TAU battlesuit choices?

[Ratbeast]

Just starting a tau army, and wanted as many battle suits in it as possible, just cant work out what i want to arm them with.. anyone got suggestions?

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Missile launcher and plasma rifle.

Strength 6 and 7 shooting for glancing armour. Rapid fire AP2 for heavy armour. 36 inch range for playing shoot and scoot. 3 to 4 shots to give you something against horde types.

Burst cannons and flamers just replicate the anti-infantry you get with your troops. Meltaguns mean you have to get close, which is never a good thing for Tau.

Why twin-link when you can have more shots?

[Siphen]

Because twin-linking is cheaper and there's no overkill

Plasma + Missiles + Multi-tracker is a solid combination and you should probably take a few. I suggest a mix and match. 3 Suits with TL Missile Pods and a random upgrade (blacksun filters or something) come in at a mere 138 points, and are perfect for taking out light vehicles or medium-armored troops (AP 4). I would take at least a unit of each, but I would ignore the other weapons.

Flamers and fusion blasters require you to get too close. Burst Cannons are decent, but your entire army has Strength 5 AP 5 guns...you don't need to spend points on more.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

This is 40k where our starships are miles long and fire unfeasibly large guns. There is no such thing as overkill. :-)

[JohnDaBarr]

Siphen

Everything this guy said.

I really like the Fire Knife combo on the Suits, but on normal Suits with BS3 and no markerlight support are a waist of points because they just don't score enough hits. Sooo either use enough markerlights or use HQ with bodyguards (somewhat of a point sink)

I like this little combo with my Crisis Suits: Team leader, Plasma gun, Missile pod, Targeting array, HW Multi-tracker, BSF
2 Suits, TL-Missile pod, Flamer.
The Plasma gun on the Team leader is the best way to use his ability to have BS4 and it's a Rapid fire weapon, plus your team leader is a character and on roll of 6 to hit you get to allocate the wounds he makes. A BS4 weapon and a BS3 TL-weapon have almost the same hit chance so out of those 6 Missiles 4-5 should hit. And the Flamer is there if something gets close and it's simple a better choice to burn than blast, also overwatch.


And if you think you have enough points to field HQ with bodyguards try this:
Shas'o, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Fusion Blaster, HW-Multitracker, BK, HW-Blacksun Filter, HW-Drone Controller x2 Shield Drone
x2 Bodyguards, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Targeting Array, HW-Multitracker
normally people tell me to drop the 'o' and the blaster for a targeting array but the Fusion Blaster is there if something is close any you need to kill it really fast, and believe me these guys can wipe out a terminator squad in 1 turn if they get in 12'' range.

[Ariobarzanes]

I prefer the Elites slot Crisis Suits to bear a twin linked missile pod and a flammer or the +1BS device; it all depends on the points limit of the game.

Body Guards and Shas El as fireknives (plasma+missile pod+ targueting array + hard wired multi tracker) tend to rock as also as Sun Bursters (plasma+fusion+targuetting array+hard wired multitracker)

[Mandragola]

Twin-linked pod and flamer looks a bit more attractive now that flamers get wall of death. The unit is somewhat tricky to charge.

All that said, I really think the fireknife is king. With battle suits, you have to consider the opportunity cost as well as the outright points cost. Crisis suits are the only low-ap weapons available outside of heavy support. You can only take a maximum of 3 units, so they had better be great. A fireknife with 3 shots should get the same number of hits as a twin-linked pod with two re-rollable shots. It should do roughly equivalent damage to vehicles, especially given the ap2 on the plasma guns and the ability to fire twice within 12".

Personally I've done an awful lot of damage in the past with plasma rifles and I wouldn't be surprised to carry on doing it. This edition seems even more favourable to ridiculous death star units than the last, so you need weapons capable of taking them on.

Edit: Just whatever you do, make sure there's a blacksun filter in the unit. Your firing on turn one matters. Don't let it be ruined in half of your games.

[NightHawk45]

Edit: Just whatever you do, make sure there's a blacksun filter in the unit. Your firing on turn one matters. Don't let it be ruined in half of your games.

+1 Blacksun filter's are really cheap and not having that first turn shooting can hurt, especially if they get the first turn.

[Ratbeast]

Edit: Just whatever you do, make sure there's a blacksun filter in the unit. Your firing on turn one matters. Don't let it be ruined in half of your games.

Dont black sun filters only work for model that has it, not whole unit???

[Siphen]

Blacksun filters now just give the "Night Vision" USR, which is conferred to the entire unit.

[Konovalev]

I run 12 suits in the fireknife configuration (including a Shas'El w/ 2 bodyguards) and have never been disappointed by them. And with the boost to 2+ plasma guns just got that much better.

[Ratbeast]

I plan on running as many battle suits as possible

[bryankia]

I find a balance of fire knife and death rain is great. As for maxing out suits. I run 4 units of maxed out fire warriors and they are amazing. Don't count them out in this edition.

[Boris420]

I understand that horde-based killing suits are repetitive because of fire warriors and kroot, but most Tau folks take the minimum of firewarriors and kroot in 5th ed especially for bubble wraps. I don't see Kroot much at all in 6th. So if you only have 6 firewarriors for anti-infantry, you might as well have some anti-infantry ability in some suits or at least get a hammerhead for it's blast template. Airbursting frag launcher works too but it's range is very short...

[Firaxin]

With the new Tau 'dex creeping up fast, expect the 'most popular' options to be nerfed so that you're forced to buy new models. I'm betting the new flyer will be able to perform the fireknife squad's job better.

Really your local meta/common opponents should dictate weapon choice more than internet lists. Where I am, Guard and 'nids are popular, so double-flamer battlesuits do well against infantry blobs and as charge interceptors (particularly because, as Boris420 says, the Tau here take a minimum of Kroot/Firewarriors). Flamer templates aren't bothered by BS3. Railguns then deal with the monstrous creatures/heavy tanks.

Fortunately, none of us have the money to spam flyers, so I'm not sure how Tau would tackle that.