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 Peregrine wrote:

 keltikhoa wrote:
There is going to be a list you enjoy hidden somewhere in that codex I promise you.

Oh, there is, and I'm sure it's going to be way more powerful (if I have to buy a new army I'm buying the WAAC one). But don't expect me to be happy that my Tau tank collection will never be leaving the display shelf again and I have to spend hundreds of dollars on a completely new army if I want to keep playing Tau. That's just incredibly bad game design.

Pretty darn good marketing design though, especially if you cave in and buy a new army.

JWhex wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Oh, there is, and I'm sure it's going to be way more powerful (if I have to buy a new army I'm buying the WAAC one). But don't expect me to be happy that my Tau tank collection will never be leaving the display shelf again and I have to spend hundreds of dollars on a completely new army if I want to keep playing Tau. That's just incredibly bad game design.

Pretty darn good marketing design though, especially if you cave in and buy a new army.

For every Riptide Peregrine buys, I'm not going to buy three. Thus leaving GW at negative sales developement!

I wish people would stop using glittering generalities when they talk about these subjects. Look that up if you don't know what I mean.

I've played Tau since the start and I'm telling you.. this army is MOBILE, it is HARD HITTING and it has some really...not so obvvious strategic possibilities that I've noticed aren't getting play.

They will though as players mature into the codex. this codex is GOOD. GrEATER good in fact.

 Therion wrote:

If its over for you then that is your choice. Sell your collection and move on.

This is the best advice in this thread. As a matter of fact, despite having played 40K and FB for about 22 years now I don't think any of my armies ever survived an edition change or a codex update. It's the nature of the business. When the game or your army book changes your precious army list simply won't be the same.

If you refuse to change your army concept you'll have a weaker army, simple as that, but in most cases (not all) it's still legal and ready to play. Many a times I didn't like the new playstyle of my army of choice, so I sold the army and moved on to another army that played according to the way I want to play. Some people move away from their army after the rules change, but in turn a lot of new guys move to the army because of those same changes.

But is that not what GW want - they don't want you to keep using the old stuff - they want you to buy the new shiny stuff and then do it again in a few years

I'm not sure why people think this is somehow evil. They want to sell their customers a new army every four or five years? Many other companies look to invalidate your stuff in just one year by pushing out something vastly superior or by ceasing to support the old product entirely.

You will note I did not say it was good or bad - just something I thought most of us knew that this is the way GW work

 Therion wrote:

Unfortunately, GW is now a corporate business.

What do you mean by now? Is this new information? GW became 'corporate business' last night or what? GW changed its orientation to the current one in 1991, which is before many of you were born I suspect.

My intended use of the word "now" simply meant as in "currently" or "at the present time", not as in "last night". Since I have been invovled in 40K since 2nd edition (and for the record, I was born nearly two decades before they changed their orientation), I am aware that this is not a recent event. I apologize if the use of the word "now" has offended your tender sensibilities, as it clearly appears to have done so.

JWhex wrote:
Pretty darn good marketing design though, especially if you cave in and buy a new army.

No, it's horrible marketing.

A proper release would have kept my tank army intact while also giving new options everywhere. I would have bought new tanks, and since I'd be having so much fun with the army I'd probably pick up some of the other new units to expand it and try things like a hybrid battlesuit/tank list, or even lists that don't take tanks at all if the new stuff is cool enough.

What we actually got is a release where there's a small chance that I'll buy an entire new army, but a much bigger chance that I'll decide that my Tau aren't leaving the display shelf in the foreseeable future so I'll just stay with the IG army I already have. Even worse, I might decide that since I have no reason to care about Tau anymore and my IG are pretty much done I'll just spend my money on non-GW stuff.

In short: this "darn good marketing design" trades near-certain modest profits for a high-risk all-or-nothing gamble that averages out to a lot less profit.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

 Peregrine wrote:

JWhex wrote:
Pretty darn good marketing design though, especially if you cave in and buy a new army.

No, it's horrible marketing.

A proper release would have kept my tank army intact while also giving new options everywhere. I would have bought new tanks, and since I'd be having so much fun with the army I'd probably pick up some of the other new units to expand it and try things like a hybrid battlesuit/tank list, or even lists that don't take tanks at all if the new stuff is cool enough.

Yeah, I had actually big plans for my Tau. I was listing stuff up in anticipation: going to buy a new Hammerhead, more Piranhas, more Pathfinders, more Kroot or Vespid, probably a Barracuda (or a new flyer, if it hadn't turned out to be a terrible model). Heck at some point I might have picked up Riptide, I've got nothing against the model or its rules, I just dislike what it represents.

But now, all those plans are buried. I may buy the Codex, if they manage to ship more to my FLGS, but that'll be it. If I play at all with the new Codex, it will be small points games with my existing suits and infantry.

It really wouldn't have taken much to keep me happy. I didn't want my stuff to become super-cheese, wasn't looking for running the new MechVets of the 6th edition. I of course realized that some existing stuff of the army would probably be nerfed (Disruption pod). Even if my favourite units had got NO overall improvement at all, that would have been ok because the army got improvement in other respects.

It's not rokkit science, dammit.

 Peregrine wrote:

In short: this "darn good marketing design" trades near-certain modest profits for a high-risk all-or-nothing gamble that averages out to a lot less profit.

We don't agree often so it should be no surprise that we once agin find ourselves not doing so. I think you will be shown that you are wrong about that. People have loved Tau. The whole idea is attractive, it's a smooth "clean" army, and they are the "good guys" a lot of us would prefer to play. all those things have nothing to do with wins or losses, but they are why Tau have always sold well.

This codex is written with marketing the product in mind but it did not abandon competitiveness. I am preparing a blog on the different wayts to look at the models, and it's taking a while because I really wantto wrap my mind around the different ways the cat can be skinned with this force. But already i am seeing things that don't immediately leap off the page, which people ARE missing.

One example: Markerlights are great, which people know. But one interesting element of this is how to get them in the list. The HOW of it is sort of interesting. If you are willing to spend the points, the best bet is the Drone Squadron. No one is talking about them, but they allow you a whopping 12 Markerlights per unit at 14 pr model and can be made BS 5 by a Commander with a Drone Controller. Some would knee jerk and point out that the Pathfinders are only 11. What they might not have paid as close of attention to is that the Drones are all T4 with 4+ saves... instead of T3 with 5+ saves! There is an enormous survivability factor between the two. This would allow the Drone unit to more or less hit nearly every time, and then the rest of the army could easily torrent down the Drones target like swiss cheese. Yet no one is even referring to Drones or talking about them other than the damn missile drones which BTW are NOT available to most units. See the FAQ that's already up.

So this one strategy alone makes any unit you need to vaporize a goner. I'm not saying invest in two Drone Swarms and two commanders to lead them... Im just saying that if you do, you will easily...EASILY... vaporize two squads of your choice per round. That is an IMMENSE level of beatdown to be leveled on key targets.

Another way to get Drones in that is very effective is the Marksmen. You're not required to take the extra Drones, so you can simply take the base Drone unit with the additional Marksman and call it a day. Voila. Another EXCELLENT Markerlight unit at BS 5.

Now what you add to the list to allow you to finish the job these drones are starting is up to you... But thegreat part is, if the enemy spends too much time killing the much tougher Drones, then they are spending less time on the hammers of your army.

This is an example of where the Tau army could be truly terrifying with a unit that before, was never used. Ever. This new version of the unit is immensely powerful in the right army.

I've given just one example of where my mind has wandered as i explore this codex. I think it silly to knee jerk like this.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

In short: this "darn good marketing design" trades near-certain modest profits for a high-risk all-or-nothing gamble that averages out to a lot less profit.

We don't agree often so it should be no surprise that we once agin find ourselves not doing so. I think you will be shown that you are wrong about that. People have loved Tau. The whole idea is attractive, it's a smooth "clean" army, and they are the "good guys" a lot of us would prefer to play. all those things have nothing to do with wins or losses, but they are why Tau have always sold well.

This codex is written with marketing the product in mind but it did not abandon competitiveness. I am preparing a blog on the different wayts to look at the models, and it's taking a while because I really wantto wrap my mind around the different ways the cat can be skinned with this force. But already i am seeing things that don't immediately leap off the page, which people ARE missing.

One example: Markerlights are great, which people know. But one interesting element of this is how to get them in the list. The HOW of it is sort of interesting. If you are willing to spend the points, the best bet is the Drone Squadron. No one is talking about them, but they allow you a whopping 12 Markerlights per unit at 14 pr model and can be made BS 5 by a Commander with a Drone Controller. Some would knee jerk and point out that the Pathfinders are only 11. What they might not have paid as close of attention to is that the Drones are all T4 with 4+ saves... instead of T3 with 5+ saves! There is an enormous survivability factor between the two. This would allow the Drone unit to more or less hit nearly every time, and then the rest of the army could easily torrent down the Drones target like swiss cheese. Yet no one is even referring to Drones or talking about them other than the damn missile drones which BTW are NOT available to most units. See the FAQ that's already up.

So this one strategy alone makes any unit you need to vaporize a goner. I'm not saying invest in two Drone Swarms and two commanders to lead them... Im just saying that if you do, you will easily...EASILY... vaporize two squads of your choice per round. That is an IMMENSE level of beatdown to be leveled on key targets.

Another way to get Drones in that is very effective is the Marksmen. You're not required to take the extra Drones, so you can simply take the base Drone unit with the additional Marksman and call it a day. Voila. Another EXCELLENT Markerlight unit at BS 5.

Now what you add to the list to allow you to finish the job these drones are starting is up to you... But thegreat part is, if the enemy spends too much time killing the much tougher Drones, then they are spending less time on the hammers of your army.

This is an example of where the Tau army could be truly terrifying with a unit that before, was never used. Ever. This new version of the unit is immensely powerful in the right army.

I've given just one example of where my mind has wandered as i explore this codex. I think it silly to knee jerk like this.

Let's also not forget the Squadron of 12 Shield Drones giving your commander a huge swarm of ablative wounds.

My favourite bit of drone squadron cheese is this:

2 Squadrons of Marker Drones in front of your gunline. Each turn they move 6" back behind your Firewarriors, fire their markerlights and your army does it's thing all at BS 5. Then in the assault phase the squadrons jump back in front of your gunline giving your line cover saves and putting themselves in the way of any assaults.

In your opponents turn if anybody on that gunline gets charged the marker drone squadrons overwatch. Any markerlights they hit with get used by the other squadron to hit with more markerlights than they used up. Lastly the Firewarriors use all those markerlights to snapshot at the charging unit.

The number of tricks you can pull with markerlights now is huge especially now you can use markerlights to fire more markerlights. Tau don't actually need units with skyfire to have the strongest anti-air in the game because of them yet they have Skyrays which are now just much better than they were.

The Tau is the first army in 6th which only got better and cheaper with their new book even after you take into account the tiny nerfs they had. The overall army is just ridiculously good now and they were already good before.

Yes the ablative wounds and the JSJ shinanigans are endlessly fun to ponder.

Thje Pathfinders are now freed to be a TRUE special weapons squad now as well, and be good at it, whereas it was often a disincentive to give them special weapons before. No longer the case. In fact, they can fire off three Blasts a round that are quite strong, and assaul 2 rifles that pin now are even more cool. The Pathfinders are posessed of a homing Beacon if they want to guide in their more powerful brethren without incident making the armie ability to deep strike frightening indeed.

Which creates a LEGITIMATe discussion as regards FOC. The Fast attack choices for Tau are now JAMMED with GOOD choices. ALL of them are good! This was really not SEEN as the case before, was it?

The Heavy Slot is an actual debate instead of a non-debate. Whereas a FEW people still swore by having a Hammerhead for its submunition, MOST Tau Generals had long since recognize the primacy of the Broadside in that slot. For fun you might throw out a Hammerhead but... Whereas NOW you can look at the heavies and go "MAN... I do like those BS 5 Markerlights.. But I DO like that Skyray system for anti-air that makes it so I dont need the Aegis... And I really like those Broadsides still and their versatility...

Then we look to the Troops. Kroot did important things in 5E. in 6E, they fell straight off the table and Spoace marine allies became the obvious melee choice. Now we look and see that the Fire Warriors and other units have been built to ablate charges instead of engage in them obviating the need for a melee "answer" per se. We are already going to kill a bunch on the charge so even if our unit "loses combat" the enemy will not be in any better shape than if we had won it. Win for the Tau as the enemy is now in the open. Hooray! Kroot Snipers? wow. 20 Snipers in a unit, plus a beast pack with them that can initaite a very rough charge against the enemy like a slinky. They can move 12 and if properly stretched out, can pre-empt a charge or sucker someone close by forming the front line, before rapidly moving away, putting the unit too far away to charge but leaving the enemy that was so full of hope for next round instead filled with dread. A fun little tactical point.

Elites are a legit discussion. People like me who literally dont use suits now find new reason to, while those who never used Stealth units find reason to! And those who never used an Ion Accelerator WILL soon find reason to. Beleive me.

HQ's? NINE of them, and all of them are legit. Utility Commandes, beatdown commanders, trickster commanders... Its all there along with the usual cast. All very affordable now in comparison to ANYONES HQ except for St. Celestine (cause no one'e got as fun a deal going as her, and that's okay!). Ethereals matter again. Who thought we'd say that, ever?

It's a good book friends. It is.

 Jancoran wrote:
Yes the ablative wounds and the JSJ shinanigans are endlessly fun to ponder.

Thje Pathfinders are now freed to be a TRUE special weapons squad now as well, and be good at it, whereas it was often a disincentive to give them special weapons before. No longer the case. In fact, they can fire off three Blasts a round that are quite strong, and assaul 2 rifles that pin now are even more cool. The Pathfinders are posessed of a homing Beacon if they want to guide in their more powerful brethren without incident making the armie ability to deep strike frightening indeed.

Which creates a LEGITIMATe discussion as regards FOC. The Fast attack choices for Tau are now JAMMED with GOOD choices. ALL of them are good! This was really not SEEN as the case before, was it?

The Heavy Slot is an actual debate instead of a non-debate. Whereas a FEW people still swore by having a Hammerhead for its submunition, MOST Tau Generals had long since recognize the primacy of the Broadside in that slot. For fun you might throw out a Hammerhead but... Whereas NOW you can look at the heavies and go "MAN... I do like those BS 5 Markerlights.. But I DO like that Skyray system for anti-air that makes it so I dont need the Aegis... And I really like those Broadsides still and their versatility...

Then we look to the Troops. Kroot did important things in 5E. in 6E, they fell straight off the table and Spoace marine allies became the obvious melee choice. Now we look and see that the Fire Warriors and other units have been built to ablate charges instead of engage in them obviating the need for a melee "answer" per se. We are already going to kill a bunch on the charge so even if our unit "loses combat" the enemy will not be in any better shape than if we had won it. Win for the Tau as the enemy is now in the open. Hooray! Kroot Snipers? wow. 20 Snipers in a unit, plus a beast pack with them that can initaite a very rough charge against the enemy like a slinky. They can move 12 and if properly stretched out, can pre-empt a charge or sucker someone close by forming the front line, before rapidly moving away, putting the unit too far away to charge but leaving the enemy that was so full of hope for next round instead filled with dread. A fun little tactical point.

Elites are a legit discussion. People like me who literally dont use suits now find new reason to, while those who never used Stealth units find reason to! And those who never used an Ion Accelerator WILL soon find reason to. Beleive me.

HQ's? NINE of them, and all of them are legit. Utility Commandes, beatdown commanders, trickster commanders... Its all there along with the usual cast. All very affordable now in comparison to ANYONES HQ except for St. Celestine (cause no one'e got as fun a deal going as her, and that's okay!). Ethereals matter again. Who thought we'd say that, ever?

It's a good book friends. It is.

Have an exalt.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

In short: this "darn good marketing design" trades near-certain modest profits for a high-risk all-or-nothing gamble that averages out to a lot less profit.

We don't agree often so it should be no surprise that we once agin find ourselves not doing so. I think you will be shown that you are wrong about that. People have loved Tau. The whole idea is attractive, it's a smooth "clean" army, and they are the "good guys" a lot of us would prefer to play. all those things have nothing to do with wins or losses, but they are why Tau have always sold well.

This codex is written with marketing the product in mind but it did not abandon competitiveness. I am preparing a blog on the different wayts to look at the models, and it's taking a while because I really wantto wrap my mind around the different ways the cat can be skinned with this force. But already i am seeing things that don't immediately leap off the page, which people ARE missing.

One example: Markerlights are great, which people know. But one interesting element of this is how to get them in the list. The HOW of it is sort of interesting. If you are willing to spend the points, the best bet is the Drone Squadron. No one is talking about them, but they allow you a whopping 12 Markerlights per unit at 14 pr model and can be made BS 5 by a Commander with a Drone Controller. Some would knee jerk and point out that the Pathfinders are only 11. What they might not have paid as close of attention to is that the Drones are all T4 with 4+ saves... instead of T3 with 5+ saves! There is an enormous survivability factor between the two. This would allow the Drone unit to more or less hit nearly every time, and then the rest of the army could easily torrent down the Drones target like swiss cheese. Yet no one is even referring to Drones or talking about them other than the damn missile drones which BTW are NOT available to most units. See the FAQ that's already up.

So this one strategy alone makes any unit you need to vaporize a goner. I'm not saying invest in two Drone Swarms and two commanders to lead them... Im just saying that if you do, you will easily...EASILY... vaporize two squads of your choice per round. That is an IMMENSE level of beatdown to be leveled on key targets.

Another way to get Drones in that is very effective is the Marksmen. You're not required to take the extra Drones, so you can simply take the base Drone unit with the additional Marksman and call it a day. Voila. Another EXCELLENT Markerlight unit at BS 5.

Now what you add to the list to allow you to finish the job these drones are starting is up to you... But thegreat part is, if the enemy spends too much time killing the much tougher Drones, then they are spending less time on the hammers of your army.

This is an example of where the Tau army could be truly terrifying with a unit that before, was never used. Ever. This new version of the unit is immensely powerful in the right army.

I've given just one example of where my mind has wandered as i explore this codex. I think it silly to knee jerk like this.

Both of those are great points, but I'd just like to point out that they haven't been overlooked. I've seen both of those discussed a lot in every other Tau thread, in fact, and the biggest proponent of the sniper team BS5 MLs was Peregrine, funnily enough.

Rob451 wrote:

Let's also not forget the Squadron of 12 Shield Drones giving your commander a huge swarm of ablative wounds.

Are Shield drones really worth taking now? Because I don't see anyone taking them in the lists, they no longer have Close protection. And they still cause Morale tests, they just die a lot easier now. Other drones have same save, same price and actually do something else than die.

As far as I can tell literally every unit and character in this Codex is viable. That says a lot.

 Jancoran wrote:
We don't agree often so it should be no surprise that we once agin find ourselves not doing so.

Only because you didn't understand what I said. We have two hypothetical codices:

Codex #1 is the current one.

Codex #2 is the current one except Tau tanks aren't nerfed.

The statement you quoted is not about the codex in general, it's about the codex from the perspective of someone who played a tank-based Tau army with the previous codex. The person I was responding to said that codex #1 is good marketing because, as a Tau tank player, I might buy an entire new army to replace the one I just lost. My point is that it's stupid marketing because the chance of me buying an entire second army is much less than the chance that I won't buy anything at all, and that codex #2 would provide more income for GW.

As for the rest, codex #2 could have contained the exact same decisions but without destroying existing Tau tank armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kingsley wrote:
As far as I can tell literally every unit and character in this Codex is viable. That says a lot.

One of the things it says is that Tau have very few units (and even fewer new ones) and a lot of duplicated special rules. For example, it's not very hard to make all of your troops choices viable when you only have two of them.

(Also, just wait until the initial excitement wears off and proper math-based analysis of the codex figures out which options are viable and which just sound cool.)

 Kingsley wrote:
As far as I can tell literally every unit and character in this Codex is viable. That says a lot.

Maybe it's just me, but it looks like new Tau lists are quite cookie-cutter. There is a suit HQ and foot HQ: bunch of Fire Warriors: mix of Riptides and Crisis suits: Pathfinders and/or Marker Drones with maybe odd flyer or Piranha thrown in: mixture of Railheads and Broadsides.

I'm not saying it's a weak codex, or abovementioned armies are unfunny to play, but it sure doesn't seem to offer much in the way of army archetypes.

You mean that so close to its release date no one has figured out every single nuance that could exist?

LE GASP!

Backfire wrote:
Maybe it's just me, but it looks like new Tau lists are quite cookie-cutter. There is a suit HQ and foot HQ: bunch of Fire Warriors: mix of Riptides and Crisis suits: Pathfinders and/or Marker Drones with maybe odd flyer or Piranha thrown in: mixture of Railheads and Broadsides.

I'm not saying it's a weak codex, or abovementioned armies are unfunny to play, but it sure doesn't seem to offer much in the way of army archetypes.

What archetypes do you mean? Foot, mech, and semi-mech, the conventional three "styles," all look viable to me. Certainly it is true that Tau cannot create an assault army, but to frank that's to be expected!

 Jancoran wrote:
Thje Pathfinders are now freed to be a TRUE special weapons squad now as well, and be good at it, whereas it was often a disincentive to give them special weapons before. No longer the case. In fact, they can fire off three Blasts a round that are quite strong, and assaul 2 rifles that pin now are even more cool. The Pathfinders are posessed of a homing Beacon if they want to guide in their more powerful brethren without incident making the armie ability to deep strike frightening indeed.

Well, while I mostly agree about the pathfinders becoming awesome kill teams. However while the rail rifles did gain some nice tricks, they lost pinning. So no more of those awesome moments. Also, pathfinders with rail rifles used to be a very useful weapon of opportunity because they came with target locks, so you weren't wasting markerlights. You don't get that anymore.

 Melissia wrote:
You mean that so close to its release date no one has figured out every single nuance that could exist?

LE GASP!

What you usually see is people trying out radically different army concepts with the new book, then testing them and finding they don't all work that well, and gradually proven archetypes take over. Not seeing much of that now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kingsley wrote:

What archetypes do you mean? Foot, mech, and semi-mech, the conventional three "styles," all look viable to me. Certainly it is true that Tau cannot create an assault army, but to frank that's to be expected!

Uh, sure haven't seen too many Tau mechanized lists with the new book...

Backfire wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
You mean that so close to its release date no one has figured out every single nuance that could exist?

LE GASP!

What you usually see is people trying out radically different army concepts with the new book, then testing them and finding they don't all work that well, and gradually proven archetypes take over. Not seeing much of that now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kingsley wrote:

What archetypes do you mean? Foot, mech, and semi-mech, the conventional three "styles," all look viable to me. Certainly it is true that Tau cannot create an assault army, but to frank that's to be expected!

Uh, sure haven't seen too many Tau mechanized lists with the new book...

Write one for a laff.

Backfire wrote:
What you usually see is people trying out radically different army concepts with the new book, then testing them and finding they don't all work that well, and gradually proven archetypes take over. Not seeing much of that now.

No, what I usually see is people whining incessantly about how everything sucks now that it's changed.

Backfire wrote:
Uh, sure haven't seen too many Tau mechanized lists with the new book...

++HQ++
Ethereal- 50

++Elites++
Riptide with heavy burst cannon, twin-linked plasma rifles, velocity tracker, early warning override- 215
Riptide with heavy burst cannon, twin-linked plasma rifles, velocity tracker, early warning override- 215

++Troops++
12 Fire Warriors with 11 pulse carbines, 1 pulse rifle in Devilfish with SMS- 198
12 Fire Warriors with 11 pulse carbines, 1 pulse rifle in Devilfish with SMS- 198
11 Fire Warriors with 10 pulse carbines, 1 pulse rifle in Devilfish with SMS- 189

++Heavy Support++
Hammerhead Gunship with ion cannon, SMS, Commander Longstrike- 170
Hammerhead Gunship with railgun, submunitions, SMS- 130
Hammerhead Gunship with railgun, submunitions, SMS- 130

1495 points total

The Fire Warriors move up and focus down enemy troops in midfield, buffed to 3 shots each (and Pinning) by the Ethereal. The Riptides kill light vehicles and provide anti-air support. The Ionhead discourages enemy heavy troops from clumping up and has Longstrike to provide substantial Overwatch support against fast targets. You could potentially pull points somewhere to replace it with an ion accelerator Riptide or another squad of Fire Warriors, but I thought Longstrike was a cool and fluffy choice for a pure mech army and he does have some good synergies. You have 6 SMS for killing guys hiding behind Aegis lines (no Markerlights necessary), 3 pie plates (one at AP3), and fire 105 S5 AP5 shots, most of them Pinning, if they all disembark at once while aided by the Ethereal.

This isn't a "tightened" or playtested list, but it certainly looks like a potentially strong army at 1.5k!

I think 2 Ionheads might prove stronger than two Railheads. Though putting Longstrike on a Railhead will make it quite the target. But i think mech tau is far from dead, riptides will help pull some fire, sure it's slower, but it still has plenty of fire power.

mothman_451 wrote:
I think 2 Ionheads might prove stronger than two Railheads. Though putting Longstrike on a Railhead will make it quite the target. But i think mech tau is far from dead, riptides will help pull some fire, sure it's slower, but it still has plenty of fire power.

I like Longstrike on an Ionhead to make maximum use of his Overwatch. Further, putting him up there lets his Tank Hunters add new capabilities instead of just being "win-more."

 Kingsley wrote:

mothman_451 wrote:
I think 2 Ionheads might prove stronger than two Railheads. Though putting Longstrike on a Railhead will make it quite the target. But i think mech tau is far from dead, riptides will help pull some fire, sure it's slower, but it still has plenty of fire power.

I like Longstrike on an Ionhead to make maximum use of his Overwatch. Further, putting him up there lets his Tank Hunters add new capabilities instead of just being "win-more."

That is the best place I have found for him to. Lets him be effective and close to the battle line.

 Kingsley wrote:

++HQ++
Ethereal- 50

++Elites++
Riptide with heavy burst cannon, twin-linked plasma rifles, velocity tracker, early warning override- 215
Riptide with heavy burst cannon, twin-linked plasma rifles, velocity tracker, early warning override- 215

++Troops++
12 Fire Warriors with 11 pulse carbines, 1 pulse rifle in Devilfish with SMS- 198
12 Fire Warriors with 11 pulse carbines, 1 pulse rifle in Devilfish with SMS- 198
11 Fire Warriors with 10 pulse carbines, 1 pulse rifle in Devilfish with SMS- 189

++Heavy Support++
Hammerhead Gunship with ion cannon, SMS, Commander Longstrike- 170
Hammerhead Gunship with railgun, submunitions, SMS- 130
Hammerhead Gunship with railgun, submunitions, SMS- 130

1495 points total

The Fire Warriors move up and focus down enemy troops in midfield, buffed to 3 shots each (and Pinning) by the Ethereal. The Riptides kill light vehicles and provide anti-air support. The Ionhead discourages enemy heavy troops from clumping up and has Longstrike to provide substantial Overwatch support against fast targets. You could potentially pull points somewhere to replace it with an ion accelerator Riptide or another squad of Fire Warriors, but I thought Longstrike was a cool and fluffy choice for a pure mech army and he does have some good synergies. You have 6 SMS for killing guys hiding behind Aegis lines (no Markerlights necessary), 3 pie plates (one at AP3), and fire 105 S5 AP5 shots, most of them Pinning, if they all disembark at once while aided by the Ethereal.

You have no Markerlights, your tanks have limited mobility and with no Disruption pods, pretty vulnerable. This is basically traditional 4th ed. Mech list but weaker since it lacks what was good in the old Mech, and that was found wanting even with the old book. Basically it lacks what is good with the new book, and what was good with the old. Only question mark are the Riptides which I don't know how they will perform, so maybe they will drag this list up? But they are BS3, I'm not sure Riptides are good idea without Markerlights. IMO better would be 1 Riptide & 1 small Crisis team with couple of Marker Drones.

at 1500 I dont think any of that matters.

 Peregrine wrote:
Except Broadsides provide something absolutely vital for a Tau army: reliable anti-tank that doesn't have to get up close before you can use it. And now that's entirely gone, leaving a bunch of mid-strength spam with melta as your only reliable anti-vehicle option. So you're killing fewer tanks, you have to wait until turn 2 to start killing them, and you probably lose your anti-tank unit after one shot. This is a HUGE nerf.

[Except Broadsides were already decent at killing flyers since STR 10 AP 1 means you reliably hurt a flyer once you hit it (and you have a ~33% chance of hitting it). Now you're more likely to hit, but much less likely to do any damage, so the net gain against flyers is fairly small. In exchange Broadsides have been crippled against everything that isn't a flyer. This is not a fair trade.

Wow you are so right. Strength 8 weapons are completely and totally useless in the game and I can't believe that any army should be forced to have to use them for anti-vehicle defense.

Really?? You act as if broadsides have been dropped from S10 AP1 down to S4 AP5 weapons when they haven't. S8 will still deal with 95% of the vehicles on the table and I don't know what flyers you are playing against where a S8 rail weapon is now "much less likely to do any damage", especially when that S8 weapon is much more likely to hit more often as well. S10 just means you don't have to think. So sorry that you army now has 1 less unit with a weapon with a Strength higher than any weapon I can get in any of my armies. That should mean that all of my armies must be useless when it comes to anti-vehicle efforts, but that hasn't been the case at all. Even my S8 weapons can take out land raiders. Not surprisingly your S8 weapons will also be able to take out land raiders as well.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
A proper release would have kept my tank army intact while also giving new options everywhere. I would have bought new tanks, and since I'd be having so much fun with the army I'd probably pick up some of the other new units to expand it and try things like a hybrid battlesuit/tank list, or even lists that don't take tanks at all if the new stuff is cool enough.

But your tank army *is* intact. How many models from the old codex are now unusable? That would be a whopping ZERO. You look at the numbers, make claims and assume your army is useless now when it isn't necessarily. I say that you can put your Tau army, modeled as is, on the table and still have fun and enjoyable games, but you have convinced yourself that the codex is completely useless without even bothering to play a game using it. The CSM and Chaos daemons books were both panned before their release as either being pointless (CSM) or totally ruining it (Daemons). Neither has proven to be the case in actual practice. No one can force you to put your minis on the table and play games with them, but it just seems pretty dumb to refuse to even bother because you ASSUME that your army is going to be useless now. Heck if you put the minis on the table and just play some games you might actually find yourself having some fun.

Skriker

May I point out one thing I just noticed? I just noticed that the Broadside has no A.S.S. capability. Bummer.