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The in my opinion minor boosts one can bring to your army seems neglegable when you weigh in the fact that he gives the opponent an extra victory point upon death. I cant think of another commander in any army with an extra victory point drawback. Have you had success with them to the point it was worth the risk? How did you field them? Mabye attached to a riptide hideing out of LOS?

Have you ever had to make a moral check with your firewarriors? If so, you now know why people take them. By and far the most casualties I have had were from firewarriors falling off the board, brought on by their terrible leadership, and the fact its better to buy them im numbers than to pay for a squad leader. The Ethereal is a moral booster first, and a force multiplier second. If you stick him in a hedge of firewarriors he will destroy your enemies with a weight of fire. I personally like to load him up with 3-4 mech tau and drop them off on the enemies doorstep with massed triple shots at close range. The boost to leadership is worth that VP in my mind. Plus you can get extra shots, which is super sexy. Plus you can snap shot when you run, giving you some much needed mobility when you need to sprint to an objective but still need firepower.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
Have you ever had to make a moral check with your firewarriors? If so, you now know why people take them. By and far the most casualties I have had were from firewarriors falling off the board, brought on by their terrible leadership, and the fact its better to buy them im numbers than to pay for a squad leader. The Ethereal is a moral booster first, and a force multiplier second. If you stick him in a hedge of firewarriors he will destroy your enemies with a weight of fire. I personally like to load him up with 3-4 mech tau and drop them off on the enemies doorstep with massed triple shots at close range. The boost to leadership is worth that VP in my mind. Plus you can get extra shots, which is super sexy. Plus you can snap shot when you run, giving you some much needed mobility when you need to sprint to an objective but still need firepower.

This ^^.

He's definitely worth taking if you've loaded up with lots of Fire Warriors, for both the leadership buff and force multiplying as mentioned. If you've taken quite a few Kroot, or have simply gone for minimal Troops and lumped the bulk of your points elsewhere (which CAN be a bad thing in objective games), then he's probably not worth the risk.

The points above, also, he is so cheap.

A force multiplying HQ choice with quite a few buffs for so few points is a steal.

Eh, maybe I have never felt the need for one because I am a notoriously bad roller, and rarely if ever fail my morale. Were talking making snake eyes when needed. Of course when you think about the 30 fire warriors I have shooting and I get 5 hits, it dosent seem like such a good thing.

I have heard chessex dice are like that though, due to not being as balanced as vegas style dice. But they are so huge.

Eh, maybe I have never felt the need for one because I am a notoriously bad roller,

If this is true, then surely the problem is not what to pick for a tau army, but rather: What game can I play that doesn't use dice?

On a more serious note, whilst the extra VP he gives away can hurt, the buffs he provides are great for the cost, and his USR can get more shots for firewarriors. More shots means more hits, even with bad dice lol.

He actually isn't that bad for a Krootblob. Sure he costs more then a Shaper but he has a better leadership score and can confer his invocation abilities also. I usually outflank my kroot so losing the ability to infiltrate isn't that big a deal to me.

Bjorn the fellhanded is worth d3 victory points if killed and not claimed by space wolves forces at the end of the game

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:
Have you ever had to make a moral check with your firewarriors? If so, you now know why people take them. By and far the most casualties I have had were from firewarriors falling off the board, brought on by their terrible leadership, and the fact its better to buy them im numbers than to pay for a squad leader. The Ethereal is a moral booster first, and a force multiplier second. If you stick him in a hedge of firewarriors he will destroy your enemies with a weight of fire. I personally like to load him up with 3-4 mech tau and drop them off on the enemies doorstep with massed triple shots at close range. The boost to leadership is worth that VP in my mind. Plus you can get extra shots, which is super sexy. Plus you can snap shot when you run, giving you some much needed mobility when you need to sprint to an objective but still need firepower.

This ^^.

This times a dozen.

I played a Tau castle led by an Ethereal last week, if it wasn't for his leadership bubble, I would likely have gutted the army by turn 2, as he rolled a 9 and 10 for LD checks on his two big FW blobs. As it stood, they stayed firm and I lost 5-3 on VPs.

The extra shots were vicious too, as I was playing BA and had no option to stand off and needed to close.

If you're interested in playing and winning at a high level, you will run an etherial. The pulse bomb/kroot carpet lists are the ones winning and placing at tournaments right now. And every one of them runs at least one Etherial. Triple tap plus stubborn alone is worth it, but the extra abilities all have their place. He's arguably the best hq in the entire game, and the corner stone of competitive tau

PROS
1) Super cheap HQ option
2) LD bubble of 10 in 12'' range.
3) 6+ FNP, Extra shot at half range for pulse, Stubborn, or Fire snap shots after running. on a 12'' bubble.
4) Can put homing beacon on him. (meh)
5) Can narrow down the Tau Warlord traits because of trait requirments (Battlesuit, Ranged Weapons) *Thanks Iur_tae_mont. Forgot about that.

CONS
1) No armor save at all.
2) Worth 2 VP.
3) Does not have a ranged weapon. No melee weapon unless you buy one for him. (shouldn't be in CC anyway)

I have one list i want to try where i outflank (farsight enclave) a commander, an ethereal and a full sniper drone squad. The sniper drones are pulse weapons (48'' range), so his invocation should work on it. I also gave the ethereal a homing beacon so i can land support suits (two riptides ) in that area with a 100% land efficiency. Basically, the idea is to create my own, on the move, firing line out of no where.

The Ethereal will always get a useful Warlord trait too. I run a Cadre Fireblade and an Ethereal in my Tau lists. They are just worth it in fire warrior gunlines.

If anything is broken in the Tau book, its the ethereal.

He's ridiculously cheap and provides absolutely amazing power to any tau force.

I normally use him to babysit my broadsides to make sure they do not run. Especially if you're using drones as wound soaks, you NEED an ethereal to protect your squads from the inevitable moral checks.

Second, the FNP is silly, but hell, its one more dice to roll to protect your guys. Do not underestimate it. The more dice your opponent has to go through to do something, the better.

Third, the run and shoot thing is often overlooked, but when used correctly, can absolutely horrify your opponent. A few markerlights on a squad your opponent 'thinks' is out of range of your broadsides can suddenly turn into a hilariously dead unit as your broadsides run forward, and consume the markerlights, and unload on the squad.

I seriously don't leave home without my space pope.

The ethereal is NOT a good choice for an HQ, anyone that argues otherwise has lost sight of winning the game.

The extra VP outweighs everything else by so much it's not even close.

I implore other Tau players to try it in the hopes of me facing one of them.

Just make sure your fire warriors aren't close to your board edge and you're fine. 7 is the average roll on two dice. You'll get there.

Aijec wrote:
The ethereal is NOT a good choice for an HQ, anyone that argues otherwise has lost sight of winning the game.

The extra VP outweighs everything else by so much it's not even close.

I implore other Tau players to try it in the hopes of me facing one of them.

Just make sure your fire warriors aren't close to your board edge and you're fine. 7 is the average roll on two dice. You'll get there.

Hard to tell if this post is meant to be ironic or not.

Moral checks and storm of fire.

I took an ethereal in the last edition book. For moral reasons.

Properly protected, for a tiny points value, he's a great force multipler. A good player will make the most of him, a bad player will cry about not having a battlesuit.

My favorite trick is an ethereal with 11 FW in a fish with pods. It just goes flat out around and gives all nearby FW and kroot more shots at half range. 3+ cover save (2+ from ruins if lucky) makes it a pain to kill.

Aijec wrote:
The ethereal is NOT a good choice for an HQ, anyone that argues otherwise has lost sight of winning the game.

The extra VP outweighs everything else by so much it's not even close.

I implore other Tau players to try it in the hopes of me facing one of them.

Just make sure your fire warriors aren't close to your board edge and you're fine. 7 is the average roll on two dice. You'll get there.

Realizing there is a good chance this is a troll response...

But tournament results strongly disagree with this.

Winning list at Killadelphia (two Ethereal):
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/513415.page

Same player won ETC singles with one Ethereal
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/544703.page

Pretty sure top Tau player ATC was running one (lists won't load, he was third overall)
I know the 21st and 26th ranked overall players were running them, as I played both (went 1-1)

And so on and so forth. With my non scientific analsyis, a good majority of Tau lists that are placing at high level tournies run an Etherial and a TON of Fire Warriors and/or Kroot. I know it's the Tau build that scares my Deamons the most (to the point where I wrote 3k words on how to deal with it, here: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2013/08/16/guest-editorial-by-anonymou5-fateweaver-versus-the-world-or-a-way-to-fight-tau-a-tournament-vignette/)

Aijec wrote:
The ethereal is NOT a good choice for an HQ, anyone that argues otherwise has lost sight of winning the game.

The extra VP outweighs everything else by so much it's not even close.

I implore other Tau players to try it in the hopes of me facing one of them.

Just make sure your fire warriors aren't close to your board edge and you're fine. 7 is the average roll on two dice. You'll get there.

Boo this man! Way to give some of the worst advice, i've EVER seen on this board. I'd wager that I have a good deal more experience using Ethereals and I can say that they are far from a liability. In fact, with proper list construction you can very easily protect him. Keep in mind that you can attach ICs to Riptides. A 2 man unit consisting of a MC and IC with LOS makes a fairly unattractive target for most of the weapons that would generally scare the ethereal (barrage). Otherwise you can stick him in large squads of Kroot and place him so that if someone were to place a blast marker over him, it would result in an unfavorable amount of hits, or scatter directions. Also, against most weapons he can still GTG, which in area offers a 3+. The chances of failing a 2+ LoS and a 3+ cover aren't terribly high. The benefits far outweigh the negatives. LD10 and the special rules are great. The run + shoot rule he can invoke is incredible and people rarely take the time to consider it, resulting in surprises for opponents.

The question is not when you SHOULD take an ethereal, it is when not to take one.

As stated above in many good responses(sans the troll) ethereals are awesome. However, their awesome abilities do not translate well to certain tau builds and strategies. Some examples of where an ethereal may not be your best HQ choice are

-Your running minimum fire warriors/troops. This includes 6 man squads in fish, farsight using crisis suits as troops, or allying tau to another army.

-Your list is very mobile and battlesuit heavy, such as farsight bombs, triple riptide, mech...

-You are employing a specific strategy that requires 2 non ethereal HQs.

In all of these circumstances, you can get a suit commander or fireblade, which are also strong choices.

I just don't understand why he has options for melee weapons. You'll never take them. He isn't a very good melee unit to begin with and doesn't belong in melee. It would have be nice for him to have something cool to use. : \

AnonAmbientLight wrote:
I just don't understand why he has options for melee weapons. You'll never take them. He isn't a very good melee unit to begin with and doesn't belong in melee. It would have be nice for him to have something cool to use. : \

Becuase metal models had them last codex. I still run an ethereal with Honor blade because it's metal, and I have had him take down a destroyer lord in melee with it. It was supposed to be a suicide ethereal but he kept killing things.

if you have any level of FW numbers worth mentioning (usually i just have minimum since a lot of FW tend to make me go castle tau, and i hate that) then the Ethereal is pretty much a must-take. Those 2-3 groups of 10-12 FW will run away the instant theyre shot at unless the ethereal is hanging around.

That being said ive only fielded him twice lol. Just because i rarely ever have more than 20 FW, and i usually have that many because i have ~50pts lying around i have no open slots to use on, and my Pathfinders are already bulked up.

Dont forget his Zephyr's Grace buff actually lets your FW get somewhere and still do something. 30" is better infantry range than other armies, but its still only 30" and tau fall over quick if theyre in the open. Running then snapping may sound bad but usually it lets you get back into cover, and honestly you usually are at the end of the 30" range after you run anyway.
Yes it sounds crazy, tau wanting to move closer to the enemy. But unless youre against a heavy assaulty army (some CSM lists, nids, orks, or space wolves for instance) your opponent will just hide outside FW range, which isnt that hard to do. Get up to the middle of the board, now he has to deal with the big FW blob

Although they are awesome, I can't bring myself to use them.
Ethereal are not soldiers and do not belong in battle.


Avoid them if you want a rational force, but if you just Wonna win.. ..

 BoomWolf wrote:
Although they are awesome, I can't bring myself to use them.
Ethereal are not soldiers and do not belong in battle.


Avoid them if you want a rational force, but if you just Wonna win.. ..

Ethereals are a fluffy choice as well as a good one. In the last book, people used to mock the Ethereal and say "Only use it in a Fluffy Army. Don't expect to win with it" Oh how a Decent set of Rules can change how people look at a model.

Guess my vision of an army differs from thiers then. In my fluff sight ethereal do not belong, and never did.

Won't deny it's got strong. But I just don't like them around...

I'm on the same page as boomwolf honestly! I just dont like ethereals, but, im also not a real big fan of pathfinders and find myself sporting a mark'o that has yet to do me wrong

That being said, they are good, and if you play anything thats even close to 'castle Tau'(or really just run a lot of FW) then i would say the abilities he grants absolutely outweigh the lost VP if he dies. And if your paying attention to your gun line then he is pretty unlikely to die. And if he does kill him, at that point you're probably worrying more about how to keep from being tabled

 BoomWolf wrote:
Guess my vision of an army differs from thiers then. In my fluff sight ethereal do not belong, and never did.

Won't deny it's got strong. But I just don't like them around...

It makes sense for them to be with a Tau army, but being on the battlefield was generally unheard of before the third sphere expansion. That trend was started by Aun'va and to a lesser extent, Aun'shi. The idea is that you can lead the army to greater victory if they can see their r̶n̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶o̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ leader fighting with, and pushing them to greater feats.

Is the army all about the suits or is the army heavy on fire warriors?

If the army is heavy with fire warriors than it seems noncompetitive to me to not take an ethereal.

I guess the real question is if throwing out fire warrior pulse rifle shots in quantities that make orks green with envy is competitive.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Is the army all about the suits or is the army heavy on fire warriors?

If the army is heavy with fire warriors than it seems noncompetitive to me to not take an ethereal.

I guess the real question is if throwing out fire warrior pulse rifle shots in quantities that make orks green with envy is competitive.

No the real question is "are suits competitive?" Pulse bomb is tournament proven, arguably the strongest build in the game.