The T’au Codex is up for pre-order!
T’au players get a brand new dex full of stratagems, Warlord Traits, new gear, backstory and Sept rules. We’ve also got the T’au Empire Datacards to help keep your rules organized in the middle of a game. Grab your’s today at our discounted prices and remember, all orders over $99 ship FREE within the continental USA!
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Trash codex. Does not address any of Tau’s glaring weaknesses (psykers and army wide -1 to hit). No fix to the garbage markerlight table. Thanks for ruining an entire faction.
Fish of Fury, I feel like you may be holding back some of your feelings here. This is a place where you can be honest so tell us how you REALLY feel, no need to be so nice about it…. =P
Jokes aside, I think you should wait before jumping to conclusions. Frankie thinks there is a lot of power in this dex (he is the resident T’au player) and while I am new to it (just starting my first T’au army, myself, very excited for it) as someone coming to it new I see lots of fun and effective potential combos.
I understand the feelings of disappointment with a dex that can come (man I was butt hurt over the 6th ed Nid dex, lol) but I really don’t think this is as bad as you may think at this time. Just like Astra Militarum had to find ways to overcome -1 to hit, so do T’au (and yeah, BS4+ armies really can struggle to overcome that hurdle, but they can do it). I would advise just being a bit patient, get some games in with it and see how you like it with some experience under your belt. Pretty much every dex so far in 8th at this stage has been met with some trepidation from fans of it. Give it some time.
I’ve played several games with the new codex, and overall it’s darn good! The inly big issue I’ve had is with psykers. Eldar casting quicken on deep striking shining spears are very hard to deal with, for example.
My best anti-psyker so far has been a fusion coldstar getting close enough to target the psyker… I do wish they got an deny stratagem like sister or khorne however!
Yeah, I could totally see some sort of DtW strat being worked in with some psychic scrambling tech or what have you.
But, very good to hear you are having success with it! In play-testing we found the Coldstars to be bad ass, so cool to see it working for you, too.
I think it’s going to be a solid mid-tier codex that can potentially be quite competitive if you abuse some combos.
E.g. Mass Bor’kan gunlines with firewarriors triple-shotting at 21″ is going to be devastating. a full-size FSE crisis team will be devastating if not particularly points-efficient.
But… I think the Tau codex has some of the most poorly designed rules in the game and the fact that they have to keep adding rules to patch issues (commander limit, savior on 2+) is proof of that.
I’m not sure FSE crisis teams will be very devastating because they are not point efficient. They will make a splash wherever they are used of course, but over the course of the game, they will either wreck or lose hard without much middle ground.
From what I’ve seen, a lot of frustration stems from a perceived lack of creativity and understanding of the faction rather than just lacking power. BS3+ is still nonexistent while the Markerlight table is still a mess, Crisis are still mediocre at best, Commanders are still overpowered (even more so considering most of the Relics and WTs are all but restricted to them) but are now artificially limited. Auxiliaries are still superfluous (the solitary Kroot stratagem has to be the biggest “we can’t be arsed to put any effort into it” instance in 8th, though I suppose it’s better than the active vitriol the Grey Knights have gotten), Railguns are bad, support systems got nerfed for God knows what reason…
Don’t get me wrong, it’s an unarguable step up from the Index, but it just screams wasted potential. Seeing the love and care evidently put into the IG or Tyranid Codices and comparing them to this one is disheartening.
YOUR TEARS ARE DELICIOUS AND SERVE ONLY TO GIVE ME STRENGTH
The codex has a lot of puzzle pieces that have to be put together to see how the picture will come out. Except the puzzle pieces can be fitted into different forms. This means there’s strategy and list building required to come out with a good army. This also means that you’ll have more options than other codex when you go this route.
You could build a solid gunline list that is a nightmare for an army to charge using T’au Sept rules.
You could make a solid Farsight Bomb list that could potentially decimate players in 1K point games.
Take mixed Sept lists and take a little bit from each. Maybe you build a Sa’cea Sept Hammerhead / Broadside detachment (With a Coldstar Commander) for that Re-roll one miss Trait, then the rest of your army can be Bor’kan for the 6” range increase to spam Firewarriors.
There’s a lot that can be done, which is better than most codex armies can brag about.
Yeah, that’s what I am thinking. I am going for an infantry army to do something different and fun (to me at least) with tons of Fire Warriors, Breachers, Pathfinders, Kroot and Sniper Drones with a mix of Bork’an and either T’au or Viro’la septs (haven’t made my mind up, yet). So far it’s been really fun but I need some more practice.
Perhaps it is because I am new to the faction and don’t bring old perspectives with me but coming at it fresh it feels like it has a lot of strengths.
Like you said, Anon, Frankie was thinking the Farsight bomb will be pretty devastating, too. Time will tell how it performs in the wild. I had Eldar players saying similar things to me, that their dex wasn’t good enough to compete, etc. and that was way off the mark.
Thing is, 7th ed Tau is a very different faction to 8th ed Tau. So that is absolutely true, you do have a different perspective and I think that’s why so many older players (myself included) disagree with you on a lot of key issues with Tau.
Most Tau players I know in person and over the internet played Tau for the suits and the fun hit-and-run play style they offered. That doesn’t really exist any more and you simply won’t be able to appreciate that without playing heaps of games with 6th/7th ed Tau rules.
I actually started playing them for their rail weaponry and broadsides… Those got arguably worse without the mecha part getting better so that was sad.
I then started loving the big suits (I was never a big fan of crisis suits) when they came out, even bought a taunar… but man that thing is beyond worthless now. My 2k tournament list from the index is like 109 PL, the Taunar is what 55pl? I know there’s always been a disconnect between PL and points, but man that’s egregious.
At any rate, that’s a conversation for another time. The hit and run style has been gone for awhile (and to be honest wasn’t that great before, the era of JSJ ended with the dumb “I’m slightly behind cover… not in cover so you have no LOS rule”
I would be wary playing Kroot. With some of the new fluff (the 5th sphere forces are aparently very anti-auxilary) and the fact that kroot just keep not being good and all the kroot stuff being direct order only and FW eliminating their entire kroot range I wouldnt be surprised if this is the last tau dex to feature allies.
I say this as someone who has a converted all kroot army.
I use them as a screen that has a pre-game 7″ move which is really useful in this edition. Beyond that they pretty much just take up space. If they happen to do any damage, cool! If not, they still did their job.
The changes are good and exciting. It is sad that old playstyles are gone (play custodes if you want of em, or knights if you want another of the old styles)
The stronger lists will feature alot more troops than folks are used to.
Yeah seems that way to me as a T’au novice.
For me I don’t think the book will be bad. It will be different and I think it will be different in a way a lot of traditional Tau players don’t like. Suits are going to be very limited. Troops are going to be common. Crisis suits are going to be an extinct species outsider of the occasional farsight bomb.
The Xenos allies are going to be nowhere to be seen. Kroot are almost universally bad and the ONE stratagem they got was laughable. Vespid didn’t even get a stratagem. As I said further up, I doubt the Tau allies will ever see updated rules again, or at least for more then a few years.
Most Tau players I know came to the army for either suits or for running a diverse multi-xenos force. Both of these play options have been minimized in the new book for a more Tau-infantry focused style. That is fine, but GW will have to accept alot of groans and rage quits from the established Tau player base.
Now excuse me as I convert my 145 kroot into pathfinders.
I totally agree, most of the Tau players I know in person and over the internet came to Tau for suits and mobility, not infantry.
You just can’t play Tau the way a lot of people want to now, and many people are going to vote with their wallets.
Yeah that’s what is burning folks up (and one thing I don’t like) is that the crisis suits are not worth it, the stratagems while great don’t address the core issue of over priced, we don’t value the wound count on them the same way GW does.
I think you’re completely wrong about the kroot, they are the cheapest thing you have to screen deepstrikers away from your deploy, and they are dirt cheap now. I totally agree with the point drop, and with it they are now a near auto include.
If you really have 145 kroot you don’t want, I’ll buy half of them off you.
Kroot are good for creating space which is mega important in 8th. And Vespid are amazing simply due to the fact that they are cheap and can deep-strike. Their gun being good is just icing on the cake. Both of those units give you really important board control tools for cheap. Many other factions wish they had something that good.
As for the suits thing, time will tell on that I guess. Frankie plays suit heavy armies and does well with them but perhaps others won’t, I don’t know. I have always liked T’au infantry so was drawn to them immediately and all of the cool combos they have were really appealing to me.
Umm use pathfinders…you get soooo much mote for 3ppm.
– access to special weapons
– Markerlights!
– more shots at STR5
– sept traits
-character support
– Stratagems
– better armor
They should change the markerlight from heavy 36″ to rapid fire 1 36″. This way u dont get the -1 penalty for moving and at closer range u can add 2 markers.
If u count in how many -1 hit skills spells auras are in game than the 4WS for a shooting only army is not good.
There’s lots of different ways to get marker light support though, you don’t have to just sit and shoot them. Take Cadre Fireblades with a 2+ BS and then use the marker light strat to get up to 4 from a single shot, etc.
I think we all need to rethink the way we do things this edition and adapt a bit
I don’t get the complaints, the codex seems way better than the index. I haven’t seen in it in it’s entirety though. But what has been shown already makes the army much better.
Seems like a lack of imagination to me. As other more successful players than I have constantly said, win the missions. The tool kit to do that just got much bigger. More infantry firepower, more mobility, bigger body count from point adjustments (i.e. more models on the board) for board control. And so on.
Yes they reward combined arms style lists more over spam. But GW tries to do that with all the new dexes. Their success varies of course.
Anyway, seems like you can play gunline, all suits, mechanized or even a stealth force. And there’s no way to tell yet how those forces will play. If you can’t even bring primary source evidence how can you poo-poo the book already?
Agree. I read it as a new T’au player and see tons of tools for winning missions and being successful. I think other T’au players have an idea in their head of what a unit is supposed to be or do and when reality doesn’t align with that they feel let down, which is understandable, but also limits them from seeing the cool things they did get.
There are lots of points changes to weapons and support systems if u read the leaks. Dont know why people cry about battlesuits.
Broadside XV88 -20 points , heavy rail rifle -28 HYMP -16 smart missile system -5. Lot of points save for a 3 model broadside unit.
Shield generator is now 40 points only on Stormsurge, Hello 3+ 4++ -2hit Ghostkeels. 24 inch fusion collider with borkan so full deepstrike melta range.
Actualy u can field battlesuits for a lot cheaper now and still have points for infantry.
Yeah, people are too quick to make claims about how good or bad things are before they even try them out, lol.
I’m happy with the things I’ve seen so far. I started playing Tau for the big suits, but I do like the other aspects as well. Actually the whole line of models is great. I have quite a big collection and I don’t even know what to start testing first. Probably Riptides, because they’ve improved the most. Now I finally have to get some Breachers too. Troops will really be a key, since there’s just so much useful stratagems there.
Been playing Tau for a really really long time and have to say this is not a good codex for what Tau should be doing. I get the New player comes in wide eyed and bushy tailed and can see some good cohesive units to use together but I would like some of these units to be useful again! Really feels like GW tried too hard to keep everything at a even keel power level, Tau Septs are not jumping off the page at you, really going to have to work to find the synergy for this army.