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I prefer my Gun Drones to be unending spawn waves from Piranha squads. Drone-Nets need to be Marker-Nets (Mark-Nets? M-Nets?).

SJ

Turtlesoup wrote:
Riptide being part of hunter contingent is much more useful for surgical strikes and absolutely critical against invisible death star.

Please elaborate on this comment.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I prefer my Gun Drones to be unending spawn waves from Piranha squads. Drone-Nets need to be Marker-Nets (Mark-Nets? M-Nets?).

SJ

I'm sure that's a fun way to do gun drones, but you need so many gun drone models, not to mention a hell of a lot of Piranhas...

I'm trying it with 10 piranhas figuring I can only generate 60 gun drones. I own around 20 or so personally and I'm looking at making resin casts of the rest - I bought the casting materials but I've never done it before so we'll see how it goes

 thejughead wrote:

Turtlesoup wrote:
Riptide being part of hunter contingent is much more useful for surgical strikes and absolutely critical against invisible death star.

Please elaborate on this comment.

If using the RAW rules and not ITC rule, putting the riptides as part of the hunter contingent is much more effective at shooting invisible death star. The fact that you can share markerlight with all the units in the army makes them a real threat to invisible deathstar. If using the riptide wing, you have more volume of fire, but you will also need to spend more resource to make their shooting effective due to the fact that they cannot ignore cover. So riptides in hunter contingent has less volume but more accurate and better quality damage compared to riptide wing.

Since our last discussion of the Hunter Contingent, I've tried it out a few times. I like it, for sure, but I don't necessarily agree that it's definitely the way to go. For instance, Riptide Wings composed largely of IA Riptides don't need nearly as much marker support as the HBC variety and also don't need to gang up on units to wipe them out. Consequently, increased fire volume is probably a better option for them.

Overall, I maintain that, even when using a Hunter Contingent, a Culexus is the way to go for mitigating psychic deathstars. Stacking up markers is somewhat effective, but nullifying the powers altogether is far better.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Since our last discussion of the Hunter Contingent, I've tried it out a few times. I like it, for sure, but I don't necessarily agree that it's definitely the way to go. For instance, Riptide Wings composed largely of IA Riptides don't need nearly as much marker support as the HBC variety and also don't need to gang up on units to wipe them out. Consequently, increased fire volume is probably a better option for them.

Overall, I maintain that, even when using a Hunter Contingent, a Culexus is the way to go for mitigating psychic deathstars. Stacking up markers is somewhat effective, but nullifying the powers altogether is far better.

I am not saying that it is the only way to go. What i am saying is that i have used them to win tournaments and it is very effective and i am surprised that most people don't use them. Collexus in my opinion is effective against psyckers but it is very situational where as the a fully kitted out hunter contingent is supposed to be an all comer list. For example, when facing IK or necron list, collexus is practically useless. Yet, IK and necrons are common in tournaments. This is why i chose not to use collexus. In addition, i do not agree with the fluff...but this is minor issue for tournaments.

As for riptide wing, it can be effective when combined with certain army built and formations, but it is still very weak against IK formations and invisible death star if using RAW. In general, i don't find riptide fire power to be anything close to overwhelming compared to other units in the game. In my games, i find riptides' mobility, versatility and quality of fire power to be its best feature. Using the riptide wing limits the riptides' mobility by forcing it to stay together and not moving when wanting to use its special ability of firing twice. The riptide wing also reduces the quality of the riptide firepower due to the need for more marker light. Tau need more quality firepower than volume. What i meant by quality is a firepower that is able to take out most unit at most situation possible in the game. In this case the riptide IA fits this criteria when properly supported by marker light. The only advantage of volume is when faced with high invulnerable save of opponent units. In this case, the riptide wing is definitely superior to hunter contingent riptide.

Turtlesoup wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
Since our last discussion of the Hunter Contingent, I've tried it out a few times. I like it, for sure, but I don't necessarily agree that it's definitely the way to go. For instance, Riptide Wings composed largely of IA Riptides don't need nearly as much marker support as the HBC variety and also don't need to gang up on units to wipe them out. Consequently, increased fire volume is probably a better option for them.

Overall, I maintain that, even when using a Hunter Contingent, a Culexus is the way to go for mitigating psychic deathstars. Stacking up markers is somewhat effective, but nullifying the powers altogether is far better.

I am not saying that it is the only way to go. What i am saying is that i have used them to win tournaments and it is very effective and i am surprised that most people don't use them. Collexus in my opinion is effective against psyckers but it is very situational where as the a fully kitted out hunter contingent is supposed to be an all comer list. For example, when facing IK or necron list, collexus is practically useless. Yet, IK and necrons are common in tournaments. This is why i chose not to use collexus. In addition, i do not agree with the fluff...but this is minor issue for tournaments.

As for riptide wing, it can be effective when combined with certain army built and formations, but it is still very weak against IK formations and invisible death star if using RAW. In general, i don't find riptide fire power to be anything close to overwhelming compared to other units in the game. In my games, i find riptides' mobility, versatility and quality of fire power to be its best feature. Using the riptide wing limits the riptides' mobility by forcing it to stay together and not moving when wanting to use its special ability of firing twice. The riptide wing also reduces the quality of the riptide firepower due to the need for more marker light. Tau need more quality firepower than volume. What i meant by quality is a firepower that is able to take out most unit at most situation possible in the game. In this case the riptide IA fits this criteria when properly supported by marker light. The only advantage of volume is when faced with high invulnerable save of opponent units. In this case, the riptide wing is definitely superior to hunter contingent riptide.

The reason people don't use it is because Riptide Wing is objectively better and Hunter Contingent has way too many taxes like 3 Strike Squads. It's not worth the shared Markerlights. Tau doesn't have a problem killing one unit. They have a problem dealing with volume that top tier meta armies bring, like Battle Company or Jetbike spam. In those cases, sharing markerlights is pointless, but the double shooting from a Riptide Wing is absolutely invaluable.

Deathstars are a problem, but even then you have more volume in your shots which can get through the saves and a Culexus a much better solution than sharing markerlights when taking on psychic shenanigans..

Heldericht wrote:

Turtlesoup wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
Since our last discussion of the Hunter Contingent, I've tried it out a few times. I like it, for sure, but I don't necessarily agree that it's definitely the way to go. For instance, Riptide Wings composed largely of IA Riptides don't need nearly as much marker support as the HBC variety and also don't need to gang up on units to wipe them out. Consequently, increased fire volume is probably a better option for them.

Overall, I maintain that, even when using a Hunter Contingent, a Culexus is the way to go for mitigating psychic deathstars. Stacking up markers is somewhat effective, but nullifying the powers altogether is far better.

I am not saying that it is the only way to go. What i am saying is that i have used them to win tournaments and it is very effective and i am surprised that most people don't use them. Collexus in my opinion is effective against psyckers but it is very situational where as the a fully kitted out hunter contingent is supposed to be an all comer list. For example, when facing IK or necron list, collexus is practically useless. Yet, IK and necrons are common in tournaments. This is why i chose not to use collexus. In addition, i do not agree with the fluff...but this is minor issue for tournaments.

As for riptide wing, it can be effective when combined with certain army built and formations, but it is still very weak against IK formations and invisible death star if using RAW. In general, i don't find riptide fire power to be anything close to overwhelming compared to other units in the game. In my games, i find riptides' mobility, versatility and quality of fire power to be its best feature. Using the riptide wing limits the riptides' mobility by forcing it to stay together and not moving when wanting to use its special ability of firing twice. The riptide wing also reduces the quality of the riptide firepower due to the need for more marker light. Tau need more quality firepower than volume. What i meant by quality is a firepower that is able to take out most unit at most situation possible in the game. In this case the riptide IA fits this criteria when properly supported by marker light. The only advantage of volume is when faced with high invulnerable save of opponent units. In this case, the riptide wing is definitely superior to hunter contingent riptide.

The reason people don't use it is because Riptide Wing is objectively better and Hunter Contingent has way too many taxes like 3 Strike Squads. It's not worth the shared Markerlights. Tau doesn't have a problem killing one unit. They have a problem dealing with volume that top tier meta armies bring, like Battle Company or Jetbike spam. In those cases, sharing markerlights is pointless, but the double shooting from a Riptide Wing is absolutely invaluable.

Deathstars are a problem, but even then you have more volume in your shots which can get through the saves and a Culexus a much better solution than sharing markerlights when taking on psychic shenanigans..

At first, i thought that three units of striker are tax units when i started playing hunter contingent. After playing tournaments with them, i conclude that they are not tax units. They play a critical role as medium - short range firepower saturation and screening units. Sometimes they even take away my opponents focus as they look like an easy target to shoot at. In a few games that i played, a few of my opponents made critical mistakes of actually shooting my firewarriors first instead of higher priority targets in my army such as broadsides and stormsurges. i was puzzled and I asked them why they shot my firewarriors first, and they said that it is because they have no better target to shoot at. I realize there are two reasons why they did this, 1) a massed s5 shots can actually hurt most infantry and transport, in their mind, those fire warrior actually represents a threat, 2) people are naturally gravitated to easy target. For a total of 135pts for 15 bodies that shoots 15-30 shot mostly at bs 4 in hunter contingent, its a bargain. The reason i don't bring more is because i needed more interceptor capabilities on the table which is only available to bigger platforms like riptides, broadsides and ss.

Regarding colexus and riptide wing, my opinion still stands

Turtlesoup wrote:

Heldericht wrote:

Turtlesoup wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
Since our last discussion of the Hunter Contingent, I've tried it out a few times. I like it, for sure, but I don't necessarily agree that it's definitely the way to go. For instance, Riptide Wings composed largely of IA Riptides don't need nearly as much marker support as the HBC variety and also don't need to gang up on units to wipe them out. Consequently, increased fire volume is probably a better option for them.

Overall, I maintain that, even when using a Hunter Contingent, a Culexus is the way to go for mitigating psychic deathstars. Stacking up markers is somewhat effective, but nullifying the powers altogether is far better.

I am not saying that it is the only way to go. What i am saying is that i have used them to win tournaments and it is very effective and i am surprised that most people don't use them. Collexus in my opinion is effective against psyckers but it is very situational where as the a fully kitted out hunter contingent is supposed to be an all comer list. For example, when facing IK or necron list, collexus is practically useless. Yet, IK and necrons are common in tournaments. This is why i chose not to use collexus. In addition, i do not agree with the fluff...but this is minor issue for tournaments.

As for riptide wing, it can be effective when combined with certain army built and formations, but it is still very weak against IK formations and invisible death star if using RAW. In general, i don't find riptide fire power to be anything close to overwhelming compared to other units in the game. In my games, i find riptides' mobility, versatility and quality of fire power to be its best feature. Using the riptide wing limits the riptides' mobility by forcing it to stay together and not moving when wanting to use its special ability of firing twice. The riptide wing also reduces the quality of the riptide firepower due to the need for more marker light. Tau need more quality firepower than volume. What i meant by quality is a firepower that is able to take out most unit at most situation possible in the game. In this case the riptide IA fits this criteria when properly supported by marker light. The only advantage of volume is when faced with high invulnerable save of opponent units. In this case, the riptide wing is definitely superior to hunter contingent riptide.

The reason people don't use it is because Riptide Wing is objectively better and Hunter Contingent has way too many taxes like 3 Strike Squads. It's not worth the shared Markerlights. Tau doesn't have a problem killing one unit. They have a problem dealing with volume that top tier meta armies bring, like Battle Company or Jetbike spam. In those cases, sharing markerlights is pointless, but the double shooting from a Riptide Wing is absolutely invaluable.

Deathstars are a problem, but even then you have more volume in your shots which can get through the saves and a Culexus a much better solution than sharing markerlights when taking on psychic shenanigans..

At first, i thought that three units of striker are tax units when i started playing hunter contingent. After playing tournaments with them, i conclude that they are not tax units. They play a critical role as medium - short range firepower saturation and screening units. Sometimes they even take away my opponents focus as they look like an easy target to shoot at. In a few games that i played, a few of my opponents made critical mistakes of actually shooting my firewarriors first instead of higher priority targets in my army such as broadsides and stormsurges. i was puzzled and I asked them why they shot my firewarriors first, and they said that it is because they have no better target to shoot at. I realize there are two reasons why they did this, 1) a massed s5 shots can actually hurt most infantry and transport, in their mind, those fire warrior actually represents a threat, 2) people are naturally gravitated to easy target. For a total of 135pts for 15 bodies that shoots 15-30 shot mostly at bs 4 in hunter contingent, its a bargain. The reason i don't bring more is because i needed more interceptor capabilities on the table which is only available to bigger platforms like riptides, broadsides and ss.

Regarding colexus and riptide wing, my opinion still stands

I 100% agree with you! I find that the Strike teams can use the Coordinated Firepower rule to cheaply buff other units' shooting. After all, they don't have to be able to actually hurt what they shoot at, just be able to hit it. I'm definitely in favor of keeping it down to minimum squads in order to take the more fun stuff (like Broadsides, Stormsurges, Riptides, and the OSC), but they are not completely useless by any stretch of the imagination. The only thing I might do is replace one strike squad with a minimum unit of Kroot with sniper rounds to help deal with high-toughness targets like Monstrous Creatures, although there are other units that can already do this.

The reason people don't use it is because Riptide Wing is objectively better and Hunter Contingent has way too many taxes like 3 Strike Squads. It's not worth the shared Markerlights. Tau doesn't have a problem killing one unit. They have a problem dealing with volume that top tier meta armies bring, like Battle Company or Jetbike spam. In those cases, sharing markerlights is pointless, but the double shooting from a Riptide Wing is absolutely invaluable.

Deathstars are a problem, but even then you have more volume in your shots which can get through the saves and a Culexus a much better solution than sharing markerlights when taking on psychic shenanigans..

I agree with this sentiment except for the first part about Strikers. Massed S5 BS4 firepower is nothing to sneeze at, especially when it comes at 9 pts per model. As noted, they also provide critical speed bumps on the road to the guys that really matter. Don't forget that they're potentially very mobile if your Commander is near them. I'm actually considering spamming a ton of FW in a Hunter Contingent, just to see how well I can exploit the bonuses. I've had great luck with Breachers. Why not Strikers?


Aaaaaanyway, I think I'm likely going to stick with Culexus-driven lists. That route is definitely more fire-and-forget and makes positioning a little less important throughout the game. I'm all for tactics, but it never hurts to set yourself up for success by eliminating potential sources for error.

Went to the tournament Saturday and RELUCTANTLY entered when I learned that some of the more crazy Forge World would be allowed, including the Tau Supremacy Armor. I play Tau and even I don't really wanna' see that thing fielded.

Anywho, I decided the heck with it, I was already there. I entered.

Round 1
Round one was against the (new) Evil forces of Chaos Space Marines. They were led by no less than a Daemon Prince itself, and festooned with predatory things from the dark recesses of depraved thought. The...things... inhabiting bodies were no longer men.

Such abominations had to be dealt with and the Greater Good pressed forward, smashing them into bits and assaulting the center point to destroy the Gun emplacement which was our objective. We successfully removed the energon Core from the thing and bid the infernal planet farewell, victorious. One key moment in the game was when the opponent made the calculated decision to allow his Daemon Prince to alight to the ground, which allowed me to obliterate it (just barely), negating many of the bonus'she provided her forces. This keystones loss was big. In addition, the primacy of the Tau Empire and its technology took a heavy toll on the enemy, making every shot pin point accurate.

Round 2
The Second round I faced off against a more ephemeral foe: the White Scars. Their legion of armored bikers were replete with as many Graviton Weapons as they could carry, revvin' their engines and ready to lance my lines with those same weapons. They also had some kind of interesting Command Tank which I had only ever seen one other time, at OFCC, which I guess allowed him to drop apocalyptic blasts on my head. This seemed like a bad thing for me.

I split my forces into three cadres to disallow him from crashing into my forces and thus giving me no chance for escape. I figured I would probe his defenses and flee the strong point while putting damage on the weaker one first. This plan worked and the Tau Empire crushed all resistance. Our Fire Warriors and Snipers Drones hovered in their Gunfort, raining death on the enemy while we attempted to break the enemy lines with as many units as possible. The mission was to have more units in the enemy deployment zone than they did,so mobility was key and he had a lot of speed. We didn't just accomplish the mission, we tabled our opponent to a man.

Round 3
The last fight was against my old nemesis Dan. Many times has he knocked me out of tournaments with ties. The mission was to actively control more sectors than the opponent. His entire Battle Company army had the Objective Secured rule which meant I had to either obliterate him to a man(unlikely, though possible) or force my way forward at considerable peril in order to form a "border" around one sector, with the endgame being to contest the others if I could not control them.

So i began the arduous task of destroying the Dreadnoughts first which were his most potent threats to me, as they could shred and rend me apart if they got their in their full glory and killing them was slow work given there were six. I obliterated Rhino after Rhino, but Battle Companies pay no points for those, and so these were hollow victories as i had to repel his counter attack after each "success" and then do it all over again. He crashed against me like the tide, but we held long enough on the left flank to create our "border" successfully and as planned, the ONE quadrant was ours. We used lesser units to contest (though not control) the others and we could have done little else frankly as he just had m outnumbered with units. I pulled out the final win.

I ended up taking first at the tournament, so that should help me in the standings a little. More importantly we brought the light of the Greater Good to many million of people by freeing their planets so that they may be free to find their place within our great and ever expanding Empire.

Has anyone had any success playing the counterstrike cadre formation with breachers in a super aggressive style?

I haven't had a whole lot of game time with Tau recently, but I've been considering trying out a MSU force that's largely independent of marker lights. Specifically, I'm toying with using a dual CAD set-up that uses lone dual-flamer Crisis Suits as troops supported by a Stormsurge, solo Broadsides, and a couple Y'Vahras. I've had really great luck with the 2 flamer suits in the past. They provide excellent utility for the price. Obsec is awesome, and they don't deplete your marker supply. Really, the only thing that needs markers at all is the Stormsurge, though it's nice to keep your Y'Vahras from overheating all the time. My concern is that there won't be enough sources of heavy firepower to successfully take on deathstars or multiple Knights/Wraithknights. I'll plop down a list when i get a chance to think about it some more.

As to the above question regarding Breachers, I think the jinking transport-->snap-firing passengers ruling essentially relegated Breachers to the scrap heap. Even when you zoom 30" across the board on the first turn, Devilfish just aren't sturdy enough to weather any meaningful amount of fire without jinking. Similarly, Breachers aren't durable enough to endure an exploding transport. Without being able to reliably deliver your payload, the unit is simply too expensive to warrant using. You'd be much better off taking an IA Riptide for 40 points more.

Edit: Actually, a bare-bones Devilfish with Breachers is 125pts. A couple of those could potentially provide a reasonable backfield distraction to keep your opponent from advancing on you, but the Pathfinder/DFish tax is pretty tough to swallow.

Here's a sample list:

FSE CAD
Commander - TL, 2 missile pods, DC, BKR - 129
Stormsurge - pulse driver, shield gen, AFP, EWO - 435
2 Y'Vahras - stims - 530
4x1 Crisis Suits - 2 flamers, BKR - 132
3x1 Broadsides - EWO -210

FSE CAD
Commander - TL, 2 missile pods, DC, BKR - 129
2x1 Crisis Suits - 3 total flamers, BKR - 61

Drone Net
4x4 Marker Drones - 224
1850

I worry that the second Commander is a poor way to spend points. I'll likely switch him to an Ethereal (who gets reserved and cowers throughout the game) plus another Broadside and another flamer on the suit that only has 1.

Yeah the two Commander thing is a little tough to figure out. However, I have recently been running a CAD (with Yvarha) with the Retalation Cadre and was trying to delegate one Commander to some markerlight support and firepower while the other Commader basically up front with Kroot killing stuff. Wasn't a bad list and won against a decent Eldar list a couple of weeks ago:

CAD

Commander Airbusting Fragmentation Projector X 2, Stimulant injector.
Kroot X 10
Kroot X 10
Kroot X 16
Yvarha with EWO and Stim
Skyray with SMS and Dpod
Stormsurge with Blastcannon, EWO, and Shield Gen.

Ret Cadre -

Broadside - Stock
Commander X 2 MLight drones, XV84 battlesuit (Networked markerlight), Fusion blaster X 2, drone controller, Shield Gen
Riptide IA and Stim
Crisis Suit X 2 MLight drones, Plasma rifle X 2, Target lock
Crisis Suit Plasma Rifle X 2
Crisis Suit Plasma Rifle X 2

For my non Markerlight commander, basically just atached him to some Kroot and infiltrated him with 2 barrage weapons. Worked out well and since that Commader was the closer initial threat than the Yvarha or SS, it allowed me an opening into my opponent's backfield. Subsequently, the Yvarha had a field day. Or the Commander can be ignored and the Scat bikes just keep rolling their saves while they hide. Was a decent strategy that might be worth exploring further.

As for using Breachers in a Devilfish (with Dpod), to do it the way I wanted (Breachers X 10 with Darkstrider or ethereal), it just seemed like too many points for an uncertain payoff. If they get destroyed before they can do anything, was it worth it? 5 Breachers in a devilfish would be cheaper but if I wanted to distract my opponent, Kroot can do it for much less. Conversely, I can spend those points on Kroot and push for board control so my opponent has to either try and get rid of the Kroot or go after the suits. Right now I'm leaning towards being more spammy with Kroot as they can really mess with target prioritization and otherwise be extremely annoying.

@MilkmanAI: I don't think you can take BKR on a Commander, and therefore you don't have to even in a FSE detachment.

@Bach: I don't think you can infiltrate your commander with Kroot. Both the character and the unit must have infiltrate in order to infiltrate them together; it does not confer to the character from the unit. However, you could Outflank instead and that would be perfectly okay.

As for the Breacher argument, I think that at the very least a full squad of Breachers in a D-fish is one hell of a distraction unit. A jinking D-fish is actually pretty durable, and if the guys inside have to snap fire when they get out, you should take markerlights to mitigate that. I guess the point of the above lists was to avoid markerlights, though.

Whoops, yep, I'm going to have to print that errata and put it in my rule book. To do the same thing in the future, I'd have to take Shadowsun and a Crisis suit.

Markers are a reasonable solution for snap-firing Breachers, but I feel like you kind of need large Breacher units to make that worthwhile. 170pts (or 185 with d-pod) is quite a few points to spend on a relatively unreliable unit. Granted, making the fish fast makes them much more likely to get where they need to be. I doubt you could reliably pull the Ghostkeel Wing shenanigans I used to exploit for a 2+ cover save on the jinking Fish when they're advancing that quickly, but 3+ is still pretty good. Perhaps compensating for your snapping Breachers with more markers is worthwhile? That's really a hell of a lot of S6 AP3 fire. Keep in mind, though, that it's pretty hard to both get your Breachers within 5" of their target and screen them with your Fish. Honestly, I have a lot of difficulty doing it with 5 models, let alone 10. When you're dumping that many points into them, they have to be more than suicide squads, or you're way better off with another source of high-S, low-AP fire. You're also pretty much obligated to bring an ethereal, because damn.

If you could bring anything to an event, what non-vehicle Tau list would you bring to a 3,000 point apocalypse game?

I was thinking 2 stormsurges, 1 supremacy suit, 3 riptides, and a bunch of crisis suits and broadside suits with farsight as the warlord. I got a painted army recently, but I don't have much experience with Tau.

 Virules wrote:
If you could bring anything to an event, what non-vehicle Tau list would you bring to a 3,000 point apocalypse game?

I was thinking 2 stormsurges, 1 supremacy suit, 3 riptides, and a bunch of crisis suits and broadside suits with farsight as the warlord. I got a painted army recently, but I don't have much experience with Tau.

As many Stormsurges as you can field with as many Marker Drone-Nets as you can field, and fill the rest with Ghostkeels.

I think I will spend my 3k on something like:

-1x commander, drone controller, 2+ armor, re-roll to hit for squad
-10x markerlight drones
-20x kroot
-10x pathfinders
-1x skyray
-2x stormsurge with interceptor, skyfire, and ?
-3x riptides with FNP, skyfire
-1x ta'unar supremacy suit

It's Apoc teams, so my teammates can go run around trying to get objectives and go into melee. I'm going to try to just shoot everything off the board with volume of fire and ranged D.

I feel like 60 fusion piranhas in multiple piranha firestream wings might do more work than expected. especially with 120 drones every few turns if you abuse its potential.
Or maybe 30, and then
-2x stormsurge with interceptor, skyfire, and precision shots (4d6 missiles would mean roughly d4 precision shots)
-3x riptides with FNP, skyfire
-1x ta'unar supremacy suit

Why no shields on the Stormsurges? I consider that a must take item for mine.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Why no shields on the Stormsurges? I consider that a must take item for mine.

Matter of taste? 50 points for a 4++ is distasteful to me, Its got enough wounds and is tough enough, and has innate FNP to compensate for it. And with 2 stormsuges, it reduces the qq from your opponent. And sometimes, just not hearing that is worth it.

I don't feel like a ~430 point model being very hard to kill is that big of a deal. 50pts is definitely a lot, but it doubles the amount of grav needed to bring down your expensive toy. A shield gen is a no-brainer, in my book.

As for the actual army, a second Ta'unar would be a good addition. That 7" D blast is pretty tough to get away from, even with anchored Stormsurges as an alternative. That aside, I agree with jeffersonian. Stormsurges with markers to support them is the way to go.

Yes, I do plan on putting shields on it.

For the record, painted models I expect to have available include:

-Lots of Crisis commanders and suits, including farsight and shadowsun
-The models previously mentioned
-Lots of broadsides

So can't add any more of the big suits than what I already listed. I guess I am most curious as to what to include for 3k besides the big 6 suits...it seems like all the markerlight units I listed are the best option, plus two kroot squads to screen a bit.

I am also wondering what signature systems from the codex and supplements to include on which suits.

MilkmanAl wrote:
I don't feel like a ~430 point model being very hard to kill is that big of a deal. 50pts is definitely a lot, but it doubles the amount of grav needed to bring down your expensive toy. A shield gen is a no-brainer, in my book.

at 100 points in upgrades, that's another unit of 11 firewarriors to bubble wrap the storm surge in. and ewo on your storm surge, there isn't going to be much grav hitting it.

I think the Shield depends on your meta somewaht but I think it would be necessary for competitve play. For example, I play Eldar A LOT and the first time I played the Stormsurge, it actually was killed on turn one by bikes with Shuriken(?) cannons. Enough rending can make it matter and there is quite a few armies that can negate the 3 armor save witha volume of shots.

Also, is it weird to not take the pulse cannon? I am having pretty good luck with just the blast cannon right now. Being able to move around and fire two shots from it is a big deal against half way mobile armies. Plus deepstriking units taking 2 D str shots upon arrival hasn't gotten old yet either.

For the record, painted models I expect to have available include:

-Lots of Crisis commanders and suits, including farsight and shadowsun
-The models previously mentioned
-Lots of broadsides

In that case, you should probably field all the Broadsides you can and use whatever is left after adequate marker support (which would probably be like ~30 marker sources for an army this size) for a Shadowsun-led Crisis Suit bomb. I like cyclic ion blasters on the bomb, but fusion is never a bad choice. Avoid plasma, though, unless you plan on facing a whole lot of 2+ saves. The CIB is usually better otherwise.

Also, is it weird to not take the pulse cannon?

If you feel the rest of your army can handle deathstars, and/or you think you're going to face lists with multiple knights or Wraithknights, the blastcannon is pretty sweet. Having a mobile 2-shot D weapon is really, really nice. Otherwise, the pulse driver is generally preferable, due to S10 doubling out bikes, Thunderwolves, and Centurions. You also don't have to sweat being within proper range.

What is the appeal of lots of broadsides and Shadowsun?

For the record, this is what I am currently planning to use, as the tournament allows unlimited LoW detachments.

Lords of War:
1x Ta’Unar Supremacy Suit (default gear)
1x Stormsurge, pulse driver cannon, air bursting fragmentation projector, early warning override, velocity tracker, shield generator
1x Stormsurge, pulse driver cannon, air bursting fragmentation projector, early warning override, velocity tracker, shield generator

Riptide Wing (Farsight Enclave):
1x Riptide, stimulant injector, earth cast pilot array , bonding knife ritual
1x Riptide, stimulant injector, velocity tracker, bonding knife ritual
1x Riptide, ion accelerator, stimulant injector, early warning override, bonding knife ritual

Combined Arms Detachment (Farsight Enclave):
- HQ
Commander, drone controller, mirror codex, command and control node, talisman of arthas moloch, iridium battlesuit, onager gauntlet, twin-linked plasma rifle
- Troops
10x Kroot
10x Kroot
- Fast Attack
10x Markerlight Drones
10x Pathfinders, bonding knife ritual
- Heavy Support
1x Skyray Gun Ship , disruption pod, automated repair system

Inquisitorial Detachment:
1x Inquisitor, 3x servo skulls