Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 997Turbo wrote:



Gargoyles as useless but a trygon prime is useful? uhhh wut? lol

I've had great success with a Trygon Prime, especially armed with the Maw-Claws. Gargoyles are very "meh" to me. They seem nice, but realistically have never done much. At least for me.

Depends on how you're playing them. If you're expecting them to kill anything you're probably going to be disappointed. If you use them as a mobile screen protecting your big bugs and use them for grabbing objective points they're amazing. One of the best units at that multi role.

Codex: Grey Knights
LoW/HQ
Kaldor Draigo - Useful
Let me lead off by saying the only reason he is useful here is his price in an already expensive army. Our only Stormshield, our only Eternal Warrior, and our only at initiative AP2 outside a challenge and MC's. Put him with Paladins with an apothecary to meatshield the bolter equivalents, or allied centurions. Serves a dual role as their tank and their transportation automatically knowing Gate of Infinity. Becomes broken if you put him with a libby that knows invisibility.
Castellan Crowe - Stiuational
I love this guy, but he's seen a lot of shelf time from GK players given he no longer unlocks Purifiers as Troops. Automatically knowing Cleansing Flame is good, and he punches WAY above his weight inside a challenge. Put him with a large squad of Purifiers in a Land Raider and they'll steam roll almost anything in close combat.
Brother Captain Stern - Situational
A Grand Master in disguise, he's solid all around, much the same as our Grand Master
Brother Captin - Situational
See Brother Captain Stern Above
Grand Master - Useful
Another Mastery Level and another attack, I usually give him the Soul Glaive, totaling him out to 205. If he gets off force he has five attacks on the charge rerolling to hit, to wound, and to penetrate armor. Many also give him a Psycannon to take advantage of his relentless BS 5. Does well on the Divination table I've found, but my Kingdom for Biomancy on this guy.
Brotherhood Champion - Useless
While I'm a fan of Crowe, this guy seems like his dull cousin. For another 25 points you can give him BOTH special rules in a challenge, another Mastery Level with access to Cleansing Automatically... sure you lose force, and AP3, but... meh.
Librarian - Must Take
Terminator Armor, Mastery Level 3, and Str 6, AP4, Adamantium will pimp cane. This is my boy right here. Against ML 1 and 2 psykers he denies on 3's rerolling 1's, and is the funnel of choice for the warp charges the army produces. Cuirass prevents him from killing himself with perils of the warp, alternatively the Liber Daemonica makes nearby casting a bit more reliable. I usually do two librarians in any serious list.

Troops -
Terminators - Must Take
The second cheapest terminators in the game. 5 men, 1 Psycannon, 1 Daemon Hammer, and Justicar w/ Melta Bombs comes to 200, which is just an absolute steal
Strike Squad - Situational
With the change of Psycannons to Salvo, these guys are struggling to find their place in Grey Knight Armies, and are more overshadowed than ever by their terminator armored brethren. If I do bring them, 10 men with 2 psycannons in a rhino make a decent bunker.

Elites -
Dreadnoughts - Situational
After the age of the Psyfleman (Mortis Pattern, 2 TL Autocanns with Psybolts), there are a lot of Grey Knight dreadnoughts collecting dust. They can be a decent long range platform still with a TL Lascannon and Missile Launcher coming to 160.
Purifiers - Useful
Not quite auto include, but a solid choice. With terminators as troops, most GK lists will have elite slots to spare, and in an allied drop pod they become not the cheese we need, but the cheese we deserve However they get close and personal, one instance of cleansing flame is enough to make a gun line look rather scarce. In addition, they are our best answer to FMC's and low armor value flyers.
Paladins - Useful
Very good, but they need to be built around as they will get expensive quickly. The apothecary upgrade is an auto take, and the squad makes excellent look out sir meat shields for IC's. Attach them to Draigo and a libby that knows invis, and feast upon the delicious tears of your foe.

Fast Attack -
Storm Raven - Must Take
Our only real answer to air in our own codex, and can serve as an assault vehicle for purifiers and/or termies. What's not to like?
Interceptors - Useful
Not everyone's favorite, but they are second to none in objective games. My favorite flavor happens to be 10 dudes, 2 incinerator, a daemon hammer, and a positional relay (or whatever its called). Great objective takers, and can make a bubble of no scatter deep strike almost anywhere on the board. And a GK squad holding a daemon hammer in your opponents craw turn one is something they more or less have to deal with. 280 for the whole squad, but... eh.

Heavy Support -
Nemesis Dread Knight - Must Take
What? A jump MC that can shunt once per game, with a mastercrafted x2 Strength AP 2 force sword, a Salvo 3/6 psycannon, an incinerator with torrent, and/or a Heavy 12 instant death ranged weapon. 4 wounds, toughness 6, 2+/5++, with Sanctuary for a possible 4++. Even if you try to make him as expensive as possible he comes to 235... what? These guys are professional skull ers
Purgation Squads - Useless
Devastators that NEED to be within 24' of their target are not happy devatators. They can do... okay as cheap flamer squads, but every squad can take an incinerator, so I question how useful that redundancy is. Psycannons is a bit too rich for my blood, though 4 psilencers could be interesting against multi-wound elites like tau crisis teams and ork nob bikers. What really kills them is in this slot they are competing with the Dread Knight, and that comparison is almost embarrassing.
Land Raiders - Useful
Not often taken, but putting purifiers or paladins in them will almost invariably have good results. Also an option for ranged high strength, low ap, undoubtedly the biggest weakness of the codex.

I give my codex Ork/10

Tau Empire: just do a short summary of the main units I use,

Fire Warriors: Useful- A nice semi-cheap unit with ok weapons and armour saves. Only problem being when you get to weapons of AP 4 or less their not so great.

Commanders: Must Take- These guys are legendary! Whenever I use them they can take out whole units of SM by themselves and they've got a cool wounds and BS score, plus an nice armour save.

Pathfinders: Useful- Markerlights are the main thing selling these guys, as they die really early on and have an armour save worse than drones, but as I said the Markerlights can be essential for helping other units to take down the bigger, badder units in 40K, although you could just take the Marker Drones to do this job they can't actually fire like the Pathfinders can from normal guns! But they have a better armour save.

Hammerhead Gunship: Useful/Must Have- An amazing model for taking down the bigger units without the help of Markerlights and it has an great gun on top, plus cool drones with burst cannons or missiles on them.

Stealth Team: Useful/Must Have- This unit is amazing for staying alive with an armour save and a cover save all the time. They also have burst cannons to provide plenty of fire power and can even be upgraded to have a fusion blaster so you can turn them into an anti-vehicle unit.

Crisis Battlesuits: Must Have- These should be really be taken with any Tau list as they are amazing at what they do! They've quite a lot of wounds and have the choice to take many weapons and support systems. They're exceptionally good when they have drones supporting them to boost their efficiency.

Piranhas: Situational- Hmmm, a weird unit this as they can be useful but then again they can be quite unuseful as well. It depends what you're vs. With a burst cannon they can kill many people but if there's a tank on there it can get easily wiped out. If you upgrade it with a fusion blaster it becomes more useful as it can take out vehicles but if a unit of troops get to it, bye bye piranha.

Well, that's my summary of the models I use.

 Celtic Strike wrote:

I only have 3 HS slots, 2 are always reserved for exorcists. The other one goes 85% of the time to the Avenger. The rest goes to the Rets. It's hard to justfy them in that slot. If they were in Elites I would take them, probably all the time since there's nothing else in Elites I would take.

I agree. But having better options in a slot does not make the useless. That was my point. Personally, I think RETs are way overrated. They used to be decent with the old Act of Faith, now you get at most 3 shots at rending. OK, so I have 12 shots... 9 hit. Out of those 9, I might get 2 6's on average. I found the HB rending that everyone raves about to be very underwhelming, especially when compared to the Exorcist. So, I would take the PE's over Rets, but not over the other two.

I am hopeful that a new codex (as rumored) comes out this year.
In my perfect world, the PE's would move to Elites and become monstrous creatures.

 krodarklorr wrote:
Well, this should be fun. I'd love to rate my new Necron codex.

HQs:

Overlord: Must Take. Good upgrade options, lost his good saves, but is still just as hard to kill, and can be either shooty or stabby now.
Lord: Useful. A minor Overlord, but still tough, and good for adding Rez orbs and some extra shooting/stabbing to your other units.
Crypteks: Useful. I love their buff, which is really useful, even in Decurion because of ID. Plus, Chronometron will help keep units alive.
Destroyer Lord: Useful. Good for giving Preferred Enemy to a unit, and now has a better selection of wargear options to make him more survivable.
Catacomb Command Barge: Useful. Not as OP as it once was, but still decently survivable. Can still kill stuff, but is also used as a decent buffer for making things not run away from combat.

I won't go over every named character, but I personally think all of them are useful, or at worst situational. But definitely not bad, and fun to play.

Troops:

Necron Warriors: Must Take. They can kill anything they shoot at now, and is our main source of killing vehicles and drowning things in weight of fire. Plus, really tough to kill.
Necron Immortals: Useful. Better at killing slightly tougher things, but will only really shine against specific targets.

Elites:

Lychguard: Useful. A lot more survivable, a lot cheaper, and still just as killy. A personal favorite of mine. Love the models, love the fluff, ext.
Triarch Praetorians: Useful. Decent shooting, which is hard to come by otherwise in the book, and rather tough and killy in CC. Both weapon options are viable now, which is a plus.
Triarch Stalker: Useful. Bubble of +1 BS? Yes please, and it's weapons are rather nice. Heat Ray is especially flexible.
Flayed Ones: Useful. Yeah, I said it. These things, at least in my opinion, are point-for-point one of the scariest CC units in the game now.
Shard of the Nightbringer: Situational. He's much better than he was, and Gaze of Death is ridiculous. But certain armies will dispatch of him with ease, so he's not always worth taking.
Shard of the Deceiver: Situational. Not quite sure of the best way of using him. You have to know how to utilize his Grand Illusion to gain the most benefit from him.
Deathmarks: Useful. I personally always take these guys when possible. They got a slight nerf, but are overall still good, and more flexible in what they do.

Fast Attack:

Canoptek Scarabs: Situational. Only really good when backed up by a Spyder, as they got more expensive, and have a worse armor save now. But not a bad choice.
Canoptek Wraiths: Must Take. I say this not from my own personal play style, as I rarely use them, but they are must better than they used to be, extremely survivable, and can kill stuff rather well in CC. This is the Wave Serpent of the Necron codex.
Tomb Blades: Useful. Again, my point of view, I love these things and will always take them, but not everyone feels the same. They're are cheap enough to be survivable and have decent firepower, and give us access to Ignore Cover. YEESSSS.
Necron Destroyers: Useful. Definitely better than how they used to be. More survivable, and bit more fun to play. Not the most competitive option though.
Ghost Arks: Must Take. Got cheaper, got more firepower, and its Repair Barge got better. Will help your warriors stay a live for a long time, and this thing is still as hard to kill as it was before.
Night Scythe: Must Take. Our main option of Anti-Air, is the best Flying Transport in the game, and is still decently cheap.

Heavy Support:

Transcendent C'Tan: Situational. A little better than normal C'Tan shards, and can get across the board with Deep Strike, but still lacks the survivability that makes him a good choice most of the time.
Annihilation Barge: Useful. No longer an auto-include, but still not BAD per se. There are just better options now.
Doomsday Ark: Useful. A favorite of mine, this thing is rather scary now. I will be using one frequently.
Doom Scythe: Useful. Got cheaper, got easier to use, and is still really good. Also got better at killing vehicles. w00t
Monolith: Situational. Not bad, as it was in the old book. It just didn't gain anything though. If you're not utilizing it's Eternity Gate for your troops, then there are better firepower options.
Canoptek Spyders: Useful. Again, goes well with Scarabs, and now their upgrades are cheaper. Still a really good unit.
Heavy Destroyers: Useful. 150 points for 6 T5 3+ save wounds with Reanimation Protocols, and 3 preferred enemy lascannons. And, can move-shoot-move. Definitely not a bad choice.

Lords of War:

Obelisk: Useful. Definitely a good choice now with it's AV increase and point decrease. The formation is also pretty good when you tag-team with monoliths.
Tesseract Vault: Situational. Not BAD, but against other LoW choices or Apocalypse units, it doesn't quite hold a candle to them. Did get better in some ways to its older self though.
Imotekh the Stormlord: Useful. I still cringe when I see Draigo at 245 points with all of his special rules, W4, Eternal Warriors, ext. But, this guy is 190 points for a lot more than he used to give in your army. Reliable AP2 shooting, a flame weapon, still tough to kill, and can alter reserve rolls and such, he's not bad.

Mostly on target evaluation. I would grade the Nightbringer as Useful, the Deceiver as Situational, and the Transcendant as Useless. I would also grade the Tesseract Vault as Useless. Also, since you grade Wraiths as Must Take, why don't you grade Tomb Blades and Flayed Ones as Must Take?

Am I missing something, or was the Transcendent C'tan the rape train of the previous codex, now it's situationally useful, tops?

In a very broad sense I think the Space Marine codex is very good. I'm really hoping they leave it alone for 7th edition, though I doubt they will. The non transport tanks, terminators, and dreads need some help, but other that, a great book!

I'll expand a bit and put FW as well.

IA3 for Tau:

Special Characters:
- R'myr: [Useless] a mess of not related wargear and outclassed by T5 2+ PEN Commander.
- R'alai: [Useless] too expensive, forced to bring 2 marker drones he can't benefit of and quite the loner (easy picking). His weapon is cool and his 3++ against 12"+ shooting could be good vs AM (which lacks AP3 in droves) or Orks.

Troops:
- Drone Sentry Turret Team: [Situational] yeah, Tau has BUILDING troops!11 all sides, only worth with weapon upgrades and just one 6 on a grav will destroy one (they're already treated as an immbilised vehicle). OTOH, 'Fearless' troops, immune to poison/small arms and can even arrive via DS! The enemy will need to divert AT to get rid of those. Most useful at guarding backfield objectives or like Marines use ObjSec Drop Pods near objectives.

Fast Attack:
- Barracuda: [Useful] as Tau is the faction with the widest access to AA, having a flyer isn't a necessity. Still, it's a damn fine aircraft - few flying things can survive one salvo of its weapons (specially now that you aren't limited to fire 2 missiles max). You won't go wrong by acquiring one of those. Has Deep Strike, which can be useful for a flyer.
- DX-6 Remora: [Situational] worse than the Barracuda, but can be bought in squadrons and, when jinking, almost impossible to destroy. Comes with its own markerlight, whch is nice. Has Deep Strike and Hover, which can be useful for a flyer.
- Piranha TX-42: [Useless] too expensive compared to its counterpart in the Codex, but more survivable (Side 11) and better weapons - albeit you lose the free drones. Not a good pick.
- Tetra: [Must Take] oh my stars and gaters. Best thing in IA3. My favorite source of markerlights. Fast, precise and useful (free homing beacons). Falls like a cardboard house, though.
- XV9 Hazard: [Situational] coud be better. Too expensive base-wise and weapons upgrades are horribly overpriced. Defensive grenades are useful and the weapons are quite charming (Phased Ion Guns are as Tau as one weapon could be)

Heavy Support:
- Heavy Gun Drone Squadron: [Useless] Terrible. A bit better weapon for twice the price of a normal drone. If at least they had 2 long-barreled burst cannons instead of 1 twin-linked burst cannon...
- Hammerhead Gunship: new turret variants
--> 2 TL missile pods and velocity tracker: [Situational] a shorter ranged, non-expendable ammo Skyray. If you give it SMS, you'll get yourself an AV13 Broadside. Costs 1.5x more than the Broadie.
--> 2 long-barreled burst cannon: [Useless] cool for toying with overwatch, but besides that your FWs can do the same job at spraying S5 around.
--> 2 fusion cannons: [Useless] the weapon itself isn't bad, but not being Fast will make you fire only one everytime you move.
--> 2 plasma cannons: [Useless] glorious S7 AP2 (no gets hot!), but moving an inch will make one of them fire snap shots. Ion Cannon is cheaper and do basically the same (plus large blast). You can get AP2 with Crisis

Fortification:
- Sensor Tower Grid: [Situational] Oh the irony... first a Building as Troops, now a model with TOUGHNESS as a Fortification. It gives units within 2" re-roll To Hit of 1, but only once per turn (so you'll need one tower for each unit you want to 'buff'). It is basically an immobile version of Shadowsun's command drone. Has a TL markerlight.

I'll hold on Kroot stuff because they're worse than useless and they're OOP anyway.

X107 R'varna: [Situational] Was pretty mandatory when it had AP3 and full access to Riptide armoury... with AP4, limited weargear options and not able to save a Reactor fail, it took a serious hit in usability. Still powerful and mean against massed larger models (bike, cavalry, beasts, etc) and squads of close-formed vehicles. Pricy.
XV109 Y'vahra: [Useful] Awesome. AP2 flamer with half-torrent and 2 templates? A S8 weapon with Haywire hits as bonus? 24" jump move? Can escape tarpits? Too bad its weapons are so short-ranged. The model is under testing, so expect it to change. Won't give it a 'Must Take' because Melta Crisis do half of its job and are cheaper.

Zsolt wrote:
Am I missing something, or was the Transcendent C'tan the rape train of the previous codex, now it's situationally useful, tops?

Yea, it is pants. Basically everything that was OP in the old codex is now garbage.

col_impact wrote:

Zsolt wrote:
Am I missing something, or was the Transcendent C'tan the rape train of the previous codex, now it's situationally useful, tops?

Yea, it is pants. Basically everything that was OP in the old codex is now garbage.

So you can explore the other parts of the miniature range...

col_impact wrote:


Mostly on target evaluation. I would grade the Nightbringer as Useful, the Deceiver as Situational, and the Transcendant as Useless. I would also grade the Tesseract Vault as Useless. Also, since you grade Wraiths as Must Take, why don't you grade Tomb Blades and Flayed Ones as Must Take?

The Nightbringer is very useful against a good amount of armies out there, but against competitive lists, he lags behind severely. I still personally love what they did with him. The Transcendant Ctan isn't Useless, in my opinion. It's a slightly tougher Ctan that can Deep Strike, which fixes the footslogging issue Ctans have suffered from. And why is the Vault useless?

And the reason why Wraiths are a must take, is I was taking a personal look at things, but taking into account most peoples views on the codex as well. Wraiths are essentially the new cheese, so in terms of power level, they are a must take, though I don't personally use them much. Flayed Ones and Tomb Blades are amazing in my opinion, and I'm sure people feel the same, though I just didn't see them as a "must have" in every single list.

 krodarklorr wrote:

col_impact wrote:


Mostly on target evaluation. I would grade the Nightbringer as Useful, the Deceiver as Situational, and the Transcendant as Useless. I would also grade the Tesseract Vault as Useless. Also, since you grade Wraiths as Must Take, why don't you grade Tomb Blades and Flayed Ones as Must Take?

The Nightbringer is very useful against a good amount of armies out there, but against competitive lists, he lags behind severely. I still personally love what they did with him. The Transcendant Ctan isn't Useless, in my opinion. It's a slightly tougher Ctan that can Deep Strike, which fixes the footslogging issue Ctans have suffered from. And why is the Vault useless?

And the reason why Wraiths are a must take, is I was taking a personal look at things, but taking into account most peoples views on the codex as well. Wraiths are essentially the new cheese, so in terms of power level, they are a must take, though I don't personally use them much. Flayed Ones and Tomb Blades are amazing in my opinion, and I'm sure people feel the same, though I just didn't see them as a "must have" in every single list.

The vault is useless because I would rather have points spent in anything else in the Necron codex than in a Tesseract Vault. It will lose you the game if you play it. Same deal with the T. C'tan. Wraiths, Flayed Ones, or Tomb Blades are "must takes" in the sense that points invested in them (though not necessarily all of them) will win you the game. If I saw a list that had no wraiths, or no flayed ones, or no tomb blades I would seriously question the capability of that list.

col_impact wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

col_impact wrote:


Mostly on target evaluation. I would grade the Nightbringer as Useful, the Deceiver as Situational, and the Transcendant as Useless. I would also grade the Tesseract Vault as Useless. Also, since you grade Wraiths as Must Take, why don't you grade Tomb Blades and Flayed Ones as Must Take?

The Nightbringer is very useful against a good amount of armies out there, but against competitive lists, he lags behind severely. I still personally love what they did with him. The Transcendant Ctan isn't Useless, in my opinion. It's a slightly tougher Ctan that can Deep Strike, which fixes the footslogging issue Ctans have suffered from. And why is the Vault useless?

And the reason why Wraiths are a must take, is I was taking a personal look at things, but taking into account most peoples views on the codex as well. Wraiths are essentially the new cheese, so in terms of power level, they are a must take, though I don't personally use them much. Flayed Ones and Tomb Blades are amazing in my opinion, and I'm sure people feel the same, though I just didn't see them as a "must have" in every single list.

The vault is useless because I would rather have points spent in anything else in the Necron codex than in a Tesseract Vault. It will lose you the game if you play it. Same deal with the T. C'tan. Wraiths, Flayed Ones, or Tomb Blades are "must takes" in the sense that points invested in them (though not necessarily all of them) will win you the game. If I saw a list that had no wraiths, or no flayed ones, or no tomb blades I would seriously question the capability of that list.

I dunno, I guess I'm weird then. I feel nothing in this codex is directly bad. The Vault and T Ctan might not be the most useful things ever, but I think they are playable, and you're able to have fun playing them.

 krodarklorr wrote:

col_impact wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

col_impact wrote:


Mostly on target evaluation. I would grade the Nightbringer as Useful, the Deceiver as Situational, and the Transcendant as Useless. I would also grade the Tesseract Vault as Useless. Also, since you grade Wraiths as Must Take, why don't you grade Tomb Blades and Flayed Ones as Must Take?

The Nightbringer is very useful against a good amount of armies out there, but against competitive lists, he lags behind severely. I still personally love what they did with him. The Transcendant Ctan isn't Useless, in my opinion. It's a slightly tougher Ctan that can Deep Strike, which fixes the footslogging issue Ctans have suffered from. And why is the Vault useless?

And the reason why Wraiths are a must take, is I was taking a personal look at things, but taking into account most peoples views on the codex as well. Wraiths are essentially the new cheese, so in terms of power level, they are a must take, though I don't personally use them much. Flayed Ones and Tomb Blades are amazing in my opinion, and I'm sure people feel the same, though I just didn't see them as a "must have" in every single list.

The vault is useless because I would rather have points spent in anything else in the Necron codex than in a Tesseract Vault. It will lose you the game if you play it. Same deal with the T. C'tan. Wraiths, Flayed Ones, or Tomb Blades are "must takes" in the sense that points invested in them (though not necessarily all of them) will win you the game. If I saw a list that had no wraiths, or no flayed ones, or no tomb blades I would seriously question the capability of that list.

I dunno, I guess I'm weird then. I feel nothing in this codex is directly bad. The Vault and T Ctan might not be the most useful things ever, but I think they are playable, and you're able to have fun playing them.

Experiment: run a T Vault and a T Ctan and no wraiths, flayed ones, or tomb blades and see how you fare. Go go Necron challenge!

Keep in mind that rating the codex also needs to be internally curved. If you rate everything B then it really isn't helpful as an internal assessment tool. You can say rather that the overall Necron Codex is B+ or "useful" and then internally provide greater differentiation in your ratings. The T Vault and the T C'tan and the A Barge are the dummies in the Necron class even though they might do well in a Dark Angel class.

Harlequins

Hq
None

Elite
Death jester- Situational - can do cool -2 ld trick with mask to -4. maybe make one explode)(not much else...
Shadowseer- Must Take- put in any unit and no return fire, Take this codex just for these guys into large long range squads.(shooting not to good)
Solitair-Useless - Dies to bolters won't reach combat.(if combat dies if any survive, even scoutsx5 with a flamer(and bolters) can kill you.

Troops
Troupe- Useful - basic troop, some counter attacking. (useful because they are troops and needed.) Hide back and counter or charge and die to anything. Not survivable enough.

Fast attack
Skyweaver- Situational - 2 wounds but 2 quarters in points okay shooting, but a little bit of str 8 and they will die like its no one's buisness. Not enough attacks for cc, so so shooting.

Heavy
Starweaver- Useful - (can be taken as dedicated transport, half decent fire power for the points, use to get troupe up the table, but will die and probable lose a 1/3 of your guys making them useless.
voidweaver- Situational - mediocre fire power for a heavy, half cheap, ravagers and even raiders(a dedicated transport) are better for fire power.

This is a kind review I find, It may sound harsh since new codex and all but....
I am going to field one troupe and shadowseer's(multiple seers) use as counter assault and invisible my guardians or reapers.(veil)
Good support but cannot stand alone.

 Green is Best! wrote:

 Celtic Strike wrote:

I only have 3 HS slots, 2 are always reserved for exorcists. The other one goes 85% of the time to the Avenger. The rest goes to the Rets. It's hard to justfy them in that slot. If they were in Elites I would take them, probably all the time since there's nothing else in Elites I would take.

I agree. But having better options in a slot does not make the useless. That was my point. Personally, I think RETs are way overrated. They used to be decent with the old Act of Faith, now you get at most 3 shots at rending. OK, so I have 12 shots... 9 hit. Out of those 9, I might get 2 6's on average. I found the HB rending that everyone raves about to be very underwhelming, especially when compared to the Exorcist. So, I would take the PE's over Rets, but not over the other two.

I am hopeful that a new codex (as rumored) comes out this year.
In my perfect world, the PE's would move to Elites and become monstrous creatures.

I usually run Heavy flamer Rets. Those are often times useless but sometimes amazingly funny.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vector Strike wrote:
I'll expand a bit and put FW as well.

IA3 for Tau:

Special Characters:
- R'myr: [Useless] a mess of not related wargear and outclassed by T5 2+ PEN Commander.
- R'alai: [Useless] too expensive, forced to bring 2 marker drones he can't benefit of and quite the loner (easy picking). His weapon is cool and his 3++ against 12"+ shooting could be good vs AM (which lacks AP3 in droves) or Orks.

Troops:
- Drone Sentry Turret Team: [Situational] yeah, Tau has BUILDING troops!11 all sides, only worth with weapon upgrades and just one 6 on a grav will destroy one (they're already treated as an immbilised vehicle). OTOH, 'Fearless' troops, immune to poison/small arms and can even arrive via DS! The enemy will need to divert AT to get rid of those. Most useful at guarding backfield objectives or like Marines use ObjSec Drop Pods near objectives.

Fast Attack:
- Barracuda: [Useful] as Tau is the faction with the widest access to AA, having a flyer isn't a necessity. Still, it's a damn fine aircraft - few flying things can survive one salvo of its weapons (specially now that you aren't limited to fire 2 missiles max). You won't go wrong by acquiring one of those. Has Deep Strike, which can be useful for a flyer.
- DX-6 Remora: [Situational] worse than the Barracuda, but can be bought in squadrons and, when jinking, almost impossible to destroy. Comes with its own markerlight, whch is nice. Has Deep Strike and Hover, which can be useful for a flyer.
- Piranha TX-42: [Useless] too expensive compared to its counterpart in the Codex, but more survivable (Side 11) and better weapons - albeit you lose the free drones. Not a good pick.
- Tetra: [Must Take] oh my stars and gaters. Best thing in IA3. My favorite source of markerlights. Fast, precise and useful (free homing beacons). Falls like a cardboard house, though.
- XV9 Hazard: [Situational] coud be better. Too expensive base-wise and weapons upgrades are horribly overpriced. Defensive grenades are useful and the weapons are quite charming (Phased Ion Guns are as Tau as one weapon could be)

Heavy Support:
- Heavy Gun Drone Squadron: [Useless] Terrible. A bit better weapon for twice the price of a normal drone. If at least they had 2 long-barreled burst cannons instead of 1 twin-linked burst cannon...
- Hammerhead Gunship: new turret variants
--> 2 TL missile pods and velocity tracker: [Situational] a shorter ranged, non-expendable ammo Skyray. If you give it SMS, you'll get yourself an AV13 Broadside. Costs 1.5x more than the Broadie.
--> 2 long-barreled burst cannon: [Useless] cool for toying with overwatch, but besides that your FWs can do the same job at spraying S5 around.
--> 2 fusion cannons: [Useless] the weapon itself isn't bad, but not being Fast will make you fire only one everytime you move.
--> 2 plasma cannons: [Useless] glorious S7 AP2 (no gets hot!), but moving an inch will make one of them fire snap shots. Ion Cannon is cheaper and do basically the same (plus large blast). You can get AP2 with Crisis

Fortification:
- Sensor Tower Grid: [Situational] Oh the irony... first a Building as Troops, now a model with TOUGHNESS as a Fortification. It gives units within 2" re-roll To Hit of 1, but only once per turn (so you'll need one tower for each unit you want to 'buff'). It is basically an immobile version of Shadowsun's command drone. Has a TL markerlight.

I'll hold on Kroot stuff because they're worse than useless and they're OOP anyway.

X107 R'varna: [Situational] Was pretty mandatory when it had AP3 and full access to Riptide armoury... with AP4, limited weargear options and not able to save a Reactor fail, it took a serious hit in usability. Still powerful and mean against massed larger models (bike, cavalry, beasts, etc) and squads of close-formed vehicles. Pricy.
XV109 Y'vahra: [Useful] Awesome. AP2 flamer with half-torrent and 2 templates? A S8 weapon with Haywire hits as bonus? 24" jump move? Can escape tarpits? Too bad its weapons are so short-ranged. The model is under testing, so expect it to change. Won't give it a 'Must Take' because Melta Crisis do half of its job and are cheaper.

Did they update IA 3 to 6th/7th?

 Celtic Strike wrote:

Did they update IA 3 to 6th/7th?

The current version came after the new Tau codex, so it's 6th.