Tau Codex Rules Preview

[Garrac]

Point changes are up on the app

[VanDutch]

1 hour ago, Garrac said:

Point changes are up on the app

Also (nicked from Reddit):

 

“There are 2 bits of errata as well:

 

Sunforge gets a slight rewording but is functionally unchanged (i.e. still reroll Wound and Damage vs Vehicle and Monster targets).

 

The Mont'ka detachment rule is the bigger one as the benefits are swapped. Now on turns 1 to 3 ranged weapons get [ASSAULT]. [LETHAL HITS] is now the benefit from being guided during rounds 1 to 3.”

[Tokugawa]

2 hours ago, Garrac said:

Point changes are up on the app

fireblade 50
farsight 105
breachers 100
devilfish 85
broadsides 110(+20ppm!)
kroot 75
farstalkers 85
riptides 180
Skyray 140
fireknife 150
starscythe 130
sunforge 170
rampagers 110/220
flesh shaper 55
lone spear 90
trail shaper 65
war shaper 60

tetras go to legend

[Mr. Oddity]

Barracuda and the Riptide variants are gone as well, although that's less impactful on the competitive side of play. All cool models though, so a definite shame.

 

Lots of points bumps here, I'm kind of surprised so much went up.

[drakheart]

2 hours ago, Mr. Oddity said:

Barracuda and the Riptide variants are gone as well, although that's less impactful on the competitive side of play. All cool models though, so a definite shame.

 

Lots of points bumps here, I'm kind of surprised so much went up.

Just when I bit the bullet an bought a barracuda!

 

[Tokugawa]

MFM updated

 

[01RTB01]

10 hours ago, drakheart said:

Just when I bit the bullet an bought a barracuda!

 

They're beautiful models though and one of the few things I ever magnetised as the holes were pre drilled. Enjoy the mini they're stunning.

[ValourousHeart]

I'm curious why everyone wants to return to paying for equipment.  Wasn't that what we complained about constantly before, how those point costs were never correct and every change only made things worse?  Besides nostalgia, what is the fascination with returning to a system that didn't work?

 

If we, as a community, were rational about it, and not nostalgic, wouldn't we come up with a more novel solution.

[Karhedron]

3 hours ago, ValourousHeart said:

I'm curious why everyone wants to return to paying for equipment.  Wasn't that what we complained about constantly before, how those point costs were never correct and every change only made things worse?  Besides nostalgia, what is the fascination with returning to a system that didn't work?

 

Because a fixed price for a unit with variable wargear usually invalidates all the other loadouts. To give an example, Blood Angels Death Company can take a variety of melee wargear but always cost the same points. This means that everyone takes a Power Fist and Inferno Pistol on every model because they are the most effective weapons and there is no reason not to do so. You don't save any points by taking weaker options. Granted Firstborn Marines are an anomaly and I think GW are going to phase them out soon but the issue still stands to a lesser extent with other units. It is hard to balance the effectiveness of wargear so that all options are equally viable.

 

In previous editions the issue was that people looked for the most cost-effective option. Now they simply take the most effective option. From a personal point of view, I am irked as many of many units have mixed wargear that I built some time ago. Whilst these loadouts were not necessarily optimal in many editions, I could at least console myself with the thought that I was usually saving points compared to the maxed out option but that is no longer the case. I guess it is largely academic but no upgrades seems to be a worse compromise than variable points to me.

[chapter master 454]

as karhedron said, really. The other factor is that GW now seems to have given up trying to balance gear against each other because for whatever reason they can't seem to understand why people didn't want to shell out twice the cost of the model in points for a lascannon when you could take a meltagun for less than half the points and do the exact same thing. Back then meltaguns were just as good as lascannons for removing bigger targets (normally tanks) and cost less than half of most lascannons which ran 25pts per cannon (and twin-linked? 50pts and that was even when twin-linked only offered re-roll to hit).

 

The issue is that I do suppose that such a system works better for skirmish games and 40k has grown past that scale now. It is also the fact that the GW rules team have very little idea of how the game is actually played and what is actually powerful...only beer and pretzel playing would result in the custodes champion detachment...big yikes!

[phandaal]

4 hours ago, ValourousHeart said:

I'm curious why everyone wants to return to paying for equipment.  Wasn't that what we complained about constantly before, how those point costs were never correct and every change only made things worse?  Besides nostalgia, what is the fascination with returning to a system that didn't work?

 

If we, as a community, were rational about it, and not nostalgic, wouldn't we come up with a more novel solution.

 

No, everyone was not complaining about the existence of Points. If you recall, people were very happy when Games Workshop announced that Power Level was going away and Points would be the only system in 10th Edition. (And not so happy when it turned out Power Level was just getting renamed to Points.)

 

The system does work, and everyone besides GW's design team seems to understand that.

 

Can't think of a single game system outside of GW where different wargear does not have different costs.

[LSM]

No-upgrades-cost works well in a system where various choices are balanced against one another (even if it's situational). 

 

It doesn't work when certain choices are just flatly better. When a model can take a Bolt Pistol or a Plasma Pistol, using the former is "wrong".

 

I'm hopeful that this can be fixed over time. For example, in Index: Necrons, Tomb Blades could take Shieldvanes - not replace something, just... they could or could not be equipped with Shieldvanes. Doing so gave them a 3+ save, not doing so kept their save at 4+. That's... a bad rule. However, in Codex: Necrons this was updated to giving a 3+ save and reducing movement from 12" to 8".

 

If Plasma weapons got rid of their "wimp mode" and went back to always getting hot, the Bolt Pistol would be a reasonable option again. Maybe not the best option, but at least reasonable. Or characters could get Master Crafted Bolt Pistols, with 2 shots, etc, etc. There are things that can be done.

[jaxom]

57 minutes ago, LSM said:

Or characters could get Master Crafted Bolt Pistols, with 2 shots, etc, etc. There are things that can be done.

Yeah, when the Indexes first dropped I started an ambitious project to internally balance weapon options by doing things like this and stopped after seven datasheets when I realized it was a massive waste of time because of no one would ever use them.

[Tokugawa]

Once most people adapted to faster and easier points calculation, they don't want to look back.

 

Actually, since rules are written by human, all the options on one unit can't be equally useful. If a model could choose 1 from 7 options for its main gun, and each option is 0pts, then 5-6 of them would see no use. But if each one of the 7 option has different cost, like 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 15 and 25pts, then the final result would be 4-5 of them would see no use. 

 

Balance point between simplicity and fairness may be : +10~20 pts for the several best choices, other wargears 0pts.

[DemonGSides]

I mostly just miss that little bit of ability to eek out a few points.

I'd be happy to take naked Cadian squads if they were cheaper than versions with guns, but they aren't, so I have to maximize each squad, which means I get less chance to bring other stuff that might hit harder but not be as much of a tarpit.  Basically being forced to use my Cadians in a way that doesn't necessarily work the way I want to use them; I want human speedbumps, GW Wants them to be anemic middle ground shooting.  We can't reconcile that difference in 10th, whereas in 9th at least we could both have our way.

I was a fan of simplified points at first because it should lead to easier balancing.  But a year on, I'm wishing I could drop a Plasma Gun so I could squeak in a whole extra squad.

[jaxom]

20 minutes ago, Tokugawa said:

Actually, since rules are written by human, all the options on one unit can't be equally useful. If a model could choose 1 from 7 options for its main gun, and each option is 0pts, then 5-6 of them would see no use.

I disagree. Intra-unit options can change how a unit is used and that opens up army composition options. For example, a tank taking the anti-infantry option opens up infantry taking anti-tank options and vice-versa.

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, jaxom said:

I disagree. Intra-unit options can change how a unit is used and that opens up army composition options. For example, a tank taking the anti-infantry option opens up infantry taking anti-tank options and vice-versa.

 

That is very true but anti-tank weapons tend to kill more points than anti-infantry weapons each time they are fired. Plus most basic infantry squads come with anti-infantry guns anyway. This means that it is usually better to take the anti-tank option when it is available.

 

There are some exceptions such as Primaris Inceptors where GW have actually done a good job of balancing the bolter and plasma options. But on the whole, a lot of units with weapon options don't seem to have had the same level of balanvce applied.

[DemonGSides]

4 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

That is very true but anti-tank weapons tend to kill more points than anti-infantry weapons each time they are fired. Plus most basic infantry squads come with anti-infantry guns anyway. This means that it is usually better to take the anti-tank option when it is available.

 

There are some exceptions such as Primaris Inceptors where GW have actually done a good job of balancing the bolter and plasma options. But on the whole, a lot of units with weapon options don't seem to have had the same level of balanvce applied.

 

If we don't want to go directly back to "Points per wargear", another option would be "naked" squads vs "Loaded" squads, where naked is a basic version (9x Cadian Troopers with just lasrifle, no kit, and then a Sgt with whatever) that is expected to cost, say, 40 points, and then a "loaded" squad (9x Cadian Troopers, 2x Different Special Weapons, 1x Vox Caster, 7x Lasrifle, 1 Sgt with Whatever) is 60 points.

Then they give everyone the Inceptor balance pass where every gun gets its niche, and I'm less worried about overpaying for something.

Could solve some of the issue, but also at that point just do pointed wargear.

[Madao]

Continuing the offtopic about points - I do miss flexible unit sizes, as now I feel like playing Tetris, trying to fit what I want and not end up with less points than allowed. It might not be an issue with 2k, but it is in 500 and 1k, which I play the most.

It also causes some weird design choices, like splitting Crisis datasheet into 3 with fixed loadouts (I am glad I put an effort to magnetize mine)

Edited May 9 by Madao

[Guiltysparc]

I don't care so much about paying for wargear.  I liked being able to fiddle with it, but i like the fact that it makes rule of cool work on your models.

 

I would like to go back for paying by model for squad size though.

[DemonGSides]

30 minutes ago, Guiltysparc said:

I don't care so much about paying for wargear.  I liked being able to fiddle with it, but i like the fact that it makes rule of cool work on your models.

 

I would like to go back for paying by model for squad size though.

 

Yeah this might be enough to make me happy too.  Sometimes I only want to run 7 Plague Marines because it's fluffy and fun.  Sometimes I might have room for a 12 man Cadian Shock troop squad, but not a 20, bu as of right now, I'm SOL.  It would go a little ways towards making the game a little smoother.

[Guiltysparc]

Right, would be easier to fill out lists if you can add singles to you squads.

[ZeroWolf]

I have a feeling we'd sooner see a return to that than wargear costs.

[Tokugawa]

The best solution which matching "rules of cool" is more unified profiles. With "accursed weapon" you can glue whatever weapon you feel cool on chosens, a sword or an axe or even a broom, needn't worry about hurt by rules changes, and it makes basic chainswords on sprue no longer useless. WYSIWYG become easy and not shackle for gamers.

 

However this can't be applied on every unit. "Cultists firearms"? No problem, they are expendable cannon fodders and no one expect their different weapons could make real changes to the whole game. "Devastator shooting weapons"? That is anti intuition and may conflicts with most customers' memories…

 

To answer this question, GW has already written the next move on the wall: 

"Retire old born Devastators".

 

 

[MithrilForge]

Well I’m happy to see the T’AU Points costs out…. I just need the damn Codex to become available to Australia now .. 

 

 

M