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Hiya all.

Have been playing Tau since they came out and have been constantly tweeking them and poking etc to find a setup that works the best (though obviously that can differ mission to mission, I.E. lotsa burst cannon won't do much against a armoured company of the imperial guard)

For the Broadsides:- I have settled on the twin rail and S.M.S. as a standard and have decided to keep the advanced stabilisation system that allows the broadside to move D6 every turn and allows it to fire Heavy weapons in the shooting phase. I also never put them in teams as I prefer to field them on seperate ends of the battlefield.

For the crisis suits:- I always field them in a group of three, they are all armed with a missile pod and a multitracker each, then one has a burst cannon for troops, one has a plasma rifle for tough troops/light tanks, then one has a fusion blaster for the tanks. I find that this setup is very versitile for all occasions and rarely change any of the options. Though its easy for me to remove the "burstcannon crisis" and replace with another "plasma crisis" if I think I'm up against marines.

Would be interested in your thoughts "or critism" on the above. lol

i've been playing tau since 02 as for crisis suits i've never gotten close enuff to kill anything worth using a fusion blaster on without losing the whole team . burst cannons i save for stealths for anti infantry & general harassing . broadsides i have always used them in a team & use my hammerheads on the flanks to funnel the juicy tagets into the broadside kill zone . now w/advanced stabilization they can move more & hopfully are not deep strike bait . before that i always had one twin linked plasma in the team if thier confort zone got in question. that way they could walk away , shoot & hopfully stay alive,but waste a turn.i hope something from my rambling helped in some way

Versatility and Victory both start with V, but other than that they have very little in common in the game of 40k.

The key to victory is specialization. Crisis Suits are for mobile, longer-ranged firepower, unless you run a Monat (solo suit) who deepstrikes with fusion. The ideal setup, for me, is the Fireknife (plasma/missile).

As Longshot said, versatility in 40K is usually just a way to waste points trying to cover all bets with one unit. Better to have several units that each specialize in one aspect than several who all do the same jobs poorly.

Thanks for the input. I replaced the fusion blaster with another plasma rifle and it has improved my gaming, many thanks

I agree with shrew. I think burst cannons work best on strealth teams. The stealth generator and infiltrate get the suits into range and keep them out of trouble. I will run them in bonded units of 5. They will usually get assaulted and die, but they often make their points back by hitting heavy weapon teams.

I've never had much luck with fusion blasters on crisis suits. Deepstriking that close to enemy units is risky and the Tau have no shortage of tank hunting.

I run my crisis suits in two configs. One I run twin linked missle pod and shield generator. I also run the fireknife (missle pod + plasma rifle) and shield generator. Many players don't use shield generators because they are too expenisive; they might have a point! Regardless of the config, I think the missile pod is the best weapon you can give them. It has long range, high strength, and multiple shots. The STR 7 makes a mess of land speeders, Vipers, and with multiple shots can put enough hits on falcons to down them (~12 per game).

I suppose you could say why waste time and points on a fusion blaster when you can give then a plasma rifle or extra missile pod to handle other tasks, and leave the tank hunting to the strength 10 railguns sitting on the back lines.

No wonder the Tau tank crew have smiles on their faces

Fusion blasters are fine on commanders, they're not scoring units so it matters less if they die, and they have a better chance of killing their target with BS5.

Elites must have plasma and missile, you need both weapons for the wide range of targets out there.

Elites function without shield drones, but also do well with them (especially against basilisks and defilers).

Commanders benefit from the IC rule if not given shield drones, however I have heard of them having shield drones taken as this makes them harder to kill (especially when given fusion blasters where IC status won't help), and also an extra scoring unit (drones are a 15pt scoring unit each on a commander).

Posted By lord_sutekh on 11/01/2006 10:34 PM
The key to victory is specialization. Crisis Suits are for mobile, longer-ranged firepower, unless you run a Monat (solo suit) who deepstrikes with fusion. The ideal setup, for me, is the Fireknife (plasma/missile).

As Longshot said, versatility in 40K is usually just a way to waste points trying to cover all bets with one unit. Better to have several units that each specialize in one aspect than several who all do the same jobs poorly.

obsolutely

fireknifes are stil the best suit out there-,jumping, long range anti-tank, anti-infantry and anti terminator fire

 

thebest setup i have seen for a team is a squad of 3 with MP/PR and multitracker standard then upgrade the team leader and give him wargear-target lock, targeting array, drone controller and 2 shield drones. now you have a unit that can shoot all its guns on the move, , the team leader can hit at a better BS  and a secondary target if need be.  they have a good armor save and a good invul save on top of that.

 

 

Wasn't there something in the RAW that pretty much made Shield Drones worthless? I can't find the reference I'm thinking of. Something about removing models without armor saves first, along those lines?

Shield drones acquire the same Toughness and save as their controller, so they act exactly like the suit they're guarding, for wounding purposes.