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I have been slowly getting back into the game and have been giving my tau a go with 6th edition since it is the oldest codex army I own and I felt they needed some love. To try it out I have been fielding stealth teams in groups of five suits and five gun drones for extra wounds, on paper you would think that this unit can shoot down anything that stands in its way but it hasnt been working out that great as I expected.
My main problem with the unit so far is that it is really large and a bit hard to hide and for 200 points it doesn't really put out that much damage. Question is should I just leave the stealth suits at home? Make the unit smaller? Add a fusion gun? Any info I can so I can get the max return in damage as The points i invested would be great.

I prefer 6 suits with 2 fusion all with target arrays perhaps with 1 team leader and 2 gun drones. Far easier to manage and can hide behind buildings during the assault phase which is hard to do when you have a big blob of drones.

The way I see it is 2 basic Stealth suits pre adding systems cost the same and has the same firepower as 6 firewarriors. Only you do not die to all those Ap4 barrage weapons.

I don't know too much about Tau, but here's my 2 cents.

I would go for smaller squads. Three suits with a fusion gun & 2 drones. I would assume they haave infiltrate or scout or something, in which case id use it. Move around the flanks and hunt small, lone units. A lot ofplayers use cheap-O units to hold objectives; 5 scouts, 10 cultists, etc. They'd be pretty good at killing them off. With the fusion gun you could also hunt lone vehicles like basilisks & whirlwinds parked in the back. With their mobility, saves & sacrificial drones they can be a threat to devastators and other tougher rear echelon Hvy support units. They certainly won't destroy them but they can distract them or keep them in HH for a turn or two. Keeping them cheap means that if they get blasted or hacked a part they may have kept a hvy sprt from doing their job (thereby saving your other suits & vehicles) with minimal loss. 100 points of stlth tm tieing up 150 of hvy sprt for 2 turns is a worthwhile trade.

In short I don't think they'll be a powerful unit crushing other units...ever, or at least untill a new codex. What they can do is take out small troops choices holding obj, take out rear echelon sprt vehicles or be sacrificial nuisances to distract very lethal units

The stealth suit setup I use is the half blob setup, a team of 3 suits, each with 2 gun drones, the squad size is good, it packs a fair number of shots, and hard to take down.

I infiltrate them into harrasment locations, either to block off advancement paths, or to threaten rear units (you dont need fusion even against tanks, S5 in masses can glance down the rear of most stuff, and as you want the suits in the back you will rarely get into melta range)
Just be careful to place them in locations that gives them an option to dash back into your lines if nececary.
Another option is to put them in places where killing them will require serious commitment from the enemy, that way they will either get ignored (and cause some serious damage to backfield units), or the bulk of your army will have about two turns to grab battlefield control and do some damage as they go for your stealth. either way, you throw away 150 points to get either two turn of grace, or to do constant damage through the game to the hard-hitting backfield units that are normally out of harm's way.

The stealth half-blob is NOT easy to use, as it lacks masses and has a reletively short operation range, but it can do wonders. proper placing of the team won me quite a few games.

Small teams do wonders in smaller games; my three-man team with no fusion blasters does wonders in 750-pt skirmishes.

Stealth suits are a great way to get Shas'El or Shas'O in the face of the enemy while simultaneously mitigating the risk of catastrophic death.

There is no time when you ever want to take stealth suits. They have laughably bad firepower, so their 2+ cover save doesn't matter. Your opponent will never shoot them until every other unit in your army is dead, and you will always do less with them than an equal number of points in units that don't have laughably bad firepower.

The shelf is the only sweet spot for them.

I've been running small groups of 3-4 stealthsuits now since the FAQ made them better. For the most part, I don't expect much damage output, but with some cover they are a good nuisance unit. Mostly, I have been outflanking them for getting linebreaker points. Occasionally they have glanced off the last few points on a AV10-11 hull vehicle.

 crazyK wrote:
Mostly, I have been outflanking them for getting linebreaker points.

Pretty sure Kroot would be a cheaper way to do that.

Stealth suits with just burst cannons and gun drones that either infiltrate or deploy into terrain are effectively impossible to get rid of with shooting.

They can provide excellent str 5 support if you end up taking lots of kroot instead of fire warriors, as you will probably only have one unit of pathfinders at most to support broadsides or something, your stealth teams can get a marker drone or two.

 juraigamer wrote:
Stealth suits with just burst cannons and gun drones that either infiltrate or deploy into terrain are effectively impossible to get rid of with shooting.

So what? They have the worst guns in your army so your opponent is never going to shoot at them until everything else is dead and you've already lost the game. Merely being difficult to kill isn't enough, a unit needs to provide a powerful offensive threat, whether by killing the enemy or securing objectives.

They can provide excellent str 5 support if you end up taking lots of kroot instead of fire warriors, as you will probably only have one unit of pathfinders at most to support broadsides or something, your stealth teams can get a marker drone or two.

One small problem here: marker drones are garbage. They're so expensive that you're better off just spending those points on buying more guns, especially if you have to pay a stealth suit tax before you can buy the drones.

If stealth suits were in any other foc slot they might be viable, but when you're going up against the bread and butter of tau...the crisis suit teams they fail in comparison. Tau don't need anymore S5 guns especially at 18" and fusion at 12" is a joke. They need something that will bring the pain like xv8's do. If stealth teams could carry plasma rifles or missile pods at 24"+ then I'm all ears. I'd pay 30 points a piece even at BS 3 for those. Throw them in say a fast attack slot and were game. Nothing to compete with in that slot other than tetras.

Peregrine you have to stop dissing anything that is not going exacly by your own build.

Experiance shows that people spend quite a lot trying to get rid of them, and thier firepower is enough to get the job of killing unsupported backfield units, where they will have much easier time to both arrive and survive then the crisis suits. (and if the backfield units get support from the rest of the army, it means his army is not attacking the bulk of your army

By your logic of "if it dont kill more its worthless" then terminators are worthless (good luck convincing marines that), as you can get much more marines, and your only real gain is survivability.
Being hard to kill freaking MATTERS, this game is not about kill/death ratios in 1/6 matchs (and even in the 1 that is, not dying also counts for you), and stealth suits are good at getting to that one well-hidden unit and removing it-you dont need much firepower to kill backfield scoring/artillery/ranged buff units, you do need to stay alive to deliver your shots.

Unlike the other armie's S4 guns, there is no such thing as "too much S5 guns", as S5 is enough to have a chance against AV11, meaning it got a chance against almost anything, especially when coming from behind and equipped with jet pack mobility.

I am getting a feeling alot of you guys play too much the numbers and too little the battlefield. mobility, survivability and verstility counts for ALOT on the actual battlefield, and anyone saying otherwise should get his head out of the calculator. some things just dont compute.

I will not claim that they are auto-includes like broadsides, as they are not, but they serve a purpose, and more often then not I find that porpose very useful.

Ha ha, yes that's true, battlesuits are better in terms of damage. Then again I don't run a single battlesuit in my army, so my stealth suits have time to shine, and they do.

Furthermore, in terms of offense, stealth suits do the same thing as battlesuits, only with less points lost per wound.

Think of it this way, you take three helios battlesuits with two shield drones. Point for point, I believe you can take 6 stealth suits and a smattering of gun drones, plus 1-2 marker drones.

In terms of firepower, at the 18 inch range, the stealth suits out perform against anything toughness 5 or less. Their amount of shots, on average, kill more than the 3 plasma rifles and 3 missile pods would.

With more troops on the field, the firepower and mobility of a stealth suit unit can not only put the hurt on the enemy, but stay out of melee range without trouble. Seeing as stealth suits and their drones have a 2+ cover save in any terrain, they survive much longer than other stuff in the codex.

So yes, not only can stealth suits survive longer than battlesuits and other tau troops while keeping the jump-shoot-jump of the battlesuits, and generally be more deadly, they can kill.

Don't forget, the tau book works together, don't consider each unit on it's own like a GK or nercon player. When the tau army works together with a good general at their back, they can hold their own against top tier armies.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Peregrine you have to stop dissing anything that is not going exacly by your own build.

Why? A bad unit is a bad unit, and I don't see why I should pretend that it has uses just to make people feel better.

Experiance shows that people spend quite a lot trying to get rid of them, and thier firepower is enough to get the job of killing unsupported backfield units, where they will have much easier time to both arrive and survive then the crisis suits. (and if the backfield units get support from the rest of the army, it means his army is not attacking the bulk of your army

Then experience says you play against bad players. If your opponent is shooting at your stealth suits instead of your broadsides they're dong something stupid.

By your logic of "if it dont kill more its worthless" then terminators are worthless (good luck convincing marines that), as you can get much more marines, and your only real gain is survivability.
Being hard to kill freaking MATTERS, this game is not about kill/death ratios in 1/6 matchs (and even in the 1 that is, not dying also counts for you), and stealth suits are good at getting to that one well-hidden unit and removing it-you dont need much firepower to kill backfield scoring/artillery/ranged buff units, you do need to stay alive to deliver your shots.

Err, what? Terminators aren't worthless because terminators kill things efficiently. Their durability is awesome because it protects a powerful killing unit and ensures that it continues to wipe entire enemy units off the table. And they need that durability since their killing power makes them a priority target. Finally, since terminators are scoring units (at least if you're doing it right) being hard to kill means that you win the objective game, something a lot more valuable than protecting some weak shooting.

Stealth suit durability, on the other hand, protects a low-impact unit that nobody will bother to shoot until the game is over.

Unlike the other armie's S4 guns, there is no such thing as "too much S5 guns", as S5 is enough to have a chance against AV11, meaning it got a chance against almost anything, especially when coming from behind and equipped with jet pack mobility.

Of course there's such a thing as too much STR 5. You have too much STR 5 when your STR 5 comes at the expense of better guns. It's nice to have STR 5 guns so that your objective holders can do something meaningful (compare to, say, IG flashlights), but they're still not your best shooting.

I am getting a feeling alot of you guys play too much the numbers and too little the battlefield. mobility, survivability and verstility counts for ALOT on the actual battlefield, and anyone saying otherwise should get his head out of the calculator. some things just dont compute.

Sure those things count for a lot. But merely being durable isn't enough when you don't have enough offensive power to force your opponent to shoot at the durable unit. With such weak firepower you could remove stealth suit saves entirely and not make a difference in their chances of survival.


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 juraigamer wrote:
Furthermore, in terms of offense, stealth suits do the same thing as battlesuits, only with less points lost per wound.

Err, what? You do realize that stealth suits only have one wound, right? So that every wound you take is a dead model, while crisis suits can take two wounds before losing a model?

In terms of firepower, at the 18 inch range, the stealth suits out perform against anything toughness 5 or less. Their amount of shots, on average, kill more than the 3 plasma rifles and 3 missile pods would.

Now compare them to fire warriors, which are a scoring unit. If you are only hurting light infantry with your shooting you need to do it far more effectively than your scoring units, or you shouldn't have the unit in your list.

With more troops on the field, the firepower and mobility of a stealth suit unit can not only put the hurt on the enemy, but stay out of melee range without trouble. Seeing as stealth suits and their drones have a 2+ cover save in any terrain, they survive much longer than other stuff in the codex.

No, they survive longer than other stuff because they have laughable firepower and nobody shoots them until everything else in your army is dead. The 2+ save is worthless.

 Peregrine wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
Furthermore, in terms of offense, stealth suits do the same thing as battlesuits, only with less points lost per wound.

Err, what? You do realize that stealth suits only have one wound, right? So that every wound you take is a dead model, while crisis suits can take two wounds before losing a model?
.

I'll only clip this out, since trying to explain the finer points of the tau book and an effective way to play without running the "one build" the codex is supposed to have.

You lose less points per wound. Stealth suits don't die instantly to missile launchers or worse. One failed save does not rapidly deminish the units fire power.

A unit of battlesuits with 2 shield drones with the standard helios array loses 4 wounds to shooting, which is easy to do as a 4++ and 3+ only go so far to massed shooting. If this happens, the unit loses at least 92 points and half their firepower.

Conversely, a unit of stealth suits with gun drones in area terrain loses 4 wounds from shooting, and will on average only lose 40 points and 15% of the units fire power

Furthermore, the stealth suits damage out put is far greater than a firewarrior team, which will only get one optimal round of shooting, and then get krumpted in melee.

For 200 points, I have 5 stealth suits and 5 gun drones. For 200 points you have 5 TH/SS terminators. The terminators need a landraider or to deep strike to maximise their effectiveness, adding a tax. The stealth suits don't. Odds are, the stealth suits alone will do more damage than the terminators for their points, and for each 1 rolled on saves, terminators lose far more points than the stealth suits. For giggles, the stealth suits actually beat the terminators on average, simply because they are too mobile.

I can't change your mind, I can't force you to think about the larger picture and I can't stop you from disagreeing. All I can hope is you read this with an open mind rather than a closed fist, that holds some tourney list that you've based all your information on.

 juraigamer wrote:
One failed save does not rapidly deminish the units fire power.

How does one failed save diminish the firepower of a unit of multi-wound models at all?

Conversely, a unit of stealth suits with gun drones in area terrain loses 4 wounds from shooting, and will on average only lose 40 points and 15% of the units fire power

Only if you:

1) Assume that the gun drones always take the wounds and your stealth suits are never closest. If you instead assume that the wounds are distributed the same as with the helios squad (since the point is supposedly that stealth suits are good, not that gun drone meatshield walls are good) those four wounds will cost you a minimum of 90 points, assuming you bought nothing but drone controllers on the two dead stealth suits.

2) Assume that you spent a bunch of points on awful gun drones in the first place.

3) Assume that anyone will shoot stealth suits.

Furthermore, the stealth suits damage out put is far greater than a firewarrior team, which will only get one optimal round of shooting, and then get krumpted in melee.

Err, no.

Stealth suits cost a minimum of 30 points each, for three pulse shots at 18".

Fire warriors cost 10 points each, for a single pulse shot at 30", and two at 15".

Conclusion: an equal point value of fire warriors will out-shoot the stealth suits 3-0 between 18" and 30", match them between 15" and 18", and double their firepower under 15".

The terminators need a landraider or to deep strike to maximise their effectiveness, adding a tax.

How exactly is deep striking, which costs zero points, a "tax"?

Odds are, the stealth suits alone will do more damage than the terminators for their points,

How exactly are the stealth suits doing more damage with some random STR 5 shots than a unit which can charge and wipe out an entire unit in a single assault phase, then do the same next turn?

and for each 1 rolled on saves, terminators lose far more points than the stealth suits.

TH/SS cost: 40 points per model.

Stealth suit minimum cost: 30 points per model.

How exactly are the terminators losing "far" more points?

For giggles, the stealth suits actually beat the terminators on average, simply because they are too mobile.

Who cares about a ridiculous 1v1 scenario which will never happen since the terminators will be busy wiping your broadsides off the table and then removing all of your scoring units? 1v1s are irrelevant, what matters is the role each unit plays in their respective army.

1 suit+2 drones costs 50 points, thats an average of 16.6 points per model in that sub-group, and it got 5 shots, 2 of them twin-linked. slightly more killy then 5 firewarrios outside of rapid fire, and unlike firewarriors will actually live to shoot again, and again. and can infiltrate, and that is a MASSIVE plus with S5 guns.

You lose the drones first EVERY SINGLE TIME if you do it right, I never had a game where I lost a single suit before losing the last drone yet. and turst me, people WILL target them when they are dancing around your units from turn 1, sprouting S5 shots on their backfield, it adds up very nicly to 5-7 S5 shots through the game for every 10 points you invest if they ignore it, and rarely FW will get to shoot that much, or reach them tasty backfield units. because FW's DIE, and quickly. a dead unit does not shoot. if you wonna "calculate" the amount of shots each get to fire, you need to calculate how long they will last too.

"since the point is supposedly that stealth suits are good, not that gun drone meatshield walls are good"-This sentance is silly, its the same freaking squad! the gun drones are great BECAUSE they are paried with stealth suits, who provide them with the stealth and shroud rules, and they in turn become pretty much shield drones with TLPC that guard the suits, its the way the suits and drones resonate with each other that makes this squad as effective as it is. (shove in your ionblade HQ for even more fun, but I rather have him running with bladestorm bodyguards.)
That sentance was like setting apart crypteks from squads, sure they suck alone, but they are teamed with a squad that gains much from their powers. you judge a unit as a whole, not as individual units.

"if they are not shooting at broadsides they are doing it wrong"? not really, my broadsides almost never get killed, because they in turn got not much TO target. I pick a single BS for every 500 points and by turn 4 or so they start shooting at infantry because they ran out of armor (2 vichles for every 500 points is the high end, and usually one or both at AV11's) if they live to turn 4, they get left alone (unless they are the only thing left I suppose. never got there.)

BTW, you might want to do the math, gun terminators kill LESS then same-cost marines, against ANY target. the fact they kill "so good" is that they live long enough to put their potential into good use.
Assualt terminators on the other hand, while kill great, have no guarantee to ever REACH their kill range, because even with the deep-strike there is at least 1 turn of your army to get away, shoot themn or take 'em on with higher initiative assual units, while they stand there doing nothing useful.
They are formation brakes because they force the opponent to respond and/or move away, but they are by not means efficiant killers, and will almost never make up thier points as they will hardly ever GET to combat. let alone do it multiple turns a row, except when the opponent also want to assualt them from the firstplace, IE he is either nuts or have even better melee units.
Will a deep=striking assault termi squad kill a broadside squad of mine? probably, yes. will they ever get to hit anything else? unlikely. maybe if i had ran out of other things to kill, MAYBE.

ill toss my 2cents in based on my own experience with using them.
Generally they are too expensive for what they actually do and will never really be seen. But a good player that uses there advantages can easily use them for the win.
I find that using them in a Big blob of full suits and drones makes for a very hard to resist unit especially for people that don’t know what it exactly is.
A unit like this will ether be great for an first strike using infiltrate move into 18inch range then fire at a small squad or vehicle for first blood or come in later and harass backfield objectives or heavy supports if going second if. If they are not shooting your broadsides they are doing there job.
Don’t forget to jump shoot jump lol.

But I have not had any luck with smaller squads or fb so I can’t comment on those.

Whether or not they are worth the cost for a low st high mobility teq/meq platform is up to you though. (I like em but wish they were more efficient or had the ability to trade for some plasma rifles lol.)

I don't know about other people but I have this love/hate thing going with my stealth suits. Some games they do great because I deep strike them behind enemy lines and they jump in some cover (of course) after there deep strike and start killing my opponents scoring unit. In other games though they are absolutely terrible and manage to accomplish nothing but line breaker ( mind you thats pretty useful and easy to get if you deep strike them then jump them into cover, if you do that they are not going doing easy at all). I only ever take them though after I've taken my crisis suits, then broadsides, then hammerheads, then some firewarriors, then some devilfishs and then comes my stealth suits leaving them only ever seeing the light of day at around 1750+ pts.

To get back on topic though, my favourite configuration to use them in is a simple 5 man team all with burst cannons and nothing else. This keeps the unit rather small so I can deepstrike them without much worry and hide easily. But it also provides 15 str 5 shots which is nothing to just wink away I thin. Against orks or guard I'm usually killing 5-6 a turn making them run off the table shortly or just whittle them down until they are finished. And I find they can usually keep this rate of fire going the whole game because they come in turn 2 or 3, immediately jump into cover claiming the 2+ and my opponents can find much better things to shoot at than a 5 wound, 2+, unit that appears to be not doing that much each turn.

 BoomWolf wrote:
1 suit+2 drones costs 50 points, thats an average of 16.6 points per model in that sub-group, and it got 5 shots, 2 of them twin-linked. slightly more killy then 5 firewarrios outside of rapid fire[u], and unlike firewarriors will actually live to shoot again, and again. and can infiltrate, and that is a MASSIVE plus with S5 guns.

Should be corrected to slightly more killy then firewarriors at ranges >15" up to 18". Anything past that, stealthsuits can't even shoot at, while firewarriors will tend to get 2-3 turns of shooting at >18".

The man problem I have with stealthsuits is that they spots that I need for crisis suits. How are you suppose to kill vehicles effectively without Missilepods, how are you suppose to deal with opposing terminators without plasma rifles, and honestly, crisis suits are one of the few ways we can deal with flyers. I just don't see stealthsuits fitting in my army, I already have to bring Firewarriors to take objectives, why would I bring an elite choice that brings roughly the same amount of fire power anyways?

When playing Tau, play with synergy. Do not expect the army to be like Space marines where you can use one unit in multiple different ways. Think about what units compliment others.

Every unit has a job. You're essentially assigning that job when you put them in your list. for example, Broadsides are specifically Anti-Tank. You shouldn't use Broadsides to shoot scouts, unless there are no better options available.

Railheads are nice to have for some versatility with the sub-munitions, but because they are easier to kill for the most part than Broadsides, and are not twin linked, means you have to take those cons into account as well.

The point i'm trying to get across is that Stealth suits should be taken to compliment the rest of your army. They are not a unit that should be used on its own, rather used as a part of the rest of the army to make the whole stronger.

The way i use my stealth Suits is units of 3 with 2 Gun Drones, no fusion blaster. I figure that the Anti-tank is covered with 3 Broadsides and 2 hammer heads, that I don't need close up brawlers to take out tanks. Instead I harass infantry. People say that XV-8's are better than stealth suites but i believe each has a purpose. If you hide the suites in terrain, they become much more survivable. With an 18" range, but being able to jump 2D6 in the assault phase, you have more range than you think. I will generally use repetition to insure that the job I'm assigning gets done.

Hence 3 Broadsides to take care of a big tank, and if they don't kill it we move on to the Railheads. If they did kill it, that free's the railheads to now fire submunitions at infantry, or take care of another tank that is less of a priority.

Always focus on your priorities. Make a mental note of "What needs to die first? After that is dead, what needs to die next?"

I usually give my stealth team leader a Marker Light so that when he is not within 18", he can instead designate targets.

This is just how I've used them and I've had a lot of success. YMMV.

I actually like to field them because they fit the look and feel to the army I play with not because they are a must have unit (think we all know they are not), having said that I will not take them out of my list since I have enough crisis suits in anyway that I am not hurting for the couple of strength 6 and 7 shots that are missing.
I like the fact that they are almost an automatic line breaker point, they are hard to remove from the table and any lone unit in the back is going to get whittled down till they are not effective anymore thanks to the strength 5 shots. I do think however that the current unit I run is a bit pricey and large for what I get from it, thinking about reducing the unit to 4 suits and 3 drones, less firepower and wounds but easier to hide, still 3 minor wounds before the suits start to fall, still able to glance to death an av10 and 11 tank left in the rear unguarded... Let's see how this unit fares, don't expect a miracle but I do expect a better harrasment unit than the one I had.

 BoomWolf wrote:
1 suit+2 drones costs 50 points, thats an average of 16.6 points per model in that sub-group, and it got 5 shots, 2 of them twin-linked. slightly more killy then 5 firewarrios outside of rapid fire, and unlike firewarriors will actually live to shoot again, and again. and can infiltrate, and that is a MASSIVE plus with S5 guns.

You mean very slightly more killy (and only because of the gun drones and their TL BS 2 being very slightly better than BS 3), at the cost of not being a scoring unit and getting out-shot 2:1 within 15". And being unable to shoot at all at 18-30" while the fire warriors still have the same firepower they do at 15.01".

"since the point is supposedly that stealth suits are good, not that gun drone meatshield walls are good"-This sentance is silly, its the same freaking squad! the gun drones are great BECAUSE they are paried with stealth suits, who provide them with the stealth and shroud rules, and they in turn become pretty much shield drones with TLPC that guard the suits, its the way the suits and drones resonate with each other that makes this squad as effective as it is. (shove in your ionblade HQ for even more fun, but I rather have him running with bladestorm bodyguards.)

The point is that you're comparing durability between a gun drone and STR 5 spam squad and a focused short-range MEQ killer instead of between two similar units. The "advantage" of the stealth suits isn't because stealth suits are awesome, it's because you deliberately compared them to one of the least durable crisis suit setups. How about instead comparing them to a crisis suit squad set up for gun drone spam, for example, with TL missile pods and drone controllers on every model.

BTW, you might want to do the math, gun terminators kill LESS then same-cost marines, against ANY target.

Until they assault and wipe the entire target unit off the table. Or, unlike stealth suits, until they sit on an objective with their 2+ saves and win the game for you.

the fact they kill "so good" is that they live long enough to put their potential into good use.

No, it's because they're a unit with 2+ saves and power fists, with either storm bolters (good shooting) or even more assault ability. A terminator unit that reaches its target is going to wipe out that target in a single turn with overwhelming power.

Will a deep=striking assault termi squad kill a broadside squad of mine? probably, yes. will they ever get to hit anything else? unlikely. maybe if i had ran out of other things to kill, MAYBE.

So? The point is that terminators make good use of a 2+ save because it's protecting a powerful killer and a scoring unit, while stealth suits have a 2+ save protecting a unit that gets out-shot by your basic troops. Therefore the terminators have a valuable ability, while the stealth suits are just ignored. Whether or not a specific matchup goes for or against you is irrelevant here.

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 Abyssel wrote:
When playing Tau, play with synergy. Do not expect the army to be like Space marines where you can use one unit in multiple different ways. Think about what units compliment others.

Or you could just bring brutally efficient firepower and overwhelm your opponent with raw power. Instead of searching for complex tactics to make every unit in the codex "viable" why not just spam the best ones and win?

The point i'm trying to get across is that Stealth suits should be taken to compliment the rest of your army. They are not a unit that should be used on its own, rather used as a part of the rest of the army to make the whole stronger.

And the point is that stealth suits don't do anything useful. They get out-shot by your basic troops (which have the virtue of being scoring), so they're never going to be a priority target for a smart opponent. That means their 2+ saves are wasted since they'll only have to roll saves if the rest of your army is gone and the game is over.

With an 18" range, but being able to jump 2D6 in the assault phase, you have more range than you think. I will generally use repetition to insure that the job I'm assigning gets done.

You know what also has 18" range? A pulse rifle. Except it also has 30" range, so even if you JSJ to get closer you're still out-ranged by the basic troops.

Oh, and missile pods have even more range.

I usually give my stealth team leader a Marker Light so that when he is not within 18", he can instead designate targets.

IOW, you have a 100+ point unit shooting a single markerlight. I'm sure that's a viable plan compared to "buy a Tetra"...

You confuse me peregrine, after spending much time saying a burst cannon for 30 points is bad copared to firewarrior pulse rifle and yet you say a storm bolter is "good shooting" for 40 points, while bolters can be orbtained as low as 7 points? (and scoring too, kroot are so OP!), and "until they get into assualt and wipe out a squad" dont freaking happen, EVER, because they are too slow to catch up with any squad who is not going to their direction, and with I1 power fists, odds are that whatever is going at them will kill most or not all of the termies before they even get to swing.

Terminators are far less effective then marines at killing things in either shooting or melee, as you must count the fact you get appromixly 2.5 marines per terminator, yet they are still considered very, very good.
Why? because THEY CANT BE KILLED. they provide a small, yet reliable threat that forces your opponent to respond to it or take unanswered casualties of the marine's choice, the stealth suits do THE SAME THING, you have to respond to this hard-to-kill unit, or accept them killing your backfield. they go a bit differently about it, but serves the same overall pourpose-force the enemie's hand and supply a reliable sorce of fire.


Problem with arguing with you is that all your claims of why spesific features are unimpressive are technically correct, in a void, but when they are piled up on top of each other they become invalid.
Shot range-who cares? you are mobile and got nearly ever deployment ability in the game. you get your range without even making an effort.
Lack of firepower-who cares? its CONSTANT firepower, compared to firewarriors who will likely die within 2 turns of shooting, at the end result you will usually land more hits per points.
Requries drones to work-who care? you take the drones anyway, so what difference does it make suits without drones are ineffective? (its like saying sterngard without upgraded weapons are bad, but you are taking themanyway, so who cares about what the situation without them is?)

You judge the unit by its numbers of kill/point, and compleatly ignore the survivability, manuverability and flexible deployment they got. your calculations and rationalisation are perfect for a shooting gallery, but not for actual games. you will not often get you perfect conditions and will rarly get to fire more then once or twice on units that have good K/P rations, but low survivability and manuverability.

Peregrine said “So? The point is that terminators make good use of a 2+ save because it's protecting a powerful killer and a scoring unit, while stealth suits have a 2+ save protecting a unit that gets out-shot by your basic troops. Therefore the terminators have a valuable ability, while the stealth suits are just ignored”
Can fire warriors shoot and destroy land landers or Dreadnoughts on front armour? Can firewarriors instant kill 2+ save, toughness 4, muti wound models? I fail to see how firewarrior out shoot Stealth teams all the time. Can firewarriors on turn 2 deal with that ordnance weapon hiding out of broadside LOS in the enemy deployment zone?

You keep saying the enemy will ignore Stealth teams and they only have stg5. Well surly a Stealth teams with Fusion and burst can threaten anything. Blow up tanks, instant death muti wound models, hit hoards hard. You seem to be ignoring all the advantages of Stealth teams.


Peregrine Said “How exactly are the stealth suits doing more damage with some random STR 5 shots than a unit which can charge and wipe out an entire unit in a single assault phase, then do the same next turn?”
Depends on the target as Fusion with 2+ on the damage chart can be nasty and it bypass’s armor 2. Due to pre measuring the Stealth team could kill 2 or 3 Terminators a turn then jump back out of assault range. You might even be able to jump out of LOS then the Terminators cannot charge or shoot.


Peregrine Said “Err, what? You do realize that stealth suits only have one wound, right? So that every wound you take is a dead model, while crisis suits can take two wounds before losing a model?”
He means instant death is less off a problem. If you do not have a cover save for battlesuits then 3 instant death Ap3 wounds wipes out a battle suit squad. The same 3 AP3 instant death wounds on a Stealth team will cause far less damage. Not only will you have normally at least a 50% save if not better for the Stealth team but even if all 3 wounds are failed you lose less points of models and still have firepower left.

It is better to lose 3 stealth models and have 3 standing over losing 3 battlesuits.


Peregrine Said “If your opponent is shooting at your stealth suits instead of your broadsides they're dong something stupid.”
Stealth suit can blow up anything a broadside can and often Stealth suits find it easier to blow up targets then broadsides as the Stealth suits are more mobile and at close range a higher chance to pen armor. Just last game I blow up an armor 13 Dreadnought in the enemy’s deployment zone on turn 2 with fusion while the Broadsides had no line of fire but the fusion weapons could be moved to engage.

What about the deadly combo of Shas'El or Shas'O in a Stealth team? You can have a 2+armor, 2+ cover save drones to absorb hits with a 2+armor battlesuit with FNP although I prefer the 3+armor option to be more mobile.

Sorry about the bad layout of my post was a little rushed dueing dinner break. Also I agree with you marker drones are a bad idea.

Yes 3+ STG FNP HQ is a serious pain in the arse to remove, lets not forget that, and he can pack some nasty firepower.


On to another perk of the stealth teams, they enable the "Stelth army" tau setup, a silly as hell setup, but it actually works BECAUSE its "so ineffective"

You HQ is shadowsun, or a FNP shas'o conncted to a stealth team.
Your elites are only variants of the stealth team (blob, half blob, fusion team, half fusion team, etc...)
Your troops are FW in devilfishes.
Your heavy are SDT and hammerheads.

This setup seriously lacks killing power, but most torny lists will struggle agaisnt it simply because they cant KILL anything, everything in there packs multiple saves, mobile as hell, and prevents any decent battle plan from actually unfolding.
After all, there is not much that can reliably ignore all the layers of survivability measures you have piled up there, and the few that can are targeted by the entire army and taken down swiftly.

Dumb as hell. and works simply because the opponent will never be properly equipped to deal with it.

Peregrine, we know you don't understand but you don't need to quote the entire thread anymore to let us know.

For those interested, one of my lists that I've run before, though is by no means perfected, is a follows, and uses tons of stealth suits and no battlesuits:



I have troops covered, anti tank covered with two possible deep strike fusion gun units, seeker missiles for lighter vehicles and fliers, tons of mobility and fire on the move and the army is very tough to kill with 3+ cover or better nearly everywhere.

Granted, I have trouble killing terminators, but then again every one does. What good is shooting a plasma gun at a terminator when you can just overload them with str 5 shots? The more dice they roll, the quicker they die. The railguns can always snipe lone multi-wound guys as well. Hope the list helps any tau players.

Derp: the list comes to 2k

Well, if you remove the seeker missiles, the marker drones, the stealth TL upgrade and markerlight and shove more gun drones to teams 1 and 2 you will save enough points to have a few broadsides to support your anti-armor needs too. not like these upgrades are optimal.

Further downgrading the fishs to be without MT, TA and SMS (revert it to drones) will provide you with some more free points to increase your FW teams into 9 man each, and a few points to spare to upgrade the broadsides from earlier.