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Hi all,

I've recently started a Tau army and am in love with the battlesuits, so I'm having a very strong crisis suit theme - hence the Farsight Enclave!

Here's my first list @ 2k:
HQ:
Farsight

Bodyguard Team
2 x crisis suits - 2 x FB w/ Target lock
3 x crisis suits - 2 X PR w/ Target lock
2 x shield drone

Elite:
Riptide - ion, EWO, SMS, Stim injector, Earth caste pilot array
Riptide - ion, EWO, SMS, Stim injector

Troops:
[Tank busters] - 3 x crisis suits - 2 x FB w/ Target lock
[Horde control] - 3 x crisis suits - TL burst cannon + flamer
[Heavy infantry] - 3 x crisis suits - 2 x PR

Fast Attack:
5 x Pathfinders
5 x Pathfinders

Heavy Support;
2 x Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, Velocity trackers
4 x missile drones

2 x Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, Velocity trackers
4 x missile drones

Any feedback would be appreciated! I haven't played either with or against Tau before so not 100% sure what will work well yet!

Also, I'm keen to use stealth suits just because I love the models - if someone can suggest what would be best to remove from this list and replace with stealth suits that would be ideal!

Thanks

I'm assuming this is for friendly play?

Even if that's the case, you have to clean a few things up:

You never need all suits in a team to have target locks because one of them will always be "the unit" and hence can shoot at what it wants to for free.

Stims are ok; they're a luxury. Generally speaking, it's a "errggh, I've got 35ish points to burn and I don't know what to so with them!" type thing. Definitely not an auto include and most definitely unnecessary on the earth casted one because you'll rarely fail to nova charge.

Speaking of ECPA, it really belongs on a HBC if you're not bringing O'Vesa.

Velocity Trackers are wayyyy too expensive on broadsides. You're finding your AA in the wrong place. The earth casted HBC would be one good place; and a skyray or two is always welcome because not only do they come with VT, but after you blow their missiles they're a low target priority Markerlight platform. And when you aren't facing fliers, they make an excellent first blood gambit because they can crack light armor from very far away. Always grab the 1-point blacksun filter for this purpose if you can.

The Shrike made some very good points.

Remember, even farsight has a target lock, so not everybody needs the lock in his squad.

Consider making the ECPA riptide have the HBC, maybe even a velocity tracker for serious AA. You could even scrap it, just for a good dakka tide. HBC and EPCA go very well together.

I am not sure you need target locks on your fusion team. 6 meltas is overkill, but splitting is risky, and unless your up against parking lots, the situation will be uncommon. You can use mass 6-7 to hunt down light armor, saving your fusion for the heavy armor, or the absolute must die tanks.

I don't like twin linking suit guns, when you could just have 2. Flamers are meh, as they require getting close. If you need to strip cover, use markerlights. Normally, fire warriors provide plenty of S5, but since your farsight the dual burst makes sense. 3 suits with 2 burst cannons each are fairly cheap and put out 24 S5 shots on a mobile platform. Stick 2 markerlights on em and ignore cover for a similar, but more powerful effect than the flamer. If you want to be extra dakka, stock up on gun drones for the unit for max shooting.

The pathfinders are T3 5+ armor in an army of T4 3+ saves, so they are easy target priority. Anybody who knows the power of markerlights will be sure to blast these off the table. May be better to invest in a skyray and/or marker drones. If you have access to forge world, tetras are pretty fantastic marker mules.

Swap your velocity trackers on the sides for EWO. With twin linking, broadsides do decent AA even snap shooting. The EWO gives you a chance to shoot before the flier causes problems. More points towards a skyray.

Thanks for the tips guys!

I should probably put some of the units into a bit of context.

Firstly, I should have mentioned I'm not really a fan of using vehicles - I really want a suit based list.

I also invested a lot into fusion because my usual oppponent plays guard with some nasty super heavy tanks / manticores that need to die!

I can definitely see your point about the riptides and broadsides not needing velocity trackers, although I wanted to have a dedicated unit to AA.

I'll also scrap the flamers and some of the target locks to cut down on points - hopefully it'll give me enough points left over for some stealth suits!

Also, I thought the pathfinders might be a cheaper option of marker lights than running marker drones, although the relentless is pretty handy... How would you suggest I get some decent marker light coverage other than pathfinders / skyray?


Thanks!!!

Stealth suits are really not that good....but considering you want only suits, they do provide more burst cannons for an army otherwise lacking S5 spam most tau lists have. They can also outflank with fusion guns to help hunt armor. Last but not least, the team leader can buy a markerlight and target lock for close to nothing, and due to the multi tracker you can still shoot your burst cannon and markerlight. A team of three brings a single markerlight for much more than the cost of 5 pathfinders, but more dakka.

You could run marker drones with your suits so the suits gain ablative wounds. With target locks, you can mark up a target while the unit shoots something else, but as they are not networked you won't gain from them. Each option has pros and cons, just depends on what you want/how bad you want stealthsuits. Not having any markerlights is shooting yourself in the foot.

When I played a farsight enclaves list, I gave three missile suits 6 marker drones and target lock. One of the suits only had one misse to fit a drone controller though. They work well together because of their 36" range.

Thanks again for the feedback. I've re-written the list taking the comments into consideration:

HQ
Farsight

Bodyguards
2 x Crisis suits FB x 2 w/ target lock
1 x Crisis suits PR x 2

Elite:
Riptide - HBC, ECPA, EWO, VT, SMS
Riptide - HBC, EWO, VT, SMS

Troops:
3 x crisis suit - 2 x BC, 1 w/ drone controller
5 x gun drones

3 x crisis suit - 2 x PR w/ ATS

3 x crisis suit - 2 x FB, 2 w/ target lock

3 x crisis suit - 2 x MP (1 w/ 1x MP + drone controller), 2 w/ target lock
5 x Marker drones

Fast Attack:
4 x marker drone

Heavy Support:
2 x Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, EWO
4 x Missile drones

2 x Broadsides - HYMP, SMS, EWO
4 x Missile drones

Any better? I still think my lack of marker lights is a problem, although I can't really figure a neat way of getting them without a Skyray - and I really don't want one! If I'm desperate I can always pop in another unit of marker drones I guess..

If you've dropped Farsight's bodyguard team down to three, you might as well just make them a troop choice. That way you have a scoring unit on their side of the board.

I agree with trading the bodyguard for scoring crisis; you can always attach Farsight. All you effectively lose is sworn protector but you make up for that in 30 points and scoring.

Also; I think you can afford to have one IA the and I think you need it for its AP2. Broadsides even without VT are deadly to air being TL with so many shots and interceptor.

You can shave some missile drones. They're very good; but that's where you find the points for more marker support if you want it.