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I was wondering if anyone uses them? Or if anyone can see a use to them? Maybe to Tie up better units/stop them from progressing?

I like the look and want to use them, and I know the general reasons as to why they suck.

Any input it appreciated

They look cool, and are kinda neat fluff wise. I never really liked them. Too expensive, not durable enough. The marine killing guns are nice, but honestly, not nice enough, so I use sniper drones to fill that role. If they were troops and could take objectives, maybe. That's just my experience, though most everyone will agree with me. About the Vespids. Nobody agrees with me about the snipers.

I like the snipers,vespids to(look wise), but in every list I have hammerheads and broadsides are more appealing

Vespids are, sadly, pap.

They have a short range assault weapon that makes marines sit down and cry, but only if they get hit in the open.

On the down side, its only one shot each and half of those that you would kill will be ok if the squad is in cover, which anyone with a brain will be if they see you deploying Vespid.

A 12" assault weapon should be inviting you to shoot and then charge, but Vespid suck in CC and will lose easily to the marines they're trying to kill (even worse against Chaos Marines). If you don't charge you are then standing there with bod all in the armour department and toughness 3 in double-tap range of boltguns.

Then you die, having come nowhere close to making back the extortionate cost of your bugs.


Hopefully the soon-to-be-released new Tau 'dex (crosses fingers) will make them better and who knows what will happen come July when 6th ed comes out and re-levels the playing field, but until then, stick them on the shelf.

Nobody agrees with me about the snipers.

I fully agree with the snipers! You can take 9 sniper rifles in one unit then spread them out on the table. With that, you can take down a combat squad of marines or seriously screw a full squad in one round. I love them!

I Have to agree with everyone above; i have tried them out once or twice, and one time they did well against a devistator squad, next turn i was shot to a pulp. AP doesn't matter when you enemies AP ignores your armout save aswell, and have a greater range.

Weird how there is two topics open on this dreadful unit. If they didn't have the skilled flyer ability I would almost say the bugs would be completely unusable.

Snipers on the other hand wouldn't be so terrible if they didn't take up a vital HS slot. But even then they are pretty lackluster for their cost. You can always throw a few stray railrifles onto your pathfinder squads, they also come with a target lock. But I prefer to leave my PF vanilla.

I did some mathematical analysis on this for another thread on this topic that I'm not finding at the moment; basically, Vespid are slightly worse and slightly cheaper than Crisis teams in their chosen role. They aren't bad units per se, but they suffer in the Tau list by comparison to better choices and they're absurdly situational.

AnomanderRake wrote:I did some mathematical analysis on this for another thread on this topic that I'm not finding at the moment; basically, Vespid are slightly worse and slightly cheaper than Crisis teams in their chosen role. They aren't bad units per se, but they suffer in the Tau list by comparison to better choices and they're absurdly situational.

I think you can barely put Vespids in the same role category as XV8s without being incredibly vague.

Even if we forget all about massive stat-line disparity and somewhat mobility difference (which I would still put in favor for the suits), nothing will ever change the fact that vespids are only effective at 12", and that they always rely on strain leader. They have no other options.

Without going into XV8 build depth, you could say that most reliable builds are still effective at 36" (missile pods). Plasma is effective at 24" which already trumps the vespid at double range. At 12" you are in rapid fire. You don't have to buy a stupid upgrade character in order to use the markerlights.

XV8s are leagues beyond vespids. MEQ killing isn't really a 'role'.

I don't think you really can compare battlesuits, the bread and butter of the tau, to the vespid, which is the stuff you stepped in on the way to work.

I use vespids.

I have them defend a flank of mine against MEQ units, and they also, from time to time, go after monsterous creatures that aren't abouve toughness 5 and have a 3+ armor save.

With their speed, ability to benefit from markerlights and the fact that they can jump into or out of cover with almost no chance of losing a model, a unit of 11 of them (10 bugs and bug leader) will wreck the hell out of a unit of MEQ armor stuff, with just using 2 markerlights, 5 if the unit will gain cover.

They can, then, if a only a smattering of units remain, charge into combat. Works best when the unit they are attacking is not in terrain and are all the same, no wound allocation.

Everyone ignores the vespid, they focus on the battlesuits, broadsides, pathfinders and vehicles.

I also happen to not use crisis suits currently. And win.

juraigamer wrote:I use vespids.

I have them defend a flank of mine against MEQ units, and they also, from time to time, go after monsterous creatures that aren't abouve toughness 5 and have a 3+ armor save.

With their speed, ability to benefit from markerlights and the fact that they can jump into or out of cover with almost no chance of losing a model, a unit of 11 of them (10 bugs and bug leader) will wreck the hell out of a unit of MEQ armor stuff, with just using 2 markerlights, 5 if the unit will gain cover.

They can, then, if a only a smattering of units remain, charge into combat. Works best when the unit they are attacking is not in terrain and are all the same, no wound allocation.

Everyone ignores the vespid, they focus on the battlesuits, broadsides, pathfinders and vehicles.

I also happen to not use crisis suits currently. And win.

Blasphemer! But the interweb hive mind said they were useless!?! So confused now.

Think about this:

They can move 12 and shoot 12, they hold one of 3 ap 3 guns in the tau codex. They use a fast attack slot, which you should have one space free normally. They are toughness 4, can stay in cover all game and jump in and out of cover without issue.

They can use markerlights. 2 makerlights on a MEQ unit or 5 on a MEQ unit in cover, means on average 7 dead MEQ at toughness 4. Then charge if they are out of cover, or finish them off with some long range firepower.

They are excellent if you have markerlights in your list. If you run 2 squads of pathfinders at least, vespid will do wonderful things for you. I've downed trygons with vespid. Don't underestimate them.

maceria wrote:They look cool, and are kinda neat fluff wise. I never really liked them. Too expensive, not durable enough. The marine killing guns are nice, but honestly, not nice enough,.

I played against them this past weekend, and found them pretty lackluster.

What army did you play against labmouse?

I played mech'dar. I played vs. a Tau with vespids. The vespids assaulted a squad of fire dragons, and my dragons killed the vespids in assault.

Did the tau player shoot at your fire dragons? Did he have any markerlight support? Did he charge into cover?

Oddly enough, vespid aren't assault units. The only time they should assault is when they outnumber their foe by more than 2:1 and they aren't assaulting into difficult terrain.

If the tau player had used his vespid properly, then with just 2 markerlights, he should have killed around 5 fire dragons even if you had cover, if you didn't have cover, around 8.