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I am starting a Tau army and I was wondering if you could help we equip my Crisis Battlesuit...
What weapons and support systems do the Tau players amongst you prefer.
My initial inclination is to take two weapons and the multi-tracker- but I am curious what others think are good combinations.

Any thoughts are appreciated(except "I hate the Tau- blah, blah" of course).

For the greater good...

Bah.. I hate tau..bla.

Kidding

For really cheap deep-striking anti-tank battlesuits;

Tl-fusion gun & 1 flamer works well.
(Combine this with a ground based tau-commander with a positional relay and more importantly a Pathfinder devilfish..which should be occupied by 6 firearriors from the end of the first turn)

It all depends on what you want/need your battlesuits to do?

Since I'm too lazy to write a complex answer to a simple question when I just did the same freaking thing last night in another thread right freaking here that you should have read instead....I'm going to copy and paste my answer there to here so you can get my two cents on Tau. To address crisis suits in particular, see bullet #5.

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.

Yeah, it varies on which armies you're facing and what you want the suits to achieve. A few popular ones include:
TL-Missile pod
Plasma Rifle + Fusion Blaster
Plasma Rifle + Missile Pod
TL-Plasma Rifle

The last 3 are fairly effective against marine armies. Even the TL-Missile Pod is good, if you're aiming to kill light vehicles or attack rear armour (though fusion blaster works better in that regard).

More of my own words of wisdom on Tau suits from the same thread that you should be reading and posting in instead of creating this one... =p

Shadowsun: Completely not worth it. Please, for the love of all holiness, don't use her.

Farsight: He's the bomb diggity. Granted, he's not all that you could want in an IC compared to OTHER armies, but he's the best Tau have to offer.

Pro: Lets you bring a 7 suit bodyguard. This spawns the Farsight bomb, which is an 8 suit, independently firing, 8-16 drone (shield, marker, gun), uniquely equipped for wound allocation goodness nightmare that can deep strike onto the field. With pathfinders, you can reroll that deep strike. Farsight also has the only power weapon in all of the Tau empire. He also confers preferred enemy when you fight Orks.

Con: He restricts you to 0-1 of some things like Broadsides. You can only take one team. No kroot or vespids (not a real loss). Having preferred enemy against Orks is laughable because rerolling missed "to hit" rolls in close combat doesn't mean much when you're going to get boned in close combat no matter what you do.

The farsight bomb is the only saving grace for him. Imagine this suit configuration:
Farsight
Bodyguard 1: Twin-linked Plasma guns, drone controller, 2 shield drones
Bodyguard 2: Plasma gun, Fusion blaster, drone controller, hard wired target lock, markerlight drone, shield drone
Bodyguard 3: Plasma gun, Fusion blaster, multi-tracker, hard wired target lock
Bodyguard 4: Plasma gun, Fusion blaster, multi-tracker, hard wired drone controller, 2 gun drones
Bodyguard 5: Fusion blaster, Flamer, multi-tracker, hard wired target lock
Bodyguard 6: Fusion blaster, flamer, multi-tracker, hard wired target lock, hard wired drone controller, 2 shield drones
Bodyguard 7: Fusion blaster, cyclic ion cannon, multi-tracker, hard wired drone controller, markerlight drone, shield drone

You've got 8 suits capable of killing 6 different vehicles in one shooting round; deep striking in the rear of a mechanized IG army would be really funny. I've used these guys to level MEQ armies time and again.

Most of your HQs though should be Shas'o or Shas'el. I use my HQs and suits to fill those critical MEQ killing holes.

Shas'el, Fusion/Plasma, multi-tracker, iridium armor, HW drone controller, 2 shield drones. Remember that bodyguard units are +10 points over regular elites somply to gain access to wargear, so I prefer using regular elites and attaching my HQ. Do the same with an elite unit, give the shas'ui two shield drones, and give them markerlight support while attaching the Shas'el.

You've now got 4 suits with terminator killing weapons, that can insta-kill most of the marine HQs with the Fusion blasters, or with a railgun shot. I use these guys to move along my skirmish line / screening across the front taking down MEQs and terminators. My firewarriors do just fine on smaller infantry. With markerlight support, you need 2+ to hit, 2+ to kill, and if you're doing JSJ to get inside 12" and back out of assault range, you've got 12 instant kill shots against MEQs and TEQs as long as you don't roll any 1s.

There's a lot you can do with a Tau army; find something you like.

Dashofpepper wrote:More of my own words of wisdom on Tau suits from the same thread that you should be reading and posting in instead of creating this one... =p

Shadowsun: Completely not worth it. Please, for the love of all holiness, don't use her.

Farsight: He's the bomb diggity. Granted, he's not all that you could want in an IC compared to OTHER armies, but he's the best Tau have to offer.

There's always Shas R'Myr if you're into forgeworld. I know a few people that favour R'Myr over all others. Farsight would be my favourite though. The only things i don't like about his 7 samurai squad are the army restrictions, the deepstriking increased size risk, and the subsequent huddled position that's just asking for a pie plate.

So I am gathering that the multi-tracker is the support system of choice then? That appears to be linked to the most combination suggestions that I am seeing.

That's often the case, yeah. Crisis suits without a multi-tracker have usually not included one because they have two weapons that aren't likely to be used together effectively (such as a flamer and a fusion blaster), that the only weapon they have is twin-linked (which is reasonably common, such as the twin-linked missile pod suit), or that have all three of their hardpoints as weapons (which is rarely used).

Right now, my favorites are:

Twinlinked Missile Pod and Flamer
Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, and Multi-tracker

Fusion Blaster, Plasma Rifle, and Multi-tracker is somethign that i'm mulling over.

I think the Burst Cannon is junk on a Crisis Suit. Tau have enough Str 5 AP 5 weapons. Crisis Suits have some of the few special weapons (flamers, plasma, fusion) in the army - take advantage of that.

You either take two complimentary weapons (similar Range, AP and/or Str) and a multi-tracker, or two different weapons and you twin-link one of them.

Also, a good way to abuse wound allocation is something like this:
TL-Missile Pod and Flamer
Missile Pod and TL Flamer
Team Leader with TL Missile Pod, Flamer, and Hard-wired Target Lock

Airburst fragmentation projectors & hardy dual shield drone + irdium armor + stimulent injectors (FNP) should not be mixed.

Why?

Iridium armor, shield drones & Stims cost quite alot. The airburst weapon is quite short ranged & ideally works with a flamer/burst cannon squad (or, better yet) a target locked fusion squad...allowing you to multi task. The problem is, these sqauds are liable to get charged which then makes all that 2+ saves, Invunerable save drones and FNP pretty much useless, as the IC commander is targetable, killable from things like Powerfists horribly easily & will generally be a point sink.

Use the AFP on a teamleader on an elite-slot fusion/flamer combo type team.

Use Plasma/missile pods on the Tau commander with drones, irdium armor & shield drones. Add in a few more bodyguards (or elite-slot teams) with similiar weapons and perhaps one more shield drone each..and that squad will not go away. Costs alot, so not always applicable.

Burst cannons arent junk if you want cheap harrasement suits with Burst-cannons & Missile pods, that JSJ at the enemy lines. Plasma rifles increase the cost of those suits dramatically and flamers are too short ranged for such work. But, generally, burst cannons are better placed elsewhere.

Dashofpepper wrote:Don't forget all those pinning weapons either. Pinned units can't hold an objective.

Where does it say this? Pretty sure troops were always scoring units regardless pinned status. Only time troops won't hold an objective is if they're falling back at the end of the game. (page 90)

Tl missile pod is my personal fav, it destroys transports and infantry alike.
Plasma + Fusion is also great, nothing better for anti-terminator.

Stay away from Plasma + Missile pod. It is too expensive for what it does, and not good enough at what it does to justify it's expense.
Also stay away from anti-horde options. Your anti-horde lies in hammerheads, stealthsuits, and kroot.

Canonness Rory wrote:Tl missile pod is my personal fav, it destroys transports and infantry alike.
Plasma + Fusion is also great, nothing better for anti-terminator.

Stay away from Plasma + Missile pod. It is too expensive for what it does, and not good enough at what it does to justify it's expense.
Also stay away from anti-horde options. Your anti-horde lies in hammerheads, stealthsuits, and kroot.

I think Fireknife suits are good against against unknown enemies, such as at tournaments. You've got firepower against MEq, TEq, GEq, and vehicles.

Its a toss-up between Fireknifes and TL-Missile Pod/TA for me. Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.

Altimera wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Don't forget all those pinning weapons either. Pinned units can't hold an objective.

Where does it say this? Pretty sure troops were always scoring units regardless pinned status. Only time troops won't hold an objective is if they're falling back at the end of the game. (page 90)

Pg.24 under "Going to ground"

A unit that has gone to ground may do nothing until the end of its following turn. Nothing. May it hold an objective? No, it may not. It doesn't even count as being in cover when you get assaulted. Holding an objective requires you have an active unit within 3" proximity of it, where active means a coherent, non-falling back, non-pinned unit holding it.

Multitrackers are a must unless you are looking for cheap tank busting suits (twin linked Missile Pod or twin linked Fusion Blaster variants)

never twin link plasma unless on a commander and you are doing a second weapon and a hardwired multitracker.

Burst Cannons are just silly on XV8's they come cheaper on stealth suits and you get (brace yourself) stealth fields!

After that tailor your suits to fit your needs, they are meant to be a scalpel to carve away critical parts of your opponents army leaving them weakened for the rest of your army to finish the job.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Altimera wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Don't forget all those pinning weapons either. Pinned units can't hold an objective.

Where does it say this? Pretty sure troops were always scoring units regardless pinned status. Only time troops won't hold an objective is if they're falling back at the end of the game. (page 90)

Pg.24 under "Going to ground"

A unit that has gone to ground may do nothing until the end of its following turn. Nothing. May it hold an objective? No, it may not. It doesn't even count as being in cover when you get assaulted. Holding an objective requires you have an active unit within 3" proximity of it, where active means a coherent, non-falling back, non-pinned unit holding it.

I think quoting a rule about going to ground for a question about pinning might not be the best arguement. I don't have my BGB with me atm but would like to see where it says that a pinned unit can not contest/hold and objective.

*laughing* Are you serious?

Going to ground = voluntary action to grant +1 cover save at the expense of everything.

Pinning = involuntarily going to ground.

Read your rulebook more.

augustus5 wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:

Altimera wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Don't forget all those pinning weapons either. Pinned units can't hold an objective.

Where does it say this? Pretty sure troops were always scoring units regardless pinned status. Only time troops won't hold an objective is if they're falling back at the end of the game. (page 90)

Pg.24 under "Going to ground"

A unit that has gone to ground may do nothing until the end of its following turn. Nothing. May it hold an objective? No, it may not. It doesn't even count as being in cover when you get assaulted. Holding an objective requires you have an active unit within 3" proximity of it, where active means a coherent, non-falling back, non-pinned unit holding it.

I think quoting a rule about going to ground for a question about pinning might not be the best arguement. I don't have my BGB with me atm but would like to see where it says that a pinned unit can not contest/hold and objective.

If you fail a pinning test, the unit immediately goes to ground. That's what pinning is.

All right. No need to get testy. I just did not realise that the book equated pinning with going to ground (which is a voluntary action).

Sorry, you caught me in between posts in a heated thread elsewhere where someone was *REALLY* being a git.

It's all good Pepper.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Altimera wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Don't forget all those pinning weapons either. Pinned units can't hold an objective.

Where does it say this? Pretty sure troops were always scoring units regardless pinned status. Only time troops won't hold an objective is if they're falling back at the end of the game. (page 90)

Pg.24 under "Going to ground"

A unit that has gone to ground may do nothing until the end of its following turn. Nothing. May it hold an objective? No, it may not. It doesn't even count as being in cover when you get assaulted. Holding an objective requires you have an active unit within 3" proximity of it, where active means a coherent, non-falling back, non-pinned unit holding it.

Page 90. Scoring Units:

There are a few exceptions, however, when a unit of troops does not count as scoring:
*If it is a vehicle
*If it has the Swarm special rule
*If it has a special rule specifying it never counts as a scoring unit

Again, why would pinning/going to ground stop a unit from scoring?

Altimera wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:

Altimera wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Don't forget all those pinning weapons either. Pinned units can't hold an objective.

Where does it say this? Pretty sure troops were always scoring units regardless pinned status. Only time troops won't hold an objective is if they're falling back at the end of the game. (page 90)

Pg.24 under "Going to ground"

A unit that has gone to ground may do nothing until the end of its following turn. Nothing. May it hold an objective? No, it may not. It doesn't even count as being in cover when you get assaulted. Holding an objective requires you have an active unit within 3" proximity of it, where active means a coherent, non-falling back, non-pinned unit holding it.

Page 90. Scoring Units:

There are a few exceptions, however, when a unit of troops does not count as scoring:
*If it is a vehicle
*If it has the Swarm special rule
*If it has a special rule specifying it never counts as a scoring unit

Again, why would pinning/going to ground stop a unit from scoring?

Because being pinned makes you go to ground. And going to ground makes you not scoring.

Again...page 90
There are a few exceptions, however, when a unit of troops does not count as scoring:
*If it is a vehicle
*If it has the Swarm special rule
*If it has a special rule specifying it never counts as a scoring unit

Going to ground is not one of those conditions. I understand that in the section of going to ground it says "the unit can do nothing until the end of its following turn" but counting as scoring is a passive thing: if you are a troop and do not fall into one of the 3 categories that prevents you from scoring, you are still a scoring unit.

To capture an objective you must be a scoring unit, right? You don't have your unit actively capture it: if they are there they have captured it.

Take this question to You Make Da Call, please. This is the Tactics forum, and we're talking about Tau Crisis suits.