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Greetings members of the Greater Good!

I'm in the process of building a Pathfinder Team. What's better, the Rail Rifle or the Ion Rifle? I know I have the bits to make three of each, but would only like to make one. My first instinct is that the Rail Rifle is the better choice. S6 AP1 is pretty nasty and there are plenty of other places to get S7.

What one do you field and why?

Thanks for your help!

The solution to your initial problem are magnets! Magnetize 3 pathfinders, so they can either be equipped with ion or rail or even standard marker lights. 2mm magnets in the shoulders worked quite fine for me.

if i had to decide between ion and rail, i would go for rail rifles. Their s6 ap1 profile in connection with their quite good range makes them a real threat for heavy infantry. On the other hand they are quite expensive in ppm and die like guards men.
Sometimes i have a min sized Pathfinderteam with rail rifles outflanking. Most of the time they ahve a good round shooting and die pretty fast afterwards.

But outside from friendly games i wouldn't recommend rail finders oder ion finders at all.

Ions are decent to mix into your markerlight squads. Both have similar range and its fun to sometimes lob a S7 blast at the enemy from time to time. Not optimum by any means but it can work.

Rails are harder to use because their rapid fire profile makes them want to be up close but that's where pathfinders go to die horrible deaths. Outflanking them wouldn't be a bad idea for sneak up behind the enemy and hit some rear armor or to take out some backfield threats. I feel they overlap too much with Plasma Crisis Suits and Breachers which are both more points effective and practical at combat than rail pathfinders.

Either way they are both awesome looking models and its a shame that Fire Warriors can't use them.

I built all of mine with rail rifles, because rule of cool, i like the look better. But at 21 and 26 points per model on bs3 and t3, you're going to have a bad time in a non-fluffy/intentionally de-optimized game.

A AM playing friend of mine and I had a de-optimized list, and i brought 2 units of PF 1 with 3 ions, and 1 with 3 rails, and another 4 ablative pathfinders to absorb early wounds. WAY to many points, but overcharging ion cannons out PF is good fun (and rapid fire base is good too), and s6ap1 rapid fire shots feel nice.

And it turned out to be a fairly evenly matched games, both sides feeling like they were taking hits, and hitting back without being left with no response. Competitive lists seem to break down to alpha strike, i've broken you so bad you cant do anything.

Rail rifles are only good IMO if you bring them in a squad with dark strider. You can ID some toughness 4 2+ save models pretty easily with them. in low points dark strider plus a devilfish squad some specialist drones and an 8 man squad with 3 rail finders can be pretty threatening.

In every other case though I'd pass on special weapon pathfinders.

I built mine with Rail Rifles, but now I think I might magnetize them with regular Markerlights.

My two cents,

CB

Heavy weapon Pathfinders in general aren't exactly the most cost-effective unit in the codex, but if you're going to use them, rail rifles are definitely the way to go. There's a relative dearth of low-AP wepaonry in the Tau arsenal, so that's always nice to have more of. S7 AP4 we do all day long. A Broadside is 9 pts cheaper than a minimal Pathfinder unit with ion rifles: more than twice the firepower for a lower price.