Post by Empirespy on Apr 12, 2013 5:47:04 GMT -5
So I thought that as found westriders chaos codex review very useful, and it was one of the contributing factors to me getting the codex, I might try and sort out a Tau one.
As this is a guard forum, I'll try to put the guard perspective on.
Special Rules
Supporting Fire
This is awesome, it works well in both fluff and gaming terms. Basically, if a Tau unit within 6" of another Tau unit that is getting charged, it can fire overwatch. This is part of the variety of emphasis on overwatch in the Tau codex, and it will mean there are going to be quite obvious groups of units that you will not want to charge.
Bonding Knife
Same as it used to be, you can regroup at full ld, no matter the casualties.
Markerlights
I know it's not a special rule, but it is unique and awesome, and is used across the field. You only have three options now, the first is increasing the BS of a unit per marklight token spent. It is no longer restricted to BS5 and can improve snapshots (including overwatch). This is scary. It takes 4 tokens to take an overwatching unit of firewarriors to BS5, and due to supporting fire, this can be relatively easy to get. If you've faced au before you know what this means to their ordinary shooting, which is to say, they kill what they shoot.
They can expend 2 counters to gain ignores cover to the units shooting. No more fafing around taking covers saves down by one, just two counters and bam no cover. This is equally not nice.
The final ability is to fire a seeker missile. If you have a seeker missile on a vehicle, expend one token, and this hunterkiller equivalent hits the target at BS5, with the ignores cover special rule. This isn't going to be seen as much, as seekers are quite expensive for a one shot missile that requires a markerlight hit, which basically means two to hit rolls. It may be used more to use up unused tokens as the fighter comes with them, so if they've taken the fighter, they are probably going to use them.
Warlord Traits
Fairly mediocre, half of them are once per game abilities, although there is this nasty one that negates look out sir rolls, which means you may have to be careful about sniper commanders.
I'll do special characters after the main army.
HQ
Ethereal
Barebones cost of an infantry squad, they allow all friendly units within 12" to use ld 10 for most things, but if it dies then the opponent gains a victory point. This means that Kroot drones and vespid all benefit from his Ld aura unlike before, and if he dies your army remains unaffected (so no suicidal Ethereals jumping off of buildings ;P).
Now here is his main use, 'Invocation of the Elements'. Four options, although I see one or two being more popular. You choose each movement phase which power to use, and select a unit within 12" to use it one.
1. You give the unit stubborn
2. +1 shot on pulse weapons at half range (including kroot rifles, excluding the pulse bomb
)
3. You give the unit FNP (6+)
4. The unit runs in the shooting phase, then fire snap shots.
The second and fourth are just awesome, and the second one stacks with volley fire, which I'll get to next.
Fireblade
The new guy, he's that veteran fire warrior that leads you without that battlesuit. He's got splitfire, a markerlight, and a special rule called 'volley fire'.
If his unit remains stationary, pulse rifles and carbines get an extra shot.
Remind anyone of FRFSRF? No imagine you had FRFSRF, with really awesome guns. Now imagine you can stack this ability with another that gives you an extra shot at half range. Now imagine it's your opponent with this stuff
. Fortunately this doesn't work with overwatch, as it must only be done in the shooting phase. But, it means that a unit of rifle bearing firewarriors have a 15" range of death. 12 of them, and the fireblade will pump out a massive 52 shots, shots that ignore guardsman armour, and wound them on twos. Four Markerlight tokens later, and that's 48 BS5 cover ignoring shots, and four BS7 cover ignoring shots. .
But fear not he's a squishy character, the statline of a Lord Commissar (-1Ld) with carapace armour, so autocannon his unit and he shall fall.
Battlesuit Commander
There's no option for rank anymore, but it's the statline of the old Shas'O. He can take upto four items from the wargear lists, unlike normal battlesuits who can take up to 3. Despite the current model being in XV8-05 which is significantly larger than the XV8, he still uses the rules for the XV8. He can take an XV8-02 Iridium, however, that gives him +1 T and a 2+ save, and unlike it's previous incarnation, it offers no movement penalty. All battlesuits now come with the ability to fire two weapons, Night vision, and he immunity to blind.Some of the new wargear include The ability to chose whether to fire skyfire each turn, gain precision shots (on a 5 or 6 if you are a character), interceptor, and BS2 overwatch. The commander has access to signature systems, which are one per army. One that I find completely overpowered for it's price is the neuroweb System Jammer, at the whopping great price of half a conscript, it allows you to select an enemy unit and all their weapons are now gets hot. I thought it was a decent rule, but the price makes it OP in my opinion.
As he has always been; he is capable of being out fitted for any task, but the old battlecannon will take care of him and his other battlesuited companions.
Elites
Crisis Teams
There have been a fair few changes to these guys, the most major being that they can take up to three weapons and support systems. This means you don't have to fill it up, and with it's points reduction, means it can be even more cost effective where specialised for a particular task. Although it's not going to affect guard much, plasma rifles have gone down in price, making them the same price as guard plasma guns. On the other hand, both flamers and burst cannons have gone up, the anti infantry power. The burst cannon has gain an extra shot, which I missed on my first read through though, so they do put out the pain.
As said before they have the multi tracker upgrade inbuilt, so now they can always fire two weapons.
The tactic for taking them out remains the same though, battle cannons. They are two wound T4 models on big bases, with a max unit size of three, they are just asking to be instagibbed.
Stealth Team
They've stayed the same points cost (the same I believe they have been since 3rd ed) but they've got some awesome buffs. Firstly, the burst cannon now has four shots, making them able to make up for their low model count. Secondly, the fusion blaster (melta gun) is now range 18". This means it has the same range as the rest of the guns in the unit, but also that that melta range is increased to 9".coupled with their range of deployment methods, deepstrike and infiltrate, they can provide a decent threat to armour, and with their stealth and shrouded, they can be a pain to remove. An interesting option as well is a homing beacon. This enables deepstriking models to not scatter when deepstriking with 6", meaning they can bring in more specialised crisis teams to deal with anything they have trouble with.
XV 104 Riptide
This is the Tau's answer to the imperiums big guns. Like a titan, it is a powerhouse, quite literally in fact. The Nova reactor has some awesome abilities, the problem is it can only use one per turn. The other major problem is that if you want to use it you have to roll a D6, on a 3+ it works, and you can choose an abillity. However, if you fail, you take a wound. It's got 5 wounds so it should be ok, but it is very risky. The most common will be Nova charge, which enables it to fire one of it's big guns extra powerful. It bumps The Heavy burst cannon from 8 shots, to 12 rending shots with gets hot, or the ion accelerator from S7 heavy 3 blast, to S9 Ordinance large bast gets hot. The Ion accelerator can also be fired as S8 heavy 1 large blast gets hot without the nova reactor, so I think it's a little too riskiy going for the nova charged version.
The other abilities it can do are;
Bump it's 5++ to 3++
4d6" thrust move
Fire small weapon twice (counting as firing it once).
Troops
Fire Warriors
No longer is there the requirement for one of these squads to be in the army, but only a fool (or a themed army) would neglect them. Dropping a point, they also gained photon grenades as standard, meaning that once you get through the hail of overwatch fire, you lose your charge bonus, making it difficult to smash them. This is another addition to dissuade you from closing into assault. Shooting, they still require marker lights to get full effect out of them, but now they can increase their mid range firepower by taking a carbine. Instead of getting a rapid fire double tap range of 15" from the rifles, you can take the carbine, which has two shots up to 18". It also has pinning, which can be quite nice, but with the removal of the Ld reducing markerlight abillity, shouldn't really be relied upon (though I don't think people did that very often anyway). They have access to drones, but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which way you look at it) the missile drone option was taken away from them in the ever so quick FAQs, so they don't have access to an autocannon missile pod. They can also give the shas'ui a markerlight and targetlock, for him to light up units for the rest of the army whilst the unit fires at a different, more suitable target.
They can also take a devilfish.
Devilfish
No longer do you have to fear it's invulnerability from long range fire! the ever present disruption pods have been trippled and price and reduced to just stealth, no range limitations. due to jink however, the Devilfish gains a 4+ save if it moves, and 6+ if it doesn't. This is ok, but it means that it can now defend against a meltagun, something that it couldn't before. It can take items from the vehicle systems list, which I'll go into detail now;
Blacksun Filter; Night fighting,
Decoy Launchers; Very specific use, 4++ against interceptor weapons, even if they are just firing normally
Automated system repair; roll D6, on a 6 you fix something on the vehicle other than hull points.
Sensor Spines; Move through cover
Flechette Discharger; S4 AP- I10 attacks on all models in base contact
Point defence targeting system; overwatches with all weapons =< S5 (Supporting fire included)
Advanced Targeting system; Precision shots on 6s
Disruption pod; +1 cover or stealth, depends where you read in the codex...
There is also the option to mount two seeker missiles, which are two points cheaper than their imperial counterparts. After re-reading, I realised that they can in fact be fired by the vehicle as a normal weapon, so they are much less situational now.
Kroot
Only 1 point more expensive than a guardsman now, they have a better weapon skill than your average guardsman, and stealth (forests) Move through cover and infiltrate. whilst only having a 6+ save, their gun is superior to the lasgun in strength and Ap by 1 point and it can be used in combat at AP5 (ha ha, by charged plasma round couldn't peice your armour, but the pointy bits on the gun can...). They can be taken in blobs of twenty. For some reason, I can only see one upmanship to guardsmen when I look at their rules,but maybe that's just me. Their sergeant equivalent is the shaper for the cost of four kroot, you basically get three mashed into one, 3W, 3A and better Ld. He can take a tau gun, but for the cost it's not really worth it.
A new addition to the kroot is their sniper rounds, at 1Pt per model you get the option to fire the rifle as a sniper rifle, it's pretty nifty, and means their back to their old points cost, which means I don't have to fiddle around with my old army lists as much.
Now come the other kroot. In the same unit, you can add up to ten hounds, which are like war dogs that strike at I5, with no ranged weapons and 2 attacks. They also have the acute sense rule, making those flanking maneuvers more useful. The krootox is a big ox like beast, which they strapped a big gun to. It's a rapid fire autocannon. S6 attacks in close combat too, So there is a chance if they get caught up with a sentinel in combat.
Tactics against these guys, I think mortars will still do the job (I lost most of my kroot to mortars) and massed anti infantry power, things like lasguns, as they are lightly armoured and squishy, they are't too much of a threat really.
Fast Attack
Razorshark fighter
First of the new flyers, it's pretty standard, it can take any of the vehicle upgrades listed before, comes with a quad ion gun that fires basically 30" autocannons (like the hydra but not twin linked) normally, or can be overcharged, to make it S8 AP4 Gets hot large blast for taking out larger targets, heavier armour, medium infantry horde...
It also has two seeker missiles, which are awesome because of where they are on the model (look and see how awesome they are!). The burst cannon at the front can be replaced by an autocannon equivalent to synergize with the quad ion gun.
Sun Shark Bommer
This could be a bit of a one shot wonder, as after each bomb, you roll a D6, on a 1 no more bombs. Fortunately it has some seekers and a missile pod, to harass light to medium armour. What I do love however, is the Interceptor drones. With its twin linked short Autocannon profile, and skyfire and interceptor, it can take on enemy aircraft and ground
Drones
Now, drone squadrons can be taken for the three main drone types, gun, shield and marker. Able to travel in squads from 4 to 12, gun drones can be used to add a decent amount of firepower to an area, and being jetpack infantry, they can relocate quite easily. As they also have the supporting fire rule, they can be used to shoot at a target, then bounce over with thrust to add overwatch power to a unit. Marker drones will give huge amounts of tokens, which can be quite useful for overwatch, improving all those snapshots to real hard hitting power. A unit of shield drones, could be used as cover walls, stand in front of a unit, move out of it's way, then bounce back, or they could be used to sit on objectives in the scouring mission. They are all the same cost, but they aren't cheap, twice the cost of a lasgun veteran. I think mass fire should be good for these guys, they're T4 so autocannons will make short work of them, although the shield drone might be a bit of a nuisance.
Piranhas
Cheap as dirt now, they come with a burst cannon and drones, meaning they can put out reasonable damage. they can be upgraded with the vehicle upgrades and seeker missiles, and they can replace the burst cannon with a fusion blaster. Personally I think these will work better going light and fast, a squadron of these zipping up the field, to maraud and divert attention, as they are not worth much, but they can cause enough damage to warrant their destruction. A disruption pod here could be useful, flatout and they get a 3+ save. I would suggest a hydra to swat these flies, or I suppose firing on target with autocannons will do almost as well.
Vespid
Got a points increase, but they gain a few things. Hit and run, move through cover, fleet and stealth (ruins), they will be getting up close. They no longer have to take a strain leader, but being that it knocks their Ld from 6 to 9, for only an extra carapace veteran cost, it's worth it. Neutron blaster is still a marine killer, with the problem of short range, but with hit and run, and hammer of wrath, they can lessen return fire, and at I6, actually deal out some decent damage in combat. High cost models, means they aren't going to be seen in too large numbers, so just shoot the bugs with stuff, as with most things, autocannons will make short work of them.
Pathfinders
Left the best till last, the pathfinders are now not only the scouts of the army, but the guys with the latest tech. They've been given photon grenades as standard, but their armour has been downgraded to 5+. Still toting their markerlight and pulse carbine, they still play a support role, but they can now bring some nice guns to the field. The rail rifle is a 30" rapid firing S6 AP1 gun that can be used to mow down heavy infantry and light tanks. What the guard need to fear is the ion rifle, normally a rapid firing 30" autocannon, it can be over charged, giving it plus 1 strength, blast but gains gets hot. Quite versatile and relatively cheap, not to mention the fact it looks awesome. The unit also gains access to awesome drones, which I'll list below;
Recon Drone; The most expensive, has a homing beacon (no scatter deepstrike) Position relay (outflanking units come in from the board edge you are 6" from) and a burst cannon.
Grav-inhibitor Drone; Another assault defence, chargers reduce charge range by D3"
Pulse Accelerator Drone; Awesome sauce. Increases pulse weapon range by 6".
The recon drone can be mounted on the devilfish if the unit embarks, and it looks awesome, as it takes up the space where the cupola is. There is also a shas'ui option, and it can take a blacksun filter for a single point, so the unit will be working at full effectiveness for the entire game. The unit doesn't have to take a devilfish anymore, but they are so squishy, I think they should. These are guardsmen stats for shooting at, and their max unit number is 10, so it really is a case of point and shoot something at them, and they'll die.
Heavy Support
Broadsides
They don't have railguns anymore. They have heavy rail rifles. 60" range, S8 AP1, they do not have total field control anymore. They got a points decrease though and the option for high yield missile pods instead of their main gun, and a seeker missile. The high yield missile pods are Heavy 4 autocannons, with a short range. There is also no more option for a moving upgrade, so if they want to move, they will be snapfiring. The do, like all battlesuits come with a blacksun filter though, so they will be able to see across the board when firing their seeker or rifle. There is also an upgrade that grants optional skyfire each turn, which whilst expensive, could cause some problems for the air force, as both the high yield missile pods and the heavy railgun will be able to cause decent damage.
Any suggestions, comments and requests welcome. Big guns will be needed to get rid of these guys, with their 2+ saves the battle cannon can't just blow them away. Plasma, demolisher, demolition charge, and boom they bite the dust. Overall, these no longer inspire the fear they once did.
Sniper Drone team
They no longer carry the rail rifle, but a rapid firing sniper
. They have however got a nice buff, the spotter actually works, as he has a drone controller, the drones fire at his BS 5, not their BS2. Able to have up to 3 spotters, and 9 drones, they can be quite effective at taking out tough stuff, and as they are sniper weapons, they get precision shots, so they can be dangerous to the the special weapons in the guard. They also have stealth, and supporting fire, so they can be proper snipers, hiding and shooting to protect others from charges. If you can remove the spotter though, those snipers revert to BS2, which can be improved by markerlights, but it isn't so great. Ratlings would do well for this, as would templates like the hellhound, which would just wipe them out.
Skyray
Seeker missiles en masse. Packing 6 missiles, two networked markerlights, and a velocity tracker, this will clear the skies. The velocity tracker allows it to choose whether or not to fire skyfire each turn, so it can fire it's markerlights, then fire two missiles, not using the tokens, as then you have two tokens ready to increase the bs of other models. Alternatively, you could use it to fire four missiles, and I doubt that even the valk can get away unscathed from that. The skyray is definitely back in power. once it's dropped it's missiles, it becomes a markerlight platform, and it can have gun drones, twin linked burst cannon, or a Twin Linked smart missile system, so it's not useless once it's payload has been used. Anti tank fire power will bring this down, as it is a tank, but don't forget once it starts moving, it gets a 5+ save, a 4+ save if it has a dpod.
Hammerhead
Still holding it's railgun, the price has dropped significantly. You do however have to buy the submunition round though, but at the cost of a guardsman, it's worth it. The option for the ion cannon is more viable now, as it is S7 AP3 Heavy 3, or a gets hot battlecannon. The cost of each is the same though, so I think I'll stick with the railgun. Has all the vehicle options and seeker missiles, and can exchange its gun drones for a twin linked burst cannon or a twin linked smart missile system, although I don't see why you would take the burst cannon over the smart missile system, as they are the same, except the smart missile system has better range, doesn't need LOS and ignores cover (I may have missed something though).
Now, Longstrike, I was expecting him to be a pask wannabe. Instead he's a pask killer. He makes the hammerhead BS5, but he has preferred enemy Imperial guard, meaning he's rerolling to hit and to wound rolls of a 1 against guard, and he's got tank hunters, so he can reroll penetration. He's got a bigger gun than pask also. But he does more, he gives the tank night fighting, so he can duel with things that can't see him. And here's the best bit, it has supporting fire and the tank can overwatch, but it can fire with all it's weapons (the railgun) and it can fire for multiple overwatches. So if two units are assaulted either side of the tank, he can lend supporting fire to both. Oh, and he's cheaper than pask too.
Special Characters
Farsight
A tank, he's good in combat with WS and I5 and at close range with his plasma rifle. He has preferred enemy orks, and has a warlord trait that means his unit doesn't scatter when deepstriking. He can still have his large 7 man crisis bodyguard, and he's armed with the dawn blade, AP2 armour bane weapon, a plasma rifle and a shield generator, so his four wounds are protected by 3+ 4++. He is going to bring the fight to you, but he is still only toughness 4, and he can be instakilled. There is no longer a restriction on army selection any more, including being fielded with shadowsun, which is not very fluffy, and potentially open to abuse (shadowsun in his farsight bomb, giving them stealth and shrouded.) He should be focused on as he doesn't have any buffs that work on the backfield, so he will be on the attack, and he will most likely be the warlord.
Shadowsun
Awesome sauce, she has two fusion blasters that she can fire at different targets which are precision shots on a 5 or a 6. She may only be T3 and have W3, but she is protected by a 3+ 5++ and stealth and shrouded, and if she is in a stealth team she automatically passes look out sir rolls. She has infiltrate so she can infiltrate or outflank to take out armour, or she could deepstrike. She is very maneuverable, as she can thrust 3D6" if she's the warlord. Her special drones can be purchased for her at additional cost, two 3++ shield drones, and a command link drone, one in unit within 12" can reroll to hits of a 1 when shooting for the shooting phase. Due to her cover save and her stealth team protection, I'd suggest hitting them with either something like a hellhound or fire on my target with weight to fire. The colossus would be perfect, bypassing armour and cover and causing instant death.
Aun'va
This old crank is invulnerable to the most powerful shots, but is nearly defenseless against lasguns, I'm not sure that they're common enough to be used against him though. He actually took some advice and now wears armour, 5+, as does his two guards. Aun'va has the ethereal special ability Invocation of the Elements, except that he can do two Invocations per turn. If he's the warlord, once per game he can make every tau that has gone to ground get up and act normally. His special staff, the paradox of duality, gives him an additional save after other save. You roll a D6, and if it is greater than or equal to the AP, the wound is saved, AP1 can't wound the unit, and AP- can't be saved in this way. Whoo Lasguns. There are 8 wounds in the unit, 4 of which come from Aunva, but because they are only T3, they are easy to kill. Statistically, shoot 48 lasgun shots from normal guardsmen, and they will be gone,which really isn't that much in the guard. Multilasers will be excellent as they will instantly kill them if they hit, so bear that in mind.
Aun'shi
Rules for normal ethereals apply, but he is a combat ethereal, who has a rule like the brotherhood champion, he can have rending attacks, or he can not attack and gain a reroll to his save. He's Initiative 5 has four attacks and S5, so he can handle himself in combat. He also has a shield generator, giving him a 4++ save, and he has both grenades, the defensive and the haywire. He may have a 4++, but he is T3 with W3, so squishy, like most tau out of battlesuits. Statistically, it only takes 12 lasgun shots to kill him, so take that as what you will.
Darkstrider
Veteran pathfinder, he is a HQ choice that can only join firewarriors and pathfinders. He's equipped like a pathfinder and has a blacksun filter, making him immune to blind and have night fighting, and he has the outflank and scout special rules. He has two main abilities, the first is his structural analyser, it makes the enemy -1T from shots from his unit, the reduced value is used for instant death. The other is that his unit gets to fire overwatch (with any other units supporting of course) then consolidate D6" in the direction of your choice, before the charge distance is calculated. This means that the unit can get shot to pieces, then not make the charge, and so left open to more fire the next turn. This is brutal. Fortunately (not fortunately for him though) He is another T3 W3 model and he only has a 5+ save. He is just dead before you can bring your full weight of fire down upon him.
That's it then, some final thoughts;
Overwatch has been made a key part of the tau fighting force, so much so that I doubt it will be used much, as people won't charge them. Good for the Tau I suppose, and that's what it is there for, a detterent.
Tau are squishy.
They've moved away from advanced technology being used to add safety for the user, to being able to blow yourself up in the name of Tau if you want.
I like this codex, I was worried that they were going to completely redo tau like the necrons, or pump the codex full of auxiliaries so it's difficult to find the Tau. Instead they've just tweaked it to make it competitive, added a few new rules, and given them a bunch of shiny stuff. Basically exactly what I wanted them to do to it. I'm Happy
Questions comments discussions welcome!
-Empirespy
As this is a guard forum, I'll try to put the guard perspective on.
Special Rules
Supporting Fire
This is awesome, it works well in both fluff and gaming terms. Basically, if a Tau unit within 6" of another Tau unit that is getting charged, it can fire overwatch. This is part of the variety of emphasis on overwatch in the Tau codex, and it will mean there are going to be quite obvious groups of units that you will not want to charge.
Bonding Knife
Same as it used to be, you can regroup at full ld, no matter the casualties.
Markerlights
I know it's not a special rule, but it is unique and awesome, and is used across the field. You only have three options now, the first is increasing the BS of a unit per marklight token spent. It is no longer restricted to BS5 and can improve snapshots (including overwatch). This is scary. It takes 4 tokens to take an overwatching unit of firewarriors to BS5, and due to supporting fire, this can be relatively easy to get. If you've faced au before you know what this means to their ordinary shooting, which is to say, they kill what they shoot.
They can expend 2 counters to gain ignores cover to the units shooting. No more fafing around taking covers saves down by one, just two counters and bam no cover. This is equally not nice.
The final ability is to fire a seeker missile. If you have a seeker missile on a vehicle, expend one token, and this hunterkiller equivalent hits the target at BS5, with the ignores cover special rule. This isn't going to be seen as much, as seekers are quite expensive for a one shot missile that requires a markerlight hit, which basically means two to hit rolls. It may be used more to use up unused tokens as the fighter comes with them, so if they've taken the fighter, they are probably going to use them.
Warlord Traits
Fairly mediocre, half of them are once per game abilities, although there is this nasty one that negates look out sir rolls, which means you may have to be careful about sniper commanders.
I'll do special characters after the main army.
HQ
Ethereal
Barebones cost of an infantry squad, they allow all friendly units within 12" to use ld 10 for most things, but if it dies then the opponent gains a victory point. This means that Kroot drones and vespid all benefit from his Ld aura unlike before, and if he dies your army remains unaffected (so no suicidal Ethereals jumping off of buildings ;P).
Now here is his main use, 'Invocation of the Elements'. Four options, although I see one or two being more popular. You choose each movement phase which power to use, and select a unit within 12" to use it one.
1. You give the unit stubborn
2. +1 shot on pulse weapons at half range (including kroot rifles, excluding the pulse bomb
)3. You give the unit FNP (6+)
4. The unit runs in the shooting phase, then fire snap shots.
The second and fourth are just awesome, and the second one stacks with volley fire, which I'll get to next.
Fireblade
The new guy, he's that veteran fire warrior that leads you without that battlesuit. He's got splitfire, a markerlight, and a special rule called 'volley fire'.
If his unit remains stationary, pulse rifles and carbines get an extra shot.
Remind anyone of FRFSRF? No imagine you had FRFSRF, with really awesome guns. Now imagine you can stack this ability with another that gives you an extra shot at half range. Now imagine it's your opponent with this stuff
. Fortunately this doesn't work with overwatch, as it must only be done in the shooting phase. But, it means that a unit of rifle bearing firewarriors have a 15" range of death. 12 of them, and the fireblade will pump out a massive 52 shots, shots that ignore guardsman armour, and wound them on twos. Four Markerlight tokens later, and that's 48 BS5 cover ignoring shots, and four BS7 cover ignoring shots. . But fear not he's a squishy character, the statline of a Lord Commissar (-1Ld) with carapace armour, so autocannon his unit and he shall fall.
Battlesuit Commander
There's no option for rank anymore, but it's the statline of the old Shas'O. He can take upto four items from the wargear lists, unlike normal battlesuits who can take up to 3. Despite the current model being in XV8-05 which is significantly larger than the XV8, he still uses the rules for the XV8. He can take an XV8-02 Iridium, however, that gives him +1 T and a 2+ save, and unlike it's previous incarnation, it offers no movement penalty. All battlesuits now come with the ability to fire two weapons, Night vision, and he immunity to blind.Some of the new wargear include The ability to chose whether to fire skyfire each turn, gain precision shots (on a 5 or 6 if you are a character), interceptor, and BS2 overwatch. The commander has access to signature systems, which are one per army. One that I find completely overpowered for it's price is the neuroweb System Jammer, at the whopping great price of half a conscript, it allows you to select an enemy unit and all their weapons are now gets hot. I thought it was a decent rule, but the price makes it OP in my opinion.
As he has always been; he is capable of being out fitted for any task, but the old battlecannon will take care of him and his other battlesuited companions.
Elites
Crisis Teams
There have been a fair few changes to these guys, the most major being that they can take up to three weapons and support systems. This means you don't have to fill it up, and with it's points reduction, means it can be even more cost effective where specialised for a particular task. Although it's not going to affect guard much, plasma rifles have gone down in price, making them the same price as guard plasma guns. On the other hand, both flamers and burst cannons have gone up, the anti infantry power. The burst cannon has gain an extra shot, which I missed on my first read through though, so they do put out the pain.
As said before they have the multi tracker upgrade inbuilt, so now they can always fire two weapons.
The tactic for taking them out remains the same though, battle cannons. They are two wound T4 models on big bases, with a max unit size of three, they are just asking to be instagibbed.
Stealth Team
They've stayed the same points cost (the same I believe they have been since 3rd ed) but they've got some awesome buffs. Firstly, the burst cannon now has four shots, making them able to make up for their low model count. Secondly, the fusion blaster (melta gun) is now range 18". This means it has the same range as the rest of the guns in the unit, but also that that melta range is increased to 9".coupled with their range of deployment methods, deepstrike and infiltrate, they can provide a decent threat to armour, and with their stealth and shrouded, they can be a pain to remove. An interesting option as well is a homing beacon. This enables deepstriking models to not scatter when deepstriking with 6", meaning they can bring in more specialised crisis teams to deal with anything they have trouble with.
XV 104 Riptide
This is the Tau's answer to the imperiums big guns. Like a titan, it is a powerhouse, quite literally in fact. The Nova reactor has some awesome abilities, the problem is it can only use one per turn. The other major problem is that if you want to use it you have to roll a D6, on a 3+ it works, and you can choose an abillity. However, if you fail, you take a wound. It's got 5 wounds so it should be ok, but it is very risky. The most common will be Nova charge, which enables it to fire one of it's big guns extra powerful. It bumps The Heavy burst cannon from 8 shots, to 12 rending shots with gets hot, or the ion accelerator from S7 heavy 3 blast, to S9 Ordinance large bast gets hot. The Ion accelerator can also be fired as S8 heavy 1 large blast gets hot without the nova reactor, so I think it's a little too riskiy going for the nova charged version.
The other abilities it can do are;
Bump it's 5++ to 3++
4d6" thrust move
Fire small weapon twice (counting as firing it once).
Troops
Fire Warriors
No longer is there the requirement for one of these squads to be in the army, but only a fool (or a themed army) would neglect them. Dropping a point, they also gained photon grenades as standard, meaning that once you get through the hail of overwatch fire, you lose your charge bonus, making it difficult to smash them. This is another addition to dissuade you from closing into assault. Shooting, they still require marker lights to get full effect out of them, but now they can increase their mid range firepower by taking a carbine. Instead of getting a rapid fire double tap range of 15" from the rifles, you can take the carbine, which has two shots up to 18". It also has pinning, which can be quite nice, but with the removal of the Ld reducing markerlight abillity, shouldn't really be relied upon (though I don't think people did that very often anyway). They have access to drones, but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which way you look at it) the missile drone option was taken away from them in the ever so quick FAQs, so they don't have access to an autocannon missile pod. They can also give the shas'ui a markerlight and targetlock, for him to light up units for the rest of the army whilst the unit fires at a different, more suitable target.
They can also take a devilfish.
Devilfish
No longer do you have to fear it's invulnerability from long range fire! the ever present disruption pods have been trippled and price and reduced to just stealth, no range limitations. due to jink however, the Devilfish gains a 4+ save if it moves, and 6+ if it doesn't. This is ok, but it means that it can now defend against a meltagun, something that it couldn't before. It can take items from the vehicle systems list, which I'll go into detail now;
Blacksun Filter; Night fighting,
Decoy Launchers; Very specific use, 4++ against interceptor weapons, even if they are just firing normally
Automated system repair; roll D6, on a 6 you fix something on the vehicle other than hull points.
Sensor Spines; Move through cover
Flechette Discharger; S4 AP- I10 attacks on all models in base contact
Point defence targeting system; overwatches with all weapons =< S5 (Supporting fire included)
Advanced Targeting system; Precision shots on 6s
Disruption pod; +1 cover or stealth, depends where you read in the codex...
There is also the option to mount two seeker missiles, which are two points cheaper than their imperial counterparts. After re-reading, I realised that they can in fact be fired by the vehicle as a normal weapon, so they are much less situational now.
Kroot
Only 1 point more expensive than a guardsman now, they have a better weapon skill than your average guardsman, and stealth (forests) Move through cover and infiltrate. whilst only having a 6+ save, their gun is superior to the lasgun in strength and Ap by 1 point and it can be used in combat at AP5 (ha ha, by charged plasma round couldn't peice your armour, but the pointy bits on the gun can...). They can be taken in blobs of twenty. For some reason, I can only see one upmanship to guardsmen when I look at their rules,but maybe that's just me. Their sergeant equivalent is the shaper for the cost of four kroot, you basically get three mashed into one, 3W, 3A and better Ld. He can take a tau gun, but for the cost it's not really worth it.
A new addition to the kroot is their sniper rounds, at 1Pt per model you get the option to fire the rifle as a sniper rifle, it's pretty nifty, and means their back to their old points cost, which means I don't have to fiddle around with my old army lists as much.
Now come the other kroot. In the same unit, you can add up to ten hounds, which are like war dogs that strike at I5, with no ranged weapons and 2 attacks. They also have the acute sense rule, making those flanking maneuvers more useful. The krootox is a big ox like beast, which they strapped a big gun to. It's a rapid fire autocannon. S6 attacks in close combat too, So there is a chance if they get caught up with a sentinel in combat.
Tactics against these guys, I think mortars will still do the job (I lost most of my kroot to mortars) and massed anti infantry power, things like lasguns, as they are lightly armoured and squishy, they are't too much of a threat really.
Fast Attack
Razorshark fighter
First of the new flyers, it's pretty standard, it can take any of the vehicle upgrades listed before, comes with a quad ion gun that fires basically 30" autocannons (like the hydra but not twin linked) normally, or can be overcharged, to make it S8 AP4 Gets hot large blast for taking out larger targets, heavier armour, medium infantry horde...
It also has two seeker missiles, which are awesome because of where they are on the model (look and see how awesome they are!). The burst cannon at the front can be replaced by an autocannon equivalent to synergize with the quad ion gun.
Sun Shark Bommer
This could be a bit of a one shot wonder, as after each bomb, you roll a D6, on a 1 no more bombs. Fortunately it has some seekers and a missile pod, to harass light to medium armour. What I do love however, is the Interceptor drones. With its twin linked short Autocannon profile, and skyfire and interceptor, it can take on enemy aircraft and ground
Drones
Now, drone squadrons can be taken for the three main drone types, gun, shield and marker. Able to travel in squads from 4 to 12, gun drones can be used to add a decent amount of firepower to an area, and being jetpack infantry, they can relocate quite easily. As they also have the supporting fire rule, they can be used to shoot at a target, then bounce over with thrust to add overwatch power to a unit. Marker drones will give huge amounts of tokens, which can be quite useful for overwatch, improving all those snapshots to real hard hitting power. A unit of shield drones, could be used as cover walls, stand in front of a unit, move out of it's way, then bounce back, or they could be used to sit on objectives in the scouring mission. They are all the same cost, but they aren't cheap, twice the cost of a lasgun veteran. I think mass fire should be good for these guys, they're T4 so autocannons will make short work of them, although the shield drone might be a bit of a nuisance.
Piranhas
Cheap as dirt now, they come with a burst cannon and drones, meaning they can put out reasonable damage. they can be upgraded with the vehicle upgrades and seeker missiles, and they can replace the burst cannon with a fusion blaster. Personally I think these will work better going light and fast, a squadron of these zipping up the field, to maraud and divert attention, as they are not worth much, but they can cause enough damage to warrant their destruction. A disruption pod here could be useful, flatout and they get a 3+ save. I would suggest a hydra to swat these flies, or I suppose firing on target with autocannons will do almost as well.
Vespid
Got a points increase, but they gain a few things. Hit and run, move through cover, fleet and stealth (ruins), they will be getting up close. They no longer have to take a strain leader, but being that it knocks their Ld from 6 to 9, for only an extra carapace veteran cost, it's worth it. Neutron blaster is still a marine killer, with the problem of short range, but with hit and run, and hammer of wrath, they can lessen return fire, and at I6, actually deal out some decent damage in combat. High cost models, means they aren't going to be seen in too large numbers, so just shoot the bugs with stuff, as with most things, autocannons will make short work of them.
Pathfinders
Left the best till last, the pathfinders are now not only the scouts of the army, but the guys with the latest tech. They've been given photon grenades as standard, but their armour has been downgraded to 5+. Still toting their markerlight and pulse carbine, they still play a support role, but they can now bring some nice guns to the field. The rail rifle is a 30" rapid firing S6 AP1 gun that can be used to mow down heavy infantry and light tanks. What the guard need to fear is the ion rifle, normally a rapid firing 30" autocannon, it can be over charged, giving it plus 1 strength, blast but gains gets hot. Quite versatile and relatively cheap, not to mention the fact it looks awesome. The unit also gains access to awesome drones, which I'll list below;
Recon Drone; The most expensive, has a homing beacon (no scatter deepstrike) Position relay (outflanking units come in from the board edge you are 6" from) and a burst cannon.
Grav-inhibitor Drone; Another assault defence, chargers reduce charge range by D3"
Pulse Accelerator Drone; Awesome sauce. Increases pulse weapon range by 6".
The recon drone can be mounted on the devilfish if the unit embarks, and it looks awesome, as it takes up the space where the cupola is. There is also a shas'ui option, and it can take a blacksun filter for a single point, so the unit will be working at full effectiveness for the entire game. The unit doesn't have to take a devilfish anymore, but they are so squishy, I think they should. These are guardsmen stats for shooting at, and their max unit number is 10, so it really is a case of point and shoot something at them, and they'll die.
Heavy Support
Broadsides
They don't have railguns anymore. They have heavy rail rifles. 60" range, S8 AP1, they do not have total field control anymore. They got a points decrease though and the option for high yield missile pods instead of their main gun, and a seeker missile. The high yield missile pods are Heavy 4 autocannons, with a short range. There is also no more option for a moving upgrade, so if they want to move, they will be snapfiring. The do, like all battlesuits come with a blacksun filter though, so they will be able to see across the board when firing their seeker or rifle. There is also an upgrade that grants optional skyfire each turn, which whilst expensive, could cause some problems for the air force, as both the high yield missile pods and the heavy railgun will be able to cause decent damage.
Any suggestions, comments and requests welcome. Big guns will be needed to get rid of these guys, with their 2+ saves the battle cannon can't just blow them away. Plasma, demolisher, demolition charge, and boom they bite the dust. Overall, these no longer inspire the fear they once did.
Sniper Drone team
They no longer carry the rail rifle, but a rapid firing sniper
. They have however got a nice buff, the spotter actually works, as he has a drone controller, the drones fire at his BS 5, not their BS2. Able to have up to 3 spotters, and 9 drones, they can be quite effective at taking out tough stuff, and as they are sniper weapons, they get precision shots, so they can be dangerous to the the special weapons in the guard. They also have stealth, and supporting fire, so they can be proper snipers, hiding and shooting to protect others from charges. If you can remove the spotter though, those snipers revert to BS2, which can be improved by markerlights, but it isn't so great. Ratlings would do well for this, as would templates like the hellhound, which would just wipe them out.Skyray
Seeker missiles en masse. Packing 6 missiles, two networked markerlights, and a velocity tracker, this will clear the skies. The velocity tracker allows it to choose whether or not to fire skyfire each turn, so it can fire it's markerlights, then fire two missiles, not using the tokens, as then you have two tokens ready to increase the bs of other models. Alternatively, you could use it to fire four missiles, and I doubt that even the valk can get away unscathed from that. The skyray is definitely back in power. once it's dropped it's missiles, it becomes a markerlight platform, and it can have gun drones, twin linked burst cannon, or a Twin Linked smart missile system, so it's not useless once it's payload has been used. Anti tank fire power will bring this down, as it is a tank, but don't forget once it starts moving, it gets a 5+ save, a 4+ save if it has a dpod.
Hammerhead
Still holding it's railgun, the price has dropped significantly. You do however have to buy the submunition round though, but at the cost of a guardsman, it's worth it. The option for the ion cannon is more viable now, as it is S7 AP3 Heavy 3, or a gets hot battlecannon. The cost of each is the same though, so I think I'll stick with the railgun. Has all the vehicle options and seeker missiles, and can exchange its gun drones for a twin linked burst cannon or a twin linked smart missile system, although I don't see why you would take the burst cannon over the smart missile system, as they are the same, except the smart missile system has better range, doesn't need LOS and ignores cover (I may have missed something though).
Now, Longstrike, I was expecting him to be a pask wannabe. Instead he's a pask killer. He makes the hammerhead BS5, but he has preferred enemy Imperial guard, meaning he's rerolling to hit and to wound rolls of a 1 against guard, and he's got tank hunters, so he can reroll penetration. He's got a bigger gun than pask also
. But he does more, he gives the tank night fighting, so he can duel with things that can't see him. And here's the best bit, it has supporting fire and the tank can overwatch, but it can fire with all it's weapons (the railgun) and it can fire for multiple overwatches. So if two units are assaulted either side of the tank, he can lend supporting fire to both. Oh, and he's cheaper than pask too.Special Characters
Farsight
A tank, he's good in combat with WS and I5 and at close range with his plasma rifle. He has preferred enemy orks, and has a warlord trait that means his unit doesn't scatter when deepstriking. He can still have his large 7 man crisis bodyguard, and he's armed with the dawn blade, AP2 armour bane weapon, a plasma rifle and a shield generator, so his four wounds are protected by 3+ 4++. He is going to bring the fight to you, but he is still only toughness 4, and he can be instakilled. There is no longer a restriction on army selection any more, including being fielded with shadowsun, which is not very fluffy, and potentially open to abuse (shadowsun in his farsight bomb, giving them stealth and shrouded.) He should be focused on as he doesn't have any buffs that work on the backfield, so he will be on the attack, and he will most likely be the warlord.
Shadowsun
Awesome sauce, she has two fusion blasters that she can fire at different targets which are precision shots on a 5 or a 6. She may only be T3 and have W3, but she is protected by a 3+ 5++ and stealth and shrouded, and if she is in a stealth team she automatically passes look out sir rolls. She has infiltrate so she can infiltrate or outflank to take out armour, or she could deepstrike. She is very maneuverable, as she can thrust 3D6" if she's the warlord. Her special drones can be purchased for her at additional cost, two 3++ shield drones, and a command link drone, one in unit within 12" can reroll to hits of a 1 when shooting for the shooting phase. Due to her cover save and her stealth team protection, I'd suggest hitting them with either something like a hellhound or fire on my target with weight to fire. The colossus would be perfect, bypassing armour and cover and causing instant death.
Aun'va
This old crank is invulnerable to the most powerful shots, but is nearly defenseless against lasguns, I'm not sure that they're common enough to be used against him though
. He actually took some advice and now wears armour, 5+, as does his two guards. Aun'va has the ethereal special ability Invocation of the Elements, except that he can do two Invocations per turn. If he's the warlord, once per game he can make every tau that has gone to ground get up and act normally. His special staff, the paradox of duality, gives him an additional save after other save. You roll a D6, and if it is greater than or equal to the AP, the wound is saved, AP1 can't wound the unit, and AP- can't be saved in this way. Whoo Lasguns. There are 8 wounds in the unit, 4 of which come from Aunva, but because they are only T3, they are easy to kill. Statistically, shoot 48 lasgun shots from normal guardsmen, and they will be gone,which really isn't that much in the guard. Multilasers will be excellent as they will instantly kill them if they hit, so bear that in mind.Aun'shi
Rules for normal ethereals apply, but he is a combat ethereal, who has a rule like the brotherhood champion, he can have rending attacks, or he can not attack and gain a reroll to his save. He's Initiative 5 has four attacks and S5, so he can handle himself in combat. He also has a shield generator, giving him a 4++ save, and he has both grenades, the defensive and the haywire. He may have a 4++, but he is T3 with W3, so squishy, like most tau out of battlesuits. Statistically, it only takes 12 lasgun shots to kill him, so take that as what you will.
Darkstrider
Veteran pathfinder, he is a HQ choice that can only join firewarriors and pathfinders. He's equipped like a pathfinder and has a blacksun filter, making him immune to blind and have night fighting, and he has the outflank and scout special rules. He has two main abilities, the first is his structural analyser, it makes the enemy -1T from shots from his unit, the reduced value is used for instant death. The other is that his unit gets to fire overwatch (with any other units supporting of course) then consolidate D6" in the direction of your choice, before the charge distance is calculated. This means that the unit can get shot to pieces, then not make the charge, and so left open to more fire the next turn. This is brutal. Fortunately (not fortunately for him though) He is another T3 W3 model and he only has a 5+ save. He is just dead before you can bring your full weight of fire down upon him.
That's it then, some final thoughts;
Overwatch has been made a key part of the tau fighting force, so much so that I doubt it will be used much, as people won't charge them. Good for the Tau I suppose, and that's what it is there for, a detterent.
Tau are squishy.
They've moved away from advanced technology being used to add safety for the user, to being able to blow yourself up in the name of Tau if you want.
I like this codex, I was worried that they were going to completely redo tau like the necrons, or pump the codex full of auxiliaries so it's difficult to find the Tau. Instead they've just tweaked it to make it competitive, added a few new rules, and given them a bunch of shiny stuff. Basically exactly what I wanted them to do to it. I'm Happy
Questions comments discussions welcome!
-Empirespy
