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.

Looks like I kinda landed on Au’taal by coincidence myself. And that old Vior’la scheme looks much nicer than the current Studio issue… hmm.
Isn’t the important thing just the Sept tag colour though? Could change those easily enough.

It is more about the sept color more than anything else. After all, a sept is an entire solar system - they will have multiple uniforms for multiple enviroments. Unlike Space Marines, they don't have any sort of heraldic detachment to the color of their armor and are more like Cadians (or modern RL militaries for that matter), who wear a myriad different uniforms beyond the famous 8th Regiment.

When I first started Tau, I painted them Black and White (for no other reason than that I wanted an Imperial Stormtrooper look) and will probably field them as T'au'n with custom sept traits

 Esmer wrote:
It is more about the sept color more than anything else. After all, a sept is an entire solar system - they will have multiple uniforms for multiple enviroments. Unlike Space Marines, they don't have any sort of heraldic detachment to the color of their armor and are more like Cadians (or modern RL militaries for that matter), who wear a myriad different uniforms beyond the famous 8th Regiment.

Yup. For example:



Green camo Bork'an on the back of the Pathfinder box.

Edit: cool, I think that’s conclusive. On the other hand teal on red is gonna be a PITA to make legible.

Oh, am I seeing this right? They finally got around to describing what the barcodes mean in the lore section so now we can play spot the commander pretending to be a fire warrior…

Or possibly the fire warrior who painted extra rank stripes on his hat and is about to find out that the greater good insists he be sent into battle with four plasma rifles but “oops we can’t find your suit, sir, I’m sure you’ll figure it out…”

With drones being 2 wounds and part of a unit does that mean you have to get through 24 wounds before you even get to a crisis suit?

 CKO wrote:
With drones being 2 wounds and part of a unit does that mean you have to get through 24 wounds before you even get to a crisis suit?

Only shield drones have two wounds. Gun drones are 1 wound each. But yeah, if you're bringing six man crisis teams and spend the points to get the full shield drone allotment, there'll be a lot of meat to chew through first. They're also going to be close to 600pts for the unit.

Does anyone know how many points the drones are?

 CKO wrote:
Does anyone know how many points the drones are?

Not sure how much other ones are, but shield drones are 12ppm.

 CKO wrote:
Does anyone know how many points the drones are?

The codex does.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 CKO wrote:
Does anyone know how many points the drones are?

Not sure how much other ones are, but shield drones are 12ppm.

60 points for 10 extra wounds with a 4++ is cheap durability, especially when you factor in how hard it is to hurt a Borkan suit.

After going throuth the custom traits, I conclude that Sector A "Calm under Pressure" and Sector D "Reinforced Armor" seems to be the most all-around mix between offensive and defensive boni unless for some unlikely reason you go light on battlesuit units. "Evasion Maneuvres" could also be good but only getting it for advanced units seems to high a trade-off - unless you pair it with Mont'ka. Hmm...

WTF, why is a Tau commander one of the best melee units in the game? Reroll hits, wounds, with S12, AP-4 and DM3. Why are actual melee armies not able to do this sort of damage output.

The guns are ridiculous but it can be justified to a certain extent, this cannot.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
WTF, why is a Tau commander one of the best melee units in the game? Reroll hits, wounds, with S12, AP-4 and DM3. Why are actual melee armies not able to do this sort of damage output.

The guns are ridiculous but it can be justified to a certain extent, this cannot.

That is about 66% of the total melee capability of the Tau in that one model right there. Onager gauntlet has been around since what, 5th edition, they just made it useful, vs the old single attack it had before.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
WTF, why is a Tau commander one of the best melee units in the game? Reroll hits, wounds, with S12, AP-4 and DM3. Why are actual melee armies not able to do this sort of damage output.

The guns are ridiculous but it can be justified to a certain extent, this cannot.

That is about 66% of the total melee capability of the Tau in that one model right there. Onager gauntlet has been around since what, 5th edition, they just made it useful, vs the old single attack it had before.

Indeed. GW seems absolutely 110% committed to Tau being a shooting army always and forever.

I'm honestly pretty shocked they didn't just remove the onager gauntlet from the game.

Anyway, yeah, this relic isn't going to be shaking up the meta.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
It is more about the sept color more than anything else. After all, a sept is an entire solar system - they will have multiple uniforms for multiple enviroments. Unlike Space Marines, they don't have any sort of heraldic detachment to the color of their armor and are more like Cadians (or modern RL militaries for that matter), who wear a myriad different uniforms beyond the famous 8th Regiment.

Yup. For example:

I pity the poor sods who actually tried using Ceramite White for a basecoat.

I happened to make the mistake of checking out few Tau battle reports today..

I must check out some of these.

Trickster12 wrote:
I happened to make the mistake of checking out few Tau battle reports today..

Spoiler:

Tabletop Tactics: Tau destroy White Scars with ease
MWG Studios: Tau destroy Sisters of battle
SN Battle Reports: Tau destroy Blood Angels
winters SEO: Tau do not completely obliterate Death Guard. "Only" win

So, yea. Tau seems to be Tau again.

I hope those weren't Borkan only.

Trickster12 wrote:
I happened to make the mistake of checking out few Tau battle reports today..

Spoiler:

Tabletop Tactics: Tau destroy White Scars with ease
MWG Studios: Tau destroy Sisters of battle
SN Battle Reports: Tau destroy Blood Angels
winters SEO: Tau do not completely obliterate Death Guard. "Only" win

So, yea. Tau seems to be Tau again.

To be fair that TTT report featured an absolutely abysmal (if fluffy) primaris only white scars list, but on the flip side the Tau player kinda wasted about 500 points of units just goofing around and still won handily. His "OP" hammerhead killed FAR more of his own army when it exploded than his opponent's.

The crisis suits were far and away the stars of the show. They are really nasty now. Drop the riptide and hammerhead for more crisis suits and broadsides for some real power.

It does highlight just how much things have changed. A year ago people would have probably said that that white scars list was some WAAC cheese, but now it's just straight hot trash vs most 9th edition codexes.

I know the unit has been shelf warmer for several editions so rarely gets looked at but, what has been folks take on the updates to the Skyray? For 20 points less than an Ionhead and 10 less than a standard HH, you are getting a 72”, Heavy D3+1, S9 AP3 D2d3 main gun with RR to hit, against Aircraft a +2 to hit, RR to both hit and wound.

Possibly still edged out by Broadsides, but still an improvement over previous versions. And looks likes the best anti-air in the codex.

barnowl wrote:
I know the unit has been shelf warmer for several editions so rarely gets looked at but, what has been folks take on the updates to the Skyray? For 20 points less than an Ionhead and 10 less than a standard HH, you are getting a 72”, Heavy D3+1, S9 AP3 D2d3 main gun with RR to hit, against Aircraft a +2 to hit, RR to both hit and wound.

Possibly still edged out by Broadsides, but still an improvement over previous versions. And looks likes the best anti-air in the codex.

You'll need a plan for it if you want to use the strat, but at 135 points they're reasonable. They're not going to win you a game solo, but keep them safe and they'll put in work over the course of several turns.

Overwhelming commentary around the Sky Ray that I've seen seems to be that its definitely a viable choice and could well be one of the stars of the codex.

Trickster12 wrote:
I happened to make the mistake of checking out few Tau battle reports today..

Spoiler:

Tabletop Tactics: Tau destroy White Scars with ease
MWG Studios: Tau destroy Sisters of battle
SN Battle Reports: Tau destroy Blood Angels
winters SEO: Tau do not completely obliterate Death Guard. "Only" win

So, yea. Tau seems to be Tau again.

Man, that MWG game was brutal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

barnowl wrote:
I know the unit has been shelf warmer for several editions so rarely gets looked at but, what has been folks take on the updates to the Skyray? For 20 points less than an Ionhead and 10 less than a standard HH, you are getting a 72”, Heavy D3+1, S9 AP3 D2d3 main gun with RR to hit, against Aircraft a +2 to hit, RR to both hit and wound.

Possibly still edged out by Broadsides, but still an improvement over previous versions. And looks likes the best anti-air in the codex.

Also, they get a free markerlight action. Skyrays can markerlight and then move into position before the action completes. Just another fun addition.

So, does the skyray have ammo limitations still, or are they saying that it has an internal magazine filling the transport bay now?

 Mr_Rose wrote:
So, does the skyray have ammo limitations still, or are they saying that it has an internal magazine filling the transport bay now?

Nope, no ammo limitations for the seeker missile racks.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
So, does the skyray have ammo limitations still, or are they saying that it has an internal magazine filling the transport bay now?

Nope, no ammo limitations for the seeker missile racks.

Good. That was always the thing that kept me from even considering one in the past. I’ll have to get one now…

 Mr_Rose wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
So, does the skyray have ammo limitations still, or are they saying that it has an internal magazine filling the transport bay now?

Nope, no ammo limitations for the seeker missile racks.

Good. That was always the thing that kept me from even considering one in the past. I’ll have to get one now…

You get a free hammerhead turret with every sky ray, and vice versa.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
So, does the skyray have ammo limitations still, or are they saying that it has an internal magazine filling the transport bay now?

Nope, no ammo limitations for the seeker missile racks.

This was the first thing I checked as that has been a deal breaker on it for a while. Also getting a decent (4+) bs with out having to burn the ML is a huge improvement. Your still basicly just getting 6 shoots in practice, but all the weird jankiness of needing ML hits before it is even worth shooting is gone. AS mentioned you still get to take a ML action so get a nice 3+ to hit with the RR.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
So, does the skyray have ammo limitations still, or are they saying that it has an internal magazine filling the transport bay now?

Nope, no ammo limitations for the seeker missile racks.

Good. That was always the thing that kept me from even considering one in the past. I’ll have to get one now…

You get a free hammerhead turret with every sky ray, and vice versa.

Am aware. Just that last time I played T’au regularly the skyray didn’t exist. It’s never appealed and the hammerhead has kinda sucked nearly as long.

Am I reading things correctly, Crisis suits can take 3 weapons + 1 gimmick now? And the invln shield costs a meagre 5 points? Isn't that a bit of a no brainer?