Tau Vespids Viable?

[NehemiahD]

So I was skimming through the Tau Codex today and trying to find a use for Vespids. Then I found it, If a vespid squad has a Strain Leader, then they can benifit from markerlights! finally Vespids can effectivley kill MEQ! Light up a Tactical squad with some pathfinders, giving them +2 BS and now you have a 10 man squad hitting on 2+'s, killing marines on 3+'s, that should kill about 6 marines, if you follow that up with a daring assault (Nueron BLasters are assault weapons) with your Initiative of 5 you should be able to mop up/tie up the rest of the squad.

Granted their are major drawbacks to this squad, namely they are fragile and expensive. I thought I would just present Tau Players with a 182 Point, 11 man fast attack choice.

I really never found vespids to be viable, and I must admit I really have never given them a second thought, maybe this will encourage Tau players out there to break out their vespids, and melt some MEQ!

Tell me what you guys think of my idea. Will it work?

[lostinnm]

Even with markerlights vespid are still useless.
First, how will they actually get to the marines? Since they can't take a transport they will be getting shot up the whole time, and they don't exactly get a save with 5+ armor.
Second, even at BS5 at full strength, you will only kill 6 marines IF they are out of cover. 3 if they are in cover. 4 tactical marines surviving will still outclass that 11 model unit. Grey hunters or Blood Angels will completely wreck them.
Third, they have no method of cracking tanks, and are poor in assault. What if you get there and those marines are still sitting safely in their rhino, or outside their pitiful 12" range. Next turn all of the vespid die.
Fourth, 1 Flamer=Dead Vespid Squad

Any way you look at them, vespid are the absolute worst unit in the tau codex. They are about as effective as 10 dark eldar warriors running across the table on foot.

[slxiii]

Even with markerlights vespid are still useless.
First, how will they actually get to the marines? Since they can't take a transport they will be getting shot up the whole time, and they don't exactly get a save with 5+ armor.
Second, even at BS5 at full strength, you will only kill 6 marines IF they are out of cover. 3 if they are in cover. 4 tactical marines surviving will still outclass that 11 model unit. Grey hunters or Blood Angels will completely wreck them.
Third, they have no method of cracking tanks, and are poor in assault. What if you get there and those marines are still sitting safely in their rhino, or outside their pitiful 12" range. Next turn all of the vespid die.
Fourth, 1 Flamer=Dead Vespid Squad

Any way you look at them, vespid are the absolute worst unit in the tau codex. They are about as effective as 10 dark eldar warriors running across the table on foot.
This. For the 180 points the vespid squad costs you could have firewarriors in a decked out fish, 3 piranha, a crisis team and some extras, a hammerhead... for 50 more points you could get a broadside team.

[Wildeybeast]

Even if they were tactically viable, there is no way I would sully my beautiful Tau army by putting those horrible models on the table with them.

[Tynskel]

granted they cost too much point wise, but they do have some advantages.

you can deep strike into terrain with practically no fear, and hop from cover to cover. That's not bad. Their gun does cut through heavy infantry.
They also have fleet and I5.

They are not great, but they are not bad, especially in comparison to just about everything else the tau have.

[Bean]

Vespid are terrible. Don't play them. The Tau Codex has a fairly limited number of options that are worth playing, but it does have some and they don't include Vespid.

[lostinnm]

granted they cost too much point wise, but they do have some advantages.

you can deep strike into terrain with practically no fear, and hop from cover to cover. That's not bad. Their gun does cut through heavy infantry.
They also have fleet and I5.

They are not great, but they are not bad, especially in comparison to just about everything else the tau have.
The biggest problem with them sticking to terrain is that usually they can either stick to terrain, or actually go kill something. Their 12" range gun usually prevents them from doing both. They leave cover, they will get shot to pieces, they stick to cover, they'll catch a flame template and die. Their gun can cut through heavy infantry, but they don't have the quantity of fire to wipe them out. If just a few of their target are left, the vespid will be wiped out the following turn.
Fleet? Who cares, everything in 5th can now run so it isn't special when you look at the rest of their statline and realize they won't be assaulting anything. 22 Ws3, Str3 attacks won't kill anything.
I5? Who cares when they don't have assault grenades and the rest of their statline is horrible for assault.
On average if they assault 3 tactical marines with a sergeant (With no upgrades), they will outnumber the marines almost 3 to one yet still tie combat.

[Bean]

Exactly. They're expensive, they're fragile, they're worthless in combat and not nearly good enough at shooting. That they are fast only means that they get to the spot where they're going to die sooner.

Never ever play Vespid. They might not be the worst unit in the entire game, but they're definitely in the running.

[Anggul]

Not sure sacrificing 10 models to kill 6 or 7 is worth it most of the time. You'd probable be better off with Fire Warriors, which can capture and at that range will put out a lot of shots, which is amazing at BS5.

Yeah they're pretty good against MEQ sometimes, but what if that's not what you need doing?

This is purely gameplay-wise though, I'm probably going to have some in 2k games just because they look so damned cool!

[Bean]

If you have two markerlights bumping their BS to 5, then six marines is about what you should expect, but five is substantially more likely than seven. If they're in cover or you can't afford to put a pathfinder squad into killing two or three more marines, you're looking at about three dead marines from just the ten Vespid on their own. And, as pointed out, those ten Vespid are not cheap--they could easily be a whole 'nother Deathrain squad or Hammerhead.

[Da Gargoyle]

So I've noticed that if ever there was a codex that needed some work it would be the Tau. They seem expensive for what they can do with no unit seemingly capable of matching any other race for Assault. But the Vespid are jump troops yes?

12" move, deep strike, AP 3 weapons, what strength? 4 at least I would hope or they can not be used. But as a reserve unit designed for contesting an objective when the other guy thought his home base was safe they could gain you that victory point or take one away from the other guy. They seem like a late in the game unit to me. Even better if you have the last move.