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1k Tau

HQ:
Cadre Firelade 60pts

Elites:
XV8 Crisis Battlesuit x2 155pts
Twin Linked Missle Pod
Plasma Rifle
Shield Drones x3
One with target lock

Stealth Team

Troops:
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts

Fast Attack:
Pathfinders x7 133pts
3 Ion Rifles
Blacksun filter

Heavy Support:
Hammerhead Gunship 145pts
SMS
Disruption Pod

Broadside x2 183pts
Shield Drones x4
1 Broadside with High-yield Missle Pod and Target Lock

1000pts

Tips and suggestions would be helpful please. Army list update is a few posts down.

Drop 3 FW from one squad and dedicate that to 1 to controlling your backfield objective, add the 3 to a group of 9 and out your Fireblade in it to maximize his LD and Volley Fire.

I suggest giving all 3 Broadsides HYMP as it's a much better weapon than the alternative. Give your hammerhead submunition, it's even more useful than the solid shot I find. Reading it over I feel you already have, 145 points should include submunition.

I can't suggest Ion Rifles on the pathfinders, while cool they aren't the kind of blast templates we want. They fire as BS 3 and force the rest of the squad to shoot at the same, hopefully dead, target.

Is the stealth team naked at 90 points? What role is it filling in your army? You already have tons of 30'' strng 5 ap 5 firepower, why supplement the army with more? Grab another Crisis suit with those points.

For the crisis suit's I would suggest taking either plasma/TL plasma or MP/TL MP just to add consistency to the squads shooting phase. Give them a role, volume of shots/vehicle hunting capabilities or 24'' range TEQ killing. I suggest MP.

My 2 cents.

Temiragdas wrote:
1k Tau

HQ:
Cadre Firelade 60pts

Elites:
XV8 Crisis Battlesuit x2 155pts
Twin Linked Missle Pod
Plasma Rifle
Shield Drones x3
One with target lock

Stealth Team

Troops:
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts

Fast Attack:
Pathfinders x7 133pts
3 Ion Rifles
Blacksun filter

Heavy Support:
Hammerhead Gunship 145pts
SMS
Disruption Pod

Broadside x2 183pts
Shield Drones x4
1 Broadside with High-yield Missle Pod and Target Lock

1000pts

Tips and suggestions would be helpful please.

Cadre Fireblade is nice, but he's only going to effect one squad. Perhaps you should throw in an Ethereal instead for his invocation buffs as well as his LD rolls. IIRC, he has a 12' "use my LD for your rolls" rule.

For your crisis squad, you can probably do without the target lock. I would imagine that you'll find yourself firing at the same target most of the time at this point level. The loadout on the crisis squad seems to be split a bit. It wants to go after light armor, and also kill MEQ. MP are not the best against MEQ, as they'll still get their armor saves. Why not specialize the group to go after either light armor or MEQ? You could also drop the SSuits and make another crisis squad to focus on whatever else you're missing. Unless of course you had a plan for the SSuits.

3x shield drones might be too much. The loadout you gave them should keep them far enough from the enemy for them to return fire, and JSJ should mostly keep you safe.

I have to agree with the above poster. Pathfinders have a weird set of weapons. The ion rifles and rail rifles are nice, but they come at a price of no marker lights, as well as having to also shoot at the same target. With that said, why not split up your pathfinder squad? This way you can choose to either have two groups of Marker lights going off, OR you can make a group of marker light only guys, and one with special weapons.

You can never go wrong with a HH, and it will be your only reliable AV14 counter. Be careful with that. They pop easily and sometimes need a little marker help. You should probably put the submun. on it too. You can fit it easily by dropping a target lock on one of your suit configs.

Your Bsides will probably be used for anti-air options. You don't have to have VT to make them good at it either. 4 missiles that are TL isn't amazing, but it's decent against a flier. You might have a little bit of a drone overkill on the Bsides though. They already have a 2+ armor save, and I don't think many hard hitting weapons will be able to hit them early on. You will also have your HH taking most of the heavy weapons firing at first. Also also, the Bsides will most likely have a cover save of around +4 anyway. The drones might be a little too much. 1 or 2 would probably be best.

i haven't used it yet, but i have a feeling that railside with 'vre and advanced targeting would work as an amazing sniper, especially against T4 HQs, or high toughness one wound targets, (like plague marines with plamsa guns for on example)

I would get rid of the Ion rifles, shas'ui, and black sun filters on the Pathfinders.
For 133pts you can bring 2 units of 6 pathinders.
Pathfinders markerlights are sooooooo useful and needed in a tau army. I think this would serve you better than one juiced unit.

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
i haven't used it yet, but i have a feeling that railside with 'vre and advanced targeting would work as an amazing sniper, especially against T4 HQs, or high toughness one wound targets, (like plague marines with plamsa guns for on example)

A little anger there I see

To the OP twin-linked heavy missile pods are very good when it comes to weight of firepower believe me. Most armies their best anti air is str 7 ap 4 so really you are not losing anything by taking heavy missile pods for anti air. Also just one hit with a marker light one a flyer just improved the broadsides hitting ability. Also in 6th rate of fire power means more than high strength and good ap. With heavy missile pods you are able to counter more threats than just one shot rail guns and you pair the heavy missile pods with SMS and you have a heavy hitter that infantry, light vehicles, and flyers will hate.

1k Tau

HQ:
Ethereal 50pts

Elites:
XV8 Crisis Battlesuit x2 136pts
Missile Pod
Twin Linked Missile Pod
Shield Drones x1

XV8 Crisis Battlesuit x2 136pts
Plasma Rifle
Twin Linked Plasma Rifle
Shield Drones x1

Troops:
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts
9 Fire Warriors 81 pts

Fast Attack:
Pathfinders x6 66pts
Pathfinders x6 66pts

Heavy Support:
Hammerhead Gunship 150pts
SMS
submunitions
Disruption Pod

Broadside x2 154pts
Shield Drones x2
High-yield Missle Pods

1001pts

Updated the list, over by a point at the moment, and the stealth suits where not meant to be in the original list just for forgot to delete them. Any further suggestion would be most welcomed.

Not bad, but here is what i would do on the battle suits have twin linked missile pods and a plasma rifle and that would be for both units. the reason is it will give you eilte killing power as well as good str shots on vehicles and those missile pods are good at killing elites through wieght of fire power. i would drop the shield drone in the units right now you don't have enough of them and at this point level not really needed your math on the hammerhead is wrong should be 145pts. now on the disruption pods i don't like using them to me they are a waste of points but that is me do what you like. Though do grap blacksun filters they are next to nothing and with night fighting as big as it is they are well worth it. you could also drop a pathfinder from your units i only ever use two units of five at 1850pts. ok one last thing from me here think about getting some devilfish transports. now i know that they are expensive but they get your troops to objectives fast they give you a unit of gun drones and are skimmers. at this point level you could get by with only two units of firewarriors use the points from the third unit of firewarriors to get one and hopeful you have enough freed up points to get the other just don't weaken your army to get the second one though you can also drop the shield drones on the broadsides to help get the other devilfish if you wish to use them. hope this helps. did this on my phone so wording is probably not the best. ah one more thing don't forget the tau sarge leadership is important you only need one though cause you have the ethereal