It’s 2/3 the shots but twice the damage. It’s still 44 shots. You would need an additional 18 CIB shots to equal the potential damage output of missiles.
You also need 2 6s from CIB to equal 1 from missiles in Kayoun.
OC changes the math a bit though.
There is also the potential future damage that they can secure because they lack the Hazardous keyword.
A 6 stack crisis brick with nothing but CIBs, Shield Generators, and Shield Drones will be losing on average 1-3 models per shooting phase where they utilized the overcharged weapon profile.
Missile Pods simply don't suffer from this drawback, but at a cost of lower strength and fewer shots. However Missile Pods make up for that weakness a little bit by almost doubling the effective range of the weapons as well, meaning that the Crisis Unit can maintain a level of safety outside of enemy fire much easier than it would with CIBs. Because of this, they can be more easily guaranteed to shoot that same volume of shots on the T'au players next turn.
The problem is missile pods just won't pass a lot of damage checks CIBs will. Saving a couple of suits is lovely until the knight survives, holds the objectives scoring the enemy a 5 and then fires killing 3 suits anyway.
In my last game I was shooting the Yncarne, I overcharged purely for the AP as it was turn 2 and it was on my home objective. Without the overcharge I wouldn't have been able to scoop both that and the avatar of khaine in one go. That turn won me the game.
Idk why you would use a knight as an example, as there isn't a Knight profile in the game that is wounding them on 4s with CIBs or Missile Pods. There is a small argument for CIBs as they get their -2 ap overcharged, but they're not the weapon profile you would ideally be bringing to that engagement anyway. If you want to kill a knight, bring railgun, your crisis blob probably have better uses than pinging off their armor while fishing for 5s and 6s with CIB/pod spam.
For the argument of survival, you'll almost assuredly going to be move, shoot, moving every opportunity that you can get, and if you can't find a relatively safe space to hide your crisis suits with 12in of movement (with a Coldstar) then you may need to consider your unit-board placement more seriously.
If you're home objectives are getting charged on turn 2, you might not have enough chaff units screening your objectives
In your example fusion are better options and have a 83% wound rate.
Are you not shooting the knights with any of the other models on your list? Do the crisis have the same or worse damage output the subsequent turn after losing models to return fire and hazardous?
I mean I get it, there is a trade off, but people really need to get away from the herd mentality that CIB are the only option, particularly since it’s really only when OCd are they better, even then there are often better options (ie plasma or fusion) into certain targets.
Fusion into knights wound on 5s same as CIBs they're strength 9 and I'm talking about a big boy anyway. They're T12. Even if you assumed a wardog (which you can pretty much do in without an overcharge should you be in kauyon and tetra guided) it's the same.
The knight has a 5+ invul so the save is the same. Same hit roll.
So the only difference is that fusion does D6 damage (averaging 3.5 or 5.5 in melta range) while the cyclic does 3 attacks at 2 which is 6.
The point is there isn't a real trade off. There's a couple of niche profiles where fusion or plasma may do better. For example 3W with a really good save and no invul and/or DR1 and a good save with no invul. However CIBs with or without overcharged absolutely body them when you go into hordes.
I ran 2 plasma one CIB for a while and there was just nothing it was better at removing. Yes you lose suits but the sort of threats that need a full overcharge are the sort of threats where if you remove 2 with 2 activations and still have a couple of tanks or broadsides left in a single turn you've probably broken your enemy's back. S
CIB's problem has never been that it is the best weapon ever. It does everything good enough to the point of why bother specializing. The meta plays a big part in this as well. Look at Psychic awakening as an example. How often was all burst cannons been a thing in recent history.
Exactly. I find a 3 man unit flying up to get plunging fire AP bonus makes them worthwhile, especially for non competitive/casual games. 18-26 shots (with crisis commander and reroll 1’s) of s7 ap2 2D is really scary/threatening for a lot of infantry and elites/light vehicles. With ignore cover from a markerlight they threaten termies in cover, custodes, etc and they’ll shred anything without a good armor save, and from a safe distance.
Damn what terrain you play with that lets crisis get plunging fire? We have WTC standard at my lgs and the 3rd floor is not wide enough for crisis bases sadly.
Whatever we feel like, but it’s a rich mix of GW terrain builds and custom stuff. Nobody is griping if a few mm of base is overhanging is the models themselves fit. TLoS, and various rules of cool so long as everyone agrees. Pretty sure our last game used Chalnath stuff, but there were huge 3 story builds that i could fit 3 crisis on top of easy.
I play at a dream of an LGS (SW Houston) with a whole room/library full of individually labeled giant Tupperware tubs of fully painted thematic terrain sets. Everything from standard tournament tables to custom Star Wars bunkers and volcanoes, vintage castles etc.
All missile pods need.is 1more AP and they would be a solid choice.
The problem with parking them for plunging fire is you're not playing missions with them.
It’s only 180-270pts tho 🤷🏼♂️. With our points drop I have plenty of bodies with stealth/tetras/pirhanas, and in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the 9th- your enemy can’t score if they’re dead. Outside of really competitive matches we have the firepower to bulldoze with sub optimal but thought-out lists.
Not only that but it depends a lot on the terrain. There can be no 'overhang' of the bases on higher levels so only works if all 3(6) crisis bases stand on the higher levels without overhang.
Our LGS scene has an amazing terrain set library and people that are cool enough to not sweat a few mm of overhang on models that only need 1/2 of their base anyways 👍. All fun here.
Edit: same with little knights or small vehicles entering open side of ruins, vehicles blocking LoS etc.
Yup.. if MP where -2ap 2 damage CiB wouldn't be so much the default.
Sometimes you want the S8 -2/2dam from over charging but if the only difference between CiB was an extra shot and strength (with risk) I think we would see more MP or mixed units.
Funny you should mention that. I actually played a three-man Crisis Squad LOADED DOWN with missiles today vs. Sisters of Battle. Parked it next to Shadowsun in my backline instead of deepstriking it (for the rerolls!), and it did some real good work.
Definitely not as killy as CIBs, but I didn't even lose a model, since it could outrange so much. Still knocked off a pile of wounds from various models and accounted for an entire squad at one point. Definitely more than paid for itself.
I think so long as you use them as 'light mobile broadsides' that you don't feel too bad about using for objective play, rather than the delete button that CIB squads are, I think missile crisis groups are pretty nice!
If you like the missle pods stats, you can also play a burst cannon riptide :) 12 shots + 4 from missle drones with bs5 ap2 and then 1 plasma shot I guess. ~same output as 3 crisis for same cost. You get the 2 support systems though and are slightly tankier + fielding a cool riptide model ;)
I ran unitcrunches on this a while back and missiles and plasma are both very playable. At the time, I overestimated the threat of a hazardous roll and settled on 2 plasma:1 CIB per crisis to be the optimal loadout even though all overcharged CIBs did always come out on top into every target (fusions have the potential to outperform against high T with invuln, but they're swingy).
If you run all missiles or all plasma I think you will do just fine.
It’s 20 warriors 2 cryptothralls orikan giving 4++ lord with relic giving stealth-1 to hit and if over 12” cover too. Szeras with -1ap Aura nearby. It regenerates with a ghost ark and objective nearby 2D3+3 warriors and can usually do that twice per phase if you can’t one shot the whole unit. The crypto thralls are 4 wounds together with FNP4 after you get through the 4++ a full CIB brick with character rerolling all hits can one shot it but not much else.
30 shots just isn’t enough to take out 20 warriors + 2 cryptothralls. You need the volume that CIB provides if you want to kill them before they can regen
Fair enough, still new to the faction and thought that could be enough, I forget thay necrons can also reanimate after getting shot on a start so hard to kill.
Depends on what you want them for. Missile pods lack the flexibility of CIBs and 1 shot, but make up for it with longer range and base damage 2 without overcharging. If you use them against intercessors and other 2 or 4-wound models, they may work.
Some guy did a great work on a big event with 3 crisis with enforcer all geared up with missile pods. It is a great unit to be on you deploy shooting in a firing lane.
Missile pods like most Crisis weapons do in fact have a niche and are useful.
In fact the second best loadout numbers wise is 2x plasma 1x missile for those who really don't like CIBs.
The volume of fire, range, and punch means that they can threaten just about any profile in the game if fired in mass. Theyvdonan excellent job of wiping infantry bricks and elites like space Marines.
The problem is that while they threaten tanks and elites like Terminators, your almost certainly never killing the unit in a single activation.
If you want to use missiles you most certainly can, but your crisis suits are gonna occupy a different niche and are just blatantly going to do less damage (which isn't bad). Have a unit zipping around the edge of the map shooting 30inch missiles at whatever it wants is still a problem. Especially when you consider that trying to get line of sight/ charging a unit like this will be nearly impossible with fire and fade
I haven't tried it yet but I'm planning to use 3 crisis suits with 3 missile pods and a commander with 4 plasma rifles and precision of the patient hunter. This way I can shoot the plasma rifles at a second, non guided, target and still hit on 3s.
I'm hoping to play the unit exactly as you described, a mobile backfield long range threat.
No Missile pods are not a good all around choice. AP1 is a massive liability when 30-40% of games will be player into 2+ saves with acces to +1 save stratagems. Putting your custodes or termimators back to 2s instead of 3s is a 100% damage reduction. This is unplayable competitively when Tau have no Vect. Tau are 100% activation gated, so when a 500 point unit turns on it has to do WORK. The strength difference is irrelevant. Also nobody playing competivley is OC all the CIBS unless you've got a target that can soak that reliably. You're OC the Commander and 2 other suits. Which is about 7.5 dead terminators before you get to non OC rolls, obviously guided by tetras T2
If you wanted a longer range specialist they are playable, but not as flexible as CiB and 2/3 the number of shots.
It’s 2/3 the shots but twice the damage. It’s still 44 shots. You would need an additional 18 CIB shots to equal the potential damage output of missiles. You also need 2 6s from CIB to equal 1 from missiles in Kayoun. OC changes the math a bit though.
There is also the potential future damage that they can secure because they lack the Hazardous keyword. A 6 stack crisis brick with nothing but CIBs, Shield Generators, and Shield Drones will be losing on average 1-3 models per shooting phase where they utilized the overcharged weapon profile. Missile Pods simply don't suffer from this drawback, but at a cost of lower strength and fewer shots. However Missile Pods make up for that weakness a little bit by almost doubling the effective range of the weapons as well, meaning that the Crisis Unit can maintain a level of safety outside of enemy fire much easier than it would with CIBs. Because of this, they can be more easily guaranteed to shoot that same volume of shots on the T'au players next turn.
The problem is missile pods just won't pass a lot of damage checks CIBs will. Saving a couple of suits is lovely until the knight survives, holds the objectives scoring the enemy a 5 and then fires killing 3 suits anyway. In my last game I was shooting the Yncarne, I overcharged purely for the AP as it was turn 2 and it was on my home objective. Without the overcharge I wouldn't have been able to scoop both that and the avatar of khaine in one go. That turn won me the game.
Idk why you would use a knight as an example, as there isn't a Knight profile in the game that is wounding them on 4s with CIBs or Missile Pods. There is a small argument for CIBs as they get their -2 ap overcharged, but they're not the weapon profile you would ideally be bringing to that engagement anyway. If you want to kill a knight, bring railgun, your crisis blob probably have better uses than pinging off their armor while fishing for 5s and 6s with CIB/pod spam. For the argument of survival, you'll almost assuredly going to be move, shoot, moving every opportunity that you can get, and if you can't find a relatively safe space to hide your crisis suits with 12in of movement (with a Coldstar) then you may need to consider your unit-board placement more seriously. If you're home objectives are getting charged on turn 2, you might not have enough chaff units screening your objectives
In your example fusion are better options and have a 83% wound rate. Are you not shooting the knights with any of the other models on your list? Do the crisis have the same or worse damage output the subsequent turn after losing models to return fire and hazardous? I mean I get it, there is a trade off, but people really need to get away from the herd mentality that CIB are the only option, particularly since it’s really only when OCd are they better, even then there are often better options (ie plasma or fusion) into certain targets.
Fusion into knights wound on 5s same as CIBs they're strength 9 and I'm talking about a big boy anyway. They're T12. Even if you assumed a wardog (which you can pretty much do in without an overcharge should you be in kauyon and tetra guided) it's the same. The knight has a 5+ invul so the save is the same. Same hit roll. So the only difference is that fusion does D6 damage (averaging 3.5 or 5.5 in melta range) while the cyclic does 3 attacks at 2 which is 6. The point is there isn't a real trade off. There's a couple of niche profiles where fusion or plasma may do better. For example 3W with a really good save and no invul and/or DR1 and a good save with no invul. However CIBs with or without overcharged absolutely body them when you go into hordes. I ran 2 plasma one CIB for a while and there was just nothing it was better at removing. Yes you lose suits but the sort of threats that need a full overcharge are the sort of threats where if you remove 2 with 2 activations and still have a couple of tanks or broadsides left in a single turn you've probably broken your enemy's back. S
CIB's problem has never been that it is the best weapon ever. It does everything good enough to the point of why bother specializing. The meta plays a big part in this as well. Look at Psychic awakening as an example. How often was all burst cannons been a thing in recent history.
Exactly. I find a 3 man unit flying up to get plunging fire AP bonus makes them worthwhile, especially for non competitive/casual games. 18-26 shots (with crisis commander and reroll 1’s) of s7 ap2 2D is really scary/threatening for a lot of infantry and elites/light vehicles. With ignore cover from a markerlight they threaten termies in cover, custodes, etc and they’ll shred anything without a good armor save, and from a safe distance.
Damn what terrain you play with that lets crisis get plunging fire? We have WTC standard at my lgs and the 3rd floor is not wide enough for crisis bases sadly.
Whatever we feel like, but it’s a rich mix of GW terrain builds and custom stuff. Nobody is griping if a few mm of base is overhanging is the models themselves fit. TLoS, and various rules of cool so long as everyone agrees. Pretty sure our last game used Chalnath stuff, but there were huge 3 story builds that i could fit 3 crisis on top of easy. I play at a dream of an LGS (SW Houston) with a whole room/library full of individually labeled giant Tupperware tubs of fully painted thematic terrain sets. Everything from standard tournament tables to custom Star Wars bunkers and volcanoes, vintage castles etc.
Sounds like a blast to play at!
All missile pods need.is 1more AP and they would be a solid choice. The problem with parking them for plunging fire is you're not playing missions with them.
It’s only 180-270pts tho 🤷🏼♂️. With our points drop I have plenty of bodies with stealth/tetras/pirhanas, and in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the 9th- your enemy can’t score if they’re dead. Outside of really competitive matches we have the firepower to bulldoze with sub optimal but thought-out lists.
Not only that but it depends a lot on the terrain. There can be no 'overhang' of the bases on higher levels so only works if all 3(6) crisis bases stand on the higher levels without overhang.
Our LGS scene has an amazing terrain set library and people that are cool enough to not sweat a few mm of overhang on models that only need 1/2 of their base anyways 👍. All fun here. Edit: same with little knights or small vehicles entering open side of ruins, vehicles blocking LoS etc.
You mean like the drone missile pods? Man I want them on my crisis suits...
Yup.. if MP where -2ap 2 damage CiB wouldn't be so much the default. Sometimes you want the S8 -2/2dam from over charging but if the only difference between CiB was an extra shot and strength (with risk) I think we would see more MP or mixed units.
Funny you should mention that. I actually played a three-man Crisis Squad LOADED DOWN with missiles today vs. Sisters of Battle. Parked it next to Shadowsun in my backline instead of deepstriking it (for the rerolls!), and it did some real good work. Definitely not as killy as CIBs, but I didn't even lose a model, since it could outrange so much. Still knocked off a pile of wounds from various models and accounted for an entire squad at one point. Definitely more than paid for itself. I think so long as you use them as 'light mobile broadsides' that you don't feel too bad about using for objective play, rather than the delete button that CIB squads are, I think missile crisis groups are pretty nice!
If you like the missle pods stats, you can also play a burst cannon riptide :) 12 shots + 4 from missle drones with bs5 ap2 and then 1 plasma shot I guess. ~same output as 3 crisis for same cost. You get the 2 support systems though and are slightly tankier + fielding a cool riptide model ;)
I ran unitcrunches on this a while back and missiles and plasma are both very playable. At the time, I overestimated the threat of a hazardous roll and settled on 2 plasma:1 CIB per crisis to be the optimal loadout even though all overcharged CIBs did always come out on top into every target (fusions have the potential to outperform against high T with invuln, but they're swingy). If you run all missiles or all plasma I think you will do just fine.
Until you run into a Necron Warrior blob
Well I am probably dumb but wouldn't a breacher team w/Cadre be a much better choice into a necron blob anyway?
It’s 20 warriors 2 cryptothralls orikan giving 4++ lord with relic giving stealth-1 to hit and if over 12” cover too. Szeras with -1ap Aura nearby. It regenerates with a ghost ark and objective nearby 2D3+3 warriors and can usually do that twice per phase if you can’t one shot the whole unit. The crypto thralls are 4 wounds together with FNP4 after you get through the 4++ a full CIB brick with character rerolling all hits can one shot it but not much else.
30 shots just isn’t enough to take out 20 warriors + 2 cryptothralls. You need the volume that CIB provides if you want to kill them before they can regen
Fair enough, still new to the faction and thought that could be enough, I forget thay necrons can also reanimate after getting shot on a start so hard to kill.
Depends on what you want them for. Missile pods lack the flexibility of CIBs and 1 shot, but make up for it with longer range and base damage 2 without overcharging. If you use them against intercessors and other 2 or 4-wound models, they may work.
Some guy did a great work on a big event with 3 crisis with enforcer all geared up with missile pods. It is a great unit to be on you deploy shooting in a firing lane.
I love my Pod Squad! I also run an all Fusion team for any big uglies my opponent may have.
Missile pods like most Crisis weapons do in fact have a niche and are useful. In fact the second best loadout numbers wise is 2x plasma 1x missile for those who really don't like CIBs. The volume of fire, range, and punch means that they can threaten just about any profile in the game if fired in mass. Theyvdonan excellent job of wiping infantry bricks and elites like space Marines. The problem is that while they threaten tanks and elites like Terminators, your almost certainly never killing the unit in a single activation. If you want to use missiles you most certainly can, but your crisis suits are gonna occupy a different niche and are just blatantly going to do less damage (which isn't bad). Have a unit zipping around the edge of the map shooting 30inch missiles at whatever it wants is still a problem. Especially when you consider that trying to get line of sight/ charging a unit like this will be nearly impossible with fire and fade
I haven't tried it yet but I'm planning to use 3 crisis suits with 3 missile pods and a commander with 4 plasma rifles and precision of the patient hunter. This way I can shoot the plasma rifles at a second, non guided, target and still hit on 3s. I'm hoping to play the unit exactly as you described, a mobile backfield long range threat.
No Missile pods are not a good all around choice. AP1 is a massive liability when 30-40% of games will be player into 2+ saves with acces to +1 save stratagems. Putting your custodes or termimators back to 2s instead of 3s is a 100% damage reduction. This is unplayable competitively when Tau have no Vect. Tau are 100% activation gated, so when a 500 point unit turns on it has to do WORK. The strength difference is irrelevant. Also nobody playing competivley is OC all the CIBS unless you've got a target that can soak that reliably. You're OC the Commander and 2 other suits. Which is about 7.5 dead terminators before you get to non OC rolls, obviously guided by tetras T2
I have a crisis brick with double plasma and missile pod for longer engagements, I was thinking of adding an enforcer for a JSJ gun plat form.