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Got the Tau Codex a few days ago from my friend that owns the local gaming store - not sure if he was supposed t sell it to me yet...

Anyway, after going through it, I found it totally underwhelming.

The big issue with Tau was the cost of their units, and although Fire warriors dropped by a full point/guy (wow) they are basically the exact same. Devilfish are still base 80 points and the multi-tracker no longer makes Tau Vehicles Agile. The XV-88 now only have a heavy rail rifle, thus only STR 8 AP1 shot! okay, so now they are less useful.

My thoughts on what i have read so far...other comments welcome

Commander - About the same as before, still limited number of special issue items that they can take - at least Tau battle suits now come with BS Filter, Multi Tracker and Drone Controllers; now only one version of the commander though, so no more cheap option.... I think i did one up with 4 systems and 2 drones and it came in at a whopping 185 points!

Ethereal - I think much better than before, able to grant abilities - but still own't take one

Crisis Suits - price was a major factor before...and still is.. Base price dropped by 3 huge points, but all the weapons got more expensive...again, comes with multi tracker built in and bs filter...and the drone controller for th emost part, but still...3 Deathrains with velocity tracker (no more targeting array for +1 BS), which grants skyfire, is a whopping 190 points or so

Stealth Suits - basically the same as before, i use 3 with 2 marker drones. Suits are the same, Fusion blaster, which is now 18" range, is 5pts, but market drones are now less than half of what they were...which is good

Rip Tide - I actually think this can find a place in most Tau armies, especially as it is an MC and can handle some CC. The Ion gun is also AP 2, which Tau tends to lack....

Fire Warriors - underwhelming...9 points each now instead of 10...wow!

Kroot - About the same, a little cheaper as well... basically still the core troop in my opinion

Pathfinders - should be troops choices. Added an ion gun. Very good EXCEPT their armor is now 5+ and no longer must take a devilfish. Still a core unit for Tau with all of the marker lights. Marker drones are worthwhile due to cost and better save maybe. They now have other drone options as well but are expensive.

Flyers - Not impressed with the bomber or the fighter, but the bomber i do like better. I don't know why they just didn't make a plastic baracuda...the model is awesome, the rules okay. and it is only 120 points vs. 140-160! The model is horrible. Actually, with all the skyfire tau can take now, i don't think the flyers are worthwhile although the bomber can get some good saves with the disruption pod.

not sure about the other tau FA

XV - 88 - basically same price, but their awesome gun dropped to STR 8. Can take velocity tracker to hit flyers...but their gun dropped to STR 8. I do like the new model though.

Hammer Head - much cheaper than before...with disruption pod and rail gun it comes in at about 150 points or so. You have to buy the sub-munition rounds as an upgrade, but so worth it. crisis suits can take out flyers while this guy does what it always does. No more making it agile though which sucks. Overall, this is much chearper than it used to be, which is good and makes it really valuable

skyray - finally a model that matches the fluff. has skyfire!!! good anti air platform...although you can give all of your crisis suits skyfire too. So, taking it depends on playstyle.



Well, these are just initial thoughts after going through the codex last night. Maybe others have gone in more depth. Any comments?

Neither news nor a rumor..

+1

Read through it today, and was pretty amused and not in a ha-ha way.

No human auxilery troops, No Kroot varients, No new units other then some overpriced kids gotta have it gundams. Whoever the writer was lacked about two ounces of care about what they put down. Seriously, we're waiting months on end for this gak?

Your army consists of cookie cutter character, a couple of infantry, maybe pull out the vepids for some laughs, and.... a couple of giant robots with some heavy artillery varients.

Would you rather have the giant robot, or the hover tank?

Put the units on the table, then take them off just as quick.



The new codexs are laughable. A whole bunch of pretty pictures, no content, and honestly not worth the price.

I wanted to play Tau and waited to see what happened, but since there is no way to take Crisis Suits as troops, and Stealth Suits, Crisis Suits, and Riptide all take up the same slot, I can't make the suit heavy army I would like. I was hoping for more options, is what I am saying.

Thanks for the News!

This belongs in general discussion, not news & rumors.

What a surprise... The expensive new kit is the new "must have" of the army.

I was balanced to come back...

I agree - it's nice to have the update, and there are a few new toys, but it's hardly a 'revamp' like Necrons and DE got - just a quick update. The units and playstyle have hardly changed.

I felt the same way about the Daemons book, though the Chaos one had a little more content to it.

Maybe this is upshot of an accellerated release schedule? After years of customers moaning about long codex cycles, GW finally start trying to update all the armies to 6ed, and this is what you get when you only spend a month or two on each one...

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I agree - it's nice to have the update, and there are a few new toys, but it's hardly a 'revamp' like Necrons and DE got - just a quick update. The units and playstyle have hardly changed.

Then it's pretty much the same as the previous codex as well which was just a revamp. I do think they added alot of functionality to existing underused (and more important to them under-bought) units like sniper drone squads but they missed alot of obvious fan service possibilities. I'd expect each tau codex to include a single new "ally" race (1st one got kroot, second one got vespid, third one gets... nothing) but I suspect the game-wide ally rules put a stop to that. I also really expected crisis and stealth suits to go bs4 standard but that didn't happen either unfortunately which makes no sense. I understand that there are ways around that with markerlights but that's not the point. A veteran warrior with years of front line service in an advanced suit of flying power armor with a multitude of tech and optics should be able to shoot better than a guardsman with one battle under his belt and an iron sight on his lasgun. If marines suddenly went bs3 but every sergeant got a targeting wargear option that increased them back to 4, I'd expect marine players to wonder wtf GW was thinking as well. Sadly, IA3: Taros added the most to the tau since the original codex than any other official publication. I'd hoped that the tetra (like the valkyrie) would have switched from resin to plastic in a possible FW to GW transition but that didn't happen either.

Waiting for a billygoat?

But anyway....

The codex is solid, just as the other books for 6th are.

Gone are the days of overpowered crap books (I know, I played some and against some).

The new tau book, while not incorporating a lot of changes some actual tau players would have wanted, did hit the main target - options.

There are many viable lists, builds and alternatives in there.
Even with few (compared to some other books) choices in several slots, almost all of them feel crowded.

So, mr troll, I mean...who ever else reads this; its a solid book, with tons of options - for creative players. Enjoy.

davethepak wrote:


The new tau book, while not incorporating a lot of changes some actual tau players would have wanted, did hit the main target - options.

What are the new troops options?

BS4 crisis suits would have been incredibly over-powered with the weapons access and marker lights. Crisis suits as troops would also wind up being a bit ridiculous. Tau got what they needed, many units were buffed up, others were knocked down a bit and the rest got tweaked.

TBH I saw the broadside change writing on the wall...why did a crisis suit sized unit have the same gun as the tau's main battle tank? As it is now it marks far more sense: S6 AP1 on infantry rail guns, S8 AP1 heavy rail guns for broadsides (Now with missle option of doom) and S10 ap1 shot for the hammerhead.

I read the book and finally see an army codex designed to have the army work in game like it does in the fluff...as a true combined arms force where every unit has it's role and works together with other units in support (literally thanks to support fire) it's a finesse army now more so then ever and no longer a point and click all the armor's dead on turn 1 army. Now it'll at least take 2 turns.


BTW......bitching about not being able to kill land raiders easily is dumb....how many AV 14 vehicles do you REALLY see taken anymore ? 1 per list tops 9/10 and Russ's are easy for tau to get side armor on.

Orktavius wrote:
BS4 crisis suits would have been incredibly over-powered with the weapons access and marker lights. Crisis suits as troops would also wind up being a bit ridiculous. Tau got what they needed, many units were buffed up, others were knocked down a bit and the rest got tweaked.

It wouldn't have been overpowered if they included that benefit in the cost instead of giving it a reduction instead. Functionally, crisis suits ARE bs4 or 5 because every tau player I've seen devotes their markerlights to suit squads targets so simply saying that they'd be OP is incorrect. Also, did you have a hard time over the past 10 years fighting bs4 suits? They had the option to go to bs4 for the past 10 years and frankly I didn't hear any complaints about that issue in all of my games... if anything, it was getting them to BS5 and negating cover saves which caused the most frequent eye rolling and that was mainly directed at broadsides (and not crisis suits). That is actually increased with the proliferation of markerlights. Leaving in the Targetting array or making them standard bs4 (instead of "free" multitrackers) would have been a great and more sensible choice IMO. The only difference is making them bs4 does sell additional models like markerlight spam does.

Hi All,

1st - maybe this belonged in general discussion... The book isn't officially out in China yet so i wasn't sure if it should go here or there....sorry

2nd

...

In regards to some points, e.g. the broadsides and tweaking... I think the general disappointing aspects are:

- Points didn't really change much for crisis suits and broadsides - which is really the main fire power of the army - and maybe dropping the str to 8 made sense.

- there are really no good troops choices, which are supposed to be the core of the army. Most lists i have seen in the past and expect to see in the future are going to be minimum fire warrior squads in devil fish to protect them but otherwise not used and some kroot to fill out the selection for missions. In pretty much every other army there are actual Troop Choices that are very good and add to an army, not just a point sink that takes away from things that actually do the killing.

- the models for the flyers... um.... really not sure why they didn't just make a plastic barracuda and design something that didn't look so horrible for the bomber.

- recent armies - e.g. grey knights, dark angels, chaos - do have options to really make the army interesting, e.g. grey knights have paladin lists or purifiers, DA have deathwing, chaos can take chosen as troops, etc. There was an expectation of being able to take crisis suits as troops, which do make sense for a rapid insertion force, have dwarves as allies, or even a kroot HQ (maybe it doesn't fit the greater good); even making pathfinder troops would have been an option to give some flavor to it .

- so, overall, i guess my main complaint is that the troops section is just so uninteresting. Marine tactical squads are good, necron warriors/ immortals are good.

In anycase...I don't mean to just complain, i just would have expected more changes after SOOOO Many years of not having an updated codex.

But there are some good things

On the bright side, the new Codex has saved me a lot of money. I really don' t have to buy any new models - at most just one Riptide and maybe a new commander.

... and the firing options for things like Ion guns, etc is interesting.

Anyway, as it states in the title, the book was just underwhelming and the changes made seem like they could have just been done with an Errata or a White Dwarf article vs. a new book. Then again, once the codex has been out for a while maybe the initial opinion will change. I guess time will tell

Quite summery of your errors:

Commander-no limit to siganture systems, you take up to 4 weapon/support and then as many signature as you want on top of that. and its UP TO 4 systems, you don't have to.

Crisis suits-3 points decreased, guns cost 1-2 points more, except plasma that dropped by 5 (TL dropped by 10), and built in BSF and MT. pretty much every of the old codex's common suit setups can be used either for a little cheaper or at the same cost but with more things on the suit, so in fact, except a few setups that were bad anyway, they all became better.

Fire Warriors- not just 1 point price reduction, alongside with free photon grenades, EMP who cost less and crack open any tank with ease, and the very important support fire. they are much better.

Broadside-so, the problem is that...they are no longer OP? old boradsides dumbed down my game and made enemy tanks irrelevant unless he literally had more tanks then I had broadsides, at least now I have to spend a moment's thought on handling tanks in list-building instead of "shove broadsides" on other hands, they turned much cheaper then you would think. beyond the 5 point reduction, the free BSF means you need no TL for one, and th free MT plus the improved SMS gives him a lot more power to secondary gun, making him less of an AT, and more of an "all-purpose-heavy-guns"

Skyfire upgrade-you praised it multiple times, NO. that upgrade is BAD and its a freaking TRAP. it costs 25-50% of the model using it most of the time! nothing other then hammerhead or riptide should even consider it, everything else can manage with having alot of TL firepower.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I agree - it's nice to have the update, and there are a few new toys, but it's hardly a 'revamp' like Necrons and DE got - just a quick update. The units and playstyle have hardly changed.

That would be because it didn't need the revamp Dark Eldar and Necrons got.

Dark Eldar and Necrons were still sitting on 3rd edition codices with 3rd edition models - all of them. Those books needed the complete revamps they got.

I just read through the book tonight, my opinion... unfinished.

The book has a lot of option, it has character, unfortunately it feels like it was put out before everything was assembled correctly.

A few things that make me go why. Why are vehicles now only things that can launch seeker missiles? Were seekers launched using marker lights from squad units too powerfull?
Ok, so they knocked down the Broadside railgun, I get that, but the one piece of equipment that might have made it all better, all seem ok (the chip thing that can give tankhunter) cannot be taken on a broadside. Why would you not do this? That one little thing probably would have saved so much knashing of teeth.
D-fish still as expensive as before with nothing to show for it, including a lack of shooting utility. Why? I know they didn't want to repeat the pricing mistake of the Chimera, but still 20 points too expensive base.
Skyray still competing with hammerheads and maintaining limited ammo. Sad really.
The day one Faq of removing missile drones. Really? Suddenly 14-20 BS2 missile drones are breaking the codex? It was obvious from reading that they were never going to get higher than BS2 (without marker help), and you couldn't get a bunch of them in one spot. Why do this? I makes me wonder what Ork Lootas are going to look like next.

Now there are some good things. Quite a few actually.

The utility of the Riptide is awesome, so much potential, so much awesome firepower.
I love the idea of 3 infilitrating Kroot Ox per kroot unit. Nothing like getting side armor shots with a S7 rapid fire gun.
48" sniper gun drones and you can now take 27 of the buggers if you really want. Yes please, thank you.
emp=haywire yes please.
Shadowsun as an Independant Character. Thank you, she rocks.
Special weapons that actually hurt in Pathfinder squads. AP1 on all rail type weapons is pretty nice. Not to mention the removal of the dedicated D-fish.

As one who has been playing Tau since the beginning in 3rd edition, what has saddened me the most is that this codex just seems lacking in the "OMG OMG OMG OMG, I just just got to try that" category. There is not a single unit that has given me the giggle fits as I think about the havok it could potentially inflict against the enemy.

 Jayden63 wrote:

The day one Faq of removing missile drones. Really? Suddenly 14-20 BS2 missile drones are breaking the codex? It was obvious from reading that they were never going to get higher than BS2 (without marker help), and you couldn't get a bunch of them in one spot. Why do this? I makes me wonder what Ork Lootas are going to look like next.

No, but 30+ do, and it was doable. just spam minimum size squads with missile drones.

Besides, considering missile drones come ONLY with the broadside, it seem they were never intended to be anywhere else.

Sounds like every hardcover release. Just relax, they seem to be rebalancing the game. CSM did not change much at all aside from a few nerfbats and a few new playthings.

In my opinion, just relax. They seem to be getting close to actual balance in all the 6th edition codexes, somethings sliped through the cracks like the Heldrake and Riptide, but majority of the new books are balanced. People are just too used to the new release being horribly OP. Sure, the Tau release was a bit underwhelming in comparison to the revamp other armies got, but it's still a good book.

The Broadside Railgun nerf was a balance choice, and the Hammerhead still has the Str10 AP1 railgun.The Riptide is pretty much the only worthwhile elite choice, even normal suits kinda get overshadowed by it. It's just too good to be true sometimes, but it's still just a suit. Depends on play. Troops, FW did get better. They got free grenades, and the supporting fire special rule. It's not a lot, but it's something. Kroot even got expanded upon.

 Jayden63 wrote:
I just read through the book tonight, my opinion... unfinished.

The book has a lot of option, it has character, unfortunately it feels like it was put out before everything was assembled correctly.

A few things that make me go why. Why are vehicles now only things that can launch seeker missiles? Were seekers launched using marker lights from squad units too powerfull?
Ok, so they knocked down the Broadside railgun, I get that, but the one piece of equipment that might have made it all better, all seem ok (the chip thing that can give tankhunter) cannot be taken on a broadside. Why would you not do this? That one little thing probably would have saved so much knashing of teeth.
D-fish still as expensive as before with nothing to show for it, including a lack of shooting utility. Why? I know they didn't want to repeat the pricing mistake of the Chimera, but still 20 points too expensive base.
Skyray still competing with hammerheads and maintaining limited ammo. Sad really.
The day one Faq of removing missile drones. Really? Suddenly 14-20 BS2 missile drones are breaking the codex? It was obvious from reading that they were never going to get higher than BS2 (without marker help), and you couldn't get a bunch of them in one spot. Why do this? I makes me wonder what Ork Lootas are going to look like next.

Now there are some good things. Quite a few actually.

The utility of the Riptide is awesome, so much potential, so much awesome firepower.
I love the idea of 3 infilitrating Kroot Ox per kroot unit. Nothing like getting side armor shots with a S7 rapid fire gun.
48" sniper gun drones and you can now take 27 of the buggers if you really want. Yes please, thank you.
emp=haywire yes please.
Shadowsun as an Independant Character. Thank you, she rocks.
Special weapons that actually hurt in Pathfinder squads. AP1 on all rail type weapons is pretty nice. Not to mention the removal of the dedicated D-fish.

As one who has been playing Tau since the beginning in 3rd edition, what has saddened me the most is that this codex just seems lacking in the "OMG OMG OMG OMG, I just just got to try that" category. There is not a single unit that has given me the giggle fits as I think about the havok it could potentially inflict against the enemy.

did you read the markerlight rules?

remove a token to fire a seeker missile at it that doesnt count towards weapons used.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Quite summery of your errors:

Commander-no limit to siganture systems, you take up to 4 weapon/support and then as many signature as you want on top of that. and its UP TO 4 systems, you don't have to.

Crisis suits-3 points decreased, guns cost 1-2 points more, except plasma that dropped by 5 (TL dropped by 10), and built in BSF and MT. pretty much every of the old codex's common suit setups can be used either for a little cheaper or at the same cost but with more things on the suit, so in fact, except a few setups that were bad anyway, they all became better.

Fire Warriors- not just 1 point price reduction, alongside with free photon grenades, EMP who cost less and crack open any tank with ease, and the very important support fire. they are much better.

Broadside-so, the problem is that...they are no longer OP? old boradsides dumbed down my game and made enemy tanks irrelevant unless he literally had more tanks then I had broadsides, at least now I have to spend a moment's thought on handling tanks in list-building instead of "shove broadsides" on other hands, they turned much cheaper then you would think. beyond the 5 point reduction, the free BSF means you need no TL for one, and th free MT plus the improved SMS gives him a lot more power to secondary gun, making him less of an AT, and more of an "all-purpose-heavy-guns"

Skyfire upgrade-you praised it multiple times, NO. that upgrade is BAD and its a freaking TRAP. it costs 25-50% of the model using it most of the time! nothing other then hammerhead or riptide should even consider it, everything else can manage with having alot of TL firepower.

skyfire should NOT be taken on the riptide, it should be taken on misslesides so you can spam the hell out of the flyer with 12 str 7 shots.... and the SMS if your can hit lower armor units why would you put it on something that gets ONE shot?

Orktavius wrote:
Crisis suits as troops would also wind up being a bit ridiculous

Almost as ridiculous as being able to take terminators as troops.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:


did you read the markerlight rules?

remove a token to fire a seeker missile at it that doesnt count towards weapons used.....

Have you? The vehicle fires the missile in every case. The missile can only come from a vehicle that has yet to fire (in which case when the vehicle fires it must fire at the same target that the previous missile went to) or from a vehicle that previously fired at the same unit. There is nothing that allows the missile to target a different unit than the tank regardless of who called down the shot. Just because the missile doesn't count towards the number it can fire at full BS does nothing to change the vehicles targeting rules.

Its very poorly worded, but this now seems to be the case.

 Ahtman wrote:

Orktavius wrote:
Crisis suits as troops would also wind up being a bit ridiculous

Almost as ridiculous as being able to take terminators as troops.

Or Paladins..
But in all seriousness i think the Codex is pretty balanced. Crisis/Stealths as troops would have been nice but it would have involved a heavy points tax/other army restrictions to balance it out.
250pt+ commander or a limit on other units you can take.

I personally think this army has a lot more variety. More ways to take marker lights, Crisis are no longer the beginning and end of the elite units, I personally think the broadsides are an overall improvement to balance (can any tau players deep down say that they didn't think 3 man split firing unit, twin linked, S10/AP1 guns on a 2+sv model with 2W, can take multiple shield drones and plasma guns to boot wasn't op? And up to 9 of these could be taken...)

The subtle differences in this codex will shine through in the next few months as commanders work out new battle plans,strategies, new suit combinations and get the hang of using fire warriors to their new full potential (which i think is much better than before).

Prime example, (i don't have the codex in front of me for exact names) is the ability to stop the enemy using LOS and getting precision shots on a 5/6 for characters (i think its called advanced targeting). Little changes like this (and there are many more) will make a huge differences when people figure out how to fit them into their battle plans.

If they had changed how the army worked, tau players would have complained. So they didn't, they reduced the point's cost's, only a little bit, but it's almost across the board. They added new unit's. They added a ton of skyfire, the thing everyone has been begging their updates bring them. They improved drones, reduced the complexity of the markerlight system so it can mesh much easier with the army, and gave kroot at least one use (Sniper-kroot to take out monstrous creatures, or high toughness models, while still being cheap and scoring)

Long story short, no matter what they did to this book, people would complain.

People can't seem to get out of the mindset that if the book isn't better than the last one, it must be terribad.

 Jayden63 wrote:

 ausYenLoWang wrote:


did you read the markerlight rules?

remove a token to fire a seeker missile at it that doesnt count towards weapons used.....

Have you? The vehicle fires the missile in every case. The missile can only come from a vehicle that has yet to fire (in which case when the vehicle fires it must fire at the same target that the previous missile went to) or from a vehicle that previously fired at the same unit. There is nothing that allows the missile to target a different unit than the tank regardless of who called down the shot. Just because the missile doesn't count towards the number it can fire at full BS does nothing to change the vehicles targeting rules.

Its very poorly worded, but this now seems to be the case.

so that you can take the missiles on suits as well? and give your broadsides an additional ignores cover BS5 shot? doesnt count towards the number of weapons the unit can fire etc. so its just like a HK missile on predators etc etc but with better BS doesnt require LOS or anything else and costs less... id say its a bit of a bargain really..

I haven't read the Tau book yet (I don't actually play them) but from what I have read online it does seem fairly balanced.

Sure, there a few nerfs here and there, but that was expected and in the case of the broadsides, needed imo.

I am both nervous and excited for the Eldar codex, as going by the trend I expect my fire dragons to take a bit of a hit.

 Messy0 wrote:

Or Paladins.. But in all seriousness i think the Codex is pretty balanced. Crisis/Stealths as troops would have been nice but it would have involved a heavy points tax/other army restrictions to balance it out. 250pt+ commander or a limit on other units you can take.

I personally think this army has a lot more variety. More ways to take marker lights, Crisis are no longer the beginning and end of the elite units, I personally think the broadsides are an overall improvement to balance (can any tau players deep down say that they didn't think 3 split firing, twin linked, S10/AP1 guns on a 2+sv model with 2W, can take multiple shield drones and plasma guns to boot wasn't op?)

The subtle differences in this codex will shine through in the next few months as commanders work out new battle plans,strategies, new suit combinations and get the hang of using fire warriors to their new full potential (which i think is much better than before).

Prime example, (i don't have the codex in front of me for exact names) is the ability to stop the enemy using LOS and getting precision shots on a 5/6 for characters (i think its called advanced targeting). Little changes like this (and there are many more) will make a huge differences when people figure out how to fit them into their battle plans.

I won't comment too much on balance as I'll at the earliest have my first game with them this upcoming weekend but I agree that it added variety (outside of troops slots) to the tau armies people will field and that is a plus. Sniper drone squads, farsight, and ethereals went from relatively useless for the former to almost a hindrance for the later two. Broadsides took a nerf for sure but I understand the reasoning behind making their guns different from the visually much larger hammerhead version besides just a simple bullet swap. Hammerheads, Skyrays, and pirahnas stayed about the same whereas pathfinders, crisis suits, and firewarriors got marginally better. My issue is with the IMO lack of vision, common sense, and a continuation of the previous Tau themes. I've already stated why fluffwise BS3 crisis suits make no sense so I won't restate the reasons for that. Game wide ally rules seem to have replaced the "niche" that tau had in using different looking and playing units as in codex allies like kroot and vespid and this is the first tau codex to NOT introduce a new ally race (a change largely expected). New mechanics like the often rumored line attack for the railguns would have been a great addition and a breath of fresh air for the codex (in case people missed it, the fluff of the rail gun being a super penetrating round was rumored to be reflected in the rules in that the railgun was a long line attack like JOTWW that continued to roll to hit/wound/penetrate successive targets as long as the previous one was wounded/penetrated, with a worsening of strength and AP for each target after the first). Instead, we get a goofy looking gundam that is basically just a gets hot shooty monstrous creature and a ho hum two pack of fliers with no new mechanics for the only new race/army in 40k.

Like I said, I won't pronounce final judgement until I actually get a few games in (and that should be a while due to my relative dislike of 6th edition) but this codex feels like an iterative but instensely "safe" successor to the previous one that is moderately better at the expense of imagination. It feels like a relatively uninspired 3rd edition codex.

After flipping through it, it feels like Tau regained their soul in this codex. I would be starting a Tau army if I hadn't just acquired a SoB army.

Downside to the book? Not a ton of new toys for the Tau players of old. Upside to the book? A lot of new players are excited about a XENOS race; so much so that the launch sold out!

Normally I would wait and see about a codex before buying it at the new $50 price point. Given that the last handful have been solidly balanced without "face rolling win buttons of success" (Like my Long Fangs, Wraiths w/ Destroyer Lord, Av13 Walls w/ Jink saves...), I bought the Tau dex as my first 6E codex.

And I think it's incredibly solid. And that's not a slam, that's where the game is going. Incredibly solid codecis that make the game more interesting and balanced. While my Crons and SoB won't see an update to "level" them out, I'll be looking forward to plopping down my Space Wolves without the eye rolling I almost always get at my FLGS.

Yes, Firewarriors aren't Grey Hunters. But if you play a Tau army correct, you're going to be a slimy little doucher that will never get in combat or overwhelm the enemy with wall of pulse shots.

I guess don't look for netlists. Look for a unit composition and play towards that. I am very excited that rulebooks now have me thinking about taking 1 of each in an elite slot for synergy versus "THREE OF X BECAUSE BROKEN, LULZ!"

I like the new Tau dex. See you all later this year to join the "Greater Good".

Edit: Full Disclosure, I plan on using Master Grade Gundam kits for my Riptides. Yep, I'm that guy.

Yes a unit that can fire off 36 missles that's pretty underwhelming. Attaching a Commander to allow them ignore cover while soaking up shots into his 2+ t5 fnp self. Totally underwhelming.

Someone mentioned a squad that makes you giggle well 36 tl shots at str5 or str7 that ignore cover make me giggle. Anything not av14 will die to that even th/ss terminators will take casualties from that squad.

Totally underwhelming.