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Alpha 1.3 released! My main Playtesting Opponent is back from exams, and I've got the next few days off; should get plenty of time to iron this out and incorporate some of the things inspired lately.

Skyrays! They are beautiful and I love them. Unfortunately, the .pdf has a mistake in its entry for them; it should be as follows



I'd forgotten to change everything over to being squadron-based, so the .pdf version will look inconsistent in comparison.

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions, and will be tossing up some mech-heavy battle reports soon!

My Condensed Codex is almost done, just the Heavy Support options to do, so I can send that to you later.

Also - finally actually started my own Tau Empire Extended Codex
First ramblings here if you want a gander:
[size=9Tau Empire Extended Codex[/size]

WAIT WHAT THE HECK!
those skyrays have 4 sms AND 6 seeker missiles. What!? WHAT!?

seriously...for 150 is very very overpowered. I have to say, to me it makes much more sense to remove the seeker missiles on a skyraym and instead just leave them with sms system (perhaps with longer range) as atm, with 10 weapons, thats ridiculous.
The rest seems ok, where actually is this codex? rest Im going off based from the lists etc.

One other thing: Seems to be seen a lot "So and so cost so and so in this codex, so they should cost this much in my codex too" No. You need to consider the points cost based on what it uses, If a unit is overprices in a codex, that can lead into the units you use this for being the same...
Other than that good.

Sorry to shower with complaints, just started reading
1: rules for sniper suit seem redundant "gains tank hunter if it doesnt move" but if its weapon cannot be fired when it moves, no one would move.. See where Im getting at there? also why are they jump infantry? snipers dont go hoppin round the battlefield, they mark their targets and own them- perhaps remove jump pack, rework rules slightly, then good

2: The suit system - I actually am loving the idea of purchasing different battlesuit types- but way too exspensive in certain cases.. also, toughness 5 and 2 wounds? wha? take it at one wound. I understand toughness 5 but not multiple wounds. Im lovin this part of the list.

3: Lovin the idea of For The Greater Good! One slight suggestion however, perhaps change it as an ork WAAAGH style thing? have it that once a game, a tau army can declare the battle cry, making all tau units On the board Fearless?

4:The ethereal is Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Ethereals do not command the battlefield at all, they join the armies as observers, and as councilors to the commanders, to avoid anything like Commander farsight from happening. Drop him to 60 points, keep his death the same (although be more specific with the rule than just fall back, leaves a lot of open holes for arguments) and give him a 4 up invulnerable save. Infact, thats the only advice I can give. Ethereals on the board seem stupid to me, I see no way of them working, nice rules, but for the wrong unit imho. Ethereals, a combat unit? WHAAAA? what was gw thinking...this is their fail not yours. Peace seems cool, seems to be a nice way to keep manoeverability. (Sorry to sound hatey to this, I just dislike the ehtereal in gaming aspects all together)
Wait.
Just read the shield rule... so if he dies, which he inevitably will. He blows his army up and makes them retreat? that would cause a lot of damage considering all his rules require people nearby...

5: Pathfinders....what? no markerlights? entire unit has railguns? pssh who needs sniper suits when you have a 12 man team of the snipersuits!
Markerlights were awesome...where they go? D: Oh. there they are. theyre an upgrade...most things I see being able to take those, dont want them.

6: At first glance lost at the hunter cadres, nothing explaining them, are they two units fo 6 man teams? the tau arent platoon based. A hunter cadre in most cases (board wise) would be the whole army, not one troop choice.
Overall, a lot of great ideas in this codex, lots of stuff I do hope to see in the codex, albeit some of it changed, looking forward to seeing this come together!
Im sorry I seemed to be hatey, I honestly think a lot of this codex is cool, but Id rather see the problems gone then the good stuff being paid attention to...that stuffs fine.

I like your idea for the ethereal. One of many units in our current dex that are basically unplayable. All I want from a revamped dex is for units like vespid, stealth suits, sniper drones, ethereals to become viable choices. We live in hope!

blood lance wrote:WAIT WHAT THE HECK!
those skyrays have 4 sms AND 6 seeker missiles. What!? WHAT!?

seriously...for 150 is very very overpowered. I have to say, to me it makes much more sense to remove the seeker missiles on a skyraym and instead just leave them with sms system (perhaps with longer range) as atm, with 10 weapons, thats ridiculous.
The rest seems ok, where actually is this codex? rest Im going off based from the lists etc.

One other thing: Seems to be seen a lot "So and so cost so and so in this codex, so they should cost this much in my codex too" No. You need to consider the points cost based on what it uses, If a unit is overprices in a codex, that can lead into the units you use this for being the same...
Other than that good.

Sorry to shower with complaints, just started reading
1: rules for sniper suit seem redundant "gains tank hunter if it doesnt move" but if its weapon cannot be fired when it moves, no one would move.. See where Im getting at there? also why are they jump infantry? snipers dont go hoppin round the battlefield, they mark their targets and own them- perhaps remove jump pack, rework rules slightly, then good

2: The suit system - I actually am loving the idea of purchasing different battlesuit types- but way too exspensive in certain cases.. also, toughness 5 and 2 wounds? wha? take it at one wound. I understand toughness 5 but not multiple wounds. Im lovin this part of the list.

3: Lovin the idea of For The Greater Good! One slight suggestion however, perhaps change it as an ork WAAAGH style thing? have it that once a game, a tau army can declare the battle cry, making all tau units On the board Fearless?

4:The ethereal is Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Ethereals do not command the battlefield at all, they join the armies as observers, and as councilors to the commanders, to avoid anything like Commander farsight from happening. Drop him to 60 points, keep his death the same (although be more specific with the rule than just fall back, leaves a lot of open holes for arguments) and give him a 4 up invulnerable save. Infact, thats the only advice I can give. Ethereals on the board seem stupid to me, I see no way of them working, nice rules, but for the wrong unit imho. Ethereals, a combat unit? WHAAAA? what was gw thinking...this is their fail not yours. Peace seems cool, seems to be a nice way to keep manoeverability. (Sorry to sound hatey to this, I just dislike the ehtereal in gaming aspects all together)
Wait.
Just read the shield rule... so if he dies, which he inevitably will. He blows his army up and makes them retreat? that would cause a lot of damage considering all his rules require people nearby...

5: Pathfinders....what? no markerlights? entire unit has railguns? pssh who needs sniper suits when you have a 12 man team of the snipersuits!
Markerlights were awesome...where they go? D: Oh. there they are. theyre an upgrade...most things I see being able to take those, dont want them.

6: At first glance lost at the hunter cadres, nothing explaining them, are they two units fo 6 man teams? the tau arent platoon based. A hunter cadre in most cases (board wise) would be the whole army, not one troop choice.
Overall, a lot of great ideas in this codex, lots of stuff I do hope to see in the codex, albeit some of it changed, looking forward to seeing this come together!
Im sorry I seemed to be hatey, I honestly think a lot of this codex is cool, but Id rather see the problems gone then the good stuff being paid attention to...that stuffs fine.

A lot of great stuff to address! Let's see if I can't change or explain my reasoning behind most of it

The Skyrays' SMS right now is not the old SMS - it simply allows them to fire a single seeker missile, and only one of their own. They're missile platforms, and if you fire all 4, you're only going to get 2-3 shots out of it in a game. I've considered moving it down to 2 SMS, but I want to give it a shot at competing with the hammerheads and broadsides. You should've seen it when it was 6 seeker missiles, and could simply fire all 6 every turn! It is overpowered in its current iteration, but I hope to rectify that in increments, starting with points cost, and eventually, moving into its abilities if therein lies the problem.

A lot of the points costs take into account not only the units' own abilities, options, and place within the codex, but its costs compared to other codecies. This is because if a Guard player wants to play an all foot list, with lots of rifles, nothing is there to stop a Tau army from doing the same, but cheaper, and better. This is wrong. IG are supposed to be a gimme for the points a 3's model with a 3's gun, some restrictions, and minimal options is supposed to cost. Space marines are the gimme for a 4's army with a 4's gun and lots of options, and it reflects by tripling the cost. I'm looking at a 2's and 3's army with a bunch of special rules and a bunch of bitchin' guns and options, so my units' prices have to reflect that.

Sniper Suits have jet packs. They're relentless. This is so they can hide behind things, pop out, snipe a target, and hop back. It's assumed they're observing the target through special radar senses, or through the camera eyes of a drone or another unit's headset.

Old Crisis Suits had 2 wounds, but the biggest complaint was losing a powerful, multi-wound model to something like a melta, especially when the model was so expensive, and such an integral part of your army. I can guarantee a W1 crisis suit would have people in uproar; sometimes you gotta appeal to the masses ;P Other than that, Crisis Suits have been coming down in points in little shavings, stealth suits are good where they are (In terms of spammyness, they're not powerful or available enough that I want to buff their points costs, but their abilities are already so limited that I can't take from there without fundamentally changing them - they're a wildcard and I like it.) Broadsides are still limited to 14 total, a decent number if you want to spam them, but they won't be making headlines because of their 1-2 target limit/unit. Sniper suits used to be a real problem; Mobile Heavy Weapons teams with krak missiles, for less! and more bs!

One thing I may be doing is removing the commander's ability to make these units troops, and instead simply make them scoring - limiting again their availability.

The Greater Good was actually inspired by orks, but I'd rather keep the tau at a constant, presence-based morale power, than have a gimmick attached.

Ethereals have always been combat units. They're some of the only tau with eyesight good enough to be martial artists, and they spend much of their time training and honing these skills. They've also always blown up their armies when they die. Although not necessarily psykers, they do have a seeming telepathic link to a wide range of tau around them; pilots in space have been known to be driven into despair when a planetside ethereal has died, long before they receive news of it.

As well, the preferred enemy rule is with the 6th edition codex in mind; it's rumoured, especially after destroyers in the necrons codex, to apply to the shooting phase, as well. I've got my fingers crossed.

Passing a morale test or immediately falling back is the usual consequence for failing a morale test. Falling back for normal infantry is on 2d6, and for jump infantry is 3d6. An ethereal was designed to be taken with a cohort, regardless of his own personal power. Although I agree, if his abilities begin to become troublesome, I'll be slowly whittling him down.

Pathfinder Scouts have markerlights. They're also really cool to field, because your opponent never knows when or where they're going to appear. Pathfinder SW teams have regular rail guns; S6, not 8. They can't pop de landraidums.

Speaking of Markerlights, I really like taking 2/4 small teams with a markerlight and couple carbines each. The combined fire pinning mixed with markerlight shots can keep units easily pinned, something I feels really representative of Tau gunfire.

The Firewarriors pull a little from IG; you can have multiple units as a single troops choice; that is, as single troops choice is 1 or 2 units of fire warriors, each with 6, and the ability to be up to 12, and their special weapons and options all implied. This is intended so that you can have multiple units of fire warriors when I introduce the Auxiliaries codex, a sister project encompassing the allies of the Tau. It'll be using a shared FOC.

Your points bring up the fact that I'm going to have to deal with the wording on the Fire Warriors' FOC problem eventually, and rightly points out the Skyray and its power. I hope you're around when I start into special characters





Automatically Appended Next Post:

troy_tempest wrote:I like your idea for the ethereal. One of many units in our current dex that are basically unplayable. All I want from a revamped dex is for units like vespid, stealth suits, sniper drones, ethereals to become viable choices. We live in hope!

Vespids, kroots, and their other underplayed, underappreciated, underoptioned friends are coming in the Auxiliaries codex. Sniper Drones are just plain fancy now, and stealth suits are a really nifty attrition counter to the current assault/overwhelming firepower meta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ovion wrote:My Condensed Codex is almost done, just the Heavy Support options to do, so I can send that to you later.

Also - finally actually started my own Tau Empire Extended Codex
First ramblings here if you want a gander:
[size=9Tau Empire Extended Codex[/size]

I eagerly await this shiny device you have made, mister man.

Heres the condensed codex as promised.
http://www.4shared.com/office/d-ud9smG/Tau_Condensed_Codex_V1.html

This includes the stats, wargear and options for all units as well as newer, better summary page that actually includes special issue weapons -_-

There are no rules included in this file, it is primarily an easy layout + list building tool, howver it's a great base for actual codex creation.

The easy method is to selct the unit and paste it into Word (or equivalent) then type out the rules below - like this:


OR you can download and install this program:
http://www.serif.com/free-graphic-design-software/
Which is a basic free version of the program I use (Drawplus X2)
It has more than enough tools to move and resize the text + multiple pages, and should be able to save as a PDF.
Which is how you'd make this:


'course that's a fair amount of work, but worth it in the long run I think

I also still say Ion weapons should just have Rending, not Rending on a 5+ that causes AP1.
Even at Str3 with rending they can pen Av11 and glance AV12.

Hoping to get some Vassal playtesting in tonight; I've got the day off, and my guinea pig should be on soon.

-Sneak Peak-

Tau Empire Auxiliaries

The following pages will describe the Auxiliary units available to a Tau Empire Army.

Tau Empire Auxiliaries can be played one of two ways - Dedicated Auxiliaries, in which this Codex can be considered stand-alone, and For the Greater Good - in which up to Half of your Force Organization Chart may be occupied by units from the Tau Empire Army codex. Any additional rules and options will be outlined further in the codex.

A brief list of factions:

Demiurg: The space-faring trader race, of whom little is spoken, and less is known.

Gue'Vesa: Humans who have seen the benevolent power and driving force behind the Tau Empire's expansion - Humans who truly care for their families and comrades, who have the foresight to flee their dying "Imperium" and pursue true greatness.

Kroot: Our noble and cunning allies, who stand tall when even the bravest Fire Warrior might find himself cowering. Their genetic mutability and natural predatory adaptations serve greatly in times of war.

Vespid: The enigmatic and fiercely loyal Vespid, who fight for the glory of their Queens and in defense of the Greater Good. Their unique bio-technologies, combined with their natural flight serve to bolster our aerial dominion.

Each faction will have an HQ, an Elites, and a Troops. Gue'Vesa and Demiurg will be in the Heavy, while Vespid and Kroot will bring up the Fast Attack. Each Faction will have two special characters, created by both /tg/ and you, DakkaDakka.

Each faction's HQ will have a small special rule or option tying it to a mixed codex army, and another for a pure faction army. Mixing factions will more than make up for a lack of bonus, as the various factions will synergize.

chrisrawr wrote:
A lot of great stuff to address! Let's see if I can't change or explain my reasoning behind most of it

The Skyrays' SMS right now is not the old SMS - it simply allows them to fire a single seeker missile, and only one of their own. They're missile platforms, and if you fire all 4, you're only going to get 2-3 shots out of it in a game. I've considered moving it down to 2 SMS, but I want to give it a shot at competing with the hammerheads and broadsides. You should've seen it when it was 6 seeker missiles, and could simply fire all 6 every turn! It is overpowered in its current iteration, but I hope to rectify that in increments, starting with points cost, and eventually, moving into its abilities if therein lies the problem.

A lot of the points costs take into account not only the units' own abilities, options, and place within the codex, but its costs compared to other codecies. This is because if a Guard player wants to play an all foot list, with lots of rifles, nothing is there to stop a Tau army from doing the same, but cheaper, and better. This is wrong. IG are supposed to be a gimme for the points a 3's model with a 3's gun, some restrictions, and minimal options is supposed to cost. Space marines are the gimme for a 4's army with a 4's gun and lots of options, and it reflects by tripling the cost. I'm looking at a 2's and 3's army with a bunch of special rules and a bunch of bitchin' guns and options, so my units' prices have to reflect that.

Sniper Suits have jet packs. They're relentless. This is so they can hide behind things, pop out, snipe a target, and hop back. It's assumed they're observing the target through special radar senses, or through the camera eyes of a drone or another unit's headset.

Old Crisis Suits had 2 wounds, but the biggest complaint was losing a powerful, multi-wound model to something like a melta, especially when the model was so expensive, and such an integral part of your army. I can guarantee a W1 crisis suit would have people in uproar; sometimes you gotta appeal to the masses ;P Other than that, Crisis Suits have been coming down in points in little shavings, stealth suits are good where they are (In terms of spammyness, they're not powerful or available enough that I want to buff their points costs, but their abilities are already so limited that I can't take from there without fundamentally changing them - they're a wildcard and I like it.) Broadsides are still limited to 14 total, a decent number if you want to spam them, but they won't be making headlines because of their 1-2 target limit/unit. Sniper suits used to be a real problem; Mobile Heavy Weapons teams with krak missiles, for less! and more bs!

One thing I may be doing is removing the commander's ability to make these units troops, and instead simply make them scoring - limiting again their availability.

The Greater Good was actually inspired by orks, but I'd rather keep the tau at a constant, presence-based morale power, than have a gimmick attached.

Ethereals have always been combat units. They're some of the only tau with eyesight good enough to be martial artists, and they spend much of their time training and honing these skills. They've also always blown up their armies when they die. Although not necessarily psykers, they do have a seeming telepathic link to a wide range of tau around them; pilots in space have been known to be driven into despair when a planetside ethereal has died, long before they receive news of it.

As well, the preferred enemy rule is with the 6th edition codex in mind; it's rumoured, especially after destroyers in the necrons codex, to apply to the shooting phase, as well. I've got my fingers crossed.

Passing a morale test or immediately falling back is the usual consequence for failing a morale test. Falling back for normal infantry is on 2d6, and for jump infantry is 3d6. An ethereal was designed to be taken with a cohort, regardless of his own personal power. Although I agree, if his abilities begin to become troublesome, I'll be slowly whittling him down.

Pathfinder Scouts have markerlights. They're also really cool to field, because your opponent never knows when or where they're going to appear. Pathfinder SW teams have regular rail guns; S6, not 8. They can't pop de landraidums.

Speaking of Markerlights, I really like taking 2/4 small teams with a markerlight and couple carbines each. The combined fire pinning mixed with markerlight shots can keep units easily pinned, something I feels really representative of Tau gunfire.

The Firewarriors pull a little from IG; you can have multiple units as a single troops choice; that is, as single troops choice is 1 or 2 units of fire warriors, each with 6, and the ability to be up to 12, and their special weapons and options all implied. This is intended so that you can have multiple units of fire warriors when I introduce the Auxiliaries codex, a sister project encompassing the allies of the Tau. It'll be using a shared FOC.

Your points bring up the fact that I'm going to have to deal with the wording on the Fire Warriors' FOC problem eventually, and rightly points out the Skyray and its power. I hope you're around when I start into special characters

--Thanks! Interesting response there, hearing how the sms works now, thats actually not too overpowered, and the reload keeps it going.
The orks didnt inspire the greater good? its been a part of their culture since the ethereals showed up. The orks (im thinking a little bit of my own opinion here) actually made the tau boost up their fire caste, at first they just went into space with ships and little military. they found orks. Well crud. War time!
So yeah, good responses there...lets seeeee....
--Ethereals; I dunno, something still dont seem right. the whole thing that blows them up for me, doesnt work. its one small shield generator. If the imperium can do it, without it exploding, the tau coul ddo it too! and it would be more powerful, have an on board AI and a med drone and this and that and this. The tau are too advanced for them to not be able to make a shield that cant blow up. if you wanna keep it, perhaps small blast not large blast? large blast seems too big for a simple shield thing, other than that yeah awesome.
---I can see where youre going now with the point references. Makes sence to me.
---Sniper suit, I dunno...something still irks me. Jumping and stuff ccol, but is the railgun in this new dex heavy or not? if its heavy that jump pack is pointless. Perhaps make it so that the sniper suit sacrifices the large manoueverability for more stuff like higher ballistic skill and stealth. (is this a crisis suit which has sniper suit build or more of an xv15 stealth suit style model? would explain a lot bout its rules etc. If its crisis mounted have that, if not, just stealth or higher BS)
---Crisis suit stats: Yeah I forgot they had two wounds already, nvm that. bring em to toughness 5. Its pitiful gigantic technologically advanced battle suits, have a statline poorer than an assault marine. Pitiful.
---Perhaps have it so Ethereals coul dbe mounted in some sort of display devilfish or throne thing? Summin like a catacomb command barge, and on this the ethereal could make an adapted version of the command thing, but so its more fulff based, have it so that its Ethereal proclomations. I can imagine something like the fluff for Aun'va atop his throne, sentencing an entire army to death.

---Pathfinders; I dont think it said that they have markerlights on their profile. For (12 was it?) points each, a more than ten man squad with strength six ap 3 guns is a little overpowered, perhaps a specialised pulse rifle with a longer range, say, 35 inches heavy one?
Special characters: Ooo shiny! I love a good special character me! if you come up with custom ones, that I would love to see!


Quick thing: Someone here said (cant find who) that stealth suits and Sniper drones have little use. Not really. they are good. (depending) Stealh suits I see them being used deployed ahead of the army (not too far as to avoid stranding) so You can set up a defense and have already extended a strong arm of the force out already, take a 6 man team, never less than that or they cant survive. Burst cannon shots are now up to 18. Most units will be scattered by that high strength fire. You rother units arrive and your defense is complete.

Sniper drones; Place them in home objective or home area, Most useful against MEQ armies really. Have them shoot small units like devastators, so they can bully those while other units can focus on the larger threats such as tanks, rather than distracting say, your hammerhead towards them instead, as their lascannons home in on your army.

Good tactics? Not sure, havent had a proper chance to test yet, but only time will tell.

Would love to see sniper drones still in, They seem overly flashy (why not just use normal snipers!?) But I like them. (dont mean they have to stay)

Ah, I meant mechanics wise - the Orks mob rules inspired the greater good rules xD

Current Tau shielding technology is widely regarded as 4++. The 3++ comes with the dangers and risks associated with technological progress.

The "Blast Marker" is the small blast; it has to say "Large Blast" to be large blast. I toyed with the idea of medical drones, but they're not smart enough as monats to deal with the complexities of biology.

Sniper Suits were more a niche role I wanted to fill between Broadsides and Crisis Suits, for armies who want to pop tanks and jump around, but not dedicated too much of their army or tactics to either. Heavy Rail Rifles are Heavy 1, Pinning. I will take your suggestion to tie the BS and Stealth rules to the not having moved as well, it makes so much sense in retrospect. But yes, Heavy or not, relentless infantry doesn't care.


Pathfinder Scouts, in the Fast Attack slot, are your old pathfinders - slightly more in cost, but the Devilfish is less, markerlights are better, BS4, and they can take some options - so it evens out. The Pathfinder Special Weapons Teams are 15 a piece, down from 20 a piece, and they might go back up depending on how much they compete with crisis suits.

I think the person was referring to the old stealth suits and sniper drones having little use; in the old codex, Stealth Suits had to compete with Crisis Suits - they still do, to an extent, but with the ability to take up to 5 slots of suits, they're great deepstriking objective campers.

Sniper Drones being partially Fast Attack can really aid in an army wanting to take all 3 heavy slots as Broadside Teams or Hammerheads. The fact that their weapon is now twin-linked, and can be taken in 10-man groups, is also very useful - though limiting as they're 25 points each, T3, and have no save.

chrisrawr wrote:I toyed with the idea of medical drones, but they're not smart enough as monats to deal with the complexities of biology.

A drone outfitted as a medical unit would logically be given a medical data package. Admittedly it would only be a field medic, and thus limited to basic sealing/cauterising of wounds, cramming organs back into holes (then sealing the wound), injecting massive doses of painkillers and uppers and hoping they survive till after the battle.

Logically, a med drone would confer Feel No Pain saves. Maybe with the additional (being it probably wouldnt be armed) of once per turn you can roll a D6 and on a 4+ you can 'revive' one non-instant death casualty in the squad they're with from that turn by returning it 1 wound. (i.e. bring back a firewarrior, or bring back a battlesuit with 1 of its 2 wounds)

In this instance you could also clarify that drones from a drone controller won't dissapear till the end of the turn (allowing the medical drone to try and bring a lone character back for 1 more turn).

*is now considering adding med unit to drone options*
*adds to drone options*

Like I said, I toyed with it; At 15 points, I figured maybe each drone would begin with three supply counters, each conferring a feel no pain save. This would be fine, except firewarriors lose it at S6 weaponry, and everything else probably wouldn't make much more use of it, meaning you're better off taking a sniper drone or a gun drone, or even a shield drone!

At 50 points, I figured maybe it gave FNP to the unit, but that would make it redundant, and how would it (logically) work on battlesuits or other drones? Gamewise, you'd need another rule to make a distinction - and suits can already grab FNP for 15 points.

And finally, a monat drone that can fire a gun at moving things that don't ping green on the FoF radar is a LOT less complicated than even the simplest of medical drones.

There's one thing I might consider; A 10-model Elites or Heavy Slot Drone Vehicle, with a Med-Drone bay option; units within 6" of the hull receive FNP. It draws fire, competes with your heavy hitters, and isn't as ridiculous as those freaky-ass sang priests.

Working from the perspective of a DE player, FNP helps low save units immensly as almost every weapon ends its save and as you say it's negated easier with low toughness making it worth less.

I would say 20 points for a med drone would be OK.
I'm probably going to be doing it the revive power for 5 points upgrade to revive + fnp for 5 more.

Fluff wise it'd have a short range med scanner and a cpu to tell it what to do, the bulky 2 hardpoints worth of equipment expandong its abilities.

And as for suits, it'd be a basic repair package, spot welding and wiring patches or something like that.

As I'm stealing the idea of a Drone Shuttle from you/DoW, I'll be pulling the approach of a Starcraft Carrier/Necron Spyder.

Drone Production: At the beginning of your movement phase, a unit of D6 drones is placed within 2" of the shuttle; they may act normally, and you choose a drone body for them when they're placed. If the Shuttle is destroyed, remove all drones placed by this rule. Drones produced this way do not give up killpoints, cannot join other units, and are destroyed if they enter assault or fail a morale test.

Medical Bay upgrade: Provides Special Issue Medical Drone Bodies: Units within X" of this unit receive the FNP special rule. X is the number of Drones in this unit.

Define 'choose a drone body'?

Drones must purchase a drone body in the codex; "Drones" are practically statless individuals with some special rules, that must take a body as wargear to become playable models.

Drones produced by the Shuttle choose a body without purchasing it; the points involved will obviously be factored into the Drone Shuttle's cost, which will be cleared in the actual unit entry. The proposed rules above were just to show what I'm intending to do with the entry; a tervigon mixed with a spyder and a carrier.

On a side note, the Skyrays' SMS count is being reduced to 3. It's not bad right now, but popping it down to 3 will really aid in its balance.

I think making the drone carrier a standard price, then have it purchase the types of drones it can produce, at a rate equal to the average it'll produce (3x) would be a better way to do it than any drone for an exorbitant fee, plus it allows some customisation.

Using current taudex rates and drones (cos I can't be bothered looking through your whole codex for names and numbers right now ), say the carrier is 90 (standard hammerhead chasis), then it would have to purchase the Gun Drone production system for 30pts, Shield Drone system for 45pts and Marker Drones at 90pts.

I was going to do it the opposite way; a flat ~180 points for the drone harbinger at 13 12 11, and just letting it produce D6 drones of whichever type each turn as it pleases. It's got to compete with a slot that can hold Sniper Drones, Broadsides, Hammerheads, or Skyrays - without being strictly better than any of them.

That's where the versatility comes in. If it can choose ANY drone body, why bother with sniper drones etc, also with a higher cost it limits numbers and the sort.

I'm of the opinion that versatility is key, combined with balance. Allowing you to choose a cheap (light drone making) harbringer and pricey (multi / heavy drone creating) harbinger would give more end-user choice.

Well, for one, placement - If I simply buy the sniper drones, I get to deploy them, or hold them in reserve, as I please. If I buy a Harbinger, and don't go first, and it dies, I get no Sniper drones.

Numbers, for two - I can have 10 sniper drones, or d6 per turn.

Restrictions, a third; the drones are gone when the harbinger is gone, and they can't join up with new units like other drones can.

And finally, slots; I can have sniper drones in the Fast Attack, leaving my heavies open for Broadsides or Skyrays or what have you.

The main purpose of the drone harbinger is going to be producing MSU's to provide threat and spread out my opponent's firing, as well as to provide a renewable ablative barrier between my opponent's assaulting models, and my important ones.

Incoming Changes for 1.4A

Tau and Battle Network rules removed

Skyrays reduced to 3 SMS

Sniper Suits Stealth and BS5 tied to giving up movement, elites restriction removed

Broadsides made 1-5

Devilfish now dedicated transport, stuck in transport section, grant acute senses to their purchasing unit

Fire warriors changes -
BS3, Points 8, special weapons replaced with more drone controllers and markerlights

Drones - More special weapons

Armoury - Special Weapons changes, standardized special weapons, Crisis Suit Modular Array will be pick 2 special weapons, Stealth suits will be changed to burstcannon/fusion beamer as before. Drones again will fill in more special weapons.

small QOL changes because of armoury and drone changes

Drone Harbinger with medical bay option will not be making an appearance, due to being unbalancable.

unbalancable?

You could take my method which is nice and simple - it has a set number of drone controllers and can take that many drones..
you could add the upgrade ability to revive D6 drones per turn.

I'm changing drones around to carrying all the special weapons for infantry squads; having a vehicle taking a bunch of them would obsolete troops units for this purpose, which is how I want to keep troops interesting.

Keep it for your codex, where it will fit and be interesting

Infantry can still take special drones in my codex too though xD

But yeah, either way.
Using a Grade 2 Drone Controller a firewarrior squad can take 4 light drones, each with a fusion blaster.
A battlesuit will be able to take 6 with a Grade 3 drone controller.
A commander will be able to take 10 I think (1 Grade 3, 1 Hard-Wired Grade 2)

'course they're 17pts each before the controllers and only WS2 with a 5+ save...

Heh. If I really went all out, I could have 8 drones per unit, or Crisis Suit units with 24, but I'm going to be restricting eveyrthing forever V:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alpha 1.4 is up. Pew pew pew pew.

Special Character Proposal, Shas'o Monteh

Battlesuit Commander Shas'o Monteh Points: 225

Unit Type: Jump Infantry (Jet Pack, Character)

WS: 3 BS: 6 S: 5 T: 5 W: 4 I: 3 A: 4 Ld: 10 Sv: 3+

Wargear: Crisis Suit with Plasma Rifle and Ion Disruption Beam. His Crisis Suit is also equipped with a Drone Controller, Shield Generator, and Stimulant Injectors.

Shas'o Monteh must be joined by a bodyguard of 3 Shas'vre in Crisis Suits.

Special Rules: At the Forefront, Experienced Commander, For the Greater Good, Independent Character, Stand Together

At the Forefront: If an opponent declares an assault with a unit that is within assault range of Shas'o Monteh, both Shas'o Monteh and that unit roll a D6 and add their Ld. If Shas'o Monteh's result is higher, that unit must instead declare its assault against Shas'o Monteh regardless of other restrictions.

Stand Together: Fire Warriors within 12" of Shas'o Monteh may use his unmodified Leadership value as their own, though it may be further altered from there.

An army containing Shas'o Monteh may purchase Fire Warrior Hunters as Elites Choices, and Fire Warrior Mobile Assault units as Fast Attack Choices.

oh, forgot to give you THIS: It's forum / text formatting for neat units, though you'rs is looking a lot better now anyway
http://www.4shared.com/office/KWdIg7BI/Unit_Templates.html

The character looks alright, though again I'd say the points are high. 175-200 would be more fitting.

I like to start high as you've no doubt noticed by now I've yet to see his ability in action, but it's basically a crafty backward-rage / taunt, which are usually powerful.

I had noticed you like to start just a *little* high, though this is a smaller jump to what's likely appropriate for this fellow, only 25-50 points over

As much as anything because you're attempting to force the enemy into a 4 man unit that honestly, doesn't really want to be in combat. I mean for him, Str5, T5 is good, but WS3 not so much.. it's like a slightly worse DE Grotesque, with an extra wound, and an invun but without feel no pain. When he himself costs the same as 6 Grotesques. Yes he has shooty too but in combat they're not going to do amazingly mostly just tarpit stuff with a very pricey unit.

I started writing a list of a few things I thought needed fixing with this fandex. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the devilfish I'd filled almost 3 pages in size 11 font and was starting to lose the will to live.
Instead of giving a mass of problems, I thought I'd point out a few things that seem to have been missed in your codex:

1- Tau are already quite a decent army, certainly not on par with 5th ed ones, but not too far behind, their only major lack is cheap scoring and cheap transport.

2- KISS. For instance, ablative armour, or the 'Our Lives Are Yours' rule on the royal guard which could be simplified to: "An Ethereal attatched to a Royal Guard unit is treated as an upgrade character." Which Brings me nicely onto-

3- Wound allocation is a fundamental of the game, to avoind pissing potential opponents off, avoid changing fundamental rules wherever possible. Also along these lines-

4- Aim to make your codex slightly weaker than the 'good' codices. People constantly moan about all the overpowered stuff in official codices. Remember that you aren't making an official codex, if someone thinks you're trying to pull a fast one with it, they won't boother playing the game. To this end-

5- Don't give out universal special rules willy-nilly. Look where they are applied in other codices and the justification given for them. Ie: Why would an ethereal get eternal warrior? Why would pathfinders be relentless? Also-

6- Just because having more toys would make a unit better, it doesn't meen you should allow them. I can't think of a unit in the game that can take more than four or five special/heavy weapons. There's reasoning behind this. More generally-

7- If there is a precedent set in official codices, don't break it without very strong reasoning.

8- Armies are constructed with fundamental weaknesses for a reason. These must be worked around, not erased (For the Greater Good). Imagine giving dark eldar quantum shielding, it would just be unpleasant.

9- Armouries are BAD. No codex in 5E has been produced with an armoury of wargear to purchase. This is because it reduces the amount of control the designers have over balance and turns up silly power-combos. On top of this, they significantly obfuscate the list building process.

That's it for now I think. It's just my opinion, so you can choose to ignore or take note as you wish, but I will say that if someone showed me that codex and asked for a game, I'd probably refuse.