Consolidated. Working on Auxiliaries (Re: Allies) as separate codecies now. Please evaluate and critique honestly!
Oath as a Reviewer:
Though I may be your friend, I will not write as one.
I will objectively base my review on balance, design, and synergy.
I will give criticism or praise as it is deserved.
I shall be critical and logical in my reasoning.
I may not be nice or polite, but I shall be respectful.
Ah! Hmm, a remedy to this must be found. I suppose I can upload the .doc; formatting might be wonky if someone's not using wordpad, but boo-hoo for now. I'll research converting a file to pdf, and then I'll make that as pretty as I can.
Link to direct download is in original post. Tell me how that goes!
Got it working pretty well between spoiler and direct download, I think. Grabbing openoffice so I can get page numbers and layout into a format that works with the pdf converter I'm using, as once it's a pdf I can no longer edit it without subscribing.
1: Jump Infantry should be fast attack, not troops.
2: The only way fluffwise I can see Firewarrior squads getting special weapons is them being mounted on drones.
The Fire Warrior MAC teams are a /tg/ addition, from an epic "What if Tau took the traditional approach for their basic rank-and-file" (that is, load them up with awesome, inexpensive things that make them as survivable as possible.) Jet packs came to mind, and the Crisis Suits were also tuned to feel more like Elementals or SST mech (although without the rapid tactical nuke launchers). The points cost and balance are roughly the same as Blood Angels Assault Marines, and could even be a little less expensive if it wasn't for the versaility of wargear provided by the Team Leader - Tinkering on vassal proved that having choices on them was more fun for both players than simple vanilla jump troopers, so we rolled with it. I will concede if it does get to be a problem having mobile infantry as troops, they will be shunted to the Fast Attack section and slightly reduced in both options and cost, but for now, it's fun to deepstrike useful things as Tau.
For 2: I considered Drone Special Weapon bodies as an integral part of Fire Warrior adaptability, but I wanted to keep them generally focused on being objective-driven. The Pulse rifles are gone forever if you replace them; Less dual-performance and more "This unit will be doing this, that unit will be doing that, together the hunt will fell all who oppose the Greater Good."
Right now, between Quantum Games and Vassal, the codex appears to be sitting between C:SM and IG - we'll see what changes when I finish up a presentable Heavy Support section, but your concerns, especially the fast attack vs troops, have been taken under consideration.
Currently they're 25pts for a suit, 35 for a guard and 50/75 for commaners, including the pilot. You now have it as 65pts a standard suit, 85pts for your guards and 90 / 150 for your commanders, before weapons.
Youve made Hardwired available to everything, but changed it to cost double when in the current codex the identical options cost the same. You've switched twin-linked from costing 4 points more, to costing double and you've removed the ability to choose what weapons you can have overall.
I don't see what you've done that warrants the HUGE price increases, everythings now costing 2-3 times more, being the suits in the current codex want either a slight price drop or slight stat boost as is.
Also, I don't know why you've tripled the cost of an Ethereal, there's really nothing there to warrant an extra 100pts. Oh, and what does it's wargear do?
Also Fire Warriors could happily remain 10pts with the +1BS.
Ovion wrote:The Battelsuits ARE prohibitively expensive.
Currently they're 25pts for a suit, 35 for a guard and 50/75 for commaners, including the pilot.
You now have it as 65pts a standard suit, 85pts for your guards and 90 / 150 for your commanders, before weapons.
Youve made Hardwired available to everything, but changed it to cost double when in the current codex the identical options cost the same.
You've switched twin-linked from costing 4 points more, to costing double and you've removed the ability to choose what weapons you can have overall.
I don't see what you've done that warrants the HUGE price increases, everythings now costing 2-3 times more, being the suits in the current codex want either a slight price drop or slight stat boost as is.
Also, I don't know why you've tripled the cost of an Ethereal, there's really nothing there to warrant an extra 100pts.
Oh, and what does it's wargear do?
Also Fire Warriors could happily remain 10pts with the +1BS.
Crisis suits come with a weapon, and are T5, a HUGE boost to their survivability. You can field 36 suits now, and have an all suit army - the added points cost for commanders takes this into consideration. The 100 point shaso also takes into consideration you can redirect reserves on the fly - another large boost to overall tactical play.
The reason suits are so high at the moment is because playtesting has warranted it. When I have the Heavy Support section done and some more games played with the current iterations of devilfish and hammerheads, they might be reduced. They might be increased. Right now they're throwing out a lot of fire power and staying in the game for a decent amount of time. What I might do is increase their wounds to 3, for their current cost, and see how that works out, as they're mostly dying to combined fire or CC.
The Ethereal's wargear is at the top of the Armoury. He's got a power weapon, strikes at high initiative and strength, 3+ invuln and 3+ armour that allows units within 12" to reroll morale, and can can disengage almost at will. The preferred enemy he grants is intended to be used with ranged weapons as well, as I have the 6th edition in mind with this, and all I've got are rumours to go on. As well, he opens up the option of 5 30" plasma rifles.
His cost started at 75. I bumped it to 100, and again to 150, because of his abilities. Now that I've got the dex on dakkadakka, battle reports and updates/their reasons will be posted as well. I enjoy staying on the safe side of things until major changes are justified, and sitting at the 150 spot is enough to make him a contender instead of an automatic choice.
Fire warriors get ablative armour. They can stick around and trade fire with a lot of basic infantry now, and don't get crushed in battle as quickly, allowing them to make use of drones or an ethereal if either are available. They also benefit from a higher leadership, and the ability to purchase wargear or special weapons - all of which has to be factored into their cost. However, the sentiment that they're rather expensive is rather widespread, and I am going to be testing them at 10 points with BS4 and Ablative, and the only wargear options open to them as Drones and EMP grenades. Combined fire will be present in a couple, and not in a couple others.
I hope this helps to clear up the misconception that I'm just pulling numbers for this stuff out of my ass - that was 2 weeks ago. What I'm looking at now is trim and tuck, removal of cheese, rounding out and finishing off the options. I'll be fleshing out the fluff with special characters, for which I WILL be using lots of community feedback on flavour, as the rule of cool is strong in regards to special characters.
Notes on HQ: 6 Bs5/6 snipers that return fire and gib marines or tanks. Sniper suits were found to be incredibly powerful en-mass. Current recourse has been to slowly creep their points cost, but I may have to limit them.
Notes on Elites: You'll see how I can now pop every transport on turn 1, and deal a lot of heavy damage to meq. However, 2+spam and mobs should be fine against this army - especially with the upgraded points cost in 1.2a, and possible incoming nerfs.
Notes on Troops: You see now the reason for the inflated cost of HQ. 30 Snipers fit into this 1500 list. They compete with nob bikers. Hopefully the 10% points nerf will alleviate it slightly, if not, another small nerf. Availability is restricted if that fails, as well.
His army
1500 Points
Space Wolves
HQ Rune Priest: Living Lightning, Jaws of the World Wolf - 100
Rune Priest: Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane, Boltgun - 100
HQ = 200
HQ Notes: Fairly standard; he knew I would be tauing, so JotWW very good at removing models.
Elites
Wolf Scouts: 5 man - 75
+Meltagun - (10) 85
x2 = 170
Wolf Guard: 5 man - 90
5 Combi-Melta - ((5)25) 115
5 Power Fist - ((20)100) 215
Elites = 385
Total = 585
Elites notes: Not much here again. Solid picks. Scouting, fast, powerful, lots of melta and bolt.
Troops Notes: Standard. Could've done with a few more, because these are what I took out first, and I used enough firepower on them that he might have done better in other places. Might just be the way I play, though. Greedy for vehicle kills!
Long Fang Pack: 5 man - 75
4 Missile Launchers - ((10)40) 115
Heavy Support = 495
Total = 1500
Heavy Notes: Dakkadakkadakkadakka. This was where the real contest was!
Mission: Sieze Ground, 4 objectives. Got to place last, so objectives were scattered.
Deployment: Dawn of WAAAAARGH - Again, good for me. Loving it; Battle Network might get its Night Fight turned down a bit, but it's really not much worse than spotlights. Maybe I'll nerf it to spotlights.
Shasel and guard with both troops deployed via infiltrate. He kept everything off, outflanked his scouts, and went first via ini steal.
Shasel took a wound from embarked; no rules for return fire against embarked units, so we rolled off, and no return fire was made. Return fire will be amended to reflect this, as it kind of makes sense - you gonna shoot through their vehicle slits? NOPE.
Not much happened other than that. both razorfangs made it to cover, footfangs ran valiantly but fell short. My models hopped onto the board, and I targeted the fangs that hadn't made it; out of range, with the deployed shasel, but one of my troops was close enough that the roll was almost trivial. 2 Fangs went down from them, and the unit was pinned. Began popping transports; a razorback survived but was shaken. One hunters was pinned from wreck, and another lost a model due to explodes. Good shootin', Tex! Assault moves into some more suitable terrain, and it's off to him.
His turn 2 wasn't bad; guard moved up but were out of range, both scouts came in, though I was a ways from the edges by now. The deployed shas'el's unit was whiped by fangs, and I lost a couple suits to jotww.
And then I mopped up. Average rolls on both sides resulted in no more long fangs, and seriously wounded greys knights squads. I still had 2 full troops, a full HQ, and 2.6 elites. Assault moves brought me out of CC range, and he conceded.
FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS FOR SNIPER SUITS:
Choice between Relentless or Assault Move.
Remove Assault Move
Remove Relentless
Moar Points
Limited quantity/Monats
Notes on HQ: Simple enough, a durable balls to the wall champion to lead my fight. He was quite worth his points, when I outflanked the piranhas, but points value and the outflank ability will be getting small changed; Points will be going down, and the Unit who can choose to outflank must be chosen at deployment; Still invaluable to a cunning tactician, but not quite as powerful.
Notes on Troops: I took them mostly to pin down positions; I figured if enemies got too close, the carbines would be invaluable in forcing pinning tests. Unfortunately, my opponent's army disagreed, as you'll see.
(Note: The current codex has Inferno missiles granting 2 hits at 15 points. This was changed to 1 hit at 20 points for this game, because I must have been smoking something when I made it the. Seeker Missiles were reduced to 10 points again. Both changes will be reflected in A1.3)
Fast Attack = 180
Notes on Fast attack: Just some piranhas I intended to, and did, outflank on the second turn. I gave them a fairly allcomers loadout, which at 90 points, put them around a landspeeder. Im removing both supersonic and aerial assault from them; It seemed neat, but it's ridiculous in light of the fact that tau are piloting them. Aderp durr.
Heavy Support
Hammerhead - 120
Ion Disruption Beam - 135
- SMS
Devilfish - 60
+ Ion Disruption Beam - 75
- SMS
Total - 210
Total = 997
Notes on Heavy Support: The devilfish was decent for its points. I still don't have much of a vehicle armoury down, so I didn't get to try many of the things inherent to a tau army; disruption pods, flechettes, multitrackers... Devilfish might make decent little gunboats with a multitracker and disruption pod. Hammerheads gonna hammerhead; I managed to only shoot my own unit once! Reworded the stop clause of the Hammerhead's ability to "Against Monstrous Creatures or Vehicles, a roll of less than 3 to wound or penetrate will stop any further units from suffering hits from this shot." I still feel justified in not including the submunitions.
My opponent was throwing nids at me. I didn't catch the army list, but it had 5 Tervigons in it. On Vassal, multiple tervigons is something not that neat to see. In real life, watching someone unload upwards of 80, 90, 100 termagants onto the field, it's glorious.
Pitched Battle Capture and Control, my opponent deployed and went first. I deployed my crisis suit and vehicles fairly forward, to the right - keeping the piranhas in reserve, and 12 men in the devilfish. The other two deployed along the back wall, one to the right, one near my objective on the left-rear corner. They deployed 30" from each other because of the dirty assault range a spawning termagant receives.
As I said earlier, I'd taken the carbines for pinning. I was kicking myself now; 12 guns that I'd almost never get to use! Oh well.
The tl;dr of this story is that he drowned me in termagants with a bunch of 4-5-6 rolls, and that even though only one of his tervigons survived to the end, even though dozens of gants never got to be fielded because of model issues, and even though dozens more were mercilessly slaughtered, the game was essentially 900 points of fearless, 6 wound monstrous creatures against a crisis suit commander and a hammerhead, and the 90+ gants on the field evened the table for the rest of the things. He reached me on turn 3 with a fat stack of gants. Turn 4 his gants were 3 ranks thick around all of my models.
The defensive grenades combined with ablative armour and a one-round of shooting in between assaults immensely eased the pressure, but by turn 4 his 2 remaining tervigons were in assault, and I only managed to kill one with a lucky string of 6's. The commander sat in combat with a stack of gants from turn 3 till turn 5 without dealing or taking a single wound, it was pretty spectacular. Serves him right for taking out a tervigon all by hisself in the preceeding 2 rounds of dakka.
The inferno missiles, as I mentioned before, had to be massively toned down. Smart missile systems are working as intended for what they are. The piranhas came out of the left side of the map, blazed through a tervigon, unloaded some firepower on some gants, and then danced around the map repeating this until they ran out of targets. I did manage to contest his objective, but he had mine, so victory went his way!
Giving Devilfishes scouts means they get to move 24 inches turn one for free, simply having it bestowed by the unit is better.
Ion Weapons should have just straight rending, if at all.
The Heavy Rail Gun doesn't really make a huge amount of sense.
OK, Unstoppable doesn't make that much sense and is a bit overpowered and/or silly, aswell a a little complex.
I'd frankly make the Heavy Rail simply Heavy 2 if you're going to do something like that.
Or maybe have it dual profile, along the lines of:
Heavy Rail Gun - AP Slug
Firing a two high powered shot the HRG excels at penetrating enemy armour.
Range-72", Str-10, AP-1, Heavy 2.
Heavy Rail Gun - Sustained Fire
Firing a magazine of smaller projectiles on a fast cycle the HRG is able to supress enemy infantry.
Range-72", Str-4, AP-5, Heavy 10, Pinning.
This way is nice and simple, sets it apart from the broadsides railgun and gives you a decent incentive for taking it over the broadside team, instead of just multiple Broadsides.
Something else I noticed, if you've basically made it so you can take 12 troops choices.
TBH, Inferno Missiles at a standard S5 one shot template would be fine at 10 points as things like the Dark Eldar Monoscythe is S6 AP5 Large Blast and that's only 10 points a piece.
My general feel for this is still that a lot of it seems heavily overcosted.
The Necron's Doom Ray is 175 points, on a fast skimmer vehicle, and generally considered heavily heavily overcosted. The Heavy Rail Cannon runs on the same, if cleaned up, principle, and is identical (plus monstrous creature clause) to the rumoured one in the mix. Your concern that it's too powerful/too gimmicky is noted, and notches may have to be dialed if this proves true.
I wanted to keep the Devilfish's design as slim as possible; a 12man transport that can scout or outflank. Sticking in a clumsily worded rule allowing pathfinders to confer scouts to it, possibly opening it up to shenanigans later on, was something I wanted to avoid. I tossed scouts into its points cost and called it a day. I forgot to add that drones take up no transport room, but oh well, it'll come. Just imagine it's being driven by a pathfinder; a pathfinder with no legs - a pathfinder named Stumpy, and all he wants to do is extract vengeance for the stupid nickname his enemies have forced upon him.
Speaking of Drones, limiting the number able to join a unit to 4xDC, or rather, 2-4 more drones can join a unit that already has 0-2. Had a guy mention that under the current rules, you can have 46 drones all clump together around 2 HQ's and an elites slot, which, while useless in combat, provides dozens of ablative wounds, and perhaps some ridiculous single/duo-target firepower.
Yes, you can have 12 units as troops choices. I wanted to set firewarriors apart from the eventual Auxiliaries, without making them mandatory, and able to maintain a presence without stealing too many FOC slots - So far there's been no complaint, and an all firewarriors army, while sometimes gimmicky, is no worse than an all boys or all sisters army. Running 12 minimal squads will still set you back 864 points, and that many sisters of battle will still pop them like dried corn, not to mention anything that can outflank, scout, av12, or deepstrike a heavy flamer.
The regular ion guns are what I felt was about right for a weapon that's about as close to a truly "rending" weapon the Tau have. Not many weapons fit the definition better, besides rending claws. This thing is literally the business end of a hadron collider, pointed at you.
For the Heavy Ion Cannon, I was inspired by the Tyranids Codex on page 18; Globs of ionized molecules dispensed. Still not sure on points cost for it; A1.2 was supposed to mention it as 30 points, but I've been debating lowering the Hammerhead to 90 and tossing both its weapons into the Vehicle Armoury's Heavy Weapons. Since the Hammerhead will be the only one able to take them, I wanted to have them on its profile - but it's easier to keep track of it when everything's in its place, I think.
One thing about seeker missiles that's different from regular one-shot weapons is that they can be fired any time there's an available SMS or markerlight token, and can be taken nigh-universally by the army. Oneshot weapons such as the monoscythe, the hunter killer, and the Blood Raven's s8ap1 "kill something for free turn 1" rockets were taken into account when making them.
A free heavyflamer in addition to any other weapons, to be placed anywhere on the board, in an ideal position, and fired at any speed, from any unit (Although you've reminded me that I need to make them unfirable from units inside transports) is, unfortunately, worth a lot to an army that otherwise boasts a high volume of single-target fire.
Note: I'll try a couple games with them at 10 Points. You'll note however that my main way of checking for cheese is maxing its possible purchase power. This means I'm going to be taking broadsides and piranhas with fusion guns and snipers (finally decently costed, and limited to elites squads of 3 or less) to pop transports, allowing the tender meat within to roast.
Not every unit HAS a special ability, and the ones that do are fairly simple; They need to be worded in a manner that leaves RAW as RAI. The shaso gives outflank. The ethereal lets you attack, disengage, or fall back. The veterans have a bonding knife. Pathfinders can come in from a table edge whenever they damn-well please. Fire warriors shoot together. Bodyguards return fire.
Simple concepts that have to be worded carefully.
There also aren't that many units, certainly far less than most codecies out lately. As someone who's given a glance at, and apparently understands, the IG's and tyranids' codecies - what precisely are you having difficulties with? Any chance to improve the ease of reading would be welcome.
With the melta missiles, I assume that it get 2d6 armor pen regardless of where the missile is fired from. since half of infinity is nonsence. You need to make that clearer in the codex.
Something else I keep meaning to point out:
The layout is a little jumbled, all-over the place and cluttered, making it a tad harder to go through.
What I'll do to help you (assuming you'd like that ) in a couple of days when I've finished my Tau condensed Codex in Excel, I'll attempt to copy yours into it then send you a copy, which will give you a good basis for tidying it up. and the PDFing.
(It's easy enough to copy the Excel stuff into word [also you can do it using open office equivalents] add in the special rules and make a PDF, which will make this sort of thing:
Using DE examples as my Tau stuff isn't done yet
Spoiler:
I can also give you a free program to make this sort of layout:
Using DE examples as my Tau stuff isn't done yet
@Ledabot, yes that was the intent. I think there are a few unlimited range "Melta" abilities, and the GWFAQs for them have cleared up the misunderstanding, so I assumed there was precedence. It'll be cleared up in 1.3
@Ovion, my that IS sexy. I wish Open Office had a search and replace so I could get rid of all my indents, I think I've been too liberal with them. I shouldn't have trouble transferring everything to a similar format myself, but your offer is very appreciated
Alpha 1.3 released! My main Playtesting Opponent is back from exams, and I've got the next few days off; should get plenty of time to iron this out and incorporate some of the things inspired lately.
Skyrays! They are beautiful and I love them. Unfortunately, the .pdf has a mistake in its entry for them; it should be as follows
Squad Unit Points Per Models Unit Type:
Skyray- Skyray 150 1 Skimmer, Tank
Vehicle Squadron
BS Front AV Side AV Rear AV 4 13 12 11
A Skyray Vehicle Squadron is a Heavy Support choice for a Tau Empire Army. Up to 2 additional Skyrays may be added to the squadron at 150 points each.
Wargear Special Rules
4 Smart Missile Systems Tau
Seeker Missile FHU Battle Network Link
Light Vehicle Weapon Bombardment
Wargear Options: A Skyray must purchase a Forward-Mounted Light Weapon Turret from the Vehicle Armoury. It may purchase Vehicle Options from the Vehicle Armoury.
Smart Missile Systems: A Skyray's 4 Smart Missile Systems may only be used to target its own Seeker Missiles.
Seeker Missile FHU: Atop a Skyray is a Seeker Missile Fabrication and Housing Unit, or FHU. It slots and equips the Skyray with up to 6 Seeker Missiles of the same type at a time. At the beginning of your shooting phase, roll a D6 for each available slot. On a 4+, the FHU produces and equips the Skyray with a new seeker missile of your choice, up to 6, but of the same type as any remaining missiles if applicable. Only seeker missiles housed in the FHU may be replaced this way.
Bombardment: If it has yet to fire a seeker missile or use Bombardment, a Skyray Vehicle Squadron may remove any 6 of its FHU seeker missiles in the shooting phase to fire the following profile:
Skyray Bombardment
Range: Unlimited S: 8 AP: 3 Special: Heavy 6, Blast, Ordnance Barrage
I'd forgotten to change everything over to being squadron-based, so the .pdf version will look inconsistent in comparison.
As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions, and will be tossing up some mech-heavy battle reports soon!
WAIT WHAT THE HECK!
those skyrays have 4 sms AND 6 seeker missiles. What!? WHAT!?
seriously...for 150 is very very overpowered. I have to say, to me it makes much more sense to remove the seeker missiles on a skyraym and instead just leave them with sms system (perhaps with longer range) as atm, with 10 weapons, thats ridiculous.
The rest seems ok, where actually is this codex? rest Im going off based from the lists etc.
One other thing: Seems to be seen a lot "So and so cost so and so in this codex, so they should cost this much in my codex too" No. You need to consider the points cost based on what it uses, If a unit is overprices in a codex, that can lead into the units you use this for being the same...
Other than that good.
Sorry to shower with complaints, just started reading
1: rules for sniper suit seem redundant "gains tank hunter if it doesnt move" but if its weapon cannot be fired when it moves, no one would move.. See where Im getting at there? also why are they jump infantry? snipers dont go hoppin round the battlefield, they mark their targets and own them- perhaps remove jump pack, rework rules slightly, then good
2: The suit system - I actually am loving the idea of purchasing different battlesuit types- but way too exspensive in certain cases.. also, toughness 5 and 2 wounds? wha? take it at one wound. I understand toughness 5 but not multiple wounds. Im lovin this part of the list.
3: Lovin the idea of For The Greater Good! One slight suggestion however, perhaps change it as an ork WAAAGH style thing? have it that once a game, a tau army can declare the battle cry, making all tau units On the board Fearless?
4:The ethereal is Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Ethereals do not command the battlefield at all, they join the armies as observers, and as councilors to the commanders, to avoid anything like Commander farsight from happening. Drop him to 60 points, keep his death the same (although be more specific with the rule than just fall back, leaves a lot of open holes for arguments) and give him a 4 up invulnerable save. Infact, thats the only advice I can give. Ethereals on the board seem stupid to me, I see no way of them working, nice rules, but for the wrong unit imho. Ethereals, a combat unit? WHAAAA? what was gw thinking...this is their fail not yours. Peace seems cool, seems to be a nice way to keep manoeverability. (Sorry to sound hatey to this, I just dislike the ehtereal in gaming aspects all together)
Wait.
Just read the shield rule... so if he dies, which he inevitably will. He blows his army up and makes them retreat? that would cause a lot of damage considering all his rules require people nearby...
5: Pathfinders....what? no markerlights? entire unit has railguns? pssh who needs sniper suits when you have a 12 man team of the snipersuits!
Markerlights were awesome...where they go? D: Oh. there they are. theyre an upgrade...most things I see being able to take those, dont want them.
6: At first glance lost at the hunter cadres, nothing explaining them, are they two units fo 6 man teams? the tau arent platoon based. A hunter cadre in most cases (board wise) would be the whole army, not one troop choice.
Overall, a lot of great ideas in this codex, lots of stuff I do hope to see in the codex, albeit some of it changed, looking forward to seeing this come together! Im sorry I seemed to be hatey, I honestly think a lot of this codex is cool, but Id rather see the problems gone then the good stuff being paid attention to...that stuffs fine.
I like your idea for the ethereal. One of many units in our current dex that are basically unplayable. All I want from a revamped dex is for units like vespid, stealth suits, sniper drones, ethereals to become viable choices. We live in hope!
blood lance wrote:WAIT WHAT THE HECK!
those skyrays have 4 sms AND 6 seeker missiles. What!? WHAT!?
seriously...for 150 is very very overpowered. I have to say, to me it makes much more sense to remove the seeker missiles on a skyraym and instead just leave them with sms system (perhaps with longer range) as atm, with 10 weapons, thats ridiculous.
The rest seems ok, where actually is this codex? rest Im going off based from the lists etc.
One other thing: Seems to be seen a lot "So and so cost so and so in this codex, so they should cost this much in my codex too" No. You need to consider the points cost based on what it uses, If a unit is overprices in a codex, that can lead into the units you use this for being the same...
Other than that good.
Sorry to shower with complaints, just started reading
1: rules for sniper suit seem redundant "gains tank hunter if it doesnt move" but if its weapon cannot be fired when it moves, no one would move.. See where Im getting at there? also why are they jump infantry? snipers dont go hoppin round the battlefield, they mark their targets and own them- perhaps remove jump pack, rework rules slightly, then good
2: The suit system - I actually am loving the idea of purchasing different battlesuit types- but way too exspensive in certain cases.. also, toughness 5 and 2 wounds? wha? take it at one wound. I understand toughness 5 but not multiple wounds. Im lovin this part of the list.
3: Lovin the idea of For The Greater Good! One slight suggestion however, perhaps change it as an ork WAAAGH style thing? have it that once a game, a tau army can declare the battle cry, making all tau units On the board Fearless?
4:The ethereal is Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Ethereals do not command the battlefield at all, they join the armies as observers, and as councilors to the commanders, to avoid anything like Commander farsight from happening. Drop him to 60 points, keep his death the same (although be more specific with the rule than just fall back, leaves a lot of open holes for arguments) and give him a 4 up invulnerable save. Infact, thats the only advice I can give. Ethereals on the board seem stupid to me, I see no way of them working, nice rules, but for the wrong unit imho. Ethereals, a combat unit? WHAAAA? what was gw thinking...this is their fail not yours. Peace seems cool, seems to be a nice way to keep manoeverability. (Sorry to sound hatey to this, I just dislike the ehtereal in gaming aspects all together)
Wait.
Just read the shield rule... so if he dies, which he inevitably will. He blows his army up and makes them retreat? that would cause a lot of damage considering all his rules require people nearby...
5: Pathfinders....what? no markerlights? entire unit has railguns? pssh who needs sniper suits when you have a 12 man team of the snipersuits!
Markerlights were awesome...where they go? D: Oh. there they are. theyre an upgrade...most things I see being able to take those, dont want them.
6: At first glance lost at the hunter cadres, nothing explaining them, are they two units fo 6 man teams? the tau arent platoon based. A hunter cadre in most cases (board wise) would be the whole army, not one troop choice.
Overall, a lot of great ideas in this codex, lots of stuff I do hope to see in the codex, albeit some of it changed, looking forward to seeing this come together! Im sorry I seemed to be hatey, I honestly think a lot of this codex is cool, but Id rather see the problems gone then the good stuff being paid attention to...that stuffs fine.
A lot of great stuff to address! Let's see if I can't change or explain my reasoning behind most of it
The Skyrays' SMS right now is not the old SMS - it simply allows them to fire a single seeker missile, and only one of their own. They're missile platforms, and if you fire all 4, you're only going to get 2-3 shots out of it in a game. I've considered moving it down to 2 SMS, but I want to give it a shot at competing with the hammerheads and broadsides. You should've seen it when it was 6 seeker missiles, and could simply fire all 6 every turn! It is overpowered in its current iteration, but I hope to rectify that in increments, starting with points cost, and eventually, moving into its abilities if therein lies the problem.
A lot of the points costs take into account not only the units' own abilities, options, and place within the codex, but its costs compared to other codecies. This is because if a Guard player wants to play an all foot list, with lots of rifles, nothing is there to stop a Tau army from doing the same, but cheaper, and better. This is wrong. IG are supposed to be a gimme for the points a 3's model with a 3's gun, some restrictions, and minimal options is supposed to cost. Space marines are the gimme for a 4's army with a 4's gun and lots of options, and it reflects by tripling the cost. I'm looking at a 2's and 3's army with a bunch of special rules and a bunch of bitchin' guns and options, so my units' prices have to reflect that.
Sniper Suits have jet packs. They're relentless. This is so they can hide behind things, pop out, snipe a target, and hop back. It's assumed they're observing the target through special radar senses, or through the camera eyes of a drone or another unit's headset.
Old Crisis Suits had 2 wounds, but the biggest complaint was losing a powerful, multi-wound model to something like a melta, especially when the model was so expensive, and such an integral part of your army. I can guarantee a W1 crisis suit would have people in uproar; sometimes you gotta appeal to the masses ;P Other than that, Crisis Suits have been coming down in points in little shavings, stealth suits are good where they are (In terms of spammyness, they're not powerful or available enough that I want to buff their points costs, but their abilities are already so limited that I can't take from there without fundamentally changing them - they're a wildcard and I like it.) Broadsides are still limited to 14 total, a decent number if you want to spam them, but they won't be making headlines because of their 1-2 target limit/unit. Sniper suits used to be a real problem; Mobile Heavy Weapons teams with krak missiles, for less! and more bs!
One thing I may be doing is removing the commander's ability to make these units troops, and instead simply make them scoring - limiting again their availability.
The Greater Good was actually inspired by orks, but I'd rather keep the tau at a constant, presence-based morale power, than have a gimmick attached.
Ethereals have always been combat units. They're some of the only tau with eyesight good enough to be martial artists, and they spend much of their time training and honing these skills. They've also always blown up their armies when they die. Although not necessarily psykers, they do have a seeming telepathic link to a wide range of tau around them; pilots in space have been known to be driven into despair when a planetside ethereal has died, long before they receive news of it.
As well, the preferred enemy rule is with the 6th edition codex in mind; it's rumoured, especially after destroyers in the necrons codex, to apply to the shooting phase, as well. I've got my fingers crossed.
Passing a morale test or immediately falling back is the usual consequence for failing a morale test. Falling back for normal infantry is on 2d6, and for jump infantry is 3d6. An ethereal was designed to be taken with a cohort, regardless of his own personal power. Although I agree, if his abilities begin to become troublesome, I'll be slowly whittling him down.
Pathfinder Scouts have markerlights. They're also really cool to field, because your opponent never knows when or where they're going to appear. Pathfinder SW teams have regular rail guns; S6, not 8. They can't pop de landraidums.
Speaking of Markerlights, I really like taking 2/4 small teams with a markerlight and couple carbines each. The combined fire pinning mixed with markerlight shots can keep units easily pinned, something I feels really representative of Tau gunfire.
The Firewarriors pull a little from IG; you can have multiple units as a single troops choice; that is, as single troops choice is 1 or 2 units of fire warriors, each with 6, and the ability to be up to 12, and their special weapons and options all implied. This is intended so that you can have multiple units of fire warriors when I introduce the Auxiliaries codex, a sister project encompassing the allies of the Tau. It'll be using a shared FOC.
Your points bring up the fact that I'm going to have to deal with the wording on the Fire Warriors' FOC problem eventually, and rightly points out the Skyray and its power. I hope you're around when I start into special characters
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troy_tempest wrote:I like your idea for the ethereal. One of many units in our current dex that are basically unplayable. All I want from a revamped dex is for units like vespid, stealth suits, sniper drones, ethereals to become viable choices. We live in hope!
Vespids, kroots, and their other underplayed, underappreciated, underoptioned friends are coming in the Auxiliaries codex. Sniper Drones are just plain fancy now, and stealth suits are a really nifty attrition counter to the current assault/overwhelming firepower meta.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ovion wrote:My Condensed Codex is almost done, just the Heavy Support options to do, so I can send that to you later.
This includes the stats, wargear and options for all units as well as newer, better summary page that actually includes special issue weapons -_-
There are no rules included in this file, it is primarily an easy layout + list building tool, howver it's a great base for actual codex creation.
The easy method is to selct the unit and paste it into Word (or equivalent) then type out the rules below - like this:
Spoiler:
OR you can download and install this program: http://www.serif.com/free-graphic-design-software/ Which is a basic free version of the program I use (Drawplus X2) It has more than enough tools to move and resize the text + multiple pages, and should be able to save as a PDF. Which is how you'd make this:
Spoiler:
'course that's a fair amount of work, but worth it in the long run I think
I also still say Ion weapons should just have Rending, not Rending on a 5+ that causes AP1. Even at Str3 with rending they can pen Av11 and glance AV12.
The following pages will describe the Auxiliary units available to a Tau Empire Army.
Tau Empire Auxiliaries can be played one of two ways - Dedicated Auxiliaries, in which this Codex can be considered stand-alone, and For the Greater Good - in which up to Half of your Force Organization Chart may be occupied by units from the Tau Empire Army codex. Any additional rules and options will be outlined further in the codex.
A brief list of factions:
Demiurg: The space-faring trader race, of whom little is spoken, and less is known.
Gue'Vesa: Humans who have seen the benevolent power and driving force behind the Tau Empire's expansion - Humans who truly care for their families and comrades, who have the foresight to flee their dying "Imperium" and pursue true greatness.
Kroot: Our noble and cunning allies, who stand tall when even the bravest Fire Warrior might find himself cowering. Their genetic mutability and natural predatory adaptations serve greatly in times of war.
Vespid: The enigmatic and fiercely loyal Vespid, who fight for the glory of their Queens and in defense of the Greater Good. Their unique bio-technologies, combined with their natural flight serve to bolster our aerial dominion.
Each faction will have an HQ, an Elites, and a Troops. Gue'Vesa and Demiurg will be in the Heavy, while Vespid and Kroot will bring up the Fast Attack. Each Faction will have two special characters, created by both /tg/ and you, DakkaDakka.
Each faction's HQ will have a small special rule or option tying it to a mixed codex army, and another for a pure faction army. Mixing factions will more than make up for a lack of bonus, as the various factions will synergize.
chrisrawr wrote:
A lot of great stuff to address! Let's see if I can't change or explain my reasoning behind most of it
The Skyrays' SMS right now is not the old SMS - it simply allows them to fire a single seeker missile, and only one of their own. They're missile platforms, and if you fire all 4, you're only going to get 2-3 shots out of it in a game. I've considered moving it down to 2 SMS, but I want to give it a shot at competing with the hammerheads and broadsides. You should've seen it when it was 6 seeker missiles, and could simply fire all 6 every turn! It is overpowered in its current iteration, but I hope to rectify that in increments, starting with points cost, and eventually, moving into its abilities if therein lies the problem.
A lot of the points costs take into account not only the units' own abilities, options, and place within the codex, but its costs compared to other codecies. This is because if a Guard player wants to play an all foot list, with lots of rifles, nothing is there to stop a Tau army from doing the same, but cheaper, and better. This is wrong. IG are supposed to be a gimme for the points a 3's model with a 3's gun, some restrictions, and minimal options is supposed to cost. Space marines are the gimme for a 4's army with a 4's gun and lots of options, and it reflects by tripling the cost. I'm looking at a 2's and 3's army with a bunch of special rules and a bunch of bitchin' guns and options, so my units' prices have to reflect that.
Sniper Suits have jet packs. They're relentless. This is so they can hide behind things, pop out, snipe a target, and hop back. It's assumed they're observing the target through special radar senses, or through the camera eyes of a drone or another unit's headset.
Old Crisis Suits had 2 wounds, but the biggest complaint was losing a powerful, multi-wound model to something like a melta, especially when the model was so expensive, and such an integral part of your army. I can guarantee a W1 crisis suit would have people in uproar; sometimes you gotta appeal to the masses ;P Other than that, Crisis Suits have been coming down in points in little shavings, stealth suits are good where they are (In terms of spammyness, they're not powerful or available enough that I want to buff their points costs, but their abilities are already so limited that I can't take from there without fundamentally changing them - they're a wildcard and I like it.) Broadsides are still limited to 14 total, a decent number if you want to spam them, but they won't be making headlines because of their 1-2 target limit/unit. Sniper suits used to be a real problem; Mobile Heavy Weapons teams with krak missiles, for less! and more bs!
One thing I may be doing is removing the commander's ability to make these units troops, and instead simply make them scoring - limiting again their availability.
The Greater Good was actually inspired by orks, but I'd rather keep the tau at a constant, presence-based morale power, than have a gimmick attached.
Ethereals have always been combat units. They're some of the only tau with eyesight good enough to be martial artists, and they spend much of their time training and honing these skills. They've also always blown up their armies when they die. Although not necessarily psykers, they do have a seeming telepathic link to a wide range of tau around them; pilots in space have been known to be driven into despair when a planetside ethereal has died, long before they receive news of it.
As well, the preferred enemy rule is with the 6th edition codex in mind; it's rumoured, especially after destroyers in the necrons codex, to apply to the shooting phase, as well. I've got my fingers crossed.
Passing a morale test or immediately falling back is the usual consequence for failing a morale test. Falling back for normal infantry is on 2d6, and for jump infantry is 3d6. An ethereal was designed to be taken with a cohort, regardless of his own personal power. Although I agree, if his abilities begin to become troublesome, I'll be slowly whittling him down.
Pathfinder Scouts have markerlights. They're also really cool to field, because your opponent never knows when or where they're going to appear. Pathfinder SW teams have regular rail guns; S6, not 8. They can't pop de landraidums.
Speaking of Markerlights, I really like taking 2/4 small teams with a markerlight and couple carbines each. The combined fire pinning mixed with markerlight shots can keep units easily pinned, something I feels really representative of Tau gunfire.
The Firewarriors pull a little from IG; you can have multiple units as a single troops choice; that is, as single troops choice is 1 or 2 units of fire warriors, each with 6, and the ability to be up to 12, and their special weapons and options all implied. This is intended so that you can have multiple units of fire warriors when I introduce the Auxiliaries codex, a sister project encompassing the allies of the Tau. It'll be using a shared FOC.
Your points bring up the fact that I'm going to have to deal with the wording on the Fire Warriors' FOC problem eventually, and rightly points out the Skyray and its power. I hope you're around when I start into special characters
--Thanks! Interesting response there, hearing how the sms works now, thats actually not too overpowered, and the reload keeps it going.
The orks didnt inspire the greater good? its been a part of their culture since the ethereals showed up. The orks (im thinking a little bit of my own opinion here) actually made the tau boost up their fire caste, at first they just went into space with ships and little military. they found orks. Well crud. War time!
So yeah, good responses there...lets seeeee....
--Ethereals; I dunno, something still dont seem right. the whole thing that blows them up for me, doesnt work. its one small shield generator. If the imperium can do it, without it exploding, the tau coul ddo it too! and it would be more powerful, have an on board AI and a med drone and this and that and this. The tau are too advanced for them to not be able to make a shield that cant blow up. if you wanna keep it, perhaps small blast not large blast? large blast seems too big for a simple shield thing, other than that yeah awesome.
---I can see where youre going now with the point references. Makes sence to me.
---Sniper suit, I dunno...something still irks me. Jumping and stuff ccol, but is the railgun in this new dex heavy or not? if its heavy that jump pack is pointless. Perhaps make it so that the sniper suit sacrifices the large manoueverability for more stuff like higher ballistic skill and stealth. (is this a crisis suit which has sniper suit build or more of an xv15 stealth suit style model? would explain a lot bout its rules etc. If its crisis mounted have that, if not, just stealth or higher BS)
---Crisis suit stats: Yeah I forgot they had two wounds already, nvm that. bring em to toughness 5. Its pitiful gigantic technologically advanced battle suits, have a statline poorer than an assault marine. Pitiful.
---Perhaps have it so Ethereals coul dbe mounted in some sort of display devilfish or throne thing? Summin like a catacomb command barge, and on this the ethereal could make an adapted version of the command thing, but so its more fulff based, have it so that its Ethereal proclomations. I can imagine something like the fluff for Aun'va atop his throne, sentencing an entire army to death.
---Pathfinders; I dont think it said that they have markerlights on their profile. For (12 was it?) points each, a more than ten man squad with strength six ap 3 guns is a little overpowered, perhaps a specialised pulse rifle with a longer range, say, 35 inches heavy one?
Special characters: Ooo shiny! I love a good special character me! if you come up with custom ones, that I would love to see!
Quick thing: Someone here said (cant find who) that stealth suits and Sniper drones have little use. Not really. they are good. (depending) Stealh suits I see them being used deployed ahead of the army (not too far as to avoid stranding) so You can set up a defense and have already extended a strong arm of the force out already, take a 6 man team, never less than that or they cant survive. Burst cannon shots are now up to 18. Most units will be scattered by that high strength fire. You rother units arrive and your defense is complete.
Sniper drones; Place them in home objective or home area, Most useful against MEQ armies really. Have them shoot small units like devastators, so they can bully those while other units can focus on the larger threats such as tanks, rather than distracting say, your hammerhead towards them instead, as their lascannons home in on your army.
Good tactics? Not sure, havent had a proper chance to test yet, but only time will tell.
Would love to see sniper drones still in, They seem overly flashy (why not just use normal snipers!?) But I like them. (dont mean they have to stay)
Ah, I meant mechanics wise - the Orks mob rules inspired the greater good rules xD
Current Tau shielding technology is widely regarded as 4++. The 3++ comes with the dangers and risks associated with technological progress.
The "Blast Marker" is the small blast; it has to say "Large Blast" to be large blast. I toyed with the idea of medical drones, but they're not smart enough as monats to deal with the complexities of biology.
Sniper Suits were more a niche role I wanted to fill between Broadsides and Crisis Suits, for armies who want to pop tanks and jump around, but not dedicated too much of their army or tactics to either. Heavy Rail Rifles are Heavy 1, Pinning. I will take your suggestion to tie the BS and Stealth rules to the not having moved as well, it makes so much sense in retrospect. But yes, Heavy or not, relentless infantry doesn't care.
Pathfinder Scouts, in the Fast Attack slot, are your old pathfinders - slightly more in cost, but the Devilfish is less, markerlights are better, BS4, and they can take some options - so it evens out. The Pathfinder Special Weapons Teams are 15 a piece, down from 20 a piece, and they might go back up depending on how much they compete with crisis suits.
I think the person was referring to the old stealth suits and sniper drones having little use; in the old codex, Stealth Suits had to compete with Crisis Suits - they still do, to an extent, but with the ability to take up to 5 slots of suits, they're great deepstriking objective campers.
Sniper Drones being partially Fast Attack can really aid in an army wanting to take all 3 heavy slots as Broadside Teams or Hammerheads. The fact that their weapon is now twin-linked, and can be taken in 10-man groups, is also very useful - though limiting as they're 25 points each, T3, and have no save.
chrisrawr wrote:I toyed with the idea of medical drones, but they're not smart enough as monats to deal with the complexities of biology.
A drone outfitted as a medical unit would logically be given a medical data package. Admittedly it would only be a field medic, and thus limited to basic sealing/cauterising of wounds, cramming organs back into holes (then sealing the wound), injecting massive doses of painkillers and uppers and hoping they survive till after the battle.
Logically, a med drone would confer Feel No Pain saves. Maybe with the additional (being it probably wouldnt be armed) of once per turn you can roll a D6 and on a 4+ you can 'revive' one non-instant death casualty in the squad they're with from that turn by returning it 1 wound. (i.e. bring back a firewarrior, or bring back a battlesuit with 1 of its 2 wounds)
In this instance you could also clarify that drones from a drone controller won't dissapear till the end of the turn (allowing the medical drone to try and bring a lone character back for 1 more turn).
*is now considering adding med unit to drone options*
*adds to drone options*
Like I said, I toyed with it; At 15 points, I figured maybe each drone would begin with three supply counters, each conferring a feel no pain save. This would be fine, except firewarriors lose it at S6 weaponry, and everything else probably wouldn't make much more use of it, meaning you're better off taking a sniper drone or a gun drone, or even a shield drone!
At 50 points, I figured maybe it gave FNP to the unit, but that would make it redundant, and how would it (logically) work on battlesuits or other drones? Gamewise, you'd need another rule to make a distinction - and suits can already grab FNP for 15 points.
And finally, a monat drone that can fire a gun at moving things that don't ping green on the FoF radar is a LOT less complicated than even the simplest of medical drones.
There's one thing I might consider; A 10-model Elites or Heavy Slot Drone Vehicle, with a Med-Drone bay option; units within 6" of the hull receive FNP. It draws fire, competes with your heavy hitters, and isn't as ridiculous as those freaky-ass sang priests.
Working from the perspective of a DE player, FNP helps low save units immensly as almost every weapon ends its save and as you say it's negated easier with low toughness making it worth less.
I would say 20 points for a med drone would be OK.
I'm probably going to be doing it the revive power for 5 points upgrade to revive + fnp for 5 more.
Fluff wise it'd have a short range med scanner and a cpu to tell it what to do, the bulky 2 hardpoints worth of equipment expandong its abilities.
And as for suits, it'd be a basic repair package, spot welding and wiring patches or something like that.
As I'm stealing the idea of a Drone Shuttle from you/DoW, I'll be pulling the approach of a Starcraft Carrier/Necron Spyder.
Drone Production: At the beginning of your movement phase, a unit of D6 drones is placed within 2" of the shuttle; they may act normally, and you choose a drone body for them when they're placed. If the Shuttle is destroyed, remove all drones placed by this rule. Drones produced this way do not give up killpoints, cannot join other units, and are destroyed if they enter assault or fail a morale test.
Medical Bay upgrade: Provides Special Issue Medical Drone Bodies: Units within X" of this unit receive the FNP special rule. X is the number of Drones in this unit.
Drones must purchase a drone body in the codex; "Drones" are practically statless individuals with some special rules, that must take a body as wargear to become playable models.
Drones produced by the Shuttle choose a body without purchasing it; the points involved will obviously be factored into the Drone Shuttle's cost, which will be cleared in the actual unit entry. The proposed rules above were just to show what I'm intending to do with the entry; a tervigon mixed with a spyder and a carrier.
On a side note, the Skyrays' SMS count is being reduced to 3. It's not bad right now, but popping it down to 3 will really aid in its balance.
I think making the drone carrier a standard price, then have it purchase the types of drones it can produce, at a rate equal to the average it'll produce (3x) would be a better way to do it than any drone for an exorbitant fee, plus it allows some customisation.
Using current taudex rates and drones (cos I can't be bothered looking through your whole codex for names and numbers right now ), say the carrier is 90 (standard hammerhead chasis), then it would have to purchase the Gun Drone production system for 30pts, Shield Drone system for 45pts and Marker Drones at 90pts.
I was going to do it the opposite way; a flat ~180 points for the drone harbinger at 13 12 11, and just letting it produce D6 drones of whichever type each turn as it pleases. It's got to compete with a slot that can hold Sniper Drones, Broadsides, Hammerheads, or Skyrays - without being strictly better than any of them.
That's where the versatility comes in. If it can choose ANY drone body, why bother with sniper drones etc, also with a higher cost it limits numbers and the sort.
I'm of the opinion that versatility is key, combined with balance. Allowing you to choose a cheap (light drone making) harbringer and pricey (multi / heavy drone creating) harbinger would give more end-user choice.
Well, for one, placement - If I simply buy the sniper drones, I get to deploy them, or hold them in reserve, as I please. If I buy a Harbinger, and don't go first, and it dies, I get no Sniper drones.
Numbers, for two - I can have 10 sniper drones, or d6 per turn.
Restrictions, a third; the drones are gone when the harbinger is gone, and they can't join up with new units like other drones can.
And finally, slots; I can have sniper drones in the Fast Attack, leaving my heavies open for Broadsides or Skyrays or what have you.
The main purpose of the drone harbinger is going to be producing MSU's to provide threat and spread out my opponent's firing, as well as to provide a renewable ablative barrier between my opponent's assaulting models, and my important ones.
Sniper Suits Stealth and BS5 tied to giving up movement, elites restriction removed
Broadsides made 1-5
Devilfish now dedicated transport, stuck in transport section, grant acute senses to their purchasing unit
Fire warriors changes -
BS3, Points 8, special weapons replaced with more drone controllers and markerlights
Drones - More special weapons
Armoury - Special Weapons changes, standardized special weapons, Crisis Suit Modular Array will be pick 2 special weapons, Stealth suits will be changed to burstcannon/fusion beamer as before. Drones again will fill in more special weapons.
small QOL changes because of armoury and drone changes
Drone Harbinger with medical bay option will not be making an appearance, due to being unbalancable.
You could take my method which is nice and simple - it has a set number of drone controllers and can take that many drones..
you could add the upgrade ability to revive D6 drones per turn.
I'm changing drones around to carrying all the special weapons for infantry squads; having a vehicle taking a bunch of them would obsolete troops units for this purpose, which is how I want to keep troops interesting.
Keep it for your codex, where it will fit and be interesting
Infantry can still take special drones in my codex too though xD
But yeah, either way.
Using a Grade 2 Drone Controller a firewarrior squad can take 4 light drones, each with a fusion blaster.
A battlesuit will be able to take 6 with a Grade 3 drone controller.
A commander will be able to take 10 I think (1 Grade 3, 1 Hard-Wired Grade 2)
'course they're 17pts each before the controllers and only WS2 with a 5+ save...
Wargear: Crisis Suit with Plasma Rifle and Ion Disruption Beam. His Crisis Suit is also equipped with a Drone Controller, Shield Generator, and Stimulant Injectors.
Shas'o Monteh must be joined by a bodyguard of 3 Shas'vre in Crisis Suits.
Special Rules: At the Forefront, Experienced Commander, For the Greater Good, Independent Character, Stand Together
At the Forefront: If an opponent declares an assault with a unit that is within assault range of Shas'o Monteh, both Shas'o Monteh and that unit roll a D6 and add their Ld. If Shas'o Monteh's result is higher, that unit must instead declare its assault against Shas'o Monteh regardless of other restrictions.
Stand Together: Fire Warriors within 12" of Shas'o Monteh may use his unmodified Leadership value as their own, though it may be further altered from there.
An army containing Shas'o Monteh may purchase Fire Warrior Hunters as Elites Choices, and Fire Warrior Mobile Assault units as Fast Attack Choices.
I like to start high as you've no doubt noticed by now I've yet to see his ability in action, but it's basically a crafty backward-rage / taunt, which are usually powerful.
I had noticed you like to start just a *little* high, though this is a smaller jump to what's likely appropriate for this fellow, only 25-50 points over
As much as anything because you're attempting to force the enemy into a 4 man unit that honestly, doesn't really want to be in combat. I mean for him, Str5, T5 is good, but WS3 not so much.. it's like a slightly worse DE Grotesque, with an extra wound, and an invun but without feel no pain. When he himself costs the same as 6 Grotesques. Yes he has shooty too but in combat they're not going to do amazingly mostly just tarpit stuff with a very pricey unit.
I started writing a list of a few things I thought needed fixing with this fandex. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the devilfish I'd filled almost 3 pages in size 11 font and was starting to lose the will to live.
Instead of giving a mass of problems, I thought I'd point out a few things that seem to have been missed in your codex:
1- Tau are already quite a decent army, certainly not on par with 5th ed ones, but not too far behind, their only major lack is cheap scoring and cheap transport.
2- KISS. For instance, ablative armour, or the 'Our Lives Are Yours' rule on the royal guard which could be simplified to: "An Ethereal attatched to a Royal Guard unit is treated as an upgrade character." Which Brings me nicely onto-
3- Wound allocation is a fundamental of the game, to avoind pissing potential opponents off, avoid changing fundamental rules wherever possible. Also along these lines-
4- Aim to make your codex slightly weaker than the 'good' codices. People constantly moan about all the overpowered stuff in official codices. Remember that you aren't making an official codex, if someone thinks you're trying to pull a fast one with it, they won't boother playing the game. To this end-
5- Don't give out universal special rules willy-nilly. Look where they are applied in other codices and the justification given for them. Ie: Why would an ethereal get eternal warrior? Why would pathfinders be relentless? Also-
6- Just because having more toys would make a unit better, it doesn't meen you should allow them. I can't think of a unit in the game that can take more than four or five special/heavy weapons. There's reasoning behind this. More generally-
7- If there is a precedent set in official codices, don't break it without very strong reasoning.
8- Armies are constructed with fundamental weaknesses for a reason. These must be worked around, not erased (For the Greater Good). Imagine giving dark eldar quantum shielding, it would just be unpleasant.
9- Armouries are BAD. No codex in 5E has been produced with an armoury of wargear to purchase. This is because it reduces the amount of control the designers have over balance and turns up silly power-combos. On top of this, they significantly obfuscate the list building process.
That's it for now I think. It's just my opinion, so you can choose to ignore or take note as you wish, but I will say that if someone showed me that codex and asked for a game, I'd probably refuse.
He actually has FNP; and it's good for him as well, as he and his guard can have drones and can just foist as many wounds as possible onto those, before ROCKEJUMPING AWAYYYY - He's basically interposing himself between the enemy and certain death for a unit once, maybe twice if he's lucky. As well, I'd intended for him to be taken only with fire warriors, but for some reason left every other choice still open - it'll be changed to reflect that.
chrisrawr wrote:He actually has FNP; and it's good for him as well, as he and his guard can have drones and can just foist as many wounds as possible onto those, before ROCKEJUMPING AWAYYYY - He's basically interposing himself between the enemy and certain death for a unit once, maybe twice if he's lucky. As well, I'd intended for him to be taken only with fire warriors, but for some reason left every other choice still open - it'll be changed to reflect that.
Fire Warrior Veterans no longer have their free bonding knife.
Ethereal and guard on haitus.
Fire Warrior Hunters ->10 Points, rifles pinning.
Fire Warrior MAUs -> 14 Points, carbines assault 2 maybe?
I'll look at alternative wordings/formats for drones/drone rules.
Coordinated Fire removed.
Skyray's gonna sit where it is for now.
Monteh will probably not have Stand Together; I'll work around the taunt to see how it fares - did anyone have objections to a roll-off vs assault the HQ instead? Or his firewarriors exclusive army?
I'd keep the Crisis suit set up as is in the current codex and just up them to T5 for like maybe 10 point increase. If a points increase is necessary at all.
Also instead of the Battlesuits being extra how about instead you just put "This unit MUST select a Battlesuit from the Battlesuit armory free of cost."
Overall I feel like you significantly increased the points cost on things without changing too much.
A firewarrior with a crisis suit is 50 points, which includes a weapons system of choice. So this is already only 5 points more than suit+plas. Then, they don't need multitracker, evening things out if they take another weapon. So your analysis would be not only restrictive, but conceptually flawed.
I've recently taken a bit of advice from a close friend heavily into consideration; "Really, I'd recommend tearing this whole thing down and starting from scratch BECAUSE of your unwillingness to change. If changing things will 'make it feel different', then you're clearly too invested in your army to accept proper criticism and change how it works. At the moment, it feels nothing like Tau to the majority of the people who have commented on it; just because you think they're decent does not mean that they are."
Unless anyone has a good reason not to, I'd like to start-in on it from the the Fire Warrior, as follows;
Unit: Fire Warrior Hunters Model: 11 Fire Warriors, 1 Shas'ui
Points: 100
Unit Type: Infantry
Fire Warrior Hunters are a Troops Choice for a Tau Empire Army. A separate unit of Fire Warrior Hunters may be purchased as part of that Troops Choice for an additional 100 points.
Unit Options: Any Fire Warrior in the unit may be upgraded to a second Shas'ui for 5 points. Each Shas'ui in the unit may purchase a single piece of Wargear from the Infantry Armoury. The entire unit may be equipped with EMP grenades for 30 points. Up to 2 models in the unit may replace their Pulse Rifles with Markerlights, for 5 points each. A unit of Fire Warrior Hunters may purchase a Devilfish Infantry Transport as a Dedicated Transport.
Special Rules: None.
Wargear
Command Helm: A model with a command helm bestows the Acute Senses rule on his unit. His unit may regroup regardless of unit strength, and he may split his units' shooting between two targets - declare which models are firing at each target before any rolls or measurements are made. Multiple Command Helms are redundant. [Moved to Infantry Armoury, 15 points.]
Drone Controller (Shas'ui Only): A model with a Drone Controller may purchase up to 2 Drones from the list in the Wargear section.
EMP Grenades: EMP grenades may be used as grenades in close combat with vehicles. For each hit, roll a D6. On a 1 or 2, they do nothing. On a 3-5, the Vehicle suffers a glancing hit. On a 6, the vehicle suffers a Penetrating Hit. They may also be fired in the shooting phase with the following profile:
Range: 12" S: * AP: 6 Special: Assault 1, EMP*
*For each hit, roll a D6. On a 1 or 2, they do nothing. On a 3-5, the Vehicle suffers a glancing hit. On a 6, the vehicle suffers a Penetrating Hit.
Flak Armour: Flak Armour provides a 4+ Armour Save.
Markerlight: Models with Markerlights fire them before any other weapons in the unit, using the following profile:
Range: 36" S: - AP: - Special: Assault 1
If a hit is scored, do not roll to wound. Instead, place a suitable counter by that unit - This counter remains until the end of the current shooting phase. Tau Empire units, including the unit that fired the markerlight, may expend the tokens when firing upon the marked unit.
Expending a token grants one of the following effects, which apply only for the firing unit, may be combined, are cumulative, and which last until the end of the current shooting phase:
-Decreases the Cover Save of the Marked Unit by 1 (this may remove the cover save entirely)
-Allows the Firing Unit to ignore Night Fighting rules against the Marked Unit
-Reduces the Marked Unit's Leadership by 1 for the purpose of Pinning Tests
-Allows a single Seeker Missile to target the Marked Unit
-Increases the BS of the Firing Unit by 1, to a maximum of 5
Pulse Rifle: A Pulse Rifle provides defensive grenades to its owner, and may be fired with the following profile:
Range: 30" S: 5 AP: 5 Special: Assault 1, Pinning
Ok, so starting over / heavily changing might be good. Your formattings certainly a lot better now than it was when you started
And now onto the critique: 1: Making it a set 12 man squad with preset wargear feels like a step backwards - you ideally want to be bringing it forwards with better options rather than removing them all entirely. Allowing for the 6-12 and the option of an upgrade character, with the option of certain wargears etc is better than a must-be-this unit.
2: Your EMP grenades are a little (lot) too good. They're better than Haywire Grenades by a long shot currently and cost less, possibly the first thing I've seen you undercost. The equivalent (Haywire Grenades) cost 2-5pts per depending on whats taking them, and can't be thrown, infact you need to take a 10point special weapon for a ranged haywire attack. The ones you have work out at 1.6pts per. The EMP effect should be 3-5 glance, 6 pen. At that 2pts per is fine. If you keep the thrown, it wants to be 3-4 pts per, though at 4-5 points you could probably stand to make it a 12" thrown weapon.
2a: I feel the thrown grenade should be Str4.
3: A personal thing mostly, but Flak Armour sounds too guardish. needs something more Tau. PX-16 Personal Armour fits the naming convention of the Tau somewhat nicer..
4: Why does a Pulse Rifle provide defensive grenades, is assault 1 or cause pinning? This makes no sense. With this there'd be no point for the pulse carbine in the list really and pinning on a base unit in that concetration at that range would be crazy. Should keep it simple and drop the pinning and make it rapid fire again. Including Photon Grenades as standard in their profile wouldnt be an issue though I think.
Howver - I could allow for a special rule attached to the pulse rifle called something like Crossfire, where if 2 or more units fire on the same unit, after the first each has pinning. I.E: If a unit A fires on X marine squad it's just the standard Str5, AP5, Rapid Fire, every following squad with the Crossfire Rule that fires at Str5, AP5, Rapid Fire, Pinning.
I'm removing the Carbine; the Rifle causes pinning in place of special rules that might do the same, and is Assault 1because having your FW have an 18" dead zone never made much sense to me. EMP's are already only 3 points on Fire Warriors; this was again a part of their price reduction. I'd also point out that it's the same cost as it was in the previous codex, when they were BS4, and cost less Another reason I'm hesitant to give them many more options is that, having done so before, it was met with 'nope'.
EMPs in the current codex are 3pts per, BUT only glance on a 4-5 / pen on a 6. Making it the same as haywire would be ok, but at 2-3 pts per, not 1.6 and the thrown thing should really cost another point or two on top.
With options - squad wide, I like the option of a pair of markerlights tbh. But you could give the whole unit access to Blacksun filters, that would be fine, and the Shas'ui wants access to a bonding knife. Or even just given a bonding knife. It's just options of special weapons that people will have issue with.
ohshi, really? I thought they were the same as Haywires. I'll be popping it back to the normal 4-5, then - it makes more sense that the Tau's simplistic approach to disruption would be met with hardened systems, in any case.
I might be incorporating BSF, Bonding Knife, and Target Lock into a Shas'ui "command Helm" for simplicity's sake - There's going to be no reason not to take all 3 with 2 Ld8 options available, and I'd rather keep wound allocation down.
As usual, your insight and aid is invaluable
At 10 points, vanilla TL+BSF+BK seemed too much. At 15, too little. I granted he may trade his shot for splitting fire instead; hopefully this is an acceptable compromise.
A Pathfinder Team is a Fast Attack choice for a Tau Empire Army. Up to 7 additional Pathfinders may be added to a Pathfinder Team, at 12 Points per model.
Wargear: Flak Armour, Markerlight, Pulse Rifle
Special Rules: Infiltrate, Scouts
Unit Options: Up to 3 Pathfinders in a Pathfinder Team may exchange their Markerlight and Pulse Rifle to purchase a Rail Rifle. Every Pathfinder Team must purchase a Devilfish Dedicated Transport.
Wargear
Rail Rifle: A Rail Rifle is fired with the following profile:
Range: 48" S: 6 AP: 3 Special: Heavy 1, Pinning*
*Each unsaved wound inflicted by a Rail Rifle causes a pinning test.
*Note - this is an adaptation of one of the rumoured special rules floating around; Tau are supposed to have an army-wide special rule that treats each unsaved wound as a pinning test, or against a fearless unit, each unsaved wound applies a no retreat save. From 12 Fire Warriors at 30" against fearless MEQ, it averages to .44+ free wounds, bringing the average to 1.77+. Against Orks out of cover, it works out to 3.33+ free wounds, bringing the average to 7.33+ Working best in terms of additional gain, against Orks in 4+ Cover, it grants 1.66+ free wounds, bringing your total from 2 to 3.66+ - almost a 100% increase.
I still don't think I'd like it on my basic troops, but it seems safe enough to give to a limited-quantity weapon, and the Rail Rifle really needed something to make it compete with the Plasma Rifle's AP2.
Devilfish
Unit: Devilfish Infantry Transport
Model: Devilfish
Points: 60
Models: 1
Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Tank, Transport)
BS: 3 Front AV: 12 Side AV: 11 Rear AV: 10
Fire Points: 0 Access Points: Rear, Sides
A Devilfish is a Dedicated Transport.
Wargear: Two Turret-Mounted Pulse Rifles, one Turret-Mounted Light Vehicle Weapon from the Vehicle Armoury.
Unit Options: A Devilfish may purchase wargear from the Vehicle Armoury. It may exchange both its Pulse Rifles for a Smart Missile System for 10 Points.
Transport Options: A Devilfish may transport up to 12 models from a unit able to purchase it, including room for 2 drones that do not count against this limit.
(SMS will be the same as it is in the current fandex; a free seeker missile shot.)
An XV-8 Crisis Team is an Elites choice for a Tau Empire Army. Up to 5 additional XV-8 Crisis Suits may be added to an XV-8 Crisis Team, at 25 Points per model.
Wargear: Crisis Suit
Special Rules: Acute Senses, Deepstrike, Hit and Run
Unit Options: Each XV-8 Crisis Suit in the unit must purchase a Weapons System from the Battlesuit Armoury. It may purchase Wargear from the Battlesuit Armoury.
Crisis Suit: Models with a Crisis Suit have their Unit Type changed to Jump Infantry (Jet Pack), have 5 S and T, and their Armour Save is increased to 3+. They gain the Acute Senses, Deep Strike, and Hit and Run special rules.
Notes: They are Cheap. They are Tough. You can have many of them, and they will be troops choices with certain HQ options. Burst Cannons are useful as close-range engagement options. The Armoury will allow them to take 2 of any weapon, or 2 TL weapons, or 1 weapon. They can each have as much wargear as you wanna spend on them, and it'll be fairly cheap. I dropped their Attacks in CC to 1 to compensate and put the focus on stayingthefuckoutofCC. I don't know what else to do with them.
An Ethereal is an HQ choice for a Tau Empire Army. A Tau Empire Army may have only 1 Ethereal.
Wargear: Ceremonial Staff, Shield Generator
Ceremonial Staff: A Ceremonial Staff is a two-handed Power Weapon.
Special Rules: Fearless, Independent Character, Reverent, Stubborn
Reverent: Friendly models within 12” of the Ethereal are Ld 10 and Stubborn.
Army Options: Because of his importance, and the resources available to him, up to 2 XV-8 Crisis Teams may be purchased as Troops Choices in an army with an Ethereal.
A Royal Guard Retinue is an HQ choice, but otherwise takes up no FoC. Each Royal Guard Retinue may only be purchased with, and accompany, an Ethereal (No other Independent Characters may join the unit).
Ceremonial Armour: A model with Ceremonial Armour has a 3+ Armour Save.
Penetrator Pistol: A Penetrator Pistol fires with the following profile:
Range: 6” S: 6 AP: 2 Special: Pistol
Plasma Knife: A Plasma Knife is a Close Combat Weapon that confers the Rending property on its wielder's Close Combat attacks.
Special Rules: Counter Attack, Furious Charge, Our Lives are Yours
Our Lives Are Yours: Unsaved wounds allocated to an Ethereal in the unit are instead inflicted on a Royal Guard. Treat these wounds as if they'd been allocated instead to a Royal Guard.
A Royal Guard Retniue must be deployed with an Ethereal. While part of the unit, the Ethereal loses the Independent Character special rule until the last Royal Guard in the unit is destroyed.
Before making special characters, make their fluff, so not only do your characters now have things to stop questions about character mechanic,s it can become less random. that new SC you introduced on pg 2, is to be honest, Terrible. a near 400 point unit (with the cumpulsory shas'vre) and still has bs 4? a near 200 pt SC that is shooty with poor BS is not a good idea. He is too exspensive for too poor a statline. Im sorry Its just that the character is really poor.
Changes sound Kool. Nice fixes, sniper suits sound sense making now. No changes to pathfinders it seems? and where are the beloved over technical showy off awesome sniper drones? they were a cool idea, and need revamping. dont leave that poor awesome sniper spotter model homeless D:
Could I make SC? here he is:
Shas'O'Tau'n'Kais'Shi
A commander legendary amongst the fighters of the first sphere exspansion, Kais'Shi was one of the commanders serving on the front lines of the Exspansion. If it where not for Kais'Shi's actions, many of the first sphere colonies would not exist today. During the Third Sphere exspansion, Kais'Shi still servers with an expeditionary force, currently investigating a mysteriously deserted area of space.
Experimental XV89-9 Armour- Grants the owner a 2+ save and a 3+ invulnerable save and the suit owner counts as wielding a multi tracker and a target lock. The suit also grants the wielder the acute senses special rule. The unit becomes jump infantry, but however cannot join units like other Independant characters. Due to the suits advanced systems, when Kais'shi loses his last wound, place the large blast template over the centre of his base. Any model (Friend or foe!) Takes a wound, but saves can be taken as normal, except for cover saves which are ignored.
Marking system Strength - ap - range 32" *
The unit shot with this system counts as marked as a part of the Gunline rule system seen below. This weapon can be fired along with any other weapon system
Cyclic Ion "Blitz pattern" blaster. S4 AP3 Assault #* Range: 30*
At 30-24 inch range Weapon is assault 2 at 24-12 inch range weapon is assault 4 At 1-12 inch range weapon is Assault 5
Special rules:
"The Mont'ka strike" Being a master of the Mont'ka battle strategy, an army Including Kais'Shi the Sieze initiative roll may choose to be re rolled by the owning player.
"The gunline" Kais'Shi's main tactic is to have several units acompany him as an advancing force. Before the battle begins, Roll a d3. the result is how many units in The Gunline Formation. these units, when shooting at a unit marked with Kais'shi's marking system may re roll to hits in the shooting phase, and to wound rolls
"The charge is broken" If Kais shi dies, all friendy non auxilary units within 18 inches of Kais'Shi, as his death topples the strength of the tau gunline advance"
Thats the first character Ive ever designed, so be gentle with me, but what do people think? Also, sorry I dissapeared from this thread for some time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That royal guards statlines are called Ethereals. Jus saying. also, I still dont think your seeing the point of ethereals. Ethereals fluff wise and tbh gaming wise are supposed to observe the battlefield. They are not close combat units, they happen to be able to do combat, but arent very good anyway, so you shouldnt, as they die and are then points further wasted. Ethereals need the army wide buffering rules, and things like that. This new ethereal rule set isnt an ethereal at all.
I see too many people thinking "The ethereal can do combat, thats why I should get him as hes the only close combat unit in my army list besides kroot"
In a short answer to this statement:
No.
In long:
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
The new ethereal has no CC capabilities. He has a power weapon, but at WS4 S3 I3, and 2 attacks, he's not going to be doing much with it. HGR statline cleaned.
The SC proposed on P2 was for the old dex, which has been discontinued. He was BS6, by the way. And 400 points for models you were going to take anyways; his special abilities and improved stats came at roughly a 50 point premium on top of a regular Shas'o with bodyguard, especially once you note all his wargear.
Your SC proposal has far too silly a name. The XV-9 isn't done yet for this dex; it probably won't be included, or only slightly changed from the FW info. Other than that, the info given for him is... a bit schizophrenic. And Dyslexic.
For things you could do to clean him up, S5 for one. Followed by 3+/4++. So far, no multitracker, but a Command Helm would be pertinent. Remove the Marking System; make the Gunline rule a special markerlight option for him. Get rid of the independent character business - if you don't want him being treated as an independent character ,remove the rule from him. The Mont'ka is nice. The charge is broken currently does nothing?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Pathfinders are being removed from the Elites slot, placed solely in the Fast Attack slot. Drones will be available in Fast Attack or Heavy Support depending on the controller you choose for them (in Fast Attack, there will be a Remora Drone Leader, accompanied by a squadron of drones. In Heavy Support, a Sniper Suit will be joined by 3 Sniper Drones. That's all I've got for now.)
Automatically Appended Next Post: ALRIGHT, well, Remake 1.0 is out. Give it a look-see. Should have a lot more of that ol' Tau glamour.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Sniper Suits, Spotting Stand should read "Spotting Stand: An XV-33 Sniper Team may choose to forgo all movement this turn at the beginning of your movement phase. If it does so, the unit gains +1BS."
Wait a minute then- So if this ethereal cant do combat, what on earth can it do!?
Also not an xv-9 suit
His name isnt silly-its an actual tau name. I was rushed for time so didnt give him an english name liek farsight etc etc.
Its an xv 89 suit with some moderate adaptations, hence xv 89-9
Schizophrenic, Dyslexic? dont use real life conditions that effect people as a comment on 2 line writing. I see no way in which it is any of those things. Not great as its like two lines, but that comment wasnt necessary.
A lot is missing, I got pushed for time half way through writing, so some may have been lost. He does have a multi tracker, read the suit profile. The marking system got botched up and I know it is. Ill make a new version of him at some point, not now Im tired.
Your SC, no big deal now. Hes gone anyways. Lets see these new changes...
Seem cool. Pathfinders are cool not ridiculous.
Army wide pinning? Imho a little too large. By the sounds of this you based it off loose rumours. It may happen in the codex, it might not. In my opinion, it changes the point of a custom codex to include rumours for the next codex.
Im kinda agreeing with the revamp. I agree with some of the things the person said who got you to change it.
Looking forward to seeing more stuff! Please try to avoid calling things mental disorders, as it can be seen as offensive, and tbh, isnt an acurate discription.
The term Schizophrenic can be used to describe something scattered, divided, not-whole. Its use is not limited to mental illness, and it's not an insult.
The Ethereal brings you the option of both a Bodyguard and 2 Crisis Teams as Troops Choices.
It doesn't need a multitracker, is what I was implying - if your character is meant for use with fandex rules, simply have its weapons be weapons systems, and they can be fired regardless. If it's meant for the old codex, then it's fine.
""The charge is broken" If Kais shi dies, all friendy non auxilary units within 18 inches of Kais'Shi, as his death topples the strength of the tau gunline advance" " This does nothing still, as it's missing what happens when he dies.
Please stop acting as if I'm being accusatory. Army-Wide pinning is currently useful against: Tau, FootGuard. Not much of a threat IMHO <__<
The ethereal is still pointless. For what an ethereal is supposed to do, that isnt it. They dont go to battlefields so there can be more crisis suits, they go to a battlefield
to provide adivce to the commander, and to lead the war without actually leading battlefield tactics. In this list they are beeing used asa sort of buy one get one free thing.
If there's an Ethereal at a battle, he's there because the battle is important. He's there with mandate blessings, and with support from his Caste. He's there because some aspect of the battle is in need of reinforcement. He is there with those loyal to the Greater Good at his command, less the guiles and propaganda of the enemy seep their vile clutches into the minds of his lesser brethren.
Where an Ethereal goes, the Greater Good follows - by might of arms and crushing victory, if necessary.
As you said, the Ethereal is not the commander. He's not the fighter. He directs the flow of battle, freeing up forces to be used elsewhere. This is represented by more crisis suits being available. If you have a better idea, I would love to hear it.
you and just dave need to stop or else!! I get so mad that I fall in love with your great codecies knowing that I will NEVER be able to bring it to a tourny
Ok first of all, calm the heck down. I comment on somethign and you start getting shirty with me. Im giving advice not commands. The sort of order system you had before seemed like the best way of representing them. If you gave the ethereal something similar and renamed them around for it to be the ethereals making a speech giving inspiration to the fire warriors. The idea for this is in aun'va's fluff.
I just dont see the ethereal being on the battlefield translating from being on the battlefield to extend the word of the greater good and properly represent the empire (basic version of what you have said) Into troops for crisis suits. This feature would work better on a SC that made crisis suits counts as troops. You see a lot of codices lately including this sort of feauture.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
chrisrawr wrote: He directs the flow of battle, freeing up forces to be used elsewhere. This is represented by more crisis suits being available. If you have a better idea, I would love to hear it.
"He directs flow of battle" That means lead the army -_-
Im jus saying
I was legitimately asking if you had a better idea, not being snippy.
"...they go to a battlefield to provide adivce to the commander, and to lead the war without actually leading battlefield tactics." "lead the war without actually leading battlefield tactics"
"directs the flow of battle"
not much difference <__< And the orders system got a lot of flak, despite being as simplified as I could make it, so I scrapped it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:you and just dave need to stop or else!! I get so mad that I fall in love with your great codecies knowing that I will NEVER be able to bring it to a tourny
Man, I been following Dave's since I was just a wee lurker. Good stuff up in thar, I use it on Vassal sometimes.
Ok lets mov eon from this argueing please. This is about a codex. I been rude you been rude. Leave it at that.
Back to codex.
Everything looks cool with the reboot. Perhaps have a commander out of crisis battlesuit? I like the idea of an all fire warrior army (was also on Ovions mini dex.)
Perhaps have it so havin him out of suit is
A: Cheaper
B: gives acess to something as troops (Fill blank here)
Also maybe fire warriors with jump packs or something? I dunnoes.
New auxilary? New aliens? Again Im not sure, but perhaps some cool new thing.
Auxiliaries, I'm STILL working on Kroot, Demiurg, Gue'Vesa, and Vespids. Vespids should be neat, I've got them doing things similar to Dark Eldar's Reavers. Demiurg are going to be the hardest, as I'd like them to stay in their space cities, if possible, providing fire support or special options. Gue'Vesa need something to set them apart from both fire warriors and IG.
Monteh will probably be making a return with the Mobile Assault Cadres, as special HQ and Troop options, as I really liked how they went with the army, and got many good reviews on them.
Tbh Gue'vesa arent that different to guardsmen or tau. They have same sort of statlines. I could see it being they have the statline of a guardsmen, with a gun between lasgun and pulserifle. The poor mans troop?
They've forsaken the Imperium, accepted heretical technology, and altered their training to adhere to Tau military standards - I'd like to reflect that in a bit of a stats and unit comp variation. Heck, I might even have them as cannon-foddery as I can; mandatory deepstrike, only scoring if half strength or more, no armour save, squads of 5... They could be neat, I suppose!
According to current ideas for gue vesa, youve basically said youll make them deliberately crap.
Gue vesa tbh shouldnt be in the list if thought about. The sort of thing they would be using is armed like a fire warrior. Its only place would probably be as a proxy fire warrior, heck, its what Im doing!
Unless of course your version is awesome, then yes it could work I guess.
So yeah. Gue'Vesa make decent suicide bombs. They're like Spore Mines, but actually useful. No scatter reduction + small unit size, t3, 5+ save, and fairly expensive makes up for the firepower they can put out for... a turn, maybe 2. It's nice for them to reward crafty plays, without requiring it to be worth their points.
Having recently re-played Fire Warrior, I might suggest the following, instead of Monteh.
Shas'O Kais is a brooding, silent character - He prefers to work alone, as the burden of protecting those he calls brethren grows heavy on his shoulders. Having only recently recovered from a complete withdrawal after Kronus, he is none-the-less eager to do battle once more. For him, pride in himself, and in his caste, are enough to weather all storms.
Though reaching nearly six decades in age, his body is still powerful, though ridden with scars, and his stature remains proud and confident despite his decades of mobile suit dependence.
A veteran of countless battles against the Imperium, Chaos, Orks, and a sampling of the other galactic denizens, he only feels truly alive when the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against him. His experience has only hardened his resolve, and strengthened his faith in the greater good. His actions allow billions to know a future they would otherwise be denied, and he carries their hopes with him into battle.
Unit: Fire Warrior Commander
Model: Shas'O Kais, Mobile Assault
Points: 200
Models: 1
Unit Type: Jump Infantry (Jet Pack, Character)
Shas'O Kais is an HQ choice for a Tau Empire Army. No Ethereal may be present in an Army List including Shas'O Kais.
Wargear: Bolt Gun, Katana, Pulse Carbine
Bolt Gun: Shas'O Kais can make the Imperial Bolt Gun do things that even Space Marines might envy - From annihilating Power Armour, to destroying the hardiest of vehicles, this weapon finds its worth in his hands. It fires with the following profile:
Range: 24" S: 5 AP: 4 Special: Rapidfire, Rending
Katana: Kais is one of the few Tau known to engage in close-quarters combat... and survive! With his Masterwork Katana, he quickly dispatches his foes. Kais' To Hit rolls of 5+ in close combat automatically wound - saves are taken as normal, and no additional roll to wound is required.
Pulse Carbine: One of the few remaining Pulse Carbines - the model was discontinued when targeting and tuning systems were adjusted on its Rifle cousin. Kais may fire the Pulse Carbine with either of the following profiles:
Range: 18" S:5 AP:5 Assault 3, Pinning
Range: 12" S:6 AP:4 Assault 1, Blast
Special Rules: Eternal Warrior, Favoured, Fearless, Relentless, Stubborn
Favoured: A higher power has other plans for Shas'O Kais. At the beginning of each phase, he regains 1 Wound, up to his maximum. He also has a 5+ Invulnerable Save.
Army Options: An Army List including Shas'O Kais may only purchase Fire Warrior Hunters and Fire Warrior Mobile Assault Cadres. Either entry may be purchased for any slot in the FoC - remember, only slots purchased as Troops are scoring!
Roight, so 1.1 is up. Changes include the now-mostly-complete vehicle armoury, overhauled seeker missiles, wording fixes on a few things, and some pointscosts value changes.
Dynamic Entry was reinstated, granting Pinning to any shots fired by models that have arrived by deepstrike on the current turn.
MACs were reinstated under the Fast Attack section.
Table of contents not even really buggered with yet because I'm lazy and forgot. Working on Fluff from a bunch of these battle reports I've got lying around, and Auxiliaries once that's out of the way.
Speaking of Auxiliaries, does anyone have any awesome ideas for the Demiurg? I really can't think of anything for them, their current fluff is just too flimsy. At least with Vespids I can construct a vague hive structure and do some interesting things - with the Demiurg, it's not even clear on whether they're even capable of leaving their spaceships anymore - it's not even clear if all of their ships carry demiurg, anymore! All I've got is that the few remaining have, individually, enough technological might to be worthy of something spectacular on the battlefield.
They each have 1 special weapon. 5 in a squad. Average cost of 85 points, for 5 bs3 special weapons that has a fairly hefty chance of dying before it gets to fire, due to some special weapons being heavy.
Every Tau firewarrior is a suicide unit. Their job is to finish the job, no matter what. Their lives are for the Greater Good.
They treat drones that way in CQC :V "You can just have these exploding things, we'll be on our way."
Is there some crucial piece of fluff I'm missing where they disregard suicide units :V? Even in the hunt, sometimes a sacrifice must be presented, to lure the prey off guard, and ensure the kill for the rest.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, Crisis Suits may be TOO cheap at the moment. I might have to raise them to 30 points.
Automatically Appended Next Post: General increase across the board for Crisis Suits. BS on regular crisis suits decreased to 3, I dunno why it was 4. Shas'vre BS decreased to 4. Plasma Blade included in Weapons Systems - 10 Point power weapon, 20 points for 2 and +1A, if you twinlink all your Plasma Blades you get to reroll hits. COULD BE FUN. COULD BE OP AND SILLY. TIME WILL TELL.
Considering that a Terminator is only 40 points, I think the Crisis suits are fine at BS4 and T5 if you up them to 30-35 points base. I mean, you're going to at least double that in wargear.
I'd just bump the Shas'el base cost to 55-60 and call it a day.
Reading over the codex as a whole, it doesn't seem like you lower the cost enough to allow a whole lot more units to be taken, but rather they just perform better. I like it for the most part.
I didn't want to lower costs too much; the Tau aren't a spammy army, just lots of shooting
I did end up popping the Shas'el up to 55, and suits up to 30. Markerlights are 5 points, and can be fired in addition to - and before - your weapons systems, so I feel BS3 is justified.
I also tried to make, as you say, doubling their cost in wargear at LEAST as useful as buying them as cheaply as possible. Playtesting makes me feel I've done this properly. but I've only had a couple other people try it out with me, so I can't be anything near definitive.
chrisrawr wrote:They treat drones that way in CQC :V "You can just have these exploding things, we'll be on our way."
Is there some crucial piece of fluff I'm missing where they disregard suicide units :V? Even in the hunt, sometimes a sacrifice must be presented, to lure the prey off guard, and ensure the kill for the rest.
If you check again, the lure / bait isn't sacrificial.
The point is to draw the enemy out, then it's the strike forces task to take them down before the 'bait' gets hurt (or at least badly hurt) and/or the 'bait' is meant to turn round and open fire catching the target in a crossfire.
The tau see all life as valuable in the greater good and while it may be an honour to lay down your life for the gg, they don't view much of anything as expendable.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm also running mines bs as la/ui/vre/el/o being 3/4/5/6/7, removing the bs5 limit on targeting arrays and markerlights.
I mean if you want to spend 5-6 tokens to make something bs9 that's your problem :p
I mean a Shas'o having the best bionics and equipment out the wazoo makes sense.
chrisrawr wrote:I didn't want to lower costs too much; the Tau aren't a spammy army, just lots of shooting
I did end up popping the Shas'el up to 55, and suits up to 30. Markerlights are 5 points, and can be fired in addition to - and before - your weapons systems, so I feel BS3 is justified.
I also tried to make, as you say, doubling their cost in wargear at LEAST as useful as buying them as cheaply as possible. Playtesting makes me feel I've done this properly. but I've only had a couple other people try it out with me, so I can't be anything near definitive.
I'll playtest it for my next game and let you know how it works. I usually play against Orkz, Mech IG, Dark Angels, and Dark Eldar, so there's a good balance of stuff to try it against.
@Ovion, I really wish you'd get Vassal40K so we could fightan dexan, so sexy. Nothing's concrete with the Gue'Vesa yet. I might just make them IC veterans with some neat shenanigans, who knows.
I never really understood why large BS values were important - everything after 5 can just be represented better by giving a twinlinked weapon.
I wonder if twin-linked might work after the BS re-roll
But anyway - it represents things being completely badass at shooting and is basically twin-linking because you're that awesome.
I see that things like the archon get WS7 / BS7 for being that good, so the Shas'o which'll cost more base can be BS7 through tech, or if an entire armies intel focuses on a single unit for targetting information, it can too.
I'm not sure if your version has something different from the pdf in the OP, but just in list building I've noticed the huge points sink that comes from twin-linking. Deathrains go from being effective and cheap in the original codex to being slightly more effective but way overcosted in yours. I'd suggest a different way to go about twin-linking. I saw that this was brought up before.
For my list, I'm going ahead and making twin-linking add another 5 points onto any weapon system instead of doubling the cost. 20 points for a twin-linked missile pod seems right.
My codex runs along a similar vein to the current. Twin-Linking takes up a second hard point and costs 50% of a standard weapon.
It's also going to allow 2 of each hard point option I think and XV8s are likely going to have 4 hardpoints, with stealths having 2 (probably only 1 opton each..). So you could have 2 Twinlinked Missile pods on an XV8 (though nothing else)
That's certainly something you can do; I had Twinlinking weapons double their cost because it was fast and easy to rule in, and you can have 2 identical weapons; twinlinking for 5 points seems alright in retrospect. I just figured that now that people could take Missilerains or Plasmarepeaters, the old metasuits wouldn't be missed
Another thing is that Devilfish are still overcosted at 60 + weapon (at least 10) + Dis. Pod (Which is practically necessary). In the end, you end up with a transport that you can't shoot out of that is the same cost as it is in the original codex...and it's overcosted there too!
You only get one reroll per parse; you can't reroll a to hit because of high BS AND twinlinked. Which is why one makes the other redundant, especially at BS5/10
Automatically Appended Next Post: Crap, that's what I forgot. Tau Vehicles are supposed to have their Pulse Rifles as Defensive Weapons. I also intended the devilfish to have its forward weapon be a burst cannon for free, with the option to upgrade at -10 points, but I just copy pasted it from the old one, so that might not have happened.
chrisrawr wrote:That's certainly something you can do; I had Twinlinking weapons double their cost because it was fast and easy to rule in, and you can have 2 identical weapons; twinlinking for 5 points seems alright in retrospect. I just figured that now that people could take Missilerains or Plasmarepeaters, the old metasuits wouldn't be missed
I suppose that's a good way to think about it in regards to new suit combos. At this point though, I'm trying to rebuild the list I play now from the original codex with yours instead to see what kind of shortcomings yours has in comparison. Hope you don't mind the critique. I don't wanna come across as douchey or anything, but these are my observations just based on the list remake.
I'll be making a straight-up new list based off of your codex to playtest though, and so I'll likely use new suit combos in that and see how they fare.
chrisrawr wrote:You only get one reroll per parse; you can't reroll a to hit because of high BS AND twinlinked. Which is why one makes the other redundant, especially at BS5/10
Eh, any gun it takes, not having to be twin-linked.
Also - Pulse Rifles hitting on 2's with re-rolls on 2's
Yeah; At 5 with Twinlinked, you're just as good as at 6-10 with twinlinked, is what I was saying. And at 10, you're just as good as any of that.
I was thinking of making 3 Markerlight Tokens a Twin-Link, but it made Broadsides and Suits ridiculous - A suit with 2 Burst Cannons and a Markerlight is only 45 Points at the moment, and you can have 6 of them, firing their markerlights before they shoot, shooting at at least BS5. That's 36 rounds, 30 of which hit, 20 of which wound against meq and 7 of which are failed saves. For 270 points. Not to mention the subsequent pinning test at -xLd. Or, with rail rifles, 390 points, 10 hits, 8 Wounds, no saves, and 8 ld tests. Even with the ~2 wounds against TEQ, it's not bad, forcing 2 ld tests at a possible negative. Despite being almost double the cost, 2 pinning tests at 7-8 from 36" is nothing to scoff at.
At 85 points for 2 TLplasma guns+ML, this is where the 5 point twinlink becomes powerful, and why I hesitate to include it (note that I'll probably just list 2 points costs and notify that the larger one is the TL version, I didn't do this in the first place because I'd intended only Crisis Suits to be able to twinlink their weapons, but now not as many models can buy weapons so it doesn't matter :>. You've now got 24 shots at 24". If you expend 1ML to allow them to hit on 3+, you've got a 95% chance to hit. 23 hits, 19 wounds, -2 to cover so they're stuck at 6+/5+ if they go to ground, you have just whiped out almost anything for 510 points. Toss on 8 shield drones and you're good to go.
I winged it closer to 1/3 of the cost, simply because that's how I roll.
Automatically Appended Next Post: 96 points for a 2+/4++/FNP WS2 S5 T5 2W 4 attack on the charge power weapon rerolling to hit. So jokes Farsight armies.
He's an integral part of the controversy of the Ethereal leadership and guidance. A renegade firewarrior over 300 years old? Or a string of successors, carefully hiding the deaths of their leaders - a mutant strain with a mutant greater good, pushing the boundaries of their caste and what it really means to be Tau.
He'll probably stay about where he is. An elite-eating monster who fields only loyalist tau fire-caste and runs around solving the problems of the empire in ways that make the ethereals mad.
Proposal for Markerlights: Instead of pinning on a bunch of weapons, Markerlights can grant pinning. Multiple markerlight tokens used to grant pinning tests for multiple potential unsaved wounds. Unsaved wounds that would cause pinning against fearless units would instead force no retreat saves.
Combat Blade: A models' To-Hit rolls of 5+ in close combat automatically wound - saves are taken as normal, and no additional roll to wound is required.
Pulse Carbine: Range: 18” S: 5 AP: 5 Special: Rapidfire, Pinning*
*Each unsaved wound inflicted by a Pulse Carbine causes a pinning test.
Army Options: An Army List including the Mobile Assault Command may purchase Fire Warrior Hunters and Mobile Assault Cadres for any slot in the FoC - remember, only slots purchased as Troops are scoring!
A Kroot Commander is an Auxiliary HQ Choice for a Tau Empire Army.
Wargear: Command Helm, Kroot Gun
Kroot gun: Range: A Kroot Gun counts as 2 Close Combat Weapons, and is fired with the following profile: Range: 18" S: 4 AP: 6 Special: Assault 2
Special Rules: Ambush, Independent Character, Infiltrate, Kroot Genevolution, Stubborn
Ambush: Models with Ambush suffer ignore difficult terrain from natural area terrain (terrain that is not ruins or rubble, wrecks. Examples include forests, jungles, rivers, brush, grass, and rocky terrain). While in natural terrain, they gain the Stealth USR, and when they launch an assault against a unit in natural terrain, they make their extra attack gained from charging at initiative 6 instead of their normal initiative.
Kroot Genevolution: If the Kroot Master Shaper is deployed attached to a Kroot Karnivore Squad, the entire unit including the Kroot Master Shaper may choose one of the following upgrades at 1 point per model:
+1 Weapons Skill
+1 Strength
+1 Toughness
+1 Initiative
+1 Attacks
+1 Armour Save
You may only ever buy 1 bonus for any single Kroot Carnivore Squad from Kroot Genevolution.
Unit Options: The Kroot Master Shaper may ride a Krootox for +20 Points.
Krootox: A model riding a Krootox changes its unit type to Beast, gains +1 Strength and Toughness, +2 Wounds, +1 Attacks, the Relentless Special Rule, and a Twin-Linked Kroot Rifle. The Twin-Linked Kroot Rifle fires with the following profile:
Range: 48" S: 7 AP: 5 Special: Assault 2
A Kroot Carnivore Squad is an Auxiliary Troops Choice for a Tau Empire Army. Up to 10 additional Kroot Carnivores may be added to a Kroot Carnivore Squad at 6 Points per Model. A Kroot Shaper may be added to the unit for 15 points. Up to 10 Kroot Hounds may be added to the unit for 6 points each.
Teeth and Claws: A Close Combat Weapon. Enemy models wounded by a Kroot Hound have their Initiative lowered by 1 to a minimum of 1 for the remainder of the assault. This ability is cumulative.
Special Rules: Ambush, Infiltrate, Kroot Genevolution (Kroot Shaper Only)
Unit Options: For every 5 Kroot Carnivores in the unit, one may ride a Krootox for 15 points. The Kroot Carnivore Squad may improve its armour save by 1 for 1 point per model (this stacks with the increase from Kroot Genevolution, if they have it.)
Kroot Carnivore Hunters are an Auxiliary Elites Choice for a Tau Empire Army. Up to 5 additional Kroot Carnivore Hunters may be added to the unit at 20 points per model.
Wargear: Kroot Gas Grenades, Poisoned Kroot Gun
Kroot Gas Grenades: Assault Grenades. If a Kroot Carnivore Hunter assaults a unit that has taken an unsaved wound from a Poisoned Kroot Gun, its attacks are Poisoned (3+)
Poisoned Kroot Gun: A Poisoned Kroot Gun counts as 2 Close Combat Attacks, and grants the equipped models' attacks in close combat Poisoned (4+). It fires with the following profile:
Range: 18" S: 4 AP: 6 Special: Assault 2, Poisoned (4+)
Special Rules: Ambush, Furious Charge, Fleet, Inflitrate, Scouts
Kroot Carnivor Herders are an Auxiliary Fast Attack Choice for a Tau Empire Army. Up to 5 Kroot Carnivore Herders may be added to the unit at 10 points each. Up to 20 Kroot Hounds may be added to the unit at 6 points each.
Unit Options: Kroot Carnivore Herders may ride a Krootox for 20 points each.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Tau Empire Auxiliary Choices: In addition to the normal FOC, Tau may purchase up to 1 HQs, 1 Elites, 2 Troops, 1 Fast attack, and 1 Heavy Support Auxiliary Choices. These choices may be purchased as normal choices, as well as Auxiliary choices.
Wilting Sorrow: BS: 4 Front AV: 13 Side AV: 13 Rear AV: 13
The Wilting Sorrow is an Auxiliary HQ choice for a Tau Empire Army. No Ethereal may be present in an Army with Wilting Sorrow.
Wargear: Dampener and Irradiator, Disruption Pods, Gravity Gun, Sensor Array
Dampener and Irradiator: At the beginning of each player turn, choose Armour Save or Invulnerable Save: Enemy models within 12" of the Wilting Sorrow must reroll successful saves of the chosen type until the end of the turn
Gravity Gun: The Gravity gun is a Turret-Mounted weapon that fires with the following profile:
Range: 24" S: 2 AP: 2 Special: Heavy 4+D6*, Gravity, Rending
*Roll a D6 and add that many shots to this weapon's profile each time you fire it.
Gravity: For each hit from this weapon, you may move a model in the unit hit either 1" closer, or 1" further away, obeying all movement rules (coherency, impassable terrain, etc.).
Sensor Array: The Wilting Sorrow ignores Difficult and Dangerous terrain.
A Vespid Princeling is an Auxiliary HQ Choice for a Tau Empire Army.
Wargear: Command Helm, Fit for a Prince, Neutron Blaster
Fit for a Prince: A Vespid Princeling has a 4+ Invulnerable save.
Neutron Blaster: A Neutron Blaster is a power weapon. It may fire with either of the following profiles during the shooing phase: Range: 18" S: 5 AP: 3 Special: Assault 1 Range: Template* S: 3 AP: - Special: Assault 1 *This template does not ignore cover.
Special Rules: Deepstrike, Fleet, Harrying, Hit and Run, Independent Character
Harrying: Units with this rule have the Skilled Fliers special rule (they may reroll failed dangerous terrain tests), and can make a Turbo Boost move as a Jetbike (gaining the cover save inherent). During the shooting phase, they may fire their weapons at a single target they moved over in the previous movement phase. This shooting takes place at BS2.
A Vespid Stingwing consists of 4 Stingwings and a Strain Leader, and is an Auxiliary Fast Attack choice for a Tau Empire Army. An Army with a Vespid Princeling may instead take Vespid Stingwings as Auxiliary Troops Choices. Up to 5 additional Stingwings may be added to the unit, at 18 points per model.
Ablative Flak Armour: Once per game, a model with Ablative Flak Armour may reroll a failed Armour Save. Doing so causes it to lose its Armour Save for the rest of the game.
Penetrator Las-Gun: A Penetrator Las-Gun fires with the following profile: Range: 24" S: 3 AP: 3 Special: Assault 2
Special Rules: Dynamic Entry, Preferred Enemy* (Imperial Forces) *Imperial Forces also have Preferred Enemy against Gue'Vesa ODST's. (Imperial Forces are any Space Marines or Imperial Guard armies, including Grey Knights and Inquisition forces)
Unit Options: Gue'Vesa ODST's enter play embarked in 2 Insertion Pods, which must enter play via deepstrike.
Insertion Pod: BS: - Front AV: 10 Side AV: 10 Rear AV: 10 (Vehicle, Fast, Immobile, Open Topped, Transport)
Immobile: Once it has landed, the Insertion Pod is immobilized, and cannot carry any more troops. Transport Capacity: 5
Wargear: -
Special Rules: Deepstrike, Unguided
Unguided: Insertion Pods enter play via Deepstrike, and must be placed in the middle of the table. The initial Insertion Pod scatters 4d6" in the direction of the arrow - If a Hit is rolled, it scatters 2d6" in the direction of the arrow on the Hit. Impassible terrain is resolved as normal, but if models (friend or foe!) are within 1" of the scattered Insertion Pod, instead, move the models 1" out of the way of the Insertion Pod, and place the Insertion Pod there. Each model moved causes a single S4 AP- hit against that model's unit, with any unsaved wounds causing a pinning test. You may then place the second Insertion Pod anywhere within 6" of the first, though embarked models must be able to disembark into coherency (and must do so immediately!).
Insertion Pods may not purchase Wargear or Vehicle Weapons. Insertion Pods are separate units from the rest of the Gue'Vesa ODST's unit they transported, and do not award Kill Points or contest objectives.
The vespid really need to be a bit better in cc I think. Even if they just pulled some kind of poison attack from there stinger or something. An upgrade like:
enlarged stinger. 5pts
attacks in cc count as poison(4+).
even that small gain in strength will help them a bit.
They have an assault weapon that shoots S5 AP3 before they assault. It's also a power weapon. Power Weapon doesn't have to specify it's a CCW - the BRB does that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: For some math hammer, Starting at 18", VS MEQ tacsquad
12" move into assault range, Blaster 2.5 hits, 1.6r wounds no save. Assault for 10 attacks 5 hit 2.5 wounds no save. 4.1 marines dead, marine attacks back .6r hits .3r wounds .2r wounds unsaved. Assault or shooting next turn finishes it off.
Hit and run 83.3r% of the time passes.
Turbo Boost move to a position for optimal template coverage, 25 template hits, 8.3r wounds,2.7r unsaved wounds. Shooting back 6.6r hits 3.3r wounds 1.1r unsaved. Shoot+assault next turn finishes off the tac squad.
For optimal theoretical conditions, I say they do fine for what they're meant to do.
It's still not going to be Str5 in combat, that will need stating. Needs to be something like 'The Neutron Blaster counts as a Power Weapon that gives +2 Strength in Close Combat' to do that.
It's not supposed to be S5 in combat. That would be silly. They're already really good for their cost as it is <__<
Edit*: Vespid saves are supposed to be invulnerable. This, and their power weapon attacks, are representations of their crystal/wing technology interactions.
Lovin the gue vesa, likin what youve done with them. What is the wilting rose? for a shuttle, imho thats a very strange name. All Ive read so far.
Btw, that extra FOC section for the auxilaries to me seems a tad too far. according to this, basiclaly they form their own army. Keep them in the standard charts to avoid possible exploitation of the charts. It no fair to get extra FOC just cus you got a few more units really.
I tried to keep auxiliaries limited to a specific, specialized purpose. Kroot for horde, vespid for elite infantry, guevesa for chaotic element. Being able to take them without hindering your ''real' army shouldn't be problematic, while making an aux only army is held back by holes in versatility. I haven't beem able to break it in a game yet, but we'll see.
Some immediate things I noticed on a quick readthrough are simply missing words, mis-conjugated words, and wargear entries that have no descriptions. This will be rectified when I add hypertext links and the glossary.
The wording could be more elegant, but I smooshed it together as best I could and it works without being abusable to my knowledge, so that's what really counts. Thank you
I think the melta missile's are just a tad overpriced. 25pts maybe? I can see a great combo with one thing markerlight missileing and then you alpha striking with a skyray. That would be nuts!
So, my thoughts about the codex:
- The current format is rather... cumbersome. I suggest the re-formatting of the codex to "GW style", so no Armoury, all options with points costs in the unit's entry and most importantly all special rules and wargear at the beginning of the codex. Something like in my fandexes (i can give you a .doc for sample).
- The Seeker Missiles and the Seek and Destroy special rule is very interesting, but as i can see, they don't worth the trouble. Because you need to take Markerlights, then the Missiles, then you need to marker units, then you must spend 2(!) markerlight tokens to fire a missile, then it either does something or not. Their special rules are also a bit cloggy, like Seeker Missiles "fired" by Marker Missiles.
- Personally, i don't like the Auxiliary FOC slots. Becuase they are either left completeley unused (because you take the Auxiliaries in normal FOC slots) or simply provide additional FOC seelctions (and those Iron Warrior armies still haunt me).
- On the subject of Tau commanders, you should either dump one of them or make them more distinctive with special rules/special equipment (reference: SM Captain/Chapter Master). Same with the retinue, they should be distinctive (like DE/Necron Courts).
- Etherals without "Price of Failure"? Isn't it a little bit anti-fluffy?
- The Royal Guard is effectively a close-combat Tau unit....
- Also, on XV-8 suits: i'm not a big fan of T5 on Crisises, because honestly, those things aren't Wraithguard or Ogryns. The Crisis suits are effectively bulky power armours. Maybe a remote-controlled Crisis could be T5, but with a T3 pilot, it should be T4.
- The heavy rail rifle needs rework, because its S8 is nearly useless because of the Sniper special rule (it still wounds only on a 4+ and rolls 3+D6 for armour penetration).
- For the Gue'Vesa... Why the ODST? I'm also a big fan of the Helljumpers, but for the Gue'Vesa it is OTT.
- The change on the Pulse Rifle is interesting... I dunno if the firepower nerf is the best way to go here...
- Oh, and all those pinning/multiple pinning stuff in the codex is nice, but they are rather useless currently. I mean, most of the armies out there either have high Ld or simply Fearless.
- The Pathfinders have a fixed unit size of 6 models. Is this intentional?
- I dunno if the Command Helm is a good idea.... I guess you should keep the different entries for Multi-Trackers/Target Locks/Bonding Knives.
- You should fix the Toughness/Armour Save for the Drones because they are currently rather useless as they weaken their units with their low Toughness/armour.
- Uhm... Thrown EMP grenades? The game system is pretty celar than throwing a grenade=assaulting with it in close-combat.
- Markerlights are far too expensive. They need a major price reduction. Also... Markerlights don't need LoS?
- Smart Missile Systems as wargear? Is this intentional?
- The Heavy Rail Cannon is OP like hell.
I need to read through the new version, and when I do I'll give a more in depth analysis than just off what people have said.
But Markerlights are laser designators, they very specifically need Line of Sight, if they don't currently - stop that.
You rather want it to be the new system rather than the armoury.
I even gave you a shiny updated version of the current codex that had all the armoury options divied out into wargear entries as they should be, so it shouldn't be hard for you to switch to that system.
Thanks again you guys for all this amazing help and feedback!
Ledabot wrote:I think the melta missile's are just a tad overpriced. 25pts maybe? I can see a great combo with one thing markerlight missileing and then you alpha striking with a skyray. That would be nuts!
This is one of those things I've actually had both opinions on, both on Vassal and in my game store; Some people think it costs too much, others think it costs too little. I'm of the opinion that its cost is justified for what it does at the moment, based on games where I've used it exclusively and extensively (i.e. 2k games with upwards of 400 points of melta missiles). If it went down much more than 30, it might have problems. I'd say 27-28 would be nice, but it's an ugly iterative for multiples, and doesn't fit well into the points system.
AtoMaki wrote:The current format is rather... cumbersome. I suggest the re-formatting of the codex to "GW style", so no Armoury, all options with points costs in the unit's entry and most importantly all special rules and wargear at the beginning of the codex.
I agree; it's in alpha right now, which is why everything is just clumped together. To be fair, having an Armoury is more elegant (i.e. less text) in this case, simply because of the number of effective options. I do have plans to port everything into an alphabetical, segregated list at the start of the codex, and then tossing options onto all of the units like the Space Marines have it.
AtoMaki wrote:The Seeker Missiles and the Seek and Destroy special rule is very interesting, but as i can see, they don't worth the trouble. Because you need to take Markerlights, then the Missiles, then you need to marker units, then you must spend 2(!) markerlight tokens to fire a missile, then it either does something or not. Their special rules are also a bit cloggy, like Seeker Missiles "fired" by Marker Missiles.
This is a 2-part issue; one is that Markerlights have been changed significantly from how I had them previously - they should be statistically about the same in terms of points cost (the way they are now comes out behind by about 12% in terms of basic efficiency, but you gain a lot of tactical options with it.) I may buff markerlights overall by bumping them down to 12-15 points, (making them ~15% more efficient than they were before!) Having 15-20 markerlights in an army should be literally no problem, and firing off 5+ seeker missiles a turn in addition to your 'regular' shooting is what's become very popular with my local Tau Fandex meta - so I'm having to constantly adjust the cost of options witht them. (Another thing is Smart Missile Systems, which I usually tag on my piranhas for 'free' Seeker Missile firing - you're not limited to markerlights!)
The second issue is that, when used with other shooting and markerlight options, pinning S8 blasts that force no retreat saves can be hefty. (A seeker missile in combination with a unit of firewarriors with some markerlights and an SMS can reliably either pin, or 70% whipe out both fearless and non-fearless meq.)
Seeker missiles aren't fired by marker missiles. Marker missiles are fired by marker missiles. if you meant Seeker Missiles being able to be fired at units hit by marker missiles, that's part of the point. Sometimes you have to throw a grenade to flush the enemy into your line of fire!
AtoMaki wrote: Personally, i don't like the Auxiliary FOC slots. Becuase they are either left completeley unused (because you take the Auxiliaries in normal FOC slots) or simply provide additional FOC seelctions (and those Iron Warrior armies still haunt me).
It hasn't been a problem yet, but if anything comes up It's on the list of "Things to look very closely at while hefting my axe."
AtoMaki wrote:On the subject of Tau commanders, you should either dump one of them or make them more distinctive with special rules/special equipment (reference: SM Captain/Chapter Master). Same with the retinue, they should be distinctive (like DE/Necron Courts).
Shas'O is going to be a Shas'Ui upgrade once I port the format. The retinue has gone through a lot of... variations. I can definitely see a lot of fun coming out of having distinctive bodyguards though, so I will be doing something there. Many thanks for this avenue!
AtoMaki wrote:- Markerlights are far too expensive. They need a major price reduction.
I agree they may need a points reduction. Not a major one, but at 12-15 points, auto hit, and pre-shooting, they will come out as incredibly efficient.
AtoMaki wrote:Also... Markerlights don't need LoS?
Ovion wrote: But Markerlights are laser designators, they very specifically need Line of Sight, if they don't currently - stop that.
Yes, thank you, sorry!
AtoMaki wrote:Etherals without "Price of Failure"? Isn't it a little bit anti-fluffy? - The Royal Guard is effectively a close-combat Tau unit....
Ethereals may be getting removed, along with their retinue. I thought I had something with a previous iteration, but it consistently came up as a point of contention and balance problems arose from it. Price of Failure is just a bad rule overall, and it seems that the Ethereal may be bad for Wargaming overall. I may reintroduce the Ethereal with a few new spins if I can get them worded properly, but I think every take on it has been done by the world of Taudexes, and felt terrible, already.
AtoMaki wrote: Also, on XV-8 suits: i'm not a big fan of T5 on Crisises, because honestly, those things aren't Wraithguard or Ogryns. The Crisis suits are effectively bulky power armours. Maybe a remote-controlled Crisis could be T5, but with a T3 pilot, it should be T4.
I'm going to have to disagree from a purely gameplay standard here; I'd be willing to bump them to T4(5), but that's as far as I'd take it. Dreadknights, obviously just Marine-looted Crisis Suits, bump marines up by base +2T. Ogryns don't deserve their T or their S so that's not a very good comparison :C Ogryns <<<< Powered Armour!
AtoMaki wrote: - The heavy rail rifle needs rework, because its S8 is nearly useless because of the Sniper special rule (it still wounds only on a 4+ and rolls 3+D6 for armour penetration).
This is actually a neat thing - You can take the better. It's S8, AP2, Automatically wounds on a roll of 4+, Rends on 6's, rolls 3+1d6 or 8+1d6 (plus rending), and is pinning. This is also a change directed mainly at 6th edition rumor-mongering, where Sniper grants certain abilities (like targeting priority!)
AtoMaki wrote: - For the Gue'Vesa... Why the ODST? I'm also a big fan of the Helljumpers, but for the Gue'Vesa it is OTT.
Mainly, the cheapness and availability of insertion pods. Also, I wanted to have some "shock trooper-commandos" that can do a bit of everything decently at a decent cost. Also I just like the image of veterans in cylinders being fired by railguns into the battlefield.
AtoMaki wrote: - The change on the Pulse Rifle is interesting... I dunno if the firepower nerf is the best way to go here...
Firepower buff at ranges 36-13, actually. Survivability buff at those ranges as well. Shots output at <12"is made up for by prevalence of support shooting and shooting abilities, and also cost.
AtoMaki wrote: - Oh, and all those pinning/multiple pinning stuff in the codex is nice, but they are rather useless currently. I mean, most of the armies out there either have high Ld or simply Fearless.
Both of which are dealt with by markerlight saturation. The goal here is to have tau feel like a powerful shooting force that can overcome everything by being batman, instead of relying on lots of big numbers like guard.
AtoMaki wrote: - The Pathfinders have a fixed unit size of 6 models. Is this intentional?
Codex: Tau Empire wrote:["Up to 6 additional Pathfinders may be added to a unit of Pathfinder Scouts at 15 Points per model."
AtoMaki wrote: - I dunno if the Command Helm is a good idea.... I guess you should keep the different entries for Multi-Trackers/Target Locks/Bonding Knives.
I wanted wargear slots to feel useful. Multitrackers are more dealt with in the Weapons Systems section, but Target lock + Bonding Knife + Blacksun Filter = 10+5+3 = 18 but was too expensive at 20 (wasn't being used, points reduction was main suggestion). It's a decent add-on to many units, and breaking it up would add much needless clutter.
AtoMaki wrote: - You should fix the Toughness/Armour Save for the Drones because they are currently rather useless as they weaken their units with their low Toughness/armour.
They used to be 4+, but firewarriors get drone controllers for free and the ablative wounds have been taken advantage of. Points cost couldn't go up without being unreasonable, so... It'll get looked at. I really don't want to go twelvesies with their points.
AtoMaki wrote: - Uhm... Thrown EMP grenades? The game system is pretty celar than throwing a grenade=assaulting with it in close-combat.
Fap'Tau has an amazing throwing arm. The lesser misguided races simply can't compete with our lobbing skills. It hasn't been an issue, because I MEAN REALLY 6"+TAU=DEAD TAU. It might be getting changed to 3+ Glance, period, though. One problem that comes up right now is that massed firewarriors are almost competitive viable. Which is not what I want, despite how obvious it is that a lot of Tau > Anything else. Which means changes need to be made around them.
AtoMaki wrote: Smart Missile Systems as wargear? Is this intentional?
Working as intended for now. It's been radically changed from its somewhat silly previous profile and fluff.
AtoMaki wrote: - The Heavy Rail Cannon is OP like hell.
It's actually losing out in a lot of cases to the heavy rail cannon, and in some silly cases, the plasma repeater (which is hilarious in some situations.) It has its use against armies like Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, and Guard, but a lot of its power comes from forcing your opponent to position his models to avoid it. To put it the other way, the Doom Scythe is 50 points overcosted for what it does; I took those 50 points, put them into the tau heavy support, fixed the rule so that it reads less garbledy, and you get the railhead.
Ovion wrote: You rather want it to be the new system rather than the armoury. I even gave you a shiny updated version of the current codex that had all the armoury options divied out into wargear entries as they should be, so it shouldn't be hard for you to switch to that system.
I've had to port it to wordpad, of all things, to get tabling to work, and then back to open office, and then back to wordpad. It's cumbersome and discouraging, but it's the only way I can get tables to work with openoffice for some reason. SO. Slow going on that, but I am making use of your aid <3
chrisrawr wrote:This is a 2-part issue; one is that Markerlights have been changed significantly from how I had them previously - they should be statistically about the same in terms of points cost (the way they are now comes out behind by about 12% in terms of basic efficiency, but you gain a lot of tactical options with it.) I may buff markerlights overall by bumping them down to 12-15 points, (making them ~15% more efficient than they were before!) Having 15-20 markerlights in an army should be literally no problem, and firing off 5+ seeker missiles a turn in addition to your 'regular' shooting is what's become very popular with my local Tau Fandex meta - so I'm having to constantly adjust the cost of options witht them. (Another thing is Smart Missile Systems, which I usually tag on my piranhas for 'free' Seeker Missile firing - you're not limited to markerlights!)
Still, it feels like i should build my army around the Seeker Missiles to make them work.
chrisrawr wrote:Seeker missiles aren't fired by marker missiles. Marker missiles are fired by marker missiles. if you meant Seeker Missiles being able to be fired at units hit by marker missiles, that's part of the point. Sometimes you have to throw a grenade to flush the enemy into your line of fire!
I was thinking about the following scenario: i spend 2 markelright coutners to call dwon a Marker Missile. It hits a unit two times with its blasts, generating two marker counters on the unit. Now i can expend these counters to call down another Seeker Missile...
chrisrawr wrote:I agree they may need a points reduction. Not a major one, but at 12-15 points, auto hit, and pre-shooting, they will come out as incredibly efficient.
My version at 15/10 points worked perfectly. I would price yours at 10 points at maximum.
chrisrawr wrote:I'm going to have to disagree from a purely gameplay standard here; I'd be willing to bump them to T4(5), but that's as far as I'd take it. Dreadknights, obviously just Marine-looted Crisis Suits, bump marines up by base +2T. Ogryns don't deserve their T or their S so that's not a very good comparison :C Ogryns <<<< Powered Armour!
I dunno, i can't see the Crisis suit that resilient to internal damage because of its lack of bulk. There is no way that a Crisis could swallow a Krak missile (that could wreck a Hammerhead!) without problem.
chrisrawr wrote:This is actually a neat thing - You can take the better. It's S8, AP2, Automatically wounds on a roll of 4+, Rends on 6's, rolls 3+1d6 or 8+1d6 (plus rending), and is pinning. This is also a change directed mainly at 6th edition rumor-mongering, where Sniper grants certain abilities (like targeting priority!)
Thing is, you cannot take the better... You wound even a Grot on a 4+, and you always roll 3+D6 for armour penetration (you cannot roll 8+D6). I suggest to give the heavy rail rifle Rending+Pinning instead of Sniper (same with the normal rail rifle).
chrisrawr wrote:Firepower buff at ranges 36-13, actually. Survivability buff at those ranges as well. Shots output at <12"is made up for by prevalence of support shooting and shooting abilities, and also cost.
I don't know. I simply canot see the point of Fire Warriors (above ablative markerlight plaftorms and neccessary scoring units). They need oomph.
chrisrawr wrote:Both of which are dealt with by markerlight saturation. The goal here is to have tau feel like a powerful shooting force that can overcome everything by being batman, instead of relying on lots of big numbers like guard.
Frankly, my biggest isse with you codex is its lack of hitting power. Because all of the heavy hitters are either the old guys (Suits) whose effectively does the same or some super-tricky one-hitters (Seeker Missiles).
Codex: Tau Empire wrote:["Up to 6 additional Pathfinders may be added to a unit of Pathfinder Scouts at 15 Points per model."
LOL, i missed this, my bad !
chrisrawr wrote:They used to be 4+, but firewarriors get drone controllers for free and the ablative wounds have been taken advantage of. Points cost couldn't go up without being unreasonable, so... It'll get looked at. I really don't want to go twelvesies with their points.
My biggest problem is the single Crisis + 2 Gun Drones situation. Where the Crisis will be T3 because of the dron's majority Toughness. Drones should have Close Protection. Oh and on drone controllers, i think everyone should have them free. Drones for the people!
chrisrawr wrote:It's actually losing out in a lot of cases to the heavy rail cannon, and in some silly cases, the plasma repeater (which is hilarious in some situations.) It has its use against armies like Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, and Guard, but a lot of its power comes from forcing your opponent to position his models to avoid it. To put it the other way, the Doom Scythe is 50 points overcosted for what it does; I took those 50 points, put them into the tau heavy support, fixed the rule so that it reads less garbledy, and you get the railhead.
Problem with the heavy rail cannon is that it need no LoS and goes through terrain without problem.
Bottom to top; No LoS grants cover. 4+ where there once was no+ is a pretty hefty reason to shoot at things in the open. Otherwise, working as intended - Current human railguns don't give a gak about intervening cover, why should hyperadvanced ones
It had the clause "Drones do not count for purposes of majority toughness", but the opposite scenario happened; a dozen drones was 12 ablative wounds with no recourse. It wasn't fun! I'd rather have the problem of them opening up an avoidable weakness than a powerful exploit.
At the moment I believe my codex has considerably more hitting power open to it than any others. A unit of Firewarriors can easily and consistently pin or heavily damage many units of the game - GEQ withers under assault pulse from afar, MEQ is quickly reduced to footsloggers, or if jump packs, is suddenly found subject to pinning and extra wounds from a surprisingly more mobile army than the Tau they knew. Firewarriors are the backbone of this codex despite the power and availability of crisis suits. Seeker missiles really aren't that tricky. They're on average 4 times better against footslogging meq than they were in 4e dex, melta against vehicles, fire and airburst against horde, etc. I don't see how nerfing firewarriors back down to rapidfire would increase their hitting power.
You're going to have to show me where I can't take the better; I'm allowed to wound on 4+ from sniper, and I'm allowed to wound with SvT by normal shooting rules. It's worded the same as poisoned weapons, which allow you to either take straight up SvT if it's available. If it turns out to be the case that you can't take either, then yeah it's just going to have the fancy Pinning. If that's the case, many thanks for calling me out and catching this
T4(5) would still get gibbed by a krak; the T5 is to resilience them against melee and small-arms mostly. The loss of virtual power, however, would warrant a points cost reduction that I don't want to deal with at the moment; a lot of options are based off the fact that they're almost always going to have 2 wounds to be used on.
if you're only hitting 2 models in the unit with 3 large blasts, that's not really a problem of the marker missile. A Marker Missile is one of those things you throw at deathstars to wreck them. 5 Terminators take 12 Markerlight Tokens, and are suddenly fair game for auto pinning.
You can, but you don't have to. There's enough options, on enough units, who have them cheap enough to toss out at least 1-2 seeker missiles a turn from reserve regardless of how you want to swing it; it's not like you're required to dump points into the reserve, either. It's an option that opens up some potentially interesting doors at a reasonable cost. At the same time, any truly competitive list that comes out of this codex (and I've seen a couple doozies) is going to make use of all of the best of the reasonable options, and the reserve is one of the best.
An example wrecker list Shas'El - 50 Missile Pods - 62 Missile Pods- 74 Shield - 89 EMP - 92
Assuming Turn 1 is yours, you have 4-5 missiles going out a turn for 3 turns. You have 2 powerful harrying units for raids outside your castle, 2 walls, and a ballista behind the archers. You can drop some points around to slap Krootox riders in the walls if you need them. Most importantly, you have 270 points that [i]your enemy cannot destroy[i] if he dozes your wall. You can substitute the SMS for markerlights and lower the number of vespid and missiles to ensure more pinning and a more tactical deployment of seekers, but this is a spamlist.
Alternatively, a list entirely devoid of missiles (but full of kroot!)
chrisrawr wrote:No LoS grants cover. 4+ where there once was no+ is a pretty hefty reason to shoot at things in the open. Otherwise, working as intended - Current human railguns don't give a gak about intervening cover, why should hyperadvanced ones
Still, the heavy railgun is the most abusable part of the codex. Shooting through everything, sniping into cc, hitting models on multiple height levels... And costing only 80 points for a rather resilient weapon platform (that can hide out of LoS).
chrisrawr wrote:It had the clause "Drones do not count for purposes of majority toughness", but the opposite scenario happened; a dozen drones was 12 ablative wounds with no recourse. It wasn't fun! I'd rather have the problem of them opening up an avoidable weakness than a powerful exploit.
But a dozen drones are also 120 points (at minimum, and still with Sv 5+)... I pay for that ablative wounds, so i want to use them for full effect! Because 10 points for the current crappy gun drone don't worth it.
chrisrawr wrote:At the moment I believe my codex has considerably more hitting power open to it than any others. A unit of Firewarriors can easily and consistently pin or heavily damage many units of the game - GEQ withers under assault pulse from afar, MEQ is quickly reduced to footsloggers, or if jump packs, is suddenly found subject to pinning and extra wounds from a surprisingly more mobile army than the Tau they knew. Firewarriors are the backbone of this codex despite the power and availability of crisis suits. I don't see how nerfing firewarriors back down to rapidfire would increase their hitting power.
12 FWs with pulse rifles and 4x markerlights do 2.19 wounds on a MEQ opponent and 5.58 wounds on a GEQ opponent (without cover; 4.23 wounds with cover). The FW team costs 195 points, so to destroy an opponent with the same points cost, it must focus fire on the MEQ for 5 turns (killing the 170+PFTac squad) or 5/6 turns against the GEQ (killing the 3 Infantry Squads worth ~150 points).
Huh, for a comparsion, i should probably bring up my take on the FWs and pulse rifles (sorry ): for 195 points, you can get 17 basic FWs and 1 Shas'ui (with a markerlight). With their heavy 2 pulse rifles, they cause 5.17 wounds on MEQ and 13.17 wounds on GEQ (without cover; 9.97 wounds with cover). So they need only 2 turns to kill the Tac squad and 3 turns to kill the Infantry Squads. If you want mobility, you can give the FWs pulse carbines, that do the same but they are R18" and Assault 2/Pinning.
In my imagination hitting power =/= suppression. Stuff killed for good is always better than stuff pinned. And as i can see it, your Tau is working with mostly suppression (and frankly, i like the concept like hell), that isn't effective with the current meta/rules.
chrisrawr wrote:Seeker missiles really aren't that tricky. They're on average 4 times better against footslogging meq than they were in 4e dex, melta against vehicles, fire and airburst against horde, etc.
They are tricky. Because you need a proper selection of them, equipment to fire them (markerlights or SMS) and targets worth to fire at with the specific missile(s) you bought. It would be far simplier to have a single Seeker Missile entry with three alternative firing modes (anti-tank, anti-MEQ and anti-horde), so i can spare the awkward "melta missile versus green tide" and "inferno missile against Deathwing" moments.
chrisrawr wrote:You're going to have to show me where I can't take the better; I'm allowed to wound on 4+ from sniper, and I'm allowed to wound with SvT by normal shooting rules. It's worded the same as poisoned weapons, which allow you to either take straight up SvT if it's available. If it turns out to be the case that you can't take either, then yeah it's just going to have the fancy Pinning. If that's the case, many thanks for calling me out and catching this
You must always use a weapon's special rule. You cannot fire a battle cannon without the large blast for example . Or a plasma gun without Gets Hot!... And the rules for Sniper weapons are pretty clear (small brbpg 31): you wound on a 4+ and roll 3+D6 for armour penetration. It is because sniper weapons supposed to have a Strength value of X. "Sniper" weapons with a strength value has Rending+Pinning (example: Stalker Boltgun).
chrisrawr wrote:if you're only hitting 2 models in the unit with 3 large blasts, that's not really a problem of the marker missile. A Marker Missile is one of those things you throw at deathstars to wreck them. 5 Terminators take 12 Markerlight Tokens, and are suddenly fair game for auto pinning.
My problem is the other seeker missile fired by the marker missile's markerlight counters. How i suppose to decide the "vector" of that missile (for armour facing for example)?
"Armour Facing is determined by the origin of the Seeker Missile being fired."
I thought it was clear especially in combination with the seek and destroy rule, but perhaps I need a clause clarifying that the origin is the model that purchased the seeker missile (for equipment) or any point along the table edge (for reserve).
Thanks for that :3
It's not ignoring the rule. You can wound on 4+, and 2+. The sniper rule doesn't state that it ALWAYS wounds on a 4+ - I'd have to agree with you if that were the case. It just wounds on a 4+ regardless of toughness. Again, the Sniper rule is there to grant Rending and to grant Target Priority in 6th edition.
Ah. Our definitions of tricky are different. Seeker missiles, like much of the Tau Codex, are specific weapons. Though I do like the idea of perhaps simply having a single seeker missile with multiple profiles, it would be difficult to properly cost (removing many of the benefits of purchasing cheaper seeker missiles, points wise.) - Inferno missiles against Deathwing is still flamer templates you don't need to get close to use; though if you're supplementing your firepower with Inferno Missiles, I'd assume you have lots of high-power shots to take care of elites and transports. One fallacy of induction is that it tends to generalize.
Having just checked your version of the Pulse Rifle, and the surrounding codex options, it's no wonder you feel my shooting is subpar; Your codex is overpowered; the things that make leafblower and gray assault so powerful are commonized, exemplified and reduced in points. Also, induction again; if I've got a unit of firewarriors with 4 markerlights, it sure as hell isn't to kill marines. It's to pop out craploads of markerlight tokens for something else
But your note on reducing the cost of markerlights has been pragmatized.
What you're paying for with those 10 points of gun drone:
4 Points for the model
3 points for the weapon
3 points for its special effects.
Drone controllers might become free, it's a suggestion that comes up often enough.
I don't really see what's abusable about it. Its points reflect its abilities, its slots are limited and compete with broadsides and skyrays, and the railhead itself competes for other decent options. Your mention of units on multiple levels did, however, prompt me to change the wording from under the line to models the line passes through.
One idea I might steal from Ovion is to simply make the 'base' vehicle interchangable with the Skyray, to allow mix and matches of 1-3 models per HS slot.
chrisrawr wrote:It's not ignoring the rule. You can wound on 4+, and 2+. The sniper rule doesn't state that it ALWAYS wounds on a 4+ - I'd have to agree with you if that were the case. It just wounds on a 4+ regardless of toughness. Again, the Sniper rule is there to grant Rending and to grant Target Priority in 6th edition.
No, you cannot wound on 2+, because you ignore the target's Toughness with your to-wound roll, so you cannot compare the Strength of the weapon to the Toughness of the victim.
chrisrawr wrote:Ah. Our definitions of tricky are different.
For me, everything is tricky that needs more than two dice rolls and one piece of equipment .
chrisrawr wrote:Having just checked your version of the Pulse Rifle, and the surrounding codex options, it's no wonder you feel my shooting is subpar; Your codex is overpowered; the things that make leafblower and gray assault so powerful are commonized, exemplified and reduced in points. Also, induction again; if I've got a unit of firewarriors with 4 markerlights, it sure as hell isn't to kill marines. It's to pop out craploads of markerlight tokens for something else
Yeah, we took a pretty different approach on the Tau Empire. I emphasise firepower with tricks, you emphasise suppression with support. Oh, and in my defence, i always thought that leafblower=poor man's Mont'ka and razorfang=SM Kauyon. And hell, i didn't even tried with the Tau... Just check out my Blue Star Alliance codex for a real firepower army (link in my sig).
chrisrawr wrote:I don't really see what's abusable about it. Its points reflect its abilities, its slots are limited and compete with broadsides and skyrays, and the railhead itself competes for other decent options.
For one thing: it can shoot into close-combat, and if you are good, then it will hit only enemy models (as they will line up with their close-combat move). This whole "line-fired-railgun" thing was ridiculous even for a rumour, and it has so much nonsense moments (It goes through cover but doesn't ignore cover?) that it hardly worths the effort to properly fix it. If you want stornger Hammerhead railguns then make it roll armour penetration like Ordnance.
chrisrawr wrote:
As for the line-fire, it's stolen from the Doom Scythe. The Doomscythe's is better, in my opinion, but the points on it are outrageous.
Problem is, that the Death Ray has a maximum range of 12" and can effect a rather small area of 3-18". Its effective threat range is around 35", and 24" is a non-damage section (the move of the Doom Scythe and the 12" range of the weapon). Your Railhead has a threat range of 78" with a 6" non-damage section (the move of the Hammerhead). And i don't even mention that the Railhead is FA13/SA12, it isn't in the skies, so it can have cover/can hide behind LoS blocking terrain and it can also take Disruption Pod. The only thing against the Railhead is its unflexible firing line and its lack of Living Metal.
I guess if you want to keep the railgun's "raily" power, then you should do something like this:
Hammerhead Railgun:
To fire the Hammerhead railgun, first draw a straight line starting at the center of the weapon and ending 72" away. Then nominate one point on this line and a second one also on the line and within 3D6" of the first point. Any units between these two points suffer as many hits from the weapon as many models they have under the line and between the two points. Models in close-combat are unaffected (representing the intelligent failsafe controller within the round). Intervening terrain are ignored for cover.
Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook, Pg.31 wrote:Sniper These deadly weapons can be used to pick out a target's weak or vulnerable points.
Sniper hits wound on a roll of 4+, regardless of the victims toughness. In addition, all sniper weapons are also rending and pinning weapons (see above).
Against Vehicles, sniper weapons count as Strength 3, which, combined with the rending rule, represents their chances of successfully hitting exposed crew, vision ports, fuel or ammo storage.
That's pretty clear cut tbh.
chrisrawr wrote:You're going to have to show me where I can't take the better; I'm allowed to wound on 4+ from sniper, and I'm allowed to wound with SvT by normal shooting rules. It's worded the same as poisoned weapons, which allow you to either take straight up SvT if it's available. If it turns out to be the case that you can't take either, then yeah it's just going to have the fancy Pinning. If that's the case, many thanks for calling me out and catching this
Poison does not allow you to wound at straight SvT. It allows re-rolls if your S is equal to or greater than their Toughness.
In CC you can choose to use a regular CCW instead of a poisoned weapon, but that's not the same thing as using a weapon with Poison and trying to ignore it.
Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook, Pg.42 wrote:Poisoned Weapons Poisoned Weapons range from blades coated in venom to hypodermic claws. They do not rely on a comparison of Strength and Toughness to wound - they always wound on a fixed number, generally shown in brackets.
In most cases this is 4+. Some venoms are so lethal that the merest drop can kill - these may wound on a 3+ or even 2+ (as described in the appropriate Codex).
In addition, if the Strength of the wielder is the same or higher than the Toughness of the victim, the wielder must re-roll failed rolls to wound in close combat.
These weapons confer no advantage against vehicles.
And, while I cannot find it in the rulebook:
Dark Eldar Codex, Pg.25 wrote:Poisoned Shooting Weapons Much Dark Eldar ranged weaponry relies on poisoning the enemy rather than causing physical damage.
Poisoned shooting weapons work in a similar way to poisoned close combat weapons.
They do not have a Strength Value, but they always wound on a fixed number, shown in brackets.
These weapons cannot damage enemy vehicles, and always count as defensive weapons when mounted on vehicles.
Note that this rule does not apply to the model's close combat attacks, not even if it is armed with a poisoned pistol.
not the repeated use of ALWAYS.
A poisoned weapon with a Strength value would work in the same way as a poisoned CCW - re-rolls if S => T.
However, it would only count as a defensive weapon if its Str is 4 or less.
@atomaki you are severely overestimating the abilities of a 72" line on a battlefield. Give it a go in a couple of games. Most of the Doomray's power comes from its ability to position the line, and I'd still only put the Doom Scythe at 125 points. The extra points on the Hammerhead are an amalgamation of it losing this power, and of its effective endurance boost.
@Ovion Sniper hits wound on a roll of 4+, regardless of the victims toughness."
If X, Y If X, Z .: If X, Y+Z
There is no replacement. It wounds on a 4+ regardless of toughness. We see also on page 19 that an S of 8 wounds on certain values. Since the clause does grant permission to not use this value, it is still there - we effectively wound on this value, and 4+ regardless of toughness. Poisoned comes into this as a counterfactual, where "always" is present and the rule IS a replacement.
Now, against vehicles, there is the replacement effect; They count as S3. S:X counts as S3. S 12 counts as S3. S -i^e counts as S3. It's a blanket clause with a replacement.
@Poisoned weapons, yes; I was mistaken when I said snipers were worded the same as poisoned weapons.
I will note that although the players who have used it had no trouble with it, It's no problem to change if both of you do feel it's not working; Sorry if I've been a bit stubborn.
I did; I still want to - there's a few weapons I haven't included in the armoury yet, like Airburst Frags. They'll be later in the Alpha, using rules very similar to their current ones. Right now my main focus is porting everything to a decent format, making sure all the hyperlinks are working in the .pdf, and continued playtesting of new things. Like the Rhemora, Drone Harbinger (take 2), and Barracuda.
Edit; Format peek preview in OP.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On the viability of all-kroot armies; do not do this if your enemy is prone to armies with lots of flame templates. Just... don't :C
Would you consider putting railguns on them? Broadside railguns are the correct size from there powerplant and they could still move about effectivly. Yea it would be hell expensive, like carzy 75pts for the upgrade or something.
First: I officially unsay everything bad i said about Seeker Missiles in this topic. Because they are OP (well, not all of them, but the Melta and the Inferno is).
Second: Chrisrawr, you should do something with Fire Warriors. Something... Anything... Because they are still crap. Very-very-very-very crap.
My army composed a "Typhoon" Shas'O (double missile pods, SMS, 2x shield drones), 2x2 "Tornado" Crisis Teams (fusion beamers, heavy flamers, 2x shield drones, iridium armours), 4x Fire Warrior teams (2x markerlights each) in Devilfishes, 1x2 Broadsides (TL missile pods, 2x shield drones) and two Railheads. Oh, and i also had 4 Melta and 4 Inferno missiles.
My opponent was a Space Marine player with a standard Vulkan list (Vulkan, Assault Terminators, Land Raiders, MSUTac Squads and Multi-Melta Attack Bikes).
So the batte itself was pretty straight: i started the first turn, popped 6 vehicles (from 8) with the melta missiles and the railguns. Then my opponent was like "No way i should go against a Tau gunline on foot!", but ultimately he did it and wrecked my face for good with 20 Assault Terminators (i managed to kill... zero of them!). The Fire Warriors took out two Land Raiders with the Markerlight+Melta missile combo, then they died a horrible death by the Attack Bikes. The heroes of the battle were the Railheads and the "Typhoon" Commander. One of the Railheads did an Outflank, and pretty much slaughtered the whole MSU backyard when it arrived with a single 72" line of death. The other Railhead wiped out all the Attack Bikes when they lined up in a close-combat with my Crisis teams. The "Typhoon" Commander simply killed my opponent's objective holding unit (a full squad of 10 sniper scouts) with the inferno missiles, getting me a draw instead of a big defeat. At the end i had only my Commander, the Outflanking Railhead and one Crisis alive. My opponent had Vulkan on his final wound, all the Assault Terminators and a few leftover Tac marines remaining.
So my insights about the codex:
- The biggest pain about this 'dex its lack of effective firepower. Yeah, you can take out stuff with the big toys, but everything is simply so... scarce... And when your opponent goes in for the kill, you will feel every casualty. Okay, except the Fire Warriors. You won't miss those guys...
- The army is very unforgiving. You mess up something, and bad stuff happens with you.
- Pinning means nothing when you cannot show up enough firepower to cause wounds... This thing really irked me during the battle. It is nice that you can force pinning for every wound/force pinning with a reduced ld, but no wounds -> no pinning.
- Otherwise, some rules need clarification. Like the inferno missile (is it a real template weapon or not?).
- Outflanking Railheads are super-good. Shame that the army has only one reserve-helping option...
Actually, a some of those are or have been getting addressed.
Seeker missiles are moving to a 20% fire rate; you can fire a fifth (rounded down) of your max missiles each turn from reserve (So if you take 10 missiles, you can fire 2 each turn). They've also grabbed a general points increase (Regular old seeker missiles were actually the biggest offender in my games so far - being able to wipe out big-ol clots of units is scary!) As for template weapons, any weapon that uses a template is a template weapon and follows the template rules unless it states otherwise.
20 Assault Terminators against 4 heavy flamers and fusion beamers, 4 Assault Cannons, and 4+ Railgun hits a turn should not be taking 0 wounds, especially with 4 markerlights to buff BS. BUT, markerlights have gone down in cost army-wide, with SMS (And the Skyray) going up in cost, so you might see more being taken on shas'ui team leaders. Also, you can take flechette launchers on shield drones now. It's fairly hefty for what it does (they're d6+1 4+ wounds now instead of wounding everyone) but it'll deter a lot of assaults by smaller units, especially against crisis teams who can walk-off a lot of lesser wounds.
My general critique against your list is that there's not a whole lot of anti elite. This dex makes VERY effective all-comers list because of the prevalence of seeker missiles; You went antitank and antihorde without much to take care of invulns; Your opponent went with a heavy-invuln list, and even when forced to slog, brought the pain. I like the outflanking hammerhead touch; very reminiscent of that first time I got caught by Boss Grotsnik and his 2 burnas, and lost an entire contingent of firewarriors. I can sat it's probably not going to happen to the same opponent twice unless he's a slow learner, or you force him back with overwhelming firepower
Now, onto your points
Your point is noted; I know you like your firewarriors to be big, bad, killy machines - the ones in your dex do this very well, especially when backed by missile drones! I feel that with Missile support, my firewarriors provide enough firepower (and now with the markerlight reduction,) and suppression to fill the role they're needed for in my codex. Points might get juggled some more to free up an extra small unit somewhere else in the dex.
Yes. This is intentional. This is a trial by fire for Tau players. You do it right or you play guard.
It only takes one wound to pin. You spent most of your markerlights on masses seeker missiles; I would've bought SMS for this if I'd based my antitank/horde on so many missiles Or skyrays! This is again partially altered by the way seeker missiles will come in from reserve, but you can always take them on your vehicles or drones.
Yes, I agree - that sounds like it was awesome . The Experienced Commander rule, and some other new special command options, are being handed to a number of HQ choices as upgrades rather than as standard.
Another testing battle, this time with Tau victory!
My army was: 'Typhoon' Commander (as above), 3x2 "Fireknife" Crisis teams, 2 Kroot squads with Shaper and +1 T, 1 Railhead, 1 Skyray with inferno missiles (and +1 SMS), 1 Skyray with melta missiles (and +1 SMS). All vehicles had DP and FD. All suits had iridium armour. Each suit teams had 2 shield drones and 1 command helm.
My opponent had a mechanized IG list with Primaris psyker, a blob, lots of guys in chimeras, 2 Vendettas and two Russes.
The mission was pitched batle + 1-1 objectives, and it is something worth mentioning, because it won me the battle. So with the 1-1 objectives, the IG decided to stay put, and challange my army in a shooting fest. And you know what? I had a tank with three meltaguns with unlimited range and a tank with three flamers with unlimited range! Oh, and these tanks can move 12" and still bring the pain. So yeah, good luck to catch them. But whatever, everything else in my army died a horrible death, my Crisis suits were annihillated without taking a shot, the Kroots were reduced to two Kroots (bravely holding my objective) from twenty, the Commander was fried by the Primaris and the Railhead immobilized itself on a piece of forest when it tried to arrive from outflank (and that was sad).
So some extra thoughts:
- Skyrays need some crazy price increase (around 60 points). Or the SMS/Missile FHU needs some tweaks.
- Kroots are now better Troops selections than Fire Warriors. Or at least they work better. I don't know if this is right.
- Also, i don't know if it is intentional, but Kroot Shapers are used to have 3 Wounds, and now they have only 1...
- Can i haz a Sensor Spines upgrade (aka Tau dozer blade) please?
- And one more thing to the wishlist: psychic defence....
Some changes that went through to the .doc a few days ago you'll be happy about, then
Skyrays have had their base points increased to 90, and are on the same 'base' as hammerheads now. As a Heavy Support slot, you can take 1-3 gunfish in a slot. Since 'Skyrays' don't 'fire' weapons, your Hammerheads in the group are free to fire at whatever. Just don't get caught in the crossfire! A clause to the Heavy Rail Cannon has been added, noting that each line must hit at least one unit in common with the others.
Missile FHU's themselves have been altered; they come in "everything" standard, are 100 points, but each missile is created on a 5+ instead of a 4+. ALSO good to remember is that the Missile FHU starts off at 0 - you don't get 6 free missiles for the cost of 4. Even with starting at 0 and 5+, it still tosses out about 2 a turn, which means it makes up for itself in 4 turns on just missiles alone - moreso if it takes anything down with it.
The bombardment ability has been changed to be a part of the Missile FHU, and the Submunitions a part of the Heavy Rail Cannon exclusively.
Kroot shapers who want wounds get them from riding a Krootox. Kroots are not for getting free wounds.
The Positional Relay is a sensor spines plus.
The Tau aren't nulls. They have no fluff defense from psykers, and if anything are affected more by them for lack of subconscious psyker defense against the immaterium. Even Kroot exhibit too limited examples of psyker powers to be considered, in my opinion, for any kind of Psyk-ability.
chrisrawr wrote:The Tau aren't nulls. They have no fluff defense from psykers, and if anything are affected more by them for lack of subconscious psyker defense against the immaterium. Even Kroot exhibit too limited examples of psyker powers to be considered, in my opinion, for any kind of Psyk-ability.
Some Nicassar sweetness maybe? Or even a Gue'vesa psyker...
Nicassars can't do anything on the WH40KTT level, and humans don't work that way with psykers. You're not going to find, "Oh and this random guard had psyker powers!" because the imperium would have done that and either press-ganged him into a choir or shot him to a blackship or shipped him to Terra as tribute.
I'm not quite sure what you'd want to add with a psyker anyways? Cover is already fairly prevalent, I wouldn't want to steal any of the Spesh marhuns or elfdorks psyker powers, and Markerlights already sort of fulfill this role.
I'd say it's improbable; psykers are on an array of poisons and toxins that prevents them from going rogue, and many rites to keep them from possession - It's commonly depicted that they go insane or get eaten by the warp long before they bleed off their toxic chains.
Again, the Kroot are on a tight leash with the Tau - if they start showing off their psykabilities, they're going to get demolished. A lot of their genevolutions happen outside of the Tau alliance, that mandates the Kroot can't fight for others.
What sort of shroud are we talking about here? cover+psyker saves :s?Are there any other psyker powers that negate psyker powers? I thought it was special wargear that does it - something that the kroot can't gain from eating, and that the tau would just foist off as superstitious nonsense. How powerful can the warp be, if they've killed slaanesh?
I'm not against the idea, I just don't see where it fits. The Tau don't want the Imperium thinking they have ANY psykers, the Kroot don't want the Tau to think they've been dealing behind their backs, and the Imperium gaks on all of its own psykers so hard that they die within minutes of desertion.
Shroud - as in obscured, as in grants a cover save.
And the kroot are on a tight leash?
Last I checked they were allies, the kroot just hid the nature of how expansive they were, and their merc nature.
And regardless - why would some kroot having psychic powers make them go genocidal on them? The Tau the - if you're into the greater good, you're OK with us people.
There's also some eldar psyker powers that do things such as add an extra D6 to perils rolls and such.
The Tau want to hide psykability for some reason. Probably the Imperium, but who knows what those shifty Ethereals are up to? And don't get me wrong, I love me some Tau Greater Good, but the subtext is there clear as day that it's the Tau Greater Good. The KM dex outlines that the kroot are fearful of being made into servants. The Vespid implication is that the Tau very well could.
One thing that might make sense would be a shadow-in-the-warp-like ability. The Tau wouldn't notice, it makes sense from a fluff perspective (kind of), and it can be easily represented and purchased.
chrisrawr wrote:I'd say it's improbable; psykers are on an array of poisons and toxins that prevents them from going rogue, and many rites to keep them from possession - It's commonly depicted that they go insane or get eaten by the warp long before they bleed off their toxic chains.
Source? According to the IG codex and the 40KRPG books, Imperial psykers can go rogue whenever they want.
And what about human psykers born as Tau Empire citizens?
And the psyker doesn't necesarry need a whole set of powers. Say, one offensive and one anti-psy power is enough.
@AtoMaki your suggestion for Rail weapons went through, actually, when I decided to incorporate tiered rules.
Rail Weaponry
The weaponry of the Tau Empire is very technologically complex, relying on magnetic fields and powerful electrical charges. One of the most fearsome armaments in the Tau's armoury is its Rail weaponry. There are three levels of Rail weaponry, denoted in a weapon profile's Special section as: Rail (1), Rail (2), and Rail (3) respectively. For a weapon with the Rail special rule, draw a straight line out to the Range of the weapon. Choose a point along this line and roll 1 D6 for each level of Rail (1D6 for Rail (1), 2D6 for Rail (2), 3D6 for Rail (3)). Starting at the chosen point, and for that many inches along it, any units the line passes through suffer 1 hit, at the weapon's profile, for each model the line passes through in that unit.
I hope that's as elegant as I feel it is xD
I'm working on a Kroot offensive psyker upgrade, and a special wargear for ODST that works like nerfed runes of warding. The Kroot's power right now looks like a small blast that causes the unit hit to move as if in difficult terrain. Useful for Kroot, I'd think.
Just popping in to show the current progress; I'm missing a few of the things that are being tested at the moment (guevesa troops, demiurg and vespid heavy support, some special characters and psyker powers), but this is how it's generally going to look.
In the shas'el's unit entry, it lists he gets the appropriate stat bonus for upgrading to a Shas'O, and upgrading to a Shas'O grants him the ability to take the special options.
Yes; the rest of the Army List entries will look like a real codex
Kroot and Firewarriors up, you now have everything you need to run a game with the current iteration.
One of the main, lastminute changes based on a game I played earlier yesterday was Pulse weapons getting +1 Shot at half range. It fixes the problems of rapidfire, and makes Pulse Carbines worth taking for a daring fish-of-fury assault. It also adds some pizzaz to pulse snipers. The heavy pulse repeater benefits the least, unfortunately, but is still Cruddance-ly hilarious none the less.
And when could we have the whole fandex? Because i can already see some weird stuff, but i will only post them when i can chew through the whole thing.
Okay, i'll post a few:
- Lucky: A re-roll for first turn? For 15 points? I'll take it please!
- Sniper Suits: Spotting Stand is now useless, because no model in the unit uses BS to hit.
- The Wrath and Harvest Markerlight effects make no sense. For Wrath: so i can kill a whole IG blob for 6 tokens? Because i spend 3 to reduce their cover to 0, spend 3 for Wrath, do a single wound that will multiply itself endlessly (as it will be automatically unsaved because of AP5, generating another automatical unsaved wound that generates another unsaved wound and so on) and butcher the whole unit. And as the current wording, i can put all Wounds on a single model with Harvest.
- Honour Guard with plasma pistols? So are they a TEQ hunter unit now?
Still no love for the firewarrirors? :( Oh well. anyone have any advice that would make firewarriors better? Other than BS and integrated heavy weapons teams? New heavy weapon drones? EMP rifle thing? Anything?
Lucky reroll costs 75 minimum, actually. Compared to Corbo (Corbulo? One of them, I think?) that's alright.
Sniper suits yes this is correct, I didn't really think of that, nor have i increased the points yet like I was gonna :V
-Spotting Stand: At the beginning of its turn, a unit with a Spotting Stand may give up all voluntary movement this turn. If it does so, during the shooting phase it may allocate a single Markerlight Token to a unit within 36" and line of sight. A Spotting Stand doesn't function during any turn its owning unit moves.
Wrath reads like No Retreat. It's based off no retreat. The wound it suffers is simply a wound. Remember that markerlight effects only apply to the firing unit's shooting (which means not to themselves, or to other things.)
Honour guard had em before, they were just called penetrator pistols. I saw no need to have them called something else when I can just stick em under plasma. Yes, I suppose that if you really want to hunt deepstriking terminators, you could try. And if they were the only units on the field, it might work, if you were close enough.
@frale: Firewarriors get huge bonuses from markerlights, and the change to pulse weapons means they have a 15" 'rapidfire', or a 9" carbine 'triplefire'. They get a bunch of utility options, and come standard with defensive grenades as well. I wouldn't call that no love.
chrisrawr wrote:Lucky reroll costs 75 minimum, actually. Compared to Corbo (Corbulo? One of them, I think?) that's alright.
Corbulo costs 105 points (and he isn't a Shas'o characteristics wise), he isn't a "compulsory" choice (you will take a Tau Commander, because he is that good) and most importantly, he cannot re-roll the dice for deployment.
chrisrawr wrote:Wrath reads like No Retreat. It's based off no retreat. The wound it suffers is simply a wound.
It is a wound, but what kind of wound? It needs clarification (like it isn't the same kind of wound that the unsaved wound, it cannot generate extra wounds etc.).
chrisrawr wrote:Firewarriors get huge bonuses from markerlights, and the change to pulse weapons means they have a 15" 'rapidfire', or a 9" carbine 'triplefire'. They get a bunch of utility options, and come standard with defensive grenades as well. I wouldn't call that no love.
Well, i must agree wtih this. Fire Warriors got some buffing, and now they are rather useful.
Granted, but Corbulo is also stuck in a group of cheap assault marines, is decent in CC, and grants a FNP Furcharge bubble. If anything, I'll be upping the costs on the Shas'O upgrade and the base Shas'El. I'll look getting some testing in with it at 25, and Shas'O at 25. That should be a suitable ~110 points - 150 after weapons.
No retreat, page 44, is worded "These units suffer a number of wounds equal to the number their side has lost the combat by (allocated as normal)."
My wording is intentionally similar. How would you suggest I further clarify It?
My suggestions: For 3 Markerlight Tokens, the Target Unit suffers a wound for each Unsaved Wound the Firing Unit inflicts. These wounds are similar to wounds from the “No Retreat” rule on page 44.
I've also bolded the clause "only to the Firing Unit's shooting against the Target Unit"
As for beefiness, they're still not quite on par with Gray Knights basic troops point for point, but they're still plenty to deal with when you've got something backing them up!
chrisrawr wrote:
My wording is intentionally similar. How would you suggest I further clarify It?
For every unsaved wound caused by the firing unit, the target suffers an additional wound (but what about vehicles?). All types of saving throws can be taken against these wounds as normal. These extra wounds cannot generate fruther additional wounds.
Vehicles don't take wounds, so I don't know where your bracketed question comes from.
Sentence 2 and to a lesser extent 3 are addressed elegantly by the comparison to No Retreat - I'll include the 3rd sentence situationally for now, it just feels inelegant when the rule is already strictly stating that the effects apply only to the shooting of the firing unit.
I've got commander Shas'O Kais as a "Firewarrior" commander, allowing for all FW armies. Farsight pretty much replaces all your auxiliary foc slots with crisis suits - I can do the same for shadowsun and stealth/sniper suits.
The problem with Kais is that I can't really see a reason to take regular firewarriors over MACs with him; I suppose I could restrict MACs to auxiliaries, but we'll see what he comes out as.
chrisrawr wrote:
The problem with Kais is that I can't really see a reason to take regular firewarriors over MACs with him; I suppose I could restrict MACs to auxiliaries, but we'll see what he comes out as.
There is actually no reason to take FWs at all. Like you could have two: take them as the compulsory Troops choice and/or take them as SMS delievery squads. Blobbing them up to 24 models seems good, but 240 points for 24 S5 AP5 shots with BS3 is 'bleh'.
Stupid phone screwing up.
Anyway - to continue.
As far as I can tell, standard firewarriors use PX-16 armour.
Stealths are XV15 and 25, and crisis suit / broadsides use the XV8 chasis.
My proposition (that I'm probably going to implement in a reasonably ambitious change.) is making everything a base Shas, in PX-16 armour. This then has the option of being upped to XV-16 / 26 (nonstelth stealth suits, basically a slightly harder fw witj 1-2 hardpoints.), XV-15/25s or XV-8s.
This would lead to less overall entries, though slightly more complex ones, that leads to a significantly more versatile force.
I'd rather not have an Army entry spanning 3 pages
Although I agree that it would be a daring and noble feat of customization efficiency, what you're proposing is closer to a "Create-A-Unit" project, which I would just end up taking CONSIDERABLY further than what I'm hoping to accomplish here
I'll flesh it out better when home and do a mockup using my gw commander entry as a base to see how feasible it'll be + how much space it'd need a page.
I'm thinking for squads do it as the squad leader can upgrade individually, and the rest of the unit has to upgrade together, i.e the hq is an xv-8 while the squad are xv26 or something.
But it'd allow for a large, basic army or a small hyper elite one. Kinds GKish in that regard I suppose.
Final A2 version is out; there's some discrepancies between unit entries and army entries that I need to get to, some hypertext I need to do, and the glossary and table of contents need updating, but besides that and some unit entries being tested, it should be good to go :V
Uh, so after reading through the alpha version, i decided to skip the unit-by-unit analysis, and simply give a general advice instead:
BOOST EVERYTHING (or make them cheaper)!
Yeah, seriously, this codex needs at least an 500% power boost for all units (except Crisis suits and Gunfishes) because it simply lacks killyness and hitting power.
Also, the Honour Guard must be reworked, because they are close-combat Fire Warriors. And those things don't exist.
And some pricing issues must be fixed too (to fully utilize the Drone Harbinger, you must sacrifice 510(!) points for it...).
Oh, and please re-name the multi-fuser back to fusion cascade! The multi-fuser sounds like some sort of AdMech blowtorch.
It's not a fusion cascade. The fusion cascade has D3 shots. Multifusor is more constant, and also unique and different I swear!
Just try using the Honour Guard as a CC unit. I dare you. It'll be hilarious. It's like guardblob but without the bodies. What the honour gaurd does, through repeated playtesting, is provide a psychological 12" bubble of fear; in reality, they're the equivalent of 30-40 BS3 'snipers' in Close Combat. At I3 (sometimes 4). Against 170 points of assault terminators on the charge, they lose as often as not. Add to that the lack of scoring, and the required 60 point VIP they need to be taken, it's really not as "close combat firewarrior" as you think. Also, Kais says "Hi" with his Combat Katana of Khornate Fury.
Harbinger is being looked at for that exact reason; also, only being able to field 1 (effectively) is clunky. Instead, it's going to improve through the tiers by turns, instead, and come with an embarked unit of gun drones at a slight discount.
Battlesuit points are being upped slightly, wargear points on them going down slightly.
Right now, Warriors are point for point better than ork boys just by themselves. With 2 markerlights and 2 airbursts (300 points) there's no contest. So I dunno why you think they need MORE
chrisrawr wrote:It's not a fusion cascade. The fusion cascade has D3 shots. Multifusor is more constant, and also unique and different I swear!
The multi-fusor also has D3 shots.
chrisrawr wrote:Just try using the Honour Guard as a CC unit. I dare you. It'll be hilarious. It's like guardblob but without the bodies. What the honour gaurd does, through repeated playtesting, is provide a psychological 12" bubble of fear; in reality, they're the equivalent of 30-40 BS3 'snipers' in Close Combat. At I3 (sometimes 4). Against 170 points of assault terminators on the charge, they lose as often as not. Add to that the lack of scoring, and the required 60 point VIP they need to be taken, it's really not as "close combat firewarrior" as you think. Also, Kais says "Hi" with his Combat Katana of Khornate Fury.
The exact reason they should be reworked. They are unfluffy and a useless unit.
chrisrawr wrote:Right now, Warriors are point for point better than ork boys just by themselves. With 2 markerlights and 2 airbursts (300 points) there's no contest. So I dunno why you think they need MORE
Whut? 24 FW-s are 240 points. They can kill 7.92 boyz (without cover) per salvo (double as many with rapid fire). 40 Boyz cost 240 points. So you need 4 or 5 turns to kill your 40 boyz. That's pretty much the whole game. And remember, in close-combat, even 10 boyz can annihillate the whole FW blob under a single Assault phase (because they will win the CC)!
I done derped then. Part of that 'editing' I said needed to be done Thanks
They do what they're supposed to; protect the Ethereal. They repel attackers and provide a decent deterrent to deathstars. They let you field something besides kroot at your front lines.
24 Firewarriors is 240 Points. Without cover, they kill 8 ork boys on turn 1, assuming the orks start as close as possible and the warriors start at 30. On turn 2, they move back 6, and kill another 8 - the orks have gained D6". On turn 3, 8 more, and we'll assume they can retreat no further. On turn 4, the firewarriors move forward, kill 16, having taken 0 casualties assuming the orks ran the entire time.
With 4 Markerlights (300 points, or 50 boys), we can run the scenario at BS5 reliably; 13.3r boys per turn.
The more of the support you add, the better they get per point; with seeker missiles, you get ~4-6 free kills per turn@15points, etc.
They can also hide in a devilfish; 12 in a devilfish with is 170, or ~22 boys and a nob w/pklaw. With a multitracker and burst cannon, this thing can literally loop circles all day around the boys, firing off 5-7 S5 shots with chance of pinning below 11 boys. Again, the disparity between points spent on each side only grows the more you add.
This dex was literally built with the aim of not being as good as gray knights; there's no intents of making it overpowered or gimmicky in any area, and pushing any more firepower into firewarriors will make them too good for their role and slot.
Also, 12 firewarriors in a fish can now fish of fury again, using carbines, and especially since I'm putting the Dfish's drone armaments back to pulse carbines; 45 S5 shots at 9".is 15 wounds outside of cover against oeq, 5 against meq, and 18.75 against geq
chrisrawr wrote:They do what they're supposed to; protect the Ethereal. They repel attackers and provide a decent deterrent to deathstars. They let you field something besides kroot at your front lines.
But close-combat Fire Warriors??? Please, at least change their fluff... This whole Honour Guard squad is kind of like the SM Vanguard Squad - put into the Imperial Guard Codex ...
chrisrawr wrote:24 Firewarriors is 240 Points. Without cover, they kill 8 ork boys on turn 1, assuming the orks start as close as possible and the warriors start at 30. On turn 2, they move back 6, and kill another 8 - the orks have gained D6". On turn 3, 8 more, and we'll assume they can retreat no further. On turn 4, the firewarriors move forward, kill 16, having taken 0 casualties assuming the orks ran the entire time.
My point is that 4 turns to kill a single unit is waaaay too much. Because in that 4 turns, the Orks can do anything they want, like capturing objectives or wrecking another unit that is not the 24 FW. Or simply go for cover and GtG for the rest of the game. And what the FWs can do against this? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The 24 FW should kill its 40 Ork in 1 or 2 turns (with shooting, their speciality) to be really cost-effective, because normally, the 40 Orks kill the 24 FW in 1 or 2 turns (in cc, their speciality). And don't start with upgardes and support, because the other side also has some stuff to counterbalance ('ard Boyz and Trukks).
chrisrawr wrote:This dex was literally built with the aim of not being as good as gray knights; there's no intents of making it overpowered or gimmicky in any area, and pushing any more firepower into firewarriors will make them too good for their role and slot.
Well, people usually like "too good" units better than sub-par and medicore units. And it isn't a big problem if you make the core Troops selection of your codex good (ref:: Grey Hunters).
chrisrawr wrote:Also, 12 firewarriors in a fish can now fish of fury again, using carbines, and especially since I'm putting the Dfish's drone armaments back to pulse carbines; 45 S5 shots at 9".is 15 wounds outside of cover against oeq, 5 against meq, and 18.75 against geq
FoF is the only way to effectively field FWs in your codex, even while it is rather pricy (12 FW's with 2 markers or SMS and Dfish are 225 points...).
They aren't close combat tau; they're deterrent tau. Their fluff is the same as it's always been, they've just received a minor points and a majour effectiveness buff. They're right there in the Ethereal profile of the 4th edition, I've just made them actually good at their job. You're not forced to take the unit if you don't want it, but there are people who like ethereals and who like to see them alive.
If the orks spend those 4 turns going toward anything else on the map, that means there's other things on the map. Shooting armies get STRONGER the MORE THEY HAVE because they can FOCUS FIRE. 2 240 units of fw's can take out 480 points of orks faster than 1 240 unit of fws can take out 240 points of orks.
'ard armour cuts the numbers almost in half, while only doubling their survivability; they become more susceptible to the pinning effects, faster; inferno missiles become more effective point for point. AV 10-11 opentopped vehicles are so ridiculously bad to field against pulse that it isn't even a legitimate option.
Comparing shooting effectiveness to CC effectiveness is a more intricate mistake; with shooting, you have an effect on one side that has no counter on the other. I shoot you, you take saves, models die; if I make it the same 'strength' as CQC, you can compare it to "first turn assault you get no attacks back against." Which is OP no matter how you look at it. The core of Tau gameplay has always, ALWAYS been outthinking your opponent, using the meta against them even with allcomers lists, and focusing fire without exposing any flanks. It has never been the overwhelming firepower of the guard or space marines, has never been the speed and precision of the eldar, has never been the uncaring monotony of the necrons; making less do more, with overwhelming odds against you - being the underdogs and winning through smarts and tactics, feints and lures, is the Tau way.
225 points for 3 pinning tests and 7 marines a turn isn't bad. Compared to 225 points of guardsmen (4.5 wounds, or if you smack a lascannon, 5 wounds, but no pinning still), 225 points of orks (with shootas we can assume 4 wounds), dire avengers (with exarch and supershooting we can assume 5.8r wounds, but no shooting next turn and no pinning), GK strike (10 with 2 psycannon, stationary, 1.7r from stormbolters and an additional 4.8 from psycannons, or with 10 2 psycanon and psybolt for a bit overpoints, 2.37 + 4.8, but still no pinning)
so I don't know what kind of shooting you're comparing 225p fof to for being 'rather pricy', when it's almost the best shooting you can get in the game for those points at that range.
chrisrawr wrote:If the orks spend those 4 turns going toward anything else on the map, that means there's other things on the map. Shooting armies get STRONGER the MORE THEY HAVE because they can FOCUS FIRE. 2 240 units of fw's can take out 480 points of orks faster than 1 240 unit of fws can take out 240 points of orks.
Why would they take them out faster? Double as many FWs do double as many damage against double as many Orks...
chrisrawr wrote:Comparing shooting effectiveness to CC effectiveness is a more intricate mistake; with shooting, you have an effect on one side that has no counter on the other. I shoot you, you take saves, models die; if I make it the same 'strength' as CQC, you can compare it to "first turn assault you get no attacks back against." Which is OP no matter how you look at it.
Yes, but i compare the effectiveness of shooting specialists to the effectiveness of cc specialists. The two should be the same, because they are specialists. Just as orks can butcher nearly any infantry unit in cc, the FWs should butcher nearly any infantry unit with their shooting. Because hey, they are specialists!
chrisrawr wrote:The core of Tau gameplay has always, ALWAYS been outthinking your opponent, using the meta against them even with allcomers lists, and focusing fire without exposing any flanks. It has never been the overwhelming firepower of the guard or space marines, has never been the speed and precision of the eldar, has never been the uncaring monotony of the necrons; making less do more, with overwhelming odds against you - being the underdogs and winning through smarts and tactics, feints and lures, is the Tau way.
Gosh, but you canot base the style of the army upon such an unstable thing that smart tactics. Because not all Tau players are tactical geniuses, but they still want to play the army and win with it. And simply saying that "If you are not a smart guy, then you shouldn't play Tau." is kind of wrong. And i don't even start with the problem of the smart opponents...
chrisrawr wrote:225 points for 3 pinning tests and 7 marines a turn isn't bad. Compared to 225 points of guardsmen (4.5 wounds, or if you smack a lascannon, 5 wounds, but no pinning still), 225 points of orks (with shootas we can assume 4 wounds), dire avengers (with exarch and supershooting we can assume 5.8r wounds, but no shooting next turn and no pinning), GK strike (10 with 2 psycannon, stationary, 1.7r from stormbolters and an additional 4.8 from psycannons, or with 10 2 psycanon and psybolt for a bit overpoints, 2.37 + 4.8, but still no pinning)
But all these units can do something else... Guardsmen can pack special weapons, shootas can still do cc, DAs are kind of crap, and 10 Strike GK-s with psybolt ammo are 220 points and they have a R30" two-shot pulse rifle...
chrisrawr wrote:so I don't know what kind of shooting you're comparing 225p fof to for being 'rather pricy', when it's almost the best shooting you can get in the game for those points at that range.
10 IG Veterans with 3 plasma guns and Chimera are 170 points, and they can drie around in their mobile bunker shooting all kind of stuff and enjoying the show. They can take on light vehicles, MCs, light and heavy infantry... And they probably have one extra turn of shooting after you popped their Chimera.
Because of morale checks that happen faster. You get it pinned or falling back much sooner, meaning you can focus on the other one much sooner.
They shouldn't be the same, and the reason why was in my last post; CC has a lot of factors that can swing an assault out of favour for a dedicated CC unit; higher init, vehicles moved 7+, enemy ws mitigation, difficult terrain. The only things shooting has to worry about are saves, los, and toughness; the only things tau shooting has to realistically worry about is toughness and los.
"If you are not a smart guy, you shouldn't be good at an activity that requires being a smart guy" is pretty much how real life works. However, you've taken my point out of bounds in order to demonize it; tau is already like this - I was emphasizing my adherence to the rule. Having an opponent smarter than you at a battle of wits win? HOW HORRIFYING. Next you'll be saying that strong people shouldn't be allowed to be better at weight lifting competitions, or that we should give weaker entries special props to aid their feeble arms. This bit might be a bit rude, but there shouldn't be an offended reaction to suggesting that smart people get to be better at things than other people. Observable facts triumph over sensibilities in the realm of science!
220 points of gk's is, again, 22 fw's, meaning you're still getting more shots at 30", and you're getting more than double shots at <15". AND you're pinning in many cases.
10 IG vets with 3 plasma guns in a chimera is a very sturdy choice, especially in the current meta. I have no qualms about FW's not being as good at that kind of points as chimvets. The goal is balance, not exploitable goodies hidden in mediocrity.
chrisrawr wrote:Because of morale checks that happen faster. You get it pinned or falling back much sooner, meaning you can focus on the other one much sooner.
But the Orks are Fearless until they drop below 10 models, so only the last salvo will force any moral/pinning tests.
And about the "Tau is not for non-smart guys", i can see your point, but this approach is very player-hostile. Because, you know, the big thinking and outsmarting can easily kill the fun. You can see this happening a lot with the current Tau codex (and this is the source of most of the codex-loathing).
Eh, i've found the most codex loathing has come from the perceived 'mecha anime fan', - most humans think of themselves as 'competent and intelligent,' so saying "you must be competent and intelligent to use this codex" will self-identify with most people.
Yes; the orks are fearless. Instead of taking 4 turns to pin them, it takes 2. Meaning instead of 5 turns to kill the unit, you can take 3; then, it's 2v1 - you can split forces and force the orks to choose, one or the other. That's the power of ranged combat - no retaliation means that your forces are left over while theirs are diminished. Your army gets STRONGER while making theirs WEAKER - which is why you can't make it as powerful as CC, which requires you to sacrifice to make it..
chrisrawr wrote:
Yes; the orks are fearless. Instead of taking 4 turns to pin them, it takes 2. Meaning instead of 5 turns to kill the unit, you can take 3; then, it's 2v1 - you can split forces and force the orks to choose, one or the other.
Oh! Here lurks the misunderstanding! So no, it isn't 2v1 but 2v3 because the size of the boy mob is 10-30. So the 2x24 FW must face 2x30 and 1x20 boy.
And it is enough to get through 10 boys for each FW blob, because 10 ork boyz can kill 24 FWs rather easily. The 60 other boys are essentially only there to soak up damage.
If you're going at it that way, on turn 1 or 2, the first ork blob takes 2 pinning tests and a morale. The second gets them on turn 2-3 depending on the pinning/running state of mob 1, and the third (only 20 men) gets annihiated on turn 3-4 depending on the states of blob 1 and 2. Meanwhile, orks 1 and 2 are on virtual turn 2-3 if they were pinned, but are both also within pinning/morale range. The smaller you make a blob of orks, the easier it is to ff it down.
chrisrawr wrote:If you're going at it that way, on turn 1 or 2, the first ork blob takes 2 pinning tests and a morale. The second gets them on turn 2-3 depending on the pinning/running state of mob 1, and the third (only 20 men) gets annihiated on turn 3-4 depending on the states of blob 1 and 2. Meanwhile, orks 1 and 2 are on virtual turn 2-3 if they were pinned, but are both also within pinning/morale range. The smaller you make a blob of orks, the easier it is to ff it down.
So you kill the 80 ork under the same time span (~4 turns) with 48 FWs than the 40 ork with the 24 FWs.
chrisrawr wrote:At less risk, with more chance of pinning/morale, while remaining farther away. Yes.
But still, for 4 truns, they do nothing, but occasionally withdraw and focus fire on a unit that worths the same ammount of points as the FWs! This is ridiculous for a unit that is specialized on ranged anti-infantry shooting. And we are only speaking about ork boyz, and not about say Space Marines (15 SMs for 240 points, the FWs can kill 2.6 per salvo... so you need 5.76 salvo to kill them that is around 5-6 turns).
10 Space marines is 170 points and have an effective range of 18. 17 Firewarriors is 170 points and have an effective retreat range of 24. Space marines require ~3 turns of running just to fire their weapons on the 4th, or they can stand still and do nothing to fire on the 3rd.
17 fws is 1.8r marines a turn. On turn; on turn 4 they get 3.7r wounds, meaning that over 4 turns they kill 9.4r marines, leaving either 4.3r marines single-firing or 0.6 doubletappers leftover to do anything at all - working out to .963 firewarriors, or .2r firewarriors. As well, from turn 2 on there's a 1/8 chance of pinning the marines.
Again this is a vacuum in which neither squad does anything but attempt to engage the other.
Compared to 30 Slugga Orks and 10 Marines starting with the same intentions, the marine player can kill 3.3r on turn 1 suffering no casualties, another 3.3r on turn 2, can charge with bolt pistols for 3.3r on turn 3 if the orks dont roll a 6, kill ing 4.8 more before the orks strike back, (assuming each ork is in range), killing 2.5 and taking 2 casualties to cc consolidation. Marines slowly die over the rest of the engagement. Against Shoota Boys, the scenario is even worse for Marines.
I'd rather take effectively 0 casualties, than suffer either of the above engagements.
For comparison with another 'shooty' unit,
8 GK marines with psybolts and a psycannon is 180. Against 30 orks. Assuming 24" beginning engagement (for maximum effect from gk), turn 1 the orks lose 6.2r to stormbolters and another 2.2r to psycannon. Moving 6 away turn 2, they unleashe another 7.3r, bringing the total down to 14.2r remaining orks, which get the charge if they're lucky, or get destroyed if they're not. If they get the charge, they lose 2.25 before striking back killing 4 gks. The GK's slowly die over the next 3-4 turns. This is a 16% chance of the GK squad being removed compared to a 2% chance of the FW's getting destroyed (Due to repeat 6" runs from the orks)
tl;dr - in a vacuum, the effective range of firewarriors with nothing else easily outclasses many units in many scenarios through just shooting alone.
Uh, i think you miss my point. All those unit you brought up are not that specialized as FWs. They can do a lots of stuff, going CC, tanking damage, take special weapons and hunt something else other than infantry. But FW-s can just go ahead and shoot up things. They cannot go into cc (obviously), they cannot tank damage (they are T3 sv4+), and they can only take the SMS as an ad-hoc special weapon that is usually one-shot and overall costs a lot (because you need to buy the Seeker Missiles for the SMS). And in their job, the FWs simply isn't point effective! They basically cannot kill enough stuff to bring their points back (thats why i brought up the 240 points of FW vs 240 points of boyz problem)! So ultimately, they become either the minimal scoring unit choice as they are in the current codex, or you take them on the pretty risky FoF mission.
I definitely didn't miss your point; Comparing the shootings of various units, including 'shooty' units, Fire Warriors come out ahead time after time in terms of staying alive and staying out of range. Boyz and MEQs can indeed go into CC and tank damage with some decency - TEQ even moreso. However, their points costs and armaments reflect this - Marines and boyz can't glance REQs in most cases outside of CC. They don't come with nearly as many options for heavy weapons (up to 8 rail rifles and 4 pulse snipers in a unit of 24 fws, allowing for 20+ MEQ kills per turn at 500 points, which makes up their points in 2 turns of ~30" shooting.)
tl;dr - you can't cry "But what about negative outside factors!" without assuming positive outside factors as well.
Also, Fire Warriors aren't "specialized" in the respect you're thinking of. They're dedicated shooting units, and as thus they have some of the best shooting in the game. A specialized shooting unit would be something like the Eldar's Fire Dragons, or in Tau's case, Broadsides.
Firewarriors are meant to provide a solid scoring troop that can damage many light vehicles, force pinning tests, and become increasingly potent the closer they get without needing to engage in close combat. They're very generalized, with a bent toward lightly armoured or weak targets (lawn mowing). If I wanted a unit that could hunt elites, I would take crisis suits with plasma, or sniper suits. Much easier to make up your points with 100 points of sniping (1 S8 AP2 2d6 line and 2 S6 AP3 1d6 lines, averaging 8.5 meq or 2.25 teq each turn.)
Edit; You might enjoy the change to the Drone Harbinger, though - it's at 240 points and comes with 12 drones inside of it .
Drone Harbinger: The Harbinger gains power based on how long Drones are embarked in it.
As long as a Drone Squadron is embarked, the vehicle gains the Fast Type. At the end of each consecutive turn in which a Drone Squadron has been embarked for the entire turn, the Drone Harbinger gains a cumulative effect.
● At the end of the First turn a Drone Squadron has been embarked, any Drones embarked may fire as if the Harbinger was Open-Topped.
● At the end of the Second turn a Drone Squadron has been embarked, the Drone Harbinger gains the following ability to create Drone Squadrons - At the beginning of your Movement Phase, roll 2D6, and place a Drone Squadron with that many Drones within 6” of the Harbinger. Each Drone created this way is equipped with a Pulse Carbine. If doubles are rolled, the Harbinger may create no more Drones in this way for the remainder of the game.
● At the end of the Third turn a Drone Squadron has been embarked, the Drone Harbinger may fire all of its weapons regardless of speed, and ignores Shaken results.
● At the end of the Fourth turn a Drone Squadron has been embarked, any Drones embarked count as a Scoring Unit while they are embarked. They may fire their weapons during the Shooting Phase unhindered by the state of the Drone Harbinger (speed, damage results, etc.)
Sorry about being stubborn about firewarriors - they've been very, very effective for me and for my playtesters. Decreasing their points or increasing their options really, really will make them too powerful.
Farsight is allowing crisis suits as auxiliaries in all slots. Meaning up to 2 troops, 4 elites, 1 hq 1 fa 1 hs can be crisis suits (allowing up to 65 suits in total!).
Pathfinders are being rolled about to be BS4 with a special ability that lets unsaved wounds by them apply markerlights. It lets you play off shooting for damage if you want to stand still; within 24" they're Ratlings plus. They're 20ppm because 180 points of PF's (includes Dfish) allows any of your other units to effectively use any markerlight option - i.e. they're 5 point ratlings+ with markerlights.
And you can see how "popular" Ratlings are.... And the biggest problem with PFs are their lack of survavibility. 100 points for 5 carapace guardsmen who will be a piority 1 target for my opponent feels a bit... wasted.
I dunno what you're on about with the quotations, ratlings are freakin' awesome.
With the saturation of markerlights in the army, the change to assault from heavy (and subsequently the ability to begin play embarked in a dpod fish), pathfinders being taken out is less of a problem than it used to be - the BS5 markerlight and assault change alone warrants 20 points.
That they've been given a hyperefficient option for minor offensives, especially with the changes coming to sniper weapons in 6e, is the kind of bonus that makes up for the mandatory dfish. Remember, Pulse weapons get an extra shot at half range; 24" becomes heavy 2 for their snipers.
So, testing days are over, and after nearly a dozen battles, i can confidently say that the codex is rather... ailing in a competitive enviroment. i successfuly recruited one of my friends to help testing, and he pretty much confirmed this.
The main problems are:
- Everything is a tad bit overpriced. Mostly the stuff that is really useful (Broadsides, Missile Pods, Pathfinders). This sadly limits the legitimacy of nearly all other units and options. Some could be taken, but only as a min-max option (Fire Warriors) while the others remain fancy options for crazy fun games (Sniper Suits, Stingwings).
- On this note, the usefulness of the selections are very distinctive, as there are the very good, must-have units (Crisis suits, Commander) the good units (Broadsides, Gunfish tanks) the medicore units (FWs, Kroots, Stealth Suits), the bad units with a slight chance of salvation (Sniper Suits, Pathfinders, Stingwings, Wilting Sorrow, Barracuda) and the trash can (everything else).
- The options are also somewhat overpriced (Markerlights) or simply underpowered (Iridium Armour).
- The lack of Blacksun Filter is simply annoying, you should bring it back.
- Oh, and the points cost for weapons should be rounded up/down to be divisible with 5.
- Its kind of a general design problem, but a few units and options badly overshadow other units/options. The HQ is ruled by the Commander, the Elites is a section for Crisis suits, the HS is dominated by Gunfishes and Broadsides. Same for the weapons: the Missile Pod+Fusion Cascade is a lethal combo, and taking anything else is kind of a waste.
- Also, some rules needs clarification. Like the sacrifice of drones (as it stands now, i can sacrifice only one drone to make an auto-success Hit and Run).
- And it is a sad thing that the best things in the codex need so much point and tactical investments that they rarely worth the effort. The best example is pinning: you usually need like 7 Markerlight tokens to pin down a unit (4 for Courage and 3 for -3 Ld). So for 105 points, you can pin down one enemy unit for one turn.
- And before i forget: pleeeease, give me something that helps against enemy all-reserve tactics! Those really kill the army as a whole !
- A last thing: suits should be 4(5) and 3(4) because it is kind of odd that a Crisis is more durable than a Land Raider against an S9 shot (and the same for Stealth Suit/Devilfish/S7 shot).
Overall, i won two battles (one against mech IG, and one against a DoABA), lost 7 (2 Wipe Outs), and made 2 draws (against GK henchmen army and an Ork Kan Wall). i tried out several army lists mostly at the 1750 points range, but ultimately sticked with the usual Crisis build, as the others were rather lackluster.
First of all, thank you so much for your time and for your input and feedback, it's been greatly helpful.
When playing against some competetive lists, you lost against some of the more common netlists, using general crisis lists? This is about right what I'm aiming at, actually. There are some issues you bring up that I've addressed, and some that I'll address because of you
If you'd really wanted to win, (i.e. test competitively with codecies who also suffer from ridiculous internal balance) you'd have gone with Dual TL Plasma or Dual TL Multifusor suits. @64/78 points, they put out 1.6r TEQ or 2.5 MEQ per turn at effective 30". They also act as lawnmowers for lesser troops, and greatly benefit from any kind of support. Their only problem is vehicles; Stocking your reserve with Meltas, Baracudas, and Piranhas with Fusion Blasters and melta missiles are all options. You then take a couple firewarrior carbine support units, stick em in a devilfish, slap an HQ onto something, and fill the remaining points with broadsides. Hell, go all out with outflanking broadsides.
Example List:
HQ Shas'El plasfusionray - 85p
SMS - 100
Elites
Shas'Ui DualTLPlas - 78
x5 = 390
x3 = 1170
6 FW - 60
x2 = 120
Broadside - 100
x3 = 300
2 Melta Missiles - 60
= 1750
Gives you 3 big fancy shots, 2 small scoring units to draw fire, 3 fat units literally spewing plasma, and an HQ with a multimelta that can call out a couple missiles for more melta.
That 390 point CS squad can kill 8.3r assault termies per turn. It kills 16.6r regular termies, 25 marines, 1.16r rhinos, instant deaths most DE and GEQ units, devours monstrous creatures, and even kills a goddamn wraithlord. It also has 15 S5 hits in assault against vehicle rear, making landraiders and stormravens the only thing in the game that stand against it for long. It's mobile. It's powerful. It's scary. It has literally 2 weaknesses - armour and assault - and this codex has the tools to get around both.
Compared to dual TL multifusor suits (64 points, 24" range that puts them into assault range almost immediately but which do admittedly kill a lot more), I find plasma a fine alternative. This will, however drive up the cost of the multifusor, and I think I'll be dropping it to 12" range as well if anything. There's not enough cost-risk benefit to not take it; 30% chance to kill a raider@9", 12.4r assault termies or 24.8r regular termies, 30 marines, etc.
Thanks for bringing that up!
On Broadsides overpriced: I overjacked both the Broadside and Sniper Suit and have been torquing them down slowly to comfortable levels. Thanks for more feedback on this!.
On Missile Pods overpriced: 2 TL mpods on a crisis suit is 64 points. 2 TL autocannons on a hydra is 75. I think they're fine :I
Pathfinders: The lowest I can honestly go for these is 18 points per model - at 17ppm they're literally too good. Dunno if that does anything for you. Devilfish is getting slightly less pointscost though, so should help.
I still don't see the gripe against stingwings. Would giving them A2 work?
Is there anything particular with the barracuda and wilting sorrow you find wrong? They've been powerful force multipliers for me so far - having a dedicated lawnmower/antimeq in my force has been doing wonders so far.
Everything else includes: Piranhas, drones (these ARE jetbikes, by the way), kroot savages (a decent first turn assault unit your opponent won't expect of Tau), drone harbingers (significantly improved), and MACs.
>Piranhas are one of the better units in the codex imho. They punish and punish and punish your enemy for mistakes, create distractions, and wreckface in general.
>Drones received a bit of a facelift resulting in QOL improvements and a power buff. I've never found drones to be a competitive idea in general, but they're there for those people who like neat things.
>Savages can be S5 I5 T1 Assault units, and have also gone down a few points to 14; 10 with a Master Shaper improving the squad's I is 231 points. Against Meq, they get off 11 attacks at I6 on the charge for 5.6r hits, for 1.47r wounds, with the remaining 34 at ini 5, for 4.2w; their power however comes simply from the ability to assault first turn, or sit in ~3+ cover and be ominous. They're far more powerful against less armoured foes and against transports with their S6 option - which is where they're generally taken.
>Harbingers now start spewing drones on turn 2, give you a free chunk of drones, and a lot more like the mass of moving sentient metal they were designed to be.
>MACs were dropped to 14 points per model.They'll get a lot neater when the Firewarrior commander comes out.
Markerlights are looking at 12 points. Now that lists are focusing on them less with the emergence of other options, they still need to be fitted in and their costs are prohibiting this. FNP is popping down to 10 Points with Iridium Armour. Iridium Armour IS receiving a change, along with your last point; Suits are going to T4(5), with Iridium Armour granting immunity to ID from wounds of high strength value.
Suppressive Fire for Firewarriors is getting a change; it's a Markerlight-based ability that reduced the movement of the unit by 1" per markerlight token spent (only if they wound the unit). This means that yes, a squad of firewarriors can fairly consistently 'pin' a squad each turn - and that they work incredibly efficiently with Pathfinders.
Blacksun filter is coming back as part of the Command Helm, replacing the Acute Senses it now grants; this makes leaders with BSF and markerlights very good for your units agaun.
I will say, the numbers I used above are for the current version of the uploaded dex. Right now the Commander costs base 60. Suits are Base 35. I don't know why you'd take MP+MF instead of 2MF, tbh.
The sacrifice for drones - yes. If you have a drone controller with only 1 drone, saccing that drone is H&R. If you have 2 Drone Controllers with 2 Drones each, saccing both from 1 controller is H&R. The wording was typo'd - any should have been all. Nice catch!
I think our stances on the power of pinning a unit vary - I find pinning a unit to be one of the most effective things you can do; I wanted guaranteed pinning to feel like an accomplishment you set up and delivered with unavoidable determination. Perhaps you're right though; I'll play around with Courage at 3, Wrath at 2, and Harvest down at 4. Seeker Missiles are going to require 2 Tokens to be on the unit, but will only spend 1. SMS range will increase to 36.
How about "When an enemy unit arrives from Reserve, you may immediately target and fire a single Reserve Seeker Missile at it. You must otherwise abide by the normal rules for Seeker Missiles and the Seeker Missile Reserve (i.e. only 1/5th per turn)." ? It spends your resources, is fairly limited, but boosts the power and adaptability of the SMR overall, encouraging you to use it more.
Addressed above; Iridium Armour makes them beefcakes. FNP dropped to 10 points because it's basically Iridium Armour lite. Shield Generator is still too badass to be 10 points. 94 points for a T5 2+/4++ hydra isn't bad, I think - 27 rapidfire BS4 bolters, to kill it on average which is the exact same for an open-topped AV10. For 104 points, though, you have to shoot it with 54 rapidfire BS4 bolters. For reference, it only takes 8 RF BS4 bolters to kill a termi, and termies don't put out as much firepower. Points for points though, Crisis Suits are roughly balanced against termies for what they each do.
As I said above - Played competetively, your list could've used some minmaxing with the current version, but I'm also not aiming for the codex to be as blatantly power creeped as the current netlists.
As i said, the problems with the bad units are not specific problems, but rather "job stealing" (when another unit does the same, only better) or "christmas tree" (when the unit has lots of haphazard equipement/special rules).
Two examples:
- Stealth Suits (they mostly suffer from "job stealing"): i guess they are 30 points because of their 'Veil of Tears', but it doesn't help them that much if you want to play them fluffy (but it helps a lot when you abuse it with long-range weapons!). Drop their cloaking distance back to 2D6x3, make them T3(4) and drop their points cost to 20-25 points (i'm leaning towards 20 because they still compete with Crisis suits, only without all those deadly weapon options). I would say, putting them to the Fast Attack selection is also a good idea...
- Pathfinders (they mostly suffer from "christmas tree": Simply replace their pulse snipers with pulse carbines (make pulse snipers as a squad weapon option), and drop their points to 14-15 ppm.
I thought the Stealth Suits in 4E already had 2D6x2? I don't know why they need to be T3(4) - they only have 1 wound, so any wound is instant death
Replacing the pulse snipers wouldn't lower their costs. I can't lower their cost much more, despite how fun it is to spam markerlights and ruin all your opponent's cover and dignity; they're point-for-point the cheapest markerlights I can give the empire at this power. The snipers were just to increase their situational ability. WIth 6E cover rules on the horizon, we should see the prevalence of 4+ cover dropping in general.
How is this for Suppressive Fire, then - It should be a serious boost to Firewarriors of any size unit
Suppressive Fire: Fire Warriors may spend Markerlight Tokens on the Suppressive Fire Effect. For each Markerlight Token spent this way, the Target Unit's movement is reduced by 1” during its next turn (An exception to the usual limitation of Markerlight Effects). This movement reduction is limited to the number of unsaved wounds inflicted by the Firing Unit. Beyond that, the reduction is improved by -1” for each Pinning Test the Target Unit is subject to this Shooting Phase.
After oodles of playing with it, suppressive fire has gone to:
Suppressive Fire: For 1 Markerlight Token, the Target Unit must take a Ld Test with a -1 Ld Modifier for each Unsaved Wound inflicted by the Firing Unit.
Fearless Units get a +3 bonus to the result of this Test.
For each Markerlight Token spent on this Effect after the 1st, an additional Ld Test must be taken, and the Penalty for each Ld Test increases by -1.
Each time the Target Unit fails one of these Ld Tests, it receives a penalty of -2” to all of its Movement and -1BS until the end of its next turn.
On top of this, many changes in the current dex, found in this post as well as on the front page. One big thing is the re-stripping of burst cannons; slapping down 20 crisis suits with as many heavy burst cannons as possible was one of hte most ridiculous, OTT things fielded in the history of history, and I can't believe I didn't notice it immediately. So, I swapped it down to 2 grades (as normally, 2 weren't being used at all). The Burst Cannon has been upped to 4 shots, and is 4 points (5 twinlinked). The HBC is now simply 36" rnage, and 18 points (24 twinlinked) putting it on par with the plasma rifle - where it is against stormshield terminators and anything with worse than 3+ save.- it's wonderfully efficient at scrapping light vehicles and mowing down units; it's a warwalker, but for 80 points instead of 60
Another is the inclusion of many of the heavy weapons on a few of the units that hadn't seen them before; heavy Ion cannons made their way to both the drone harbinger and gunfish for reasonable costs, and the pulse repeater, gravity gun, and railgun can be found on the barracuda from time to time.
Lots more neat little changes all around the dex, including in the guevesa lines ( Still need to port over the ordnance and russ batteries for ease of cross-dex reference). Check it out!
Nice! I was just about to suggest making the BC 4 shots. I mean they have 4 barrels on the gun haha. I was looking through the Grey Knights Codex the other day and they had this weapon that fire like 12 shots from one gun. Perhaps we should get something like that? Like a seeker missile that has a cluster of tiny rockets in it. Well something like that.
If I do a clusterfire, it'll be something along the lines of the old SMS, not necessarily a missile. The missile idea you guys are describing can be better attributed to the Airburst, where multiple plasmatic missiles split off a special tracking rocket which designates their destinations with accuracy - a simple refluff, in other words.
Cluster-Missile Rack
Range:12-60 Strength: X AP: 5 Special: Heavy *, Detonation
X: The strength of this weapon is determined by Detonation. *: The number of shots this weapon has is determined by Detonation.
Detonation: When you fire this weapon at an enemy unit, place a small blast or similar marker at a point between the firing unit and its target. This weapon does nothing this turn.
At the beginning of your opponent's next Shooting Phase, before he takes any voluntary actions, draw distance from the center of the marker to the Target Unit and consult the following chart:
Twinlinking this weapon allows you to re-roll the number of hits, picking the highest set between the two.
The reasoning behind it - it's a smart-fire missile rack with a delayed timer on the missiles themselves; Since they're easy targets for any sort of automated system to shoot down due to their heat signature, the Tau have adapted to firing them 'off' from the racking first, in order to get them close without being detected, and then activating their powerful thrusters. The closer they are, the more damage they can do. It also gives them incentive to move away from it, and therefore, you. Unless he's got jump packs, but then, you were screwed anyways
I like it, but I do find the dex a bit hard to read and understand. I might just be used to the old Tau dex though, and I think some of the things don't have point values or I am just stupid and can't read it right. Anyway perhaps we could have a commander that makes pathfinders troop choices? And perhaps so vehicle upgrades for suits? I would actually love to have Flechette (spelling?) dischargers on my suits and fire some seeker missiles from them too.
The seeker missile rules seem kind of confusing but I like it. However I think the distances should moved back a bit and still retain their punch. But overall not too bad!
Yeah, I'm hoping that once all the hyperlinks are up and running, everything will be a lot smoother - I'll have a page dedicated to explaining the Army List entries and another to the Unit Entries.
Everything should have a points value - point out any I'm missing, please! D:
Pathfinders as troop choices.... Hmm, I'll work on that. Could be very, very interesting
I deigned to put the Flechette Launchers ant Seeker Missiles on Drones - You can have 6 drones in your elites suits and up to 8 per commander/bodygguard combo; very good at deterring CC, especially if you have them plasmablade/plasmagun shield generator and 2+ armour.
Good, sorry but I am pretty stupid when it comes to organizing things like units and wargear.
Where are the point values? I could just be looking at the wrong page, no worries!
And yes I think so, if they could be taken as a troop choice I would probably take them over FW's A lot of markerlights and some rail rifles. Boooooyah!
I like the Flechette drones and seeker drones. And wow thats a lot of drones. I am guessing their best use is a sacrifice type of drone to avoid CC?
The ODST guys are rage inducing. They have superior weapons to storm troopers (AP 2 over AP 3 as well as assault 2 instead of Rapid fire), superior leadership, preferred enemy against Imperials which are about 80% of all armies, and best of all they are auxiliaries so you can take up to four squads of them, for only four points more than storm troopers. Why do these random weeaboos have weapons better than not only Imperial Storm Troopers, but Fire Warriors, and such good leadership? It wouldn't be half as bad if there were inferior human auxiliaries, but this just hurts. It is like humans come in, they are ultra determined soldiers (superior leadership to space marines, and Storm Troopers who were raised from childhood to serve the Imperium, storm troopers being educated alongside commissars and SoBs), and the Tau decide to give them their best weapons and use them as special forces.
Edit: Forgot rending in close quarters for your ODST
TBH if you want human auxiliaries I would tone down their weapons and special rules unless they were brainwashed from childhood or something. Also, weak Gue'vasa should exist as a troop choice, pretty much guardsmen with no preferred enemy (why would they particularly hate Imperials, if anything they would pull their punches against other humans) and the ability to take Tau weapons and armour. Something like 10 man squad for 50 points, any member can take a pulse rifle or carbine for 3 points and FW armour for 3 points, perhaps let them take SWs (flamer, plasma rifle, fusion blaster) and HWs (burst cannon (make it heavy 3 on foot), rail rifle) like normal guardsmen can to make them something like heavy and versatile fire warriors. They might not have marker lights, they might not have the best weapons at low costs, but they provide the ability to field infantry with special weapons and heavy weapons, which is something the Tau don't normally get.
Also, plasma blades on battlesuits seems bad, Tau should almost always fold in hand to hand outside of very lucky dice rolls. The whole reason battlesuits get JSJ and your army gets Kroot is so that you can avoid hand to hand with your weak Tau. Adding these things just goes against fluff and the way the army was originally made.
I honestly can't tell if your serious or just trolling. Remember its just a fan dex, plus why can't we have SOME over the top stuff, just about every other army does.
Fralethepalewhale wrote:I honestly can't tell if your serious or just trolling. Remember its just a fan dex, plus why can't we have SOME over the top stuff, just about every other army does.
Not saying you can't, but it ANGERS me. Beyond the fluffrape it is just awkward, the Tau grab random humans, they give them super guns, they give them the best regular armour they can, they give them fancy plasma swords, they give them the means to deepstrike, and for some reason the soldiers are Imperial haters with the same leadership as a commissar or a veteran space marine.
Also, the wimpier Gue'vasa was completely serious, that is a great niche for human auxiliaries to fill. They are more technologically inclined than Kroot, they are bigger and tougher than Tau, why not get them to lob bigger guns around to support the Tau FWs when a battlesuit isn't nearby?
As for the battlesuit blades, you don't know how good you guys have it when it comes to evading hand to hand. All the IG gets are some overpriced Ogryn who are inferior to boyz with the same total cost, and rough riders who are too soft to actually act like a shield. You guys have Kroot who can infiltrate, and you can jump out of cover, shoot, and jump back into cover. Not that I am complaining about IG, we do have it great, but you should work with your strengths, boost Kroot, make it easier to avoid H2H if you have to, but I would suggest trying to make the Tau like every other army with tons of power weapons everywhere.
Well I mean they are ODST, sooo they are trained pretty well. And since the Tau see that they are more specialized then the run of the mill Gue'vasa they decide to equip them better and since they have rugged training and I am assuming some combat experience they are hardened and won't break so easily and when you add that to their hardcore belief in the Greater Good you have some pretty BA soldiers. And well yeah they are Imperial haters I mean they left the IoM in pursuit of something else and they must have seen something pretty good to risk losing their lives by leaving the IoM. So that's probably why they have such a strong hatred for the IoM. Of course this is all purely my speculation and it may vary depending on the person. One more thing I don't really see how this is fluffrape...?
I understand the crappy Gue'Vasa. But ehhhhh...
I mean we have the JSJ but your only moving 12in and with most assault orientated armies they will have no problem getting into combat with the suits. And yeah the IG have crappy CC units but you guys also have massive blobs of infantry and a lot of tanks to help make up for it. We have suits that can JSJ which is mehhh at best. And Kroot which according to my knowledge are basically Orks with a lower toughness and no armor save. And not in the numbers the Orks have. I mean yeah can field a decent amount but there will always be more boyz! And when you look at it Kroot are still kind of mehhh. The whole Tau dex is really just kind of mehhh.
I really am not trying to start a fight on here, I hope you know that!
TBH the infantry blobs and hordes of tanks are overrated. Blobs are nice all around, but in the end you spend 300+ points for a horde of men with Lasguns that can barely hold their own against a basic SM squad. As for the tanks, 9 tanks is great, except when your tanks are grouped in threes so you end up using three tanks to kill a squad of infantry that one could have killed. But, once again, not complaining we have BS 4 infantry for 7 PPM and a cheap transport.
But with JSJ you can make a line of Kroot, jump over them, shoot, and jump behind them. You get a 4+ cover save (IIRC troops offer 4+ I may be wrong) and the enemy has to assault the Kroot to get to you, giving you a turn to hop away.
Anyway, back on topic, I am not complaining about the ODST per se, I am simply stating that it seems OTT. For example, you could perhaps make their guns different, perhaps give them AP 4 str 5 guns, makes you better against hard targets, but doesn't invalidate TEQs completely. Perhaps instead of Ld 9 you can lower it to 8, which is the same Ld as most elite units. Perhaps you can remove their preferred enemy on all Imperials (because you would get it against 90% of armies). With that you can lower the point cost down to 14 or so PPM, which gives you a relatively cheap unit that has the ability to kill high toughness models, but can't simply kill TEQs by firing 40 AP 2 shots at them. Your choice of course.
As for fluffrape, it might have been a tad extreme, but the unit is OTT, I mean unless fluffwise the unit is made up of brainwashed humans it makes little sense. The humans living in the Tau Empire were effectively forced to join or die yet are still allowed to worship the emperor. Such an environment does not exactly breed people that would particularly hate the Imperium and be particularly loyal to the Tau. Also, the Tau seem somewhat unwilling to give away their tech to mercenaries, allies, and subjugated peoples, Kroot still use their crappy guns, IIRC existing Gue'Vasa get like 3 pulse weapons per squad and their crappy flak armour.
Lastly on the "crappy Gue'Vasa" I can understand your sentiments, but the guardsmen aren't really crappy. If you want to field them as firewarriors they suck, they cost 13 points for the same equipment and get no marker lights. The point however is to use them as support. For example, you might use Humans as a screen for battlesuits, line them up between the battlesuit and the enemy, battlesuits JSJ, guardsmen mop up with their good but inaccurate weapons, or if the enemy is weakened enough, by charging. Also, that is the PERFECT unit to give power weapons to since they could have simply entered the Tau empire with them. An IG squad surrenders to Tau, Sergeant has a power sword, he brings it with him now that he serves the Tau.
Uh, do you know any math hammer, or play any actual games?... or have any reading comprehension?
There are inferior human auxiliaries. Check just after the Fire Warrior entry.
Not saying I don't enjoy criticism, but you're backing a position with no evidence, and making a lot of assumptions.
I'll address your issues from top to bottom.
For one, you can take 7 squads of them. For 875 Points - 20 Terminators. No competition, there, and in order to do so, you compete with Crisis Suits, Stealth Suits, Sniper Suits, and Savages.
What sort of cognitive dissonance lets you get away with using the term weeaboos for Tau, and then cry 'fluffrape'? They get good leadership because they drop from space in a brick, and because GAME BALANCE. They get good weapons because they're high-ranking, high-risk generalist troops, volunteering their lives in order to deal with whatever gak goes down where they land, and because GAME BALANCE. They get rending in CC because GAME BALANCE. They get EMP grenades to deal with vehicles because GAME BALANCE.
These 5 T3 4+ save guys drop down, randomly, somewhere on the board. They HOPEFULLY deal enough damage in their 1 turn of life to distract the enemy player, or make up some of their points.
Again, there ARE toned-down human auxiliaries as troop choices. 100% of traitor guardsmen get and receive favoured enemy against the imperium, and if you'd looked at the rule in their entry at all, the imperium has it back at them.
The ODSTs are storm troopers who've broken the indoctrination of their former allies, who've sided with the Tau, and who are ready to give their lives in order to defend the only pure thing in the galaxy - this budding, chaos-free, liberty loving race of slit-heads. And in return, the Tau have honoured them with the finest weapons, powerfully advanced armours, and screeching bricks of metal from which to deploy from. If you can't get behind that, pretend they're something else, because they were balanced 10 to 5 against Terminators and then bumped by quarter-again points.
I don't see your hate-on for preferred enemy? They get it because they know the imperials' fighting styles, and back again. Foot Infantry don't get special weapons in the Fire Caste, that's just how it rolls - and there's no way some Gue'Vesa are getting Drones, who knows what the neural interface would do?
I'm all for going against the 'original army' if the original army was based on bad design, bro. And once again you seem to be under some misconceptions - They still fold in CC outside of lucky rolls. Even with Farsight, who's going to be buffing the crap out of (now mandatory) plasmablade suits, you're still getting swamped by any other similarly costed CC units - And once again, if you don't like plasma blades, don't take them in your army. I offer a lot of choice with this dex, you are not limited. Game balance is definitely not an issue with them, as they're underpowered as balls.
Your interpretation of what fluff I'm 'raping' is ridiculous. You DO know that opinions can be wrong, right? Because yours definitely is, on this matter. Protip: The game is super duper lax on what Characteristics mean. If you're really going to argue that a Space Marine would be capped at a lowly S4, when simply making an imperial guardsman really angry and telling him to run at something gives him a similar S4, then we have nothing more to talk about here - you're living in a fantasy realm where the things you like don't have to make sense. ODST's are 25 points per model and can deesptrike - randomly - from the middle of the map. That's freaking vanguard cost. They're allowed to have stats and wargear for it.
@Avoiding H2H - the board is 48" x 72". The farthest you can start away is less than 4.5 feet, in spearhead, with 1 model in the corner. It's more accurate to say 24-30" is the norm. This means that your opponent will be at your doors in 2-5 turns depending on his movement capabilities - Kroot are paper. In the old dex, 'castling' with your kroot in a corner was literally the only viable build against any competitive playstyles anymore. In this one, sure, castling works - but there's a lot of damage you can be doing that you're missing out on because of those kroot now - more of your points can go effectively into other areas. If you want to play the old-style castle, you're welcome to, but I'm convinced there are more effective and more competitive routes to be going. That said, I'd rather my Kroot be an effectively open-topped transport tank for firewarriors to shoot out of and tankshock objectives with, than a 4+ cover 1-turn/gone bubble-wrap. I think you were trying to say, 'wouldn't suggest' - and if you did suggest, I would say no. I've personally only used plasma blades in testing, in jokes lists with an overpowered version of Farsight, in order to see how powerful they could potentially be.
It turns out that WS2 I2 doesn't do much for power weapons in CC, by the way. Even when rerolling to hit and wound, even when overrunning my enemy in crisis suits, it doesn't work that well, and clumps of crisis suits make WONDERFUL targets for battle cannons! What a great way to lose 400 points, wow-ee.
Again, you are allowed to simply not use the things you dislike - it's okay, you have permission from the "Fun Allowed" commission. The great part about playtesting and intentionally overcosting your choices is that it lets you say with confidence, "these are balanced, I have included them for you to use, but you do not have to."
@Blobs - how are you spending 300 points on infantry and not doing anything with it? That's 3 HW teams once you've got the plat and infants out of the way! You can do ANYTHING with that! With tanks, your power comes from the fact that their ranges are longer than god's middle finger, and they all pretty much pulp whatever they hit. 2 manticores and a squad of 3 hydras is going to devastate whatever each one chooses to fire at - which is why they're commonly used in lists called 'leafblowers' - because you might as well just sweep your opponents' models off the table.
With the line of kroot, you're limiting your mobility. If they have any outflank options, if the game is objectives, or if the enemy is simply a cc-oriented or shooty army that doesn't give a rats about your kroots' I3 sv-, then it won't matter.
Case in point, castling behind kroot against dark eldar? BAH. HAH. HAH. Your kroot run from a single venoms' shooting. Your tanks pop and your shas'ui boil in their suits. I have yet to win a decent game against dark eldar with castle, using either codex.
I really don't see how it's OTT - They're balanced points wise, they have a generalist kit, they can do a decent amount of damage, and they're fragile and small.
Your % of armies is skewed, too. No wonder you hate xenos so much, you've fallen for imperial propaganda!
You realize that to kill an equal amount of teq to make up its points, the ODST has to drop within 18" of it, shoot it unhindered for 2 turns with no cover in between, and then possibly still assault it and hope at least 2 live to fight at i3? And that's if nothing, including the termies, shoots back at them the entire time.
Fluffwise, your fluff is wrong. I don't know where you're getting that, but Gue'Vesa are human rebels, not interment camp slaves.
Tau give plenty of tech to allies - kroot are mercenaries, not allies. vespid get technology out the ass. Demiurg and tau share tech all the time. That stormtroopers would get something to enhance their forte, should not come as a surprise.
Kroot still use their crappy guns because their crappy guns are cannon-sized. Kroot are big, big buggers.
One thing I might do is range the Autogun down to 12" - forces them to react more to what's in their immediate vicinity, I suppose.
chrisrawr wrote:Uh, do you know any math hammer, or play any actual games?... or have any reading comprehension?
I did, and the ODST was a piece of crap . But then i simply ignored them as the "compulsory bad unit in the codex".
And i guess the ODST is the "native" Gue'vesa, who was born in the Tau empire and has 1337 mixed Tau/human tech (developed and produced by other "native" humans).
I think he is absolutely right, this dex offers a ton of diversity and while it MAY seem OTT I don't think it is I mean we are still paying a premium for it.
@AtoMaki - a lot of your ideas are ridiculously overpowered, and your idea of a 'bad unit' includes everything that isn't overpowered. My goal was a balance point and diversity roughly equal to space marines, while removing many of the design flaws that Ward is intent on keeping (poor codex-wide balance, poor in-unit versatility, poor scalability, acute-purpose units, etc.).
The ODSTs are a random element. You have no control over where they land, ever. What they DO do when they land, is hopefully make up their points cost, and not get flopped. I'm reducing their range to 12", as they've been successful for me within that area; not too successful, but enough that I don't want to risk them being used as a ranged engagement unit instead of a close engagement unit.
On a side note, I am attempting to build a 500 pt. maybe 1000 pt. army from your dex and the first thing I notice is I can no longer purchase a TA for my Shas'El? Or am I just being stupid
chrisrawr wrote:@AtoMaki - a lot of your ideas are ridiculously overpowered, and your idea of a 'bad unit' includes everything that isn't overpowered.
Actually, my idea of a 'bad unit' is something that needs special conditions to work efficiently and the unit has no control over these conditions. So i think "when all stars allign, the unit can do its intended job" is a straight ticket to the crap pile. The other end is when the unit is simply ridiculous (Vendetta, i'm looking at you). I like my units straight-out effective and reliable. Just as most people who play 40k .
chrisrawr wrote:while removing many of the design flaws that Ward is intent on keeping (poor codex-wide balance, poor in-unit versatility, poor scalability, acute-purpose units, etc.).
These are the flaws of that Cruddace guy. Ward's biggest problems are pricing and inter-codex balance. i mean, from my viewpoint, the GK codex is close to perfect: you can pick and choose any unit you want, and make a very good army with them. No stupid limitations or anything, you can do whatever you want and call it a deal. And that's how a codex should look like.
chrisrawr wrote:The ODSTs are a random element. You have no control over where they land, ever. What they DO do when they land, is hopefully make up their points cost, and not get flopped. I'm reducing their range to 12", as they've been successful for me within that area; not too successful, but enough that I don't want to risk them being used as a ranged engagement unit instead of a close engagement unit.
But their effectiveness is simply too unpredictable. Totally random deployment, very limited damage output (effectively, they are only good against TEQ without any cover/invu), and almost zero mobility (while being rather vulnerable to enemy fire) after landing. Yeah, no, the dual TL Ion Wave Crisis is still superior.
AtoMaki wrote:The other end is when the unit is simply ridiculous (Vendetta, i'm looking at you).
Don't see what is bad about the vendetta, it is a fast skimmer that can carry 12 models, let them jump out the back, has 3 twin-linked lascannons, and has better armour than the Chimera for 130 points. A HWS with lascannons costs 105 and needs orders to be twin-linked, is immobile, is very soft, and can't transport other models, I consider all those bonuses worth the added 25 points.
I'd intended to add options for multiple non-defensive weapons on them, but it ended up making them more powerful than intended; yes, completely unnecessary xD
Another note on that, the fusion rays for vehicles should all be fusion guns.
@Ato - ODSTs have so far not failed to make up their points in any scenario they've been deployed in - they have a 75% chance to pen a vehicle within 6", can deal a heavy blow to a variety of units, and are fairly hardy against normal weaponry in cc. Also remember that they're pinning and twinlinked during the deepstrike round.
One change I miiiight make is Assault 3, S3 AP2, Rending - it doesn't significantly increase their damage output, but it captures the 'plasma eats away at heavier armour and monsterous creatures in order to damage them' feel. It would also bump them to 135.
As well, Ato, your definition of 'reliable' is "kills an entire unit each turn by itself for equal or less points than that unit."
Automatically Appended Next Post: @buttons: Can't tell if satire.
chrisrawr wrote:
As well, Ato, your definition of 'reliable' is "kills an entire unit each turn by itself for equal or less points than that unit."
This, and his codex in his signature is one of the most overpowered pieces of garbage I've ever read.
Personally, I think you need to focus on making ODST's cheaper than on making them more expensive and with more special rules. 135 points for 5 T3 models, no matter how powerful, is a significant investment and one that most players will probably not take, considering that you could get a suicide squad of Chaos Terminators for the same price.
AtoMaki wrote:The other end is when the unit is simply ridiculous (Vendetta, i'm looking at you).
Don't see what is bad about the vendetta, it is a fast skimmer that can carry 12 models, let them jump out the back, has 3 twin-linked lascannons, and has better armour than the Chimera for 130 points. A HWS with lascannons costs 105 and needs orders to be twin-linked, is immobile, is very soft, and can't transport other models, I consider all those bonuses worth the added 25 points.
As selection, i love the Vendetta. It is deadly as hell and can transport tri-melta/dc vets. But it is RI-DI-CU-LO-US as a unit! It just makes absolutely zero sense (to the point where it makes negative sense!).
As well, Ato, your definition of 'reliable' is "kills an entire unit each turn by itself for equal or less points than that unit."
My definition to reliable is "it does its job". If its job is to kill an entire unit each turn by itself for equal/less points then so be it.
The ODST could be asily fixed: just make the Insertion Pod deploy like Drop Pods.
This, and his codex in his signature is one of the most overpowered pieces of garbage I've ever read.
LOL, then you don't read too much fandexes don't you ?
The problem with running them cheaper is that they still need to compete with crisis suits - having too many of them on the field, at a reduced power, is just going to be a saturate of insertion pods. Having them too expensive is, as you said, getting a bit silly for 5 models.
Can't make em drop pods, would go completely against the fluff and point of the unit.
I will be looking at them more closely as they seem to be under lots of contention. I want to keep the 'drop in wherever, squish whatever's under you, and truck on" feel of Storm Troopers + Brick + Tau gear - I might have to make them mandatory 2unit per foc - i'd be able to drop the points, then, to around 200 (100 per).
chrisrawr wrote:Can't make em drop pods, would go completely against the fluff and point of the unit.
At least get rid of that Unguided special rule. Or at least the "scatter from the center" part.
chrisrawr wrote:I will be looking at them more closely as they seem to be under lots of contention. I want to keep the 'drop in wherever, squish whatever's under you, and truck on" feel of Storm Troopers + Brick + Tau gear - I might have to make them mandatory 2unit per foc - i'd be able to drop the points, then, to around 200 (100 per).
I'm not a big fan of the impact hits either. Even the Monolith lost this. And as far as i can see it, they already cost 100 points each...
that's something I can get behind, I guess - the point of it was to have them unabusable in regards to deployment. They move on randomly, period, and if you're in their way you get a scoot. Might change it to a pinning tank shock, then, with a detonation sequence; Counts as a KP if you destroy it, but if it lasts the turn and destroys itself it doesn't.
In this regard, it would be a combination weapon/deployment, which I kind of like in terms of uniqueness.
Insertion Pod
F/S/R: 10 10 10
Vehicle (Open Topped, Tank)
Transport Capacity: 5 ODSTs
Special Rules: Projectile, Immobile
Wargear: Detonator
Projectile: The Insertion Pod must always enter play via Deepstrike, and may do so even in scenarios where this is not normally allowed. When deploying the Insertion Pod, place it within 1" of an opponent's Unit (You are allowed to place it on the unit directly) and do not roll for scatter - As it enters play, it performs a tank shock instead of rolling for deepstrike mishap. An opponent's units who are displaced by this tank shock are also subject to a Pinning Test after the Tank Shock has been resolved. If the Insertion Pod suffers a Destroyed result, each passenger suffers an S10 hit in addition to the normal results for that Destroyed result.
Immobile: as usual.
Detonator: At the beginning of your next turn after the Insertion Pod has deployed, apply the Destroyed: Explodes! result to it. It does not count as a Kill Point if it is destroyed in this manner. When the Insertion Pod suffers a Destroyed: Explodes! result, its blast radius is always 6", and hits at S5 AP5, Pinning.
Yup - I basically wanted to scale Flechette Discharge by size, so bigger vehicles like gunfish get more discharges, whereas piranhas and drones get less. Whereas before you could have 30 boys get shredded or 10 marines be unscathed by a couple piranhas with flechette dischargers under certain interpretations of the rule, now damage is normalized against all enemies - If you want to assault that 5-piranha flechette bomb, you're going to take 10d6 S3 hits, and you're going to like it.
Wow! That's awesome! Almost done with the list just trying finalize then I'll post it
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here is the 500pt list! I think its pretty BA looking through all the great gak the Tau have now! I'm loving it and FW's are now pretty BA not gonna lie. Chrisrawr let me know if I did any points wrong but I think I got it down.
10 Kroot is 70 But other than that, you're at about 525 points.
Remember: The Fusion Rays are supposed to be Fusion Guns, I typo'd it when I was adding them. Tau are not Sisters of Battle, and don't get to have dozens of multimeltas unless they slap them on their crisis suits
Slapping an upgrade option into stealth suits for fluff reasons - playing off of the social connectedness of the Tau, and the high stress that monats are placed under.
A more recent addition to the Tau battle forces, these lonesome warriors have been trained and tasked with high-priority target removal in skirmishes against the newer enemies of the Empire – Humans, Dark Eldar, and to a lesser extent even the forces of Chaos. The Tau's long history of skirmishes against both Orkish and Tyranid threats has left their battlefield tactics duly lacking against foes with more rigid command structures. Sniper pilots require many days of meditation before they are psychologically ready to lie in wait for perfect ambush opportunities, the strain of being away from their social cliques ensuring minimal extended field use. Many integrate back into Fire Warrior positions after a single tour, while a few join the Stealth-Ops Teams. Those rare individuals that remain Snipers are lauded heavily for their sacrifice – the short lifespan of the Tau is a reminder of the importance of community which many Gue'Vesa rebels have taken to heart.
For 25 points, a Stealth Suit (40 points, +~30 for mandatory drones) may be upgraded to
Kauyon Monat (WS2 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I3 A 2 Ld8 Sv4+), replacing its rail sniper with:
Shi'mont'ka: A precision rail rifle, built to the demanding specifications of the Monats after years of fieldwork. Fires with the following profile:
Range:60" S:10* AP:2 Special: Heavy 1, Rail 1
*Hits from this weapon are resolved against the target's Leadership, rather than its Toughness. This weapon is Strength 6 against Vehicles.
The owner of the target unit may choose to use the lowest leadership in the unit against hits from this weapon – if they don't, at least 1 wound, if any, must be allocated to the model with the highest leadership. If there is more than 1 model tied for highest leadership, the owning player chooses one.
What are the chances of creating some fire points from the devilfish? I mean it may sound unlikely but it could be like, pulse rifles mounted on the outside of the devilfish have a camera on them so the FW's on the inside can shoot. Just like the new Necron transport with all the guns on the side.
I just think its a good way of making the devilfish a little more useful. I understand that you have the drone assisted small arms fire, I like them both, its just something to think about.
Eh, the devilfish, unaltered, puts out 8 S5 AP5 shots at 18" already, and 10 within 9". This is definitely on the decent side of a 60 point vehicle (see: Venoms - more shots and better bs, but av10 and open topped) With a multitracker, it can move 12" and do this - not to mention that it doesnt need to expose side armour to do so.
What I might do is give them deepstrike. All their fluff points towards it. It would merit Dynamic Entry as well, or maybe a change to dynamic entry.... hmm.
Anyways, If you want a super-real gun platform, there's an option for it in the gunfish - a full 24-tau unit of firewarriors can sit inside and pewpewpew from one - though it'll cost you 440 points at the least.
@Ovion: Against MEQ, it's roughly 1-2 marine kills - starting at the sergeant with the power fist. Against Eldar, starting with the farseer. The changes I'd make to this would be more along the lines of allowing the firing player to allocate, or making it twin-linked. S6 is mechanically no different against a large host of opponents than this is.
Suppressive Fire change, as it was being abused - Hoping to make it more synergetic with markerlights, without relying on them.
Suppressive Fire: Roll a D6 Each time the Firing Unit shoots. On a 5+, Units with the Stubborn and Fearless special rules test against Pinning as if they did not have those rules until the current player's next Shooting Phase. The Firing Unit may spend 1 Markerlight Token before rolling to add +1 to a Suppressive Fire roll's result.
I feel the need to have a shooting response / auto fallback type option in my tau extended...
Something like when charged, each Tau unit with the Combat Response Rule (maybe another name), rolls a D6 when charged. On a 1, they get charged as normal, on a 2-5 they move that many inches directly away from the charging unit (may or may not put them out of charge range), on a 6, they move 6" and get to fire 1 shot each at the charging unit (assuming weapons are in range).
I'm thinking to have on Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, etc, base men on foot, to give these fragile units something a little unique, and to add a little fluffy survivability to units that get touched in CC and fall over.
I.E - The opponents 6 Assault Marines charge my 12 Fire Warriors from 4 inches away, I roll a 5, so move 5" backwards so I am now 9" from the enemy - YAY, Safe for now!
The opponents 6 Assault Marines charge my 12 Fire Warriors from 3 inches away, I roll a 2, so move 2" backwards, but I'm still 5" away! - OHNOES I still get charged.
The opponents 6 Assault Marines charge my 12 Fire Warriors from 1 inches away, I roll a 6, so move 6" backwards, I am now 7" away and get to fire 12 shots from my Pulse Rifles.
It's been tried, and it's something I believe atomaki uses in his. It's horrendously overpowered - especially in difficult terrain. Stealth Suits already lower assault range by a small amount, and are nigh-impossible to catch.
Alone, an ability such as yours would increase firewarrior cost to 14-15 ppm, (as it magnifies their CC avoidance by an order of magnitude, and lets them move an additional 2-6" per turn) which is unacceptable.
With the additional shooting 1/6 of the time, we're looking at 17+ ppm, utterly ridiculous.
One mitigative factor was "Can't move in the next phase" - the problem isn't the extra movement, though. The problem is the avoidance of CC. It simply destroys an assault completely, without any real tactical thought or mitigation. It's like having a tank's ablative armour that regrows.
Hmm. Mayhaps 1 nothing, 2-5, move 3", 6, move 3" + D6 shots (max = number of models in squad) OR, 1 shot each + can't attack in assault.
This way, it's a set amount, meaning the enemy simply manauvers 3" closer (often not difficult, I know I'm generally sitting roughly 1" away with my assault troops.), it gives less shots, but still gives the most pathetic units a chance.
I still think you're not really looking at this from a perspective of abuse. What happens if I sit at 6" and move 6" away each turn? Even if you run after me, it's going to take you an average of 2 extra turns during which time you don't get the benefits of any assault weapons you might have, and during which time you get shot continually.
If a player can abuse a single special rule on unit A to effectively remove the close combat ability of unit B, while still putting out better firepower than unit B, then the price of the Unit A has to represent this. When Unit A is also a T3 4+ save model with WS2, you're skewing its cost-survivability ratio against other tactics - creating a unit that is either complete garbage, or overwhelmingly powerful, depending on meta.
Basically what it comes down to is "Do you want to spend an additional 4-10 points per model for this ability, depending on the toughness, save, wounds, and firepower available to that model?" Because if I remember correctly, your 'dex has a lot of modularity to it, allowing many units the ability to take better weapons, better armour, etc.
You also have to consider drones - a unit that has weapons drones with special weapons that can continue to move away presents much more threat than one with just pulse rifles or carbines.
In general, the balancing and fun-killing problems associated with out-of-turn movement have really killed the idea for me, and playing against these abilities is almost always not fun.
One thing I might propose for this sort of ability - Perhaps an Initiative test (sacrificing drones to pass as normal) to disenagage a combat after assault moves have been made, move 1-2" away, and let your opponent consolidate - at the expense of moving during your next turn. This, to me, feels like much more of a 'clutch' save, and is much less abusive. Your opponent essentially gets an assault+D6" movement, removes drones, and has you immobilized. You, on the other hand, still get to shoot with that unit, can still save it, or you can focus your efforts elsewhere. It feels better to both players - you each potentially gain an advantage, and in order to use it, you have to make a sacrifice.
Okay, just from a quick glance at this, here's what I have to say. These are all personal thoughts.
If I don't mention anything, its because I think it's good.
I think the battlesuit commander's toughness is too high. I hate to say it as I play tau but I can't think of anything that gives a character a +2 Toughness outside of mark of Nurgle and a bike.
Why twin-linked AND pinning on dynamic entry? Other than being awesome and cool. Which is fine. But they used to just have pinning, which they need again and should have back.
Do Kroot attack at normal initiative when they charge through natural terrain? It just says normal initiative, base or normal for when you charge through terrain without grenades?
Also, Kroot psykers tend to have witchblades, at least in the other fandexes I've seen. Just nitpicking on this one.
I think assaulting a stealthsuit should be -1D3 inches, not just a flat 2. Adds some spice and risk to it which is fun and stressful.
Does spotting stand hit automatically?
Why not just give ODST the 'hotshot' lasgun? It's pretty close to the same thing isn't it?
So, if I spend 3 marker lights on a unit and shoot it with firewarriors and inflict 3 wounds, that squad has to take 9 leadership tests?
What's the minimum leadership on a drone squad?
Are there scenarios that don't allow deepstriking anymore? Also, the ODST are so far removed from anything the Imperials or Tau do that I'm not 100% comfortable with them being in the list.
Why not just give drone harbinger the ability to generate more drones and leave it at that? (Well, also it's Relay station ability) it would make it a lot easier and MUCH less confusing for people to play against/learn how to play it.
I think the 'sub-munitions' forcing a re-roll of successful cover saves would make that rule a lot easier to remember and be easier to play.
Pg 31, yay blank page with some stuff on it!?
Pg 32 Armour fit for a prince doesn't link to anything that tells you what it is
I think Shield drones staying toughness X is fine.
I think increasing the BS of a markerlight shot on its own is a bit much.
I'm confused about inferno, does it have its own template - plus another or just that other one?
Decoy launchers are practically useless in the current codex and remain unchanged in this one.
I'm all kinds of confused about how missile fhu works
I think bodyguards should come with plasma grenades as standard.
A vehicle as a HQ choice seems weird
I don't think anyone would ever take a 24 man strong squad of fire warriors. I just seems pointless, especially when they can get swept by a 6 man assault squad. It also doesn't seem very tau like to just have a hoard of guys walking around.
No codex makes you have entries from other codexes anymore, I think the Leman Russ is out of place unfortunately.
chrisrawr wrote:It's been tried, and it's something I believe atomaki uses in his. It's horrendously overpowered - especially in difficult terrain. Stealth Suits already lower assault range by a small amount, and are nigh-impossible to catch.
Yep, its mine, as per the following:
Dynamic Disengagement: With its natural disability to fight effectively in hand-to-hand combat, the Tau
developed a way to avoid close-combat, or at least quickly escape from it. A unit with this special rule may
perform a special move once in its Assault phase to avoid an assault. When an enemy unit assaults the unit with
this special rule, then it can move D6” straight away from the assaulting unit before any assault moves are made.
This move may abort the assault, but if it does, then the assaulting unit may consolidate 3” immediately, subject
to the normal rules of consolidation.
Units with this special rule also gains the Hit and Run universal special rule. In addition, when they use the Hit
and Run special rule, the controlling player may remove D3 models from the unit (rolled separately each time
this option is used) to automatically pass the Initiative test needed for a successful Hit and Run action.
A unit that used this special rule in any Assault phases may not move in its next Movement phase but counts as
moved in its following Shooting phase.
Lets say it has its own limits in the terms of avoiding close-combat .
Celtic Strike wrote:Okay, just from a quick glance at this, here's what I have to say. These are all personal thoughts.
If I don't mention anything, its because I think it's good.
I think the battlesuit commander's toughness is too high. I hate to say it as I play tau but I can't think of anything that gives a character a +2 Toughness outside of mark of Nurgle and a bike.
The biggest problem I was seeing with T4 and the biggest change I personally wanted to make was crafting Crisis Suits as the backbone of the army. This means their resilience had to increase, as their firepower was already beastly. I didn't want to go the path of the Tyranid Warrior, as we can all see how THAT turned out, so I pseudo-toughnessed them. They still get crunched by lascannons, missiles, and fists - but small arms bounce off more often. Gameplay-wise, I'd say, when you really notice it the most is being shot at by bolt pistols and lasguns. It doesn't alter the feel of your crisis suits play outside of that very much
I also feel the need to point out that all crisis suits are T4(5) - not just the commander. Your fluff concern is noted however - there isn't much +2T precedence over a figurative 'base model'
Why twin-linked AND pinning on dynamic entry? Other than being awesome and cool. Which is fine. But they used to just have pinning, which they need again and should have back.
This one is mostly taking liberties with fluff for a meta concern - I feel that Tau Armies need to move away from the feeling that they HAD to alpha-strike, that you HAD to survive the first turn and then horrendously cripple your opponent in order to play a 'fair' game. Bringing units in from reserve is now something that can provide almost as much benefit - at the cost of losing turns of firepower, of course. There are a few synergistic abilities throughout the codex that aid in this, and the 'dex I have yet to upload has a few more - intentionally over-costed for now - that should let you see some fairly interesting 'ghost tau' plays. Dynamic Entry has plans on being altered to include all tau upon entry from deepstrike (as devilfish are getting the deepstrike treatment, being an atmospheric shuttle and all), and I can definitely see it being reduced to simply pinning then, or a points increase on units that I don't feel need to be any more expensive.
Do Kroot attack at normal initiative when they charge through natural terrain? It just says normal initiative, base or normal for when you charge through terrain without grenades?
They ignore the movement penalties from natural terrains - which means they don't make a difficult terrain test (the wording was lifted and updated from harlequins). You'll see that only units who make difficult or dangerous terrain tests are reduced to initiative 1 without grenades - so kroot make a normal attack at i6, and the rest at regular initiative.
Also, Kroot psykers tend to have witchblades, at least in the other fandexes I've seen. Just nitpicking on this one.
I love this idea, thank you!
I think assaulting a stealthsuit should be -1D3 inches, not just a flat 2. Adds some spice and risk to it which is fun and stressful.
It was originally, but it was found that canny players never really needed more than 1" against infantry, and the 1/3 chance to gimp beasts and cavalry with 3" was getting tedious in games of keep-away. Basically, a small nerf from 1D3"
Does spotting stand hit automatically?
Yes - the markerlight token is simply applied to a unit.
Why not just give ODST the 'hotshot' lasgun? It's pretty close to the same thing isn't it?
It used to simply be the hot-shot lasgun, but the change came mainly as their role required them to be assault-tactic units.
So, if I spend 3 marker lights on a unit and shoot it with firewarriors and inflict 3 wounds, that squad has to take 9 leadership tests?
For which effect? Courage requires 4 markerlight tokens in total to purchase the full effect, and triggers once for each unsaved wound - 3 pinning tests. If you had 12 markerlight tokens and bought courage 3 times, then yes, you could stack 9 pinning tests out of 3 unsaved wounds... but there's much more efficient combinations for 12 markerlight tokens!
What's the minimum leadership on a drone squad?
1!
Are there scenarios that don't allow deepstriking anymore? Also, the ODST are so far removed from anything the Imperials or Tau do that I'm not 100% comfortable with them being in the list.
There's plenty of custom scenarios, IA scenarios, and WD scenarios that don't normally allow deepstriking - in this case, the come crashing through the roof/window/hull all, "whatever bros". As for your fluff concern, all I can give you is gameplay recompense: they're really fun to play with - They're also an elites slot, so you lose nothing by not taking them over crisis suits
Fluffwise, cynically, they're simply counter-indoctrinated / brainwashed storm troopers given familiar weapons. Their deployment method is simply to keep gameplay interesting, and has no real basis in anything we've seen of 40k lately (I didn't want to give them drop pods, but I also wanted them to have a reason for deepstriking... being fired from orbit in a railgun barrel, held in a comfy bullet that smashes down upon impact seemed pretty awesome to me. There's the chance that the pod gets wrecked upon impact - in the current version, the ODSTs scramble out and take pinning - but I might change that to simply splooting them, or them taking the Explodes! result.
Why not just give drone harbinger the ability to generate more drones and leave it at that? (Well, also it's Relay station ability) it would make it a lot easier and MUCH less confusing for people to play against/learn how to play it.
It's definitely a WIP from the simplicity side. A few main reasons from a workability perspective of why it is the way it is now, and what direction it's going in: 1) It needs to work with drones - there needs to be a benefit and also a REASON to having drones around it, instead of just sending them off the moment they're created. The relay station is one way this is accomplished. For the other, I made it a transport - drones inside of it aid it more than drones outside.
2) If it starts spewing drones on the first turn, it's too powerful. Drones are fairly hardy little buggers, and in numbers, can lay a pretty heavy smackdown with those pulse rifles.
3) As only a dedicated transport, people who want drone armies gain only 3 of them. As only an HS slot, it doesn't have enough firepower to justify, points-wise, competing with the other slots. As a combination of both, it needs more firepower than your average transport, but also cheaper than your average HS slot - a compromise in playability has to be reached in order to justify a low points cost and guns.
So yes, while I've made a huge, beastly, complicated monstrosity, it's also a jenga tower that needs to be poked at and rebuilt carefully.
I think the 'sub-munitions' forcing a re-roll of successful cover saves would make that rule a lot easier to remember and be easier to play.
Possibly. 3+ cover is mostly battlements, heavy fortifications, etc - I'd intended it to be unable to simply overpower its way through those - whereas foliage, sandbags, and simply los issues wouldn't be a problem against such a powerful weapon. I'll play a few with your suggestion to see how it feels, as mechanically, it buffs a few scenarios, and nerfs a whole many others - as well as adding a large additional diceroll into the resolution. My playgroups are heavily into terrain modifications, so we play with a lot of varied terrain pieces, from gothic cathedrals to lush forests - another bias on my part, perhaps
Pg 31, yay blank page with some stuff on it!?
template page for my unit profiles. It'll be gone in the final version, but I've still got special characters to add :V
Pg 32 Armour fit for a prince doesn't link to anything that tells you what it is
Whoops! Thank you!
I think Shield drones staying toughness X is fine.
The big thing is that I've removed drone-controller drones from applying their toughness to the unit's whole. They're pretty much all just 'extra wounds'. For now, it's been alright - there's little abuse to be done, as they're all fairly expensive to be being used as ablatives. At 15-20 points a pop, they're definitely not baby's first tactical cushion. I might consider grafting 5 points onto shield drones and making them W2, which would really benefit their T5, but it would require some heavy testing on the stealth suits, who would abuse it the most - overall, I wanted drones to feel more like tokens allowing the unit to do more, rather than actual parts of the unit that could be bogging it down in many cases.
I think increasing the BS of a markerlight shot on its own is a bit much.
Noted, but it's worked into their price and availability rather heavily. Average saturation with the +1BS (BS4) is 2/3 markerlights right now, meaning for every 3 you fire you're not getting 10 points worth of goodies - which is where the markerlight effects are about stable in cost. Swapping numbers around to support the average saturation of 1/2 hits (BS3) means that markerlights have to come down to about 6 points, and their availability has to increase by a third. I'd rather have a laser pointer hit more often than clutter army lists with "And this unit has 12 markerlights and this one has 8 and this one has 6". I see your point, it's just a lot of work to receive the same mechanical saturation that such a simple fix brings.
I'm confused about inferno, does it have its own template - plus another or just that other one?
Will be clarified that it simply uses the Flamer Template and doesnt roll to-hit.
Decoy launchers are practically useless in the current codex and remain unchanged in this one.
Until you take a few of them on your piranha and gunfish squadrons, and realize that you effectively ignore half of the scenarios that normally result in a wreck - going from Wreck to Stunned (to shaken) on your 200 point vehicle is HUGE.
I'm all kinds of confused about how missile fhu works
It works similar to regeneration, with missiles instead of wounds. It might be overworded because of abuse prevention (They had to errata Regeneration, as it was worded in a way that let you regenerate on 10+ dice by turn 4, creating nigh-immortal trygons). A crack team of scientists have been released to work on it.
I think bodyguards should come with plasma grenades as standard.
Yeah, well, I think you're right. So there.
A vehicle as a HQ choice seems weird
Yup, but can you imagine a race of beings living in space for dozens of millennia really being all that great with the whole planetary gravity thing?
I don't think anyone would ever take a 24 man strong squad of fire warriors. I just seems pointless, especially when they can get swept by a 6 man assault squad. It also doesn't seem very tau like to just have a hoard of guys walking around.
You should see all the tables this would flip in kelowna/vancouver. We've got some hardcore Fire Warrior gunline players. Fanservice is important
No codex makes you have entries from other codexes anymore, I think the Leman Russ is out of place unfortunately.
LR is being ported - frail also mentioned this. It's just so ugly to port :C
How much does the strain leader cost?
Same cots - no distinction is made between models. As he's mandatory and his leadership affects the unit no matter how large it gets, his cost has been worked into the overall cost per model
This is excellent, I can already see many necessary changes, fixes, and alterations. I've addressed top to bottom in bold.
Just a little - I realise it's a Tau Thread, and not really related but here you go - draft 1 of Taranis:
Taranis, Master of the Razorwing
Spoiler:
BG: Taranis is a badass Razorwing Pilot. Will think of something later.
FO: HQ Squad: Taranis, Master of the Razorwing Unit: Taranis, Points Per: 280, Models: 1*, Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Fast), BS-5, FA-11, SA-11, RA-10. Lord of the Flock: Razorwing Jetfighters become Troops choices.
Wargear: Two Splinter Cannon Two Dark Lances Two Disintegrator Cannons Two Monoscythe Missiles Two Necrotoxin Missiles Two Shatterfield Missiles Enhanced Flickerfield Nightshields
Special Rules: Night Vision Deep Strike Aerial Assault Supersonic Skilled Rider
Options: n/a
Enhanced Flickerfield: Confers a 4+ invun.
Partially because.. why not.. partially because, the ability to have 10 jets (Taranis, 6 Razorwings, 3 Voidravens) on the field would be, and look, amazing.
Kroot have psykers? From what Ive seen in their written fluff their brains havent developed a creative knack to, in theory, delve into the pyscic arts.
Yeah, there's a whole big chunk where the silver skulls go after a small group of kroot b-level psykers because they're so powerful, and end up having to exterminnatus. Kroot are mostly illusion users, so thaatts what I went with.
blood lance wrote:Ah forgot they have the anatomy that would make Charles Darwin eat his beard. xD
Mmmmmm, delicious beard.
I used to play Tau a lot until it just became untenable to continue playing them in the tournament scene. Then, in the last year or two my painting really started to get decent and my tau weren't painted to a caliber I thought was good enough. So the long stripping process began. Then I found my Sisters and all were happy.
That being said, I haven't seen a gunline tau played in a very long time. Not since the end of 4th. Granted, there's only 3 Tau players in my group and most of us have moved on, so I don't know what kind of base of experience I have to say that.
Just having read a lot of Tau fluff, they don't tend to have hoards. Boom!
I think the key to good building in simplicity, not having rules that are too wordy or anything. As mythbusters said; 'The more complicated a design, the worse the designer.' I'm looking at you - Tesla!
I like the idea of Hammerhead squadrons though, I like them alot. In the fan dex I was messing with I had that same concept as well.
I notice there's no special characters, is that a choice? If you'd like I could kick in my SC from my codex for you to review
I am slowly working on a Tau Gunline list - 84 Fire Warriors ftw!
And I should give the ability to squadron vehicles in my extended tau 'dex...
That said, I should actually work on my extended tau 'dex, rather than just keep messing with my DE.
And if you want some Tau SC contriutions, bringing back Aun'Shi is always good, and I can contribute Morning Sorrow (Who has playtested remarkably well so far, and is really balanced.)
Farsight, still alive after all these years, bringing up a more 'traditionalist' Tau FOC adjustment, as well as a focus on hand to hand.
A new Shadowsun, bringing in an IC-hunting feel her predecessor lacked.
Shas'O Kais (From the DoW/Fire Warrior games) leading groups of the new Fire Warrior Mobile Assault Cadres on their Trial by Fire, preserved by Khorne in order to further blood-shed.
Anghkor Prok, the Master Shaper, overseeing the Kroot's genetic diversity as they taste the ever-expanding galaxy, and its inhabitants.
Vizz Kliik't, Vespid Colonial Champion, seeking to test his might against all who would oppose the Greater Good
Shas'Ui Kor M'yen, the Ally Unsought, bringing in a special squadron of Piranhas from the flanks.
And finally Shas'O Kak-Shi, he who grinds his enemies to dust.
I'd be happy to incorporate any balanced special characters you've got for me / would like to see included
AS to the fluffiness of Tau FW gunlines - the third sphere expansion fluff comes almost entirely from tournament battle reports. It's a tactic highly favoured by a lot of players, as it simply feels really awesome to pull off - and I think that this is something that has to be represented in the fluff; Not a static gunline, mind you, simply dozens of fire warriors. An advantage of 24 to a max group is that it lets me space special wargear out over 6 and 8 so that the most efficient purchases come at multiples of 6 and 8... and finally, at 24, meaning you're not unnecessarily punished for it.
During the War of Dark Revelations, hundreds of Tau were given over to the Dark Eldar Haemonculus Urien Rakarth as payment for aid against the Tyranid threat, these poor souls were tortured and warped into lumbering Grotesques by the fleshmelders.
Among the first wave of these creatures sent back through the webway to Vigos were the initial experiments, cannon fodder not expected to survive, and it was thought all of their creations from this first wave had been lost.
In truth in the opening moments of that battle one of them had been struck hard, then trapped under the corpse of a massive tyranid beast. After the smoke cleared, the tyranids pushed back and the covens had vanished once again into the shadows, there was movement among the piles of dead. A lone Grotesque rose, somehow his own man again, no longer a puppet of the haemonculi. Slowly he made his way back to the Tau lines, calling in a loud, guttural voice for his kin.
Already shocked and horrified at the realisation of what these creatures were, seeing one that knew he was Tau saddened them further. The creature that was once like them had no recollection of his name, or his caste, his body while strong was full of pain, yet his will was resolute. He wished to stand as a memorial to his fallen brothers and deliver justice upon the Dark Eldar. The builders and engineers of the Earth Caste took pity on him, and from the remnants of destroyed equipment built him weapons and armour to help him achieve his goal.
The nameless warrior took the title R'ashmya, or Mourning Sorrow and with his modified Plasma Rifle the Hammer of Dawn vowed to protect the empire from the dark kin. While many expected him to fall swiftly, he prevailed in conflict after conflict, always on the front line, eventually making it to the rank of Commander, and finally being given the option to retire. He refused, instead asking to commission a special strike force, and his wish was granted.
He now leads the Defenders of Twilight, a rapid response force that specialises in defending the empire against the Dark Eldar. They operate out of a customised manta, the majority of its internal space taken up by a jump drive, the ship, while with greatly reduced capacity can deliver the Sorrows force to anywhere within the empires borders swiftly, to deliver retribution against those who wronged them.
Wargear:
Gnarlskin
Hard-Wired Target Lock
Sorrows Shield
Hammer of Dawn
Pulse Pistol
Twilights Shadow
- Blacksun Filter
- Two Grade 2 Drone Controllers
- Four Medium Drones
-- Twin-Linked Pulse Carbine
- Missile Pod
Special Rules:
- Acute Senses
Independent Character
- Move Through Cover
- Skilled Rider
Feel No Pain
Furious Charge
Preferred Enemy: Dark Eldar
Options:
None.
Gnarlskin:
Gnarlskin confers a 6+ armour save.
Sorrows Shield:
Commander O'R'ashmyas personal shield generator – it operates on a broader spectrum than the standard Tau shield generator, it confers a 3+ save and a 5+ invulnerable save.
The Hammer of dawn is a unique weapon combining the technology in Plasma and Pulse Rifles that has the following profile:
Weapon: Hammer of Dawn
Range-30”, Str-6, AP-3, Type-Assault 2, Rending.
Twilights Shadow:
Commander Sorrows drone controllers are contained within this special harness.
It counts as 2 Drone Controllers that have a total of 4 Gun Drones.
chrisrawr wrote:
I'd be happy to incorporate any balanced special characters you've got for me / would like to see included
I always wanted a "Shadowsight" and a "Farsun" character. One who looks a lot like Farsight but he acts like Shadowsun, and one who looks like Shadowsun, but acts like Farsight. It could introduce a lots of fluffy Shadowsun/Farsight dynamic, not to mention that you can include a special rule that allows you to field the whole family in a single army .
Also, on Shadowsun, it would be neat to include some sort of "generation war" in her background: the rise of the all-new generation of Tau commanders (like "Shadowsight and "Farsun"), who has better tech, knows better tactics and still has the "fire". And Shadowsun is stuck between the youngsters and the prospect of some sort of retirement. And she can't forget the "call" of the only Tau commander who successfully broke out from this "generation war": Commander Farsight.
chrisrawr wrote:Madre de Dios, es magnifico! Out of curiosity, why skilled rider?
Oh, also, Shas'o Rmyr is coming back largely unchanged.
Forgot that was a slightly older version of my layout (from my Tau Extended thread ) - I've changed it all in my files for clarity xD Skilled Rider is conferred by being an IC - maybe this will help:
Wargear: Gnarlskin Hard-Wired Target Lock Sorrows Shield Hammer of Dawn Pulse Pistol Twilights Shadow ( TS: Blacksun Filter ) ( TS: Two Grade 2 Drone Controllers ) ( DC: Four Medium Drones ) ( MD: Twin-Linked Pulse Carbine ) ( TS: Missile Pod )
Special Rules: Acute Senses Independent Character ( IC: Move Through Cover ) ( IC: Skilled Rider ) Feel No Pain Furious Charge Preferred Enemy: Dark Eldar
Options: None.
Gnarlskin: Gnarlskin confers a 6+ armour save.
Sorrows Shield: Commander O'R'ashmyas personal shield generator – it operates on a broader spectrum than the standard Tau shield generator, it confers a 3+ save and a 5+ invulnerable save.
The Hammer of dawn is a unique weapon combining the technology in Plasma and Pulse Rifles that has the following profile: Weapon: Hammer of Dawn Range-30”, Str-6, AP-3, Type-Assault 2, Rending.
Twilights Shadow: Commander Sorrows drone controllers are contained within this special harness. It counts as 2 Drone Controllers that have a total of 4 Gun Drones.
chrisrawr wrote:
I'd be happy to incorporate any balanced special characters you've got for me / would like to see included
I always wanted a "Shadowsight" and a "Farsun" character. One who looks a lot like Farsight but he acts like Shadowsun, and one who looks like Shadowsun, but acts like Farsight. It could introduce a lots of fluffy Shadowsun/Farsight dynamic, not to mention that you can include a special rule that allows you to field the whole family in a single army .
Also, on Shadowsun, it would be neat to include some sort of "generation war" in her background: the rise of the all-new generation of Tau commanders (like "Shadowsight and "Farsun"), who has better tech, knows better tactics and still has the "fire". And Shadowsun is stuck between the youngsters and the prospect of some sort of retirement. And she can't forget the "call" of the only Tau commander who successfully broke out from this "generation war": Commander Farsight.
The original Shadowsun is dead; Farsight is alive only because he's already 300+ years old, 400+ isn't going to bother him. Kais is alive because Khorne. Rmyr is alive because she was on the edge of the new century already. The new Shadowsun is simply the pupil of the old one. There's no family dynamic to be had, and if there were, I doubt simple familial bonds would keep the troops from becoming demoralized at the thought of being led by a commander of their former enemies.
Special rules:
Unique
Stealth
Infiltrate
Worthy of respect
Master of the hunt
Independent character
High Shaman’s Staff: A two handed ‘Witch blade’ that ignores armour saves.
Additionally it contains a rare artifact gifted by the Eldar. It’s a shooting weapon with the following profile:
Range: Template Strength:3 AP:3 Type: Poison 4+, One shot
Worthy of respect: Removes the 1+ requirement on Fire warriors and Crisis suit commanders.
Master of the hunt: Before the game starts nominate a piece of terrain.
Seti and a Kroot Carnivore squad he leads may arrive from reserve in that terrain as if its edge were a board edge.
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Special rules:
Unique
Acute senses
Desert fox
Independent character
Desert fox: When Brightmoore or a squad he commands are charged by an enemy unit you may take a Leadership test.
If the test is passed the squad may choose to break and fall back rather than be assaulted. The enemy makes no moves exactly as if it had come up short.
Composition: 1 Shadowsun, 2 Shield and 1 Command and Control drone
Unit type: Jump infantry (Jet pack)
Wargear:
XV22 Stealthsuit
Shield generator
Multi-tracker
Advanced target lock
2 Fusion cascades
Command and control drone
2 Shield drones
Special rules:
Unique
Acute senses
Back line planner
Logistical support
Logistical support: Allows Stealthsuit teams to Hold objectives.
Command and Control drone: One friendly unit within 6’’ of Shadowsun may use her BS when making shooting attacks.
If this option is taken, Shadowsun forgoes shooting that round.
Back line planner: Once per turn, one enemy unit arriving from reserves, your choice, must re-roll their reserve roll.
Advanced target lock: Allows Shadowsun to target two separate units at the same time.
Aun'va WS1 BS2 S2 T3 W4 I1 A1 LD10 SV4+
Guards WS4 BS4 S3 T3 W2 I4 A3 LD10 SV4+
Composition: 1 Aun’va and 2 Guards
Unit type: Infantry
Wargear:
Paradox of duality
Honor blades (Guards only)
Aether platform
Special rules:
Counter attack (Guards only)
Supremely inspiring presence
Ultimate price of failure
Paradox of duality: Counts as ‘Staff of ages.’ Additionally grants the squad a +2 Toughness and a 4+ invulnerable save.
Aether platform: Any psyker taking a 'Psychic test' within 24’’ of Aun’va can never have above a LD 7 for the purposes of their tests.
Supremely inspiring presence: ALL FRIENDLY TAU units may choose to pass or fail any Leadership test. Additionally those units within 12’’ gain the ‘Counter attack’ USR
Ultimate price of failure: If Aun’va is killed ALL FRIENDLY TAU units must take a Leadership test.
Pass or fail they gain ‘Relentless’ and ‘Preferred enemy’ USRs
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Commander Kas’tu +85pts (She is an upgrade to a single squad of Firewarriors)
Hard-wired fleet optics: Any enemy unit arriving via 'Deep strike' within 18'' of Kas'tu must reroll successful scatter rolls.
Gunslinger: May fire both her pistols at the same time, counting as a single Assault 2 weapon.
Additionally, she counts them as a single Power weapon in close combat.
Drill instructor: At the beginning of the game pick a friendly Tau squad (Not a vehicle, Kroot or Vespid) and increase their BS by 1 to a maximum of 5
This is where farsight is sitting at right now. He's been all over the place - from a hugely foc altering machine, to a more solitaire role, to some in between bits. /tg/ sat me down and we went through a bunch of iterations shaving his fluff down via some rationalist extrapolation.
We figure the following:
First off, The Dawn Blade is probably a necron dynasty artefact of some kind - perhaps even an experimental technology to be used in returning necrons to mortal bodies. Its influence, extended to an already-mortal body, has prolonged his life and altered his physiology into something recognizably... more. Those who train exhaustively under him are also altered by its influence, though less extensively.
Secondly, his small following and lack of resources save what his rebellious worlds can produce diminish what he can field tremendously. Many of the advances of the rest of the Empire are not open to his enclaves, and likewise some of his technology is divergent. Due to the increased importance of close combat, plasma blades are mandatory and prevalent, but many things such as non-standard seeker missiles, vehicles, and auxiliaries are both unavailable and disdained.
Finally, armies under him are elite, with most of his warriors being shas'ui deserters, or blooded shas'la. I wanted this to be reflected.
With this in mind, fielding Farsight requires some extensive armylist changes. I present him as he's been used lately:
Shas'Oshava (Battlesuit Commander Farsight) - 250
WS5 BS4 S5(7) T4(5) W4 I5 A4 Ld10 Sv3+
Special Rules Acute Senses, Battlesuit, Experienced Commander, Deepstrike, Hit and Run, Independent Character, Unconventional Tactician
Dawn Blade: The Dawn Blade is a Twin-Linked Plasma Blade that increases Farisght's Strength by 2 (included in profile) and rolls an additional D6 for armour penetration against vehicles.
Unity of Purpose: The Unity of Purpose counts as both a Twin-Linked Plasma Gun and a Twin-Linked Plasma Blade.
The Separate Journey: A Tau Empire Army containing Farsight may contain only the following units: Shas'El, Bodyguards, Crisis Suits, Hunters, Devilfish, Pathfinders, Piranhas, and Gunfish with the Transport or Rail Cannon upgrades.
Non-vehicle Models other than Farsight gain +1WS, +1I, and the Preferred Enemy special rule.
Crisis Suits must purchase a Shas'Vre with a Plasma Blade. Units of Hunters must contain at least 1 Shas'Ui with a Command Helm.
Any unit of Hunters may purchase Plasma Knives for the unit at 2 points per model. Any unit of Hunters may exchange its Photon Grenades for EMP grenades for 1 point per model.
No unit may purchase Weapons of the "Heavy" variety.
It feels very... outdated. Points costs as-is and allies are unusable, a lot of the special options are either already included base or unworkable as a single character's special abilities.
The core ideas for Farsight are fairly similar, however; limited tech, high skill, few 'outsiders'.
A 3+ What? He satisfies the conditions for 2 Twin-Linked Plasma Blades, which gives him the following benefits, assuming he uses the Dawn Blade to attack: 2 Close Combat Weapons, Power Weapon, +2S, +D6 Armour Pen, and re-roll failed to-hit and to-wound rolls.
He's pretty beastly, but he comes with some majour army-wide drawbacks, and no Eternal Warrior
Oh... I dunno, the intent was to be necron-y. He already 3-wounds most 4+ invuln meq, which lets him duel most MEQIC's fairly well. He's still going to be mainly used in a big group of blade bodyguards, which get the biggest boost out of his army-wide.
Well, considering the 4th edition one is even more limiting, I figured it'd be fine... do you have any ideas on a direction I can take the breakaway faction rule?
Ledabot wrote:Prefered enemy tau, Or maybe prefered enemy tau if they have an ethereal in the force.
He already grants preferred enemy everything, up from preferred enemy orks (which I felt was really unfair since, tabletop-wise tau need very little in order to play a fun game against orks, all things considered). This is mostly to represent the fact that they've been exposed to far more pain over the past hundred years than they had in the previous two millennia. They're still not great fighters, but they make up for it in zeal.
Celtic Strike wrote:I'm not sure the break away faction rule is still worth including. Like how they got rid of Chaotic animosity in the new Chaos dexes.
I just said that he couldn't be played with any other special characters. I figured that was good for fluff.
I don't think that represents enough of a drawback to justify 250 points. Maybe 275, or even 300 points, but that's pushing all expense. The unit restrictions are fairly lenient and fluffy, simply tending away from auxiliaries and newer empire tech. This is more akin to chaos space marines not getting newer land raider variants or drop pods, I feel. Also, Just Dave's chaos dex includes warbands and in-fighting, and is also pretty much the best chaos dex I've ever seen - so it's more of a design paradigm than because it doesn't work or isn't fun, I feel.
A few reasons, mostly from a gameplay and balance perspective, a bit from an ease of army perspective, and partly just because the skyray and hammerhead kits come together, and one of the skyray abilities makes use of multiple skyrays.
From G&B perspective expanded: They have to compete with Broadsides, plain and simple. There needs to be a reason you are taking something in that slot that isn't a bunch of broadsides that can split-fire - points-wise, broadsides are still going to be the most 'competitive' bang-for-buck in most scenarios - but there's a lot of versatility and firepower coming from these heavy support gunship teams now that wasn't there before.
To be honest, as-is with the standard Tau 'dex by the points and the math, 2-3 Broadsides + 2 Hammerheads is the best path to take.
That's 4-5 Railguns, 2 Twin-Linked and 2 of which can drop Str6 Large Blasts. Sure, you could take more Broadsides, for a max of 9 shots, but that's only 4-5 more, and once the tanks are gone the efficency of the broadsides drops sharply.
If you want I can find the math I did before
When you've sorted this 'dex fully I'll read through again and give a review.
Something I'm using to replace the current SMS on vehicles, as my HBC is already similar to what you've described:
Micro Burst-Rockets: A ranged weapon with the following profile: Range:48” S:5* AP:4* Special: Heavy 3
*Each hit increases the Strength of this weapon by 1 (to a maximum of 8) and improves the AP by 1 (to a maximum of 1) until the end of the turn. Roll each Micro Burst-Rocket in a unit separately.
I don't know if I'm going to be giving them as options to piranhas or limit them to the medium/heavy tanks. I might allow Broadsides to swap out their Railguns for them.
Should I limit the S/AP to lower? I just realized that I'm encoraching on SoB territory with this sometimes...
For simplicity's sake, I'm thinking of moving the markerlight back into more of a special rule thing than a shooting thing; Apply a markerlight token to a unit in los and 48", roll nightfighting et. al. for spot distance, can't fire other weapons without special rule etc - boost to ~20 points for the auto 'hit' factor (small nerf to effectiveness over current outside of pathfinders, which would remain at their current cost - but games would be much less random, with both players better able to predict the effects and better able to create proper counterstrategies.)? Would cut down on a lot of rolls and save time; Players would just designate marker-lit units each turn and be done with it.
Throwing up current version; couple page numbers are out, couple edits yet to be made, but much farther along than before. Current version up!
![[Disk]](/dakkaforum/templates/default/images/icon_disk.gif){kind=icon}
) in a couple of days when I've finished my Tau condensed Codex in Excel, I'll attempt to copy yours into it then send you a copy, which will give you a good basis for tidying it up. and the PDFing.
[size=9Tau Empire Extended Codex[/size]
. You've now got 24 shots at 24". If you expend 1ML to allow them to hit on 3+, you've got a 95% chance to hit. 23 hits, 19 wounds, -2 to cover so they're stuck at 6+/5+ if they go to ground, you have just whiped out almost anything for 510 points. Toss on 8 shield drones and you're good to go.
): for 195 points, you can get 17 basic 
sad).
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. But then i simply ignored them as the "compulsory bad unit in the codex".
