Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Razerous wrote:

Finally, I have had a little experience with those special weapons. I think people under-estimate the cheaper and more versatile Ion Rifle. Str8 blasts are just golden.

Str 8 Blast is great, but without some markerlight support of its own that BS3 is going to see that Blast most likely drift off my initial target. So unless I know I am going to be playing against a closely packed target rich field the blast doesn't hold as much appeal to me.

For me the ion rifles are a no go simply because Gets Hot on a 5+ 11 point unit is just too much risk/cost. The scatter is also no help for it either. I prefer to get my S8 large blasts on units where the AP will generally be more useful and can take the penalty for Gets hot better.

I personally find it rather odd though. Pathfinders are meant to be support units but get special weapons that seems like they'd be more useful on firewarriors, since you're more likely to spend marker tokens on firewarriors than pathfinders anyways.

 Spazamataz wrote:
Using pathfinders for anything but markerlights is wasteful in the extreme!!!!!

Lol.

Well let me assure you: the evidence does not support that theory.

I am now 11-0-1 without firing a single Markerlight from the Pathfinders. Tuesdays opponent didn't bother taking their third turn. A hand shake was the end of it.

Most of the responses here have covered the tactica for using them. So i wont repeat what has already been well said.

Be interested in throwing down my Necrons, SW, and Sisters against that unit of Pathfinders that "never shoots a ML."

I'd make 'em sweat.

It does seem like a lot of points for a side threat when a Riptide can do it cheaper.

Oh...I have those too... LOL.

I am a Sisters of Battle player as well. I won 3 of the last four tournies with them as I might have mentioned. they are EXCELLENT.

I've not faced Sisters with this. It would be very interesting to fight that battle.

You two should get a table and get rolling, i am interested to see how this Pathfinder unit can do and how it can be played.

Personally i played without markerlights so far and i can say its been a decent fight, tho i understand why markerlights are so dear to the Tau. ( out of 36 rapid fire Firewarriors there was a lot of misses )

I know. We should. Though Batreps will probably have to do. I have a tourney in the morning and hopefully will get some good pics and stories to tell for the 40KUnorthodoxy blog.

The thing about the Pathfinders is, you want to shoot them...but they are way over THERE. If you chase them down, Its only going to be with a couple squads at most and those squads might not ever come home for dinner. The Pathfinders can just hop in and kite (or shoot you in the face). charging them is almost a nonstarter from the word go. They kind of burn up your attention but the cost of dealing with them is kinda high. Especially with the right warlord trait!

... I'm sorry, but how are pathfinders too far away to shoot? I understand the 30" range rail rifle and the 24" range pulse carbines. That logically should put them in range of bolters which are perfectly fine for taking them down. They are T3 5+, its not that hard to take them down at least not dedicating massive attention towards them. Sure they can hop in their Devilfish and leave, but that's a trick that any thing with a transport has been able to do and pathfinders don't really have a way to do it faster.

I'm also more than willing to use a whirlwind shot on a group of pathfinders though especially in cover

whirlwinds are good for that. Do you field them? Most dont. But yes. the Whirlwind would be a good weapon to use. So would the colossus.

My question is, what AREN"T you killing in the meantime? Easy to plop the name of {fill in unit here} and say you'd fire on them. Harder to actually do it if you dont field it or you just cant because the Invocation is making the Fire Warriors rape your Rhinos or whatever the situation is.

And here's the thing: I often lose one and lose most of the other squad too eventually. So their death isn't a tragedy. its ALMOSt inevitable.

Its the damage they do before you can do anything about it that hurts. then its the attention you must pay to them.

As for the other comment, My point was, I have 24-30" range with them. So unless you get closer (and pull out of position) you're just firing single shots at me while I'm in cover. I can go to ground and then get back up with the right Warlord Trait (which Aun'Va, my Warlord, conveniently comes with). So its quite unlikely that the enemy will take LESS than two full rounds of my heartiest fire. And by then so much other damage has been done that you may just NOT have the realistic option of taking them down. Other priorities will make it difficult, though not impossible, to invest shots that way.

But yes. If you singlemindedly tried to kill them to the exclusion of other units, you could get the job done. They wont last forever. They rarely do. But the damage they do is GREAT.

I like to put one in my SW list if it's a friendly match. I really like the model, and it's pretty nice when hidden behind LOS blocking cover. Also, Pathfinders are the first thing I would take out for most builds. Those markerlights are such a threat that I want them gone immediatly.

For instance a normal SW list for me vs my friend that plays tau first thing I'm gonig to do is DP down with RP and JoWW his riptide and whatever I can position past it while disembarking, then whirlwind or frag missile the pathfinders, then once they are cleaned up start focusing the missilesides behind ADL. This is obviously situational to how we play but for that situation a few firewarriors and arbitrary crisis suits arent as big of a threat.

What am I not killing in the meantime? I said bolters work just fine on the unit. A simple 10 man bolter squad would do enough wounds to force a morale check against normal sized squads. If it's really as devastating as you say it is, why wouldn't they treat it as a priority target? It doesn't take that much, but you're treating it like an enemy will have to rush completely in the open just to have the slightest chance of taking them down and they'd have to dedicate enough fire that the rest of your army goes on untouched.

Well if its a Troop heavy list you can expect an ethereal to be somewhere, or as Jan might do: have a Aun`va which have a army-wide reroll on leaderships and can give two powers.

I will guess if you focus on having a expensive pathfinder squad or rely on them a Ethereal give them stuborn or FNP ( 6+ ) which can help making them survive yet another round of shooting, and 2 rounds shooting at a pathfinder squad is 2 rounds of shooting not on Crisis suits, broadsides or firewarriors.

So Pathfinders is a bit of a weird unit, alone they doesnt do the most firepower in the army, but they are cheap ( 11 points isnt that much tbh ) and they improve the rest of the army, so someone fear them more than a crisis suit team and focus them, and if you can keep them alive for a round of shooting they have more than enough already paid their points.

I guess thats what the designers had in mind when they nerfed their armor to 5+...

 Savageconvoy wrote:
What am I not killing in the meantime?.... If it's really as devastating as you say it is, why wouldn't they treat it as a priority target? It doesn't take that much, but you're treating it like an enemy will have to rush completely in the open just to have the slightest chance of taking them down and they'd have to dedicate enough fire that the rest of your army goes on untouched.

I think you answered the question you yourself asked. They didn't SEE it as devastating. I can't explain why.

Tonights tourney hilites for the Pathfinders:

Game 1: Killed a Biker Squad, killed a second bike squad and the Warlord. Lost one, had one untouched at the end.

Game 2: Killed two bike squads, managed to hold the enemy leader in place from getting to the objective. Lost no Pathfinder units.

Game 3: Killed a Hive Tyrant, killed Biovore unit, put a beat down on a Tervigon (Didn't quite kill it) and repulsed a Gaunt charge. Ended the game with both units in tatters but alive.

They were in all cases a serious threat.

Its now 13-1-1. I Just lost for the first time, 4-3 at the top table because we only made it through turn 3 and I needed two more turns to complete the victory. Not enough time to finish the job for my army but they acquitted themselves well.

How many HQ slots does your list use up?
I was just going through the codex and found a funny combination I was thinking about trying out.

A fully loaded Sniper Drone unit gets 3 BS5 markerlights and 9 BS5 sniper rifles with 48" range and rapid fire. I was considering throwing Shadowsun into the unit to give them a 2+ cover save and the drone to reroll 1's so the unit has almost no chance of missing.

Putting them in an ADL with the Icarus lascannon and having it manned by the drone gives you effectively a BS10 Interceptor lascannon.

Entire unit ends up costing 309 points. Kind of expensive but it seems too funny to not try it out.

 Savageconvoy wrote:


Putting them in an ADL with the Icarus lascannon and having it manned by the drone gives you effectively a BS10 Interceptor lascannon.

Not bad, but her command drone doesn't get the drone controller bonus. May as well have it manned by Shadowsun or one of the Marksmen depending on if the target is in range of her fusion blasters or if you need the Markerlight for another unit.

Drat. I keep forgetting that part.

While we're on pathfinders and support, what has been the group's experience with Tetras? I'd expect that with the recent downgrade in PF survivability the Tetras have become even more valuable.

I have a friend that uses them and I have some, but have been having too much fun with markerdrones to try them lately.

They're actually very survivable thanks to being such a small skimmer with a top mounted marker turret that you can easily limit the number of units that can see the tetras. Av10 is weak, but it still shrugs off small arms fire, and you'll probably have some tanks or tank like units that draw the heavier hitting weapons. I've generally seen the Av10 be more survivable than the Av13-12 because for some reason they dedicate small arms to try and take it out.

I'm not sure why that works, but it works for me somehow. Logically they should use heavy weapons to take out tetras first, that way they get a garunteed affect then spend the rest of the game trying to take down heavier armor.

I think it still has the ability to re-roll scatter when deepstriking since it specifies what that wargear does in the entry.

The BS3 is the only real downside they have, but they still get a good volume of shots. I think they're good, especially since they're pretty much the same cost for 4 pathfinders.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
How many HQ slots does your list use up?
I was just going through the codex and found a funny combination I was thinking about trying out.

A fully loaded Sniper Drone unit gets 3 BS5 markerlights and 9 BS5 sniper rifles with 48" range and rapid fire. I was considering throwing Shadowsun into the unit to give them a 2+ cover save and the drone to reroll 1's so the unit has almost no chance of missing.

Putting them in an ADL with the Icarus lascannon and having it manned by the drone gives you effectively a BS10 Interceptor lascannon.

Entire unit ends up costing 309 points. Kind of expensive but it seems too funny to not try it out.

Stealth and shrouded don't stack with themselves unfortunatley.

Tetras seems like a cool unit, but i am not sure if my local shop would allow them, the current manager is somewhat a purist...

 Krellnus wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
How many HQ slots does your list use up?
I was just going through the codex and found a funny combination I was thinking about trying out.

A fully loaded Sniper Drone unit gets 3 BS5 markerlights and 9 BS5 sniper rifles with 48" range and rapid fire. I was considering throwing Shadowsun into the unit to give them a 2+ cover save and the drone to reroll 1's so the unit has almost no chance of missing.

Putting them in an ADL with the Icarus lascannon and having it manned by the drone gives you effectively a BS10 Interceptor lascannon.

Entire unit ends up costing 309 points. Kind of expensive but it seems too funny to not try it out.

Stealth and shrouded don't stack with themselves unfortunatley.

Stealth and shrouded stack friend.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
How many HQ slots does your list use up?
I was just going through the codex and found a funny combination I was thinking about trying out.

A fully loaded Sniper Drone unit gets 3 BS5 markerlights and 9 BS5 sniper rifles with 48" range and rapid fire. I was considering throwing Shadowsun into the unit to give them a 2+ cover save and the drone to reroll 1's so the unit has almost no chance of missing.

Putting them in an ADL with the Icarus lascannon and having it manned by the drone gives you effectively a BS10 Interceptor lascannon.

Entire unit ends up costing 309 points. Kind of expensive but it seems too funny to not try it out.

My list uses 2 HQ's, if this was directed at me. I am using a Sniper Drone unit for the added markerlights, to split up who i can fire at. I dont care much about the Sniper drones themselves, although they are good considering they are Pulse.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
How many HQ slots does your list use up?
I was just going through the codex and found a funny combination I was thinking about trying out.

A fully loaded Sniper Drone unit gets 3 BS5 markerlights and 9 BS5 sniper rifles with 48" range and rapid fire. I was considering throwing Shadowsun into the unit to give them a 2+ cover save and the drone to reroll 1's so the unit has almost no chance of missing.

Putting them in an ADL with the Icarus lascannon and having it manned by the drone gives you effectively a BS10 Interceptor lascannon.

Entire unit ends up costing 309 points. Kind of expensive but it seems too funny to not try it out.

Stealth and shrouded don't stack with themselves unfortunatley.

Stealth and shrouded stack friend.

They stack together (+1 from stealth and + 2 from shrouded) but they don't stack with themselves (stealth and stealth, shrouded and shrouded) which he is tyring to do by putting Shadowsun in a sniper drone unit.

 Krellnus wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
How many HQ slots does your list use up?
I was just going through the codex and found a funny combination I was thinking about trying out.

A fully loaded Sniper Drone unit gets 3 BS5 markerlights and 9 BS5 sniper rifles with 48" range and rapid fire. I was considering throwing Shadowsun into the unit to give them a 2+ cover save and the drone to reroll 1's so the unit has almost no chance of missing.

Putting them in an ADL with the Icarus lascannon and having it manned by the drone gives you effectively a BS10 Interceptor lascannon.

Entire unit ends up costing 309 points. Kind of expensive but it seems too funny to not try it out.

Stealth and shrouded don't stack with themselves unfortunatley.

Stealth and shrouded stack friend.

They stack together (+1 from stealth and + 2 from shrouded) but they don't stack with themselves (stealth and stealth, shrouded and shrouded) which he is tyring to do by putting Shadowsun in a sniper drone unit.

4+ Cover save from the ADL becomes 3+ with their own Stealth, which becomes a 2+ from Shadowsun's Shrouded..

I see.