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Everyone always puts marker drones with stealth suits so they can JSJ, right? Just in case you didn't know, although every tau player must know this by now, if marker drones are attached to jet pack infantry, they become jet pack infantry, which just so happens to make them relentless under 5th edition. So, that's why they can JSJ with markerlights (heavy weapons) while attached to Stealth teams. They also become relentless, then, while attached to crisis suits. So, wouldn't it be cool to have a crisis suit that you could use as a mobile markerlight platform?

Shas'El
TL Missle Pods
Targeting Array
Hard-wired target lock
Hard-wired drone controller
Bonding Knife
2 Markerlight drones
148 points

This could use any weapons outfit as long as it funcions from fairly long range, I just like Deathrain because it has the same range as the Marker Light, but you could probably also use Fireknife or TL plama rifles. In fact, fireknife, though expensive, could be efficient here, since it needs markerlights to funcion well, and it will always have markerlights available. Deathrain is probably the cheapest configuration to work with this suit though.
One other possibility I considered was a possible montat Shas'vre, with an un-hard-wired drone controller and TL flamers, to be a marker platform only and have the TL flamer for an emergency only. This would be far cheaper, but it would suffer from reduced leadership in a situation where it was needed.

Shas'Vre
TL flamer
Drone Controller
Bonding Knife
2 Markerlight drones
101 points

Feedback is welcome and desired.

People use stealth suits for a dedicated marker light platform for two reasons:

1. Stealth Field: When staying at 36+" away, they are (almost) immune to return fire. This helps keep your marker lights alive for the length of the game

2. Weapons: The burst cannon is str 5 AP 5, of which the Tau army is drowning in already, so you don't lose as much keeping them out of range.

While a team of Deathrain suit could use the marker lights and still fire their weapons for effects, they are also more expensive and lose the protection from ranged retaliation.

This is of course assuming you're going to bring enough marker lights to make a real impact on the battlefield (at least six)

Edit: Darn you Kroot Loops! Beat me to it!

The problem with taking Marker Drones on Crisis suits is survivability. There is no Stealthfield to deter any incoming shots, and eventually you will have to put some wounds on the Drones due to allocation.

I'm not saying it can't work, and it is nice to have the ranges be synonymous, but Marker Drones are too expensive for this roll.

As for your Shas'vre loadout, the problem with him is that the majority toughness of the unit is dropped from 4 to 3, since the number of Drones out number the amount of toughness 4 models (Crisis Suits). This again drops the survivability of the unit.

Most people don't use stealth suits at all because they suck.


Pathfinders are still the most efficient source of markerlights.

Please to not be using stealth suits.

The first option is 74pts per marker light.

The second option is 50.5pts per markerlight.

Yes, you have added firepower and the suits have access to target locks (allowing you to split fire, at slightly higher cost compared to a lone team leader).

A full squad of 3 stealth-suits with 2 marker drones costs 75pts per markerlight (Stealth field and 2 "disposable" wounds) whilst a squad of 3+3 drones costs 60pts per markerlight.

A pathfinder markerlight costs 12pts per markerlight (If you find an alternate use for their transport) or more close to 22-30pts (depending on squad size) if you factor in the cost of the devilfish.

A Fire warrior Shas'ui cost 35pts per markerlight (with a target lock, allowing you to point-cost them individually)

A Stealth-suit Shas'vre costs 50pts per markerlight (again, with a target lock).

Basically everytime you take a markerlight that is not a pathfinder marker light god kills a puppy.

should be noted the one and only advantage of marker lights with stealth suits is they can move and shoot.

Well, that and the stealth field!

As I understood it, marker drones have networked markerlights, which means they can only be used by the unit they belong to.

Not 'only', 'also'. It's the same as a regular markerlight, but the unit firing it can benefit from it too.

Well, here is a perfect example for today, I had a match today in an ongoing local tournament league at the FLGS. 1500 points, my opponent was blood angels, three objectives, pitched battle.


He won initiative, set up, and then I deployed. Due to the way the terrain was set up by a neutral party, I had very little options for cover until the leading edge of my deployment zone, meaning I had to set up closer to him than I would have liked. I used my scout move to get the pathfinders into area terrain just over the 12" deployment zone line.

Failed to seize initiative, his forces zoomed forward, and rapid fired on the Pathfinders in cover. All said and done, all the pathfinders were dead before they ever fired a shot. And before you say I deployed them wrong, this was the only cover I could get them in that had good lines of fire. The other two options for cover were tall hills that would have blocked LoS for half the squad, and would have provided no cover from his whirlwind.

Anyway, T 3 and 4+ saves don't hold up well on the battlefield. the Stealth Marker Team is really expensive, but it offers survivability and maneuverability to a unit that enhances the rest of the army. So it's up to you to decide if it's worth it or not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tri wrote:should be noted the one and only advantage of marker lights with stealth suits is they can move and shoot.

Lukus83 wrote:Well, that and the stealth field!

And the 3+ save

Uh...move and shoot a marker light? Are you referring to the jet pack assault move?

Referring to the fact that Jump Infantry are Relentless and can move and fire heavy weapons. They can also JSJ with markerlights.

MilkmanAl. Joining the chuchutrain of the conversation a station too late.

Yeah...I haven't had a whole lot of experience with 5th edition yet. So sorry!

It honestly sounds like you just have problems with pathfinders more than anything else, really.

If you can't get good cover for them right off the bat... then don't! It's not the worst thing in the world if they spend their first turn just moving into position (since crisis suits don't really hit their stride until they get in plasma range) and frankly, if you could only have gotten los for half the squad in one position... well, beggers can't be choosers. If nothing else, you could have put them in your deployment zone behind the mandatory devilfish so it could block los/grant cover, depending on how you modeled it.

Kroot Loops wrote:Well, here is a perfect example for today, I had a match today in an ongoing local tournament league at the FLGS. 1500 points, my opponent was blood angels, three objectives, pitched battle.


He won initiative, set up, and then I deployed. Due to the way the terrain was set up by a neutral party, I had very little options for cover until the leading edge of my deployment zone, meaning I had to set up closer to him than I would have liked. I used my scout move to get the pathfinders into area terrain just over the 12" deployment zone line.

Failed to seize initiative, his forces zoomed forward, and rapid fired on the Pathfinders in cover. All said and done, all the pathfinders were dead before they ever fired a shot. And before you say I deployed them wrong, this was the only cover I could get them in that had good lines of fire. The other two options for cover were tall hills that would have blocked LoS for half the squad, and would have provided no cover from his whirlwind.

Anyway, T 3 and 4+ saves don't hold up well on the battlefield. the Stealth Marker Team is really expensive, but it offers survivability and maneuverability to a unit that enhances the rest of the army. So it's up to you to decide if it's worth it or not.

How many in the squad? How many units did he have shooting at them?

Did you remember to go to ground? Being inactive for a turn is better than being dead for the whole game. You can also screen them with some kroot to protect against assaults, for what still comes to cheaper (and more versatile thanks to the kroot) than a stealth marker team, and you have the flexibility of not needing to deploy in cover if there's a better place to position them screened by kroot.

Milquetoast Thug wrote:It honestly sounds like you just have problems with pathfinders more than anything else, really.

If you can't get good cover for them right off the bat... then don't! It's not the worst thing in the world if they spend their first turn just moving into position (since crisis suits don't really hit their stride until they get in plasma range) and frankly, if you could only have gotten los for half the squad in one position... well, beggers can't be choosers. If nothing else, you could have put them in your deployment zone behind the mandatory devilfish so it could block los/grant cover, depending on how you modeled it.

I'm more worried about stripping smoke cover saves from vehicles turn one than any other turn really. Besides, the guy knew he was facing Tau and made his list accordingly, jump infantry and rhino spam, assaults were going to begin on turn 2 with some of the more static units.

I did mention the whirlwind didn't I? AP4, barrage, so ignores terrain such as walls and hills, at least on a direct hit? Yeah, that's the main reason I didn't put them behind a hill or behind the devilfish.

grankobot wrote:
How many in the squad? How many units did he have shooting at them?

Did you remember to go to ground? Being inactive for a turn is better than being dead for the whole game. You can also screen them with some kroot to protect against assaults, for what still comes to cheaper (and more versatile thanks to the kroot) than a stealth marker team.

8 pathfinders. 2x tac squads rapid firing, 1x jump infantry squad pistol shots, 2x rhino storm bolters. In those squads somewhere they also had three melta gun shots. They went to ground, but it didn't help them ( I was rolling rocks all game anyway, six railgun shots throughout the game rolled either 1's to hit or 1's to wound). Although even if getting average results, the squad would have been decimated to the point that their BS 3 Marker lights would have been reduced to near insignifigance.

Some of the problem is that my FLGS is limited on it's terrain, and whoever has been setting the boards up lately has been favoring a covered center with empty board edges. But for instance, on the 6x4 board we played on, their were only two pieces of area terrain, everything else was hills.

But the rest of the problem is that the pathfinders are relatively squishy, and if they manuver to avoid a threat, they lose the ability to perform their role (which is why the fast attack slot is somewhat humorous).

Kroot Loops wrote:

grankobot wrote:
How many in the squad? How many units did he have shooting at them?

Did you remember to go to ground? Being inactive for a turn is better than being dead for the whole game. You can also screen them with some kroot to protect against assaults, for what still comes to cheaper (and more versatile thanks to the kroot) than a stealth marker team.

8 pathfinders. 2x tac squads rapid firing, 1x jump infantry squad pistol shots, 2x rhino storm bolters. In those squads somewhere they also had three melta gun shots. They went to ground, but it didn't help them ( I was rolling rocks all game anyway, six railgun shots throughout the game rolled either 1's to hit or 1's to wound). Although even if getting average results, the squad would have been decimated to the point that their BS 3 Marker lights would have been reduced to near insignifigance.

Some of the problem is that my FLGS is limited on it's terrain, and whoever has been setting the boards up lately has been favoring a covered center with empty board edges. But for instance, on the 6x4 board we played on, their were only two pieces of area terrain, everything else was hills.

But the rest of the problem is that the pathfinders are relatively squishy, and if they manuver to avoid a threat, they lose the ability to perform their role (which is why the fast attack slot is somewhat humorous).

So what you've concluded here is that 96 points of pathfinders are bad because they can't survive a concentrated attack from ~500 points of marines on a poorly laid out table, with poor rolls on your part.

Hmm. Sounds a little skewed to me.

Don't forget that the pathfinders' devilfish can scout too. You could have put it in front and then moved it clear on your turn to put the hurting on.

grankobot wrote:
So what you've concluded here is that 96 points of pathfinders are bad because they can't survive a concentrated attack from ~500 points of marines on a poorly laid out table, with poor rolls on your part.

Hmm. Sounds a little skewed to me.

Don't forget that the pathfinders' devilfish can scout too. You could have put it in front and then moved it clear on your turn to put the hurting on.

Oh I admit to being a little biased on the subject, however, I needed the DF for my FW to occupy, and will point out that a SMT could have safely been at the board edge, unshootable, jumped forward, marker light, and then jump back. They could have also potentially spilt off some of the roughly 1000 points charging towards my broadsides

Well, for those of you that have constantly said that pathfinders are better sources of markerlights, I heartilly agree with you, and will not argue against that because frankly it's immpossible to prove that markerlight drones are ever better souces of markerlights than pathfinders. Except, of course, when the markerlights have to move. I have had more than one game where the pathfinders either were shredded because there was very little cover to deploy them in or because the board was covered in buildings and they had limited lines of sight. In both of these cases, I went without markerlights and could have used some kind of mobile markerlight platforms.

Obviously the best way to do this is JSJing marker drones. And I've been putting them with stealthsuits, but stealthsuits suck, so I looked for different ways to put them in, and these crisis configurations are what I came up with. Paying 36 points for a heatwave suit is a lot less than 95 or 100 points for a stealth team. There's also the potential to use a skyray for mobile markerlights. These can move 12" and then fire (with multi-trackers), and they are tanks. But, they're tanks. They're a lot more likely to be taking krak missles and are more likely to be feared than a dude with double flamers who's on the other side of the board. I would even go as far as to say that the deathrain Shas'El is probably better than the skyray as he gets the misslepods instead of the seeker missles, both of which will probably be used for anti-transport.

So I think we all know that pathfinders don't always get the perfect positioning. I am well aware of the disadvantages of pathfinders, as we all apparently are. I am asking to see if we can find solutions to these problems by suggesting mobile markerlight options to compliment pathfinders when they don't work. Would anyone like to comment on these suggestions, or propose new ones?

That is one of the problems, there is no such thing as cheap marker lights currently. Anytime you start talking about marker drones, you're talking about 30 points a marker light. To get a good chance for those to get one marker light hit, you need two drones. So your crisis suit is now up to 96 points, with a good chance to get one marker light hit. Which is fine for boosting ballistic skill, but not really enough to do the heavy lifting of a marker team when it comes to stripping cover or trying to force pins.

Probably the only 'good' answer to more marker lights is the same as the first, a second team of Pathfinders.

I've thought about using a skyray before, but imo it's not worth a heavy support slot for 2 ML and 6 seeker missiles.

A minimal Stealth marker team (team leader with Markerlight and TA, two Shas'ui, two Drones) costs 175 points and gives you one BS4 and two BS3 Markerlights. Cheapest "sensible" Sky Ray costs around 155 points and gives you two BS4 Markerlights. Both have around same supplemental firepower, but Sky Ray comes with Target lock so it can shoot its SMS independently, whilst Steath suits have to target same target with their Burst cannons and Markerlights.

I dunno, SMT just seems to be as way too expensive, despite all its advantages. Even if it can't be shot from afar, it's going to be targeted by all kind of fast assaulters.

Pathfinders are the right choice, but with the caveat that one unit is not enough. A single unit of Pathfinders just cries out to be killed to weaken your whole army, and you never want to give you opponent such an obvious target.

Personally I'd bring two 8 man teams in 1500 point game, or none at all, one is just a gift to your opponent.

Jack

grankobot wrote:
Don't forget that the pathfinders' devilfish can scout too. You could have put it in front and then moved it clear on your turn to put the hurting on.

You beat me to it; I was going to say the same thing. Use the fish as a screen or just leave them in the fish. Fish laugh at bolters and S4 barrages.

agnosto wrote:
You beat me to it; I was going to say the same thing. Use the fish as a screen or just leave them in the fish. Fish laugh at bolters and S4 barrages.

So not only do your markerlights do nothing for at least two turns, the Fire Warriors you were going to put in the devilfish get barraged instead

Kroot Loops wrote:

agnosto wrote:
You beat me to it; I was going to say the same thing. Use the fish as a screen or just leave them in the fish. Fish laugh at bolters and S4 barrages.

So not only do your markerlights do nothing for at least two turns, the Fire Warriors you were going to put in the devilfish get barraged instead

? They can't start in the pathfinders transport and must jump in on the first turn any way. So ether way the fire warriors will be in the open for at least one players first turn.

Kroot Loops wrote:
So not only do your markerlights do nothing for at least two turns, the Fire Warriors you were going to put in the devilfish get barraged instead

Actually, I meant to leave the pathfinders in the fish the first turn if cover is an issue and you're worried about barrage/bolter fire. They, pathfinders, have worked well for me, especially with a couple of rail-rifles in the unit. Plus, carbines=pin tests once you're within range. Pinned grunts followed by AFP = dead grunts.... Or follow up with an ionhead.

People have told me enough and now I'm a believer; Tau do not have any one answer, each unit is only as good as the backup they receive from other units in the army. I know, I know, space monkey marines are all "no death, no glory" or whatever but Tau units have to all support one another to be useful.

It's all location location location with pathfinders and sometimes you get hosed with terrain, that's no reason to diss on 'em. One game does not an entire theorum of usefulness create.

Rambled enough, it's time to move on.

Just getting back into playing 40K, and just registered here.

I have to say, that in any 1750 point game, I always take a unit of Stealth suits. In a 2000 point game, I take two. Usually I deep strike them, knowing they are going to die, but knowing that if I use them right they will usually break an army up into bite sized chunks for the rest of my army.

I have experimented with the targeting array upgrade, and while impressed, I am going to reduce the cost of the unit a bit by going with a single marker-light, since it will give me the option of reducing a cover save or giving the unit BS4 when the marker hits. Two marker-lights look even more desirable, since the odds are that one will always be hitting.

I cannot understand why anyone would think stealth suits are a waste.