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 Vineheart01 wrote:
It would take a bit more than a single piece to cover the Stormsurge cockpit because the middle pilot's head sticks up slightly. You would basically have to block line of sight of the main head in order to cover the cockpit up.

Then again if youre intent is to completely mask it then thats a different story, as you can just leave the pilots out.

This may have been thought of elsewhere in this thread, but if you shaved down the pilot so he sits low, you could cut a piece of transparent blue plastic (Like the tidewall shield pieces) and Cover the hatch in a way that looks lkie a forcefield?

 Vineheart01 wrote:
It would take a bit more than a single piece to cover the Stormsurge cockpit because the middle pilot's head sticks up slightly. You would basically have to block line of sight of the main head in order to cover the cockpit up.

Then again if youre intent is to completely mask it then thats a different story, as you can just leave the pilots out.

Why would that make a difference? If you're converting it because you don't like the ridiculous open topped robot walker, you're not going to model/paint the interior cockpit in all likelihood unless you're doing a KV-911 Cabriolet Suit.

Is it too late to speculate rampantly about the new codex? Hope I didn't miss my time slot.

FWIW, I think GW may absorb FE into the new codex, but that's just based on them doing so with Iyanden. Hopefully they don't (or if they do, you can still make crisis suits troops somehow). That's really all I want.

Oh, and USEABLE RAILSIDES. GW PLEASE

If I'm leaving that cockpit open, you better believe I'm throwing some tiny car side view mirrors and some fuzzy dice or rabbit feet on the dash. Maybe a felt interior.

Just saying.

GreyDragoon wrote:
If I'm leaving that cockpit open, you better believe I'm throwing some tiny car side view mirrors and some fuzzy dice or rabbit feet on the dash. Maybe a felt interior.

Just saying.

Pics when you're done please!

So what does the auxiliary formation do for Vespid? I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but I'm pretty sure everyone wants hints on their beloved allies of the Tau Empire.

 luke1705 wrote:
Is it too late to speculate rampantly about the new codex? Hope I didn't miss my time slot.

FWIW, I think GW may absorb FE into the new codex, but that's just based on them doing so with Iyanden. Hopefully they don't (or if they do, you can still make crisis suits troops somehow). That's really all I want.

Oh, and USEABLE RAILSIDES. GW PLEASE

If we take what we know so far about the codex, they are just reprinting the current & adding the new stuff into it (what will be in the campaign book). There was no mention either way what will happen to FE.

It would be nice, considering they are just reprinting the current, for them to add FE as a "bonus." IMHO

 derling wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
It would take a bit more than a single piece to cover the Stormsurge cockpit because the middle pilot's head sticks up slightly. You would basically have to block line of sight of the main head in order to cover the cockpit up.

Then again if youre intent is to completely mask it then thats a different story, as you can just leave the pilots out.

This may have been thought of elsewhere in this thread, but if you shaved down the pilot so he sits low, you could cut a piece of transparent blue plastic (Like the tidewall shield pieces) and Cover the hatch in a way that looks lkie a forcefield?

This would be pretty cool looking. That way the guys in the cockpit are still visible so you don't lose the detail inside, but it makes the idea that this thing is well armored more believable.

 derling wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
It would take a bit more than a single piece to cover the Stormsurge cockpit because the middle pilot's head sticks up slightly. You would basically have to block line of sight of the main head in order to cover the cockpit up.

Then again if youre intent is to completely mask it then thats a different story, as you can just leave the pilots out.

This may have been thought of elsewhere in this thread, but if you shaved down the pilot so he sits low, you could cut a piece of transparent blue plastic (Like the tidewall shield pieces) and Cover the hatch in a way that looks lkie a forcefield?

Or if you could just get a curved piece of clear/blue clear plastic to make like a cockpit/bubbled/forcefield type thing would be pretty cool imo.

The fact they release a new Crisis Suit box should HOPEFULLY suggest there will be a relevant way to field them, if not with release but in the near future?

Fingers crossed (and stamped on, broken, lifeless, quietly sobbing into the dust of my forgotten dreams...)

How are crisis suits not relevant?

Razerous wrote:
The fact they release a new Crisis Suit box should HOPEFULLY suggest there will be a relevant way to field them, if not with release but in the near future?

Fingers crossed (and stamped on, broken, lifeless, quietly sobbing into the dust of my forgotten dreams...)

You mean like fielding them in the Elites slot, as designed? Then again, Skyhammer came out l sell Devastators and Assault Marines, so there might be some sort of Hurry Up And Click bundle for Crisis Suits that comes packed with some OP rules.

vitae_drinker wrote:
How are crisis suits not relevant?

He said " relevant way to field them"

which, still, is a confusing statement....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(I am on my 6th shot & 3rd beer....don't mind me...)

I don't think fielding a couple in elite slots is hugely relevant.

I'm talking about armies that had suits for troop choices < My point, essentially.

I am extremely awesome, which is why I may be difficult to understand (ahem...apologises!)

Got my WD and Tidewall today. The Tidewall looks great. One thing I wanted to point out: the artwork on the Codex is identical to the artwork on 6e codex, with just the new style of banner and lettering at the bottom.

 Talys wrote:
Got my WD and Tidewall today. The Tidewall looks great. One thing I wanted to point out: the artwork on the Codex is identical to the artwork on 6e codex, with just the new style of banner and lettering at the bottom.

Good thing I didn't buy the codex back in 2013

So this new Tau Codex really is just a 2.0 of the old one, and not a new Codex?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So this new Tau Codex really is just a 2.0 of the old one, and not a new Codex?

Depends what you mean by that.

From what I've gathered, if you already own the codex, you don't need to buy the new one, they included everything new in the white dwarves and there is no update to the earlier units if that's what you mean by Tau 2.0. So basically, save $50 and buy the white dwarf if you own the book already. ( I don't own the white dwarf or either book, just reading up on the releases)

Supposedly new fluff, some formations, etc. Most people assume no rule changes, but not proven definitively yet.

 Defeatmyarmy wrote:
From what I've gathered, if you already own the codex, you don't need to buy the new one, they included everything new in the white dwarves and there is no update to the earlier units if that's what you mean by Tau 2.0. So basically, save $50 and buy the white dwarf if you own the book already. ( I don't own the white dwarf or either book, just reading up on the releases)

Not true. The White Dwarf issues won't cut it. What has been said is you can use the old codex with the Kauyon campaign book:



Note that the campaign book is about $25 more expensive than the new codex when you make your decision.

Im not normally one for paying out the ass for fluff. But im tempted to buy the campaign since its not much more than the codex and supposedly has all the changes in it. Course i'd definitely be making up a custom datasheet for references and such.
Flipside, still paying out the rear for fluff....

I am of two minds about how GW are releasing the new Tau material.

On the one hand, I like this new style of releasing updates via campaign books. It's a lot simpler than a new codex, furthers the lore, and could be used to provide updates to armies that are in need of the new 7.5 edition formations (Dark Eldar, Orks, Space Wolves, Blood Angels).

On the other hand, Tau needed a lot more than new units and some formations. Rules, points costs, and wargear need to be rebalanced or redesigned. Even if there are in fact major changes to how Tau work in the new campaign book and codex, it would invalidate the entire strategy of updating armies via campaign books.

I'm going to withhold my judgement until we get more leaks from the campaign book and updated codex as to whether GW has executed this well.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I am of two minds about how GW are releasing the new Tau material.

On the one hand, I like this new style of releasing updates via campaign books. It's a lot simpler than a new codex, furthers the lore, and could be used to provide updates to armies that are in need of the new 7.5 edition formations (Dark Eldar, Orks, Space Wolves, Blood Angels).

On the other hand, Tau needed a lot more than new units and some formations. Rules, points costs, and wargear need to be rebalanced or redesigned. Even if there are in fact major changes to how Tau work in the new campaign book and codex, it would invalidate the entire strategy of updating armies via campaign books.

I'm going to withhold my judgement until we get more leaks from the campaign book and updated codex as to whether GW has executed this well.

100% agree. This is, unfortunately, a pretty half-assed release and Tau needed more than that. A lot of points values needed to be adjusted (Ion Accelerator probably should cost about ten times what it does now...). However, if executed well, the same paradigm could be applied to several different codexes. Unfortunately, Ork, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels have all had campaign books in the past 18 months. I doubt we will be seeing more from them again.

Its one of those balance requirements GW is not known for doing because it means making old models viable again. Vespid are the only ones that could be revamped and also given a better model, and GW are not known for buffing models that arent either selling terribly or has a fancy new model (heck look at Broadsides. Everyone had railsides but they made Railsides terrible while making the new missilesides sexy as hell looking so everyone bought them up)

Im still kinda shocked theyre releasing new crisis suits without completely revamping the unit (well, that we know of anyway). Thats why its always a vain hope of mine that they'd buff stealthsuits so the difference between them and Crisis suits is the tradeoff of less toughness/support options for stealth + shroud, rather than lack of weapons. The current stealth suit model is pretty cool looking (both XV15 and 25) so theres no reason to update it. No update, why buff it?
GW mentality. Gotta hate it.

Once we see these formation changes (pre-orders should likely come up on the site for the new codex on Saturday, last new item day of the month for GW) we'll really know the meat of what has changed here. Since the core units are the same (except for FW teams) we're really looking at what the new ones give us, what the new wargear is, and what these formations allow us to do.

Agreed, I do wish in my heart of hearts that they had fixed some of the non-working units. And with any luck at all that might happen over time. But this is GW we're talking about. My expectations after 23 years are.. well low doesn't really do it justice. As long as we don't get gimped horribly with some complete reworking of how we play fundamentally as seems to always happen when they do a core-reworking, well hell I'm happy with small buffs and new toys. Tau "works" atm, and with a little more functionality and some spreading out of our force base to some new units it could, feasibly, return to top tier spot it held onto in 6th ed.

BTW, there's nothing keeping Tau from performing VERY well in competitive play. They have a few, and only a few, really great enemy lineups that are simply too resilient for the variant TAC Tau lists. Sadly, those few great lineups are pretty prevalent in the new meta as they tend to do great against a wide variety of lists, and tailoring for them hurts our TAC side of things pretty horribly. If (and it's still an IF) any of our new formations or units/gear can start making a dent in this OR help shift the meta away from them, well that's just fine by me. Better that then GW doing a complete re-working and a 50/50 chance at real irrelevance.

Oh and please don't take me to be OK with the pricing. The pricing just continues to be out of control. But as far as I see it if the current idea of this being an incremental addition is true, we at WORST got some new toys and they didn't break anything we already enjoyed using. I'll take a small win over a potential huge loss any day of the week.

Quite frankly i could care less about competitive play. I just want all the units to actually have a use.

Stealthsuits cost ~300pts or more when fully upgraded and dish out nowhere near the damage crisis suits can. Stealth + shroud isnt worth THAT much to me especially when theyre almost always in charge range and theres plenty of ignores cover out there. I dont care if they get buffed to outstanding, i just want them to be balanced enough so i can not feel heavily gimped using them.

The fighter is all around bad and the bomber is actually better at the fighter's job. But its so expensive for a squishy plane that can be done by an ionhead much more reliably/safely. Again, i just want them to be good enough to not shaft myself bringing them. Sub-optimal is not the same as screwed-over.

Vespid are the only unit i feel needs a total and complete rework. The high init, jump, and hit and run makes them out to be melee units. But theyre weak, no ap in melee, and still have gak WS. Their gun is obviously designed to kill marines, but the range and rate of fire on top of the cost makes them the WORST unit at killing marines - even our Firewarriors kill marines better point-for-point. I say remove their AP3 gun and just make it a basic gun so they arent wasting a phase, while giving them real melee power to actually abuse that high init and hit and run capability. Their cost isnt the problem this time tbh, its their mixed viability and being terrible at both.

Heck, im probably the only tau player that DOESNT complain about the devilfish. I use both my transports most games and they never disappoint me because im aiming to have fun not utterly crush my opponent.
Same goes for my Stormsurge. I like its rules. Its not insanely powerful and neither do i care if it is, its strong enough to justify using in more than a joke list.

/rant

anyway....the kind of balance i want is something GW will never do. The ork codex upon release was the closest one ive seen minus the no invul bs. Later codex releases made them just as bad as they were before, only now im spamming warbikers instead of nobbikers if i want to live longer than 3 turns.

I feel your pain Vineheart. I just.. well I keep my expectations realistic with GW. I'm just happy if they do less harm than they do good in any release.

Speaking of the Stormsurge, I'm really not sure this thing is as weak as people make it out to be. Slap a 4++ on this thing via wargear and suddenly a 2 man squad of them looks like something you could potentially make work nicely. You could of course squat one or two in the back field and have an uber artillery piece, but I think that's a waste of them. If they can just be made to survive in the mid field in any way, the pulse blaster profile along with all of the other weaponry it sports can make a huge T1/T2 difference in the course of a match.

Only reason people think its terrible is because its ~150pts less than a Ta'unar when kitted out, which is the vastly superior pick by far. Oh, and its Str D is point-blank...never mind the dual S10 pi plates of death at table range lol nah thats totally not important nope not at all *cough*

Also the Ta'unar more than twice the price lol. I intend to get one with my tax returns, but more because i just LOVE that model than i think its an op game-stomper. Never intend to field it sub-4k games lol. Except against a certain eldar player.....

I admit, on paper i feel the Stormsurge is a bit overpriced but not by much. The fact it isnt T7 at LEAST is a bit of a shock to me, both because of the price and GMC rules. But until i get a game with it i wont know if its priced fairly or not.

Remember, even though the Eldar are obscenely overpowered right now people still compare everything to them. Its not a wraithknight or wraithknight killer, so it sucks.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Only reason people think its terrible is because its ~150pts less than a Ta'unar when kitted out, which is the vastly superior pick by far. Oh, and its Str D is point-blank...never mind the dual S10 pi plates of death at table range lol nah thats totally not important nope not at all *cough*

Also the Ta'unar more than twice the price lol. I intend to get one with my tax returns, but more because i just LOVE that model than i think its an op game-stomper. Never intend to field it sub-4k games lol. Except against a certain eldar player.....

I admit, on paper i feel the Stormsurge is a bit overpriced but not by much. The fact it isnt T7 at LEAST is a bit of a shock to me, both because of the price and GMC rules. But until i get a game with it i wont know if its priced fairly or not.

Remember, even though the Eldar are obscenely overpowered right now people still compare everything to them. Its not a wraithknight or wraithknight killer, so it sucks.

As an Eldar player, I fully support your endeavor to put an Eldar cheesemonger in his place.

I really don't understand why people want Tau to be on the same obscene level of power as the current Eldar codex. Do they want a handful of absurdly OP units that invalidate both whole armies and the entire rest of the codex? Are people claiming this sarcastically so they can justify their hate against Tau as a faction? I just don't know anymore.

The solution to power creep is not more power creep. It's to cut down and raise up the outliers until everything fits the balance curve.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So this new Tau Codex really is just a 2.0 of the old one, and not a new Codex?

I don't think anyone can answer that til we see the new codex. But the *cover* is almost identical (same artwork, but lettering stylistically matches 7e codex look), and the new pages are all pretty much accounted for in terms of new units, the new formation force org, and the new formations (I think 9?). The big question is, "did anything else change?"... who knows. In White Dwarf could not really be any more ambiguous:

"The latest edition of Codex: Tau Empire compiles and updates the history and rules found in the previous (April 2013) edition of Codex: Tau Empire, and adds a wealth of new material. A shelf-busting 128 pages long, it presents all the exiting entries as datasheets and adds the most recent releases such as the Ghostkeel and Stormsurge. The updated Codex also includes new content in the form of a new Tau Detachment (the Hunter COntingent), Tactical Objectives, and 9 new Formations (including devastating additions such as the Retaliation Cadre and Armoured Interdiction Cadre).

The New rules found in this edtion of Codex: Tau Empire are also contained in War Zone Domocles: Kauyon. Tau collectors who want all the rules in one place (along with buckets of new art, background and unform [sic] guides) will find this updated Codex a godsend. If you do own the previous edition, though, using it alongside the new Kauyon book will also provide you with everything you need, so the choice of how you get your hands on all the new Tau rules really is yours."

If it were any company other than GW, I'd say, new codex is old codex + some new pages and new art, plus maybe a bit of fluff (history). But heck, this is GW, and "compiles and updates the history and rules" could mean a couple of tiny words -- or clarifications -- that turns the world upside down for faction players. Or even point changes. Who knows.

Among other things, on the side bar, it says, "The rules from the previous Codex are brought up to date with datasheets for every unit as well as formations and the new Hunter Contingent Detachment." So are the datasheets just like, the same old information, are they, uh, updated? And anyways, SOME of the units will need to be updated, if only because they got new models, with more options, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, teaser for the next issue:

NEXT ISSUE: AID FROM AZYR, STARBORNE SLAUGHTER, THE TIDEWALL RISES...

#1 is obviously something AoS.
#3 is probably GW selling Tidewall pieces separately -- I think so because they have reportedly offered some stores pieces of tidewall from the separately packaged boxes.

#2 is....???