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Markerlights overall make little sense - there's nothing magical about lining a target in lasers that makes other people suddenly almost unable to miss it with weapons fire. It already runs on handwavium, not logic - why not also make it effective mechanically?

Except it means that unless vehicle mounted, you cannot move the squad with a markerlight(s), or you lose a turn (or more) of markers.

Now ultimately I'm fine with the general low BS because you have markerlight support, but as-is, the best source of markers in 40k is a sitting duck, generally with a single fire-arc.

Making Markerlights Assault 1, and tbh Seeker Missiles auto-hit (you've already hit with the markerlight :( ) will mean the general army can stay at BS3 and still requires a cerain tactical ability.

It is effective mechanically actually.


There have been very few games where I've had to move my pathfinders so far (usually because I've ether put them in a really great place or because the other guy shot them off the board first chance he could, usually a bit of both) so I've been able to milk their markerlights very well.

If you want a moving Markerlight, pay the premium and go Stealth marker Team, Skyray or Tetra - though Tetras are not paying a premium any more. You'll actually save points taking them over Pathfinders.

If there was a change to be made to Markerlights, my suggestion would be that all markerlights actually can work for the squad carrying them. Suddenly that 10 point upgrade (15 if you Multi-Track it) to your firewarrior Shas'ui or you Broadside Team Leader comes with a huge payoff.

I know this argument is probably dead, but giving Tau the ability to reliably escape close combat seems stupid balance wise. Say I want to go get some Tau. They shoot me up, I assault, but they get away. Rinse repeat until my unit is dead.

I agree. Assault should cause grievous harm to Tau. See the Archer>Pikeman>Cavalry<Archer argument. I see Tau as a mix of Archer and Pikeman, where the real battle is removing your opponent's Archers before their Cavalry can reach your own Archers. I know it's not as static as that, but it serves to show how engaging in assault should almost always be a losing decision. (Although I've had firewarriors take out guardsmen fairly reliably for some reason. 4+ saves? Booyeah!)>

@ Tun_Tau, chrisrawr & all other ppsters

Here is a link to where I was working on my fan-dex before it got shelved for more pressing projects:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/290724.page

This was the culmination of 3 different threads that discussed what the Tau could or should be like.

Since the above posted thread and its predecessors (the early ones went 30 pgs) the rules have been tweaked and changed in a few areas, so please keep this in mind.
I am also looking at returning to the fan-dex, if you guys like what you read I will start a new thread for discussing and cleaning up the rules and put the finished product into a pdf.

Let me know what you think, thanks

Later

If you want some form of limited Tau survivability how about sacrificial drones? You would need some form of mechanics to detach the drones from a squad in response to being charged but this would allow Tau to avoid 1 charge per game. I think this would be liveable to all sides.
Sure the Tau get to survive one more firephase but it is not going to ensure survival just buy time.