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Here is a good place to discuss tactics etc for the new edition and how it will affect our Empire.

Just to start- here's a post about Markerlights:

Re Tau markerlights: if I'm reading it correctly entries 1 and 5 on the chart would apply in thr Fight phase if markerlights were placed on Overwatch. Quite possible as Tactical Drones have For the Greater Good. Might even be able to trigger Seeker and Destroyer missiles. Edit: Charge and Fight phases are separate, so yes to Seeker/destroyer, no to buffing cc attacks.

I also like how the first markerlight results help later ones hit as well. Eg you getting 3 down would then help a Skyray hit with it's 2 markerlights, rerolling 1s and negating the minus to hit on the move.

This might help http://pintorjoakero.blogspot.ca/2017/05/taus-8th-index-leaks.html

Edit- I have a lot of thoughts but I have to go to sleep because I work tonight, but am totally stoked about the changes to drones. They deploy in coherency with the unit they are purchased for, but as of the first movement phase, they are treated as a separate unit. If they are within 3" of a friendly T'au infantry or battlesuit you may allocate wounds to the drones. Now the drones can take wounds without triggering a morale test for the unit they are protecting. Also loving the new support system rules - the advance targeting system improves the AP of all guns on the model by 1! It's going to be popular!

So I was reading the stat-line of the broadside's heavy rail and getting more and more excited as I went, it looked like it's heavy 2 with D6 damage (and mortal wounds on a 6 to wound) would finally bring it in line with the missile pod (twice as many attacks, half damage, a little over half range).

Then I read the unit profile and it says you replace the railgun for a pair of them.

Ugh.

Also marker lights have changed noticeably. We're back to them acting as universal effects on the unit hit by them, so multiple units can benefit at once and not have to chose expending them for what benefits.

Unfortunately, the BS bonus is now the highest tier benefit, and it appears to cap at +1.

On top of that, the drone controller now also appears to cap at a +1 BS bonus, meaning my favourite commander loadout will have to be reconsidered. It does mean that, broadly, marker drones are no longer the undisputed marker light dispensing king, but they're still probably the strongest contender, being buffable to 'as good as' pathfinders on the shot and able to move besides.

I'll want to compare it to how the local meta shapes up, but I'm thinking about railheads again.

I haven't really probed the lists deeply yet, but Broadsides with HYMP and sms and ats are going to be great. Also, consider blastcannon Stormsurge spam. 185pts for durable S14 firepower sounds badass.

Some much needed nerfing I think, will have to take some serious consideration into my current T'au builds.

It looks like Piranhas' drones become several small units of 2 at the moment. That could be useful for spreading around additional ablative wounds. Plus the fact that they're probably the most efficient source of Overwatch fire.

Man, our suits got completely reworked. Everything is just so much different than it was for 7th that it's tough to figure out roles for each unit. It's going to take some adjusting to Broadsides costing 200pts and being worth it...maybe.

MilkmanAl wrote:
I haven't really probed the lists deeply yet, but Broadsides with HYMP and sms and ats are going to be great. Also, consider blastcannon Stormsurge spam. 185pts for durable S14 firepower sounds badass.

Err....you're a couple hundred points off buddy...it has 10 guns on its profile, meaning you have to pay for all 10 of them.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Man, our suits got completely reworked. Everything is just so much different than it was for 7th that it's tough to figure out roles for each unit. It's going to take some adjusting to Broadsides costing 200pts and being worth it...maybe.

With split fire you might as well just chuck what you want on and get on with it

That said, the Multi Tracker rerolls 1s, but only if you're shooting all of your weapons at a single target.

I take back what I said about the drone controller: you can in fact buff the attendant drone's shooting beyond a +1 by having them in range of multiple suits with a controller, silly me.

So you could have 3 suits in a unit with two missile pods and a DC each, buffing nearby drones to a 2+ to hit. The suits themselves would be 3 ppm more than how I used to field them, but they get the target lock functionality for free and I'm saving points by not having a commander running in the squad with them.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
I take back what I said about the drone controller: you can in fact buff the attendant drone's shooting beyond a +1 by having them in range of multiple suits with a controller, silly me.

So you could have 3 suits in a unit with two missile pods and a DC each, buffing nearby drones to a 2+ to hit. The suits themselves would be 3 ppm more than how I used to field them, but they get the target lock functionality for free and I'm saving points by not having a commander running in the squad with them.

We don't know if multiple buffs of the same kind stack. So far nothing has said that they won't but many (better written) games with these kinds of rules will put a cap on that kind of thing by not allowing them to be piled on like that.

Just saying I would not start planning out a list based on the idea of multiple drone controllers buffing just yet. We need to see the full 12-14 pages of core rules and we need to see the actual index.

Of course any of this speculation is purely tentative and based on the information we have available thus far. I'm not talking about building lists at this point.

Another major hurt to the marker drone reigning as king is its threat identification protocols forcing it to target the closest unit. Means you'll be relying on movement to position it optimally... Or focussing fire to try to wipe units that risk distracting them.

Fortunately, the sniper and missile drones don't seem to have this limitation.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Of course any of this speculation is purely tentative and based on the information we have available thus far. I'm not talking about building lists at this point.

Another major hurt to the marker drone reigning as king is its threat identification protocols forcing it to target the closest unit. Means you'll be relying on movement to position it optimally... Or focussing fire to try to wipe units that risk distracting them.

Fortunately, the sniper and missile drones don't seem to have this limitation.

Nor do Marker Drones. Read the rule again, it specifically states that Gun Drones must target the closest unit when shooting. Nowhere does it state that Marker Drones must target the closest unit as well. Marker Drones are free to shine laser pointers in anyone's eyes.

My bad, I missed that on my first read-over. In my defence, it's like... really blurry!

That said, I really want to believe in this stacking drone controller thing. (I'll never let go, marker drone!)

Caederes wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
I haven't really probed the lists deeply yet, but Broadsides with HYMP and sms and ats are going to be great. Also, consider blastcannon Stormsurge spam. 185pts for durable S14 firepower sounds badass.

Err....you're a couple hundred points off buddy...it has 10 guns on its profile, meaning you have to pay for all 10 of them.

Ah yeah, I was thinking/hoping you could just put on what weapons you wanted. In that case, it'd be great to only slap on the big gun and go to town. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Do we know if the new Deep Strike equivalents count as moving? If not, it'd be pretty amazing to drop a Commander and a bunch of Crisis Suits in near something, call a Kauyon and just annihilate the core of your opponent's army. Triple rapid-firing plasma would chew through any armored targets short of knights and such at 75pts a suit.On a related note, I see plasma being a front-runner for favorite Crisis Suit weapon with fusion a close second for hard targets. That D6 damage is a big deal, even at twice the price per weapon.

Pathfidners may finally have found a way into my lists. 8pts per model is a solid deal, especially since they can move and shoot with decent effect. Marker Drones are still pretty nice, though, and could definitely be the hotness with stacked drone controllers (assuming that works...)

On a related note, Gun Drones are awesome.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
So I was reading the stat-line of the broadside's heavy rail and getting more and more excited as I went, it looked like it's heavy 2 with D6 damage (and mortal wounds on a 6 to wound) would finally bring it in line with the missile pod (twice as many attacks, half damage, a little over half range).

Then I read the unit profile and it says you replace the railgun for a pair of them.

Unless my math is wrong, assuming the target to be a Leman Russ) two HYMP do an average of 1.32 wounds, while the rifle does 2.05. The HRR is significantly better against hevay armo(u)r.

Am I missing something?

Hmmm. A Devilfish with embarked (dedicated) Gun Drones treats their weapons as its own. So a naked DFish has 12 shots....

Edit: Same with Piranhas.

Am I getting this right. If you buy a piranha it will cost xx plus xx for the 2 Gun Drones? The points seemed out of whack vs the Power level, so that seems to make more sense. It does make the Devilfish even more expensive than I originally thought though.

Too bad the kroot shaper became an elite choice instead of an HQ. It was the perfect opportunity to have pure kroot armies.

Alcibiades wrote:

Unless my math is wrong, assuming the target to be a Leman Russ) two HYMP do an average of 1.32 wounds, while the rifle does 2.05. The HRR is significantly better against hevay armo(u)r.

Am I missing something?

Not sure how you're getting to those numbers, but before damage an HRR has a 50% chance of landing an unsaved hit on a Russ in a vacuum. (2 shots * .5 to hit * .5 to wound, no save due to Ap) while the HYMP has closer to 66.7%, and the rail head is something like 44.4%.

That said, I don't see the two weapons competing in an anti-russ turkey-shoot, I'm more concerned with how they perform against monstrous creatures and transports, which is the theatre I expect HYMPs to excel in.

So speaking of the HYMP, I'm not sure Broadsides compare well with our other options. As totally amazing as the bevvy of missiles coming out of one of those bad boys would be buffed by markers and an ATS, that costs 210pts. Even with the toughness buff, that seems way too much of a glass cannon for my tastes. I think you'd be a lot better off loading up a Hammerhead for similar cost but an extra toughness and double the wounds. You could also field ~25 Gun Drones for a massive 100 pulse shots, if dakka was really a problem for you.

Didn't like some of the changes, liked others. My biggest displeasures are the new ML table and seeker/destroyer missiles. Everything else is as expected (ok, maybe a lil' bit decrease on Riptide cost? )

One thing to substitute our dear Mark'O (RIP) is a BS2+ infantry guy in a droneport with marker drones. The drones use his BS

 Captain Joystick wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:

Unless my math is wrong, assuming the target to be a Leman Russ) two HYMP do an average of 1.32 wounds, while the rifle does 2.05. The HRR is significantly better against hevay armo(u)r.

Am I missing something?

Not sure how you're getting to those numbers, but before damage an HRR has a 50% chance of landing an unsaved hit on a Russ in a vacuum. (2 shots * .5 to hit * .5 to wound, no save due to Ap) while the HYMP has closer to 66.7%, and the rail head is something like 44.4%.

That said, I don't see the two weapons competing in an anti-russ turkey-shoot, I'm more concerned with how they perform against monstrous creatures and transports, which is the theatre I expect HYMPs to excel in.

Yeah, but the HRR does considerably more damage to the Leman Russ per hit. The "before damage" is big.

The heavy MCs are about the same statline as the Leman Russ -- T8, 3+ armor save.

The HYMP is, like you implied with "transports," an anti-light vehicle. It's the Tau autocannon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
These weapons are well-differentiated.

So I don't see anything that prevents Commanders or Crisis Suits taking a rail gun or a pulse blaster. What am I missing?

I read the point costs for a unit as:

Stormsurge - 180 + 20 for 2 Burst cannons + 122 for 2 Cluster Rocket Systems +40 for 2 smart missile systems + 40 for 4 destroyer missiles + 97 for the big cannon = 499pts + 40 for invulnerable save + 5 for Stims that now to get the ability to negate wounds on a 6+ & interceptor for 8pts = 552pts

A WK now is 402 + 65 for sword + 20 for shield + 15x2 for scatters = 517pts

Is this right?

arnehelst wrote:
So I don't see anything that prevents Commanders or Crisis Suits taking a rail gun or a pulse blaster. What am I missing?

When it says it can take items from the 'ranged weapons' section, it's referring to the 'ranged weapons' section of the warmer section (dark grey box with picture of a crisis commander).

Ah, I see. I knew I was missing something

Alcibiades wrote:

These weapons are well-differentiated.

I'm not saying their too similar, I just think the HYMP edges the HRR as the better option, again. At least against the sorts of targets I typically think of fielding broadsides against.

That said, in light of the changes to minimum crisis suit squad sizes I may need to rethink my anti-heavy armour anyway.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:

These weapons are well-differentiated.

I'm not saying their too similar, I just think the HYMP edges the HRR as the better option, again. At least against the sorts of targets I typically think of fielding broadsides against.

That said, in light of the changes to minimum crisis suit squad sizes I may need to rethink my anti-heavy armour anyway.

Also keep in mind that the archetypal transports, the Rhino and Chimera, are tougher now. Quick math says that the HRR outperorms the HYMP against them as well (something like 2.5 wounds vs. 2).

The HYMP only has better average damage against really light vehicles.

Naaris wrote:
I read the point costs for a unit as:

Stormsurge - 180 + 20 for 2 Burst cannons + 122 for 2 Cluster Rocket Systems +40 for 2 smart missile systems + 40 for 4 destroyer missiles + 97 for the big cannon = 499pts + 40 for invulnerable save + 5 for Stims that now to get the ability to negate wounds on a 6+ & interceptor for 8pts = 552pts

A WK now is 402 + 65 for sword + 20 for shield + 15x2 for scatters = 517pts

Is this right?

No, because a SS comes with 1 CRS and you can't buy another

so the 2 missile pods for the cluster rocket system count as 1 weapon?
I recall GW saying that a stormsurge had 10 weapons

1 main gun
2 sms
2 BCs / flamers or AFPs

What am I missing?