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DJ3 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Ignoring cover thing is kinda a big deal. You need Markerlights.

Buffmander gives Ignore Cover.

Hmmm. Only if he himself doesn't fire, no?

How is the rule phrased? If a unit fires, or if a model fires?

Loving that Retaliation Cadre. My playstyle is all about my Fire Warriors, Hammerheads, and Pathfinders forming the anvil of my force while my Crisis Suits deep strike in to be the hammer that breaks the advancing enemy. Having reliable turn 2 deep strike with +1 BS is amazing. Relelntless Broadsides is just gravy (and somewhat hilarious to see Broadsides deep strike in somehow). What I don't like though is the amount of mandatory Commanders between the Command, Hunter Cadre, and the Retaliation Cadre. I don't see the Command detachment being of much use when you can take a cheap CAD to get your Ethereal and/or any other HQ you want (Darkstrider might become a god now)......

Wait a minute, does the combined shooting interact with Supporting Fire?

 Jancoran wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Definitely the way to go if you want to kill...you know....anything. Not the way to make friends though

Well you could just let Flying Daemon Circus's end you instead? Lol. Look. There is a point at which good will to all men ends. nd right now, with whats being fielded COMPETITIVELY, you can either be a doner or a player. Or the third category, who i hate: an incessant whiner who hates change. But obviously none of those exist on forums, so that's good.

I am not known for my power builds. I am in fact known on my blog for unorthodoxy. But I think its a bit of hyperbole to say this is going to end friendships when ultimately, melee does the same thing to Tau that it always did: neutralizes them.

ONE Marine squad can tie them up for much longer than they want to think about. cost vs. benefit? pretty good. So it will come down to whether the enemy force is balanced and mobile enough to actually do it. But thats their fault if it isnt. Mobility and assault are back in 7th Edition, so anyone whose not gotten that memo gets what they get anyways.

I completely agree. I was just more getting at that something like that is very much a competitive build. Great, but comes with a disclaimer - understand that with great power comes great responsibility. I too like using unorthodox builds and am not apologetic about the power level of my lists. I list-build with tournament competitiveness in mind. You just don't want your 5 year old kid picking up a light saber thinking its a pool noodle.

People who think that the Taucurion is OP don't understand that Tau are minimally mobile, awful at maelstrom generally because of this, have no psychic presence and no assault ability that is worth writing home about. So, yeah, they should be able to shoot better than almost any other army


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vankraken wrote:


Wait a minute, does the combined shooting interact with Supporting Fire?

I wish. Only works in the shooting phase, so no to overwatch and no to interceptor

Alcibiades wrote:

DJ3 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Ignoring cover thing is kinda a big deal. You need Markerlights.

Buffmander gives Ignore Cover.

Hmmm. Only if he himself doesn't fire, no?

How is the rule phrased? If a unit fires, or if a model fires?

Coordinated Firepower wrote:Whenever a unit from a Hunter Contingent selects a target in the shooting phase... These units must shoot the same target, resolving their shots as if they were a single unit - this includes the use of markerlight abilities.

In other words, if several units with target locks join up, the models with target locks would still get the benefits of being in the unit.

 luke1705 wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

Wait a minute, does the combined shooting interact with Supporting Fire?

I wish. Only works in the shooting phase, so no to overwatch and no to interceptor

I would send that to YMDC actually. It sounds very similar to all the other Shooting Phase contingent rules, which some people expect to work just when shooting (Heavy, Multi-Trackers, ect) and some don't.


I'm expecting Forgeworld to (eventually) release an errata showing where their Tau units can be placed in the Hunter Contingent, similar to the Lord of War.

Not necessary. The rule specifies the shooting phase

 luke1705 wrote:
Not necessary. The rule specifies the shooting phase

As does multi-trackers, monstrous creatures firing two weapons, how many shots Heavy weapons can fire, then there are MSSS and CnCN which say they can be used in the shooting phase, but not in overwatch, which shouldn't even be mentioned if it only worked in the "shooting phase".
You can see how it can get a bit odd.

What is the opposite position? Is it the shooting phase? No? Then no benefit is provided.

Not trying to be pedantic or contrarian, but it's about as black and white as it gets. I understand why they think it might work, but explicitly it does not


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nilok wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Not necessary. The rule specifies the shooting phase

As does multi-trackers, monstrous creatures firing two weapons, how many shots Heavy weapons can fire, then there are MSSS and CnCN which say they can be used in the shooting phase, but not in overwatch, which shouldn't even be mentioned if it only worked in the "shooting phase".
You can see how it can get a bit odd.

To me, that's just an example of bad rules writing. But Rules As Softly Implied doesn't mean that you can do it unless you get explicit permission to do so

/end YMDC rant/

 luke1705 wrote:
What is the opposite position? Is it the shooting phase? No? Then no benefit is provided.

Not trying to be pedantic or contrarian, but it's about as black and white as it gets. I understand why they think it might work, but explicitly it does not

To me, that's just an example of bad rules writing. But Rules As Softly Implied doesn't mean that you can do it unless you get explicit permission to do so

/end YMDC rant/

The shooting phase rules outside of the shooting phase have never been black and white, they have been the murkies part of the rules since all of the shooting rules are contingent on the shooting phase (Heavy weapons and how many weapons you are restricted to firing).
I do think it is time to move this to YMDC.

Looks like Bodyguards lost the ability to be taken as a free slot.

Any reason to take them now?

Suit squads that get sig systems. Also you have to in some formations I think.

well that only solves the problem for ONE unit. So how do you plan on spreading the love otherwise?

I think the Markerlights are quite necessary. Wish they still penalized you on pinning.

Bodyguards are only mandatory in the 'Contingent Headquarters' Command option (which is a 0-1 choice) - which isn't a formation btw.
It's the only way to get Ethereals in the Taucurion, so if you want Ethereals or an extra Commander then you have to take Bodyguards.

Hey, all! I'm a long-time lurker and have been following the latest Tau rumors avidly. Now that we have something reasonably concrete to work with in the way of army lists, I admit I'm pretty stoked for this release. I share most people's disappointment with the continued relative uselessness of heavy rail rifles, Devilfish, our flyers, and Vespids, but I'm glad we got a few useful and interesting units to play with. The formations, though, are clearly the meat of this update. I spent more of my Saturday than I probably should have mulling over some of the myriad new army list and tactical possibilities, and a few things really stand out to me.

First and foremost, the formations and their bonuses are freakin' sweet. At first glance, I'd say they at least bump Tau back into the competitive play mix and give us several different lists that can potentially go deep in the field against tough competition. While the standard CAD certainly gets buffed from the new release, I think the Hunter Cadre is pretty clearly the way to go as your primary detachment. Supporting fire was already pretty intense, but extending it to 12" makes charging a pretty daunting task for your opponent. At the very least, he'll have to chuck a throw-away unit at you to eat overwatch if he doesn't want a healthy chunk of his assault unit taken out before it even does anything, assuming it can even still reach your lines. Running and shooting obviously promotes a more mobile style of play and goes a long way, in my opinion, toward legitimizing non-gunline lists. Probably the most glaring perk, though, is the ability to combine units and share their buffs. I'm anxious to see the exact verbiage of that rule, but I am quite confident we can (and should!) abuse the poop out of it. Tau were always fairly good at force multiplication, and now we're bordering on absurd.

The new units make me happy. The Stormsurge isn't my favorite model in the world, but I like the giant missile robot theme a lot. It seems to be costed reasonably, unlike many of the recent gargantuan units. I'm thinking that 400+ pts (because who is seriously going to take one without a shield generator?) is better spent elsewhere, but 2 S10 AP2 large blasts a turn supported by a ridiculous amount of small arms fire is nothing to sneeze at. I'll likely proxy it a few times to try it out before dropping the cash for one. Breachers are intriguing to me. I see them as an easy solution to MSU marine armies since they'll threaten both the marines themselves and the Razorbacks they come in/beside. The run/shoot rules make them quite a lot more dangerous due to the threat range increase, but it's a shame that Devilfish are still horribly overcosted. It would have been really nice to revive the old Fish of Fury tactic. I anticipate that ramming a bunch of these guys down your opponent's throat will yield decent results. Ghostkeels are my favorite of the bunch. In fact, I see them becoming a staple of competitive Tau lists. They're sort of like a mobile, more durable alternative to Broadsides. Given the crazy amount of synergy Tau units have now, the fact that Ghostkeels' weapons are pretty plain in terms of special rules can be spun as a boon since you don't have to pay extra points for twin-linked weapons, ignoring cover, etc.

Speaking of unit synergy, a buffmander - or possibly a buff Crisis Bodyguard - seems like an auto-take now. 135 pts essentially allows you to delete any unit you want every turn, from anywhere on the table. As long as you can see it, it's probably going to die. Darkstrider got a HUGE buff, but since he isn't anywhere to be found in the Hunter Cadre, he isn't nearly as automatic, in my book. That said, dropping the popular death stars down to T4 is a big deal. Taking an allied CAD (or allied contingent) allows you access to Skyrays and Tetras, however, as others noted. Marker lights are clearly still very important, but with the shared buffs, you probably don't need quite as many of them. Of course, you'll have to balance need with durability, for taking too few markerlight sources ensures that the ones you do have are going to poof rather quickly. Overall, I see balancing points spent on force multipliers vs the rest of the army as a significant struggle for Tau now. How much buffing/debuffing is enough? It's a good problem to have, I suppose.

Last but not least, the Optimised Stealth Cadre...wow. I'm willing to bet this formation is the new FBSC and will find its way into lots of competitive non-Tau lists, in one form or another. Load the Ghostkeels up with velocity trackers and EWO, like chalkobob said, and you'll mulch pretty much anything that comes within range. Point them in the same direction as your buffmander for serious overkill. Stealth suits still aren't my favorite, even with BS4 and hitting rear armor, but at least they're decent with those buffs. I don't consider them a costly tax, at least on paper.

Personally, I think I'm going to opt for (or at least rigorously try out) a very aggressive style of play that involves maximum mobility and midfield control. Pressure with Breachers and fusion suits will be the name of my game with bulk and possibly emergency CC support(!) provided by Ghostkeels.

Operating under the assumption that points costs for everything are essentially staying the same, I'm thinking something like this might be nice for 1850:

Hunter Contingent
Hunter Cadre
Commander - PEN, MSS, C+C node, drone controller, target lock, 2 marker drones - 172
Ethereal - 50
7 Breachers - 63
7 Breachers - 63
7 Breachers - 63
9 Strikers - 81
9 Strikers - 81
4 Marker Drones - 56
3 Broadsides - EWO - 210
3 Crisis Suits - 2 fusion blasters each - 156
3 Crisis Suits - 2 fusion blasters each - 156

Optimised Stealth Cadre
3 Ghostkeels - twin fusion blasters, ion rakers, EWO, velocity trackers - 495
3 Stealth suits - fusion blaster with target lock - 100
3 Stealth suits - fusion blaster with target lock - 100

1846 points total.

I'm making the possibly tenuous assumption that a buffmander with a target lock can target a different unit than the marker drones and still give the rest of the army his buffs. I also don't know what sorts of upgrades the strike teams can get. If they can have a portable missile pod like Breachers can, that'd be a worthwhile purchase, for sure. You could lose some troops for Fire Warrior upgrades, or possibly to get more crisis suits. I sense, though, that being able to combine units' firepower is going to see a resurgence in Tau troops' usefulness. It's pretty awesome to unload a ton of BS5 S5 shots on...well, anything. All you need is 1 unit's marker light support to make your troops killing machines. The Breachers are in units of 7 since that allows them to comfortably dispatch a unit of 5 marines without any support. That list obviously is not particularly refined, but it's something to work with, I suppose.

In any event, I'm really looking forward to playing with this book.

Edit for combined fire rule ninja: Totally awesome.

Theres so many formation shenanigans now. I was kinda shocked they didnt really buff anybody in the codex. Only static change was Riptides, Hammerheads, and Skyrays getting squads of 3 + Fireteam and crisis suits 1-9.
Then the formations popped up. Hooooly crap. If we didnt have the super formation, many of them werent be very good. But the big formation gives them a whole new purpose (thinking mainly of the formation that lets reserves come in automatically when one dies).

Optimized Stealth is the main one that has my attention. I love stealth suits and ghostkeels. I was already intending on fielding 3 ghostkeels, but when i found stealthsuits didnt change i was sad because theyre too expensive on their own. But that formation....thats just sexy! Stealth suits away!

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Only static change was Riptides, Hammerheads, and Skyrays getting squads of 3 + Fireteam and crisis suits 1-9.

What do you mean by Crisis Suits gettting 1-9?

And in regards ot all this since I am a Farsight Enclaves player I think I will primarily be playing out of the standard CAD for the most part to take advantage of the Crisis Suits as Troops deal (since talking the Hunter Contingent pretty much makes taking FSE usless in general). However I am going to collect enough to run the Optimized Stealth Cadre, love the Ghostkeel model and this gives me an excuse to pick up x3 of them and some Stealth Suits.

Regarding the overwatch thing i'm pretty sure Supporting Fire states it only affects MODEL's within 6", not sure if that changes in the new codex.

Also just to help me get my head around this, if i have longstrike, 2 squads of firewarriors and a fireblade and combine their firepower all of them get tank hunter and preferred enemy: guard from Longstrike and both firewarrior units will get an extra shot from the Fireblade and they'll all get +1 ballistic skill making the firewarriors BS4 and the Longstrike BS6?

That's pretty sweet!

Supporting fire has always said "all friendly models in UNITS within 6" of a unit being charged" - reason it specifies the model has to have the rule to shoot, not simply be in the unit, is because its possible to not have the entire unit with Supporting Fire. Kroot for instance do not have supporting fire, but if you have a Commander attached (for some reason...) he can still fire.

 gmaleron wrote:


What do you mean by Crisis Suits gettting 1-9?

Crisis suits squads have been changed to include between 1 and 9 models (excluding drones), instead of 1 and 3. Also Airbursting fragmentation projectors and cyclic ion blasters are no longer limited to 1 per army, you could have a 9 man squad of crisis suits with cyclic ion blasters drop down for 54 strength 7 AP 4 shots potentially. Though it would be hard to drop a unit that big, especially with the new base sizes.

 chalkobob wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:


What do you mean by Crisis Suits gettting 1-9?

Crisis suits squads have been changed to include between 1 and 9 models (excluding drones), instead of 1 and 3. Also Airbursting fragmentation projectors and cyclic ion blasters are no longer limited to 1 per army, you could have a 9 man squad of crisis suits with cyclic ion blasters drop down for 54 strength 7 AP 4 shots potentially. Though it would be hard to drop a unit that big, especially with the new base sizes.

...are you serious, I can have a 9 man squad of Crisis Suits?! Holy GAK!!!

 chalkobob wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:


What do you mean by Crisis Suits gettting 1-9?

Crisis suits squads have been changed to include between 1 and 9 models (excluding drones), instead of 1 and 3. Also Airbursting fragmentation projectors and cyclic ion blasters are no longer limited to 1 per army, you could have a 9 man squad of crisis suits with cyclic ion blasters drop down for 54 strength 7 AP 4 shots potentially. Though it would be hard to drop a unit that big, especially with the new base sizes.

That's what through boldness, victory is for

 luke1705 wrote:

 chalkobob wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:


What do you mean by Crisis Suits gettting 1-9?

Crisis suits squads have been changed to include between 1 and 9 models (excluding drones), instead of 1 and 3. Also Airbursting fragmentation projectors and cyclic ion blasters are no longer limited to 1 per army, you could have a 9 man squad of crisis suits with cyclic ion blasters drop down for 54 strength 7 AP 4 shots potentially. Though it would be hard to drop a unit that big, especially with the new base sizes.

That's what through boldness, victory is for

\

That would indeed help for sure, however though I do think x9 Crisis Suits is definitley unweildy on the table, now running them in squads of x6 however seems like a much more feasable and tactically sound option. Not only could you get more teams kitted out different ways but the unit would be so abnormally large to make it difficult to deepstrike.

Even with that it'd be pretty difficult. 50mm bases are too damn big for crisis suits. Not to mention 60mm for commanders, who despite being so massive with their new model are still T4 or lacking EW.

9 50mm bases and a 60mm without the drones is a huuuuuuge footprint. If theres a place you can safely land such a squad, you arent using enough terrain. The game is suppose to have a lot more terrain than most people use, which is why gunline armies are so crazy powerful.
Thats not including drones, obviously.

They should have made the crisis suits use the small oval bases (forget the size). The one thats basically the 40mm base but has an oval shape, so its wider than 40mm.

Keep in mind that the combined fire rule is all about minimum size squads. 3 squads of 3 crisis all shooting at the same target get a free +1BS, whereas 1 group of 9 does not

Theres that too.

Its funny. Looking at the datasheets alone, it seems they want us to buy more models for larger units to maximize ML support or buffmanders.
But the formations are the exact opposite. Unless im missing something, why on earth would you run a squad of 3 riptides when you can easily run 3 solo riptides while still being within the boundaries of the various formations, have them be either totally independent (thus no wasted supp slot on target locks) or focus fire and get BOTH Fire Team and Combined Fire rules for a BS5!

Kinda confused which they wanted us to do rofl. Still think Fireteam was written badly and thats the main reason most of these shenanigans exist.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Taking an allied CAD (or allied contingent) allows you access to Skyrays and Tetras, however, as others noted.

Can't do that unless you've got a third, non-Tau detachment in your army to pull your Warlord from; you can't take an Allied Detachment that's from the same faction as your primary.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
But the big formation gives them a whole new purpose (thinking mainly of the formation that lets reserves come in automatically when one dies).

That Formation is really interesting; it would allow Tau to (essentially) null-deploy when going second at no risk, which would do wonders against other shooty armies (like Scatterbike Eldar or other Tau).

You deploy nothing but a Stealth Team (or Piranha), and then if the enemy kills it, your whole army arrives from reserves at the bottom of 1.

The obvious problem is having to pay for 3 units of Pathfinders and 2 units of non-Optimized Stealth-formation Stealth Suits and a unit of Piranhas. Probably not worth it at that point.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Unless im missing something, why on earth would you run a squad of 3 riptides when you can easily run 3 solo riptides while still being within the boundaries of the various formations, have them be either totally independent (thus no wasted supp slot on target locks) or focus fire and get BOTH Fire Team and Combined Fire rules for a BS5!

That's pretty obviously why Fire Team exists. Without the FOC to provide limitations, there's no reason to actually take all of these squadroned vehicles they've been adding, so they add some token bonus--Marine vehicles got the same treatment, where if you take 3 Predators/Whirlwinds/Vindicators, you got a special benefit. MSU is always inherently better than larger squadrons; two units in two places potentially shooting at two things and/or forcing two different things to kill them (which is also why Kill Points exist as a mission concept, to provide some disincentive from pure MSU).

With the old FOC (or CAD) you might run into situations where you'd gladly take 3 Riptides in one slot to keep your other slots free for other things, but that's so rare now that they have to give you some bonus just to try to convince you to do it.

The Marine ones were pretty interesting (particularly the absurd Apoc Blast Ignores Cover Vindicator squadron), but still nobody used any of them. It seems like at this point GW just got lazy and decided to throw +1 BS across the board because nobody's going to bother anyway.

Been thinking of the best ways to run my Crisis Suit teams since you can now take much larger units of them. I am looking at running them out of the Farsight Enclaves Codex to maintain my theme of a Pure/Heavy Suit army which to get the most bang for my buck will probably be me running them out of a standard CAD. What im thinking:

-Maximum x6 Crisis Suits per squad only for certain builds. Where x9 Crisis Suits are definitley to large a footprint and to much of a points sink I feel x6 is a great number to aim for. Not only does it give you a total of x12 Wounds but you also get a good amount of firepower to basically delete whatever you are shooting at. Also you dont have to buy extra boxes or worry about having Suits left over with squads of x6 .

-I also think by taking squads of x6 you would definitley be better off taking mixed weapon loadouts in a lot of cases as compared to dual weapon choices in regards to certain weapons. For example, a unit of x6 Crisis Suits with the "Fireknife" Loadout (Missile Pod + Plasma Gun) would be quite devastating and really give you some tactical flexibility when it came to shooting. Also if you have the points leftover, deciding to add a x1 or x2 Flamers to the squad for Overwatch purposes wouldnt be a bad idea either or even upgrades.

-In regards to certain Crisis Suit builds such as the "Sunforge" (x2 Fusion) or "SoulforgeD8" (x2 Fusion and x1 Flamer) I think sticking to x3 Suits is still your best option. Have them Deepstrike to focus on vehicles or infantry camping on objectives and thanks to being BS4 due to the "Fire Team" Special Rule they have gotten even better at popping vehicles from reserves.

Just some thoughts I have been having on the matter. Also anyone have any idea what would be the best # of Drones to take with a unit of x6 Crisis Suits? Or would it even be worth taking any at all since we can now take them in units of x6?

A small bonus you can get fairly easily for vehicles in the Hunter Contingent is to detach their drones and use them to get +1 BS via 3 units shooting at the same target.

The enemy unit would have to be fairly close, but you probably weren't going to use those drones for much else anyway.

Now that the rules for the piecemeal tidewall have been leaked, it looks like the Hammerhead has been sent further into the "not really worth it" territory. 85 searchlights for a TL railgun that comes with submunitions and if you take 3 for triple the cost, you can fire all three at the same target and either get armorbane for your solid shots or +1 str for the subs.

Sure, they have to stay in the exact formation they started in, but you can still move them 6" a turn.

There's also the Drone port - add some marker drones and put a stormsurge on top and it becomes entirely self-sufficient and mobile despite deploying stabilizers since it doesn't count as moving and you can use the ML drones for the destroyer missiles.

 McNinja wrote:
Now that the rules for the piecemeal tidewall have been leaked, it looks like the Hammerhead has been sent further into the "not really worth it" territory. 85 searchlights for a TL railgun that comes with submunitions and if you take 3 for triple the cost, you can fire all three at the same target and either get armorbane for your solid shots or +1 str for the subs.

Sure, they have to stay in the exact formation they started in, but you can still move them 6" a turn.

There's also the Drone port - add some marker drones and put a stormsurge on top and it becomes entirely self-sufficient and mobile despite deploying stabilizers since it doesn't count as moving and you can use the ML drones for the destroyer missiles.

You can't fit a riptide in a Drone Port let alone a Stormsurge.

You can fit one on top though.