Quote: (Onyx @ 23 Feb. 2009, 14:00 )
[quote]How are the Tau 'Death Incarnate at short range' as has previously been mentioned as the 40K experience?
It has varied over the transition from 4th Ed to 5th Ed.
In 4th Edition, Fire Warriors had the potential to be insane. Since Burst Cannons on the Devilfish were considered 'defensive weapons' (e.g. could always be fired) and skimmers didn't block line of sight for shooting, you could roll a Devilfish up 12", drop Fire Warriors out the back, and Rapid Fire their Pulse Rifles. That meant 30 strength 5 shots (stronger than any other army's base firepower for a Troops (required) choice in the game) within 12", in addition to the high mobility represented by a skimmer (ignoring terrain) with front armor 12 (the 'basic' transport of the game, the Rhino, is armor 11) that has upgrades that make it more difficult to bring down.
Furthermore, given the length of the Devilfish and the need to stay 1" away from enemy units you're not engaging, it became difficult for an enemy to charge the Fire Warriors on their turn and engage them in close combat (in which they're not good) before they could load up into the Devilfish and move away. Even not loaded in a 'Fish, they still have 30" range and S5, which means they potentially can do more damage than most Troops units at longer range. The restraining factor is Ballistic Skill 3, which means they hit on 4+ (unlike, say, Marines who have BS4 and hit on 3+; incidentally, Imperial Guard are also mostly BS3.) Intelligently played, Fire Warriors were pretty good.
Now, they're even more important in an overall game sense in that they're Troops (which are the class of unit required to score objectives in 2/3 of the mission types) but not quite as effective, since the game uses 'true' line of sight, which means that a Devilfish hanging in front of them may block their own fire and the 'Fish aren't quite as good because they can only fire their Burst Cannons if they move 6" or less, which puts them at greater risk of being shot down (moving faster makes it more likely that you can roll a save for a vehicle.)
They're still not bad. They're just not the machine that they were. Of course, Crisis suits, which were decent in 4th Ed, got BETTER in 5th Ed, because of the different wound allocation rules (i.e. 'complex units', in which models with different equipment are distinctly allocated wounds, allowing 2-wound crisis suits to spread them around before removing models (and, thus, firepower); personally, I think the 'remove whole models whenever possible' rule should override this one, but that's not the way the studio is calling it.) So, the two games are in rough symmetry regarding the Tau at this point: Fire Warriors aren't 'bad', but Crisis Suits are probably better, especially given 40K's shift to holding objectives (like Epic) at which the Fire Warriors, with a lower Toughness, worse armor save, and worse Leadership value than Crisis Teams, aren't so good.
However, swinging the pendulum back, Crisis teams can't score objectives, so there is a necessary role for either Fire Warriors or Kroot to play (both Troops.) Does it mean that someone can load up on Crisis Teams and play minimal units of Fire Warriors? Yes. They're running a risk, but it's certainly allowed. Does it reflect the Tau style of warfare? Sure. But with all of the people complaining about the AMHC, it would be kind of ridiculous to reduce the Tau base formations to just Crisis teams. Clearly, Fire Warriors, as one of the largest formations amongst the notoriously fragile (read: blast marker susceptible) Tau, have a role to play beyond just background/story. My best suggestion would be to increase the number of stands allowed in the base formation. More is better and all that. Upping their Firefight would make them overly dangerous to assault, which is not how it should be. Improving the Pulse Rifles would make them better than IG tank formations against infantry, which is also not how it should be.
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