I have struggled to get much utility out of Crisis Suit Cadres. Up until now, for me, they have been a small relatively expensive formation that are a requirement if I want a supreme commander. They tend to get broken by fire and then die due to BMs.

Looking at the Epic-UK lists the only builds that emphasise them include moderate air mobility with Orcas. I've had a go with this and they were certainly more effective. 4K Tau vs Necron Cityfight

However some issues remain for me:

They have Initiative 1+ which is great. But if you need to have them in an air transport to get around that Init 1+ is wasted.

They have a Tau Jet Pack which would let them move, fire and then board a landed transport. This would be cool but I've never managed to make it happen. Late in a turn after an Orca has landed another formation, . . . To get the most out of the MW4+ on the Crisis Suits the Orca transport needs to be pretty close to the enemy for this to work.

The Armour 3+ makes them pretty vulnerable to MW fire, with just a 6+ invulnerable left to them. With their small formation size it also leaves them very vulnerable to Disrupt fire.

They have a woeful attack in an assault, same as Gun Drones, . . . although their 3+ armour is usually more useful here.

They certainly move better than standard infantry.

They seem expensive on a per unit basis. Nobody seems to take them?? Is it poor form to compare them to other lists? 50 points for a Wraithguard, 75 points(?) for a Terminator, 40 points (?) for a tactical space marine, 35 points for Nobz and orc dreadnoughts

You need to pay extra for these elite HQ units to get coordinated fire. The 50 point premium on the formation seems a lot for Init 1+ in this context.

A couple of suggestions that might make a small incremental change:

Include the Shas'el in the basic cost, 25 point cost reduction. A unit of 12 battlesuits would probably have one fluff wise? He would add the capability that is needed to combine Init 1+ with coordinated fire missions.

Give the Fusion Guns a small arms MW hit (not an extra attack). The FF5+ is already low so this is not as extreme a suggestion as it would usually be. Fire Dragon Aspects, Wraithguard, Land Speeders, all with 15 cm MW type weapons also have a FF MW attack.

Alternatively I'd happily accept some tactical advice. Especially since I just promoted another Tau to Shas'o rank. Every time the supreme commander dies I don't have one the next game. If all the battlesuits die I mostly don't have even a Shas'el next game, . . .

I never understood why Crisis suite didn't have a MW FF attack.

Because the list is intentionally designed not to be good in assaults

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I'm agreed with Andrew that they really don't seem that great, after a series of games against them using a variety of armies. The only reason for taking them that I can see is that they have the Supreme Commander.

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I do see what you're saying but like a lot of the Tau they need to be used in specific ways. It's been a while since I played Tau but I seem to remember them being pretty devastating when dropped from an Orca with markerlight support. That should give you a reasonable chance of getting into a crossfire position as well. You may well need to line them up with some kind of retained coordinated fire, either before or after as well. Also having macro weapons with a 55cm threat radius isn't too bad surely?

Like a lot of the Tau you often need to kill everything or be killed!!

They are very mobile, and pack a real punch up close. I usually field 2-3 minimum formations.

I often have a kinda castle-like deployment, three firewarrior formations with pathfinders to hold objectives and provide somewhat resilient markerlights; kroot skirmish screens in front.
Behind that are 2-3 Crisis formations that jump in and toast whatever comes close enough. I get them within MW range and open up, and while they usually don't have enough to stop the enemy on their own, they definitely do their parrt.

They suck in a firefight, even more so in CC, but if you wanted those, you should play another army, not Tau.

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Steve54 tends to use them to hit deep-striking units and threaten units in his half, their bonus move is great for ducking into cover after shooting at someone

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I certainly get that. But given the size of the formations and with FF5+ they are not really "good" at assaults. They would not be particularly spectacular with FF5+ MW either, given their cost.

I'll admit that having finally got a Crisis Cadre lined up on an infantry formation I can see their potential.


I'll keep that in mind. I have deployed them behind the lines somewhere waiting for a good target. Just not managed to hit the target. Perhaps an extra formation or two is essential??


Thanks, I was drifting towards that as a way of dealing with Mark's Necrons. Really liked the embedded Pathfinders I tried in the last game. And the Water Caste are currently out negotiating a contract with the Kroot.


Heaven forbid.

I quite accept that they are never going to be good in an assault. My point is though that all the other standard units in the Tau Army seem to be basically as good as the elite Crisis Suit warriors in a firefight. So not that they should not suck; just suck less.

What about the Shas'el upgrade? Do you'll take it for the 25 points? Worth it for the Leader or for Coordinated Fire?

The Shas'el upgrade has never turned out to be anything but a very expensive extra shot.

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I'm still building my Tau army so can't really comment on tactics etc, but I do find crisis a bit of a conundrum in army list selection. They have the supreme commander so are best deployed on the table. Plus they are a small formation vulnerable to being broken and wiped out, so need upgrading if the SC is to stay alive. For the same reason you also ideally don't want them as BTS, which means another expensive formation at 400+.

By comparison, a crisis formation with shas'el seems actually a not-bad option as a way of triggering a coordinated fire with 1+ initiative with less risk than the shas'o formation, at 25 points (6.6) anyway.

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They are reasonable for their cost and when used as an air drop option can be very effective. Their firepower and stats are actually very good for their cost.

But they have some big weaknesses which can mean they are difficult to use. I always use one formation obviously for the Shas'o but would take them even if he wasn't available as they are a very good Crisis response formation or aggressive Orca drop formation.

The problems of course are they are very susceptible to having a blast marker put on them and then being devastated by an engagement just on the dice modifiers (their 3+ armour actually means they are reasonable at the fighting part tending to maybe kill a stand and lose a stand in the fight but then they get slaughtered by the +4 dice modifier from the outnumbered, blast marker combo).

They can also tend to be a bit slow compared to a mech infantry force and struggle to bring all their firepower to bear at once (which is why they are so good air dropped).

I really like the power the Shas'el brings with his ability to give out initiative 1+ through co-ordinated fire but it is hard to fit him into a force, because if you are usuing Crisis suits aggressively by Orca air drop you don't tend to need the ability as much. But if they are being used more conservatively as more of a counter attack / aid in blitz guard style formation then you tend to only take the one formation at which point you take a Shas'o and the Shas'el is redundant.

I still think they are a good formation and any balancing or ideas on them have to take into account how effective they can be in Orcas.

The Shas'el as standard idea is certainly very interesting (I am all for anything that adds more co-ordinated fire use to a Tau list) and it seems a reasonable and very minor buff. The MW FF idea is probably a small tip too far and is against the design ideas of the list in general.

My conclusions are pretty much what yme-loc said, i.e. I figure there are maybe three main "deployments":
1. blitz guard
2. orca drop
3. on board mobile infantry ("crisis response" as yme-loc put it)

I'd put the shas'o either in 1 or 3, and a shas'el only in mode 3 which, given the need for the shas'o, doesn't see it with much use. So yeah, maybe a free shas'el would be a cool but ultimately minor buff.

What I myself need to try to figure out through playing is the relative benefits of crisis and firewarriors, since they can perform the same roles (and in some cases more flexibly for firewarriors as they can take skyrays, pathfinders etc) but only really useful vs infantry.

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