Well, as you point out, in the background and the Warhammer 40,000 rules the Tau primarily use Fire Warriors to engage and kill enemy infantry.

Neither the Stingray nor the Anti-Personell Guided Missile appear in the background or in Warhammer 40,000, and again as you point out, they have effectively replaced, or at the least duplicated the Fire Warriors' niche in the army list.


I like the idea of allowing Fire Warriors to ignore cover with their ranged weapons if the enemy is markerlit.

This would enhance the 'synergy' theme of the army list, and make Fire Warriors more useful.
It would also follow the background / warhammer 40,000 rules better, where Fire Warriors can have the benefit of their targets being markerlit to help fire their weapons more accurately (markerlights aren't just for targetting guided missiles as seen in Epic, but are in fact the lynchpin of the Tau's shooting style).

An alternative proposal would be to give Fire Warriors' guns +1 to-hit if the enemy is markerlit.

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Okay, I *REALLY* think this could be the seed of a cool idea.

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I've always thought 15cm Tau weapons should skin formations alive. AP4+, Disrupt would be good. (Hell if it wasn't enough I'd try 3+, but in the two games I did way back when trying all this alternative config stuff out AP4+ Disrupt seem to be fine). Certainly then all these short range twin linked weapons on vehicles really start to bite as well.

That leads me to a general point that tau I feel should have less weapons than Imperials but better to hits. So whereas say a Russ have two Hvy bolter at AP5+ the Tau has one wepan at AP3+. Same average hits but far better performance when moving.

That sort of firepower would seriously worry anything on a double, to the extent of stopping a successful assault in many cases (in which case just make sure the skimming transports are in front to soak up the CC troops) cripple anything on an advance and break most comparable formations on a sustain (going with a standard mech formation with a skyray for AA, AT and ML). And think thrice before assaulting a formation on overwatch!

But other tau formations have enough AP firepower to act as a back up. So why risk short range engagements when I can just use those long range AP weapons over a number of turns and if they go down turn other formations in to mop up?

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Of course it's a cool idea, it's one of mine.    

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Oh wow Markerlight effects. It isn't that it was posted several times ago (and atleast once by me)    Ok it was proposed all effects of the Markerlight and shoose one per shoting or somesuch but Ignore Cover was certainly one of the choices  

Restricting this to Firewarriors is new and interesting.

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I already include a skyray in mech tau, so this would do what? Push up the cost of skyrays? Push up the cost of FW? Something like that has to have the cost somewhere and depending where it goes dictates whether or not it becomes compulsory for that formation (or makes soemthign else to expensive). Tau FW are already an excellent mech unit, they can't take free bonuses.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

As its an addition to the markerlite ability you'd have to add the price to that. So all units which markerlite would need checking.

If the Firewarriors are up gunned (and they probably do need it) then reprice them too.

The Tau don't need better AP firepower in other areas IMHO.

What they need is Fire Warriors that can actually perform their assigned role in a more effective way, and possibly also an extra use for Markerlight units in order to accentuate the 'synergy' theme that the Army Champions see as core to the Tau way of war.

This proposal provides both.

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FW with move 30cm devilfish are excellent mechanised troops, perhaps the best in the game for their points. Whats the problem with them? (Assuming FW+Dfish+Skyray.)

Edit
Just remembered they have a 15cm shot again. Make it 4+ (and the Dfish guns AP3+ Disrupt) and they are laughing.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I don't see why +1 to shooting at a markerlit target couldn't be applied across the board.

2 of the most frequent complaints (and ones i have mentioned myself on several occassions) are that Hammerheads and Tau in general are not as shooty as advertised or as they need to be if they're not to do engagements and that HHs are much too expensive.

I definately like this idea and would definately consider getting some more markerlight bearers into my list, rather than just spending points on more useful guns, if this was to come into effect.

sorry if this is a bit off topic but it's something i've been meaning to ask. i know jervis said that tau are supposed to be bad in assaults. could he (as i do often) accidently use old terminology from passed versions of the game? meaning since assaults use to be base to base close combat, could that of been what he was referring to? i honestly can't figure out why he, the man that wrote the rulebook, would say that an assault is basically a game of 40K. then say that the best shooting army should not be good in assaults. anyone know who he made this comment to or what he said exactly?

I'm not sure what the exact mechanism might be, but I do agree that these ideas are worth examining.

Markerlight synergy is a good thing.  It gives the Tau army a great deal of its flavour.

Note that units that carry markerlights that have weapons that "we" do not want to recieve a bonus could be adjusted (e.g. Pathfinders you could simply reduce the AP values by one if markerlights were to give +1 to hit).

Ok, now this is a wild idea that I am just throwing out there to see what happens so don't crucify me on this..

What if we gave GMs indirect fire.  Adjusted all GM to hit numbers back to AT6, AP6, MW6.  And made Markerlights give all weapons +1 to hit AND GMs an additional +1.