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So i had a thought. Tau have 2 HQs that buff up firewarriors rate of fire (cadre and ethereal) but the problem is unless youre against an army that wants to jump down your throat, firewarriors rarely get to shoot more than a few potshots.

This is the core of the list, the other stuff would be situation and depending on the points youre playing at:

Cadre Fireblade 60
Ethereal 50

12 Firewarriors w/ Devilfish Dedicated Transport 188
11 Firewarriors w/ Devilfish Dedicated Transport 179
11 Firewarriors w/ Devilfish Dedicated Transport 179

Total: 656

Heres the idea:

Deploy on the edge of your deployment zone, turn 1 move up 6 inches and face Devilfish's access port down the board. Disembark 6".
If: Opponent deployed at end of his/her deployment zone: Ethereal uses Storm of Fire, as you are 12-15" from whatever is in front. Prioritize troops and/or light vehicles (anything without crazy durability basically).
Then: Ethereal invokes Zephyr's Grace. Sprint firewarriors and fire snapshots.

Provided the terrain doesnt screw with this too bad, this is 60-80 Str5 Ap5 shots at BS3 hitting your opponents front line. That amount of fire WILL kill a lot of stuff. Could even have a couple groups of kroot infiltrate on the side for some additional firepower. Cadre is there to buff up one of the firewarriors even more the next turn, since the Ethereal extra shots dont stack.
Literally the goal is to strip your opponent of as many numbers as possible, not to take out big things. Big things would be dealt with by deepstriking crisis suits or backfield riptides and missilesides, which you have plenty of points for 1250-1750pt game to get these things.

Another thought: Probably want atleast 1 group of 20 Kroot and infiltrate them to make the kroot conga line in the middle of the table. That way if they charge you you are most likely going to have the entirety of your firewarriors use overwatch, not to mention draw additional fire and force intervening model cover saves.

Anyone think this is utter suicide?

Well the core of my army is 3 fire warrior squads and an ethereal with two squads of pathfinders and a marker drone/commander pair for support or additional pulse shots. It does very well against most things, but then again most players I've gone up against want to get close and rip my tau's faces off.

At some point I will have to come to terms with the fact that 1) if someone just wants to sit at long range and shoot the majority of my basic firepower goes away and 2) I have pretty much no offensive ability to reach out and seize objectives.

I can deal with 1. If they want to sit back and trade long range firepower with the Tau I will let them do so all day because I guarantee they are losing more effectiveness than I am. Number 2 is my big problem, and your crazy idea might just fix that (although the fireblade is wasted in your plan since the tau moved). I was planning on taking some Necron allies in a scythe, but crazy bum-rushing firewarriors of doom might just be my temporary solution, plus it would give me an excuse to use the Ethereal's air power. That is one of the 2 I've never used.

80 shots, 40 hits, 28 wounds, and 8.88 unsaved wounds against MEQ.

And you're putting several T3, 4+ bodies right out in the open with an extra victory point for your opponent to claim.

Right Cadre is there for the next turn mainly. Honestly thought about dumping him and getting another Ethereal so i can spread out more or run, fire snaps, AND fire additional dakka. Problem is thats 2 additional victory points instead of 1 (god i hate that rule...)

Suppose you could take the other guy (Darkstrider) and put his group up front to be that congaline. He fires overwatch and GTFO to make the charge even harder, though hes an additional 40pts.

I would probably bring 2 Riptides with IA for table-long AP2 shots and the ability to pi plate important dudes like termies or something that deepstriked. Hmm....actually ima throw a full list together lol



Before you flame me for the railsides, i figured since im doing a suicide trick with this list anyway i might as well try out another theory. Every time i field Missilesides their range hurts me for AA purposes. I never cause more than a glance because i never have more han 1-2 missilesides in range of the plane that came in. Yes they dont have interceptor this way, but they are going to sit in the far back of the field anyway so only a Vendetta or a Stormraven would really be able to pick them off, and of course i'd try to get cover. Three single railsides makes it so if he cant just unload on one model and take them all out.

So basically fish of fury on steroids?

I got a feeling it might work better if you deploy it as a line, then progress across the board with the fishies and the firewarriors behind.

3 squads of firewarriors in a transport kinda kills your firepower in the start, so what you would prefer to do is putting all of them on the field, and unleash the drones and use them as mobile cover, and on turn 4 you load-up and on turn 5 you disembark on a objective.

Or you would do better with splitting the firewarrior squads into: 12x deploy on the field, and then you put 6x in the fishies, because you would want those shots on the field from the start especially when you use 600 points on it.

So this would either require a very good support team of crisis suits, riptides and Broadsides if you want to stick to using the transports as transports to gain field early, or you use smaller squads of firewarriors in the devilfish in reserve for later capture or using the devilfish as floating cover.

Why not put 5 units of 12 on the field for the same cost, and drop the fish?

 chrisrawr wrote:
Why not put 5 units of 12 on the field for the same cost, and drop the fish?

I agree and disagree with you on that one. I personally own 4 devilfish and would love to use them but the only way to make them effective is to use them as SMS harrasment and an LOS blocker. Basically having a ton of FW squads is going to be much better no matter what, esp if you have lost of markers. I wonder how a list like this with a ton of FW in nice cover with ethereals would do with some sniper drone backup? The only thing missing would be anti tank, but that could be solved with riptides or fusion suits