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Hey there!

I often see people use Crisis as single model units.
What is the benefit of doing so? IMHO the unit just dies a lot quicker, will most possibly not fullfill it's purpose and is therefore just a waste of points.
Please enlighten me!

Easy to deepstrike. Pretty much it.

Give it duo fusions and you can very reliably deepstrike it behind a vehicle to pepper its butt with 2 meltas. Not that big of a price sink either.

Theres also the part where the main guns they fear are either blasts or multiple shots. It still butchers the one model, but extra wounds do nothing (and a blast on a solo model is a waste)

Basically yeah, disposable tactical asset. It goes there to kill that thing in particular. Kills that one thing? Great. No other concern for it.

Also, units that are good at killing suits tend be good at killing A LOT of suits, and wasteful at killing one. Since suits can now be taken as up to 9x, I'm guessing this is what most opponents will prepare for more and more.

95% of the time in 40k, multiple smaller units are better to use than single larger units. Let's use the Crisis suit you mentioned as an example and look at 3 units of 1 Crisis Suit each versus 1 unit of 3 Crisis Suits armed the exact same way.

First off, as maceria stated, you have some in-built protection. If a Devastator unit can fire 4 Missile Launchers, that's likely 3 dead Crisis Suits from the unit of 3. If they fire at the 3 units of 1 each, then they can only kill 1 Crisis Suit, and will have to wait another turn before killing another. Then there's movement. As Vineheart01 stated, having multiple smaller units gives you more options. You can deep strike 1 of the 3, and the other 2 go off to do other things. If you have a single unit of 3, they'd all have to Deep Strike and would all be at risk instead of just 1 of them.

Have you considered objectives? A unit can only hold one objective, so having three units means that for the same points you can now potentially hold 3 objectives! It's also easier to hide single-model units. You just need to make sure no one can see it, and boom, it's immune to most guns in the game. It's a lot harder to hide a unit of multiple models behind the same terrain piece, but with three of them, those terrain pieces can be smaller and located far away from each other. 3 units of 1 are also vastly more resilient to Leadership-based status debuffs. In a unit of 3, if one dies, there's a definite chance the other 2 also effectively "die" as well just because they run away. In 3 units of 1 each, if 1 dies the other 2 go right on as if nothing happened. If the unit of 3 fails a pinning test, all 3 are pinned. If 1 of the 3 units fails a pin test, the other two carry on without being pinned.

Finally, there's positioning. In a unit of 3, you have to commit them all to the same position. 3 units of 1, however, are able to engage from multiple directions, or even sacrifice one member to ensure victory by the other 2.

Unless there's a very good reason to take larger units (model granting special rules to the unit, unit having a bonus ability when fielding in larger quantities, or points savings due to required "sergeant" positions like with Chaos Cultists), you should almost always take multiple small units as opposed to larger ones.

The single crisis suits were mostly taken as part of the farsight enclave and taken as part of the mandatory troop section. Single suits filled the requirement in a cost effective manor. Previously before farsight the elite section was to valuable to afford running single crisis suits.

Now that we have formations single suits may make a comeback. Three single suits can choose to fire at a single target and increase their BS by 1. This represents a 33% increase in firepower each and if like getting a free suit's worth of firepower. In addition, two single suits can contribute to broadsides, riptides and stormsurges to increase their BS, which will have a a great effect on damage output. Whats more, crisis suits are now very middle ground in terms of power. The still do less damage than broadsides and will do less damage than a stormsurge, but they do more damage than riptides, ghostkneels, stealth suits and fire warriors. Their unique guns are not that unique anymore as ap2 is found on other suits. They are now just okay choices.

So basicly I am saving points of the target locks and increase survivability?

But what about drones? I would rather lose my 6 drones first and then a suit.

Single suits don't even bother with drones.

A turn the enemy spend shooting on a 52pt unit, is a good turn.

The problem I see with Monats (as how these single-Crisis units are called) is that they don't optimize markerlights. I rather field at least 1x2 instead of 1x1.

In a Retaliation Cadre, I'd might use singular ones to keep it cheap, but in a CAD... don't see much reason to. BS3 isn't good.

I plan on using at least two if not three monats. One with twin Air bursting projector things, two with twin flamers. I have the spare points I need to burn and I have most of my other needs taken care of. This is an Enclave army I converted from Empire to get rid of the FW tax from a CAD.

Since apparently the mortar will be forced to use the Multiple Barrage rule having a single suit makes more sense to me and is much easier to keep out of LOS than a multi-suit unit.
The flamer units might get bumped to three simple because I have seen multiple times how deadly 5 or 6 flamers are to anything T4 or less in a group and its only 96 points.

 Vector Strike wrote:
The problem I see with Monats (as how these single-Crisis units are called) is that they don't optimize markerlights. I rather field at least 1x2 instead of 1x1.

In a Retaliation Cadre, I'd might use singular ones to keep it cheap, but in a CAD... don't see much reason to. BS3 isn't good.

But now those three Monats can all shoot together to gain BS4 and also utilise the same markerlights so are instantly more efficient than a squad of three and are more survivable.

They get BS4 regardless if they shoot together, but yes, they do get to use the same markerlights. But I am more of a fan of using them in situations where BS and cover doesn't matter. There are certain weapon systems which obviously favor monats and some that favor multi-suit teams.

Yeah, AFP and flamers are the best weapons to give Monats. Stuff that shoot a lot, like Plasma or CIB, I'd give to bigger groups. Fusion could stick to 1x2.

jay170788 wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
The problem I see with Monats (as how these single-Crisis units are called) is that they don't optimize markerlights. I rather field at least 1x2 instead of 1x1.

In a Retaliation Cadre, I'd might use singular ones to keep it cheap, but in a CAD... don't see much reason to. BS3 isn't good.

But now those three Monats can all shoot together to gain BS4 and also utilise the same markerlights so are instantly more efficient than a squad of three and are more survivable.

Yes, and that's why I said I woudln't use them in a CAD (as there they won't get Combined Fire anyway). Still, combining their fire doesn't go well with the "cover many targets" as exposed before.

Col. Dash wrote:They get BS4 regardless if they shoot together

Only in the turn they DS, if we're talking Retaliation Cadre.