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I don't know what to do. I use Helios but many are saying that Fireknives are better.
I find Helios very effective against my nid friend, against his carnifexes and hive tyrant,etc.
But would fireknife be just as effective?

By Helios, you mean Plasma + Fusion? I far prefer that to Plasma + Missile Fireknives.

The plasma is no good at popping vehicles, and the missiles are no good at killing infantry. At least the Helios is good at mowing down heavy infantry, and passable at killing tanks. Let the railguns pop transports, save the crisis suits for everything else.

Yeah. S6 is TOTALLY worthless against vehicles, especially since there are NO vehicles in the game without a av10 facing somewhere on them. And the Missle Pods are CRAP for killing troops, since every model in the game has a 3+ armor save.


FK's are for TAC lists, and therefore have a multi purpose in mind. Other builds are more specialized. FK's are great for light armor popping. People seem to forget that not everything revolves around a vehicle's front facing and PA troops. FK has it's limitations, but it is a solid build without true specialization.

Helios suits have fewer shots per model and much shorter range. If you know your enemy is coming towards you full-speed-ahead sometimes it's okay to have less range on your guns but personally i prefer the longer range, more shots approach. Fireknives may not ignore armor with all their shots, but still forcing saves with missile pods does kill marines, i've seen it happen. Also, vs light vehicles the extra s6 shots do help every once in awhile. Given the same points cost per each model, I'll go with fireknives any time. If you're looking for a cheaper suit configuration that simply smashes light infantry, take missile pod/burst cannon suits with multi-trackers. That's 5 shots per suit per turn that absolutely kills genestealers, ork boyz, and anything else with a 5+ save.

It's really all about play style.

If my suits are going to dance aorund as far away from the enemy as I can get, I go Deathrain. If I want a suit that gets in the face of the enemy at close range, I go Helios. If I want a general purpose suit I take Fireknife.

Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, but as long as your list is built to accommodate that role from the suits, you're fine.

I vote for Fireknife, the winning factor for me is the longer range with missile pod, and still carry the plasma rifle that is very usefull against infantry.

Also one thing to tryout: TA/MP/PR. (5p more than regular).
( I am not saying its better than Fireknife, just different. )

I replaced the regular multi-tracker with a targeting array, for higher accuracy, but can only shoot with 1 weapon at a time.
Most of the time i find my self using the fireknives against light armor in the first turns, where they use missile pod.
Turns later on I use them as anti heavy infantry, with the plasma rifle.It is marginally different, but when you fight against those
FNP units thats is common these days i find it superior with this setup.

It is some kind of compromise to get best of two worlds, Burning Eye + Death Rain squads that is inflexible but highly accurate especially with targeting array.
And instead of the regular fireknives that is flexible but unaccurate. This setup is kind of accurate and kind of flexible.

pro:
good vs light tanks on long range.
good vs heavy infantry espec fnp.
opponent can't do wound shenanigans on your plasma shots. (rare situations when you wound more than their squad members and they take 2 plasma hits on same target and missle wound on others.)

con:
less shots means that:
weeker vs regular infantry.
weeker vs light tanks on close range.

This can be fun, i recommend you to try it sometime, (but most of the time regular Fireknives are superior.) Also keep in mind they cost 5p more per suit.

How is a MP (Assault 2) less shots than a FB (Assault 1)?

Personally I prefer Deathrains for all round versatility + cost.

Wait I thought Fireknife was TL fusion blasters and a shield generator cos that is what it is in the BRB. Cos on a different note, the brightwind looks pretty good at wasting light-med infantry

In the rulebook GW basically went 'let's take this name lots of people have created, and use something unrelated'.

You're probably lucky it's a battlesuit

This link might help.

Nagashek wrote:Yeah. S6 is TOTALLY worthless against vehicles, especially since there are NO vehicles in the game without a av10 facing somewhere on them.

Landraider, Monolith, Leman russ demolisher...

Now, I know your going to go "YEAH BUT I GOTS RAILGUNS FOR THAT STUFFZ", which is outside the point that there are a number of vehicles without an AV10 facing. Just saving us both a post.

p.s alot more if you play apoc!

I dislike the fireknife. It's expensive, and the guns are mixed. Against elite infantry, sometimes the missle pod shots make the plasma do worse.
I feel if you take the multitracker, that the 2 guns should complement each other. Like burst cannon + missle pod.

Or, in the event you want two completely different guns, you take the targetting array and make firing the one gun for the situation better. (Like missle pod, fusion, or missle pod, plasma)