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Though I would agree that it feels a bit weird that the breachers who in lore are associated with assaults are focused on defense in this... than again it could be a nod to them deploying their turrets and holding down a control point or something.
Technically they *should* be buffable with pulse accelerators to 2, but the devs forgot to add that to PA Drones, so we don't have it at the moment.
Vanilla breachers are kind of very specialized, I'd expect them to be good only when and if you can plausibly use forest/ruins stealth.
And being tier 1, their date of expiration hits about as t5+ units are rolling out anyway.
Sadly those two factions can capture outposts and kill wildlife faster than Tau (and get free research/influence respectively) meaning is often up to Tau to be the aggressor here. Long story short if you are planning to be defensive and the enemy can't attack you at 2 tile range they can do great work, but range 1 "heavy" factions tend to have good map control so you end up giving away tech and resources as a trade off.
which is honesty part of the problem from me
you see even the new ork burna boyz (also range 1 high damage unit) can be used defensively but if one wishes he can also attack with them but for breachers you are forced to defensively play with them
i feel that the unit is badly designed if it can be used effectively only against few factions
Given the description of the Burnas, I wonder if something got cut.
The weapon explicitly mentions what's essentially a cyclable weapon. Flamerthrower for infantry and a cutting torch for armor.
Which if they did have a weapon that could be cycled, it would add a -lot- of value to them. Also allowing them access to 'Eavy Armor. They're a T1 unit. They deserve 'Eavy Armor.
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Considering the Breachers; I've been playing with them for awhile now as they're -exactly- the same statistically as a mod unit, save for being 5 model instead of 6 (Which I wish they still had)
Breachers are scary. In regards to needing to be defensive?
Drones. A Piranha or even just a handful of infantry. You use a drone or two to eat overwatch -then- engage.
In general for T'au you don't want to linger to Fire Warrior tier troops for long because they lack staying power. And since they rely on OW too, that makes them extremely fragile and risky. I can't see anyone not rushing to battlesuits or vehicles ASAP. The breachers don't change a thing, getting them shielded is a pain and needs a lot of research and setup and by the time you are able to do it, the Breachers are obsolete anyway.
I mean, the Breachers are simply put normal Fire Warriors with exactly the same damage that can get a +50% damage buff and +2 armor piercing if they overwatch, BUT the catch is they can only attack from range 1. The other thing they gain is 2X the inv bonus from shield drones, yawn! They are one of the squishiest units in the game anyway, what's a +17% damage reduction for 3 turns with a 10 turn cooldown do for them? And you need to research higher tier drones than gun drones for them, and of course you need to forfeit using gun drones so you lose even more damage. And you just have to pray for the enemy to enter melee range, so unless you are playing vs things like Tyranids or other melee heavy compositions, Breachers are a waste of time. Perhaps having pulse weapons allows the more niche drones to give them +1 range? But that would require you to research and build Pathfinders too....
No, just no, i don't see myself using them unless in very niche situations (basically anti-Tyranids). And even against melee units they are not always good. If a melee unit can ignore overwatch, like Necron Flayed ones, they are done for...
PS: also on lvl 1 with shielddrones and all upgrades can take a fully upgraded dominions shot
Why would you want to produce fodder in the late game? for one, you have drones for that, and also there is no reason to spam chaff so you can donate experience levels to the enemy and lose the morale war, unless that is your goal....
- A niche unit.
- A unit that requires tactical thinking.
If you want to skip the unit you can.
First of all, since breachers want to use their OW, they are at their best against melee factions. Facing a Tyranids? Those breachers are going to see the light of day. They'll have a field day against Raveners and Carnifexes.
Facing orks? You just noped boys, warbosses and meganobz.
Chaos Lord? Did you mean canon fodder?
Marginally, they can also be used against tanky heroes like Captain/Chaplain/Celestine to deal chip damage (since the role of those heroes is to faceplant your units, you WILL OW them)
You don't spam Breachers, the same way no one sensible spammed Pathfinders.
But if you can get 3 to 5 Breachers, with defense drone and a forest, you can put a huge stop on your enemy.
Shield the Breachers, put them at the frontline and watch the enemy eat OW.
"But if they're range 2 they can just ignore you..."
Yes of course.
But if you're in the forest, you know what happens?
They don't see you. To shoot you they either need a scout unit or to have something faceplant you and take OW.
"Ok sure, I got one OW, now my Breachers are getting killed :/"
If you're in a forest and you use the shield drones, you can actually tank quite a bit for 1.5 upkeep unit. Raveners for example will take 2 hits to kill you (assuming someone else took OW, otherwise; they could require a helper)
Now of course if you're in a grassland with no buff and you're facing an anti-infantry army, maybe that was not very smart of you to make breachers.
It would be akin to not teching drones and saying T'au infantry sucks. Like... Yeah? If you don't use your strength, the unit is trash.
"Ok yeah whatever, my breachers somehow lived. Now what? Their damage are much lower"
Well first of all their damage is equivalent to fire warriors, so then I guess FW suck uh?
Second, you have multiple choices:
- You could use a Cadre Fireblade to buff them with up to 75% attacks and wreck the hell out of the fools that went to your melee.
- You could retreat your breachers (maybe to get healed by a drone?) and send in Crisis to attack the enemy that are now clearly visible and engaged. You may even be able to benefit from the shield drones you used on your breachers the previous turn.
- You could retreat the hurt breachers behind... other breachers. Since you'd be deeper in the forest, the enemy would HAVE to go to range 1 to attack you, and your breachers would still lay waste to them (unless they're like cheap fodder infantry. But cheap fodder infantry won't hurt you too much so whatever). Obviously that won't work infinitely (unless you play on like super-ultra-high cover), but a trap doesn't need to work infinitely.
"Ok yeah amazing. But why couldn't I just like make more crisis?"
Because Crisis are so much more expensive.
Because Crisis can be baited into range 2 OW.
Because Crisis are not necessarily more tanky than breachers with shield drone.
If a breacher dies, you give 1.5 XP to the enemy.
If a crisis dies that's 3 XP, enough to go straight from lvl 1 to 2.
3 crisis dying as the frontline? You're pretty much wrecked.
3 Breachers dying as the frontline? Who the hell cares, they're cheap.
Are breachers mandatory? Is not using them a stupid move?
Definitely not. There are plenty of reasons to not want to use Breachers.
They are not easy to use. That only is a perfectly valid reason to just make Crisis.
They might not be very good for your matchup (An Astra Militarum infantry will probably wipe the floor with you with Ratlings and Field Ordinance Battery).
But saying breachers are weak or a straight up bad unit is a lie.
You might as well use Crisis Battlesuits and call it a day....
that is a good unit overview and i like how you already have answered for points that i could make like range 2 units countering them
however it does point my main critique of the unit and that is what you said "They are not easy to use" and "they are a niche unit" my question is why should they stay like that?
the main take away from your analysis is that:
1. breachers need special terrain like forest or ruins to hide
2. i need to retreat with them and that makes holes in my battle line
and those are 2 special rules for a already restricting unit
i understand that devs wanted to make something special with them but making unit worse than others with a silly half working gimmick isn't exactly my definition of a good design
i wouldn't have a problem with that if the game didnt already have a lot of similar units that are snipers
why should breachers be the exception form the family that is admech vanguard, sisters dominions, aeldari guardians or orks burna boyz
breachers already had a thing that made them unique with their better shield drones why should they get such a harsh debuff that is overwatch only
Yup, pretty much this. The issue is not the unit per se. I am pretty sure it is a valuable unit in the tabletop. The issue is that due to the Gladius 4X gameplay design, T1 units of most factions do not last very long, unless someone plays on very slow game speeds. If you need multiple higher tier research items to make a T1 unit work (on top of needing its own research to unlock too), then this is a huge no-no. I mean, in order to exploit the better shielding trait, you need to research shield drones at a much higher tier.... And you also need to research and make Pathfinders if you want to give them +1 range. And that will net you, just a little better T1 unit, at a time when the opponent will most likely have T4/T5 units that will mop the floor with the Breachers in most situations. Yes Breachers are cheaper, so what? Due to Gladius hex gameplay design, quality matters more than quantity.
I don't know, i don't enjoy T'au anyway so while i have played several T'au games to completion over the years, i am not an expert on them. I have used Fire Warriors in the past with some effectiveness, boosted by the gun drones. But i mostly skipped the shield drones until now because i found that they would slow my research down for no reason, gun drones was a cheaper research and i also needed the markerlight drones which are the most useful ones late game, so if i wanted to not fall behind in tech i skipped shield drones entirely. Now you tell me i need to waste time on another T1 research + Shield drones (IIRC a T4 or T5 research)? Why? Why not get XV8 Crisis Battlesuits instead? A far more universal unit that can stand on its own. And don't get me started on Pathfinders for the pulse weapon drone, which i almost never make because quite frankly they don't offer much.
As a T'au, what are you going to use?
You know you won't have the alpha strike, your units are much slower than the Raveners, if you try to attack, you'll get heavily damaged in the counter-attack, and it's highly likely that the Raveners will find you first anyway.
So what units will you use?
Crisis? Hammerheads?
Both units can have their OW baited at distance.. Like one termagant squad can basically take all your hammerheads at range 3, and it can take... idk 3-4 crisis at range 2?
Crisis and Hammerheads are both incredibly expensive but they don't tank very well Raveners. 2-3 hits and the units are removed. And keep in mind we're talking about Raveners here. They will have their melee tiles.
You can use your Fire Warriors as frontline, but they get wiped by Raveners and their OW can ALSO be baited at range 2.
What if instead you put a handful of Breachers at the frontline?
Sure, one termagant squad will still take 2 breachers OW allowing the raveners to come in, but that forces those termagants to be much closer than if they could bait R2 OW.
And what if there are 3 OW on the tile? A ravener has to take an OW.
What if there is only 1? The Termagant squad will take a melee tile (because it will only lose half models)
What if the breachers all get killed? The impact is very small (you'll lose much less morale than if a Crisis died, and your other units can still use OW with good efficiency), and you can still move in the rest of your army to counter-attack.
But anyway let me ask a question.
Let's say you can redefine Breachers. All their stats are yours to command. Please tell me, how would you make them? Please get it really concrete.
Keep in mind of course that you can't have Breachers be straight up better than existing units (that's just powercreep and really bad for the game :/)
hmm redefining the unit wouldn't be that hard as i would give them the same role as as most other alpha strike units in the game
i would boost their damage to be closer to their overwatch one (but take away some armor piercing as that would be too op) now they are already like most of their kind and more importantly still are just as useful in the defence line thanks to the tau trait that has all the overwatch attacks increased when next to a friendly unit and being range 1 so as you say they can't be baited
just that one simple thing does not invalidate anything you said about them as you can still use them the same way but also now they can be used on the offensive and their shield drone passive will be much more useful there - simply put its a win - win situation where the unit wasn't drastically changed but simply given more to do
"but that invalidates fire warriors"
range 1 and 2 have a lot of diffrent applications for the most important one is how much fire warrios have synergy with cadre fire blade and his skill to lower morale of damaged units or pathfinders drone (going from range 1 to 2 isn't as impactfull as going form range 2 to 3 especialy with the morale damage boost)
but there is also the big thing and that is just like other alpha strike units breachers wont get to see the next turn after their attack later in the time of the game (although the thing that makes them unique would still be their shield drone investment that would allow them to survive but that is a lot of tech and other drones sacrifice, but hey all alpha stike units have something unique about them like vanguard having damage aura or aeldari moving after attacking)
of course i wont lie i believe that this change would make it that most people would rather choose breachers than fire warriors simply because they want high damage - but we already had that with going for crysis or just pathfinders already
overall would breachers take the fire warrios place? most likely in the late game but early game they could easily work together - breachers at the front, fire warriors at the back