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Hi everyone, this is my first thread, so if I am doing somthing wrong, just tell me.

Well I have been planing on getting some tau piranha's with fusion blasters, for a tank busting sort of thing.
But how many should I get?
I mean, in the codex pictures there are normally 3, but is that the best size?

Thanks

As many as you can get. Their power is not in their tank hunting ability, but in blocking the enemy form getting to the rest of your army. I try to use two units of three, but points may not allow for this. So, I try to get at least one of three or four.

Well you want to avoid squadrons where possible as if makes Piranhas better in every possible area, so 3 units of 1 would be better than a single squadron of 3. However almost every Tau list takes at least 1 unit of Pathfinders (which they don't actually need to do well, its just the easiest place to get markerlights) which limits you to two units of Piranhas max. At 2000pts you are probably looking at two units of two (better to do this than 1 unit of 3 and 1 lone Piranha), or 3 units of 2 if you don't take Pathfinders. Above that you can take units of 3+ but its hard to fit more than 3-4 in below 2000pts without sacrificing core stuff like Crisis suits or scoring units.

If you are basing your army on how GW displays them in pictures then you are going to run into some issues lol.

One successful Tau army that was highly successful at Genghiscon was 2 squadrons of 5 piranhas

I would say either real big units, or real small units. So either units of 1 or 4-5 sized.

Units of 1 can fit into really small places, getting better cover saves, and aren't subject to squadron rules.

Big units can cover more territory, and possible speed bump multiple units. However, they won't be able to get cover saves as easily.

Whatever size you get, make sure to give them all disruption pods. Armor 10 all around with open topped makes them really easy to kill, so they are going to need all the help they can get to stay alive.

Thanks for that, I will have a think about it

@PraetorDave
Piranhas are Av 11 on the front. Also, it is probably a good idea to only take enough disruption pods to give half the squad cover; as the likelihood of enough damage rolls being forced outnumber your non-disruption pod equipped Piranhas, and then taking out more Disruption Pod equipped than non Disruption Pod equipped Piranha eliminating your majority cover save, is very low. This can save a few points.

In regards to the OP's original question --what points limit are you at, what is your current list, and what style do you prefer if any so far? You may need a different sort of anti-tank rather than Piranhas based these. Broadsides are much more reliable anti-tank that is more efficient at killing low AV targets, and are far more durable. Hammerheads are inefficient anti-tank but make good anti-horde and have versatility, along with some other good uses. Crisis suits are versatile and make pretty good low AV killers (such as for transports), but aren't sufficient to provide most of a list's anti-armor because they lose efficiency very quickly in comparison to the other choices (as AV goes up); they can barely harm AV13 not to mention never harm AV14. Piranha are effective anti AV14 and good anti AV13, but lose the comparative effectiveness that makes the trade-off from more durable, long ranged, units like Broadsides worthwhile as AV decreases. They have excellent utility in non killing roles, contesting objectives and blocking movement, but can be quickly killed by some lists or weapons.

Piranhas are good at what they do (blocking enemy squads' movement and popping high AV tanks at close range) but are risky in certain situations. They can blow some lists away but other lists can counter them far more easily.

I am assuming you intend to take Piranhas as Anti-tank with Fusion Blasters BTW. They are effective with this weapon, but with Burst Cannons they are very expensive for what you get; being more expensive than a crisis suit with Missile Pods, Burst Cannon, and Multi Tracker, which has more firepower.

H3ct0r wrote:@PraetorDave
Piranhas are Av 11 on the front. Also, it is probably a good idea to only take enough disruption pods to give half the squad cover; as the likelihood of enough damage rolls being forced outnumber your non-disruption pod equipped Piranhas, and then taking out more Disruption Pod equipped than non Disruption Pod equipped Piranha eliminating your majority cover save, is very low. This can save a few points.

All good ideas.

H3ct0r wrote:Crisis suits are versatile and make pretty good low AV killers (such as for transports), but aren't sufficient to provide most of a list's anti-armor because they lose efficiency very quickly in comparison to the other choices (as AV goes up); they can barely harm AV13 not to mention never harm AV14. Piranha are effective anti AV14 and good anti AV13, but lose the comparative effectiveness that makes the trade-off from more durable, long ranged, units like Broadsides worthwhile as AV decreases.

Crisis suits can take fusion blasters, so their strength against tanks CAN be equal to piranhas. Though I agree that missile pods are a much better investment for crisis suits.

PraetorDave wrote:
Crisis suits can take fusion blasters, so their strength against tanks CAN be equal to piranhas. Though I agree that missile pods are a much better investment for crisis suits.

The downside is that the Fusion Equipped Crisis isn't as mobile as a Piranha. What you are paying for with the Piranha is that mobility. I used to run a Land Speed almost every game with my Black Templars to do what one of the Piranha's jobs is: Get up the field and into the enemy to throw them off balance.

The Fusion Blaster/Targeting Array is there to make them scarry enough that an opponent won't just ignore them. It makes them worrysome to transport/tank armies (which wolf, blood angel, black templar, etc usually are/often are). If a transporter army can't get his troops into position via transport, you can obliterate them with the rest of the Tau army (particularly with a few sub-munition rounds, or stealth/crisis squads).

Not saying a Fusion Crisis Suit is useless (I've currently got a TL'd Fusion Suit on the work table), but outside of deepstriking it isn't as big of a concern or as able to run into the fracas and tie things up.