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Just curious if the FoF tactic was still valid in 5th. Frankly I hope not, as I would love to have an excuse to plop more firewarriors down and less big los blocking vehicles. Anyone have any good ideas for strategy come 5th, or how to avoid our dreaded enemy meelee combat?

looks like.

All those tanks have squads of two gun drones on them, you can use that. You/ we can also use tanks to create fire lanes.

Depending on the length of the stem of your flying base, the devilfish may or may not block fire warrior LOS. The longer flying stem may give you an obstructed but undeniable LOS to something.

The unit being shot at will receive a 4+ cover save because they would be partially obscured by another unit (your vehicle). But against 2+, 3+ and 4+ armor, that wouldn't affect your shooting adversely.

A short flying stem or the landing gear will block LOS pretty completely, but like Taco said, you can use that new rule to create walls. Finally you can have your own rhino wall.

Short answer: Mostly no

Long answer: Sort of, but not quite.

Unlike 4th, in 5th skimmers will block line of sight. This will mean that if you drop out a squad of fire warriors (or two) behind devil fish, they will not be able to see though the fish inorder to shoot. Now while this is the case, there is nothing that prevents the tau player from doing something similar with just a small gap (~2.5 inches) between the fish. If the fish are set up in a "U" or a "V" formation with the point of the formation directed to their intended target and the warriors deployed in between, they will still be able to focus fire on their target. It will also minimiz the amount of return fire that can be directed towards them and cut off access for assault troops wanting to charge. So while it may be possible, it is going to be more difficult to pull off.

Also, see this post: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/211265.page for more FoF in 5th discussion.

I generally found the charge blocking element of the devilfish to be a marginal benefit at best anyway. The strength of the strategy relies on putting 24 or 36 rapid firing warriors together in one spot, able to clear out an enemy weak point in a single turn.

That’s still perfectly valid.

Phoenix wrote:Short answer: Mostly no

Long answer: Sort of, but not quite.

Unlike 4th, in 5th skimmers will block line of sight. This will mean that if you drop out a squad of fire warriors (or two) behind devil fish, they will not be able to see though the fish inorder to shoot. Now while this is the case, there is nothing that prevents the tau player from doing something similar with just a small gap (~2.5 inches) between the fish. If the fish are set up in a "U" or a "V" formation with the point of the formation directed to their intended target and the warriors deployed in between, they will still be able to focus fire on their target. It will also minimiz the amount of return fire that can be directed towards them and cut off access for assault troops wanting to charge. So while it may be possible, it is going to be more difficult to pull off.

I believe this tactic is call the "magic cone." I don't think it'll work quite as well with Tau and devilfish as it does with marines and land raiders, however.

Actually, a Devilfish with it's engines in 'up' mode and on the proper flying base does as good or better job blocking LOS than LR do.

Since most times LR don't die you can't really compare the wrecks, but if you must yes the LR does better.

Oh and FOF isn't gone exactly. You just can't move and shoot everything, but if you get in 18" and don't get blasted you can FOF the next turn pretty easy.

Dropping the FW isn't too difficult.

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Sorry for the horrid looking graphic. The dots are the FW. Leave a small gap between two fish (aimed at your target) and you can still get 'em. The real way you block charges though is by dropping drones off so no one can move by...running them after the FW shoot is what most people do...

Also unless they change the wound allocation you don't need to get all your firewarriors to see the whole unit your shooting at. You just need them to see one model and you can kill the entire enemy unit. In which case I see the devilfish being used to block LOS to the rest of the enemy army, not the unit your shooting at.

Of course this will work better with two units and marker light hits to help.