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Just curious about what people think about this unit?

IMO they're cool models and the stealth rules make them very good at taking damage despite their small squad size.

The problems for me are:

1 - Lot of competition in the elites section. IMO they should be troops or at least have the option to be taken as troops by taking Shadowsun. The tau troops section is very bare and I don't think it would be unbalanced to put them there since at current cost a unit of stealth suits is the same as a full unit of fire warriors.

2 - Probably 10pts too expensive for a small unit thats more fragile than the similarly priced but much more dangerous n tough XV8s.

3 - Only one per unit can take a fusion blaster and no option to take a plasma gun or rail rifle. Personally, they should either be able to take more special weapons or like suits able to take as many as they want. Personally I think more along the lines of the pathfinder squad. This is the sort of squad where people would use those special weapons which are wasted on a unit whose sole purpose should be markerlighting units.

4- Larger squad size. Should be 6-12. They don't have as much firepower as a crisis team and are basically just an infantry soldier with a jet pack. So IMO they should have a squad size which reflects this.


It would be cool if they did a supplement focusing on a Kauyon "patient hunter" or Shadowsun army that let you take stealth suits as troops. However thats probably unlikely. Then again, I never thought they would have done a mini dex for spin off chapters like the Crimson Slaughter.

Personally I love the stealth suits. I find they're underestimated constantly by my opponents. Every game I take them in they are close to the MVP.

On that note I totally agree that they should be a troop choice and would benefit greatly if they could take some different weapons besides just a fusion blaster. A stealth team with some rail guns would be amazing especially as troops and with that 2+ cover would be incredible... Guess that's why we're not allowed. Even if they left them as elites and gave each of them the option to take a special weapon they would see a lot of table time and would compete nicely with the crisis suits.

One of the downsides to anything in this edition, even if it has a great cover save, it the ease in which those cover saves are completely removed by units across the board.

"Ignores Cover" seems to be this edition's "Fearless": everyone is getting it, even if they don't need it.

They're not the best units in the Codex, and I must say that agree with the suggestions of allowing them to take different weapons and stick them in the troops slot.

That being said, they're definitely a fun squad to use, and they have their uses. I personally have mine kitted as a highly mobile Markerlight team consisting of two Markerlight Drones, a Markerlight on the Shas'vre who has a Fusion Blaster (just in case) and a Drone Controller, and all three members of the squad have a Tarket Lock. That way, my Shas'vre and his drones can light up a enemy squad or vehicle while the other guys take pot shots at something else, if need be. Not the most competitive build for them, without a doubt, but I enjoy it.

SLotting them in Troops would be fantastic! Annnd borderline broken. They're really, really good when they focus on what they're doing, which is to murder troops all day long from cover. Fusion blasters are a trap, drawing you to direct fire at tanks instead of troops and cutting back on your maximum dakka.

The three man unit with a pair of drones is good, ducking past the problem of one wound knocking them into a leadership test and fleeing, but you can find some unusual builds around here that focus around the terror of a commander with buffing gear joining a max-sized unit, bringing his drones into the mix, and watching a 2+ cover save unit with jump packs blip around and unfurl 24 shots at BS 5 and ignoring cover, followed by a barage of twin-linked pinning shots. It's ... it's ugly.

The sheer dakka that they put out also makes them a dangerous buddy for covering fire, assuming you kept the burst cannons instead of went Fusion, but, of course, their biggest weakness is that they're in there with Crisis suits and Riptides. Nobody ever really gets to play with them.

Alas, alas.

I kinda wonder what would happen if they introduced a "Stealth Commander" option who *did* give you the option of taking them as troops. Would it be ignored by the Triptide players, or would their be a small push towards "Blackbird"-flavored forces?

Hrm.

In my opinion stealth suits are pretty fairly balanced as they are...the main reason stealth suits aren't that great is because of their competition in the Elites slot. Burst cannons got slightly better, and having both Stealth and Shrouded is awesome because it means you'll have what, 4+ cover just standing out in the open? And can easily get to 2+ cover if you find some good terrain to hide in. But as it was pointed out already, cover is pretty pointless in this edition since Ignores Cover is everywhere (which ironically is a problem that Tau themselves have exacerbated). But yeah, they're still not particularly good simply because crisis suits can outperform them and have access to much better weapons (and the riptide outperforms them), but they're not really that bad, either.

I agree with Wakshaani though, making them Troops seems like it would go too far and push them into broken. I know for a fact I would never take fire warriors or kroot ever again if that were the case. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you could just take one or two squads as Troops, I dunno. It's sad though, because until they move to another slot or you just make them even better they'll never get used.

Personally I'm working on getting a team built for Kill Team at a local store. I used to have the old metal ones, too, but I sold them when I was desperate for money and convinced myself I had too much Tau (lol, I was younger and stupider then). It was unfortunate because that squad was my only fully-painted squad that I've ever had, too. Trying to figure out how to represent Rending on a burst cannon for a specialist, lol...

I've always loved the stealth suits and wish that you could make em troops. I would never use Fire warriors again!

That being said wakashaani is right. They are best as a troop killer, and/or speed bump. If you can use them to draw a super tough unit off course i think they end up worth their points. But yeah the fusion blasters always seem to miss, go with all burst cannons.

Well Shadowsun is the stealth suit commander already.

So if they wanted to make them troops, in exactly the same way as the Farsight Enclave makes the crisis teams troops they could. If you read that book it makes it clear that the composition of both commanders armies during the defence of Dalyth in the Damocles Crusade is just as different. Her armies are described as being composed of "stealth cadres" and rely heavily on that form of warfare. So lorewise theres enough of a justification.

Basically Farsight Enclave as the Mont ka book and the other as the Kauyon book.

Only problem is that Farsight Enclave had the gimmick of a unique faction which goes against the etherials (also Farsight is a badass MoFo, especially since hes got the gimmick of being the only tau with an anime sword). But as I said earlier, they had no problem doing Crimson Slaughter and they do seem to have really tried to push Shadowsun lately.


Yeah above else. I would probably still take them if they weren't an elites choice.

I never thought about putting gun drones in the squad for more dakka n pinning. Last time I gave them markerlights to act as a forward pathfinder squad.

Haven't seen any for a while

As lots of other people have said, they aren't bad, just not as good as crisis suits and especially riptides. There's nothing wrong with taking them.

They are pretty expensive for a nonscoring unit that is still T3 1W. They just never look cost efficient on paper. A full squad ends up being just under 200 points with no upgrade with firepower that we find on every single unit in the codex. Broadsides, Riptides, Devilfish, Piranha, and Hammerhead/skyray all come with a decent volume of S5 and most of the time it's just thrown onto an already good shooting platform. Also one of the issues I find is that it's not only "Ignore cover" that gets tossed out a lot, but stealth and shrouded as well which makes taking the ignore cover weapon more of a necessity. Personally I think Ignore cover should only ignore terrain/jink cover not equipment based cover, but also that Stealth AND shrouded shouldn't be tossed around like they are.

That's not to say that the stealth suits don't/can't have a role. I for one love the models and want to field them more often.
One way that I feel they could be fixed is to drop them down to maybe 22-25 ppm and either remove stealth or remove shrouded but get them move through cover. I would love to see them with Stealth and move through cover for a very fast and aggressive unit. Taking Shadowsun would make them scoring of course. This way you're paying a comparable amount to Crisis suits with equal amounts of Burst cannons.This might make them a bit too close to Eldar Jetbikes in terms of a mobile scoring unit with a decent weapon on top, but I also think that BS3 and T3 might eaven that out.

I like using mine to escort a Mark'O. You can have 5 markerlights in a unit that fire at BS5 that can usually get a 2+ cover save. My usual load out for this unit is:

3x Stealth suits with Shas'vre (homing beacon and ML), 2x Marker drone

Commander with drone controller, Talisman, 2 x MP and TL, 2x marker drone..

I have yet to have this unit not provide me markerlight support until the end of the game.

Just seems a bit cost inefficient. You're paying over 300 points for 4 BS5 markers and a 5th at BS3. You could shave off a bit by just running the marker drones instead of giving the stealth suit a marker. It also feels a bit like wasting a slot. For 100 points less you could get the Mark'O with 2 drones and attach to a marker drone unit for 6 BS5 markers. Or for around the same price getting 3 Crisis suits in troops with 4 drones and double the burst cannons.

Want to make them great? Replace the burst cannons with long barreled burst cannons, instantly better. I agree more special weapons options would be good; maybe the 'vre could take a fusion, plasma, or railrifle and then one more model per 3 can take fusion or plasma. OP?