Comrades, firewarriors and commanders of the Fire Caste, workers and scientists of the Earth caste, bureaucrats and diplomats of the Water Caste, pilots and admirals of the Air Caste, members of the Ethereal Caste, the age of the Riptide Wing is over. We must come up with new strategies and tactics to liberate the galaxy against tyranny and spread the Greater Good across the stars.
Having made this general observation, let us now pass to practical questions.
Let's discuss how we will build our cadres and contingents. Which formations of units do you think could work.
What do you think of the 5th Sphere of expansion? What can we learn about the lost 4th Sphere of Expansion.
Well I predict 8e will be infantry edition. Suits and vehicles are stupidly overpriced now, whereas troops just got better and or cheaper.
But stealth suits stayed relatively the same price but got another wound and better toughness, and I like their stealth field rule. Keep in mind they still benefit from cover, which is cool.
Unfortunately I am less inclined to take crisis, tides, and those big ones, but more inclined to take stealths.
But alas, my dream of doing suitspam effectively seems to be shattered. I didn't even like taking more than one riptide, and never took a stormsurge. I get boosting the price of those, but my crisis suits?
And was it really necessary to make broadsides 6w? Especially since they cost so much now
Andrew Walker
It seems that drones detach from their assigned squad once you deploy them. You can also allocate wounds from nearby units. Pathfinder drones are very intersting with their bonuses.
Robert Gomez
I plan on detaching the Pathfinder drones and double timing them straight over to my fire warrior gun line.
-d3 to enemy charges and 36" pulse rifles, for 16 points. Delicious.
Julian Gutierrez
In the spirit of awful, I have constructed a very nice paint image of what I would like to dub the T'au Star! Made for anti-melee tactics since it will get shot to shit.
Where you basically have Crisis suits with flamers forming a gigantic ring with a bunch of drone units (preferably shield drones) hiding in the middle with tendrils going out to the suits for Savior Protocols. Since as long as the drone unit has any drones within 3 inch of a suit unit you can allocate wounds to them instead, yes this includes 30+ inches away at the other end of the conga line.
Cooper Rogers
Ghostkeels cameoutof the Index relatively cheap too, I'm planning to run at least 3, maybe 4.
Crisis suits should be replaced with commanders, they're pretty efficient now considering the prohibitive cost of Crisis.
Riptides are dead, Stormsurge are more or less appropriately costed now and still pretty good in the LoW Detachment.
Broadsides are eh, I'd have preferred them to be closer to their old power level and cost. Hammerheads fill the role better, especially with Longstrike support.
Joseph Cruz
Yeah, a Strike team base with Fireblade and Accelerator Drone support is pretty nice now. Especially when you cheese the RAW for Accelerator Drones and stack them.
Tyler Turner
How many Pathfinders are people planning to run now?
I'm looking at 2 units of 10 minimum, maybe 3.
Aiden Robinson
Pathfinders are dirt cheap, and combined with their drones being cheap and markerlights not being penalized as heavy when they move, we should see more of them than ever.
However I see no benefits to taking large units of them. We have no shortage of FA slots with the way detachments are. And a bad morale test can really fuck over big units, so I'm thinking lots of min squads of 5. Probably 3 squads of 5.
Ayden Hall
These beautys will see a lot of play now, im planning to play shadowsun,ghostkeels and stealthsuits in a vanguard detatchment, but now i have a question,
about the rule they all got of adding 1 / 2 (in the ghostkeel case) if some ork boyz are trying to shoot them and they have to roll 7+, they shoot or they cannot? because in some cases putting stealthsuits/ghostkeels in cover seem a little broken, just imagine it, space marines shooting at 6+ to a ghostkeel if it is in cover
Gabriel Cook
Correct, anything that needs a base 5+ to hit won't be able to hit a Ghostkeel outside of 12''
Owen Torres
Aren't there rules somewhere that has 6s always hit and 1s always fail, at least in the matched play section? I'm on my phone so I can't look it up
Angel Turner
Good point, I'm used to 1's autofailing but 6's auto hit does sound familiar now that you mention it. Can't look it up either atm
Isaiah White
Well I know for a fact 6s autowound because of the new SvT table, but I'm not sure with hitting
Sebastian Moore
4TH SPHERE IS LOST TO THE WARP DESTINED TO BE FALL TO CHAOS.
WARP STORM PROXIMITY GOING TO START FUCKING WIT ETHEREALS.
CASTES BREAK AWAY TO MAKE SEGREGATED EMPIRES FOR FUNSIES
KROOT LEAVE, THEY KNOW WHEN TO JUMP SHIP.
ONLY FARSIGHT CAN SAVE YOU NOW.
Leo Robinson
Farsight is not the hero the empire needs. He is the hero the empire deserves.
Robert Hill
I've heard about it but I found nothing of the sort in the book.
On that matter, "To-hit/wound/save rolls of 1s always fail" is the only rule that explicitly ignore modifiers. Everything else (like weapon effects needing 1s or 6s) are after modifiers.
So, for example, Longstrike headshots monsters on 5+ to-wound with his railgun and makes other Hammerheads in 6" immune to plasma feedback on overcharged Ion Cannon shots.
Zachary Foster
Now that the Crisis are much more expensive, I see Vespids, now buffed, to be a much nicer substitute when you are shorter on points.
Isaac Jackson
>4TH SPHERE IS LOST TO THE WARP DESTINED TO BE FALL TO CHAOS. Nawww, GW just needed an excuse to finally justify why Tau were chosen to be a main faction over Hrud.
Asher Harris
So, when did this apostrophe thing happen? Why can't they just be Tau without it? Is it just a lazy attempt at "TRADEMARK ™ TM DO NOT™ STEAL TM™ TM ™™™"?
Jonathan Perry
Oh Hrud, where are you now. Fuck, we need more auxillary armies and units.
I want loxatl units if we ever do get traitor militarum.
Colton Morgan
>Hruds Skavens were a mistake. Space Skavens would be a fuck-up.
Brody Campbell
Because Tau is a greek letter
Joseph Reyes
Fuck off user. I-It's not too late for Space Skaven.
Connor White
Hrud haven't been Space Skaven since Xenology.
Mason Butler
And T'au is so different from Tau. Very strong case they have there.
Ryan Cooper
So fellow tau players do we have a consensous on which models are garbage in our codex? Riptides are trash? Crisis suits (elites) aren't too good? Commander xv8s are good? How is the coldstar? How are markerlight drones, I don't own any pathfinders How are fireblades? How are flyers (I own remora drones and barracuda), will they be viable if they're good? How are xv25s and xv95s? Are broadsides actually good?
Lucas Robinson
If it's different it's copyrightable
Nicholas Hughes
Tau has been a GW trademark for a while you moron - even Necron is their trademark. I'm not sure you know how trademarks even work tho
Zachary Long
Are Crisis suits really bad this edition? I wanted to start playing 40k with Tau a long while ago but decided to wait until 8e and save some money. I was thinking about Start Collecting, Optimised Pathfinder Team and Cadre Fireblade. Should I drop the Fireblade and buy a box of Stealth Battlesuits instead?
Austin Phillips
When will we get rules for FW models like XV9s and Barraudas?
Are Crisis suits really that bad now when you can put three flamers on them and make a wall of fire backed up by shield drones with savior protocols? That seems like a good counter for swarms when your three suits get 36 hits in the shooting phase and then 36 more in overwatch.
Jacob Edwards
Can someone help me figure out order of operations on this? someone hits your unit, you roll your save and fail so there is a wound to assign. you assign it to a drone via savior protocol but with shield drones do they get a second save to prevent the wound?
Justin Fisher
It´s not that they are really bad, they now are just overpriced, starting with the things you mentioned is allright, and buying or not the fireblade is up to you, an ethereal does almost the same job as him and more but is more expensive than the fireblade, i suggest that if you are starting you build the crisis suits with anti-tank support, until you get a hammerhead or something like that it is a good way to start
Andrew Evans
no it's more like You get shot at, they roll to wound, after successfully wounding your unit, you pick a drone to take the hit, if it has an applicable save then it may take it, otherwise it dies
Mason Green
I was of the understanding that you opponent rolls to hit and wound, but the drone takes the save.
It seems to occur at the "wound" stage, which would be triggered after a successful wound roll, but before saves and relevant "damage" assignment.
I could be wrong, but that's how I've interpreted it.
Robert Howard
We have lost the classic JSJ maneuver, but our suits are more tanky.
Riptide is more like an overly expensive artillery piece instead of a killing machine. It's more risky to do Nova charges now. They have tripled the price or so.
Crisis suits are more tanky and shot more, but have doubled the price. Also, T'au plasma is weaker compared to Imperium's plasma. I would say that Vespids will fill the role of Crisis on smaller point games.
Coldstar are insanely fast. M "20 + another "20 if you advance. A good advance targeting system could make these an ideal character hunter. Also, the grounding test is gone.
Pathfinders are cheaper than marker drones, drone controller has been nerfed. Fireblades now buffs nearby squads.
Bombers are good. Indeed, they are excellent to kill hordes and infantry. They cause mortal wounds.
Broadsides are tankiers and have gained even more firepower, but are more expensive. You should think of them more like SM Dreadnoughts than the classic Broadsides. Missilesides are expensives, but shot a lot of missiles. Railsides causes mortal wounds. Target Lock allows them to move without penalties.
Sebastian Sanders
Tidewall Shieldlines just became open-topped transports, so I'm planning on running three of them with five-man teams of Fire Warriors and Pathfinders in each one. Gonna give the Pathfinders two rail-rifles per 5-man squad, and put a pulse accelerator drone behind each line, as well as a Cadre Fireblade for an extra pulse shot inside of half range. Going to use either Broadsides (with advanced targeting systems and HYMPs) or Hammerheads for my long-range anti-tank, and marker drones for extra markerlights and ablative wounds. Probably two teams of stealth suits for infiltration shenanigans as well, and maybe a Devilfish with two squads of breachers for objective grabbing. Haven't made an 1850pt list yet, so i'm not entirely sure how much more I could fit into this, but I'm confident I can field at least this much.
Julian Adams
Shields are very cheap now. They cost 11 points.
Benjamin Sanders
>Be IG player >hear Riptides got nerfed, start rejoicing >remember new guy who bought a ton of the big stompy robots because he loved the look of them >Genuinely nice guy, had no idea how broke they were in 7th >He might be genuinely screwed this edition
Is he boned? The guy has 1-2 of all the big Tau stuff that isn't forgeworld and probably 3 riptides. Obviously he's not taking all of that in the same list again but as long as he can make something out of his collection that's halfway decent then he'll be ok. I know he has some fire warriors and kroot, but the majority of list would be the larger suits.
Also I'm genuinely sorry that you guys got a stupid TM name too, fucking T'au, really? That's an even dumber change than ours.
Ryder Perez
so are riptides worth taking? Does stimulant injector defend against mortal wounds? Is it just better to run my crisis suits as commanders? So coldstars are good, is spamming them viable? Ok so pathfinders are completely superior to marker drones, would an armoured assault box do well with the devilfish converted to a hammerhead? Are hammerheads good? Is longstrike good? Are stealthsuits any good? I heard they're like primaris marines but more survivable And I also heard that ghostkeels are pretty good as well, if they are I'll be running it in place of a riptide also are piranhas any good?
Benjamin Stewart
Try 8pts senpai.
Carter Scott
Depends what he has.
Stormsurge are still good, although slightly more expensive. Ghostkeels are pretty damn attractive right now, expect to see a lot of them.
Chase Jackson
Oh, yeah, you are right. Stupid low quality leaks.
I've been out of the loop for about 12 years. Some of my friends recently started with Shadow Wars and I guess most are planing to expand into 8ed soon enough, so I decided to return as well. Thing is, I've never played Tau before. I really like the aesthetics of the infantry and vehicles, but I'm not a fan of the mechs. So this being an infantry heavy edition sounds perfect to me. I don't know if it's gonna be fun to play though.
Could you guys help me? I would like some help please. I bought a set of pathfinders and can't decide how to kit them out. Rail Rifles look sexy, but I don't know how useful they are in play. Is 3 rail rifles end 5 pulse rifles viable? What weapon should my Shas'ui use in that case?
Jack Davis
pulse carbines*
Jackson Morgan
Step 1: magnetize everything Step 2: now you can test kits yourself and change them when the meta (or your playstyle) changes Step 3: do something with all the money you saved
Austin Anderson
Get carbines unless you have plenty of markerlights elsewhere. Markerlights are attached to carbines.
Nathaniel Thompson
As this user said magnetize everything. T'au and Nids are just perfect for this
Jeremiah Wilson
I think I'll magnetize my tanks and such. Thanks for the tip. Although, Pathfinder teams are cheap so I've got no problem wasting money on them.
Alright! Wouldn't a rail rifle we worth it for some diversity in Shadow Wars though?
Landon James
Rail weapons are good. They cause additional mortal wound on a 6+.
Zachary Stewart
Rail Rifles are fucking great in this edition. 5pts for the guy, and 22pts for the gun. You get a S6 Rapid Fire Ap-4, D3 Damage gun, and any 6's to wound cause an automatic mortal wound on top of whatever damage you do. I'm going to use them for Rhino killing, and fucking up Terminators and Primaris.
Daniel Williams
Also forgot to say that in 8e everyone has split fire by default, so your special weapons aren't wasted.
Samuel Morris
Markerlights are no longer expend on use, multiple units can use them.
1 - Re-roll hit rolls of 1. 2 - Fire Destroyer/Seeker Missile with model's ballisitic skill + modifiers. 3 - Do not suffer penalty for moving and firing Heavy weapons or Advancing and firing Assault weapons. 4 - Removes cover. 5 - +1 to BS.
Nathaniel Foster
So, 3 rail rifles in my squad is reasonable? I'll probably buy another pathfinder squad anyways if I need to even it out.
I'd like to thank everyone for their input btw.
Levi Peterson
>filename heh
Henry Brown
Once I saw the rules, I started laughing so hard at all the retards saying they nerfed markerlights. I'd take this over single-use infinite BS-boosters any day.
Ian Foster
I really like the look of nuisance stealth suit teams. 3, with a fusion blaster, and ATS's on the burst cannon models, only costs 117 points. And they'll be tricky to kill with their stealth fields and extra wound & toughness.
In fact, I really like the combo of an advanced targeting system on a burst cannon in general. S5 AP-1 Assault 4 seems pretty tasty for general anti-infantry work, especially if this edition really is infantryhammer.
Adrian Flores
Are the effects cumulative?
Do my units have to take cover into account if I get one too many markerlight hits?
Joseph Mitchell
It says: "All benefits are cumulative."
Carter Rogers
I was tempted to run dual-burst and ATS on a 3-man Crisis Team and go marine hunting. They'd be pretty good for killing anything that's not multi-wound, actually.
Logan Russell
Mmm. My only question is what happens if you hit a units with markerlights 6 or more times. My guess is that nothing.
Liam Ward
Once you hit 5 ML counters, you've achieved maximum rape effect.
Jose Reyes
My preferred fact about Stealth suits is how their T4 W2 3+ profile says "shoot overcharged plasma at me" and how their stealth rule says "Please, do shoot overcharged plasma at me, I dare you".
Nathan Anderson
Holy shit, I just realized that the new Stealth Suits are basically the old Crisis Suit, except with -1 to hit against. Goddamn, they're going to be so fun to use.
Oliver Fisher
What about Breacher Team? Are they any better in this edition?
Andrew Robinson
They might work a bit better thanks to Grav Drones and Recon Drones giving bonuses to nearby units.
Andrew Morris
i see them more of an optional troop to field depending on the oponent, if your opponent has marines of heavy infantry they are good to go, but aside that i dont see much diference from strike teams with carbines
Jonathan Wright
They cost less, but retain the exact same profile on their guns. Not as brutal as before, but still pretty decent at marine killing.
Jaxon Mitchell
Interesting, you no longer pay for Shas'ui leaders for Firewarriors, or any other team leader.
Josiah Harris
and why pathfinders are cheap now?, they cost the same as a full armed firecast warrior, remember that yes, they cost 5 points, but you have to pay 0 for their carbines and 3 for their markerlights=8,the same as firewarriors
Brayden Miller
>Stealthsuits are improved >Ghostkeels are cheaper >My army grows stronger, being made up almost entirely of the above
Easton Ramirez
Advanced Targeting system is a bit on the expensive side though, a quarter of the price of a Stealth.
I think a Velocity Tracker would be nicer. Everything and their mother has the Fly keywords in V8 so, +1BS for 2 points can get real good.
Charles Torres
Fuck you, space-gooks! The united imperium of America will not stand for your space-communism!
Michael Jones
Better than the 11pts they were before, and they're dirt cheap if you want short-ranged objective holders.
Austin Russell
You're just jealous that our fascism works and yours doesn't
Wyatt Sullivan
Mine was almost entirely breachers, fire warriors, pathfinders, broadsides and fusion crisis. With the exception of the fusion crisis, basically my whole army got buffed. I had a few stealth suits, but I bought a few more the other day because I think they're going to be fun as fuck in 8e.
Robert Watson
Can a hammerhead take troops as a transport?
Josiah Howard
What?
Xavier Ross
No need to overreact, it's a simple question with a simple answer. No, hammerhead aren't transport.
Nathaniel Rivera
No, but a Devilfish can.
Henry Young
I don't think the aura abilities work on units inside the wall since its a transport. also you wouldn't get to overwatch due to open top only working during shooting phase
Dominic Roberts
What a time to be alive.
Alexander Morales
Comparison of the price increase for Tau units.
Kevin Walker
Might as well ask here as well...
Does this seem fun/decent/whatever for smaller games (my club typically plays 1000-1500 points)? Trying to get my dudes painted up now people hopefully won't refuse games as soon as they hear the word "tau", even though I never liked the big suits. Don't know if I've got too little infantry, is it worth dropping some drones & seeker missiles to try to shoehorn in another squad?
Undecided whether the fire warriors or pathfinders ride the devilfish. If it's the fire warriors the drones run alongside, btw.
Eli Evans
Okay I'm new to tau and have no idea where to start, especially in the face of a new edition. Do I get the old codex and use that as a base or I wait for the index? I already bought a used xv8 crisis battlesuit commander, a riptide, and am planning on getting two of the get started boxes but other than that I have no idea how to actually put the force together.
Juan Thompson
Everything is in the 8th edition xenos book (volume 2, I believe). Get pathfinders, they are really good in this edition. Also more firewarriors. Don't spam suits, they are too costly now.
Nolan King
It's out?
Robert Morgan
>8th edition
June 3. Tomorrow.
In other news:
>Lady Atia "Let's say so much - you will be getting some new tau stuff that's not directly part of the t'au empire "
Jack Evans
That's preorder only. They are released on the 17th
Lucas Green
Human Tau miniatures? Giant anime figures to counter the loss of giant anime robots? Farsight as his own faction?
Luis Rogers
Chaos T'au
Josiah Phillips
>Tau with random spiky bits and painted one of 4 colors Seems lackluster.
Leo Bailey
Great stuff - thank you user. So it looks like I just need to buy a box of stealth suits and I'm good to go
Ryan Thompson
Nah mate, Farsight is already chaos-possessed and I don't really see any spikes on him
Benjamin Bell
Any of you people buy FW stuff?
Cameron Brooks
Nope. I find FW stuff worse sculpt-wise than some GW stuff lately. Their __aos__ models are far worse than actually decent GW ones
Colton Lopez
>age of sigmar Nothing in that entire line is aesthetically pleasing, too bloated and trying to emulate 40k.
Robert Rivera
My favorite FW sculpt is the Hazard suit. I made my own kitbashed imitation hazard suits. I loved them for the dual twin-linked burst cannons, but alas I fear with the trend in making non-stealth battlesuits hyper expensive, the FW indexes may offer little comfort to one of my favorite battlesuits.
