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I'm needing some input on my Tau army, folks. What would be a recommended loadout for taking Crisis Suits? I am struggling to figure out how I want to kit them out. I want to make my army be an all-comers army, and I want to keep my models WYSIWYG, and I'm not into magnetizing that many small options for that many figures. So once it's glued on, it's stuck there.

I'm trying to figure out what role they will fill in my army with what I have and want to get. The way I see it, my army would look something like this:

- Fire Warriors w/ Devilfish Transports *2 - 4
- Broadsides w/ Heavy Rail Rifles *3
- Broadsides w/ HYMP *3
- Riptide with Ion Accelerator *1
- Riptide w/ Heavy Burst Cannon *1
- Pathfinders *2-3 squads
- Cadre Fireblade
- Darkstrider
- Commander Farsight

And maybe someday a Stormsurge and some Hammerheads. But for now, I really like the idea of a Farstrike Enclaves army with Crisis Suits as Troops, but I'm trying to figure out what role they will play in the army aside from the mobile JSJ platform. Near as I can figure, Fusion Blasters and Plasma Rifles are the best bet, since dedicated anti-armor and anti-heavy infantry is something that isn't quite handled by the rest of the army. What is everyone's thoughts on this?

Also, what about Drones? Yea or nay on fielding them with Crisis Suits as part of the unit?

My default answer is equipping crisis squads with either double plasmas, double cyclic ion blasters, or double fusions (with target lock on all but 1).

In your case you lack good heavy AV (heavy rail rifles and riptides are not reliable AV14 crackers) so go with a few Fusion suits. Don't take drones on a fusion unit as they are usually a one and done kind of unit that drop in, kill target, die horribly to return fire/charge.

Even without magnets you can slot in the crisis suit weapons and expect them to stay there so long as you're reasonably gentle with them.

Crisis suits should always be magnetized. They have a ton of weapon loadouts and options, and if you want wysiwyg crisis suits and not be worried about locking into one loadout you need a TON of suits.

3 of my suits are equipped with missilepods. I did them without magnets because i almost always ran a buffmander + them + marker drones. Not even a month after finishing them i stopped doing that unit lol...now i almost never want the missilepods. So i either only field my other 3 that ARE magnetized or i proxy the guns.

One of the easiest models to magnetize the guns on anyway. Any small magnet is more than enough and i use a drummel to drill the holes (hand drills work too)

yea... magnetization on crisis suits is practically a must. you can get the magnets 1/16 rounds for $10 for 200 and a pin vise drill for $10 on top of that, you will have all the magnets you need for a very long time.

I have experience magnetizing some of my Imperial Guard and Space Marine tanks in the past, particularly Dreadnoughts. I just really don't have a desire to spend the hours fighting with polarity and super glue any more than I have to. Ugh. Really, I'm just feeling lazy., as I've been so busy with my Master's degree that I can barely get any time away from homework and family to spend on wargaming in any way. Plus this whole "not having income" thing is starting to hurt the bank accounts.

I might just magnetize them in the future. Mostly, I'm trying to figure out what loadout to put on them when I do play. Too many options just paralyze me in the list making stage of an army, which is why I have on several occasions failed to start a proper Tau army since 5th edition. I just put together a full squad of the old pewter Broadsides that have been hiding in my modelling stuff for years, and I was hoping to do a new army in 2016 having spent most of 2015 with Khador for Warmachine (Heresy, I know). With any luck, I'll find a good job right after I get my education finished up and have some more disposable income again.

Any thoughts on unit size for Crisis Suits?

I like 3 or 5. 3 so you can never be below 25% forces to regroup, and 5 so if you lose one you don't take LD test. and you can take target locks on x-1 suits to spread your shots out places (bearing in mind shoot all of __gun at the same time). but there are reasons to run 1,2 or 9 as well.
what's your impression of local meta (since you said you don't play much)?

if i had to pick 1 load-out in a blind, i'd take 2 plasma rifle suits. they'll suck on armor 13 and above (just not enough shots per points sunk to glance armor 13), but it can deal with elite troops well enough.

 pumaman1 wrote:
if i had to pick 1 load-out in a blind, i'd take 2 plasma rifle suits. they'll suck on armor 13 and above (just not enough shots per points sunk to glance armor 13), but it can deal with elite troops well enough.

That's kind of what I figured, if only for the fact that those are the weapons carried by Crisis Suits that are unique to them, profile wise. Burst Cannons S5 AP5 and Missile Pods S7 AP4 are already represented in my army in other units, so let throw in some Plasma Rifles and Fusion Blasters to balance out the army a bit and keep it as an all-comers army.

A trick to keeping the polarities right is to store the magnets on something metal (i use the bar under the table) and keep careful attention to NOT flipping them over when you pull them off. The magnet's side touching the metal is the side i stuff in the hole, and i just flip the whole thing over once for the mating side of the magnet.
Dont pull off one magnet and try to glue it in. Grab the whole stack so you cant roll it between your fingers by accident. If you get the right sized hole, you can wedge it into the hole with enough friction to pull it off the stack cleanly. If the hole is too big then just leave the stack until the glue dries (or if there isnt a hole).

 Vineheart01 wrote:
A trick to keeping the polarities right is to store the magnets on something metal (i use the bar under the table) and keep careful attention to NOT flipping them over when you pull them off. The magnet's side touching the metal is the side i stuff in the hole, and i just flip the whole thing over once for the mating side of the magnet.
Dont pull off one magnet and try to glue it in. Grab the whole stack so you cant roll it between your fingers by accident. If you get the right sized hole, you can wedge it into the hole with enough friction to pull it off the stack cleanly. If the hole is too big then just leave the stack until the glue dries (or if there isnt a hole).

another way to do it is to stick a loose weapon on it. by keeping one side covered by something, it makes clear what polarity is needed for what.

I just used a marker to mark one side of the magnet on the stack so even if i clumsy finger set it, i'd know which side was which and could correct it

K&J Magnets sell a small polarity tool, its just a cylinder magnet with a dimple on one end. I bought one with my first order of 1/16s and 1/8s. Still haven't run out of magnets, and that was back in 5th.

SJ

I use a stack of magnets to push one magnet in the whole with the glue. With a touch of zip kicker and the bond is instant. I leave the stack of magnets attached to the glued magnet and then push the opposite magnet into the weapon's drilled hole. After the glue is set just remove the ones not glued together and the polarities are perfect.

I do two things, I put a - one the - side of every magnet and usually use one of my wraithknights as a checker putting all the new magnets on his shoulder gun mount to make sure all my weaopns and bodies share polarization because you might want to put a tau burst cannon on a terminator one day!

Lol, I know how to magentize, everyone. I appreciate the input though, but my question was answered, in a sort of roundabout way: "Just magnetize it!" I have plenty of experience magnetizing tank and walker weapons and options, and even backpacks on Marines. I'm just too lazy to want to magnetize them...

But then I remembered that anything worth doing, is worth doing well.

Plus I found this little hobby drill and got excited about using it:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000J46WZ4?

Now to find my old stash of magnets and get started...

Hey check out my sig article, it might of some help to you.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/674787.page#8347093

Just use a minimal (VERY minimal) amount of Super Glue on the weapon tab to make it stay. That way you can easily snap it of when you feel like it. That or blu-tack.