So What's your Tournament Fleet?

[horizon]

Correct. Move 10cm max. Let opponent come. Hero's leading the fleet. Escorts depending on opponent. But I tell you a well played attack from 9 Orca's when the lines close are serious.  Plus you'll need to spend dice on them if you want to get rid of them. And in return it are only 25pts escorts to gain for vps. Thus not much.
And where others would have difficulties against assault boats that is a problem such a Tau fleet won't really have to deal with unless it is a Nid fleet.

[fracas]

hmm, just off the top of my head
lets see for 1500 pts

IN: 3 dictators, 3 lunars with NC, 50 pts admiral, firestorms and falchions

CN: 2 devastations, 2 carnages, 3 slaughters, 100 pts admiral, and repulsive

SM: 2 battlebarges, 50 pts admiral, 3 strike cruisers, and novas

Necron: 1 tomb ship, 3 scythes


(the IN and CN are my standard fleet)
not saying these fleet will always beat 3 explorers & 2 heroes
but the game should be fun and the fleets competitive

tactics:
1. close to the explorers and take them out with direct fire.
2. use ordnance to take out orcas first, then heroes. i wouldn't bother with CAPs, or fighters but always launch bombers and see if the tau player would divert from launching mantas to launch fighters instead

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Well, it would be an interesting match nonetheless. 

[horizon]

1) The IN has 12 bombers. Tau could resort to using 12 fighters and still have another 12 bombers. But I would use less fighters, perhaps some. But Tau also has gunnery to target waves if needed.

2) A little less AC, the fleet should race into the Tau but watch it that the Slaughters do no get to far ahead of the rest.

3) Marines, 12 resilient AC again. Two hard to kill Barges. Marines should keep fleet together. And yes, they could get near Tau. Tau will use Orca's slightly different due all the T-Hawks. So the Tau would see some more fighters as protection. Timing for both fleets to be essential, if the Marines go wrong they will have many lances upon them and vica versa it may be to late for lances when boarding starts.

4) Necrons, albeit little unfluffy, Necrons are always hard but they have no ordnance.

[lastspartacus]

Why Lunars over Dominators for cheaper NC?  Also, I had no idea falchions were considered competant escorts.

Ironically, the marine fleet looks the most competant to me.  They have the armor and the thunderhawks to hold off the bombers until they close.
And when they do, it will be quite nasty.

Wonder how nids will do.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Lunars for non-Gothic lists. Dominators are as of this writing only available in the Gothic list and while you can use it, one won't have easy access to ships like the Vengeance and Exorcist and Falchions which are not available in the Gothic list.

The Armageddon fleet list might also be a good list for taking on the Tau. Mixing 6+ armored ships with some long range support ships like the Armageddon might go aways in taking on the winning Tau list.

[lastspartacus]

Hmm.  My play group freely mixes ships and homemade designs.  Is this flawed?

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Going by the rules, it is flawed as you can only take the ships available in the list normally. But if your group agrees then no problem.

There might be problems which crop up though.

For example, if you decide you wanted to use the Armageddon fleet list and then decide it's ok to mix and match ships, then you can come up with a list like:

Fleet Admiral 50
Emperor+Shark upgrade 370
Armageddon+Power Ram x2 500
Dominator x2 380
Firestorm x 5 200

1500 points.

Flexible enough esp if I decide to take a third Dominator in place of the Firestorms or include a Long Range Tyrant. I could also swap Vengeances in place of the Armageddons and add a re-roll. So mixing lists might be a bit of a problem.

[lastspartacus]

Hmm, ok.  Ill mention sticking with the fleets, next chance I get.

[fracas]

Why would you need to out ordnance tau to beat them?

[horizon]

That's agreed. No need to beat but enough to stem.

[lastspartacus]

Hero loses strenght on its side weapons.

Explorer goes to 260.

Fixed?

[Zhukov]

Another fleet that could be competititive with this Tau list is the Tyranids. In 1500 pts you can spend 150 pts on additional ordnance pieces. So you can have 21 fighter markers already deployed as a part of the fleet! So that knocks out a bunch of bombers and the Hive Ships could be Carrier heavy, say 3 of them maxed out with bays and have only drones armed with Pyro's for escorts, and now you have a decent fleet that can take on many many others too! Thoughts?

-Zhukov

[Caine-HoA]

The Exploerer has its weaknesses and the Hero needs other capital ships to be set up so cant be taken in masses. So far i had very different games with tau an i think overall they are one of the more balanced fleets.
And of corse there will always be some problems with fleet lists in tournaments, thats the case for all systems i know. For most games with your friends the explorer and hero works out like they are now.

The Merchant is the ship that should be changed, if it gets playable and players have fun with it you automaticly will see less explorers and heros...

[tanith]

I agree with Caine Hoa...personally i don't see nerf need to tau .....but if you want to see different lists and more variety because they can only play basing on a strong support phase supremacy and it may be boring, give them alternatives making merchant more efficient....now it is weak in defense,poor attack,little manoeuvrability,slow and easy points to the adversary...not gratis maybe...
my 2 cents