They come to bugger your fish

[CoffeeGrunt]

I can tell you that, of the releases so far, nothing seems to be solving Tau's issue of dealing with AV14. There's more units that can, but they're all just Melta that has to get close. Eradicators are going to be very desirable from here-on.

[HenricusTyranicus]

Well now we've run into a bit of a problem. Ghostkeels can, in the right formation, ignore cover and always hit rear armor no matter the angle they shoot from, which makes our tanks incredibly vulnerable to this one unit. The strength D is annoying, but requires marker lights. It's far easier to take out the pathfinders then to take out a Wraithknight. We do need to find a way to get rid of Ghostkeels as fast as possible. They're especially vulnerable to us, we're especially vulnerable to them. 

[WarriorFish]

Huh, that's a bit stupid. Guess that formation will need to be high on the hit list, rip them apart first then take the rest of them to the chip shop... FYI I like the batter crispy and for the love of the Emperor no mushy peas.

[CoffeeGrunt]

For some, inexplicable reason, the troops in my regiment are extremely pleased that the Tau have gotten some new toys. Can't imagine why...

 

Having got a couple of units and thoroughly perused the rules, here's my thoughts on what's apparently coming up:

 

- Crisis Suits apparently remain unchanged. Treat them as you do now,

- Commanders are also apparently unchanged, aside from the Coldstar option. This makes them an FMC without Smash or Vector Strike. One lucky Krak Missile or similar will instantly kill them as they're still T4/3+, and it also prevents them from joining a unit. A nice model you'll likely only see once. Additionally, being an FMC means that Bring It Down will allow you to re-roll to Wound against it,

- Fire Warrior Strike Teams now gain the little Turret Drones. The SMS option augments their already prodigious amount of 30" S5 AP5 firepower. At 10pts, expect to see this a lot in static Fire Warrior deployments,

- Breachers aren't going to be very amazing against Guard, unless you're running heavy on Bullgryns or they start running into your Rear Armour somehow. Otherwise, Pulse Carbine Strike Teams are better against Guardsmen, and Pulse Rifle Strike Teams are even better,

- The new Guardian Drone is only available to Strike or Breacher Teams, apparently. Given that only the Breachers get Field Amplifier Relays, it'll only give a 6+ Invuln to Strikes, which is pretty much useless, and a 5+ to Breachers. I can see it being used on the latter, as it'll help keep them safe from Heavy Flamers, Eradicators and the like,

- Darkstrider can join Breachers as well as his previous options. His -1 Toughness won't matter against Guard, and his Outflank ability is handy, but he's expensive for it alone,

- Stormsurge is pretty brutal. Being able to fire 4 D-Strength missiles makes them much more scary, though this requires the support of fragile Markerlights. Their missiles will make mincemeat of Guardsmen, but not any more so than the equivalent in Fire Warriors. His cannon is actually pretty mediocre, no special rules and only AP2 make it less scary to our tanks than a Railgun. The alternate option only gets good when he's close, so just throw a Tarpit at them. Additionally, getting close runs counter to the popular strategy of simply setting up the stabilisers and pumping dakka down the field,

- The Ghostkeel's good, and will pose a serious threat to light vehicles, but then what Tau unit doesn't pose a threat to our light vehicles, especially on the Side Armour? This unit actually seems quite vulnerable to Guard. Bring It Down or Fire On My Target are both strong abilities against it, and its guns aren't anything special. Being able to force a unit to snap-fire once per game is handy against armies that field singular, massively shooty units, but we're the Guard, you'll have five units a turn firing at this, so losing one to snap-firing won't matter none,

 

Apparently, though, the Codex is entirely unchanged, which is incredibly disappointing and honestly, a bit of a rip-off. I'm hoping Guard don't get the same treatment, as like Guard, Tau have a lot of options/units that don't get taken because they're utterly useless, and a few things that get spammed because they're very good. If GW are going to go to the effort of reprinting and reformatting a Codex while adding in new units, you'd hope they'd tweak a couple of things and amend some awkward rule wording while they're at it...

[WarriorFish]

Last Marine codex was a bit samey - and too soon. As our current codex isn't much different to the previous one its be criminal if we got another minor change.

 

Good to see that the blue xenos don't fight too differently to before though. Same strategy applies just got to tweak tactics in response to the new toys :)

[CommissarHughes]

you know, I'd had a theory that the new Tau codex would have a "Create a planet" option like the old "Create a regiment" from older guard codecs, based on the back of the boxes showing multiple color schemes like space marine chapters. I was looking forward to seeing some more variety in what they can do, and I'm disappointed in the wasted opportunity. I pray to the Man Emperor of Mankind that we get our regiments back whenever our next codex comes out.

[HenricusTyranicus]

What's irritating though is that the Ghostkeel in the right formation will go through Leman Russes just as fast as any light tank. Everything else in their codex makes me shrug and say "We can beat that." But if we don't down those Ghostkeels ASAP, we'll have nothing but infantry left. 

[march10k]

Ghostkeels aren't especially scary on their own, but the optimized stealth cadre (OSC) should scare the crap out of us.  Ignores cover doesn't bother us much, +1BS is ok, but it's that bit about resolving hits against rear armor...ouch! 

 

As long as they're outside pistol range, they have 2+ cover...nasty.  What do we have that's AP3 and ignores cover?  Not much...a couple of orders to make some lascannons ignore cover...wait, we don't generally field man-portable lascannons.

 

At 24", the cyclic ion raker can fire six S7 shots that resolve against rear armor...that makes me hesitate to field demolishers and, more importantly, eradicators.  The only good news is that the ghostkeel can't have missile pods or plasma rifles as secondary weapons.

 

It can have a (twinlinked) burstcannon, though, adding S5 fire (again, against rear armor) at 18" (and then back up to keep you outside of 12").  About the same time, the stealth suits that come with the OSC are in range with a whole lot more burst cannons.  The thought of having tanks glanced to death by S5 torrents against their front armor sucketh mightily!

 

I think we're going to have a tomb blade-like problem with the OSC.

 

/edit/

 

Consider this:  A unit of three ghostkeels, two with target locks, and two units of stealth suits in an OSC at the front of the enemy deployment zone.  You get to go first.

 

You target the ghostkeels with the cover-ignoring order on turn one...the ghostkeel pops its one-use "target unit only gets snapshots against me" ability. (oh, by the way, three suits, three uses of the holophoton countermeasures).

 

Bottom of turn one, they advance 6".  Now they can reach halfway into your deployment zone with that ion raker.  Unless your vehicles are all lined up against your board edge, the ghostkeels can each spam 6 (potentially BS5) S7 shots against a separate target, to be resolved against rear armor.  On turn one.

 

/edit again/  I was thinking you could start by killing the drones, since they're the source of the stealth and shrouding (which the battlesuit then doubles), but you'd have to kill 5 of the 6 before you accomplished anything...and the tau player would likely allow you to kill at least 3, then start popping his "snapshots only" charges...This unit is absolutely going to get in range to start killing three tanks a turn!

 

Another random thought....the stealth teams in this OSC, if equipped with fusion blasters, are an awesome counter to knights...are you going to cover that rear armor with your invul, and open up the front?  Even if you do, melta fire against rear armor with a 4++ is a lot better from the tau perspective than melta fire against front armor with the same 4++.  Against rear armor, they don't need 2D6 penetration...

[CoffeeGrunt]

Yup, pretty nasty. However, 3 Ghostkeels is 390pts before upgrades. They're also only T5, so it may be the age of the Manticore. They can't shoot what they can't see.

 

Tau wouldn't get a Create-A-Planet btw, they're far more homogenised than Space Marines are. Would be nice to get Regimental Doctrines back for Guard, but that's a wishlist for another time...

[march10k]

Yep...390 points. more like 450 by the time you're done...and they're extremely capable of killing 450 points worth of russes by turn 2 without taking casualties.  Three ghostkeels is a pointless points sink (although...the pieplate fire mode of the ion raker...) against a green tide, but against anything mechanized (except land raiders), they're a silver bullet.  Give them skyfire on demand, and they PWN AV-based fliers, as well.

[CommissarHughes]

Would someone please explain exactly what the "Optimized Stealth Cadre's" rules actually are. It is absolutely infuriating how little information there is on it at this moment. The *ahem* "journalists" of 40K have revealed to me just how little work they put in to me by simply copying and pasting from a forum the information, including parts that explain formations simply labeled "See previous posts" from the original posting. That forum is over 80 pages long at this point, and I just don't have the time to sort through that with my messed up midterms. I've tried multiple sites, but all I get is sweet FA.

The one thing I do know is there is a restriction of 6"

I'm not even exaggerating, there is a restriction that know one seems to know that involves 6". Is it if a stealth suit from the formation within half a foot the Ghostkeel(s) can fire at rear armor and ignore cover? Is it that if the Ghostkeel and a stealth team are within 6" one can chose not to fire and the other pops AV10 on a Russ?

Before we can make any kind of guess of how to deal with something that completely negates the point of bringing a heavy tank on the board, could someone please clarify what exactly we're dealing with?

[HenricusTyranicus]

Would someone please explain exactly what the "Optimized Stealth Cadre's" rules actually are. It is absolutely infuriating how little information there is on it at this moment. The *ahem* "journalists" of 40K have revealed to me just how little work they put in to me by simply copying and pasting from a forum the information, including parts that explain formations simply labeled "See previous posts" from the original posting. That forum is over 80 pages long at this point, and I just don't have the time to sort through that with my messed up midterms. I've tried multiple sites, but all I get is sweet FA.

The one thing I do know is there is a restriction of 6"

I'm not even exaggerating, there is a restriction that know one seems to know that involves 6". Is it if a stealth suit from the formation within half a foot the Ghostkeel(s) can fire at rear armor and ignore cover? Is it that if the Ghostkeel and a stealth team are within 6" one can chose not to fire and the other pops AV10 on a Russ?

Before we can make any kind of guess of how to deal with something that completely negates the point of bringing a heavy tank on the board, could someone please clarify what exactly we're dealing with?

Optimised Stealth Cadre

- 1 Ghostkeel

- 2 Stealth Suit units

Rules: Ghostkeels and any Stealth Battlesuit unit in the formation at 6" of the Ghostkeel ignore cover, add +1 to BS and hit vehicles in the rear

[march10k]

 

Would someone please explain exactly what the "Optimized Stealth Cadre's" rules actually are. It is absolutely infuriating how little information there is on it at this moment. The *ahem* "journalists" of 40K have revealed to me just how little work they put in to me by simply copying and pasting from a forum the information, including parts that explain formations simply labeled "See previous posts" from the original posting. That forum is over 80 pages long at this point, and I just don't have the time to sort through that with my messed up midterms. I've tried multiple sites, but all I get is sweet FA.

The one thing I do know is there is a restriction of 6"

I'm not even exaggerating, there is a restriction that know one seems to know that involves 6". Is it if a stealth suit from the formation within half a foot the Ghostkeel(s) can fire at rear armor and ignore cover? Is it that if the Ghostkeel and a stealth team are within 6" one can chose not to fire and the other pops AV10 on a Russ?

Before we can make any kind of guess of how to deal with something that completely negates the point of bringing a heavy tank on the board, could someone please clarify what exactly we're dealing with?

Optimised Stealth Cadre

- 1 Ghostkeel

- 2 Stealth Suit units

Rules: Ghostkeels and any Stealth Battlesuit unit in the formation at 6" of the Ghostkeel ignore cover, add +1 to BS and hit vehicles in the rear

 

Correction: One unit of ghostkeels (1-3)!  You could easily spend 850 points on the formation...

 

/edit/source:Iuchiban on whineseer.  Everything he's said about this codex has subsequently been confirmed via leaked pics of actual codex pages...It's 43 pages worth, though, so I'm not going dumpster diving for the OSC page

 

/edit again/

 

Anyway, it doesn't "completely negate the point of bringing a heavy tank on the board" any more than "there are tomb blades" does.  Every build is going to have counters, some counters are harder than others.  OSC is a hard counter to leman russes...if the tau player sells out to the formation.  That no doubt makes him vulnerable to other things, including being incredible vulnerable to land raiders.  One crusaderload of thundernators and all three ghostkeels go down hard.

[Canadian_F_H]

So in this formation... So long as 2 ghost keels are within 6" of one another they can hit rear armor?

 

It would seam the best way to deal with this formation is with land raiders and assault... Good thing I play black templars!

 

land raider formation, 2 big crusader squads and an honor guard, season with independent characters to taste, apply assault(cannons) liberally...

 

I know assaulting tau is rough and this load out is pretty much an entire 1850 point army, but according to elements of this discussion tau are vulnerable to AV14 ignoring almost all penetrating hit effects, and Templar assault against their overwatch almost guarantees rage. And nothing will benifit their interceptor rule.

 

Worth a trying a few matches!

[Toxichobbit]

So in this formation... So long as 2 ghost keels are within 6" of one another they can hit rear armor?

 

Not quite. The Ghostkeels get the bonus all the time. The Stealth Teams get the bonus if they are within 6" of one of the Ghostkeels. It's per unit as well, rather than per model, which means that only one Stealth Suit from a unit needs to be in range for them all to get the bonuses.

 

Source: 7th ed Tau Codex.

 

Be careful with ARM14 spam. They do have a few more ways to deal with it. Depending on the route taken, you could see Hammerheads getting to re-roll misses and gain +1 BS (taking them to 5) without Markerlight support. Obviously that frees up the Markerlights to deal with other stuff, maybe give the Hammerheads Ignore Cover for example. They also have access to a second source of Railguns, from the Tidewall Rampart. Speaking of the Tidewall Rampart, don't shoot vehicles that can't get past the armour/cover saves at the infantry manning it. Something like a Land Raider Crusader will probably do more damage to itself than to the Tau behind it, because the shots that bounce back are auto-glancing hits, rather than hitting with the Str of the weapon fired. Killing your Crusader with it's own Hurricane Bolters might be amusing the first time, but lets face it, it's one of the stupidest things that can happen in the 40k rules (which is saying a lot) and it won't be fun for long.

 

The Stormsurge is also a lot better now that we know what the Codex has in it. Previously (WD only rules), you were looking at multiple Str9/Str10 shots at range with StrD only if you got close. Worrying, but not too scary for such a points intensive model. Now that the Codex is leaked, we know that if you fire a Destroyer Missile with a Markerlight it becomes StrD. That's potentially 4 StrD shots at 60" range turn 1, plus shots from the main gun which will either be Str9 or 10, depending upon which gun is taken.

 

People earlier on are saying there are no changes to Crisis Suits. That's not true. While the individual suits haven't changed, the unit size has gone up from 1-3 to 1-9 (a massive increase in efficiency of support items like Markerlights, Puretide Engram Chip etc) and they also now have unlimited access to Airbursting Fragmentation Projectors and Cyclic Ion Blasters. The Ion Blaster especially could be terrifying in numbers. with Tau's accurate Deep Strike capability you could be looking at units of Crisis Suits each with 6 Str7 shots landing behind your vehicles. Obviously this doesn't bother a Land Raider, but other vehicles aren't as well armoured to the rear.

[CoffeeGrunt]

 

 

People earlier on are saying there are no changes to Crisis Suits. That's not true. While the individual suits haven't changed, the unit size has gone up from 1-3 to 1-9 (a massive increase in efficiency of support items like Markerlights, Puretide Engram Chip etc) and they also now have unlimited access to Airbursting Fragmentation Projectors and Cyclic Ion Blasters.

 

OhMyGodYes! My honourable allies just got that little bit better.

 

I'd say Hotshot Lasguns are a very effective counter to Stealth Suits btw. They're only T3 W1 3+ once you get Ignores Cover, so you shouldn't have trouble wounding them and it'll go straight through if you remove the Cover Save they get.

 

The formation will be a lot less scary without them, and the same Scions might get lucky against the Ghostkeels if they get clsoe enough. I'd personally go for Bring It Down if you're that close, but that's just me.

 

Also a new formation for the Tidewall Gunrig allows you to take three of them. If they all concentrate fire on a single target, the shots gain +1BS and Armourbane. This will be utterly ruthless against our tanks.

[march10k]

 

 

The Stormsurge is also a lot better now that we know what the Codex has in it. Previously (WD only rules), you were looking at multiple Str9/Str10 shots at range with StrD only if you got close. Worrying, but not too scary for such a points intensive model. Now that the Codex is leaked, we know that if you fire a Destroyer Missile with a Markerlight it becomes StrD. That's potentially 4 StrD shots at 60" range turn 1, plus shots from the main gun which will either be Str9 or 10, depending upon which gun is taken.

 

But if they flush all of the missiles on turn one, it's all at one target, along with the S10 pieplate.  Can you shoot five weapons?  "Wasting" all that firepower on one demolisher (for example) would be kinda stupid...

 

So in this formation... So long as 2 ghost keels are within 6" of one another they can hit rear armor?

 

 

They have to main unit coherency anyway...

 

 

Also a new formation for the Tidewall Gunrig allows you to take three of them. If they all concentrate fire on a single target, the shots gain +1BS and Armourbane. This will be utterly ruthless against our tanks.

 

 

Yikes...how much does it cost?

[AdAstraPerAspera]

My brother plays Tau and he's practically giddy because of all the leaked codex pieces. Well, time to dust off all the old artillery pieces that have just been sitting around. Plus, this is the Guard, er, Astra Miliwhatsit- we can still drown almost any other army with bodies and armor. No reason to panic- we're just meat for the Imperial grinder, after all. 

[HenricusTyranicus]

You know....as bad as they usually are, rough riders might be the best counter we've got to the Ghostkeel.

[CommissarHughes]

Well, time to start hunting down cavalry models...

 

Also, if your opponent deploys the OSC on their deployment edge and doesn't deep strike, they'll move a max of 6" before their shooting phase with 18" guns. So deploy units away from the board edge and we'll get at least one good round of shooting, two if we go first.

[ElectricPaladin]

Well, better than them coming to fisher our bugs.

[CoffeeGrunt]

You know....as bad as they usually are, rough riders might be the best counter we've got to the Ghostkeel.

 

I seriously doubt it, they wouldn't last a turn against Tau, and any that do could be facing some nasty Overwatch.

 

 

Also a new formation for the Tidewall Gunrig allows you to take three of them. If they all concentrate fire on a single target, the shots gain +1BS and Armourbane. This will be utterly ruthless against our tanks.

 

Yikes...how much does it cost?

 

I think each Gunrig is 85pts, so three times that for 255pts. For 3 T-L Railguns that get Armourbane at S10 AP1 and +1BS, that's pretty cheap, I'm hoping Vanquishers get something similar next Codex to compete. They also provide solid Cover for the squads embarked on them, and are mobile, as well as letting said squads re-roll 1s to Hit!

 

I'm thinking we'll see Shas'Ui Fire Warriors make a comeback, as they can purchase a Target Lock meaning that the firepower of the Shas'la themselves won't be wasted. I'd consider it a decent option personally, but then you're looking at 25pts of tax to give that option of firing the Railgun separately. Across all three that 75pt tax might make a dent, but since the alternative is forcing the Fire Warriors to target the same target as the Railgun, it saves you wasting all their fire.

[march10k]

 

Also, if your opponent deploys the OSC on their deployment edge and doesn't deep strike, they'll move a max of 6" before their shooting phase with 18" guns. So deploy units away from the board edge and we'll get at least one good round of shooting, two if we go first.

 

You assume they're using the melta blast weapon...for free, they can get a 24" range heavy 6 S7 AP4 gun with a gets hot S8AP4 pieplate option instead...can't imagine too many melta versions will be fielded...The S7 machinegun reaches 6" off your back line on turn one!

 

 

 

Also a new formation for the Tidewall Gunrig allows you to take three of them. If they all concentrate fire on a single target, the shots gain +1BS and Armourbane. This will be utterly ruthless against our tanks.

 

Yikes...how much does it cost?

 

I think each Gunrig is 85pts, so three times that for 255pts. For 3 T-L Railguns that get Armourbane at S10 AP1 and +1BS, that's pretty cheap, I'm hoping Vanquishers get something similar next Codex to compete. They also provide solid Cover for the squads embarked on them, and are mobile, as well as letting said squads re-roll 1s to Hit!

 

I'm thinking we'll see Shas'Ui Fire Warriors make a comeback, as they can purchase a Target Lock meaning that the firepower of the Shas'la themselves won't be wasted. I'd consider it a decent option personally, but then you're looking at 25pts of tax to give that option of firing the Railgun separately. Across all three that 75pt tax might make a dent, but since the alternative is forcing the Fire Warriors to target the same target as the Railgun, it saves you wasting all their fire.

 

 

That's a pretty good point...even a min-sized squad leaves a lot of S5 fire on the table if you don't target-lock the sergeant.  Are there other options?  Could you have an IC man the gun?

[Toxichobbit]

 

 

 

The Stormsurge is also a lot better now that we know what the Codex has in it. Previously (WD only rules), you were looking at multiple Str9/Str10 shots at range with StrD only if you got close. Worrying, but not too scary for such a points intensive model. Now that the Codex is leaked, we know that if you fire a Destroyer Missile with a Markerlight it becomes StrD. That's potentially 4 StrD shots at 60" range turn 1, plus shots from the main gun which will either be Str9 or 10, depending upon which gun is taken.

 

But if they flush all of the missiles on turn one, it's all at one target, along with the S10 pieplate.  Can you shoot five weapons?  "Wasting" all that firepower on one demolisher (for example) would be kinda stupid...

 

Yeh, it'd totally be stupid to fire them all at one Demolisher. (Un)luckily it's a Gargauntaun Creature and can fire each of it's weapons at a different target. Otherwise not being able to fire all it's D weapons at once because it would risk overkill would be the least of it's worries, given that it has one long range Str9/10, a bunch of mid-range Str5 and four very long range StrD :p.

 

So I still stand by what I say in my previous post, the thing is downright scary alpha-striking against vehicles. So much so that I might (big might) pick one up for my Tau.

[CommissarHughes]

Looking at the wording for the OSC, it looks like it may have undergone a re-write before production. The lore justification is that they create a "wall of mirrors" (which is idiotic because ion weapons shoot plasma not lasers) to bounce around their targets cover and armor (which should reduce the range because the shot would have to get around the hull to get to said rear armor and if it's only in range to hit the corner of a Russ tread there's no way it'll reach around the hull to weak spots). And, the wording is you may do this thing, like there's an option rather than just giving the rules because you lose nothing for taking them. It seem like in an earlier draft there was likely a choice between having ignores cover and rear armor and getting your cover saves, because they're using their cover systems to bounce shots all around the place. It would make perfect sense to balance out such a powerful ability with something so dangerous.

 

The power creep is just getting insane with this one formation. Why not just give it a reasonable weakens\counter balance? In my meta, pre necron codex living metal was common on the tables. The new codex came out and everyone was happy to see the updates and watch Necrons become relevant again. However, about three months later they disappeared for good it seemed. When I asked Necron players where they went, they told me that it just wasn't fun any more watching people get frustrated as they were tabled by the living metal armies that were just as strong at the end of the game as they'd started.

 

I need to stop rambling so, congratulations GW, we'll see in a few months if you've made another army to broken to be fun.