Army List Redux

SO... My adventures in Warhammer 40k Army List building have left me with an illegal and weak Tau Empire army so far. Thankfully, a re-read of the Codex and some much appreciated advice by Jacob from Advanced Tau Tactica have given me a bit more stable list to work with. Here's the updated list:


1850 Pt, Semi-Mechanized Tau
1. HQ
o Crisis Commander Shas’o (O’Suam) – O’Suam is my character shas’o that I wrote up. He’s armed with twin-linked Plasma Rifles and a flamer, and supplemented with a Multi-Tracker, Shield Drone and Gun Drone. I’ll post up his back story later 

2. Elites
o Crisis Suits - My Elites section is filled out with two units of 3 Crisis Suits each. Both units are equipped with Plasma Rifles, Flamers, and Targeting Arrays. Both units have team leaders with Hard-wired Drone Controllers and Shield drones. One of the units' Team Leader has been upgraded to a Shas'vre and given a Positional Relay.

3. Troops
o Fire Warriors - I have two units of 8 Fire Warriors in my Troops section. They're equipped with Pulse Rifles. Both units have Shas'ui with Pulse Rifles and Bonding Knives. They've also go dedicated Devilfish Transports equipped with Gun Drones, Disruption Pods, Multi-Trackers, and Targeting Arrays.
o Kroot - I said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love me some Kroot. I don’t think you can truly do an Infantry heavy Tau army without them. They make for a great front lean, screening your soldiers and keeping your smaller assailants occupied while you focus on more high priority targets. They also make for great surprise assaults with the Infiltrate special rule. Surprise! I’m out flanking you! I have two units of 10 Kroot in my army along with 1 Kroot Hound in each unit. After reading over Jacob’s suggestions, I can’t justify keeping the Shaper, so he’s gone from this list.

4. Fast Attack
o Pathfinders – Pathfinders are for marker lights, and that’s pretty much it, as far as I’m concerned. Those marker lights not only allow you to boost your own BS, but also to duff your enemy’s LD stat, making it that much easier to send them fleeing. My army list contains one squad of 6 Pathfinders, equipped with Pulse Carbines and Markerlights. The Shas'ui is additionally equipped with a Hard-wired Drone Controller and a Marker Drone. Sound redundant? Consider this: If my Marker Drone hits its target with a mark the Pathfinders are even more likely to hit their target. (3+ roll to hit). I'll take it. Their required dedicated transport is equipped in the same manner as the Fire Warriors dedicated transports.
o Piranha – Piranha’s are fast vehicles that I can use to move around and harass the enemy. I’ve got this one in my list mostly for harassment value, zipping around and using it’s Fusion blaster to cause whatever trouble it may. The Gun Drones attached add an addition attack I can use with the threat of pinning. Ideally I’d like to have this up to three Piranha’s and make use of the unit to truly do some damage, but the one will do for now.

5. Heavy Support
o Broadside Team - My army contains two units of 2 Broadside Suits. Equipped with Twin-linked Railguns, and Twin-linked Smart Missile systems, these bad boys are trouble just waiting to happen. I also added a Target Lock to give them more flexibility on the table. Their team leader also equipped with a Drone Controller a shield drone, and a gun drone.
o Hammerhead - No Tau army is complete without a Hammerhead Gunship. Armed with a Railgun, Burst Cannon, Disruption Pod, and Multi-Tracker, it's ready to tear up anything you throw at it. Primary use is pie plating enemy infantry with its 72", S6, AP4, Large Blast Ordnance shot. Couple that with the Broadsides cracking off railgun blasts at enemy vehicles, and you’re dealing with a nasty tag team of OMG.

As always, if you guys see any improvements that could be made, or have any ideas for strategies that I could use with this army, let me know! I'm having a blast making this list :D

Prosper, as Tau shall!

-Aaron