Tau within a year?

[Old_Paladin]

So, dante76 posted this on warseer:

Through a new source, who with hindsight turned out to be pretty accurate with Blood Angels and Skaven....
-Pencilled in release date of Aug 2011
-New Alien allies
-All metal sets to plastic (Pathfinder, Krootox, Vespids)
-Possible new tank
-Changes to Hammerhead Railgun rules. Essentially draws a line across table hitting everything in line. Multiple pen through vehicles, only stopped by a glancing hit.
-Changes to markerlights. Point system. 1 Markerlight point = + 1BS, 2 Markerlight points = reroll to wound [or] hit 3 = Difficult Terrain test (blinded by the lights?). Cannot be stacked. So can't have reroll to wound and reroll to hit at 4 points.
-Battle Suits. A plug and play system. Essentially streamlined. Pick two guns and a skill or two skills a gun. New models might have interchangeable arms similar to Killa Kans


Well, we know about the Dark Eldar and Grey Knights being close to finished. The Necrons keep phasing out then making their well be back saves, and are expected soon. Which would leave Witch Hunters as the only 3rd edition codex. Black Templars and Tau are the oldest 4th edition books.
So this does fit in very well with both an Imperial/Xeno flip-flop release set up (which would be a welcome change in release style) and for updating all the oldest books.

The potential rules seem to fit the trends of newer releases.
Railguns moving through objects (blood lance, jaws of the world wolf)
Markerlights being a tally system (tally of Nurgle, the dark eldar slavers rumor, saga of the warrior borne).

[DrLove42]

Woo! Looks good if its true.

So we're looking at (my best guess);

Nov; Dark Eldar
Jan; Forces of the Inquisition/ Grey Knights
April; Necrons
July; Templars/Dark Angels
September; Tau

Problem is them releasing 2nd wave models (and 3rd if the DE rumours are true) are they screw up the schedule.

So by the end of 2011 we'll only have regular Eldar, Sisters and CSM to go...chances of them doing all the armies before re-releasing codex marines again? Slim i'd say though

[fuzzbuket]

hmmm i can see everyone shouting cheeseeeeeeee at the hammerhead rules! but then if the tau are meant to be shooty it seems like a cool idea


hopefully a tau army will look like this :

a few tanks

a few kroot

LOADS of firewrriors!!

cause thats what i think a tau army should look like not just devilfish minimized FW squads and hammerheads and wound allocation battlesuits

and if it goes GK and tau within a year me and my mates all will be happy chappys!!

[isotope99]

Personally, I think one of the mainstream armies like CSM or Eldar is going to get in between all the ones that really need updates as this many relatively 'niche' armies one after the other seems a bit risky from a GW financial perspective.

Whether the railgun rules propsed are too OP probably depends on the range. With a relatively short range, people will just have to be careful not to line up their tanks i.e the power can be nullified with tactics and plannning. My guess is that this would work best with two fire modes. One short range withe the 'punch-through' rule. The other the long range S10 sniper style shot. Making the ion cannon area damage (e.g. multiple small blasts like the IG executioner) would then make the choice between the hammerhead weapons more interesting.

They must include new battlesuit models.

[spartan-117: master chef]

Don't think the multiple pen. rule is too broken, although it could hurt rhino rush blood angels and leafblower lists especially hard. Which is a good thing, as it will change the meta game away from 'mech= WIN'. Also like the proposed tally system for markerlights, make pathfinders more viable, as I mostly give markerlights to squad sergeants.

[DrLove42]

Take away the comulsary devilfish for pathfinders!

And i think any streamlining of the markerlights is good they can get a bit convoluted sometimes.

As for people shouting cheese on the railguns...can't Blood Angels already have this as a physic power?
An option like the rules for stand and shoot in fantasy would be cool as well...but now i'm just starting to wishlist

[Melissia]

July; Templars/Dark Angels

No, there's been no word of either of those armies.

Actually, Sisters are rumored to be at that point.

[Lerra]

I agree with Melissa. Sisters are far more likely than Templars/DA. It was confirmed not that long ago that neither Templars/DAs were in the works, nor were they even on the table (this was about a year ago). It seems pretty clear to me that sisters are coming before either of those armies.

[RocketRollRebel]

Yay Tau! I've been wondering for a while when they were gonna get some love from GW. Hope this holds true along with Dark Eldar and Necrons. A wave of Xenos would be nice to see to break up the never ending tide of SM and IG out there.

[DarkLink]

I agree with Melissa. Sisters are far more likely than Templars/DA. It was confirmed not that long ago that neither Templars/DAs were in the works, nor were they even on the table (this was about a year ago). It seems pretty clear to me that sisters are coming before either of those armies.

To be more precise, many of the early GK rumors were mistaken for DA/Templar rumors, which was promptly shot down.