Tau in Crusade

[Trokair]

I have been playing my Deathwatch in Crusade at my local store for a little while now, and am enjoying the crusade aspect. However a large junk of us are Marine variants (for obvious reason, codex and supplements gives lots of options) but there are a few newer player with other armies (wand who are struggling a bit against marines on account of old codexes), and I thought I would start a second force to vary it up a bit.

 

Tau are currently the oldest legal Codex I have, and the idea of crusade seems interesting for the kind of list I like to run. Specifically I like Stealth Suits so in 8^th run a vanguard deatchment of Shadowsun, three units of 6 Stealthsuits and two ghostkeels at roughly 1000p.

 

However converting that into crusade terms seems tricky, so any recommendation on what to include to still be a stealth themes army for crusade, I need to be able to form things up into 25 power (in a patrol detachment) and 50 power armies (initially at least).

 

[Focslain]

So for a patrol your going to need a troop and can only have 2 elite units. 

 

Best I can see is:

 

Shadowsun - 8PL

 

3 man Stealth team - 5PL

6 man stealth team - 10 PL

 

5 man firewarrior team - 2PL

 

This is 25 PL on the dot. You can drop three stealth suits for room to add drones if you wish. But for combat patrol having 9ish burst cannons can be deadly. 

 

I'll look into a 50PL, that is easier as you can do a Vanguard detachment easy, though your proposed detachment is actually 56 PL, dropping a ghostkeel will give you some wiggle room with 3 PL to spare. 

[Trokair]

Yea I was surprised how much PL my just under a 1000p army was. So much for the 1PL is 20p

The first few games will just be 25 PL I think, so your suggestion looks good, thanks.

An alternative I am toying with was:

Fireblade 3PL

10 Kroot 3P:

Stealth Suit Team 10PL

Ghostkeel 9PL

 

Also, as Shadowsun can’t level up in a crusade (but she will be on the roster for bigger games), I do also wanted another HQ that can be the face of the army, gain experience and so on. For that purpose I have finally been building my Shas'O R'myr model (had it for at least a decade already) and intend to run him as a normal commander in iridium (or maybe enforcer) with the twin plasma he has representing the supernova launcher relic and a shield generator. Any suggestion for the other two hard points?

 

 

Also just finished building these, because they are stealth, so will be adding them to the roster for bigger games later. Shame they can’t get experience.  

[Focslain]

Yea I was surprised how much PL my just under a 1000p army was. So much for the 1PL is 20p

The first few games will just be 25 PL I think, so your suggestion looks good, thanks.

An alternative I am toying with was:

Fireblade 3PL

10 Kroot 3P:

Stealth Suit Team 10PL

Ghostkeel 9PL

 

Also, as Shadowsun can’t level up in a crusade (but she will be on the roster for bigger games), I do also wanted another HQ that can be the face of the army, gain experience and so on. For that purpose I have finally been building my Shas'O R'myr model (had it for at least a decade already) and intend to run him as a normal commander in iridium (or maybe enforcer) with the twin plasma he has representing the supernova launcher relic and a shield generator. Any suggestion for the other two hard points?

 

 

If your going to use a fireblade it's better to use firewarriors so you don't waste his volley fire ability, you can add two drones to either the firewarriors or the fireblade for +1 PL to fill that gap. Your call on the drone type. 

 

For hardpoints you can't go wrong on ATS, which will make the relic -3 AP so even better at marine killing. Outside of that either a second weapon (Missile pods are a solid choice) or depending on your local meta Early warning for deep strikers or countermance for quick assualters.

 

Also as someone that has 6 remoras I feel you. I do need to paint one squad for my battlesuit heavy tau. You get the wings to fold up for ease of storage?

 

Also what sept are you using for this? 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Focslain

[Trokair]

I just selected the fireblade as out of the two cheep HQ as he seemed more useful by himself than an Ethereal. A few random markerlight hits per game can give the odd reroll to the SS and GK, and later in bigger games make the remora missiles more reliable.

 

The extra 5 shots for the fire warriors from him sound nice, but I fear if I have to rely on it then both squads are probably about to be dead. Will have to think about it and maybe try it in a game.

 

ATS does indeed sound good, and it will be a second weapon I think, got to put that good BS to use.

 

In 8^th I was Tau sept because Shadowsun gave me no choice but in the two games post PA that I had I used custom sept. Up-Gunned and Hybridised Weapons in one, and Up-Gunned and Turbo Jets in the other, I think I proffered the former, so that is likely what I will be doing here.  

 

 

I did indeed get the wings to be foldable, though they may yet become stuck after undercoating as two are rather stiff (and one is far too loose, only one I got the distance perfect).

Edited July 20, 2021 by Trokair

[Focslain]

Just realized that if your doing PL then the stealth suits can take a sub-system.

 

Of which ATS does stack with up-gunned so those would be -2 AP burst cannons. Shield gens would be good for defense or Countermance for anti-charge defense.

 

Good choice of tenets btw.

 

Since your using Hyribized weaponary, the CIB is a decent choice as a secondary weapon, especially with ATS. Just get one M on the unit and overclock it wound marines on 2's and a better then average chance to one shot them.

 

A missile pod will allow you to strike at long range if that is helpful.

[tychobi]

Tau are broken when using power level. Ion crisis suits alone prove my point. Expensive spammable upgrades make a mockery of power level as a system. I would encourage a move to the points system. I have yet to hear a cohearent argument to support power level outside of RAW.

[Trokair]

While PL can be inaccurate on some units, and now I know it applies to Crisis in certain builds (though as I have no crisis suits an no intention to get any for the foreseeable future it probably won’t affect me in this crusade), I have found it is ok for rough estimates of game size, so acceptable for more casual/narrative environments.  However Power Level v Points is not the point of this thread.

[jarms48]

Can I use RP to purchase the Farsight Veteran Cadre upgrade for multiple Crisis Suit units? Can I have 3 squads of 9 suits each with BS3+ if I spend 1 RP on each of them.

 

I think it's called Specialist Reinforcement from memory. 

[Trokair]

My understanding is yes you can spend One Requisition Points on Specialist Reinforcement to then upgrade a unit of Crisis Suits when you add them to your roster with the Veteran Cadre and the unit will gain one or two Crusade Points depending on size (on how many Command points the stratagem would have cost).

 

So yes in theory each crisis suit squad you added to your roster could be upgraded this way if you have enough Requisition Points. However what I don’t know is if your army needs to be Farsight Enclave in order to have access to the stratagem to then use Specialist Reinforcement.

[Focslain]

My understanding is yes you can spend One Requisition Points on Specialist Reinforcement to then upgrade a unit of Crisis Suits when you add them to your roster with the Veteran Cadre and the unit will gain one or two Crusade Points depending on size (on how many Command points the stratagem would have cost).

 

So yes in theory each crisis suit squad you added to your roster could be upgraded this way if you have enough Requisition Points. However what I don’t know is if your army needs to be Farsight Enclave in order to have access to the stratagem to then use Specialist Reinforcement.

 

The army doesn't, the unit does. In general when adding units to your order of battle you pick their sub-faction (so Sept in Tau case) and that is the sub-faction they stay as for thier career. Do remember that dropping and re-adding a unit doesn't cost RP, your already scarificing XP.

 

Just remember that unless the rest of the detachment your field is also FSE then it isn't battleforged and lose the sept bonus, BUT you still have access to strats/relics/traits. This works like the Super Heavy Aux detachment, only over more of the army.

Things like Veteran Cadre can only be used on a unit when it is added to the roster.

Think the only odd point is if you add(Reinforce) to the unit. In this case It would cost you 2 RP to go from 3 to 4+ suits as the Veteran Cadre goes up in cost and you need 1 RP to change the unit size. Also note this would increase the unit Crusade Point value as well.

[jarms48]

 

 

Just remember that unless the rest of the detachment your field is also FSE then it isn't battleforged and lose the sept bonus, BUT you still have access to strats/relics/traits. This works like the Super Heavy Aux detachment, only over more of the army.

 

Things like Veteran Cadre can only be used on a unit when it is added to the roster.

Think the only odd point is if you add(Reinforce) to the unit. In this case It would cost you 2 RP to go from 3 to 4+ suits as the Veteran Cadre goes up in cost and you need 1 RP to change the unit size. Also note this would increase the unit Crusade Point value as well.

 

 

That's alright, I think being able to use that stratagem multiple times is well worth the cost. Saves me CP every game, and it's probably the best stratagem Tau have.