Alrighty. So I constantly see bits and pieces of math hammer for crisis suits thrown about, and claims that "Suit A" is more efficient at killing "Enemy" than "Suit B" is, and that "Wargear X" isn't worth the points for what you get. Being a man of science (LOL) I decided to take this matter into my own hands and (gasp) delve into the world of math hammer. Additionally I thought I might, rather than just offering raw data and watch the ensuing arguments (although that has it's own 'perks') offer some tactical analysis of the data, based on my experience playing Tau.

So since it feels like absolute overkill to slice and dice the numbers down to their very core, merely to win a game involving plastic spacemen, I will go into an overkill level of detail (and have a little fun).

Now. The Chart. But wait! First... how to read the chart. I use a few common Tau (or at least common to me) abbreviations, along with a few of my own, for the sake of your eyes. They are as follows, more or less in the order they appear on the chart:
GEQ - Guardsmen, and their equivalent
MEQ - Space Marines, and their equivalent
TEQ - Terminators, and their equivalent
TEQ /w SS - Terminators equipped with Stormshield
PPK - Points per kill
PR - Plasma Rifle
MP - Missile Pod
MT - Multitracker
TA - Targeting Array
HW - Hardwired
TL - Twinlinked
FB - Fusion Blaster
BC - Burst Cannon

All suits point costs are organized by taking the bare minimum required wargear to fill their hardpoints, with the exception of the Deathrain configuration, which it is generally accepted that if you aren't taking a TA, you are taking a Flamer (for cheapness, anti-horde, whatnot). If you really want to see the numbers for a TL MP + Blacksun Filter suit, which is technically 1 point cheaper, I can have a wolverine mailed to your home via the united parcel service (you pay shipping).

And finally... the data! Well, all us Xenos scum hate the Imperium, so I pitted our guns against, you guessed it, the imperium. We're going to look at how effective and how efficient each of the observed suit configurations is against a full range of what those port-a-potty worshipers are capable of throwing at us. The words "Dead" and "Kill" are used slightly loosely, truly referring to an unsaved wound, as other factors may weigh in to if the model shot actually dies (Multiple wound termies, FNP, etc).

I fully intend to update this thread with additional data as I go along, add additional foes, how FNP and the CIB rule affect your mileage, template weapons and more, but for now, I've taken some of the more common suit configurations and laid them out.

All shots are taken from 12" (rapid firing if capable). Flamers are out of range, and are included for PPK purposes (since they are the most commonly utilzed third hard point for Deathrains without Targeting Arrays)

Part I: Common Suit Loadouts


SHAZAM! Thats a lot of numbers, but never fear, I will break it down real easy for you. Let's see how the suits fare:

The Fireknife
Fireknives vs. GEQ
The versatile Fireknife is one of the most common suit configurations utilized, often touted for it's versatility in a take all comers situation. Versus GEQ's, the high strength and solid AP of both it's weapons truly shine, giving it the 2nd best number of unsaved wounds against GEQ's. The most common complaint with the Fireknife is cost. It's efficiency numbers are below average, cementing it into the role of "jack of all trades, master of none.". The Fireknife still weighs in as a decent choice vs. IG, since it's Missile Pod is a decent opponent to some of the light armor you will surely face, freeing up your heavy guns to shoot at the heavy tanks. It should be noted that all of the Fireknives weapons are instant death to GEQ models with multiple wounds.

Fireknives vs. MEQ
The inability of the Missile Pod to punk power armor really begins to show here, as the Fireknife's MEQ Dead drops significantly vice shooting at GEQ's. A substancial drop in efficiency is observed as well, making the Fireknife's Missile Pod seem more situational and exclusively for use in assisting Deathrain's with lightly armored transports, than actual engagement of what's inside those transports.

Fireknives vs. TEQ
The tactical dreadnought armor didn't get it's fancy pants name and high price tag for nothing. The Fireknife's missile pod is rendered all but useless, and as a result the effectiveness and efficiency of the Fireknife pattern crisis suit continue to suffer as the unit fired upon gets tougher.

Fireknives vs. TEQ /w SS
I'm a huge fan of the Helios pattern suit and I fully expected it to be the single best TEQ popper, but strangely it's not. The Fireknife is just as effective at killing stormshield equipped TEQ's as the Helios is... and neither of them are the best! Still.. for shooting at the some of the 'ardest boys the Imperium has to offer, the Fireknife actually comes out alright in the effectiveness category. With the same pricetag as a Helios suit, it's literally pound for pound just as effective, and capable of taking care of light armor at a distance to boot. Not a bad choice for this job.

Fireknife Summary
All in all the Fireknife is a very decent choice. It's versatility makes it decent against most foes tested against, and it has the added bonus of being able to toss MP shots at transports as well.

The Deathrain
Deathrain vs. GEQ
A lot of folks have begun spamming Deathrains. I see this a lot. They are seduced by the cheap pricetag and it's uncanny nack for popping transports. While this is all well and good (great, actually), the deathrain is actually terrible at killing anything other than light armor, which is why any more than say... 1 team of three, is kind of overkill. Although it is the second most efficient killer of GEQ's, it's also the least effective.

Deathrain vs. MEQ
Unable to puncture power armor, it's efficiency goes right out the window. Yeeeeshh. Find a softer target to shoot at.

Deathrain vs. TEQ
Rock bottom. The Deathrain lacks the volume of fire, or the quality of fire to turn TEQ's to dust. If you're facing the GK Draigo list, it's best to just leave the Deathrains on the shelf. Same goes for SS TEQs.

Deathrain Summary
The whole point of me including the Deathrain in this analysis which was obviously anti-infantry, was to illustrate its total impotence at the subject. The deathrain is a GREAT configuration and is VITAL in transport and light armor removal, however, it is important to note that once you've popped the parking lot, it's effectiveness has gone straight out the window. Tau require a combined arms strategy, and over-utilization of any one element spells defeat. Effectiveness vs. GEQ's will certainly skyrocket if you utilize flamers, but I will have to examine the effectiveness of flamers vs. MEQ's and TEQ's when I get into template weapons.

The Helios
Helios vs. GEQ
Helios suits are designed heavy infantry killers, as a result, they are effective, but inefficient against GEQ's and MEQ's. Additionally, they lack the volume of fire required to really put a dent in a GEQ sized squad.

Helios vs. MEQ
Helios suits kill MEQ's as easilly as they kill GEQ's. Think about that! Power armor popping is where a helios suit shines the brightest, and they put up #1 numbers in effectiveness and efficiency across the board. If you are fighting massed power armor, this is your configuration of choice.

Helios vs. TEQ
Both of the Helios suits weapons ignore the TEQ armor save, and force them to use their invulnerable. Again, Helios posts #1 for standard TEQ killing effectiveness and efficiency.

Helios vs. TEQ /w SS
Sometimes quantity is better than quality. The improved invulnerable save drops the Helios's effectiveness and efficiency to #2 vs the Stormshield. Still, a very decent choice.

Helios Summary
Helios pattern suits may be risky, but their potency allows for extreme deadliness even when facing some of the toughest nuts to crack in 40k. Overall, they are the best MEQ and TEQ killers, although volume of fire seems to be a better route vs. Stormshields.

The Bladestorm
Bladestorm Vs. GEQ
The most efficient suit of all the loadouts tested, the Bladestorms volume of fire wipes the floor with the soft GEQ's. Great choice, great value.

Bladestrom vs. MEQ
The Burst Cannon's inability to punch through power armor makes the Bladestorm average vs. MEQ's, but the cheapness of it's loadout keeps it very efficient. Not a bad choice vs. MEQ's.

Bladestorm vs. TEQ
Volume of fire begins to show it's weight of numbers when MP toting suits begin to lose their potency. The bladestorm is slightly more effective than the Fireknife and Burning Eye, but Helio's is still too potent.

Bladestorm vs. TEQ /w SS
A complete surprise to me, the Bladestorm Commander is the best model tested at killing TEQ's /w SS. The highly accurate commander makes best use of the volume of fire tactic, and posts #1 effectiveness and efficiency numbers.

The Burning Eye
Burning Eye vs GEQ
Average effectiveness is outweighed by it being the least efficient choice overall. No bueno.

Burning Eye vs MEQ
The Burning Eye is more deadly and efficient than a BS3 bladestorm and helios, but quickly falls behind when accuracy is incorporated.

Burning Eye vs TEQ
Perhaps Burning Eye's best category is TEQ popping. It's more effective and only 3 points more than a standard elite choice Helios suit. However, low shot count keep the Burning Eye down, and higher point cost models quickly overshadow it.

Burning Eye vs TEQ /w SS
Low shot count continues to plague this choice. Still best utilized as a BS4 elite choice, it's forced to take the same invulnerable save as all the other FB and PR based suits, but with a lower shot count. Average effectiveness, below average efficiency.

Burning Eye Summary
Quality over quantity is the Burning Eye loadout's mantra. It is best utilized in an anti-MEQ and TEQ capacity, as a BS4 elite choice. It is worst utilized against hordes and models with a potent invulnerable save (lack of fire quantity).

Part II: Firestorm Suit Loadout + Analysis


Alrighty. I took the liberty of adding Fire Warrior / Veteran kills + ppk as well, to investigate how effective the Burst Cannon is against toughness 3/4+ save models.

Firestorm vs GEQ
Staggering. The Firestorm is the single most powerful and efficient killer of light infantry I have tested so far. Nothing to discuss here, except that once again it appears that on high shot count models, spending the 15 points to make your model a team leader with a targeting ray is an extremely efficient use of points, which seems contrary to common Tau list making knowledge. Interesting indeed.

Firestorm vs. Veterans/Fire Warriors
Uh oh. Problems in paradise. The Missile pod is still performing well, but the burst cannon's effectiveness is getting eaten up by that 4+ save. Over all, not a bad choice for Vet/FW killing, but it's fairly safe to assume the Fireknife is going to outperform it in this category.

Firestorm vs. MEQ
Bad news. Volume of fire does not seem to be the way to go against MEQ's. The firestorm is a less effective power armor killer than every other suit tested, other than the Deathrain (which is not designed whatsoever for infantry removal outside of flamer range, as we determined before.). Even the Firestorms rock-bottom price tag can't save it in the efficiency column. Bad choice vs. MEQ.

Firestorm vs. TEQ & TEQ /w SS
Niether of the Firestorm's weapons are able to force either the 5++ or 3++ here, resulting in terminator armor eating up those low potency shots for breakfast. It appears the Bladestorm is still the most efficient and effective TEQ popper.

Part III: Cover
Someone brought up cover saves. While I don't feel this necessitates a fully blown out chart, a quick note about which weapons are going to be most effective shooting through cover, will of course be helpful.
Do
Template weapons (AFP, Flamer)
The highest shot count weapon, that also negates the enemies armor save
Prioritize targets that are in the open, that you can eliminate more easilly/make your shots count.

Don't
Forget that since they have cover vs. you... you probably have cover vs. them.. making them less of a threat to you
Shoot high powered, low shot count weapons through cover (Hammerhead Railgun Solid Slug, Fusion Blaster)

Part IV: Everyone Hates the Dreadknight
Title explains it all. Everyone hates the Dreadknight, everyone is afraid of teleporter scout shunt, so what can we, the Tau Battlesuit enthusiast, do about this monstrosity? Here's the numbers. Oh, and I didn't bother including variants that already have a bad track record vs. terminators (Firestorm + Deathrain), we don't need to illustrate how fail they would be at a T6 termi-monster with 4 wounds... haha


Burning Eye vs. Dreadknight
The Burning Eye configuration posts average numbers vs. the Dreadknight. It's fairly killy, but fairly inefficient. Given it's limited capabilities due to shot count, illustrated in the previous sections, coupled with the Grey Knights ability to field MEQ, TEQ, GEQ, Veteran Equivalents and TEQ /w SS all in the same list... probably best to leave on the shelf vs. the Grey Wonders.

Helios vs. Dreadknight
It's good to be the king. The Helios is the most efficient and effective way to punk out a Dreadknight that our suit loadouts have to offer. There could be problems in paradise, however. Given that most Dreadknights are going to have personal teleporters... the Helios is WAY too close for comfort. I'll re-examine the capability for an Alpha Strike later on in this article, to see if Helios is actually a viable Dreadknight solution.

Bladestorm vs. Dreadknight
Yeeeesh. The Dreadknights toughness and terminator armor really take their toll on our new favorite suit's Burst Cannon. Bladestorm is the least effective XV8 configuration that I considered for the Dreadknight exterminator job.

Fireknife vs. Dreadknight
The higher Strength of the Fireknife's missile pods save the Fireknife from the bottom spot, but it's lower shot count and similar inability to penetrate terminator armor with both weapons makes it juuust barely more effective than the Bladestorm... but more expensive, and thusly less efficient. Not a good choice for Dreadknight hunting.

Broadsides vs. Dreadknight
Big monster? Bring a big gun! Right?! Wrong. It turns out shooting @ a Dreadknight with your Broadsides is a terrible use of their capabilities. The mighty Railgun isn't going to cause instant death here, and that invulnerable save isn't going anywhere either. They are the least effective and least efficient way to kill a Dreadknight out of all models tested. Of course, if you are fighting the Draigo + Paladins + 2 Dreadknights list, then your Broadsides really have nothing better to shoot at... so.. why not.

Centurion 'El vs. Dreadknight
My favorite standard HQ choice. His CIB can only wound the Dreadknight on a 6, but thats fine, since the 6 is going to hurt. He posts IDENTICAL effectiveness numbers to the Helios, but is marginally less efficient. Remember though.. he does it @ 18" instead of 12"... although that still leaves you getting charged JSJ'ing away from a Dreadknight that rolls a 6 to run. >.<

So whats the deal... how do we kill this thing!? Lets see what kind of Commanders + Retinues are going to be the most effective at attempting to kill a Dreadknight in just one turn.


Well, the most effective and efficient anti-dreadknight team appears to be the 2x BS3 Helios Elites + 1x BS4 Helios Team Leader + Helios Commander, but they still can't take it out in one volley of fire (on average). So what to do? Well, @ 24" range this team is capable of scoring 1.66 unsaved wounds with single shots from their plasma rifles. No one is perfect, so let's say you take the shots from 22". Hop straight back 6" and now you're 28" out. The dreadknight moves 12" but even with a perfect run roll, he's going to be short for the charge. Perfect! Now, @ point blank range, the Helios squad pours on 3.05 wounds in the second round of fire (as illustrated above). Dreadknight = Deadknight in two rounds of shooting, with a buffer zone of .71 wounds for bad rolls. Not terrible.

That's what they get for using the Sisters as anti-daemon rhino liner for their armor.
Part V: 18" and Beyond!

Alright.. so by popular request, i've pitted the Bladestorm against the Fireknife @ range 13-18 + range 19-24. It's pretty obvious that the Fireknife is going to be superior @ 19-24" range, but I think that the 18" range is safe enough, where the blade storm can still be an effective choice. The blade storm abuses the Fireknife in all areas, both more effective and more efficient. Only once that Burst Cannon is out of range, does the Fireknife pull ahead. If you would like to compare these suits numbers to the Death Rain, 25"+ then just subtract the 19" Bladestorm #'s from the Fireknifes 24" numbers. Not suprisingly, the Death Rain is only marginally better.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thanks for sharing, much appreciated...

Uploaded the chart to the dakka gallery and reposted. Should be easier to see now.

Thanks for doing the hard work. So it looks like Bladestorms remain a good overall choice. The problem with them is the 18" range for the BCs...

I've toyed with a TL BC/ Flamer combo (or vice versa)before, talk about cheap and good GEQ killer but nearly impotent vs. MEQ and TEQ.

agnosto wrote:Thanks for doing the hard work. So it looks like Bladestorms remain a good overall choice. The problem with them is the 18" range for the BCs...

I've toyed with a TL BC/ Flamer combo (or vice versa)before, talk about cheap and good GEQ killer but nearly impotent vs. MEQ and TEQ.

Yeaaah.. It's really interesting that Bladestorm is effective against both the softest AND hardest targets... but suffers against standard terminators and marines (relative to other suits). Grey Knights + Henchmen, anyone?

Anyone have good math for FNP? Am I to simply remove half the unsaved wounds? Or is it more complicated than that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, fully willing to take requests... I.E. "How effective is Bladestorm at killing Flash Gits?"

Not sure how I want to do template weapons yet. Max models that fit? 5? Still figuring out how I want to do that. Perhaps a comparison of how many models you have to fit under a template with a certain weapon, to make it more effective than other similar weapons...

IE ... Flamer vs. Burst Cannon

Also, really going to need help with the CIB "ap1 on 6's" math.. if anyone has an easy way to do that.

Good write up. Quick criticism, though. I know a grand total of one of those configurations (Fireknife), most Tau players don't know many.
So at the intro, can you do something like Fireknife - Missle Pod/Plasma Rifle?

For FNP, it depends on the weapon being used. If it's not a ID/AP 2 or better, half the wounds would go through, so divide it by two for those?

Gavo wrote:Good write up. Quick criticism, though. I know a grand total of one of those configurations (Fireknife), most Tau players don't know many.
So at the intro, can you do something like Fireknife - Missle Pod/Plasma Rifle?

For FNP, it depends on the weapon being used. If it's not a ID/AP 2 or better, half the wounds would go through, so divide it by two for those?

The second collum, "loadout" has the specific wargear taken for the model listed. The abbreviations used are listed above the chart.

Awesome information! Can't wait to try the Helios load-out now

...too bad all but one of my suits right now are Fireknives and are glued together

mega_bassist wrote:Awesome information! Can't wait to try the Helios load-out now

...too bad all but one of my suits right now are Fireknives and are glued together

Well Math-Hammer can't take into account survivability. That 12" range is dangerous, but it can be extremely effective.

I can help with the FNP/CIB if you so desire.

When I mathhamer crisis suits in my own charts, I do it by weapon. I don't do it in whole 2 weapon suits because then you have a lot more to list. If you can see the individual characteristics of weapons, then you can mix and match for optimized suits.

I take the base cost of crisis suits and then add the price for the multi tracker, and then divide it by two because the price will be split among 2 weapons:

( ( 25 + 5 ) / 2 + Points for Weapon ) / (Killy!!)

So for a Plasma Rifle:

15+20 = 35 / Dead TEQ = 63 PPK

Missile Pod:

15+12 = 27 / Dead TEQ = 194 PPK

So that way you can mix and match weapons to optimize your configurations.

Using that method, I'll do the math for the CIB (including rending):

GEQ - 56 PPK
MEQ - 63 PPK
TEQ - 101 PPK
TEQ w/ SS - 168 PPK

Here is the maths for it against GEQ so that you may know how to do it:

5 Shots
2.5 Hits
1/3 wound = .833333 wounds

Now, since you wound on 5s and 6s, half of your wounds will be 6s, and so half will ignore armor. So what you do is split your wounds in half:

.416666 rend
.416666 don't

.416666 wounds on guard
.416666/2 (for armor)

do the maths and add them:

.625 GEQ dead

Calculate the PPK (using half the suits cost):

15 + 20 / .625 = 56 PPK

Thanks for the CIB/FNP info! I think I'll continue using suit loadouts, vice individual weapons, so that I can illustrate how well suits scale with additional BS, and how TL W + TA compares to W + W + MT.

Ok, can I put in a request for Firestorms to be evaluated, they are one of my favorite configurations.

Definitely. I'll hammer it out (see what I did there) tonight after work.

Yeah, I will be interested to see Firestorm numbers. It has some potential advantages - firstly, maximum effectiveness is reached at 18" rather than 12". Second, it is cheap, with only 50 points base. And third, it's effectiveness vs MEQ/TEQ is not dependent on cover. Of course, chances of getting through 2+ save aren't great...

Cottonjaw wrote:

mega_bassist wrote:Awesome information! Can't wait to try the Helios load-out now

...too bad all but one of my suits right now are Fireknives and are glued together

Well Math-Hammer can't take into account survivability. That 12" range is dangerous, but it can be extremely effective.

True story, but I never realized it would make numbers like that. Almost everyone in the area around me plays MEQ's or CSM (one reason I have all Fireknives right now) and it would be nice to change it up, pose a threat, and give myself a challenge

It looks like you're always assuming the Plasma Rifles will be at 12" or less. You should really do a range differentiated column for those.

I've seen something similar to this before,either on Tau Online or ATT, while I can't find the article anymore, I do have a copy of the chart if it might save some time

If you read the post... I said that all shots were taken at 12" to show maximum effectiveness of all suits.

How does a MP/BC suit do?

AdeptSister wrote:How does a MP/BC suit do?

Backfire wrote:Yeah, I will be interested to see Firestorm numbers. It has some potential advantages - firstly, maximum effectiveness is reached at 18" rather than 12". Second, it is cheap, with only 50 points base. And third, it's effectiveness vs MEQ/TEQ is not dependent on cover. Of course, chances of getting through 2+ save aren't great...

The Bringer wrote:Ok, can I put in a request for Firestorms to be evaluated, they are one of my favorite configurations.

AdeptSister wrote:How does a MP/BC suit do?

By popular demand, I have added "Part II". Also includes 4+/3T model comparison so we can see how much the armor save is going to affect the burst cannon. Hope it's everything you wanted.

One thing I want to add is this... cover!

Say your burning eye, the best at MEQ PPK at 44, shoots at marines in cover. That jacks up their PPK to 88. Meanwhile, the missilepod version is at 108. So, not such a big difference anymore--but the missiles have that 108 effectiveness at 36 inches compared to the burning eye's 12 inches.

Burning Eye and Helios, being ap2 or greater, will see the most use versus FNP models out of cover, and models with a 2+ armor save and no invuln like sang guard (who will also most likely have FNP too), and since units like sang guard are assault oriented, you better hope you kill them with your shooting or your dead.

Also, something to consider is stealth suits--the younger brother of the crisis suit I suppose. If you run the numbers on stealth suits with drone controllers (gun drones) you should find that they are some of the most efficient shooters.

Points: 50 (Stealth Suit and 2 Gun Drones)
Dead GEQ = 1.25 + .93 = 23 PPK
Dead MEQ = .333 +.25 = 86 PPK
Dead TEQ = ½meq = 171 PPK
Dead TEQSS = TEQ = 171 PPK

So on first glance they dont seem the best... BUT they are 100% effective at 18 inches instead of 12, get stealth fields, the drone attacks cause pinning, and are just as good at killing MEQ in cover as they are in the open. When compared to the 'better' suit options shooting at units in cover, these guys kick major butt since half their wounds wont go away. You also get 30 shots for 300 points in a single unit, with 18 wounds. Granted they stink at dealing with 2+ FNP units, but most things do.

This unit also gets perhaps the largest boost from markerlights, as its pretty much the most shots in a single unit your gonna get, doesnt already pay for extra BS, and can make use of the pinning bonus as well.

DevianID wrote:One thing I want to add is this... cover!

Say your burning eye, the best at MEQ PPK at 44, shoots at marines in cover. That jacks up their PPK to 88. Meanwhile, the missilepod version is at 108. So, not such a big difference anymore--but the missiles have that 108 effectiveness at 36 inches compared to the burning eye's 12 inches.

Burning Eye and Helios, being ap2 or greater, will see the most use versus FNP models out of cover, and models with a 2+ armor save and no invuln like sang guard (who will also most likely have FNP too), and since units like sang guard are assault oriented, you better hope you kill them with your shooting or your dead.

Also, something to consider is stealth suits--the younger brother of the crisis suit I suppose. If you run the numbers on stealth suits with drone controllers (gun drones) you should find that they are some of the most efficient shooters.

Points: 50 (Stealth Suit and 2 Gun Drones)
Dead GEQ = 1.25 + .93 = 23 PPK
Dead MEQ = .333 +.25 = 86 PPK
Dead TEQ = ½meq = 171 PPK
Dead TEQSS = TEQ = 171 PPK

So on first glance they dont seem the best... BUT they are 100% effective at 18 inches instead of 12, get stealth fields, the drone attacks cause pinning, and are just as good at killing MEQ in cover as they are in the open. When compared to the 'better' suit options shooting at units in cover, these guys kick major butt since half their wounds wont go away. You also get 30 shots for 300 points in a single unit, with 18 wounds. Granted they stink at dealing with 2+ FNP units, but most things do.

This unit also gets perhaps the largest boost from markerlights, as its pretty much the most shots in a single unit your gonna get, doesnt already pay for extra BS, and can make use of the pinning bonus as well.

This is an evolving thread (article?) so I'll tack that onto the list of things I'd like to test.

DevianID wrote:One thing I want to add is this... cover!

Added Part III: Cover ... just some quick notes.

CJ, I'm glad you have a good head for that sort of math. I don't.

And no real surprises. I've been advocating the FireStorm for a while, as I'd seen a rise in orks (Kan Walls & BW lists) and IG in my meta ... now though a *lot* more MEqs (SW, BA & GK) so *if* I were to fight for the greater good I'd prolly have a list heavy on Bladestorms or Helios, given the couple BlackTemplar guys that keep showing up to RTTs with BT Deathstars, TH/SS termies.

Wow, these lists are actually making me change my opinions on certain things... normally I would have cursed any unit of bladestorm crisis suits, but they are a good all-comers unit. They are close to being the best against GEQs, MEQs, and TEQs...

I may have to try them out in the future.

The Bringer wrote:Wow, these lists are actually making me change my opinions on certain things... normally I would have cursed any unit of bladestorm crisis suits, but they are a good all-comers unit. They are close to being the best against GEQs, MEQs, and TEQs...

I may have to try them out in the future.

Same here. They totally took me by suprise. At first I kept re-running the numbers like "Hold on... no.."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Added Part IV: Everyone Hates the Dreadknight.

Because let's face it....

Hey Cottonjaw! Just checking in and taking a look on this thread like you said I should. Great info! This is really going to give my new Tau army a jumpstart!

Updated my 2500 list with some of the findings from here. Both IA friendly and no-IA versions of the list. Just in case some of the people following this thread want to see how i've applied my findings.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/361077.page

Very good work. I have pretty much been running all fireknives lately, so it's good to see this information so well presented.

I am happy to have magnetized all my suits now.

There are 2 more things I find shocking about this:

-Bladestorms are better than fireknives at everything.
-Team leaders with targeting arrays is a good option.

Really good and impressive work, and some interesting numbers. Thanks a ton.

But I have to add that I think the raw numbers here are drastically skewed by calculating everything at range 12". Of course fireknives will do way better than deathrains at 12", because that's their optimum range. Go to 13" or 25", and the fireknife does worse (and worse than the deathrain at 25+), while the deathrain stays the same.

I know it would be a ton of work, and I'm not willing to do it, but I think if it were possible to factor in ranges and survivability due to range--thus getting more shots off and more hits--the different configurations would stack up differently against each other.

I think this analysis is valuable anyway, as long as users bear in mind that the ratings refer to what is essentially your last turn of shooting before the assault arrives.

I agree with yout point, Flavius Infernus; however, I think it's important to also note that we all know that and, at least myself, won't run just straight Bladestorm units. This thread has brought up some great information and I foresee me running a unit of deathrains and maybe 2 units of bladestorms this weekend (I guess I'll have to dust my army off, especially considering the FAQ update..)

The FAQ update really didn't do much for Tau.

It made seekers and SMS slightly better... and if you don't detach drones from your devilfish they won't give up an extra KP. Not much besides that.

Yeah but it's been the better part of a year since I trotted them out and I've been winning too often of late with my ultra-smurfs so I need to be taken down a peg.

Yeah.. obviously some suits perform worse at ranges outside 12".

Agnosto if you check out the URL I posted, I put up the 2500p lists I updated.. I went 1/1/1 with Bladestorms, Fireknives and Deathrains. I guess we'll see how that goes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Bringer wrote:There are 2 more things I find shocking about this:

-Bladestorms are better than fireknives at everything.
-Team leaders with targeting arrays is a good option.

Right. Exactly. The only thing Fireknives can do better is support Deathrains in meter maid'ing the parking lot armies, and they can kill 4+ save units marginally better than Bladestorms. So like... other Fire Warriors? If Fire Warriors are the troops choice that's giving you headaches, you have other problems.

TEAM LEADERS WITH TARGETING ARRAYS... That absolutely blew my mind. Blew. My. Mind. That is like. Gah. How many times have I said to people "Eh.. you're spending a lot of points doing that...". Countless times. Countless. Meanwhile.. I mean duh it's more effective.. but it's MORE EFFICIENT.

You know what else that means? It means if they bumped the price of Targeting Arrays from 10 points, to 15 points but made them Hard Wired... it would be not only viable, but SUPERIOR.

Insanity.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flavius Infernus wrote:Really good and impressive work, and some interesting numbers. Thanks a ton.

But I have to add that I think the raw numbers here are drastically skewed by calculating everything at range 12". Of course fireknives will do way better than deathrains at 12", because that's their optimum range. Go to 13" or 25", and the fireknife does worse (and worse than the deathrain at 25+), while the deathrain stays the same.

I know it would be a ton of work, and I'm not willing to do it, but I think if it were possible to factor in ranges and survivability due to range--thus getting more shots off and more hits--the different configurations would stack up differently against each other.

I think this analysis is valuable anyway, as long as users bear in mind that the ratings refer to what is essentially your last turn of shooting before the assault arrives.

I'm fairly convinced that the Bladestorm will outperform the Deathrain vs. MEQ's and TEQ's and DEFINITELY vs TEQ /w SS @ 18". The Fireknife @ 18"? No contest, Bladestorm again, for sure. I'll run the numbers tonight after work.

cottonjaw wrote: I'm fairly convinced that the Bladestorm will outperform the Deathrain vs. MEQ's and TEQ's and DEFINITELY vs TEQ /w SS @ 18". The Fireknife @ 18"? No contest, Bladestorm again, for sure. I'll run the numbers tonight after work.

At 18" sure. That still drastically favors the short-range suits.

But the real test would be compare the two over the course of 3-4 turns starting at range 42" with the target closing 9.5" per turn (average infantry running speed). In that comparison, the deathrain begins to outperform the bladestorm against MEQ in the third turn of shooting, and comes close vs. TEQ in about the fourth turn.

The upgrade to team leader with Targeting array is only effective on layouts that pump out more shots however.

You calculated
PPK for Firestorms for GEQ is - 24.03
PPK for TL w/ TA Firestorm is - 23.38

However, a crisis suit that doesn't shoot that much... let's say, a death-rain
Normal - 31.84
W/ TA - 35.81

So it really depends on how many shots you are pumping out for it to be a worthwhile upgrade.

True true. But as it transpires, the high volume of fire suits, are the best! It's a win-win!

But yeah... thats why my deathrains are still TL MP + Flamer.

This makes for very interesting reading!

Might get my Tau off the shelve again (well, some are being painted and for the last 8 games I've used Sisters) as they were my first army and hold a spesshul place in my heart...

I got so hooked on running T/L MP + TA just for insanely accurate anti-transport/destroyer firepower but I know that's overkill. Majorly. Last few games I ran Fireknifes and they did very well, but that Bladestorm. Wowzers! I might give that a bloody go!

Yeah the Deathrain addiction is common. People think "Well space marine autocannons are great.. so.."

But the truth is, we have to kill space marines! And missile pods just aren't great at that.

Yup, it is easy to get sucked into using one kind of suit throughout your Elite slots but I'd love to hear of a Deathrain/Fireknife/Bladestorm combo.

The Bladestorm seems a good unit to Deepstrike (if you're brave) or to try and get up close and personal. The 18" range has always put me off using BC on suits and normally left them to either Stealths or DF.

Happy memories of when Stealths were so easy to get out of LOS and you could just JSJ with silly amounts of firepower.

Would be great if you could compare them at different ranges, from 12" upward until moving will no longer get you in range with any weapon you can possibly carry.

The Helios Suit vs Fireknife suit isn't wholly accurate due to the range restriction of 12". My Fireknives rarely stray out of 24" range because the extra plasma shot will usually get me killed due to the range, so for me, the fireknife>the helios in all situations which is contrary to statistics.

Avatar 720 wrote:Would be great if you could compare them at different ranges, from 12" upward until moving will no longer get you in range with any weapon you can possibly carry.

The Helios Suit vs Fireknife suit isn't wholly accurate due to the range restriction of 12". My Fireknives rarely stray out of 24" range because the extra plasma shot will usually get me killed due to the range, so for me, the fireknife>the helios in all situations which is contrary to statistics.

Working on ''Part V:18" and Beyond'' tonight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cottonjaw wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:Would be great if you could compare them at different ranges, from 12" upward until moving will no longer get you in range with any weapon you can possibly carry.

The Helios Suit vs Fireknife suit isn't wholly accurate due to the range restriction of 12". My Fireknives rarely stray out of 24" range because the extra plasma shot will usually get me killed due to the range, so for me, the fireknife>the helios in all situations which is contrary to statistics.

Working on ''Part V:18" and Beyond'' tonight.

Ooooor I'll just knock it out during my lunch break...

Part V is up. Plain and simple really. Hiding way in the back with Deathrains and shooting is just not an effective way to deal with troops. 18" range is safe enough, with a 6" hop straight back you are only vulnerable to jump troops that roll a 6 for their run... I.E. not that vulnerable at all.

Overall it appears the Fireknife is still the "jack of all trades, master of none", putting up a fight against all foes, but not a specific threat against anything.

So, a squad of Firesknives would be ideal no matter what, then a seperate squad of Firestorms or Helios depending on what you fight.

Oh, and Targeting Arrays are epic

The Bringer wrote:The upgrade to team leader with Targeting array is only effective on layouts that pump out more shots however.

You calculated
PPK for Firestorms for GEQ is - 24.03
PPK for TL w/ TA Firestorm is - 23.38

However, a crisis suit that doesn't shoot that much... let's say, a death-rain
Normal - 31.84
W/ TA - 35.81

So it really depends on how many shots you are pumping out for it to be a worthwhile upgrade.

The PPK for Deathrain-FL is wrong: it should be 37.6. So Targeting Array variant is always more cost effective, if you disregard possibility of flaming the Guardsmen.

I ran some numbers myself long time ago, and came to same conclusion: Team Leaders are more points-efficient. This is because the cost of TA+TL is fixed at 15 points, but the effectiveness increases by 1/3. For suits which have base cost over 45 points, it is worth paying 15 points from increased effectiveness (unless you consider model number on the table...but then it gets fuzzy). Since nearly all suit configurations cost 50 or more points, Team Leader is worth it.

I ALWAYS take Team leaders: sometimes I take them as Monats. It never ceases to puzzle me why people take teams of three plain, identical Fireknives: not only you lose effectiveness, but you also have no chance to play wound allocation game.

Btw, another thing which the tables show is that Burning Eye pretty much sucks. It has no range and narrow usefulness. It is probably the most worthless of common suit configurations. One suit which has escaped scrutiny is Firesurge (Missile-Fusion Blaster). Lots of people say that they suck, but I sometimes take them as Team Leaders for one or two Fireknives. It's always nice to have BS4 melta as a backup, and S8 is quite useful at instant-killing various nasty stuff.

Aaahk!!

You're right. There is a tiny flaw in the chart :O

Backfire wrote:

The Bringer wrote:The upgrade to team leader with Targeting array is only effective on layouts that pump out more shots however.

You calculated
PPK for Firestorms for GEQ is - 24.03
PPK for TL w/ TA Firestorm is - 23.38

However, a crisis suit that doesn't shoot that much... let's say, a death-rain
Normal - 31.84
W/ TA - 35.81

So it really depends on how many shots you are pumping out for it to be a worthwhile upgrade.

The PPK for Deathrain-FL is wrong: it should be 37.6. So Targeting Array variant is always more cost effective, if you disregard possibility of flaming the Guardsmen.

I ran some numbers myself long time ago, and came to same conclusion: Team Leaders are more points-efficient. This is because the cost of TA+TL is fixed at 15 points, but the effectiveness increases by 1/3. For suits which have base cost over 45 points, it is worth paying 15 points from increased effectiveness (unless you consider model number on the table...but then it gets fuzzy). Since nearly all suit configurations cost 50 or more points, Team Leader is worth it.

I ALWAYS take Team leaders: sometimes I take them as Monats. It never ceases to puzzle me why people take teams of three plain, identical Fireknives: not only you lose effectiveness, but you also have no chance to play wound allocation game.

Btw, another thing which the tables show is that Burning Eye pretty much sucks. It has no range and narrow usefulness. It is probably the most worthless of common suit configurations. One suit which has escaped scrutiny is Firesurge (Missile-Fusion Blaster). Lots of people say that they suck, but I sometimes take them as Team Leaders for one or two Fireknives. It's always nice to have BS4 melta as a backup, and S8 is quite useful at instant-killing various nasty stuff.

The thing is... Team Leader + TA isn't very effective on Deathrains... and I can't imagine a competitive list that didn't include at least one FOC slot occupied by Deathrains. That being said, you've got basically two slots that are going to want Team Leader + TA upgrades. Thats 30 points. What the heck are you going to buy with 30 points? Some Kroot? Half a piranha? Fire...*gag* Warriors? If it's not giving you enough points to buy another XV8 or XV88, it's probably not worth it. The "model count" arguement basically boils down to "Suit Count" for Tau lists. If you can strip a few upgrades or a shield drone or two in order to field another suit... go for it. Otherwise... it's probably not worth it.

Burning Eye is actually the configuration that brought me to wanting to do this. It. Sucks. And I needed to prove that it sucks. It's use is basically exclusively limited to killing plain old regular tactical squad marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Bringer wrote:Aaahk!!

You're right. There is a tiny flaw in the chart :O

AHHHHHH!!

I'm at work. I don't have the original excel document, so I can't fix it!

AHHHHHH I'm not going to be able to fix it until tommorrow!

This is giving me an OCD heart attack. Breath Chris. Breath. It's just one number. It's not a big deal.

AHHHH!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I feel so.... mathematically insecure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flavius Infernus wrote:

cottonjaw wrote: I'm fairly convinced that the Bladestorm will outperform the Deathrain vs. MEQ's and TEQ's and DEFINITELY vs TEQ /w SS @ 18". The Fireknife @ 18"? No contest, Bladestorm again, for sure. I'll run the numbers tonight after work.

At 18" sure. That still drastically favors the short-range suits.

But the real test would be compare the two over the course of 3-4 turns starting at range 42" with the target closing 9.5" per turn (average infantry running speed). In that comparison, the deathrain begins to outperform the bladestorm against MEQ in the third turn of shooting, and comes close vs. TEQ in about the fourth turn.

Ehh.... that's more getting into playstyle/opinion IMO. Trying to keep this as objective as possible. I generally can get 2-3 turns @ 18". It's all about putting intervening cover between you and your would be assaulters, smart use of LOS blockers etc. etc. If you prefer a "play it safe" style, I'm sure it's possible to get more rounds of firing out of a Deathrain squad, but honestly, I just don't find them potent enough to commit to that style of play. Think of AP2 like our "power weapons". If someone took a really survivable assault army with just basic troops and no power weapons... people would shoot it down, and with good reason. It wouldn't have any potency.

It also has a lot to do with strategy. I haven't played with Bladestorms yet, but generally, I would have my commander + fireknives + helios squad all rapidfire into the most dangerous squad. Lather, rinse, repeat. You don't have to worry about how close your would-be assaulters are, if they are dusted. Pretty adherent to Mont'Ka, as it turns out.

But if you're using some other strategy, and splitting your fire, so you need 3 or more turns of shooting to take out a single squad and it's working for you by all means, go for it! I'm not putting these numbers up here to say that a specific suit is THE way to go for every situation, or to debunk someones way of waging war.. I'm putting these numbers up here to assist in decision making when you're going to shoot at a specific target. (I.E. :Is it worth shooting these terminators with Deathrains.. just because the Terminators are close by? Or should I shoot the henchmen for greater effect?)

Cottonjaw wrote:
The thing is... Team Leader + TA isn't very effective on Deathrains... and I can't imagine a competitive list that didn't include at least one FOC slot occupied by Deathrains. That being said, you've got basically two slots that are going to want Team Leader + TA upgrades. Thats 30 points. What the heck are you going to buy with 30 points? Some Kroot? Half a piranha? Fire...*gag* Warriors? If it's not giving you enough points to buy another XV8 or XV88, it's probably not worth it. The "model count" arguement basically boils down to "Suit Count" for Tau lists. If you can strip a few upgrades or a shield drone or two in order to field another suit... go for it. Otherwise... it's probably not worth it.

Of course there is little point using Deathrains as Team leaders. My favourite combo is Fireknife Team Leader + two Deathrains with Targeting arrays. That's loads of S7 dakka and BS4 Plasma is always handy. You can take some Drones if you want, or do some Wound allocation.

I'm a big fan of Deathrain, but one thing which Fireknife and Helios have going for them is Markerlight support. Deathrain is almost independent of Markerlights, which is nice on low points games...but with just two Markerlight hits you can improve your Fireknife team to BS5...oh la la. That makes a big difference, whereas two Markerlight hits do relatively little for Deathrains, unless it's a vehicle in cover.

I know its not part of any basic suit line up but could you add in the CIB as far as effectiveness goes? From what I hear it gets a lot of flak being 3,4. It seems more worth while to take PR for them based on rage, ap, and strength

Thanks for this! Good info!

Good work. The only problem is the assumption that all shots are taken from 12 inches. If that is the case, then your suits are probably dead agaisnt all the current power armies.

I still say you should analyze stealth suits in your main article with the 2 gun drones. Stealth suits are overlooked quite unfairly, and when shooting at MEQ in cover the stealth suits outperform everything else.

Also, your article should have a section about markerlights. Markerlights make TA and twinliked weapons much less efficient compared to simply more shots. You dont have to go crazy, I think just 1 column where the suits count as BS5 would be fine, to show the PPK in that circumstance, which also lets people see if the costs of markerlights are worth it.

For example, you rightly point out that the sarge upgrade with TA is worth it most of the time... BUT not when you have markerlights. This distinction is very important when your goal is math-hammer with tactical analysis, as you cant ignore the force-multiplying effects of things like markerlights in any serious tactical analysis.

DevianID wrote:I still say you should analyze stealth suits in your main article with the 2 gun drones. Stealth suits are overlooked quite unfairly, and when shooting at MEQ in cover the stealth suits outperform everything else.

Also, your article should have a section about markerlights. Markerlights make TA and twinliked weapons much less efficient compared to simply more shots. You dont have to go crazy, I think just 1 column where the suits count as BS5 would be fine, to show the PPK in that circumstance, which also lets people see if the costs of markerlights are worth it.

For example, you rightly point out that the sarge upgrade with TA is worth it most of the time... BUT not when you have markerlights. This distinction is very important when your goal is math-hammer with tactical analysis, as you cant ignore the force-multiplying effects of things like markerlights in any serious tactical analysis.

Not a bad plan. I might look into that.

Also, the CIB is discussed briefly as a termie killer at one point.

I'm willing to take a look at stealth suits as well. Might change the article name to "Tau Math Hammer" instead of "Crisis Suit" since I've already included Broadsides, at one point.

I've been wanting to get into anti-tank #'s as well, since that's always fun.

You have to remember that those fireknife suits can engage an enemy armor as well as infantry at a very good range. I have considered the use of the Helios configuration, but I keep running into that low 12" range. Against any kind of mobile infantry (fleet units, jump packs, or bikes), you will only live to fire once. With the deathrain and fireknife configs, you can pull back and fight at a safer distance if need be. Besides, If I want S5, I have firewarriors and devilfish. Suits are (at least in my lists) there to kill light vehicles and termies (or FNP units that over saturation of S5 can't handle).

bdix wrote:Good work. The only problem is the assumption that all shots are taken from 12 inches. If that is the case, then your suits are probably dead agaisnt all the current power armies.

That's a bit of a pessimistic outlook to be honest. Yeah...ok...we don't have a great army and every battle is tough for us. However I am probably not alone in saying that Tau players are probably the most tactical out there at the moment (Disagree? Yeah some of you will but I stand by that..) and can turn a battle from going bad to good. In games where the dice are against you then your loss seems all that much painful but I'm still happy with my Tau bar a few things.

Let's face it - even with the best plans people will close in on suits or take them out with dedicated AT weaponry (leaving your H-Heads and DF alone!!!) to ID them. Saying they will all be dead by 12" is stupid though. I've had many a game with suits left and often use 12" towards the end of a game to mop up leftover units. In fact that's my best tactic - start long with MP and close in on units that have been depleted to gain the 2 MP and 2 PR shots. Filling all your suits out in one way is bad though as you really restrict what they do. After reading this thread and I am tempted to use a team of 3 with 2 Deathrains and a Fireknife and then a squad of Bladestorms.

You've done a lot of hard work there. How did you calculate the probabilities -- I mean, what equation did you use?

Regarding Feel Know Pain.
The overall effect of FNP is to halve the number of wounds suffered. However, weapons that cause Instant Death or having AP1 or 2 cannot be saved by FNP.

Fireknife and Deathrain were classic suits in 3rd edition. Deathrain in particular was needed to stop the "Rhino Rush". Now that IoM armies have lots of cheap vehicles again, it's not surprising that Deathrain should make a comeback.

The argument against Bladestorm is that the rest of the army has plenty of S5 AP5 weapons already.

Range should not be ignored. Longer range weapons obviously allow you to engage from a safe distance. They also bring a wider selection of targets within reach each turn. If you have a Missile Pod, you will almost never lack for a potential target.

Kilkrazy wrote:The argument against Bladestorm is that the rest of the army has plenty of S5 AP5 weapons already.

That's if you run Firewarriors in your list. Most Tau players I've seen on here always take the bare minimum of them, and stick to a mechanized army.

Range is by no means being ignored. Throughout the guide I state that longer range suits will get to engage first, that these numbers only refer to a single round of shooting, and that, as always, ymmv. I simply wanted to illustrate a "best case scenario" for each suit. If you want to know how effective a Bladestorm is @ 30"... go ahead and roll zero dice to hit.. and then... zero dice to wound.. and then... roll zero saves.. and... yeah.

The suit by suit analysis is provided for people who aren't very good with numbers/younger people. The numbers are the objective/fact portion of the guide and I emplore you to please take what you will from it, and leave what you won't.

On the same token, I think the numbers show that "shooting at terminators with deathrains" could replace the household phrase "it's like screaming at a wall".

The goal here was to help provide information on target priority and knowing what your actual "soft targets" were, with a particular loadout. Everyone knows shooting Guardsmen with anything is going to kill some guardsmen. But is what suit you are choosing to engage an effective use of points you've spent already? That's the point.

Could you math hammer the chances of each suit load getting pen/glance against AV ranges?

DevianID wrote:One thing I want to add is this... cover!

Say your burning eye, the best at MEQ PPK at 44, shoots at marines in cover. That jacks up their PPK to 88. Meanwhile, the missilepod version is at 108. So, not such a big difference anymore--but the missiles have that 108 effectiveness at 36 inches compared to the burning eye's 12 inches.

Burning Eye and Helios, being ap2 or greater, will see the most use versus FNP models out of cover, and models with a 2+ armor save and no invuln like sang guard (who will also most likely have FNP too), and since units like sang guard are assault oriented, you better hope you kill them with your shooting or your dead.

Also, something to consider is stealth suits--the younger brother of the crisis suit I suppose. If you run the numbers on stealth suits with drone controllers (gun drones) you should find that they are some of the most efficient shooters.

Points: 50 (Stealth Suit and 2 Gun Drones)
Dead GEQ = 1.25 + .93 = 23 PPK
Dead MEQ = .333 +.25 = 86 PPK
Dead TEQ = ½meq = 171 PPK
Dead TEQSS = TEQ = 171 PPK

So on first glance they dont seem the best... BUT they are 100% effective at 18 inches instead of 12, get stealth fields, the drone attacks cause pinning, and are just as good at killing MEQ in cover as they are in the open. When compared to the 'better' suit options shooting at units in cover, these guys kick major butt since half their wounds wont go away. You also get 30 shots for 300 points in a single unit, with 18 wounds. Granted they stink at dealing with 2+ FNP units, but most things do.

This unit also gets perhaps the largest boost from markerlights, as its pretty much the most shots in a single unit your gonna get, doesnt already pay for extra BS, and can make use of the pinning bonus as well.

I like firestorm suits, but they compete with stealth suits- 150 points of firestorm vs 150pts of stealths....its a tough call, but I'd rather have stealth suits for the points. They have more advantages for the same shots(although they have missle pods for transport duty destruction, the advantages of stealth suits outweights that).

Let me try and get some clarification here. Basically the PR and BC with MT is the most effective for killing enemies, when it is at range. in other words when all the suits are at range it is the most deadly period. now from what I hear people argue that they prefer fire knife b/c it has distance plus the chance it can kill vehicles and troops, etc. Then going to the opposite extreme you have death rain, better at taking out vehicles than fire knife. But as Cottenjaw stated the MP is not very effective against Meqs, etc. Could these, excluding shasvre and special war gear be said to be the top 3 choices for battle suit load out, with of course all of them at range for their respective weapons, meq killer (Blade Storm, vehicle killer (Death Rain), and then the middle ground (Fire Knife) that is not as good as the other two at either job, but could perform both tasks. does this seem to be on the right track? if so does this mean that their is no purpose to taking any other combo for you non shasvre crisis suits?

Actually, it isn't quite like that.

As he hasn't really mathhammered vehicles yet, I don't want to discuss the vehicle destroying load-outs.

The best GEQ killer is the Firestorm. The best all-around is the blade-storm. (PR/BC) - which is actually superior to the fire-knife in all areas. (Though the Fireknife has more ability against vehicles than the blade-storm, just not that much more).

There is purpose to other combos. TL Flamer suits, for example, are risky, but they can flay horde armies like no other suits, and at a cheap points-level... each weapon has strength in which other weapons can't out-do them, and so there is no ultimate loud-outs.

I will still take:
Fire-knife
Blade-storm
Fire-storm
Death-rain
Helios

And such load-outs despite some being better at averages than others... because they all will out-do each-other at some point...

The Bringer wrote:Actually, it isn't quite like that.

As he hasn't really mathhammered vehicles yet, I don't want to discuss the vehicle destroying load-outs.

The best GEQ killer is the Firestorm. The best all-around is the blade-storm. (PR/BC) - which is actually superior to the fire-knife in all areas. (Though the Fireknife has more ability against vehicles than the blade-storm, just not that much more).

There is purpose to other combos. TL Flamer suits, for example, are risky, but they can flay horde armies like no other suits, and at a cheap points-level... each weapon has strength in which other weapons can't out-do them, and so there is no ultimate loud-outs.

I will still take:
Fire-knife
Blade-storm
Fire-storm
Death-rain
Helios

And such load-outs despite some being better at averages than others... because they all will out-do each-other at some point...

This.

I ran bladestorms tonight. They are very decent at killing MEQ's and TEQ's. Fireknives still have their place though. I played two games with 1/1/1 bladestorm/fireknife/deathrain and that seems to be the idea loadout. The deathrains pew pew transports. The bladestorm fight infantry. The fireknife supports whatever area you are having trouble in.

Seems good. Full batrep later. Too much booze. Sleep now.

Alright sweet thanks for clarifying!

mega_bassist wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The argument against Bladestorm is that the rest of the army has plenty of S5 AP5 weapons already.

That's if you run Firewarriors in your list. Most Tau players I've seen on here always take the bare minimum of them, and stick to a mechanized army.

The basic Devilfish has five S5 AP5 shots and can be upgraded. The basic Hammerhead has six, plus the pieplate shot. The basic Broadside has four. The only core unit that doesn't have S5 AP5 is Kroot.

A typical medium size Tau army is probably going to have two Devilfish, a Hammerhead, and a couple of Broadsides. That's 24 S5 AP5 shots.

I'm not saying the Bladestorm is pointless, just that people should look at any unit within the context of the rest of the army.

Kilkrazy wrote:

mega_bassist wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The argument against Bladestorm is that the rest of the army has plenty of S5 AP5 weapons already.

That's if you run Firewarriors in your list. Most Tau players I've seen on here always take the bare minimum of them, and stick to a mechanized army.

The basic Devilfish has five S5 AP5 shots and can be upgraded. The basic Hammerhead has six, plus the pieplate shot. The basic Broadside has four. The only core unit that doesn't have S5 AP5 is Kroot.

A typical medium size Tau army is probably going to have two Devilfish, a Hammerhead, and a couple of Broadsides. That's 24 S5 AP5 shots.

I'm not saying the Bladestorm is pointless, just that people should look at any unit within the context of the rest of the army.

All of those units are forced to take S5 shots. Broadsides will rarely fire SMS, Hammerheads it's the cheapest way to field a sub-munition capable railgun... again those burst cannons will generally be out of range and Devilfish.. well.. that's all it's got.

While I do agree with you, we do have a lot of STR5.. we also have a lot of high stregnth weapons to take out high toughness/armor value. What we lack, is weapons with solid AP. We have two that can be fit on Crisis suits. One of those two is the Fusion Blaster, whos range kind of limits it's effectiveness. The Plasma Rifle is an obvious choice... but what to pair it with? A missile pod is less effective for pure infantry pew pew... so... The Bladestorm fills right in. By all means, don't go hacking up your Fireknives yet, however.

I have played three games since writing this tactica... and it seems like, for me at least, 1/1/1 with Bladestorms + Fireknives + Deathrains is the most effective. Depending on points level, the Bladestorms should get a TA'd team leader first, then the Fireknives... never the Deathrains... if you really have that many spare points, drop their flamers for TA's.

Kilkrazy wrote:

mega_bassist wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The argument against Bladestorm is that the rest of the army has plenty of S5 AP5 weapons already.

That's if you run Firewarriors in your list. Most Tau players I've seen on here always take the bare minimum of them, and stick to a mechanized army.

The basic Devilfish has five S5 AP5 shots and can be upgraded. The basic Hammerhead has six, plus the pieplate shot. The basic Broadside has four. The only core unit that doesn't have S5 AP5 is Kroot.

A typical medium size Tau army is probably going to have two Devilfish, a Hammerhead, and a couple of Broadsides. That's 24 S5 AP5 shots.

I'm not saying the Bladestorm is pointless, just that people should look at any unit within the context of the rest of the army.

Herp Derp, you're right. I didn't think of the Gun Drones/Burst Cannons from Devilfish/Hammerheads

I actually play a list that I feel covers all the bases @ 2000:

HQ:
Shas'el Centurion (CIB + PR + TA + HWMT + DC w/ 2 SD)
XV8 Bodyguard Fireknives x2 (PR + MP + TA + HWMT)

Elites:

XV8 Crisis Team Leader Firestorm (BC + MP + TA + HWMT)
XV8 Crisis Suit Firestorm x2 (BC + MP + HWMT)

XV8 Crisis Suit Deathrain x3 (TWMP + Flamer + TA)

XV25 Stealth Suit Team x5

Troops:

Firewarrior Team Leader
Firewarrior x11

Firewarrior x6

Firewarrior x6

Fast Attack:

Pathfinder x5
Devilfish (DP + MT)

Pathfinder x5
Devilfish (DP + MT)

Gun Drone x8

Heavy Support:

Broadside Team Leader (ASS + TL + DC w/ SD x2)
Broadside Suit x2 (ASS)

Hammerhead (Dual BC + DP + MT + TL)

Hammerhead (Dual BC + DP + MT + TL)

With the number of S5 shots I throw out between the large squad of (largely static) Firewarriors supporting the Crisis suits and Broadsides along with the other Crisis suits with more S5 shots and the random Devilfish and Gun Drone fire to cause a few wounds and penning, I generally can cause enough saves against MEQs for them to fail (of course, I have seen a single Librarian save 12 times before ). Having the Hammerheads along with a TL Broadside team allows me to spread the S10 AP1 goodness around the field. Deathrains continue to do what they do best, and the Centurion with Fireknife Bodyguard team usually gets the job done against TEQs (I just have to keep them alive which is hard sometimes).

I need more games under my belt with this build but so far, I think the Firestorm is an excellect suit, especially when I go against GEQs.

Agreed. Firestorm is an excellent GEQ killer, but it lacks the potency to deal with heavilly armored infantry, which are a majority in todays gaming meta.

I'm going to get back into this.. I've been distracted by building Chaos Daemons.

Remember.. AP2/1 are the power weapons of shooty armies!

its a shame they cant take many of them


Automatically Appended Next Post:
i mean look at tau, the most shooty army in the game, even then you can only take a handful of "power weapon shooty" units, wheras a space wolf army can have every single model equipped with power weapons

Yeah, the Tau really lack a 'combi-melta' 5 point option that the SW have. Imagine if you could have a cheap 1 use combimelta on your suits, in addition to everything else, for 5 points. That one change would greatly alter the Tau's abilities.

it would also make them so overpowered its not funny

Using a melta gun on a suit usually means death for that suit in the opponents following turn, even with jet packs. To get melta they'd need to be w/in 6" and with the jump they would end their turn less than 12" away from the enemy unit that was riding in said vehicle.

who said anything was riding in it?
fantastic way to kill predators vindicatorsl eman russes hellhounds basilisks other artillery fire prisims falcon grav tanks you name it it kills it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and with the capability to deep strike a squad of melta's? as additional shooting? nuts

Bear in mind that deep striking is not only imprecise, but deep striking into melta-range poses a large mishap threat; there's a good chance that your model might be destroyed before it even does anything, or placed out of the way.

I also fail to see how Fusion Crisis deep-striking is any different from Termicide, DSing Obliterators or landing an MM drop-pod behind a tank, or is it just overpowered when the Tau (a currently hamstrung codex) do it?

deepstrike imprescise? tell that to my frequent tau opponents rolls, hits every single time

couple that with the ability to fire multiple melta weapons at different targets, then you get one nasty unit, have a squad of thos enad it quickly becomes rediculose

Tyranic Marta wrote:deepstrike imprescise? tell that to my frequent tau opponents rolls, hits every single time

couple that with the ability to fire multiple melta weapons at different targets, then you get one nasty unit, have a squad of thos enad it quickly becomes rediculose

OT: Could you please grab a dictionary at some point? An error here or there is fine, but 'imprecise' and 'ridiculous' are easy enough to spell; it just makes Dakka look a bit better

Back on topic; yes, deep striking is imprecise. Your opponents may hit a lot, but it's only a 2/6 chance, the other 4/6 are scatters of anywhere from 2" to 12". Even a scatter of 2"-4" could mean the difference between in melta range and out of melta range, with anything over about 8" meaning you're usually out of range altogether. That's if you're even on the board before Turn 4/5.

A crisis team also pays for those melta hits; a unit of 3 suits with TL fusion blasters and target locks is 144pts and doesn't have the luxury of an invulnerable save or 2+ armour save that terminators get, or the drop-pods that loyalist SM get.

It's no different than what other armies already have.

Avatar 720 wrote:

Tyranic Marta wrote:deepstrike imprescise? tell that to my frequent tau opponents rolls, hits every single time

couple that with the ability to fire multiple melta weapons at different targets, then you get one nasty unit, have a squad of thos enad it quickly becomes rediculose

OT: Could you please grab a dictionary at some point? An error here or there is fine, but 'imprecise' and 'ridiculous' are easy enough to spell; it just makes Dakka look a bit better

Back on topic; yes, deep striking is imprecise. Your opponents may hit a lot, but it's only a 2/6 chance, the other 4/6 are scatters of anywhere from 2" to 12". Even a scatter of 2"-4" could mean the difference between in melta range and out of melta range, with anything over about 8" meaning you're usually out of range altogether. That's if you're even on the board before Turn 4/5.

A crisis team also pays for those melta hits; a unit of 3 suits with TL fusion blasters and target locks is 144pts and doesn't have the luxury of an invulnerable save or 2+ armour save that terminators get, or the drop-pods that loyalist SM get.

It's no different than what other armies already have.

QFT

Your average scatter dice roll will scatter 7 inches, 2/3rds of the time. That's pretty inacurrate when we're talking about a gun, that has an av14 pen range of 6". Especially with the ability to field rail guns. Sunforge = Fail configuration

it still comes down to the fact that most armies where this suit choice is applicable are armies where tanks are going to be almost everywhere anyway, this means that even if you miss your deepstrike, unless you land on terrain there is a good chance that your shots are going to be in melta range of SOMETHING

Sorry about my previous post in terms of spelling etc, i was typing quickly and hurridly before i had to go somewhere, usually my posts are pretty good, sos for the inconvenience, oh and before anyone pulls me up on punctuation, i fail at that anyway so give it a rest lol

Helios setups wreck around where I play, but this list has opened my eyes to all kinds of new info. Thanks.

Nice summary. I've been arguing for a long time that Fire Knife is more versatile and deadly compared to Death Rain. Nice chart.

Very interesting read. The bladstorm is something I'll have to consider.

Question -- any chance of a discussion on the Sun Fire (HW MT, MP, PG, FB)? While it can only be taken by Team Leaders / Bodyguard / HQ, it always has the correct weapons for any situation, which will help in efficiency in most games. At least, thats how I think it should work...

The new FAQ specifically states that the multitracker allows you to fire two weapons at once, so you would never be able to fire all three.

Cottonjaw wrote:The new FAQ specifically states that the multitracker allows you to fire two weapons at once, so you would never be able to fire all three.

Thats true, but I've never tried to fire all 3 at once. I pick the two that are most relevant at the time. Turn 1 and maybe 2 I run them like they are fire knives. Turn 3 they become Helios if I need to light up a terminator squad, for example. At the end of the game, if they are still alive, they become fire knives again because I'm likely having to shoot across the board.

In other words, I pay a 12 point premium to be able to run the optimal suit configuration based on the situation. Your data, though, makes me wonder if I should run them as Plasma, Bust Cannon, Missile Pod config -- it saves a few points and may be more effective overall.

I run a typical squad like this:
Sun forge team leader w/ bonding
1x Fireknife
1x Helios

I have 3 plasma, 2 missile pods, and 2 fusion guns in the squad which gives me solid all around firepower and I can use wound allocation to my advantage.

If I were to run the numbers against all types of enemies (GEQ, MEQ, TEQ) would the extra points I pay for this config give me a better all around efficiency, or am I wasting points. Another question is, am I better off replacing the Fusion Blasters with Burst Cannons to save a few points and does my effectiveness increase overall?

To answer my own questions, I spent a LOT of quality time with excel. I duplicated all of the data from the begining of this thread, as well as generated a bunch of extra.

To calculate what configs are most efficient, i average the suites performance at killing GEQ, Vet EQ, MEQ, TEQ, and TEQ w/ SS in points per kill.

Observations of note:
Stealth Suites weigh in at a very, very reasonable 47.4 points per kill. Of course, they have issues punching through armor saves, but its a good bench mark.

Pretty much the worst config you can build to kill infantry in general is the Firesurge (MP+FB) or Twin Fusion suit.

The most efficient build you can make is Twin Burst Cannon w/ Targeting Array at 41.7 Points per kill.

The most efficient firestorm team lead config isn't adding a Targeting Array, but instead Twin linking the Burst Cannon with the missile pod, at an average of 48.8 points per kill (average). That makes the firestorm team lead the 3rd most efficient config you can build per point. Its still terrible at killing TEQs though.

Twin linking the burst cannon on the Bladestorm is essentially the same average effectiveness for fewer points than a TA. Note that this config gains effectiveness against GEQs at the expense of effectiveness against MEQ and TEQ.

The sun fire config (PG, FB, MP) isn't very efficient as a Team Lead or Vre, though it picks up efficiency as you increase BS (thus an El or O is an OK config). It makes up for poor efficiency with good all around numbers on kills though.

The unnamed config (lets call it a fire blade) of (PG, MP, BC) has pretty much the higest kill rate of any of the configs being outstanding at killing GEQs, while also having long range firepower and the abiility to still crack MEQs and TEQs. However, its efficiency is middle of the pack running around 55 points per kill.

If you want to mix suites to maximise wound allocation, it looks like combinations of the Fire Blade Team Leader with PG, MP, & BC, mixed with a Bladestorm and a Fire Knife is about the best all around bet. If you're really, really wanting to kill terminators & MEQs, a Sun Fire + Helios, + Fire Knife is a good combination.

Anyone have any tips on how to calculate the Cyclic Ion Blaster? I can't tell if its better or worse than a Burst Cannon. My guess is the CIB is better, but I can't prove it and I'm not quite sure how to calculate it in excel...

Thanks for sharing this info, it's really helpful.
And looks like I have to try bladestorm.
Any idea should I take CIB for my commander (with fireknife)?
Looks like im using fireknife/deathrain/bladestorm 1/1/1 too.

-unforgiven-

the unforgiven wrote:Thanks for sharing this info, it's really helpful.
And looks like I have to try bladestorm.
Any idea should I take CIB for my commander (with fireknife)?
Looks like im using fireknife/deathrain/bladestorm 1/1/1 too.

-unforgiven-

CIB is only marginally better than a Burst Cannon and fills the same role/range at a much higher cost. If you like the chance to roll a 6-fest and melt some faces, then go for it. For pure competetiveness (lol @ tau competetiveness)...go PR/BC.

Endgame wrote:Anyone have any tips on how to calculate the Cyclic Ion Blaster? I can't tell if its better or worse than a Burst Cannon. My guess is the CIB is better, but I can't prove it and I'm not quite sure how to calculate it in excel...

The CIB is only marginally more effective than the BC, and significantly less efficient... but it does offer the opportunity for epic rend rolls.... it's all about your own personal preference and if the 11 point difference is going to mean more than just 1 less Fire Warrior for you. If you can afford it... take it.

As some of you may know, I'm active duty Navy, and recently have been mobilized. I will be back at updating/providing new content to the Tau Mathhammer thread towards the middle of June.

Sorry for the delay!

Great crunch of the numbers this will help my build balance out for the tourny coming up here at the end of the month

Since I pretty much duplicated the OPs data for killing infantry, I went ahead and modified my excel spreadsheet for chances to destroy vehicles as well. I'm only calculating for a vehicle destroyed result, so I don't factor in the fact that you can glance a vehicle to death with weapon destoryed or other similar situations. I'm about 95% sure the numbers are accurate, but its possible I botched something I'm not seeing. I also don't know how to import the excel like the OP into the post, so I'll try this with code tags. For this first post, consider the range to be 6" (I can adjust very quickly in the spreadsheet, but I can't type it all in quickly at all)

*EDIT* Looks like code tags didn't work at all. Here is the data in a very hard to read format.

*EDIT 2* crude spacing with dots to make it more legible.

Suite Config................. ARM 10 | PPK ARM 10 | ARM 11 | PPK ARM 11 | ARM 12 | PPK ARM 12 | ARM 13 | PPK ARM 13 | ARM 14 | PPK ARM 14 |
Broadside
TLRG,.A.S.S...................62.5%............128............52.1%.......153.6...............41.6%.............192.............31.25%..........256............20.83%............384
TLRG,.TA........................74.1%............108............61.7%.......129.6...............49.3%.............162.............37.04%..........216............24.69%.............324

Deathrain
TLMP,.Flamer.................37.5%............125.3.........25%.........188..................12.5%.............376..........
TLMP,.TA.........................44.4%.............119.3.........29.6%.......178.9...............14.8%.............357.75..........

Firestorm.&.Teamlead.
MP,BC,MT.......................37.5%.............133.3........16.7%.......300..................8.3%...............600
MP,BC,TA,.HWMT.........50%.................130..........22.2%.......292.5................11.1%.............585

Firesurge.&.Teamlead
FB,MP,MT........................65.5%............82.4..........54.9%.......98.4..................43.1%.............125.4.........30.1%..........179.5............24.3%...........222.17
FB,MP,TA,HWMT...........87.3%............67.5..........73.1%.......80.7.................57.4%.............102.7.........40.1%..........147.1............32.4%...........182.1

Bladestorm.&.Teamlead
PR,BC,MT.......................29.2%.............198.9........8.3%.........696
PR,BC,TA,.HWMT.........38.9%..............187.7......11.1%.......657

Firekife.&.Teamlead
MP,PR,MT.......................41.6%..............148.8........25%.........248...................8.3%...............744
MP,PR,TA,.HWMT.........55.6%..............138.6.......33.3%.......231..................11.1%..............693

Helios.&.teamlead
PR.FB,MT........................57.1%............108.4.........46.5%.......133.3................34.7%.............178.6.........30.1%..........206...............24.3%...........255.1
PR,FB,TA,HWMT...........76.2%............101............62.1%.......124.1.................46.3%.............166.3.........40.1%..........191.9............32.4%...........237.6

Piranha
FB....................................53%................113.2.........38.2%.......157.1................34.7%.............172.8.........30.1%..........199.4.............24.3%...........246.9
FB,TA..............................68.8%..............101.7.........50.1%.......137.5.................46.3%............151.2.........40.1%..........174.5............32.4%...........216

Hammerhead
RG,2x.BC,TA.................88.8%..............180...........46.3%.......345.6.................37%................432............27.8%..........576...............18.5%...........864

From what I can tell, statically speaking the Deathrain isn't really all that great. Its beaten by a number of suites at shooting at Arm 10 & Arm 11 though it has the edge in efficiency there. Against Arm 12, its loses out in efficiency and in percentage kills to anything with a Railgun or Fusion Blaster.

It general, it looks best to shoot Missile Pods at Armor 10 & 11, Railguns at Arm 12 & 13 & Fusion Blasters at arm 14. Thats easier said then done though, as you need to get quite close to make those fusion blasters sing, and FB Piranhas are pretty big targets.

I think I'm less inclined to take Deathrains in general. Their efficiency is terrible against infantry, and they aren't THAT much better than Fire Knives against Arm 11 & 12.

Also, the Railhead just isn't very efficient at all, but you kind of need them floating around when you're bringing along Devil Fish and Piranhas for the extra armor saturation.

How about some more Mathhammer? This time, lets look at how the sunfire works vs the Dread Knight and if Marker Light Drones are viable from an efficiency standpoint.

I have recreated the OPs Dreadknight numbers, though my Cyclic Ion Blaster numbers seem to be slightly better than his. Something interesting happens on the 3 weapon suites when we start looking at 2+ Saves on T6 -- the 3 weapon suites ideal configuration is generally more efficient than the other 2 options. For example, the Sunfire is 3 configurations all merged into one suite -- the Helios (FB, PR), the Fire Knife (MP, PR), and the Fire Surge (MP, FB). The Helios is much more efficient against T6 2+ saves -- so much so that the 3 weapon suite is more efficient than either the fireknife or the fire surge.

Sunfire (FB, PR, MP, HWMT) Numbers
Team Leader -- BS 3 -- .61 Dread Knight wounds. 129.3 wounds per point
'Vre -- BS 3 -- .61 Dread Knight wounds. 137.5 wounds per point
'El -- BS 4 -- .82 Dread Knight wounds. 121.5 wounds per point.

The nice thing about the Sunfire here is that, unlike a helios, it isn't useless early in the game, still acting as a fireknife until the big nasties get in close.

Markerlight drones are something else that I took a look at.

*Edit*
Removed due to faulty calculations. Marker drones are BS 3, not 4. Doh!

swap gun drones for shiled drones and i would be terrified at this, currently my head is saying drop a battle cannon on them at 72" range, to avoid losing the squad you need to have more shield drones over the gun drones, which probably arnt going to be doing much anyway, i play against tau frequently and he always disembarks his gundrones from his DF's and they do jack diddelly, even when he gets inrange for a shot or two, Honestly not worth it with all the fearless stuff floating around these days, if they had an extra shot drop the pinning fine but no, they arnt good here, take ur shield drones

been testing bladestorm suits and man they are nice especially when you need some extra points got my local tourny this saturday should be fun.

thanks for the mathhammer break down im running 2 bladestorms and a leader fireknife they have it all

One of the mathematical problems that the math doesn't show is the problem of wound allocation. As a reminder, you can stack wounds how you like. This means that mixing weapons is sometimes horribly ineffective because of the way allocation works. Case in point:

I shoot nothing but plasma at 2 plague marines not in cover. One plague marine is the sergeant. Sadly, there is no saving the plague marines.

I land 5 plasma wounds and 4 burst cannon wounds on the 2 plague marines. I stack all 5 plasma wounds on the normal marine and stack all the burst cannon wounds onto the sergeant. The sergeant gets his armor save and feel no pain against all 4 wounds.

You would actually be better off not shooting any of the nonap2 weapons.

Also, The chart is skewed because it doesn't factor in range. Consider that the deathrain has the most range and it's efficiency goes up. The extra range means more available shots and less risk to the suit in general.

scuddman wrote:One of the mathematical problems that the math doesn't show is the problem of wound allocation. As a reminder, you can stack wounds how you like. This means that mixing weapons is sometimes horribly ineffective because of the way allocation works. Case in point:

I shoot nothing but plasma at 2 plague marines not in cover. One plague marine is the sergeant. Sadly, there is no saving the plague marines.

I land 5 plasma wounds and 4 burst cannon wounds on the 2 plague marines. I stack all 5 plasma wounds on the normal marine and stack all the burst cannon wounds onto the sergeant. The sergeant gets his armor save and feel no pain against all 4 wounds.

You would actually be better off not shooting any of the nonap2 weapons.

Also, The chart is skewed because it doesn't factor in range. Consider that the deathrain has the most range and it's efficiency goes up. The extra range means more available shots and less risk to the suit in general.

I agree with all of this. I was cringing at some of the conclusions because a factor of range and wound allocation. Because of this I feel that some suits are getting a better rating than they should.

Its pretty easy to adjust for range in the excel, and I believe the OP did show the math for different range bands.

The big thing with the math hammer is that it can show you the optimal layouts. All you have to do is play it well

For example, who would have guessed that, on average, a squad of crisis suites is more efficient with a marker drone that without? I wouldn't have.

Endgame, you stated that marker drones hit 66% of the time, but drones are BS2 and the marker drone has a TA for BS 3, making it hit only 50% of the time, right?

SO, adding a single marker drone is only half as effective for 3 suits as buying TA for the 3 suits (in terms of BS improvement) while also giving you a t3 s4+ model in the unit that causes a morale check if it dies in your 3 suit 1 drone squad.

In any event, your statement about a crisis suit squad being more efficient with marker drones is demonstrably false all the time. You never want marker drones ever if your only goal is points per hit. You would need to redefine what you find efficient in the context of suits with marker drones other than points invested on the squad for damage payoff.

Take a suit with missile pods, plasma rifle, multitrack. You get 1 missile hit and 1 plasma hit for 62 points.

If you take a leader with 2 marker drones, the cost per model in a 3 model group is 65/3+62, or about 84 points.

25% of the time, you will get no marker hits. 25% of the time, you will get 2 marker hits. 50% of the time you will get 1 marker hit.

With 1 marker hit, the average marker hit you get for 22 extra points, you end up with 1 plasma hit and 1 missile hit for 62.75 points per hit. Seeing as the suits without the leader were 62 points, the extra points you spent did nothing to increase your damage output. And seeing that Tau can field 9 such suits, unless you are playing a very large game you are simply better off buying more suits and support elements than by overspending on the existing suits you have.

I'm going to need to check the codex -- I thought for sure the Marker drone was BS4 with the integrated targeting array, but I never considered using them before due to the 30 pts each. I'm quite confident they are a waste if they are only BS 3, since after a quick check in excel as it drops their efficiency below that of just running extra suites.

I wouldn't factor the cost of the leader into the cost of the drones though, since you'll be taking the team leader upgrade anyway. Still, at 10 points per suite, you just don't pull ahead efficiency wise (though you still will get extra kills which might be important for one shotting a squad).

Endgame wrote:I'm going to need to check the codex -- I thought for sure the Marker drone was BS4 with the integrated targeting array, but I never considered using them before due to the 30 pts each. I'm quite confident they are a waste if they are only BS 3, since after a quick check in excel as it drops their efficiency below that of just running extra suites.

They are BS 3.

Marker Drones do sort of have a place if you run out of suits (9 being the magic number).

Why do you take a team leader anyway? Whats wrong with 3 regular suits?

As to DarknessEternal, I agree that marker drones start becoming an option if you run out of efficient shooting options elsewhere... BUT isnt that a pretty high point game?

9 suits is ~550 points, 9 broadsides ~700 points, hq for 100 if your going cheap, troops 200+ points, more likely to be 500ish points. I think I would rather pathfinders and HQ bodyguard suits before marker drones... much cheaper/better I would think.

DevianID wrote:9 broadsides ~700 points,

Broadsides are mostly nonsense. I would never take more than 3.

Well considering that MSU is king, and MSU is weak versus broadsides, I disagree.

This is really good work, thanks man

DevianID wrote:Why do you take a team leader anyway? Whats wrong with 3 regular suits?

Per the OP data, Team lead with Targeting array is always more efficient point per point than a stock suite. Its also an upgrade you're going to take if you want to bring drones, or have bonding for some reason.

For Fire Knife and Helios variants, the 'Vre w/ targeting array is also more efficient than a stock suite, so if you're running 6 Fireknives, you may want to consider 2 'els with body guard units before you dip into the elite slots.

I agree about the leader for drones, but the issue with targeting array is that if you plan on using markerlights then its not as useful, since it caps out at BS5 anyway.

I would run 2 deathrain squads anyway, who dont benefit from the targeting array 'vre, with the third suit squad still up in the air, but the 3rd would benefit from the 'O who has shield drones.

Why the love for the Deathrain squads? A stock deathrain (TLMP + Flamer) is the least efficient all comers config you can buy outside of twin linked fusion blaster. The only time it takes the lead in points per kill is against Arm 11 and thats at long range (Helios & Firesurge are more efficient at 12" and less). I understand running one unit just to hang back at long range and lob missiles across the board, but multiples seem like a bad buy unless your adept at always keeping the enemy over 24" away. Honestly, if you're wanting to kill Rhinos, a squad of Firestorms will probably do the trick at long range while having substantially more anti infantry punch at 18".

*Edit*
I get the thing about the Marker lights, but how many are you packing in a list? Normally I don't see more than one squad benefiting from the marker lights, so ideally I think you want one big squad to take advantage of that (2x Els + 1 Elite Slot of 3 Suites) and then the other squads with a targeting array to keep the number of kills up.

Deathrain is so well loved because of the exact reason you said... arm11 at range. To put it in perspective at the last few events I have been to the winning list was 3 rhinos 6 razors and 3 dreads all packing psycannons or death cult. So getting close is really bad and with 9 arm 11 vees you need the most efficient tool for the job which is death rains

So after play with lots of bladestorms at my tourny on saturday i got to say they are very nice wounding is slightly better than PR MP combos and saves alot of points basicly i did 2 bladestorms 1 PR MP leader for my crisis squads and they performed well above expectation esepecially against orks and nids the extra shots help eat them up, and against deamons dropping right in my face the combind 14 shoots fomr eat team melted them back to the warp.

DevianID wrote:Deathrain is so well loved because of the exact reason you said... arm11 at range. To put it in perspective at the last few events I have been to the winning list was 3 rhinos 6 razors and 3 dreads all packing psycannons or death cult. So getting close is really bad and with 9 arm 11 vees you need the most efficient tool for the job which is death rains

What do you do when you pop the vehicles though? My experience has been that I kill the Rhinos and then the missiles just bounce off the Marine Armor. One unit of Death Rains w/ Targeting Arrays seems to be plenty since you'll still have missile pods on the other builds, they just aren't quite as efficient against ARM 11.

DarknessEternal wrote:

DevianID wrote:9 broadsides ~700 points,

Broadsides are mostly nonsense. I would never take more than 3.

That is... terribad advice.

Broadsides are the best unit in our codex. Hands down.

Im surprised at bladestomes efectivenes. Hadent tried it out. Theyl be in my next game

MrTau wrote:Im surprised at bladestomes efectivenes. Hadent tried it out. Theyl be in my next game

You'll like em. Just be careful, 18" is dangerous territory these days.

18'' is dangerous territorry sure but i run two blade storm one fire knife and its nice. MP for transports and harrasing them one they close in the volume of fire chews them up especially daemons and hordes i find that one marines get close i can keep them at 24-18 inchs for a few turns usually eating through the squads before they can so much but this also works best with suit teams working in units of two. as long as your broadsides are hitting (believe me when they miss on turn 1 and 2 it hurts ALOT) you can easly engage marines in the peek-a-boo shooting and the back up shooting and hold down 3 squads at once if your full mech tau leaving you rails/ion guns and fusion blasters free to reach the damn dev squads. i find that to be the case for my list but it depends on broadside set ups hammer head and if you use pirhanas (love these guys)!

the deal with MP is they CAN kill light armor sure but when you need volume after the transport is gone or the gibbering horder of 18inch infiltrated nids/ DS daemons is right at your front door the volume will mean more

To all saying bladestorm is great again I say run stealth suits with gun drones. 50 points for 5 s5 with 2 being tl and pinning. Goes amazing with marker lights from pathfinders as with 2 lights you have 30 shots hitting on 2+ or better

stealth are to expensive and take up elite spot that should go to crisis suits they also lack utility

Atlas_garon... I think you missed most of the topic.

The current discussion is around bladestorm crisis suits. 58 points. 3 bs3 burstcannon shots and 2 s6ap2 plasmarifle shots at 12 inches.

My recommendation is 50 points. 3bs3 burstcannon shots and 2 s5ap5 tlbs2 pinning shots at 18. Stealth field. Infiltrate. Longer range for all 5 shots. More wounds. Lower cost per suit with larger squad size.

So cheaper, not more expensive like you said, same slot for the same firepower utility but with more options.

I would agree if we were comparing, say, deathrains to stealth suits, but we are comparing bladestorms as your 3rd elite in place of more deathrains or fireknives.

DevianID wrote:Atlas_garon... I think you missed most of the topic.

The current discussion is around bladestorm crisis suits. 58 points. 3 bs3 burstcannon shots and 2 s6ap2 plasmarifle shots at 12 inches.

My recommendation is 50 points. 3bs3 burstcannon shots and 2 s5ap5 tlbs2 pinning shots at 18. Stealth field. Infiltrate. Longer range for all 5 shots. More wounds. Lower cost per suit with larger squad size.

So cheaper, not more expensive like you said, same slot for the same firepower utility but with more options.

I would agree if we were comparing, say, deathrains to stealth suits, but we are comparing bladestorms as your 3rd elite in place of more deathrains or fireknives.

you mention further up stealth suits with gun drones ................ thats not bladstorm suits thats what im talking about any time tau lose a PR it hurts against mech thats my point that the blade storm keeps the PR and give a great volume my comment is on your steath suit suggestion with gun drones. its never woth the loss of our bread an butter PR.

back to my privious remarks after more testing of bladestorm against an our local ork player who won our tourny a few weeks ago its was beautiful wish i played him during the tourny would have been an easy win so many shots piling up and everything was killing his boys all the points save for the extra shot has been great while still keeping plenty of plasma chewing up MEQ armies. make balanced listing much eayer.

Ont he discussion of bladestorms vs Stealth Suites, the stealth suite averages 59.02 points per kill while the Bladestorm averages 49.3 points per kill. The only area where the steal Suite is more effective is vs Guard EQs -- everywhere else the Bladestorm is more efficient and generates more kills.

However, I think an argument can be made for running Stealth Suites with Marker drones as another marker light generating unit. Running a team of 3 with Teamlead w/ Markerlight & TA, and 3 Marker Drones runs 205 points and can rack up a few marker light hits pretty safely from a distance. There is also the option of maxing out the squad in larger games to not only provide marker hits, but to provide a ton of accurate burst cannon shots when the enemy closes, but I don't think I'd increase the number of stealth suites until after I had maxed out HQ Crisis squads and run a pair of Elite squads as well.

What sort of stuff would you use against a daemon prince? Fast targets like him with high t seem to give me grief. Similar to the dreadknight problem but with lower toughness and a 4+ Invulnerable (is that right?). your other finds might get spliced into my lists.

Definitely would stick to high powered weapons. 4+ invo is still going to fail half the time, and his high toughness is going to eat up dakka weapons (burst cannon). Also good is good old fashioned Pulse rifles.

T5 isn't the end of the world when your rapid firing shots that wound on 4.

What about when Lash is involved? range can often demolish crisis suits before they get to shoot back

mY personal favourite hardpoint loadout is plasma rifle, missile pod, and shield gererator, my shas'o has been saved countless times by his shield generator so i would say it's definatly worth the cost.

*nodding* yeah suits are often let down by a lack of invulny, and shiled drones are WAY to fragile

Shield drones, IMO, are more effective. You get 2 for 5 more points than the shield drone, that let you allocate wounds across them, and eat those nasty shots so that your commander can live.

Sure but the shiled drones are one wound critters that get wiped

why not throw some marker drones in their and make ur suits more effective

You can only have two drones and really, with marker drones already stupid pricing the last thing you need is a 30pt would taker. Even gun drones at 10pts are less effective apparently.

*shrug* I just know that markerlights are one of the most annoying sodding jammy bits of wargear i know of, at 30 points they are well underpriced for what they do, I would happily buy them at 45 and still gain out of the bargain

O come on. their not that good. at 45 I could get a whole extra suit and do evenmore damage, even if it only used one weapon

Sure, but lets say the thing that suit was shooting had a cover save, and that save ignored the shooting of the suits weapons

if you had taken the marker drone then that cover save could have been reduced, maybe enough to have that model die, perhaps enough to tip a leadership check and the squad runs away

of course you could say that not all madels are going to have a cover save, or what if the cover save failed

i say, sure what if the cover save failed? then congrats the system worked, what if you missed tho? an extra point of BS could have made the difference between a miss and a hit.

and thats on the squad, not only does that one suit get the upgrade, but so do all of his mates,

and additionally the drone only costs 30 points and so its more effective than a suit and its cheaper

I would rather take a gun than a gun scope into battle. Im not going to kill anything with just a scope.

The things arnt even networked are they?

*Shrug*

Your sniper rifle is no good if you cant see your target

niether is good without the other mate

and so what if they arnt networked, its no real issue

And still, a shield drone could save you for a turn letting you dubble the firepower directed at your opponent and a small 17% increace in accuracy. and thats only if the thing hits!
BS3 sucks

and S drones are only 20pts. I cant see why you would take one if you can get shield drones, and if you get drones at all.

weve both seen Evaelc take Five shield drones in a squad, switch that a round and thats 5 marker drones, at 150 points, sure that sounds like a bad deal, but believe you me, ive been fiddling with some lists and i can make one im confident with and thats before touching my elites slots, and in a 2000 points list with 1500 used, im sure you could take the time to by those 150 points of maker lights, personally i would be using them to deepstrike down and flick marker lights on a tank and then pound it with my railguns, while the rest of the squad fires at something else with (I think) Multi trackers?

Sounds good, as long as you get everything in their. Suits, HS, HQ, Troops. Adds up fast.

Sure

couple of squads of FW in Devil fishes

couple of broadside squads, pihrana's

and a hammerhead if im feeling lucky

then an HQ with the Marker drones in his squad

any extra points would go into more troops and potentially crisis suits

A little question: are these suits real? Because they arent in the codex

nocturne's wrath wrote: A little question: are these suits real? Because they arent in the codex

They're just names for different Crisis Suit loadouts.

Impressive work lad.

As a Tau player i can certainly appreciate this.

This thread has been bookmarked

I shall definately try the dakkasuit (Can't remember the name: BC and PR loadout), since my fireknives always seem a bit underpowered in the number of shots needed to wipe MEQs.
(Side Note and a bit OT: I didn't know the official name for the Deathrain loadout before, and just called it a "Party Popper" )

As for the Shield Drone vs Marker Drone Debate, I've only heard of one acceptable use for them: In a squad of stealthsuits, taking advantadge of the stealth fields and basically making it an expensive and fewer-shot version of Pathfinders, but with the security of the stealth fields reducing fire.
Otherwise, it's 2x the cost of a shield drone (30 pts vs 15), for not that much of a bonus (30 pts for a networked markerlight that hits 50% of the time). Shield Drones are solid gold for wound allocation, especially vs opponnents with a plethora of the S8+ ID weapons (*cough* IMPERIUM *cough*). The Gun Drones, while cheaper, can't take the AP4 or less shots, and basically force a Ld check waaay easier.
I personally run each crisis squad with a single Shield Drone (not enough pts for more than that), and while losing it sucks for forcing a 25% check, I'd much rather lose the wound on something that has a 50-50 chance to save it, and costs 15 pts as oppossed to a fireknife's 70, than a 30 pt drone that WILL die and costs half the points of the model controlling it.
The markerlight itself is nice, but for 30 pts you could add 2 pathfinders (So 1 markerlight instead of 1/2) with change, or a pair of shield drones that will add boatloads of surviveability to your suits. If you're going to add things that are better served by other units, why not give your FW EMP grenades and attach an Ethereal on to make a Fearless "Tank Hunter" unit...

(now speaking from my chaos point of view) Ive pretty much found that wasting my long range Ap3+/S8+ shooting at suits is a waste of time and can be better used on wiping DF's and HH's of the board. Also i tend to run a pair of Daemon princes so the shield drones often dont help as i spam to many hits for the drones to cope with and the suits at the back are forced to take wounds, more often than not i kill the suits without the drones making a save and thier points are wasted. If he had used Marker drones then he could very well have killed one or both of the princes before they got in range

I personally am unfamiliar with the weapon profile for the Princes, but unless you're spamming S8 Ap3 or better hits, the 3+Sv, 2W profile of a suit usually survives decently long, especially when aided by an invul save shield drone to take the S8 and/or AP3 hits.

While I commend you on being one of the few players who knows it's better to shoot the D-fish before targeting the suits, the suits are still the main dakkaforce of the Tau army, and the loss of any of them hurts for a Tau player. True, the +1 to hit may have helped them slightly, but if the suits are aiming for a daemon prince, a pair of fireknives will eat a daemon prince in only a turn or two even without the extra single markerlight.

Honestly, if he's on the board (The Prince), make no mistake, he will be a high target (especially with the whip), but at that point you just point a Pathfinder squad at them and get 3 or 4 markerlight hits for about 2x the cost of the drone (and his 0.5 markerlights). The markerlight drone is simply not a cost-effective choice for 90% of all Tau tactical scenarios.

Yea. The prince is a real nightmare. In dow, you can get first turn assaults easy; he has about a 30" threat range. Basically, if you’re in PR range, your toast if you don’t kill him.

Remember the other day. You tabled my entire 2k army with just your daemon prince and a squad of termies in land raider.
5 turns of railguns into the thing and i dident even pen it once.

Ledabot wrote:5 turns of railguns into the thing and i dident even pen it once.

^^ All 2s and 3s for pen rolls despite hitting every time, I'd bet. The followed by for my railguns has made me want to demote them to FW more than once... :/

My land raider has never been killed by tau

Ever

anyhoo

The DP is ws 7 s6 t5 i7 A4(5 on the charge)(the way i run him)
warptime (Reroll to hit to wound in cc)

two of these mofo's are quite capable of taking out 3-5 models in a Crysis suit team in one turn

Two terminators can wipe a crisis suit squad. Hell, a pair of vanilla marines probably could tag a wound or two on the charge. All tau, crisis suits included, are made for dakka, not smasha. If you're nailing Tau in CC, that means either he screwed up or got gak dice luck for shooting you up in the previous turns.

No it just means that DP's are one of the fastest nastiest anti infantry units in the game and Crysis suits are better of not bothering with Shield drones when going up against chaos because its a waste of points

...

I have played against daemon princes on several occasions, and even with 2 turns of rolling snake eyes, still managed to smear them easily. Not saying they're a crap unit by any stretch of imagination, but if my shield drone takes a krak missile or lascannon from an obliterator instead of my crisis suit, it was worth every penny.
Feel free to try playing Tau, and innundate yourself with Marker Drones. I hope I get to play against that army...

Im one of those different people who doesnt take obliterators, loves dakka predators and is convinced that rail rifles and ion cannons are good

They would be if current cover rules weren't extremely forgiving. Otherwise, Rail Rifles and Ion cannons would be an excellent alternative to Fireknives for killing MEQs. As-is, however, not so much. One day, though, they'll hopefully rock ass again, and I can dust them off and bring them back into a viable list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I personally believe a dakka predator fills the role of an obliterater waaay better.

*Nods* I know exactly what you mean, and to be honest i find ionheads far more efficient HS choices for anti nid work than anything else Tau can take

(Getting OT, but...) Hmmm. If I knew what type of nid swarm I was fighting (Horde or big bugs), that'd be the deciding factor between ionheads and railheads, since the submunition shot is the only really effective pie plate (and, iirc, the only one outside of the AFL or the Failsafe Detonator), but would be far less effective vs a MC (which would have a hell of a time getting the pesky 4+ cover vs the ion cannon shots). In that case, the Burst Cannon/flamer combo for suits would be nice, but probably more efficiently served by boatloads of FW in any case for sheer volume of dakka to mince the swarms or overwhelm the bigger bugs(Yay for wounding on a 4/5+!)

To be honest i would have to say that a fire warrior spam with a few Ion heads with some pathfinders to sap down on the cover save they always seem to take would be best

Agreed. Pathfinders are basically a prerequisite for FW spam. If only they'd remove the need for the damn clunky D-fish... :(

no no no

dont by a DF for the fire warriors, then with the pathfinder scout move you can take them out and start of the game you put the fire warriors in

I buy one if you dont have some from your pathfinders.

Prerequisite for D-fish meaning the pathfinder one, not for FW spam.

Anyhow, back to topic: Does anyone have a particularly treasured Commander loadout for his suit? What about particular tactics to go along with it?

I personally am champing at the bit to try Farsight and 7 Flamer/burst cannon suits and DS them into the middle of a horde army or something (That could turn out horribly however...)

darkPrince010 wrote:Prerequisite for D-fish meaning the pathfinder one, not for FW spam.

Anyhow, back to topic: Does anyone have a particularly treasured Commander loadout for his suit? What about particular tactics to go along with it?

I personally am champing at the bit to try Farsight and 7 Flamer/burst cannon suits and DS them into the middle of a horde army or something (That could trun out horribly however...)

I am really partial to the Centurion build (PR + CIB) along with 2 Fireknife Bodyguards. Makes them efficient anti-heavy infantry.

How well does the CIB work for you? It always seemed like an underpowered, overcosted BC with rending imho, but I may give it a shot eventually if it's not complete rubbish (AFL, anyone )

Its not even good rending. If it had rending it could damage AV11. But it just gives it Ap1...

Rant over.
I use a PR, MP, AFP combo. The AFP sort of does the same thing as a Burst cannon but you get to play with a pie plate too! Bit expensive though at 20pts.
So were both guilty of using overpriced wargear...

Sure the CIB cant damage vehicles, but really? if your using an anti infantry weapon to kill tanks then theres something desperatly wrong anyway. That thing can kill a monstrous creature with ease on the rending side of things and you say its not good rending? My DP would be scared of that thing if it ever got in range

Well, you can usually find 10-20 pts lying around after making a Tau list, so splurging a bit on something fun isn't nessesarily a bad thing (One day, I shall give my a Shas'o an ejection system. one day...)

darkPrince010 wrote:How well does the CIB work for you? It always seemed like an underpowered, overcosted BC with rending imho, but I may give it a shot eventually if it's not complete rubbish (AFL, anyone )

Honestly, it depends on how well I roll 6's that day. Of course, the CIB destroys Dark Eldar, Imperial Guard, and other T3 models because of the high rate of fire.

Hmmm. I may have to give that a try someday. That and Iridium Armor on a shooty commander.

darkPrince010 wrote:Hmmm. I may have to give that a try someday. That and Iridium Armor on a shooty commander.

I like Iridium Armor because it boosts the saves on Shield Drones to 2+ as well. An 'El with Iridium armor and a pair of 2+ shield drones can join a squad and eat krak missiles for lunch. If you really need to get away with the rest of the squad, the Iridium armor 'el can leave the squad and move in a different direction, hopefully keeping one of the two alive to shoot another round.

That's an awesome idea. I was always hesitant about the reduced JSJ from the armor, but I guess splitting him off would work great (Hell, throw in FnP's stimulant injector, and you could probably take anything that doesn't have the word "Power" in it )

Marta. the CIB is s3, it's only going to wound a carnifex on 6s and i get ap1, that seems like a bad deal.

I liked iridum armor before everyone started to run my commander into the ground. Why does everyone i play have power weapons?

carnifex's arnt the only monstrous creatures ledabot
greater Daemons? hive tyrant? etc etc

and everyone plays power weapons around our haunt because they are so frelling effective

oh hey you up for a 2 v 2 at mine this coming sunday/monday? call jiv see if hes interested if you are and ill talk to Josh

Marta, ill pm u.

And yes i know about other monsterus creatures but they still remain at t5 and above, still needing 6s to wound. not worth it.

mkay
still found them effective in simulations

but whatevs i dont really mind tbh considering that the only MC i ever use is the DP

Per my own calculations as well as those by Cottonjaw, the CiB is pretty much more efficient than any other weapon you can drop on a suite. Hard to argue with Math.

Thanks for the vindication mate

Now you see my point ledabot?

In situations where the Burst Cannon (The most efficient weapon in our arsenal) is denying armor save, the Burst Cannon is marginally more effective, and marginally more efficient.

In situations where the CiB's wounding on at least a 5, the CIB is marginally more effective, and about as efficient.

In nearly every other situation, the CIB ever so slightly more effective and efficient.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and it should be noted that you truely don't need to worry TOO much about efficiency until you are splitting point hairs, to try and squeak out that last bit of effectiveness from your list.

Efficiency is especially helpful in low point cost games.

*Shrug* By and by large im just trying to put my two cents worth in and get an overall feel for whats nastier, im a chaos player at heart and that isnt changing

Does the cib really do more than twice the damage of the burst cannon. holy smoke! I do hold a gruge against it for the somewhat less effective version of rending that it has.

Plasma is forever the best weapon, right?

Ledabot wrote:Does the cib really do more than twice the damage of the burst cannon. holy smoke! I do hold a gruge against it for the somewhat less effective version of rending that it has.

Plasma is forever the best weapon, right?

The plasma rifle is the anti-infantry weapon hands down. The burst cannon is only better in situations where it's ignoring armor (Orks, Guardsmen) or where the plasma rifle has to face a save better than 4+ (Stormshield).

Making Plasma Rifle + Burst Cannon absolutely the most effective and efficient killer of infantry that you can field.

If you could field TWO of a gun, instead of twin linking.... then things would get interesting. Namely, I would probably be running around with Plas/Plas suits. Especially since it don't get hot.

Meh personally for me it would Be Cib Plasma, Good versus the midgits and the biguns and everything in between