Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, after a year or so away from 40k in which I enjoyed other systems, caught up on mountains of painting, etc... I have decided to play 40k again. It will always be my first love in the hobby, and despite have issues with it balance, the quality of rules, and so on, I keep finding my way back. Anyway, the wife and I own about 4000pts of Orks, about 3000pts of Tyranid, and probably 4000pts between several SM chapters and Sororitas, and I wanted to try something different for my return to the game. Tau seemed to fit the bill, as I love the aesthetics, and have never played a totally assault-averse army. It helped that the "Start a new army" boxes were an amazing deal.

A couple trades and purchases later I own the following, all unassembled, and am at a loss for how to build a lot of it for semi-competitive play. I currently have...

- 20 Fire Warriors/Breachers
- 2 Ethereals on Disc
- 6 Crisis Suits

- 20 Pathfinders
- 1 Riptide
- 2 Ghost Keels
- Commander in Crisis Suit
- 1 Broadside

I want to start assembling things so I can get to painting, while I slowly buy whatever else is needed for future lists. I expect i'll add a couple more Broadsides, a Stormsurge, a third Ghost Keel, and a Stealth Suits in the next couple months.

Specifically, I am overwhelmed by how to build all these drones. Every kit comes with a few, and while I know of Markerlights and their great usefulness, I don't know the other drones well, don't know how many of each to build, and which are best served with what units.

I'm SLOWLY making my way through the tactica thread, but any targetted insights would be appreciated. Thanks!

Marker drones are you best best, the drone net from the Mont'Ka campaign requires 16 drones, but they all get +1 bs, jink, snap fire, intercept, and Outflank. Give the Ghostkeel's the Ion Raker, then Broadsides High Yield Missile Pods and Smart Missiles, and the Riptide Smart Missiles (the main cannon can be either, both have their uses). Give all of your Monstrous Creatures and the Broadsides Early Warning Override. The commander can go one of three ways, Buffmander tends to be one of the most popular (Multi Spectrum Sensor Suite, Command and Control Node, Puretide Engram Neurochip) as it buffs whatever unit he's attached, the Drone-mander, a Commander with a minimum Drone Controlled attached to a squad of Drones making them Bs5, or just give him guns and dakka things with your high bs.

The only fail weapon available to the Crisis suits are the flamer. They are very flexible units and you should magnetize them and equip them to fill a role in your army that is not already fulfilled.

Well, for the time being I don't know what fills what roles, per se. When I last played Triptide was their competitive build of choice, and since then we have a new codex, Ghost Keels, Stormsurges, etc... which I know have mixed things up.

I've heard three Ghost Keels in one unit are ultra durable, and that the Optimized Stealth Cadre is amazing?

Also, so is the consensus generally going to be that I should always build drones as Marker Drones... at least until I own a ton of them?

the stealth cadre is insane. It makes an already good unit utterly amazing, and since it focuses on the Ghostkeels they dont need the stealth suits around or alive to trigger the formation rules.

Stormsurge is great but not as powerful as most supers due to its intense markerlight diet. Personally the only reason i got one is because i got it for 40USD cheaper than its suppose to be, which i knew would be a limited time deal so i snagged one. Ive used it 3 times, once it was MVP by far, once it did more than i paid to bring it at least, third it flopped every damn time i used it (the curse of the every third game my Riptides have must have spilt over to the Stormsurge lol)

Marker drones are what the Drone Net formation are for, unless youre doing a Mark"O squad (bunch of drones with a commander using drone controller for BS5 drones) i typically dont bother with them because they usually miss. Twinlinked gun drones still hit pretty reliably. Avoid shield drones like the plague, they die just as easy as any drone and do nothing other than ablative wounds. That 4++ invul SHOULDNT ever be used, otherwise your opponent is an idiot. Bolters remove drones, bigger guns remove suits behind the drones.

Breachers coupled with a devilfish are hilariously powerful if used right. If you can dump them within 5" of a target, they will unload 20 S6 AP3 shots and usually wipe whatever that unit was off the table. Ive even glanced AV12 vehicles to death with that in one volley lol. I used to think Breachers were dumb, then i proxied a squad in and now i love them.

Roles:
Riptide didnt change at all, its still the durable frontliner/backfield cannon for a good AP2 source. Without proper marker support it tends to piss on its own shoes since Gets Hot can render it completely useless for a turn if you dont make it BS6.

Ghostkeel: Outside of the OSC, theyre a bit of a skirmisher unit. They pump out a lot of high strength shots that dont usually pen armor, but through sheer dice they kill things anyway. Multiple ghosts in a squad can melee quite effectively oddly enough, long as you avoid WS5, Fear, or AP3+ at init users. They can hit just about everything equally, but dont really excel at any one particular thing.
Inside the OSC: Vehicles will burn. Always hitting rear armor, +1BS, and ignore cover is the ultimate anti-vehicle. Only AV14 rears dont really care, since S7 cant hurt it anyway, but theres still a handful of Meltas to worry about. Slap a suit or two with Targetlocks and Vector Trackers and it becomes the best damned AA platform we got by a LONG SHOT - no jink, hit rear armor, hit on 3s w/o markerlights. If you have a squad of 3 Ghostkeels inside the OSC, they hit on 2s

Stealth Suits: OSC "Tax" as people call them, though theyre still pretty useful for homing beacons for any deepstriking crisis suits. Generally avoid them unless you need them in a formation or you want a homing beacon midfield.

Crisis Suits: Swiss army knife! With the new Cyclic Ion Blaster and Air-bursting Fragmentation Projector being available like a normal gun, they have even more roles they can be outfitted to do. Airbursts will annihilate troops, CIBs are short-ranged +1 RoF Missilepods, and we no longer have 1 per army restrictions! yay!
Though theyre still usually used for Plasma/Fusion deepstrikers.

Stormsurge: An oddity, since its both anitvehicle and antitroop. All missiles should be shooting at light vehicles or infantry, since they are a gakton of S5 shots with piss AP. The Pulse Driver Cannon being Ordnance has really damn good odds at taking out vehicles or splatting T5 targets. Avoid the Pulse Blast Cannon, it renders the Anchors rule useless which is the prime reason this thing is awesome. Being able to fire twice in the 2nd shooting phase onward if you anchor turn 1 is amazing as hell. The game i mentioned where he flopped? I didnt anchor turn 1, it bit me in the ass.
D missiles can be fired turn 1 for an insta-gib chance at other supers or AV14 vehicles, but you need heavy ML support to do this. One makes it Str D instead of Str 8, two for BS5, and two for Ignores Cover (never bank on rolling a Deathblow, you can cover save a 2-5 result and that ALWAYS happens to me when i dont apply Ignores Cover)

Missile pods, and cyclic ion blaster are good for light vehicles and fairing armor saves, plasma rifles are good for TEQ and MEQ, fusion blasters are good against vehicles, burst cannons and Airbus ting Fragmentation Projectors are good versus hordes. Double up on the weapon you choose for those suits, it's not necessary and highly recommended against mixing weapons. And don't bother with other upgrades except for target lock when applicable.

Dont make the mistake I did and put every gun in one crisis unit. Best bet is to get specific teams to do specific jobs.

Pathfinder teams are good, but its better to get marker drones and put them with your commander. If you upgrade your commander with a drone controller and put a full squad of drones with him, you suddenly have 2+ to hit markerlights. Dont think this means your pathfinders are useless, they can be used as sniper teams with max special weapons in for killing off heavy infantry. They also add I some markerlights as well.

Cant say anything about stormsurges or ghostkeels, never played them.

Do what you want with your riptide, I put an ion accelerator on mine and it takes out vehichles really fast. If you want an infantry killing death star, take the burst cannon or whatever it is.

Thanks for all the insights guys. A lot aligns with what I was thinking, which tells me I had some good instincts. I really appreciate the help.

So, a question in terms of actually building the models. I haven't gone over the sprues, yet but which pieces of war-gear actually have models for WYSIWYG purposes? Do any of the things beyond guns need to be modelled on? IE drone controller, vector tracker, etc...?

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Thanks for all the insights guys. A lot aligns with what I was thinking, which tells me I had some good instincts. I really appreciate the help.

So, a question in terms of actually building the models. I haven't gone over the sprues, yet but which pieces of war-gear actually have models for WYSIWYG purposes? Do any of the things beyond guns need to be modelled on? IE drone controller, vector tracker, etc...?

Not really, the weapons are the only wargear that matter for WYSIWYG

I would like to put a vote in the corner of the stormsurge. That thing can be brutal if correctly supported. Yes, you need markerlights, but that's what that drone net formation is for anyhow. And/or you could use your commander as a drone controller and just not miss. Ever.

I magnetized my Ghostkeel's main guns, so I can try out the Fusion Collider or the Cyclic Ion Raker, although I'll be taking the Raker almost every time. If I had any Riptides, I would probably do the same thing.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I magnetized my Ghostkeel's main guns, so I can try out the Fusion Collider or the Cyclic Ion Raker, although I'll be taking the Raker almost every time. If I had any Riptides, I would probably do the same thing.

Honestly, the Fusion Colliser isn't that great. It's only one shot and actually had a greater chance of missing due to the size of the Blast. If it was two shots or large blast, then that would be a different story.

You need to look into how to magnetize all suit guns. Crisis suits especially have so many options you really dont want to glue the weapons on because youre going to need a TON of them if you do that.

Magnetize the 2ndary guns on the Ghosts/Riptides, as they can be swapped around sometimes (sometimes i prefer the burst over the fusion on ghosts). Riptide i would suggest you magnetize the main gun since the Heavy Burst Cannon isnt bad, its just situationally awesome. I magnetized my main guns on my Ghostkeels but thats out of habit, i dont ever intend to use the melta blast PoS.

Magnetizing isnt that hard. Get a hand drill and some small bits or a drummel w/ bit attachments and get small rare earth magnets. If you only use 1 magnet they will spin around but it can be a pain to put magnets side by side, so i just deal with the spinning lol.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
You need to look into how to magnetize all suit guns. Crisis suits especially have so many options you really dont want to glue the weapons on because youre going to need a TON of them if you do that.

Magnetize the 2ndary guns on the Ghosts/Riptides, as they can be swapped around sometimes (sometimes i prefer the burst over the fusion on ghosts). Riptide i would suggest you magnetize the main gun since the Heavy Burst Cannon isnt bad, its just situationally awesome. I magnetized my main guns on my Ghostkeels but thats out of habit, i dont ever intend to use the melta blast PoS.

Magnetizing isnt that hard. Get a hand drill and some small bits or a drummel w/ bit attachments and get small rare earth magnets. If you only use 1 magnet they will spin around but it can be a pain to put magnets side by side, so i just deal with the spinning lol.

Yeah Ghostkeel and Riptides weren't that hard... Stormsurge is near impossible with the main gun to get it completely magnetized. You can easily switch out the barrels/end, but the stock with all the additional sprues cannot really be magnetized

Yeah that kinda bit me in the butt. I decided to just build the gun and magnetize the entire thing intending to buy the bits for the other gun's half i was missing.

Mistakes were made! That bit goes for like 20 bucks alone lol

if you decide to magnetize the riptide's primary weapons, make sure to use a larger magnet than 1/16x1/32 rare earth magnets (they stick initially but fall off to the slightest nudge), though they look good on top of the jet packs.
Also, only double up the SMS on the riptide TL bit - the Plasma Rifles and Fusion Blasters can be used as crisis suit weapons as well.

As someone pointed out, the crisis suits really only need the weapons for WYSIWYG - save the Target Locks for turning Gun Drones into Marker Drones.

I actually used the old multitracker bit as a target lock. It's built in so if you have any you're better using that part so you get some marker drones easy.

I use those support bits to help distinguish units. Even in the ancient codex i dont ever remember there being a list showing what bit did what, though i'm pretty sure the little radar disk is suppose to be EWO lol.

The only non-weapon i use WYSIWYG is the shields.