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And I'd just like to point out that we have no idea what the signature systems are. Some of the current ones might be normal systems now, or not exist at all. And who knows if the new ones will be as big a deal as the current ones.

Oh definitely. I play for fun more than anything else, which is why i dont spam riptides and i tend to use Piranhas alot.

Unless he becomes such complete trash at damn near 200pts with a shield-gen/stims (assuming 85pts base still like in current dex), i'll definitely field him a lot. Its funny as hell, and if i can add a squad of Coldstar Crisis suits to him without costing a third of my army to do it, hes not going alone lol.

Which reminds me....assuming of course non-commander Coldstars are FMCs in the same fashion, what happens to a squad of Swooping FMCs when they need to grounding test? Is it a squad-wide thing on a single roll, or is the one that got wounded grounded on his own and potentially singled-out for a charge?

Is there any evidence to think the Coldstar can be brought in squads? There's only one set of decals on the sheet vs 3 for crisis suits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thinking about it, I bet Iridium is gone. Coldstar is the replacement. Probably +1T and 2+ armor save, plus the changes noted in the data sheet pic.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Oh definitely. I play for fun more than anything else, which is why i dont spam riptides and i tend to use Piranhas alot.

Unless he becomes such complete trash at damn near 200pts with a shield-gen/stims (assuming 85pts base still like in current dex), i'll definitely field him a lot. Its funny as hell, and if i can add a squad of Coldstar Crisis suits to him without costing a third of my army to do it, hes not going alone lol.

Which reminds me....assuming of course non-commander Coldstars are FMCs in the same fashion, what happens to a squad of Swooping FMCs when they need to grounding test? Is it a squad-wide thing on a single roll, or is the one that got wounded grounded on his own and potentially singled-out for a charge?

Well, 1) obviously you play for fun, you play orks!
2) It doesn't look like there will be options for non-commander ColdStars. Hope I'm wrong.
3) That has never come up, because there are no squads of FMCs, as far as I know. That and the Stormsurge splitting fire at different targets per GMC rules will be an interesting interaction.

I imagine the non-commander coldstars, if they exist, will be either formation specific, listed with crisis suits like the commander is (which we havent seen yet), or an entirely separate unit in the datasheets.
I could totally see them being FA if they have FMC rules....

Can coldstar really not take any signature system? Isn't it a similar situation with a command squads apothecary? And I do believe ITC let the apothecary take upgrades (my flgs plays ITC format).

The way its written right now shows its a separate options list if you take the coldstar suit, since it repeats all options except signature access and 2 supps instead of 4 weap/supps slots. If all it said was the support slots since it already has 2 guns, i wouldnt believe it cant take signatures since that could be chocked off as automatically using 2 of his slots up. But it lists his drones again, for no reason other than indicating no signature systems allowed.

Admittedly with the current signature systems, not a big deal since the only ones we actually care about are buffmander ones. I wouldnt be caught dead giving him my Iridium when my missilepod crisis suit team pretty much only stays alive because of Commander Buffy standing infront of them being a tank lol.

maceria wrote:

 warboss wrote:

vitae_drinker wrote:
Burst cannons are energy weapons, guys. They're pulse Gatling weapons.

Nevermind then. Thanks for the correction.

Ehhhh, they fire plasma. Lots of high velocity, low mass, not-as-hot, plasma rounds. Pulse gattling guns it a great description.

Thing is, EVERYTHING will impart reactive forces onto the the firer. Lasers, beams of fusion exhaust, etc. Missiles would be less so, but the stream of propellants is likely to still hit the firer when expanding out the back, imparting some energy.

It would be nice if there were weapon options. But eh. I'll take the FMC hard to hit.

Still, pulse weaponry has so little kick that it's only there at all on burst cannons (simply because of their high RoF), and even then it's easily manageable by normal tau. I'm sure they could program it in for their thursters to auto-correct if the need arises.

If Coldstar had vector strike, it would be an auto take for me. Since it doesn't, I'm on the fence. Maybe it'll get a signature system or something to make it better.

Do we have rules for a high output burst cannon yet?

 Peregrine wrote:

How is smash worthless?

Because you want to shoot things, not punch them.

Smash makes your normal melee hits AP2, this is pretty useful (I did this wrong in my last game and my riptide failed at killing 2 orcs due to their 6+ armor save ).

If you're trying to assault things with a Coldstar you aren't playing right. Even with Smash it would die to basically any unit worth anything.

I can see some kind of very mobile high risk/reward tactics coming out with the cold star, also the fact that breachers and the stormsurge need to be dangerously close to punch the hardest is an interesting direction coming from a typically far-off gunline army

I think GW are trying to make tau get some exercise

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
If you're trying to assault things with a Coldstar you aren't playing right. Even with Smash it would die to basically any unit worth anything.

This. Play it like a Flyrant, jumping around the board taking pot shots at any units or light vehicles you can. An MP is 2 S7 AP 4 shots, and the high output BC has to be better than the normal BC, which means better than 4 S5 AP5 shots. For an FMC, that's not bad for hunting troops and non 2+ or invul protected units.

Have any of you noticed that there is no option for a crisis bodyguard team for the commander?

I really like the new releases so far, they seem balanced and will allow a lot of cool and interesting new tactics which is awesome. I'm the guy who never plays Riptides so new balanced suits make me happy!

But then again, we haven't seen the new codex so we can't rule out powerful synergies or new rules that will make the new Tau OP...

Kahnawake

Zelnik wrote:
Have any of you noticed that there is no option for a crisis bodyguard team for the commander?

To be fair, the bodyguard team isn't just for the commander but anyone designated as a commander (Shadowsun and Farsight to be specific), so they might not have listed it as it's a unit in itself as opposed to something specifically dedicated to the commander. So while it's a Commander retinue, it's listed as general wargear and as such listed separately, like all the weapons are.

 Kahnawake wrote:
I really like the new releases so far, they seem balanced and will allow a lot of cool and interesting new tactics which is awesome. I'm the guy who never plays Riptides so new balanced suits make me happy!

But then again, we haven't seen the new codex so we can't rule out powerful synergies or new rules that will make the new Tau OP...

Kahnawake

I love the Riptide, but the Ghostkeel is a close second D:

So the Coldstar upgrade makes the commander suit a flying mech.

Cool

I am waiting for full rules before anything is purchased. I can see myself kitting up for as many as two teams of Ghostkeels (I will likely magnetize and just get a single team), a Ta'unar and some of those super-sexy firewarriors

I actually legitimately don't understand the criticisms against the Coldstar' rules.

Why on earth would you ever want a Commander in combat if he doesn't have the Onager Gauntlet or the Fusion fist thing from Farsight Enclaves? His melee stats aren't awful and he would be a decent melee unit with Smash but at best it would mean he can maybe do some damage to a vehicle or fight weaker units in combat. However, none of that changes the fact that the current Flying Monstrous Creature rules PENALIZE close combat which is something none of you have brought up yet. FMCs have to wait a turn after landing to charge, or charge on the turn after they fail a grounding test....but in most cases, especially with the ranged FMCs like Fateweaver and Flying Hive Tyrants, you want to be back in the air anyway. The only legitimately competitive melee-oriented FMCs are D-Bloodthirsters and Nurgle Daemon Princes, the former because you get two-three of them for free in a KDK game and the latter because he has the durability and damage output to make him worthwhile. The best FMCs in the game - notably Flying Hive Tyrants and Fateweaver - almost never want to get into close combat because being a FMC with two or more ranged weapons/psychic attacks is awesome as most people have worked out. Now, I'm not saying a Coldstar is as good as either of those two but to say he sucks because he loses Smash is actually downright stupid.

Not only that, who the hell cares about Fear? People are seriously complaining about the loss of Fear as well? It is the most useless rule in Warhammer 40,000 bar none and it would make absolutely no difference to a Coldstar. As for Vector Strike, a Strength 5 Vector Strike is really not that great as any Tyranid player will tell you (Harpies, Hive Crones, etc) as it struggles to hurt most flyers/vehicles and you generally aren't using FMCs to hunt infantry. Besides, sacrificing a Ballistic Skill 5 Missile Pod and presumably at the very least a 5-shot Burst Cannon generally won't be worth it if there are any vehicles on the field. So basically, you guys are complaining about the Coldstar losing three rules that, in most games, you would never use or even really benefit from. You want this guy to stay in the air and keep shooting like a Flying Hive Tyrant as staying on the ground even to try and "slingshot" out of combat in your opponents turn with a Tau unit is a gamble that won't pay off in almost every situation. Basically, you are paying for the actual....you know, real benefits of being a FMC, not the situational ones you would never use anyway. How is this in any way a bad thing if you actually look at how people use the shooting-oriented FMCs?

I also would like to point out something that hasn't been mentioned yet; the utility of having an anti-air unit in your HQ slot (and we know this is a HQ because it is an upgrade to the Commander) is actually really darned good. This means you don't have to worry about taking Velocity Trackers in your army as a precaution (usually you see at least one or two units with them in competitive lists as unlike other armies' you don't lost anything for using them as they provide optional Skyfire) and this will thus save you points elsewhere, while you can replace current Commanders with the Coldstar and thus probably end up ahead on points than you were before. You can take a Coldstar to fit your mandatory HQ slot in a CAD - which is great when taking smaller CADs as part of a larger force because he needs no support - and keep him hidden or flying around in a good spot where opposing flyers won't be able to fire at him when they enter play. You then move into the open once they arrive and proceed to shoot at them with your Strength 7 gun and presumably Strength 5 five-shot gun (if we assume at worst that the super burst cannon is just a burst cannon with an extra shot), something that is made really darn good by the fact that non-vehicle units have 360 degree line-of-sight for firing their weapons - another massive benefit you people haven't mentioned, making shooting at the side or rear armour of vehicles exceptionally easy. . Unlike the Vector Strike at Strength 5, a mass of Strength 5 shots at Ballistic Skill 5 will actually be enough to inflict a hull point or two of damage onto any AV11-AV10 flyer, while a Ballistic Skill 5 Missile Pod is similarly very good against pretty much all non-AV12 flyers.

When you consider the current cost of taking a Velocity Tracker, Missile Pod and we will say a 15 point weapon to cover the super Burst Cannon, you get a 130 point Commander. The Coldstar pays 10 points (if we assume the basic Commander price didn't change the Coldstar will be 140 points) to get Hard to Hit (meaning people hit the damn thing on 6s without Skyfire, but how many armies take actual Skyfire these days in competitive environments?), the Gliding and Swooping movement profiles of a Flying Monstrous Creature meaning you can easily get to where you need to be to shoot your weapons at the most effective target for them while still keeping a good range as necessary, and the Jink rule. While Jink might seem like a bad rule for the Coldstar, unlike the melee rules there will actually be numerous reasons to make use of Jink provided you don't take a Shield Generator - saving a units' bacon is almost always worth sacrificing a turn of shooting as any Tyranid player will tell you, rather than throwing its life away in a combat because you somehow think a Tau FMC should be in combat (seriously, do people think about what they write?). If you Jink and survive, you can easily hide a Coldstar (it might be big but it's nowhere near as big as a flyer and doesn't have the elevation of a flying stand) out of sight and get back into the fray on the next turn to shoot at full efficiency. Not to mention the BIG one, if Markerlights stay the same and let you increase the Ballistic Skill of Snap Shots you can make the penalties for Jinking completely irrelevant by merely increasing his Ballistic Skill.

Also, I'd like to point out that until we know the actual stats of the Burst Cannon, even if we assume that gun is better than a regular Burst Cannon (which it will be) by a slight amount this thing is still a better anti-air unit than either of the current Tau flyers. Why? Similar weapons, Ballistic Skill 5 and the ability to shoot 360 degrees with much less restrictive movement. Yes, the Tau flyers (aside from the Forge World ones) suck but the Coldstar has more utility than them; depending on what defensive stats it gains (if any) from a Coldstar, it could very well be much harder to kill than either of the plastic flyers for Tau. If it doesn't get any defensive boosts the only real problem will be Grounding Tests due to Strength 9 inflicting Instant Death on a Toughness 4 model, but seeing as you only fail on a 1-2 rolled once per phase it takes an unsaved wound in, Grounding Tests aren't going to be common at all anyway. Honestly, if the super Burst Cannon ends up being four Strength 6 shots instead of the usual four Strength 5 shots - assuming the buff is as "minor" as that - this thing will be instantly worthwhile and actually compete with a Barracuda for dedicated anti-air duties in a Tau list. Regardless, I think people are under-selling the potential of its firepower combined with the FMC rules as it is; it might not be twelve twin-linked Strength 6 shots at Ballistic Skill 4, but it is instead at the very least two Strength 7 shots at Ballistic Skill 5 plus (at worst) four Strength 6 shots or six Strength 5 shots at Ballistic Skill 5. Flying Hive Tyrants are considered to be a top-tier unit that almost solely props Tyranids up in competitive play, are they not? This thing is 90 points cheaper assuming the Commander price hasn't changed, and while it still doesn't compare very well it at least has its place. A 140 point FMC with this firepower is not at all bad, in fact you should ask a Tyranid player what they think of it next to a Harpy in the context of not being able to use a Flying Hive Tyrant and they will probably call you crazy for not liking it.

I guess I just don't understand. If you want to fill up the mandatory CAD choices with the most self-sufficient choices, the Coldstar is the most obvious HQ choice we have right now, and that's before we've even seen what the super Burst Cannon is or what defensive stats it gains.

Well, if it had Vector Strike, it would actually be able to make use of it's multi-tracker, since normally the strike counts against it's two weapon uses. Even if it's taking you close, an excuse to use one of the systems you're equipped with automatically would be nice.

Unless Multi-trackers let you fire one weapon an extra time, or has finally had its effect switched with Target Lock. It always annoyed me that those two were backwards. Like Markerlights and Networked markerlights.

This reminds me of a Stormsurge actually. It's a finely balanced unit for its points all things considered. The fact that this translates to "the codex will be Don't bypass the languuge filter like this. Reds8n for a lot of people is just beyond stupid seeing as none of the units leaked thus far are bad in any way (at worst, Breachers might be bad if Devilfishes suck). Just because the new units aren't point-and-click doesn't make them bad, nor does the new units' rules have any bearing on the existing units. People jump to so many damned silly conclusions it is almost laughable. What we've seen already shows us this codex will still be way ahead of Dark Eldar/Grey Knights/Blood Angels/Orks and at least on par with the Necron and post-Necron codices outside of the few ridiculous units each of those books has.

@SinisterSamurai
That's actually a good point that I didn't think of, but I don't think losing a Strength 5 Vector Strike on a unit that has long range guns and doesn't want to be close to enemies is really that big of a deal. That's another point I want to make; unless the Burst Cannon is 18" like current ones (no clue here as it is an entirely new weapon), the Commander can shoot from 36" away unless Missile Pods got changed. I can't think of any ranged FMC in the game that can operate at that kind of range.

If you don't understand why people are apprehensive, let me try to sum it up.

Tau really enjoy being able to kit their commanders out for what they need and this guy comes with preselected weapons. You can say the weapons are good or the combination is good, but it still takes away the players choice in the matter.

Since he gets FMC rules that means he can't really join units and bringing drones seems a bit iffy (though I can see the point in taking them). This is just something that again feels restrictive for little gain. We get an anti-air unit. Great. Except the Skyrays, Broadsides, and fighter are supposed to be covering those areas. Not that extra isn't good, but it makes you wonder if those will be nerfed or left useless to make this seem more of a necessity.

Personally I think it's pretty good. The missiles will be reasonably able to get a lot of side/rear armor shots. The burst cannon I can't really say but hope it will be good.

The short story is that Tau is very heavy into synergy and balance. Teasing by showing a unit every few days does not really do well because we need to see the big picture to really see how useful they will be. Breachers are a great example. Until we see the devilfish, we don't know how well they can be deployed.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
If you don't understand why people are apprehensive, let me try to sum it up.

Tau really enjoy being able to kit their commanders out for what they need and this guy comes with preselected weapons. You can say the weapons are good or the combination is good, but it still takes away the players choice in the matter.

Since he gets FMC rules that means he can't really join units and bringing drones seems a bit iffy (though I can see the point in taking them). This is just something that again feels restrictive for little gain. We get an anti-air unit. Great. Except the Skyrays, Broadsides, and fighter are supposed to be covering those areas. Not that extra isn't good, but it makes you wonder if those will be nerfed or left useless to make this seem more of a necessity.

Personally I think it's pretty good. The missiles will be reasonably able to get a lot of side/rear armor shots. The burst cannon I can't really say but hope it will be good.

The short story is that Tau is very heavy into synergy and balance. Teasing by showing a unit every few days does not really do well because we need to see the big picture to really see how useful they will be. Breachers are a great example. Until we see the devilfish, we don't know how well they can be deployed.

If the Burst Cannon is decent he will already be ideally equipped for air hunting anyway though, so for actual in-game terms this isn't a problem unless you wanted to use a suicidal fusion-suit in the air (which would be over-powered as he could move 24", shoot 2 BS5 S8 AP1 Melta shots and likely pop an AV14 vehicle in one go). But I do agree the loss of customization sucks.

Actually joining units and leaving units works just fine for the Coldstar. He can deploy with a unit as he doesn't lose the Independent Character special rule, then in his movement phase he can declare he is switching to Swooping mode and leave the unit. I might be wrong on this but I don't see a problem here, if it works as I believe it does then that means he is very easy to protect before he launches into the air. To clarify, there's nothing restricting an Independent Character Monstrous Creature from joining units, only that Independent Characters can't join units that contain vehicles or monstrous creatures (meaning Coldstars can't join each other). This is why O'Vesa is still able to join units but can't join other Riptides.

I probably wouldn't bother with the Drones given that as I've pointed out above the Coldstar should rarely be on the ground. Skyrays are anti-air units in name only, most often they are used to obliterate a target on the first turn before the target can do anything - this can be anything from a Wave Serpent to a Toxicrene. The Networked Markerlights are the real anti-air "tools" for the Skyray in that sense, though with the Coldstar they won't be as necessary or they can be used to give Ignores Cover (unless that changes obviously). Taking a Coldstar means filling your mandatory HQ choice and thus potentially replacing the single HQ choice of previous army lists, and it also means you don't have to pay for Velocity Trackers (which are super expensive) on any of your other units. The fighter functionally is pretty poor because of the way its turret is positioned regardless of how it gets buffed, it has to be beside or behind a flyer to actually be able to even see it with the turret.

Considering we know what a Long-Barreled Burst Cannon does and this one is called a "High Output Burst Cannon" I'm guessing it's as good or better than the Long-Barreled Burst Cannon, but we can only hope. Even if it just five Strength 5 AP5 shots it will still make him a good anti-air unit.

You raise some good points that make me understand some of the criticism, but mostly the ones I don't understand are those talking about it not being that good of a unit. It's most definitely at worst another fine unit until we see what else the Coldstar suit itself does or what the Burst Cannon does. Honestly I'm just sick of the people that keep saying the units suck - when we've figured out that they don't (we don't know about Breachers yet of course) - and are then saying the codex will be weak by extension, even though the new units almost never have any bearing on what a codex will be like. If the codex remains similar to what it was but with the new units added, it will be a strong codex made better by nature of having more options. I'm just disappointed that so many posters are dismissing the codex already or have set their expectations so low when they really have no reason to, especially as formations/detachments are what make these codices (Eldar aside) so darned good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another thing worth mentioning; this is a great unit for taking objectives. You can swap to Glide at any time and grab an objective as necessary, a really awesome tactic for Eternal War missions especially. Sure, other codices have better ones but currently Tau don't have anything like this aside from maybe the Y'Vahra.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IC MCs can join other units just fine, as long as those other units don't contain pre-existing MCs. The rule says:
Independent Characters can join other units. They cannot, however, join units that contain vehicles or Monstrous Creatures. They can join other Independent Characters, though, to form a powerful multi- character unit!
The prohibition is against ICs joining units with MCs, not against IC MCs joining units that don't have MCs.

That's exactly right and it makes the Coldstar better than I initially thought as he can hide in a unit before taking off, meaning it is much harder to stop him from getting into the air.

Caederes wrote:
This reminds me of a Stormsurge actually. It's a finely balanced unit for its points all things considered. The fact that this translates to "the codex will be Don't bypass the languuge filter like this. Reds8n for a lot of people is just beyond stupid seeing as none of the units leaked thus far are bad in any way (at worst, Breachers might be bad if Devilfishes suck). Just because the new units aren't point-and-click doesn't make them bad, nor does the new units' rules have any bearing on the existing units. People jump to so many damned silly conclusions it is almost laughable. What we've seen already shows us this codex will still be way ahead of Dark Eldar/Grey Knights/Blood Angels/Orks and at least on par with the Necron and post-Necron codices outside of the few ridiculous units each of those books has.

@SinisterSamurai
That's actually a good point that I didn't think of, but I don't think losing a Strength 5 Vector Strike on a unit that has long range guns and doesn't want to be close to enemies is really that big of a deal. That's another point I want to make; unless the Burst Cannon is 18" like current ones (no clue here as it is an entirely new weapon), the Commander can shoot from 36" away unless Missile Pods got changed. I can't think of any ranged FMC in the game that can operate at that kind of range.

Exactly - given the power of the units already shown and the weakness's of many codex they will have to fight (or rather slaughter) its a bit much really.

But I guess people just want the same OPness of Eldar - cos that helped the game so much.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
And yes, its purple. Nobody does purple and it looks good on Tau especially with the green/white so i went with it lol. Also it serves as a side-joke on Japanese culture since Tau are obviously anime based in some way - purple is the color of death for them lol.

You... might want to check your sources ^_^. There's a reason why the purple is called "Imperial Purple" over there (it's traditionally linked with the Emperor and the aristocracy). The actual color of death (well, mourning and pilgrims) in Japan and a lot of other asian cultures is white.

Yeah, purple isn't for death, it's for sneaking. That's why stealth suits are purple.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

GI_Redshirt wrote:Personally, I see the Coldstar as a second HQ choice. Run a standard Commander as a Mark'O or a buffmander, and use the Coldstar as a harassment unit. A FMC battlesuit, even with a MP and a super BC would be extremely useful, especially when you add a Shield Generator and Stim Injector (plus signature systems like Iridium armor if we can). ....

Actually we already know we cant do that. Unless they change it, its access to signature systems are revoked with the Coldstar suit because it lists off all of its options over again except signature systems and only 2 support since it has stock weapons.
Which blows, admittedly.

Sorry if this is a bit too derp RAW, but it never revokes the permissions for what the commander can take. It is fairly obvious that it is suppose to, however it lists each option independently.

*Permission to take four items from ranged and/or support.
*Permission to take signature systems.
*Permission to take up to two drones.
*Option to replace Crisis suit (not enforcer?) with Coldstar and has HO BC and Missile Pod.
*Permission for Coldstar to take two items from support and up to two drones.

I really hope this is just an oversight from the White Dwarf version and the Codex version contains a restriction from taking other options in the Coldstar upgrade.