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MythicalMothman wrote:Drones in a Piranha squadron can already deploy as one drone unit. It's required, even.

My mistake there just got a little over excited at all themadness we might one day get, so how about instead piranahs have stealth ninja gun drones?... or not, ok back to sensible, I'd like to see the FW piranah varient make the codex and maybe the option for drones from various sources (such as piranahs and devilfishes) to be able to rally into other units of like midels (similar to the orks 3rd ed regrouping rule) meaning that even a unit that could not normally rally can be ''commanded'' to rally by closeby friendlies?

the eldar have Eldrad and he is dead so why not we get Puretide?

Cost: 350pts
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
4 6 5 5 5 4 4 10 2+

Supreme Commander: All units within 24'' Add +1 to their leadership and count as stubbourn and all units within 12'' are fearless (not including drones, kroot and Vespids without a strain leader.

Independent Character: Unless he is accompanied by a bodyguard, is an Independent Character

Can only be fielded in a tau army of 1,500 pts, If taken the player cannot field another Special Character.

Equipment: May choose hardpoint options from the battlesuit armoury (including special issue gear)
Iridium Armour
Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
Hard-Wired Drone Controller
Vectored Retro-Thrusters

Options: May take a bodyguard as per Codex: Tau Empire

Krellnus wrote:the eldar have Eldrad and he is dead so why not we get Puretide?

Cost: 350pts
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
4 6 5 5 5 4 4 10 2+

Supreme Commander: All units within 24'' Add +1 to their leadership and count as stubbourn and all units within 12'' are fearless (not including drones, kroot and Vespids without a strain leader.

Independent Character: Unless he is accompanied by a bodyguard, is an Independent Character

Can only be fielded in a tau army of 1,500 pts, If taken the player cannot field another Special Character.

Equipment: May choose hardpoint options from the battlesuit armoury (including special issue gear)
Iridium Armour
Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
Hard-Wired Drone Controller
Vectored Retro-Thrusters

Options: May take a bodyguard as per Codex: Tau Empire

He seems dramatically overpriced, even with the dual stubborn/fearless bubbles. The most expensive character in the space marine codex is tigurus, I think, who floats around 230, and that's because he's a libarian with neat wargear, better stats, all the psychic powers, AND he lets you reroll all reserves, which is huge. As you've posted him, puretide is just a overpriced shas'o with some leadership abilities (ground already covered by shadowsun). If you want to see an example of a good standalone special tau character (i.e. you buy him just because he kicks ass, not because of FOC shenanigans), look a r'myr on the previous page, who has a shas'o statline but is only about 160 or so. characters who are over 200 points need to be dead hard or do something REALLY special.

I actually had more specific statlines I had written up for brightsword and coldfire and a few other ideas (like a broadside commander from sac'ea who could give infantry he joined rerolls to shooting), but I was not sure I should post them. I'll just throw this one in here in stead of drowning you in my ideas for homebrew.

Commander Coldfire, hero of the tyrannic wars:

WS: 5
BS: 5
S: 5
T: 4
A: 4
I: 4
W: 4
Ld: 10
Sv: 3+(4+)
Points: 200

Bodyguard: 0-2 special; see below
Wargear: XV-8 suits, Burst Cannon, Flamer, Shield Drone, Hardwired Multitracker, Vectored Retros (counts as that army's Special Issue Item)
USR: Relentless, preferred enemy (tyranids), counter attack, fearless.

Special Rules:

Tyranid fighters (commander tactics): Coldfire's forces are veterans of the tyrannic war, and have trained extensively to ensure their effectiveness with them. If you buy coldfire, all burst cannons, flamers, and carbines in your army wielded by tau (not drones, kroot, gue'vesa or vespids) units become twinlinked. Your army also gains the the Preferred Enemy USR against Tyranids. If you buy another character with commander tactics, you must pick and use only one.

Grudge: Coldfire and his bodyguard have the counter attack USR.

Shas'vre veterans: You may buy Shas'els and Shas'os for coldfire's bodyguard (and only his bodyguard) for +15 points and +40 points, respectively. see the Tau Empire codex for details.


---

For those keeping track: that's 75 points for a Shas'o-or-better statline, 63 points (using twinlinked prices) for his guns and wargear, and the remaining 62 points represent the cost for his special rules and bodyguard options. this is fairly standard, since if you look at farsight, his war gear should only cost him about 115 points, meaning his bodyguard options, his sword, and his preferred attack rules cost him somewhere in the area of 60 points. That said, twin-linked BS's, carbines and flamers are way better than one unit with a powersword, which is why I think farsight needs more stuff to be worth his points values, particularly when you consider your FOC gets fethed when you pick him.

Markerlights: We should have more ways to take them in the army, be considered "Assault" or get a range boost and stay "Heavy" , and they should be less expensive.

It would set our army apart from the rest and force Tau generals to use their forces in concert like they are supposed to.

Ok. You know how in WHFB the lizards have cold blooded, so hear is the Tau equivalent;

FOR THE GREATER GOOD!: All units with this special rule roll 3D6 for all leadership tests

Krellnus wrote:the eldar have Eldrad and he is dead so why not we get Puretide?

Cost: 350pts
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
4 6 5 5 5 4 4 10 2+

Supreme Commander: All units within 24'' Add +1 to their leadership and count as stubbourn and all units within 12'' are fearless (not including drones, kroot and Vespids without a strain leader.

Independent Character: Unless he is accompanied by a bodyguard, is an Independent Character

Can only be fielded in a tau army of 1,500 pts, If taken the player cannot field another Special Character.

Equipment: May choose hardpoint options from the battlesuit armoury (including special issue gear)
Iridium Armour
Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
Hard-Wired Drone Controller
Vectored Retro-Thrusters

Options: May take a bodyguard as per Codex: Tau Empire

Sadly the Tau fluff here has completely broken itself, even before that.

The 1st Tau codex, Farsight was over 300 years old (either he found a way to cheat death or it was a susscessor or something) and Puretide was Farsights teacher.

The 2nd Tau codex, Farsight AND Shadowsun were Puretide's students, unless time folded apon itself and puretide came back in all his glory this can not happen. Puretide is dead via old age (The Tau average life span is 40 years, short but sweet as they would say. Some Tau do live longer aka space pope but i don't think they could live for 300 years plus)

The tau can't field ghosts.


In regards with a new tau codex. Yea, a few things could be done to fix it for 5th editon.

- The Tau should NOT be reinforced with any new close combat items, it breaks both the fluff and their style (unless it's a farsight only unit, then yea, that works).
- Markerlights should be able to fire while moving, Them being heavy weapons breaks mobility.
- Re-ajust the costs with units and upgrades to match 5e rulesets
- Steamline Tau rulesets (cib, kroot fieldcraft, markerlight, etc)
- The Tau need a leadership boost. For a race that believe in a "greater good" they seem to be very poor with backing their words with actions.
- Give the special Character's some usefulness (I'M LOOKING AT YOU SPACE POPE!)

Here is my input now (if i was writing the codex myself) Say if anything is OP, over costed, etc

Battlesuit Support systems

Comms jammer - 20 pts - Special issuse *New*

A extremely powerful electronic signal scattering beacon that breaks all but the most potent long range communication, disrupting received orders and commands. Deep striking units (including your own) that don't roll a scatter result with the scatter dice must re-roll the dice. HQ units that deep strike are uneffected by this rule (They make their own commands and compensate)

Advanced Stealth generator - 30 pts - Special issuse and xv22/25 only *new*

A improved Stealth system created with live combat data from the xv22 and xv 25 suit models, greatly improving the system beyond it's standard counterpart. Units firing on a model with a Advanced Stealth system check to see if they can see the target, just like using the night fighting special rule, except that the distance seen is now 2d6x2 instead of 2d6x3. If the unit Equiped with the advanced stealth system did not move or shoot during it's turn, the distance seen formula is 2d6.

Battlesuit wargear

Hard-wired Targetting array - 10 pts

A internal Targetting system that preforms equal to the external one. Increases the users BS by 1

Infanty wargear

Photon genades *Changed*

Photon genades may be used via either before or after a lost assault. If used before, they negate the charge bonus of the attacking unit. If used after losing a assault, the enemy unit attempting a sweeping advance gain a -2 penatly to their roll. (Photon genades may only be used once per game per unit)

Etheral *Changed*

Etheral may take a bodyguard of fire warriors. Each cost 3 points extra but have +1BS and +1T

Units within line of sight with the etheral gain +1ld

"Etheral Abilities"
A Etheral may take a Ability at a cost of 20 pts per ability, up to a max of 2. A etheral may use 1 ability per turn, any time.

Inspiring Fire(Your turn only) - A Tau unit within the line of sight of the etheral gain +1 BS until the end of the turn.
Relentless Water(Your turn only) - A enemy receive a +1 cover save penalty from shooting from each unit of tau, this effect stacks (can not increase the cover save over 6+) until the end of the turn
Grace of Wind(Your turn only)- A tau unit who may shoot as if he didn't move, regardless if he moved or not
Stotic Earth(Enemy's turn only) - A tau unit within line of sight gain +2ld until end of the turn.
Etheral's Wisdom(Enemy's turn only) - When the etheral or his bodyguard are assualted, the etheral creates multiable copies of itself and it's bodyguard to confuse attackers. The etheral and his bodyguard gain a 4+ invunability save.

If a Etheral is killed, All Tau (Not including kroot, drones or vespid) imply a -1ld penalty to all moral and leadership checks.

Special Character

Aun'va - Master of the undying spirit *changed*

May come with 2 fire warrior bodyguard sqauds, same rules as the etheral bodyguard.

Units within line of sight with the etheral gain +2ld

Aun'va may take 3 abilities free of charge. He can use 2 abilities per turn.

If Aun'va is killed, All Tau (Not including kroot, drones or vespid) imply a -2ld penalty to all moral and leadership checks, however all tau units become enraged at the enemy, for such a crime against the greater good shall not go unpunished. All Tau weapons gain a extra shot (exluding railguns) regardless of weapon type. All tau units must fire whenever they are able to, regardless of range.


Skyray missile gunship *New upgrade*

AA countermesures - 20 pts - Skyray only upgrade *New*

A complex aireal tracking device that is linked to air caste navy ships in space. If a enemy unit attemps to deep strike (including method via drop pod), you may expend a number of seeker missiles. Roll a d6 equal to the number of missiles expended, using the results on the table below.

1-2 -The incoming missile misses, the enemy unit deeps strikes normaly
3-5 -The incoming missile explodes before it directly hits them. Each deep striking unit takes a str 6 ap - hit (saves allowed), before coming into play.
6 -The incoming missile directly hits the deep striking unit. Each deep striking unit takes a str 8 ap 2 hit (saves allowed), before coming into play.

Devilfish troop transport *New upgrade*

Stealth generator - 10 pts - Devilfish only

A larger stealth system that's based with the application of the xv 15 and 25 suits. The stealth system is hard wired and and compacted into the hull, removing the need to use the devilfish's already cramped interior space.

New tank idea i thought up. Yes it sounds quite overpowered, but it's limited to 1 only.

Swordfish supressor gunship

A new variant of the tired and true hammerhead gunship. The prototype swordfish provides fire warriors teams with large amounts of heavy supressing fire, allowing them to either regroup or continue the attack while a rain of blue death strikes their foes. It's battles with the orks has proven most effect, devestating their ranks with unstoppable amount of firepower.

160 points
Armour; 13,12,10
BS: 4
Type: Tank, Skimmer
Crew: Tau Fire caste
Unit Type: Vehicle

A Swordfish is equpped with landing gear, and is armed with 4 turret-mounted heavy cib's (Range 24" Str 5 AP 4 Heavy 5, Rending) and a multi-tracker.

The secondary weapon system is either two flamers (counted as defensive weapons) at 15 pts for both or a shield generator system for 30 pts, giving the swordfish a 4+ invunability save.

Options - The swordfish may be equipped with any of the vehicle upgrades permitted by the tau armoury

Prototype - The swordfish is a prototype gunship, and as such can not be fielded in large numbers. Your Force may only include 1 Swordfish supressor gunship.


That's all i can think up for now. Tell me what you all think ^_^

Krellnus wrote:Ok. You know how in WHFB the lizards have cold blooded, so hear is the Tau equivalent;

FOR THE GREATER GOOD!: All units with this special rule roll 3D6 for all leadership tests

a problem with that would be that your going for the LOWEST score you can get, rolling 3d6 instead of war 40K's 2d6 would be quite....errr.....

Your suggestion for the photon grenades is pretty neat. Sweeping advances are such a pain that some way to get out more easily would be kool, and I think it fits the photon grenade fluff well.

Those Ethereal abilities are pretty neat and flavorful, and I like the Devilfish stealth fields (straight out of DOW!).

I concur

with the tau 3d6 leadership roll i got a head of myself (again) i forgot to add picking the lowest 2 d6

MythicalMothman, Thank you for the reply ;3 Gotta mix things up i say. And now for some more ideas from your friendly Aussie tau supporter ;3

Battlesuit Support systems

Break shield - 10 pts - special issuse *New*

A extremely powerful charged emitter that, when activated, unleashes a powerful kinetic pluse that knocks away all objects. When the unit is assualted, the player may opt to use the break shield. Move the attacking unit or units 6" from the user. No attacks are made on the user of the device, however the user may not use his "6 jetpack move or shoot during the next turn. Independent Character only (no drones). May only be used once per game.


A new battlesuit

XV 92 Stormbringer (80 pts, 10+ for promotion)

Same stats as a broadside, expect the weapons are a single railgun that can only fire submission rounds (no solid shot)

A new Variant of the old XV 88. The XV 92 was designed to support Tau cadres with bombardments from it's modified railguns. Not content with simple solid rounds, the Stormbringer is designed to use submission rounds to disperse hostile hordes of enemies.

I like the idea of a few more "special" characters however I would want them to be different from what other dex's already have. I would rather see them chage the FOC or change how your army plays. For instance I would rather not have a tau version of vulkan or any other SM leader.

Personally I am going to watch what happens with IG, Crons and DE (as rumored they will all be out before a tau update) to see what sort of special rules these primarly shooting armies get.

superscope, I like your ideas. As for my two cents said before, making the kroot more effective in CC would be nice, I think giving them a better initiative and better armor save would help a lot. The toughness does not have to change as it fits the fluff, but they have superior reflexes than a normal human, but have the same initiative? That does not make sense to me. That and let them increase their cover save by 1. I would also like to see the vespid be able to outflank. But that is just me.

guardpiper wrote:superscope, I like your ideas. As for my two cents said before, making the kroot more effective in CC would be nice, I think giving them a better initiative and better armor save would help a lot. The toughness does not have to change as it fits the fluff, but they have superior reflexes than a normal human, but have the same initiative? That does not make sense to me. That and let them increase their cover save by 1. I would also like to see the vespid be able to outflank. But that is just me.

Thanks. I like to think of ways to improve but not to break or distort what's already there. I agree with you with kroot improvements, they do need a higher initiative to prevent them getting turned into brown paste before they strike. That's true that they do have superior reflexes and they should represent that.

Also, i'm ok with the idea of special characters. But to be different from others i say stick with more "special issuse" items onto our suit commanders, so we can custom fit them to whatever style we like. a example would be some of the counter items from my other posts (Comms jammer) so you could base your commander on the idea of breaking deep striking (Because we all know deep striking terminators bring alot of pain to the average tau)

Sirius42 wrote:Well now most of the gaurd cat is out of the bag we can stop being sensible with our suggestions as 5th ed is obviously OTT ed. (which is not a bad thein IMO) So, while we are throwing ideas around, along with my previous suggestions why not make the submunition shot on the railgun AP 3 or AP4 rending.

No kidding. Everybody and their dog now has S10 shots, most have it in some form of template as well. WTF. That was one thing that truly made Tau special in the beginning was the strength of their guns. Now again everyone is S5 for everybody or hellfire/poison rounds.

So what are Tau going to get. Railguns are now going to S12 Ap1 with a re-roll on both to wound and vehicle damage tables? Its almost have to come to this to make up for just how powerful the last few codexs have turned out.

Jayden63 wrote:

Sirius42 wrote:Well now most of the gaurd cat is out of the bag we can stop being sensible with our suggestions as 5th ed is obviously OTT ed. (which is not a bad thein IMO) So, while we are throwing ideas around, along with my previous suggestions why not make the submunition shot on the railgun AP 3 or AP4 rending.

No kidding. Everybody and their dog now has S10 shots, most have it in some form of template as well. WTF. That was one thing that truly made Tau special in the beginning was the strength of their guns. Now again everyone is S5 for everybody or hellfire/poison rounds.

So what are Tau going to get. Railguns are now going to S12 Ap1 with a re-roll on both to wound and vehicle damage tables? Its almost have to come to this to make up for just how powerful the last few codexs have turned out.

three words..... Tau death star ;3 Hope whatever planet that gets attacked by it has a cover save ;3

Casper wrote:I like the idea of a few more "special" characters however I would want them to be different from what other dex's already have. I would rather see them chage the FOC or change how your army plays. For instance I would rather not have a tau version of vulkan or any other SM leader.

Personally I am going to watch what happens with IG, Crons and DE (as rumored they will all be out before a tau update) to see what sort of special rules these primarly shooting armies get.

should I?... Ah, hell, why not.

Here's a couple other characters I wrote up for Advance Tau Tactica Earlier today (original thread here): http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12675

I should just note in advance that these characters are written using 4th ed stats for everything else; they were part of a thought experiment to see what 5th ed. tau characters might look like:

Brightsword

Brightsword is mentioned briefly in Farsight’s fluff as a young, brash firewarrior. On top of this, he’s from Vior’la, a Tau world known for the aggressive nature of its warriors. Because of this, I decided to, thematically and game-play wise, make Brightsword a character that would reward aggressive tau players.

Commander Brightsword of Vior’la, Disciple of O’Shova:

WS: 4
BS: 4
S: 5
T: 4
A: 3
I: 4
W: 3
Ld: 9
Sv: 3+(4+)
Points: 175

Brightsword counts as your army’s +1 Fire Caste Commander.

Bodyguard: 0-2 Shas’vre Bodyguards
Wargear: XV-8 suits, Missile pod, Plasma Rifle, Shield Generator, Hardwired Multitracker, Stimulant Injector (special, see below)
USR: Independent Character, Relentless, Feel No Pain

Special Rules:

Commanding Style - Spirit of Mont’ka:
If you take Brightsword, All skimmers and crisis suits may outflank. You may also reroll one reserve each turn. However, due to Brightsword’s distrust of non-Tau, Vespids, Human Auxiliaries, and Kroot are all 0-1 choices.

Additionally, stimulant injectors are no longer special issue wargear.

If you buy another character that has “commanding style” as a special rule, you must pick and use only one. (i.e. if you buy two special characters, the FOc-modifications of one character override the other's, to represent the tau chain of command.)

Notes:

Point Rundown:

-50 points for shas’el statline
-67 for wargear
-58 points for outflanking and stimulants on all your crisis teams.

Outflanking is very powerful in 5th, so he might need a point bump, but I think Tau’s lack of nasty units that can get stuck in CC mitigates this somewhat.

Gameplay Considerations:
Obviously, Brightsword caters to aggressive players, as outflank is very powerful in 5th edition. When one considers that outflanking units may move and shoot normally, one can really begin to appreciate how powerful this is: an outflanking squad of devilfish-mounted firewarriors can outflank by turn 2 (with a positional relay), move 12, disembark within 12’’ of an enemy squad, and inflict serious hurt on a enemy heavy weapon team, or perhaps a squad of lurking gaunts waiting on an objective. The biggest limitation on this is Tau only have one piece of wargear that speeds reserves (positional relay), and it is specifically designed to keep you from bringing your entire army from reserves. I added the once-per-turn reroll to acknowledge this as an obstacle to a pure deep striking/outflanking Tau army, and raised his point cost appropriately.

The second effect of freeing up stimulant injectors is less powerful. On a standard Crisis Suit team, this will have the effect of making the teams last slightly longer in a firefight. The trade off is once the model with the Stim Injector (the team’s shas’vre or team leader) is wounded once, it becomes increasing risky to use allocate wounds on him, as this risks the loss of the team’s drones and bonding knife. However, when used on Brightsword’s bodyguard, (or a shas’el/o with his own bodyguards as a second HQ choice), the stim injectors come into their own, allowing an entire team feel no pain, allowing them to attack more recklessly than a Tau player might normally. This, again, fits Brightsword’s theme of powerful, but recklessly aggressive tactics.

+++

Ironwind
The only original character of the bunch, he’s an infantry commander from Sa'cea who tools around in unique broadside suit. His abilities are drawn, fluff-wise, from the fact that Sa'cea is one of the most heavily militarized tau worlds, and would probably have a large amount of infantry. He is designed to complement the “mobile infantry” playstyle, although you could conceivably use him to complement a static gunline.

Commander Ironwind, Coalition Leader of Sa'cea.

WS: 4
BS: 5
S: 5
T: 4
A: 2
I: 3
W: 3
Ld: 10
Sv: 2+(4+)
Points: 180

Ironwind counts as your army’s +1 Fire Caste Commander.

Bodyguard: 0-2 Shas’vre Broadside Pilots, or 0-12 Veteran Shas’vre (see ethereal bodyguard from Tau codex). Both choices are scoring (see below)
Wargear: XV-88-2 suit, Special Issue “Great-knife” railgun, Shield Generator, Hard-Wired Stabilization System, Hard-wired Target Lock, bonding knife, Hardwired drone-controller

USR: Independent Character, slow and purposeful, stubborn.

Special Issue “Great-knife” railgun:
Solid Shot: S10 AP1 Heavy 1, Twinlinked
Submunition: S6 AP 4 Large Blast, Twin-linked.

Options: Ironwind may buy up to two drones of any type, at the same price, options, etc.

Special Rules:

Commanding Style – Logistical Expert

Ironwind is one of the fire caste’s foremost experts at logistics, and as such, his troops are among the best supplied in the empire. Any firewarrior and Pathfinder squads get photon and EMP grenades for free. Stealthsuits get EMPs for free. If you buy a team leader or shas’ui/vre for these squads, they may take a markerlight at no additional cost.

Additionally, Broadsides are scoring units.

If you buy another character that has “commanding style” as a special rule, you must pick and use only one.

Frontline Warrior: Ironwind still fights alongside the ranks of shas’la warriors, believing that it is better for a commander to fight and die for his trooper than sit safely in the backfield. As a result, he has become an excellent team leader at the infantry level.

Any Tau squad (not kroot, drone, or vespids without a strain leader) attached to or joined by Ironwind gains slow and purposeful. Any squad attached to Ironwind gains stubborn.

Notes:

Points rundown:
-80 points for a Broadside Shas’vre or better statline,
-30 points for wargear, 20 points for his gun.

[…not counting his gun, but be aware: a crisis suit shas’vre is 35 points, and the rail gun on a hammerhead is 50 points (that’s 85 points together). A broadside shas’vre is 80 points. If you wanted to assign a value for the gun’s submunition ability, I’d put it at +20 points on top of the model, since it replaces your secondary weapon system (so no smart missiles or plasma rifles.) I feel this is fair.]

-50 points for free infantry wargear and scoring broadsides.

Gameplay Considerations:

Ironwind is designed to complement the “mobile infantry” style of tau. (for a longer description' see this article: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=5525)

Excerpt from above thread wrote:
The basic idea is that a pair of Broadside teams can reasonably soak anti-tank fire from just about any unit in the game, while giving better than they get. Supported by terrain hopping XV8 teams and Stealthed XV25s, these expensive Kau'yon lures provide something for your opponent to futilely fixate on while the remainder of your untouchable army pounds them into dust. Several inexpensive offensive rapid response units stand ready to intercept any fast assaulters who might try to engage the XV88's; frequently these take the form of an Ionhead and a medium sized (5-7) unit of Vespid. A pair of Kroot units will usually stand ready out of sight to countercharge whatever remnants make it into close combat with either of the Broadside teams.

Since your infantry are on the move, they are likely to encounter fast assaulters and enemy armor about midfield. Grenades thus give your squads tactical options against enemy armor, and photons allow you the possibility of tying up multiple enemy squads in an assault on a squad sacrificing it’s self for the greater good. Scoring broadsides mean you'd not have to babysit your objectives with additional squads; you now have the tactical flexibility to hold you points with broadsides and deploy the full bulk of your infantry forces to take enemy points. Finally, Ironwind himself can compensate for the lack of submunitions the army has (due to numerous broadsides in HS slots), while allowing a single squad of attached firewarriors to advance up field, providing rifle support to the carbine-using squads further up the board.

Brightsword would be a interesting choice, however sadly fluff wise it would be quite compilcated. His tactics were too brutal (even more-so that farsight) and was sensored by the tau empire from the excessive carange he dealt to the imperium.

Ironwind sounds cool (<3 broadsides) because i like a nice bulk amount of infantry XD

My Tau dreamteam:

FW's get photons free. They get special weapon drones (see below.) Carbines inflict either pinning or "difficult terrain" on the enemy, tau player choice; ala a thunderfire. Obviously, carbines get a bit more expensive.

Kroot get Stealth and Move Though Cover USR, and may infiltrate with krootox. Shapers are 20 points, but give armor to their squad for free, and let them reroll their outflank die.

Pathfinders get stealth USR. Give them an option to fight mounted in tetras. 0-1 Squad at full strength counts as a troop choice with appropriate Commander option.

Drones becomes scoring with appropiate commander option. they gain 0-2 special weapons: burst cannon, fusion gun, missile pod, flamer.

vespids rend, bitches. They also get S5 Ap 3 flame template if they buy a sarge.

Gue'vesa are officla units, and come in massive swarms of 20 guys; are treated like "militia" units. give them stubborn (This is our land, imperial bastards!) to make them the priemer tau "objective holder" unit.

Crisis suits are fine. Just give farsight's boys a slightly overpriced powersword/fist as a hardpoint option and they're perfect.

Stealth Teams and Sniper teams are merged into one unit, with sniper drones being a weapon option for a stealth shas'vre. Frags are useless for assaulting them, (which never made sense to me; they're fething invisible), they WILL hit first in CC.

Crisis suits of at least 3 suits become a scoring choice if you buy a Shas'O.

Give Shas'el/O option to enter play as a tank commander (enemy units must reroll sucessful hits to hit a command tank in melee, have special tank loadouts like ion-cycler turret mounts.) Counts as HQ choice, possibly messes with FOC chart (skyrays in fast attack!)

Etherials get a 4+ invul save. they convey +1 leadership as a global bonus, so units that can't see him get a little something. The veteran bodyguard becomes a troop choice if you buy Aun'va.

Skyrays get free shots at deep strikers, (S4 Ap- hit on entire squad on a 4+) and have options to transport gun drones ala drone harbringer. (functions as assult vehicle to tie up enemy squads with lots of drones in melee)

Hammerheads... can't think of anything too big, honestly. maybe get railrifle gun mount for longrange support.

Devilfish, see Hammerhead.

Pirahna can launch drones into assault, similar to skyray. I never use them so I'd need to take a look at their stat block before saying anything stupid.

special dudes:

Shadowsun: slight point drop (down to 160) tanks within her leader bubble ignore shaken/stunned, as shadowsun is screaming at the crew over the comms not to fail the greater good. NOW people'll use her.

Farsight: Crisis suits are ALL troop choices, not merely scoring (although they can't deep strike if troops), free universal WS, I, and ld. boost, everyone gets counter attack, and shas;vres can buy powerswords/fists. The guy cripples you Force-Org-Chart, so he'd BETTER be good. slight price increase, up to 195.

Aun'va: significant point drop; he is grossly overpriced. he should be around 140, before you add (any) bodyguards. You may buy him vet firewarrios or those silly bouncers as bodyguards for 12 or 25, respectively. He gives stubborn to all tau, not just those that can see him. He can field veteran firewarriors as troops. bodyguards all get that rerollable 4+ cover save. and lasly, units within 12 get counter-attack.

While I'm one of the first to shout for more/newer and make what we've got work/better I'm not sure if the Tau will get to hop on the Special Character bandwagon.

I do see the ones that we have as improving I don't see us getting a leader for every suit-weapon layout.

IMHO, I see the Tau SCs as always being a little overpriced because elevation of the One is not the Tau way. Now, they do raise up heros but they aren't for glorification of the individual or a particular battle-tactic. They are rather symbols of what any Caste-member can become by following the path of the Greater Good.
It's for this reason that I feel that improvements will and probably should be mainly confined to the main army.

Now having said that, if the IG codex ends up being what it's rumored to be. Then my craziest wish-list to date is boring in comparison. It's going to be a fun 2 years of speculation on the next Tau codex.

Change Aun'va's rerollable cover save a rerollable inv save (OMG AN EHTEREAL WORTH ITS POINTS!!!)

BTW: what is a SC?

Special characters

Astalado wrote:GIVE ME SOMETHING THAT CAN HOLD UP IN CC OR OVERWATCH!


Thats all we need something to bolster the FW.. Something that we fight off Drop Pod into line in one turn. I am sorry but we can not handle assault give us some kind of alien or something with 3 armor and a power weapon or rending or something. FW they can not handle anything, with the adding of everyone getting cover saves. It like giving fire warriors a gun and ask them to shot there own head. in 4th it was the ability to kill marine units at about 24 inches and do it well to hold off the tide. Now with cover saves and marines in groups of even 2 can whip a unit. Cover saves and this whole thing about mixing units to give each other 4+ in the open.. well point blaster on chin, aim up and fire....

In the fluff it speaks about how tech the tau is... Then explain to me why we do not have Overwatch!!.. One of the most advanced gun army in the game sets there and watches Fleeting Marines and other assault armies run up to us and hits us with out pulling the trigger? Umm, it talks about how the Tau are hunters... We are Hunter Cadres. We hunt.. not set there and watch the pretty Marine teleport in and hit us upon first turn.

YES!! we have the best basic weapon in the game. we have a Str 5 ap 4 gun that shoot 30. But with the rules of running and flank and everything else. Every game I played 30 in range mean nothing. So I can shoot far but when the chainsword is in my chest.. who cares?

Vespid Rock with there guns.. Marines hate them but they also can be defeated with 3 marines in hand to hand and there weapons are same range as a fleeting assault marine. They don't get to shoot. A ten man squad of Vespid with str 5 AP3 and a couple of marker lights thrown in as support to up there bs to five worked like butter in 4th. But with cover save there in the crapper. in 4th I used 29 Vespid as counter charge in my gun lines. Now.. there just like fire warrior they set there and watch chainsword rip them apart


Kroot. waste of points. They are cool but can't hold up in hand to hand with the new rules. Stathammer a 10 man squad of marines and 20 man unit of Kroot. most of the time Kroot will lose with LD 7 Marines will use there str 4 and power weapons vs t 3 and cause more wounds and kroot lose combat and when come to ld rolls ld 7 suck as a base!

Tau need something like Over Watch. The gun Line is dead in 5th untill there is something that can stop assault armies.

Farsight Army is only thinig I have come up with that may have a chance but only against MEQ. I have enough AP 3 Weapons and speed in suits and mech, but agains horde its dead.

There is no one list that can be stand up to all types of Warhammer. There is no balance army to hold back the tide!

Sorry for the rant.

i think youre focussing on MEQ way too much, not everything is meq, stealthsuits rape non MEQ units, just last night i shot off 15 shots at some rangers, then assaulted them and decimated them. markerlights are your solution to heavy cover. with marker lights, more stealthsuits, and a sniper drone squad dropped 8 dark reapers in cover in one shooting phase. kroot arent a waste if you use them right, power weapons dont mean too much against kroot with the best sv being 6, plus kroot absolutely rape anything in melee that isnt strictly a melee unit(orks, assault marines etc) again last night, my opponent deep striked the eldar flying guys who drop the grenade pack, cant remember the name. he dropped next to my commander and fire warrior line and shot into my HQ, killed 2 drones, i assaulted him with 20 kroot, killed them all and i took 3 wounds. and youre math is wrong, 20 kroot assault 10 marines, marines get 10 attacks(a pistol but no CC weapon), hit on 4+ so 5 hit, Wound on 3+ so 3 wounds roughly, 3 dead kroot. then if you assault well you can get 12-15 kroot into melee, so roughly 38 attacks, 19 hits, 9-10 wounds, 3-4 unsaved. so against normal marines theyre about equal. and that's assuming you don't soften up the marines with some snipers or plasma. also, 20 kroot are cheaper than 10 marines, 140 vs 190, so you can expect them to be a bit weaker.

as far as assault troops, go, pin them, pin them fast. sniper drones are great for this, use some pathfinders to hit up 4 or 5 marker lights on them, drop their leadership from 8 to 4 and buff bs, you'll probably pin them, then just kill them when you get the chance. as far as assault termies, if they deep strike behind your line, they cant assault this turn, i've had plenty of experience with termies dropping like flies to numbers. lets say 6 termies deep strike, 12 fire warriors open up at rapid fire range, with the aid of 2 marker hits, i usually run 6-8 pathfinders so thats easy to do. now you have 24 shots, BS 5, 20 hit, 3+ to wound, 13 wounds roughly, 2-3 fail. 120 points worth of fire warriors took out 80-120 points of termies in one shooting, and thats with only 2 marker lights, if you get more hits, even more stuff to buff up. Railguns are your best bet. a squad of broadsides would be great against them. anti MEQ crisis suits would be invaluable too.

tau are still quite viable in 5th edition, the tactics are a bit different, i think you pretty much have to use markerlights to negate the cover

Give Kroot Furious Charge

Krellnus wrote:Give Kroot Furious Charge

And/or the Stealth USR. Its stupid that their ability ONLY works in forests...

ObiFett wrote:

Krellnus wrote:Give Kroot Furious Charge

And/or the Stealth USR. Its stupid that their ability ONLY works in forests...

Indeed, terrain specific/dependant abilities are crap, and impossible to point out fairly, since either you get tehm for free (thereby getting an advantage when the board is setup right) or they charge for them, leving you at a disadvantage on some tables...

I was super pissed to see it happen again in the very newest codex (with techmarines Bolster Defences ability)

Jack

Jackmojo wrote:

ObiFett wrote:

Krellnus wrote:Give Kroot Furious Charge

And/or the Stealth USR. Its stupid that their ability ONLY works in forests...

Indeed, terrain specific/dependant abilities are crap, and impossible to point out fairly, since either you get tehm for free (thereby getting an advantage when the board is setup right) or they charge for them, leving you at a disadvantage on some tables...

I was super pissed to see it happen again in the very newest codex (with techmarines Bolster Defences ability)

Jack

bolster defenses is not that bad, since it always is in effect regardless of terrain type. It isn't like you're going to be playing games with no cover what-so-ever, now is it? By contrast, kroot's field craft (and other similar abilities, like 4E's "jungle fighters" from the Ig codex) only have an effect if there is a forest on the map, which is totally arbitrary since there is no guarantee what so ever you'll be playing on a forest table. the best way is to just give them stealth and move though cover, and make up the losses by letting krootox infiltrate (they would be decent pillbox units if they could only infiltrate with a squad.)

Yea, that would help the kroot a ton.

What about Tau stealth suits? It's wise to note that the Tau stealth suits don't actualy have the stealth USR. What about that? Also, the stealth generators they have totally random rolling (2d6x3). It's not cool to rely their ability to avoid getting shot at by shear randomness and luck, especialy when their max firing range is 18"! At equal range, a unit needs to roll at a dice total of 6. With two die that's roughly a 58 to 65% chance. Stealth suits cost alot for what they are. Their fire power and other abilities (jump jets, deep strike, etc) are fine, but the stealth generator is broken IMO.

I think JSJ got weaker in 5e not just because of LoS changes, but also because of the proliferation of running and fleeting enemies.

Milquetoast Thug wrote:
bolster defenses is not that bad, since it always is in effect regardless of terrain type. It isn't like you're going to be playing games with no cover what-so-ever, now is it? By contrast, kroot's field craft (and other similar abilities, like 4E's "jungle fighters" from the Ig codex) only have an effect if there is a forest on the map, which is totally arbitrary since there is no guarantee what so ever you'll be playing on a forest table. the best way is to just give them stealth and move though cover, and make up the losses by letting krootox infiltrate (they would be decent pillbox units if they could only infiltrate with a squad.)

Incorrect, its "a single Ruin", with the added deal breaker of "in your deployment zone" so its actually even worse then jungle fighter or field craft, because you might not even get to use it on a table with a ruin...if its in the wrong spot.

Jack

cerberez wrote:I think JSJ got weaker in 5e not just because of LoS changes, but also because of the proliferation of running and fleeting enemies.

Agreed. I have only been playing for about 6 months but I remember hearing a rumor that our Suits used to be able to jump 12", shoot, jump 12". Is this true? If so, and considering they seem to be going back to alot of the older rules, this may be something we could look forward to.