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 MinscS2 wrote:
I haven't read Tau-fluff for quite some time, but I recall them as having poor depth perception, which explained the poor BS (back then 3, now 4+) despite being a shooty futuristic army.

This was only ever stated in Imperial propaganda (and presented as such in the text), much like the picture of a guardsman bashing a tiny and pathetic ork with a lasgun as an example of how weak orks are in melee. It also doesn't make any sense for a hunting species to have poor vision, or for that flaw to still be present long after the Tau implemented their genetic engineering program and divided themselves into specialized sub-species.

Maneuverable, but not as maneuverable as Eldar.

This sums it up pretty well. Eldar are stupid fast, moving across half the table in a single turn. Tau don't move any faster than the normal maximum, but they can move that distance every turn while continuing to shoot. A Hammerhead isn't much faster top-end than a LRBT, but where the LRBT is moving 10" with a BS penalty the Hammerhead is moving 12" and nailing you with a perfectly accurate railgun shot. A crisis suit isn't any faster than a guardsman's 6" move + 2D6" charge, but it gets to move its full 6+2D6" regardless of whether or not it charges and gets to shoot (with no penalty for its powerful guns) halfway through that movement.

The other difference is supposed to be the Eldar specialization. Eldar are an army of one-dimensional specialists. Each unit is insanely good at its single purpose, but underwhelming at everything else. Combine that with the speed advantage and you have an army that can deliver the right tool for the job at every key point, but can quickly run into trouble if you don't use your specialists right. Tau, on the other hand, have a lot of general-purpose units that will rarely be useless (until they get charged) but will never match the top-end performance of an Eldar specialist attacking its preferred target.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
So this is what Movie Marines fanboyism looks like when applied to other factions.

Only in 40k is advocating a level of technology beyond 1950 considered to be "movie marines fanboyism"...

From ATT:

Arka0415 wrote:
Speaking of rumors, I just got some information from someone I know to be reliable. Most was covered by the recent leaks on DakkaDakka already, but here's some new stuff:

- Sept Tenets apply to all models except Kroot and Vespid
- Thermoneutronic Projector is relic AFP with S6/AP-2
- FSE gain a stratagem that gives XV8s +1 to hit on the turn they use Manta Strike
- Coldstar Commanders can take any weapon except the CIB, and up to one High-Output Burst Cannon
- XV8 Commander option with 4W
- Homing Beacons are used at the beginning of the movement phase
- Riptides gain a stratagem that allows them to use two Nova Charge buffs at once
- Tactical Drones gain Manta Strike
- Savior Protocols works on a 2+

If Drones gain Manta strike they're well worth 12ppm. Well, really, they are already 'worth' 12pts, they just aren't a whopping deal at 12pts. Add DS and I'm very happy.

Also, Sept Tenets on big suits sounds like a lot of fun. So far I'm pretty happy with the rumours. I was never a Crisis Suit spammer though, so maybe that helps. Even there, a little wait and see might salve some wounds. If the weapons get cheaper, and there are some nice stratagems and whatnot, they might still be just fine.

ATT had a strategem posted for farsight enclaves that gave a unit of crisis suits +1BS after manta strike. Which is nice but you would still need a homing beacon to get value out of the sept trait.

 FirePainter wrote:
ATT had a strategem posted for farsight enclaves that gave a unit of crisis suits +1BS after manta strike. Which is nice but you would still need a homing beacon to get value out of the sept trait.

Good thing that Stealth Suits come with them in the box right?

Drones used to have deep strike until the index so getting it back is a nice bonus. Drones squadron can now keep up with other deep strikers to keep providing ablative wounds.

Plus, apparently Coldstars can take 'at least 2 fusion blasters'.

Coldstars having customisable equipment answers half my fluff problem with them, though not the "Why is it being presented as a command suit" issue.

So, long story short, the new Tau suck? Highlights:
-Sept traits suck
-WL traits suck
-Relics suck
-Stratagems suck
-No allies (Obviously)
-No psychic powers (Obviously)
-Points costs didn’t drop enough

Good luck fighting for the jumbo placements at tournaments

 Therion wrote:
So, long story short, the new Tau suck?

No?

Edit: Unless you mean "suck" as in "not as good as Dark Reaper spamm". Then yes, they do suck.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
ATT had a strategem posted for farsight enclaves that gave a unit of crisis suits +1BS after manta strike. Which is nice but you would still need a homing beacon to get value out of the sept trait.

Good thing that Stealth Suits come with them in the box right?

Absolutely! I was already using 12 stealths on a regular basis so this is just more incentive. Not sure if I'll use farsight suits though 6" is a little close for Tau.

Deep striking Drones is a game changer. No more out-kicking your coverage with Y'Vahras or taking extra random suits for more drones to protect what matters. Just set the guys down where you need them, and voila! instant dakka storm with coverage for your fast

Shouldn't all this talk about Tau be in a separate thread? This thread is regarding a release schedule rumour right?

Man I hope Orks get a Kult of Speed codex, that would be incredible. I also hope the Ork codex drops soon and there are some new models to drop with.

 Peregrine wrote:

This sums it up pretty well. Eldar are stupid fast, moving across half the table in a single turn. Tau don't move any faster than the normal maximum, but they can move that distance every turn while continuing to shoot. A Hammerhead isn't much faster top-end than a LRBT, but where the LRBT is moving 10" with a BS penalty the Hammerhead is moving 12" and nailing you with a perfectly accurate railgun shot. A crisis suit isn't any faster than a guardsman's 6" move + 2D6" charge, but it gets to move its full 6+2D6" regardless of whether or not it charges and gets to shoot (with no penalty for its powerful guns) halfway through that movement.

The other difference is supposed to be the Eldar specialization. Eldar are an army of one-dimensional specialists. Each unit is insanely good at its single purpose, but underwhelming at everything else. Combine that with the speed advantage and you have an army that can deliver the right tool for the job at every key point, but can quickly run into trouble if you don't use your specialists right. Tau, on the other hand, have a lot of general-purpose units that will rarely be useless (until they get charged) but will never match the top-end performance of an Eldar specialist attacking its preferred target.

This is sort of the idea, yeah, but clearly GW has struggled to find that balance in practice. And that's understandable, right? In real games, lots of Eldar units don't move across half the table in a single turn. Actually, their tanks don't even want to move at all, and the Prism definitely doesn't want to move more than 8". And Russes now move pretty well -- there are big diminishing returns to moving more than a little bit to get better LoS when you have a bunch of 36+" guns. There's not a whole lot of design space left in there for the Hammerhead to actually feel like a distinct idea (and, I mean, if you compare the Railhead to the index Fire Prism they're pretty much the same thing, though now the FP shoots twice as well). This might be why Eldar flyers seem to be so pushed relative to everyone else's (Fire Raptor aside); it's kind of silly to use a Prism when Crimson Hunters exist, but maybe the idea is to emphasize the fast, evasive flyers over the slower, Tau-like grav tanks (but lbr this is probably just an accident).

Likewise they've struggled to make Tau units generalists. The main problem here is that suits are customizable and come in small units, so why wouldn't you specialize them? Nobody's bringing a unit with 1 plasma suit and 1 flamer suit. Some of the bigger suits have some anti-infantry shooting in addition to a bigger gun, but that's true for big Eldar models too. Their attempted fix for this was to create pseudo-units of gun drones and suits, by making the suits too expensive to justify bringing on their own without ablative wounds, but as of now they seem to have mostly given up on the regular crisis suits. It's telling that in the index the most popular Tau unit was a Commander loaded up with fusion guns.

 Therion wrote:
So, long story short, the new Tau suck? Highlights:
-Sept traits suck
-WL traits suck
-Relics suck
-Stratagems suck
-No allies (Obviously)
-No psychic powers (Obviously)
-Points costs didn’t drop enough

Good luck fighting for the jumbo placements at tournaments

Gamgee, is that you?

 MinscS2 wrote:

 Therion wrote:
So, long story short, the new Tau suck?

No?

Edit: Unless you mean "suck" as in "not as good as Dark Reaper spamm". Then yes, they do suck.

I agree. Dark Reaper spam is the worst yardstick ever.

That said, the notion of Pulse Rifles that shoot 42" and rapid fire three shots out to 21" sounds pretty sweet. Or rapid firing three shots at 18" for overwatch on a 5+. That's assuming that the Pulse drone and Fireblade keep their current rules. I'm not at all upset so far,

Crisis suits are the iconic Tau unit, but Tau players already own a lot of crisis suits.

If I was writing the codex and wanted to shift Tau towards mass fire warriors but still wanted every Tau player to keep using a unit of suits the solution is simple: don't buff crisis suits in stats or points, but give Tau a shoot twice per turn with 1 unit of crisis suits strategem.

DaemonJellybaby wrote:
From ATT:

Arka0415 wrote:

- Homing Beacons are used at the beginning of the movement phase

Really praying this is not true. If it is it kills aggressive tau so hard. Farsight Enclave might be good, definitely fun if we have homing beacons like this index.

Would be truly gutted/disappointed; forced to play more of a sit back/gunline style just by this little change.

xxhikaru123 wrote:

changemod wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
No change to crisis suits.
No change to missile pods or the rest of the weapons except burst cannons.
ATS increased price.
Fire Warriors decreased price.
Devilfish decreased price.

Somebody doesn't want Tau playing with suits. I guess we are an infantry army now.

You can still play with suits. Seriously, just because the points are so damn crazy good that you can mimic dark reaper spam lists levels of competitive. Play with suits, stop trying to min max lists. Just build and have fun.

I find it hard to "just have fun" if my army has a weakness that's a huge violation of it's fluff.

Suit pilots missing statistically half their shots is a good example of that. Tau are meant to be good at shooting to the complete exclusion of any pretence at close combat.

you probably can choose not to play tau for the rest of this edition then.
fluff rarely equates to table top gameplay anyway.

Exalted!

DaemonJellybaby wrote:
From ATT:

Arka0415 wrote:
Speaking of rumors, I just got some information from someone I know to be reliable. Most was covered by the recent leaks on DakkaDakka already, but here's some new stuff:

- FSE gain a stratagem that gives XV8s +1 to hit on the turn they use Manta Strike

Overcharged 3-shot CIB without blowing myself up here I come!

Nova-charging your main gun while having a 3++ on your Riptide sounds very nice as well...

If it's true of course

 Fruzzle wrote:

DaemonJellybaby wrote:
From ATT:

Arka0415 wrote:

- Homing Beacons are used at the beginning of the movement phase

Really praying this is not true. If it is it kills aggressive tau so hard. Farsight Enclave might be good, definitely fun if we have homing beacons like this index.

Would be truly gutted/disappointed; forced to play more of a sit back/gunline style just by this little change.

I'm wondering if it's trying to say that the Homing Beacon has to be placed during the beginning of the Movement Phase rather than "during the Movement Phase" like it is now?

I mean yeah, it makes things a bit harder to work with but it does mean that you can get some usage out of Advancing in the previous turn.

schadenfreude wrote:Crisis suits are the iconic Tau unit, but Tau players already own a lot of crisis suits.

If I was writing the codex and wanted to shift Tau towards mass fire warriors but still wanted every Tau player to keep using a unit of suits the solution is simple: don't buff crisis suits in stats or points, but give Tau a shoot twice per turn with 1 unit of crisis suits strategem.

I mean, that's one way to interpret it...the other is that they just don't know what to do with Crisis Suits.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Shouldn't all this talk about Tau be in a separate thread? This thread is regarding a release schedule rumour right?

I'd like to open a new thread specifically about Tau codex rumours but I'm not sure if I get flak from the moderators if I do that xD

 FirePainter wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 FirePainter wrote:
ATT had a strategem posted for farsight enclaves that gave a unit of crisis suits +1BS after manta strike. Which is nice but you would still need a homing beacon to get value out of the sept trait.

Good thing that Stealth Suits come with them in the box right?

Absolutely! I was already using 12 stealths on a regular basis so this is just more incentive. Not sure if I'll use farsight suits though 6" is a little close for Tau.

Not sure if that will work that way though! Mainly due to the current wording of how Homing Becons work. If the only thing that is changed, is that the becon is deployed at the start of the movement phase then there might be some RAI arguments.

Currently homing becons change T’au deepstrike FROM Mantra Strike to “Low-altitude drop” – so, as per current RAW, you wouldn’t be able to use the +1 BS stratagem as you wouldn’t be performing a “Mantra Strike”.

Hopefully the wording will be clarified soon, if not, we can only hope it gets FAQd 2 weeks later and that we don’t lose our minds with the endless bickering all the YMDC threads will result in.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Fruzzle wrote:

DaemonJellybaby wrote:
From ATT:

Arka0415 wrote:

- Homing Beacons are used at the beginning of the movement phase

Really praying this is not true. If it is it kills aggressive tau so hard. Farsight Enclave might be good, definitely fun if we have homing beacons like this index.

Would be truly gutted/disappointed; forced to play more of a sit back/gunline style just by this little change.

I'm wondering if it's trying to say that the Homing Beacon has to be placed during the beginning of the Movement Phase rather than "during the Movement Phase" like it is now?

I mean yeah, it makes things a bit harder to work with but it does mean that you can get some usage out of Advancing in the previous turn.

Yeah that's how I read it!
I've been using it as
1. hide stealth in cover
2. jump+advance out
3. Various crisis nasties come down
4.?????
5. Profit.


But if it need opponent to be that close to stealth teams at their end of turn... I don't think they're stupid enough. Flamer variant is def. dead. Probably better to just just Bork'an instead of pushing in there to try and get the benefit.
I mean, chances of using the farsight trait now has dropped dramatically.

Unless there is like a ''you can move after manta strategem, but unlikely.

+1 BS for 1 deepstriking unit is also pretty disappointing. Was hoping for re-roll wounds on unit for like 2/3CP (basically Doom; Enclave benefit before; killing blow)

Info on the Necron vs. Adeptus Mechanicus box:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/03/05/forgebane-coming-soongw-homepage-post-1/

Holy gak it's real.

 Mud Turkey 13 wrote:
Info on the Necron vs. Adeptus Mechanicus box:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/03/05/forgebane-coming-soongw-homepage-post-1/

Thread on the Necron vs. Adeptus Mechanicus box:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/752115.page

 Fruzzle wrote:


+1 BS for 1 deepstriking unit is also pretty disappointing. Was hoping for re-roll wounds on unit for like 2/3CP (basically Doom; Enclave benefit before; killing blow)

It's pretty nice now that the CIB is also 3 shots while overcharged. Guaranteed to not blow yourself up and you don't need to set up a markerlight on the target first. Drop in a bunch of triple CIB Crisis suits (slap on a couple of shield gens to tank stuff) and go to town on your opponents' special snowflake unit.

 Mud Turkey 13 wrote:
Info on the Necron vs. Adeptus Mechanicus box:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/03/05/forgebane-coming-soongw-homepage-post-1/

Quick maths, they say it'll cost "less than all the units combined, BEFORE all the new stuff"

So, price will be under:

47$ - Wraiths
33$ - Immortals
33$ - Lychguard
35$ - Techpriest Dominus
40$ - Skitarii Rangers

188$. I'm guessing it'll be either 150 (in line with Death Masque) or 175$. Either way, pretty solid value as I'm guessing those knights are going to be at least a 66$ kit.

Very bizarre that the microknights will be LOW slot. They don't look to be any bigger than a heavy support tank, and pointswise if they're going to be falling around 150.. I guess I get that they're trying to get them to work with the big boy knights, but I hope there's a rule against just grabbing three of them and having a super-heavy detachment with 3CP for like 450 points. I guess we'll see how good they are - they certainly don't look like theyve got a ton of anti horde capability.

They are cuties though. Look at his widdle face! I'm sorely tempted to try and split this box if it falls anywhere near the 150$ range.

the_scotsman wrote:


Very bizarre that the microknights will be LOW slot.

They don't fill any purpose as Heavy Support, but as LoW's they:

1) Give needed options to Knight-armies.

2) Allow players who only own 1 Knight to buy 2 in order to fill a LoW-detatchment.

It's a very clever move to put them as LoW's.

best if we keep the necron/ad meh stuff to that specific thread.

ta.