Hi all Tauists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have little issue with Sniper Drone Team cost change.

I also like that Commanders are no longer 1+.

I like your special Vehicle Squadron people.

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

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

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

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

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

Great work overall.

Thank you for your comments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My ideas

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

vishra wrote:

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

...
.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps I should rewrite that section as several alternatives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is your suggestion?

I am open to all ideas.

vishra wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those are great ideas on the Drones!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Lone Dragoon wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lone Dragoon wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

Alright, I'll try my hand at a special character for this then.

Through out the Tau Empire during the Third Sphere expansion the name Shadowsun was amongst the most widely known, but there were new stories added for a plethora of Tau Fire Caste members. Perhaps least notable amongst them was Commander Darkstrike. As a young Shas'vre he witnessed first hand the ability of the Catachan XXXVII on the deathworld of Vardellan, the ability to engage in hard fast strikes, and melt away into the forest once again. During this time Aloh'Kais was assigned to a pathfinder Unit at his own request, instead of being mounted into a battlesuit. Aloh'kais learned far faster than his squad how to read the motile trees, and even the kroot assigned to the Cadre learned awe at his skills.

It took several months in that jungle before the Tau were finally able to strike telling blows against the Catachan, and in each of those blows it was Darkstrike that lead the recon units. At the end of his time in the jungles, he chose to join the stealthsuit teams so that he could apply all that he had learned in their use. Within a year of fighting in several warzones, commander Shadowsun took note of this still young Shas'vre and elevated him to a Shas'el under her direct command. Commander Darkstrike took the promotion in stride, and instead of leading units into the field immediately, began to train numerous Pathfinder and Stealthsuit units in the way of Voltkra, the Ghost War.

The way of Voltkra that he taught them combines elements of both the Mont'ka (Killing blow) and Kauyon (Patient Hunter) approach that the Tau utilize. Darkstrike has trained many stealthsuit teams on how to operate independant of the main force, allowing them to strike hard without warning and leave the enemy throwing volleys of random fire out in what they guess to be the proper direction. After they have stung the enemy those stealthsuits will strike once more in a more visible manner pulling the enemy from their formation into prepared areas with more stealthsuits waiting in ambush.

Shas'el T'au Mont'yr Aloh'Kais (Commander Darkstrike)

170 points

WS3 BS5 S4 T4 W3 I3 A2 LD9 Sv3+/4++

Unit Type- Jump Infantry
Wargear- Barracuda Missile Pod, Burst cannon, XV28 stealth suit, 2 Shadow Drones, Shield Generator
Special Rules- Independant Character, Stealth, Silent Hunter, Covert Assault, Behind Enemy Lines, Young Protege

XV28 Stealth Suit- The XV-28 stealth suit is amongst the newest Tau battlesuits to be allowed for field testing. Given specifically to Commander Darkstrike to use because of his fame as a shadow warrior, the suit incorporates several new features never before seen on Tau battlesuits. The stealthsuit is equipped with jetpack, Barracuda Missile Pod and a Shadow Drone controller. Additionally any unit targetting an XV28 stealthsuit must roll a night vision test to see if they can shoot at it.

Barracuda Missile Pod- With the incredible success in the field of the ubiquitous missile pod, the Earth caste weapons' engineers felt that they could produce a weapon of even greater flexibility than the normal missile pod or smart missile system. The missile system allows the unit to lay down a withering hail of anti-infantry firepower, or give a faster firing standard anti-tank capable shot because of improved reloading speeds. There is first of the new missiles designed were the micro-missile clusters, which launch a volley of pen-sized micromissiles that are exceedingly short ranged, but explode into frangible shards that make a mockery of cover.
Barracuda Missile Pod S7 AP4 36" Assault 4, Gets Hot!
Barracuda Missile Pod Micro Missiles S4 AP5 18" Assault 1, Large Blast, Ignores Cover*

Shadow Drone Controller- The newest drone types that have been rolled out by the Tau are called Shadow drones. These drones have no weapons to speak of, but instead flood the area around them with a colloidal gas that can create mirror image holograms of the stealthsuit. When a unit containing shadow drones gets shot at, the owning player may roll a D3 and allocate that many wounds to the holograms before allocating to the unit. This has no effects in assault as it works only against shooting attacks.

Silent Hunter- Ever since learning how to disappear into the terrain by watching the Catachan, Commander Darkstrike has managed to mimic their abilities. Commander Darkstrike may be held in reserves even in missions that don't use that rule. When the unit is available, they may be placed anywhere on the table that is outside of 1" from an enemy model. The unit can fire all available weapons, but may not make an assault move, even with the jetpack rule, for that turn. In addition once per game during the owning player's assault phase he may be removed from the table as he has melded back into the terrain, and placed in the following turn's movement phase using his deployment rules.

Covert Assault- As Darkstrike has spend so much time away from a Hunter Cadre proper, he has learned to make due with nothing but stealth suits which he uses to sting his opponents time and again. When Commander Darkstrike is chosen Stealthsuit Squads may be chosen as a troop choice.

Behind Enemy Lines- Ever since he has spent so much time training new Stealthsuit pilots on how to operate in an ambush capacity, those same pilots have time and again proven they are capable of working in a proficient fireteam from an ambush. Any stealthsuit in an army using Commander Darkstrike may upgrade to have a hard-wired target lock for +5 points per model to represent the unit choosing their targets independent of one another to inflict maximum damage before melding back into the shadows.

Young Protege- As Commander Darkstrike has spent time training and fighting alongside various stealthsuit Shas'vre, they have come to trust him and are always willing to work alongside the venerable master of Voltkra. Darkstrike may have up to 3 Stealthsuit Shas'vre attached to him as a retinue, each Shas'vre costs 35 points, and may upgrade their burst cannons to Fusion blasters for +5 points or Plasma Rifles for +10 points.

I think thats really cool.

I was think about how the way i have been defeated may times is for my opponent to deep strike his units right next to my guys. no time to take them out before they get me.

It would be good if there was some kind of way to stop deep striking. I was thinking that an extention on the seeker missile rules could be made that ment that when there was a unit deep striking one missile could be fired. on a 4+, the deep striking unit would count as if there had been a deep striking mishap with -2 on the mishap table.
This represents the ability for defensive missiles to shoot down incoming units.

like some of your ideas KK. Good to see someone thinking about Tau.

Anyway, on to my suggestion. It involves Sniper Drone Teams

Take the Teams out of HS slots. Instead, write something like

If a Firecaste Warrior Squad numbers 12 models, they may purchase a single Sniper Drone Team for XX points. This team acts as a separate unit in all respects with the exception that the teams may not capture objectives and do not give up a kill point if destroyed.

Now you have dedicated support fire from the FCW squads without the teams competing for railgun slots (they'll always lose out). I like the idea of dedicated snipers covering the advance of the FCW

Like others have said "Evade! Evade!" is just too powerful.

It'd be better to involve a leadership test to pull off and should result in the unit losing either its movement or shooting phase. It is also something that shouldn't be able to be done every turn.

Alternatively, if you want the dice to decide, you could use a rule like "Unit falls back 2d6 (take the highest) and assaulting unit assaults an additional d6" You may be able to get away, and maybe you can't. You could also use this style to kite assualt units into an ambush.

Really, it depends on which you think would work better. With the first way, you're either sacrificing an attack to get away, or risking getting torn to pieces after stopping to shoot. The second way, you may be able to make a safe get away, and maybe you won't. Seems unreliable in a game where strategy is key.

I really like the freedom with making drone squadrons. One of the main things i'd like to see in their next update is the option to take units of shield drones to block fire and tie up units.

I'm not a fan of the stealth suit changes. I always got the impression they were meant to be short range suits, so railguns doesn't work IMO. I would prefer to see them get a BS upgrade and moved to FA.

I think the fusion blaster shouldn't become heavy. FB suits can be very useful but making them heavy kills this tactic.

I was trying to come up with something for the tech leader guy or possably the suit guy. designed to be multi-perpose.

Because he is awesome, he hooked himself up with an super big suit, it’s a bit bigger than a dreadnaught. It is designed to take out large targets before they become too dangerous.

Commander Shas’o F’roihi

Walker
Ws 3
BS 6
F 13
S 12
R 12
I 2
A 3
Ld 10

He has the acute senses, relentless, heavy jet pack, evade evade! and tank hunter special rules.

Heavy jet pack: the unit gains the deep strike universal rules. During the assault phase, if the unit involved in a assault, the unit my move 1 d6. Counts as having a jet pack and counts as jump infantry.

Evade evade!: you tell me what people have decided for this thing.

He is equipped with twin-linked railguns, twin-linked phased ion guns, Shield generator and a hard-wired drone controller. He must take 1 or 2 drones.

I have no idea what the phased ion guns do but if they have the gets hot rules, it doesn’t blow the guy up straight away. Instead, the suit is unable to fire any weapons in the shooting phase the following turn as the weapons are cooling off.

I dont have will power to write background.

There's lots to think about there!

Keep them coming, please.

i cant think of a cool designation for the suit. it would have to be cool like crisis or hazard.

maybe prohibit or something. any ideas???

I do like the Evade Rule but if people thinks its to powerful perhaps some sort of defensive fire moments before the assault. I do think The tau Firewarrirors honor guard should be fearless. I mean they do every thing for the ethereal's. They love and respect them they are just about sacrilegious to them. And I do think the firewarriors would stand any ground willing to die to protect them ( If your including some fluff into rules) Imho

I think that there are a lot of ideas out there for the drones and for the Fire warriors, but i think the biggest thing left is the suits and the allies. Here is my stab at the suits.


Elite: Crisis suit Stats: Shas-ui
WS BS S T A W I LD SV
.2....4..4.5..2.2..3.8...3+
35 pts each. 1-3 in the unit
1 Shas-vre (+1A and +1 LD) +10 pts.

Special rules:
Jetpack: (confers relentless)
Deep Strike
Acute Senses
XV-8 Battlesuit: can always fire 2 weapons, may use Evade, Evade! (whatever it ends up being), and bonding knives.

Wargear:
Burst Canon
Photon Grenades
EMP Grenades
Shas-vre has a drone controller

All Shas-ui of the unit are armed the same.
Trade the Bust Canon for:
Flamer: Free
Fusion blaster: +5 pts
Rail Rifle: +5 pts
Plasma Rifle: +10 pts
TL-Bust canon: +3 pts
TL-Fusion: +7
TL-Plasma: +15
Cyclic Ion: +10 (Shas-vre only)

May take a second weapon from this list:
Burst Canon: +5 pts.
Smart Missile System: +10 pts
Missile Pod: +10 pts
Plasma Rifle: +15 pts
Airburster: +15 (Shas-vre only)

Notes: I tried to make them more of a 5th edition style, which means that there is no more open wargear section and they come with all of their special rules instead of buying them. They come with a lot more as standard for 35 pts. (targeting Array, Muti-tracker, Drone Controller, Burst Canon). I wanted them to be T5 because otherwise they are just Crack Missile bait. To compensate I gave them only 2 wounds. With BS 4 as standard they do not need to have as many TL weapon options. You can but anti-infantry, anti- transport, or anti-tank versions.






Fast Attack: Stealth Suits
Statline: Shas-ui
WS BS S T A I W LD SV
.2....4..3.4..1.2.1..8...3+
Shas-vre +1A and +1 LD
unit of 1 shas-vre and 2 Shas-ui for 85 pts.
may add up to 7 more shas-ui for 25 pts each.

Special rules:
Jet Pack (Confers Relentless)
Acute Senses
Infiltrate
Stealth Armor: Stealth, skilled flyer, always roll for night fighting distance to be shot at, Evade Evade!,
May move an additional 6" in Either the movement or Assault phase in addition to the 6" allowed for the jet pack rule.

Wargear:
Burst Cannon
Photon Grenades
EMP Grenades
Shas-vre has a drone controller

All suits are armed the same, may trade the Burst Canon for
Flamer: Free
Fusion Blaster: +5 pts
Plasma Rifle: +10 pts.


Notes: The Tau hate Close combat and as such they would not design a suit that only increased S. the suit is designed for protection thus added T not S. They can take a variety of different short ranged weapons. Most importantly they no longer compete with the crisis suits. Crisis is durable and slower, while Steath is faster. Removed Deep Strike, Added Stealth and Skilled flyer, so you can actually get into cover and not take too much damage, especially since they may move 2 times a turn and take 2 dangerous terrain tests.


FINAL NOTE: I was basing my weapon prices around the Burst Canon being R"18 S6 AP5 A3 since I want the Pulse Carbine to be R18" S5 AP5 A2. The burst Canon should be a bit better than just another Pule shot.

I was just thinking how it would be expected for there to be suits in every FOC. we have Crisis in elite, shadow in fast attack and broadsides in HS. HQ gets upgraded versions of these. that would leave a troop choise. XV1 seem on the horizon, or even a bigger bigger suit for HS. The suits would be the XV1 'caution' battlesuit and the XV10 'Prohibiter' battlesuit. we al know that they only have eight numbers but these are the IoM desegnations.


like the XV8 and XV2/5 thing you got. watch out cos you called the fusion blaster the fusion gun, and what happed to all the cool little gagets. the multi is includend but there is still use for shields, target locks, targeting arrays. if the Targeting array is not included, they would be BS 5 standed elites. In refrence to the tread about XV9s by me, there were comments about how the standed teams should be made of multapules of 4, as this is the number of fingers in each hand. This would mean that you could have 4 XV8s in a team and maybe 4 or 8 stelths. this putting the shas'vre and three shas'ui as standed at 100pts and can add up to 4 shas'ui for 25 each.

I really hope that GW looks at this some time

I was saving some of the more cool and interesting upgrades for the HQ suits. I think that most other 5th edition books have any special rules standard on a squad and then you can upgrade with some USR's. I think that Tau can be very hard to play against as you have a huge wargear section that can be modeled or "Hard Wired" and it is easy to forget exactly what is on the suits. I kinda wanted to redesign the suits such that their special rules would be standard, except for the HQ who would be more customizable.

Fixed the gun names. What do people think of them being T5 W2? Should Stealth teams be able to take Markerlights?


I think that there should be s special character for Stealth/Crisis suits that allows one unit of said suits to become troops, I do not theink that we need another "standard" troops entry as long as the HQ's open some options.

What races should be included in the allies?
Kroot (Troops)
Vespids (Fast)
Demurig (Elite)
Humans (Heavy)


I also feel like the book is a little empty. Right now, it seem slike the only thing in the elite slot is Crisis suits. What if Pathfinders were Elite, and were a little better (BS4?).


What should Markerlights do? I am not sure the old system is what it should be. I think that there should be a chart as to what penalties a unit has depending on the number of markerlight hits. All units can take advantage of the markerlight. Tokens last one turn. All results are cumulative. For Example
1 hit: -1 cover save
2 hits: All hits count a pinning
3 hits: -1 cover save
4 hits: Re-roll to hit in the shooting phase against this unit.
.......and so on

I think that the seeker missiles should just fire on their own. I think that the Skyray needs some work, as in I do not like it just as a big rack for seekers. What about changing it into an anti-skimmer vehicle, similar to the Hydra.

svendrex wrote:

I also feel like the book is a little empty. Right now, it seem slike the only thing in the elite slot is Crisis suits. What if Pathfinders were Elite, and were a little better (BS4?).


What should Markerlights do? I am not sure the old system is what it should be. I think that there should be a chart as to what penalties a unit has depending on the number of markerlight hits. All units can take advantage of the markerlight. Tokens last one turn. All results are cumulative. For Example
1 hit: -1 cover save
2 hits: All hits count a pinning
3 hits: -1 cover save
4 hits: Re-roll to hit in the shooting phase against this unit.
.......and so on

I think that the seeker missiles should just fire on their own. I think that the Skyray needs some work, as in I do not like it just as a big rack for seekers. What about changing it into an anti-skimmer vehicle, similar to the Hydra.

I would like it if the seeker had some power over deep striking. See above.
-1 to cover is ok because of the large amount of cover out there isn 5th but what about these.

all units shooting at the marked unit get these bonuses.
1 hit: +1 to BS can go above 5.
2 hits: marked unit gets -1 to cover save
3 hits: all shots fired count as pinning
4 hits: Re-roll to hit in the shooting phase against this unit.
more hits count as -1 to cover save for the marked unit.
1 markerlight can be removed to fire a seeker missile at the marked unit. the blast template must be centerd on a unit in the unit that had a hit removed
the markerlight hits last only during the shooting phase they were fired in.

about the seeking missiles.
new rules for them could be.
one time, S8,AP3,barrage or ordanance or something. small blast
they are computer controled so count as having BS 5 for the template drifting
they would cost 20pts each and count as one weapon each. this way it would be much harder to destroy a skyray by taking out all its weapons, giving it a total of 12 at the most weapons. mwa ha ha.

for one, i dont play tau, but i would like to see more auxilaries (renegade guardsmen?) just my $0.02

So here is what I think I have in mind for an FOC So far


HQ
Shas-o
Shas-el (able to be in Stealth/Crisis armor)

Ethereal (Morale Benefits, Actually Good!)

Kroot Shaper (psyker/defence upgrade kroot more)

Special Characters TBD (farsight, Shadowsun, Pope, Kroot, Vespid?)

Elite
Crisis
Pathfinders
Demmurig (Furious Counterattack?)

Troops
Fire Warriors (Carbine better for trasports, cheeper)
Kroot (come with armor save, regular stealth)

Special
Drones

Fast Attack
Stealth Suit
Piranha
Vespid

Heavy Support
Broadside (lots of railguns, all get submunitions?)
Hammerhead (Stronger Railgun, goes through targets?)
Gueves'a (Similar to guard Heavy Weapon Teams)



So far it is Balaced with 2 troops and then in Elite, Fast, and Heavy there is a choice of a Tau unit, a Tau Battle Suit, and an Allied unit.

maybe drone squads could be conciderd non scoring troops

Up in my long post about drones, I made them count as Non-scoring, and even non-contesting units. You pay for them all as one unit, but then you can deploy them either embarked on vehicles, attached to squads with a drone controller or as separate squadrons. I did not want them using an FOC slot, but maybe a unit of only drones counts as troops.

I needed to say what happens to drones when they are in a unit and the drone controller dies. Easy.

When a unit looses a model equiped with a drone controller, If there are now too many drones attached to that unit, designate which drones are no longer part of the unit, all drones forced out of a unit on the same turn count as a single unit of only drones.

So here is what I think I have in mind for an FOC So far


HQ
Shas-o
Shas-el (able to be in Stealth/Crisis armor)

Ethereal (Morale Benefits, Actually Good!)

Kroot Shaper (psyker/defence upgrade kroot more)

Special Characters TBD (farsight, Shadowsun, Pope, Kroot, Vespid?)

Elite
Crisis
Pathfinders
Demmurig (Furious Counterattack?)

Troops
Fire Warriors (Carbine better for trasports, cheeper)
Kroot (come with armor save, regular stealth)

Special
Drones

Fast Attack
Stealth Suit
Piranha
Vespid

Heavy Support
Broadside (lots of railguns, all get submunitions?)
Hammerhead (Stronger Railgun, goes through targets?)
Gueves'a (Similar to guard Heavy Weapon Teams)

I really feel that Gueves'a should be troops not heavy support. It makes no sense to me, I don't think they employ the Guevea do do any thing else but be foot soldiers. So I think they should be A troops choice. Now I could see the squad having access to a heavy weapon in its own squad! And also if they did have some sort of heavy weapon for heavy support It better be good enough to compete with the broadsides or hammerhead other wise IMO its a waste of an entry in the book. Time could be spent on another unit,Other then that I wouldn't mind more races in the army. I wouldn't mind vespid if they became like 10 points with an ap4 gun, at the moment I do not like that they cost more then a space marine and are no where as good.

I Kinda wanted there to an option for some type of allied unit in each FOC slot. I was thinking that the humans wound be a cheaper option for lower levels and would carry some of the medium Strength weapons. As in you could get a few S10 shots with the broadsides for heavy stuff, or a bunch of S6-7-8 shots for lighter stuff with saves. That being said, I can see humans as troops with a weapon platform option.

What about a krootox unit as Heavy Support?

Ledabot wrote:I was just thinking how it would be expected for there to be suits in every FOC. we have Crisis in elite, shadow in fast attack and broadsides in HS. HQ gets upgraded versions of these. that would leave a troop choise. XV1 seem on the horizon, or even a bigger bigger suit for HS. The suits would be the XV1 'caution' battlesuit and the XV10 'Prohibiter' battlesuit. we al know that they only have eight numbers but these are the IoM desegnations.


like the XV8 and XV2/5 thing you got. watch out cos you called the fusion blaster the fusion gun, and what happed to all the cool little gagets. the multi is includend but there is still use for shields, target locks, targeting arrays. if the Targeting array is not included, they would be BS 5 standed elites. In refrence to the tread about XV9s by me, there were comments about how the standed teams should be made of multapules of 4, as this is the number of fingers in each hand. This would mean that you could have 4 XV8s in a team and maybe 4 or 8 stelths. this putting the shas'vre and three shas'ui as standed at 100pts and can add up to 4 shas'ui for 25 each.

I really hope that GW looks at this some time

I called it the fusion gun because I think fusion blaster is stupid.

A lot of wargear is not included because I'm not trying to change every single thing in the codex, and I don't want to write out everything in the codex.

It doesn't mean I think the wargear should be dropped.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ledabot wrote:I was just thinking how it would be expected for there to be suits in every FOC. we have Crisis in elite, shadow in fast attack and broadsides in HS. HQ gets upgraded versions of these. that would leave a troop choise. XV1 seem on the horizon, or even a bigger bigger suit for HS. The suits would be the XV1 'caution' battlesuit and the XV10 'Prohibiter' battlesuit. we al know that they only have eight numbers but these are the IoM desegnations.


like the XV8 and XV2/5 thing you got. watch out cos you called the fusion blaster the fusion gun, and what happed to all the cool little gagets. the multi is includend but there is still use for shields, target locks, targeting arrays. if the Targeting array is not included, they would be BS 5 standed elites. In refrence to the tread about XV9s by me, there were comments about how the standed teams should be made of multapules of 4, as this is the number of fingers in each hand. This would mean that you could have 4 XV8s in a team and maybe 4 or 8 stelths. this putting the shas'vre and three shas'ui as standed at 100pts and can add up to 4 shas'ui for 25 each.

I really hope that GW looks at this some time

I called it the fusion gun because I think fusion blaster is stupid.

A lot of wargear is not included because I'm not trying to change every single thing in the codex, and I don't want to write out everything in the codex.

It doesn't mean I think the wargear should be dropped.

thats reasonable

there are rumers that there will be another suit type. What do you think it will be. halfway between the XV8 and XV25, or will it be bigger you think. If it is bigger it might be a walker instead of jump inf

LoneCoon wrote:Like others have said "Evade! Evade!" is just too powerful.

Now I'm not singling you out, just too lazy to pop over to the first page and get quotes lol. That being said, I have to say that Evade! Evade! isn't as overpowered as people think it is. When you look at it from a rules creation standpoint, it's really not much different than the Combat Tactics used by Space Marines. In Killkrazy's wording it just has the added bonus of keeping a large amount of FW out of combat, but that only hurts the FW because they don't get attacks back. The way I had wrote it, they can fall back without even needing to have an LD test put on them, but they cannot strike in the ensuing combat if they are caught by an enemy unit the turn they use E!E!. Either way, if anyone is saying that Evade! Evade! is overpowered, then by that very definition the Space marines codex should be outlawed because Combat tactics is absolutely broken.

oh dear. now im going to have to find out what combat tactics is. uh

Combat tactics in a nutshell; When a marine squad with this rule is forced to take a Leadership test, they may chose to automatically fail the test and fall back.

That's all it is, but coupled with the Space Marines having the rule, ATSKNF, they make the squads interesting. So what that means, I'm punishing you for shooting at me before you charge into assault! Basically Evade! Evade! mimics that, but makes it so you don't have to be made to take a LD test only have an opponent attempting to assault you. It does not mean you will automatically be taken out of their range. On the other hand any players worth their salt will overcome the fact that you can fall back instead of fighting in assault, and make you regret doing that most times.

Thats nasty. But how often will they need a Ld test. ont often vs Tau.
Evade evade is good at 2d6 because it means that there is a chance for them, to be caught, but not much. the only things that are going to be really troubled by this is orcs. space marienes can still shoot.

You can check my post earlier for the percentages. Even a 1D6 Fall back move makes it very hard to get in assault with the tau as you have to launch assaults from about 3" instead of 6" and even then you have to roll well.

Right now, the one thing I do not like about the tau codex is that you do not want to deal damage to them in close combat. You want to deal as little damage as possible so that way you stay locked in combat and avoid damage. To me, that feels very wrong in terms of fluff. I think that the Tau will have enough ways to block assaults if their transports become viable, and drone become expendable.

My Evade Evade rule:
At the end of any assault phase, if the unit has won combat, or if the unit has lost combat but passed their leadership test, Roll a D6. On a 3+ the unit may make a consolidation move of 2d6. If this move is made, the unit must take wounds equal to the amount they lost close combat by (only if the unit lost combat). Any enemy units that are no longer locked in combat may make a consolidation move of 1D6.

What this rule does for the Tau:
1) Right now Tau players HATE having defensive grenades, as they are not helpful. That tau player will WANT to lose combat and either be wiped out or flee so that way they can bring their shooting to bear. This will allow the tau player to not be locked in combat and they will want defensive grenades to help them take fewer wounds from Evade, Evade!

2) Enemy players will want to damage the tau on the charge, instead to trickling into assault. The tau will probably escape at the end of combat, so the charging player will want to do damage, and will want to win combat to either wipe the squad or to force wounds on the unit.

3) It keeps the tau from being locked in combat, which is worse then them losing units in combat at all. With a decently priced transport, the tau will have all of the options they will need to block assaults for several turns. you can block the assaults with single drones forcing the enemy to go around or waste a turn fighting drones. You can Fish of Fury, and use the transport, and the drones in the transport to make a wall you can shoot under. This is of course after you Alpha strike away all of the enemy's mobility with your heavy firepower.

Those are my opinions on that.

I noticed that Above i put something like pay 100pts and you get 3 shas'ui and one shas'vre stealth suit. After some thought i think it would be good to make a system were you can have unlimited shas'vre in a squad. each costing 10 more pts.

this means that you could put a basic 4 man squad of stealth suits at 90pts.
you can add 0-4 shas'ui at 25pts each.
You can upgrade a shas'ui to a shas'vre for 10pts.

keep all the other stuf the same.

crisis suit would be something like....

1-4 man squads
35pts each
upgrade from shas'ui to shas'vre for 10pts.

all other things stay the same.

I am thinking about making a list of stuff in this thread to see how it works. Btw. dont really like the pathfinders in the elites foc. tw important units types in the same place makes it hard to really take advantage of them both. I think that the stealth suits and pathfinders should stay were they are. This keeps the substutes for these choises together. Even put them in troops, since they kinda are just troops. there even the same level as the fire warrors. Shas'la and shas'ui

you know how you want an allied race in every slot. well the demerang were the ones that gave the tau the ion cannon and ion tech. they could be used as some kind of anti troop/elite heavy support unit with some kind of attilery type unit that uses the ion cannon.

The humans, well they proberly will end up as guards with pulse rifles and a 4+ armor. they would be 0-1 thou i think.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I cant think what you would also put in the elite slot that would be good enough that people would take them over XV8s


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you do put the pathfinder into troops, then XV2/5s would be great in quick attack.

Hmm... Yeah I think the biggest problem is that people play tau for the XV-8's and not for the fire warriors.

I could see the pathfinders as being an "upgrade" from firewarriors. For +7 pts you gain infiltrate and add a markerlight to your pulse carbine maybe?

I just do not know what to put in elites either. Demurig as heavy with anti-troop ion weapons sounds good and I like the Stealth Suits as Fast Attack.


Other ideas for elite slots:
1) some sort of more elite fire warrior, carries heavier weapons and is BS4. Has other special rules.
2) Some sort of close combat troop, more so than the Kroot. Some thing that can fight well, maybe another ally...What were those shadowy dog soldiers called again?
3) Krootox unit, fast counter charge unit with some guns, like Rough Riders kinda
4) ??

thinking about t now, I do not know how to compete with XV-8 as they are everyone's favorite at the moment.


Another un-related Idea. The Skyray. What if it could take different missiles? Like it could trade the seekers for different missile types, just like the new Dark Eldar Fliers. Large Blast anti-horde no cover, Small Blast AP2, some thing else cool? other missiles still fired like seekers, just a different effect.

well there is the idea for the anti deep strikers. they could be 10 points and are fired when a enemy unit attempts a deepstrike. see above for rest. There could be a missile that makes a blast to take out GEQ and the current seeker takes out MEQ and transports. done.

they all cost 10pts each.

list is almost done. its 2k

I would like to see it when it is done. What version of Evade Evade! will you use?

The most up to date. hopefuly it will still be useful since just about everything has photon grenades. I started it before you last post so that stuff is not in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tau Empire 2000pts experimental codex

Weapon descriptions are at the bottom.

HQ (220)

Commander Long shot or Shas’o F’roihi
He has a modified XV10 battlesuit.
Comes with twin linked railguns, twin linked charged ion blasters. Shield generator and a drone controller that has two shield drones (220 pts)

Troops (722)

Two identical fire warrior squads. They have 12 in each with photon grenades, bonding knife and two light plasma rifles. The rest have pulse rifles (166 each)
They have fishes with D-pods, multi trackers, 2 rail drones and 2 seeker missiles. (120 each)

Two identical pathfinder squads of 5, One Shas’ui. They all have photon grenades and marker carbines. (75 each)

Elites (780)

1 XV8 squad of 4 with plasma rifles, targeting arrays and smart missiles systems. Shas’vre has 2 shield drones. (300)

1 XV8 squad of 4 with plasma rifles, targeting arrays and fusion blasters. Shas’vre has 2 shield drones. (300)

XV10 battlesuit.
Has Twin-linked charged ion blasters, Vectored retro thrusters, targeting array, shield generator and 2 shield drones. (185)

Heavy support (265)

Hammerhead with railgun, smart missile system, targeting array, disruption pod, Target lock, multi tracker and 2 air defence missiles. (175)

Demurig artillery squad with an Ion cannon team and a railgun team. (90)

Grand total of 1997pts.

About the weapons

Railguns are R72”, S10, AP1, Heavy 1
Charged ion blasters are R30”, S6, AP3, Assault 3 or Heavy 5
Pulse rifles are R30” S5, AP5, Rapid fire (double tap at 15”)
Light plasma rifles are R24”, S6, AP2, Rapid fire
Rail rifles are R36”, S6, AP3, Heavy 1 sniper
Seeker missiles are R unlimited, S7, AP3, Heavy 1
Pulse carbines are R18”, S5, AP5, Assault 2
Plasma rifles are R24”, S6, AP2, Rapid fire, Rending
Smart missile systems are R24”, S5, AP5, Heavy 4
Fusion blasters are R12”, S8, AP1, Assault 1 Melta Lance
Ion cannons are R60”, S7, AP3, Heavy 3

The XV10 suit is my little bit of fun. You saw it before on the sp character I made though the normal ones don’t have as meny of the usr.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have finished the profile for the XV10 battlesuit

XV10 ‘Prohibiter’ battlesuit
Shas’vre
110pts

Walker
Bs..Ws...S....F......S.... R.....I....A
4....2.....5...12....11...10....2....2

Special rules:
Heavy jet pack
Deep strike
Acute senses
Evade Evade!

Wargear:
Smart missile system
Photon grenades
EMP grenades
Hard-wired drone controller
Shield generator

Twin linked plasma rifles may be exchanged for
• TL Charged ion blaster 25pts
• TL Ion cannon 25pts
• TL Railgun 40pts
• TL plasma rifle 10pts
• TL fusion blaster free

The battlesuit must take 1-2 other support system from
• Targeting array 10
• Vectored retro thrusters 10
• Blacksun filter 3
• Command and control node 5
• Positional relay 10
• Advanced stabilisation system 10

The battlesuit may take any of any number of these systems
• Ejection system 10
• Failsafe detonator 15
• Iridium armor 15
• Hard-wired blacksun filter 3
• Stimulant injector 10

The stats for the charged ion blaster are.

Range 30'
S 6
Ap 3
type heavy 5


I may have a solution for the problem with Evade Evade!
Have the squad ake a Ld test before the 2d6 move or 3d6 for units with jet packs. If they fail, they are put in the sweeping advance senario.
The 2d6/3d6 move is made so that the squad move in the same derection as the enemy is charging, the unit does not have to make difficult or dangerus terrain tests. If the unit would move into inpassable terran, they cease to move. If the move would take them off the board, they stop on the table edge.

There could be three diffrent types of missile.
1. Seeker missile
used as anit transport/light tank and anti meq. You know how it works. remove a markerlight and they shoot at the squad with BS5.
Range unlimited
S 8
Ap 3
Heavy 1, one shot

2. Barrage missiles
Used as anti horde/geq. They work the same as seekers but the hitting works diffrently. the template is placed over any member of the squad under fire. then is the drifting test. the missile counts as BS5 for this.
range unlimited
S 6
Ap 6
Heavy 1, large blast, one shot

3. Air defence missiles
They count as being in the 0-2 missile slot but they are not used on ground unit often. When an enemy unit deepstrikes, roll a d6 and on a 3+, the unit takes a deepstriking mishap with a -2 on the mishap chart.
Range unlimited
S 5
Ap 3
Heavy 1, one shot


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have finished the stats for the Dermrig artillery squad

Infantry

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
2 4 3 3 2 2 2 7 4+

Squad consists of 1-3 units of Dermrig artillery teams
Each team costs 30pts and has an Ion cannon and 2 pulse pistols

Dermrig artillery teams may replace there Ion cannon can be replaced with one of the options below.

• Railgun (limited to one per squad) 40pts
• Any two missiles (Seeking, Air defence, Barrage) 5pts
• Charged ion blaster 5pts
• Twin-linked missile pod free

The Dermrig artillery squad may equip its members with any amount of wargear from this list.

• Photon grenades 1pt per model
• EMP grenades 3pts per model
• Blacksun filter 3pts


Its starting to feel a bit lonely here. were did everybody go?

Thanksgiving in the USA means that some people get very busy about now.

For the DS defence missile, is it just that it Kills the unit on a 3+? If so that is very powerful. why does it have a profile then? What if it was just part of the Rules for the Skyray instead of being a missile. For example:

A Skyray can be equipped with a Defensive Interceptor Missile System (DIMS). Any unit attempting to deep strike that the Skyray has line of sight to (After the Scatter roll) takes D6-1 S6 AP6 hits, as the interceptor missiles pummel the target on the way down.

I like the blast missile, but maybe AP5 for GEQ killing? AP6 is fine too. Sky ray has 6 missiles right? what about a super powerful missile that takes up 2 missile slots. Like S8 AP3 Ordinance Blast?

Fluff wise, I thought that Fire warrior squads always standard weapons, ie. they did not special weapon carriers. Not saying that should not be changed, but what if as an alternative, the unit has drones that carry the heavier weapons. You can have either a Plasma/Targeter drone, and a Fusion/Targeter drone?

I like the Demurig weapon team, but I though that the Demurig were actually good in assault? Maybe Ws3 instead of 2 to differentiate them from tau a bit more.

I think that the Evade Evade! stuff will just take play testing to work out, I am not sure exactly what would make it the best. Do you have a game with this list lined up?

Want to but exams are taking up everyone time round here. all my mates can get driven it to exams but i need to stay at school all day. very boring and no one to talk to except my text books.

I dont know anything about Dermig background so I made the stats based on the idea that 'they had taken up the tau phelosphy of cc is bad'

Maybe the DIMS or ADMs or what ever they could be called are overpowered. reduce the hit chance to 4+ and remove the penilty on the chart and they are ok but as you said, they could take damage after they have landed to represent the incoming fire. They have a profile because they can still be used to shoot at ground units, but you will find that anti air stuff is not so good when being used no ground tatgets.
The reason I had them as missiles was so they could be equiped to any tau tank under the 0-2 missile thing.

The missile could be Ap5 but dont want to be to op. one of my friends rants about this kind of thing. thinks its a sin to make stuff thats not cannon.

I think the charged ion blaster is overpowered.....
5 points on the heavy team for range 36" heavy 5 wounding MEQs on 2's and no save?

I would make it more points.

well, thats what its designed to kill. I was thinking about the strenth thu when i was designing it. The thing is, you wont see it on anything other than vechales. Go ahead and tell other tank guns that arent that strong

Predator Missiles

Current Traits of the Tau Seeker Missiles.

Expensive Cost 10 points per missile and 10 points per Markerlight upgrade

Expendable(One use)

2 Rolls to hit one with markerlight one with missile.

Currently have to be mounted to vehicles hull *maximum two per vehicle

Krak missile stats *Except unlimited range

Seeker missiles are expensive for the tau army and are expendable, which makes them not very attractive to take. Other armies with missile launchers use one person firing a krak missile. These armies are able to fire multiple krak missiles through out the game and especially good against multiple wound toughness 4 models. Take a marine tactical squad for example who gain a ML free when the reach 10 marines in the squad. They gain a heavy weapon capable of firing every round. The standard range of Missile Launchers in armies is 48". Seeker missiles are unlimited from their location, but are restricted by a markerlights 36" range.

I suggest Tau gain the ability to upgrade one model in a particular unit to gain access to the a Naval Strike Markerlight. This marker light would allow for the launch of a seeker missile from a low orbiting craft on the designated target. The in-game operation would remain similar to a normal seeker missile. The special markerlight would use the operators BS to hit. The seeker missile would resolve wounds as normal but vehicles it hits on the vehicles top armor value due to deployment from a aerial craft, which equals its side armor *like barrage weapons pg. 60 rulebook.

It strengths the fluff of Tau displaying their superiority and massive naval role in their army bringing air caste roles into the fight more.

In game grants the infantry the ability of heavy weapons with out carrying any heavy weapon, which is the tau way of war.

so you are saying that seekers should be changed to a troop weapon. Thats what it is but you can choose to get a missile or a + to a stat. Isent the old way better? what are you trying to say?

Ledabot wrote:so you are saying that seekers should be changed to a troop weapon. Thats what it is but you can choose to get a missile or a + to a stat. Isent the old way better? what are you trying to say?

I feel they need to change markerlights in general, but make the markerlight that only team leaders get more worth it. Right now their markerlights do not benefit their squad. So the big use for them is to launch a seeker missile. I just believe that the seeker missile should not cost 10 points a missile and have other restrictions, such as expendable and roll another die to hit with a BS of 5. It makes it a long process and not very attractive to take if you waste points for expendable krak missiles that you need to Hit twice once at 36" Heavy range and then again on a 2+, then you roll to wound. The Special markerlight would need to be taken at a price just for the team leader and possible require a squad size before it becomes available. I think it would work nicely in a static Tau gun line. The seeker missiles expandability would diminish with the fluff of them being launched from a low orbiting naval ship, which would be carrying a large payload of missiles.

I don't particularly mind this idea. I think it could be useful. Let's change Fire Warrior Team Leader markerlights thusly -

"One member of a Fire Warrior squad may be upgraded to a Shas'ui Team Leader for 10 points. He gains access to Infantry Wargear section, and may take items from there. He may also buy a Naval Bombardment Markerlight for 15 points."

15 is an arbitrary number. Based on the information I'm about to provide for naval bombardment, I like 15 points as the cost.

-Added to Infantry Wargear -

"Naval Bombardment Markerlight.

Fire Warrior Teams may be equipped with a special markerlight to designate high-priority targets that cannot be taken out with conventional pulse weaponry. With the Tau restriction on carrying heavy arms in infantry units. it has been decided that giving Fire Warriors that are either isolated, serving as advance units, or are operating without proper support a more effective chance of dealing with threats would be otherwise impossible to deal with. This weapon has the same statline as a markerlight (36" range, no str or ap, heavy 1), and has a built-in target lock. If the user hits with a markerlight target, the attack is resolved at BS 5, Str 8 Ap 3, Barrage, Large Blast."

Alternatively a regular seeker missile, maybe 10 points then.

EDIT: I suggested the blast because the Tau are severely lacking in good blast weaponry, and the BS should be high due to the targeting system (but not fool-proof). A restriction on the number of times this could be done would be nice (maybe 2 shots per markerlight in the army), and you shouldn't be able to use markerlights to improve the BS of the firer.

I like the idea of "Evade! Evade!", but as it is listed in your link, it is insanely overpowered. I think a Leadership test should be required, and even then, it shouldn't be a full fallback move. And you list that if they still get caught, they go in I1. Well, most of Tau is I2, so big whoopity-do. Everything goes before you anyway. I really don't think there is anyway to fix that rule.

Love it

Hey kk, good to see you still working on the fandex/ideas for the Tau. I had a version of what you call the evade, evade rule in my fandex. I balanced the rule by allowing only units that had remained stationary in the prior turn to be able to make use of the voluntary fallback in any direction move. Also, once the unit had made such move they were to be treated as a unit falling back inall ways and would have to roll to regroup.

Hope this helps

While i was playing today, my opponents deamon prince spent the whole game jumping between combats with his wings and lash and fleet and dumb stuff like that. there was no way to kill him inbetween combats because most of the combats finished in my turn with my squad dead and he would consoladate a good deal towards his next target, meaning their was no possable way to escape his wrath. The intire game was ruled by one prince because i could not kill him while he was in cc. Evade evade is not broken, it just makes the troops behave like any troops would do in real life and try not to get smacked by a giant monster.

Ledabot wrote:While i was playing today, my opponents deamon prince spent the whole game jumping between combats with his wings and lash and fleet and dumb stuff like that. there was no way to kill him inbetween combats because most of the combats finished in my turn with my squad dead and he would consoladate a good deal towards his next target, meaning their was no possable way to escape his wrath. The intire game was ruled by one prince because i could not kill him while he was in cc. Evade evade is not broken, it just makes the troops behave like any troops would do in real life and try not to get smacked by a giant monster.

hearing this i can see that they do need evade evade but if we could change the rules to say..... an order, they have to get the order from their shas'ui if the order passes then they get to move the 2d6 directly away from the enemy, and by order i mean a ld test so they would have to pass a ld test of an 8.

idk thats just personal thoughts becasue those 2d6 every time would be over kill, but they do need something better than what they have right now and thats my 2 cents

Denying the enemy the ability to assault is something that strikes me as bad game design.

I'd prefer deadlier shooting to some ability to dodge melee.

Jack

I agree that Tau should not be given a way "out" of melee. They should be given better tools to slow down armies to prevent melee, though.

All Tau need are improved pinning techniques that work even if the enemy is fearless. Or ways to restrict/slow enemy movement.

Slowing the enemy down is essentially similar to giving Tau weapons more or better shots, but less effective at actually efficiently breaking/destroying enemy units.

Given the choice I'd prefer more (effective) shots.

Jack

I have nothing wrong with Tau being more effective at actually destroying enemy units.

Problem, though, is that with enemies being able to get into melee from across the board by turn 2, if Tau are to be effective enough to kill those units before they reach Tau lines, then Tau should be able to kill melee units in 1-2 turns. That's no fun for anyone and too good, imo.

Slowing enemy movement and causing pinning would require strategy/target priority and complement Tau's movement superiority.

The majority of units in the game can break (and often completely destroy) a unit of firewarriors in a single game turn, why shouldn't firewarriors be able to manage the same over two shooting phases?

Too many units are either immune to pinning or not slowed reliable by difficult terrain.

I feel like charging units of firewarriors across open ground should be a bad idea for most units, and I hope any newer version of them achieve this.

Jack

The problem I have with tau is deep striking. The only ways I can see to beat them are:

1. Give tau a good assault unit.
2. Give tau an anti-assault special rule
3. Give tau a way to stop deep striking.

#3

Have units that can shoot at deepstriking units while they are deepstriking.

Or pay points for "air superiority"-traited Special Character, which gives an increased danger to all enemy deepstriking units as a deterrent.

Rather then getting to blast Deepstrikers for free (which we've seen no one likes with mystics) I'd prefer something like the jamming beacon from the LS Storm on a few units (perhaps a standard vehicle upgrade?); anything which deepstrikes within 6 or 12 inches must re-roll hits and scatters double the distance shown or some such.

Jack

Or a command vehicle with a piece of wargear that prohibits deepstriking within a certain radius (12"?)...

I've been thinking about pulse carbines for a while now. There just doesn't seem to be much reason to take them.

So why not really change them into something that makes you really thinking between choosing at 30' pulse rifle with the 15' rapid fire and a carbine?

Carbines traditionaly were designed for to be smaller than the rifles, meant for close quarters work and not be so bulky. Thus, an assault status. However, because they were smaller, they didn't have the accuracy or range of a full assault rifle. Hence, the 18' status. So far, we're good to go. But since Tau don't assault, no one ever chooses it. Pulse rifle is the standard.

Why not use them for real suppression work? Increase the rate of fire on them, decrease the power of it and give it a modified pinning rule that actually has a good chance of pinning something.

For instance


Pulse Carbine 18' S3 Assault 5

Example 1

Each Pulse Carbine in a unit causes a pinning test with each unsaved wound.

Example 2

Pinning: Each wound to an enemy caused by a Pulse Carbine in a unit reduces the leadership of that enemy unit by -1 for purposes of a pinning test.

Throw a limitation of 2-4 pulse carbines per unit and suddely, why would you need "Evade! Evade! Evade!"? Anything that comes within 18' is going to start taking a whole lot of pinning checks which could stop them in the dirt.


"But what about fearless units!?" I hear people cry. Well, you just increased your firepower a great deal by 2 carbines in your unit, it should help with those hoards that are mostly fearless.

Btw, not that I don't like 'Evade, Evade, Evade!'. I think it is snazzy. I just would like to see the carbine get a workout.

Pulse Carbine 18' S5 AP5 Assault 2

Every wound (unsaved or saved) on a unit caused by a Pulse Carbine lowers that unit's assault range by 1'. If a unit's assault range is reduced to 0, that unit can not assault the next turn.

OooooOO I like that one too.

Jackmojo wrote:Denying the enemy the ability to assault is something that strikes me as bad game design.

I'd prefer deadlier shooting to some ability to dodge melee.

Jack

It depends on what you want to happen in the game.

At the moment the rules say whenever an enemy contacts one of your FW, all the rest rush in to help fight in melee, although they can't. This is the primary reason the FW are rubbish.

IMO it's bad game design to create an army, the point of which is that they don't engage in melee, then force them to engage in melee, and to make melee the most decisive part of the game.

Evade! Evade! works as a special rule that is only available to Tau, so no other army can evade from melee. This preserves the Tau's difference to everyone else. It doesn't give them overpowered shooting (though there are other places in the codex where I propose improved shooting) but it does stop any assault army from getting an automatic win against Tau. It forces the assault player to think a bit and use tactics to trap the Tau where he can assault them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You need to keep in mind that Tau are absolutely the worst army in the game at melee, and they aren't the best at shooting, yet all other armies which rely on assault also have some effective shooting too.

I will first admit, being rather new to 40k in general. Tau being the first army I had picked up, and though it is difficult, I do enjoy the feel of how they play. Though it seams like there is only 1 way to play them if you want to win.

When I was reading the codex there was the ideas of the different caste, and I enjoyed the structure to it. I think if they were to incorporate it somehow, that would be kinda fun, and maybe give it some different play style.

Water Caste are referred to as the diplomats and could represent that with bonuses
to other races.

Ethereal (Water Caste)
Points - 150
-All Kroot and Vespid Units taken receive an additional +2 leadership (max 10)
-Kroot receive Furious Charge
-Vespid may replace there Neutron Blaster with a Flamer/Fusion Blaster/Burst cannon
-The Ethereal may take a guard of 2 Krootox Riders

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Known typically as the transports of the Tau, Big Ships and Airspace combat. Support from
above would be the idea.

Ethereal (Air Caste)
Points - 150
-May Deapstrike Tanks and Broadsides
-Counts has having an extra 10 Seeker missiles
-Maybe given an Ordanance weapon of some sort

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Warriors, and Fighters of the Tau.

Ethereal (Fire Caste)
Points - 150
-Firewarriors and Battlesuits are given an additional 1BS
-"Thunder hammer" rules for the staff

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earth Caste are known as the builders, this could be shown with upgrades
and tougher vehicles

Ethereal (Earth Caste)
Points - 150
-Advanced Link Node - Stealth Suits Count as a Troop Choice
-All Vehicles receive a +1 armor to all sides
-Can repair a Wrecked or below status on a roll of 4+

Of course you would only be allowed one Ethereal leader per army, and all effects would last only as long
as the Ethereal remains in play.

You have your fluff mixed up, ethereals are their own caste (Celestial).

Jack

Jackmojo wrote:You have your fluff mixed up, ethereals are their own caste (Celestial).

Jack

thus is true. however they could be liable to take a retune from one of the castes, kinda like the gk fella.

easy fix

Wow, the caste idea is a really good idea.

I was thinking the other day, why don’t stealth suits not take say three fusion blasters? They would become awesome infiltrating tank poppers.

Infiltrate. Move six. Pop a transport spilling the troops. Jump back out of assault range. now they have taken out a metal box, left the slow troops at the mercy of long range fire and given the railguns better options so that they don’t have to target the annoying transports and can focus on raiders and russes ect.

Just replying to this after our discussion at Platinum Devil the other day. For my two cents worth, I'd suggest...

* The Ethereal seems good in your list - I'd allow him to take Advisors, as per an IG Command Squad. These could be Earth, Water or Air Caste, as well as Honour Guard, and give different advantages to the army, which would be a good way fo making use of the fluff. Essentially, the Ethereal is not a combat unit but a strategic upgrade.

* I would move Pathfinders to TROOPS, with a restriction of maximum one for every FW squad. I find that there is simply too much in the Fast Attack option that I want (escpecally considering the FW units below). Pathfinders should be more integrated into armies, and would give a handy 'extra option' Troops choice.

* Inclusion of Remora Drone Fighters (as skimmers), Heavy Gun Drones, and Hazard Suits from the FW range.

* Lose the concept of 'Networked' Markerlights - ALL Markerlights fire at the start of the shooting phase, then everything else fires - essentially a little Markerlight Phase. Any unit can use any markerlight in their 'regular' shooting phase.

* Reduce the cost of Marker Drones, maybe make Markerlights Assault rather than Heavy.


The idea of all this was to make Markerlights the Tau's 'special rule', much like DE Pain Tokens, Tyranid Synapse or IG Orders. The Tau would have access to lots more Markerlights, which are effectively all networked. This gives them a huge and unique shooting boost without doing something boring (like BS4). It also helps translates the 'mutual support' ethic of the Tau onto the tabletop.

ArbitorIan wrote:Just replying to this after our discussion at Platinum Devil the other day. For my two cents worth, I'd suggest...

* The Ethereal seems good in your list - I'd allow him to take Advisors, as per an IG Command Squad. These could be Earth, Water or Air Caste, as well as Honour Guard, and give different advantages to the army, which would be a good way of making use of the fluff. Essentially, the Ethereal is not a combat unit but a strategic upgrade.

* I would move Pathfinders to TROOPS, with a restriction of maximum one for every FW squad. I find that there is simply too much in the Fast Attack option that I want (especially considering the FW units below). Pathfinders should be more integrated into armies, and would give a handy 'extra option' Troops choice.

* Inclusion of Remora Drone Fighters (as skimmers), Heavy Gun Drones, and Hazard Suits from the FW range.

* Lose the concept of 'Networked' Marker lights - ALL Marker lights fire at the start of the shooting phase, then everything else fires - essentially a little Marker light Phase. Any unit can use any marker light in their 'regular' shooting phase.

* Reduce the cost of Marker Drones, maybe make Marker lights Assault rather than Heavy.


The idea of all this was to make Marker lights the Tau's 'special rule', much like DE Pain Tokens, Tyranid Synapse or IG Orders. The Tau would have access to lots more Marker lights, which are effectively all networked. This gives them a huge and unique shooting boost without doing something boring (like BS4). It also helps translates the 'mutual support' ethic of the Tau onto the tabletop.

Brilliant! It does seem strange that tau don’t have any special rule that is unique to them. Marker lights would also mean that seekers and variants that we have come up with will need a definite boost. I was playing a game today and I found that my pathfinders attracted massive fire and just had to take it as they couldn’t move as long as I wanted to use them. assault would fix this easy and the 36" range would mean that they could keep a safe distance the entire time.

Not so hot on the heavy gun drones. bit of a dumb idea from FW imho. Hazards look mean but the current choice of weapons and systems makes them seem a bit odd when I read the articles. No tau earth chase scientist would allow weapons that could harm the firer. It says this in the plasma rifle blurb thing.

Ledabot wrote:Brilliant! It does seem strange that tau don’t have any special rule that is unique to them. Marker lights would also mean that seekers and variants that we have come up with will need a definite boost. I was playing a game today and I found that my pathfinders attracted massive fire and just had to take it as they couldn’t move as long as I wanted to use them. assault would fix this easy and the 36" range would mean that they could keep a safe distance the entire time.

Not so hot on the heavy gun drones. bit of a dumb idea from FW imho. Hazards look mean but the current choice of weapons and systems makes them seem a bit odd when I read the articles. No tau earth chase scientist would allow weapons that could harm the firer. It says this in the plasma rifle blurb thing.

Yeah, this all comes from a conversation I had with Killkrazy at the weekend.

I'm assuming here that the Devilfish drops in points quite a lot, but the idea of Pathfinder Troops that either have Assault weapons, or maybe get a free Markerlight shot in their scout move, at a reduced overall points, would free up a lot of the tactical options across the whole codex. Possibly also some upgrade that means that it's beneficial for the Pathfindrs to stay near their Devilfish - I always thought that the regular tactic of using the Pathfinder Devilfish to transport your FW units as soon as their Scout move is over was kinda missing the point....

I was only suggesting that regular XV9 Hazard suits get the move to the main codex. The Gets Hot rule only applies to the 'experimental ammunition' used by Shas'O Ralai in the experimental rules. On the other hand, I like the chronology of the Tau codexes - I could see how the 5ed shows the Tau Empire getting a bit more desparate...

Assault is bad news with Markerlights imo, unless the range on them is reduced to compensate.

How about just dropping FWs cost by a point and making everything BS4? Everyone says how Tau are behind every other codex. Really don't think they are that far back personally, and I think just giving them BS4 (which, as much as i hate to admit it, makes sense for an army that is supposed to be only shooting) makes the army a hell of a lot scarier, as does bringing the FWs in line with other standard troop prices in newer codexes.

Just a couple of points - perhaps instead of Evade, Evade drones could be the sacrificial victim. "If a tau unit contains drones and is charged it may sacrifice the drones for the greater good. The drones stay behind to delay while the rest of the unit breaks voluntarily. Recover morale as normal." This provides a role for drones in units, some pay off for an opponent's charge and the tau can save their units only once in a game. It does not become a cheeze tactic but a survival mechanism of their army.
BTW - detached drones do not provide KP.

My other change is to the burst cannon. It is a what 4 or 5 barrel pulse carbine in effect, give it 4 or 5 shots. That will make it a viable weapon choice for XV8 and Piranhas, improve the vehicle mounts and make Stealth Suits nasty.
6 stealth suits generating 30 shots more concentrated fire than a full fire warrior squad and 3 XV8's may be able to punch through tougher armor but can't come close to the sheer weight of fire.

Firewarriors do not need cost reduction and for sure not BS 4. Give them free defensive grenades and include the squad leader for free. Make markerlight technology more prevalent in the army and easier to use. Markerlights can be a good core to set the Tau apart from how other armies work. Individually a tau firewarrior sucks - get him 4 or so markerlights though and suddenly they are BS 5 and reducing cover saves to 6++.

vishra wrote:Assault is bad news with Markerlights imo, unless the range on them is reduced to compensate. How about just dropping FWs cost by a point and making everything BS4?

You're probably right about Assault Markerlights being a bit OP. The point with BS4 is that, although it improves their shooting, it doesn't neccesarily make them 'feel' different to, say, a MechVets guard army. The Markerlight thing sets Tau apart from other forces in the way they play - it can be used to effectively give them BS4, but it can be used for other things as well, and it depends upon one unit supporting the other.

DAaddict wrote:Just a couple of points - perhaps instead of Evade, Evade drones could be the sacrificial victim. "If a tau unit contains drones and is charged it may sacrifice the drones for the greater good. The drones stay behind to delay while the rest of the unit breaks voluntarily. Recover morale as normal." This provides a role for drones in units, some pay off for an opponent's charge and the tau can save their units only once in a game. It does not become a cheeze tactic but a survival mechanism of their army.
BTW - detached drones do not provide KP.

My other change is to the burst cannon. It is a what 4 or 5 barrel pulse carbine in effect, give it 4 or 5 shots. That will make it a viable weapon choice for XV8 and Piranhas, improve the vehicle mounts and make Stealth Suits nasty.
6 stealth suits generating 30 shots more concentrated fire than a full fire warrior squad and 3 XV8's may be able to punch through tougher armor but can't come close to the sheer weight of fire.

Firewarriors do not need cost reduction and for sure not BS 4. Give them free defensive grenades and include the squad leader for free. Make markerlight technology more prevalent in the army and easier to use. Markerlights can be a good core to set the Tau apart from how other armies work. Individually a tau firewarrior sucks - get him 4 or so markerlights though and suddenly they are BS 5 and reducing cover saves to 6++.

I can see things happening if there is a move to give all factions there own special rules, and it will be eather something to help agenst assult (evade evade) or something that inporves shooting (markerlight) I think that although stealths would be ausome with 4 or 5 shots, they still need to be able to take other weapions. they can take 1 fusion balster now but that is rubbish. It would be necery to take as meny as possable if there goal is to infultrate and pop transport before they can be moved.

BS4 is cool but what would be the point if you get heeps of markerlights? If they were assult, the rule would be a visable stratergy. they would be as they are now if they were on units without jet packs.

BS4 for Tau units (as opposed to alien auxiliary) is fine by me, especially if its part of a complete re-write of the marker light functionality, which I'd like to see.

Jack

Jackmojo wrote:BS4 for Tau units (as opposed to alien auxiliary) is fine by me, especially if its part of a complete re-write of the marker light functionality, which I'd like to see.

Jack

I think we are a bit stuck inside the box. Why not have both!

Look for markerlights to follow a similar mechanic to the DE pain tokens in the next coded. Ex: Enemy unit with one marker token will allow eligible Tau units to fire upon them with a +1 to BS, two marker tokens will suffer -1 to cover save and allow the bs boost, Three marker tokens will allow for refills to wound and the BS bonus and coversave reduction. Additionally the markers will lower the marked units leadership by a number equal to the number of marker tokens in the turn they unit is marked. Same mechanic for Seekers.

As to assault markers? Range 18"-24" sounds about right.

Under these conditions the Pathfinders would need to stay FA. To do otherwise would be OP.

With these changes most Tau units and weapons would only mild tweaking and wargear rules streamlining/clean up. Things like grenades as standard equip and burst cannons getting range 24" or become assault 4....one or the other, not both.

I have other wishes but these I've mentioned would go a long way to bringing the Tau up to speed. Oh yeah, look for the pulse carbines to be able to get a buyable emp upgrade similar to the DE Scourges Haywire blaster

Later

Edit: spelling errors.

I'm still a fan of Tau having "Targeting computers" as an army wide rule for Tau. All it would do is give the old "Sharpshooters" doctrine, allowing a reroll on 1's. Not as good as BS4, but still an improvement to shooting.

I like the idea of getting a Shas'ui for free. That's ALMOST a decrease of one ppm for max sized units, but for the three squads of FW I take, I can think of some nice things to spend 30 pts on...

I agree with the idea that markerlights should be the focus of Tau armies - either through use on Drones, Pathfinders, or Guns on FW leaders.

I agree with much of the above post by ArbitorIan, and think they should fire before everything (Pathfinders, or other units with multiple guns can only fire one) first, and that, for the most part, the effects can remain mostly the same (take out target priority).

And let's consider that most 5th edition codexes have their own special thing that sets them apart -

IG - Orders
DE - Power from Pain
Tyranids - Synapse, Instinctive Behavior, Shadow in the Warp
Marines - Tactics, Squads, ATSKNF
Tau - Markerlights boosting everything

Feels good to me. Units work together to negate cover, improve BS, remove night-fighting or reduce LD. Used intelligently with multiple markerlights, you can easily bring down withering firepower against most foes.

Cool updates. Instead of 'evade evade' which i am afraid i am not a fan of. I just came up with....
'Photon Flash': Tau fire warriors and Pathfinders have quickly learned that the hostile forces beyond the Sept are barbaric and well versed in hand to hand combat. Concordently they have adopted new tactics to adapt. Deploying focused magnesium photon emitters just before assault has thus far proved highly effective at blunting many enemy assaults.
When assaulted by an enemy unit each tau may take a free 'shot' at their ballistic skill (can be augmented by gadgets etc..) for every successful 'hit', one of the assaulting models loses an Attack on the turn they charged (to a minimum of 1 per model).
Sorry it's a bit long but i liked it the more i thought about it.
Another idea, this is a bit of unbalancer, is to maybe have a 'free' (in the FOC sense) battlesuit for each full firewarrior/pathfinder squad you field. He can be deployed on his own or form combined units with other BS' purchased this way.

Perkustin wrote:Cool updates. Instead of 'evade evade' which i am afraid i am not a fan of. I just came up with....
'Photon Flash': Tau fire warriors and Pathfinders have quickly learned that the hostile forces beyond the Sept are barbaric and well versed in hand to hand combat. Concordently they have adopted new tactics to adapt. Deploying focused magnesium photon emitters just before assault has thus far proved highly effective at blunting many enemy assaults.
When assaulted by an enemy unit each tau may take a free 'shot' at their ballistic skill (can be augmented by gadgets etc..) for every successful 'hit', one of the assaulting models loses an Attack on the turn they charged (to a minimum of 1 per model).

I'm guessing you don't play Tau.

The above would actually be worse for the Tau army. Why? Because all it would do is ensure our units don't die the turn they are assaulted, but they will most definitely die during our assault phase. Which means our army doesn't get to shoot at the unit during our turn and the enemy can charge safely again during his. This is bad.

Tau need a way to either:

1) Slow down enemies from getting into CC or
2) Escape CC once initiated or
3) Punish CC enemies (with casualties) for getting into CC with Tau units or
4) Be more shooty and kill CC units before they can get close.

We do not need a way to be better in CC.

TheRedArmy wrote:
Tau - Markerlights boosting everything

Yep, although I'm very much of the mind that we need not be married to the current implementation of them. My personal suggestion is for all tau units to be able to aid other units in various passive ways, i.e. any unit firing at a unit already shot by firewarriors in the current phase counts its shooting as twin-linked or similar.

ObiFett wrote:
1) Slow down enemies from getting into CC or
2) Escape CC once initiated or
3) Punish CC enemies (with casualties) for getting into CC with Tau units or
4) Be more shooty and kill CC units before they can get close.

Indeed, and I'd want most of the focus on 4, with smattering of 1.

Jack

Jackmojo wrote:

TheRedArmy wrote:
Tau - Markerlights boosting everything

Yep, although I'm very much of the mind that we need not be married to the current implementation of them. My personal suggestion is for all tau units to be able to aid other units in various passive ways, i.e. any unit firing at a unit already shot by firewarriors in the current phase counts its shooting as twin-linked or similar.

ObiFett wrote:
1) Slow down enemies from getting into CC or
2) Escape CC once initiated or
3) Punish CC enemies (with casualties) for getting into CC with Tau units or
4) Be more shooty and kill CC units before they can get close.

Indeed, and I'd want most of the focus on 4, with smattering of 1.

Jack

Indeed Indeed. they wont do 2 because they alread have hit and run, which fails since they have low I.

3 is still a posabilty That is more of the "failsafe drone" method which I dout they would do.

I agree with most things said here. Tau, being a solely shooting army, having a worse BS than other armys or the same BS seems rather unfair on us.

If we don't have our BS upped to four, then markerlights need to be redone well, and i agree with the "markerlight phase" that someone said where you could fire markerlight before other shooting and then reap the benefits on the same turn.

Also the "sacrificial drones" idea sounds quite good in my head, and it would give people another reason to take the little guys, however if we are going to do that idea, we would need a special type of drone, maybe a "Delayer Drone" which projects an illusion of the squad so the enemy charges them and finds that the squad has already fallen back and they kill a drone. However they should cost maybe 15 points and there would be a maximum of one per squad maybe?

Tau should be shooty....

but there'sno reason there can'tbe one unit that's good in close combat....a mercenary they hire...a special suit they build....something. Not to change their nature...but to give them a specialization unit.

Three words from Fantasy:
Stand
And
Shoot.

How does that work, for those of us who don't play WHFB?

Shenra wrote:Tau should be shooty....

but there'sno reason there can'tbe one unit that's good in close combat....a mercenary they hire...a special suit they build....something. Not to change their nature...but to give them a specialization unit.

Not even that, they just have too improve kroot, say give them a 5 up save in combat, and give them furious charge and WS4 or something, make them worth taking for defo?

And yeah, although i quite like the drone idea because at least that is still WH 40K ish


Automatically Appended Next Post:
New Tau Codex Ideas.

ETHEREAL IMPROVEMENTS:

• Introduce an ethereal caste retinue system, or basically have an ethereal be able to take a retinue from a particular caste, e.g Air, Water. This retinue grants the Ethereal abilities that are suited to that class, e.g a Fire caste retinue would give some bonuses to Fire warriors and crisis suits.
Caution: All stat bonuses only count whilst the ethereal is on the field. If the ethereal is removed as a casualty of killed, then all stats go back to normal (this excludes units counting as a different section in your FoC, this is permenant).

Unit costs will be something like Air Caste > Fire Caste > Earth Caste > Water Caste.

Possible bonuses include:

AIR CASTE (The pilots and suppliers caste) (Retinue = 1 Devilfish with Burst Cannon Drones)

- Broadside teams can deep strike.
- (1 use only) In your shooting phase, an Ethereal can call a Pulse Beam Orbital Strike upon a marked enemy unit with the profile: Str: 8 AP: 2 Ordnance Large Blast 2. (If unit is marked more than 2 times, the attack doesn’t scatter).
- (1 use only) At the beginning of your movement phase, all tanks in your army can move 12” and fire all weapons, both offensive and defensive, this includes “Heavy” weapons.

EARTH CASTE (The crafters and builders caste) (Retinue = 2 Heavy Gun Drones)

- All vehicles front, side and rear armour gains a +1 bonus (Max of 13)
- Sniper Drone Teams count as troop choices or Heavy Support.
- Once per turn, any vehicle in the Ethereal’s LoS can attempt to repair an Immobilised or Weapon Destroyed result, or get rid of a Shaken or Stunned result on a 4+ dice roll.

WATER CASTE (The diplomats and negotiator caste) (Retinue = 2 Krootox riders)

- All Kroot and Vespid units in the army gain an additional +2 leadership (Max of 10)
- Kroot gain Furious Charge special rule.
- Kroot and Vespid units gain +1WS.
- If Kroot Squad has a Shaper attached to them, then the armour save bonus upgrade is a 4+ at a cost of 2 pts per model, instead of a 5+.

FIRE CASTE (The warriors and fighters caste) (Retinue = 4 Hardened Fire Warriors +1BS and +1Sv)

- Warriors and Crisis suits have +1BS.
- (1 turn only) Ability to make all markerlight hits count as 2 for the purpose of calculating benefits. However at the end of the turn this is used, all existing markerlight hits on units are erased.


MARKERLIGHTS:

• Introduction of a new “Markerlight Phase” which happens before the actual shooting phase starts and after the movement phase. All markerlights targets are designated and fired before shooting starts, then the units firing at the squads that have been marked get to reap the benefits on the same turn.
• Markerlight benefits are looked at; e.g
1 marker - +1BS.
2 markers – Cover saves -1.
3 markers – Shots become pinning.
4+ markers – Re-rolls to hit target unit.
• Make marker drones cost less points, and improve them to BS4, as if to say that they have advances targeting systems or something installed.

Warrior Evasion Tactics?

- Stand and Shoot fantasy rule adapted and given to Tau Fire Warriors and maybe Crisis Suits?
- “Hologram Drone” projects a hologram of the unit to a charging enemy unit. The unit with a Hologram Drone makes a 2D6 Fall Back move with no regroup needed. The Drone stays behind and resolves the assault with the charging unit, at 1 initiative.

Kroot Improvements.

- Kroot given a 5+ save in combat.
- Kroot Profile looks like:
- WS - BS - S - T - W - I - A - Ld - Sv
- 4 3 4 4 1 4 1 7 - (5+ in combat)
- Kroot upgraded to 9 points, and keep the “Fieldcraft” and “infiltrate” rules from the old codex.

- Kroot Shaper is at +14 pts, has the same profile as above, however it has 3 wounds and Leadership 8. With a shaper in a Kroot squad, the Kroot can get a 5+ armour save for +2 pts each (Ethereal bonus improves this).

I want those point defense drones now. And the evade evade rule. Rapid fire should be Errata/Faq'd by GW to be 1/2 the range of the weapon OR 12 inches, whichever is greater.

One thing I though about was changing the Pulse rifle to an increasing assault weapon. A1 at 30 inches, A2 at 24, A3 at 18 inches, A4 at 12 inches, A5 at 6 inches. 12 guys pumping out strength 5 ap 5 shots at that increasing metric would deter assault, The closer they get, the more shots come down at them. Bringing back the gunline

Thinking about 6 x 12 firewarrior squads shooting like that brings a smile to my face. And most importantly, Space Marines would know fear.

There are some good ideas in this thread. I'm wondering how the latest codex, DE, might give us any insights into a future Tau codex, seeing as how Phil Kelly is most likely going to be the next one writing it (based on the 18 months to do a codex theory, and with BT/DA getting knocked down the 'needs a codex badly' list). Only competition would be Eldar, I guess. CSM needs a new codex, but that's not because the old one is bad; it's just boring as heck. Part of why I could see Phil being put on this the DE are relatively similar in their variety (multiple significantly different statlines and troops in the same army, ie warriors vs wych vs wrack as troops). This year is Necron/DH - next year, WH & Tau possibly?

Guesses based on things in recent codecii, including DE:
Grenades - Tau will get free photon grenades. Sorry, just the way it is.
Expect to see a Stormtrooper/Trueborn type elite FW squad (BS4, Ld9 for the sarge), with more access to special drones.
Kroot will get Stealth, maybe move thru cover...Shapers could become 1-3 per FOC, or remain a upgrade. No way will they keep their current overcosted way - they will either become chosen like Sanguinary Priests/Haemonculi, with wargear options (some type of rending weapon, most likely), or just a simple sarge upgrade. If they are chosen like Haemis, I expect they will get infiltrate for the squad.
Still plenty of restricted/special wargear, as Phil clearly has no problem with 0-1 limits per army.
Fliers (duh) - not just on the current rumor that everyone gets them, but because there will be few new models for the Tau - so clearly some new tank sized kit will need to come out to keep those tank sized $50 chunks of cash rolling in. Clearly the Barracuda is the obvious choice.
Disruptor pods - either gone, or 5+ cover save - hard to imagine them staying 4+, and flickerfields are very similar to a 5+ cover save.
Multimode weaponry - like the splinter cannon H6/A4, possibly for markerlights (r18 A1/r36 H1)
Markerlights - focusedfire's view seems plausible, although they could stay more like the previous edition, just with more/cheaper markerlights
Carbine could see drastic improvement, ala DE carbines. It does need it - possibly go up to 2 shots, swap with rifle for +2 points?
Bonding knife for everyone

Not based off DE, just based on gut feeling:
More drone variety - I could definitely see some type of Failsafe drone (s4 AP- small blast, Pinning, maybe reduces pursuit roll (ie just d6, no initiative added). It would be expensive...Marker, sniper, 0-1 stealth drone (gives squad same rules as stealth suits)
Better Skyray - probably with some type of anti-DS option - clearly GW is willing to put anti-DS stuff in Codexes (SW?), and DS is terrible for Tau right now
Ethereal gets a total rework - I could see this becoming like the IG advisors, moreso than the Archon's court

Model wise:
all plastic broadsides - obvious
Barracuda
Tetra? - would make sense, with the small # of kits you would expect with this release
New Vespids, unless they are getting dropped altogether in favor of a different race
New race - possibly as 'counselors', ie archon's court/advisors? - if so, possibly a psyker, but more likely along the lines of regimental advisors
Personally, I would love new crisis suits - I find the old ones chunky and chicken-footed, but to each their own

Just some thoughts, since I do like the little blue guys....

Right i was thinking earlier that the railgun should be the single most devestating gun in the game.

First of im a Ork and Spess mareehns player so this is not bias, Spankhammer will tell ya

My idea for railgun
str10 AP1 Range 72" Heavy 1
Special rules
Draw a straight line from the railgun to its end point (72" away) any model along this line is hit automatically (IC cannot be picked out, unless not part of a unit) No cover, Armour, or Invunerable saves are allowed against a Railgun shot.

if the Shot fails to penetrate armour or wound a model, it imediatly stops

Hammerhead becomes 230pts before upgrades

Unfortunately you can still roll a 1.

Formosa wrote:Right i was thinking earlier that the railgun should be the single most devestating gun in the game.

First of im a Ork and Spess mareehns player so this is not bias, Spankhammer will tell ya

My idea for railgun
str10 AP1 Range 72" Heavy 1
Special rules
Draw a straight line from the railgun to its end point (72" away) any model along this line is hit automatically (IC cannot be picked out, unless not part of a unit) No cover, Armour, or Invunerable saves are allowed against a Railgun shot.

if the Shot fails to penetrate armour or wound a model, it imediatly stops

Hammerhead becomes 230pts before upgrades

even more lethal: make it ordinance...and a way to balance the weapon: roll scatter for the endpoint (where the round hits the ground) it would be normal scatter, so if your aiming directly at a landraider you dont get a free hit, and can actually still miss something essential, otherwise everyone would spam railguns more than they already do...just my nonsensical 2 cents

I would think a more acurate upgrade would just to give it the lance special rule reflecting it really really good penatrating ability.

@Formosa & Jordanis

I strongly disagree with both of the proposed railgun ideas for the following reasons:

1) The drawing a line rule would limit the Railguns range and would reduce its ability for the coordinated pinpoint accuracy that is the basis of the Tau way of war. The profile as suggested would make it very difficult to get clean shots with no cover save on distant tanks and would make early game targeted shots against your opponents backfield a lot harder. Your opponents would layer his forces to where your shot would travel through several infantry units in cover, thus making the shot go through several coversaves before reaching its intended target. With the shot stopping on the first successful coversave.

2)As for the ordinance. IMO, Tau should never get ordinance weapons as to the fact that they are the tools of attrition warfare and by design do long term damage to the enviroment that they are planning to quickly colonize/or return to working. Think of the Tau as the type to use neutron weapons that kill life but does not leave radio-active fallout or destroys infrastructure.

Now I could see the railgun as the ultimate anti-tank weapon that on any AP roll of 4+ two d6 are rolled on the vehicle damage table. Maybe add that the best inv save able to be taken against the railguns S10 AP1 shot is a 5+. Make the submunition shot S6 AP3 and that would be perfect imo.

Edit: addressed individuals

As a budding Tau player. I've only 5 games under my belt as the Tau, and I've seen a few posts asking to buff markerlights. As they are at Heavy 36" These things are devastating my opponents fear them like the plague. Making them assault weapons would indeed put them over the top.

@Thaylan- I agree that range 36" assault 1 markerlights would be op but if the range was reduced to 18" it would be ok.

My personal prefference is that markerlights become range 24" rapidfire.

focusedfire wrote:@Thaylan- I agree that range 36" assault 1 markerlights would be op but if the range was reduced to 18" it would be ok.

My personal prefference is that markerlights become range 24" rapidfire.

On the last pg, someone said that a heavy1 36" or assult 2 18" that would not be so op. taking in your comment, assult 2 12" and heavy 1 36" would be fine.

As I said giving the railgun lance would be a good upgrade that would not be op.

Railguns already kill vehicles left and right w/ little regard for armor facing. Lance would make it ridiculous. As for Markerlights. I wouldn't mind the dual profile. But I find that having a 36" range is the most important part. 18" will ensure that bikes, jetbikes, and cavalry are going to kill me if the markerlgihts don't spell their death.

focusedfire wrote:@Formosa & Jordanis

I strongly disagree with both of the proposed railgun ideas for the following reasons:

1) The drawing a line rule would limit the Railguns range and would reduce its ability for the coordinated pinpoint accuracy that is the basis of the Tau way of war. The profile as suggested would make it very difficult to get clean shots with no cover save on distant tanks and would make early game targeted shots against your opponents backfield a lot harder. Your opponents would layer his forces to where your shot would travel through several infantry units in cover, thus making the shot go through several coversaves before reaching its intended target. With the shot stopping on the first successful coversave.

2)As for the ordinance. IMO, Tau should never get ordinance weapons as to the fact that they are the tools of attrition warfare and by design do long term damage to the enviroment that they are planning to quickly colonize/or return to working. Think of the Tau as the type to use neutron weapons that kill life but does not leave radio-active fallout or destroys infrastructure.

Now I could see the railgun as the ultimate anti-tank weapon that on any AP roll of 4+ two d6 are rolled on the vehicle damage table. Maybe add that the best inv save able to be taken against the railguns S10 AP1 shot is a 5+. Make the submunition shot S6 AP3 and that would be perfect imo.

Edit: addressed individuals

Dude re-read what i posted, i dont mind that you dont like it, like i said its a crazy idea.

1: As to the re-read "IGNORES Cover Armour and invunerable saves" and cannot be used to snipe, so this entire argument is based of an inccorect assumption

2: he didnt mean "Ord, large blast" he just meant "Ord 1" so it uses 2 dice and picks the highest, this is a very good idea i think and would pretty much mean that the Railgun didnt actually need any other rules for poping tanks.

Ledabot wrote:

As I said giving the railgun lance would be a good upgrade that would not be op.

It would be OP, but I think the Tau could use it.


I like the idea of the flamer going to a heavy flamer, but I think the points should be slightly more. Possibly 8/12, because 6 points of a TL Heavy Flamer is ultimate cheese.

Submunissions looks good, it would be ideal against meqs, but if it was ap3 it would get rid of the purpose of ion-heads, so if you made it ap3 I would make the Ion-Cannon free.

I think the railgun should also cause ID, it would give a nice edge against nid-zilla, which is currently fairly hard to play against.


Also, on a side note, the formatting hurts my eyes, and it is kind of hard to read the current article.

Formosa wrote:

focusedfire wrote:@Formosa & Jordanis

I strongly disagree with both of the proposed railgun ideas for the following reasons:

1) The drawing a line rule would limit the Railguns range and would reduce its ability for the coordinated pinpoint accuracy that is the basis of the Tau way of war. The profile as suggested would make it very difficult to get clean shots with no cover save on distant tanks and would make early game targeted shots against your opponents backfield a lot harder. Your opponents would layer his forces to where your shot would travel through several infantry units in cover, thus making the shot go through several coversaves before reaching its intended target. With the shot stopping on the first successful coversave.

2)As for the ordinance. IMO, Tau should never get ordinance weapons as to the fact that they are the tools of attrition warfare and by design do long term damage to the enviroment that they are planning to quickly colonize/or return to working. Think of the Tau as the type to use neutron weapons that kill life but does not leave radio-active fallout or destroys infrastructure.

Now I could see the railgun as the ultimate anti-tank weapon that on any AP roll of 4+ two d6 are rolled on the vehicle damage table. Maybe add that the best inv save able to be taken against the railguns S10 AP1 shot is a 5+. Make the submunition shot S6 AP3 and that would be perfect imo.

Edit: addressed individuals

Dude re-read what i posted, i dont mind that you dont like it, like i said its a crazy idea.

1: As to the re-read "IGNORES Cover Armour and invunerable saves" and cannot be used to snipe, so this entire argument is based of an inccorect assumption

2: he didnt mean "Ord, large blast" he just meant "Ord 1" so it uses 2 dice and picks the highest, this is a very good idea i think and would pretty much mean that the Railgun didnt actually need any other rules for poping tanks.

1) Yes I missed the coversave exception but the concept is still valid. A layered defense would make it more likely that you roll a "1" to wound, before the shot gets to the primary target. Also, there is something counter intuitive to the concept of a fail to wound on an infantry model suddenly stopping a railgun round in its tracks.


2) You might want re-read what Jordanis posted. He talks about scatter which is different than just a second d6 rolled and take the highest.

I'll let you guys get back to the discussion.

I've always had an idea when Shas'o and Shas'el that are equipped with either a Plasma Rifle or Fusion Blaster count their attacks in CC as power weapons, or a slightly more complected rule where they can replace 2 attacks to count as a PW at S6 if equipped with a PR or 1 attack as a PW at S8 if equipped with a FB. This of course representing after years of training being skilled enough to fire their weapons in CC. I wouldn't think this would be too OP and it's nice not being tar-pitted against SM with your awesome commander. Also maybe rules for the other battle suit weapons? I only mentioned PR and FB since they ignore all armor saves when firring.

ObiFett wrote:

Perkustin wrote:Cool updates. Instead of 'evade evade' which i am afraid i am not a fan of. I just came up with....
'Photon Flash': Tau fire warriors and Pathfinders have quickly learned that the hostile forces beyond the Sept are barbaric and well versed in hand to hand combat. Concordently they have adopted new tactics to adapt. Deploying focused magnesium photon emitters just before assault has thus far proved highly effective at blunting many enemy assaults.
When assaulted by an enemy unit each tau may take a free 'shot' at their ballistic skill (can be augmented by gadgets etc..) for every successful 'hit', one of the assaulting models loses an Attack on the turn they charged (to a minimum of 1 per model).

I'm guessing you don't play Tau.

The above would actually be worse for the Tau army. Why? Because all it would do is ensure our units don't die the turn they are assaulted, but they will most definitely die during our assault phase. Which means our army doesn't get to shoot at the unit during our turn and the enemy can charge safely again during his. This is bad.

Tau need a way to either:

1) Slow down enemies from getting into CC or
2) Escape CC once initiated or
3) Punish CC enemies (with casualties) for getting into CC with Tau units or
4) Be more shooty and kill CC units before they can get close.

We do not need a way to be better in CC.

What about allowing Tau to shoot enemies locked in close combat if that enemy is targeted by a markerdrone?

That, is a good idea Shenra.

Devilfish becoming fast vehicles would help the "get out of CC" thing.

It would also be nice if fire warriors could get a failsafe detonator.

but markerlight count as shooting weapons so you couldent fire them at enemys in cc anyway.

... a slight problem

Okay, markerlights can shoot into combat, and they can make other units shoot into combat!

That would be fun. bit iffy that ever happening though.

I'm liking all the suggestions you make in the article. I thought of making a specialized CC suit to solve the CC problem, but the 'Evade!' rule you devised works much better.

More Tau lore is definitely needed, Tau are very different to all the other forces in the game and I would like for the lore to reflect that. I also quite like your ideas for Special Character tank commanders, and BS 4 on Crisis suits is sorely needed.

I think that the Tau don't really have enough heavy weapons available to them in forms other than vehicles and suits, so I suggest having a 'Heavy Fire Warrior Team' as a troops choice. They would cost a bit more than normal fire warriors but will have a lot more options. I'm not sure whether it should work like the IG heavy weapons team or just a Tau Devastator Squad. I would prefer a heavy weapons team as most of their heavy weapons would be too large for a fire warrior to carry.

its nice to see all the lively threads about the Tau, instead of the usual "Tau can't compete so they suck! get rid of them " post I see alot of the time.

And just a few ideas off the top of my head...

Markerlights should never be rapid fire, since it is a laser designator for all intents and purposes, and I don't see a rapid fire setting for something that would need to aquire a lock on.
Keep the 36" range, heck I would love to see something like an increase to 48" myself.
Also let markerlights ignore cover saves ( unless they already do, in which case I have been cheating myself ) as the Tau would have figured out how to use a IR/UV beam or some other invisible spectrum light , since there is no projectile and the operator is merely scanning with the markersystem until he can lock on a target, it would seem cover would not be a factor anymore than armor would be, but I guess the cover save could reflect moving foliage or the target shifting and obscuring the lock momentairly. But just my opinion on this.

Railguns....my favorite
They rock already, and one of the few things tau have that nobody jokes about ( at least where we can see them. ), the only thing I could possibly see as a potential change is perhaps allow a Railgun that would normaly cause ID on a target that has eternal warrior, instead of only causing 1 wound would instead inflict 1d3 , now that would put some fear into those uber IC out in the open !

Tau support Squad:
Maybe a squad simular to the drone sniper squad, where you have a tau with a built in drone controller and 2 special heavy weapon drones, perhaps make the squad 3 tau and 3-6 hev drones, with each drone able to have a different loadout, it would use current fluff and current model designs ( from forgeworld ) also would make for some much needed mid level firesupport.
Just off the top of my head.

hmmm I will keep thinking on more

I have begun work on a experimental Tau artillery system, that we plan to play test over the weekend to see how it works. gotta love the little blue dudes

Marker Lights are not affected by cover saves.

Cover saves are taken against wounds inflicted. Marker lights do not inflict wounds, therefore all cover saves do not work against them.

Not sure if anyone has posted something like this (not read every single post!) but something that disrupts enemy deepstrikers?

Maybe like a drone or piece of wargear that emits an EMP charge or simply shuts down the nav system aboard a drop pod etc.

With all the stupid amount of armies that can get turn 1/2 assaults and/or deepstrike with NO FEAR at all of going astray or even having a mishap we really need something to scare players from just going "Oh, Deepstrike this and that right next to you with no hesitation, game = won"

Maybe something along the lines of:

"Any unit that deepstrikes within 12" of any unit carrying the emitter must scatter 2D6 DIRECTLY AWAY from the unit"

Or - "Unit counts as being in dangerous terrain upon their next assault move"

Deepstriking units have little to fear these days, especially BA (And they are fast enough as it is).

We need a big counter to this.

Castling with a Kroot perimeter prevents drop-podding into any useful melee.

Tau players don't want an "I Win" card, they just want a fair set of rules that compensates for the obvious weaknesses of the codex.

I really like the Evade Evade Special rule, it's a very nice touch that shows the mobility of the Tau. It's something I'd really like to see more in the Tau, but not as much as the Eldar.

The idea of in cooperating Gue'vesa was another really good Idea, I absolutely love it, that's probably because I recently started a Gue'vesa themed Guard army X3.

Kilkrazy wrote:Castling with a Kroot perimeter prevents drop-podding into any useful melee.

Tau players don't want an "I Win" card, they just want a fair set of rules that compensates for the obvious weaknesses of the codex.

Having to take a specific unit (and one that not all Tau players take, albeit I do, I love Kroot) shouldn't be necessary to help us offset the mad drop pod rules that have cropped up lately. A piece of wargear that could be fitted to maybe the HQ only?

Apparently GK will be getting an upgrade that makes any unit Deepstriking within 12" Auto Mishap (Not 100% but seen it on the rumours and has cropped up a lot) and this for an army that will be devastating in CC!!!

It wouldn't be an "I Win" card either. It would simply make the deep strikers think twice before attempting such an easy to pull off tactic.

That solution is the same thing -- a specific unit with a special piece of wargear.

If GK get an item that causes deep striking to mishap, I don't see why Tau shouldn't have one too.

KK, I have a question about your codex. I believe you say Hammerheads have access to all the drones, correct? What would you do with shield drones attached to the hammerhead?

Three options:

1. Nothing. People probably wouldn't bother to take shield drones on vehicles if this were the case. It's easier to allow them to do something pointless than to write more rules to stop them.

2. Grants a 4+ save. (Deldar have got invulnerables for vehicles now, so there is precedent.)

3. Maybe drones can be dismounted and handed over to other units.

Terminators deep strike via teleport
Some Tyranids DS via tunneling
Chaos Daemons warp DS

How would a missile stop any of those?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Formosa wrote:

focusedfire wrote:@Formosa & Jordanis

I strongly disagree with both of the proposed railgun ideas for the following reasons:

1) The drawing a line rule would limit the Railguns range and would reduce its ability for the coordinated pinpoint accuracy that is the basis of the Tau way of war. The profile as suggested would make it very difficult to get clean shots with no cover save on distant tanks and would make early game targeted shots against your opponents backfield a lot harder. Your opponents would layer his forces to where your shot would travel through several infantry units in cover, thus making the shot go through several coversaves before reaching its intended target. With the shot stopping on the first successful coversave.

2)As for the ordinance. IMO, Tau should never get ordinance weapons as to the fact that they are the tools of attrition warfare and by design do long term damage to the enviroment that they are planning to quickly colonize/or return to working. Think of the Tau as the type to use neutron weapons that kill life but does not leave radio-active fallout or destroys infrastructure.

Now I could see the railgun as the ultimate anti-tank weapon that on any AP roll of 4+ two d6 are rolled on the vehicle damage table. Maybe add that the best inv save able to be taken against the railguns S10 AP1 shot is a 5+. Make the submunition shot S6 AP3 and that would be perfect imo.

Edit: addressed individuals

Dude re-read what i posted, i dont mind that you dont like it, like i said its a crazy idea.

1: As to the re-read "IGNORES Cover Armour and invunerable saves" and cannot be used to snipe, so this entire argument is based of an inccorect assumption

2: he didnt mean "Ord, large blast" he just meant "Ord 1" so it uses 2 dice and picks the highest, this is a very good idea i think and would pretty much mean that the Railgun didnt actually need any other rules for poping tanks.

That's 4th Ed. now Ordnance rerolls failed pen.

Tau "heavy fire warriors" sounds really cool. my friend plays Tau, and one of his guys has a plasma rifle that he can fire if he didn't move.
I think that could be expanded on.

Crisis CC suit - maybe modeled after Farsight.

Melta bomb launcher - an upgrade fore firs warriors, allows them to make a melta bomb attack against a vehicle within something like 6-12 inches
OR
at up to 36 inches, small blast template, full scatter (no BS reduction) for say 15-25 points

By rules.

GW can rationalise nearly anything.

"The missile is fitted with a powerful sonic discharger which transmits discordant frequencies that confuse tunneling creatures. "

A Geller Field prevents Daemon incursion.

Some fluffy handwavium.

Etc.

True

I liked a lot of your additions especially the drones.
I Don't know if these were already said so sorry if these are redundant but these are the things i have thought would be nice as a tau player. (also sorry if they are dumb haha)

1. Pulse carbines changed to a dual Stat of 30" assault 1/ 15" assault 2.

2. (i know this'n has been said before but) A unit or ability that would make deep-strikers always scatter at least 1d6.

3. CC battlesuits and enhanced CC abilities for farsight enclaves.

4. Special rules:
--a. Blind To The Warp: Psychic powers that have no damaging effects have no effect on units with this special rule (so things like paroxysm)(idk if this wud be OP but i thought it would reflect
the fluff nicely).
--b. Auxiliaries are Auxiliaries: Auxiliaries are restrained to one unit per one tau unit.
--c. Might be dumb and/or OP but a Special Rule "Duck" where instead of Punching back a squad locked in combat may try and get out of the way while another unit in [Some Range] may fire at
the assaulting unit with I1. any to hits of 1 would hit your own men. The getting out of the way wouldn't get you out of combat i just mean they be trying to lay down and the such.

5. More Auxiliaries something like:
--a. gue'vasa troop choice similar to IG Infantry Platoons but w/out heavy weps and commisars (maybe more tau like equivalents though)(a gue'vasa tank with ion canon-y things would be
awesome)
--b. Gue'vasa Jet pack fast attack squad with tank killin' capabilities and fast attack-y stuff.
--c. Master Shaper HQ choice, Knarloc and some units from the kroot mercs 'dex.
--d. Tarrelians as heavy support mainly meelee choice.
--e. more Vespid flexibility like larvae fast attack or Vespid outcast queen heavy support living tank thing.. idk i don't really like or know much about vespid.

6. Ethereals not as useless
--a. would be cool if they had an inquisitor lord like ability of: anything that deepstrikes within [some range] of him can be appended a free shooting from one of your units.
--b. a commisar "Bring it Down!" like ability but just gives selected unit Twin-Linking action or +1BS on any targeted unit.

7. Pathfinders do not need a Devilfish.

8. XV9's (Fast Attack Battlesuits FTW!) along with A Flechette discharger upgrade for Battlesuits (like shas'O'Rhmyr)

Drone rules -

Drones are no kill point units and can be detached from mother unit.
A tau unit can always chose to fall back based on a Ld test and may forfeit it's drones to the combat. This allows drones to serve the greater good but it also only allows it once for a unit. (e.g. A unit of 10 warriors +2 drones is charged by 10 berzerkers. The Tau choses to fall back, makes it's leadership test and breaks leaving the two drones behind to die. Meanwhile the 10 warriors can regroup and fight on.

+1 to the "Blind to the Warp" (which should go on everything but auxiliaries.)

Not OP in the least...

i'm agreeing with makerlights assault1 R36, because it's like todays "laserpainters" really. if you move you're still going to find time to point and it just doesn't make sense to "paint" something twice with the same "laser", its like going to the bathroom on 2 toilets(sorry that analogy is the only one i can come up with)
EVADE FOR THE WIN!!!

can i use your suggestions as a codex until i find the money to get one?(my internet isn't mine)

la'DunX wrote:i'm agreeing with makerlights assault1 R36, because it's like todays "laserpainters" really. if you move you're still going to find time to point and it just doesn't make sense to "paint" something twice with the same "laser", its like going to the bathroom on 2 toilets(sorry that analogy is the only one i can come up with)

Just "pointing it" at the target won't really help your squadmates, friendly units, or friendly vehicles get an accurate lock on a target though. If you were to compare it to the modern "laserpainters", you'd find that it's not so far off. Many laser designators require a few seconds and a constant 'paint' on the target for heavy ordnance(seeker missiles would fall under this category) to be guided in on target.
That's why it's been a heavy weapon.


Like I mentioned in the other thread though:
Pulse Carbines can be the answer here for the Fire Warriors.

Allow Fire Warrior Teams to have different "loadouts", such as:
'Skirmisher' loadout--The Fire Warriors ditch their Pulse Rifles in favor of Pulse Carbines and Stun Grenades, along with taking a pair of Heavy Gun Drones with them and whatever potential transport they have.

To offset the fact that they have Stun Grenades, the unit comes equipped with Hard-wired Blacksun Filters so they don't blind themselves using their own grenades to disorient and confuse the foe, allowing the Fire Warriors to cut them down with disciplined Carbine Fire and the Heavy Gun Drones' Burst Cannons.

'Hunter' loadout(Standard loadout)--The Fire Warriors come equipped with Pulse Rifles and Photon Grenades along with Marker Drones that supplement their volleys of fire.

Then of course, there's the real kicker of a rule that should have been implemented from the get-go for both Guard and Tau.

"Fire Discipline"--The units are trained to stand their ground, pouring fire on into a charging foe.
During the first round of combat, the unit makes attacks using their standard weapons and utilizing their Ballistic Skill.
In subsequent rounds of combat, the unit can make attacks using their standard weapons but those attacks must be used with their Weapon Skill.

I was very bummed to see that Guyperson5's recent post was a sham, but it had some nice ideas in it. The quoted ideas would allow for many variations to occur in armies, and would force you to choose between two good choices, sort of like what Kanluwen is proposing for Fire Warrior Teams. I'll quote the parts of said rumor that I am talking about. Parts in red are my own addition.

guyperson5 wrote:

(etheral) Can also be upgraded to take an envoy:

Fire Caste Envoy: basically a team of 12 Firewarriors with BS4 and advanced pulse rifles that are 24" assault 2 pinning

Earth Caste Envoy: Ethereal is followed by a retinue of 4 mining drones. The mining drones can be detached and deployed to create an area of difficult terrain. Treat this as a ordinance barrage attack for the purposes of determining where it hits in a 18" range, roll to scatter. The effect causes no real damage as the drone uses a seismic destabilization device to cause a ground disturbance that is difficult terrain for troops and dangerous terrain for vehicles. (but not skimmers)

Water Caste Envoy: The ethereal is followed by 2 Water Caste ambassadors. Each time an enemy has a chance to roll for a reserve coming in on a deep strike or outflank you can declare you are using th water caste's "passive resistance" ability. You roll a dice and your opponent rolls a dice for each enemy reserve coming in via either deep strike or outflanking. For each roll off you win, you may place that unit. You may place deep striking units anywhere on the table but must be at least 6" away from any table edge. For outflankers you choose what side they come in on. You must have at least one water caste ambassador alive to use this ability.

Air Caste Envoy: The ethereal is followed by a command and control drone. The drone is attached to Advanced air caste aerospace computer relay satellites. While the drone is alive, any tank in the Tau army equipped with a command and control node relay can make one shooting attack against deep strikers. Each unit may only be targeted once and each tank can only target one deep striking unit.

Troops (this part makes more sense if you saw an omitted rumor of cheap markerlight dones-10 points each)
Fire warriors cost the same but have the option that if NOT mounted in a devilfish they may take a unit of kroot hounds (max 5) as an attachment. The unit may not include any drones if it includes kroot hounds. If the Firewarriors lose combat and flee check to see if there are any remaining kroot hounds. If there are still kroot hounds present in the unit, the firewarriors will still flee, but the Kroot hounds will stay and fight, gaining the fearless special rule, preventing the firewarriors from being run down.

New Troop unit - XV-6 Alert
18 points per model, max 8 in a squad
same stats as a stealth suit except only 1 attack and I 2
Jet Pack infantry
+4 save
has 2 hard points that must be filled by
(2 weapons mounted will count as 1 twin linked weapon)

Advanced Pulse Rifle S 5 AP 5 24" range assault 2 pinning
Flamer
Advanced boosters ( adds + 1D6" to any move using the jet pack.When choosing to run in the shooting phase roll 3D6 and choose the highest)
Iridium Armor granting +3 armor save (cannot be taken with advanced boosters)
Drone Controller
Shield Generator


There are new seeker ammo load outs for the skyray. Each skyray may only equip 1 type of seeker loadout

New seeker ammo load outs: Anti-Air Seekers. Causes all deep strikers during an enemy's turn to suffer a dangerous terrain test on the turn they arrive. 20 pts

Choking Smoke: these seekers are launched the same way a normal seeker is, but you target an area of ground, roll to see if you hit as normal for seeker missiles, if missed rolled 2D6 and scatter. The round creates an area of choking smoke the size of the large blast template that lasts until the beginning of the next Tau turn. The smoke blocks LOS and any non-vehicle unit trying to move through it treats it as difficult terrain. Any infantry unit starting their turn or moving through the smoke reduces their WS and I to 1 for the rest of their turn. 40 points

Marker Gel I'm guessing these would cost a heckuva lot more, but they would doom any unit hit by them.
These seekers explode into a gout of electro-reactive gel that adheres to any surface and is full of nanomachines that relay information to Tau targeting computers. For the rest of the game any Tau unit shooting at a unit that has been marker gel'd is treated as having BS 5. 25 points

Normal Seeker ammo 15 points

Can be equipped with atmoshperic thrusters. May only take a command and control node relay if equipped with a standard seeker missile rack.

You can see the full rumor (now debunked) at

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/359053.page



-------------------------------------
No SMS for devilfishes?

As far as your USR "Evade! Evade!", what's the point of the dropped photon grenades? To give the tau unit a chance to flee, but if they are caught, it shows that they could not move fast enough, and the photon grenade's effect wore off on the attackers? Can you still use photon grenades as usual?

***And something that needs editing: on the section on markerlights, it says "markerlights are now all networked........... create tokens which can be spent as follows:" then nothing follows.

Wow. I have not been here for a while

I blame Kilkrazy, this is the thread he linked to

I thought, why not let Fire Warriors take rail rifles or some kind of special weapon.

New pulse rifle profile should be:

S5 AP5 H1 30" / A2 18" / A3 12"