K'daii Fireborn: Bringing the heat or hot garbage?

[Hashut-Up!]

Howdy everyone! I'm a huge fan of the new Chaos Dwarf rules and models (as one could tell from my name) and I have read over the book countless times and have seen the use and potential of most of the units in the book and decided personally that they were good, bad, or amazing. Despite all my reading and pondering, however, I cannot make up my mind on K'daii fireborn. Their models look awesome and really have had me considering purchasing a squad of them, but I just haven't been able to fully convince myself that they are worth it in my army. What I ask of you, the warseer community, is what you believe their best squad size and application is if you like them, or if they just aren't worth it then why? So to start this off, I want to analyze a couple pros and cons and hope that this will spark a discussion that convinces me one way or another.

For the pros: These guys look like they would absolutely shred t3 models and do decent damage to t4 stuff. Their blazing body ability makes them difficult to kill and is what really makes them pound on weaker units, and at str 5 they can fight almost anything in the game and expect to do decent amounts of damage. A movement double that of the rest of my army is very handy too. The 4+ ward save on them is damn good as well. Plus they look awesome (but so does the rest of the army so thats not really a deciding factor).

For the cons: High points cost, 2 wounds and they potentially start to self-destruct after turn 1. They also have a low number of attacks for monstrous infantry. On top of all this, they essentially do what a very large portion of the CD army already does: Kill non-elite units. Things like the magma cannon, deathshrieker rocket launcher and hailshot blunderbusses all do the same thing very well, cheaper and better.

With this all said, what does everyone else think?

[TornadoCreator]

Personally, I think, like most of the Forgeworld stuff, that K'daai Fireborn are overpriced at 55 points per model (personally I'd put them at 45 points per model). Still, if you're playing Chaos Dwarves you've chosen to play an elite army so being the underdog is the standard really. One of the problems Chaos Dwarves have is a strong decent tarpit, that's what Fireborn can be. They'll keep the enemy flailing at something they can't wound reliably, but that can consistently hurt them. With so many things now having flaming attacks and the 10 point "Banner Of Eternal Flame" popping up all over the place, having a unit of creatures that shrugs off flaming attacks as though they're not there is pretty handy. On top of that, the automatic hits are quite nice for when you're fighting high Weapon Skill creatures or even hordes. Remember the automatic hit is for every monster in base contact with the Fireborn, this means if fighting standard infantry on 20mm bases (you on a 40mm base), you're doing a possible 4 automatic hits PER MODEL! That's before the 2 attacks the Fireborn themselves make. Fireborn take cleaver planning to be effective and if done badly they can be an expensive waste of points, but once you know how to use them, they can win you matches.

My preferred size for Fireborn is 8 models in 2 ranks of 4. You'll get a rank bonus and you with a well aimed charge against a 10 wide horde column you'll bring a full set of models into fight doing maximised automatic hits. With that set-up, fighting in 2 ranks, you're doing 16 automatic Str4 hits, followed by 12 Str5 hits (that's without the Manburner upgrade which is WAY overpriced). Against normal horde like creatures you're hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's maybe 3's. Which means you can expect on average to do ~12 wounds every round. That's pretty good... do that on something like Tomb Kings/Vampire Counts and watch Unstable take away another 10 or so. Against others the Fear will hopefully lower the enemy WS to 1, the ward save will stop return wounds half the time, and the added -1 to wound ensures you're not losing combat. In fact, the chances are, unless you're up against characters with a magic weapon, the K'daai will be more likely to kill themselves but not before taking a fair few people with them. Against Tomb Kings who have both Unstable and Flammable these things are a worst nightmare.

Edit: The unit I'm suggesting is 440 points so not insignificant but not exceptionally expensive, and it can handedly hold back troops twice the point cost ofitself if placed well.

[Malorian]

I played against them and my black orcs with flaming banner was crapping their pants at the sight of them. Luckily foot of gork does very well against them, and there is a good chance they will be taking wounds from failed toughness checks.

Personally I think if you can get that right match up they are amazing, but otherwise it can easily be a waste of points.

[warplock]

Remember the automatic hit is for every monster in base contact with the Fireborn, this means if fighting standard infantry on 20mm bases (you on a 40mm base), you're doing a possible 4 automatic hits PER MODEL!... with a well aimed charge against a 10 wide horde column you'll bring...16 automatic Str4 hits

the added -1 to wound ensures you're not losing combat.

Check the Tamurkhan FAQ http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Download...amurkhanQA.pdf

Pg184 and 185: Replace the Blazing Body rules text with the following:
‘Any model (friend or foe) in base contact with one or more Bale Taurus or K’daai, except a Chaos Dwarf using it as a mount or another K’daai, takes an automatic Strength 4 hit at the start of the Close Combat phase. This is a Flaming attack.
Additionally, any non-Magical attacks must re-roll successful To Wound rolls.’

It makes Blazing Body a lot less powerful at dealing out those automatic hits - you can never hit each enemy model more than once. However, the reroll to be wounded is probably better than -1 to be wounded for the Fireborn, so they're a bit more resilient (I think... haven't done the math).

Personally I think the Fireborn look great. I ran some numbers once (by this, I mean I literally slugged it out with a calculator for a bit) and I think point for point the Fireborn outperformed Swormasters against T3 opponents, considering how little damage they take compared to SM. I also think Fireborn beat equal points of SM.

[TornadoCreator]

Hmmm, I'd not checked the Erratas recently, that's a pity really about the burning body rules, that makes the Fireborn far less useful I feel. Shock troops is how I prefer to use them, and while the re-roll against magical weapons is nice sure, they're still more expensive than Ogre Kingdom Ironguts and Chaos Trolls which are both better statistically. I'd seriously look at the Bull Centaurs again unless you know you're facing Tomb Kings or something else where the "flammable" rule will be especially effective.

[Hashut-Up!]

Thanks for the replies! They do seem good if matched up right, I will certainly agree with that, but there seems like there's a lot that can deal with them easily, whether it is units, artillery or spells. I just can't justify the point total in my mind. 55 points for 2 wounds, albeit hard to get ones due to blazing body and the ward save, just seems like too much for me when they're given a self-destruct rule and unstable. Bull centaurs seem great, and are reasonably pointed and not a bad idea actually. They seem less situation-oriented to me and more durable to boot. Both have very nice models and am going to have to really think about which one, if any, fits into my list.

[Doommasters]

Far too unreliable for their points cost. All you have to do is re-direct them once and by the time they even get into combat they will have almost killed themselves, throw in some ranged attacks and they are basically free points. Two wounds is what cripples them, their rules are fluffy and balanced it is just the person that decided to give them 2 wounds that messed up.

They should be 40pts max if they only have 2 wounds!

The way I see it with my WE is that an eagle 3/4/5 times its points from a single re-direction.