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.

 Talys wrote:

changemod wrote:
I have a suspicion Fire Team is the activation rule for the Decurion bonus, as in "All models with fire team get XYZ".

In which case the actual benefit is likely to be relatively small.

I agree with the first part, but not the second.

The core-auxiliary-command formation bonuses are pretty spectacular for most of the factions so far. Look how good the Mechanicus turned out, for instance. I would be shocked if the superformation bonus was a small one... I'm expecting something jaw dropping, that makes everyone go out and buy a bunch of Tau models so that they can build the formation.

You realize that Mechanicus don't get the "Core-Auxiliary-Command" setup right?

We got unique CADs that still are the whole "HQ, Troops, Elites, HS"(Cult Mechanicus) or "Troops, FA, Elites, HS"(Skitarii) schtick. If I had a Decurion styled book, the hell I could bring with my Skitarii would be phenomenal.

 BalerionFireStorm wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
As a tau player, I voted against.

Forgewrold's experimental are sometimes really out there rule-wise because they try new untested mechanics for the first time.
The things that actually get into books are often far better balanced, despite what some people try to claim.

Erm... and how do you propose to balance them without... testing them?
I hope they allow. Tourney testing is the best way to find how strong a unit really is

Can you name a unit with the experimental rule that is more "out the rule-wise" then the eldar wraith knight ? Or even comes close to that ?

The original R'Vana rules.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

....failed to live up to the expectations...

On it's first deplyment it one-shot a titian. Methinks it did live up to it's expectation.

In that one case, it certainly did. Guess' it couldn't keep up though. By the time of the Democles campaign, the Tau had no A-X-1 in service and they were already tinkering with a land-based solution (the RIptide), that's for sure.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

....failed to live up to the expectations...

On it's first deplyment it one-shot a titian. Methinks it did live up to it's expectation.

In that one case, it certainly did. Guess' it couldn't keep up though. By the time of the Democles campaign, the Tau had no A-X-1 in service and they were already tinkering with a land-based solution (the RIptide), that's for sure.

No... The ripdide was never an anti-titian weapon. The AX-1-0 is still their go-to anti-titian, at least until the emergence of the tau'nar. It's just never mentioned because it's FW. And GW writers like to conveniently forget that the tigershark exists.

I've been thinking about the holophoton countermeasures.

Given the unit's other great defensive measure based on it's stealth technology, I'm somewhat glad these additional countermeasures are extremely limited in scope(That is not to say I find it to be a non-valuable tactical asset.)

I suspect the countermeasures are meant to dissolve One powerful alpha strike on the unit, such as being fired on by a squadron of demolisher tanks(whose str 10 might be enough to pop a couple of the suits in a lucky shot if the drone were already reduced.

On that note specifically, a squadron of demolishers declare fire on a ghostkeel unit, before the roll to hit, you declare countermeasures, the demolishers can only fire snap shots. that means no Demolisher cannon fire that turn, correct?

To me this seems like a device that is best used if it is never used, a deterrant from ever wanting to throw any hard fire on the unit from a single source. The Ghostkeel squadrons are perfectly capably of absorbing Mizia fire, so their only fear is avoiding a massive strike by an uber firepower unit (well that, and HTH by hordes or str10 ap3 attacks, or Jaws of the worldwolf.)

Still pretty solid.

I have to say I might need to buy 6 of these. the Stormsurge gives me little joy as I've always likes the canon that Tau superheavies were flying units and slow giant walkers seem antithetical to their method of war. The GhostKeel however is kind of everything I ever wanted Crisis suits to be....except bigger!

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

....failed to live up to the expectations...

On it's first deplyment it one-shot a titian. Methinks it did live up to it's expectation.

In that one case, it certainly did. Guess' it couldn't keep up though. By the time of the Democles campaign, the Tau had no A-X-1 in service and they were already tinkering with a land-based solution (the RIptide), that's for sure.

Taros, where the AX-1 came into experimental service, occurred in 998.M41
The Damocles Gulf Crusade took place in 742-745.M41.

There was a full 256 year difference between the two events.

Okay, you guys do realize that it's all made up, right? The fact is, the writers can make up any storyline they want, and it becomes "fact." So the next Tau IA book could come right out and say "and then we figured out the Tigershark sucked big balls, so we made the Tau'anur instead."

Arguing over what actually happened in the made up world that can get changed at a moments notice is patently absurd.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

....failed to live up to the expectations...

On it's first deplyment it one-shot a titian. Methinks it did live up to it's expectation.

In that one case, it certainly did. Guess' it couldn't keep up though. By the time of the Democles campaign, the Tau had no A-X-1 in service and they were already tinkering with a land-based solution (the RIptide), that's for sure.

Taros, where the AX-1 came into experimental service, occurred in 998.M41
The Damocles Gulf Crusade took place in 742-745.M41.

There was a full 256 year difference between the two events.

This is the other Democles, the new one with Agrellan, Kor'sarro Khan, Shrike, Voltoris, and Shadowsun trying (and failing miserably) to use Mont'ka. It happens in M41.999, roughly a year after Taros.

vitae_drinker wrote:
Okay, you guys do realize that it's all made up, right? The fact is, the writers can make up any storyline they want, and it becomes "fact." So the next Tau IA book could come right out and say "and then we figured out the Tigershark sucked big balls, so we made the Tau'anur instead."

Arguing over what actually happened in the made up world that can get changed at a moments notice is patently absurd.

There is, of course , a truth to that.

But the concept of Canon is something that is always considered when making changes to your imaginary world.

vitae_drinker wrote:
Okay, you guys do realize that it's all made up, right? The fact is, the writers can make up any storyline they want, and it becomes "fact." So the next Tau IA book could come right out and say "and then we figured out the Tigershark sucked big balls, so we made the Tau'anur instead."

Arguing over what actually happened in the made up world that can get changed at a moments notice is patently absurd.

Have an exalt for making me laugh out loud in public hehe...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 derling wrote:
I've been thinking about the holophoton countermeasures.

Given the unit's other great defensive measure based on it's stealth technology, I'm somewhat glad these additional countermeasures are extremely limited in scope(That is not to say I find it to be a non-valuable tactical asset.)

I suspect the countermeasures are meant to dissolve One powerful alpha strike on the unit, such as being fired on by a squadron of demolisher tanks(whose str 10 might be enough to pop a couple of the suits in a lucky shot if the drone were already reduced.

On that note specifically, a squadron of demolishers declare fire on a ghostkeel unit, before the roll to hit, you declare countermeasures, the demolishers can only fire snap shots. that means no Demolisher cannon fire that turn, correct?

To me this seems like a device that is best used if it is never used, a deterrant from ever wanting to throw any hard fire on the unit from a single source. The Ghostkeel squadrons are perfectly capably of absorbing Mizia fire, so their only fear is avoiding a massive strike by an uber firepower unit (well that, and HTH by hordes or str10 ap3 attacks, or Jaws of the worldwolf.)

Still pretty solid.

I have to say I might need to buy 6 of these. the Stormsurge gives me little joy as I've always likes the canon that Tau superheavies were flying units and slow giant walkers seem antithetical to their method of war. The GhostKeel however is kind of everything I ever wanted Crisis suits to be....except bigger!

What you will see is the enemy trying to bait you into using it due to smaller fire first. I will bet there is a stealth formation that allows multiple use of this war gear or possibly gives the unit infiltrate.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Spoiler:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

....failed to live up to the expectations...

On it's first deplyment it one-shot a titian. Methinks it did live up to it's expectation.

In that one case, it certainly did. Guess' it couldn't keep up though. By the time of the Democles campaign, the Tau had no A-X-1 in service and they were already tinkering with a land-based solution (the RIptide), that's for sure.

Taros, where the AX-1 came into experimental service, occurred in 998.M41
The Damocles Gulf Crusade took place in 742-745.M41.

There was a full 256 year difference between the two events.

This is the other Democles, the new one with Agrellan, Kor'sarro Khan, Shrike, Voltoris, and Shadowsun trying (and failing miserably) to use Mont'ka. It happens in M41.999, roughly a year after Taros.

So. A year after Taros you expect something that was experimental to be in full production and given out in enough numbers to support the Third Sphere Expansion?

Either way? Your expectations are unreasonable and even assuming it's not just a case of "GW doesn't want to showcase it"(because purportedly some of their writers at the time felt that the AX-10 were hamfisted in there to begin with), it likely still would be experimental.

Email I got today from forgeworld:
"Hi there,

Thanks for the email, with regards to the official rules of the chaos knight and Kytan the experimental rules are for all intense and purpose official, they have been designed and issued by the Forge World studio, the only reason we issue rules with the title of "experimental" is due to it not being published in an imperial armour publication. We are steadily removing this tag from future releases.
The rules for all experimental units should be treated as official until they are removed and published in the related Imperial armour.

Thanks again and I hope this helps"

Experimental rules are the rules

"Until they are removed and published in the related Imperial Armour".

They do still change things here and again between publication and initial PDF release.

So it's basically like I said, practically speaking it's still experimental (i.e. subject to change), it just dosen''t have the tag.

But I think they are not going to attach that label any more.

Well, all rules are always subject to change. Remember how Tau used to be able to bring missile drones in more than the broadsides? That lasted, what, a day?

I more mean that FW PDFs tend to end up being quite different from their original release, to when they com out i a book. They are almost always OP to differing degrees when they come out, but tend to settel down to good or mediocre when they come out.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
So it's basically like I said, practically speaking it's still experimental (i.e. subject to change), it just dosen''t have the tag.

All things are subject to change. GW has put out Codex FAQs in the past to change points, wargear, rules, etc.

Experimental rules, especially ones unlikely to get an Imperial Armor any time soon, are no less "official rules" than the current edition of any Codex. Any rule, be it from FW or GW, can change in 3 years.

Requizen wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
So it's basically like I said, practically speaking it's still experimental (i.e. subject to change), it just dosen''t have the tag.

All things are subject to change. GW has put out Codex FAQs in the past to change points, wargear, rules, etc.

Experimental rules, especially ones unlikely to get an Imperial Armor any time soon, are no less "official rules" than the current edition of any Codex. Any rule, be it from FW or GW, can change in 3 years.

See my previous post. It took FW what, a couple of months, to nerf the r'varna? And it's probably going to receive a points increase in the IA. FW tend to be pretty good about that. Especially with tau. I don't think we've ever had an AI thing that's been more than decently strong. Which is a good thing, IMO, OP is bad.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

Spoiler:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

....failed to live up to the expectations...

On it's first deplyment it one-shot a titian. Methinks it did live up to it's expectation.

In that one case, it certainly did. Guess' it couldn't keep up though. By the time of the Democles campaign, the Tau had no A-X-1 in service and they were already tinkering with a land-based solution (the RIptide), that's for sure.

Taros, where the AX-1 came into experimental service, occurred in 998.M41
The Damocles Gulf Crusade took place in 742-745.M41.

There was a full 256 year difference between the two events.

This is the other Democles, the new one with Agrellan, Kor'sarro Khan, Shrike, Voltoris, and Shadowsun trying (and failing miserably) to use Mont'ka. It happens in M41.999, roughly a year after Taros.

So. A year after Taros you expect something that was experimental to be in full production and given out in enough numbers to support the Third Sphere Expansion?

This happened with the Riptide (an admittedly successful design), so yeah, I would expect exactly that.

Ghostkeel looks like a good execution of a good idea, so exactly the opposite of the gargantuan suit.

So blurry pics of the codex yet?

vitae_drinker wrote:
So blurry pics of the codex yet?

Bonus points if the codex itself isn't in English!

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

Spoiler:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

....failed to live up to the expectations...

On it's first deplyment it one-shot a titian. Methinks it did live up to it's expectation.

In that one case, it certainly did. Guess' it couldn't keep up though. By the time of the Democles campaign, the Tau had no A-X-1 in service and they were already tinkering with a land-based solution (the RIptide), that's for sure.

Taros, where the AX-1 came into experimental service, occurred in 998.M41
The Damocles Gulf Crusade took place in 742-745.M41.

There was a full 256 year difference between the two events.

This is the other Democles, the new one with Agrellan, Kor'sarro Khan, Shrike, Voltoris, and Shadowsun trying (and failing miserably) to use Mont'ka. It happens in M41.999, roughly a year after Taros.

So. A year after Taros you expect something that was experimental to be in full production and given out in enough numbers to support the Third Sphere Expansion?

This happened with the Riptide (an admittedly successful design), so yeah, I would expect exactly that.

Tau Empire p45 wrote:
Production of the Riptide has proven slow--the materials for the dense nanocrystaline alloy armour are difficult to obtain and the sheer volume required ensures that the XV104 is a rare commodity

So...where does it say that this thing was mass produced in large numbers? The fluff on the opposing page makes it clear that 20 Hunter Cadres were present in one of the battles you mentioned(Agrellan, which was the first time the Riptide was in combat), with each Cadre being given a single Riptide suit.

I mean I get that yeah, from a fluff standpoint the Tigershark might have gone into full scale production...or it might not have since it was such a spectacularly specialized piece of kit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheNewBlood wrote:

vitae_drinker wrote:
So blurry pics of the codex yet?

Bonus points if the codex itself isn't in English!

And taken in the dimmest lighting possible?

The tiger shark does have a definite advantage for production, because it was already being mass produced, as was the heavy rail gun, they just retrofitted them for the AX-1-0.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:

vitae_drinker wrote:
So blurry pics of the codex yet?

Bonus points if the codex itself isn't in English!

And taken in the dimmest lighting possible?

It's amazing how nobody has ever seen a scanner apparently.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The tiger shark does have a definite advantage for production, because it was already being mass produced, as was the heavy rail gun, they just retrofitted them for the AX-1-0.

Retrofitting a weapon that is made for the Manta for something the size of the Tiger Shark could be part of the issue, or the "overly specialized" thing, or any number of possibilities.

The Tau are practical. I can't see them having huge numbers of AX-1-0 variants floating around "just in case", but maybe a trio of them assigned to every Tiger Shark squadron?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:

vitae_drinker wrote:
So blurry pics of the codex yet?

Bonus points if the codex itself isn't in English!

And taken in the dimmest lighting possible?

It's amazing how nobody has ever seen a scanner apparently.

Devilry! Witchcraft!

SCANNER!

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

It's amazing how nobody has ever seen a scanner apparently.

Or they just want to use what is already convientently in their pocket as opposed to lugging around a flatbed scanner the size of an old encyclopedia volume that still needs a computer and internet connection to use. When you're breaking the law, both convienence and concealability are a factor.

I assume the people who post these arent breaking into a store at the dead of night to take pictures of codexes. These are probably people who have them hands on (such as store managers, shippers, employees, ect. It shouldn't be that hard to use a basic piece of office equipment, especially if it;s a store owner.

Unless its built into your printer who even owns a scanner these days? Almost no use for one outside business-related stuff.

I do...

It's very useful for scanning all sorts of stuff, legal/medical documents, non-digital photos for backup (especially old family ones), drawings for editing electronically, ect. Especially if you have to apply for collage, as they often want scans of certain documents. It's a very useful piece of equipment.