With rumours of a Tau release upon the horizon I thought I’d address the issue of the Crisis Battlesuit team, check it out.
This unit can make or break any army of The Greater Good, I have seen them be chosen inefficiently on many occasions, some of which in White Dwarf magazine (the horror).
There are two different ways both in game terms and as a narrative that players most commonly make mistakes when choosing wargear. The first is not specialising the unit in question. This is when a player for example take one suit with twin linked Flamers and Shield Generator, another with a Missile Pod, Fusion Blaster and Drone controller and the Shas’ui with a Cyclic Ion Blaster, Plasma Rifle and a Shield Generator.
The example unit is expensive costing a grand total of 204pts (without drones) this unit is strong and probably very cool looking but it lacks consistency: it has a wide variety of weapon ranges varying from ‘template’ to 36” this means that the unit has to engage in a close range fire fight even though this attacking method only benefits the flamer. Even then it’s only a strength 4 ap5 template weapon with a re-roll to wound (good admittedly when said on its own but the fact is the potential of the other two Battlesuits is not fully explored meaning the points of certain load outs are wasted).
The second mistake is over specializing a unit (not as great a sin as not specializing however). This can be seen a lot in tournaments and in White Dwarf. These units are able to take down one type of unit extremely well but lack flexibility and often waste points. The most common example is known within the lore as ta’ro’cha or ‘Three minds as one’ I first encountered this in White Dwarf of April 2013 when Tau were most recently released. In the battle report the staff writer at the time Dan Harden fields a unit of three Crisis Battlesuits each with twin linked Fusion Blasters and a Target Lock. This unit has a sound strategy but wastes points and is a glass cannon. To allow each battlesuit to fire independently only two target locks are needed meaning that the points for the third could be spent more efficiently on something such as a Counter fire defence system. Also this unit will struggle at long ranges or against hoard armies.
A blend in the middle of these two is best for example a squad I use consists of:
Shas’la with twin linked Fusion Blasters and Target lock X2
Shas’ui with Missile Pod, Shield Generator and Air Bursting Fragmentation Projector
= 181Pts
In my experience this unit is worth so much more than the points payed for it. It has the ability to target three different units and each has good anti-tank ability like a specialised unit. But it is more flexible as the Missile Pod is used to take down elites and the Air Bursting Fragmentation Projector (what a mouthful) is used to take on hordes or enemies hunkered down in cover. Also the ranges are similar on all weapons apart from the Missile Pod making them not so useless at a distance greater than 18”.
All though I can waffle on all day about synergies and the Crisis team’s role in the 40k meta when it comes down to it these models are extremely effective if played thoughtfully and no matter the equipment they look amazing, even a novice painter can create a squad worthy of marching alongside the heroes of the empire.
My last words of wisdom are these: Never forget your thrust move!!
