Hey epic Tau fans,

Other than the Riptide, are there any other units that we think should be included in the epic army list that aren't yet?

We have in the current codex

The Sunshark and Razorshark aircraft. Initially I didn't much care for these two planes, but I like the idea of the Tau being the army that integrates a lot of aircraft into their fighting style, and these two would push in that direction. What do you guys think?

There are also the following forgeworld units that we don't have stats for

XV-9 battlesuits. These seem popular with the 40K Tau players, but I am not sure they are different enough from crisis suits at this scale to bother with.

The new Riptide variant, the R'Varna. We don't even have finalized rules for the Riptide yet and here is a variant. Not seeing the point myself, and the experimental 40K rules for it are crazy broken, but hey, if someone wants it I'll listen.

Heavy Gun Drones. These could be interesting if someone wanted to put together a drone heavy army.

There is also the Forgeworld Piranha variant, the TX-42 and the Remora Drone Fighters. I'm kinda neutral on the TX-42, but I like the Remora and again I like the idea of pushing the Tau air force a bit, so I would like to see this one.

What do you guys think? Are any of these worth working up stats for? My opinion is that I would very much like to see more variety and more options in the Tau army list, but except for the Remora these kind of leave me cold, although if someone had a good idea for one or more of them I could get enthused in a hurry.

Also, are there any holes in the army list that need filled? Are the Manta and the Moray sufficient Praetorians for an army? Do they and the Tigershark provide enough anti-titan firepower?

There also still remain some issues that have already been brought up but that haven't yet been finalized. Where are we with the Riptide now? No one has commented on the 2nd draft of stats for it or the Nova reactor, and we still don't have a points cost for it.

I also brought up some concerns a few days ago about how the army book handles Kroot and haven't heard from anyone about that issue yet.



I think that pretty much covers where we stand right now with the Tau army book.

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Troy


Once Upon a Midnight Dreary....

Hi!

I'll let others weigh in, but given I have covered all that I needed to in other lists I will direct my attention to coming up with stats for some of these.

Primarch

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Primarch


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Hey Forgottenlore,

Don't worry if things regarding the tau list discussion is a bit slow, I think most peoples attention is with the marines, guard, ad mech and eldar at the moment, but once those get sorted, I am sure people will dive into the remaining ones.

Matt

Oh, I'm not worried or anything, but primarch asked me if there were any other Tau units we should be considering for inclusion and I figured it would be best to throw all the options up here and see what people say.

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Troy


Once Upon a Midnight Dreary....

I would like to adress the weapons setup of the Crisis suits.

Today we have one with the plasma and flamer and one with burst and missiles. To me that seems like we are trying to ride two horses at the same time, mixing battlefield roles. I have tossed that around in my houserules with one anti infantry suit equipped with burst and flamer and a more mid range anti armour support suit with plasma and missiles. This, I believe, gives the diffrent suits more distinct battlefield roles.

I've also created a third setup, equipped with an airburst fragmentation projector - 25cm, 2BP, blast, ignores coverand a cyclic ion blaster 25cm, 4 attacks, 6+,0 (this weapon has been buffed up in 40k with regards to strenght and AP, but i like to keep it at this level. Compared to 6 ed. It should probably be 4+,-2)

I've also used the names from 40k calling them soulstorm, fireblade and ionthunder respectively rather than mk I, II and III.

What do you think?

As for the Kroot issue, I've not played enough Tau to experience any troubles with the natural instinct behaviour. Kroot ar basically orks, and I do believe they should have some sort of natural instinct "penalty" if outside shaper coherency. However 2 penalties might be one to many.

@ringo

I have no experience with Tau outside of Dawn of War: Soulstorm and NetEpic, but it seems to me that they would be naturals to have some Titan-level battlesuit-like war units. Just about anything from Battletech or Mechwarrior would be good proxies. I have no specific ideas at this time however.

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But they aren't really. Kroot aren't some semi-sapient barbarian species. They are a fully aware and quite rational race that simply chooses to not use some of the technology they once had. I could see some sort of alternate method of army organization (and hence construction) but they are no more likely to behave uncontrollably than humans or tau or eldar.


I like the idea of tweaking the crisis suit load outs. One of the signature things about the suits is the ability to customize them for different battlefield roles.


Tau titans have been the subject of much discussion over the years, with many 40K Tau players making their own conversions. GW and FW however have been pretty consistent in the idea that Tau make use of air and space support craft rather than titan level mechs. That's why I kinda like the idea of pushing the idea of the Tau as an "air force army", give them a diversity of planes and flying vehicles equivalent to the diversity of titans that the Imperium, Eldar or Orks have. The biggest battlesuit they have been willing to make thus far has been the new Riptide, which has proposed stats a page or two back in this thread.

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Once Upon a Midnight Dreary....

Well, what I ment to say was that back in the day when we first created the Tau and Kroot we stole the ork rules for the Kroot. If there is no penalty for beeing outside shaper controll, why take shapers at all? I do however not have any strong sentiments about these rules, I just kinda like them

Hi!

I consider that reason enough. They must be within shaper control, otherwise there is no point.

Primarch

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Well I guess you would take a shaper for the bonus abilities.

What's the point of taking any command unit? Usually it is because they are providing some sort of bonus or ability the unit normally lacks. It is only the armies that have a strong basis in fluff of not being fully autonomous where they negate a disadvantage instead of providing a benefit.

Looking into this, I just saw that shapers are HQ stands that come in detachments of 4? What's up with that? Shouldn't they be individuals that are spread among the various kindreds?

In the original source material regular shapers were basically just unit sergeants who provided enhanced combat abilities but IMPOSED the eaters of the dead rule, which was much, much (much) less of a penalty. At the scope Epic is played at, I am not sure why we include basic shapers at all, instead remove them entirely, or call the 4 stand detachment a shaper council and give them combat leader or some ability that improves morale.

Keep in mind that there are 3 rules imposing restrictions on Kroot armies

1) Eaters of the Dead, which basically says Kroot without nearby shapers only get to participate in half the game

2) The Default Orders rule, which says Kroot (who are a close combat army) without a nearby shaper may not charge and are forced to move in a particular direction

3) Kroot Hordes, which says the Kroot, who are noted for acting in small, independent bands without much in the way of overarching leadership, must clump together into huge blocks, making their infiltrate special ability seem really strange (yes, this group of 120 aliens managed to sneak up on us) and which makes the Eaters of the Dead rule REALLY crippling as it can cause basically the bulk of the army to skip every other turn.

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Troy


Once Upon a Midnight Dreary....

Hi!

Hmm. Looks like the Tau discussion just got kickstarted.

Might as well go all in and get some stuff done.

As an overall opinion, would Tau benefit from a line of knight class "mechs", how about Tau "titans" or "supermechs".

The options out there for proxies are quite extensive.

Thoughts?

Primarch

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There is the riptide, which is essentially a knight class mech and it can be outfitted with one of two primary weapons and several different configurations of secondary weapons and support systems.

I would be opposed to anything larger than that however. The lack of titans in the tau army and their use of alternative unit types I have always thought made it more distinct and gave the tau a unique flavor.

Forgeworld writes

And

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Troy


Once Upon a Midnight Dreary....

Hi!

Well, it will make for a short Tau revision though....

Primarch

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Maybe, but maybe not, we still have:

Point values for the Riptide to work out
issues with the Riptide's nova reactor to decide
probably tweaking of the riptide stats
more discussion needed about Kroot
A suggestion to rework crisis suit weapon load outs
and 7 (or more) units that already exist in the fluff that we don't have any stats for at all and we haven't discussed them at all.


That seems like a lot yet to do before we talk about inventing brand new units.

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Troy


Once Upon a Midnight Dreary....