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| Unfriendly Fire |
"Hi Kirby-
I've got a situation that I'd like your advice on. Hopefully some others could find the information useful as well.
I was playing my Tau army this weekend versus a Marine player. He deep-struck an Assault Termy squad into my deployment zone, right in front of my firebase, which consisted of three Broadsides in a ruin surrounded by two squads of Kroot bubble-wrap. I also had some Fire Warriors and PR/MP Crisis suits in that general area.
Given that I have one round of shooting to blast away as many of those Termies as possible before they charge through the Kroot, what is the ideal shooting order?
1) Mass amounts of high-AP small arms fire from the Kroot and FWs first to force some failed armor saves through attrition, and then following up with low-AP plasma and railgun fire, or
2) Railgun and plasma fire first, hopefully killing a few right away, followed by the small arms fire, to force my opponent to roll more armor saves per Termy resulting in a higher chance of one failing?
Would your opinion change at all if there was a multi-wound 2+/5++ special character attached to the Termy squad? My first thought would be to go with Option #1 here.
Also, any plans to do a BT codex review any time soon, or would it not be worth the trouble with a rumored new codex coming in 2012? Thanks!!
Regards, Tom"
Either option is really fine - it depends what else there is around you. For example, if there is a Marine squad in the open alongside the TH/SS, shooting all your small arms at the TH/SS and the PR/MP suits at the Marine squad in the open is going to be the best bet. If you're simply firing everything at the TH/SS regardless, shoot the unit first that has less options so if they magically finish the unit off, the other units have more options to shoot. In this case, shooting the small-arms fire first is going to generate more opportunity for the Broadsides and Crisis Suits as they have better guns with more applications and greater ranges.
However, if you have a Hammerhead (or any unit with blasts), you generally want to shoot them first to have the highest damage potential available.
If there was a multi-wound, non-instant death character in there though you have another variable in the system. Shooting with all your small arms first can thin out the rest of the unit so your higher strength weapons can land potentially instant death wounds on the character. However, this also allows the character to soak potential wounds which is always annoying. Personally though, trying to thin the squad out with small arms fire so you have the option of instant death can often be the better choice but it is again very situation specific.
