Mostly Harmful?
In my last update about the Tau, I said that one of the main reasons I'm not making much more progress on them is that they are mostly done already. What I mean by that is that I can already play 2 of my original planned armies, and I can play something close to the third style. With this much variety and ability to swap units and models around, it limits my interest in assembling and painting the rest. I've already got a Tau army to play with, why do I need to work to build more? Here, I'll quote myself and my plan for getting out of this rut...

"Solution 1: Mostly Done Since the fact that the army is mostly complete is getting in the way of me completing it, I need to concentrate on what's _not_ complete. I have a bunch of FireWarriors that are just a couple of steps away from being fully painted and assembled. I have several Piranhas that have not yet met glue or brush and the same goes for a couple of Sniper Drone Teams. Basically, I need to not only concentrate on these incomplete models, I have to plan an army around them. If I need more than 3 squads of FireWarriors, I'll have to get these painted up. If I want more than 3 Piranha, I have to finish the ones still in the box. If I want to have more than just 3 Sniper Drones and an Observer, I need to get those together and put some paint on them. Even better, planning an army, especially around some unusual units, really gets my creative juices going and helps me get motivated to get stuff done."

So let's take a look at what is called for.... More than three squads of firewarriors.

More than 3 Piranha

More than 3 Sniper Drones and an observer.

Let's be more specific. I'll want 4-6 squads of FireWarriors, 6 Piranhas and 9 Sniper Drones with 3 Observers.

What can each of these do for me? The FireWarriors provide a huge amount of S5 Firepower and can cover large swaths of the board with their 30" range. This is highly effective against unarmored troops and light vehicles. In large amounts, they are also somewhat effective against Armored Troops.

The Piranha, armed with Fusion Blasters (and, of course, Drones with Carbines) are primarily effective against Vehicles and multiwound models such as Characters or Monstrous Creatures.

The Sniper Drones are very effective against all but the hardest armored troops (AP3!) with a S6 can also handle medium vehicles.

Although I'd originally thought of this as a really limited army, it seems like it's actually capable of handling just about any foe. Now let's take a look at how much each part might cost.

The Cost
60 FireWarriors will run 600pts. I usually run the FireWarrior teams with a markerlight team leader. This is more expensive, but sometimes it's worthwhile, because it can help the accuracy of a unit in a pinch. Interestingly, Markerlights may be _more_ useful to this army than my standard armies for two reasons. First, Markerlights are generally more effective when providing marking for larger squads, and this army uses larger squads than my other armies. Second, Markerlights are handy when you have a polarized army. For example, this army has 1 element that is particularly effective against light vehicles and light infantry, while the other elements are much less effective (due to less volume of fire) against those targets. Similarly, the only really effective weapons against Terminators or Monstrous Creatures or Heavy Vehicles would be the Piranha. Finally, the most effective weapons this list would have against power armored troops would be the Sniper Drone Teams. A standard army would have a mix of targets and it would be simply a matter of choosing the appropriate targets and making sure the correct weapons are available. Against a non-standard list (such as Orks in light Trukks or armored company or footslogging Space Marines) there might only be targets that 1 part of the force could damage effectively. In situations like this, having the Markerlights to make that part of the force more effective would be vital. Each Team Leader with Markerlight adds 20pts to the cost of a team. With 5 teams, that'd be an additional 100pts, bringing our total to 700pts.

3 squadrons of 2 Fusion Piranhas each runs 420 pts with Fusion Blasters and Target Arrays, which is how I typically use them. I've been giving a lot of thought to Decoy Launchers. At only 5pts per Piranha, I can reroll immobilized results from the Glancing Hit table (which is what I should usually be rolling on, since they are fast-moving skimmers.) That will make a huge difference in their survivability for only 30 more points. That'll bring my total to 450 points for the Piranhas.

3 teams of 3 sniper drones plus their observers runs 240pts. That brings me to a grand total of 1390pts for the elements that I need to assemble and paint for my Tau Empires Army. A good army size is 1500pts, which leaves me 110pts to get a commander for this force. There are 3 good options here, all of which I can do. The first is the Centurion at 100pts. Carrying a Plasma Rifle and the Cyclic Ion Blaster, he does mean things to power armored troops. The second is the Fireknife El. Carrying a Plasma Rifle and Missile pod, he offers solid long-range firepower and can deal with Heavy Infantry and Light vehicles. Finally, the much-maligned Helios Commander. With Plasma Rifle and Fusion Blaster, he's got the chops to deal with Heavy Infantry and Heavy Vehicles. While I've had less-than-stellar experiences with Helios Commanders before, I think he's the ideal choice for this list, because it adds some more very heavy firepower to supplement the Piranha.

What does that get us?
Now let's look at what sort of capabilities we've got with each part of our army. I'll take a look at each portion and show what damage it can do (and at what range) to various typical targets. I'll be looking at Light Infantry, represented by Imperial Guard. In addition we'll have Heavy Infantry (Space Marines) Light Vehicles (Rhinos, for example) and Heavy Vehicles (Predator tanks.)

60 FireWarriors can lay out a lot of firepower.
Light Infantry: 60 shots x 1/2 chance to hit x 5/6 Chance to Wound and no chance for armor save=25 Dead Guardsmen
Heavy Infantry: 60 shots x 1/2 chance to hit x 2/3 Chance to Wound x 1/3 chance to get past armor=6.66 Dead Space Marines
Light Vehicles: 60 shots x 1/2 Chance to hit x 1/6 chance of a Glancing hit x 1/6 chance of an Immobilized result=0.833 Dead Rhinos
Heavy Vehicles: Zero Chance, except against back armor, which would be similar to a light vehicle, and very little chance of actually happening except at odd angles across the board.

3x2 Piranha
Light Infantry: (6 shots x 2/3 chance to hit x 5/6 Chance to Wound and no chance for armor save = 3.33DG)+(12 shots x 5/9 to hit x 5/6 to Wound and no chance for armor save=5.55DG) = 8.88Dead Guardsmen
Heavy Infantry: (6 shots x 2/3 chance to hit x 5/6 Chance to Wound and no chance for armor save = 3.33DSM)+(12 shots x 5/9 to hit x 2/3 to Wound x 1/3 to get past armor = 1.48DSM)=4.81 Dead Space Marines
Light Vehicles: 6 shots x 2/3 chance to hit((1/6 x 1/3)+(1/2 x 1/2)=1.22 Dead Rhinos
Heavy Vehicles: (6 range or less) 6 shots x 2/3 Chance to hit x ((1/12 x 1/3)chance of glancing/damaging result+(5/6 x 2/3)chance of penetrating hit/damaging result)=2.33 Dead Predators

1x Helios Commander
Light Infantry: 3 shots x 5/6 chance to hit x 5/6 Chance to Wound and no chance for armor save=1.38 Dead Guardsmen
Heavy Infantry: 3 shots x 5/6 chance to hit x 5/6 Chance to Wound and no chance for armor save=1.38 Dead Space Marines
Light Vehicles: 2 shots x 5/6 chance to hit((1/6 x 1/6)+(1/3 x 1/2) + 1 shot x 5/6 chance to hit((1/6 x 1/3)+(1/2 x 1/2)=0.577 Dead Rhinos
Heavy Vehicles: (6 range or less) 1 shot x 5/6 x ((1/12 x 1/3)+(5/6 x 2/3))=0.49 Dead Predators

9xSniper Drones
Light Infantry: 9 shots x 7/12 chance to hit* x 5/6 Chance to Wound and no chance for armor save=4.375 Dead Guardsmen
Heavy Infantry: 9 shots x 7/12 chance to hit* x 5/6 Chance to Wound and no chance for armor save=4.375 Dead Space Marines
Light Vehicles: 9 shots x 7/12 Chance to hit* x ((1/6 x 1/6)+(1/6 x 1/2))=0.583 Dead Rhinos
Heavy Vehicles: Zero chance except against rear or side armor, which is possible, but not something I'd care to guess the odds on. :)

*7/12 represents the chances of the Spotter Marking the target and giving the Drones +1BS.

So that brings us to a grand total of... Light Infantry 39.64 Dead Guardsmen per turn, or...
Heavy Infantry 17.23 Dead Space Marines per turn, or...
Light Vehicles 3.21 Dead Rhinos per turn, or...
Heavy Vehicles 2.82 Dead Predators per turn.

Wrap Up and Take Away
So what does this all mean? Well, it's got a substantial number of bodies and pretty good range on most of it's weaponry. It kills Light Infantry really well, and isn't too bad against any of the other categories, either. It's probably a little less firepower than some of my other lists (except against the Light Infantry) and it's certainly a lot less mobile, but I think it's got more resilience, and it's very definitely an interesting idea. That, coupled with my original plan to try to motivate myself, is what could really make this army. Let me explain....

Experienced 40k players, especially those that do the tournament scene, generally know what to expect from most armies. Even aside from the usual expectations of Tau shooting or Tyranids assaulting, there are typical army styles within each race and the ones that work the best get played more often. This means that an experienced player will know what to expect from most armies out there, and can plan accordingly. However, when they run across a less-played army, or one with unusual or differently played units, it can take them a couple of turns to work out how the army works, which is a couple of turns that give you the advantage. I don't know that this army is incredibly different, but Sniper Drone teams are pretty rare from what I've seen, so 9 of them will be a bit of a shock. In addition, 6 Piranha is more than twice the typical number, and few people have used 60 FireWarriors since the end of 3rd edition. While it doesn't play vastly differently than Gunline Tau, it does have some differences, and that might just make the difference!

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