What I’d Like to See From the New Tau
Hey everyone, Reecius here from Frontline Gaming to discuss the rumored Tau release and some of the things I’d like to see happen.
Tau sound like they are coming soon, which is great! Tau bring a unique aesthetic to the game, and a cool play-style. It will be exciting to see what we get with the new release. Tau came out of the gates swinging with their last book, bringing some crazy firepower and faction specific special rules to the game. Here’s a list of some of the changes I’d hope to see in a Tau book to make it more enjoyable to play with and against.
Supporting Fire
This alone allowed the Tau to Overwatch with more force than many armies could muster in their shooting phase! It’s a bit much, to be honest and I’d love to see this reduced to 1 unit may support one other unit. Getting blasted by multiple units of Broadsides, often at increased BS, before charging is just the pits for many armies. Now, I know what some folks are saying, what about Deathstars? Well, a true Deathstar is so durable with rerolling saves, FnP, Invisibility, etc. that it doesn’t matter. Really what we’re left with is a rule that smushes anything but the most durable units but has little impact on them. It’s a bit too lopsided to be a good rule.
A Way to Deal with Deathstars
To be fair to Tau, they really do need a way to punch through ultra-durable deathstar units. Many of them came about as a direct reaction to how hard it was to actually get across the table and engage Tau back in early 6th ed. So, if you follow my logic that Supporting Fire should be toned down, you also need to provide a way for Tau to fight back vs. these ultra durable units to make games fun and fair for them. Ranged D is somewhat of a solution if you are good at rolling 6’s or have a lot of it, a la Eldar, but do we really want more of that in the game? I don’t.
Melee D and Stomps are much more reliable due to the increased volume of dice involved, but we know that goes against the Tau design philosophy. So instead of trying to solve the issue with pure firepower which math tells us won’t resolve the issue vs. reroll saves+FnP+Buffs, etc., and only serves to further obliterate those armies that don’t have reroll saves. It’d be cool to see an ability for Tau to negate some of what makes Deathstars so hard to kill without exponentially hurting those armies without these abilities. An easy solution would be something like X number of Marker Light hits can be used to negate a reroll on a save. This DRAMATICALLY reduces a unit’s durability allowing Tau to shoot down Deathstars if they need to, without also making “normal” units simply evaporate. Win!
Marker Lights
They are such a cool possible game mechanic! I think the current iteration is cool, but the 2 Marker Lights to ignore cover is a but too much. Many armies absolutely live and die by their cover saves, such as Orks and Tyranids. Stripping that away so easily means these armies just get blasted to bits with little to nothing they can do about it. I think going back to the old system of 1 Marker Light hit = -1 to the target’s cover save is much more fair. It means that yes, Tau can strip that save away, but it takes more resources to do it and losing Marker Light support will allow this advantage to be offset, giving cover save dependent armies a viable means to fight back.
Better Marker Light Platforms
These for the Tau to go along with slightly reduced efficacy. Give those Pathfinders a move and shoot Marker Light so they can be more effective. We don’t only want to see jacked up BS Marker Lights attached to a Suit Commanders, let’s get some more viable ways to put Marker Lights on target for Tau. Reduced price Marker Lights in other units such as Fire Warriors, etc. would go a long way to helping.
Stealth Suits
Swap the strength and toughness characteristics on Stealth Suits for obvious reasons. Seriously. T3 is not the business on a 30pt, single wound model.
Buff Their Flyers
…so that we actually see them on the table.
Tone Down Interceptor
Increase the cost of Interceptor or reduce the number of units that can take it. I am totally fine with Tau having access to more Interceptor than other armies, it provides a cool and characterful strength for their army. However, 5pts and being available to take it on so many units in the army is too much. Armies that use reserve tactics as a core part of their list strategy are fun and add variety to the game. Introducing armies into the meta which can effectively negate these tactics can make taking these types of armies a liability which means you see less of them. Less variety is not fun for anyone. I advocate for simply toning down the level to which Tau can Intercept so that it is still good, but not overwhelmingly so.
~ So that’s my list for now! What about all of you? What would you like to see in the new Tau book?
