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I've grown bored lately with my Eldar and have decided it's time to try something else out. I don't see a ton of Tau armies lately and so I figured I'd go for something I've always wanted to try... mech tau!

HQ:
Shas'o (AFP, CIB, HWMT, Stims, Targeting Array)
I don't like Tau HQ choices but this guy seems capable of some interesting horde devastation? Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

Troops:
5 FW + Shas'ui with BK
+ Devilfish (SMS, D-Pods, MT, TA)
5 FW + Shas'ui with BK
+ Devilfish (SMS, D-pods, MT, TA)
5 FW + Shas'ui with BK
5 FW + Shas'ui with BK
Basic (?) min sized troop choices riding in warfish, the two squads w/o their own transport will ride in the pathfinder DFs, once again any advice appreciated.

Fast Attack:
4 Pathfinders
+ Devilfish (SMS, D-Pods, MT, TA)
4 Pathfinders
+ Devilfish (SMS, D-Pods, MT, TA)
Not sure what the average amount of markerlights people really want to use in their armies these days. Is two squads of 4 going to be enough? Is it too many? Help me out Tau vets!

Heavy Support:
3 Hammerheads (Railgun, Burst Cannons, MT, D-pods, TL)
Tau have pretty amazing and versatile heavy choices and I'm really drawn to the idea of Hammerheads, am I missing the boat here?

Total: 1496 points
Pros:
4 Scoring mounted units, 4 AV12 and 3 AV13 skimmers with a nearly permanent 4+ cover save!
Cons:
KPs might be a little restrictive for this army? From my understanding each unit is a KP and each transport is a KP so we're talking 14 KPs?

If you're a Tau vet or even a non-tau player who has had a lot of experience playing against mech tau please feel free to chime in!

Avoid using so many shortcuts, I'm a tau player and I'm sitting here doing a "WTF is a BK, and can I have fries with it?!)

I don't think that with 6 man fire warrior squads that you really need a leader and bonding knives. Save the points.

Instead get 3 stealthsuits so that your Shas'O who is totally unsupported can gain the benefit of stealth armor, plus have some ablative wounds in case someone fires a missle launcher at him. At a minimum, if you opt not for stealth suits, attach 2 gun drones to him and use cover for the 4+ save it confers.

Also a Shas'o doesnt' need a targeting array, he's already BS5.

If you have a target lock on the hammerheads, you might as well as have some SMS's as well. Range is king, especially if somehow you manage not to have LOS. I'd have to read up on the AFP and CIB. I've always been in love with running a plasma gun, fusion blaster and missle pods on my Shas'O's but then again I don't really understand 5th edition too well, maybe the anti-horde play is better. I'd still go the anti-vehicle route, as it stands you have just 3 railguns (which is nice, but one more.... especially with stealth suits supporting would be really sweet.

personally i would drop most of the toys from your commander and run him with an airburst, missile pod and shield gen, or a drone controller a 2 shield drones, and add in a hard wired multi tracker, makes for a nice versatile commander,

on another note, drop your Shas'ui's all together and make bigger firewarrior squads, also drop the toys from the devilfish's other than D-Pods for again more firewarriors

personally i have never used Pathfinders, however they may just work in this kind of army again drop all the toys for more firewarriors or in this case pathfinders if you prefer, also what about Piranha's give em meltaguns and combine them with the pathfinders they are pretty decent anti tank units and late game objective contesting

hammerheads are good but again drop all the toys apart from D-Pods and iirc hammerheads get target locks for free anyway

looks like a solid list, i am also a fan of lone Crisis Suits with 2 shield drones and T/L Fusion Blasters and Missile Pods with Hard wired Target Locks to Deepstrike in and blow up enemy tanks/oblits when i used my tau they always worked for me and gave the enemy another thing that was mobile with decent weapons to worry about

hope this helps

@Sazzle: My thinking on the bonding knife for each FW squad is that they count as scoring down to the last man and being able to regroup below half strength is nice for that?

@99MDeery: The SMS on the fish is a must for me, as they're the main shooty in this army with FWs intended to provide hop-out-and-shoot mop up if necessary. With that premise aren't targeting arrays a good investment? Any more insight on that topic would be appreciated. I'm trying to avoid Gun Drones on vehicles as they are a HUGE killpoint risk and pale in comparison to SMS.

I'll see what I can do to get SMS onto the railheads I'm a huge fan of them. I'll have to tinker around a bit with commander options. The shield drone + fusion blaster and missile pod combo looks pretty interesting, I had completely brain dumped that he could deep strike.

I also agree that SMS is the way to go on the devilfish. I run mine costing at arounf 125pts each, decoy launchers are interesting, only 5 pts, probably take that as well.

Remember that the pathfinder devilfish have beacons on them for deepstriking your jump pack units.

Personally... your firewarriors and your pathfinders are all disposable, if you have extra points for the BK's do it, I would run 6 man squads instead of 5 man squads with toys. They are disposable units at that size, so i wouldn't waste my time trying to make them resilient.

Whats your plan to save your HQ from Str8 + long range sniping?

I'm kind of curious as to what you're hoping to accomplish with 6-man FW units as troops, they seem terribly fragile and unable to pump out a proper amount of firepower. To be able to shoot after dismounting they need to be within 12" of whatever they want to shoot at to Rapid Fire. 12 shots, BS3 or 4 still isn't an amazing amount of death making against Marine armor or Ork numbers. If they don't kill literally everything within assault range, those 6 Tau are going to be wiped out with half a thought.

Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge of the Tau, though? Is the rest of the list able to support such small numbers of FW? Or is it that the Fire Warriors inside are mostly just there as scoring troops where the vehicles do the vast majority of the killing?

I've had my share of playing against Tau, and here's what I'd say:

Aside from the Hammerheads, there's nothing in the list that's truly threatening. The bulk of your anti-infantry comes at 24" range from the SMS, which are decent but not overwhelming. Against anything with cover saves or power armor, your 5-man FW squads won't have the weight of fire to stop them. The problem is they'd hop out, fire 10 shots, then get blown away, and you'll be down a scoring unit for little in return. And that's if you decide to use the FW to shoot, instead of flying around to score and contest.

Overall, the list would be fairly resilient against long range shooting, but it would have trouble doing damage at range, which is rather un-Taulike. I'd seriously consider at least two units of TL-MP Suits.

Decoy launchers are worthless now. We use the same chart for each roll, only -1, or +1 or 2 depending one what's going on. So Decoy Lauchers only work 1 out of 6 rolls.

SMS is a must in a mech tau list using DF's, but you also need them on your Hammerheads. Multi-tracker and Disruption Pods are a must. You dont need Target-lock unless it's on the Hammerheads. Your DF's are anti-horde, while the Hammerheads can be for anti-tank, and then SMS for clean up.

A standard commander is still the Shas'el. The Shas'o is 25pts more for another wound and another BS. It's worth the points, but you can shave points by giving him a Targetting Array and a Hard-wired Multi-tracker. Letting him run close to the enemy alone is not good. It's a waste now that IC get killed really fast.

You dont need a BK for the FW's if they are only a 6man squad. Save the points. Markerlights are great, but only if you run mass numbers of them. Otherwise, you waste shooting sometimes.

I would try and fit 2 Crisis Suits with MP and Plasma as support at least. JSJ would help alot and cause a little panic with your mass armor flying around.

@Kirbinator: You are correct in assuming that the FW are just there to make the DFs scoring or in the rare instance that I think 12 pulse carbine shots might actually finish a unit off.

I'm still playing around with some ideas on how to fit a few more crisis into the list while keeping the pathfinders. Working on the commander also.

I'm with dorfdorf when he said overall you seem to be lacking firepower with this list, you might try throwing seeker missiles on every skimmer then use the pathfinders to instagib MEQ's one model at a time. However i fail to see what you are really going to use those marker lights for otherwise, most of what you are fielding will be at least bs4 anyways just seems like a bit of a waste of points especially when you are lacking armor piercing in any form save your 3 railgun shots.