Vespid and Burst Cannon Crisis Suits good now?

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**UnadoptedPuppy**

Cryogen wrote:
I've actually been working on a spreadsheet over the last few days to calculate the effectiveness of various crisis weapons against various targets. So far I've calculated several kinds of common infantry types. I have not taken into account range or point costs as yet, purely was interested in basic unsaved wound output. Have not yet done numbers on Cyclic Ion Blaster, or Airbursting Frag. Plasma Rifle assumed not to be in rapid fire range.

Monstrous Creature (tested as T6, 3+): Burst Cannon (BC) about half as effective as Fusion Blaster (FB), close to equal to Plasma Rifle (PR) and exactly equal to Missile Pod (MP).

Plague Marine (T5, 3+, 5+ FNP): PR and BC identical. FB slightly more effective (but negligible) and MP very slightly worse (but negligible). All options close enough to equal to not matter.

Terminator (T4, 2+, 5++): PR, FB identical. BC slightly less effective. MP slightly less effective than BC (about half as good as PR & FB)

MEQ (T4, 3+): Here is where it starts to turn. PR, FB and BC all basically identical, tiniest of advantages to BC. MP about 2/3 as good as others.

Ork (T4, 5+): BC just over 3 times more effective than PR or FB (which are identical). MP twice as effective as PR or FB.

GEQ (T3, 5+): BC 4 times as effective as PR or FB (which are identical). MP twice as effective as PR or FB.

Overall, shooting at infantry, BC's are either just marginally worse than any other option (by so little it barely matters) or are WAY better. PR pulls in the gap within rapid fire range and is still a very good weapon, as it always has been. Considering points costs, BC is an excellent option when only considering infantry targets.

Please note I am not saying OMG BC's ARE THE AWESOME!!! Every Tau player knows we have plenty of s5 kicking around, generally, and there are so many other factors to consider like availability of cover, wargear modifiers, range, points costs etc. But it has been an interesting study. I'll be running numbers for all the weapons against AV values at some point, should be another interesting study! I'd really advise any player to do a little bit of math on their army, it can really open your eyes to some things.

Wow, this is a great way to look at the weapons. Of course, the rest of the army should be taken into consideration, but this is still incredibly useful and sort of eye opening. BCs have always been a "why would I take that when I could have _____" for me.

**Trasvi**

Cryogen wrote:

Plasma Rifle assumed not to be in rapid fire range.

I think this is too big a point to be ignored. You're doing a lot of maths at 18" range for the Fusion + Burst Cannon, but ignoring a major bonus of the Plasma Rifle. I try to get my PR's into rapid fire range as early as possible vs MEQ/TEQ: which really changes the dynamic and PR becomes twice as effective as BC against MC's, Plague Marines, Terminators and MEQ.

I completely agree with you that mathhammer is necessary (and I'm doing a ton of it myself at the moment) just that discounting half the potential firepower of a weapon is going to lead to inaccurate results.

That being said... In 5th edition, it was apparent that BC+PR was actually the best infantry hunting unit we could field. However, swapping for MC gave up only a small amount of firepower against some infantry, but vastly increased the capability to take out light vehicles, which most people considered a worthwhile trade. It is very interesting to see how the extra shot has affected the damage output.

**Cryogen**

I completely agree which is why I made the disclaimer (and the note in the second last paragraph). It was a bit difficult to get across in text, as I don't really want to post up a whole massive table of data. The data table I have makes it very easy to double up the number of unsaved wounds for Plasma Rifles, so when I'm doing my own comparisons it's easy to see side by side. It's definitely a very valid point you make, anyone doing this for their own armies should consider the potential output increase for rapidfire or similar modifiers.

Taking that a step further, it's important not to forget some of the things we choose to ignore when doing calculations. Like you say, I've optimized the range at 18" just to keep it simple. As well as rapidfire, you have to keep in the back of your mind that rapidfire range also generally puts you in charge risk range. Also, PR and MP having a greater range has value in itself - possibly enabling additional turns of shooting, or better options when picking a target. You can't mathhammer everything! (well you COULD, but at some point you have to draw the line!)

I've finished up my formulas for working out AV today, so I'm looking forward to filling out a table and seeing how that pans out! After that I might see if I can do some basic point efficiency calculations as well, though personally I think it starts to get a bit too abstract at that stage. Still interesting though

**Peregrine**

Cryogen wrote:
As well as rapidfire, you have to keep in the back of your mind that rapidfire range also generally puts you in charge risk range.

That's not really true now that you can measure at any time. You shoot from 11.9999999" away, then move back 2D6". In your opponent's turn they move 6" and then assault 2D6". So they have 6+2D6" of movement to cover 12+2D6" of distance. Even if you roll really badly on your assault move the enemy unit has to roll above average to catch you.

Now, things get more complicated when you consider table edges and getting boxed in by multiple assault units, but as a general rule rapid fire with crisis suits is fairly safe unless your target has effective rapid fire weapons of their own.

**Crimson**

I've been wondering why missile pod is so popular. It doesn't seem that great to me. It has the range, but to shoot with your other weapon you need to get close anyway.

**generalchaos34**

Crimson wrote:
I've been wondering why missile pod is so popular. It doesn't seem that great to me. It has the range, but to shoot with your other weapon you need to get close anyway.

Its all about range, and alot of people (including myself) have a tendency to play it safe with fragile crisis units so that they do not get wrecked, instead of going balls in and doing the wrecking with something more satisfying like a FB. Also because they can be a good transport killed if TL .

**DakkaHammer**

Crimson wrote:
I've been wondering why missile pod is so popular. It doesn't seem that great to me. It has the range, but to shoot with your other weapon you need to get close anyway.

Because if you are starting your suits on your table edge, it is great to be able to use their weapons first turn from the safety of your lines.

It is also a great multi-purpose weapon. It has the shot count to deal with large numbers of enemies, the strength to deal with high toughness enemies and light vehicles, and a decent AP for shooting at infantry.

**Peregrine**

Crimson wrote:
I've been wondering why missile pod is so popular. It doesn't seem that great to me. It has the range, but to shoot with your other weapon you need to get close anyway.

Mostly it's a leftover from 5th where you had to kill hordes of transports and therefore every unit in your army had to be able to engage a Razorback from outside 24". Now they're still useful (especially if you take two of them), but they shouldn't be the default choice anymore.

**Jancoran**

I don't like Misile Pods, but not because they aren't good. I don't like them because they are a tweener weapon that is always good but it takes a fair amount of shots to get the job done at times which means you are potentially commiting two to three units to a job instead o1-2. That 1-2 unit difference is a big deal when you consider that there is only a finite number of them to use.

Cover and other considerationsmake a torrent of Fire OR an AP barrage more attractive to me. So in oher words, TL Smart Missile systems and Burst Cannons seem really good, Fusion Blasters and Plasma seem really good also. Both do the job better if range is not a problem.

So it seems like Range is the great advantage of missiles, but then, that range on a FINITe board stops being the advantage it was, usually around turn 2. and then its just another gun.

So its really good to have HIGH STR in Warhammer. High STR is the key. But I just find myself at less than 24" from the enemy too often to think "hmm, sure glad I had that missiles range". You know? If you subtract range as a benefit...

**GyrfalconXV25**

generalchaos34 wrote:
I would be tempted to take a TL FB and a BC, or maybe a TL BC and a BC just so that i can make a platform that can engage in anti infantry and anti tank as long as im being constrained to an 18" tange. Does that configuration have a name?

I hard that mixing roles is a bad idea for crisis suits. they should do one thing and do it well. if they are half assing two things you aren't doing them justice.

**Jancoran**

Not really true in my experience.

Melta+flamers in particular are nice. The reason people didn't do it before was because of the way you allocated wounds before 6E. That made dual use suits kinda...not a great idea. People just cherry picked who took what save.

But now the shooter chooses which saves go first. So you deluge a target wiuth flame and three meltas, then make them take normal saves before Melta saves or vice versa dependiong on where the special character is in the group. This maximizes the deaths from the unit and "wastes" none because no more can someone put all three plasma hits on one guy,

**Cryogen**

Jancoran wrote:
Not really true in my experience.

Melta+flamers in particular are nice. The reason people didn't do it before was because of the way you allocated wounds before 6E. That made dual use suits kinda...not a great idea. People just cherry picked who took what save.

But now the shooter chooses which saves go first. So you deluge a target wiuth flame and three meltas, then make them take normal saves before Melta saves or vice versa dependiong on where the special character is in the group. This maximizes the deaths from the unit and "wastes" none because no more can someone put all three plasma hits on one guy,

This man knows things.

Fantastic point, and a good reason to always look beneath the surface.