Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, I've been playing 40k on and off for several years through high school and college, but, due to a variety of reasons, I've never really gotten serious about it. I started with some generic space marines and eventually gravitated towards Tau (I like the shooty-ness and mechs just do it for me), but now that I have some more substantial income and my friends are picking it up again I want to get a bit more serious. Would really like any and all thoughts on this army list I've come up with.

HQ (50)
- 1x Ethereal (50)
(Longstrike)

Elite (537)
- 3x Crisis "Neo Fireknife" Shas'ui, TL Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle (171)
- 3x Crisis "Neo Sunforge" Shas'ui, TL Fusion Blaster, Plasma Rifle (171)
- 1x Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator, TL Smart Missiles, EWO, Counter (195)

Troops (324)
- 12x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifles (108)
- 12x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifles (108)
- 12x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifles (108)

Fast Attack (212)
- 2x Piranha w/ Fusion Blasters (100)
- 6x Pathfinders (66)
- 6x Pathfinders (66)

Heavy Support (346)
- 2x Broadside Shas'vre w/ TL H. Rail Rifle, TL SMS, Advanced Targeting (156)
- 1x Longstrike Hammerhead Railgun, Submunitions, TL SMS, Disruption Pod (190)

The idea here is to be super generic. Generally speaking, I want a big ball of too-dangerous-to-charge Fire Warriors around my Ethereal, and an artillery trio of broadsides and longstrike picking off priority targets while my crisis suits and piranhas deal with specific threats and the Riptide plays "clean up the popped transports". I don't expect my play group to have a ton of flyers or forgeworld stuff, and everything here is set up to deal with heavily armored units about a third of the time (highly afraid of ending up without the ability to deal with av13-14 units). I didn't really know what direction to take the Riptide, I don't know if I should cut some things and put in some shield drones in sensitive positions, and I'm unsure how this will actually play, but any advice I could get before that would be amazing.

Seems pretty good.

Few suggestions:
Broadsides with high yield missile pods are amazing and should be taken (preferably with a EWO) it is great for popping aircraft and light vehicles or dumping massive saves on a unit

Fire knives are meh (though should still do exactly what they did in the last book) probably can focus most of your crisis suit into AP2 or Fusion roles.

As much as everyone hates castle tau, a ADL is very useful.

Thanks for the quick reply, good to know I'm not completely insane too
Yeah, I know about the fireknives being not so great, think I should just make em deathrains? Also considering the 'triple plasma' build I saw that exploits some wording issue in the codex, allowing for a TL Plasma AND a second Plasma. A little iffy on all of that stuff, but the thing I was going for with these 'neo fireknives' was just midrange annihilation of anything without good saves.

About the Broadsides, I just can't get myself to swap out of the HRR for the HYMP. I'm going to try a few playtests and see what I'm up against, if I end up facing lots of armies that are more vulnerable to that setup I'll probably do switch it up. The main theme I wanted to run with these guys and longstrike was to stay very far out of the main skirmish though.

The best unit for st 7 ap 4 is Broadsides hands down.
Crisis suits should be freed to wield there best weapons, plasma and fusions.

The whole wording thing was silly and it wasn't really even an exploit BUT the FAQ has fixed it so you can have 2 regular plasma, you don't even need to TL the first one.

Alright, I'm thinkin maybe swap one of my sides out for the hymp loadout, if not both, then switch the fireknives to be sunforges. Points value doesn't change either, nice. Also, about the ADL, don't think we're using forts. Tho I've noticed a lot of other players swear by it, so if we do turn out to use it that's what I'll pick up for sure.