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Hi guys,

I've been thinking about some kind of "all-rounder" Crisis unit, that could dishout decent damages to whatever it faces. I need your opinions about it, guessing how it could be more effective, etc.
(Btw, sorry for some "wrong english items names" and my bad grammar/spelling ^^)

So, here's what I had:

Commander:

- Drone Controller
- Stim injectors
- Shield Generator
-> Puretide Neurochip
-> [Personal system that jams a 12"-away enemy unit's weapons]
-> Multispecter Sensor
-> C2 Node
-> XV8-02 Iridium Armor
-> Onagre
==========> 215pts

Crisis #1:

- Fusion Blaster
- Plasmagun
- Target Lock
==========> 57pts

Crisis #2:

- Missile Pod
- Fusion Blaster
- Target Lock
===========> 57 pts

Crisis #3

- Airbursting Fragmentation Projector
- Cyclic Ion Blaster
- Retrothrusters
==============> 57 pts

8x Attack Drones
================> 96

482 pts in total. So quite expensive...

The idea is to have the Drones + Crisis #3 being "the standard targeters". Drones are hitting on 2+ twinlinked, ignoring cover. Well, in fact, all the team's shots are ignoring cover and are twin-linked.
Other than that, I've got 2 Crisis (namely #1 and #2) carrying 2 Fusion Blaster, 1 Plasma Gun and 1 Missile pod than can shoot on other targets than the one of the drones+Crisis #3. Usually, it will be tanks.
The Commander has T5, 2+ armor, 4++ and a 5+ FnP. He's gonna eat all S9 or less shots, or he'll sacrifice a drone on a LOS. The Gauntlet is here to avoid being charged, challenged, and killed by a Powerfist. And it offers some small fun moments (which is, in the end, the most important part of the game).
Basicaly I imagine the unit trying to get in the middle of the troubles as fast as possible (not deepstriking tho). Drones + #3 shoot in a target (infantry or so), while #1 and #2 shoot in vehicles. The Commander jams the weapons of any nearby infantery unit. If they get charged, they'll be out thanks to the Retrothrusters and will use the Drones initiative to avoid being blasted.

Seems very expencive mate.... I dunno about you, but while suits are usually very killy, they also aren't very tough.Seems as if allot of your killing power could be gimped by a single lucky missile launcher, or some bolter spray from a tac squad.

For the same price as this all purpose squad, you could get two squads, each doing a more specialized job, and doubling the number of wounds you have floating around.

The 'Do it all' squads seem better reserved for bodyguard squads attached to farsight, so you can put them down exactly where they are garuntee'd to maximize their carnage.

Yeah that's completely right about how expensive this unit is. Thing is, this unit is here because 2 out of 3 elite slots are being used for Riptides (don't wanna play a lonesome Riptide so two is the way to go imo ^^). And I wanted to maximize the potential of the very last elite slot...
Other than that, I would've been doing just like you say, having specific Crisis units for a specific task just like we all had with good old codex.

For the wounds, the objective is to get most of the shooting on the commander, with his 2+ / 5+ FNP, he should be able to eat it quite well, thus allowing the unit to survive... Don't you think ?

Well, you dont get to use the commanders t5, but thats okay given the ablative wounds you have floating along side... But the strategy again falls short for me.

If you start wanting to take wounds on the sergent, then you're gambling the linchpin of your huge expensive squad in order to shrug off 5 out of every six wounds the squad takes. Once he's gone, the squad is hugely neutered, and sits on the board still having costed you a ton of points.

Like I said, this squad does nothing that two cheaper squads cant except die to half as many unsaved wounds.

If you like the double riptide I say rock it, only break this squad down into two units. You can then split fire more effectively, get more bodies on the table, and if they make it to the late game you have twice as many options for contetsting/linebreaker. Likewise, if one goes down, you don't lose 400+ points of your armies punch.

Honestly, I think you should leave the third slot open and fill out your FA slots with markerlights. A jack of all trades crisis team isn't going to make your overall list as killy as markerlights would. You need to feed those riptides more markerlights to really make the most of them.

I don't think that making an all purpose Crisis Team is a good idea. Figure out what role you want your suits to play and equip them for it. Make a team that is good at one thing rather than mediocre at everything.

Another way to cover your bases is to look at other units that can cover the same roles that you would normally would fill with crisis suits. For instance, broadsides can cover your missile system needs. I agree that crisis suits tend to do best (and cause more problems for your opponent) when they are specialized and their weapons have some degree of synergy.

Well, since I intend to play this unit only in small format (1'000 pts), I will test it tonight Will gladly give you some feed-back, even if I don't expect much from this squad (except a lot of fun xD)

Ookami wrote:
Well, since I intend to play this unit only in small format (1'000 pts), I will test it tonight Will gladly give you some feed-back, even if I don't expect much from this squad (except a lot of fun xD)

This is the most terrible addition to this plan yet; half your army is going to be three suits?

I kind of like the squad in general, as in I don't think it's too many points. I think it won't necessarily get much done diluting its power that way, though. Consider that instead of giving each Crisis Suit a different role, you could make each one good at several roles, so they could all concentrate fire on the most important present danger. If you keep the Commander the same, you could give each crisis a Fusion Blaster, Missile Pod, and Flamer. This gives you good anti-vehicle power, decent anti-infantry power at range with the drones, some anti-heavy infantry power because of meltas and weight of fire, and really dangerous close-range anti-horde power/assault defense thanks to the flamers. The gear can be debated, certainly, but the point is that you'll probably more often want to hit one target with everything in the squad that hit three targets. Just equip weapons that cover the most important bases to you.

you could give each crisis a Fusion Blaster, Missile Pod, and Flamer.

Problem is that the whole unit is gonna shoot where the Drones are gonna shoot.


Anyway: here's the exact configuration I've tested during this week-end's campaign.

Commander with:
Drone Controler / Retrothrusters / Stim Injectors / Shield Generators
C2 Node / Multispectre Sensor / Puretide Neurochip / Battle jammer (dunno the exact name xD) / Iridium Armor / Onagre Gauntlet

Crisis #1 : Fusion Blaster + Plasma Rifle + Target Lock
Crisis #2 : Fusion Blaster + Missile Pod + Target Lock
Crisis #3: Airbusting Fragmentation Launcher + Cyclic Ion Blaster + Target Lock
Drones: The unit had a total of 8 Attack Drones.

Overall:
This unit was played in a 1'000pts list, with help of 2 Riptides and 2x 7 FW. In terms of points, the unit + commander represent almost 50% of the points in the Army (487pts to be accurate).
Role:
I played the unit as an almost unstoppable side unit, breaching into an enemy's flank and reaching whatever I truely needed to destroy.

Performance:

Did 3 games with the unit. It performed above any hopes. First, I played against a Imperial Guard army: the unit moved on the right flank, destroying a Chimera, killed the passengers (squad of Vets + 2x plasma + 1x melta) while the Drones + Crisis #3 were killing infantery squads with an amazing ease ! Then, it quickly moved toward the enemy centre and blowed the HQ + 2 units of heavy weapons with the same effectiveness. My opponent played behind an Aegis Defense Line that he put around a huge ruins complex. The Multispector Sensor just blowing away his coversaves, every wound was a kill. With the Commander always in front, and the unit carefully moved on each phase ensuring the Commander was the first target, even with a global Toughness of 4, he didn't managed to remove more than one wound to the Commander. The game ended on turn 4: table cleaned.
Against Daemons, the first turn was really impressive: he had a full squad of Slaanesh Riders who moved + sprinted toward the FireWarriors. The Drones helped destroying that unit, while the three Crisis burned down his HQ. Later on, the squad completely destroyed the strategy of the enemy (he was relying on ADL + some Nurgle marks to get some huge coversaves boosts). The unit became such a pain in the a** that the Daemon decided to try to tarpit it down and charge it with a AV13/13/12 Walker (can't remember the name). The unit withstood the shock, then got out of the fight thanks to the retrothrusters and blowed up the Walker and the Tarpitting unit.
Last game was vs. Crons. Wanted to try a Deepstriking version of the fights: got my unit right were I wanted. It blew up 2 vehicles (Annihilation barge + the 4 HP vehicle (again, sry for not having the english names)), and almost destroyed a unit of 20 warriors. Another unit was happy to discover that their weapons had a fun tendancy to overheat XD Think 4 or 5 had a small. The battle jammer didn't change the face of the battle, but hell, that was fun to see my opponent shooting at me and removing more models from his units than I from mine xD

Will definetely test that unit out in higher points games (1500/1850) as I really found they were performing great with a couple of Riptides

Glad to see this unit work out for you. It's good to see the multi-spectrum suite and command node being used in anything that's not a Farsight bomb. This setup also gets some good use out of the commander's BS 5, while still not letting him shoot. Onager + tank hunter seems like a fun an non-very-tau thing to do.

Some question:
1) Do the drones get to re-roll twice, given the C&C-node + twin-linked? (well, BS 5 with one re-roll doesn't leave alot of misses usually, but snapshooting against flyers?)
2) Any thoughts on including some marker-drones in the squad? Very reliable marker hits for your riptides, but less shots from this squad
3) Do you get any use of the range on the missile pod on suit #2? Everything else seems to be largely within 18''

1) naha... BRB says no matter what, a dice can only be rerolled once. So the C2 Node is "only" handy for the Crisis (thus twinlinking 2 Fusion Blaster, 1 Missile Pod and 1 Plasma Rifle, all that for 15pts)
2) Would be very effective as well, if you need some more ML'ing in your army list. They last long, since you almost always have your HQ first, and the only thing he fears is S10AP2 weapons. Other than that, your drones are safe.
3) Nope, range of the MP isn't much used. But that's the highest Strength weapon shooting twice. Could easily and effectively be change to a Plasma Rifle, if that was your back-thought.

Onagre Gauntlet is fun even if, just as you say, not very Tau, fluff-wise. Thing is, the HQ has an amazingliny high CC (for a Tau, I mean xD). And when your opponent asks what is the Onagre Gauntlet doing, it's fun to see him going pale xD Plus, it gives nice protection against those Sergeants with Powerfist in challenges, hitting first, inflicting Instant Death + no Feel No Pain to any T5 or less. For the price, a nice protection.

Sorry if I missed something, but how are taking 8 drones in a 3 man crisis team?

I thought each suit could only take 2 drones with them.

The commander can take 2 as well, unless i missed something thats where the 8 comes from.

Also btw you have a Drone Controller on your commander, he is BS5, if your "attack drones" are gun drones (as im assuming since ive never heard of attack drones) they now use the commander's BS. It affects all of the drones in the unit, whether theyre his or not, and only as long as they are 1 of the 3 listed in the rule (special drones or missile drones are not affected, which makes me a sad fox...)

EDIT: Also you have a free slot on the commander, if youre already spending so much might as well use them. Give him a Flamer for overwatch purposes, it also avoids the crybabies from saying he cannot not have (yea, double negative bad english i know) a gun even though it says nothing about it (its just kinda...common sense to do it lol)
The commander i have following my Riptide around has a TL Flamer and a Flamer purely for overwatch. Its rather nice when its Scarabs that somehow managed to find you (i got herded into them lol good move mr. cron player good move...but my flamers are better than 3 scarab bases).
The CnC node and .... whatever the other was called (name escapes me, the TL'ing one) are only for that phase. Once it hits the Assault phase you no longer ignore cover and are twinlinked. So refusing to fire overwatch for these abilities dont work (since it specifically says nothing happens in overwatch).

The fox is right about the gun drones (sry for the name ^^ thought it was "attack drones" but you got me right), they are 8 'cause the commander + the three Crisis all take 2 drones. And they are all controlled by the Commander and his BS5. (And I'm a sad wolf too for I would have loved to have a Controler with a nice Broadie team and 6 BS5 Missile Drones ! :-( )

For the rest of your post, little fox, I don't have a free slot (check the 2nd list I've posted), the Commander has only four free slots and all are used 1) Drone Controler 2) Retrothrusters 3) Stim Injectors and 4) Shield Generator

I too loveD to have some flamers on unused slots on Crisis but this is quite rare with the new codex being out since my elite slots are always filled 'til the top, and my Crisis need every single slot they have.

I'm a derp, I thought this was a Crisis Bodyguard team with the commander. Thanks for clarifying, just shows I shouldn't try and understand rules at 4 am.

Whoops missed that second post ma bad.

Yea i know its gonna be hard to have any empty suit slots for flamers. The buff commander is the only one that might, and it just depends on what you give him. Personally i dont think the shield generator isnt worth it, but thats personal luck. When i depend on a sole 4+ save that that makes or breaks something, it never happens lol.

Weirdly enough there is a few potensially "good" melee units in the Tau army.

You have the commander with a gauntlet and support systems that might punch a hole in a tank or punch a sarges head into his guts, and then you have Farsight with armorbane sword and AP2 ( if i am not completely mistaken )

And then you have Firewarriors/Pathfinders with EMP granades, not that good against non-vehicles, but against walkers and vehicles that might put a fright into the oppoment not expecting such out of a Tau.


Personally my set-up with Crisis suits might be with a fusion rifle + missile pod and either blank or with a shield generator and use them for a bit of range sniping and mid-range armor killing, and then have shields for the sole purpose of soaking shots that might gone to other units.

Any changes to this all-purpose unit now that the new FAQ is up (double, i.e. not Twin-linked weapons are now definitely legal, even twin+single configurations). Also, counter fire defense system might be something to look into, as it fires overwatch on BS2. As the BS of the commander is transferred to the drones, I take this to mean that drones fire overwatch on BS 2 with re-rolls, which is a good charge-deterrent in itself.

So, the new FAQ is out and says you can use two un-twin-linked weapons. You could go with a missile spam list (6 missile pods total, same output as a 3 man HYMP squad without drones, but cheaper) or, and I will probably do this for ultimate laughs, go with 3 suits with 1x Fusion Gun 2x Flamer and deep strike them in danger close. Dumping 6 templates on someone is bound to be a riot.

Xyrael wrote:
So, the new FAQ is out and says you can use two un-twin-linked weapons. You could go with a missile spam list (6 missile pods total, same output as a 3 man HYMP squad without drones, but cheaper) or, and I will probably do this for ultimate laughs, go with 3 suits with 1x Fusion Gun 2x Flamer and deep strike them in danger close. Dumping 6 templates on someone is bound to be a riot.

I would modify this a bit to have a suit with 2x FBs (or maybe even BCs) and 2 suits with 2x flamers. Given the way you need to set up deep striking units, its unlikely that you would be able to get flame templates into the same target from 3 suits without overlapping your own models.

 Flinty wrote:

Xyrael wrote:
So, the new FAQ is out and says you can use two un-twin-linked weapons. You could go with a missile spam list (6 missile pods total, same output as a 3 man HYMP squad without drones, but cheaper) or, and I will probably do this for ultimate laughs, go with 3 suits with 1x Fusion Gun 2x Flamer and deep strike them in danger close. Dumping 6 templates on someone is bound to be a riot.

I would modify this a bit to have a suit with 2x FBs (or maybe even BCs) and 2 suits with 2x flamers. Given the way you need to set up deep striking units, its unlikely that you would be able to get flame templates into the same target from 3 suits without overlapping your own models.

Good point; flying by the seat of my pants and redoing some lists because I'd feared GW would rule the other way on this issue Multiple weapons of the same type means that Crisis Suits are bigger competition to Riptides now, in my mind.

Without the no-scatter warlord trait i wouldnt try using flamers after a deepstrike. Bound to end the way of the Zagstruk - mishap galore. Ive never had zagstruk land close enough to charge anything without mishapping....ever....

Brickolage wrote:
Any changes to this all-purpose unit now that the new FAQ is up (double, i.e. not Twin-linked weapons are now definitely legal, even twin+single configurations). Also, counter fire defense system might be something to look into, as it fires overwatch on BS2. As the BS of the commander is transferred to the drones, I take this to mean that drones fire overwatch on BS 2 with re-rolls, which is a good charge-deterrent in itself.

There is no reason to think that abilities of the suit with a drone controller transfer to the drones. Not skyfire, not BS2 overwatch. You get to use his bs for the drones yes, but you do not get to use wargear that makes changes to his shooting.

Currently the unit consists in:

- Buff'O Commander
- 1x FB/PR + Target Lock
- 1x FB/MP + Target Lock
- 1x CIB/AFL + Target Lock

With the new FAQ about the Crisis Suit weaponry, I intend to change to:

- Buff'O Commander unchanged
- 1x FB/FB + Target Lock
- 1x PR/PR + Target Lock OR MP/MP + Target Lock
- 1x CIB/AFL + Target Lock

Why the changes ? So that EACH and EVERY Crisis in the unit can his "preferred target".
Heavy armored infantry: gets 2 to 4 TL PR shots, No cover
Light Infantry: gets 1 small expl. + 1 pie plate + 16 S5 TL Pinning shots
Tanks: gets 2 TL S8 Fusion shots

Was considering to get a 50-50 mix of ML-Drones and Gun Drones tho... 2+ ML Drones that almost always 3-4 ML hits that could be used by the rest of the army.

so the thing with an 'all purpose unit' is that its like a swiss army knife. you only ever use one tool at a time. Sure, you can pull out a lot of the tools, but theres only one tool that you need. I've tried running a unit like this in the past, and it always seems like at least one suit is relatively useless or highly unfit for the situation (ie burst cannon against terminators). I've always had the most success with coherent units with a defined role, and for that reason I think it would be hard to find an optimal 'all purpose' team configuration. That said, if you're doing this mostly for the fun of it, do whatever feels right and enjoy the game

edit: thats not to say that a generalized loadout can't be taken, PR-MP suits have always worked well for me and can handle a lot of different situations, but all suits in the team have the same loutout.