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As mentioned by several people in the forum the current Tau army list has too much choices (which also holds for the Chaos army lists). A possibility would be to reduce the list options as in the IG army list, which consists of companies, company upgrades and support formations (+Titan Legions and Aircraft). So here for Tau: cadres, cadres upgrades and support formation (+Air Caste and Auxillary Formations)
I looked through the army list to see what can be dropped easily without changing too much, still some radical changes have to be made (lot of reductions in choices and units).
This suggestions should be seen as a start and not as final.
I made a list of possible reductions(changes to tau army list).
Major reductions: - no upgrades for support formations (options for the support formation are still possible in the text)
- reduce the number of available units: only one option of weapons for Hammerheads, Moray, Tiger Shark, no Swordfish (counts as Hammerhead),
no Sniper Drones, reduce some leader units to leader characters.
Minor reductions: - no Hammerhead support formation
- no Stingray upgrade
- no heavy drones upgrade
I made some suggestions to new cost arrising through the changes, this are only guidelines. Also other changes would come to the Tau list due to inconsistencies in the 4.4.2 list (Custodian and Kroot Hounds too expensive compared with other units, Broadsides and Swordfish should have same stats for the twinlinked railgun and Gue'vesa Company is poor) and the current discussions (internal balance between Barracuda and Tiger Shark, Forgeworld packing sizes compared to formation sizes, Orca transport capacity (perhaps take 10 as compromise size), Crisis weapons) are not contained in the discusion here.
Changes suggestions one at a time:
A) Support groups:
A1. no upgrades for support groups (like in IG army list), which some changes to allow some 'upgrades' in support formations texts, see below. All other changes in A) are assuming using this change.
A2. Allow Gun drone squat upgrade (added to the text of) for the following support formations: Pathfinder, Stealth, Broadsides, Scorpionfish.
A3. Broadside support group: add +2 pathfinders or +4 gun drones for each +75pts.
A4. Hammerhead support group should be dropped, it's very simular to the cadre (especially with Hammerhead upgrade).
A5. Gun drone wing: As it is now, you can buy very cheap popcorn formations for 75points which don't get blastmarkers for casualties. My suggestion: Gun drone wing: 8 Gun drones for 150 points (you may replace all gun drones with heavy drones for +100 points). This would mean also no 125 points heavy drone wings.
The today aircraft transport rules (4.2.5) are made such as the complete formation has to fit inside the aircraft. This rule could be changed to the complete formation has to fit into the aircraft formation. Then you could still use the drones in a 2 Tigershark squadron, each carrying 4 drones.
A6. Stingray support group: may replace one Stingray for a Skyray for +25 points (this should be used to still get Skyrays, apart from cadres and also to use units of 3 Stingrays(+1Skyray) as sold by Forgeworld).
A7. Scorpionfish support group may have +4 gun drones for +75pts and one of: networked drone for +25pts or supreme commander for +100pts (not both, as now available (and only useful if you take 2 Scorpionfishes)).
A8. I'm not sure what to do with the pathfinder support group. How is the group usually used? Perhaps just drop it.
B) Upgrades:
B1. Sniper drones: The sniper Drones are very cheap for 25points. But for reduction of choices: I'd like to see them dropped completely. If you still want to use Battlesuit Cadre as Garnision (4 Crisis + 3 Stealth + 1 Sniper Drone), I'd advice changing the Stealth upgrade to (add either +3 for 125 or +4 for 175 points).
B2. Swordfishes: I'd thought about using the Swordfish as leader tank for an Hammerhead cadre (would be: add one Swordfish tank with leader for 100 points), the networked drones could then be skipped. The other option, would be just to drop the Swordfishes.
B3. Network drones could also be skipped completely, or like in 6.) or just added in the Hammerhead cadre text (and then dropped as upgrade option).
B4. No Stingray upgrade, to reduce the numbers of possibilities (the Stingray upgrade was only for Fire warriors and Battlesuits and Stingray support formation in the 4.4.2 list)
B5. No heavy drones upgrade (see also A5, the heavy drone upgrade took two upgrades slots because you had to purchase the gun drones upgrade first and was usable in 4.4.2 only for Firewarriors, Crisis, Scorpionfish and Gun Drone wing)
B6. Stealth upgrade: add +3 for 125 or +4 for 175 (see B1).
B7. Still there are many possible upgrades left (perhaps too many and further reductions needed).
C) Air caste formations:
C1. Tiger Shark AX-1-0: Tau army has enough titan killer (Moray and Manta) and an owfull ammount in AT weapons, therefore the AX-1-0 is not needed in the armylist
and can be dropped (counts as Tiger Shark).
C2. Moray: as for IG/SM Titan legion units only one waepon option is allowed for tournament games, to reduct options and because of C1, use only the Railcannon
Moray version.
D) Auxillary Formationes
D1. Idea: create a Leader Character (just with leader ability, e.g. Networked Drone) that could be added to the auxillary formations instead of having a special leader unit type.
E) Others:
E1. use only Hammerheads with railguns to reduce the choises.
I wellcome all feedback and other considerations and continuative suggestions.
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), Tau find Vespids quite handy (and Kroot).
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