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OK, so i am wondering how best to run an enclave troop section... specifically, regarding crisis teams, because lets face it. one of the reasons for taking enclave armies, is crisis units as troops, and not firewarriors/kroot.

so:

after ourchasing the mandatory 3 man squad, is it better to:

run a few 3 man quads, load them up with drones, etc haVING 2-4 troop selections
OR
run a bunch of 1 man teams - kitted for long range and have the full 6+ selections?
OR
a moderate amount (3ish of 2 man teams with drones)

from what i can tell, the trade off is pretty obvious... durability and firepower vrs having the ability to claim/contest multiple objectives. but in the end, still roughly the same number of suits in the army, its just the configuration thats changing.

and no, im got going to be putting kroot in the discussion. yes, i realize they are great for pts, etc etc, put personally i don't have the models, no intention of buying or painting the models, and if i wanted kroot as troops i would just play normal tau and not have spent the 40$ on the enclave book. so lets keep the discussion focused on crisis teams please and thanks.

This is a tough question to answer. We all know the versatility of the Crisis suits and I don't think there can be a wrong answer, aside from burst cannons because I will always have a grudge against them.

Personally I'd either run a few three man teams with two suits equipped with dual plasma and a third with dual fusion and target lock, or I'd run mostly missile pods double suit squads with a few lone deepstriking melta suits.

It took me 3 years and change to finally get the suits modeled to match WYSIWYG. But I find the old Plasma with a missile pod load out works just fine still. Which is fortunate for me.

mixed weaponry really just doesn't fit in well for me. You end up having half the suit's ability wasted because the missiles and plasma are suited for different tasks.

With the quad plasma dual fusion squad I suggested, The unit is geared entirely towards getting in close to deal damage with the ability to take on both heavy infantry and tanks, while not forcing suits to take on both roles at once. In a pinch where one of those targets isn't readily available the weapons on the unused suit(s) can be used to help out since S6 AP2 plasma can do some damage against a few vehicles that are close enough and the fusion also works decently against heavy infantry. In the event that you have no heavy armor you're up against the fusion suit becomes the throw away suit that tanks wounds to protect the more vital plasma suits and vice versa.

I could see using missile pods and fusion together in a unit, since S7 is a bit more useful against a vehicles and can find targets while moving the fusion in range. I just really don't see missiles and plasma being that useful though since the plasma wants to be within 12" to maximize damage output while the missiles are fine at the full range. Personally I'll always prefer double weapons as opposed to split weapons since target locks let you split the fire perfectly without having wasted shots.

Suits can do whatever role you need, the real question is what does the rest of your army want to do?

Keep in mind there are a few rules you should keep in the back of your head when building suits:

1. Never, ever give a crisis suit two different guns, you pay a premium price for each weapon and taking two different weapons means the suit is less efficient overall, they are scalpels, not hammers.

2. Drones are a must, shield or gun, your choice, the provide ablative wounds to you models that are 40+ ppm.

3. You need a way to remove barrage weapons, they are the bane of XV8s, since they can bypass their drones, not to mention their JSJ, and kill them directly. Your solution may be as simple as reserves, or outflanking kroot, etc

im not so much wondering about the weapons loadout, rather more wondering about the actual number of suits... say:
(all options AFTER the mandatory 3 man team)
option A:
5x 1 suit, equip as needed, ,maybe some marker drones.

option B:
4x 2 man teams, equip as needed, minimal drones

option C:
2x 3 man teams

option D:
a mix?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
mixed weaponry really just doesn't fit in well for me. You end up having half the suit's ability wasted because the missiles and plasma are suited for different tasks.

With the quad plasma dual fusion squad I suggested, The unit is geared entirely towards getting in close to deal damage with the ability to take on both heavy infantry and tanks, while not forcing suits to take on both roles at once. In a pinch where one of those targets isn't readily available the weapons on the unused suit(s) can be used to help out since S6 AP2 plasma can do some damage against a few vehicles that are close enough and the fusion also works decently against heavy infantry. In the event that you have no heavy armor you're up against the fusion suit becomes the throw away suit that tanks wounds to protect the more vital plasma suits and vice versa.

I could see using missile pods and fusion together in a unit, since S7 is a bit more useful against a vehicles and can find targets while moving the fusion in range. I just really don't see missiles and plasma being that useful though since the plasma wants to be within 12" to maximize damage output while the missiles are fine at the full range. Personally I'll always prefer double weapons as opposed to split weapons since target locks let you split the fire perfectly without having wasted shots.

I have found the Missle/Fusion/Interceptors to be cheap and useful. They can do back and midfield support with a sting on anything that comes in from reserves.

 DarthSpader wrote:
im not so much wondering about the weapons loadout, rather more wondering about the actual number of suits... say:
(all options AFTER the mandatory 3 man team)
option A:
5x 1 suit, equip as needed, ,maybe some marker drones.

option B:
4x 2 man teams, equip as needed, minimal drones

option C:
2x 3 man teams

option D:
a mix?

That's the thing though, unit size is dependent on role, you need to give the unit a role before you decide its size.

I run one Squad of three 2x Double Burst Suits with Gun Drones, one Squad of two with TLFusion Blaster/Fusion Blaster, and three single squads of TLMissile Pod/Drone Controller/ Markerlights in my Enclave and am enjoying the loadouts.

I think having a couple of cheap scoring suits is critical though I only equip my single squads with TLMissile Pod and Markerlights. lately I've been springing for the Drone Controller, the BS3 helps. When strapped for points, I've also run a 2xFlamer Suit with Markerdrones as well.


If you have other sources of Markerlights in your army such as a Marko Commander and drones you can give them gun drones instead, but I find the ML range and MP range synergy to be great.

yea thats what i was thinking

like a 3 man plasma team (team lead with plasma/plasma, shield or something, the rest with plasma twl plasma) maybe a drone cont with gun drones, etc,

then a 2 man fusion team, joined by a fusion commander

and another 3 single suits with missile,missile,DC, 2x marker drones. or even just a single missile, a target lock and drone cont. that gives me 5 scoring units... 2 of wich are pretty beefy

 DarthSpader wrote:
yea thats what i was thinking

like a 3 man plasma team (team lead with plasma/plasma, shield or something, the rest with plasma twl plasma) maybe a drone cont with gun drones, etc,

then a 2 man fusion team, joined by a fusion commander

and another 3 single suits with missile,missile,DC, 2x marker drones. or even just a single missile, a target lock and drone cont. that gives me 5 scoring units... 2 of wich are pretty beefy

Check the Battle Report thread, Homeskillet posted a report of my FE vs he Eldar. You can see my list and loadouts for Suits.

What missions are you playing? If you are playing standard book missions, only one of them cares about kill points and it is worth it to split your crisis suits into small units. If you are playing tournament missions where primary or secondary is usually kill points then having small units of crisis suits is not ideal as they are too easy to kill on their lonesome.

Some notable configurations include:

Single crisis suit with dual fusion blaster to deepstrike and suicide kill tanks.
Single crisis suit with dual missile pod to claim backfield objectives.
2x plasma + retro thrusters, 2x plasma + flamer, 2x fusion + target lock. Squad goes with farsight and drops down popping tanks and killing infantry. Can also assault pretty reliably.
three 2xmissle pod + target lock and six marker drones. Great marker unit, especially when lead by a commander or torchstar.

Decide whether kill points matter and then start playing around with your list.

Well the question you should ask your self is what is the point of a troop unit? IMO the answer is to sit on an objective and win you the game.

Single suits do this the best for a few reasons.

1) They are dirt cheap, even a single suit with a missile pod is only 38 points. I usually arm my suits with a flamer for the ability to deep strike on an opponents scoring unit and hopefully burn them off the objective. Sometimes I dont give them any guns depending on points.

2) Single models are much easier to hide, and they don't take leadership tests, they are either alive or dead.

3) these things can move pretty fast, if you go 2nd and need a last turn objective grab you can move 6, run d6, and jetpack 2d6. They give eldar jetbikes and daemonetts a run for their money when it comes to speed. So you hide them all game and then make a b line for objectives at turn 5

4) there are plenty of other units in the tau (especially tau tau) army to get guns to kill things with. (you can give you 3 man suit unit some guns if you want). so keep the scoring suits cheap and use them to win games.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
This is a tough question to answer. We all know the versatility of the Crisis suits and I don't think there can be a wrong answer, aside from burst cannons because I will always have a grudge against them.

Personally I'd either run a few three man teams with two suits equipped with dual plasma and a third with dual fusion and target lock, or I'd run mostly missile pods double suit squads with a few lone deepstriking melta suits.

This is what I do for the most part.

A lot of good advice in here.

How stiff is your competition? The naked suit thing, hiding in reserve and walking on an objective will get some eye rolls and hissy fits in friendly play. If you're looking to be ultra competitive, then we can talk about O'Vesa stars supported by single naked suits, broadsides and kroot.

If you want to put a cherry on top of this thread, guide us to your goal. What do you want them to do? You wanna be cool and rule #1 or you wanna make puppies cry?

My go to:

3x man Crisis Team 2x Missile Pods each, Target Lock each 4-6x Marker Drones (Buff Commander here)

Then depending on the rest of my list I sprinkle in either both or one of these:

1x man Crisis Suit 1x Flamer
2x man Crisis Suit 2x Fusion Blasters each

Then depending on points the rest of my troop slots are filled with these:
1x man Crisis Suit 1x Missile Pod


That's my go to guide that helps me juggle my Crisis team wargear and #'s based on what the rest of my list is. Hope that helps~


P.S. Aside note, I always take 1-2 Kroot Squads with Hounds. They are just too good for their points...

i don;t really want to kick ass, but i want to have a fair shot of winning. i dont like up close work, and the guy im playing against most often runs a ton of buffed firewarriors, so getting within rapidfire range is a BAD idea.

Don't like up close work?! Have you read ANY of the fluff? Lol, c'mon man, embrace the mont'ka!

Fluff aside, you have the complete wrong idea about how to fight gun line Tau. You DO want to get close with the exception of a couple missile pod crisis for objective holding and missile sides. The rest should be deep striking with flamers, fusion and plasma to get behind that aegis line, burn burn burn and keep him busy while your more mobile, small scoring units hide and score objectives. Farsight is a great addition for one quad flamer, 2 fusion unit to no-scatter and annihilate. Bring an ethereal or fire blade to serve as your warlord so you can be careless with O'shovah himself.

 The Shrike wrote:
Don't like up close work?! Have you read ANY of the fluff? Lol, c'mon man, embrace the mont'ka!

Fluff aside, you have the complete wrong idea about how to fight gun line Tau. You DO want to get close with the exception of a couple missile pod crisis for objective holding and missile sides. The rest should be deep striking with flamers, fusion and plasma to get behind that aegis line, burn burn burn and keep him busy while your more mobile, small scoring units hide and score objectives. Farsight is a great addition for one quad flamer, 2 fusion unit to no-scatter and annihilate. Bring an ethereal or fire blade to serve as your warlord so you can be careless with O'shovah himself.

Farsight only has Through Boldness, Victory when he is your warlord. Your suggestion isn't rules legal.

 lambsandlions wrote:

three 2xmissle pod + target lock and six marker drones. Great marker unit, especially when lead by a commander or torchstar.

Why are you wasting 10 points on 2 extra target locks?

you only need 1 target lock in the unit to give that model split fire, split fire then allows 1(and only one, although it does not have to be the model with split fire) model within the unit to fire at a separate target.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

 lambsandlions wrote:

three 2xmissle pod + target lock and six marker drones. Great marker unit, especially when lead by a commander or torchstar.

Why are you wasting 10 points on 2 extra target locks?

you only need 1 target lock in the unit to give that model split fire, split fire then allows 1(and only one, although it does not have to be the model with split fire) model within the unit to fire at a separate target.

I strongly suggest you read the Tau Codex, in particular the Wargear section before making more Tau related posts, it will prevent you from looking like an uninformed idiot.

@Zapman, you're absolutely right about Through Boldness Victory, I brain sharted.

The sentiment I was trying to get across was that OP needs to lose the conservative mentality and play aggressive with this army. You can be cagey with a couple mobile scoring single suits and bring the pain with everything else.