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I'm just starting a Tau army (getting my first model today actually) and I want to model it around the invasion force in the BL novel Courage and Honour (in a small scale way of course). At some point I want to get Aun' rai (who is essentially an ethereal with twin hand weapons, the basic wargear) . I've read their dex entry many times I can't fathom what they' re for. Ok they do have some nice army rules like fearless and re-rolling morale checks and all but price of failure really doesn't help, yes they get preferred enemy but they' re Tau, they can 't fight in combat anyway and re-rolls to hit isn't going to help that much so all it does is make you take many annoying morale checks. To cut to the point do you guys think it's worth buying an Ethereal for the fluff or to just exclude him. Please vote above and write me your thoughts below.

I dont think that for anything competitive they are that worth it, but you did mention wanting to do a fluff army, and in that case I would consider them so as to relate more to the book. Heck you might even find a good use for them and tell the rest of us!!!

For the fluff yes. . . .but never use him in a game, never ever

Ethereals need to have Shas-ui bodyguards built into their cost, and the option to take IG-like advisors to be worth it at all. As it stands, grab another Shas'el if you want a 2nd HQ...

Voted yes because of fluff. But as has been stated don't actually play it -.-

The only thing worse then an ethereal in a Tau list is the space pope himself.

You forget autistic child of the Hammerhead, Dorian.

fluff yes, rules/gamewise no. i have one painted/modelled simply because my 2500pt force *should* have an ethereal leading it. although he's only died once, the effect was devastating enough to have me say not worth it in the poll.

Yes, When you absolutely want your squad of Broadsides to hang around.

Take 3 Broadsides w/ 4 Shield drones and 2 gun drones

Then add Crisis commander with 2 shield drones, iriduim armor, TL-MP, Posi Relay, and target Lock

Finally include Ethereal w/2 gundrones

This makes a great anchor unit for hybrid ninja Tau

Later

TRISKELION7 wrote:I've read their dex entry many times I can't fathom what they' re for.

Basically they are the cheerleaders of the Tau Empire. Those 'symbols of office'? Pom-poms or Spirit Sticks. Or Unholy Maraccas of Doom. They excluded the only Awesome Ethereal (Aun'Shi).

Ethereals are less than useful in direct combat then again, "Close Combat" in a Tau army is best left up to the more Hacky-Slashy Hungry Birdmen and their feisty hounds. Ethereals allow you to reroll all leadership rolls.

Since most Tau Units aren't wanting to be in Close Combat, and if they lose the combat (and aren't destroyed) they can reroll the dice used to determine if they are going to stay and continue the melee (Bad for Tau) or break off and open up the enemy to every weapon in your army coming down on them.

I heard they make good paperweights.

Trevak Dal wrote:Since most Tau Units aren't wanting to be in Close Combat, and if they lose the combat (and aren't destroyed) they can reroll the dice used to determine if they are going to stay and continue the melee (Bad for Tau) or break off and open up the enemy to every weapon in your army coming down on them.

1)Not always true. If the unit has been caught it is often better that the unit sticks in to tarpit the enemy for an additional turn.

2)Tau chances of succesful fall back are worse than their chances in cc.

3)And, the re-roll is voluntary not mandatory so the negative you just mentioned never applies.


Now I agree about Aun'shi. He was great and fit the army really well.

Also, The ethereals rules were written for a gaming enviroment that wasn't so mech oriented and the average games points were 1500 or less, back when a gun-line was still somewhat feasible. The ethereal can still be good for helping units to not break after suffering 25% shooting losses it is just a matter of adapting to 5th ed..