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Unit: Wilting Sorrow
Model: Demiurg Atmospheric Shuttle
Points: 175
Models: 1
Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Heavy, Unique)

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.

Special Rules: Acute Senses, Deepstrike

Unit: Vespid Princeling
Model: Vespid Princeling
Points: 125
Models: 1
Unit Type: Jump Infantry (Character)

Vespid Princeling: WS: 4 BS: 4 S: 4 T: 4 W: 3 I: 6 A: 4 Ld: 10 Sv: 3+

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.


Unit: Vespid Stingwing
Model: Stingwing, Strain Leader
Points: 100
Models: 5
Unit Type: Jump Infantry

Sting Wing: WS: 3 BS: 3 S: 3 T: 4 W: 1 I: 5 A: 1 Ld: 6 Sv: 5+
Strain Leader: WS: 3 BS: 3 S: 3 T: 4 W: 1 I: 5 A: 2 Ld: 9 Sv: 5+

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.

Wargear: Command Helm (Strain Leader Only), Neutron Blaster

Special Rules: Deepstrike, Fleet, Harrying, Hit and Run.

Stingwing and Strain Leaders saves are Invulnerable.

Unit: Gue'Vesa ODST's
Model: Gue'Vesa Veteran
Points: 250
Models: 10
Unit Type: Infantry

Gue'Vesa Veteran: WS: 3 BS: 4 S: 3 T: 3 W: 1 I: 3 A: 2 Ld: 9 Sv: 4+

Gue'Vesa ODST's are an Auxiliary Elites choice for a Tau Empire Army.

Wargear: Ablative Flak Armour, EMP Grenades, Penetrator Las-Gun, Photon Grenades, Plasma Knife

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.

making their attacks poisoned (4+) as standard would likely be perfectly fine I think.

...They already have power weapons at I5 with hit and run. and harry, and an S5 AP3 assault attack <__<

I see nothing that actually specifies it is used in CC, and nothing that specifies it's at Str5.

As it reads they simply have 1 Str3 atk each.

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.

Early draft of 2.0 should be up.

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.

I like what you've done, perticully how you did the seeker missiles. Always thought they deserved more and what you've done refelects that.

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!

Hi!

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

Fire Warriors - 110
SMS - 125
x5 = 625

15 Kroot, 5 Hounds - 155
x2 = 310

Vespid - 100
x2 = 200

4 Melta Missiles - 120
6 Seeker Missiles - 90
4 ABF Missiles - 60

1497

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!)

Kroot Master Shaper - 80
Krootox - 100
Genevolution (+1T) - 131
x2 = 262

20 Kroot, 10 Hounds - 230
4 Krootox - 290
x3 = 870

2 Broadsides - 160
2 TL Fusion Blaster - 184
x2 = 368

1500

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+PF Tac 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 brb pg 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.

Yeah, a sniper weapon is always Str X because sniper weapons ignore Toughgness, and count as Str 3.

Instead of Sniper, just make it Poison(4+), Rending, Pinning.
Poison is optional though

I see that these are simply a couple of issue we'll just have to disagree upon; thank you for your help on all of the other ones

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.

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.

Just to be random, did you consider including XV9's in your fandex?