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So I'm building a Farsight a Enclave list and I am putting together my crisis suits. I don't love the idea of mixing weapons. Not sure why one would tactically? I have three riptides and six broadsides in the list already. The riptides are built as one ECPA HBC tide, one Iontide with fusion and one Iontide (Firebase support cadre) with velocity tracker. The broadsides are all fully missile laden and are also Firebase support cadre. All these suits have EWO to be prepped for drop pod spam. My commander has dual fusion blasters, drone controller, marker drones, shield gen, target lock and vectored retro thrusters.

What I've been thinking is:

One 3 man team with dual fusion blasters and target locks all round and 3 more marker drones to go with the commander and provide deep striking multi target anti tank / MC firepower as well as markerlight support for the Iontide. Then another unit of three with dual burst cannons on all of them to delete infantry from objectives (plus I like the look of those modelling wise). Finally, I have a single remaining lone claimed of objectives with dual flamers (to thin out competition from objectives and help deal with being assaulted). I am also planning two units of Kroot for additional Objective Secured glory.

I'm just wondering if these loadouts are good. I have looked at a lot of tacticas that seem to recommend mixed weapons on crisis suits, but I don't quite understand the point of this. Surely it's better to have your units be good at one or two things and excel at this things, rather than being able to do a bit of a couple of things?

I've also seen a bit of plasma vs melta debate, but I just figure that being able to pop as many transports as possible will be important in 7th and I want to be able to bring this list to tournaments etc and have a fighting chance. I know some people will want to just say "magnetise your weapons and experiment" but I'm really looking to learn from other people's mistakes and successes. What has worked for you?

I've had some luck with running 2 dual Missile or 2 dual plasma suits with a third suit having dual fusion and a target lock.

If you are up against light armor, put the fusion suit in the front as the one to soak up wounds as you pour in missile. If you deep strike them in the missiles can hit a variety of targets while fusion targets heavy armor.

You don't need to mix weapons on the suits when you can throw Target locks on them.

2 fusions for heavy AT or even MC finishers (now they're outstanding to destroy buildings).
2 plasmas for MC-killers/light AT.
2 flamers for horde killing. As they have short range, I'd use them in conjunction with Homing Beacons (Tetras, Pathfinders with Recon Drones, Ethereals, Stealth Teams) to arrive exactly where you want to maximize the template covering. Or with Farsight.
2 bursts... I don't know. The codex already has so many S5 AP5 stuff. If you like to use them, go on.

As enclaves, you are forced to take a team of 3, these are best to be either missile suits, or BC suits.

Other then them, multiple lone/dou fusion suits are the most common choice, followed by rare specialist suits like the flamer suit, plasma suit, mixed suits and the unique weapons.

I'd much rather plasma than BC. S5 AP5 can be found somewhere else in the codex

Missile pods in my opinion the best weapon choice. Their range keeps your suits safe and they dish out a lot of damage. They also pair really well with marker drones. You should almost always take one unit of missile suits.

I have been loving fusion blasters more and more as heavy armored tanks are finding their way back into the lists and ap1 is more valuable than ever.

I have for a long time loved plasma rifles, but I feel they are a trap. Plasma takes down marines like no one's business. But are you really worried about the marines themselves? Bikers and devastators are scary but you can easily take them down with other weapons. Against non-marine unites, which is what you will be facing mostly, the plasma rifle is just not that great and really narrow in its uses. Fusion blasters just never seem dead in a match-up where plasma can easily be a waste of points.

I have a lot of MCs in my area, so I see plasma as a counter against them.

 Vector Strike wrote:
I have a lot of MCs in my area, so I see plasma as a counter against them.

Which MCs? Against demons who have an invul save missile pods are better because of the strength and range. Against Wraith knights fusion blasters are better because of the high strength. Against a riptide and the dread knights the plasma rifle is only slightly better than the fusion blaster, and that is only at 12". Harpies and crones have 4+ armor saves so missile pods are best against them.

 lambsandlions wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
I have a lot of MCs in my area, so I see plasma as a counter against them.

Which MCs? Against demons who have an invul save missile pods are better because of the strength and range. Against Wraith knights fusion blasters are better because of the high strength. Against a riptide and the dread knights the plasma rifle is only slightly better than the fusion blaster, and that is only at 12". Harpies and crones have 4+ armor saves so missile pods are best against them.

You missed the biggest source... Tyranids

Ive stopped liking plasma. Bursts seem to outshine them for me because they do not require anywhere near as much marker support (both BS increase AND ignores cover to make those few shots dependable) to cause damage, even to 3+ armor units. On the same note, i usually dont take bursts because you get more dakka with a huge blob of gun drones attached to a commander, and is harder to remove since its a ton of wounds vs 3 2wound models that usually get splatted anyway.
Some would argue Stealth Suits if you wanted bursts, but theyre actually pretty crappy for the cost. You bring them for other reasons, such as an infiltrating homing beacon and an annoying thorn in your opponent's side that if he ignores will start to cause a fair bit of damage, and take more effort than he'd like to commit to remove.

Usually i go missilepods backfield style, usually with a buffmander + markerdrone combo (4-8 marker drones at BS5 with twinlink...pretty much guaranteed i make something BS5 and ignore cover and thanks to commander buffy its very difficult to take it out at 36") or i go fusion bomb with a few shield drones (usually 2-3).

Reason i go full force fusion when i do the deepstrike tactic is Tau plasma is S6, so it wounds big bugs on a 4+ - the Fusions wound it on a 2. Yes, half the shots, but just throw a light or two and most if not all of the shots hit and wound and ignore armor. Full 3 suits with fusions is 6 shots, pretty much guarantees a nearby vehicle or big bug is dead. This might be a YMMV type thing though, as i almost never face a list without a backfield vehicle or a big bug.