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I love the Tau models, but currently own a rather large Astra Militarum army, and I'm a little concerned that they play the same way, being two very shooty armies.

So what do you like about Tau?
Are they mobile? fun? Like AM (if you've played both)?

To be honest I just started a Tau army cause I love the models but currently without the codex they are bad. But I have high hopes they will return in a month with the new codex as a superior shoots army

Wait for the Codex

What I like about this is that they are completely mismatched for 40k, they dont fit the theme very well being a hopeful dynamic race, and THAT is why they fit (if that makes sense), they show a mirror up to the other races and you can see just how absurdly broken they all are as species, they make an interesting foil to the IOM.

They've got a new codex coming within the next month or two and if their codex is anything like the current ones then it should be a good solid release that not only makes them strong on the table, but also gives you a lot of choice within the army as to what you can take that works.
Also don't forget to check out Forgeworld - Tau have some awesome forgeworld models.

I'm returning to 40k after a long long break.

I don't think T'au were around when I played previously. I'm contemplating them as a 2nd army as it will be something completely new for me.

I knew nothing about them until I read the fluff in the BRB, which I've just finished. I lile the hopeful, progressive nature of them.

But I'll be waiting for a codex before I do anything.

Sadly, as of right now there's not a lot that Tau are actually good at. They're expensive with mediocre shooting and are lacking most of the mobility they used to have. Imperial Guard is currently a significantly better shooting army,

However that said, they used to play very differently, and depending on how you build them can still be played very differently now. Just... Don't expect them to compare favorably at all.

Hopefully the upcoming codex will give them back the maneuverability that they used to have, as my favorite way to play them was as a fast, aggressive suit based force. I've had very minor amount of success using a mix of suits, devilfish, and drones, but it didn't take long for that to get shut down hard after people learned to target the drones.

Mech infantry composed of hover tanks, soldiers with sleek armour and powerful guns supported by battlesuits, alien auxiliaries, and led by space popes?

hell yeah

Edit: personally I play them similar to mech guard - fire warriors in devilfish advance while big tanks sit and shoot, while suits DS and try to fry enemy squishies. Kinda like guard but with battelsuits Love me some battlesuits.

Tau definitely have some sleek aesthetics and used to be able to play an aggressive short ranged/midfield shooting style which should feel different. However, if shooting is your only answer to things it's easy to draw similarities to guard play style; doubly so if you decide to gunline with lots of heavy support.

Trying that right now will get you wrecked almost every game, as -1 to hit is fairly common and simply devastates Tau shooting when combined with their high cost suits. As everyone has suggested so far its almost silly not to wait for the codex at this time (likely ~1 month out). As there are some issues and a chance they will end either poorly balanced or pushed into a horde/gunline style of play.

Things I like about the Tau is their looks, reliance on tech over psychic powers or sheer numbers, in local campaigns its easy enough to find a reason to join with or against the Imperium as needed and the use of markerlights to mark key enemy elements for destruction. Another interesting option is the ability to recruit other races into their ranks if you like a diverse infantry force.

Note don't get disprited - currently most factions are doing okish to poor if they don't have a new codex. Necrons are in the same position as Tau right now.

However each new codex has generally been met with a positive appraisal - improving faction power and diversity without being (on the whole) overpowered to the point of being utterly broken.

The "Getting started" kits also provide an affordable and worthwhile way to get into the army. So you can pick up a pack and get some models together in advance of the codex release

 Overread wrote:
Note don't get disprited - currently most factions are doing okish to poor if they don't have a new codex. Necrons are in the same position as Tau right now.

However each new codex has generally been met with a positive appraisal - improving faction power and diversity without being (on the whole) overpowered to the point of being utterly broken.

The "Getting started" kits also provide an affordable and worthwhile way to get into the army. So you can pick up a pack and get some models together in advance of the codex release

In the case of the Tau "Start Collecting" set, it's basically the way to do it.
It contains:
1 Crisis Suit Team($75 USD)
1 Fire Warrior Strike Team($50 USD)
1 Ethereal(Not available separately; probably $25 USD when made available by itself)
The sprues for the Crisis Suit and Fire Warrior Teams include Drones for the units as well.

All of this comes out to $85 USD in the Start Collecting set.
That box is basically the only way I'll buy Fire Warriors or Crisis Suits at this juncture.

 Sleep Spell wrote:


Trying that right now will get you wrecked almost every game, as -1 to hit is fairly common and simply devastates Tau shooting when combined with their high cost suits.

Yep, Codex armies with the -1 to hit are a serious problem. It will be interesting to see how the Tau deal with it in the Codex, but I'm hoping that Markerlights can be used to negate those penalties entirely. Having an army with a hard counter to the -1 to hit shenanigans would be good for the game and encourage other armies to take other traits, at least in a tournament setting. If they don't have a way to deal with it, then Crisis Suits need to be BS3+ for basically the same cost, because nobody is fielding Crisis Suits that will be effectively BS5+ once the to hit penalty shows up.

 John Prins wrote:

Yep, Codex armies with the -1 to hit are a serious problem. It will be interesting to see how the Tau deal with it in the Codex, but I'm hoping that Markerlights can be used to negate those penalties entirely. Having an army with a hard counter to the -1 to hit shenanigans would be good for the game and encourage other armies to take other traits, at least in a tournament setting. If they don't have a way to deal with it, then Crisis Suits need to be BS3+ for basically the same cost, because nobody is fielding Crisis Suits that will be effectively BS5+ once the to hit penalty shows up.

Markerlights do negate those penalties, once you get 5 or more hits on a target unit. It makes target prioritization with Markerlights super important.
Which might sound hard but given that you can burn a Stratagem to add D3+1 counters when you have placed counters, it's not as unwieldy as you might think. It does however make Markerlights a thing you have to spam at those targets.

It's important to note, however, that the "-1 to Hit" trait is going to be at 12 inches or further. As far as I'm aware, only Eldar Rangers get any additional benefit to the negative hit penalties for being in Cover.

And a whole army of negating -1 to hit, if done improperly like Dark Reapers, would break things even further I think. I like the Markerlight system as it is, I just think that Crisis Suits and the like could use some help.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

Yep, Codex armies with the -1 to hit are a serious problem. It will be interesting to see how the Tau deal with it in the Codex, but I'm hoping that Markerlights can be used to negate those penalties entirely. Having an army with a hard counter to the -1 to hit shenanigans would be good for the game and encourage other armies to take other traits, at least in a tournament setting. If they don't have a way to deal with it, then Crisis Suits need to be BS3+ for basically the same cost, because nobody is fielding Crisis Suits that will be effectively BS5+ once the to hit penalty shows up.

Markerlights do negate those penalties, once you get 5 or more hits on a target unit. It makes target prioritization with Markerlights super important.
Which might sound hard but given that you can burn a Stratagem to add D3+1 counters when you have placed counters, it's not as unwieldy as you might think. It does however make Markerlights a thing you have to spam at those targets.

It's important to note, however, that the "-1 to Hit" trait is going to be at 12 inches or further. As far as I'm aware, only Eldar Rangers get any additional benefit to the negative hit penalties for being in Cover.

And a whole army of negating -1 to hit, if done improperly like Dark Reapers, would break things even further I think. I like the Markerlight system as it is, I just think that Crisis Suits and the like could use some help.

Dark Reapers are obnoxious because they have a strong weapon, BS3+ and ignore all penalties all the time, with no extra effort. Tau generally have to invest a lot of extra points to get markerlight functionality.

And ignoring a -1 to hit penalty isn't as powerful as getting +1 to hit - notably when you've got 'Gets Hot' weaponry. Add to that the extra cost of markerlights in a Tau army, and ignoring penalties should probably be lower on the Markerlight scale than getting a bonus to hit. I expect the Markerlight table will be entirely re-vamped regardless. I could see the Markerlight table having "ignore cover saves and shooting penalties" on the 3 markerlight level. At 3 markerlights you can't ignore the penalty versus every unit, but it does let you focus fire when you need it.

Add to that the need to get those markerlight hits in the first place - drones on a 6+, most others on a 5+, and yeah, penalties to shooting are crippling Tau functionality.

One other option is to just have markerlights themselves ignore to penalties, they're not really a weapon, after all.

While I very much enjoy the concept and use of markerlights in a Tau army, they are hardly the solution to -1 modifiers in their current state. Without the stratagem we're talking of around 15 Pathfinders, with burning a CP its around 9. Just to negate that free -1 to hit modifier the opponent is getting and bringing us back to hitting on 4+. Its an uphill battle when your baseline becomes 5+ to hit and the other guys needs 3+; I'm sure we can all agree on that and hope the codex will provide a solution in whatever form it takes.

I couldn't agree more with Kanluwen's advice on the Start Collecting Box though, its a great value and both Fire warriors and Crisis suits should serve you well in most lists. A pair of start collecting boxes and perhaps some pathfinders would make for a decent core to expand upon.

 John Prins wrote:

Dark Reapers are obnoxious because they have a strong weapon, BS3+ and ignore all penalties all the time, with no extra effort.

The reason they're obnoxious is that they're fairly cheap, for what they bring to the table, and as you mentioned "ignore all penalties, all the time".

Tau generally have to invest a lot of extra points to get markerlight functionality.

Right...but Markerlights are, effectively, your version of many armies' "special trait".

And ignoring a -1 to hit penalty isn't as powerful as getting +1 to hit - notably when you've got 'Gets Hot' weaponry. Add to that the extra cost of markerlights in a Tau army, and ignoring penalties should probably be lower on the Markerlight scale than getting a bonus to hit. I expect the Markerlight table will be entirely re-vamped regardless. I could see the Markerlight table having "ignore cover saves and shooting penalties" on the 3 markerlight level. At 3 markerlights you can't ignore the penalty versus every unit, but it does let you focus fire when you need it.

Yeah, but unless you're removing that Stratagem that grants d3+1 Markerlight counters additional on a Markerlight hit...it's not really an option when a single Markerlight hit can potentially give you the benefit you're seeking. They're cumulative benefits as well and any unit in your army can benefit from most of the benefits(Seeker and Destroyer Missiles excluded really) when they're in use.

Add to that the need to get those markerlight hits in the first place - drones on a 6+, most others on a 5+, and yeah, penalties to shooting are crippling Tau functionality.

I mean, "crippling" is a bit of a strong word--if you're arguing that it's "crippling" to Tau then any army that has no way to negate them is being "crippled". It isn't beneficial for them certainly.

One other option is to just have markerlights themselves ignore to penalties, they're not really a weapon, after all.

Ehhh...this is one of the issues that Markerlights have. They're "not really a weapon" but they have no mechanism that can be used against them. So yeah, they cost you points and whatnot...but they are a fairly large force multiplier for you when you're using them in 'reasonable' numbers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sleep Spell wrote:
While I very much enjoy the concept and use of markerlights in a Tau army, they are hardly the solution to -1 modifiers in their current state. Without the stratagem we're talking of around 15 Pathfinders, with burning a CP its around 9. Just to negate that free -1 to hit modifier the opponent is getting and bringing us back to hitting on 4+. Its an uphill battle when your baseline becomes 5+ to hit and the other guys needs 3+; I'm sure we can all agree on that and hope the codex will provide a solution in whatever form it takes.

One of the biggest issues to take into account is that armies with the -1 to Hit modifiers are situated to 12 inches or further. Tau(and other shooting armies) can negate that by moving things into that sub-12 inch bracket...it's just that most players choose not to. With Marker Drones, you can run them up into that range and use them as normal without feeling too bad about it.

I couldn't agree more with Kanluwen's advice on the Start Collecting Box though, its a great value and both Fire warriors and Crisis suits should serve you well in most lists. A pair of start collecting boxes and perhaps some pathfinders would make for a decent core to expand upon.

My best advice for someone starting a Tau army is to pick up 2x Start Collecting boxes and if you can find one, the "Rapid Insertion Force" box they just did for Christmas.

That will give you:
1x Commander Battlesuit
1x Ghostkeel
2x Stealth Suit Teams(or 1x 6 model Stealth Suit Team)
2x Ethereals
2x Strike Teams
3x Crisis Suit Teams


$504(+$50 probably for the Ethereals individually if they get released that way) individually, but the 3 boxes would run you $340...so you're saving $164 by buying the boxes instead.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Right...but Markerlights are, effectively, your version of many armies' "special trait".

Most armies have this stuff (cheaply!) built right into the units. Pathfinders and Markerlight Drones cost lots of extra points to ONLY provide Markerlights - I mean, you could shoot the Pathfinder's Pulse Carbine instead, but it's rarely worth it and they rarely survive long enough for an opportunity to do so. If you could fire Markerlights AND other weapons at the same time - like every other unit with multiple guns gets to do - then it would be a lot more fair.

Isnt Tau special trait to overwatch other units? I think thats the equivalent of other armies traits, like Tyranids shadow of the warp, ATSKNF, etc...
Markerlights in the other hand are a faction mechanic you need to actively use and invest points, like tyranids synapse or IG orders. Is a mechanic that can give you great benefits when used properly (shooting bonuses for tau, morale inmunity for tyranids), but that if you don use well, will punish your army (4+bs in a expensive shooting army, instinctive behaviour)

 John Prins wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Right...but Markerlights are, effectively, your version of many armies' "special trait".

Most armies have this stuff (cheaply!) built right into the units.

They really don't though. Guard have to pay 5 points per Infantry, Veteran, or Scion Squad to add a Vox-Caster to their squads.
Skitarii have to pay points for the Enhanced Data-Tether(which increases the effect of the Doctrina Imperatives back to its old values).

I'm sure there's more examples I could find, but those are the ones popping up right off the bat into my head.

Pathfinders and Markerlight Drones cost lots of extra points to ONLY provide Markerlights - I mean, you could shoot the Pathfinder's Pulse Carbine instead, but it's rarely worth it and they rarely survive long enough for an opportunity to do so. If you could fire Markerlights AND other weapons at the same time - like every other unit with multiple guns gets to do - then it would be a lot more fair.

Er, "every other unit with multiple guns" being...?

Combi-Weapons get a -1 to Hit penalty when being fired as a "both" mode.
Pistols are an "either/or" thing.

Markerlights have always been fluffed as a weapon that needs to be stabilized and held on target. That's ostensibly why Markerlight Counters didn't persist through game turns.
It's not hard to envision a reason why you can't do both.

 Kanluwen wrote:

They really don't though. Guard have to pay 5 points per Infantry, Veteran, or Scion Squad to add a Vox-Caster to their squads.
Skitarii have to pay points for the Enhanced Data-Tether(which increases the effect of the Doctrina Imperatives back to its old values).

That's is cheap, and it's 100% reliable, unlike Markerlights, and they don't take up the unit's shooting, unlike Markerlights. I'd also argue that Markerlight functionality is essential to Tau play, while Vox Casters can be ignored on at least part of your army - the part that stays near the officers.

Don't get me wrong, Markerlights are cheap way to get a re-roll of 1. It's not a cheap way to get +1 to hit vs a single unit - you can have 100 points sunk into that and still have it fail, especially if the opposing army is -1 to being hit versus those Markerlights.

Er, "every other unit with multiple guns" being...?

Tau Battle Suits, Techmarines, every Biker unit with twin guns (plus extra special weapons to boot!), Space Marine Centurions, Aggressors and Inceptors, multi-gunned Tyranids, and probably a few I don't know about.

Markerlights have always been fluffed as a weapon that needs to be stabilized and held on target. That's ostensibly why Markerlight Counters didn't persist through game turns.
It's not hard to envision a reason why you can't do both.

They're already Heavy Weapons. No other Heavy Weapon is exclusive anymore. It's not like it would be overpowered to allow Pathfinders and the handful of other units with Markerlights that aren't vehicles to shoot their other weapons. You could treat them as combi-weapons if you really liked, that would at least be logically consistent with the game.

As to fluff, they already threw that out the window by allowing Markerlights to move and shoot. Firing a pulse carbine is NOT going to be more disruptive than jogging across the field of battle.

 John Prins wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

They really don't though. Guard have to pay 5 points per Infantry, Veteran, or Scion Squad to add a Vox-Caster to their squads.
Skitarii have to pay points for the Enhanced Data-Tether(which increases the effect of the Doctrina Imperatives back to its old values).

That's is cheap, and it's 100% reliable, unlike Markerlights, and they don't take up the unit's shooting, unlike Markerlights. I'd also argue that Markerlight functionality is essential to Tau play, while Vox Casters can be ignored on at least part of your army - the part that stays near the officers.

And what happens when you have units that have to move to get Objectives or the like?

There is, realistically, no way to ensure that you have 100% Orders coverage all the time despite what people say.

Don't get me wrong, Markerlights are cheap way to get a re-roll of 1. It's not a cheap way to get +1 to hit vs a single unit - you can have 100 points sunk into that and still have it fail, especially if the opposing army is -1 to being hit versus those Markerlights.

The problem with the way of looking at it like this is that it, again, ignores that Markerlight hits are cumulative and then they apply to all of your Tau Empire units.
Say you have two Markerlights hit out of a unit of 5 Pathfinders firing. That's about what one might expect for them firing at BS5+, yes?
So on one of those two shots you use the Stratagem to get D3+1 Markerlight Counters on the target.
Now, don't get me wrong I realize that it requires a good roll here, but you have the potential for 2 hits to be granting your whole army the benefit of 5 hits.

I'd say that's part of the issue with Markerlights. They can swing from being SUPER EFFECTIVE! to IT DID NOTHING! real quick.

Er, "every other unit with multiple guns" being...?

Tau Battle Suits, Techmarines, every Biker unit with twin guns (plus extra special weapons to boot!), Space Marine Centurions, Aggressors and Inceptors, multi-gunned Tyranids, and probably a few I don't know about.

That's still kind of barking up the wrong tree, IMO. Those are weapons platforms intended to be firing multiple weapons (which in quite a few cases, I might add, are simply two weapons fired at once with it doing nothing but upping the number of shots).

Pathfinders, traditionally, have always had some kind of penalty related to them firing Markerlights and being unable to use their Carbines.

Markerlights have always been fluffed as a weapon that needs to be stabilized and held on target. That's ostensibly why Markerlight Counters didn't persist through game turns.
It's not hard to envision a reason why you can't do both.

They're already Heavy Weapons. No other Heavy Weapon is exclusive anymore. It's not like it would be overpowered to allow Pathfinders and the handful of other units with Markerlights that aren't vehicles to shoot their other weapons. You could treat them as combi-weapons if you really liked, that would at least be logically consistent with the game.

As to fluff, they already threw that out the window by allowing Markerlights to move and shoot. Firing a pulse carbine is NOT going to be more disruptive than jogging across the field of battle.

Meh. It's still feasible to say that moving & firing incurring just a -1 to Hit penalty is a result of them 'not being situated correctly'; plus Markerlight Drones didn't suffer any penalties before for moving & firing.

IF I had to speculate as to what they might do to make Markerlights a bit more reliable? I could see Pathfinders & other Markerlight platforms getting the ability to double the number of shots when they fire if they remained stationary.

I first started Tau/40k almost 12 years ago, but what did it for me was basically the models. I played Tau in Dawn of War and loved the look and feel of them in that game, and when I was looking at getting into the tabletop version I was interested in a few different armies but ultimately stuck with Tau. For one thing I need to like the army's basic troops if I'm going to collect them, because naturally that's the unit I'll probably be buying the most of, and fire warriors are very solidly-designed sci-fi troops in my opinion (Kroot are cool, too, and I like that I can have all the high-tech Tau stuff mixed with more "primitive" stuff like the Kroot or Vespid to break it up). The tanks are really nice, too, I love the hammerhead especially with the giant railgun (although I loved the sky ray's missile barrage in DoW, too), and the imagery of those tanks hovering around dropping off fire warriors with battlesuits for support is what really sold me on them. That and they seemed to operate the closest to modern day military, like U.S. Marines, instead of relying on WW1 tactics like the Guard or bs space magic/mysticism like the Eldar, so they act as a good in-between if neither one of those appeals to you. They also have good Forge World support, and the barracuda and tigershark are some of the coolest flyer models I think FW has ever made, and then there's the beastly manta on top of that if you have a ton of money and literally nothing else to do with it.

Sadly they're not in the best spot right now rules-wise. They lost a lot of their mobility they used to have, as others have said, so it feels like GW have kinda pigeonholed them into playing as a static gunline, which used to be really powerful in the last edition but kinda sucks in this one. I sure as hell don't want them to go back to being overpowered or anything, but it would be nice to have other ways of playing the army, because I liked playing Tau more aggressively and hate castling up in a corner. But Tau are scheduled to be getting a full codex really, really soon, so it could change.

And as Kanluwen said, Tau also have the benefit of having possibly the best value starter box out of all of them. Fire warriors and crisis suits are both core units you'll need multiples of, and while I personally prefer battlesuit commanders over ethereals the box is still a good deal and saves you quite a bit of money. It's like buying a box of crisis suits and getting the fire warriors almost for free, which is really good when starting out. Sadly I didn't wait for the start collecting box and bought multiple boxes of both during the last update back in 2015 with the goal of replacing all my old models with them, but I still bought at least one start collecting box anyway. The Rapid Insertion Force would be a good buy, too, but GW isn't selling it anymore (kinda miffed about that one, I actually ordered it through my local store and it started showing as "temporarily out of stock" literally the day after, waited several weeks before being told by GW that they wouldn't be making anymore and had to try and get my money refunded).

 Sidstyler wrote:

And as Kanluwen said, Tau also have the benefit of having possibly the best value starter box out of all of them. Fire warriors and crisis suits are both core units you'll need multiples of, and while I personally prefer battlesuit commanders over ethereals the box is still a good deal and saves you quite a bit of money. It's like buying a box of crisis suits and getting the fire warriors almost for free, which is really good when starting out. Sadly I didn't wait for the start collecting box and bought multiple boxes of both during the last update back in 2015 with the goal of replacing all my old models with them, but I still bought at least one start collecting box anyway. The Rapid Insertion Force would be a good buy, too, but GW isn't selling it anymore (kinda miffed about that one, I actually ordered it through my local store and it started showing as "temporarily out of stock" literally the day after, waited several weeks before being told by GW that they wouldn't be making anymore and had to try and get my money refunded).

Just a note, it's one that I expected to see go away quick and tried to let people know about that as much as I could.
With that statement out of the way, it's a box that was actually kind of a wash. If you wanted everything in there, it was a great deal...but if there was something in there you didn't want or you didn't want to run variant Detachments...the Start Collecting is 100% the way to go.

It's a lot better than the situation with the Vanguard box for Stormcast, where it's two half boxes(Gryph-Hounds and Vanguard-Hunters) plus a character and a box of big cavalry.

 Kanluwen wrote:

That's still kind of barking up the wrong tree, IMO. Those are weapons platforms intended to be firing multiple weapons (which in quite a few cases, I might add, are simply two weapons fired at once with it doing nothing but upping the number of shots).

You moved that goalpost pretty quickly.

Non-vehicle units with multiple ranged weapons exist in the game and many armies have them.

What do I like about the Tau?

That slit in their forehead. It's perfect for a combat blade.

 Kanluwen wrote:
...the Start Collecting is 100% the way to go.

Yeah, you can't really go wrong with 2 or even 3 of them. The extra Ethereal(s) make good Tau statuary.

 John Prins wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

That's still kind of barking up the wrong tree, IMO. Those are weapons platforms intended to be firing multiple weapons (which in quite a few cases, I might add, are simply two weapons fired at once with it doing nothing but upping the number of shots).

You moved that goalpost pretty quickly.

Non-vehicle units with multiple ranged weapons exist in the game and many armies have them.

To be fair, I wasn't the person who made it seem like they were talking about units with multiple weapons and actually mean units that have multiples of the same weapon.

There is a huge difference between, say, a unit toting twin Boltguns(Bikers) and a unit with two distinctive weapons. The units with two distinctive weapons usually have some kind of penalty associated with them(you can't fire Pistols and other guns at the same time, for example).

 Kanluwen wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

That's still kind of barking up the wrong tree, IMO. Those are weapons platforms intended to be firing multiple weapons (which in quite a few cases, I might add, are simply two weapons fired at once with it doing nothing but upping the number of shots).

You moved that goalpost pretty quickly.

Non-vehicle units with multiple ranged weapons exist in the game and many armies have them.

To be fair, I wasn't the person who made it seem like they were talking about units with multiple weapons and actually mean units that have multiples of the same weapon.

There is a huge difference between, say, a unit toting twin Boltguns(Bikers) and a unit with two distinctive weapons. The units with two distinctive weapons usually have some kind of penalty associated with them(you can't fire Pistols and other guns at the same time, for example).

But you can, as a space marine biker, shoot your twin bolt guns, and a plasma gun or storm bolter or whatever else you decide to use. Now, not all bikers are able to equip extra ranges weapons while on a bike, but several units can.

Deadawake1347 wrote:

But you can, as a space marine biker, shoot your twin bolt guns, and a plasma gun or storm bolter or whatever else you decide to use. Now, not all bikers are able to equip extra ranges weapons while on a bike, but several units can.

Let's be 100% honest here, shall we?
Space Marine Bikers have always been a bit of an 'exception to the rule' when it comes to bike units and the rider having an additional weapon for shooting. The jetbikes of the Eldar and now the Custodes tend to be "weapon is on the vehicle" and that's that.

The equivalent to those items is and always has been the Battlesuits of the Tau...which can fire multiple weapons at once.

 Kanluwen wrote:

To be fair, I wasn't the person who made it seem like they were talking about units with multiple weapons and actually mean units that have multiples of the same weapon.

There is a huge difference between, say, a unit toting twin Boltguns(Bikers) and a unit with two distinctive weapons. The units with two distinctive weapons usually have some kind of penalty associated with them(you can't fire Pistols and other guns at the same time, for example).

That's 2 of those I listed (SM bikes and Eldar bikes). Let me add more new ones:

SM Bikers w/ Special weapons, SM Support Bikes, Eldar Shining Spears and Wraithlord/Knight and Weapon Batteries, AM Heavy Weapon Teams and Deathwatch Infernus Heavy Bolter.

Non-vehicle models with multiple different ranged weapons aren't numerous, but they exist, and the rules in 8th were changed specifically to allow them to exist without case-by-case rules - so of course they introduce case-by-case rules for combiweapons and markerlights.

 John Prins wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

To be fair, I wasn't the person who made it seem like they were talking about units with multiple weapons and actually mean units that have multiples of the same weapon.

There is a huge difference between, say, a unit toting twin Boltguns(Bikers) and a unit with two distinctive weapons. The units with two distinctive weapons usually have some kind of penalty associated with them(you can't fire Pistols and other guns at the same time, for example).

That's 2 of those I listed (SM bikes and Eldar bikes). Let me add more new ones:

SM Bikers w/ Special weapons, SM Support Bikes, Eldar Shining Spears and Wraithlord/Knight and Weapon Batteries, AM Heavy Weapon Teams and Deathwatch Infernus Heavy Bolter.

Non-vehicle models with multiple different ranged weapons aren't numerous, but they exist, and the rules in 8th were changed specifically to allow them to exist without case-by-case rules - so of course they introduce case-by-case rules for combiweapons and markerlights.

I get the feeling we're talking past each other at this point.

So in any regards, I don't like the idea of Markerlights being able to be used in addition to the Carbines. It's the whole reason why Marker Drones don't get a Carbine. They want the Markerlight to be a "Big Deal".

You do like that idea, which is fine, but I hope they don't do it. It shouldn't be a case of "I gets both!" for Pathfinders. There's nothing stopping you from bringing, say, Rail Rifles or Ion Rifles though and having them fire. The FAQ actually tells you that you should resolve the Markerlight hits first in that case.