40k Tactics: Coordinated Firepower – Its a Thing
Holy Moly.. This new Coordinated Firepower rule from the Tau is amazing.
It is largely amazing because there is no downside to using it. In a world where Death Stars are common, this rule allows for most of the tau army to resolve their shots as if they were being fired from a single unit. This combined firepower gains the benefits of any special rules conferred by the Buff Commander (that we all know and love from editions past) and any markerlight effects.
So what do the Markerlights do?
Destroyer:
It is worth mentioning that the Tau player can expend a markerlight point to change the strength of a single Destroyer missiles from Str 8 to Str D. This is one of those rules that could have absolutely no effect on the game or it could dramatically swing it in the Tau players favor. Stormsurges get destroyer missiles so I am sure we are going to see this used.
Pinpoint:
This is where things get out of hand. The Pinpoint effect allows Tau units to raise their BS score when making a shooting attack. This includes raising the BS for Snapshots and Overwatch. Wow.
Scour:
For two markerlight hits – you can kiss your cover goodbye. This one is bread and butter for the Tau.
Seeker:
For every Markerlight counter used the unit can fire and additional seeker missile if it has one. Yeah… I don’t expect to see this get used often but it’s nice to have options.
Let’s get back to the Pinpoint rule.
When firing at invisible units the Tau player is going to be able to reliably hit their target. Is that a bad thing? Not if you just consider the idea that Warhammer 40k is an elaborate rock paper scissors game where everything in the game has some sort of hard counter.
On the other side of this, I argue that this particular stacking effect radically takes away the defensive capability of ‘Rock’ style lists that rely on things like Invisibility to be effective.
I understand that I am not making friends by defending Invisibility. Invisibility is what I call a ‘fun sponge.’ People playing against it rarely have a fun time or think they are participating in an even matchup. I am not trying to defend Invisibility. I am only pointing out that is does serve a function in the game.
This Coordinated Fire rule is brutally effective when you are able to stack benefit on top of benefit. I like the rule. I think the resilient Death Stars like the Super Friends, in the past, auto win against Tau due to their ability to utilize Look Out Sir shenanigans and rely on great saves. This Coordinated Fire rule allows Tau to enter back into the ring as top tier list. The volume of quality shots these weapons can generate is going to be very difficult for any target unit to mitigate.
Unfortunately I think GW has pushed the line a little too far in the Tau favor with this benefit stacking.
By the rules, I do believe that all the special rules granted by Signature Systems like the Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite and the Command and Control Node will apply to the entire formation using this Coordinated Fire rule. It is only going to take a few lucky markerlight counters to turn this from just being a ‘neat rule’ into a punishing experience to play against.
Thankfully, this benefit stacking can only be used against a single target unit. I believe that the wording is clear that units using the Coordinated Firepower rule must fire at the same unit and may not fire at any additional units through the use of Split Fire.
Even so, there is no downside to this. The Tau player has the ability to use Coordinated Firepower when they are facing a Death Star army and can rely on their normal shooting when facing an MSU style build. It is a complete win/win for the Tau.
Drones can be taken in their own units and can fire separately from the units utilizing the Coordinated Firepower rule.
Tau players rejoice. I think it is going to be a little while before the community at large can assemble new army configurations that can really stand up to all this benefit stacking.
I think we are going to see an even larger shift to Marine players utilizing things like Stormhammer and the new Shadowstrike Kill team. We’ll see other armies move to more null deployment and denial strategies but what is the answer? Will hoard armies make a comeback?
What do you think can stand up to firepower like this?
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