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After several requests and after hitting 30 pages it is now time to reboot as it were.

This discussion and the Fan-fiction codices(Fandices?) that are being discussed started Here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/220425.page

The discussion started off with a lot of wish-listing but eventually gravitated to a more serious analysis because of problematic rules that were being discussed in threads
like this one: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/235909.page


There was sort of a core group of us regularly posting that were longtime Tau players(Relative considering how young the army is game-wise). We had started playing Tau in their first codex and had followed to the very quickly released(US) second codex. The group was familiar with the unique design of the Tau and Their approach to warfare. From the first thread we ended up with a bit of a consensus on some areas that are in need of attention. This happened when everyone stopped wish-listing and some what agreed on a couple of basic Tau design philosophies. This gave us a group of do's and don'ts to work from concerning the Tau.

First the Don'ts:(Things not to do)

Assault oriented power weaponed HtH
High Model Count armies.
Power Fists
Uberpowerful Special Characters-this refers to in and of themselves. Focus should be on the army.
Over Powered units
Drop in tech level or remain stagnant in tech level
Leave the Tau with only 2 troop or elite choices
Nerf units
Cut and paste any battlesuit or markerlight rules

Most importantly Keep the Tau, TAU. Don't tresspass on other Armies by making them too similar.


Second the Do's:(Things to do)
Give Tau more mobility- return relative infantry mobility to 4th ed levels
Rework Firepower/Weapon ranges for 5th ed
Tau joins rest of 40K armies with coherent army-wide defining Special Rules
Write the wargear rules to where they are not a nightmare. Fix wargear and vehicle upgrades
Fix, rework or drop units that don't fit or work in the current codex
Rework Special Characters and Return Aun 'Shi- They affect army design
Aun 'Va Time to ****or get off the toilet, either army wide leadership effect, call in fire support at realist pricing.

And Most Importantly- Keep the Feel and Spirit of the Tau Army-Keep Tau reliance upon inter-unit cooperation and keep their unique weaponry.



Once there started to be a consensus that the rules them selves were really poorly writtien a couple of us decided to start writing our own fan-dex versions of the Codex. I was one of these people and started off just wanting to fix the things that were problematic in their wording and to use this as an exercise to find common ground of which units need work.

It was funny because, Nova and I were following two different design philosophies and working seperately but withing 5 pages were in agreement on about 5 units and quite a few things.

Nova took the making everything cheaper route, while I tried to keep the points the same or go up by only 1 or 2 points while improving unit effectiveness.

We and everyone following the thread at that time started to agree which units needed work and what things should be reflected in a Tau army. Cut & paste his and My posts on this consensus and then add a few other that may not be listed.

Nova wrote:There seem to be two primary directions, but it'll be hard for anyone to see them all that well till Focused and I get a place to put them up.

Things we do all seem to have a consensus on:

1) Methods to avoid and punish, rather than win at, close combat

2) moderately expensive models: the main difference in opinion here being how much specialisation to grant them. Focused seems to be going towards the eldar route, with expensive, but less numerous, powerful units, whereas I'm going more middle of the road and focusing on point-efficiency at the expense of the higher extremes of ability (ie; more forgiving but less powerful than an aspect). But overall its generally understood we'll be bit less expensive than marines but less powerful, and more powerful than IG but less economical.

3) A need for a rework on combined arms as used by the tau: In my case the markerlight system becomes the core for this, making interlocking lines of fire far more effective than just one team of pathfinders plus a single unit using all that up.

Units as a whole need to be advantageous to those around them... not as pure dependance; tau should be more self-sufficient than that eldar-like fashion of doing things; but rather as the 'trick' to winning more often: some armies need to know how to maneuver, some need to know just what to pick, some don't really need much thought at all they're so forgiving... with tau, it should be on a shootier dark-eldar level: slightly more forgiving (better survivability), but a little less total-annihilation gamebreaking offensive if used masterfully.

focusedfire wrote:Nova- Before I get into the vehicle secondaries I just wanted to point out a couple of things that seem to be of a concensus.

1)We both have written the XV-8's getting integral targeting arrays for BS4

2)We both have Shas'ui and up integral drone controllers

3)We both have the Fire Warriors themselves almost identicle. The only difference will be in available drone options.

4)Drones will have a greater position of importance by being scoring units.

There are still others but add this to what you posted earlier and the basic format for a new codex is beginning to shape up.

The only point missing is that though we had slightly differing markerlight systems we were in agreement that they needed a complete reworking.


I'm going to stop here for now but will start cutting the pertinent points out of the other thread to give some idea of where my fan-dex is going and so that everyone will be able to comment without neccessarily rehashing things already covered.


Will get back to this in a bit

,Later

Ok, I will post first, I guess.
Battlesuits I belive they are a wee bit expensive maybe drop 3 points?. For what they do T4 is annoyingly week however IMO T5 is too strong so I propose a compramise, T4 but a rule that allows them to ignore Instant Death from S8 hits so they only wound as normal (S9 and S10 still instant kill).
Stealthsuits, 5-10 pts expensive for what they do, but I still use them well in my games for 250pts I get 18 S5 AP5 shots at BS2 (if marker drones hit) usually wounding on 2s or 3s. I have seen a squad of 10 marines die to that firepower with overkill of 1 or 2 wounds which is nothing to sniff out (I outflank so my opponent can't place counter units he will have to use)
I hate the idea of suit powerfists I think leave them S5 and this can be explained easily, being powered armour Tau strength raised to 3, then the fact that the suit is using advanced alien hyrdaulics to haul 8 tonnes of suit at you in normal 1G environments (as indicated by the name XV8 and XV88 the first indicating weight class) so yeah, it's gonna hurt.
That's all for now.

I can see what your getting at Krellnus. Eternal warrior would be nice but I personally feel that it doesn't fit with the direction of this fan-dex. This is a personal bias on my part. I see GW handing eternal warrior out like its candy to some other armies(Bet Necrons will get it like crazy) and have made a decision not to do the same. That in order to help keep the Tau distinctive that they shouldn't get have general access to this rule. I could see giving Eternal warrior to Farsight, but only him because of the sword.

Now, I could tweek the Stim injector rules to give the suits Eternal warrior but, I personally feel that it would throw of the balance in this fandex. Also, the Stim inj. rules are fine and I don't try to fix things that aren't broke.

I agree with you about the powerfists to a point. I toyed with the Tau getting a power weapon ability in HtH. That any turn where the Crisis suit didn't fire or jetpack that the extra energy could be directed to the suits arms. This could have gone the power weapon route or just double the suits strength in HtH. After playing around with the idea I abandoned it for being an overly akward/cumbersome rule and just not Tau. Would you agree?


On this fan-dex I knew while there were some things that "HAD" to change I, also, knew that every change has an army wide effect. This is why I have backed off of a few of my earlier ideas. Some of the ideas are so elegant and far reaching that they are too good to not use and therefore eliminate the need for some of the others.

One such idea that has really affected the army are drones now being troops and counting as squad members that assume the squad type they join. The shield drones now give the squad an inv save from ranged attacks(Not HtH). This increases the squads ability to survive S8 and up ranged attacks.

In this fandex you will get charged for the wargear rather than the ability to take wargear. Having said that, my crisis are still going up in price. The prices can't really be dropped due to all of the special abilities they already have. Add to this that I am improving their profile with included/standardized wargear that will no longer occupy one of the suits weapon/wargear hard points and you will see why they are going up to 30-35pt each.
The stealth suits will be more for the same reasons and for that their weapon is being improved. I have them hovering in the 40 pt range but the Burst cannons are now 24" range and may get an extra shot.

To reply to your last bit. This is why the first Tau codex is so important. GW explained the profile increases in the unit descriptions so that people would understand everything that the suit did. When you take away the description and leave just the abstaction that these are better because of unit type, the players will start taking the improved abilities for granted and start asking for more.

Note-I may write up list of the ideas that I've had and have discarded while writing this and the reasons for why they were discarded. If I do such, it will be a bit before it gets posted.

Can you adjust the first post and/or create a new thread - such that it only contains the relavent fan-dex information: Item such as:

General Army Rules
Armory
All proposed units - if they have no rules yet - list it as such. If they are conceptual - list it as such. If they have no points values - indicate as such.

This will alow other posters to address parts of your fan-dex which need tweaking without digging through a million posts. Extrapolation of unit usage can only be achieved when looking at the complete dex as math-hammer can only go so far.

Any explanations for why units are the way they are do not need to be in this initial post, and should not be, as they will be debated further down in the thread. Any changes that result from debates further down in the thread should be edited into the first post, such that people entering this discussion have a place to review the ENTIRE ruleset without any extraneous information.

Right now you are posting all sorts of "explanations" as to why certain stuff is the way it is. Considering that none of the other posters can see the entire picture, such explanations are premature. Any rationales would be good - collected in the second post of the thread (if desired) - which readers can skip over if they do not care about reading it.

What I would fix is making all Tau BS 5. That is it.

I have made a small fandex in hopes of using it to test out possibilities for the Tau. My approach was a mixture of cost reduction and generalizing some pieces of wargear and or options.

The Tau are horrible at HtH, so I am not making them even remotelly good at it. However I also took into account that the Tau would at least make sure that their troops are as survivable as possible, so I equipped them standard w/ photon grenades (marines have both frag and krak standard, so I don't see a problem with this for Tau)

I also made some changes, to make the Ethereal wort it. The Ethereal as he is right now is just plain horrible and simply not worth it. However I also read the fluff clearly and something that was not capitalized is that they have access to the Tau fleet and anything they would need. So to make them very survivable (or at least not die as easily) I gave them a shield generator, I also created two types of drones specifically for them, a drone that allows them to launch a power similar in practice to the orbital bombardment, but different in execution.

Please read and give me some feedback

Broadsides are frequently referred to "carrying the heaviest weapons in the Tau Empire".

Why not have them carrying a smaller version of the Ion Cannon as opposed to a Railgun.

Rng: 48, STR: 6 AP: 4, Type: Heavy 4 Twin Linked.

radiohazard wrote:Broadsides are frequently referred to "carrying the heaviest weapons in the Tau Empire".

Why not have them carrying a smaller version of the Ion Cannon as opposed to a Railgun.

Rng: 48, STR: 6 AP: 4, Type: Heavy 4 Twin Linked.

That may not be such a bad idea, but maybe they haven't done it so that they didn't have to make extra rules for the Broadsides, making them a straightforward unit to use (as anti-tank)

Although this was pretty much covered by the Sniper Drones, which are 36" S6 AP3 Heavy 1, Pinning, but you have three of them for 80 pts

Pipboy101 wrote:What I would fix is making all Tau BS 5. That is it.

...no.

Making all Tau better at shooting won't fix the multiple problems facing them. Glance over the original thread to get an idea of what we are working with here.

Huzzah! For the new thread Thank you!!!!

I am dead tired, but I will be reading (and possibly posting) more tomorrow

In my opinion, one of the main things hampering the Tau is this idea of 'combined arms' which isn't represented. Supposedly the FW are the grunts and everything else carries the heavy weapons: but in fact, most units have the same base S5 Ap5 weapons as fire warriors!

I think increasing the availability and/or potency of markerlights could go a long way to fixing this

keemperor wrote:

well, looking at the first page....
str + 2D6 pen seeker missiles seem... overpowered. i'd expect them to be ordinance and/or barrage class at most (pick highest of 2D6; always hit side armor)(you also changed the missiles to AP2?)
EMP genades Penetration adjustment...i'd be ok with.
Photon grenades...where are the rules for not using the underslung launcher? cause i don't see how the one's equipped with just P-Grenades are supposed to function.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
skimming over the rest of it, you seem to have taken the stuff from the IA:taros campaign book and stuffed it in while also changing the points around for unit costs
(50 pt unarmed hammerhead)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
do you also mean to imply that exchanging both burst cannons from a suit would give 2 independent weapons of the same type(i.e 2 not twin-linked plasma rifles)

or even exchanging both BC for 2 TL-P-Rifles?(4 TL Str6 AP2 shots at 12"?!)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
well, i'm assuming it needs more words


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also: the special rules for the missile racks: reloading:

if it has to do a full reload after an Alpha Strike, does that mean it can't even move?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Weapon Stabilizer: (re-rolls to hit) you can use this on markerlights too?

Making the Tau vehicle STR: 5 weapons (Burst Cannons and SMS) defensive weapons would a great add without being over-powered.

I also know for a fact that GW games development use the KISS system for their rules:

Keep
It
Simple
Stupid

Also - don't make the Tau cost less, just make them have more stuff worthy of their current points cost.

EG: Make Markerlights worth taking by changing some of their effects.
EG: Give the FW and PF Photon Grenades and EMP Grenades as standard.
EG: Give the Battlesuits Black Sun Filters, Target Locks or Multi-Trackers as standard.
EG: Let the XV-88 move and fire heavy weapons.

@radiohazard: I think GW's motto is more:

Keep it Simply Stupid rather than the usual usage.

Does anyone have any comment on my idea (in the other thread) of making burst cannons pinning, with markerlights lowering leadership for pin-checks? Considering the vast numbers places where the maligned burst cannon can/is taken, this might improve firewarriors / pathfinders as pulse carbines and burst cannon from transports would have effective pinning combined with markerlight support.

I feel that pinning is an underlooked ability in Warhammer. Lowering leadership is key though, as most elite armies have Ld that is too high to reliably pin. Armies with low Ld typically have low armor and huge numbers, so being able to pin a portion of the horde has great advantages for the Tau as well.

I also feel that up to the full complement of seekers should be able to fired at a single "lit" squad. As seekers are a non-replenishable resource I don't see this as a bad thing. It would also move seeker missile firing back to the vehicle (alpha-strike replaces split fire) which removes some of the "token" wonkiness that exists now.

I think Tau is an excellent army. They don't need much.

Most obviously:

Fix our two worthless units - Ethereals and vespids.
Devilfish should cost less points.
Give Piranha the ability to upgrade from drones to SMS.
FAQ the Flechette dischargers.
As it is there is no reason to ever take stealth suits because crisis are so much better. so maybe make stealth cheaper with a larger squad size.

mattv2099 wrote:I think Tau is an excellent army. They don't need much.

Most obviously:

Fix our two worthless units - Ethereals and vespids.
Devilfish should cost less points.
Give Piranha the ability to upgrade from drones to SMS.
FAQ the Flechette dischargers.
As it is there is no reason to ever take stealth suits because crisis are so much better. so maybe make stealth cheaper with a larger squad size.

Clearly you haven't been playing Tau much. Granted, they are still a viable army, but at this point there are some gaping problems. Useless units and wargear, being the two most prominent.

mattv2099 wrote:I think Tau is an excellent army. They don't need much.

Most obviously:

Fix our two worthless units - Ethereals and vespids.
Devilfish should cost less points.
Give Piranha the ability to upgrade from drones to SMS.
FAQ the Flechette dischargers.
As it is there is no reason to ever take stealth suits because crisis are so much better. so maybe make stealth cheaper with a larger squad size.

I agree - Ethereals and Vespid are useless.
Devilfish should cost less.
Piranha with SMS would be kinda kick ass, if a bit Over Powered.
Stealth Suits as a 0-2 Troops Choices would be nice. It wouldn't allow an over powered amount of them and would still mean that people would take FW and will free up Elite choices for XV8s.

Tau are an excellent army if played correctly. Overall they really just need the following fixes.

1. Reduce the cost of Crisis suits by 20 percent. Along with a general across board 20 percent reduction for all weaponry.

2. Make it so that StimPacks are not special issue and the one that allows hit and run. This makes it so you can actually make a Close Combat Crisis team.

3. Give Master Crafted Combat Weapons not power weapons to Crisis suits.

4. Reduce the cost of Stealth suits by 20 percent. Give them the ability to take rail rifles instead of Fusion guns.

5. Reduce the overall cost of all vehicles by 20 percent.


6. Add all the Imperial Armoury stuff allowing Firewarrior teams to take a Heavy Gun Drone ( could count as two models for transport) with gun options or markerlight options.


That's it they just need the wargear rewritten somewhat and a reduction in Crisis suits and a increase in Crisis suits Squad size. I would do 3 to 5.

Tau don't need nor should they ever have anything to do with Close Combat.

Farsight is an exception to this.

Che-Vito wrote:

mattv2099 wrote:I think Tau is an excellent army. They don't need much.

Most obviously:

Fix our two worthless units - Ethereals and vespids.
Devilfish should cost less points.
Give Piranha the ability to upgrade from drones to SMS.
FAQ the Flechette dischargers.
As it is there is no reason to ever take stealth suits because crisis are so much better. so maybe make stealth cheaper with a larger squad size.

Clearly you haven't been playing Tau much. Granted, they are still a viable army, but at this point there are some gaping problems. Useless units and wargear, being the two most prominent.

I play Tau all the time. Very strong army if you use the good stuff and ignore all the crap in the codex.

Tau don't need massive buffs to their shooting, its very good right now as is. I read keemperor's fandex, and some things are ok, and some things are over the top. A devilfish should not cost less than a chimera. Disruption pods need a points increase. And Hammerheads are way too low in points at 50 base. For 85 points you get a hammerhead with an ion cannon, multitracker, and two vehicle burst cannons. For 85 points.... The railgun should be reduced to 25 points, but the base cost go up to 100 and have the ion cannon standard. Increase the costs of multi trackers and disruption pods. They shouldn't be no-brainer upgrades. If extra armor costs 15 points now....

I have always felt that that having a weapons that physically slows attacking infantry or disrupts their movement would "improve" the CC nature of Tau without adding CC dedicated units that would be out of line with the Tau mentality.

Ideas
Some kind of minelayer on the devilfish and hammerheads that allows them to deploy a mine belt during movement similar to the grav chute insertion.

Ability to make a piece of terrain dangerous for a turn. Some kind of slippery force field/spray foam

a kind of gravity gun "Lash" that moves units

thoughts

focusedfire wrote:I can see what your getting at Krellnus. Eternal warrior would be nice but I personally feel that it doesn't fit with the direction of this fan-dex. This is a personal bias on my part. I see GW handing eternal warrior out like its candy to some other armies(Bet Necrons will get it like crazy) and have made a decision not to do the same. That in order to help keep the Tau distinctive that they shouldn't get have general access to this rule. I could see giving Eternal warrior to Farsight, but only him because of the sword.

Now, I could tweek the Stim injector rules to give the suits Eternal warrior but, I personally feel that it would throw of the balance in this fandex. Also, the Stim inj. rules are fine and I don't try to fix things that aren't broke.

I agree with you about the powerfists to a point. I toyed with the Tau getting a power weapon ability in HtH. That any turn where the Crisis suit didn't fire or jetpack that the extra energy could be directed to the suits arms. This could have gone the power weapon route or just double the suits strength in HtH. After playing around with the idea I abandoned it for being an overly akward/cumbersome rule and just not Tau. Would you agree?


On this fan-dex I knew while there were some things that "HAD" to change I, also, knew that every change has an army wide effect. This is why I have backed off of a few of my earlier ideas. Some of the ideas are so elegant and far reaching that they are too good to not use and therefore eliminate the need for some of the others.

One such idea that has really affected the army are drones now being troops and counting as squad members that assume the squad type they join. The shield drones now give the squad an inv save from ranged attacks(Not HtH). This increases the squads ability to survive S8 and up ranged attacks.

In this fandex you will get charged for the wargear rather than the ability to take wargear. Having said that, my crisis are still going up in price. The prices can't really be dropped due to all of the special abilities they already have. Add to this that I am improving their profile with included/standardized wargear that will no longer occupy one of the suits weapon/wargear hard points and you will see why they are going up to 30-35pt each.
The stealth suits will be more for the same reasons and for that their weapon is being improved. I have them hovering in the 40 pt range but the Burst cannons are now 24" range and may get an extra shot.

To reply to your last bit. This is why the first Tau codex is so important. GW explained the profile increases in the unit descriptions so that people would understand everything that the suit did. When you take away the description and leave just the abstaction that these are better because of unit type, the players will start taking the improved abilities for granted and start asking for more.

Note-I may write up list of the ideas that I've had and have discarded while writing this and the reasons for why they were discarded. If I do such, it will be a bit before it gets posted.

Ok I can see where you are coming from with eternal warrior and I agree (omg necrons will be evil)
Stim injectors are currently perfect they have saved my anti-tank shas'vre so many times it isn't funny
I completely agree no tau cc except what they pick up naturally from front lines combat (i.e. Shas'O WS4)
Ok, I have complete confidence in you

JourneyPsycheOut wrote:Tau don't need massive buffs to their shooting, its very good right now as is. I read keemperor's fandex, and some things are ok, and some things are over the top. A devilfish should not cost less than a chimera. Disruption pods need a points increase. And Hammerheads are way too low in points at 50 base. For 85 points you get a hammerhead with an ion cannon, multitracker, and two vehicle burst cannons. For 85 points.... The railgun should be reduced to 25 points, but the base cost go up to 100 and have the ion cannon standard. Increase the costs of multi trackers and disruption pods. They shouldn't be no-brainer upgrades. If extra armor costs 15 points now....

Yes I completely agree on the hammerhead it should be 65 base just because it can take the railgun.

razorlead wrote:I have always felt that that having a weapons that physically slows attacking infantry or disrupts their movement would "improve" the CC nature of Tau without adding CC dedicated units that would be out of line with the Tau mentality.

Ideas
Some kind of minelayer on the devilfish and hammerheads that allows them to deploy a mine belt during movement similar to the grav chute insertion.

Ability to make a piece of terrain dangerous for a turn. Some kind of slippery force field/spray foam

a kind of gravity gun "Lash" that moves units

thoughts

1. Tau don't touch CC with an indestructible 10 light year pole
2. Not very tau as minelaying requires relying on static defences isn't very tau like
3. Again, not very Tau like as they won't set up defences that could accidentally backfire unto themselves, yes they actually care about their troops that much
4. Treading too much on the toes of Slaanesh.

mattv2099 wrote:I think Tau is an excellent army. They don't need much.

Most obviously:

Fix our two worthless units - Ethereals and vespids.
Devilfish should cost less points.
Give Piranha the ability to upgrade from drones to SMS.
FAQ the Flechette dischargers.
As it is there is no reason to ever take stealth suits because crisis are so much better. so maybe make stealth cheaper with a larger squad size.

1. Vespids can still ds and kill marines as their guns are AP3 so they are not so useless
2. No that would be too uber and take away the Piranhas are designed for scouting as Missiles weigh a fair bit
3. Flechettes are perfect they are something the Tau would use
4. Oh ok, I didn't realise that crisis suits could outflank 6 guys and 2 drones, Hit on 2s and lay down some of the most powerful anti-hoard infantry based fire in the game.

Pipboy101 wrote:What I would fix is making all Tau BS 5. That is it.

That would be rubbish, it would solve nothing as to fix the commanders up properly would result in Shas'o being probably BS8 (hit on 2 with 4+ reroll) which would knock of phoenix lord's as the game's most accurate shooters (BS 7)

Okay Tau Crisis suits;

Change Squad size 2 - 4 ;

Decrease points by 5.

Remove the restriction on taking two of the same weapon.

Give them ability to take Stim Injectors ; Thrusters.


It's a 3 model unit with 2 wounds Feel no pain is not broken on them ; as they are tougness 4 3+ armour save.

I assure everyone that I am still working on this. Am doing it cover to cover and am on pg8.

I have a unit and wargear idea that I want to bounce off of everyone.

The unit XV-15(No targ array! Maybe no stealthfield?)Shas'ui
BS 3 WS 3 S 4 T 3 W 2 I 3 A 2 Ld 8 Sv 3+
Squad size: 1 Shas'Ui teamlead w/bonded & 2-5 Shas'ui
Weapon: Burst cannon(Improved profile)
Wargear: Grenades of both types and HWDC(no other upgrades or options
Unit type: troops(Maybe Elites)
Cost: Thinking 85pts & 25 points each extra(may get bumped +5pts.

Story-These are used as cheap initial suit to train the Shas'ui in a real combat enviroment. All Shas'Ui spend at least one(two) Rotaa in one of these before graduating to the more advanced XV-8 XV-25 XV-88 battlesuits.

Purpose-Highly mobility Troop

Questions-

Troops or Elites?

Stealthfield or no Stealthfield?

Burstcannon - Range24" Assault 3 or 4?

Wargear Idea- My ethereal now where armour with built in sheild gen.

How do you feel about a buyable jet-pack option for the Ethereal?

Or would buyable battlesuit upgrade work better?

I'm leaning towards the
Jet-pack

let me know what you think

BTW, According to fluff Farsight has been working with Kroot and Rogue trader humans and mercs.
Gue'Vesa are in my fan-dex as Farsight only but he looses access to pirahnas and some other units.

with range 24" assault 3 seems sufficient

these guys don't have jet/jump packs?(are they jump type or jet type?)

maybe make the jump/jet pack a purchase?

and the stealth field option a purchase too?

is there a reason to give them Drones?(They can take sniper drones?)

focusedfire wrote:

BTW, According to fluff Farsight has been working with Kroot and Rogue trader humans and mercs.
Gue'Vesa are in my fan-dex as Farsight only but he looses access to pirahnas and some other units.

The Tau Empire has also been working with Gue'vesa, so I would think they would have access. I think Farsight's greatest strength was the bonuses he conferred to his army in the 3rd Edition Codex. I think the return of that benefit is much more befitting of an army tailored and trained by Farsight.

I believe the rule was: +2 points for +1WS and +1I, but don't quote me on that. I will look it up in the morning.

Che-Vito wrote:

focusedfire wrote:

BTW, According to fluff Farsight has been working with Kroot and Rogue trader humans and mercs.
Gue'Vesa are in my fan-dex as Farsight only but he looses access to pirahnas and some other units.

The Tau Empire has also been working with Gue'vesa, so I would think they would have access. I think Farsight's greatest strength was the bonuses he conferred to his army in the 3rd Edition Codex. I think the return of that benefit is much more befitting of an army tailored and trained by Farsight.

I believe the rule was: +2 points for +1WS and +1I, but don't quote me on that. I will look it up in the morning.

I liked that rule too.

A trait system would be nice.

Like you could purchase different "tactics" like Mont'ka and Kau'yon + the others that are mentioned in the Tau fluff from the novels for your commander. Restrict the Commander to taking only one of them and give each tactic a special rule or upgrade for the entire army.

I've been tinkering with it, but I haven't come up with anyhting solid as yet.

The XV-15 has jet-packs. Its the old stealthsuit models that I still like better than the XV-25 but understood why they were changed because they looked like FW armed with burst cannons.


As to the Farsight buy up ability. I liked the rule but it was 5 pts per model. Worked good on crisis suits and depending on how you read the rule, Farsight himself. Any other units was a bit of a waste.

The Gue 'vesa in the regular empire might be too fully integrated and vanilla. I still might allow a limited access to the Tau empire but I feel they will really shine and have a purpose in a Farsight list.

Farsight doesn't have the full support of the Tau Empire so a sperate mercenaries list make sense. Farsight, with Aun'shis help has begun to rebuild the Tau society on the frontier but, even with this, the Farsight Enclaves are short on equipment. Farsight respects any who show courage and ability, so he has allowed human and kroot mercenairies to join his army.

In order to reflect this, I have it that Farsights army has lost the ability to field or still can't field some units.
The units are:
Vespids
Pirahna light skimmers(All Anti-grav and engine parts go toward the more durable Hammerhead and devilfish)
Remora Jetbike drones
Drones of any form
Any Special issue wargear
Any other special characters than Farsight himself and Aun'shi

To make up for these shortages, especially in fast attack, Farsight can now take:
Scout sentinels(2 squadron limit)
Vendeta Gunships(1 Squadron limit)
Strom troopers(Farsights rigid training and flexible style of warfare creates a Gue 'Vesa Storm trooper style troop unit)
These humans have limited access to the Tau wargear and IG weapon loadouts.(I.E.-burst cannons in place of bolters and heavy bolters, no plasma or fusion upgrades for the storms,Devifish replaces chimera as transport option, that type of set-up)

Mandatory rule that you have to take 2 infantry squads to get the Sentinels or vendetta's


He will also get access to the kroot.


Let me know what you think.

The XV-15 idea, Any other feedback?

Troops or elites that don't use up FOC slot?

Same questions from before.

funny thing... the Vendetta transport rules don't prevent you from loading XV suits inside