Yeah, I'd also be tempted to house-rule that each player gets one (or perhaps up to three?) "dummy" blips, for the same reason. Space Hulk did exactly that IIRC? Seems like a good way to make feints and use deception.

could make those blips be worth like 15 pts and take up a fast attack slot ;P

Bit of a pain, as there are several barrage weapons that are really direct fire, but use the mechanic (Eldar D-cannon etc).

Apologies if this is Necro-posting, but I thought my thoughts belonged in this topic rather than a new one with the same material.

So I've returned to ATT after a long absence (and selling off all of my Tau including my Tiger Sharks, Orca, all my converted Shas'el'Tael pattern suits etc) now that I've got a 9 Zone Mortalis tiles sitting on my gaming table. My primary army at the moment is Eldar Corsairs from IA11 and their JSJ antics and firepower are awesome on this LoS blocking board. However, I've been considering Tau as a natural second army, especially because that at 750 points, it requires minimal investment, and with the vehicle restrictions I can really focus on suits.

Just some musings I had as I was list building and I wanted to hear what other folks thought.

1) On the mandatory squad of fire warriors, do pulse carbines come into their own here, or are pulse rifles still the way to go? I know some corridors can be up to 18" long, and felt like I could do a reasonable job of keeping them moving and out of assault if I stayed at range. I felt like pulse rifles would sucker me in to getting under 12" to rapid fire, and there's no benefit to the 30" range.
2) I like the idea of XV-81s with SMS for HQ suits since I intend to use a piece of string to do SMS shots around corridors. I was just wondering Shas'o'r'alai as another HQ choice was a good idea. His pulse submunitions rifle seemed pretty effective in this environment, and versatile when I need to take down dreadnoughts. Wasn't sure if his price tag was justified.
3) I'll probably run an XV-9 as well. Does dual submunition rifles make sense here with rerollable wounds and minimal scatter on blasts or are phased ions the way to go? Fusion cascades sounds pretty tasty on paper, but the 12" range and variable nature of the firepower leaves a little to be desired.
4) The Team Leader Broadside with TL plasma and sheild drones seemed like the logical HS choice for eating termies and high armour troops at range, as well as dealing with enemy walkers. I didn't see any compelling reason to take the SMS here.
5) I can't seem to get my head wrapped around what the ideal suit configs are for this environment I like XV81 with SMS and TL anything or an XV-8 with CIB+Plasma, AFP+BC(or flamer) seems like it might work. But standard Shas'ui suits? I feel like the good old fireknife or maybe BC+MP might be optimal to maintain standoff range and still deliver a high volume of fire. A cheapo BC+Flamer might be exactly what's needed to do some room clearing though...


EDIT: On a fluff note. Who fights the boarding actions among Tau vessels? I imagine it's fire caste when they're being transported between warzones. How about other times? Do fire caste post cadres to fleet security or much like the Naval Armsmen of the Imperial Navy are there members of the Air Caste that are equiped and trained to fight such engagements? The thought just occured to me as I contemplated the possibility of converting some of Forgeworld's air caste pilots and crew with pulse carbines and boarding shields to be 'counts as' fire warriors.

I'm not sure if there's ever been any official word on it, but I've always assumed that all Tau ships have a number of Fire Caste 'marines' stationed on board at all times to defend against boarding actions or to secure enemy ships that have surrendered. At any rate the defenders would probably not be Air caste, since their physical characteristics make them ill-suited for personal combat.

On the subject at hand, perhaps there is a place for drone units in Zone Mortalis? It seems to me that large numbers of infantry units will be more common than vehicles, so heavy gun-drones could prove useful, while drone sentry turrets seem ideal for area control/denial, and a way to squeeze in more special weapons.

Firewarriors seem as though they'd be more useful than Kroot in this environment, since there probably will not be much natural cover available (which, combined with the squad-size restriction, negates two of the Kroot's main advantages, protection in natural cover and numbers), and the abundance of regular cover may make Firewarriors slightly less fragile. The pinning and armour piercing capability of rail-rifles could be useful in slowing down units and dealing with MEQs, so rail-rifle armed Pathfinders and sniper drone teams could become more useful (especially since, to me at any rate, using Broadsides in these sorts of engagements seems like overkill).

Codex: Tau Empire, p.59 in the text for the example uniform of the Ke'lshan sept it talks about cadres stationed on air caste vessels so we can safely assume that there are fire caste cadres on Tau ships.

My thoughts:

This is made for battlesuits.

Broadsides can park it facing down the length of a main passage, and their opponents will not be able to claim cover. They can fire their railguns or SMS before they are assaulted (if they have A.S.S...)

Having two broadsides and two drones, or two of any suit and two drones, means that the drones are 50% of the unit, so you can use their I4 for your reaction fire. This 'reaction fire' rule really benefits the tau enormously, as an extra round of shooting could very well finish off the assaulting unit. TA essentially negate the penalty, and a TL weapon firing at BS2 would still have a solid hit chance. It makes me think that TL flamer suicide suits may also be a more viable option than they otherwise would be.

The lack of area terrain makes me think plasma will gain the capacity to put serious hurt on marines.

I feel like the sabotage mission would be a great opportunity for crisis suits, as nearly all their weapons can glance or better against AV11.

But XV9s...they are our heavyweights for this. The TLBC mean you'll have high accuracy even when you use reaction fire, and fairly strong dakka.

The Phased Ion Guns might actually be worth taking for once, with 5+rending paired with their volume of fire...they may be one of the best options for killing MEQs.

Fusion Cascades. They are already beautiful, in these confines, they are stunning. VoF melta is always scary, more so when you have almost no way to stop it getting in range. Even more so, again, with the inclusion of bulkheads and sabotage.

No huge change to blast weapons, so PSR doesn't change a whole lot, but the way they interact with bulkheads, and them now having pinning, are welcome additions.

Anyways, flamers.

I feel that They may be simply the deadliest thing in the void of space scenario. TL flamers would get to wound almost every time, no?

EDIT: nevermind that last bit on the flamers, I forgot that you can't re-roll re-rolls. Anyways, being able to have your flamer count as TL basically gives you a fourth equipment slot. very useful.

I think this is really going to be fast paced for tau, since we would be able to deal just so much more damage per turn, but would be easier to assault as a result. Reaction firing provides us an advantage without providing any disadvantages...nice.

Infiltrate still applies as normal, eh? Well, with Kroot and especially Stealthsuits, this is looking to be quite fun....

I mean, we can start off basically in range of them with Stealthsuits, who retain their max speed, but any Jump Infantry trying to catch up will have to risk themselves in the process! Also, if your opponent lets you use the Cold Void rule.... we've got 7 point rapid fire Rending!

EDIT: I've been thinking about Battlesuit configurations a little, I've come up with one that might be nice. It's 225 points total, 7 models, majority I4, majority T4 and 3+ armour and lots of AP2.

3 Crisis suits, Shas'Vre upgrade, TL Plasma Rifles, Targeting Array, HW Drone Controller and 2 Gun Drones.

It's got enough dakka to be able to shred most infantry, is mobile, has a decent range, and is not to be trifled with in an assault. It has a big weakness against anything with an armour value higher than 10 though.