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Which of these configs is the best vs. Teqs?

What is a Blinding Spear?

Helios is better than Fireknife against regular TEQ's, but Bladestorm is better than both if they have SS's.

Nerivant wrote:What is a Blinding Spear?

Helios is better than Fireknife against regular TEQ's, but Bladestorm is better than both if they have SS's.

Blinding Spear=plasma+BC

Perhaps explaining the configurations would be helpful. Because I have no idea what "Blinding Spear" and "Helios" are.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Nerivant wrote:What is a Blinding Spear?

Helios is better than Fireknife against regular TEQ's, but Bladestorm is better than both if they have SS's.

Blinding Spear=plasma+BC

Which is a Bladestorm.

See my post.

odorofdeath wrote:Perhaps explaining the configurations would be helpful. Because I have no idea what "Blinding Spear" and "Helios" are.

Fire Knife=Plasma+Missile Pod

Blinding Spear=Plasma+BC

Helios= Plasma+FB


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@ Nerivant, BS and BS are the same? Didn't know the name changed...

Fireknife!

It's the mighty putty of Tau builds!

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Fireknife!

It's the mighty putty of Tau builds!

Except... it's not. The Helios is the most effective of the three against regular TEQ's.

I have absolutely no idea what any of those configs mean (and neither does anyone who doesn't play Tau I'd assume). Perhaps putting what the actual weapons are would help?

L. Wrex

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:I have absolutely no idea what any of those configs mean (and neither does anyone who doesn't play Tau I'd assume). Perhaps putting what the actual weapons are would help?

L. Wrex

He did, but not in the OP.

Fire Knife = Plasma Rifle and Missile Pod

Bladestorm (Blinding Spear) = Plasma Rifle and Burst Cannon

Helios = Plasma Rifle and Fusion Blaster

I think this is the thread you're looking for:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/360480.page

Bladestorm is pretty solid all around. I'm going to be running it as one of my stock builds I think.

Based on that data I will probably build a list around Blinding spear squad + a deathrain (flamer) squad.

The reason why the Fireknife and Deathain compositions are so popular is because they allow your suits to operate 40" away from your opponent, leaving your suits well out of assault range but still able to contribute.
The Helios might be better against MEQ on paper, but they have to be within 18" to work which is exactly where Tau don't want their expensive, fragile suits to be.

I would go for a combination of Fireknife and Deathrain if you want a more balanced force.

I don't use deathrains; I use 2x Fireknife squads and 1x Bladestorm squad, each with one member upgraded to a team leader with TArray and making the MT hard-wired.

If you're good with distances, you can keep the bladestorms out of combat quite easily, and they put out a good amount of dice when they fire; you can also use them to lure enemies into firing lanes where they're flanked by Fireknives, but that doesn't happen often.

Nerivant wrote:

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Fireknife!

It's the mighty putty of Tau builds!

Except... it's not. The Helios is the most effective of the three against regular TEQ's.

Yeah for one round of glorious shooting.. Two if your enemy plays his movements poorly.

Me, I'd take the Plasma/MP combo anyday. You have a unit that is capable of forcing saves every turn and popping transports with decent odds. If anything gets too close for comfort, throw plasma at it from a safe range and kite. If you get deepstruck, move your boys into double tap range and go from there.

It's all preferance though and certainly depends on the list a person is building more than anything.

Did a little calculation (it's 4:40am here, so it may (will probably) be wrong):

Fusion Blaster at BS3 vs Terminator with SS (how often will you find terminators without an SS?):
0.5 hits>0.4165 wounds>0.1386945 of which are unsaved.

Missile Pod at BS3 vs Terminator with SS:
1 hit>0.833 wounds>0.139111 of which are unsaved.

The missile pod from the fireknife only just wins out here, but the margin is veeeery slight.

If you want to fire at terminators without storm shields, then the helios wins with 0.2778055 unsaved wounds from the FB to the fireknife's 0.139111 from the MP, which is just over half as effective.

However, bear in mind that terminators without storm shields will probably have a reason for it, and the missile pod's range can help stay away from that reason.

I personally prefer the sunfire config myself (Team Leader or HQ w/ MP, FB, & PR). Pick whatever pair of weapons is the most appropriate for that particular time in the game. sometimes, you'll just need to advance and blast a unit of Termies and with some marker light support there is nothing like hitting a squad of termies with 6 plasma shots and 3 fusion shots. At the begining and end of the game, you'll get use out of the Missile Pod as well.

I'm working on the numbers to see if I should just flat out replace the Fusion with a Burst Cannon, and in general the answer seems to be yes, but I'm going to work on it some more.

Personally I get annoyed by the terms that tau use to describe their builds, like some secret advanced tau tactical lingo. At least when a marine player says dakka pred, you can figure out what he means by that. I find that having cool names for your builds just allows people to fanboy easier on something that sounds cool.

That being said, I personally like the "fireknife" because it gives you potency across range bands. It punishes players from getting too near, while still doing damage at long range. Its AP value and anti vehicle value is still decent. Which is something other builds give up (fusion/plasma doesn't, but it gives up range and volume).

What is a dakka pred? I've never heard the term before. Presumably a predator with dakka?

Personally I get annoyed by people who don't like players to get a bit of fun and flavour out of playing a minority army.

Except that 'A Predator with maximum dakka" describes a Dakka Pred perfectly. Fireknife doesn't tell you anything about the Crisis suit build. Is it a melee oriented unit? Is it a flamer unit? Wait, it's a plasma and missile pod unit?! What part of "fire" or "knife" says "plasma and missiles" to you?

I would go for deathrains.
But TBH I have no idea what TEQ means...

-unforgiven-

the unforgiven wrote:I would go for deathrains.
But TBH I have no idea what TEQ means...

-unforgiven-

TEQ means terminator equivalent. So firing at 2+ armor saves.

notabot187 wrote:

the unforgiven wrote:I would go for deathrains.
But TBH I have no idea what TEQ means...

-unforgiven-

TEQ means terminator equivalent. So firing at 2+ armor saves.

Oh, okay then fireknifes it is.

Except that 'A Predator with maximum dakka" describes a Dakka Pred perfectly.

No it doesn't, I still don't know what it means.

I know Destructor is AC/HB and Annihilator is TLLC/LC but that's the limit of my knowledge on predator terms; 'Dakka Pred' means nothing to me; if I didn't know any better i'd say it was a Predator variant thought up in Proposed Rules that the website adopted.

Darkjediben wrote:Except that 'A Predator with maximum dakka" describes a Dakka Pred perfectly. Fireknife doesn't tell you anything about the Crisis suit build. Is it a melee oriented unit? Is it a flamer unit? Wait, it's a plasma and missile pod unit?! What part of "fire" or "knife" says "plasma and missiles" to you?

How is Dakka Pred any different that Fireknife? The term "Dakka Pred" doesn't define any of the weapons that goes on said Predator. I don't play SM, nor do I know anyone that has used the term "Dakka Pred" when they field their different configurations.

I love how people use terms and abbreviations that no one knows without explaining what they are and then half the posts are from people who don't know what the OP is talking about.

Fun times had by all.

I wouldn't focus so much on their usefulness against TEQs (terminator equivalents [see what I did there?]). There are only going to be so many TEQs the opponent can field in any given list. To that effect, I prefer the fireknife (plasma rifle + missile pod + multi-tracker). It can handle TEQs, MCs, light transports and even hordes (because of the sheer number of shots the model can produce at any range). Versatility, when available without drawback, is good and we tau players should be happy that versatility readily presents itself in the form of the fireknife crisis suit.

Of course I only recommend running such suits in the HQ slot so you can them targeting arrays, thus making them BS4.

Hope that helps,

Knute


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PS

"Dakka" anything typically refers to a model that produces lots of mid-strength shots. So a dakka pred is one with the autocannon and heavy bolter side sponsons. A dakka russ is typically the annihilator (or whatever one that has an autocannon). However, dreadnoughts with two TL autocannons are conspicuously called "rifleman" dreads, not "dakka" preds (which generally refers to dreads with assault cannons).

Avatar 720 wrote:Did a little calculation (it's 4:40am here, so it may (will probably) be wrong):

Fusion Blaster at BS3 vs Terminator with SS (how often will you find terminators without an SS?):
0.5 hits>0.4165 wounds>0.1386945 of which are unsaved.

Missile Pod at BS3 vs Terminator with SS:
1 hit>0.833 wounds>0.139111 of which are unsaved.

The missile pod from the fireknife only just wins out here, but the margin is veeeery slight.

If you want to fire at terminators without storm shields, then the helios wins with 0.2778055 unsaved wounds from the FB to the fireknife's 0.139111 from the MP, which is just over half as effective.

However, bear in mind that terminators without storm shields will probably have a reason for it, and the missile pod's range can help stay away from that reason.

Jumping in and pointing this out!

Not to jab avatar, but this is the wrong way to find the average and I see it done a lot. The Missile Pods will be hitting about 5:1 over Fusion almost every game due to range.

When doing the math factor in 1 hit vs 5 hits.

This is where the missile pod produces the actual results.

Edit: You can do a 1 for 1, but its like saying a single shot from this machine gun vs a single shot from this shotgun.

And thats why I like the Sunfire (Plasma, Missile Pod, Fusion, HW Multi Track) so much. Fireknife config for early game, Helios config for mid game, and then back to fireknife at the end of the game.

It is pretty clear that if you want to get the most out of your suit load out against teq's that you should go with PR, BC, MT then perhaps a TA on the leader. In fact I would say it's your best bet against MEQs as well, much much better than the Fire Knife. With the PR BC your making them take more saves, better chance they are gonna miss one of those 2 or 3 up saves. You may be worried about dying, but fear not. Simply equip a shas'el with 2 shield drones then have him join the unit, increasing their fire power and survivability. Plus your hopping to pretty much completely obliterate whatever your shooting at, and your still at a pretty good distance from the unit if your JSJ the right way. MP are the worst at killing everything but Transports. Their only benefit is the distance you get. But you pay for that range by having most of your shots just bounce off of meqs. Either way I usually go with two teams of PR BC MT and a leader with a TA, than one team that is death rain to deal with transports

The problem with any configuration including burst cannons is that burst cannons suck, S5 shooting isn't something you should ever pay for in an army that gets it pretty much everywhere (and honestly S5 sucks in pretty much any list, S6 is where you start getting versatile firepower). Its like a marine actually paying for a storm bolter, its nice when its free, but you never pay for it. What is the point of taking this elite platform with all sorts of powerful and useful weapon options that none of your guys can take, if you are just going to give them a weapon that is no better than a basic firewarrior weapon?

The mathhammer might work out that a particular configuration including BCs might be better against infantry of whatever type, but the heavy bolter with half range and worse AP just isn't as useful or versatile as other options.

As for the missiles being worse against every thing other than transports issue, giving up 1 shot vs the BC is worth it for the range alone, the fact that it murders light armor is gravy (this is 4th ed, and the tau quality of anti tank is made up for it in lack of platforms, not using the elite slot to pull anti transport duty IMHO is wasteful of FOC slots). Do I wish it had better ap? Sure, but AP 4 is quite solid compared to the AP5 everywhere else in the tau list.

I'll defend even flamer/fusion gun suicide units over any build that uses burst cannons, and I'm not even in favor of that tactic at all.