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Anyone notice that the battleforce comes with 3 crisis suits, but those suits have a flock of drones? Maybe they made some serious drone changes, because I've never seen someone take that many drones in a crisis suit squad. I'm hoping they did, I have a shiny butt ton of drones sitting in my Tau bits.

Puscifer wrote:
That is the whole point of the fluff imo.

For The Greater Good.

From a balance standpoint it is awful. Give me access to them on something that isn't expensive and/or not-expendable and then it is a characterful design choice. Having them only on expensive elite infantry and fast attack vehicles make them a poor weapon.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Archonate wrote:
Did anybody else notice that there are 10 Pathfinders in the box, and what appear to be 3 Drones?
I'm kinda worried about larger PF squads. I feel like they're compensating for taking something away... like maybe fewer of them get Markerlights.
If, according to new rules, fewer of them NEED Markerlights, then why make the squad bigger? Smells fishy to me....

Because, moving to plastic, they want to utilize as much of the sprue as possible? Which just happened to mean more Pathfinders made it into the box?

You think GW would alter the composition of a unit for that reason? I mean they could also fit 8 PFs in a box and sell it for the same price. I'm just antsy to see how PFs have changed....

 Archonate wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Archonate wrote:
Did anybody else notice that there are 10 Pathfinders in the box, and what appear to be 3 Drones?
I'm kinda worried about larger PF squads. I feel like they're compensating for taking something away... like maybe fewer of them get Markerlights.
If, according to new rules, fewer of them NEED Markerlights, then why make the squad bigger? Smells fishy to me....

Because, moving to plastic, they want to utilize as much of the sprue as possible? Which just happened to mean more Pathfinders made it into the box?

You think GW would alter the composition of a unit for that reason? I mean they could also fit 8 PFs in a box and sell it for the same price. I'm just antsy to see how PFs have changed....

Either they'll provide more support that doesn't involve Markerlights or they've become much more reliable and cheaper in scoring Markerlight hits. It will come down to comparing them to Tetras, which is currently the best Markerlight platform.

 Superscope wrote:
I'm expecting the XV104 to be Australian Land Raider prices (ie, 119+ dollars)

No don't say that. People say things like that then they come true.

Land raider price is crappy price

Well, what a nice surprise to find first thing in the morning (what, doesn't everybody log onto Dakka first thing in the morning?)

Riptide: looks pretty awesome and from the picture it seems to tower over Crisis suits about as much as the Dreadknight towers over termies, so I guess it's a fair bit bigger. I don't mind paying the asking price for it.

Flyer: Looks rather boring from the front. I actually rather like the tail boom, makes it look strikingly different from the rest of the army in a good way. But the SMS turret on top of the tail fin really ruins the sleekness of the design.

Pathfinders: Not much to say here, can't see any detail. But the price really isn't bad for 13 models, comparatively.

Broadside: Looks to me like it's on a 60mm base and really chunky. Not enough to excuse the high price, but it's not as bad as paying that much for a Crisi-sized model. The question is, will people complain if you use the much smaller older model?

Battleforce: Looks like a great starter set (assuming the units are decent on the table) but existing Tau players should already have all of those units in spades.

 Archonate wrote:
If, according to new rules, fewer of them NEED Markerlights, then why make the squad bigger? Smells fishy to me....

Maybe they get a split fire ability and can mark multiple targets at once. Maybe they have other non-markerlight abilities (such as rail rifles) which benefit from a larger squad size and you have a choice between building two 4-man markerlight units or a single 10-man sniper unit. Etc.

The riptide looks alright, but I wonder how it can walk with those tiny chicken-legs. Maybe its abnormally light like the battlesuits?

And the flyer just looks unaerodynamic. Unaligned wings? Those little bridges connecting them? I just don't know whether it looks decent or not.

APRIL/JUNE ISN'T SOON ENOUGH

 SonicPara wrote:

Puscifer wrote:
That is the whole point of the fluff imo.

For The Greater Good.

From a balance standpoint it is awful. Give me access to them on something that isn't expensive and/or not-expendable and then it is a characterful design choice. Having them only on expensive elite infantry and fast attack vehicles make them a poor weapon.

I agree with you for the most part, but considering the fluff where Tau have quite short life spans (30-40 human years) I can see the old guys committing one last act of bravery to save the younger generations.

Gaming standpoint... totally useless.
Fluff wise... not so bad.

Puscifer wrote:
I agree with you for the most part, but considering the fluff where Tau have quite short life spans (30-40 human years) I can see the old guys committing one last act of bravery to save the younger generations.

It doesn't even make sense fluff-wise because even if your old veterans are expendable you're also suiciding a crisis suit or Piranha that could be better used elsewhere. There's no way a melta-only approach makes sense.

As someone who's been kind of on the fringe of wargaming for the past month, I can say the Riptide is really, really, stupidly cool. I like that thing a lot, even though I can't see a ton of it. Overwatch being the Tau's trick makes sense, and is something I've thought about since I was dreaming up what Tau would get for a new codex way back in 5th edition.

It looks like one of the new drones that is with the pathfinders is more of a turret and pretty big. You can see it on their box and also behind their devilish in the picture spread.

And does anyone else think its kinda weird that the pathfinders seem to be in 3 separate squads on their box cover? I've never seen GW space their models like that on a box (if they're supposed to be one squad).

 airmang wrote:
It looks like one of the new drones that is with the pathfinders is more of a turret and pretty big. You can see it on their box and also behind their devilish in the picture spread.

And does anyone else think its kinda weird that the pathfinders seem to be in 3 separate squads on their box cover? I've never seen GW space their models like that on a box (if they're supposed to be one squad).

Am I imagining it, or is that a burst cannon halfway up the stem? If so, I'm wondering if Pathfinders get to deploy sentry turrets? That could be an interesting mechanic.

Yep, it's definitely a burst cannon.

Any pics of the new finecast stuff?

I noticed the Commander in one of the pics but you can't see much of him.

Wow!

It's been a long time coming and from the pics so far I am pretty happy. My wallet however will not be happy. I did a little *yikes* at the price but Tau have always been my number one dudes, even though I have just got my Necrons up to scratch, Tau will always be the one :-D So...I will somehow justify the prices in my head.

I just hope we get decent rules to match the models now. In fact I am looking forward to the rules a lot more than I was new models as I like the range we have now.

1) Pathfinders - I can see these guys playing a much more important role in our armies now. They were always handy but most opponents knew to blast them away. Maybe these "sentry" turrets grant them shrouding/stealth or defensive capabilities? I imagine we may get to split them up or at least split fire with them.

2) Broadside - massive change in style and price BUT the railgun looks like it will be of similar size to the Hammerhead...does this mean we do not lose S10? Hard to judge just by aesthetics but why make it the same size?

3) APRIL CANNOT COME QUICK ENOUGH :-|

Well that weekend is going to be busy for me...

Girlfriend meeting the parents, my Son's birthday, Wrestlemania XXIX (don't judge me) and Tau release weekend.

Expensive, busy and AWESOME.

I'm going to say the new fliers will be FA/HS, going from the price being less than most other fliers, apart from the Scythe, which you can take up to 9 of.

6 flier Tau list, anyone? Any problems with this line of reasoning?

Yep these are 100% must buy.

Gonna get the dex then go from there, although looking at the models they all look good.

Shas'o_Longshot wrote:
I'm going to say the new fliers will be FA/HS, going from the price being less than most other fliers, apart from the Scythe, which you can take up to 9 of.

6 flier Tau list, anyone? Any problems with this line of reasoning?

Can't be as bad as Cron Air.

It just can't.

Puscifer wrote:

Shas'o_Longshot wrote:
I'm going to say the new fliers will be FA/HS, going from the price being less than most other fliers, apart from the Scythe, which you can take up to 9 of.

6 flier Tau list, anyone? Any problems with this line of reasoning?

Can't be as bad as Cron Air.

It just can't.

Well, no, they can take 9 And maybe the fliers will have no decent weapons, rendering an army made up of 6 of them severely lacking in railguns...

Seriously loving the big guy!



Link from: http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/tau-pics-are-here-sunshark-bomber.html

Something just clicked...

Most, if not all, battleforces have at least two troops choices.

So...

Which of those Tau Battleforces is the other Troops choice?

I wondered that my self Puscifer. Here's hoping battlesuits

I agree.

I can't see it happening, but I'd be impressed if they are Troops.

To be honest i wouldn't even mind if the stealth suits were troops. As long as they had either a major points decrease or a major boost in weapon choice/battlefield ability.

Stealth suits I guess, just wondering how their rules changed to make them viable and not OP as troops.

Coyote81 wrote:
Stealth suits I guess, just wondering how their rules changed to make them viable and not OP as troops.

The rules as they are now wouldn't be OP as troops, just a gamble. Fire Warriors give you more bodies for resiliency, Stealth Suits give you higher quality per body.

If XV-22/25's were troops... Then a full suit army is possible ;p

ALL THE SUITS!