I’ve been on holiday so haven’t had a chance until last night to read the Tau Codex. Now that I’ve read it, I love it.
I’m not going to write a unit by unit review (or at least not straight away… might come on to that in more detail later). Loads of people have already done this, and frankly you can all read the codex for yourselves! What I’m going to talk about is my first impression of the army as a whole.
And I can sum that up in one word – flexible. There are so many units with so many choices that (providing you don’t want an assault army!), you can pretty much build the style of army you want. There is a tool for everything. I’m sure some will be more effective than others, but my initial impression is that most will be at least competitive.
I suspect the “easiest” (and possibly most effective) army to build and play will be a foot slogging gunline. Ethereal, Fireblade, Fire Warriors, Aegis defence line, Markerlights, Broadsides, Riptides. Bang your dead!
However, that’s what I ran all the way through 5th, and it got kinda dull to play. So i want to creat something different
At the moment im leaning towards 2 lists. Farsight bomb backed up by Broadsides and Hammerheads, or a couple of Riptides with mobile fire warrior support, backed up by Hammerheads and Skyrays.
The Farsight bomb got so much better. Firstly he no longer gimps your force org - there are no restrictions anymore. However, you can make the bomb so much more effective with a coupel of signature systems - the Command and Control Node (to twin linke all their weapons) and the Multispectrum Analysier (or what ever it's called), so they ignore all cover. Add in some target locks, and a Vectored Retro Thruster to get them out of assaults, and they're are pretty horrible!
I'm a bit undecided about Riptides (just built one - it's a fantastic model). They are a very tough mobile gun platform, and the Ion Accelerator is a great gun, but you could get a 3 suit XV8 team for less, and they would be way more flexible. One funny thing I though of would be to give them an Early Warning Override for Interceptor. Goodbye drop podding marines!
The problem is.... there is too much choice! I'll need lots of playtesting to work out the best way to put a cadre together. First game tonight!
More thoughts to follow.
EYIG