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Hey all,

I have been going through my boxes and boxes of 40k stuff looking for my next project. I came across my Tau stuff that I hadn't done anything with in a long time, so I thought why not blow the dust off and put something together.

I have a hybrid list up on the army forums and one poster briefly mentioned going Suit heavy, but he failed to elaborate further, so here I am to see if Tau can run suit heavy. I'd like to have the following elements in play if I can within the 1500pt limit:

Pathfinders, prefer 2 squads if possible
2 Hammerhead tanks cause I like they way they look and seem to perform relatively well.

other than those units I am flexible.

Right now with the above restrictions I am looking at:

HQ:
Commander - I'd like to keep him cheap maybe 100pts?

Elites:
Some Crisis suits, but not sure which configurations to choose? Fireknife, Deathrain, Helios?

Troops:
2x8 Fire warriors

Fast Attack:
2x6 Pathfinders w/Devilfish with DP

Heavy Support:
2xHammerheads

so what do you all think? How many suits could I cram in and remain viable? Could such an army be viable??

Let me know,
Thanks
Chappy P!

At low points cost with tau you will need to give the troops some protection and mobility.
With small units i would suggest a fish each to make sure you can keep them away from the fight if and when needed.
and also they can then move in on objectives quickly.

Ive never really had alot of luck with a single suit layout, ive allways changed depending on who im fighting, it may be a case of finding a layout you either like and works well for you, or being able to change it.

Running suit heavy on 1500pts is really hard, especially if you want those 2 Hammerheads. Those things are good, but they eat up a smackload of points.

The junk things is that you can only have 1-3 per Elite slot so you'll be fielding 9 at the most for Elite. Ahhhh, almost forgot about the Shas'O bodyguard as an additional HQ slot...but I think it's only max 2 (don't have the codex with me right now).

I tried figuring a way around this and the only way that I can see you having bajillion suits is if you have Farsight. He upgrades the bodyguard crisis suits to 7 max. So, what's that? 16 max w/Farsight?

The most I've managed to cram in is 6. 7 if you count the Shas'O. Hammerheads are pretty expensive.

if you drop the pathfinders... you have more then enough points to add a powerful firebase of 9 crisis suits with TL missile pods and flamers.

HQ Fire knife 'el usually around 100pts
9 suits with TL pods and flamers 450pts
2 min FW squads in devilfish 400pts
1 10man krootsquad with 10 hounds 130pts
2 hammer heads with railguns, Multitrackers, DPs and burstcannons 165 each

this gives you around 1420pts with plenty of room for other upgrades/weapon options, 3 scoring units and a lot of dakka

JD21290 wrote:At low points cost with tau you will need to give the troops some protection and mobility.
With small units i would suggest a fish each to make sure you can keep them away from the fight if and when needed.
and also they can then move in on objectives quickly.

You can always just camp the pathfinders, and use their devilfishes for the firewarriors. In fact, this is arguably the only way to use pathfinders.

As for the crisis suits, I would recommend deathrain and heatwave for the builds. Deathrain is very good against transports and heavy infantry, epecially when in squads of three, because then you get six twin-linked str 7 shots, usually from afar. The heatwaves (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure heatwave is twin-linked flamers) are great for being deepstruck and opening up with their flamers, which get to reroll wounds, and can add up to quite a lot if you have multiple suits, all using seperate templates. Check out Rikimaru's article on XV8s on Librarium online, he has a lot more to say on deathrain and heatwave builds, and crisis suit uses in general.