Fire Warrior Team Archetypes

Ahh... the compulsory Fire Warriors. Light weight and reasonably versatile they make up the core of our armies. But what good are they other than footslogging and objective controlling? Let's take a look at some common team configurations and their potential uses.

Gunline
The Fire Warrior Gunline is a set of Fire Warriors that set up around an objective or critical area, hunker down, and open fire on anything that comes in range. Pulse Rifles are most common in this unit due to their longer range and multiple shots at shorter range. Unit size depends on play style but for those serious about their firepower will often be a twelve-warrior team.

A team leader is not uncommon, and has many options that benefit his team including a marker light to bring in a seeker missile against enemy armor. A target lock allows the same action while the rest the team lays down fire on an opposing unit. Drone controllers are also popular to bring a few extra guns and wounds to the table. Marker Drones would be nice here, but if the gunline is under attack that 30 points is going to go to waste a lot faster than the twenty from the TLs markerlight.

Transport for the Gunline is optional. I find a gunline is best used on objectives close to your deployment zone, so if you can put your troops on it early you may not need a dedicated transport - at the worst hitch a ride from another unit's Devilfish.

When you do get them on the table, spread them in line to avoid blasts and templates stacking them at worst two-rows deep. An alternate spread is to spread them so that each model is contesting the objective at all times, hopefully denying any space to contest.

EMP Commandos
One of my personal favorites the EMP Commando Team can be quickly & cheaply put together with Fire Warriors (though they can be done quite well with pathfinders). Team size is up to the player and can work well with six going all the way up to twelve units. Its best to equip them with Pulse Carbines so they can lay down some fire on a vehicle before going in to try and kill it in assault with EMP Grenades. The only reason to take a TL for the EMP Commando unit is the Bonding Knife. The EMP Commandos are too mobile to sit still and paint a target with a markerlight and drones would be better spent on more commandos.

Because of their need for speed, I recommend attaching them to a well equipped Devilfish.

Objective Tag
Vehicles cannot control an objective - but the team of fire warriors mounted inside of it can. The "60 point Devilfish Upgrade" of Fire Warriors mounted in a Devilfish. The Devilfish should be upgraded as much as you need, and is mandatory for this unit. It's important to note that unless something happens to the Devilfish these warriors should never disembark from the vehicle.

Powering Through

Updates of a sort

Two Devilfish and one hammerhead are painted on the interior. I've got a little more work to do on the modeling for the exterior, dry fit to ensure things actually work, and then I can start painting the whole army.

Priorities? Why sure:

1. Devilfish A
2. Devilfish B
3. 8 Firewarriors
4. Hammerhead
   
5. Crisis Suit
6. More Crisis Suit Weapons
7. All Kroot
8. Stealth Suits
9. Assemble & Paint Pirhana
10. Assemble & Paint remaining Firewarriors
    

A DIY Life Saver

I'm re-blogging this so I don't forget it. It's a low cost measuring device from Sholto on Incunabulog.

The long and short is that it's a 6" ruler on one side, on another it's 2" wide for unit coherency. Then a 4" side for vehicle squadron coherency made out of some sturdy plasticard.

Yeah - I plan on making this.

I Love You... But...

So I'm assembling my Devil Fish and Hammerheads (slight revision to last post: I was assembled as far as I could before I had to paint the inside) and I notice something:

There is way to much detail on the inside of a model that no one will really see.

Like there's a door, handle, buttons by the door, and get this: on the hatch, by the door that opens there are buttons. The side hatches glue in - there's no way to see these buttons!

What the hell man?

Kais'shi Sept Fluff

The Kais'shi sept is centered around around two the only two habitable stellar bodies in a small section of space conquered in the third-sphere expansion. The primary planet in the systems of the Kais'shi sept is the planet Ter'shi with its habitable moon Kor'kais.

Ter'shi is a largely temperate planet with roughly 60% of its surface covered with ocean. Polar regions are arctic. Moving towards the equator is mostly deciduous forest. The equatorial regions are largely jungle or grasslands. Ter'shi is mostly used for food production as well as habitat for a large population of Kroot. The Tau of the planet mostly center around the twenty large cities scattered around the planet, including two undersea complexes and one city that floats on the ocean.

Kor'kais spends roughly two-thirds of the solar year in the shadow of Ter'shi. At the surface gravity is roughly equivalent to that on most planets but as as you leave orbit opposite of Ter'shi gravity pull drops quickly, making the planet an ideal launching point for vehicles. Life on Kor'kais is uniquely adapted to the darkness of the moon. Plants can photosynthesize from even the most scant starlight and much of the native wildlife has strong night vision.

The Kais'shi sept has two major color schemes. Units that are primarily based on the planet have dark green armor with brown highlights. Units based on the moon or on the bases throughout the system tend to mostly black with silver highlights.

Update: Modeling Maniac

It's been quiet, but I've still been active in my WH40K endeavors.

The Shi'Vesa
I've been working diligently on my army builder. The only problem is this is the largest application of its scale and I didn't do a lot of the little things that they (and I) teach students when you're programming: chart it out, decide your variables before you code, etc. So I'll do something like the Crisis suits then go back and re-vamp firewarriors. The revamp breaks something on the displays and... yeah...

The Army
The Kais'shi military is developing nicely. I've assembled twelve more kroot, ten more firewarriors (in addition to the 6 I've modeled so far), a new crisis suit (bringing me to two), three XV 25s, two Devilfish and a Hammerhead. I've got a Piranha, another Firewarrior team, and a lot of drones to assemble on top of that.

I'm hanging onto the drones so that I can try and scrape up a spare $30+ and order a few things from GW including the Hammerhead Weapons (so I can put SMS on the Devilfish) and the shield drone bits. I've decided while I like my mod it's going to be easier to just pay the $9.

Magnetic Personality
My crisis suits have all been successfully magnetized and one is ready for battle. The second suit needs to be painted and I need to magnetize several more weapons. I'm also looking at magnetizing the Piranha and a bit on the Devilfish and Hammerhead as well.

Getting Organizized
I recently decided to clear out my beloved uniques collection from my Mage Knight days to make room for the new addiction. No I didn't throw anything out - that would be silly. Instead I cleared out the two (very nice) tackle boxes that connect back-to-back into another, crowding the MK figures and making myself a very nice bitz box. I hope to really organize the box to the point of "firewarrior arm set 1" labeling but hey - that's down the road.

That's it for today. More as I can.