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Seems like the buffmander rules apply. As does split fire. Looks like buffmander-sniping and alpha strike just became meta shift.

I finally understand this rule.
When tau units become one big unit that grant them buffs? When they shoot at one same target.
So single riptide with target lock wont get the buff if he want to shoot other unit because this action wont fullfil conditions of coop fire rule that require to shoot the same target.
But nothing prevent him taking 30 point tax to take drone.

What prevents you from taking the drones is that if one dies, you might run off.

 Mr.T wrote:
I finally understand this rule.
When tau units become one big unit that grant them buffs? When they shoot at one same target.
So single riptide with target lock wont get the buff if he want to shoot other unit because this action wont fullfil conditions of coop fire rule that require to shoot the same target.
But nothing prevent him taking 30 point tax to take drone.

Exactly so now most people will take a Drone and TL on their Riptides. Hide the drone behind the riptide to keep it alive.

 doktor_g wrote:
Seems like the buffmander rules apply. As does split fire. Looks like buffmander-sniping and alpha strike just became meta shift.

Here is the question, though, who are you actually going to play against with the most liberal interpretation of this rule? No friendly/pick-up game would agree to such a condition, except maybe the guy playing a pile of Wraithknights. ITC/ETC is surely to rule against such a wide interpretation as well. Also, do you really want to be the guy to put this on the table?

No cancer "jokes", motyak

The options are:

1. Units combining fire only gain the benefits of the coordinated attack (+1BS etc.), plus marker lights, as they are specifically called out as applying.
2. The marker light call-out is a redundant statement, and all USRs apply as the coordinating units count as one, and thus share their rules. However, if a model targets something other than the unit being coordinated against, it doesn't get the benefits.
3. They are just one unit, period, all shenanigans apply.

The only conclusions that can be (vaguely) drawn from the rules as written is 1 or 3. 2 is probably a good middle-ground and perhaps even what was intended. We await a ruling from GW or ITC.

HandofMars wrote:
The options are:

1. Units combining fire only gain the benefits of the coordinated attack (+1BS etc.), plus marker lights, as they are specifically called out as applying.
2. The marker light call-out is a redundant statement, and all USRs apply as the coordinating units count as one, and thus share their rules. However, if a model targets something other than the unit being coordinated against, it doesn't get the benefits.
3. They are just one unit, period, all shenanigans apply.

The only conclusions that can be (vaguely) drawn from the rules as written is 1 or 3. 2 is probably a good middle-ground and perhaps even what was intended. We await a ruling from GW or ITC.

Nothing supports the exclusions of 1 & 2.

If you want to be talking to a friend or group about it reducing the impact to 1 or 2, that's fine, but the mechanics are quite clear in supporting 3.

There's no reason anyone should deny the buff commander effecting all the units taking part. If they thought the target lock scenario is not RAI, I'd concede the point just because it's a bit cheeky. RAW is not always reasonable but then again, being OP is just what codices do these days

From an RaI stance it is not like GW don't know Tau can split their fire. It is literally one of their defining characteristics from their very first codex. It is also not like they don't know how to word things so that models splitting off shots don't get the benefits as they do that with Marker Lights. To be me this seems to be certain RaI.

 Mr.T wrote:
I finally understand this rule.
When tau units become one big unit that grant them buffs? When they shoot at one same target.
So single riptide with target lock wont get the buff if he want to shoot other unit because this action wont fullfil conditions of coop fire rule that require to shoot the same target.
But nothing prevent him taking 30 point tax to take drone.

I think MtT may have a cool interpretation for ITC. If you dont shoot at tge unit targeted... no buffs.

 doktor_g wrote:

 Mr.T wrote:
I finally understand this rule.
When tau units become one big unit that grant them buffs? When they shoot at one same target.
So single riptide with target lock wont get the buff if he want to shoot other unit because this action wont fullfil conditions of coop fire rule that require to shoot the same target.
But nothing prevent him taking 30 point tax to take drone.

I think MtT may have a cool interpretation for ITC. If you dont shoot at tge unit targeted... no buffs.

As if Coordinated Attack only cared about models shooting at the target.

It cares about UNITS shooting at the target and models firing (but it does not specify firing at that target).

Charistoph wrote:

 doktor_g wrote:

 Mr.T wrote:
I finally understand this rule.
When tau units become one big unit that grant them buffs? When they shoot at one same target.
So single riptide with target lock wont get the buff if he want to shoot other unit because this action wont fullfil conditions of coop fire rule that require to shoot the same target.
But nothing prevent him taking 30 point tax to take drone.

I think MtT may have a cool interpretation for ITC. If you dont shoot at tge unit targeted... no buffs.

As if Coordinated Attack only cared about models shooting at the target.

It cares about UNITS shooting at the target and models firing (but it does not specify firing at that target).

It does list "models" in one part of the rule.

When 3 or more units combine their firepower, the firing models add 1 to their Ballistic Skill.

However, even at the most conservative reading of the rule, it would only deny the +1 BS when a model uses a Target Lock while still gaining all the unit wide rules. Even then however, it simply reads they need to be firing and does not specify a target for the models.
The literal reading is models get +1 BS when shooting while their unit has joined with at least two other units, while models that don't shoot do not get a BS buff.
This prevents models with BS 0, like Kroot Hounds, from becoming BS 1 and being able to fire emplaced weapons.

The rule has a bit more thought put into than some people are giving it credit for.

There's no part of the rule that restricts units participating in Coordinated Fire from also shooting at other targets if they have special rules for that. Reference my last post.

The part that a lot of people are missing is the must part of "these units must shoot at the same target..." does not mean must only. If it did, they would have wrote Must Only. Does everyone see the difference?
There are quite a few people reading more into the rule than what is actually there.

All must means is that any unit, whether it be a riptide with a target lock, crisis suits with target locks, etc, must make at least one shooting attack with other units to gain the Coordinated Firepower buff. If they can split fire, the rule doesn't say that they can't do so and it also doesn't say they they are precluded from the +1 BS.


Secondly, " ...resolving their shots as if they were one unit - this incudes the use of markerlight abilities" is also pretty simple. Ask yourself, how does a single unit resolve it's shots? How do you normally do that? Why would you make any exception for this special rule if it is telling you to resolve all of those shooting attacks "as if they were one unit?" When would you normally exclude special rules for a unit when those rules are supposed to be applied unit wide? It is clear that this rule treats multiple units as one unit under some very specific circumstances. That means special rules that are normally shared within a unit could also be shared among all participating units "as if they were one unit."

Look, I get it, it is a very powerful rule. But it is also a very simple rule. The complicated part is people trying to explain it away because of the implications the rule introduces to the meta and as a result, not liking it.

IMHO (as someone who actively practices law I need to discuss real life "RAI" and "RAW" on regular basis.):

1) Splitfire
The unit needs to shoot the target. End of story.
It does not say the entire unit or every model, so used target locks dont break the ability.
To be even more clear: the buff does apply to the model using a target lock.

2) Becoming one unit
This is simply wrong, they don't magically become a single unit.
They are just treated as one for the purpose of shooting and therefore are NOT a single unit and are treated as such in every other situation.

3) The Buffmander
As much as I hate it (and I play Tau myself) there is no restriction about special rules applying to one of the shooting units.
I would prefer the reading, that only markerlights are shared (and I WILL play it like that!) but I see no argument in the wording of the rule why it should not include the buffmander.
The buffs (as long as they explicitly affect a whole unit) are for the purpose of shooting affecting the whole unit of the buffmander - and that is every model also targeting the same unit.

4) Conclusion
I hate this rule.
On the one hand it suits the Tau fluff and enhances the synergy of our units. But they went completely over the top with it.
You can heavily abuse this to a cheeselevel of over 9000.
I will not play it as written and will only use it on markerlights - which is a pretty awesome buff on its own.
If I ever play against another Tau who uses the Buffmander there is no argument to stop him/her from doing so.

On the topic of combined fire, when is the +1 bs added? That is to say, if you are shooting at an invisible target, you can only make snap shots and your bs is reduced to 1. Do you get a +1 from the combined fire meaning you can shoot at bs 2? It should be noted that you can use marker lights to increase your bs when snap shooting.

As OP as it is, I find it hard to argue why the 'shoot as one unit' rules would apply to markerlights but not to other special rules.

That being said, it does specifically call out markerlights, and not generic special rules. Perhaps one could say that markerlights are allowed only because it's mentioned in the rule, and because special rules aren't addressed, they can't be applied in the same manner.

In the end, unfortunately, it does say all units combine fire as if they were one unit. And RAW, tau have many special rules that affects a 'unit's' shooting abilities.

So, overall, I'd probably be on the side of buffmander and the like helping everyone in the army. At least, I suppose, only one enemy unit can be in range of the buffmander can be shot at with the special rule sharing. But that's still really powerful.

Nilok wrote:

Charistoph wrote:
As if Coordinated Attack only cared about models shooting at the target.

It cares about UNITS shooting at the target and models firing (but it does not specify firing at that target).

It does list "models" in one part of the rule.

When 3 or more units combine their firepower, the firing models add 1 to their Ballistic Skill.

However, even at the most conservative reading of the rule, it would only deny the +1 BS when a model uses a Target Lock while still gaining all the unit wide rules. Even then however, it simply reads they need to be firing and does not specify a target for the models.
The literal reading is models get +1 BS when shooting while their unit has joined with at least two other units, while models that don't shoot do not get a BS buff.
This prevents models with BS 0, like Kroot Hounds, from becoming BS 1 and being able to fire emplaced weapons.

The rule has a bit more thought put into than some people are giving it credit for.

That's more or less what I meant. It doesn't care if the models are not shooting at the Coordinated Target, just the units. Which means the Target Locked/Split Firing models literally get the BS bonus so long as the non-Locked/Split Firing portions of the unit are involved in shooting the Coordinated Target. For some reason (I blame the sinus infection I have this week), I couldn't quite fit that definition in the parenthetical. If they aren't shooting, they don't get the buff, but the buff doesn't matter for them anyway.

 lambsandlions wrote:
On the topic of combined fire, when is the +1 bs added? That is to say, if you are shooting at an invisible target, you can only make snap shots and your bs is reduced to 1. Do you get a +1 from the combined fire meaning you can shoot at bs 2? It should be noted that you can use marker lights to increase your bs when snap shooting.

Edit:

No. Snap shot is a fixed modifier (BS1). Order of operations for applying modifiers is first Multipliers and Division, second addition and subtraction, and lastly fixed modifiers. Marker lights are an exception as they specifically state that they modify snap-shots.

 wyomingfox wrote:

 lambsandlions wrote:
On the topic of combined fire, when is the +1 bs added? That is to say, if you are shooting at an invisible target, you can only make snap shots and your bs is reduced to 1. Do you get a +1 from the combined fire meaning you can shoot at bs 2? It should be noted that you can use marker lights to increase your bs when snap shooting.

No. Snap shot is a fixed modifier (BS1). Order of operations for applying modifiers is first addition and subtraction, second Multipliers and Division, and lastly fixed modifiers. Marker lights are an exception as they specifically state that they modify snap-shots.

Swap the multipliers/dividers with additives/subtractive.

oops...your correct!

A lot of Tau players want it so they can split fire with every USR... they want the most broken OP interpretation . Now I remember I said a lot... not every.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
A lot of Tau players want it so they can split fire with every USR... they want the most broken OP interpretation . Now I remember I said a lot... not every.

I haven't touched Tau since 5th Edition Grey Knights was released, or was it Blood Angels?

I have Templars and Necrons, and Tau is the most common army I see at the local tables. If I was a power monger, I would be arguing the opposite.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
A lot of Tau players want it so they can split fire with every USR... they want the most broken OP interpretation . Now I remember I said a lot... not every.

I do feel that the simplest way to interpret the rule is to just treat it as a combined unit in resolving the shooting attack; I do realize that this is overwhelming when taking Target Locks, GC and split-fire into account.

I feel Reecius interpretation on BOLS to be seriously lacking as mostly it comes down to 1) breaking unit coherency -- which has no bearing when resolving a shooting attack once a target has been selected -- 2) unit composition that include IC and MC -- which again has no bearing with resolving shooting attacks 3) It is too overwhelming once you figure in TL, GC, and Splitfire -- which is a HIWPI argument

Now that said, I would be fine if the ITC and similar tourneys offered a compromise that allowed models targeting the original enemy unit to share special rules but models targeting other enemy units via a "split-fire like" method not to share in said special rules.

I have to be honest and say I agree with Reecius. The main reasons why are because he put a lot of time and effort into researching his article which included polling some respected gamers. It was not a gut reaction. This is how we should discuss new rules.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I have to be honest and say I agree with Reecius. The main reasons why are because he put a lot of time and effort into researching his article which included polling some respected gamers. It was not a gut reaction. This is how we should discuss new rules.

I don't think that is the best way to do it since it is mostly based on gut reaction of different people, which is what a poll at this point is. The best way to really see is the play the rule in many games with the different interpretations. The people at ITC put a lot of game time in their faqs, which is why people prefer them.

It's not a gut reaction. You should read the article.

Well most of his arguments refer do problems that dont exist cuz he doesn't want to use the rule as it is written.

Arguing that a Codex Rule acts different than the BRB is not a counting argument. Neigther does it count to imply rule problems and fallaciec that dont realy exist. Unit coherency is not checket the moment CF taks action and so on....

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

So, overall, I'd probably be on the side of buffmander and the like helping everyone in the army. At least, I suppose, only one enemy unit can be in range of the buffmander can be shot at with the special rule sharing. But that's still really powerful.

Unfortunately for your point of view the Buffmander is not required to shoot to benefit the unit, on the contrary. Assume the buffmander unit splits fire at two different targets, the special rules work on both targets. Why would the contingent behave differently, especially as the rule says they shoot as a single unit.

I can see this thread going forever with the naysayers really not having any support for their argument. It's quite sad to claim that as the rule does not specify special rules that they would not apply. Guess what? That is explained elsewhere in the book under the universal special rules.

Naw wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

So, overall, I'd probably be on the side of buffmander and the like helping everyone in the army. At least, I suppose, only one enemy unit can be in range of the buffmander can be shot at with the special rule sharing. But that's still really powerful.

Unfortunately for your point of view the Buffmander is not required to shoot to benefit the unit, on the contrary. Assume the buffmander unit splits fire at two different targets, the special rules work on both targets. Why would the contingent behave differently, especially as the rule says they shoot as a single unit.

I can see this thread going forever with the naysayers really not having any support for their argument. It's quite sad to claim that as the rule does not specify special rules that they would not apply. Guess what? That is explained elsewhere in the book under the universal special rules.

I'm not sure, the line "units must shoot the same target" for the Coordianted Firepower rule infers that at least one model must fire from the unit to the target to be able to claim benefit of the super-unit. This means if you target lock all your Crisis Suits away from the target if a Buffmander is with them, they will fail on the requirement that the unit "must shoot [at the target]".

On the other hand, this could simply mean that you must select the target for being shot.

A simple solution is to have a Gun Drone with the Buffmander so it can shoot for him to satisfy both readings of the rule, or insure he is with a long range unit, like Sniper Drones or Railsides to mark targets for your army from a distance.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I have to be honest and say I agree with Reecius. The main reasons why are because he put a lot of time and effort into researching his article which included polling some respected gamers. It was not a gut reaction. This is how we should discuss new rules.

Reecius' article is terrible. He should have put effort into reading the rules. All his article shows is a complete lack of understanding he has of many basic rules (MCs and ICs, unit coherency both of which he gets wrong) and a summing up that completely white washes that his approach requires making up a load of extra rules to follow.

We have a reading that is by far the most likely RaI and follows what the RaW is and breaks no rules and invents no rules. Reecius discards this out of hand because it is powerful. Which makes me wonder what his interpretation of a Wraithknights points cost is. The other option us you disregard what is written and make up a whole series of new rules to determine how this rule works.

ITC love their deathstars, and reliably change new rules to see their continued success. What they change to the Tau book will be no different.