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 Nilok wrote:
Looks like we have some leaks via a Q&A from someone with an early codex on the Tau Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tau40K/comments/s3dafd/dynamic_entry/

Stormsurge and 3 railheads for around 800 points, unleash chicken little!

Bork'an for ignore invulnerable stratagem as well.

Knight armies would be screwed. Hammerheads reliable 20-30 damage per turn, stormsurge gun potentially one shotting knight and if not at least 12 damage per turn reliably.

Even if it's not OP is such extreme rock paper scissor style game becoming healthy...

Apparently firewarriors are now mandatory 10 a unit. Great stuff seeing as the old kit had 12 of them in the box and no more MSU. Some changes are looking interesting, others are looking pretty meh. Many things becoming strats that used to be wargear is not something I'm looking forward to. We'll have to wait and see how this plays out though.

No free Overwatch and FTGG is gone.

My Tyranids like this.

I never understood the obsession with FTGG from non Tau players. If the Tau player has literally everything bunched up, great! You win the objective game by default. If not, overwatch is so bad it hardly ever does everthing (I suppose 5+ is a little better when playing Tau sept, but who does that?). In all my years as playing tau I maybe had 1 instance where I actually killed stuff in overwatch. While it is yet another typically Tau thing being removed, I dont really mind it. Like I said, for me it never added that much value and all that it resulted in was a lot of headaches trying to keep units within 6" of each other, and some needless dice rolling when I got charged.

tneva82 wrote:
Bork'an for ignore invulnerable stratagem as well.

Knight armies would be screwed. Hammerheads reliable 20-30 damage per turn, stormsurge gun potentially one shotting knight and if not at least 12 damage per turn reliably.

Even if it's not OP is such extreme rock paper scissor style game becoming healthy...

Yeah, experienced players will be able to handle this but I think it's really going to skew balance for casual / pickup games. Every so often someone is going to show up with 2-3 Hammerheads & Longstrike, and any opponent with knights / superheavies / daemon primarch will have the game decided by a few average turn 1 dice. Alternatively the Tau player will roll those few critical dice poorly, then get stomped.

Either way it looks like a recipe for feelsbad games.

Had a look through the thread wondering if Pulse Carbines have any changes besides the range increase? I thought they'd become Assault 3 which would justify them over the PR, but now that PRs are Ap-1 I can't find any info at all on why we'd take PCs instead.

 Kanluwen wrote:
But until we see if the Hammerhead can move and fire the railgun, until we see that it has Fly(it probably won't), until we see that it has a Grinding Advance or any number of factors I hesitate to call it the gamebreaking thing people are making it out to be.

It's a Heavy weapon on a vehicle, and no references to it I've seen have said it can't move and fire - any reason you think that might be the case, Kan?

It feels like Tau might struggle against Genestealer Cults given they can Vect Overwatch into oblivion, in the opposite way to how they're almost an auto win against Knights.

9th does seem to be having some issues that while the win rates in tournaments will probably balance out, that doesn't reflex that some match up combinations aren't balanced at all, which is not much fun.

so back to 7th Edi of building extreme list to auto-win and hope you just never meet the one army were you don't have a chance

Wonder how long it takes for gw to introduce rule for some vehicles on x+ dam characteristic of weapon is 1

Edit: ironically stormsurge can do just that.

Horrible codex gameplay wise, just pray and shoot whilst castling up trying to remove the opponent before it gets to you

330 stormsurge.

At least broadside rails don't ignore inv so there's that.

Bomber can cook itself with plasma...but 12 high damage shots not bad. 6d6 rolls 4+mw bomb ain't bad either

Alas gw seems to be doubling up with castle shoot'em up style.

MoD_Legion wrote:
Apparently firewarriors are now mandatory 10 a unit.

Why would a race using a base 8number system fix their squad sizes at 10..?

 Lord Damocles wrote:

MoD_Legion wrote:
Apparently firewarriors are now mandatory 10 a unit.

Why would a race using a base 8number system fix their squad sizes at 10..?

That would require GW to remember their own lore…

Guess I have to figure out if I have enough 2-off Firewarriors left over to make an extra squad…

tneva82 wrote:
Knight armies would be screwed. Hammerheads reliable 20-30 damage per turn, stormsurge gun potentially one shotting knight and if not at least 12 damage per turn reliably.

Remember when in 7th edition, when Tau were broken beyond belief, even Tau Sue fanfiction known as War Zone Damocles: Kauyon/Mont'ka stated that Tau had problems with knights and were countered by them (well, until they somehow turned copy paste of Space Marine anti-air missile into a tank killer throwing a bucket of Str D shots because screw logic)? Even back then idea of Knights being outright smashed by TAU HULK would have been ridiculous. I'd have never imagined even a year ago GW would make something even more busted than 7th

Speaking of 7th, remember how the little Surge anchoring struts that should do jack thanks to their tiny size had not only benefit, but a drawback? And you had to carefully judge their deployment? Screw that, drawbacks are lame, just replace any xenos rule with a mountain of cheese (meanwhile, massive anchoring rigs on SM Stalker/Hunter tanks do nothing, because again, screw logic)

I also like the pile of gouda that is the new Tau plasma rifle. Something that for decades was explicitly stated to be worse than Imperial rifles (supposedly in the name of "safety" though it was heavily implied it was just Tau propaganda as they had no problems with stuff like Ion rifles frying users with dangerously radioactive power sources) is now more busted than Necron and Eldar technology combined. Screw logic and fluff, eh?

Oh, and as a side note, I like how designer made his pet Tau army literally swim in broken gak, then took one look, thought 'hmm, this might be a problem' and his solution was to give the Tau the only countermeasure to this crap in the entire game (namely the stratagem that turns their 47856673 damage weapons into D1 flashlights). And I really like fluff justification to this - apparently all you need to do to stop magical scrap bullets that make mockery of void shields, daemon primarch magic and necron technology is to quickly shoot it with a pistol mid flight. LOGIC!

 Dysartes wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
But until we see if the Hammerhead can move and fire the railgun, until we see that it has Fly(it probably won't), until we see that it has a Grinding Advance or any number of factors I hesitate to call it the gamebreaking thing people are making it out to be.

It's a Heavy weapon on a vehicle, and no references to it I've seen have said it can't move and fire - any reason you think that might be the case, Kan?

Literally because I was speculating that it might have a rule baked into it...in a post made on January 2nd, aka over a week ago.

As a Chaos knights player, the Hammerhead's new railgun initially scared the crap out of me. Thinking about it further, 3 Hammerheads maxes out your Heavies in a Battalion, and means you aren't taking Broadsides. I think people might be slightly overreacting to a single-shot weapon.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
As a Chaos knights player, the Hammerhead's new railgun initially scared the crap out of me. Thinking about it further, 3 Hammerheads maxes out your Heavies in a Battalion, and means you aren't taking Broadsides. I think people might be slightly overreacting to a single-shot weapon.

Broadsides, Ghostkeels, and Riptides per the leak.

Also Skyrays but nobody cares about them.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
As a Chaos knights player, the Hammerhead's new railgun initially scared the crap out of me. Thinking about it further, 3 Hammerheads maxes out your Heavies in a Battalion, and means you aren't taking Broadsides. I think people might be slightly overreacting to a single-shot weapon.

Or they take patrol for broadsides and unlock more commanders. Already common thing.

It might be my indifference to keeping up with the faction showing, but the sept traits seem... poor.

Especially Viorla, Dayleth and Borkan.

Tau and Farsight get reroll spam and other benefits (though Tau wanting to be at engagement range is weird), so seem the best by default.

Sacaea I can see vaguely, but not really a fan of mitigating penalties you don't really want to be suffering in the first place.

New article on Darkstrider says that's part of why he's "hated" is due to his "continued refusal of promotion has made him enemies within the T’au military leadership, for the Fire Caste values tradition and self-sacrifice above all else" because he'd rather stay on the field outside of a Battlesuit - yet there's the entire role of Fireblade/Shas'Nel who's whole point is that they're considered such skilled firewarriors that they also refuse Battlesuits and remain as Infantry where they're best, and while not as respected as Battlesuit pilots, according to lexicanum they're "still highly respected, not least because of their willingness to forgo prestige".

So Fireblades are a rank that Firewarriors who don't want to use Battlesuits and remain as infantry can take, and that's highly respected in part because of eschewing Battlesuits. Yet Darkstrider is bad for wanting that same thing but as a Pathfinder?

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
New article on Darkstrider says that's part of why he's "hated" is due to his "continued refusal of promotion has made him enemies within the T’au military leadership, for the Fire Caste values tradition and self-sacrifice above all else" because he'd rather stay on the field outside of a Battlesuit - yet there's the entire role of Fireblade/Shas'Nel who's whole point is that they're considered such skilled firewarriors that they also refuse Battlesuits and remain as Infantry where they're best, and while not as respected as Battlesuit pilots, according to lexicanum they're "still highly respected, not least because of their willingness to forgo prestige".

So Fireblades are a rank that Firewarriors who don't want to use Battlesuits and remain as infantry can take, and that's highly respected in part because of eschewing Battlesuits. Yet Darkstrider is bad for wanting that same thing but as a Pathfinder?

How could he be such an edgy rebel if his superiors were cool with him doing his thing?

Tau background has gone down the drain with the shift to super hero narratives. They might even be the prime example of the drop in writing quality with the old Farsight Enclaves book. You could see how the material up to a certain point was written in the old pseudo-historical style before everything got cranked up and increasing emphasis was put on Farsight's direct actions until he turned into Superman flying around planets and putting out fires all by himself. They couldn't even be bothered to retcon the old stuff so at least stylistically is was all in line.

What's one more instance of that level of background?

Essentially the full book has been shared...

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/s3hafh/more_tau_leaks/

Just starting to dig through the info-dump now... but it seems like a VERY strong book.

 Geifer wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
New article on Darkstrider says that's part of why he's "hated" is due to his "continued refusal of promotion has made him enemies within the T’au military leadership, for the Fire Caste values tradition and self-sacrifice above all else" because he'd rather stay on the field outside of a Battlesuit - yet there's the entire role of Fireblade/Shas'Nel who's whole point is that they're considered such skilled firewarriors that they also refuse Battlesuits and remain as Infantry where they're best, and while not as respected as Battlesuit pilots, according to lexicanum they're "still highly respected, not least because of their willingness to forgo prestige".

So Fireblades are a rank that Firewarriors who don't want to use Battlesuits and remain as infantry can take, and that's highly respected in part because of eschewing Battlesuits. Yet Darkstrider is bad for wanting that same thing but as a Pathfinder?

How could he be such an edgy rebel if his superiors were cool with him doing his thing?

Tau background has gone down the drain with the shift to super hero narratives. They might even be the prime example of the drop in writing quality with the old Farsight Enclaves book. You could see how the material up to a certain point was written in the old pseudo-historical style before everything got cranked up and increasing emphasis was put on Farsight's direct actions until he turned into Superman flying around planets and putting out fires all by himself. They couldn't even be bothered to retcon the old stuff so at least stylistically is was all in line.

What's one more instance of that level of background?

It's not the other stuff about him going off and doing his own thing and not listening to orders that's the problem;

The Tau have a unit who's whole theming is that they've decided not to go up in rank and use Battlesuits, and would prefer to stay in the field fighting alongside Infantry and thus don't go above Shas'El. It's a role that isn't treated with disdain, but is rather respected and said to be so for reasons including because they eschew a Battlesuit. It's fine for Fire Caste to refuse a promotion and the use of Battlesuits in order to stay as infantry, even getting their own set of special armour for it. Fireblades are less respected than Battlesuit pilots, but still respected for going down the path of a Fireblade.

The article says that Darkstrider is considered "hated" by many Tau, for reasons that include him deciding not to go up in rank and use Battlesuits and how he would prefer to stay in the field fighting alongside Infantry. The idea of a T'au not wanting to be promoted is apparently against tradition and something that has caused quite a few enemies because he's eschewed piloting a Battlesuit.

Fireblade; Fire Caste rank that's respected for refusing promotion and not wanting a Battlesuit. Idea is fine and even gets them a special suit of armour.
Darkstrider; Fire Caste will hate a T'au for refusing a promotion and not wanting a Battlesuit. Idea is not fine and against tradition.

Just comes across as poorly written and a mess.


What do you mean with the change in style with their lore though? I'm not sure what you mean with "old pseudo-historical style".

When I was reading the 8th codex, it seemed like Darkstrider was hated a lot more for ignoring orders and just kind of doing his own thing, and refusing to promote to a stealth suit was just part of that individual streak. For example he has a quote where he pretends he didnt hear an order

"We engaged and dedtroyed the enemy column in accordance with mission parameters. No. I received no such orders to disengage and fall back, Shas'o. Perhaps there was some form of atmospheric interference."

It also talks about him using a tone bordering on insubordination and just having little respect for the chain of command overall. Makes sense to me he'd have a lot of enemies in a society as homogenous as the Tau. It sounds like his superiors being angry over his refusal to be promoted to a battlesuit or stealth team is more about him being insubordinate in general and thats just something concrete they can point to in a report.

Basically Darkstrider is the Tau version of James T Kirk?

 Jadenim wrote:
Basically Darkstrider is the Tau version of James T Kirk?

Pretty sure Monat Shas'O Kais already has that title claimed.

Of course, many Tau in the upper echelons disapproved of Kais for practicing Monat as well.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
Just comes across as poorly written and a mess.

Yeah. I don't disagree with you. Welcome to the wonderful world of tomorrow.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
What do you mean with the change in style with their lore though? I'm not sure what you mean with "old pseudo-historical style".

Broadly speaking, 2nd ed and 3rd ed style of codex writing was more like faux history concerned with the larger scale. Logistics mattered, commanders did commanding instead of meeting their counterparts on the field of battle to decide the outcome of a war in a duel, individual heroics were highlighted but did not tend to be the turning points in the grand scheme of things and it was generally acknowledged that armies won wars, not individual heroes. Tone was somewhat different depending on the faction that was focused on, with Sisters of Battle/the Ecclesiarchy being portrayed more as the inspirational figures moving the masses while Guard high command was sitting back in bunkers and doing big picture strategy that unit commanders put into action. But overall it was centered more around logistics and armies doing the heavy lifting than big bad commander dudes punching each other to decide the fate of a world.

5th ed to 7th ed saw a move away from that with ever more focus on the direct action of individuals to effect major changes to the point where now everything seems to revolve around named characters and you can accurately predict that every matchup of named character against named character ends in a variety of stalemate and some deus ex machina to explain the desired outcome. The first instance of this vibe I can think of is the Ork codex coming out towards the end of 4th ed that had named characters of a race previously noted to have an average life expectancy of 30 years to scoot all across the galaxy, inspire Waaaghs and lead Ork armies to victory before they move on to the next hotspot. Which, of course, made no sense at all, but was to me the first sign of GW's intention to make special characters pivotal to events the galaxy over instead of, as before, coming up with new characters that would do their thing in their war zone and not getting to travel anywhere else, by and large, because they were already busy where they were. Even then there were of course notable individuals that appeared in different locations, but it was a lot more restrained than, say, Guilliman these days putting out fires on both sides of the Rift and getting help to the Dark Imperium, no problem, in spite of the insistence in other places of the background writing that that part is cut off and desperately staving off doom.

In short, GW used to describe conflict in 40k more in terms of plausible military strategy with all that entails, and then gradually switched to super hero narratives placing pivotal changes in the hands of individual heroes.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
When I was reading the 8th codex, it seemed like Darkstrider was hated a lot more for ignoring orders and just kind of doing his own thing, and refusing to promote to a stealth suit was just part of that individual streak. For example he has a quote where he pretends he didnt hear an order

"We engaged and dedtroyed the enemy column in accordance with mission parameters. No. I received no such orders to disengage and fall back, Shas'o. Perhaps there was some form of atmospheric interference."

It also talks about him using a tone bordering on insubordination and just having little respect for the chain of command overall. Makes sense to me he'd have a lot of enemies in a society as homogenous as the Tau. It sounds like his superiors being angry over his refusal to be promoted to a battlesuit or stealth team is more about him being insubordinate in general and thats just something concrete they can point to in a report.

Little bit more than that.

Remember that the Pathfinders are supposed to be a way for someone to basically be like the "ultimate exemplar of the Greater Good". You literally put your butt on the line to shine a "shoot this guy!" light so someone else gets the kill.

But Darkstrider has a kinda/sorta cult of personality around him. His insistence on remaining in command of Pathfinder groups has led some to think that he's not just in it for The Greater Good but also because it makes him continually look good.