I will soon be participating in a small but competitive local tournament, and I would greatly appreciate some feedback on my army list before I commit to buying the last few models I need to complete it. The stipulations are: 1,000 points, battle-forged only, codices and supplements only (no FW or IA or anything non-standard like that). I know the points-size might seem a tad small, but we usually like games to be fast and intense in a tournament setting, unlike more casual games where we usually go bigger. All games will be played on 4x4 boards with moderate terrain. So here is the list:

Commander with two missile pods, target lock, drone controller (128)

3x Five Fire Warriors (135)

3x Crisis Battlesuit each with two plasma rifles (156)

Four Marker Drones (56)

Hammerhead Gunship with submunition rounds, twin-linked smart missile system, Longstrike (175)

2x Three Stealth Battlesuits each with one fusion blaster (190)

Ghostkeel Battlesuit with cyclic ion raker, twin-linked burst cannon, velocity tracker (155)

The whole force conforms to the requirements of the Hunter Contingent found in the Tau codex. The Commander, Strike Teams, Crisis suits, Drones and Hammerhead make up the Hunter Cadre, and the Stealth suits and Ghostkeel make up the Optimised Stealth Cadre. The Strike Teams provide S5 dakka, which is useful against pretty much everything short of AV12+. They can be fired jointly at the same target using Coordinated Firepower making them all BS4 which, in rapid fire range, amounts to a nice amount of dakka, despite the small squads.

The Crisis suits are each separate one-man units, allowing them to coordinate their firepower in the same way, providing a large number of S6 AP2 shots which help against MEQ, TEQ and MCs.

The Commander accompanies the Marker Drones, providing a small number of very accurate markerlights. A large number of markerlights is not necessary, since the force already has numerous other ways of augmenting BS, and the Drones are hitting on twos thanks to the Commander’s drone controller. But putting three or four counters on a target is helpful sometimes. Meanwhile, the Commander can use his target lock to fire his missile pods at something else. I chose the missile pods simply for the range, since I plan to keep this unit quite remote from the enemy.

The Hammerhead is the only real source of long-range anti-armour, but Tau are a little dry in this area anyway. With help from Longstrike, however, there is a highly accurate S10 AP1 Tank Hunters shot which can threaten Land Raiders and under, not to mention a S6 AP4 pie plate for flexibility.

The Stealth suits are not great, but are necessary for the formation, and are fairly expendable Infiltrators to gain some control over more of the board.

The Ghostkeel is the real powerhouse of the army (and, in my opinion, of the whole codex). Point constraints are such that I am not able to take the super cheese, three-man Fire Team, but the Wall of Mirrors special rule is still awesome, granting +1BS, ignores cover and allows him to always strike the rear armour of vehicles. No limitations and no drawbacks. The velocity tracker is the icing on the cake.

I would appreciate feedback from anyone who is familiar with the Tau codex, if there are any conspicuous pitfalls in the list. Though it seems to me as though I have most of my bases covered. But if I have missed anything, go ahead and point it out.

Thanks!