Fire Warrior squad:

Fire Warriors: Ws2 Bs4 S3 T3 W1 I2 A1 Ld8 Sv4+ 10pts
Shas'ui: Ws2 Bs4 S3 T3 Wi I2 A1 Ld8 Sv4+ +15pts
6-12
Wargear: Pulse Rifle, Pulse Pistol, Defensive Grenades, Light Armour.

Special Rules: For the Greater Good: The unit gains the Stubborn universal Special Rule.

Options:
Any Fire Warrior can exchange his Pulse Rifle with:
Pulse Carbine......Free

1 Fire Warrior may be upgraded to a Shas'ui with the cost of 15pts

1 per 6 Fire Warriors can exchange their Pulse Rifles with:
Missile Pod......20pts
Fusion Blaster..20pts
Burst Cannon..15pts

The Shas'ui may purchase the next items for the whole squad:
Targeting array.....20pts
Multi-Tracker........10pts
Target Lock.........10pts

The squad may take a Devilfish as their Dedicated transport


Gue'Vesa squad:

Trooper: Ws3 Bs3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 Ld7 Sv4+ 8pts
Sergeant: Ws3 Bs3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A2 Ld7 Sv4+ +10pts
5-10
Wargear: Pulse Rifle, Light Armour.

Special Rules: Weapon Problems: All tau weapons used by the Gue'vesa count as having the Gets Hot! rule.

Options:
Any Gue'vesa may exchange his Pulse rifle with:
Lasgun.............Free
Pulse Carbine....5pts

One Gue'vesa may be upgraded into a sergeant with the cost of 10pts

1 per 5 Gue'vesa may exchange his Pulse Rifle with:
Sniper................5pts
Burst Cannon......10pts
Fusion Blaster......10pts
Meltagun............20pts

The Sergeant may be exchanged with a Shas'ui with 5pts

The squad may take a Chimera or Devilfish as a transport (If a Shas'ui is included in the squad, then a Chimera cannot be taken as the transport.)




Thoughts?

Isn't stubborn bad for Tau because they generally want to get out of close combat? If anything, they should have Combat Tactics.

Hit&Run?

sluggaslugga wrote:Hit&Run?

Tau die in the first turn of combat. not in 2 or 3 turns.

Not always...
Depends on How many are there?

I could put Stubborn and Hit&Run, So that if they somehow survive, they can escape combat without running away in fear.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not always...
Depends on How many are there?

I could put Stubborn and Hit&Run, So that if they somehow survive, they can escape combat without running away in fear.

This has probably already been proposed for tau before.

Special Rule: Tactical withdrawal (or some other name :p)

If a Tau unit is charged they may attempt a tactical withdrawal. Both players roll a D6 and add their units initiatives. If the Tau's value is greater then they are able to escape and roll 2 D6 to see how far they fall back. The unit is considered to have moved and cannot move again in the players next turn (but can still shoot and assault). If they fail the combat is resolved normally.

If the unit has defensive grenades it +1 to their initiative for tactical withdrawals.

Or

Special rule: Selfless Sacrifice

If a tau unit is assaulted they may attempted to perform a selfless sacrifice to avoid the combat. The Tau player attempts a leadership test and if passed 25% (rounding up) of the unit is killed holding back the enemy but the remaining units may fallback 2 D6 and automatically regroups.

I've only played against tau a few times so I'm not totally familiar with them.

I would change the following:

1 per 6 Fire Warriors can exchange their Pulse Rifles with:
Burst Cannon (free)
Markerlight 5pts
Missile Pod 10 pts
Fusion Blaster 10 pts

This would actually make fire warriors a competitive unit...

20 points per a missile pod/fusion blaster is overpriced. To get 2 fire warriors with one of each would cost 60 points, a crisis suit with both (and a multi tracker) would cost 54...

Also, get rid of defensive grenades on the fire warriors. They make them worse! I wouldn't put defensive grenades on my fire warriors if they were free, because they will only make your unit worse.

No.

Tau shouldn't be getting heavy weapons in squads.

It ruins the flavor of Tau(which is every unit has a specific purpose, and Fire Warriors are supposed to be supported by Suits, while Suits are supported by Fire Warriors) and makes no sense in the end.

Especially with the weapon choices you're giving.

If you want something unique, let them buy a Crisis Suit to go into the unit.

Ok, howabout weapons that crisis suits normally don't take?

1 per 6 Fire Warriors can exchange their Pulse Rifles with:
Burst Cannon (free)
Flamer (free)
Markerlight 5pts

Those upgrades don't take away from the focus of fire warriors.

...Again.
No.

"1 per 6 Fire Warriors" exchanging their Pulse Rifles goes against what we had laid down pretty early on as "The immutable rules of Tau".

They don't do 'special weapons' in Fire Warrior teams.

Pathfinders get more leeway, mainly for Rail Rifles, but that has to deal with the fact that they usually operate away from the remainder of the Tau force.

Which is why stealth suits also can get "special" weapons as well?

If "Every unit has a specific purpose" - the purpose of fire warriors is to kill light infantry. They are currently over-costed for that purpose, and so burst cannons and flamers (which both roughly operate in the same range) go to that exact same purpose.

And I would say fire warriors do need something. If not an increase in BS or a decrease in points, it should be something to this effect.

Stealth Suits and Pathfinders are the 'lone wolves' of the Tau army, which is why they can get 'special weapons'.

Both of them operate ahead of the Tau army, and fulfill no single specific role.

The 'purpose of Fire Warriors' isn't 'to kill light infantry'.
Fire Warriors are the 'lynchpin of the Tau Empire', their weapon is able to down pretty much everything up to Terminators or tanks.

When they need to 'kill light infantry', they swap rifles for carbines.

Kanluwen wrote:Stealth Suits and Pathfinders are the 'lone wolves' of the Tau army, which is why they can get 'special weapons'.

Both of them operate ahead of the Tau army, and fulfill no single specific role.

The 'purpose of Fire Warriors' isn't 'to kill light infantry'.
Fire Warriors are the 'lynchpin of the Tau Empire', their weapon is able to down pretty much everything up to Terminators or tanks.

When they need to 'kill light infantry', they swap rifles for carbines.

but if you have actually USED fire warriors, you'd have seen that they actually do none of that at this time

Fire Warriors should get +1 BS when firing at a target within 12' range.

The Shas'O should have an Orbital Bombardment(S 10 AP 1 Large Blast, BS does not affect scatter, Once per game) As well as improved Wargear Choices over his subordinates(perhaps a single Railgun, taking up two Hardpoints on his Battlesuit?)

Distraction Drone: This drone features no obvious weapons or support gear; it serves a single function. When a unit with a Distraction Drone is assaulted you may remove the Drone as a casualty. If you do this, place a Strength 4 AP - blast template on the opposing unit; it does not scatter. The Opposing unit immediately takes a Leadership test with a -1 penalty for each wound caused by the drone. If failed, they begin Falling Back.

interms of the Distraction Drone, i'd think it be more effective if the Fire Warriors fell back since well, its a Distraction, and not a scary daemon eating your face. Also it would be more reliable against stubborn and fearless enemies.

rockprime wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Stealth Suits and Pathfinders are the 'lone wolves' of the Tau army, which is why they can get 'special weapons'.

Both of them operate ahead of the Tau army, and fulfill no single specific role.

The 'purpose of Fire Warriors' isn't 'to kill light infantry'.
Fire Warriors are the 'lynchpin of the Tau Empire', their weapon is able to down pretty much everything up to Terminators or tanks.

When they need to 'kill light infantry', they swap rifles for carbines.

but if you have actually USED fire warriors, you'd have seen that they actually do none of that at this time

And if you have actually USED Fire Warriors against anything other than Marines, you'd have seen that they actually do this most of the time.

I have no sympathy for Tau players who try to have Fire Warriors fighting Marines for the most part.

Your Friend Doctor Robert wrote:Fire Warriors should get +1 BS when firing at a target within 12' range.

No.

The Shas'O should have an Orbital Bombardment(S 10 AP 1 Large Blast, BS does not affect scatter, Once per game)

I'm going to go, again, with 'No'. Tau never have orbital superiority in their assaults, and none of their vessels are equipped for orbital bombardments anyways.
At most, it would be a few Railgun strikes.

As well as improved Wargear Choices over his subordinates(perhaps a single Railgun, taking up two Hardpoints on his Battlesuit?)

You mean like the 'Special Issue Wargear' that was such a spectacular bust?

As for "a single railgun taking up two hardpoints on his Battlesuit"--no. The Railguns on Broadsides require you to sacrifice JsJ simply because of the stabilizers needed.
A wrist-mounted Railrifle? Maybe.

Distraction Drone: This drone features no obvious weapons or support gear; it serves a single function. When a unit with a Distraction Drone is assaulted you may remove the Drone as a casualty. If you do this, place a Strength 4 AP - blast template on the opposing unit; it does not scatter. The Opposing unit immediately takes a Leadership test with a -1 penalty for each wound caused by the drone. If failed, they begin Falling Back.

Why would the opposing unit Fall Back?
Why would the Distraction Drone blow up?
This really just seems like an excuse to have some kind of bomb drone ability.

I agree with the comment above me...
Tau should be better equipped though... Free defensive grenades and maybe a 3+ armour save for 50pts per squad (slow and purposeful would be the downside of the armour...

Don't let Kan get you stuck on Tau fluff because GW will probably retcon it all with the next codex. We'll probably see suits with "crisis fists" and "crisis cannons".

If you want to make a fandex, go for it. If it's balanced and fun to play and your opponents don't mind, who cares what someone on this board thinks? Just make up some fluff of your own and say they're a lost colony or an offshoot of a Farsight Enclave and being separated from the high command for so long, they have developed their own way of approaching battle. An example could be they have access to less crisis suits (maybe 0-1) but are still able to manufacture suit weapons so firewarrior squads incorporate heavy weapons soldiers. Lack of Tau have seen the incorporation of human allies (though, personally, I don't see a reason for the 'gets hot' thing just limit access to pulse rifles to squad leaders like with kroot or the old gue'vesa rules).

To those posts that propose allowing Tau to have an ability to fall back BEFORE close combat but after being charged...No.

Your army is not special. You don't get to be the only thing in the entire game that entirely avoids close combat. You guys have amazing shooting abilities in the form of your crisis suits' ability to jump in, rapid fire, and then jump away to an entirely inaccessible location. In return, this is balanced out by the fact that you guys crumple in assault. If you can't keep your troops out of assault, you deserve to lose them.

You also neglect to mention how badly this would break the game for any army that relies on assault. Say I have a bunch of LC terminators, and I keep them in a landraider all game to keep them immune from being shot at with plasma until I want them to charge. I finally get off the charge...and a bunch of infantry guys just run away, BEFORE I get a single hit in. Now my guys are just stranded out in the open, in rapid fire range of your whole army. How on earth is THAT fair?

I could MAYBE see implementing the Hit and run ability and having that be balanced, just because it is Initiative based, Tau have pretty mediocre initiative, and because it would happen AFTER a round of combat. Having said that, I think that if an ability like that is implemented, the unit that performs that action may not shoot in its next phase. It can run, move, whatever, but no falling back and instantly turning around and rapid firing the charging squad to death. That's a load of bull crap. You don't get to have an instant-win army, you have weaknesses just like everybody else.

Darkjediben wrote:To those posts that propose allowing Tau to have an ability to fall back BEFORE close combat but after being charged...No.

Your army is not special. You don't get to be the only thing in the entire game that entirely avoids close combat. You guys have amazing shooting abilities in the form of your crisis suits' ability to jump in, rapid fire, and then jump away to an entirely inaccessible location. In return, this is balanced out by the fact that you guys crumple in assault. If you can't keep your troops out of assault, you deserve to lose them.

Um, every army is special and they all have their own look, feel and even special rules. Define amazing shooting abilities. BS3 with 30" range weapons is not that impressive anymore, especially when compared to the new grey knights that ALL have storm bolters with special ammo available. As for the suits; they jump 6" shoot then can jump another 6"; there isn't an assault unit in the game that can't catch them especially if they have fleet 18" assault threat range > 12" JSJ range. Besides deathrain suits, all the range of suit weapons is 24" or less and they only have a marine's stats for 3x the price.

Darkjediben wrote:You also neglect to mention how badly this would break the game for any army that relies on assault. Say I have a bunch of LC terminators, and I keep them in a landraider all game to keep them immune from being shot at with plasma until I want them to charge. I finally get off the charge...and a bunch of infantry guys just run away, BEFORE I get a single hit in. Now my guys are just stranded out in the open, in rapid fire range of your whole army. How on earth is THAT fair?

Overreact much? BAs got 6" FnP bubbles, DE got pain tokens etc. No army's special rules have broken the game yet. You obviously don't play fantasy because charge reactions have been standard for a long time now and that system seems to be doing quite well. How fair is it that one marine can wipe an entire squad of firewarriors, how fair is it that grey knights get MCs and every model is a psyker, how fair is it that Tau have no close combat ability AND no psychic abilities or defence? Yeah, we have 30" S5 AP5 guns in units that fold to a strong breeze. I'd rather have 24" bolters and BS4 because my firewarriors spend most of any game sitting in a devilfish and not shooting at anything.

Darkjediben wrote:I could MAYBE see implementing the Hit and run ability and having that be balanced, just because it is Initiative based, Tau have pretty mediocre initiative, and because it would happen AFTER a round of combat. Having said that, I think that if an ability like that is implemented, the unit that performs that action may not shoot in its next phase. It can run, move, whatever, but no falling back and instantly turning around and rapid firing the charging squad to death. That's a load of bull crap. You don't get to have an instant-win army, you have weaknesses just like everybody else.

We don't get to have an instant win army but IoM armies get leafblower lists, FnP bubbles, 30" shunting, psychic abilities and defence, etc...

agnosto wrote:Don't let Kan get you stuck on Tau fluff because GW will probably retcon it all with the next codex. We'll probably see suits with "crisis fists" and "crisis cannons".

And fire warriors in armor with armor.

And fire warriors strapped onto the front of crisis-knights.

And assault fire-warriors of doom.

And fire-warriors allying with orks against tyranids.


>_>

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have a fluffy Tau codex that fixes many things in the current codex, and possibly adds something new and shiny rather than having a cheese codex of doom with horrible fluff.

Darkjediben wrote:*rant*

You're missing the fundamental issue that Tau are NOT great at shooting. We have army-wide BS3 which offsets the extra strength of our main troop weapons, we have no special/heavy weapons that can be given to troops, our elites fall to plasma more easily than terminators due to lack of an innate invul, and battlecannons smash them to pieces just as easily as any other T4 3+ Sv model. Our plasma is weaker than other races plasma or plasma equivilant bar Eldar, who get 2 Assault shots at 36" to compensate, whereas we need to jump to 12" away from our enemies to get to shots before they move to within 12" of us and rapid-fire us down.

Our battlesuits need to be given costly pieces of wargear to bring them up to BS4, and just doing that makes them more costly than terminators and more than twice as expensive as a space marine before we've even given the suits weapons; a finished fireknife is BS3 and costs 62pts, more than double that of a chaos terminator, and probably close to double that of a loyalist terminator for less surviability in both shooting and assault.

Marines outshoot us thanks to heavy weapons, Necrons simply get back up and advance happily if they have a res orb nearby (do you know how annoying it is to kill 17 out of 40 Necron Warriors and nothing else whilst your army is shot to pieces or charged and wiped out because we lack stopping power?), Eldar are faster than us, their vehicles more resilliant (I spent 7 turns firing 4 railguns (two twin-linked) at a Falcon and a wave serpent, managing only to immobilise the falcon on the 4th turn, that's 16 railguns spent on 1 result, and 28 shots in total, all because of the wave serpent's rule and the falcon's holofield and spirit stones) and they have at least some competant combat units. IG outgun us and can usually win CC with us if they ever need to charge; the amount of railguns we take can't keep up with an armoured company, and the prominence of cover in 5th makes it almost impossible to shoot any unit without it getting a 4+ cover save.

Having our core unit be able to possibly run away from a CC will not break the army; far, far from it; look at it this way, either we run away and you get rapid fired next turn, or you demolish us in the first round of combat and you get rapid fired anyway, where is the added risk here?

I honestly think the only problem with Tau is the points cost. My honest opinion, I think the Fire Warrior should cost 8 points and that is the only issue with Fire Warriors. Of course, there are a few other issues pretaining to wargear rules not working and other costs.

I know that your army isn't that great ANY MORE, but my point is that the proposed rules should be things like bringing the BS up to 4, lowering some of the points costs, changing up some wargear. NOT giving them CC buffs. That's stupid. The point of the Tau is that they are good at shooting. If you want to fix them, make shooting better, don't make their CC better, that's just dumb.

Darkjediben wrote:I know that your army isn't that great ANY MORE, but my point is that the proposed rules should be things like bringing the BS up to 4, lowering some of the points costs, changing up some wargear. NOT giving them CC buffs. That's stupid. The point of the Tau is that they are good at shooting. If you want to fix them, make shooting better, don't make their CC better, that's just dumb.

But they're not good at shooting and the proposed rule was not a cc buff, it was a way to avoid cc altogether. And it's no less "stupid" than a 30" shunt or dreadnoughts with magic powers or any number of insane rules that GW writers come up with.

I would think a good idea would be the "flee" charge response from fantasy. Roll a d6 and they move away from the chargers that many inches, if it's enough to avoid combat, good; if not, tough luck. I think that would be much less objectionable than borrowing the "stand and shoot" rule from fantasy which could end up with much fewer attackers making it into cc.

What about regular tau Fire Warriors, but with jump packs/teleporters? (teleporters work like jump packs, but might be more fluffy.)

Tau walkers?

Heavy weapon drones?

Stealth for all Tau?

Shooting in CC? (I'm guessing that Tau use firearms in CC... Ever seen the movie called Matrix?)

sluggaslugga wrote:What about regular tau Fire Warriors, but with jump packs/teleporters? (teleporters work like jump packs, but might be more fluffy.)

Tau walkers?

Heavy weapon drones?

Stealth for all Tau?

Shooting in CC? (I'm guessing that Tau use firearms in CC... Ever seen the movie called Matrix?)

Walkers would detract from the current theme of maneuverability that the Tau are supposed to have.

Heavy weapon drones, while fluffly, would make them too much like Eldar weapons platforms.

A stealth drone wouldn't be a bad idea and would be fluffy but wouldn't help them vs. all the cc assaulty armies out there.

Shooting in CC is a bad idea IMO. I don't think Tau doctrine would allow for calling in fire on friendly targets.

Some time ago, in a similar thread, someone said something along the lines of making the pulse grenade slow down enemies as they become disoriented in the charge so that they would count as moving through difficult terrain to assault (roll a d6 for movement). That wouldn't be bad and since your opponent would know you have them, they could plan their assaults appropriately which might give the firewarriors another turn of shooting before they're shredded in cc.

Darkjediben wrote:I know that your army isn't that great ANY MORE, but my point is that the proposed rules should be things like bringing the BS up to 4, lowering some of the points costs, changing up some wargear. NOT giving them CC buffs. That's stupid. The point of the Tau is that they are good at shooting. If you want to fix them, make shooting better, don't make their CC better, that's just dumb.

Again I ask, what is different?

With the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs have a chance to flee combat>You're possibly left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

Without the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs crumple in the first round of combat>FWs lose combat>You sweeping advance>You're left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

Avatar 720 wrote:

Darkjediben wrote:*rant*

You're missing the fundamental issue that Tau are NOT great at shooting. We have army-wide BS3 which offsets the extra strength of our main troop weapons, we have no special/heavy weapons that can be given to troops, our elites fall to plasma more easily than terminators due to lack of an innate invul, and battlecannons smash them to pieces just as easily as any other T4 3+ Sv model. Our plasma is weaker than other races plasma or plasma equivilant bar Eldar, who get 2 Assault shots at 36" to compensate, whereas we need to jump to 12" away from our enemies to get to shots before they move to within 12" of us and rapid-fire us down.

Our battlesuits need to be given costly pieces of wargear to bring them up to BS4, and just doing that makes them more costly than terminators and more than twice as expensive as a space marine before we've even given the suits weapons; a finished fireknife is BS3 and costs 62pts, more than double that of a chaos terminator, and probably close to double that of a loyalist terminator for less surviability in both shooting and assault.

Marines outshoot us thanks to heavy weapons, Necrons simply get back up and advance happily if they have a res orb nearby (do you know how annoying it is to kill 17 out of 40 Necron Warriors and nothing else whilst your army is shot to pieces or charged and wiped out because we lack stopping power?), Eldar are faster than us, their vehicles more resilliant (I spent 7 turns firing 4 railguns (two twin-linked) at a Falcon and a wave serpent, managing only to immobilise the falcon on the 4th turn, that's 16 railguns spent on 1 result, and 28 shots in total, all because of the wave serpent's rule and the falcon's holofield and spirit stones) and they have at least some competant combat units. IG outgun us and can usually win CC with us if they ever need to charge; the amount of railguns we take can't keep up with an armoured company, and the prominence of cover in 5th makes it almost impossible to shoot any unit without it getting a 4+ cover save.

Having our core unit be able to possibly run away from a CC will not break the army; far, far from it; look at it this way, either we run away and you get rapid fired next turn, or you demolish us in the first round of combat and you get rapid fired anyway, where is the added risk here?

Preach it, brother! Share the pain of Tau players!

Avatar 720 wrote:

Darkjediben wrote:I know that your army isn't that great ANY MORE, but my point is that the proposed rules should be things like bringing the BS up to 4, lowering some of the points costs, changing up some wargear. NOT giving them CC buffs. That's stupid. The point of the Tau is that they are good at shooting. If you want to fix them, make shooting better, don't make their CC better, that's just dumb.

Again I ask, what is different?

With the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs have a chance to flee combat>You're possibly left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

Without the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs crumple in the first round of combat>FWs lose combat>You sweeping advance>You're left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

possible 24 extra shots?

BS 4 on Firewarriors? No way, thats like having 12 marines all with Heavy Bolters. And stubborn? Only if their's an ethereal .

I do like the idea of adding special weapons to the squad, but then it seems like they become wanna be marines.

Plus, those weapons are BIG. Weapons teams might be a better solution to this, or a 6" range assault fusion blaster, a heavy 2 missile pod, and a heavy 2-4 burst cannon. Or maybe just no burst and missile pod at all like someone suggested before.

Roger wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

Darkjediben wrote:I know that your army isn't that great ANY MORE, but my point is that the proposed rules should be things like bringing the BS up to 4, lowering some of the points costs, changing up some wargear. NOT giving them CC buffs. That's stupid. The point of the Tau is that they are good at shooting. If you want to fix them, make shooting better, don't make their CC better, that's just dumb.

Again I ask, what is different?

With the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs have a chance to flee combat>You're possibly left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

Without the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs crumple in the first round of combat>FWs lose combat>You sweeping advance>You're left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

possible 24 extra shots?

10 Fire Warriors (usual amount I run, I rarely see 12, 6-8 is more common) Rapid-Firing at MEQ:
20 Shots
10 Hits
6.67 wounds
2.2211 Dead MEQs (rounding to 2)

2 dead marines is nothing (it rarely even happens this way, I don't think i've killed any marines through FW shooting since I started playing Tau), and there's also any pistol shots/assault weapons before the charge to take into account,a nd losses earlier in the game, which makes this scenario rare.

Show me a competative Tau army that has more than 1 squad of 12 FWs, mine has 3 squads of 10 and even that's pushing the boundaries of what and what isn't a liability (considering cutting them to 6 each for two more fireknives, as my crisis suits do more than my FWs),

9/10 you will not face a scenario where 12 FWs are rapid-firing you.

Avatar 720 wrote:

Roger wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

Darkjediben wrote:I know that your army isn't that great ANY MORE, but my point is that the proposed rules should be things like bringing the BS up to 4, lowering some of the points costs, changing up some wargear. NOT giving them CC buffs. That's stupid. The point of the Tau is that they are good at shooting. If you want to fix them, make shooting better, don't make their CC better, that's just dumb.

Again I ask, what is different?

With the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs have a chance to flee combat>You're possibly left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

Without the 'buff':
You charge FWs>FWs crumple in the first round of combat>FWs lose combat>You sweeping advance>You're left sitting in the open, ready to be rapid fired

possible 24 extra shots?

10 Fire Warriors (usual amount I run, I rarely see 12, 6-8 is more common) Rapid-Firing at MEQ:
20 Shots
10 Hits
6.67 wounds
2.2211 Dead MEQs (rounding to 2)

2 dead marines is nothing (it rarely even happens this way, I don't think i've killed any marines through FW shooting since I started playing Tau), and there's also any pistol shots/assault weapons before the charge to take into account,a nd losses earlier in the game, which makes this scenario rare.

Show me a competative Tau army that has more than 1 squad of 12 FWs, mine has 3 squads of 10 and even that's pushing the boundaries of what and what isn't a liability (considering cutting them to 6 each for two more fireknives, as my crisis suits do more than my FWs),

9/10 you will not face a scenario where 12 FWs are rapid-firing you.

It's funny you mentioned that... 10/10 of my games against Tau have 12 FW in a squad... Up to 2-3 squads of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

agnosto wrote:

sluggaslugga wrote:What about regular tau Fire Warriors, but with jump packs/teleporters? (teleporters work like jump packs, but might be more fluffy.)

Tau walkers?

Heavy weapon drones?

Stealth for all Tau?

Shooting in CC? (I'm guessing that Tau use firearms in CC... Ever seen the movie called Matrix?)

Walkers would detract from the current theme of maneuverability that the Tau are supposed to have.

Heavy weapon drones, while fluffly, would make them too much like Eldar weapons platforms.

A stealth drone wouldn't be a bad idea and would be fluffy but wouldn't help them vs. all the cc assaulty armies out there.

Shooting in CC is a bad idea IMO. I don't think Tau doctrine would allow for calling in fire on friendly targets.

Some time ago, in a similar thread, someone said something along the lines of making the pulse grenade slow down enemies as they become disoriented in the charge so that they would count as moving through difficult terrain to assault (roll a d6 for movement). That wouldn't be bad and since your opponent would know you have them, they could plan their assaults appropriately which might give the firewarriors another turn of shooting before they're shredded in cc.

The pulse grenades are a good idea.
Btw... I meant shooting IN close combat, not shooting INTO CC.

It's funny you mentioned that... 10/10 of my games against Tau have 12 FW in a squad... Up to 2-3 squads of them.

How many points/what is your record? At 1500pts you could shave those FWs down to 6-men each and get 3 more fireknife battlesuits which would be far more cost-effective.

Note that I did say 'competative' lists, and many of the Tau veterans I see play no more than one or two FW squads of 6 (due to the necessity of having 1 FW squad in a Tau army) and the rest of the troops filled with kroot simply because FWs need markerlights (which are better spent on your railguns/battlesuits) and they crumple in combat; Kroot can outflank, have bolters with worse AP, have the same BS as a Fire Warrior and are better in combat. The only reason I use FWs is because I dislike kroot models-wise.

Avatar 720 wrote:

It's funny you mentioned that... 10/10 of my games against Tau have 12 FW in a squad... Up to 2-3 squads of them.

How many points/what is your record? At 1500pts you could shave those FWs down to 6-men each and get 3 more fireknife battlesuits which would be far more cost-effective.

Note that I did say 'competative' lists, and many of the Tau veterans I see play no more than one or two FW squads of 6 (due to the necessity of having 1 FW squad in a Tau army) and the rest of the troops filled with kroot simply because FWs need markerlights (which are better spent on your railguns/battlesuits) and they crumple in combat; Kroot can outflank, have bolters with worse AP, have the same BS as a Fire Warrior and are better in combat. The only reason I use FWs is because I dislike kroot models-wise.

My record? 12FW 500pts
My friends record: 36FW 1500pts or 18FW 750pts

Record as in Wins/Draws/Losses.

Wins: 10/10... (against tau)
Wins: 3/5, Losses 1/5, Ties 1/5... (with tau)

Commisar Von Humps wrote:BS 4 on Firewarriors? No way, thats like having 12 marines all with Heavy Bolters.

Except that the FWs would be T3, S3, WS2, LD 7 with a 4+ save.

So... nothing like having 12 marines with Heavy Bolters. Nothing like them at all.

ObiFett wrote:

Commisar Von Humps wrote:BS 4 on Firewarriors? No way, thats like having 12 marines all with Heavy Bolters.

Except that the FWs would be T3, S3, WS2, LD 7 with a 4+ save.

So... nothing like having 12 marines with Heavy Bolters. Nothing like them at all.

Also, 1 or 2 shots with AP5 is much worse than 3 shots with AP4

I too was against BS4 fire warriors but think about it.

12 Fire warriors with pulse rifles 120 pts. 12 S5 AP5 shots.

6 Long fangs with 5 heavy bolters 115 pts. 15 S5 AP4 shots at BS 4 and T4 in AP 3 armor to boot.

I truely think the more GW "fixes" things with a new codex, it breaks the viability of 5 to 8 other codexes.

DAaddict wrote:I too was against BS4 fire warriors but think about it.

12 Fire warriors with pulse rifles 120 pts. 12 S5 AP5 shots.

6 Long fangs with 5 heavy bolters 115 pts. 15 S5 AP4 shots at BS 4 and T4 in AP 3 armor to boot.

I truely think the more GW "fixes" things with a new codex, it breaks the viability of 5 to 8 other codexes.

IG also broke the reliability of Necrons...

What about leaving the current FW unit as is, but dropping down the point value? Then to compensate for FW sucking they could invent a new Tau troop unit that is more expensive than a regular fire warrior but is a heavy weapons kinda troop that cant move and shoot but has better AP for their more "advanced weaponry" and has a new type of armor that gives them a 3 up save or increases their toughness? personally id prefer them getting a 3 up armor save. They are constantly coming up with new types of crisis suits so I dont see why they would not experiment with the troops equipment to. I think it would not hurt the style of the tau army and it would not create some kinda apocalyptic imbalance all the other races are whining about just b/c they do not want their races to seem weaker.

I posted this in some other forums/threads and thought it might get more discussion here.
What I want to see is the following:
Tau units like fire warriors and some others should have the ability to either move then shoot or shoot then move. This would work by declaring IN THE MOVMENT PHASE that the unit is moving. It can then either take the movement, or hold it until the assault phase. If they move now, nothing changes. If they take the move in the assault phase, they do nothing in the movement phase. Then in the shooting phase they are counted as moving for the effects on what can fire and how. Finally, in the assault phase they take their 6" move.
I do not think this rule would be OP and it does fit fluff already because the Tau already have units that have move-shoot-move, and it would make sense that that type of tactic is something that should be ingrained in them from the beginning.

The reason is basically that the 5th ed rules give so much to the assault armies with the combination of (1) movement phase moves only happen before the shooting phase, (2) the movement phase move 6" and then assault phase move 6" more, (3) if a unit is fleet they run up to 6" in the shooting phase and still assault and (4) lack of a shooting phase equivalent of sweeping advance or extra wounds (unlike an assault that can have 2 marines kill 2 kroot and the wipe the surviving 15 kroot in a single round) and 2/3 armies can basically ignore pinning checks from carbines. That gives assaulting unit a range of 12" to 18" (or 1/4 to 3/8 of the board width) to attack and almost no way for Tau to manage the engagement distance.

I think that item (1) (followed closely by (4) which will be a separate post) is actually the biggest problem, and here is why. Because any assaulting unit has an effective range of 12" or more to get to at a Tau shooty unit, the utility of rapid fire is wasted. And without the 2 shots rapid fire, the shooting phase is not enough to wipe out a unit. This is because the shooty unit had to move up into rapid fire range and then shoot, or had remain stationary to shoot (if at the edge rapid fire range already or longr range and taking single shots). Note, this still is the issue with carbines, but to a different extent.

TL;DR: Tau Firewarriors and some other units should have ability to either MOVE then SHOOT or SHOOT then MOVE in a turn and they would shoot as moving in either case.

sluggaslugga wrote:Fire Warrior squad:

Fire Warriors: Ws2 Bs4 S3 T3 W1 I2 A1 Ld8 Sv4+ 10pts
Shas'ui: Ws2 Bs4 S3 T3 Wi I2 A1 Ld8 Sv4+ +15pts
6-12
Wargear: Pulse Rifle, Pulse Pistol, Defensive Grenades, Light Armour.

Special Rules: For the Greater Good: The unit gains the Stubborn universal Special Rule.

Options:
Any Fire Warrior can exchange his Pulse Rifle with:
Pulse Carbine......Free

1 Fire Warrior may be upgraded to a Shas'ui with the cost of 15pts

1 per 6 Fire Warriors can exchange their Pulse Rifles with:
Missile Pod......20pts
Fusion Blaster..20pts
Burst Cannon..15pts

The Shas'ui may purchase the next items for the whole squad:
Targeting array.....20pts
Multi-Tracker........10pts
Target Lock.........10pts

The squad may take a Devilfish as their Dedicated transport


Gue'Vesa squad:

Trooper: Ws3 Bs3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 Ld7 Sv4+ 8pts
Sergeant: Ws3 Bs3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A2 Ld7 Sv4+ +10pts
5-10
Wargear: Pulse Rifle, Light Armour.

Special Rules: Weapon Problems: All tau weapons used by the Gue'vesa count as having the Gets Hot! rule.

Options:
Any Gue'vesa may exchange his Pulse rifle with:
Lasgun.............Free
Pulse Carbine....5pts

One Gue'vesa may be upgraded into a sergeant with the cost of 10pts

1 per 5 Gue'vesa may exchange his Pulse Rifle with:
Sniper................5pts
Burst Cannon......10pts
Fusion Blaster......10pts
Meltagun............20pts

The Sergeant may be exchanged with a Shas'ui with 5pts

The squad may take a Chimera or Devilfish as a transport (If a Shas'ui is included in the squad, then a Chimera cannot be taken as the transport.)




Thoughts?

the bold part: melta guns are twice as expenisve as FBs but they have the same stat line, so the melta guns are useless

Possibly have meltaguns fired at a better BS due to the guardsmen knowing how to use it better than a fusion blaster? It'd still need to cost less, perhaps 15, but have it fired at BS4.

The FB is a Gets Hot!... Didn't you read the thing?
Meltagun costs 10pts more, but since the humans can operate it without actually overheating it, the
Meltagun does not have the Gets Hot! Special rule.

sluggaslugga wrote:The FB is a Gets Hot!... Didn't you read the thing?
Meltagun costs 10pts more, but since the humans can operate it without actually overheating it, the
Meltagun does not have the Gets Hot! Special rule.

That's not a great rule, Tau weapons are made specifically to never overheat, they will have a cut-off mechanism or some feature which prevents this and is used in unison with superior cooling. They cannot actually overheat unless the gun is damaged and the cooling/cut-off is also damaged.

Ok... Then the bs4 for human weapons sounds better.

what about increasing the cc effectiveness of the kroot. That way it does not go against the Tau background of sucking at CC. besides right now the kroot are a little eh at the moment. They are good, but they could be much better. I mean they are not as good at shooting as the Fire Warriors, and they get killed in CC just a little bit slower. The infiltrate and cheap cost is about the only thing they have goin for them

darkcloud92 wrote:what about increasing the cc effectiveness of the kroot. That way it does not go against the Tau background of sucking at CC. besides right now the kroot are a little eh at the moment. They are good, but they could be much better. I mean they are not as good at shooting as the Fire Warriors, and they get killed in CC just a little bit slower. The infiltrate and cheap cost is about the only thing they have goin for them

I think that the Kroot are good, but need more stuff...
What about Knarloc Riders?

sluggaslugga wrote:

darkcloud92 wrote:what about increasing the cc effectiveness of the kroot. That way it does not go against the Tau background of sucking at CC. besides right now the kroot are a little eh at the moment. They are good, but they could be much better. I mean they are not as good at shooting as the Fire Warriors, and they get killed in CC just a little bit slower. The infiltrate and cheap cost is about the only thing they have goin for them

I think that the Kroot are good, but need more stuff...
What about Knarloc Riders?

Well using a knarloc rider means you cant infiltrate which kinda sucks. Maby if they just let you infiltrate with them, or re-did the sharper so he was so terrible. Besides that id say the kroot are pretty balanced, kinda like Fire Knife suits. They arent great at anything, but there ok at both shooting and CC and pretty good at surviving if your opponent lets you place a few bushes

When a long fangs squad costs less and puts out 36" 15 5S shots for less than 12 tau you know it is bad.

Increase pulse carbines to ROF 2 and burst cannons to ROF 4 and you would go a long way to addressing the Tau problems but even that will not put it in the realm of top tier competitive.

DAaddict wrote:When a long fangs squad costs less and puts out 36" 15 5S shots for less than 12 tau you know it is bad.

They put out more S5 shots, with a lower AP, higher BS, better armor save, AND can split fire for less points than a FW squad.

I didn't know this until this thread.

And it makes me sad...

I think that BS 4 for FW is too much... They should get a +1 BS for 10 points though... (targeting array.)

well ya they could do that, make our units cheaper per model (which it should be anyways.) then make the option of getting like elite Grenadier Tau fire warriors for more points. The upgrade would be better BS as suggested, sounds like itd be fairly balanced?

Darkjediben wrote:To those posts that propose allowing Tau to have an ability to fall back BEFORE close combat but after being charged...No.

Your army is not special. You don't get to be the only thing in the entire game that entirely avoids close combat. You guys have amazing shooting abilities in the form of your crisis suits' ability to jump in, rapid fire, and then jump away to an entirely inaccessible location. In return, this is balanced out by the fact that you guys crumple in assault. If you can't keep your troops out of assault, you deserve to lose them.

You also neglect to mention how badly this would break the game for any army that relies on assault. Say I have a bunch of LC terminators, and I keep them in a landraider all game to keep them immune from being shot at with plasma until I want them to charge. I finally get off the charge...and a bunch of infantry guys just run away, BEFORE I get a single hit in. Now my guys are just stranded out in the open, in rapid fire range of your whole army. How on earth is THAT fair?

I could MAYBE see implementing the Hit and run ability and having that be balanced, just because it is Initiative based, Tau have pretty mediocre initiative, and because it would happen AFTER a round of combat. Having said that, I think that if an ability like that is implemented, the unit that performs that action may not shoot in its next phase. It can run, move, whatever, but no falling back and instantly turning around and rapid firing the charging squad to death. That's a load of bull crap. You don't get to have an instant-win army, you have weaknesses just like everybody else.

The thing is, Tau are so horrible at cc, they need to be the uber premire super duper mega most awesme shooty race in the game. The game is wholly skewed to close combat. Everything moves to fast in other armies to give the Tau much chance to do a lot of shooting, a flee option just gives them a chance to get off a few shots before the enemy annihilates them (I shudder to think if GW still allowed the sweeping advances into new cc like 3rd ed, I watched an entire Tau battle line go in one round against a single assault marine squad.....that's ####### dumb).

It's the future, where guns should be king. Not items people suddenly forget how to fire. The onus should all be on the cc armies to figure out how they are going to survive to get there, not on the Tau to figure out how the heck they'll last long enough to shoot at something.

As easily the worst race in the game in close combat, they have to be the best at shooting. They aren't.

You can take some of the following routes:

Uping mobility (helping them stay out of cc longer to shoot more, helps offset low bs, few low ap weapons, few high strength weapons)
Upping accuracy (means the shooting they do get will actually hurt occasionally)
Altering loadouts (mixing in new weapons/wargear options to modulate unit functions)
Price Drops (making things more plentiful and thus throwing more rounds down field)

Really, they need a mix of those 4 in some form. It doesn't have to be running away, or all higher bs, etc. For instance, cheaper firewarriors (and making a shas'ui come with a free bonding knife, so you have a reason to buy him over the team lead...), more accurate and cheaper crisis, some tank tweeks, and a few other options (like HWs in Drone Squads for instance, rail rifles on stealth/crisis suits and removing the only rapid fire rule, or other ideas) would make them more attractive and able to do what they should...shoot you to pieces so that whatever is left has a rough time winning out in cc.

Maniac_nmt wrote:

Darkjediben wrote:To those posts that propose allowing Tau to have an ability to fall back BEFORE close combat but after being charged...No.

Your army is not special. You don't get to be the only thing in the entire game that entirely avoids close combat. You guys have amazing shooting abilities in the form of your crisis suits' ability to jump in, rapid fire, and then jump away to an entirely inaccessible location. In return, this is balanced out by the fact that you guys crumple in assault. If you can't keep your troops out of assault, you deserve to lose them.

You also neglect to mention how badly this would break the game for any army that relies on assault. Say I have a bunch of LC terminators, and I keep them in a landraider all game to keep them immune from being shot at with plasma until I want them to charge. I finally get off the charge...and a bunch of infantry guys just run away, BEFORE I get a single hit in. Now my guys are just stranded out in the open, in rapid fire range of your whole army. How on earth is THAT fair?

I could MAYBE see implementing the Hit and run ability and having that be balanced, just because it is Initiative based, Tau have pretty mediocre initiative, and because it would happen AFTER a round of combat. Having said that, I think that if an ability like that is implemented, the unit that performs that action may not shoot in its next phase. It can run, move, whatever, but no falling back and instantly turning around and rapid firing the charging squad to death. That's a load of bull crap. You don't get to have an instant-win army, you have weaknesses just like everybody else.

The thing is, Tau are so horrible at cc, they need to be the uber premire super duper mega most awesme shooty race in the game. The game is wholly skewed to close combat. Everything moves to fast in other armies to give the Tau much chance to do a lot of shooting, a flee option just gives them a chance to get off a few shots before the enemy annihilates them (I shudder to think if GW still allowed the sweeping advances into new cc like 3rd ed, I watched an entire Tau battle line go in one round against a single assault marine squad.....that's ####### dumb).

It's the future, where guns should be king. Not items people suddenly forget how to fire. The onus should all be on the cc armies to figure out how they are going to survive to get there, not on the Tau to figure out how the heck they'll last long enough to shoot at something.

Against CC Tau should have Stubborn and Hit&Run... because if they make through the first round of CC they could try to brake away from it without running away in fear... we could call the special rule
For the Greater Good

sluggaslugga wrote:

Maniac_nmt wrote:

Darkjediben wrote:To those posts that propose allowing Tau to have an ability to fall back BEFORE close combat but after being charged...No.

Your army is not special. You don't get to be the only thing in the entire game that entirely avoids close combat. You guys have amazing shooting abilities in the form of your crisis suits' ability to jump in, rapid fire, and then jump away to an entirely inaccessible location. In return, this is balanced out by the fact that you guys crumple in assault. If you can't keep your troops out of assault, you deserve to lose them.

You also neglect to mention how badly this would break the game for any army that relies on assault. Say I have a bunch of LC terminators, and I keep them in a landraider all game to keep them immune from being shot at with plasma until I want them to charge. I finally get off the charge...and a bunch of infantry guys just run away, BEFORE I get a single hit in. Now my guys are just stranded out in the open, in rapid fire range of your whole army. How on earth is THAT fair?

I could MAYBE see implementing the Hit and run ability and having that be balanced, just because it is Initiative based, Tau have pretty mediocre initiative, and because it would happen AFTER a round of combat. Having said that, I think that if an ability like that is implemented, the unit that performs that action may not shoot in its next phase. It can run, move, whatever, but no falling back and instantly turning around and rapid firing the charging squad to death. That's a load of bull crap. You don't get to have an instant-win army, you have weaknesses just like everybody else.

The thing is, Tau are so horrible at cc, they need to be the uber premire super duper mega most awesme shooty race in the game. The game is wholly skewed to close combat. Everything moves to fast in other armies to give the Tau much chance to do a lot of shooting, a flee option just gives them a chance to get off a few shots before the enemy annihilates them (I shudder to think if GW still allowed the sweeping advances into new cc like 3rd ed, I watched an entire Tau battle line go in one round against a single assault marine squad.....that's ####### dumb).

It's the future, where guns should be king. Not items people suddenly forget how to fire. The onus should all be on the cc armies to figure out how they are going to survive to get there, not on the Tau to figure out how the heck they'll last long enough to shoot at something.

Against CC Tau should have Stubborn and Hit&Run... because if they make through the first round of CC they could try to brake away from it without running away in fear... we could call the special rule
For the Greater Good

They don't have to be stubborn, there should be a downside to running away. However, a stand and shoot if they pass a leadership test (ala tank shock) could work. They aren't great shots, and you might kill 3 or 4 guys before they kill you.

Plus, it could mean cc armies have to think about what they hit you with first. Use a large squad then follow in with a small model count squad.

Even that isn't necessarily the answer, as there isn't one perfect one. They need a number of tweaks to keep them balanced, while still making everyone fear a Tau shooting phase.

What about AP2 pulse weapons?
Photon grenade launchers? (blinding grenades, enemy Bs and movement reduced by half)
Flechette discharging weapons?
Heat vision? (can shoot through cover, even without LOS.
Medical drones? (FNP)
Repair drones? (works like a mekboy )
Monstrous Vespidian flies?
Drone harbingers? (from DoW )

sluggaslugga wrote:What about AP2 pulse weapons?
Photon grenade launchers? (blinding grenades, enemy Bs and movement reduced by half)
Flechette discharging weapons?
Heat vision? (can shoot through cover, even without LOS.
Medical drones? (FNP)
Repair drones? (works like a mekboy )
Monstrous Vespidian flies?
Drone harbingers? (from DoW )

I have to disagree with most, but I like the Flechette Launcher idea...the Phonton Grenades sound cool, but OP. Maybe have them drop BS by 1 instead

mega_bassist wrote:

sluggaslugga wrote:What about AP2 pulse weapons?
Photon grenade launchers? (blinding grenades, enemy Bs and movement reduced by half)
Flechette discharging weapons?
Heat vision? (can shoot through cover, even without LOS.
Medical drones? (FNP)
Repair drones? (works like a mekboy )
Monstrous Vespidian flies?
Drone harbingers? (from DoW )

I have to disagree with most, but I like the Flechette Launcher idea...the Phonton Grenades sound cool, but OP. Maybe have them drop BS by 1 instead

Well... Troops with psychic abilities, and force weapons wich cost 2 points more than a necron doesn't seem OP?
The halved movement is for preventing the enemy from getting into CC.

Imho, the FW's main issue is that their pulse rifle, while supposed to be significantly above any other main infantry weapon, is crap against MEQ armor.

So how do we change that? I'd take a page from the old 40k editions and give all pulse weapons this special rule: -1 modifier on enemy armor.

And possibly assaut 2 for pulse rifles.

I mean, variations of the following could work to improve Tau:

Line of Sight Railguns - Allowing the Hammerhead's to hit multiple models (i.e. roll to hit for every model in the line or something)

Ion Cannon - right now, no point in taking over the RG. Make it blast on the hammerhead and allow broadsides to carry a non blast model...

Anything Shas'ui and above is BS 4 - Keeping Firewarriors BS 3 is workable through other means, but no reason the very very expensive suits should be bs 3 to start. That said, if they stay bs 3, or models stay bs 3, a radical change needs to happen to marker lights (like making them hit on 5+, lasting for a whole round, allowing split fire with them, etc. No matter what, at the end of the day, you are shooting twice to the enemies once with these things. Right now with a crud bs skill, so you are dumping a fair bit of points into doing this for moderate gain. It got better in 4th, in 3rd only one model could benefit from a marker light hit...making them completely usesless, but still not nearly enough)

Altering FW points, stats, or weapon - They don't work as gun line, the range is to short with the plethora of heavy weapons out there (part of why guard shoots better is the mass of options their infantry have for weapons coupled with a cheaper cost), and being rapid fire you aren't getting full effect from making them mobile in the Devilfish

Dropping costs - even making the crisis suit bs 4 it would still be overpriced in the better configurations. You could drop the cost by 5 points maybe across the board on suits...alternatively make the weapons cheaper. In addition, the DF needs a points drop, and even broadsides Hammerheads could benefit from say a 5 point cost drop.

Now, none of those may work, or be entirely quite right. However, they don't radically change things (other then the RG change). Would go a long way towards upping the Tau shooting phase, and then allow tossing on other options.

To fix HQ
Make all the commanders at least 66% cheaper but are basically pimped FWs with BS5 and 4Wounds
then have to buy the Crisis/Stealth suit and weapons
The commander can buy a null field to stop those pesky psykers
if the commander has a crisis suit he may buy bodyguards at 20pts and come in crisis suits

Ethereal is cheaper, can buy armour, honour blade is a null rod or acts like the Ring of Hotek from DE and is a power weapon

To fix troops
FW cost 7-8pts for the current profile and assault 2 pulse rifles?
alternatively, make pulse rifles rending

then have a 0-2 Troops choice of veteran FW that are BS4, can take a doctrine like IG vets and are 10pts a model
6-12 models in a unit

all doctrines are 0-1 per army
doctrines like:
20pts for FNP (stimm injectors)
20pts for stealth (camo cloaks?)
20pts for the ability to target seperate units (target locks)
20pts for +1 toughness or 3+ armour save (advanced armour, toughness improvement is different to moar armour)

then have weapon options like railrifles, markerlights (keeps the pulse rifle) and fusion blasters for +5pts a model

Devilfish is 65pts

Kroot are cheaper, 5pts a model, and have Assault 1/2 weapons
6+ armour comes free with a shaper
Shaper allows hereditary abilities such as stealth/Furious charge, improved strength/toughness/BS/WS/I/A
Kroot can take other weapons such as bolters, lasguns (why would you want them? included for balance) shuriken catapults and put thier CCW on them
kroot can buy better armour at Xpts per model per point of armour, max 4+save
Shaper can be a minor psyker?

To fix Elites
All elites are BS4
Stealth teams are 25pts a model, stealth field generator is shorter range
stealth teams can swap out thier BCs for MPs or Flamers for free, or pay 10pts to carry a plasma rifle

Crisis Teams are 20pts per model and all weapons are 25-50% cheaper
old special issue weapons and wargear are included as standard weapons and wargear
new special issue systems


To fix Fast Attack
Patfinders are 10pts and get a free Devilfish

Vespids can opt to buy more armour at xpts per model and are faster somehow

Drones leave fast attack and work as a drone pool, you buy x many of each drone and dish them out during deployment

Piranhas are cheaper 75-80% of current, can take other nose weapons and can buy a SMS

Fixing Heavy
HH hull is cheaper by 25%

Skyray gets a multiple missiles rack so can fire like the DOW skyray

Sniper drones are in the drone pool

Broadsides are cheaper and don't have to buy a support system

I feel that a BS of 4 for the majority of Tau units (not necessarily Kroot) should come in to play. If not for Fire Warriors then at least for all suit models (Crisis, Stealth, and Broadside). Fluffwise these units are supposed to be veteran combatants that have been promoted to better weapons. One would think that they would know how to shoot better than the basic troops for simply being veterans, not to mention they are piloting robotic suits with targeting systems.

I also think that Fire Warriors would also benefit from another transport option. One that I've been thinking of would either be an open topped vehicle or one with Fire Points. It would obviously be less armored than a Devlifish. I was thinking something like Front 11, Side 10, Rear 10. To balance out the ability of the Embarked Firewariros to shoot the transport wouldn't have a burst cannon like a Devilfish, no seeker missiles, and it would only have Gun Drones if the squad had spent the points for them (it would all for a squad to 12 FWs and 2 drones though). It would however have a networked-maker-light though that the Fire Warrior squad embarked could take advantage of. It would be able to take defensive wargear like Disruption Pods, Felechette Discharger, etc. I feel a transport like this would both match Tau doctrine and help defend from CC.

I would love to see Gue'vesa officially in the Tau Codex. I think that instead of a human sergent that a Shas'Ui be manditory for the squad. The idea being that the Shas'Ui is there to make sure the humans follow the greater good one way or another. If the Shas'Ui dies the Gue'vesa should have to make a leadership test even if they would not have to otherwise.

Kroot I would also love to see be tweaked. Giving them a 6+ Sv standard would be nice. Also doping the point cost of the shaper or improving its abilities would be something nice to see. Maybe have the shaper give Kroot the Counter-Attack universal special rule, giving the Kroot something akin to the Feral Leap ability Kroot have in DoW RTS.

A last think I would think interesting would be to make Broadsides Walkers. I know some people have said that walkers don't fit the mobile of Tau doctrine, but a Broadside Walker would be more mobile than the battle-suit ones currently in use. In order to limit its fire maybe it can only shoot one weapon system unless it takes an Advanced Stabilization System.

At the very least I would like to see the Tau be the best shooters in the game, like they should be.

The BS problem could be solved with letting every squad purchase a targeting array for 10pts.

Tau die in the first turn of combat. not in 2 or 3 turns.

Lets not be that negative about them, it matters who they fight against.
I think hit and run would be a great rule for them, it gives the tau player a chance to escape and give more wounds.
I mean I have friend who had IG Ratlings that killed a Carnifex (Sorry if I spelt that wrong) in close combat, I have read here on dakkadakka how a dude with a grechen wone a terminator in close combat. After those things anything is possible!

sluggaslugga wrote:The BS problem could be solved with letting every squad purchase a targeting array for 10pts.

I could see that for FWs and be okay with that. I really feel that Crisis, Stealth, and Broadside suits should be at 4 without using points to buy a TA and using up a hard-point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bob the heretic wrote:

Tau die in the first turn of combat. not in 2 or 3 turns.

Lets not be that negative about them, it matters who they fight against.
I think hit and run would be a great rule for them, it gives the tau player a chance to escape and give more wounds.
I mean I have friend who had IG Ratlings that killed a Carnifex (Sorry if I spelt that wrong) in close combat, I have read here on dakkadakka how a dude with a grechen wone a terminator in close combat. After those things anything is possible!

No FW (and most other Tau units with the exception of Kroot) do very poorly in CC. Sure you can get lucky and win an assault, but more often than not you are going to lose an assault. Tau in general have low initiative, few attacks, low strength, and low WS. Tau LD is also somewhat low, meaning they will break easily and with sweeping advances their low initiative will often result in the whole squad being wiped out.

I don't think anyone wants the Tau to suddenly become better in CC, however I'm sure many players would like to see a special rule or wargear that would help Tau units stay out of close combat.

bob the heretic wrote:
I mean I have friend who had IG Ratlings that killed a Carnifex (Sorry if I spelt that wrong) in close combat.

I also beat a Hive Tyrant with my ratlings in CC...

sluggaslugga wrote:The BS problem could be solved with letting every squad purchase a targeting array for 10pts.

It would have to be 10pts for the whole squad rather than 10pts a model! otherwise you are talking GK points for a mediocre infantry model

I have had fire warrior teams fight off a terminator, that is the best I've ever got,
only kroot can be asked to fight in CC for more than a turn but they are better used to kill a small squad or hold up a big one
Gun Drones are better in CC than FW

I don't like Firewarriors at BS4. Suits-that's OK (I still think all BS4 suits should be Farsight's bag...and that Farsight's suits should be to vanilla Tau crisis suits as the Grey Knight Paladins compare to vanilla Space Marine terminators.).

Some of the rumors for the Necrons seem like they might be interesting for use with Markerlights (all units shooting at a marked target count their shots as twin-linked).

I don't think they need to be "marined" up with heavy weapons in their squads. I think that's a fantasy of Marine players who started off playing space marines of some variety or another, and then picked up Tau for whatever reason...because sure enough thats the first thing most EVERYONE recommends. I don't like it.

Psychosaur wrote:

I don't think anyone wants the Tau to suddenly become better in CC, however I'm sure many players would like to see a special rule or wargear that would help Tau units stay out of close combat.

Indeed. A drone mounted flechette discharger that works like the vehicle mounted ones would do nicely (all models attacking the unit would be wounded on a 4+ before attack rolls are made) Since its infantry involved, have it set up so that it goes to combat resolution. It keeps working every turn until the drone is taken out. It can't be used when the tau unit is doing the assaulting though...until the next turn. Its a defensive/reacitve weapon system.

I also beat a Hive Tyrant with my ratlings in CC...

I was talking about you......

Psychosaur wrote:

sluggaslugga wrote:The BS problem could be solved with letting every squad purchase a targeting array for 10pts.

I could see that for FWs and be okay with that. I really feel that Crisis, Stealth, and Broadside suits should be at 4 without using points to buy a TA and using up a hard-point.


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bob the heretic wrote:

Tau die in the first turn of combat. not in 2 or 3 turns.

Lets not be that negative about them, it matters who they fight against.
I think hit and run would be a great rule for them, it gives the tau player a chance to escape and give more wounds.
I mean I have friend who had IG Ratlings that killed a Carnifex (Sorry if I spelt that wrong) in close combat, I have read here on dakkadakka how a dude with a grechen wone a terminator in close combat. After those things anything is possible!

No FW (and most other Tau units with the exception of Kroot) do very poorly in CC. Sure you can get lucky and win an assault, but more often than not you are going to lose an
assault. Tau in general have low initiative, few attacks, low strength, and low WS. Tau LD is also somewhat low, meaning they will break easily and with sweeping advances their low initiative will often result in the whole squad being wiped out.

I don't think anyone wants the Tau to suddenly become better in CC, however I'm sure many players would like to see a special rule or wargear that would help Tau units stay out of close combat.

This.

Yay! 100 posts!

The Zoat wrote:

Psychosaur wrote:

sluggaslugga wrote:The BS problem could be solved with letting every squad purchase a targeting array for 10pts.

I could see that for FWs and be okay with that. I really feel that Crisis, Stealth, and Broadside suits should be at 4 without using points to buy a TA and using up a hard-point.


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bob the heretic wrote:

Tau die in the first turn of combat. not in 2 or 3 turns.

Lets not be that negative about them, it matters who they fight against.
I think hit and run would be a great rule for them, it gives the tau player a chance to escape and give more wounds.
I mean I have friend who had IG Ratlings that killed a Carnifex (Sorry if I spelt that wrong) in close combat, I have read here on dakkadakka how a dude with a grechen wone a terminator in close combat. After those things anything is possible!

No FW (and most other Tau units with the exception of Kroot) do very poorly in CC. Sure you can get lucky and win an assault, but more often than not you are going to lose an
assault. Tau in general have low initiative, few attacks, low strength, and low WS. Tau LD is also somewhat low, meaning they will break easily and with sweeping advances their low initiative will often result in the whole squad being wiped out.

I don't think anyone wants the Tau to suddenly become better in CC, however I'm sure many players would like to see a special rule or wargear that would help Tau units stay out of close combat.

This.

Yay! 100 posts!

Congratulations!

Actually... yeah, this

Drones offers versatility. GW should expand on them.

Drones can serve as the Heavy Weapons for the Fire Warrior squad akin to modern day Predator Drone with Hellfire Missile. In this case, it could be Seeker Missiles.

Futuristic Tau doesn't need camo-cloaks when they have Steath Field generators. Perhaps Stealth Field Generator drone granting the squad either stealth rule or 2D6 * 3 to see them?

There could also be a medical drone distributing stimm injectors. FNP to friendlies within 6"?

Advanced Targeter upgrade that lets the unit fire into combat.

I like the Idea of photon grenades or some other special wargear to make it difficult terrain to assault warriors equipped.

Give flechette a similar rule in addition to its old one making it difficult to assault the tank or make them use the facing armour value they assaulted.

woodbok wrote:

sluggaslugga wrote:Hit&Run?

Tau die in the first turn of combat. not in 2 or 3 turns.

Very much untrue. I haven't been in one assault that I didn't survive for more than one turn.

I think the stats for the Tau and Human fire warriors need to be switched around (the BS at least) I remember reading that Tau have poor eye sight and is why their BS is so low.

Now I personally like the BS the way it is because it's a fair trade off for having a 12 man element that all shoot a STR 5 rapid fire weapon with the range of 30"

Very much untrue. I haven't been in one assault that I didn't survive for more than one turn.

Then you were lucky.

I've had 10 FWs beat down 6 harlies in the first round of combat, 5 FWs beat down a lictor in combat, 10 FWs hold up a Jetseer Council in combat from around turn 5 till the end of the game, a broadside battlesuit beat down and SA a large scout marine squad and a crisis suit hold the throne of judgement in CC from Turn 2 until game-end, even managing to deal it a wound.

They are select moments from 3+ years of playing Tau; if we look at it from experience, then your experience and my experience would mean that FWs and Tau as a whole are as hard as nails in CC, or at least a tough nut to crack, but that's BS.

If you want the other side of the coin, then a single Archon charged and slaughtered a unit of 10 FWs in one assault phase; a unit of Incubi did the same, as did a unit of DE warriors. A unit of scout marines (the same ones my broadside later beat down) charged and slaughtered a unit of 12 FWs in one assault phase, and countless other times where my FWs have been maimed in ~1 round of combat.

Further experience comes from playing against Tau as Chaos, where a single chaos spawn ate some FWs and swept the rest of the unit in one round of combat, where khorne berzerkers did the same (although that's wholly expected of berzerkers). Also seeing Tau being played against allows me to add 12 FWs being killed by 5 Space Marines in one round of combat; 10 FWs being swept by a single CSM with a plasmagun in one round of combat.

That's my experience, YMMV as ever.

Tau are like a wet noodle in close combat; it doesn't take a lot more than a slight breeze to knock them down, but you might get unlucky and that noodle might whip you in the eye.

For the most part, however, Tau (FWs mainly) die in the opening rounds of combat.

That was an interesting Metaphora...
Anyways, I have humiliating moments against Tau, but also very cool and epic.
A unit of 5 Drones kill my Penal Legion in CC, or my priest
Detaches from the squad and charges at 2
Surviving FWs holding an objective, kills both of them, then dies a martyr.

Tau with BS 4? I don't think so.

Speaking of funny Tau CC my gun drone from my piranha was able to wound a terminator.

The core problem of Tau is they are a firepower army that does not stand out in firepower. BS 4 or cheaper markerlights or persistent markerlights would go a long way to helping them.

Cost or effectiveness needs to be adjusted. ROF 2 carbines ROF4 burst cannons would help. Just look at this for a comparison:
6 long fangs with 5 heavy bolters 115 points
12 Firewarriors with rifles 120 points
15 S5 AP4 shots that hit 2/3 of the time versus 12 S5 AP5 shots that hit 1/2 of the time. One round of exchange fire and 10 firewarriors are dead versus 2 marines blowing their armor save.

Goddard wrote:Tau with BS 4? I don't think so.

Why? Why shouldn't at least all suits be BS 4 as a base? They aren't super fast for mobility (seems like everyone else gets bikes/jet marines/open topped transports/etc), they don't pack artillery, have horrible cc stats, only a 4+ save, suits die far to easily to incoming fire (for the cost of two+ terminators I get a model that goes up to a single Krak Missle).

They are genetically adapted to shooting, why shouldn't they do it well enough?

Personally I could forgo the BS 4 on Firewarriors, but not pathfinders and suits. The shoot to shoot again method is horrible for someone that has to be awesome at shooting in order to win, yet isn't.

Id like to see all Tau Suits act as power weapons in CC. IMO The Low WS, Low T, and low LD more than make up for ignoring armor tests in CC.

A friend of mine had what I thought to be a good idea for FWs. How about a counter-shot ability, sort of like counter-attack but shooting.

Counter-shot: When the unit is being assaulted they may attempt to retain their composure in the face of the upcoming charge. If the unit includes a Shas'ui they can elect to take a Morale test and if passed the unit will be allowed to shoot at the oncoming attackers. Attempting a counter-shot forgoes the use photon grenades.

Combat would then result as normal.

Brother Sein wrote:A friend of mine had what I thought to be a good idea for FWs. How about a counter-shot ability, sort of like counter-attack but shooting.

Counter-shot: When the unit is being assaulted they may attempt to retain their composure in the face of the upcoming charge. If the unit includes a Shas'ui they elect to take a Morale test and if passed the unit will be allowed to shoot at the oncoming attackers. Attempting a counter-shot forgoes the use photon grenades.

Combat would then result as normal.

When did we move to Fantasy Battle?

Actually thus could work pretty well...

They use this in Flames of War - defensive fire.

It works very well and it makes sense.

Here's what I think:

All Suits (Battle, Stealth and Broadside) are Bs4 base.

Fire Warriors can be upgraded to Bs4 for 20 points for the unit.

Pulse Carbines are Assault 2.

Pulse Rifles -1 from armour saves (termies take on a 3+, ork boys get no save at all).

Tau can elect to fire into a charging enemy unit, but cannot make any other attacks in melee that turn.

Kroot have a 6+ armour save as standard and have furious charge.

Shapers can improve this to a 5+ save at 20 points for the whole unit, and can elect to replace FC with Counter Attack (chosen at deployment).

Hammerhead railguns can fire a solid shot that hit everything in a line, but takes a -1 penalty to it's strength for each unit it passes through (so S10 on the first, S9 on the second), to a minimum of 5.

Thoughts?

S_P

Space_Potato wrote:Here's what I think:

All Suits (Battle, Stealth and Broadside) are Bs4 base.

Fire Warriors can be upgraded to Bs4 for 20 points for the unit.

Pulse Carbines are Assault 2.

Pulse Rifles -1 from armour saves (termies take on a 3+, ork boys get no save at all).

Tau can elect to fire into a charging enemy unit, but cannot make any other attacks in melee that turn.

Kroot have a 6+ armour save as standard and have furious charge.

Shapers can improve this to a 5+ save at 20 points for the whole unit, and can elect to replace FC with Counter Attack (chosen at deployment).

Hammerhead railguns can fire a solid shot that hit everything in a line, but takes a -1 penalty to it's strength for each unit it passes through (so S10 on the first, S9 on the second), to a minimum of 5.

Thoughts?

S_P

Pulse carbines should be assault 2 pinning, but range lowered to 12"

The rest is pretty solid to me.

What about making Pulse weapons AP4? I mean, they do fire plasma projectiles... and in-game, other plasma weapons are AP2 (even Tau ones).

It would also make them slightly better against horde armies, like Nids or Orks.

Your Friend Doctor Robert wrote:The Shas'O should have an Orbital Bombardment(S 10 AP 1 Large Blast, BS does not affect scatter, Once per game) As well as improved Wargear Choices over his subordinates(perhaps a single Railgun, taking up two Hardpoints on his Battlesuit?)

I say that Ethereals need this more than Shas'O's so that there might be an actual reason to take them, but other things probably need to be done for ethereals as well.

I like your idea for a Distraction Drone, I also have an idea for a new type of drone:

Targeting Drone: This drone can only be taken by vehicles, once released from the vehicle it can move as if it was a separate unit but does not confer any kill points or victory points and is destroyed when it's 'owner' vehicle is destroyed. In the shooting phase, a vehicle with a Targeting Drone can use the drone's line of sight instead of its own to target a unit, if the targeted unit is blocked from line of sight from the 'owner' vehicles then they get a 4+ cover save.

I'm not sure what it should cost, but it's effectively Hammerheads shooting around corners, I don't really know much about balance though.

So the H-head would shoot through the terrain?

ZeroSamurai wrote:I'm not sure what it should cost, but it's effectively Hammerheads shooting around corners, I don't really know much about balance though.

This is terribly overpowered as is, maybe put the tank at -1 to Bs? Also, around 40 points I think.

S_P

It doesn't make sense. There is no possible way that the Hammerhead would be able to hit a target around a corner unless it fired straight through a wall, but that could potentially lead to the ammunition fired being deflected, buried in particularly strong terrain or losing power after striking terrain and not being able to strike the enemy with enough force to do damage.

The only way it'd work is if the drone itself had a railgun duct taped to it.

I also don't see how it'd work if the target was behind another vehicle (like a space marine behind a land raider); you'd be forced to hit the vehicle first, which isn't like shooting through terrain.

What if tau get deployable turrets?

like the FW ones? they are very good models and can be used successfully, but are not equal to hammerheads and broadsides.



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Avatar 720 wrote:
Tau are like a wet noodle in close combat; it doesn't take a lot more than a slight breeze to knock them down, but you might get unlucky and that noodle might whip you in the eye.

Sigged!