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So I was challenged to write a Tau codex. (an army I don't play) So now is your chance to let it out a say your wishlist and why your codex sucks. So what's wrong with the Tau, the absences of melee characters, no psychic defense? Or what's good and should stay. Let's hear it!

Most of the stuff could simply just be cheaper in my opinion, stealth suits, firewarriors, and the like.

Except vespids, they need a desperate re-tooling.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:Most of the stuff could simply just be cheaper in my opinion, stealth suits, firewarriors, and the like.

Except vespids, they need a desperate re-tooling.

+1

Give the kroot some type of good armor save....for a price though.

BS3 for a shooty army....

Marker lights not assault

Pathfinders must take fish

Hammer Railgun not TL

Broadside not 5++ T5

Remove Kroot woodcraft and give them stealth or something -.-

Special weapons for more than just the Crisis Suits (maybe Drone attachments, like Wolf Guard or Crypteks).

Better internal balance. Why would you take a Skyray Gunship when the Hammerhead is clearly better? Why would you take half of the Crisis Suit or vehicle upgrades, when they're clearly not worth it (or have no effect at all)?

Something to make the army unique...nearly every army has its own special rules. Maybe something akin to Stand-and-Shoot (WHFB) or the ability to retreat/fall back a bit when charged. The latter would make a good deal of fluff sense. My suggestions are definitely just wish-listing, but Tau could definitely use a few special rules.

Perhaps some kind of dreadnought-esque mech would be nice...and very fitting for the Tau.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:Most of the stuff could simply just be cheaper in my opinion, stealth suits, firewarriors, and the like.

Except vespids, they need a desperate re-tooling.

Here is what I have been working on. Kind of bringing them up along the lines of the Tyranid Shrike

VESPID STINGWING SQUAD .......................................................... 28 POINTS PER MODEL

WS BS S T W I A LD Sv
Stingwing 5 3 4 4 1 3 2 8 5+

Composition:
• 5-10 vespid stingwings
Unit Type:
• Jump Infantry
Wargear:
• Kroot Carapace
• Wings
• Neutron blaster
• Plasma grenades
OPTIONS:
• One model in the squad may replace it's Neutron blaster with:
- Caustic Cannon .......................................................................................... 20 points per model
• The whole squad may take:
- Envenomed Weapons ...................................................................................5 points per model
- EMP grenades .............................................................................................. 2 points per model
- Predator Hides .............................................................................................. 3 points per model

Caustic Cannon: Range Strength AP Type
Template X 3 Assault 1, Poisoned (4+)

Predator Hide will be a Kroot armor add-on that will grant stealth USR


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LunaHound wrote:BS3 for a shooty army....

Marker lights not assault

Pathfinders must take fish

Hammer Railgun not TL

Broadside not 5++ T5

Remove Kroot woodcraft and give them stealth or something -.-

Well I'm making Kroot BS 3 base and Tau BS 4 base, with a legendary that will be BS 6

I got an idea like the IG have a legendary tank commander Tau will have a Tank Pilot with BS 5

I'm making all the suits walkers so crisis will be front armor value 12 and Broadsides will be front armor value 13

I'm working on not only Tau Pathfinders but also Kroot Pathfinders

Kroot will be brought up along the lines of a Tyrand Termagant, I mean come on a Ripper has a 6+

Kroot will form sort of a IG Platoon so each Kroot look powerful on paper but in CC each group will buff the others.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Siphen wrote:

Better internal balance. Why would you take a Skyray Gunship when the Hammerhead is clearly better? Why would you take half of the Crisis Suit or vehicle upgrades, when they're clearly not worth it (or have no effect at all)?

Range Strength AP Type
60” 9 2 Heavy 1, Blast, Lance

How about that missile, that missile will be uniquely Skyray.

I'm also working on a Kroot god, this will be comparable to the Tyranid Deathleaper.

Army-wide BS4. There's no reason the premier shooting army should be generally BS3.

Infinite Seeker Missiles and markerlights cheaper on FW Shas'uis. Fixed the "Fire Warriors lack means to tank-hunt" problem without breaking the "no organic special weapons" fluff.

Points cut 20% across the board.

Give Kroot something akin to a Bonding Knife.

Change Ethereals so they don't make your army objectively worse for taking them.

Cerebrium wrote:Army-wide BS4. There's no reason the premier shooting army should be generally BS3.

I don't know the codex, but it may be to do with game balance. At least when the codex was not outdated.

Stealth suits cost to much. And vespid need to be re-done completley. AND The Tau need much better HQ options.

Generally, commanders work fine. They could fix the ethereal, but I can't see many more options.

Really, if the points for everything in the current book were cut by ~20%, it would be pretty good again.

- Firewarriors need to be worthwhile taking (beyond required minimum-number units to hold objective)

- Markerlights and Seeker Missiles need less clunky mechanics (rolling twice or more for a "single" shot of some kind is bad game-design).

- Ethereals should be a worthwhile HQ for people to consider

- More Special Characters showing off the rich Tau background

- Rules the bring Tau-warfare-fluff (e.g. things like Mont'ka and Kauyon) to the table in some shape or form would be much appreciated

- "internal balance" of HS in particular (e.g. stuff like Sniper Teams, etc,... should be a viable alternative).

- Some "5th Edition-style" meta-rules as they fit Tau (e.g., stuff like manipulating reserve rolls, steal-initiative rolls, terrain/battlefield-condition manipulation, deployment-manipulation, incl. deep strike variants, etc..).

Here is a few ideas to give Ethereals a little more tactical punch, what do you guys think?

Psychic Barrier: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, place a Small Blast template anywhere completely within 12” from the Ethereal and more than 1” away from any enemy models. The template is Impassable Terrain, and remains on the battlefield unit the start of your next Movement phase.
Force Shroud: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, the Ethereal and any unit he is with receive a 5+ invulnerable save until the start of your next Movement phase.
Nullify: This psychic power is used at the start of your Shooting phase. If successful, all enemy units within 18” of the Ethereal must re-roll successful invulnerable saves for the remainder of the player turn.
Summon: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, all friendly units that use the Deep Strike special rule this turn scatter only D6” instead of the normal 2D6”.

broodstar wrote:Here is a few ideas to give Ethereals a little more tactical punch, what do you guys think?

Psychic Barrier: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, place a Small Blast template anywhere completely within 12” from the Ethereal and more than 1” away from any enemy models. The template is Impassable Terrain, and remains on the battlefield unit the start of your next Movement phase.
Force Shroud: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, the Ethereal and any unit he is with receive a 5+ invulnerable save until the start of your next Movement phase.
Nullify: This psychic power is used at the start of your Shooting phase. If successful, all enemy units within 18” of the Ethereal must re-roll successful invulnerable saves for the remainder of the player turn.
Summon: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, all friendly units that use the Deep Strike special rule this turn scatter only D6” instead of the normal 2D6”.

Having read your all your idea's so far...Just go back to reading the complaints rather than trying to fix them.

Because it's quite obvious you don't even know the basic fluff for Tau at all, namely that they have no psykers, no mind abilities, such a low warp presence that basic telepathic thought from a powerful psyker is nothing more to listening to static for them!

But giving them psychic powers means you have to change how tau are as a race, I thought they had no psykers? No presence in the warp? If you want a psyker, create a new allied race (kroot, stingwings, and bob they psyker and his buddies) kind of thing. That'd work better wouldn't it, rather than changing the whole tau race?

I'd like to see the Ethereal bring some psy-defence.

I don't think Psy is what Ethereals are about.

They are more a (mysteriously appeared,) gene-engineered ruling caste for the Tau. They might have a sort of "synapse" effect on nearby Tau (Fearless, FnP even, something along those lines). As a design-rule, they should probably boost "foot armies" more whereas Suit-HQ synch better with Suit-heavy armies.

Psy defense may or may not be a good inclusion for the Tau, but I wouldn't run it via the Ethereals. As with most things, Tau would likely use a technological solution. Perhaps a "psych-out" drone or something along those lines. The inspiration would be met (very, very roughly) more along the line of the anti-psy stuff found on the new Necron Spyders, less along the lines of SM Librarians.

Either way, I doubt psy or anti-psy is the first priority of redesigning the Tau dex.

The Tau fake Codex had some nice ideas: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/423040.page

And add some new interesting units/races, e.g. the Orca-based Gunship.

As for Tau shooting, an idea raised some time ago that I liked alot was a default "Tau Tactical Network". E.g:

Tau Tactical Network (TTN): Tau coordinate their armies using a sophisticated tactical network. Tau units with a tactical network link can use the network to instantly access target information, strategic information of the battlefield, etc.. . Something along those lines.

Game effect: All Tau units with a TTN gain +1 BS and can re-roll the distance they see under Nightfighting rules. The rules apply as long as their is at least one model with a TTN in the unit. They do not stack.

Units with TTN would be: All Tau Vehicles and Crisis Suits (making them BS4 by default) as well as all drones. Thus, as long as their is at least one drone (or Crisis-suit-wearing character) in a FW unit (Pathfinders, whatever), they would have BS4. Inducted aliens would likely be unable to access the TTN.

broodstar wrote:
Psychic Barrier: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, place a Small Blast template anywhere completely within 12” from the Ethereal and more than 1” away from any enemy models. The template is Impassable Terrain, and remains on the battlefield unit the start of your next Movement phase.
Force Shroud: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, the Ethereal and any unit he is with receive a 5+ invulnerable save until the start of your next Movement phase.
Nullify: This psychic power is used at the start of your Shooting phase. If successful, all enemy units within 18” of the Ethereal must re-roll successful invulnerable saves for the remainder of the player turn.
Summon: This psychic power is used at the start of your Movement phase. If successful, all friendly units that use the Deep Strike special rule this turn scatter only D6” instead of the normal 2D6”.

Doh! The relationship between the Tau Empire and the Blue Star Alliance is rather... unwelcoming since the Unification Wars. So i don't know if an Etheral can attend on the Blue Star Alliance Academy of Psyscience . On another note: seeing the psychic powers of my codex popping up in another thread was surprising. But it made my day, thank you !

On the problems with the Tau, they are actually pretty OK. Thier biggest problem is tactical inflexibility and some overpriced/underpowered units/wargear. You can pretty much fix the codex by giving a free power boost to everything in the codex. Like making Markerlights an auto-hit non-shooting ability.

There were also some early rumours in the summer last year. I quit eliked the rumoured changes to the HH-Railgun

New Alien allies
All metal sets to plastic (Pathfinder, Krootox, Vespids)
Possible new tank
Changes to Hammerhead Railgun rules. Essentially draws a line across table hitting everything in line. Multiple pen through vehicles, only stopped by a glancing hit.
Changes to markerlights. Point system. 1 Markerlight point = + 1BS, 2 Markerlight points = reroll to wound/hit 3 = Difficult Terrain test (blinded by the lights?). Cannot be stacked. So cant have reroll to wound and reroll to hit at 4 points.
Battle Suits. A plug and play system. Essentially streamlined. Pick two guns and a skill or two skills a gun. New models might have interchangeable arms similar to Killa Kans....

Markerlights are one of the few truly good things in the current book. Make them assault instead of heavy, and just keep them as they are, they'd still be good.

Stealthsuits need re-doing or moving to another slot, their not worth giving up the slot for a crisis suit atm.

I'd say they should be elites, but need a more focused purpose. At the moment, they have S5AP5 (something the Tau really don't need more of) and meltaguns. Either give them all something that isn't S5AP5 or all meltaguns, Fire Dragon-style.

Farsight making Crisis Suits troops?

Not only do the Fire Warriors need to be cheaper, they also need more options. Invent some weapon upgrades options - perhaps a "heavy weapons drone" that can follow the squad around - to give them the capability to serve as a platform for anti-mech, anti-MEQ, or anti-TEQ fire. Right now about the only thing Fire Warriors are good for is killing GEQs and holding objectives, and when that's your only Troop choice, in a game where Troop choices are necessary... that's a problem.

Similarly, the Tau need more Troop choices. Having only Fire Warriors and Kroot severely limits the army's flexibility.

In the same vein of making stuff up from scratch, the Tau need more markerlight platforms, of markerlighting is going to be a theme for the army. If Stealth teams were cheapened until Stealth Marker Teams were an option, that would help. It would also help Pathfinders if markerlights were Assault rather than Heavy. I'd also say we need at least one more reliable method of getting markerlights on the table - something like the Forgeworld Tau Tetra (it's a two-man skimmer bike that sports a Heavy 4 markerlight), perhaps?

And we need more Elites choices. We have two. Two! It's pitiful.

Flipping through the codex backwards ('cause I'm weird like that...):

* Sky Rays need to be cheaper and/or pack more punch.
* Hammerheads need to be much cheaper. Compare them in price and utility to the IG tanks.
* Sniper Drone teams need either Relentless, Infiltrate, or both. As it stands, they are very hard to use. What's the point of a sniper unit that can't move and fire (to get closer to the action) and has to start in your backfield? Pretty much every other sniper unit in the game at least has Infiltrate, and we're supposed to have the most mobile army.
* Piranha's need to be much cheaper or much better.
* Devlifish need to be much better AND much cheaper. Compare them to the IG's Chimera. We pay more for a vehicle that's easier to kill, can't be shot out of, and has worse weapons... and all we get is "skimmer." Not a fair trade.

However, the problem is also with our upgrades. Specifically, a lot of them no longer apply to the game or are worded such that they might not actually do anything.

Regarding sniper drones, the controller shouldn't move, but the drones themselves should be able to move and fire.

Heavy weapon gun drones would be fantastic too.

Add Tetras to the actual codex. Although then Piranhas would be even less used.

No codex-wide BS3.

Instead, more access to markerlights, markerlights becoming assault, and Pathfinders being able to split markerlight fire between units in the same way as Long Fangs can split fire.

Cheaper FWs (8pts would be fine in my opinion), cheaper Devilfish (it can't move flat out, it doesn't have decent weaponry unless it spends a bomb on it, no fire points... the only thing it's got going for it is front armour 12), cheaper Stealthsuits.

Either a Kroot Psyker (yes, they exist) HQ, or some form of Psychic Defense, like a Warp Disruptor that also affects Deep-Strikers. No psychic powers being used, just application of technology that disrupts the warp in the immediate area, and draws the gaze of Chaos to an otherwise ignored race, increasing the enemies that the Tau make and incorporating them more into 40k - being on the edge of the Galaxy and ignored by a lot of other races isn't good for a 40k race, Chaos especially.

Crisis and Broadside Battlesuits becoming T5, or getting a hefty points reduction; when you pay upwards of 70pts for a two-wound model with only a 3+ armour save and only T4, something is wrong. Paladins are 55pts and get a 5++ and 2+ save; Meganobz are 40pts and get the 2+ save; Chaos Terminators lack the second wound, but get a 2+ and a 5++ for 30pts, loyalists for 40. Hell, Obliterators are 75pts for a whole host of weapons, SnP (essentially relentless), and a 2+ 5++ in addition to the 2 wounds.

Broadsides get the 2+, but are still only T4, not relentless unless they take a 10pt upgrade, and don't have an invul unless they instead take a 20pt generator, a shield drone or two, or the team leader alone takes the drones. After all that, you've spent significantly more than anything else of a comparable statline.

Kroot need Stealth and possibly Move through Cover; woodcraft is useless in a game where woods are rare commodities.

Vespid need a complete overhaul. First things first, are they assaulty or shooty? Because they currently don't have a clue.

Skyrays need a reason to be in Heavy Support. Leman Russes can be taken in squadrons, why not Skyrays? It'd make more sense, missile gunships would suit squadron-based warfare quite well, it might also give people a reason to take them if you could take 2 in 1 slot instead of taking up a hammerhead or broadside slot.

A Warp Disruptor module would be cool. Even something like "Any unit attempting to deep strike within x" (I'd suggest 24") must scatter on 3d6, choosing the highest".

Not totally debilitating, but makes DSing (which is the bane of Tau) much riskier.

Marker lights need to be assult and rules stay the same. Stealtn suits should have access to all crisis suite weapons not just fusion and burst cannon. Drone sqauds need to be troops. And every thing should be cheaper.