That's the point though you can fly it in with your newly improved Orca, use the best AA bubble that is in the game to protect it from intercept, then take out an artillery formation or even an EoV and then be in place to support a 2nd Orca load (2 orcas and 2 loads for the same price as thawk+termies or vampire+aspects) in FF or shoot the next turn. All assisted by the new toys and the cheaper recons to give more chance of a activation advantage.

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How is the Orca+Fireblade less flexible and and riskier than an Eldar airdrop? For a comparable price you're talking a Guardian formation (bare or maybe with Support Battery) in a Vampire for 350 (or 400) points. Bearing in mind that the Orca now has a better save than the Vampire and the Guardians have no save you can't seriously say that the Fireblade air-assault shouldn't maybe be either toned down or maybe increased in cost?

If you can't see that this list as it currently stands is simply 3rd Phase++ I don't have high hopes for my usual opponent trying it or it seeing approval to be honest.

Landing them to shoot in the next turn is a recipe to having your points evaporate to little advantage. Assaulting with them against anything except the most vulnerable of targets is bound to fail. And the orca is still fragile as hell.

Sure, 375 points of orca and fire warriors is likely to take out a 250 point Engine of Vaul. If it survives to land, that is. And that EoV happens to be far from anything supporting it. Then they will most likely be utterly annihilated, being unsupported in the middle of the opponent army.

Is this wrong, in your world?

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I'm unaware that the tournament scene is being flooded with airdropping guardians. Is it? I am sure you can find worse assault formations out there if you look - are we going to argue about scouts loaded up in thunderhawks too?

I am talking about loading that Vampire with aspect warriors, of course.

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And that Aspect+Vampire is minimum 500 points and less survivable thanks to the 4+\5+ save orca. I was trying to match points.

But this seems pointless...

For the costs then you should compare 2 orcas with 2 loads of FW, that's clearly why Guardians have been brought up

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It is much more likely to win any assault it gets itself into, too.

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I feel guardians have been brought up in an effort to find the worst possible troopers a person could stuff in an air assault, in an effort to schew the debate.

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Read the posts, they are a comparable price air assault.

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Your point?

You're deliberately taking the worst possible load in that vampire, and stating that fw+orca is better. I will contend that it is, sure.

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Can you not step back and see what we're saying? I brought up guardians because they were the unit I could think of with a comparable transport, a ff4+ and a comparable price. I didn't say they were a good air assault but its what I could think of for the price. All comparable units for effectiveness come in at 500 or more (aspects, tacticals).

All I'm saying is either increase the cost of the orca to take into account that it's almost a Thunderbus now and/or increase the cost of the fireblade so that the combo costs a comparable price as it seems more effective than you're giving it credit for.

You're stating that the airdropping firebladed FW formation is OP for its cost, am I right?

If you want to do that, comparing it to a formation, then conveniently ignoring the Farseer in that formation, the possibility of summoning in the Avatar it brings and the combined assault it pays for is not going to give a very good picture, is it?

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For the sake of argument, let's do that thing. Let's load up a thunderhawk with scouts; 8 in a thawk costs 400 points (with 4 snipers or in two formations) - exactly the same as our firebladed fire warriors. Bear in mind that the scouts have paid for 'transports' on top.

The thunderhawk firefights better than the Orca, is more durable, the scouts are a bit worse than the firewarriors. I will state that they are likely to do very comparable damage. Are you going to seriously suggest that people are going to use their scouts this way? This is clearly not what they are intended to do, and clearly not what they are best at.

Also, clearly not the best use of a perfectly good thunderhawk.

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If you want it in detail, I don't understand the design of the list. It's gained 6 new units, an upgraded Orca, a cheaper recon formation and FF fire warriors. For the loss of the Kroot.

So you've got all the things that the Tau were good at before PLUS fire warriors who can FF and air assault in a tougher transport, Vespids giving you another FF unit, tough WEs, better fighters, IC barrages and cheaper activations.

Why would you ever take the existing Tau list over this?

If you want to take an air assault list you've got a pretty much guaranteed activation advantage, an Orca which is still the cheapest transport in the game but now only the thunderhawk is tougher, the largest defensive AA bubble in the game, the ability to prep your assault with the Ta'unar which makes the Void spinner look rubbish (and is cheaper) and then your actual assault is better than anything at comparable costs (guardians, assault SM) as well as more useful afterwards.

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'Can ff' is a bit of an overstatement, as I have demonstrated.

But I agree. Why WOULD one ever take the tactically limited 3rd phase list?
This is clearly a more diverse, less predictable, less artificially hamstrung. Why is this a problem? Why are you artificially trying to shoehorn every list into being playable one way only?

The tau'nar? Sure, that unit is probably OP, even at 250. Not going to argue that; it is, as far as I understand, the first iteration of rules for it. I don't think it makes the void spinner look like rubbish, though.

Activation advantage, against what? IG? Sure. Eldar? Not.

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