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I recently acquired a Tau army with about 6 crisis suits and one commander all with their weapons unattached and I was wondering what you guys thought is the best loadout for them. I was thinking that since Tau heavy support is optimized for destroying vehicles that crisis suits would best suit the role of taking on things with feel no pain or 2+ armor saves (which in my experience have been a huge problem without plasma guns) so here's my loadout:

HQ:

Commander Shas'el (50)
Airbursting fragmentation projector (20)
Targeting array (10)
plasma rifle (20)

ELITES:

All equipped with:

Plasma Rifle (20)
Drone controller (2 drones) = 20
Targeting array (10)

However it might be better to give them a twin linked plasma rifle and drone controller instead for the same points cost, the drone controller is just for extra protection.

What do you guys think?

I think if you're going to buy the shas'el the targetting array, just upgrade him to a shas'o, which gives him the same benefit, plus other stat increases, for 5 points more I believe.

Your logic is what I've found in practice--Railguns (ideally broadside) do a great job against vehicles. Pulse rifles and carbines and burst cannons do a great anti-inf job. So your suits fill in that 'elite' anti-infantry slot--terminators, monstrous creatures, feel no pain, etc. We tried fielding them with missile pods and flamers, and it was just not as useful to the list as missile pods and plasma rifles would have been. Because Tau doesn't have much else to deal with the elite infantry, besides the plasma rifles on the suits.

If your opponents are allowing forgeworld, I'd add in a TX-42 group with twin linked plasma rifles. That's good anti-elite also.

Hi zoot, I wonder how long you will be playing tau before all your crisis suits have a plasma rifle and missile pod. And possibly a couple of twinlinked missile pods.

They are the most effective loadouts after all.

Targeting array > Shas'O

A shas'o costs 25 more points than a shas'el, which makes the targeting array a decent choice.

Your Shas'el is exactly what I run with, except he has a HW drone controller with two shield drones. (Then stick him in a Crisis squad).

As far as the elites go, you will get the most bang for your points if you go with a Burst Cannon/Missile Pod/Multi Tracker combo.

You may also consider getting another commander to stick in your 2nd crisis squad. Same thing as the first 'el, but with a Cyclic Ion Blaster.

Thanks for the advice everyone I'm thinking about swapping the targeting array for twin linked plasma rifles and the airbursting fragmentation projector for a missile pod and adding in a hard-wired multi-tracker and drone controller with 2 drones


50 base

Missile Pod (12)
hard-wired Multi-Tracker (5)
Hard-wired drone controller with 2 gun drones: (20)
Targeting array (10)
plasma rifle (20)

= 117 points

You have there is a pretty standard Crisis suit configuration. Decent at a number of things, but not great at anything particular. You've got range (especially with JSJ of Crisis suits), a moderately high strength weapon and a nice low AP weapon.

AFP is nice, but generally better at infantry killing than elite infantry killing as you mentioned you are looking for. If you pair an AFP with a twin-linked Burst Cannon (better to twin-link rather than get a Targeting Array with an AFP since it does not really help an AFP that much), you've got yourself a pretty nasty infantry killer.

But if you are looking for to configure your suit to kill heavy infantry, you'll probably want to stick with some combination of Plasma Rifles, Fusion Blasters, and Cyclonic Ionic Blaster (CIB). Problem with the Fusion is it's short range... problem with the CIB is it's tempermental (really needs a high BS to max it's effectiveness).

For killing heavy infantry I personally like: Shas'el w/CIB, PR, TA, and HWMT. You can use drones on him too, but be careful. If you give him 2 gun drones, you'll lower the majority toughness of your leader. Shield drones, though expensive, are a better option with their matching toughness & inv save. Instead of drones, you could just have him join another Crisis Suit squad for protection (maybe a squad of with either twin-linked PR & TA or PR/FB/MT).