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What exactly does an eatheral do? I mean, besides dying and making everyone run off the board and whats left gets perferred enemy. I know that they let you re-roll saves, but I'm baffled to what battle field perpose they forfill. So far it looks like they just sit there and let people run away a bit less. The sphess pope also confuses me beyond all understanding. Is there some super-special-secret-awesome use for them i'm missing?

They boost moral mostly. They're good at dying too. They tend to do that. Your missing nothing, they suck on paper, they suck on the game board. And really, moral only comes into play in CC, and if your Firw Warriors are in CC, they either want to run away, or are already dead.

The ethereal was conceived by someone who either A) has never played a game of 40k in there life or B) has no idea who or what the Tau are.

That being said, they are arguably THE worst unit in the game. Not just the codex, all of 40k. I literally can not think of a single instance where it would be appropriate to bring an ethereal.

Oh P.S. your grammar is absolutely atrocious and makes your post very hard to read. Jus' sayin'

I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean about my grammar. Everything is capitalized and spelled right, besides space, which I spelled sphess for fun, and I might have missed a couple apostrophes, but what do you find so offencing? Are you annoyed by the super-secret-special-awesome part?

Spelling:
Offencing-----> offensive
forfill------------> fulfil

Grammer:
You had some run on sentances.


I'm just busting your balls though; it all seemed fine to me. Dave if it really was hard to read, then you need to learn English better. That way you won't have any problem anticipating what the author is trying to convey. No one's perfect.
But I totally agree with you on

The ethereal was conceived by someone who either A) has never played a game of 40k in there life or B) has no idea who or what the Tau are.

My friend runs Tau and he plays an Ethereal. Disaster...for him of course.

I suppose the idea was that IF you were playing gun line, you could take an Ethereal for his BS 4 FW retinue and place him so that you could re-roll break tests from losing 25% casualties from shooting along the gun line.

However in fifth the gun line is pretty much dead, and even in those circumstances the ethereal wasn't great and poses a threat to the army when (not if) he dies.

Aun'va can't even take the FW retinue, he gets more ethereals lol, absolutely terrible

Some people have advocated the idea of taking an ethereal so that if your FW squad doesn't break, you re-roll the moral check to get them to break. Seems like a waste of an HQ slot since most CC encounters with FW either sees them wiped out or needing to stay, getting a re-roll for the rare double ones isn't going to be needed much.

One of the mystifying things about the Tau Codex is their leaders keep giving them CC bonuses. Tau, even with Preferred Enemy and Furious Charge, are not a significant threat in CC.

I've seen Tau win combats before. And significantly bad rolling was not a factor.

However, on the topic of Ethereals... just don't bother. If i ever play against one again i would feel inclined to tone down my list by including swooping hawks.

ForrestFireNY wrote:Spelling:
Offencing-----> offensive
forfill------------> fulfil

Grammer:
You had some run on sentances.

On topic, Ethereals are definitely more of a flavor element that anything that's meant for inclusion in in a competitive army. I'd probably play with one for the same reason that I occasionally mess around lulzy units like the Punisher with three heavy bolters.

The last time I saw an Ethereal in a game was in Game #2 of a tournament; I had already finished my game (netting a flawless victory against Tyranids), and was watching my buddy's Kan-Wall in a spearhead mission against the Tau, Capture and Control - the Tau player put his objective in the very corner of the board and then camped it.

By turn 4, things were looking grim. My buddy's objective is being held by a unit of gretchin, and the Tau player had a unit of stealth suits trying to do something about it. There were two gretchin units, but some equally pitiful shooting and stealth suit vs. gretchin assaults saw a dead gretchin unit. The other gretchin unit managed to fend them off though.

And with my buddy playing a kan-wall, he *still* hadn't gotten to the enemy by turn4, and the Tau was picking him off the field bit by bit. A kan or a dread here and there - pathfinders not in danger because they were markerlighting from the side, and my buddy didn't have the turns or resources to divert to them.

The ethereal is on the back table edge attached to a unit of warriors (and the Tau player has 4 units of 12, and a fourth unit of kroot).

Turn 4a: My buddy turns all his Lootas onto the Ethereal squad, which goes to ground and passes most of its saves.

Turn 4b: Tau player tries detaching the Ethereal and putting him with a full squad, but is reminded that they have gone to ground and can take no voluntary movement.

Turn 5a: Lootas go back to work on the Ethereal's squad, finally doing enough wounds to go around. The ethereal rolls his cover saves and poof - STR7 insta-kills him. Broadside team runs off the board. Firewarrior #1 squad runs off the board. Firewarrior #2 squad runs off the board. Firewarrior #3 squad runs off the board. Firewarrior #4 squad stays, but is at the other end of the board. Pathfinders and Kroot stay too, but none of them are in his back corner.

Boom - game went from a likely tie to a definite win. =D

Etherals are only cool to look at in the current rules.

I'd easily take shadowsun over one. I think she is viable at 2500 lists. I've yet not to earn my points back with her at 2500.

They're nice models you get to say you have them, in all honesty. Especially Space Pope. I'd say that he's even worse than Mogul Kamir, because at leat Mogul Kamir can do SOMETHING.

I honestly can not devise a purpouse for them...I mean, I guess you could have them be able to hold a firing line together....but as was said, firing lines are themselves not too competitive nowadays.

loads of the tau army is useless.

The main tau philosophy is to shoot, shoot and shoot some more yet they have characters like shadowsun who need to get really close to get in range. eathereals are the same but much worse and in my opinion the pirahna are pretty daft too for the guns they have.

stick to fire warriors, battlesuits, hammerheads and maybe a few kroot just in case and you'll see why tau are made for shooting.

hope this helps

Garviel

''They boost moral mostly. They're good at dying too. They tend to do that. Your missing nothing, they suck on paper, they suck on the game board. And really, moral only comes into play in CC, and if your Firw Warriors are in CC, they either want to run away, or are already dead.''

but you never managed to kill mine hehehehehehehhehehehehehehhehehehehehehehehehehehhehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehhehehehe

@ garviel kroot are super good one of the best units in the bad dex

Not going to go into how or why I use one in my build, save this:

Shadowsun projecting an 18" Ld. 10 bubble. Ethereal giving one unit Fearless (broadsides or a stationary Fire Warrior gunline). Also, being able to re-roll the Ld. 10 if you so choose.

I go into more detail about my build here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/352478.page. But I won't choose to defend it (or the Ethereal, really) to all the people that claim to know what the "40K 5th Edition metagame" is, since there is a vast difference between the metagame in California, Alabama, Maine, Washington, Texas, Tennessee, the internet and so and so forth.

Ethereals are for taking if your confident in your ability to manage the game with a handicap.

Ethereals suck at about everything. thats their job. In addition to juraigamer's post above ^^ that is also very true, and if you're super-confident you can take the space pope on his useless levitating chair.

rovian wrote:''They boost moral mostly. They're good at dying too. They tend to do that. Your missing nothing, they suck on paper, they suck on the game board. And really, moral only comes into play in CC, and if your Firw Warriors are in CC, they either want to run away, or are already dead.''

but you never managed to kill mine hehehehehehehhehehehehehehhehehehehehehehehehehehhehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehhehehehe

@ garviel kroot are super good one of the best units in the bad dex

*Eye roll*

1) The discussion is on Eatharals

2) Your Eatharial with worth 50 points, he helped you 0 points

P.S.

You also didn't take the mandatory crisis commander that particular game.

A friend of mine bought a few box loads of Tau off eBay and got a couple of Ethereals amongst them. I don't think they had time to gather dust before they were sold again, never even saw a test game. He hadn't even been playing the game for very long but even he knew using one was a bad idea.

Try using the space pope. He's the Mephiston of the Tau Army.

loota boy wrote:What exactly does an Ethereal do? I mean besides dying and making everyone run off the board, and giving whats left preferred enemy.This sentence is a hanging sentence; it has no subject. So I would have to rewrite the entire sentence to make it correct. Oh, and my English major room mate concurs. I know that they let you re-roll saves, but I'm baffled as to what battlefield purpose they fulfill. So far it looks like they just sit there and let people run away a bit less. The sphess pope also confuses me beyond all understanding. Is there some super-special-secret-awesome use for them i'm missing?

Sorry it wasn't that bad. I was exaggerating. Even so, there were some things that made me scratch my head. I just tend to be a stickler for grammar and spelling. It's not hard, and everyone can do it. Sorry, I'm not trying to be a douche bag, but you asked me what was wrong, so here it is.

@puma713: if you can successfully use an ethereal, good on ya'. I couldn't.

Mr. DK wrote:Try using the space pope. He's the Mephiston of the Tau Army, for the other team

Fixed!

Mr. DK wrote:Try using the space pope. He's the Mephiston of the Tau Army.

Mmmm... I thought that was supposed to be krootox.