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Ha! I hear you. A bottle of Lagavulin and a keyboard binge and I could hash a pretty solid rules draft. The hard part is play testing and refinement, which GW seems to notice is hard as well.

 Gamgee wrote:
Why....? We have tons of anti-infantry. Maybe it's smaller supplemental weapons sure but not the main missile battery which is clearly larger than a HYMP and the Rail cannon thing on top is likely going to be Str D.

My Guess:
340-390 Points GMC

2x Super Heavy Missile Pods Str 8 AP 3 4 Shots
1x Rail Pulse Gun STR D AP 1
Probably some sort of alternate Mode for it that lets it shoot twice.
2x Smart Missile System
2x Anti Armor Missiles Str9 AP 2 2Shots
1x Twin Linked Burst Canon can probably overwatch at BS2

Toughness 8 7 Wounds
Nova Reactor stuff

Drop the Smart Missile Systems and Burst Cannons and replace with the Vigilance Defence System seen on the KX139 Ta’unar Supremacy Armour.

Except the ta'unar is modeled with the system. One on each side.

The stormsurge is different. It doesn't have the emplacements for the vigilance. It's lacking a second busrt cannon. If it had the second burst canon you would likely be right.

Just because we can't see it in the pic doesn't mean its not there.

 Therion wrote:
As far as I understand the background material, the worlds and species that have joined the Tau Empire have been very happy about their decision. The 40K galaxy is hostile, and it isn't easy to go at it alone. Likewise, many worlds are rather part of the Tau Empire than the Imperium of Man. Said that, I don't really understand the discussion about slavery and brainwashing in this thread. Are you saying that spreading democracy in the real world is also brainwashing aka spreading democracy and asking nations to be allies is also brainwashing and/or slavery? Creating wealth in countries where previously there was none, is also brainwashing and slavery? I mean what are we talking about here?

The Tau are undoubtedly the only good faction in the entire 40K. Sure there's shades of grey there, but there's shades of grey in the real world too. Good guys are never that good. But they're better than everyone else.

The slavery and mind control discussion is specifically about the Vespid, because in the codex it states:

"There have been whispers alluding to a hidden connection between the Vespids' calm acceptance of annexation and the interface helms given to their leaders, though no evidence to support such claims has ever been forthcoming."

Which is intended to be very open for debate so that people can form their own opinion of what actually happened.


Personally, I don't think classifying anyone as "good or bad" is a good way to look at it, because everyone is good in their own eyes and is just trying to further their own version of "the greater good", the Tau just happen to be the most intelligent about it.

Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it's not there, or not an option. Suit Storm does have a placement under the missile arms that could be used for some point defense, which would be helpful since it doesn't have arms.

Although, it already has SMS on top of the missile arms.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
As for the Vespid discussion, I think their weapons need to either be made Assault 2 or Rapid Fire and they need to be increased in toughness/strength. After all, insects, for their size, are some of the most robust creatures on Earth, so insectoid aliens should be pretty tough.

They are tough because exoskeletons are great when you are tiny.

Exoskeleton performance ceases to excel and rapidly plunges through the floor when you get too big, hence why even the largest prehistorical insects were fairly small.

OTOH, that didn't stop the Tyranids, I guess...

Two words: Coconut Crabs



Though as a whole lobsters and crabs can get pretty large for creatures that have exoskeletons.

They're amphibious though (or fully marine in some cases) is it something to do with that?

 ImAGeek wrote:
They're amphibious though (or fully marine in some cases) is it something to do with that?

Coconut crabs can't actually swim and drown if they end up in water, that's mostly why I chose them over potentially larger sea based arthropod. They also climb trees and stuff.

The stormsurge may have options for either anti-armour or anti-infantry. If you look at the pictures, there are two distinct shoulder weapons.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
They're amphibious though (or fully marine in some cases) is it something to do with that?

Coconut crabs can't actually swim and drown if they end up in water, that's mostly why I chose them over potentially larger sea based arthropod. They also climb trees and stuff.

It might have to do with the fact they have Branchiostegal lungs, which are more or less external lungs adapted from gills, meaning that it can probably intake oxygen more efficiently than most conventional exoskeletal critters/insects.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
They're amphibious though (or fully marine in some cases) is it something to do with that?

Coconut crabs can't actually swim and drown if they end up in water, that's mostly why I chose them over potentially larger sea based arthropod. They also climb trees and stuff.

Oh I knew they climbed trees and were on land a lot but I assumed they were still somewhat amphibious, interesting!

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
They're amphibious though (or fully marine in some cases) is it something to do with that?

Coconut crabs can't actually swim and drown if they end up in water, that's mostly why I chose them over potentially larger sea based arthropod. They also climb trees and stuff.

Oh I knew they climbed trees and were on land a lot but I assumed they were still somewhat amphibious, interesting!

They're super weird, as they basically start as hermit crabs and then as they get older they develop a normal shell and don't need to use the shell of other animals.

I wonder if other army discussions cover this many topics? Just goes to show you Tau are still the most intelligent

PLEASE stay On Topic in here - thanks!

Getting off the topic of large land-dwelling arthropods (shudders)

I don't think that the Ghostkeel is the size of the Riptide. If anything, I'd say it around the size of the current Battlesuit Commander. The official photos from GW are misleading for the following reasons:

1. Lack of height references in the background. The background is an artistic one, and contains nothing the viewer could use to independently determine the subject's height. The models in the background are visibly out-of-focus, and we don't know how far the background models are removed from the foreground. With enough distance, you could make an Imperial Knight seem smaller than the Ghostkeel.

2. Low angle of shots. In the first picture (Ghostkeel with Stealth Suits in background) the shot has clearly been taken from below the model's waist. In the second shot (Ghostkeel with Fire Warriors in foreground) a similar effect is achieved by having the Ghostkeel stand on an angled piece of terrain. This technique is one with which GW is quite familiar. How often do you see special characters tower over the troops in front of them, despite not being much taller in real life? Movies also do this trick a lot to make people appear larger or smaller than they actually are.

3. Potential composite image. Speaking as someone who has experience with Photoshop, the images we've seen of all the new models could be composite images. This is an easy way of saying that the various models and elements in focus, in the foreground, and in the background are separate images that have been stitched and filtered to make it appear that they are one whole image. If done by a professional at a suitably high resolution this would be very hard to detect, especially with the low-resolution images that have been posted so far.

I'm not saying that GW is intentionally trying to deceive people. These are just standard photographic techniques that GW and the industry as a whole commonly use for dramatic effect. But until we get some solid and unedited comparison shots with the Ghostkeel, I don't think people should just to conclusions about the model's size.

The Ghostkeel definitely looks like it's using one of the rounded large creature bases seen a lot in the AOS releases

 ChiliPowderKeg wrote:
The Ghostkeel definitely looks like it's using one of the rounded large creature bases seen a lot in the AOS releases

But due to a lack of detail, we don't know if it's the standard 40mm base for large models or the full-size Monstrous Creature base.

Giant land crab is the best new Tau model.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I don't think that the Ghostkeel is the size of the Riptide. If anything, I'd say it around the size of the current Battlesuit Commander.

I hope you're right, because I don't really like the bigger suits and that would make it the perfect size for me.

I would classify the Ghostkeel as our first "medium" sized suit. It's almost perfectly in between the smaller classes and Riptide classes.

I think the Ghostkeel is probably a little larger than a regular Crisis Suit and probably not far from a Crisis Commander size. If you look at the picture where the Stealth Suits are closer to it, you can see that they are about waist level, which is the same point a Fire Warrior reaches on a regular Crisis Suit if it's on one of those drone clear base pegs.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Getting off the topic of large land-dwelling arthropods (shudders)

They're cuddly and cute!

It looks like it'd be noticeably larger than a Crisis battlesuit, probably the same mass as a Broadside but standing up straighter.

From pictures (see below), we know commander suits are larger than Crisis suits and roughly the same size as Broadsides, so the Ghostkeel being about that size would make sense.



Also, give that it's apparently a stealth suit variant, it being overly large wouldn't make a lot of sense.

Nah, the Ghostkeel is a big guy. Just look at the relative size of the fusion blasters on its shoulders. The suit must be larger than the Broadside, maybe reaching up to the Riptide's chest or at least close to it.

I think the size increment would mirror the three basic suits': Stealth (Ghostkeel) -> Crisis (Riptide) -> Broadside (Stormsurge)

Ghostkeel almost the same size torso as Stormsurge (minus shoulder cannon). Just look at the picture on the back of the WD; Stormsurge is right beside him.

Perspective is a thing that exists Talys

The Stormsurge is also in the background, and presumably also not on a raised piece of terrain.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Perspective is a thing that exists Talys

The Stormsurge is also in the background, and presumably also not on a raised piece of terrain.

+1

Wait, that Stormsurge in the background... Doesn't it have a different shoulder cannon than the other one?

 The Wise Dane wrote:
Wait, that Stormsurge in the background... Doesn't it have a different shoulder cannon than the other one?

It does. People speculate that the Stormsurge's shoulder weapons are pulse rifle/pulse carbine analogues as they resemble those weapons a lot.

Damn, I'm away for a couple of weeks and suddenly all that Tau stuff.

Humph, I really hope Ghostkeel (oh man I hate that name) is smaller than the Riptide, but it doesn't seem so. As someone pointed out above, he even seems close in size to the Stormsurge. At least he looks kinda OK.

The Stormsurge suit... Man, I hated the Riptide already. But hey whatever floats your boat, I see a lot of people like it. To me, the Stormsurge has nothing in common with the Tau style. I will maybe consider buying it to use the parts for conversions (some of them are cool) and build a vehicle off it, but I won't assemble such an abomination.

The new FWs - well, I really really liked the old sculpt. Fire warriors were what got me into Tau. I am not saying no to a rework though, some of the parts in the current FW kit are terribly sculpted (some legs) and could use some love. What I hope is that they will retain their characteristic traits, and I will for sure use both new and old sculpts.

The Tau'nar supremacy armor... well, buildings should not be put on legs and given arms.

cheers
Kahnawake

 Talys wrote:
Ghostkeel almost the same size torso as Stormsurge (minus shoulder cannon). Just look at the picture on the back of the WD; Stormsurge is right beside him.

Spoiler:

No it isn't. It's further back. Plus the Ghostkeel is on a higher bit of terrain.

You can clearly see the stealth suit head bit meaning that its about twice/two and a half times as tall as a stealth suit (you can image a stealth suit standing on the hips of the ghostkeel). Also, there is a drone right next to it! And it appears to be about twice as tall as the drone on the stick (remember the drone is placed a bit lower), which makes it no where near as tall as a riptide, let alone a stormsurge. I'd reckon it is between half/two-thirds of the size of a riptide, but definitely taller than even a broadside.