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Spoilers for the Devilfish are out and Fish of Fury is back! It'll require a command point, but if you want to spend TWO command points you can give all the firewarriors re-roll 1's to hit (just from the Devilfish)!

Not only that, you can potentially do it with up to THREE Devilfish for the same price (depending on Combat Philosophy or whatever Ka'u'yon and 'Mon'T'Kaaaaa! are considered.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/01/25/even-the-humble-devilfish-is-levelling-up-in-the-new-tau-codex/

Now, while this makes the T'au more fun to play, does it really improve their win rates? Just how deadly, really, is a firewarrior broadside supported by re-roll 1's?

EDIT: Looked at UnitCrunch and S5 AP-1 D1 is pretty weak nowadays. Even spending 2 CP on three Devilfish doing this, you have a poor chance of doing anything better than wiping out Imperial guard troops. And Gretchin, I suppose. Fun? Yes. Useful and productive? Probably not - there will probably be Strategems that will be much more likely to impact your armies success than these two, sadly.

i think the real winner with this tactic are the Breachers tbh - with their close range profile and the ability to just give them rr wounds at will (in case you have to hit something T6 and up) theyre a pretty solid everything-killer with the fish of fury tactic and pretty generically good if you want to invest points in your troops.

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
fire warriors in general I don't rate that highly, because theyre straight chaff with no particular defensive skew in an edition that chews up chaff for breakfast. The meta currently brings almost nothing but incidental firepower to deal with chaff, and doesnt need to because youve got antichaff weapons handed out like absolute candy, so most lists bring absolutely minimal quantities of actual light 1W troops to avoid just getting wiped out T1. If you want action monkeys Kroot are right there, 2/3 the points cost and the exact same defenses in cover. the only thing the fire warriors bring to the table is a better long range gun, and why are you exposing your light infantry to firepower in 9th edition? Light infantry are for cowering behind stuff, or in a real pinch cowering in cover.

 the_scotsman wrote:
i think the real winner with this tactic are the Breachers tbh - with their close range profile and the ability to just give them rr wounds at will (in case you have to hit something T6 and up) theyre a pretty solid everything-killer with the fish of fury tactic and pretty generically good if you want to invest points in your troops.

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
fire warriors in general I don't rate that highly, because theyre straight chaff with no particular defensive skew in an edition that chews up chaff for breakfast. The meta currently brings almost nothing but incidental firepower to deal with chaff, and doesnt need to because youve got antichaff weapons handed out like absolute candy, so most lists bring absolutely minimal quantities of actual light 1W troops to avoid just getting wiped out T1. If you want action monkeys Kroot are right there, 2/3 the points cost and the exact same defenses in cover. the only thing the fire warriors bring to the table is a better long range gun, and why are you exposing your light infantry to firepower in 9th edition? Light infantry are for cowering behind stuff, or in a real pinch cowering in cover.

So you do absolutely nothing with your troops? You just have them sit and contribute nothing all game?

Sounds like a fun way to play....

 the_scotsman wrote:

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.

Kroot are base 6+ that go to a 4+ while in light cover.

Heafstaag wrote:
So you do absolutely nothing with your troops? You just have them sit and contribute nothing all game?

Sounds like a fun way to play....

Play your way, and I'll play mine. As for firewarriors with a markerlight and a guardian drone... sitting in a ruin giving fire support sounds like a swell idea.

Heafstaag wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
i think the real winner with this tactic are the Breachers tbh - with their close range profile and the ability to just give them rr wounds at will (in case you have to hit something T6 and up) theyre a pretty solid everything-killer with the fish of fury tactic and pretty generically good if you want to invest points in your troops.

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
fire warriors in general I don't rate that highly, because theyre straight chaff with no particular defensive skew in an edition that chews up chaff for breakfast. The meta currently brings almost nothing but incidental firepower to deal with chaff, and doesnt need to because youve got antichaff weapons handed out like absolute candy, so most lists bring absolutely minimal quantities of actual light 1W troops to avoid just getting wiped out T1. If you want action monkeys Kroot are right there, 2/3 the points cost and the exact same defenses in cover. the only thing the fire warriors bring to the table is a better long range gun, and why are you exposing your light infantry to firepower in 9th edition? Light infantry are for cowering behind stuff, or in a real pinch cowering in cover.

So you do absolutely nothing with your troops? You just have them sit and contribute nothing all game?

Sounds like a fun way to play....

They are there to do actions and go for objectives especially for secondaries if needed to bring obsec.

If you expose them they die.

Sterling191 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.

Kroot are base 6+ that go to a 4+ while in light cover.

How do Kroot get to 4+ in cover (I have to admit, I haven't looked closely at the rulebook in a while)?

Yesterday's leak about the new stats for the Kroot make me think the per model cost is going to go up a good bit from 6, though. +1 Str and +1 Atk, and a point of AP on the Kroot gun? Yeah, you're looking at 9ppm I bet. Ld stays 6, though, so they don't have much resiliency once they start getting shot up, even with a Shaper (who now takes up a valuable HQ slot /rolleyes ).

 dadx6 wrote:
Yesterday's leak about the new stats for the Kroot make me think the per model cost is going to go up a good bit from 6, though. +1 Str and +1 Atk, and a point of AP on the Kroot gun? Yeah, you're looking at 9ppm I bet. Ld stays 6, though, so they don't have much resiliency once they start getting shot up, even with a Shaper (who now takes up a valuable HQ slot /rolleyes ).

You can ignore the +1 Str, because following the picture they have nerfed the rifle's melee profile from <user's strength +1> to <user's strength>. So no matter what they try to advertise here, kroot will not be able to attack in melee with a higher strength than before.
As a sidenote: Following the article, if your army is battle forged and you have a kroot carnivore unit in your detachment, you can include a shaper without it taking up a battle role slot.

myUserName wrote:
no matter what they try to advertise here, kroot will not be able to attack in melee with a higher strength than before.

Except for one battle round (I think) where they can get to S5 if there's a Shaper with the right relic nearby

Sterling191 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.

Kroot are base 6+ that go to a 4+ while in light cover.

Yep, I had the blurry scan and misread their save as 5+ base.

Still extremely good at 4+ in cover IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dadx6 wrote:

Sterling191 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.

Kroot are base 6+ that go to a 4+ while in light cover.

How do Kroot get to 4+ in cover (I have to admit, I haven't looked closely at the rulebook in a while)?

Yesterday's leak about the new stats for the Kroot make me think the per model cost is going to go up a good bit from 6, though. +1 Str and +1 Atk, and a point of AP on the Kroot gun? Yeah, you're looking at 9ppm I bet. Ld stays 6, though, so they don't have much resiliency once they start getting shot up, even with a Shaper (who now takes up a valuable HQ slot /rolleyes ).

The entire codex has been leaked at this point, so, nope. Still 6pts. But they arent +1S from where they are now, theyve just moved the +1s from their weapon to their profile for ease.

Also, the shaper does not take up an HQ slot. For every Kroot unit you take I believe you can take a unit of hounds, a unit of krootox and a shaper for no slots.

Kroot, Kroot Hounds and Shapers have a special rule that makes them get +2 from Light Cover.


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Heafstaag wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
i think the real winner with this tactic are the Breachers tbh - with their close range profile and the ability to just give them rr wounds at will (in case you have to hit something T6 and up) theyre a pretty solid everything-killer with the fish of fury tactic and pretty generically good if you want to invest points in your troops.

Cheap troops, looking them over, I dont think anything beats out the humble kroot.6pts for 3+sv in cover holding a boltgun, say no more buddy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
fire warriors in general I don't rate that highly, because theyre straight chaff with no particular defensive skew in an edition that chews up chaff for breakfast. The meta currently brings almost nothing but incidental firepower to deal with chaff, and doesnt need to because youve got antichaff weapons handed out like absolute candy, so most lists bring absolutely minimal quantities of actual light 1W troops to avoid just getting wiped out T1. If you want action monkeys Kroot are right there, 2/3 the points cost and the exact same defenses in cover. the only thing the fire warriors bring to the table is a better long range gun, and why are you exposing your light infantry to firepower in 9th edition? Light infantry are for cowering behind stuff, or in a real pinch cowering in cover.

So you do absolutely nothing with your troops? You just have them sit and contribute nothing all game?

Sounds like a fun way to play....

it is essentially trivial for basically any even quasi-competitive list to just remove 30-ish 1W troop models top of turn 1 before they get to do anything if they can take shots at them. The game is glass cannony enough at this point that you need exceptional durability for your cost to survive for any meaningful length of time, so yeah, a lot of the game has degenerated into sort of a cowering behind cover simulator for a lot of types of unit.

Medium vehicles are another thing where in 9e you basically choose what turn you want your vehicle to take 1 shot and then die instantly.

"standing out on an objective and actually taking fire" is a role pretty much reserved for heavy infantry (preferably with at least one defenisve rule or strat to bolster them), big horde of light infantry, again with some defensive upgrade, or a multiple large units with very impressive defensive rules...though every codex seems to be dropping new things to make more and more of those defensive special rules pointless, see the Heavy Railgun lol.

in Codex: Tau you've got a few units that can actually choose to try and weather fire, but none of them are fire warriors. Crisis Suits are T5 W4 base sv 3+, can take drones to tank stuff like melta shots and D3+3 shots, can give any model a 4++sv, and can give one model in 3 a base 2+ save to survive spammed AP- fire. You've also got the Ghostkeel which can't even be targeted outside of 18" and has a pretty impressive base statline anyway, so that's a pretty good candidate to survive a turn of firepower as well, you basically just HAVE to keep melta away from him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 carldooley wrote:

Heafstaag wrote:
So you do absolutely nothing with your troops? You just have them sit and contribute nothing all game?

Sounds like a fun way to play....

Play your way, and I'll play mine. As for firewarriors with a markerlight and a guardian drone... sitting in a ruin giving fire support sounds like a swell idea.

Sure, fire support....against what exposed W1 infantry? If you've got light infantry sitting in a ruin exposed to fire...they have to have something to fire AT, and the current meta pretty much just doesnt put light infantry down on the board. Where they exist (in Drukhari and now in GSC) they tend to be in deep strike/in open topped transports. The only real exception is Admech, and theyre steadily creeping down in winrate after they removed their potential to dish out insane damage output with the skitarii strats and CORE chickens - now theyre back to being just another bad shooty light infantry list.

Even in a super-casual setting, that generally means like 75% of your games will be up against marines, who will just laugh at fire warriors and sweep them off the board T1 casually with like min quantities of intercessors.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Play your way, and I'll play mine. As for firewarriors with a markerlight and a guardian drone... sitting in a ruin giving fire support sounds like a swell idea.

Sure, fire support....against what exposed W1 infantry? If you've got light infantry sitting in a ruin exposed to fire...they have to have something to fire AT, and the current meta pretty much just doesnt put light infantry down on the board. Where they exist (in Drukhari and now in GSC) they tend to be in deep strike/in open topped transports. The only real exception is Admech, and theyre steadily creeping down in winrate after they removed their potential to dish out insane damage output with the skitarii strats and CORE chickens - now theyre back to being just another bad shooty light infantry list.

Even in a super-casual setting, that generally means like 75% of your games will be up against marines, who will just laugh at fire warriors and sweep them off the board T1 casually with like min quantities of intercessors.

You mean that I'm supposed to provide OTHER targets?!?