[Atlantis]

Q1.firstly i would like to ask in roll of anti infantry are stealth suit better or crisis in most cases

Q2 can stealth suit be given targeting arrays

Q3 if i want to use stealth and crisis how much should i have for a balanced 2 k battle for a ninja tau list?

[Jedibean]

Q1.firstly i would like to ask in roll of anti infantry are stealth suit better or crisis in most cases

Generally speaking Stealth suits are going to be the most point efficient choice shot per shot. 180 points for 18 strength 5 shots strapped to a jetpack is pretty darn good. Crisis suits are pretty good for shooting at infantry if you give them certain weapons. The missile pod/burst cannon config on a crisis suit works really well. Twinlinked flamers work pretty well too. But a crisis team wont lay down the number of shots that a stealth team will. Also, with true line of sight stealth suits are very survivable if you can stay away from your opponent. There's a couple reasons for that.

1) Stealth field generators make it extremely difficult for your opponent to see you at long range. In the early stages of a game they can just move towards you. However in the later stages of a game this becomes more difficult. Especially if it's an objectives game where your opponent will have to move off of objectives in order to have a better chance of killing your stealth team.

2) They're physically smaller than crisis suits. If I'm only taking 1 team of stealth suits I'll take my unit of 6 XV15's. They're significantly smaller even than the new plastic SV15's. This means that they're easier to hide from line of sight completely. Which can be helpful if you have an opponent trying to move into rapid fire range.

Q2 can stealth suit be given targeting arrays

Yes. But this will sometimes ruin their cost effectiveness. It's a trade off. Generally speaking a regular stealth team will need markerlight support to truly be effective. With targetting arrays they no longer have to stay anchored to your pathfinders to be effective in shooting. However, that makes them 40 points a model. That's as much as a Space Marine Terminator and lets be honest... Stealth suits ain't terminators!

Q3 if i want to use stealth and crisis how much should i have for a balanced 2 k battle for a ninja tau list?

Well I personally don't buy into this "Ninja Tau" theory. I understand the principle, however there are too many weaknesses to the idea to make it a truly game winning strategy. In any case, 1 thing I can recommend is that if you're going to take Stealth suits you can take 3 teams of stealth suits as your elites and take teams of crisis suits as your HQ's. That's actually pretty effective. You might wanna give it a try.

Hope all this helps.


+1 for an informative and down to the point-answer. ;-)
~Bone

[knightperson]

I don't like the stealth suits all that much, personally, but I'm a minority. A lot of people swear by them, use them effectively, and have plenty of stories about how awesome they are. I'll give you some of the arguments for each side and let you make up your own mind.

Why take stealth suits?
They're smaller, so they're easier to hide out of LOS. They have stealth fields, which keeps the enemy from shooting at them with more than one unit. (The stealth field rarely saves you from the unit you were firing at, but it will save you from the plasma cannon and battle cannon on the other side of the table). They are slightly cheaper than a similarly-equipped crisis suit, and you're not required to add extra stuff to a stealth suit if all you want is a burst cannon. A basic stealth suit is only 30 points, where a crisis suit will usually cost 40 or more. Twin-linked burst cannons and a flamer, a reasonably close crisis approximation to base stealth suit weaponry, is 41 points, and most configs cost significantly more than that.

Why take crisis suits instead?
Crisis suits have an extra wound and an extra point of toughness, so they're noticeably harder to kill. Don't underestimate the value of taking fewer wounds in the first place. Also, you can make each suit different and really take advantage of the wound allocation and multiple-wound model rules. The Tau arsenal has lots of weaponry that is Strength 5 AP 5 (good for anti-personnel), but a shortage of weaponry for other roles. Crisis suits can carry other types, but stealth suits can't. A crisis suit with twin-linked burst cannons and a targeting array costs only 7 points more than a stealth suit with a single-linked burst cannon and targeting array, but hits 8/9 of the time rather than 2/3.

[Mister Kay]

Originally Posted by knightperson

I don't like the stealth suits all that much, personally, but I'm a minority. A lot of people swear by them, use them effectively, and have plenty of stories about how awesome they are. I'll give you some of the arguments for each side and let you make up your own mind.

Why take stealth suits?
They're smaller, so they're easier to hide out of LOS. They have stealth fields, which keeps the enemy from shooting at them with more than one unit. (The stealth field rarely saves you from the unit you were firing at, but it will save you from the plasma cannon and battle cannon on the other side of the table). They are slightly cheaper than a similarly-equipped crisis suit, and you're not required to add extra stuff to a stealth suit if all you want is a burst cannon. A basic stealth suit is only 30 points, where a crisis suit will usually cost 40 or more. Twin-linked burst cannons and a flamer, a reasonably close crisis approximation to base stealth suit weaponry, is 41 points, and most configs cost significantly more than that.

Why take crisis suits instead?
Crisis suits have an extra wound and an extra point of toughness, so they're noticeably harder to kill. Don't underestimate the value of taking fewer wounds in the first place. Also, you can make each suit different and really take advantage of the wound allocation and multiple-wound model rules. The Tau arsenal has lots of weaponry that is Strength 5 AP 5 (good for anti-personnel), but a shortage of weaponry for other roles. Crisis suits can carry other types, but stealth suits can't. A crisis suit with twin-linked burst cannons and a targeting array costs only 7 points more than a stealth suit with a single-linked burst cannon and targeting array, but hits 8/9 of the time rather than 2/3.

Stealth suits can take 1/3rd of the unit as fusion blasters which are quite good at killing tanks, the only downside is you're visible when trying to use it.

[CmdrBonesaw]

Originally Posted by Mister Kay

Stealth suits can take 1/3rd of the unit as fusion blasters which are quite good at killing tanks, the only downside is you're visible when trying to use it.

"Visible" as in "up close to the enemy".

That, and unless you equip your team with TL, the rest of the team armed with BCs has to shoot at the tank, too...

Not worth it imo; there are better ways to kill a tank; though I admit that with outflank, this has gooten a certain new appeal - but only on a basic level, with it being a one-trick pony, and a probably not very successful one, at that.

Generally, Stealth Battlesuits can be very effective in my experience, though they can usually only engage a small number of targets - exactly the same ones as Firewarriors, to be exact, with a small chance of getting hits on the side and rear armour of enemy vehicles.
They can be useful if you plan to keep your Firewarriors in their transports; a unit of 6 Stealths with 2 Drones is about as effective as two full teams of Firewarriors at long range, while, at the same time being much more survivable against long-range heavy weapons (Heavy Bolters, Frag Missiles, the like), and the 3+ save comes in handy, too.

The downsides are that they are non-scoring (though they directly help by filling the Firewarriors niche, which means they can stay embarked in their transports), and that they fill a valuable Elite-slot (which is somewhat alleviated by the fact that you can field up to two Crisis teams as bodyguards in the HQ-slot, albeit at extra cost).

Cheers,
-Bone

Cheers,
-Bone