Quote: (Honda @ Oct. 03 2009, 14:12 )
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- Initiative Rating of Crisis Suits put back to 2+.
I'd prefer Crisis formations to be 1+ across the board. Though I do see the fun in having the SC have this ability, I think maybe the God of Balance should rule here.
I understand the desire for this. I was a proponent of the original boost, but using the nature of Tau as expressed in 40K, they are not a high initiative army in general. In fact, it is one of the reasons that most 40K Tau players fear hand-to-hand is because they must survive most opponents striking first. So, although those that like to field crisis suits (like me) have enjoyed this ability, I do not feel it is justified across the board for crisis suits. They just aren't that good in HtH, which I see as a reflection in the Initiative rating.
I understand that Epic's initiative rating is not 40Ks initiative rating, but to further explain why,
Initiative in Epic represents how good you are at taking and carrying out orders in a battlefield situation, whether you are reliable at communicating with your superior officers or prone to being cowardly or confused.
Initiative in 40k represents how fast you are at hitting people with a sword.
They have nothing to do with each other in my opinion.
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no one has ever proffered that Fire Warriors deserve a higher initiative, yet a crisis suit is just a Fire Warrior in a different weapon system. I understand that not everyone is going to share this perspective.
The difference is that Crisis Suits are the Elite, having spent years of training on the battlefield. Each Fire Warrior who has been granted a Crisis Suit is the survivor of a hundred battles.
Fire Warriors are newbies.
So there's the background difference, they aren't just Fire Warriors wearing mech suits, every one is a grizzled veteran.
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- Fire Warriors on foot increased in cost by 25pts.
I can't see this as being a good thing for Fire Warriors.
I purposely split the difference between the mechanized version and the foot version to simplify the listing. This isn't set in concrete, but let's ride it like this for the first cut and see. I don't think it is that significant of a change.
I think it will be shown in time to be a mistake, right now the Mech Fire Warrior formation looks instantly better than the on-foot formation, though both look inferior to the Crisis Formation.
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- Fire Warriors denied access to several Upgrade types such as Hammerheads and Piranhas.
Again, I can't see this as being a good thing as it marginalises Fire Warriors. Under the E series Fire Warriors were sort of a 'swiss army knife' formation, one of only two formation types in the army (the other was the Hammerhead formation) that could be customised in style to some extent. This has been lost.
My first cut on this change was to ratchet down, then loosen up. I am open to adjusting these changes because I agree that this cadre is going to be a key to list play. So, without asking for the world, what is really needed here?
What is needed is to make Fire Warriors a competative choice.
This was attempted in three main ways in the E series:
- Give a minor points break to Fire Warriors on foot.
- Give Fire Warriors a greater access to Upgrades than other formation types.
- Give Fire Warriors the only cheap 'leader' Upgrade in the army.
This latest revision has removed every boost given to the Fire Warriors, at the same time as making Crisis formations much better due to their expanded upgrade choices.
In essence, I believe this list choice has made Fire Warriors a worse choice than they were in 5.1, as compared to Crisis Suits.
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Do keep in mind that when I renamed the groups, I didn't undertake that exercise because I had nothing else to do. I did that to help organize in my mind how the different formations would operate and where certain functions would come from to realize a particular synergy. So although having a "swiss army knife" isn't a bad concept in general, there should be some focus on what the FW role should be otherwise we could just refine the list to "Fire Warriors + What ever you want to add". It makes for a simple list, but loses all character.
The role of the Fire Warrior is to form the Core of Tau armies. The background is relentlessly consistent about that.
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- Drones and Stealthsuit Upgrades allowed on Crisis Suit formations.
I'm very much against this. The big problem with Crisis Suit formations previously was that when beefed up with lots of Upgrades, they could be used as a mainline combat formation, easily eclipsing half the role of the Fire Warriors (Infantry battles). The E series cut back on their upgrades hugely, because although a standard sized Crisis formation is pretty good, one upgraded with Drones especially is brilliant.
Basically, due to this increase up Upgrade choice I reckon that Fire Warriors will not be seen as the 'core' of the Tau army, just as they weren't under 5.1 and previously
I made these changes because I see a synergy between Stealth and Crisis suits. In my armies I operate them together all the time...like all the time. I understand what you are saying and I am not against dropping drones. I will consider dropping the Stealths as well, but will not commit to that action at this point.
Drones must go, and I'd prefer that Stealth Suits go.
One of the minor themes of the E series was that you will never look at a unit on the board and not know what its Initiative rating is, and by mixing Stealths and Crisis suits that confusion could occur (after attrition has wiped out the Crisis Suits), assuming the Crisis Suits are initiative 1+ that is.
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Regarding the comment of crisis suits as a mainline combat formation. I am in favor of them having a significant role. Their role in 40K has expanded since their first inception and in fact in Apocalypse, which is Epic's poorer cousin, the Tau have been given access to large crisis formations for this exact purpose. So, I did this intentionally and see it as a feature of an infantry centric list.
They are a powerful combat formation there is no denying it, but this list version has made Crisis Suits return to their status as they were in 5.1... the de-facto only worthwhile Core formation choice (barring a single FW formation with an Etherial).
IMHO.
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- Pathfinder Formation dropped by 25pts, and loses the Sniper ability.
Sniper was supposed to give this formation a different niche to Fire Warriors, and match the background & 40k rules better. Now they're back to competing for the same army list slot as Fire Warriors, except they also have Markerlights...
I am not convinced that Sniper is justified, but I would like you to consider a potential upgrade for one unit like SM Scouts. Pathfinder units are not snipers in the true sense of the word, but an upgrade could represent the Sniper drones that are possible in 40K.
The E series tried to find them a different niche for them that didn't directly compete with Fire Warriors, and I believe that
Sniper gave them that niche.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the two weapons Pathfinders carry is the exact same weapon as is carried by the Sniper Gun Drone. Ergo, they are Snipers.
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- Stealth formation dropped by 25pts
I'm against this, Stealths are fantastic, and under the E series were actually on the edge of going up another 25pts, not down.
So, my baseline on this unit is that I did not think that it needed changing from the 5 series. I observed and felt that you got your money's worth from the existing stats. Now having said that, if there was a unit that I thought justified a +1 Initiative based on fluff factors for the potential cost increase you mention, I could support that. Realize that I believe in the E series, they were +1 Initiative and in the blended list they were a +2.
They are in my opinion really great at 300pts, but I suppose testing will show where their balance lies.
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- Kroot Formation not limited by the number of Fire Warrior formations.
I liked that limit, in that it felt appropriate that there should at least be *some* Fire Warriors in the army before you start taking Kroot. It was a 'fluffy' rather than a 'balance' restriction.
There used to be a 1+ in front of the Fire Warrior cadres to ensure that FW were present in previous versions. I do not mind adding it back.
There should not be more Kroot formations in a Tau army than there are Fire Warrior formations, IMHO it does not match the background to have an army solely composed of Crisis Suits, Kroot, and Hammerhead tanks.
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- Created a 'Crisis Suits' Upgrade Choice (that seems only accessable by Crisis Suit formations?).
Having this upgrade as a 1-4 choice leaves it wide open for min/maxing exploitation. Having a list open to min/max abuse is a bad thing, which is why it was at a fixed size for the Crisis Formation under the E series.
This supports the other decision about crisis suits that I described above. Considering the cost of the upgrades and that this is the only formation where it occurs, I am comfortable with the the level of risk, but will watch this one. If it becomes gamey, then I'll re-evaluate.
Fair enough, but min/maxing is evil I tells ya.
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Fire Warrior Upgrade syntax changed.
The knock on effect of the syntax change is that you can now buy 2 empty Devilfishes if you want.
That wasn't intentional, so help me with the language.
Use the syntax we worked out for the E series.
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- Bonded Team Upgrade ('leader' for Fire Warriors) removed.
This was supposed to be a stealth boost for Fire Warriors, so removing it is a stealth nerf.
I understand, but I was modeling a specific behavior and at this scale, I felt that this version of the upgrade was the effect I was looking for.
Again, this change of yours serves to marginalise the Fire Warriors, supposedly the Core of the Tau army.
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- A single Tigershark can carry 12 Drone units.
As Chroma points out, a single Tigershark can carry 3 Drone units in the 40k rules/the background, so this seems to be much too great a transport capacity.
Based on the other thread, I was obviously confused about the carrying capacity. Given that drones can add more drones, I didn't want to base the limit on formations, let me know what the total number of drone units can be carried.
We've said several times, 3 units (14 individual Drones) can be carried by a Tigershark in the background.
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- Barracuda changed in stats.
Now you'll have weapons with the same name, but different stats, in the army list, surely?
I do not think the 5 series Barracuda stats need to be changed. I have been convinced that they were over-costed and agreed to address that cost in the past. I will re-visit the entry correct, but the 5 series stats is which version will be in the list.
Then as-said, you are going to have the a weapon in the army list with the same name, but different stats. As you doubtless know this is atypical for Epic list design.
