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Consolidated. Working on Auxiliaries (Re: Allies) as separate codecies now. Please evaluate and critique honestly!

Oath as a Reviewer:
Though I may be your friend, I will not write as one.
I will objectively base my review on balance, design, and synergy.
I will give criticism or praise as it is deserved.
I shall be critical and logical in my reasoning.
I may not be nice or polite, but I shall be respectful.

Can you upload a PDF here for review?

Ratius wrote:Can you upload a PDF here for review?

I don't know how to into .pdf; the latest version of the dex will always be available in the link from the first post.

edit: I'm also making a picture of it in MS Paint. Oh god it's so bad.

Ah right, its just for a lot of us work monkeys its hard to access outside sites for review :(

Ah! Hmm, a remedy to this must be found. I suppose I can upload the .doc; formatting might be wonky if someone's not using wordpad, but boo-hoo for now. I'll research converting a file to pdf, and then I'll make that as pretty as I can.

Link to direct download is in original post. Tell me how that goes!

Try the tech forum on here at the bottom. The mods are quite helpful and on the ball with solutions.

Got it working pretty well between spoiler and direct download, I think. Grabbing openoffice so I can get page numbers and layout into a format that works with the pdf converter I'm using, as once it's a pdf I can no longer edit it without subscribing.

If you have Word it can save as a PDF.

Ovion wrote:If you have Word it can save as a PDF.

Wordpad :<

Did you get sick cause you were yelling so much? I yelled a lot and got bronchitus once. It sucked!

Also, awesome army. We talked a bit about it on Vassal :3

I actually have recurring bronchitis, and it took a heckuvalot out of me till I got the right meds for it :V

Why does the commander, have no save???
WHY IS THE COMMANDER AND ALL OTHER BATTLESUITS T3???? THEY SHOULD BE T5!

XV8-Ownage! wrote:Why does the commander, have no save???
WHY IS THE COMMANDER AND ALL OTHER BATTLESUITS T3???? THEY SHOULD BE T5!

There is no reason for using multiple question marks, nor having a sentence in all-caps.

Instead, read this:

Wargear
Battlesuit Commanders must purchase a Battlesuit from the Battlesuit Armoury. See the Battlesuit Armory for further options.

And follow the instructions outlined in it.

Avatar 720 wrote:

XV8-Ownage! wrote:Why does the commander, have no save???
WHY IS THE COMMANDER AND ALL OTHER BATTLESUITS T3???? THEY SHOULD BE T5!

There is no reason for using multiple question marks, nor having a sentence in all-caps.

Instead, read this:

Wargear
Battlesuit Commanders must purchase a Battlesuit from the Battlesuit Armoury. See the Battlesuit Armory for further options.

And follow the instructions outlined in it.

Aaaand thank you kindly, Avatar.

I currently see the following issues:

1: Jump Infantry should be fast attack, not troops.

2: The only way fluffwise I can see Firewarrior squads getting special weapons is them being mounted on drones.

Ovion wrote:I currently see the following issues:

1: Jump Infantry should be fast attack, not troops.

2: The only way fluffwise I can see Firewarrior squads getting special weapons is them being mounted on drones.

The Fire Warrior MAC teams are a /tg/ addition, from an epic "What if Tau took the traditional approach for their basic rank-and-file" (that is, load them up with awesome, inexpensive things that make them as survivable as possible.) Jet packs came to mind, and the Crisis Suits were also tuned to feel more like Elementals or SST mech (although without the rapid tactical nuke launchers). The points cost and balance are roughly the same as Blood Angels Assault Marines, and could even be a little less expensive if it wasn't for the versaility of wargear provided by the Team Leader - Tinkering on vassal proved that having choices on them was more fun for both players than simple vanilla jump troopers, so we rolled with it. I will concede if it does get to be a problem having mobile infantry as troops, they will be shunted to the Fast Attack section and slightly reduced in both options and cost, but for now, it's fun to deepstrike useful things as Tau.

For 2: I considered Drone Special Weapon bodies as an integral part of Fire Warrior adaptability, but I wanted to keep them generally focused on being objective-driven. The Pulse rifles are gone forever if you replace them; Less dual-performance and more "This unit will be doing this, that unit will be doing that, together the hunt will fell all who oppose the Greater Good."

Right now, between Quantum Games and Vassal, the codex appears to be sitting between C:SM and IG - we'll see what changes when I finish up a presentable Heavy Support section, but your concerns, especially the fast attack vs troops, have been taken under consideration.

Edit: PDF is up.

So, 5AM /tg/ wasn't thrilled. Here are some of their comments and suggestions - Any ideas on how to fix or improve on any of them would be welcome:

Too many naruto references

Written by a 13 year old

Crisis Suits too expensive (playtesting likes them at their current points right now, but I might do something to change this, maybe.)

Remove everything that isn't the old codex + shiny.

Again, any help would be appreciated!

The Battelsuits ARE prohibitively expensive.

Currently they're 25pts for a suit, 35 for a guard and 50/75 for commaners, including the pilot.
You now have it as 65pts a standard suit, 85pts for your guards and 90 / 150 for your commanders, before weapons.

Youve made Hardwired available to everything, but changed it to cost double when in the current codex the identical options cost the same.
You've switched twin-linked from costing 4 points more, to costing double and you've removed the ability to choose what weapons you can have overall.

I don't see what you've done that warrants the HUGE price increases, everythings now costing 2-3 times more, being the suits in the current codex want either a slight price drop or slight stat boost as is.

Also, I don't know why you've tripled the cost of an Ethereal, there's really nothing there to warrant an extra 100pts.
Oh, and what does it's wargear do?

Also Fire Warriors could happily remain 10pts with the +1BS.

Ovion wrote:The Battelsuits ARE prohibitively expensive.

Currently they're 25pts for a suit, 35 for a guard and 50/75 for commaners, including the pilot.
You now have it as 65pts a standard suit, 85pts for your guards and 90 / 150 for your commanders, before weapons.

Youve made Hardwired available to everything, but changed it to cost double when in the current codex the identical options cost the same.
You've switched twin-linked from costing 4 points more, to costing double and you've removed the ability to choose what weapons you can have overall.

I don't see what you've done that warrants the HUGE price increases, everythings now costing 2-3 times more, being the suits in the current codex want either a slight price drop or slight stat boost as is.

Also, I don't know why you've tripled the cost of an Ethereal, there's really nothing there to warrant an extra 100pts.
Oh, and what does it's wargear do?

Also Fire Warriors could happily remain 10pts with the +1BS.

Crisis suits come with a weapon, and are T5, a HUGE boost to their survivability. You can field 36 suits now, and have an all suit army - the added points cost for commanders takes this into consideration. The 100 point shaso also takes into consideration you can redirect reserves on the fly - another large boost to overall tactical play.

The reason suits are so high at the moment is because playtesting has warranted it. When I have the Heavy Support section done and some more games played with the current iterations of devilfish and hammerheads, they might be reduced. They might be increased. Right now they're throwing out a lot of fire power and staying in the game for a decent amount of time. What I might do is increase their wounds to 3, for their current cost, and see how that works out, as they're mostly dying to combined fire or CC.

The Ethereal's wargear is at the top of the Armoury. He's got a power weapon, strikes at high initiative and strength, 3+ invuln and 3+ armour that allows units within 12" to reroll morale, and can can disengage almost at will. The preferred enemy he grants is intended to be used with ranged weapons as well, as I have the 6th edition in mind with this, and all I've got are rumours to go on. As well, he opens up the option of 5 30" plasma rifles.

His cost started at 75. I bumped it to 100, and again to 150, because of his abilities. Now that I've got the dex on dakkadakka, battle reports and updates/their reasons will be posted as well. I enjoy staying on the safe side of things until major changes are justified, and sitting at the 150 spot is enough to make him a contender instead of an automatic choice.

Fire warriors get ablative armour. They can stick around and trade fire with a lot of basic infantry now, and don't get crushed in battle as quickly, allowing them to make use of drones or an ethereal if either are available. They also benefit from a higher leadership, and the ability to purchase wargear or special weapons - all of which has to be factored into their cost. However, the sentiment that they're rather expensive is rather widespread, and I am going to be testing them at 10 points with BS4 and Ablative, and the only wargear options open to them as Drones and EMP grenades. Combined fire will be present in a couple, and not in a couple others.

I hope this helps to clear up the misconception that I'm just pulling numbers for this stuff out of my ass - that was 2 weeks ago. What I'm looking at now is trim and tuck, removal of cheese, rounding out and finishing off the options. I'll be fleshing out the fluff with special characters, for which I WILL be using lots of community feedback on flavour, as the rule of cool is strong in regards to special characters.

Battle Report: Snipers in the brush

1500p
Tau Army List

HQ
Shas'el - 40
+Sniper Suit - (30)70
x2 = 140

2 Shas'vre - 70
+2 Sniper Suit - ((30)60) 130
x2 = 260

HQ = 400

Notes on HQ: 6 Bs5/6 snipers that return fire and gib marines or tanks. Sniper suits were found to be incredibly powerful en-mass. Current recourse has been to slowly creep their points cost, but I may have to limit them.

Elites
6 Fire Warrior Veterans - 90
+6 Sniper Suit - ((30)(180) 270
x3 = 810

Elites = 810
Total = 1210

Notes on Elites: You'll see how I can now pop every transport on turn 1, and deal a lot of heavy damage to meq. However, 2+spam and mobs should be fine against this army - especially with the upgraded points cost in 1.2a, and possible incoming nerfs.

Troops
3 Fire Warrior Veterans - 45
+3 Sniper Suits - ((30)90) - 135
x2 = 270

Troops = 270
Total = 1480

Notes on Troops: You see now the reason for the inflated cost of HQ. 30 Snipers fit into this 1500 list. They compete with nob bikers. Hopefully the 10% points nerf will alleviate it slightly, if not, another small nerf. Availability is restricted if that fails, as well.

His army
1500 Points
Space Wolves

HQ
Rune Priest: Living Lightning, Jaws of the World Wolf - 100

Rune Priest: Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane, Boltgun - 100

HQ = 200

HQ Notes: Fairly standard; he knew I would be tauing, so JotWW very good at removing models.


Elites
Wolf Scouts: 5 man - 75
+Meltagun - (10) 85
x2 = 170

Wolf Guard: 5 man - 90
5 Combi-Melta - ((5)25) 115
5 Power Fist - ((20)100) 215

Elites = 385
Total = 585

Elites notes: Not much here again. Solid picks. Scouting, fast, powerful, lots of melta and bolt.


Troops

Grey Hunter Pack: 7 man - 105
+Meltagun - (5) 110
+Rhino - (35) 145
x2 = 290

Grey Hunter Pack: 6 man - 90
+Meltagun - (5) 95
+Rhino - (35) 130

Troops = 420
Total = 1005

Troops Notes: Standard. Could've done with a few more, because these are what I took out first, and I used enough firepower on them that he might have done better in other places. Might just be the way I play, though. Greedy for vehicle kills!

Heavy Support

Long Fang Pack: 5 man - 75
4 Missile Launchers - ((10)40) 115
Razorback: Lascannon, Twin-Linked Plasma Gun - (75) - 190
x2 = 380

Long Fang Pack: 5 man - 75
4 Missile Launchers - ((10)40) 115

Heavy Support = 495
Total = 1500

Heavy Notes: Dakkadakkadakkadakka. This was where the real contest was!

Mission: Sieze Ground, 4 objectives. Got to place last, so objectives were scattered.
Deployment: Dawn of WAAAAARGH - Again, good for me. Loving it; Battle Network might get its Night Fight turned down a bit, but it's really not much worse than spotlights. Maybe I'll nerf it to spotlights.

Shasel and guard with both troops deployed via infiltrate. He kept everything off, outflanked his scouts, and went first via ini steal.

Shasel took a wound from embarked; no rules for return fire against embarked units, so we rolled off, and no return fire was made. Return fire will be amended to reflect this, as it kind of makes sense - you gonna shoot through their vehicle slits? NOPE.

Not much happened other than that. both razorfangs made it to cover, footfangs ran valiantly but fell short. My models hopped onto the board, and I targeted the fangs that hadn't made it; out of range, with the deployed shasel, but one of my troops was close enough that the roll was almost trivial. 2 Fangs went down from them, and the unit was pinned. Began popping transports; a razorback survived but was shaken. One hunters was pinned from wreck, and another lost a model due to explodes. Good shootin', Tex! Assault moves into some more suitable terrain, and it's off to him.

His turn 2 wasn't bad; guard moved up but were out of range, both scouts came in, though I was a ways from the edges by now. The deployed shas'el's unit was whiped by fangs, and I lost a couple suits to jotww.

And then I mopped up. Average rolls on both sides resulted in no more long fangs, and seriously wounded greys knights squads. I still had 2 full troops, a full HQ, and 2.6 elites. Assault moves brought me out of CC range, and he conceded.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS FOR SNIPER SUITS:
Choice between Relentless or Assault Move.
Remove Assault Move
Remove Relentless
Moar Points
Limited quantity/Monats

Thoughts?

Battle Report: A Sinister Skirmish

1000p
Tau Army List


HQ
Shas'o - 100
+ Crisis Suit - 135
- Elite Modular
+ Iridium Armour - 145
+ Ionics Modular - 160
+ Shield Generator - 175

HQ = 175

Notes on HQ: Simple enough, a durable balls to the wall champion to lead my fight. He was quite worth his points, when I outflanked the piranhas, but points value and the outflank ability will be getting small changed; Points will be going down, and the Unit who can choose to outflank must be chosen at deployment; Still invaluable to a cunning tactician, but not quite as powerful.

Troops
12 Fire Warriors - 144
- 4 Pulse Carbines
x3 = 432

Troops = 432

Notes on Troops: I took them mostly to pin down positions; I figured if enemies got too close, the carbines would be invaluable in forcing pinning tests. Unfortunately, my opponent's army disagreed, as you'll see.

Fast Attack
2 Piranhas - 90
+2 Fusion Beamers - 120
- 2 SMS
+ 2 Inferno Missile - 160
+ 2 Seeker Missile - 180

(Note: The current codex has Inferno missiles granting 2 hits at 15 points. This was changed to 1 hit at 20 points for this game, because I must have been smoking something when I made it the. Seeker Missiles were reduced to 10 points again. Both changes will be reflected in A1.3)

Fast Attack = 180

Notes on Fast attack: Just some piranhas I intended to, and did, outflank on the second turn. I gave them a fairly allcomers loadout, which at 90 points, put them around a landspeeder. Im removing both supersonic and aerial assault from them; It seemed neat, but it's ridiculous in light of the fact that tau are piloting them. Aderp durr.

Heavy Support
Hammerhead - 120
Ion Disruption Beam - 135
- SMS

Devilfish - 60
+ Ion Disruption Beam - 75
- SMS

Total - 210
Total = 997

Notes on Heavy Support: The devilfish was decent for its points. I still don't have much of a vehicle armoury down, so I didn't get to try many of the things inherent to a tau army; disruption pods, flechettes, multitrackers... Devilfish might make decent little gunboats with a multitracker and disruption pod. Hammerheads gonna hammerhead; I managed to only shoot my own unit once! Reworded the stop clause of the Hammerhead's ability to "Against Monstrous Creatures or Vehicles, a roll of less than 3 to wound or penetrate will stop any further units from suffering hits from this shot." I still feel justified in not including the submunitions.



My opponent was throwing nids at me. I didn't catch the army list, but it had 5 Tervigons in it. On Vassal, multiple tervigons is something not that neat to see. In real life, watching someone unload upwards of 80, 90, 100 termagants onto the field, it's glorious.

Pitched Battle Capture and Control, my opponent deployed and went first. I deployed my crisis suit and vehicles fairly forward, to the right - keeping the piranhas in reserve, and 12 men in the devilfish. The other two deployed along the back wall, one to the right, one near my objective on the left-rear corner. They deployed 30" from each other because of the dirty assault range a spawning termagant receives.

As I said earlier, I'd taken the carbines for pinning. I was kicking myself now; 12 guns that I'd almost never get to use! Oh well.

The tl;dr of this story is that he drowned me in termagants with a bunch of 4-5-6 rolls, and that even though only one of his tervigons survived to the end, even though dozens of gants never got to be fielded because of model issues, and even though dozens more were mercilessly slaughtered, the game was essentially 900 points of fearless, 6 wound monstrous creatures against a crisis suit commander and a hammerhead, and the 90+ gants on the field evened the table for the rest of the things. He reached me on turn 3 with a fat stack of gants. Turn 4 his gants were 3 ranks thick around all of my models.

The defensive grenades combined with ablative armour and a one-round of shooting in between assaults immensely eased the pressure, but by turn 4 his 2 remaining tervigons were in assault, and I only managed to kill one with a lucky string of 6's. The commander sat in combat with a stack of gants from turn 3 till turn 5 without dealing or taking a single wound, it was pretty spectacular. Serves him right for taking out a tervigon all by hisself in the preceeding 2 rounds of dakka.

The inferno missiles, as I mentioned before, had to be massively toned down. Smart missile systems are working as intended for what they are. The piranhas came out of the left side of the map, blazed through a tervigon, unloaded some firepower on some gants, and then danced around the map repeating this until they ran out of targets. I did manage to contest his objective, but he had mine, so victory went his way!

Giving Devilfishes scouts means they get to move 24 inches turn one for free, simply having it bestowed by the unit is better.

Ion Weapons should have just straight rending, if at all.

The Heavy Rail Gun doesn't really make a huge amount of sense.

OK, Unstoppable doesn't make that much sense and is a bit overpowered and/or silly, aswell a a little complex.

I'd frankly make the Heavy Rail simply Heavy 2 if you're going to do something like that.

Or maybe have it dual profile, along the lines of:
Heavy Rail Gun - AP Slug
Firing a two high powered shot the HRG excels at penetrating enemy armour.
Range-72", Str-10, AP-1, Heavy 2.

Heavy Rail Gun - Sustained Fire
Firing a magazine of smaller projectiles on a fast cycle the HRG is able to supress enemy infantry.
Range-72", Str-4, AP-5, Heavy 10, Pinning.

This way is nice and simple, sets it apart from the broadsides railgun and gives you a decent incentive for taking it over the broadside team, instead of just multiple Broadsides.

Something else I noticed, if you've basically made it so you can take 12 troops choices.

TBH, Inferno Missiles at a standard S5 one shot template would be fine at 10 points as things like the Dark Eldar Monoscythe is S6 AP5 Large Blast and that's only 10 points a piece.

My general feel for this is still that a lot of it seems heavily overcosted.

The Necron's Doom Ray is 175 points, on a fast skimmer vehicle, and generally considered heavily heavily overcosted. The Heavy Rail Cannon runs on the same, if cleaned up, principle, and is identical (plus monstrous creature clause) to the rumoured one in the mix. Your concern that it's too powerful/too gimmicky is noted, and notches may have to be dialed if this proves true.

I wanted to keep the Devilfish's design as slim as possible; a 12man transport that can scout or outflank. Sticking in a clumsily worded rule allowing pathfinders to confer scouts to it, possibly opening it up to shenanigans later on, was something I wanted to avoid. I tossed scouts into its points cost and called it a day. I forgot to add that drones take up no transport room, but oh well, it'll come. Just imagine it's being driven by a pathfinder; a pathfinder with no legs - a pathfinder named Stumpy, and all he wants to do is extract vengeance for the stupid nickname his enemies have forced upon him.

Speaking of Drones, limiting the number able to join a unit to 4xDC, or rather, 2-4 more drones can join a unit that already has 0-2. Had a guy mention that under the current rules, you can have 46 drones all clump together around 2 HQ's and an elites slot, which, while useless in combat, provides dozens of ablative wounds, and perhaps some ridiculous single/duo-target firepower.

Yes, you can have 12 units as troops choices. I wanted to set firewarriors apart from the eventual Auxiliaries, without making them mandatory, and able to maintain a presence without stealing too many FOC slots - So far there's been no complaint, and an all firewarriors army, while sometimes gimmicky, is no worse than an all boys or all sisters army. Running 12 minimal squads will still set you back 864 points, and that many sisters of battle will still pop them like dried corn, not to mention anything that can outflank, scout, av12, or deepstrike a heavy flamer.

The regular ion guns are what I felt was about right for a weapon that's about as close to a truly "rending" weapon the Tau have. Not many weapons fit the definition better, besides rending claws. This thing is literally the business end of a hadron collider, pointed at you.

For the Heavy Ion Cannon, I was inspired by the Tyranids Codex on page 18; Globs of ionized molecules dispensed. Still not sure on points cost for it; A1.2 was supposed to mention it as 30 points, but I've been debating lowering the Hammerhead to 90 and tossing both its weapons into the Vehicle Armoury's Heavy Weapons. Since the Hammerhead will be the only one able to take them, I wanted to have them on its profile - but it's easier to keep track of it when everything's in its place, I think.

One thing about seeker missiles that's different from regular one-shot weapons is that they can be fired any time there's an available SMS or markerlight token, and can be taken nigh-universally by the army. Oneshot weapons such as the monoscythe, the hunter killer, and the Blood Raven's s8ap1 "kill something for free turn 1" rockets were taken into account when making them.

A free heavyflamer in addition to any other weapons, to be placed anywhere on the board, in an ideal position, and fired at any speed, from any unit (Although you've reminded me that I need to make them unfirable from units inside transports) is, unfortunately, worth a lot to an army that otherwise boasts a high volume of single-target fire.

Note: I'll try a couple games with them at 10 Points. You'll note however that my main way of checking for cheese is maxing its possible purchase power. This means I'm going to be taking broadsides and piranhas with fusion guns and snipers (finally decently costed, and limited to elites squads of 3 or less) to pop transports, allowing the tender meat within to roast.

Why does everything seem so confusing? So may special rules and special abilities and the excess amount of units is making my head spin.

Does every unit need a special ability? I'm all for better Suits, but this just seems overexaggerated.

Not every unit HAS a special ability, and the ones that do are fairly simple; They need to be worded in a manner that leaves RAW as RAI. The shaso gives outflank. The ethereal lets you attack, disengage, or fall back. The veterans have a bonding knife. Pathfinders can come in from a table edge whenever they damn-well please. Fire warriors shoot together. Bodyguards return fire.

Simple concepts that have to be worded carefully.

There also aren't that many units, certainly far less than most codecies out lately. As someone who's given a glance at, and apparently understands, the IG's and tyranids' codecies - what precisely are you having difficulties with? Any chance to improve the ease of reading would be welcome.

With the melta missiles, I assume that it get 2d6 armor pen regardless of where the missile is fired from. since half of infinity is nonsence. You need to make that clearer in the codex.

Hope that helps

Something else I keep meaning to point out:
The layout is a little jumbled, all-over the place and cluttered, making it a tad harder to go through.

What I'll do to help you (assuming you'd like that ) in a couple of days when I've finished my Tau condensed Codex in Excel, I'll attempt to copy yours into it then send you a copy, which will give you a good basis for tidying it up. and the PDFing.

(It's easy enough to copy the Excel stuff into word [also you can do it using open office equivalents] add in the special rules and make a PDF, which will make this sort of thing:
Using DE examples as my Tau stuff isn't done yet



I can also give you a free program to make this sort of layout:
Using DE examples as my Tau stuff isn't done yet

@Ledabot, yes that was the intent. I think there are a few unlimited range "Melta" abilities, and the GW FAQs for them have cleared up the misunderstanding, so I assumed there was precedence. It'll be cleared up in 1.3

@Ovion, my that IS sexy. I wish Open Office had a search and replace so I could get rid of all my indents, I think I've been too liberal with them. I shouldn't have trouble transferring everything to a similar format myself, but your offer is very appreciated

I would assume the standard Ctrl+H to search and replace would work.

Searching for indents doesn't work; it replaces spaces instead.