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Superscope wrote:
'4) That would set tau up great. Markerlights are the way, if only they just fixed it up. I would be happy to take BS3 if i could field lots of markerlights at a cost effective price. Perhaps they should change markerlight rules to this:

Markerlight - 10 pts

Any enemy unit hit with a markerlight becomes marked.
- Infanty shooting at the marked unit may re-roll failed to hit rolls.
- Vehicles gain +1BS when shooting at the marked unit.
- A Blast weapon's scattered result is halfed, rounded up.'

This is the silliest thing I have read in a loooooong time, including rough riders w/o power weapons. Basically you are saying that if you shoot a squad with a markerlight it is going to die. no if's and's or but's.

@ Hustler, He was expanding on a general idea I had. My idea was not that it will auto-die but it should be close. At least by the fluff and how much having to buy them messes with fielding a playable army. It was my idea that a point and weapon rule redo is in order.

But please, instead of silly, explain your points on how it would be a problem so that the idea might be tweaked.

I'll give you my viewpoint as to markerlight changes I'd like to see and why.

It makes no sense that if a unit is marked and counters are used that only one unit gets the affect of those marker hits. It's not intuitive and slows the game down by not having a clearly stated firing order.
The effects were designed for 4th ed and are now in need of an update.

I was personally advocating a streamlining of the marker rules. Make them have more of a limited but broader effect.
Something like you can spend only 2 marker counters a round per ability and unit hit but the entire army recieves the benefit.

So a unit is hit 4 times then you can only pull the coversave down by 2 and fire 2 seekers at the unit per tank. Maybe only allow it to up BS to a max of 4 or spend 2 markerhits to allow reroll to hits.

These are just ideas and we would like constructive criticism. If you have a better or another system in mind the please post it for discussion.

focusedfire wrote:

I was personally advocating a streamlining of the marker rules. Make them have more of a limited but broader effect.
Something like you can spend only 2 marker counters a round per ability and unit hit but the entire army recieves the benefit.

So a unit is hit 4 times then you can only pull the coversave down by 2 and fire 2 seekers at the unit per tank. Maybe only allow it to up BS to a max of 4 or spend 2 markerhits to allow reroll to hits.

Sorry if I don't seem particularly onstructive, but that was just wet-dream wishlisty. One at a time here we go.

All infantry shooting a marked squad are now twin-linked? no. I don't think that making all infantry BS4 against it should be the fix either. How about:

'you may remove a marker light token to allow infantry and vehicle models shooting the marked squad to re-roll 1's to hit during the shooting phase.'

Basically a marker light could give the tau the sharpshooters rule for a turn. This would be a good way to expand the effect of a markerlight without overpowering it.

Vehicles shooting non-template weapons are covered by the 1st rule.

'Units firing blast templates BS is considered to be +1 for the purposes of determining scatter.'

focusedfire wrote:@Raxmei, Thank you for the mathhammered analysis. If you don't mind I'll be quoting your IG viewpoint to others.

Sure. To expand on my original statement, if you want to think in terms of discrete models ten 12-pt warriors would cost the same as twelve 10-pt warriors. They would get 2/3 of an extra hit at starting strength but start the game down 2 wounds in comparison.

From an attritional standpoint, 20/3 (number of hits at full strength) - 2x/3 (minus number of hits lost with each casualty x) = 12/2 -x/2. 40 - 4x = 36 - 3x. x = 40 - 36 = 4. The two squads have equivalent firepower after taking four casualties, leaving six men at BS4 or eight men at BS3. The BS3 squad gets better in comparison after that and is slightly less vulnerable to morale. As a result, BS4 firewarriors would have better initial firepower but fail more rapidly once they started taking losses. They'd also be worse in assault, being short two models with no matching increase in quality, but most people don't care about Tau assault.

With Devilfish, a full squad of 12 packs 8 hits inside the transport instead of 6 but costs 144 points instead of 120. If you use fish of fury that means more firepower per fish.


The big difference I see between the Tau and Guard firepower models is that the Tau have an even distribution of firepower. Each Tau contributes just as much to the squad as the next. The Guard is different, having a heavy weapons team and a bunch of guys with flashlights. The first few Guardmen killed have little effect on the squad's firepower in contrast to each fire warrior's loss nibbling away a little bit at the squad's firepower. Bumping the fire warrior up to BS4 with a proportionate increase in points would make this difference more pronounced. This is a weakness, which is why I put in a slight discount that sets the new cost at 12 instead of the 13 that the mathhammer would initially suggest.

There is no ****** way I'm paying 12 points for a Firewarrior when a battle sister is 11 points. ***** that.

Killing things has never been the firewarriors problem. Its living. Yes the gun is nice, but if a firewarrior had nothing more than a bolter the model would be expensive at 6 points. With crappy WS, S, I, LD, A, with no special rules to back them up.

You people are seriously focusing on the wrong thing. The BS of the firewarrior is not the problem. Its its point cost and over all survivability. You really think its ok to loose 100 points of anything to a single heavy flamer shot? That somehow thats balanced?

@ Kungfuhustler

So your saying that they are going to die regardless of enemy unit cover saves? Since pretty much EVERYTHING yeilds a +4 cover save shooting is quite hard to do.

--------------------------------
@ Focusfired

The primary weakness of the tau is of course, hand to hand. With pinning becoming less and less effective along with running rules the tau have less time to fire than what they could before. Mobility issuses also arise thanks to armies with running. Since tau can't run and shoot at the same time, they have to pick either mobility or shooting, both of which is needed.

The tau art of war dictactes 2 primary ways of doing things. Mont'ka and Kiyon. Mont'ka is the removal of a target with extreme force which greatly disrupts the enemy, while kiyon is using a lure to bring the enemy into a firing range, then blow them away. While both tactics are sound fluff wise, preforming the tactics in a actual game of 40K is quite hard. Mont'ka is pretty much pointless unless your fighting armies with dedicated units to set roles (Eldar come to mind here) and kiyon is very hard to use unless a. the enemy has little or no range firepower b. the enemy really hates one type of your units, mainly broadsides.

In summary, the tau lack critital mobility unless they sacrifice shooting to compensate, in which the tau can't afford not to shoot. Their ranged weapons fail to deviler enough power to stop enemies before they close in and break the tau like sticks.

One way to help the tau would be to give a few more units in the army list the Hit and Run USR

First up, Railguns.

Railguns are one of the strongest weapons of the tau armory, however they are still, like all the other tau weapons, highly effective and little waste. The railgun is already str 10 ap 1 72" range. That's fine, leave it there, it doesn't need rending or d6 extra armor pen on enemy tanks. The major problem is that you can field only so few of them unless you break your army's effectiveness (Mobility and point wise). Making the broadside's railgun 2 shots instead of twin-linked would fix that problem, but it would make the suits ever MORE of a tasty target.

The Hammerhead's Railgun however, is different from the broadside's one. Perhaps the Hammerhead should have a Seperate profile (Weapon wise) with it's railgun? The following 72" 10 str 1 ap heavy 2 sounds about right for it.

Next up, stealth units.

Stealth suits are great if they can get close to the enemy, which is problematic via just jet-packing forward. Groups of 6 seem to be a bit too... bulky in my sence. Teams of 3 with a option of adding a 4th one Shas'uve team leader sound good number wise.. so long that they have the options of their "bigger brother" crisis suits. In short.. yes, the ability to have the whole team go fusion blasters or burst cannons would improve flexability greatly. In that way, you now could field a stealth team as a anti-infanty or a anti-tank role.

The Shas'uve should also give the sqaud emp grenades for free.

Jayden63 wrote:There is no ****** way I'm paying 12 points for a Firewarrior when a battle sister is 11 points. ***** that.

Killing things has never been the firewarriors problem. Its living. Yes the gun is nice, but if a firewarrior had nothing more than a bolter the model would be expensive at 6 points. With crappy WS, S, I, LD, A, with no special rules to back them up.

You people are seriously focusing on the wrong thing. The BS of the firewarrior is not the problem. Its its point cost and over all survivability. You really think its ok to loose 100 points of anything to a single heavy flamer shot? That somehow thats balanced?

At least fire warriors get a ok armor save, that's fine. I'm just unsure of how to fix it i'm afraid. Many believe a point cost reduction, but that would just let people horde more fire warriors into a army to compensate, which the tau can NOT supply unlimited man-power like the IG so dropping the point cost would break the fluff...

That 12 point thing was intended to be power neutral in comparison to current fire warriors. The amount that they should actually cost could well be lower than that.

At any points cost the fire warrior at its current profile has issues. Tau are one of the armies where the troops are all too often perceived as deadweight at best and a liability at worst. To fix this you have to find something for them to be genuinely good at.

Throwing out a crazy idea, make the pulse rifle assault 1 and the pulse carbine assault 2.

Superscope wrote:

Jayden63 wrote:There is no ****** way I'm paying 12 points for a Firewarrior when a battle sister is 11 points. ***** that.

Killing things has never been the firewarriors problem. Its living. Yes the gun is nice, but if a firewarrior had nothing more than a bolter the model would be expensive at 6 points. With crappy WS, S, I, LD, A, with no special rules to back them up.

You people are seriously focusing on the wrong thing. The BS of the firewarrior is not the problem. Its its point cost and over all survivability. You really think its ok to loose 100 points of anything to a single heavy flamer shot? That somehow thats balanced?

At least fire warriors get a ok armor save, that's fine. I'm just unsure of how to fix it i'm afraid. Many believe a point cost reduction, but that would just let people horde more fire warriors into a army to compensate, which the tau can NOT supply unlimited man-power like the IG so dropping the point cost would break the fluff...

Screw the fluff. Or make them worth their points. Give etherials a special rule, like they used to. Re-roll any LD check, but remove the LOS restriction. Just knowing an etherial on the battlefield should be enough to motivate the Tau, who cares if he can actually see you.

Give them a re-roll on their armor/cover save. Call it PPS (personal protection shields). Now they are more suvivable, without having a fluff breaking 3+ armor save, and can actually stand to go Toe to toe in a firefight. Give them distuption grenades that say a unit with those cannot be wiped out from a sweeping advance, etc.

Come up with special rules or wargear that justifies their points cost if you feel the need to keep their points high, because clearly their stat-line doesn't.

< Taken by the void dragon. >

Jayden63 wrote:Give them a re-roll on their armor/cover save. Call it PPS (personal protection shields). Now they are more suvivable, without having a fluff breaking 3+ armor save

Wow. Feel no pain for fire warriors. brilliant.

2x post

Kungfuhustler wrote:

Jayden63 wrote:Give them a re-roll on their armor/cover save. Call it PPS (personal protection shields). Now they are more suvivable, without having a fluff breaking 3+ armor save

Wow. Feel no pain for fire warriors. brilliant.

I didn't want to call if FNP because FNP is limited to 4+, PPS changes depending on which models it is issued to. PPS would be whatever the current save is rerolled, 3+ on crisis suits, 4+ on fire warriors, 5+ on vespids (if they wear tau armor). I'm not saying all models will have it, just an example. I'd personally hate to be across broadsides that have a re-rollable 2+ armor save 4+ re-rollable cover/inv save. Then again assault termies are pretty sick with their 2+/3+. However cover saves can still be anywhere between 3+ and 6+. Thats why I didn't call if FNP. It has a much broader range than just 4+

and it is in some cases more powerful. Swing! And a miss. If GW ever gave tau a variable FNP that increases when they go to ground and isn't ignored by ap2 (hell, even if it is) I would ragequit warhammer 40k. That is absolutely ludicris. 2x Shield drones on a broadside is good enough, don't you think?

It's just Fortune... that applies to the whole army without a psychic test and can be used on 2+ saves. Not saying it's inherently overpowered, but it would be a massive change that would require recosting everything in the codex.

The simplest, best solution for FW survivability is just a point drop and a couple options for close combat (free photons, free knife with a shas'ui.) guardsmen became 4 points, I fail to see why the same logic doesn't apply to fire warriors: I'd be able to field more of them (making gunlines better) and GW gets to sell more models, which they would like. Fluff is secondary to gameplay and model sales, period, and frankly, 8 point firewarriors? would that really be a big deal for a t3 model that can get gunned down in droves by a heavy bolter? and frankly, personal shields for firewarriors... would be better treated as a 6+ invul save. but I'd rather field more firewarriors than field dramatically better firewarriors: they can get absurdly expensive once you start adding in upgrades. I just to field want more of them without breaking my lists.

With GWs current trend in army building, I see the FW getting photon or maybe even EMP grenades for free. Then possibly targeters that raise their BS to 4. I see them at that point coming in at 12pts a model with the grenades as the main variable.

Making them cheaper is too much like what GW has been giving the horde armies, and the Tau aren't a horde army. I "could" see GW handing out 4+ invulnerable saves to the Fire Warriors like its candy at halloween, though.

I see them doing that and adding 4 points an infantry model. Thus taking the cost to GW default 16 pts for good S3 T3 units.

The only other thing I could think of them doing , instead of just the FW getting invulnerables, is to come up with a tech boost to their basic armor that gives T4.

This would actually make the Fire Warriors unique. Make it something they learned from studying the Vespids. The more I think about it I like it. Make the Fire warrios stats look like this:
WS2 BS4 S3 T4 W1 I2 A1 LD7-8(?) Sv 4+
Cost 16 pts
Comes with: Pulse Rifle or Carbine and Photon Grenades
Pulse Rifle-Same profile
Carbine-Same shooting but improve the Grenade launchers effects*

Unit may purchase EMP grenades for 2 pts per model. One Fire Warrior may be upgrade to Shas'Ui for 10 pts.
Shas 'Ui come with a bonding knife and may purchase the following items:
Squad Shield generator-40pts(Gives the squad 4-5+inv save. I'm leaning towards 5+ because of shielding the whole unit and seems more balanced.)
MarkerLight**-20 pts(All markers are networked in next dex, hopefully)
Special weapons drones- Flamer drones for 15 pts/each, Fusion drones 20pts/each. Marker drones 20 pts/each. There can be no mixing of drone types.


* Grenade Launcher still causes pinning test with a successful wound but even if the test is passed or the unit is assumed to auto-pass it cuts the units following movement phase distance by 1"( or 1" per wound? Too much?)
I thought about an alternate blast mode but couldn't figure out how to do it without it becoming over powered.

** If Tau starting BS is 4, then drop the BS increasing ability of the markers.
If the Photon launchers work the way I suggest then drop the leadership modifiers, also.
Units may use marker hits to ignore Night fight rule and auto tartget a marked unit with out having to test.
Then make the Markers reduce cover by 1 pt for each hit and make the effects stack and army but to use the cover reducing marker hits Squads have to make a leadership test. For tanks to beneifit from cover reducing marker hits they may only move at combat speed and fire.
Seeker missile rules are exactly as they are now. Tanks move freely and markers fire the seekers remotely but if the tank moves over combat speed the seekers may not benefit from the cover reducing marker hits.

Edit spelling and for details on INv Sv idea.

Even with grenades, Firewarriors are over-pointed at 10 each. They have a great weapon, lousy durability. 12 Firewarriors in a Devilfish is great, move up, disembark, 24 S5, AP5 shots.

Making Firewarriors more 'survivable' in melee shouldn't happen. I don't want it to. Then they cost more points, and probably would still get run over by a half-decent melee unit.

Tau suffer because they have fragile troops with low leadership that are few in number. Fragile troops, few numbers, but good leadership? That works, that's basically Eldar aspects. Fragile, low leadership, big numbers? That works, that's orks. Low leadership, few numbers, but durable? That works, it's marines.

Tau need a Leadership boost. Whether's it is just a +1 Ld across the board, a re-roll (with or without ethereal - but I prefer without), or even just letting them rally below 50% - I don't care the form.

Tau aren't far off from being a top tier list. But, they're not quite there. They have too many things that don't work quite right. But the stuff that they do have is brutally powerful. Which is why they're too much of a match-up army right now. They destroy some armies, and get steam-rolled by others.

And I think a few other things just need sorted out.

Assign drones to the unit, not a specific controller. That way the drones stick around until the whole unit is gone (or they're gone) and don't disappear because you had so few Firewarriors, you had to allocate one to the team leader, and he fails and takes the drones with him.

Increase range of the fusion blaster, at least on the piranha.

Dietrich, I'm not sure if this is just a list of your thoughts or if some are in response to some of the things I proposed. I'm going to respond as if it is partially a response.

1)Tau Fire Warrior pointing isn't as terrible as many claim. They have wonderful weapons that just got nerfed by making cheap armor nothing units have a 4+ save and by reducing FW survivability by increasing the relative speed of most armies with the run rule.

When thinking of ways to update the Tau I've been trying to keep in mind the fundamental theme of the Tau.

Ever notice that the SoB are like if you mixed Eldar and SM, while the Tau are like SMs mixed with IG with anti-grav. The point I'm making is that the Tau are about Durable, Accurate, Fire power that has some mobility. It's not Sisters( a SM with Eldar S3 T3 but 3+ sv standard and Psyker/Faith abilities)
Not SMs (Everything in statline is 4 except 3+ sv3)
Not IG( Attrition warfare and low save cheap units)
Not Eldar(Fast army with some fire power, glass hammer)
Not Necron(Durable, accurate, tough, with high leadership)ect, ect..........................
you get the picture. Its important to update without making it another army. Example, The new IG has now the ability to be the IE(Imperial Eldar). There is now a way to build a very Eldar-esque IG. This is somewhat disconcerting and the current IG players are very resistant to the idea of building a list in this manner.

2) Giving the Tau Toughness 4 wouldn't really make them better in HtH just more durable. It would also help with shooting durability. But it was just an idea to make them more unique. Could just as easily make it a 4+ inv sv.

3)I kinda like the Tau leaderhip where it is. I'd rather just have the Etheral leadership ability with a little more punch(Firepower)
4)Tau are about sameness unless someone is deserving of better equipment through experience. I like leaving the Drones as something that the Team leader gets. Otherwise it just makes them into a better evrsion of the IG infantry squad. It helps keep them Tau.

5)Dude, I am so with you on the Pirahna thing


Tell me what you think, point for point.

1. Firewarriors were fine in Fourth. In fifth, they can't shoot as much and are worse in melee. They should go down. I'm not talking IG levels of 5 pts each, but 8 is probably reasonable. Figure 3 squads of 10 would give you an extra 60 points, which is not insubstantial.

2. T4 doesn't fit Tau.

3. I'm fine with Tau as Ld 7/8. But, that means they fail a lot of tests. It needs a boost, whether it's a free reroll, a free 'regroup below 50%', or just +1 Ld, it doesn't matter. Small units of fragile troops with low leadership don't stick around. At least one of those variables need a boost.

4. The problem is that you (at least with FWs) have a T3, 4+ save, 1W model with up to two drones. Just let them attach to the 'unit', even if the leader is a required upgrade to purchase them. Loosing one model shouldn't cause you to lose an extra two models. Even with suits, a couple bad rolls on the suit w/ DC and you're taking a lot away, both in points and effectiveness.

5. The piranha has a bizarre concurence of several rules that don't make them very good. Tau don't need the meltagun. With the railgun and markerlights taking off cover saves, you should do a number on heavy armor. The extra kill points for the Gun Drones, the short range (of either weapon), the relatively large footprint all contribute to make it sub-optimum. I know that Stelek brags about them, and they can work, but I don't think that Tau need them. Railguns and missile pods will mess up any mechanized list.

I don't think Tau are far off from being a great list. But, they have a number of little things which all serve to bring the whole army down a couple notches.

Just make Tau Ld 9/10 like all other armies.

Pulse rifle range = RF 15".
Markerlight = Networked, Assault 1, 36".

These would solve a lot of problems.

focusedfire wrote:
This would actually make the Fire Warriors unique. Make it something they learned from studying the Vespids. The more I think about it I like it. Make the Fire warrios stats look like this:
WS2 BS4 S3 T4 W1 I2 A1 LD7-8(?) Sv 4+
Cost 16 pts
Comes with: Pulse Rifle or Carbine and Photon Grenades
Pulse Rifle-Same profile
Carbine-Same shooting but improve the Grenade launchers effects*

Unit may purchase EMP grenades for 2 pts per model. One Fire Warrior may be upgrade to Shas'Ui for 10 pts.
Shas 'Ui come with a bonding knife and may purchase the following items:
Squad Shield generator-40pts(Gives the squad 4-5+inv save. I'm leaning towards 5+ because of shielding the whole unit and seems more balanced.)
MarkerLight**-20 pts(All markers are networked in next dex, hopefully)
Special weapons drones- Flamer drones for 15 pts/each, Fusion drones 20pts/each. Marker drones 20 pts/each. There can be no mixing of drone types.

This is insane. You want 18 points for figure that drops at the mere sight of a heavy bolter (even at T) or heck, even enemy Kroot in CC.

Lets remove the fire warriors gun for just a moment and just look at stats.

Against IG which are now 4 points, the IG have +1 WS, +1 Init, -1 armor save.
Against orks which are now 6 points the orks have +2 WS, +1, attack, +1 T, -2 armor save, furious charge.

Is there anyone who could possibly see the current Fire Warrior stats as anything higher than 5 points. Add in 1-2 points for the S5 gun and you have something in the realm of 5-7 points as they are now. Substantial improvements would have to be made just to bring them back up to their current 10 point model. Lets not even get into the 16 points of the current SM.

Also when talking about survivability against shooting there are only three ways to go about it. 1 - Don't get hit, 2 - Don't get wounded, 3 - ignore the wounds. The obvious options are increased T (but still has no effect against S6+ or poisoned weapons (which currently there seems to be a lot of), or increase their save, with either a lower number or re-roll. However what about just not getting shot. What if all Tau had some sort of illusion fields. What about a rule that says regardless of weapon skill you can only hit the Tau on a 5+ due to holographic illusions or some other such thing.

I don't know, but for the Lonely firewarrior, if they are an elite soldier non-horde type of unit, then their abilities had better reflect their points cost. If they are going to cost as much as a battle sister or marine, they better hit just as hard and survive just as long (in all aspects). Unfortunatly because of the limited options in the game, some duplication of other race abilities may be required to fill in the points. I say this because 3-4 points per model of just air really blows.

I think any abilities we can get to slow down charging infantry would be neat, like the suggestion of pulse carbines slowing enemy movement. In DOW, the two ways Tau could avoid assaults to have more time for shooting were Kroot and the commander's trap ability; those were also neat because they weren't just automatic and overpowered, they actually required some good placement tactics.

What if like, pulse carbines could pin units even if they are Fearless. I've never seen it as causing pinning through fear of the pretty lights, they were just blinded and stunned.

Just drop the price.

Really the main problem with tau is that mechanically they need to be an MSU army but they can't do this on the table due to pts.

8pt fire warriors and a significant price drop on d-fish makes taking basic troops easier and lets you take more of them which opens up more tactics (plsu more models for gw, yay!).

I'd say chuck in photon grenades and bonding for free too since bonding is pretty necessary.

Improving the markerlights would go a long way to improving the army too, it makes the small amount of firepower tau can currently muster more accurate and thus more deadly. I feel markerlights should be emphasised becasue they're unique to tau, they're cool, they're fluffy and they encourage collaborative tactics which is the desired playing style.

Improving the range would be a good one. Making them all networked would be useful too if counter to the collaborative tactics idea. Assault I dislike since it makes them too easy to use and is unrealistic (yes, I know, it's the future) however I can see drones or suits with markerlights being able to use them as assault weapons (due to relentless). To try and focus on collaborative tactics though marker drones would not be available to fire warriors.

My thinking is that most markerlights would effectively be assault because they would be on drones -- even the drones attached to FW should be relentless.

Once you have a lot of drone-based lights around and pulse rifles range 15 for RF, there is no point in Pathfinders. By making the Pathfinder lights also assault you give them a reason to exist.

I want range RF pulse rifles because it helps a lot against assault, without lots of kludges. It's simple, unique to Tau, fits the 'uber-shooty' concept, can be done within the Codex (one line rule) and leaves them just as vulnerable to assault once the enemy gets into contact.

My idea is a standard squad of 10 FW inc a Shas'Ui with knife, and two marker drones. Most of the time the drones are just going to raise the squad's BS to 4, but the marker power of a number of squads can be combined to focus on one enemy.

Killkrazy, uping Tau RF range would help a ton! Every time i'm always 1-2" away from RF'ing into pesky space marines >.>

Hmmm..... the tau do need more drones i say, bring on the marker drone spam! XD

Jayden63 wrote:Against IG which are now 4 points

Guardsmen are 5 points, and you can't compare a guardsmen against a fire warrior in any way due to the armament of a guardsmen being a LASGUN. str3, ap/-, 24" rapid fire. Fire warrior pulse rifle is STR5 AP/5 30" RANGE RAPID FIRE. you have the best basic infantry gun in 40k, quit whining about the price of a guardsmen as there is NO comparison when you are talking about base point cost.

You could argue against the cost of a fully kitted out squad of guardsmen, which (soon) will cost 75pts with a Autocannon and a plasma gun. there is 10 t3 armour 5+ (wow, real effective against bolter fire isn't it?) wounds. 7 str3/ap- lasgun shots, 2 str7/ap4 shots and 1 str7/ap2 plasma gun shot @ 24'' range.
The lasguns hit 3.5 times, wound 1.xx times and the marine makes his save. the autocannon hits one time and wounds 5/6 times and the marine usually saves. the plasma gun hits 50% of the time and wounds 5/6 times. I will bump the 2 usually saves up to one unlikely kill, adding it to the palsma it's 2 dead marines.

The Tau squad gets 10 str5/ap5 shots and has armor 4+. they shoot and hit 5 times. they wound 3.3 times, killing one marine.

okay he tau and guardsmen have shot! The guard outshot the tau! go guard... wait, oh no! Marines are firing back!!!

the marines fire at the guard! Oh noes! they have 8 guys and hit 5 times! 3 ded guardsmen! aak! morale check! LD 8! cross your fingers!

The marines fire at the tau! the tau are hit 6 times! 4 wounds! 2 dead tau! no morale check.

okay, if the guardsmen get rapid fired they are pretty fragged and under 1/2. the tau can still take more beating.

Kungfuhustler wrote:

Jayden63 wrote:Against IG which are now 4 points

Guardsmen are 5 points, and you can't compare a guardsmen against a fire warrior in any way due to the armament of a guardsmen being a LASGUN. str3, ap/-, 24" rapid fire. Fire warrior pulse rifle is STR5 AP/5 30" RANGE RAPID FIRE. you have the best basic infantry gun in 40k, quit whining about the price of a guardsmen as there is NO comparison when you are talking about base point cost.

You could argue against the cost of a fully kitted out squad of guardsmen, which (soon) will cost 75pts with a Autocannon and a plasma gun. there is 10 t3 armour 5+ (wow, real effective against bolter fire isn't it?) wounds. 7 str3/ap- lasgun shots, 2 str7/ap4 shots and 1 str7/ap2 plasma gun shot @ 24'' range.
The lasguns hit 3.5 times, wound 1.xx times and the marine makes his save. the autocannon hits one time and wounds 5/6 times and the marine usually saves. the plasma gun hits 50% of the time and wounds 5/6 times. I will bump the 2 usually saves up to one unlikely kill, adding it to the palsma it's 2 dead marines.

The Tau squad gets 10 str5/ap5 shots and has armor 4+. they shoot and hit 5 times. they wound 3.3 times, killing one marine.

okay he tau and guardsmen have shot! The guard outshot the tau! go guard... wait, oh no! Marines are firing back!!!

the marines fire at the guard! Oh noes! they have 8 guys and hit 5 times! 3 ded guardsmen! aak! morale check! LD 8! cross your fingers!

The marines fire at the tau! the tau are hit 6 times! 4 wounds! 2 dead tau! no morale check.

okay, if the guardsmen get rapid fired they are pretty fragged and under 1/2. the tau can still take more beating.

Don't forget that 10 Tau cost 100 points which is 33% more than the IG. They have lower morale, less firepower against vehicles, and (possibly, depending on armour) less capability in H2H.

Also, thanks to the amount of cover now in the game, the IG are quite likely to get a free 4+ save, while the Tau already have a 4+ save and get less benefit from cover.

In the new Guard codex coming out, guardsmen are 4 points (at least thats what someone told me.), but yeah the better example is the 75 point squad. But it proves my point even more, so thanks for the hint.

And Kilkrazy is right. 10 Tau at 100 points should do better than a 75 point unit. Except for the guard get that plasma gun and autocannon. Thats huge for taking down vehicles with front armor 11 or better (tau can only glance). To even out the points, your guard get 25 points of more friends to join in. For 150 points you get, two plasma guns, two autocannons and 14 Lasgun shots. All I get are 15 pulse rifle shots.

Not to mention HTH, the guardsmen (depending on whats assaulting them) can hold up a hell of a lot better than the Tau thanks to better I, WS, and LD.