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What? Hammerheads are pretty far from being broken. They're tough, but not impossible to kill with GEq troops. Eldar have bright lances and starcannons even work if you can get side or rear armor. Guard have autocannon and plasma guns, and Tyranids have venom cannon. Pretty much any S7+ multi-shot weapon is scary to a Hammerhead. Plus, if you glance it even once, at least you've stopped it from shooting for a turn, possibly even destroy it.

Anway, the choice between a Stealth team and a Crisis Suit is more dependent on what your army needs than what your pocket needs. Do you need more anti-infantry firepower, or do you want more fire that deals with light vehicles and power armor? Stealths are best at shooting up infantry and the occassional Landspeeder or Rhino. Crisis suits can hit heavy infantry, light vehicles, and if your careful and plan ahead, even heavy vehicles.

Well, only Team-Leaders and Shas'vre or higher ranked suits can take hard-wired equipment. Hence my saying that the configuration was illegal unless those three Broadsides were separated into three squads and each made team-leader of thier one-man squad. And no, you cannot have a squad made up entirely of Team-leaders.

In fact, you should actually look at your codex instead of relying on hearsay. Broadsides are allowed one support system, team-leaders get access to the armory for hard-wired and Special Issue stuff, in the case of Shas'vres.

In fact, looking back over this... do you even have a Tau codex? Most of these questions would be easily cleared up by looking at relevant entry in the codex.

They do answer some of my questions, but not directly. A lot of the things that I read in the codex's don't always answer my questions because they beat around the bush or I just don't understand what they're meaning. sweatdrop
You must understand that I am still new to this game and I am needing quite a bit of assisstance.
Also, my friends seem to come up with different rules that I have never heard of, or have seemingly changed every time we play. It really gets on my nerves. evil I don't have a rule book, so that is why I ask other questions that are outside of the codex. 3nodding
My broadsides are going to need to be re-done then. sweatdrop Is that how all battlesuits are? If so, then crap! gonk I need a new strategy if I have to take off the shields. sweatdrop

I make my weapon systems swappable on my regular battlesuits, but my broadsides are now only equipped with the regular SMS, Rail guns, and shield generators. I know that having them able to fire more than one weapon a turn would be nice to have, but I also need to keep them alive at all costs. They are my main anti-tank weapons. xd heart My hammer heads are my mass anti-infantry, seeing as how they can take out several units at a time. I played my friend's greyknight army last night and I beat him! xd I destroyed his tanks in the first turn (Regretably, he went first, so he got good use of them. He destroyed 8 units from a single squad. sweatdrop ), I took out one of his elite squads right away (The van Helsing dude. I don't know if you have seen him, but he died quite easily), His stupid grey knights were hard to kill though. Couldn't see them until they were half way across the board! gonk stressed
His stupid assassin appeared right behind me though with her stupid polymorphine drug and killed 3/4 of a squad before she went down (She normally kills much more than that, but I got lucky rolls). I pretty much cut down the rest of his units as they ran at me. I just sat there for the most part and killed him. I like defending. It is quite easy to pick off strong units when you can shoot the full 30" with the firewarriors! xd
I am just proud of my first REAL victory with my nearly completed army. biggrin heart

Edit: My friend just gave me a Commander! xd All I need now is 12 more battle suits, including Farsight, 2-3 devil fish, a few more path fidners, and a couple more firewarriors. 3nodding
I honestly can't believe that I am 2/3 finished with my army! eek xd

Maybe you should come up with a more original name. "Die black templars" is crap. Use some older style wording, such as
Abolesco Pullus Militis
Morior Niger Militis
Both latin, both the same sorta thing. The first one means "Die dark knights" and the second means "die black knights", but you get the idea.

Edit: Disregard the majority of this post if you read it before this edit. I found everything else out and most of my previous questions were completely outrageous and self explanitory. My bad. gonk sweatdrop
I don't know anything other than the Tetra rules from any Forge World units. Do any of you know where I can find Tau rules without buying their $60-$70 Codex thingy?

1) I would suggest getting a hammer head gunship before getting a sniper drone squad. Sniper drones are virtually useless to me, but I am not the one buying these for you, now am I?

2) I suggest keeping all of those items on your commander interchangable. The shield should go on his arm, because the command and control node should go on his shoulder. The command and control node gives any unit within 12" of him his leadership, which is 10 (The best you can get in a Tau army). He is the only one with that high of a leadership that isn't a special hero, so I suggest putting that on him. You need it for target priority tests.

3) The plasma rifle is a good choice, but I suggest taking off the fusion blaster. Put a fusion blaster on one of your other battle suits if you want, but I wouldn't suggest it. Fusion are only good in close range. You won't get that close unless you are in a city battle or another close quarters battle.
Melta means that you roll two dice to penetrate a vehicle and pick the highest die. It helps a ton, but won't be needed for the following reasons:
-You should have some other heavy support such as tanks or Broadside battlesuits.
-The Hammer head gunships with their railguns are the only things besides the commanders weapon that shoot blast markers. Use those against infantry.
-Broadside battlesuits are VERY good against tanks. They have twinlinked rail guns which can rip a tank to shreds if used correctly. You can have 3 in a squad and that gives you 3 insanly strong cannons that can each be re-rolled once if missed. Just don't move them, or you won't be able to shoot the big guns.
-Melta are an assault, but they won't get close enough to use. Use the Tau's far range tactics to blow your enemy to pieces.
-Replace most of the meltas with plasma rifles or burst cannons. Those are very good anti infantry.

4) The Airbursting Fragmentation projector can only be used by a commander or his body guards and there can only be one in an army. It only shoots a G18", but it is a very good anti-infantry weapon. I suggest gluing that on him because it won't just stay on him like the plastic weapons.

5) With only one slot available left on your commander, I suggest that you make sure that you can interchange your weapons. I normally put a shield gengerator on one arm when i'm fighting an enemy with numerous heavy weapons. If the enemy has mostly infantry or lighter weapons, I would go with the plasma rifle, but if you do, make sure that you add the hardwired multitracker on him so that he can fire both weapons.

6) Photon grenades are pretty much a big flash designed to staggar enemies. They are not offensive. They are designed to slow an enemies assault when they are going to come into hand-to-hand combat with you. It prevents them from attacking one more time, so it helps a lot when fighting tyranids, orks, grey knights, or any other mainly close combat army.

7) I don't use kroot and I honestly think you are better off without them. I am mechanizing. Just stick with Tau, not their allies. That is my opinion, though. By all means, go ahead and try it if you want, but I don't recommend it.
I personally am buing commander farsight which prevents any Kroot, Ethereals, or Vespids in the army. It also lowers how many tanks I can have to 1 hammerhead gunship, 1 skyray missle defenceship, and 1 squad of 3 broadside battlesuits. The good thing is that instead of only getting 3 units in a command squad, you can have 7 BODYGAURDS in his squad alone! And if you max out all of the battle suits you can have, you will get about 20 battle suits (23 including broadsides) and 11 of them will be better than normal battle suits. Those numbers with those kinds of stats are a devestating and intimidating threat to any enemy when placed with the right weapons.
Keep in mind that this kinf of army only comes when you buy O'Shavah, or nicknamed, Commander Farsight.

8 ) Do not be discouraged by the price of this game. I love it, but I don't have a full army yet. I have been playing for about 3 years and I haven't finished my army yet... sweatdrop I am going with the battlesuit army and even with only 7 battle suits (10 including the broadsides) and one of which being my commander, I have dealt serious damage to an enemy with them alone. I use flamers and burst cannons when versing tyranids or imperial guard; they wipe out units in good numbers.
It is VERY expansive though. But when you complete an army like the one i described along with the basic squads of firewarriors and maybe a few devilfish transport ships, it will come out to be roughly 2300-2800 points (2300 being near minimum requirements on each unit and the 2800 with many upgrades).

I am sorry to have written so much, but I don't normally get a chance to voice my opinions and help others with their issues.

I was a n00b not too long ago myself, believe it or not. 3nodding