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Alright. Here's the clarification.
Pulse Rifles are rapid fire weapons. Which means that, if you stand still, you can shoot up to 24". If you move or your enemy is within 12", though, you may rapid fire. If you move, your range is cut down to 12" automatically. When rapid firing, you may fire twice. However, you cannot assault at all if you use a Rapid Fire weapon.

The Pulse Carbines are assault weapons. That means that you can move, deal with your entire shooting phase, and then charge into assault. Not too hard.

Rapid fire range is not halved for anything. All rapid fire ranges are 12" and 12" only. The reason why everyone thinks it is halving is because the original example for rapid fire given was space marines that have a max range of 24".

So yeah, all rapid fire weapons are 12" when you rapid fire. Not half the max range of the weapon.

Sorry, my bad sweatdrop

okay, so....
if i did move, i cant shoot the 30" ?
how far can i shoot then, 12"?


and, if my opponent moves into the 12" range, and i dont move my next turn, then i can shoot twice with each gun?

Honestly What few times I fought the Tau, the opposing player never got the chance to rapid fire, you see the IG can have snipers, and well tau helmets do not protect against that.
My favored anti-tau tactic is to fight them from behind cover. or better yet break them up. as befitting their philophy the Tau units work together, support each other. if your good you can keep that from happening, That and pray they don't get to shoot first.

now i asked my question because
tau are a fairly mobile army
and if i need to move my fire warriors, does the range get cut down from the 30" range the pulse rifle has? (assuming im moving units with pulse rifles)

to clarify even further
im moving a unit of 6 pulse rifle equipped firewarriors

there is a unit of, whatever, 36" away
can i move my 6" and still shoot 30"
if not, how far can i shoot after moving?



EDIT:: sorry i confused myself
im editing this to fix up what im asking
i realize regardless, if im in 12" with a rapid fire i can shoot twice

what i want to know, is can i so what i asked above, with the 36" question

ehhh... that kinda blows...
oh well XD

I actually found an interesting idea on one of the tau forums i visit which actually looks like a good tactic for 5th ed this tactic being lance theory because the guys at said forum were discussing how tau would take objectives in the new rules since only troops are allowed to control objectives and everyone seemed to agree that taking loads of fire warriors and loading them in devilfish to rush objectives on the last turn sounded like the only way to go however i think lance theory is a more fun and less cheesey option to accomplish the same goal, here is what i said there.

The idea is that a combination of firewarriors/kroot suits and skimmers are grouped together to take and hold each objective splitting your army into durable and flexible 'lances' that will have the troops choice to claim the objective and also the heavy armour and fire power to hold the objective afterwards.

Considering that whenever i play the objectives are always in cover of some sort vehicles will have much more durability as they now have cover saves so you can establish a fire-base on top of an objective with a vehicle parked in the main line of fire, denying small weapons fire from the most obvious firing line and the cover save helping against heavier fire.

Also if you have a variety of units in one place it would force the enemy to split his forces as well, which he wont have planned for and so probably wont have the right mix of units to do this effectively. The only problem i see with this tactic is that it would be more expensive than other tactics mentioned especially if you have 4+ objectives on smaller games you will either have to leave some objectives or play much weaker lances (which probably wont work) so i guess this tactic would be more suited to larger points games