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.

 Mud Turkey 13 wrote:

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Any ideas on how to arm battlesuits? Mrs had bought me a start collecting set and some pathfinders for Xmas to start me off.

I always used to run with 3 units of 3 suits, 2 with PR and MP the other squad with double MP and I also ran 2 bodyguards with FB ! Absolutely love battlesuits but have no idea how to arm them. I will be magnetising bit still be nice to have some ideas. I looked at dual plasmas to keep them cheap.

Suits are in a pretty bad spot right now due to their points and just how much more cost effective commanders are in relation to them. If I was going to bring a suit squad I would put three flamers on each one and just run them around burning everything. Nine D6 auto-hits is pretty good, and it negates their poor ballistic skill.

I am sure the numbers have been run before, but how much better would three suits be with two flamers and an ATS on each versus just having three flamers on each one?

On a different note, is the popular opinion on fixing suits just a point reduction to them? I would actually prefer to see them go to a 3+ ballistic skill rather than a point drop. I just think it is so weird that these super high-tech weapon platforms hit so poorly without marker lights. It just does not make sense to me from a narrative perspective.

Nice I will be magnetising and have loads of spare weapons so I'll give the flamers a go!

I find it bizarre the elite unit of the tau is only bs4+ it's really strange. My tactic used to be to deploy 2 tetras which would zip around pinging marker lights, which when I last played were incredible. I would then jump forward with the suits and smash the enemy with plasma and rockets.

Looks like I'll have to change tactics haha

I don't think you could adjust the BS of Crisis suits without doing the same for all of the suits, including Stealth, Ghostkeels, and Riptides, and that would require them to be somewhat higher costed. Dropping Crisis to 20 ppm (base cost without weapons), or 25 ppm and reduce the cost of the weapons themselves, would probably fix them. They'd be sort of like Space Marine Primaris Inceptors then in terms of ability.

Actually, what might help in addition to a significant cost reduction of the Crisis body itself, is to give each weapon two point costs: one for regular suits, and one for Commanders. After all, a Commander can get more mileage out of each weapon due to better BS, and there is precedent for doing this. Space Marines pay more to equip their characters with Thunder Hammers or Storm Shields than they do for their regular joes.

Has anyone considered a true horde army with Tau? Now that fire warriors and ork boyz cost the same amount I want to consider the idea - even if just to rule it out as insane.

Here's a potential 1750pt list I put together to see what it looked like:

Battalion 1

Aun'Va with two guards
Fireblade with shield drone
Commander with 4 CIBs and vectored thrusters
6x12 Fire warriors. Markerlights for Shas'uis

Battalion 2

Darkstrider
Fireblade with marker drone
6x12 Fire Warriors. Markerlights for Shas'uis
Riptide with HBC, 2SMS, ATC and TL

So the basic premise is to deploy the 144 fire warriors as densely as possible around all the characters. Aun'va gives them all FNP and stops them from running away too much (while being extremely hard to snipe). Darkstrider adds the crucial ability to fall back and shoot.

The commander and riptide are there to go and attack if needed (and possible). The riptide will likely stay in manta strike a lot against people with a lot of AT. I'd actually consider swapping it out for some bodyguard suits, so as to protect my characters even more, but they seem really fragile.

What do you think? I'm not sure it's actually good, but it looks like a pretty hard counter to some people. Charging anything would be kind of a challenge,

One major concern is that it could be a fairly boring list to play - and to paint. I currently own something like 75 fire warriors but not many of them are painted, and doing another 120 or so doesn't hugely appeal!

Wow I did a quick battle scribe ... Even with 3 flamers each bare bones then 3 suits is 207 pts.... wow

Sounds about right. That's why Crisis suits are never used in competitive play. They are overcosted by a huge margin.

So would dropping the crisis suits to a base of ~30 points bring them back into the "useful" status, or are they still going to remain in the "overly costed" box?

(link)

hvg3akaek wrote:
So would dropping the crisis suits to a base of ~30 points bring them back into the "useful" status, or are they still going to remain in the "overly costed" box?

(link)

I guess it depends if some Crisis weapons get some point drops too.

Dropping the minimum squad size might help too; a Monat with three flamers to drop in and clear an objective might be a gamble worth taking. Throwing 3 suits (a significant % of your army) is not.

Weapons need two profiles - for crisis/stealth suits and for everything else. A gun is obviously better on a character with 2+ bs than on a crisis suit.

It’s rumoured that the cost of a crisis suit is coming down to around 30 in CA. That would help but isn’t evnough without cheaper guns.

 Jadenim wrote:
Dropping the minimum squad size might help too; a Monat with three flamers to drop in and clear an objective might be a gamble worth taking. Throwing 3 suits (a significant % of your army) is not.

Given the incoming changes to deep strike, not being able to flame stuff until at least turn 3 doesn't seem very useful. If the rumor is right, triple flamer monats would ring in at just under 60 points, get 10 hits, 5-6 wounds and 2-4 casualties vs most infantry. That's not clearing anything. You'd still need 3 of them to have a good chance of roasting a 10 man squad off the board in one turn of shooting.

OTOH a unit with triple Burst Cannon, not deep striking, is killing things turn 1. Averaging 18 hits and probably 12 wounds without markerlights, they'll cripple or eliminate a minimum sized squad every turn. Maybe 55-ish point burst cannon Crisis Suits might be worth it? 165 points for 36 S5 shots doesn't quite compete with a 12-man Strike Squad with Cadre Fireblade support but it's got its own unique advantages.

What do people prefer on the Ghostkeel?

The Ion Raker or the Fusion Collider?

I really like crisis with 3 cibs or 2cibs 1fb. They just get the job done, are mobile and resilient with some drones.
They have always been a unit I could deploy to achieve certain goal as an independent unit.
Really appreciate the points drop.

 dan2026 wrote:
What do people prefer on the Ghostkeel?

The Ion Raker or the Fusion Collider?

I like the Ion Raker for the extra range, but now that the GK -1 to hit works outside of 6" instead of 12", the Fusion collider also works. Anecdoatally, i have never managed to get it to pull off more than 1 whole damage..

People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.

What's up with that ?

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Sounds about right. That's why Crisis suits are never used in competitive play. They are overcosted by a huge margin.

This. Add in losing core abilities (JSJ) which were vital to their method of play and you have a situation where one of the iconic units of the army has no role. Commanders are more accurate for high damage low shot guns, fire warriors are cheaper for S5 shooting and just as accurate, etc.

Klone12 wrote:
People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.

What's up with that ?

Hammerheads fall into the 'not bad at all' category, while the tournament players are looking for 'really good' units.

IIRC Warhammer TV Dan had a tournament army of 3 Stormsurges and 3 Hammerheads.

Klone12 wrote:
People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.

What's up with that ?

IMHO it's a straight up lack of durability, with the new 2CP cover save they might be better, but they have good damage potential, it's just that they are incredibly easy to focus a decent chuck of their damage potential away.

Loose longstrike and they are much less effective. They can't benifit from drones and lack support systems like suits.

I played a guy with multiple hammerheads using my knights at Heat 1 of the UKGT. Tabled him, pretty easily.

The very harsh reality that right now vehicles without invulnerable saves are just very little use, with the power of weapons that exist. At the London GT I played an IG player who said that he'd gone the whole tournament without getting to fire a shot with Pask in all 5 games.

A mode llike Longstrike or Pask will attract unsustainable amounts of hatred - which is quite reasonable due to how much damage they can do. The problem is that they are defenseless and very difficult to hide.

Klone12 wrote:
People talk about 3 HH + Longstrike, or 4HH + Longstrike in 2001 to 3k points, yet I have seen nothing on the sort at any tournament or nothing of the sort in any batrep/ IRL.

What's up with that ?

Castellan is up with that. Ionheads are nuts unless meta is dominated by a knight that kills two per turn pretty reliably. Helverins help too.

Pre-knights they were seen a lot. Their damage output hasn't changed, but meta at the moment is unfavourable for them to shine.

Mandragola wrote:
One major concern is that it could be a fairly boring list to play - and to paint. I currently own something like 75 fire warriors but not many of them are painted, and doing another 120 or so doesn't hugely appeal!

I don't have the models - and probably never will - but I have been speculating on something like this.

Not convinced by marker lights on the Shas'uis. Perks - they can't just get nuked off the table like Pathfinders or Drones.
Cons, you have a good chance not to get 5 marker lights even with 12 shots - and you wouldn't get them until at least half your army has fired anyway. So it seems like a waste of points to me.

But if you are embracing infantry spam I don't think there's anything wrong with taking 30 pathfinders. If they die, they die.

I'm thinking something like this:

Commander 4 CIBs.
Fireblade.
60 Fire Warriors

Fireblade
Ethereal
60 Fire Warriors
30 Pathfinders
Riptide.

I think you then have about 100+ points left to spend on more fire warriors, or some drones etc.
The issue you have is whether a single riptide is worth it - you could however cut out say 15 pathfinders and 10 fire warriors and get another riptide. (Not sure why I am speculating about a list I'll never play - but sure is the lure of theory hammer.)

You could also say the Riptides are going against the theme. After all moar infantry=moar problems.

If you can go with a triple battalion you could have 1 commander, 3 fireblades, 2 ethereals, 30 pathfinders and 160 fire warriors. With 25~ points left over.

Now I am not sure how fun 200~ bodies worth of Tau would be to play (although to some extent a castle is a castle) - but given the comically broken level of overwatch this would put out it would seem to just break certain melee armies. Hello Genestealers, meet 150-200 S5 shots hitting on 5s potentially rerolling 1s.

Hey hey, we got some price drops! Quick thoughts on the CA leaks:

Missile pods might be useful on Commanders now! I think I'll still take the newly-discounted fusions, but at least it's a viable option.

Cheaper Broadsides is a huge development. They were sort of in a glass cannon niche before, and while they're still there, a 25pt drop makes them far more workable. I'll be bringing them to most games, I think.

Flamer Crisis suits are back with a vengeance. A unit of 3 is great cover for just about anything you want to push forward, and your opponent basically has to deal with it ASAP, or he eats 9d6 hits the following turn. For 135pts, that sounds pretty okay.

Gun drones are cheaper. I dig it. I think 10 pts is an appropriate cost for them.

Ghostkeels got a bit of a price cut, making them pretty nasty for pushing board presence. They were already effective, so that 10-15pt discount feels good. With the massive flamer suit buff, I see very aggressive lists gaining popularity.

Skyrays...meh. Without changes to seekers, they're still trash.

Plasma, Piranhas, and Devilfish still aren't good.

Merry Christmas to us!

27 point Crisis Suits actually give me a reason to assemble my SC Crisis Teams.

Triple Burst Cannon might be fun as well. I may have to break down and magnetize stuff.

I think broadsides wrapped in drones is now a good choice.

Crisis have probably gone from bad to acceptable, <70% of their previous price point is a pretty solid reduction. The less popular weapons have also gone down too. We shall see how this affects their usage. My first thoughts are as a battery with triple missile pods is a reasonable alternative to HYMP broadsides. The quad-pod commander also fits a T1 kau'yon play better than the quad fusion coldstar.

Piranhas are now cheaper speedbumps, devilfish will still be invisible.

Suddenly Tau have a bit more flavour but none of the core problems have been fixed.

Of course, I could be completely wrong.

 John Prins wrote:
27 point Crisis Suits actually give me a reason to assemble my SC Crisis Teams.

Triple Burst Cannon might be fun as well. I may have to break down and magnetize stuff.

I like double missle pod with shield gen. Really tough unit for the points with basically 6 auto cannons in a 3 man squad. Could also roll with mixed loads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I disagree about skyrays. They aren't bad at all for what you pay now.

Missiles on crisis, even with the discount, is absurd.
Its not competing with broadsides, nor with commanders. at all.

The only thing crisis are good for is budget weapons like plasma, burst or flamers.

And honestly, even that's a bit questionable.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Missiles on crisis, even with the discount, is absurd.
Its not competing with broadsides, nor with commanders. at all.

The only thing crisis are good for is budget weapons like plasma, burst or flamers.

And honestly, even that's a bit questionable.

I wish I could disagree, but I think your correct, they are still a nice flavour unit in casual play, but without JSJ they are too short ranged and slow to be a turn 1 threat and manat strike means you need to realy hit like a train turn 2 and at BS4 they won't.
Still too dependent on support thats better spent on the heavy lifting units.

Also does anyone have any of the Forgeworld models points changes? I don't remember seeing any, which is ludicrous as they have buffed units that were better than FW before these new points reductions.

Nothing really meaningful in FW changes for us.
Heck, even tetras are unchanged somehow, and they are not even worth half their price.


Ralari's drops cost a bit less, he himself is unchanged. (drones are 13 each rather than 20 each. so 14 point saved. still overpriced.)
Hazards down to 40 base. maybe viable?

Hammerheads down to 100 base cost, so still meh, especially considering the missile variant needs to compete with 35 broadside base costs now.

Remora got tuned to 30-not sure if worth it even at that cost. (54 with guns) its mere 8 S5Ap0 shots at 36". its only value I see is as escorts to a coldstar...

Anything else that changed is too big to matter.


Seeing the FW changes across several books, its obvious the FW section of GW is still non-functioning.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Missiles on crisis, even with the discount, is absurd.
Its not competing with broadsides, nor with commanders. at all.

The only thing crisis are good for is budget weapons like plasma, burst or flamers.

And honestly, even that's a bit questionable.

Why is it absurd? The broadside only puts out 8 missile pod shots and 8 weaker smart missile shots which is only 16shots. The crisis 3 man team put out 18 missile pod shots. Plus you can get a larger squad of Crisis and give the entire squad reroll miss and reroll wounds. It looks to me like it is very much competing against missile broadsides as those missile pod Crisis teams can wipe out very large targets in turn 1 in 1 volley. Points per heavy missile looks to work out better on Crisis over Broadsides.

You also missed Cyclic Ion Blasters possible the best weapon to use on Crisis far better then plasma, burst or flamers.

Pottsey wrote:
Why is it absurd? The broadside only puts out 8 missile pod shots and 8 weaker smart missile shots which is only 16shots. The crisis 3 man team put out 18 missile pod shots. Plus you can get a larger squad of Crisis and give the entire squad reroll miss and reroll wounds. It looks to me like it is very much competing against missile broadsides as those missile pod Crisis teams can wipe out very large targets in turn 1 in 1 volley. Points per heavy missile looks to work out better on Crisis over Broadsides.

You also missed Cyclic Ion Blasters possible the best weapon to use on Crisis far better then plasma, burst or flamers.

Its because unless I am doing something wrong a Broadside with missiles and ATS now costs 121 points.
Whereas three triple missile crisis suits costs 216.
If you were to say ditch the ATS (don't) you could almost get 2 broadsides for the cost of 3 missile crisis suits.18 missiles, vs 16 missiles plus 16 smart missile shots. Also a better save and more combined wounds. The broadsides have the downside of being heavy but that's about it.

By my mathhammer at least the pod (either 3 straight up, or 2 with ATS) suffers from a real absence of optimal targets. The triple pod gets good scores against Ravagers - which is nice I guess - and as you say, Ions are better.

The problem with crisis suits is finding the sweet spot between doing damage yourself and not offering your opponent a points pinata. Crisis suits with pods or ion blasters offer an efficient return for almost every unit in the game. You can cover them with hordes of drones - but that is expensive. Would manta striking in with 9 Ion shots for a bit under 250 points be "worth it"? I'm not convinced in a world where apparently Ravagers are "fine".

I think the changes have made Crisis suits less of a handicap if you want to bring them along to casual games - tbf the plasma variant is quite good against MEQ armies (if you have a friend who plays Primaris etc) - but I am not convinced they are any closer to being a competitive tournament choice.

My "try to make it work" unit is the Piranha. With a fusion blaster you pay 7 points more than the equivalent crisis suit. You lose a point of armour but gain 3 wounds. At the same time you have double the speed and when it dies you get 1-2 drones who can keep grabbing objectives. Its not a beat stick, but in terms of winning games it could have a place.

The Piranha might actually be worth considering, still probably won't be great-but being far faster than a crisis has uses.

Crisis point drop does not fix their inherit issue in 8th-they got nothing special going on.
Not mobile, not carrying any guns not available elsewhere, not durable, not ANYTHING really.

Anything a crisis can do, something else can do better.

Except maybe flamers, as nothing has these,