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Hi all Tauists.

I put together a bunch of ideas for a complete re-write of the Tau codex and made an article here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Ideas_for_a_5th_edition_Tau_Codex

I ran out of steam before finishing all the special characters, so please feel free to comment, criticise and add.

Read the whole thing. Just love the Evade special rule. I dont think such a rule my make it into the new codex though.

I think there are a lot of good ideas here, but also some ones I would seriously object to should my group's Tau player want to implement them.

The Good: I like the general idea you went with - making Tau what they are supposed to be, the most shooty race in the game. It's a shame Guard and Marines will out-strip them, even with this new codex, but that cannot be helped.

I L-O-V-E, LOVE, that you included traitor guard in there. I have always wanted guard allies in my Tau armies that I occasionally build. I like the Ethereal "observer" rule in transports, though he should have to join the unit inside, I think (if he has no honor guard).

For their cost, and Devilfish requirement, making Pathfinder markerlights assault is a good change. I also like relentless Drones and the new Drone as well.

I have little issue with Sniper Drone Team cost change.

I also like that Commanders are no longer 1+.

I like your special Vehicle Squadron people.

The Bad: Unfortunately, it seems the main thing you did is make Tau better at what they do - shoot, and worse at what they don't do - assault. I do not think this is an even trade. To use a Dungeons and Dragons reference, any wizard will happily take worse melee combat abilities in exchange for better spellcasting - if they could avoid it, they weren't likely to get into melee anyway.

You said the flamer becomes a heavy flamer in the codex, which I don't mind, but the points need to change - no less than 5/10 (single and twin-linked), in my opinion. I thinking making the fusion gun a multi-melta is also bad for it's cost - it needs to be more if you're going to do that. Melta weaponry is not the Tau forte, and needs to be pricier than other codices.

I think I dislike "Evade, Evade!" the most. It allows you, to a certain extent, to simply deny assault armies the ability to do what they do - I think Tau have to win (or come close) before the enemy gets to them - and that is the challenge of playing them. Let an assault army get in close without taking enough casualties, and you're toast. But if you can damage them enough, you can make their assault irrelevant or simply outlast them with sheer numbers. By the same token, I also dislike the shortened Pulse Rifle range - the thing I loved about it was the 30" shooting, not to mention the 5S, making it the best basic infantry gun in the game.

I have some issues with your vehicle changes as well. The Hammerhead, I feel costs too little for what it comes with - perhaps when compared to Guard vehicles (the mainstay in vehicle armies, aside from possibly BA), it is underpowered, but Tau are not supposed to have overpowering vehicles. The same with the Sky Ray - you lowered the overall cost, made it better for free (Disruption Pods), and took away one of it's greatest weaknesses - limited missiles. You have virtually guaranteed that you will be able to fire 2 missiles with the Sky Ray itself each turn, and have a good chance for more with other units' Markerlights.

(breathes) Ok, that was a lot, and you have loads of good ideas. Your heart is in the right place, and your Warhammer sense is great. I like what you are doing and think you have a good base to start with. I would recommend, if you have one, getting with your group and working out the entire codex and your new units, piece by piece, over a few hours of discussion, compromise, and the occasional angry argument when tempers get too high.

Great work overall.

Thank you for your comments.

I have deliberately put more into the proposal than I think ought to be in the codex, to allow for trimming and customisation.

BTW the Pulse Rifle range is meant to be 2 shots at 15 inches, and one shot at 30. I'll change the proposal to make this clear.

I am in two minds about your criticism of Evade Evade. In my view, assault armies should be made to work as hard to get into assault as shooty armies have to in order to avoid it. I don't believe that balance is there at the moment, since assault units have such high movement rates.

Evade Evade does two things; firstly it stops assault units from knowing they can contact in charges from 12-18 inches out; second, it gives them a kind of tank shock effect against Tau infantry, which allows the assaulting player to manoeuvre the Tau to their disadvantage.

Regarding weapon costs -- Note that the Piranha squadron size is reduced from 5 to 3 in order to offset the more powerful fusion gun. The heavy flamer for suits is partial compensation for the small amount of support weapons a Tau army can bring to the table.

First a few questions and then a few of my ideas.

1) Can a vehicle with no "wing" upgrade, ie no drones or smart missiles load drones onto the vehicle during the game?
2) Can drones embark and disembark from vehicles of simply start attached and then detach later?
3) Drones have jetpacks and I think this already confers relentless right?

My ideas

1) Battle Suits
I think that there should be a greater differentiation between the 3 types of battle suits in FOC placement and battelfield role. Crisis are Elite, Broadside Heavy and the Stealth is moved to Fast Attack.

The stealth suit is faster and nimbler, but has the shortest range weapons. They can either make a 12" move and a 6" assault move, or a 6" move and a 12" assault move. They also have skilled flier and hit and run. They have a choice of flamer, Fusion gun, or burst cannon. (increase cannon to S6 maybe?)

The crisis suit is stronger and is suited to mid range combat. Normal jetpack rules. They have weapons with ranges 18"-36". Bust cannon, plasma rifle, missile pod ect. I do not think that they should have the shorter range weapons like the fusion gun or flamer.

The broadside is stationary and as the longest range guns, 36" and longer. Make the secondary weapon choices have a longer range for the broadside.

When you have mutiple units that function is similar roles, it is very hard to balance them so all the units are viable choices. Right now, crisis suits are simply better than stealth suits as they serve similar purposes and FOC. I think that the stealth suit needs a different role on the table. The crisis and the broadside are mostly fine as is.


2) Drones.
I like the idea of drones being able to form up, separate from squads, and the like. I would add a couple of things.

Make units of drones never worth a kill point, and they can not claim or contest objectives. They are counted for victory points. Drones are purchases separately and then either deployed with squads or as separate units with a maximum size of 10.

Drones should only be T3 and have a save of 5+. Mixed toughness is not hard to do, neither are mixed saves. Shield drones are an exception, taking the unit's toughness and having a 4++ save.

Drones can join any unit with a drone controller (2 drones per controller in the unit). Drones can chose to leave a unit during the movement phase or during the assault phase. If they leave the unit in the assault phase they can make their 6" assault move. Drones can only join a unit in the movement phase and they can always join a unit of drones (maximum size of 10)

Make the defense drone a one time use thing and call it a bomb drone, I think it is a bit too good at the moment.


3)Avoiding assault
I am not sold on your Evade Evade rule. Especially for suits in the middle of the board, they would be very hard to assault. You could play keep away from and all close combat army like Chaos Demons and it would not make for a fun game. Manoevering the Tau is bad, but if you have no shooting to make up for it then it is difficult.

Tau rapid fire from 15" away, enemy moves 6" runs 6" is now 3" away. The unit is fleet of foot and attempts to assault, Tau roll a 4+ on a 2D6 for Evade Evade and are not assaulted. Even if the enemy is 1" away there is a 72% chance that the Tau will get away. That is simply not fair to a close combat army. You would need either beasts or cavalry with a 12" assault move starting very close to the Tau (under 6" away) to have a better than 50% chance to catch the Tau in assault. That is simply not fair.

If you are dead set on keeping it as is, I would recommend that each unit can only Evade once and it is 1D6 for infantry, and 2D6 for jump/jetpacks.

My alternative idea is that drones can detach from a unit to create a buffer forcing the enemy to go around and maybe not make it into assault or assault the drones.

Make the Evade Evade rule into a version of hit and run. Instead of taking an initiative test, at the end of any assault phase the unit automatically makes a hit and run move, but takes wounds equal to the amount they lost close combat by. (just like No Retreat wounds). If the unit has at least 1 drone per 5 non-drone models in the squad, the drones can be sacrificed to ignore the extra wounds.

The worst thing for tau is having units hide in assaults so they can not be shot. This rule would make defensive grenades useful and would make the enemy want to deal wounds in the assault phase, where currently you do not want to deal wounds to tau so you can stay in the assault and avoid the shooting until your turn.


4)Pathfinders should infiltrate. Maybe make them an upgrade from a fire warrior squad, ie they are troops.

5) Add Aliens in every FOC. Kroot are troops (give them regular stealth), vespids fast (I like your changes), Tarellians elite (harder faster close combat unit, beasts?), Gue'vesa as heavy (guard heavy weapons teams with Tau guns?).

6)Also, I can not see the bold text correctly.

I am not sure how much you want to change the current codex, but I think that you have made a good start. The tau are a cool race, and I see a lot of them played for it being such an old codex. I really like what you have done so far and I am very interested to see what you come up with for special characters.

I have four major concerns after glancing at this list. This comes from someone who plays against Tau regularly, and has slight experience playing Tau.

1) Rail rifle on the Stealth Suit team seems a bit overdone, especially considering that they a STEALTH team.

2) Point cost for fire warriors. I have no issue really with most of the other changes, but 6 points is too little. 8 or 9 means that they still cost a decent amount of points in line with other armies.

3) Evade, Evade! is far too lopsided in favor of Tau, and would break them. Armies that can primarily assault far and away sink their points into making their units good at assaulting. Giving Tau the ability to basically deny an entire turn of assaulting is MASSIVELY overpowered, as it also means that your opponent will definitely be in range of the new range of RF for Pulse Carbines. That is extraordinarily unfair. This means any army fighting Tau basically is stuck shooting against them, which is a fight few armies can win.

4) This has to do with the Evade rule. As you have it written, EVERY fire warrior squad would be basically getting it with no issues, as now you have unites getting grenades basically for free.

So for absolutely nothing, Tau have been given: much lower point cost; better rapid fire;ability to negate a round of close combat, possibly two if really lucky; and longer range on rapid firing.

I think you have some good ideas here, but I think some things need toned down or removed to have any semblance of fairness.

vishra wrote:

2) Point cost for fire warriors. I have no issue really with most of the other changes, but 6 points is too little. 8 or 9 means that they still cost a decent amount of points in line with other armies.

...
.

I think you have mis-read the points for Fire Warriors. The base cost is 70p for a squad of 6 including a Shas'Ui. The squad can add up to six more at 9p each. This makes them about the same cost as the current codex with a cheap Shas'ui and a small upgrade to the pulse rifle.

I agree with svendrex. Evade evade should be weakend to 1d6 or 2d6 for the crisis suits. other than that, great!

With Evade Evade being 3D6 for suits, and the enemy starting only 1" away there is only a 5.5% chance to catch the suits in close combat. If the enemy is 3" away or more, than there is a 0% chance to catch the suits in close combat. How often are you only 1" away from an enemy with 12" of movement a turn that is trying to stay out of close combat? Play a game with the current Evade Evade rules and see what happens against a close combat army, and you will see why I think it would be Auto-win for the tau.

Especially if you are going to have a character that makes stealth suits troops, you could have an all suit army that would be impossible to assault, and would deal a ton of wounds with the defense drones if you try to assault the vehicles or broadsides. They might lose to an army like Guard or maybe certain space wolf builds that can match their shooting power. (and Thunder wolves 1" away have above a 50% chance to assault suits)

Of corse, you could run stuff of the table or force them to evade right into another unit, preventing them from retreating anyfurther as well as possabley traping them

Most suits however move up to the middle of the board. The suits retreat an average of 11", but can move 12" forewards making it very hard to push them off of the table. Play test it and you will see that is it too much.

1D6 or 2D6 for suits and you can only use it once. Combine this with Fish of Fury to deny one turn of assault, and then retreat to deny another tun of assault, and be able to move drones out of the squad as blockers and with a 15" RF range. Most units will take 2-3 turns of Rapid Fire from fire warriors before they can assault, and most units can not survive that. And then you go to the next unit and have to do it again, but with out the retreat move so another 1-2 turns. Considering that you will not be in close combat range unit turn 2 mostly, it means that a player will have to be be lucky/skilled or the Tau made a mistake to assault two units and come out at an advantage which I think is about balanced.

I made it 2d6/3d6 because that is what a normal fall back move is. However I take the point that it may be too far.

If it is introduced as a new Special Rule, there is no need to stick to the normal Fall Back distance.

This is exactly the kind of feedback that is valuable for improving the proposals!

Perhaps I should rewrite that section as several alternatives.

Vanilla marines have combat tactics which is similar I suppose, but most people have learned to just not shoot the marines if you want to assault them. What other alternatives were you thinking of? I think some kind of hit and run with penalties might help the tau. It would prevent people from hiding in assault by minimizing the models in combat on the first turn.

Hit and Run is fairly useless to Tau because of their low I.

What they need is a way either to avoid getting into melee, or of making it more costly for the attacker to charge them. The defence drone is one way to do that. Another would be a rule allowing Tau units to shoot defensively when they are charged.

A third alternative is to make Tau shooting so effective that they have a good chance to destroy enemy assault units at long range.

My suggestion: Pulse Rifles dual profile: 30" Heavy 2 or 30" rapid fire. This way Firewarriors can maintain a steady rate of fire/avoid the rate of fire dropoff that is evident in so many other armies. This will help cement their place as the long-distance firepower army.

I like the defence drones. What about something similar to the venomthrope where it forces difficult/dangerous terrain test to assault the unit?

Kilkrazy wrote:Hit and Run is fairly useless to Tau because of their low I.

What they need is a way either to avoid getting into melee, or of making it more costly for the attacker to charge them. The defence drone is one way to do that. Another would be a rule allowing Tau units to shoot defensively when they are charged.

A third alternative is to make Tau shooting so effective that they have a good chance to destroy enemy assault units at long range.

Effective, yes. Unassailable in CC, no. They should have a better edge in shooting than they have now, I'll give them that. But they SHOULDN'T be able to negate two-three turns of assaults.

What is your suggestion?

I am open to all ideas.

vishra wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Hit and Run is fairly useless to Tau because of their low I.

What they need is a way either to avoid getting into melee, or of making it more costly for the attacker to charge them. The defence drone is one way to do that. Another would be a rule allowing Tau units to shoot defensively when they are charged.

A third alternative is to make Tau shooting so effective that they have a good chance to destroy enemy assault units at long range.

Effective, yes. Unassailable in CC, no. They should have a better edge in shooting than they have now, I'll give them that. But they SHOULDN'T be able to negate two-three turns of assaults.

Unfortunately, some of GW's recent moves have made handling this situation kind of tricky. I.E. - Certain blood angels units being able to assault on the turn they deep strike, etc.

Again I think that the answer lies with drones. You use drones to prevent the BA from being able to DS close without either taking a huge risk of a mishap or force them back far enough so they can not assault...

You would have to chose between having a large number of expendable drones to keep yourself out of combatand shoot for more turns, or stock up on more firepower and shoot for fewturn more effectively. I think that is the Devilfish was priced lower than Fire Warriors can Fish of Fury, ie, jump out of the back of the fish and shoot under it while the fish blocks people trying to assault. And if the fish moved 6"+ then you can not hurt the fish in the assault phase easily. Then you block further with drones, or jump in the fish and run away.

Maybe the defense drone would be exactly like the venomthrope, it has some...sonic...thingy.... that makes any unit wishing to assault a unit with a defense drone as part of it must take a dangerous terrain test.


There is another 30" RF gun, it is one of the Sternguard special ammo. I think that there should be a reason to chose the pulse carbine over the rifle and I do not think that pinning is a good idea. I think the rife should be reglar rapid fire R30" and the carbine should be R18" A2. This way sitting fire warrior squads would take the rifle for the long range shots, and you take the carbine for devilfish squads for the extra mid range shooting.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
A long section about how I think drones should work as I keep DRONING ON about them
anyways...

1. Drones are a separate entry counting as non-scoring troops but exists outside of the normal FOC (similar to priests). Essentially you buy all of the drones as one choice, then during deployment you can deploy the drones with any unit that has a drone controller, (2 drones per controller in the unit), embarked on any vehicle with drone bays (2 per vehicle), and the remaining drones are deployed as squadrons, max size 10.

3. Drones may never capture or contest an objective/table quarter.

4. Drones are normal jetpackers, 6" move, always relentless, 6" assault move.

5. Drone hive mind: They act similar to IC. Drones can leave and join squads either in the movement or during their assault move. A drone that is not part of a unit must be more than 2" away from that unit (this is to avoid issues of knowing if a drone is in a unit or not, exception for close combat). Drones do not fight as a separate unit in close combat.

6. Statline (mixed T and especially SV is not hard to deal with, drones should not have 3+ armor with battle suits)
WS BS S T A I W LD SV
2.....2..3..3.1.2.1..6...5+

7. Drones are BS 2, but have TL pulse carbines, can upgrade to other weapons/options. Base cost of 10 pts. (put out more damage than a regular fire warrior w/ carbine)
Can Trade TL carbine for:
a. Marker light and targeter (+1 BS) +10 pts?
b. Rail Rifle and targeter +5 pts
c. C3 transmitter (drone becomes LD 8 and Stubborn) +15 pts
d. Shield Generator (4++ Save, matches toughness out joined unit, base T is still 3) +5 pts
e. Defence drone (Causes dangerous terrain tests if assaulted) +15 pts?
f. Demo Drone (instead of making close combat attacks or when a save is failed the drone may chose to detonate, S6 AP 5 Large Blast does not scatter) +20 pts.

Those are great ideas on the Drones!

What is your thinking on the issue of drones affecting the morale of Tau units?

A unit of only drones take all morale normally from shooting and assault. This makes the C3 drone like a drone Sargent for large drone squadrons.

Maybe since drones are not counted as kill points, they should not be counted as casualties or as part of the squad size in the shooting phase.
Example: you have a unit 8 firewarriors and 2 drones. They are shot up and lose 2 drones and 2 firewarriors. The drones are ignored and it counts as loosing 2 out of 8 so you do take morale.

I think that in close combat however, drones should be counted toward combat resolution. I think it would be a little too good if they were ignored here. It kinda helps the Tau as they kinda want to lose close combat and run away in order to prevent people from hiding in close combat.

Here's my suggestions, as always take with a grain of salt.

The one thing I would like to see is the option to play a kroot army if someone would be so inclined.

Include a Kroot Shaper (Or Elder Shaper) for an HQ choice that will remove the 0-2 limit on Kroot, 0-1 limit on Kroot Hounds, 0-1 Limit on Kroot Ox

Add Kroot hounds for fast attack profile idea is 0-1-
WS4 BS0 S4 T3 W1 I5 A2 LD6 Sv6+, Unit Type Beasts, Size 3-20, 8 points per hound
WS4 BS0 S4 T3 W1 I5 A4 LD7 Sv6+ One kroot hound can be upgraded to a Warhound +8 points
Unit Upgrades- A squad lead by a Warhound can take the following upgrades; Rending 5 points per model, +1A 5 points per model, +1I 3 points per model
Unless the Kroot Hound squad is lead by a Warhound, they cannot make a sweeping advance as they are too busy cannibalizing the bodies of their foes.

Kroot ox for Heavy Support 0-1-
WS4 BS3 S6 T5 W3 I2 A3 LD6 Sv6+ Unit Type Monstrous Creature, Size 3-10, 35 points
Rules- Feel no Pain
Wargear- Kroot gun
Any number of kroot oxen can upgrade to a Kroot Cannon for +5 points, a Flechette Cannon for +5 points, or a Thunder Cannon +10 points
Kroot cannon- S7 AP4 24" Heavy 2
Flechette Cannon- S4 AP- 18" Assault 4
Thunder Cannon- S8 AP3 36" Heavy 1

HQ- Gue'Vesa'O (stats as per company commander for Imperial Guard) 35 points
Special Rules- Independant Character, Gue'Vesa Tendency or For the Greater Good!
Special- Removes the 0-1 limit on Gue'Vesa

A Gue'Vesa'O must chose one of the following two rules during deployment.
Gue'Vesa Tendency- As most of the Gue'Vesa are annexed to the Tau Empire from various PDF and Imperial guard regiments, they still have a tendency to override the Greater Good philosophy with the standard Imperial Doctrine from time to time. Though various Shas'o and Shas'el dislike this unimaginative doctrine, they sometimes do not try to change the Gue'vesa because they still have their tactical uses. If a Gue'vesa'O is on the table all Gue'Vesa units have the Stubborn universal special rule, but they do not count as scoring units.

For the Greater Good!- Some of the Gue'vesa have truly embraced the Tau philosophy of the Greater Good, and as such strive to embody this in any way they can. If a Gue'Vesa'O is on the table, all Gue'Vesa units that can draw line of sight to him count as being equipped with a Bonding knife for free, but reduce their weapon skill by 1.


For Evade! Evade! it's a bit complicated because you have to reference several rules in the main rule book, and there's a lot of special rules for it. Make it more simple. For Example;

If a unit that is armed with Photon grenades becomes the target of an assault, the unit instead may elect to make a fall back move once per turn. If the unit that used Evade! Evade! still gets locked in assault that turn (Whether due to another unit assaulting it, not falling back far enough or any other reason) they may not attack in that assault phase. At the beginning of the next turn, the unit will automatically regroup regardless of being within 6" of an enemy or under 50% though they count as moving.

Fire Warriors- While the 15" rapid fire range on the Pulse rifles is nice, I just don't think it will help much. Instead give them; Up to two members of the squad may exchange their pulse rifle for the following; Flamer +3 points, Pulse Carbine with Markerlight +5 points, Man Portable Burst Cannon- +8 points, (S5 AP5 12" Assault 3), Micro Missile Pod +10 points (S7 AP4 18" Heavy 2)Fusion blaster +12 points, Plasma Rifle +15 points

I like your rules, especially evade thing. Also your ideas for special characters are awesome. Its all good because you have not gone crazy, and that your ideas could actually be used by GW. Good work dude!

I am liking the ideas but imo some of the weapions that you give the fws are a bit to big for them. maybe giving them a plasma rifle/ fusion blaster. its would be a bit hard to lift it. battlesuits have them! Its not that it would be great but it doesent sound realistic. the other opions are great. I dont know who said it but it had this notion of giving the carbines rending. the more powerful carbine could be balanced by making the rifle ap4?


I was thinking (which is dangerus) and i though that why would it not be possable to allow one choise from the guard codex, like allies to represent Gue'Vesa.
This is probaly a dum idea

Ledabot wrote:I am liking the ideas but imo some of the weapions that you give the fws are a bit to big for them. maybe giving them a plasma rifle/ fusion blaster. its would be a bit hard to lift it. battlesuits have them! Its not that it would be great but it doesent sound realistic. the other opions are great.

There's a problem with the whole idea of being hard to lift, and that is almost all the stuff I suggested for giving the firewarriors is already in the fluff. As sad as it is to say, I played the game Fire Warrior when it came out (And as sad as it is to say it IS a Games Workshop licensed product). In the game they did have man portable Burst cannons, if I remember correctly they used a harness that made it easier to carry. Hence also the reason it is only a 12 inch range, because it doesn't have the excess power from an external source it doesn't have the range of the regular burst cannons, but it still has the same rate of fire. Remember, the railrifle originally came from this game.

Besides all that, the Tau are a supposed to be constantly changing their weapons and upgrading them because they don't become locked into using one thing for thousands of years. Part of their whole philosophy is giving their armies the best possible weapons to protect the Greater Good, so I can see them modeling weapons after battle suit weapons.

Lone Dragoon wrote:

Ledabot wrote:I am liking the ideas but imo some of the weapions that you give the fws are a bit to big for them. maybe giving them a plasma rifle/ fusion blaster. its would be a bit hard to lift it. battlesuits have them! Its not that it would be great but it doesent sound realistic. the other opions are great.

There's a problem with the whole idea of being hard to lift, and that is almost all the stuff I suggested for giving the firewarriors is already in the fluff. As sad as it is to say, I played the game Fire Warrior when it came out (And as sad as it is to say it IS a Games Workshop licensed product). In the game they did have man portable Burst cannons, if I remember correctly they used a harness that made it easier to carry. Hence also the reason it is only a 12 inch range, because it doesn't have the excess power from an external source it doesn't have the range of the regular burst cannons, but it still has the same rate of fire. Remember, the railrifle originally came from this game.

Besides all that, the Tau are a supposed to be constantly changing their weapons and upgrading them because they don't become locked into using one thing for thousands of years. Part of their whole philosophy is giving their armies the best possible weapons to protect the Greater Good, so I can see them modeling weapons after battle suit weapons.

I dont see problems with anything other than the plasma and fusion. i see what your saying though. If they were slightly less powerful to reflect the decreased size it would be fine.

Plasma has S6 Ap3 R24 rapidfire - worse ap
Fusion has S7 Ap R18 assult 1,melta. - less strength

Hey KK, first of all let me tell you how impressed I am with your work.

You asked for some ideas in place of your evade rule.
1. Apply the fantasy stand and shoot rule.
2. FW squads could purchase an upgrade that allows them to place "mines" on the battlefield if they didn't move during their previous turn. Any enemy moving into the area (assault range) are affected by difficult terrain rules. Alternatively/in combination the mines could cause some sort of damage. Optimally, this would be a one-off wargear item purchasable by an 'Ui. This would prevent the whole scenario where an army is chasing the tau units around the board but would save them for a turn.
3. Overwatch but without the shooting restriction.

Ledabot wrote:Plasma has S6 Ap3 R24 rapidfire - worse ap
Fusion has S7 Ap R18 assult 1,melta. - less strength

The biggest problem with that is the fact that the Imperium, which isn't as technologically advanced as the tau, have better upgrade weapons for their basic troopers then.

Meltagun 12" S8 AP1 Assault 1, Melta
Plasmagun 24" S7 AP2 Rapid fire, Gets Hot!

It's not that hard to envision the Tau reverse engineering Human weapons, and improving on them by using their existing technology. When you think about it, you're paying the same points for a S6 plasma rifle without Gets Hot! as you are for a S7 with the Gets Hot! rule. While they would need play testing to find out if they are unbalanced, I feel the trade off is worth it.

Lone Dragoon wrote:

Ledabot wrote:Plasma has S6 Ap3 R24 rapidfire - worse ap
Fusion has S7 Ap R18 assult 1,melta. - less strength

The biggest problem with that is the fact that the Imperium, which isn't as technologically advanced as the tau, have better upgrade weapons for their basic troopers then.

Meltagun 12" S8 AP1 Assault 1, Melta
Plasmagun 24" S7 AP2 Rapid fire, Gets Hot!

It's not that hard to envision the Tau reverse engineering Human weapons, and improving on them by using their existing technology. When you think about it, you're paying the same points for a S6 plasma rifle without Gets Hot! as you are for a S7 with the Gets Hot! rule. While they would need play testing to find out if they are unbalanced, I feel the trade off is worth it.

i noticed the plasma gun is also assult 2. dum. well instead of the fw getting weaker stuff, the suits could get better stuff. the weapons are much bigger. the plasma rifle could become rending and assult 2 and the fusion blaster could become melta and lance.