Hi everyone I know this following article will have little substance but unfortunately I don't know anyone else that plays Tau that can actually win so I figured this would be the best place to ask my question so I can get the answers from experienced players.

The games I play range from about 1000 to 1750 pts (I haven't actually played more than 1250 pts but I am hoping to play 1750 pts.this weekend) and in these games I have 2-3 Fire warrior squads depending on points limit. Each squad consists of 11 Shas'la with photon grenades and a Shas'ui with Photon grenades, bonding knife, marketlight and H-W target lock, each squad comes to a total of 162pts. So my question is, "is this to much to spend on fire warriors".

Note: In my 1750 pts. army list I have a devilfish with DisPod and Sensor Spines Valued at 95pts. so I can try a more aggressive approach.

The test for wasted points is very simple: have you spent more than 60 points on the squad (not counting their transport, which they should never disembark from)?


If not, then no, you are not spending too many points.


If yes, then you are spending too many points. Remove all upgrades and extra squad members and put those points into something that can actually kill stuff.

Depending on your point level, run different sized squads and different numbers of squads.

The great thing about playing Warhammer 40K is that there is no cookie cutter answer to this question. It all comes down to what you want to do and what works for your play style.

For example, use minimum sized squads to mid ranged size squads to full size squads, depending on your points range you can outfit your troops with what you need for the battle.

As for the question of "Am I spending too much on Firewarriors?" I cannot answer that for you. We are not here to tweak your army list and that question is not able to be sufficiently answered without knowing your whole list and what it costs.

I know this isnt much to go on, but if you would like to ask me more of my opinion send me a PM and I will see what I can do to further help you.

-Spyder

Thanks for your quick responses

@Peregrine: I know a lot of people play minimum sized squads in transports only and while this works for some I personally think that if you do that you really don't have enough troop choices for capturing objectives, and besides I think I would like to give the little guys a chance to become heroes of battle.

@Spyder: I guess your right about not being able to do much without the rest of the army list and since that is not something we do on this site I think I am just going to have to play test it and see how I go and tweak it from there.

Then take more minimum size squads in transports. You're much better off spending all those upgrade points on a second squad, which will give you redundancy and contribute just as much to actually killing stuff (that is, not at all).



Unfortunately, Fire Warriors suck and will not ever become heroes. They do mediocre damage (poor AP + poor BS = not much killing, especially in a mech-heavy environment) and T3/4+ with zero close combat skills means your Fire Warriors will not survive to claim any objectives unless they spend the entire game in a transport and/or in reserve. In the end, you just waste points on a unit which will not accomplish much compared to the other things you could buy instead.



Now, if you wish to ignore the best choice from a strategic perspective and pick a "fun" unit, of course you have the right to do so. But if you've already decided that you want large upgraded Fire Warrior squads no matter how terrible they are, what exactly is the purpose of this thread?

@Peregrine: I wrote this thread not necessarily because I wanted to change anything but because I wanted to get
other peoples perspective and then decide what to do from there.

p.s. I don't know about you but I find that with marketlight support to improve BS my fire warriors often do a lot of damage and are good at defending objectives in terrain.

Equiping the ML is great if you are stationary but you got to remember that it is not Networked and therefor the squad shooting it can not use it in the same turn. But if another squad with a ML is close enough to Hit with its ML then you can cross confer the markers.

well one thing I will say is that the photon grenades have GOT to go. If you drop nothing else, drop that. You want your FCW squads breaking as quickly as possible when they are charged. They aren't going to win combat against any other unit - you might as well have your squad break so the rest of the army can shoot it in the next turn.

6 FCW riding around in the 'fish is the most efficient choice, but lately I've found myself taking 9 per squad (2 squads at 2k points). I like the number 9 because you have to kill three of 'em before they take a break test should they be exposed to fire, they *can* dismount to shoot something should they need to and will, on average, kill two marines if they are rapid firing without ML support.

This is what I do with marketlights and it's why I give the Shas'ui a H-W target lock, because it gives me a much broader target selection which intern allows me to maximize my marketlights abilities.


I will experiment with this and see how it goes.

spending that much on firewarriors is pretty much always a terrible idea. The fact is that they aren't very powerful, especially without markerlight support, and they have little mobility. The 6 man squads have mobility only because they have a fish, you could argue that the 12 man fully upgraded squads can also take a fish but when those firewarriors are inside of the fish or disembarking from the fish that's an entire turn that a 160 pt unit can't shoot. (unless somethings within 12"). Static tau just doesn't work very well.

Everything in the codex has a viable purpose. That being said, each unit's purpose and viability is hugely varied. Everything in the Tau codex only works at peak efficiency if its supported by something else.

Keeping that in mind, most experienced Tau players have a general rager against the fire warriors because of their apparent (obvious) weakness. To be honest though, I've not had much of a problem with them dying too fast. Static Fire warriors are only truly effective if used as saturation fire (aka, in large numbers) with the pulse rifle. As often as I see the low toughness argument against them, I have not had an issue with this until the late game, primarily for 2 reasons. 1: units firing at the fire warriors from across the field are not firing at the Tau vehicles and crisis suits, which are universally identified as the primary threat and therefore, a greater danger. and 2. the guns with the range to hit them are primarily anti-armor and typically threatens about 1 fire warrior for that firing turn (given that you have cover and LOS). With proper list balance and positioning, they CAN be used effectively against any opponent as excellent support fire in the points range you are playing. Its all about Synergy.

The mechanics change once the game exceeds the 2000 point mark, as the opponent generally has a large number of units that cannot be avoided by a static style force.

The photon grenades often don't make the difference to me personally, as standing and holding in the assault inevitably means the opponent is spared a turn of firing from me. I only take the option if the Ethereal decides to join the battle, and he comes with his honor guard.

Pulse Carbines are a so-so option for the fire warriors, but since the gun drones do it better with added mobility, carbine warriors are only a points efficient option with devilfish, when you can reliably measure and toe out the 18" borderline with them. they're a mixed blessing though so i don't generally use this option in excess.

Keep all that in mind and experiment to see if it works with your strategy and play style.

While my experience with Tau is still limited, I've got more experience with all the non-Space Marine Imperial forces, Imperial Guardsmen, Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, and Sisters of Battle. All of these are T3, between a 5+ and 3+ armor save, and armed with lasguns and/or bolters (I play the Inquisition, so the hellguns are the older, inferior variety on the ISTs). Thus, they're similar to the Fire Warrior in every respect.

I have found infantry is always useful, and that the AP of the gun is useful as well, the problem is a perception issue. People as a general rule become so fixated on a special weapon or heavy weapons kill ratio (plasma typically) and figuring out how to get one or two more auto-kills on Marines, that they forget what happens when you're rolling a bucket of dice (as per say, Firestorm pattern Crisis Suits). Pop a single Markerlight on a target, and those Fire Warriors are now superior in terms of shooting as my Battle Sisters due to a better weapon, with a smidge of difference in armor save (which the original poster is mentioning is often made up by a cover save). They're identical statwise to my IST's save with a significantly better weapon.

Will they kill more Marines than a unit of Crisis Suits? Possibly not... but they'll annihilate Guard, Orks, Tyranids, Eldar, etc. Even against Space Marines, there is a lot to be said for quantity of fire. "Quantity has a Quality all of it's own." There's a lot to be said for an entire platoon's worth of lasguns going into the same target. Even say, 30 Guardsmen is 60 shots, 30 hits, 10 wounds, 3 and a fraction dead Marines in a single volley at rapid fire range without special weapons (and that's like points to a single Marine squad). Now whichever squad of Guardsmen gets shot in response is toast due to the AP of a bolter, but then you have 20 guardsmen against 6 or so Marines.

Fire Warriors are more expensive, but have a better gun. Say 18 Fire Warriors, that's 36 shots, 18 hits (without markerlight), 12 wounds, 4 dead Marines in a single volley at rapid fire range. You can up this with a single markerlight token to generate 24 hits at BS4, which goes to 16 wounds, which goes to 5 and a fraction dead Marines in a single volley.

Will Fire Warriors themselves win the entire battle? Probably not. Will they help win the battle with proper army synergy and working alongside Stealth or Crisis Suits to provide special/heavy weapon firepower against specific targets? Most likely. Those 4 or 5 wounds that the squads can put out add up when paired with a Crisis Suit team. The trick is to apply overwhelming firepower against a single target, as opposed to just spraying across the table at whatever shows up willy nilly.

A Fire Warrior is not a Space Marine, nor are they as expendible as Guardsmen. They do, however, have more effective shooting than Guardsmen as well as the option to raise their BS to make the shooting even better. They occupy a nice niche about on par as Eldar/ISTs/SoB. Medium Infantry are useful, you just can't expect them to be Space Marines. Will they suit your playstyle? Only one way to find out

From my experience yes you are over paying for your squads.

But, I would definitely say play around with your units and experiment.

You say you field 2-3 squads, who says they all have to be the same.

For instance have one squad as your control (ie the way you currently field them), then take one squad and drop the PGs, and drop the Shasl'a and all his gear in the other. Also try a min squad in a transport, a max squad in a transport, a min squad on foot etc.

Then play a bunch of games and see which unit performs the best for it's point total.

You may find you like your current set up for one squad, but want the others to be specialized for other tasks (bait, holding objectives etc).

Eventually you will find what works best for your play style.

I will reiterate Democharge's point about photon grenades: drop them. Making firewarriors better in close combat is a bad. You need your firewarriors to be wiped out by your immediately subsequent shooting phase so that you can shoot your opponent's assaulters.

Also, people make a decent point about your playstyle and making sure that your army fits it. However, this doesn't mean that there are "no right answers." Your local metagame may be more permissive—that is, it may be ineffective. Hell, you might be able to get away with unmounted 12-man firewarrior squads with two marker drones each, but that doesn't make those things effective in general. If you are interested in maximising your effectiveness in an all-comers list, then you'll have to make some sacrifices and learn a particular play-style that includes minimised mounted firewarriors for scoring, Piranhas for movement blocking, Kroot-wrap for deepstrikers, etc., etc.

Be clear what you want: Are you trying to make your 11-man squads as effective as possible without getting rid of them? Or are you actually wondering how much you should spend on firewarriors?

If you are going to stand around and shoot with stationary firewarriors, the Markerlight can be useful. However if you ever mount them in a devilfish you just wasted those points on the markerlight and target lock since you have to stand still for a turn to use it. So, Markerlight OR Devilfish, not both. If you are looking for a more aggressive devilfish, use the Multi-Tracker instead of the sensor spines. That way you can actually move and shoot with the devilfish too. Typically however, you also have to buy the SMS as well so the tank doesn't give up two kill points when it gets hit by a meltagun and explodes.

As Democharge & Didi mentioned, Photon grenades are NEVER EVER EVER EVER useful on firewarriors, it just means that you spend more points on a squad that will die anyways, and give your opponent the ability to spend your shooting phase locked in assault. Firewarriors never will win an assault, and will rarely get away from one they lose. Why spend more points for something that is completely useless?

Firewarriors should really only be fielded as 6-strong little units with no upgrades but a devilish with a disruption pod, not even the multitracker on the Devilfish is really needed either. 145 points for AV12 Scoring Vehicle with 4+ cover at over 12 inches is really something awesome. Plus the bonus two drones are pretty nice too (unless you're playing with Kill Points that is).

There no real need to field any more 6 fire warriors in your entire army though, but I've seen builds with multiple squads that do well.

Well I guess my answer is Yes, you're spending too much on fire warriors.

Not advisable when you need to seize/hold multiple objectives, unless you really, really want to rely on kroot for that (and that's only good if there is forest close to the objective(s)).

Yet again depends on the purpose of the squad. Since you prefer using a Shas'Ui with ML your squad is taking a stationary approach. Thus the likely hood of using a emp to take out a tank is less likely. Instead the points could be used to purchase 2 gun drones, or you could drop the ML and TL and take a marker drone in its place. This would do the same job, and provide another wound. If you wanted to take a transport with the full squad drop the number of fire warriors down to 10 and take 2 drones.

But if you want a support unit that can do both ML duty and take out tanks with emp, Id suggest striping the squad down and putting all those upgrades into a pathfinder unit. You could then take the pathfinder devil fish and have it ferry the Fire Warriors. It would cost almost the same and you would get another unit. The tactical flexibility this would give you is the Fire warrior squad, if you want to keep it at 12 men, can hold the objective and provide fire support, while the path finders can use their carbines and sneak around to emp a tank, or could provide marker-light support for the fire warrior team or other units. of your army.

Me personally I use a 6 man fire warrior team in Warfish. I set down and contemplated for about 2 weeks on just the weapons alone I wanted to use for my FW team. I personally choose the Pulse rifle over the carbine because of the lack of volume of fire my army brings to the field. Though I know I will never take my unit out of the WF, I know that in the extreme circumstance they find themselves in the open I can use them in a support role and still hold an objective from range.

So in summery my answer is your spending WAY too much, even your your an all infantry fire basing player. As a suggestion, Try to define two roles (one for obj games, one for kill points) for a squad at its base price, and then go from there.

I just did a little bit of tweaking and I came up with this:
I dropped the photon grenades in all 3 squads, In two of them that is all I did but in the third I dropped the makerlight and the H-W target lock. My reasoning in this is that two of the squads are static units holding objectives in cover. The third however has the devilfish and I am going to try some FoF tactics and similar with them (which I haven't done with them before so I hope it goes well) and I will play test this list on Sunday and see how it goes.

Or ANY turn as makerlights expire at the end of the players shooting phase.




Good luck with your upcoming game.

I would remind you however that as all shooting for a unit occurs simultaneously so two marklight equipped FW teams cannot cross support each other. One team would fire its ML and Pulse Rifles, then the second team could fire its Pulse Rifles at +1BS but it would be too late to help the first unit with its ML as it would have already fired.