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Welcome to Dakka Nathemo! That was a hell of a first post LOL! Don't really know what to do with that.

@ Savageconvoy: Wait, you support them getting a TFG treatment? For real Sir Bros-alot? Seriously!? Okay...Now I see what your angle is. LOL. See now I have a problem: I don't know if I can take you seriously anymore. And then I read your last complaint and I'm all like, What the Huh!? Oh well, agree to disagree?

I have to say all these changes are getting too crazy for me. Guess i'm outnumbered on them too. Sigh.

I may need to clarify.

I really don't mind if Tau get an over the top OP codex, since I started when it was weak and played it ever since. To me an OP codex just gives a lot of options, some weaker and some stronger. In that regards a player can choose to take something balanced, but TFG will take only the strong to abuse it. Personally I probably won't do that unless the "weaker" units end up being like mutilators or Warp Talons.

And really what I'm hoping for is that if the Tau did get the TFG treatment then it'd be some special "Pulse" weapon rule to make all the subpar suit and vehicle weapons shine and maybe even let FW become a nasty threat.

I suppose I'll add my thoughts in here as well since I own a Tau army currently collecting dust on a shelf. Sure, 6th edition gave us some new life but even with overwatch, we can't prevent close-combat armies from coming in and wiping out our entire force by breathing heavily on the models....and every army is close-combat when compared to Tau; hell, an IG infantry platoon can curb-stomp FWs in close combat.

Firewarriors: Fine as is but with standard grenades. Tau fluff has them as small-medium unit tactics oriented army so no reason for 20-man units then the IG players would cry. I like the idea someone threw out some time back where they have the ability to "shoot and scoot" if armed with carbines; 6"move/ fire /6" move (instead of assault). Lets face it, pinning is about as worthless as fear being added into the rules when 3/4 of armies just ignore it.

Devilfish: Huge point decrease; this beast is just too damn expensive to be usable; especially since nobody's shooting special or heavy weapons out of the non-existent firepoints.

Hammerhead: Small point decrease on the turrets and add the forgeworld turret options (though the missile-pod one could maybe add skyfire). Sure, I like the rumor of railguns of death shooting through 3 tanks but yeah....not going to happen. Maybe make submunitions rounds ignore cover or lower the AP a bit since we can't have LRBTs or Vindicators to drop pie-plates like other armies.

Broadsides: Fine as is; small points decrease; maybe give them the option of a GK-like shunt or deep-strike.

XV8-Crisis: These need lots of work but mainly a standard BS of 4; they're a highly-advanced piece of equipment piloted by a veteran, career soldier and take up an elite spot. It always was funny to me that an Ethereal bodyguard was BS4 standard but the fluff described them as FWs that were eligible to become Crisis-pilots but turned it down to hang-out with Space-Jesus wannabes. Need larger unit sizes and cheaper weapon options or at least come standard with a burst-cannon. Personally, I like the idea of the S and T swapping so they'd be S4/T5 but people would scream because then they'd be too close to being plague marines....for twice the points.

Vespid: Complete rethink. Give them a standard cover-save like the flier "juke" since they're flitting about the battlefield. I picture them as needing to be faster and more agile than crisis suits. Their guns are fine. Immune to dangerous terrain tests.

Kroot: Mostly fine. I agree that fieldcraft needs to go and just be stealth and move through cover. Maybe the shaper upgrade gives them FnP instead of the worthless 6+ armor save. Give hounds rending and maybe make the krootox a MC or give it rending, just look at the thing and read the fluff; it's supposed be able to eat its way through everything. I don't think shapers should be HQ but kept an upgrade option; it's a Tau army, not a kroot army, the leaders should still be Tau. Outflank and infiltrate even with the krootox.

Stealthsuits: Got a great deal better with 6th edition but are really hampered with only have short-range weapon options. What's the point in being "stealthy" when you have to get close to hurt anything with your gun? Maybe add rail-rifles as a weapon option with the current fusion-blaster; this would make them more versatile and fit the mold of an elite unit operating behind enemy lines...

Sniper drone teams: Make them a bit cheaper and/or have the ability to add more drones to the unit; make them FA instead of heavy and S5 AP3. Give the spotter something like a specialized markerlight (that hits on a 4+) that allows the unit to choose victims when firing.

Skyray needs to be able to fire missiles without a markerlight. It's shooting crak missiles for goodness' sake; we shouldn't have to hit something with a markerlight on a 4+ to have the privilege of possibly hitting it with a missile that every other army can just straight shoot. Maybe the use of a ML allows it to ignore cover and give it a higher rate of fire. I foresee a Heavy 2 or 3 S8 AP3 shot that has different ammunition to set it apart from other armies...maybe a melta shot or something. And since it's got "Sky" in the name, maybe an upgrade or standard skyfire. That gives Tau their ground-based anti-air option.


Just a few of my thoughts.

I've always like the idea of Broadsides getting access to twinlinked suit weapons in place of the secondary weapons. Railguns and T/L missile pods would be nuts though, I do want to stress that part out.
And the Railgun able to be swapped out for a T/L Plasma/ion cannon.

Okay Savage, maybe I'll give you some respect points back. LOL. But just a few for now.

Just had a thought that maybe you all would dig: What if the Skyray missile rack was able to equip different load outs from the same supply as Tau aircraft missiles? I'd understand a sidewinder missile that always stuck vehicles and aircraft on rear armor. Have like 4 different missile types?

KnuckleWolf wrote:
Just had a thought that maybe you all would dig: What if the Skyray missile rack was able to equip different load outs from the same supply as Tau aircraft missiles? I'd understand a sidewinder missile that always stuck vehicles and aircraft on rear armor. Have like 4 different missile types?

I've always liked the idea of different missile load outs. I keep seeing the problem where the skyray runs out of missiles and becoming useless. I've always figured it'd be good if you could purchase a single type of missile per wing, and it generates d3 missiles per turn that you distribute amongst the two wings.

The problem with that Savage, is the Tau don't (yet) have teleportation tech. The Imperium achieves it through psyker/warp technology, which the Tau don't have of course and rightly not. Can't agree with the reload thing though, just can't get there. The limited supply makes it into a resource game almost which I like. (i.e. Can I protect this long enough to use it against valuable/key targets? Then once it becomes "useless" it still has secondary armaments and mobile markerlights with BS 4 sooo...) In all realness, the Skyray was an "emplaced gun" from before there were fortifications. A seeker, while still respectable, is just not that strong anymore. How about we make the Seeker into that Str 9 AP 2 weapon we we're talking about earlier!? I like that idea! Say Vehicle upgrade cost is 5pts/per? Keep firing sequence rules the same?

Photon Grenades should have the 'Blind' USR... And possibly also 'Concussive'
Everything about them is geared toward messing up attackers that are getting dangerously close.
Frankly I think it would be awesome if a unit hit with Photon Grenades completes their charge in a random direction.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

KnuckleWolf wrote:
Just had a thought that maybe you all would dig: What if the Skyray missile rack was able to equip different load outs from the same supply as Tau aircraft missiles? I'd understand a sidewinder missile that always stuck vehicles and aircraft on rear armor. Have like 4 different missile types?

I've always liked the idea of different missile load outs. I keep seeing the problem where the skyray runs out of missiles and becoming useless. I've always figured it'd be good if you could purchase a single type of missile per wing, and it generates d3 missiles per turn that you distribute amongst the two wings.

Manticores seem to remain pretty commonly used despite having limited missiles...

More secondary weapons would help; at the moment it's more efficient to just get three other vehicles and tack two Seeker Missiles on each...

Good point on the Manticore. What would you do for more secondaries though? I feel like its such a niche vehicle in the army there's not much room for it to change. In my humble opinion of course. Are you thinking like the forward mounted Burst Cannon?

I don't really know what secondary weapons would be good for vehicles, probably because Tau have such a small selection of weapons that are useful.

But I've always wanted to see the drone turrets take up vital roles on vehicles. Like being able to take any of the existing drones, including the sniper and heavy gun drones. Shield drone would just offer a 5+ invul save for the two shield drones. Being able to take extra marker drones would be an almost auto include on all my vehicles. Though, they'd have to be like 15 points for the pair.

Il toss my thoughts in.

As a army based ability
- Marker lights: beginning of the shooting phase, each unit gets a maker token for each maker light it has. These are to be allocated targets within line of sight (and range?) and may be consumed for the following effect and may be stacked for unites that are Tau or has an upgraded (kroot shaper that has a tau receiver or something to that sort.)

+1 BS against marked unit.
-1 cover save for marked unit.
Launch seeker missile (write it to say it misses on a 1 to avoid the whole sky fire against assumed bs5 debate)

Little iffy on these
+1 modifier to snap fire
or
Use x maker token for sky fire

Im not entirely keen on – ld modifiers because for the most part everything in this game except other tau have horrible Ld.

Maker tokens cannot be used from units that are fleeing or have gone to ground.

- Pathfinders and Sniper Drone squad moved into Troop
- Both gain scout USR
- SDS is a non scoring unit
- Pathfinders may purchase stealth field generators on an upgraded sergeant (if he dies they all lose stealth.
- Pathfinder devilfish - Comes stock with disruption pod and sensor spine free. But may not take any other upgrade. (keep it cheep at fast as scouts should be)

Gun drones do not count for moral (this never made sense to me, its just war gear)

Veteran fire caste having BS 4 (aka suits)

Sky ray – has sky fire. Derp

Beyond that, I would like to see –

Stealth suit fire caste HQ
Rewritten Kroot
General price fix
No more 1 per army special issue weapons but keep them for upgraded suits (only the best of the best should use the best guns)
Move VRT to standard issue

Right, I've been glancing in on this, and will finally weigh in, starting with the first post.

shasolozo wrote:
Skyray
*Skyray becomes fast attack, it's markerlights get skyfire (duh)
Should stay Heavy Support, though it should be able to fire D6 missile per turn I think.
I don't think Markerlights should get Skyfire. (I'll expand on this below.)

Sniper Drones
*Sniper Drones become elites (not heavy support)
Honestly, they're fine as Heavy Support imo.
MAYBE instead of 1-3 though, they get the option of you can take 1 Sniper Drone team per Firewarrior squad in the army (and it doesn't take up a FOC, though still a Heavy Support option so not normally scoring...)
(On second thoughts, I really like that idea)

*Railrifles gain “sniper” USR (duh.)
This makes Rail Rifles worse.
Sniper ignores Str6, making you always wound on a 4+ and furthermore, against vehicles, always counts as Str3.
If you want to improve Rail Rifles, simply add rending.

Firewarriors
*Shas'ui incorporated for free, max squad size increased to 20.
6-12 is fine, it fits.
Including the Shas'ui as standard isn't a bad idea though. (Though I'd say for 5pts not free. So standard squad is 65points for 5 Shas'la + Shas'ui)

Crisis Suits
*All can buy VRTs
This seems fine... most of the Special Issue gear doesn't really need to be Special Issue anymore.)
*Drones count as wargear and don't remove independent character status
Stealth suits
*Can exchange burst cannon for fusion blaster, missle pod, flamer or plasma rifle at @1 per 3 models
Personally, I think that they should simply get 1 weapons hardpoint each, and have to buy burst cannon / flamer / missile pod / plasma rifle / etc

Pathfinders
*Can buy stealth field emitter. Gives shrouded. 20pts
Not a bad idea, though I'd probably go with something like 3pts per model.

Markerlights
*Markerlights hit flyers at normal BS -1
Just no. Markerlights are a Laser Designator, this requires you hold the laser on a target to 'paint' it, constantly transmitting coordinates.
You go outside and try and hit a fighter jet with a laserpen for 10 seconds. (Well, don't because it's vaguely illegal and generally a bad plan).
But even trying to hold it on a car is damn hard. It's just not practical or have any basis in reality.
*A markerlight hit may be used to convey skyfire to a unit
Also silly. Simply have an option where you can remove a counter to increase the Snapshot BS by 1. (So remove 1 counter, snapshot at BS2, 2 counters snapshot at BS3, and so on. Max BS5 I think)
*2 markerlight hits may be used to covey twinlinked USR to a unit
eh, maybe once the unit is BS5, you can remove a counter to twinlink it, but frankly, it feels like it'd either be pointless or overpowered, I'm not sure which.

Gear changes
*Emp Grenades have haywire USR
But they're not the vastly superior Haywire Grenades, they're EMP grenades, with the EMP rule. It makes no sense at all for them to have Haywire grenades.
*Cyclic Ion Blaster becomes rending
The only bonus rending gives it, is the potential for +D3 against vehicles, otherwise, it's better as is.
*All “special issue” wargear is no longer special issue
As above, certainly most, I don't know about ALL though.
*Flechette Dischargers can be taken on crisis suits @ 15 points
As a straight Hard Point option, 10pts (as on vehicles) would be fine.

Forgeworld
Tetras, XV9s, special characters, remoras and barracudas become official.
Anything with the 40k Stamp is fine to use already, though it would be nice to see them in the standard book.

Shouldn't be too long till I get back onto my Tau Extended codex, and I'll incorporate my ideas into that.

 Ovion wrote:



Sniper Drones
*Sniper Drones become elites (not heavy support)
Honestly, they're fine as Heavy Support imo.
MAYBE instead of 1-3 though, they get the option of you can take 1 Sniper Drone team per Firewarrior squad in the army (and it doesn't take up a FOC, though still a Heavy Support option so not normally scoring...)
(On second thoughts, I really like that idea)

This sir, its the best idea i have ever read to fix the actual Sniper team, since as it stands now, on the HS (or any other slot you may prefer despite Troops imo) its just no good unless your playing a campaign with games at 500 pts, where the Rail Rifle its a beast, but even then... They`re just Meh.

Make the Sniper Drone Team Spotter an Independent Character, give him the Infiltrate special rule and upgrade that big heavy Markerlight of his to a High Intensity Markerlight.

Crisis suits get only 1 weapon? Would that include twin linking? Wouldn't that just make a suit a jet pack marine? That would remove their most iconic feature aside from the jet pack.

I like the idea of the sniper drones, but think that it makes them a beast in BGNT since they will be getting a 2+ cover camped on objectives and are designed to take down marines.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Crisis suits get only 1 weapon? Would that include twin linking? Wouldn't that just make a suit a jet pack marine? That would remove their most iconic feature aside from the jet pack.

Hes speaking of the Stealth Suits, its just above it, dont worry i also didnt get at first read, too much red i think

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I like the idea of the sniper drones, but think that it makes them a beast in BGNT since they will be getting a 2+ cover camped on objectives and are designed to take down marines.

I will fix it for you:

are designed to do fething nothing besides take down marines 3 at a time MAX, if you dont miss any shoot.

If they were so much of a pain, SM just need to drop pod near to them, shoot assault, consolidate, and free objective and Kill point. And anyway SM squads are not goin to come into the open if you bring some Snipers, they will get cover, use some bikes or Assault unit and deal with them, Sniper drones are the less threating menace on the grim dark future.

I think one way to fix sniper squads is to give the spotter a high intensity markerlight. That's a heavy 4 markerlight IIRC. Then the shooting becomes secondary to ML support. Also, why not allow more than 3 drones?

I don't know if you could justify it but they would be better if they were in the FA slot. Though they are the opposite of fast. Maybe that needs to be renamed to the Forward Attack slot.

A high intensity markerlight does make sense, though seeing as they already have more drones than a normal Drone Controller can take, not so keen on that idea.

Now I did have a few thoughts in regards to buffing the unit. First, make the spotter an independant character with the same stats as a Pathfinder Shas'ui and same access to the armory. Second, give him infiltrate. Third, move the unit into the HQ slot.

Viola, you have an Independant character who generates 2+markerlight hits a turn, can give a Firewarrior squad infiltrate, stealth and shrouded, plus unleashes 3 railrifle shots that can target independently of the squad. Add a couple of seeker missiles to the squads Devilfish for added ooomph. Alternatively add him to a Broadside team to protect them from those Lascannon shots.

Of course, we have no indication if the High Intensity Markerlight is Networked or not, so the plan might not go so well that way.

If it turns out it's not networked, leave him in Heavy Support and give him some sort of Orbital Strike Relay he can work as a spotter for.

BlueRift wrote:I think one way to fix sniper squads is to give the spotter a high intensity markerlight. That's a heavy 4 markerlight IIRC. Then the shooting becomes secondary to ML support. Also, why not allow more than 3 drones?

I don't know if you could justify it but they would be better if they were in the FA slot. Though they are the opposite of fast. Maybe that needs to be renamed to the Forward Attack slot.

First, giving anything not a vehicle or heavier drone body seems silly and makes no sense. It's a big bulky thing and wouldn't really be practical at all, especially being the Spotter already has quite a large bit of kit, effectively doubling the size of it is crazy.

Second - the sensible thing to do to fix it is the following:
1 - They remain a Heavy Support option.
2 - You can take 1 per squad of Firewarriors taken.
3 - They do not take up a FoC slot.

This means they stay where they belong - they're a Heavy unit that isn't very quick, but they don't have to fight with the generally 'superior' Heavy options for FoC space and you can ultimately take 1-6 Sniper Drones Teams.
Problem solved.

And in big guns never tire you have a unit with a 2+ cover camping objectives. I like that idea.

 Ovion wrote:

First, giving anything not a vehicle or heavier drone body seems silly and makes no sense. It's a big bulky thing and wouldn't really be practical at all, especially being the Spotter already has quite a large bit of kit, effectively doubling the size of it is crazy.

I dunno, but the High Intensity Markerlight is that small disc-like thing on the top of the Tetra. It is roughly as big as a Fire Warrior's head...

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Ovion wrote:

First, giving anything not a vehicle or heavier drone body seems silly and makes no sense. It's a big bulky thing and wouldn't really be practical at all, especially being the Spotter already has quite a large bit of kit, effectively doubling the size of it is crazy.

I dunno, but the High Intensity Markerlight is that small disc-like thing on the top of the Tetra. It is roughly as big as a Fire Warrior's head...

I've been a fan of something that I call the 'Variable Intensity Markerlight' which generates 1d3 Markerlights per turn, lets give something like that to the Spotter.

AtoMaki wrote:

 Ovion wrote:

First, giving anything not a vehicle or heavier drone body seems silly and makes no sense. It's a big bulky thing and wouldn't really be practical at all, especially being the Spotter already has quite a large bit of kit, effectively doubling the size of it is crazy.

I dunno, but the High Intensity Markerlight is that small disc-like thing on the top of the Tetra. It is roughly as big as a Fire Warrior's head...

The turret itself seems to be much the same size as a small drone, but then you don't know what else is in that 'arm' for it...

But also - especially if you make them 1-per-squad-of-Firewarriors, giving them 4 Markerlight shots each, they'd become this cheap auto-take option, when really - I want them to be a decent option alongside other things.