the 2008 handbook is the standard rule set my friends and i use (has anyone updated it?) and i have noticed that the tau list in the handbook is vastly different from the list that seems to be the standard here Third Phase Expantion 6.4. I have noticed that a large number of units were dropped from the list and was currious to know why. Such as the swordfish, Vespid, and the human auxillaries. Also some of the war engines and aircraft. Are these models now only used in varrient lists?

Several units were removed for a few reasons. Namely

No 'official' background for them (although some of our creations have made it into the official realm ^_^)
Did not add anything unique/needed to the list (and in some cases actually were better than the 'official' units)
Went against the list philosophy - (high mobility army having near enough static units)
Allow for a few variation lists - (auxiliaries/allies list, tanks list...)

Like much that went into the 2008 handbook, the Tau list included there is from a more experimental stage of Epic's development. There was a lot of "wishlisting" about unit types that Specialist Games was supposed to make at the end of the list's development, and it became clear over time that that was not going to happen.

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As above.

As to Handbook I have been slowly working away at updating it to NetEA standard. Rules and some lists are done, but some lists I am waiting for further NetEA stability (e.g. Tyranids).

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