Rewdan wrote:

 tetrisphreak wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
In one of the Cain books they already do.

I'm reading Fire Warrior right now. Is 'the greater good' worth $12 on the iBookStore?

If you like the Cain novels its a middling book in the series. If you want a book about tau that isn't the book for you. It has tau porn for like 30 pages then its all nids and IoM for the rest of the book.

I play tyranids too, and i'm only recently reading the BL novels. I started with "Fire Caste" hoping for clues to the new codex and only came out of it with "Skysniper Drones" "Cuttlefish transport" and upgraded shield drones that projected a field across an entire firewarrior team.

hmmm, the skysniper drone could be what was printed in the desc of the new tau flyer for the 2 drones included, and the pathfinder set has 2 new drones one thats looks like the text calls it a pulse accelerator drone, the otherones text sort of looked like Opti- or Omni- or somesuch drone, so a unit wide sheild drone could be a possibility.
And the cuttlefish could be in codex, just no model as yet..man, this is the first codex I actually am having a hard time just waiting for..actually studying blurry pics for clues..its pathetic

had to go back and recheck the pics a bit..just wish it was alittle less blurry.

y'know what would be cool? If the drone factory devilfish was in there.

Well to be fair the cuttlefish was described as an open topped skimmer boat, they used it to get across a lake. I doubt we will see it as a battle-ready vehicle -- in the book's final battle they used hammerheads for that.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
hmmm, the skysniper drone could be what was printed in the desc of the new tau flyer for the 2 drones included, and the pathfinder set has 2 new drones one thats looks like the text calls it a pulse accelerator drone, the otherones text sort of looked like Opti- or Omni- or somesuch drone, so a unit wide sheild drone could be a possibility.
And the cuttlefish could be in codex, just no model as yet..man, this is the first codex I actually am having a hard time just waiting for..actually studying blurry pics for clues..its pathetic

had to go back and recheck the pics a bit..just wish it was alittle less blurry.

I have a hibernation chamber, you want to borrow it??

Nah I live in alaska..hibernation is SOP here.

Still it always makes me wonder at why not give sneak peeks at upcoming models, and alow us to get funds ready..and maybe even a bit of feedback, but GW does things its own way...its really own way.

Ever since i heard about tau in april. I have been funneling money into my Savings so i dont accidently spend it.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
The list goes on. It's maddening, in fact knowing the release is so close is WORSE than not expecting a release at all. The next 2 weeks will feel much longer than usual. In fact it's a feeling much like I had when my wife was about to give birth to our children..the wait at the end is the worst.

Someone, ANYONE, please throw out a new tidbit from the actual codex...i'm jonesing like a heroin addict here....

I second that emotion! My wife has given me three beautiful children, and the wait at the end is indeed the worst part!

Please, someone throw us a bone!

with 6th ed allied rules it could easily be used to mimic the auxiliary units the Tau have. basic troop entries in the codex proper and then an ally list or supplement for elites, fast and heavy. each alien race would only need 1 entry per FOC slot because you can only field one of each for the allies. We already have a possible kroot "ally HQ" ( shaper) and the same for vespid (strain leader).

If it went full ally codex you could have another chart of all the allies with standard codex units.

I would love this as it lets you play "pure tau" or with an allied detachment of one of the auxiliary worlds. both very fluffy.

The thing that bugs me most about the rumours of Kroot being kicked out of the Tau dex for an allies supplement is that I feel Tau shouldn't have to use their allies slot to field Kroot and Vespids, they should be able to field that alongside, for example, Gue'Vesa taken from the IG codex.

I suppose the same arguments would have been made re: CSM and Daemons had allies existed at the time, and I don't mind the idea of an expanded Kroot Mercenaries list that can use Kroot in a wider range of ways in an allied supplement, but the basic Carnivore is a significant part of the Tau Empire.

Also, it really doesn't make sense that the Vespid would be pulled out and turned into freebooters given the Tau used mind control helmets on their leaders to bring them into the fold.

If the Kroot are missing (and I don't think they will be) then the codex writer had better have compensated with some really substantial shooting. Otherwise leave us with our mediocre answer to close combat and meat shields.

 Drunkspleen wrote:
The thing that bugs me most about the rumours of Kroot being kicked out of the Tau dex for an allies supplement is that I feel Tau shouldn't have to use their allies slot to field Kroot and Vespids, they should be able to field that alongside, for example, Gue'Vesa taken from the IG codex.

I suppose the same arguments would have been made re: CSM and Daemons had allies existed at the time, and I don't mind the idea of an expanded Kroot Mercenaries list that can use Kroot in a wider range of ways in an allied supplement, but the basic Carnivore is a significant part of the Tau Empire.

Also, it really doesn't make sense that the Vespid would be pulled out and turned into freebooters given the Tau used mind control helmets on their leaders to bring them into the fold.

Considering Tau are Allies of Convenience with just about everyone, any faults can be taken care of via Allies rather well (well, as well as Allies can). I'm either going to take some Tau+SM or Tau+Necrons, but depending on how cool the new Tau are I might just run straight Tau.

I tend to run Tau and "fluffy allies " only,IG modeled as Gue'vesa, and kroot , but have allied with other players armies in apoc, even went so far as to make some Lizard aux (komodai and geki) to use as IG or other race standins, just cant bring myself to make necron or SM force as a perm allied force...feels kinda wrong

And its not mind control helms for the vespid..its" communion helms", you had the wrong user manuel

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
well..we currently dont know what all is in the upcoming codex..and its not so much the number of unit entries as the quality and versatility of those units, I dont mind a few unit choices, when those uints have tons of options and upgrades.

But again we will have to wait and see, and try not to get a "sky is falling" vibe going.

I completely disagree. Quality and versatility is not as important, as having a variety and flexibility in a list to allow people to feidl drastically different and effective lists. I don't want to field an army that works, but every other Tau player fields the same army, because it's the only units that work effectively. I want a list similiar to how they did chaos space marines (wthout the OP dragon) I want a variety of troop options, with several being legitment options and a could be a little mroe fluffy, but not terrible either. I want my decision on what to take in each FOC slot to be difficult. The current Tau book is the complete opposite of this. The difficult of the army to play, maybe be the fun part. But being able to field multiple different armies and having a chance to win is much better.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
I tend to run Tau and "fluffy allies " only,IG modeled as Gue'vesa, and kroot , but have allied with other players armies in apoc, even went so far as to make some Lizard aux (komodai and geki) to use as IG or other race standins, just cant bring myself to make necron or SM force as a perm allied force...feels kinda wrong

And its not mind control helms for the vespid..its" communion helms", you had the wrong user manuel

Even our current codex states it might be mind control.

Current codex is written from an Imperial perspective. Imagine if the Eldar codex was written from the Ork perspective and you can see how silly the concept is.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Current codex is written from an Imperial perspective. Imagine if the Eldar codex was written from the Ork perspective and you can see how silly the concept is.

Do orks even have a written language? If not the codex would be an audio tape full of things like:

"C deez guyz all have pointy headz or somthin', and there's deez red guz with melta, I LUVZ MELTAZ!"

Ork written language is sort of a bunch of glyphs..kinda like a cartoon strip with no captions..it gets the meaning across though

News and rumors regarding potential direction for the upcoming codex... Ork language is cool but but me offering up an idea of a potential direction for the Riptide is not... Hmmm... The shaking in boots is palpable...

I think that we were intentionally given a glimpse of the new units and the Broadside rallgun repurposing in order to provoke conversation and build interest. Thing is that I keep having this feeling that we have only seen a fraction of the changes or that something important is missing/being missed?? by these rumours.

By the rumours, the FoC seems a bit light in several areas.....almost like we are getting 2/3's of a release. I mean yes, the trendy new stuff is there but some of the other stuff that should be is not.

Things like,

Where is our second transport?
Only Tau and Eldar are stuck with a single transport(Nids are excluded for now). I feel that this is due to the age of the codices but really do expect for both armies to gain a second transport in their respective updates.

Where is GW's typical expansion of an infantry/troop type unit into being several different units that help fill the FoC?
A Shas'ui Fire Warrior or Pathfinder elite sniper unit would fit with their previous pattern of releases.

Where are the Jet-bikes?
I mean, at least allow independently operating drone squadrons be Jet-bikes. Tau should have a few very fast unit options.

Where are our elite options?
Is it like I used to surmise that a collectivist species shuns away from the concept of elites?

Are we really going to be limited to just 2 troop types?
Seems like we should get an extra option due to the Fire caste doctrine that prevents Fire Warriors from mixing weapons. I could see Sniper drones becoming a troop based Heavy Weapon team or maybe Gundrone squadrons getting moved to the troops section. I could see either of those as troops before stealthsuits,.... but hey.... we will see.


Then there are the questions of how are Tau going to deal with Crons Transports, IG Leaf blower and other such. If what we have seen and heard so far are the totality of the changes then this may be another lack-luster release that would be on par with the '5th ed 'Nids release. I just don't think what we have seen are all of the big changes.

I agree that there will prolly be some hidden gems unforeseen to the community... We'll see, but I think we should be pleasantly surprised...

when it comes down to it all we have currently is a few blurry but cool pics of a few new models, and alot of rumors with no meat to them, until the codex is in hand..who knows.

I just prefer to hope for the best, and not dwell on the worst...since in the final resolution of it..you cant really effect anything by doomsaying and dreading..if nothing else I expect at least more pages to read then our current codex.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
if nothing else I expect at least more pages to read then our current codex.

Hopefully, The rules will be better written, too.

Oh one option i hope they have is to be able to take a fusion an all stealth suits instead of just 1/3. better shock unit if it actually kills what its shooting at

There was a rumour a while back about stealth suits losing the stealth rule, but being able to regain it via drones. I do wonder whether they will move the models to Troops, but as XV1x/XV2x combat suits (effectively giving you power armoured Shas'la). This would kind of fit with the existing Shadowsun fluff, as it talks about her XV22 suit being an experiment that may be rolled out to other units if successful and would also fit with Tau's "no unit is expendable" policy.

If they did this, I would assume taking the stealth option would then kick them back into elites.

I wouldn't be surprised if Pathfinders to move to elites; as far as I understand it they were only in fast attack as that allowed them to deploy first under 4th edition rules. Elites with infiltrate makes more sense compared to similar units from other armies.

 focusedfire wrote:
Where is our second transport?
Only Tau and Eldar are stuck with a single transport(Nids are excluded for now). I feel that this is due to the age of the codices but really do expect for both armies to gain a second transport in their respective updates.

Falcon + Wave Serpent is two transports for the Eldar at present...

Hmmm...

I can see Drone squads moving to troops. They were never fast and shouldn't have been in the Fast Attack section.

For suits going into the troops section, I'd like a difference between XV15 and XV25 suits. Have the XV15 as scout type troops units with Stealth and keep the XV25 with stealth and shrouding and keep them as elites.

Being the forth 6th ed codex, is there a precedence for only having two troops choices in a book? Chaos and DA can move stuff around so they've effectively got more than two and Daemons have loads.

I think we'll have Fire Warriors, Kroot (if they are in), Pathfinders (if there are no Kroot) and Gun Drones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also... I agree, only having one transport is a bit iffy.

The Dude over at Warseer wrote:Just heard the following:

Activating the Riptide's Nova Engine is risky. It only works on a 3+. If it fails to activate (roll of 1-2) the Riptide suffers a wound.

The weapon buff result for the Nova Engine supposedly buffs the large blast of the Ion Accelerator to S9 AP1, so there's your anti tank gun

Also, apparently Broadsides with missiles get 4 shots each at S7 AP4.

Of course I'm not sure the mechanics of the Nova Engine, but it appears to me to be a simple random table with1-2 being take a wound and 3-4 being one of the four rumoured buffs. If this is the case, you wouldn't be able to rely on it happening.

Also, if the charged profile does have a drawback like Gets Hot, you are twice risking self harm to get that one mega shot off.
love to see the SMS ignoring cover, even if it doesn't get s7 ap4. the nova engine seems to make sense the way the dude described although i can see it on a roll of a 1 to lose a wound and a 2 no effect, then whatever else afterwards. whatever it is, it is though and i won't have any complaints either way because i have a feeling it'll be awesome no matter what.

I was explicitly told rolling a 1-2 will cause a wound.

Neko wrote:I didn't get any impression of the Nova reactor giving random effects (other than the chance to kill yourself of course). As always though, I could be wrong.

Wound on 1 and or 1,2 sounds intersting/ok, random effects, not so much -.-

Random table for Riptide sounds meh... still buying one though.

Also if Broadside is indeed Skyfire and has both the Railgun and those missiles, it's going to be a very dangerous anti aircraft unit.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Activating the Riptide's Nova Engine is risky. It only works on a 3+. If it fails to activate (roll of 1-2) the Riptide suffers a wound.

Tau version of Imperial plasma weaponry

I wonder if the Riptide can be given the Stimulant Injector, and if the wound can be saved with FNP.

Also, considering the rumor that Crisis Suits now all have multi tracker standard, I wonder if they'll move from "double weapons = twinlinked" to "double weapons = double weapons".

Getting four shots each from Deathrains would be nice.

RogueRegault wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:

Wolfnid420 wrote:
So, anyone think that Tau will get some sort of access to the psychic charts without taking allies?

I doubt it. There were earlier rumors of a new race in the Tau Empire that would have psychic abilities but I suspect it would have leaked with the other WD stuff by now if that were the case.

The main issue I could see is finding sculptors at GW willing to make what looks like a cross between a polar bear and a flounder and people willing to buy them.

Niccassar work for Battlefleet Gothic, don't work where people can see their goofy appearance.

Nicassar could be written to move around inside a cool floating battle pod which would be designed to suit the Tau high-tech look while introducing a different aesthetic into the imagery.

A kind of "travel machine" if you will...

 Kingsley wrote:

Wolfnid420 wrote:
So, anyone think that Tau will get some sort of access to the psychic charts without taking allies?

I doubt it. There were earlier rumors of a new race in the Tau Empire that would have psychic abilities but I suspect it would have leaked with the other WD stuff by now if that were the case.

Kroot have Psychers, though. Including them to the Codex would be easy, don't necessarily even need a new model. But there has been no rumours about that.

RogueRegault wrote:
I wonder if the Riptide can be given the Stimulant Injector, and if the wound can be saved with FNP.

Also, considering the rumor that Crisis Suits now all have multi tracker standard, I wonder if they'll move from "double weapons = twinlinked" to "double weapons = double weapons".

Getting four shots each from Deathrains would be nice.

Moving Tau suits to double weapons would be incredibly op.

Four shot Deathrain?

I'd be more worried about four shot Plasma Rifle or six shot burst cannon.

I wouldn't be too opposed to Kroot coming out of the Tau 'dex if something comes in to replace them, I run one unit of Kroot in my list (would like to make that two). I would definitely like to see allies expanded for Tau, even if it meant Kroot could be taken by anyone, they are mercenaries after all!

I personally prefer the look of the tau to kroot/vespid anyway so am not worried by the rumours of the new codex being tau only.

What does concern me, however is the amount of people who do like them and are left with no rules for them until the rumoured allies supplement hits the shelves (or more likely becomes direct order only from GW) and the fact that without Kroot the Tau only have fire warriors in Troops unless they make a new unit or put something else like Pathfinders or Stealths in the slot instead.

Re: The Riptide; I thought the Tau were against this kind of unreliable self-damaging technology (e.g. their Plasma Rifles)?
Is this going to be grimdark-desperation, 6th Ed randomness, or unreliable rumour-ing?

The XV9 command suit had those special ammo that had gets hot. It can happen.

So today should be the GW teaser vid, right?

I'm guessing Monday.

 Jadenim wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if Pathfinders to move to elites; as far as I understand it they were only in fast attack as that allowed them to deploy first under 4th edition rules. Elites with infiltrate makes more sense compared to similar units from other armies.

It makes sense if GWs mission is to make sure they don't sell a single new plastic Pathfinder box...

 Just Dave wrote:
Re: The Riptide; I thought the Tau were against this kind of unreliable self-damaging technology (e.g. their Plasma Rifles)?
Is this going to be grimdark-desperation, 6th Ed randomness, or unreliable rumour-ing?

No, its that the Tau actually are able to study and advance their tech, so their main-line plasma weaponry was made safe.

However, they've also frequently had more experimental weaponry does more crazy stuff including some that gets hot (in the FW books).

One of the things I've liked about the Tau codex rereleases is that its the one army that really emphasizes that the new stuff they introduce is actually 'new' and not just some thing that was always in the army but we just never noticed it before. So if the Riptide is a new deployment (which I'm guessing it will be), then it stands to reason that it could be packed with tech that is still untested and therefore prone to some random behavior.

I think a question most are forgetting w/ the whole nova engine thing is if you role a 1 or 2 is that wound savable? Armor or cover save acceptable. That will be big in deciding whether the risk is worth the reward. I'd like to see more special ammo in the new dex, kind of fits more than "gets hot" issues. Kind of like R'lai's options. An what is everyone's thoughts on the devilfish, at what point level are they a no brainer and auto take now?

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
Ork written language is sort of a bunch of glyphs..kinda like a cartoon strip with no captions..it gets the meaning across though

So basically like a current White Dwarf

Zing!

 yakface wrote:

One of the things I've liked about the Tau codex rereleases is that its the one army that really emphasizes that the new stuff they introduce is actually 'new' and not just some thing that was always in the army but we just never noticed it before. So if the Riptide is a new deployment (which I'm guessing it will be), then it stands to reason that it could be packed with tech that is still untested and therefore prone to some random behavior.

I like that as well, it also works for Orks (new big mek inventions) and Tyranids (new morphs evolving).

The new Riptide looks great, and could lend itself very well to some nice conversion work.

As to the Riptides nova reactor random activation, my bet is you decide what effect you are wanting to enable ( if there are more than one) then roll and on a 3+ it works , otherwise a wound, I cant see it being a random activation and a random effect, just does not fit with established tau game stats.
And the Tau have had several weapons that went through a experimental phase or 1 per army status, the railrifles targetlock use to gethot, but that was changed in a later codex release, the XV-9 commander has a submuition round that gets hot, and both of these are on a per choice basis, i.e. you have to decide to use it, not just anytime the unit fires etc.

It may also be in the newest codex, the restriced use weapons will no longer be such, (stimulant injectors, iridium armor and all), gonna be interesting

Rail Rifles initially had Gets Hot as well, when they were released (Chapter Approved, I believe?).

Speaking of rail rifles, has there been any mention of them being more available? Did Sniper drone teams get moved? Because I can't honestly see them still being able to compete in any slot, especially Heavy Support right now.

Natfka's source rows back:

Ravengardt from Faeit 212 inbox wrote:Me again, had a bit of time to talk to someone else over at . The info they've got is sparse too. Looks like real release briefings were stopped to prevent leaks. They get their hard facts a day before or at preorder start. So it looks like my earlier source might have been a little overly enthusiastic. So please add a lot of salt.

Sorry if I caused trouble. I wanted to clarify how dependable me info is.

'I wanted to clarify how dependable me info is.' If its as dependable as your grammar, not very...

Hard facts as opposed to ... stuff made up to inflame the internet?

UltraPrime wrote:
'I wanted to clarify how dependable me info is.' If its as dependable as your grammar, not very...

Don't tease pirates.

Aaaaar!

Puscifer wrote:

RogueRegault wrote:
I wonder if the Riptide can be given the Stimulant Injector, and if the wound can be saved with FNP.

Also, considering the rumor that Crisis Suits now all have multi tracker standard, I wonder if they'll move from "double weapons = twinlinked" to "double weapons = double weapons".

Getting four shots each from Deathrains would be nice.

Moving Tau suits to double weapons would be incredibly op.

Four shot Deathrain?

I'd be more worried about four shot Plasma Rifle or six shot burst cannon.

It's not op if you're paying the right amount of points for it. Twin-Linking weapons always should have been an option rather than forced. Two of the same weapon isn't that big of a difference from 2 different weapons.
I can fire 5 shots with MT+MP+PR, but I can't fire 4 shots with MT+PR+PR? It's silly.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Natfka's source rows back:

Ravengardt from Faeit 212 inbox wrote:Me again, had a bit of time to talk to someone else over at . The info they've got is sparse too. Looks like real release briefings were stopped to prevent leaks. They get their hard facts a day before or at preorder start. So it looks like my earlier source might have been a little overly enthusiastic. So please add a lot of salt.

Sorry if I caused trouble. I wanted to clarify how dependable me info is.

So essentially... apart from the WD leaks we cant be sure of anything?

 yakface wrote:
One of the things I've liked about the Tau codex rereleases is that its the one army that really emphasizes that the new stuff they introduce is actually 'new' and not just some thing that was always in the army but we just never noticed it before. So if the Riptide is a new deployment (which I'm guessing it will be), then it stands to reason that it could be packed with tech that is still untested and therefore prone to some random behavior.

Except that the storyline in 40k does not advance. Therefore there can, by definition, be nothing "new" instead of "always there but never noticed".

 Manchu wrote:
Hard facts as opposed to ... stuff made up to inflame the internet?

UltraPrime wrote:
'I wanted to clarify how dependable me info is.' If its as dependable as your grammar, not very...

Don't tease pirates.

 sierra 1247 wrote:
So essentially, this could mean up to 52 ages of TROLLING?!

After 52 ages, I expect the pirates are quite capable of fighting trollkin.

The tau story line did advance in the last book
..somewhat at least.

 Breotan wrote:
Except that the storyline in 40k does not advance. Therefore there can, by definition, be nothing "new" instead of "always there but never noticed".

I think this is an issue of scale. The more you zoom into the 40k setting, the more possibility there is for storyline progression. The more you zoom out, the more things cannot change. As a matter of their background, Tau only exist in the zoomed-in sense. This dovetails nicely with the rest of their fluff about being a dynamic young race. Pull back to the Imperium at large and nothing is happening. Pull even further back to the Eldar-level of perspective and nothing of note has happened for over 10,000 years.

 sierra 1247 wrote:
So essentially... apart from the WD leaks we cant be sure of anything?

Welcome to the world of rumours

Any pics of the Codex yet?

 Begel Dverl wrote:
Any pics of the Codex yet?

If there were, it would be posted.

 pretre wrote:

 Begel Dverl wrote:
Any pics of the Codex yet?

If there were, it would be posted.

... or already deleted

Well at least now i know my wages'll stay relatively untouched for a bit. .....wait...

Puscifer wrote:


Moving Tau suits to double weapons would be incredibly op.

Four shot Deathrain?

I'd be more worried about four shot Plasma Rifle or six shot burst cannon.

Because 4 plasma gun CSM chosen or 10 man combi sternguard/WolfGuard or IG melta vets or 15 tankbustas is somehow not OP, but heaven forbid the Tau can fire four missile pod shots?

If Tau can't fight in HTH, then they have to do the killing in the shooting phase. One shot wonders are not going to cut it.

 Archonate wrote:

Puscifer wrote:

RogueRegault wrote:
I wonder if the Riptide can be given the Stimulant Injector, and if the wound can be saved with FNP.

Also, considering the rumor that Crisis Suits now all have multi tracker standard, I wonder if they'll move from "double weapons = twinlinked" to "double weapons = double weapons".

Getting four shots each from Deathrains would be nice.

Moving Tau suits to double weapons would be incredibly op.

Four shot Deathrain?

I'd be more worried about four shot Plasma Rifle or six shot burst cannon.

It's not op if you're paying the right amount of points for it. Twin-Linking weapons always should have been an option rather than forced. Two of the same weapon isn't that big of a difference from 2 different weapons.
I can fire 5 shots with MT+MP+PR, but I can't fire 4 shots with MT+PR+PR? It's silly.

It makes a big difference with marker lights available to boost your To Hit chance. Imagine the effect of three crisis suits with two separate pulse rifles each on SMs and Terminators if they could fire 12 shots on a BS of 5 with no cover save allowed.

Oh no! Something that would cost easily 60 points can kill marines with support from another (squishy, unreliable, expensive) unit, and is itself very vulnerable to ubiquitous weapons like the krak missile! Whatever shall we do?

Like, it would kill 2-odd marines, and much less if the pathfinders were killed, and much much less if you were in cover, or just shot the suits before they rapid fired. Your worst case scenario has them killing about half their points, with support, and you in the open - fairly standard for a specialized shooting unit.

I wouldn't call that overpowered at all, and in fact, I would welcome that in the new codex should it happen. Nobody would cry about the crisis suits that went splat by turn 2 anyways getting some turn 3 firepower love.

But then if the target survives they get massacred in HtH regardless? I can imagine that.

Tau getting massacred in hth..I have never had to imagine that its a generally accepted fact, just sometimes you get a suprise and win..and then it feels like Xmas.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
Tau getting massacred in hth..I have never had to imagine that its a generally accepted fact, just sometimes you get a suprise and win..and then it feels like Xmas.

Sometimes standard space marines charge your broadsides.

uberjoras wrote:
Oh no! Something that would cost easily 60 points can kill marines with support from another (squishy, unreliable, expensive) unit, and is itself very vulnerable to ubiquitous weapons like the krak missile! Whatever shall we do?

Like, it would kill 2-odd marines, and much less if the pathfinders were killed, and much much less if you were in cover, or just shot the suits before they rapid fired. Your worst case scenario has them killing about half their points, with support, and you in the open - fairly standard for a specialized shooting unit.

I wouldn't call that overpowered at all, and in fact, I would welcome that in the new codex should it happen. Nobody would cry about the crisis suits that went splat by turn 2 anyways getting some turn 3 firepower love.

12 S6 AP3 shots (correct me if I fethed the stats up) at BS5 ignores cover is roughly 7 dead marines. For comparison, that takes 63 bolter shots at BS4, the equivalent of 31.5 Marines in Rapid Fire range unloading. On a platform that can move-shoot-move.

I'm not going to cry OP, because it's possible to do something about it, but it's yet another complication for melee MEQ, which is what I like playing, so I'm as Bosses as everyone else.

My math was per-model; our numbers agree. Maybe you'll have to accept that a 200 point 3-model elite slot unit with ~200 points of pure markerlight support can kill plain old marines pretty well? 5 Terminators in a Land Raider is pretty scary too, do you just throw assault marines at that problem until it goes away?

Deep striking that kind of firepower would be nice, but deep striking suits has been so ridiculously unreliable for me that I've personally stopped trying, even with a pathfinder devilfish, they always mishap on that single enemy model 11" out.

uberjoras wrote:
5 Terminators in a Land Raider is pretty scary too, do you just throw assault marines at that problem until it goes away

Yup. Being Fearless in CC with hidden Power Fists along with having 4 attacks per model on the charge means I usually don't worry too much about being out-melee'd.

Also, I just realised my math is off; 12 BS5 S6 AP3 shots are roughly 9 dead Marines, or 81 bolter shots at BS4. Assuming we'll use CSM for the example that's 41 Marines for 533 points Rapid Firing.

Even if we scratch the Pathfinders, 12 BS3 (worst case scenario) S6 AP3 shots is 5 dead MEQ on a platform that is going to be almost impossible to assault if JSJ stays the same. I realize that Tau need to have good shooting and ways to avoid CC, but between improved Overwatch, plasma everywhere, JSJ and more Ion stuff things aren't looking good for assaulty MEQ armies, which really is what I care about.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 sierra 1247 wrote:
So essentially... apart from the WD leaks we cant be sure of anything?

Welcome to the world of rumours

Or more specifically that unique set of rumors from that particular source.

We have had a lot of other rumors from other sources with more details and better track records.

I did not give ANY of those rumors in that set much credibility - too inconsistent and smelled to "wishlisty".

I just hope the new sprues (pathfinder and broadside) are full of enough extra bit goodness that there are plenty to go around and lots of bits on ebay.
(and before someone responds to the recent gw changes - the majority of guys on ebay are not affected).

I might actually get the WD this time.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I might actually get the WD this time.

Everyone who can't understand GW's silence policy, take note.

Lol Manchu.

Why is auto-killing SMs so blasphemous? Non-SM armies have to deal with it all the time, with infantry units that are just as expensive.
It's a fact of the game that heavy weapons, which cost relatively little, destroy tanks, which cost a lot more. So trying to find even ground for what should kill what, points-wise, is futile.

I'm really hoping that assaulty armies are forced to re-think their one-trick-pony approach when fighting Tau.

On the other hand, should Tau be forced to rethink their "one-trick-pony" approach when faced with other shooty armies?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

uberjoras wrote:
5 Terminators in a Land Raider is pretty scary too, do you just throw assault marines at that problem until it goes away

Yup. Being Fearless in CC with hidden Power Fists along with having 4 attacks per model on the charge means I usually don't worry too much about being out-melee'd.

Also, I just realised my math is off; 12 BS5 S6 AP3 shots are roughly 9 dead Marines, or 81 bolter shots at BS4. Assuming we'll use CSM for the example that's 41 Marines for 533 points Rapid Firing.

Even if we scratch the Pathfinders, 12 BS3 (worst case scenario) S6 AP3 shots is 5 dead MEQ on a platform that is going to be almost impossible to assault if JSJ stays the same. I realize that Tau need to have good shooting and ways to avoid CC, but between improved Overwatch, plasma everywhere, JSJ and more Ion stuff things aren't looking good for assaulty MEQ armies, which really is what I care about.

The 9 dead MEQ can be brought down to 6 in even regular cover, and the 5 can be brought to ~3 in regular cover. If you're in ruins, have fnp, t5, or anything survivability buff at all, it adversely affects the tau shooting. You're using pretty much one of the only things that crisis suit configuration would be good against, and proved that it's actually not entirely amazing against it point-for-point!

5 dead MEQ is ~80 points. If you put your regular marines in front, your jump pack assault marines with hidden power fists can just pounce the crisis suits, and destroy the suits in CC. JSJ only keeps us at ~19", -if- we're going straight backwards. That means you have a 7" charge, which you probably get off and ID the suits, so you've killed 200 points in one assault phase after losing 80 in one shooting phase. Bolters are a poor comparison to plasma versus MEQ in the open anyways, so I don't appreciate the strawmanning there. What about if we compared it to something more sensible - 2 vindicators, a dev team or two, plasma cannons in tactical squads, meltavets, a plasma russ, purifiers? Those are all about on the same level, some maybe mildly less efficient at MEQ killing, but overall more flexible, and mostly better in assault and/or longer ranged. Imagine how tau feel when even a single grey hunter can wipe out 12 FW in assault, with regularity. And how our only other scoring unit, kroot, feel when they get shot by anything at all.

So yes, a little power creep on suits would be great in the new codex. As it is, the riptide is looking pretty gimmicky and awful to me, so I do hope that we get a little buff on our existing elite slots. Crisis suits are still pretty mandatory for killing marines off an objective, but that requires using them in a dangerous role, and will in all likelihood get them killed fairly early. The main issue is that our troops are really really squishy. since 5/6 games rely on fire warriors and/or kroot scoring, when am I really scoring anything but maybe first blood or slay the warlord? If stealth suits don't become troops, tau are still going to be a really difficult army to win with.

@uberjoras, well played. compare it to the shootieness and pt level of something more equivalent than basic marines as these are supposed to be ELITES not just troops.

@compel, i hope they DO give us more than one trick to our pony because Tau gunline vs IG gunline isnt always the most fun. Especially if everyone brings an aegis lol

 Compel wrote:
On the other hand, should Tau be forced to rethink their "one-trick-pony" approach when faced with other shooty armies?

THen I guess we'll have ourselves a bit of a Mexican standoff...

In mexico they just call it a standoff.

If the rumors of Markerlights allowing you to ignore cover is true, you'll almost completely wipe out a 10-man Marine unit if you get Crisis suits in Rapid Fire range and Crisis Suits could duplicate weapons.

Complaining about Strawmen when assuming Jump Infantry in the same post? No one except Blood Angels uses them because they're utter rubbish. Not to mention you'd gun the front 9 down, handily leaving the assault unit out of assault range. I just don't see why Crisis Suits have to bring special weapon-spam up to 11. Keep them as is, lower points and add some new weapons, but don't create a unit that single-handily nullifies any bloody chance of getting into CC if you're a MEQ unit. Tau being completely helpless in melee is just as bad, but the solution is not to swing the pendulum to the other extreme.

The issue with the comparison to Melta-spam, Plasma-spam etc. is that allowing Crisis suits to take duplicate weapons lets you bring 6 of the same special weapon in the same unit on a unit that is highly manoeuvrable. Escalating the special weapons-spam is not what the game needs.

As a final note, what are these Space Marine-costed units that die in droves, and why is the solution to gun everyone down in droves, instead of addressing the fact that these units obviously aren't worth their points (and if they are, what's the issue?).

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If the rumors of Markerlights allowing you to ignore cover is true, you'll almost completely wipe out a 10-man Marine unit if you get Crisis suits in Rapid Fire range and Crisis Suits could duplicate weapons.

Complaining about Strawmen when assuming Jump Infantry in the same post? No one except Blood Angels uses them because they're utter rubbish. Not to mention you'd gun the front 9 down, handily leaving the assault unit out of assault range. I just don't see why Crisis Suits have to bring special weapon-spam up to 11. Keep them as is, lower points and add some new weapons, but don't create a unit that single-handily nullifies any bloody chance of getting into CC if you're a MEQ unit. Tau being completely helpless in melee is just as bad, but the solution is not to swing the pendulum to the other extreme.

The issue with the comparison to Melta-spam, Plasma-spam etc. is that allowing Crisis suits to take duplicate weapons lets you bring 6 of the same special weapon in the same unit on a unit that is highly manoeuvrable. Escalating the special weapons-spam is not what the game needs.

As a final note, what are these Space Marine-costed units that die in droves, and why is the solution to gun everyone down in droves, instead of addressing the fact that these units obviously aren't worth their points (and if they are, what's the issue?).

You get that the suits in question would be pushing 100 points each if allowed in the current codex. Maybe 300 points worth of suits supported by another unit with markerlights SHOULD be able to wipe those guys out. Does not seem unreasonable.

Got a minor tidbit of a rumor from a friend who runs an flgs...

Drones are attached to squads and not via drone controllers. They simply act as additional members of squads.

Could this mean drones with different weapon systems?

 Manchu wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I might actually get the WD this time.

Everyone who can't understand GW's silence policy, take note.

I don't think anyone has any trouble understanding their reasoning, a lot of us just think that reasoning is flawed. Yes, some people get excited by lack of info and as a result splurge more money come release, or silence the nagging voice and drop Real Magazine Money on a catalogue, but if it genuinely worked that way on more people than are driven away because they can't plan their purchases in advance, GW wouldn't be having to continually raise their prices far above inflation to make up for their tumbling sales volume.

GW sales are tumbling?

Also, if you can make money on price increases AND you can make money by shutting down pre-announcement information AND these are not mutually exclusive ... then why again would you not do it?

Anyway, point is, here we are, frothing at the bit on page 53 with two weeks to go. Seems to be working!

I'll be picking up the codex for reading and stuffs. I've gotten to enjoy reading them all, though I have no intention of playing the armies.

 kronk wrote:
I'll be picking up the codex for reading and stuffs. I've gotten to enjoy reading them all, though I have no intention of playing the armies.

Would you say that about Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Daemons as well? I am starting to thing, to restart collecting all the codexes just for reading the fluff, even though I don't play them.

I was wondering if The Tau would be any good, since I didn't bother getting the 4th edition dex, mainly because I got the 3rd edition dex just about 6 months before, just for reading the fluff. Didn't feel like buying a newer dex back then, but thinking of it now. So how is the fluff for the other codexes? I like what they did for DA.

 Rented Tritium wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If the rumors of Markerlights allowing you to ignore cover is true, you'll almost completely wipe out a 10-man Marine unit if you get Crisis suits in Rapid Fire range and Crisis Suits could duplicate weapons.

Complaining about Strawmen when assuming Jump Infantry in the same post? No one except Blood Angels uses them because they're utter rubbish. Not to mention you'd gun the front 9 down, handily leaving the assault unit out of assault range. I just don't see why Crisis Suits have to bring special weapon-spam up to 11. Keep them as is, lower points and add some new weapons, but don't create a unit that single-handily nullifies any bloody chance of getting into CC if you're a MEQ unit. Tau being completely helpless in melee is just as bad, but the solution is not to swing the pendulum to the other extreme.

The issue with the comparison to Melta-spam, Plasma-spam etc. is that allowing Crisis suits to take duplicate weapons lets you bring 6 of the same special weapon in the same unit on a unit that is highly manoeuvrable. Escalating the special weapons-spam is not what the game needs.

As a final note, what are these Space Marine-costed units that die in droves, and why is the solution to gun everyone down in droves, instead of addressing the fact that these units obviously aren't worth their points (and if they are, what's the issue?).

You get that the suits in question would be pushing 100 points each if allowed in the current codex. Maybe 300 points worth of suits supported by another unit with markerlights SHOULD be able to wipe those guys out. Does not seem unreasonable.

The point is, it creates an incredibly boring game. Either I don't move up to engage the Tau, in which case I get shot to Kingdom Come, or I move up and try to get into CC, at which point I get shot to Kingdom Come and have my surviving few models eat Overwatch from multiple Firewarrior squads. It only gets worse if Markerlights turn out to work with Overwatch.

Maybe I'm just biased, but playing for almost an entire edition with the weakest MEQ Codex only to be further nerfed by 6th and having people post vengeful bull gak like "MEQs deserve to know what everyone else has to go through!" is kinda annoying; I know just how annoying it feels, which is why I don't want Tau to be completely stacking the odds against MEQ assault units. Assault got worse in 6th already; between cheaper units, better shooting and improved Overwatch, do Tau really need a unit that can simply hang around out of line of sight, jump out to vaporise any MEQ that gets too close and then hide again, giving the MEQ player no way to counter the threat other than staying as far away as possible?

On a side note, what AP does Tau plasma have anyway? If it's 4 like my mate claims my complaints and my math is obviously completely looney anyway.

Hastings:

There's no allies supplement. So I'm not sure when we might see this kroot monster that 2 people have seen.

Davor wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I'll be picking up the codex for reading and stuffs. I've gotten to enjoy reading them all, though I have no intention of playing the armies.

Would you say that about Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Daemons as well?

Well, I'm building a Chaos Space Marines army right now, and I'll add Daemon or IG allies next year, so I'm a little too biased to answer that question. :-)

I have most of them (no Tyranids, BA, Eldar, Tau, or Sisters of Battle). I didn't care for the Space Wolves codex, to be honest. I liked the Grey Knights and Necrons, but have no intention of running them. I like to make lists sometimes when I'm bored. But I'm odd that way.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Rented Tritium wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If the rumors of Markerlights allowing you to ignore cover is true, you'll almost completely wipe out a 10-man Marine unit if you get Crisis suits in Rapid Fire range and Crisis Suits could duplicate weapons.

Complaining about Strawmen when assuming Jump Infantry in the same post? No one except Blood Angels uses them because they're utter rubbish. Not to mention you'd gun the front 9 down, handily leaving the assault unit out of assault range. I just don't see why Crisis Suits have to bring special weapon-spam up to 11. Keep them as is, lower points and add some new weapons, but don't create a unit that single-handily nullifies any bloody chance of getting into CC if you're a MEQ unit. Tau being completely helpless in melee is just as bad, but the solution is not to swing the pendulum to the other extreme.

The issue with the comparison to Melta-spam, Plasma-spam etc. is that allowing Crisis suits to take duplicate weapons lets you bring 6 of the same special weapon in the same unit on a unit that is highly manoeuvrable. Escalating the special weapons-spam is not what the game needs.

As a final note, what are these Space Marine-costed units that die in droves, and why is the solution to gun everyone down in droves, instead of addressing the fact that these units obviously aren't worth their points (and if they are, what's the issue?).

You get that the suits in question would be pushing 100 points each if allowed in the current codex. Maybe 300 points worth of suits supported by another unit with markerlights SHOULD be able to wipe those guys out. Does not seem unreasonable.

The point is, it creates an incredibly boring game. Either I don't move up to engage the Tau, in which case I get shot to Kingdom Come, or I move up and try to get into CC, at which point I get shot to Kingdom Come and have my surviving few models eat Overwatch from multiple Firewarrior squads. It only gets worse if Markerlights turn out to work with Overwatch.

Maybe I'm just biased, but playing for almost an entire edition with the weakest MEQ Codex only to be further nerfed by 6th and having people post vengeful bull gak like "MEQs deserve to know what everyone else has to go through!" is kinda annoying; I know just how annoying it feels, which is why I don't want Tau to be completely stacking the odds against MEQ assault units. Assault got worse in 6th already; between cheaper units, better shooting and improved Overwatch, do Tau really need a unit that can simply hang around out of line of sight, jump out to vaporise any MEQ that gets too close and then hide again, giving the MEQ player no way to counter the threat other than staying as far away as possible?

On a side note, what AP does Tau plasma have anyway? If it's 4 like my mate claims my complaints and my math is obviously completely looney anyway.

From my perspective as a tau player, I don't see it, but I have said very similar things about other pairings that were pretty correct, so I'm inclined to think it's just my bias.

Plasma is AP2.

Didn't see this posted in the last 5 pages so:

via neko over at Warseer
I didn't get any impression of the Nova reactor giving random effects (other than the chance to kill yourself of course). As always though, I could be wrong.


via an Anonymous Source from the Faeit 212 inbox (pretty good source)
*Heavy Burst Cannon or Ion Cannon + Shield for Weapon choices (No Rail weapon)
*Nova reactor is a 3+, you pick the effect, it's not random.
*No saves against the wound.


Last Nights information encase you missed it...
http://natfka.blogspot.com/2013/03/tau-riptides-activation-of-nova-engine.html
via the Dude onWarseer

Just heard the following:
Activating the Riptide's Nova Engine is risky. It only works on a 3+. If it fails to activate (roll of 1-2) the Riptide suffers a wound.

The weapon buff result for the Nova Engine supposedly buffs the large blast of the Ion Accelerator to S9 AP1, so there's your anti tank gun

Also, apparently Broadsides with missiles get 4 shots each at S7 AP4.


Of course I'm not sure the mechanics of the Nova Engine, but it appears to me to be a simple random table with1-2 being take a wound and 3-4 being one of the four rumoured buffs. If this is the case, you wouldn't be able to rely on it happening.

Also, if the charged profile does have a drawback like Gets Hot, you are twice risking self harm to get that one mega shot off.



If it works the way I'm thinking the table would look like this:


1-2: take a wound (with or without saves, we don't know)
3: Support weapons may fire twice
4: Invulnerable save becomes 3++
5: Stats Boost (I'm going to guess this will be multiple stats rather than a choice)
6: +1 S & -1 AP to one weapon

via Neko over at Warseer
There are pictures of Kroot and Vespid miniatures in the new codex, so I expect their rules will be there too

Basically the first one was, but not so over viewed like the last one.

Guess I'll sorta go back on topic, but I really don't see the anti-CC stuff in the Tau book hurting the CC choices that still work (anything fast, i.e. Juggerspawn, Wraiths, Seekers, Ork Bikes etc.). To me the rumors point to Codex: Kill the Marines, with rumors of every Tau and his Kroot Hound getting some sort of plasma or ion weapon. I suppose I'm overreacting (which is silly, given my earlier posts in this thread...), but buffing Tau shooting and counter-CC while not addressing the actual CC threats would suck for both the Tau and every CC army that isn't part of previously mentioned Tau problem.

Puscifer wrote:
Got a minor tidbit of a rumor from a friend who runs an flgs...

Drones are attached to squads and not via drone controllers. They simply act as additional members of squads.

Could this mean drones with different weapon systems?

This is consistent with a few older rumors - where you just "buy" drones.

I had heard something a while back about them allowing "look out sir" rolls, but I don't recall the source, so this may have just been wishlisting or speculation (so, please don't take that as accurate, but I would not be surprised).



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and perhaps all the mathhammer on just how OP or not various loadouts seems to me to be a bit much energy into something that we have no information on.

Finally, ANYONE have any better info on broadside primary weapon loadouts?

I know there was supposedly a broadside with tons of missiles in the big photospread (near the crease) but could not see the railgun.... (speculation) could this be a missile version? Or just camera angles?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


The point is, it creates an incredibly boring game. Either I don't move up to engage the Tau, in which case I get shot to Kingdom Come, or I move up and try to get into CC, at which point I get shot to Kingdom Come and have my surviving few models eat Overwatch from multiple Firewarrior squads. It only gets worse if Markerlights turn out to work with Overwatch.

Maybe I'm just biased, but playing for almost an entire edition with the weakest MEQ Codex only to be further nerfed by 6th and having people post vengeful bull gak like "MEQs deserve to know what everyone else has to go through!" is kinda annoying; I know just how annoying it feels, which is why I don't want Tau to be completely stacking the odds against MEQ assault units. Assault got worse in 6th already; between cheaper units, better shooting and improved Overwatch, do Tau really need a unit that can simply hang around out of line of sight, jump out to vaporise any MEQ that gets too close and then hide again, giving the MEQ player no way to counter the threat other than staying as far away as possible?

On a side note, what AP does Tau plasma have anyway? If it's 4 like my mate claims my complaints and my math is obviously completely looney anyway.

1- If you don't know the AP of plasma, I'm inclined to believe that the issues you are facing may be, in large part, due to a lack of rules knowledge or tactical experience. If you are merely unaware of the AP of Tau plasma, that would indicate that you have very little experience against them, and thus haven't had the opportunity to learn exactly how easy it is to slaughter crisis suits. (For clarification, Tau plasma is str 6, AP 2. Tau missiles are str 7, AP 4, and may be what your mate was referring to.)

2- Despite your "weak codex" complaints, you have access to every tool necessary to eradicate the unit you seem to fear so much. Typhoons are fast enough to guarantee LOS in most situations and can shoot Krak, the scissors to Crisis-paper, accurately and in high volume for a low points cost. Don't like speeders? LRC. Take two. Tau, despite access to railguns, have difficulty cracking open more than one Land Raider before it has dumped its cargo right in their face. Those plasma suits can't even touch a Raider. Lose a few initiates to overwatch, then gobble up those "broken" suits en masse. Don't like the LRC? Take a couple of vindicators. Either they will hit the suits with their splat cannon, in which case they have served their purpose, or they will occupy enough attention that your MEQ can get close and play.

3- Don't like any of these options? Then you are just shooting yourself in the foot while yelling "Wah! Broken!". If you won't use a wrench, it isn't the bolt's fault that your hammer is useless.

Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Activating the Riptide's Nova Engine is risky. It only works on a 3+. If it fails to activate (roll of 1-2) the Riptide suffers a wound.

Tau version of Imperial plasma weaponry

Brother Captain Alexander wrote:Didn't see this posted in the last 5 pages so:

via neko over at Warseer
(...)Activating the Riptide's Nova Engine is risky. It only works on a 3+. If it fails to activate (roll of 1-2) the Riptide suffers a wound.

Seems, you missed your post and the post you quoted 2-3 pages ago
Agreed, a few lines are new though, that means, Neko's quote is very old

After staring very long at the group pic with all the tau minis, it seems to me that the Broadside with all the missles has both arms ending in missle pods, so it may be a full MP variant.

and as to all the rumors of the Riptide..I truly hope the reactors result is not random, since it will be annoying to have a random activation with a random result, especialy if some of them are not even pertaining to the problem at hand.
a chose function, roll to activate and then deal with results would be much more in keeping with Tau tech styles.

 Tuagh wrote:
If you won't use a wrench, it isn't the bolt's fault that your hammer is useless.

Heh, quoted.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Maybe I'm just biased, but playing for almost an entire edition with the weakest MEQ Codex

Black templars can do the foot horde thing very well, and tau wasting plasma on 4+ save guys is bad for the tau. With righteous zeal you cover the field faster than any other force barring blood angel jump troops.

Aside from that, the ability to have tank hunters on dreads and termies, cheap landspeeders, POTMS vindicators and excellent assault marines, as well as other bells and wistles, BT still is quite strong, but they aren't easy mode. If you want easy mode, go grab an IG, nercon or GK codex. If you want to play the army you like, you must adapt to the edition. You cannot run rhino spam anymore for any melee army, but beyond that BT are still going strong.

Adapt or be left behind.

 Tuagh wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


The point is, it creates an incredibly boring game. Either I don't move up to engage the Tau, in which case I get shot to Kingdom Come, or I move up and try to get into CC, at which point I get shot to Kingdom Come and have my surviving few models eat Overwatch from multiple Firewarrior squads. It only gets worse if Markerlights turn out to work with Overwatch.

Maybe I'm just biased, but playing for almost an entire edition with the weakest MEQ Codex only to be further nerfed by 6th and having people post vengeful bull gak like "MEQs deserve to know what everyone else has to go through!" is kinda annoying; I know just how annoying it feels, which is why I don't want Tau to be completely stacking the odds against MEQ assault units. Assault got worse in 6th already; between cheaper units, better shooting and improved Overwatch, do Tau really need a unit that can simply hang around out of line of sight, jump out to vaporise any MEQ that gets too close and then hide again, giving the MEQ player no way to counter the threat other than staying as far away as possible?

On a side note, what AP does Tau plasma have anyway? If it's 4 like my mate claims my complaints and my math is obviously completely looney anyway.

1- If you don't know the AP of plasma, I'm inclined to believe that the issues you are facing may be, in large part, due to a lack of rules knowledge or tactical experience. If you are merely unaware of the AP of Tau plasma, that would indicate that you have very little experience against them, and thus haven't had the opportunity to learn exactly how easy it is to slaughter crisis suits. (For clarification, Tau plasma is str 6, AP 2. Tau missiles are str 7, AP 4, and may be what your mate was referring to.)

2- Despite your "weak codex" complaints, you have access to every tool necessary to eradicate the unit you seem to fear so much. Typhoons are fast enough to guarantee LOS in most situations and can shoot Krak, the scissors to Crisis-paper, accurately and in high volume for a low points cost. Don't like speeders? LRC. Take two. Tau, despite access to railguns, have difficulty cracking open more than one Land Raider before it has dumped its cargo right in their face. Those plasma suits can't even touch a Raider. Lose a few initiates to overwatch, then gobble up those "broken" suits en masse. Don't like the LRC? Take a couple of vindicators. Either they will hit the suits with their splat cannon, in which case they have served their purpose, or they will occupy enough attention that your MEQ can get close and play.

3- Don't like any of these options? Then you are just shooting yourself in the foot while yelling "Wah! Broken!". If you won't use a wrench, it isn't the bolt's fault that your hammer is useless.

Starting off, trying to snipe at me for lacking experience when my question clearly concerned Tau plasma is rather low. Starting off with a personal attack isn't, in my opinion, a very good way to base an argument.

So what happens when that double LRC list runs into anyone else with a modicum of anti-tank (or, for that matter, eat Railguns to the face)?

What happens to those Speeders if the Tau player gets first turn? Or if he's clever enough to actually hide behind a wall, where I'm not getting any LOS to him unless being well within Pulse Rifle Range?

Again, losing the front 9 models is losing a great deal of distance to the Crisis suits (not to mention half a blob) that will jump away after shooting them. Sure, there's Righteous Zeal. There's a 27% chance of me running away and even if I do succeed I'd probably need at least a 4 to even get up to the point I was at before the shooting. Add a Chaplain and things start looking better, but he's a 150 point investment in a 285 point shad that is now quite a bit more expensive than the Crisis Suit with Markerlight support, and much less agile.

What anti-MEQ weapon are you shooting at the Vindicators and thus not at the MEQ? Erroneous target priority on your opponent's part is not something to be relied upon.

Again, I'd really encourage you to stop with the personal attacks and actually read what I wrote. Crisis Suits in the iteration we're discussing wouldn't be OP (and I've never claimed they would be, in fact I said the complete opposite), they'd be a complete middle finger to any MEQ assault army that will already be hard-pressed to get into CC.

In fact, let's forget that I'm discussing this from a BT POV. What would Blood Angels do? Devestators are going to get Markerlighted and Riptide'd off the table. Any army that relies on 3+ saves to get into CC will beat a severe disadvantage from the get-go, whereas it'd matter a lot less against the fast CC foes Tau seemingly don't have nearly as good an answer to.

I'll move the discussion to the 40k General Forum since I'm dragging way off topic.

Guys, can we take the discussion regarding the relatively strengths of the MEQ codex and old tau codex in conjunction with knowledge and skill off line, or to private messages?

While containing a few tactical insights, and many humorous snarky comments, overall it’s a bit …well, lets just say, perhaps not best debated in THIS thread?

You can endlessly play “what if” and “but this” – I just sincerely ask you not do so here, thanks.

Now, back to New tau stuff:

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
After staring very long at the group pic with all the tau minis, it seems to me that the Broadside with all the missles has both arms ending in missle pods, so it may be a full MP variant.

SVC - Thanks! This is what I was trying to figure out about broadsides.

I am seriously considering modding my XV9 suits to be broadsides, and am trying to determine weapon loadouts.
I think i can convert my old railguns (um...I have a lot of them....) to some kind of double barreled weapon, but was trying ti figure out what else they might have.

My XV9's are currently magnetized, and I am hoping it won't be too much work to make somd kind of rail weapons for them....and maybe make some mount points for the plasma/sms options (I think I saw a pic of a new broadside with two plasmas on him).

If anyone else has insights on the new broadsides, or better pictures, or ideas on how to use XV9's for them, I would love to hear ideas!!

As a person who has played tau throughout all of 5th and 6th (even competitively, yeah, sometimes it was rough) I am very excited for the new book and look forward to whatever comes.

I did this with my crisis suits a while back, just because I disliked the old look of Broadsides..


Funny thing is its on a big base and is taller..so it may be right on the mark for the new suits.

It was fairly easy, so people wanting to maybe avoid the 50.00 per cost for the new broadsides may consider a bit of converting.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
I did this with my crisis suits a while back, just because I disliked the old look of Broadsides..


Funny thing is its on a big base and is taller..so it may be right on the mark for the new suits.

It was fairly easy, so people wanting to maybe avoid the 50.00 per cost for the new broadsides may consider a bit of converting.

\

AWESOME ! Great looking stuff SVC, I have seen your project blog as well, and love your camo scheme(s) and creative conversions.

While I don't think my XV9-Broadside conversion will look as cool, your stuff is clearly inspiration. Of course, you have also given me the idea of taking some of my current crisis/broadsides and beefing them up and putting them on 60mm bases.

I am wondering what a cool missile rifle would look like (I like the rifle/sniper concept of the new broadside).

thanks for sharing!

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
I did this with my crisis suits a while back, just because I disliked the old look of Broadsides..


Funny thing is its on a big base and is taller..so it may be right on the mark for the new suits.

It was fairly easy, so people wanting to maybe avoid the 50.00 per cost for the new broadsides may consider a bit of converting.

They look quite nice. Do we even know that the new broadsides are XV88s? I get the feeling that they are XV98s. Same thing happened to stealth suits so I don't see why it hasn't happened to broadsides, unless give clear evidence of course.

they were still listed in the leaked pics as broadside XV-88 , which is cool always liked that number

Oh, that is a little disappointing. They do seem to be much heavier, which is what the classes are base on isn't it. Would it be right to say that a XV8 is 4 times heavier than a XV2? seems right doesn't it.

Actually there are none types over XV-88 left even 89 is used already. Probably they call the new one XV88-3?

They're isn't a XV98 is there? The first number number is a weight class, not a description. The second number is the purpose of the suit. 8 being heavy weapon platform or something to that end. Granted that a newer player might be confused that a XV9 suit from forgeworld looks different than a XV9 from GW if them made them.

Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

So, What new fluff are you hoping for? I really hope for more fluff on stealth suits and Septs.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, What new fluff are you hoping for? I really hope for more fluff on stealth suits and Septs.

I'm very keen to see the new fluff reasoning for battle brothers alliance rating with Space Marines...

Any new fluff that doe not just toss all the old fluff out the window is welcomed and hoped for, no ret-conning just give us the 4th expansion or something like, as meangreenstompa said some relations explanations would be nice, I dont want any over the top stuff either, we dont need a cadre wiping out a hivefleet or some other nonsense.

Just give us some new stuff to chew on, and alot of cool new hints and maybe allied racial names..its been so long since the Tau had any real infusion of fluff, kinda feel starved.

Or more Tau foolishness where they trust the DE.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Or more Tau foolishness where they trust the DE.

Or try to make friends with Necrons...

Personally I want to see the Ethereals expanded on

A new peace treaty with Ultramar would explain the alliance options.

 Shadox wrote:
Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

First number is the mass class of the XV armor--XV1 is standard fire warrior armor and at the other end is 104 which obviously is much larger.
Second number is simply the number in the series of that particular mass class--XV88 is the eighth class of suit in eight mass class.

 erewego86 wrote:

First number is the mass class of the XV armor--XV1 is standard fire warrior armor and at the other end is 104 which obviously is much larger.
Second number is simply the number in the series of that particular mass class--XV88 is the eighth class of suit in eight mass class.

I think the Riptide is an XV10, size class with a class 4 role.

Nicely explained here: http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9399

 Archonate wrote:

 erewego86 wrote:

First number is the mass class of the XV armor--XV1 is standard fire warrior armor and at the other end is 104 which obviously is much larger.
Second number is simply the number in the series of that particular mass class--XV88 is the eighth class of suit in eight mass class.

I think the Riptide is an XV10, size class with a class 4 role.

Nicely explained here: http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9399

Partially Right--you may have gotten the impression that the riptide is an XV1 because of how I worded my post. The riptide is obviously part of mass class 10, not 1.

The 2006 codex states that the second number simply designates an entry in the mass class without implying some other function. The ATT article is neat but contradicts the codex in this case. I think the ATT version of the numbering would pigeonhole the suits too much. What if GW wanted to release another XV8 sized suit with a railgun? Would it have to be designated an 88?

Im really looking forward to plopping down the Riptide. It looks like it will be fun to use against people, atleast in my meta.

I just hope I don't have to give up battlesuits to do it.

You will still have two other slots.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
You will still have two other slots.

But...but...muh all battlesuit armeh!

Meh, I prefer one thing of crisis suits, not 9 of them. to much to go worng.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Meh, I prefer one thing of crisis suits, not 9 of them. to much to go worng.

That...doesn't really make much sense. If anything there's even more that can go wrong when you take just one squad of them, because if they die (and they will) then your army's lost most of its firepower right there. When you take 9 suits you still have two other squads.

I delude quite a bit of firepower, my suits tend to be just of facet of my army.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I delude quite a bit of firepower, my suits tend to be just of facet of my army.

One of my favorite tactics is to take a max squad with twin-linked flamers and DS them right behind a fragile and expensive/critical unit, and just blow it up.Works REALLY well against guard armies that focus on the order's system.

It's like 80pnts maybe? And it can really screw up some armies.

 erewego86 wrote:

 Shadox wrote:
Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

First number is the mass class of the XV armor--XV1 is standard fire warrior armor and at the other end is 104 which obviously is much larger.
Second number is simply the number in the series of that particular mass class--XV88 is the eighth class of suit in eight mass class.

Interesting, while I knew this stuff, seeing it in front of me makes me wonder, is the Riptide the "ten four" or the "one oh four"

and if it's the "ten four", will I ever be able to think of my Tau as anything but truckers using CB radio lingo ever again?

Ok, ok I just can't keep quiet. The new Broadsides are just ridiculously over-priced.... GW actually BEAT Forgeworld!?

I was super excited about the new models (never added XV88's to my Tau army because of the model) but the price is just stupid.
Time to wait for Hasbro to acquire GW...

Drunkspleen wrote:

Interesting, while I knew this stuff, seeing it in front of me makes me wonder, is the Riptide the "ten four" or the "one oh four"

and if it's the "ten four", will I ever be able to think of my Tau as anything but truckers using CB radio lingo ever again?

Funny, I had the same thought today when trying to think of what I was going to call the model/unit(I refuse to use the stupid riptide name. ) What I came up with is:

The "Good Buddy" (Shortened to GD) or "Hammer Down " if the number is sounded out as 10-4(Ten Four).

If the number is sounded out as 1-0-4(One Oh Four) Then I will just stick with the numbers. Sounds very military to call in fire from your 1-0-4's.

Actually military lingo for a XV 10-4 (104) would be X-ray, Victor one, zero, (dash), four

yeah it will be hard to give up elite slots for all the cool suits...but XV-9 are in the fast attack slots of the force org.

And just do big games with 2 force orgs muwhahaha.

Anyway I have started my big jar of tau savings money for this release..tic toc tic toc

Davor wrote:
So how is the fluff for the other codexes? I like what they did for DA.

So, you like how basically nothing changed from before? Now, I love my Dark Angels, but their fluff has been pretty much the same since Angels of Death. Reworded a few things, but it's still the same old "secrets".

*prays to the dice gods that the fliers won't suck*

The giant robot is fun and all but I'm seriously hoping tau get to be more competitive with the flier department being that they got all this advance tech and stuff. Should at least be better than orks!

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
Actually military lingo for a XV 10-4 (104) would be X-ray, Victor wun, zero, fower

fix'd

Not with my FSO or FSNCO he would crap a brick at that..0 always had to Zero and everything clearly pronounced, we had a southern fella that had a hell of a time with the command over his radio ops, the only number you pronounced strangely was three--its was tree.

But numbers I kinda important when calling in artillery

I'm imagining it's pronounced ten/four, separating the two classes... But I could be wrong.

I'm hoping the Riptide at least has the survivability of 3 Crisis Suits. If it has a T stat rather than an AV, I'm hoping it's like 8, but guessing it'll be 6.

I hope pathfinders are kick ass space commandos that just straight kick teeth in.

katfude wrote:
I hope pathfinders are kick ass space commandos that just straight kick teeth in.

With guns obviously.

I agree. They've always seemed to be commando types to me.

XV8 always annoyed me, given that Tau decals and fluff seem to indicate they have a base 8 system. XV10 is alright, but forgeworld XV89 is just completely wrong...

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, What new fluff are you hoping for? I really hope for more fluff on stealth suits and Septs.

I'm very keen to see the new fluff reasoning for battle brothers alliance rating with Space Marines...

Pure conjecture on my part, but I'd assume it's got something to do with the Ultramarines and Tau working together to stop the 'Nids. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

 Archonate wrote:
I'm imagining it's pronounced ten/four, separating the two classes... But I could be wrong.

I'm hoping the Riptide at least has the survivability of 3 Crisis Suits. If it has a T stat rather than an AV, I'm hoping it's like 8, but guessing it'll be 6.

There isn't a number 10 in the Tau base 8 numerical system.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Archonate wrote:
I'm imagining it's pronounced ten/four, separating the two classes... But I could be wrong.

I'm hoping the Riptide at least has the survivability of 3 Crisis Suits. If it has a T stat rather than an AV, I'm hoping it's like 8, but guessing it'll be 6.

There isn't a number 10 in the Tau base 8 numerical system.

1-0. not 10.

Tau have numbers above 7, just not digits. Same as USA having an F-16 despite a decimal number system.

RedSarge wrote:
Ok, ok I just can't keep quiet. The new Broadsides are just ridiculously over-priced.... GW actually BEAT Forgeworld!?

Isn't the new Broadside a lot bigger than before? Might be I'm just not seeing straight but I thought it seemed to be on the bigger base and probably Carnifex/Maulerfiend sized. A Tyrannofex type of heavy slugger.

 Shadox wrote:
Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

Because the 5 is for stealth, thus the two size variants for stealth armor are 15 and 25.

When will these go on pre-order in the UK? Next Saturday I assume.....

I'm looking forward to reading the entire Riptide rules to see if I can make a Kroot counts-as with this model collecting dust:



I also hope that these rumors about skyfire broadsides are good enough to tone down fliers in the overall meta, but not too good that everyone who can ally with Tau will just to take broadsides.

 Manchu wrote:
GW sales are tumbling?

Also, if you can make money on price increases AND you can make money by shutting down pre-announcement information AND these are not mutually exclusive ... then why again would you not do it?

Anyway, point is, here we are, frothing at the bit on page 53 with two weeks to go. Seems to be working!

They are indeed, or have you not been reading their own publicly available financial reports?

As for why you wouldn't do "that", well; making money on price increases is fine...unless it's being used to "hide" a nearly unbroken decline in volume, which is an unsustainable practice used by companies who's executives are trying to keep it afloat just long enough for them to drain it dry before abandoning ship. GW want to think/actually believe they're Harrods, that they're the Rolls Royce of miniatures, but they're more of a John Lewis, and they sailed past the appropriate volume-to-price balance for that position in the market a few years ago.

As for whether it's working; is it? I don't remember the rumour threads being any shorter back when info was less scarce, nor was anyone less excited by new releases, and if restricting information is working so well for GW, why are they selling less and less units every year?

 HoverBoy wrote:

 Shadox wrote:
Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

Because the 5 is for stealth, thus the two size variants for stealth armor are 15 and 25.

If your goal was to make Shadowsun's XV22 cry, then mission accomplished.

 erewego86 wrote:

 HoverBoy wrote:

 Shadox wrote:
Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

Because the 5 is for stealth, thus the two size variants for stealth armor are 15 and 25.

If your goal was to make Shadowsun's XV22 cry, then mission accomplished.

I would say the XV8 and 9 have no number because they are the basic chassis. You kit them out your way. burst cannons = 6 maybe. missile pods = 7

Or however the dam system works.

5 is for recon. 2 is a prototype, in this case for commanders. They both benefit form stealth since commanders are more effective alive and inconspicuous. I don't see the point of your point.

I take it from the picture that GW has seen sense and included 2 plasma rifles with the new Broadside kit.

Cheers

Andrew

My point was that, being a stealth suit, the 22 should be a 25 if the number 5 indicated a class of suit with stealth generators. Because the suit isn't, the second digit numbering isn't consistent and can't mean anything special. True, it's referred to as an experimental suit, but it's capabilities don't seem much beyond a typical stealth suit.

R'alai has an experimental suit configuration--eclipse generator, munitions--why isn't his suit designated XV92 (experimental) or XV91 XV93, or XV99 (classes of suits heretofore reserved for commanders)? Shadowsun's suit is no more experimental than R'alai, given their respective capabilities. Because XV armor numbering doesn't care about the second number all that much.

Do we have a number for his suit? It is a XV9, no doubt about that, but does it expand on the subject anywhere in his profile or fluff? It could be a XV92, just it never was expanded on enough for us to find out.

I'm really curious about the possible weapon loadouts for the Riptide. The thing is already tougher than a daemon prince, so if it can pump out enough firepower and/or has good overwatch abilities it should ned little support to break enemy lines.

I'll be a bit miffed if there are no HQ options allowing battlesuits as troops/Scoring battlesuits, though.

 erewego86 wrote:

 HoverBoy wrote:

 Shadox wrote:
Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

Because the 5 is for stealth, thus the two size variants for stealth armor are 15 and 25.

If your goal was to make Shadowsun's XV22 cry, then mission accomplished.

The 2 is for experimental, hey guess what – her suit is experimental. It does have a stealth field generator.

 HoverBoy wrote:

 erewego86 wrote:

 HoverBoy wrote:

 Shadox wrote:
Actually I find it a bit confusing, do XV8 and 9 don't have such a purpose clarification number because their equipment is not that specialized like the XV88, but why does the XV25 have one then?

Because the 5 is for stealth, thus the two size variants for stealth armor are 15 and 25.

If your goal was to make Shadowsun's XV22 cry, then mission accomplished.

The 2 is for experimental, hey guess what – her suit is experimental. It does have a stealth field generator.

I direct you to my previous post. There is nothing contained in any official source that Substantiates what you're saying. The number two does not stand for anything.

Actually I was just reading the current codex this morning and it specifically says that the second two in XV22 denotes a unit in testing. But most if the rest of the numbers don't have a canon source, besides since when have GW cared about keeping even major elements of the canon consistent, never mind technical details like this!

Sooooo, GW just confirmed WD for saturday on their blog.
So close, yet so far.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sooooo, GW just confirmed WD for saturday on their blog.

Well, that's what the last WD already said IIRC.
Weird, that GW misses the opportunity to release Tau before Eastern, so parents could buy their children new shiny stuff.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sooooo, GW just confirmed WD for saturday on their blog.

Well, that's what the last WD already said IIRC.
Weird, that GW misses the opportunity to release Tau before Eastern, so parents could buy their children new shiny stuff.

Ha! They released paints to help with all the easter egg painting kids do these days

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sooooo, GW just confirmed WD for saturday on their blog.
So close, yet so far.

Today or next saturday?

 Earthbeard wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sooooo, GW just confirmed WD for saturday on their blog.

Well, that's what the last WD already said IIRC.
Weird, that GW misses the opportunity to release Tau before Eastern, so parents could buy their children new shiny stuff.

Ha! They released paints to help with all the easter egg painting kids do these days

maybe next year they'll release limited edition eggshells. after all, they've perfected the technology for it. each egg will even have its own unique shape, even.

 Jadenim wrote:
Actually I was just reading the current codex this morning and it specifically says that the second two in XV22 denotes a unit in testing. But most if the rest of the numbers don't have a canon source, besides since when have GW cared about keeping even major elements of the canon consistent, never mind technical details like this!

Does it? It's been a while since I read the 22's entry but if that's what it says ten I stand corrected.

It sounds like acti rumors are going to start coming in again so I'm going to drop this thread jacking line of conversation.

I just bought a unit of Fire Warriors before the release as I knew I'd need some, but I've got no clue how I should put them together.

Rifles or Carbines.

I don't want to put them together and then regret the weapon choice when the dex comes out, but tomorrow is my last day off for a while.

 Sephyr wrote:
I'm really curious about the possible weapon loadouts for the Riptide. The thing is already tougher than a daemon prince, so if it can pump out enough firepower and/or has good overwatch abilities it should ned little support to break enemy lines.

I'll be a bit miffed if there are no HQ options allowing battlesuits as troops/Scoring battlesuits, though.

Regarding the riptide, the wd article (and pictures) so far, have only shown two primary weapons;
The uber giant burst cannon (hopefully with longer range, and much higher str)
The Ion accelerator (some type of big ion cannon thing, whcih may or may not have a variety of fire modes).

Regardless of rampant speculation and mis-identification of the ion accelerator that has been no verified indication of any other primary weapon.
(please lets not start the "it has a railgun...I saw it!" debate again, it was the ion weapon from a different angle - that horse was beat to death many pages ago...).

It has been noted in the wd text (and various pictures) that they carry several secondary weapons (not known which) that crisis suits can.
I think a plasma rifle, and some missile launchers have been spotted.

It also has a big shield like device, which may or may not (speculation? source?) have additional weapons on it.

Im kinda hopping it can have flamers as well.

Puscifer wrote:
I just bought a unit of Fire Warriors before the release as I knew I'd need some, but I've got no clue how I should put them together.

Rifles or Carbines.

I don't want to put them together and then regret the weapon choice when the dex comes out, but tomorrow is my last day off for a while.

Just use regular superglue and break the arms off if you want to change them. I'd honestly find it hart to imagine the pulse carbine being made better than a pulse rifle for a shooting army though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Archonate wrote:
I'm imagining it's pronounced ten/four, separating the two classes... But I could be wrong.

I'm hoping the Riptide at least has the survivability of 3 Crisis Suits. If it has a T stat rather than an AV, I'm hoping it's like 8, but guessing it'll be 6.

There isn't a number 10 in the Tau base 8 numerical system.

That doesn't mean they have no concept of numbers higher than 8. There are XV9s afterall.

I'd really like to see a new troop unit for Tau, MEQ 'Light Battlesuits' which would be the Tau 'Immortal' to the Fire 'Warrior'.

I'd love a unit that was Firewarriors with Jetpack and +3 Sv
Keep weapons and stuff the same. It'd be awesome.]

Gotta say, I'm really stoked for the new codex. All this time fiddling and worrying about 'what army should I play'... I WANT Tau. This is the most excited I've been in years for WH40k

Edit: [XV16 Infantry Battlesuit? :O]

Yeah, I think will end up with Pulse Rifles.

Btw... interesting bit of info, that I heard around my flgs is that Fire warriors are 9 pts each and come with defensive grenades with the option to buy EMP Grenades for a point.

 Archonate wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Archonate wrote:
I'm imagining it's pronounced ten/four, separating the two classes... But I could be wrong.

I'm hoping the Riptide at least has the survivability of 3 Crisis Suits. If it has a T stat rather than an AV, I'm hoping it's like 8, but guessing it'll be 6.

There isn't a number 10 in the Tau base 8 numerical system.

That doesn't mean they have no concept of numbers higher than 8. There are XV9s afterall.

Base-8 (also known as octal) uses 0-7. Just like our base-10 doesn't have a single digit to represent 10, the number 8 is written as 10 in octal.

Bludbaff wrote:

 Archonate wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Archonate wrote:
I'm imagining it's pronounced ten/four, separating the two classes... But I could be wrong.

I'm hoping the Riptide at least has the survivability of 3 Crisis Suits. If it has a T stat rather than an AV, I'm hoping it's like 8, but guessing it'll be 6.

There isn't a number 10 in the Tau base 8 numerical system.

That doesn't mean they have no concept of numbers higher than 8. There are XV9s afterall.

Base-8 (also known as octal) uses 0-7. Just like our base-10 doesn't have a single digit to represent 10, the number 8 is written as 10 in octal.

The numerical designations of the XV (Her'ex'Vre, "Mantle of the Hero") are based from Imperial point of view. The actual Tau naming of the suit isn't what the codex uses.

As a parallel example: Americans have the game of Soccer, while the rest of the world calls it "Football".

Personally I hope they do something with the pulse carbines underslung gernade launcher, let it fire emp or some other gernades, that would make it useful, specially if its has a 12" or greater range.

Double post


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But now no double post... weird Dakka keeps doing this to me.

So...

XV88 should read XV1010?

Puscifer wrote:
Yeah, I think will end up with Pulse Rifles.

Btw... interesting bit of info, that I heard around my flgs is that Fire warriors are 9 pts each and come with defensive grenades with the option to buy EMP Grenades for a point.

The 9 point number has been thrown around by actual rumors (i.e. sources which have had some accuracy in the past).

However, while I do hope that they come with cheap or free grenade OPTIONS* I have not yet seen any actual rumors by any of the usual suspects (neko, hastings, etc.) to indicate this to be the case.

Personally, I don't want defensive grenades by default....sometimes you want a sqaud to die in the first round of CC....I use 6man squad speed bumps like this all the time.
(some times you may want a tougher squad, more models and defensive grenades....I just want a choice).

However, that was old codex - everything may have to be reconsidered for the new....

"unlearn, you must unlearn..." yoda

Ahhh... I wasn't aware of the rumours tbh. Just something I heard in the store.

The ever obligatory countdown continues - only 13 short long days to go.

11 days before the book is delivered to stores, which means the rules will be online.

Remember kids, wednesday before release day is when every single GW (and most LGS) store in NA gets its shipment. They arent allowed to sell it before release date but Im sure if you ask real nice you can see it.

 Yodhrin wrote:
As for whether it's working; is it? I don't remember the rumour threads being any shorter back when info was less scarce, nor was anyone less excited by new releases

If GW can get the same level of discussion and excitement without leaking things, why would they bother to have previews?

I must say I am really looking forward to this release. I would probably even buy the one click bundle if I could get a discount from gw. Gonna get a riptide, pathfinders, 3 broadsides and the flier on order with online retailer ASAP

Hmm any point rumors on broadsides and t he riptide if i can get a cheap hq and firewarriors unit i might need some for my chaos!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
only if they have decent rules good god 85 bucks for the riptide O_O probably cost em $20 to make it

This ^^ is what i was afraid......hey lemme get some broadsides for allies.....or riptides.....lol thats one gripe i guess i have with allies list......i am tau....i dont want to fight tau when im clearly fighting chaos or gk everywhere else on the board lol hopefully it wont happen every game......

Wolfnid420 wrote:
This ^^ is what i was afraid......hey lemme get some broadsides for allies.....or riptides.....lol thats one gripe i guess i have with allies list......i am tau....i dont want to fight tau when im clearly fighting chaos or gk everywhere else on the board lol hopefully it wont happen every game......

Out of all the 18 (is it 18?) current codecies the Tau codex lends itself most to allies. The Tau themselves lack(ed?) hand to hand and tough troop choices making the addition of allies almost mandatory in a competitive scene while many armies lack the concentrated firepower just a few units of Tau can add to their list. In other words, you will be fighting Tau in other armies, there will be no avoiding it!

As an example where I play we have: Tau-GK, Tau-Eldar, Space Marines - Tau, Tau-Orks, and I think 4 pure Tau; so it's 50:50.

Rumoured points for Broadsides is 85 points with Skyfire and Railgun. Extra for Launchers or Plasma Rifles.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
Personally I hope they do something with the pulse carbines underslung gernade launcher, let it fire emp or some other gernades, that would make it useful, specially if its has a 12" or greater range.

I might be mistaken but I thought that's why the carbines are pinning because they're slinging photon grenades as well

 MechaBeast wrote:

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
Personally I hope they do something with the pulse carbines underslung gernade launcher, let it fire emp or some other gernades, that would make it useful, specially if its has a 12" or greater range.

I might be mistaken but I thought that's why the carbines are pinning because they're slinging photon grenades as well

Pinning was/is a rather useless USR though against most armies and really it doesn't fit well with what a photon grenade would do. I know a lot of people hope that the carbine gets the blind rule instead, but there hasn't been much mention on the basic troop other than a small points decrease. The only thing I know is that there has been speculation on if Kroot are in the troop spot or not, the addition of stealth suits to troop, and that crisis suits will not be troop choices.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
As for whether it's working; is it? I don't remember the rumour threads being any shorter back when info was less scarce, nor was anyone less excited by new releases

If GW can get the same level of discussion and excitement without leaking things, why would they bother to have previews?

Indeed: people chattering away for 200 pages about completely unsubstantiated rumors with no real substance other than "I hope XYZ happens to my Tau!!!" is a definite part of the problem.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, What new fluff are you hoping for? I really hope for more fluff on stealth suits and Septs.

I'm very keen to see the new fluff reasoning for battle brothers alliance rating with Space Marines...

Pure conjecture on my part, but I'd assume it's got something to do with the Ultramarines and Tau working together to stop the 'Nids. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

That certainly would have been worth the more understandable 'allies of convenience' but they are battle brothers, I can put a terminator librarian in a squad of firewarriors and have them all benefit from a psychic power... I want to know why this is possible for codex astartes to have a more loving and meaningful relationship with xenos than it is for them with grey knights...

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, What new fluff are you hoping for? I really hope for more fluff on stealth suits and Septs.

I'm very keen to see the new fluff reasoning for battle brothers alliance rating with Space Marines...

Pure conjecture on my part, but I'd assume it's got something to do with the Ultramarines and Tau working together to stop the 'Nids. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

That certainly would have been worth the more understandable 'allies of convenience' but they are battle brothers, I can put a terminator librarian in a squad of firewarriors and have them all benefit from a psychic power... I want to know why this is possible for codex astartes to have a more loving and meaningful relationship with xenos than it is for them with grey knights...

Heh....

because grey knights will execute allies after the battle at worse, and mind wipe them at best.

Tau will offer you to become a member of their empire.

Who would you ally with?

In all seriousness, I am hoping we do have a good book, without too many major fluff changes.

Im mostly hoping on expanding of fluff.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im mostly hoping on expanding of fluff.

I want to learn more about the origins of the ethereals, and ere motives. Plus some further devolping of the relationships with the auxiliary forces would be cool to learn about.

davethepak wrote:

Heh....

because grey knights will execute allies after the battle at worse, and mind wipe them at best.

Tau will offer you to become a member of their empire.

Who would you ally with?

The ones that are not abominable xenos scum that needs to be purged?

The fluff for the new codices hasn't been too brill, I thought. The chaos one was just a cliff notes version of the Horus Heresy, some rubbish about a bunch of marine chapters turning renegade and an attempt to go back in time before the 13th Crusade.

A mate said there was about 2 lines of relevant info in the DA codex. - The Lion's ready to rock, just having a bit of a kip. The rest was nothing of substance.

Well i just love reading the Unit Descriptions. Im looking forward to that.

I have a great fear that XV8s are going to get the carnifix treatment. Gw might try and force people to get the XV104 box in its place.

I dont care. I love that model.

 Ledabot wrote:
I have a great fear that XV8s are going to get the carnifix treatment. Gw might try and force people to get the XV104 box in its place.

And even then, we will bring them to the table! Thats the Tau lovers rule. We bring everything we love.

But anyways, Carnifexes arent SO bad as i heard all over the internet, the manager of my FLGS its a veteran player of Tyranids, and he always picks 2 Carnifexes, that actually hurt A LOT and are reliable enough to let them heavy task.

I think the XV8 is good enough that with just a little re-pricing of his goods its still the best weapon platform a Tau army can bring to the table. And will probably be, since its our only source for plasma weaponry, outside of HS.

With the ion weapons becoming more advanced, it is possible that the tau are moving away from the ap2 towards the ap3 stuff. I think ion weapons are pretty cool, but I just hope they wont replace plasma completely. Plasma is a suits best friend after all.

 Crimson wrote:

davethepak wrote:

Heh....
because grey knights will execute allies after the battle at worse, and mind wipe them at best.
Tau will offer you to become a member of their empire.
Who would you ally with?

The ones that are not abominable xenos scum that needs to be purged?

So you ally with the Jokaeroes?

Puscifer wrote:
Double post


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But now no double post... weird Dakka keeps doing this to me.

So...

XV88 should read XV1010?

You are getting mixed up. The Imperials call the suit XV-88. The codex are all writen from an Imperial pot of view. The Tau call the suits by something else.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
GW sales are tumbling?

They are indeed, or have you not been reading their own publicly available financial reports?

You mean like the 2012 Annual Report showing sales higher than previous to the 2011 drop? The one with this graph?

 Yodhrin wrote:
if restricting information is working so well for GW, why are they selling less and less units every year?

I guess you can rethink this rhetoric. Honestly, public relations documents don't have the kind of data we need to say that rumor lock downs drive or even support sales of models. But we aren't really talking about models, remember?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I might actually get the WD this time.

Now, as a matter of logic:

(1) White Dwarf's main content category is advertisement of new Citadel products;
(2) Locking down rumors decreases the amount of information regarding upcoming Citadel products available outside of WD

Thus ...

If GW did leak these blurry WD pics -- well, that's some excellent marketing honestly. Take a look at some of the posts in ITT where people are scrutinizing these pics, going back to them again and again to glean any shred of further information. You can even see that some posters' opinions have changed as they've gone back to the pics, as they get used to some of the new designs.

Speaking for myself at least, this is how I've come around on the Sunshark.

Is that graph showing sales in pounds? It does not appear to be showing number of sales. When you raise your prices, and lay off staff every year the actual profit from sales will appear larger, when the actual number of sales is dropping.

What you need is a graph showing how many total items were sold, not the income vs expenses one.

 Grey Therion wrote:

Wolfnid420 wrote:
This ^^ is what i was afraid......hey lemme get some broadsides for allies.....or riptides.....lol thats one gripe i guess i have with allies list......i am tau....i dont want to fight tau when im clearly fighting chaos or gk everywhere else on the board lol hopefully it wont happen every game......

Out of all the 18 (is it 18?) current codecies the Tau codex lends itself most to allies. The Tau themselves lack(ed?) hand to hand and tough troop choices making the addition of allies almost mandatory in a competitive scene while many armies lack the concentrated firepower just a few units of Tau can add to their list. In other words, you will be fighting Tau in other armies, there will be no avoiding it!

As an example where I play we have: Tau-GK, Tau-Eldar, Space Marines - Tau, Tau-Orks, and I think 4 pure Tau; so it's 50:50.

And this, more than anything, is what I hate about 6th edition. I mean yeah, random rules are random, unbalanced game is unbalanced...but for me it all keeps coming back to this, and how poorly-thought-out and implemented allies have been. Not to mention it was a money-grab so blatant and obvious I could smell the trace amounts of feces and cocaine from my fething computer screen.

It's not that allies are an outright bad idea or anything, it's just...Tau don't even really feel like an army anymore, they feel more like an allies supplement. And considering how they're my favorite army, it really sucks that I know I can't play pure Tau without straight-up gimping myself. I don't like the idea that everyone is just taking advantage of my codex to add some firepower to their own, and that I really can't play the game at all seriously without using my Tau similarly: as an allied detachment for a better army like Guard or Marines.

GW needed to at least make Tau competitive in their own right, and I have a feeling they probably haven't. Yeah, "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE RULES YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY JUDGE!", but GW doesn't exactly give one many reasons to be confident in them anymore. I'm more dreading this release than anything else.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

davethepak wrote:

Heh....
because grey knights will execute allies after the battle at worse, and mind wipe them at best.
Tau will offer you to become a member of their empire.
Who would you ally with?

The ones that are not abominable xenos scum that needs to be purged?

So you ally with the Jokaeroes?

Indeed. Grey Knights are more like a hypocritical mother setting a bad influence for her children by swearing, drinking, smoking, etc. in front of them, but wagging her finger and saying "Do as I say, not as I do!" and hoping that's a good substitute for actual parenting.

And then she murders you so you don't make her look bad.

 Sidstyler wrote:

And this, more than anything, is what I hate about 6th edition. I mean yeah, random rules are random, unbalanced game is unbalanced...but for me it all keeps coming back to this, and how poorly-thought-out and implemented allies have been. Not to mention it was a money-grab so blatant and obvious I could smell the trace amounts of feces and cocaine from my fething computer screen.

It's not that allies are an outright bad idea or anything, it's just...Tau don't even really feel like an army anymore, they feel more like an allies supplement. And considering how they're my favorite army, it really sucks that I know I can't play pure Tau without straight-up gimping myself. I don't like the idea that everyone is just taking advantage of my codex to add some firepower to their own, and that I really can't play the game at all seriously without using my Tau similarly: as an allied detachment for a better army like Guard or Marines.

Funnily enough, when allies were removed from the game, it was also bemoaned as 'GW money grab'.

But I agree to a point, I think ally matrix is just too...lenient, there are way too many "battle brothers". OK, there are lots of good things to it, such as natural pairing of Chaos Space Marines and Daemons without the need of crappy "generic daemons" of 4ed CSM book, you can make fluffy Traitor Guard armies etc. but it also leads to many silly or artificial pairings with little downside for the player. It's true it's particularly bad with Tau, who in 6th Edition have pretty much been Railgun-o-matic for other armies.

I really hope that guy giving hammerheads Skyfire is true. because i will rule the skys with that thing if it is true.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Grey Therion wrote:

Wolfnid420 wrote:
This ^^ is what i was afraid......hey lemme get some broadsides for allies.....or riptides.....lol thats one gripe i guess i have with allies list......i am tau....i dont want to fight tau when im clearly fighting chaos or gk everywhere else on the board lol hopefully it wont happen every game......

Out of all the 18 (is it 18?) current codecies the Tau codex lends itself most to allies. The Tau themselves lack(ed?) hand to hand and tough troop choices making the addition of allies almost mandatory in a competitive scene while many armies lack the concentrated firepower just a few units of Tau can add to their list. In other words, you will be fighting Tau in other armies, there will be no avoiding it!

As an example where I play we have: Tau-GK, Tau-Eldar, Space Marines - Tau, Tau-Orks, and I think 4 pure Tau; so it's 50:50.

And this, more than anything, is what I hate about 6th edition. I mean yeah, random rules are random, unbalanced game is unbalanced...but for me it all keeps coming back to this, and how poorly-thought-out and implemented allies have been. Not to mention it was a money-grab so blatant and obvious I could smell the trace amounts of feces and cocaine from my fething computer screen.

It's not that allies are an outright bad idea or anything, it's just...Tau don't even really feel like an army anymore, they feel more like an allies supplement. And considering how they're my favorite army, it really sucks that I know I can't play pure Tau without straight-up gimping myself. I don't like the idea that everyone is just taking advantage of my codex to add some firepower to their own, and that I really can't play the game at all seriously without using my Tau similarly: as an allied detachment for a better army like Guard or Marines.

GW needed to at least make Tau competitive in their own right, and I have a feeling they probably haven't. Yeah, "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE RULES YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY JUDGE!", but GW doesn't exactly give one many reasons to be confident in them anymore. I'm more dreading this release than anything else.

Well, I have to say, my sentiments were very similar in the beginning regarding allies. Then, I began let go of my cynical view coloring it, and thought about the possibilities it represents.
As a tau player, to me, this represented a legal way to take human auxiliary troops, or for tau and eldar to work together!
Or for my CSM friend to take more demons, and for guard and space marines to work together.

Yes, of course, most people might not use it for those types of battles, yes, you will always have guys trying to game the system - but tragically, 40k is more designed for fun than competitive balance (as we have seen over and over) so to be honest, i think this was more of a "enable you to play a cool battle' than its primary goal a money grab - oh, don't get me wrong, I am sure its a very very useful side affect, but I don't think it was the main factor.

Secondly, tau are competitive - I have played them at events for all of 5th, and some of 6th - yes, of course they are unforgiving, and a challenge to play - but the army does indeed stand on its own right.
I usually make it to later rounds, and usually place well. Most of the games I lose are because I either made mistakes, or simply got out played. Of course, an easier army is more forgiving (I retired one of my other armies in fifth - it was embarrassingly easy) - in sixth - tau are even better (note: I had not faced the new demons yet).

And gw DOES give a reason to be confident - the last few books have been overall solid - no broken lame, no broken too good - sure a few units here and there might be a bit off, but overall solid.

However, everyone is going to have their own opinions - of course, with tau as my main army, I have to admit a bit of trepidation anticipating the new book but overall, I think it will be fine.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
What you need is a graph showing how many total items were sold, not the income vs expenses one.

No, all I need is sales in terms of money. The claim was sales were tumbling. The statement is not supported by the evidence cited.

 Manchu wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
GW sales are tumbling?

They are indeed, or have you not been reading their own publicly available financial reports?

You mean like the 2012 Annual Report showing sales higher than previous to the 2011 drop? The one with this graph?

That is total revenue ... not adjusted to inflation ... not adjusted to prices rising up to 50-100% (including Metal-toFincast price hike), with compulsory sales of about 900 pots of paint in April 2012 to almost every GW retailer on earth.
Meaning less boxes/blisters sold each year. That's what we mean by flat or declining sales.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
GW sales are tumbling?

They are indeed, or have you not been reading their own publicly available financial reports?

You mean like the 2012 Annual Report showing sales higher than previous to the 2011 drop? The one with this graph?

That is total revenue ... not adjusted to inflation ... not adjusted to prices rising up to 50-100% (including Metal-toFincast price hike), with compulsory sales of about 900 pots of paint in April 2012 to almost every GW retailer on earth.
Meaning less boxes/blisters sold each year. That's what we mean by flat or declining sales.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi

Inflation was only over 4% for one month during 2012. Sales rose nearly 8 million LBs. They increased by 6.5% against less than 4% inflation. That is an increase.

Selling less models is actually beneficial. They've sold less inventory at a higher price.

I swear people are looking for a way to claim GW is actually falling apart.

Manchu wrote: No, all I need is sales in terms of money. The claim was sales were tumbling. The statement is not supported by the evidence cited.

Very well, lets revise the claim to sales volume is declining. The uptick can be largely credited to revenue from royalties. This would suggest that, after an increases in prices, and a similar performance in sales in terms by monetary value, falling sales volume.

I dunno if that is what you're seeing here or not. No sales by volume data on a cursory glance of the report.

Also, it'd be good to look at where the company is investing, as that's a favorite of shoddy management types who like to show profits and jump ship; however, I'm on my phone, and not scrolling through with my gakky reader app.

I'd also like to say, I'm in no way endorsing the position Kirby et. al. are shoddy business types seeking to sink gw. Expanding into the video game markets, and the pace of releases might suggest otherwise, but actual research would be required to substantiate that claim either way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and I imagine releasing sixth was good for business too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I disagree with the less models is better claim as well. Without knowledge on the expense of producing plastic, I would assume greater sales by volume as a sign of am increasing market share. Or something financy.

I guess we're done talking about Tau in this thread then?

 CpatTom wrote:

Manchu wrote: No, all I need is sales in terms of money. The claim was sales were tumbling. The statement is not supported by the evidence cited.

Very well, lets revise the claim to sales volume is declining. The uptick can be largely credited to revenue from royalties. This would suggest that, after an increases in prices, and a similar performance in sales in terms by monetary value, falling sales volume.

I dunno if that is what you're seeing here or not. No sales by volume data on a cursory glance of the report.

Also, it'd be good to look at where the company is investing, as that's a favorite of shoddy management types who like to show profits and jump ship; however, I'm on my phone, and not scrolling through with my gakky reader app.

I'd also like to say, I'm in no way endorsing the position Kirby et. al. are shoddy business types seeking to sink gw. Expanding into the video game markets, and the pace of releases might suggest otherwise, but actual research would be required to substantiate that claim either way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and I imagine releasing sixth was good for business too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I disagree with the less models is better claim as well. Without knowledge on the expense of producing plastic, I would assume greater sales by volume as a sign of am increasing market share. Or something financy.

Yes, 6th probably was very good for business.

The cost of plastic is not the only expensive in producing plastic. There are machine hours, cost of labor, etc to consider.

We would need a more detailed report on their finances to assess this accurately though. This is all conjecture other than the fact GW's profits increased from 2011 to 2012.

 Breotan wrote:
I guess we're done talking about Tau in this thread then?

Tau will be good for business too

Tau will add a great number of Skyfire to my marines. Then i can focus on other things like using my flyer as an harassment rather then anti flyer.

The Tau of the Oi'kyse unified corp do not ally with other armies..other armies ally With the Tau of Oi'kyse.

that being said, I have a new found drive to work on my minis, and get reay for some cool new models to work on...already planning my conversions/upgrades for the riptides, and sunsharks, gonna be fun times.

I'm back to painting a commissioned blood angels force to help pay for some new tau stuff.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
that being said, I have a new found drive to work on my minis, and get reay for some cool new models to work on...already planning my conversions/upgrades for the riptides, and sunsharks, gonna be fun times.

I'm trying to get excited about this almost in-spite of GW but it's not working too well, lol.

"Oh, joy, instead of getting awesome Roberto Cirillo-designed crisis suits I get to try my hand at converting the old ones again. But in a couple more months I won't be able to get the bits I need for that anymore."

"I must have that badass Farsight model...but I really hope I don't have to call customer service multiple times to get a good cast."

"The new pathfinders are alright, but I already have a bunch of the metal ones I'm not using, and if they compete with flyers then they may not be worth using anyway."

And of course, "feth, I don't think I'm skilled enough to build a flyer completely out of plasticard...maybe it'll be fun trying though."

Way to be pessimistic. Be happy tau are getting an update.
I just hope there are units in the codex that they are not releaseing yet.

I guess I dont really have those concerns Sidstyler , I have already settled on a conversion style for my battlesuits I am quite happy with, and it uses parts that will always be available or are made from plastic card.

I have never had any interest in Farsight, never liked the fluff, or the model, or his rules, but will give the new take on him a try.

I can always add more pathfinders to my force, since I long ago exceeded even 3 force orgs worth of them.

And the Tau flyer I think will be better looking in hand and with a few out of box construction changes I am planning.

I just have adapted along time ago that GW will generally match about 40-60% of my desired looks on the models..I will do the rest, it became one of my favorite parts of the hobby.

I never converted that many of them, I think the most I did was make a knee pad for one model and maybe clip the ear off one or two heads. What I really went to town with were my broadsides, which were based on some stuff I saw online...most likely Tael from ATT since that's almost where everyone gets their inspiration from, lol. They used SM dreadnought parts to up-armor the legs, extra toes for the feet so all three were planted on the ground, two missile pods glued together in a burst cannon drum for back-mounted SMS and gluing the railguns to the arms, naturally.

I was never all that inspired to convert all my suits since I knew they would get replaced with the next update anyway, so I figured I would just wait and buy like 15 of the new ones. And now we've all seen how that went, so...

I'll be curious to see what you do with the flyer, personally. I want to see how creative people get with that because I keep looking at it and think "feth it, not worth it!", myself. If I see a convincing enough conversion I might change my tune, but I'm still not happy about this growing trend of GW releasing models that pretty much have to be customized in order to be acceptable. Even the people who do like the model are almost all going to be clipping the rails/booms off it seems.

just for referance..


the first changes (based on actual construction of course) will be the changing of the rear stabilizers, inverting them into a upward gull wing postion, with a slight downward initial angle so they do not set to high on the model.

I will have to see what purpose the struts serve, and make a call on those but likely they will be removed.

I may lengthen or extend the nose section and make a more compact weapon mount for the chin weapons, something that looks like it belongs on a high speed fight/bomber.

And will have to wait and see whats happening with the underside of the plane, to make a call on that as well.

 Amaya wrote:
-snip-

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi

Inflation was only over 4% for one month during 2012. Sales rose nearly 8 million LBs. They increased by 6.5% against less than 4% inflation. That is an increase.

Selling less models is actually beneficial. They've sold less inventory at a higher price.

I swear people are looking for a way to claim GW is actually falling apart.

I hate to drag this up again but GW are falling apart. They are making more money by selling less units at a higher price but they can't do that forever, there will be a point where there may be people still willing to pay those prices but they won't because no one else in their area will so they won't be able to get a game in.
If they increased by 2.5% after taking inflation into account good for them. They are doing better than in '08. Back in 02/03 they were growing by 10-15%.
And most importantly there are other companies in the market now who are growing by a lot more that 2% and are already starting to challenge GW for the top spot.



Back on topic: I know that all tau suits are a little top heavy but am I the only one who thinks that the riptide should not be able to stand on those legs (from a visual design point of view, not a modeling point of view)?

via MajorWesJanson on Warseer
Firewarriors are still 4 to a frame, so they will still probably remain 6-12. Kroot could maybe get a little larger, say 12-24. Pathfinders 4-8 don't work anymore, so we will likely see them go from 4-8 to either 5-10 or 6-12, so you don't have spares in a box. Stealthsuit boxes are 3 per, so if they do increase the size, I'd expect 3-9. Crisis suits are also now 3 per box, but I don't expect their unit size to increase, unless maybe Farsight bumps their max size up.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
-snip-

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi

Inflation was only over 4% for one month during 2012. Sales rose nearly 8 million LBs. They increased by 6.5% against less than 4% inflation. That is an increase.

Selling less models is actually beneficial. They've sold less inventory at a higher price.

I swear people are looking for a way to claim GW is actually falling apart.

I hate to drag this up again but GW are falling apart. They are making more money by selling less units at a higher price but they can't do that forever, there will be a point where there may be people still willing to pay those prices but they won't because no one else in their area will so they won't be able to get a game in.
If they increased by 2.5% after taking inflation into account good for them. They are doing better than in '08. Back in 02/03 they were growing by 10-15%.
And most importantly there are other companies in the market now who are growing by a lot more that 2% and are already starting to challenge GW for the top spot.

You make no sense. Of course they're not growing by 10-15%, there are other companies to challenge them now. As for the assertion that others are already starting to challenge GW for the top spot; I can't even find an annual report for Mantic or Privateer Press. The "falling apart" assertion is clearly hyperbole, especially seeing as they're increasing profits.

 Kroothawk wrote:

That is total revenue ... not adjusted to inflation ... not adjusted to prices rising up to 50-100% (including Metal-toFincast price hike), with compulsory sales of about 900 pots of paint in April 2012 to almost every GW retailer on earth.
Meaning less boxes/blisters sold each year. That's what we mean by flat or declining sales.

Yes, the paint range change artificially bumped up their revenue last year, without it they would have collapsed.

Year before that, it was Dark Eldar release. And year before that, it was Fantasy 8th edition. And year before that, it was something else, can't remember.

GW must be luckiest company on Earth. They are always on verge of collapse, but some individual big sales bump happens and lifts them up from doldrums.

It's almost if it was planned.

Now, back to Tau. I'd like to point out that...err...we haven't had any new pics or rumours for a week. Highly unusual. If somebody has access to codex/WD and can post stuff, they usually keep expanding on what they have already released. Now, nothing. Almost makes you want to put tinfoil hat on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:

the first changes (based on actual construction of course) will be the changing of the rear stabilizers, inverting them into a upward gull wing postion, with a slight downward initial angle so they do not set to high on the model.

I will have to see what purpose the struts serve, and make a call on those but likely they will be removed.

I may lengthen or extend the nose section and make a more compact weapon mount for the chin weapons, something that looks like it belongs on a high speed fight/bomber.

I wouldn't touch that thing with 3 metre pole (viva la metric system) but if someone put a gun on my temple, I'd consider pretty much same thing. Of course I'd have to see the model in person first, but initial plan would be remove the struts, maybe invert the tailplanes (but tail boom is very high, it might make the tail too high?), and clip the wings. Maybe put either some sweep, or reverse sweep, something to make it more aggressive. And maybe also do something about the nose, but that might be too much effort. And under no circumstances to put that stupid missile pod on top of the tail.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
-snip-

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi

Inflation was only over 4% for one month during 2012. Sales rose nearly 8 million LBs. They increased by 6.5% against less than 4% inflation. That is an increase.

Selling less models is actually beneficial. They've sold less inventory at a higher price.

I swear people are looking for a way to claim GW is actually falling apart.

I hate to drag this up again but GW are falling apart. They are making more money by selling less units at a higher price but they can't do that forever, there will be a point where there may be people still willing to pay those prices but they won't because no one else in their area will so they won't be able to get a game in.
If they increased by 2.5% after taking inflation into account good for them. They are doing better than in '08. Back in 02/03 they were growing by 10-15%.
And most importantly there are other companies in the market now who are growing by a lot more that 2% and are already starting to challenge GW for the top spot.

You make no sense. Of course they're not growing by 10-15%, there are other companies to challenge them now. As for the assertion that others are already starting to challenge GW for the top spot; I can't even find an annual report for Mantic or Privateer Press. The "falling apart" assertion is clearly hyperbole, especially seeing as they're increasing profits.

They are increasing profits by cutting costs, not by selling things. Sales are decreasing just as fast as they raise prices but they are moving to one man stores, shutting down GW Australia as a corporate entity (apparently) and things like that.
Everything points to the fact that they are squeezing everything they can to keep profitable for the SHORT TERM. As for not being able to find annual reports for other companies, they are not publicly traded, but Warmachine has surpassed warhammer fantasy and is 2nd most played tabletop game in the US and their playerbase is growing strong while GW seem to be stagnant. So yes, PP are defiantly challenging GW for top spot.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

via MajorWesJanson on Warseer
Firewarriors are still 4 to a frame, so they will still probably remain 6-12. Kroot could maybe get a little larger, say 12-24. Pathfinders 4-8 don't work anymore, so we will likely see them go from 4-8 to either 5-10 or 6-12, so you don't have spares in a box. Stealthsuit boxes are 3 per, so if they do increase the size, I'd expect 3-9. Crisis suits are also now 3 per box, but I don't expect their unit size to increase, unless maybe Farsight bumps their max size up.

As if the sprue to Codex conclusion ever made sense with GW. Otherwise you would have to conclude:
"No more single Crisis Suits allowed, not even for HQ!"

 Kroothawk wrote:

As if the sprue to Codex conclusion ever made sense with GW. Otherwise you would have to conclude:
"No more single Crisis Suits allowed, not even for HQ!"

HQ gets its own Finecast suit, right? I fully expect Crisis team size to be 3+.

So, no new rumors but countless pages of people wrangling about what designation the Riptide should be, corporate mismanagement and other non-topic matters. The mods are asleep at the wheel on this one.

Wolfnid420 wrote:
This ^^ is what i was afraid......hey lemme get some broadsides for allies.....or riptides.....lol thats one gripe i guess i have with allies list......i am tau....i dont want to fight tau when im clearly fighting chaos or gk everywhere else on the board lol hopefully it wont happen every game......

The strange thing is I have absolutely no problem with good conversions to fit the models together as a coherent force. I know it's not fair or reasonable at all, but if I was to see a marine army with three broadsides I would feel like I'm up against a powergamer, but if I was to see a marine army with three 'light dreadnaughts with Imperial rail weaponry' I would applaud the owner for their creativity. Both armies are utilizing the same allies to strengthen weakpoints in their primary army list, but my opinion about it can vary drastically simply on the effort put into modeling.

Overall, I'm a fan of allied detachments because they allow such great conversion opportunities. As someone had mentioned on this thread already, if Kroot are completely absent from the Tau codex I plan on fielding Kroot counts-as Orks with Tau allies. The aesthetics will be in line with the fluff, and the armies actually complement each other quite well.

 agnosto wrote:
So, no new rumors but countless pages of people wrangling about what designation the Riptide should be, corporate mismanagement and other non-topic matters. The mods are asleep at the wheel on this one.

You're right, let's talk about forum moderation standards instead!

I personally like that discussions on Dakka are, for the most part, allowed flow organically without some power tripping douche feeding his fragile ego by deleting any line of thought that reaches beyond the scope of the thread title. For people who like that sort of thing, there's always Warseer.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
As for whether it's working; is it? I don't remember the rumour threads being any shorter back when info was less scarce, nor was anyone less excited by new releases

If GW can get the same level of discussion and excitement without leaking things, why would they bother to have previews?

Because it fosters goodwill with the community, potentially increasing their volume? Because it allows people on lower incomes to plan their purchases better, meaning they make more purchases, potentially increasing their volume? Not every benefit is direct or immediately tangible, and it's "why would we bother" short-termist thinking like that you are espousing that's got GW into the situation its in today; declining volume, stagnant growth figures, indifferent to poor coverage in the financial press, and competitors snapping at their heels. Impulse purchasing behaviour only works on most people when the item is small and inexpensive, that's why shops put all the wee cheap nick-nacks or sweets and what have you at the tills, while the big-ticket items are on the shelves; if relying on impulse buys for expensive items is so effective, why is it not standard across highstreet retail?

Look at the game industry, the fastest growing entertainment media; constant WiP articles, previews, dev-diaries. Most games have a release window that is known a year or more in advance, the exact date is typically known at least a couple of months in advance, and by the time the release date is known there are already going to be dozens of articles and developer interviews in the gaming press. Again, if telling people absolutely nothing about the contents of the product until 7 days before release was so effective, why are more companies not operating that way?

 Manchu wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
GW sales are tumbling?

They are indeed, or have you not been reading their own publicly available financial reports?

You mean like the 2012 Annual Report showing sales higher than previous to the 2011 drop? The one with this graph?

 Yodhrin wrote:
if restricting information is working so well for GW, why are they selling less and less units every year?

I guess you can rethink this rhetoric. Honestly, public relations documents don't have the kind of data we need to say that rumor lock downs drive or even support sales of models. But we aren't really talking about models, remember?

Or how about this one, which uses inflation-adjusted figures;



Or even better, how about instead of pointing at one graph and being snarky, you pop over to this thread and examine the figures as a whole, with handy analysis by someone who knows what they're on about.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Again, if telling people absolutely nothing about the contents of the product until 7 days before release was so effective, why are more companies not operating that way?

Well, when a movie or computer game sequel comes out, it doesn't make the first one unwatchable or unplayable. I'm sure, somewhere in the world this week, a poor sod is going to purchase a Tau codex and some Pathfinders- product that wouldn't have been sold if everyone had been aware of a new Tau release date for the past several months.

I'm probably going to use some of my leftover guardsmen to put some Gue'vesa in my Fire Warrior squads.

Really looking forward to the new T'au'dex.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
So, no new rumors but countless pages of people wrangling about what designation the Riptide should be, corporate mismanagement and other non-topic matters. The mods are asleep at the wheel on this one.

You're right, let's talk about forum moderation standards instead!

I personally like that discussions on Dakka are, for the most part, allowed flow organically without some power tripping douche feeding his fragile ego by deleting any line of thought that reaches beyond the scope of the thread title. For people who like that sort of thing, there's always Warseer.

Nice way to become agitated by an innocent comment. News and Rumors is usually one of the most heavily moderated areas on Dakka with threads that become grossly off-topic being moved to another area; that's the truth and though there is nothing wrong with discussing the things that are being pondered in this thread, little of what is being discussed is either news or rumor.

If you want to talk corporate governance, you could go to the thread where those charts above came from... http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/515615.page

No, you're right; it's better to be "organic" and keep reposting things over and over throughout the board. Somehow I thought that was called "spamming"but I guess it's just organic.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Or how about this one, which uses inflation-adjusted figures;

Thanks, searching for this table for quite some time.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
So, no new rumors but countless pages of people wrangling about what designation the Riptide should be, corporate mismanagement and other non-topic matters. The mods are asleep at the wheel on this one.

You're right, let's talk about forum moderation standards instead!

I personally like that discussions on Dakka are, for the most part, allowed flow organically without some power tripping douche feeding his fragile ego by deleting any line of thought that reaches beyond the scope of the thread title. For people who like that sort of thing, there's always Warseer.

Yeah, the argument whether GW is going under or not is organic. Just like a weed that seems to crop up in nearly every thread having anything to do with GW, with the seeds sown and tended by the same group of gardeners. However since I'm pretty sure I saw a mod with a hoe earlier in the thread I guess all you can do is skim until there is some more actual news

Oops, can't forget an obligatory "OT" fig leaf. Hmm, lets see... Oh yeah, can't wait to blow up my first Riptide

edited: spelling

Will you please move that to another thread before the fifth tau rumor thread needs to be locked for feths sake

This thread is about the Tau codex release. Discussion of GW's financials and/or rumor policies is OT; further posts along those lines will draw sanction.

So, I saw some mentions of 11-13 days for a book. Is that the supposed window of the Codex reveal/release, or the WD?

well WD should be next sat with codex week after......maybe lol

Lovepug13 wrote:
well WD should be next sat with codex week after......maybe lol

Cool. I'm super strapped for cash (as always) but I think I can pull enough out of pocket for the next WD if there's T'au in it.
Can't wait.

 Oaka wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Again, if telling people absolutely nothing about the contents of the product until 7 days before release was so effective, why are more companies not operating that way?

Well, when a movie or computer game sequel comes out, it doesn't make the first one unwatchable or unplayable. I'm sure, somewhere in the world this week, a poor sod is going to purchase a Tau codex and some Pathfinders- product that wouldn't have been sold if everyone had been aware of a new Tau release date for the past several months.

Yes indeed, hrrm hrum.

And the current Tau codex is now £20 in the shop though when published it was I believe £15 or perhaps even only £12. (Or I may be remembering the first Tau book at £12.)

The next one will probably be a £25 or £30 hardback.

So, are models usually announced Firday or saturday?

I get paid soon, gonna allocate some working capital to ensure I can get a few tau toys lol - cant wait to try the new codex out.

Lovepug13 wrote:
I get paid soon, gonna allocate some working capital to ensure I can get a few tau toys lol - cant wait to try the new codex out.

Can I have some? Haha!

Wish I could work!

If Kroot are heavily featured this will be an alluring release. I know many dislike the anime aesthetic of Tau, but to me they come off as the most realistic and modernized army in 40k.

 Amaya wrote:
If Kroot are heavily featured this will be an alluring release. I know many dislike the anime aesthetic of Tau, but to me they come off as the most realistic and modernized army in 40k.

Are they really that anime? And yes, playing tau is like playing germans in FoW.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
If Kroot are heavily featured this will be an alluring release. I know many dislike the anime aesthetic of Tau, but to me they come off as the most realistic and modernized army in 40k.

Are they really that anime? And yes, playing tau is like playing germans in FoW.

They're very anime influenced, sure.

I'm kinda tempted to 'battletech' out my battlesuits when I build my new army. Get rid of arms on some suits, direct mount the weapons .etc

WD release and preorder begin should be Saturday before Eastern. This is the first time, the general public gets aware of the Tau release. Too late for kids to include in their Eastern wish list. In addition to that, Friday and Monday are holidays in many countries. So GW can take orders Tuesday earliest, making a timely delivery a challenge. Austria and Swiss shouldn't get it before Monday the week after. GW really didn't think this through.

 Kroothawk wrote:
GW really didn't think this through.

Could tell that from the new models and prices.

Hopefully Vetock DID think it through and we get a serviceable rule-set. Been waiting far too long for them to mess this up.

 Kroothawk wrote:
WD release and preorder begin should be Saturday before Eastern. This is the first time, the general public gets aware of the Tau release. Too late for kids to include in their Eastern wish list. In addition to that, Friday and Monday are holidays in many countries. So GW can take orders Tuesday earliest, making a timely delivery a challenge. Austria and Swiss shouldn't get it before Monday the week after. GW really didn't think this through.

I've never heard of getting gifts at Easter (other than chocolate eggs).

I'm super excited for this codex... I really hope they make my vespids good.... OR at least usable...

It is relatively common (in the UK at least) to give some easter spending money to kids alongside their eggs.

Can anyone even really point out what makes the Tau "anime", besides the battlesuits? Honestly the only real anime influence I see are the mecha, so obviously Robotech, Gundam, etc., but what other anime do Tau remind you of?

For those wondering about Shadowsun and its Insights to Tau life and tech. It is a fan-fic. that is all. You are paying for a fan-fic. it is 73 pages of fan-fic.
Basically:

I wish i never paid 12$ for it.
Also, Apprently. Her main armament is actually just burstcannons, she doesnt use Fusion blasters for most of the time. This book is infuriating.

 Sidstyler wrote:
Can anyone even really point out what makes the Tau "anime", besides the battlesuits? Honestly the only real anime influence I see are the mecha, so obviously Robotech, Gundam, etc., but what other anime do Tau remind you of?

I've never really seen any "anime" in Tau, their aesthetic is much more reminiscent of 70s western scifi and their background reads like subcontinent/Chinese propaganda.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Basically:

Spoiler:

Shadowsun crashlands on a planet. She finds her way to a manta. A battle ensues with one Guardsmans surviving and take prisoner. She finds out she is the last child of her father, Kiru. So she has to wrestle whith whether or not to have a child and leave the military. All this she see's a Firewarrior in a cadet(Who you fiqure out is her imaginary son) out of the corner of her eye. the take the planet, Just like that. They take it. No fighting. its "We have to get to the comm relay to get your friends" too The planet is Tau now. it just so infuriating.

This...is...uber...stupid...
It's like Draigo, there is no explanation - it simply happened.

But it show us one interesting part of Tau Fire Cast life: .