I've been thinking about this for a while. The two main armies I play are DE and Tau, and I keep hearing that FW are overpriced while DE warriors are decent, if not great. But as far as I can see, there isn't that much difference between them. Against T4, they're equally good at shooting, one needing 3s and 4s, the other needing 4s and 3s. Against T3 they're better, and although they're worse against higher T there's loads of other stuff in the tau army designed for this, and the FW make up for it with their ability to glance light tanks and transports to death. DE are better in assault by a long way, but while this means they can take out guard with ease while tau can't, against MEqs DE will still only average one kill per 20 attacks, unlikely to make too much of a difference. And the tau have an armour save of 4+, meaning that against bolters and their equivalents they have a 50% higher chance of survival, which is barely a small difference, and this is even bigger when we include the fact that most cover nowadays is 5+.

Now, one of the great things about DE warriors is their transports. They can quickly move anywhere on the board, and if it's a squad of 5, they also get 12 poisoned shots travelling with them. However, with a 30" range, surely FW can simply sit on an objective and shoot stuff? Most anti-infantry fire will be AP5, they can sit in cover for anything with a lower AP and while they're far from the most destructive unit out there, they're barely prohibitively expensive, and the opponent won't simply take them out whenever he feels like it if the rest of the army is doing its job and being distracting and destructive. And they can always hop on one of the pathfinders' devilfish at the end and get to any of the other objectives, assuming there is a devilfish and it hasn't been blown up.

I'm not saying FW are an amazing unit. But I simply don't see why they're considered utter failures when they're simply being compared to marines rather than dark eldar. I think that considered in this way, there is no reason not to consider them if not good then at least acceptable, and at least not a reason that tau shouldn't be taken as they have been seen in the past.


Feel free to offer your opinions concerning this. Flames will be used for cooking marshmallows.

The problem with Tau FW is not that they are overpriced, but too min-maxed.
The gun is abnormally good for the cost, but the guy who uses it is less then a guardsmen.

The fact is, in the end of the day, having a good gun helps nothing if you cant fire it properly and can't take a hit. its like having a guardsmen with a thunderhammer-won't help as it will never live long enough to use it.

Under old rapid fire it was much, much worse though, now that they can shoot while moving away from danger they are viable. (because just standing there and shooting does NOT work in the long run.)

De have higher leadership and can take special/heavy weapons. Also their transport allows for obscene charge distances.
The devilfish seems to see more use as mobile terrain than as a transport.

the firewarriors guns rock and that range is scary to go up against but they are priced pretty reasonably. I do feel that DE warriors are better though. (biased because I play DE and close friend plays Tau) but the sheer range my raiders and venoms can get into and still shoot from open top and ravage the enemy is pretty OP. Especiallly the special weapon options available are amazing. (splinter cannon is beond amazing)

Firewarriors are just the right price. They have a good gun, decent armor, meh BS, crap leadership, crap melee power, no upgrade options for the squad.

 spears wrote:
De have higher leadership and can take special/heavy weapons. Also their transport allows for obscene charge distances.
The devilfish seems to see more use as mobile terrain than as a transport.

14-24" is insane?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
DE warriors aren't "great"


they are very good against high toughness MC
they wont win much in close combat being slightly better than IG for nearly twice the cost.

thier access to special and heavy weapons is a carry over from 3rd edition when they could have 2 of each in a ten man squad for basically no point cost. Now they get 1 of each in a 10 man are all of them are expensive.

I find them a bit over priced when compared to IG or Termigaunts, by about 3 points I would say. Not gmae breaking but enough that you notice it.

I think they're a point or so too much.

That's really my only issue with them.

On the topic of firewarriors what are opinions on EMP(haywire) grenades, and photon grenades, which apart from being defensive, grant stealth within 8"

I think they're just fine as they are.

Good armor, great gun

I feel like Cabalists are a little over priced. I've felt like that more this edition than others but I think it's because of how expensive the equipment feels to me.


Haven't played against enough tau recently to have a real feeling about the fire warriors but they have always had a very nice guy. I think the LD issues are still a problem and the necessity of suits feels kinda lame but the bubble wrap issues are much less of a deal now with allies. I can't say. It's a pretty neat unit, and hard to judge.

Fire Warriors are 1-2 points overpriced at most. Much of the complaining about them comes from 5th edition, when they were one of the worst Troops units in the game AND Kroot were much better, but now that Kroot are more or less obsolete and Fire Warriors have been greatly improved by the new Rapid Fire rules, they aren't so bad a buy after all.

The grenade options are of course overpriced and silly, but that's the same with all old books.

Tau are slightly overpriced and there are a few things working against them. While a S5 gun seems alright, when you remember that it also AP5 you quickly notice that it isn't much of an upgrade in terms of wounds output by the squad. Additionally, unlike other squads, you have to remember that a fair amount of the 'value' from a squad comes from its specialist and heavy weapons. Unlike Infantry Platoons, Kabalite Warriors, or Tactical Squads, Fire Warrior squads don't bring ANYTHING to the table except for S5 shooting and the ability to hold objectives, and while they are good at their S5 shooting, their inability to even have a chance to do anything severely hurts them. What upgrades they have are also overpriced, and will either be made cheaper or rolled into the base cost entirely in the next codex.

They seem pretty close in 6E. 1 point too high IMO. If they were BS4 (which is also more in fluff) then they would be good. Although something would need to be done for kroot, since I wouldn't see them being used anymore.

The problem with Tau Fire Warriors is that everyone assumes you're dealing with them in a vacuum, when you aren't. Factor in Markerlights and they become very useful.

5th Ed I would have said they were easily about 2 points overpriced. 6th Ed they are doing far better, but ultimately it is a pretty weak model holding that gun. I think 9 points would be about the right number, that or include the Team Leader or Photon Grenades free for the squad.

I hate the argument that marker lights make them useful. What other troop requires another overpriced and squishy unit to justify their cost?

Firewarriors would be ok for their cost if they had access to special weapons and got a leadership buff and maybe a slight stat change. With as low as some of their stats are, it's absurd that they cost as much as they do. You're really only purchasing a gun with FW.

Well, start with a guardsman in cost. Yes, I know, tau are worse in close combat, but lets get real, here, neither guardsmen nor firewarriors are going to crush face in assault.

So, we start with 5 points for a unit with a lot of 3's in the statline. Then we add 3 points apiece for carapace armor (how much it costs guardsmen - at the cheapest - to get this upgrade), and then we throw on the fact that they have a storm bolter as their small arm for another 2 points. Then we take into account that the small arm is much better than a storm bolter, having a THIRTY SIX inch threat range, and having high enough strength to swat down AV10 vehicles (and the numbers to cause a serious pain to AV10 fliers). I'd give that an extra point, at least. Also, do they still get defensive grenades? If they do, I'd add a point for that. New rules for assault grenades make them worthless for guardsmen.

Anyways, at least comparing them to guardsmen, I'd guess that a firewarrior should cost somewhere between 11 and 13 points apiece. Of course, you could ding them down by a point for not having access to better weapons, and ding them another for not having as good of infantry support options (no orders, standard, etc.), so I'd say that something between 9 and 11 points apiece would be fair.

Out of curiosity, how much DO firewarriors cost?

i can believe this is up for discussion, Fire Warriors over priced? Not a chance cowboy...

As a Tau player what I find most difficult about the Fire Warriors is the inability to efficiently improve leadership (no I don't believe ethereals or shadowsun is efficient) and the lack of options for any sort of special or heavy weapons.

With imperial guard the addition of a commissar makes a HUGE difference in their ability to remain on the table, and there is huge variety in special weapons and the addition of heavy weapon squads...

Marcus Scipio wrote:With imperial guard the addition of a commissar makes a HUGE difference in their ability to remain on the table

... well, it just makes a huge difference for them not running away. It does nothing at all to keep them on the table with regard to taking damage.

In 6th ed, I dropped my commissars, in part because my guardsmen were getting straight-up wiped off the board before they had a chance to even take a morale check. Even if they were to fail, a single squad was likely butchered down to a few rather useless survivors.

Instead, I started taking carapace armored vets. Carapace will keep them on the table a lot better than better leadership will, as carapace makes a difference often, while the leadership thing kicks in only occasionally. The 4+ armor is better than the Ld9.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, start with a guardsman in cost. Yes, I know, tau are worse in close combat, but lets get real, here, neither guardsmen nor firewarriors are going to crush face in assault.

So, we start with 5 points for a unit with a lot of 3's in the statline. Then we add 3 points apiece for carapace armor (how much it costs guardsmen - at the cheapest - to get this upgrade), and then we throw on the fact that they have a storm bolter as their small arm for another 2 points. Then we take into account that the small arm is much better than a storm bolter, having a THIRTY SIX inch threat range, and having high enough strength to swat down AV10 vehicles (and the numbers to cause a serious pain to AV10 fliers). I'd give that an extra point, at least. Also, do they still get defensive grenades? If they do, I'd add a point for that. New rules for assault grenades make them worthless for guardsmen.

Anyways, at least comparing them to guardsmen, I'd guess that a firewarrior should cost somewhere between 11 and 13 points apiece. Of course, you could ding them down by a point for not having access to better weapons, and ding them another for not having as good of infantry support options (no orders, standard, etc.), so I'd say that something between 9 and 11 points apiece would be fair.

Out of curiosity, how much DO firewarriors cost?

Have to buy grenades for FW. Cost is 2 Guardsmen. Don't forget to ding the point off for lower WS, and lower base squad LD.

k, seems fairly priced to me.

But you disagree with your previous statement. 9-11 points -1 (no grenades) -1 (worse leadership and no buffs) -1 (lower I and WS) gives you 6-9 points and you say 10 is fine.

I'm not counting the I or WS. Neither guardsmen nor firewarriors are winning close combat. Plus, firewarriors don't even lose in close combat to regular guardsmen.

Also, I already counted the lack of Ld buffs.

Guardsmen have bigger numbers, higher initiative and weapon skill, plus the option to take power weapons. How can they not beat FW? Plus as mentioned they have bad leadership. It just takes winning combat by 1 and then winning initiative.

You can't just ignore CC because IG isn't the greatest at it. They'd at least have the option to bring a power weapon and have a better chance to actually wound back.

I think 10 is too much for what they have, but 6 is definitely way too low. When I look at a Fire Warrior's price comparative to others, I think that the thing that makes them overpriced is that they need to pay a lot of extra points for things that other units get by default (like grenades).

If it were up to me I'd price a base squad of Fire Warriors at 60 points. 10 Points per fire warrior at a minimum of 5 per squad, plus 10 for a default Shas'ui. I'd include Photon Grenades in their cost and make some changes to the squad's rules:

Bonded: So long as the Shas'ui leader lives, the squad may reroll all failed leadership tests (I'd remove Bonding knife from the armory and build it into Tau units instead).

Warp? What's That?: When rolling to Deny the Witch, the squad will pass on a 5+ instead of a 6.

Markerlight: In the shooting phase, the Shas'ui leader my choose to fire his rifle's built in Markerlight instead of his pulse rifle. Resolve the Markerlight's to hit before any other shooting for the squad. If the Markerlight hits it may be used as described in the Markerlight rules when the rest of the Shas'ui's unit fires their pulse rifles (immediately after the Markerlight is resolved!)

Possibly write them in as having Blacksun Filters by default?

Savageconvoy wrote:Guardsmen have bigger numbers, higher initiative and weapon skill, plus the option to take power weapons. How can they not beat FW? Plus as mentioned they have bad leadership. It just takes winning combat by 1 and then winning initiative.

You can't just ignore CC because IG isn't the greatest at it. They'd at least have the option to bring a power weapon and have a better chance to actually wound back.

I deliberately ignored Close Combat even with DE because against most opponents (aka. MEqs) the most you're ever likely to kill is one anyway, unless for some reason you send masses of them into assault at once.
According to Ailaros, FW should be 9-11pts each, which they are, whether you do or don't include the +1 point for grenades.

LordofHats wrote:I think 10 is too much for what they have, but 6 is definitely way too low. When I look at a Fire Warrior's price comparative to others, I think that the thing that makes them overpriced is that they need to pay a lot of extra points for things that other units get by default (like grenades).

If it were up to me I'd price a base squad of Fire Warriors at 60 points. 10 Points per fire warrior at a minimum of 5 per squad, plus 10 for a default Shas'ui. I'd include Photon Grenades in their cost and make some changes to the squad's rules:

Bonded: So long as the Shas'ui leader lives, the squad may reroll all failed leadership tests (I'd remove Bonding knife from the armory and build it into Tau units instead).

Warp? What's That?: When rolling to Deny the Witch, the squad will pass on a 5+ instead of a 6.

Markerlight: In the shooting phase, the Shas'ui leader my choose to fire his rifle's built in Markerlight instead of his pulse rifle. Resolve the Markerlight's to hit before any other shooting for the squad. If the Markerlight hits it may be used as described in the Markerlight rules when the rest of the Shas'ui's unit fires their pulse rifles (immediately after the Markerlight is resolved!)

Possibly write them in as having Blacksun Filters by default?

Well, if we're going to rewrite their rules, I'm up for a go at that.
I'd say 10pts each, but with +1 LD (they're fighting for the greater good and can't even comprehend not doing so, why would they run away?), Blacksun filters and photon grenades as normal, and the option of +1 BS for a certain points cost (though I'm not sure how much). The Bonded and "Warp? What's That?" rules sound half decent as well.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with Tau Fire Warriors is that everyone assumes you're dealing with them in a vacuum, when you aren't. Factor in Markerlights and they become very useful.

This is a good point as markerlights can be pretty nasty but shouldnt have to rely on another unit. I hate when my buddy starts shooting markerlights though

Exalbaru wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with Tau Fire Warriors is that everyone assumes you're dealing with them in a vacuum, when you aren't. Factor in Markerlights and they become very useful.

This is a good point as markerlights can be pretty nasty but shouldnt have to rely on another unit. I hate when my buddy starts shooting markerlights though

Not every army plays like space marines where every unit is a stand alone, most of the Xenos armies have synergy and overlapping buffs, thats the very nature of their style.

Tau and Markerlights, Guardians and Warlocks/Farseers, Guard and orders, Gaunts and Tervigons/Zoans... By not factoring in these important aspects of the army your point costs will be all over the place and woefully innaccurate. A full pathfinder squad should on average score enough hits to make a Fire Warrior squad BS5 and ignore 5+ cover with their Pulse Rifles, suddenly they seem worth *way* more than their cost. Armies must be considered as a whole not unit by unit.

Except you can only bring three pathfinder squads and they are better used on the elite and heavy support choices. That's why you don't factor markerlights in for them. They are better spent elsewhere.

And I agree that Tau shouldn't play like space marines, but its still silly that FW have to rely on FA firewarriors to justify their high point cost. If you do that then factor in the cost of pathfinders WHICH DO NOTHING BESIDES BUFF ONE FIREWARRIOR SQUAD into their cost.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Except you can only bring three pathfinder squads and they are better used on the elite and heavy support choices. That's why you don't factor markerlights in for them. They are better spent elsewhere.

And I agree that Tau shouldn't play like space marines, but its still silly that FW have to rely on FA firewarriors to justify their high point cost. If you do that then factor in the cost of pathfinders WHICH DO NOTHING BESIDES BUFF ONE FIREWARRIOR SQUAD into their cost.

Thats an innaccurate blanket statement, pathfinder supply buffs to whatever target you need to kill *now*. Buffing 3 Plasma/Missile suits is great if you want to kill space marines but that 30 man squad of Orks or Gaunts won't care about the few extra high strength low AP hits. A max sized squad of Fire Warriors can double tap for 24 shots and gain far more benefit when shooting at such a squad and tear it's heart out. Fire Warriors pay for that potential the same way Guardians do for the potential of 20 of them getting Guide/Doom.

The Fire warriors don't rely on anyone, literally the only target they can't engage and destroy are AV 13-14 tanks. They are enhanced by that synergy and as such cost slightly more than the same troops in an army that cannot. If you use them like point and click troops you will always be at a disadvantage because of this but your army has the utility to enhance key elements at key times. Hell multiple Fire warrior squads can even buff each other with Shas'ui markerlights. It loses out as a tactic in 6th now they can move and shoot with Rifles further but is still valid as a way of throwing BS4 on a unit engaging the same target 50% of the time.

By ignoring markerlights you are skewing the comparison because they are a core mechanic or the army. You may as well suggest Nid LD is too low if you don't account for Synapse...

I'm not that familiar with Nids, but do Synapse do nothing but provide LD buffs?

The problem with markerlights is that they've always been expensive, on BS3 models, and don't benefit their own unit. It puts them in an odd place to me because it's a core mechanic that works 50% of the time to benefit another unit.

And yes, the point cost for firewarriors does take the markerlight bonus into account when they were made. I agree to that. I'm saying that it's a silly now. Markerlights are pretty much limited to pathfinders just due to the amount of markerlights they bring and with out other weapons they really aren't sacrificing much by focusing their fire on something just to get a marker token (at least without adding in a target lock). It takes another squad that is going to cost around 130 points to be able to buff a 120 points of firewarriors.

The pathfinders don't even have synergy with themselves due to them being forced to buy a transport that causes them to sacrifice shooting when they embark or disembark. Now they get to snap fire, which benefits markerlights a bit more since they just need to roll to hit and not wound or allow for saves.

Personally I think FW would be fine at their current price if the squad leader came with the 60 point 6 man unit and if they had options for drones with better weapon options. I personally like them as troops and the big gun they carry. There is just something about them that doesn't sit right with me. The gun is really versatile, but often comes up lacking a lot just due to the number of saves out there. I'm not honestly sure what it would take to really fix them IMO but a price drop wouldn't do it. Even at 8 ppm they would still be lacking something. I'd prefer to pay points then come up short in performance.

Dunklezahn is right in that we should include the buffs to FW, but I think we should also include the price. For a team of FW to get the buffs given by 4 Pathfinders (and assuming the necessary Devilfish is also put to good use), a team that would cost 120pts now costs... well, I haven't got my codex with me, but I think it would be 168. Correct me if I'm wrong, but either way it's certainly not worth the points, for which reason we should consider FW on their own.

 p_gray99 wrote:
Dunklezahn is right in that we should include the buffs to FW, but I think we should also include the price. For a team of FW to get the buffs given by 4 Pathfinders (and assuming the necessary Devilfish is also put to good use), a team that would cost 120pts now costs... well, I haven't got my codex with me, but I think it would be 168. Correct me if I'm wrong, but either way it's certainly not worth the points, for which reason we should consider FW on their own.

Minimum size squad numbers with no upgrades:

6 FW = 60pts
4 Pathfinders = 48 pts
Required D-fish= 80 pts

Total 188 pts. for 2 squads to make one squad decent.

How much for a squad of Necron warriors and their unit size? I'm thinking that might be a more accurate comparison than IG to FW.

Total 5 necron warriors for 65 points, so 13 points per model.

Thanks.

So figure in about

+1 for RP
+1 for Guass rules
+1 for +1S/T/BS/LD

That sound right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do I need to factor in things like the Orb and the dedicated flying transport into their cost too?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
But you disagree with your previous statement. 9-11 points -1 (no grenades) -1 (worse leadership and no buffs) -1 (lower I and WS) gives you 6-9 points and you say 10 is fine.

grenades werent in the equation to begin with
-1ld is really the lack of a champion(which is an issue)
lower I and WS doesnt matter, virtually no assault troops have WS3, so they are getting hit on 3+ anyway. Init3 also is sub any non ork or cron assault unit

9-10 points is fair.

commissars would be nice if they were free but they cost 30 points. That is no small chunk of points


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Thanks.

So figure in about

+1 for RP
+1 for Guass rules
+1 for +1S/T/BS/LD

That sound right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do I need to factor in things like the Orb and the dedicated flying transport into their cost too?

a str5 gun is about equal to a str4 gun with guass, but fire warroris have +6" range too
+2 for +1 WS, str, T, BS, Ld
+1 for RP

Tau leadership buff (Ethereal) is 50 points, has no armor or weapons, and can make the rest of the army run off the board. Especially considering that it's a unit that buffs only leadership because Tau has lower leadership than average, and that without him you're taking that test on a lower than average LD. I'd consider that Commisar a steal.


and Gauss can glance any armor vehicle. I'm still factoring +1 because it makes it more versatile than the Pulse Rifle.

and 3 points for 4 higher stats and RP? That seems a bit off.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Tau leadership buff (Ethereal) is 50 points, has no armor or weapons, and can make the rest of the army run off the board. Especially considering that it's a unit that buffs only leadership because Tau has lower leadership than average, and that without him you're taking that test on a lower than average LD. I'd consider that Commisar a steal.


and Gauss can glance any armor vehicle. I'm still factoring +1 because it makes it more versatile than the Pulse Rifle.

and 3 points for 4 higher stats and RP? That seems a bit off.

RP is stronger then FNP, about half way between FNP and eternal warrior since it does not stop I.D., but still works even when the model is I.D, so it is probably worth 2 points. Especially when it is not one every model in the unit, not just do to a single model upgrade.

Oh and if you start to factor other units in to, then you get things like Ghost arks and Resorbs that improve the RP roll. A necron warrior should cost abitt more than a FW and be with in a point or 2 of a Vanilla Space marine.

Why bother calculating in a pathfinder squad? Just give the Squad leader a drone controller, and two marker drones. Now you're paying 60 points for the two drones, who can buff the squad, but are saving on the cost of the devil fish the pathfinder would have to take (48+80, or 68 points). Comes out to 12.85 points (or 13.5 if the squad leader has his own marker light) per model. This assumes you're using a full squad, and it does prohibit moving, though with a 36" range on the marker lights, and a 30" range on the guns you won't have to move as much as say, a guard platoon.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Tau leadership buff (Ethereal) is 50 points, has no armor or weapons, and can make the rest of the army run off the board. Especially considering that it's a unit that buffs only leadership because Tau has lower leadership than average, and that without him you're taking that test on a lower than average LD. I'd consider that Commisar a steal.

well perhaps ethereals are overpriced, they well could be overpriced but that doesnt make the cost of a basic firewarrior over or underpriced.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

and Gauss can glance any armor vehicle. I'm still factoring +1 because it makes it more versatile than the Pulse Rifle.

str5 vs str4 and guass does:
20% more damage against T3
33% more damage against T4
50% more damage against T5
100% more damage against T6
infinitely more damage against T8

In the edition of infantry, doing more damage to infantry matters a lot.

against vehicles
str5 vs str4 and guass does:
100% more damage against AV10 and infinitely more chance to blow up(half the hits are penetrating)
same damage vs AV11
no damage vs AV12 or higher

now there are less vehicles out there, particularly AV11-12 ones but people are still fielding paper planes and boxes(AV10) and heavy tanks. The issue with heavy tanks is that they are unlikely to be close by making guass less useful. when heavy vehicles get close, they expose their side armor.

All this in a vaccuum. Tau have excellent ways to deal with heavy vehicles(rail guns), necrons do no. Other than guass it doesnt get to great at range.

barnowl wrote:
I find them a bit over priced when compared to IG or Termigaunts, by about 3 points I would say. Not gmae breaking but enough that you notice it.

EVERYTHING is overpriced compared to IG. That is a problem with IG, not Tau.

They're definitely expensive for what they do, they got better with 6th, but infantry rifles aren't what win most games, BS3 S5 against most targets isn't any different than BS4 S4, and carapace equivalent armor is amongst the most consistently overvalued and overcosted piece of equipment in Warhammer 40,000. 8ppm is about what I'd put their value at.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with Tau Fire Warriors is that everyone assumes you're dealing with them in a vacuum, when you aren't. Factor in Markerlights and they become very useful.

Markerlights make them killers on tables where the adversary is counting on terrain. Although if the adversary knows he is fighting Tau. He should take that into account :O)

 btr75 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with Tau Fire Warriors is that everyone assumes you're dealing with them in a vacuum, when you aren't. Factor in Markerlights and they become very useful.

Markerlights make them killers on tables where the adversary is counting on terrain. Although if the adversary knows he is fighting Tau. He should take that into account :O)

Eh. If I run in the open to get to your faster, instead of taking away my cover save you are boosting your BS. It's a lose/lose for me.

-Matt

Tau just seem to be schizophrenic in their approach.

With their points costs and tactics, they want to feel like an elite army. But, with the FW's comparatively low stats with quite a few units needed to make them really effective, they want to feel horde like. Their weapon strengths and ranges make them out to play like a gun-line. But, they work best as a mobile shooting army (thanks to things like JSJ).

On the topic of Fire Warriors pricing. I feel like there are a few things they could do. A: Do nothing about it (most likely..), B: Keep the price but up the stats a little bit (like a bit better LD and maybe BS4 because they are supposed to be some of the best shots thanks to their tech), C: Keep the stats but lower the price a tiny bit.

I'm thinking a combination of B and C. Simply lowering their cost a bit, and raising their stats up slightly. I just want to see higher LD, a slightly lower cost, and though I don't want to see them be BS4 base I'd like to see a different approach to markerlights so the squad has easier access and benefits. Instead of competing against other units for those precious little red dots.

Personally I'd like to see Pulse carbines be given the blind rule. Short range and AP5 shouldn't cause that much of an upset.

And FW lower stats have to be taken into consideration. Yes CC units will stomp them as good as other units with slightly higher stats. But that means that several non CC units like guard can beat Tau down severely. The fact that they are that low has to be taken into consideration. Yes no assualt unit has WS3, but that means that non assualt units now have something over Tau. Either the stats should be raised or the points should go down.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
How much for a squad of Necron warriors and their unit size? I'm thinking that might be a more accurate comparison than IG to FW.

Closer comparsion would probably be to a Battle Sister.

I'm not that familiar with sisters. I compared them to the warrior because they're both xeno with 4+ save, squad wide toned down special weapon, poor CC stats, and with an army gimmick (RP vs markerlights).

How would you compare a sister to a FW?

For 2 points extra each, Battle sisters have 1 better BS, I, LD and save, and have bolters, bolt pistols and grenades in exchange for pulse rifles.

I'd say that the weapons exchange is roughly fair or slightly in favor of tau, but it does make the SoB capable of charging if absolutely necessary. They also have plenty of nice upgrade options, though on the downside you have to take between ten and twenty.

I'd say the BS and LD is worth 1 point, the save is worth 1 and a bit, and they lose that bit over the weaponry. Then again, the SoB's ability to not only survive a charge but also give one in a bad situation is probably worth another point, meaning that if SoB cost the right amount, Tau are 1 point too many.

I'm not sure whether to count the 6++ or the Act of Faith... they don't seem too important (and having played with scourges, I know how little a 6++ is ever going to actually help).
Still, by that comparison they're roughly the right cost.

The thing about firewarriors, is that in a one on one comparison, they come out worse to pretty much any other troop choice, but that is the thing with Tau, you need to use your army together. It is the core mechanic of the army, so of course necron warriors, space marines and battle sisters are better for the points cost, but a full squad of firewarriors with markerlight support from a tetra and a piece of mobile LoS blocking terrain in the form of a devilfish can do things that these units can not, and they can do them well.

If you use the flat out move of the devilfish correctly and position your models properly, you have a unit that is almost always out of LoS, but can still shoot 12-24 s5 bs5 shots at whatever it wants. The combination of these 3 units works, but on their own, firewarriors are outclassed, and so they should be. No other unit in the game functions exactly like the firewarrior, so it is pointless to compare them.

What's the S and T on sisters? Don't they all also come with a 6+ invul save? And I believe the 3+ save is a bit more than 1 point. By that logic then Termies should probably only cost about 20 points or so. Going from flak to power armor save is a significant upgrade.

"Firewarriors are bad, but other things are good so that makes them less bad" I disagree with that logic entirely.

Again, you can't factor markerlights in, since they are competing with HQ, Elite, and Heavy Support slots for their use. Even if you were, you have to dedicate an entire FA slot towards a shooting weapon that doesn't damage, but buffs the accurracy of other weapons while their own weapons suffer from BS3. To top it off, they are an extremely vulnerable unit that is armed with heavy weapons. They previously couldn't move and fire, or make use of their transport.

Take markerlights out of the equation and anybody can do the same, but at better efficiency. The devilfish is insanely expensive for a transport that has no decently ranged weaponry.

And back to the problem. No other unit functions like firewarriors. They are equipped like elite troops but given the stat line of a horde unit. They have no ability to survive in CC since even non combat units will be hitting them more and hitting them first. They have a higher S gun that gives it the ability to wound higher than average, but give it a BS value so it only hits half of the time. In order to raise that to normal, you'd need to upgrade to a squad leader and bring marker drones. So you're looking at 160 points for a 12 man squad that will get 2 50% accuracy markers so BS4 for the squad.

I will not count pathfinders towards this, since pathfinders will more than likely be supporting three other FOC slots.

And honestly markerlights should not increase BS in my opinion. It's a mechanic that completely needs to be reworked. It's a mechanic that's just silly because it justifies giving an entirely shooty army terrible stat lines including BS3.

I also don't believe that people are basing the points right for troops. The increase of initiative is probably negligable. But increasing T from 3 to 4 is a significant increase. Same thing with the base Leadership of 7 to 8 or 9. Armor save getting increased to 3+ as well. But people will group several significant changes and just say +1 point.

Like in the Necron example.

I'd still argue the Gauss rule is better than the pulse rifle. They lose out on the ability to damage higher T infantry, but gain the ability to take down even the heaviest of armor. The reason why they have that ability is because they don't have special weapons. It still gives them a versatile weapon with 24" range. Pulse rifles are the Tau's version of that. Higher S and higher range meant to negate the problem of having no special weapons. But they are placed onto a significantly more fragile unit that is significantly less accurate and with a lower body count.

They're definitely expensive for what they do, they got better with 6th, but infantry rifles aren't what win most games, BS3 S5 against most targets isn't any different than BS4 S4, and carapace equivalent armor is amongst the most consistently overvalued and overcosted piece of equipment in Warhammer 40,000. 8ppm is about what I'd put their value at.

This sums it up nicely. Firewarriors aren't necessarily "bad", but they are on the lower end of 40k troop choices:

You will never ally with Tau in order to take Firewarriors. You will take them because you have to in order to gain access to Battlesuits. On the inverse, Tau will ally with armies such as Orks, Guard, and Space Marines for the purposes of getting viable troop choices.

Sisters basically have the statline of a guardsman, but with the weaponry and BS of a marine, and the 6++ that I mentioned somewhere in my post.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Guardsmen have bigger numbers, higher initiative and weapon skill, plus the option to take power weapons. How can they not beat FW? Plus as mentioned they have bad leadership. It just takes winning combat by 1 and then winning initiative.

Put it this way, I don't think there's a single guard player who'd turn down even a 1 point reduction for basic infantrymen in return for -2WS and -2I.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Why bother calculating in a pathfinder squad? Just give the Squad leader a drone controller, and two marker drones. Now you're paying 60 points for the two drones, who can buff the squad, but are saving on the cost of the devil fish the pathfinder would have to take (48+80, or 68 points). Comes out to 12.85 points (or 13.5 if the squad leader has his own marker light) per model. This assumes you're using a full squad, and it does prohibit moving, though with a 36" range on the marker lights, and a 30" range on the guns you won't have to move as much as say, a guard platoon.

Full squad costs are bit off than what you got.

12 FW with TL leader upgrade 125
2 Markelight drones 60 points

total: 185 points
or 15.4 avg per firewarrior to get 2 markerlights. Assuming both hit you are now looking at near Space Marine costs and they look even worse. A 6 man squad with 2 drones is even worse going to 20.8 points per FW.

Just don't take marker drones. They're not even worth considering.

 p_gray99 wrote:
For 2 points extra each, Battle sisters have 1 better BS, I, LD and save, and have bolters, bolt pistols and grenades in exchange for pulse rifles.

I'd say that the weapons exchange is roughly fair or slightly in favor of tau, but it does make the SoB capable of charging if absolutely necessary. They also have plenty of nice upgrade options, though on the downside you have to take between ten and twenty.

I'd say the BS and LD is worth 1 point, the save is worth 1 and a bit, and they lose that bit over the weaponry. Then again, the SoB's ability to not only survive a charge but also give one in a bad situation is probably worth another point, meaning that if SoB cost the right amount, Tau are 1 point too many.

I'm not sure whether to count the 6++ or the Act of Faith... they don't seem too important (and having played with scourges, I know how little a 6++ is ever going to actually help).
Still, by that comparison they're roughly the right cost.

I though sisters were WS 3 or 4 not WS 2

And as mentioned the marker drones are a infantry with a heavy weapon, so can only snap fire if moving.

Wouldn't sisters be a little bit over costed then? Since a CSM is only 1 point away and has the ability to take marks instead of the act of faith.

Or maybe it shows how much that 3+ save really does cost point wise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BryllCream wrote:
Put it this way, I don't think there's a single guard player who'd turn down even a 1 point reduction for basic infantrymen in return for -2WS and -2I.

Not when they are already taking BS4 vets with three special weapons in a flying transport with 3 twinlinked las cannons, or inside a transport with enough firepoints to where all special weapons get a chance to fire.

Or just sticking with the basic guardsman, a squad that gets many heavy weapon options and spare bodies to make the change in WS negligible.

Again, firewarriors don't have the numbers or firepower compared to guard. For an elite army they are left out gunned by even the most "basic" imperial troop.

barnowl wrote:
I though sisters were WS 3 or 4 not WS 2

Yeah, forgot to mention that. Not that it's particularly important, TBH.

That's pretty important actually. The ability a unit to atleast be able to hit back in CC is a big deal, or atleast denying enemies attacks back. WS and it may not mean much to your non combat troops when you're facing off against assualt infantry, but it matters to Tau. Any other unit, non-CC or otherwise, has good chance of winning combat against FW. This is a boost to the versatility of enemy units. Now Necron warriors can charge into FW and kill them off or tie them up for a turn to stop them from shooting.

What stats are important then? Since +1 BS/WS/I/Ld and +1 to the save makes only a 2 point difference.

As a tau player, my biggest issues with FW is not what they can kill. S5 can hurt a lot of things. BS 3 doesn't suck (as I also play orks, I know this) but its enough to at least help in the fight.

No the problem with FW has always been their ability to not do their jobs as objective holders.

T3 4+ save dies in droves to anything pointed their way. Things get worse when there are a tons of high strenght multi shot AP4 guns in the game. It is incredibly easy to knock down FW like bowling pins. Add to that their dismal LD score and they find themselves running away from an objective with just the slightest amount of firepower pointed in their direction.

All of the above a unit of pathfinders does nothing to help with. And in my games I'd rather use my markerlights to strip away cover saves being taken against my elite and Heavy support choices. You know, the units in the Tau codex that actually do do the killing.

Firewarriors are overcosted as they are, probably by 3 points as I see what other troop units bring to the table that allows them to do their job as troop choices. Its not about killing stuff, its about having the bodies to take the casualties to stick around or the stats to resist the hits. Its these things that allow you to hang around on an objective and still contribute to the battle at least a little bit.

Until FW can effectively hold to end game conditions they will continue to be a bad choice for a troops unit. They are only taken because we have to, not because anyone really wants to.

I totally love the models, I really want to field 40 of them and actually have it mean something to the outcome of the game.

In their Devilfish with a Disruption Pod the Firewarriors are some of the hardest to kill troops in the game, but again, the price of the Firewarrior shouldn't reflect what it may be capable of if combined with the right unit.

Put the extra cost into the force multipliers (Marker Units, Transports) rather than the Firewarriors themselves.

At 10 points they aren't bad, but a free Shas'ui upgrade and Free Grenades would probably make them just right.

The devilfish is still expensive and most of it's weapons put it at risk of being assualted or atleast losing it's disruption pod bonus.

That and a troop needs to be outside of a transport to contest or control an objective.

And making other units better still doesn't help firewarriors. They really lack killing potential and durability while being expensive. Making markers more available just means that you can use them more for HQ, Elite, and HS choices still since, as stated before, they are what do the damage.

Giving them the Shas'ui for free is a start, but even defensive grenades don't seem to be that great since their stat line is so low that everything that assualts them will kill them. Factor in that a challenge will remove that added LD8 and what ever doesn't get slaughtered will run away just due to combat resolution.

Jefffar wrote:
In their Devilfish with a Disruption Pod the Firewarriors are some of the hardest to kill troops in the game, but again, the price of the Firewarrior shouldn't reflect what it may be capable of if combined with the right unit.

Put the extra cost into the force multipliers (Marker Units, Transports) rather than the Firewarriors themselves.

At 10 points they aren't bad, but a free Shas'ui upgrade and Free Grenades would probably make them just right.

And unlike a Chimera or Rhino it totally removes them from the games since it has no fire points.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Why bother calculating in a pathfinder squad? Just give the Squad leader a drone controller, and two marker drones. Now you're paying 60 points for the two drones, who can buff the squad, but are saving on the cost of the devil fish the pathfinder would have to take (48+80, or 68 points). Comes out to 12.85 points (or 13.5 if the squad leader has his own marker light) per model. This assumes you're using a full squad, and it does prohibit moving, though with a 36" range on the marker lights, and a 30" range on the guns you won't have to move as much as say, a guard platoon.

Take a look at the marker drone BS.

Forget the BS, look at the damn price!

There is no markerlight worth taking outside of FW at the moment, and in FW you got both the glorious tetra and the "feth anyone who gets near" sensor tower.

And the bad part is that FW really didn't seem to know what to do with them. It was insane that the tetra had a heavy 1 Markerlight originally, but their balance answer was to make it 4x effective.

Look at the XV-9 commander. It was ok at first, but they weren't making sales like they wanted to, so just made all his weapons Assault 2. It's a really crap shoot with that, like they play a different game entirely.

Its just because they are first and formost into IMPERIAL ARMOUR

They state it themselves-they deal the IG/SM tanks as their main product, and the Tau are very, very different.

Now, I see actually no problems with the new tetra, its actually a good unit now, but not one you would spam around, as its a mere support unit and incapable of being of any threat on it's own.

After all, look at the flaws of the codex markerlight sources:

Pathfinders-taxed with the devilfish they will never want, and rather static. other then that they are fine. they even pack some backup weapons.
Marker Drone-so expensive it should never ever be taken unless you want to give a new guy an easy time.
Skyray-expensive as feth, and his other guns are mostly the missiles, who are useless on their own right.

The problem is not with the FW markerlights, but in the codex ones being so worthless that nobody ever plays two of them, and the third is a "if you are playing type X list only", DESPITE being the core mechanic of the army.
They are bad, bad, BAD units, all three of them. the pathfinders are just the only ones excusable enough to be situational rather then outright gimping.

Another problem with the Tau (and a big reason for the firewarrior stats) is that GW isn't sure what sort of army they want to make it. They obviously didn't want another MEQ army, thus the lower base stats. But they didn't want it to be a horde type army either, thus the higher points per model.

What they initially wanted was a mid sized army with high firepower (to help appeal to the Japanese anime market). And when the army was released that is exactly what it was. S5 on a basic trooper weapon. The ability to field 9 S10 weapons? Hold the phone thats aweseome. Add to it the army was released with 3rd ed mechanics in mind the army was awesome and it did its job. Orks were 9 points a boy. Grey Hunters and Necron warriors were 18. Jump pack units 25 ppm. The army did what it needed to do in the point ranges that were more or less on par with what was already out..

However, 3 editions later and only 1 codex upgrade (done at a time when GW had no idea what stable direction it wanted codexs to go) has seen the firewarrior fall way behind the curve. Now a number of other basic units have S5 guns (maybe not the range, but all with better BS). S10 and/or AP1 shooting weapons have become much more prolific where its now underpowered when a codex is released and there are not at least 3 ways to put S10 on the field.

The firewarrior needs an update. They really should stay about 10 points. A 1500 point Tau army should field about 60 models (including tanks/suits) and 1850 about 80. And if the firewarrior is going to be the core of the army once again, they better be able to do their jobs for 10 points ppm and in the world of 6th edition that pretty much means special rules and or rule breaking equipment.

Without changing a single basic stat. Overcharge on pulse weapons that allow for 3 shots during overwatch (because lets face it, firewarriors in any sort of HTH area dead, might as well let them hit hard before dying)
modulating shielded armor - 4+ armor save with a reroll (actually a little bit better than a 3+ save but still loose to AP4 weapons which looking at the local environment is a good trade). Stubborn if the Shas'ui is still alive.

These are just some off the cuff ideas that might make the firewarrior an attractive option to actually get the job done. 6th ed. is the edition of the USR and those rules that break the USR and without them the firewarrior will never be worth the 10 points you pay for it.

The tetra is great, I know. I run two in just about every game. I'm just saying that the solution was very unimaginative. They could have given it a special marker chart or a number of things.

The heavy 4 definitely was a good upgrade, but just seemed like their usual "it's not selling, no one likes it. Lets just make it fire a bah-zillion more shots."

For special gimmik you got the tower, he sure is special.

But sometimes, just having more shots is what it needs. I honestly don't see a better way they could have buffed the tetra.

my view, they're not bad, they definitely aren't the worst, but give the FW atleast a BS 4 and keep them at 10 pts, it would make all the difference in the world and sure as hell make dozens of tau players happy as punch.

really hope all the rumours are true about tau being the next codex, hopefully in the process of beefing up the firewarriors, getting rid the excess baggage the pathfinders bring to the battlefield, really interested to see this thread develop more

RegalPhantom wrote:
Tau are slightly overpriced and there are a few things working against them. While a S5 gun seems alright, when you remember that it also AP5 you quickly notice that it isn't much of an upgrade in terms of wounds output by the squad. Additionally, unlike other squads, you have to remember that a fair amount of the 'value' from a squad comes from its specialist and heavy weapons.

This. Tau firewarriors suffer from the same problem dire avengers do -- a lack of special/heavy weapons.

Sure, model for model the dark eldar is just as good at shooting as the Tau with their rifle. However, the dark eldar squad of 10 warriors can bring a splinter cannon, vastly increasing the number of poisoned shots the unit has as targets over 12"

Surely what we're saying, then, is that special weapons are underpriced rather than units unable to bring them being overpriced? Surely that would make more sense. I mean, you're paying for the heavy weapon, shouldn't that payment be exactly worth the heavy weapon?

BS 4 on a 10 Point Firewarrior is a non-starter for me. Even as a Tau player I recognize that BS 4 as a base just makes the Firwarrior (and the rest of the army for that matter) much more powerful than it is and needs to be compensated for with a price bump.

Jefffar wrote:
BS 4 on a 10 Point Firewarrior is a non-starter for me. Even as a Tau player I recognize that BS 4 as a base just makes the Firwarrior (and the rest of the army for that matter) much more powerful than it is and needs to be compensated for with a price bump.

I agree, although BS 4 fits in with the background at least as well as BS3, for example well-trained humans are BS4 and tau would never send out an untrained FW. Then again, it would either need another weakness to be added or simply an increase in price (perhaps to 11 or 12 points?)

I'd say that BS 4 might be fine for Shas'uis but the Shas'la can stay BS 3.

Then you can have veteran Firewarriors/Ethereal Body Guards of pure Shas'uis for a few extra points if you want or cheaper rookies.
All the Battlesuits would default to BS 4 then too.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Another problem with the Tau (and a big reason for the firewarrior stats) is that GW isn't sure what sort of army they want to make it. They obviously didn't want another MEQ army, thus the lower base stats. But they didn't want it to be a horde type army either, thus the higher points per model.

What they initially wanted was a mid sized army with high firepower (to help appeal to the Japanese anime market). And when the army was released that is exactly what it was. S5 on a basic trooper weapon. The ability to field 9 S10 weapons? Hold the phone thats aweseome. Add to it the army was released with 3rd ed mechanics in mind the army was awesome and it did its job. Orks were 9 points a boy. Grey Hunters and Necron warriors were 18. Jump pack units 25 ppm. The army did what it needed to do in the point ranges that were more or less on par with what was already out..

That is is really why most long time players look at them as so over costed. Units the FW have historically been significantly cheaper than,have not only become cheaper or or about the same cost as FW's but have also gotten major rules buff, no more vanishing necrons for example. If you don't think that was a major boost you never played pre 5 cron's.

Not to mention that warriors can now glance Landraiders to death.

It seems like the old system used to be to give every positive a negative to try and balance things out. Tau have BS3 across the board so they gave them markerlights. To "balance" markerlights they made them limited availability heavy weapons. FW had a great gun and armor, so get a terrible stat line.

And the rapid fire buff is not a bonus to Tau. It used to be a bonus for our crisis suits, but now every rapid fire weapon can move and shoot. That and when the standard MEQ is a 24" rapid fire weapon that wounds FW on a 3+ it seems kinda silly to say the Tau won on this one. They didn't. FW can move and shoot even though they will probably be hugging cover or stuck behind an ADL. Our crisis suits got stiffed out though. Now all plasma weapons have become much more mobile.

I'm really surprised to see people say that FW got better because of the rapid fire change. Well so did everything else, and they are still not as durable. That's like saying that one unit with a power weapon got buffed because now it has four to choose from. Well so does everybody else now.

Still FW are overpriced.

After all, FW can do nothing BUT shoot, and even so, the most common "basic" troop-the space marine-can kill FW in shooting twice as quickly then the FW killing them, even though the cost less then twice as much.
And they pack grenades, CC skills, higher Ld, combat squads, and ATSKNF to boot.


The did gain a bit more then others from new RF rules though, as they can now double-tap from 15' rather then 12'. not much, but a tiny edge.
The suits took a big hit from it though, it was part of the reason they costed so much to being with.

Im with Jayden on this one, offensively fire warriors are great but they get mowed down so easily its untrue. I also run sisters and the contrast is interesting - SoB 3+ save, large squad size, better LD and possibility of FNP means they hardly ever run.

The 12 limit on FWs might be fluffy but its really easy to mow down a squad of 12 T3 models in 40k. I mean, its evens they break if you kill 3 models! And they cant shoot from the safety of their overpriced transport like nearly every other army in the game.

I challenge the idea that a squad a marines can 'mow down' a similar costed squad of firewarriors in shooting. Range and the additional point of strength matter a fair bit.

Assuming 10 marines vs 15 firewarriors, here is some Math-Hammer: (i realise this breaks the squad size of the FW, it's so the point totals are kept as close as possible)

Marines
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits.
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds
4+ save = 2 dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits.
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds
3+ save = 2 dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

Being within 15 inches but not within 12 puts things even more in favour of the firewarriors, though of course being within charge range swings things back in favour of the marines.

 Neorealist wrote:
I challenge the idea that a squad a marines can 'mow down' a similar costed squad of firewarriors in shooting. Range and the additional point of strength matter a fair bit.

Assuming 10 marines vs 15 firewarriors, here is some Math-Hammer: (i realise this breaks the squad size of the FW, it's so the point totals are kept as close as possible)

Marines
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits.
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds
4+ save = 2 dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits.
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds
3+ save = 2 dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

Being within 15 inches but not within 12 puts things even more in favour of the firewarriors, though of course being within charge range swings things back in favour of the marines.

It's not a good idea to compare them, and ignore squad sizes, combat tactics, special and heavy weapons (some of which are FREE for the marines) and ignore leadership.
IMO, leadership is the problem with Tau. They shoot well enough, but they run far too often.
Ld7 means you FAIL 47% of the tests. That's a lot of pinned and running tau.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Neorealist wrote:
I challenge the idea that a squad a marines can 'mow down' a similar costed squad of firewarriors in shooting. Range and the additional point of strength matter a fair bit.

Assuming 10 marines vs 15 firewarriors, here is some Math-Hammer: (i realise this breaks the squad size of the FW, it's so the point totals are kept as close as possible)

Marines
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits.
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds
4+ save = 2 dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits.
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds
3+ save = 2 dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

Being within 15 inches but not within 12 puts things even more in favour of the firewarriors, though of course being within charge range swings things back in favour of the marines.

It's not a good idea to compare them, and ignore squad sizes, combat tactics, special and heavy weapons (some of which are FREE for the marines) and ignore leadership.
IMO, leadership is the problem with Tau. They shoot well enough, but they run far too often.
Ld7 means you FAIL 47% of the tests. That's a lot of pinned and running tau.

-Matt

Yeah, at 10 models the SM can have a Heavy Bolter for free. Why not just have them sit out at 31" and mow down two firewarriors per turn until they break?

30" range guns is really cool, yet almost everything that can kill a firewarrior easily (S5 and AP4 or better) can do it from further out. A lot of those are rather inexpensive since GW likes to give AP4 out for cheap because Space Marines are their measuring stick for everything and AP4 isn't any better than AP - against 3+ saves.

I think something went very, very wrong in your calculations there.
Marine shooting at FW:2/3 hit, 2/3 wound and 1/2 get past saves, that means 4.5 shots per kill
FW shooting at marines:1/2 hit, 2/3 wound and 1/3 get past saves, that means 9 shots per kill.

How on earth you got to your conclusions is beyond me. probably because you were rounding stuff up-and you DONT do that in calculations, when you mathammer you take the average even if a fraction comes up, and calculate from there.
(actually looking at your post, not only you rounded stuff, but you rounded UP for the FW and DOWN for the marines!)

And I think its safe to agree a single SM does NOT cost 20 points, even if you forget the massively better statline in any other department, the extra weapons, the grenades and the abilities.

I posted rounded off numbers for each step, but used the actual numbers that resulted to calculate the remaining ones if that makes any sense.

I'll post my numbers to explain what i mean:
Marines - (150pts, 15 pts each)
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits. (6.6666666667)
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds (4.444444444444444)
4+ save (50% success) = 2 (2.222222222222222) dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors - (150 pts, 10 pts each)
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits. (7.5)
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds (5)
3+ save (66% success) = 2 (1.666666666666667) dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

And the reason i went with 15 firewarriors is to make it easy to calculate. Is there a preferred amount of points people would like to see this comparison done in?

 Neorealist wrote:
And the reason i went with 15 firewarriors is to make it easy to calculate. Is there a preferred amount of points people would like to see this comparison done in?

1,000,000,000.

On-topic: I think firewarriors are fine.

Again-you cant round out mathammer.
Not even "final" results.

The kill rate is not 2 FW and 2 marines, its 2.22222 FW and 1.66666 marines! then the "effective combat drop" is very different. and then tilted better towards marines-the two units are almost getting equal kills on each other.

And don't give me the "you can't remove half a model" excuse, its a calculation, it cares not about the rules of the game because you are looking at pure averages not tabletop actions.

So, in fact, marines will, on average, tie out an equal-costing FW group even in a firefight, the only thing the FW are supposed to be good at. and if you place in moral checks it gets alot worse for the FW.
And again, special and heavy weapons tilt it even further in favor of marines.

So saying the FW are "fine" because they are a tiny bit more efficient then SM in a pure firefight, as long as you ignore the value of grenades, heavy weapons, special weapons, higher moral, better initiative WS and S and a slew of abilities.

No, they are horrible.

Its just the best troop the Tau have for now, and some other units can cover up for their mess.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Again-you cant round out mathammer.
Not even "final" results.

The kill rate is not 2 FW and 2 marines, its 2.22222 FW and 1.66666 marines! then the "effective combat drop" is very different. and then tilted better towards marines-the two units are almost getting equal kills on each other.

And don't give me the "you can't remove half a model" excuse, its a calculation, it cares not about the rules of the game because you are looking at pure averages not tabletop actions.

So, in fact, marines will, on average, tie out an equal-costing FW group even in a firefight, the only thing the FW are supposed to be good at. and if you place in moral checks it gets alot worse for the FW.

except his point was that, tying in kills is bad for the marines because they have fewer models.

If an army has 1,000,000,000 soldiers and the other has 10, then tying for number of kills in every combat ever is terrible for the smaller army. (Extreme example I know).

Unit1126PLL wrote:
1,000,000,000.
On-topic: I think firewarriors are fine.

I agree. In 5th edition i could see them as in need of a little bit of a boost, but i think overall the changes to rapidfire and overwatch from 6th edition have put them at exactly the right point cost for their effectiveness. That said, more appropriately costed optional wargear or some such to give them some variety couldn't hurt either.

And yes, 2 dead marines is more damaging for the marine player as a whole than 2 dead firewarriors. That said, my point was also that they were close math-wise; someone else had indicated that the marines would cut down the firewarriors like wheat before a scythe.

Double-check my last post, I edited quite a few viable points in.

Besides, your numbers comparison is absurd considering we were already COUNTING the number of models in that calculation.

Yes, they tie out for damage-not of model count, but of point count, in ONE highly specific situation and ignoring a hell lot of variables that work each and every one in favor of the marines.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Yes, they tie out for damage-not of model count, but of point count, in ONE highly specific situation and ignoring a hell lot of variables that work each and every one in favor of the marines.

I can't think of any variables that work in favor of the marines, actually.

The only variable I can think of is that the Tau outrange them, so at 24-30" the fire-warriors are infinitely more damaging and between 12-15" still have quite the advantage.

EDIT: Except special weapons, but then you add points to the marines (except a flamer with an effective range of a whopping 8"

Who is ignoring anything? i posted a scenario where two gun-lines shot at each other for a round. It's a pretty common one, truth be told; but of course does not encompass all the possible things that could happen to either side for that engagement.

If you want to run the numbers and post something concrete on them in close combat and/or including those heavy weapon options you mentioned, feel free.

That and the unit used was a higher than allowed FW count. So a standard marine unit would beat FW every time.

Now just do 1 heavy bolter vs 12 firewarriors.

You want to see where firewarriors suck. Lets look at incoming firepower. S4 ap5 shot from BS4

15 firewarriors vs 10 marines (just to use an already established number)

It takes 4.6 shots to kill one firewarrior and it takes 9.2 shots to kill a space marine.

As such it takes 17.25 shots to force the firewarriors to take a LD7 check (for 25% casualties) to see if they run. It takes 23 shots to force the marines to take a LD9 check (for 25% casualties) to see if they run.

To completely wipe out the FW squad it only takes 69 shots. To wipe out the marines takes 92.

This just goes to show my point that the Firewarriors problem is not killing stuff, but living long enough to do its job. They just suck at performing the job that a troops choice needs to do. Stick around and hold the objective.

For the heavy bolter its 3 shots, 2 hits, 1.67 wounds
12 firewarriors, 6 hits, 3.33 wounds, and 2.22 saves, leaving 1.11 dead marines if I did the math right.

Heavy weapons and special weapons tilt the scale incredibly.

Sure thing.

Standard Marine Tactical Squad - 170pts
9 Space Marines
1 Space Marine Sergeant

Relevent Wargear
8 - Bolt guns
1 - Flamer
1 - Heavy Bolter
10 - Power Armor


Standard Firewarrior Squad - 130 pts
11 Fire Warriors
1 Shas'ui (squad leader)

Relevent Wargear
12 - Pulse rifles
12 - Carapace Armor

Range 15"+ to 24"
Marines
8 Bolter Shots
3 Heavy Bolter Shots
BS 4 = 5.333333333333333 - bolter hits, 2 heavy bolter hits
Against Toughness 3 = 3.555555555555556 bolter wounds, 1.6 heavy bolter wounds
Against Armor (4+) = 1.777777777777778 bolter deaths, 1.6 heavy bolter deaths for a total of 3.377777777777778 dead firewarriors or 25% of their total force.

Warriors
12 Pulse Rifle shots
BS 3 = 6 hits
vs toughness 4 = 4 wounds
vs 3+ armor = 1.333333333333333 dead space marines, or 10% of their total force.

So marines win, but it's not the total blowout someone predicted. (also the tau player in that scenario is short-changed about 40 pts)

Once you factor in transport costs it evens them out. Except the marines can also fire their heavy weapon out of it.

But you're also missing that the inclusion of the one heavy weapon is now enough to average a morale check. Which they will fail a majority of the time.

 Neorealist wrote:
I posted rounded off numbers for each step, but used the actual numbers that resulted to calculate the remaining ones if that makes any sense.

I'll post my numbers to explain what i mean:
Marines - (150pts, 15 pts each)
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits. (6.6666666667)
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds (4.444444444444444)
4+ save (50% success) = 2 (2.222222222222222) dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors - (150 pts, 10 pts each)
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits. (7.5)
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds (5)
3+ save (66% success) = 2 (1.666666666666667) dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

And the reason i went with 15 firewarriors is to make it easy to calculate. Is there a preferred amount of points people would like to see this comparison done in?

When marines are killing 33% more models per turn than fire warriors, presenting them as equal is somewhat misleading. Try not to do that in the future.

I'm also not factoring in that the heavy weapon in that scenario is firing at it's full ballistic skill instead of (likely) snap-shots due to having 'moved' into that position that turn.

like i said in an earlier post, there are a ton of potential variables i'm not taking into account intentionally to avoid complexity.

What's over priced is their devilfish, which is almost a must considering how mobile most armies are and how much FW suck in CC.

Their price is just fine in my opinion after fighting them with both guard and space marines

How well were the firewarriors able to hold objectives in the game?

The problem with firewarriors is they aren't effective for their cost. They don't have the fire power or durability to hold an objective or the wound count to delay morale checks. Both of which guard and IG have.

Again with the Necron warriors. They don't have a downside. They have the durability and firepower to hold an objective and it takes effort to remove them. All for 13 ppm. FW just need to lose 2-3 models to force a morale check and then will most likely run.

That's what you need to look at. How much does it take to remove the firewarriors from an objective, the major portion of the game. It would take 2 heavy bolters to remove a max size unit of FW. How many Heavy Bolters to remove 1 unit of Necron warriors that still get RP?

I don't know about you, but i've been finding that i have to devote an entire army to move a bunch of firewarriors off an objective mainly because of the resident tau player parking a distruption pod-ed devilfish directly in front of it, blocking most available lanes of LOS. Can't shoot at the firewarriors in the back since i can't see 'em, waste of time to shoot at the fish most of the time due to the impressive cover save it always gets.

That and the fact that the player only moves it a micro-fraction of an inch back and forth in his movement and shooting phases so it can be considered to have moved 'flat out' despite having not really moved (spatially) at all.

Because you play a game with no access to deep striking or fast skimmer equipped melta options, right?

And 85 points for a piece of terrain effectively? You're Tau player is really hurting his list more than your tactics.

 Jayden63 wrote:
As a tau player, my biggest issues with FW is not what they can kill. S5 can hurt a lot of things. BS 3 doesn't suck (as I also play orks, I know this) but its enough to at least help in the fight.

No the problem with FW has always been their ability to not do their jobs as objective holders.

T3 4+ save dies in droves to anything pointed their way. Things get worse when there are a tons of high strenght multi shot AP4 guns in the game. It is incredibly easy to knock down FW like bowling pins. Add to that their dismal LD score and they find themselves running away from an objective with just the slightest amount of firepower pointed in their direction.

All of the above a unit of pathfinders does nothing to help with. And in my games I'd rather use my markerlights to strip away cover saves being taken against my elite and Heavy support choices. You know, the units in the Tau codex that actually do do the killing.

Firewarriors are overcosted as they are, probably by 3 points as I see what other troop units bring to the table that allows them to do their job as troop choices. Its not about killing stuff, its about having the bodies to take the casualties to stick around or the stats to resist the hits. Its these things that allow you to hang around on an objective and still contribute to the battle at least a little bit.

Until FW can effectively hold to end game conditions they will continue to be a bad choice for a troops unit. They are only taken because we have to, not because anyone really wants to.

I totally love the models, I really want to field 40 of them and actually have it mean something to the outcome of the game.

This is what I wanted to say but I think you said it better. The number of firewarriors I see in a Tau list just feels right. In terms of fluff and game aesthetic, throwing in more of them just feels odd. 10 points isn't horrible for the FW, and I would prefer to see them be worth their points rather than see their points drop to what their worth now.

Savageconvoy wrote:Because you play a game with no access to deep striking or fast skimmer equipped melta options, right?

And 85 points for a piece of terrain effectively? You're Tau player is really hurting his list more than your tactics.

Actually yes, in our local metagame there is very little of either of those. The options are there, but thus far they haven't shown up much.

That really doesn't help your point then. You know what he does, and you have the tools to negate that.

Not really, my preferred army the necrons have exactly one (less-than-stellar) option with melta. (two, if you allow forgeworld units)

Most of my reliable 'AT vs something with a cover-save' options are CC-only. Have you ever tried to get within charge range of a vehicle which can easily move 18 inches if the other player did not want you to?

Technically not many armies have access to anti-tank that ignores cover. But you still have access to flyers that can move into position to hit Firewarriors or drop troops to hit Firewarriors. Or move your skimmers and CC forward to scare the devilfish off.

You seem to focus on one issue and ignore that it fixes another issue.

And what about scarab swarms?

Indeed, I'm not saying they are impossible to get rid of, just that they make a really durable way to insure you can put troops on objectives by turn 5. Doomscythe would work. Dropping troops off on the objective myself would also work. Likely any other large portion of my army would suffice, more or less.

That said, having to devote the majority of an army to dispose of a single troop choice should indicate it's rather good.

When talking about the point post of firewarriors I always think about the bodyguard squad you may take with an Ethereal. For 2 more points, you get BS4 FWs. The thing that never made sense was the fluff says that the bodyguard is comprised of FWs who declined the honor of becoming battlesuit pilots...they're BS4 but battlesuits are BS3..... Yeah, GW codex writers must smoke a great deal of weed for that to make sense.

One Important thing to factor in is the Devilfish is far harder to kill with guns than a Rhino - its got a 3+ cover save in the open with a 5 point upgrade (disruption pod) so its 85 points is now much better than it was in 5th. With the changes to rapid fire the devilfish gives a 27 inch double tap range to the 12 firewarriors inside - that's not bad really.

My d-fish never die to shooting, what kills them is HTH. 3+ cover saves do squat against S4 or better hits against AV10 rear armor.

Necron scarbs and wraiths can easily close fast enough on a D-fish to kill it. Things get worse for the embarked firewarriors if it explodes. The stock D-fish only having a single 18" gun (drones may or may not still be attached) is not going to do enough damage to scarabs or wraiths to stop them coming in.

Other things that easily close on D-fish because why not. Bikes, jump packers, drop podded anything, beasts, cavalry. Most of which will easily glance or pen hitting on 3s and only having to get past AV10.

And if the D-fish is blocking LOS to the firewarriors behind it, then the firewarriors have blocked LOS to anything you want to shoot at. Bit of a double edged sword using it as a blocker and getting points out of killing stuff with your Firewarriors.

Now yes, I take D-fish. I load it up with SMS systems and try to play the range game as best I can. I leave my firewarriors inside it until absolutely necessary for them to get out and hope (really hope) they can wither the turn of shooting necessary to actually hold the objective I dumped them onto. Because if they spend too much time on the table, they are good as dead and the best you can do is now play for a tie.

The devilfish is twice as expensive as the rhino with no fire points and bringing it into rapid fire range puts both the Firewarriors into danger of getting charged or shot down.
Again only three wounds are ever required to cause a morale check with the odds against them.

And they would still suffer from having a troop that can't advance and claim objectives or live long enough to contest.

 Jayden63 wrote:
And if the D-fish is blocking LOS to the firewarriors behind it, then the firewarriors have blocked LOS to anything you want to shoot at. Bit of a double edged sword using it as a blocker and getting points out of killing stuff with your Firewarriors.

Not if you use the flat-out rules to your advantage. For instance, you start the turn with your firewarriors behind their devilfish. You move the devilfish out of the way of the firewarriors, then in the shooting phase, shoot with the firewarriors then flat-out the fish back infront of the firewarriors.

This can even be used if you wish to move your firewarriors around. I have borrowed the following pictures from ATT, as they illustrate the point very well.We start with the firewarriors behind the devilfish.

Then devilfish moves forward and out of the way 12".

Next, we move the firewarriors up and shoot with them.

Now we just flat-out the fish back infront of the firewarriors.


This can also be used for moving backwards, sideways, round in circles, pretty much anyway you can imagine. Another bonus is that the fish would get a juicy 2+ save from shooting from over 12" away. You do not need firepoints on vehicles when you plan on being outside them the entire game.

And then the enemy assualt units just rush in and brake your fish in half, then the FW

Or deepstrike on the other side and wipe down the FW who are suddenly nnguarded.

Point is, the mere fact they NEED an (expensive) devilfish to do their job in an effective way means that the unit, as it is, is overpriced.
They should see either a price reduction, or (preferably) a buff. mainly to the same areas that effect shoot-outs, such as the Ld, the BS and maybe the save.

After all, if the unit is far behind the curve in one phase (assualt) it SHOULD be far ahead on the other to keep it balanced, being jest a tiny bit better then the most basic unit available under conditions that favor you hysterically is absurd.

In the new land of Shooty awesomeness, Fire Warriors are a damn steal. There's a reason why 5th edition, most Tau lists had minimal Fire Warriors, whereas now most lists have at least 40.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
In the new land of Shooty awesomeness, Fire Warriors are a damn steal. There's a reason why 5th edition, most Tau lists had minimal Fire Warriors, whereas now most lists have at least 40.

So as not to take kroot?

I jest i quite like firewarriors, but it would be nice to see a small boost to reflect their cost.

Or maybe they take so many because most games are objective based and its the only decent troop choice we have. That and they probably expect most of them to die and run off.

Seriously, instead of just saying "they are fine", "a steal", or "good as they are" will you just look over the previous comments. We discussed how the lack of heavy/special weapons limits their effectiveness. We discussed how T3 and low model count, tied with bad leadership values means only 3 models need to go down before the entire squad is put at risk.

Seriously. Think about that. Imagine losing 3 guard, vets, space marines, termies, bikes, or whatever your troop of choice is and now having the chance the entire squad will run off the board. And a good chance at that.

The only arguments that I've seen pro firewarrior is that they are durable provided they are out of LOS in an environment where drop pods, deep strike, flyers, and bikes exist.

Or use an expensive transport just to block line of sight.

Or bring another expensive FA unit just to make a unit with no special or heavy weapons hit more often.

And my personal favorite, they are about fairly priced compared to guardsmen. That's right, the IG. Because we all know how IG never likes taking special or heavy weapons.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Or maybe they take so many because most games are objective based and its the only decent troop choice we have. That and they probably expect most of them to die and run off.

Seriously, instead of just saying "they are fine", "a steal", or "good as they are" will you just look over the previous comments. We discussed how the lack of heavy/special weapons limits their effectiveness. We discussed how T3 and low model count, tied with bad leadership values means only 3 models need to go down before the entire squad is put at risk.

Seriously. Think about that. Imagine losing 3 guard, vets, space marines, termies, bikes, or whatever your troop of choice is and now having the chance the entire squad will run off the board. And a good chance at that.

The only arguments that I've seen pro firewarrior is that they are durable provided they are out of LOS in an environment where drop pods, deep strike, flyers, and bikes exist.

Or use an expensive transport just to block line of sight.

Or bring another expensive FA unit just to make a unit with no special or heavy weapons hit more often.

And my personal favorite, they are about fairly priced compared to guardsmen. That's right, the IG. Because we all know how IG never likes taking special or heavy weapons.

Yeah! will everyone please just read back and then similarly to this dude dissagree with everything he's listed at the end of his post. Whats with you people wanting to argue your point....

A side note, I beat a double valkarie, double LRBT double manticore list yesterday by clerverly employing a bastion and allies with a tau army.

Aren't Tau sergeants LD 8? How is this super crappy morale? It's no worse than a combat squad without the space marine sergeant.

Martel732 wrote:
Aren't Tau sergeants LD 8? How is this super crappy morale? It's no worse than a combat squad without the space marine sergeant.

The problem is the sarg is a 10 point upgrade on top of the base 10 point model for whopping 20 point Sarge to get LD8.

Hmm. I'm not used to having the option of whether to buy my sergeant or not. If it helps, I feel marine sergeants are a bit overpriced too. Can the Tau sergeant take extra wargear?

Also, the bump for LD 7 to LD 8 is pretty big. Going from 21/36 to 26/36 might be worth the 10 pts if this is a chronic problem.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
In the new land of Shooty awesomeness, Fire Warriors are a damn steal. There's a reason why 5th edition, most Tau lists had minimal Fire Warriors, whereas now most lists have at least 40.

Mostly that is because they have to be out of the fish were they get shot to hell when claiming objectives, it is on longer a viable hope to keep a DF with warriors in reserve till round 4 or 5 do to changes in reserve rules, and the kroot just got worse this edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Hmm. I'm not used to having the option of whether to buy my sergeant or not. If it helps, I feel marine sergeants are a bit overpriced too. Can the Tau sergeant take extra wargear?

Also, the bump for LD 7 to LD 8 is pretty big. Going from 21/36 to 26/36 might be worth the 10 pts if this is a chronic problem.

Only ones worth the mention is the Black sun filter and Drone controller, but those can be gotten with the 5 point upgrade to team leader. That leaves 5 points to account for 1 pip of leadership. Marines base at 8, the Sarge makes them 9 for the same 10 point upgrade cost with access to better upgrades.

Martel732 wrote:
Hmm. I'm not used to having the option of whether to buy my sergeant or not. If it helps, I feel marine sergeants are a bit overpriced too. Can the Tau sergeant take extra wargear?

Also, the bump for LD 7 to LD 8 is pretty big. Going from 21/36 to 26/36 might be worth the 10 pts if this is a chronic problem.

However it is an add on which, if you average it out across say, 10 firewarriors, brings their points cost up to 11 points per model and still they have worse than Guardsman stats with a big gun.

If the Sgt was rolled in for the 10 points per Firewarrior, I would think we're pretty close to what the Firewarrior should be. Free Photon Grenades on top of that and we are bang on.

I can see the argument.

However, coming from the viewpoint of a BA player, at least Tau stuff got better in general and not worse.

I have always thought that the codices should be in pdf on the internet and GW could readjust point values on the fly as necessary. For example, the sanguinary priest should cost less as furious charge is considerably less valuable now.

The firewarriors only have access to a Devilfish as a transport. A very durable transport that is extremely expensive. Adding to that is the fact that its durability relies on it staying out of range, which hurts it due to its own weapons ' limited range. Compound that problem with the fact that FW can't shoot out of it, so they have to lose their protection just to use their gun.

And with LD7 base or a hefty upgrade just for LD8 which can still get sniped from the unit, they are likely to break and don't get boosts like ATSKNF. T3 hurts really bad for a unit that just needs 3 wounds to break.

They can't even be called glass cannons because they don't have the output capacity to do damage.

Let me ask this. Would an IG player be willing to lose all troop options and upgrades just to run a regular Guard with 4+ armor and the pulse rifle? When you're limited to 6-12 man squads, and can't take vendettas or Valkyries, or anything more than a basic squad leader? No plasma, no autocannons, no heavy weapon teams, and no vets.

I doubt anyone would. That leaves your troop slot with little to stand its ground, let alone take the offensive. And no amount of heavy support, FA, or elites makes up for the fact that your central point of the army is weak. Without the ability to reliably hold objectives the opponent just needs to hold 1 to win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tau did get a mixed bag from 6th though.

Reduced cover hurts FW but makes markerlights more effective.
Rapid fire changes boosted FW, but hurt crisis suits.
Disruption pods got boosted, but only tetras and hammerheads see much use.
Wound allocation now makes shield drones much better.
Stealthsuits got boosted, but are still expensive compared to how much damage they put out. Imagine a FW that's three times the cost but gets three shots at half range and runs 3D6" when breaking.
Crisis suits lost acute senses and their bonus with rapid fire, but gained BSF ability to ignore night fighting squad wide.

reddwarf54 wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
And if the D-fish is blocking LOS to the firewarriors behind it, then the firewarriors have blocked LOS to anything you want to shoot at. Bit of a double edged sword using it as a blocker and getting points out of killing stuff with your Firewarriors.

Not if you use the flat-out rules to your advantage. For instance, you start the turn with your firewarriors behind their devilfish. You move the devilfish out of the way of the firewarriors, then in the shooting phase, shoot with the firewarriors then flat-out the fish back infront of the firewarriors.

This can even be used if you wish to move your firewarriors around. I have borrowed the following pictures from ATT, as they illustrate the point very well.We start with the firewarriors behind the devilfish.

Then devilfish moves forward and out of the way 12".

Next, we move the firewarriors up and shoot with them.

Now we just flat-out the fish back infront of the firewarriors.


This can also be used for moving backwards, sideways, round in circles, pretty much anyway you can imagine. Another bonus is that the fish would get a juicy 2+ save from shooting from over 12" away. You do not need firepoints on vehicles when you plan on being outside them the entire game.

Do not forget that every army is able to do the Turtle not just Tau. It's just that ours is pretty annoying with the disruption pods being almost broken.

As a marine player, it seems that in my experience, carapace armor is pretty decent. None of my "ignores cover" tech will penetrate it, and I have to shoot pretty substantial weapons to ignore it.

Yes, guardsmen are more efficient in cover, but it might be desirable to be out of cover (objective) or your opponent might have invested in "ignore cover save tech", much of which will penetrate 5+ armor.

It seems to me that the Tau just kinda have to suck it up and pay for the LD 8 guy. Having your scoring troops run away really sucks and its worth the points to stop this from happening.

It's still probably true that the Tau are on the short end of the stick compared to IG. The IG just kinda do the Tau schemes better in many cases. It's the same case with my BA and space wolves, but I just suck it up and soldier on!

And then the enemy just steps forward, and the Dpod does not function any more, and then they blast it with krak grenades.

The turtle is a nice trick now-and-then, but not a game winning strategy.

FW are not as good as they SHOULD be, and not as good as their cost suggests.
They are not penal legion level, but the are among the poorer troop choices around, and only taken because a Tau player have to have some sort of troops, and lacks any better.
Fact is, most armies can just spam basic troops choices/"cult" troop choices (take HQ X and Y becomes troop) and be viable with some random upgrades, Tau can't, because our troops can't get ANYTHING done on their own.

As testimate to how badly Firewarriors suck at their job, you can go to any 40K message board and you will never find a post entitled...

How do you deal with Firewarrior spam?

Its my opinion that people who play tau think the FW is overpriced compared to what we see other peoples troop choices doing. And those who play against tau (unless you play against tau a lot) don't really realize that they arn't in fact doing much because you have other much more pressing threats to deal with and don't really pay them too much mind. And I know you have never said to yourself in a fit of frustration "what the hell do I have to do to kill those guys."

One thing I don’t like about some of the Mathhammers done above is that it only accounts for shooting, which is the Tau’s strength. What we need is an evaluation that accounts for assaulting too. So that’s what I am going to try and do here. So first, let’s introduce the participants:

The Contestents

Bare Imperial Guard Infantry Squad - 9 Guardsmen with Lasguns, 1 Sgt with Laspistol, 50 points
Bare Space Marine Tactical Squad – 4 Marines, 1 Sergeant with Boltguns, Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 90 points
Bare Tau Empire Firewarrior Squad – 6 Firewarriors with Pulse Rifles, 60 Points
I have gone with a non-upgraded minimum size squad of each. I figure the points per model doesn’t include upgrades, so there is no point including upgrades in my comparison.

Now, on to our first event, the Shooting Test:
For shooting I am trying to factor in the range of the weapon, something very few comparisons do. To do this I divide the range of the weapon by 6 inches then multiply by the number of shots it fires. Since Rapid Fire weapons fire 2 shots half the time and 1 shot the other half of the time, I count this as 1.5 shots.

Here’s how it works out:
Bolter, Lasgun: 24 inches / 6 inches x 1.5 shots= 6 Shots
Pulse Rifle: 30 inches / 6 inches X 1.5 shots = 7.5 Shots
Laspistol: 12 inches /6 inches x 1 shot = 2 Shots.

What I will do with these numbers is multiply the numbers of shots by the chance to hit by the chance to wound by the chance to get a wound through the armour save. Once that is done I will calculate how many points of the models in question were required to land that wound. Here is an example with a squad of Guardsmen shooting at bunch of Guardsmen Equivalent targets.

6 shots per Lasgun x 9 Lasguns + 2 Shots for the Laspistol = 58 Shots
58 shots x 1/2 to hit = 29 hits
29 hits x 1/2 to wound = 14.5 wounds
14.5 wounds x 2/3 chance to fail the save = 9.67 kills
50 points / 9.67 kills = 5.17 points/kill

So, now that my methodology section is out of the way, let’s run the numbers.

Shooting at T3 5+ Save (i.e. Guardsmen):
Guardsmen: 9.67 kills or 5.17 points/kill
Space Marines: 13.33 kills or 6.75 points/kill
Firewarriors: 18.75 kills or 3.2 points / kill

Shooting at T4 3+ Save (i.e. Marines)
Guardsmen: 3.22 kills or 15.52 points/kill
Space Marines: 3.33 kills or 27 points/kill
Firewarriors: 5 kills or 12 points/kill

Now I am going to average the above so we can see which force is the most points efficient at shooting

Guardsmen Shooting Score: 10.35 points/kill
Space Marine Shooting Score: 16.88 points/kill
Firewarrior Shooting Score: 7.6 points per/kill.

So, in terms of points efficiency, Firewarriors out do both Guardsmen and Space Marines. Of course this is only shooting, let’s take a look at assault.

Assault
So, after several turns of shooting, our contestants find themselves in a brawl with the opposition. I am going to do just 1 round here due to the finality of most combats causing them to only last one round most of the time. For simplicity sake I am going to ignore who charged who and who had the initiative and just focus on raw damage output.

Again I’ll be showing the math just this once to save space. Here is an example of the calculation involving our Squad of Guardsmen fighting it out with an opponent with WS 3, T 3 and a 5+ Save
9 Guardsmen with 1 attack each + 1 Sergeant with 3 attacks = 12 Attacks
12 Attacks x 1/2 to hit = 6 hits
6 hits x 1/2 to wound = 3 wounds
3 wounds x 2/3 chance to fail the save = 2 kills
50 points / 2 kills = 25 points/kill

Again, that’s the methodology, lets run some numbers:

First hitting a WS 3, T3, 5+ Save opponent (i.e. Guardsmen)
Guardsmen: 1.83 kills or 27.27 points / kill
Space Marines: 3.26 kills or 27.61 points / kill
Firewarriors: 1 kill or 60 points/ kill.

Now, hitting a WS 4, T4, 3+ save opponent (i.e. Space Marine)
Guardsmen: 0.67 kills or 75 points / kill
Space Marines: 0.92 kills or 98.18 points / kill.
Firewarriors: 0.33 kills or 180 points per kill.

Let’s average it out again
Guardsmen: 51.14 points per kill
Space Marines: 62.9 points per kill
Firewarriors: 120 points per kill

Composite Average:
Alright, now that we have some numbers to work with, let’s see how we do here when we average Shooting and Assault points per kill.

Guardsmen: 30.75 points / kill
Space Marine: 39.89 points / kill
Firewarriors: 63.8 points / kill

So there we have it, when it comes to dealing wounds across shooting and assault, the Firewarrior is about twice as bad point per point as the Guardsman and about 50% worse than the Space Marine.

Now if the Firewarrior had some Special Rules or was super durable I might see this as being fairly priced, but we know the Firewarriors have less Special Rules than either of the above and while more durable than a Guardsman, they are no match for the toughness and armour of a Space Marine.

In a little while I’ll run some numbers on comparative durability and combine them with the above and give us a picture of just how much of an overcharge the Firewarrior is at.

How would they compare when fighting armour 10-11, based on the guardsmen/marines using special/heavy weapons?

A unit of 12 firewarriors over 15" shooting at AV10 will get 1 pen and 1 glance. Against AV11 it will get 1 glance.

Honestly there are way too many possibilities for the SM tac squad for me to even care to calculate it all out. But the SM have bolters which can glance AV10 standard and can take one of two special weapons in the plasma gun and melta gun that can do damage, and 5 in the heavy weapons selection that can do damage in the heavy bolter, missile launcher, lascannon, plasma cannon, and multi-melta. All of which have a 24" or better range. Add to it that 1 SM guy can choose to throw his Krack grenade (if your close enough) and you end up with a lot of options that can take down light transports.

Yes, DE really dislike Tau gunlines. Orks don't care so much because the trukk is zooming 24" forward and who really cares what happens after that. But most any other transport in the game is more than willing to shrug off a round or two of Firewarrior shooting, and by then their cargo is much to close to the gun line for the firewarrior to be comfortable.

Honestly one of the more difficult match-ups for Tau is Tau. It really comes down to who's railguns die first.

Jefffar wrote:
Mathhammers

The Contestents

Bare Imperial Guard Infantry Squad - 9 Guardsmen with Lasguns, 1 Sgt with Laspistol, 50 points
Bare Space Marine Tactical Squad – 4 Marines, 1 Sergeant with Boltguns, Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 90 points
Bare Tau Empire Firewarrior Squad – 6 Firewarriors with Pulse Rifles, 60 Points
I have gone with a non-upgraded minimum size squad of each. I figure the points per model doesn’t include upgrades, so there is no point including upgrades in my comparison.

Here’s how it works out:
Bolter, Lasgun: 24 inches / 6 inches x 1.5 shots= 6 Shots
Pulse Rifle: 30 inches / 6 inches X 1.5 shots = 7.5 Shots
Laspistol: 12 inches /6 inches x 1 shot = 2 Shots.

What I will do with these numbers is multiply the numbers of shots by the chance to hit by the chance to wound by the chance to get a wound through the armour save. Once that is done I will calculate how many points of the models in question were required to land that wound. Here is an example with a squad of Guardsmen shooting at bunch of Guardsmen Equivalent targets.

6 shots per Lasgun x 9 Lasguns + 2 Shots for the Laspistol = 58 Shots
58 shots x 1/2 to hit = 29 hits
29 hits x 1/2 to wound = 14.5 wounds
14.5 wounds x 2/3 chance to fail the save = 9.67 kills
50 points / 9.67 kills = 5.17 points/kill

So, now that my methodology section is out of the way, let’s run the numbers.

Shooting at T3 5+ Save (i.e. Guardsmen):
Guardsmen: 9.67 kills or 5.17 points/kill
Space Marines: 13.33 kills or 6.75 points/kill
Firewarriors: 18.75 kills or 3.2 points / kill

Shooting at T4 3+ Save (i.e. Marines)
Guardsmen: 3.22 kills or 15.52 points/kill
Space Marines: 3.33 kills or 27 points/kill
Firewarriors: 5 kills or 12 points/kill

So compare them to two very good choices negating that there are other examples of how good they are compared to what other people here have considered good.
10 DE Warriors 90 points
9 Fire Warriors 90 points

DE shooting 12-24"" 10 shots, 6.66 hit. 3.33 wound 1.66 dead firewarriros
Fire Warrior shooting 15-30" 9 shots, 4.5 hit. 3.75 dead DE
But wait, DE can get FNP with a 50 point HQ choice. Even with FNP, still 2.5 dead DE.

ok combat. DE get 10 attacks and strike first, 6.66 hit, 3.33 wound 1.66 dead firewarriors
Firewarriors get 7.33 attacks back. 1.22 dead DE in return.

So the DE are awesome in CC right, they strike first and can kill off the Tau in a slow grinding combat they win and are awesome!

the DE warriors are never going to make it into combat, and the only reason they want to get into combat with the tau is that so the tau cannot shoot them back. The DE warrior is no more effective in combat against tau then they are in shooting. The FW is on the other hand more than three times as effective in shooting than he is in CC.

DE never leave home without a blaster. 10 DE never leave home without either a DL or a splinter cannon. DE can get FNP, FC, and Fearless without having to add anything in points wise, it just depends on what they have done recently.

And you picked the one army that is actually less effective at shooting T3. If you want to show an even more lopsided look into the FW favor, lets have firewarriors and DE warriors shooting at T2 grots. However, now lets stack up your 9 FW against 10 DE warriors and have them shoot at T5 or better things. Now who is doing the more killing?

So yeah, all armies have things that they do better than others just because of their default equipment. But you need to look at the entirty of the game. Some match ups are just better than others and in the grand curve of it all the FW does find itself lacking as it has a very uphill battle against the most prolific profile of all available armies.

You really can't compare veterans without special weapons. To anything. 10 vets with 3 plasmas is 115 points, or 11.5 points per model.

At 24" vs MEQ these get 2 plasma hits, 0.66 kills. The lasguns do an additional 0.44 wounds, for a total of 1 MEQ kill. 10 Fire Warriors get 1.1 kills.

Things get even better for the FW however. If we want to even them out, i.e. give the vets carapace and the FWs Ld8, we add 3 points per model to the vets and 1point to the FWs, for a final points cost of 11p FWs and 14.5p vets.

So FWs outshoot something that they're 3.5ppm cheaper than. So now we ask ourselves why guard players don't take carapace vets with plasma on foot...and we get to the root of the problem. It's simply true that FWs die too quickly, they can't hide in boxes or have access to cheap stealth. Frankly I can see GW simply giving Tau a transport with firing points, just to make sure all the armies play the same Though I don't know what else could done. I suspect giving tau 3+ armour would be too far.

 BryllCream wrote:
So FWs outshoot something that they're 3.5ppm cheaper than. So now we ask ourselves why guard players don't take carapace vets with plasma on foot...

I do that all the time and it works wonderfully.

Okay, round two for some point effectiveness analysis. I’ve covered giving, now it’s time for the receiving. How much punishment can our comparative units take?

The Contestants

Imperial Guardsmen. Weapon Skill 3, Toughness 3 and a 5+ Save. 5 Points
Space Marine. Weapon Skill 4, Toughness 4 and a 3+ Save. 18 Points
Tau Empire Firewarrior. Weapon Skill 2, Toughness 3 and a 4+ Save. 10 Points.

So, now on to our first event, getting shot. Math is simple here, how many shots from a particular type of weapon is it going to take to knock our contestant out of the game. We’ll include the Ballistic Skill of the attacker as well because I’m going to do that later in the Assault section as well and don’t want to skew the results.

So, our first shooter will be a Guardsman with a Lasgun (BS 3, S 3 AP - ). Let’s see how many shots it takes to kill our models.

Imperial Guardsman: 6 Shots/Kill
Space Marine: 18 Shots/Kill
Firewarrior: 8 Shots/Kill

Next up, we’ll have a Space Marine with a Bolter try his luck (BS 4, S 4, AP 5)

Imperial Guardsman: 2.25 Shots/Kill (bypassing that armour save really, really hurts)
Space Marine: 9 Shots/Kill
Firewarrior: 4.5 Shots/Kill

Alright, let’s average those out and figure out how many shots per point our models can take.

Imperial Guardsman: 0.83 Shots / Point
Space Marine: 0.75 Shots / Point
Firewarrior: 0.63 Shots / Point

So, looking at the above, it appears the Guardsman is a better bullet stopper than either of the above. Now let’s see what happens in a fight.
For the fight I am going to find how many attacks it takes to bring down a model. I will be factoring the comparative WS attributes for this.

So, in our first match, our puncher will be an Imperial Guardsman (WS 3 S 3) and we’ll see how long it takes him to beat down our contestants.

Imperial Guardsman: 6 Attacks / Kill
Space Marine: 18 Attacks / Kill
Tau Firewarrior: 6 Attacks / Kill

Now our Space Marine (WS 4, S 4) is going to take a swing at our contestants.

Imperial Guardsman: 3.76 Attacks / Kill
Space Marine: 12 Attacks / Kill
Fire Warrior: 4.5 Attacks / Kill.

So lets’ average things out and figure out how many attacks per point they can stand.

Imperial Guardsman: 0.98 Attacks / Point
Space Marine: 0.83 Attacks / Point
Firewarrior: 0.53 Attacks / Point

So, the Guardsman is again the most point efficient at taking a pounding of the lot.

Now I’m going to blend the two sets of averages and see which model is the most efficient at sucking up all sorts of attacks.

Imperial Guardsman: 0.91 Attacks / Point
Space Marine: 0.79 Attacks / Point
Firewarrior: 0.58 Attacks / Point

So, once again, the Firewarrior comes off dramatically less points efficient than either a Guardsman or a Space Marine.

Now the fun part, lets try and put this all together for an overall comparison.

What I am going to do is create an efficiency rating based on the Imperial Guardsman, as he seems to be the most efficient. We will then see how inefficient the other two are in comparison. It’s going to be pretty simple to do, I’m just going to divide the Guardsman’s score by the others Scores and see what I get.

So I’ll start with the Offensive Numbers from the previous post.

Guardsman Offensive Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Offensive Efficiency Rating: 1.
Firewarrior Offensive Efficiency Rating: 2.1

Now let’s get Defensive Numbers from this post

Guardsman Defensive Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Defensive Efficiency Rating: 1.15
Firewarrior Defensive Efficiency Rating: 1.57

Finally, the moment we have all been waiting for, combining all the math above into one specific number that will tell us how well costed these models are. I am going to average Offensive and Defensive Efficiencies into a single rating.

Imperial Guardsman Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.23
Firewarrior Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.84

Okay, so what do these numbers mean? Well basically it means that what a Guardsman pays 1 point to get, a Space Marine pays 1.23 Points to get and a Tau Firewarrior pays 1.84 points to get.
I’ll be honest, these numbers surprise me quite a bit. Mathematically, they would hold that a Firewarrior would be as point efficient as a Guardsman, if the Firewarrior only cost 5.43 points. I was expecting something around 8 or 9 points.

What makes it worse is there are a number of things missing here. My math doesn’t factor in the fact that both Guardsmen and Space Marines have better initiative, better starting unit Leadership, more standard issue equipment and more Special Rules than the Firewarriors. All of these things make the Guardsman and the Marine more point efficient than they already are. Also, when I ran these numbers, I stacked the deck a bit in the Tau’s favor by factoring the range advantage of their Pulse Rifles which is something most other mathematical comparisons don’t do.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I hate the argument that marker lights make them useful. What other troop requires another overpriced and squishy unit to justify their cost?

Firewarriors would be ok for their cost if they had access to special weapons and got a leadership buff and maybe a slight stat change. With as low as some of their stats are, it's absurd that they cost as much as they do. You're really only purchasing a gun with FW.

...Markerlights are a gun available on several units, not a squishy unit. They're overpriced if your intent is to stick Marker Drones on Crisis teams, yes; Pathfinders, Markerlights as upgrades to Stealth and Fire Warrior Shas'ui, and Tetras if you're using IA3 are all better options.

The Tau army isn't composed of self-sufficient units like most Marine forces; it's supposed to be fielded as a combined army that has some interaction between units. You can't spam one unit and win like you can in some armies, ideally you will use your Markerlights to pick out a unit and then use the markerlight counters to make it die with whatever else is convenient and effective to hit it with. It requires a lot more planning and foresight than "throw Purifiers in Razorbacks. Run forward. Hit things" does, yes, and playing an army with that degree of depth may be okay for some people, but the Tau aren't a shallow, easy, or simple-to-use army. Their weaknesses are in people trying to use them like they are.


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Jefffar wrote:

Finally, the moment we have all been waiting for, combining all the math above into one specific number that will tell us how well costed these models are. I am going to average Offensive and Defensive Efficiencies into a single rating.

Imperial Guardsman Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.23
Firewarrior Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.84

Okay, so what do these numbers mean? Well basically it means that what a Guardsman pays 1 point to get, a Space Marine pays 1.23 Points to get and a Tau Firewarrior pays 1.84 points to get.
I’ll be honest, these numbers surprise me quite a bit. Mathematically, they would hold that a Firewarrior would be as point efficient as a Guardsman, if the Firewarrior only cost 5.43 points. I was expecting something around 8 or 9 points.

What makes it worse is there are a number of things missing here. My math doesn’t factor in the fact that both Guardsmen and Space Marines have better initiative, better starting unit Leadership, more standard issue equipment and more Special Rules than the Firewarriors. All of these things make the Guardsman and the Marine more point efficient than they already are. Also, when I ran these numbers, I stacked the deck a bit in the Tau’s favor by factoring the range advantage of their Pulse Rifles which is something most other mathematical comparisons don’t do.

Again, running in a vacuum. A Fire Warrior is fairly bad one-on-one, yes. People complain that Fire Warriors don't get special weapons; that's stacking the estimate more in favor of other infantry that are designed to operate in a vacuum, Fire Warriors aren't.

There's also the problem of not factoring in the fact that Fire Warriors have possibly the toughest infantry transport out there (not counting Land Raiders, given that they can't be taken as Dedicated Transports to anything that's a 'basic soldier' by any definition), or various helpful wargear available to the Shas'ui (5pts and Space Marines' helpful special rules advantage disappears. How about that.)...

I don't count the Tetra because the Forgeworld have an Orkish mentality of more shooty means more better. It isn't a codex option either and so I never take it into consideration like this.

Stealth markers and firewarrior markers are both expensive and are still heavy weapons for firewarriors. That and it makes you sacrifice one of your models shooting just to boost another squad that's going to shoot at the same target you are. And both are Bs3 so it will only hit 50% of the time. Markerlights are crap in the codex because they all come on BS3 models and are expensive in an already point heavy codex.


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And the problem with the cohesive force concept is that its a huge negative for the army. Try playing DA where they are BS3 if all your speeders are dead.

Tau are an army with a lot of negatives built in as an excuse to give them a shooting buff. But since they were released other armies have been boosted further. So Tau negatives really begin to shine through.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Again, running in a vacuum. A Fire Warrior is fairly bad one-on-one, yes. People complain that Fire Warriors don't get special weapons; that's stacking the estimate more in favor of other infantry that are designed to operate in a vacuum, Fire Warriors aren't.

There's also the problem of not factoring in the fact that Fire Warriors have possibly the toughest infantry transport out there (not counting Land Raiders, given that they can't be taken as Dedicated Transports to anything that's a 'basic soldier' by any definition), or various helpful wargear available to the Shas'ui (5pts and Space Marines' helpful special rules advantage disappears. How about that.)...

Oh I agree I'm running in a vacuum here, but I'm doing it for the sake of my own sanity. By the time I start calculating the effects of Pathfinders and Tetras vs Librarians with Prescience and Devilfish vs Rhinos and Land Raiders and Broadides versus Devastators I'd have to yank all my hair out.

Jefffar wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Again, running in a vacuum. A Fire Warrior is fairly bad one-on-one, yes. People complain that Fire Warriors don't get special weapons; that's stacking the estimate more in favor of other infantry that are designed to operate in a vacuum, Fire Warriors aren't.

There's also the problem of not factoring in the fact that Fire Warriors have possibly the toughest infantry transport out there (not counting Land Raiders, given that they can't be taken as Dedicated Transports to anything that's a 'basic soldier' by any definition), or various helpful wargear available to the Shas'ui (5pts and Space Marines' helpful special rules advantage disappears. How about that.)...

Oh I agree I'm running in a vacuum here, but I'm doing it for the sake of my own sanity. By the time I start calculating the effects of Pathfinders and Tetras vs Librarians with Prescience and Devilfish vs Rhinos and Land Raiders and Broadides versus Devastators I'd have to yank all my hair out.

You're also occupying an imaginary world where all weapons are lasguns, bolters or whatever the tau use 4+ T3 guys just love to die. Pretty much everything above standard weapons will kill them outright, so your comparison is moot.

Here's something I would like to see:

10x Fire Warriors vs 20x blob Imperial Guardsmen (that's 18 lasguns), starting at 36" (assuming smart deployment on the part of the Tau).

What happens if IG get first turn? What if the Tau do?

going away from the rules and statistics part of tau, the whole background thing (to put it simply) Tau work together, each caste does its job in order for the other caste to continue working without a hitch, thats how its play style is interpreted, markerlights to help pretty much the entire army, air caste to help the fire caste the list goes on, but thats just how tau play, yes the FW are stupidly squishy, so come up with your own way to get around that, a few people have gone turtle a few have gone sacrificial units, not disagreeing with the fact that FW need a price drop or a stat upgrade, just explaining to some people that it isn't right to compare one play style to another when the two a colossally different in style

Except that the Tau's play style is handicapped because the table width is suited for MEQ. That and its already been discussed that requiring army cohesion based on support units is a negative put on the entire army. The pathfinders are even worse than firewarriors because of their smaller squad size, higher cost, required transport, and have the same leadership problem. Except they only need 1-2 wounds to force the morale check. Markerlights are a burden that the entire army has to carry.

If the story for the tau were any different then it would be just the same as every other army, troops deal with everything and your heavy and elites slots smash the things that get in the way of the troops. If you can't find a way for the play style to suit you then you're playing the wrong army

I'm actually doing just fine with Tau. But that's only because use of the allies system gives me two troops that can hold objectives or I just don't focus on objectives (the key part of the game).

And fluff doesn't justify bad table top play style. If you want to use fluff to justify anything, Necrons and Nids would like a word with you.

Besides. It's still a negative. Markerlights were the reason why a shooty army was given BS3 across the board. The current environment gives armies bonus on top of bonus. That is not balanced at all. The only other army I can think of that suffers from the same issue is Nids with synapse.

so you've figured out a way to make tau work for you? nice, so why keep complaining to people who share the same view that Tau troop choices are (compared to all other army troop choices) sad at best

Have you read the previous pages? There has been a detailed argument as to wether they are overpriced, underpowered, and/or Poorly equipped. I've been trying to argue that they are terrible at handling the objective based game currently. I suggest going back and reading from the beginning.

I have it just seemed as though you were complaining overly much, my apologies

To keep with the topic, yes firewarriors are currently overpriced for what they bring to the table.

I don't think much arguing is really needed, the best army books in 40k are the ones with excellent troops choices, and based on those ideas, Tau will never be a truly competitive army until they fix Firewarriors and make them not "A ok troop options" but a great troop option. (They could do it to kroot instead, but that would take away from the whole Tau ideal in the first place, if every army fielded nothing but kroot as troops)

The way I see it, the good troops out there do things a certain way to be effective. (These are just a few)

-Orks: Cheap as very numerous, tough enough to make basic weapon not enough to deal with them fast enough.

-Space Marines: Tough troops with special/heavy weapon
weapon options

-IG: troops with enough number to take a good amount of fire, can also take special/heavy weapons

So what are Firewarriors suppose to be?

I don't think they should be as cheap as orks for sure, they're an elite army of high tech xenos, they commit few to war, depending on their tech to win the day. I don't think they should be a numerous as a IG platoon company, but at their current size, without the options for special/heavy weapons as a suppar BS, it makes it seem like they should have more. They shouldn't be as tough as Space Marines, but I can see them shooting as well as one, they are full time soldiers, much like Space Marines and IG Vets. And to end, they should have special and heavy weapon options being such a high tech race. Noone in their right mind that has the technology send units out without tools that are possibly needed in battle. i.e. Anti-tank (Melta weapons/Longrange anti-tank) Anti-personnel (Flamers, small blasts) and lastly Krak grendaes for light vehicle/monster duties.

I don't think we need more Firewarriors, I think we need deadlier firewarriors, making their point values worth while.

These are my quick easy fixes:

-Give them drones with Special/Heavy Weapons (TL BS2 weapons are fine is combined with my idea later)
-Fire warriors go to BS4 and come with equivalent of krak grenades or EMP grendaes get rules for hurting monsters)
-Change Marker Lights slightly. Have marker lights only affect vehicles "Suits" and Drones due to the advance computer systems built-in. Firewarriors can still take marker drones(Not on the shas'ui), but the only benefit they can possibly get is firing seeker missiles from vehicles at targets they've painted.

This take firewarriors out of the Markerlight argument all together, allowing them to buff them to a decent troops choice without making them overpowered based on an armywide support buff.

Changing the markerlight mechanic is a bad idea, as it's more of the things that makes the army special-the mechanic just needs to be more reasonably priced then it is right now, or easier to use (assault 1 with smaller range for the "light" markers? the tetra-style "high-intensity" being the heavy ones)

To fix FW they need 3 basic changes:
1-shoot like a freaking soldier, not a recruit.
2-don't brake so easy
3-get more weapon options.

1 is obvious. BS4 is the path.

2 is easy-just give them either better leadership, or some abilities that makes moral matter less. a slight addition to livability could also help. even a commander for free is a start.

3 is the complex one. for starter you can give them their grenades for free, and make the carbines actually have a reason. beyond that I got a slightly odd concept:
Scrap the pathfinders.
Give the pathfinder options to the FW squads, and more reasonably costed, so one can set his squad as multiple setups.
A FW squad that can give a few guys either assualt 1 low-range markerlights, or rail rifles can make them far more flexible and versatile.
Want a camper team? set up some rail rifles. want a strike team? markerlights and (the buffed) carbines.

On another note, heard a wild rumor (with 0 confirmation) that next codex the carbines will be standard rapid-fire guns, and the rifles will be slavo weapons. no clue where that comes from, but sounds interesting, and actually fits the fluff better.

 Jayden63 wrote:
DE never leave home without a blaster. 10 DE never leave home without either a DL or a splinter cannon. DE can get FNP, FC, and Fearless without having to add anything in points wise, it just depends on what they have done recently.

And you picked the one army that is actually less effective at shooting T3. If you want to show an even more lopsided look into the FW favor, lets have firewarriors and DE warriors shooting at T2 grots. However, now lets stack up your 9 FW against 10 DE warriors and have them shoot at T5 or better things. Now who is doing the more killing?

So yeah, all armies have things that they do better than others just because of their default equipment. But you need to look at the entirty of the game. Some match ups are just better than others and in the grand curve of it all the FW does find itself lacking as it has a very uphill battle against the most prolific profile of all available armies.

how about against an armor value. say AV10?

It takes 6 shots for a Firewarrior to get either a glance or a pen on AV10. 12 shots to get a glance on AV11.

However, it only takes 3 shots from an IG plasma gun to get a damageing roll on AV10 and 2.3 shots from Marine plasma to get a damaging roll on AV10.

S5 is nice, but its not even close to special/heavy weapon nice. Especially since S5 can't even touch AV12 where plasma and melta are still very much good to go.

Melta is not "very much good to go", melta is "oh AV12? that's cute..."

But for every 3 plasma shots IG get, tau will have 6 or more FW if they want, making it equal and thus worthwhile.

But the plasma get +1 to the pen table and still have better odds. And you missed out on the Melta still being more effective against all armor and then adding +2 to the pen table.

That and IG still get autocannon heavy weapon squads or lascannons or missile launchers.


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And plasma can still pen Av11 and 12 which makes all the difference.

Who needs Markerlights when you can have Eldrad as an ally casting Prescience? Have him stand in the front soaking damage all the while Fire Warriors re-rolls to hit!

Tau is a specialist army. Leave the tank and MC killing to Crisis Suits and Broadsides. Fire Warriors are reasonably priced.

See, I want to agree with you Sabrx except FW cap out at a pitly 12 bodies... Eldrad is way too expensive just to boost 12 FW. I think the key problem with FW is they need a 20 man squad cap and a drop in cost by 1-2 pts... then they are awesome.

Yet they would lose all the flavor of Tau and become yet another horde.

FW need is any a price increase, after a health buff. they should be somewhere around the necron warrior cost and worth.

 Jayden63 wrote:
It takes 6 shots for a Firewarrior to get either a glance or a pen on AV10. 12 shots to get a glance on AV11.

However, it only takes 3 shots from an IG plasma gun to get a damageing roll on AV10 and 2.3 shots from Marine plasma to get a damaging roll on AV10.

S5 is nice, but its not even close to special/heavy weapon nice. Especially since S5 can't even touch AV12 where plasma and melta are still very much good to go.

As I stated above, FW's damage output is far higher than vet squads with plasma guns, against all types of infantry.

Honestly I suspect Tau players aren't taking enough of them. I'm tempted to proxy a 1500 point tau army and build a list around 60 FWs. It'd make anyone with assaulting infantry pause for thought, and anyone with mech infantry realising how flimsy AV11 and AV12 is against S10.

Tau already has a horde-like unit called Kroots. I myself own 100 Kroots. While they aren't fearless or stubborn like other horde counterparts (unless you ally a fearless or stubborn leader), they perform admirable in assault and shooting considering they are 7 points a pop. They can expand their numbers with the addition of Kroot Hounds. If Fire Warriors were 20 unit cap, then there's no reason why anyone would field Kroots.

Although given the current metagame, It's not too surprising that Tau are at a disadvantage compared to other infantry based army lists.

I'm skeptical about points reduction on Fire Warriors, but 20 unit cap does seem reasonable. Points reduction should be applied to Crisis Suits, Stealth Suits, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pods, Pathfinders, Kroots, and Devilfish. They are all grossly overpriced for what they do and in comparison to patterns in past codices.

 BryllCream wrote:

As I stated above, FW's damage output is far higher than vet squads with plasma guns, against all types of infantry.

Honestly I suspect Tau players aren't taking enough of them. I'm tempted to proxy a 1500 point tau army and build a list around 60 FWs. It'd make anyone with assaulting infantry pause for thought, and anyone with mech infantry realising how flimsy AV11 and AV12 is against S10.

Really? You really mean to tell me that a vet squad with three plasma firing at BS4 are going to do less damage to a terminator unit than 12 firewarriors? You're honestly going to suggest that?


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And your math was off. 3 plasma guns don't get .66 kills. They get 1.66 which is more than the firewarriors alone.


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And again, its not an issue of numbers. Max squad size is 12, so 3 wounds max to force morale checks. And I believe that's about 50% chance to fail with LD 8. Go ahead and proxy 60 FW. Then see how fast it will take those 15 wounds total to force a morale check against all 5 squads.

seriously, what FW need is for their computer systems to actually make a difference, either that or GW is actually suggesting that the fire caste are that pathetic to have like BS 1 or 2, weapon choices would be awesome, I mean, instead of just different forms of machine guns, perhaps be able to get mini versions of railguns, I know...rail rifle but that is...well, for a wannabe sniper team (without the sniper rule) maybe a heavy rail gatling gun, sigh, suppose I'll have to wait for the next codex for a viable troop choice...

Fire warriors should probably be BS 4, I agree. They probably sleep with those rifles.

Martel732 wrote:
Fire warriors should probably be BS 4, I agree. They probably sleep with those rifles.

It needs to be cannon that all Fire caste rituals include a loaded weapon, including the mating rituals.

That and maybe give them a unique grenade mechanic. Something to spice things up. I'm all about giving love to other armies as long as it makes the game more interesting.

Unless we want 15 point firewarriors, I'd say BS 4 is a non-starter.

Making Markerlights more useful, especially when taken as a part of the squads gear would have a similar effect anyway.

I don't think BS 4 alone would warrant a +5 increase. GWs balancing skills are suspect at best. 6th edition is actually a big surprise in terms of the rules.

Why would BS4 FW cost 15 points? The ethereal body guard is only 12 points and the only stat change is BS.

That and Necron warriors are only 13 points for +3 LD, +1 S/T/BS, and +2 WS with RP.

I'd hate to see an updated codex where they actually increase the FW cost with only a minor stat change.

And Markerlights shouldn't increase BS. It just justifies Tau getting a crap BS.

Jefffar wrote:
Unless we want 15 point firewarriors, I'd say BS 4 is a non-starter.

Making Markerlights more useful, especially when taken as a part of the squads gear would have a similar effect anyway.

So IG vets should cost......13pts? At least I guess, they have BS4 and grenades already. BS4 is pretty much standard for a shooty based armies troops, unless they win by mass firepower (which we should agree that Tau don't do that, unlike IG)

So tau should have crap bs in replacement for what? the troop choice has nothing else going for them

If they are going to stay in small squads of T3 models then they need base BS4 and access to at least a few special weapons.

I personally think the pulse carbine should get the blind rule.

If you were to take marker drones or krootox and cut their cost it would make them more usable and resolve what I feel is their predominant flaw. Firewarriors I don't think really have as much of a problem of being overpriced as they do with needing a better reason to take plasma carbines instead of plasma rifles. I like the idea of giving them more special weapons, but as I tried to think of how I'd do that I realized that I was always taking another part of the army and trying to put it in the infantry slot. Really I think it's more a matter of fixing the other parts of the army (pathfinders, marker drones and ethereals) to work better and have their points reduced than it is to fix what is probably one of the better units in the tau army atm.

I think making markerlights assault 1 or at least making a mini-markerlight that is assault 1 but with a reduced range would help a lot. I think the idea of ethereals could work but they need a significant boost to their survivability. (heh. Make some of them demons and we could have some chaos tau. Honestly an invul save and no instant death would make them a much more viable option even if it raised their points costs significantly.)

mini marker lights? a targeting system that works for the rest of the FWs in the squad for the 'ui upgrade could work. Give the tau the computerized feel that they need in the troop choice rather than hiding the FWs behind all their beefed up tech comrades.

I just want to throw this out there:

A Marine with a Str 4 bolter and BS 4 will score 0.33 wounds per shot against T4 models.

A Firewarrior with a Str 5 gun and BS 3 will score 0.33 wounds per shot against T4 models.

 azazel the cat wrote:
I just want to throw this out there:

A Marine with a Str 4 bolter and BS 4 will score 0.33 wounds per shot against T4 models.

A Firewarrior with a Str 5 gun and BS 3 will score 0.33 wounds per shot against T4 models.

You speak truth, but the 6pt price difference between the Tactical marine with bolter and TauFirewarrior results in the following differences:

Marine advantages: +2 WS +1 BS +1S +1T +2I +1 LD +1AS cheaper Srgt upgrade, ATSKNF, Combat Squads, Combat Tactics, a bolt pistol, krak grenades, frag grenades, special/heavy weapon options, multiple transport options, power weapons

Tau Advantages: Basic weapon has +1S and +6" range, access to Marklight bonuses, defensive grenade options, up to 12 models in unit, and drones.

Looking at those, doesn't seem that a marine only paying 6 more points for the crazy amount of advantages over a firewarrior really evens with the fact that they both wounds T4 models the same amount. Just my opinion.

Wow, this topic has come on since i last checked.

Most of those "advantages" the marine gets are only useful up close, which he needs to get against a foe that outranges him and can move and fire. The previous discussion regarding how terrible FW are seem to be missing 2 major points.

1. Troops die nearest to nearest, when comparing bolter marines and FW if the FW's premeasure and shoot at 29.9" and kills the marine in range the marines must move 6" forward to get even their front rank into range to return fire. Unless the marines are lined up 1 deep, 10 wide, the marines will not be returning fire at full strength. All these comparisons seem to be comparing 15 FW to 10 Marines and letting them both fire at full strength when in fact the FW's will get first shot on most occasions meaning a reduced number of marine return shots. They may pay 10pts for the leader but he buffs LD *and* some with precision potential on his S5 rifle...

2. When talking about durability it's always the Heavy Bolter that is mentioned, stacking the deck somewhat since it's the perfect Light/Medium inf killer, how much tougher is a marine against a Starcannon than a FW? A Missile Launcher? Maybe the ubiquitous meltagun? Marines are tougher against light fire but against heavy fire are *less* durable per point.
4+ armour gets it's save against almost all basic infantry weapons carried by enemy troopers, barring the Immortals Gauss Blasters I think. There are going to be some exceptions, Dante using Sang Guard as troops who i think might be AP4 shooters, but by and large only special and heavy weapons will penetrate them outright.

FW's don't need BS4, or Rail Sniper Rifles to make them like all those other units out there, they are the groundpounders and objective takers. Long range Anti-Infantry firepower, if they need tanks destroyed they have Twin linked railguns, arguably the finest tank busting gun in the game which can also be buffed by markerlights to have enhanced BS and ignore cover. Let the Imperial war machine try and equip it's units to be all things to all targets and waste boltguns on tanks for a couple of melta shots, i'll stick with specialists like the various xenos races.

Choosing to "not count" the Tau's synergy in points comparisons will always skew your results. Fire Warriors are fine troops who at the very extreme end of the scale need their sarg included in cost, any more than that and I'd have to assume they were getting a new kit GW wanted to push...

Thats exactly how the Tau army is supposed to work. Sadly, ask any Tau player and you will find out that it doesn't. There just is no real range advantage that Fire warrior cann exploit. Transports, outflanking, bikes, beast, cavalry, and deep striking can easily put you in gun range of the firewarrior. The extra 6" is just not a good enough barrier to play the range game. Add to it you only need to cause 3 deaths to force them to make moral check and move them off of position.

Markerlights truthfully are a joke. First you only get 1/2 of your potential buff. Second (in the case of seeker missiles) you only get 5/6 of them to work (seriously name any other weapon in 40K where you have to roll to hit twice). Reducing LD is pointless as there is no guarantee it will matter. So stripping cover and BS raises are about the only real use that you can guarentee to see results from. And again, you only get half of your potential buff.

Markerlights need rework almost as badly as Firewarriors do. But that is a different thread.

There is also a lot of high strength, high volume, AP4 weapons out there. Compare that to the number of AP3 weapons and its a joke. Assault cannons, autocannons, quad guns, heavy bolters, and heavy flamers all tear through Tau.

That and the 4+ save is only going to save 50% of the time. So to cause those three wounds to force a morale check you need 6 wounds, which is only about 8 bolter shots.

And stop bringing extra units into this. I'm sorry but you absolutely can ignore broadsides and battle suits from the issue. A few good units don't fix a bad one. Broadsides aren't going to help FW pass morale checks. Crisis suits don't let them auto-regroup. This is an objective game. If your opponent wants to win he just needs to kill the FW and bunker down on 1 objective.

Savageconvoy wrote:There is also a lot of high strength, high volume, AP4 weapons out there. Compare that to the number of AP3 weapons and its a joke. Assault cannons, autocannons, quad guns, heavy bolters, and heavy flamers all tear through Tau.

That and the 4+ save is only going to save 50% of the time. So to cause those three wounds to force a morale check you need 6 wounds, which is only about 8 bolter shots.

And stop bringing extra units into this. I'm sorry but you absolutely can ignore broadsides and battle suits from the issue. A few good units don't fix a bad one. Broadsides aren't going to help FW pass morale checks. Crisis suits don't let them auto-regroup. This is an objective game. If your opponent wants to win he just needs to kill the FW and bunker down on 1 objective.

I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that 8 bolter shots will result in 6 wounds.

BS 4 and Str 4 will deliver 0.44 wounds per shot against a T3 model. This means that the marines would need to deliver 13.64 shots in order to cause enough wounds to force a morale check after the FW 4+ saves.

Additionally, if you're only looking at a single unit in a vacuum, then you will always wind up crying foul. To do so would imply that the Necron Warriors are also not as good as Space Marines, and by that extension the Necron Army is weaker than the Vanilla Marines. Yet, saying so is one of the fastest ways to strip away your credibility.

There maybe a ton of AP 4, but there is also a ton of 5++ cover. Fire warriors are a "break point" unit for weapon systems like the whirlwind. The ignore cover save ammo wont' penetrate the armor, and the regular ammo gives cover saves.

I think a little creative movement to abuse the 30" rapid fire weapon combined with throwaway kroots make the fire warrior decent, if a bit over priced. Also, double tapping at 15" is really nice that's outside reliable charge range for foot troops, especially once casualties are removed.

If you really want a crappy troop, look at the guardian. Barf.

I was doing backwards math. 3 unsaved wounds, so 6 wounds total, which would require 8 hits, which then would require about 12 shots. I may be off by a bit, but it really doesn't require much.

And Kroot suffer from the weakness issues even more. A CC focused unit with I3, no power weapons, no armor, and T3 make them an absolute joke.

I think the issue people see with FW being balanced is they look at the gun and the gun alone. They compare the gun to the bolter and say "wow, that's good." But they forget what carries that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And we aren't looking at FW in a vacuum. We compared transports, squad size, squad equipment, ranges, objective holding, survivability, durability, firepower, unit buffs, and compared it against four different troop types. There is no vacuum to this. We've made plenty of good comparisons and analysis.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I was doing backwards math. 3 unsaved wounds, so 6 wounds total, which would require 8 hits, which then would require about 12 shots. I may be off by a bit, but it really doesn't require much.

And Kroot suffer from the weakness issues even more. A CC focused unit with I3, no power weapons, no armor, and T3 make them an absolute joke.

I think the issue people see with FW being balanced is they look at the gun and the gun alone. They compare the gun to the bolter and say "wow, that's good." But they forget what carries that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And we aren't looking at FW in a vacuum. We compared transports, squad size, squad equipment, ranges, objective holding, survivability, durability, firepower, unit buffs, and compared it against four different troop types. There is no vacuum to this. We've made plenty of good comparisons and analysis.

Don't forget kroot are a CC unit with a rapidfire weapon.

Out of curriosity; If leadership is such a massive issue for tau, why is the Ethereal considered so bad? 50 points seems like a steal for effectively giving the army Ld10 (Ld8 reroll) or Preffered enemy when he dies.

Or rather, why is it that every single tactic I see revolves around getting him killed and not about keeping him alive

Because Tau have bad leadership. If he dies then they are forced to take morale checks with out his leadership buff. So odds are about 45% of your forces will run away.

The idea behind the suicide ethereal is to have every FW squad inside a Devilfish so they can auto pass the morale check. It's more of a funny thing to do than an actual game winning strategy.

If he didn't cause the panic check I think a lot more would take them due to the leadership buff. But with the Price of Failure rule it really makes it a huge liability.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Because Tau have bad leadership. If he dies then they are forced to take morale checks with out his leadership buff. So odds are about 45% of your forces will run away.

The idea behind the suicide ethereal is to have every FW squad inside a Devilfish so they can auto pass the morale check. It's more of a funny thing to do than an actual game winning strategy.

If he didn't cause the panic check I think a lot more would take them due to the leadership buff. But with the Price of Failure rule it really makes it a huge liability.

Except it does not work if they are in a transport. He is bad because if he dies your entire army can run off the board, and he has no armor save. If you an get him killed while the 'Ui are still alive for that 8LD it can work.

Tactic -Mech up with every firewarrior and his impaired brother in either reserve or in Transports --- Place A Etheral ( need 2 HQ's ) in the front lines let him die turn 1 =--- Disembark , enjoy your prefered enemy re-rolls

In 5th they didn't test, but the changing of the wording in 6ths indicates that units in Transports are Fearless now, instead of not taking the test.

But to be honest, it's only a big issue if you are on the back edge of the board. There's nothing in the rule that says you dont' get to try to rally and I've never had a Tau unit who had room to try to rally at least once actually make it off the table.

 Kasrkin229 wrote:
Tactic -Mech up with every firewarrior and his impaired brother in either reserve or in Transports --- Place A Etheral ( need 2 HQ's ) in the front lines let him die turn 1 =--- Disembark , enjoy your prefered enemy re-rolls

You don't roll, you dont get Preffered enemy. You need shadowsun to make this work, and that list gets tight :(

Well that does make sense, I guess you really don't want to be afraid of your own board edge with a ranged heavy army.

I think people under-value how good rapid fire actually is. 15'' is a pretty impressive range and a good positional player will set their gunline in a way that SOMETHING if not multiple things are going to get to rapid fire if the enemy wants to charge.

As for the actual question at hand?

Firewarriors serve their purpose, I love that they are so min-maxed and clean of useless abilities.

Also something to take into account is that the Tau codex is over 5 years old?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I was doing backwards math. 3 unsaved wounds, so 6 wounds total, which would require 8 hits, which then would require about 12 shots. I may be off by a bit, but it really doesn't require much.

Off by a bit? the difference between your 8 shots and Azazel's 13.64 is "a bit" ? I'd hate to see you measure charge distances

 Savageconvoy wrote:

And we aren't looking at FW in a vacuum. We compared transports, squad size, squad equipment, ranges, objective holding, survivability, durability, firepower, unit buffs, and compared it against four different troop types. There is no vacuum to this. We've made plenty of good comparisons and analysis.

This is still a vacuum, this is still just FW's without an army behind them, they don't need AT in squad because Tau AT is superb from other sources. At Ld8 for 130pts they are a solid line unit that can put out hits at high range and focus on killing infantry.

I may get hate from the marine detachment but i'm gonna say it straight, Xenos races are just plain harder to play well. Your army has to be working together as a whole with different elements coming together. Looking at them in a vacuum is pointless, you may as well petition for a buff for Fire Dragons because they are outshot point for point at 24" by most units in the game. The Tau army is designed around markerlight usage, giving ground and firing and units with a specific target focus. Unlike marines they do not fare well as generalists, they are far more Eldar in their specialisation and synergistic approach to war.

That 6" range boost is huge, it means you are getting the first shot on most opposing line troops and can keep your enemy at arms length easily while moving away from them. You are also better equipped to use cover thanks to it as you can strike more targets from cover than any shorter range line unit, its funny how the forums always assume cover is everywhere until it's not convenient, everyone has Aegis defence lines but not Tau gunlines?
That range present in the Tau army gives you battlefield control, you can use it to dictate how and where battles are fought.

12 Fire Warriors will double tap 8 Orks to death at up to 15" after moving. 10 Bolter Marines will do 6.66 at 12"
Add 2 markerlight hits and they do 13.33, add 2 more and they'll ignore that KFF too.

The right tools applied at the right time, markerlights aren't always for Crisis Suits. You have range and mobility, if you're shooting 100pts of Tau at 100pts of enemy you're doing it wrong.

I think the point is that if you have to spend points on a another unit to make the first unit good. Shouldn't the cost on the first unit be on par with other troops from other books for what you get? Not overpriced and then need over priced support to make the unit really good?

I love the fact that my Tau army synergizes well due to the marklight rules. But you can't take enough markerlights to make enough units synergize, where as the few other armies that have similiar synergy in their own books have it better.

For example: IG orders, some units can issue orders to themselves, some can issue orders to 2 units and even a SC can do it to 4. This is all in addition to shooting with their own weapons.

Tau can use a unit to shoot at one target per unit and the unit that shoots the markerlight gives up it's own ability to shoot. (Sometimes wasting the shoots of the other models in the unit as well due to range or target)

If marker lights we done in a different phase then shooting, I would think pathfinders were a worthwhile unit to take. Or maybe if they could splitfire. But as long as we have to use suppar units(Yes pathfinders, marker drones and Shas'ui with markers and all poor units) to provide support to our army to make it syngeristic (And work well) we will continue to have problems.

Again I see mention of another Eldar unit as worse choice than FW. I'm not familiar with Eldar at all, but it looks like troops don't age well past 2 editions.

And yes, the gun is great. Yay 6" advantage over bolter. Yay 3" rapid fire over bolter. And yay S5 over bolter, unless you're GK.

I get it. The gun is good. But the problem is that attention only gets focused on the gun. The troop carrying it is crap. T3, LD7 base, I2, small squad size, and no upgrades. That is crap. That's what makes it crappy.

Lets put it this way. Would IG or Space marine players give up all options for special and heavy weapons for just the pulse rifle? No more squad versatility. All you get is the reduction to anti-infantry.

That's ok though, right. I mean you still got devastator squads and LR and manticores and such.

The synergy is a BS argument. Those other units don't fix the key issues with FW. They can up the BS on a unit that's solely against light infantry. That's your synergy right there. No help for small squad size. No help outside two terrible HQs for the bad LD, and no help in CC. That's not synergy. That's a crutch that Tau are forced to rely on a single weak FA unit to to bring their base BS up to standard and then rely on its only other gimmick to remove cover saves.

Yes FW can hide in cover and enjoy range. Unless there happens to be a heavy weapon in the other squad which out ranges the pulse rifle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, there is no synergy to help FW get downfield and claim objectives. It reduces them to trying to shoot someone off the objective and hide on theirs. Which puts Tau at a huge disadvantage because of our weak troop choices.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

I get it. The gun is good. But the problem is that attention only gets focused on the gun. The troop carrying it is crap. T3, LD7 base, I2, small squad size, and no upgrades. That is crap. That's what makes it crappy.

Yeah, like Guardians, Kabalites, Guard, Avengers, Gaunts etc. There are loads of T3 troops out there, it you want space marine stats then play space marines. I2 is slow, but there are very few units you'd beat in CC even with higher I, Tau are bad in CC it's their schtick, they get great range and firepower instead. 4 is not the standard, 3 is.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Lets put it this way. Would IG or Space marine players give up all options for special and heavy weapons for just the pulse rifle? No more squad versatility. All you get is the reduction to anti-infantry.
That's ok though, right. I mean you still got devastator squads and LR and manticores and such.

I already do, I play Eldar and Nids primarily, my units fight their specific targets and let the specialists do their thing while the Farseer/Tyrant/Zoans buff/debuff wherever they are required at that moment (Like some kind of psychic markerlight...). It's like i'm a Xenos player or something...

 Savageconvoy wrote:


The synergy is a BS argument. Those other units don't fix the key issues with FW. They can up the BS on a unit that's solely against light infantry. That's your synergy right there. No help for small squad size. No help outside two terrible HQs for the bad LD, and no help in CC. That's not synergy. That's a crutch that Tau are forced to rely on a single weak FA unit to to bring their base BS up to standard and then rely on its only other gimmick to remove cover saves.

Or ignore cover saves, never fought a Green Tide? Pathfinders behind an Aegis Line? There are some very nice cover boosting tricks that you are conveniently ignoring. You have versitility, calling valid units choices a crutch is like Chaos players who complain they can't mono god well because they ignored 75% of their dex.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Yes FW can hide in cover and enjoy range. Unless there happens to be a heavy weapon in the other squad which out ranges the pulse rifle.

Yeah I wish Tau had something else in their army aside from Fire Warriors that could shoot further than 30"...

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Oh, there is no synergy to help FW get downfield and claim objectives. It reduces them to trying to shoot someone off the objective and hide on theirs. Which puts Tau at a huge disadvantage because of our weak troop choices.

Thats why the army has Devilfish and outflanking Kroot.

Seriously, I think you should just play Space Marines, they have units that can be everything to everyone which is what you want Fire Warriors to be. Fire Warriors fill a role, that role is mobile scoring AI, they will not fill every role like a marine. They are not super awesome death machines, but they are decent and regularly show up as allies in my Eldar lists.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Yeah, like Guardians, Kabalites, Guard, Avengers, Gaunts etc. There are loads of T3 troops out there, it you want space marine stats then play space marines. I2 is slow, but there are very few units you'd beat in CC even with higher I, Tau are bad in CC it's their schtick, they get great range and firepower instead. 4 is not the standard, 3 is.

I'm not saying they should have higher stats, just pointing out that they pay an absurd amount of points for their stat line. I2 is a huge negative against them because there are pretty much no units they can beat. Making them a unit that can be assualted by even non CC units is a negative. That and I'm pretty sure the standard is 4 since 7 out of 15 armies Marine with straight 4 stat lines. And to tip the balance for I we have Eldar and Dark Eldar and Toughness and Strength being tipped by Ork and Necron.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
I already do, I play Eldar and Nids primarily, my units fight their specific targets and let the specialists do their thing while the Farseer/Tyrant/Zoans buff/debuff wherever they are required at that moment (Like some kind of psychic markerlight...). It's like i'm a Xenos player or something...

Again, the issue is cost and survivability. I can't speak for Nids or Eldar, but Tau pay a lot of points for an objective holder that has a hard time holding objective and is only designed for taking down light infantry. They don't have the numbers or options to change their role at all and they are not even durable enough to dedicate to hold an objective.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Or ignore cover saves, never fought a Green Tide? Pathfinders behind an Aegis Line? There are some very nice cover boosting tricks that you are conveniently ignoring. You have versitility, calling valid units choices a crutch is like Chaos players who complain they can't mono god well because they ignored 75% of their dex.

Oh. Throw them behind a fortification that every army has access to? Why don't I just factor in bringing allies when I'm looking to explain the weakness in a Tau codex. FW are just fine since I can bring Space marines to hold objective. No point in discussing it further. FW are totally worth the 10 ppm now. Pathfinders are still T3 models in even smaller squads. 1-2 wounds will cause a morale check and they suffer from the same leadership issues. The bonus to ignore cover is nice or raise BS, but why do I need an entire FA choice dedicated to that? Especially when it's one unit that can't split fire? With heavy weapons? What about the other FA choices? Why do I have to choose between bringing a BS3 shooting army if I don't pick all Pathfinders?

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Yeah I wish Tau had something else in their army aside from Fire Warriors that could shoot further than 30"...

And I wish there was something in the Tau codex that could hold objectives. Until then I'm looking at FW and how many weapons are AP4 with further range.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Thats why the army has Devilfish and outflanking Kroot.

So an 85 point transport that has no effective weapons, requires the FW no longer be able to shoot, and loses it's durability once I move it closer to the enemy? Or I could take Kroot with Ld7 and is CC oriented with rapidfire weapons. I could take the 20 point upgrade to give them LD8. Oh and to top it off they have no armor. Good job outflanking a unit that's table time will be measured in minutes.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Seriously, I think you should just play Space Marines, they have units that can be everything to everyone which is what you want Fire Warriors to be. Fire Warriors fill a role, that role is mobile scoring AI, they will not fill every role like a marine. They are not super awesome death machines, but they are decent and regularly show up as allies in my Eldar lists.

Firewarriors don't fill a role of Mobile scoring. Have you not paid attention to the last 7 pages? They have no durability or numbers. They take wounds easy and run easy. I'm not asking for SM level performance. I'm just saying that they can either give the squad better firepower to at least balance them out as fragile, make them more durable or give them access to better transport options, give them the numbers where they can shrug off the wounds, or give them the leadership where they aren't forced to stay on my end of the board.

They don't have to be marines. I'm not asking them to be that. I'm just saying they shouldn't pay the elite troop price tag if they aren't elite troops. I'm just saying that an objective holder should be able to survive long enough to hold an objective other than hiding out of LOS until the game is over. I'm saying that FW should get weapon options since their small numbers don't equal out to the lose of special weapons.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

I'm just saying that they can either give the squad better firepower to at least balance them out as fragile,

Str 5 not enough? You want line infantry to have better guns than Strength 5 across the board? WAT

 Savageconvoy wrote:

make them more durable

How? Want Powered Armor? Toughness 4? Stealth? None of these things are the Fire Warrior's job - Want powered armor and T4? Play SM. Want stealth, play stealth suits. There are other units in the Tau army that are quite durable.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

or give them access to better transport options,

So the devilfish, which is the most durable transport in the game with a 3+ cover save simply for moving, is not a good transport option? WAT

 Savageconvoy wrote:

give them the numbers where they can shrug off the wounds,

Ah, so you want a Horde army with Str 5 guns across the board and carapace armor. I can't think of any other army that can field more than 12 men / unit with carapace armor, not to mention str 5 guns in the troops slot.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

or give them the leadership where they aren't forced to stay on my end of the board.

So you want them to be LD9 like Space Marines, because they're also psycho-indoctrinated killing machines with religious devotion to a cause and genetic manipulation to ensure obedience... mk. Not really Fire Warriors, except perhaps for the religious devotion to a cause and that is covered easily in the Ethereal rules.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

They don't have to be marines. I'm not asking them to be that.

It's hard to be more durable or to have a higher leadership without being marines...

 Savageconvoy wrote:

I'm just saying they shouldn't pay the elite troop price tag if they aren't elite troops.

10 PPM is not an elite troops price tag. 15-20 is, arguably. Not 10.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

I'm just saying that an objective holder should be able to survive long enough to hold an objective other than hiding out of LOS until the game is over.

If you place your objectives right, an objective holder CAN survive long enough to hold an objective because they are hiding out of LOS until the game is over.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

I'm saying that FW should get weapon options since their small numbers don't equal out to the lose of special weapons.

They have str 5 guns as a basic rifle. I would gladly trade the ability to get a heavy bolter / meltagun / whatever on my Space Marines for str 5 main weapons. So long as I could take sufficient AT elsewhere - which the Tau can, and indeed it is fething AWESOME AT.

1.) S5 is not enough when you're limited to only that. By that logic marines shouldn't get special weapons either because S4 weapons are much better than Lasguns with S3. The math has already been shown that Special weapons and heavy weapons alone can be as effective as an entire squad of FW.

2.)Stealth suits aren't scoring. And if I'm wrong that FW are weak and low unit count, then show the numbers to prove me wrong. This has been shown for the last 7 pages and people keep ignoring how fragile a unit of FW are. And most of the time I'm refering to LD when I say durable. And again, why not make them more durable? They're an expensive small count troop. Why whouldn't they be worth the points?

3.) The devilfish is a terrible transport. No fire points and no weapons of it's own that don't put it in harms way. It's expensive and you can't carry a full squad of FW with drones. It's durable, as long as you keep it in the back. Compare that to a cheap transport that lets you fire special and heavy weapons out and it's terrible. It serves no purpose other than keeping FW alive and for that cost is probably better spent on more FW.

4.) I'm talking about how to make them better. If they aren't getting special weapons or better leadership they need numbers to shrug off wounds. So what I'm really saying is give them special weapons and better leadership. Again, the numbers have been shown.

5.) The Ethereal that also has terrible rules? Yes that should be changed too. Too bad we're talking about FW. And what about the other races? Why do they get good LD and leadership buffs? Or are you in the pool that fluff justifies bad table top performance? How about you show numbers to prove that LD7 base isn't bad or suggest how to fix FW instead of being a Nihilist and just down playing everything I'm saying?

6.) I agree. Not much direction to go to make FW more durable. What do you suggest? Oh and LD isn't going to make them marines. It's going to make them equal with everything else.

7.) 10 ppm is still too much for what you're getting. Especially when CSM and Necron warriors are only 3 points more for a butt-load more.

8.)Right. If I place my objectives right. Because only I place objectives. It's not like there is another person on the other side of the table that can place his half of the objectives defensively and then just camp them with more durable troops.

9.) Again, you're focusing on the gun alone. The gun on the troop. The S5 gun on the BS3 T3 troop! The troop is the focus of the entire thread. Run all your troop choices as FW then tell me how great those guns are. And again, we already have shown the math that special weapons more than make up for an entire squad of FW at BS3.

I see it so much where IG and Marine players want what few buffs the Tau have that they ignore everything else. Of course you'd like a better bolter. Of course you'd like a better lascannon. That's nice. Show numbers on why your marines are bad and maybe you can argue they should.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:

I'm saying that FW should get weapon options since their small numbers don't equal out to the lose of special weapons.

They have str 5 guns as a basic rifle. I would gladly trade the ability to get a heavy bolter / meltagun / whatever on my Space Marines for str 5 main weapons. So long as I could take sufficient AT elsewhere - which the Tau can, and indeed it is fething AWESOME AT.

But would you trade ALL the advantages of the space marine for the for the S5 gun? That is what the Tau do.

And I forgot to mention. We keep saying they are 10 ppm but closer to 12 ppm with grenades and Sarge. upgrade. So 1 point less than CSM or Necron warrior and the same price as SOB. Good deal.

So much has already been said the seven pages that at this point people are either trolling, or genuinely unwilling to accept what the numbers show.

If your winning with Tau good for you. Especially if your build is not suit heavy or Forgeworld influenced. Playing straight out of the codex. But I think most all Tau players are finding our troop choices exceedingly lacking and believe that when we win it is dispite the performance of the Firewarrior rather than because of it.

In regard to Firewarriors, while I do agree that they are overpriced, the problem isn't so much with the Firewarriors themselves as the Tau troops choices in general. Both our troop options are specialized for roughly the same purpose, and neither can hold objectives properly, as has been repeatedly pointed out.

Tau are a 4th edition army and their troops reflect that fact. In 4th edition, their was no troops only scoring rule. You incorporated a couple of Firewarriors into your list as anti-infantry specialist, and built the rest of your army as you desired. Fragility didn't matter because the rest of your army scored, overspecialization didn't matter because you only had to take two troops and could freely take other needed specialist from your remaining force org slot.

In 5th and 6th, troops only scoring requires that Firewarriors and Kroot form the backbone of the Tau army, a job neither is qualified for. Because 4 to 6 units are needed to hold objectives, especially for Tau because of their troops fragility, overspecialization becomes crippling. As a previous poster mentioned, their is nothing wrong with a specialized unit such as the Eldar Firedragons. There would, however, be something wrong if the Eldar were forced to field 4-6 Firedragons as their only scoring units. This is essentially what the Tau have been required to do under 5th and 6th edition rules.

Tau troops need a major overhaul. Gone are the days when you can separate specializations into different Force Org slots. Tau troops choices must be able to tackle all the common threats on the tabletop, including infantry, vehicles and MC, and most importantly, hold objectives. Firewarriors can still remain specialized, but other troops choices need to be available to tackle armor or hold hotly contested objectives, as required by 6th edition objective based gameplay.

Most things in the tau codex are overpriced by 20-25% compared to current codices (ie crisis suits points are fine the weapons are not), with no acess to special weapons the basic fire warrior is really lack luster. in short yes the fire warrior is overpriced as are most things in the tau codex.

The thing with firewarriors is that that almost seem a bargain when you are using Tau as allies. I have no problem taking two small units of six. I could even take just one unit and be happy. Now this can almost apply in reverse. You could take two very tough units in your allies force to balance out the firewarriors.

A codex's troop choices should not be made solid with allied troops.... they should be solid on their own.

 Jayden63 wrote:
So much has already been said the seven pages that at this point people are either trolling, or genuinely unwilling to accept what the numbers show.

If your winning with Tau good for you. Especially if your build is not suit heavy or Forgeworld influenced. Playing straight out of the codex. But I think most all Tau players are finding our troop choices exceedingly lacking and believe that when we win it is dispite the performance of the Firewarrior rather than because of it.

Pretty much this.

 Ninjacommando wrote:
A codex's troop choices should not be made solid with allied troops.... they should be solid on their own.

I agree with that so much. The troops are really the backbone behind an army. It makes the ally system essential and not just fun.

Ninjacommando wrote:
A codex's troop choices should not be made solid with allied troops.... they should be solid on their own.



I agree with that so much. The troops are really the backbone behind an army. It makes the ally system essential and not just fun.

Don't misunderstand me. I agree as well. It was almost an anecdotal response. Tau become better allies because of a cheap troop choice. It doesn't really matter if they are just fodder. A sixty point tax is not so terrible and they just might do some damage. Of course they should be playable in a stand alone list. This thread is pointing that out painfully. Tau are reduced to being played as allies if you intend to reach the top tables. This much is understood in 6ed with its reliance on troops.

 Jayden63 wrote:
So much has already been said the seven pages that at this point people are either trolling, or genuinely unwilling to accept what the numbers show.

If your winning with Tau good for you. Especially if your build is not suit heavy or Forgeworld influenced. Playing straight out of the codex. But I think most all Tau players are finding our troop choices exceedingly lacking and believe that when we win it is dispite the performance of the Firewarrior rather than because of it.

Well the problem is that the thread sorta gives the impression that because FW doen't compare to Marines/IG = FW is the worst Troop choice in the game. While from what I can gather the unit itself is a middle/high middle tier unit, that is being let down by it's support units. (ie. Ethereal/markerlights/transport)

I wouldn't give it high middle, maybe low middle. It is being let down by it's support units for sure, but the unit it's is a little overpriced and/or a liable to run away for the price you pay.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Oh. Throw them behind a fortification that every army has access to? Why don't I just factor in bringing allies when I'm looking to explain the weakness in a Tau codex.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

They don't have to be marines. I'm not asking them to be that. I'm just saying they shouldn't pay the elite troop price tag if they aren't elite troops.

If you don't want to use fortifications, the allies rules or elements of your codex like markerlights then you are gonna find FW weak per point, they are all legal parts of the game, if you want you can also refuse to fire 30" after moving your FW. That however is a conscious decision you are making and the codex shouldn't be balanced around it. It's like how everyone has become petrified of taking a break test, as an Ulthwe player I find it hilarious having been running LD8 troop choices for years.

You are claiming, T3, BS3, 4+ and LD8 is too flimsy and poor, you *are* asking for marine stats if they go up. They are Guardsmen with better armour and a far superior gun with less CC potential. 10/11pts per head is not an elite price tag, marines are 15/16 base, Immortals 18, GK's are 20+, Terminators are 40+, those are elite costs. FW are in the mid infantry range and are... medium infantry. Also you keep mentioning grenade costs, a device mostly useful in assault that you want to avoid like the plague, why? You are *not* tac marines!

They butcher light infantry at significant range and with the right support can drill a horde squad before they arrive and do all this clad in 4+ save armour with a respectable LD of 8 w/sarg, which as it has been said is the Space Marine base.

And sorry, complaining about your 110pt Devilfish FOC-less transport with 7x S5 AP5 (w/seeker missiles), BS4 shots with a 3+ cover save when moving and front armour 12? So many Tau players have a pariah complex about how bad off their army has it. Congrats, you are not one of GW's favoured sons and don't get the most broken point per toy comparison, merely average. You can come hang out with the Eldar, DE, Nids, SoB, Orks, Chaos, Daemons and the like in the middle tier (Ever noticed how Xenosy that tier is?), we have beer and pretzels and you compete just fine at that level. Let the Marines play their endless games against Necron Airforces.

I can see we both have differeing entrenched opinions so I think we are going to have to agree to disagree.

I didn't even finish the first paragraph of what you wrote. Fortifications and allies aren't in the codex. We aren't talking about other codecs except to compare troop choices. We are talking about the Tau codex troop choice Firewarriors and that's it.

Why do people insist on trying to change that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok. List of reasons why you're wrong in decending order.

1.) We showed numbers showing that the FW statline is inferior compared to other troops for it's point costs. You've not done anything to show otherwise.

2.) We aren't asking for marine stats. Necron warriors and IG Vets aren't marines but are good troops because of durability, rules, cost effectiveness, and/or firepower. Again, you do nothing but just try to say "FW are good. Cause I say so. Deal with it."

3.) 12 ppm for LD8 with defensive grenades on a unit that will still lose combat to even non CC oriented troops. That's BS. That's 1 point less than CSM and Necron warriors and the same price as SoB. We've shown the numbers and you keep ignoring them. And by elite, I mean that we're paying the points similar to IG vets but don't get BS4, worse stats overall, and no special weapon options.

4.) Yeah, I keep mentioning grenade cost. That thing that most units get for free. The thing we have to pay for. Like it is even going to help with such a poor stat line. That for some reason we have to pay out the yang for it.

5.) They don't butcher light infantry! BS3! 12 model count! And again, we've shown how the inclusion of heavy weapons and special weapons makes other units far superior. That and the standard troop is MEQ. Which only manages to be on par with the bolter, and barely so. Again, the lack of special weapons and heavy weapons hurts. Show numbers to prove otherwise.

6.)Sorry, you mean 4 shots. Unless I want those three burst cannon shots that put the devil fish in perfect range for the enemy to move up 6" and completely IGNORE THE DISRUPTION POD BONUS! SO YEAH! 110 points for 4 S5 shots. At BS4. SO WORTH IT! Numbers are not your friend.

7.) How bad our army has it?! I've said nothing about how bad the army is. Only that the troop choice is BS. And the ethereal being crap.

8.) What are you talking about? Balance be damned? Lets go ahead and just deal with it? Love that attitude. So very Nihilistic.

9.) We don't want a broken unit. We want a decent unit. How is that asking for anything other than to be mid-tier?

10.) Chaos Space marines aren't Space marines now? With those straight 4 stat lines and 3+ saves? All at 13 ppm? With all those squad options?

11.) Oh and forgot to touch on it. LD8 base space marines with ATSKNF while we get LD7 base with no morale buffs. Outside of 1 liability. Here's an idea. Try playing Space marines where they have ATSKNF until their warlord dies. Then they take a morale check to see if they run away.

12.) We don't have different opinions. I have an opinion that's backed up by the numbers showing a huge gap between standard troops and FW. You have a distinct ability to completely gloss over every argument and number thrown out and just make Nihilistic comments or suggest that the ability to take FORTIFICATIONS and ALLIES which are available to EVERYONE (except nids) somehow balances that out.

13.) Fortifications make the units that get the options for heavy weapons better. This skews numbers even further in their favor.

Show one set of numbers. Show one tiny comparison to say that FW are fair. Don't just assume that the straight 4 stat-line is only reserved for Ward's Chosen. Don't think that the 3+ is something only the worthy may acquire. Show me, that the 4+ save, no heavy weapon, +1 bolter, small sized, T3, LD7(8), transport limiting FW is such a great troop.

Remember, even with allies FW are either going to be 50% or between 60-75% of your troops. Why is it bad to ask for a decent troop?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I didn't even finish the first paragraph of what you wrote. Fortifications and allies aren't in the codex. We aren't talking about other codecs except to compare troop choices. We are talking about the Tau codex troop choice Firewarriors and that's it.

Why do people insist on trying to change that?

I'd read the rest of what you said, but you just made an argument by dismissal; one of the most rank fallacies there is.

People aren't looking at just the fire-warriors against stuff like just tac marines, because fire warriors are the abosolute LEAST intended to be used that way. You pair them up with other parts of your army (and now, parts of other armies too). Their strength is in filling a synergistic gap, not in being the salt and pepper that you spread over everything you eat.

The first comment was me having to pause. When you're in a thread that seems... I dunno. For some reason I just get the idea that we are talking about Firewarriors. Just some weird feeling about that.

And then some guy runs in and says "Argument invalid. Aegis defense line and Space marines make a good objective holding troop."

Just needed a minute to clear the rage and blood from my eyes.

And again. I'm not going to argue synergy. They don't have synergy. They are meant to hold objectives or take objectives. That's what troops do. You don't just get to say they don't, just to dismiss the important troop roll because they aren't suited for it. They do neither well. Markerlights have been shown in this thread to be a poor example of synergy. Other units being good doesn't count as synergy.

This is how it's going.
"Firewarriors are subpar."
"Crisis suits are good!"
"Yeah, but the FW really have a lot lacking. Lets focus on that. Their point cost in partic-"
"And markerlights."
"What? Yeah. Back to firewarriors."
"They are fine. Crisis suits and markers good. Firewarriors are fine now."
"..... What?!"

This is really the wrong time to even have this argument. The Tau are due for a new codex. The real screaming can begin if they fire warriors are the same after that.

The only thing that is not debatable to me is that fire warriors got demonstrably better in 6th edition. Cough up for the LD 8 and they'll probably cause a good bit of damage before they die/flee.

These guys can move backwards and hit targets 30" away. This method can drag out assaults for quite a while. What about objectives you say? Objectives abandoned turn 2 can be reclaimed turn 5 after the occupants are shot to death or weakened to where they can be assaulted. I know this can work, because my BA cowards fight this way. Obviously, when the BA get around to the assault part, they are much better, but the Tau are better at the shooting part.

This is the perfect time to argue because this is what the thread is about and this is what we have right now. We don't know when the Tau will get a new codex or if it's even this year. Then we will start a new thread "Are the Firewarriors still overcosted?" and it will be GLORIOUS!

Firewarriors got better in 6th? You're almost there, but not quite. Rapid Fire weapons got better in 6th. So that means Bolters and Plasma got better in 6th. So that means Spacemarines got better in 6th. Firewarriors went up, but not at the same level as others.

The range issue is absurd. With the speed that other armies can bring with flyers and bikes and drop pods, there is no back for them to retreat to.

Drag out assualts for quite a while? You mean till turn 3. Thats if they don't get shot to bits until then.

And you just showed that BA can take objectives. Nice for you.

And Tau aren't better at shooting! We've been over this.

Tau Firewarriors have the problem surviving till turn 5 and getting deep into the field. The transport is expensive and gets worse the closer it gets. An explosion result hurts FW more and they are susceptible to Pinning. They can't get to the back field objectives.

So you claim that the Tau aren't better at shooting than the BA? That's quite a claim. It's also not my experience at all.

A 30" rapid fire weapon got more benefit than the 24" rapid fire weapons. Especially in the volume that the Tau deploy them.

There is nothing stopping the Tau from employing the same tactics I do with the BA. I count on heavily weakening foes with shooting for the first three turns before I contemplate assaulting. Often, though, my hand if forced, which is why I keep at least one full ASM squad on hand. 11 or 12 Kroot are pretty scary to space marine squad whittled down to 3 guys.

The range issue is not absurd. You are now bringing in flyers and bikes and drop pods to the discussion. The Tau army has elites and heavy support to deal with units that get too close. Are we comparing troops or armies here? A 30" infantry rifle on a guy with 4+ armor is a tactical asset. Yes, they're one dimensional. That doesn't make them bad in practice.

Enemy armies don't have infinite supplies of AP 4 weaponry. If they are shooting heavies at your fire warriors, they aren't shooting them at the units like crisis suits. Show me some troops that can shoot fire warriors "to bits". I sure don't have any in the BA codex. Yes, we will pound Tau face in HTH. How is this news?

I'd also like to point out that my BA took a massive kick in the nuts in 6th edition. I believe that we are demonstrably the worst marine list other than BT at this point. Comparing the BA codex to the Space Wolves is almost nauseating. But instead of focusing on how badly the BA took it up the rear, I try to help people here build functional BA lists for the new 6th edition reality. There's no reason to be so upset with the Tau with all the nerfs assaulting took.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So the devilfish, which is the most durable transport in the game with a 3+ cover save simply for moving, is not a good transport option? WAT

 Dunklezahn wrote:
And sorry, complaining about your 110pt Devilfish FOC-less transport with 7x S5 AP5 (w/seeker missiles), BS4 shots with a 3+ cover save when moving and front armour 12?

Oh wow, just wow...

I don't even know why I bother responding to all this.

1.) BA are better at shooting because they have base BS4. Throw in Storm ravens and predators to the mix and it gets silly really fast. I'm not familiar with BA, but generally Space Marine armies are base BS 4. Often times with superior weapons. Especially compared to pulse rifles. Instead of going from experience, show some numbers about how Tau shooting is so much better.

2.) 6" extra range means nothing in land of transports, bikes, drop pods, and flying transports. I really want to play games where I'm able to stay 30" away, unfortunately my opponents army is not abiding by the restraining order.

3.) The volume that Tau deploy them?! Are you kidding me?! 6-12 man squads is a large volume?! Of T3?! BS3?! 6 hits at 30" is so frightening now?!

4.) You're right. I can employ the same tactics as BA. Let me just get my Hammerhead to deploy some troops then drop off a broadside where I want to.

5.) You weaken with shooting? So that would imply that you're shooting must be pretty good. And then can back that up with assualting. Wish my Tau could do that.

6.) 11-12 Kroot are scary? You're striking first. You get armor saves, the kroot get none. That and you picked a loaded situation. That and Kroot shooting is worse than Firewarriors and they have Rapid fire weapons, so they can't shoot then charge. Must be terrifying.

7.) Ok. So my elites and heavy can deal with your drop pod troops and FA flyers. What about your heavy and Elite choices? What left do I have to fend against them?

8.) Being one dimensional is in bad practice. Look at every post you ignored to get to this last page. It shows quite clearly how. Drop pod space marines for example. Now FW are completely useless. Not going against Nid or Ork horde? Sucks to be you Firewarriors, but that doesn't mean you're bad. You just didn't get lucky enough to get the 2 out of 15 armies you stand a chance against.

9.) Enemies don't have infinite AP4, but now everyone has access to a bastion with 4 heavybolters and a quad gun. Marines can take heavy bolters. They can be taken on most tanks and even flyers. Autocannons and Heavy flamers can go on a lot of places. Besides, you only need enough to cause 3 wounds. That's two heavy bolters. How many armies can take 2? Or how about 4 to get rid of the minimum number of troops?

10.) They get the heavy bolters on troops so that leaves heavy weapons for troops. Hell even troops can take plasma weapons against suits. IG vets even get 3 per squad.

11.) Troops that can shoot Firewarriors to bits? You really did ignore the last 7 pages. I was joking at first, but this proves it.
2 marines. One heavy bolter and the other a quadgun. Just because I can.
Heavy bolter gets 3 shots, 2 hits, causes 1.67 wounds
quadgun gets 4 shots, 3.2 hits, causes 2.67 wounds
for a total of 4.3 wounds. That's enough for that LD7 Morale check to come into play. And that's just two weapons that all marines have easy access to.

12.) Why am I doing numbers for you when you are just going to ignore it anyways?

13.) Oh boo hoo. Codex BA is having a rough time. I shall cry endlessly in the shower while listening to My Chemical Romance while lamenting your woes.

14.) Tau still fail miserably at CC. But we're paying a premium price like we can stand it. Atleast other troops get access to power weapons and Melta bombs so they can stand up to walkers and MC and other baddies. You have the options. Tau don't. Even their statline couldn't support it if they did.

15.) And again. This is a thread titled "Tau Firewarriors Overpriced?" It's not whining if I'm just discussing the relevant issue in the thread. Go start a "BA under powered thread?" if you want. I sure as hell won't jack it to talk about Tau.

I'm using BA as a point of reference, not to jack your precious thread.

Given that this is a GW game, and they are not known to be paragons of balance, you have a few options:

1) Stop playing 40K, because its always going to have these kinds of problems.

2) Stop playing Tau, if you find their troops to be this unusable.

3) Find ways to make firewarriors work despite their point inefficiency.

4) Stop playing Tau temporarily and wait until the new codex drops.

Obviously you're pretty upset about this, but this is a GW game. Not worth getting this upset or being this snarky.

Savageconvoy wrote:I don't even know why I bother responding to all this.

1.) BA are better at shooting because they have base BS4. Throw in Storm ravens and predators to the mix and it gets silly really fast. I'm not familiar with BA, but generally Space Marine armies are base BS 4. Often times with superior weapons. Especially compared to pulse rifles. Instead of going from experience, show some numbers about how Tau shooting is so much better.

2.) 6" extra range means nothing in land of transports, bikes, drop pods, and flying transports. I really want to play games where I'm able to stay 30" away, unfortunately my opponents army is not abiding by the restraining order.

3.) The volume that Tau deploy them?! Are you kidding me?! 6-12 man squads is a large volume?! Of T3?! BS3?! 6 hits at 30" is so frightening now?!

You give the impression of just whining here; and your insistence on viewing the Tau in a selective vacuum is... odd.

1. Against T4 targets, BS3 + Str5 = 0.33 wounds per shot, wheras BS4 + Str4 = 0.33 wounds per shot. And the Tau get an extra 6" of range, which is huge considering they can RF at full range.

2. If you want to bring in transports into the argument, then it is only fair to point out that the Tau have arguably the best anti-tank weapon in the game. If you think your Firewarriors are going to reliably bring down the transport (although, they might, as Str5 can glance AV11 and pen AV10) and then eradicate the troops inside, then you are a bad general and the problem is you. A good general would smirk at the transport, fire his Broadsides to destroy the transport, and then let his Firewarriors RF the enemy.

3. You seem to be hung up on the number of models per unit, as opposed to the number of models on the board. Remember that as basic troops, you can have many units of Firewarriors, which always outnumber Marines if you compare an even number of points. For example: how many Firewarriors can you get for 300 points? how many Tac Marines? Compare that, not one-unit-vs-one-unit.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Tau are desperately in need of an update, and I think they are nowhere near as strong as the top-tier codices such as SW, -which are bordering on broken- for example. But your complaints about the Firewarriors being significantly overcosted really seems to belie your desire for the Firewarriors to be a jack-of-all-trades "easy button" unit like Space Marines are, which is demonstrated by your willful ignoring of the role that synergy plays in the Tau codex. In other words: the Firewarriors are great as a gunline, and terrible at everything else. And the entire Tau codex is geared around this notion. So you have to think about what your gameplan is when you build your army; you cannot simply select 4x troops units and then use the rest of the codex to season to taste as you can with Marines. Welcome to Xenos, their armies require synergy.

I think I'm staying in 40K just for these threads now these days.

And it's not just you. The majority of comments against Firewarriors being overpriced are simply people saying "I wish my marines could take devilfish." Or "I wish my marines could take S5 30" ranges guns."

And I am doing just fine in my games. (Why are so many people concerned about how I play?) But how I'm doing isn't important. But my game record doesn't help the fact that the Troop choices in the Tau codex are terribly out of place and overpriced. That's all I'm trying to cover in this discussion.

Savageconvoy wrote:I think I'm staying in 40K just for these threads now these days.

And it's not just you. The majority of comments against Firewarriors being overpriced are simply people saying "I wish my marines could take devilfish." Or "I wish my marines could take S5 30" ranges guns."

And I am doing just fine in my games. (Why are so many people concerned about how I play?) But how I'm doing isn't important. But my game record doesn't help the fact that the Troop choices in the Tau codex are terribly out of place and overpriced. That's all I'm trying to cover in this discussion.

How is a gunline-oriented troop out of place in a gunline-oriented codex?

How are they overpriced? Compare 300 points of Tac marines to 300 points of Firewarriors. Let both sides be footslogging, without support. See how the math works out. I bet its pretty close.

 azazel the cat wrote:
1. Against T4 targets, BS3 + Str5 = 0.33 wounds per shot, wheras BS4 + Str4 = 0.33 wounds per shot. And the Tau get an extra 6" of range, which is huge considering they can RF at full range.

Why do you choose to ignore Special and heavy weapon options? We discussed earlier how that tilts the scale. 30" range is nothing when the enemy is moving down field with bikes, transports, and flyers or deep striking with drop pod troops. 3" extra to rapid fire is hardly a game changer here. But seriously, why do you only focus on the base gun and ignore the importance of special weapon options?

 azazel the cat wrote:
2. If you want to bring in transports into the argument, then it is only fair to point out that the Tau have arguably the best anti-tank weapon in the game. If you think your Firewarriors are going to reliably bring down the transport (although, they might, as Str5 can glance AV11 and pen AV10) and then eradicate the troops inside, then you are a bad general and the problem is you. A good general would smirk at the transport, fire his Broadsides to destroy the transport, and then let his Firewarriors RF the enemy.

I'm pretty sure the Vendetta is a better anti-tank option. And Still if they go first turn and move forward to ignore my 30" range advantage, or run bikes, or heaven forbid a flying transport then I'm going to be pressed to handle the situation. And I don't assume FW can do that. I've done math showing how I can't. But what about when they have too many transports or even Landraiders and flying transports. Too many for my broadsides and Crisis suits to handle? My Firewarriors serve no other purpose. At least other troops could still bring special and heavy weapons for the job. Other troops could bring better transports.

 azazel the cat wrote:
3. You seem to be hung up on the number of models per unit, as opposed to the number of models on the board. Remember that as basic troops, you can have many units of Firewarriors, which always outnumber Marines if you compare an even number of points. For example: how many Firewarriors can you get for 300 points? how many Tac Marines? Compare that, not one-unit-vs-one-unit.

... We already went over how flimsy FW are and how they can't hold their ground, but I'll humor you on this one. For 300 points I could bring 21.4 DA tactical marines with ATSKNF and Stubborn or CSM with VotLW or 23 Necron warriors with RP.
Or I could bring 25 Firewarriors with LD8 and defensive grenades. Huh. It's... It's almost like these numbers show a distinct advantage.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I think the Tau are desperately in need of an update, and I think they are nowhere near as strong as the top-tier codices such as SW, -which are bordering on broken- for example. But your complaints about the Firewarriors being significantly overcosted really seems to belie your desire for the Firewarriors to be a jack-of-all-trades "easy button" unit like Space Marines are, which is demonstrated by your willful ignoring of the role that synergy plays in the Tau codex. In other words: the Firewarriors are great as a gunline, and terrible at everything else. And the entire Tau codex is geared around this notion. So you have to think about what your gameplan is when you build your army; you cannot simply select 4x troops units and then use the rest of the codex to season to taste as you can with Marines. Welcome to Xenos, their armies require synergy.

So... Tau are fine because they have a flimsy troop that is limited to one role with no options. Even if that role is terrible except against 2/15 armies? Well atleast I have synergy. I can use Crisis suits to give them Fearless. And my broadsides will give them FNP. OH... wait....no... They don't have synergy. That's right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:
How is a gunline-oriented troop out of place in a gunline-oriented codex?

Gunline is bad when your leadership and durability are low enough that it's easy to force break tests. So one failed check, units off the board. That's why that is bad.
Second, IG are a gunline codex, not Tau. IG have heavy and special weapons to back up their platoons with heavy weapon squads and the like, throwing in leadership buffs and transports with firepoints just sweetens the deal. They also have the option for more. Look at mechanized Vets and how much damage they caused and still do.

See, this is what I'm talking about. You're saying FW are inferior because FW alone cannot match up to Tac Marines with bikes, transports and flyers. How can you seriously not see the problem with your methodology?

Savageconvoy wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
2. If you want to bring in transports into the argument, then it is only fair to point out that the Tau have arguably the best anti-tank weapon in the game. If you think your Firewarriors are going to reliably bring down the transport (although, they might, as Str5 can glance AV11 and pen AV10) and then eradicate the troops inside, then you are a bad general and the problem is you. A good general would smirk at the transport, fire his Broadsides to destroy the transport, and then let his Firewarriors RF the enemy.

I'm pretty sure the Vendetta is a better anti-tank option. And Still if they go first turn and move forward to ignore my 30" range advantage, or run bikes, or heaven forbid a flying transport then I'm going to be pressed to handle the situation. And I don't assume FW can do that. I've done math showing how I can't. But what about when they have too many transports or even Landraiders and flying transports. Too many for my broadsides and Crisis suits to handle? My Firewarriors serve no other purpose. At least other troops could still bring special and heavy weapons for the job. Other troops could bring better transports.

Are you honestly trying to tell me that the Tau are unable to deal with Landraiders and transports? Use your railguns. How many transports do you think are going to be rushing up the field at you? I don't have an answer for Flyers for you, because, well, that's currently an imbalance in 40k with many armies; and altogether not related to the FW question.

Savageconvoy wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
3. You seem to be hung up on the number of models per unit, as opposed to the number of models on the board. Remember that as basic troops, you can have many units of Firewarriors, which always outnumber Marines if you compare an even number of points. For example: how many Firewarriors can you get for 300 points? how many Tac Marines? Compare that, not one-unit-vs-one-unit.

... We already went over how flimsy FW are and how they can't hold their ground, but I'll humor you on this one. For 300 points I could bring 21.4 DA tactical marines with ATSKNF and Stubborn or CSM with VotLW or 23 Necron warriors with RP.
Or I could bring 25 Firewarriors with LD8 and defensive grenades. Huh. It's... It's almost like these numbers show a distinct advantage.

Go ahead, run the numbers. 21 DA Tac marines footslogging toward 25 Firewarriors. Remember to take kiting into account, and I think you'll find it's closer than you think.

Savageconcoy wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I think the Tau are desperately in need of an update, and I think they are nowhere near as strong as the top-tier codices such as SW, -which are bordering on broken- for example. But your complaints about the Firewarriors being significantly overcosted really seems to belie your desire for the Firewarriors to be a jack-of-all-trades "easy button" unit like Space Marines are, which is demonstrated by your willful ignoring of the role that synergy plays in the Tau codex. In other words: the Firewarriors are great as a gunline, and terrible at everything else. And the entire Tau codex is geared around this notion. So you have to think about what your gameplan is when you build your army; you cannot simply select 4x troops units and then use the rest of the codex to season to taste as you can with Marines. Welcome to Xenos, their armies require synergy.

So... Tau are fine because they have a flimsy troop that is limited to one role with no options. Even if that role is terrible except against 2/15 armies? Well atleast I have synergy. I can use Crisis suits to give them Fearless. And my broadsides will give them FNP. OH... wait....no... They don't have synergy. That's right.

Synergy doesn't mean "units that buff other units"; it means units that work together to create a gestalt. broadsides open up transports, Firewarriors kill the occupants while they're stunned. That's synergy.

"But my game record doesn't help the fact that the Troop choices in the Tau codex are terribly out of place and overpriced. That's all I'm trying to cover in this discussion."

The Eldar called and would like to discuss the incredible suckitude of guardians with you. I'll agree that fire warriors need some kind of discount or upgrade. But how much depends on what your standard is. If your standard is grey hunters, my tactical marines are getting in line with you.

But firewarriors are not terribly out of place or terribly overpriced. They are somewhat to slightly overpriced. Guardians are terribly overpriced. Ironically, largely because of their gun.

I don't understand the obsession with holding ground, either. Ground which is surrendered turn 2 and be retaken turn 5.

At the end of turn 2 or sometimes turn 1, the standard marine based army should have no transports left vs Tau. The IG will take longer depending on how they are constructed. I can't believe transports are being listed as an issue for the Tau.

My methodolgy? Firewarriors are the only usable troop option. They are only good for holding objectives, claiming objectives, denying objectives, and anti-light infantry. The standard army does not contain light infantry. They have also been shown to have terrible objective handling ability. Thanks for ignoring everything though.

Other armies are better prepared to take objectives. Thats the only point I was making. When Troops need Broadsides to slow them down, your problem becomes obvious.

I'm not going to run the numbers of footslogging marines against Tau. It will end up in the marines favor due to the small number difference, higher leadership, and better save. That and you're ignoring heavy and special weapons AGAIN.

Again. No synergy because the firewarriors don't become stronger or more useful. They're restricted to light infantry gunline. You pointed that out earlier.

And I'd love to bring Eldar into the mix except this is a comparison of Firewarriors to the standard match and bringing the second oldest rulebook thats two editions out of date doesn't help your case at all. So why bother?

Not out of place or overpriced? Your ignoring posts on the same page now. This is getting old.

Obsession with holding ground?! 5/6 games are objective based. The game is obsessed with holding ground.

Sounds like you really should shelve your Tau until the codex drops, since they have such crappy troops.

Who's ignoring whom? It's pretty easy to hold ground when your opponent is dead. You don't need badass troops then. You just need your opponent scooping models in the shooting phase.

I guess this thread is supposed to invalidate every Tau battle report I've ever read or watched and every game where I've used fire warriors or fought against them. What was I thinking letting evidence sway my opinion?

You apparently do not seem to understand what "synergy" means, despite my concise explanation, and you clearly do not understand what "methodology" means either. Since you obviously have also decided not to even bother learning those terms before responding, I have no choice but to either repeat myself, or cease to take part in this discussion.


And I hate repeating myself.

Yes, you need to frame this complaint in terms of troops vs troops or army vs army focusing on the troops. You can't use bikes or flyers as a measuring stick for troops. Except maybe grey hunters

Ok. Let's go ahead and play the ignore game.

You two said absolutely nothing since I last posted, so I must be right.

I'm just going to pretend that you're not saying anything and there aren't 8 pages to go back and read.

So I'm right.

So what's even the consequence of you being right? None of us are GW writers. So even if you are right, you're back to waiting for a codex because no one is going to let you use non-codex fire warriors.

Are we supposed to be in awe of your ability to win games with these allegedly terrible troops?

I'd say nine points is probably a more fair price for the fire warrior, but it sounds like you want an even bigger reduction, which I would oppose vehemently.

This is a thread asking if Firewarriors are overpriced. I have made my point. You have not made yours. Please stop making inane comments and prove your point or find another thread to comment in.

So what should they cost then? Quit complaining and propose a fix.

Look who is talking. You suggested I shelve them and stop complaining. Go back and read the other 7 pages that you conveniently ignore every time and You will see my suggestions.

Besides, it's not about suggesting a fix. It's showing the points don't match the value which has been done time and time again.

7-8 ppm for how they are right now(more towards 7) . 10ppm if they had bs4 and access to special weapons. But agian i'm for a 20-25% reduction in alot of things in the tau codex (mainly crisis suit weapons/stealth suits in general)

I feel that 7 is way too low for a model with 30" range. Maybe 8, but I still think 9 is the most accurate.

I would go with 9ppm as is.

agian the 30" range iis great for a standard weapon its just that other squads that it goes up agianst either bring more shots or strongerlonger ranged shots for less.

I think more is required than simply changing Firewarrior point value. Tau troops choices need to cover many bases, most importantly holding objectives, but also providing some level of anti-vehicle and anti-MC support. Troops might also be a good place to put in markerlight support. If Firewarriors were to cover all of these functions, they would essentially become Space Marines, which would ruin the armies flavor. What is needed is additional Tau troops choices so that the Troops choices can work as the armies backbone while keeping Firewarriors at least partially specialized.

As for the Firewarriors themselves, they are currently overpriced. But I think a properly thought out USR, better markerlight integration, more sensible wargear (photon grenades should actually be avoided because 40k's assault mechanics), and possibly some limited assault weapon options (Crisis Suits should not be carrying basic flamers and meltaguns) would really help round out the unit and make it work better, without requiring a price reduction. Reworking the Devilfish would also help, its quite resilient things to D-Pods, but its too expensive and has no real teeth due to limited weapons and no fire ports.

The biggest problem I see with the Firewarriors is they are placed in an uncomfortable role. They are expensive and small in quantity, heavily armed with standard weapons to make up for the lack of special weapons, higher grade armor on a T3 model, a substandard statline to balance out the equipment. They fit neither the small elite force that vets and space marines fill nor the numbers to fill the gun line horde role. They are meant to be fast moving advancing troops but are terrible at advancing forward.

The firewarriors need to reworked from the ground up. I understand how some people like the fluff aspect of it, but it fails terribly when implemented on the table top. People don't want them to be numerous, equipped with better weapons, tougher, have higher leadership, or have a more extended role.

In order for the problem to be fixed, people have to be willing to sacrifice flavor for results.

If the codex got other units that were tougher at holding objectives, then Firewarriors would have the same place as Kroot, gun drone squads, Vespid, and sniper drones.

Martel732 wrote:
I feel that 7 is way too low for a model with 30" range. Maybe 8, but I still think 9 is the most accurate.

This is pretty much what Savage has been saying. I would think 7if you keep the base buy as is. 8 if you toss in the grenades and 'Ui free. The only way to get to 9 for me would be to either seriously reduce ML costs or provide some kind of decent special weapon, a flamer would be nice since FW are so weak in CC.

GW is never going to give up on their flavor. So the special weapon thing is probably never going to happen. The best you can probably hope for is a point reduction. They are never going to work them from the ground up.

It might be the case that the Tau's #1 plan needs to be tabling.

GW gave up on the Necron flavor for the sake of improving the game. Why not Tau?

And the plan to tabling works just fine provided your opponent wants you to table him. It's when they start surviving and shooting back that your plans start heading south.