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I have a faint desire to start up a tau army, and i really like the fire warrior models. However, i know a lot of people say that they're pretty terrible. I'm just not really sure why that is. What is it about them that makes them so bad? I know they're BS3, but S5 guns with a 30" range seem like they would make up for their poor aim. In addition, 4+ armor is decent. What am I missing?

Nothing.

People are quick to exalt things as "the one and only" and put everything else in the "awful" camp. Firewarriors are no different.

Fire warriors are only somewhat more expensive than guardsmen, but their small arm spans the board, and their high strength allows them to take down light vehicles and monstrous creatures with nothing but their basic guns. The 4+ armor save means that you're not nearly as beholden to putting them in cover against most weapons. This gives you a very flexible basic troops choice that's front-loaded towards killing power. Fire warriors are actually one of my favorite basic troops choices.

Of course, they're not the end-all-be-all, and they do have to be used somewhat carefully to keep morale issues and close combat under control, but if you spam enough of them, they lay down a pretty serious base of fire against anything but the tough targets, which is what you have all those plasma/melta crisis suits and railgun broadsides for.

For the less nuianced answer, the reason firewarriors are so terrible is because they're not death company or khorne berzerkers or grimnar terminators, which are troops choices available to other armies.

Nate668 wrote:I have a faint desire to start up a tau army, and i really like the fire warrior models. However, i know a lot of people say that they're pretty terrible. I'm just not really sure why that is. What is it about them that makes them so bad? I know they're BS3, but S5 guns with a 30" range seem like they would make up for their poor aim. In addition, 4+ armor is decent. What am I missing?

Everything else. upgrade options? Uh kinda... not much good here for the price. Ld? Uh oh. Cost per model? Doesn't compare well to other basic troops. Ability to hold objectives? Look at LD and CC ability... yeah not going to happen.

S5 guns are not that exciting. Esp rapid fire guns that force you into a static game when objective capturing troops are supposed to be mobile. 4+ armor is decent only when you think its a good idea to put infantry into the open with no cover. You get cover saves for free, so you end up paying for a save that other armies just go in cover for. Or for just a little bit more get power armor. Hell, Firewarriors don't even compare well against SM scouts, who are BS3 too but have real options and good special rules and decent enough LD.

Since the non capturing units in a Tau army are the only ones with mobile firepower, the firewarrior is left looking pretty stupid. At least the kroot know how to use cover and can at least hurt the enemy in assault (even if they lose anyways).

Unless you are going with a fish of fury list (devilfish spam) you pretty much have twice as many firewarriors as you need when you buy that first box of them.

They are terrible because they are entirely unflexible.

They cannot take autocannons

They cannot take meltaguns

They cannot deal with assaults, infantry or vehicles.

They are not inherently mobile

They are not "cheap" (i.e termagaunt or guard cheap).

They have no special rules to improve their durability.

T3, i2 with a 4+ and poor Ld 7 = extremely fragile.

Str5 is entirely underwhelming. For the point-cost, Grey Knight Strike squads (10man with psy-ammo) get the same amount of str5, same effective range.. better everything, for only slightly more than 10pts per str5 shot. Str5 simply doesn't do enough to warrant itself alone. By comparison, lasguns are quite mediocre but combined with a flamer, plasmagun or chimera, they add to the total of a good amount of firepower.

No autocannons, no meltaguns, expensive. Oh no, my purifiers are horrible lol.

notabot187 wrote: Ability to hold objectives? Look at LD and CC ability... yeah not going to happen.

The subtleties of shooty armies are not for all to grasp.

notabot187 wrote: rapid fire guns that force you into a static game when objective capturing troops are supposed to be mobile. 4+ armor is decent only when you think its a good idea to put infantry into the open with no cover. You get cover saves for free, so you end up paying for a save that other armies just go in cover for.

?

So, they're bad because they have to sit still in a movement game, and they're bad because they're not as good at sitting still as other armies, and you're foolish for moving them in a movement game?

Look at it this way. Any armor better than 5+ means that you are no longer beholden to hide in cover against small arms fire. This means that you are free from the burden of needing to find and stick to cover. This allows them to be more mobile. Plus, rapid fire weapons still shoot 12" after you've moved 6". It's not like they're lugging heavy weapons around.

Then to this, you have the option to sit still and shoot mid-strength shots at long distance as if each member of the squad does have heavy weapons, and that's a fair degree of flexibility right there.

Razerous wrote:They cannot take autocannons

Lots of S5 is better than a little S7 against light vehicles, and neither of these weapons are terribly useful once you get to AV12.

Razerous wrote:They cannot take meltaguns

No, but anti-tank is hardly something tau need help with. Just because one of their units can't take melta doesn't mean the whole army is lost without it.

Razerous wrote:They cannot deal with assaults, infantry or vehicles.

They can't deal with infantry? Really?

Of course, they're not so hot against vehicles above AV12, but then most troops choices aren't, and none are so cheap as a squad of firewarriors.

And yeah, not good in close combat, but that's what you have the rest of your army to help with. Tau are a shooty army after all. If you want an army that has troops choices which are fantastic at both shooting and assaulting, play grey knights.

Razerous wrote:They are not inherently mobile

They are no less mobile than any other foot list

Razerous wrote:They are not "cheap" (i.e termagaunt or guard cheap).

You get what you pay for.

Razerous wrote:They have no special rules to improve their durability.

T3, i2 with a 4+ and poor Ld 7 = extremely fragile.

Right, this is the one thing that you do need to be careful of. A single squad of firewarriors can't take ALL that much heat (they don't cost that much after all), so there is some actual player skill involved. Tau isn't necessarily a point-and-click army, and their troops choices follow the trend.

Razerous wrote: For the point-cost, Grey Knight Strike squads... By comparison, lasguns are quite mediocre but combined with a flamer, plasmagun or chimera, they add to the total of a good amount of firepower.

Firstly, he's playing tau, not guard or grey knights, so he doesn't have the option of strike squads or power blobs.

Secondly, you're comparing something that costs WAY more to something that costs much less. Of course a fully kitted strike squad is going to whomp a firewarrior squad - for their cost they better.

Fire warriors are decent as a minsize squad to make their transport scoring. Four units of 6 fire warriors in a devil fish with disruption pods is a good scoring anchor for a Tau list at 1500+ points.

But 40K is a game of units, not models. Comparing a lone fire warrior to a single model from another army is an unfair comparison because it's the capability of the *unit* that matters.

Competitive armies in 5th edition need their troop units to be both mobile and durable with a little bit of firepower, or cheap enough to use as sacrificial units or screens.

Kroot, by the way, are competitive troop units with their combination of durability in cover, deployment options, with their low cost compensating for crappy leadership and limited offensive punch. But a fire warrior unit is a really outdated combination of limited mobility, mediocre firepower, mediocre armor and poor leadership.

I'm working on low-point army lists for a campaign right now, and it's painfully obvious that if you fill a 500 or 750 point list with mostly fire warriors, you wind up with an army that can't really do anything. In a fight against an army list consisting mostly of mechvets or GK terminators, or even vanilla marines--all of which are able to function as pure troop armies--you would lose hands-down.

That, to me, is the test of an effective troop unit.

@Ailaros

I grasp the subtlety of the tau army just fine. S5 shooting still sucks, even against light vehicles (glance rhinos to death in 5th? Great use of a ton of points). What tau do well is the mobile firepower of crisis teams, piranha and devil fish. Being able to shoot and fall back or even press the attack is a huge advantage. Having infiltrating meat shields to hide behind and multiple flexible lines of defense is great as is using melta equipped skimmer squadrons to block movement lanes. Having enough S6-7 to slow light vehicles swarms and enough melta and S10 AP1 to punch out the heavy armor is better than wasting points on inflexible line models that don't work with the concept of mobile firepower (which is what the rest of the list is good at and what the fluff supports, put FW in a guard army then we will talk). Getting out of a DF and RF isn't a good idea unless you are multiple squads firing at a cut off unit.

Also, you are still going to park the FW in cover unless you have no other choice. There is plenty of AP4 weapons that are spammed (not just HB backs/dakka preds), and even against AP5+ weapons having the option for your scoring units to go to ground for a 3+ is superior to just standing there and taking it.

I know how RF weapons work tactically, I play marines/Sob/DE. At least marines and SoB can actually survive RF range, and DE can too (pain token). The extra range of static FW isn't all that exciting when you are talking about how many points each of those BS3 S5 shots cost, and the likelihood you will have anything relevant to shoot at that 6" advantage band. Do people in your area not put their men in transports, use vehicles as screens, or reserve when not going first?

notabot187 wrote:S5 shooting still sucks

A small arm that wounds most infantry models on 2+ and most of the rest of them on 3+ sounds pretty fine to me. That and S5 allows your infantry to handle the lighter vehicles while the crisis suits go after more serious threats.

Flavius Infernus wrote:But 40K is a game of units, not models. Comparing a lone fire warrior to a single model from another army is an unfair comparison because it's the capability of the *unit* that matters.

or, even, it's a game of armies, rather than just units.

Flavius Infernus wrote:I'm working on low-point army lists for a campaign right now, and it's painfully obvious that if you fill a 500 or 750 point list with mostly fire warriors, you wind up with an army that can't really do anything. In a fight against an army list consisting mostly of mechvets or GK terminators, or even vanilla marines--all of which are able to function as pure troop armies--you would lose hands-down.

So, in this you're definitely right. As codecies have crept along, there has been more and more of a focus of having strong, individual units over strong-in-some-ways-not-in-others, more integrated style armies. For example, 4th ed. guard platoons used to be this exact same way. They weren't bad, but you certainly couldn't win games with JUST troops choices like you can now a days. Being an older codex, it follows more of the older pattern.

But that's not to say it's bad per-se. An army that requires integration on the field isn't necessarily weaker than an army where any one given unit can be kitted out to fill several roles well, it just means you need to have more skill on the field to use them effectively.

As such, firewarriors not being the same as grimnar terminators as a troops choice doesn't make firewarriors bad, it just makes tau a more complicated army to play.

I don't think that they suck and Ailaros has already high lighted very well their strengths and weaknesses but there is one more important factor at play with Fire Warriors. Their arms are horrible to model!

thecapn226 wrote:No autocannons, no meltaguns, expensive. Oh no, my purifiers are horrible lol.

Psycannons...
(sorry.. +Str10 force weapons, str 5 I6 force weapons, Krak Grenades, frag grenades, cleaning flame..etc etc). Silly.

I'm with Ailaros on this. Firewarriors are not bad. Less "generalist" than almost all troop choices in the game sure, but calling them bad is like saying upgraded Hormagaunts are bad because they can't do AV work very well. The army in question has other units that do that job very effectively.

I play marines. I don't like rank and file redshirts that inflict wounds on a 3+. I really don't like it when those things cost half what mine do, less than after I get all those upgrades that seem to be required for something to be considered "Good."

I'm working on low-point army lists for a campaign right now, and it's painfully obvious that if you fill a 500 or 750 point list with mostly fire warriors, you wind up with an army that can't really do anything. In a fight against an army list consisting mostly of mechvets or GK terminators, or even vanilla marines--all of which are able to function as pure troop armies--you would lose hands-down.

That, to me, is the test of an effective troop unit.

This is like saying if you fill a 1500 list with 30 assault terminators, 2x5 scouts and a cheap HQ, and go up against anything with mobility and/or firepower, you will lose hands down, and therefore assault terminators are bad. Lopsided, overspecialized army lists are bad.

500-750 point games are the province of newer, generalist codices, i'll happily give you that one. It's also a point value low enough where imbalances between codices that get ironed out at higher point values shine like beacons, and not a good place to start making judgement calls.

Their arms are horrible to model!

While I do agree that these are annoying, go build 40 PAGKs with the two-handed weapons and get back to me. You get no bonus points if you actually DO have the three or four hands required.

its not that Firewarriors are bad within the codex, its that Codex creep has hurt the army, and particularly the troops section, pretty hard.

The Fish of Fury tactic got slightly nerfed as did glancing vehicles. Both hurt their Str4 shooting.

The prelavance of cover in 5th has also hurt. More of their shooting gets bounced then normally would, and with only BS3 every shot must count.

Close Combat got a little better for them from 4th to 5th(no silly consolidation into a fresh combat, which could cause 4 assault terminators to roll up an entire Tau gunline in 2 turns), but they still suck miserably. the addition of running doesn't help this either.



Them being mandatory doesn't help their cause either. if something is forced upon you, there is a natural revulsion.

Battlesuits do most of the work in the Tau army, thus you want to run more of them. a Tau player therefore wants to save points elsewhere. If he takes the cheaper kroot then he can have more Suits. but the codex forces a unit of firewarriors on you.

@sofdc

Haha, that makes me sad, because I just bought three packs of PAGK's from a friend because I wanted a small force! Doh!

You've just ruined Christmas!

Buy old metal GKs for your Halberds and have all the plastics be your psycannon and staff wielders.

the daemonhammer poses are easy enough to put together.

SOFDC wrote:I'm with Ailaros on this. Firewarriors are not bad. Less "generalist" than almost all troop choices in the game sure, but calling them bad is like saying upgraded Hormagaunts are bad because they can't do AV work very well. The army in question has other units that do that job very effectively.

I play marines. I don't like rank and file redshirts that inflict wounds on a 3+. I really don't like it when those things cost half what mine do, less than after I get all those upgrades that seem to be required for something to be considered "Good."

They wound on 3+, but only hit on 4+. That's the exact same odds of inflicting a wound as a BS 4 Bolt weapon. Yeah, they have 30" range if they stand still, but like a few people have said, troops are the only unit that can't tactically stand still - they have to advance to take enemy objectives.

The fact that their vehicles have horrible synergy doesn't help either. Pulse rifles/Burst Cannons/SMS systems do damage through walls of fire, not accurate low AP fire. Whether you get a big squad or a small one, they will do exactly the same thing inside a devilfish. There's no other vehicle in the game with a closed-top, no fire ports, and no ability to carry heavy weapons. Any strengths a fire warrior squad might have are negated by the devilfish.

SOFDC wrote:This is like saying if you fill a 1500 list with 30 assault terminators, 2x5 scouts and a cheap HQ, and go up against anything with mobility and/or firepower, you will lose hands down, and therefore assault terminators are bad. Lopsided, overspecialized army lists are bad.

500-750 point games are the province of newer, generalist codices, i'll happily give you that one.

Right, I think that's what he was getting at. Armies that require a lot of integration suffer at very low points, where it can be difficult to get one of each of enough units to cover everything. Guard used to have this problem, and eldar still do.

Emperor awfulness wrote:

SOFDC wrote: I really don't like it when those things cost half what mine do, less than after I get all those upgrades that seem to be required for something to be considered "Good."

They wound on 3+, but only hit on 4+. That's the exact same odds of inflicting a wound as a BS 4 Bolt weapon.

You missed the part where they are exact same at half the price.

Emperor awfulness wrote:Yeah, they have 30" range if they stand still, but like a few people have said, troops are the only unit that can't tactically stand still - they have to advance to take enemy objectives.

Yes, but they don't have to advance EVERY TURN. Having the option to park it and blast on stuff turns 1 and 2 is nice. Plus, depending on how you play, you can always win objective games by holding an objective or two and contesting the rest with crisis suits, vehicle, and the like.

Emperor awfulness wrote:

SOFDC wrote:I'm with Ailaros on this. Firewarriors are not bad. Less "generalist" than almost all troop choices in the game sure, but calling them bad is like saying upgraded Hormagaunts are bad because they can't do AV work very well. The army in question has other units that do that job very effectively.

I play marines. I don't like rank and file redshirts that inflict wounds on a 3+. I really don't like it when those things cost half what mine do, less than after I get all those upgrades that seem to be required for something to be considered "Good."

They wound on 3+, but only hit on 4+. That's the exact same odds of inflicting a wound as a BS 4 Bolt weapon. Yeah, they have 30" range if they stand still, but like a few people have said, troops are the only unit that can't tactically stand still - they have to advance to take enemy objectives.

The fact that their vehicles have horrible synergy doesn't help either. Pulse rifles/Burst Cannons/SMS systems do damage through walls of fire, not accurate low AP fire. Whether you get a big squad or a small one, they will do exactly the same thing inside a devilfish. There's no other vehicle in the game with a closed-top, no fire ports, and no ability to carry heavy weapons. Any strengths a fire warrior squad might have are negated by the devilfish.

I think the Devilfish is about all thats keeping Tau players sane with having to take Fire Warriors.

It is possably the best transport in the game shy of the Wave Serpent.


AV12, Skimmer, disruption pods, flachettes, has a Burst Cannon, can upgrade to have a Smart missile system...

there is a reason that people take lots of 6 man firewarrior squads, so they can have a bunch of scoring medium tanks that happen to poop out a small squad of troops on death.

Thank you so much for posting this question! It keeps me up every night! I always thoght that Fw's would be an awesome troop choice if you commit to getting alot of them with some markerlights a hammerhead or broadside with a few Battle suits. sounds like a force ro be reckoned with to me!

Tau are a force to be wary of.


But they are a very difficult army to use effectivly. they are the most synergistic of all the armies. everything has to work perfectly or it will fall apart.

Emperor awfulness wrote:Any strengths a fire warrior squad might have are negated by the devilfish.

QFT. You get the same firepower out of a fish as you do the squad that's in it, only with better mobility and survivability.
If devilfish had better tank busting power, that would make the firewarrior synergy a lot better.
That, and just a little bit more range; a 15" rapid fire would be awesome (disembark and rapidfire from outside of 12")

-Matt

Grey Templar wrote:Tau are a force to be wary of.


But they are a very difficult army to use effectivly. they are the most synergistic of all the armies. everything has to work perfectly or it will fall apart.

This scares me.

Grey Templar wrote:Tau are a force to be wary of.

But they are a very difficult army to use effectivly. they are the most synergistic of all the armies. everything has to work perfectly or it will fall apart.

Yeah, basically.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Emperor awfulness wrote:Any strengths a fire warrior squad might have are negated by the devilfish.

QFT. You get the same firepower out of a fish as you do the squad that's in it, only with better mobility and survivability.

Wait, can't you take 10-fish squads and a devilfish and then not combine them? There's nothing that says that the fish HAVE to ride in the can. Why not have a small horde out on the field and then a bunch of medium tanks flying around and wrecking stuff.

Not to mention the fact that devilfishes DON'T put out as much firepower because they get 5 shots, two of which are TL BS2 (yay drones...)

Firewarriors are amazing honestly. They're cheaper than space marines, have the same leadership (since taking a sergeant bumps them to 8, and you need a sergeant to take a bonding knife, also a must have) They have the capability to carry that trusty 4+ save with them no matter what. Tactically they're as mobile as any non jump infantry troop choice (scouts and tac squads anyone?) They out range any standard infantry in the game with the exception of scouts with sniper rifles, they look awesome, and they can take AV12 transports.

They have only a hand full of weaknesses.

No special weapons (note I said special, not heavy). It would be awesome to stick a plasma gun or a burst cannon in the squad...but alas no, the only assault option is a worse one, it grants no benefits (since no matter what pulse RIFLES always grant the same number or more shots, and pinning can be ignored by most of the units it's most effective against). While yes you can pin tac squads, you never wanna be close enough to one to use it, and it takes away the main strength of a FW squad: range.

The other glaring weakness is age. They're overcosted, (ever so slightly given their statline...a 1pt drop would probably sort things out since they have worse LD options, I BS and WS than veteran guardsmen but better weapons and Sv) and their transport options are grossly overpriced for their capabilities (let's face it, they're no wave serpent...it'd be far better to see them at about 50 pts...especially since a FAST predator now costs 10pts less than a devilfish base.)

That said, they're still quite unique and viable (and FUN) army, and FW make what I find (unit for unit at least) to be one of the best light infantry troop choices in the game...they may not have commissars or the power of the blob, or bladestorm, but they're durable and ooooooh mamma that range and power!

EDIT...have to comment on the irony that this post raised my rank to firewarrior

A single point drop in cost may be enough, but generally speaking the Firewarrior itself is a very solid basic troop when it comes to shooting. Having the Shas'ui come free for the unit would also do well to lowering the cost without ACTUALLY lowering the cost, as would making all Ui's another point of BS. IMO you should see a one point bump in BS per rank to make up for the non-existant WS and I scores. Let the DF come down in points and get a different gun option (who wouldn't enjoy a chin mounted TL Rail Rifle option?). 50ppm sounds a little too cheap, given the armor value of the transport, but then as it is a pure transport and not a gunboat, like the Venom, perhaps that is about right. A change of RF to allow a model to RF at half range rather than 12" would certainly up the FW's potency nicely without being too crazy. (It would also let Krootoxen be short range AC's at 24". )

Pathfinder fishes should get Markerlights on board, IMO. I would like to see them keep their Deep Striking reroll, certainly.

nah the main problem with a BS boost is the potency of their guns. Against MEQs they're be a lot better, and agianst guard pulse rifles would annihilate any blob...
Rather, a better option would be to boost the BS on crisis suits since they're so low in squad and shot numbers. But then there was a page about that whole thing...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/409614.page#3582032

Still FW are a solid troop choices, again, one of the best among non SM armies (since SM are designed to be better in every way)

if FW dropped a point and regular Battlesuits became BS4 then things would be a whole lot rosier.

That and possably the addition of Drone mounted heavy weapons for the squad. something as simple as a Smart Missile system or Twinlinked Plasma Rifle(even at BS2) would increase their usefulness immensly.

I always get confused with the units people compare Fire Warriors too, overall they have the most in common with Dire Avengers.

Toughness 3, 4+ armor troops with upgrade options and a close topped skimmer transport with no fire points.

Fire warriors are 2 points cheaper, and have an s5 gun, while Dire Avengers actually have a decent stat line and more fire power at 18inches (but less at 12)

Both squads are recognized as being best in min size groups to make their transport scoring...

Fire Warriors are one of the most argued about unit in the game. However I can tell you this. If my opponent has a squad of fire warriors, and almost any other unit in the game, I will shoot as the other unit. Their str. 5 guns are offset by two facts 1. Str. 5 doesn't kill vehicles 2. They are BS 3, so in the end they shoot as well as marines with bolters, only they have no special weapon. They also will loose to anything in combat (okay, not 10 grots but, it's still closer than is health), and have a 4+ save, which falls under the category of not quite good enough to help, but good enough to jack up the price. They are just overpriced, and the worst balance unit in the game. Mostly, they can sit in a devilfish and take objects, while making you pay to many points for that.

And also, I play Grey Knights, I can have str 5 guns that have an effectively 30" range, with ten shots from the unit, and I really don't care, it doesn't really help me. Why? becuase psycannons are what get the job done against anything.

Now there's your mistake, because S5 kills light armor. It can glance the hell out of AV11 and shoot LS out of the air...
We do shoot as well as marines, but given that shooting is our biggest strength and the transports can carry 12 troops max I find it's better for RoF and for survivability to stick them in a DF with a full squad rather than min. Especially in the current game where troops are the only way to win 2/3rds of game types. But you're totally right they're waaaaay overcosted in that regard because their light skimmer that shoots about as well as a fast rhino with double storm bolters is more than the cost of a predator with a Heavy2 weapon...that's their main weakness...

Drone's with TL anything (like plasma rifles) would definitely be a bad idea, especially TL flamers...it'd make them too expensive. I think it'd be better to give them bs 3 (since the drop pod has bs4 like it's SM brothers but is a robot, and the PotMS has BS4) and let you take an SMS or a Missile Pod or a single plasma or flamer...god can you imagine?
10pts a drone, let them take flamers free because of the reduced range and loss of TL. they would be gods at killing hordes...