Wh40k 10th Edition Faction Focus: Tau Empire

[Hfran Morkai]

12 minutes ago, Triszin said:

I love the concept of tau freaking out and sprinting to get back into the transport before they get eaten

 

It's a fighting retreat.

 

T'au do not believe there is honour in dying for ground, ground is merely to make the kill from. 

[Mr. Oddity]

My first instinct is that I like these changes. It feels like they put effort into maintaining the collectivist spirit of the T'au with the army rule, and the tactical philosophies definitely fit better as a detachment type, rather than the army special rule, given that they dictate your play style more. The ability to consistently boost the BS of important units will also be helpful. Interestingly, this also seems to imply that T'au can serve as actual artillery spotters for non-LOS shooting which is interesting. Hopefully the SMS and AFP aren't too powerful with that buff.

[Indy Techwisp]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Oddity said:

<snip>

 

I think it specifies that both units need to see the target for the Spotting to work.

[chapter master 454]

The detachment ability...we have to wait til turn 3 to actually get use out of that. Turn 3 is a day and dollar too late most times to make a difference and the ability will be likely used more by half depleted squads and any unit we wanted to use it on will be dead by then OR if we reserve them, we will have lost so much objective control that we will ALWAYS default to gambits.

 

Certainly nice overall but some questions remain...

Does the shield drone add 1 wound to only one model in the squad or the whole squad? If only 1, then that is fairly garbage for standard troops and a maybe for other stuff. If its for the whole unit, they become auto-takes. I suppose it will just be one dude but how do we nominate who has the drone? So many questions.

[Indy Techwisp]

12 minutes ago, chapter master 454 said:

The detachment ability...we have to wait til turn 3 to actually get use out of that. Turn 3 is a day and dollar too late most times to make a difference and the ability will be likely used more by half depleted squads and any unit we wanted to use it on will be dead by then OR if we reserve them, we will have lost so much objective control that we will ALWAYS default to gambits.

 

Certainly nice overall but some questions remain...

Does the shield drone add 1 wound to only one model in the squad or the whole squad? If only 1, then that is fairly garbage for standard troops and a maybe for other stuff. If its for the whole unit, they become auto-takes. I suppose it will just be one dude but how do we nominate who has the drone? So many questions.

 

A) I predict that the Khayon Detachment strats will almost all be defensive in nature so that more T'au stick around by turn 3.

 

B) The Drone says the Bearer gains +1 Wound.

So the question is whether the Drone is beared by the whole unit or just 1 guy in it.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Indy Techwisp
Strats, not Starts

[WrathOfTheLion]

I would assume by one guy in it. Were it borne by the whole unit, it'd be a crazy multiplier to take a unit of Breachers up to two wounds for example.

[Karhedron]

Overall I like this preview. The 10th edition trend of giving units special rules so they have utility beyond just killing stuff is an excellent one. GW clearly noticed Marine players gravitating towards Infiltrators for their various special rules and realised it was a promising way to make vanilla squads desirable.

[mel_danes]

+1 wound for shield drone is garbage.

Can't tank a heavy shot as an invulnerable save?

Nope just a single extra wound. Why would anyone ever take it?

[FarFromSam]

Glad to see those drones are getting looked at.  A fine fix to an obnoxious rule that stuck around longer than it was welcome.  With guardian drones doing their thing paired with tougher bodies tau won't be flimsy.  Well done GW.  

 

Let's see some points costs! 

Edited May 19, 2023 by farfromsam

[Dark Legionnare]

Everything here previewed looks like fun and good!  Personally, I just want the Ghostkeel to have a good, valid purpose/use case again.

Ghostkeel going into 9th with the -1 hit cap seemingly always just ended up always being a huge points sink for me.  Was better spent on something else to stand on a point or normal stealth suits to do any forward-deploy shenanigans.

Came up with a couple backfield drone-controller hub jokes uses, but ultimately, they spent most of 9th on the shelf sadly. Hopefully they're like the pathfinders, translating their loreful "Very advanced software/AI suites" to being able to guide multiple units.

This man(model) has "observer unit" written all over him!

[Sea Creature]

No more savior protocols nonesense!

[Commander Dawnstar]

I'm kinda in two minds about this.

 

I appreciate that GW's clearly given some thought into carving out distinct niches for armies. Sisters, LoV, Mechanicus and T'au all have (to oversimplify) army-wide access to +1 to hit in some form, but in each case those armies have different gates on how they access that power that alter the way they or their opponent plays. On-release T'au have been given multiplicative reasons to play a bit cagey and cautious early on (destroyed units mean less +1 BS and less bonus Sustained Hits), and that in turn gives the opponent cause to try and go aggressive to curtail their power scaling from turn three onwards. It adds a distinct tension to their games.

 

On the other hand ... kinda feels like it gives T'au a bit of a glass jaw. Every other unit you opponent kills is potentially dropping the firepower of another by about 50% come turn three, and that means that against a powerful alpha strike a lot of their potential might not even come online. And with only one Detachment at launch there's no longer a Mont'ka/Kauyon choice being made to let you change up your gameplan to suit the opponent.

 

We'll have to see how it works out.

 

(Also I find the change of Drones to wargear vaguely annoying if only because it feels like it's made the actual models a little redundant.)

Edited May 19, 2023 by Commander Dawnstar

[tinpact]

The Guardian Drone does look a lot more appealing than the Shield Drone at first glance. 

 

A few of the heavy guns previewed have been D12 or similar, though - so maybe if a battlesuit has 12 wounds, that extra wound could save it. It might also be that units are limited in what and how many drones they can take (either they come on the datasheet or as a list of options to choose N from).

[irlLordy]

3 hours ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Since when did Pathfinders have a GL?

 

It's an option in their kill team upgrade kit. 

 

Interesting changes around drones, still need to know how the abilities will be handled when drones are attached to characters and not units. Wouldn't surprise me if necron plasmacytes end up being tokenified as well.

[Vardus]

1 hour ago, irlLordy said:

 

It's an option in their kill team upgrade kit. 

 

Interesting changes around drones, still need to know how the abilities will be handled when drones are attached to characters and not units. Wouldn't surprise me if necron plasmacytes end up being tokenified as well.

 

I always thought that the attachment under the Pathfinder Pulse Carbine was a Grenade Launcher, even before the Kill Team upgrade kit.

[MaximusTL]

im guessing shield drones will be good for battlesuits, but not so much for fire warriors or other infantry. im not sure i like drones not being targetable - if a fire warrior unit has 2 gun drones, as long as you have 2 fire warriors around, you have the firepower of 4 more drones. I havent played against T'au in 9th, so i cant speak for how annoying drones were, but was having them be more wounds on a model an actual issue?

[MagicHat]

My left eye have started twitching. I can't confirm if this is related to Pathfinders getting 4+ save while my cogboys were dropped to 5+, but I can't rule it out either.

 

Isn't drones purchased by the team leader for infantry currently? I imagine the team leader will be the one that gets the +1 w for shield drones.

 

 

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, MaximusTL said:

I havent played against T'au in 9th, so i cant speak for how annoying drones were, but was having them be more wounds on a model an actual issue?

 

It was definitely abusable. Having drones swarming as extra ablative wounds round high value models was not fun. Drones were cheap but their value scaled in proprtion to the models they were protecting rather than their own capabilities. The new system looks better although it is not clear to me how Shield Drons work when attached to squads. Do all the Fire Warriors suddenly have 2 Wounds? 

 

EDIT - Actually it looks like Firewarriors don't get access to Shield Drones. If only Leaders can take Shield Drones, the question goes away.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Karhedron

[Kallas]

2 hours ago, Vardus said:

always thought that the attachment under the Pathfinder Pulse Carbine was a Grenade Launcher, even before the Kill Team upgrade kit.

That's because it is!

 

The Pulse Carbine has an underslung photon grenade launcher: it's why for the first few editions after their launch Carbines caused Pinning (while that rule existed). Not sure if it carried through to 6/7e, but yeah, it was because they also fired Photon Grenades at the time/as part of the unit's salvo.

 

[Mana]

any unit can be an observer? you just nominate it? 

 

Well what I would like to know, is if this placeholder rules till the codex drops will be pretty similar to their codex counterpart or very different (This can apply to any faction). How was the experience with 8th?

[ChargingSoll]

The shield drone does change how crisis suits could be utilised, currently with 4 wounds and every 1 in 3 having a iridium suit for a 2+ save could potentially go up to 6 wounds a suit with 2 drones a suit like it is currently allocated. 

 

Also got to see what happens to shield generators, if it still has an 4++ invul save or another wound increase. 

 

Strike and breacher teams getting -1 to wound through guardian drone is mental. Against other GEQ they will just survive better not including the general ap hit the game is having. 

 

Drones being equipment makes dealing and organising them alot easier. I almost aways went with shield drones for the default drone as to me they were just worth it more then the others and were a pain in the ass to deal with. 

 

Strat seem to be fun with breachers being danger close. Especially the new greater good rule mean you can bounce it with devil fish to be the spotter and have the brechers get the bonus BS.

 

Edit: God knows what toughness the suits could go up to, willing to bet to atleast T6 for crisis.

Edited May 19, 2023 by ChargingSoll
Detail

[Lord_Ikka]

The Observer/Guided rules are really interesting and leans in hard into the idea of T'au focus-firing with their units. The two heavy weapons shown are not nearly as bad as I was fearing (as a Knight player), but they are quite deadly. I'd like to see the cards for the crisis/broadside/riptide suits, overall T'au are looking pretty solid right now.

[Tokugawa]

11 hours ago, tzeentch9 said:

Nice to see half the army will be BS 3+ now. Pathfinders get a boost to their armour save, and have a rare infantry carried anti armour gun in the rail rifle. Hammerheads rail guns are still great, and now hit on 3s if they stay still or have a friend nearby to help, and will occasionally mince an entire unit with the devastating wounds ability.

Up to 2+. +1 BS is not limited by "max +1 hit on total" right?

[bigtrouble]

I think they got this one right.

[Sorceress]

dose it say anywhere that a guided unit can't be selected to observe when there unit is activated to shoot? we still activate one unit at a time in the shooting phase so if you activate unit 1 choose it to observe and unit 2 to be guided, do unit 1s shooting,  is there anything stopping you from picking unit 2 and having it observe for unit 3 and so on and so on in a daisy chain of murder?