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It's definitely the flexibility. The fire warrior is perfectly good for its cost, but when the points costs keep going up, there's nothing to buy for them to keep them competing. They're the same old fire warrior at 2500 points that they are at 200 points. There's no way to put points into them. There's no way to make them do more than the exact one thing they're good at.

But they're very good at that exact one thing.

But we digress lol n I think that all it takes to fix FW is maybe a ba 4 or a better marker light system that's fairly cheap. But as a unit altogether they aren't bad! You just can't afford to use them like any other type of infantry because they simply aren't. They are designed to stay away and shoot and NEED to be backed up if you want to be successful

They need EITHER better BS or Sv. I don't even think they need both. Just one is fine.

Then they need a handful of interesting upgrades so they can grow into a larger army.

A cheaper markerlight system should do. Make Pathfinders BS4 instead (they ARE meant to pinpoint important targets and scout ahead, so they'd have to be good with distance) of FWs, and allow markerlights to split fire at all times.

That unit of 6 pathfinders you used to miss with 3 of and then use 1 counter from can now split to fire two markerlights at one unit with a decent chance of both hitting, and maybe 4 markerlights at a unit that needs more shooting poured into it, with a decent chance of hitting with around 3. That way you can keep fire warriors in markerlights at the same time as the suits and other units, without having to decide which one is best.

Wolfnid420 wrote:It's ALL in the dice. Mathhammer says nothing other than " in theory my army should do this much damage per turn n should do this here n that there....etc.etc." its ridiculous! It's a game played with dice. Not math. You guarantee nothing by overloading your brain with a bunch of math that is all theory. The only math I really partake in is adding up my points and maybe adding up attacks to see which squad might guarantee myself a couple more or w/e. You can break down everything with math but what's the point it guarantees nothing and your just gonna get frustrated when you don't perform as well as your math makes you think you should. All Im saying is that it might be a tool but one too many people depend on and one ill never use lol idc how many times a squad SHOULD wound something. What I care about is what actually happens in battle

mathhammer shows you the most likely outcome.

You can use the knowledge to make educated gambles.



yes, the dice can turn and just totally bone you. But I can figure out the chance of that happening and so i won't fool myself into betting on long odds.

Its why I don't care about cannons or bolt throwers bouncing through my ogres. I know the odds of the projectile just lodging itself into a gutplate and sticking. and you know what, it works exactly like I predicted.


If you know the odds, you can then play them. I never do something the mathhammer tells me is suicide, because it IS suicide in that case. I also plan for the worse case scenerio when mulling something over.



You may discredit it, meanwhile I am not charging my dudes into unfavorable situations.

Math hammer aside (though I math hammer my units on paper to get a feel for what they are capable of), fire warriors are the topic.

They only have one job in a Tau list: objectives. Take them and hold them. Everything else is done better by other units, but nothing else can actually deliver a win in 2/3 of games.

And against other comparable squads, they simply can't do that. A 12-man FW squad can shoot at a 20-man Ork squad on an objective for five turns straight and they won't knock them off. The same goes for a 10-man marine squad. And they sure can't whittle them down and then charge. They need other units to fight their battles for them, and often times, those other units are strong enough to win the battles even without FW assistance. So they become VIPs to escort, not the backbone of an army like they need to be.

Any unit can focus fire with other units and be effective with good tactics and gameplay, even Fire Warriors. But they

They aren't bad. They are just expensive.


Let's look at the "worst" 5th edition armies base troop (Sisters) versus the Fire Warrior

Sister of battle: 11 points, -1 weapon strength, -6 inches of range, 3+ armor Save, 6+ invuln, +1 WS, +1 Ini. Chance to always regroup. Chance to reroll any hit rolls of one. Grenades


So for the price of Photon Grenade Fire warriors, Sisters get A LOT compared to Fire Warriors.

That's the problem with the whole Tau Empire Codex really. Everything is about 20-30% too expensive.

Give Fire Warriors Grenades and drop them to about 7-8 PPM and I don't think anyone would complain.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:They're not bad, just expensive

This, primarily.

Every released Codex in 5th Edition has seen a points reduction somewhere (even Guard Squads). Fire Warriors are about 2-4 points more expensive then they should be, however, if their given a better BS Value, the value could remain the same.

In a gun-line army, Fire Warriors are indeed kind of bland, but alot of people dismiss what you can give them as upgrades, preferring to min/max Crisis Suits instead.

I've recently revived my Tau Mech Army and take ten-man Fire Warrior Squads armed with Pulse Carbines and Emp Grenades, which if worked in concert, works well with my ten Crisis Suits and Three Hammerheads.

Emp Grenades are pretty effective. You'll surprise alot of your opponents when you Wreck their Land Raider Redeemer with a handful of Fire Warriors.

I think they are pretty solid. You don't need them to pack melta etc. that's what crisis suits are for. Tau I think rely on whole army synergy more then other armies. Your fire warriors are meant to take out light vehicles and hold objectives. I played tau for a while, and I found great success using 3 fire warrior teams with a devilish (smart missiles, burst cannon, and the upgrades to ignore terrain and provide obscured at 12+" ) gave the team lead a target lock and marker light. The idea, is that each team leader marker lights a target for the other teams, providing that +1 bs. The fish also provide extra firepower. Crisis teams with fusion and plasma provide more high power firepower. Railheads otherwise support, and stealth teams lock up the flank. I also like pathfinders for extra marker light shenanigans.

Problem with Fire Warriors is that they are such a single use unit: rapid firing enemy troops. If there are no such targets around, they will just sit around uselessly. Most other troops at least have some heavy weapons or somesuch so they have something to do even if there is no enemy infantry for them to shoot. Sure, sometimes everything connects and you get to pepper the enemy with the hail of Markerlighted pulse fire, but that is super-rare. Last time that happened, I pumped out 24 shots at BS5, only to have enemy make all his 2+ armour saves. Yay.

S5 is nice, but just that, nice. It makes them deadly against T3, but I seldom meet T3 on the tabletop. I can tell from experience that Pulse fire seldom, if ever, makes any kind of dent against an Ork horde, the most dangerous enemy for Tau. Besides, you seldom get to rapid fire these days. Almost everything runs, or flies, or is transported or has some other stupid gimmick to make sure they don't have to sit at the rapid fire range. The best you can say about S5 is that Fire warriors can be dangerous for many Monstrous creatures.

"But they can glance a Rhino!" Bah. Against vehicles, they sometimes kill AV10, but that's it. I can count with one hand the instances they have done anything against AV11, and usually it means "shaken" which is nearly always useless.

Despite their seemingly "good" armour save, in practice Fire Warriors die really easily. Heavy flamers - which these days are common as dirt - kill them super-fast. They also run real easily and seldom regroup, unless you have Shas'ui with a Bonding knife, but that makes already overpriced unit even more expensive.

In fact, the armour save is sometimes detrimental. Because where it usually comes to play - in assault - it can hinder you. You do usually NOT want to get lucky with Armour saves your Fire Warriors tie or stay in combat, because then you can't shoot the assaulting unit in your turn. Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if Fire Warrios actually did damage back in combat, but they don't.

Yeah, they suck.

I don't think your. Using them right then backfire. I think they intent is to provide a solid fire base for your objectives. And 30" range is respectable. It certainly beats bolters and lazguns. As far as rapid firing goes, I don't often expect the enemy to simply walk into range. With ANY army. Single shots should not be ignored, and can be effective. You wound most things on 3+.

They should not be shooting at tanks or vehicles. If they have 'nothing else in range or Los' then they aren't positioned right. Get them into a fish and reposition. You have the best anti tank gun in game with rail heads and broadsides, and combined with stealth/crisis with fusion you should have no issue popping tanks. If anything pops out, use your warriors and marker lights to deny cover and unload on them. They also provide a required troop choice, and I think work better then kroot, who are only ok in cc, and have little skill in range. A nice team of fire warriors with a shield drone and marker drone, a bonded team lead in a fish with smart missiles is a pretty formidable force. It obviously costs a fair chunk, and won't stand to any real assault (can any tau?) but that's not their job.

As for the orcs, I find that using a pair of rail heads and a broadside team can decimate orcs. Railhead or broadsides pop tank, pathfinders light up the survivors, to negate cover, and a submunition round from railhead 2 or fire from stealth / fire warrior teams to mop up. For nobs, (bikers or otherwise) pathfinders marker light em, use sniper drones or just force casualties with crisis fire to force either pinning or fallback check then use the tokens to make the LD check ridiculous. Even devil fish with smart missiles can make orcs cry, simply due to the fire they can put out.

Personally I think the tau biggest strength is mobility. EVERYTHING should either be able to use a devilish, or have secondary movement. Hop around, use cover and superior firepower to eliminate threats. And a rushed fish farting out a rapid firing fire warrior team can make a great finishing unit when you show up and kick off those last few models off an objective.

With markerlight support (pathfinders) you can rapid fire a squad of 12 firewarriors at 15", that's 24 strength 5 hits with 2+ rolls. Easy kills on a lot of armies. I'm really itching to try this out against Necrons once I get my army together.

Squidmanlolz wrote:With markerlight support (pathfinders) you can rapid fire a squad of 12 firewarriors at 15", that's 24 strength 5 hits with 2+ rolls. Easy kills on a lot of armies. I'm really itching to try this out against Necrons once I get my army together.

Rapid-fire is at 12", not half weapon range. It's a static value.

With pathfinders, it also means that you need to waste 2+ markerlights so you can spend 2 to increase BS to 5, those markerlights would be best used on Crisis Suits or Broadsides to remove cover and then increase their BS.

That's the main issue with FWs, they need markerlight support, but battle for it with other, often more deserving, units.

That's why fire warrior units with a marker drone and a team lead with marker light and target locks work well. Two teams can support fairly well. Team 1 unit shoots target A, first the marker drone lights up target A, and the team lead uses target lock to marker light target B, and vice versa. This gives you 2 tokens for two targets. A the very least, you can generate 1 for each unit on its own, going to bs 4. Pathfinders are the ace, they Allow you to remove cover, gimp ld, or whatever you need that turn.

they are actually ok, people just judge them.
mine always do ok it just they will ALWAYS lose cc

Tau either need to be able to put special/heavy weapons in a squad and a small price cut, BS 4, or a good price cut. Sha'sui with bonding knife for free is a good step. Even more than cheaper warriors, cheaper fish.

It was my understanding that tau werent really a troop based army since they had the suits, tanks etc.. I mean most troops don't have long range cept maybe a single speacial weapon excluding IG. Also why do people compare everything to GK? Not same army, not same style and gk are crazy expensive. Thats like saying my rhino for 50 pts isnt as good as a 250 pt lr.

40k is dominated by heavy and special weapons...mostly because strategy revolves around taking things that ignore or are very resistant to basic fire.

In that regard, firewarrior are bad...because they have a good basic gun..but that's all they got.

Imagine if a tactical marine could not take a special and a heavy. Yeah, just straight bolter marines.
That's pretty terrible.

Then there's fire warriors.

Think about the lists that have dominated 40k past and present. Mech eldar, 9 oblits and lash, ig chimera spam, razor spam, etc etc.

Those armies are pretty resistant to 30" range static strength 5 shots. In the case of mech eldar, if something doesn't pop the wave serpents, the firewarriors have nothing to do.

So if I"m mech eldar, all have to do is knock out what can kill my wave serpents. Then I pretty much autowin for free.

From what I have seen Kabalites don't have armor piercing either once their vehicle is wrecked. Does that make them terrible? Im just tryin to find a basis here cause I don't play tau or have mch exp against them aside from 1 suit heavy list.

what are you taking about? Kabalites can take the blaster or the dark lance
Also, raider has a dark lance.
The devilfish transport just has more strength 5 shots.

It would be interesting to see a scaled down battle-suit troop choice in the next codex. They would start out with a TL pulse rifle, with a shortlist of weapon upgrades, and no jet-packs, and give the sergeant equiv the option of a marker-light (keeps the pulse rifles and can't swap it out). I don't know how to stat them out, but slightly weaker than a standard battlesuit.

Any thoughts on that?

Thats one shot and blasters dont even have good range. I also wasnt comparing raiders to devilfish. I was talking purely troops. So if fire warriors are bad then by the same logic kabalites are too since they have 1 shot at mechs. Cron warriors, gaunts, ork boys etc all must be awful by the logic used in here.

That one shot is still infinitely more than what firewarriors have. I don't instant lose to mech or monstrous creatures with kabalite on the table, and they are less points than firewarriors and BS 4. That one shot makes all the difference in the world. ALso, blasters are 18" assault, so you can tag things 24" away. It's actually technically two shots are bs 4, since you can take a blaster and a dark lance. 3-4 for mech, since a raider can have a dark lance and the sergeant can have a blast pistol.

Oh, and sadly, even though they are less points, dark eldar warriors will put tau firewarriors to the sword in hth. Pretty much the only thing tau have over them is range.