The new Codex: T’au Empire isn’t just designed to make your army stronger – it’s also packed with new tactical possibilities, allowing you to capitalise on your strengths and try out unusual new army builds.
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One of the defining quality of T’au Empire armies is their prodigious range, allowing them to reach the enemy wherever they may hide with an array of far-reaching firepower. In this regard, no sept can match the reach of Bork’an, thanks to Superior Craftsmanship:
With this Sept Tenet, even your Strike Teams will be able to reach the enemy wherever they hide, while you take the best defensive positions on the board with impunity.
For many, the Riptide Battlesuit is the iconic T’au Empire unit, and with the new codex, you can expect to see a LOT more of them on a tabletop near you thanks to a suite of rules improvements. Firstly, the armaments of the Riptide have been tweaked in power to hit harder and have more shots, allowing you to deal more damage with this deadly war machine:
With the Riptide’s Nova Reactor, you’ll be able to make these weapons even deadlier, notably bringing the heavy burst cannon up to 18 – yes, 18! – shots:
That’s not all! As well as benefiting from a range of battlesuit-specific Stratagems (we’ll be diving into these later in the week) the Riptide even has one of its own:
With the Bork’an Sept Tenets and these enhancements, you’ll be able to turn your Riptide Battlesuits into deadly mobile firebases, constantly maintaining a safe distance from the foe, dealing considerable damage with its Drones and an invulnerable save to soak up punishment at the same time.
Already capable of engaging the enemy at terrific range, the KV128 Stormsurges of Bork’an find the extra 6″ range particularly useful when picking which profile to use for the pulse blastcannon, allowing you to utilise the armour-piercing short-range firing mode at a safer distance. If you really want to keep your distance, the pulse driver cannon is also super in a Bork’an army – and not just because it has an effective range of 78”. With the Experimental Weaponry Stratagem, you’ll be able to re-roll your random shots with the weapon, making it even more dangerous to your opponent:
The Bork’an Sept is ideal for the defensive T’au Empire player – but if you’d rather play more aggressively, worry not – we’ll be checking out the close assault specialists of the rebellious Farsight Enclaves tomorrow. In the meantime, if you’re inspired to start your own Detachment of Bork’an battlesuits, pick up the KV128 Stormsurge here.
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The Riptide sounds exciting again!
How have it been during playtesting?
Much improved =)
I look forward to your codex review!
They better not have fly.
It’s a Battlesuit, homie. It’s gonna have fly.
So um… the only difference between Re-roll 1 Dice and Experimental Weaponry is… It’s limited and you can use both in the same phase?
Except you can only do the re roll once per phase. And this strat also once per phase. But now you can save the re roll for something else, like to hit or to wound roll. Or use it to be able and re roll the number of shots on two guns
I really like Bork’an, as I like fielding loads of Fire Warriors and this makes them even more formidable, especially when combined with the various buffing characters available to them such as the Cadre Fireblade.
3″ more double tap range (or triple tap, really) is certainly nice but I’m not sure if it’s too much of a game changer, especially since you can move beforehand.
Guess from what we know until now I’d prefer the 5+ overwatch, plus the Borkan Stratagem really seems unspectacular.
To each their own, of course, but I find the extra range to be really good. For example, one of the best units in my Space Marine army are the Sternguard with Special Issue Bolters which also have +6″ range. It is REALLY good on the table. YMMV of course, but I dig it, and for Sniper Drones, too, it is solid.
Do Dark Eldar have any barrage weapons?
Yeah, the Shadow Weaver style weapons.
Dark Eldar currently do not have any weapons which ignore line of sight.
I’d love to see ranks of fire warriors with a kroot screen be effective.
I am playing infantry heavy =)
I’m playing crisis suit heavy, what good news do you have for me?
So, you guys who know and have seen a lot more about tau then I do, are tau properly balanced and fun or will it be 7th all over again with riptide roflstomping everything?
No, I doubt that will happen when it is released into the wild.
The Riptide appears to be a decent inclusion in an army, but not an exceptional one.
I certainly don’t think the riptides are going to be near the ubiquitous must include in your tau lists like before… you also won’t see them splashed in non-tau armies for obvious reasons as well =D
As it stands I believe it’s maybe a touch over costed (and I’m talking after the rumored point reduction) now that drones have supposedly gone up in price (if they haven’t though it’s a cost that’s probably ok)
Bleh, that 1 CP Riptide Strategum looks insanely good and possibly broken. I hope everything else in the codex and terrible and horrendous 😀
For me, the iconic tau unit is crisis suits, not the Riptide. But we know big robots sell, so that’s GW’s narrative this time around.
For people coming from 6E or 7E the Riptide is probably more iconic.
So I know we haven’t seen everything yet…but I’m not seeing this as being a good army. There are too many armies out there give out -1 to hit, and having a 4+ BS army…not good. Maybe the volume of fire can help make up for it, but so far I’m not seeing it with how expensive things are (even with the rumored points reductions).
I’ll wait to make up my mind fully once we see the whole picture, but the picture isn’t looking super good right now.
It shouldn’t be super good, just balanced good. GW has a story with making damage dealing ranged armies too powerful, but I still have hopes for this one being balanced…
So yeah, I see your point – I’m looking looking for anything to be super good – just good is fine please.
I’m not seeing this go in that direction though.
Tau SHOULD be the best ranged army. They have zero psychic and zero melee.
Bork’Bork’Bork’An 😀
Oh well. As long as the army is decently balanced as a whole..
Nobody wants tau players to shelf their armies.
Wonder if infantry themed lists can be useful this time.
I’ve been betting on infantry for my tau since index dropped… This only makes them better. 4+ save means more than it used to. Str 5 means more as well, there’s not a vehicle you’re not wounding on 5s currently. With a cost decrease you can now field like 14% more infantry for the same cost or something like that. Just picture this, 100 firewarriors for 700pts…. I think I might do this actually lol since templates aren’t a thing anymore.