Tau Empire Codex - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Despite the dubious release date (April 1st), the new Tau Empire codex has finally been released and, as with every new codex, it is a bit of a mixed bag. In comparison to the first codex, this is a vast and welcome improvement that the Tau army so desperately needed.
The Good Bits
Additional Wargear
Under the old codex, it seemed somewhat pointless to tell prospective Tau commanders that they could not put more than one hundred points of additional wargear on a single unit when the maximum amount of wargear you could take stretched to just over fifty points. Commanders in Crisis Suits ended up being equipped the same as regular Crisis Suits and, frankly, it was all a little dull.
With the inclusion of extra wargear - including the very handy Advanced Stabilisation System which gives your Broadsides some mobility - there's a little more variation in the army list. Thank you, Games Workshop!
Marine Killing
The inclusion of Sniper Drones (armed with Rail Rifles, previously only usable by Pathfinders) and the Vespid Stingwings means that a Tau player is no longer relying on fielding a large number of Plasma Rifles to take on Marines. The Vespids do feel a little bit "soft" for their cost but, hopefully, with a little bit of cover on their side, they can inflict some serious casualties on those pesky Marines.
The Sniper Drones are, like the Vespids, fairly expensive in points (and pounds, no doubt, this is still Games Workshop we're talking about here) but are outfitted with stealth fields (like the XV15 Suits) and target locks, enabling each drone to shoot at a different unit. Very handy for picking off the remains of squads, if you ask me.
Kroot
I have never got particularly excited about Kroot in a Tau army. They're assault troops that don't have much in the way of armour, aren't particularly fast and can be easily beaten back by any other assault unit you care to mention. However, they've tweaked the way Kroot squads are organised now, so fielding Kroot Hounds and Krootox no longer take up Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots respectively. It always seemed rather daft to take a Krootox as a Heavy Support choice, when you could take the almighty Hammerhead tank.
The Bad
The Problem With Ethereals
If you read through the flavour text of the Tau Empire codex (and the Tau codex before that), it states that, when an Ethereal dies, the Fire Warriors go into a fairly carefully controlled shooting frenzy. I do not mind the idea that a Tau unit should take a break test when one of their beloved leaders passes away at the hands of an enemy, but I cannot fathom why the "carefully controlled shooting frenzy" translates into gaining the Preferred Enemy special rule against the people that killed the Ethereal.
Carefully controlled shooting frenzy does not mean "we hit them better in hand to hand combat", does it? I know it makes the rules nice and simple, but it really doesn't reflect the background. Bless Games Workshop, they're not going to let something as trivial as the background get in the way of a game.
The Pathfinder Problem
I am still of the firm belief that, for the sake of our collective wallets, a Pathfinder team should not be required to field a Devilfish transport. Yes, it does make them very useful and lets them get to a good sniping point a little more quickly, but it's bloody expensive. Especially as the rules say that a transport can only carry the unit they're attached to. Essentially, an eight man squad now costs upwards of thirty pounds.
The Ugly
Vespids
The Kroot, at best, provided a supposedly-pleasant contrast to the neat armour of the Tau. The Vespids, in my opinion, are horrifically ugly. The Tyranids are more attractive. They serve a very useful purpose in the new Tau army but, dear Eris on high, they could have made them look a bit different. Perhaps like those Swooping Hawks the Eldar get.
Commander Farsight
In comparison to the new Tau commander models, and the model for Commander Shadowsun, poor old Farsight looks quite ugly and out of date. Then again, they have changed the rules for him, making him a little bit more interesting. The idea of taking Commander Farsight, and giving him seven bodyguards in tooled up Crisis Suits is amusing in the extreme.
In Conclusion
If you've got a Tau army, well, you're going to be getting this book anyway, right? If you're thinking about starting a new army, now's the time to go for Tau as, well, the newest codex is always the best one. There's enough new things in the book to make the Tau seem interesting again and, luckily, things like the new wargear will not require much in the way of converting models.
14 Comments:
Lots of scope for over-equipping your battle suits with too many bits and pieces. As an opponent I like that... Though less happy about broadsides wandering around shooting up my tanks, although I think it probably is a good piece of gear to have available.
Sniper drones seem like a good addition. Good demonstration of how "the latest codex is always the best" - 1) they're snipers but they don't actually have sniper rifles (which are a bit silly) and 2) they can fire at multiple targets, thus giving you more of a chance to benefit from pinning (useful because of the low chances of units actually failing ld tests...).
Vespids I'll be concerned about the day I have some AP3 troops in my army... But, even when painted ok, they are damn ugly models.
Pathfinders I agree with you totally. It's costly for anyone who wants to use the unit, and it takes up a big block of your points. And it means to field the unit, you have to field a devilfish whether you like the vehicle and having a transport or not. There's not any other unit type you have to have a transport for is there? Lazy-ass pathfinders refusing to walk anywhere.
Also the devilfish reminds me too much of toadfish from neighbours.
"Lots of scope for over-equipping your battle suits with too many bits and pieces."
It's better that the option is there than not having it there, if you ask me. A lot of the items aren't going to be used very often - I don't know if I would spend the points on giving my Commander a 2+ save when I can give him a 4+ Invulnerable save using a Shield Generator.
I would much rather have a codex that gave me lots of options that I choose not to use, rather than a few options which I don't like.
"There's not any other unit type you have to have a transport for is there?"
I cannot think of any other army that has a unit which requires a transport. Actually, wait, isn't there an Imperial Guard unit that requires them to be mounted in a Chimera?
Armoured Fist squads, they were the only non-platoon troops choice they could have.
Made moe sense for Guard, I don't see why Pathfinders wouldn't dismount and sneak forward. Ah well.
There are some advantages to putting your Pathfinders in a Devilfish - it means their free move at the start of the game can be a bit more useful.
Ideally, Pathfinders should have the option to take a Devilfish as per the T.E. Codex or spend a few extra points per model, scrap the Devilfish option and give them the Infiltrate ability instead. That way you've got the option to give them the Devilfish, or the option to field them the same way most other scouting units are fielded in the game (ie, they get to frickin' infiltrate)!
Yeah, Guard have armoured fist, but they're basically no different from a regular infantry squad, so they don't really count.
Not complaining about the wargear options, just hoping I meet some over-excitable Tau players...
I think one of the problems with pathfinders is they come a little too close to stealth teams, both being units that move ahead/away from the main army. Giving them infiltrate gives the Tau two commonly fielded infiltrating units, which changes the nature of the army a little. But I do still think it's a better option than forcing them to take a devilfish.
Over excitable players I meet; the Torbay club I go to on occasions. old Codex, 1000pt game, he'd bought both a tooled up ethereal and the special character ethereal (which isn't allowed) on the grounds that "it's the only way I can survive in close combat", despite his tactic being to sit on the baseline.
I pointed out to him that he could spend the same points on two squeads of Kroot who could simply stand in the way. He started winning games soon after that...
"Giving them infiltrate gives the Tau two commonly fielded infiltrating units, which changes the nature of the army a little."
That'd be three - Kroot can Infiltrate, can't they?
"(...)despite his tactic being to sit on the baseline."
This is, still, one of the major problems I have with the Tau army. Although the Tau are highly mobile, the temptation is still to sit back on the back of the table and get as many shots off as possible before you get assaulted. Although the Tau army can run around the table, there never seems to be enough space to retreat to. Most players seem to deploy in a long straight line and advance forwards, which kind of limits the tactics available for a Tau army.
Next blogger post then - mobility in a Tau army?
Yeah, I forgot about kroot.
Mobility would be a good topic for a post. I think it's an issue not just for the Tau but for 40k in general... you should try playing guard. It seems that far too often moving comes down to one army trying to close on the other as quickly as possible and the other standing still and shooting them up as much as possible.
Part of the issue is the way ranges and unit speeds have worked out. Say you have a unit of fire warriors with pulse rifles going up against genestealers. The FWs will get exactly the same number of shots whether they retreat or not, since the range of their moving firepower is the same as the 'stealers' charge range.
Of course this is an oversimplified situation, but it helps illustrate some of the issues.
The way the transport and vehicle rules work doesn't help the matter.
I think part of the problem is the way terrain has been devalued. With battlefields too open, the impetus for moving is lost, since one point is pretty much the same as any other, just closer to or further from the enemy. Terrain forces shooty armies to move to get the enemy in their sights, also forces close combat units to pick their routes, unless they want to slog through difficult terrain.
I should mention I came to the conclusion a while ago that I simply don't like the WH40k rules.
"Terrain forces shooty armies to move to get the enemy in their sights, also forces close combat units to pick their routes, unless they want to slog through difficult terrain."
Difficult terrain has always been a bit of a thorny issue where I'm concerned - most of the games of W40K I've played have had nothing in the way of terrain but hills, which block line of sight, but don't require any kind of difficult terrain roll to get over, so assault-heavy armies get quite a benefit from them.
Right. Time to write about mobility!
For terrain, we regularly use bits of cloth to represent stuff. Brown for marshes/ swampy ground/plowed fields, green with a few model trees to represent woods, etc.
Works, is easy to set up, and portable.
An idea I've seen to add a bit of variety to your games if you don't have much terrain is to introduce tabletop environmental effects. So you could have fog, which gives a cover save at ranges over 12", long grass giving an across the board 6+ cover save and stuff like that.
May help stop things turning into the same sort of shooting gallery too much.
hmm i was just going to add a few points, notably on the mobility of the tau army.
pathfinders should be able to infil. thatsa moot point.
but with regards to tau infantry just sitting back, its a very common tactic amongst newer players, the same is with guard armies, although more so - due to the presence of heavy weapons.
with tau pulse rifles being rapid fire there is no reason why a cadre should remain stionary popping shots.
mine never do, and they never did
Ok GW isn't always out to get you. What would pathfinders be doing in Fast Attack w/o the devilfish? They wouldn't. They'd just be an undermanned FW squad, so stop whining about it.
good point, but...
for a long time I've been trying to think of what could improve pathfinders to what they do, scout, and I am ashamed I didn't think of infiltrate before! well done mapp for the idea -> goes off to write house rules
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