Using piranha to illustrate the benefits of positional play

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**Mushkilla**

I'm in the middle of writing a tactica on positional play with piranha. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

**latrodectus**

This is really good and got me to re-read a bunch of rules sections to check how legit it is. Everything checks out. Good tactics.

**Kingsley**

Great post. We need more posts like this and fewer posts about what units to take in your army.

**Holy~Heretic**

Seems great, only thing I thought might be wrong is when the pirahnas go to the second floor or a ruin to shoot ''over'' the aegis defence line. I thought you just had to be behind the aegis to get the cover regardless.

PS I'm jealous that the pirahnas get drones, would love something like that for landspeeders.

**Mushkilla**

Holy~Heretic wrote:
Seems great, only thing I thought might be wrong is when the pirahnas go to the second floor or a ruin to shoot ''over'' the aegis defence line. I thought you just had to be behind the aegis to get the cover regardless.

You need to be in cover behind the defence line, to be in cover you need to be 25% obscured by the defence line. With the height advantage you can make it so that the models at the back are not 25% obscured. Here are the relevant rules:

Defence lines follow the same rules for barricades except... - Defence Lines BRB Page 104

If a model is in cover behind a barricade... - Barricades and Walls BRB Page 104

If, when you come to allocate wounds, the target models body is at least 25% obscured...- Determining Cover Saves BRB Page 18

Hope that helps.

Holy~Heretic wrote:
PS I'm jealous that the pirahnas get drones, would love something like that for landspeeders.

You're telling me! I play Dark Eldar as my main army, and I wish they had something as cost effective and disruption as the piranha, drones just have so many uses.

**zteknon**

So even though the BRB says "models in contact with" the vehicle must still be obscured by 25%?

**Talore**

Wow, what a thorough and useful article! Stuff like that is what tempts me to play a Tau army.

**Mushkilla**

Talore wrote:
Wow, what a thorough and useful article! Stuff like that is what tempts me to play a Tau army.

You don't need to play Tau to use these tricks (bar the supporting fire ones), I use a lot of them with my Dark Eldar. All you need is something expendable and fast, that being said piranha are very good at this these "tricks".

**ansacs**

A very nice write up.

Did you consider talking about tank shocking for bunching up for your SMS? You can actually combine it with blocking as it is a variant of it often enough.

This is really useful for both flavors of eldar (vypers, etc.) and the newer SM w/ their new cheap Land Speeders.

**Krellnus**

Very insightful, if only the barracuda didn't look cooler than the piranha, I would definitely use some of these tricks.

**Mushkilla**

ansacs wrote:
A very nice write up.

Did you consider talking about tank shocking for bunching up for your SMS? You can actually combine it with blocking as it is a variant of it often enough.

I'm not sure I can quite picture what you're getting at. To be honest I haven't used tank shock much in 6th. Could you go into more detail?

ansacs wrote:

This is really useful for both flavors of eldar (vypers, etc.) and the newer SM w/ their new cheap Land Speeders.

Yeah most fast vehicles can be used this way, I think the best thing about the piranha is AV11 for it's cost is just amazing, being immune to small arms fire means your opponent needs to use AT weapons to get rid of you, drawing a lot of fire away from the rest of your army.

**ansacs**

If you use FW then all those armies have an AV11 version fast skimmer.

You can tank shock both of the skimmers in to the unit but only 1-2" into the unit and ~2.5" apart. The unit will be spaced out and so when you tank shock the least distance moved is straight toward the unit bulk. This bunches up a T shape in the unit that you can use to get extra hits with templates and blasts. Just make sure the weapons cannot hurt the tanks easily in case the blasts scatter (I do this with weapons destroyed vehicles or against stuff with super high cover saves).

**varl**

this is really well written. would love to see more tips & tricks like this. nice work!

**Mushkilla**

ansacs wrote:
You can tank shock both of the skimmers in to the unit but only 1-2" into the unit and ~2.5" apart. The unit will be spaced out and so when you tank shock the least distance moved is straight toward the unit bulk. This bunches up a T shape in the unit that you can use to get extra hits with templates and blasts. Just make sure the weapons cannot hurt the tanks easily in case the blasts scatter (I do this with weapons destroyed vehicles or against stuff with super high cover saves).

That's pretty nifty, shame piranhas are not tanks. I'm actually planning on splitting this guide into two. One for piranhas and one for hammerheads, so I'll make sure to cover tank shock in that one.

**ansacs**

Yeah, the piranhas can be used as blocking units against death stars, etc. You can surround the unit with piranhas then tank shock a hammerhead/waveserpent into the unit so that the unit has no where to go. Situational as can be and much more useful for tough units near a board edge.

**En Excelsis**

What software did you make use of to create the iamges in that article?

**varl**

En Excelsis wrote:
What software did you make use of to create the iamges in that article?

looks like vassal, if I'm not mistaken

**Tyran**

Yep, it is Vassal

**Mushkilla**

Yes it is vassal.

Updated the guide with a hammerhead profile example at the end of the focus fire section for clarification.

**Vineheart01**

Oddly enough thats exactly why i am bringing piranhas, though i am bringing a full 5man squad (200pts of "Deal with me first" that can shoot out infantry in the process ftw)

AV 11 makes them durable just enough to warrent bigger guns, unless its firewarriors youre blocking lol.

Biggest issue tau have is speedy units. A unit of 5 piranha makes a very wide wall considering they can be 4" apart and you cant go between them (cannot move through unit coherency) that can easily buy you a couple of turns, considering theres also the 10man drone squad behind them clogging up choke points.

**Mushkilla**

Vineheart01 wrote:
(cannot move through unit coherency)

For the life of me I can't find that rule in the rule book, as far as I know nothing stops you from moving through an enemy unit other than coming within 1" of enemy models. If the piranha are 4" apart units could potentially move through the gap. I would be grateful If you could point me to that rule, as in my current understand of the rules units can charge through the gaps in other units as long as their is space for their base to fit through the gap (as they can come within 1" of enemy models during their charge move. Thanks.

**Vineheart01**

Well when the military movers get off their damn ass and give me my stuff ive been waiting on for almost TWO MONTHS so i can go through my BRB again, i'll let you know where it is. Its what prevents non-skimmers/jump/jetpacks from doing the whole "living shield" trick by having one unit shoot unobscured then have the other run over it to give it intervening model saves. Normally you would be allowed to do it if you can clear the other model entirely, since you arent limited by the 1" factor.

**theblessing8386**

Very good read. Only thing I didn't like out of it was the whole move up to get defensive gernades in range for stealth. A good marine players will move as close as possible to your speeders, shoot them with anti tank, and then charge your squad.

**Mushkilla**

theblessing8386 wrote:
Very good read. Only thing I didn't like out of it was the whole move up to get defensive gernades in range for stealth. A good marine players will move as close as possible to your speeders, shoot them with anti tank, and then charge your squad.

Great point, it does leave you exposed, I'll add a note on only using it if your opponent doesn't have the fire power left to take out your piranha. Just goes to show, tactics don't always translate well from one army to another (most of my experience is from playing Dark Eldar, not Tau).