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I read the Tau codex last night and had a few questions for those who fight for the Greater Good.

1) What is an Ethereal good for? I see a morale bonus and an neat retinue, but a pathetic statline and drawback. How do you use an Ethereal?

2) What is the point of landing gear? I don't see an advantage to not being a skimmer.

3) What is the effect of putting a hard-wired multi-tracker on a Shas'ui Team Leader (in a Firewarrior team)? The multi-tracker rules say he can fire two battlesuit weapons systems, but he has none...

I'm not a Tau player (yet), but thought these questions were interesting. Plus my buddy plays.

1. Ethereal is really only there for fluff purposes. You could possibly use it if vs guard so you'll be able to beat up guard in combat (if only it effected kroot).

2. Landing gear could be used to land it to allow LOS over (XV's) or to hide units behind (objective holders).

3. If your opponent allows you to use non-battlesuit weapons or not is up to them.

1) Usually you don't, 'cause Ethereals suck. I guess the idea is that you stuck him with infantry unit in centre of your gunline (Honour Guard or line infantry, some use him to prop Broadside teams) and Tau units near him get to reroll their morale checks. That's the only way I've got any use of him, anyway. He also makes a good bait as opponents tend to think that if they kill Ethereal, they auto-win.

2) Was designed for 4th ed. rules, largely useless now.

3) So he can shoot Markerlight & Pulse rifle. Ignore the semantics. Anyway, it is generally unadvisable to load Shas'ui full of wargear, as he can easily end up costing 40+ points for little good.