Tau Codex Rules Preview

[TheArtilleryman]

My son and I literally just built a squad each with mixed armaments. I’m really starting to hate this 

 

I hope they have so many complaints that they’re forced to reprint the whole  codex.

 

Sorry

Edited March 11 by TheArtilleryman

[jaxom]

37 minutes ago, apologist said:

This seems to undermine the flexibility of Crisis suits, which I always thought was their raison d'etre. Another step towards reducing options.

 

5 minutes ago, Mr. Oddity said:

One of the most flexible units in the game when it comes to loadout and they absolutely butcher it. This feels like an incredibly poor decision.

 

38 minutes ago, Halandaar said:

Removal of one flexible datasheet in favour of three fixed ones (bloat), push the old one to legends forcing people* to either shelf or modify their existing models, give each of those datasheets a unique rule that it wouldn't need if they could balance wargear/point costs properly, tacit admission that fixed costs for units with variables doesn't work.

 

It's been the design paradigm that's been in the pipe line for awhile now. Each unit needs a distinct Purpose, as determined by the rules team, and that Purpose should not be diluted by allowing a unit to take options from when players got to determine what they wanted their units to do. It simplifies the design space, and I'd hazard a guess that will be well received by high end tournament players (because they're already mono-loading the "best" option on all their suits) while not being well received by everyone else.

 

Is this influenced by business decisions? Probably, because...

 

34 minutes ago, caladancid said:

This is so bad. What sort of company asks its customers to build (expensive) models that nominally are built with GLUE and then repeatedly forces them to rebuild/rebuy if they want to play in tournaments?

... it's not a bug, it's a feature. GW can recut, repackage, redo one unit and make it into three separate kits to sell. Mind you, I'm being cynical.

 

[Remain_Indoors]

1 hour ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

 

Do they need to be Battleline though? With this you're able to take 9 squads (3 of each) of up to 6 Crisis suits, that's quite a lot

It definitely sucks to lose Ion Blasters, I do wonder why they bothered leaving them in the Index if they were taking them out in the codex

At the cost of invalidated loadouts, fewer options and datasheets that won’t always be relevant. 9 units aren’t great if 6 of them don’t have wargear you want or need.

[01RTB01]

This has been on the cards for a while.

 

Legends though so people can use what they want, just not in tournaments. 

[Indy Techwisp]

7 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

This has been on the cards for a while.

 

Legends though so people can use what they want, just not in tournaments. 

 

Bold of you to assume people actually use Legends datasheets.

The vast majority of "casual" games are between people practicing for Tourney play.

[Brother Carpenter]

1 hour ago, Handsome Fred said:

 

The meme is real

But what was wrong with the old you pay for your upgrades system?

Or has the majority of the human population become too dumb to actually calculate the points cost of their army? (or for that matter, calculate anything?)

 

It was one of my favourite parts of army designing, trying to wedge in that big gun somewhere and get as close to the max point cost as possible..

[TheArtilleryman]

1 hour ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Regardless.
The most common non-CIB loadout that I've seen is Burst Cannon, Plasma Rifle and Missile Pod, mostly 'cause it was common in 9th iirc.

 

Since Burst Cannon is paired with Flamers in the article, where as Plasma Rifle is paired with Missile Pods, I don't think that loadout is usable anymore.

The old system resulted in most people building their suits with a variety of weaponry, because you used to pay more for duplicates of the same weapon. They are literally screwing over the collections of the majority of t’au players. I just can’t get my head round this. 

[jaxom]

1 hour ago, Handsome Fred said:

Actualy as the preview hints with the fixed loadout you need 3 box to make 3 legit units if the fusion needs 2 blaster each battlesuit.

 

1 hour ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

 

Interesting

  Reveal hidden contents

four plasma rifles, three flamers, four fusion blasters, four burst cannons, three missile pods and three shield generators

 

Unless they're going with the Shas'vre being the dual wielder of Fusion and everyone else has 1? All the other loadouts look to work out

 

58 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

I forsee an even worse option no-one else has considered:
 

A Default crisis suit has 1 Burst Cannon and nothing else.

What if GW make it so your Shas'vre is the only one with the unique loadout (2 Fusions/Plasma+Missiles/Burst+Flamer) and the other 2-5 minis have 1 Burst and that's it.

 

I was looking at the sprues, and it seems like if they put three of this one in a box, it can build everything from the article:

I'm not super familiar with the kit, but it looks like it builds one suit body and has all the options: flamer+burst cannon, plasma+missiles, and dual fusion guns. Ball-and-socket joints mean that even three of the same sprue can produce different looking models.

 

12 minutes ago, Remain_Indoors said:

At the cost of invalidated loadouts, fewer options and datasheets that won’t always be relevant. 9 units aren’t great if 6 of them don’t have wargear you want or need.

Kind of? If they're locking unit options to kit option then you always have a valid unit. The idea of "wargear you want or need" is subjective, and may depend on what models a person likes taking. 

 

 EDIT: 

1 minute ago, TheArtilleryman said:

The old system resulted in most people building their suits with a variety of weaponry, because you used to pay more for duplicates of the same weapon. They are literally screwing over the collections of the majority of t’au players. I just can’t get my head round this. 

It's part of why I don't consider 10th an extension of 9th. 9th paid lip service to backwards compatibility. 10th only makes sense if one assumes a player has built their collection starting with 10th.

 

Edited March 11 by jaxom

[Indy Techwisp]

Just now, Brother Carpenter said:

But what was wrong with the old you pay for your upgrades system?

 

Nothing at all.
It just seems that whichever guy made Power Level rules way back when finally reached a high enough position within GW to actually affect the game and thus pushed all of 10th edition to Power Level format in revenge for no-one with even a single functioning braincell touching Power Level with a 50ft pole.

[Mogger351]

Ignoring whether scrapping wargear costs is dumb, I'm the confines of 10th they either had to do this, massively rewrite the weapons or invent a generic 'crisis suit weapon'. Would that have been worse?

 

Again, ignoring the "point wargear stupid" angle, as that's off the cards for 10th.

[caladancid]

28 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

This has been on the cards for a while.

 

Legends though so people can use what they want, just not in tournaments. 

 

Just like in every other iteration of the game, people generally play with what is in the codex.

 

Saying this has been in the cards for a while is also quite incorrect when even the current datasheet rules aren't this bad.

[phandaal]

8 minutes ago, caladancid said:

 

Just like in every other iteration of the game, people generally play with what is in the codex.

 

Saying this has been in the cards for a while is also quite incorrect when even the current datasheet rules aren't this bad.

 

The funny thing about saying this has been in the cards for a while is there are actual physical cards that Games Workshop themselves printed and sold for 10th edition before this codex launched that do not have these limitations.

[Indy Techwisp]

12 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

Ignoring whether scrapping wargear costs is dumb, I'm the confines of 10th they either had to do this, massively rewrite the weapons or invent a generic 'crisis suit weapon'. Would that have been worse?

 

Again, ignoring the "point wargear stupid" angle, as that's off the cards for 10th.

 

A better way of dealing with this, that also would be 100% on brand for 10th Ed, would be to say "CIBs and Airbursting Frag Launchers have been removed from the Crisis Suit datasheet." (since they're not in the Crisis Suit box) and then just drop the pts again.

Sure, you still annoy some people, but since the majority of people didn't have those weapons on a Crisis Suit team anyway (see reason for removing them as options), you still allow those Crisis suits, some of which are over 20+ years old, to be used as is.

 

This is in line with GW's "only in the box" approach, while also not meaning you can now field over 54 Crisis Suits at a time.

[TheArtilleryman]

34 minutes ago, jaxom said:

I was looking at the sprues, and it seems like if they put three of this one in a box, it can build everything from the article

Nope, only one plasma rifle and one burst cannon.

[Indy Techwisp]

3 minutes ago, TheArtilleryman said:

Nope, only one plasma rifle and one burst cannon.

 

The new datasheers are for:

 

2x Fusion

 

Or

 

1x Burst Cannon and 1x Flamer

 

Or

 

1x Plasma Rifle and 1x Missile Pod

 

So 3 of that sprue would work since then you end up with 6 Fusion Blasters, 3 Burst Cannons, 3 Flamers, 3 Plasma Rifles and 3 Missile Pods.

[TheArtilleryman]

16 minutes ago, caladancid said:

Just like in every other iteration of the game, people generally play with what is in the codex.

 

This.

 

What’s the point in having the codex if you need to look elsewhere for the rules for a unit? Even the app doesn’t have legends rules included.

 

Battlescribe, however, does include legends and only costs 3 quid a year (until GW get their copyright lawyers out again).

[Indy Techwisp]

Just now, TheArtilleryman said:

 

This.

 

What’s the point in having the codex if you need to look elsewhere for the rules for a unit? Even the app doesn’t have legends rules included.

 

Battlescribe, however, does include legends and only costs 3 quid a year (until GW get their copyright lawyers out again).

 

I thought Battlescribe got usurped by a different list Builder 'cause the Battlescribe dev has been MIA for a few years now.

[tzeentch9]

43 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

Bold of you to assume people actually use Legends datasheets.

The vast majority of "casual" games are between people practicing for Tourney play.

They’re really not. People only won’t play legends in casual games if they are pressured by people who insist on playing tournament style even though they will never play in a tournament. Casual games, proper casual games, are far more common

[Redcomet]

Oh dear. The flexibility of the suits was one of the selling points of the platform. But now due to GW rules writing incompetence, we are now stuck with 3 boring loadouts.

 

It is like they desperately want 10th to be un fun.

 

I am not even going to bother with the army set. 

[TheArtilleryman]

6 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

The new datasheers are for:

 

2x Fusion

 

Or

 

1x Burst Cannon and 1x Flamer

 

Or

 

1x Plasma Rifle and 1x Missile Pod

 

So 3 of that sprue would work since then you end up with 6 Fusion Blasters, 3 Burst Cannons, 3 Flamers, 3 Plasma Rifles and 3 Missile Pods.

Ah didn’t realise this. Thought you still had a small amount of choice.

 

So we won’t be able to have three weapons on a suit anymore either? Is this really what they’ve done?

 

Seriously, I love Warhammer but I can’t stand Games Workshop these days. 

[Zoatibix]

1 hour ago, Handsome Fred said:

 

The meme is real

 

 

This is the same system we have over in AOS.

 

If a box can build, say, crossbow guys or longbow guys you generally get two different datasheets with different costs and a different special ability.

My Stormcast Battletome is about the same size as the marine codex.

[01RTB01]

48 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

Bold of you to assume people actually use Legends datasheets.

The vast majority of "casual" games are between people practicing for Tourney play.

In fairness you're making an assumption there as well. That may be based on your locality but doesn't speak for every club/ game that takes place on the planet...

[TheArtilleryman]

6 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

I thought Battlescribe got usurped by a different list Builder 'cause the Battlescribe dev has been MIA for a few years now.

Battlescribe went out for a while but it’s back. I have the app and recently bought a year’s sub for £3. I have the data files for 40K, HH, AoS, last edition of WH Fantasy and Middle Earth all in the same app. It’s a lot easier to download the data files than it used to be too, and they are regularly updated. You can also download older editions and also the rules for a ton of other non-GW games as well. So much better than the Warhammer 40K app.

Edited March 11 by TheArtilleryman

[Indy Techwisp]

1 minute ago, TheArtilleryman said:

Ah didn’t realise this. Thought you still had a small amount of choice.

 

So we won’t be able to have three weapons on a suit anymore either? Is this really what they’ve done?

 

Seriously, I love Warhammer but I can’t stand Games Workshop these days. 

 

I'm assuming there's not any options to add more weapons to the new sheets otherwise people will just put 3 CIBs in the unit again.

[Mogger351]

2 minutes ago, TheArtilleryman said:

Battlescribe went out for a while but it’s back. I have the app and recently bought a year’s sub for £3. I have the data files for 40K, HH, AoS, last edition of WH Fantasy and Middle Earth all in the same app. It’s a lot easier to download the data files than it used to be too, and they are regularly updated.

You actually don't need to pay at all for battlescribe and the people creating the datafile don't see any of your money. Unless something changed radically, you've given 3 quid to someone who retired before their midlife crisis based on the work of volunteers.