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With horde orks being such a threat these days, a small squad (1-2) Crisis suits with twin-linked flamers isn't a bad idea. I'll be running (once I paint them up!) a pair of Crisis with twin-linked flamers and a fusion blaster for deepstriking duty. Use them as either/or suits, but they come out to be 43 points each; not too bad, and they have some versatility.

The massed markerlights will really help your army too.

Sorry about the confusing miss math, On all three squads if both were armed so it would have reduced the points by 36 not 48, sorry.

@All posters. Why not bring in your lists for comparison. It will make the tactic discusion about how these builds work a little easier.

@Typeline, If you note, I run one "suicide squad" , one missle squad, but two squads have plasma. This is because plasma is your crisis suits best friend. It's seems wrong to say but the Tau are light on ap2 or better and heavy fire power until you get to the suits. Plasma's non-shortened range and rapid fire really helps the Tau to make up for the rest of the army being mainly S5 AP5.

My Suicide squad die only about 40% of the time because I use them with the help of the markers to take out that big thing all by itself in the back. Opponents driving for objectives tend to ignore them or just don't have the ability to turn back because they are in rapidfire range. Also, at this point, all of the guns are focusing on what is now fewer targets and firing for greater effect. So quite often the squad goes to work hamstringing and baiting the enemy to back up and stay under my guns for another turn.

Typeline, I like your last list incarnation. I'd still change a few things, but overall its a good start, you'll see where the other changes you want to do after your first game.

Question, do you realy have 6 or so kroot hound models? Just curious, I never bought them as cash-wise I didn't think they justified themselves, and even in an army 6 kroot > 7 hounds (nothing beats another gun)

As Focused said, with all the suits you are running, I'd keep one suicide squad, TL FB and flamer.

You are running light on troops, but if you keep them protected you should be ok. And for the tactics you said to justify your pathfinders, hopefully you'll find good places to drop both units during deployment and with the scout move that we get at the beginning of the game.

I think you should find the 30pts to give multitrackers to the hammerheads, I guess if you do a suicide crisis squad you should be able to get all the points you need from there.

After that...
here's a modeling suggestion... magnets. I magnetized my entire tau army, its the best thing I ever did. All my suits can be whatever configuration I want them to be, same with my devilfish/hammerheads I can swap them back n forth. I've been using really small circullar rare earth magnets, 1/8" by 1/16". Also used 1/4" x 1/16" for the engines on the transports.

I'll second the suggestion of magnetizing all the suits. I've got each arm and the top of each shoulder magnetized on each suit, and every weapon and piece of wargear. Sometimes it takes me a little longer than I like to get my army ready and on the board, but it's worth it. For example, I've recently resurrected my farsight tau for 5th edition, and now I'm arming all the battlesuits in the farsight squad with Plasma, MP, and a flamer (stole the idea from Moz I think). Never would have been able to try it otherwise. Plus you never know what the next codex will make best...(in 2014...hah)

Anyway, i think at this point you have a very solid base for your army. I think you'll need to test out what situations you find a suicide suit squad to be most useful, and what kind of loadout you want it to have. I like Iorek's suggestion actually - one thing that I feel tau have trouble with when they load up on Plasma/Missile suits is horde ork.

@Sazz, If I may answer about the hounds. I worked on the kroot a long time to come up with some tactics that would make them viable.
When you use the kroot the I5 on the hounds lets you do some serious hitting even if you let yourself get charged.

I set them in cover, of course, and their real weakness is flamers and other Tau with markers. Aside from that they are almost like a mid-point between Eldar and ork with the lean going to the Eldar. They play like Storm Guardians with an enhance warlock but with a 1 point strength bump. You just can't shoot before assaulting but their static range makes up for it.

When it comes to CC hounds make sure that the kroot get a good swing in befor losing models. Only heros and genestealers are faster. 7 hounds = 14 WS4 S4 attacks. When I5&4 come up I place all of the first wounds on the hounds so that the rest of the kroot get to swing 10 kroot = 20 WS4 S4 attacks.(And thats without assaulting) In the last 6 games the kroot ate 2 tyranid gargoyle squads in one game. Broke a fire dragon squad in another. Got flamed to death in the next. Wiped a squad of necron warriors and tied up a second squad in the third. Ate up some Koptaz then finished off a warboss in another one. And broke under Tau markers and Railgun sub-munition in one.

Overall not a bad showing. Just takes time to learn because they are fragile like the eldar and you have to pick your targets carefully. My regular opponents have learned to try to get rid of them fast. Which is ok because that means that the rest of the army is taking less of a beating for that turn or two.

I've found that Crisis suit loadouts and Hammerhead turrets can be easily swappable without even resorting to magnets. For me they usually fit just tightly enough to work without problems.

Didn't realize they are I5, if thts the case I have 5 oldchaos hounds, I bet they'll be easy to convert. I'll give it a try.

focusedfire wrote:@Sazz, If I may answer about the hounds. I worked on the kroot a long time to come up with some tactics that would make them viable.
When you use the kroot the I5 on the hounds lets you do some serious hitting even if you let yourself get charged.

I set them in cover, of course, and their real weakness is flamers and other Tau with markers. Aside from that they are almost like a mid-point between Eldar and ork with the lean going to the Eldar. They play like Storm Guardians with an enhance warlock but with a 1 point strength bump. You just can't shoot before assaulting but their static range makes up for it.

When it comes to CC hounds make sure that the kroot get a good swing in befor losing models. Only heros and genestealers are faster. 7 hounds = 14 WS4 S4 attacks. When I5&4 come up I place all of the first wounds on the hounds so that the rest of the kroot get to swing 10 kroot = 20 WS4 S4 attacks.(And thats without assaulting) In the last 6 games the kroot ate 2 tyranid gargoyle squads in one game. Broke a fire dragon squad in another. Got flamed to death in the next. Wiped a squad of necron warriors and tied up a second squad in the third. Ate up some Koptaz then finished off a warboss in another one. And broke under Tau markers and Railgun sub-munition in one.

Overall not a bad showing. Just takes time to learn because they are fragile like the eldar and you have to pick your targets carefully. My regular opponents have learned to try to get rid of them fast. Which is ok because that means that the rest of the army is taking less of a beating for that turn or two.

Kroot and Hounds are a cheap unit that will crumble to a dedicated assault unit (like a big mob of orks or assault marines), but they're like half the points of the dedicated assault unit too.

Your absolutely right. Thats why its all about deployment and tactics.

There are only two or three armies that have regular troops that can eat those dedicated elite assault squads. But for against regular troops or weakend squads Kroot aren't bad.
It's like against an equal number of points(112pts vs 112pts) of Orkboys or even 'Ard boyz the Kroot are pretty balanced. It all depends on who assaults when and where at that point.
But run against nobs and the kroot disappear in a single turn unless the nobs are way down in squad count. It really depends on the nob's wargear load out at that point.

The real advantage in the Kroot is their deployment flexibility. I quite often hold them in reserve for in filtration. Then let my opponent deploy thinking that I'm going for some obviously advantageous spot and then infiltrate them as the assault shield for my pathfinders or broadsides.

Other times I make use of the outflank rule and try to team them with the suicide suits for a side door objective nab if the terrain lays out the way I like.

I like that I can tinker with my opponents deployment sometimes with just the threat of a little 112 pt squad.


Edited for spelling

OK friends, I've been mulling over my list for a few days and I'm pretty certain this next incarnation will perform very well.

HQ
Shas'el, MT-PR-MP, Guard MT-PR-MP 159
Shas'el, MT-PR-MP, Guard MT-PR-MP 159
Elites
Crisis Team x2, MT-PR-MP 124
Crisis Team x2, MT-PR-MP 124
Crisis Team x2, MT-PR-MP 124
Troops
10x FW, Shas'ui w/ BK & ML 125
10x FW, Shas'ui w/ BK & ML 125
10x Kroot + 1x Hound
10x Kroot + 1x Hound
Fast
8x Pathfinders, Shas'ui w/BK in Devilfish w/ DP & FC 206
8x Pathfinders, Shas'ui w/BK in Devilfish w/ DP & FC 206
Heavy
Hammerhead, Railgun, BCs, DP, MT 165
Hammerhead, Railgun, BCs, DP, MT 165
Hammerhead, Railgun, BCs, DP, MT 165

The Pathfinders deploy as close as they can to a good position to lay markerlights the entire game. Won't be hard. The Kroot highjack their Devilfish and drive it to objectives. The Suits are more of a distraction. Mid-ranged firepower that can take out light tanks and most troops pretty easily. The dangerous thing will be the Fire warriors laying down shots using the Markerlights from the pathfinders. The Hammerheads will be great at doing their job. I gave the flachette charges to the Devilfish because I know they will probably get assaulted.

I don't want to spend 30 minutes retyping what I've typed elsewhere, so my advice would be to surf about the army list forum a bit at the other Tau lists and critiques that have been offered on them and get a feel for what we all have to say.

I like it. The only thing I'll say I think I've said before - It may be nice to make one of the crisis squads 3x and make one of the HQs an independent character. Being able to do things like join the suit to a squad of firewarriors or kroot for the leadership boost can come in handy sometimes. And being able to join him to the 3 man squad means you can lay down markerlights that 4 suits can use at once.

Tactically, I like the list, very similar to lists i've played and had success with, though it does feel strangely similar to my 4e lists but with more pathfinders. Anyway I'd say you may find yourself wanting to put the firewarriors in the devilfish as much or more than the kroot. Since the kroot can't use the markerlights, and you have a ton of them, you may find that dropping the firewarriors out of a devilfish to rapid fire with markerlight support is more effective, while the kroot outflank/hide in trees/whatever for objective grabbing or harrassing.