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And as mentioned the marker drones are a infantry with a heavy weapon, so can only snap fire if moving.

Wouldn't sisters be a little bit over costed then? Since a CSM is only 1 point away and has the ability to take marks instead of the act of faith.

Or maybe it shows how much that 3+ save really does cost point wise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BryllCream wrote:
Put it this way, I don't think there's a single guard player who'd turn down even a 1 point reduction for basic infantrymen in return for -2WS and -2I.

Not when they are already taking BS4 vets with three special weapons in a flying transport with 3 twinlinked las cannons, or inside a transport with enough firepoints to where all special weapons get a chance to fire.

Or just sticking with the basic guardsman, a squad that gets many heavy weapon options and spare bodies to make the change in WS negligible.

Again, firewarriors don't have the numbers or firepower compared to guard. For an elite army they are left out gunned by even the most "basic" imperial troop.

barnowl wrote:
I though sisters were WS 3 or 4 not WS 2

Yeah, forgot to mention that. Not that it's particularly important, TBH.

That's pretty important actually. The ability a unit to atleast be able to hit back in CC is a big deal, or atleast denying enemies attacks back. WS and it may not mean much to your non combat troops when you're facing off against assualt infantry, but it matters to Tau. Any other unit, non-CC or otherwise, has good chance of winning combat against FW. This is a boost to the versatility of enemy units. Now Necron warriors can charge into FW and kill them off or tie them up for a turn to stop them from shooting.

What stats are important then? Since +1 BS/WS/I/Ld and +1 to the save makes only a 2 point difference.

As a tau player, my biggest issues with FW is not what they can kill. S5 can hurt a lot of things. BS 3 doesn't suck (as I also play orks, I know this) but its enough to at least help in the fight.

No the problem with FW has always been their ability to not do their jobs as objective holders.

T3 4+ save dies in droves to anything pointed their way. Things get worse when there are a tons of high strenght multi shot AP4 guns in the game. It is incredibly easy to knock down FW like bowling pins. Add to that their dismal LD score and they find themselves running away from an objective with just the slightest amount of firepower pointed in their direction.

All of the above a unit of pathfinders does nothing to help with. And in my games I'd rather use my markerlights to strip away cover saves being taken against my elite and Heavy support choices. You know, the units in the Tau codex that actually do do the killing.

Firewarriors are overcosted as they are, probably by 3 points as I see what other troop units bring to the table that allows them to do their job as troop choices. Its not about killing stuff, its about having the bodies to take the casualties to stick around or the stats to resist the hits. Its these things that allow you to hang around on an objective and still contribute to the battle at least a little bit.

Until FW can effectively hold to end game conditions they will continue to be a bad choice for a troops unit. They are only taken because we have to, not because anyone really wants to.

I totally love the models, I really want to field 40 of them and actually have it mean something to the outcome of the game.

In their Devilfish with a Disruption Pod the Firewarriors are some of the hardest to kill troops in the game, but again, the price of the Firewarrior shouldn't reflect what it may be capable of if combined with the right unit.

Put the extra cost into the force multipliers (Marker Units, Transports) rather than the Firewarriors themselves.

At 10 points they aren't bad, but a free Shas'ui upgrade and Free Grenades would probably make them just right.

The devilfish is still expensive and most of it's weapons put it at risk of being assualted or atleast losing it's disruption pod bonus.

That and a troop needs to be outside of a transport to contest or control an objective.

And making other units better still doesn't help firewarriors. They really lack killing potential and durability while being expensive. Making markers more available just means that you can use them more for HQ, Elite, and HS choices still since, as stated before, they are what do the damage.

Giving them the Shas'ui for free is a start, but even defensive grenades don't seem to be that great since their stat line is so low that everything that assualts them will kill them. Factor in that a challenge will remove that added LD8 and what ever doesn't get slaughtered will run away just due to combat resolution.

Jefffar wrote:
In their Devilfish with a Disruption Pod the Firewarriors are some of the hardest to kill troops in the game, but again, the price of the Firewarrior shouldn't reflect what it may be capable of if combined with the right unit.

Put the extra cost into the force multipliers (Marker Units, Transports) rather than the Firewarriors themselves.

At 10 points they aren't bad, but a free Shas'ui upgrade and Free Grenades would probably make them just right.

And unlike a Chimera or Rhino it totally removes them from the games since it has no fire points.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Why bother calculating in a pathfinder squad? Just give the Squad leader a drone controller, and two marker drones. Now you're paying 60 points for the two drones, who can buff the squad, but are saving on the cost of the devil fish the pathfinder would have to take (48+80, or 68 points). Comes out to 12.85 points (or 13.5 if the squad leader has his own marker light) per model. This assumes you're using a full squad, and it does prohibit moving, though with a 36" range on the marker lights, and a 30" range on the guns you won't have to move as much as say, a guard platoon.

Take a look at the marker drone BS.

Forget the BS, look at the damn price!

There is no markerlight worth taking outside of FW at the moment, and in FW you got both the glorious tetra and the "feth anyone who gets near" sensor tower.

And the bad part is that FW really didn't seem to know what to do with them. It was insane that the tetra had a heavy 1 Markerlight originally, but their balance answer was to make it 4x effective.

Look at the XV-9 commander. It was ok at first, but they weren't making sales like they wanted to, so just made all his weapons Assault 2. It's a really crap shoot with that, like they play a different game entirely.

Its just because they are first and formost into IMPERIAL ARMOUR

They state it themselves-they deal the IG/SM tanks as their main product, and the Tau are very, very different.

Now, I see actually no problems with the new tetra, its actually a good unit now, but not one you would spam around, as its a mere support unit and incapable of being of any threat on it's own.

After all, look at the flaws of the codex markerlight sources:

Pathfinders-taxed with the devilfish they will never want, and rather static. other then that they are fine. they even pack some backup weapons.
Marker Drone-so expensive it should never ever be taken unless you want to give a new guy an easy time.
Skyray-expensive as feth, and his other guns are mostly the missiles, who are useless on their own right.

The problem is not with the FW markerlights, but in the codex ones being so worthless that nobody ever plays two of them, and the third is a "if you are playing type X list only", DESPITE being the core mechanic of the army.
They are bad, bad, BAD units, all three of them. the pathfinders are just the only ones excusable enough to be situational rather then outright gimping.

Another problem with the Tau (and a big reason for the firewarrior stats) is that GW isn't sure what sort of army they want to make it. They obviously didn't want another MEQ army, thus the lower base stats. But they didn't want it to be a horde type army either, thus the higher points per model.

What they initially wanted was a mid sized army with high firepower (to help appeal to the Japanese anime market). And when the army was released that is exactly what it was. S5 on a basic trooper weapon. The ability to field 9 S10 weapons? Hold the phone thats aweseome. Add to it the army was released with 3rd ed mechanics in mind the army was awesome and it did its job. Orks were 9 points a boy. Grey Hunters and Necron warriors were 18. Jump pack units 25 ppm. The army did what it needed to do in the point ranges that were more or less on par with what was already out..

However, 3 editions later and only 1 codex upgrade (done at a time when GW had no idea what stable direction it wanted codexs to go) has seen the firewarrior fall way behind the curve. Now a number of other basic units have S5 guns (maybe not the range, but all with better BS). S10 and/or AP1 shooting weapons have become much more prolific where its now underpowered when a codex is released and there are not at least 3 ways to put S10 on the field.

The firewarrior needs an update. They really should stay about 10 points. A 1500 point Tau army should field about 60 models (including tanks/suits) and 1850 about 80. And if the firewarrior is going to be the core of the army once again, they better be able to do their jobs for 10 points ppm and in the world of 6th edition that pretty much means special rules and or rule breaking equipment.

Without changing a single basic stat. Overcharge on pulse weapons that allow for 3 shots during overwatch (because lets face it, firewarriors in any sort of HTH area dead, might as well let them hit hard before dying)
modulating shielded armor - 4+ armor save with a reroll (actually a little bit better than a 3+ save but still loose to AP4 weapons which looking at the local environment is a good trade). Stubborn if the Shas'ui is still alive.

These are just some off the cuff ideas that might make the firewarrior an attractive option to actually get the job done. 6th ed. is the edition of the USR and those rules that break the USR and without them the firewarrior will never be worth the 10 points you pay for it.

The tetra is great, I know. I run two in just about every game. I'm just saying that the solution was very unimaginative. They could have given it a special marker chart or a number of things.

The heavy 4 definitely was a good upgrade, but just seemed like their usual "it's not selling, no one likes it. Lets just make it fire a bah-zillion more shots."

For special gimmik you got the tower, he sure is special.

But sometimes, just having more shots is what it needs. I honestly don't see a better way they could have buffed the tetra.

my view, they're not bad, they definitely aren't the worst, but give the FW atleast a BS 4 and keep them at 10 pts, it would make all the difference in the world and sure as hell make dozens of tau players happy as punch.

really hope all the rumours are true about tau being the next codex, hopefully in the process of beefing up the firewarriors, getting rid the excess baggage the pathfinders bring to the battlefield, really interested to see this thread develop more

RegalPhantom wrote:
Tau are slightly overpriced and there are a few things working against them. While a S5 gun seems alright, when you remember that it also AP5 you quickly notice that it isn't much of an upgrade in terms of wounds output by the squad. Additionally, unlike other squads, you have to remember that a fair amount of the 'value' from a squad comes from its specialist and heavy weapons.

This. Tau firewarriors suffer from the same problem dire avengers do -- a lack of special/heavy weapons.

Sure, model for model the dark eldar is just as good at shooting as the Tau with their rifle. However, the dark eldar squad of 10 warriors can bring a splinter cannon, vastly increasing the number of poisoned shots the unit has as targets over 12"

Surely what we're saying, then, is that special weapons are underpriced rather than units unable to bring them being overpriced? Surely that would make more sense. I mean, you're paying for the heavy weapon, shouldn't that payment be exactly worth the heavy weapon?

BS 4 on a 10 Point Firewarrior is a non-starter for me. Even as a Tau player I recognize that BS 4 as a base just makes the Firwarrior (and the rest of the army for that matter) much more powerful than it is and needs to be compensated for with a price bump.

Jefffar wrote:
BS 4 on a 10 Point Firewarrior is a non-starter for me. Even as a Tau player I recognize that BS 4 as a base just makes the Firwarrior (and the rest of the army for that matter) much more powerful than it is and needs to be compensated for with a price bump.

I agree, although BS 4 fits in with the background at least as well as BS3, for example well-trained humans are BS4 and tau would never send out an untrained FW. Then again, it would either need another weakness to be added or simply an increase in price (perhaps to 11 or 12 points?)

I'd say that BS 4 might be fine for Shas'uis but the Shas'la can stay BS 3.

Then you can have veteran Firewarriors/Ethereal Body Guards of pure Shas'uis for a few extra points if you want or cheaper rookies.
All the Battlesuits would default to BS 4 then too.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Another problem with the Tau (and a big reason for the firewarrior stats) is that GW isn't sure what sort of army they want to make it. They obviously didn't want another MEQ army, thus the lower base stats. But they didn't want it to be a horde type army either, thus the higher points per model.

What they initially wanted was a mid sized army with high firepower (to help appeal to the Japanese anime market). And when the army was released that is exactly what it was. S5 on a basic trooper weapon. The ability to field 9 S10 weapons? Hold the phone thats aweseome. Add to it the army was released with 3rd ed mechanics in mind the army was awesome and it did its job. Orks were 9 points a boy. Grey Hunters and Necron warriors were 18. Jump pack units 25 ppm. The army did what it needed to do in the point ranges that were more or less on par with what was already out..

That is is really why most long time players look at them as so over costed. Units the FW have historically been significantly cheaper than,have not only become cheaper or or about the same cost as FW's but have also gotten major rules buff, no more vanishing necrons for example. If you don't think that was a major boost you never played pre 5 cron's.

Not to mention that warriors can now glance Landraiders to death.

It seems like the old system used to be to give every positive a negative to try and balance things out. Tau have BS3 across the board so they gave them markerlights. To "balance" markerlights they made them limited availability heavy weapons. FW had a great gun and armor, so get a terrible stat line.

And the rapid fire buff is not a bonus to Tau. It used to be a bonus for our crisis suits, but now every rapid fire weapon can move and shoot. That and when the standard MEQ is a 24" rapid fire weapon that wounds FW on a 3+ it seems kinda silly to say the Tau won on this one. They didn't. FW can move and shoot even though they will probably be hugging cover or stuck behind an ADL. Our crisis suits got stiffed out though. Now all plasma weapons have become much more mobile.

I'm really surprised to see people say that FW got better because of the rapid fire change. Well so did everything else, and they are still not as durable. That's like saying that one unit with a power weapon got buffed because now it has four to choose from. Well so does everybody else now.

Still FW are overpriced.

After all, FW can do nothing BUT shoot, and even so, the most common "basic" troop-the space marine-can kill FW in shooting twice as quickly then the FW killing them, even though the cost less then twice as much.
And they pack grenades, CC skills, higher Ld, combat squads, and ATSKNF to boot.


The did gain a bit more then others from new RF rules though, as they can now double-tap from 15' rather then 12'. not much, but a tiny edge.
The suits took a big hit from it though, it was part of the reason they costed so much to being with.

Im with Jayden on this one, offensively fire warriors are great but they get mowed down so easily its untrue. I also run sisters and the contrast is interesting - SoB 3+ save, large squad size, better LD and possibility of FNP means they hardly ever run.

The 12 limit on FWs might be fluffy but its really easy to mow down a squad of 12 T3 models in 40k. I mean, its evens they break if you kill 3 models! And they cant shoot from the safety of their overpriced transport like nearly every other army in the game.

I challenge the idea that a squad a marines can 'mow down' a similar costed squad of firewarriors in shooting. Range and the additional point of strength matter a fair bit.

Assuming 10 marines vs 15 firewarriors, here is some Math-Hammer: (i realise this breaks the squad size of the FW, it's so the point totals are kept as close as possible)

Marines
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits.
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds
4+ save = 2 dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits.
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds
3+ save = 2 dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

Being within 15 inches but not within 12 puts things even more in favour of the firewarriors, though of course being within charge range swings things back in favour of the marines.

 Neorealist wrote:
I challenge the idea that a squad a marines can 'mow down' a similar costed squad of firewarriors in shooting. Range and the additional point of strength matter a fair bit.

Assuming 10 marines vs 15 firewarriors, here is some Math-Hammer: (i realise this breaks the squad size of the FW, it's so the point totals are kept as close as possible)

Marines
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits.
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds
4+ save = 2 dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits.
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds
3+ save = 2 dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

Being within 15 inches but not within 12 puts things even more in favour of the firewarriors, though of course being within charge range swings things back in favour of the marines.

It's not a good idea to compare them, and ignore squad sizes, combat tactics, special and heavy weapons (some of which are FREE for the marines) and ignore leadership.
IMO, leadership is the problem with Tau. They shoot well enough, but they run far too often.
Ld7 means you FAIL 47% of the tests. That's a lot of pinned and running tau.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Neorealist wrote:
I challenge the idea that a squad a marines can 'mow down' a similar costed squad of firewarriors in shooting. Range and the additional point of strength matter a fair bit.

Assuming 10 marines vs 15 firewarriors, here is some Math-Hammer: (i realise this breaks the squad size of the FW, it's so the point totals are kept as close as possible)

Marines
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits.
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds
4+ save = 2 dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits.
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds
3+ save = 2 dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

Being within 15 inches but not within 12 puts things even more in favour of the firewarriors, though of course being within charge range swings things back in favour of the marines.

It's not a good idea to compare them, and ignore squad sizes, combat tactics, special and heavy weapons (some of which are FREE for the marines) and ignore leadership.
IMO, leadership is the problem with Tau. They shoot well enough, but they run far too often.
Ld7 means you FAIL 47% of the tests. That's a lot of pinned and running tau.

-Matt

Yeah, at 10 models the SM can have a Heavy Bolter for free. Why not just have them sit out at 31" and mow down two firewarriors per turn until they break?

30" range guns is really cool, yet almost everything that can kill a firewarrior easily (S5 and AP4 or better) can do it from further out. A lot of those are rather inexpensive since GW likes to give AP4 out for cheap because Space Marines are their measuring stick for everything and AP4 isn't any better than AP - against 3+ saves.

I think something went very, very wrong in your calculations there.
Marine shooting at FW:2/3 hit, 2/3 wound and 1/2 get past saves, that means 4.5 shots per kill
FW shooting at marines:1/2 hit, 2/3 wound and 1/3 get past saves, that means 9 shots per kill.

How on earth you got to your conclusions is beyond me. probably because you were rounding stuff up-and you DONT do that in calculations, when you mathammer you take the average even if a fraction comes up, and calculate from there.
(actually looking at your post, not only you rounded stuff, but you rounded UP for the FW and DOWN for the marines!)

And I think its safe to agree a single SM does NOT cost 20 points, even if you forget the massively better statline in any other department, the extra weapons, the grenades and the abilities.

I posted rounded off numbers for each step, but used the actual numbers that resulted to calculate the remaining ones if that makes any sense.

I'll post my numbers to explain what i mean:
Marines - (150pts, 15 pts each)
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range, and no special weapons for ease of math) - (10 shots)
BS 4 = 66% success, so 7 hits. (6.6666666667)
Strength 4 = 66% success, so 4 wounds (4.444444444444444)
4+ save (50% success) = 2 (2.222222222222222) dead fire warriors or 13% of their combat effectiveness

Firewarriors - (150 pts, 10 pts each)
(assuming out of double tap rapid fire range) - (15 shots)
BS 3 = 50% success, so 8 hits. (7.5)
Strength 5 = 66% success, so 5 wounds (5)
3+ save (66% success) = 2 (1.666666666666667) dead marines or 20% of their combat effectiveness.

And the reason i went with 15 firewarriors is to make it easy to calculate. Is there a preferred amount of points people would like to see this comparison done in?

 Neorealist wrote:
And the reason i went with 15 firewarriors is to make it easy to calculate. Is there a preferred amount of points people would like to see this comparison done in?

1,000,000,000.

On-topic: I think firewarriors are fine.