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Hi guys.

I'm not exactly sure if this is the place as I've been popping in and out for a while.

I recently bought the Tau get started box and have yet to decide how to build my XV-8 crisis suits.

What's the best weapons loadout for them. I mostly model and paint so don't always go for codex perfect builds.

I'm also only making my push at Tau now after firewarriors when they first released, and a stealth suit squad and path finder squad in the past year and half.


I will post progress and pics of this box and the other units here. To be as board rules compliant as I can be. I will also post same to a post I had a while back on a Dark Eldar display board that I hoped to work on. The Tau are going to be victims/ the opposing force on that board.


I'm already building the Ethereal on hover drone to have a dead Hellion on his base, for added scenery. Pics soon.

Get some magnets from ebay, 2-3mm x 1mm should do; side of arms, under slung, over the shoulder and the matching weapon options.

The general consensus seems to be that weapons shouldnt be mixed.
Dual wield or single and twin linked, the second i guess being something you could have slide with just a single weapon modelled, though double barreled looks pretty good given you have your arms angled ok.
Also burst cannons look like theyre avoided generally because of being covered elsewhere in the army.

Im saving magnetisation for bigger kits myself.
With angling the arms and legs for positions you like, magnets need to be mounted at angles with magnets that are probably going to be too small to hold the wieght of both the limbs and weapons together in order for them to be able to be mounted because of the thickness of the areas that would house the magnets.

With the old suits, i had this issue and figured that if you really think youre going to swap weapons, tiny spot of glue at the mounting jack's rear allows you to snap the weapon off without much noticeable damage because the new weapons going to be covering it up anyway.
I never ended up snapping them off and they stick fine with little glue.

Some of the suit art has swarms of them falling from the sky, so with my lack of a drill, i just decided to get 15 more suits on top of my 3 old ones.
Maybe youre not looking to spend that much, but if youre not going to end up with a good number of suits, magnetising would probably be best.

Currently have 2 dual flamers, 5 twinplas+plas, 2 twinfb+fb, 2 dual fb on the way with old dual flamer, dualfb and 1 unmounted.
Keeping 4 suits for dual cib once i pick those up off bits sites.

Depends on the rest of what you have and the points but with 3 i would do a dual fb and 2 dual plas. The only support system worth taking for these would be ewo, but once you have squads, youll be able to twinlink

~

Snail22 wrote:


Currently have 2 dual flamers, 5 twinplas+plas, 2 twinfb+fb, 2 dual fb on the way with old dual flamer, dualfb and 1 unmounted.
Keeping 4 suits for dual cib once i pick those up off bits sites.

Depends on the rest of what you have and the points but with 3 i would do a dual fb and 2 dual plas. The only support system worth taking for these would be ewo, but once you have squads, youll be able to twinlink

~

Thanks for the tips guys.

I'll build dual Fusion Blaster and 2 Dual Plasma Rifles. The number available on the sprue and in the instructions matche's up strangely.

4 FB (says 3)
4 Plasma (says 3)
3 flamer
4 BC


I don't know which of the little modules is the ewo though, it's not labelled in the instructions.

Construction ongoing.

Depending on pose I may build the 3rd guy with the shield generator and see which weapon suits the pose best.

I like Dual Fusion / Dual Plasma suits, but my Commander unit is always Plasma + Fusion.

The reason you dont mix weapons is because of their different purposes and characteristics.
Plasma and Fusion on the others Hand are not too different and bot can be used fine together

[img]https://www.flickr.com/photos/64148866@N05/15549968246/[img]
not all support and sig systems have bits though

shield generators - tend to be saved for shas'els and 'os if used at all.
for iridium commander
usually considered that itll take ~6 low ap wounds to drop 4 wounds invuling.
the 2 invuls taken to be passed are also not guaranteed so it might even be 4 with the shield crapping out.
the alternative which turns out 1 point cheaper than a shield is 2 shield drones.
same save against low ap, 2 ablative wounds which if saved, stick around.
but the drones can be shot away with las/bolters so is a bit iffy unless in a group or positioned properly.
had not read this until recently so i do have an iridium commander with the shield glued on
more of a modelling excuse with the flat surfaces on the new iridium upgrade and the standing pose i decided on with a cocked arm.
will put a pic up once home.
but the 2 or 3 commanders i'll be making with the actual commander kits will all be dual missiles with dc and target lock with marker drones hanging around at max range.
iridium is kitted: dual plas, 2+, shield, PEN
modelled the plasma double barreled so theres a bit of not really but whatever with wisywig nazis, but double barreled because of occupied shoulders for looks.
didnt really follow the first image so will probs switch some things up eventually or leave a shoulder free.
but he probably wont see much use apart from in games against younger players for wiping a teq squad or jumping away on 1 wound.

for shas'uis and 'vres (normal suits)
dont bother with stim or shield.
stims will probs be doubled out and if the rof is high enough with las/bolters, stim wont really matter.
shield as above.

flamer - vrt with gun drones for I4
plas - ewo, vt, whichever you need more of depending on what else is elsewhere
fusion - i run them just weapons

also, think of suits as 1.5 marines.
their bulk, while nice to look at, are misleading to both players to the user's detriment.
positioning is their thing and alot of the time they'll derp.
i go into games expecting most suits to be lost (ive not played above 1250 with only 6 suits for tau so far... dont let something like losing 2 on turn 1 and stuff get through to you and just think of dealing with stuff like youre just playing a weighted game)

single flamers, dont even bother with vrt. just put a flamer and a shredding flamer.
double flamer, same as above with another dual flamer, vrt suit with 3 gun drones to keep I4 alive and not drop too many wounds on the suits to massed s3 hits in combat. drones have bs3 with drone net. keep 3rd drone behind the suits in combat and the first 2 in front of one of the suits.

(im) thinking of only having one 2man flamer squad per list, concentrating on anti elite and heavy with cib, plas and fusion. just handy for getting 15 s4 and 5 s4 shred given 5 under each template, probably with ap coming into affect for mob/other appropriate target

(my) Plas:fb:cib more or less i think of as 3:2:3 or 3:2:2 with +/- dependent on the meta for friendly play, which is all i play as of yet.
(all the high strength/ap weapons are the same cost so no list mashing)

fb and cib suits run in 1s or 2s, plas run 2s or 3s.
target locks can be ok.
when complementing with drones, as is with any squad in the game, but especially here with the difference in priority and utility between the suits and drones, make sure to have 5,9,13,17..... number of models (4n+1) for some Ld check breathing room. 5 only really for suit squads.

suits are like giving elephant guns to 7 year olds.
kill elephants half the time but will die.
comparable to support squads in 30k with jsj and the benefit of not losing any shots for losing 1 wound:

30k 5 man plasma support squad - 175pts
6 t4 3+ wounds
10x rapid fire bs4 s7 ap2 gets hot
Ld9
wins combat, but rapid fire
marine height
first half priority - 7
last half priority - depends

3 twin plas+plas suits - 171 pts
6 t4 3+ wounds
6x rapid fire bs3 s6 ap2
6x rapid fire bs3 s6 ap2 twinlinked
Ld8
jsj
lose combat but jsj from rapid fire fringe
two marines tall
priority the entire time - 9

priority goes down with the suits being monats or 2 man flamers or because of poor deep strike, but tend to be looked at like anything else with a similar bulk in the game ofcourse.
if flamers have no use, but youre facing drop pods, use them as speed bumps for the combat the following turn
keeping them next to something you reckon will be drop pod target and jumping in the way your next movement.

probably more to mention but things to do before home time.


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fb + plas commander sounds like last half, iffy range and needs support, but for sure will deal with whatever comes along. thinking of keeping my future marker commanders back as support and harassment rather than active


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Nice pics aeri.
doing everything by tablet so will have to email myself some phone pics after exams.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Totally forgot, but sorry if this is verging on inappropriate for the p&m section.

Thanks for the tips and extra commentary.

So far the 3 suits are aimed to just be table-acceptable models that I'll be using for a display board. Not fullying planning a Tau force just yet.


I went with the loadout as mentioned before. But have yet to figure out what any of the systems extras are as they are not labelled in the instructions.

Here are 2 quick pics of the progress I've made so far.