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I run Tetras.... Pathfinders are shyte.... =]

Even with no tetras I still wouldnt field Pathfinders....

Although since FW is 100% legal to use... I just bring a print out with me of the rules... mostpeople who play against Tau dont complain they already know the codex is weak so 1 little extra perked up unit is ok...

juraigamer wrote:
6 Stealth team with team lead, bonding, 2 marker drones, 10 gun drones and markerlight

How many points was this unit?

Sekminara wrote:
Not sure if serious..

If you're playing primarily horde-based, FNP-less, armies then sure, what you're saying here is (semi) correct. On the other hand if you're facing a typical 6+ razorback marine force, or god forbid an 8+ razorback FNP blood angel force, you're going to be in for a nasty surprise.

People are getting into assault too fast in today's game, firewarriors are just looking to get wrecked.

Absolutaly serious...

So lets do some math. lets say i have 72 shots. half those hit now 36. that 6 glances turn one on rinos. 6 glances will slow them down. the hammer heads / stealth suits are not included in that. I like using an all burst cannon unit of bare bones stealth suits and infiltrate just to pop tranports.

Also in that list i had my shas'o with missle pods. That helped. autocannons rip rhinos.

also think about this. lets say they are assult geared no matter what i get a rapid fire round before assult. most assult geared armies will not harass you much before assult. if anything losing more than one unit is unlikely (this close distance really melee based army we are talking about here) 60 X 2 rapid fire shots. 120 dice. I fielded this list a lot. I am not trolling or talking hypothetical. 120 dice focus fired into a squad leaves it dead. regardless or what it is. termies have been whiped, huge squads of 'gaunts, i mean everything. even if i have to move closer that one big rapid fire is decimating.

I got pounded by an all khorne army once. because my shas'o and hamerheads failed to hit anything for 2 turns

also its 6 markerlights. do not forget about 6 more marker lights. hitting 6 squads worth of tau on 3's starts to get scarry.

I dare you to proxy up this army and play it.


Shas'o
MP
BC

6 squads Firewarriors
ML one on each

2 hammer heads
Smart Missiles
rail guns
"that-thing-that-lets-you-shoot-like-a-fast-vehical"
Disruption pods

stealth suits

Neat trick set up on the 11 and a half inch line, first charge often misses distance by |---| much

I would hope that 600+ points worth of shooting on one squad would kill it.

I could also get 100 kroot for 700 points, just the kroot, and get more shots, 200 in your rapid fire range, i could field bigger, more resilient units, and even have some melee ability to boot.

Panzeh wrote:I would hope that 600+ points worth of shooting on one squad would kill it.

I could also get 100 kroot for 700 points, just the kroot, and get more shots, 200 in your rapid fire range, i could field bigger, more resilient units, and even have some melee ability to boot.

you could, by the fire warriors got great armour, and can fire for more turns. huge diffrence. try it : ) it works that s5 is important

LunaHound wrote:

XV8-Ownage! wrote:

juraigamer wrote: you can jump into markerlight range (36 inches) and then jump out.

IIRC markerlights are heavy weapons, so you can't move and shoot (they should really be Assualt 1).

How do you jump out >.<? what page is it on . I keep hearing about them but never see it

Stealthsuits are jetpack infantry and therefore have relentless. They can move and fire markerlights and then jump another 6" in the assault phase.

allies333 wrote:

juraigamer wrote:
6 Stealth team with team lead, bonding, 2 marker drones, 10 gun drones and markerlight

How many points was this unit?

It came to 360 points. It's 2 networked markerlights, 1 markerlight, 6 burst cannons and 10 twin linked pulse rifles, at bs 3 and 2 receptively, of which can reach bs 5 and 4, respectively. It causes my opponents hell.

Flinty wrote:
How do you jump out >.<? what page is it on . I keep hearing about them but never see it

Jet pack moves. They may move 6 inches in the assault phase instead of assaulting. So it's jump forward 6, shoot in shooting phase, jump back 6. Laugh.

Thrawn2600 wrote:

Panzeh wrote:I would hope that 600+ points worth of shooting on one squad would kill it.

I could also get 100 kroot for 700 points, just the kroot, and get more shots, 200 in your rapid fire range, i could field bigger, more resilient units, and even have some melee ability to boot.

you could, by the fire warriors got great armour, and can fire for more turns. huge diffrence. try it : ) it works that s5 is important

Except you forget that that those kroot can infiltrate, and therefore have a greater potential threat range than the firewarriors... and that those kroot can also fight in melee and actually win... and those kroot, when in plant based cover (woods/jungles, etc.), get the benefit of a 3+ cover save...

I've fielded your list before... I'd rather field 100 kroot...

chaos0xomega wrote:

Thrawn2600 wrote:

Panzeh wrote:I would hope that 600+ points worth of shooting on one squad would kill it.

I could also get 100 kroot for 700 points, just the kroot, and get more shots, 200 in your rapid fire range, i could field bigger, more resilient units, and even have some melee ability to boot.

you could, by the fire warriors got great armour, and can fire for more turns. huge diffrence. try it : ) it works that s5 is important

Except you forget that that those kroot can infiltrate, and therefore have a greater potential threat range than the firewarriors... and that those kroot can also fight in melee and actually win... and those kroot, when in plant based cover (woods/jungles, etc.), get the benefit of a 3+ cover save...

I've fielded your list before... I'd rather field 100 kroot...

with infiltration the threat range is shorter. your right for distance but not time. it takes more turns of movement inside the FW range to engage them. thus the FW will get more shots.

most lists i plauy against will take flames. these are doom for koot. on paper the kroot really seem better. I compleatly agree. I have about 100 kroot. i have fielded it. it does not work as well. I have never met anyone else who fielded 6 troop choices worth of FW and am a little sceptical you actualy did. As most people react to that list as you all have.

A note on Melee with fire warriors. most of the time by the time they get close they lose assult. 3 jump marines on 24 firewarriors. FW every time. If a unit gets charged, i charge a unit of Firewarriors. the sheer numbers work.

yes its not unstoppable. but this list packs way more punch in 1000 points than most give it credit for.
(no stealth suits in 1k though)


I have a 40k night coming up on saturday i may write a battle report for this list : )

@Thrawn2600

Alright, lets explore this concept a little further then.

72 firewarriors = 720p (not including the mandatory shas'ui and bonding knife)

What could 720p get me?

Well, for 543p I could get 3x3 Deathrain suits w/ 2x Shield Drones. Chance to pop a rhino = 2*(1-(0.5*0.5))*(0.33)*(0.33) = 16.3% per suit = 146.7% total
For 678p I could get 3x3 Fireknife suits w/ 2x Shield Drones. Chance to pop a rhino = [2*(0.5)*(0.33)*(0.33)]+[1*(0.5)*(1/6)*(0.33)] = 13.6% per suits = 122.7%
For 696p I could get 6x 14 Kroot, 3 Hound, Carnivore squads. Which are much better at taking objectives, about equal in taking out infantry, unable to pop rhinos
For 855p I could get 3x3 XV88 w/ targets locks, ASS, and 2x Shield drones. No need for math, they absolutely wreck everything they touch.

Of course this is all in vacuum, I'll will concede the point that the suits cannot take objectives, or are they quite as good as murdering GEQ infantry. But with suits, you have the ability to be mobile, meaning you have more turns to shoot. And you also have the advantage of having troops slots to fill with kroot or scorefish FW.

But lets take a look at how effective FW are against marines?
Chance to kill marines = 72*(0.5)*(0.66)*(0.33)=7.84 marines dead per turn.
If they have FNP? = 3.92 marines dead per turn. Think of their investment vs your investment in this case. Also, we're not counting the fact that he has probably killed a few of your FW (and by now, probably had a squad run off of the board)

So, those numbers are unfortunate, why don't we take a look at how good kroot, and suits do against the same enemy.
Kroot chance to kill marines = 6*14*(0.5)*(0.5)*(0.33)= 6.93 marines dead per turn
If they have FNP? = 3.465 marines dead per turn. Again, as these don't have the AP, the return is rather disappointing, but at least kroot have a fighting chance in melee. I will also concede the point that the kroot range is 6" less.

Fireknife (not rapid firing) chance to kill marines = 3*3*2*(0.5)*(5/6)*(0.33) + (3*3*1*(0.5)*(5/6)) = 6.23 marines dead per turn.
With FNP? =3*3*2*0.5*(5/6)*0.33*0.5+(3*3*1*(0.5)*(5/6)) = 4.99 marines dead per turn.

So looking at the data, we can see kroot are approximately as good as FW, possibly less (in a vacuum, not counting their increased mobility, their potential in assault, their lack of an armour save, their phenomenal cover save) due to the fact that they cannot glance vehicles.

Fireknives are not only less points, but also blow FW out of the water in popping vehicles. They have approximately equal results in killing marines, though the increase in dead marines when at rapid fire range is greater for the FW than the FK. This though, is not taking into account the fact that it is much less likely that all 72 FW will be in rapid fire of marine units than the 9 FK.

Compounding all of this is the fact that FW effectively cannot stop ('glancing' does very little) vehicles from advancing across the table, and do not have the mobility to kite them one they do get close. You say that hammerhead and broadside support makes up for this. This is true, but if you're using FK or DR suits then not only do you have the significant vehicle wrecking capability of the suits themselves, but the effectiveness of the hammerheads and broadsides as well (more even, as the suits cost less).

In objective games a gunline FW list will also have trouble, as if the opponent places objectives intelligently, you will be forced to move towards the objectives, effectively decreasing the amount of shots you have, and increasing the chance to be assaulted early.

Really the only distinctive advantages that I can see in utilizing a list of 72 firewarriors is that they have the survivability inherent in having mass amounts of troops. But even then you run the risk of having whole squads run off the board due to their shoddy leadership and placement (naturally for a gunline) within 12" of the edge of the board.

I suppose this was a rather long-winded and ranty post, and my arguments are ordered as well or as concisely as I would like, but I hope you understand the reasons for my aversion to taking that amount of firewarriors.

TL;DR - There are more efficient, effective, and flexible options than FW for the points.

Thrawn2600 wrote:

most lists i plauy against will take flames. these are doom for koot. on paper the kroot really seem better. I compleatly agree. I have about 100 kroot. i have fielded it. it does not work as well. I have never met anyone else who fielded 6 troop choices worth of FW and am a little sceptical you actualy did. As most people react to that list as you all have.

I've been playing Tau since 2004... just sayin'. I was a fan of the list in 4th ed/early 5th, but I find its too vulnerable, at least in my meta which is... interesting compared to what the internet representation of the melta-mech meta would lead me to believe is common...

I'm just laughing/crying at people claiming that some of the worst parts of the tau codex are actually the best parts....

Firewarriors are not good. Their weapon is one of the best basic arms, but that is pretty much all they get on one of the worst models in the game. Guard shooting skill, grot WS, necron initiative, ork LD (without mob rule). The only thing they have in their favor is a S5 gun which happens to have the worst gun rules (rapid fire) and their armor (4+is decent, but AP 4 is relatively common). They don't have options to take heavy or special weapons, which is just crippling. This leaves them firing ineffectually at AV 12+ and nearly as poor against AV11. What do they do when somebody rams a stormraven or land raider and its like at the tau line? Nothing, because instead of buying enough crisis teams and broadsides you bought a bunch of useless immobile woundmarkers with a boosted bolter.

Stealth teams are the same way, instead of buying the critical firepower bands/types that tau seriously lack, you go for more S5 shooting and take away slots from units that can actually kill more than orks in the open. For what? Marker lights. A special gimmick that makes rare firepower that tau get (it is rare, better than S5 is hard to get FOC wise) better and more effective. Except you actually took away slots from the firepower you are trying to support.

Why do tau players beat their heads against the wall thinking that S5 is the best, and they need to run more of it? More FW, more Stealth suits, hey, why don't we give our crisis teams burst cannons?!?!

Even the people at Tau Tactica usually aren't usually this bad anymore.

notabot187 wrote:Hey, why don't we give our crisis teams burst cannons?!?!

Bladestorms man. Kills infantry better than Fireknives.

I don't think the jet pack special rule allows for heavy weapons to be fired after they move. I am pretty sure that is specifically mentioned in the rulebook. So for markerlights on stealth suits you would have to remain stationary, fire, then use your free assault move correct?

orz192 wrote:I don't think the jet pack special rule allows for heavy weapons to be fired after they move. I am pretty sure that is specifically mentioned in the rulebook. So for markerlights on stealth suits you would have to remain stationary, fire, then use your free assault move correct?

Page 52: Models with jet packs have the 'relentless' special rule (see page 76).

^Word for word.

I'm with notabot187, this is starting to get ridiculous. People are just mining for reasons to use FW and SS at this point..

Sekminara wrote:If you're playing primarily horde-based, FNP-less, armies then sure, what you're saying here is (semi) correct. On the other hand if you're facing a typical 6+ razorback marine force, or god forbid an 8+ razorback FNP blood angel force, you're going to be in for a nasty surprise.

People are getting into assault too fast in today's game, firewarriors are just looking to get wrecked.

this is my experience- I take 2 Devilfish with 6x FWs inside and keep them in reserve and spam XV8s.

As for the thread- I've always loved pathfinders so I've never used stealth suits as markerlight providers

I have however used them in an infiltrators/objective contesting way and they aren't too good for the points.

I really don't ever see me using up the elite choices on anything but XV8 teams honestly.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:

notabot187 wrote:Hey, why don't we give our crisis teams burst cannons?!?!

Bladestorms man. Kills infantry better than Fireknives.

So? Tau get volume S5 shooting on anything. Tau have plenty of other places they can find anti infantry fire. And the numbers are pretty close, so its not like its a huge difference. Giving up one of your few light mech killing guns for a weapon that tau can already spam just doesn't make much sense for an army that is strapped for transport popping slots.

I agree, flamers and burst cannons are the dumbest possible weapon options for a crisis suit. If you want that S5 you take those firewarriors or stealth suits... more cost effective and you get more of them (though you do lose out on a unit of crisis in the process)

Wasn't this thread about stealth suits?

juraigamer wrote:Wasn't this thread about stealth suits?

Yeah, but you can't talk about stealth suits without bringing up what you give up. Which is crisis suits. And for some reason people give burst cannons to crisis suits. Which is funny since you end up taking crisis teams for better weapon options and end up taking the weapons that stealth teams have. Which aren't very good....

Thread was derailed when Thrawn2600 started talking about using mass FW, and we felt the need to make sure people weren't taking terrible advice.

Think we've beat this topic to death now..

I don't give up a damn thing. I run a tau army with no battle suits and regularly win. You don't need battlesuits, as much as others may think. The only issue is the lack of ap 2 weapons in the army then. Which isn't so bad.

on the stealth-marker problem:
It is stated in the tau 'dex: Stealthsuits are subject to jetpack - relentless. XV8 are subject to jetpacks, but are fitted to decrease reciol, so may fire rapidfire weapons as though they didnt move, but cant shoot heavy weapons.
They get relentless, but their own 'dex strips it off for XV8. Not for XV15 and 25.

I am currently trying to get a hold of the Tau tactics. In a way, a stealth team can be viable, but i wouldnt use more than 1*3 w a marker for the shas'vre and 2 marker drones.
Pathfinders die off to fast for them to be cost effective imo. JSJ is just to viable to be left out, and a mobile marker base is far better for an army. fielding 12 XV8 suits w 3 stealth suits isnt going to bring down the firepower of the Tau, although i would field different lists for MEQ, GEQ, depending on horde or mech type. Against a foot eldar for ex., you would need to kill off than sonowabi** avatar to take away the fearless bouble. Broadsides. The same heavy slot can be fielded vs mech.
If they get +2 extra on bs cause i have a ML-XV25 on the field, all the better.
If you cant field XV88 pointswise, field hammerheads. A foot'dar will rairly have anything that needs to be hit by s6+, so ions can be usefull - ID other eldar than the HQ, WG and WL and bikes. Footdar will die off of the 9*s6 shots - Avatar t6, 4+ to kill, a few rounds to shoot and it is dead, fearless bouble lost.
Against hordes: well, horde armies usually have a backbone mc. Kill that off and then they are dead. Do it w mobile markers, mostly unable to die, have stealth and inf usr w stealth fields - nf rules apply - is just sick.
For MEQ, marking that raider that transports the deathstar of the enemy's list and then executing it with a HIGHER bs and removeing its cover is again sick. And after that, you can still mark the footsluging deathstar off the table.
My idea of a composition is 12*xv8 - usually with enemy based builds - 1sq of 6 fw + a nother fw or a kroot squad - dont like troops of the 'dex much - fill the rest w a sq of 3 xv25 w markers and the rest if i can spare the points, fill up the heavy slot w 1:2 xv88/hh or opposite.

realy my lists are enemy based, so i can't realy make a build that is an all commerce list.

My biggest problem is they arent as shooty as my DE, not as mobile as my mech'dar and DE, and not as an arskicker ass my SoB - they dont perform all that well, i only lost 1*10 BSS+rhino, 1*7BSS and an exorcist ws 1*6 xv25, 3*Railhead, 2*8fw in dtc and a shas'el.
STS, Tau need xv25, but not as much as a new 'dex and not in a greater number than 3 for mmp

I have not used stealth teams much, but my experience has been that they are pretty situational. They are very uneven performers, sometimes they rock, sometimes they suck. Unfortunately 2/3 of the time they suck.

They are fragile and expensive, not a good combination. 30 points is a lot from one BS3 Burst cannon. Since they have to come close to do damage, their stealth field seldom protects them. When they are in shooting range, they usually are also on enemy's shooting and assault range. They die and run easily. If I use them, it's usually very small team just to disrupt the enemy, or larger team with Drones which can maybe do and sustain some damage.

My experience has been that they're most useful in deployments like Spearhead, where there is lot of room to infiltrate them and mess up with enemy plans. And sometimes enemy forgets about the Stealth field, or rolls poorly, and wastes his shooting.

a 3 suit markerteam is only 4 points more than a fb-pr-mt xv8 team, are relentless, pathfinders arent, can use the jsj tac for markers, are bs4 - TA - and have stealth fields. Shooting markers from ~24" after emerging from behind cover, marking and then hideing again...to me, it sound fantastic, although 190 pt for 3 ML may sound expensive, if you can pull it off almost every round until the end of the game, they bring back the points - in math.
Pathfinders cant move to shoot ML, have worse saves and dont even benefit from a stealth generator. 96 pt + a dtc. On the minimum its 156, but that dies off very fast for one round of markers.
8 markers one round vs 3*5=15 markers a game for +34 pt. I'd go with it.

chaos0xomega wrote:I agree, flamers and burst cannons are the dumbest possible weapon options for a crisis suit. If you want that S5 you take those firewarriors or stealth suits... more cost effective and you get more of them (though you do lose out on a unit of crisis in the process)

Um, well Bladestorms are all round better and more efficient at killing GEQ MEQ and Terminators than Fireknives.
So...

XV8-Ownage! wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:I agree, flamers and burst cannons are the dumbest possible weapon options for a crisis suit. If you want that S5 you take those firewarriors or stealth suits... more cost effective and you get more of them (though you do lose out on a unit of crisis in the process)

Um, well Bladestorms are all round better and more efficient at killing GEQ MEQ and Terminators than Fireknives.
So...

So? Tau can kill stupid infantry all day long with anything in their list. Hell they could just go with gun drones to do that if they really wanted to go fully stupid. What taking "bladestorms" means is that you think that you can beat mechanized lists with just your heavy support and your piranha. Fire knives give you S7 and S6, which is what you want for stopping light mechanized units like rhinos, raiders, land speeder and side shots on chimeras.

Tau have only 3 targets a turn they can go after with their railguns, and they have a reputation as being "fail guns" for a reason. Cover and misses do happen, and you still need a decent damage roll. Against 8+ AV targets you just won't get it done without at least a turn or two of support from your suits. And the nice thing about fireknives is after the AV is reduced they are still effective against infantry unlike the suicide fusion suits.

Ah yes, one who blindly follows the results of mathhammer calculations and fails to consider the actual tabletop situation, namely the effects of range. (BTW while you are correct it is more efficient that fireknife it is less than Burning Eyes for MEQ and TEQ, unless its TEQ w/ SS) You can believe in your efficiency calculations all you like, the fact of the matter is that for you to be effective you need to get in close, and that is not where you want to be.

A moblie tau is a less likely to be dead tau.

In theory, they can fire railguns at 9 different targets.

Then you could have piranha with fusion guns, as well as using two SMT's to launch seeker missiles against lighly armored vehicles After attempting what they could with burst cannons, if needed (and shouldn't until turn 3-4)

Notabot, your thinking of everything in one dimensional terms. Consider the fact of what str 5 against rear armor does. Outflanking stealth suits make this easily possible.

juraigamer wrote:
Notabot, your thinking of everything in one dimensional terms. Consider the fact of what str 5 against rear armor does. Outflanking stealth suits make this easily possible.

a not outflanking xv25 can move 13-18" a turn. that is a LOT, and can get behind the transports. But i would only use them to mark my targets, resorting only to BC as a last option of no escape, lets make it worth our points effort.

A hammerhead w.out its railgun killed an exorcist on 6 rear armor shots