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 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
In the new land of Shooty awesomeness, Fire Warriors are a damn steal. There's a reason why 5th edition, most Tau lists had minimal Fire Warriors, whereas now most lists have at least 40.

So as not to take kroot?

I jest i quite like firewarriors, but it would be nice to see a small boost to reflect their cost.

Or maybe they take so many because most games are objective based and its the only decent troop choice we have. That and they probably expect most of them to die and run off.

Seriously, instead of just saying "they are fine", "a steal", or "good as they are" will you just look over the previous comments. We discussed how the lack of heavy/special weapons limits their effectiveness. We discussed how T3 and low model count, tied with bad leadership values means only 3 models need to go down before the entire squad is put at risk.

Seriously. Think about that. Imagine losing 3 guard, vets, space marines, termies, bikes, or whatever your troop of choice is and now having the chance the entire squad will run off the board. And a good chance at that.

The only arguments that I've seen pro firewarrior is that they are durable provided they are out of LOS in an environment where drop pods, deep strike, flyers, and bikes exist.

Or use an expensive transport just to block line of sight.

Or bring another expensive FA unit just to make a unit with no special or heavy weapons hit more often.

And my personal favorite, they are about fairly priced compared to guardsmen. That's right, the IG. Because we all know how IG never likes taking special or heavy weapons.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Or maybe they take so many because most games are objective based and its the only decent troop choice we have. That and they probably expect most of them to die and run off.

Seriously, instead of just saying "they are fine", "a steal", or "good as they are" will you just look over the previous comments. We discussed how the lack of heavy/special weapons limits their effectiveness. We discussed how T3 and low model count, tied with bad leadership values means only 3 models need to go down before the entire squad is put at risk.

Seriously. Think about that. Imagine losing 3 guard, vets, space marines, termies, bikes, or whatever your troop of choice is and now having the chance the entire squad will run off the board. And a good chance at that.

The only arguments that I've seen pro firewarrior is that they are durable provided they are out of LOS in an environment where drop pods, deep strike, flyers, and bikes exist.

Or use an expensive transport just to block line of sight.

Or bring another expensive FA unit just to make a unit with no special or heavy weapons hit more often.

And my personal favorite, they are about fairly priced compared to guardsmen. That's right, the IG. Because we all know how IG never likes taking special or heavy weapons.

Yeah! will everyone please just read back and then similarly to this dude dissagree with everything he's listed at the end of his post. Whats with you people wanting to argue your point....

A side note, I beat a double valkarie, double LRBT double manticore list yesterday by clerverly employing a bastion and allies with a tau army.

Aren't Tau sergeants LD 8? How is this super crappy morale? It's no worse than a combat squad without the space marine sergeant.

Martel732 wrote:
Aren't Tau sergeants LD 8? How is this super crappy morale? It's no worse than a combat squad without the space marine sergeant.

The problem is the sarg is a 10 point upgrade on top of the base 10 point model for whopping 20 point Sarge to get LD8.

Hmm. I'm not used to having the option of whether to buy my sergeant or not. If it helps, I feel marine sergeants are a bit overpriced too. Can the Tau sergeant take extra wargear?

Also, the bump for LD 7 to LD 8 is pretty big. Going from 21/36 to 26/36 might be worth the 10 pts if this is a chronic problem.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
In the new land of Shooty awesomeness, Fire Warriors are a damn steal. There's a reason why 5th edition, most Tau lists had minimal Fire Warriors, whereas now most lists have at least 40.

Mostly that is because they have to be out of the fish were they get shot to hell when claiming objectives, it is on longer a viable hope to keep a DF with warriors in reserve till round 4 or 5 do to changes in reserve rules, and the kroot just got worse this edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Hmm. I'm not used to having the option of whether to buy my sergeant or not. If it helps, I feel marine sergeants are a bit overpriced too. Can the Tau sergeant take extra wargear?

Also, the bump for LD 7 to LD 8 is pretty big. Going from 21/36 to 26/36 might be worth the 10 pts if this is a chronic problem.

Only ones worth the mention is the Black sun filter and Drone controller, but those can be gotten with the 5 point upgrade to team leader. That leaves 5 points to account for 1 pip of leadership. Marines base at 8, the Sarge makes them 9 for the same 10 point upgrade cost with access to better upgrades.

Martel732 wrote:
Hmm. I'm not used to having the option of whether to buy my sergeant or not. If it helps, I feel marine sergeants are a bit overpriced too. Can the Tau sergeant take extra wargear?

Also, the bump for LD 7 to LD 8 is pretty big. Going from 21/36 to 26/36 might be worth the 10 pts if this is a chronic problem.

However it is an add on which, if you average it out across say, 10 firewarriors, brings their points cost up to 11 points per model and still they have worse than Guardsman stats with a big gun.

If the Sgt was rolled in for the 10 points per Firewarrior, I would think we're pretty close to what the Firewarrior should be. Free Photon Grenades on top of that and we are bang on.

I can see the argument.

However, coming from the viewpoint of a BA player, at least Tau stuff got better in general and not worse.

I have always thought that the codices should be in pdf on the internet and GW could readjust point values on the fly as necessary. For example, the sanguinary priest should cost less as furious charge is considerably less valuable now.

The firewarriors only have access to a Devilfish as a transport. A very durable transport that is extremely expensive. Adding to that is the fact that its durability relies on it staying out of range, which hurts it due to its own weapons ' limited range. Compound that problem with the fact that FW can't shoot out of it, so they have to lose their protection just to use their gun.

And with LD7 base or a hefty upgrade just for LD8 which can still get sniped from the unit, they are likely to break and don't get boosts like ATSKNF. T3 hurts really bad for a unit that just needs 3 wounds to break.

They can't even be called glass cannons because they don't have the output capacity to do damage.

Let me ask this. Would an IG player be willing to lose all troop options and upgrades just to run a regular Guard with 4+ armor and the pulse rifle? When you're limited to 6-12 man squads, and can't take vendettas or Valkyries, or anything more than a basic squad leader? No plasma, no autocannons, no heavy weapon teams, and no vets.

I doubt anyone would. That leaves your troop slot with little to stand its ground, let alone take the offensive. And no amount of heavy support, FA, or elites makes up for the fact that your central point of the army is weak. Without the ability to reliably hold objectives the opponent just needs to hold 1 to win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tau did get a mixed bag from 6th though.

Reduced cover hurts FW but makes markerlights more effective.
Rapid fire changes boosted FW, but hurt crisis suits.
Disruption pods got boosted, but only tetras and hammerheads see much use.
Wound allocation now makes shield drones much better.
Stealthsuits got boosted, but are still expensive compared to how much damage they put out. Imagine a FW that's three times the cost but gets three shots at half range and runs 3D6" when breaking.
Crisis suits lost acute senses and their bonus with rapid fire, but gained BSF ability to ignore night fighting squad wide.

reddwarf54 wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
And if the D-fish is blocking LOS to the firewarriors behind it, then the firewarriors have blocked LOS to anything you want to shoot at. Bit of a double edged sword using it as a blocker and getting points out of killing stuff with your Firewarriors.

Not if you use the flat-out rules to your advantage. For instance, you start the turn with your firewarriors behind their devilfish. You move the devilfish out of the way of the firewarriors, then in the shooting phase, shoot with the firewarriors then flat-out the fish back infront of the firewarriors.

This can even be used if you wish to move your firewarriors around. I have borrowed the following pictures from ATT, as they illustrate the point very well.We start with the firewarriors behind the devilfish.

Then devilfish moves forward and out of the way 12".

Next, we move the firewarriors up and shoot with them.

Now we just flat-out the fish back infront of the firewarriors.


This can also be used for moving backwards, sideways, round in circles, pretty much anyway you can imagine. Another bonus is that the fish would get a juicy 2+ save from shooting from over 12" away. You do not need firepoints on vehicles when you plan on being outside them the entire game.

Do not forget that every army is able to do the Turtle not just Tau. It's just that ours is pretty annoying with the disruption pods being almost broken.

As a marine player, it seems that in my experience, carapace armor is pretty decent. None of my "ignores cover" tech will penetrate it, and I have to shoot pretty substantial weapons to ignore it.

Yes, guardsmen are more efficient in cover, but it might be desirable to be out of cover (objective) or your opponent might have invested in "ignore cover save tech", much of which will penetrate 5+ armor.

It seems to me that the Tau just kinda have to suck it up and pay for the LD 8 guy. Having your scoring troops run away really sucks and its worth the points to stop this from happening.

It's still probably true that the Tau are on the short end of the stick compared to IG. The IG just kinda do the Tau schemes better in many cases. It's the same case with my BA and space wolves, but I just suck it up and soldier on!

And then the enemy just steps forward, and the Dpod does not function any more, and then they blast it with krak grenades.

The turtle is a nice trick now-and-then, but not a game winning strategy.

FW are not as good as they SHOULD be, and not as good as their cost suggests.
They are not penal legion level, but the are among the poorer troop choices around, and only taken because a Tau player have to have some sort of troops, and lacks any better.
Fact is, most armies can just spam basic troops choices/"cult" troop choices (take HQ X and Y becomes troop) and be viable with some random upgrades, Tau can't, because our troops can't get ANYTHING done on their own.

As testimate to how badly Firewarriors suck at their job, you can go to any 40K message board and you will never find a post entitled...

How do you deal with Firewarrior spam?

Its my opinion that people who play tau think the FW is overpriced compared to what we see other peoples troop choices doing. And those who play against tau (unless you play against tau a lot) don't really realize that they arn't in fact doing much because you have other much more pressing threats to deal with and don't really pay them too much mind. And I know you have never said to yourself in a fit of frustration "what the hell do I have to do to kill those guys."

One thing I don’t like about some of the Mathhammers done above is that it only accounts for shooting, which is the Tau’s strength. What we need is an evaluation that accounts for assaulting too. So that’s what I am going to try and do here. So first, let’s introduce the participants:

The Contestents

Bare Imperial Guard Infantry Squad - 9 Guardsmen with Lasguns, 1 Sgt with Laspistol, 50 points
Bare Space Marine Tactical Squad – 4 Marines, 1 Sergeant with Boltguns, Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 90 points
Bare Tau Empire Firewarrior Squad – 6 Firewarriors with Pulse Rifles, 60 Points
I have gone with a non-upgraded minimum size squad of each. I figure the points per model doesn’t include upgrades, so there is no point including upgrades in my comparison.

Now, on to our first event, the Shooting Test:
For shooting I am trying to factor in the range of the weapon, something very few comparisons do. To do this I divide the range of the weapon by 6 inches then multiply by the number of shots it fires. Since Rapid Fire weapons fire 2 shots half the time and 1 shot the other half of the time, I count this as 1.5 shots.

Here’s how it works out:
Bolter, Lasgun: 24 inches / 6 inches x 1.5 shots= 6 Shots
Pulse Rifle: 30 inches / 6 inches X 1.5 shots = 7.5 Shots
Laspistol: 12 inches /6 inches x 1 shot = 2 Shots.

What I will do with these numbers is multiply the numbers of shots by the chance to hit by the chance to wound by the chance to get a wound through the armour save. Once that is done I will calculate how many points of the models in question were required to land that wound. Here is an example with a squad of Guardsmen shooting at bunch of Guardsmen Equivalent targets.

6 shots per Lasgun x 9 Lasguns + 2 Shots for the Laspistol = 58 Shots
58 shots x 1/2 to hit = 29 hits
29 hits x 1/2 to wound = 14.5 wounds
14.5 wounds x 2/3 chance to fail the save = 9.67 kills
50 points / 9.67 kills = 5.17 points/kill

So, now that my methodology section is out of the way, let’s run the numbers.

Shooting at T3 5+ Save (i.e. Guardsmen):
Guardsmen: 9.67 kills or 5.17 points/kill
Space Marines: 13.33 kills or 6.75 points/kill
Firewarriors: 18.75 kills or 3.2 points / kill

Shooting at T4 3+ Save (i.e. Marines)
Guardsmen: 3.22 kills or 15.52 points/kill
Space Marines: 3.33 kills or 27 points/kill
Firewarriors: 5 kills or 12 points/kill

Now I am going to average the above so we can see which force is the most points efficient at shooting

Guardsmen Shooting Score: 10.35 points/kill
Space Marine Shooting Score: 16.88 points/kill
Firewarrior Shooting Score: 7.6 points per/kill.

So, in terms of points efficiency, Firewarriors out do both Guardsmen and Space Marines. Of course this is only shooting, let’s take a look at assault.

Assault
So, after several turns of shooting, our contestants find themselves in a brawl with the opposition. I am going to do just 1 round here due to the finality of most combats causing them to only last one round most of the time. For simplicity sake I am going to ignore who charged who and who had the initiative and just focus on raw damage output.

Again I’ll be showing the math just this once to save space. Here is an example of the calculation involving our Squad of Guardsmen fighting it out with an opponent with WS 3, T 3 and a 5+ Save
9 Guardsmen with 1 attack each + 1 Sergeant with 3 attacks = 12 Attacks
12 Attacks x 1/2 to hit = 6 hits
6 hits x 1/2 to wound = 3 wounds
3 wounds x 2/3 chance to fail the save = 2 kills
50 points / 2 kills = 25 points/kill

Again, that’s the methodology, lets run some numbers:

First hitting a WS 3, T3, 5+ Save opponent (i.e. Guardsmen)
Guardsmen: 1.83 kills or 27.27 points / kill
Space Marines: 3.26 kills or 27.61 points / kill
Firewarriors: 1 kill or 60 points/ kill.

Now, hitting a WS 4, T4, 3+ save opponent (i.e. Space Marine)
Guardsmen: 0.67 kills or 75 points / kill
Space Marines: 0.92 kills or 98.18 points / kill.
Firewarriors: 0.33 kills or 180 points per kill.

Let’s average it out again
Guardsmen: 51.14 points per kill
Space Marines: 62.9 points per kill
Firewarriors: 120 points per kill

Composite Average:
Alright, now that we have some numbers to work with, let’s see how we do here when we average Shooting and Assault points per kill.

Guardsmen: 30.75 points / kill
Space Marine: 39.89 points / kill
Firewarriors: 63.8 points / kill

So there we have it, when it comes to dealing wounds across shooting and assault, the Firewarrior is about twice as bad point per point as the Guardsman and about 50% worse than the Space Marine.

Now if the Firewarrior had some Special Rules or was super durable I might see this as being fairly priced, but we know the Firewarriors have less Special Rules than either of the above and while more durable than a Guardsman, they are no match for the toughness and armour of a Space Marine.

In a little while I’ll run some numbers on comparative durability and combine them with the above and give us a picture of just how much of an overcharge the Firewarrior is at.

How would they compare when fighting armour 10-11, based on the guardsmen/marines using special/heavy weapons?

A unit of 12 firewarriors over 15" shooting at AV10 will get 1 pen and 1 glance. Against AV11 it will get 1 glance.

Honestly there are way too many possibilities for the SM tac squad for me to even care to calculate it all out. But the SM have bolters which can glance AV10 standard and can take one of two special weapons in the plasma gun and melta gun that can do damage, and 5 in the heavy weapons selection that can do damage in the heavy bolter, missile launcher, lascannon, plasma cannon, and multi-melta. All of which have a 24" or better range. Add to it that 1 SM guy can choose to throw his Krack grenade (if your close enough) and you end up with a lot of options that can take down light transports.

Yes, DE really dislike Tau gunlines. Orks don't care so much because the trukk is zooming 24" forward and who really cares what happens after that. But most any other transport in the game is more than willing to shrug off a round or two of Firewarrior shooting, and by then their cargo is much to close to the gun line for the firewarrior to be comfortable.

Honestly one of the more difficult match-ups for Tau is Tau. It really comes down to who's railguns die first.

Jefffar wrote:
Mathhammers

The Contestents

Bare Imperial Guard Infantry Squad - 9 Guardsmen with Lasguns, 1 Sgt with Laspistol, 50 points
Bare Space Marine Tactical Squad – 4 Marines, 1 Sergeant with Boltguns, Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, 90 points
Bare Tau Empire Firewarrior Squad – 6 Firewarriors with Pulse Rifles, 60 Points
I have gone with a non-upgraded minimum size squad of each. I figure the points per model doesn’t include upgrades, so there is no point including upgrades in my comparison.

Here’s how it works out:
Bolter, Lasgun: 24 inches / 6 inches x 1.5 shots= 6 Shots
Pulse Rifle: 30 inches / 6 inches X 1.5 shots = 7.5 Shots
Laspistol: 12 inches /6 inches x 1 shot = 2 Shots.

What I will do with these numbers is multiply the numbers of shots by the chance to hit by the chance to wound by the chance to get a wound through the armour save. Once that is done I will calculate how many points of the models in question were required to land that wound. Here is an example with a squad of Guardsmen shooting at bunch of Guardsmen Equivalent targets.

6 shots per Lasgun x 9 Lasguns + 2 Shots for the Laspistol = 58 Shots
58 shots x 1/2 to hit = 29 hits
29 hits x 1/2 to wound = 14.5 wounds
14.5 wounds x 2/3 chance to fail the save = 9.67 kills
50 points / 9.67 kills = 5.17 points/kill

So, now that my methodology section is out of the way, let’s run the numbers.

Shooting at T3 5+ Save (i.e. Guardsmen):
Guardsmen: 9.67 kills or 5.17 points/kill
Space Marines: 13.33 kills or 6.75 points/kill
Firewarriors: 18.75 kills or 3.2 points / kill

Shooting at T4 3+ Save (i.e. Marines)
Guardsmen: 3.22 kills or 15.52 points/kill
Space Marines: 3.33 kills or 27 points/kill
Firewarriors: 5 kills or 12 points/kill

So compare them to two very good choices negating that there are other examples of how good they are compared to what other people here have considered good.
10 DE Warriors 90 points
9 Fire Warriors 90 points

DE shooting 12-24"" 10 shots, 6.66 hit. 3.33 wound 1.66 dead firewarriros
Fire Warrior shooting 15-30" 9 shots, 4.5 hit. 3.75 dead DE
But wait, DE can get FNP with a 50 point HQ choice. Even with FNP, still 2.5 dead DE.

ok combat. DE get 10 attacks and strike first, 6.66 hit, 3.33 wound 1.66 dead firewarriors
Firewarriors get 7.33 attacks back. 1.22 dead DE in return.

So the DE are awesome in CC right, they strike first and can kill off the Tau in a slow grinding combat they win and are awesome!

the DE warriors are never going to make it into combat, and the only reason they want to get into combat with the tau is that so the tau cannot shoot them back. The DE warrior is no more effective in combat against tau then they are in shooting. The FW is on the other hand more than three times as effective in shooting than he is in CC.

DE never leave home without a blaster. 10 DE never leave home without either a DL or a splinter cannon. DE can get FNP, FC, and Fearless without having to add anything in points wise, it just depends on what they have done recently.

And you picked the one army that is actually less effective at shooting T3. If you want to show an even more lopsided look into the FW favor, lets have firewarriors and DE warriors shooting at T2 grots. However, now lets stack up your 9 FW against 10 DE warriors and have them shoot at T5 or better things. Now who is doing the more killing?

So yeah, all armies have things that they do better than others just because of their default equipment. But you need to look at the entirty of the game. Some match ups are just better than others and in the grand curve of it all the FW does find itself lacking as it has a very uphill battle against the most prolific profile of all available armies.

You really can't compare veterans without special weapons. To anything. 10 vets with 3 plasmas is 115 points, or 11.5 points per model.

At 24" vs MEQ these get 2 plasma hits, 0.66 kills. The lasguns do an additional 0.44 wounds, for a total of 1 MEQ kill. 10 Fire Warriors get 1.1 kills.

Things get even better for the FW however. If we want to even them out, i.e. give the vets carapace and the FWs Ld8, we add 3 points per model to the vets and 1point to the FWs, for a final points cost of 11p FWs and 14.5p vets.

So FWs outshoot something that they're 3.5ppm cheaper than. So now we ask ourselves why guard players don't take carapace vets with plasma on foot...and we get to the root of the problem. It's simply true that FWs die too quickly, they can't hide in boxes or have access to cheap stealth. Frankly I can see GW simply giving Tau a transport with firing points, just to make sure all the armies play the same Though I don't know what else could done. I suspect giving tau 3+ armour would be too far.

 BryllCream wrote:
So FWs outshoot something that they're 3.5ppm cheaper than. So now we ask ourselves why guard players don't take carapace vets with plasma on foot...

I do that all the time and it works wonderfully.

Okay, round two for some point effectiveness analysis. I’ve covered giving, now it’s time for the receiving. How much punishment can our comparative units take?

The Contestants

Imperial Guardsmen. Weapon Skill 3, Toughness 3 and a 5+ Save. 5 Points
Space Marine. Weapon Skill 4, Toughness 4 and a 3+ Save. 18 Points
Tau Empire Firewarrior. Weapon Skill 2, Toughness 3 and a 4+ Save. 10 Points.

So, now on to our first event, getting shot. Math is simple here, how many shots from a particular type of weapon is it going to take to knock our contestant out of the game. We’ll include the Ballistic Skill of the attacker as well because I’m going to do that later in the Assault section as well and don’t want to skew the results.

So, our first shooter will be a Guardsman with a Lasgun (BS 3, S 3 AP - ). Let’s see how many shots it takes to kill our models.

Imperial Guardsman: 6 Shots/Kill
Space Marine: 18 Shots/Kill
Firewarrior: 8 Shots/Kill

Next up, we’ll have a Space Marine with a Bolter try his luck (BS 4, S 4, AP 5)

Imperial Guardsman: 2.25 Shots/Kill (bypassing that armour save really, really hurts)
Space Marine: 9 Shots/Kill
Firewarrior: 4.5 Shots/Kill

Alright, let’s average those out and figure out how many shots per point our models can take.

Imperial Guardsman: 0.83 Shots / Point
Space Marine: 0.75 Shots / Point
Firewarrior: 0.63 Shots / Point

So, looking at the above, it appears the Guardsman is a better bullet stopper than either of the above. Now let’s see what happens in a fight.
For the fight I am going to find how many attacks it takes to bring down a model. I will be factoring the comparative WS attributes for this.

So, in our first match, our puncher will be an Imperial Guardsman (WS 3 S 3) and we’ll see how long it takes him to beat down our contestants.

Imperial Guardsman: 6 Attacks / Kill
Space Marine: 18 Attacks / Kill
Tau Firewarrior: 6 Attacks / Kill

Now our Space Marine (WS 4, S 4) is going to take a swing at our contestants.

Imperial Guardsman: 3.76 Attacks / Kill
Space Marine: 12 Attacks / Kill
Fire Warrior: 4.5 Attacks / Kill.

So lets’ average things out and figure out how many attacks per point they can stand.

Imperial Guardsman: 0.98 Attacks / Point
Space Marine: 0.83 Attacks / Point
Firewarrior: 0.53 Attacks / Point

So, the Guardsman is again the most point efficient at taking a pounding of the lot.

Now I’m going to blend the two sets of averages and see which model is the most efficient at sucking up all sorts of attacks.

Imperial Guardsman: 0.91 Attacks / Point
Space Marine: 0.79 Attacks / Point
Firewarrior: 0.58 Attacks / Point

So, once again, the Firewarrior comes off dramatically less points efficient than either a Guardsman or a Space Marine.

Now the fun part, lets try and put this all together for an overall comparison.

What I am going to do is create an efficiency rating based on the Imperial Guardsman, as he seems to be the most efficient. We will then see how inefficient the other two are in comparison. It’s going to be pretty simple to do, I’m just going to divide the Guardsman’s score by the others Scores and see what I get.

So I’ll start with the Offensive Numbers from the previous post.

Guardsman Offensive Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Offensive Efficiency Rating: 1.
Firewarrior Offensive Efficiency Rating: 2.1

Now let’s get Defensive Numbers from this post

Guardsman Defensive Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Defensive Efficiency Rating: 1.15
Firewarrior Defensive Efficiency Rating: 1.57

Finally, the moment we have all been waiting for, combining all the math above into one specific number that will tell us how well costed these models are. I am going to average Offensive and Defensive Efficiencies into a single rating.

Imperial Guardsman Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.23
Firewarrior Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.84

Okay, so what do these numbers mean? Well basically it means that what a Guardsman pays 1 point to get, a Space Marine pays 1.23 Points to get and a Tau Firewarrior pays 1.84 points to get.
I’ll be honest, these numbers surprise me quite a bit. Mathematically, they would hold that a Firewarrior would be as point efficient as a Guardsman, if the Firewarrior only cost 5.43 points. I was expecting something around 8 or 9 points.

What makes it worse is there are a number of things missing here. My math doesn’t factor in the fact that both Guardsmen and Space Marines have better initiative, better starting unit Leadership, more standard issue equipment and more Special Rules than the Firewarriors. All of these things make the Guardsman and the Marine more point efficient than they already are. Also, when I ran these numbers, I stacked the deck a bit in the Tau’s favor by factoring the range advantage of their Pulse Rifles which is something most other mathematical comparisons don’t do.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I hate the argument that marker lights make them useful. What other troop requires another overpriced and squishy unit to justify their cost?

Firewarriors would be ok for their cost if they had access to special weapons and got a leadership buff and maybe a slight stat change. With as low as some of their stats are, it's absurd that they cost as much as they do. You're really only purchasing a gun with FW.

...Markerlights are a gun available on several units, not a squishy unit. They're overpriced if your intent is to stick Marker Drones on Crisis teams, yes; Pathfinders, Markerlights as upgrades to Stealth and Fire Warrior Shas'ui, and Tetras if you're using IA3 are all better options.

The Tau army isn't composed of self-sufficient units like most Marine forces; it's supposed to be fielded as a combined army that has some interaction between units. You can't spam one unit and win like you can in some armies, ideally you will use your Markerlights to pick out a unit and then use the markerlight counters to make it die with whatever else is convenient and effective to hit it with. It requires a lot more planning and foresight than "throw Purifiers in Razorbacks. Run forward. Hit things" does, yes, and playing an army with that degree of depth may be okay for some people, but the Tau aren't a shallow, easy, or simple-to-use army. Their weaknesses are in people trying to use them like they are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jefffar wrote:

Finally, the moment we have all been waiting for, combining all the math above into one specific number that will tell us how well costed these models are. I am going to average Offensive and Defensive Efficiencies into a single rating.

Imperial Guardsman Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1
Space Marine Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.23
Firewarrior Overall Points Efficiency Rating: 1.84

Okay, so what do these numbers mean? Well basically it means that what a Guardsman pays 1 point to get, a Space Marine pays 1.23 Points to get and a Tau Firewarrior pays 1.84 points to get.
I’ll be honest, these numbers surprise me quite a bit. Mathematically, they would hold that a Firewarrior would be as point efficient as a Guardsman, if the Firewarrior only cost 5.43 points. I was expecting something around 8 or 9 points.

What makes it worse is there are a number of things missing here. My math doesn’t factor in the fact that both Guardsmen and Space Marines have better initiative, better starting unit Leadership, more standard issue equipment and more Special Rules than the Firewarriors. All of these things make the Guardsman and the Marine more point efficient than they already are. Also, when I ran these numbers, I stacked the deck a bit in the Tau’s favor by factoring the range advantage of their Pulse Rifles which is something most other mathematical comparisons don’t do.

Again, running in a vacuum. A Fire Warrior is fairly bad one-on-one, yes. People complain that Fire Warriors don't get special weapons; that's stacking the estimate more in favor of other infantry that are designed to operate in a vacuum, Fire Warriors aren't.

There's also the problem of not factoring in the fact that Fire Warriors have possibly the toughest infantry transport out there (not counting Land Raiders, given that they can't be taken as Dedicated Transports to anything that's a 'basic soldier' by any definition), or various helpful wargear available to the Shas'ui (5pts and Space Marines' helpful special rules advantage disappears. How about that.)...

I don't count the Tetra because the Forgeworld have an Orkish mentality of more shooty means more better. It isn't a codex option either and so I never take it into consideration like this.

Stealth markers and firewarrior markers are both expensive and are still heavy weapons for firewarriors. That and it makes you sacrifice one of your models shooting just to boost another squad that's going to shoot at the same target you are. And both are Bs3 so it will only hit 50% of the time. Markerlights are crap in the codex because they all come on BS3 models and are expensive in an already point heavy codex.


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And the problem with the cohesive force concept is that its a huge negative for the army. Try playing DA where they are BS3 if all your speeders are dead.

Tau are an army with a lot of negatives built in as an excuse to give them a shooting buff. But since they were released other armies have been boosted further. So Tau negatives really begin to shine through.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Again, running in a vacuum. A Fire Warrior is fairly bad one-on-one, yes. People complain that Fire Warriors don't get special weapons; that's stacking the estimate more in favor of other infantry that are designed to operate in a vacuum, Fire Warriors aren't.

There's also the problem of not factoring in the fact that Fire Warriors have possibly the toughest infantry transport out there (not counting Land Raiders, given that they can't be taken as Dedicated Transports to anything that's a 'basic soldier' by any definition), or various helpful wargear available to the Shas'ui (5pts and Space Marines' helpful special rules advantage disappears. How about that.)...

Oh I agree I'm running in a vacuum here, but I'm doing it for the sake of my own sanity. By the time I start calculating the effects of Pathfinders and Tetras vs Librarians with Prescience and Devilfish vs Rhinos and Land Raiders and Broadides versus Devastators I'd have to yank all my hair out.

Jefffar wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Again, running in a vacuum. A Fire Warrior is fairly bad one-on-one, yes. People complain that Fire Warriors don't get special weapons; that's stacking the estimate more in favor of other infantry that are designed to operate in a vacuum, Fire Warriors aren't.

There's also the problem of not factoring in the fact that Fire Warriors have possibly the toughest infantry transport out there (not counting Land Raiders, given that they can't be taken as Dedicated Transports to anything that's a 'basic soldier' by any definition), or various helpful wargear available to the Shas'ui (5pts and Space Marines' helpful special rules advantage disappears. How about that.)...

Oh I agree I'm running in a vacuum here, but I'm doing it for the sake of my own sanity. By the time I start calculating the effects of Pathfinders and Tetras vs Librarians with Prescience and Devilfish vs Rhinos and Land Raiders and Broadides versus Devastators I'd have to yank all my hair out.

You're also occupying an imaginary world where all weapons are lasguns, bolters or whatever the tau use 4+ T3 guys just love to die. Pretty much everything above standard weapons will kill them outright, so your comparison is moot.

Here's something I would like to see:

10x Fire Warriors vs 20x blob Imperial Guardsmen (that's 18 lasguns), starting at 36" (assuming smart deployment on the part of the Tau).

What happens if IG get first turn? What if the Tau do?

going away from the rules and statistics part of tau, the whole background thing (to put it simply) Tau work together, each caste does its job in order for the other caste to continue working without a hitch, thats how its play style is interpreted, markerlights to help pretty much the entire army, air caste to help the fire caste the list goes on, but thats just how tau play, yes the FW are stupidly squishy, so come up with your own way to get around that, a few people have gone turtle a few have gone sacrificial units, not disagreeing with the fact that FW need a price drop or a stat upgrade, just explaining to some people that it isn't right to compare one play style to another when the two a colossally different in style

Except that the Tau's play style is handicapped because the table width is suited for MEQ. That and its already been discussed that requiring army cohesion based on support units is a negative put on the entire army. The pathfinders are even worse than firewarriors because of their smaller squad size, higher cost, required transport, and have the same leadership problem. Except they only need 1-2 wounds to force the morale check. Markerlights are a burden that the entire army has to carry.

If the story for the tau were any different then it would be just the same as every other army, troops deal with everything and your heavy and elites slots smash the things that get in the way of the troops. If you can't find a way for the play style to suit you then you're playing the wrong army