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K, so I decided to try a new setup for my Crisis suits for my Ard Boyz list and wanted to know what people thought about the list in general.

++++ [HQ] ++++

Unit cost: 214
XV8 Shas'el
--- [AFP, Burst cannon, Positional relay, HW Multi-tracker]
XV8 Shas'vre BG
--- [Missile pod, Burst cannon, Multi-tracker]
XV8 Shas'vre BG
--- [TL Flamer, Drone controller, Shield Drone]

Unit cost: 215
XV8 Shas'el
--- [Plasma rifle, Missile pod, Multi-tracker]
XV8 Shas'vre BG
--- [Plasma rifle, Missile pod, Multi-tracker]
XV8 Shas'vre BG
--- [TL Flamer, Drone controller, Shield Drone]

++++ [Elites] ++++

Unit cost: 162
2x XV8 Shas'ui
--- [Plasma rifle, Burst cannon, Multi-tracker]
XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Flamer, Drone controller, Shield Drone]

Unit cost: 141
3x XV8 Shas'ui
--- [TL Missile pod, Flamer]

Unit cost: 320
Stealthsuit 'ui TL
--- [Burst cannon, Markerlight, HW Multi-tracker, Drone controller, Marker Drone]
4x Stealthsuit 'ui
--- [Burst cannon, Drone controller, Marker Drone]

++++ [Troops] ++++

Unit cost: 155
6x Fire Warrior 'la
--- [Pulse rifle]
Devilfish
--- [Burst cannon, 2x Gun Drone, Landing gear, Disruption pod, Flechette disch.]

Unit cost: 155
6x Fire Warrior 'la
--- [Pulse rifle]
Devilfish
--- [Burst cannon, 2x Gun Drone, Landing gear, Disruption pod, Flechette disch.]

Unit cost: 60
6x Fire Warrior 'la
--- [Pulse rifle]

Unit cost: 84
12x Kroot
--- [Kroot rifle]

Unit cost: 100
10x Kroot
--- [Kroot rifle]
5x Kroot Hound
--- [Fangs]

++++ [Fast Attack] ++++

Unit cost: 167
6x Pathfinder 'la
--- [Pulse C./ Marker]
Devilfish
--- [Burst cannon, 2x Gun Drone, Landing gear, Disruption pod, Flechette disch.]

++++ [Heavy Support] ++++

Unit cost: 274
XV88 'ui TL
--- [TL Railgun, TL Plasma rifle, BS Filter, HW Multi-tracker, HW Drone controller, Shield Drone, Shield Drone, HW Target lock]
2x XV88 'ui
--- [TL Railgun, SMS, BS Filter]

Unit cost: 274
XV88 'ui TL
--- [TL Railgun, TL Plasma rifle, BS Filter, HW Multi-tracker, HW Drone controller, Shield Drone, Shield Drone, HW Target lock]
2x XV88 'ui
--- [TL Railgun, SMS, BS Filter]

Unit cost: 175
Hammerhead
--- [Railgun, 2x Burst cannon, Landing gear, Targeting array, Disruption pod, Flechette disch., Multi-tracker]
-----------------------


Broadsides take out tanks (6 railguns split among 4 targets). Hammerhead can take out horde/tanks as well. Pathfinders and Stealth team light stuff up. Suits pick the army apart. Kroot screen the army, prevent deepstrike, or outflank depending on the situation. Firewarriors stay in the Fish and hold objectives.

I put a TLFlamer/Shield Drone in each XV8 team to accomplish 3 tasks:
1) Manage hordes (since I only have one pie plate from the Hammerhead)
2) Add an invul save and 3 more wounds to the team so I don't lose the important guns in a firefight
3) Add a way to abuse wound allocation

So my questions are the following: Since I already have enough anti-tank, should I drop my Hammerhead to strengthen my troops? Should I abandon my TLFlamer XV8s and consolidate my suits into less teams? Or should I do something completely different that I haven't thought of?

It looks good but seriously get rid of the stealth teams, I have yet to see a reason why you would take them their way overcost and their special ability is negated by the fact taht all weapons are 18 inches or less which even moving 6 back out of range is going to put you 24 inches away. Then that squad moves forward to with in 18 and blows the crap out of them.


Its just a expensive road block that can be spent elsewhere.

Even though its supplying a mobile markerlight base?

ObiFett wrote:Even though its supplying a mobile markerlight base?

if you want markerlights your best bet are more pathfinders IMO. You can get what, 2 more pathfinder squads for what the single stealth team costs? With TLOS these days if your pathfinders cant see something to mark it whatever you want to shoot it with probably cant either. I can see the argument to use it to help the crisis suits on the move but I think having 2 8 man pathfinder squads and more points for other units are better than the 6 man pathfinder squad and the stealth team.

Yeah that is way to many point in the stealth team. I use 5 of them just basic and they work miracles w/pathfinders spotting for them and run less than 1/2 as much as your unit.

As for your crisis set-up i'm not a fan of non-complimentary weapon's or builds (though I am guilty of taking a bodyguard w/PR+MP but they are BS4) so i'd probably find a different way to do the suits.

The rest looks pretty good otherwise though. And if it's worked for you in previous games i say go for it. If you haven't tried it out yet you don't have time to so I'd stick to a system or set-up you know intimately.

Drop the stealth team; get more Pathfinders if you want markerlights.

Drop the HQ body guards and replace with an elite XV-8 squad. You want your HQ to lend LD to a variety of squads.

Add piranhas with flechette dischargers to channel your opponent's infantry where you can unload on them.

Drop the 'las on foot for more kroot.

Edit: You want an ASS on one of your XV-88s squads at a minimum.

Personaly i love my stealth team. The JSJ ability means you can hide your marker lights behind cover and then jump around over marker and fire and jump back. works great. TLOS improves this IMO not hinders this but it kinda depends on your terrain. You can move and fire your markerlights in this configuration which is great and all you have to do is keep the close guys out of LOS as your stealth fields will protect you from anyone at range. I run a full stealth team (although not as many marker lights, only 2) and it gets a large majority of my kills. I would add gun drones to this config though. They are the best bang for the buck you can find. They are a 10 point jump troop with a stealth field generator with twin linked guns (granted it's only BS 2 but add a single marker light markerand those twin linked hit a large majority of the time). I don't know any other troop in any other codex that is this good for 10 points. Mostly they add wounds to your unit.

I'm curious as to why your XV-88's have DS filters instead of ASS's? unless you have some custom deployment then dawn of war is the only time you'll use them and you can't fire the first turn anyway since you don't have ASS's. If you want DS filters i would put them HW DS on your TL's

I love using the TL flamer Heatwave suits they do amazingly well vs any infantry target that said Go big or go home with them. Three suits is three templates that reroll wounds. They must have shield drone support to last in cc. I don't see the point in taking two HQs to ard boyz the kill points mission. Thats 10 kp that tau will never make up.

Okay, a few points;

- Iridium armor, two 2+/4++ shield drones & stimulent injectors is just too awesome to pass up. You have the points to spend (2.5k) and the missile pod/plasma rifle bodyguards to make it effective. At range.. should absorb a hideous amount of firepower.

- Shady crisis suit design. I see tl flamers, plasma rifles & burst cannons all in the same squad. That just feels wrong. Focous your suits. Add in some fuison guns. (the first bodyguard team seems a bit off aswell - but I like target locked AFP on the 1st commander!).

- Vehicle multi-tracker; enables you to simply move a bit further (12" compared to 6") whilst firing all of your weapons. Get them for the Fishes!

- Stealthteam; Get 6. Get one team leader drone controller. Get one relentless networked markerlight to work in tandem with those 6 JSJ burst cannons, its a minor force-multipler. Im all for self-markerlighting but at such an expense, even for the sake of mobility, isnt worth it. I mean if you loose one stealthsuit guy (as it stands) he costs 60pts!

- Bonding knives never hurt anyone. They actually allow for regrouping under 50% so they are very very useful. Any larger and/or expensive squad with a teamleader in it should buy one of these for a mere 5pts. (So.. StealthSuits, both tau commander, probably both crisis teams and definetly both broadside squads!)

- I think the second offensive kroot/hound squad would benifit greatly from a second kroot/hound combo, rather than simply a meatshield objective capper. I.e 1 kroot/hound combo will put hurt on a squad but with two unmolested squad charging in - you can actually look forward to favourable combat resolutions.

Hope that helps.

I wrote this elsewhere, and am going to copy it here because your basic army premise is up my alley, although I'd change a few things. I wrote this in a "How are tau?" thread over in GD.


Welcome to Tau. In answer to your question of how good Tau are....they're freakin' awesome.

Tau have just gotten a MASSIVE boost. 5th edition has shifted the meta-game into much more mechanization, and Tau are hands down the best tank killing army in existence. The second thing that Tau have at their disposal is the unique ability to influence a battle in interesting ways. You have LOTS of pinning weapons, the ability to pretty much force-pin units, wound allocation goodness to increase suit survivability, and the best troop weapon (the pulse rifle) in 40k.

How you use it all determines how you do. Personally, I find kroot distasteful. If I want a close combat element in my army, I play a 2v2 and have my wife join me with her orks. Tau are meant to shoot, shoot more, and lay down such a withering fusillade of firepower that enemy armies simply evaporate under your firepower. You'll see some interesting ideas for tau army lists floating around, and some incredibly dumb ideas too. I've been incredibly successful with a pure Tau gunline (using some tactical deployment to avoid being flanked and annihilated). Here's my advice:

1. Tau firewarriors: Take groups of 12 of them, with a shas'ui who has a handheld markerlight (10 points). Give the squad 2 gundrones, or 2 marker drones if you can afford it pointwise. I deploy these guys almost 2" apart, in a line where possible, and always in cover. 4+ armor save doesn't impress anyone, but 4+ armor save in addition to 4+ cover save does wonders for keeping firewarriors alive.

2. Broadsides. In 5th edition, Broadsides rule supreme. You should have six of them. Two teams of three. If you're playing 1,000 points or less then two teams of two. Team leader with a target lock, and both teams need two shield drones each. You've got 2+ armor saves, and your drones have 2+ armor saves and 4+ invulnerable saves. These puppies ALSO need to be deployed in cover. Preferably on top of a building somewhere that counts as ruins, so that climbing is required if people are going to try outflanking and assaulting you. Putting them in cover gives you 4+ cover saves in case you run into AP2 weaponry. Those six broadsides should form the backbone, the core, the heart, and the basis of your army. The rest of your army is really just support for your broadsides, ESPECIALLY today where everyone is running such heavily mechanized lists. Depending on mood, sometimes I'll take a Railgun hammerhead as a third heavy support for its large blast template; as anti-tank its next to useless.

3. Snipers! A heavy support choice that can consist of three individual teams of snipers. Each of them STR6 AP3, and able to headshot an MEQ without a save, and each able to pin a unit. One of my favorite, FAVORITE tactics in 40k is to have a broadside team blow up a transport, have a firewarrior team drop 1-3 markerlights (2 drones + shas'ui) on the disembarked unit, or have a pathfinder unit drop 5-8 markerlights on them, then pin them using a rail rifle and markerlight modifiers. You play against Eldar often, and those pesky wave serpents turbo-boost around the board getting cover saves, right? Drop a couple of markerlights on it, reduce its cover save to nothing, and introduce it to a whole team of broadsides. 4+ rerollable to hit, depending on facing, you need 3 or less to glance, and if they're turbo-boosting, 3+ destroys it. AP1 gives +1 on the penetration table, and if a turbo-boosting vehicle is immobilized, it counts as destroyed. Hey! Free pinning test on the guys inside!

4. Speaking of rail rifles....if you have a team of pathfinders with rail rifles+target locks, and 3 sniper teams, you can cause 9 seperate pinning tests across an enemy army. If you toss a bunch of markerlights into the fray, you can go a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way towards immobilizing an entire enemy army.

5. Crisis suits: Crisis suits exist to fill holes in your army strategy; this includes your HQs. With broadsides levelling every tank on the field, sniper drones and pathfinders forcing pinning tests on anything with a leadership value, and multiple firewarrior squads laying down ridiculous numbers of STR5 shots at anything willing to step 30" into range, you've got your anti-tank answer, some anti-MEQ, and the first step towards anti-horde. The gaps in your army are reliable MEQ and terminator killers, and more anti-horde. My favorite suit combination is plasma/fusion with multi-tracker, team leader giving me two gun or shield drones (depending on points). Drop 2 markerlights on a terminator squad, and you've got BS5 needing 2+ to hit, and at the 12" mark, you've got 6 plasma shots and 3 fusion shots. Thats 6x STR6 AP2 and 3x STR8 AP1. 2+ to hit, 2+ to wound. No saves, no feel no pain. Insta-killed anything you like. In larger games, I also take a team of "deathrain" crisis suits, which is twin-linked missile pod suits in my back, working on killing light transports or geting side armor shots on anything they can. That saves the broadsides for the big guns. Give your Shas'el Iridium armor and two shield drones, and you've got three 2+ armor save models; I think the fragmentation airburst launcher (large blast, ignores cover) is pretty much mandatory, and I give him a flamer too. Perfect anti-horde! Suits range across the field dealing death to anything that isn't being pinned or destroyed by your longer range firepower.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strategy: You now have a static gunline capable of destroying ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that can be thrown against you. The weakness: You're static. You're not moving across the board to take objectives. Believe it or not...there's a simple solution for this one too. In capture and control, you have one objective, and your enemy has one objective. In Seize ground, you're going to have one, and possible two objectives to control. You don't NEED to go take the enemy objectives. All you have to do is destroy their troop choices. With the vast amount of firepower and long range dakka....its pretty easy. Don't forget all those pinning weapons either. Pinned units can't hold an objective.

You'll need to learn and understand enemy lists, and a VERY important question you need to ask EVERY game is "What are you keeping in reserve?" You need to know what's in reserve and if its outflanking or deep-striking. If your flanks are going to be threatened, then deploy in the middle so that flanking units can't get to you. You'll also learn the magic of spreading across terrain to prevent lictor entrances, and using firewarriors to wall off access to broadsides.

That's basically it. This type of list and this strategy has pretty much won me almost every Tau game I've played in the last year. I've been playing Orks heavily for the last six months because I've decided I prefer assaulting over shooting. If you go first, the game is practically over; you can level 1/3 of the enemy army in turn 1, take out most of its mobility, and probably pin a unit or two. If you go second, you'll have to be a bit more tactical about target priorities and threat analysis, but either way, between your broadsides, markerlights, and pinning weaponry, your enemy is not doing much moving the entire game.

If you could imagine what I just described in a movie or a video game, its basically a defensive fortress. Firepower would be flying across the screen so heavily that you'd feel like getting underneath your computer desk to keep your head down. And now the metagame has shifted even more in your favor; more vehicles means less troops, and Tau anti-tank is unrivaled. Don't worry about objectives; you can deny objectives to an opponent by tabling them or killing their troops easier than you can use your own troops to hold them.

Honestly, I don't think Kroot are worth using. If you wanted to play a sneaky, outflanking army you should pick something besides Tau. Dark Eldar, or Orks. Every point you waste on a kroot (who is a subpar model in every respect; its melee usefulness is solely in its ability to tie up an enemy unit for a turn before dying) is a point that you didn't put into the overwhelming firepower that will win you games.

That's my....much more than two cents.

You know, I didn't mind when you posted this nonsense before... but come on! "eliminate his troop choices"? what if he's running plague marines? what if he's running mobs of boyz? what if he's running 5 wave serpents or if he's using necron squads hidden in reserve?

and I know you're not on the ball because you claim that a "you need 3 or less to glance" one with a railgun. except that the serpent's special rules make it so you actually need a 4 to glance, since hey treat all guns above s8 as, well s8. including railguns. so yeah.
And you also have this weird fixation on pinning, which I honestly don’t understand. Don’t you play any armies with fearless units? It’s nice when it happens, but it’s not really something to rely on.

Other than that, your analysis is ok. But still, I don’t understand where a lot of your advice is coming from. I mean, you knocked kroot, who are far and away a far better objective taker than FCW's ever will be. What the hell.

I think he knocked kroot for the same reason I do. They mess with my mojo. No other reasons. I think they are great units for their price i just don't like them on a personal level

Milquetoast Thug wrote:You know, I didn't mind when you posted this nonsense before... but come on! "eliminate his troop choices"? what if he's running plague marines? what if he's running mobs of boyz? what if he's running 5 wave serpents or if he's using necron squads hidden in reserve?

and I know you're not on the ball because you claim that a "you need 3 or less to glance" one with a railgun. except that the serpent's special rules make it so you actually need a 4 to glance, since hey treat all guns above s8 as, well s8. including railguns. so yeah.
And you also have this weird fixation on pinning, which I honestly don’t understand. Don’t you play any armies with fearless units? It’s nice when it happens, but it’s not really something to rely on.

Other than that, your analysis is ok. But still, I don’t understand where a lot of your advice is coming from. I mean, you knocked kroot, who are far and away a far better objective taker than FCW's ever will be. What the hell.

1. What if he's running plague marines? I addressed that already. The plethora of Fusion/Plasma combo suits in a good Tau army list laughs at their toughness and they don't get FNP. Plague marines don't scare me.

2. What if he's running mobs of boyz? Are you kidding? Between a fragmentation airburst launcher, flamers, and scything swarms of pulse beams cutting down boyz (and potentially a single Railgun throwing submunition rounds) boyz don't scare anyone. Trukk boyz get pinned really easily when you kill a few, and green tide evaporates when you play a static gunline of pure firepower.

3. What if he's running 5 wave serpents? I addressed this too. Did you read my post? AP1 railguns that reach across the entire battlefield, markerlights that remove coversaves, a 3+ is going to pretty much kill the wave serpent (remember that immobilizing a skimmer that turbo-boosted causes a destroyed result).

4. What if he's using necron squads hidden in reserve? So? They're gonna what? Come out from a monolith that deep strikes into the middle of your gunline? Been there, done that: you need only move 1" away from the monolith, which means that you can still block the port on it. Nothing is coming out of a monolith entrance if they can't deploy 1" away, and even better...if they roll for reserves and GET it, then they must come out, and if they can't...the unit is destroyed. I've played plenty of necrons in my day; monoliths wither underneath 6 twin-linked broadside shots.

Besides, why are you asking for tactical advice? If you're a half decent player...even remotely decent, all the situations you listed are easily dealt with; laughable even.

5. As for Wave serpents reducing weaponry to STR8...yep, they can do that. There's a lot of wargear in every army that can do all sorts of things. You might even have to roll 2D6 on the penetration table and take the lowest. However, I'm not trying to forecast every possible match against every possible player who could take every possible different set of wargear. I'm providing some general rules that make a kick-ass army.

6. Pinning: Yes, a lot of things are fearless. Even if you can't pin something, fortunately those markerlights still aren't wasted because they can be used for even cooler things; giving you +1 BS for example, or taking away a cover save! And the railrifles aren't wasted either: STR6 AP3 kills....everything except TEQs.

7. Kroot are better objective takers than fire-warriors: Erm...yeah they are. That's completely not the point. Tau are a shooting army. They are a wtfbbqpwnage why is half my army dead turn 1 army. Kroot are the "assault" element and "outflanking" element of Tau, but Tau shouldn't be TRYING to do that stuff. If you want to assault and outflank, play space marines. Play orks. Get some genestealers and play Tyranid. If you want to wtfbbqpwn some people, put every point into firepower.

Ever heard the phrase, "If you're going to do something, do it right?" It applies to 40k. If you're going to play a shooting army, play a freakin' shooty army. Don't mix in sub-par assault elements. Kroot don't scare anyone. Make a shooty army and go for it with gusto.
---------------------------------------------
Now....now that we've addressed your false dilemmas about things that a Tau list composed in the manner I'm suggesting could have trouble with, I'll challenge you back:

There is no...there is NO....*NONE* and no...balanced list out there that a good Tau army can't level, unless it is specifically designed to kill a static tau gunline. An outflanking genestealer army with lictors.....its going to mess with the Tau gunline. You can minimize the losses by tactically deploying in terrain such that none of the terrain around you has room for the lictor to come in 1" away from an enemy model. You can minimize the hurt of outflanking genestealers by deploying tightly in the center, away from the flanks, and moving up to the middle of the board to minimize exposure, and you can have firewarriors flank your broadsides and suits to act as disposable shields in case the genestealers get 18" movement and get to you (because of poor deployment).

But there is no balanced list out there that can compete with a good Tau list. There used to be one (deep striking catachans with heavy flamers), but there are no more catachan drop troops.

All waveserpents come with that ability, and all falcons will come with the other, railguns are still pretty decent at taking them down though. Eldar lists at 2500pts probably run with council too, how do the Tau deal with that? It will absolutely gobble up a gunline

What I'm even more questionable about, is the ability to take down many, and larger, units of plaguemarines. In my own tau army, they are one of the biggest worries. Sure, if I tune my list towards killing them, I can manage fine, but in an allcommers list, I find it is hard to get adequate high strength guns.

F.ex: A 3-suit team with plasma+melta vs. 10 plagues =/ win. You get 4.5 hits, 3ish wounds, and if they are in cover, you kill about 1.5, if out of cover, you kill around 3, and then get 2x melta in the face + anything else nearby. Your very expensive team of suits just died for 1.5-3 plaguemarines. This army cannot reliably take out plague marines sitting tight on objectives. At 2500 pts, you can have quite a lot of those 10 man squads, Tau can't knock out all of those.

I've found that it is easy to take their mobility, rhinos die very easily to Tau, but to actually kill them is worse.

But there is no balanced list out there that can compete with a good Tau list

Well that is a bold statement, guess that is why Tau win so many tournaments now