Tau Commander for fluff and fun!

[Just_Me]

I've recently been putting the finishing touches on a small Tau army that was built and gathering dust for quite a while and I've come to a stumbling point on my commander's armament. The force itself is a small 1000 point army intended to be fluffy, flexible, and simple:

2x 12 strong squads of Fire Warriors mounted on Devilfish (equipped with seeker missiles)

1x 6 strong squad of Stealth suits (with fusion blasters and marklight drones)

1x 3 strong squad of Crisis suits (with plasma and burst cannon)

Let me provide the caveat here that I like tricked out HQs and regularly pay out for around 160-180pts for an HQ at any points level. My original commander was an EXTREMELY points-heavy build based around an extensively converted quasi-gundam inspired suit with which I had longstanding a love/hate relationship (it never looked quite how I wanted it despite repeatedly going under the knife/brush).

I eventually ditched it and decided to start over. In building the commander I wanted to build up from a lean mean "commando" starting point in keeping with the rest of the army who could plug holes where needed and add some extra toys to the army as a whole so I ended up choosing an XV84 suit (the marklight equipped one from Forge World). I made him a Shas'El with a targeting array, hard-wired multi-tracker, and stimulant injectors and I decided on a flamer and fusion gun because I figured it would make him solidly flexible at a ~1000pts range and let him bolster the cadre in whichever way they required. I actually love the flamer (surprisingly enough) I know it seems like the poorest choice but it's cheap and very nasty up close/in cover, plus under 6th edition it is a mild assault deterrent as well, but now I'm rethinking plasma instead of fusion because of the greater range and number of shots (although I like the actual look of fusion a lot more). Alternatively I've been thinking of dropping the targeting array (possibly just paying for the Shas'O) and adding a missile pod. Even if I did ALL of that the suit would still come in under130pts (before any drones) but that would be a grand total of 4 "guns" to choose between each turn, and even though they would fall into very distinct and effective brackets of range and preferred target that just seems like I'm trying to do way too much on a single platform.

Considering the points size and the rest of the army what do all of you think would be the best/most flexible set of options?

[Just_Me]

So after reading all of the replies (which have apparently disappeared, so that's weird...) I decided to drop the targeting array and flamer in favor of twin-linked fusion blasters and a missile pod. I can stay at 36" range and harrass targets with markerlight and missiles or close with hard targets to hit them with fusion. I lose the BS5 (unless I decide to find the points for a Shas'O) but BS4 is still respectable and re-rolling on the fusion blaster means that I can be pretty sure that my hardest punches will hit when I need it.

Down the road if I ever end up giving him a bodyguard I'll probably give them twin-linked flamers and missiles. That keeps them inexpensive and they can add fire at 36" or cover the commander against infantry while he hits hard targets (thanks to the XV84's built in target lock). (EDIT just re-read the FAQ and saw that target locks no longer function so never mind that)

Any thoughts on this?

[Tynskel]

there was a server crash!! The interwebz cloudz rained out!

[Just_Me]

there was a server crash!! The interwebz cloudz rained out!

Yeah I figured, at first I thought it was just my connection...

[Just_Me]

Decided to post some pictures of the completed commander in case anyone was interested.

[url]http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?24481-Tau-Commander-for-style-points&p=237643#post237643[/url]