One of the most exciting things about collecting the youngest race in Warhammer 40,000 is their developing narrative, and the new Codex: T’au Empire is designed to reflect how this nascent stellar power has expanded and diversified.
This article was originally published on the Warhammer Community site. Check them out for great content!
To demonstrate properly just how much bigger the T’au Empire has become, six Sept Tenets allow you to dedicate your Detachments to one of the most populous and influential of the T’au settlements. You can also pick a sept from the background – or even make one up yourself – and pick the Sept Tenet you think best reflects your strategy and fighting style.
The first Sept Tenet we’ll be previewing is that of the T’au Sept – first and most prestigious among the T’au Empire’s holdings.
Perhaps none among the T’au are as fanatical in their pursuit of the Greater Good – or drilled as hard – as those who hail from the core world, making them superb defensive warriors. On the tabletop, this is reflected by Coordinated Fire Arcs:
As if charging a T’au gunline wasn’t already daunting enough!
If you’re using Hammerhead Gunships, we’d recommend taking three in a Spearhead Detachment with Longstrike at their head. As well as providing additional bonuses to hit for these units, this legendary tank ace has been enhanced to benefit more from Markerlights than his fellow T’au, allowing you to make the most of yours:
With the T’au Sept, you’ll want to stock up on Fire Warriors to take maximum advantage of your combined Overwatch attacks. While you might be tempted to use Strike Teams, we’d recommend Breacher Teams, whose short-ranged attacks are even more powerful in the new codex thanks to a new Stratagem:
This works superbly against both entrenched units and units with abilities allowing them to benefit from cover where they otherwise wouldn’t, such as the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Jormungandr. It gets better – against particularly stubborn targets, don’t forget to use Focused Fire, a T’au Sept Stratagem that allows you to take down even the toughest units with ease:
Just imagine – soften up a larger target like an Imperial Knight with a fusillade from your Pathfinders, then finish them off with a combined assault from your Breachers and Hammerhead Gunships. Should they charge you, they’ll have to walk through a brutal hail of fire before they can even land a blow…
Of course, if you’d rather keep your enemy at arm’s length, worry not – we’ll be checking in tomorrow with another preview, with a Sept Tenet that makes the already prodigious reach of T’au firearms even longer. In the meantime, you can kick off your T’au Sept with Start Collecting! T’au Empire.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Your website wanted me to be CWDub when I tried to comment. Odd.
Anyway, if Hammerheads get the double tap like fire prisms/lemon russes, they’re gonna be pretty brutal and all but impossible to charge with 5+ OW and Linked OW.
If Hammerheads get the toubletap like lemons and fire prisms, they’re gonna be brutal as all hell.
I really, really, really hope they do. It would feel super-bad to see two other tanks of the same cost and same firepower get the ability, and then have the Hammerhead get nothing.
It seems only tanks with citric names get that rule
Which is the citrus part, the Fire or the Prism?
The lemon! XD
I physically can only comment under this name. It isn’t me. Sorry, CWDub.
If hammerheads get the double tap like prisms and lemons, they’re gonna be brutal.
Gah, are we getting the weird bug again that prompts you to comment under someone else’s name? I thought we had fixed that =(
Not only that, but it apparently made me do it three times. Sorry, homie, it’s definitely weird.
OK, thanks for letting me know. I will try to get that fixed ASAP.
Nice! So pumped for this book!
Reece, any chance you can spill the beans on if we get any defense against psykers?
Not yet, sorry =(
I will have a review up and ready to rock though when the book goes up for pre-order!
Appreciate it!
Still sad you didn’t make one of your great reviews for the daemon codex… Or that the CSM codex came too early for that… Your reviews are really awesome.
Thanks! Yeah, I was just too busy with LVO to cover those, but I will try and go back and get them covered.
Blink three times if the the Onager gauntlet is back.
lol
Stoked for the review. Little bits and peices of leaks has been brutally underwhelming. I believe the “whole picture” is going to be very fluid.
Yeah, every single codex people are freaking out and then get the book and see it is very different than the previews indicate, haha.
Out of interest, who writes these posts for the community site? Is it one of you guys?
We sometimes do write them but not these ones in particular.
From a fluff standpoint, I am disappointed that GW decided to treat septs like Astartes chapters or Starmy regiments. It seems to me that the Greater Good ideology would promote the idea of warriors from different septs working togther in a single army. If I were doing writing the rules, I would treat septs like Chaos marks, then give each sept a couple of strategems to reflect the particular temperment of the particular sept.
On the “chapter tactics” level, I would have 2 options: Tau Empire, which would have access to sept-specific stratagems, and Farsight Enclaves, which would get no Ethereals but some swanky universal “chapter tactic.”
But nobody listens to me.
Each of the septs is receiving at least one stratagem specific to them, so on that front they’re actually doing exactly what you suggest.
As to your other point, the Tau codices have always characterized the different septs as having different ways of war and personalities (Vior’la as aggressive, etc)- it’s just now that is actually represented on the tabletop to a degree. Note that the Chaos Marks don’t actually do anything at all on their own, which makes them a bad way to make units feel special- even with a stratagem to back them, you can only use it once per turn (and such uses will quickly eat into your CP reserves.)
The different septs don’t have different ways of war. The Tau have 2 ways of war: Mont’ka and Kau’yon. Each sept does not. Let’s assume that the idea that Tau from certain septs tending to have certain personality traits is real (as opposed to intra-Tau stereotype). This is best represented by a couple of stratagems per sept rather than a “chapter tactic.”
The Tau are all about unity. It makes perfect sense that a commander (especially an Ethereal) from one sept would have no problem working efficaciously with Tau from other septs or warriors from client species. Moreover, regarding said client species, it doesn’t make sense that they would share the personality traits of Tau from any particular sept rather than have their own personalities. In contrast, the Imperium or the Eldar are very diverse. The Space Marine chapters operate independently, Starmy regiments are drawn from diverse worlds of radically different cultures and technology levels and the Eldar craftworlds are each independent polities. It makes a lot of sense for these factions to have sub-factions in the form of chapter tactics or regimental doctrines. The Tau, on the other hand are a much more top-down, planned species with central control over everything including breeding. It doesn’t make sense that any sept would be so different from another that they should be sub-factions to the extent that a detachment made up of fire warriors from different septs should be unable to operate as they normally would. Does it make sense that Shadowsun and fire warriors from Bor’kan would be unable to work together at peak efficiency in the way a Dark Angel would have trouble taking orders from an Ultramarine? Of course not.
This is why I think it would be better for the “sept” keyword to operate more like a chaos mark rather than a chapter tactic. Of course is not what GW went with, but I think that one could do something like have 2 sub-factions: “Tau Empire,” which would give access to Ethereals and have a sub-faction tactic of something like 3 extra Command Points, and “Farsight Enclaves,” which would have something like permanent Mont’ka and higher leadership. Then for strategems, there would be some that apply to all Tau, some that apply to client race units, some that apply to Farsight Enclave units and some that apply to particular septs. I think this would better represent the fluff than what GW went with.