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Rough list of what I have.

-2 start collecting boxes
-3 broadsides
-1 commander
-1 box of pathfinders
-1 riptide

I've never played Tau before and this is the workings of a brand new army for me. I have no idea what the dizzying array of Tau weaponry should be equipped on these guys. I also have the slightest clue about drones besides marker lights. Help a gu'ella in need!

Greetings!

My first and major advice: magnetize your crisis suits. They have so many valid load outs... the most popular are double fusion blaster, double missile pods or double plasma. Most of the time just stick with two weapons of the same type. And you're going to change the config a lot. Just to try different army styles.

The Fire Warriors usually use pulse rifles. But the breacher option is a nice option sometimes (but they really need a devilfish to be effective)
Concerning the broad-sides the high yield missle pods are the weapon of choice. (ok the rail gun looks much cooler). (just magnetize)
Well, the main weapon if the Riptide should be magnetized, too. But the ion accelerator is the most common choice.

Chaphazar nailed it pretty well, but let me emphasize: magnets are your best friends with Tau. I magnetized my Crisis suits, my Ghostkeel, and my Riptide (and my commander as well, although I've yet to change his loadout). As for the drones, build as many marker drones as you can, they really are the best kind to have. Between all the kits you listed, you should have a total of 25 standard drone bodies and parts to make 15 WYSIWYG marker drones, and you can probably convert a few more. This will still allow you to make all the Broadsides' drones as Missile Drones. The Riptide's drones are not standard, hence why I didn't count them.

Hope that helps!

As said above you should always magnetize your suit weapons.
As for what weapons to take, I personally find that you always want two of the same weapon per suit and the weapons worth taking are Plasmas, Fusions, Ion Cyclic Blasters (not included in the Crisis Kits), and possibly the Airburst Fragmentation Projectors (also not included...).
Fusions for vehicle destroying, Plasmas to kill 2+ armor, and Ions are the jack of all trades and master of drowning the enemy in wounds. Airburst can be used for pull some indirect fire and barrage sniping tricks its not the mainstead of the XV8 arsenal.

As for drones its hard to go wrong with marker drones considering they are one of the better if not the best source of markerlights in the codex. Shield drones are fairly useless while gun drones are decent but not really all that needed. A lot of people dislike the drones for Broadsides and Riptides because of potential morale issues and that drone controllers do not work with them (but the drone net formation does).

For Riptides all of the weapon options are good so pick what weapons will work to fill any holes in your lineup and be the right firing range for your style of combat. If you plan on shooting from a long ways away then you probably don't want plasmas or fusions on your riptide while an up close and person riptide can make go use of them.

Broadsides are basically going to be HYMPs and SMS combo as they provide a lot of 30 to 36" range medium strength firepower. The Heavy Rail Rifles are highly impractical due to low RoF and relatively weak strength for a weapon basically designed to punch holes in vehicles. For trying to destroy light to medium vehicles losing 1 strength for 4x the shots is a worthwhile trade

Excellent, thanks!

Only change I would make on the drone advice is to build all three special pathfinder drones since they are all useful and if you build breachers to build the Guardian drones since the breachers really need them. Gun drones are fun an versatile. So after building the aforementioned 5 special drones, make atleast 4 Markerlight drones and and split the rest between markerlight and gun drones.

You can always use the extra Missile drone parts later for drones from other kits (tau kits love drones).


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Oh and build your Commander as a standard suit instead of the Coldstar. Coldstar is a bit to specialized a unit for starting Tau armies.

How should I equip my commander?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/695482.page

Here is a thread where I break down a solid build using starter kits for a 1000 point list.

Commander load outs depend a bit on the list. If you just like to stack the odds, a pure buff-mander with broadsides can be ugly. Give it P.E.N., MSSS, Iridium, repulsor and a sheild generator for tank that give one of Monster hunter, tank hunter, stubborn and something else; has a 4++ save to handle the AT attacks; provides ignores cover; and makes all attempts to charge difficult. And maybe VTT to let the whole squad Hit and Run out of assault.

Super effective markerlights is the Mark'O build 2x MP, Targetlock, Drone controller, CCS, Iridium, 2x Marker drones and maybe a Stim Injector. Add a squad of 4 Markerlight drones as either a Drone Net or Fast Attack choice.

The little played but fun, Smash'O since the Commander is one of the only decent melee units in the codex. Iridium, Stim injector, P.E.N, Onager, a Sheild Gen, Neuro Jammer and either VTT or flamer for a nice smasher unit. It wont take down deathstars by itself, but it can punch above it's weight class.

If you happen to be a Gundam wing fan there is a "Heavy Arms" build: Iridium, P.E.N, 2x Twinlinked C. Ion Blasters for 6 twinlink bs5 s7 ap4 shots or 2 twinlinked blasts. This one eats about everything that is not Heavy Tanks with Monster hunter or Tank hunter and reliably doing 5-6 wounds a turn.

I have also added a ghost keep formation to the list. From the trend I'm seeing I'm going to equip it with fusion boasters and the cyclic ion raker.

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
I have also added a ghost keep formation to the list. From the trend I'm seeing I'm going to equip it with fusion boasters and the cyclic ion raker.

This is the loadout I use; probably the best way to equip a Ghostkeel. For support systems I usually go with EWO and either Stims or Velocity Tracker. Stims help keep your 'keel alive, while the combo of EWO and VT lets you shoot at flyers before they even get to do anything if they get into your weapon's range.