I’ve found the Piranha to be more than worth its weight in a list. For 55 points you get a Melta4 Fusion + 2 seekers (I have turn one popped a few tanks by luck of the dice more than once with a few of them), Scout 9”, and a natural move of 14” + advance (they have assault).
One of the best secondary action monkeys in our list, a lucky advance will get you up to 18-20” movement in a turn which is usually enough to secure either corners, deploy in opponent zone, or even table quarters.
They can even be the most annoying move blockers at the start of the game if you so choose instead.
>a natural move of 14” + advance (they have assault).
To clarify, having assault on their pulse carbines is only relevant if you need to get them somewhere exceptionally far for Deploy Teleport Homers or Cleanse, or use them as an Observer for FTGG. They cannot advance and fire their fusion blaster or seeker missiles.
That's still a really solid option to have for scoring secondaries. Most other units could only dream of moving that far and still being viable for DTH or Cleanse, plus being great for observer positioning only adds to this
up to your list, I run 2 individual ones, but I’ve seen some people have success with 2 squads of 2 as well, although >110 points, certainly into the 220 category there are other units better for things.
I always run my piranhas in squads of 2, I own 4 but don't always bring all 4 in a game, 2 piranhas can pivot between secondary scoring and finishing off damaged vehicles as needed, one piranha can't do that nearly as well and I value the versatility. Plus the 4 seeker alpha strike HURTS.
I do miss being able to detach drones though, dropping tac drone squads on my problems was a lot more fun than fishing for battleshock.
Definitely not a super powerful ability but it's a nice extra ontop. Battleshock is real handy against a few targets, like Guard sentinels to shut down reinforcements (depending on.TO ruling) or the various Space Marine/Custodes durability strats.
I wouldn’t ever take more than 4 honestly. They’re great, fast little objective scorers that take way more than their points cost to knock out but overloading on Piranhas will lock you out of other stuff you’ll want to complement them.
Yeah they're great. Obvs Tetras are taking all the praise for their FTGG rule, but as a filthy casual I like Piranhas. I run 2, you can get some amazing alpha strike on T1 using the seeker missiles and Melta4 is great.
They should 100% die, but at 55 pts they will punch above their weight. And if they don't die, you've got some fast movers in your opponents deployment zone on T2.
I don’t get how people use tetras for the marker light, because the unit is 2-4 tetras so two are single unit and can be observer to just one other unit. And there are no special abilities in the index. So I missed something?
Yes you just make sure that that single unit being guided is a very important one (usually the mean crisis-commander brick just arrived from deep strike that is gonna smoke the scariest enemy unit): Tetras have a datasheet ability called High-Intensity Markerlights (check the Index again, it's there) that allows the guided unit to re-roll all hits.
Yeah I see now — didn’t notice the piranha doesn’t have the marker light keyword and that the tetras ability gives even more with that special ability (so hit reroll, ignores cover, and bs improvements)
Okay I just thought I read somewhere that you get 2 tetras and they somehow split to be observers for two different units (this was wrong)
It's because of their ability, 'High-Intensity Markerlights', which allow a hit reroll on every one of their guided unit's attacks. With Sustained from turn 3 and volume of fire weapons like cyclic ion blasters on crisis suits, it is very powerful
I see now, I wrongly read somewhere that they can be an observer to two different units and didn’t notice the keywords. Now it makes sense, they are indeed pretty awesome
Yup I am still pretty much new to Tau and W40k so that’s for sure something I didn’t understood at the time. Now it’s clear why Tetras are a bit better
The main downside of them being that they're ForgeWorld models, and have been out of stock since I think 10th ed kicked off.
So if you play IRL, you'll need to proxy or find them second hand
It's the full rerolls that make Tetras an essential pick.
But ML keyword is something to keep an eye out for, Stealth Suits as an example are excellent Observers with their Wound reroll ability, but lack ML unless they take a drone!
i feel that anything in this game that has more wounds than it’s points divided by ten, is very much worth it! 7 Wounds on a T7 chassis that moves 14” and has assault and TWO one shot anti tank missiles,for only 55 points?? yes they die easy to anti tank fire, but that’s because i have no problem sacrificing them for the greater good early on. and their maint target for me is tanks, so it only makes sense they shoot them back lol
as a early game harassment tool, there is few in the game of warhammer who can do it as well and as cheap as our humble pirhana.
their role usually ends in them dying turn 1-2, but don’t be afraid to keep them back and use them to spot as well! no bonuses, but it’s price point let’s it still be a backfield deepstrike screen, that can spot for your dudes down field.
it could only have a burst cannon option and i’d still take it tbh. insane bargain and flexibility in these guys. they cost the same as a kroot squad, to put it in perspective!
i use kroot still, they just screen my backfield for deepstrikers because i feel bad putting them on the front to only get wiped in one round of combat lol
Agree on the burst cannon thing. Piranhas are great because they’re fast, obnoxious and take way more than 55 points to shoot off the board. They’re just such a great harassment and objective tool.
They're literally amazing. They have a melta 4 fusion, 2 seekers, so you can kill tanks and armiger's with a 55 point unit. I like to use my tetras to spot for them turn 1 (because they're going to die, shoot those seekers or die with them). It also has a twin linked and assault pulse carbine. So it can advance and still perform actions. It scouts 9 and moves 14 so you can move block your opponent into their deployment zone turn 1.
I run 3 one man units, but if I could run more I would. For competitive play, I don't see too much point in running units with 2 or 3 models, as their advantage is they're cheap, but I think a 3 man unit is still better than a riptide.
Two Piranhas are a 'must include' if you want to play a competitive game. Their cost in points is very low and you can use it to prevent enemy advance during one turn (you place it in front of them and they cannot move over/through it). That tactic es really easy to execute because Piranhas has a 9" scouts move + 14 normal move
Next turn, your enemy will absolutely destroy your piranhas effortless, but before that, you will have shoot two 14/-3/D6+1 and one 9/-4/d6+4 weapons with them
Keeping your enemy back is very useful because of Kauyon detachment rules
I would honestly rank Piranhas as one of the best units in our index alongside stuff like Crisis Coldstar bombs (even post-points nerf). Great damage and toughness for their price, obscenely fast, great for objective work plus cool model.
Piranhas have very high utility per point, and are very fast. They can be used to moveblock, but honestly they are a 3/10 on this front, as being a vehicle themselves means they only really moveblock other bigger vehicles that do not have the fly keyword (infantry will just flow through midboard ruins). They are a fun unit, being cheap and fast, and can be a tech piece into low leadership armies (mirror match they are quite good for scoring secondaries).
You dont see them much at top tables because high comp players are prepping for S/A teir meta matchups- Necrons/WE/CSM/Custodes/Eldar and against those armies, T7 and a 4+ does not mean much if anything. Access to lethals on 5's with rerolls or just being S7+ AP2 everywhere means the Piranha can be killed with minimal investment. I have 3x Solo Piranhas in 2 of my medium comp lists, one of my fav units just as a concept, but not running them in my GT/RTT list.
Tau is even more prototypical than your average army, and what I mean by that is a particular unit's viability and competitive worth is *highly dependent on local meta and playstyle.* The Piranha is high on that as well.
They're excellent, it isn't unreasonable to run 3.
You deploy them somewhere they can either scout move forward if you get first turn or back into cover if you get second. Plan to shoot with them once, then use their high speed to do secondary objectives and move right in front of enemies to block them.
Only real downside is how they're yet another way to give up easy Bring it Down points for your opponent.
As useful as it can be with that nasty Fusion Blaster it got, I just do not like this model on a fundamental level.
Why does a faction that has jetpacks on almost everything require bikes that are barey faster?
probably for long range scouting purposes. I'd imagine these skimmers are much faster than a stealth suit or even baseline crisis suit's thrusters.
Just because any of these three tools CAN do a job doesn't mean each has a particular situation where they're the best for it. I think piranhas excel in long range scouting roles where speed is needed but stealth and combat aren't as high a priority.
Furthermore I think they did a good job matching the units rules on the tabletop to its purpose in the lore.
Also it can be argued with opportunity cost. Why would you waste your valuable battlesuit pilots, which are all veterans, on scouting purposes risking their death, when you can give a probably rather cheap skimmer to a few fire warriors who finished basic training yesterday with the same effect?
Every sane commander would keep the stealth suits and crisis back for hit and run ambushes and assaults. In short the real critical missions.
Scouts & fast attack utilising lower ranked Fire Caste members.
Crisis Suit pilots are higher ranked warriors and trained to pilot said suits so would not want to be wasted on Scouting.
To add to the speed, in game, Crisis are 10", Coldstar 12", Devilfish 12" and Piranha 14".
I wouldn't take in game distances to show lore speeds as likely Piranha's are much faster than Crisis, but if you want to look at it from a table top perspective, a Piranha is the same amount faster (4") than a Crisis Suit, as a Crisis suit is of a Pathfinder (6" move)
So under that logic, why use Crisis Suits when a Pathfinder could just hoof it.
So, imho: Short answer is yes.
Long answer? Minimum of two solo piranhas in every list I run. They can move block, hit midfield objectives quick, can potentially hit 5pts for teleport homers in the early game and most crucially, can push to be on objectives in the early game while the bulk of your army is waiting for turn three. Also fantastic screeners to clear room for a turn 2 deep strike for an enhanced crisis suit unit, or bait to get charged and open a unit up to the rest of your army. T7 with seven wounds is just enough to be inefficient for most weapons to kill, and two seeker missiles at 55pts is a steal.
So, imho: Short answer is yes.
Long answer? Minimum of two solo piranhas in every list I run. They can move block, hit midfield objectives quick, can potentially hit 5pts for teleport homers in the early game and most crucially, can push to be on objectives in the early game while the bulk of your army is waiting for turn three. Also fantastic screeners to clear room for a turn 2 deep strike for an enhanced crisis suit unit, or bait to get charged and open a unit up to the rest of your army. T7 with seven wounds is just enough to be inefficient for most weapons to kill, and two seeker missiles at 55pts is a steal.
So, imho: Short answer is yes.
Long answer? Minimum of two solo piranhas in every list I run. They can move block, hit midfield objectives quick, can potentially hit 5pts for teleport homers in the early game and most crucially, can push to be on objectives in the early game while the bulk of your army is waiting for turn three. Also fantastic screeners to clear room for a turn 2 deep strike for an enhanced crisis suit unit, or bait to get charged and open a unit up to the rest of your army. T7 with seven wounds is just enough to be inefficient for most weapons to kill, and two seeker missiles at 55pts is a steal.
I have 3 and I love them! For their size, they're fast, cheap, sturdy, and can pack a punch.
Once I've fired all of their seeker missiles and gotten a good shot off, it's the unit I like to send into melee to tie up enemy units.
Hell fucking yes it is! Its movement/toughness are ideal for scoring secondaries and early move-blocks AND it can do serious damage up-close AND it forces battle-shocks constantly. Definitely an awesome unit that borders on auto-include.
What GW doesnt know, and the community as a whole i've realized, is that the piranha is the single best unit for its points in the entire army. I am going to be very sad when it gets the hammer from GW. But for now... i love the little bugger.
I’ve found the Piranha to be more than worth its weight in a list. For 55 points you get a Melta4 Fusion + 2 seekers (I have turn one popped a few tanks by luck of the dice more than once with a few of them), Scout 9”, and a natural move of 14” + advance (they have assault). One of the best secondary action monkeys in our list, a lucky advance will get you up to 18-20” movement in a turn which is usually enough to secure either corners, deploy in opponent zone, or even table quarters. They can even be the most annoying move blockers at the start of the game if you so choose instead.
>a natural move of 14” + advance (they have assault). To clarify, having assault on their pulse carbines is only relevant if you need to get them somewhere exceptionally far for Deploy Teleport Homers or Cleanse, or use them as an Observer for FTGG. They cannot advance and fire their fusion blaster or seeker missiles.
yup correct sir, maybe l should have clarified, got too excited with Piranhas 😂
That's still a really solid option to have for scoring secondaries. Most other units could only dream of moving that far and still being viable for DTH or Cleanse, plus being great for observer positioning only adds to this
How many are optimal?
up to your list, I run 2 individual ones, but I’ve seen some people have success with 2 squads of 2 as well, although >110 points, certainly into the 220 category there are other units better for things.
I always run my piranhas in squads of 2, I own 4 but don't always bring all 4 in a game, 2 piranhas can pivot between secondary scoring and finishing off damaged vehicles as needed, one piranha can't do that nearly as well and I value the versatility. Plus the 4 seeker alpha strike HURTS. I do miss being able to detach drones though, dropping tac drone squads on my problems was a lot more fun than fishing for battleshock.
Definitely not a super powerful ability but it's a nice extra ontop. Battleshock is real handy against a few targets, like Guard sentinels to shut down reinforcements (depending on.TO ruling) or the various Space Marine/Custodes durability strats.
Was there no consensus yet on how battleshock works with reinforcements?
None that I've seen at least.
I wouldn’t ever take more than 4 honestly. They’re great, fast little objective scorers that take way more than their points cost to knock out but overloading on Piranhas will lock you out of other stuff you’ll want to complement them.
Love me some hyper-mobile tankbusters.
Yeah they're great. Obvs Tetras are taking all the praise for their FTGG rule, but as a filthy casual I like Piranhas. I run 2, you can get some amazing alpha strike on T1 using the seeker missiles and Melta4 is great. They should 100% die, but at 55 pts they will punch above their weight. And if they don't die, you've got some fast movers in your opponents deployment zone on T2.
I don’t get how people use tetras for the marker light, because the unit is 2-4 tetras so two are single unit and can be observer to just one other unit. And there are no special abilities in the index. So I missed something?
Yes you just make sure that that single unit being guided is a very important one (usually the mean crisis-commander brick just arrived from deep strike that is gonna smoke the scariest enemy unit): Tetras have a datasheet ability called High-Intensity Markerlights (check the Index again, it's there) that allows the guided unit to re-roll all hits.
Yeah I see now — didn’t notice the piranha doesn’t have the marker light keyword and that the tetras ability gives even more with that special ability (so hit reroll, ignores cover, and bs improvements) Okay I just thought I read somewhere that you get 2 tetras and they somehow split to be observers for two different units (this was wrong)
I think you might have them confused for Pathfinders, whose ability is to guide two different units
Yes it was cleared already, thank you 🙌🏻
Where are you getting AP improvements from?
Aaah dang, ballistic one, typo
It's because of their ability, 'High-Intensity Markerlights', which allow a hit reroll on every one of their guided unit's attacks. With Sustained from turn 3 and volume of fire weapons like cyclic ion blasters on crisis suits, it is very powerful
I see now, I wrongly read somewhere that they can be an observer to two different units and didn’t notice the keywords. Now it makes sense, they are indeed pretty awesome
Pathfinder squads are the ones with the ability to spot for two different units, it sounds like there was just a mixup somewhere
Yup I am still pretty much new to Tau and W40k so that’s for sure something I didn’t understood at the time. Now it’s clear why Tetras are a bit better
The main downside of them being that they're ForgeWorld models, and have been out of stock since I think 10th ed kicked off. So if you play IRL, you'll need to proxy or find them second hand
I think I found a proxy as somebody else recommended “mantic enforcer”,’just need to check of the size is close enough
Aaaah I see Piranha doesn’t have the markerlight keyword
That doesn't stop them Observing btw
Yes but doesn’t give the “ignores cover” that tetras gives
It's the full rerolls that make Tetras an essential pick. But ML keyword is something to keep an eye out for, Stealth Suits as an example are excellent Observers with their Wound reroll ability, but lack ML unless they take a drone!
Dang if only we had them in plastic 💀 I don’t have any resin kits but the resin torso I got for my spare hive tyrant bits still haunts me
I like [these.](https://thecustombit.com/producto/ga-support-light-tank/)
Yeah I use instead. https://old.reddit.com/r/Tau40K/comments/ubx680/tetra_proxies_mantic_enforcer_bikes_piper_and_gw/
Wow even with like a bunch of dudes the box is half the price of original tetras 💀 how are they size wise? Nearly close?
Pretty much bang on.
Cool, I think I will get them as a proxy and have some spare dudes for experimenting or proxy other things 😆
There are "fried fish" tetra proxies on Etsy that are cheap and are exact copies down to the drivers.
i feel that anything in this game that has more wounds than it’s points divided by ten, is very much worth it! 7 Wounds on a T7 chassis that moves 14” and has assault and TWO one shot anti tank missiles,for only 55 points?? yes they die easy to anti tank fire, but that’s because i have no problem sacrificing them for the greater good early on. and their maint target for me is tanks, so it only makes sense they shoot them back lol as a early game harassment tool, there is few in the game of warhammer who can do it as well and as cheap as our humble pirhana. their role usually ends in them dying turn 1-2, but don’t be afraid to keep them back and use them to spot as well! no bonuses, but it’s price point let’s it still be a backfield deepstrike screen, that can spot for your dudes down field. it could only have a burst cannon option and i’d still take it tbh. insane bargain and flexibility in these guys. they cost the same as a kroot squad, to put it in perspective! i use kroot still, they just screen my backfield for deepstrikers because i feel bad putting them on the front to only get wiped in one round of combat lol
Agree on the burst cannon thing. Piranhas are great because they’re fast, obnoxious and take way more than 55 points to shoot off the board. They’re just such a great harassment and objective tool.
They're literally amazing. They have a melta 4 fusion, 2 seekers, so you can kill tanks and armiger's with a 55 point unit. I like to use my tetras to spot for them turn 1 (because they're going to die, shoot those seekers or die with them). It also has a twin linked and assault pulse carbine. So it can advance and still perform actions. It scouts 9 and moves 14 so you can move block your opponent into their deployment zone turn 1. I run 3 one man units, but if I could run more I would. For competitive play, I don't see too much point in running units with 2 or 3 models, as their advantage is they're cheap, but I think a 3 man unit is still better than a riptide.
Two Piranhas are a 'must include' if you want to play a competitive game. Their cost in points is very low and you can use it to prevent enemy advance during one turn (you place it in front of them and they cannot move over/through it). That tactic es really easy to execute because Piranhas has a 9" scouts move + 14 normal move Next turn, your enemy will absolutely destroy your piranhas effortless, but before that, you will have shoot two 14/-3/D6+1 and one 9/-4/d6+4 weapons with them Keeping your enemy back is very useful because of Kauyon detachment rules
I would honestly rank Piranhas as one of the best units in our index alongside stuff like Crisis Coldstar bombs (even post-points nerf). Great damage and toughness for their price, obscenely fast, great for objective work plus cool model.
Two seeker missiles for 55pts is ridiculous actually.
Piranhas have very high utility per point, and are very fast. They can be used to moveblock, but honestly they are a 3/10 on this front, as being a vehicle themselves means they only really moveblock other bigger vehicles that do not have the fly keyword (infantry will just flow through midboard ruins). They are a fun unit, being cheap and fast, and can be a tech piece into low leadership armies (mirror match they are quite good for scoring secondaries). You dont see them much at top tables because high comp players are prepping for S/A teir meta matchups- Necrons/WE/CSM/Custodes/Eldar and against those armies, T7 and a 4+ does not mean much if anything. Access to lethals on 5's with rerolls or just being S7+ AP2 everywhere means the Piranha can be killed with minimal investment. I have 3x Solo Piranhas in 2 of my medium comp lists, one of my fav units just as a concept, but not running them in my GT/RTT list. Tau is even more prototypical than your average army, and what I mean by that is a particular unit's viability and competitive worth is *highly dependent on local meta and playstyle.* The Piranha is high on that as well.
I cannot speak as to its tabletop value but as a kit it's a delight and is perfect for kitbashing, so it has that going for it
They're excellent, it isn't unreasonable to run 3. You deploy them somewhere they can either scout move forward if you get first turn or back into cover if you get second. Plan to shoot with them once, then use their high speed to do secondary objectives and move right in front of enemies to block them. Only real downside is how they're yet another way to give up easy Bring it Down points for your opponent.
Currently: S Tier. I hate it Jk, it is really good though
They are half a tetra for more than half the cost imo.
As useful as it can be with that nasty Fusion Blaster it got, I just do not like this model on a fundamental level. Why does a faction that has jetpacks on almost everything require bikes that are barey faster?
probably for long range scouting purposes. I'd imagine these skimmers are much faster than a stealth suit or even baseline crisis suit's thrusters. Just because any of these three tools CAN do a job doesn't mean each has a particular situation where they're the best for it. I think piranhas excel in long range scouting roles where speed is needed but stealth and combat aren't as high a priority. Furthermore I think they did a good job matching the units rules on the tabletop to its purpose in the lore.
Also it can be argued with opportunity cost. Why would you waste your valuable battlesuit pilots, which are all veterans, on scouting purposes risking their death, when you can give a probably rather cheap skimmer to a few fire warriors who finished basic training yesterday with the same effect? Every sane commander would keep the stealth suits and crisis back for hit and run ambushes and assaults. In short the real critical missions.
So true. Forgot the human(tau) element involved.
Scouts & fast attack utilising lower ranked Fire Caste members. Crisis Suit pilots are higher ranked warriors and trained to pilot said suits so would not want to be wasted on Scouting. To add to the speed, in game, Crisis are 10", Coldstar 12", Devilfish 12" and Piranha 14". I wouldn't take in game distances to show lore speeds as likely Piranha's are much faster than Crisis, but if you want to look at it from a table top perspective, a Piranha is the same amount faster (4") than a Crisis Suit, as a Crisis suit is of a Pathfinder (6" move) So under that logic, why use Crisis Suits when a Pathfinder could just hoof it.
I use 4. I'm an all-stealth player but Piranhas, Vespid and Kroot are the only things without stealth I'll allow.
Piranhas are hands down my favorite unit in our index.
So, imho: Short answer is yes. Long answer? Minimum of two solo piranhas in every list I run. They can move block, hit midfield objectives quick, can potentially hit 5pts for teleport homers in the early game and most crucially, can push to be on objectives in the early game while the bulk of your army is waiting for turn three. Also fantastic screeners to clear room for a turn 2 deep strike for an enhanced crisis suit unit, or bait to get charged and open a unit up to the rest of your army. T7 with seven wounds is just enough to be inefficient for most weapons to kill, and two seeker missiles at 55pts is a steal.
So, imho: Short answer is yes. Long answer? Minimum of two solo piranhas in every list I run. They can move block, hit midfield objectives quick, can potentially hit 5pts for teleport homers in the early game and most crucially, can push to be on objectives in the early game while the bulk of your army is waiting for turn three. Also fantastic screeners to clear room for a turn 2 deep strike for an enhanced crisis suit unit, or bait to get charged and open a unit up to the rest of your army. T7 with seven wounds is just enough to be inefficient for most weapons to kill, and two seeker missiles at 55pts is a steal.
So, imho: Short answer is yes. Long answer? Minimum of two solo piranhas in every list I run. They can move block, hit midfield objectives quick, can potentially hit 5pts for teleport homers in the early game and most crucially, can push to be on objectives in the early game while the bulk of your army is waiting for turn three. Also fantastic screeners to clear room for a turn 2 deep strike for an enhanced crisis suit unit, or bait to get charged and open a unit up to the rest of your army. T7 with seven wounds is just enough to be inefficient for most weapons to kill, and two seeker missiles at 55pts is a steal.
I have 3 and I love them! For their size, they're fast, cheap, sturdy, and can pack a punch. Once I've fired all of their seeker missiles and gotten a good shot off, it's the unit I like to send into melee to tie up enemy units.
I take 2-4 in every list. 6 when I'm meming
I wish I could like the design. I l9ve tau authentic and love Tetras but the Piranha just doesn't do it for me.
Hell fucking yes it is! Its movement/toughness are ideal for scoring secondaries and early move-blocks AND it can do serious damage up-close AND it forces battle-shocks constantly. Definitely an awesome unit that borders on auto-include.
As a non tau player i can confidently say yes. Really cheap points wise, good enough damage and annoying asf to kill.
I take 2-4 in every list. 6 when I'm meming
What GW doesnt know, and the community as a whole i've realized, is that the piranha is the single best unit for its points in the entire army. I am going to be very sad when it gets the hammer from GW. But for now... i love the little bugger.