Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just wondering if anyone use/likes the piranha's. They seem like great tank hunters given that they can take fusion blasters and move around getting cover saves until they get in range.

I've been looking at taking them with all fusion blaster, sensor spines and distruption pods. This will give me a 3+ cover if I go flat out until I reach my target. But I wonder if they are getting to costly in points. I plan on running at least 3 maybe 5 in a squad so I can keep my other 2 Fast slots for Pathfinders.

Thoughts?

I run them, and personally like them stock. 40 points for a fast burst cannon and 2 drones is incredibly cheap, and if you detach the drones at the start (unless it is killpoints) you essentially have 2 fast attack choices in one slot for 40 points.

In fact! by matter of cost, with the drones detached and their own unit, the piranhas are then technically 16 point vehicles, the cheapest in the game.

I like running a drone controller, burst cannon/ ion commander with them, puts out SO much BS5 S5 firepower and can JsJ.

As well, one of their best uses is as a screen, since they are a cheap and sacrificial unit, 5 all at 4" coherency is a hell of a road block

hum...I see what you mean about output. I guess part of my concern is the local meta is heavy on transports and 2+ armor saves (deathwing) and tough to kill (wraithguard armies). I usually am lacking in tank popping, not becuase I don't field other stuff, but just the amount people are running. But then again, if I can get behind them, AV 11 vs all of those str5 might not be too bad.

Well yeah, vehicles are def not as big of a deal considering glancing-to-death is the name of the game in 6th. As for tau, tau lost most of their long range anti av-13-14 but gained better anti av10-12. Av-10-12 should never be a problem.

As for low ap against 2+ armor, and tough units, massed shots are generally more useful and cost effective than low volume low ap shots. As much as I love being able to straight negate terminator armor, you hit terminators with enough S5 fire, and they will fall.

If you want bang for your buck, make a squadron of five Piranha's and detach the drones on all of them. The rules state that detached drones in squadrons have to stay together.

Five Piranha's with no upgrades is 200 points. If you detach the drones, you get 10 gun drones that have TL P.Carbines that form a separate group. That's 20 TL S5 AP5 shots with one unit. Then you have 20 S5 AP 5 shots from the Piranha unit.

Considering 10 gun drones themselves would cost 120 points, that's a really good deal point wise.

Now imagine those 10 gun drones joining a crisis suit commander with a drone controller...

SHENANIGANS!

The fusion gun upgrade is really nice. The vehicle upgrades are probably not worth it, though. As others have said, the base cost of the Piranha is really only 12 points, as long as you don't absolutely hate gun drones (16 points if you're using upgrade drone prices instead of squad prices). So you're talking about paying 90% (77%) more for your Piranhas in order to give them a slightly better cover save and Move Through Cover.

But just with the fusion guns you're paying 22 (26) points for each S8 AP1 melta shot with an effective range of 30". That's pretty good.

 gameandwatch wrote:
I run them, and personally like them stock. 40 points for a fast burst cannon and 2 drones is incredibly cheap, and if you detach the drones at the start (unless it is killpoints) you essentially have 2 fast attack choices in one slot for 40 points.

In fact! by matter of cost, with the drones detached and their own unit, the piranhas are then technically 16 point vehicles, the cheapest in the game.

I like running a drone controller, burst cannon/ ion commander with them, puts out SO much BS5 S5 firepower and can JsJ.

As well, one of their best uses is as a screen, since they are a cheap and sacrificial unit, 5 all at 4" coherency is a hell of a road block

Detached drones from vehicles do not award victory points, and also are not required to be killed to obtain the vehicle's victory point. New dex rules in the drones section (top i think), i imagine they did that because it was a heavy deterrent to detach in purge since its 2 T4 4+ models with single wounds and their posts make cover saves nigh impossible to get, so easy to take out. Now, its purely wasted shots on their end to get rid of it, or 4 potshots/2 cockblocking models that might be annoying, but might not at the same time. However if he fires at them instead of ... anything else lol .. i'd be happy with that
Flipside to not awarding victory points though is the new rule drones dont score or deny objectives period, detached or otherwise. I can take that hit though so i can actually USE my detached drones.

Ive thought about trying the Pirahnas because they can turn 1 cause a fair bit of hurt if the opponent deployed at his/her edge of their deployment zone, fusion or burst. And theyre cheap. Yeah, theyre AV crap with 2(?) hp but its the same thing as ork AV10 spam with buggies and trukks...infantry weapons need good rolls to cause any damage and it wastes big shots or causes a lot of pain either by blocking models or their minimal weaponry getting a good shot. But, i dont feel like buying any and i have no idea how big it actually is to proxy it accurately lol

If there is one thing the new codex had taught me, is you do NOT take Dpods for light, cheap vehicles.

Its merely a waste, just spare the pods and get more models.

Yes, 15pts for a +1 cover save on a model thats going to be taking a TON of them anyway isnt worth it. You might negate 20-30% more, but not enough either way. Not to mention, 15pts even on your two hammerheads/skyrays (if you have them) is enough to take a few markerlights or gun drones out of somewhere else if youre that tight on points....pirahnas would be demanding an additional 75pts for a THROWAWAY unit....too expensive

Only reason the D-pod is viable on the Hammerhead/Skyray is because only melee combat or big guns can take them out (or a very bad player showing his butt to the opponent). Melee combat kinda means youre boned anyway and cover doesnt help there, and big guns are usually sparse enough where that 20-30% better odds of ignoring the damage is HUGE.

Actually funny trick is to turoboost in place for a 3+ cover. I did that expecting some deepstriking termies and i was damn right, that 3+ cover saved my butt's butt from combi plasmas lol (Turboboost only means you may move up to X inches depending on vehicle, i just moved an inch so it qualified lol)

You know I completely forgot that drones arent KP anymore. So my mistake on that, in that case there is almost no reason not to detach them, so that is pretty great.

I run a unit of 3 of them with fusions and I detach the drones turn 1, they join a commander with controller and his 2 drones.

Love it!

The drones do count for first blood though, so that's something to be careful of.

I only have one of them, but I've had fun with a burst cannon and two seeker missiles. The thing is worse than useless with a fusion blaster, but then again I've had terrible luck

Hmm, yea i guess it would still technically award first blood since thats completely different from awarding victory points, since its a special event. Could see it argued, but both ways

One thing i wish they would add to detached drones is allowing them to join another unit, even themselves, permanently. Add these buggers to the blob of guns with a drone commander ftw, or merge them into one long unit to make a wall of drones that need more than 1-2 kills to force a leadership since now its 10 models, not 5 groups of 2.

Im not sure if i would put the fusion on it though. Vehicles are rare these days, the TL Fusion on your riptides and maybe 1-2 more in the crisis drop teams is all you are ever going to need. Aside from popping high AV, all its good for is pasting T4 models which arent very common outside orks, since most of the multi-wound models are either T5, worthless so never used, or an HQ that has too many bodies for a melta to get through anyway since it sucks at dealing with numbers.