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yes... with orks its dealing with there transports and assualy walkers, nids it's the giant synapse, guard it's the tanks... against normal infantry, and even some elite units, tau can be good.. but dealing with sniper fire, pinning weapons, and heavybolter, and vehicals.. they are not so great. In a large city and such tau would have some luck as they can use the cover quite well and also get it blocking the site range of tanks.

Imperial battle cannons... once they draw a bead.. you better be in cover your your dead, no matter what your numbers they are deadly

I'm sure you've already seen them, but...
Kommandos
Big mek

AAAAAAAAAALRIGHTY!
Rant time!

Farsight and his 7 body guards should never be relied on for winning the battle. Yes, they are amazing, considering that they are ALL better than normal crisis suits and get to use Farsight's LD and I.
Tau armies are designed for ranged combat. This does not mean that you should rely on infantry. Tau can massacre nearly any enemy at a distance if that right tactic is used. Rail heads can decimate low AS units, but have more trouble with stronger units. That is not a problem when you have 3+ squads of firewarriors eliminating the surviving units and possibly pinning them. Broadsides are DEFINATELY worth the 210+ points! Every single battle that I play, they help to turn the tide of battle. Imperial guard are no longer a problem and most other races have the same tank armor or less, so if you can kill imp guard tanks with ease, no other army should give you more trouble.
Devilfish' are extremely useful for skimming around, drawing the attention of the enemies' heavy fire. Yes, you may lose a devilfish or two, but the cost on your enemies is far greater if you sieze that opportunity and swing away at their heavy units, tanks, walkers, or monsterous creatures with your heavy weapons (i.e. Broadsides)

Kroot are not favored in my army in the least. I do not need close combat units. If I am able to get farsight and his bodyguard someday, then I can keep them near the front lines and blast away or have them deepstrike behind an enemy and take out their commander. No commander can stand up against a suped-up battle suit squad with nearly 3 times as many suits as a normal Crisis squad!
Also, keep in mind that in a Farsight army, you can have him, the 7 bodyguards, another command squad, and 3 other crisis teams. All of that equals 20 battlesuits. Along with tanks, broadsides, mass firewarriors, and an addition of some devilfish, not much can handle that kind of army. Yes, it's costly, but the results are staggering. I've seen it go against SM and DH. There was no contest...
Just imagine, 8-20 battlesuits drop behind your lines, where you are least defended, and blast away at your command squads and special units.
If you are playing commanders, then I would say, "Good game."

@heavenly angel goddess: Btw, Broadsides are Heavy and Crisis are Elite. Getting rid of the broadsides does not allow you to get another crisis squad, you are just losing a heavy troop choice.

I don't really agree with your stance on Special Characters. The main reason one takes them is that they have special abilities unheard of in normal games. The Deciever can pin Fearless units. Not only that but he can redeploy your entire army after your enemy has deployed. It's true that nobody takes C'tan, but that's not because they're afraid of having all those points in one unit; it's because they're afraid of Phase Out. Having those points taken up by a non-Necron unit, especially if you are also fielding a Monolith makes your Phase Out number dangerously low. I've actually seen a player make excellent use of the Deciever by using no Monolith. And frankly, considering that the C'tan have 5 wounds, a 4+ invulnerable and T8, they're just as durable as a Monolith if not more.

A Tyranid player without a Hive Tyrant? I pity that player. It's the ONLY good Tyranid HQ choice. The Broodlord is sub par. He doesn't move any faster than the Tyrant, and can't shoot. Sure he can infiltrate, but any unit can just walk ahead of him and keep him from ever assaulting. The Broodlord can't fleet, and as long as he's alive, his retinue can't fleet either. A winged Tyrant is one of the best balanced assaulters the 'nids have; fast, strong and tough. Granted, a walking Tyrant with Guard isn't going to assault, or do a whole lot. However, it is a rock-hard unit. You also don't see 200+ point Carnifexes for a reason, and that reason isn't that it's terrible to have that many points in one unit; it's that said Carnifex will never, ever make it to assault unless you are fighting an army that's looking to charge YOU.

In general, having too many upgrades on a unit is not preferable to having more units. However, special characters give you access to certain abilities unheard of in normal codex forces. In addition, sometimes normal upgrades can be combined for powerful effects, like Daemonic Speed/Infiltrate, or Multi-Tracker/Decoy Launchers.

1. I didn't just mean for Tau.

2. The Guard might get close to you. Armies like Orks and nids are definatly going to get close to you.

3. Against horde armies the regular flamer is very decent. Most Orks and Nids have low armour, and unless the Guardsmen are wearing carapace they'll be toasted alongside. While the flamer doesn't work as well against Marines and such, it does fine against horde armies.

4.The trick is simply to fire with more than one unit, make sure the target will fall. Unleash the flamers and other weapons and charge in. Crisis Suits can handle assault if the numbers are low. Plus if your enemy would assault you anyway, you would deny them the chance to double their attacks.

yes, but with those armies it can be tough, if your not careful, I know first hand crisissuits can do rather well in close combat... but nids move fast.. sure assualting them could work but if you mess up assualt or there are still a number of guys left... don't expect the assualt to remain unjoined... blasted fleet of claw >_> blasted ork numberous hords and transports. Just need to zip up a transport and then kick the boyz out into the mess. .. all this stuff is really helpful, helps me work on my armies battle plans mrgreen

I just saw an editorial in WD by J.Johnson, and very encouraging spec chars - to the pointof including them in main army list entries as in Codex Eldar. He even wrote that official tournaments are going to allow spec chars from the codexes...