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I didn't want to do a full-mech Tau list like everyone else, so this is what I came up with:

HQ
Shas'o - Busrt Cannon, Cyclic Ion Blaster, Multitracker, Stimulant Injector - 113

Elite
Crisis (x2) - Fusion Blaster, Plasma Rifle, Multitracker - 124

Troops
Firewarriors w/ Pulse Rifle (x10) + Shas'ui w/ Markerlight, Drone Controller + Markerlight Drone - 170
Firewarriors w/ Pulse Rifle (x10) + Shas'ui w/ Markerlight, Drone Controller + Markerlight Drone - 170
Firewarriors w/ Pulse Rifle (x12) + Devilfish w/ 2 Seeker missles - 220
Kroot (x16) + 2 Krootox Riders - 182

Fast Attack
Pathfinders (x7) + Shas'ui w/ Drone Controller + Shield Drone (x2) + Devilfish w/ 2 Seeker missiles - 236
Piranha w/ Fusion Blaster, 2 Seeker missiles - 85

Heavy Support
Broadsides (x2) w/ Drone Controllers + Team Leader w/ Drone Controller, Target Lock + Shield Drones (x6) - 310
Broadsides (x1) w/ ASS + Team Leader w/ ASS, Drone Controller + Shield Drones (x2) - 195
Broadsides (x1) w/ ASS + Team Leader w/ ASS, Drone Controller + Shield Drones (x2) - 195

It's markerlight heavy, has 6 seekers to help front-load first turn shooting, and a healthy array of shield drones to help soak up the damage.  The Kroot are to protect the static Broadsides as well as to lend a few rounds of mid-strength shooting.

Ooooof. 7 Broadsides is cool, and the 2 2-man units work. The big one? So many SD is unneeded, and you're Target Locking? Yeep.

Look at the math on incoming fire. Those SD are just as hard to kill as your BS against any small arms, which means you're taking 18 MEq Boltershots (or 4.5 Heavy Bolters (13.5 shots)). That's a load of fire. If they're dumping that much into your unit, great! Getting through all of that means 36 shots (or 9 Heavy Bolters) to get the 2 Shield Drones off a unit - or if it's only long range fire you're taking, a whopping 7 Lascannon shots before they can start removing Broadsides. 7! With 6 Shield Drones, those things will last three times as long- which is nice, but can't you use the 60 points elsewhere?

Speaking of using them elsewhere - you are paying 50 points per Markerlight hit out of your Fire Caste Warrior units. (Shas'Ui + ML + MLDrone = 50 points). Versus 24 points per Markerlight hit out of the Finder unit. It's way more expensive... which is fine if you can find appropriately juicy ROI targets enough turns, but I don't think you can. Do the math on how many Points Per Turn boost you get from Markerlighting different unit/target combinations, and you'll see what kind of units become cost effective to target... and how few there are when you're paying THAT many points for the markerlight hit.

The Finders can be very cost effective, but I don't think you have the unit mix to amplify in order to make sure you're getting the most out of them. Again look at the Points Per Turn boost above and figure out if you have enough of the right units and guns to use all 4 hits in a maximally effective manner.

Krootox? Wha? Stop it. Really, just stop. Now you're messing with me.

Posted By JTS1486 on 10/22/2007 12:35 PM
Krootox? Wha? Stop it. Really, just stop. Now you're messing with me.

On that count, I was.  70 points for an autocannon (effectively)?  Love it.

I'm going to have to do some of the math on this, as I'm not totally sold that the markerlights in the Firewarrior squads aren't worth it.  Perhaps just in one squad.

Am I overkilling in the number of Broadsides?

I do need a pair of Fireknives in this list as well.

I dunno, I was looking at markerlight FWs in my list instead of the typical 6 man guys with lawnchairs or the FoF units. No, they aren't the most efficient way to get marker lights but they satisfy your 0-1 FW requirement and 2 troop as well, and bump up the points in troops without going mech (helps softscores a bit I'd think).

Main issue now with krootox is the kroot squad loses infiltrate. Infiltrate is one of the best things about kroot. Taking a krootox when you can get essentially the same shooting on a JSJ platform seems kinda silly, especially when you have 2 elite slots open. Only reason to consider krootox would be after elite, HS and HQ slots are filled.

Iorek: the math should be illuminating, particularly when you consider that the FCW have to be stationary and that the leveraged unit will have to be shooting at the same target the FCW are firing against. Ask yourself this: which of my units will be shooting against the same target that my FCW will be firing at, and will that +1 BS to the shot be worth both (a) 50 points worth of other shooting units and (b) the potential shot doubling you could get if your FCW walked forward 6" to RF at the target unit.

The Krootox are a TERRIBLE buy; I'd never seriously consider them.  I had some free points in Army Builder and tossed 'em in for fun.  Heck, I don't even like Kroot that much.

The problem with seriously running the numbers is that JTS1486 is always right in the end (dammit).  It's hard to justify adding 50 points to a Firewarrior squad especially since many of their shots would be wasted.  I actually couldn't find a good place anywhere in the list for the markerlight drones; they're too expensive.  What this means is, "Does anyone want to buy a pair of markerlight drones?" 

I really wanted a Tau army with a fair amount of Firewarriors (I'm a big believer in troops) and lots of markerlights, not just markerlights from one squad of Pathfinders.  I think that the Sniper Squads are the best way to do this, especially because you can split fire amongst different targets as needed, they have a BS4, and the stealth field keeps them safe from most shooting.

Here's my revised army:

HQ
+Shas'el w/ Cyclic Ion Blaster, Burst Cannon, Targeting Array, HW Multi-Tracker - 88
        (this guy is designed to pump out 8 anti-infantry shots per round, and hit with 6+ pf them)

Elite
+Crisis (x2) w/ Fusion Blaster, Plasma Rifle and Multi-Tracker - 124
        (these guys are spot cleanup for trouble targets, especially indirect artillery; they can deepstrike when allowed, assisted by the Pathfinder's Devilfish on occasion)
+Crisis (x3) w/ Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod and Multi-Tracker - 186
       (classic Fireknives, the squad is three strong to get the most benefit out of markerlights)

Troops
+Firewarriors (x11) w/ Pulse Rifle + Shas'ui w/ Pulse Rifle - 130
+Firewarriors (x11) w/ Pulse Rifle + Shas'ui w/ Pulse Rifle - 130
       (The Shas'ui is there for the leadership boost)
+Firewarriors (x12) w/ Pulse Rifle + Devilfish w/ Targetting Array, Multi-Tracker and 2 Seeker missiles - 235
       (for mobility and objective grabbing)

Fast Attack
+Piranha w/ 2 Seeker missiles - 80
       (for harrasment, assault redirection)
+Pathfinders (x7) +  Shas'ui w/ HW Drone Controller + Shield Drones (x2) + Devilfish w/ 2 Seeker missiles - 236
       (For the bulk of the markerlights; they will be attracting a lot of fire, hence the shield drones)

Heavy Support
+Broadsides (x2) w/ ASS + Broadside Team Leader w/ HW Drone Controller + Shield Drones (x2) - 275
+Broadsides (x2) w/ ASS + Broadside Team Leader w/ HW Drone Controller + Shield Drones (x2) - 275
       (The meat of the heavy weaponry in this army; moderately mobile and a bit durable)
+ Sniper Drone Teams (x3) - 240
       (For markerlight support plus fire-splitting sniper drones)


This army list is more efficient if a bit more vulnerable to assault.  The drones from the vehicles will be detached and sit in front of some of the static squads to help soak charges.

-=Edit=- Heh, I'd already done that math by the time you posted that last bit, JTS1486.  You had me at Hello!

Actually, I wouldn´t sell those marker drones just yet. Lately more and more people, especially on the ATT boards, have been running with stealth marker teams. These teams consist of 3 stealth suits giving the leader a markerlight and a drone controller with 2 marker drones. Also, adding a target lock to the team leader means you can light up two different targets. The best part of these stealth marker teams though is that they aren´t sitting ducks like most other marker light sources are. You still get your assault move! Also being able to infiltrate is never a bad thing, and the survivability of the stealth field combined with the range of the markerlights means they will be pretty safe from enemy fire.

Therefore I would like to suggest testing this squad a couple of times before you sell those marker drones, they actually aren´t that bad.
Shas'ui team leader w/ Markerlight, Targetting Array, Hard-wired Target Lock, Drone Controller
2x Marker Drone
2x Shas'ui w/ Burst Cannon, Blacksun Filter

The Blacksun Filters are just there so that the team leader can take the targetting array. If you don't like the idea of spending 16 points to increase the leaders markerlight to BS4 than you can just drop those upgrades making the stealth marker team 170 points.

If you field this Stealth Marker Team instead of taking the Sniper Drone Teams, you will be able to split those 6 broadsides into 3 units of 2 broadsides again. Also, try to find some points to give those Crisis Teams some shield drones, they won't last very long without them.

I hope I have been of some help.
Airmaniac

I considered the stealth suit option, but I didn't like it for these reasons:
- If you're using the markerlights, you're probably not going to be shooting with the rest of the stealth team, so they're just sitting there.  Since the markerlights are heavy weapons, you also cannot Jump-Shoot-Jump with them either, which is one of the big strenghts of Stealth teams
- The cost is too much.  It's 170 for 3 BS3 markerlights; for an extra 70 points you get 3 BS markerlights that can split fire as needed, plus you get 9 sniper drones, all also able to fire at different targets.

Sure those sniper drone teams seem to offer more for their points, I just dislike the fact that they are basically nailed to the ground if they want to add something. Personally I don´t like things unable to move and fire. Sure the stealth team can´t move before firing as well, but they sure as hell can move after having fired, which gives you the chance to redeploy when needed without losing firepower.
Also, I feel there isn´t such a big difference between the amount of targets to be engaged by the stealth marker team or the sniper drone markers. I personally never feel like I really would have liked for my stealth team to be able to engage three different targets. The two different targets they can engage are almost always enough.

The two types of markerlight teams aren't really comparable though. Sniper drone marker lights should be compared to the other static markerlight sources of the army, while the stealth marker team is a bit of an inbetween category between the real mobile markerlights (namely the skyray and the tetra). Now back to the actual topic, your army list.

In my opinion your army list is way to vulnerable to assaults. Detaching some gun drones in midfield won't counter most dedicated assault units. Kroot really are the ideal speedbumpers for static army lists like yours, yet you haven't got a single kroot squad in your list. Do you dislike them or is there another good reason to not take kroot? Point for point they shoot better than your static fire warriors, can pushback enemy infiltrators and can serve as speedbumpers. You should really try to replace at least one of those static fire warrior teams with 2 kroot squads.

Airmaniac