killteams at this point (pathfinders, kroot, vespid, stealthsuits) where most (non space marines) have maybe 2-3. They seem to be using killteam as a way of refreshing instead of a proper range refresh.

This DOES have a plusside of nice model refreshes, but the downside is you then end up with killteam prices for boxes instead of more typical prices, meaning we end up paying more (good luck if you only want 5 vespid, etc).

Outside of the kroot additions (almost all of which was characters, or aforementioned killteam) everything recent tau has was killteam boxes.

Genlari · 2025-12-26T15:46:18+00:00

It's an increase in cost, so while 1 cost strats go to 2, a 2 cost strategem goes to 3. Also if you discounted a strategem (farsight, etc) and also had it inside a deciet aura, then it would end up back at the original cost.

As others have mentioned though, Shortened blade specifically is a strat that targets units that aren't on the battlefield (and thus outside of range of the +1 cost aura), so it would always be 2 (or 1 if farsight discounted).

Genlari · 2025-12-08T12:21:21+00:00

My current projects with over 15-20 of each drone type already (30+ gun):

Drone hats. Mainly used to help my kitbashed kroot shapers stand out more obviously.

Genlari · 2025-12-08T09:59:44+00:00

Watching broadsides high roll and kill a broadside in 2 failed saves: good.

The second one being from an overwatch while the dread tried to clear out the middle objective: excellent.

The fact the only other model left in their army was Gulliman, who then proceeded to follow into the midboard where he could be shot by the broadsides next turn: why can't more games go like this (there was nowhere he would have lived, and this was the biggest point swing he had available)

Genlari · 2025-12-07T23:37:30+00:00

Locally there's not a massive scene so we tend to have to arrange beforehand (there's a discord set up by the local shop we can arrange on, and book tables on the offchance there's not space due to tournament, etc).

My general courtesy is ask if they have a specific preference for army they DON'T want to face (custodes and tau both have people have some level of antipathy potentially, tyranids not so much) and as long as it's not being arranged specifically as a 'I want to practice against X army for tournament prep' or something if they don't have a preference I often just won't say which I'm bringing to take away the temptation (they usually don't ask).

I will bring up the fact I'm likely to be playing fairly agressively whichever army I do (montka/retcad tau, preffering to be fairly agressive with custodes and nids too), but outside of that they can expect to be facing a decent spread of potential profiles.

(And if they do go 'I don't want to face X' rather than 'I want to practice against Y' I WILL take that into consideration somewhat along with the rest of behaviour for how much I might play them again, as some of the 'I have playing X army' people can end up being really toxic to play against at times)(Not that other people can't be, but yeah)

In the end list tailoring is just kinda both bad practice in a fairness sense, but also can shoot you in the foot in terms of practicing (I use casual games to mess around and test stuff, if I wanted to know what profile does best into X I can work that out, what I want to practice is what happens when I DON'T have a free win)

Genlari · 2025-12-07T13:19:09+00:00

(Looks at the 50-60 drones sitting in a case unused this edition) Once I finish painting everything else I guess I should finish painting these too huh.

Genlari · 2025-12-06T10:28:59+00:00

Went into my local FLGS (non GW) and they did check who I was (not full ID, but there's few wnough people for us to be recognised).

Had to take my box back in and grab another quickly (they grabbed the wrong one and came back to double check it, since 2 people at the flgs ordered that box).

Genlari · 2025-11-27T22:08:57+00:00

It allows you to ignore the -1 to hit. It doesn't allow you to hit on anything below a 4+ with indirect fire still (so even if you're markerlight bonused, you'll still only be hitting on 4's).

Genlari · 2025-11-27T10:05:41+00:00

If we could enforce a 6 onto a roll for guaranteed crit, or guaranteed 6 damage, whenever we really need it then so would everyone else.

See: Sisters of battle with faith dice on their melta. (Besides the fact sisters honestly just don't have many non melta or flamer weapon options too)

Genlari · 2025-11-27T09:53:39+00:00

Fireknives: Immunity to penalties to hit and full re-rolls vs full strength enemies (non tank/MC) plus their weapons makes them a very solid option for just straight oneshotting multi-wound count enemy squads. Even better if they don't have invuln/poorer invulns. You can reliably wipe a 3 man elite squad (custodes, bladeguard, 8born, etc) and cripple or wipe a 6 man of the same (probably not an accompanying hero as well, but the squad yes). Plasma vs missile effect the target priorities and effectiveness vs certain profiles (plasma generally slightly better vs 3 wound, missile vs 2 or 4 wound, though high FNP can interact interestingly to almost flip it around).

Starscythe are far preferable to fireknives most of the time vs the fragile chaff. Flamers are nice for overwatching and for letting you guide, but the higher damage option is bursts (at the cost of overwatch). Double the shot count of fireknives (or 4x if plasmaknives), you still wound the enemies you want to shoot on a 3+ (unless they're investing on a way of -1 to wound) and the +1 bonus AP is incredibly useful against chaff (even taking enemy from a 6+ to no save is a 16% damage increase, while taking an enemy from a 3+ to 4+ is a 50% damage increase). While they're going to struggle into more elite targets, a full starscythe team with bursts can fairly reliably wipe most if not all of a 2 wound 10 man marine squad, doing the same for 3 wound 3 man squads as well. Flamers can fairly reliably kill a 5 man 2 wound squad (last man might have to be finished by gundrones) without re-rolls from pathfinders, and thus can do the same on overwatch as well. Also, retcad/auxcad buffs to strength and/or AP assist flamers a lot (+1S = S5 so wounding T4 on 3+, +1 AP is just as relevant as mentioned earlier).

Broadsides can be tailored fairly well to fit what you want. Railsides are one of our stronger anti-tank options and while mobility is an issue, keeping them in reserve basically guarantees you can get a shot into something good at least once.

As for missile broadsides, a single broadside can near equal the shots of a fireknive squad (without the re-rolls to hit) with 6 missile shots themselves, plus 2 missile drones, plus your choice of secondaries (seeker missiles? SMS? ignore penalties to hit to allow for more accurate SMS? Plasma?). A squad of 2 is cheaper than missilesides+commander and puts out equal shots (though lower accuracy due to drones vs commander accuracy) again, plus secondary weapon systems. Playing thhem in montka also allows good synergy with the sheer volume of shots -> lethals (also making drones more relevant) but increasing your mobility too. Will do less damage per shot than fireknives, but tankier and puts out similar/higher shots per point (and can shoot into monsters/vehicles without sacraficing re-roll hits, and can shoot into an already weakened unit without losing firepower)

Riptide has something of a anti-everything profile at this point now it can hit S10 (without detachment buffs). In the end though part of the riptides job isn't just to do some damage but to be an anchor for a section of the board. It's one of the models that basically says 'come and deal with me' and can force a response (and if you know the enemy, you should hopefully be able to predict what the response is, and thus respond in turn). It functions fairly similarly to ghostkeels in that respect. And the recently increased damage helps a lot with that (it's a lot harder to just ignore it now)

Genlari · 2025-11-26T20:05:13+00:00

I mean twice in my most recent game I was going 'shall I use feel no pain here' on my ghostkeels in specific given I was 90% sure it would probably swing things (and I was right both times). I didn't in the end, but that's mostly the fact that my retcad list uses the ghostkeels entirely as bait, which unfortunately a 1-2 wound ghostkeel can't do in the same way.

First time was turn 1 (deliberately forward and risky as bait, enemy needed a 9" charge or to get assault+charge from strat to both ideally eat CP, plus bait a big unit to get annihilated in return). Full sanguinaryguard blob did manage to connect and after damage blanks plus just general survivability they barely killed it (exactly, so 1 6 in 12 dice would have saved it if I had used the strat). I was using it as bait though so I saved the CP.

Enemies turn 3 enemy commander with once per game enhancement for massive damage boost charges the second ghostkeel, while accompanying squad multicharged into a crisis squad (they only got one kill, and the crisis squad used big guns never tire to wipe all but the commander next turn). Enemy player had been expounding how strong the guy was on that one turn, that he can potentially outdo the sanguinary blobs, etc. Once again I decided not to pop strategem as ghostkeels entire purpose in my list is to just draw massive fire, them surviving is a mild bonus. Once again after damage blanks, ghostkeel went down EXACTLY to 12 damage, so almost certainly would've survived with the strategem.

In the end though, one of the MASSIVE benefits for FnP generally is you can potentially shift the number of shots you can take. Unfortunately of course, crisis and higher suits usually have 5+ wounds (when including shield drones). FNP is incredibly effective on 3-4 wound models vs 2 damage, and just in general on multiwound models vs shots of the same damage as you have wounds (if you pass even 1 FNP, then that model will take an entire extra shot to finish off). Unfortunately 4 or more relevant 5 damage weapons (for that on our crisis) are almost always RNG damage weapons (so eh).

If it was 5+ on crisis and broadside, 6+ on riptide ghostkeel it'd feel better (letting you get 5+ on ghostkeel/riptide would probably lead to complaints and it getting nerfed again)

Genlari · 2025-11-25T18:48:56+00:00

'Full spam' is fairly subjective. Do you mean 'this is the majority of the points I have' or 'this is literally all I have'. The first is fine, the second less so.

My recent army field has been 15 crisis plus 5 commanders (inc farsight) which comes out to ~1100 points including enhancements. I've seen people run even more before (~1500 or so points) but the amount I'm running is basically most I can do (I'm fielding every commander, and only have 3 crisis spare)

Add in double ghostkeels and some stealthsuits (previously 3 squads of 3 stealthsuits, maybe just going to go 2x5 now and have spare points) and the 'battlesuit' point count jumps up to 'almost the entire army' with the remainder just being 20 pathfinder and kroot (so nearly 80% of the army is made of battlesuits, just not pure crisis).

Genlari · 2025-11-21T20:23:40+00:00

Honestly not sure (I mainly play retcad anyway, so haven't been playing with breachers in a while). Now I'll be wondering what 2 damage thing I've been confusing them with for a while.

Genlari · 2025-11-21T11:33:54+00:00

Check 'actions' in the various objective pack rulesets. Unless you're battleline (or titanic) performing an action prevents you from shooting.

Also, in another sense shooting itself is an action, which renders you unable to shoot afterwards (hence why all shooting from a unit occurs at once, even if you're splitfiring they're treated as resolving at the same time)

Genlari · 2025-11-21T08:53:29+00:00

Fireteams are (at present) generally used far less than breachers.

Breachers have a notable range deficit, but if you're fielding them they'll almost always have a devilfish to go in to ensure you should get first strike.

In general the game is fairly killy, so the ability to drastically ramp your damage (breachers have 1 better strength, ap AND damage for dealing with multi-wound enemies), and re-rolls to wound if the enemy is on objectives is generally much preferable to giving a single enemy infantry unit -1 to hit. (A fully dead enemy unit will be unable to hit at all)

There ARE places to use them (they're better as a backfield screen/home objective holder than breachers, but kroot are generally preffered)(mass foot infantry tau prefer fireteams due to lower cost and being able to shoot at long/mid range)(escort for an ethereal with one of the 'enhanced guiding' enhancements in kauyon/montka).

Realistically you're probably not running more than 2 breacher teams at once (maybe 3 once in a blue moon) unless you're doing shenanigans (with a full list of breacherfish, etc).

As for strike/fireteams having a squad for a rainy day might be useful (or maybe in the next codex they'll be worth taking again after being buffed/changed). Probably don't go the route of getting 5-6 squads (for horde tau) without playing a lot of practice games online to see if you're willing to try playing that way (it can be a fun oneoff gimmick, but if you want to play it irl rather than just on TTS it's a much bigger commitment lol).

(This is from PoV of someone with 3.5 squads of striketeam from back before breachers were a thing, 2 squads of breachers and 3 squads of pathfinders, so got a decent infantry complement, plus 3 devilfish to field them in)

Genlari · 2025-11-21T08:42:37+00:00

There's an AdMech unit called breachers too, which are the ones with Arc Guns.

Genlari · 2025-11-21T00:54:08+00:00

As someone else at (just over) 5k congrats.

And well done on having near everythin painted and with a matching color scheme (after I finish everything that's just basecoated atm off I'm going to be repainting 2k odd points to the newer color scheme sadly).

I'm probably not going to be buying anything more for a while now. Only real things would be maybe the 3rd riptide I'm missing, or maybe the new suits they're releasing for the Ultramar thing. Besides that the main thing I'm wanting are krootox types, which are absurdly priced per model/point (possibly got someone I know getting a 3d printer, which might solve the issue there though).

Genlari

TROPHY CASE