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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.

Actual, this was one of the things I was thinking of doing. Great minds think alike

Can't help it. They would look super bad arce. screw the close support suit. They can just beat the crap out of you from across the table

Hi!

Today was testing day!

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, MSU Tac 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...

Uhm, i guess that's all.

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.

What would anybody think of Harrying for XV-9's? <__<

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.

The Kroot historicly have had psykers, from eating psykers.

Yup, but they gotta keep their special outings on the down-low. Wouldn't want to get Communion Helm'd, would we?

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 WH40K TT 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.

TBH, there's nothing saying that guard regiment that turned Gue'vasa did have any sanctioned psykers in.

I think the logical answer is the Kroot Shaman - Kroot that have eaten psykers, that have developed minor psychic powers.

They were things like granting Shroud to things within 12-24" or something. Nothing major.

But one that can also disrupt enemy psykers to a degree.

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.

That's runes, silly

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 40K RPG 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.

Thats very good. are you going to finnish the layout likey ou have on the last page?

Also, are you going to give a shas'o a stat bonus over a shas'el?

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

Oh, sorry. I must of missed it. I see it now I have looked again.

Cool, looking foward to your work!

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.

Thanks missed that before! Man they sound beefy now.

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!