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.

I have about 1200 to 1000 points to work with at 2000 after my tau allies.

So, when I tried out pathfinders last game, it was obvious they were to expensive, but if I include a 10 man squad of rangers with iliac, they would have the same durability.

So, I am either going to field 10 or 15 pathfinders with 10 rangers and iliac nightspear.

I am also going to field a wraithfighter and a farseer on jetbike. That leaves a few options

Squad of warlocks on jetbikes
2 squads of guardian jetbikes and a squad of wraithguard in a wave serpent
Shining spears

The basic premise of my list is that the pathfinders and iliac kill important squad members, the rangers take out the closest squad, and if a squad gets to close it gets blasted by fire warriors in 2 devilfish. A mark'O deathrain squad harasses with the jetbikes as well. Hammerhead operates as a distraction carnifex and a boomstick. Wraithfighter helps with pinning and farseer runs support.

Warlocks- support, preferably jink, restrain, terrify/horrify?

2 Squads- harassment, objective chasing, wraithguard for cooking termies on the barby

Shining spears- When the enemy gets to close, CHARGE!!!

Pathfinders are too expensive. Field double the rangers instead.

large numbers of 3 man jetbikes win games. 3+ jetbike squads make it very hard for your opponents to deal with all your troops and are very cost effective sources of damage. 61 points is great for a troop choice with a heavy weapon.

 zephoid wrote:
Pathfinders are too expensive. Field double the rangers instead.

large numbers of 3 man jetbikes win games. 3+ jetbike squads make it very hard for your opponents to deal with all your troops and are very cost effective sources of damage. 61 points is great for a troop choice with a heavy weapon.

I will take your advice on the jetbikes, but prefer larger platoons to not give away VP and to actually do a fair amount of damage to MEQ.

Pathfinders have more durability versus most of what I face, and I prefer the scalpel to whipe out ranged elements of melee centric units so I feel less confined when I am running around with jetbikes and crisis suits.

Only 1/6 of missions are KP. Normally eldar have lower KP than most armies. When i run 1850 i normally have 14 or so KP. Due to the cheaper cost of transports and ranged support vehicles (whirlwinds, tfc, razorbacks, speeders, DE transports) for other army.

Do the math on rangers. 10 rangers kills ~2 marines without cover. Even pathfinders will often be allocating wounds to units in cover so you arent going to be generating many actual kills. Better to take 4 jetbike squads for the same cost as 10 pathfinders and wipe squads with that firepower.

I agree that pathfinders may have a place in an army, but they are not as good as rangers in my opinion. you can get a bunch of other goodies with the points left over. The new codex provides such good options that the pathfinders often get relegated to not being played.

Pathfinders are like poorly devised sternguard.

It takes 30 wounds on average to kill 5 Pathfinders, where as it takes 20 wounds on average to kill 10 Rangers, so they are definitely more resilient per point. You also get 5 Precision shots versus 1.5. So, less overall damage, but more meaningful damage. Better chance to knock off the special/heavy weapons and the character, better chance for them to fail a pen test.

I think the best way to run them is a full squad of Rangers with Illic, and a handful of 5xPathfinder squads. Use them to force as many pinning tests as possible. I think that+Wraithfighter you are on the right track. Which, sense you have covered all of that....you are on the right track .

ShadarLogoth wrote:
It takes 30 wounds on average to kill 5 Pathfinders, where as it takes 20 wounds on average to kill 10 Rangers, so they are definitely more resilient per point. You also get 5 Precision shots versus 1.5. So, less overall damage, but more meaningful damage. Better chance to knock off the special/heavy weapons and the character, better chance for them to fail a pen test.

I think the best way to run them is a full squad of Rangers with Illic, and a handful of 5xPathfinder squads. Use them to force as many pinning tests as possible. I think that+Wraithfighter you are on the right track. Which, sense you have covered all of that....you are on the right track .

Im doing this, except with 10 man squads-I need the troop slots.

ShadarLogoth wrote:
It takes 30 wounds on average to kill 5 Pathfinders, where as it takes 20 wounds on average to kill 10 Rangers, so they are definitely more resilient per point. You also get 5 Precision shots versus 1.5. So, less overall damage, but more meaningful damage. Better chance to knock off the special/heavy weapons and the character, better chance for them to fail a pen test.

I think the best way to run them is a full squad of Rangers with Illic, and a handful of 5xPathfinder squads. Use them to force as many pinning tests as possible. I think that+Wraithfighter you are on the right track. Which, sense you have covered all of that....you are on the right track .

aren't pathfinders 108% of the cost of rangers? how does being 50% more resilient make up for a 108% price increase?

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:
It takes 30 wounds on average to kill 5 Pathfinders, where as it takes 20 wounds on average to kill 10 Rangers, so they are definitely more resilient per point. You also get 5 Precision shots versus 1.5. So, less overall damage, but more meaningful damage. Better chance to knock off the special/heavy weapons and the character, better chance for them to fail a pen test.

I think the best way to run them is a full squad of Rangers with Illic, and a handful of 5xPathfinder squads. Use them to force as many pinning tests as possible. I think that+Wraithfighter you are on the right track. Which, sense you have covered all of that....you are on the right track .

aren't pathfinders 108% of the cost of rangers? how does being 50% more resilient make up for a 108% price increase?

5 Pathfinders versus 10 Rangers. In other words, almost the same cost, and it takes 50% more firepower to kill them.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:


I think the best way to run them is a full squad of Rangers with Illic, and a handful of 5xPathfinder squads. Use them to force as many pinning tests as possible. I think that+Wraithfighter you are on the right track. Which, sense you have covered all of that....you are on the right track .

aren't pathfinders 108% of the cost of rangers? how does being 50% more resilient make up for a 108% price increase?

5 Pathfinders versus 10 Rangers. In other words, almost the same cost, and it takes 50% more firepower to kill them.

ah, I see what I've missed.

Understood.

Pathfinders do half as many wounds though. Every point you spend on them bring resilient could be better spent on making guys who actually do damage more resilient.

Here's another issue. If your table has some hard terrain or if you brought an ADL, Rangers are exactly as durable when they go to ground. Neither unit hits hard, so if all you're gagueing is their ability to make saves, I still like the Rangers more

edit: Guardians also have a 2+ when going to ground behind an ADL and are still cheaper even with a heavy weapon. With a Warlock they can get that 2+ and still shoot well. I don't think Pathfinders are worth it even if they save well in bad cover

 dnanoodle wrote:
Pathfinders do half as many wounds though. Every point you spend on them bring resilient could be better spent on making guys who actually do damage more resilient.

Here's another issue. If your table has some hard terrain or if you brought an ADL, Rangers are exactly as durable when they go to ground. Neither unit hits hard, so if all you're gagueing is their ability to make saves, I still like the Rangers more

edit: Guardians also have a 2+ when going to ground behind an ADL and are still cheaper even with a heavy weapon. With a Warlock they can get that 2+ and still shoot well. I don't think Pathfinders are worth it even if they save well in bad cover

But Pathfinders also don't have to go to ground to get their 2+, meaning they are always shooting, so their average shooting contribution in each game will never be diminished by having to GtG. And, again, they get more then 3 times the precision shots/point, and ALWAYS get them. You never have an unlucky round of shooting where you net 0 precision shots.

More chances to neuter the real shooting from each target, more chance to kill of the character of each target and drop their LD pip, more chance for pinning. They have more effective shooting then Rangers, even if its technically less.

More effective shooting by only one standard, objectively speaking: getting precision shots. Rangers get twice as many shots for fewer points. Both have the same gun, so Rangers score more wounds and therefore have a better chance of pinning. Going to ground does diminish your shooting potential, but I take minimal squads because buying these guys to do damage is a trap. It looks nice on paper, but practically I think it's better to save the points for more lasers and stuff that kills lots of bodies. So I don't mind going to ground if I have to and if I have 3+ cover (common on the boards I play on) I usually just roll it and hope unless it's a lot of wounds. They're likely to be fine.

Something else worth considering about the precision shots is that on average, 10 Rangers get almost as many as 5 Pathfinders. You get almost 2 per round with 10 Rangers. 5 Pathfinders get a little over 3. Both wound half the time, so the difference is likely to be one more precision shot from the Pathfinders. That's not compelling enough for me at their cost. There are other ways to remove special weapons, like Crimson Hunter Exarchs with the 5+ precision shot ability. Or simply flanking with fast skimmers and dakkaing the target down until the weapon is exposed.

Rangers are a little better at least for their significant points-price drop. They're ok if you got nothin' else to do with 60 pts.

Pathfinders were overpriced before and, now that they don't have that "AP1 on a 5 or 6 to hit" thing, they're crap. CRAP.

JBikes. Winning. Because JBikes. Seriously, they were awesome at objective games before. Now they pseudo-rend and are cheaper? Let me get some "Awwww Yea" with that.

 dnanoodle wrote:


Something else worth considering about the precision shots is that on average, 10 Rangers get almost as many as 5 Pathfinders. You get almost 2 per round with 10 Rangers. 5 Pathfinders get a little over 3. Both wound half the time, so the difference is likely to be one more precision shot from the Pathfinders. That's not compelling enough for me at their cost. There are other ways to remove special weapons, like Crimson Hunter Exarchs with the 5+ precision shot ability. Or simply flanking with fast skimmers and dakkaing the target down until the weapon is exposed.

You are way off on the precision shots. 5 pathfinders get over 250% of the precision shots that 10 rangers get. Every single shot by a pathfinder is a precision shot. That's 5/5. Each rangers just gets a 1/6 chance so MAYBE 2 average/round.

Despite being the same models they serve two very different roles. Rangers are backfield objective campers. Pathfinders are assasins.

To average 1 Precision wound a round, you need 144 points of Rangers or 75 points of Pathfinders. To average 1 Precision AP2 wound a round, it jumps to 432 points of Rangers or 225 points of Pathfinders. In the old codex, all precision wounds were AP1 - cost of 228 points for Rangers or 288 points for Pathfinders.

So what are you trying to assassinate? If it's got a good armour save, or is a character, more dakka is a better alternative to either.

I would choose pathfinders because of the scare factor they have. It would cause some enemies to have their Hq's go around a different way because we are also forgetting that pathfinders are still rending and have automatic precision shots. That can be one dead special char if the rolling for the look out sir is bad.

Not to mention taking out heavy/special weapons characters - those important models that do not get look out sir

You get almost 2 per round with 10 Rangers. 5 Pathfinders get a little over 3.

As has already been pointed out, it is 1.67 versus 3.33. That's exactly twice as many. Rounding off small numbers like that only makes your argument more compelling to the uninformed.

Pathfinders were overpriced before and, now that they don't have that "AP1 on a 5 or 6 to hit" thing, they're crap. CRAP.

Thoughtful, constructive, and very persuasive. I guess that settles this debate folks.

I think there is synergy to be found with pathfinders, illic, and crimson hunters. The hunters can stay out of bolter range with vector dance, but remain open to strikes from models with weapons of similar range to them. That's where illic and the pathfinders come in. They can't drop tanks, but they can remove non-vehicle models that hold heavy/special weapons with an unmatched level of consistency [from any other sniper-type unit in 40k].

warpspider89
I'm not way off. You still have to roll to hit and both units have the same BS so you don't get 5/5 most of the time. I agree that Rangers are cheap and tough enough to take and use to hold objectives so you can spend points on killing the enemy. But Pathfinders don't kill reliably enough to be proper assessins. They don't have enough shots, only hit with 2/3 of those, only wound with half of those, give armor saves to 5/6 of those and cover to the other 1/6. Then they still have to contend with Look out Sir if you want to kill anything more meaningful than a special/heavy weapon. Then if you want to kill an HQ you need to roll through all of that multiple times because he has more than 1 would. All for 125 points + the special character tax.

ShadarLogoth
I'm not intentionally trying to mislead anyone by rounding the numbers off. It's just convenient because you don't roll decimals. Additionally, is it really worth paying so much to get 1-2 more precision shots? Instead of thinking about it logarithmically, look at how many actual precision-shot wounds you're doing. For 125 points, 1.67 wounds before saves? And that's the whole output of the unit. I think you'd really be better off spending the points on Dakka that will hammer the unit and eventually get to the single guy you want to hit. What I'm saying is that neither unit puts out enough precision shots for the points. Whether you score .835 or 1.67 precision wounds, it not a lot in either case. And certainly not enough to scare someone into playing their HQs differently. So I'd just as soon take the cheapest option (only 5 rangers) and be happy with the few precision shots I do manage and spend the extra points elsewhere.

The increase in precision shots alone aren't enough, but put together with the increased resilience...maybe.

One unit of 5 has a reasonable chance of picking off a Heavy/Special/Banner dude per turn. That's a significant portion of most units fire power. And they can do it at range. And cause a pinning test.

I don't think Pathfinders are dominant enough to take 6x5 of them and call it a day. I do think that it makes sense to come with 2 or 3, 5 or 6 man squads in an Illic list. They are resilient, hold objectives well, and contribute in unique yet meaningful ways to your firepower.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

You get almost 2 per round with 10 Rangers. 5 Pathfinders get a little over 3.

As has already been pointed out, it is 1.67 versus 3.33. That's exactly twice as many. Rounding off small numbers like that only makes your argument more compelling to the uninformed.

Pathfinders were overpriced before and, now that they don't have that "AP1 on a 5 or 6 to hit" thing, they're crap. CRAP.

Thoughtful, constructive, and very persuasive. I guess that settles this debate folks.

Bwahaha, let's not forget rational and dispassionate.

Okay, I should have elaborated my not-so-humble opinion. There are many units that can take unique weapons and, always having the precision shot ability is good. Example, taking out the Missle Launcher and Power Fist guys before a T8 Wraith unit gets in range. You can take out some IG Lascannon teams so the rest of the squad can't do much against an approaching DE-ally Raider (AV10 is fragile but, not against massed S3). So why would I list ideas that poke holes in my own, admittedly belligerent, stance? It's more "situational" than the Pathfinder point cost is worth (in my opinion).

...but y'know the idea of a Fearbringer army is intriguing. 2 Hemlocks, Warlock(s) with Horrify, a DoomWeaver and a mix of cheap Rangers and pricey Pathfinders.

Good AP2 template action
Pie plate at range
Reduced leadership; that needs to be rerolled if passed
Lots of pinning checks

Bring the Fear ...but as cool as that sounds that's not the army I have built. I usually use DEldar cheez and, blahblah something something BeastPack.

 zephoid wrote:
Only 1/6 of missions are KP.

Every game has first blood.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
Only 1/6 of missions are KP.

Every game has first blood.

and if you cant hide them all first turn, reserve the rest. 3 man units are very very easy to hide, especially when fliers arent on yet. Someone always generates FB in the first turn and you should be able to force it on him between transports, devi squads, or such.

Does your meta actually include transports that aren't Drop Pods? I thought those things were extinct.

The resident DE player in my group uses plenty transports lol. Aside from that though I don't see a ton, but there are still vehicles to get FB on. Dreads and Landspeeders, and other tougher vehicles if you have the weapons to drop them fast.

ShadarLogoth
Putting it that way, I can agree. I like what they can do. I just wish I didn't need Illic to do it. And I wish they were cheaper. If I took them in a themed list, I'd probably do 2x5 with Illic in one of them. Then if I wanted more troops I'd take regular Rangers or something else. I think they'd be cool in more casual games, but one of my opponents brings really hard lists and if I don't come prepared I can expect to get rolled. The one game I played pathfinders against him he happened to be playing Daemons and had no one worth sniping in his units. I really felt the loss of dakka in that game. They're also probably better played in games larger than 1000pts where you can indulge a little.

If someone brought a "bring the terror list" into a semi competitive setting, and actually pulled it off, that would be awesome. I could see tau allies complementing it- 12 ignore cover plasma shots from a crisis suit team is funny when you know that there is no chance that squad is getting up and charging you!