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Probably one or two, but the rest will snub their noses until it comes out in an official FAQ or Errata. (Honestly, my Nid friend bitches all the time about not being able to take a Prime in an Spod, but do they ever consider saying "Screw the rules" and ignoring it? Naaaah... :S )

Mine does exactly that!

And wipes all my fire warriors

All Tau should have the ability to Pre-Measure ranges for Shooting.

If you play enough, you can easily eyeball the distance and won't need to pre-measure. You can also use the board at reference. Length of the board is the range of a Railgun and width of the board is the range of an Imperial Missile Launcher.

IMO, Railguns should have the lancing the special rule, wining back their title as best long range anti-tank weapon in the game.

True. They basically have it already, and it'd make it so a 2+ dings the pesky LR instead of a 4+. Or, give that to the railhead only, since right now his railgun isn't as cost-effective as the TL one on broadsides.

As for pre-measuring, while I personally think it's a stupid rule that basically is designed to give experienced players an edge over newbies, it wouldn't work well for a veteran playing Tau, since they'd probably know the distance without measuring. Perhaps they could add an optional piece of wargear to bump pulse rifle ranges by 6" for 1-3pts, so you have a full 3' instead of 2'-and-a-bit?

There's a reasonable chance that pre-measuring will be dropped in 40K 6th edition anyway, so I wouldn't push it as a major benefit for a new Tau codex.

Kilkrazy wrote:Vespids are meant to be an anti-MEq unit but unfortunately GW buggered up the stats and points and made them too crappy to use.

Crisis suits would be a better anti-MEq unit if you could have more of them. That's why I propose making Crisis units (and Broadsides) 1-4 instead of 1-3. It's also more fluffy, as Tau count in base 8.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sniper Drone Teams are also meant to be anti-MEq but again, GW cocked them up by making them Heavy, and too expensive because the whole team can be killed by killing the team leader.

Agreed - in theory the tau have their anti-MEQ:
Ion Cannon - too low of a ROF to make taking one on a hammerhead esp when I can have a railgun for about 25% more.
Sniper Teams - again a sniper team or a broadside. equivalent in cost. Now if the team cost only about 60 meaning I have a choice of two broadsides or 3 sniperteams then maybe.
Vespids - low survivability in HTH with a 12" range gun = death.
XV8 - Of course they can but they are asked to do everything already.

I personally think the anti-MEQ should fall to the Fire Warriors, so there's motivation to take those units for something other then objective-campers. Currently, although they are effective vs. GEQ and orks that aren't in cover, most tournaments are so MEQ and SM heavy that they go from a possible asset to a liability, especially if it's a random-matchup (No team captain to determine who fights who from each team or something similar).

Bumping it so that 2 or 3 squads of full FW shooting (and 3-4 squads at long non-rapidfire or whatever range) can pop a full tac squad out of cover, and it'd start to become a viable option (since the SM will still eat the FW alive if they reach CC). You have the choice of either wiping a squad completely, but limiting the number of affected squads, or you can weaken a couple but still have to fear their shooting and assaults afterwards.

I would jjust make vespids and snipers what they were meant to be; good, reliable anti-MEQ.

True. Snipers ignore cover if a unit is not in area terrain (Dunno if that would include the KFF or not), and give vespids the flamer template This still leaves the issue of finding a reason to take FW in the first place though, apart from objective campers.

There should maybe just be a choice to have the whole squad of Fire Warriors take Rail-Rifles, making them snipers and good anti-MEQ.

Man, I would kill to give them rail rifles, even for 13+ pts per model. Tag a 10-man MEQ with 5 markerlights, and you've almost wiped them automatically

Kill Mat Ward. Then we have a chance of getting a competent one!

I'd use a rail rifle, but it'd probably hit something in the way first

Damn cover saves!

The rifle would blow a nice hole in a passing double-decker bus though...

Yea, but it would still hit him, but he would roll a 4 right before he died

!Edit! The codex modifications are up on the first page! Please let me know what you think (about the Tactics in particular)

Good job polishing the thread about polishing the Tau about polishing off their enemies

The tactics look good, I was a little hesitant at first but these look good. How do the caste abilities work?

Same as a Tactic. The only caveat is an army can only buy one of them (Points not yet determined), and the abilities are still on a squad-Ld-check basis for each squad to be affected. I was thinking basically for there to be the different options to allow you to either tailor a list slightly better for particular matchups (should you choose to be so crass ), and to allow the option of supplementing a possible army deficiency:
Anti-MEQ option (Earth Caste's optional S3 Ap3),
Anti-mech (Fire Caste all S5 Ap5 are rending vs vehicles),
Anti-dakka (Shadow caste's +1 to cover saves),
Anti-horde (Air caste's doubling of markerlight effects)
Objective-Camper-Shifting (Water caste's Ld reduction for 25% checks)
and Anti-pussy (Ethereal Caste's 50%+ = Fearless. This was possibly influenced by my "Winged Broadsides"... )

The basic two tactics are to allow Tau about to be in CC against several squads (Not something you want to have happen, but occurs much too often) to either attempt to blast those attacking them (Stand and Shoot, good for tarpit units that won't wipe the FW squad but would probably win CC by a slight margin of wounds caused, like IG or termagaunts) or run back and fire on the next turn (Evade, Evade! to avoid anything that will wipe the squad). I can anticipate some mixed usage of this (Evade, Evade to buy another round of shooting, and then Stand and Shoot when/if your back is against the board edge). Currently my only issue is that the Evade, Evade may make it too hard for enemies to successfully close combat with them if the enemy isn't cavalry with their 12" assault. I want to say that instead maybe they should fall back 2d6" and the enemy gets their charge +1d6", but that means that if they park a land raider 1" away from you, the laws of averages say you're screwed. Don't know if that means it's a good or a bad thing. :/

I would rethink Evade. It seems a little too OP. Maybe they only get it on a 4+, or just say no shooting for the next round?

Hmmm. Perhaps they count as moving, and if caught fight at I1 and cannot use any grenades they have? Plus, I agree, the distance needs to be tweaked a bit so it usually, but by no means always, gets them out of the way.

Sounds good to me.

Ok. Changed it to add 1d3" to the attacker's assault distance (Or should it be they add their Initiative? I'm torn between the two, as it would help make faster armies like DE more effective against this tactic). Which do you think sounds better?

I think distance, as anyone can easily double Tau Initiative.

Why do you think Evade Evade is over powered?

I'm not totally sold on the Krootox rules...

Personally, I just can't see them with a 3+ save. I would rather that they be inexpensive with high toughness and wounds, but with a really god-awful save to represent their lack of actual armour. Maybe the option to buy some kind of shield generator for a 5+ invuln from shooting (the envy of all my Tyranids...) but what I would really like to see is an inexpensive creature(120-150pts?) that relies on toughness and wounds to survive. It would really set it apart from other MC's, potentially filling a niche in the Tau Codex as a decent unit for holding up foes in CC.

Now of course, the obvious rebuttal to this is "if it's tarpitting something and dies in the Tau phase, the enemy unit just got to consolidate and assault something for free!"
Well, how's this for a solution. Make some kind of rule where if it dies in the Tau phase, it does some kind of "for the greater good" fall and attempts to squish the enemy under it's massive bulk. How about the enemy unit that killed it in assault takes a strength test or doesn't get to assault in the next phase? I say awesome. (That fallen giant fantasy template comes to mind... but more birdlike...)

Kilkrazy wrote:Why do you think Evade Evade is over powered?

I think it's a great idea, but it seems like it could lead to a FW squad endlessly evading the attackers, who would be endlessly whittled down by other Tau.

The evading squad could roll low and get caught.
The evading squad could be run off the table edge.
The evading squad will no longer be on an objective, or in cover, etc that it might have wanted to occupy.

Assuming the assaulting squad is 6 inches away, you get away, double-tap at 12 inches, and then run away again. If they are 1'' away, the closest they could be, you get away on a 5+ (about a 10/36 chance you'll fail,) double tap, and run away again.