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Do these have any use anymore aside from changing the LoS profile of the skimmer in question? Thanks in advance.

They don't have any use period. The Tau Codex Entry doesn't say anything about removing Flying Bases. All it says it No Longer counts as a Skimmer. It remains on its flying base and doesn't change anything regarding LOS.

Don't forget the only 2 situations you may ever remove a flying base is if the Skimmer is Immobilised or Wrecked, and even then only if it is possible to remove the base. This is of course discounting the 3rd scenario of "A special Rule instructs you to." The Tau Landing Gear has no such instruction.

Well I can see the RAW in that obviously, the main question still stands and I was wondering if I was missing something in their current use. So far it seems like I'm not.

Um... Didn't I just answer the Main Question?

I assume that it is "Do these have any use anymore"?

I get the vibe that you have the perception that they affect the LOS profile of the Skimmer... when they don't. You Aren't missing anything, regarding the actual rules anyway.

If you want to house rule to allow you to do it, then by all means ask your club to let you.

Yes you did and I appreciate it =) I do realize that there are more minds than just you and me out there though and it's possible that we've both missed something else. However, if no one else posts I'll assume that's not the case. That's all.

As for the LoS thing; like I said I can easily see the RaW that even if landing gear are deployed they still stay on their base. That's pretty obvious rereading things. I know that's not how my friends and I will play it to at least give them some small use (I think that's how it's ruled in the INATFAQ as well), but that's obviously not relevant here not being RAW and all.

I would read the previous codex on landing gear, it might have more detail. GW does that kind of thing, they drop detail because they assume you played the game before this edition. Regardless, the main rule book says that skimmers have transparent flyng bases. If the codex says you no longer count as a skimmer, then all the rules in the BRB on page 71 no longer apply. Therefore you must remove your flying base, as that is a rule for skimmers AND not your landed vehicle.

The real question is what do you do if you modeled your tau vehicle with the landing gear in the raised position.

Mine are all done with the gear in the lowered position, and I can assure you that raises the vehicle enough that you still don't block TLOS entirely.

Gwar! wrote:They don't have any use period. The Tau Codex Entry doesn't say anything about removing Flying Bases. All it says it No Longer counts as a Skimmer. It remains on its flying base and doesn't change anything regarding LOS.

Don't forget the only 2 situations you may ever remove a flying base is if the Skimmer is Immobilised or Wrecked, and even then only if it is possible to remove the base. This is of course discounting the 3rd scenario of "A special Rule instructs you to." The Tau Landing Gear has no such instruction.

I'd just like to mention, that the same rule which limits the skimmer base removal to the effect of "immobilised" and "wrecked" results also says in the end:

"Note, that it is not permitted to remove the flying stand other than in the two cases above, as normally skimmers cannot land in battle conditions."

That is the general rule.

The codex says:

"Tau vehicles are fitted with basic landing gear in case they should suffer malfunction. In any turn that the vehicle does not move, it may choose to no longer count as Skimmer until it moves again. This benefit does not apply to the first turn of the game".

This actually doesn't mention landing, though I think it is reasonable to assume that is what the rule describe.

Ability to land is thus defined in the codex as exceptional ability of Tau skimmers (result of the particular Tau design policies), and thus it exceeds the "normal" conditions BRB describes. As such it can be understood as specific allowance to remove the base to land the vehicle.

I'd call it common-sense interpretation of the rules. At the very least, if your opponent feels very strongly against removing the base, you may still decide to stop counting as skimmer without removing the flying base (nothing prevents you from doing that). I'm not sure what would be the benefits though.

Personally I do not see the BRB rule from the 5th edition as cancelling the functionality of the Tau landing gear as described in the Codex.


It's another matter that the ability to land is extremely situational and has little practical value, especially in the current edition.

It seems like a number of things in the Tau codex no longer have any use in the current edition, and to me this seems like one of them.

However, I could certainly see it both ways, and I wouldn't mind if my opponent wanted to take it the other way. Seems like a good D6 situation if you do mind, though

RiTides Nids wrote:It seems like a number of things in the Tau codex no longer have any use in the current edition, and to me this seems like one of them.

Well, I'd say only one piece of Tau gear is truly obsolete - the Command and Control Node. Landing gear is arguably still working, just the effect is pretty much useless under current LoS rules (or even detrimental, should someone try to ram your skimmer).

Other than that we have some border-line case rules which are worded well enough to be still useable (or even get much better), though it's sometimes hard to convince particularly narrow-minded opponents.