Hello all,
Rawdogger here to talk about my predictions for the forthcoming Tau codex set to hit the shelves in early October. Like a lot of people I’m a little bummed out that the Tau are getting a revamp before some of the weaker codices such as Chaos Space Marines or Astra Militarum. Tau are guaranteed to sell well and we are coming up on the end of a Games Workshop quarter so you can’t really fault their marketing department with going with a sure thing to boost the Age of Sigmar sales slump. As most of you who read these articles already know, we were recently blessed with the White Dwarf and Warhammer Visions leak which showed a lot of the new models coming out for the Tau line. If you for some reason have yet to see these pop over to Faeit212’s blog and take a look. I’ll admit it, I like what I see. Tau have always looked pretty rad and with the inclusion of a couple new suits and what appears to be a redone Fire Warrior this release is sure to be a huge success for Games Workshop. With the second week of October barreling ever closer the rumor mill on what the codex will contain has begun in earnest. The following are my list of 5 changes we are definitely going to see when Codex Tau is released.
Formations/Detachments – I thought I would start off with the easiest and most obvious of my predictions. Love them or hate them, formations are now a thing with new codex releases. Also a definite will be a detachment made up of these formations which will unlock some kind of extra bonus for having purchased these models, most likely a ballistic skill boost or something for the Tau units in the detachment. The Games Workshop marketing team has latched onto these things since they definitely promote the sales of models and if someone really wants to predict what will be in the codex they really just need to think of how they can sell models.
Fantastic Fliers – Do you know that the current Tau codex contains fliers? Did you also know that Games Workshop created a kit for those fliers and they exist at this very moment available for sale through Games Workshop’s website? Don’t feel bad if this is the first time you’re hearing it as I’m sure the vast majority if those reading this very sentence at this very second have either completely forgot that those models exist or are hearing about them for the first time. I’m serious, look at the photo above. They really do exist. You can guarantee the Games Workshop marketing has looked forlornly a time or so at the stacks and stacks of these kits in their warehouse and have come up with some cool rules and point reductions to move them. They will DEFINITELY be included in whatever special detachment they are trying to push.
Destroyer Weapons – I wasn’t wrong when I predicted no D Weapons for Codex Space Marines since they didn’t have a platform that was already in existence and I’m not wrong now predicting that the Riptides or the new Riptide variant will have access to ranged D Weapons. Games Workshop is on a kick to make 40k into mini Armageddon and with so many juicy gun platforms available to the Tau the game designers are probably trying NOT to put D Weapons on anything that can hold a gun.
Game Mechanic Devastation – The Tau will be regaining their dominance over the shooting phase from the asshole Eldar with this coming codex. Expect to see devastating firepower that will be ignoring cover saves and not needing line of sight to hit their targets. In an edition that already punishes assault armies the Tau will add to the frustration those players feel when trying to make assault armies viable. Plus, since they gave Dark Angels mastery over re-rollable cover saves why not give the Tau the tools to completely ignore this mechanic. The Games Workshop giveth and the Games Workshop taketh away.
No New Auxiliary – This one sucks to write because the auxiliary forces of the Tau could be a cold mine if Games Workshop cared to expand upon it. We have the Kroot and the less popular and rarely seen Vespid but the games designers literally have carte blanche to create whatever the hell they want and just say the Tau conquered a new alien race during their expansions. Look how well the new Mechanicum models sold! However, I also know the laziness and lack of forward thinking which currently plagues the GW marketing department and feel the smart money is betting on them not only keeping to just the auxiliary units they already have but also keeping them in their tired old sculpts. Look at the Eldar through Dark Angels codex releases. Nothing new and most of their character models are straight out of 1998.
So that’s it. We’ll see if I got all 5 predictions right come October 17th, which is the rumored release date of the codex. What kind of things do you predict to see with the new Tau release. Will we see the wailing and gnashing of teeth that happened with the release of the Eldar codex or will GW go the opposite way and create a fair and balanced codex? What are some of the things you would LIKE to see? Let me know if the comments section.
I just don’t want the Stormsurge suit to be undercosted like the wraithknight.
Agreed. But I won’t be surprised if it costs 250 points with Ignore Cover D-blasts, 2+ armour and 10 wounds or something equally ridiculous.
You were pretty close, actually!
I just hope they don’t take away my all xv-8 army. I’ve JUST finished it, the morning before taking it to NOVA actually, and I loved how it played (even if it isn’t all that effective).
I bet you can still do all Crisis Suits, even if through a formation.
I bet that Farsight Enclaves will vanish, but we’ll instead get a formation of 1 Commander + 3×3 Crisis that is required to Deep Strike or some nonsense like that.
I really hope if that’s the case, that it’s more than 10-12 suits. I’ve got 21 over here. 18 troop, a commander, and 2 bodyguard.
My 50 Terminators feel your pain, brother.
On a site that is usually so positive about the hobby these articles are a real bummer. Every other line is “Because it makes sense to boost sales” “Because GW doesn’t care about its player base” “Because they need to sell models”. This is the site i used to point new players to as a great place to read about and discuss the hobby we love, but exposing new players to this kind of vitriol is just manufacturing new trolls. Especially young people who are impressionable and will take what they read on the internet as truth. Do you WANT a new generation of players moaning about GW constantly? I get that you’re trying to be funny dude but all this GW bashing is poisoning our hobby.
One mans opinion, and take it as such. We all have a moan about GW, but i just don’t think a site that is supposed to be a positive gathering place for lovers of the hobby is the right place to post it.
Variety is the spice of life, my friend.
*Dumps salt into salad
But despite the attitude I think your predictions are pretty spot on. As long as Tau don’t get the ability to do tons of wounds but guarantee getting a few I’m happy. 10 strength 6 AP 2 ignore cover line of sight shots aren’t going to end me. 30 strength 5 Ap 4 ignore cover will hurt way worse.
Then my crisis suits are skipping arm day or something. My two teams of three suits with dual burst cannons rarely get that much work done.
Fair enough. I don’t run the site and don’t pretend to influence your decisions – it just kills me a little bit every time i hear a young teenager in a store spitting out lines like “The rules for this are only good because they need to sell models”, knowing that those opinions are coming from articles like these. FLG’s got a pretty massive audience now (in wargaming terms) would just like to see you guys use your powers for good. (To be fair to you most of the content does contribute positively to the hobby)
Not meaning to hate on FLG – just food for thought.
ummm. facts is facts. kids deserve facts, too, no? or, do you tell 16yr old noob 40k players that the easter bunny is your real dad?
“GW writes bad rules specifically to sell models” is speculation, not fact.
Ever having an opinion that is anything other than positive is not a horrific crime and a detriment to the community. Sites that are relentlessly positive, no matter the reality of the situation, are much worse because the falsified optimism eventually becomes just as transparent and meaningless as sites that are relentlessly negative.
boooom!!!! knowledge bomb to the face!!!
after reading these im in 2 minds with what to do with my tau. sell them and get a war convocation OR hang in there and hope and pray that I can do a suit list lol
I’d at least stick with it until they get a release. GW is going to have SOMETHING to represent a Crisis-heavy list, it’s just a question of what it will be and how good/bad it is.
Why do people always reply “Better than relentlessly positive” or similar. Theres a middle ground guys.
If you want blindly positive perspective about how great GW and all of their products are, I would refer you to http://www.games-workshop.com, especially their daily white dwarf article. This is not an overly pessimistic article, I have seen way worse.
There’s a difference between “blindly positive perspective” and not suggesting every decision GW makes is money based. I’m just aware that this site has a pretty massive audience, and you can tell by the whole ‘everyone calling “detachments” “Sources”‘ that they have a lot of sway over (particularly) new players’ “facts” and opinions. I know my FLGS has players repeating opinions about what units are good and which suck using phrases blatantly said by Reece on stream. I just think they could be more careful about their content.
I get that, but I calls em as I sees em and most decisions made by Games Workshop are to sell models. If they DIDNT do that they wouldn’t be a publicly traded company. It’s important for people to know what influences the game they play and have opinions from both sides of the track. I’m not going to sugercoat the problems that 40k has which are mainly driven by the marketing department of Games Workshop. When they do something good I try and applaud them on it but when we see codex after codex giving free points and huge in game bonuses based off of what models are purchased I’m going to call them on it.
Props for the mature response – they’re fair comments, i don’t necessarily agree with all of them but that’s the nature of the beast.
Games Workshop is a corporation. Corporations exist to make money. It’s not untoward to suggest that GW’s actions are largely motivated by money. That doesn’t mean EVERY action is a short-sighted cash grab, but to instantly dismiss profit as a motivation is to ignore the very reason for GW’s existence.
I am not sure I agree on the flyer point. If that were the case, I would have thought the Dark Angel flyer would have been a mandatory inclusion. Instead they got a typical flyer formation.
Tau are obviously getting a TON of releases: redone XV8, redone FW, Stormsurge, Ghostkeel, and POSSIBLY a new missile sprue for the Riptide. There just isn’t room for everything to be in the mandatory detachment and the newer kits (in my mind) would be the ones you put in the formation.
Firewarriors, pathfinders, XV8 commander and the new XV8 crisis team seem like the more likely candidates for the mandatory formation
I guess we will see in a couple of weeks but the Dark Angel flier not only got infinitely better but dropped in points as well. It’s only anectodal evidence but as a company that sells Games Workshop product we saw more sales of that model in the week after the codex release than we did in the two years prior to it.
i think that you are right about the flyer
I think a major trend of 7E is GW trying to fix up the worst units of a codex and make them playable- if you look at the 7E codices that are following the now-recognizable pattern (Necrons, SM, DA, Daemonkin, Eldar) the most striking part about most of them is that they contain very few truly “bad” units and things that were previously the laughingstock of the game (Nephelim, Banshees, etc) have seen some of the largest improvements.
That doesn’t guarantee anything for the Tau flyers, but I think it’s not an unreasonable suspicion of what’s to come.
I hope you’re take is correct, and continues. I’d like to see my trygon upgrade from being a glorious looking paperweight, warriors be more than synapse shepherds, and the pyrovore not be a punchline.
Sorry, Tyranids are always exempt from this sort of thing. Pyrovores and Warriors will somehow manage to get _worse_ again.
*Opens my Daemonkin codex to the pages displaying the Defiler and the Soul Grinder right across of each other*
I agree with you on the other armies, but they did leave Defilers, Possessed, Warp Talons, Berzerkers and regular CSM unchanged
I actually think the DA Flyer might not be that bad, with a rerollable Jink it’s pretty dang durable.
Having played against the Nephelim a couple times, it’s a fairly alright vehicle. The change to S7 AP3 on the missiles means it’s a legit threat to FMCs and it does alright shooting at ground targets. The Darktalon likewise has a very strong main gun and an okay set of utility weapons, though I think it’s less exciting overall. Rerollable Jink is actually quite huge and can make them very tough to kill if the enemy doesn’t have Ignores Cover weapons.
Had a little outbreak of DA flyers at a small tournament I went to a couple of weeks ago, they were pretty good. They are not as face-crushingly awesome as some of the deathstar ally options DA now have so I do not think the flyers will be a major thing on the tournament scene but seeing any at all – some in an army that placed 3rd – was kinda nice.
If the Tau flyers get the same treatment they may stop being that mythical unseen thing that they currently are. The Sunshark desperately needs fixing as the 7th edition rules essentially left it as a ground attack aircraft that can barely attack ground targets.
I’m still convinced the Stealth-tide will be able to Nova for quasi invisibility, something similar to the Culexus’ Etherium. Curious to see which slots all these new suits will be in.
I heard a rumor that there will be a Datasheet for sale for about 45 minutes and a limited number of only 300 copies for a Tau Flier formation.
Formation: Flying Spaghetti Sauce
300 points
2 SunSharks
Special Rule: Nuke ‘Em
Choose before the game starts which game turn the Flying Spaghetti Sauce will enter the battle. On this turn Remove all other friendly Tau models from the table and put them into Deep Striking Reserves. Once all friendly models have been removed from the table you may fly the Sunsharks onto the table. The Sunsharks drop a payload of nuclear greater good and may move 48 Inches in a straight line. Any model they pass over is hit by D6 StrD hits. At the end of the Shooting phase place any models you put into Deep Strike Reserve back onto the table.
Only costs $1,200… Pretty good if you ask me!
Good article Jason. I think the fact that the Tau flyers are so horrendously ugly never helped them.
I hope to see the Firebase Support Cadre Formation or something similar…I started buying models for it so I don’t want to lose moneyz
I’ll go out on a limb and predict all the options no one has modeled will be amazing and all the load out people currently have built (like missile broadsides are going to be nerfed to make you buy rail gun ones). You know the typical GW screw job.
Just like Flyrants went from the best loadout in 4E to the best loadout in 5E to the best loadout in 6E to the best loadout in 7E?
Weapons changed, but yeah, mobility is king.
2xTL Devs have been the best choice for a Flyrant that whole time, really. 3rd was the last time something else was the best option for a winged Tyrant.
Yah, and the Dakkafex has been the preferred loadout since 4E as well (although admittedly it served alongside the Sniperfex during that edition.)
Well, in 4th there was the Venom and Barbed combo that was very popular, too. But largely yeah, you are correct.
You could have just gone with the obvious marines with bolters as GW will never nerf tacticals. Too bad the rest of the nid and ork dexes were kicked in the balls repeatedly. I am sure the new gundam tau suit will be the new hotness.
Haha, that is often the case.