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Hi all,
This is a bit long.

I tried my best to list everything out so I don't get many questions asking about certain things.
Please let me know if this works:

For Future Readers: (This is 9th Edition) (Before any FAQ) Date: 10/03/2022

Okay so I am about to play a 1000pts Incursion tournament and I was wondering what would be the best way to keep a Crisis suit team alive if they get shot with heaps of heavy or even light shots on first turn.
I looked up that people were playing small games of Farsight Enclaves and replacing their second commanders with an Ethereal by classing their Sept as an Allied World.
In this list we will not benefit from Farsight Enclaves Statagems, Warlord Traits and we cannot get Farsight. But in a small game I don't want any of those abilities. I want to shoot everything on turn 1 and hit the enemy hard.
Also this Tau Sink will also work if the Enemy gets Turn 1. We will just miss out on some Ethereal Benefits.

If you want to skip all this fluff, please move to Part B which is the sink.

The following will include everything that is needed to make this work. I include all of this for my shooting question at the end of this.
I wanted to include everything here just in-case someone had questions about what I am planning here.

To make this work we will need the following:
- 1 Commander Enforcer or Crisis for those Reroll 1s to hit
- 1 Ethereal Give him the staff to make 2 Invocations a turn
- Some sort of markerlight if we are out of range
- A 5 Man Squad of Crisis suits with one model that has the following on them
- - 1 Model has Iridium Amour, Stim Injectors, Shield Generator, Counter Fire Defence and Two Cheap weapons
- The rest of the army is still in question. I am wondering if I should go all Crisis or add some troops in there.

Anyway, I am not here about lists, I am here about this combo I discovered.

The combo here involves the following: (I have also listed out every ability which includes about 3 abilities that give you re-roll wounds - I understand that we cannot get rerolls on rerolls, but it gives us some choices and, if we have more squads on the table we can benift them too)
Do the following on your 1st Turn. (If you do not get one. Then Skip to Part B)

[Part A]
My Turn 1 (I will list everything here that is not a stratagem. As those can be situational. Please let me know what Stratagems would work best here)
- Move up Crisis Squad Hopefully within 12 or 18 to get heaps of shots in (This is practically the squad you want the enemy to be shooting at - So SCARE THEM).
- Reroll 1s to hit (Commander - Aura)
- Add Zephyr's Grace for -1 to hit (Ethereal - Invocation)
- Add Sense of Stone for +5 Feel No Pain (Ethereal - Invocation) - We do not need to add this on the squad while we have the unit with the stim injector.
- Give 1 Squad Reroll wounds if within 12" of Enemy (Ethereal - Warlord Trait)
- Get Within 18" for Reroll 1s for wound (Montka - Turn 1)
- 1 Free Wound Reroll Per Unit (Farsight - Sept Tenet)
- Get Within 18" for -1AP (Montka - Turn 1)
- Get Within 12" for Free Markerlight (Farsight - Sept Tenet)
- - If we cannot get within 12" (Which is highly unlikely unless the enemy really holds back. We can use a makerlight drone)

So Without Using Stratagems we now have heaps of shooting. And a -1 to hit the unit. But that is if we get Turn 1.
HOWEVER. The whole point of the sink involves the next step which is Part B.
My hope is (after playing a few games) is that the squad lives and only the drones and the one Sink Model will die.
Of course, I am assuming that the enemy can see me on Turn 1. And that I may or may not be getting a cover save.

[Part B]
So say if we didn't get Turn 1. (But these abilities are great to have on standby so we can constantly give our squad/s benefits for the rest of the game.)
- We will not be getting the +5 Feel No Pain Sense of Stone from the Ethereal
- Or the -1 to hit from Zephyr's Grace from the Ethereal

But these can be given back to the squad in the form of the following
- +4 Feel No Pain from Stim Injectors on one suit
- -1 to hit from Dense Cover (I think that The Neuroweb System Jammer is too much CP)

The hope is that the enemy sees this one squad as a big threat, moves in and puts everything into it, while we hide the rest of the army.

So What do we get here on the Enemy's shooting phase.
Well this also involves a few Stratagems and I will list everything we need to do in order:
- Let the Drones Die First (Of course with 3 drones we can get a few free wounds taken out. And the enemy would be keen to rip them away from us. They will fire light arms before strong weapons if they are experienced enough and will be hoping for shots to go through onto the suits. However this is when the Sink Starts)
- Take all the following wounds onto the model with Stim Injectors and Iridium Amour
- Activate Counter Fire Defense System for those big damage wounds that come through. (Q3 Is related to this)
- Activate Stim Injectors when when we take a wound

And well that's the Sink.
The hopes here is that the combo of the following benefits will really Sink a lot of shots in:
- -1 To Hit
- Drones to soak up wounds
- +1 to saves (Being in cover)
- +2 Iridium Amour
- +4 Invulnerable Save
- +4 Feel No Pain
- Converting Damage to 1 wound

Again, the goal here is to have only the drones and the one model die on the first turn. If the enemy doesn't Sink so many shots into this squad we will be in luck.
But once a few games go into this tournament, people will understand what I am doing and try there best to take this squad out on turn 1.

The good thing about this Combo is that the following can carry over to the close combat phase to really annoy the enemy.
- +2 Iridium Amour
- +4 Invulnerable Save
- +4 Feel No Pain

SO. No further-a-do (how do you spell that lol).
What do you think of this.
Do you think this is OP?
Do you think this will annoy a lot of players?

Q1: Would this be a viable matchup?
Q2: What Stratagems would be good to boost this shooting? What Weapons should we take?
Q3: When do we activate Counter Fire Defense System
Q4: Do we go for a full crisis list in a 1000pts tournament or fill the rest up with troops.
Q5: Should we choose a different Sept?

(Extra Info)

The only problem with this is that over half of my army is going into this squad.
The Enforcer I have that is combo-ed out to have the Onaget Gauntlet and Thermo Projectors. He is there with his Reroll hits and wounds warlord trait to benift himself.
And the Ethereal is giving out all these buffs too.
I made a 5 man unit that totals to 316pts and I am unsure if I should shrink this squad down or keep it big.
But yes. Please let me know about your thoughts on all of this.

Hopefully I made it easy to read.

Kind regards,
Scalie B.

I don't have all the answers and haven't 100% made it through this post, but I am in a similar situation with farsight allied worlds, ethereals, etc.

Allied world isn't just for small games, its pretty much the better option at any point size. Ethereals are so good you want them, period. Not just for the buffs but also for the action + shooting which really helps with stuff like Retrieve Nachmund Data, so you can use your crisis units (for example) to do actions without loss.

Secondly you need to reread the allied world section. Your not losing the warlord trait or the strat. Your only losing the Relic. (and 2 commanders, and farsight)

Thirdly, your playing Tau, its currently broken. simple as that. Yes it will be OP, your playing Tau. Put down a half way decent crisis unit and it will be OP, let alone if you put this much thought into it. Accept if it your going to field Tau, your playing a broken army, people will not like playing against it. Welcome to broken balance. This is why its bad for everyone if the game is this imbalanced.

1)is it viable? Yes, ofc it is.

2)at low points and therefor low CP? You probably don't even need the strats to boost shooting, save them for defensive stuff and there are not a lot of boosts to begin with. Drop Zone clear(I will get back to that later) if your hitting something really big (unlikely in 1k points) and Coordinated engagement needs 2 units, is only 1 extra AP and you can't split weapons so I wouldn't use it.

Weapons, if your running a single crisis unit and do not want to have friends, Double Airburst and plasma. If your running a second crisis unit have one with double Airburst, flamer the other with double plasma + cyclic.

Quantity if a form of quality all on its own and 5 suits putting out 10d6 no-lost shots with -2ap (you should be within 18" turn 1) just wreck. The plasma is there for tough stuff.

3) its before saves and with a shield gen its even a 50/50 chance it does nothing. I don't like it myself but it you want to use it then its for the first big multidamage hit that doesn't overkill.

4) again if you don't want friends you can fit a crisis commander, ethereal, 5 crisis, 3 bodyguards, 3 stealthsuits, 2x10 kroot, some kroot hounds and a smattering of drones in 1000 points.

5) no, farsight allied world is the best sept in the book.

I would not go with the Enforcer, you want your first commander to be the standard Crisis for fallback and shoot and ignore modifiers. For a second one you can pick between Enforcer or Coldstar. You don't need obsec because nothing should be alive after your shooting phase and the -1D is great but Tactical Acumen is irreplacable.
And you really don't need to go with both melee weapons. take the prototype flamer and save the relic slot for the plate, 1+ save and 5+++ so your more likely to be alive to actually swing

And finally the thought that went through my head while I was reading the entire thing. "Have you considered not getting shot at instead?".

Take a stealthsuit team, if you play a board or army where you can't hide your crisis unit. Simply put it in deepstrike. Put the stealthsuits somewhere safe and bring the unit down T1 with teleport homer (or T2 if things go bad and the stealths die) and you can shoot whatever is dangerous and not have to worry.
Plus you get to use Drop Zone Clear that way to really make sure whatever is on the table is gone.