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Preface:
Forgive me for wanting to pretend that white dwarf is still worth the twelve dollars I pay, but I was reading an article within it recently, called "Armchair General". The writer (Troke, I think. I don't remember off hand) was talking about his Dark Angels list, and spoke specifically about his Standard Bearers. In effect, he said that if his standard bearers were out on the field, the gloves were coming off and they wouldn't back down. With this in mind, I got to thinking, Tau may be an army that's all to ready to back down and engage another day, but what happens when that's no longer an option? Each Hunter Cadre is capable of surviving on its own (I believe it must be able to, since they're each independent armies.) and so they must have all the necessary military command structures and traditions to be an army in their own right. I imagined a standard for each Cadre, nothing complicated, just a Tau, Ethereal or Fire Caste symbol on a piece of cloth on a long pole. With the standard, would be a particularly honoured Fire Warrior (and by fire warrior I mean a foot soldier. I don't imagine battlesuits carrying a highly valued banner into the thick of combat.) I've made this character to be a bit of a catch-22. He's cheaper than an ethereal, but he's still a potential victory point liability. The other issue is that he takes up an Elites Slot. To me, this is a huge issue, because it means that I'm potentially missing out on one of the most valuable slots in the army. I recognise that other armies make more use of their Heavy support slot, but I don't think this unit can be justifiably placed in Heavy support.

An Associated Model can be found Here.

Cadre Battlestandard Bearer
Elite: 35 points
Battlestandard Shas’vre: WS2 BS3 S3 T3 W2 I2 A3 Ld9 Sv4+ Type: IN(Ch)

Wargear:
Cadre Battlestandard
Combat Armour
Pulse Pistol

Cadre Battlestandard
The Cadre Battlestandard is a powerful symbol of the greater good to the Tau who fight under it. Without the presence of the Ethereal Caste, this is the closest they may come to remembering their collective Goal. As such, the Battlestandard is revered in the extreme.

Units from Codex: Tau Empire may use the banner bearer's leadership forl Morale, pinning and regroup tests while within 12” of the banner.

When the Cadre Battlestandard is killed (and does not activate his Iridium Bomb, see Below), do not remove the model – if you’re able to, remove the Battlestandard bearer, but not the banner itself. The Battlestandard has no effect on the Tau Player anymore, but is a victory point for his opponent.

Options:
May take 2 Drones from the Drones List

Special Rules:
Invocation of the Fire Warrior’s Spirit
Models with weapons from the PULSE category of weapons must shoot an extra time when shooting at a target within half of their range. This does not include Kroot Pulse Rounds or the Pulse Bomb. This power is not cumulative with that of the Cadre fireblade or ethereal.

Independent character, Supporting Fire

35 points for AoE re-rollable Leadership tests and an extra shot (I assume it's an extra shot, and not fire a second time as the rule currently says) on Pulse weapons (for someone, the rules don't say who) that also stacks with the Fireblade and a proper Ethereal's abilities? Without any real drawbacks?

And before you start, the VP thing isn't a drawback. If he dies in your back field, you leave the objective because you've got your whole army guarding it. If he dies close to the enemy you blow the objective up, and maybe someone nearby fails a leadership (I presume you mean Morale) check. Big whoop.

Chrysis, I appreciate your opinion. As I said, I haven't play tested these rules yet. Can you please take it down a notch? I'm not trying to cheat you, just make a cool looking tau character.

Do you know the ethereal's rules? This one can't give stubborn, FNP or snap shots on runs. He also doesn't lend LD10 to everything within

Also, to use the iridium bomb, you can potentially kill your own fire warriors. It hits as a large blast, so if you're in the front field, you may potentially lose an entire kill point as a result of the rule.

That said, I can see you're right. Rather than simply assaulting the ideas, what would you suggest to improve it? I don't want the price to be more than 45, or else you'd just take an ethereal (which is 50.)

I was fine up to the extra shot thing. If you want that he has to be a lot more expensive (unless you make it so that it is not cumulative with the Fireblade and Ethereal)

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Chrysis, I appreciate your opinion. As I said, I haven't play tested these rules yet. Can you please take it down a notch? I'm not trying to cheat you, just make a cool looking tau character.

Do you know the ethereal's rules? This one can't give stubborn, FNP or snap shots on runs. He also doesn't lend LD10 to everything within

Also, to use the iridium bomb, you can potentially kill your own fire warriors. It hits as a large blast, so if you're in the front field, you may potentially lose an entire kill point as a result of the rule.

That said, I can see you're right. Rather than simply assaulting the ideas, what would you suggest to improve it? I don't want the price to be more than 45, or else you'd just take an ethereal (which is 50.)

I do, and of them all the only one I see being extremely useful is Storm of Fire, the one you've duplicated. Stubborn doesn't do anything against shooting, and in CC you want your Firewarriors dead rather than sticking it out. A re-roll is going to be more useful than Stubborn, which is what he gives. Snap Shots after runs is potentially useful, but it's still only Snap Shots so without Twin Linked or high rate of fire it doesn't amount to much. The FNP is only a 6+, so again it doesn't actually save much.

And as written the Storm of Fire equivalent stacks with both the Fireblade and the Ethereal, so +3 shots at half range from S5 30" range weapons that are already firing 2 shots per model.

The Iridium Bomb is a Small blast in the rules you've posted, not Large. But even then, if they're in combat you want them dead and if they're getting shot at he has a 2+ Look out Sir! and you can spread out to 2" coherency. He isn't going to kill much (of your own models) of consequence.

He's not a watered down Ethereal, he's a focused Ethereal, excising all the bits of minimal use to concentrate on the things you want to do. He also has a free Markerlight, and who doesn't want more of those.

For improvements, I'd just scrap the whole thing and use your model as a stand in Ethereal. The Ethereal does everything you want your model to do, and more, without any of the baggage of inventing rules of dubious balance.

Chrysis wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Chrysis, I appreciate your opinion. As I said, I haven't play tested these rules yet. Can you please take it down a notch? I'm not trying to cheat you, just make a cool looking tau character.

Do you know the ethereal's rules? This one can't give stubborn, FNP or snap shots on runs. He also doesn't lend LD10 to everything within

Also, to use the iridium bomb, you can potentially kill your own fire warriors. It hits as a large blast, so if you're in the front field, you may potentially lose an entire kill point as a result of the rule.

That said, I can see you're right. Rather than simply assaulting the ideas, what would you suggest to improve it? I don't want the price to be more than 45, or else you'd just take an ethereal (which is 50.)

I do, and of them all the only one I see being extremely useful is Storm of Fire, the one you've duplicated. Stubborn doesn't do anything against shooting, and in CC you want your Firewarriors dead rather than sticking it out. A re-roll is going to be more useful than Stubborn, which is what he gives. Snap Shots after runs is potentially useful, but it's still only Snap Shots so without Twin Linked or high rate of fire it doesn't amount to much. The FNP is only a 6+, so again it doesn't actually save much.

And as written the Storm of Fire equivalent stacks with both the Fireblade and the Ethereal, so +3 shots at half range from S5 30" range weapons that are already firing 2 shots per model.

The Iridium Bomb is a Small blast in the rules you've posted, not Large. But even then, if they're in combat you want them dead and if they're getting shot at he has a 2+ Look out Sir! and you can spread out to 2" coherency. He isn't going to kill much (of your own models) of consequence.

He's not a watered down Ethereal, he's a focused Ethereal, excising all the bits of minimal use to concentrate on the things you want to do. He also has a free Markerlight, and who doesn't want more of those.

For improvements, I'd just scrap the whole thing and use your model as a stand in Ethereal. The Ethereal does everything you want your model to do, and more, without any of the baggage of inventing rules of dubious balance.

Then we can make it not cumulative with ethereals. Also, for +3 shots you're paying 145 points. For that you could get another fire warrior squad, surely? Even give it drones.

I disagree that the 6+ FNP isn't useful. It saves one in six models. You may want something to just die, but I actually see it as useful at long ranges when the 15" pulse rifle power isn't usable.

The ethereal gives Ld 10 and can then give stubborn on top of that. Would you prefer it to be that he gives his LD9?

You really need to stop being hostile to me, I'm not liking your tone at all.

My apologies for the hostile tone, but I saw this as symptomatic of one the terrible ways these proposed rules get written. Not the "Throw the USR section at it and see what sticks" style of some of the other threads, but something more insidious. The attempt to get something excellent at a low cost by adding drawbacks that aren't actually drawbacks. The same thing that made the Old Space Marine Codex with traits such a terribly balanced book. Who didn't take "No allies allowed" as the drawback in an edition with only two possible allies which you probably didn't want anyway? For that you could get all sorts of neat goodies without really paying for them.

Without a listed range for the Banners +shots ability it's very hard to work out just how well it works. Is it only for the unit the banner joins? Or is it for an AoE? If it's an AoE, then there'd be no reason not to take at least it and an Ethereal to get +2 shots for every unit in the AoE. Making them not stack would go a long way to making this unit reasonable, although I still don't really see the point of making a new unit over just saying "This guy is an Ethereal."

The Ethereal has his abilities balanced, at least in part, by his automatic giving up of a VP if he dies. No conditions. If he's dead, the enemy gets a VP. The Ethereal also doesn't have a Markerlight. The drawback you've given this banner bearer can be easily and completely negated. It's not a real drawback it's an illusion of one to justify a lower points costs, whether you intended it that way or not.

I absolutely believe you designed this with the best intentions, and that it was never the idea to design an over-powered character. And I absolutely came at this with the wrong tack in my opening post, so I apologise again.

And I appreciate the apology. Now, I haven't written anything about the range for the extra shot on the HQ.

It would be wickedly OP if it was just "any weapon from this category", but I don't want it to be a miniature cadre fireblade.

A 6" AOE would mean squads have to be really packed (a real danger against things like griffons and whirlwinds, although they're not taken too often.)

I've already disallowed the power from stacking with an ethereal,which makes sense. It's meant to be used when no ethereal is present.

I would take him out of the elites section and make him a one per army special character upgrade for Firewarriors (in the same way Telion is to scouts, Harker is to veterans etc) since that is the most logical location to put him in game anyway and the Elites section is somewhat crowded in the Tau dex anyway.

Make him then Character, but not independant.

Pricewise I havent seen enough of the Tau Dex to be able to asertain where he should sit, but it doesnt seem overly unreasonable as is.

 Melcavuk wrote:
I would take him out of the elites section and make him a one per army special character upgrade for Firewarriors (in the same way Telion is to scouts, Harker is to veterans etc) since that is the most logical location to put him in game anyway and the Elites section is somewhat crowded in the Tau dex anyway.

Make him then Character, but not independant.

Pricewise I havent seen enough of the Tau Dex to be able to asertain where he should sit, but it doesnt seem overly unreasonable as is.

I can see your point there.

My thinking behind making him elite was exactly that. He's meant to be an alternative to a Ethereal. To be slightly cheaper, the idea was he took up an elites slot - which, as you just pointed out, is highly valuable to Tau.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
He's meant to be an alternative to a Ethereal. To be slightly cheaper, the idea was he took up an elites slot - which, as you just pointed out, is highly valuable to Tau.

Except what you've made is not an alternative. He's cheaper and better than an Ethereal.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
He's meant to be an alternative to a Ethereal. To be slightly cheaper, the idea was he took up an elites slot - which, as you just pointed out, is highly valuable to Tau.

Except what you've made is not an alternative. He's cheaper and better than an Ethereal.

Is that better? I've made the VP rule reflect more closely on the ethereal