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Head Quarters

1 Shas' o
Cyclic Ion Blaster 15 pts
Burst Cannon 8 pts
Shield Generator 20 pts
HW-Multi Tracker 5 pts


2 Crisis Bodyguard 70 pts
2 Fusion Blaster 24 pts
2 Burst Cannon 16 pts
2 Target Array 20 pts
2 HW-Multi Tracker 10 pts
2 HW-Drone Controls 0 pts
2 Shield Drones 30 pts

Elites

3 Crisis Suits 75 pts
3 Flames 12 pts
3 Burst Cannons 24 pts
3 Multi Trackers 15 pts


3 Crisis Suits 75 pts
3 Missile Pods 36 pts
3 Plasma Rifles 60 pts
3 Targeting Array 30 pts

Troops

12 Fire Warriors 120 pts
12 Pulse Carbine 0 pts

12 Fire Warriors 120 pts
2 Pulse Carbine 0 pts
10 Pulse Rifles 0 pts

12 Fire Warriors 120 pts
12 Pulse Rifles 0 pts

Fast Attack

2 Squads of 8 Pathfinders 192 pts
4 Rail Rifle and Target lock 40 pts
2 Devilfish 160 pts
2 Decoy Launchers 10 pts
2 Disruptor Pods 10 pts
2 Smart Missile Systems 40 pts

Heavy Support

2 Broadside Battle Suites 140 pts
2 multi trackers 10 pts
2 Twin Linked Plasma Rifles 20 pts

2 Broadside Battle Suites 140 pts
2 multi trackers 10 pts
2 Smart Missile System 0 pts





This is what I have so far so please tell me what you think and what I could do to improve it! Im trying to stick to a Commander Farsight list without having to use his model.

Hmm, why all the Burst Cannons on the suits? You have enough Str 5 AP 5 in your army, why not something else on them? Otherwise looks fine to me.

If you like suits & retinues that much you'd loose a few points (about 50) to upgrade ur HQ to Commander Farsight but ofcourse you couldnt have a second squad of broadsides or pathfinders. Still 1x3 broadsides + an all markerlight single pathfinder squad + some markerlights in your firewarrior squads, cant go wrong. Everything gets bonding knives too.

Otherwise all id suggest is get a multi-tracker for your second squad of suits.. your buying the most expensive ordinary weaponary to only be able to fire 1/2 its weapons.

15pts is worth a bonding knife, but thats just me. As is the firewarrior markerlight.

What i wanted to do with my Battle suits is Deep strike them behind enemy lines or just infront of them and with thier fire power and the new rules for template weapons i can reak havoc on the enemy. So i was thinking i could Make 1 squad of 3 Broadsides and then get a small unit of Kroot to use them as a shield for the battle suits. So What do you think about that now? Im just trying to fix all the holes in the army i can, maybe i could drop a patfindrer squad and put in another unit, what are you sudgestions that i could take?

Ahh looks solid as it is. Drop the plasma rifles in favour of one gun-drone for each broad-side squad for that extra ablative wound. Spare up another 10pts & turn them into shield drones.

Looks like a solid HQ retinue squad w/some serious dakka. Same goes for the flamer-battlesuits & again the plasma/missile suits look good too.

Just saying again, those plasma/missile suits really do want multi-trackers.

Keep the pathfinders, having 12 markerlights is a very good thing. Id suggest keep one mounted & give the other devilfish to the carbine firewarrior sqaud.

Burst cannons on crisis suits are generally considered an inferior platform for the BC with many attractive weapons choices and the fact that you can field them on stealth suits for cheaper most people try to avoid them on an XV8, if you think you simply must have them turn them into stealth suits instead they are cheaper and more survivable than xv8's

You have alot of horde control coming from your firewarriors as is so I would say find another role for your burst cannon/flamer suits. Also always always always put multitrackers on your suits if you have more than one weapon equipped

Furthermore I would say you are lacking in anti-tank weapons, yes broadsides are the tits mcgee for tank hunting but one melee unit could tie up/kill your only anti-tank weapons I would almost go so far as to drop the flamer/bc squad entirely in favor of a hammerhead, that will increase your anti-tank without sacrificing horde suppression

I could be wrong but don't pathfinders have a max of 3 rail rifles per unit?

well from my view i only see a few things i would do differently

first are the burst cannons and CIB on your crisis suits, as several have already said, they are a bit of a waste on crisis suits, your fire warriors with carbines have the same STR and AP and can pin so you dont really need more S5AP5. I would take missile pods instead, theyre probably the best all around weapon for battlesuits. 7S 4AP is apretty powerful addition, with 2 shots at 36 inch range, the plasma rifle is more powerful yes, but for all around usefulness i go for the MP, then plasma rifles, then i go for more specialized stuff, If you want some anti infantry on your HQ, take an airburst fragmentation launcher instead of the CIB, It's the same range, large blast, ignores cover, and it's pinning since it is barrage

here's another option for the flamers, your HQ has anti infantry and anti tank stuff you can make your hq a really good anti massed infantry if you do this

Shas'o
Airburst frag launcher
Twin Linked Flamer
HW multi tracker
HW drone controller
1x Shield Drone
Stim injector

Shas'vre x2
Twin Linked Flamer
Missile Pod
HW-multi tracker

that gives you twin linked flamers, a second weapon, and a multi tracker on all of them. A TL flamer is worth the spot, it has a relatively low S for a battlesuit weapon, so rerolling wounds will really increase their power, and then the AFL and missle pods on your shas'vres. Once again you can't go wrong with a missle pod, and it gives you something to shoot off as you move to range with the enemy for flamers. The stim injector and shield drone will improve survivability since you can allocate low ap and/or high S hits to it, i would consider taking more than one if you can spare the points

then for the flamer squad, you can instead make them a tank hunting group

3xCrisis suits, 1 team leader
Team Leader has
TL fusion Blaster, Missile pod HW-MT, HWDC 1x Shield drone
the other 2
fusion blaster, missile pod, multi tracker

that would give you a pretty well protected, effective anti tank, as the JSJ through terrain, you can fire off the missiles at APCs and other light vehicles, and then use the fusions and pods on the big targets when you get to 12-6" range

your squad with MP, PR and TA, i would drop the targetting array for a multi tracker, or have one weapon and it be twin linked or drop the plasma for a fusion blaster.
its good when youre at 36" range and can only fire the MP, but when you get to 24, you get either one plasma fire, or 2 missiles, and then when you get to 12, you get 2 of either, if you take a MT you add all those together, or if you take a FB instead of plasma, you dont lose any of your shots until you get to 12", and then you can get S8 AP1. Unless youre fighting marines, the MP will probably be a better choice to fire until you get to rapid fire range and if youre fighting things with 4+ or worse armor, the MP will nearly always be better at >12" and equal at rapid fire range(both will ignore armor and wound almost everything on a 2+)

Second, i think you have too many pathfinders, their points really rack up, i would consider using 2 squads of 5-6 or one squad of 8, to save points on the devilfish if you dont need 2 of them, and you can only have 3 rail rifles per squad

Third, on the broadsides, ive found it very effective to take an Advanced Stabilizing System instead of multi trackers, that way you can still move d6 and fire your railguns, and that would save you points on the plasma rifles. In a recent game i played against Imp Guard, i was able to take out his vehicles because of the d6 movement, without that, he could have kept them out of LoS for most of the game while i tried to move up. Without it, i would be able to move 6, but not fire, giving the opponent the chance to move out of LoS before you can fire again. I would also take at least one shield drone in each squad, the drone will get a 2+armor as well as the inv save, that would add a lot of survivability to the squad. At 4T, your battlesuits are begging for lascannons from any imperium army, ignores armor and instant death, any type of drone in a squad will bring up the model count to drop those big hits onto.

Also for your suits, i would spend the extra 5 or 10 points to add a team leader if you don't have one already for 5, and a bonding knife for 5 more. Your current broadside teams would not be able to regroup if they fail a morale check after losing one member if you spend 300 points or more on a squad of battlesuits, you definately want them to be able to regroup. make sure you take this into consideration, drones count for 50 percent squad strength, if you add one drone, the enemy has to kill 2 models just like if you had no drones, but if you add another drone, they have to kill three. so if we consider that drones die easier than the suits with their 1W, they will prolly die first. if you have no drones, two suits must die to not be able to fall back, if you have 1 drone, one suit and one drone, 2 drones, both drones and a suit. So, a squad with no drones is harder to bring below 50 percent, but thats assuming no instant death and armor ignore, which will be passed to drones, but if you take drones, 2 is definately better for morale, that will bring your squad to 5 models, he will have to kill 2 to force a morale check in shooting instead of one. I have learned from personal experience how valuable a bonding knife is to crisis suits. In a recent game against tyranids, my HQ and retinue had 3 drones and 3 suits, i had 1 drone and all 3 suits left. He assaulted me with termigaunts(i'm pretty sure, it was the ranged one, i dont play tyranids) through horrible luck i did no wounds, he did one wound, i allocated it to a drone(bad choice, i should have forseen this), it died, i failed morale, he got a sweeping advance and destroyed my squad. Now i know the sweeping advance had nothing to do with morale, but i had lost 50 percent of my squad and if i had gotten away, all three unwounded suits wouldnt have been able to regroup because i had no bonding knife.

well, overall not a bad list, the only thing i think isnt good are the suit choices, the pathfinders are completely personal choice. Personally i don't run that many but if it works in your strategy then great, i tend to play a more aggressive mobile army than a static, lets set up and blast everything army. I have to play against orks most of the time, gotta stay mobile.

The only other thing i would consider are your troops, 3 squads of fire warriors may be too many, ive found 3 to be too many in lower point armies, like 1250, but i'm still experimenting with the number so i wont give out advice other than to see how it goes. I've also just started trying out full carbine squads, and have had a measure of sucess with them so far, their mobility has been great

well good luck with your games, if you find something out that works really well or really poorly, post it up for other players

With your current HQ squad I'd recommend splitting up the shield drones differently - if you move half of the drones to the Shas'o so one of the bodyguards has no drones (and no drone controller) then each of the three XV8s in the unit is different, so you can take advantage of wound allocation a little better. (And it doesn't change points costs at all.)

With your current HQ squad I'd recommend splitting up the shield drones differently - if you move half of the drones to the Shas'o so one of the bodyguards has no drones (and no drone controller) then each of the three XV8s in the unit is different, so you can take advantage of wound allocation a little better. (And it doesn't change points costs at all.)

yeh i hadnt thought of that, if you can make them unique that would help you spread out your wounds

1: Pathfinders' rail rifles are limited to THREE per squad (they come with target lock to shoot at want you want).

2: Personally I feel that the shield drones in your HQ are a bad choice because your shas'o has a shield generator already (for those that do not know shield gens benefit WHOLE squad) however they are also the best ablative wounds IF you take iridium armour on you shas'o (2+ AS, d6 assault movement) which allows you take AS better as Shield Drones have the same T and AS as what they accompany (stated in Tau Vehicle Armoury drone section) Which means if the Shas'o has them under a drone controller the benefit from the 2+ AS.

There is absolutely no way one shield generator affects a whole unit.

Seconded

Patrick:

Got your request for feedback.

Honestly, I don't want to duplicate what others have said. I would analyze what they said, edit your army list to reflect some changes, and that would give me a platform to critique your list. There's a lot of good feedback here - use that first.

A couple of hard rules (changes that are obvious and pretty much mandatory) and soft rules (the way I would do things but probably a matter of choice).

HARD:
1. The broadsides need drones and ASS. Without the drones they are complete fodder to las and melta, with them you can do all sorts of fancy allocation tricks to stay alive. ASS significantly ups their lethality as they can shift to find better shots.

2. Setting up crisis units purely for deepstrike is a losing proposition in a take all comers list. By all means have it as an option, but configure your suits to mostly start on the deck. Big crisis squads also need drones. If you are artful you can have 5 different models in the unit for wound allocation (practically cheating ).

3. There is no benefit to the command squad over another elites choice, and you save a ton of points by taking regular suits and joining the 'O to them.

4. Pulse rifles are better than pulse carbines (although carbines look cool). Don't make the mistake of thinking that a completely negligable chance of pinning somehow makes up for the extra range/shot (unless you have a crapton of markerlight hits to burn, which you wont).

SOFT:
1. I take pathfinders for their markerlights- rail rifles detract from this purpose. Four marker hits are a minimum for really messing up a squad, which means all 8 bods firing their lights.

2. If you are going to start upgunning devilfish go the whole hog. An extra 15pts per fish nets you +1bs and firing like a fast vehicle. Thats how I roll.

3. Burst cannons on suits- it's not that burst cannons are bad, it's that you've got st5 shots in abundance elsewhere in the list. Firestorm (BC, MP and multi) for 50pts a pop are certainly bargainous, but don't really terrify in the same way as Deathrains or fireknives. You certainly have enough suits to experiment a bit, but I'd suggest dropping a few to pay for the recommendations made above.

4. Firewarriors are soft and chicken. They need fish to hide in a lot of the time.

OJ

OddJob. wrote:2. If you are going to start upgunning devilfish go the whole hog. An extra 15pts per fish nets you +1bs and firing like a fast vehicle. Thats how I roll.

there is no point in giving a devilfish a multitracker to fire like a fast vehicle because the BC can always shoot after move (cause you can't turbo-boost) and the drones fire as if they are shooting from an open top vehicle.

Krellnus wrote:there is no point in giving a devilfish a multitracker to fire like a fast vehicle because the BC can always shoot after move (cause you can't turbo-boost) and the drones fire as if they are shooting from an open top vehicle.

seriously? Sounds like you need to recheck the rules for regular vehicles firing.

If you're rocking burst/drones, a multitracker lets you drive 12" and still fire everything. Or, if you're burst/SMS, lets you move 6" and fire all guns, or 12 and fire 1. How is this not worth 5 points again?

Yeah, Krellnus is definitely wrong again. Multi-trackers work just like The Defenestrator said, and I agree that it's a good upgrade.