Playing Tau and having fun with the Screamer Star

If you enjoy playing competitively and your local gaming group has one or more Chaos Daemons players, then you more than likely have come across the list build known as the "Screamer Star".  To say the least, I was really impressed by this build, it incorporates, maneuverability, synergy, overwhelming firepower, and a defense that is nigh indestructible.  For many players that are looking to have fun, hearing that a player is fielding a screamer star list is enough to just not play.  Considering that in the last several months, players have refused to play me because they heard I play Tau, while all throughout 5th edition I had players climbing over each other hoping to get an easy win against Tau, I have found that the only way a player can guarentee not having fun is to simply not play.  Some of the greatest moments are from breaking an "unbeatable build", so I decided to put together some advice for my fellow Tau players on how to play against this build.   

What is the Screamer Star?
If you have no idea what the screamer star is, then here is a quick summary of it. The build requires Chaos Daemons players to take 2 HQs and one fast attack.  Fateweaver, 3-4 level 3 Heralds of Tzeentch on discs, and a unit of screamers.  By taking a one per army item and rolling for divination psychic powers until they get the 4+ invulnerable save power, and then thowing the rest of the powers into the lores of Change.  What does this mean?  A unit of jetbikes that, can throw out between 8D6 and 16D6 S6 BS4 Twinlinked AP4 shots that ignore cover.  The unit also has the added benefit of re-rollable 2+ invulnerable saves. 

Why play against Chaos?
For those who argue that competitive lists are not fluffy, you really need to ask yourself this question.  "Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, Heralds of Tzeentch, Horrors of Tzeentch, Flamers of Tzeentch, Screamers of Tzeentch, Soulgrinders dedicated to Tzeentch.  When you couple this with the fact that these servants of Tzeentch have the edge over an army that struggles to even understand that there is in fact an exsistence of the warp.  How is this not consistent with fluff?"

When a player refuses to play because he/she doesn't want to lose, she runs the risk of indirectly saying 2 things:
1.  I play only to win, fun comes second.
2.  I admit that someone else was able to outhink me before I even start playing.
If you are like me, neither of these statements is acceptable.

Finding the weak spot in the armor. 
For those of you hoping for a FAQ or an Errata to destroy this seemingly impossible to overcome build I want you to provide for you a little perspective provided to us from the history of the world.  A little under 2000 years ago, Rome outlawed the possession and production of the crossbow, claiming that "the weapon is powerful enough to destroy the world".  In response to this, Saxon warlords, took a hold of the technology and made it standard issue.  The world is still here, in addition to the fact that I can walk down the street to my local convenience store and purchase a crossbow at a reasonable price.  Whether we want to recognize it or not, the screamer star is still being used.  Using the tools we have at our disposal we can still put up a fight. 

What not to do
1.  Build your list around your opponent.
If you want to build your list to specifically take on the screamer star, then your victory (if you get one) will be short lived, as most competitive builds will then be able to exploit the fact that your list was not made to handle anything but Chaos Daemons Screamers. 
2.  Play to your opponent's strength
One of the bad habits we Tau players have developed this edition, is the notion that whaever we focus fire on will eventually be dead.  If you plan on taking out your enemy using massed pulse fire and missile pod spam, then you need to realize that before you can even BEGIN hurting the Heralds, the average amount wounds you will have to inflict on your enemy (successful to hit and to wound) is 648, and then another 72 wounds just to take down a single herald.  I know that it may be a hard thing to grasp, but after your opponent has thrown out his 2+ re-rollable, your best course of action would probably be to focus fire somewhere else. 
Surrender the 1st turn
Unless you can 100%  guarentee that you will seize the initiative, you must never allow your opponenet to take the first turn.  Your opponent may try to place troops to counter your deployment, this is okay, as long as you can fire first, which can prevent a lot of the nastiness from the daemons gaining momentum quickly.

Taking down the Screamer Star

"So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak". - Sun Tzu

 With both a large footprint and being able to remove almost any other enemy unit at will, it is kind of difficult to see past the main unit.  But one thing to realize when taking down the screamer star is that, the invulnerable save has 3 separate sources that it relies on.

1.  Fateweaver
Unless you are playing a game of double FOC, Fateweaver will be your opponent's Warlord.  With a 4++ save and T5 you are much more likely to take down Fate Weaver, granting slay the Warlord, and increasing the porbability that while rolling for the Grimoire your opponent will go from having an 11% chance of reducing the unit from 2++ to 5++ to a 33% chance.

2.  The Grimoire of True Names.
While this item grants an enormous buff (+2 to invulnerable save), it also is one of the units biggest weaknesses.  One thing to realize about the grimoire is that it affects the entire unit except the model bearing it.  meaning while the rest of the unit benefits from a 2++ re-rollable, the herald wielding this item is stuck with a 4++ re-rolling 1's only.  The rest of the unit has a 97% chance of shrugging off all wounds, the grimoire herald will only ever have a 58.7% chance (75% if Fateweaver hasn't used the staff yet).  If you remove the grimoire, you don't immediately stop the rest of the unit from having the 2++, but you do prevent the unit from being able to use the buff in following turns, think of it as an investment kill.  The next question you need to ask yourself is, "If the enemy surrounds himself with screamers, how will I be able to single out the Herald?".  The first answer that comes to mind is "Precision Shot", with Kroot, Sniper Drones, and ATS, no other army can spam precision shots like the TAU.  But with each Herald being a character, the Herald has a 2+ "Look out" roll.  The two ways a Tau player can overcome this is through the Warlord Trait, Precision of the Skilled Hunter, or through spamming Look out sir rolls with "Barrage Sniping".  By using the Airbursting Frag projector, you can spam LOS rolls.
If the Grimoire ever fails, your opponent is likely to turbo-boost the unit out of LOS and into cover, because the save will have been dropped from 2++ re-rollable to 5++ re-rolling 1's.  In order to counter this the Tau have a number of weapons that can avoid LOS and cover, being mobile and long range the Smart Missile System and the boosted Ion Accelerator will be the bane of your opponent.

3.  Forewarning
For simplicities sake, some Daemon players will make 1 of 2 mistakes:
- Place Forewarning on the same model that has the Grimoire
- Stop rolling for forewarning, on other Heralds once one has it.
 If the enemy ever places Forewarning on the same Herald as the Grimoire than you can use the above mentioned tactics, in order to guarentee that the screamer star will be dropped from a 2++ to a 5++.  If your opponent takes forewarning once (or is unlucky enough not to roll it), by removing the Herald with Forewarning, you will drop successful saves from 97% to around 78%. 

"The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him". - Sun Tzu

There are also other ways to exploit the Screamer Star, that will often leave your opponent dumb struck.
1.  Take the First turn
2.  Drop Misfortune
3.  Break the Golden Rule.
4.  Play around the star

Taking the First turn
If you are lucky enough to roll higher than your opponent for seeing who gets the first turn, never concede it in favor of deploying counter to his lines (Most intelligent Daemon Players will just reserve half the units in order to counter-counter-deploy).  If your opponent places the star on the table, he will more than likely place it out of LOS.  Exploit this by pressing forward with Smart Missiles, Seeker Missiles, and Barrage.
"What if the enemy places the Star in reserve?"  Then use this opportunity to scratch off scoring units and threats (the screamer star is 800+ pts. invested by the enemy, this usually leaves the rest of the army very vulnerable).  Forewarning being a blessing, means that any unit that arrives from reserves goes from having a 97% chance of shrugging off wounds to a 78% chance of shrugging off wounds, meaning that the unit has made itself vulnerable by placing itself in reserve.  


Misfortune
Another way to make the unit vulnerable is by using a Farseer.  If you are lucky to roll "misfortune" when rolling for powers, do not trade it in.  By succesfully dropping it on the star, the 2++ is no longer re-rollable, making wounds 6 times as likely to go through.

Breaking the Golden rule
Too often, I have heard other Tau players say "never assault".  But when engaged in an assault the star can't drop rediculous amount of flicker fire.  The trick is, staying alive.  Being able to strike at S5 AP 2 means that most screamers will eat Tau up.  The best way to counter this is with the FNP Riptide.  By boosting it's shield, you have now made it so that each Screamer has less than a 5% chance of inflicting a wound.

Play around the star
The most important thing to remember while playing the screamer star is, if you are not playing the scouring, it is not a scoring unit.  Meaning that you will still gain points, for slay the Warlord, First Blood and Line Breaker.  Target the Daemon players Troops and Fateweaver, capture objectives and split up your forces to minimize the effectiveness of the star.  

Thought For the Day
In competitive play, most players will fire both the SMS and HYMP with their broadsides while using interceptor.  The multi-tracker seems to only work during the shooting phase.  If this is allowed, how is firing both weapons while using interceptor legal?

From Under Dog to Top Dog... and back again?

Several months ago the Tau Empire (as well as the Eldar allies) received a much needed update.  Within weeks, it had become obvious to me while browsing through the 2 new codices that, "My advice will no longer be needed as Tau and Eldar have become rediculously powerful".  My thoughts came to fruition as Grand Tournament after Grand tournament posted results where the majority of the top 10 armies were Tau, Tau/Eldar, or Tau/random ally.  My favorite local gaming store went from having 2-3 hardcore Tau players (each week you will easily see over 50 different armies) to over a dozen riptide and Missileside heavy Tau players.  I have to admit that with the mixture of real life (wife is pregnant again in addition to me taking over a small business) and the over saturation of Tau cheese, I have been putting my Tau on the back burner.  Lately I have felt that skill and narrative gaming have both been lost on playing Tau.  For the meantime I decided to apply my skills into other armies that are underdogs and require odd strategies to win (i.e. Wood elves and Beastmen in Fantasy).  For nostalgic purposes I would occasionaly play a game with Tau or visit different Tau forums and blogs.  But the other day I saw something that lifted my spirits like none other.

Dual Con

Now why am I excited?  How can I possibly be excited when Tau are losing, more so when Taudar players are providing joy to other players when they are complaining about losing? 
1.  Like many other players I enjoy winning, but I enjoy having fun and making "you remember that one time" moments more than anything.
2.  When people throw things like "cheese", "terrain", or "unbeatable army lists" onto the table I don't see a pointless battle, I see an enjoyable challenge.
3.  People always gravitate towards the path of least resistance, it's why 6th edition Tau is much more popular than 5th edition Tau, you don't get a real feel for how good an army does in the tournament scene when half of the players at the same tournament play the same army.
4.  Tau have always been a popular army to hate.  There has never been anything more satisfying than an opponent challenging you to a competitive game expecting an easy win, just to have to work at trying not to be beaten by a large margin.

Although I was looking forward to "The glorious rise of the Tau in the Third sphere expansion" and an increase in Tau players, I wasn't expecting a change in fluff (Barracudas taking the back seat, experimental heavy suits going from unreasonable to a staple in every army, Kroot becoming horrible in CC, and Broadsides struggling to do anything to Imperial Tanks).  Narrative gaming has been pushed behind over competitive spamming and death stars. 

Tau have always been about options, and tactical flexibility, perhaps with the terrain taking on a greater level of importance, players that have already purchased Tau armies will learn to play to have fun rather than play to win.  Either way I look forward to the next couple of months within the Tau community, and I will try to post some reviews, history lessons, and tactics that you will enjoy.

Changes To Tau: 1. The nerf bat

Getting the codex in hands yesterday, I heard a lot of talk on major Forums, and one thought that kind of stuck with me was how their was a sentiment that the new codex was resurrecting old fluff from the original codex.  So I would like to bring up my favorite pieces of fluff from the original codex that wasn't featured and show how it would have appeared if it were in this codex. Original excerpt from Codex: Tau pg. 3, 2001

"Shas'O Vior'la Kais. Fire Warrior Commander, watched dispassionately as the Gue'la began the long trek up the hillside.  Their crude armored vehicles lumbered forward on clanking metal tracks...  He turned to one of his bodyguards, a smooth helmeted warrior in a pale coloured battelsuit.

"Do you see the armoured beasts, Shas'vre? asked Kais formally."

"Yes Commander. This should present no significant problem.  This presents a serious problem.  The Shas'la have marked them clearly for the Broadside battlesuit squad's railguns  Heavy Rail Rifles."

The commander of the Fire Warriors nodded.

"Then you may begin, Shas'vre," he intoned softly.  The Warrior nodded reverently and spoke quietly into his helmet mike.  Almost as soon as he did so, three Gue'la vehicles eploded and lurched sideways, black smoke pouring from neat holes in their front and rear armour.  three Gue'la vehicles were struck, but shook off the rounds like they were nothing...

The Gue'la scattered, stunned at the death of the iron machines. cheered, inspired by the resilience of the iron machines, praising the Emperor that the pitiful Heavy Rail Rifle could never penetrate the front armour of their vehicle with a single shot.  It was unfortunate that they would have to die, but to stand in the way of the Tau's destiny was to invite death, but certainly not by the hands of a Heavy Rail-rifle if you were a Leman Russ, Monolith, or Land Raider.  It could not be helped...

Then from out of the smoke inside a piece of terrain came fired the Kroot.  Tall and lithe with powerful mediocre muscles corded around their arms, they charged fired into the mass of Gue'la.  Blasts from their vicious sniper rifles pitched several to the ground. Kais knew that they were the lucky ones.  They attacked with a high, ululating battle cry, spinning their rifles and slamming the thick blades on the butts of their guns into Gue'la flesh.  Their Shaper beheaded a Gue'la with one sweep of his blade and howled, shaking the long quills on the back of his head free in triumph as the rest of the enemy fled before him.  The Kroot continued to fire from behind cover as The the Battlesuit teams now moved down the hillside, firing into the disordered Gue'la troops... The Kroot were useful and Kais valued their strength numbers, but he had hoped was glad that the continued contact they were having with the Tau would have had purged them of some of their baser instincts by now.

Of course this was done for humor.  There were plenty of positives but I just wanted to point out some of the nerfing with humor.

6th edition Tau tactica: dominating your opponents assault phase

One of the first new rules that one might encounter if reviewing the codex from beginning to end, would be "Supporting Fire".  Where one might think that having a couple BS 1 shots is next to useless, you need to remember the main Tau principal, "synergy".  There are no stand alone death star units in the Tau army, but there are devastating combinations.  These combinations can make a good unit even better.

Maximizing the number of shots
1.  Use an Ethereal, with the Etheral new power invocation of fire you can grant all units within 12" of the Ethereal an additional shot while shooting at an enemy within rapid fire range.

2.  By taking four squads of fire warriors and inter locking them into two separate sets you can increase the number of squads that can benefit from each other's supporting fire.  For a diagram of how to interlock squads click HERE.

3.  Upgrade all of your vehicles to have "Point Defense Targeting Array", allowing your vehicles to overwatch as well

4.  Realize that you may use supporting fire on all tau units and vehicles as well as Battlebrother units and Battle brother vehicles.

Maximizing the number of hits
1. Use markerlights.  Markerlights can now affect snap shots, meaning that you can enhance the BS of firing models.  Make sure that when selecting which order to fire your units in you use units with markerlights fire.  Although the firing unit will not benefit from their own markerlights, any units following may use the markerlights to enhance their own shooting (including their own markerlight shots)

Synergizing to increase the effectiveness of Markerlights.
One of the popular ways people are building their army lists is to include drone squadrons with nothing but Marker Drones granting a pretty decent 12 marker lights.  By including a commander with a drone controller and two marker drones you can have a unit that is pumping 14 BS 5 marker light shots each turn.  By including a command and control node and drone controller, you can have the equivalent of 14 BS10 markerlights during the Tau shooting phase.  If you include a commander with a drone controller and a counterfire defense system you can fire 14 BS 2 markerlights as supporting fire.

*Notes for Taudar players

-by including a farseer to cast foreboding on this unit that includes a commander with a drone controller you can pump out 14 BS5 markerlight shots during overwatch.

-by including a farseer to cast prescience on a commander with a drone controller and a counter fire defense system you can pump out 14 BS 2 re-rollable markerlight shots during overwatch

-by having your farseer cast both prescience and foreboding on a commander with a drone controller you can pump out 14 BS 10 markerlight shots during overwatch. 

Vehicles are more resistant to assaults and ramming
Flechette Dischargers- strike in the Initiative 10 phase, the enemy unit suffers a number of auto hits that equals the number of models that made it into base contact with the vehicle

Dpods- increase the cover save of all vehicle by 1, meaning that if you moved vehicles fail to ram on a 4+, or if you turbo boosted vehicles fail to ram on a 3+.

Walls of flame and fire
with the enhancements to supporting fire you can use the flamer to inflict D3 auto hits, and because the Wall of flame has no minimum, use your flamer equipped suits after all other units have fired because they don't require marker lights, you can be hitting the very back of a group of boyz.

Punching AV 14 to death
With the new rules you can put a gauntlet on a commander for 5 pts, allowing him to make a single S10 AP 1 attack during an assault phase.  Couple this with the new Puretide chip and you can grant him either tank hunter or monster hunter allowing him to re-roll armor penetration rolls.  Or you can re-roll the to wound on a monstrous creature.

Thought for the day.
Someone was prophetic when they made the prediction that Tau would dominate the assault phase. click this link here and skip to 3:30. WARNING! this video may contain harsh language or images that might be considered offensive to some.

Tau-rific 9 day count down

Due to the over exposure of all the leaked picture on all major forums and blogs I think it would be a little repetitive to post them here.With both the American Release of White Dwarf and the pre-order of Tau 2 days away, I feel cursed that the release day is 9 days away.  To sum up how I feel in one word, "exhausted".    I have been getting pumped for this release, my adrenaline has been literally been pumping for this release.  I have been losing sleep, doubling my workout routine, and digging through every little bit of Tau nostalgia that I could find.  I even tried to shake down a GW employee the other day for more information.  For the sake of the sanity of my family, I have been denying all of this to my wife. 

There have been many new re-sculpts as well as a few new additions.  To be honest the only sculpt I was really disappointed in was the commander.  Don't get me wrong, the weapons options are awesome, but they seemed to take the chicken legs and make them more chicken like and then gave it a fire warrior shoulder pad.  This was extremely disappointing after the the 2 forgeworld sculpts and after seeing the new Farsight sculpt.  There are other things I didn't like about other sculpts, tiny head on the riptide and the fixed pose on the fire warrior special character, but those can be fixed with green stuff.  Overall I was really impressed with the sculpts, although I disagree with making a new flyer when Tau fluff clearly states the Barracuda is the most common fighter seen with the Tau.  What's killing me right now is the fact that they haven't published (or leaked) any news on whether they will create new sculpts for Kroot or Vespids or just keep the old ones.  I keep on trying to guess what the new stats are going to be but that is driving me insane.  As far as funds go, I kind of dug my own grave when I told all my buddies that my Sept has an overwhelming amount of Por and Fio keeping the sept up to date with technology.  This means i'll have to get the riptide and new Broadside models in order to keep up with my own fluff. 

The "10 year" time capsule.

With a new tau codex coming out I decided to go through the warp (also known as my garage) and see what I could salvage from my old Tau collection.  Now for a digression!

At the beginning of 2003,  I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life.  Without dragging you through a sob story of what was happening, i'll just tell you what I did to cope with it.  I looked back at the year 2001 which was a wonderful year for me, The release of Tau, I discovered both Red Bull and the female physical form, Van's Warped Tour was at it's peak, Free Media seemed to be taking over, and I was getting good at pushing a plank (Southern California is the perfect location to live if you love, Surfing, Snowboarding, and Skate Boarding).  Well I decided to make a time capsule.  I spent the next several weeks getting a couple of things off ebay, garage sales, surf shops, etc.  I labeled the aluminum tin "DO NOT open til  DEC 2011".  I was hoping to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of 2001. Now back to my garage rummaging.

After being distracted by all the books I found, I eventually came across a box that my parents had put together after I had moved out.  The first things I came across were an old gas mask and an old school Fat gray Game Boy.  After going inside and playing with my still functional piece of video game history, I made my way back to the box.  I pulled out an odd shrink wrapped tin with blue painter's tape serving as the label.  Reading the faded description I realized that I had hit the jackpot.  I don't know how I forgot about it, maybe because I had duplicates of the two GW models I had put inside.  It could have also been that I had changed highschools twice, enlisted, gotten married, had two kids, went to college, and moved half a dozen times.  Honestly, 10 years ago I saw plenty of Hobby stores come and go within the span of a few months. If you would have asked me I would have told you that "GW will fade into memory by 2011".  I unwrapped the shrink wrap and took the clips off the tin.  It was like uncovering King Tut's tomb.  It was like I crawled into the mind of a an overly hormonal teenage boy.  Among the contents were the following:
- ticket stubs to the 2001 Van's Warped Tour
- some music I had scratched onto notepad paper
- a Hook-ups sticker (skate board brand with questionably dressed anime girls)
- a Red Bull wrapped in a Zip-Lock freezer Bag (I won't drink it)
- a couple burned CDs
- a bra from a teenage girl (pink with black polka dots, by the way she's now an adult)
- an expired gym membership to 24 hour fitness

there was also a reminder in the form of a picture of my God Father with the words, Happiness can always be found among the overwhelming reality of tragedy.  I come from a long line of American Military Veterans (all the way back to before the French and Indian War).  My God Father's office was located on the side of the pentagon that was struck during the 9/11 attacks.  Fortunately, he decided that he was going to make an impromptu visit to Quantico that morning (The man has escaped death more than he can count). 

Finally there were 2 Games Workshop miniatures:

*Note: The codex was not in the capsule, I thought I would include it in the shot for Nostalgia purposes. The models are also in original packaging. 

This really got me thinking.  As I sit here typing this to you, i'm drinking a silver edition Red Bull, listening to some Punk Rock, and occasionally looking up at my beautiful wife.  I think about how I would have never guessed the girl living next door to my highschool back in 2001 would become my wife, Red Bull was not outlawed, media pirating has both advanced and received lots attention from governments around the world, and I haven't touched an instrument or a board in a long time.  I am also surprised with the Tau, 3 editions later we have a playstation video game, a Forgeworld Expansion, a spin off White Dwarf codex (Kroot Mercenaries), an additional playable ally (3 if you include BFG), and soon a 3rd codex. 

Thought For the Moment
How do you think your Tau army will change in the next 10 years?  Will you be playing Tau at all?  Do you think you'll be playing Warhammer a decade from now?  Please feel free to share your answer in the comments below.

Tau Helpers is back

 

For those of you that have noticed, there has been very little going on for over a month with Tau Helpers.  Unfortunately my back up computer had died and I was left with little more than my cell phone, not the ideal platform to write articles on.  But SO MUCH has happened in the last month. With the approach of the new Tau codex coming, i'm going to have to put reviews and tactica on hold.  But this has given me an even greater incentive to do some history lessons.  I'd like to apologize to the loyal followers for being absent, but like to assure you that were "Back into the fray".

Thought for the moment
Broadsides will have larger bases and an option to choose from different loadouts for a main weapon.  Will this make old models illegal on the table?

Tau Art of War: 1. Laying Plans

As a side note to the readers, there are a handful of books that I read and meditate on.  I usually do this when I feel a void and need advice on any facet of my life.  The writings I usually fall back on are The Holy Bible, the Hindu Vedas, various works by Machiavelli or Dostoevski, and Sun Tzu's The Art of War.  The Art of War is a book that I have been reading continuously and repeatedly in the last several of weeks.  It occurred to me after watching a History Channel Special that you can apply each one of Sun Tzu's lessons to Tau Tactica.  So I have decided to make a series of posts reviewing each lesson by Sun Tzu and applying them both on and off the table top.

I. Laying Plans
Sun Tzu says "According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans"

Probably one of my favorite passages by Sun Tzu.  This means that we as Tau players should be able to modify our battle strategies as the flow of battle channels forward.  I.E. I planned on taking objective A, but I see greater advantage in taking objective B instead.  Or I was going to shoot at the battle wagon but the trukk on the flank is dangerously close to a mob of boyz making an explosion result especially harmful to my enemies morale.  

Sun Tzu says "All warfare is based on deception.  Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable, when using our forced, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make him believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.  Hold out baits to entice the enemy.  Feign disorder, and crush him.  If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him.  If he is superior in strength evade him... If he is taking ease, give him no rest.  Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.  

With maneuverability, firepower, and Strength that is often overlooked the Tau force is probably one of the best armies to apply these meditations towards.  I.E. both you and your opponent both know that your fire knife will do nothing when firing While facing the fron arc of a Leman Russ.  But with the change to rules all close combat attacks strike rear armor which means an un-upgraded fireknife on the charge will inflict 3 S5 hits towards rear armor when assaulting.  Reserves make an especially great addition to our army with accurate landing we can appear where our opponent least expects us and inflict horendous amounts of damage.  For laying out baits, every good opponent should know that he/she should assault out battesuits when presented an opportunity, but for just 1 point more than the cost of a single guardsmen you can give a battlesuit a TL flamer taking advantage of the wall of flame special rule.  Also, we all know sportsmanship, I.e. an opponent asks what is inside transport #1 we should tell them honestly because we expect the same from him, 40K is turning towards a game of sportsmanship, but we should never let the opponent know that in 2 turns my battlesuits are going to Deepstrike behind your lines and target your rear armor. 

What do you think?
If you  have read Sun Tzu before and have read the first chapter tell me if you noticed something applicable to the Tau that I overlooked.  If you haven't read Sun Tzu there are plenty of copies available for free online.  Do you have any tactics that you think can be applied to these lessons?

Thought for the moment
A 30 Boy Ork Mob Assaults a unit of 5 Pirrahna skimmers all with Flechette Dischargers.  Each Ork technically counts as assaulting every vehicle.  Does the ork player suffer 150 wounds on a 4+?

Gun Drones: Background and Tactica

The imperium may have lobotomized slaves, flying cyber babies, space apes, and skulls full of wiring, but the tau have come up with a more practical and less gruesome way of creating a system of cheap labor and "meat" shields.  Following the rail gun, the drone is one of the staples that make the tau unique.  Of course there are several types of drones ranging from the just as old shield drone, to the heavy gun drone, markerlight drone, and even the remora drone fighter. The gun drones are unique in that they are wargear that can be taken as a hard point, wargear, a vehicle upgrade, or as a seperate unit.

Gun drones as unit upgrades

With changes to toughness and an increase to cover saves, shield drones are seeing less table time.  The Tau community has chosen to increase fire power and save 5 pts per drone.

In addition to defense there is a new tactic to using gun drones.  This involves maxing out gun drones in stealth units forming a wall of 2+ cover saves and 30 strength 5 shots.  Unfortunately this is 300 pts and has an incredibly large foot print making deep striking a nightmare.  Though being able to JSJ makes the unit a threat if enhanced with markerlights.

Gun drone units

There are two ways to get gun drone units
1.  Purchase a gun drone unit
2.  Detach the gun drones from a vehicle and/or vehicle squadron.
  *As a side note it was faq'd that if you detach all the drones from seperate vehicles in the    same squadron at the same time they all form together to make a single unit.

Unfortunately Gun Drones can not count as scoring units so they only have 3 purposes

1. Denying objectives
2. Peppering light armor and infantry
3. Speed bumping

Denying Objectives
In games that grind down to a crunch, drones can tip the balance by simplying sitting around.  If starting on a vehicle, the vehicle can move, the drones can disembark anywhere within 6 inches, the drones can "run" (which I think is hilarious because they don't have legs), then the drones can jump in the assault phase.  Even if the vehicle is immobilized the drones have a minimum expected threat range of 9 inches. If the vehicle is mobile you can move these drones at best 36 inches, but the most common distance that can be covered is 28 inches.

Dropping the squadron via deep strike can land the unit at the last minute.  Because we dont want to land directly on dangerous terrain we can still run and make the assault jump in the same turn with a dependable move of about 10 inches from the drop point.

Peppering a target
Now the reason I call it peppering instead of shooting, is the gun drone isn't the ideal unit for exterminating units or destroying vehicles.  The only time you should do this is if you have markerlight support or you are desperate.  With markerlight support you can reduce pinning check morale to almost nil.  You can enhance a very lacking BS 2 that is twin linked or reduce cover.  Do not do this on fearless hordes as it will have little to no effect.  The ideal target is either a large low armor save unit or an armor 10/11 vehicle.  Imagine the look on your opponents face when he realizes that 50 man horde of guardsman that is being pushed forward is now immobile and firing snap shots.

Speed Bumping
For the non vehicle non flying/jumping units.  Probably my favorite way of making an ork Warboss wimper as his units are pretty much going nowhere for a round.  In the same way that you use the drones mobility to deny an objective you can use them to deny movement.  When you move your drones in the assault phase form a line 1 inch away from your enemy.  Spread out your drones and with medium bases you can form a barricade that is up to 26 inches long with an 8 man gun drone squadron.  Because enemy units can not move through opposing units you have just forced your opponent to shoot at the gun drones and denied a movement phase to your opponent for part of his army.  Couple this with the added benefit of twinlinked for overwatxh and you are in business.

Things to remember
- Markerlights do not boost the BS of a Gun Drone while they are attached to a vehicle.
-If a gun drone squadron is destroyed after being detached from a vehicle they can give the opponent an additional kill point, this means that if Tau player Bob detached his gun drones on turn 1 and in his opponents turn the vehicle and the gundrones are destroyed the opponent now gets 2 victory points
-while attached to a vehicle, gun drones are destroyed if the vehicle is destroyed but do not grant the opponent an additional victory point.

Thought for the day
Interceptor + Aegis Defense Line + Go to Ground.  Means that I can snipe your reserves every turn at full BS but still take advantage of a 2+ cover save.

The Aegis Defense Line: Background and Tactica

With the release of 6th edition we saw an added mechanic that us "House Rules" gamers have been dreaming of.  Fortifications and terrain that does more than provide a cover save.  Whether or not the rumors that GW did this in order to start moving terrain pieces off the store shelves are true, the mechanic has added a new dimension to the game of 40K.

Background

 

Deploying the Defense line

The Aegis Defense Line can be deployed in 28 inches long.  This can be used to spread out a firing line or provide protection on all sides to 1 or 2 units.  Unfortunately with the lastest rulebook FAQ provided by GW, it has been deemed that the sections can not be broken up into smaller sub scetions. 

Extra options

Comms Relay

If you are like me you love to use reserves.  Being able to re-roll your reserves roll helps you to make sure that your units will arrive or be held back depending on what you want.  If you want to almost guarantee that a unit arrives from reserve add this to scrier’s gaze and each unit has a 99.85% chance of arriving.  If you want to hold back your reserves throw in the positional relay with scrier’s gaze and then you’ve got roughly a 67% chance that none of your units will show up each turn, whereas if you fail to those odds only one unit (of your choosing) will show up. 

Now before I talk about the Gun emplacements separately we Tau have an advantage with these buddies thanks to our wargear.  I would like to go over those right now.

Markerlights-  Gun emplacements benefit from markerlight hits so long as the model firing it is Tau.

Target Lock.
Much like the blacksun filter this used to be one of the most useless pieces of wargear that can be taken with a shas’ui.  Now the Shas’ui can use it to have the gun emplacement shoot down fliers while the rest of the unit engages a separate unit of infantry.

The Multi-tracker*

Now the reason I put an asterisk next to this is because this is one of the most debated topics among the Tau boards.  With confusing language and Faq updates, the multi-tracker strategy is theoretical and one I straighten out with my opponent before each game if I plan on using it.  Essentially this allows the model to fire both the gun emplacement and another weapon.  This doesn’t seem like a big deal when you are using a fire warrior. But if you have a Crisis suit with twin linked-missle pods on a quad gun or a broadside on a lascannon this can drive your opponent nuts. 

 The Quad Gun

Being able to re-roll misses while pumping out 4 S7 shots at full BS while targeting both fliers and land crawlers is awesome.  This goes quickly from threatening aircraft to glancing and ocassionally one shoting light transports and providing extra fire supoort against infantry.  Unfortunately Strength 7 can only glance armor 13 while doing nothing to armor 14.
The Las-Cannon

Not being twin-linked makes having a high BS essential for this weapon.  Cheaper than the quad-gun but a definite threat to fliers and armor.  Unfortunately it has only one shot per turn so it very low threat value against armies that are heavy in infantry.

Letting The Allies man the guns
While looking over the Eldar Codex for even more synergy, it came to my attention that there is even greaer potential in these Battle brothers.  Oe thing to remember when handling the Exarchs is that certain powers affect whatever weapon the model is manning

Dark Reapers
The Exarch can choose to apply fast shot or crack shot to the weapon he is choosing to fire, with BS 5 the Exarch can hit on a 2+ choosing to ignore cover saves and re-rolling to wound, or to add an extra shot making a heavy 1 lascannon into heavy 2.  This with the combination of the drak reapers within the squad make for a very deadly round of ranged shooting

Fire Dragons
Put the exarch on a quad gun.  With the synergy of Tank Hunter and Crack Shot you have become the bane of flyers.  The Quad gun now hits on a 2+ re-rolling misses and re-rolling armor penetration rolls in addition to ignoring cover saves, this translates to no more jink saves as they count as cover.  No fliers means no problem target light vehicles and hordes, re-rolling to wound and ignoring cover.  Unfortunately this means that the fire dragons who are taken have little support to the exarch as their weapns have a range of only 12".

Tactica

The Gunline

Bubble wrapping

This tactic involves placing a fire warrior (or kroot) unit around the broadside keeping the broadside from being assaulted, if things get desperate you can go to ground providing your fire warriors with a 2+ save as they are behind the aegis. 
Whack a mole

Essentially you spread the line from end to end and take 6 different fire warrior units behind them.  You then draw fire from the enemy while going to ground with a 2+ save, your other non-threatened units fire back.  Unfortunately your fire warriors have to be clumped together becoming vulnerable to barrage and templates.  I’ve also noticed that if an opponent knows how to move around terrain he can deny LOS to units he is not firing at.

Mech Tau

The Sea Turtle

The Aegis defense line serves only one purpose, to boost the shroud on vehicles if the opponent goes first.  Other than that the added +2 to G2G is essentially worthless as you are turbo-boosting your armor to block LOS to your infantry.

Ninja Tau

This is a relatively new Tactic that went without a name throughout 5^th edition.  Essentially what you did was place most of your army into reserves, hold them back and then deepstrike into the most advantageous postions.  For a better explanation of this tactic please go here.  With The Aegis Defense Line what you want to do is take the comms relay and a Tetra Squadron.  Ideally you are setting up your side second.  It is during this time that you set up your defense line out of LOS of your opponent and reveal that most of your army is going into reserve.  You have your Tetra turbo boost and you have your fire warriors go to ground providing both with a 2+ cover save.  You do this until you are ready to call in your reserves, at which time you position your tetra.  The comms relay allows re-rolling the reserves roll.  The tetra allows you to re-roll the scatter dice for your deep strikers.   Voila, your opponent can do nothing to stop the onslaught. 

InspirationFor those of you that hate the idea of using Imperial terrain here are a few pictures of Tau defense lines that I found while scouring the internets. Click here to see an awesome project

Thought for the day

A Farseer can not cast Fortune on a battle brother unit.  Can a farseer cast fortune upon himself while attached to a battle brother unit?  Would the effects carry over if he can?  Do you dream of re-rollable 2+ cover saves?

Tau Vehicles Re-review

It's been a while guys, but after all my good tidings and school/work related stuff i'm back, and apparently so are the mechanized Tau.  If you haven't seen it already there has been another faq released by GW you can find it here.  The two main changes here are Target Lock and Disruption Pod.  So in honor of this joyous occasion i'd like to re-review the Disruption Pod, take a look at Forge world Hammerhead Variants, and talk a little about the Mechanized Tau.



Disruption Pod
Shroud at over 12",  To put it simply all vehicles with this upgrade get +2 to their cover save if the enemy is shooting at over 12".  (For those of you that already know that i'm a fan of the Tetra which already comes with this upgrade, you know that i'm ecstatic.  This isn't to mention that my squadrons can split fire with the Target Lock).  What does this mean, well it means that our vehicles have almost twice the survivability that they did before.  It means that the Hammerhead is contending with the Broadside for a Heavy Support slot, and that taking Pathfinders isn't completely worthless anymore. 

Hammer Head Variants

If you are not completely hell-bent on only taking a Railgun on your hammerhead, Forgeworld has provided plenty of cool options that you can use.  These can be found on the Forgeworld website under the Tau update. 

Long-Barrelled Burst Cannons
At 15 points your turret can pump out 6 TL S 6 AP 4 shots, serves the same function as the submunition round, with the advantage of being able to threaten somoe fliers.

Missle  Pods
At 15 points, It's just like the missle pod mounted on a battle suit,  with the addition of  being twin-linked with the blast templaem te thrown into each shot.  Might as well take something else as this weapon does little more than look cool.

Fusion Cannon
Being the most expensive FW world option, at 30 points it's only second in points to the Railgun.  24" melta and blast, this fusion blaster is a risk as it threatens to make the disruption Pod upgrade useless as you need to be within bolter range to use it.  Though with the increase of Armor we're going to see, it makes it's mark with being able to threaten, terminators, MCs, Obliterators, and almost anything with a 2+ save.

Plasma Cannon
If you're going to take the Ion Cannon you might as well swap it out for this bad boy, at 48 inches, it falls behind the ion cannon by 12" but at the same points cost it offers an extra shotand also make all its shots twin linked,  This is by far my favorite MC hunter as well as my favorite FMC and Flyer Hunter.  It makes Space marines beg for cover saves and provides an attack on light transports. 

Mechanized Tau
For all of you Mech fans out there (Tau who use tons of transports), you're in luck.  With the Pulse Rifle having it's threat range increased tossed in with the extra survivability provided by the Disruption Pod, Tau have a chance at capturing objectives again.  I can't cover what hasn't already been covered by dozens of other people. But with TLOS you might want to take advantage of the taller flying base provided in the Devilfish Sprue as you won't block LOS of your disembarked Fire Warriors.

Thought For the Day
The Advanced Stabilization System is available to a Tau Commander, So why would a relentless suit want to take this upgrade?  Well Slow and Purposeful has now become transitive, meaning if one guy has it in a squad everyone has it.  So give an 'El this upgrade and attach him to a unit and you can have mobile Tau/Eldar pathfinders, mobile Eldar Dark Reapers, or mobile Space Marine Devastators.  Happy Hunting.

Anghkor Prok, Master Shaper: Background and Tactica

If you attended Gamesday 2001 in the United Kingdom, you would have received this guy just for attending.  At the time he was nothing more than just a cool looking Shaper model.  Going through the rumor mill, I see a whole lot of wishlisting for a Kroot character.  Though the tournament legality of Anghkor Prok can be debated, he is one of the greatest additions that you can include in a Kroot friendly Tau army.  You can find rules for Anghkor Prok here.




Background & Fluff
There has only  been one release of this guy's rules found in Chapter Approved around a decade ago.  As far as fluff goes he has one of the coolest back stories of any of the playable characters.  Getting his name by stubbornly standing up to a bigger Kroot in a society that is riddled with "Might is Right", he let countless attacks against the Orks and eventually swore the allegiance of the Kroot to the Tau.

Tactica
Cheap Boost
At 75 points, The Master Shaper is the second cheapest Independent Character available to the Tau Empire.  He has Ld 10 boosting the leadership value of any unit he joins.

Inspiring But Not Fighting
With the new rules allowing champions to declare challenges the Master Shaper has taken a significant hit.  There is no shame in denying a challenge with this guy as he just gets moved to the back.  Anghkor's strength doesn't lie in his stat line but the fact that he allows all kroot units within 6 inches of him to re-roll failed to-hits in close combat.  Although he has a half-decent stat line, losing him costs a lot more than just losing a Nob or a Shas'ui.  By losing the Master Shaper you drop the fighting capability of the unit and all surrounding Kroot units.

Friendly Games
Remember this unit is Kroot so if your opponent is friendly enough you may even be able to use him in Kroot Mercenaries lists.

At 19:23 in Texas on Aug 24, 2007, my first child entered the world.  Happy 5th Birthday to Daddy's little Knarloc.

The Orginal Tau Ally: A look at the Kroot.

Sidenote
Today marks the third day of my favorite month August 19th to September 19th (which would technically make it 32 days). August 19th is my anniversary to my lovely and supportive wife, August 24th is my son's birthday, somewhere between my son's birthday and Septmeber 5th (my birthday) is the Nova Open which takes place just a few miles from my house every year, and it all ends with my daugther's birthday on Septemeber 19th.  Which would make both my kids Virgos like their daddy.  I figured that to stay in the spirit of my favorite time of year i'll write about my all time favorite unit, the Kroot.





The kroot stole my heart and sealed my loyalty as a Tau player during my introduction to the game (against Space Marines) around a decade ago.   Without me knowing, my opponent took an extra 500 points (apparently, me never playing the game before wasn't enough of an advantage).  The game was a victory for my army.  To put this in perspective, other than my Commander I had no battle suits, that means, no extra crises suits, no broadsides, and no stealth suits. Although my Fire Warriors destroyed a Land Raider with their EMP Grenades.  My Kroot blew up a rhino with the Kroot Gun, picked apart a taxtical squad with rapid fire, then wiped out the remnants of an assault squad.  So I hope you understand why i'm not jumping right onto the "Forget Kroot" band wagon.

Background
Kroot Carnivores made their debut 3 years before the original Tau codex.  This appearance was nothing more than a footnote on a page titled "Other Dangerous Aliens" in the 1998 release of the Third edition Rulebook.

Notice how this crude sketch vaguely resembles the modern Kroot Carnivore.  Fortunately, 3 years following the release of this picture, the Kroot would be one of two aliens pictured here to receive a stat line (The necron warrior which was ironically labeled as "unknown" was the only alien here not making it's first appearance, it had recieved stats in White Dwarf publications towards the end of second edition, but would not be featured in a codex until 2002).  Following the release of Codex: Tau, White Dwarf released an all Kroot codex and a system that would foreshadow allies, that allowed Kroot to be fielded alongside other armies.  With the release of Imperial Armour III in 2005, the Kroot saw added variety in both rules and sculpts with four separate units.  These units all featured varying sizes of Knarlocs.  With the release of the 4th edition codex: Tau Empire, the Kroot saw a change from occupying Troops, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support Slots, to strictly Troops choices.  We also saw the disappearance of 2 rules specific to the Kroot ("Eaters of the Dead", and "Release the Hounds").  For the stat line changes the Krootox was changed from 50 to 35 points but lost it's 3(5) tougness and kroot hounds went from initiative 4 to initiative 5.  Within Fluff Kroot hold Change as an ideal higher than the convenience of "The Greater Good".  The Kroot also show an adaptability to their surroundings that is second only to the Tyranids. As a whole the Kroot fight as Mercenaries hoping to expose themselves to a wider variety of species in the hopes of assimilating a greater deal of advantageous traits into their gene pool.

Tactica
Better Than the Alternative
With the introduction of Allies i've heard it argued that  kroot have lost their role as screens for other Tau units with the availability of Imperial Guardsmen and Orks.  Just take into consideration that if you take meat-shield armies you lose the option of taking a Battle Brother.  With a better ballistic skill than the Ork the Kroot has a better chance at hitting at range and provides strength 4 in place of the lasgun's strength 3.  Not to mention when you fully kit out the Kroot you can have a squad that is 35 models deep. 

Outside the Gun Line
Unlike the Troops from most other armies, the Kroot can infiltrate or outflank (without krootox), this can allow the kroot to contest objectives early on in the game, or even set up inside of a forest.  If you need to disrupt a firing line the kroot can also outflank.  With the inclusion of the new rules independent Characters will inherit these rules if you declare that you are going to start the game attached to the kroot. 

Can't get paid if the boss is dead
One of the main functions of the Kroot is to counter-attack troops that are tying up your FireWarriors, suits, broadsides, etc.  Being  armed with two close comabt weapons at WS 4 and S4 means that you will be tearing down all but the most elite of close combat units.  Don't forget that if you add at least one kroot hound you have the option of making a sweeping advance at initiative 5 as long as you have at least one kroot hound. 

It's like a Missle Pod
With the changed rules to rapid fire, the krootox can now move and shoot 1 S7 shot at 48 inches  ot two shots at 24 inches.  This makes the kroot capaple of threatening light to medium vehicles if you want.   And have 3 S6 attacks each the krootox are capable of threatening tyranid MC's in close combat. 

Power weapons are pointless
Use your lack of armor as an advantage.  Charge units with power fists and power weapons, they really don't get much of an advantage against your kroot, as opposed to a unit of battlesuits. 
Things to avoid
Fried Chicken
Having a toughness of 3 a max armor save of 6+ and relying on cover make the kroot especially vulnerable to the flamer, which we are bound to see plenty more of with 6th edition changers to flamers.

Out in the open in the middle of the day
Hug Cover, with rapid fire weapons receiving a boost, if you leave your kroot out in the open they are as good as dead.  At the end of combat consolidate towards cover and spread out to avoid blasts. 

Thought for the Day
Ethereal Outflanks with Kroot and Issues a challenge in close combat.

On August 19th not too many years ago, she had no idea she was marrying Warhammer too.  She's been amazing!!!  Two kids, two degrees, and three jobs later she is still just  as amazing. 

The Ethereal Bomb

With the changes to preferred enemy, there has been buzz for almost 2 months about voluntarily killing an Ethereal, otherwise known as  "Ethereal Bombing".  But do the perks of PE really outweigh both the 50 points and the chance that our units will run off the board?  With a friend pointing out that as much as I love Math Hammer I rarely ever post anything on my blog that looks anything like my notebook, so I figured I would let you into the madness known as my view of Math Hammer.



Background
I'd just like to start out by stating that Ethereal Bombing is not supported by fluff.  The Tau hold the worth of a single Ethereal to be worth countless other members of the Empire.  This is supported by the storyline surrounding the PS2 game Fire Warrior, and fluff in the new Dark Eldar Codex that show that the Tau didn;t really think twice about sacrificing 777 members of the four mainstream castes, but when asked to surrender 77 Ethereals they were ready to go to war.  But who honestly likes the Ethereal caste as a Tau player. Watch how they prance around in Dawn of War like they are channeling some kind of psychic power, despite the fact that they have no registry in the warp.  Read how they refuse to wear any kind of practical armor in the codex.  Read how they keep secrets from the other castes and how they instruct Earth Caste members to sterilize and build mind controlling devices to deal with other races.  Not to mention Farsight reached awesome status when he said bye-bye to Ethereal rule.  I personally play my Tau to have attitudes towards Ethereals like catachan have towards commisars.  They don't openly hate them, but you rarely see them on the table because they always seem to come across unfortunate accidents.  What better way to represent this on the table than a lone Ethereal running by himself several inches in front of the enemy.  "The Price of Failure", is not a new mechanic to the Tau who have always had to perform a break test if an Ethereal died.   To put it simply, every Tau unit (this doesn't include Kroot, vehicles, drones, Vespid, or any allies) that is on the table must take a break test before the Tau movement phase.  All units that take this test receive PE.  PE used to mean that your unit would automatically hit on a 3+ in close combat back in 4th edition.  This changed to" re-roll all failed to hits in close combat" during 5th edition.  Now in 6th edition this has changed so that if at least one model in a unit has PE the whole unit re-rolls any rolls of 1 for any to hits and any to wounds against the specified enemy.   But what does this really mean for us Tau?

Mathhammer
One thing to understand is that this game has a number of variables that make it all but impossible to explain every scenario within a blog post of reasonable length, so for the sake of sanity i'll be going over some of the most common scenarios.  Preferred enemy affects only to hits and to wounds so i'll be showing how those two stats have changed.
A quick guide to Math Hammer
If you already know how Math Hammer works please skip to the next section
The effectiveness of a Kroot firing back  and forth at a Space Marine at 24 inches in open terrain verses cover.
-The Space Marine(15 pts) firing at the Kroot(7 pts)
needs 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, allows no save, with 15 points invested into firing at a 7 point target, this translates to:
(2/3) * (2/3) * (1/1) * (7/15)  = 28/135 = .2074074074...

The Kroot (7pts)  firing at the Space Marine(15pts)
needs 4+ to hit, 4+ to wounds, needs a 2- for the save, and invests 7 points against the Space Marines 15, this translates to:
(1/2) * (1/2) * (1/3) * (15/7) = 5/28 = .17857142857142...

Notice how the Kroot are marginally weaker than the Space Marine when they are firing at each other in the open
 Now let's use the same scenario but place both of them in the average 5+ cover
The space Marine goes first 
needs  a 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, 4- to avoid the cover save, and targets a 7 point model with 15 points invested:
(2/3) * (2/3) * (2/3) * (7/15) = 56/405 = .1382716...

and the kroot, note how nothing changes from the Kroots last example as the Space Marines 3+ Armor trumps the 5+ cover save:
4+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 2- to avoid the save, targeting a 15 point model with 7 points invested.
(1/2) * (1/2) * (1/3) * (15/7) = 5/28 = .17857142857142...

This shows that the Space marines have a return of about 14% per point invested while firing at a Kroot in 5+ cover while the kroot have a return of roughly 18% per point invested when firing at a squad of Space Marines, this is assuming that averages will eventually balance out.  

Against targets with Toughness 4
The reason I show Toughness 4 is that it's the most common toughness seen on the table followed by toughnesses 3 and 5, then followed by toughness 6, then 8.

For our examples i'll use an unbuffed fire warrior both shooting and in the assault.  For shooting i'll show how Preferred Enemy and Markerlights will not effect the overall change in effectiveness between a Fire Warrior with PE and without.

While shooting at T4 the Fire Warrior without PE needs 4+ to hit, and 3+ to wound, this translates to
(1/2) * (2/3) = 1/3 = .3333...

The Fire Warrior with PE needs 4+ to hit, re-rolling 1's, and 3+ to wound rerolling 1's, this translates to
{(1/2) + [(1/6)*(1/2)]} * {(2/3) + [(1/6)*(2/3)]} = (7/12) * (7/9) = 49/108 = .45307307...

to figure the % increase in effectiveness we subtract the unbuffed Tau effectiveness from the firewarrior with PE, then we take the result and divide it by the effectiveness of unbuffed fire warrior

[(49/108) - (1/3)]/(1/3) = (13/108)/(1/3) = .361111... = 36.11%

What does this mean?  Tau Fire Warriors with PE will be killing at least 4 space marines for every 3 that Fire Warriors without PE kill.

If you compare markerlight hits with these fire warriors you'll see a PE FW with a markerlight to boost his BS by one when compared to an unbuffed Fire Warrior with +1 BS is still 36.11% effective, the same goes for fighting with 2 markerlights, against toughness 3,5, and 6, and against the same toughness values in an assault.  It seems Fire Warriors with PE have and increased killing effectiveness of 36.11% when firing at anything toughness 8 or below, and assaulting anything with toughness 6 or less in an assault.  So how much more effective are they when firing at vehicles?

Knowing that Fire Warriors don't have a chance to roll to wounds against vehicles all we get to compare is the to hit.
4+ to hit  = 1/2 = 50%
4+ re-rolling 1's  = 7/12 = 58.333%
(1/12)/(1/2) = 1/6 = 16.67% increase in effectiveness when firing at vehicles

The same can be said for Assaulting armor with EMP grenades. 

 Now that we know we know the increased effectiveness of fire warriors what about suits with twin-linked weapons?
Using out logic we know that a twin-linked weapon will always take precedence to hit as, all failed to hits are re-rolled not just 1's.  This means we Just compare the to wound rolls lets just assume we wound on a 2+
5/6 without PE
35/36 with PE

(5/36)/(5/6) = 1/6 = 16.67%

As we know toughness does not affect the effectiveness of our PE so this will be the increase of effectiveness of a twin-linked weapon, assuming we are firing at something we can wound.  We also see that PE has no effect on twin-linked weapons when firing at vehicles.

meaning that if we supposedly had an all fire warrior list (I know it's impossible), at 750 points.  We trade 5 fire warriors for an Ethereal dropping the overall killing potential of the army by 6.67%.  We must also consider the chance that our fire warriors run away instead of being able to use PE.  The Fire Warriors have a 27.77% chance of running away at leadership 8.  Armies that use firing lines in the deployment zone will have a pretty good chance that they run off the board.  these means that at a drop of 6.67% and adding it to the chance of running away 37.77%. We get an overall drop of effectiveness of 34.44% vs. the increase of effectiveness vs. infantry at 36.11% and 16.66% versus vehicles.  Though this is an extreme example you also need to take into consideration this How close to the table edge do you keep your broadsides and remember the broadsides will receive a 0% boost against armor, a 16.67% increase against anything with a toughness value, but have a 27.77% chance of running away.  So if you use twin-linked weapons you'll receive a 16.67% boost when firing at something with a toughness value (unless you use Twin-linked, flamers in which case you get a 0% boost) or Assaulting a vehicle, no bonuses when firing at a vehicle, and a 36.11% boost in an assault. Take into consideration anything with Ld 10 only has a 1/12 chance of fleeing.
Bomb one hide the other
One strategy I took into consideration while thinking about suicidal Ethereals is killing one and having another Ethereal on the table allowing all units that have to take a test the chance to re-roll failed leadership tests, meaning after the Ethereal dies, your units go from having a 27.77% chance of running to having less than an 8% chance of running.  Meaning that if you are running a 2000 point army with nothing but suit without twinlinked, blast or template weapons, and fire warriors, you are maximizing your your effectiveness boost granted by PE.

Breaking "Price of Failure"
When we think about this rule we really need to ask the question, what is a Tau unit.  Is it simply a squad that is normally Tau?  Do Sniper Drone Spotters test?  If not then Commanders with drone controllers don't have to test.  Does an Eldar Pathfinder squad with a Tau character attached to it count as a Tau unit?  If not then the character doesn't have to roll a leadership test when the Ethereal dies?  How about vice-versa?  If a Firewarrior squad is joined by a non Tau character I.E. Anghkor Prok, or a Farseer still count as a Tau unit.  If so take a close look at the rules for independent characters.  If an effect takes place while an independent character is part of a unit the effect carries over when the independent character leaves meaning that character still has PE after it leaves the unit and the unit still has PE as well.  PE is also transferable meaning that if a character with PE joins a unit that unit also gains PE.  The Farseer leaves the Fire Warriors and joins a kroot squad granting the kroot PE.
So before you start a battle with the Ethereal Bomb Tactic ask these questions to keep from fighting with your opponent later
1.  What is a Tau Unit
2.  Do Tau Characters make other units count as Tau units when joined
3.  Do Tau still count as Tau if joined by a character of another race?

Since I have figured out the benefits of PE while using Price of Failure, I really don't want to give up my twin-linked flamers, broadsides, allies, reserves, vehicles, or non Tau units in the codex, but I wouldn't mind  a battle here or there where I just confuse my enemy with a Suicidal charging Ethereal while I transfer PE from unit to unit with my Farseer.

What do you think?
Let me know, personally I find the  advantages to be almost nil for what you have to give up.

Our Eldar Allies: Background and Tactics

What's more exciting than taking a codex that is over six years old and humiliating a new army with it?  Humiliating that same army with two codices that are six years old.  This was probably one of the most exciting surprises to happen to Tau players.  Though my knowledge of Tau Eldar relations is pretty hazy, I am familiar with some of the rumors circulating around about how the Eldar secretly protect the Tau.

Background Rumor Fluff
Rumor 1
The Eldar created the Ethereal Caste:  For those of you that keep up with the fluff,  you know that Ethereals secrete pheromones from the gaping hole in their forehead.  This is said to be the way they are able to control the other castes.  This would also explain Commander Farsight getting over his obedience, as he has had enough time to figure out that he will no longer be controlled by the pheromone secreting hole.  It's rumored that the Eldar got the idea (and DNA) from an arachnoid race whose queens controlled their subjects using pheromones.  Unfortunately these spiders were purged around the same time the Ethereals supposedly entered the fray.

Rumor 2
The Eldar created the Tau:  Being natural enemies to the warpbased entities and having a vast knowledge of the warp, the Eldar created the Tau to have little or no signature in the warp to be a natural deterrent against Chaos.  With the Farseers seeing their inevitable doom in the last battle with Chaos they needed a new race to optimistically rule the galaxy after they dissapear.

Rumor 3 
Freak Warp Storm, or Violent Mother protecting her baby?:  Those of you that read the Fluff section of their codices realize that the imperium originally ear marked the home world of Tau for cleansing when the Tau were still no more than plains dwelling nomads.  This was suddenly halted by the random sudden appearance of freakishly ciolent Warp Storms cutting off the Imperium from having any access to Tau.  The rumor states that the Eldar foresaw the potential good coming from the Tau Empire and used an immense level of psychic energy to protect the four fingered gray humanoids with hooves.

No matter how you look at it you can always rationalize the two armies banding together.  My personal idea comes from the two armies banding together after years of hopeless losses (5th edition) and the old guy has now come to mentor the young whipper snapper.

Tactica
I have often heard people refer to 6th edition as the edition of psykers.  Unfortunately us Tau have absolutely no psychic powers available to us in our codex.  The eldar provide us with the option of not only having potent psykers, but a greater array of units that can JSJ just like our Crisis Battle Suits.  

Farseer
This might simply be the most awesome addition to a Tau Army.  This psyker can throw out up to Two psychic powers each turn, that add a great deal of support to our Tau. This has the potentail of adding a 4+ deny the which roll to any unit of Tau he joins and can further serve to deny enemy psychic powers by forcing them to take psychic tests with 3D6.

Like an Ethereal but better:  Whereas the Ethereals try to give off the impression of having some sort of mystical powers, the Farseers actually have mystical powers, like the Ethereal who can grant a unit of fire warriors a Ld value of 10 by joining them, the Farseer trades being able to re-roll leadership tests with not having the Tau run away when he dies. 

DOOM!!!:  The Eldar have the option of allowing you to purchase specific psychic powers from a list of extraordinary spells.  Unfortunately the Tau don't benefit from "Fortune" or "Guide", but there is a wonderful spell called Doom.  I have heard this debated over and over that Doom should last forever since it states "lasts until next Eldar turn" and you are playing Tau.  This is not only corrupt, but easily countered, you have Eldar in your army so the Tau turn is also the Eldar turn that is unless you want to never be able to allow the Eldar units to do anything.  Also, if you are playing against Eldar, technically when your opponent starts his or her turn the spell ends thus having no effect.  Play it the way the rule was intended and just let it end at the beginning of your turn.  Doom is a curse that targets a single unit allowing ALL units that target it to re-reroll failed rolls to wound.  This means pule rifles will wound over half the time when firing at a Doomed Tyranid Monstrous creature.  And when you hit almost anything that is doomed with a rail gun,  your opponent isn't hoping for a 1, he is hoping for a double 1.  

Eldritch Storm.  Strength 3 Large Blast with no AP value, that turn tanks in random direction.  The points here can be invested somewhere else.  

Mind War:  Its like an awesome precision shot that ignores "Look out Sir" and armor saves.  It forces your oppenent to roll off against you adding the model's leadership value to his roll against your roll +10.  The model automatically suffers a number of wounds equal to the amount he lost by. 

Divination psychic powers are awesome, although you can also choose to go telepathy, the sheer amount of beneficial spells that only take up 1 warp charge can't be beat.

Prescience:  This is a spell  that you can always take (you don't have to roll for it).  This allows the Farseer to grant one of your units the oppurtunity to re-roll all failed "To Hit" rolls until your next turn.  This means that if you markerlight a target and fire at it with a unit with Prescience you have the potential to fire at BS 10 and ignore cover saves.  Not to mention the unit can re-roll all failed to hits in both you and your opponent's  assault phase while counting as counting re-rolling all snap shots until your next turn. 

Roll a 1, Foreboding:  Your Farseer allows the unit he is in to fire at full BS while overwatching and countercharge.  Not bad but you might as well take prescience.

Roll a 2,  Forewarning gives a single unit a 4+ invulnerable save until your next turn.  Pretty Good if you expect a unit to come under heavy weapons fire while out in the open.

Roll a 3,  Misfortune:  Causes a unit to re-roll successful saving throws until your next turn.  Cover Saves, Invulnerable Saves,  and armor saves.  Simply put this is awesome.  Couple this with Doom and you have one really dead unit.

Roll a 4, Perfect Timing:  The psyker and his unit have "Ignores Cover".  Pretty much the same as using two marker light shots.  You should probably go with prescience

Roll a 5,  Precognition:  The Psyker re-rolls all failed to hits, to wounds, and his failed saves.  If you are in close combat this makes the Psyker pretty beastly, unfortunately you are still in close combat with a Tau army.

Roll a 6, Scrier's gaze:  Searching the internet this is probably the most under appreciated psychic power available to the Tau.  The power only lasts until your next turn.  It allows you to roll 3 dice and choose 1 for all your reserves, Outflank, and Mysterious Terrain.   I like to refer to this Psychic power as the Kroot Carnivores best friend.  This power not only grants the Kroot who are outflanking the ability to arrive on the table edge you want over 96% of the time, but gives the mysterious forest a better chance at benefiting the kroot.  
If your best roll is a 1: you still get a 4+ save
You only have a 3.7% chance of rolling only 2's and 3's:  Your Kroot will almost never be hurt by mysterious jungle's
If your best roll is a 4: Your kroot now have a cover save of 2+ while in Jungle
If your best roll is a 5:  Your Kroot are now all but impervious to grenades while in jungle
If your best roll is a 6:  Walk don't run.  Your Kroot don't roll dangerous terrain tests, meaning they are unaffected by the razorwing Nest,  but if an opponent charges the Kroot while they are bunkered down in the forest, if any of the dice while he is charging are 4+ the unit automatically suffers D6 strength 3 hits with rending.  
Scrier's gaze also allows you to almost choose whether or not your reserves arrive.  So if you want them to arrive you go from having a 67% chance of your desired result to a 96% chance.  If you want them to stay in reserves you go from having a 33% chance of your desired result to over 70%.  Combine this with a tetra and you have a Deep Strike that is both timely and precise.  

Pathfinders
Although the Tau already have pathfinder's of their own, they don't have Pathfinders, that can infiltrate, hold an objective, use Precision Shots, add 1 or 2 to cover saves and both wound and Rend on a 6+ or 5+.  

Jetbikes
They can JSJ a shruiken cannon or their twinliked catapults, and are mobile so if you want to contest or hold an objective they can turbo-boost 36 inches, unless you're using shining spears.  If you're using shining spears you can assault or counter charge an enemy with strength 5 power weapons.

Guardians
Sorry I just had to mention them.

Dire Avengers
We already have really shooty units.

Warp Spiders
They can JSJ but have a 1/6 chance of losing a model.  Strength 6 makes for sub-par transport hunting,  Even though they wound almost all infantry on 2+, I would still prefer putting out more fire warriors.

All Eldar Vehicles
One thing I noticed about the Eldar is their ability to make Armor 14 look pathetic and that they utilize lots of  Skimmers for vehicles.  This of course doesn't do much to affect my game play.

War-Walkers
They are really shooty which appeals to me as a Tau player.  They are aslo extremely flexible, going from anti-horde, to anti-elite, to anti-tank.  Personally putting a pair of Scatter Lasers to deal with Horde Armies Fliers, and  Light to medium Transports is a plus.  Not to mention using them to hit rear/side armor while outflanking is always a surprise your opponent won't see coming.  But be careful they are extremely sensitive despite having the option to take spirit stones. 

Vypers
Fast Skimmers that can pump out 6 Strength 6 shots is pretty decent. 

Falcon or Fire Prism
Your Basically taking another Hammerhead that isnt as good. 

The Avatar
It's nice to give the Tau a Monstrous Creature that says "F.U." to melta guns and the inevitable increase of flamers we are bound to see with the wall of flame special rule.  This beast calls out heroes in close combat and wrecks takes like a beast.  Unfortunately if you want to rules the close combat phase you are playing the wrong army, and you need to say goodbye to the Farseer if you do.

Autarch
If you are planning on playing someone who doesn't really use a lot of psykers You can always opt to go with the Autarch.  the Autarch allows you to call in the reserves on a roll of 2+.  Not to mention he can be outfitted to add Close combat survivability to crisis suits (warp jump generator), or vespid (Wings). He can also add some armor killing power to infiltratiting Kroot in addition to boosting the kroot Ld value. 

The Wraithlord
Toughness 8 makes him all but impervious to small arms fire, and S10 ignoring armor saves is something we as Tau can regularly expect from a Heavy Support Slot.  Being equipped with a Wraith Sword is a pretty good way to spend 10 points not to mention he gets the option of selecting another ranged weapon that can be outfitted to blend better with your army.  

 It's kind of like the Prom's after party
The Eldar are new to me and I feel like i'm just chipping away at an iceberg.  If you see any nasty combinations that i'm missing please feel free to let me know.  Unfortunately I don't have much as far as conversions, so if you find anything on conversions or Tau related fluff I would love to hear from you.  

Thought for the Day
Howling Banshees have been nerfed.