[Minigiant]

I want to take a moment to talk about the revamped Stealth marker team (SMT). The Veteran Tau players among this will remember the Stealth marker team when each stealth could take 2 drones, when that disappeared so did the SMT. However with the Optimised Stealth Cadre and Wall of Mirrors I believe it is time for a come back. The old way used quantity of shots to get round poor BS, BS has changed now.

Stealth Marker team Mark II

XV25 Stealth Team: 152 Points
Shas'vre; Target Lock & Markerlight, Drone Controller, 2 Marker Drones
Shas'ui; Fusion blaster, Target lock
Shas'ui; Burst cannon, Target lock

This is of course in a bubble as to get the BS4 needed you need to run the Cadre so an additional 210+ Points. This unit on average should hit two Markerlights a turn

Pros:
A.) May move and fire markerlights
B.) Jet pack movement profile
C.) Stealth and Shrouded
D.) Deep Strike or Infiltrate
E.) Ablative wounds
F.) Rest of unit can still shoot

Conclusion

Stealth Marker Teams are the way to get difficult to uproot marker lights on the battlefield. The SMT overcomes the single most common complaint concerning other non FW markerlight sources such as pathfinders--fragility.

 

[Battman]

Certainly seems to be a decent idea, I've experienced the power of the older stealth squads and as you said they work well for an alternative to the comparitivly weaker pathfinder squads. But only question is that an average of 2 marker lights for 210 or 152 if not efficient worth the points? Is it better to use marker drones by themselves maybe with support from a buff commander (if it still exists haven't read the new book yet) or yet again pathfinders.

Thats all i got.

 

[MidnightSun]

Who needs Markerlights when you're going to simply erase any vehicle you shoot at unless it's a Land Raider or a Monolith?

Less flippantly, I like it; you don't need many Markerlights when you have Coordinated Firepower - even 3 or 4 is getting towards excessive unless you have a lot of units Gone to Ground or snap-shooting.

Is it better to use marker drones by themselves maybe with support from a buff commander (if it still exists haven't read the new book yet) or yet again pathfinders.

Buffmander still exists, but you're much better off putting him in a squad that's going to fire after you shoot Markerlights; while he's nice as a tank character in front of Drones, giving potentially every unit in your entire army Twin-Linked, Ignores Cover, Tank Hunter and Monster Hunter on top of whatever Markerlight benefits you got (and probably a huge stack of them, since you dump every Markerlight in your army on your Coordinated Firepower target) is too good to pass up.

 

[Minigiant]

Certainly seems to be a decent idea, I've experienced the power of the older stealth squads and as you said they work well for an alternative to the comparitivly weaker pathfinder squads. But only question is that an average of 2 marker lights for 210 or 152 if not efficient worth the points?
Thats all i got.

I would challenge this with the reason why I took Target locks on the other 2 Stealth suits, around 70 points. In the unit I pose that makes it only 82 points for an average of 2 Markerlight hits

Who needs Markerlights when you're going to simply erase any vehicle you shoot at unless it's a Land Raider or a Monolith?

Less flippantly, I like it; you don't need many Markerlights when you have Coordinated Firepower - even 3 or 4 is getting towards excessive unless you have a lot of units Gone to Ground or snap-shooting.



Buffmander still exists, but you're much better off putting him in a squad that's going to fire after you shoot Markerlights; while he's nice as a tank character in front of Drones, giving potentially every unit in your entire army Twin-Linked, Ignores Cover, Tank Hunter and Monster Hunter on top of whatever Markerlight benefits you got (and probably a huge stack of them, since you dump every Markerlight in your army on your Coordinated Firepower target) is too good to pass up.

A guess a better example than the buff commander would be a Mark'O with Drones. For around 20 points more you are nearly guaranteed double the hits and could be considered as survivable as Stealth with their range keeping them out of trouble. This unit for me was born out of neccessity and I think that says alot about Tau, we have lots of loopholes to jump through to get certain benefits. Farsight Enclaves removes the buff commander as an option. I play Tau currently using 2 formations, neither have a drone unit or Commander so had to find Markerlights somewhere