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OK. I will now attempt to organise my thoughts on this thread up to this point... This may be a little disorganised...
Guided Missiles rules change
I like this change, it makes the missiles only able to be fired using Markerlights, and therefore promotes their use well. However, I will hold off of adding MLs to aircraft at this point, as it would effectively give them another strong attack weapon, and I would prefer the MLs remain primarily a ground/recon ability to promote forward fragile units.
I understand that this would make MLs a 'own half' weapon initially, as the ML units start here, but it would certainly promote pushing these ML units forward, and would throw more emphasis on units such as Pathfinders, Stealth Suits, Heavy Drones and Tetra. Also, there have been calls about the Taus ability to reach across the battlefield in the early turns, and this would help to address this.
I would like to play this ML change to see its effects, but I think that it could be very interesting.
Markerlight Sentry Towers
The suggestion is to move these to section 6. While I have been reluctant to do this in the past, I do feel that moving them will place more emphasis on a movement-based Tau force, which is a good thing in my book (closer to the background, even though it may be different from the 40K principle of the Tau gunline).
Vespids
These are a thorny prospect. On one hand I like the idea of them. On the other, they counter the design philosophy of defined strengths and weaknesses of a list and there are no models. I would reluctantly move these to section 6, unless we can make them work in a way that works with the list without covering the clear design weaknesses (ie a ff unit that doesnt just cover a gap in the force). In the meantime, these should be moved to section 6 (bye, guys!).
Human Auxiliaries
I understand the desire to see these increased in formation size. However, they were previously decreased to lead to a more fragile formation. With a larger formation size they become much more difficult to balance with Fire Warriors.
Force Structure
I have been thinking of combining the Tetra and Piranha formations into a single formation, allowing six units of any combination for 150 points. Comments?
I agree that we could trim the number of options of the various formations. My suggested new list (based on posts here) is:
Core Cadres
- all unchanged
Support Groups
- Pathfinders: two free Devilfish not counting as one of the two upgrades, Pathfinders, Gun Drones, Tetra
- Stealth Suits: Gun Drones
- Broadsides: Broadsides, Gun Drones
- Hammerheads: Hammerheads, Skyray, Swordfish, Networked Drones
- Scorpionfish: Networked Drones, Drones, Heavy Drones, Supreme Commander
- Stingray: Stingray, Skyray, Networked Drones
- Gun Drone: Gun Drones, Heavy Drones
- Tetra/Piranha: Tetra, Piranha
Just to give some explanation for the above, more than just restricting the number of upgrades, I am interesting in focussing each formation more strongly. Also, this drops the Stealth upgrade option completely. I cant necessarily see these guys working with another formation on the battlefield as it goes against their role, and allowing Stealth upgrades to a Stealth Support group can, as mentioned, give a large formation. Feedback welcomed.
Hammerhead Cadre
I noticed that many of you left this out of the Cadre choices. The Hammerhead Cadre was added to give the force more hard hitting basic formations. I realise that this means that an all-tank Tau force is then possible, and since it was added for a reason I am curious why people now think that it should be a core Cadre option.
Gun Drones/Heavy Gun Drones
There is discussion about having the Heavy Gun Drones formation replace the Gun Drone Support formation, and only having a Gun Drone upgrade option. I am not really sure how this solves any problems, since the different stats require different modelling options and therefore we still have two types of Drone on the field. Also, the 40K codex does specifically mention formations of standard Gun Drones in both the list and background. I would like to hear more opinions on this.
Sniper Drone Team
Removed to section 6.
Fire Warriors
I know that we go back and forth regarding FW and ML, but right now I am not in favour of giving the FWs MLs. I dont see any reason to change the number of units in a FW formation at this time, as dropping them to 6 would also make a formation more fragile.
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