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So today is the day, codex has been released and I have had a brief look over it. I really like what I have read and seen so far some great equipment and variety for lists. I am very much into aunva dirt cheap for what she can bring in terms of army buffs. So fellow tau players or 40k players. What's your opinion on the new Dex and what do you like?

I like it.
I first fell in love with Tau at a Skullz VIP open day.
The new broadside models are incredible, I'm not so enthused about the loss of S10, but it's not the end of the world.
The warlord trait denying LOS is a nasty little trick to play, Pathfinders with their range booster could be interesting too.
There is a lot to love in this codex, despite the pre-release doom-mongering.
I think it's going to move significantly up in the rankings from its current position.

Any word on Drones or Stealthsuits as troops? It's the last shot I have at living the dream of an all drone/suit based army!

Well, I played a friend who had the codex. They are very good now, but my only problem is the amount of anti air they have now, or at least they can have.

 stompygitz wrote:
Well, I played a friend who had the codex. They are very good now, but my only problem is the amount of anti air they have now, or at least they can have.

HAHAHA flyer spam wont work against properly kitted out Tau at all anymore.

Well, it looks pretty solid. Not super competitive but eventually better than the old 'dex.

The only troops are fire warriors and kroot, though you can take drones in squads by themselves.

I have waited.. I'm still reading.

Shinzra wrote:
The only troops are fire warriors and kroot, though you can take drones in squads by themselves.

Bah, if I can't take drones/suits as troops, no want. ;_;

Never mind, but thanks for the details!

Wolfnid420 wrote:

 stompygitz wrote:
Well, I played a friend who had the codex. They are very good now, but my only problem is the amount of anti air they have now, or at least they can have.

HAHAHA flyer spam wont work against properly kitted out Tau at all anymore.

Well, the anti-flyer upgrade is very expensive, half a Space Marine Terminator.

The anti-flyerness does make me want to take a Tau ally, is the Codex a good read fluff wise? Might pick one up.

 Satan's Little Helper wrote:
The anti-flyerness does make me want to take a Tau ally, is the Codex a good read fluff wise? Might pick one up.

Not a knock on you, but I keep reading a lot of comments like this. So I am thinking, is the Tau really made to be played as Tau or are they made to be played as allies?

Davor wrote:

 Satan's Little Helper wrote:
The anti-flyerness does make me want to take a Tau ally, is the Codex a good read fluff wise? Might pick one up.

Not a knock on you, but I keep reading a lot of comments like this. So I am thinking, is the Tau really made to be played as Tau or are they made to be played as allies?

The answer is yes. It seems like the army has merits for both.

So, I've had two battles with the new codex: 1500 points versus Space Marines Legion and 1750 points versus Imperial Guard. So far, I like what I have. The Tau is very strongly geared against the favorite units of the 6th edition meta: footslogging infantry and flyers. Sadly, it is pretty 'meh'-ish against everything else. But hey, at least everything is usable in the codex, and the stuff what isn't have a big neon sign over them that they are crappy.

After these two battles, I would promote the following units:
- Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator and Stimulation Injector: expensive, but durable and very killy. I had three of them in the first battle, and they pretty much won the game all by themselves.
- Broadside w/High Yield Missile Pod, SMS, Velocity Tracker: the AA unit of choice and also an awesome defense unit. Just don't forget to put him behind an Aegis because it is a huuuuge lascannon magnet.
- Pathfinders: so, I've already seen that some guys call the new codex as Codex: Markerlights. It is hard to admit, but there are some truth in this. It is like Nurgle and the Baledrakes in the CSM codex: you can choose to avoid them, but it makes no sense. And since Tetras have got a big nerf, Pathfinders remained the only choice to bring markerlights to the table.
- Shadowsun: this girl with a Helios death-squad can do insane damage while being unbelievably survivable. She is also cheap for what she brings and has a very useful warlord trait.

Oh, and I totally agree with the "Vetlock didn't know Tau" statement. Luckily, it seems that he is a pretty good codex writer, so he pulled out a strong codex anyways... It just doesn't really feel Tau-ish.

I will be having my first game on Monday and will report back

The first thing that stands out are the HQ's. These really were the best thing to happen in the codex. Some, like fireblade and Ethereal, are very cheap. There are lots of buffs to go around and the HQ can really change the way you play, like shadowsun giving stealth and shroud to a unit of crisis suits. I am happy with the HQ second.

Riptide is also great. MEQs and TEQs beware we got a new kid on the block. Because overcharge (not nova charge) has only a 1 in 36 chance of causing a wound you can us it freely giving you a s8 ap2 large blast. Marker lights can be used to strip cover and make sure the blast doesn't scatter. Riptide is by far the biggest boost to our army (no surprise as they need to sell their $85 model)

But I think this is where my praise for the codex runs out. Crisis suits are cheaper but I still feel like they are overpriced. Stealth suits are pretty much the same, one more shot really isn't that impressive and not being able to take mass gun drones is going to hurt them. Speaking of drones, marker drones are better and gun drones got a buff and a nerf. Gundrones get an extra shot which is nice but they are not a denial unit and can't claim line breaker anymore. Shield drones got worst IMHO not taking the SV of its parent really hurts no more iridium armor + two shield drones for a wall of 2+ saves on your crisis suits.

Pathfinders are good but I with they were still sv4+. The fliers are nothing to right home about. And piranhas are still not great. I see FA being 2 pathfinder teams for most armies. Some will try with markerlight teams but pathfinders are better.

In heavy our tanks lost a lot of survivability with the dpod change but they are cheaper now so it is okay. I am on the fence about broadsides. no s10 weapons hurt. Everyone is talking about how we will deal with av14 but the nerf made it so all armors are harder to piece. We now fail to punch through av10 50% of the time where before we penetrated 100% of the time. And broadsides with missile pods offer great anti-air but so does a quad-gun maned by one of our bs5 hqs.

Over all I am a little unhappy with the results. We will have to see in playing how we are doing but I feel like we are strongly cemented in middle ground. Not horrible but not great and will get rolled by crons, IG, CSM etc.

It's great codex...if you're not familiar with Tau before, or their fluff, or if you only cared about Fire Warriors and Battlesuits.

For old Tau veterans who preferred other styles of play...it's the worst. Tau codex. ever.

Tau are going to be very strong. While the Tau flyers themselves aren't great next to some others, I think we're finally seeing flyers that are actually sanely balanced, whereas the ones people have issues with are largely over-armored 5E skimmers-turned-flyers (I include the Heldrake in this, as my general perception of the CSM book is that it was mostly designed as a 5E army)

There's some disappointments, Devfilfish still being costed like they were the nigh-impossible-to-kill 4E skimmers instead of 6E's hilariously fragile tin box tanks being one of them.

But overall, I think the new Tau codex is stronger than any release since the Necron release. Vehicles in the 6E paradigm are going to evaporate from the field very quickly, and with the potential to do thing like wrangle 4 shots per Pulse Rifle out of units, they certainly won't have issues with infantry when used correctly.

The big things that I take away that I like are the addition of more, cheaper cost HQs (the Fireblade, not crappy Etherals and a few more decent characters), the option for anti-air fire on all suits and the riptide itself (after the seeing how the dreadknight did in 6th that was the first thing that came to mind that Tau needed, a big MC suit)

Worst. Tau codex. Ever.

Davor wrote:


Not a knock on you, but I keep reading a lot of comments like this. So I am thinking, is the Tau really made to be played as Tau or are they made to be played as allies?

Rejoice! Tau are the new IG.

I definitely agree with the "vetock didnt know tau" statement. It really doesnt feel enough like Tau should. Also in my opinion the fluff from squad to squad was pretty weak.....more like a very vague"how to use these guys" rather than cool background info(though the main fluff seems pretty solid from what ive skimmed)

Seeker missiles suck more now as infantry cant use them. I feel like marker drones should be networked. Now that sniper teams cant be split up into individual squads im even less likely to take them.

Im gonna miss my Shas'El.....oh well. those are really about my only gripes(broadside losing strength is annoying but somewhat expected before the rumor).

Most of the rest of the codex makes me eager to play. Just hope i can give my cousins crons a good run for his money

Vetock wrote the book like if it was Imperial Codex with Markerlights. "If Imperial tanks can't move & fire, then it's too confusing if Tau tanks can".

Unlike certain doom mongers and "I can only win with S10 Broadsides" the more flexible and imaginative of us will have lots of fun with this Codex.

People with the "Tau are now IG" - well no sheet. They are a SHOOTY army ffs whilst having some nifty tricks.

Markerlight reliance - don't play Tau if you don't like them. They are and have always been a big part of our army. We can still function without them but with them we shine. It makes our army unique and something no army has. Embrace them and watch opponents weep.

Adapt and overcome like the Tau way.

hahahaha Theres truth to that! but im not a tank guy AT ALL so that nerf didnt hit me too hard......but stealthsuits got worse all around except for an extra shot from each. Keep your extra bullet and give me built in TA or at least all my drones back.....

 gr1m_dan wrote:
Unlike certain doom mongers and "I can only win with S10 Broadsides" the more flexible and imaginative of us will have lots of fun with this Codex.

People with the "Tau are now IG" - well no sheet. They are a SHOOTY army ffs whilst having some nifty tricks.

They were never that. Tau of old were MOBILE army, which had these things called TANKS (moving, floating metal boxes w/ guns) to take care of enemy and protect them from harm.

 gr1m_dan wrote:

Markerlight reliance - don't play Tau if you don't like them.

I like Markerlights. I also like chocolate. What I don't like is to eat chocolate every damn day.

Imagine the outcry if IG players were told: "Sorry, we are removing or totally nerfing every tank you got. The real way to play IG is to footslog, and use Order system to your advantage".

Backfire wrote:
Vetock wrote the book like if it was Imperial Codex with Markerlights. "If Imperial tanks can't move & fire, then it's too confusing if Tau tanks can".

To be fair, tanks are not the books strong point in general. That said, on the tanks it realistically matters on, they got cheaper and more effective otherwise. Hammerheads with submuntions are silly cheap, Skyrays are significantly more effective, and almost all of their upgrade costs went down except for disruption pods which were criminally undercosted for their 5E retconned abilities. Only the Devilfish I feel got treated unfairly, but again, tanks are not the strong point of the book, nor any book recently, GW seems to want to really discourage people from buying and using vehicles recently. Suits and markerlights are where it's at, which are unique to the Tau Empire, unlike battletanks.

Backfire wrote:
Imagine the outcry if IG players were told: "Sorry, we are removing or totally nerfing every tank you got. The real way to play IG is to footslog, and use Order system to your advantage".

They did. Welcome to 6th edition. It's called Hull Points and transport changes.

Backfire wrote:

Imagine the outcry if IG players were told: "Sorry, we are removing or totally nerfing every tank you got. The real way to play IG is to footslog, and use Order system to your advantage".

Okay. I love my footslogging IG too. I would just pack up with lasplas squads, take Creed and Starken and have a blast with them.

IfyouknowwhatImean.

I like it however i see already a probelm they define the muti-tracker, but ther no cost for a muti-tracker in the wargear section, this mean guys our crisis suits can only fire one weapon a turn
way to qc the codex GW!!!!

His Imortal Shadow wrote:
I like it however i see already a probelm they define the muti-tracker, but ther no cost for a muti-tracker in the wargear section, this mean guys our crisis suits can only fire one weapon a turn
way to qc the codex GW!!!!

Read pg 70 of the codex