The 10th edition of 40k hasn’t been particularly kind to the T’au.
Much of our index was significantly lacking in firepower and manoeuvrability, and strategies and tactics honed in 9th didn’t quite carry over to the new edition of the game.
What’s more, the data were clear. Games Workshop’s aim for a faction’s win rate is between 45 and 55 percent. As the Warhammer Community Metawatch article of August 10 demonstrated, the T’au were not in a good place. The faction’s win rate was 38 percent.
In fact, only one faction, the Leagues of Votann, were performing worse than the T’au at the time. The Votann’s win rate was 35 percent.
Broadly speaking, these data indicated that the game wasn’t in the best of health. Only 10 factions were in the GW’s desired bracket of 45 to 55 percent. 11 factions had a win rate of below 45 percent, and four factions had a win rate of above 55 percent.
These four factions will come as no surprise to readers: Aeldari at 67 percent, Genestealer Cults at 63 percent, Imperial Knights at 57 percent, and Adeptus Custodes at 56 percent.
Clearly, something had to be done.
GW released the first Balance Datasheet of the edition last week, and the changes for the T’au Empire are certainly promising.
First things first, the datasheet doesn’t change any of the faction’s core rules and abilities. We haven’t gained any new keywords that will drastically change how our weapons work. The flaws in many T’au datasheets that we’ve come to live with other the last few months are still in the index.
As a brief side note, the fact that Tactical Drones remain at 70 points for four models really tells us exactly how GW feels about Drones. Or, more accurately, it tells us exactly how GW feels about Drone spam. 70 points for four Tactical Drones is expensive.
The core rules don’t change, then. The points, however, do change, and, in some cases, quite significantly so.
The Riptide, for example, comes down from 235 to 180. At 235 points, this datasheet wasn’t seeing much play at all in competitive T’au lists. While its defensive profile was reasonably respectable — Toughness 9, 14 Wounds, and a 2+/4++ — its offensive capabilities were severely lacking for the points cost. Neither the Heavy Burst Cannon or the Amplified Ion Accelerator were good enough. The HBC lacked the AP and rate of fire to be an effective anti-infantry weapon and the AIA simply lacked the strength to properly threaten larger targets in the current meta.
But the new points cost changes this. At 180 points, the Riptide looks like a reasonable option to sit on a home objective and throw firepower downrange for most of the game. With a 4++, an opponent will have to dedicate significant firepower to remove it, which means the trade off of not shooting at more appealing targets in the mid-board.
Or, to put it another way: Triptide is dead. Long live Triptide.
A little overblown, perhaps? Maybe. But 540 points for three Riptides doesn’t sound like such a bad deal.
While the Riptide certainly needed some help to make it more competitive, Shadowsun was seeing a lot of play, and at 140 points the Supreme Commander might’ve been just a touch on the expensive side, most T’au players considered it a worthy investment.
Now, at 100 points, she’s an absolute steal.
O’Shaserra provides a lot of useful utility to a T’au army. Her aura grants re-rolls of 1s — a throwback to how the old Markerlight rules used to work — and with the Lone Operative keyword she’s very tricky to pin down. What’s more, -1 to Hit and -1 to Wound make her just that little bit more troublesome to deal with, and with a couple of High-energy Fusion Blasters, she does have some offensive potential.
All things considered, she was good, and now she’s even better.
Staying on the theme, Stealth Suits came down from 75 points to 60 points. Again, this is a unit that was seeing play in competitive T’au lists.
When used as an Observer unit, Stealths grant re-rolls of 1s to Wound to their Guided unit. Moreover, the Shas’ui can take a Marker Drone, which confers the Ignores Cover rule to the Guided unit as well.
Naturally, Stealths Suits have a -1 to Hit, and with the defensive profile of a Space Marine, they can be reasonably durable when in cover.
Again, a three Stealth Suits was a solid option at 75 points. At 60 points, it’s probably worth taking three.
And here’s a cherry on top for the T’au players: the Ghostkeel, one of the best datasheets in the index, came down from 170 points to 160 points. I’m certainly not complaining.
From what I can tell, most T’au lists will save at least a couple of hundred points.
All of this prompts a question: did GW go too far? The answer, of course, is simple. Only time will tell.
I can certainly understand GW’s choice when it came to the Riptide. It simply wasn’t good enough at the previous points cost. But the Shadowsun change has gone a touch too far in my opinion. I would split the difference: 120 points for the Supreme Commander seems about right. 10 points from the Ghostkeel is probably about right. 15 points from the Stealths, again, feels a little too generous, but a few points on Stealth Suits won’t exactly catapult the army to the top tables.
However, when we consider the T’au as a whole, here’s my two cents: the faction feels a little too points efficient now. I highlight that word because that’s all I talking about. I’m talking about a feeling, a gut sense, that this update has gone slightly too far.
However, a feeling isn’t a particularly useful piece of information when it comes to these things. What we need is tournament results data, which we will start to see in the coming weeks.
If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that these updates will put the faction into the upper middle of the pack in terms of win rate, but I do think that will we start to see more T’au armies on the top tables at tournaments as well. The average position will increase, but skilled T’au players will be able to do a lot more with the faction now, and I think we will start to see that reflected in results very soon.
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