Against the Grain - T'au Empire, Seeker Missiles

Welcome to the first installment in a new series where we tackle army building from a perspective that runs counter to conventional wisdom. These lists will be weird, maybe they work and maybe they don't, but the goal is to surprise and confound your opponents. For better or worse!

For this first article of Against the Grain, I'm going with what I know. And what I know is the T'au Empire. T'au entered 8th Edition in a very odd spot, as GW fundamentally changed the way the army works. One of the biggest changes was a drastic points increase in the Riptide, much to the chagrin of T'au generals everywhere. Combined with the loss of Jump Shoot Jump and changes to Markerlights, many T'au players were left trying to utilize units that had never seen the tabletop while using tactics that seemed anathema to standard T'au SOP. The standard competitive list seemed to revert to some form of Commander spam or Y'Vahra based lists. Now don't get me wrong, Commanders are highly efficient models especially once you factor in their survivability due to being Characters, and the Y'Vahra has long been a favorite model of mine. That being said, having a limited number of viable competitive options is not good for the health of the faction or the competitive scene at large.

This list was conceived in the aftermath of Come the Apocalypse GT. You can check out my tournament report here, but the short version is that I took 8 Commanders and fell flat. I went 0-3 Day 1 and largely just didn't play well and didn't enjoy the army. So after getting home and thinking on it, I decided to go back to square one and just make a dumb list with a common theme that was completely anti-meta. That theme was mortal wounds, having seen the effectiveness of Grey Knights and Daemons this felt like something worth investigating. T'au mortal wound generators are relatively limited, but we do have an excellent option (albeit single use only) in the form of seeker missiles. For those that don't know, Seeker Missiles are a one use only weapon that can be taken on T'au vehicles and broadsides. They have a 72" range and every successful hit roll deals a mortal wound. You need two markerlights to fire them at normal BS (otherwise they only hit on a 6), but I think you'll see from the list that this will usually not be an issue. The following is what I came up with:

Battalion Detachment

2x Commander: 4 Missile Pods, 2 Gun Drones
2x Strike Teams(5): Shas'ui w/Pistol and Markerlight, Pulse Rifles
1x Kroot Carnivores(15): Kroot Rifles
2x Sky Rays: 6 Seeker Missiles, 2 Gun Drones, 2 Markerlights
3x Pathfinder(5): Shas'ui w/Pistol, Carbines and Markerlights
1x Firesight Marksman
1x Sniper Drone Squadon(3)

Outrider Detachment

Commander: 4 Fusion Blasters, 2 Gun Drones
3x Piranha Squadrons(3): 2 Seeker Missiles, Burst Cannon, 2 Gun Drones

All of this comes together for a 2000pt list with 7 CP and, more importantly for our purposes, 30 Seeker Missiles.

How It Works

The goal of this list is pretty simple: nuke a high value, tough unit on turn 1 with your seeker missiles. After that, the list has the speed to move around the board at will and has a ridiculous amount of shots that it can bring to bear. Each Piranha is pumping out 12 S5 shots and likely getting some manner of shooting bonuses from all our Markerlight support. That's 108 shots to start out with. Use the Strike Teams and Pathfinders to hang out in the backfield on objectives and let the Piranhas and Sky Rays move up the field to engage the enemy at 18". The missile Commanders will drop in the backfield and maneuver as needed to pick off high value targets while the fusion Commander acts like a scalpel to remove another high value model that you didn't go after with seeker missiles. The Sniper Drones were thrown in as a trial run to see if they really were as bad as they appear (spoiler: they are as bad as they appear).

Verdict

So I've played two games with this list now and I have to say that I was incredibly surprised by how effective it plays. My first game was against a World Eaters force with Kharn, Berserkers and some stout gunline elements in the form of Daemon Engines. This game saw a Predator and Hellbrute fall prey to the seeker missiles while the Commanders and Piranhas picked away at the Berserkers. We were playing four objectives and I was able to spread the board and claim three by the time we finished the game.

The second game was truly eye opening for the potential of this list. I squared off against Magnus, Mortarion, and an assortment of Brimstones, Malefic Lords, the Changeling, Ahriman, a prince and four quad mortars. Directing this monstrosity was GCWA's own Jarl Clem.
Long story short: Magnus died to seeker missiles Turn 1. Mortarion died to Piranha shooting Turn 2. And after that, it was a tightening noose around the Brimstone line. Brutal game as this was Smite Spam versus Seeker Spam but I was able to pull out the win on KPs.

All in all, this list appears to be highly effective in limited testing. That really surprised me as the concept seems almost gimicky. There are certainly some units I'd drop from this list. Sniper Drones really aren't good. I tried to put them in position to be effective but they just really really aren't good. I'd recommend dropping those in favor of literally anything else, the Marksman is a decent markerlight options but you can get some decent return on investment dropping him as well. You could also play around with some other vehicle options to keep the theme of mortal wounds going. Hammerhead and broadsides are both good potential options for this.

List Score: A- on the first pop quiz. Will try at the next RTT I attend. Check out the Aftermath Report to see how it went!

And that's the first list! What changes would you make? Do you think this is viable? Am I crazy? Probably... let's be honest here. Drop me a comment with your thoughts.