Rifle Vs. Carbine

I would like to discuss the thoughts behind the profiles I gave to the pulse rifle and pulse carbine in the codex.
The main difference between rifle and carbine is that the first should be the basic weapon of the Fire Warriors, suited for semi-static units that can hit from a distance but still defend themselves while moving, while the carbine is a variant modified to retain its firepower even on the move, at the expense of range. Technically, the rifle should be the choice for gunlines whereas carbine is for embarked FW units that roam around in a devilfish.
Reality is different, because the rifle tends to be far more effective than the carbine in the hands of moving Tau, since the rapid fire weapon rules allow it to fire twice at short range even on the move, making the rifle outperform the carbine in its own field. It is true that the carbine has more range than a moving rifle, but that is widely repaid by the double firepower of the rifle, even if counting in the fact that carbines can pin units down.
Restoring the balance between rifle and carbine is the main impulse behind the new profiles of those weapons: they retained their Strength and AP value, but now the rifle is either H2/30" or A1/18", making it a gorgeous choice for FW gun lines defending an objective while retaining a minimum of defensive capability on the move, an carbines are A2/18" + Pinning, making them the obvious choice for embarked FW teams.
The buff to the rifles is also one of the two measures I took to make the FWs better objective holders, because as of now they suck at that.
Really, they do =) It may be advocated that statically holding an objective through the game is not very tau-ish and that we should just rush to them at the later turns, but that is surely debatable.