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Mont'ka and Kauyon (or however you spell it) are changing. Looks like an interesting change, but nothing in the T'au a'rmy has enough l'asting power to use Kauyon, so it'll be all Mon'tka a'll the t'ime.

And with the change to pulse rifles a fire warrior squad with a cadre fire blade (if his buff remains the same) will be pretty dangerous. Move, advance, get within 18" of a space marine squad, shoot and kill 3 marines with no markerlight support. That's... an im'provement, at least.

Improving Tau shooting is cute and all and probably on some level necessary right now, but Tau as an army will never be healthy until they can meaningfully interact with their opponent in more than one phase of the game. An army that's sole balancing lever is the strength of their shooting will always be either underwhelming or overbearing in ninth edition.

The lack of any looks at kroot or any way to answer the question of how they actually flip objectives in one turn is worrying.

I mean, that goes for a lot of the more one-dimensional armies.

Knights? T8 with invuls and lots of wounds: Priced just a tiny bit too high, and they are trash. Priced just a tiny bit too low, and they are obnoxious. Same with Custodes. Harlequins probably too. Most Daemons-variants. Etc., etc..

And even armies that would have the units/potential for variety across the board can skew into mono-shooting or mono-combat, or mono-a-particular-stat-profile if the balance is off a bit (hello Ork Buggy-spam for example, or 9 Alaitoc Flyers, etc..)

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Improving Tau shooting is cute and all and probably on some level necessary right now, but Tau as an army will never be healthy until they can meaningfully interact with their opponent in more than one phase of the game. An army that's sole balancing lever is the strength of their shooting will always be either underwhelming or overbearing in ninth edition.

The lack of any looks at kroot or any way to answer the question of how they actually flip objectives in one turn is worrying.

Kroot are in a weird spot right now where they are actually a surprisingly decent build around, but don't mesh well into a main Tau list, which is very much the opposite of what they should be fluff wise. My Kroot heavy list at least is actually really great at grabbing the objectives turn 1 and just surviving with sheer weight of bodies until you're so far ahead that it doesn't matter that you're nearly tabled by turn 5.

While I can't imagine them getting an intentional nerf, I could see them either not getting <Core>, or a cap being placed on Etherals, which would essentially be the end of their current limited viability.

Fingers crossed for some kind of attention to the Kroot, but I'm not holding my breath.

The boring take.
At least its simpler to remember than Custodes Gun Kata.

As said, it seems like you'd just be Mont'ka all the time and just muderate everyone. Which just makes the power a function of points. Its not that difficult to have bodies on objectives if everything is dead by turn 3.

Tyel wrote:
The boring take.
At least its simpler to remember than Custodes Gun Kata.

As said, it seems like you'd just be Mont'ka all the time and just muderate everyone. Which just makes the power a function of points. Its not that difficult to have bodies on objectives if everything is dead by turn 3.

But that is because the Tau army is fundamentally flawed in 9th edition.

Tau cannot compete on mid field objectives. So long as that remains the case the only option that exists is oppressive amounts of firepower.

On the bright side, it seems that either discipline is attempting to encourage some form of movement rather than sitting in your gunline.

The Darkstrider model and the pathfinder killteam box may indicate a greater focus on mobile, medium range units. Of course that doesn't mean much considering the extended pulse rifle range and everything else available in the codex.

The problem with Kauyon is likely to be having enough army left to take advantage of it. The benefits are pretty powerful but with the way 40k is right now I don't see how its benefits will outweigh Mont'ka when you have to wait until turn 3 just to get any bonus at all. I like that they're trying to make Tau more about mobility and getting close to the enemy rather than castling up but they still need something that allows them to sit on, and hold, midfield objectives.

 Ordana wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The boring take.
At least its simpler to remember than Custodes Gun Kata.

As said, it seems like you'd just be Mont'ka all the time and just muderate everyone. Which just makes the power a function of points. Its not that difficult to have bodies on objectives if everything is dead by turn 3.

But that is because the Tau army is fundamentally flawed in 9th edition.

Tau cannot compete on mid field objectives. So long as that remains the case the only option that exists is oppressive amounts of firepower.

So you've seen more of the 9e book than the rest of us?

Sunny Side Up wrote:
I mean, that goes for a lot of the more one-dimensional armies.

Knights? T8 with invuls and lots of wounds: Priced just a tiny bit too high, and they are trash. Priced just a tiny bit too low, and they are obnoxious. Same with Custodes. Harlequins probably too. Most Daemons-variants. Etc., etc..

And even armies that would have the units/potential for variety across the board can skew into mono-shooting or mono-combat, or mono-a-particular-stat-profile if the balance is off a bit (hello Ork Buggy-spam for example, or 9 Alaitoc Flyers, etc..)

Knights as a solo army should have never been created for a different reason, namely that significant portions of the army can not meaningfully interact with them and, more importantly, because of this fact their existence as a mono-faction holds faction vehicles from getting the granularity they need. People often ask for Leman Russes, Land Raiders, or whatever to get an elevated profile for their defense, but then knights would have to as well. Which would exacerbate the first problem of them being hard for some armies to interact with.

Custodes, Harlequins, and Daemons are fine. And none of these armies are as one-dimensional as Tau. Custodes can shoot and fight, Harlequins can shoot, fight, and psychic, and Daemons can fight, psychic, and sometimes even shoot.

If Tau aren't given some way to interact in the fight phase they will continue to be either stinky doo doo or be incredibly overbearing.

As cool as Kauyon is I just dont see it being useful most games. Even against lists where you know youll be tied up in a ton of fast melee, odds are theyre doing their damage quickly in the first couple of turns. Montka lets you be way more mobile, buffs youre shooting on your terms, and is available turn 1. I just cant see Kauyon being taken unless certain units get abilities that tie in with one of these army stances.

Especially competitive play. Games are often decided on the first turn or two. Why would you kneecap yourself with an ability that waits till turn 3 and is mainly defensive after the units that need it have probably died already?

If Kauyon had been turns 1 through 3 with it getting better the later the turn, I could see it. Or even just working like montka and being strongest at turn 1. But as is I would imagine most folks forget kauyon is even a thing after their first couple games unless other abilties or strategems are tied to it.

T1 Kayon as is wouldn't be much help. Fall back and shoot isn't super useful even if you go 2nd(1st battle round is often fairly quiet when there's proper terrain). Obviously completely useless if you go first so half the games.

T2 onward and we are talking. Then it can actually be used when it starts to matter. Though half the games there might still be not much use(when you go 1st and enemy just positioned in his t1).

Extra hits would be still use of course but still whether that would be enough to rival montka.

Ah well. By the looks of it tau will still be boring army to face. Good thing not many tau here.

tneva82 wrote:
T1 Kayon as is wouldn't be much help. Fall back and shoot isn't super useful even if you go 2nd(1st battle round is often fairly quiet when there's proper terrain). Obviously completely useless if you go first so half the games.

T2 onward and we are talking. Then it can actually be used when it starts to matter. Though half the games there might still be not much use(when you go 1st and enemy just positioned in his t1).

Extra hits would be still use of course but still whether that would be enough to rival montka.

Ah well. By the looks of it tau will still be boring army to face. Good thing not many tau here.

Maybe I misread it, but my understanding was that Kauyon doesn't kick in until turns 3-5. So presumably you'd spend the first couple turns playing cagey and trying to whittle the enemy down as much as you can (as per now, basically). And then in the second half of the game, all your elements locked in combat can fallback without giving up much firepower, and the extra hits mean that you get that much more scary as you push forward and start fighting over those mid-field objectives. Basically, Kau'yon seems to be about retaining an unusually high amount of your offense in the second half of the game.

Whereas Mont'ka is... I don't know. More about pushing flanks and maybe focusing down key targets if you can position well enough?

tneva82 wrote:
T1 Kayon as is wouldn't be much help. Fall back and shoot isn't super useful even if you go 2nd(1st battle round is often fairly quiet when there's proper terrain). Obviously completely useless if you go first so half the games.

Wether you go 1st or 2nd, this isn't useful at all on turn 1.

tneva82 wrote:
T2 onward and we are talking. Then it can actually be used when it starts to matter. Though half the games there might still be not much use(when you go 1st and enemy just positioned in his t1).

Again, not useful at all turn 2.

It's value turn 3+ = ???

Kauyon applies in turns 3+ and is literally the 2nd & 3rd lines of text.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/12/14/master-the-ways-of-montka-and-kauyon-with-codex-tau-empires-new-tactical-philosophies/