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So is this thing any good or not?

It seems overcosted to me. You pay twice what a stealthsuit does for a burstcannon, so my thinking is that if you want guns, buy stealthsuits instead.

You can get it with a meltagun, but how likely are you to get this thing in meltagun range when you need it? And do tau really have need of meltaguns? My thinking is that if you need to kill vehicles, buy railguns instead.

One use I definitely see for it is to put seekers on it, then zoom out 24" and you'll surely get side shots. But again, this seems like points better spent on railguns.

Any other uses you can think of?

It also carries drones which can be popped off and formed into a squadron. They're non-scoring, though.

I have a vision of 15 piranhas zipping all over the battlefield, scorching stuff with their fusion guns. But maybe it's a stupid vision.

What worries me particularly is that it's open top.

I can see lots of possible uses for this thing, just none that can be better accomplished by other elements in the Tau army. Maybe in a large list (2000 points), a couple might make decent objective grabbers. Fairly cheap for a scoring unit when taken individually, and with the turbo-boost ability could be handy. Other than that, I think you're right, and even that use is a bit of a stretch.

I think if you're going to take it, you've got to take the fusion blaster. It's the only weapon that gives you a chance to kill something valuable enough to make the piranha's points back before it dies horribly.

Its great for a all mech tau. Its AV11 more than makes up for the stealth suit in that list.

If your not all mounted, I dont think its worth it.

How does it fit in a mech Tau list better than stealth suits (tactically, not fluff/theme-wise)? In a heavily mechanized list, enemy weapons like heavy bolters have few targets to shoot at. Stealth suits can keep denying the AP weapons targets by virtue of their stealth ability. Piranhas just give those weapons that would be wasting their time something juicy to fire at.

tau lists ive been playing around with have a problem of super expensive units. only 3 elites, they're easily 221 pts (for 3 fireknife with 2 shield drones)

thats pretty hideous, its a great unit but the price tag. you dont have much choice as the troops are as crap as always, they're useful but arent pain units like elites and heavy.

so, the point im leading on to is the piranha gives you an option of 3 more FOC slots to put ur points into. its more flexible and better to have more units.

but is it actually any good?

-5 shot skimmer, for 60 compared to 6 shots from 2 stealths.
-scoring unit of 'hide all game then turbo'
-seekerboat, for turboing up the flank, hiding behind something but dumping seekers into side armour
-fusion assassin. (useful actually against indirect ordnace, suit armies will hate those guns so the fusion is a good way of disposing of basilisk / defiler you can't otherwise reach quickly)
-a librarian assassin, if he's on his own in the backfield annoying you with fury
-open topped drone assault, tie up devs for a couple phases
-'rage bait' against khorne etc


i can't see it being all that useful. theres a lot of roles ^ it could do, but it cant really do many of those per game, and some require it loaded out differently, so its only gonna be able to do 2-3 tasks depending on its loadout, and then in a game you're only gonna get it to do 1 of those and it'll either die or hide.

other downside is the model is frickin huge. if you compare it to the fish/hammerhead its exactly as wide, and if you put one on top, the back of it hangs as far back as the middle of the cupola on a devilfish. so you cant hide it during deployment. and any terrain gets prioritised for the other skimmers, so they're left hanging in the open waiting to get heavy boltered.

plus, melta guns always miss.

so no, i can't see them being good

How does it fit in a mech Tau list better than stealth suits (tactically, not fluff/theme-wise)?

Overload of armor targets. I dont see that mant Hbolters myself around here....

Well, as I'm looking to use two hammerheads and two sniper units as my heavy support. The Piranha looks like a good place to stick an extra fusion gun in as I will be a little short on my railguns. As I also plan on using pathfinders and two on foot markerlights, so having a seeker or two on the piranha might be a good idea.

I don't have my codex yet so I havn't worked out all the points cost yet. But I should be able to get a piranha or two in there.

Personally, I think it's a good choice to take and very efficient pointswise when compared to other units. But I am thinking about the points value of the Piranha itself, after you pop off the drones. The actual Piranha only costs 36 points, with 24 points of drones tagging along.

If you use this math, you end up with something that is only slightly less effective than a Space Marine Land Speeder, but costs 30 points less. The weapon range is shorter in both comparisons, but once in range the burst cannon will outperform a heavy bolter, and the fusion gun is equal to the multi-melta. The other main drawback I can see is that it doesn't 'Deep Strike' like a land speeder. But again, it's half the cost too.

Since I normally take a drone squadron anyways, I think I'll be using this option instead in some instances. It may also be a good answer to Monoliths with the fusion blaster. I don't think it will fill the same role as the stealth suits despite the same weapons, as this is much more mobile. Great for big tables, not so great for small ones.

-Hans

Remember that the drones off the Puranha are non-scoring, so they're worth a bit less than regular gundrones.

Hans, your math is based on the assumption that the drones are worth 24 points.

They aren't.

That is true, the vehicle drones don't compare equally to either controlled drones or those bough specifically as a squadron. But, even if you use the lowest value for gun drones bought separately, they are still 20 points. But, even if you count a piranha as a whole package, including the drones, the 60 points stilll stacks up very well compared to the 65 for a Land Speeder.

-Hans

Comparing them to stealth suits is kind of silly, IMNSHO. They're Fast attack, so you should compare them to the other fast attack units.

I would classify them as being obviouslly superior to gun drone squadrons. Versus Pathfinders and vespids, the question becomes much more difficult, because they all serve different roles. Vespids are MEQ-hunters...no doubt about it. Pathfinders with their markerlights become extremely useful in enhancing the rest of the Tau force. The pirahnas do have one advantage that nothing else in the Tau army has...fast movement.

I guess I see them as a points filler unit. If you have a spare FA slot and 60 points, I don't see what else you're going to purchase that'll be as effective.

You get armored, resilient scoring units. They're easy to kill if people shoot anti-tank guns at them, but AV11 makes them a lot tougher to kill with lighter guns. If they're shooting AT guns at anything but your hammerheads they are going to have a really rough game.

I think a mounted list would do very well in having more resilient scoring units. 4 pirahna means you have to kill 3 of them to make it not score. Killing 3 AV11 open-topped skimmers is annoying. A lot harder than killing 7 firewarriors.

Seeing as this hasn't been brought up yet, I think Piranaha's will be great for escorting fleeing units off the board. With the new markerlight rules lowering leadership couldn't be easier, and all you need to do is get them to take a 25% casualty check with a low Ld and watch your Piranaha's turboboost to within 6" of them. This is especially handing when dealing with heavy weapon sqauds who would normally start near the board edge in the first place.

good point. another thing is, if you've moved the piranha 12" in the move and detatched the drones, shot at the enemy, they failed a LD check at the end of the shooting phase, you can then make an assault move with the drones to chase after them in the assault phase so they can't rally.

tho, you can do this with devilfish already but i guess piranha is more likely to be in the right place. also, if the guys dont break, you could even assault with the drones if you wanted, loller.


another thing that occurs to me which is a bit evil. if you tank shock and the enemy cannot move out of the way anywhere, they're destroyed right?
piranha isnt a tank so cant. but, its FAST. and a convienient shape. devilfishes are tanks.

so, get a unit/model etc within 12" of a devilfish. zoom 2 piranha behind the target, so they make a shape that the front of the fish will fit into like a ball in a cup. declare tank shock. oops. unless they DoG and stop the fish, they're destroyed. right? if they fail morale, they break but can't run so are destroyed. if they pass morale, they move out the way by closest route possible, does this get them destroyed or do they go to the side of the fish or something?

combined with fletchettes too...

Actually that theory about breaking units with boxed-in Tank Shock is not just a grey area but also a can of worms. Remember the recent thread about Shokcing units off the table edge?

Although you may not be convinced the Piranha is worth the points as a tournament unit, it does give Tau something to pick in Fast Attack, and I reckon it could be a lorra lorra larfs to use.

agreed. at 1500 tournament lists dont have the space, and also dont need to utilise the fast attack slots really. other environments are different though.

Actually we pretty much confirmed that if you get tankshocked and the closest route off is the board edge, you walk off and die. A few naysayers, but until there's an FAQ you could argue it.

It's about on the same level of meanness as using fast vehicle squads to block exit hatches and then blow things up, tbh. That's where the pirahna will really shine. A fleet of 5 fast vehicles with meltaguns will do a lot of exploding rhinos with cargo, or even landraiders.

And lets not forget those Monoliths as well. In most cases you can take them down after a while, but with 5 melta shots available and a 24" move..... things get a bit easier hopefully.

-Hans

If I recall, the monolith's "living metal" rule means the fusion guns don't get their extra d6 on penetration rolls. That means the piranhas don't have a great shot of doing any damage. And if they don't, they all get hit with the monolith's "blast everything within 12"" ability. I think the piranhas lose out in that gunfight.

Up to now i have used them in unit of 1 or 3. I had a game where I kept rolling crew stunned some weeks ago. Because of that one of my pirahana spent 4 round around a land raider and the opponent did not even bother to shoot it. Between the hammerhead, the devilfish full of firewarrior, and the crisis suit my pirahana normally goes last in their priority. There is so much vehicle to shoot that most of their gun are not useful. You add over that flechette discharger and it can also be a gamble to the ennemy to charge them if they don't have good save.

In a tournament where there is composition if is sometime better to use a fusion blaster pirahana than a third hammerhead.

It is also another layer of vehicle to pass if you want to assault the model behind. I used them last week against blood angels where I lined up my vehicle on the side of a river. Since he could not jump the river his only option was to kill my vehicle first while I was shooting his unit. I do not know how I could have survived to 50 jump pack otherwise.

Against terminator army they are the only valid option in the fast attack choice of unit.


They cost probably a little too much if we compare them to land speeder because they are open-topped, only have BS3 and only have one heavy weapon instead of two. If you wanto to have them BS4 it is some more points again for only one shot that benefit from it.

The burst cannon version is less interesting because of the amound of S5 AP5 shot that the tau already have in their army

Posted By Grimaldi on 03/29/2006 12:24 PM
If I recall, the monolith's "living metal" rule means the fusion guns don't get their extra d6 on penetration rolls. That means the piranhas don't have a great shot of doing any damage. And if they don't, they all get hit with the monolith's "blast everything within 12"" ability. I think the piranhas lose out in that gunfight.

(I'm assuming that the Piranhas are BS 3 here) Each Piranah fusion shot still has a 1/24 chance of destroying a Monolith (Living metal doesn't protect against the AP 1 rule, so they can still be penned by a melta weapon). A squadron of 5 will get the 'lith about 20% of the time, and the shoot everything will have to split the 1d6 shots up among the squad.

Ack, at work with no codex. Yes, I believe that the Piranha's are BS3, but can take a targetting array to up it by 1, and also don't forget about markerlight support too which can help the BS as well.

-Hans

Well I personally think that the Pirahna, is a great vehicle and does very well in certain lists. . . If your going to take them make sure you have a dedicated task for them. . . I would like to field this 2000 point list,

138, Shas O, with CIB, Plasma Rifle, Stimulant Injector, HW Black Sun Filter, HW Multi-Tracker

221, 3 Crisis Suits with Plasma Rifles, Missile Pods, and Targetting arrays, with HW Multi-trackers, HW Black Sun Filters, and 2 shield drones each

221, 3 Crisis Suits with Plasma Rifles, Missile Pods, and Targetting arrays, with HW Multi-trackers, and 2 shield drones each. . .

221, 3 Crisis Suits with Plasma Rifles, Missile Pods, and Targetting arrays, with HW Multi-trackers, and 2 shield drones each. . .

220, Devilfish with multi-tracker, and 12 Bonded Fire Warriors

220, Devilfish with multi-tracker, and 12 Bonded Fire Warriors

210 points for 3 Pirahna with burst cannons, and targetting arrays. . .

210 points for 3 Pirahna with burst cannons, and targetting arrays. . .

170, Hammer Head with Multi-tracker, & rail gun

170, Hammer Head with Multi-tracker, & rail gun

Now I would have alot of the best units for certain tasks, and would probably try and use the crisis suits for the anti-MeQ or Anti-light to medium vehicle, with the Plasma Rifles, CIB's and the Multi-tracker we should do well. . .

The Pirahna would be for killing non MeQ infantry, and objective grabbing. . .

The hammer heads would be for heavy vehicle popping along with the the great Submunition round for dealing with any nasty troops. 

Of course the main strategy would be to hammer the anti-vehicle as hard as possible on turn 1 through 3, and then proceed to kill every thing else once I have that threat out of the way. . .

Sidenote not related to the Pirhana debate. Only the team leader may select additional wargear in your XV8 teams. Pity though, BS4 Fireknife would be fun (for the Tau player anyways).

Thats actually incorrect Moz, the crisis suits extra system can be a targetting array, and the new rules for equipment on page 25 will allow someone in a battlesuit to have up to 100 points of wargear

So yes you can use have a squad of crisis suits with plasma rifles, missile pods, hw multi-trackers, hw blacksun filters, hw drone controllers, hw target locks, and bonding knives. . .

I think they are ok, but only in larger games.

1. They are a Fast, Cheap scoring unit. If you are playing missions that have a lot of "go here and get this" that makes them worthwhile. Also, they are the only thing in the tau army that is actually fast.

2. They are cheap enough that you can throw them away blocking exits on a vehicle, then sooting it.

3. Indirect Hunters - In games that do not allow infiltrate or deepstrike (thus screwing crisis/stealth suits) you need a way to go get those large vehicles. Three Prihana's should do it to me.

I'll probably end up playtesting them quite a bit to see, but I think I will always take some of them, especially in tournament where scoring units are so important.

So let's suppose you take one, just to grab objectives.

Do decoy launchers make sense?

They add 8% to the cost of the thing.

The let you reroll 17% of the damage results, saving you from death just then 50% of the time, so improving your survivability ~8%.

So some math guru explain what I overlooked.