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Stealth suits have 1 use in my mind - infiltrating fusion blasters. Unfortunately, they tend to be pretty bad otherwise, especially in the mirror match - ignore cover against them is brutal when they really need those 2+ cover saves. IMO, they're quite usable but very niche - unless you seriously lack AT and need to get that first blow, they're not going to help too much.

gha, so many people one after the other completely miss the point.

The reason you take them is for deployment shenanigans with the locator beacon and homing beacon that infiltrate into a postion on a target that is by itself more trouble then its worth to take down- and with plenty of distractions around.

They pack limited firepower for the cost, and their weapons can be found cheaper elsewhere-but the weapons are NOT important, they are nothing more then a creme to the top.
T1 braking a transport and some infantry harras is fun and all, and has some value-but its a bonus. not the goal.


All that said, they only really worth it in farsight armies, or armies with alot f pathfinders and kroot.

 Miri wrote:

KnuckleWolf wrote:
A bunch of stuff.

None of those markerlights are networked. You would have to light the target up with another units markelights to have that stealth team use the tokens.

Oops...I missed that entirely...and noone has caught it yet...Ima gonna be in trouble next 40k night!

I like to run 6 burst cannons with counter fire defence systems. BS2 over watch is awesome. I see stealth teams as harassment units that's the closest Tau will get to a counter assault unit. They can use drones as screens in the open and jump around to wherever you need supporting fire the most.

Their overwatch inflicts:

6.67 wounds on average against T3 units.
5.33 wounds on average against T4 units.

Combine this with infiltrate and generally being in terrain they can be a real pain to shift. Especially if you get a drone screen or kroot screen to block movement and bait assaults.

 BoomWolf wrote:
gha, so many people one after the other completely miss the point.

The reason you take them is for deployment shenanigans with the locator beacon and homing beacon that infiltrate into a postion on a target that is by itself more trouble then its worth to take down- and with plenty of distractions around.

They pack limited firepower for the cost, and their weapons can be found cheaper elsewhere-but the weapons are NOT important, they are nothing more then a creme to the top.
T1 braking a transport and some infantry harras is fun and all, and has some value-but its a bonus. not the goal.


All that said, they only really worth it in farsight armies, or armies with alot f pathfinders and kroot.

I'm still waiting for you to tell us the part about why this makes them worth it.

x_x

It in the very post you quoted!

"The reason you take them is for deployment shenanigans with the locator beacon and homing beacon that infiltrate into a postion on a target that is by itself more trouble then its worth to take down- and with plenty of distractions around. "

Plant them in place, harass a bit (knowing nobody would bother with them), and use them to grant yourself the power to bring in your reserve units with no need for luck in rolls, giving your a strategic positioning advantage.

Is the the best thing to do? maybe, maybe not. but its what stealth suits excel at.

 BoomWolf wrote:
x_x

It in the very post you quoted!

"The reason you take them is for deployment shenanigans with the locator beacon and homing beacon that infiltrate into a postion on a target that is by itself more trouble then its worth to take down- and with plenty of distractions around. "

Plant them in place, harass a bit (knowing nobody would bother with them), and use them to grant yourself the power to bring in your reserve units with no need for luck in rolls, giving your a strategic positioning advantage.

Is the the best thing to do? maybe, maybe not. but its what stealth suits excel at.

You say you take them for deployment shenanigans but never elaborate much beyond 'homing beacon'. Why do Tau care about a Homing Beacon? Most people use a C:SM Libby with GoI to move their Suits around and if they DS it's usually with Farsight. You have put it forward like Tau DS a lot of stuff, but this isn't the case most of the time at all. There's no shenanigans about this at all and it's certainly not a reason to take them IMO.

The "firepower per point" argument against Stealth Suits is idiotic. Aside from their discussed advantages as force multipliers via Homing Beacon and Positional Relay, they're a threat on Turn 1. Each one you bring is killing a little less than half a MEQ per turn; not great, not awful, but they're doing it where you want it, from the beginning of the game, or they're outflanking, or they're deep striking. If you can't figure out a way to use those opportunities to make a bunch of burst cannons worthwhile, I don't know what to say to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Godless-Mimicry: I don't know if this helps elaborate what BoomWolf is saying, but I can give you an example in my army. I have a squad of Stealth Suits, a squad of Fusion Blaster armed Crisis Suits, a Pathfinder squad, and two Kroot squads that can make use of the Stealth's gear in one way or another. The Stealths usually deploy hidden where they can jump out and take shots on someone's flank, but probably won't get shot by anything that matters. Pathfinders can kill armor from the rear and shoot up objective holders, Kroot can kill infantry and take objectives, Crisis can drop and shoot up tanks. It's pretty trivial to set up Stealths so that the Positional Relay lets you bring in your outflankers in from the enemy's deployment edge. I rarely do all of these things in any given game, but they're options that are very useful to have if the army can take advantage of them.

The issue isn't what BoomWolf is talking about, the issue is where is the argument that is supposed to convince me that these 'shenanigans' make Stealth Suits worth taking.

Why would you want to bring your Pathfinders into a spot that make it easier for the enemy to kill them? Given that they are the number one target every game, this is just a little bit ludicrous. And why would you be using Pathfinders for tank hunting at all? That is not what they excel at.

Same with Kroot. Bringing them on so aggressively just results in dead Kroot. And as for Crisis, I already addressed that point. If you are Deep Striking Crisis you should be running Farsight or a Libby. Smaller units don't need such an exact drop (that you are paying through the nose for) and you really shouldn't be needing to use Crisis Suits to take on tanks anyway. IMO this is playing Tau wrong. Using alternative lesser methods doesn't make Stealth Suits better, it just makes the overall list worse.

BTW, to be a threat turn 1 you need to be a threat in the first place, and to be a force multiplier you need to multiply the force exerted by the rest of your army. Making it easier for your opponent to kill your guys for very little benefit in return does not fit the description. There's a reason Tau are known for their long distance fire fights.

Something can be a bad idea sometimes and a good idea other times. Sometimes I need their Markerlights, sometimes a dozen S5 shots into the rear armor of a tank gets the job done. I don't outflank Kroot if it's not beneficial to the mission, but plenty of times 40 S4 shots walking on from the rear is enough to weaken an objective holding squad enough to claim the objective or at least force them to hold more units back to guard their objectives. I'll admit I don't often deep strike the suits, but when I want to, it's absolutely worth it to avoid the scatter. It lets you position your suits to get the 9" melta range, but as much out of enemy charge ranges as possible. There's enough that has to go right to successfully Deep Strike that taking one of the die rolls out is a good thing.

Now, I probably wouldn't pay for a Stealth team just for these options, or just for the infiltrating firepower, but when I get both, I find it a good use of points.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Snip.

If you are taking missilesides how do you deal with heavy armour? fusion or shots into rear armour. Both these tactics rarely get a second chance, you need your fusion to land in melta range or your kroot on the right board edge.

The argument is not that stealth suits are worth building your list around, but if you are running a list that utilizes deepstrike they may be worthwhile, certainly on par with Farsight.

Edit: I really dont think they are worth taking just to pump out burst cannon shots though, better to take Firewarriors.

Biophysical wrote:
I'll admit I don't often deep strike the suits, but when I want to, it's absolutely worth it to avoid the scatter. It lets you position your suits to get the 9" melta range, but as much out of enemy charge ranges as possible.

The problem is that paying for a unit of stealth suits with a beacon costs as much as bringing more melta suits to replace the ones that fail their deep strike, or even Farsight to join the melta attack. And that's assuming they don't get assaulted and wiped out after you deploy them close to your opponent's army.

That's a good option if you know that you'll need the extra melta suits. The Tau army is odd amongst 40k armies in that aside from just giving you the ability to emphasize certain capabilities during army construction, you have to he ability to emphasize certain capabilities during gameplay. The most obvious and discussed form of this is Markerlights, where you can boost whichever weapons are most important for the particular set of circumstances you are facing. Stealth Suits are sort of like Markerlights for deployment and positioning. They help you put guns where you need them and help increase the certainty that units are where they need to be.

Biophysical wrote:
The most obvious and discussed form of this is Markerlights, where you can boost whichever weapons are most important for the particular set of circumstances you are facing. Stealth Suits are sort of like Markerlights for deployment and positioning. They help you put guns where you need them and help increase the certainty that units are where they need to be.

The problem here is that you don't have a wide variety of units that want to deep strike. You're pretty much limited to suicide fusion suits and Farsight bombs (which already arrive with no scatter) so you're dedicating a stealth suit unit to bringing in melta suits.

I find it kinda funny. Stealth suits have melta weapons, but too expensive for shot output. So use stealth suits to call in Crisis suits to use melta weapons.

Really they just cost too much. 100 points to give my suit a better chance to land with a melta? That and it takes up an elite slot. So you're looking at 100 points + 54 points for the fusion suit + two Elite slots for it. You can get extra suits through Farsight allies or using bodyguards, but it's still rather pricey.

I probably wouldn't buy them if helping melta squads is all they did. However, durable, infiltrating firepower + expanded reliable outflanking abilities + deep strike support: That's a nice package of abilities for the points.

It's weird. In this thread someone brings up good things about Stealth suits, and they're shot down as being too expensive for the points. Someone else brings up another ability, and it's shot down as too expensive for the points. It continues. The thing is, they can do all those things. It's not like they have to pick one during army construction.

Is 30 points too much for a Burst Cannon? Probably

What if usually has a 2+ cover save? Better

What if you can infiltrate it, to put it in threat range of an enemy flank on turn 1? Still better

What if it can guarantee that outflanking units can automatically show up to support it, possibly coming, without a die roll, from anywhere on your opponent's board edge? Pretty good if you have infiltrators

What if you can also bring in some deep strikers without rolling scatter to help clear an objective or kill some tanks? Nice little bonus on top of everything else.

Biophysical wrote:

What if you can infiltrate it, to put it in threat range of an enemy flank on turn 1? Still better

I think this is the biggest misconception people have. You get to infiltrate so their guns are useful turn 1. The problem is the majority of Tau firepower is ranged to be a threat turn 1. Instead you have to put a unit that relies on cover closer to the enemy. I'm not saying they don't have a decent amount of reliable firepower, but it's just nothing exceptional. Their abilities just make up for a short range weapon.

What if it can guarantee that outflanking units can automatically show up to support it, possibly coming, without a die roll, from anywhere on your opponent's board edge? Pretty good if you have infiltrators

Problem is that depends a lot on your opponents deployment to let that happen. Even then outflanking from the sides with acute senses is only a 5 point upgrade for kroot and it's actually pretty reliable. Sure you can't come in from the back edge, but it's reliable and not dependent on opponent's poor deployment.

What if you can also bring in some deep strikers without rolling scatter to help clear an objective or kill some tanks? Nice little bonus on top of everything else.

But again, there won't be that many deepstriking units. It's 10 points, so it's not really a bust and worth it if you're bringing them. The problem is trying to find a reason to bring them.

Unless you are playing farsight enclaves, where deep-striking 6 squads of TROOP crisis suits is not only doable, but reasonable.

So I don't just deep-stike suicide fusions.
I also bring in plasma suits to alpha-strike your termis.
Dakkasuits and drones to form instant clouds of infantry death
heatwaves to eradicate any ADL hoggers, or eldar pathfinder style unit, and block assaults.

It lets me bring whatever I need, wherever I need, with not a risk of it failing due to mishape, or in case of outflanks coming from the wrong direction (better yet, I can bring from normally impossible directions)

In the right list, this swiss deepstrike army could be quite intresting. especially when you bring allies and start going nuts with even more suit teams, or eldar/SM deepstrikers.
It opens up tactical options. worth the cost? questionable. unique ability to be considered? certainly.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I also bring in plasma suits to alpha-strike your termis.
Dakkasuits and drones to form instant clouds of infantry death

Why are you deep striking these? You have enough weapon range to just deploy them normally, and the points you'd spend on the stealth suits would pay for more shooting threats.

Biophysical wrote:
What if usually has a 2+ cover save? Better

And this is why stealth suits are a newbie trap unit: people constantly focus on the 2+ cover save and ignore the fact that stealth suits are pretty much always going to be the weakest threat on the table and therefore the lowest priority, which means they won't be getting shot at. They could have no save at all or a re-rollable 2++ and it wouldn't make any difference.

What if you can infiltrate it, to put it in threat range of an enemy flank on turn 1? Still better

Except MP crisis suits/fire warriors/etc are already in range on turn 1 without getting that close to the enemy. And once you look at how far 18" is you'll quickly find out that getting to infiltrate in a good flanking position (instead of just getting closer to the enemy and inevitable death) depends on either playing a small game on a large table or your opponent making really bad deployment choices.

What if it can guarantee that outflanking units can automatically show up to support it, possibly coming, without a die roll, from anywhere on your opponent's board edge? Pretty good if you have infiltrators

This is an incredibly optimistic plan that assumes your opponent leaves huge sections of the table open for you to infiltrate into without getting assaulted immediately. The 18" distance requirement makes it incredibly difficult to get to your opponent's table edge. And even then, who cares? Tau don't really have any outflanking units besides Kroot, and that's a lot of points to pay to give your Kroot a slight advantage in where they come on.

What if you can also bring in some deep strikers without rolling scatter to help clear an objective or kill some tanks? Nice little bonus on top of everything else.

Except, as I've already said, the way to bring in accurate deep strikers is to bring a suicide melta unit and another suicide melta unit to replace it if the first one scatters. Or just use Farsight.

Biophysical wrote:
It's weird. In this thread someone brings up good things about Stealth suits, and they're shot down as being too expensive for the points. Someone else brings up another ability, and it's shot down as too expensive for the points. It continues. The thing is, they can do all those things. It's not like they have to pick one during army construction.

That's because none of those abilities are all that great for the army to begin with, are unnecessary, and even all together cost too much. It's like saying a kitchen should hire a chef that can't cook just because he happens to be an expert chess player, a fitness instructor, and daddy day care all rolled into one.

As for the rest, Peregrine has it all pointed out quite nicely so I don't think much more needs to be said.

 Peregrine wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
I also bring in plasma suits to alpha-strike your termis.
Dakkasuits and drones to form instant clouds of infantry death

Why are you deep striking these? You have enough weapon range to just deploy them normally, and the points you'd spend on the stealth suits would pay for more shooting threats.

Biophysical wrote:
What if usually has a 2+ cover save? Better

And this is why stealth suits are a newbie trap unit: people constantly focus on the 2+ cover save and ignore the fact that stealth suits are pretty much always going to be the weakest threat on the table and therefore the lowest priority, which means they won't be getting shot at. They could have no save at all or a re-rollable 2++ and it wouldn't make any difference.

What if you can infiltrate it, to put it in threat range of an enemy flank on turn 1? Still better

Except MP crisis suits/fire warriors/etc are already in range on turn 1 without getting that close to the enemy. And once you look at how far 18" is you'll quickly find out that getting to infiltrate in a good flanking position (instead of just getting closer to the enemy and inevitable death) depends on either playing a small game on a large table or your opponent making really bad deployment choices.

What if it can guarantee that outflanking units can automatically show up to support it, possibly coming, without a die roll, from anywhere on your opponent's board edge? Pretty good if you have infiltrators

This is an incredibly optimistic plan that assumes your opponent leaves huge sections of the table open for you to infiltrate into without getting assaulted immediately. The 18" distance requirement makes it incredibly difficult to get to your opponent's table edge. And even then, who cares? Tau don't really have any outflanking units besides Kroot, and that's a lot of points to pay to give your Kroot a slight advantage in where they come on.

What if you can also bring in some deep strikers without rolling scatter to help clear an objective or kill some tanks? Nice little bonus on top of everything else.

Except, as I've already said, the way to bring in accurate deep strikers is to bring a suicide melta unit and another suicide melta unit to replace it if the first one scatters. Or just use Farsight.

I'd like to point out that with farsight enclaves, a commander with a warscaper drone can outflank with any squad he joins. Any squad.

If I am not mistaken, it's 18in distance requirement if the SSuits are in LOS and 12in distance requirement if the SSuits are not.

What he means by turn 1 strike is that you will sometimes have artillery and other priority targets that hide in the back. Your MP crisis suits and the like that you say will also be in range turn 1 will not be, but the SSuits would be in a unique position to fire at them if they can set up properly.

SSuits effectiveness comes from the homing beacon IMO. There's also some shenanigans with infiltrate/Cover save options for ICs. Other than that, I wouldn't choose a SSuit squad because I want dakka, and I don't think that's what they are for.

Honestly, they should have been reworked with the latest codex. Oh well.

They should be 25pts-ish, but still come stock with the BC. Now their difference in dakka is lack of drones (could you imagine if each SSuit could take drones? omg lol 12 gun drones infiltrating with stealth + shroud bubbling 6 SSuits?) but they dont pay a hefty price for that stealth + shroud AND not have the option to take drones by default.

i want to use them, i have 5 of the OLLLLDDD metal crisis suits that just collect dust. I just cant think of any reason to field them because of the cost, like Peregrin said, is more than another crisis bomb that botched its deepstrike. And honestly ive never mishapped my tau...somehow...and i usually run 2 crisis bombs to pop backfield vehicles n such my riptides cant deal with that reliably.

AnonAmbientLight wrote:
I'd like to point out that with farsight enclaves, a commander with a warscaper drone can outflank with any squad he joins. Any squad.

Sure, but the benefit is minimal because any non-melta squad has enough weapon range to either deep strike at a safe distance or outflank from one of the normal edges and still get side/rear shots. The stealth suits only really make a difference when you're trying to get melta units to arrive within 9" without a mishap.

If I am not mistaken, it's 18in distance requirement if the SSuits are in LOS and 12in distance requirement if the SSuits are not.

And hiding a stealth suit unit absolutely 100% out of LOS is very, very difficult. I don't think I've ever seen a unit infiltrate in the 12-18" range successfully. And even if you can in very rare situations it's not worth putting them in your list just in case you see an opportunity.

i'd rather NOT put them closer than 18". Why the hell would i? Their gun is 18" and they dont want to be charged. Move up, dakka dakka, thrust back. Long as it isnt area terrain youre sitting in theres no threat and ive never seen a board be craptons of forests (actually i rarely see forests or rivers, if anything its just a random crater)

I really enjoy using stealthsuits. I usually run a fully squad with fusions + tl and counter fire. Do they make their points back? Rarely. Do they force my opponent to make a choice early on? More often than not, yes. I always try to set up near some vehicle that they find important and threaten it. One of two things happens. They want their vehicle to live so they pump more fire into them than they really deserve or they get assaulted. Either way they are keeping the rest of my army relatively safe for a turn by merely existing. Sometimes they get a chance to do some damage and I've had more than one game where they are my mvp.

What I would like to try for gaks n giggles is running all troops as crisis with stealths filling up elite but without any fusions. I'm sure its not super competitive by any means but I bet it'd be fun lol

In my Farsight Enclaves list I'm working on, I'm putting in two three man Stealth Teams with a Shas'vre equipped with Homing Beacon, Fusion Blaster, Markerlight and Target Lock and a Positional Relay. It all comes to 128 points each.

Any enemies who get close to try and take them out risk having Crisis Suits drop in next to them guns blazing or pathfinders with Rail Rifles outflanking right next to them and there are not very many units who want 6 S6 AP1 shots going at them.

If they ignore them then those units are free to come on right where I want them to hit the targets I want.

So the opponent cannot really afford to ignore them but must also use pretty much overwhelming force to destroy them or leave their unit exposed to a counter attack.

Railrifles....thats one gun i'll never understand. AP1 on a S6 gun? It cant pen anything but av10/11 and needs baller dice to do it so that AP1 is kinda wasted. Rather it be S7/8 AP2 or even 3.

Pathfinders will never be more than markerwhores for me.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Railrifles....thats one gun i'll never understand. AP1 on a S6 gun? It cant pen anything but av10/11 and needs baller dice to do it so that AP1 is kinda wasted. Rather it be S7/8 AP2 or even 3.

Pathfinders will never be more than markerwhores for me.

The AP1 I think was just to be keeping the Rail* flavour.

I run two teams with a vre with a fusion, TL, and beacon, as well as shadowsun with her drones.
They DS in first and direct shadowsun to her landing spot so that she lands exactly where I want every time.
This drop force combined with some other stuff is awesome at clearing out my opponent's backfield and assaulting army. It also forces them to choose between the half of my army in my DZ, and the half in their DZ.

It's not that each team is awesome on it's own, but when I have an army built around them they are incredibly effective. One invisible squad dropping in is mediocre, but three+ of them is very powerful and very effective.

The problem is twofold,

1. Points for firepower, it just doesn't add up especially considering the abundance of good s5 ap5 Tau have.

2. Survivability. Even in the best case scenario 2+ cover isn't going to be enough at 1 wound a piece for 30 points.

Honestly they are usable if you take 6 and make sure to art up the board with cover for them. And slap a homing beacon on em. They aren't ideal.

Tau don't need another good elite choice so I'm fine with it.