In this last installment of looking at the Tau codex I wanted to have a brief look at how the book has changed from the previous one. But first a quick look at the Warlord table.
What a nice table. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised.
1. Enemy models cant take look out sir rolls from warlords shooting.
Not bad for precision sniping characters.
2. One use only. For one shooting phase all units in 12" reroll 1's.
very handy, especially when using Marine allies with alot of plasma.
3. Warlord and unit move 3D6" in assault phase.
I like this one! it means you can get back where you want every turn
4. One use only. basically any units that went to ground can have a turn as normal
This is a good one as you can have one turn where you send everyone to ground to prevent casualties
5. One use only. Warlord and his unit get skyfire for one turn.
Yet another good one. There's always plenty of flyers these days
6. warlord and any unit do not scatter when deep striking.
great! put your warlord in a crisis unit in reserve. Or better yet put him in sternguard or terminators with a nullzone/gate librarian
Pretty much all of these are useful in some way or another. Its a fairly good table, especially when compared to the BRB ones.
So what do I think of this Codex. I really really like it. Why? Its not the Necron Codex....and by this I mean it didn't introduce a huge number of new units with overpowered special characters and rules that completely changed the entire flavour of the army and the way its played. Necrons went from almost a slow and purposeful army to one of the fastest and most durable in the game. This didn't happen to tau, we just got refined, and that's good. I play Tau because I like their look and playstyle.
Writing this look at the Codex has been good. There's probably not too many reading this little known blog and its made me have a look at all the units a bit more. In the end of the day the codex hasn't changed that much. Most of the units people took previously they are still going to take, maybe just configured a little differently and most of the units that got overshadowed by other units still are, despite their improvements. Stealth suits and sniper teams spring to mind. It's not that they aren't good. There are just better choices in their FoC. The basic Tau army is still going to consist of Commander, crisis suits, firewarriors, kroot, hammerheads, Broadsides, pathfinders and probably Piranha. Its just going to fleshed out a little bit by a Riptide or two and maybe one flyer.
What the book has done in places is reduce our BS (no target arrays) and as they are better forcing us/convincing us to take markerlights more. The platforms for markerlights are slightly cheaper (marker drones used to be 30pts!), as are most things. Kirby on 3++ just priced up an old 2k 5th ed list using the new prices and found the new book is nearly 300pts cheaper. That means more toys and upgrades or more bodies.
I've seen complaints on the net already about the fact that there's no cover saves from markerlights. I've just got 1 thing to say to that. Divination. Most (I said most, not all!) armies can get access to divination these days. Psykers can give huge buffs to firing units and we don't get any. Sure we can ally them in but we don't get them ourselves and markerlights are our way to make up for that. We don't use the warp. We have the Earth caste to make us nice toys instead..
We also have great ally choices that really buff us even more, and many Tau abilities work on friendly units, not Tau Codex, although not markerlights. We have a large number of allies of convenience and two battle brothers, both of which bring things to the table that we might want.
Eldar obviously give us the psychic abilities we miss. Doom being one we would like alot! But more essentially a farseer gives us the psychic defense we lack. Allying with them also gives us access to wraithguard and more fast skimmers. Other than that, as this stage, we can probably outshoot most things the Eldar can bring, although I'm a big fan of outflanking scatter laser armed war walker squadrons, which could be a worthwhile use for the recon drone.
Space marines are great allies for us. T4 BS4 units in power armour, with access to bikes as troops, better melta weapons, S7 plasma, drop pods and cheap transports. Whats not to like? I'm already looking forward to slotting in a bike captain and squad or some Sternguard/terminators allies into my list. Possibly infiltrated into place with Shadowsun and giving them stealth and shrouded. Give Sternguard plasma and the command and control drone is a great buy for Shadowsun, especially as marines don't get re-rolls from Divination. Librarians don't give us the psychic defense anymore but a nullzone/gate librarian is useful in a number of ways, and cheap.
One good thing about both our battle brothers is this. Both are rumoured to be getting updates in the next 6th months, which could give us even more options in our lists.
There's already the more serious players thinking of overpowered combinations of units to get the maximum from rules and allies. I'm sorry, that's just not the way I play. I stopped going to tournaments a few years ago and much prefer friendly games for fun, not for thrashing my opponent/friend off the table so hard he doesn't enjoy it.
Well I hope you enjoyed reading these posts. My aim wasn't to advise people on what they should be taking or make Tau players suddenly notice things they have missed. I'm not that serious a gamer, or one who relies on mathhammer, and I probably pick units more hard core players wouldn't. And I hate spamming. Its likely that non-tau players got more as they may not have bought the book. I'm now just looking forward to getting my models and getting them put together. In a month or so I'll have a few games under my belt and a few battle reports posted I hope.
I do wonder if any additional units will be introduced to the Tau, either in White Dwarf supplements or otherwise. There's a great deal made about all the races in the Tau empire and we have seen none of them in the new book. That and we have been left with a small number of units compared to other books, but thats for another post :)
For the Greater Good!