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Hello all,

I am rather interested in using warriors with enhanced senses, scything talons, and devourers

Devourer
54 shots at bs 3, thats 27 hits, with strength 4 weapons
MEQS: 6.7 dead
Fire Warriors: 11.88 dead
GEQS: 15.6 dead

My biggest issue with this is that this is a very fragile force since they have paper thin armor for the inevitable bolter barrage that would come at them, and its damned expencive cash and points wise per squad. 

It's a losing proposition, no matter how you try to slice it. Warriors are just too damn expensive points-wise to ever stand up to any kind of equal enemy points in counter-shooting, and if they get charged, they can't take on anything of equal points in close combat. They really are the worst of all worlds.

A Dakkafex (which also comes from the Elites spot) is a better buy than the Devourer Warrior in every possible way except it doesn't provide Synapse and it starts off the board in Escalation.

If you *are* hell bent on taking Devourer warriors you must absolutely give them extended Carapace so that they can't withstand a bit of bolter fire (that they will inevitably get), and I'd give them Rending Claws as well. I know it makes them more expensive but at least it makes them a threat to any type of enemy unit in CC (including vehicles). If you give the warriors Scything Talons, enemy CC units with a great save know they can charge the warriors and wipe the floor without losing anybody.

warriors have 4 shots each, 54 doesn't divide in to 4?

If you want them then don't fudge around with a halfway house, you shoot or you CC, so accept they aren't CC beasts and get the second devourer for twin-linked goodness - that upped your ranged killing power by 50% for just a few points extra.

Then look at what you are expecting to kill with them, they are volume fire infantry killers.  Str4 living ammo sounds good, but actually against most infantry extra Str3 shots is better, so drop the toxin sacs which saves you 27pts per 3 warriors - which just happens to be 2pts shy of a fourth warrior.  Those 4 warriors with twin-linked devourers will kill more T3/T4 infantry than 3 * Str4 versions, whilst also giving you 2 extra wounds and the even number squad beloved of tourney players.

Now compare the Fex (elite) and 4 warriors, they are near enough the same cost. The 4 warriors in raw ranged killing power are better against T3/T4 stuff than the fex, and only just slightly worse against T6. Ponsy T3 eldar go down faster to warriors than the fex and even marines go down that little bit quicker (and with marines that little bit can still hurt). 

How about staying power.  Well the fex has better T and Sv, the 4 warriors have more wounds. Warriors die faster to small arms, fexs die faster to big guns. T/Sv can be countered by Str/AP whereas Wounds can't generally be ignored (especially warriors who don't even instant die). However, this is something that you need to look at in terms of what you fight rather than generalising. Taking a couple of examples from the numerous (but similar) lists I see on dakka,

The basic 6 man las/plas squad.  Conveniently costed at a similar price to the 2 nids units. at devourer 18" range which goes down quicker - the fex. It takes ~1.15 wounds per turn average, modest chance dead in 3 turns, very good in 4 turns.  Whereas the warriors take ~1.77 per turn so after 4 turns they still are likely to be hanging on in there. The las/plas squad could do better by advancing to rapid fire against the warriors - but even then that only brings the 2 units to rough parity in staying power, of course advancing may be just what the nid player wants.

Eldar fire dragons - Fex dies twice as fast

war walkers with the 4 shot s6 thing, whose name escapes me at the moment (24 shots per squadron), An individual weapon kills warriors faster, although under fire from a 3 walker squadron both units are probably dead in 2 rounds.

10 Dire avengers - warriors die lots faster.

I don't think they are as fragile as is made out when you consider the type of armies you are more likely to play against - whats good for marine killing or armor busting is often as, or more, efficient at fex killing than warrior killing.

The warriors also bring synpase (which may provide bit more leeway on zoey powers), and start in escalation.

Whilst I do think the fex is overall more useful, I think Yak paints a worse picture than is truly the case. Warriors are at least different.

One thing that may affect your calculation is that the fex gets to keep shooting with its full firepower until it is dead - whereas every time you do two wounds to the Warriors, their firepower drops.

Also to add to what Strangelooper has pointed out (which is really the nail in the coffin for shooting Warriors vs. a Dakkafex), it must be said that any type of enemy firing can reliably wound Warriors where the same is not true for a Carnifex.

Puree, in your examples above you use units that have a single type of weapon, either anti-infantry (Dire Avengers) or anti-tank (Fire Dragons). However, in 40k most units have a mix of the two types of weapons, like a SM Las/Plas squad (it also has bolters).

Now, when a Las/plas unit fires at a Carnifex, the bolters shots will more than likely be wasted on the high Toughness and great armor save. In the case of a Warrior unit, those extra bolter shots stand to cause an extra 1-2 wounds on the unit besides the damage caused by the Las/Plas.

And that is the other nail in the coffin. Although Warriors get more wounds than a Carnifex for a similar points cost, those Wounds are much more suseptible to all types of firing, meaning that the enemy will always have the right type of weapons available to take down Warriors.

Posted By yakface on 02/21/2007 3:23 PM


Puree, in your examples above you use units that have a single type of weapon, either anti-infantry (Dire Avengers) or anti-tank (Fire Dragons). However, in 40k most units have a mix of the two types of weapons, like a SM Las/Plas squad (it also has bolters).

Now, when a Las/plas unit fires at a Carnifex, the bolters shots will more than likely be wasted on the high Toughness and great armor save. In the case of a Warrior unit, those extra bolter shots stand to cause an extra 1-2 wounds on the unit besides the damage caused by the Las/Plas.

i just choose a few units I see coming up in some of the army lists on dakka, and as you noted I didn't just choose units that do better against fexs. Avengers for example murder warriors. On the other hand the apparently obligatory fire dragons murder fexs. and whilst Scatter lasers (remembered the name) and las/plas may look better against warriors at the individual weapon level, against a squad of them the fex really doesn't come of any better (worse in some cases).

As fo for the bolters in the las/plas squad, I actually did take that into account, even with bolters however the squad still kills fexs faster, except by adavncing to rapid fire range where it is about equal (loses las but gains extar shots from other weapons). The point is that in the lists that tend to turn up on dakka there is a tendency to high S low Ap for anti MEQ/Armor, in that environment the warriors arent really any worse than the fex in staying power as neither of those attributes negate extra the wounds. in the way it negates the fexs T/Sv. 

Taking the las/plas a bit further, in practise of course the bolters are likely to be the first casualties, so in efficency terms they do even better against fexs once they take a couple of casualties. The other issue with the las/plas squad in this particular case is that with so much heavy killing power mixed in with the bolters the marine player has to choose between wasting bolters on fexs or las/plas on warriors (assuming you have both).

I did intend to note the point about loss of firepower per 2 wounds (and that they still have firepower left after 4 wounds), though between eating, picking up kids, putting them bed etc it took about 4 hours between start of post and finish, and I rather lost focus on what I was saying )

I'm not trying to say warriors are better than fexs, but your post made out they are vastly inferior which I do not believe is true in practise. Somewhat inferior in many, but not all situations is more how i'd put it. I can see why you'd take fexs to a tourney. 

Whilst I believe many nid players here have probably played the godzilla list and found it tough, I would be interested in knowing how many have actually played a warrior heavy list over enough games to see how it performs in practise? Theory hammer is fine, but just cos heavy bolters ream warriors doesn't mean you'll lose if you don't see many of them. I have to put my hand up and admit i havn't given it go in 4th edition - but I ran against the grain in 3rd and did very well with a warrior heavy list, of course 3rd and 4th ed are quite different in game play, on the other hand warriors are individually a bit better now (but fexs are a lot better to :¬o ).

Aren't Warriers T4? That means that meltas, missiles, lascannons, etc can inflict instant death, further reducing their survivability.

The new synapse rules prevents instant death.

Since warriors are not MCs they can more reliably gain the benifts of cover saves. However, if a Carni (small hands, smells of cabbage) does get a cover save against something, then that save is saving agains a greater percentage of the shots that are going to kill it.

i've got 24 warriors.

all with ST, RC & Leaping

The one thing that warriors have going for them is when used in horde armies. They are great for keeping guants inline. Add to that that warriors can hide behind an assualt. Since carnifexs are size three, they can not.

Echoing the sentiment that they are obviously not as good as a dual devourer 113pt. fex. However I don't think they are entirely off the roster list.

I would run them as a unit of 9, TL Devo, +Sv, +Bs

I pass on the STR upgrade because it multiplies the cost of the unit disproportionately to the multiplier in effectiveness. S3 reroll is .55 chance to wound T4, vs. S4 at .75. The wound multiplier to cost is dead on, but this doesn't account for the extra perks of having more models. That's an age old tradeoff and a serious tangent.

Warriors are simply not as good for the cost, but if you want more shooting and your elite slots are at a premium - 9 warriors will nearly triple the damage output of a single elite fex to T3 and T4 troop units. With the additional perks of always starting on the table, and requiring 10 wounds to reduce below half and 18 total for annihilation credit.

If I wanted a pure omega list, it would probably be all shooty warriors, genestealers, spinegaunts, and zoeys. Hell you can get 45 shooty warriors in a nid list for the cost of the Zilla base (2 HT, 3Babyfex, 2Gunfex, 3 zoey). I wouldn't recommend going that far, but it's an interesting idea and it would be nice to see someone make a nid list that varies from the standard zilla fare.

Just keep the warriors cheap, weigh every upgrade carefully.

They are quite nasty in combat patrol.

I am looking at building a unit of three warriors with deathspitters, talons, extended carapace and enhanced senses. At 93pts for the three. This is for a stealer heavy swarm list.

There are other units more shooty and others more assaulty but what I intend to use them for is cheap walking synapse to hang behind the main advance (moving forward as fast as they can, they are behind because they don't fleet) while winged warriors and a flyrant provide synapse from the front. The deathspitters provide a bit of range and the blast templates keeps the enemy spread out.

My choice of weapons is less important than the synapse role, so the extra range and +1S without toxins helps.