The new Tau codex offers an interesting dilemma for players- will you wait and hide or leap at your foe? Here are some considerations on the two options and why you might be inclined towards each.
A Choice of Chalices
So first let’s look at the two rules. They were already previewed in articles on both GW’s community page and Frontline’s own front page, but I think it’s worth taking a look at them again in a bit more detail to examine what each of them have going on. We will start with Mont’ka, the more aggressive of the two.
There are two separate benefits to Mont’ka, although they work in sync with each other- your units are more mobile (being able to advance every turn and fire without penalty) as well as slightly improving your AP and wound rolls provided you keep within a certain range of the enemy- a range that falls off as the game continues and disappears entirely on turn 4. Note also that both of these benefits apply only if you target the closest enemy unit, so there are a number of significant restrictions on the ability. That isn’t to say that it’s not good, but you will need to remember that it comes with some serious limitations.
So what does this do for Tau? A lot, honestly. Many of Tau’s best weapons have traditionally had mediocre AP values- Missile Pods, Cyclic Ion Blasters, Heavy Burst Cannons, and Smart Missiles are all weapons with little or no AP and they make up the majority of Tau firepower in many editions of the game. While it has been possible to compensate for this with other abilities (e.g. Advanced Targeting Systems or the Hardened Warheads faction trait), the fact that it was necessary to do so only showcased the flaw in the Tau arsenal- a flaw that Mont’ka helps to correct, even as we see improvements in many of our weapon profiles (such as AP-1 on Pulse Rifles.)
Kauyon, to contrast, it almost the exact opposite in most ways- although it is worth noting that it still has a range limitation, only working on units within 12″ (which is the middle tier for Mont’ka.) Kauyon starts with a huge additional limit, because it doesn’t kick in until the third turn of the game- or in other words, until the game is half over. But if you’re willing to accept that, you get a similarly-huge set of benefits: not only can you fall back and shoot (once a mainstay of Tau tactics), but you also get extra hits when you roll high, allowing you to really double down on your firepower in these turns.
Neither of these abilities is a joke- very few armies get to freely fall back and shoot (and note that Tau battlesuits and vehicles can already shoot in combat, as per other rules), which gives you a lot of flexibility- you can stay stuck in if you need to, but you can also pull back if you need to go for a more tactical target. Army-wide bonus hits, meanwhile, is going to feel absolutely devastating to your opponent, especially if you are rerolling the hit rolls from Markerlights or some other ability. On turn 5, for example, you should regularly expect to get more hits than you had shots when triggering Kauyon, which is going to feel really brutal even on piddly BS4+ units.
So clearly both of these two abilities are powerful and flexible, but from the looks of things you don’t get access to both- you’re going to have to pick. So how do you make that choice?
Two Houses Divided
So let’s look at what I think are the three main arenas that these two are going to be competing in, which I’ll term effectiveness, activation, and utility. Effectiveness is fairly simple- how big of an impact will it have on your shooting? Activation is similarly pretty basic- how hard will it be to get the bonus, and when will it apply? Lastly, utility will simply be a measure of how useful the abilities are outside the realm of just pure offensive bonuses. Obviously the decision of which strategy you’ll build towards covers much more than these three factors, but I think these are the three big building blocks that cover the difference between the two.
So first up let’s talk about effectiveness. This one, I think, is actually pretty straightforward- Kauyon is the pretty clear winner here. Exploding hits is an incredibly powerful mechanic and triggering it potentially on a 4+ is absolutely devastating. As noted earlier that is going to feel absolutely devastating when it works, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were some sort of “count your turn as one or two higher” stratagem that affected how Kauyon and Mont’ka worked on units, so even just changing it to working on a 5+ is absolutely huge (as anyone who played against Orks during 8E can attest.) The extra pip of AP from Mont’ka is certainly not bad and can put in some work against those 2+ save units out there (which are by no means rare these days), but it simply can’t compare to the huge firepower increase that bonus hits net you, especially if we are looking at higher-AP weapons such as heavy Ion, Melta, or Plasma.
The next point is activation, and I think the obvious winner here is Mont’ka. The first two turns of the game are where your guns matter the most- it’s where most armies do the majority of their damage, because that is when most of their models are on the table. Shooting armies typically live and die by the first two turns of the game, and that is when Mont’ka is active and affecting your army the most. Kauyon, to contrast, does not kick in until a lot has already happened- and although you can go wild with it using reserves, you can’t reserve everything and in fact the more you leave off the board, the harder you are going to struggle on turns 1-3. With Tau already being in a tough place as far as scoring goes, having two turns of weak scoring is going to be a real kicker in many cases. Mont’ka also has a more variable range, but overall it works out to be higher than Kauyon’s range on average (albeit only barely.) Notably, Mont’ka also lacks some of the other restrictions of Kauyon- for example, it works while locked in close combat,a nd Kauyon cannot be used if the unit fell back. Tagging a Kauyon unit in combat doesn’t turn it off, but it is a major decrease in firepower, whereas Montka units simply don’t care.
Lastly, we have utility- or in other words, what else the abilities can do for you. Here we see some interesting differences but also some similarities, as both abilities work to keep your units active no matter what happens to them. Mont’ka has a big advantage in that it lets you advance each turn without penalty, giving you a major boost to your units’ movement- as much as double, in some cases. This added movement is not just great for getting into range of weapons (or of the Mont’ka bonus), but also for getting onto objectives or behind terrain as needed. Even more sneakily, since you count as remaining stationary, it also allows you to undertake actions even on turns you advanced, a very powerful ability when it comes to scoring secondary objectives.
By contrast, Kauyon offers a more focused ability- you can fall back and shoot. While this is much less broadly-useful than Mont’ka is, this doesn’t necessarily make it worse; all it lets you do is shoot, but all a Tau army wants to do is shoot, so keeping that option on the table is very important. And while battlesuit and vehicle models can shoot in close combat, other Tau models cannot, so ensuring that your infantry and drones are able to keep active despite attempts by the enemy to impede them is a very real advantage.
In Summation
I think Games Workshop has done a very interesting job with making a clear division of choices here- the armies that want to use Mont’ka and the armies that want to use Kauyon are going to look very different. Mont’ka armies are going to be aggressive, leaving most everything on the table to move forward and advance early on, attempting to secure a lead with volume of firepower (which tends to benefit most from the additional AP.) It’s an aggressive strategy that wants to take control of the battlefield and eliminate the enemy right off the bat before its bonuses go away. By contrast, the features of Kauyon make it a much more patient sort of ability, encouraging you to stall for the first couple of turns and heavily incentivizing the use of reserves. Both of these rules are not just powerful and effective-looking but also highly thematic to the ways that Tau are supposed to fight in the lore as well as supporting potentially-effective game plans in 9th Edition.
Obviously, there is still a lot we don’t know about the Tau codex yet- how, exactly, do we gain access to these rules? What other options exist? What units can take advantage of them? What stratagems and abilities interact with them? What is the basic character of the Tau army in a vacuum? Etc. There are a lot of questions still unanswered that will affect how these rules will end up working, but from what we know so far I am fairly hopeful about things. This overall bodes well for the viability of the Tau codex, even if we don’t know anything for certain yet.
As always, remember you can get your wargaming supplies at great discounts every day from the Frontline Gaming store, whether you’re looking to start a new army or expand an existing one.
