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I have a few questions still pending answers since I started playing, and because finding rules for this game seems to be a bit harder than other tabletop RPGs I've played, I've come to ask a few questions.

- Does Ta'lissera Bonding a unit of one have an effect? Are all units in a FE army required to take it, or just the detachment that your commander is part of?
- Are you allowed to place an Independent Character in whatever unit you want? In regards to the FE armies, can I just purchase a member of the 8 and use them, or must it be part of the "The Eight" formation?
- I'm a little worried about artillery. I have a prospective list, but I don't want to cheese against my opponents (no idea what counts as cheese for my army other than Ta'Unar in a 1k point game.

Here's what I'm thinking of running (really, really rough estimate). I don't want to cheese, but I want an effectively structured army and I have an idea of what I want to run. I'm keen on a missile-heavy, drone-heavy thematic army. I know it might not be competitive, but it's what I want to try.

Dawn Blade Contingent

Core: Retaliation Cadre
Contingent HQ: Would prefer a Commander, but will use Farsight if I cannot use a commander. My worry is that I can't make use of the somewhat silly Buffmander I've seen online. Crisis Bodyguards.
Aux: Drone Net VX 1-0 + Air Superiority Cadre OR Ranged Support Cadre

I am not totally set on running FE and am open to suggestions. The people here seem educated on the topic of army building in a way that I won't be for a while, so an suggestions would be appreciated.

- Why is there so much disdain for Broadsides running the rail rifle? It seems, statistically, to be a much better choice against heavy armor. If you expect heavy armor, why not take it?
- I hear people call the Firebase Support formation "broken". Why is that? It requires tons of your heavy firepower to bear down on a single target. With Riptides, that's massive overkill.
- I'm playing against a IG player and a SM player, primarily. I happen to know neither army brings air items. Should I take that as a hint and not bring flyers? That means skipping Coldstar and my air options entirely.
- How bad of a person do I have to resign myself to being if I decide to purchase and use a FW R'varna or Y'vahra?

My end goal is to avoid an army that drops in and smashes things turn 2 with the force of half an army. When it works, that game ends prematurely. When it doesn't, the game ends prematurely. I don't want to subject friends to that. I need the option, though, because artillery is disgusting. If anyone has anything to say about whether I should go with FE or TE, I would appreciate the opinion. I have, currently, what is in the "Start Collecting" box for Tau. That said, everything else seems to be such abysmal value for the price that it seems hard to justify going into it alone. If I had the choice, thematically, I would go with either a long range squad focusing on the Tau's superior railgun technology with an option to remove Wyvern and Earthshaker Cannon batteries consistently (so I don't lose squad after squad of Crisis for no return) or a missile-based army. Both heavy on drones, preferably. Is there anything like that?

Sorry for the mass of questions. I'm sure I'll have even more, soon. I love the lore of the game, but up until now I've only had the time to read the stuff for the Tau and very little for other armies. I aim to read most of the rest of it, though.

Another one: Does the Holophoton Countermeasures ability of the XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit stop target who cannot shoot snapshots from firing at it? Since it forces them to make snapshots, does this make it immune to things that do not roll to hit?

- Bonding Knife upgrade I assume is what your referring to. The only thing it does is when a unit is falling back at 25% or less remaining models they can regroup on a base leadership instead of double 1s. Basically it rarely comes into effect and doesn't help units starting with 3 models.

- As long as there aren't rules preventing a certain IC from joining a type of unit (for example Cadre Fireblades can only join Fire Warriors) but a Commander Suit or Ethereal for example can join any infantry unit. You cannot join vehicles and MCs.

- A Retaliation Cadre should be completely fine against artillery considering most of your army is deepstriking in and you prioritize your shooting against high threat targets. A concern would whatever models you are using to not auto lose turn 1 on the board might not be able to hide on the board against barrage units.

- The broad strokes of your army seems fine. Probably don't need the HQ slot as your Retailiation Cadre has a Commander in it and you rarely need multiple commanders. Bodyguards aren't really any better than standard Crisis Suits so just use them from the Retailiation Cadre.

- Rail Rifles fire 1 shot at Str 8, HYMP is firing 4 shots at Str 7. When your trying to destroy AV 10 to 12 the volume of fire is more important than +1 strength at 1/4th the volume of fire. AP is nice but Broadsides are primarily designed to spam high strength shots at vehicles like transports, flyers, etc. Fusion Crisis and Ghostkeels are your AV13-14 killers while Riptides, Fusion, and Plasma Crisis are your 2+ armor killers.

- The Firebase Support Cadre use to be just give Tankhunter without forcing the entire unit to shoot at the same target. No idea how Target Lock works with rules in the new version so I don't know if you can target the firestorm target and split fire using target lock to get tank hunter and monster hunter against other targets.

- Tau flyers are hot garbage so its generally a good idea to not bother with them. Tau anti air is better served with velocity tracker upgrade on Riptides or Broadsides with HYMPs. Skyrays are quite good if you can fit them into your list.

- Well you picked Tau so your already a terrible person who murders kittens, ruined Flint Michigan's water, turned 40k into a hippy love commune, and is probably the reason the Horus Heresy took place . But seriously those suits are a quite strong but so is a fair amount of the Tau codex. Ultimately what's broken or not is the sum total of an army list. You could have a Stormsurge and a R'varna but then have the rest of your army as Kroot and Vespids which makes the sum power of your army as being rather tame.

A Railgun isn't going to do anything to artillery units because they like to deploy out of LoS to stay safe while they shell the enemy using the barrage special rule for indirect fire. Deep Striking is how you deal with artillery as you can drop into the enemy backline or flank and hit them where they are exposed. As for being drone heavy the Drone Net is a great way to make use of all those drones that come in the kits and provide a reliable and mobile source of markerlights.

Vankraken wrote:
- A Retaliation Cadre should be completely fine against artillery considering most of your army is deepstriking in and you prioritize your shooting against high threat targets. A concern would whatever models you are using to not auto lose turn 1 on the board might not be able to hide on the board against barrage units.

My biggest worry is that, with so many points devoted to deepstriking units, taking Farsight to avoid scatter seems mandatory. I don't want to take Farsight, because I want to use him in specialized story missions and the like, and his "death" in a game prior would bother me.

Vankraken wrote:
- Rail Rifles fire 1 shot at Str 8, HYMP is firing 4 shots at Str 7. When your trying to destroy AV 10 to 12 the volume of fire is more important than +1 strength at 1/4th the volume of fire. AP is nice but Broadsides are primarily designed to spam high strength shots at vehicles like transports, flyers, etc. Fusion Crisis and Ghostkeels are your AV13-14 killers while Riptides, Fusion, and Plasma Crisis are your 2+ armor killers.

That's really good information. Is it mandatory, then, to take a squad of Crisis armed with Plasma/Fusion? Maybe stick in a Commander with Fusion Blades so it looks extra cool (and deals with the leftovers if I fail to kill on the initial deepstrike)? Do most Tau armies have a Ghostkeel for AV?

Vankraken wrote:
- The Firebase Support Cadre use to be just give Tankhunter without forcing the entire unit to shoot at the same target. No idea how Target Lock works with rules in the new version so I don't know if you can target the firestorm target and split fire using target lock to get tank hunter and monster hunter against other targets.

Oh, I wonder if that works? It would seem, at first glance, no to. That's my initial assumption. I guess I resigned the formation to the anti-titan section of the book and dropped it, but if you can split your fire and conserve markerlights, that's really good.

Vankraken wrote:
- Well you picked Tau so your already a terrible person who murders kittens, ruined Flint Michigan's water, turned 40k into a hippy love commune, and is probably the reason the Horus Heresy took place . But seriously those suits are a quite strong but so is a fair amount of the Tau codex. Ultimately what's broken or not is the sum total of an army list. You could have a Stormsurge and a R'varna but then have the rest of your army as Kroot and Vespids which makes the sum power of your army as being rather tame.

That's what the friend who got me into this game said. They don't seem that bad, really, when there are other exceptional races like the Eldar floating around. I just picked them because I really love the advanced science theme and because, well, battle suits are cool.

Vankraken wrote:
A Railgun isn't going to do anything to artillery units because they like to deploy out of LoS to stay safe while they shell the enemy using the barrage special rule for indirect fire. Deep Striking is how you deal with artillery as you can drop into the enemy backline or flank and hit them where they are exposed. As for being drone heavy the Drone Net is a great way to make use of all those drones that come in the kits and provide a reliable and mobile source of markerlights.

Interesting. But, doesn't that mean they deal with full scatter? If so, how often are they really hitting? Mean scatter is 7in, and I think the scatter dice only have 2 sides with a direct hit. So that's something like a 50% miss chance, and it deals with armor saves or 2+. Why wouldn't they just sit in the open and barrage for a couple turns with accuracy, and after that who cares?

-I have ran a Retailiation Cadre with Hunter Cadre in a Hunter Contingent. Basically I reserved everything except 2 units of Stealth Suits who had beacons who infiltrated into my own side of the board out of LoS and chose to go 2nd. Most of my army showed up turn 2 and pumped out devastating levels of firepower. After that they continues to jump shoot jump around the board and work their way through the enemy's numbers. Personally I think deep striking is the best thing about units like Crisis Suits and basically never deploy them on the ground turn 1. Don't need Farsight if your careful (but still taking a bit of a risk) with your placement. Mishaps happen but generally if you give yourself a 7" buffer then most of the time you will land in the area and be ok or scatter to a relatively safe spot. Half of the mishaps just go back into reserves while a third get placed into certain death (but you still get to shoot something) or in the corner.

-There are a lot of opinions/tastes on how to equip Crisis Suits but personally I always take a unit of Fusions for tank killing as its hard to go wrong with melta weapons and with target lock they can take out multiple vehicles or focus down a big threat (say a Imperial Knight). Plasmas aren't quite as necessary considering Riptides can do a similar job or you can brute force down 2+ armor with volume of high strength fire (especially when that 2+ armor has a 3+ invuln to fall back on). I am also a huge fan of the Cyclic Ion Blaster as they spam out so much Str 7 that they make Broadsides envious.

-Barrage doing indirect fire have full scatter but cover and wounds come from the center of the blast (can snipe out characters or special weapons doing this) and it keeps the artillery alive and firing. The issue with artillery vehicles is that if they take a penetrating hit they basically are done shooting as almost all the damage results cause the vehicle to not be able to fire blast weapons. Wyverns in particular are twin linked with lots of shots each so they can both be fairly accurate with the reroll and if they end up off target they can use those rerolls to try and "walk" the blast towards the target or any other units they scatter near.

 Vankraken wrote:
-Barrage doing indirect fire have full scatter but cover and wounds come from the center of the blast (can snipe out characters or special weapons doing this) and it keeps the artillery alive and firing. The issue with artillery vehicles is that if they take a penetrating hit they basically are done shooting as almost all the damage results cause the vehicle to not be able to fire blast weapons. Wyverns in particular are twin linked with lots of shots each so they can both be fairly accurate with the reroll and if they end up off target they can use those rerolls to try and "walk" the blast towards the target or any other units they scatter near.

So finding a force that can hold the field for a couple phases and then dropping onto an area near the artillery and finishing it is a wise choice? I'm somewhat familiar with what people call a "Farsight Bomb", but I don't know how effective it really is. It seems like putting all your eggs in one basket.

Basically, drop down, reveal your Mont'ka as the artillery or other dangerous, annoying platform, vehicle, or MC, and eliminate it. Then, using jetpacks, either get into cover or move into range to begin shooting the next turn. When the CRB says that you can "move 12"" in the movement phase, does this mean that you just get to move that far if you would like to? Because, in the assault phase, is requires you to roll to determine how far you are allowed to move.

Ne_Streets wrote:
How bad of a person do I have to resign myself to being if I decide to purchase and use a FW R'varna or Y'vahra?

My last few games, I ran 152 models at 1k points. I ended the latest match with almost 200. Trust me, sometimes measures are justified. Also fluffy, since that was my nids.

Ne_Streets wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
-Barrage doing indirect fire have full scatter but cover and wounds come from the center of the blast (can snipe out characters or special weapons doing this) and it keeps the artillery alive and firing. The issue with artillery vehicles is that if they take a penetrating hit they basically are done shooting as almost all the damage results cause the vehicle to not be able to fire blast weapons. Wyverns in particular are twin linked with lots of shots each so they can both be fairly accurate with the reroll and if they end up off target they can use those rerolls to try and "walk" the blast towards the target or any other units they scatter near.

So finding a force that can hold the field for a couple phases and then dropping onto an area near the artillery and finishing it is a wise choice? I'm somewhat familiar with what people call a "Farsight Bomb", but I don't know how effective it really is. It seems like putting all your eggs in one basket.

Basically, drop down, reveal your Mont'ka as the artillery or other dangerous, annoying platform, vehicle, or MC, and eliminate it. Then, using jetpacks, either get into cover or move into range to begin shooting the next turn. When the CRB says that you can "move 12"" in the movement phase, does this mean that you just get to move that far if you would like to? Because, in the assault phase, is requires you to roll to determine how far you are allowed to move.

Farsight bomb is generally a deathstar like unit that is basically stacking your eggs in a basket. Smaller Crisis Suit deep strike units generally can do that job but without as much investment. Most artillery are either crewed infantry which typically count as T7 or are light to medium AV vehicles. Things like Missile Pods, Ions, or Fusions are good for destroying these units and have a range of 18" (except for pods which are 36"). Jet Pack Infantry is 6" in the movement phase, the 12" that you are seeing is probably Jump Infantry. The benefit of Jet Pack is being relentless and thrust move (2d6) in the assault phase. The listed movement for the movement phase is your maximum movement for that action. Moving through terrain follows the difficult terrain rules for that unit type. You don't have to move the maximum if you don't want. Only Zooming flyers and Swooping Flying MCs are forced to move a certain distance.

My worry is that a Retaliation Cadre is more or less a Farsight Bomb minus the Farsight. Slapping that much firepower down anywhere you want is deadly, but it seems to be inherently risky in that you've allocated a lot of points to, more or less, a nuke.

EDIT: Does a shield drone give the unit it is in effective ablative wounds, no matter what direction it's shot from, or does it only act as such if placed in the front of a the shooter? I would imagine the latter.

Its spread between 3 units of Crisis Suits, a unit of Broadsides, and a Riptide. They can deploy in multiple locations and the crisis units can be quite disposable with being something as cheap as a single 2x fusion crisis suit that cost like 50 points. Deepstriking a large chunk of your army isn't inherently bad and can keep your more important units safe from an enemy turn 1 alpha strike. Deepstriking is not without its risks but it can be an effective method of deployment and Tau are quite suited for that tactic. Also having your army hitting from all sides can force the enemy to spread out and gives you room to maneuver. The stereotypical Tau gunline might have concentrated firepower but the enemy tends to just swarm your position and it makes "kiting" difficult and pins you into a corner.

As for shield drones they act like normal models so they can only tank the attacks if they are the closest model or are the closest model to a character who passes a Look Out Sir roll for the drone to jump in front of the shot. In general shield drones aren't practical as your better off bringing something with some utility like markerlight drones or even gun drones. Its not too hard to have at least a 5+ cover save so those marker/gun drones can still soak up wounds a bit. Even just absorbing a wound with no save can be very beneficial (especially from stuff like krak missiles or lascannons that would instant kill a crisis suit).

The disdain for the rail rifle is because broadsides aren't what you'd be using against heavy armor. 4 str 7 shots are superior against everything except armor 13-14, and even then the rifle isn't that great against those targets. Simply put the rail rifle doesn't put out enough dakka to pop 13-14 reliably compared to fusion suits, long strike, and lacks the versatility to compete with riptides or storm surges when it comes to high ap shooting. Frankly, it's not specialized enough to be useful, and it's not versitile enough to be useful. Why would you spend 65 points on a broadside with Railgun when for 43 points you get a crisis suit with twin linked melta that will do more for less, and be more reliable at doing so?

Does an ability that limits a unit's ability to shoot to shooting snapshots also limit things that shoot blasts? It seems like it would make things that shoot blasts unable to fire.

It does.

- How would you build a Crisis team that is made to drop into the back of a densely populated enemy area and destroy weaker tanks, artillery, and other basic armor? I don't want to suicide them, but if I have to I guess I will.

- Are you allowed to to members of the eight without taking the entire squad?

- Is there a guide somewhere for optimally kitting out Crisis suits?

- Is there a good way in the Tau army to snipe out the more important members of an enemy force while avoiding retaliation?

- How often do you see people put flamers on Crisis suits? Is it a common practice, or is it only when you are going to go up against something like Nids or Orks?

1. TL MP + Plasma or double Burstcannon.
2. No.
3. There's a lot of valid loadouts. Check the Tau thread in 40k Tactics or read lots of army lists.
4. Sniper Drones, or Advanced Targeting System Broadsides. Peace... through superior firepower.
5. Nothing wrong with it. TL Burstcannon + Flamer is pretty good.

 Verviedi wrote:
1. TL MP + Plasma or double Burstcannon.

Thanks for the excellent advice! This in particular, though, has me scratching my head. With no real game experience and only going on what I have and can see on paper, it looks like a fusion blaster is almost mandatory. Should I resign myself to the fact that, if their Leman Russ or other armored platform turns around and is in range, I'm dead? Plasma makes sense, it's a high strength low AP weapon. But missiles and burst cannons? Are they anti infantry in the backlines, or is there a reason to take them against armored platforms around AV 11-12?

If you drop behind a Leman Russ and fail to kill it with 6 Str 7 and 6 Str 6 shots in the rear armor, I, personally, would demote those suits to Shas'la.
If the tank turns around, it's exposing its rear to your other units.
Missiles are a very good anti light armor weapon, and high strength enough to hit monstrous creatures. From the content of your question, I was assuming you were looking for something that could kill light vehicles and arty, which is generally light armored. If you're playing against armies with lots of heavy armor, take two fusion or TL fusion + plasma, but if you're playing against armies with lots of medium or light armor, TL missile + plasma is good.
Double burstcannon puts out so many shots that it can shred hordes and AV10/11 rear armor. Very useful against Orks, Eldar of all flavors, and Nids, but it's not useful at all against heavy vehicles.

TL missile + plasma counts as "two weapons" for the purposes of the MT? That's really important to know. It means that units can be more accurate at the cost of utility.

Here's the thing, then. When does one use fusion blasters? Is there an appropriate time to mount a strictly anti tank weapon on a Crisis suit, or is ir never really a good idea?

My assumption here is the most people either pair it with plasma for anti vehicle, or advanced targeting to remove dangerous members of problems units.

If I use fusion, I either use two fusion + no support system or ATS. My main battlesuit loadout is Plasma + TL fusion, as I have plenty of anti-infantry in the form of my Stealth Suits, Stormsurge, or Riptides/Y'vahra.
Fusion is generally a good idea, as it can kill a lot of stuff.
Yes, TL weapon + weapon = 2 weapons for the purpose of multi-tracker.
If you have any more questions, feel free to post as many as you need.

Ne_Streets wrote:
- How would you build a Crisis team that is made to drop into the back of a densely populated enemy area and destroy weaker tanks, artillery, and other basic armor? I don't want to suicide them, but if I have to I guess I will.

2x Fusion to pop heavy vehicles and Cyclic Ion Blasters to take out medium vehicles, infantry, MCs, etc.

- Are you allowed to to members of the eight without taking the entire squad?

I think you have to take them all but im not sure. While I love my deepstriking crisis suits, I don't usually run farsight enclave.

- Is there a guide somewhere for optimally kitting out Crisis suits?

Basically it comes down to always taking 2x of the same weapon. Fusions are your best vehicle killer, Plasmas for dealing with 2+ armor infantry or MCs, Ions for high strength volume of fire for medium vehicles, high toughness infantry, and even being good against hordes. Burst cannons are just weaker versions of Ions, Flamers are for hordes but honestly rather meh, Missile Pods are longer range but lower ROF than Ions. Airburst Frag Projectors are anti hordes and can be useful for indirect fire plus barrage sniping characters with wound spam. The only support system I would recommend on them is target lock to let your units to split their shooting. So a unit of 3 fusion suits for example with 2 target locks can threaten 3 different vehicles.

- Is there a good way in the Tau army to snipe out the more important members of an enemy force while avoiding retaliation?

Kroot with sniper rounds, Sniper Drones, Airburst, or taking the precision shots special system on something like a Burst Cannon Riptide. Only the airburst firing over LoS blocking terrain can fully avoid retaliation while burst cannon riptides have rather long range. Sniping out independent characters is extremely hard to do when ICs can look out sir on a 2+ any precision shots you make. Precision shots are generally best used to pick off special weapons in a unit (like a space marine holding the grav gun in the back of the unit).

- How often do you see people put flamers on Crisis suits? Is it a common practice, or is it only when you are going to go up against something like Nids or Orks?

Flamers are high risk for only moderate reward. Tau flamers are only Str 4 and Tau has so much high strength shooting with easy access to ignore cover so its not really urgent that Tau has flamer type weapons.

I admit that I was wrong. I forgot Cyclic Ion Blasters existed. Please replace the missile pods in my advice with CIBs.

 Verviedi wrote:
I admit that I was wrong. I forgot Cyclic Ion Blasters existed. Please replace the missile pods in my advice with CIBs.

Yeah its one of those small changes that they snuck in that doesn't stand out but can be a real game changer. Also because the bits for them are only in the commander box, few people have the weapons to equip their Crisis Suits with unless you look to 3rd party bits.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
I admit that I was wrong. I forgot Cyclic Ion Blasters existed. Please replace the missile pods in my advice with CIBs.

Yeah its one of those small changes that they snuck in that doesn't stand out but can be a real game changer. Also because the bits for them are only in the commander box, few people have the weapons to equip their Crisis Suits with unless you look to 3rd party bits.

Frankly I just converted

How do I know where I can mount different things to different hard points on a model? Do I just have to build them to find out?

I'm going to post something of a sample for the more informed people on the board to look at before I actually go and build it. I plan on magnetizing my models, but even then I don't want to waste my time with parts and pieces I don't want or need.

EDIT: Wait, can you put two of the same gun on a suit and not TL them? Is that possible? My friend tells me you cannot do that.

Battlesuits have 4 hardpoints - 1 on each arm and shoulder. However, only the Shas'el or Shas'o commanders can take 4 weapon/support systems at once - regular Shas'ui and Shas'rve can only take 3. Support systems ideally go on the shoulders while weapons fit the arms, but a lot of the time you'll see a model with a shoulder mounted weapon like a Missile Pod or Burst Cannon. But to answer your question, you can put any system anywhere since they all have the same fittings; most weapons will have 3 little rectangular blocks - one on either side and one on the bottom - so you can mount them on the left or right arm and on their shoulders.

And yes, you can take 2 identical systems and not have them twin linked; nothing in the codex saying you can't

1,249 points so far, but it's not done yet. Here's what I have:

-O-
Retaliation Cadre
---
Commander (199)
- twin-linked fusion blaster
- stimulant injectors
- shield generator
- fusion blades
- 2x gun drone

Riptide (235)
- earth caste pilot array
- ion accelerator
- early warning override
- stimulant injector

Broadside (93)
- velocity tracker
- high-yield missile pod
- seeker missile

---
Crisis 1 (156)

Crisis 1-1 (52)
- cyclic ion blaster
- plasma rifle

Crisis 1-2 (52)
- cyclic ion blaster
- plasma rifle

Crisis 1-3 (52)
- cyclic ion blaster
- plasma rifle
---

---
Crisis 2 (186)

Crisis 2-1 (62)
- tl fusion blaster
- missile pod
- vectored retro-thrusters

Crisis 2-2 (62)
- tl fusion blaster
- missile pod
- vectored retro-thrusters

Crisis 2-3 (62)
- tl fusion blaster
- missile pod
- vectored retro-thrusters
---

---
Crisis 3 (156)

Crisis 3-1 (52)
- tl burst cannon
- missile pod

Crisis 3-2 (52)
- tl burst cannon
- missile pod

Crisis 3-3 (52)
- tl burst cannon
- missile pod
---
-O-

-O-
Drone Net VX 1-0
---
Drones x4 (224)
- Markerlight
---
-O-

Forgive me for being rusty on my Tau quartermastery, but aren't Cyclic Ion Blasters experimental systems, ergo meaning they can only be taken by Shas'rve/Shas'els/Shas'os?

 General Annoyance wrote:
Forgive me for being rusty on my Tau quartermastery, but aren't Cyclic Ion Blasters experimental systems, ergo meaning they can only be taken by Shas'rve/Shas'els/Shas'os?

The latest Tau codex removed the 1 per army restriction on the Cyclic Ions and Airburst Frag Projectors. While they don't have a Twin Linked version, you can equip multiple of them in your army now.

You can even take two one on each arm. I intend to get a unit of 3 XV8 with two of them at some point in the future.

Gotcha; sorry I haven't seen the 7th ed version of Codex Tau, since I quit playing the game a few months into 7th.

Since I'm probably not going to be much use from this point on, I'd recommend that the OP gets Battlescribe if he hasn't already - that app is hella useful since it will notify you if you're taking illegal combinations of upgrades/force organisations

It's possible for battlescribd to make mistakes. I always recommend a self check for any list made with it to make sure its not an error or glitch and you bring an illegal list. The ITC always tells their players that list building apps have a good chance of getting stuff wrong.

It's a good place to start though, but always double check with your own eyes.