Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits
SWORD: what Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 100 pts kill ~72 pts in one activation.Typical shooter: 44 per 100
Best against heavy infantry, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
In T'au Empire
Across the game· shooters
SHIELD: how hard Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 100 pts take ~328 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical shooter: 298 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
In T'au Empire
Across the game· shooters
What reviewers say
7 reviewers- Plasma answers elite and terminator armies 4 of 7
- Cheap, with the most consistent damage per point 4 of 7
- In nearly every list 3 of 7
- The missile build is flexible into hordes 3 of 7
- Plasma lacks the shots for its targets 2 of 7
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits100 pts | A | Top 8% | Top 37% | 134of 181 |
| Crisis Starscythe Battlesuits100 pts | A | Top 34% | Top 37% | 129of 181 |
| Crisis Sunforge Battlesuits125 pts | A | Top 12% | Top 45% | 133of 181 |
With a leader
| Solo | Led | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 90 | 114 |
| SHIELD | 328 | 328 |
| Solo | Led | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 90 | 90 |
| SHIELD | 328 | 328 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then with the leader joined.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits, 3 models, 100 pts, with 3 Battlesuit fists, 6 Plasma rifle, in Starfire Cadre. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: its own abilities, the army rule and the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
100 pts → kills ~72 pts → 72 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~328 pts → 328 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 407 shooters. How we score.
The letter
The average of 8 reviewers' newest T'au Empire tier lists: 6 Plus Plus Gaming (unit tier list, with its pinned comment) (13 Oct), Tau Tactics (meta watch of five top-cut lists from LVO and LGT) (4 Oct), Goonhammer / tabletopbattles.com (Competitive Innovations: 5 full post-dataslate winning lists and 16 summaries) (23 Oct), WednesdayNightWarhammer (State of the Empire, dataslate review; few units graded) (2 Oct), Puretide Program (WTC 2026 meta analysis: unit counts across the T'au lists) (6 Aug), Tawnis Tactics (Learn to Play Kroot: unit review inside Kroot Hunting Pack) (5 Sep), Invasive Wargaming (damage per point mathhammer after the July update) (28 Jul), Vanguard Tactics (competitive breakdown of the 1-DP detachments on preview rules; unit views inferred) (15 Jun). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
181 public T'au Empire tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 2 Nov.