Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K Hot Mess: T’au Empire Need Help!
Goatboy here and let’s talk about T’au Empire. They just don’t seem to work very well right now in 40K , so let’s get to work!
Between an interesting rule that doesn’t work well – and some lackluster damage potential – the army just feels like it is in a bad place. I got some ideas on how to fix things and it is an overall change in how their Guiding rule should work. With that – let’s hop into the mess.
For the Greater Good…Could be Better
For The Greater Good is a Tau Empire ability meant to showcase how the army can “team” up to help take down targets. The issue comes in with how the Guiding unit works and what can benefit and utilize these. It’s a somewhat clunky system as both need to be able to target and shoot but one benefits from the shooting etc. I can understand the thought behind it, but I wonder if we could just make something cleaner for the game.
My idea would be to just bring the old Markerlight style system with a start of the round dice counting up. It could be based on either army size or just how many units/marker lights you have on the table. This would be a pool of dice you could utilize to do some things and think of it as the Tau HQ way up in space helping your army pick its targets.
The entire army is supposed to be a somewhat communal war machine style set up with everyone helping each other towards a common goal. A team as it were, if you ever got asked this question in a job interview. Everyone should be helping each other out, but instead of forcing that help to be on the units on the field – why not give out something most abstract to help out?
Updated Markerlight Benefits
Let’s say in a 2000 point game you would start off with 6 Marker dice. Each of these dice could be placed on a unit to grant some abilities to those units shooting it. Heck, you could stack them up in some interesting way and lets the army work in the unique way it is designed to – by blowing up the bad guys with a zillion concentrated T’au bullets. Here’s a handy list to keep in mind while you read on:
- Token 1: -1AP
- Token 2: +1 to hit
- Token 3: Choice of Lethal Hits, or Sustained Hits
Let’s start with what you can do with 6 of them and the simple aspect of putting one on multiple units. Let’s give anything with a single pip of a Markerlight an Extra -1AP to the damage coming at them. I went with the extra AP as adding in a +1 to shoot should be an extra investment on any kind of Markerlight add, as it can really be skewed based on the weapon.
The second marker light you put on something would grant anyone shooting at it a +1 to their hit value roll. This is good and while having 2 on there doesn’t seem like a lot it does mean you have to pick and choose how you set up a Markerlight choice. Again this is all just ideas.
The 3rd Marker light would be a good place to add something powerful to the mix. For example, pick either Lethal Hits or Sustained hits. This would let you stack a bunch to try and power thru a ton of hits on an important unit or allow an army to shoot so many wounds into a target with Lethal Hits option.
This is where I would stop the marker light stacking. We don’t want to create another Oath of Moment issue or something that could be broken if say you have things in a new Tau Detachment that let you always shoot as if your are lit up like a X-mas tree. Plus, again it brings back the whole Markerlight thing, creates a mini game during each of your command phases, and lets a General act like a General with target priority.
What do you think? Would this be an easier thing? Some kind of method to create a cool token system that isn’t too much but still good? Should we stack more Marker lights up and create a whole slew of damage potential when we shine the light of the Greater Good on someone?
We all serve the Etherials… or else.
