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Hello all.

By now we've all ready our shiny new hardback codexes & have a fair idea of what the new 6ed Tau army can do.

I would like to ask is how is a Tau Commander going to field an effective troop choice selection? How will it achieve the goal of capturing (or contesting?) objectives. How will it synergise with the army as a whole. What different flavours can the troop choices achieve. Whar roles can they will. And what nifty combo's can be achieved??

I am really interested in trying Darkstrider with a Carbine Warrior squad in a fish with EMP grenades. It could be a real surprise to have this unit outflanking and trashing some tanks, especially something like a Land Raider, and they're a bit more survivable than/cheaper than Pathfinders.

Otherwise, I think barebones Fire Warriors on foot in an ADL line with plentiful markerlight support is the other way to go, just make sure to keep the enemy off your objectives and use the carbine warriors in that fish I mentioned to secure the enemy objectives.

Heck, equipped right, Darkstrider + EMP Carbine Warriors + outflanking stealthsuits w/ pos relay and homing beacon + fusion crisis suits can bring some pain on an enemy parking lot and force them off their own objectives; the Carbine Warriors might be able to survive long enough to capture one if you use the fish as mobile cover.

Is a Devilfish still valid with a SMS? I use to rush them up the field with firewarriors and use them for cover fire.

Xyrael wrote:
I am really interested in trying Darkstrider with a Carbine Warrior squad in a fish with EMP grenades. It could be a real surprise to have this unit outflanking and trashing some tanks, especially something like a Land Raider, and they're a bit more survivable than/cheaper than Pathfinders.

Otherwise, I think barebones Fire Warriors on foot in an ADL line with plentiful markerlight support is the other way to go, just make sure to keep the enemy off your objectives and use the carbine warriors in that fish I mentioned to secure the enemy objectives.

Heck, equipped right, Darkstrider + EMP Carbine Warriors + outflanking stealthsuits w/ pos relay and homing beacon + fusion crisis suits can bring some pain on an enemy parking lot and force them off their own objectives; the Carbine Warriors might be able to survive long enough to capture one if you use the fish as mobile cover.

I like all of this. You should try it out and report back.

Of course firewarriors still rock behind an ADL. I want to have full size unit with a fireblade (him on the quad gun for BS5) and an ethereal. At 15" thats 48 str5 shots and the quad gun from one unit. With markersupport that could wipe away anything with a toughness value (assuming they can actually wound). To make it even crazier, pop darkstrider on there. Now your wounding MEQ on a 2+? Say good bye to anything.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Is a Devilfish still valid with a SMS? I use to rush them up the field with firewarriors and use them for cover fire.

Yeah they still work. Its cheaper now, and the SMS is a lot better now. They are now 30" range, and have straight ignores cover, plus they don't need line of sight. I helped edit a 1500 point list yesterday that was centered around 3 firewarrior squads in Devilfish that looked stellar.

Found it:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/519425.page

Can aa vehicle move 6 in and fire both weapons?

So maybe I spoke too soon about the firewarriors erasing squads. BS3, 48 shots against a MEQ only nets 5.33 unsaved wounds. BS5 ups that to 8.88 unsaved wounds. It's good but not as good as I thought.

With Darkstrider it isn't that much better. BS3, 48 shots against T3 MEQ nets 6.66 saves. BS5 raises it to 11.11 unsaved wounds. So you could erase a squad of marines, but that's with a full size squad, darkstrider, fireblade, and an ethereal at less than 15", with 2 markerlight hits. Really not worth it but hella fun.

Edit: and a unit like that would cost 298 points, not including the ADL. It would also require a double FOC, since it has 3 HQ's.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Can aa vehicle move 6 in and fire both weapons?

Not anymore They got rid of the multitracker entirely.

So then what is the point of SMS? i cant fire two weapons.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So then what is the point of SMS? i cant fire two weapons.

Overwatch

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So then what is the point of SMS? i cant fire two weapons.

Twin linked snap fire missiles that don't need LOS? Bound to get some 6s on 4 dice, re-roll any misses. It's not like you have to keep track of ammo or anything.

I was thinking on getting a Razorshark and spending 50 points on him being an ace for a chance to hit every enemy unit within 12" with D3 marker light hits

Point is that you throw 4 TL BS3 S5 AP5 shots at anything within 30", then when you're where your FWs / PFs are going to be holding, add another 4 shots at BS3 in support. Or, throw 4 TL S5 shots at flyers; you'll get at least 1 hit on average. AV10 rear armor isn't hard to get to on flyers.

Oh, and of course, you can snipe IG command squads insanely easily, and kill those annoying SM Scout Squads a lot easier. Oh, and D/Eldar jetbikes - those are always annoying too, and easy to erase with SMS. Or any T3/4 squishies depending on an ADL for cover. Or... yeah. Million and one uses.

I gotta say, I'm loving the new boost Tau infantry are getting.

I've played 3 games, won them all (two don't personally count, as I was playing against an absolute noob who had never played 40k before, he was looking to get into it. He tried space marines first, then orks.

Only one game I even used suits (the 2nd game), and honestly, it was a bit overkill.

Last game (the important one) was against my brother, who runs a strong ork "green tide" list. I didn't bring a riptide (I hate proxying and I haven't bought one yet), so I tried out Darkstrider w/10 pathfinders & pulse accelerator drone and a a squad of 10 fire warriors (rifle) for the offense (get the middle point), defense was 2 squads of FW (rifle) with an Ethereal. All backed up with a 3 squad of broadsides (with heavy rail rifle), Sniper Drones, and 2 full squads of marklerlight pathfinders.

Aggressive pathfinders and FireRifles were able to wrestle the point away from a group of 30 orkboys (no special armors). I whittled them down, and when they got within reasonable range, I started to hit-and-run with Darkstrider's squad. He wanted the warlord killpoint, so he chased after him, but the extened pulse carbine shots, coupled with the tactical retreat power was troll-tastic. My FireRifles faded for a turn and then ran up to the point in the middle (Relic).

He brought a Battlewagon with a Nob Squad in that rediculous 2+ armor, and I wasn't prepared for either. I didn't have anything that could get through the 14 front of that Battlewagon, and the Ionhead at AP3 blasts, which did nothing against his 2+ armor save. Luckily he ran those into my backfield to try and gut me, and the broadsides and Sniper drones refocused their attention on them and made short work of them.

Also, he Zagstruck'd my defensive line of FW and ethereals. (his strategy was to do this in conjunction with his warboss/nob squad to gut me and take the point from my own side) I lost 1 squad, but the Ethereal squad used "Storm of Fire" or whatever it's called, coupled with crazy markerlight support, and I had 30 hits, and 20 wounds, drowned his squad with dice.


From those games, I can honestly say that as of right now, our Infantry (and Fast attack Infantry) are looking fantastic. I've never played aggressive against the orks before and won, and I was able to really test out something new, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Quick question, could Aun'va, Aun'shi, or a basic Ethereal give "orders" from inside a devilfish? We weren't sure, and since we play friendly games, I erred on "no". But they said if I found an answer otherwise, I could do it for future games. But if they could, holy crap a Etherealfish supporting a line of aggressive warriors would rock.

Edit: about that first timer: Yeah, I beat him both times, but I let him know I wasn't going to throw the game, and I told him that if he had ANY questions, he could stop the game dead in it's tracks and ask. And he did, a lot. He lost both times, but he did some very smart things and did very well. Most importantly, he really enjoyed it. He's going to continue to try new teams every weekend we play, until he's tried all of them (or a majority of them) and then buy one. I also let him know what my army was going to be before we started. So he knew what type of things were coming. I just wanted to clarify, because I hate when people try to get others into the game and then curb-stomp them because "Winnin iz urvrythang!".

I was thinking of trying a similar thing (assault pathfinders), but I'm not sure how to implement it.

Could you perhaps post your list? Or a bit more detail on how you used the Darkstrider squad?

Here is a 2k list based on the old school mech tau list from 4th utilizing the updated tech tau get:

HQ:
Crisis Commander, x2 Marker Drones, TL missile pods, plasma rifle, target lock, drone controller, puretide chip

Total: 172pts

HQ:
Crisis Commander, x2 Marker Drones, TL missile pods, plasma rifle, target lock, drone controller
Total: 153pts

Troops:
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts

Elites:
x3 Crisis Suit, TL Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle

Total: 171pts

Fast Attack:
3 Tetras with x2 target locks

Total: 160pts

4 piranhas with fusion guns, blacksun filters

Total: 204pts

Heavy Support:

Skyray TL SMS

Total:115pts

Hammerhead SMS, Submunitions, blacksun filter, seeker missile, disruption pod

Total: 154pts.

Hammerhead SMS, Submunitions, blacksun filter, disruption pod

Total: 146pts.

Army Total: 2000pts

This list has plenty of firepower to knock out transports, and smoke infantry in cover. This list has the capability to achieve mission objectives as well. Puretide chip command joins crisis team and gives tank hunters when needed. The other commander joins the drone squadron that the piranhas create. Tetras can each target different units with markerlights if need be. Markerlights can boost other markerlight hits now...something that couldn't be done before. This list has enough marker lights to achieve crazy combinations to allow the army to be more mobile. Additionally, seeker missiles from the skyray can pound a target right away. The rest plays just like before. With the increase to SMS range the mobility early on isn't completely necessary. Piranhas screen warfishes and create an armored wall. Pretty straight forward. I think this list can work well. Lots of AV on the table in an environment that isn't equipped to deal with this many vehicles (15 of them).

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So then what is the point of SMS? i cant fire two weapons.

Yes you can. At 6" you can shoot the burst cannon at BS3 and then fire the SMS system at BS1 (snap fired). All of which can be buffed by markerlights.

So yeah, you can shoot everything, but its no where as good as as the old 7 shots at BS4 that my D-fish put out.

A Kroot is fine too.

Seriously, Infiltrating TROOPS that are also Sniper for 7pnts each? I'll take 120! But seriously, I'd probably take 2 units in any competitive list, backed up by a unit of firewarriors and pathfinders each. That'd be the core of the army right there.

 TheMind wrote:
A Kroot is fine too.

Seriously, Infiltrating TROOPS that are also Sniper for 7pnts each? I'll take 120! But seriously, I'd probably take 2 units in any competitive list, backed up by a unit of firewarriors and pathfinders each. That'd be the core of the army right there.

No, its about infiltrating three S7 AP4 rapidfire 48" guns per squad that have me wanting to stock up on kroot. Ten Kroot, 1 doggy, 3 ox. All for 150 points. I'm going to take at least 2, and then use the last 4 troop choices as two 6 man D-fish squads and two 12 man firewarrior squads with marker drones.

Genius! This is the kinda thinking I was looking for.

I'm also glad other people are thinking about multi-use of in an aggressive role, in addition to ml support. Personally I like the Ion Rifles.

 DakkaHammer wrote:
I was thinking of trying a similar thing (assault pathfinders), but I'm not sure how to implement it.

Could you perhaps post your list? Or a bit more detail on how you used the Darkstrider squad?

Sure thing!
Ethereal 50pts
Darkstrider 100pts.
x3 FW squads w/ 'ui (x10 models per squad. Rifles for all, 2 defensive, one of which had Ethereal) 300pts.
x2 Devilfish 160pts.
x3 Pathfinder squads (2 defensive squads, one squad of 10 and one of 9, neither of which has a 'ui. 1 offensive squad of 10 w/ 'ui, Darkstrider and pulse accelerator). 345pts.
x1 Vespid (squad of 4) 72pts.
x1 Ionhead (w/ gun drones) 125pts.
x1 Sniper Drone Team (1 Firesight Marksman x/ 9 sniper drones) 148pts.
x3 Broadsides (w/ HRG & SMS) 195pts.
TOTAL: 1495pts.

Huh, writing it down, I realized I violated the FOC and had 4 fast attack choices... that's embarrassing, I'm normally better than that, I guess I'll chalk it up to new codex excitement...


Defense: Ethereal and 2 squads of FW, 2 squads of defensive Pathfinders, the Ionhead, Broadsides and Sniper Drone Team all playing in the back-field providing cover support and covering the range.
Offense: 1 FW squad and 1 Darkstrider PF squad in devilfish making a run for the point, with deepstriking vespid assisting (vespid underperformed my expectations, they got better, but you still need numbers, and deepstriking them still wasn't that good).

I was really lucky that he didn't dedicate more to the Relic, and he got greedy with wanting the "slay the warlord" bonus point. That's probably the only reason I won. But still, I was impressed with the newfound flexability of our infantry.

Backed with markerlights and HQ bonuses, our Tau infantry are really good, but because Pathfinders are safest camping in the backfield, our strength with them typically only lasts until the mid-field, being offensive can be difficult because their markerlights won't often reach and moving pathfinders means only snapfire markerlights. I haven't tried it out yet, but if you want markerlights deep into enemy territory, i'm thinking Markerlight drone squads for mobile markerlights that fire at a decent 5+ to hit. More expensive and not as good, but better at being aggressive with M.L. than the pathfinders.

My biggest problem I have right now, I've found very little incentive to use Pulse Carbines over Rifles. 18" 2 shots are nice, but Rifles allow a comparable 2 shots at 15", but with the added benefit of 1 shot up to 30"... that extra 3 inches is hard to choose over an extra 12" for one... The Ethereal's bonus boosts your shot at half-range, which is only 9" for carbines, while rifles get 3 shots at 15". Carbines don't suck, but Rifles just seem better. I was suspected as much with the rumors, and playing these 3 games confirmed it.
The Pulse Carbine's 18" range is remedied with pathfinders if you choose the pulse accelerator, giving them a beefy 2 shots at 24", the new problem you run into is that PF have a weaker 5+ armor, where FW have a more reliable 4+. So FW's who are more reliable, and who I want in more "assault" situations have no real use for the carbine. The carbine gets good for the infantry who's more of a support infantry.

Another thing of note, Rail Rifles and Ion Rifles are freaking rapid fire, so they get some cool mobile toys, don't mistaken them for heavy, they aren't (unless you overcharge, but whatever). It's cool, but less than fantastic because they're on a weaker and more expensive unit, one that often times you'd rather have just laying down markerlights. Minor frustration that the unit with really cool new weapons is put into a rather undesirable situation, especially when they excel at mid-range support. Yet the FW, the frontline unit, has none of the new toys (save for the awesome new HQ choices).

Darkstrider worked very well when you equip his group with the pulse accelerator, he takes care of himself, he's not complicated, give him a shot. I feel he'd be even better with a grav inhibitor drone, but that's a pretty damn expensive pathfinder squad.

I don't know if that helped, but I gtg to work. Give Darkstrider a whirl, you won't be disappointed. Also cool little note, combining him and a squad of pathfinders with Ion or Rail allows for Instand Death-ing nobs who had a T4 and 2 wounds. I never got to do it, but the simple realization afterword makes me want to try it next time.

Ok, first edit was for point correction, this 2nd edit is for a minor side note: I know carbines have pinning, and that could be considered "incentive" over the Rifle, but the sad reality is that so few things are even suseptable to pinning tests in 40k, I know the mob of orks weren't until I got them down to almost negligible numbers). I just wanted to add taht I am aware of that benefit with carbines, I just don't think it's that great of a benefit.

 TheMind wrote:
A Kroot is fine too.

Seriously, Infiltrating TROOPS that are also Sniper for 7pnts each? I'll take 120! But seriously, I'd probably take 2 units in any competitive list, backed up by a unit of firewarriors and pathfinders each. That'd be the core of the army right there.

Except that the snipers are heavy one. So you can't move them and shoot. Plus their only BS3, so its not like your getting a crazy number of hits either. The guy below is right. Its about the krootox. The kroot are just ablative wounds for the autocannons.

 PraetorDave wrote:

 TheMind wrote:
A Kroot is fine too.

Seriously, Infiltrating TROOPS that are also Sniper for 7pnts each? I'll take 120! But seriously, I'd probably take 2 units in any competitive list, backed up by a unit of firewarriors and pathfinders each. That'd be the core of the army right there.

Except that the snipers are heavy one. So you can't move them and shoot. Plus their only BS3, so its not like your getting a crazy number of hits either. The guy below is right. Its about the krootox. The kroot are just ablative wounds for the autocannons.

my markerlights disagree with everything you just posted. Not only will my heavy snipers move, they will do so and shoot at BS 5. If I have an ethereal nearby (like joined to and infiltrated with the squad) they will not only move and shoot, they will move, run, and shoot at BS5.

QFT @ cryhavok

This is why I created this thread. Lateral thinking. Accurate mobile snipers (if you invest ML`s)... Clever.

Cheers

The best Tau troops are still allied troops. There's all kinds of discussion about how many pulse rifle shots you can bring, but in the end everyone is still missing the obvious: troops are there to score objectives. And the sad thing is Tau troops suck at scoring objectives. And if they can't score objectives you're left with an expensive (seriously, add up the point costs of these theoretical OMG 9999999 PULSE RIFLE SHOTS units) unit with mediocre firepower compared to the big guns you could bring instead. So the ideal Tau army will continue to be lots of battlesuits, token troops, and allied boyz/IG platoons/scoring terminators/Scythes for scoring units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cryhavok wrote:
my markerlights disagree with everything you just posted. Not only will my heavy snipers move, they will do so and shoot at BS 5. If I have an ethereal nearby (like joined to and infiltrated with the squad) they will not only move and shoot, they will move, run, and shoot at BS5.

Now add up how many points you have to spend to bring BS 1 up to BS 5, and see if you can figure out how your BS 5 sniper rifles are now overpriced garbage.

 CaptKaruthors wrote:
Here is a 2k list based on the old school mech tau list from 4th utilizing the updated tech tau get:

HQ:
Crisis Commander, x2 Marker Drones, TL missile pods, plasma rifle, target lock, drone controller, puretide chip

Total: 172pts

HQ:
Crisis Commander, x2 Marker Drones, TL missile pods, plasma rifle, target lock, drone controller
Total: 153pts

Troops:
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts
6 FW in Warfish, blacksun filter @ 145pts

Elites:
x3 Crisis Suit, TL Missile Pods, Plasma Rifle

Total: 171pts

Fast Attack:
3 Tetras with x2 target locks

Total: 160pts

4 piranhas with fusion guns, blacksun filters

Total: 204pts

Heavy Support:

Skyray TL SMS

Total:115pts

Hammerhead SMS, Submunitions, blacksun filter, seeker missile, disruption pod

Total: 154pts.

Hammerhead SMS, Submunitions, blacksun filter, disruption pod

Total: 146pts.

Army Total: 2000pts

This list has plenty of firepower to knock out transports, and smoke infantry in cover. This list has the capability to achieve mission objectives as well. Puretide chip command joins crisis team and gives tank hunters when needed. The other commander joins the drone squadron that the piranhas create. Tetras can each target different units with markerlights if need be. Markerlights can boost other markerlight hits now...something that couldn't be done before. This list has enough marker lights to achieve crazy combinations to allow the army to be more mobile. Additionally, seeker missiles from the skyray can pound a target right away. The rest plays just like before. With the increase to SMS range the mobility early on isn't completely necessary. Piranhas screen warfishes and create an armored wall. Pretty straight forward. I think this list can work well. Lots of AV on the table in an environment that isn't equipped to deal with this many vehicles (15 of them).

Some comments for you. Those Devilfish are terrible, you realize you spend 400pts on vehicles that kill in total 3.3 spacemarines a turn. You can't purchase your army with the idea that every weapon is going to be able to be used for it's ideal situation, you honestly have to overkill guardsmen and such, because if you only bring weapons to kill them, your other targets such as marines are going to laugh at you. With how necessary markerlights are now, bigger units of firewarrior on foot are better, because it gives you more guns to benefit from the markers, whereas your fleet of mobile firewarrior will rarely benefit from markers and become rather ineffective at shooting. I just don't see you being to effectively deal with MEQ troops in this list, you have a total of 5 plasma rifles and 2 railguns that can ignore MEQ armor. Your idea of lots of armor might work with AV13 spam, but AV11 and av12 is not hard to deal with. Plasmaguns in almost every imperial army and autocannon on the cheap. They really do a number on AV12 and less. And the most important thing, those tetras got huge nerfs and are not better then pathfinders anymore(since you don't have to take the Dfish). No BS4, Vehicle Targetlocks are gone (the ones you purchased don't do anything), Dpods getting a huge nerf, making your AV10 open-topped a huge weakness. Overall I don't feel this list has much firepower at all.

 Materia_Master wrote:
Ok, first edit was for point correction, this 2nd edit is for a minor side note: I know carbines have pinning, and that could be considered "incentive" over the Rifle, but the sad reality is that so few things are even suseptable to pinning tests in 40k, I know the mob of orks weren't until I got them down to almost negligible numbers). I just wanted to add taht I am aware of that benefit with carbines, I just don't think it's that great of a benefit.

At 15" you're pushing your luck with your enemies dice rolls in the event they elect to assault you. At 18", especially with the d6" move from Darkstrider, you essentially guarantee anything outside of bikes and jump packs (and perhaps the occasional fleet unit, depending how well they roll for running) aren't going to successfully assault you. Moving offensively means you're unlikely to use the 30" range very often, especially if you're hopping in and out of a fish every turn or two.I think there's enough long range S5 weapons in the rest of the army to allow you to sacrifice pulse rifles for carbines for one team. As an additional bonus, there's also the possibility that you could actually charge with the Fire Warriors after firing 2 shots, since if given the choice you'd rather them be the ones stuck in CC and not Darkstrider + PF's, though that's highly unlikely to occur. But, I feel the option between carbine and rifle for offensive fire warrior squads is much more a personal playstyle choice, instead of an obvious "this not that" choice.

I do wish pinning were more effective in 6e, though. As it stands, there's almost no armies with weak enough leadership (aside from other Tau without an Ethereal) to be concerned about being pinned.

I love everyone's idea of pushing forward offensively with firewarrior is a scary thing. Honestly, if I was on the otherside of the table, I would be thinking awesome, I'll get to charge them soon then later. Firewarrior tactics didn't really charge that much. The only effective offensive push is if you have your whole army pushing forward to the objective to provide a ton of supporting fire, because even supporting fire needs a ton of shots to be effective with snapshots.

 Peregrine wrote:

Now add up how many points you have to spend to bring BS 1 up to BS 5, and see if you can figure out how your BS 5 sniper rifles are now overpriced garbage.

First, my list spams markerlights, so the extra cost is incidental. To answer you though:
If I don't move, it would be 84 for a sniper drone team with 3 marksmen.
If I do move, I would go with 8 pathfinders for 88 points.

This would be 228 for 20 BS5 sniper weapons. Compare this to other sniper equiped troops. Add 75 points for your 3 BS5 krootox.

cryhavok wrote:
First, my list spams markerlights, so the extra cost is incidental.

Nonsense. The fact that you spam something doesn't magically make it cost zero points, and every markerlight you spend on helping your Kroot go from BS 1 to BS 5 is a markerlight that isn't spent on, say, making your Riptide's pie plate from hell ignore cover.

This would be 228 for 20 BS5 sniper weapons. Compare this to other sniper equiped troops. Add 75 points for your 3 BS5 krootox.

Sure, let's make that comparison. Buying the equivalent of 20 BS 5 sniper rifles with IG ratlings would be 250 points, which seems like a good deal until you realize that ratlings are universally agreed to be unplayable garbage. And no, making ratlings scoring wouldn't make them any less terrible.

 Peregrine wrote:

cryhavok wrote:
First, my list spams markerlights, so the extra cost is incidental.

Nonsense. The fact that you spam something doesn't magically make it cost zero points, and every markerlight you spend on helping your Kroot go from BS 1 to BS 5 is a markerlight that isn't spent on, say, making your Riptide's pie plate from hell ignore cover.

This would be 228 for 20 BS5 sniper weapons. Compare this to other sniper equiped troops. Add 75 points for your 3 BS5 krootox.

Sure, let's make that comparison. Buying the equivalent of 20 BS 5 sniper rifles with IG ratlings would be 250 points, which seems like a good deal until you realize that ratlings are universally agreed to be unplayable garbage. And no, making ratlings scoring wouldn't make them any less terrible.

Actually spamming markerlights means I will likely have enough to handle any situation I need them for, after all quantity has a quality all it's own. And your comparison to ratlings kind of helps my point. Kroot are universally better in almost every way, and when I (and everyone else but nids) can get 20 kroot and 8 pathfinders for less than the price of twenty ratlings. Lets look at another unit: 20 eldar rangers, which iirc would be 380 points.

cryhavok wrote:
Actually spamming markerlights means I will likely have enough to handle any situation I need them for, after all quantity has a quality all it's own.

But the point is they aren't free. You can't just declare that your troops will magically be BS 5 for free just because you have markerlights in your list.

And your comparison to ratlings kind of helps my point. Kroot are universally better in almost every way, and when I (and everyone else but nids) can get 20 kroot and 8 pathfinders for less than the price of twenty ratlings.

Yes, and the point is that ratlings are unplayable garbage. Being slightly better than an unplayable garbage unit doesn't make a unit good, it just means that it sucks marginally less.

Lets look at another unit: 20 eldar rangers, which iirc would be 380 points.

And they have a MUCH better cover bonus (+2 everywhere vs. +1 in woods) which makes them vastly superior at holding objectives, as well as much better rending on their sniper rifles.