Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I would laugh so hard if GW included a Farsight Rule in the new codex and still sold the supplement so you could have a Farsight Farsight Enclaves army.

 Nilok wrote:
I would laugh so hard if GW included a Farsight Rule in the new codex and still sold the supplement so you could have a Farsight Farsight Enclaves army.

Do you mean an army-wide rule like in the 4th ed codex, or just the rule that the current main-book version of Farsight has?

 Formosa wrote:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Looking at the new tau stuff, if they do indeed get new crisis suits, I may take the plunge and go farsight enclaves, hoping they are not op though.

Might wanna hold out a bit on that one. There's a pretty good chance Farsight Enclaves will be rendered invalid by the new codex. That's what happened with Iyanden when Eldar got updated. Yes Space Marines still get Imperial Fists and Iron Hands (unless my info on that one is wrong), but keep in mind we're talking about a Xenos faction, not an Imperial one. We're probably better off making assumptions based off of the treatment of another Xenos army rather than GW's favorite codex.

Which sucks cause the whole reason I got into Tau was for the battlesuits, so being able to do a full battlesuit army with FE was awesome. If it goes away I'll be sad, but I fully expect to see a formation (hopefully a Core formation) in the Decurion or even a specialized detachment a la Dark Angels for an entirely battlesuit army.

What are you talking about? Iyanden wasn't invalidated, maybe tourneys but who cares what they think, they house rule all sorts anyway, my mate uses Iyanden all the time, why do you think it's not valid anymore?

The "official" RAW reasoning is that Iyanden is a supplement for Codex: Eldar, which no longer exists. The 7th codex is called Codex: Eldar: Craftworlds. So, since the name changed the supplement is no longer valid. Personally don't hold too much stock in that argument, but I still agree with the sentiment for 2 reasons.

1. The 40k community at my FLGS is very much geared towards tournament play, so they always utilize whatever the latest NOVA or ETC FAQ is. Ergo, no Iyanden. If I want to get any games at all I have to follow them to since that's what my opponents use (which frankly I have no problem with). Anecdotal, sure, but I can guarantee I'm not the only person who plays in a tournament focused group.

2. The more important point in my mind. Iyanden was written and intended for the 6th edition Eldar codex and it's power level. Not Craftworld's power. No army should ever have access to a GC as an HQ choice, especially not the most cost effective one in the entire game. Iyanden grants that to current Eldar due to allowing Wraith Knights to be HQ choices. Say what you will about Eldar and balance, but 7th edition Eldar was clearly not written with Iyanden in mind.

At the end of the day, you can house rule whatever you want. But in my experience (yes more anecdotes, sorry), most players, clubs, and LGS will base their house rules around the rulings and FAQs of the big name tournaments like NOVA, Adepticon, and BAO. After all, the entire purpose of them making these rulings is to make 40k as balanced as possible so it can work in a tournament setting. And I dare say they have more experience at it than joe shmoe off the street. If they say Iyanden is no longer legal, for whatever reason, I'm gonna go with them because they know how to balance a game system far better than I do.

Did the Tau rumor thread get derailed?

Seriously guys who cares about farsight enclaves, it's a forgone conclusion they will have multiple formations and a formation made of formations. In among that I am positive there will be some sort of battle suit heavy formation you could just spam. It will probably even gain free USR's and gear or +1 BS or some such crap.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
Did the Tau rumor thread get derailed?

Yeah, YMDC invaded over a book that's no longer available and it somehow having an impact on one that's not available yet.

It's the interwebs and peeps love them some argumentation.

I'm really torn over potential new battlesuits. Part of me wants them but the other part of me realizes that I have 15 of the old ones and remembers what a PITA it was to magnetize them.

 agnosto wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
Did the Tau rumor thread get derailed?

Yeah, YMDC invaded over a book that's no longer available and it somehow having an impact on one that's not available yet.

It's the interwebs and peeps love them some argumentation.

I'm really torn over potential new battlesuits. Part of me wants them but the other part of me realizes that I have 15 of the old ones and remembers what a PITA it was to magnetize them.

Chill Winston, there was no argument, just a nice discussion on whether a past codex being legal or not could indicate the validity of a current codex, I.e, will farsight enclaves still be usable, while slightly off topic, it could be relevant to the thread as others like myself would probably want to wait and see before taking the plunge on the new tau codex

I do agree on being torn however, I'd have to start tau from scratch, and I'm not sure I'm willing to drop the dorror bucks it would take to get a full army going, especially if farsight enclaves gets invalidated like Iyanden may or may not have been.

 Formosa wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
Did the Tau rumor thread get derailed?

Yeah, YMDC invaded over a book that's no longer available and it somehow having an impact on one that's not available yet.

It's the interwebs and peeps love them some argumentation.

I'm really torn over potential new battlesuits. Part of me wants them but the other part of me realizes that I have 15 of the old ones and remembers what a PITA it was to magnetize them.

Chill Winston, there was no argument, just a nice discussion on whether a past codex being legal or not could indicate the validity of a current codex, I.e, will farsight enclaves still be usable, while slightly off topic, it could be relevant to the thread as others like myself would probably want to wait and see before taking the plunge on the new tau codex

I do agree on being torn however, I'd have to start tau from scratch, and I'm not sure I'm willing to drop the dorror bucks it would take to get a full army going, especially if farsight enclaves gets invalidated like Iyanden may or may not have been.

You know orkmoticons mean something to most people, right? I get that some people don't understand levity but in the age of the chat room, emoticons are kind of universal. *le sigh*

I don't think I'd sweat it too much about FEs becoming invalidated; as others have mentioned, GW has been pretty decent about including most styles of general play in the codex included detachments. Barring that, I doubt too many people would kick up a fuss if you played by the FEs rules making it primarily a competitive play issue. Everyone I know that plays is pretty chill about pretty much anything, sad for you if it's not the same in your neck of the woods.

 agnosto wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
Did the Tau rumor thread get derailed?

Yeah, YMDC invaded over a book that's no longer available and it somehow having an impact on one that's not available yet.

It's the interwebs and peeps love them some argumentation.

I'm really torn over potential new battlesuits. Part of me wants them but the other part of me realizes that I have 15 of the old ones and remembers what a PITA it was to magnetize them.

Chill Winston, there was no argument, just a nice discussion on whether a past codex being legal or not could indicate the validity of a current codex, I.e, will farsight enclaves still be usable, while slightly off topic, it could be relevant to the thread as others like myself would probably want to wait and see before taking the plunge on the new tau codex

I do agree on being torn however, I'd have to start tau from scratch, and I'm not sure I'm willing to drop the dorror bucks it would take to get a full army going, especially if farsight enclaves gets invalidated like Iyanden may or may not have been.

You know orkmoticons mean something to most people, right? I get that some people don't understand levity but in the age of the chat room, emoticons are kind of universal. *le sigh*

I don't think I'd sweat it too much about FEs becoming invalidated; as others have mentioned, GW has been pretty decent about including most styles of general play in the codex included detachments. Barring that, I doubt too many people would kick up a fuss if you played by the FEs rules making it primarily a competitive play issue. Everyone I know that plays is pretty chill about pretty much anything, sad for you if it's not the same in your neck of the woods.

Um...there are no orkmoticons coming up on my screen?, so I don't know what you mean, might be because I'm using my phone possibly?

 Formosa wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
Did the Tau rumor thread get derailed?

Yeah, YMDC invaded over a book that's no longer available and it somehow having an impact on one that's not available yet.

It's the interwebs and peeps love them some argumentation.

I'm really torn over potential new battlesuits. Part of me wants them but the other part of me realizes that I have 15 of the old ones and remembers what a PITA it was to magnetize them.

Chill Winston, there was no argument, just a nice discussion on whether a past codex being legal or not could indicate the validity of a current codex, I.e, will farsight enclaves still be usable, while slightly off topic, it could be relevant to the thread as others like myself would probably want to wait and see before taking the plunge on the new tau codex

I do agree on being torn however, I'd have to start tau from scratch, and I'm not sure I'm willing to drop the dorror bucks it would take to get a full army going, especially if farsight enclaves gets invalidated like Iyanden may or may not have been.

Sounds like a new thread topic in 40k General Discussion then...

Wraithknight doesn't move slots, just becomes character and can be warlord. That is all...

 krazynadechukr wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 krazynadechukr wrote:
Did the Tau rumor thread get derailed?

Yeah, YMDC invaded over a book that's no longer available and it somehow having an impact on one that's not available yet.

It's the interwebs and peeps love them some argumentation.

I'm really torn over potential new battlesuits. Part of me wants them but the other part of me realizes that I have 15 of the old ones and remembers what a PITA it was to magnetize them.

Chill Winston, there was no argument, just a nice discussion on whether a past codex being legal or not could indicate the validity of a current codex, I.e, will farsight enclaves still be usable, while slightly off topic, it could be relevant to the thread as others like myself would probably want to wait and see before taking the plunge on the new tau codex

I do agree on being torn however, I'd have to start tau from scratch, and I'm not sure I'm willing to drop the dorror bucks it would take to get a full army going, especially if farsight enclaves gets invalidated like Iyanden may or may not have been.

Sounds like a new thread topic in 40k General Discussion then...

Nah, as I stated, it belongs here, just not as a focus of the thread, it's news and rumours and the possibility of the invalidation of the farsight codex definitely qualifies as news, just not proven as of yet.

Doing the math, the Stormsurge is inefficient and on the whole, a poor choice for a LOW slot when compared to the other Tau Battlesuit LOW, the Ta'unar.

First, your basic Stormsurge is 360 points base, 375 with the viable weapon option (lets not fool ourselves, the pulse blastgun is a waste of time). Not including any sort of support system and we can expect them to easily fill the 25 points to a nice round 400 points per suit.

Alone, the Stormsurge has one single battlefield role. It sits in the back and shoots destructo-disks. Every other weapon it has, from the rocket pods to the Nerf-rockets really won't do anything of value aside from kill a few troops or put wounds on MC's. By shooting templates you get over its terrible BS, and you have a reasonable hope of hitting SOMETHING (That short range D shot relies on BS3, good luck).

The weapon itself, (pulse driver) is NOT A BAD GUN. It's a long range demolisher cannon that can fire twice. Nothing to be upset about. Everything -else- about the suit is basically useless unless you are shooting at scrub-based infantry. In which case, you will be getting a kill here and there (The SMS is the only thing that ignores cover.)

The stats of the vehicle have been resoundingly ridiculed by everyone here, so I don't really need to go over it. Everyone here knows that if you take just one of these, expect it to die by turn 2 from deep strikers, battle cannons and missile launchers.

Yes, we don't know what options it will have, and we can expect some kind of invul, but it will be expensive.

In order to compete against other LOW, you need more then one. A knight titan or wraith knight can gun-kata across the board and kill the Stormsurge and suffer maybe three wounds as a result. The Blastgun option MAY save you, but if you somehow get spectacularly lucky and land a Destroyer hit, you probably had to move your Stormsurge out of cover to do it, and now it's a sitting duck.

Already the stormsurge outprices the Wraith Knight and most of the Knight Titans for a single model. To compete you need a second one. For around 800 points, you now outprice most other lords of war so you can shoot two more destructo-disks a round. This is not a viable option. Also note that the destructo-disks don't have ignores cover.

The hilariously offensive Destroyer missiles... wow there are no words, the description of accuracy was laughable due to the BS3.

Take into consideration that you can take unlimited wraith knights at 300 points, each a monster in CC, t8, and can shoot two D attacks at 36 a round.

Now lets look at the Ta'unar.

600 points, so about the cost of 1.5 Stormsurges. For the additional 200 points, you pay for great armor, amazing toughness, more wounds, a great invul and most importantly BS4. This thing no longer relies on markerlights to survive.

In the shooting phase, this sucker can drop a 7 inch D blast at 72, great range and quite effective. It's other option is an Apoc Barrage, ignores cover 8/3 pain train (three rolls on the template). Also great because it doesn't require LOS to drop on your enemy. This right here completely invalidates the primary weapon options of the stormsurge.

Secondary weapons are 60 inch tri-axis ion cannons that have two firing modes, 12 shots of 7/3 or 6 shots of 9/2. Both are great choices, one becoming a tank hunting shot. If you want, flip it out for a fusion eradicator for 10 wonderful st 8 ap 1 melta shots at 24 (you give up a lot of range, but it's wonderful against vehicles).
So, it completely invalidates the pathetic destroyer missiles. Better shots, no single use.

Now the defensive weapons. Not only do they let the thing shoot overwatch, but you get 24 TL 5/5 shots. Same number as the max number of shots the rocket pod can get, albeit at less range.

This firepower is easily worth two Stormsurges, and I could make the argument that it's more effective then three storm surges for a fraction of the cost. Seriously.

Best part is right here.

The cost of the Stormsurge is going to be about 150 bucks. Two are 300. Not including taxes.

The Ta'unar? about 350.

Save the money, buy the Ta'unar, destroy your enemies with a real artillary suit.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Seriously guys who cares about farsight enclaves, it's a forgone conclusion they will have multiple formations and a formation made of formations. In among that I am positive there will be some sort of battle suit heavy formation you could just spam. It will probably even gain free USR's and gear or +1 BS or some such crap.

Right?

We are probably debating something that might not (probably won't) matter at all C'mon where is the Tau Codex leak already!!

 Gamgee wrote:
Someone on ATT took a close look at some English versions of the WD and found it will have three support options in the box. So there is some evidence it is being limited in what it can take.

So far we've seen it modeled with a target lock, early warning override, and the shield.

So there is a possibility that might be its only options.

Edit
If that's true then it's going to hamper this thing a lot.

This doesn't mean anything, as of yet. In the latest Tau codex the actual support system bits are never shown nor identified (they where in the codex before that), i.e. just stick on what you want and call it what you want, officially nobody really knows that the 'satellite dish/loadspeakerish' bit in the riptide kit actually is, the codex simply doesn't tell us.

Zelnik wrote:
Doing the math, the Stormsurge is inefficient and on the whole, a poor choice for a LOW slot when compared to the other Tau Battlesuit LOW, the Ta'unar.
...
Save the money, buy the Ta'unar, destroy your enemies with a real artillary suit.

I agree with all of your logic in terms of the two models in isolation. The Stormsurge *so far* appears inferior in every way in the LoW slot compared to the Ta'unar. But....

1) We haven't seen the codex yet, so you never know: there might be a formation that requires or buffs a Stormsurge.

2) You probably can't take the Ta'unar as a part of the super-formation of the Tau Codex, just like you can't take a Cerastus Knight or Revenant Titan as part of their codex formations. Do you want another CAD just to get the LoW slot?

3) The Ta'unar is resin, a lot more expensive, and laden with all the Forge World problems that some of us have (brokerage, possible tax issues, difficulty with getting replacement for defective bits, et cetera). And it's hard to pack away to buddy's house or gaming store. Which have nothing to do with its effectiveness, but are still considerations.

4) Your local meta might be anti-FW. But let's not revisit that debate here

 Talys wrote:

4) Your local meta might be anti-FW. But let's not revisit that debate here

PLS, the Eldar stuff is enough already in a Tau thread.

I don't expect Farsight Enclaves to be useless after the new codex' release, unless they make huge changes to crisis suits and make them OP somehow.

As for the Stormsurge, I see it as a kind of a moneygrab on GW's side; one model will be mostly useless it seems, (but again we haven't seen the codex yet) so buy 3!
Maybe there will be a squad box with 3 of them, 10$ cheaper!

cheers
Kahnawake

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Looking at the new tau stuff, if they do indeed get new crisis suits, I may take the plunge and go farsight enclaves, hoping they are not op though.

Might wanna hold out a bit on that one. There's a pretty good chance Farsight Enclaves will be rendered invalid by the new codex. That's what happened with Iyanden when Eldar got updated. Yes Space Marines still get Imperial Fists and Iron Hands (unless my info on that one is wrong), but keep in mind we're talking about a Xenos faction, not an Imperial one. We're probably better off making assumptions based off of the treatment of another Xenos army rather than GW's favorite codex.

Which sucks cause the whole reason I got into Tau was for the battlesuits, so being able to do a full battlesuit army with FE was awesome. If it goes away I'll be sad, but I fully expect to see a formation (hopefully a Core formation) in the Decurion or even a specialized detachment a la Dark Angels for an entirely battlesuit army.

What are you talking about? Iyanden wasn't invalidated, maybe tourneys but who cares what they think, they house rule all sorts anyway, my mate uses Iyanden all the time, why do you think it's not valid anymore?

The "official" RAW reasoning is that Iyanden is a supplement for Codex: Eldar, which no longer exists. The 7th codex is called Codex: Eldar: Craftworlds. So, since the name changed the supplement is no longer valid. Personally don't hold too much stock in that argument, but I still agree with the sentiment for 2 reasons.

1. The 40k community at my FLGS is very much geared towards tournament play, so they always utilize whatever the latest NOVA or ETC FAQ is. Ergo, no Iyanden. If I want to get any games at all I have to follow them to since that's what my opponents use (which frankly I have no problem with). Anecdotal, sure, but I can guarantee I'm not the only person who plays in a tournament focused group.

2. The more important point in my mind. Iyanden was written and intended for the 6th edition Eldar codex and it's power level. Not Craftworld's power. No army should ever have access to a GC as an HQ choice, especially not the most cost effective one in the entire game. Iyanden grants that to current Eldar due to allowing Wraith Knights to be HQ choices. Say what you will about Eldar and balance, but 7th edition Eldar was clearly not written with Iyanden in mind.

At the end of the day, you can house rule whatever you want. But in my experience (yes more anecdotes, sorry), most players, clubs, and LGS will base their house rules around the rulings and FAQs of the big name tournaments like NOVA, Adepticon, and BAO. After all, the entire purpose of them making these rulings is to make 40k as balanced as possible so it can work in a tournament setting. And I dare say they have more experience at it than joe shmoe off the street. If they say Iyanden is no longer legal, for whatever reason, I'm gonna go with them because they know how to balance a game system far better than I do.

But wouldn't that make a lot of FW stuff that refers to Imperial Guard invalid as well?

While everyones arguing how terrible the open topped "wanna go for a ride barbie?" Design is, and if farsight is dead, has anyone spotted what looks like a tau themed aegis in the colour picture? Would be surprised if its a scratch build consiserung the rest of the stuff is all.official gw stuff

Bobug wrote:
While everyones arguing how terrible the open topped "wanna go for a ride barbie?" Design is, and if farsight is dead, has anyone spotted what looks like a tau themed aegis in the colour picture? Would be surprised if its a scratch build consiserung the rest of the stuff is all.official gw stuff

Tau buildings were mentioned in the earliest rumors, so yeah. And I doubt Farsight will be dead anytime soon!
cheers
Kahnawake

 Kahnawake wrote:

 Talys wrote:

4) Your local meta might be anti-FW. But let's not revisit that debate here

PLS, the Eldar stuff is enough already in a Tau thread.

I don't expect Farsight Enclaves to be useless after the new codex' release, unless they make huge changes to crisis suits and make them OP somehow.

As for the Stormsurge, I see it as a kind of a moneygrab on GW's side; one model will be mostly useless it seems, (but again we haven't seen the codex yet) so buy 3!
Maybe there will be a squad box with 3 of them, 10$ cheaper!

cheers
Kahnawake

Your first point is the most solid. We don't know what it will get but we can assume a few things. First it will have some kind of shield but we should expect no better then a 5+ and it will be expensive. The next should be a support option like a positional relay. I expect the third option will be some kind of Stat boost to it or another member of its squad.

Either way, it's a gak option that had an inspired design but terrible content and execution. A little like the first new star wars movie. This has Jar Jar written all over it.

I'd personally like to see O'Kais be a named character in the new Ghostkeel model.

I would like to see O'kais in general. As well as the lesser known but still cool Or'es'ka from Soulstorm who foreseen the Tau doctrine of "Great Strength, Great Strike" and is probably at least inspired some of the new Tau doctrine.

He had the balls to build a moon cannon and bombard a base before every attack. That takes some balls to use so much overt strength and aggression back when the two common paths were more commonly followed.

If not an inspiration he would be a big proponent of his new style of warfare.

 Talys wrote:
...difficulty with getting replacement for defective bits...

I just have to nit pick this, just call FW up and they'll replace about any bit you might have problems with. They even replaced some horribly broken bits on some of my Tau stuff which I ordered over 3 years ago (yea took me a while to get around to look at them ), without any questions asked. Granted this might have to do with my order history, but in my experience getting replacement bits is no trouble at all.

 Gamgee wrote:
I would like to see O'kais in general. As well as the lesser known but still cool Or'es'ka from Soulstorm who foreseen the Tau doctrine of "Great Strength, Great Strike" and is probably at least inspired some of the new Tau doctrine.

He had the balls to build a moon cannon and bombard a base before every attack. That takes some balls to use so much overt strength and aggression back when the two common paths were more commonly followed.

If not an inspiration he would be a big proponent of his new style of warfare.

New Codex don't seem to be getting new SCs? I wouldn't be surprised if Farsight goes to LOW - likely not a good thing but look at what happened to others (orks especially)...............Hell DE lost the majority of theirs in what passes for what they were given as a Codex.

Doubt we will see anything from one of the Computer Games - GW are loath to use stuff from their own Black Library in case they loose ownership to the author.....never mind wider licencesed deals

Actually I dub this new Tau path the "Va'Elan Va'ka". Which translates to great strength, great striker.

I wouldn't just use the Ta'unar on defense like it's lore indicates. I would use it on offense as well. I believe the old guard and ethereals gifted me the honour of being called "Monat". So that would make me Monat'ka'ra". Or one who thinks of himself, and is exiled. Probably one of the lowest derogatory terms that can be given to a Tau.

O'Kais is mentioned in the Farsight Enclave book as one of the students of Puretide that was put into stasis along with Shadowsun, so it isn't too far fetched to think he might make his way into an actual model. I would have like to have seen the 8 from the farsight book be allowed to be special character options on their own for the enclave book without taking farsight himself.

Zelnik wrote:
Doing the math, the Stormsurge is inefficient and on the whole, a poor choice for a LOW slot when compared to the other Tau Battlesuit LOW, the Ta'unar.

First, your basic Stormsurge is 360 points base, 375 with the viable weapon option (lets not fool ourselves, the pulse blastgun is a waste of time). Not including any sort of support system and we can expect them to easily fill the 25 points to a nice round 400 points per suit.

Alone, the Stormsurge has one single battlefield role. It sits in the back and shoots destructo-disks. Every other weapon it has, from the rocket pods to the Nerf-rockets really won't do anything of value aside from kill a few troops or put wounds on MC's. By shooting templates you get over its terrible BS, and you have a reasonable hope of hitting SOMETHING (That short range D shot relies on BS3, good luck).

The weapon itself, (pulse driver) is NOT A BAD GUN. It's a long range demolisher cannon that can fire twice. Nothing to be upset about. Everything -else- about the suit is basically useless unless you are shooting at scrub-based infantry. In which case, you will be getting a kill here and there (The SMS is the only thing that ignores cover.)

The stats of the vehicle have been resoundingly ridiculed by everyone here, so I don't really need to go over it. Everyone here knows that if you take just one of these, expect it to die by turn 2 from deep strikers, battle cannons and missile launchers.

Yes, we don't know what options it will have, and we can expect some kind of invul, but it will be expensive.

In order to compete against other LOW, you need more then one. A knight titan or wraith knight can gun-kata across the board and kill the Stormsurge and suffer maybe three wounds as a result. The Blastgun option MAY save you, but if you somehow get spectacularly lucky and land a Destroyer hit, you probably had to move your Stormsurge out of cover to do it, and now it's a sitting duck.

Already the stormsurge outprices the Wraith Knight and most of the Knight Titans for a single model. To compete you need a second one. For around 800 points, you now outprice most other lords of war so you can shoot two more destructo-disks a round. This is not a viable option. Also note that the destructo-disks don't have ignores cover.

The hilariously offensive Destroyer missiles... wow there are no words, the description of accuracy was laughable due to the BS3.

Take into consideration that you can take unlimited wraith knights at 300 points, each a monster in CC, t8, and can shoot two D attacks at 36 a round.

Now lets look at the Ta'unar.

600 points, so about the cost of 1.5 Stormsurges. For the additional 200 points, you pay for great armor, amazing toughness, more wounds, a great invul and most importantly BS4. This thing no longer relies on markerlights to survive.

In the shooting phase, this sucker can drop a 7 inch D blast at 72, great range and quite effective. It's other option is an Apoc Barrage, ignores cover 8/3 pain train (three rolls on the template). Also great because it doesn't require LOS to drop on your enemy. This right here completely invalidates the primary weapon options of the stormsurge.

Secondary weapons are 60 inch tri-axis ion cannons that have two firing modes, 12 shots of 7/3 or 6 shots of 9/2. Both are great choices, one becoming a tank hunting shot. If you want, flip it out for a fusion eradicator for 10 wonderful st 8 ap 1 melta shots at 24 (you give up a lot of range, but it's wonderful against vehicles).
So, it completely invalidates the pathetic destroyer missiles. Better shots, no single use.

Now the defensive weapons. Not only do they let the thing shoot overwatch, but you get 24 TL 5/5 shots. Same number as the max number of shots the rocket pod can get, albeit at less range.

This firepower is easily worth two Stormsurges, and I could make the argument that it's more effective then three storm surges for a fraction of the cost. Seriously.

Best part is right here.

The cost of the Stormsurge is going to be about 150 bucks. Two are 300. Not including taxes.

The Ta'unar? about 350.

Save the money, buy the Ta'unar, destroy your enemies with a real artillary suit.

Completely agree. I'll get a Ta'unar when the dollar/real exchange gets better (probably by the end of next year). Still, I'll proxy the Stormsurge to see if it really is as lame as it sounds for now. Nothing beats a good field test

The ta'unar is undercosted to an extent that makes the wraithknight seem tame. That monster is a 1000+ point behemoth that you only pay 600 points for. A twin double turbolaser destructor warhound is only 200 points off, the wraithknight is 100.

The storm surge is in fact appropriately priced, it just doesn't have a specialist position statistically. You are paying points for a variety of weapons systems that aren't designed to target the same units, and are redundant in most tau armies.

If you only had the giant gun on top, you would be able to knock about 50-60 points off of this surge, it still wouldn't compare to the supremancy, but the only units that do in regards to being undercosted are double pulsar phantom titans and turbolaser reavers.

It's certainly not 1000+ points. 800-900 range. It's still undercosted though.