Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

FW are my favourite models in the whole game (reason I started 40k) so I play them.
I find that their S5 shooting can hurt most basic infantry I face (expect necrons, but thats what plasma is for)
BUT they die too easily another but when fielding other things (suits) enemy shoots and/or assaults them so my FW are still alive to do some damage.
I think best way to play tau is to stay mobile with tanks and suits, but way I like to play is gunline with 72 FW and piranha wall and railguns (and suits)
so imagine this I have 72 FW, 3 piranhas, 2-3 railguns?, and still some suits. railguns take heavy armour, suits elite and FW take the rest
so.... I think it makes enough saves to take down anything, BUT there is always a but...outflank rule that destroys me....and my FW
And before anybody tells me:"WTF that's not true" i want to say that i'm not veteran player. Many of my oppnents are no veteran players and i'm losing most of my games
but still..that's what I think

Shas'O...Crap wrote:@Carmachu

The info I provided regarding the casualties on the Marines was for relative purpose to how the Pulse Rifle fairs against Hordes. My point was that while they aren't the best in the Tau army for dealing with Marines, they are capable of inflicting an average amount of damage, thanks to the strength of their weapon forcing an above average number of armor saves.

True, but their are things MORE capable of inflicting damage.

[qoute]

While I consider myself a casual gamer, that doesn't mean that I don't play my casual games with a lack of competitive spirit. I prefer to rely on tactics rather than lists, though I think I build rather functional and fluffy lists, if I do say so myself. 40K isn't about list building and hitting your opponent in the head with it (except for Blood Angels Deep Striking Land Raiders, that's just uncalled for!). 40K is about having fun, and testing your own limits and abilities in the setting of a wargame.

Stella Cadente wrote:

carmachu wrote:You realize, that if competetive players are complaining about them not being that good, that perhaps there is some validity to it?

not really, since these people list every single codex other than space wolves as being utterly useless, its easy to to ignore the opinions they have and rightly assume they are as valid as a dog turds opinions on politics.

This argument contains the fallacy known as the Strawman, as well as the fallacy known as the false dichotomy; your argument pretends that only two positions exist, and then dismisses the opposing view on the grounds that it is extreme and out of whack.

Reality is that most players do not think "every single codex other than space wolves" are "utterly useless", but still find the FCW to be overcosted in the context of 5th edition 40k. S5 basic infantry guns lost a good bit of their value when transports became cheap and ubiquitous. 30" range lost almost all of its value when a) the aforementioned transports became cheap and ubiquitous, and b) every model with legs gained the ability to Run, thus allowing non-mounted squads to get to your FCW 1-2 turns faster in any given game and assault them. Back in 4th Ed FCW were pretty good: lots of shooting, transports got handicapped in multiple ways after ruling the field in 3rd, and no Run rule, so you could actually stand off and plan on not necessarily being assaulted. Now you have to use Piranha blocking and disposable Kroot and Gun Drone screens to have a prayer of forestalling or avoiding the critical assaults which will destroy your army.

FCW could be quite good if they had a pip more of LD and BS; or got either one and had the cost drop by ~3pts or so. Right now they're still paying a 10pt/model rate that was set in the context of a larger rules set in which they worked better than they presently do.

Of course, all of these comments are in the context of "competitive" 40k, where each player is genuinely trying to win and wishes to use good tactics and an effective army list to that end. If one is only playing for the fun of the narrative, if one is so casual that they genuinely don't care about winning and don't mind losing most of one's games, all this is meaningless and irrelevant. Of course, in that event, there's really no point talking tactics or unit utility, is there? Naturally the type of player I've described there is somewhat rare and extreme, IMO (though not as rare as people who think everything but SW are useless ); most players want to win, and wish to have strong armies while avoiding a WAAC attitude. Within that common context, FCW are always going to get evaluated on their merits, and most players are going to find that presently they come up a bit short.

My simple opinion is BS3 for a "shooty" race is stupid, a race built around staying at range should not be equal in BS to other races with more well rounded troop choices.

Well, it works fine and makes sense if they have low costs, volume of fire, and special rules to make up for it.

For example, IG armies NOT based around Veterans have dirt-cheap dudes, better LD options, and Orders to make their shooting better.

FCW unfortunately have poor LD, high cost relative to other non-SM troops, and poor volume of fire. Marker lights can help a bit, but cost a significant amount; they don't come built into the army like IG Orders do.

Tau firewarriors seem great to me. But that's because the only things in my army that hit on a 4+ are gretchin, killa kanz, and big gunz.

gpfunk wrote:Tau firewarriors seem great to me. But that's because the only things in my army that hit on a 4+ are gretchin, killa kanz, and big gunz.

Here's the thing... 20 orks with shootas cost the same as 12 FW

Orks vs SM @18"-1": 40 shots, 13.2 hits, 6.6 wounds, 2.17 dead SM

FW vs Marines @12"-1": 24 shots, 12 hits, 7.92 wounds, 2.6 dead marines

At the same points cost, ork shooting and FW shooting are pretty close to even. Yes, the Tau have a longer range and might kill one or two more marines in earlier rounds with single shots. However, Orks have the option to charge a SM squad and finish it off in assault that FW do not really have.

Shas'O...Crap wrote:@Culler

You are assuming that my Fire Warriors would be left to handle your boys one-on-one.

The thread is about how well fire warriors work, not the other units around them, or am I wrong in this assumption?

I realize that talking about any unit in a vacuum is foolhardy, but when you want to include the rest of the possible Tau army and its unit synergy versus the rest of the Ork army and its unit synergy the discussion gets impossibly complicated.

Tau were the first army I got back into the game with, so I'm not trying to bash your army or anything, but my Tau have been colonizing the area underneath my bed for the greater good for quite some time for very good reasons, one of which is fire warriors being unable to make much of an impact on the battlefield, especially in a modern mech environment where their pulse rifles do nothing or next to nothing against AV 11 or 12.

Didnt read the entire thread but here is my 2 cents:

Fire warriors suck because they have the lowest Toughness, Initiative, Leadership and WS in the game compared to any other units in the game.

It also doesn't help if their guns are S5. They still shoot as BS 3 which gives them the same odds compared to marines when shooting infantry. The codex traps you into thinking that you can improve this with markerdrones or pathfinders - and when you finally come up with the list, that setup will leave so few points left for choices that are actually powerful.

The major weakness of FW is that almost 90% of the units in the game instagimp it in assault. All the disadvantages stack. WS3 units that are not supposed to be good against anything in assault, will feel superior against FW, and then there's the T3 squishyness. And at I2 it means they will strike last and will most likely be swept.

10 pts per model is NOT CHEAP AT ALL. Especially if there are better choices like Battlesuits and everything else. No one in their right mind would spend 200+ points on a unit that is almost assailable at any angle.

There's a reason why competitive players hate it.

Yuber wrote:Didnt read the entire thread but here is my 2 cents:

Fire warriors suck because they have the lowest Toughness, Initiative, Leadership and WS in the game compared to any other units in the game.

It also doesn't help if their guns are S5. They still shoot as BS 3 which gives them the same odds compared to marines when shooting infantry. The codex traps you into thinking that you can improve this with markerdrones or pathfinders - and when you finally come up with the list, that setup will leave so few points left for choices that are actually powerful.

The major weakness of FW is that almost 90% of the units in the game instagimp it in assault. All the disadvantages stack. WS3 units that are not supposed to be good against anything in assault, will feel superior against FW, and then there's the T3 squishyness. And at I2 it means they will strike last and will most likely be swept.

10 pts per model is NOT CHEAP AT ALL. Especially if there are better choices like Battlesuits and everything else. No one in their right mind would spend 200+ points on a unit that is almost assailable at any angle.

There's a reason why competitive players hate it.

actually the odds are worse, as the Tau use less dice on their 3+ roll because of the shots they missed.

All this talk of GKs and BS 3 and up is making me want an army that is better at shooting

I'll agree that there are good uses for firewarriors, but necron warriors dont have enough going for them. I 2 and no possibility for special / power weapons in their squad kills them. WBB ups their points cost, and power weapons cut down necrons like theres no tomorrow.

Jaon wrote:I'll agree that there are good uses for firewarriors, but necron warriors dont have enough going for them. I 2 and no possibility for special / power weapons in their squad kills them. WBB ups their points cost, and power weapons cut down necrons like theres no tomorrow.

FW are also I 2 with no possibility for special / power weapons in their squad. They're also Ld 7 and no where near as resilient as a Necron Warrior. I think it's pretty safe to say, taken in the context of the points cost, changes from 4th to 5th edition in game play, and compared to new 5e codices, the FW and the NW are both bad. At the local shop we don't play with the interpretation that Sweeping advance doesn't allow WBB, and our Necron player still does fairly welll as a result

My new tau build is what I call the fire wall. Four ten man squads. 12 kroot and 8 hounds are my troop choices. I do not have a single tank in my entire army no transports, piranhas, skyrays, nor hammerheads.

Sure I may be new, but my opinion is that mech is over rated. You do not defeat your opponents by moving faster then them, unless its a danceoff. You kill them by shooting and tearing them from limb to limb.

And the fact is that you will always shoot the opponent before you go kung foo on them. And if you picked tau its probably because you feel as I do that you can shoot them to pieces before they can get close.

Lets face it, tau don't need tanks to dominate in heavy support. A hammerhead is only barely superior to a land radier.

But a full team of three broadsides comes out to around the same price range. Those broadsides are so good that the landraider is left hopelessly out of its league. The landraider for anti tank power has two twin linked lascannons. The broadside squad with three twin linked railguns. twin linked railgun> twin linked lascannon. Those missile launchers are also great, at 24 inches that means 12 S5 AP5 shots. Basically the firepower of a fully loaded fire warrior squad at 24 inches. Plus, it ignores cover I believe, (or was it LOS? I always get that confused with Seeker missiles).

Two squads of those are amongst the best two FOC HS slot options for any other race out there, if not the best.

In my personal opinion for a tau player to sacrifice ranged firepower merely in order to run away or get closer to an enemy is practicaly hypocritical, what kind of hunter runs away from their prey? And isn't the whole point of our strategy to keep opponents away with our ranged firepower?

Transports offer a few things for a troop unit:

Speed: While it's one of the flaws of the game that a troop unit on foot with move + run is almost as fast as vehicles, the transport offers a reliable 12" move a turn (or more if a fast vehicle). It's also less likely to get bogged down in terrain (although when it does, it's of a more permanant nature). This is especially important when you have to advance to claim objectives.

Protection: before you can damage the troops inside the vehicle, you have to get through the vehicle itself. You have to hit, glance or pen, and then roll well enough on the damage chart to do anything significant to the vehicle. For many armies (including Tau) being in Vehicles are also the only version of psychic defense they can give their troops.

Fire Power: While Tau don't really benefit from this so much as their transports can only take yet more str 5 ap 5 weapons, some transports range from heavily armed to insanely heavily armed. You made an example of this yourself, the Land Raider is a Transport in the traditional sense, the Predator and the Vindicator are what would be SM tanks. A Chimera armed with multi laser and a hull heavy flamer is a nice complement with 3x Melta vets in it.

Tank shocking contestor: sometimes a transport (with passengers or empty) crashing into an objective your opponent is holding is the difference between a win and a loss.

An0maly1 wrote:My new tau build is what I call the fire wall. Four ten man squads. 12 kroot and 8 hounds are my troop choices. I do not have a single tank in my entire army no transports, piranhas, skyrays, nor hammerheads.

Sure I may be new, but my opinion is that mech is over rated. You do not defeat your opponents by moving faster then them, unless its a danceoff. You kill them by shooting and tearing them from limb to limb.

And the fact is that you will always shoot the opponent before you go kung foo on them. And if you picked tau its probably because you feel as I do that you can shoot them to pieces before they can get close.

Lets face it, tau don't need tanks to dominate in heavy support. A hammerhead is only barely superior to a land radier.

But a full team of three broadsides comes out to around the same price range. Those broadsides are so good that the landraider is left hopelessly out of its league. The landraider for anti tank power has two twin linked lascannons. The broadside squad with three twin linked railguns. twin linked railgun> twin linked lascannon. Those missile launchers are also great, at 24 inches that means 12 S5 AP5 shots. Basically the firepower of a fully loaded fire warrior squad at 24 inches. Plus, it ignores cover I believe, (or was it LOS? I always get that confused with Seeker missiles).

Two squads of those are amongst the best two FOC HS slot options for any other race out there, if not the best.

In my personal opinion for a tau player to sacrifice ranged firepower merely in order to run away or get closer to an enemy is practicaly hypocritical, what kind of hunter runs away from their prey? And isn't the whole point of our strategy to keep opponents away with our ranged firepower?

Reason why gunlines with no tanks whatsoever will not work: I let you deploy first, hit your weakest flank with all of my tanks. Because you will be footsloggin all the time you wont be able to react properly. Kroot and Fw are equally dead meat in assault. While true that land raiders are meat against broadsides, it is not a quintessential tool to be always used by MEQ. Most competitive armies will sport vehicles in the number of 4-8, and im pretty sure you wont be able to kill all of those in 2 shooting turns unless you manage to get through the smoke launchers and have more than 4 broadsides.

Dont even get me started with stuff that come out of the sides of the table. Or shot-blocking terrain. Mech is not overrated, it is powerful.

An0maly1 wrote:A hammerhead is only barely superior to a land radier.

Hammerhead w/ Railgun, Disruption Pods and Multi-Tracker - 165pts

AV 13/12/10 BS4 vehicle that can move 12" and still fire it's railgun and has a 4+ cover save against shots from over 12" away is barely superior to a Land Raider?

Possibly, if one considered the Hammerhead as an empty transport that's also a shooting platform. Then yeah, it would be a tiny bit worse

Yuber wrote:

An0maly1 wrote:My new tau build is what I call the fire wall. Four ten man squads. 12 kroot and 8 hounds are my troop choices. I do not have a single tank in my entire army no transports, piranhas, skyrays, nor hammerheads.

Sure I may be new, but my opinion is that mech is over rated. You do not defeat your opponents by moving faster then them, unless its a danceoff. You kill them by shooting and tearing them from limb to limb.

And the fact is that you will always shoot the opponent before you go kung foo on them. And if you picked tau its probably because you feel as I do that you can shoot them to pieces before they can get close.

Lets face it, tau don't need tanks to dominate in heavy support. A hammerhead is only barely superior to a land radier.

But a full team of three broadsides comes out to around the same price range. Those broadsides are so good that the landraider is left hopelessly out of its league. The landraider for anti tank power has two twin linked lascannons. The broadside squad with three twin linked railguns. twin linked railgun> twin linked lascannon. Those missile launchers are also great, at 24 inches that means 12 S5 AP5 shots. Basically the firepower of a fully loaded fire warrior squad at 24 inches. Plus, it ignores cover I believe, (or was it LOS? I always get that confused with Seeker missiles).

Two squads of those are amongst the best two FOC HS slot options for any other race out there, if not the best.

In my personal opinion for a tau player to sacrifice ranged firepower merely in order to run away or get closer to an enemy is practicaly hypocritical, what kind of hunter runs away from their prey? And isn't the whole point of our strategy to keep opponents away with our ranged firepower?

Reason why gunlines with no tanks whatsoever will not work: I let you deploy first, hit your weakest flank with all of my tanks. Because you will be footsloggin all the time you wont be able to react properly. Kroot and Fw are equally dead meat in assault. While true that land raiders are meat against broadsides, it is not a quintessential tool to be always used by MEQ. Most competitive armies will sport vehicles in the number of 4-8, and im pretty sure you wont be able to kill all of those in 2 shooting turns unless you manage to get through the smoke launchers and have more than 4 broadsides.

Dont even get me started with stuff that come out of the sides of the table. Or shot-blocking terrain. Mech is not overrated, it is powerful.

That's where six broadsides come in handy, especially if they are all given target lock, along with some markerlight support from other tau squads.

Sure you "may" come across armies with six or more vehicles that pose a direct threat. But lets face it. At my point value games (1850), chances are I am not going to come across an army that charges six transports full of troops at my troops. Unless you manage to outflank, there is little to no chance of a rhino coming within 18 inches of my firing line. Here's how my shooting phase would turn out.

If there are no other targets for my fireteams to attack:

Maximum of 40 S5 shots fired at the tank. If by some extraordinary chance of luck that those don't destroy it then I begin with my deathrains and fire all those twin linked missiles at them. If by some extraordinary chance of luke those somehow don't destroy it then I continue on to my broadsides. The first team will have two of the broadsides fire at the tank with those twin linked S10 Railguns, and the other one can fire at...something else if there is another target available. If by some incredible stroke of luck that the emperor is smiling down from his golden throne on this puny little rhino and the ten marines inside then I fire away with all of the rail guns from my second broadside team, three S10 shots into that tank. And if by some incredible stroke of luck, that it survives then I have two options:

1. If the opponent allows forgeworld figures then I will use Shas'o R'lai and fire off his S9 AP3 railgun.

2. If they don't and the rhino is 18 inches away from her I will have Shadowsun jet pack to within 12 inches and fire those two fusion blasters at the rhino.

If somehow all that doesn't work then yah, your right. I am pretty screwed. But something tells me that this scenario will in all likeliness, never, ever, ever, ever, ever possibly happen. The reason why I like the idea of a foot army is because it saves me so many points. With six broadsides in my army there is precious little out there that can effectively assault my forces with tanks. Even if they do manage to get through, chances are that I cut the opponent down from half a dozen tanks to maybe one or two fully operational tanks.

If other mech armies have similar costs for transports and tanks like the tau, then chances are they are sacrificing a lot of infantryman to be able to deploy those tanks. So for every tank the opponent loses to my broadsides, not only have they lost a tank, they lost the infantry they could've used instead (opportunity cost).

My whole strategy is focused to do one thing and one thing only. Even the playing field. Because once they lose their tanks, they are left with only a foot army. At that point they have probably lost the game.

My experience with Firewarriors is that if they can be in cover and pick away the enemy from a distance, they can be okay. They can also be pretty good for FoF'ing. However, the Tau army as a whole simply isn't built for 5th ED.

They aren't that great at shooting. They lack any effective way to deal with MEQ outside of the Hammerhead Ion Cannon or the expensive Plasma Rifles on the Battlesuits(which require you to get in close), Markerlights are expensive and can be a burden to incorporate in lower point games, and everything outside of the Disruption Pod is too expensive.

When you can get assaulted in Turn 2 by the majority of the armies fielded today, the Tau cannot take advantage of their ability to out range opponents. Simply put, the board has shrunk and the Tau can't put out enough fire to compensate.

What is fish of fury?

The main problem with the FW is the low LD and the low BS. They have a ~50% chance to break when hit with some casualties. Those are not good odds and the main reason why they are currently weak without a transport.

Wanting them to be good and thinking they are good doesn't actually make them good. I have been playing for a looong time and I have a large ( ~3500 point) tau army amongs many others. Since 5th edition, the tau have been sitting in their foam in the garage. They are that bad now.

Firewarriors in a transport are no good, and one round of shooting at firewarriors out of a transport will likely cause them to run away.

The thing is, the "withering" firepower of firewarriors isn't withering enough. I had a unit of 16 slugga boys sitting in cover that was shot at by a 12-man fw unit with 2 gundrones, and three stealth suits, one with fusion blaster. The squad was cut down to 5 boyz and a pk nob. I promptly passed my morale test, rolled a five on my dangerous terrain test, and assaulted 5 boyz and pk nob into the 12 man fw squad with gun drones. I got no charge benifit due to nova grenades or whatever they are called, but still killed all but 2 fw, which were swept. I lost one boy. I killed a 120+ unit with half the points. I've also won a fight with shoota boyz, until I was down to 2 boyz and a regular nob, and he had 8 fw. I killed all but 2 again, which were not swept, but were quickly cut down by shoota fire. I'm not afraid of fw, because I know that any ork and his half-wit mate Zog can take on a whole squad quite easily. It doesn't matter how many die, because I only need about 5 boyz to kill them.

All of these problems, I wonder if it will make games workshop hurry up with the next codex. Having a faction that is at such a bad disadvantage is bad for business.

A breakdown of the units in The Fireline versus a Rhino/Razorback in 3+ Librarian granted cover.

All 40 Firewarriors:
40 shots, 20 hits, 3.33 glances, 1.11 through cover, 0.37 results that aren't ignored

6 Deathrain Suits:
12 shots, 8 hits, 2.67 pens & 1.33 glances, 0.89 pens & 0.44 glances through cover, 0.59 pens and 0.15 glances that aren't ignored

3 Broadside Railguns:
3 Shots, 2.225 hits, 1.88 pens & 0.38 glances, 0.63 pens & 0.13 glances through cover, 0.52 pens and 0.06 glances that aren't ignored.

Shadowsun <12":
2 shots, 1.67 hits, 1.67 pens, 0.56 pens through cover, 0.46 pens that aren't ignored

This breakdown shows that the list being put forward will have a hard time destroying more than 2 smoked vehicles a turn in a Grey Knights list that brings a Shroud Librarian to give his vehicles cover. This is of course assuming a first turn perfect alpha strike, anything less will of course have even worse results. A list with marker lights would do better but the no vehicle anti-mech list can't have any and so at best a vehicle might face a 50/50 chance of having its cover dropped to only being 4+. So even a 4 transport GK list will likely have something moving at you on turn 2 if they go first, more if you decide that the Dreadnoughts firing on your broadsides need to go. If you face an even nastier Monkies in Chimera's list you'll likely be facing 9 vehicles at minimum if not a lot more.

Other armies obviously have other ways of dealing with what you bring to the table depending on what sort of list they're going for. DE can stay off the table and then alpha strike you full of nasty poison while lancing your broadsides. Foot Templars will just charge as each wound makes them run faster, of course they might just spam you with a ton of frag missiles on their now improved Termies. Regular Marines can still get 4+ cover for vehicles and have fun things like Sternguard to drop in behind you and wreck your broadsides. Chaos has the ever popular Lash shuffle and Oblit combo. Guard can will have more vehicles than you can shake a railgun at and/or blobs that will eat your shooting and then beat you in assault. Nid's will just introducing you to horde after horde of Gants and their MC's will have cover. Wolves love the MSU vehicle spam and will outshoot your list. DoA lists will be in your lines first turn. Orks have hordes you don't have the mass of shots to thin, Kan walls, and even a 3 BW list will get cover from your shots. I know I missed a few armies, but you get the idea.

Gar'Ang wrote:What is fish of fury?

Fish of Fury was a 4th Ed Tau tactic, of loading up full squads of FCW into Devilfish, and flying them up to the enemy (usually in pairs), jumping out behind your Devilfish but within 12" of the enemy, and rapidfiring the crud out of them. In 4th skimmers did not block LOS at all, but you still couldn't move within an inch of them in movement or come within 1" without assaulting them. With two 'fish, you could place them 3" apart and in a slightly angled chevron shape (or whatever best fit your situation) to create a formation the enemy would not be able to get across or around to assault the FCW. Most infantry in general was a bit more expensive and less mobile in 4th, so the damage the FCW could do was worthwhile, and it was possible to manage this often without getting assaulted and killed in response.

Norade wrote:A breakdown of the units in The Fireline versus a Rhino/Razorback in 3+ Librarian granted cover.

All 40 Firewarriors:
40 shots, 20 hits, 3.33 glances, 1.11 through cover, 0.37 results that aren't ignored

6 Deathrain Suits:
12 shots, 8 hits, 2.67 pens & 1.33 glances, 0.89 pens & 0.44 glances through cover, 0.59 pens and 0.15 glances that aren't ignored

3 Broadside Railguns:
3 Shots, 2.225 hits, 1.88 pens & 0.38 glances, 0.63 pens & 0.13 glances through cover, 0.52 pens and 0.06 glances that aren't ignored.

Shadowsun <12":
2 shots, 1.67 hits, 1.67 pens, 0.56 pens through cover, 0.46 pens that aren't ignored

This breakdown shows that the list being put forward will have a hard time destroying more than 2 smoked vehicles a turn in a Grey Knights list that brings a Shroud Librarian to give his vehicles cover. This is of course assuming a first turn perfect alpha strike, anything less will of course have even worse results. A list with marker lights would do better but the no vehicle anti-mech list can't have any and so at best a vehicle might face a 50/50 chance of having its cover dropped to only being 4+. So even a 4 transport GK list will likely have something moving at you on turn 2 if they go first, more if you decide that the Dreadnoughts firing on your broadsides need to go. If you face an even nastier Monkies in Chimera's list you'll likely be facing 9 vehicles at minimum if not a lot more.

Other armies obviously have other ways of dealing with what you bring to the table depending on what sort of list they're going for. DE can stay off the table and then alpha strike you full of nasty poison while lancing your broadsides. Foot Templars will just charge as each wound makes them run faster, of course they might just spam you with a ton of frag missiles on their now improved Termies. Regular Marines can still get 4+ cover for vehicles and have fun things like Sternguard to drop in behind you and wreck your broadsides. Chaos has the ever popular Lash shuffle and Oblit combo. Guard can will have more vehicles than you can shake a railgun at and/or blobs that will eat your shooting and then beat you in assault. Nid's will just introducing you to horde after horde of Gants and their MC's will have cover. Wolves love the MSU vehicle spam and will outshoot your list. DoA lists will be in your lines first turn. Orks have hordes you don't have the mass of shots to thin, Kan walls, and even a 3 BW list will get cover from your shots. I know I missed a few armies, but you get the idea.

I'm pretty sure you don't get to pop smoke in your opponents first turn of shooting, at least not around here.

As for the topic at hand I also have about a 3500 point Tau army and I never take more than 12 fire warriors (2 squads of 6). If I didn't need the devilfish to block los to my crisis suits I wouldn't even bother with them. Thus far I haven't figured out a better way to play Tau than like an onion. You force your opponent to peel away layers and make them cry for doing it. Firewarriors don't let you do that. What lets you play a layered force are piranha, gun drones (from the piranha/devil fish), kroot and devilfish and really that's the order of how things should die in a properly layered army and by the time you can be assaulted or shot at close range they had better have almost nothing left or else you're just boned.

Also the problem is taking firewarriors (beyond 6 or 12) IS an opportunity cost at not taking more kroot/better configuration or more suits/broadsides/piranha or whatever else you can fit in the army. I honestly don't have any spare points that I would say "Hmm I guess I could max out a couple fire warrior squads," even in my 2500 point list for 'Ard Boyz.

Ignoring the fact that you can drive into/behind cover to get that save and the fact that Tau won't always be going first,or the fact that there could have been LoS blocking terrain, or it could have been DoW deployment. Yeah, in one specific situation you'll get some good shooting in and not have your opponent in any cover, but honestly that's one of the least likely scenarios