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What about high ROF shots?

Oooh.. can you engage optimum template range then Jet-pack-assault-jump out of charge range (12")?

Crisis with Plasma + Burst Cannon (58 points)
= 1.16 wounds - not terrible, but no where near Twin-linked Flamer. If someone wants to number crunch a Cyclic Ion Blaster, they're welcome to, but I don't think it would offer anything different.

It's do-able, but barely - template is 8" long so the closest you could engage the Marines is 7" away, but unless you're godly at guessing distances, you're within charge range. However, if your opponent shoots/charges your suit, that does mean they've dedicated the remnants of a 150+ point unit to a 34 point target.

Burst cannon & missile pod.

5 shots per turn.

Maybe?

orchewer wrote:Crisis with Plasma + Burst Cannon (58 points)
= 1.16 wounds - not terrible, but no where near Twin-linked Flamer. If someone wants to number crunch a Cyclic Ion Blaster, they're welcome to, but I don't think it would offer anything different.

It's do-able, but barely - template is 8" long so the closest you could engage the Marines is 7" away, but unless you're godly at guessing distances, you're within charge range. However, if your opponent shoots/charges your suit, that does mean they've dedicated the remnants of a 150+ point unit to a 34 point target.

I dunno bout the Smurfies you play, but the ones I play sure don't bunch up their tactical marines all nice and neat where I can roast em.

But let's assume you do. You kill three marines by getting all 10 under the template. The remaining 7 rapid-fire you with just Bolters. Forget any Plasma or Flamers they may be toting. Statistically, they'll create 1.56 wounds. If they have Plasma in the squad with said bolters, or a flamer, you lose the Crisis Suit, provided you have no cover to duck down behind to save the plasma wound.

That's best-case scenario. You kill three marines in a still viable and well-armed tactical squad, and then they either bolter the gak out of you or charge you. Odds are, you'd kill fewer than three marines and then they'd almost certainly kill you just by double tapping the bolters. If they assaulted, they blow through the Crisis Suit and move D6" to the next spot of cover or back onto the objective. You've stung them, and they wiped out one of your three valuable Elite choices.

Is the flamer Crisis viable in certain situations? Absolutely. Should you primarily kill MEQs with it? Hell no. You'll lose the suit to the survivors every single time, if it doesn't get blasted before it gets there by something that out-ranges it. If you swamp him with Flamers, maybe you kill most of them, but then the survivors tie you up in an assault you'll have a hard time resolving in one turn (WS 2 sucks, I don't care if you have them outnumbered or not), and then they bring it stuff to kill off them off when the assault combat ends. The bonuses the Fireknives and the other suits have compared with the Flamer suit is survivability. The Flamer suit will stick around for a turn or two before biting the bullet, while your Fireknives will be around for at least three or four turns, and they'll at least meet the productivity of the flamer suit over the course of the game. With ML support they'll exceed it.

Razerous wrote:Burst cannon & missile pod.

The thing is, Meq's get saves against both of those.
Crisis w/ Missile Pod + Burst Cannon
= .61 wounds

Plus the range on those two weapons don't exactly complement each other.

RogueFox wrote:

...

When things enter within 12" of your army, you have one turn to bring it down. Twin-linked Flamer gives you the best chances of bringing down that Meq squad, not Fireknife, not Twin-linked Plasma, not even Plasma/Fusion. I'm not going to argue that a 34 point Crisis Suit is going to stand up to 7 or 8 Marines - all I'm arguing is that if something is going to die, it might as well be the most point effective thing out there. I will gladly throw a 34 point Elite model away if that means my 100 points of Kroot in the woods or 100 points of rapid-firing Fire Warriors will live another turn. Hands down I will throw away an Elite model if it means protecting my Troops models for another turn. And that's assuming that, for some reason, I've burned an Elite slot on only one 34-point model in a 1000+ point game.

What else is your primary anti-Meq? Fireknife? Great, bring down that .7 Marine a turn. Hope that those Meq's aren't in cover or your opponent is stupid enough to try to fight Tau at a distance. Bikers, Rhino Rush, Drop Pods, Out flankers...things Tau cannot prevent from coming closer. The enemy -will- end up on your door step, and you need the best weapon to bring them down. Once the Marines close in, you will lose your Crisis suits regardless of what configuration they are. With Twin-linked Flamer team gone, your Deathrains can continue popping Rhinos, your Fireknives can continue doing whatever they were trying to do in the first place.

I'll bring this up again.
Crisis w/ Twin-Linked Flamer + BSF = 34 points for .33 wounds per hit
Crisis w/ Twin-Linked Plasma + TA + 5 Markerlight hits (statistically 10 Pathfinders to up BS and remove all cover from 3+ save) = 125 to 185 points for 1.62 wounds period.

It only takes 5 marines, not 10, under the template to beat the second most optimal Meq killer we have even when it has a dedicated pathfinder team lighting up stuff for it. I can think of many things I'd rather spend that 100 points on.

Sniper drones are much better at taking down MEQ's. Also not bad at rhino harrasement. Likewise, 100pts of kroot (10 kroot and 5 hounds) will kill 3 marines and take three kroot casulties - If you can start tipping the balance with a couple of flamer templates then things are looking up. 3 tl-flamer suits & 1x100pt kroot squad, if they get the drop, will easily wipe a marine squad (I think?).

Okay, ROF option = bad. Tis a shame, really.

A good weapon system to pair with twin-linked flamer anti-infantry (Any type) squads would be the AFP on a team leader, with a HW-multi-tracker.

If Marines are within 12" of you then move your suits back. Jump behind terrain and do a mass exodus. Using twin-linked flamers to destroy 3 marines of a squad is going to hurt you will be fired on and/or assaulted.

If someone drop pods into the middle of your lines you fire all that you possibly can at them. With massive shots from firewarriors, Railgun or ion cannon bursts, rail rifle fire, plasma fire and everything else the squad will not last long.

One suit configuration is not necessarily better than another. you have to look at the tactics you play with them. For fireknives you effectively have a 30" range and you can move 12" a turn as well. In order to reach you they will suffer multiple rounds of shooting (which we are best at). Now the problem with twin-linked flamers is that you must be close in order to use them - usually within assault range. This means a single round of shooting. With Burst Cannons and the CIB you get an effective 24" fire range.

What do I mean by effective fire range? This is how far you can sit away from them and Jump up 6 inches fire and jump back.

Each turn the Marines will move 6" + run 1-6" (say an average of 4"). This means that Marines can move 10" each turn without assaulting.

Turn 1
Fireknives: Shoot at 24" and Jump back to 30". 2 S7AP4 shots, 1 S6AP2 shot.
Marines: Move 6" forward, run 4".
Range: 20"

Turn 2
Fireknives: Move back 4", Shoot at 24" and Jump back to 30". 2 S7AP4 shots, 1 S6AP2 shot.
Marines: Move 6" forward, run 4".
Range: 20"

Turn 3
Fireknives: Move back 4", Shoot at 24" and Jump back to 30". 2 S7AP4 shots, 1 S6AP2 shot.
Marines: Move 6" forward, run 4".
Range: 20"

Wait a second ... The Marines are not getting any closer to you! This is the power of the Jump Shoot Jump. While writing this post I actually surprised myself.

Now eventually you will run out of room so you have to try to make a large circle around the board. With 3 rounds of shooting you should easily take out a squad or two with one unit. This is just a basic strategy which becomes much more complicated in actual practice. Generalized it becomes if you stay at max range you will not have to worry about being shot at or assaulted. We have superior mobility.

rogueeyes wrote:
Now eventually you will run out of room so you have to try to make a large circle around the board. With 3 rounds of shooting you should easily take out a squad or two with one unit. This is just a basic strategy which becomes much more complicated in actual practice. Generalized it becomes if you stay at max range you will not have to worry about being shot at or assaulted. We have superior mobility.

Two questions?

Who plays pure foot-slogging Marines in 5th?

What Marine player is going to let you dance around the board in a big circle with nothing on his flanks? We're not Eldar.

You are missing one very important issue here - you do not want to be in template range with your meq killers if you can help it. Your suits will die quickly.

Fireknife suits with markerlight love will kill more marines simply because they can stay out of assault/rapidfire range. With the flamers, you put your wounds on him, get charged by what is left, and your suits are done.

Inigo Montoya wrote:You are missing one very important issue here - you do not want to be in template range with your meq killers if you can help it. Your suits will die quickly.

Fireknife suits with markerlight love will kill more marines simply because they can stay out of assault/rapidfire range. With the flamers, you put your wounds on him, get charged by what is left, and your suits are done.

They are 30-40pts per model. So?

Edit: So how many will a squad of 3 kill, assuming they each hit 5 models.

Flamers? to kill marines????

I run foot sloggen marines and belive me you won't kill me with those BBQ starters of yours

OK, say you have three crisis suits with twin-linked flamers each and i have a 10 man Tac squad with a melta gun and sergeant has BP/CCW. We will assume you can hit 5 marines with each flamer for a total of 15 hits from 5 inches away(this is not likly but possible because the flamer templates are only 8 inches long and i can spread out) 9 wound on a 4+, reroll six die and 3 more wound, total of 12 wounds. 12 saves, 4 marines fail the save. you jump back six inches.

My turn: i move six inches forward, fire melta gun and bolt pistols. Melta gun and 3 bolt pistols hit, Melta gun and 2 pistols wound, One suits IDs from melta gun and you fail no armor saves. I assault you, 13 attacks, 7 hit on 4+, 3 wound on 4+, you fail 1 save, you attack back with 4 attacks, 2 hit on 4+, 1 wounds on 4+, i don't fail the save, you lose combat by one and fail leadership. you roll 4 and i roll 3, I catch you,

You just lost a 180ish pts elite choice to 76 pts of troops 2 to 1 is not a good ratio.
a slightly more expensive fireknife team would have killed more marines from farther away and would not have been caught and be able to repeat process.

Grey Templar wrote:
You just lost a 180ish pts elite choice..

First;

25pts + 6pts + 3pts (Personally I think a 10pt fusion gun is Much better, overall) = 34pts-41ptsThats 102pts to 123pts of battlesuits.

Second, you could well loose your melta weapons guy as you will take 15hits which means wound allocation

Third - Why cant I assault you? I deny you that melta-gun shot and 5 bolt-pistol shots as-well as 6 close-combat attacks!

This means you attack first with your 7 attacks and you cause about 0.7 (1) wound, I dont loose a model. I swing back with my 9 attacks, WS2 vs WS4 = 4's to-hit and after I swing and wound and you roll your 3 saves, you will fail 1. Im winning combat, wooo! + Kroot/hounds into the mix, your a dead puppy.

Battlesuits arent tactical squads. They cant do everything but that doesnt stop them from taking the best possible course.

If you set up correctly you can nail a unit disembarking from a drop pod with this as well. When you can move 12" in a turn it is amazing and you need to take advantage of your superior speed and range.

At larger point values the board becomes clogged but I play 1500 points. This makes it so that a lot of models are on the board but there is a lot of room as well. I have had terminators deepstriking all around me and pulled it off where I found ways to out maneuver them and be able to continually fire at them. Between tanks that can move 12" and fire the main gun and suits moving 12" while shooting there should be few few times that you stay within the 12" range.

Even if I could move to rapid fire range to fire I would choose to move back away form a unit to avoid assault. I gain a round of shooting and I prevent myself getting into assault. This saves my valuable suits and allows me to target the same unit with another round of shooting or another unit that is causing problems within range on the board.

Grey Templar:
What Razerous said.

rogueeyes:
I guess it's just different playing styles for the both of us. For me, if I'm in rapid-fire range I know that by next turn I'm going to either get assaulted or a face full of bolter, guass, or shuriken the next turn, so I just get the assault over with.

My main opponents used to be marines (drop pods), Eldar (deepstrike, infiltrating, wave serpents), and necrons ('deepstriking' 20 warriors and a lord)...I learned fast that I had to deal with things well within assault range. I found flamers to be an answer.

I was saying flamers won't kill MEQs and JSJ isn't practical with flamers but PRs and FGs will kill MEQs, Then and only then should you assault,

I play T'au too

I guess the point of the Twin-linked Flamers isn't really to JSJ, it's to Jump, Shoot, hope to the Aun that the Kroot or Firewarriors have taken care of enough Marines so charging won't be complete suicide, and if not, at the end of the day you've only lost 30-70 points of your army.

Twin-linked Flamers lets your Fireknives, your death rains, and your helios (plasma/fusion right?) free to take care of other targets because at the end of the day, Flamers won't win you the game, your plasma, fusion, and missile pods will. Flamers are just a stall...but a damned effective one at that.

Three tl-flamer suits on a 10man tactical squad, assuming 5 hits per, first flaming then charge will kill 1/2 the squad and cause you to loose one wound on one suit.

I have recently started Tau and I really like the cheap TL flamer suits. I use them as a counter charge unit, kind of. You hide them behind something until somebody gets close then jump 'em out and burn em up. you're usually in a situation where you can get fire warrior support in the shooting phase to help soften up the squad for the suit charge. You need to assault with the flamer squad, or else you're in for a nasty round of shooting.

For MEQs I really don't get the Fireknife thing. Too expensive and honestly doesn't kill marines very well. I've used them, and yeah you can run around and harass without taking fire from the marines, and thats fun but I think sniper drones are a better option. Pinning gets over looked sometimes, but its one of the best things about Tau weaponry.

I have three squads of Sniper Drones for my MEQ, they're very effective. Combine them with a team of pathfinders, I use two teams, to throw down marker lights and they're the bane of marine armies. A squad of pathfinders normally hits with 4ish MLs. Use the SNiper Drones Network ML to boost its own BS, then the 4 other MLs to get rid of cover saves or continue to boost BS. With 3 drone squads firing at one marine squad this usually results in about 7 dead marines.

I'm still new so a quick question: Could MLs fired by the pathfinders be used to give the modifier for the pinning test that the Sniper Drones cause? The rules seem to suggest that no, but I thought I'd ask.

I think sniper drones are a better option. Pinning gets over looked sometimes, but its one of the best things about Tau weaponry.

This is fine at low point values, but when you're playing 2000+ and filling out your force organization chart it's hard to justify spending a heavy support choice on killing 2-3 marines a turn + forcing a pinning check. There are plenty of other things in the codex that can do that, but your HS choices are invaluable for popping high armor tanks.

The thing with pinning is that you can force high pinning checks against nonfearless units such as Terminators.


That and its atually pretty hilarious to pin a 10 man huge nob man biker squad.

Yes you can use the -1 Pinning for a different squad. Just remove the counters for such and hope a wound is scored. This is why I normally have 2 pathfinders squads with railrifles included in each. It helps the pathfinders survive longer and gives the option to attack whatever I wish. Normally they get wiped out in a couple rounds but before than they have earned back their points. By that time the transports are loaded up with fire warriors moving them around.

For counter attack twin-flamers would work but this is better left for a unit of Kroot. Their huge attack numbers in assault would take out much more than a unit of twinlinked flamers - even against terminators. 32 Kroot = 96 attacks on the charge (this includes 20 Kroot and 12 hounds).

Edit -
Also, you cannot pin terminators because they are fearless ... at least I believe you cannot.

Terminators ar not fearless! They just CAN'T be pinned or go to ground as per the rules for Terminator armor

Grey Templar wrote:Terminators ar not fearless! They just CAN'T be pinned or go to ground as per the rules for Terminator armor

Actually now that I took a look at things I think that Terminators can be pinned. I don't see anything anywhere that states that they cannot. A Pinning Test is not a morale test. It is a leadership test. With a leadership of 9 it would be quite difficult to pin them however. And scoring a wound to do so would be quite difficult as well.

My fav suit configuration is the twin link missile pod OR twinlink flamer w/missile pod back up.

I know the AP isn't as great as the Fireknife config, but 6 shots at 36 inches? Come on, how can you NOT love that? You don't even really need to worry about assault range. Just JSJ around the field, taking potshots at the Meq's. The twinlink missiles suit config is a lot cheaper than fireknife. The twinlink flamer w/missile pod is also cheaper.

grankobot wrote:

I think sniper drones are a better option. Pinning gets over looked sometimes, but its one of the best things about Tau weaponry.

This is fine at low point values, but when you're playing 2000+ and filling out your force organization chart it's hard to justify spending a heavy support choice on killing 2-3 marines a turn + forcing a pinning check. There are plenty of other things in the codex that can do that, but your HS choices are invaluable for popping high armor tanks.

But if you're playing 2000+ points, shouldn't you have at least 2 Hammerheads? Submunition shot would help alleviate that matter. Shoot, at 1500 I usually want to take 2 Hammerheads...

I agree that they should be used to take out the opponents armor, but I would rather take out that squad right in front of me that can collapse my center, than potshot that enemy armor off in the distance.

That's just me tho...

I do believe that the rules state that a Model with Terminator armor may not be pinned or go to ground in any way, But i haven't got my codex with me right now. I KNOW that the previous SM:Codex said that Terms couldn't be pinned.

grankobot wrote:

I think sniper drones are a better option. Pinning gets over looked sometimes, but its one of the best things about Tau weaponry.

This is fine at low point values, but when you're playing 2000+ and filling out your force organization chart it's hard to justify spending a heavy support choice on killing 2-3 marines a turn + forcing a pinning check. There are plenty of other things in the codex that can do that, but your HS choices are invaluable for popping high armor tanks.

well I hardly have 1000 points of Tau yet, but even at higher point values the three squads for the one HS choice take out 7 marines reliably, with ML support of course. And with the extra MLs to make LD 10 marines have to roll a 6 or lower for a pinning test, they really keep the nastiness off of my line. With the other HS slots you can take 2 hammerheads, which is all you need, or 1 hammer and 3 broadsides, which is still fine.

I haven't played any high point games yet with the Tau, but I still think being able to severely damage and pin a unit close to your lines reliably is worth the HS slot.

But this thread isn't about sniper drones, so I'll stop.

Still don't like the fireknife, does too little damage for my liking. It has one shot that pierces marine armor, the missile pods don't matter really, but I guess theres little else to do for long range mobile marine sniping.

Is a fusion gun suit worth it? I feel like having a tank popping suit being so close to a pissed off unit that just had a transport is a bad idea...

Fusion suit with shield generator in a group of fireknives should be able to handle it.

Personally i have a suit with a Fgun, plasma rifle and a generator for hunting tanks, either in a team or by himself

I normally play 1500 points. I play against a combination of Eldar, CSM, SM, Nids, Necrons and soon Guard. Missile pods are a godsend with the huge mechanization wave that is coming through 5th edition.

Missile Pods are great against monstrous creatures or other high toughness creatures. It will also help pop transports from across the table where you want the transports to stay.

Fusion Blaster:
Pop a transport 12" away or 6" away with 2D6.
Missile Pods:
Pop a transport at 36" away up to AV13.

Fusion blasters mean you are getting assaulted next turn. Missile Pods mean you have a whole lot more terrain to hide behind and keep from getting into assault.

For tank popping it is better left to broadsides.

Twinlinked Fusion Blaster at 12" Against AV14
75% chance to hit.
12% chance to get a glancing.
1.9% chance to

Twinlinked Fusion Blaster at 6" Against AV14
75% chance to hit
44% chance to get a penetrating
22% Chance to get a destroyed

Twinlinked Railguns at 72"
75% chance to hit
37.5% chance to get a glancing
25% chance to get a penetrating

I don't care to figure out the destroyed possibilities for Railguns. All I know is I would rather have stuff have a 25% chance of getting a penetrating hit form 72" rather than deepstriking and taking the chance to mishap or be out of 6" melta range which would up you to only a glancing possibility and a 12% chance of a destroyed result.

My favourite are deathtrains. I used to play fireknives but i kept getting frustrated with them so i started using deathtrains and i like them a lot more

VoxDei wrote:My favourite are deathtrains. I used to play fireknives but i kept getting frustrated with them so i started using deathrains and i like them a lot more

Deathrains certainly are one of my favorites as well. Together the Deathrain with a flamer for back up works very well. Sad thing is I barely use my flamers for backup because I'm never close to the enemy. Compared to a lot of players my play style is very different. I would say it is much more conservative since I would rather keep them alive and fire from long range then try to take out as much as possible in a single turn.