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.