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Hey all,

I think looking at the statline of the two weapons, the choice seems obvious; Rifles are better than Carbines in nearly every scenario. However, I find myself wanting to make Carbines work! To this end, I was curious is anyone has run a pinning list successfully.

Primarily, I think this kind of attack would be useful vs. any footslogging list, but at the same time, it would only really excel against Tyranids. The idea would be to use small teams of Firwarrios, 6 each, en masse, then back them up with Drone Sniper teams. The sheer quantity of pinning tests required should keep most foot units pinned, which will allow teams of Crisis to get closer than usual and burn them with overwhelming firepower.

Thoughts/experience you could share?

 ZakFaire wrote:
Hey all,

I think looking at the statline of the two weapons, the choice seems obvious; Rifles are better than Carbines in nearly every scenario. However, I find myself wanting to make Carbines work! To this end, I was curious is anyone has run a pinning list successfully.

Primarily, I think this kind of attack would be useful vs. any footslogging list, but at the same time, it would only really excel against Tyranids. The idea would be to use small teams of Firwarrios, 6 each, en masse, then back them up with Drone Sniper teams. The sheer quantity of pinning tests required should keep most foot units pinned, which will allow teams of Crisis to get closer than usual and burn them with overwhelming firepower.

Thoughts/experience you could share?

The problem with this is there are so many fearless units in the game. While I've had it work a couple of times, I've had to shoot them at fearless alot more.

Personally in bigger games I've found either a 50/50 ratio of Rifles and Carbines work or a 66/33 rstio works. You'll need plenty of marker lights but it's a good way to keep even necrons on the ground without scarficing too much in the way of shoot volume. The only thing to be careful of is large blobs of orks! with a range of 18" if you don't take enough and they still have more than 11 left then you can say bye bye to that unit.

Game size regardless, Tau want to sit as far away as possible and shoot, so your first instinct was accurate; Rifles all the way.

Rifles every time, especially now that they get two shots at 15 inches. Carbines just don't cut it-- they might be worth splashing in if they get the Blind rule next Codex or something, but for now there isn't much reason to use a carbine. Pinning just isn't reliable enough to justify the marginal cost of losing the extra shots that the Rifle provides.

If you want to run a pinning list I suggest looking to rail rifles and Markerlights first and foremost. Use them to pick off the 1 or 2 units you want to pin each turn while the pulse rifles massacre what you want killed.

A trick I learned was to give your Shas'Ui's a target lock and a carbine. This allows you to attempt to pin an enemy unit getting too close to you while still being able to focus your fire on a true "high priority" target.

I ran carbines with EMP in a few small throw away squads.
Mostly so I'd remember who had EMP.

-Matt

RegalPhantom wrote:
A trick I learned was to give your Shas'Ui's a target lock and a carbine. This allows you to attempt to pin an enemy unit getting too close to you while still being able to focus your fire on a true "high priority" target.

That's a pretty cool idea. I like the sound of it, whether it's better than other options I don't know...

The problem with the Shas'ui with the Target Lock and Carbine is this.

Odds of him hitting are 50-50.
Odds of him wounding are around 2/3 or 5/6, ignoring armour saves.
Odds of the target failing the LD are usually less than 50%.

So truthfully, that one shot has such a low possibility of forcing a LD check, let alone a successful pin it's not really worth it.

If you want to pin try railrifles.

There are too many units in this game that are Fearless, or have just way too high of a Ld to make Pinning reliable.

And the units that you want to pin will fall into the above catagories.

Carbines work if you have lots of markerlights, like trying to pin things, and emp grenades for vehicles. Otherwise, rifles or kroot.

I did not really consider the fearless units. MY friends, playing nids, often lets his gaunts go feral out of synapse range, and they would be very easy to pin because of the low LD. But, while synapsed, they are fearless, so it would be useless.

Thanks for the input all, I'll look into drone sniper teams.