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Samurai_Eduh wrote:

Again, I do not see this in any of the Spanish or English scans. The "Target Acquired" Special rules for markerlights don't mention overwatch or snapfire at all.

Look at the "Pinpoint".

Well, if they specifically make allowances for it to work with overwatch/snapfire, it's a great tactic. If not....meh

 tetrisphreak wrote:
An interceptor/skyfire riptide would have no access to FNP and forgo shooting with any weapons he used to intercept with in a previous phase. Sometimes countering the alpha strike is worth it if it saves some suits or pathfinders from a heldrakes bale flamer. Sometimes it isn't but its nice to have the option.

Personally i would use the ion weapon for it'd higher strength and blast functionality.

Which is why i was thinking of having two riptides, leaving the last elite slot for a fusion suit unit. One riptide as the burst cannon/fusion blaster skyfire/interceptor unit, taking those two drones of his to make up for no FNP and providing at least some shooting if he intercepts. While the second riptide takes the ion accelerator, FNP, some other support and maybe no drones to make points for other units.

Bear in mind i'm theory crafting this atm, don't know what i'll actually take until i get my copy of the codex. I just know that i'll base my list as crisis focused as possible, like my current tau are. No vehicles in my list other than tetras! Although as pathfinders are now more point efficient than tetras for markerlights, i'll be likely to swap them out (tetras however have much better mobility, same thing again, need my own codex ^^). It's just that as riptides can have both skyfire/interceptor, unlike broadsides, i feel that they'll make better AA units.

Thanks CleverAntics for the HBC range, 36" is great.

Tetras keeping their disruption pod in their base cost make them still the competitor to pathfinders. Loss of target array in the codex armory makes it a closer choice when picking between the two however.

Edit to add: stealth marker teams are 19 points cheaper (for 2 marker drones plus a ml/TL on the shas'ui). I love mobile markerlights. Going all out with a mark'o unit is viable as well but perhaps overkill.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Tetras keeping their disruption pod in their base cost make them still the competitor to pathfinders. Loss of target array in the codex armory makes it a closer choice when picking between the two however.

Exactly what i was thinking of when comparing them, the 110 point, BS4, 8 shots are what made the tetras so good, they were quality WITH quantity. At BS3 i honestly think that going for a greater amount of markerlight shots at cheaper cost will be better. Guess we'll have to wait and see how FW updates their rules.

As you said though, they are still the competitor, just earlier today using their mobility and survivability, my teras scored a battle wagon kill flying to it's rear armour and using their TW pulse rifles!

Edit: Missing words, more reading what i've typed before pressing submit!

I love how everyone keeps naysaying the ML doing anything to snapfire and overwatch. Obviously they should have in the last dex as well through the FAQ but didnt. Way to go GW you did at least 1 thing right that is un-disputable for us

However......ANY and ALL ML tokens should be able to be used on any seeker missle by anyone from any platform.....that was the only great about them. They were like special air support.....not just some other weapon....one time use weapon.....lamesauce to the highest degree for sure if this is truly NOT how they work,

I think for marker lights two pathfinder teams will be the way to go. I ran 8 pathfinder and a devil fish last edition and now two teams of 8 cost the same amount to it is pretty good. Sash'O with drone controller might be good, we will have to see. The Sash'O is more expensive, cost a HQ and Fast attack slot, but you can get bs5, skyfire mobile markerlights that can jump in the assault phase.

 tetrisphreak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Old suit with TA/plasma/missiles was 67 pts, could only fire 1 weapon system and hit 67% of the time.

Except nobody ever took that setup. It was either MP/PR/MT or MP/PR/TA on a suit with HWMT. So 77 points for shooting both weapons with a 67% chance to hit. Now you save 20 points, but you have one weapon at 75% and one at 50%. In theory that's not a bad trade, but it makes markerlight use really inefficient since the TL gun isn't getting much benefit if you use markerlights to boost the single gun.

How is that worse?

Besides the math reasons it's worse for fluff as well. We're the dedicated shoot-only army with advanced technology and only a handful of HQ models can shoot better than a basic guardsman. This is incredibly stupid, and it's reallky frustrating that now you can't even compensate for it with TAs on your crisis suits and vehicles.

Let me be frank - I think 'vre ranked tau should be bs4 due to their 8+ years of military service and familiarity with their weapon systems. It makes excellent sense from a fluff standpoint.

We didn't get that, however, unless the codex is RIFE with typos.

So I still love my tau and I do like the direction the codex seems to take *overall*. Now is the time to field it for a few months and dig out the combos and gold nuggets that separate a mediocre player from a fantastic one.

Personally I think anything 'ui or higher should be BS 4. Team leaders for Tau should improve in BS and leadership for the most part. Now, with networked Marker lights a firewarrior 'ui makes a lot of sense, as he can direct fire for his squad like you might think the Tau would. It keeps the Marker light idea going, makes crisis suits effective, and doesn't make every army rely on pathfinders or drone hordes.

Soon as codex comes out check for faqed stuff from gamesworkshop all the broken bits will be magically fixed.

I hope they come out with a missile drone pack and a marker light drone pack because I am going to want a ton of them.

Just for those wondering how the Seeker Missiles works. You can use them with a ML token as we have always did, or shoot them with your base BS on the unit its equipped without ignoring cover, and without the need to use ML or such. Also, the Flyers carrys 2 of them, and they can shoot them at will, with the ways i already said.

The codex is just plain awesome, tons of options, sadly, the cibersystems are gone :( and now we must choose only 3 options for the Crisis suits, the Signature armory is just 1 per army too D: at least, VRT are just a Support system, but Iridum armor is 25 pts for 1 unit... Anyway i read it, the codex is VERY balanced, and by VERY i mean that yes, you can pick a realy cheesy unit full powered and ready to smash, but, its not going to be cheap. Riptide (aka Cataclysm on the Spanish Codex) with FNP Drone Controller, Ion Accelerator and support weapon, with the Artillery Drones stan for 278 points, and the Broadside (Aka Apocalypse) full team ready to kill anything that flies is... 279, we at least have the luck that they dont need to pick up the Interceptor, since they CANT if the y pick the Antiair system, but dont panic, we can choose if we shoot to the air, when were going to shoot. Also, only the plasma option needs points, the other weaponry is free.

Theres something i want to know also... Does FNP stacks? I mean, can i pick the stymulant injector to gain FNP 5+, and stack it with the Ethereal ability of FNP 6+ to gain FNP 4+?

I decided, im going into Tau blackout until i get my codex.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I decided, im going into Tau blackout until i get my codex.

Indeed, with less that 36 hours until I get mine, the discussion and arguements of the approx 70% of the crunch just isn't worth it. I'm too close to have heated discussions on maybes and "I dunno, we'll see, lol!"

No more until I get my hands on that shiny hardcover.

 KaiserEddie wrote:
Just for those wondering how the Seeker Missiles works. You can use them with a ML token as we have always did, or shoot them with your base BS on the unit its equipped without ignoring cover, and without the need to use ML or such. Also, the Flyers carrys 2 of them, and they can shoot them at will, with the ways i already said.

The codex is just plain awesome, tons of options, sadly, the cibersystems are gone :( and now we must choose only 3 options for the Crisis suits, the Signature armory is just 1 per army too D: at least, VRT are just a Support system, but Iridum armor is 25 pts for 1 unit... Anyway i read it, the codex is VERY balanced, and by VERY i mean that yes, you can pick a realy cheesy unit full powered and ready to smash, but, its not going to be cheap. Riptide (aka Cataclysm on the Spanish Codex) with FNP Drone Controller, Ion Accelerator and support weapon, with the Artillery Drones stan for 278 points, and the Broadside (Aka Apocalypse) full team ready to kill anything that flies is... 279, we at least have the luck that they dont need to pick up the Interceptor, since they CANT if the y pick the Antiair system, but dont panic, we can choose if we shoot to the air, when were going to shoot. Also, only the plasma option needs points, the other weaponry is free.

Theres something i want to know also... Does FNP stacks? I mean, can i pick the stymulant injector to gain FMP 5+, and stack it with the Ethereal ability of FNP 6+ to gain FNP 4+?

To be honest I don't think Shielded missile drones are very good. t6 is nice but they only have a 4+ save and you can get missile drones else where for 12 pts each, sure they are not t6 but that seems to be the only difference. I am even wondering if stimulant injectors are necessary for the riptide because with 72 inch range on the ion cannon you can pretty much stay away from anything that will hurt him in any army but IG. I see him just jumping around the edge of the table out of range of the other army, dropping templates. So I think a cheap 185pt riptide is the way to go. As for the broadsides, does everything need a velocity tracker to skyfire or just one in the group. Either way, spending 250+ for 3 broadsides is nothing new.

 lambsandlions wrote:

 KaiserEddie wrote:
Just for those wondering how the Seeker Missiles works. You can use them with a ML token as we have always did, or shoot them with your base BS on the unit its equipped without ignoring cover, and without the need to use ML or such. Also, the Flyers carrys 2 of them, and they can shoot them at will, with the ways i already said.

The codex is just plain awesome, tons of options, sadly, the cibersystems are gone :( and now we must choose only 3 options for the Crisis suits, the Signature armory is just 1 per army too D: at least, VRT are just a Support system, but Iridum armor is 25 pts for 1 unit... Anyway i read it, the codex is VERY balanced, and by VERY i mean that yes, you can pick a realy cheesy unit full powered and ready to smash, but, its not going to be cheap. Riptide (aka Cataclysm on the Spanish Codex) with FNP Drone Controller, Ion Accelerator and support weapon, with the Artillery Drones stan for 278 points, and the Broadside (Aka Apocalypse) full team ready to kill anything that flies is... 279, we at least have the luck that they dont need to pick up the Interceptor, since they CANT if the y pick the Antiair system, but dont panic, we can choose if we shoot to the air, when were going to shoot. Also, only the plasma option needs points, the other weaponry is free.

Theres something i want to know also... Does FNP stacks? I mean, can i pick the stymulant injector to gain FMP 5+, and stack it with the Ethereal ability of FNP 6+ to gain FNP 4+?

To be honest I don't think Shielded missile drones are very good. t6 is nice but they only have a 4+ save and you can get missile drones else where for 12 pts each, sure they are not t6 but that seems to be the only difference. I am even wondering if stimulant injectors are necessary for the riptide because with 72 inch range on the ion cannon you can pretty much stay away from anything that will hurt him in any army but IG. I see him just jumping around the edge of the table out of range of the other army, dropping templates. So I think a cheap 185pt riptide is the way to go. As for the broadsides, does everything need a velocity tracker to skyfire or just one in the group. Either way, spending 250+ for 3 broadsides is nothing new.

Each Broadside needs the velocity trackers to have skyfire, its a 20 pts upgrade, and well, its new for me, i used units of 2, but now with so many changes i dont know what to get D: there are too many options, and list wich we can make now. The thing i want to keep my Riptide safe from is himself and the Nova Reactor so that i can dish out S9 AP2 Large blast templates on the enemy ranks, without fearing massive failure with 2 consecutive bad rolls.

 lambsandlions wrote:

 KaiserEddie wrote:
Just for those wondering how the Seeker Missiles works. You can use them with a ML token as we have always did, or shoot them with your base BS on the unit its equipped without ignoring cover, and without the need to use ML or such. Also, the Flyers carrys 2 of them, and they can shoot them at will, with the ways i already said.

The codex is just plain awesome, tons of options, sadly, the cibersystems are gone :( and now we must choose only 3 options for the Crisis suits, the Signature armory is just 1 per army too D: at least, VRT are just a Support system, but Iridum armor is 25 pts for 1 unit... Anyway i read it, the codex is VERY balanced, and by VERY i mean that yes, you can pick a realy cheesy unit full powered and ready to smash, but, its not going to be cheap. Riptide (aka Cataclysm on the Spanish Codex) with FNP Drone Controller, Ion Accelerator and support weapon, with the Artillery Drones stan for 278 points, and the Broadside (Aka Apocalypse) full team ready to kill anything that flies is... 279, we at least have the luck that they dont need to pick up the Interceptor, since they CANT if the y pick the Antiair system, but dont panic, we can choose if we shoot to the air, when were going to shoot. Also, only the plasma option needs points, the other weaponry is free.

Theres something i want to know also... Does FNP stacks? I mean, can i pick the stymulant injector to gain FMP 5+, and stack it with the Ethereal ability of FNP 6+ to gain FNP 4+?

To be honest I don't think Shielded missile drones are very good. t6 is nice but they only have a 4+ save and you can get missile drones else where for 12 pts each, sure they are not t6 but that seems to be the only difference. I am even wondering if stimulant injectors are necessary for the riptide because with 72 inch range on the ion cannon you can pretty much stay away from anything that will hurt him in any army but IG. I see him just jumping around the edge of the table out of range of the other army, dropping templates. So I think a cheap 185pt riptide is the way to go. As for the broadsides, does everything need a velocity tracker to skyfire or just one in the group. Either way, spending 250+ for 3 broadsides is nothing new.

The problem with the shielded drones is that they do not have "Look Out Sir" for models that aren't characters. So either the player puts them closer to the enemy where they get taken out by shots the Riptide would ignore, or they get placed further back and don't protect the Riptide.

I really think the lack of a "Drones may LoS! for all non-Drone Tau Empire models" rule is a huge oversight, considering the original text of the drones entry in 3e read that they take the squad's hits first, and the Tau player could choose in which order the shots were assigned.

The Riptide drones are a really nice way to get even more firepower, and the only way to protect the Riptide with a nice Inv save of 4+ without needing to use the effect on the Nova Reactor. As i see it, they are a must have, and they are the only drones the Riptide can take, so its not like we have other options than get them, or dont. Also, with a 72" weapon, its not like they are going to get our back isnt it? and even if they were to... The Riptide can just jump away and keep dishing insane amounts of Firepower, and still have his little friends with him

 Peregrine wrote:

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Old suit with TA/plasma/missiles was 67 pts, could only fire 1 weapon system and hit 67% of the time.

Except nobody ever took that setup. It was either MP/PR/MT or MP/PR/TA on a suit with HWMT. So 77 points for shooting both weapons with a 67% chance to hit. Now you save 20 points, but you have one weapon at 75% and one at 50%. In theory that's not a bad trade, but it makes markerlight use really inefficient since the TL gun isn't getting much benefit if you use markerlights to boost the single gun.

How is that worse?

Besides the math reasons it's worse for fluff as well. We're the dedicated shoot-only army with advanced technology and only a handful of HQ models can shoot better than a basic guardsman. This is incredibly stupid, and it's really frustrating that now you can't even compensate for it with TAs on your crisis suits and vehicles.

TA's were also very useful on vehicles (Piranhas and Devilfish) and Broadsides (get an 89% change to hit the target makes you pretty reliable). Was also hoping to take one on the Riptide - having that thing be only BS3 is going to be mega frustrating.



...
I'm trying to think of the best ways to get markerlights in to the army. Pathfinders are obviously a choice, but they also are the only ones with access to the new Rail and Ion rifles and at Sv5 they're going to be prime targets. Marker Drone squads? Any other kind of suit with drones attached?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I decided, im going into Tau blackout until i get my codex.

Good call, me too. I'd rather discover these things for myself.

It's been fun, see you all on the other side of this weekend! X-D

Yup ill have my dex in hand on Sat and maybe even my broadside and pathfinders. Totally goin into 40k Black out until i get it.

Couldnt help it.....i came back lol

So, an interesting thing that cropped up on 4chan is that thanks to the seeker missile changes the Skyray really is the best anti-air platform in the game.

The missiles are no longer equipment, they're six individual one-shot weapons, and it does not have a flyer's missile limitation.

So if it does not move on its turn, it gets to fire its networked markerlights (75% chance of at least one hitting) and then can fire ALL SIX S8 missiles at BS4+markerlight bonus.

If it manages to hit with both markerlights, it can fire at BS4 and prevent the target from Jinking.

Pretty sure you expend the counters, so there's no way it could stack all those effects on two markerlight hits.

KaiserEddie wrote:
Just for those wondering how the Seeker Missiles works. You can use them with a ML token as we have always did, or shoot them with your base BS on the unit its equipped without ignoring cover, and without the need to use ML or such. Also, the Flyers carrys 2 of them, and they can shoot them at will, with the ways i already said.

So the only benefit to using a ML hit to fire a Seeker Missile is +1 bs for Skyrays and Hammerheads (+2 for others) and removing cover? Strange. Guess it's equivalent to 3 (or 4) ML hits, but still...

So how does the marker beacons work now? Will I still be able to get a re-roll to deepstrike to take out a pasky baskilisk or whirlwind behing cover mid field with a couple suits?

Do the Fire Warriors not have an armory any more? I can't seem to find any.

RogueRegault wrote:
So, an interesting thing that cropped up on 4chan is that thanks to the seeker missile changes the Skyray really is the best anti-air platform in the game.

The missiles are no longer equipment, they're six individual one-shot weapons, and it does not have a flyer's missile limitation.

So if it does not move on its turn, it gets to fire its networked markerlights (75% chance of at least one hitting) and then can fire ALL SIX S8 missiles at BS4+markerlight bonus.

If it manages to hit with both markerlights, it can fire at BS4 and prevent the target from Jinking.

You need to spend 1 marker light per missile fired. If you only hit with one marker light you can only shoot one missile. And it will be BS5. But it is still a nice anti-air vehicle.


As for the riptide needing stimulate injectors, if you are nova charging your suit you don't need line of sight meaning you should be be getting hit by the enemy and can take a few wounds. If you are not using the nova charge then all is well. I think it is going to be a nice upgrade but not one that is needed as they are pretty expensive. I am still not sold on the drones because 50pts of buys 4 regular missile drones for your crisis/stealth team.

So it looks like local stores are only getting codices and some finecast models. I hope I'm able to get some of the new kits.

My store is not getting the new plastic models right away. Which is okay, I can wait for those. I can paint up Farsight while I wait for my Riptide.

GGRRRr, those new broadsides look sooooo ggoooooddd... If I get enough money I am going to have to get them.....I can just see them in my chaos army, combined with sniper kroot. AWWW YEEAAA

Chrysis wrote:
Pretty sure you expend the counters, so there's no way it could stack all those effects on two markerlight hits.

There are conflicting reports about Seekers but one report states that the Seeker can be fired by its platform as if it were a standard weapon, without Markerlight guidance. It loses the BS5 and other benefits it would usually gain but, in the case of the Sky Ray, "dumb-firing" the missiles may be a great thing.

As previously suggested, you fire the Networked Markerlights at the flyer with a 75% chance to hit. You then "dumb-fire" as many missiles as you like (assuming the Sky Ray did not move of course) and use whatever Markerlight hits you got to buff the entire salvo. This would make firing six missiles at either BS5 or BS4 with ignoring cover possible.


This all hinges on whether or not Seekers can be fired manually by the unit that carries them, without a Markerlight token being used to guide it in. If so, the Sky Ray can really lay down the hurt on some flyers in a single round of shooting. What you do after with it is a problem but its effectiveness is undeniable.