Topic: Battlesuits: What load out and why?

[RapierSix2587]

Hello everyone,

As most of you know I am new to the Tau ranks and the Warhammer universe as a whole, and I just wanted to find out what people have found as effective loud outs for their Battlesuits, and what they build them to tackle, in my limited experience I have found the "Helios" and "Fire-Knive" as the most effect with my Battle plan, the "Helios" configurations going after the main "Big Bad Wolf" unit, and the "Fire-Knives" chasing down IC's, TROOP choices and transports, and in these roles they have succeed in over 7 games, I am yet to loose a whole squad, and the ones I have lost are to concentrated Lascannons and Battle Cannon fire, so they are proving too be incredibly tough, and well worth the points fro the whole unit, under 170 pts, which I think is great, but anyways, let me know what you think is the best configuration and why, the reason for this is I wanna know what people use and how effective each are, so I can modify my play style to fit them.

Also, what equipment do you give them? What support items, all of that stuff, looking forward to hearing from you all.

[Wyddr]

Well, the fireknives are an okay choice, but no longer optimal in the modern Tau codex for my money. I've never liked Helios suits.

Here's the thing: Back in the old days, dating back to the Tau's inception, you *had* to take three hardpoints on a suit. One of those hardpoints was a multitracker and the other two could either be a twin-linked weapon or two separate weapons. The only way to get multiple shots out of a Crisis Suit was to mix weapons. That's where 'Fireknife', 'Helios', 'Bladestorm', and the rest of them came from.

Fast forward to 6th Edition. No more three system minimum, no more multitracker taking up a slot, and now you can take two of the same weapon. What does this mean?

Stop mixing weapons!

Crisis Suits work best, to my mind, as specialists. They are designed for eliminating specific threats. Few of the weapons in the Tau arsenal compliment each other well enough to bother mixing.

Fireknives? Well, if you're taking them to take out Heavy Infantry, you may as well take double plasma guns. They can *still* double against light vehicles (deepstrike to hit rear armor, etc.) OR, take one fusion blaster in the team on that third slot to give yourself anti-vehicle efficiency.

If you're hunting vehicles, take double missile pod or double fusion blaster. If you aim to kill infantry (though this isn't really a Crisis suit's job), take double burst cannons.

To go economy-style, twin-link the weapons instead, but if you can scare up the points, double-up. Of note, twin-linked Missile Pods can be very handy against flyers, especially if you can get a single markerlight hit on the flyer.

As for that third slot, I recommend Flamers. Flamers + Supporting Fire = fabulous overwatch support unit. Keep your suits somewhere near other units that might be charged and watch the Wall of Death pay off. 

[Shas'Oink]

I run a specialist anti-ork crisis team set up on two of the core principles that Wyddr talks about above.

xv8 - 2x burst cannons, 1x flamer
xv8 - 2x burst cannons, 1x flamer
xv8 - 1x burst cannon, 2x flamer

I would never normally have considered ever bothering with burst cannons on crisis suits, but I found that my army needed mobile guns on the ground to support the plethora of fire warriors as they manouvred in their devilfishes. The other point was that the unit was a replacement for a stealth suit unit, which given the aggressiveness of my particular Ork opponent would not have been allowed to perform to my personal preference.

Instead they can dish out a maximum 20 burst shots and then root out difficult to budge orks hiding in cover. The mass of flamers actually means that the unit is a scary prospect to try to assault... and thats even before supporting fire is thrown into the mix from the other units!

[RapierSix2587]

But my Helios suits so far are the most effective thing in my Cadre.. in 7 games they have claimed 2 Land Raiders, 3 Terminator Squads, Guilamen (the Ultramarine guy), Gazgul (not sure of spelling) and more then 2 Tactical Squads, and when it comes to Chaos, they have downed a Demon prince, and killed it, and gone toe to toe with abandon and come out on top, and the Fire-knives always hunt transports, and focus then on the people inside, they basically hang around a Fire Warrior team and provide it with heavy weapons support for all occasions, where as the Helios's are built to be aggressive, they have both done a lot more then any same weapon combo's I tried..

Though I am working on a Burst Cannon/Flamers squad with the Forge World bodes with the SMS on the back, and they are my Cover Killers.. each squad is primed for something

[Wyddr]

If you like them, then keep them. All I'm saying is the following:

Sunforge (twin Fusion) are better at bagging Land Raiders
Burning Eye (Twin Plasma) are better at bagging Terminators and everything else you named, too.

Try taking a unit with five plasma rifles and a fusion blaster and see how you like it. It might not bag quite as many land raiders (unless you use markerlights), but it will be even deadlier against everything else.

I often run the following:
Suit w/Twin-linked Plasma, Fusion Blaster
Suit w/Plasma Rifle, Twin-linked Plasma
Suit w/Plasma Rifle, Twin-linked Plasma
1 Shield Drone

They are my assassin unit. I deepstrike them, dropping in near a unit that must be plasma-d to death. This unit is 15-ish points more expensive than a team of Helios (not counting the shield drone, which is largely optional) but it kicks out 6 Twin-linked Plasma Shots, 4 Regular Plasma Shots, and a Fusion shot. This is compared to 6 plasma and 3 fusion the Helios have, none of which is twinlinked. The output on this unit is substantially higher against Terminators, special characters, MEQs, and just about everything else except Land Raiders, and I've got Railguns and Fusion Piranha for that.

My problem with Helios suits is that they could be great at one job rather than pretty good at two (and one of those--the Land Raider thing--can be filled by other units in the codex). The only units in our codex that can pack in the plasma are XV8s and Riptides, whereas fusion blasters can be had in a couple different places. It seems a shame to me to waste slots on weapons that can just as easily be stuck elsewhere (Stealths, Piranhas, etc.).

That said, if you *do* run into lots of Land Raiders, the Helios may have some significant utility for you, sure. I think Longstrike in a Hammerhead would be a simpler solution (with a wider range of applicable targets), but that's just me. 

[Halollet]

I run my suits with TL MP/MP.  I find, the way I play at least, that an excessive amount of pulse shots will kill anything it can hurt.  Anything they can't hurt, I use missiles!

I agree with Wyddr that specialized suits are the best.  Take a TL weapon + the same weapon that's the best at what you need dead. 

TLFB/FB is great for Landraiders and can easily wound MCs and out right kill other Nid synapse should you run across them.  Wraightknights are also wounded on a 4+ so that's a bonus!

Find out what you have trouble with with the rest of your army and then spec your suits to eliminate that problem.  I find that mindset works best for me!