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Stop using shield drones in your crisis teams its kind of pointless. Take gun drones its incredibly easy to get cover saves and it makes it a complex unit for shooting so you can dump the insta kills on the gun drones and get the save.


The disadvantage is deaths but 3 Crisis suits w/ 2 gun drones each is 9 models. so its still not to bad as you can take a leader with a bonding knife.

Or do this

Crisis suit w/ Bonding knife and twin pod
Crisis suit w/ twin pod and 2 gun drones
Crisis suit w/ twin pod and flamer

153 points and incredibly annoying to kill

congrats ou now have a complex unit of 5 members and when the two gun drones die who cares your not below 50 percent.

You also only have to have 2 gun drones and 1 crisis member to be in cover.

The unit has 8 wounds total and you can put instant death on gun drones ; put STR7 or lower on crisis suits or a mix.

its incredibly resilient

With gun drones you do not get extra 4++ saves. Putting an instant death shot on a shield drone gives it a 50% chance of saving the shot. Putting it on a gun drone means that you lost that wound. For an extra 5 points it is completely worth having the ability to take 2 ID shots before dying rather than a single ID shot. Sure you get an extra shot that will hit 40%? of the time. I'm doing the math in my head quickly so I might be wrong on that number.

Also, knocking out 2 gun drones will be done in 1-2 turns of shooting, which will cause a leadership test. 2 Shield drones will take 2-4 rounds of shooting. This is taking one Melta shot a turn (S8AP1). More shooting equals quicker deaths.

To make a gun dron equivalent to a shield drone you are going to have to get 2 rounds of shooting I would say to actually hit something. This doesn't account for the majority of things getting saves against the gun drone.

Which is why I said cover save and not invulnerable. Read Comprehend post.


Shield Drones have the same save as a cover save. if you are running mech and you should with range on the Missiles you can keep up with Hammerheads jump from behind fire and move back or move in such a way to put 3 of the squad in cover.


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Also stop taking burst cannons take two gun drones ; its two extra wounds in the unit BS2 twinlinkd is statitically a little better than BS3 not by much though. Your just throwing points away.

twin Missile pod Plus 2 gun drones = 63 ppm

It has a lot of advantages over Missile Pod, Burst even if it is marginally more expensive.

6 extra member tht also fight in H T H combat have the same WS but higher INIT.

6 shots of pinning at BS3 basically which is the same at what you get with a Missile Pod, Burst MT set up.

Less Shots by 3.

Complex unit.


Adds to the fact that you can ditch gun drones over the suits. It's pretty easy to place gun drones in cover their rather small models.


AT 18 inches though your fire is going to be
6Twinlinked ST7 shots @ bs 3 = similar to BS4 a little higher

6 ST5 twinlinked @ BS 2 = similar to BS3 but a little higher percentage, + pinning.


With the Missile Pod, Burst Set up

Cheaper

6 ST7 BS3
9 ST 5 at BS3

An invulnerable save you will always have. A cover save you will not always have. Cover saves are easy to get around whereas you can never take off the invulnerable save except for certain instances (DH). With the extra gun drones you have to take a bonding knife - and also you will be taking many more leadership tests.

With 2 gun drones per model when a model loses a gun drone you essentially take a leadership test. So for two extra wounds you end up effectively taking a leadership test per gun drone you take. This is of course generalizing it.

For one suit:
Crisis Suit with Gun Drone
- Leadership test when you lose a drone
- Never under 50%
Crisis Suit with 2 gun Drones
- Leadership test when you lose each drone (2 tests)
- Under 50% when you lose the 2 drones
Crisis Suit with TL, BK, and 2 gun drones
- Leadership test when you lose each drone (2 tests)
- 50% rule never applies because of bonding knife
- Costs 10 points more

You gain economies of scale with more than one suit. By you have the chance on a complex unit that if enough wounds are spread around you have a chance of losing a suit. If you lose a suit you lose all drones associated with the suit. This is always a risk with taking drones however. Having 6 extra drones helps but the squad size is 6 drones larger. This will double the foot print of the unit. This will make cover harder to achieve. If you were behind a wall that the enemy could not see you then you will most likely be able to be shot at now with a cover save. If you had a cover save at one point becasue the enemy could jsut see you it is now possible that the enemy will be able to move and angle to be able to see more than half the squad.

The plus of having 6 gun drones in a squad is other squads will be able to get a cover save from the Crisis squad.

I think the discussion of Cover Saves versus Invulnerable Saves is a tactic all in itself. It also depends a lot on the board that you are playing on and with preset boards used in most tournaments you can't count on the cover. Plus you also have to take into account the fact that if you jump into difficult terrain you have a chance of losing a suit.

For purposes of shooting at they are the same.

There are I think maybe 3 things that ignore cover. The big one being Imperial Guards Heavy Tanks. I believe though that it is STR10 AP 4 though so that benefits.


The tactic of always maintaining a cover save with Suits is fairly easily. You can easily gain cover by moving behind devilfish chasis regardless of the board.

Watch out if you take more Drones than Crisis Suits. It lowers the majority toughness of the unit from 4 to 3, making you more susceptible to bolters and other st 4 weaponry.

I would always choose 2 shield drones over 3 gun drones for these reasons. Plus more 3+ saves!

ok i have been trying this out and want to see what you guys think, 3 squads of helios set up with a flamer if something gets close. infront of them are marching fire warriors with pulse carbines. this is also supported with 2 full squads of pathfinders with marklights. Also, with broadsides and 2 hammerhead shootin the armor and horde. The idea is support the marching tau. Now if you have the cover save off say 2 assalt units running toward the fire warriors. All they have to do is 1 wound which they will. and you buff the pinning test and then pummel them with missles and just march that across the field or if they are coming to you, make them walk the gauntlet. I have tried this on orks and nids and huge victory. Most non deepstriking models didnt make it half way across the table because in the first round they all got pinned or on turn 2 got pinned and then pummeled. I really didnt think i would like carbines but beleive me in mass w/marklights to tip the scales, its nasty! another thing i have starting doing is if i know i am fighting meq i run twinliked plasma rifles on my broadsides and a multi tracker. if you dont have armor to shoot you can destroy termie squads. almost 6 guarenteed wounds with marklight support.

ok I understand your math, however i think you are taking away the idea that you have with the flamers is very risky. Sure you have more of a success to wound, but you are going to have to pretty much kiss that squad good by in order to use the flamer properly.

I have always used flamers as a oh OS button when I get ambushed or deep striked. Also, if you get to use marker drones you don't need a full squad of pathfinders or a stealth marker team.

I like the theory of the fireknife set up, but i think it needs marklights which can, like you said get pricey. A really good tau player once told me that your crisis suits should focus on one thing at a time and not everything.

I like the idea of flamer-suits in principle, but I wonder how it holds up in larger points games - they are not 'cheap' as they take one Elite slot from FOC, which are precious to Tau.

My favourite Crisis team configuration is one Fireknife Team leader (with Targeting array) and two Deathrains. Throw in a Drone if you wish. Three Missile pods, all BS4 or better, and one BS4 Plasma for tougher targets. Sometimes I take Fusion instead of plasma.

Two deathrains with a fireknife loses what the deathrains are meant for - cheap anti-vehicle and long range anti-infantry or MC. If you throw on some target locks onto the squad it would fair much better. The deathrains each firing at whatever they wish and the fireknife firing at what it likes best. That I feel would be the bet optimization of the squad.

No, not really. That configuration is still much more efficient in delivering S7 shots than 3* Fireknife. Also, BS4 Fireknife is actually more points-efficient than BS3 Fireknife. Indeed, I often take Target lock for the Team Leader.

Ok, a few points of contention:

you will not be able to use the flamer and jsj out of range. Even if you guestimate the distance precisely to get the 1" away... you'll hit maybe two models with the flamer, and that's not going to generate the wounds you need.

If you're talking one flamer suicide suit (34 points), it'll never make it against a good player. In order to get your template within effective range of a MEQ squad in your firing phase, the Tac squad will be within 12" of you in it's firing phase (Barring deepstrike). Which means your going to eat an ID melta in the face, plus whatever else they feel like shooting at you.

in a squad of three, a suit or two may make it, but now you you're facing less wounds generated, and you simply will not survive the retaliation.

Statistics also work better over multiple instances. When you do an all or nothing gamble, there is the potential of an abberant dice toss going aganist you. For instance, in the last tournament match I played, the game hinged on a lone scout still holding an objective on the last turn. My broadside team was within 24", and so shot with 12 smart missiles, causing 5 wounds. The scout made all five, game ended, victory to the Marines. There is a chance the abberant toss could go for you as well, but the odds are against it.

Also, missile pods are one of our strengths. You can only stuff so many railguns into the army. The only other platforms we have capable of killing light vehicles head on is extremely expensive seeker missiles, or Crisis Suits. Missile pods are quite good at popping light vehicles like Rhinos, and great against Eldar Vehicles.

The group I like to use is a 'O with Plasma Rifle, CIB, Shield Generator, DC& 2 shield drones; joined to a group with a fire knife team leader /w target array; 2x deathrain suits with target array. Depending on range, this configuration gives me up to 15 shots, 7 of them BS 5, 8 of them BS 4 (but four of those twin linked), 10 of which wound on 2+, and 4 (with potentially 5 more) penetrating TEQ armor.

They also get to shoot more than once, they usually survive an entire game, unless I make a bluner with them (which happens).

Deepstriking a TL flamer is better, but you're dealing with a very narrow window to hit, and even with a Pathfinder Devilfish in LoS for a re-roll, it's iffy. And since you can't take your assault move after deep striking, you're dead in the water so to speak.

Anyway, the strength of the Crisis suit to me has always been it's flexibility and the strength of the weapons it can carry. TL flamer tends to take away from both of those aspects. The suits definately have their uses, and that they can cause some wounds can't be denied, however I prefer them to go further than one shot in the game.

my friend who use's T'au and absoultly dominates with them use's T-linked flamers, missile pods and shield drones on his suits than assaults with them:O

FYI: the squad happens to be Farsight's full strength body guard suits somthing only Farsight players should do is assault

How effective is Farsight? From the look of his stats of course he could mess someone up in CC, but then you have to drag his suit bodyguard with him, and they're just crisis suits after all. How does that massive squad of suits work? I haven't tried him, but I'm wondering if he is useful or practical in a competitive game.

How effective? Not very. He imposes rather significant limitation on your FOC, and taking the full seven bodyguards with max shield drones is very pricey. And only Farsight himself is very good in CC, his retinue still has low initiative and WS. However the general result of a squad being shot by 8 crisis suits, regardless of loadout, is that the squad *should* be weakened enough that clean up in CC is relatively risk free. You better run from SS/TH termies though :p

Pie plates, specifically high strength low AP pie plates (Like Vindicators') can whittle your shield drones down at an alarming rate, and any wounds assigned to a suit is an instant kill if any available 4++ saves fail.

To me Space Wolves were the real nail in the coffin for this group. Tempest forcing you to take 2-4 dangerous terrain tests on each of the 22 models in the squad, every turn? That's going to add up fast.

Well i didn't say he was invincible.

Any army if played to the max extent of its abilities is going to win, The only way it won't is if both players are playing perfectly and then it is a 50/50 chance(unless one is playing DE )

Wound allocation on Farsight with about 14 shield drones is crazy. Difficult terrain is an annoyance of course. The limitations on the rest of your army get annoying very quickly as well. Besides just taking him for something that can assault is not a good reason at all. Taking him so you can have 17 crisis suits is a great idea.

I hear you can run the tau equivalent of musical wounds/nob bikers by taking farsight and 7 bodyguards all kitted differently, all with hardwired target locks, all with hardwired drone controllers and two shield drones. 14+ wounds before you start removing battlesuits. Has anyone tried this?

No because it would be soooo cheesy. and it would be the ol'jack of all trades master of none syndrome, an interesting thought though.