Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: 10th Edition Codex T’au Empire – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
This week we get the 40K release of the new 10th Edition T’au Codex in a fancy new Kroot boxed set. Let’s break down the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I’ll hop off my T’au soapbox where putting in extra punctuation somehow makes an army name cooler. Today is all about the T’au and their space propaganda and battlesuits. A new Codex means a whole slew of new rules is flowing into 40K at a time when the rules have kind of slowed down a bit. I hope we see more Codexes coming soon as the armies with good initial detachments have a good time, and the poor “bad” detachments just live in the darkness of player neglect.
As usual this is a quick overview of things I liked about the new Codex, things I questioned about the book, and what I thought was sad with the book. I break these into a simple Good, Bad, and Ugly kind of Codex break down. I will say I have not always been a fan of the T’au Empire army as I find their playstyle lacking in the things I enjoy about the game (getting stuck in and stabbing things to death). I actually do like the models though, so its always a bit of frustration for myself, as I just wish they had some kind of Battlesuit with laser knives on them.
Enough random waffling let’s get into the review!
Codex T’au Empire – The Good
First and the easiest good is we have a new Codex. This book gives us a lot of design changes from Index units. as it is one of the older armies with units that had a bazillion options. You can see now that the T’au unit options have shifted and are currently matching what you find in your box. This is both a good and bad thing. It also means that if you are looking at building a new army you should look at what is available in their boxed set NOW – not what nonsense they used to be able to do with unit options back in the day.
The next thing is they removed some of the older resin units from the Codex which makes it a heck of a lot easier for a new player to get into of the army. I expect the two left over resin pieces (Vespids & Firesight Team) to show up in some kind of new release later in the year – especially if they continue utilizing Killteam to “double” up the releases. It really just cleans up a lot of the army and simplifies some things.
On top of that, we got a slew of new Kroot unit releases showing up, too, which is pretty awesome. The T’au get some counter-assault options too, which is great in these new models. They have a ton of extra bits and ways to build them plus it gives you a way to get a T’au army without having to go all in on suits. They have a nice detachment too for those wanting to play the Kroot which is a very cool thing. It’s a nice homage to the ancient Kroot Mercenary list from the days of yore.
I am going to admit that I think only having four Detachments is a good thing for the Codex. This means a lot of the power is split up equally into the 4 different options that strive to give you four viable ways to play this army. Most of the new codexes seem to show that really two Detachments end up being good in the book, and with the T’au book, it feels like all of them have their place for those wanting to play different styles of armies. The only one that obviously feels like a locked-in play style is the Kroot one, and that makes sense.
Speaking about the change on the Suit units – it does excite me to think about playing 27 suits and some friends! It’s one of the few times I can actually say a T’au army actually intrigues me. I guess it really depends on what the real points end up being.
Codex T’au Empire – The Bad
We lost the old Commander in Crisis Battlesuit. Sure, it was due to the army having a leader model and not needing to let you create one from a boxed set. I mean if you think about it, having that ability to make a Crisis Battlesuit Commander and leave you with two models you can’t use in another unit is probably one of the factors leading us here. Again, it just makes it easier for new players to build these armies out, but still, it sucks to lose a “customizable” character option.
There is no mention of “The Eight” nor any other models set up to create it. I know a lot of them died in the fluff. But still it would be cool to have them as options later on. Either with some kind of Enhancement option or just something else. It was a pretty neat little bit of fluff that always danced on the razor edge of being too good with Riptide Characters – but it still makes me sad to not see Farsight’s posse.
I like how the suits got split up, as it allows for a better way to balance things, but it still sucks that existing painted models out there either have to be broken and fixed or may even have missing options. It doesn’t always feel good, but it needed to happen and will happen again with other armies and their old “crazy” build-out options from back in the day.
I also don’t like how the Mont’ka and Kauyon Detachment rules only work during specific turns of the game. This game is so fast that it really feels like these rules only matter for the first 1-3 turns, so Mont’ka pushing for the front half of the game benefits just seems like a much better overall choice versus the Kauyon that sets up the back half of the game benefits. We know how games usually work, and the threat of not getting all your turns in means you don’t get to use all your rules. It just feels a bit bad.
Codex T’au Empire – The Ugly
Vespids are still in and so is the Firesight Team. Both of these are resin kits that are not easy to find let alone are not cheap. I am hoping we see plastic models for them soon and expect them to show up either in a Killteam: Flying Jerks featuring some other kind of flying unit (Swooping Hawks, anyone?) or some other kind of random release. It is just annoying that the Codex killed off so many other resin units and left these two in.
Also the Regular T’au army didn’t get any new units? Isn’t that annoying with all the Kroot hanging out you leave the T’au just hanging without any new bros to wreck face with. Where is a sweet updated Stealth Suit?
Oh and my biggest pet peeve is still Tau are still T’au. How long have I been typing out their name wrong? Does it even matter? Is this another IG vs AM debate and we are all right? Can I go by Goat’boy to sound cooler?
