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No, which is precisely the point I have been making this whole time.
Even dedicated assault units are subject to statistical variance from time to time, not having photon grenades shifts the likelyhood of that happening down and thus chances your squad dies (your objective in the combat) are increased.

 Krellnus wrote:

 mercer wrote:

Fire Warriors

I believe the Fire Warriors have gone down in points in the new codex and you can pick up a unit of six for 54 points.

Standard wargear is the pulse rifle and photon grenades. The pulse rifle is the same, though photon grenades are handy for Tau as photon grenades are defensive grenades - so the unit will get stealth if any enemy shooting attacks are coming from within 8" but more importantly enemy units do not get the bonus attack for charging, excellent for Tau whose weakness is close combat.

That is so wrong its not even funny, stock photon grenades were a huge kick in the nuts for firewarriors, instead of being all killed off in the first round, they have to wait to the second round to die, which is a HUGE setback.

I would go as far to say that it is as bad as the space pope in the last book, I would rather pay the extra point in the last book and be without photons than be stuck with garbage that will hand an opponent the game.

What I said isn't wrong, it's correct. What you mean is it's wrong Tau get photon grenades. I appreciate your point thought; Tau may not die in first round of combat, enemy unit wins combat in Tau turn and then consolidates and gets to shoot again. While previously Tau would fold and you can shoot the enemy unit.

 Krellnus wrote:
No, which is precisely the point I have been making this whole time.
Even dedicated assault units are subject to statistical variance from time to time, not having photon grenades shifts the likelyhood of that happening down and thus chances your squad dies (your objective in the combat) are increased.

It is NOT my objective, it really isn't. I'm saying that against the really crazy CC units, none of it matters, anyway, they're going to kill you, and you get to shoot them. Against more garden variety guys, (like say, marines) I can probably get them down to just a few dudes, I'm then pretty happy to beat those couple guys down with my rifle butts, instead of just dying. Photon grenades reduce the dying.

I dunno, quit yer btiching.

Even 4 vanilla space marines will outfight a maximum sized firewarrior squad (2 drones 12 warriors) once in actual hand-to-hand. We want to be in combat for an odd number of rounds, and the previous easiest way of ensuring that was to make that 1 round. Now that's less of an option...


IMO that is the biggest flaw in the 40k rules - that you are actually disadvantaged by having units which will annihilate the enemy in combat or units which are just slightly too tough. Other systems get around this in much better ways. But, thems the breaks :/

Trasvi wrote:
Even 4 vanilla space marines will outfight a maximum sized firewarrior squad (2 drones 12 warriors)

That's a little misleading. 4 marines beat FW, but just barely, but 3 don't. Marines get 4 attacks (cuz of course they're charging, but y'know, photons) hit 2.666 times, do 1.77 wounds, kill .889. FW strike back 13 attacks (you killed 2 of 14) hit 6.5, wound 2.16, .772

I think it's less marines but orks, genestealers, gants, etc, there is really often 2 or 3 guys left. I want to beat them down, not die to a lousy 2 or 3 gants.

And you know, if you don't want the grenades to stop melee massacure, you can always go to ground, they cease to work if you do.


But honestly, you guys just plan to fail. with the grenades assualt units will kill you just as much, but the rank-and-file enemy troops (well maybe not marines, but they are a bit tougher then most) CAN be beaten, or at least delayed and dwindled down so you can respond.

Never, in any game have I actually reached a situation where I thought "I was better off if my guys died", it just never came up. they were either overkilled so hard nothing could save them, or pulled it off.
And in the worst case where they held for a turn but would not hold for another, I just moved around a bit, shot other stuff, and positioned myself in a way where the enemy unit that would brake free would have nothing efficient to do next turn anyway.


You say that what I want from my warriors is to brake instantly, I say that if you even got to that position, you are already at a disadvantage.

 BoomWolf wrote:
And you know, if you don't want the grenades to stop melee massacure, you can always go to ground, they cease to work if you do.

Fun fact that I guess I did sorta know, but had not considered.

Well, there ya go. Zero downside!!

Sir_Prometheus wrote:
If you get assaulted by LR borne terminators, the photon grenades aren't going to matter much, are they?

But if you get assaulted by 2 surviving terminators terminators, lets say after overwatch, or maybe some raging fellas (but maybe they are not power fisting and you still get save) and lets say you have 10 fire warriors left, who are stubborn LD 10 because of Ethereal.. Then they can possibly survive two turns locking an enemy in combat. This will or will not happen depending to an opponent and your play style, but this thing WILL work sometimes .

New stuff, not so bad and feels cooler than getting blown away by a soft gale.

 BoomWolf wrote:
And you know, if you don't want the grenades to stop melee massacure, you can always go to ground, they cease to work if you do.

Just remember that you can only go to ground in the process of resolving a shooting attack, you can't just do it whenever you want. So if the assault unit shoots before they charge you can go to ground (though you may not want to improve your cover save when the goal is to die), but you can't wait until they charge to do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr. Voidness wrote:
This will or will not happen depending to an opponent and your play style, but this thing WILL work sometimes.

Yes, but you don't design a list around what might happen occasionally, you focus primarily on the most likely situation. And the most likely situation is that you want to die in one round of combat.

Sir_Prometheus wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
No, which is precisely the point I have been making this whole time.
Even dedicated assault units are subject to statistical variance from time to time, not having photon grenades shifts the likelyhood of that happening down and thus chances your squad dies (your objective in the combat) are increased.

It is NOT my objective, it really isn't. I'm saying that against the really crazy CC units, none of it matters, anyway, they're going to kill you, and you get to shoot them. Against more garden variety guys, (like say, marines) I can probably get them down to just a few dudes, I'm then pretty happy to beat those couple guys down with my rifle butts, instead of just dying. Photon grenades reduce the dying.

I dunno, quit yer btiching.

First of all, don't tell someone to "quit yer bitching", you agreed to rule #1 as soon signed up to this forum just like we all did.

Now, since I think there has been some miscommunication I will reiterate my point exactly.

5/6 missions require at least a handful of token units (be they firewarriors, kroot, whatever) to claim midfield objectives
This leaves you vulnerable to assault, particularly from fast units, such as LR mounted units and beasts/cavalry units.
These units are dedicated assault units and as such, when they charge, they will most likely kill your unit in their turn, leaving them open to shooting.
However there are times where they will roll poorly and be unable to kill/break your unit, especially since these dedicated combat units do not rely on weight of attacks (as opposed to an Ork unit for example).
By having photon grenades and reducing the number of attacks an enemy unit has on the charge, they are more likely to roll poorly than they would be.
This is NOT what you want to happen.

 Krellnus wrote:
you agreed to rule #1 as soon signed up to this forum just like we all did.

Good lord, that's when I stopped reading.

Sir_Prometheus wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
you agreed to rule #1 as soon signed up to this forum just like we all did.

Good lord, that's when I stopped reading.

Oh and why is that? Because you broke one of Dakka's rules and I called you on it?

 Krellnus wrote:
.

5/6 missions require at least a handful of token units (be they firewarriors, kroot, whatever) to claim midfield objectives

Depends where objectives are placed. They may not be midfield.

 Krellnus wrote:

5/6 missions require at least a handful of token units (be they firewarriors, kroot, whatever) to claim midfield objectives

Aaaaactually, this isn't true. You don't have to capture objectives. The is only one mission (The Scouring) what could possibly force you to move out (because of the random objective value). In verey other mission, you can stay in your castle, and blow the living sh*t out of your opponent, because you can just drop the enemy scoring units, and the battle is as good as won. If your enemy is stupid enough to move up, then he will just make this easier to you: closer he is, more of your guns could fire at him.

 Krellnus wrote:

Sir_Prometheus wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
you agreed to rule #1 as soon signed up to this forum just like we all did.

Good lord, that's when I stopped reading.

Oh and why is that? Because you broke one of Dakka's rules and I called you on it?

Because it's like a whiny child saying "teacher.......he broooke a ruuuule".

 mercer wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
.

5/6 missions require at least a handful of token units (be they firewarriors, kroot, whatever) to claim midfield objectives

Depends where objectives are placed. They may not be midfield.

Unless you roll an odd, low number of objectives and you get to place last, I guarentee there will be objectives no closer to you than midfield you will have to haul ass to claim, either due to your opponent placing last (thus denying your ability to take them) or due to the proximity restriction for objective placement, or playing the relic.

You have nothing to guarantee on. You're just presuming the opponent would place an objective mid field.

The opponent placing objectives last also doesn't deny you the ability to take objectives either. It may make it harder but doesn't stop you altogether.

You missed a big upgrade to the basic gundrone. May not seem like much on one drone but when you have 8 of them, going from 1 shot TL to 2 shots TL youare doubling your fire power on a slight tougher platform for only 2 points.

Ethereals give away victory points. I don't like building a list knowing that I'm giving away a VP essentially for free... NOT saying what they give in buffs is bad, only that I will look for otherways first.

Also for Firewarriors getting assaulted.. go to ground. Stops the defensive grenades, otherwise probably getting attacked by something that will wipe them out anyways.


EDIT: and now I finish reading and it was mentioned above :(

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:

5/6 missions require at least a handful of token units (be they firewarriors, kroot, whatever) to claim midfield objectives

Aaaaactually, this isn't true. You don't have to capture objectives. The is only one mission (The Scouring) what could possibly force you to move out (because of the random objective value). In verey other mission, you can stay in your castle, and blow the living sh*t out of your opponent, because you can just drop the enemy scoring units, and the battle is as good as won. If your enemy is stupid enough to move up, then he will just make this easier to you: closer he is, more of your guns could fire at him.

This is a rather vague assumtion that your opponent is stupid and going to put all his scoring units in a position to be massacred by your obvious shooting abilities. Btw, killing your opponents troops does not mean you will have any left alive either. And in the end, opponents have the advantage in secondary objectives against the playstyle your talking about. the opponent will probably get linebreaker, you have no chance.

I recommend you play nothing but objective missions for a while, and pratice winning by objectives and not winning by opponent's stupidity.

I'm always surprised by how many Tau players have "Table everything without hooves" as plan A and don't really have a plan B set up.

The codex is quite better at trying to exterminate everything then to hold on to objectives. It's filled with high damage low protection units.

Even if a codex is better at it, doesn't mean it's good enough at it to win solely through that method.

barnowl wrote:
You missed a big upgrade to the basic gundrone. May not seem like much on one drone but when you have 8 of them, going from 1 shot TL to 2 shots TL youare doubling your fire power on a slight tougher platform for only 2 points.

I thought they was rapid fire previously if I am honest.