Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The problem with keeping firewarriors BS3, +4 armor save, and Ld7 is that in comparisons with todays codexs that they will have to play against the firewarrior is 6 points at best.

The problem for me is that I don't want to play horde Tau. If firewarriors are going to stay 10 points they better have stats to match things that are in the same point range. Ie. DE warriors/wyches, battle sisters, etc. DE have high WS, Init, BS. Sisters have good BS, LD, saves, etc. But people want firewarriors to stay hamstrung with lower stats just because of fluff.

30" range guns mean squat in the world of DOA, outflanking, fast transports, drop pods, scouting ect. The Tau gun used to be a good reason for their current point costs vs stats. But it just doesn't work that way anymore. The game has changed with the last 4-5 codex releases.

Anyway, onto something else. As for HQs I think Tau HQs should all be councils of some sort and give army wide bennifits. Pretty much just the opposite of Space wolves where each is a lone heroic individual, I see the tau leaders taking the field with their most trusted advisors body guards and working as a team.

Etherials should come with 4-6 body guards - good body guards, guys who can actually fight in HTH and put out decent firepower to protect their most cherished citizens. Regardless of range give all tau units a re-roll of all LD checks because they all know an etherial has taken the field. Failure is not an option. Loose the whole price of failure rule, it just hurts.

Master Kroot shaper should come with 4-6 guys (make two of them kroot ox) . I see him showing up with some of his best chosen warriors and war pets (in my preferred world Krootox are like they are in DOW game multi wound MC that dish it out brutally in HTH) Give all kroot units fleet or +1 base attack or whatever.

Crisis suit command squad. Leader + two other suits. Kinda generic but each command squad lets you take one unit of crisis suits as troops choice.

Then you have your special characters that do whatever it is they do.

SDFarsight wrote:

The rich background of being the galaxy's redshirt ever since the 3rd sphere expansion. XD

I think you are confusing Tau with Tyranids. After all, they did achieve the 3rd sphere expansion. That's more than all Hive Fleets and all 13 Black Crusades taken together managed to achieve. Puts the Tau lightyears ahead of Tyranids and the Black Legion as a "threat" to the IoM on an objective assessment.

Jayden63 wrote:The problem with keeping firewarriors BS3, +4 armor save, and Ld7 is that in comparisons with todays codexs that they will have to play against the firewarrior is 6 points at best.

The problem for me is that I don't want to play horde Tau. If firewarriors are going to stay 10 points they better have stats to match things that are in the same point range. Ie. DE warriors/wyches, battle sisters, etc. DE have high WS, Init, BS. Sisters have good BS, LD, saves, etc. But people want firewarriors to stay hamstrung with lower stats just because of fluff.

Oh no! The only way to improve Fire Warriors without lowering their cost is to improve their stats! Because once we try to, say, give some nice special rules or options to them, we will be devoured by Ttam Darw, the daemon king of 40k!

AtoMaki wrote:

Jayden63 wrote:The problem with keeping firewarriors BS3, +4 armor save, and Ld7 is that in comparisons with todays codexs that they will have to play against the firewarrior is 6 points at best.

The problem for me is that I don't want to play horde Tau. If firewarriors are going to stay 10 points they better have stats to match things that are in the same point range. Ie. DE warriors/wyches, battle sisters, etc. DE have high WS, Init, BS. Sisters have good BS, LD, saves, etc. But people want firewarriors to stay hamstrung with lower stats just because of fluff.

Oh no! The only way to improve Fire Warriors without lowering their cost is to improve their stats! Because once we try to, say, give some nice special rules or options to them, we will be devoured by Ttam Darw, the daemon king of 40k!

GW did that once. Faith for battle sisters. How many people here can tell me what they all are off the top of their head. I'll bet most cant. Base stats are easy to understand and don't require 10 minutes of talking about like half a dozen special rules and don't smack of surprise and the first time they are used against you. I'm not saying its a perfect solution for the tau, I personally don't have a problem with their stats being 2s across the board then some rule saying why they arn't. But I think a lot of people will find it too bothersome to actually take an interest in the army.

Jayden63 wrote:
GW did that once. Faith for battle sisters. How many people here can tell me what they all are off the top of their head. I'll bet most cant. Stat upgrades are easy to understand and don't require 10 minutes of talking about like half a dozen special rules and don't smack of surprise and the first time they are used against you.

All what i wanted to say is that simply giving them BS4 is super-duper lazy and uncreative. Its like saying that guardsmen should have S4 to represent their reinforced boots. Because y'know, fluff wise, they trample the enemy to death....

And by special rules, i mostly meant things like ATSKNF, Combat Squads or the IG Orders.

AtoMaki wrote:

All what i wanted to say is that simply giving them BS4 is super-duper lazy and uncreative. Its like saying that guardsmen should have S4 to represent their reinforced boots. Because y'know, fluff wise, they trample the enemy to death....

If that's what's needed, I'd rather have Guardman Str. 4 for that reason than some convoluted "trample" special rule that just doesn't synch with all sort of other rules. It's not "lazy", it's clean, lean, streamlined rulesdesign that lets you focus on moving units on the board, rather than worryign about the exotic interaction of the nth special rule and special rule exception.

AtoMaki wrote:

Jayden63 wrote:The problem with keeping firewarriors BS3, +4 armor save, and Ld7 is that in comparisons with todays codexs that they will have to play against the firewarrior is 6 points at best.

The problem for me is that I don't want to play horde Tau. If firewarriors are going to stay 10 points they better have stats to match things that are in the same point range. Ie. DE warriors/wyches, battle sisters, etc. DE have high WS, Init, BS. Sisters have good BS, LD, saves, etc. But people want firewarriors to stay hamstrung with lower stats just because of fluff.

Oh no! The only way to improve Fire Warriors without lowering their cost is to improve their stats! Because once we try to, say, give some nice special rules or options to them, we will be devoured by Ttam Darw, the daemon king of 40k!

Necrons seem to be doing well without needing special weapons in their immortals or warriors, I havn't seen "GIVE THEM SPECIAL WEAPONS" anytime soon. Why is this just so exclusive to just tau whining.

GW did that once. Faith for battle sisters. How many people here can tell me what they all are off the top of their head. I'll bet most cant. Base stats are easy to understand and don't require 10 minutes of talking about like half a dozen special rules and don't smack of surprise and the first time they are used against you

By that decree it sounds like you want everything to go back to the Alessio/Jervis Streamlined Era. Ask Eldar, Chaos Daemons, Dark Angels, and Chaos Space marines exactly how much they enjoy everything being streamlined down to just stats.

People would prefer to have cool toys rather than being stuck with just *stats stats stats, new numbers*

Plus I enjoy their new rules, even if faith should not be a Craps game with random rolling. But what can you do when you get cruddance.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

By that decree it sounds like you want everything to go back to the Alessio/Jervis Streamlined Era. Ask Eldar, Chaos Daemons, Dark Angels, and Chaos Space marines exactly how much they enjoy everything being streamlined down to just stats.

People would prefer to have cool toys rather than being stuck with just *stats stats stats, new numbers*

Plus I enjoy their new rules, even if faith should not be a Craps game with random rolling. But what can you do when you get cruddance.

No because what they removed was options, not special rules. You want special rules, take a look at Warmachine where each unit almost to a fault has some exemption to the basic rule set in some way to help make them "stand out". That isn't necessarily what I want to see in 40K. Special rules are for those unique units that look simular but need to act differently. Special rules are what should differentiate pathfinders from firewarriors where the basic model has pretty much the same stats. Special rules are what should seperate HQ crisis suits from elite crisis suits. But all crisis suits don't need to have unique special rule that makes them different from Kroot.

I'm good with special rules, but too many can get bogged down. I just don't feel that there need to be special rule to make a basic stat one point higher. Especially when it is an across the board increase. Give the firewarrior something like battle stances, stubborn, not in the face!, etc.. Now thats a special rule. BS4 to make the unit worth its points is not.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Necrons seem to be doing well without needing special weapons in their immortals or warriors, I havn't seen "GIVE THEM SPECIAL WEAPONS" anytime soon. Why is this just so exclusive to just tau whining.

With options, i thought about stuff like medical drones (gives FnP to the squad) or some sort of "trap grenades" (reduces enemy assault move). I'm not a fan of the "FW with special weapons" idea.

Firewarriors shouldn't have special weapons per se. But I have no problem with the Shas'ui having a markerlight that can call down one of 4 different seeker missiles. Flamer template, small blast, tank buster solid shot, large blast.

Kinda like an CSM obliterator. Keeps the fluff of no special weapons, but has the ingame effect of wanting to get your guys out of the transport to shoot something because you can bring more than just more S5 damage that should be plentiful from your tanks anyway.

Zweischneid wrote:

SDFarsight wrote:

The rich background of being the galaxy's redshirt ever since the 3rd sphere expansion. XD

I think you are confusing Tau with Tyranids. After all, they did achieve the 3rd sphere expansion. That's more than all Hive Fleets and all 13 Black Crusades taken together managed to achieve. Puts the Tau lightyears ahead of Tyranids and the Black Legion as a "threat" to the IoM on an objective assessment.

Perhaps in the long-term strategic view, but as for threat-level and epic victories, the Tau are lacking. The most notable engagement the Tau won in was the Damocles Gulf Crusade, which ended in the Imperium leaving with bigger priorities- Hivefleet Behemoth.

Not that I want to mock the Tau, they're my favourite army.

SDFarsight wrote:

Zweischneid wrote:

SDFarsight wrote:

The rich background of being the galaxy's redshirt ever since the 3rd sphere expansion. XD

I think you are confusing Tau with Tyranids. After all, they did achieve the 3rd sphere expansion. That's more than all Hive Fleets and all 13 Black Crusades taken together managed to achieve. Puts the Tau lightyears ahead of Tyranids and the Black Legion as a "threat" to the IoM on an objective assessment.

Perhaps in the long-term strategic view, but as for threat-level and epic victories, the Tau are lacking. The most notable engagement the Tau won in was the Damocles Gulf Crusade, which ended in the Imperium leaving with bigger priorities- Hivefleet Behemoth.

Not that I want to mock the Tau, they're my favourite army.

Again, Damocles Gulf was a Tau victory, even if one won under circumscribed conditions. I don't believe Tyranids ever won.. anything... ever.

Zweischneid wrote:

SDFarsight wrote:

Zweischneid wrote:

SDFarsight wrote:

The rich background of being the galaxy's redshirt ever since the 3rd sphere expansion. XD

I think you are confusing Tau with Tyranids. After all, they did achieve the 3rd sphere expansion. That's more than all Hive Fleets and all 13 Black Crusades taken together managed to achieve. Puts the Tau lightyears ahead of Tyranids and the Black Legion as a "threat" to the IoM on an objective assessment.

Perhaps in the long-term strategic view, but as for threat-level and epic victories, the Tau are lacking. The most notable engagement the Tau won in was the Damocles Gulf Crusade, which ended in the Imperium leaving with bigger priorities- Hivefleet Behemoth.

Not that I want to mock the Tau, they're my favourite army.

Again, Damocles Gulf was a Tau victory, even if one won under circumscribed conditions. I don't believe Tyranids ever won.. anything... ever.

The 'nids win countless battles but never the war. Which is to be expected really, as it's either an option of Holy Terra being eaten or the Tyranids starve due to being unsustainable.

Either way, we may be going off-topic ;^^

Galdos wrote:

No, Tau go for the, we are the only people who think rationally and have an actual well trained army. Most guard armies amount to throw lasgun in direction of soldier or give them a few days of useless training like in WW2 to get cannon fodder; if he actually survives he gets BS4. Tau are themed as an actual modern army, that goes to great lengths to train its soldiers, to care about their welfare and ensure their support from other branches of the army. They are also themed as 'the elite shooting army' but you're saying the Stalingrad cannon fodder army should not only have better weapons but shoot better than the army which cares about its own troops and trains them accordingly?

Most Guard units support massive training to install disipline and order. What you are describing is conscripits which is an incredibly different thing. A Guardsman needs to survive years or a decade of constant warfare before he is a BS4.


Oh by the way, the Soviet in army in Stalingrad did have better weapons and had some excellent shooters. However they had poor leadership on both the strategic and tactical levels.

Then how come a Tau who fights for ten years can't get a BS of 4?

Yeah, the guard if poorly led are meant to be like that as well. Tau are supposed to have outstanding strategic and tactical leadership in terms of how they use their army ie Taros, various battles in the codex. But this is difficult if not impossible to represent on a 6x4 table-top. You have the army led by Farsight but hes just a sword swinging maniac stat wise who lets you spam crisis suits. Same with Shadowsun. Never mind basic suit commanders and what not.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

AtoMaki wrote:

Jayden63 wrote:The problem with keeping firewarriors BS3, +4 armor save, and Ld7 is that in comparisons with todays codexs that they will have to play against the firewarrior is 6 points at best.

The problem for me is that I don't want to play horde Tau. If firewarriors are going to stay 10 points they better have stats to match things that are in the same point range. Ie. DE warriors/wyches, battle sisters, etc. DE have high WS, Init, BS. Sisters have good BS, LD, saves, etc. But people want firewarriors to stay hamstrung with lower stats just because of fluff.

Oh no! The only way to improve Fire Warriors without lowering their cost is to improve their stats! Because once we try to, say, give some nice special rules or options to them, we will be devoured by Ttam Darw, the daemon king of 40k!

Necrons seem to be doing well without needing special weapons in their immortals or warriors, I havn't seen "GIVE THEM SPECIAL WEAPONS" anytime soon. Why is this just so exclusive to just tau whining.

Well to be fair, SOB don't really benefit from having those special weapons any more than another army and their only real adv over FW is their armour. If you play SOB you go for other elite units like you do for every other army. They're hardly mega killers for having one special weapon a squad. Its armies that let your troops take two or more that are ridiculous. They also lack plasma. Major flaw. It is not just Tau whining; I can assure you!

I play dark eldar. Warriors can't survive a firefight. Whilst neither they nor even wyches will manage to beat a marine squad without 2:1 numbers or possibly with pain tokens.Cost isn't a problem its just that the pulse rifle isn't good enough to hurt anything. Neither unit is particularly steller for its points, they only become good when combined with other DE units like ravagers, venoms and raiders which make them a really effective army.

Immortals don't count because they are already carrying special weapons. Something that fires up to three shots a turn at str6 is pretty beastly. Warriors, well, my local Necron player doesn't even use them so take from that what you will. Even then they rely on other units like lords with res orbs and what not to be effective.

time to weigh in properly.

First the harsh criticism.
I dont think a lot of people get it. Tweaks and ideas are fine, but they're not working. at least not here. there are a load of well intentioned, but not well thought out "fixes", that if you ask me, wouldnt fix anything. A lot of them are just bad ideas, push things in the wrong direction, or are "tweaks" to a template that is an already proven failure. tau:empire was essentially a band aid. We're still dealing with the third ed codex, with a minor tweak on top of it, written by a guy who had no idea as to what he was doing, given time contraints, design constraints, and a design philosophy that meant he couldnt do much. as a result, Empire was a flawed load of tosh from the word go. My lists didnt change from the previous codex to the current one. all the new stuff was terrible. it added nothing. in a lot of cases it was unfluffy, poorly thought out, even more poorly implemented, and looked awful on top of that. In a lot of ways, tau are an army built on the foundation of +1-1. what you buy has a strength, and a corresponding weakness. and i think that is a terrible design philosophy. Im paying points for something. Im already paying for an advantage. you dont need to tack on, and overbalance this with dodgy disadvantages, that will typically mean i simply wont take it. also, you must look at the trends in recent codex design. hey, you might not like the borkeness of GKs and whatnot, but that is the style. that is the power level. if you're doing any house rules, or home design, you MUST build, using these trends as a guide (not as a template. dont make your codex tau a copy/paste of all the new!shiny! in all other recent codices)

OK. game theory.
step one. dont tweak what doesnt work. rebuild from the ground up. And we need a foundation. where do we start? We need to ask ourselves one hugely important question. What are the tau? What is their niche? How do we make them a sellable, playable product with a unique style of play and look? that is the most important fundamental question. they were the mobile shooty army. but blood angels do it better now. and can do cc. imperial guard can outmanoevre, and outshoot the tau. eldar can outmanoevre, outshoot, and out-cc the tau. so can basically everyone else. tau used to be about firepower. they were the army with the BFGs. i remember when they came out. strength five basic guns? strength ten railguns? in an era populated by boltguns, rhino rush and lascannons, these were HUGE. no one else had them. And now everyone has big guns. heck, even tyranids (who have an s10 ap1 lance shooting attack!) the tau do not stand out any more, in any way, shape or form. they're not competitive. i've not seen tau amongst my own group in over 2 and a half years now.

When i look at tau in game, i see flaws. they dont play on the tabletop as they are represented in the fluff. So, going back to my original question, i will ask what are the tau? How can we build them, to make them unique, and capable of holding their own in the current era of power? What defines them? What makes them unique?

And the way i see it, here is their "style". and what people should focus on.

(1) they're an army that focuses on long, to extreme range shooting engagements. the only guy who favours getting in up close ("shorten your reach!") is the pariah known as farsight. and yet its odd that for an army who claims long range engagements as their style, tau seem to spend a lot of time within 12" to get the most out of their extremely meagre firepower (rapid fire). So long range engagements should be a key flavour to the tau. leave the short range stuff to the auxiliaries. tau also favour hit and run actions. tau favour moving up to a position, using said position to make a kill, and then moving on to the next position, as part of a greater plan.

(2) they're an army that focuses on mobility. not tactical (ie on the board) mobility. they're not eldar. they dont zip around the battlefield at high speed. tau are about strategic mobility. defence in depth. with mantas et al., if there is a flashpoint, they can redeploy large numbers of cadres to those flashpoints relitavely easily. even with fewer forces than their opponents, because of this, you will always face an equal (or greater number) of tau. on a 6 by 4, the tau should be mobile. in the sense that everything should have access to a 12" move through vehicles, mounts and jetpacks. but specific fast units should be more limited.

(3) firepower. tau are about BIG guns. BIG impressive guns. right now, they're big guns are no more impressive than anyone elses big guns. they should be. tau firepower should be nothing short of terrifiying. a tau gunline should be something you should crap your pants when facing. this should be a key feature of the tau.

(4) auxiliaries. like the romans, and the british empire builders, a key feature of the tau is their use of auxiliary troops to shore up weaknesses, and give unique strengths. "MORE" is not necessarily good. Kroot and Vespids could do with some work, before we even consider anything else!

(5) technology. constantly, their evolving tech is a distinctive feature of the tau. lets not get into the "the imperium are more advanced than the tau" debate here. thats for other threads. But i do feel, given the focus of the race on their tech, the tech should play a large role in what they can do on the table top. right now, we dont see it. crisis suit wargear, and experimental tech is typically useless, pointless, unfluffy, or even worse. even other techy additions (like the screamed about LOLMARKERLIGHTSLOL) are a compensation, and an equaliser, not a strength. and strength they should be. it goes back to the +1-1 idea i mentioned earler. it must stop. tech must do more than make bad units adequate. it needs to be a serious advantage.4

(6) almost 5b. but suits are a serious theme of the tau. crisis, stealth, broadside and new!shiny!suits should all play a role. crisis suits are a signature unit for the tau. right now, they're taken not because they're good, but because they're necessary. big difference.

Right, so looking at the tau, where would i go? What would i do? Without doing a unit by unit analysis (which misses the point, if you ask me) here are some of the areas id address.

First up, looking at commanders. and leadership.
etherials are terrible. Xpts for twin-linked morale, and the disadvantage that if they die, my army runs. score! (see the +1-1 here). its not worth taking. despite the fluffiness of the disadvantage. No, if etherials are to be taken, they need to be worth taking. if that disadvantage must be there, then i want serious buffage, and serious abilities to come with them, and make the chance failure worth the risk. they need to be more than twin linked morale. And how would i do it? Etherials are the tau'va. they are akin to the emperor made manifest to the tau. they're living breathing walking talking temples of veneration, and adoration. Do not mistake them for just encouragement. they're so much more. So, roll with this. No psychic powers, but how about "influences"? the presence of an etherial, according to the fluff is the catalyst for near miraculous feats by the tau that are near his presense. they simply will not fail. they wil not fall, not with an icon of the tau'va behind them. (and here is an idea for a short story - a commissar shooting a guarsdman for the heresy in his report about suggesting this monstrous heresy of xeno "miracles") But yeah, an etherial, merely by being there makes the tau +1. so give him things like "guiding hand", where tau units get to re-roll failed to hit rolls. give him "null zone", where the peace and tranquility he generates in the minds of each tau translates into immunity to psychic powers in that area. Or something along those lines.

Now crisis suit commanders.
again, they're terrible. all they are, are higher BSed versions of crisis suits, who are terrible. While i will discuss suits in general later, crisis suit commanders need to be more than just a regular suit with +1Bs. and they need to have better things than all that useless wargear. what is the point of having a commander's thing being access to a bunch of toys you never take? Hmm? Pointless! So make him a commander. Make him lead. Make his guide. Give him "hunters mark" to represent leading from the front, and leading by example. whatever he shoots, and wounds, if anyone else targets that thing, they get a bonus too. Another idea we hit on when we did a big massive "fix the tau" project back on the old TO website was the idea of the "battlenet". think about it. its the tau technology at work. its the tau tech that lets them punch above their weight, and fight as equals with the great powers of the galaxy. So what was the battlenet? Well, essentially, it was an AI assisted command net. Every tau has sensors on them that record data and is streamed back to this. you've got long range satellite scans, radar, insertsensors here etc. the battlenet is all this data fed back, processed and relayed back to the commanders, in real time. IG commanders wait for a report from an underling. a tau commander sees the shape and flow of a battlefield in a little screen in the top left hand corner of his HUD. he sees his guys, their positions, strength, ability to fight. he sees the enemy. who they are, what they have, vectors of movement etc. at a glance he can see how the batltefield is shaping up, and can respond accordingly. he can issue montka, and kauyon, and other abilities to units (like IG orders) and act like a commander. unfortunately, we never could agree on how to represent the battlenet, but all thought it was a great, new, unique and fluffy idea.

crisis suits. and suits in general.
Next up, as a touched on it above - suits. suits are necessary, not good. please note the difference. again, i find its odd how a long range army relies on its elites getting in close to do the majority of their damage. they need stat changes, and equipment changes. t5, t4(5), 3 wounds? bs4? all have their arguments. personally, id go with 3 wounds and bs4. as a start. id also give them hit and run, or some other "scoot" ability. to stop them being locked down in cc (jetpacks, remember?). biggest change id give them is their guns. Look at the recent trends. look at other codices "shooty" units, and what they get. obliterators.get.every.gun. sternguard can swap out various ammo types. why do the tau have to pick and choose what equipment they take? again, this harks back to an older design phisosophy. cheaper base? cheaper guns? pfft. give them all the guns. give them one big omnigun, with various modes of fire. give the shas'vre in a max squad the option to swap out his omnigun for an even bigger more kickass gun. give them viral ammo (poison), emp rounds (ranged emp grenades), armour cracking ap2 rounds, a spray mode (s5 ap4 template) and a basic bust fire mode (3-4 shots). use one mode per turn. again, look at the recent FW SC. he has an omnigun. there is a precedent. and the most recent tau rumours suggested theyd be getting an omnigun.
id also comment on stealthsuits. they're overpriced, too in your face, the stealthfield is laughable and their fire output is terrible. anytime isee them, i simply see free and easy VPs and KPs. they need something. cheaper probably, and more dakka wound be my preference. Id also like to see new marks of suits. we've heard rumours of a snipersuit. personally, i like the idea of a fastsuit, that counts as a jetbike for movement purposes. give him a pulse blaster for fun.

Fire Warriors.
Next up are our infantry. first up the lambasted, and lamented fire warriors, who really are that terrible. overpriced, underperforming and lacking in any redeeming features. i like them. i mean, i want to like them. but they're just so incredibly useless that there is no point fielding them. again, there are lots of ideas to fix them. bs4. cheaper. etc.i agree they're not worth 10pts by any stretch of the imagination (probably 6-7). cheaper will not solve it. the only ones who will benefit from cheaper fire warriors are kroot. cheaper fire warriors are not better fire warriors. they're still individually terrible. SO now, i can buy 10 for 100pts. why would i take more for the same amount of points? more of a bad thing is not a good thing. i'll still just take 6, and spend what i save on more kroot. and as a result, you've solved nothing. make fire warriors better. Now there is the solution.bs4? yeah, could work.it can be fluffed out (trained from brith, genetically engineered warrior-caste from birth? yup makes sense. only the best shas'la make it to the hunter cadres? yup, plausible. technology! visors that up their BS. again, quite plausible). there is no reason to not have bs4 fire warriors.the arguments that they'd be broken are laughable. in the two turns it would take some armies to reach them in cc, they might have actually earned their oints back this way, instead of being a speed bump before they die. they are squishy, and die to cc like flies. they're squishy and melt under any firepower thrown their way. they can be outranged. heck, use infiltrate/flank and all that. making them killier doesnt break them. but i dont think its necessarily the right thing to do, despite it being the easiest implementation of a solution. Personally, id make them better by focusing on technology (drones etc). buy a full squad, you can have the leader replace his pulse rifle with a drone controller, with 4 gun drones. any of these gun drones (which dont take spaces in transports) can be upgraded to pulse blaster drones, rail rifle drones, sensor drones, stealthfield drones etc. Oh, and as a bonus, id argue that all drones controlled by a drone controller use HIS BS, not their own. hey, he controlls them it makes sense that he aims them too!) ALso, with regard to drones as an aside, id like to put a rule on them that when engaged in cc, the drones of a unit can be sacrificed to allow an auto-successful break-off test. makes sense, when you think about it - to use the drones to protect the living.regarding the drones with BIG GUNS to me it makes sense. there is already a precedent for drones-with-big-guns and for them to be controlled by fire warriors (rail rifle drone teams, which are terrible in their current form, if you ask me). why not expand the technology, and integrate them into FW teams? it gives the fire warriors some respectable firepower (whilst not being fire warrior carried heavy weapons) and it expands the big guns beyond just the Elites section. it also allows some interesting new builts - how about 3 crisis suits with drone controllers, upgraded with rail rifles? expensive, but serious, serious firepower! Getting beyond the drones, and back to the bs4 debate, i think changing the weapons profiles is another option. On TO, we discussed and implemented a change whereby pulse rifles were H2 and carbines were assault2, or 3. and anyone who tried it really liked it, and felt that it fit. the h2 rifles make sense. it represents a constant withering level of firepower all-the-way-in, and not just when you can see the whites of their eyes. its not a "heavy" weapon in the sense that its still a sidearm. plus, as mentioned tau dont go running around, spraying from the hip as a general rule. they move to a position, make the kill from there and then move on to the next kill site, or retreat, and there are any numbers of examples of this style of warfare being employed. nothing there suggests that the tau would be against such a profile. plus, you can argue as well it represents disciplined firing drills, etc. and if you want mobile dakka, look to the carbines.

Auxiliaries.
Right, onto our auxiliaries. kroot. i love kroot. i really do. they're my favourite 40k unit. i think they're awesome. while fine i still think that they could be added to. to be honest, kroot are a bit boring. Allow a shaper (instead of being a quartermaster) to grant evolutionary adaptations (like the kroot merc codex of old) to his kindred. Allow kroot to swap their kroot rifles for kroot hunting rifles (snipers!). And allow kroot squads to be mounted on kroot raptors. t3(4),cavalry rules. i think some savage cavalry options would be a nice new direction for the army as a whole. Also, when it comes to kroot, id like the option of a kroot shaman council. Maybe minor psychic powers (nothing big, or fancy) that would affect kroot, just as etherials effect tau. Id also like to see a kroot SC along the lines of warmachine's totem hunter, or the movies' Predator. A krroot "hunter". a boit like a SW lone wolf. he's out on safari, and looking for a very particular prey. it could be a lot of fun to run with this concept.
Now vespids need a drastic overhaul, both in terms of models and abilities. personally, i prefer making them a little bit different to our other options. right now, they suck. as with a 5+ save, 1 shot on a measly 12" gun, and bs3, they cant kill enough. ever. to make themselves justified. me? Id do what GW originally intended to do, and make their weapons count as s5 ap3 flamers. again, unique enough and different enough to offer a new style of play, and new options that none of our other current options really possess.

Tech, toys and odd bits.
Next up - markerlights. odd one. Im against the notion of "MOAR" markerlights. too many people see the taus special feature as being markerlights. and that the army should be about them, and revolve around them. I dont. Markerlights are cool. Right now, they're a compensation. they're an equaliser. they're not desinged to make good things better. they're designed to make mediocre things average. make them a strength. first up, how we spend tokens. a shiny red dot doesnt disappear, and become unavailable because a tank is using it to lock on. to me, that doesnt make sense. if the dot is there, everyone should be able to use it. So, if tokens are to be spent, spend them on debuffing the enemy unit in question that is being lit up, (and allowing anyone shooting at them to claim the benefits) rather than spending them on buffing individual units with mediocre, incremental benefits. either that or scrap the spending altogether, and make them stack. 1-2hits on a unit does X, 3-4 does X and Y, 5-6 does X,Y, and Z. if im taking a 200pt unit to buff my army, whatever is lit up should be red paste when things shoot at it.

those are just some ideas. heh, other ideas include the rumoured "draw a line across the board, and whatever it crosses, you can roll against" rule for railguns. Which is awesome. Me? id be happy with lance on them! and more dakka for the ion cannon please. 5 shots at least.

And a personal gripe. pirahnas. i hate the models. i hate the fluff. they're jury rigged civilian joyrider craft pressed into military service. We've had enough of the stop gag. Give us a properly designed light scouty vehicle that doesnt look ugly! with pulse cannons!

Deadnight wrote:
A lot.

Now that is a great analysis of our problems, i think those solutions look beautiful and mash well with the fluff.

Make devilfish open topped, allow crisis suits to take them as dedicated transports and count as two models for the purposes of capacity. Make the suits drop their jetpacks for a price discount for the Devilfish, bam, suits are better and firewarriors are better.

Juniperius wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
A lot.

Now that is a great analysis of our problems, i think those solutions look beautiful and mash well with the fluff.

Yup just going with the +1 aspect on Juniperius post.

However, I think the main issue that people who are suggesting stuff have is just a matter of game design philosopy.

1 - Build a unit around the fluff that will work in game.
2 - Build a unit that will work in the game and write the fluff to justify it.

These are two very different design philosophies. I find that making small patches like point decreases, just increased BS, a few updated markerlight options to be the first. What the Tau really need is the second. Much like what happened with the DE codex.

Juniperius wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
A lot.

Now that is a great analysis of our problems, i think those solutions look beautiful and mash well with the fluff.

+1 to that post too, by god yes

Well to be fair, SOB don't really benefit from having those special weapons any more than another army and their only real adv over FW is their armour. If you play SOB you go for other elite units like you do for every other army. They're hardly mega killers for having one special weapon a squad. Its armies that let your troops take two or more that are ridiculous. They also lack plasma. Major flaw. It is not just Tau whining; I can assure you!

Sisters Of Battle can take two special weapons, or one special/one heavy weapon (multi-melta/heavy flamer/heavy bolter)

Deadnight wrote:stuff

Any chance of more regular, smaller paragraphs for those of us who want to retain the use of our eyes after reading?

Avatar 720 wrote:

Deadnight wrote:stuff

Any chance of more regular, smaller paragraphs for those of us who want to retain the use of our eyes after reading?

eyes? pfft, use psychic powers!

Here's another suggestion: Counterattack for the Kroot. They're a relatively powerful assault unit with a rapid-fire weapon. Let them take assaults like a boss.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:I would allow bs 4 firewarriors if all standard guardsmen got bs 4 ad well. Its only fair. Fluff wise tau have horrible eyesight. So they have machines to make them bs 3, instead of bs 2. So if they magically get +1bs, so should guardsmen...

Fluff wise their eyes adjust slightly slower but they have visual acuity greater than even Space Marines since they can see more of the spectrum then any human (except when space marines have their auto-senses from their helmets) meaning they see infrared and ultraviolet. Meaning that stationary shooting the advantage would be theirs, shooting on the move, not so much. Also, guardsmen aren't trained any better than modern soldiers, tau are trained from a young age and for longer a day (they don't sleep as long) and serve for their whole lives (usually).

8ppm with bs 3 and a 4+ save fire warriors. It sucks for you that the tau fluff doesnt allow organic heavy weapons and they have to rely on other units. Doesnt sound very smart for a shooting army.

Just another idea thats been in my head for firewarriors and Pathfinders.

I agree that a firewarrior squad shouldn't have any "traditional" heavy weapons. I can agree with the idea of fire support drones but I haven't given them much though save 1 however (to be addressed below). But lets look a little more at markerlights. I hear a lot saying to make markerlights assault, but I'm not sure if thats necessary. Keep them heavy, but as all suits have relentless, it wouldn't be hard for the drones to have that as well, thus move and shoot markerlights - problem solved on that end.

Now as for infantry, I say let firewarriors take two markerlights per 6 guys. Markerlight is a wargear and does not replace pulse rifle or carbine, its just an add-on that is used in the shooting phase instead of shooting that models gun - Range 36" So now we have two markers per firewarrior squad and they can do whatever it is markers are meant to do I wont get into any of that stuff, but for now I'm addressing the call down a seeker missile ability. Seekers will need to come in 3 different types. S8 AP3 krack, S6 AP2 blast (Tau plasma), S5 AP4 template (resolved like the IG Hellhound). Now you have two guys who can bring the additional hurt, in the form of whatever is needed and be able to get something more out of them than just S5 AP5 shots.

But I hear your crys. Heavy weapons don't work on guys who live in and out of their transports. But what if devilfish had a special rule where models that have imbarked or disembarked this turn do not count as having moved. Come up with whatever techie fluff for it you like, such as maybe very short range site to site teleporters, 3D HUDs in firewarrior helmets that connect to D-fish scanners and tactical battlenet that show enemy positions even when inside the transport so they know exactly where to aim their guns as they disembark (don't have to search for the enemy once out of the can because they already know exactly in real time where they are), or something much simpler.

But mechanically, this will allow for the firewarriors to disembark - bring the hurt where needed, then reembark and zoom off if the target is neutralized. Just like the fluff says, and it works in game turns because you don't need to wait a full turn to use it. Also keeping the weapon heavy means the above unit isn't exactly free to just run around firing off traditional heavy weapon effects on the move willy nilly.

Anyway, just a long winded idea.

Ohh yeah. Which seeker to use is determined before firing. Also with the above, you can keep BS 3 firewarriors as long as you make pulse rifles duel mode. 36" S5 AP5 heavy 2, 18" S5 AP5 assault 1. And make carbines 18" S5 AP 5 assault 2. Distortion - Distortion - a unit that is hit with a distortion grenade moves as if in difficult terrain on their next turn.

The only support drone that I like with the above unit is a shield drone that gives its attached unit a 4+ cover save. This way firewarriors get a 50% chance of living against anything fired at them unless its a template weapon - Which ultimately I think is fair, the enemy had to get in your face to use it anyway. This can go quite a way to keeping the guys on the table and holding objectives.

Counter-attack for Kroot would be good. They're there to take assaults, might as well make them good at it.

As someone said, if they want to keep FWs as they are, they're either going to need to be beefed with new SRs, or have their points dropped. And as they said, I don't want Tau to be a horde army.

I like the suggestion of making a Shas'ui part of a basic FW team. What if we make the Shas'ui BS4 with a free (or at least cheaper) markerlight? The standard fire warrior is still the same, but they now don't require other units to set them up to be close to useful.

And I like the idea of making Pulse Rifles S5AP5 Assault 1/Heavy 2. Rapid Fire is too constricting, especially since 30" rapid fire brings up so many issues (having to get closer than half range to double-tap, for example).

Deadnight wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

Deadnight wrote:stuff

Any chance of more regular, smaller paragraphs for those of us who want to retain the use of our eyes after reading?

eyes? pfft, use psychic powers!

So that's a no then?

Pity, I imagined it might've been a decent read. Ah well.

OK Deadnight, you just earned my first ever Exalt, a very coherent analysis of the major issues with Tau.

A thought on your "Battlenet" idea; it's about the ability of the Commander to be, well, a commander. As in, to maximise the ability of the forces under his command.

So how about a the start of the turn he makes a leadership test and gets a number of command actions equal to the amount he beat the test. These command actions can then be used on a unit during any point in the following phase.

For example if you rolled a seven vs LD 10 you'd get three actions, you could then do things like; give a Kroot unit fleet during the movement phase, a firewarrior unit twin-linked during the shooting phase and a Crisis suit unit Counter attack during the assault phase. The key point is you would be able to decide as you went on, which would also allow room for tactical choices.

I think this would provide a similar benefit t the IG order system, but be different enough to make Tau unique.

Avatar 720 wrote:
So that's a no then?

Pity, I imagined it might've been a decent read. Ah well.

or you could maybe read it? honestly, its not that hard. plenty others have read it. if you can read a book, you can read a chapter of a book, and if you can read a chapter of a book, you can read a few paragraphs, which is all this is. Not being cheeky mate, but i personally prefer longer, more well thought out posts to the quick and snappy two-liners all too frequent on forums. have a go at it anyway, im not the greatest at formatting, but i put a lot of thought and effort into it. plus im gonna bribe you with biscuits!

Jadenim wrote:OK Deadnight, you just earned my first ever Exalt, a very coherent analysis of the major issues with Tau.

A thought on your "Battlenet" idea; it's about the ability of the Commander to be, well, a commander. As in, to maximise the ability of the forces under his command.

So how about a the start of the turn he makes a leadership test and gets a number of command actions equal to the amount he beat the test. These command actions can then be used on a unit during any point in the following phase.

For example if you rolled a seven vs LD 10 you'd get three actions, you could then do things like; give a Kroot unit fleet during the movement phase, a firewarrior unit twin-linked during the shooting phase and a Crisis suit unit Counter attack during the assault phase. The key point is you would be able to decide as you went on, which would also allow room for tactical choices.

I think this would provide a similar benefit t the IG order system, but be different enough to make Tau unique.

a lot of our ideas were based on a "montka" issued ability, a "kauyon" issued ability and others. some worked on squads, some worked on all types of a unit, eg we playtested one idea where a commanders "call" let you remove all suits from the board, and re-deep strike them next turn, a la swooping hawks. or else things like applying overwatch to units "kauyon". montka would be more aggressive and offensive. but we could never figure out what to do with it, without making it too similar too, and stepping on the toes of other buffage units like markerlights. Overall one thing we did decide to do was the "inspiring" comes from the etherial. the commander's abilities were meant to be purely battlefield related.

Zweischneid wrote:

SDFarsight wrote:

The rich background of being the galaxy's redshirt ever since the 3rd sphere expansion. XD

I think you are confusing Tau with Tyranids. After all, they did achieve the 3rd sphere expansion. That's more than all Hive Fleets and all 13 Black Crusades taken together managed to achieve. Puts the Tau lightyears ahead of Tyranids and the Black Legion as a "threat" to the IoM on an objective assessment.

Tau are redshirts, Tyranids are Worf. The Black Crusade are just lumbered by the writing with perpetually being Stupid Evil. Abaddon is never allowed to win, so he ends up looking pretty useless, despite being the supposed Big, Big Bad of Humanity.

I agree with the BS increase. Adding on more special rules would be extranious and time-consuming, and for the points cost they deserve some sort of boost, because currently they're just not worth having.