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Honda, the Epic Tau design notes flat out state that Tau unit stats are assumed to include the abilities of squad-level Drones.
So, I will freely admit that I've read that a number of times and the significance of the statement
did not sink in. My bad. I had always assumed that it had more to do with modeling issues vs.
game mechanics.
That being said, Crisis are still in no way the same apple as terminators. Crisis own terminators when it comes to shooting, but the converse is also true. I think that taking non-standard options to upgrade a formation's capabilities encourages scope creep in the list as well in others.
Regardless, increasing the saves of the Crisis formations is not an option I intend to investigate.
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Changes to cost and FF are the minimum requirements (Fearless is definitely called for aswell as a Markerlight). I don't really see a need to improve the Tau Deflector Shield. There are other more important adjustments needed.
I spose this is my last gasp...
@Onyx: Never give up hope.

As stated before, cost and FF are up for discussion. I neglected to mention this before due to the
haste in typing my note, but I'm also fine with the Manta having the Markerlight ability...especially
since it has one on the model.
I also acknowledge your previous comments about the Manta vs. Imperial forces. However, I think where
our positions differ is in how the Manta addressed threats.
1. At Hydro Plant 23-30, the Manta had free reign to shoot at the Elysians and there was very little
the Elysians could do about it. Acknowledged. However, IA3 is very clear that in spite of the immobile nature of the dropped troops and their lack of heavy weapons, the Mantas still landed at a
distance, disembarked the transported troops, them began shooting. There is no mention of the Manta
landing troops in the face of enemy forces, even though their abilities to prevent such an action
were limited.
The bottom line is that there is no evidence that the Tau put their Mantas at risk. We cannot even claim that the FW authors
are unaware of the possibility as they very clearly describe similar actions by the Avenging Sons
in the assault on the Governor's Place and again with the Raptors with Thunderhawks.
In latter actions, as stated before, when engaged by a handful of Landspeeders, the Mantas were chased off. The fact that there were casualties on the Landspeeder side does not change the result.
This leads me to conclude, in the absence of any other evidence, that Fearless is not warranted.
2. The Damocles Crusade - Manta's were used to counter Imperial SHTs and Titans. However there is
very little in the way of description as to "how" the opposing forces were countered. I don't think
it is too much of stretch given the Manta's armament to assume that in some fashion, shields were
dropped on the part of the titans and the Mantas, with superior range and hitting power, took down the titans by shooting.
Is it possible that the Mantas "engaged" the titans? Sure. Is it the optimal way to attack a titan
given the titans CC capabilities? No. Again, that leads me to steer the design towards a vehicle
that transports and shoots.
It seems obvious to me that if the Manta had no guns, or only defensive weapons, we'd have nailed this thing a long time ago. We'd cost it as a big transport and be done with it. Unfortunately, it
has really nice guns...but at the end of the day, they are still carried by what is in essence a
very large transport. Yes, it's a warship that engages starship sized enemy, but it doesn't assault them, it shoots stuff at them...from a distance.
So, this may disappoint many of you, but I am not going to make it something that it is not.
That's it for now, I'm off to do other crazy stuff.