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TiberiusHecktor wrote:
Im actually leaning more towards broadsides, i know theyre expensive and everyones been complaining about them, but thanks to saviour protocols they do at least have quite a bit of staying power if you park some drones next to them. Plus you can get some cheapish missile drones.

On that note, i noticed in the broadside description it says 'The unit may be accompanied by up to 2 missile drones' Does that mean you can only ever take 2 missile drones regardless of how many broadsides in the unit, or 2 drones each per broadside like how it used to be?

Commander with 4 missile pods. Ahem.

Razerous wrote:
Commander with 4 missile pods. Ahem.

Yeeaaaaahh, im definitely going to take one of those and a Fusion commander but any more than that feels a bit cheesy. I want some backfield blasting to sit with my missile commander when he calls kauyon

TiberiusHecktor wrote:
At first i felt really confident about the idea of taking Longstrike and a hammerhead pal, but the more i think about it im not so sure. Hammerheads seem very killable and there isnt really a way to reliably keep them alive.

T7 W13 and no invulns, its really only going to take 3 lascannons to put it down. Everyones going to target longstrike first and then your second hammerheads not looking so hot.

Hmm I forgot about how characters with 10+ wounds could be targeted regardless of who was closest. That's yet another nail in the coffin of hammerheads.

To be fair it will take a lot more than 3 lascannon shots to kill a hammerhead, but it's still useless. The gun just doesn't do anything like enough.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

I think that you are allowed to take the save from a shield generator, then bounce the wound to a drone if you fail the save. It doesn't really make sense that a drone would suffer a mortal wound unless the suits have had a chance to roll a save. Honestly neither makes sense and the logical thing would be for the drones to take it at the point when you got hit - so you rolled to wound and save against the drone that the shot had actually hit - but whatever.

Nope. The Way Savior Protocol is worded, the Allocation of the wound to the Drone unit occurs before saves are taken, so you never test against the Shield Generator unless you're willing to suffer the damage on that Shield Generator unit.

So anyway my unit of 9 might feature 5 guys with triple plasma and 4 with dual fusion, and with a VT, DC and a couple of shield generators spread around. Alternatively it might be that you'd run one suit with the DC and VT. So maybe 6 triple plasma suits and 2 triple fusion, plus the unarmed Shas'vre with assorted support systems. Then 18 drones for them to pass wounds to.

The major weakness would be if the enemy attacked the drones first.

That's a lot of points. A lot of firepower, but a LOT of points.

I'm getting over 550 points in the Suits alone.

Its a helluva alpha strike (though you'll need a Homing Beacon if you want the full benefit of fusions), but does it really have enough firepower to not be wiped by the response due a 550+ point enemy with massive firepower and 18 Gun Drones (putting out ~36 Pulse hits a round) absorbing anti-heavy-infantry fire?

My initial thought is that I'd always rather just have a Commander and save my Elite slots for other purposes, but that sort of massive alpha strike is tempting...

Ok so shield generators and shield drones are both equally pointless. Useful to know. Looks like only the stormsurge should buy a shield - and I guess maybe a coldstar or (just possibly) a ghostkeel.

My (theoretical) 9-man crisis team does indeed cost a hell of a lot of points - though less than a unit of 3 broadsides. This is partly deliberate, to reduce the number of drops you have, and partly to spread buffs around a bit. A velocity tracker looks like a waste of a slot in a unit of 3, but less so in a unit of 9. A drone controller that buffs 18 gun drones is pretty efficient. Not sure it's actually good, but it's kind of interesting. Charging either the 18 drones or the 9 suits will be unattractive ,given the overwatch you'll face and the few actual hits they might do back in melee. I might even run shadowsun and have her command link drone make the unit reroll 1s - or I could just mix in a few marker drones.

I keep switching between the idea of triple plasma or two CIBs with ATS. I think on the whole the CIBs look better. The big problem then becomes modelling the damn things. Anyone have ideas?

I'm interested to hear people talking about charging stuff to harass it with ghostkeels. That's exactly what I imagined they'd be good for. There have been a few times where I've won games with my Tau by physically blocking enemy models (most memorably a slaanesh DP with siren and no wings, which I walled in with 3 hammerheads) to keep them from killing important stuff or reaching objectives. It looks like this kind of thing is going to be key to winning in 8th.

TiberiusHecktor wrote:

Razerous wrote:
Commander with 4 missile pods. Ahem.

Yeeaaaaahh, im definitely going to take one of those and a Fusion commander but any more than that feels a bit cheesy. I want some backfield blasting to sit with my missile commander when he calls kauyon

To be fair, go balls deep on cheese.

There just isn't the force multipliers available to really go nuts, with markerlights (Yes you can get BS4 to go to BS2+ re-rollable with the commander and 5 markerlights...but thats difficult/one-off!), lack of easy army buffs and especially the lack of any psychic powers including Smite, we're at a handicap by default.

I'm thinking at fielding 2 Y'vahras at 1500pts

I don't think Hammerheads are to be trashed already, and especially not Longstrike. The beauty of Longstrike, and what you have to keep in mind, is that he takes a HQ slot, which is awesome either if you want more support slots or if you don't know how to fill you HQ ones.

 Haechi wrote:
I don't think Hammerheads are to be trashed already, and especially not Longstrike. The beauty of Longstrike, and what you have to keep in mind, is that he takes a HQ slot, which is awesome either if you want more support slots or if you don't know how to fill you HQ ones.

Sure, it's kind of cool that he's a HQ. You can have an army of hammerheads. But on the other hand, we've got a lot of great HQ options, from the excellent commanders to the cheap and pretty good fireblades and Darkstrider. We don't need another.

Actually what we lack is good heavy support choices, which is somewhat ironic for a shooty army. The main thing stopping me from fielding a brigade is the need to fill those heavy slots.

I agree with you and like most Tau players, I tend to be lured towards infantry and mechs with them, but I think a full armored battalion of Tau could be very good. Like, 4+ Hammerheads and Longstrike. I'm not the one who's going to test it but it could be strong.

So if most of our stuff deepstrikes, what do homing beacons do for us?

kellymatthew37 wrote:
So if most of our stuff deepstrikes, what do homing beacons do for us?

It gets it under 9" for fusion blasers and flamers.

 John Prins wrote:

davethepak wrote:

Droneport - loaded with four marker drones, a rail rifle pathfinder squad and a cadre fireblade. While I am almost never going to bother trying to get more than one or two markerlights (really gw?) - a single markerlight has proven its worth to me time, and time again.
The droneport gives badly needed protection to pathfinders, and the drone rules are awesome BS2+ drones. was very useful.

This is clever.

Thanks

about being clever, on the the remora's I was talking about

We often get preoccupied with math hammer and what it good at "putting out wounds" - while this is certainly useful - it is more useful when comparing things that are similar (in range, ap, etc.) and less valuable when other factors come into play.

For example, if you are saying "when an enemy unit of X Toughness and Y wounds and Z save is the only unit at 20 inches, which weapon is better".

That is a very concrete example. In a real game however, it is rarely like that.

It is more like;

The termangatns are swarming 12 inches away from my front lines, the exocrine is killing my suits from across the table, the trygon is in my face, and the broodlord out of line of sight on the other side of the table is about to take that objective after he used smite on my two firewarriors.

As good as the gun drone math is against the termagants (or maybe even the trygon) they are useless against the exocrine behind the lines (where rippers prevent deep strike - remember, the other player is supposedly clever too) and also I need to get another unit against the flyrant to contest the objective.

The missile pod or rail rifle are useful against the flyrant or the exocrine. Fusion blasters with marker support are a good way to reliably deal with the trygon, and the remora drone can contest (or take) the objective out of line of site.

You can't castle in a corner when the objectives are all over the map - a smart player will play to the mission and not throw units into your drone grinder (if you are not playing against smart players - then just about anything in this thread has less impact).

This is why in a previous thread I made comments about the remora and piranha - overall tau lack mobility and the ability to most a fast unit into position and park it there (or near in cover). Flyers (the sunshark, razorshark, barracuda, etc.) can take objectives at the end of a turn - but they have to move.

Tau dont' have jet bikes, or teleport homers on our back objectives or teleport psychic powers - so we have to look to other means when we have to maneuver very quickly. The remora is a flyer without the limits of supersonic. it can turn any angle, and get all over the map around and behind cover (I love smart missiles but their cost is a bit high this edition, and them being less on the field they can't take or contest objectives either) and even take or contest objectives. no, the remora is not incredibly durable - but ironically, I have found since they only have burst cannons they are usually not considered a bit threat, and thus lesser on your opponents target priority.

Even better, the piranha has a decent speed (not great) but decent - and it can camp an objective and it takes more than a token effort to remove it (a dedicated effort can remove even a stormsurge). Even better, the drones can leave the piranha and now you have THREE models next to the objective - (taking objectives in 8th has to do with model count).

Finally - people keep asking "what is the best list?" - honestly, we DON"T want that.
We want a bunch of lists that are viable in all armies so we are not facing the same thing again and again. yes, some units will do better in certain roles - that is fine - and overall 8th is a lot better in this regard.

Play the game, and be smart - I won my last game not because of the math - but because I out smarted the other player - and you will too.

Mandragola wrote:

I keep switching between the idea of triple plasma or two CIBs with ATS. I think on the whole the CIBs look better. The big problem then becomes modelling the damn things. Anyone have ideas?

I think statistically CIB are better against all targets except marines at <12" range. The sticking point is the additional cost, and that is remedied by the ATS selection over a third CIB.

As for modelling, my suggestions would be



I'm using shortened burst cannons with additional gubbins stuck on. They definitely still look like burst cannons, but without the extended barrels, they're different enough to avoid confusion. Conveniently I also don't ever run burst cannons on my suits. The Reddog minis pieces look similar to the parts that come in the commander box. I've bought their Missile Pods before (for converting the oldschool XV88s to HYMP) and they were really good quality and a good service. Obviously those bits are a fair cost though and the converted burst cannons provide a much cheaper alternative.

What're people finding to be the best loadout for crisis suit teams?

Also, between broadsides, R'Varnas, Y'Vahras, normal Riptides, and a Stormsurge, what's the best to fill out a FSE list with? It's real strange that these are all around the same points now.

Razerous wrote:

TiberiusHecktor wrote:

Razerous wrote:
Commander with 4 missile pods. Ahem.

Yeeaaaaahh, im definitely going to take one of those and a Fusion commander but any more than that feels a bit cheesy. I want some backfield blasting to sit with my missile commander when he calls kauyon

To be fair, go balls deep on cheese.

There just isn't the force multipliers available to really go nuts, with markerlights (Yes you can get BS4 to go to BS2+ re-rollable with the commander and 5 markerlights...but thats difficult/one-off!), lack of easy army buffs and especially the lack of any psychic powers including Smite, we're at a handicap by default.

I'm thinking at fielding 2 Y'vahras at 1500pts

Someone brings two Yvharas at 1500, I won't even take my stuff out of the bag. Congrats you win, anyone else want a game?

This is why they hate tau - because players did this with riptide wing. This type of playstyle is why people are happy our markers got nerfed and the riptide is useless. I did not play riptide wing or use grav on my marines in the last edition.

I barely earned a tough a win last night in a game (8 vp to 6) in a brutal close game with no cheesy units on either side. It was exceptionally satisfying.
If I want an easy win, If I want to "win" like that, I will arm wrestle my 3yr old.

Don't be that guy, don't ruin the game. Also, the fact that forgeworld can't write rules worth a @#&^%# is not an excuse.

Was there ever a consensus on whether Y'vahra could fire one or both of its Nova Charged weapons?

So I tried my Tau first time this weekend, and I have to say I am not dissapointed.

We already know commanders are nasty, that's why I took only 1 Fusion Commander. It took out one of those large Nids Monsters in 1 Turn and I dealt a few wounds more than needed.
IMHO more than 1 Commander is for tryhards that don't want their enemies to have fun aswell ;-) (the same kind of people who played 3 riptides)

Ghostkeels and Stealth suits are awesome.
The can be set up ahead, preventing first turn charges and are actually quite tough if played right.
The damage output is very good aswell.
-1 to hit is also very annoying in close combat and made me escape my opponents Hive Tyrant a few times.

CIB Crisis were ok, but not great for their points costs.
Couldn't take many wounds off of my target (another big bug) and got annihilated next turn by a Trygon+Genestealer Combo.
IMHO Plasma + Gundrones or Fusion Suits are better, depending on the mission.

The Riptide did well. (HBC, SMS, ATS and TL)
It's very tanky, fast and quite deadly.

A few markerlights here and there for the reroll 1s Bonus are all you need.
The ignore cover bonus is icing on the cake.

Overall I think we are in a good state.
The only thing that kinda annoys me is, that we have only our shooting phase to do stuff, while the enemy has psychic and melee. The jumping simply gave us something to do in the assault phase :-P
Fly is very powerfull though, nothing can lock me in CC or charge to hide in CC

Asura Varuna wrote:
Was there ever a consensus on whether Y'vahra could fire one or both of its Nova Charged weapons?

most people agree it can.

davethepak wrote:

Razerous wrote:

TiberiusHecktor wrote:

Razerous wrote:
Commander with 4 missile pods. Ahem.

Yeeaaaaahh, im definitely going to take one of those and a Fusion commander but any more than that feels a bit cheesy. I want some backfield blasting to sit with my missile commander when he calls kauyon

To be fair, go balls deep on cheese.

There just isn't the force multipliers available to really go nuts, with markerlights (Yes you can get BS4 to go to BS2+ re-rollable with the commander and 5 markerlights...but thats difficult/one-off!), lack of easy army buffs and especially the lack of any psychic powers including Smite, we're at a handicap by default.

I'm thinking at fielding 2 Y'vahras at 1500pts

Someone brings two Yvharas at 1500, I won't even take my stuff out of the bag. Congrats you win, anyone else want a game?

This is why they hate tau - because players did this with riptide wing. This type of playstyle is why people are happy our markers got nerfed and the riptide is useless. I did not play riptide wing or use grav on my marines in the last edition.

I barely earned a tough a win last night in a game (8 vp to 6) in a brutal close game with no cheesy units on either side. It was exceptionally satisfying.
If I want an easy win, If I want to "win" like that, I will arm wrestle my 3yr old.

Don't be that guy, don't ruin the game. Also, the fact that forgeworld can't write rules worth a @#&^%# is not an excuse.

Hmm I think I disagree.

The game is now inherently massively more balanced.

Imperial Knight Vs. A storm surge or a pair of riptides? It is a laughable comparison because our 'heavy hitters' are just awful.

The use of the riptide wing, with the double-tap rule, combined with Eldar Jetbike Pyskers... that was the bad points of 7ed.

Now, we need to use what we've got!

Aeri wrote:

Asura Varuna wrote:
Was there ever a consensus on whether Y'vahra could fire one or both of its Nova Charged weapons?

most people agree it can.

I've emailed FW to check. May as well get an official answer.

davethepak wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

davethepak wrote:

Droneport - loaded with four marker drones, a rail rifle pathfinder squad and a cadre fireblade. While I am almost never going to bother trying to get more than one or two markerlights (really gw?) - a single markerlight has proven its worth to me time, and time again.
The droneport gives badly needed protection to pathfinders, and the drone rules are awesome BS2+ drones. was very useful.

This is clever.

Thanks

about being clever, on the the remora's I was talking about

We often get preoccupied with math hammer and what it good at "putting out wounds" - while this is certainly useful - it is more useful when comparing things that are similar (in range, ap, etc.) and less valuable when other factors come into play.

For example, if you are saying "when an enemy unit of X Toughness and Y wounds and Z save is the only unit at 20 inches, which weapon is better".

That is a very concrete example. In a real game however, it is rarely like that.

It is more like;

The termangatns are swarming 12 inches away from my front lines, the exocrine is killing my suits from across the table, the trygon is in my face, and the broodlord out of line of sight on the other side of the table is about to take that objective after he used smite on my two firewarriors.

As good as the gun drone math is against the termagants (or maybe even the trygon) they are useless against the exocrine behind the lines (where rippers prevent deep strike - remember, the other player is supposedly clever too) and also I need to get another unit against the flyrant to contest the objective.

The missile pod or rail rifle are useful against the flyrant or the exocrine. Fusion blasters with marker support are a good way to reliably deal with the trygon, and the remora drone can contest (or take) the objective out of line of site.

You can't castle in a corner when the objectives are all over the map - a smart player will play to the mission and not throw units into your drone grinder (if you are not playing against smart players - then just about anything in this thread has less impact).

This is why in a previous thread I made comments about the remora and piranha - overall tau lack mobility and the ability to most a fast unit into position and park it there (or near in cover). Flyers (the sunshark, razorshark, barracuda, etc.) can take objectives at the end of a turn - but they have to move.

Tau dont' have jet bikes, or teleport homers on our back objectives or teleport psychic powers - so we have to look to other means when we have to maneuver very quickly. The remora is a flyer without the limits of supersonic. it can turn any angle, and get all over the map around and behind cover (I love smart missiles but their cost is a bit high this edition, and them being less on the field they can't take or contest objectives either) and even take or contest objectives. no, the remora is not incredibly durable - but ironically, I have found since they only have burst cannons they are usually not considered a bit threat, and thus lesser on your opponents target priority.

Even better, the piranha has a decent speed (not great) but decent - and it can camp an objective and it takes more than a token effort to remove it (a dedicated effort can remove even a stormsurge). Even better, the drones can leave the piranha and now you have THREE models next to the objective - (taking objectives in 8th has to do with model count).

Finally - people keep asking "what is the best list?" - honestly, we DON"T want that.
We want a bunch of lists that are viable in all armies so we are not facing the same thing again and again. yes, some units will do better in certain roles - that is fine - and overall 8th is a lot better in this regard.

Play the game, and be smart - I won my last game not because of the math - but because I out smarted the other player - and you will too.

Bit miffed as I'd been talking about putting pathfinders in tidewall things like one page earlier, but glad people like the idea. I think there's a case for sticking two pathfinder squads in a wall with attached round thingy, as you can then put both of them down as one drop. I'd just add more pathfinders instead of the shenanigans to get a fireblade and drones with 2+ to hit. The drones are too vulnerable so you're better off just adding dudes to the squads. They can then either light stuff up or shoot it with their carbines. Basically 4 marker drones and a fireblade cost 85 points to get about the same number of markerlight hits that 40 points worth of pathfinders would give you - from safely inside their tidewall thingy.

Having stuff that can zoom around and grab objectives is key to winning 40k, especially in Maelstrom missions. Ideally, these things would also help us to win games by killing things.

We've got a few good options not mentioned here. Personally I think the Coldstar Commander is a good option. Give him 2 options from shield generator, ATS and Target Lock and he can zoom around 50" a turn, shooting things up. Enemy can only kill him if he's the nearest thing.

Remoras are an option too. They are shootier than the commander, but feel overpriced. That might not be the case in reality, given how good they are at grabbing objectives. They'd be pretty hard for some armies to get rid of. Annoying that their rules are missing anything about what happens if they advance. Most other flyers go an extra 20" or so.

The good thing about remoras is their 36" range. They can grab objectives and still shoot at things.

This is what I love about the new edition - no one single list or unit (well, except for yhvara wing....).

If you like the pathfinders as markers in your drone port, go for it!

you may be right regarding points of drones vs. pathfinders.

My personal preference is to use the pathfinders for their railrifles (or ion, use to your own taste) as I find the 4+ marker lights not reliable.

Yes, in numbers the "average" might be reliable - for for any one single shooting event, I personally like the reliability of the 2+ from the fireblade and the marker drones. Also, you are correct that the enemy could shoot at the disembarked drones - I find if I have distracted them with other units this is rarely the case - however an intelligent and disciplined player would certainly give 2+ markers a high priority.

Mandragola wrote:

My (theoretical) 9-man crisis team does indeed cost a hell of a lot of points - though less than a unit of 3 broadsides. This is partly deliberate, to reduce the number of drops you have, and partly to spread buffs around a bit. A velocity tracker looks like a waste of a slot in a unit of 3, but less so in a unit of 9. A drone controller that buffs 18 gun drones is pretty efficient. Not sure it's actually good, but it's kind of interesting. Charging either the 18 drones or the 9 suits will be unattractive ,given the overwatch you'll face and the few actual hits they might do back in melee. I might even run shadowsun and have her command link drone make the unit reroll 1s - or I could just mix in a few marker drones.

I keep switching between the idea of triple plasma or two CIBs with ATS. I think on the whole the CIBs look better. The big problem then becomes modelling the damn things. Anyone have ideas?

Well, I'd say mix and match rather than do all 9 with the same weapons. Since you need 9 Crisis Suits to pull this off, you'll have 9 CIB, possibly one more from the Commander model you'll likely have. So you can make 5 CIB + ATS, and 3 triple Plasma, and put something else on the last suit (triple fusion?).

Point being, if you're quibbling on what is the best loadout, then either one is probably decent, even if it's not the best. I'm looking at the same dilemma given I haven't assembled any of my 6 Crisis Suits yet, but I'll probably do 3 CIS+ATS first, then once I get a 3rd get started I'll do some triple plasma and some triple flamers, though I may have enough old bits around to do the triple plasmas now.

 John Prins wrote:
I haven't assembled any of my 6 Crisis Suits yet, but I'll probably do 3 CIS+ATS first, then once I get a 3rd get started I'll do some triple plasma and some triple flamers, though I may have enough old bits around to do the triple plasmas now.

MAGNETS

If you've not built them yet, there's no excuse not to magnetise. Don't tie yourself into one loadout that could be made completely trash in the upcoming codex. Think of all those poor people who had heaps of deathrain suits, or worse still, those with really old suit models from before you could double down on a single weapon type. My models are still scarred from pulling apart old Fireknife configurations.

Fireknives...the only thing worse than not being able to take multiples of the same weapon on suits was that god-awful loadout-specific nomenclature. ATT should be ashamed they ever got that ball rolling. Shame!

As for taking multiple Y'Vahras, I'm not convinced that's such a terrible thing. I agree that people hated Tau last edition or the ease with which we could spam powerful units, but let's not extrapolate that to multiple powerful units=bad. Y'Vahras pack a huge punch, but they also cost 400 freaking points. They are nowhere near as durable as anything comparably costed and have to be up close in harm's way to do their dirty work. Drones mitigate their fragility some - potentially a lot if you get crafty - but they're still flimsy for the price.

Shame?
We took quite some pride in it.


Not that any of it is relevant any more with the crisis gun count inflation.
9th edition-4 gun crisis, 6 gun commanders!

 John Prins wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

My (theoretical) 9-man crisis team does indeed cost a hell of a lot of points - though less than a unit of 3 broadsides. This is partly deliberate, to reduce the number of drops you have, and partly to spread buffs around a bit. A velocity tracker looks like a waste of a slot in a unit of 3, but less so in a unit of 9. A drone controller that buffs 18 gun drones is pretty efficient. Not sure it's actually good, but it's kind of interesting. Charging either the 18 drones or the 9 suits will be unattractive ,given the overwatch you'll face and the few actual hits they might do back in melee. I might even run shadowsun and have her command link drone make the unit reroll 1s - or I could just mix in a few marker drones.

I keep switching between the idea of triple plasma or two CIBs with ATS. I think on the whole the CIBs look better. The big problem then becomes modelling the damn things. Anyone have ideas?

Well, I'd say mix and match rather than do all 9 with the same weapons. Since you need 9 Crisis Suits to pull this off, you'll have 9 CIB, possibly one more from the Commander model you'll likely have. So you can make 5 CIB + ATS, and 3 triple Plasma, and put something else on the last suit (triple fusion?).

Point being, if you're quibbling on what is the best loadout, then either one is probably decent, even if it's not the best. I'm looking at the same dilemma given I haven't assembled any of my 6 Crisis Suits yet, but I'll probably do 3 CIS+ATS first, then once I get a 3rd get started I'll do some triple plasma and some triple flamers, though I may have enough old bits around to do the triple plasmas now.

Sadly the crisis team kit comes with 0 CIBs. You get one per commander. I probably don't need 12 commanders, so outfitting 6 guys with dual CIB is a problem.

I think I might be better off trying to make my suits hold something that looks like a cyclic ion raker in both hands, like broadsides do. If it had three barrels I might be able to claim it was two or three CIBs as the mood took me. It would be a job to convert, but those railsides do look awesome. One day I keep meaning to figure out how to do 3d printing, so maybe this would provide the required impetus. Don't hold your breath.

I'm not really sure whether it's better to go with 2 CIBs and ATS or just go all in with 3 CIBs. I think the latter option looks more and more attractive, but I might have changed my mind again tomorrow. Maybe you mix triple plasma, triple CIB and double fusion guys. Maybe crisis suits are still rubbish.

No need to buy 8 commanders, buy 3 Barracudas and you have 6 Cibs

Red Dog Minis makes a great CIB.

davethepak wrote:
This is what I love about the new edition - no one single list or unit (well, except for yhvara wing....).

If you like the pathfinders as markers in your drone port, go for it!

you may be right regarding points of drones vs. pathfinders.

My personal preference is to use the pathfinders for their railrifles (or ion, use to your own taste) as I find the 4+ marker lights not reliable.

Yes, in numbers the "average" might be reliable - for for any one single shooting event, I personally like the reliability of the 2+ from the fireblade and the marker drones. Also, you are correct that the enemy could shoot at the disembarked drones - I find if I have distracted them with other units this is rarely the case - however an intelligent and disciplined player would certainly give 2+ markers a high priority.

Shoot one target with Fireblade's or Darkstrider's markerlight on 2+ and then all of your Pathfinder can reroll 1's on their own markerlight shot. I think you might even be able to shoot your Pathfinder's markerlights one by one and use the reroll for the rest as soon as one hits.

all weapons get fired at the same time, except if you splitfire.
so no

Although there is nothing written that would prohibit ML benefiting from other ML and it is seemingly possible to roll each individual ML in a unit, in order for the subsequent ML to benefit from previously successful ML. This is not something I would personally do. It stinks of poor sportsmanship and looking to exploit the rules.

Well, still works by shooting the Fireblade and/or Darkstrider first, then the Pathfinder team.

Still... using ML to benefit other ML strikes me as dodgy.