Anyone considering Tau as allies?

Obviously non-scoring is a PITA, but they still look useful. Anything that draws fire away from Raiders for cheap is great - use the Kroot aggressively and they should do that, and as they're unlikely to survive such treatment, their non-scoring nature is rather moot...

And unlike Fire Warrior teams, Kroot can bring S7 shots in the squad via krootox. Just remember to bring the cheap "upgrade" of one kroot hound, which gives the squad Acute Sense.

the problem with Kroot is we dont need them as a screening unit or as a counter-assault unit (the two elements they bring to a tau army, other than infiltrate scorers) So the only reason to take them is if you have to unlock other goodies.

tbh our best choice for tau is farsight enclaves, which gives us crisis suits for troops. That way we get our cake and eat it too

Well, the Kroot were never that great in assault, and they've gotten worse, now. They can also take sniper rounds for 1 point per model, which opens up some interesting shooting options. But your point is taken. And absolutely use, Farsight is a great ally.

by counter-assault I ment "Hold up a unit until your FW could redeploy farther away" Guess I should of cleared that up
 
Also sniper rounds pale in comparison to poison rounds... just saying

Edit: Also congrats on full promotion to Denizen level (the green name instead of the white name) Guess you posted enough to find a home here

Well, the big issue with allying Tau, I feel, is that they don't like standing next to Dark Eldar.  Considering that, a Fire base attachment probably won't do you any favours.  

A Farsight Enclaves contingent would probably be the best way to go.  A commander with a Troop Crisis Team could deep strike (accurately if you take Farsight himself, or outflank if you have the right gear) and play aggressively without getting too much in the way.  Then, of course you've got the options of exploiting AA options and grabbing a Riptide.  

If you just want the Riptide, I'd probably take a minimum cost Fire Warrior Team with an Ethereal/Fireblade to sit back and shoot from a corner.  They probably won't make back their points, but the Riptide will have a fair shot at doing it for them anyway.  As for whether to go Fireblade or Ethereal, I suppose it boils down to "are you willing to potentially forfeit a VP to allow your Fire Warriors to move and shoot?"  Otherwise they're pretty similar.

Regards,
Por'vre Tier.

Problem is riptides are super dependant on markerlights, unless you run an earth cast pilot array heavy burst cannon tide. Without markerlights their damage output is underwhelming.

In battle reports I've watched, Tau haven't impressed me too much, so I wouldn't consider them. Broadsides might be useful, but I'd rather just take another Ravager, that way it can at least score in Big Guns Never Tire. Eldar seem like the better choice for allying in all round, with the most survivable transport in the game, a ton of strength 6 shooting, cheap and fast scoring units and Battle Focus on practically everything - almost as good as a 2D6" assault move for the whole army when coupled with fleet. Access to a Farseer doesn't hurt either, and if you want a big nasty, the Wraithknight eats the Riptide for breakfast one on one and splatters infantry reliably (without running the risk of punching itself in the face a third of the time just to fire at full strength ).

Besides, Tau are too static to gel well with DE. You can't leave them holding an objective at the back, they can't keep up and they can't absorb fire. From what I've seen they're most successful if they can stick together in one spot with a good field of fire, baiting the enemy into their gunline with some hit and run shenanigans. DE are too fluid compared to them, and any points you spend on an allied detachment means more points you're not spending adding oomph to your glass cannon primary. I'd rather have the option of focusing all of my shooting on one part of the enemy force than two thirds of it, with the other third sitting around whilst the enemy stay out of its way.

All extremely good points, especially your analysis, Mr Believer. The Tau provide certain armies with very specific things -- like Interceptor and anti-air. But our army really works because of markerlights, and as allies there's never going to be the FOC space or the points to build an efficient markerlight network. Eldar are a better choice all around.

Just seen the rules for the Tau R'Varna battlesuit (Forgeworld Riptide variant). HOLY MOTHER OF DOG!! These things are insane!!

yes, yes it is all sorts of awesome. why couldn't the riptide have that head instead of the stupid crisis suit head perched on top of that massive body. but a bit on the steep side (from an aus perspective). 70 pounds plus delivery is about 135 for us to get one. which makes me sad. do love it. rules are a bit sketchy tho, use it as a standard riptide would be fine, experimental rules are a bit OP.

Anything to win.... I like it!

Since these posts were made before the release of the Tau Firebase Support Cadre, I was curious if anyone else had used this or considered this with Dark Eldar.

I just came back to 40k after a solid decade break and have been slowly adding to my old dark eldar and tzeentch armies and noticed I had some serious problems shooting down fliers.  I'd bring more razorwings if they were fast attack slots like most other armies get, but I don't want to sacrifice ravager slots.  One player in particular likes to field two of the Eldar fliers and even with a couple razorwings I believe his would easily win out with vector dancer, more high str shots, upgradable bs, and ability to reroll pen rolls on fliers.  Luckily I was using my chaos army yesterday and still beat him, but it wasn't fun and my poor heldrake and quad gun both went down within a turn of their appearance.

I bought the Tau Firebase Support Cadre and was thinking of running the models with just the interceptor upgrades to reduce costs.  Seems the formation would knock out any fliers and all those pesky wave serpents with ease.  Thoughts?  Results?

Yes it will take down fliers very easily. But as pointed out, their static nature is difficult to manage compared to the DE speed. If you run an assault heavy/jetbike crazy list then perhaps that becomes easy, as you will be screaming across the board and they can sit at the back potshotting fliers. I agree that having fliers in heavy is an issue, and as a mono-build we are hamstrung a little.

I have used tau as allies before the new codex, and, tbh, most people were more worried about the broadsides than the entire rest of my DE, which may be an advantage as well. But hey, if you like it, try it and see how it goes. If it works, keep it up. If not, adjust and try again. Eldar are better allies all round.

The Tau Firebase Support Cadre is an excellent formation and can really bring something to our armies but it is pretty expensive. They can certainly do a better job against enemy flyers than anything in our codex.

Well I'm almost done magnetizing and painting my Firebase, so I'll definitely let you guys know how it goes. I usually run a transport heavy list with lots of raiders, venoms, and ravagers so I think I'll be able to keep clear of the Tau forces easily.

I can't see squeezing it in for games under 1750, but even against waveserpents each squad of the broadsides comes out statistically ahead of all 3 of my ravagers combined. I think I can fit on more disintegrators this way and use the broadsides to keep the enemy at bay while I take advantage of night shields on my fleet. I expect I'll actually have the Tau advanced forward and my vehicles taking potshots from max range as a result but I'll try both ways.

I make use of Kroot mercs in my kabal, tho i run them as a elite choice in my force atm (oppoents permission ofc). I perfer this over using full blown allies to be honest as it means i dont have to go out and buy another army (and so feeding GW more money) than i already do.

Also it allowed me to add in a bit more fluff to my kabal which is always nice ^^.