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I had a chance to review the leaked Tau 8th edition codex last night and was quite surprised by what I saw in some areas.

After rebuilding my 7th edition 1850 point list using the 8th edition costs I pretty much walked away with the same army in terms of models - minus my 2 riptides. Infantry and drones are relatively inexpensive, but suits with even the most basic war-gear selections have sky rocketed in price. However, I'm not too worried based on the leaks for other armies as it seems vehicles and monstrous creatures across the board share this same fate. I'm curious to see if this will impact the point size of games we will be playing. Will players be moving to 2000 point armies as the tournament standard or will we be playing games with fewer models (big nasty creatures/vehicles just being slightly more rare than before)? I definitely think it won't be such any easy choice anymore to just throw as many riptides into an army as possible because while durable, guns that do multiple points of damage will now be able to shred them with focused fire. I'm actually happy my riptides don't fit in my first draft of my Tau 8th edition force as I really only included them so that I could remain competitive.

Significant changes:

- Free Shas'vre upgrades
- Free bonding knives
- Drones are no longer part of the unit that purchased them so marker drones can benefit their owners too
- Cheaper drones
- Crisis suit min squad size is 3 (from 1) - no more suicide fusion blasters
- Broadsides can only take 2 missile drones per squad (from 2 per suit)
- Suits cost a lot more: riptide with ion accelerator is roughly 360 pts, broadside 180 pts, xv8 with 2x missile pod is 90 pts
- Suits got a lot more durable
- Many more shots per suit due to twin-linked changes (but we pay for it)
- Universal split fire means target lock no longer needs to be spammed (return of the fireknives is viable for those old school Tau players)

Overall I think these changes may influence the game by us seeing less reliance on the larger suits. Savior protocol and loss of JSJ means that crisis heavy armies are definitely going to want drones (especially now that they are cheaper). Marker drones are now quite viable with the cheaper drone controllers and the fact that they support the units that bought them. I actually think you could argue that pathfinders, while better value than marker drones, are now more list dependent. I believe movement is going to play a larger role in this edition with many vehicles (transports) surviving past turn 2. Those pathfinders may find themselves cut off and/or charged more frequently.

The changes to split-fire, min squad size, and weapon/support system costs mean that we lose some of the standard crisis suit profiles. Single suits with 2x fusion blasters or 2x missile pods are gone. A suit with 1x burst cannon, 1x flamer now costs 61 points - so you'd be better off with 8x fire warriors for an additional 3 points. The most effective configurations are going to be some combination of missile pods, fusion blasters, and plasma rifles. I also think that running 3 weapons per suit may not be viable as it just ties up too many points. I'd be interested to see if any players are planning on mixing weapons on individual suits.

I was disappointed to see sniper drones once again over costed or rather under-gunned. With no AP on their rifles, they are basically a fire warrior with less range, but over twice the cost. You'd be better off just taking a bunch of gun drones for their volume of shots.

I'd love to here other player's opinions on the leaks.

Target lock boosts your BS by 1 if you fire all weapons on a single unit.
since target lock is bought per model, I think this also applies for each individual model.
--> for very little points you can boost Crisis BS to 3+ while still being able to split the fire of your suits.

Aeri wrote:
Target lock boosts your BS by 1 if you fire all weapons on a single unit.
since target lock is bought per model, I think this also applies for each individual model.
--> for very little points you can boost Crisis BS to 3+ while still being able to split the fire of your suits.

That is not at all what target lock does.

Target lock: A model with target lock does not suffer the penalty for moving and firing heavy weapons, or for advancing and firing assault weapons. The model can also advance and fire rapid fire weapons, but must subtract 1 from its to hit rolls when doing.

- Basically really only applies if you plan on advancing each movement phase. The points quickly add up considering that you wont advance every turn.

I think you may be confusing it with the Multi-tracker which only lets you re-roll to hits of 1 if firing all weapons at the same target.


On an unrelated notes, I'm also starting to realize that markerlights are nowhere near as good as they used to be as only the 4-5 bonus make a significant impact. With most Marker lights sitting at BS 4+ you'd need to fire an average of 10 lights on a unit to gain any sort BS bonus against it. What are the chances that that many markerlights would have LoS on the same target? You'd probably need to have about 20 markerlights in your army to reliably confer the 5 light bonus (considering they will be spread out and taking losses throughout the game). You are better off just buying units that can actually pump out damage.

For some reason I seem to be missing the page for standard FW. But if a Shas is free and the ML is only a minimal cost and the target lock is now army wide, that's a saving of 12 pts from last edition. And if troops are the now necessary unit of choice there's 6 minimal cost markerlights.

And you don't lose firepower because that FW can fire both his markerlight and his rifle at the same target.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
For some reason I seem to be missing the page for standard FW. But if a Shas is free and the ML is only a minimal cost and the target lock is now army wide, that's a saving of 12 pts from last edition. And if troops are the now necessary unit of choice there's 6 minimal cost markerlights.

And you don't lose firepower because that FW can fire both his markerlight and his rifle at the same target.

Cheers

Andrew

Very true, but that is under the assumption that your detachment supports 6 troops. Many players (myself included) will be using vanguard detachment for the elite slots as it doesn't look like Farsight enclave rules really exist anymore. If you are going with a suit heavy force you could just give everything a super cheap multi-tracker (so everything basically has the 1 markerlight bonus) and then just dump the saved points into gun drones/weapon systems.

Personally I think the loss of JSJ is massive, 95% of my army made use of it, and the fact that none of the shorter range weapons were improved means that instead of dancing at the edge of charge ranges, they're going to get charged. Especially with the increase speed on a lot of melee units.

Marker lights got a massive downgrade, and from what I can tell nothing really improved. The majority of the less great units got side grades, not upgrades.

Overall I'm really disappointed. The things that needed to be toned down got hammered hard, while things that could have easily been left alone were also made worse.

I see they did next to nothing to improve tanks. Hammerhead/Sky Ray is LESS durable than Riptide. Stealth Suits continue to be lame. And no JSJ - yep, I need not to bother with this edition.

I really don't like the changes to the cost of the 88.

Its jumped from 280% from the original 65. Why?

Regading markerlights:
Markerlights got nerfed hard.
Getting 10 ML shots out is pretty cheap though, pathfinders are 5pts a piece, half the cost in previous editions. They can vanguard (scout move) up into cover and they will never leave it.
My issue with MLs is that there are character effects and wargear that make almost each step of the markerlight chart redundant.

Regarding Crisis suits
We can make our own interceptor marines, with two BCs and an advanced targeting array.
Missile pods are extortionate, they are better off as HYMPs on Broadsides.
Fusion suits took a hard hit from the minimum squad size rules.
Plasma rifles look to be the best, cheap option on crisis suits. Good for hunting power armoured infantry, they are cheap at 11pts and gain a lot from the advanced targeting system.
They got buffs to thier wounds and a significant movement increase.
I think they take the anti-heavy infantry role now.

Regarding Fire Warriors
They are cheap, cheap bodies. For 96 pts you get some of the best core infantry in the game. They hunker down in cover and get a 3+ armour save Its probably worth getting the DS8 with a SMS.
I think they will be even more static than before, given the way saves work and the cost of a devilfish.
The Shas'ui is free and the bonding knife upgrade stops entire units from fleeing on a bad day, these are both pretty meh to me, I never took either.

Regarding Broadsides:
Someone in the playtesting team really didnt like Broadsides. A 3.5x cost increase for a fully-loaded broadside battlesuit is insane. However, they are now essentially monstrous creatures and have a fair amount of durability with W5 and T5.
The HYMP vs HRR argument will start at some point, there is good reason to take either.
A pair of plasma rifles is now cheaper than a SMS, so are worth adding just to reduce the costs.
I sincerely doubt anyone will run these in full squads, ~725pts is debilitatingly expensive.

Regarding Vespid:
Vespid are better!
Vespid might be the new choice instead of crisis suits for cost-damage output. They are cheap, T4 and fast.
They still wont see the table because thier models are still in finecast.

Regarding Named Characters:
Darkstrider is interesting, the others, non battlesuit characters are terrible.
Farsight and Shadowsun are both better field commanders.
The double Kauyon is woth Shadowsuns cost alone.

Regarding Stealthsuits:
A stealthsuit in cover is almost a Terminator with a burst cannon.
The ATS makes them better than a heavy bolter.

Regarding Hammerheads:
Longstrike is necesary for railheads to work at all.
Heck, Longstrike makes Hammerheads work better in general thanks to Fire Caste Exemplar.

Regarding flyers:
The Sunshark bomber actually has a good bombing system now! It can proabably do double-duty as a strike fighter rather than whatever it was before.

I think the rules in general are reducing access to large quantities of powerful equiptment and to durable carriers. The land raider went up, leman russes went up, hammerheads went up, broadsides and riptides went up. Suck it, everyone is reajusting.
One thing that Tau are now missing, is that key coordination and synergy that made Tau so playable in previous editions.
Certain elements of the core rules appear to favour Tau, until you realise that any unit that survives a round of the fight phase is essentially dead anyway to morale.

Yeah, the Tau are built on synergy, parts working together to make something better than the sum of the parts... But there is a whole lot of redundancy​...

Character special abilities, wargear, and markerlights all overlap in giving rerolls of one and the ability to advance and shoot without penalty.

As for the primaries intercepter Marines... It's somewhat annoying that they're basically better burst cannon Crisis suits.

Hammerhead's price hike was pretty small, so they are quite viable now!

And I don't think cadre fireblades are that bad. A BS2+ ML and making people around it fire 1 extra shot at half range (even if moving) seems quite cool. He's pretty cheap!

"One thing that Tau are now missing, is that key coordination and synergy that made Tau so playable in previous editions. "

You left out immortal suits. And cheap mass interceptor. And at-will access to ignore cover. And AP2 on weapons that had no business with AP2.

Martel732 wrote:
"One thing that Tau are now missing, is that key coordination and synergy that made Tau so playable in previous editions. "

You left out immortal suits. And cheap mass interceptor. And at-will access to ignore cover. And AP2 on weapons that had no business with AP2.

You know... I've seen you post nothing but complaints about Tau for years. If you actually look at the thread, has anyone asked for... Any of those things?

No, but it's what made Tau the biggest bully list for two editions.

Given that they killed Death stars completely, and gutted psykers, I still think you guys are better off than you think.

As for the complaints, there was no way the Riptide could have been considered remotely a fair unit by an objective observer. The bottom line is that nasty units cost a lot in 8th ed. As they should. But some armies are used to getting nasty units on a dime.

Martel732 wrote:
"One thing that Tau are now missing, is that key coordination and synergy that made Tau so playable in previous editions. "

You left out immortal suits. And cheap mass interceptor. And at-will access to ignore cover. And AP2 on weapons that had no business with AP2.

Wondered if you were still around.

- Crisis were T4 W2 3+; far from unkillable.
- Ghostkeels had too much good cover save and Riptide (which are now T7 2+/5++ with 3++ Nova still around, mind you) were undercosted. Both had been addressed.
- Interceptor is still cheap and plentiful, but only at 12" now (doesn't stop the firer from shooting again during the next shooting phase).
- Ignore cover was 2ML; this is not at-will. Now requires 3MLs, but cover is much less important now, so whatever.
- Which weapons had no business being AP2? Ion Accelerator? It still is. Lol.

Dude, the only point you ever had was Riptide being undercosted.

Martel732 wrote:
No, but it's what made Tau the biggest bully list for two editions.

Given that they killed Death stars completely¹, and gutted psykers², I still think you guys are better off than you think.

1- And now deathstars don't even exist - they were a worse plague to the game than Tau big suits. Tau 'bullied' FLGS games, while Daemons, Eldar and SM were the real winners at tournaments.
2- How? We had 1 item that let us DtW at 4+ against 2 kinds of powers, when we know Blessings and Summoning were much better (and deniable only at 6+)

Seriously, Martel, you should try to enjoy BA leaks. Are they good?

If you say so. The Tau were pure cheese for a long time that could only be beaten by using Eldar or horrible IoM death star shenanigans.

Stormsurge needed to eat mass nerfs too.

"Are they good?"

Not really. We're still the have-not marines. But I might be able to snatch a few games if I've got models on the table past turn 3. BA are the new DA. Whatever.

" they were a worse plague to the game than Tau big suits."

I'll say they were both equally terrible in different ways. If I piled on enough frag cannons, sometimes i could get lucky vs death stars. Riptides? I had NOTHING. NOTHING.

First of all, let's not forget that this is only a placeholder codex and we need to treat it as such. At some point (allegedly in the near future) we will get a fully fledged release with more in-depth rules, so let's make the best of what we've got until then:


- Photon grenades haven't been mentioned much, but I think they might be the silent gem of our list. -1 to hit for enemy infantry in both melee and ranged combat is a huge boon. The range, conveniently, is 12" which is also the maximum charge range.

- Tactical Drones are 8 point ablative wounds that can be moved independently and shifted wherever they are needed. The 2 Tactical Drones that come with our infantry can effectively deny charges into our more important units.

For 80 points, a squad of 10 gun drones next to a Fire Warriors squad that is being charged will first deliver 40 shots due to overwatch and then absorb 10 wounds in the ensuing melee.

- That is, if the enemy even gets there. How about pulling a Grav-Inhibitor drone from a nearby Pathfinder squad into position to strip D3 inches of charge distance from your opponent? Same goes for the Pulse Accelerator Drone - keep them close to your Firewarriors and enjoy a range of 36" and 18" Rapid fire

- If they make it into melee, the combination of drone ablative wounds and photon grenade will help a great deal. But what about morale tests? Ethereals got us covered. LD9 for our troops and "Calm of Tides" will help cut those losses. Oh, and we have free bonding Knives now which means that we ignore rolls of 6 altogether.

- Now, assuming a reasonable amount of models is still alive after all that, we can fall back in the next movement phase. "Sadly our infantry won't be able to shoot in the same turn" you say? Let me introduce you to Darkstrider. Not only will he let our unit shoot in the same turn, but he'll also let one of our units hit the enemy at -2T.

If everything went according to plan, the enemy unit is exposed, has -2T and is in rapid fire range: Time to Kauyon all over them!

DaemonJellybaby wrote:
Regading markerlights:
Markerlights got nerfed hard.
Getting 10 ML shots out is pretty cheap though, pathfinders are 5pts a piece, half the cost in previous editions.

The pathfinders actually cost 8 since that 5 is a base cost that doesn't include the markerlight.

I think that I am going to be looking forward to modeling rail rifles and cluster missile systems onto my crisis suits for a while, at least.

 gossipmeng wrote:

Aeri wrote:
Target lock boosts your BS by 1 if you fire all weapons on a single unit.
since target lock is bought per model, I think this also applies for each individual model.
--> for very little points you can boost Crisis BS to 3+ while still being able to split the fire of your suits.

That is not at all what target lock does.

Target lock: A model with target lock does not suffer the penalty for moving and firing heavy weapons, or for advancing and firing assault weapons. The model can also advance and fire rapid fire weapons, but must subtract 1 from its to hit rolls when doing.

- Basically really only applies if you plan on advancing each movement phase. The points quickly add up considering that you wont advance every turn.

I think you may be confusing it with the Multi-tracker which only lets you re-roll to hits of 1 if firing all weapons at the same target.


On an unrelated notes, I'm also starting to realize that markerlights are nowhere near as good as they used to be as only the 4-5 bonus make a significant impact. With most Marker lights sitting at BS 4+ you'd need to fire an average of 10 lights on a unit to gain any sort BS bonus against it. What are the chances that that many markerlights would have LoS on the same target? You'd probably need to have about 20 markerlights in your army to reliably confer the 5 light bonus (considering they will be spread out and taking losses throughout the game). You are better off just buying units that can actually pump out damage.

Well given that A unit of 10 pathfinders will cost about 80 points noto to bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Broadsides fully loaded will cost 165 with HRR and 2 Plasma rifles. Which is pretty devastating to just about anything espically if you put ATS on them AP -5? You negate 2+ armor saves entirely? T5 W5 and you can have drones take the hits? 2+ armor save? Tau are going to be the only army capable of wound shenanigans. What are you guys whining about?

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Broadsides fully loaded will cost 165 with HRR and 2 Plasma rifles. Which is pretty devastating to just about anything espically if you put ATS on them AP -5? You negate 2+ armor saves entirely? T5 W5 and you can have drones take the hits? 2+ armor save? Tau are going to be the only army capable of wound shenanigans. What are you guys whining about?

I personally don't mind the changes to the broadsides. I will be fielding 2 with HRR. I just wish we could include more missile drones, but to compensate the savior protocols I'll probably have a 4 man tactical gun drone squad nearby.

 gossipmeng wrote:

I personally don't mind the changes to the broadsides. I will be fielding 2 with HRR. I just wish we could include more missile drones, but to compensate the savior protocols I'll probably have a 4 man tactical gun drone squad nearby.

Probably the biggest thing to remember is to keep yoir drones in cover so they get the +1 to thier armor save all the time. But the fact that I can shoot 4 lascannons at a Riptide and end up killing 1 gun drone is pretty big.

I have always prefered HRR and Plasma Rifle setup. Very anti everything but heavy tanks and hordes. But now 6 shots at 12" is pretty scary espically when you cant just hit the thing with a couple big guns. Personally ill probably run 2 shield drones to negate the AP that is going to be thrown at it.

 Vector Strike wrote:

- Ghostkeels had too much good cover save and Riptide (which are now T7 2+/5++ with 3++ Nova still around, mind you) were undercosted. Both had been addressed.
- Interceptor is still cheap and plentiful, but only at 12" now (doesn't stop the firer from shooting again during the next shooting phase).
- Ignore cover was 2ML; this is not at-will. Now requires 3MLs, but cover is much less important now, so whatever.
- Which weapons had no business being AP2? Ion Accelerator? It still is. Lol.

Dude, the only point you ever had was Riptide being undercosted.

Riptide was not undercosted, it was plain stupid. There is no reason why a battlesuit should be nearly immune to most weapons in the game and have more mobility and firepower than a tank. NONE of this has been addressed. Compare it to Hammerhead - Riptide is more durable, just as mobile and has more firepower.
There is no defensible reason why a battlesuit should be more durable than a freaking TANK.

Backfire wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

- Ghostkeels had too much good cover save and Riptide (which are now T7 2+/5++ with 3++ Nova still around, mind you) were undercosted. Both had been addressed.
- Interceptor is still cheap and plentiful, but only at 12" now (doesn't stop the firer from shooting again during the next shooting phase).
- Ignore cover was 2ML; this is not at-will. Now requires 3MLs, but cover is much less important now, so whatever.
- Which weapons had no business being AP2? Ion Accelerator? It still is. Lol.

Dude, the only point you ever had was Riptide being undercosted.

Riptide was not undercosted, it was plain stupid. There is no reason why a battlesuit should be nearly immune to most weapons in the game and have more mobility and firepower than a tank. NONE of this has been addressed. Compare it to Hammerhead - Riptide is more durable, just as mobile and has more firepower.
There is no defensible reason why a battlesuit should be more durable than a freaking TANK.

Undercosting was indeed the problem with Riptides. The main issue most people had was facing 2+ of them at 1500 points. And I don't really understand your problem with riptides being durable for the correct points costs, there are plenty of MCs that are just as tough, if not tougher. And if your problem is JUST due to it being a battlesuit, then that's a personal opinion

Is somebody else also planning on trying pulse carbines instead of pulse rifles on FW? I think I ll try it. Like the look of the gun much better and my models are magnetized anyways. Sure you have nearly half the range, but with assault armies being buffed I don't think that range will be such a big problem. They'll come to you :p. But the capability to run and shoot (BF-1) will help to keep my FW out of melee range as long as possible. What do you think? Pulse carbine finally worth it on FW?

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 gossipmeng wrote:

I personally don't mind the changes to the broadsides. I will be fielding 2 with HRR. I just wish we could include more missile drones, but to compensate the savior protocols I'll probably have a 4 man tactical gun drone squad nearby.

Probably the biggest thing to remember is to keep yoir drones in cover so they get the +1 to thier armor save all the time. But the fact that I can shoot 4 lascannons at a Riptide and end up killing 1 gun drone is pretty big.

I have always prefered HRR and Plasma Rifle setup. Very anti everything but heavy tanks and hordes. But now 6 shots at 12" is pretty scary espically when you cant just hit the thing with a couple big guns. Personally ill probably run 2 shield drones to negate the AP that is going to be thrown at it.

The problem with HRR/Plasma build is that plasma are only 24". It realistically will do only 2 shots at maximum range until something comes nearby. Broadsides don't have the Fly keyword, so they don't get to shoot after leaving melee. 24" is a very dangerous range now!

 Cannuck wrote:

Backfire wrote:

Riptide was not undercosted, it was plain stupid. There is no reason why a battlesuit should be nearly immune to most weapons in the game and have more mobility and firepower than a tank. NONE of this has been addressed. Compare it to Hammerhead - Riptide is more durable, just as mobile and has more firepower.
There is no defensible reason why a battlesuit should be more durable than a freaking TANK.

Undercosting was indeed the problem with Riptides. The main issue most people had was facing 2+ of them at 1500 points. And I don't really understand your problem with riptides being durable for the correct points costs, there are plenty of MCs that are just as tough, if not tougher.

Which is exactly the problem. Modelling of the units needs to make sense at least on some level. Units like Riptide break it and make it look like large mecha suits are artificially buffed so that people would buy and play them, instead of tanks.
Now, if you want people to play large battlesuits, give them some other options which make them distinct from tanks - tactical flexibility, better close combat, so on. Don't make them super-tanks which out-tank the actual tanks.

 MasterOfGaunts wrote:
Is somebody else also planning on trying pulse carbines instead of pulse rifles on FW? I think I ll try it. Like the look of the gun much better and my models are magnetized anyways. Sure you have nearly half the range, but with assault armies being buffed I don't think that range will be such a big problem. They'll come to you :p. But the capability to run and shoot (BF-1) will help to keep my FW out of melee range as long as possible. What do you think? Pulse carbine finally worth it on FW?

Anyone else gonna put nonstandard stuff on their Crisis suits? Ion Cannons? Rail Rifles? Ion Accelerators?

 carldooley wrote:

 MasterOfGaunts wrote:
Is somebody else also planning on trying pulse carbines instead of pulse rifles on FW? I think I ll try it. Like the look of the gun much better and my models are magnetized anyways. Sure you have nearly half the range, but with assault armies being buffed I don't think that range will be such a big problem. They'll come to you :p. But the capability to run and shoot (BF-1) will help to keep my FW out of melee range as long as possible. What do you think? Pulse carbine finally worth it on FW?

Anyone else gonna put nonstandard stuff on their Crisis suits? Ion Cannons? Rail Rifles? Ion Accelerators?

No, because we cannot. There's a page with a yellow Commander that has the list of things available to Commanders and Crisis

XV8's got so expensive now it's scary. Went from 52 ppm with dual MP to 80. Sure, the extra W and T is nice, but it seems odd that with the loss of JSJ the prices went up so much. I think we're going to be seeing an infantry heavy focus in the future because every gun can hurt everything. The mighty pulse rifle will wound everything on no worse than a 5+, and only costs 8 points with the fire warrior body.