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What happens if you don't go first, and lose your pathfinders? While I like the concept of pathfinders, I've basically given up on them as a markerlight source. Since they can't move/shoot, they have to expose themselves to something before they can shoot (unless you get first turn and scout your way within 36". So...you either have to zip them around, drop them off somewhere and then hope they get ignored before they get to shoot, or you put them where they can see something at the beginning and hope they don't get shot. It doesn't take much to kill them.

So, if your pathfinders don't get to shoot (I realize they should only need to shoot once and you'll get close to the 4 markerlight hit you need) then the piranha's seeker missiles don't get to be used. Not the end of the world, but not what you want to happen.

You're paying 15 points each for those Crisis suits to have BS4 instead of BS3. Not sure it is worth it, but maybe with so little plasma you need to do it.

What are the Vectored Retro Thrusters for? I've played around with them but haven't been impressed. Too many power fists. It is nice to be able to escape but it never seems worth the points, since you're paying for it and the premium for getting a Shas'o instead of an 'el

Making the Shas'o a Shas'el, dropping the seeker missiles, and making the crisis suits BS3 would net you...95 points. Not quite enough for a team of Deathrains but close. Or you could use some to make the Ionhead a Railhead

Admittedly, I don't dislike any of these things - I just feel that with the pathfinders unlikely to be able to do what they need to do, some other things in the list become less optimal too.

6 man stealth squad feels big to me - you have a lot of str5 ap5 shots elsewhere, and the stealth squad is dead meat in any assault, so it may as well stay small, harrass and flank light targets and try to score at the end.

Anyway other than the pathfinders being a big "shoot me!" target I don't see any other things that are real problems. Every other unit is fine and effective. And maybe I just don't know how to use pathfinders, sometimes they work fine but 8 weak dudes with heavy weapons and LD 8 don't seem to get to shoot much. Maybe give them two gun or shield drones and a bonding knife to keep them around, but then that just makes them more expensive.

Well, low leadership is a problem of pretty much all tau armies, unless you just keep everything in a vehicle and run around. There are ways around it, but for the most part they aren't worth the points.

Anyway, aggressive or not I just don't see the value of the pathfinders for the points. You get to shoot with them first assuming your opponent doesn't hide the things they want to shoot or stand them more than 36" from the cover you're in and you go first. Yes, mobile vehicles are the biggest threat to them but I would assume most things you want to mark have as much range as you do, and you have to stand still to shoot them, so you have no way to maneuver for a shot or hide once you've committed to trying to get a shot.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just difficult and depends on your opponent. Maybe, if your piranhas and devilish are barreling down on them your opponent will pick them over the pathfinders as targets, but I doubt it, it's too tempting and easy to put 3 or 4 casualties on them even if they're in cover for most armies. I just feel that outside of going first, they are extremely vulnerable, as they basically have to expose themselves to fire before they can shoot. Maybe you'll be able to limit that exposure and still get the shot you want (or at least a decent one) but there are a lot of other tau units that get to do what they do well regardless of the situation and don't cost 236 points.

As for anti-tank, I think we really only need to worry about armor 13+... which leaves you with 5 units that can really do anything, 6 if you count the pathfinders as who is shooting the seekers, and three of them require pretty extreme close range. This is someplace where a second railhead instead of the ionhead would really come in handy. I like the ion cannon, but I still pretty much always take the railgun - the ion cannon can be duplicated or approximated elsewhere with things like rail rifles or firekinves, but the railgun (especially the hammerheads dual-use one) can only be gotten one place.

Devilfish are really fragile. 120 point devilfish are really fragile and expensive and don't do anything that special (120 points for 4 BS4 str 5 shots, 7 if you expose yourself to fire? Your vehicles can be shaken too so talking about shaking the enemy to protect yourself goes both ways)

Lootas are range 48 but of course suffer some of the same problems the pathfinders do with exposure to fire, they can just stand further away and tend to have better leadership. Having played almost this exact list against orks for a long time SMS aren't that effective against trukks and buggies (4 shots, 8/3 hits, 8/18 glances 8/18 penetrates)...crisis suits do that job way better (a 53 point deathrain - 2 shots, 16/9 hits, 16/54 glances 8/9 penetrates is significantly better for much cheaper and easier to hide, and effective against armor 11 and 12).

SMS are about as effective as it gets against bike eldar or other hidey units. Can't argue there. especially since the other effective counter, get in their face and assault them, is not really available to tau.

Firewarriors are effective against orks as a gunline. Pathfinders again have to live but definitely help - but you can get markerlights elsewhere, such as sniper drones or in the FW squads. You can get a LOT of kroot for the points you spent on the firewarriors, and they're pretty effective shooting against orks too. Don't benefit from the Pathfinders though, but of course they do some other things. I guess it depends on the amount of terrain you tend to see in tourneys if they're going to be more effective.

Anyway, I'm sure this list will be effective for you against a lot of armies, but I don't feel that it is optimal because of the pathfinder's weaknesses. The rest of the army is just personal preference I'd say. And pathfinders are just borderline, I don't think they're specifically god-awful, just not effective in every game and that isn't something you really want in a tourney take-all-comers list I think. Maybe it's unavoidable to have units that aren't going to help much or get blown away early sometimes.

I agree that pathfinders are the cheapest way to get a bunch of markerlights

I agree that one tank is no tank - I often play with three hammerheads (though I've cut down to normally using two recently)

I understand the idea of considering the devilfish to be a seperate weapons platform. I don't really like it though so that does color my perception of the value of the pathfinders, since you're forced to take it.

I don't think you can just look at the other units and say "that's 80 points for a markerlight, or thats 85 points for a markerlight" since you're paying for more than just the markerlight. For example, if you:

turned the two FW squads into 4 min sized FW squads with markerlights - 80 points each (or 85 if they take a target lock) 320

turned the ion head into two sniper drone teams - 160

You'd end up with 6 markerlights, 6 str 6 ap3 bs3 shots to replace the 3 str 7 ap3 shots (with more survivability early game). You end up with about the same amount of pulse fire (you have two more firewarriors. This costs 480 points. The FW squads, pathfinders and ion head you have now cost 481. Yes, you have two less markerlights, but now they're spread out so your opponent can't kill them all by looking at one unit angrily. And you get to keep all three devilfish. And you get LD 8 in all those FW squads.

I'm not saying this is optimal (you'd end up with one railhead this way, so I'd end up trading the broadsides for another railhead...and then I'm just turining your list into my list which is dumb and not helpful) I'm just saying that the cost of markerlights is not just the cost of the unit, when you can cram them into things you already buy or things that can replace other things and be similarly effective. I think this method makes the markerlights much more effective, even with two less, for the reasons I stated before about the difficulty of keeping pathfinders alive while still getting to shoot.

One solution to the pathfinder problem that I've tried before is giving them two gun drones, and/or sticking something like an etheral in their unit or putting shadowsun on the board, both of which deal with leadership issues pretty well, but are otherwise probably a waste of points - I don't actually recommend them for a serious tournament army, but who knows. Too bad the command and control node is just for target priority tests. But making them have to take 3 casualties instead of two to take a test (and making them not lose markerlights with the first two casualties) seems worth the 20 points if you're going to take the pathfinders.

Two mobile railguns isn't significantly worse than one mobile one and two static ones. They're also more flexible. And you said yourself you have a lot of other anti-tank in the army in the form of fusion. Plus, the amount of strength 7 you can put into a tau army in the form of missile pods can help against armor 13 in a pinch (a squad of 3 deathrains can get something like .9 glances a turn against armor 13...not good, but not terrible if necessary).

Why do you need a shas'o instead of a shas'el? I'm not sure what the extra wound and leadership point do for you for the 15 points extra (shas'el with CIB, Missile, TA, and HWMT is 92).

Well, with your stealth-suit dropping plan, you're left with 17 points, plus the 15 you got reconfiguring your shas'o. So with 15 more, plus the 8 you have since your total was only 1842, I'd get another Deathrain and make them a pair. This would use up the points you had earmarked for Targeting Arrays on your piranhas though. And I liked that idea (didn't notice you didn't have them before).

And yes, the third broadside will keep them from running after the first casualty.