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I finally buckled and picked up a Tau codex last week. They look too cool to pass up. I'm trying to make the most competitive army I can for 2000 points. I've been fiddling with army lists, and this is what I've come up with so far:

Shas'el: missile pod, plasma rifle,hard-wired multitracker, targeting array - 97

2x 3 Crisis suits: missile pod, plasma rifle, multitracker
- team leader: missile pod, hard-wired multitracker and drone controller, 2 shield drones, targeting array - 231 each (462 total)

3 Crisis suits: flamer, twin-linked missile pod
- team leader: hard-wired drone controller, 2 gun drones - 166

13 Kroot, 10 Kroot Hounds - 151 each (302 total)

6 Fire Warriors - 60

8 Pathfinders
- Devilfish: disruption pod - 181

2x 3 Broadside suits: Advanced Stabilization System
- team leader: Advanced Stabilization System, hard-wired target lock, drone controller, and 2 shield drones - 280 each (560 total)

Hammerhead: railgun, 2 burst cannons, target lock, multitracker, disruption pod - 170

1998 points

I'm concerned that I won't be able to deal with hordes well. I have a grand total of 1 pie plate and not a whole lot of small arms fire. I considered substituting a flamer for a plasma rifle on one of the Crisis suits in each unit. I know the range mixing thing is bad, but 3 extra flamers would go a long way towards solving the horde problem. It would also allow me to abuse wound allocation fully and give me a few extra points for some more Kroot or Hounds. To me, the missile pod/plasma rifle seems like the best weapon combo, but am I missing out by not including some fusion blasters? It sure would be nice to have some melta around, but it seems like Crisis suits are better...erm...suited for long-range combat rather than getting stuck in close. Also, I feel like I have vehicles covered pretty well with 7 railguns and 9 missile pods.

On a related note, I've been trying to decide whether Kroot or Kroot hounds would be the better close-range horde control for me. Kroot would allow some extra damage at range, but it seems like assault is pretty much inevitable. Are the few extra shots at 24" worth sacrificing the killing power and speed in CC that Hounds bring? I'm inclined to stick with Hounds, but I dunno.

Finally, the army seems a bit one-dimensional. That is, it isn't terribly mobile and just shoots the crap out of everything. Is it good enough at that one dimension to survive? I was trying to think of a way to include some Piranhas as sacrificial road blocks that might take down a vehicle or two, but I'm infatuated with the battle suits and find paying 75 points (after upgrades and stuff) for a flimsy, short-ranged vehicle with little firepower pretty tough to swallow.

Anyway, comments and criticism are more than welcome. I hope I haven't done too badly with my first Tau list.

Help?

Try some t-l burstcannon and drone controller suits. 3 of them with 2 gun drones appiece there is some anti-horde firepower. Leader could benefit from either an air-bursting frag launcher or ion blaster.

My worry with your list is your troops choices are too weak to make your list competitive in objective missions.

I like your heavy support choices, but you are spending too many points on crisis suits by making them all Fireknife suits.

personally i think one unit should be TL Fusion/Flamer. the suits are amazingly cheap and immensely effective against armor or infantry hordes. (i've only seen my unit of them not get their points back in one game) i mean sure, they die in a turn or two after coming onto the table but they sure make that turn worthwhile (i only use a unit of 2 for it, and it comes to a total of around 94 pts or something, its sickeningly good)

Fireknife can be a great weapon load-out but it is not cheap which means you take the hit in other things in your army, one maybe 2 units of fireknife will be fine.

The big problem you are going to face is in a 2000 pt game you only have 77 models including 12 drones, and very weak objective grabbers.

I know the tau suits are wild and fun, and they are a great component of our army, but remember in 2/3 of the game you need troop choices to take those objectives and don't sneer at the anti-horde and even anti-light vehicle power of the humble Firewarrior.

Your Heavy Support Section is fine, although you may want to swap out one of the units of broadsides for another Hammerhead, but thats up to you both are fine selections.

also the boradsides team leader doesn't need the multitracker, you almost never want to fire the Railgun and the SMS at the same target.

Also with the Pathfinders Devilfish, scrap the TA and perhaps by a Multitracker. If you are going to buy a TA then you def need a MT, as you should be moving it 12" a turn.

Those are just my quick thoughts on it.

I agree with most of what Fizzy had to say, you need at least one hardened unit of troops to hold an objective. But I'd say only one, with maybe two more smaller units just in case those do not work too well.

Tau do best, IMO, as denying others the troops to hold objectives and holding one themselves. They can do this through quicker units and sheer firepower. Try using this ideal for the list if possible.

Okay, let's see here...I don't particularly like the looks of burst cannons on Crisis suits. It seems like 4 extra points is more than worth on the extra strength and range of a missile pod, even at the expense of a shot. Flamer and fusion blaster I can see, but I think I might try something a little more dedicated to stopping numbers. In theory, I'm fairly secure with my armor-stopping abilities. If that doesn't work out, I'll keep changing stuff around.

I made one of the Crisis units the following:

3 Crisis suits: flamer, twin-linked missile pod
-team leader: hard-wired drone controller, 2 gun drones - 166

It's cheaper, comes with 2 ablative wounds for pesky lascannon and missile launcher fire, and can pin stuff. I thought about getting twin flamers, but 3 twin flamers on one unit seems like overkill. Nix the twin missiles and put drone controllers on each guy for another ablative wound? I dunno.

I also took off the extraneous upgrades and used the extra points for more Kroot stuff.

Crisis suits don't need as many ablative wounds as you think. JSJ is pretty good at denying shots that the enemy will take and you should almost always be able to be in cover.

I think that your armor stopping ability may be a little bit too good. thats why i was suggesting swapping one unit of broadsides for another railhead. you lose 2 railgun shots to gain another subunition shot when you need it. you have enough missile pods to deal with light armor and 3 broadsides and two hammerheads is enough to trash even the amount of tanks an average IG player will send at you.

I say this to everyone and not all tau players play like i do, but you should try out a FoF with firewarriors. it is one of the most devastating tactics tau can play. it takes a good eye for distances to set it up and get the right shot, but it takes the fairly weak tau troops choices and makes them into one of the most devastating attack units. but thats just my play-style, i just think any tau commander should try it out. also you may want to consider the Positional Relay. (IMO the best upgrade you can give to a commander)

If you dropped a set of Broadside suits and picked up some more fire warriors and a Hammer head you will have more mobility, more firepower opportunity (you can use 2 pie plates) and you will have a squad of Firewarriors that can objective sit.