Anyone else not liking the new Tau codex?

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**FenixZero**

JSJ is great and is the definition of Tau strategy but really only available to a maximum of 9 models out of an entire force (barring Farsight and drones). Markerlights don't affect BS for the purposes of snapfire (though there is some debate on this issue apparently). Tau tanks can only move 6" and fire one gun. Sisters may not be a good comparison with a 3+ save and special weapon availability; I'm also not sure how useful the prayers are compared to the new ethereal auras but I think you can give your troops an invulnerable each turn or something....sorry, I've never faced sisters.

Markerlights now can improve Snap Fire, even during Overwatch.

**agnosto**

FenixZero wrote:
JSJ is great and is the definition of Tau strategy but really only available to a maximum of 9 models out of an entire force (barring Farsight and drones). Markerlights don't affect BS for the purposes of snapfire (though there is some debate on this issue apparently). Tau tanks can only move 6" and fire one gun. Sisters may not be a good comparison with a 3+ save and special weapon availability; I'm also not sure how useful the prayers are compared to the new ethereal auras but I think you can give your troops an invulnerable each turn or something....sorry, I've never faced sisters.

Markerlights now can improve Snap Fire, even during Overwatch.

Overwatch yes, snap fire? I don't know off hand because I don't have my codex with me; I'll take your word for it and check later and it's probably worded the same so I'm probably wrong on this one.

**ironhammer2194**

ironhammer2194 wrote:

Sounds like you should just collect eldar. Tau have always been a gun-line army. Every previous edition of tau has played like this. Eldar have the survivable and maneuverable transports. Tau just aren't suited toward mobility or close combat just like grey knights wouldn't make a good hoard army. However, if you are bent on a maneuverable tau army, use stealth suits and pathfinders to deploy farther up and crisis suits to deep strike. You then use the devilfish to move the fire warriors up and plant them on an objective. if you have a hammerhead and broadsides, your opponent will be too busy shooting at those to target your fire warriors.

Ok, I was wrong about Tau being a gun-line army. In all my past 12 years of gaming, I've only seen Tau played as a gunline but I guess I just don't have as diverse of a FLGS as I thought. Sorry for causing all the outrage.

**ZebioLizard2**

Sorry but that's complete rubbish. Particularly in 4th edition, Tau was usually Mech, because of skimmer rules. Tau gunlines are products of late 5th edition mindset when players had to squeeze out maximum firepower to stay competive against newer more powerful codices.

Then you havn't played third edition tau, which was a gunline army at the time, with the skimmer tau being because Skimmer Rules were so blatantly horrible, that Eldar was pretty much the [Insert Broken Codex] of its day due to it, along with Tau and it's "Fish of Fury".

It was quite simply several broken Skimmer Mechanics that made it mech, if they had at the time had normal mech rules, they certainly wouldn't have been a mech army at all.

**Phanixis**

The skimmer rules of the older editions may have helped encouraged the mechanized Tau playstyle, but they were far from necessary to run a solid mechanized force. Tau skimmer tanks were excellent, solid units in both 5th and 6th edition, with the vehicle multitracker going a long way to ensure their viability, and disruption pods providing additional protection. The only thing holding mechanized Tau back in the old codex was that devilfish were so expensive you could nearly double your troops presence by eliminating them from your list. It also never hurt to bring at least one squad of broadsides along as well.