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The Grog wrote:Same problem the necrons have. Turns out for most troop units the squad character, heavy weapon, and special weapon does nearly as much damage as the rest of the unit combined.

This. I've found this to be true, even a simple power weapon can and will turn combat in your favor against most units if you charge, and that extra awesome "shooting power weapon" (code for Melta/Flamer/Plasma) can also cause squads to break when being shot at.

Only armies who's troops don't get this are Necrons (though they do have a fairly awesome gun...somewhat more awesome than the tau gun even) Tau, and to some extent, Dire Avengers, but Dire Avengers have assault weapons and the ability to overkill a target with a bladestorm, then jump back in their transport. Tau should be able to increase their hit percentage with markerlights, but the 'rapid fire' of the guns limits the effectiveness of the FoF (Even with a light from the fish!) If the target is 30 bodies deep, or has an awesome power armor save, or is a wound bucket, FoF won't be able to cause it to break and run...and they all KNOW the firewarriors suck in CC, so they are going to run right up to them.

Edit: Right as I wrote this though, I remembered hearing about sniper-drone tactics once. Pinning a unit may not seem like much, but it will keep them from charging at least...IIRC though Sniper drones are heavies, which means that they eat slots most Tau players use for anti-armor firepower.

I have had a lot of success with my fire warriors. I run 5 10 man squads w/ sgt. in devilfish and they can tear it up. Even against nob bikers, Lash princes, Vulken marines, you name it. As some posters have said, the strength of tau and of fire warriors is in the army working as a whole not as each unit being it's own army as with some other races. The fire warrior is not balanced well solely against other troop choices, but it is balanced well within the army. Tau can and do win effectively with firewarriors, but it does take a much more tactical approach.

PM me if you want some of my army lists or some more tactical ideas. Tau can be and are competitive if you play to their strengths.

What about fish of fury? That tactic is very deadly when applied right, and it revolves around fire warriors.
It seriously took me a run for my points when I played against my friend who did that.

Fish of Fury helps FWs do one thing theyre good at and one they have to do, rapid fire the butts off of units and avoid CC.

this is prehaps the best way to play FWs. move, disembark, rapid fire, next turn get in, fall back and repeat as often as nessary

+1 to above

Add some supporting crisis teams and your opponents will not know where to turn.

Shaman wrote:with all the lenses on their helmets they should be bs4..

But I forgot humans are the best and can shoot just as well with a tin can on their head.

Humans?

Put it this way; Lasguns vs Pulse rifles.

Who wins?

The autocannon.. well yes, I know.. but still.

Pulse rifles can glance most SM vehicles on the side and penetrate on the rear

lasguns can kill grots and kroot with out shapers.

autocannon can kill skimmers.


T'au 46 pulse rifles, 3 devilfish

IG 50 lasguns, 3 autocannons, 3 chimeras

end game 18 FW left, 2 devilfish, 12 IG left, 0 chimeras

Fish of Fury is not what it was in 4th Edition now that true line of sight is used in 5th.

regardless you are paying 180 points for a scoring vehicle more if you want to take more firewarriors.

seriously, Kroot are better.

Fire warriors, in my opinion. Are not very good at all. Spending points on them can be a real detriment to your list.

I have spent a little time thinking about their fix. Tau isn't a race that uses meat grinder tactics, so fire warriors definitely shouldn't lose any survivability, or go too dangerously low in points costs. that means special rules are in order.

I think they should do this. Defensive photon grenade as standard. A special rule forcing them to automatically fall back from close combat if they win or lose, and a special rule granting them immunity to sweeping advance (perhaps the drones stay back and delay the sweepers). That and a bonding knife will give the unit a LOT more of a lifespan. You can safely be outside of a vehicle during an opponents turn with this rule. Slap on a decent cost reduction throw in a free shas'ui with a bonding knife and I'd take that unit and use it for close range and mid range anti-infantry.

It keeps the tau terrible at assault, it keeps dangerous enemy units out of CC on the tau turn, and it keeps the focus on tau valuing their own lives and the lives of their men, and using technology to preserve that life.

The problem with fire warriors is the fact that in order to be played well, they must remain away from the enemy and highly mobile. The problem is, in order to be mobile they have to move often, and in order to stay away from the enemy, they have to stay OUT of rapid fire range. Get the picture?

Lacross wrote:too expensive and too fragile.

Compare to IG Stormtrooper(has STR3 AP3 wep 4+ sv).

supposedly FW are supposed to benefit from Marker Lights(but there's not enough ML available due to either costs or FOC slot filling).

Usually those ML are primarily used for Crisis suits, Broadsides, and/or Seeker Missiles so the FW doesn't get much.

NO. Do NOT compare them to ST's. That's like comparing Grots to Necron Destroyers! I mean, ST's are Elites, overcosted, and crappy... So much so I'd rather have FW's instead!

Other than that bit, I think that, while firewarriors could e decent, they need to be played well just to be decent. Something, I don't know what specifically, should be changed for them.

I really don't see what all the fuss is about with Kroot being better than FW.

They're an I3 assault unit. Cover saves don't apply in close combat. Any dedicated assault unit you're facing is going to have frag grenades anyways.

orchewer wrote:I really don't see what all the fuss is about with Kroot being better than FW.

They're an I3 assault unit. Cover saves don't apply in close combat. Any dedicated assault unit you're facing is going to have frag grenades anyways.

Actually, a correctly built and played kroot unit is an I5 assault unit.

So the only thing fire-warrior's have over kroot is that a minimum sized squad is 10pts cheaper, and they have a 4+ save when their mandatory devil fish is destroyed.

my kroot get killed by necrons in CC, thats pretty bad. Kroot are there to save FW from getting caught.

With Tau, You cannot play a standard gunline army, they are too fragile for that... You need the Devilfish to remain over 12" from the enemy as they become obscured...

If you have to chose between redeploying your forces and shooting for a turn. Always redeploy your forces...

Tau are terrible in CC but they should never be caught in CC...

When you play as Tau, Play cautiously, make the enemy approach you and not be able to use their weapons effectively (Heavy weapons cannot move and fire)

Ideally the Fire Warriors should not be the only thing that you rely on. They make a great unit to add a few extra wounds to force a pinning test, finish off a monstrous creature, or bring those orks bellow 11.

You are playing Tau, play the objective... If it is kp, do not worry about getting all of the KP that you can get... If you end the game with only 2 KP and you opponent could only kill 1 unit/ vehicle... guess what?! You Win...

With the Devilfish, The troops choice known as firewarriors can quickly take an objective that was placed out of the way while every other one is contested.

Its interesting to see how many people think FW can do anything.

Thank you shep for realizing the suck that is the Firewarrior, also some decent ideas there, something like deployable stun drones that prevent the enemy from SA and FW rally next turn automatically.

Sorry guys but if you don't realize why FW suck and why they aren't as good as kroot, well you need some help.

FW COULD do well but not in nearly enough situations where Kroot could outperform.

Best use for a FW squad? In a Warfish blocking enemy movement and preventing enemies from the Crisis.

Firewarriors suck, plain and simple. The biggest problem is that the Tau army specializes, and firewarriors are supposed to specialize in killing light infantry...the least threatening type of opponent most of the time. Even against light infantry, they don't kill them quickly enough to stay alive.

As a static, dismounted force, their firepower isn't worth the cost involved. As they take casualties, their firepower drops too, unlike most other units that can keep their special and heavy weapons firing until the end. Their leadership isn't enough to keep them on the board reliably, and the techniques to boost leadership are terrible (ehereals, for example).

Mounted in devilfish is the better option (unless you get a 6 man dismounted squad to minimize the points wasted). The devilfish, however, sucks too. Sure, it's a great transport in many regards...a bit expensive, but fairly tough and manuerverable. Firepower is weak, but the worst thing is that it's transporting firewarriors around. Sure, it allows you to dictate when and where the firewarriors engage and allows you to rapid fire...but there's so little you can reliably kill with these guys, even when you dictate the terms. Plus, once they hop out, they quickly die to any assault/AP weapons on the board.

You want to get people to take firewarriors and use them in the current, specialized, configuration? They need to be MUCH cheaper. Devilfish need to be cheaper, too.

Alternatively, you could make them like other armies and add special/heavy weapons. I know, it goes against the fluff and unique angle of the army, but it would help. Upgunning the devilfish would help, too (kind of a razorback), but without changing firewarriors, it would have to be a heck of a deal. Even then, people would be taking the minimum of firewarriors and spamming the razorfish.

Kroot do just about everything firewarriors do, but better, and have additional functions as well.

Ok, kroot suck. Plain and simple. Yes they are a LITTLE better than a FW in CC but that's about all they're better at. I used to play a list with one kroot squad and FW. The FW killed WAY more in one game then my kroot ever have. And I've used every strategy for my kroot. The only one that partially worked was putting them in woods and shooting. Every other way resulted in them getting shot to pieces before they could do anything. They have NO ARMOUR. Even then assult specialized troops could just walk over them in one or two assualt phases due to better saves and striking first(because yes, any decent CC unit will have frag grenades). The only thing kroot are good at in CC is guardsmen and other FW.

Now for FW. As previously stated FW work best in co-ordination with the rest of your army. My current list has three things for dealing with my opponents. Anti tank, anti heavy troop/tank(crisis with PR and FB) and str 5 ap 5 death(fw, stealth, pathfinders). Every squad has a ML with TL(including stealth which are now relentless thanks to 5th). I go for pure volume of shots. If they have power armour, then there's less of them. If not, I have enough anyhow.

Now i play my own version of gunline. I have a main firebase or two and I SUPPORT them. In all missions i end up destroying practically my opponents entire army by turn 4-5. So near the end i footslog it to an objective with which i win due to no troops being left in their army.

So here's a sample. Two squads of FW shooting at whatever. A CC unit shows up or has evaded the rest of your army until now. Here its do or die. So two ML's from the FW and maybe a few more from support units or even a whole pathfinder team. Now you have 48 str5 shots hitting at 3s or even 2s. That is very hard for a squad to be able to effectively assualt after taking that many casaulties. Sometimes i even use the ML to drop their LD so they panic. This has worked fairly well for me and its what i use.

The key. CO-ORDINATION.

My main point is here, FW have their lumps, but resorting to kroot!?! You might as well play IG.

Reddragon wrote:
My main point is here, FW have their lumps, but resorting to kroot!?! You might as well play IG.

Imagine having to resort to IG, a codex so underwhelming it.....oh hang on....

People seem to be missing the strengths of Kroot.

-Cheaper than Fire warriors
-Almost as good at shooting
-Very durable in cover (see 5th ed.)
-Can take hounds to drastically improve their CC ability, I5, A2, 6 points, whats not to love?
-And to top it all off they are even more flexible in that they can infiltrate (situational)

For a shooting unit FW squads are no where near killy enough in any area, and they fail as a support unit; if you want maker lights go for pathfinders.

I would use kroot more often if they could actually benefit from markerlight counters. As it is, i find they aren't nearly as effective in games as my fire warriors tend to be. They have inferior strength weapons, range, and (more often than not) BS. The slight initiative advantage is laughable and the hounds themselves are $$ expensive for the number you'll need to make a difference (before you're wiped out very very easily).

Kroot have their purpose and firewarriors have theirs. If your firewarriors are dying incredible deaths then you are playing them wrong. Against mobs they are amazing. AP5 will actually help a majority of the time. S5 weapons will also allow you to get glancing hits on enemy transports (aka Rhinos), which can prevent them from getting into assault range.

Kroot are amazing at outflanking or infiltrating. They can sit on an objective and defend it especially when there are woods nearby. You can get an insane amount of attacks. This adds a bit of a horde into your Tau army. You also get 12 models with I5 with the hounds.

Played right you will be able to defeat a unit or counterattack with the Kroot. AKA sit them behind your firewarriors who are shooting. Once someone gets close to assault range assault the Kroot and move the firewarriors out. These two units in combination make for an amazing team.

Yes a few less points would be nice but you can actually build a great anti-tank unit with firewarriors. EMP grenades anyone? Glance on a 4 or 5, penetrate on a 6. 78 points for a basic tank hunting squad.

Drop fire warriors down to 8 points a model, drop the devilfish down a good 15 points.

People are too quick to complain about the fire warrior, so many people complain about the weakness of a unit and never think about its strength. Unless you're playing MEQ, theres going to be something weak about most of your units. Personally I love fire warriors, i run 36+ in almost every game I play. The pulse rifle and pulse carbine are extremely powerful weapons when you break them down. The pulse carbine has by far the longest range of any basic infantry range, this enables you to focus more fire without having to keep your infantry close together, eliminating the risk of multi assaults and greatly reducing the risk of scattering blasts. You also have to consider the carbine, same S and AP but its assault and you can move and stay out of assault range of any standard speed infantry or walkers, and pinning(I know pinning is much less powerful now since there arent ld penalties for number of casualties). Combined together, they can make a powerful anti infantry spearhead.

The other thing a lot of people in this thread are making the huge mistake of doing, is thinking about the fire warrior by himself. Tau are an army of specialists, like eldar, you have to support your units or you'll get blasted. They arent like space marines, who can field 2 squads by themselves and have everything they need to take on most threats, with 3+ armor as well. You have to think about synergy with most armies. What makes the fire warrior amazing in this regard is that aside from vehicles with AV 12+ and high T MC's, they can lend supporting fire for nearly anything. Be it a space marine squad, some nob bikers, or a fire dragon squad barreling toward your tanks in a transport, fire warriors can hurt it. Bring along your more specialized units and combine them with the firepower of the fire warriors and you've got a huge amount of pain to deal out, thats why we have crisis suits, they can be outfitted to deal with anything, and then support them with S5 shots.

Lets say you have a squad of nob bikers coming at you with their cover saves and fnp. Drop a couple marker hits on them from a FW squad or pathfinders, and then send in a 3 man broadside team. With multi trackers you can send out 3 TL railguns and 3 TL plasma shots at the squad, and use the markers to bump bs to 4 and 1-2 cover deductions. Youve got 6 shots, 3 instant death, all ignoring armor and fnp with reduced cover, that should drop a few orks. Repeat as necessary if you have PR crisis suits and whatnot. After you've knocked down a few orks, send in the fire warriors to open fire, theyre wounding on 4+ and sure the orks get their cover, but their survivability is in their wound allocation, and if you knock the squad down to 3-4 bikers left, the wounds pile up and start to negate that.

What if you need to move up and don't have cover. Run a crisis team with them. Have the fire warriors move up 6", and the crisis team jump about 3" behind them. Have both squads open fire if able. Then in the assault phase, jump the suits 6" up to be 3" in front of the Fire warriors. Next turn, move the fire warriors through the crisis suits, and move the suits to be 3" behind the FW's, repeat the process, and presto, mobile cover with 3+ armor and multi wounds. Unless the enemy is packing a lot of high S weapons, this is a tough formation to break up.

They also make a great mech spearhead. Take 3 12 man squads in devilfish, and 2 hammerheads and slam them into the enemy. put the FW's in rapid fire range and have everything open up and clear the area out.

I'm not saying that kroot arent good either, kroot are amazing with outflank and the fact that cover is hard to not get. But theyre good in a different way.

augfubuoy wrote:

Lacross wrote:too expensive and too fragile.

Compare to IG Stormtrooper(has STR3 AP3 wep 4+ sv).

supposedly FW are supposed to benefit from Marker Lights(but there's not enough ML available due to either costs or FOC slot filling).

Usually those ML are primarily used for Crisis suits, Broadsides, and/or Seeker Missiles so the FW doesn't get much.



NO. Do NOT compare them to ST's. That's like comparing Grots to Necron Destroyers! I mean, ST's are Elites, overcosted, and crappy... So much so I'd rather have FW's instead!

Other than that bit, I think that, while firewarriors could e decent, they need to be played well just to be decent. Something, I don't know what specifically, should be changed for them.

I completely agree with this, ST's arent scoring units, and their guns are 3S. Yes its AP 3 which is nice, but most things that have 3+ armor are T4. Plus, If you arent ever using ML's for fire warriors, you arent using markerlights correctly. You obviously have never seen 30 man ork mobs mown down to almost nothing by BS 5 fire warriors.

Lets compare the two, A squad of 12 fire warriors with a squad of 4 pathfinders providing markerlight support-168 points, not including the devilfish because that is irrelavent to the comparison.
The ST quad is 165 points for a 10 man squad. so the ST's are 3 points lower in this comparison.

Now the Math-- at 12" rapid fire range on both

Firing at Marines

Fire warriors--we can assume with BS3 that 2 markerlight hits of 4 shots will be available in each test.
24 shots, BS5, 20 hits, 3+ to wound, 13-14 wounds, 4-5 failed saves

ST's
19 shots, BS4, 13 hits, 4-5 wounds, 4-5 dead

so against marines they are about the same

Lets consider Marines in 4+cover, which will be very easy to obtain in 5th ed, and any marine player who's fighting ST's will keep in cover

Fire Warriors-- Same 4-5 dead
STs--4-5 wounds, 2-3 dead

So if the enemy is in cover, the ST loses a lot of his power.

Lets tally up against a mob of IG

FW's
BS5, 24 shots, 20 hits, 2+ to wound, 17 die

ST's
BS4, 19 shots, 13 hits, 6 die

ST's are very inferior against mobs

Cover is irrelavent in this comparison because both units will lose half of their kills, putting it at 8/3 in the FW's favor

Once again, Fire Warriors are very good when properly used and supported.

Thank you all