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Hehe ew no to the save

My solution is to give them the ability to avoid combat for a turn or so with a voluntary fallback rule.

The choice to fallback is made at the start of the opponents assault phase before assaults are declared. The initial fallback move can be in any direction but the unit must re-roll to regroup. If they fail the roll then the unit falls back as normal. This rule is restricted to only Tau units(Not Kroot Vespid or drones) that didn't move during their turn prior to the opponents assault phase.

That is the Tau's special army wide rule in my Fan-dex.

Looked, faced, killed but rarely played the Tau.

Simple changes but would really need to be playtested.

1. Lose Pathfinders as a unit type.
2. Pulse Rifle as is.
3. Free grenades same 10 pt cost.
4. Pulse carbine - built in markerlight.

Making the carbine the "pathfinder" option leads to value out of the troop slot and also avoids @ 200 points being invested in a Fast Attack slot just to deliver markerlights to the table. So a carbine is 1 S5 R 18" Assault or 1 Markerlight R 30" Heavy.

I would also prefer that all markerlights were immediately useable. So a squad of 12 FW with 4 carbines fires and 2 carbines hit, you could use them immediately to boost the BS of the 8 rifles to BS5 if you wanted to. This does mean the tau firing phase is

- Declare unit firing and target
- Fire all unit marker lights
- Fire all other weapons using any existing markerlights as desired.

DAaddict wrote:Looked, faced, killed but rarely played the Tau.

Simple changes but would really need to be playtested.

1. Lose Pathfinders as a unit type.
2. Pulse Rifle as is.
3. Free grenades same 10 pt cost.
4. Pulse carbine - built in markerlight.

Making the carbine the "pathfinder" option leads to value out of the troop slot and also avoids @ 200 points being invested in a Fast Attack slot just to deliver markerlights to the table. So a carbine is 1 S5 R 18" Assault or 1 Markerlight R 30" Heavy.

I would also prefer that all markerlights were immediately useable. So a squad of 12 FW with 4 carbines fires and 2 carbines hit, you could use them immediately to boost the BS of the 8 rifles to BS5 if you wanted to. This does mean the tau firing phase is

- Declare unit firing and target
- Fire all unit marker lights
- Fire all other weapons using any existing markerlights as desired.

I actually like this idea, but I think Pathfinders can also serve a different role altogether than Fire Warriors- so while I love the idea of sticking markerlights onto the carbine (making it assault 2 as some suggestions would likely be tood good) gives the carbine a specific niche.

But Pathfinders can still fill a "scout" type role. They can move ahead, markerlight enemy armor, and unleash seeker missile hell. Later turns, they can sit in cover and provide markerlight support to the rest of the army. They're fairly versatile. Problem is that they're flimsy, expensive, and basically markerlight drones because of the current army-wide need for increased BS- which for an army capable of including targetting arrays in everything doesn't do so by default.


I too have a fandex in the works that pulls together a lot of things. Its still wip, but coming along nicely.
I've got local friends that are interested in letting me play it once it's done so we can see what Tau in a proper 5th edition codex could do.

Another one I would like would be the general increase in ROF of Burst Cannons. They are short ranged in 5th ed world and with cover saves I think it could easily take a ROF of 4 or maybe even 5. Suddenly two under a hammerhead or 3 stealtsuits putting out 12 or 15 shots would be a lot of massed (still short ranged) fire. Heck you might even see them on the XV8 suits once in awhile instead of plasma/missle or any other combo instead of burst cannons

Off Topic:
I looked at increasing the RoF but quickly dismissed the idea when looking at teams and squadrons. I'm in favor of the elites being BS4 and BC's becoming 24" range.

On topic:
By making the FW's more mobile with a voluntary fallback the army would start to lean towards carbine use.

I would be resistant to the FW's becoming defacto pathfinders for the same reason I don't want Pathfinders as troops. It is their functions/battlefield rolls. Pathfinders may sit in one place(something that needs to be changed) but they don't hold objectives because they are marking targets as opposed to defending the objective.

I think that the shield drones will give 2-3" bubbles of protection from ranged attacks in the next codex. That would give them the durability to operate in the current game enviroment.

I like the idea from Focus Fire of falling back in the assault phase. I had a similar one, what about giving FWs the ability to choose to move as "slow and purposeful" Then they could shoot on the move and I think you could justify it on the grounds that since FW do not train for CC they most likely get extra training in other areas, such as firing on the move.

I'm in favor of making carbines have markerlights by default, and modifying pathfinders.

With the pathfinders, I would say make their markerlight assault 1 with a 24" range, giving them move through cover and stealth USR, and removing the limit on how many rail rifles can be taken in the unit. If Fire Warriors get photon grenades by default, then the points cost for the pathfinders can remain the same.

This makes the pathfinders able to fill two distinct roles which I feel are very scout like. They can either hold a position and provide sniper cover, or they can be fast moving units that put markerlights on a target.

I'm a huge fan of rail rifles because I feel they are something unique to tau. They are a high powered sniper rifle, and they all have target locks by default so they can pin multiple units.

Definitely want to see more rail rifles, I really like tau but its not the rules that are keeping me out (I play Deamonhunters) its the prohibitive cost of the suits, that said if I have any luck on ebay I'll definitely give the fandex a go FF

I think that the ability to mount a rail rifle on a crisis suit would be cool

RedGuardian73 wrote:I think that the ability to mount a rail rifle on a crisis suit would be cool

That would be different and I like it, what I like even more is mounting it on Stealth suits so they have more options. Ranged Meq killer, medium swarm killer, and short tank killer.

Granted that would make the sniper team pretty much obsolete unless you limited the number of rifles and made it expensive or something.

you made a spelling error in the anti armor part
its earth caste not cast (thats not such a big deal but still wanted to write it)
i think those rules would be good cept the anti armor thing i think they should be able to wield a tau equavilent to the imperial melta bombs

That's what battlesuits are for (on the 3+ save bit).

rabid1903 wrote:I'm in favor of making carbines have markerlights by default, and modifying pathfinders.

With the pathfinders, I would say make their markerlight assault 1 with a 24" range, giving them move through cover and stealth USR, and removing the limit on how many rail rifles can be taken in the unit. If Fire Warriors get photon grenades by default, then the points cost for the pathfinders can remain the same.

This makes the pathfinders able to fill two distinct roles which I feel are very scout like. They can either hold a position and provide sniper cover, or they can be fast moving units that put markerlights on a target.

I'm a huge fan of rail rifles because I feel they are something unique to tau. They are a high powered sniper rifle, and they all have target locks by default so they can pin multiple units.

I like your carbine markerlight idea though perhaps it should apply only to pathfinders.

I don't want FWs to get photon grenades by default since I want to keep them out of H2H and I don't want to pay the points for a weapon I intend not to use.

I like the "Fire Warriors = pathfinders" but give them the defensive grenades as a pay upgrade.